From epoliticus at gmail.com Sun Nov 1 06:24:01 2009 From: epoliticus at gmail.com (Politicus E.) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 08:24:01 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] =?windows-1252?q?Arundhati_Roy=27s_Essay_on_=22Mr_Chida?= =?windows-1252?q?mbaram=92s_War=22?= Message-ID: Source: Outlook (www.outlookindia.com), 9 November 2009 "A math question: How many soldiers will it take to contain the mounting rage of hundreds of millions of people?" Link: http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?262519 From ecosocialism at gmail.com Sun Nov 1 07:21:02 2009 From: ecosocialism at gmail.com (Ian Angus) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 09:21:02 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] New at Climate and Capitalism Message-ID: <733b65360911010621x6e3ee976t8663cf4db01866aa@mail.gmail.com> CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM An online journal focusing on capitalism, climate change, and the ecosocialist alternative. What?s new at climateandcapitalism.com November 1, 2009 DENMARK AIMS TO CRIMINALIZE CLIMATE PROTESTS http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1239 As the Copenhagen climate summit approaches, the Danish government is rushing through a harsh law that allows preventive detention, increases fines and extends sentences for demonstrators THE LOOMING DEBACLE IN COPENHAGEN http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1237 The major capitalist powers are blocking the road to a global climate treaty ? and preparing to blame China for the failure ECOSOCIALIST ROUND-UP http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1233 Three important new articles examine Copenhagen, Cap-and-Trade, and Marxist perspectives on climate change CARBON CAPTURE CAN?T CLEAN THE TAR SANDS http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1231 A new study produced by debunks the idea, lauded by oil companies and the Canadian government, that carbon capture and storage will make the Alberta tar sands green. VANCOUVER RALLY WARNS OF CLIMATE CALAMITY http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1227 There were over 5200 actions in 181 countries on October 24, making it the ?most widespread day of environmental action in the planet?s history.? DEBATE: IS NUCLEAR PART OF THE SOLUTION? http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1224 Two Australian environmentalists debate the role of nuclear power in solving the climate crisis From wsredden at gmail.com Sun Nov 1 08:27:46 2009 From: wsredden at gmail.com (Shawn Redden) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 10:27:46 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Honduras Message-ID: The money quote in this short Bloomberg piece comes from Micheletti's mouthpiece and pretty much sums it up: "Zelaya won't be restored. But just by signing this agreement we already have the recognition of the international community for the elections": http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a9weUnTDSA74 Flashpoints in Berkeley reported on Friday afternoon from the Brazilian embassy where Zelaya is being held. A real report - not mainstream bullshit: http://aud1.kpfa.org/data/20091030-Fri1700.mp3 No matter the topic, I fail to understand why any cheerleading and/or stovepiping of rope-a-dope 'reporting' and passive-voice speculation in the lying bourgeois media doesn't pass through a more rigorous bullshit detector before list-members hit the submit button. The Obama love-fest defies comprehension when his voice in the region, Thomas Shannon, served as "Consular/Political Rotational Officer" in Guatemala City between 1984-1986. (Stan Goff always said an embassy's 'political' section was a euphemism for CIA). Put simply, neither he, nor 'Wal-Mart' Clinton, nor her hatchet-man Lanny Davis are really are our allies. Really. The United States' first Black president could have demanded Zelaya's restoration with concrete action for more than 4 months. Instead, his gift for sophistry has helped him DO precisely the reverse. His Blackness doesn't mean a damn thing to Pedro Munoz. My 14-year-old students, who did a unit this quarter on Honduras, Wal-Mart, and export processing zones, understand the nature of this conflict better than do some members of the Marxmail listserv. Solidarity, Shawn From epoliticus at gmail.com Sun Nov 1 12:25:01 2009 From: epoliticus at gmail.com (Politicus E.) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 14:25:01 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] test (please ignore) Message-ID: From tcod at hotmail.com Sun Nov 1 12:39:36 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 19:39:36 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Fight far from over in Honduras: Will pact allow Zelaya to use the bully pulpit? In-Reply-To: <4AECDECF.5020905@gmail.com> References: <4AECDECF.5020905@gmail.com> Message-ID: This is all well and good but I'm wondering why I no longer receive posts from these two worthies and others in my hotmail account? I look in the junk folder and they're not there either. I retrieved these two posts from the "last 100 messages site". S.Artesian wrote: > > Yeah, Vidal spoke out against the cops in 1968-- big deal, so did Abraham > Ribicoff and from the podium of the convention. Are we supposed to get all > misty-eyed over that 41 year old stance? > moderator: I will always have a soft spot for Vidal after reading this in "Palimpsest", one of his memoirs: "As I left Henry Kissinger in the Sistine Chapel, gazing thoughtfully at the hell section of 'The Last Judgment,' I said to the lady with me, 'Look, he's apartment hunting.'" _________________________________________________________________ New Windows 7: Find the right PC for you. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pc-scout/default.aspx?CBID=wl&ocid=PID24727::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WWL_WIN_pcscout:112009 From schaffer at optonline.net Sun Nov 1 13:02:40 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:02:40 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Class, Nation, and Health: with some thoughts about H1N1, and building movement capacity In-Reply-To: <4AECCD98.1050207@kersplebedeb.com> References: <4AECCD98.1050207@kersplebedeb.com> Message-ID: <4AEDE960.60401@optonline.net> kersplebedeb wrote: > What follows is a rough version of a talk i gave at Montreal's Native > Friendship Center, at the Anti-Colonial Thanksgiving organized by Frigo > Vert last Thursday night. your H1N1 site is great resource for H1N1 and you are a wonderful writer. Les From crebello at antares.com.br Sun Nov 1 14:33:59 2009 From: crebello at antares.com.br (Carlos Eduardo Rebello) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 19:33:59 -0200 Subject: [Marxism] Tariq Ali on Trotsky by Robert Service and Stalin's Nemesis by Bertrand M Patenaude In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To felllow-members of Marxism - Digest List: Forgive me for what will appear as self-advertisement, specially after I have been so long absent from posting on the list, by I shall profit from the post on Service's Trotsky biography to communicate that I have been awarded an stipendium by FAPERJ , the Rio de Janeiro State Foundation for the Advancement of Scientifical Research , in order to have my ms. on Trotsky, entitled : "Trotsky diante do socialismo real: perspectivas para o s?culo XXI" [Trotsky before really existing socialism: perspectives for the Twenty-First Century] published. For details, see (in Portuguese): www.faperj.br/interna.phtml?obj_id=5856 Last but not least, I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks for all colleagues at Marxism-Digest, without whose encouragement this announcement would be far more difficult, or maybe even impossible, as I remain Comradely_Carlos E. Rebello From dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com Sun Nov 1 16:21:40 2009 From: dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com (Dogan Gocmen) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 01:21:40 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] Classical Political Economy, Ethics, Metaphysics and Knowledge-Based Economy Message-ID: The term Knowledge Economy (KE) or Knowledge Based Economy (KBE) is used in a loose way to refer to the researches, developments and economic activities in Information and Communication Technology. In recent years many other terms have been invented and many others will follow to describe similar developments in other areas of production and consumption. In short, the technological developments centred around information and communication technology towards the end of the 20th century have transformed already significantly the social landscape and reshaped the material basis of society, as Manuel Castells points out. Read more: http://dogangocmen.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/knowledge-based-economy.pdf ---- Dogan G?cmen (http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/) Author of The Adam Smith Problem: Reconciling Human Nature and Society in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations, I. B. Tauris, London&New York 2007 From lnp3 at panix.com Sun Nov 1 16:33:30 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:33:30 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Swans Release: Nov. 2, 2009 Message-ID: <4AEE1ACA.9050407@panix.com> > Swans Commentary > http://www.swans.com/ > November 2, 2009 > > FUNDRAISING TIME: As a reader-supported publication we are totally dependent > on the solidarity and generosity of our readers. Quite a few have often asked > us to get a PayPal account. Well, we finally did. So, you can use PayPal or > send us a check or some cash. We need to raise $3,000, without which we won't > be able to continue to bring to you and the larger community this cogent bi- > weekly magazine. Please, Donate now! -- > http://www.swans.com/about/donate.html > > @ @ @ @ @ > > Note from the Editors: *Quand vous ?tes dans le ventre de la b?te, vous > devez manger ce que la b?te se nourri* (when you are in the belly of the > beast, you must eat the beast's food), as a Swans reader and would-be donor > recently told Editor Gilles d'Aymery, who has long resisted utilizing > capitalist tools such as PayPal to raise funds for a publication that rails > against capitalism. With principles aplenty yet finances a-dwindling, Aymery > explains why we finally succumbed...so if you're a PayPal devotee, bring it > on! It's only appropriate, then, to read Michael Doliner's excellent primer > on why capitalism relies on infinite expansion for its survival, which > automatically leads to imperialism. Charles Pearson reports from England on > hypocrisy, the controversy over the BBC and the British National Party, and > the potential gains for the pro-capitalist mainstream parties; while Femi > Akomolafe posits an African perspective on hypocrisy, in which Western > imperialists arrogate to themselves the right to be the accuser, the > prosecutor, the judge, and the enforcer. Michael Barker analyzes the > population myth and the shortcomings of George Monbiot, who promotes > capitalist solutions for problems stemming from capitalist growth > imperatives. Capitalist inequalities lead Charles Marowitz to ask when, in > the course of current human events, Americans will be impelled to dissolve > the political powers-that-be and declare a Jeffersonian separation, and > activist Martin Murie consults the dead, from Homer to Hector, to consider > American empire's global strategy. > > Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we watch in horror as health care reform for > the People metamorphoses into a bonanza for the insurance corporations, with > Medicare having taken Iraq's place in the axis of evil. Yet, thanks to > Medicare Art Shay lived to describe, in true Art Shay form (and with photos), > his recent diverticulitis scare and accompanying personal metamorphosis. More > gems follow from Peter Byrne, who chronicles his recent East Coast tour off > the beaten path and the pages of the tourist guides, and Steve Shay, who pens > a humorous handbook to help Seattle newcomers navigate the complex web of > neighborhoods and avoid the ultimate faux pas. Raju Peddada is tackling the > classics, starting with an analysis of Giovanni Boccaccio's *The Decameron,* > and Jeffery Klaehn's short story tells of a near death experience that turns > into the renewal of an unrequited love. Finally, we close with the > multilingual prose of Guido Monte, the poetry of Jay Tripathi, and a > multitude of your letters. > > As always, please form your OWN opinion, and let your friends (and foes) know > about Swans. It's your voice that makes ours grow. > > # # # # # > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/ga275.html > Succumbing To PayPal - Gilles d'Aymery > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/mdolin47.html > Orwell's Epiphany - Michael Doliner > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/cpears05.html > Rival Jingoists - Charles Pearson > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/femia22.html > Hypocrisy As Way Of Life! - Femi Akomolafe > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/barker34.html > George Monbiot And The Persistence Of The Population Myth - Michael Barker > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/cmarow150.html > "Comes The Revolution?" - Charles Marowitz > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/ashay16.html > My Medicare Diverticulosis Metamorphosis - Art Shay > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/pbyrne112.html > Wandering: NYC, Chicago, Albany - Peter Byrne > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/murie82.html > What Have We Learned? - Martin Murie > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/sshay02.html > "Web Design" - Steve Shay > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/rajup22.html > The Monuments Of Civilization: Analysis Of Classics - Raju Peddada > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/klaehn06.html > We'll See Each Other Again - Short Story by Jeffery Klaehn > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/gmonte78.html > Bough And Leaves - Multilingual Poetry by Guido Monte > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/tripathi01.html > Soul Dead - Poem by Jay Tripathi > > http://www.swans.com/library/art15/letter177.html > Letters to the Editor > > # # # # # > > Swans (aka Swans Commentary), ISSN: 1554-4915, is a bi-weekly non- commercial > ad-free Web-only magazine which provides original content to its readers. We > encourage pulp publications to republish Swans' Work in print format. Please > contact the publisher at . Please, do not repost > Swans' Work on the Web and other mailing lists: "Hypertext" links to any > pages of Swans.com are authorized; however, republication of any part of this > site, inlining, mirroring, and framing are expressly prohibited. We welcome > your comments and suggestions. When writing to Swans, please indicate your > first and last name as well as your city and state (country) of residence. > > You are receiving this E-mail notification for you have expressed your > interest in Swans and the work of its team. If you wish not to receive these > short notifications, simply reply to this E-mail (delete the content) and > enter the word REMOVE in the subject line. We do NOT share your E-mail > address with anyone. > > Cordially, > Gilles d'Aymery > -- > Swans > > "Hungry man, reach for the book: It is a weapon." B. Brecht > > From davidrail68 at yahoo.com Sun Nov 1 16:58:41 2009 From: davidrail68 at yahoo.com (David Walsh) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 15:58:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism] Prospects for a new South African Left Party Message-ID: <525646.16978.qm@web45303.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> http://links.org.au/node/1327 From cpiml_elo at yahoo.com Sun Nov 1 17:14:28 2009 From: cpiml_elo at yahoo.com (CPI (ML) Intl Liaison Office) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 16:14:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism] MLIN [Nov-Dec 09] War on Democracy | China | Workers' Struggle | Balagopal | and More Message-ID: <851031.87343.qm@web35506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> ML International Newsletter November-December 2009 *********************************************************************** An update on news and ideas from the revolutionary left in India. Produced by: Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation international team *********************************************************************** Websites: [mlint.wordpress.com] and [www.cpiml.org] Emails: [cpiml_elo at yahoo.com] and [cpimllib at gmail.com] Table of Contents 1)The Myth and Reality of Congress Revival 2)Defeat the UPA?s War on Democracy! 3)Open Letter to Indian PM 4)India?s China Policy: Calling for Cooperation, Not Confrontation 5)Pricol Workers' Struggle: Justice Must Prevail 6)Land Reforms Sangharsh Yatra and Convention 7)Women Workers? Convention 8)Tamil Nationalism: Ducking the Issues 9)Saluting the Memory of K Balagopal 10)Adieu to Comrade Ibn-ul Hasan Basru! Assembly Elections in India The Myth and Reality of Congress Revival - ML Update, 27 October ? 2 November, 2009. In the recently concluded elections to State Assemblies in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh, the Congress has predictably managed to retain power in all the three states, triggering a growing media buzz regarding the revival of the Congress and the return of the old era of Congress domination. A closer look at the poll outcome however reveals a number of holes in the story of Congress revival. In Haryana, the Congress tally has dropped from 67 to 40 while a resurgent Indian National Lok Dal finished a close second with more than 30 seats in its kitty. The dramatic revival of Om Prakash Chautala signifies nothing short of a huge backlash by the aggrieved electorate of rural Haryana. In Maharashtra too, the Congress- National Congress Party (NCP) combined tally fell one short of the majority mark and its vote share dropped by six per cent. The big news from the state is the rise of Raj Thackeray?s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). More than anything else, it is the MNS factor which has helped the Congress by not only splitting the Shiv Sena vote, but also pushing a disillusioned electorate back to the Congress in search of some sense of safety and security from the MNS brand of divisive and aggressive politics. The Congress would of course like to attribute its return to power to a ?positive mandate? from the electorate. But the ground reality in neither Maharashtra nor Haryana would endorse the Congress claim. Maharashtra is still reeling under the combined impact of agrarian crisis and economic recession while Haryana remains notorious for its retrograde and patriarchal social environment that continues to deny large numbers of dalits and women their basic human dignity and civil rights. According to Maharashtra?s state economic survey, three out of every eight residents are below the line. Every day since 2006, 1,800 people have lost their jobs. Regional disparity is quite glaring ? per capita income in Vidarbha (Rs. 29,000) is only 40 per cent of the per capita income of a Mumbai resident (Rs 73,930). The corporate-builder-politician-bureaucrat nexus reigns supreme in the state even as real estate and share market have replaced the manufacturing industries of yesteryears as the biggest sources of wealth accumulation. Haryana too has a similar story to tell. Congress rulers in Delhi and Chandigarh keep showcasing Gurgaon as the shining star of economic boom, but beneath all the corporate glitter and gloss, there is little urban infrastructure and no industrial democracy in this hugely over-rated success-story. By all accounts, the Congress win in these elections is more a victory by default aided by a weak opposition and the absence of any credible and consolidated Left-democratic challenge. Both in Maharashtra and Haryana, the BJP failed to make any headway ? in fact, it suffered further erosion and this in turn has aggravated the chaos in the party. Also notable is the decline of the BSP in both Maharashtra and Haryana. The rise of the MNS in Maharashtra of course marks a major challenge to the working class movement in the state. In the 1960s, the Congress had facilitated the rise of the Shiv Sena to curb the Left trade union movement in and around Mumbai; four decades later the MNS is raising its head, once again with blessings from the Congress, giving a distorted and divisive ex-pression to the popular anger against deindustrialization and joblessness. As far as Arunachal Pradesh is concerned, election in the state continues to be viewed more in the context of border dispute and bilateral tension between India and China than as a reflection of the political situation and public mood in the state. Like most small states in the North-East, elections in Arunachal too are heavily influenced by money-power and bureaucratic manipulation. An NDTV correspondent covering Arunachal elections put the average amount spent by victorious Congress candidates at a staggering Rs. 5 crore per Assembly seat! Far from returning to the old paradigm of Congress monopoly, Indian politics continues to evolve through the maze of multi-party competition. The forthcoming elections to the Jharkhand Assembly should provide further proof of this political diversity. Struggles in India Defeat the UPA?s War on Democracy! Build Broad-based Democratic Resistance! - Liberation, November, 2009. In the name of combating the ?Maoist menace? the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is gearing up for a massive combat operation. The Cabinet Committee on Security has already cleared the Home Ministry plan to take the ?war on Maoists? to the next level even as Chidambaram shies away from describing the operation in terms of an outright war. While on record the Prime Minister has ruled out the possibility of deployment of the Army in the operation, the scale and framework of the proposed operation indicate nothing short of an all-out military offensive. The Home Ministry talks of waging simultaneous operation on eleven theatres covering over 2000 police station areas in 223 districts, and the Defence Minister and Air Chief Marshal talk of deploying (Indian Air Force) IAF?s special force Garuda with powers to fire in ?self-defence?. A special central force called COBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) has already been raised and pressed into service. Chidambaram has also spoken of ?amending? the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) (presently deployed in Kashmir and the North East) in order to make it applicable in the whole of India. In tandem with this military offensive, a full-scale propaganda war is also underway. Influential sections of the print and electronic media are working overtime to manufacture a ?national consensus? in favour of the military offensive. With state governments all joining in, contours of a grand political consensus are easily discernible. The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) session at Rajgir has expressed its full-throated support to Chidambaram?s ideas. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee too made it a point to take time off from the CPI(M) PB meeting in Delhi to meet Chidambaram over breakfast to demand more forces and a more intensified and concerted drive. Mamata Banerjee of course conveniently seeks to distance herself from this consensus, expecting everybody to ignore the fact that the ongoing paramilitary offensive in West Bengal is very much a joint venture sponsored by the government at the Centre where she is a cabinet minister. It can hardly be coincidence that key arenas of the proposed war are precisely those mineral-rich areas on which mining corporations have had their eye. Whether Chidambaram, himself one of the Directors of Vedanta until becoming a UPA Cabinet Minister, and a favourite lawyer for many of mining companies, will succeed in his stated goal of wiping out the Maoists is uncertain ? what is however clear is that it will pave the way for corporate land grab. The Maoists with their reckless actions are of course doing everything possible to alienate large sections of the democratic opinion. With every passing day, they demonstrate increasingly clearly how far they have moved away from the legacy of the Naxalbari peasant rebellion and Comrade Charu Mazumdar. Comrade CM was no advocate of isolated and exclusive armed actions ? for him the two key phrases were ?integration with the landless rural poor? and ?politics in command?. The Maoists have delinked the whole question of arms from this essential context and have thus moved beyond the purview of the CPI(ML), the party founded by Comrade Charu Mazumdar. This is why they have had to find new names to describe their ideology and organization. The alienation and anger of the tribal masses does provide the Maoists with some favourable initial conditions, but they have done nothing to channelize it to any powerful mass awakening. On the contrary, Lalgarh shows how the Maoists have miserably misled a popular uprising. The Government of India and the various state governments are however invoking the ?Maoist threat? not only to tackle the Maoists but to suppress every movement of the working people and stifle every democratic dissent. Reports of indiscriminate detention in false cases and on fabricated charges, custodial torture and harassment, and attacks on the press and on the freedom of expression are coming in from every corner of the country. The dark days of the Emergency seem to be staging a comeback in so many ways. The revolutionary Left movement must boldly face this situation by in close association with other democratic forces. There can of course be no condoning the reckless acts of the self-styled Maoists, and it is imperative to sharpen the lines of demarcation between anarchism and revolutionary Marxism even as we seek broad-based cooperation to defeat the growing war on democracy. Struggles in India Open Letter to Indian PM - Liberation, November, 2009. October 12, 2009 We are deeply concerned by the Indian government's plans for launching an unprecedented military offensive by army and paramilitary forces in the adivasi (indigeneous people)-populated regions of Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Orissa and West Bengal states. The stated objective of the offensive is to "liberate" these areas from the influence of Maoist rebels. Such a military campaign will endanger the lives and livelihoods of millions of the poorest people living in those areas, resulting in massive displacement, destitution and human rights violation of ordinary citizens. To hunt down the poorest of Indian citizens in the name of trying to curb the shadow of an insurgency is both counter-productive and vicious. The ongoing campaigns by paramilitary forces, buttressed by anti-rebel militias, organised and funded by government agencies, have already created a civil war like situation in some parts of Chattisgarh and West Bengal, with hundreds killed and thousands displaced. The proposed armed offensive will not only aggravate the poverty, hunger, humiliation and insecurity of the adivasi people, but also spread it over a larger region. Grinding poverty and abysmal living conditions that has been the lot of India's adivasi population has been complemented by increasing state violence since the neoliberal turn in the policy framework of the Indian state in the early 1990s. Whatever little access the poor had to forests, land, rivers, common pastures, village tanks and other common property resources has come under increasing attack by the Indian state in the guise of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and other "development" projects related to mining, industrial development, Information Technology parks, etc. The geographical terrain, where the government's military offensive is planned to be carried out, is very rich in natural resources like minerals, forest wealth and water, and has been the target of large scale appropriation by several corporations. The desperate resistance of the local indigenous people against their displacement and dispossession has in many cases prevented the government-backed corporations from making inroads into these areas. We fear that the government's offensive is also an attempt to crush such popular resistances in order to facilitate the entry and operation of these corporations and to pave the way for unbridled exploitation of the natural resources and the people of these regions. It is the widening levels of disparity and the continuing problems of social deprivation and structural violence, and the state repression on the non-violent resistance of the poor and marginalized against their dispossession, which gives rise to social anger and unrest and takes the form of political violence by the poor. Instead of addressing the source of the problem, the Indian state has decided to launch a military offensive to deal with this problem: kill the poor and not the poverty, seems to be the implicit slogan of the Indian government. We feel that it would deliver a crippling blow to Indian democracy if the government tries to subjugate its own people militarily without addressing their grievances. Even as the short-term military success of such a venture is very doubtful, enormous misery for the common people is not in doubt, as has been witnessed in the case of numerous insurgent movements in the world. We urge the Indian government to immediately withdraw the armed forces and stop all plans for carrying out such military operations that has the potential for triggering a civil war which will inflict widespread misery on the poorest and most vulnerable section of the Indian population and clear the way for the plundering of their resources by corporations. We call upon all democratic-minded people to join us in this appeal. Indian Signatories include Arundhati Roy, Author and Activist, Amit Bhaduri, Professor Emeritus, CESP, JNU, Sandeep Pandey, Social Activist, Prashant Bhushan, Supreme Court Advocate, Nandini Sundar, Delhi School of Economics, Anand Patwardhan, Film Maker, Dipankar Bhattachararya, General Secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, Sumit Sarkar, Historian, Tanika Sarkar, Professor of History, JNU, Gautam Navlakha, Consulting Editor, EPW and many others. International Signatories include Noam Chomsky, David Harvey, Michael Lebowitz, John Bellamy Foster, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Mira Nair, Howard Zinn, Gilbert Achcar. Asia India?s China Policy: Calling for Cooperation, Not Confrontation - Dipankar Bhattacharya, Liberation, November, 2009. The October 1 celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the foundation of the People?s Republic of China has attracted worldwide attention. Considering the historical baggage of backwardness with which modern China had begun its journey and the size of China?s billion-plus population, China has indeed come a long way in these six decades. With ?made in China? products virtually swamping the global market, the whole world obviously recognizes China?s economic prowess. Compared to China?s economic strength, its voice in the strategic domain of international relations has of course been rather soft and subdued, but of late China seems to have begun stepping up its role in this arena too. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, for a few years the world looked quite unipolar with unchallenged US domination in every sphere. But over the last one decade, the aura of American power has started fading. With every passing month, the burden of the economic, human and political cost of the US-led military misadventure in Afghanistan and Iraq is becoming increasingly heavy and unaffordable. The US has also had to bear the brunt of the global financial crisis and the recession that has revived memories of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The steady rise of China marks a striking contrast to this unmistakable decline of an overstretched superpower. China of course does not seem to be in any hurry to assert its status as a rising global power. The keyword in Chinese foreign policy parlance is not superpower but multipolarity as opposed to a unipolar world. In its quest for a multipolar world, China is seeking closer strategic cooperation with Russia and the Central Asian republics within the framework of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and closer bilateral and multilateral economic cooperation with major developing countries like India and Brazil (the combination of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) can indeed be a powerful bargaining bloc). Apart from pressing for restructuring of the IMF, China has also come up with the idea of ending the US dollar?s prolonged reign as the universal currency of international exchange. China has suggested that as a medium of international transaction, dollar should be replaced by a supranational currency basket like the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) used by the IMF. While China?s record in terms of domestic economic advance is quite extraordinary and its growing role as a balancing force against unipolar imperialist domination is undoubtedly significant, a lot is however left to be desired when one judges China by the yardstick of socialism. Much of the initial post-revolution gains achieved by the toiling masses towards genuine liberation and social progress have been lost in the wake of post-1978 modernization. Disparity, social as well as regional, is assuming critical proportions, even as the working people in both rural and urban areas are faced with growing unemployment and insecurity. No wonder popular anger is also exploding in different parts of China at regular intervals, with the state often unleashing repressive measures to handle such protests. For communistas and anti-imperialists the world over the sixtieth anniversary of the victory of the Chinese revolution is an occasion to gather inspiration and strength from the historical transformation of a backward country into a powerful modern nation even as the problems facing China demand close scrutiny and critical introspection. At the same time it is imperative that we must boldly denounce and resist the American design to encircle China. In India the pro-US lobby has been working overtime to project China as a big imminent threat. The US military-industrial complex wants to capture India?s lucrative defence market by promising to enhance India?s military capacity vis-?-vis China. Such a course will not only make India ever more dependent on the US but also cripple whatever democracy we have by subordinating the country?s economic and political agenda to the disastrous logic of war and militarization. We must learn from our past history and save the country from this US-prescribed road to disaster. Avoiding the path of confrontation, India must move towards comprehensive cooperation with China. Workers' Struggle in India Pricol Tragedy: Witch Hunt Must Stop, Justice Must Prevail - Liberation, November, 2009. The tragic death of a senior management representative of auto part manufacturer Pricol in Coimbatore on September 22 has triggered a frenzied reaction from the Pricol management, the Tamil Nadu (TN) police and sections of the corporate media. Roy George, Vice President (Human Resources) of Pricol had reportedly suffered head injury in the course of talks with a group of workers on 21 September and succumbed the next afternoon in a city hospital. The company describes the tragic end of its VP as ?planned and premeditated murder? and attributes it to a conspiracy hatched by the leadership of the fighting union of Pricol workers (Kovai Mavatta Pricol Employees? Trade Union) as well as the central trade union (All India Central Council of Trade Unions) with which it is affiliated. The Coimbatore police have already arrested some thirty workers and a witch hunt is on against several other worker activists and their leaders including Comrade S Kumarasamy, President of AICCTU. Newspapers and TV channels have all noted the similarity of the Coimbatore case with a similar incident that happened exactly a year ago in Greater Noida in which the local head of Italian firm Graziano Transmission was reportedly beaten to death by a group of sacked employees. It was reported that the Graziano incident was sparked off when goons hired by the management beat up workers who had been summoned on the pretext of talks. A similar incident has recently been reported from Gorakhpur. Meanwhile at Gurgaon, the killing of a worker by management ?bouncers? during an agitation against sacking of employees who were leading the struggle to unionise, has sparked off a massive strike in Gurgaon. A few incidents involving mill managers have also been witnessed occasionally in the jute mills in West Bengal notorious for huge PF defaults and most anarchic and arbitrary labour practices by the mill owners. The recent suicide of Manikandan, a worker at Pricol for the last 19 years, is the latest addition to the toll of human life taken by the undemocratic and repressive tactics of the Pricol management. Yet instead of highlighting the common causal thread that runs through such cases ? absence of industrial democracy, rampant violations of labour laws and complete denial of the right to unionise, miserable working and living conditions of workers, and recurrent violence by management against vocal workers, to name just a few causes ? or helping us understand the incident in the context of the deep anxieties and uncertainties fuelled by the recession, most media reports have tended to join the corporate chorus defaming the organized trade union movement and calling for labour reforms to give still greater freedom to capital to dictate terms to labour. Some have even gone to the extent of demanding a ban on the AICCTU and CPI(ML). The Pricol management has been notorious for its record of rampant violation of labour laws, court verdicts and government orders. Far from recognizing the union supported by the overwhelming majority of workers, it has constantly victimized workers for siding with a ?Marxist-Leninist union?, hoping to break the union through coercion and intimidation. In recent months, in the name of facing the recession, it has resorted to harsh wage-cuts, robbing every worker of tens of thousands of rupees. On top of this, came the September 21 termination of 40-odd workers and the dam of workers? patience burst asunder. Even in the face of such a vindictive and arbitrary management, Pricol workers have actually been waging a protracted and patient battle exploring every legal avenue available for bringing the management to justice. From Madras High Court to Supreme Court to the floor of the Tamil Nadu State Assembly, the contention of the fighting workers has been upheld time and again and notice issued to the management for legal compliance. The tragic incident of September 21-22 should not blind us to this real history of Pricol workers? struggle. By launching a witch hunt against Pricol workers at the behest of the Pricol management, and framing the all-India leadership of a recognized trade union centre like AICCTU, the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) government is now playing its bit to intensify the state-corporate assault on industrial democracy and basic trade union rights. The trade union movement and the broader democratic opinion must resolutely resist this assault and stand by Pricol workers for fulfillment of their just demands. The Centre too is trying to use Pricol-Graziano-type incidents to discredit the working class movement and push for the corporate-sponsored agenda of ?labour law reform.? In other words, instead of correcting the course of rampant violations of labour laws by managements which led to such tragedies, the Centre is planning to institutionalise and legalise those very violations! The Pricol tragedy cannot and must not be allowed to be utilized as a corporate handle to coerce workers and suppress the voice of justice. The deaths of Roy George and the worker Manikandan in Pricol, and of Gurgaon worker Ajit Yadav should serve as a warning bell to the government to strictly act against the anarchy perpetrated by managements across the country, legislate in favour of workers? right to form unions, sternly penalise every violation of labour laws, and uphold principles of industrial democracy and collective bargaining. At Coimbatore, a single day?s tragic incident is being deliberately sought to be used to prejudice public opinion against the Pricol workers and suppress the truth of the nearly one thousand days of their united and determined struggle. Pricol: Confirmed Violator of Labour Laws Among other basic things, a key demand of Pricol workers has been for the recognition of their unions which enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of workers while the management has been constantly pressurizing workers to withdraw from the road of struggle and sever ties with the ?Marxist-Leninist?/?Maoist? leadership. In this long struggle of Pricol workers, the government of Tamil Nadu has repeatedly censured the Pricol management. The state government has issued three advices, passed one government order (GO) prohibiting the continuance of lockout, passed three GOs ordering references, passed two orders under section 10B of the Industrial Disputes Act (ID Act) 1947. On 29th of July 2009 the state Labour Minister, while replying to a calling attention motion moved on the floor of the assembly by All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Congress, Communist Party of India (CPI), CPI (Marxist), catalogued the various unfair labour practices indulged in by Pricol Ltd, and stated that the workers had given up their indefinite fast which had been continuing for the 15th day as their demands were accepted by the government. He further assured that the government would not let the workers down. Have things completely changed in a few months and more particularly on a single day with the unfortunate death of an executive? In the heat and passion generated by this tragic incident, can we allow rational reasoning to become a casualty? Will TN Police Consult TN Labour Department on Pricol Ltd? Rampant violation of labour laws, court verdicts and government orders has been the trademark of the Pricol management. Some highlights of Pricol?s notorious track record in the arena of industrial relations: ? Vindictive transfers. ? Refusal to engage in collective bargaining in good faith with the majority union. ? Illegal partial lockouts. ? Break-in-service orders. ? Stoppages of increments. ? Termination of more than 1000 employees ? Illegal deduction of wages and incentives running into crores of rupees; promises by the management to pay all these withheld dues if the workers leave the unions. ? Employment of apprentices and contract labour contrary to certified standing orders and the Contract Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act, 1970. ? Most recently, dismissal of 44 workers without any domestic enquiry. In almost all these issues the state government has intervened under sections 10 (1), 10(3) and 10 B of the ID act 1947. In fact Comrade Kumarasami was trying to get the Labour Minister convene a meeting at the earliest to resolve the simmering discontent and this fact is known to the Labour Department. The management does not want Comrade Kumarasami to defend the Pricol workers in the High Court as well as the Supreme Court on the 29th of September and other subsequent dates. This is the main reason for implicating Comrade Kumarasami, the national president of a centrally recognised trade union. Continuing Witch-hunt Subsequent to the incident at the Pricol automotive parts manufacturing company at Coimbatore on 21-22 September 2009, the police initiated a crackdown on innocent workers and their leaders. Murder cases were fabricated against more than 20 workers, including two women. The charges of murder and of damages to properties were framed against the union?s all-India President Comrade S Kumarasamy. The same cases were also foisted against many workers? leaders and vanguards at factory level who are under suspension or dismissal and who are not entitled to enter the factory. More than 26 innocent workers, including eight women, were arrested within 24 hours on non-bailable offences, digging up some old cases of unlawful assembly that alleged to have happened in March 2009. These arrests were made two days prior to a meeting of an AICCTU delegation with the Deputy Chief Minister and the day before the anticipatory bail petition for S Kumarasamy was filed in the High Court of Chennai. At the next hearing of the bail petition of S Kumarasamy on 15 October, the police gave an undertaking to the Court not to arrest him until the anticipatory bail hearing was complete. Around 26 workers arrested on charges of unlawful assembly were released on bail on 7 October after having been jailed for over a week. The workers of Pricol wanted to participate in struggles on 1 October as a part of all-India Protest Day called by AICCTU at national level. The police denied permission for the demonstration. On 3rd October, a Solidarity Committee with Pricol workers sought permission to hold a demonstration in support of the struggle and was denied by police. Hundreds of supporters of the struggle courted arrest violating prohibitory orders. On 2nd October, a state level delegation of AICCTU led by N K Natarajan and comprising of state deputy general secretaries A S Kumar and Bhuvana, G Radha Krishnan and two Pricol workers, met the Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M K Stalin. The delegation urged him to initiate suitable actions to establish the rule of law and to discipline the Pricol management which is responsible for industrial anarchy. An all India delegation of AICCTU led by its all-India General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee, and comprising all-India Vice-President V Shankar, Secretaries N K Natarajan and Balasubramanian visited Coimbatore on 6th October. When the delegation went to address the press at press club, more than hundred policemen cordoned off the place to create a situation of terror. The delegation also addressed a well attended convention of workers of Pricol on the same evening. In spite of heavy repression and prevalence of terror situation, workers participated in the convention in good strength and displayed utmost struggling spirit and a sense of fighting unity. The convention was symbolic of the renewed vigour and resolve of workers to carry forward the struggle. The convention also paid homage to a Pricol worker who committed suicide unable to bear the management?s victimization of workers and the police harassment. The delegation also met the State Labour Minister, State Labour Commissioner and the state police Chief, the Director General of Police and submitted a memorandum demanding withdrawal of false cases against Comrade S Kumarasamy and other innocent workers. The delegation also demanded suitable legislative amendments for recognition of trade unions that enjoy the support of majority workers. A peace meeting on 7 October was called, under the guidance of the Deputy Chief Minister, by the Deputy Commissioner of Labour Mr. Marimuthu at Coimbatore who served notices to the union and the management. The management chose to stay away from the meeting while the union attended it. The Pricol management continues to arrogantly defy any steps for peace. The management also declared a differential bonus formula for different groups. While the majority workers in the union were unilaterally offered the statutory minimum bonus of 8.33%, the minority loyal workmen represented by treacherous unions were offered 20% bonus plus gift. This is also a sufficient indication that violation of laws by the management is going on unabated and there is no political or legal authority competent enough to prevail on the Pricol Management. This is the usual story of corporate or Multinational corporation (MNC) influence and control over the State authorities instead of the reverse. It is heartening that almost all Left trade unions like All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India United Trade Union Centre (AIUTUC) and Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) offered support to the workers? demands at national and state level. They also readily signed the joint statement. The struggles, rallies and demonstrations emphasizing the Pricol workers? demands, are on in Chennai on every other day since 29 September. All India Agricultural Labour Association (AIALA) also joined the protest in support of workers in rural areas displaying the sense of unity with workers. Students and women too, joined the voice of protest in the state of Tamil Nadu. The struggle of Pricol workers? continues ? even as the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre is pushing the agenda of ?reform of labour laws? ? a euphemism for rollback of labour laws to appease the corporations and to intensify the liberalization offensive. Massive protests Following the witch-hunt of workers and attempt to frame and implicate the AICCTU National President Comrade Kumaraswamy in the death of a Vice President at PRICOL industries, Coimbatore, there have been a flood of protests ? not only in Tamil Nadu bur nationally and even outside the country. In Delhi, AICCTU held a protest at Jantar Mantar on 24 September. On the same day, there was a demonstration in Ambattur industrial estate in which over 500 workers participated. TIDC workers held a gate meeting. Demonstrations were also held in Namakkal, Pudukottai district Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari districts too. 100s of protest telegrams were sent from all over the State to the Tamil Nadu CM and Governor. The Madras High Court Association passed a resolution against the false implication of Comrade Kumarsami. On 25 September, a demo was held in Villupuram district. On 26 September, the first State Conference of AISA in Tamil Nadu was held in Chennai. The delegates staged a demo demanding withdrawal of the false charges against AICCTU National President and an end to the police hunt of workers. TIDC workers held another gate meeting on 27 September. On 29 September, a demonstration was held in Chennai in which over 150 workers participated. Another demonstration took place under the banner of the Workers? Solidarity Forum at Kumananchavadi near Poonamalli. An AIPWA team met the State Women?s Commission Chairperson and demanded to stop police harassment on women workers. She appointed a one-woman Commission to look into the issue. On 30 September, representatives of all Central Trade Unions in Tamil Nadu issued a resolution against the implication of AICCTU National President in the case and against violations of labour laws in the State. Demonstrations were held in Tirunelveli, Pudukottai and Tiruvallore districts. The Progressive Advocates Association and MRF Workers Seeramaippu Movement of Tiruvottiyur releases posters on the issue. 1st October was observed as National Solidarity Day by AICCTU. Protest demonstrations were held at Ranchi, Lucknow and other centres. A demonstration was held in Chennai in which 1000 workers participated. CITU, AITUC and AIUTUC leaders attended the demonstration. Demonstrations were held in Villupuram, Kumbakonam, Cuddalore, Namakkal, Kanyakumari, Trichy, Salem, Dindigal and Madurai. In Tirunelveli, signatures collected were submitted to the Collector. A public meeting was held in Pudukottai town. Pricol workers who arrived Chennai on 30 September met the State Labor Minister and demanded that the police harassment should be stopped. New Democratic Workers? Union staged a demo in support of Pricol Workers. On 3rd October AIPWA and Workers Rights? Forum held a demonstration. In Coimbatore, over 120 people led by democratic forces held a rally. They were arrested and released later. A joint demonstration by many TUs was held in Ambattur. On 4th October, TN Democratic Construction Workers Union organized a demo in Chennai. A Public meeting was held in Suthamalli of Tirunelveli district. On 5 October a demonstration was held in Kanchipuram and a memorandum was submitted to the Collector. A demonstration was held in Tiruvallore district by AICCTU-AIALA. On 6th October, a hall meeting attended by 300 workers was held in Coimbatore addressed by AICCTU National General Secretary Comrade Swapan Mukherjee, Vice President Comrade V Shankar, Comrades N.K.Natarajan and S Balasubramaniam. AIPWA also held a demo in Chennai. Also on 6th October, the Chennai Labour Court observed a boycott in solidarity with Pricol workers. On 9th October, a Court boycott was observed in Tirunelveli. On 7th October, hundreds participated in a protest march in Chennai. A demonstration was held at Salem and Villupuram, and a public meeting at Tirunelveli. Protests continue across Tamilnadu. Pricol Update National President of All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) Com. S. Kumarasami was given anticipatory bail in the Pricol incident where he was falsely accused for the tragic death of Pricol?s HR VP. Fifty workers were arrested and put in jail out of which 26 have been given bail and barring one the Pricol management has taken back all 25 for work. Earlier the management never took-back the workers when there was court case involved after industrial dispute. This is the first time the workers released from jail have been allowed to resume their job. The remaining 24 workers who did not get bail have been charged with Sec. 302 of the IPC. The AICCTU is making all efforts for their bail as soon as possible. At the heart of the incident in Pricol, Graziano and recently Gurgaon is the managements? continuous denial to the workers to form and recognize their union and total absence of industrial democracy. The AICCTU and CPI(ML) have declared that the nation-wide struggle for workers? right to form their union, trade union recognition and industrial democracy will be intensified and carried on until the working class win their basic rights. Land Struggles in India Land Reforms Sangharsh Yatra and Convention - Liberation, September, 2009. CPI (ML) in Bihar launched a state-wide campaign from 3-8 October to demand implementation of the recommendations of the D. Bandopadhyaya Land Reforms Commission (LRC). The Sangharsh Yatra called upon the masses to reject and oust the Nitish Govt. which is so blatantly on the side of landlords and land-grabbers. On October 3rd, Sangharsh Yatras (struggle marches) were taken out - from Madhuban village in Patna led by All Indian Agricultural Labourers Association (AIALA)?s National President Rameshwar Yadav and Party?s MLA Nand Kumar Nanda; from Arrah in Bhojpur led by KD Yadav- State President of Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha (BPKS), from Karakat in Rohtas led by Arun Singh; from Biharsharif in Nalanda led by All Indian Progressive Womens' Association (AIPWA) State Secretary Shashi Yadav, from Comrade Chandrashekhar?s statue at Siwan led by CPI(ML) MLA Amarnath Yadav, from Hathua in Gopalganj led by CCM Meena Tiwari; from Manjhaulia in West Champaran led by Virendra Gupta; in Muzaffarpur led by Jitenda Yadav; in Purnea led by Madhavi Sarkar; in Darbhanga led by Dhirendra Jha; in Begusarai led by Chandradeo Ram; in Aurangabad led by Rajaram Singh; in Patna led by Saroj Chaubey and in Bhagalpur led by SK Sharma. Apart from Yatras were also taken out in Chhapra, Vaishali, Araria, Banka, Munger, Lakhisarai, Jamui, Madhubani and Sitamarhi districts. During the Sangharsh Yatra in 30 districts of the State more than a thousand public meetings and gatherings were organised and addressed. Foot marches and vehicle campaigns aided the intensive campaign. The Sangharsh Yatra crossed more than five thousand villages in 200 sub-divisions/blocks. The Yatra culminated in a massive Land Reforms Convention at Patna on 10 October addressed by CPI (ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya. He said that Mandal-ite politicians like Laloo and Nitish had conveniently forgotten that the Mandal Commission too had recommended land reforms as a key component of social justice. Nitish Kumar, he said, had set up Mahadalit Commission, Common School Commission and Land Reforms Commission galore ? only to turn and make a mockery of their recommendations. He said that carnages like Amousi could have been avoided if Nitish Kumar led government had implemented the recommendations of the D. Bandopadhyaya Commission, instead of leaving the landless poor and sharecroppers to the mercy of the prevailing agrarian anarchy. Under pressure from his primary constituency of feudal forces, he is now junking the agenda of Land Reforms. The Convention also warned the Nitish Govt. that if no action is taken within a month?s time towards implementing the Land Reform Commission?s recommendations, the movement would be intensified. Some of the resolutions passed at the Convention - (1) This massive Convention of landless-sharecroppers-peasants holds the policy of reluctance and feudal attitude of the Govt. towards land reforms to be responsible for Amousi massacre. The Govt. that swears in the name of Mahadalits is only repressing them and painting them as criminals instead of providing them land, food-grains, dignity and housing. The Convention condemns the large scale repression, implicating in false cases and arresting of Musahar people at Khagaria, Saharsa, Darbhanga, Begusarai and Munger districts after the Amousi massacre, and demands that all the cases be withdrawn and arrested people be released immediately, and all landless families including the Mushahar community be granted 10 decimal housing plot and one acre of farm land, (2) This convention terms the Rajgir conference of RSS as an exercise in vitalising the feudal-communal forces and calls upon all the poor-secular people to launch resistance against its proposed Gram Raksha Vahinis (village defence squad) aimed at encouraging the aggressiveness of feudal-kulak forces. Declarations: (1) In the light of recommendations of the D Bandopadhyaya Commission the State Govt. must urgently enact new laws for ceiling and share-cropping. Bhoodan, ceiling and housing plot parchadharis must be facilitated in gaining possession of the said land. Sharecroppers be safeguarded from eviction and get assured access to all facilities ranging from bank loans to crop-damage compensation and other Government agricultural welfare schemes (2) The convention strongly condemns the betrayal by past Congress, RJD and current JD(U) governments on the issue of land reforms and calls upon rural poor and peasantry to intensify land struggle. A State-level workshop will be organised at Muzaffarpur on 28-29 October to provide impetus to the struggle for land reforms (3) A parallel registration campaign will be conducted for share-croppers, landless poor and those without homestead land. The Convention demands that all matters related to land be handed over to panchayats and panchayats be authorised to issue identity cards to share-croppers and landless. This Convention calls upon the Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha (BPKS) and AIALA to collect records of feudal forces holding Govt. land and launch struggle against them. Tailpiece: The Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has finally declared outright that he has no intention of implementing the LRC recommendation to enact a new bataidari law. Instead he has directed SPs to deal with land disputes ? confirming that in his govt.?s view, land is viewed as a law and order issue, and in effect issuing a veiled threat to the CPI(ML) (i.e that we will have to contend with the police if we take up land issues). In response to queries by the press, Nitish has declared that when even West Bengal could not implement ownership rights for the sharecroppers, how can Bihar do it? But the fact is that the LRC headed by D Bandopadhyaya does not at any point recommend ownership rights for sharecroppers! It merely recommends registration of bataidars as the most modest and minimum security of tenure and right to cultivate the land, allowing the sharecroppers to thus access government schemes of agricultural compensation and credit, etc... Nitish is setting up a straw man of ?ownership rights? and then knocking it down! Nitish has also summarily ruled out the LRC recommendation of uniformity of land ceiling, and even the recommendation of 10 decimals of homestead land for rural poor. The CPI(ML) has launched a widespread awareness campaign regarding ceiling land, homestead land and bataidari rights. Alongside this, the party has also begun initiatives to organise bataidars and create a pressure from below. In 10 panchayats of Patna where the party has a hold, we have begun to extend subsidy to bataidars. In Samastipur, our panchayats have distributed Kisan Credit cards to bataidars in Bhojpur, bataidari registration forms have been filled up as part of a campaign and submitted to the district administration. Workers? Struggles in India Women Workers? Convention - Liberation, November, 2009. A national Convention of women workers was held on October 9 at Bhilai, to facilitate ways in which to mobilize women workers to struggle for their rights. The Convention, presided over by Sunita, Meena Pal, Dolly Dasgupta, was inaugurated by All India Agricultural Labour Association (AICCTU) National General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee. All India Progressive Womens' Association (AIPWA) Secretary Kavita Krishnan presented a position paper challenging the myths that globalization has empowered women workers. Subsequently, many women workers shared their experiences. Veena Devi, General Secretary, Bihar State ASHA Employees Association said that ASHA recruits are responsible for a range of pre and post natal care for a mere Rs. 600 honorarium ? even that was not paid in full anywhere. We?re demanding the status of govt employees and until then interim wage of Rs. 5000 per month.? Sangeeta Devi of Bihar said, ?I used to work at a juice factory in Hajipur Industrial Area. This year when I participated in a May Day programme organized by AICCTU at the gate of JK Cotton Mill, my factory owner spotted me and called up my manager on the mobile directing him to terminate my employment. But I did not lose heart, and I began to organise construction workers.? Baijayanti Devi, SAHIA worker from Pakhur, Jharkhand told much the same story. Jaswinder Kaur from Punjab spoke of the agricultural workers? recent struggle for homestead land in which a large number of women had been jailed. Savitri Ghatowal said the Assam Tea Plantation Labour Act 1852 is outdated and requires change. The Assam Sangrami Cha Shramik Sangh has been demanding a new Act even the rights enshrined in the old Act are being violated. Facilities provided earlier to tea plantation workers have been withdrawn ? for instance the provision of houses. 90 days maternity leave, provided for by the existing Act, is denied often pregnant workers give birth while working on the plantation.? Thenmozhi spoke of bonded labour under the ?Sumangali scheme? in the powerloom sector, whereby unmarried young girls worked in virtual bondage to earn a lump-sum amount for their dowry. Most of these women are dalits, she said; they are often dismissed on flimsy charges before the allotted time is up, so the cash amount can be cut. Many who worked the entire period received cheques that bounced. Shanti Sen, an agricultural worker from Raipur described how her 17 year old son was framed in a false case in order to harass villagers for challenging corruption; her son eventually committed suicide in custody. Savitri Sahu, a cleaning worker from Bhilai spoke of being victimised by contractors, who laid those branded as ?leaders? for several weeks. Geeta Mandal, AIPWA leader from Jharkhand spoke of how Mid Day meal workers and SAHIA workers are underpaid and overworked. The Convention resolved to form an AICCTU Women?s Cell, and to take up a series of programmes designed to highlight women workers? rights and develop leaders among women. South Asia Tamil Nationalism: Ducking the Issues - S Sivasegaram. Although the prospects of a military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rose with every setback suffered by the LTTE since its retreat from the Eastern Province in 2007, its rapid collapse from early 2009 surprised many observers including opponents and critics. Many questions concerning the failure of the LTTE to assess correctly the military situation remain unanswered. Most Sri Lankan Tamil nationalists, especially among the diaspora, think that the defeat was due to betrayal by India. Many complain that the West, especially the US, too let down the LTTE by failing to intervene. There are also those who argue that weapons supplied by China did the damage, while some seek to justify the conduct of the Indian government based on the rising Chinese and, to a less extent, Pakistani influence in Sri Lanka. Such explanations miss the point that the West as well as India wanted the elimination of the LTTE as a military force. The US was happy to disarm the LTTE using the negotiating table while weakening it through inducing divisions, whereas the Indian establishment desired the annihilation of the LTTE. Some think that the LTTE would have survived to return to a position of strength, had it reverted to guerrilla warfare after its defeat in the East. Although this is speculation, resorting to guerrilla warfare would have spared the lives of many LTTE cadres as well as leaders, and more importantly the tens of thousands of civilians killed in the last few months of the war. It could also have averted the ending up of 280,000 in poorly sheltered detention camps, the maiming of well over 20,000, and other known and yet unknown forms of suffering. What are missing in the explanations above for the defeat of the LTTE are the political reasons. The LTTE, like other Tamil nationalist movements, was never a mass movement, and all along it placed armed struggle above politics. Its anti-democratic approach, resentment of criticism and intolerance to opposition had their roots in Tamil nationalist politics, but the LTTE surpassed all predecessors. Also, besides its reluctance to oppose imperialism, it pinned its hopes on the imperialists as its fortunes declined in the battlefield. The events of the past several months lead to important questions that are being avoided by nationalists of all shades, including those who support the government. It is probably true that the people willingly followed the LTTE as it retreated from Kilinochchi at the end of 2008. But as life became harder, many wanted to cross over to government controlled territory, and the LTTE used force, including shooting at people who attempted to leave, to prevent them from leaving. Why did the LTTE insist on the people remaining with it even as the territory held by it was shrinking and difficulties mounted in meeting the basic needs of the people under its control, especially in the context of the government severely restricting if not blocking the supply of essential goods? The LTTE could not have been ignorant of the firepower possessed by the Sri Lankan armed forces and their willingness to use it at tremendous risk to human life. The LTTE also knew that its military supplies had been effectively intercepted and severely curtailed since 2007 with the help of the Indian military intelligence. Did the LTTE seriously expect that some major power would intervene to save it and avert the impending disaster? Those who encouraged the Tamils at home and among the diaspora to believe that intervention in some form was impending from the US, the UN and even some European countries include the Tamil elite among the diaspora who still believe in lobbying politicians, and includes the group calling itself ?Tamils for Obama?. Tamil elitist support in the West called for unqualified support for the LTTE, and refused to distinguish between the cause of the Sri Lankan Tamils demanding a just and lasting solution to the national question and the LTTE which claimed to be their sole spokesperson, with rapidly declining justification for such as claim. Why did the LTTE leadership wait until the last moment to announce its surrender? Why did it not let the people leave even when it was clear that military defeat was imminent? If any false hope was given to the LTTE leadership, who or what was its source? There are also questions relating to the surrender and killing of the LTTE leadership which are as embarrassing to the government as to the supporters of the LTTE, which had demanded of its cadres to commit suicide rather than surrender. Interestingly, LTTE spokespersons among the diaspora still debate Pirapakaran?s demise. The claim that he is still alive seems to be based on more dubious reasons than blind faith. Those who claim that he is alive seem to have control over much of the wealth accumulated for fighting the cause of Tamil Eelam. Funds came mainly from the Tamil diaspora, although contributions were not always voluntary. The hope that the LTTE will revive as a fighting force is fast receding among the faithful. Meantime, the idea of setting up a ?Trans-National Government of Tamil Eelam? is being promoted by a section of the elite, who accept the demise of the leader. K Pathmanathan, a Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TNGTE) promoter who was named the leader of the LTTE among the diaspora since the fall of the LTTE, is now in the custody of the Sri Lankan government. The circumstances of his alleged abduction from a hotel in Malaysia and deportation from Thailand suggest possible surrender, the denial of which suits both the TNGTE elite and the Sri Lankan government. Internationally, the stock of the Sri Lankan government is low, mainly in view of the detention under unacceptable condition of Tamils ?freed from the control of the LTTE?, let alone charges of war crimes and human rights abuses by its armed forces. The Tamil elite among the diaspora is seeking solace in the prospect of the West punishing Sri Lanka, based on the some of the harsh criticism emanating from the US, UN and the EU. But they hardly realise that charges of war crimes and human rights violations only serve to bring wayward states into line and not to bring offenders to book and even less to rectify wrongs. What is evident among the Tamil diaspora is that they are being fed with false hope to avert any serious analysis of what went wrong with the struggle for Tamil Eelam. The situation in Sri Lanka is similar, with the Tamil nationalist leaders reluctant to discuss pressing issues concerning the plight of the Tamils. Despite superficial political differences, they are, as a whole, reluctant to seriously discuss or debate their political past and the failed armed struggle. As in the past, it is safer for them to blame ?traitors? and point to external factors with which they are not associated so that they can continue to fool the Tamil people the way they did for over half a century. But changes are evident across the Tamil political landscape. Elections to the local authorities in the North were recently held by the government in a bid to show that life there was returning to normal. The New Democratic Party called for a boycott of the elections, but under prevailing conditions could not actively campaign for a boycott. The people had their own ideas. In the election for the Jaffna Municipal Council nearly 80% of the voters kept off , with more than 6% of those voting spoiling their ballot papers. Voting in the Vavuniya Urban Council was just over 50% with over 5% of ballot papers spoilt, despite impersonation, intimidation and other ?customary democratic practices?. There was no overwhelming support for any political grouping whether pro-government or not. That is food for thought. Short Obituary Saluting the Memory of K Balagopal - Liberation, November, 2009. The untimely death of leading civil libertarian K Balagopal on 8 October 2009 is a great loss to people?s movements for justice and democracy. Balagopal played a key role in building up a powerful human rights movement in Andhra Pradesh and confront regime after repressive regime in Andhra Pradesh. He was among the first to confront the State on the issue of fake encounter killings ? often at risk to his own life. At a time when both Central and State governments of every hue are intensifying their offensive on democracy and civil liberties through draconian laws, fake encounters and muzzling of dissent, K Balagopal's memory is a source of strength and inspiration to all those involved in the struggle to defend democracy and resist state repression. Short Obituary Adieu to Comrade Ibn-ul Hasan Basru! - Liberation, November, 2009. With a heavy heart, we bid goodbye on 29.09.09 to Comrade Ibn-ul Hasan Basru, Central Committee member of the CPI (ML) and one of the leading lights of our party in Jharkhand. Comrade Basru, recently diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer of the gall bladder, breathed his last at 1 pm on 29 September 09 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Comrade Basru was born in 1943 in Godda district of Jharkhand (then undivided Bihar). He received his schooling at Mirzaganj in Giridih, in the same school where his father taught Urdu. He completed his school finals from Patna College, where he first came into contact with the communist movement, joining the All India Students Federation (AISF). In the 1960s he was drawn closer to the Communist Party of India (CPI), taking a formal party membership in 1968. In 1970 he formed the Mirzaganj unit of the party, and soon led a powerful anti-feudal peasant movement, challenging bonded labour, usury and assaults on dalits, adivasis and women. Within a very short time, this militant movement made its mark and led to the rapid expansion of the party in the district. In 1972, he also led the resistance to communal politics of the Jan Sangh-Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). In 1973, he was jailed for the first time; in his subsequent political life in the thick of people?s movements, he was jailed many times. In the 1980s, he again led a powerful anti-feudal mass upsurge, and the success of CPI candidates in elections was attributed in significant measure to his efforts. However, by the 1990s, he began to be dissatisfied with the politics and tactics of the CPI, and eventually came closer to the CPI (ML), which was rising as a powerful force in Giridih and Jharkhand. In 2002, he joined the CPI (ML), and in the 7th Party Congress of the CPI (ML) at Patna in November 2002, he was elected to Central Committee of the CPI (ML). In the extremely challenging period following the martyrdom of Comrade Mahendra Singh, Comrade Basru shouldered a very crucial part of the responsibility, striving to achieve Comrade Mahendra Singh?s goal of achieving the party?s growth in Giridih. A very modest and down-to-earth comrade, he easily integrated himself with the toiling poor. He epitomised the communist lifestyle; even with many economic and health travails faced by his family, he always relied on the people and dedicated himself to the party. Comrades in Jharkhand know that till the very end, he remained quiet about his illness, playing a leading role in the recent militant struggle against irregularities in implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in Jamua. Our thoughts are with his bereaved family in their hour of loss. Comrade Basru ? your simplicity, your courage, your communist spirit and dedication will continue to inspire comrades! Red Salute to Comrade Ibn-ul Hasan Basru! From dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com Sun Nov 1 17:36:24 2009 From: dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com (Dogan Gocmen) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 02:36:24 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] Prospects for a new South African Left Party In-Reply-To: <525646.16978.qm@web45303.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> References: <525646.16978.qm@web45303.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: This is going to be more a social democratic party than a new revolutionary party. To justify why they need a new party they need to say something more and programmatic than just that they are "leading an initiative to establish a new left political party in South Africa because of the dissatisfaction with the SACP's leadership." ------------ Dogan G?cmen (http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/) Author of The Adam Smith Problem: Reconciling Human Nature and Society in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations, I. B. Tauris, London&New York 2007 From michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Sun Nov 1 21:38:41 2009 From: michael at ecst.csuchico.edu (michael perelman) Date: Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:38:41 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Jerry Brown: California Gubernatorial Front Runner, yes, but ... Message-ID: <4AEE6251.7010100@ecst.csuchico.edu> Here is an interesting piece about how he operates http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/politicians/articles/?storyId=30658 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com From kenmor1968 at gmail.com Sun Nov 1 22:07:40 2009 From: kenmor1968 at gmail.com (Kenneth Morgan) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 21:07:40 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Jerry Brown Message-ID: At the port of Oakland, CA, April 7, 2003, Oakland cops fired on a peaceful anti-war demonstration with tear gas, rubber bullets and wooden dowels, injuring quite a few people, several seriously. I was there. Brown was Mayor of Oakland at the time. He endorsed the action of the Oakland police! The cops even fired on a group of longshoremen from Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), breaking the hand of one longshoreman, who was a crane operator. Ironically a couple of weeks earlier, Brown was a guest speaker at my local, ILWU Local 6. What a hypocritical fraud! From suklasenp at yahoo.co.uk Sun Nov 1 22:23:33 2009 From: suklasenp at yahoo.co.uk (Sukla Sen) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 05:23:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Marxism] Arundhati Roy's Essay on "Mr Chidambaram?s War" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <573346.82854.qm@web23003.mail.ird.yahoo.com> As regards "economic interests" that the Indian/Chhattisgarh state presumably represents and promotes, and consequent "land grab", in the context of Dantewada (the most major hub of Maoist insurgency at the moment), would anyone come out with the specific facts and figures? The main burden of Arundhatii Roy'snarrative, and also that of a few others holding briefs for the Maoists, is that the state has erected the ghost of (practically non-existent) Maoist violence and insurgency in order to justify and cover up its moves to clear out large tracts of lands rich with mineral resources to hand over to corporates and/or US Imperialism. Are there any notified and/or proposed SEZs in Dantewada? What is the extent of land acquisition notices served, if any, for industrial/mining purposes? Any specific details? When the mineral resources were discovered? What are these? Is Dantewada unique? Are the Maoists fighting "displacement", as innumerable other "democratic" forces are fighting and not without any success, or fighting to capture "state power" through the strategy of "Liberated Zones" regardless of any threat of displacement? Is armed violence or insurrection the best way to fight displacement? What are the real life experiences? How Nandigram or Goa or Raigarh compares with Dantewada? Would others respond? In specific terms? Any large-scale armed offensive would of course further intensify and spread the alienation of pauperised and super-exploited adivasi masses. And thereby further aggravate the problem. The consequences could be utterly tragic. Hence the existential and developmental needs of the adivasi masses must be addressed on war footing in consultation with and by actively involving them. Rehabilitating the large number of displaced people on account of the ill-conceived Salwa Judum triggering internecine wars and large-scale violence amongst the adivasis must be on the top of the agenda. And indiscriminate state brutalities must stop forthwith. Sukla Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 08:24:01 -0500 From: "Politicus E." Subject: [Marxism] Arundhati Roy's Essay on "Mr Chidambaram?s War" To: marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Source: Outlook (www.outlookindia.com), 9 November 2009 "A math question: How many soldiers will it take to contain the mounting rage of hundreds of millions of people?" Link: http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?262519 From johnaimani at earthlink.net Sun Nov 1 23:22:21 2009 From: johnaimani at earthlink.net (johnaimani) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 22:22:21 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] WSJ-Increase in Relative Surplus-value in theUS Message-ID: <19C990F9C2674DCEA99365064B13F92D@D4PKYZ41> a.. OCTOBER 23, 2009 U.S. Manufacturing Productivity Jumps By SARA MURRAY The U.S. enjoyed one of the largest increases in manufacturing productivity among 17 countries last year despite also posting the biggest drop in employment, as companies got more output from fewer workers. The employment picture has worsened this year, with unemployment reaching 9.8% in September. And the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits rose last week, the Labor Department said Thursday in its weekly report. Both the U.S. and South Korea saw productivity rise 1.2% in 2008, the first full year of the recession, from 2007. They experienced the largest increases of the 17 countries included in the Labor Department's international manufacturing-productivity report released Thursday. Productivity, which is defined as output per hour worked, declined in 12 of the countries, with the largest drops in Singapore and Denmark. In the U.S., "productivity growth in manufacturing has been above that in services for some time," said Mike Elsby, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Michigan. "Put another way, manufacturing has been progressively doing more with less for 40 years. Consequently, I would expect it to continue." Over the long run, productivity is key to improved living standards because it spurs rising output, incomes and asset values. But in a down economy, improving productivity with existing workers might mean hiring fewer new ones. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125621438312901121.html From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Sun Nov 1 23:27:32 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:27:32 +1100 Subject: [Marxism] What's new at Links: Honduras deal, Cuba, ISO, S. Africa, Cultural Revolution, Pakistan, African Communist, CPA councillors, anti-war march, NGO cretinism Message-ID: <4AEE7BD4.6070006@greenleft.org.au> What's new at Links: Honduras deal, Cuba, ISO, S. Africa, Cultural Revolution, Pakistan, African Communist, CPA councillors, anti-war march, NGO cretinism * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to links at dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. * * * Honduras: Deal signed for Zelaya's return, but struggle continues By *Stuart Munckton* October 31, 2009 -- After more than 120 days of mass resistance by the poor majority of Honduras, against a coup regime that overthrew elected President Manuel Zelaya, the regime has finally signed an agreement for Zelaya's reinstatement. * Read more Cuba: UN for the 18th consecutive year demands end to US blockade *Vote: 187 in favour to 3 against, with 2 abstentions* * Read more Paul Le Blanc -- Why I'm joining the US International Socialist Organization: Intensifying the struggle for social change / /By *Paul Le Blanc* October 2009 -- I have decided to join the International Socialist Organization (ISO) because I believe socialists can and must, at this moment, intensify the struggle to bring about positive social change. * Read more South Africa: Time for a new democratic left party? By *Mazibuko K. Jara* October 30, 2009 -- Our country is in crisis. There is deepening inequality, many people live in permanent poverty and millions are unemployed for most of their adult lives. Women continue to suffer from social oppression, violence and poverty. The very ecological and biophysical conditions for our human existence are under threat. Retrogressive ideologies in our society are gaining ground: we are going back to ethnic identity, we have retrogressive notions of womanhood, we have seen the rise in the power of undemocratic rule of unelected chiefs. The state is dysfunctional, corrupt and fraudulent. The state seems unwilling to confront the economic system that produces all these crises. Together, none of these socioeconomic problems can be addressed by a South Africa that reproduces capitalism. These problems require solutions that go beyond capitalist accumulation. * Read more China: Youth and the Cultural Revolution By *Graham Milner* The revolution that brought the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to power in 1949 marked the second great breach, after the Russian Revolution of October 1917, in the 20th century imperialist world order, and initiated a process that was to remove from the capitalist orbit the most populous nation in the world, containing over a quarter of its population. The revolution of 1949 aroused vast expectations not only among China's popular masses, but also among the peoples of the Third World as a whole, and indeed among the socialist-minded everywhere.[2] However, by the end of the 20th century, communism had been overturned in Eastern Europe and the USSR, while in China a largely discredited, authoritarian, Stalinist regime had virtually abandoned anything more than a nominal adherence to socialist ideals. So what went wrong? * Read more Pakistan: What to do about religious fundamentalism? By *Farooq Tariq* October 28, 2009 -- Once again Pakistan has become the focus of world attention. Every day there is news of the latest suicide attack or military operation, with killings, injuries and the displacing of communities. Recently schools were ordered closed for more than a week. Even children talk about death and suicide attacks. With more than 125 police checkpoints in Islamabad, it has become a fortress city. Lahore and other large cities are suffering the same fate: there are police road blockades everywhere. After each terrorist attack authorities issue another security high alert and set up additional barriers. How ironic that, until recently, officials and the media described these "terrorists" as Mujahideen fighting for an Islamic world. * Read more South Africa: 'The African Communist': 50 years of mobilisation, analysis / / By *Blade Nzimande* October 26, 2009 -- A browse through the very first edition of the /African Communist/ in 1959 not only gives an insight into the time and context during which it was launched but also the courageous and defiant character of those who breathed life into our historic journal: ``This magazine, the /African Communist/, has been started by a group of Marxist-Leninists in Africa, to defend and spread the inspiring and liberating ideas of Communism in our great Continent, and to apply the brilliant scientific method of Marxism to the solution of its problems. It is being produced in conditions of great difficulty and danger. Nevertheless we mean to go on publishing it, because we know that Africa needs Communist thought, as dry and thirsty soil needs rain.'' * Read more Australia: Red councillors during the Cold War: Communists on Sydney City Council, 1953-59 Recent electoral victories in Australia by socialists at the municipal council level -- the Socialist Party's Stephen Jolly in Victoria and Socialist Alliance's Sam Wainwright in Western Australia -- have sparked renewed interest in the experiences of other socialists who have been elected to such bodies. With permission of the Rough Reds Collective, /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ is publishing Beverley Symons' paper that examines the example of Communist Party of Australia members elected to the Sydney City Council in the 1950s. This article first appeared in the 2003 book /A Few Rough Reds/, published by the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Canberra Region Branch. * Read more Britain: Landmark demo against the war in Afghanistan + videos By *Robin Beste* October 25, 2009 -- Stop the War's demonstration on October 24 brought the centre of London to a standstill. It was a landmark demonstration, led by Lance Corporal Joe Glenton -- the first serving soldier in the British army to join an anti-war march. * Read more Asia: NGOs display `lobby cretinism' over ASEAN human rights commission By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* October 25, 2009 -- The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is made up of Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Brunei and Singapore, which are all authoritarian states. It also includes the semi-democratic Malaysia, along with the Philippines and Indonesia, which are more or less democratic. Would anyone expect a gathering of government leaders from these countries to set up a genuine human rights commission? Apparently, some NGOs from the region did think so. * Read more * * * Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism From dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com Mon Nov 2 04:07:32 2009 From: dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com (Dogan Gocmen) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 13:07:32 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] Kant's Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime In-Reply-To: <20091030003359.GA842@ecst.csuchico.edu> References: <20091030003359.GA842@ecst.csuchico.edu> Message-ID: Dear Michael, I thank you very much for the thoughts and references below. They are very useful indeed. Yours, Do?an 2009/10/30 Michael Perelman > I am not sure this will be useful, but I hope so: > > Sohn-Rethel, Alfred. 1978. Intellectual and Manual Labour: A Critique of > Epistemology (London: Macmillan). > 35: Both Kant and Smith set out "to prove the perfect normalcy of > bourgeois society." > Smith concluded that the desire for luxury is little more than a "deception > which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind" (Smith > 1759, IV.i.9, p. 183). Smith's contemporary, the philosopher, Immanuel > Kant, told a young Russian nobleman, "Give a man everything he desires and > yet at this very moment he will feel that this everything is not > everything " (Karamzin 1957, pp. 40-41). > The following is very Smith-like. > Kant, Immanuel, 1970. "An Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan > Purpose." in Kant's Political Writings, ed. H.S. Reiss (Cambridge: > Cambridge University Press): pp. 41-53. > 44-5: "The means which nature employs to bring about the development of > innate capacities is that of antagonism within society, in so far as this > antagonism becomes in the long run the cause of a law-governed social > order. By antagonism, I mean in this context the unsocial sociability of > men, that is, their tendency to come together in society, coupled, however, > with a continual resistance which constantly threatens to break this > society up. This propensity is obviously rooted in human nature. Man has > an inclination to live in society, since he feels in this state more like a > man, that is, he feels able to develop his natural capacities. But he also > has a great tendency to live as an individual, to isolate himself, since he > also encounters in himself the unsocial characteristic of wanting to direct > everything in accordance with his own ideas. He therefore expects > resistance all around, just as he knows of himself that he is in turn > inclined to offer resistance to others. It is this very resistance which > awakens all man's powers and induces him to overcome his tendency to > laziness. Through the desire for honour, power or property, it drives him > to seek status among his fellows, whom he cannot bear yet cannot bear to > leave. Then the first true steps are taken from barbarism to culture, > which in fact consists in the social worthiness of man. All man's talents > are now gradually developed, his taste cultivated, and by a continued > process of enlightenment, a beginning is made towards establishing a way of > thinking which can with time transform the primitive natural capacity for > moral discrimination into definite practical principles; and thus a > pathologically enforced social union is transformed into a moral whole. > Without these asocial qualities (far from admirable in themselves) which > cause the resistance inevitably encountered by each individual as he > furthers his self-seeking pretensions, man would live an Arcadian, pastoral > existence of perfect concord, self-sufficiency and mutual love. But all > human talents would remain hidden for ever in a dormant state, and men, as > good-natured as the sheep they tended, would scarcely render their > existence more valuable that of their animals. The end for which they were > created, their rational nature, would be an unfilled void. Nature should > thus be thanked for fostering social incompatibility, enviously competitive > vanity, and insatiable desires for possession or even power. Without these > desires, all man's excellent natural capacities would never be roused to > develop. Man wishes concord, but nature, knowing better what is good for > his species, wishes discord. man wishes to live comfortably and > pleasantly, but nature intends that he should abandon idleness and inactive > self-sufficiency and plunge instead into labour an hardships, so that he > may by his own adroitness find means of liberating himself from them in > turn. The natural impulses which make this possible, the sources of the > very unsociableness and continual resistance which cause so many evils, at > the same time encourage man towards new exertions of his powers and thus > towards further development of his natural capacities. They would thus > seem to indicate the design of a wise creator -- not, as it might seem, the > hand of a malicious spirit who had meddled in the creator's glorious work > or spoiled it out of envy." > Less direct evidence: > Lehmbruch, Gerhard. 2001. "The Institutional Embedding of Market Economies: > The German "Model" and Its Impact on Japan." in Wolfgang Streeck and Kozo > Yamamura, eds. The Origins of Nonliberal Capitalism: Germany and Japan in > Comparison (Ithaca: Cornell University Press): pp. 39-93. > 48: "The influence of Adam Smith's writings had progressively superseded > the tradition of cameralism and mercantilism in the formation of Prussian > civil servants (Hasek 1925, 117-21 ). Some of the lost influential among > them had been trained as students of Christian Jacob Kraus, Kant's disciple > and successor at the University of Konigsberg. Kraus was an ardent > Smithian and taught his audience that "since the times of the New Testament > no literary work has exercised a more beneficial influence than The Wealth > of Nations" (Treue 1951). The bureaucratic promoters of the Prussian > reform since 1808 -- led by Karl August Baron von Hardenberg (1750-1822), > who from 1810 was the kingdom's prime minister -- were devoted believers in > Smith's ideas (Vogel 1983a)." > > > > > -- > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA 95929 > > Tel. 530-898-5321 > E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu > michaelperelman.wordpress.com > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/dgn.gcmn%40googlemail.com > -- Dogan G?cmen (http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/) Author of The Adam Smith Problem: Reconciling Human Nature and Society in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations, I. B. Tauris, London&New York 2007 From naskha3 at gmail.com Mon Nov 2 05:26:15 2009 From: naskha3 at gmail.com (Nasir Khan) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 13:26:15 +0100 Subject: [Marxism] Afghanistan: Heads You Lose, Tails You Lose Message-ID: <18d70e600911020426o79aa8744w5ce4a7dbee72c51a@mail.gmail.com> Afghanistan: Heads You Lose, Tails You Lose by Immanuel Wallerstein, Agence Global, Nov. 1, 2009 http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=2179 From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 2 06:12:42 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:12:42 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Worries of a Zionist Message-ID: <4AEEDACA.1010604@panix.com> http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/seven-existential-threats-15124 The Arab Demographic Threat. Estimates of the Arab growth rate, both within Israel and the West Bank and Gaza, vary widely. A maximalist school holds that the Palestinian population on both sides of the 1949 armistice lines is expanding far more rapidly than the Jewish sector and will surpass it in less than a decade. Countering this claim, a minimalist school insists that the Arab birthrate in Israel is declining and that the population of the territories, because of emigration, is also shrinking. Even if the minimalist interpretation is largely correct, it cannot alter a situation in which Israeli Arabs currently constitute one-fifth of the country?s population?one-quarter of the population under age 19--and in which the West Bank now contains at least 2 million Arabs. Israel, the Jewish State, is predicated on a decisive and stable Jewish majority of at least 70 percent. Any lower than that and Israel will have to decide between being a Jewish state and a democratic state. If it chooses democracy, then Israel as a Jewish state will cease to exist. If it remains officially Jewish, then the state will face an unprecedented level of international isolation, including sanctions, that might prove fatal. Ideally, the remedy for this dilemma lies in separate states for Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The basic conditions for such a solution, however, are unrealizable for the foreseeable future. The creation of Palestinian government, even within the parameters of the deal proposed by President Clinton in 2000, would require the removal of at least 100,000 Israelis from their West Bank homes. The evacuation of a mere 8,100 Israelis from Gaza in 2005 required 55,000 IDF troops?the largest Israeli military operation since the 1973 Yom Kippur War?and was profoundly traumatic. And unlike the biblical heartland of Judaea and Samaria, which is now called the West Bank, Gaza has never been universally regarded as part of the historical Land of Israel. On the Palestinian side there is no single leadership at all, and certainly not one ready to concede the demand for the repatriation of Palestinian refugees to Israel or to forfeit control of even part of the Temple Mount (a necessary precondition for a settlement that does not involve the division of Jerusalem). No Palestinian leader, even the most moderate, has recognized Israel?s right to exist as a Jewish state or even the existence of a Jewish people. In the absence of a realistic two-state paradigm, international pressure will grow to transform Israel into a binational state. This would spell the end of the Zionist project. Confronted with the lawlessness and violence endemic to other one-state situations in the Middle East such as Lebanon and Iraq, multitudes of Israeli Jews will emigrate. _____________ Delegitimization. Since the mid-1970s, Israel?s enemies have waged an increasingly successful campaign of delegitimizing Israel in world forums, intellectual and academic circles, and the press. The campaign has sought to depict Israel as a racist, colonialist state that proffers extraordinary rights to its Jewish citizens and denies fundamental freedoms to the Arabs. These accusations have found their way into standard textbooks on the Middle East and have become part of the daily discourse at the United Nations and other influential international organizations. Most recently, Israel has been depicted as an apartheid state, effectively comparing the Jewish State to South Africa under its former white supremacist regime. Many of Israel?s counterterrorism efforts are branded as war crimes, and Israeli generals are indicted by foreign courts. Though the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza clearly contributed to the tarnishing of Israel?s image, increasingly the delegitimization campaign focuses not on Israel?s policy in the territories but on its essence as the Jewish national state. Such calumny was, in the past, dismissed as harmless rhetoric. But as the delegitimization of Israel gained prominence, the basis was laid for international measures to isolate Israel and punish it with sanctions similar to those that brought down the South African regime. The academic campaigns to boycott Israeli universities and intellectuals are adumbrations of the type of strictures that could destroy Israel economically and deny it the ability to defend itself against the existential threats posed by terrorism and Iran. (clip) From acpollack2 at gmail.com Mon Nov 2 06:55:17 2009 From: acpollack2 at gmail.com (Andrew Pollack) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 08:55:17 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Worries of a Zionist In-Reply-To: <4AEEDACA.1010604@panix.com> References: <4AEEDACA.1010604@panix.com> Message-ID: <2fa1449b0911020555w22dab908j28b2cdb7c411478a@mail.gmail.com> The Commentary article, which is from May, identifies Oren as an academic, but since then he has become Israel's ambassador to the UN. Oren was born in the US -- just like the individual terrorist arrested yesterday for murdering Palestinians. (Oren, in contrast, is part of the institutional terrorist apparatus.) Oren says: " In the absence of a realistic two-state paradigm, international pressure will grow to transform Israel into a binational state. This would spell the end of the Zionist project. Confronted with the lawlessness and violence endemic to other one-state situations in the Middle East such as Lebanon and Iraq, multitudes of Israeli Jews will emigrate." I'll leave aside his racist slur against the other states, and the fact that this lawlessness and violence was caused by the imperialists. But I agree with his conclusion about emigration, and say right fucking on. I hope everyone in "Israel" born in the US (and Moldava!!!) leaves. And of those born in "Israel" or who emigrated there right after WWII, let them stay if they can learn to behave like civilized human beings and not like colonists. From michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Mon Nov 2 09:50:47 2009 From: michael at ecst.csuchico.edu (Michael Perelman) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 08:50:47 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Jerry Brown In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20091102165047.GB2250@ecst.csuchico.edu> For a while, before he became mayor, Brown had a radio program on Pacifica in which he militantly denounced corporate misdeeds. Once he became mayor of Oakland, he pandered to developers ... A perfect democrat. On Sun, Nov 01, 2009 at 09:07:40PM -0800, Kenneth Morgan wrote: > At the port of Oakland, CA, April 7, 2003, Oakland cops fired on a peaceful > anti-war demonstration with tear gas, rubber bullets and wooden dowels, > injuring quite a few people, several seriously. I was there. Brown was Mayor > of Oakland at the time. He endorsed the action of the Oakland police! The > cops even fired on a group of longshoremen from Local 10 of the > International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), breaking the hand of one > longshoreman, who was a crane operator. Ironically a couple of weeks > earlier, Brown was a guest speaker at my local, ILWU Local 6. What a > hypocritical fraud! -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 2 09:51:54 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:51:54 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Latest developments in the Jared Diamond scandal Message-ID: <4AEF0E2A.5080809@panix.com> http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/the-latest-developments-on-the-jared-diamond-scandal/ From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 2 09:59:36 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:59:36 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Succumbing To PayPal Message-ID: <4AEF0FF8.7070908@panix.com> Succumbing To PayPal by Gilles d'Aymery FUNDRAISING TIME: As a reader-supported publication we are totally dependent on the solidarity and generosity of our readers. Quite a few have often asked us to get a PayPal account. Well, we finally did. So, you can use PayPal or send us a check or some cash. We need to raise $3,000, without which we won't be able to continue to bring to you and the larger community this cogent bi-weekly magazine. Please, Donate now! "When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical may be madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasures where there is only trash. . . Too much sanity may be madness, and maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be." ?Miguel De Cervantes (Swans - November 2, 2009) Ever since we began asking for financial help in 2005, as Swans needed to either become a reader-supported independent publication or try to turn into a commercial endeavor with advertising galore and different content (which we could not fathom to do) or simply fold down (neither could we fathom), we have been advised by many readers and well-wishers to set up an account with PayPal -- a step that we have persistently resisted...until today. From the day Swans was launched in May 1996 we've always operated with two aphorisms in mind. "The only way not to play a game is to not play"; and "attempting to solve problems using the tools, techniques, and thoughts which create them is silly" -- both came from our good friend Milo Clark. (Albert Einstein once said something similar: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.") In this vein, we've always tried to think out of the box and, while fully aware of the socioeconomic system in which we live, we've been using as seldom as possible the most flagrantly destructive and exploitative tools that the system uses to enrich its elites, impoverish the masses, and gut local communities. Anyone who's familiar with the publication cannot miss our long-time advocacy in favor of local businesses, community banks, labor unions, etc. A careful look at the front page of Swans should make it plain and simple. We've consciously chosen to stay away from big boxes and megastores, as well as to the extent possible the financial markets including the dreaded credit cards. In that context, PayPal, a wholly-owned subsidiary of e-Bay (which we have never used), was an instrument that deserved to be utterly shunned, as the company makes huge profits on the backs of people who use it for their own "convenience." So, every time a reader recommended that we take a PayPal account we kept responding with the same explanation: As we do not want to shop at Amazon, or Home Depot, or Wal*Mart, etc., we wish to avoid PayPal -- and we kept asking instead that contributions be sent by check, cash, or money order, to sadly little avail. Most people who recommended PayPal would not hear our request, and quite possibly would not agree with our reasoning, which might appear too quixotic and stubborn. Swans Commentary now has a PayPal account. What made us take this step with dire reluctance? First of all, we are desperate -- or perhaps should I write, "I am desperate" -- to cover at least the operating costs of the publication. Jan Baughman, my companion and wife, has been sustaining this endeavor and supporting me through her work and sacrifices (and her devoted editing help). Both financially and emotionally it is taking a toll on me. Moreover, the lack of overall revenues forces us to call upon our modest savings year after year (except in 2007, when a reader from England put us over the top with an amazingly generous $2,000+ donation) and forbids us from developing Swans. The publication depends on a bevy of intriguing, talented, and thoughtful contributors, none of whom we can afford to compensate financially -- and, evidently, the lack of resources prohibits us from attracting a wider pool. (As Jeff Huber wrote to me recently: "If you ever reach the point where you can pay for exclusive content, I'll be more than delighted to write it for you." Of course, Jeff is not in the solidarity "business," but he sure is a good writer...on the libertarian side of the chessboard.) Second, money orders do not work. Last year, Walter Trkla, a reader from Canada who's followed Swans ever since the unjustified, illegal, and brutal air war against Serbia in 1999, sent a US$100 check drawn on a Canadian bank. Our credit union (Redwood Credit Union) refused the check, alleging that it was not drawn in bona fide USD. We went back and forth over a few weeks. Every time I had to address the issue, I also had to drive back and forth 25 miles to the nearest branch. (One year earlier, Walter had sent me C$100, suggesting that since the Canadian dollar was higher than the USD, I would get a larger cut. It cost me (and Walter) a fee of $25 and they credited me for only $75 -- not taking into account the spread between the two currencies.) So, I eventually gave up and told Walter: "Look let's forget about it. Next time do send me a money order drawn in USD." He just did that this year (2009), taking the trouble to go to his bank and make sure it was a USD money order. Yet, when I tended the money order to the teller, once again it was disputed. Yes, it was in USD, but it was drawn from a foreign (Canadian) bank. I felt so darn embarrassed that I paid the $25 fee and did not let Walter know. In the eye of the capitalist beast, a local community bank cannot figure out the international banking system. I once asked a teller there, in Ukiah, Mendocino County, California, if she knew anything about the Euro. Her answer: "Euro? What is that?" To say the least, money orders are an expensive proposition! Third, a reader from Sofia, Bulgaria, in Eastern Europe, sent an e-mail telling me that he wanted to send some money our way. Problem was, he had not written a check in ten years, had no US$ bills in his possession, and could not send a money order. He recommended: "Get yourself a PayPal account. Tr?s facile. I'll send you 50 bucks." Thinking -- erroneously, as it turned out -- that he was a young man, I answered that I was in the process of getting a PayPal account, adding: "You know: I am getting real old, because I pay by check or in cash for all my expenses. I have only one credit card and use it at the very most 5 or 6 times a year." He answered: Quand vous ?tes dans le ventre de la b?te, vous devez manger ce que la b?te se nourrit. [When you are in the belly of the beast, you must eat the beast's food.] PS: Je suis aussi vieux. 76 ans. Mais je dispose de 20 cartes de cr?dit, et de nombreux comptes en ligne. [I am old too. 76. But I use 20 credit cards and have numerous on-line bank accounts.] Whether he was facetious regarding the number of credit cards and on-line bank accounts is beside the point. A 76-year-old reader was telling a youngster (I'm 59) to go on with life as it is (not as it should be). Which is what various other friends and contributors have kept telling me, the latest being my brother from Africa, Femi Akomolafe. He wrote me: My Yoruba people are very practical people. Among our wise saying is: omo ina la nra sina. Literally it means that you send a message to the devil via its offspring. I don't think that you should hate yourself for using PayPal to keep doing the great job you and Jan are doing editing and publishing Swans. But the one who broke the camel's back has been Mark Lause, an assistant professor of history at Cincinnati University, a once-contributor to our publication, a third-party political activist in the Marxist tradition, and a member of and almost daily contributor to the Marxmail list owned and maintained by another Swans friend and contributor, Louis Proyect. full: http://www.swans.com/library/art15/ga275.html From sabocat59 at gmail.com Mon Nov 2 10:05:51 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 12:05:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Imperial Mandate arrives in Honduras Message-ID: <6e42edf00911020905q55cace61k22683f78dc060378@mail.gmail.com> http://machetera.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/the-imperial-mandate-arrives-in-honduras/ The imperial mandate arrives in Honduras November 1, 2009 ? Leave a Comment Honduras: An Improbable Solution By Atilio A. Boron English translation: Machetera Has the political crisis in Honduras been resolved? Although a window of opportunity has opened, every indicator suggests that there is not a lot of room for optimism. It?s worth recalling what we said here before when the coup d?etat took place: that Micheletti would only remain in power as long as he could count on the support, whether active or passive, of Washington. It took four months for the White House to understand the high cost that a coup regime would exact in the region. Beset by the various problems which he faces in his foreign policy, above all, by the rapid deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the miring of his troops in Iraq, Obama wrested the steering wheel from his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, the main architect of support for the putschists, and sent Thomas Shannon to Tegucigalpa with the task of restoring order in the tumultuous back yard. Shortly afterward, Micheletti shelved his bravado and meekly accepted what had previously been unacceptable. Of course, Shannon had just laid down the imperial mandate. To sweeten the moment, he publicly expressed his admiration for the two leaders of Honduran democracy: the putschist and the deposed. Zelaya proposes a three point program: restitution, amnesty and a government of national reconciliation. The first will be resolved by the Honduran Congress, the same which enthusiastically validated the coup d?etat and was unsparing in its insults and lies against him. The outcome remains to be seen, but it will not be simple. Amnesty, for whom? For the civilian and military employees of a government which violated human rights and infringed upon every freedom? Or for Zelaya, for crimes he did not commit, such as having the audacity to try to ask his people if they were in favor of holding a constitutional convention? And of the third, closely tied to the second, the less said the better. Because under current conditions, isn?t a government of national reconciliation simply a passport to oblivion, to forgetfulness, to impunity? A cursory review of the crisis and its apparent resolution reveals that the putschists can feel satisfied because they preserved their two main objectives: deposing Zelaya, even if he re-assumes the presidency for a few months until the end of his term; and having achieved international recognition for the flawed elections scheduled for November 29, something that Shannon took upon himself to assure. For its part, the Honduran oligarchy removes itself from the danger of more aggressive action by the United States against its properties and privileges; something that might have occurred if an agreement had not been reached. A stickier sort of control by Washington over their assets and funds in the United States caused them sleepless nights, and Micheletti?s intransigence had become an unnecessary threat to their interests. For Zelaya, the balance is far more complex, and that is precisely what overshadows the Honduran landscape. His restoration doesn?t remove the underlying causes that provoked the coup d?etat, not in the slightest. Furthermore, as a result, would it not simply validate the results of elections plagued with extremely serious irregularities and a campaign that unfolded under the climate of violence and terror imposed by the putschists? Micheletti has already been beating the war drums. The agreement was barely sealed when he told CNN en Espa?ol that once restored to power, ?Zelaya and the people who come with him are sure to undertake a campaign of retribution. Only someone who is unaware of Zelaya?s attitude could believe that there will not be consequences.? What will the response be should the government be restored? Amnesty for the putschists, reconciliation with them, hugs for Micheletti? But Zelaya is far from being the only actor in this drama: How may the heroic militants who risked their lives and their physical integrity to defend their legitimate government react, especially once the possibility of calling a popular referendum to reform the constitution has also been completely ruled out? There are many dead and wounded, much imprisonment and humiliation along the way. Will these men and women who won the streets in Honduras accept the forgetting of so many crimes and the pardon of their victimizers? Also, the one lesson taken by the efforts of the people and social movements over the past four months of resistance is that if they organize themselves and mobilize their influence in the political juncture they can be decisive, much more than they realized before. The crisis taught them, brutally, that they can stop being history?s objects and turn themselves into its protagonists. And perhaps because of that, beyond what has taken place with this accord, they may decide to continue onward with their struggles for a different Honduras, one that does not come about with unjust amnesties or spurious reconciliations. www.atilioboron.com Argentinean sociologist and author Atilio Boron is a friend of Tlaxcala. From srobin21 at comcast.net Mon Nov 2 10:07:03 2009 From: srobin21 at comcast.net (Steven L. Robinson) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 17:07:03 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Marxism] Jerry Brown In-Reply-To: <20091102165047.GB2250@ecst.csuchico.edu> Message-ID: <806494765.3508521257181623202.JavaMail.root@sz0140a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Moonbeam actually got elected Oakland Mayor as a political independent, running against the Alameda County Democratic Party Machine of Don Perata and Barbara Lee. He made a big show of changing his party registration to "independent." As noted, Brown's record as Mayor did not match up with the populist rhetoric of his run for election. He tried take control of the local schools, with limited success, and promoted charter schools with somewhat more success. He had a special animus toward the local teachers union ("OEA"). which does not bode well for public employees if he returns to the Governorship. SR ----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Perelman To: srobin21 at comcast.net Sent: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 16:50:47 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Re: [Marxism] Jerry Brown For a while, before he became mayor, Brown had a radio program on Pacifica in which he militantly denounced corporate misdeeds. Once he became mayor of Oakland, he pandered to developers ... A perfect democrat. O From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 2 10:13:40 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:13:40 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Succumbing To PayPal In-Reply-To: <4AEF0FF8.7070908@panix.com> References: <4AEF0FF8.7070908@panix.com> Message-ID: <4AEF1344.4090009@panix.com> Louis Proyect wrote: > Succumbing To PayPal > by Gilles d'Aymery > > FUNDRAISING TIME: As a reader-supported publication we are totally > dependent on the solidarity and generosity of our readers. Quite a few > have often asked us to get a PayPal account. Well, we finally did. So, > you can use PayPal or send us a check or some cash. We need to raise > $3,000, without which we won't be able to continue to bring to you and > the larger community this cogent bi-weekly magazine. Please, Donate now! I neglected to add that comrades should make a contribution to Swans. It is an outstanding online publication that deserves our support. http://www.swans.com/about/donate.html From farmelantj at juno.com Mon Nov 2 10:14:46 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 17:14:46 GMT Subject: [Marxism] Jerry Brown Message-ID: <20091102.121446.24388.0@webmail03.vgs.untd.com> The Dead Kennedies had Jerry Brown's number thirty years ago: www.youtube.com/watch?v=quLqEu4mUOU Jim F. ---------- Original Message ---------- From: Michael Perelman To: farmelantj at juno.com Subject: Re: [Marxism] Jerry Brown Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 08:50:47 -0800 For a while, before he became mayor, Brown had a radio program on Pacifica in which he militantly denounced corporate misdeeds. Once he became mayor of Oakland, he pandered to developers ... A perfect democrat. ____________________________________________________________ Instant Medical Insurance Get fast, free medical insurance quotes online now in 2 minutes. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=mtmCBAB49hBU6nxDZ4UqugAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAQAAAAFAAAAAFqODz8AAAMlAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABgBgAAAAA= From lueko.willms at t-online.de Sun Nov 1 01:16:55 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: So, 01 Nov 2009 08:16:55 +0100 (MEZ) Subject: [Marxism] Paul LeBlanc: Why I Am Joining the ISO, or about sloppy language Message-ID: <010.f0190a00e735ed4a.019@lws-media.de> Shane Mage (shmage at pipeline.com) wrote on 2009-10-30 at 11:28:48 in about Re: [Marxism] Paul LeBlanc: Why I Am Joining the ISO: > > > > Marx and FROP... > > > > It's FTROP, dammit! Isnt it Frip, Frap and Frup? Slip, splap, and splash? Or sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. How about making an effort to speak clearly? L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- visit http://www.mlwerke.de Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotzki in German From giobon at comcast.net Mon Nov 2 11:14:09 2009 From: giobon at comcast.net (Bonnie Weinstein) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 10:14:09 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party In-Reply-To: <4AEF0FF8.7070908@panix.com> References: <4AEF0FF8.7070908@panix.com> Message-ID: <59998D1F-626E-4A57-A667-C04D32BE757E@comcast.net> Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party By Carole Seligman and Bonnie Weinstein On October 17th antiwar demonstrations were held across the country marking the 9th year of Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. war on Afghanistan, which began October 7, 2001. The actions also marked the 40th anniversary of the 1969 Vietnam Moratorium, a huge national mobilization against the Vietnam War, which took place throughout the country. The 2009 demonstrations, modest in size, opposed the U.S. wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the acts of war against Pakistan, the U.S. supported Israeli war against the Palestinians, and the U.S. war threats against Iran and North Korea. One thousand marched in Boston and San Francisco. Smaller demonstrations were held in many other cities and towns, including Detroit; Milwaukee; New Orleans; Newport, Kentucky; Norwich, Connecticut; Honolulu?more than 48 cites across the country. The demonstrations were initiated by the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, a national network of peace activists attempting to forge unity in the antiwar movement. They were endorsed by a wide array of peace organizations, including many unions, labor councils, religious and peace groups, community organizations, veterans groups, and others. In San Francisco, the October 17th Coalition was formed to plan a march and rally here. Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), Iraq Moratorium, Code Pink, The World Can?t Wait, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice, U.S. Labor Against the War, all the socialist organizations (including this magazine) and many other groups joined the coalition and helped publicize the demonstration. The October 17th demonstration was eventually endorsed by the San Francisco Labor Council. In addition to the antiwar demands of the coalition for U.S. Out Now and an end for U.S. support to the Israeli war and occupation against the Palestinians; the demonstrations also demanded government funding for jobs, pensions, education, healthcare and housing, not wars and corporate bailouts; self-determination for all oppressed nations and peoples; an end to war crimes including torture; and prosecution of the war criminals. S.F. Coalition reneges on anti-Pelosi protest The first meeting of the S.F. October 17th Coalition, held in August, set a good principled tone by beginning to organize the October demonstration, as well as make a decision to protest Speaker of the House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi?s appearance at a San Francisco Labor Day event on September 4th. The motion to protest Pelosi for her role in funding the wars, passed unanimously. However, the day after the second Coalition meeting, the group?s co- coordinator, Jeff Mackler, sent out an announcement to the members of the coalition unilaterally canceling the protest! The reasons stated for this unusual action were that the Pelosi breakfast was sponsored by the San Francisco Labor Council, ?an organization that has consistently endorsed and supported the antiwar movement.? And, he stated that he hadn?t known at the meeting where the vote took place ?that the event was to be a protest of the San Francisco Labor Council.? He stated in the letter that although Pelosi ?continued [to] support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the bailout for the banks,? this labor breakfast was not an ?appropriate? event at which to protest Pelosi! In this shameful letter, Mackler wrote, ?Further, I request that all leaflets that were produced to advertise this event (approximately 200) be immediately destroyed.? And, ?I will not be present at this protest. Neither will any of the leading organizations of the October 17 Antiwar Coalition.? Mackler claimed that his decision was supported by all the ?leaders? of the coalition, but that is hard to determine without a democratic debate. While this cancellation did indeed garner the support of many of the coalition groups, the authors of this article, both activists in the Coalition and in the Bay Area antiwar movement, strongly opposed this reversal. So did the original maker of the motion, Steve Zeltzer, as well as the Code Pink organization. At the meeting held November 1st to evaluate the October 17th action, others opposed the cancellation too. The Labor Council itself was never the ?object of protest? as Mackler?s letter said. It was clear from the beginning of the Coalition that the object of the protest was Nancy Pelosi because she is a leader in the government and the majority political party leading the country and carrying out the wars, the Democrats. What?s wrong about protesting Pelosi, when she was being honored by the San Francisco Labor Council?or, for that matter?any organization that would want to honor a warmonger? The other obvious question is, what if they were honoring Republican George W. Bush, as some labor unions have done? Would it be inappropriate to demonstrate in that case? Shortly after the notice of cancellation of the Coalition?s support for the September 4th Pelosi protest, Tim Paulson, the Executive Director of the San Francisco Labor Council, issued a statement to its members which said, ?We are also honored to be visited by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who has been fighting tirelessly for real healthcare reform and is taking time out of her busy schedule to break bread with her friends in the labor movement before she heads back to Washington, D.C.? [In fact, she has abandoned single-payer healthcare in favor of a very weak ?public option? that amounts to nothing more than a guaranteed income for private insurance companies while abandoning dental, vision and hearing coverage for adults; and all health coverage for undocumented workers and their children.] This letter went on to assure its readers that ?many progressive antiwar activists are emailing and calling the Labor Council to distance themselves? from the protest of Pelosi. He wrote, ?This missive is just to let our friends know that you might be met outside the hotel by some protesters, but that almost unilaterally the labor and antiwar movements condemn these efforts.? It also contained a strong condemnation of Steve Zeltzer, the labor activist who brought the original motion to the Oct. 17th Coalition. It is important to note that Tim Paulson serves on the Executive Board of the California Democratic Party. The California Democrats play an active role trying to co-opt the antiwar movement into the Democratic Party fold, acting mainly through the labor bureaucrats running most of the unions. The demonstration took place anyway. A small but respectable-sized group (for 7:30 A.M. on a Friday morning), including representatives from Code Pink, picketed the Pelosi Labor Council breakfast. A flyer was distributed which said: ?Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, is a leading policy maker in the administration of Barack Obama and a point person for the imperialist, profoundly anti-democratic and exploitative policies of the Democratic Party?a principal instrument of rapacious class rule in the United States. ?She represents the following: Escalating the war of brutal aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and beyond; sustaining the murder of Iraq indefinitely; ?Expanding the use of torture, rendition and the implementation in the United States of the architecture of the fascist state. ?She is a major figure in the handing over to the banksters, to date, the sum of $23.7 trillion, as documented by Neil Barofsky in his testimony before Congress. ?Nancy Pelosi, like the Party and administration she represents, is an enemy of working people?of their economic survival, their right to organize and their political independence. ?It is matter of principle to protest her public appearances. A picket protesting the anti-working class and anti-democratic policies that she represents is not an attack upon labor, let alone upon the San Francisco Labor Council as an organization. ?The leadership that would foist upon the Labor Council and upon working people the policies of the Democratic Party is a misleadership that disarms labor and renders working people unable to fight in their own name and in their class interests. Every defender of the rights of working people will reject this hysteria and recognize that it seeks to cover a bending of the knee to a labor misleadership that undermines the future of working people in the United States.? A letter was sent to Tim Paulson from Steve Zeltzer and signed by several individuals?including the authors of this article, stating in part: ?All defenders of workers? rights understand that protests against those in government who vote for war funding are principled actions that deserve the support of the entire antiwar and labor movements. Your argument that it is unethical and politically ?divisive? to protest the reactionary policies of the Speaker of the House because she has been invited to a breakfast sponsored by the San Francisco Labor Council is wrong. What is divisive is for the leadership of the Council to impose a politician with a reprehensible anti-labor record on a Labor Day event.? The letter called Paulson?s actions ?a smear meant to intimidate any who oppose the policies of Pelosi, including the expansion of the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.? It also reported that ?One of the leaders of the San Francisco Labor Council actually elbowed Brother Zeltzer in front of the St. Francis Hotel and knocked flyers out of his hands as he and others were passing them out. Zeltzer?s letter to Paulson continues: ?Are these tactics that you condone, or is it your condemnation of dissent that encourages physical attacks of those on a picket line? ?The San Francisco labor movement has a long tradition of upholding the right of dissent, including the right to disagree with decisions of the leadership of the San Francisco Labor Council. ?Your letter is a breach of this tradition. It constitutes a warning to all San Francisco Labor Council delegates and to rank and file members of the labor movement that dissent is ?disloyal? and not allowed under your regime.? The letter called on Paulson to apologize to Zeltzer and to the San Francisco labor movement for such undemocratic and personal attacks. Labor and the Democratic Party At the root of this dispute is the Labor leadership?s partnership with the Democratic Party. It is the only way to explain the huge contradiction between the San Francisco Labor Council?s passing of numerous antiwar resolutions and its breakfast honoring a major war supporter such as Pelosi. What message is the invitation honoring Pelosi sending to workers? At the most basic level, it says that when push comes to shove, the labor ?leaders? will ally with the Democratic Party, in spite of the ongoing assault it is carrying out against working people?including the escalation of the wars responsible for rising death tolls on both sides of the battlefields?wars that are eating up staggering amounts of funds and resources. From the peasants growing poppies in the fields of Afghanistan to the economic draft of U.S. youth, it?s the poor and working class who are dying while the wealthy are profiting! San Francisco workers are under a tremendous assault to their living standards, as are all working people today. The Democratic Party, in alliance with the Republicans, is leading the assault! The Democratic Party is bailing out the banks; the Democratic Party is adding to the Pentagon budget and to the military industrial complex. The Democratic Party is privatizing our schools and turning public education into military recruitment grounds or detention camps? pushing students towards either the military or prison. Both the Democrats and the Republicans work for the very same people and take money from the very same people who are making trillions on Wall Street off the backs of working people. Any party that works for the commanders of capital and supports their economic system of exploitation of working people is anti-labor and should be opposed by working people. Labor Councils and all labor organizations, in cooperation with unorganized workers and the unemployed, should be organizing a political party based upon satisfying the needs and human rights of working people; a party that will put human needs before profits; a party that will demand an immediate end to the wars; that will fight for jobs, housing, and healthcare for all; for funding quality education and rebuilding the country?s infrastructure; and repairing the destruction to the environment caused by the quest for profits above all else. This party will demand, ?Bail out working people, not the corporations and banks. Tax the rich and corporate profits, not the poor.? The antiwar movement has the obligation to protest the warmakers. Not to do so is to give President Obama and the Democrats a long honeymoon in which his imperial policies?a continuation of the basic policies of the Bush administration?go unrefuted. It is futile to expect those who profit from the U.S. war industry that supplies the U.S. military?larger than all the militaries of the rest of the world combined?or their paid government lackeys, to regulate themselves or bring an end to the wars that fill their coffers. A second opportunity to confront the warmakers was presented to the October 17th Coalition right before the Saturday demonstration. President Obama came to San Francisco to attend an October 15th fundraiser dinner for the Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America (the successor organization to Obama for America). At the meeting of the October 17th Coalition held on October 11th, another unanimous vote was held to protest Obama?s warmaking. When Jeff Mackler sent out the minutes of the meeting, he neglected to include the vote and information about the Obama protest. Coming as this did on the heels of the cancellation of the Pelosi protest, we cannot help but conclude that Mackler, and other leaders of the Oct. 17th Coalition did not want to confront the Democratic Party allies of the labor bureaucrats and those in the antiwar movement who look to the labor bureaucrats as their most valuable allies. Needless to say, there was no Labor Council participation in an otherwise impressive demonstration of President Obama on October 15th. Most of the protestors were demanding a single-payer, Medicare- for-all, national health program. Code Pink, ANSWER, and others came out to protest the war. The October 17th Coalition was not visibly present. It will take a massive, working-class based antiwar movement, independent of the war parties to bring an end to the wars and to bring justice to the working class. Workers must take the struggles for their interests into their own hands. In the meantime the antiwar movement must not to allow itself to be co-opted by the Democratic Party. That is the danger represented by the actions of the leaders of the October 17th Coalition in San Francisco. On the democratic process Finally, the movements based upon the defense of working people must be democratically run. The regular practice of democracy in all workers? organizations? including the antiwar movement?will help to prepare workers to run their own struggles and organizations. Eventually, they will run the government. What happened in the San Francisco October 17 Coalition regarding these two protests should be discussed in an open and democratic manner. These same issues will confront the movement in the months ahead and in preparations for the Spring demonstrations on the anniversary of the Iraq war. The independence of the antiwar movement must be jealously guarded and defended in a time when the United States imperial machine, supported and administered by a bi-partisan alliance of the ruling class political parties, carries out multiple, simultaneous wars of aggression. This is a challenge we must not be afraid to meet. From acpollack2 at gmail.com Mon Nov 2 11:37:50 2009 From: acpollack2 at gmail.com (Andrew Pollack) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 13:37:50 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party In-Reply-To: <59998D1F-626E-4A57-A667-C04D32BE757E@comcast.net> References: <4AEF0FF8.7070908@panix.com> <59998D1F-626E-4A57-A667-C04D32BE757E@comcast.net> Message-ID: <2fa1449b0911021037s3c7b0330qb60bbc498e78cd55@mail.gmail.com> The charges raised by these sectarians were already answered by Jeff Mackler, a copy of which was sent to this list and is still at: http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu/12813089.html On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 1:14 PM, Bonnie Weinstein wrote: > Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party > From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 2 12:22:34 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:22:34 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Lenin's Tomb on Afghanistan Message-ID: <4AEF317A.6090604@panix.com> http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/11/ruined-tea-party-and-brewing-inferno.html From sartesian at earthlink.net Mon Nov 2 13:29:51 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 15:29:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party References: <4AEF0FF8.7070908@panix.com><59998D1F-626E-4A57-A667-C04D32BE757E@comcast.net> <2fa1449b0911021037s3c7b0330qb60bbc498e78cd55@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <18A17C5E1FF44CE6BE145F3DD478CAFE@dmsthinkpad> What's "sectarian" about protesting the presence of, and opportunity afforded to, one of the leaders of the ruling class government? Nothing. What difference does it make that she's speaking at a labor council function? No difference whatsoever. Who cares what Cockburn thinks? Almost no one. Comrades Weinstein and Seligman are not Cockburn, partisans of Cockburn, employees of Cockburn. The issue is class. No matter what the forum, Pelosi is a member of the ruling class. Protesting her presence on a class basis cannot be, by definition, sectarian. Mackler argues that protesting the presence of Pelosi at a labor council function is a "tactical question." No, it is not. Tactical issues are whether or not to seek entry to the function and attempt to completely disrupt it. Tactical issues are whether or not to confront the police protecting Pelosi. Tactical issues are whether or not to retaliate when some goon decides to assault a member of the protest. Whether or not to protest a representative of the bourgeoisie who has been essential to maintaining the military, economic, and social policies of capitalism is not a tactical question-- it is a class question. And the answer to that question is clearly that it is always proper to protest the presence, the propaganda, of the talking heads of the ruling class, provided of course you think class has anything to do with the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the bailouts, the unemployment, the increasing poverty. If you do not, well go right ahead and complain about those who think that thing, called class, has everything to do with those things, called capitalism. From nmgoro at gmail.com Mon Nov 2 14:04:32 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:04:32 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] How the heck do you pronounce " "??? In-Reply-To: <8F21530B87AA46D9AACA1ED2C8203C8C@gx270> References: <8F21530B87AA46D9AACA1ED2C8203C8C@gx270> Message-ID: <4AEF4960.6030004@gmail.com> For a Spanish or Italian speaker, turning the "e" in Pareto an "ei", which is the way we write the "RAY" pronounciation, does not sound well. The "AY" should be substituted by something like the "e" in "pet". Not easy for English speakers, maybe. And life is too short. But that is more or less teh way it sounds. Same with Carchedi. Tom O'Lincoln escribi?: > I know some languages, but sometimes it's hard to be sure, because people > change countries and then change how they say their names. Anyway here are > my thoughts. > > Pareto (pah RAY toe?) Probably correct but don't most English speakers just > say "Pa-REE-to"? > Carchedi (car KAY dee?) Correct. > From jayclinton88 at yahoo.ie Mon Nov 2 15:28:23 2009 From: jayclinton88 at yahoo.ie (Jay Clinton) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 22:28:23 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party In-Reply-To: <2fa1449b0911021037s3c7b0330qb60bbc498e78cd55@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <718844.14818.qm@web24710.mail.ird.yahoo.com> As I said back when this was discussed, the "...overarching point that the 'antiwar' movement is held hostage? by its allegiance to Democrats, and in this example by its allegiance to presumed allies held hostage by Democrats, is valid." Watching the backs of wage slavers and imperial butchers is not a symptom of a functional left. --- On Mon, 2/11/09, Andrew Pollack wrote: From: Andrew Pollack Subject: Re: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party To: "jc" Date: Monday, 2 November, 2009, 6:37 PM The charges raised by these sectarians were already answered by Jeff Mackler, a copy of which was sent to this list and is still at: http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu/12813089.html On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 1:14 PM, Bonnie Weinstein wrote: > Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party > ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/jayclinton88%40yahoo.ie Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From poeticaleconomy at yahoo.com Mon Nov 2 15:45:25 2009 From: poeticaleconomy at yahoo.com (Max Clark) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 14:45:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism] '...in Haiti', selection from the new Zizek book Message-ID: <482401.78380.qm@web45005.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> I am violating Zizek's intellectual property rights here because I think what he has just written (below) in 'First as Tragedy, Then as Farce' is, as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle might say, mondo tubuloso dudes! I am reclaiming it as a "commons" therefore. I also consider it, among other things, the most outstanding critique of postcolonial studies I've read to date. It goes well beyond Aijaz Ahmad's critique of Edward Said, if only in renewing Marx's actual approach to the question. Also, there is a telling polemic concerning the "sans-papiers" which I will end with, considering I'm on a public library computer at the moment and my session is ending. My only criticism at the moment might be that "Zeez", as I now affectionately refer to him, messes up when he writes of a 'global capital which is inherently multiculturalist and tolerant.'?Nahh... really? --Max http://clarkmax.blogspot.com "...in Haiti All this, however, is still insufficient if we want to talk about communism. What then is missing here, in such Kantian enthusiasm? To approach the answer, one must turn to Hegel, who fully shared Kant's enthusiasm in his own description of the impact of the French Revolution: 'This was accordingly a glorious mental dawn. All thinking beings shared in the jubilation of the epoch. Emotions of a lofty character stirred men's minds at that time; a spiritual enthusiasm thrilled through the world, as if the reconciliation between the divine and the secular was now first accomplished.' But h added something crucial, implicitly at least. As Susan Buck-Morss has demonstrated in her essay 'Hegel and Haiti,' the successful slave uprising in Haiti, which resulted in the free Haitian republic, was the silent --and, for that reason, all the more effective-- point of reference for (or the absent Cause of) Hegel's dialectic of Master and Slave, first introduced in his Jena manuscripts and developed further in his Phenomenology og Spirit. Buck-Morss's simple statement 'there is no doubt that Hegel and Haiti belong together' concisely captures the explosive result of the short-circuit between these twon heterogeneous terms. 'Hegel and Haiti'--this is also, perhaps, the most succinct formula of communism. As Louis Sala-Molins has put it with acerbic brutality: 'European Enlightenment philosophers railed against slavery, except where it literally existed.' Although they complained that people were (metaphorically speaking) 'slaves' of the tyrannical royal powers, they ignored the literal slavery that was exploding in scale in the colonies, excusing it on culturalist-racist grounds. When, echoing the French Revolution, the black slaves in Haiti revolted in the name of the same principles of freedom, equality, and fraternity, this was 'the crucible, the trial by fire for the ideals of the French Enlightenment. And every European who was part of the bourgeois reading public knew it. "The eyes of the world are now on St. Domingo".' In Haiti, the unthinkable (for the European Enlightenment) took place: the Haitian Revolution 'entered history with the peculiar characteristic of being unthinkable even as it happened.' The ex-slaves of Haiti took the French revolutionary slogans more literally than did the French themselves: they ignored all the implicit qualifications which abounded in Enlightenment ideology (freedom--but only for rational 'mature' subjects, not for the wild immature barbarians who first had to undergo a long process of education in order to deserve freedom and equality...). This led to sublime 'communist' movements, like the one that occured when French soldiers (sent by Napoleon to suppress the rebellion and restore slavery) approached the black army of (self-)liberated slaves. When they heard an initially indistinct murmur coming from the black crowd, the soldiers at first assumed it must be some kind of tribal war chant' but as they came closer, they realized that the Haitians were singing the Marseillaise, and they started to wonder out loud whether they were not fighting on the wrong side. Events such as these enact universality as a political category. In them, as Buck-Morss put it, 'universal humanity is visible at the edges': 'rather than giving multiple, distinct cultures equal due, whereby people are recognized as part of humanity indirectly through the mediation of collective cultural identities, human universality emerges in the historical event at the point of rupture. It is in the discontinuities of history that people whose culture has been strained to the breaking point gave expression to a humanity that goes beyond cultural limits. And it is in our emphatic identification with this raw, free, and vulnerable state, that we have a chance of understanding what they say. Common humanity exists in spite of culture and its differences. A person's nonidentity with the collective allows for subterranean solidarities tha thave a chance of appealing to universal, moral sentiment, the source today of enthusiasm and hope.' Buck-Morss provides here a precise argument against the postmodern poetry of diversity: the latter masks the underlying sameness of the brutal violence enacted by culturally diverse cultures and regimes: 'Can we rest satisfied with the call for acknowledging 'multiple modernities,' with a politics of 'diversity', or 'multiversality,' when in fact the inhumanities of these multiplicities are often stikingly the same? But, one may ask, was the ex-slaves' singing of the Marseillaise ultimately not an index of colonialist subordination--even in their self-liberation, did not the Blacks have to follow the emancipatory model of the colonial metropolis? And is this not similar to the idea that contemporary opponents of US politics should be singing the Stars and Stripes? Surely the true revolutionary act would have been for the colonizers to sing the songs of the colonized? The mistake in this reproach is double. First, contrary to appearances, it is far more acceptable for the colonial power to see its own people singing others' (the colonized's) songs than songs which express their own identity--as a sign of toleratnce and patronizing respect, colonizers love to learn and sing the songs of the colonized... Second, and much more importantly, the message of the Haitian soldiers' Marseillaise was not 'You see, even we, the primitive blacks, are able to assimilate ourselves to your high culture and politics, to imitate it as a model!' but a much more precise one: 'in this battle, we are more French than you, the Frenchmen, are--we stand for the innermost consequences you were not able to assume.' Such a message cannot but be deeply unsettling for the colonizers--and it would certainly not be the message of those who, today, might sing the Stars and Stripes when confronting the US army. (Although, as a thought experiment, if we imagine a situation in which this could be the message, there would be nothing a priori problematic in doing so.) Once we fully integrate this message, we white Leftist men and women are free to leave behind the politically correct process of endless self-torturing guilt. Although Pascal Bruckner's critique of contemporary Left often approaches the absurd, this does not prevent him from occasionally generating pertinent insights--one cannot but agree with him when he detects in European politically correct self-flagellation an inverted form of clinging to one's superiority. Whenever the West is attacked, its first reaction is not aggressive defence but self-probing: what did we do to deserve it? We are ultimately to be blamed for the evils of the world; Third World catastrophes and terrorist violence are merely reactions to our crimes. THe positive form of the White Man's Burden (his responsibility for civilizing the colonized barbarians) is thus merely replaced by its negative form (the burden of the white man's guilt): if we can no longer be the benevolent masters of the Third World, we can at least be the privileged source of evil, patronizingly depriving others of responsibility for their fate (when a Third World country engages in terrible crimes, it is never fully its own responsibility, but always an after-effect of colonization: they are merely imitating what their colonial masters used to do, and so on): 'We need our miserabilist cliches about Africa, Asia, Latin America, in order to confirm the cliche of a predatory, deadly West. Our noisy stigmatizations only serve to mask the wounded self-love: we no longer make the law. Other cultures know it, and they continue to culpabilize us only to escape our judgments on them.' The West is thus caught in the typical superego predicament best rendered by Dostoyevsky's famous phrase from The Brothers Karamazov: 'Each of us is guilty before everyone for everyone, and I more than the others.' So the more the West confesses its crimes, the more it is made to feel culpable. This insight allows us also to detect a symmetric duplicity in the way certain Third World countries criticize the West: if the West's continuous self-excoriation functions as a desperate attempt to re-assert our superiority, the true reason why some in the Third World hate and reject the West lies not with the colonizing past and its continuing effects but with the self-critical spirit which the West has displayed in renouncing this past, with its implicit call to others to practise the same self-critical approach: 'The West is not detested for its real faults, but for its attempt to amend them, because it was one of the first to try to tear itself out of its own bestiality, inviting the rest of the world to follow it.' The Western legacy is effectively not just that of (post)colonial imperialist domination, but also that of the self-critical examination of the violence and exploitation of the West itself brought to the Third World. The French colonized Haiti, but the French Revolution also provided the ideological foundation for the rebellion which liberated the slaves and established an independent Haiti; the process of decolonization was set in motion when the colonized nations demanded for themselves the same rights that the West took for itself. In short, one should never forget that the West supplied the very standards by which it (and its critics) measures its own critical past. We are dealing here with the dialectic of form and content: when colonial countries demand independence and enact a 'return to roots,' the very form of this return (that of an independent nation-state) is Western. In its very defeat (losing the colonies), the West thus wins, by imposing its social form on the other. The lesson of Marx's two short 1853 articles on India ('The British Rule in India," "The Future Results of British Rule in India')--usually dismissed within postcolonial studies as embarrassing cases of Marx's 'Eurocentrism'--are today more relevant than ever. Marx concedes without qualification the brutality and exploitative hypocrisy of the British colonization of India, up to and including the systematic use of torture prohibited in the West but 'outsourced' to Indians (there really is nothing new under the sun--Guantanamos already existed in the midst of nineteenth-century British India): 'The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilization lies unveiled before our eyes, turning from its home, where it assumes respectable forms, to the colonies, where it goes naked.' All Marx adds is that: 'England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of his old world, with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindu, and separates Hindustan, ruled by Britain, from all its ancient traditions, and from the whole of its past history....England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindustan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfill its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? IF not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.' One should not dismiss the talk of the 'unconscious tool of history' as the expression of a naive teleology, of trust in the Cunning of Reason which makes even the vilest crimes instruments of progress--the point is simply that the British colonization of India created the conditions for the double liberation of India: from the constraints of its own tradition as well as from colonization itself. At a reception for Margaret Thatcher in 1985, the Chinese president applied to China Marx's statement about the role of British colonization in India: 'The British occupation has awakened China from its age-old sleep.' Far from signaling continuous self-abasement in front of the ex-colonial powers, statements like these express true 'post-postcolonialism,' namely, a mature independence: to admit the positive effect of colonization, one has to be really free and be able to leave behind its stigma. (And, symmetrically, rejecting self-blame, while fully and--why not-- proudly claiming one's emancipatory heritage, is a sine qua non for the renewal of the Left.) Someone who cannot be accused of softness towards the colonizers is Frantz Fanon: his thoughts on the emancipatory power of violence are an embarrassment for many politically correct postcolonial theorists. However, as a perspicuous thinker trained in psychoanalysis, he also, back in 1952m provided the most poignant expression of the refusal to capitalize on the guilt of the colonizers: 'I am a man, and what I have to recapture is the whole past of the world. I am not responsible solely for the slave revolt in Santo Domingo. Every time a man has contributed to the victory of the dignity of the spirit, every time a man has said no to an attempt to subjugate his fellows, I have felt solidarity with this act. In no way does my basic vocation have to be drawn from the past peoples of color. In no way do I have to dedicate myself to reviving a black civilization unjustly ignored. I will not make myself a man of the past....My black skin is not a repository for specific values....Haven't I got better things to do on this earth then avenge the Blacks of the seventeenth century?...I as a man of color do not have the right to hope that in the white man there will be a crystallization of guilt toward the passt of my race. I as a man of color do not have the right to seek ways of stamping down the pride of my former master. I have neither the right nor the duty to demand reparations for my subjugated ancestors. There is no black mission; there is no white burden. I do not want to be the victim of the Ruse of a black world....Am I going to try every means available to cause guilt to burden their souls?....I am not a slave to slavery that dehumanized my ancestors....it would be of enormous interest to discover a black literature or architecture from the third century before Christ. We would be overjoyed to learn of the existence of a correspondence between some black philosopher and Plato. But we can absolutely not see how this fact would change the lives of eight-year0old kids working in the cane fields of Martinique or Guadeloupe....I find myself in the world and I recognize that I have one right alone: That of demanding human behavior from the other.' Along the same lines, one should critically confront Sadri Khiari's acerbic dismissal of French Leftists' attempts to provide proper papers for the 'sans-papiers' ('illegal' immigrants): 'A White of the Left has a for the 'sans-papiers.' Undoubtedly because the latter doesn't exist at all. And because, in order to exist just a little bit, he is obliged to ask the Left for help. A sans-papiers doesn't exist at all because, in order to exists, he has to threaten to finish off his own existence. The proof that I exist, he says, is that I'm dying. And he stops feeding himself. And the Left sees in this a good reason to denounce the Right: 'Give him the papers so that he will feed himself and cease to exist!' Since, if he obtains the papers, he is no longer a sans-papier, and, if, as a sans-papier, he didn't exist at all, when he has the papers, he just does not exist, that's all. This is some progress.' The underlying logic is clear and convincing: the 'undocumented' immigrant worker has no legal status, so that, if he is noticed at all, it is as a dark external threat to our way of life; but once he gets his papers and his status is legalized, he again ceases to exist properly, since he becomes invisible in his specific situation. In a way, he becomes even more invisible once legalized: he is no longer a dark threat, but is fully normalized, drowned in the indistinct crowd of citizens. But what Khiari's dismissal nonetheless misses is how getting hold of 'papers' opens up the space for further political self-organization and activity. Once one has the 'papers,' a vast field of political mobilization and pressure is opened up which, since it now involves legitimate citizens of 'our' state, can no longer be dismissed as a dangerous menace from outside. Furthermore, when we talk about anti-immigration measures, about the different forms of immigrant exclusion, and so on, we should always bear in mind that anti-immigration politics is not directly linked to capitalism or the interests of capital...." Have to go now (too early), sorry! BUY THIS BOOK! From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 2 16:39:13 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:39:13 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] What is Maoism? Message-ID: <4AEF6DA1.2090106@panix.com> http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/dmello021109.html From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Mon Nov 2 16:52:34 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:52:34 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party, Message-ID: <4AEF70C2.5060306@gmail.com> There is the little matter of the maker of that motion failing to point out that the picket of this meeting was in fact the SFLC's Labor Day breakfast. A detail he only owned up to after being challenged and then admitting "he forgot". If you know the maker of the motion, his reputations is one of "smoke and mirrors". The majority of the people at the Coalition meeting were unaware that his was a SFLC event. We would be picketing the SFLC...in fact one of the groups the Coalition was seeking to bring INTO the coalition. I agree it's a tactical question which, if the motion had been presented honestly, which it was not, this would of been a non-event. But dishonestly turned this into a "huge decades long appearance of a debate" because of do-nothing liberal Alexander Cockburn lining up with one side of this conflict when he was totally abstenionist until fed the information by the maker of the motion. ...and here we are. David From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 2 17:44:28 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:44:28 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A call for clarity on Afghanistan Message-ID: <4AEF7CEC.1080903@panix.com> http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6542 From sartesian at earthlink.net Mon Nov 2 21:47:50 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 23:47:50 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party, References: <4AEF70C2.5060306@gmail.com> Message-ID: <081DCECFDBDC40B6A85B1ED91149C925@dmsthinkpad> So the coalition is trying to bring the SFLC into the coalition... and what happens when/if that happens and the SFLC then invites Pelosi to speak? What then? Who cares if it's a labor day breakfast? First, labor day is totally the creation of the bourgeoisie to divert the workers from international solidarity on May 1. Secondly, does this mean when Obama shows up in Detroit, at the invitation of the UAW, to speak at a labor day rally, no picketing allowed? Thirdly, has your "tactic" worked? Has the SFLC joined the coalition? Fourthly, if "tactically" refusing to confront the influence of the bourgeoisie over the labor movement is necessary for the coalition, then exactly how do you plan to confront the bourgeoisie? Or does the coalition intend no such thing? Does the coalition intend to refrain from assigning responsibility for the wars to all of capital's agents? ----- Original Message ----- From: "nada" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 6:52 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party, From adambrichmond at yahoo.com Mon Nov 2 22:05:46 2009 From: adambrichmond at yahoo.com (Adam Richmond) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 21:05:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party, In-Reply-To: <081DCECFDBDC40B6A85B1ED91149C925@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <33941.24038.qm@web112619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> The Coalition's leadership decided not to be hoodwinked into a blind alley confrontation with the San Francisco Labor Council. From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Tue Nov 3 06:07:26 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:07:26 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A call for clarity on Afghanistan, Message-ID: <66E1535BEE814672AB67975D5142A72D@office1pc> Louis Proyect submitted from Foreign Policy in Focus: How do we undo the damage we have subjected innocent Afghans to? Afghans themselves have the answers to that. Surveys have shown that a majority of Afghans want a complete disarmament of our warlord allies - essentially that the U.S. needs to take back the guns we put into the hands of the Northern Alliance and their private militias. Surveys have also shown that Afghans want war crimes tribunals to hold all the corrupt and criminal fundamentalists accountable in some sort of court, perhaps even the International Criminal Court (U.S. government officials shouldn't be exempt from this type of accountability either). With weapons, warlords, and U.S. troops gone, real democracy could potentially take root and pro-democracy forces could someday operate freely. The call for clarity is not quite met by this article, as this passage clearly demonstrates, although it makes many good points. How is the United States to "take back the guns we put into the hands of the Northern Alliance and their private militias." How is this to be done without a US occupation and war not against the Pashto Taliban but against the Tajik-led Northern Alliance? And why just the Northern Alliance and its allies? Disarming them won't disarm the Taliban. Or the Karzai army. Or warlords not associated with the Northern Alliance. And almost all the arms in the hands of Afghan groups come directly or indirectly from the United States. Then the United States, presumably while carrying out "immediate" withdrawal must capture all the "corrupt and criminal fundamentalists" and carry them off to the Hague, where they can join all the other bad people in the world who are supposed to be held and tried there. Almost all those imprisoned there are products of foreign occupation and war, particularly in the former Yugoslavia. Perhaps instead the US should carry out airstrikes or targeted killings against the all the "corrupt and criminal fundamentalists." Anyway this sounds like a formula not for the US ending the war, but for waging a different and even broader one to disarm some or all of the armed groups in the country and capture or kill their leaders. I think this is a product of the confused though brave and sincere politics of RAWA (Revolutionary Alliance of the Women of Afghanistan), which became known as a political force by its work in the refugee camps along the Pakistani border at the time of the US invasion. My impression is that this is a predominantly Pashto women's liberation organization. They may now have a stronger presence in Afghanistan as well. RAWA has always denounced US imperialism's crimes in Afghanistan including the 1981 invasion. But they have always presented US imperialism and "Islamic fundamentalism" as equal enemies. Hence the slogan, "No negotiations with fundamentalists." In my opinion, their denunciations of imperialist invasion and occupation have always tended to slide over into suggestions that imperialism should be fighting a war for RAWA's purposes rather than its own. This is, of course, not a realistic perspective. Malalai Joya, whom I heard at the opening session of the overall excellent ISO Northeast Conference, is much more firmly rooted in the experiences that have turned millions of Afghan women and men against the US occupation and war. Her stance for immediate withdrawal was truly unconditional. She avoided attacks on Afghan Muslims for being deeply religious ("fundamentalists") while dealing frankly with the crimes that the US, the Talibank, the government, and other warlord militias carry out against women. I hope her speech is reprinted soon in Socialist Worker, and issued as a pamphlet as well. Particularly because parts of her talk were unclear to me because of the unfamiliar accent and my hearing loss. Fred Feldman From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Nov 3 06:37:17 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:37:17 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] George Packer versus Mark Danner Message-ID: <4AF0320D.5000403@panix.com> These are a couple of first-class idiots. Danner is a professor at Bard College who I have found multiple occasions to lambaste over the years for his Serbophobia. His articles in the New York Review were cut from the same cloth as Christopher Hitchens, even as he has presented himself as a peace advocate second to none. He has been a guest on Democracy Now and other left venues. Packer, on the other hand, has been an imperialist mouthpiece in the Paul Berman mode for a number of years. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the war in Iraq until it turned sour. He clearly must resent Danner's attempts at making a career out of "tragedies" in the Third World warfare arenas, since this is something he regards as his own turf. Danner's most recent book "Stripping Bare the Body", a likely bad faith work staking out his dubious pacifism, received a hostile review by Packer in the NY Times Book Review: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/books/review/Packer-t.html As much of a gargoyle Packer is, I could not help but smiling at his rude treatment of Danner's pretensions: "Untethering his essayistic ambitions from ground-level journalism does not serve Danner well. A tendency toward inflated writing and overstatement starts to appear: there are too many self-?dramatizing turns of phrase, like ?The first time I was killed, or nearly so?; too many moments when the writer, confronted with a destroyed city or a bloody mess of dismembered bodies, finds George F. Kennan or Henry James coming to mind." You can get an idea about where this going next from the always witty and acerbic The Awl website: http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/insane-mark-danner-v-george-packer-nytbr-catfight-ahoy All in all, this promises to be a delightful spectacle in the vein of the one that took place between Ian Buruma and Paul Berman a year or so ago. Buruma, another Bard professor, is a disgusting Islamophobe but pretends to be in favor of tolerance, etc. When he wrote a nasty review of Berman's atrocious Islamophobic book, Berman lashed out at him. Here's an account of that feud: http://www.observer.com/2007/berman-and-buruma-face-new-york-review From proletariandan at gmail.com Tue Nov 3 07:14:56 2009 From: proletariandan at gmail.com (Dan Russell) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 08:14:56 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] A call for clarity on Afghanistan, In-Reply-To: <66E1535BEE814672AB67975D5142A72D@office1pc> References: <66E1535BEE814672AB67975D5142A72D@office1pc> Message-ID: <517f3cab0911030614j721047f9y7eac3eeecb58e8cc@mail.gmail.com> http://socialistworker.org/2009/11/03/no-nation-can-liberate-another From sabocat59 at gmail.com Tue Nov 3 07:34:22 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 09:34:22 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Coal Country Music: A Heartwood Project Message-ID: <6e42edf00911030634q55d5f717l6678b4309e3a6c7e@mail.gmail.com> http://www.coalcountrymusic.com/index.html From poeticaleconomy at yahoo.com Tue Nov 3 08:09:09 2009 From: poeticaleconomy at yahoo.com (Max Clark) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 07:09:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism] Cliffism in the Socialist Worker (US) Message-ID: <630609.63684.qm@web45004.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> http://socialistworker.org/2009/11/03/stalinism-and-eastern-europe The above, friends, is the state of the art of Cliffism in the U.S. I accept everything written in it. Respect to Phil Gasper, I talked briefly in person to him once. The ISO is, of course, productive of valuable intellectual commodities sometimes, although it devotes too little of its resources to research and "theory" (i.e. it wouldn't support mine), and although it is at root a capitalist media entity. Cliff deserves more scrutiny from the left. I admit to having barely scratched the surface of his corpus. Yet, nonetheless, I nominate him as the best (i.e. worst or least stylistic) stylist ever to have written in the English language. Reminds me almost of Artaud: it is like reading the smoke signals of someone burning themselves at the stake. Tortorous shite, in other words. Not a very "gay" science (wissenschaft) at all. Dreary. Extremely "necessary", or even "slavish" in its desire to be useful to the working-class. Decidedly not poetic then--not at all. Anti-poetics; if most certainly not anti-"poiesis" (labor). Also, the writings of an "exile" and, even, "oriental"--to use popular, or perhaps rather altogether excoriated, categories in post-Saidian literary criticism. Trotsky without Trotsky, without the ebullient verve of written language, among other things. Cliff's oratory, whose "audio" is thankfully preserved here and there, far and away surpasses his literature. Enough. The very best, Max http://clarkmax.blogspot.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi7IPz_8Oec From daynegoodwin at gmail.com Tue Nov 3 08:19:49 2009 From: daynegoodwin at gmail.com (Dayne Goodwin) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 08:19:49 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Paul LeBlanc: Why I Am Joining the ISO, In-Reply-To: <57b410090910310113o7daabf6bm71be18d957375397@mail.gmail.com> References: <57b410090910310113o7daabf6bm71be18d957375397@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 1:13 AM, dave riley wrote: > . . . > So this is also about changing the ISO as much as changing the rest of > the left. > . . . Amen, and... Paul LeBlanc deserves to have his light on a stand, not hidden under a basket - which i think is somewhat comparable to the difference in exposure he will have being an ISO member vs. being a member of Solidarity. an August, 2006 interview with Paul LeBlanc: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/yates280806.html LeBlanc: Reflections on the July 2008 Trotsky Legacy Conference From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Nov 3 08:27:09 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 10:27:09 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party, References: <33941.24038.qm@web112619.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: OK, and what have been the results from that tactical maneuver? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adam Richmond" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 12:05 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party, > The Coalition's leadership decided not to be hoodwinked into a blind alley > confrontation with the San Francisco Labor Council. From giobon at comcast.net Tue Nov 3 08:35:27 2009 From: giobon at comcast.net (Bonnie Weinstein) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 07:35:27 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] re Re: Labor In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Nov 2, 2009, at 3:57 PM, Duen De wrote: > you wrote at [Marxmail], "The Labor Council itself was never the > object of protest? > > But your leaflet says, "... acting mainly through the labor > bureaucrats running most of the unions...The leadership that would > foist upon the Labor Council and upon working people the policies > of the Democratic Party is a labor misleadership" > > It wasn't "the labor council itself" but the people who attended > REPRESENTING the labor council who were the object of your > protest. And it's not "the air force itself" but the people > REPRESENTING the air force who are dropping the bombs on > Afghanistan. How fucking stupid do you think I am? And how fucking > stupid are you? As a matter of fact, the leaflet was written after the protest had been undemocratically cancelled because it was a Labor Council event. And it is wholly untrue that no one knew about it being a Labor Council event. Several of the people in the coalition meetings were members of the labor council--they knew full well it was a Labor Council breakfast for Pelosi. And anyway, this could have been discussed and taken up at the meeting that took place the weekend before the Breakfast when there was no doubt that everyone was aware that it was sponsored by the Labor Council. But they did not want a democratic discussion to even take place. And, I'm sad to say, most of those in the coalition don't care about the blatant lack of democracy either in the coalition or in the antiwar movement as a whole. I can't blame them. No one knows what democracy even is any more--no one practices it. And it was a protest of Pelosi. And yes, if their support to the Democratic Party is to ever end, they--the bureaucracy that invited her (one, a member of the Executive Committee of the California Democratic Party)--must be called to terms for their continued support to the war mongers and corporate thieves that own them. And, no, we don't blame those that have been economically drafted and patriotically brainwashed into joining the military. We blame the commanders of capital--the Democrats and Republican warlords themselves--for the wars; for the economic draft and for brainwashing our youth. And, for the antiwar movement to be successful, it must be based upon the working class and their allies and that's what we get when tens- of-thousands participate in it because, that's who the majority are. Bonnie Weinstein From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Tue Nov 3 08:52:47 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:52:47 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party, Message-ID: <4AF051CF.9020504@gmail.com> First, picketing by..."whom" exactly? The Bay Area Labor Against War is the better or would be, the better grouping to do any such picketing or, if we did it RIGHT, a "lobby". Maybe. The issue, for me, isn't the target being SFLC's invitation to Pelosi to speak, rather but *who* is calling for such a picket. I think the Coalition doing this is probably, on the face of it, a mistake at that time. To wit... Secondly, If one is trying to bring the labor movement in to a united front, where the issue is the demands of the united front, then picketing the same group over the issue of the war is simply very self-defeating...tactically. If one doesn't care, fine, but if one does, then it's dumb. Thirdly, despite this, the SLFC did endorse but at his point it was a completely paper endorsement, due, no doubt in large part, because of the ill conceived picket. Some of the leaders of the LC did speak and show up, but overall zero resources were devoted to demonstration as far as I know. Fourthly, it would of been very easy for Bonnie to have given an exact number of the people who showed up at the "picket". About 12. Shows how important anti-war activists considered picketing Pelosi was. Fortunately, I suspect that because the picket as described by Bonnie was such a failure, it represented absolutely no 'threat' whatsoever to the SFLC and seen as such. If 100 people had shown up, perhaps the results would of been different. Fifthly, again, it was the fake way this picket was draw up. Involving no labor groups at all, no community organizations, no veterans groups, etc. The leaflet the ad-hoc group made up, as reprinted here, was fundamentally leftist rhetoric and not reflecting anything from the Coalition, Bonnie, yourself helped organize. When you state: "We blame the commanders of capital--the Democrats and Republican warlords themselves--for the wars; for the economic draft and for brainwashing our youth." This is the *position* of the Coalition? Really? I didn't know that. No wonder Oct 17 was such a failure. Let's *exclude* people who voted for, say, Pelosi? That'll show 'em. Lastly, the way the discussion unfolded, that no one who was on the SFLC said anything only shows that most, almost all the people at the meeting took a vote that was totally uninformed. I'll be honest, I'm not sure how I would of voted, but the coalition, as such, did the right thing withdrawing the picket *under those circumstances*. The idea that you are "only picketing Pelosi" and not the SFLC is absurd. Do you really think that is serious? That that is how it seen? Why do you think only a dozen people showed up??? From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Tue Nov 3 09:39:23 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:39:23 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] "No nation can liberate another": Malalai Joya on US war in Afghanistan Message-ID: <5E5EB6918AF147E6A06ED4EF284A6888@office1pc> Socialist Worker (current) No nation can liberate another November 3, 2009 Malalai Joya is known around the world as a courageous opponent of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, the corrupt regime presided over by President Hamid Karzai--and the Taliban and other conservative Islamist forces battling U.S. and Afghan government troops. An uncompromising fighter for women's rights, Joya was elected to parliament in 2005, where she denounced the presence of representatives who she called "warlords" and "war criminals." In 2007, she was suspended on the grounds that she had "insulted" fellow members. An international solidarity campaign has rallied support for her. Joya has been the target of assassination attempts and must travel in Afghanistan with armed bodyguards, wearing a burqa as a disguise. She has written a new book about her life, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice. As the first stop on a speaking tour of the U.S., Malalai Joya was the featured speaker on a panel discussion at the Northeast Socialist Conference in New York City on October 23. Introducing her were several American opponents of the U.S. war on Afghanistan, including Iraq Veterans Against the War member Mathis Chiroux. Here, we print edited excerpts from Joya's speech. An Afghan boy from the village of Aroki (Staff Sgt. Cherie A. Thurlby) GOOD EVENING, everyone. First of all, let me thank the International Socialist Organization, which invited me here and gave me this opportunity to talk about the ongoing disaster in my country, and about the activities of the so-called "war on terror" by the U.S. and NATO--which is not a war on terror, but a war on innocent civilians. And let me thank our dear brother Mathis. We are so proud of you, Mathis. I am short of words on behalf of my people to express my feeling to Mathis and the many Mathises and all of you who will not leave us alone in this disastrous situation. By your support, you give us more determination and courage, and hopes that will not sit silent. I will never forget the first time that I met Mathis--it gave me that much hope in the meantime. Like now, Mathis was talking, and I couldn't control my tears, because he was apologizing to me for the war crimes of the U.S. government. I said no, it is your government that must first of all apologize to democratic people like you, for deceiving you and sending you to war in my country. And not only in my country, but Iraq--and today, as one of our friends mentioned, what they are going to do in Pakistan by drone attacks. I said to Mathis that they first of all must apologize to you, the democratic people of United States, and especially to the troops, because they are the victims of a wrong policy of their government--they have been sent for a bad cause, for war. Democracy never comes by gun. Democracy never comes by cluster bomb. Democracy never comes by war. I hope that we will have more brothers like Mathis, who will stand up and refuse to go to war in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the United States occupies these two countries, and especially in my country, it is under the banner of woman rights and democracy. It is even worse than Iraq. Why? Because they brought into power a photocopy of the Taliban, with a mask of democracy, and a suit and tie. But do not believe it. They are still deceiving people around the world. They are responsible for the current disaster in Afghanistan. They are the foreign masters, the U.S. government and its allies in NATO. And now they are going to negotiate with the Taliban. I have a lot to say about the ongoing disaster in my country, and I can talk for hours about how much this means, the actions of Mathis and the many Mathises. Mathis, you said I am a hero, but you are our hero. We really love you, and my people hope one day that we will see you in my country--in a democratic Afghanistan. This is my dream for the future of Afghanistan. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THERE IS a famous saying: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Your international solidarity is key. As always, nations are separate from the policymakers. It is the governments that are committing these war crimes. They are betraying democracy, women's rights and human rights, and they are betraying the truth. The mainstream media is still trying to throw dust in the eyes of democrat people around the world. You know what your government is doing now? They have put a soft name on the Taliban, these terrorist people, to bring them into power as well. Mullah Omar--this fascist man, this dinosaur--is not in power, and neither is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, but they want to bring them into power to complete the circle of warlordism and drug lordism and terrorism in my country. The U.S. is occupying my country and making a military base there. They are not leaving my country because of their strategy and policies. They don't care about the wishes of my people--how much they are fed up by the situation. Now, my people are sandwiched between two powerful enemies. Democracy is the alternative for the future of Afghanistan. But there are still many risks for us. Those who tell the truth, those who stand and praise the war against injustice, insecurity and occupation receive death threats. They get killed or they have to leave Afghanistan. The first casualty is the truth. Let me say a few things about the role of troops first, since now Obama wants to surge with more troops in Afghanistan. His foreign policy is quite similar to the wrong policy of the Bush administration. It's even worse--according to officials statistics, even more civilians have been killed than during the same time period under Bush. The worst massacre in Afghanistan from September 11 to now happened during the presidency of Obama. In May, in Farah province, a bombing killed 150 civilians, most of them women and children. They were even using white phosphorus and cluster bombs. On September 9, a bombing in Kunduz province--you may have heard about this through the media--killed 200 civilians, and again, most of them women and children. Then, after all these crimes, White House says it apologizes, and Karzai's government--this puppet regime--says thank you. That's it. My people are so fed up that they want an end of the occupation--the end of this so-called war on terror--as soon as possible. As long as these troops are in Afghanistan, the worse the war will be. Through the mainstream media, they are telling you and democratic people around the world that civil war will happen if the U.S. withdraws, but nobody is talking about civil war today. Eight years ago, the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan under the banner of women's rights. Today, the situation for women--half of the population of the country--is hell in most of the provinces. Killing a woman is as easy as killing a horse. A few days before I come here, in Sar-e Pol province in the north of Afghanistan, a 5-year-old girl was kidnapped and killed. The rape of women and kidnapping and acid attacks--all of this violence is increasing rapidly, even at historical levels. And all of these crimes are happening in the name of democracy, women's rights and human rights. I'm saying that as long as these warlords are in power along with these occupation forces, there is no hope to make positive changes in the lives of the men and women of my country. It's not only women who are suffering. If I talked only about conditions for women, it would be all morning, but I wouldn't even be finished. All of this shocking news that the media never even gives to the people around the world. Women don't even have a human life. But today, women and men don't have liberation. Millions of Afghans suffer from injustice, insecurity, corruption, joblessness, etc. Your government says that it sent troops there so that girls can go to school, but according to official figures from the government, more than 600 schools have been closed. When the girls go to school, they throw acid on their faces. I think education is important--very important in my country. I always say that it's the key to our emancipation. But security is more important than food and water. They keep the situation dangerous like this so they can stay longer in Afghanistan because of their strategy and policies. To know more about the deep tragedy of Afghanistan, during these eight years, they changed my country to the capital of the center of drug trade. Today, 93 percent of opium produced in the world is from Afghanistan. The brother of Hamid Karzai, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is a famous drug trafficker, as the New York Times recently wrote. Through dirty business of opium, every year, $500 million goes into the pocket of Taliban alone. And since 2001, there has been a 4,500 percent increase in opium. If the U.S. government don't stop this wrong policy, the drugs will find their way onto streets of New York, and destroy the life of youth here as well. Another example of the catastrophic situation of my country is that a few days ago, the United Nations human development index ranked Afghanistan 181st out of 182 countries. This is a country where the government received $36 billion over the past years, according to official reports. Where did that money go? Into pockets of warlords and drug lords--these criminals and misogynists. Today, 18 million people of my country live on less $2 a day. Mothers in Herat and Ghor provinces are ready to sell their babies for $10 because they cannot feed them. And this is another example of many shocking examples that never made it to mainstream media. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MY PEOPLE are caught now between two powerful enemies, and they are being crushed. From the sky, the bombs of the occupation forces are falling, killing civilians. And on the ground, there is the Taliban, and also these warlords. So we have three kinds of enemies. But the withdrawal of one enemy--these U.S. occupation forces whose government sends them for war, and that also supports the corrupt mafia system of Hamid Karzai with more money and guys--will make it much easier to fight the enemies that are left. I promise I will never be tired as long as war is in Afghanistan as well as in other countries--what is going on in Iraq, in Burma, in Pakistan, in Palestine. The list can be longer. No nation can bring liberation to another nation. These are nations that can liberate themselves. The nations that pose themselves as liberators to others will lead them into slavery. What we have experienced in Afghanistan and in Iraq prove this point. If the U.S. and its allies let us have a little bit of space and peace, then we know what to do with our destiny. The people of Afghanistan don't want occupation. They need honest support, they need educational support, they need your powerful voice--which means, first of all, international solidarity against the warmongers of your government. Regarding Barack Obama, and the Nobel Peace Prize, they are giving the Peace Prize to the president of war--who is carrying out war in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in Pakistan, and is also supporting the criminal regime of Israel and what is going on today in Palestine. Many heroes and heroines are risking their lives and doing a lot for peace, but nobody knows their name. They must be nominated for the prize. I think the question for Obama is, so far after nine months, what did he do for piece that he received this Nobel Peace Prize? And in such a disastrous situation, they are talking about so-called democratic elections. I think you would agree with us that an election under the shadow of guns, warlordism, drug lordism, awful corruption and occupation forces has no legitimacy at all. There's a famous saying that it's not important who's voting, it's important who is counting. That's our problem. Some democrats ran for the election in Afghanistan, but all the ballot boxes are in the hands of mafia. They betrayed the vote of my people. Before the results of the election, people in my country discussed among each other that the result is like the same donkey--hopefully, I won't be insulting to donkeys--but with a new saddle. Everyone knows that winner of the election will be picked by the White House. There's a huge difference between the presidential election and the parliamentary and provincial elections. For the parliamentary election, we have some chance for democrats to run, and that is my message to my people. If a few of us are allowed, it's good to be in these national bodies to be a small voice of our people. As I experienced, in this parliament, I said it was worse than animals--that it's like a zoo. These criminals told me that I must apologize for this comment. I said that I must say apologize to the tanimals that I insult. Don't misunderstand--in our parliament, we have a few democrats, men and women. Unfortunately, you can count them very quickly, but it's good to be the voice of the people. But for the presidential election, we have one choice--the person who will be the next puppet. Do not be deceived with this melodrama of a so-called democratic election--I think it's the most ridiculous election anywhere in the world. They spent $250 million for the election while people do not have enough food to eat. Less than 10 percent of people participated in the election. And now they want to waste more money. That's why we believe that your government and NATO are wasting taxpayer money and the blood of your soldiers in Afghanistan by supporting such a terrorist. I gave only a few examples of the disastrous situation of my country. I'm saying that my people can liberate themselves. But we need your helping hand. As always, I again stress that we separate people from the -policy makers of their government. We are honored that we have the support of democratic-minded and peace-loving people in the U.S. But we need more of your solidarity and support for our country. Let me conclude my speech with a quote from Bertolt Brecht, who said that "Those who struggle may fail, but those who do not struggle have already failed." Thanks a lot for your solidarity and support. Transcription by Christine Darosa From christopher.hutch at gmail.com Tue Nov 3 09:57:48 2009 From: christopher.hutch at gmail.com (Christopher Hutchinson) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 11:57:48 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar movement, and the Democratic Party Message-ID: There are two issues at play here: 1. The democratic functioning of the SF anti-war coalition 2. A debate about whether it would have been proper to protest the capitalist politician at the labor breakfast if it was presented in an honest manner and everyone knew the facts First, whether to protest or not outside that function should have been decided in an open and honest democratic debate, I agree. Sadly, Zeltzer pre-empted that by deceiving the entire coalition in the way he presented it. It is sad that he didn?t have enough confidence in his motion to present it in an honest manner. The battle of ideas is not won by deception and manipulation, which unfortunately, this article by Seligman and Weinstein is continuing. Seligman and Weinstein write, ?While this cancellation did indeed garner the support of many of the coalition groups, the authors of this article, both activists in the Coalition and in the Bay Area antiwar movement, strongly opposed this reversal.? So they admit that the majority of groups in the coalition were against the demo once they found out what the true nature of it was. But the authors counter pose their own support for it and Zeltzer. 3 people against the majority of the coalition? This is Mackler's quote from his response to Cockburn and it could apply to anyone in the current debate: "Cockburn thinks it irrelevant that Zeltzer?s motion, approved unanimously (30-0) on August 15, failed to inform the meeting that the Pelosi protest was to be at a Labor Day breakfast sponsored by the San Francisco Labor Council or that our coalition was not to be merely an endorser of the protest, as Zeltzer originally moved, but the one and only sponsor. It was my view, shared by all of the above groups and virtually the entire coalition, minus Zeltzer, that the October 17 Antiwar Coalition had the right to know exactly whose event it was protesting." Although it may not have played out perfectly the alternative, support for an intentionally deceptive proposal is worse. In Mackler?s response, Zeltzer admits that he intentionally left out information, ?I did not mention that it [the Pelosi protest] was sponsored by the SF Labor Council *and should have* but I did not believe that this should make any difference since the protest was against Pelosi and not the SF Labor Council?. The fact that: a.) the majority of the coalition agreed the protest was a bad idea and b.) the proposal itself was duplicitous Should be enough evidence to diminish these accusations of undemocratic functioning. No one is trying to lay ground work for the Dems to co-opt the anti-war movement. The anti-war movement is trying to rebuild and it is just recently that we have seen the illusions in the Democratic party, after the elections, amongst working people start to crack. More and more students and workers are looking for answers other than then the Dems. (and if you don't believe me then your not out on streets and campuses selling newspapers and talking with people) The second part of this debate is a tactical question and should be opened for discusson. How do revolutionaries relate to labor in a time of relative isolation? Yes, it would be great to have protested Pelosi but to do so at a labor function with out the broad support of the movement is sectarian suicide. We need to keep labor organizations close because they have a membership that we so desperately need to reach. If we alienate ourselves from the leadership (which we already know is going to support the Dems) than the leadership will close us off from the rank and file. We need to make the reformist and conservative labor leaders show their true colors and we don't do that by having a mostly lefty coalition protest outside one of their functions. It was a tactical question not to protest outside the SFLC and I think a correct one. c. hutch From farmelantj at juno.com Tue Nov 3 10:29:24 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 17:29:24 GMT Subject: [Marxism] Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP Message-ID: <20091103.122924.28946.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/11/03/world/AP-EU-Obit-France-Levi-Strauss.html?_r=1 ____________________________________________________________ Instant Medical Insurance Get fast, free medical insurance quotes online now in 2 minutes. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=FECw22Y2HNu3sunMeYRdigAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAQAAAAFAAAAAPBMGj8AAAMlAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABgBgAAAAA= From giobon at comcast.net Tue Nov 3 11:00:00 2009 From: giobon at comcast.net (Bonnie Weinstein) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party, In-Reply-To: <4AF051CF.9020504@gmail.com> References: <4AF051CF.9020504@gmail.com> Message-ID: Dear all, It is ridiculous to claim that the labor council's "paper endorsement" was because of the Pelosi picket--their endorsements have always been paper endorsements. They have never mobilized their membership for any antiwar events--at least since these wars were started. They pass resolutions endorsing actions; they occasionally agree to speak on the platforms of rallies; but they don't ever mobilize their membership. In fact, we can't even blame them for that. Even if they tried, they have trained their membership to rely on these Democrats to satisfy their needs and they couldn't even get their own membership to turn out if they wanted to. That is the result of the Labor Bureaucracy's ongoing partnership with the Democratic Party. Do we see the organized labor movement protesting the war anywhere? (The exception being the ILWU on the West Coast that has lead many antiwar actions.) The labor movement's leadership isn't even protesting the giant assault on workers that the Democrats are carrying out right now! They have abandoned the demand for single-payer healthcare in the hopes of getting a "public option" that will do nothing but assure government-enforced profits for the insurance companies. They have all but given up on the Employee Free Choice Act--as weak as it is (it has a binding arbitration clause in case a contract can't be agreed upon.). They--the union bureaucracy--are capitulating to the bosses regularly. That's why organized labor only represents less than 12 percent of working people in this country now as opposed to 35 percent in the 1950s; and why working people have been losing so much economic ground; and why there are two and three and four-tiered contracts condemning our youth to poverty, the military and prison! The whole collapse of the labor movement can be attributed to it's bureaucratic leadership's all out support to the Democratic Party over the past 35 years and more. The antiwar movement welcomes all who are opposed to the war no matter what party affiliation they have--that is not a debate here. No one suggested banning people who voted for Pelosi or Obama. (Some of my best friends voted for Obama!) In no way does that mean we must lend support to the war parties they are fooled into voting for in order to get them involved in the peace movement! As for the number of pickets that did show up, around 12 or so, to the Pelosi Breakfast--come on, it was 7:30 AM on a Friday morning. No one ever proposed that this action would be a mass action. All such protests that take place on a weekday morning--even in the best of times and at the height of protests--are destined to be small. Workers have to work! And as for the numbers that turned out October 17, well, there hasn't been a significant demonstration for years mainly due to the "hope" that Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress will fix everything for us. And they're fixing it alright! They're fixing it to benefit the wealthy at the expense of working people! And, of course, another BIG reason for the low turnout could be that people are overwhelmed with their economic problems and NO feasible remedy has been suggested by the leadership of the labor movement except reliance on the Democratic Party as "friends of labor!" As the saying goes, with "friends" like those who needs enemies? Certainly labor's partnership with the Democrats hasn't made anything any better, has it? And this is why the antiwar movement must remain vigilantly independent of the Democratic and Republican Parties and yet continue to welcome all who oppose the war and who are for immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces and contractors NOW into it's United Front! In fact, the antiwar movement must remain independent of all political parties in order to appeal to everyone no matter what party they are currently voting for, or are in. This is a fundamental basis for a United Front. And one more thing, none of these objections to the Pelosi, Labor Council Breakfast can be applied to the Obama Democratic Party fundraising dinner, yet that event was also omitted and ignored by the Coalition "leader" Jeff Mackler. It was a clear and unanimous vote taken at the Coalition meeting to picket Obama at this Democratic Party Fundraising Dinner; and about one thousand pickets showed up and some who showed up were unable to get through police barricades to join the protest! (I was among a group of about 5 or 6 activists who couldn't get through the barricades that I know of, and I'm sure there were more.) And while many on the demonstration and who tried to get to the demonstration were part of the October 17 Coalition, the coalition itself had no official representation on the picket line. Mackler, supposedly the leader of this coalition, was not present at the demonstration even though coalition unanimously voted to endorse and participate in it; and, with the full knowledge that it was sponsored by the Democratic Party--war party number one; and it had nothing to do with the Labor Council--although I'm sure a few of the Labor Council leaders were at the dinner too! Oh! one more thing: just whose contradiction is it? The antiwar movement that wants to protest a leading warmonger no matter where she shows up? Or a Labor Council, that is supposed to be against the war; that has passed a multitude of resolutions against the war; has spoken at numerous antiwar demonstrations (without mobilizing it's membership, of course); yet who invite a leading pro war voting, pro war funding, pro bank bailout warmonger to breakfast to honor her at a Labor Day event? Who's contradiction is it? It is unconscionable that the official antiwar movement keep silent about this deadly contradiction of the labor bureaucracy. The antiwar movement must support labor struggles because the wars themselves are causing the hardship of all working people across the globe and especially those under the U.S. guns and drones and under the clandestine armies U.S. war dollars support in countries far and wide from Colombia to Africa and it's over 800 military bases around the world. We can't be silent when those who are supposed to be defending working people from the effects of these wars and banker bailouts continue to lend their political support and the dime of their membership to the warmongers themselves! As Carole Seligman said in an email debate within the coalition, "If the antiwar movement can't criticize the Labor Bureaucracy for honoring a war monger, who can? And, if not now? When?" In solidarity, Bonnie Weinstein From farmelantj at juno.com Tue Nov 3 11:42:28 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 18:42:28 GMT Subject: [Marxism] Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP Message-ID: <20091103.134228.13485.0@webmail21.vgs.untd.com> Claude L?vi-Strauss, Anthropologist, Dies at 100 By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN Published: November 3, 2009 Claude L?vi-Strauss, the French anthropologist who transformed Western understanding of what was once called ?primitive man,? died overnight between Saturday and Sunday. He was 100. [...] Mr. L?vi-Strauss?s ?structural? approach, seeking universals about the human mind, cut against that notion of anthropology. He did not try to determine the various purposes served by a society?s practices and rituals. He was never interested in the kind of fieldwork that anthropologists of a later generation, like Clifford Geertz, took on, closely observing and analyzing a society as if from the inside. (He began ?Tristes Tropiques? with the statement ?I hate traveling and explorers.?) [...] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/europe/04levistrauss.html?partner=rss&emc=rss ____________________________________________________________ Medical Insurance Quotes Compare medical insurance companies and save money now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=sf4AOZy7QrM_Y0hwrmhEBgAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAQAAAAFAAAAAPBMGj8AAAMlAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABJQNgAAAAA= From christopher.hutch at gmail.com Tue Nov 3 12:32:02 2009 From: christopher.hutch at gmail.com (Christopher Hutchinson) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 14:32:02 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party, In-Reply-To: References: <4AF051CF.9020504@gmail.com> Message-ID: My post starts with a quote from Comrade Weinstein?s post and then follows with my own thoughts and feelings on these very important issues. * * *Comrade Weinstein: ?In fact, we can't even blame them for that. Even if they tried, they have * *trained their membership to rely on these Democrats to satisfy* *their needs and they couldn't even get their own membership to turn* *out if they wanted to. That is the result of the Labor Bureaucracy's* *ongoing partnership with the Democratic Party.?* * * Me: I feel that the best direction this debate can head is toward a comradely Discussion about how Marxists can reach rank and file workers. *?The labor movement's leadership isn't even protesting the giant* *assault on workers that the Democrats are carrying out right now!* *They have abandoned the demand for single-payer healthcare in the* *hopes of getting a "public option" that will do nothing but assure* *government-enforced profits for the insurance companies. They have* *all but given up on the Employee Free Choice Act--as weak as it is* *(it has a binding arbitration clause in case a contract can't be* *agreed upon.). They--the union bureaucracy--are capitulating to the bosses* *regularly.?* * * I don?t think anyone can argue with these points they are as clear as can be But I would add that the labor bureaucracy has never been great and its always been a Struggle for rank and file workers to maintain an open and democratic organization And when they do, we have outcomes like 75 years ago in the Twin Cities, San Fran, And Toledo. The question is how do we get back to that point? Now matter which way we slice it there is no way we can force our ideas upon the labor movement. That is why we must keep up with our agitation and education. We will begin to find the one or two radical unionists who will come to forums, study groups and who will join our parties. These folks will become the next layer of leaders in the movement who can reach out to the broader layers of workers in the country. Otherwise we will be shouting from the sidelines, marginalized and dismissed by the larger population of working people. *?Who's contradiction is it? It is unconscionable that the official antiwar movement keep silent* * about this deadly contradiction of the labor bureaucracy.* *We can't be silent when those who are supposed to be defending* *working people from the effects of these wars and banker bailouts* *continue to lend their political support and the dime of their* *membership to the warmongers themselves!* *As Carole Seligman said in an email debate within the coalition, "If* *the antiwar movement can't criticize the Labor Bureaucracy for* *honoring a war monger, who can? And, if not now? When?"* * * No one is suggesting that we should remain silent but how does the author suggest we approach labor? Direct Action? Should we take over their meetings and demand the mic? Do we not allow labor officials to speak at rallies? How exactly are we to approach the rank and file. I understand the author?s reaction toward the treachery of the labor bureaucracy, but should we expect anything different? How did we do it in the past? How did socialists win the ranks of working people to build the mass movement? It happened by meeting them one on one and opening a dialogue not speaking at workers but with them, listening as much as talking. We need to be bringing the one and two new people we meet to these marches, educating them, organizing them, and winning them over to our politics, the politics of the united front, of the working class. Politics they can take back to their fellow workers and feel confident in expressing them in break rooms and over dinner after work. From tcod at hotmail.com Tue Nov 3 13:09:42 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 20:09:42 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] George Packer versus Mark Danner In-Reply-To: References: <4AF051CF.9020504@gmail.com> Message-ID: Yeah, and back in '05 Packer wrote a disgusting article in the New Yorker that in the form of a book review about the Spanish Civil War that used all the psuedo-trotskyist stock arguments and horror stories about the Stalinists in Spain to sanctimoniously shift the onus away from and essentially apologize for Franco as the lesser evil and to bad mouth Hemingway, Dos Passos and others who took a different stand as basically flip philistines, historical tourists or even Moscow agents. As the one writer who got in print in response to this (my own mini-tome not having made it) succinctly put it, Packer's views were "morally bankrupt" and I might add the kind of tripe that gave "New York Intellectuals" a bad name. His buddy and cothinker Sam Tannehaus wrote a similar piece in Vanity Fair a few months earlier. Tannenhaus, who is now the editor of the NYT book review, recently wrote a hagiography of Whittaker Chambers. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141665/direct/01/ From marvgandall at videotron.ca Tue Nov 3 14:33:39 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:33:39 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades Message-ID: <5C05582FDEFF40A4BE2318BF4F157085@MARV> Mother of all carry trades faces an inevitable bust By Nouriel Roubini Financial Times November 1 2009 Since March there has been a massive rally in all sorts of risky assets ? equities, oil, energy and commodity prices ? a narrowing of high-yield and high-grade credit spreads, and an even bigger rally in emerging market asset classes (their stocks, bonds and currencies). At the same time, the dollar has weakened sharply , while government bond yields have gently increased but stayed low and stable. The dollar and the sterling have weakened against a host of other currencies since the summer, promoting speculation that they could become the next carry trade currencies and supplant the yen as the ?funding currency? of choice. This recovery in risky assets is in part driven by better economic fundamentals. We avoided a near depression and financial sector meltdown with a massive monetary, fiscal stimulus and bank bail-outs. Whether the recovery is V-shaped, as consensus believes, or U-shaped and anaemic as I have argued, asset prices should be moving gradually higher. But while the US and global economy have begun a modest recovery, asset prices have gone through the roof since March in a major and synchronised rally. While asset prices were falling sharply in 2008, when the dollar was rallying, they have recovered sharply since March while the dollar is tanking. Risky asset prices have risen too much, too soon and too fast compared with macroeconomic fundamentals. So what is behind this massive rally? Certainly it has been helped by a wave of liquidity from near-zero interest rates and quantitative easing. But a more important factor fuelling this asset bubble is the weakness of the US dollar, driven by the mother of all carry trades. The US dollar has become the major funding currency of carry trades as the Fed has kept interest rates on hold and is expected to do so for a long time. Investors who are shorting the US dollar to buy on a highly leveraged basis higher-yielding assets and other global assets are not just borrowing at zero interest rates in dollar terms; they are borrowing at very negative interest rates ? as low as negative 10 or 20 per cent annualised ? as the fall in the US dollar leads to massive capital gains on short dollar positions. Let us sum up: traders are borrowing at negative 20 per cent rates to invest on a highly leveraged basis on a mass of risky global assets that are rising in price due to excess liquidity and a massive carry trade. Every investor who plays this risky game looks like a genius ? even if they are just riding a huge bubble financed by a large negative cost of borrowing ? as the total returns have been in the 50-70 per cent range since March. People?s sense of the value at risk (VAR) of their aggregate portfolios ought, instead, to have been increasing due to a rising correlation of the risks between different asset classes, all of which are driven by this common monetary policy and the carry trade. In effect, it has become one big common trade ? you short the dollar to buy any global risky assets. Yet, at the same time, the perceived riskiness of individual asset classes is declining as volatility is diminished due to the Fed?s policy of buying everything in sight ? witness its proposed $1,800bn (?1,000bn, ?1,200bn) purchase of Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities (bonds guaranteed by a government-sponsored enterprise such as Fannie Mae) and agency debt. By effectively reducing the volatility of individual asset classes, making them behave the same way, there is now little diversification across markets ? the VAR again looks low. So the combined effect of the Fed policy of a zero Fed funds rate, quantitative easing and massive purchase of long-term debt instruments is seemingly making the world safe ? for now ? for the mother of all carry trades and mother of all highly leveraged global asset bubbles. While this policy feeds the global asset bubble it is also feeding a new US asset bubble. Easy money, quantitative easing, credit easing and massive inflows of capital into the US via an accumulation of forex reserves by foreign central banks makes US fiscal deficits easier to fund and feeds the US equity and credit bubble. Finally, a weak dollar is good for US equities as it may lead to higher growth and makes the foreign currency profits of US corporations abroad greater in dollar terms. The reckless US policy that is feeding these carry trades is forcing other countries to follow its easy monetary policy. Near-zero policy rates and quantitative easing were already in place in the UK, eurozone, Japan, Sweden and other advanced economies, but the dollar weakness is making this global monetary easing worse. Central banks in Asia and Latin America are worried about dollar weakness and are aggressively intervening to stop excessive currency appreciation. This is keeping short-term rates lower than is desirable. Central banks may also be forced to lower interest rates through domestic open market operations. Some central banks, concerned about the hot money driving up their currencies, as in Brazil, are imposing controls on capital inflows. Either way, the carry trade bubble will get worse: if there is no forex intervention and foreign currencies appreciate, the negative borrowing cost of the carry trade becomes more negative. If intervention or open market operations control currency appreciation, the ensuing domestic monetary easing feeds an asset bubble in these economies. So the perfectly correlated bubble across all global asset classes gets bigger by the day. But one day this bubble will burst, leading to the biggest co-ordinated asset bust ever: if factors lead the dollar to reverse and suddenly appreciate ? as was seen in previous reversals, such as the yen-funded carry trade ? the leveraged carry trade will have to be suddenly closed as investors cover their dollar shorts. A stampede will occur as closing long leveraged risky asset positions across all asset classes funded by dollar shorts triggers a co-ordinated collapse of all those risky assets ? equities, commodities, emerging market asset classes and credit instruments. Why will these carry trades unravel? First, the dollar cannot fall to zero and at some point it will stabilise; when that happens the cost of borrowing in dollars will suddenly become zero, rather than highly negative, and the riskiness of a reversal of dollar movements would induce many to cover their shorts. Second, the Fed cannot suppress volatility forever ? its $1,800bn purchase plan will be over by next spring. Third, if US growth surprises on the upside in the third and fourth quarters, markets may start to expect a Fed tightening to come sooner, not later. Fourth, there could be a flight from risk prompted by fear of a double dip recession or geopolitical risks, such as a military confrontation between the US/Israel and Iran. As in 2008, when such a rise in risk aversion was associated with a sharp appreciation of the dollar, as investors sought the safety of US Treasuries, this renewed risk aversion would trigger a dollar rally at a time when huge short dollar positions will have to be closed. This unraveling may not occur for a while, as easy money and excessive global liquidity can push asset prices higher for a while. But the longer and bigger the carry trades and the larger the asset bubble, the bigger will be the ensuing asset bubble crash. The Fed and other policymakers seem unaware of the monster bubble they are creating. The longer they remain blind, the harder the markets will fall. The writer is a professor at New York University?s Stern School of Business and chairman of Roubini Global Economics From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Nov 3 15:00:00 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 17:00:00 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades References: <5C05582FDEFF40A4BE2318BF4F157085@MARV> Message-ID: <6E3083F025C84B6AB03BDEC20FE3DCC1@dmsthinkpad> Vintage Roubini-- "One day this bubble will burst...." "This unraveling may not occur for a while... but the longer... the bigger..." "other policymakers seem unaware of the monster bubble...." Sounds a bit biblical doesn't it? As if sooner or later, god is just going to get tired of all these shenanigans and raindown financial fire and brimstone on this bubblicious Eden. All of this "what to read while waiting for the world to end" stuff from Roubini is a bit tiresome, no? I mean any and all of us could have said in 2003-- "Sooner or later..." "the later, the bigger..." "bubble, double-bubble, and bazooka.." but the when and why then require a bit more specificity. MORE INTERESTING, however is the article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal regarding the increasing cash hoards of US corporations: "Stung by the financial crisis, companies are holding more cash -- and a greater percentage of assets in cash -- than at any time in the past 40 years. In the second quarter, the 500 largest nonfinancial U.S. firms, by total assets, held about $994 billion in cash and short-term investments, or 9.8% of their assets, according a Wall Street Journal analysis of corporate filings. That is up from $846 billion, or 7.9% of assets, a year earlier. The trend appears to have continued in the third quarter, despite an improving economy. Of those 500 companies, 248 have reported third-quarter cash holdings of 11.1% of assets" Now that's what I call interesting-- since 1) in the period from 1989-1999, the growth rate of cash holdings was much slower than the period 1999-2009. In fact, for industrial manufacturing, cash holdings as a percent of assets declined by almost half in the 1989-1999 period as real investment occurred. 2) the current numbers continue the trend of the post-2003 recovery, when companies amassed cash by strictly controlling costs and refraining from investment 3) the current growth occurs during a downturn when revenues have declined significantly. For example, Texas Instruments cash assets reported grew 42% from Janurary through September 2009 despite a 26% decline in revenues 4) a portion of the cash hoard is due to corporations taking advantage of all the liquidity sloshing around in the system to issue $548 billion in corporate bonds, which have been snapped up. Speaking of liquidity-- despite all the talk about the decline of the dollar, and the US Treasury being in hock to the Chinese, and dollar diversification and blah blah blah blah-- in the 3Q of 2009 the US Tsy issued $392 billion in debt was purchased without any significant concessions on yield, and the estimate for the 4Q is that 444.5 billion in new debt will be issued, and I bet China will be first in line to purchase that too. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marv Gandall" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 4:33 PM Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades Mother of all carry trades faces an inevitable bust By Nouriel Roubini Financial Times November 1 2009 From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Nov 3 15:09:05 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:09:05 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Girlfriend Experience Message-ID: <4AF0AA01.5090906@panix.com> Despite arriving with a lot less fanfare than ?The Informant!?, Steven Soderbergh?s ?The Girlfriend Experience? is a far better movie with a much sharper take on the dry rot that characterizes American capitalism in its senescence. Despite its no-name cast and mumblecore sensibility, ?The Girlfriend Experience? is dramatically gripping as it tells the story of a young and very attractive Manhattan couple who would fit into a ?Sex in the City? episode. Chris, the male, works as a trainer in an upscale health club and his girlfriend Christine?known to her clients as Chelsea?is a high-priced call girl. Both are creatures supremely adapted to commodity production, in her case the ultimate commodity of all?the human body. read full review: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/the-girlfriend-experience/ From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Nov 3 19:27:11 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:27:11 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] 72 percent of Hungarians say their economic situation was better under Communism Message-ID: <4AF0E67F.1090207@panix.com> Wall Street Journal, Nov. 4 2009 In Eastern Bloc, Wary View of Democracy By CHARLES FORELLE People who lived behind the Iron Curtain are substantially happier with life 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but express reservations about democracy, capitalism and their lot in the modern market economy, a new survey reports. Fewer than a third of Ukrainians approve of the change to multiparty democracy, according to a wide-ranging poll by the Pew Research Center. In Russia, a majority mourns the Soviet Union, and nearly half say there ought to be a Russian empire. In every former Soviet bloc country polled, fewer people now support the shift to capitalism than in 1991. Seventy-two percent of Hungarians say their economic situation was better under the Communists. The survey comes amid a financial crisis that is straining the adolescent market economies of the old Eastern bloc, and its findings reflect mixed -- and sometimes paradoxical -- attitudes in Russia and Eastern Europe. Overall, majorities -- albeit some slender ones -- in every country but Ukraine approve of the shift to democracy. Ethnic hostilities, while persistent, have generally declined, and majorities or pluralities in all countries except Hungary and Ukraine welcome capitalism. But significant worries remain about corruption, judicial fairness and the privileges of the rich and well-connected. Older people are far more wary of the new systems than their younger compatriots. In one paradox, most nations are generally more favorably disposed toward immigrants than in 1991 -- but also support tighter immigration controls. In spring 1991, amid the early, turbulent moments of the East's emergence from communism, Pew's predecessor, the Times Mirror Center, surveyed 12,569 people in nine countries (the U.K., Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain) and three Soviet republics (Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine). This fall, the Pew center returned to those places. In some ways, the Eastern countries have converged with Western ones. Opinions on the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are generally favorable everywhere except Hungary and the U.K., which are both sour on the EU. In other areas, a gap remains. Roughly twice as many people in the East disapprove of ethnic and religious diversity as do their counterparts in France, Spain, Germany and the U.K. (Italy, where 84% have an unfavorable view of Gypsies, is a Western exception.) In the former Eastern bloc, the financial crisis has amplified disparities: The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, which have weathered the turbulence relatively well, are most welcoming of democracy and capitalism. However, battered Hungary, Ukraine and Lithuania are still trying to claw their way back. Hungary is a notable outlier. Support for capitalism was 80% in 1991; it is now 46%. Recession has worsened discontent with the government. "What people think of capitalism and democracy is very strongly linked to what people think of the government," says M?rk Szab? of the Perspective Institute in Budapest. His firm's polls show more than half of Hungarians don't believe the government can handle the crisis. Hungarians' dismay with the market economy has been mounting for years, Mr. Szab? says, as it becomes clearer that promised social benefits can't be sustained. ?James Marson contributed to this article. From kenmor1968 at gmail.com Tue Nov 3 23:12:45 2009 From: kenmor1968 at gmail.com (Kenneth Morgan) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 22:12:45 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] San Francisco Labor Council Message-ID: Without getting involved in the merits of whether or not to picket Nancy Pelosi, at the SF Labor Council breakfast, not having set foot in that city for over 5 years, I remember quite a few contradictory actions by that labor council. I used to be a member of Local 6 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) which is in the Warehouse Division. U.S. Senator from California, Diane Feinstein became one of the most hated politicians, by members of the ILWU Longshore Division, for her support of Taft Hartley injunction against Longshoremen who were LOCKED OUT by management in 2002.. How did the San Francisco Labor Council respond? Shortly after she was the honored guest at a Labor Council breakfast! How did the leadership of the ILWU respond? With a silence so defeaning, that you could have heard a mouse pissing on cotton. Earlier that year, the SF Labor Council supported a resolution calling for Israel to leave the occupied territories. A month later, after clearing the hall of non-delegates (San Francisco labor council meetings are open to the public, or were anyway) this same labor council voted to rescind that very same resolution. For more see: http://www.labournet.net/world/0204/sflabcl2.html From ecosocialism at gmail.com Wed Nov 4 04:02:02 2009 From: ecosocialism at gmail.com (Ian Angus) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 06:02:02 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: The Trial of Thomas Hardy Message-ID: <733b65360911040302t897722ch693c54a526716d00@mail.gmail.com> SOCIALIST VOICE Marxist Perspectives for the 21st Century http://www.socialistvoice.ca November 4, 2009 THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HARDY: A FORGOTTEN CHAPTER IN THE WORKING CLASS FIGHT FOR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=725 By Ian Angus. Thomas Hardy is nearly forgotten today, but for decades workers and democrats in England celebrated November 5 as the anniversary of a major victory, a triumph over a powerful state that had deployed immense resources to crush working class organizations and suppress popular demands for democratic rights. ************************* Other recent articles: REVOLUTIONARIES AND BROAD LEFT PARTIES http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=721 THE CARIBBEAN AND LATIN AMERICA AT THE RENDEZVOUS OF HISTORY http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=717 HUGO BLANCO: INDIGENOUS PEOPLE ARE THE VANGUARD OF THE FIGHT TO SAVE THE EARTH http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=701 HOW TO REALLY FIGHT ANTI-SEMITISM http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=638 ************************* SOCIALIST VOICE Web: http://www.socialistvoice.ca Email: socialistvoice at sympatico.ca Editors: Ian Angus, Roger Annis, John Riddell Associate Editor: Mike Krebs Readers are encouraged to forward or distribute Socialist Voice as widely as possible. To subscribe, send a blank email to Socialist-Voice-subscribe at yahoogroups.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Socialist-Voice-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com FEEDBACK: Socialist Voice welcomes questions, comments and debate on the articles we publish. Please use the `Feedback' box at the bottom of each article on our website. LINK DOESN'T WORK? Some email programs block links to websites. If clicking on a link in Socialist Voice doesn't work, try holding down the CTRL key as you click, or copy the link address into your browser. From shmage at pipeline.com Wed Nov 4 06:47:49 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 08:47:49 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Fwd: NY Daily News: Gonzalez: The disgusted & disaffected References: <6023832.328591257341920366.JavaMail.appadm@nydndalapp04.nydailynews.com> Message-ID: > > > News | 11/04/2009 > Gonzalez: The disgusted & disaffected > Juan Gonzalez - News > The seven empty machines in the auditorium of Middle School 117X in > the South Bronx said all you needed to know about this year's > mayoral contest. > > > > > Shane Mage > This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it > always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, > kindling in measures and going out in measures." > > Herakleitos of Ephesos From marvgandall at videotron.ca Wed Nov 4 07:07:43 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:07:43 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades References: <5C05582FDEFF40A4BE2318BF4F157085@MARV> <6E3083F025C84B6AB03BDEC20FE3DCC1@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <6A1D25FFC1DD4DAF99F0202E270DA707@MARV> Artesian writes: > Speaking of liquidity-- despite all the talk about the decline of the > dollar, and the US Treasury being in hock to the Chinese, and dollar > diversification and blah blah blah blah-- in the 3Q of 2009 the US Tsy > issued $392 billion in debt was purchased without any significant > concessions on yield, and the estimate for the 4Q is that 444.5 billion in > new debt will be issued, and I bet China will be first in line to purchase > that too. ================================= Of course, because they are trying to diversify out of the dollar in an gradual and orderly way, without provoking a rout which would decimate their huge USD reserves. So they have to keep buying dollar-denominated Treasuries and other US securities to put a floor under the market and to contain the damage to their exports. But they are buying less of them relative to other currencies than before. Bloomberg reported last month that US assets comprised a record low 37% of all central bank purchases in the second quarter ("Dollar Reaches Breaking Point as Banks Shift Reserves", October 12, 2009). Historically, the dollar has accounted for two-thirds of reserve purchases. This week the Indian Reserve Bank bought 200 tons of gold for its reserves, also widely understood as a move away from the dollar, and other governments and private investors have been doing likewise. I wouldn't rule out that such diversification is conjuctural; the dollar has been dumped before and recovered without losing it's hegemony. But never in the context of a global financial crisis originating in the US, a soaring deficit, and a challenge from faster-growing economies on the periphery, notably China. So I'm persuaded that a secular shift is underway - the decline of the dollar registering the decline of the US as the world's sole hegemon. Such shifts don't happen overnight. Barring unforeseen catclysms, it will take years, probably decades, for the USD to lose it's dominant position, but I believe the process has begun, and that the world's bankers and politicians, including in the US, aren't just blowing smoke when they say global capitalism requires it. From sartesian at earthlink.net Wed Nov 4 08:08:02 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 10:08:02 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades References: <5C05582FDEFF40A4BE2318BF4F157085@MARV><6E3083F025C84B6AB03BDEC20FE3DCC1@dmsthinkpad> <6A1D25FFC1DD4DAF99F0202E270DA707@MARV> Message-ID: <70B2201696C1487BA50796CDAFB7ADA5@dmsthinkpad> The point of the argument, Marvin, about the carry trade, is that the "move" out of the dollar, the purchase of other assets, is based on using the dollar as an exchange medium-- taking advantage of zero, negative interest rates in the US to purchase other assets, as fears of the great implosion recede. This is also the reason why junk bonds, emerging market equities and debt have been so popular-- reduced fear of risk. So-- the so-called move away from the dollar is actually dollar dependent, and will be quickly, chaotically, and dramatically reversed once the commercial real estate bankruptcies in Europe, Asia, and the US really kick in, and/or the Fed makes a move to raise interest rates, or reduce support of the mortgage markets, or reduces/terminates its ABS collateral support vehicles. That's the background to Roubini's argument that you cited. You really can't have it both ways-- warnings about the imminent implosion of the dollar carry trade, and arguments about the decline of the dollar, and the shift away from the US to BRICs, EU, ALBA, CIS, Asian Tigers, whatever... But like I said, catastrophe theories are biblical in origin and function... and boring. As US corporations are pointing out once again, as the did in the 2001-2007, Wreckless Eric is the new/old Warren Buffett-- Take the K.A.S.H-- don't let them pay you in kind. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marv Gandall" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 9:07 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades From sartesian at earthlink.net Wed Nov 4 08:10:47 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 10:10:47 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Honduras References: Message-ID: Latest from the WSJ: "A Honduran legislative committee voted not to convene a special session of Congress to consider returning the country's ousted leader, in a move likely to dash chances of Manuel Zelaya's returning to power even temporarily under a deal brokered last week by the U.S. On Tuesday, a committee of 13 legislators voted to not convene the special session, opting instead to wait until Congress receives nonbinding legal opinions on the issue from Honduras's Supreme Court, attorney general's office and other institutions. It set no deadline for when the reports had to be received. The decision means a presidential election scheduled for Nov. 29 could take place before any vote on Mr. Zelaya. Even if Mr. Zelaya pulls out of the U.S.-brokered deal, the interim government appears to have the upper hand. In announcing the deal, the U.S. made clear that it would respect any decision by the Honduran Congress, and would recognize the November elections even if Congress blocks Mr. Zelaya's return. That may cause some friction with other countries in Latin America. Since the signing of the agreement, the Organization of American States and some Latin American countries have appeared to condition their support of the Honduran election on Mr. Zelaya's return to power. Under terms of last week's deal, Honduras's interim government and Mr. Zelaya agreed to let Congress decide on Mr. Zelaya's return and set up a government of national unity. In return, the U.S. promised to renew suspended aid to Honduras and recognize the legitimacy of the Nov. 29 presidential poll. Mr. Zelaya isn't on the ballot. While many interpreted the deal last week as a sign Mr. Zelaya would return to power, Honduran politicians appear in no mood to change their vote from June 28, when they overwhelmingly voted to replace the president. With the election little more than three weeks away, analysts say neither side wants to risk losing votes by reinstalling a controversial president. "Zelaya is the kiss of death," says Miguel Angel Calix, a Honduran political analyst. Honduras's rival political factions disagree on what the deal was meant to achieve. Mr. Zelaya says he will consider the deal broken if he isn't reinstated by Thursday. But the agreement itself offers no guarantee of reinstatement." ___________________ Doesn't read like a great victory for progressive peoples everywhere, does it? From marlavk at yahoo.com Wed Nov 4 08:38:41 2009 From: marlavk at yahoo.com (Marla Vijaya kumar) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 07:38:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism] 72 percent of Hungarians say their economic situation was better under.... Message-ID: <463290.11098.qm@web50010.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Quote: "People who lived behind the Iron Curtain are substantially happier with life 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but express reservations about democracy, capitalism and their lot in the modern market economy, a new survey reports." Response: I was in Erfurt, East Germany last month and I had discussed with a cross section of the people. Most of them expressed that they have nothing against the socialist idea, but are against the way it was implemented in former GDR. In the state of Thuringia, Die Linke had done well, confirming my perception. I had asked many people, whether they believe that if Die Linke comes to power in Germany, they will again go for old style government. The usual reply was in the negative, saying that they have also changed with the times. Ofcourse, a minority are against the very idea of socialism. But the report by WSJ is thoroughly doctored. What else can you expect!!! Vijaya Kumar Marla From marvgandall at videotron.ca Wed Nov 4 08:45:10 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:45:10 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades References: <5C05582FDEFF40A4BE2318BF4F157085@MARV> <6E3083F025C84B6AB03BDEC20FE3DCC1@dmsthinkpad> <6A1D25FFC1DD4DAF99F0202E270DA707@MARV> <70B2201696C1487BA50796CDAFB7ADA5@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <8A0B6E6BAF1149BBBA901FB3AE57ADBC@MARV> Artesian: > You really can't have it both ways-- warnings about the imminent > implosion > of the dollar carry trade, and arguments about the decline of the dollar, > and the shift away from the US to BRICs, EU, ALBA, CIS, Asian Tigers, > whatever... ====================== You can, if you distinguish between short and long term trends. From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Nov 4 08:50:17 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:50:17 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Malalai Joya interview Message-ID: <4AF1A2B9.9020902@panix.com> http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-04/afghans-bravest-wants-us-out/ Many Afghan women are against a U.S. pullout, but Malalai Joya, who?s been called ?the bravest woman in Afghanistan,? says the American occupation must end. She tells The Daily Beast?s Michelle Goldberg why. Malalai Joya, a 31-year-old activist and politician, was once called ?the bravest woman in Afghanistan? by the BBC. During the Taliban years, she defied her country?s rulers by running underground girls? schools. After the Taliban?s fall, she helped start an orphanage and a medical clinic, and eventually became the youngest member of Afghanistan?s legislature. She has been fearless in taking on the warlords who populate the government of Hamid Karzai?declared the presidential victor Monday after a runoff election was canceled?so much so that in 2007, her political opponents voted to suspend her from parliament on the grounds that she had ?insulted? the institution. Calling for her reinstatement, six female Nobel Peace Prize laureates compared her to Burma?s Aung San Suu Kyi, describing her as ?a model for women everywhere seeking to make the world more just.? The Afghan government is ?a group of warlords, criminals, who [waged the] civil war in Afghanistan from ?92 to ?96. They are photocopies of Taliban, but with suit and tie, talking about democracy.? So when Joya inveighs against the American occupation of her country, we should take her voice seriously. ?My message on behalf of my people to [the] great American people is that democracy never comes by barrel of gun, by cluster bomb, by war,? she told me during a recent interview in New York, her words rushing out in an impassioned torrent. ?They say war of Iraq is bad war, war of Afghanistan is good war, while both are war. You should raise your voice against the wrong policy of your government.? Joya is touring the United States to promote her new book, A Woman Among the Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice. The volume is both an autobiography and a damning indictment of the Karzai regime and its American backers. It offers a perspective that?s particularly salient right now, as the U.S. debates its future in Afghanistan. Many liberals are turning against the war, but worry that pulling out will abandon Afghans, particularly Afghan women, to the ravages of a Taliban takeover. They may be right?there are plenty of Afghan women speaking out strongly against a pullout. Still, Joya shows that the feminist case for staying in Afghanistan is far from clear-cut. Joya is barely 5 feet tall?she swims in her pantsuit?but her presence is arresting and authoritative. Educated largely in refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan, she never had the opportunity to go to college, but she?s a book-loving autodidact who quotes Bertholt Brecht as often as she cites Afghan proverbs. Her English is slightly broken but still impressive?she has a rich vocabulary of epithets to describe Afghanistan?s current government, which, she insists is no better than the Taliban regime it replaced. After Sept. 11, 2001, she says, when it was clear there would be war, liberal-minded Afghans harbored hopes that the United States and NATO would ?bring positive changes, especially [because] they came to Afghanistan under the banner of women?s rights, human rights, democracy.? Instead, she says, the U.S. and its allies ?replaced one fascist regime, Taliban, these misogynist terrorists, with another group of warlords, criminals, who [waged the] civil war in Afghanistan from ?92 to ?96. They are photocopies of Taliban, but with suit and tie, talking about democracy.? Joya rejects the argument that NATO troops are the only thing standing in the way of a Taliban takeover. In fact, she says, the widespread civilian deaths caused by American bombs are fueling the Taliban?s growing grassroots strength. Increasingly, she says, Afghans speculate that the United States is deliberately killing innocent civilians as revenge for the innocent American civilians killed on Sept. 11. ?We are between two powerful enemies,? she says. ?We are fighting against occupation, and also against Taliban and warlords who now negotiate with each other. So with the withdrawal of one enemy, these occupation forces whose government is giving more money and power to these terrorists? it?s much easier to fight against one enemy instead of two.? To be sure, Joya doesn?t speak for all Afghan women. Indeed, many Afghan women?s rights activists and their American supporters express terror at what would await them after an American withdrawal. The Afghan human-rights activist Wazhma Frogh recently wrote in The Washington Post, ?As an Afghan woman who for many years lived a life deprived of the most basic human rights, I find unbearable the thought of what will happen to the women of my country if it once again falls under the control of the insurgents and militants who now threaten it.? Women for Afghan Women, an NGO that runs counseling centers and domestic-violence shelters in Afghanistan, recently put out a statement saying, ?Women for Afghan Women deeply regrets having a position in favor of maintaining, even increasing troops? We predict that if Afghanistan falls again to the Taliban, we will once more see on our high-definition TV screens, in the comfort of our American homes, women and girls being hauled into the Kabul football stadium to be beaten and executed for having committed acts that would not be considered criminal by any international human-rights laws, including those signed by Afghanistan.? Sunita Viswanath, one of the board members of Women for Afghan Women, is immensely frustrated by those on the left who are calling for the occupation?s end. ?I want the answer to [this] question,? she says. ?What do they think will happen to women and girls?? Joya?s response is to argue that outside parts of Kabul, women?s situations are as bad as they ever were, and it?s getting worse. ?It is as catastrophic as it was under the domination of Taliban,? she says. ?Everyone, they are talking that when these troops leave Afghanistan, civil war will happen,? says Joya. ?Mainstream media especially try to put more dust in the eyes of the people around the world. But nobody wants to talk about today?s civil war.? The longer American troops stay, ?the worse civil war will be, because [the American] government [is] giving more money and more power to these warlords and also Taliban. That?s why, day by day, my people believe [that the U.S.] just waste their taxpayer money and the blood of their soldiers by supporting such a mafia corrupt system of Hamid Karzai.? Joya doesn?t want the world to forget about Afghanistan; she is desperate for more humanitarian and educational support. But she rejects entirely the notion that the American military can be a force for good, or a force for feminism. ?I believe that women?s rights is not a bunch of beautiful flowers that someone gives us,? she says. In her book, she writes, ?I feel confident that if foreign countries stop meddling in Afghanistan and if we are left free from occupation, then a strong progressive and democratic force will emerge.? That might seem terribly optimistic, even na?ve to most Americans. But if we think we?re fighting for women like her, we should at least listen when she begs us to stop. Michelle Goldberg is the author of The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World and Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism. She is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and her work has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, Glamour, and many other publications. From fentona at shaw.ca Wed Nov 4 08:58:11 2009 From: fentona at shaw.ca (Anthony Fenton) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 07:58:11 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] '...in Haiti', selection from the new Zizek book In-Reply-To: <482401.78380.qm@web45005.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> References: <482401.78380.qm@web45005.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Of related interest... ... CMT Conference: Haiti and the Politics of the Universal, March 12-13, 2010 The Centre for Modern Thought at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland) is pleased to announce a conference on the topic of Haiti and the Politics of the Universal Friday and Saturday, March 12-13, 2010 Since 1804, Haiti has named the founding, repressed, ?legitimate? violence of Western Modernity in its totality: both our spectral fantasies of slavery, revolutionary violence, and the ?failed state,? as well as the site of an eternally disavowed egalitarianism without compromise. After two centuries of neglect and disavowal, the Haitian Revolution has suddenly become a fundamental reference point for global emancipatory politics, a touchstone for critical philosophers such as Alain Badiou, Slavoj ?i?ek, Susan Buck-Morss, Peter Hallward, and Hardt and Negri. This conference will address this contemporary theoretical turn in Haitian Studies, discussing Haiti?s place in Atlantic Modernity and its central role in political history and theory since 1791. Topics will range from the world-historical significance of the Haitian Revolution to the place of Haiti in the global political order since 2004. The conference will bring together a mix of academic and activist speakers to discuss the broad historical, philosophical, and political implications of Haiti since 1791. Confirmed speakers include: Peter Hallward, Susan Buck-Morss, Bruno Bosteels, Alberto Moreiras, Kim Ives, Deborah Jenson, Patrick Elie, Chris Bongie, and Nick Nesbitt For more information, please contact Nick Nesbitt (n.nesbitt at abdn.ac.uk) http://abdn.ac.uk/modern/node/201 On 2-Nov-09, at 2:45 PM, Max Clark wrote: > "...in Haiti From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Nov 4 08:58:38 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:58:38 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Honduras: agreement or farce? Message-ID: <4AF1A4AE.70206@panix.com> http://www.marxist.com/honduras-agreement-or-farce.htm Honduras: agreement or farce? Written by Jorge Mart?n Wednesday, 04 November 2009 A lot of noise had been made about the so-called ?reinstatement of Zelaya?, but is that what is really happening. So far a lot of wheeling and dealing has taken place, but no concrete steps to put Zelaya back as the legitimate president. We will see in the coming days how real this agreement is. On Monday October 26, the negotiations between representatives of the legitimate president of Honduras, Mel Zelaya, and the regime of Micheletti, installed by the coup which removed Zelaya on June 28, had broken down. There was agreement on most of the points Zelaya?s delegates had raised earlier, bar one, that of Zelaya?s reinstatement as President. Coup-installed ?president? Micheletti boasted that he would only resign if Zelaya agreed not to take over. The arrival of a high level delegation from the United States, headed by US Assistant Secretary of State Tom Shannon changed all that. Micheletti, who had already received a phone call from Hillary Clinton, was told in no uncertain terms that the US would not recognise the November 29 elections called by the coup-regime unless a deal based on the San Jos? Accords was reached, including the reinstatement of Zelaya. As a matter of fact, as we have explained before, the terms of the San Jos? Accord were already extremely favourable for the coup plotters: a national unity government, general amnesty for the coup plotters, Zelaya giving up on his idea of convening of a Constituent Assembly and the reinstatement of Zelaya only for a couple of months until the January 28 hand over to a new government elected in a poll conducted by the same institutions which had carried out the coup against Zelaya. Why did Micheletti resiste signing such terms for such a long time? He rightly feared that bringing Zelaya back to power, even if gagged and bound hand and foot, would be seen as a victory for the resistance movement which the people had organised for four months. This was extremely dangerous, as it could even lead to a victory for a resistance-backed candidate in the elections. If elections were free and fair and the resistance stood united behind trade union leader Carlos H Reyes, they could win the presidency. Opinion polls also indicate strong support for the candidate of the leftist Democratic Unification party for the mayor of the capital Tegucigalpa. However, the oligarchy was clearly divided. While one side saw negotiations as a delaying tactic which in the end would force the ?international community? to recognise the result of their November 29 elections, another side feared that a massive boycott of those elections on the part of the people would make them illegitimate. Washington threatened to increase the pressure on the oligarchy (including their US bank accounts). It seems that in the end a secret deal was reached between Shannon and National Party candidate Pepe Lobo, although they strenuously deny they had even met. The deal was to refer Zelaya?s reinstatement back to Congress, where the votes of Zelaya?s supporters in the Liberal Party (now split between Zelayistas and supporters of the coup) added to those of Lobo?s National Party congress members would have a majority. In exchange Zelaya and the ?international community? would recognise the November 29 elections, which Lobo hopes to win (if necessary by resorting to fraud). Zelaya, who had been holed up in the Brazilian embassy for 5 weeks since he was smuggled back into the country on September 21, welcomed the signing of the agreement as a victory. ?It is a triumph for Honduran democracy?, he said, ?it signifies my return to power in the coming days, and peace for Honduras?. Police forces repressing a demonstration on October 7. Photo by G. Trucchi. A communiqu? by the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup also hailed the agreement as a victory for the people. Undoubtedly, had it not been for the heroic resistance of the workers, peasants and youth of Honduras for more than 4 months, the coup would have been consolidated and sooner or later recognised as legitimate by the international community. But we have to ask ourselves, what are the terms of the agreement, and, are these terms even going to be put into practice? The ?Tegucigalpa/San Jos? Accord?, as it is now known, contemplates the creation of a government of ?unity and national reconciliation?. In practice this means power sharing between the coup plotters and Zelaya supporters, a recipe for paralysis. Furthermore, the budget that this government will operate on will be one voted by Congress after the coup. The second point of the agreement rules out any ?direct or indirect? appeals for the convening of a Constituent Assembly, and any attempt to ?promote or support any popular consultation with the aim of reforming the constitution?. The immediate reason for the oligarchy to organise the coup was to prevent a popular consultation on the need to convene a Constituent Assembly. With this point inserted into the agreement, the reasons for the coup are vindicated. Point three deals with the recognition of the elections called by the coup-regime on November 29, and appeals to the people to participate in the elections. Point four states that the police and the army will be under the control of the Supreme Electoral Court for the purpose of organising and overseeing the elections for a period of one month before Election Day. Since elections are to be held on November 29, this means that the Armed Forces and the police will be outside of the control of the president. Point five deals with the question of the reinstatement of the president. What it actually says is that the negotiating commission, ?respectfully? asks National Congress, ?after consulting with the Supreme Court of Justice and other instances it considers appropriate?, to bring the Executive Power to the situation before June 28, until the end of its term of office on January 27. Therefore, the decision of restoring Zelaya to power is left in the hands of the same Congress which removed him, after consulting the Supreme Court which provided ?legitimacy? for his removal. What we have here is a situation where Zelaya makes all sorts of concessions, while his actual reinstatement is not even clearly stated! The agreement has a number of other points (particularly an appeal for the international community to recognise the elections and lift any sanctions) and ends with a point of thanks, stressing the role played by the Organisation of American States and US president Obama and US Secretary of State Clinton. But this agreement, as bad as it is, is not even the end of the saga. Congress is in fact suspended until after the elections, so it would have to call an emergency meeting in order to vote on reinstating Zelaya, who is still holed up in the Brazilian embassy. Meeting on Tuesday, November 3, Congress leaders voted to ? pass the parcel. They have asked for an opinion from the Supreme Court, the Attorney General and various other bodies on the question of Zelaya?s reinstatement before they take a decision. In the meantime Micheletti has interpreted the formation of a national unity government by November 5, in his own particular way. In a letter he has sent to Zelaya he has asked him to provide 10 names, from which members of the new government would be chosen, implying that he will be doing the choosing. So, from the point of view of Zelaya and the Resistance not much has changed. The legitimate president is still in precarious refuge at the Brazilian embassy, surrounded by riot police and the army. Police and the army continue to beat up peaceful resistance protestors. The coup plotters are still in power. Meanwhile, Washington is spinning the agreement as a victory for its diplomatic strategy, the oligarchy has come closer to getting international recognition for its elections on November 29, and Micheletti, the coup plotter, is still president. It is difficult to predict what will happen in the next few days and hours. Additional pressure from Washington might finally force the reinstatement of Zelaya (gagged, bound hand and foot and only for a couple of months). There could be more trickery on the part of the oligarchy to further delay his reinstatement. The only real way to break this deadlock would be for the masses to irrupt on the scene again and take the situation into their own hands. They can only trust in their own forces, no one else. From sartesian at earthlink.net Wed Nov 4 08:59:18 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 10:59:18 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades References: <5C05582FDEFF40A4BE2318BF4F157085@MARV><6E3083F025C84B6AB03BDEC20FE3DCC1@dmsthinkpad><6A1D25FFC1DD4DAF99F0202E270DA707@MARV><70B2201696C1487BA50796CDAFB7ADA5@dmsthinkpad> <8A0B6E6BAF1149BBBA901FB3AE57ADBC@MARV> Message-ID: <5179065325334345B266DDFD5F1A8DE5@dmsthinkpad> OK, can you give me a window on this "long term"? How long a term? How many years, give or take a decade? I mean I've been reading about peak oil ever since 1973-- so are we looking at what? another 40 or 50 years? Oh... and do you think this secular shift, sea change, will occur without one or two great depressions and a couple of big wars, because if I recall correctly that's what it took to take the pound off its perch and replace it with the dollar.. and let's be honest, China doesn't have the productivity of labor in agriculture and industry today in comparison to the US, that the US had in comparison to Great Britain in 1918... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marv Gandall" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 10:45 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades > Artesian: > >> You really can't have it both ways-- warnings about the imminent >> implosion >> of the dollar carry trade, and arguments about the decline of the dollar, >> and the shift away from the US to BRICs, EU, ALBA, CIS, Asian Tigers, >> whatever... > ====================== > You can, if you distinguish between short and long term trends. From marvgandall at videotron.ca Wed Nov 4 09:34:06 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:34:06 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades References: <5C05582FDEFF40A4BE2318BF4F157085@MARV> <6E3083F025C84B6AB03BDEC20FE3DCC1@dmsthinkpad> <6A1D25FFC1DD4DAF99F0202E270DA707@MARV> <70B2201696C1487BA50796CDAFB7ADA5@dmsthinkpad> <8A0B6E6BAF1149BBBA901FB3AE57ADBC@MARV> <5179065325334345B266DDFD5F1A8DE5@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <0C27362D8C6E46CDBEBFE64B2F4ABC54@MARV> Artesian writes: > OK, can you give me a window on this "long term"? How long a term? How > many > years, give or take a decade?...do you think this secular shift, > sea change, will occur without one or two great depressions and a couple > of > big wars... ======================================= No idea. We can only identify trends, understanding these are subject to interruption or reversal. From sartesian at earthlink.net Wed Nov 4 09:47:54 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 11:47:54 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades References: <5C05582FDEFF40A4BE2318BF4F157085@MARV><6E3083F025C84B6AB03BDEC20FE3DCC1@dmsthinkpad><6A1D25FFC1DD4DAF99F0202E270DA707@MARV><70B2201696C1487BA50796CDAFB7ADA5@dmsthinkpad><8A0B6E6BAF1149BBBA901FB3AE57ADBC@MARV><5179065325334345B266DDFD5F1A8DE5@dmsthinkpad> <0C27362D8C6E46CDBEBFE64B2F4ABC54@MARV> Message-ID: <3833B09D8FB8427ABE14F9B194953ABB@dmsthinkpad> Well, your trend seems to be based on 1 month of data from Bloomberg. Seems very short term to be a trend... And if you have no idea what it takes to make a possible trend the dominant, determining factor in capitalism... then you're not identifying, you're speculating. better things to do than speculate..... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marv Gandall" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 11:34 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades From donaloc at hotmail.com Wed Nov 4 09:57:55 2009 From: donaloc at hotmail.com (=?Windows-1252?B?RG9uYWwg0yBD82ZhaWdo?=) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 16:57:55 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades Message-ID: Maybe two interesting FT articles related to this... Gold extends record breaking run By Chris Flood Published: November 4 2009 11:46 Gold prices extended their record breaking run on Wednesday, pushing towards the $1,100 an ounce level, following Tuesday?s news that India?s central bank had bought 200 tonnes of bullion from the International Monetary Fund. Gold hit a record $1,093.65 a troy ounce, gaining 3.3 per cent since the news from India broke, and up 24.5 per cent this year. James Steel, precious metals analyst at HSBC noted that the IMF sale to India accounted for 40 per cent of the gold which could be sold this year under the new Central Bank Gold Agreement, removing with one fell swoop a substantial proportion of the bullion which other CBGA signatories can sell to the market over the next ten months. ?This move by India re-affirms the trend of official sector purchases for diversification purposes which would be positive for gold prices,? said Mr Steel. Eugen Weinberg of Commerzbank said the deal between India and the IMF was ?an indication that central banks from emerging economies are still willing to accumulate gold to diversify their currency reserves in spite of the current high prevailing gold price?. Mr Weinberg noted that news of India?s gold purchase had encouraged renewed interest among financial investors with holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the largest physically backed exchange traded fund, up 4.9 tonnes to 1,108.4 tonnes, the first increase in four weeks. Market talk has turned to the remaining 203 tonnes of gold which the IMF has decided to sell this year. China was widely considered as a potential buyer of the entire 403 tonne IMF tranche. The deal by India has raised expectations that China might do a similar off-market transaction but many other Asian central banks have seen substantial increases in their foreign exchange reserves this year and were seen as likely to be interested in buying gold for diversification purposes. Other precious metals prices followed gold higher with silver at $17.45 a troy ounce, up 6.2 per cent over the past two sessions but the reaction for platinum and palladium was more muted. Platinum reached $1,363.50, up 2.3 per cent over the past two sessions while palladium hit $331.50, up 3.1 per cent over the same two sessions. Crude oil prices made modest gains ahead of the latest US inventories data with Nymex December West Texas Intermediate up 54 cents to $80.14 a barrel while Brent crude added 35 cents at $78.46 a barrel. China current account surplus set to fall By Geoff Dyer in Beijing Published: November 4 2009 15:32 China?s current account surplus will fall by almost half this year, the World Bank predicted on Wednesday, potentially bolstering Beijing?s resistance to appeals expected from US President Barack Obama for renminbi appreciation. A rapidly falling surplus would signal that the stronger than expected recovery in recent months is bringing about some rebalancing of the Chinese economy. The World Bank, which also raised its forecast for Chinese growth this year, said the current account surplus was likely to drop from 9.8 per cent of gross domestic product last year to 5.6 per cent of GDP this year, and to 4.1 per cent in 2010. In absolute terms, the bank forecast the surplus would fall from $426bn in 2008 to $261bn this year and $213bn in 2010. At the peak of the surplus in 2007 ? when, some economists argue, a large imbalance in China?s favour contributed to the glut of liquidity in western financial markets that precipitated the global crisis ? the current account surplus was equivalent to 11 per cent of GDP. The new evidence of China?s declining external surplus comes ahead of Mr Obama?s first visit to Beijing in 10 days time when he is likely to encourage China to appreciate its currency to help global rebalancing. ?The reduction in the surplus is quite impressive but it is too early to say whether it will be sustained,? said Louis Kuijs, senior economist at the World Bank in Beijing. Some of the decrease simply reflected the fact that the Chinese economy was growing strongly while most of the rest of the world was weak, he said. However, he added, ?there have also been an accumulation of policy steps that are maybe beginning to start to shift the pattern of growth in China?. The World Bank, which in the past has urged China to adopt a stronger currency, said the renminbi had depreciated by 7.6 per cent overall against its main trading partners since March as a result of its informal peg to the US dollar. _________________________________________________________________ New Windows 7: Find the right PC for you. Learn more. http://windows.microsoft.com/shop From meisner at xs4all.nl Wed Nov 4 10:46:28 2009 From: meisner at xs4all.nl (Jeff) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:46:28 +0100 Subject: [Marxism] CIA agents found GUILTY in Italian court Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20091104184628.0495ea90@pop.xs4all.nl> (Now you all in the US just need to find these filth evading justice under the protection of Obama, and carry out a REALLY extraordinary rendition :-) http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/11/2009114164237350216.html Italy convicts CIA rendition agents An Italian judge has convicted 23 US secret agents over the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian imam from a Milan street in an extraordinary rendition by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The trial was the first in the world to centre on the agency's controversial programme, in which "terror" suspects are thought to have been transferred to countries known to practise torture. The case concerned the seizure of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, and his transfer to Egypt, where he claims he was tortured. All of the Americans were tried in absentia, with 22 sentenced to five years in jail and Robert Seldon Lady, the Milan CIA station chief, handed eight years in prison. The AFP news agency reported that two Italians were given three-year prison terms. Citing diplomatic immunity, Judge Oscar Magi told the Milan courtroom on Wednesday that he was acquitting three other Americans. Magi also dropped the case against Nicolo Pollari, the former head of Italy's Sismi military intelligence service, and his ex-deputy. 'Brutally tortured' Twenty-five CIA agents and a US air force colonel had been cited in the trial, which also involved seven Italian secret service officials. Abu Omar, an imam granted political asylum in Italy, was taken from a Milan street on February 17, 2003, in an operation allegedly co-ordinated by the CIA and SISMI. It is alleged that he was then taken to a US air force base in northeastern Italy, then flown to the US base in Ramstein, Germany, and on to Cairo. He was released after four years in prison without being charged, and currently lives in Egypt. Abu Omar told Human Rights Watch in 2007 that he was "hung up like a slaughtered sheep and given electrical shocks" during his time in Egypt. "I was brutally tortured and I could hear the screams of others who were tortured too," he told the organisation. His suspected captors failed to take many standard precautions and had spoken openly on mobile phones, leaving investigators to suspect that the US agents had cleared their intentions with senior Italian intelligence officials. Abu Omar's lawyer is requesting $14m in damages. From sartesian at earthlink.net Wed Nov 4 11:17:11 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 13:17:11 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades References: Message-ID: <37E6B6B96B3D4FBABBD5265286E3EB24@dmsthinkpad> Maybe, maybe not. I think the question to be put to those anticipating a big shift away from the US as the center of capitalist power-- is such a shift possible without global depression and war? And if not, what do they think, identify as the trend in China, India, Russia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Thailand, etc. etc. before depression and war erupt? I think I can identify a trend towards all-out class war-- a trend that hopefully pre-empts war and depression. In the meantime... in the meantime, I think as Marxists we would be better served by losing this fascination with gold as the "ultimate store of value," the universal equivalent, etc. etc. First, ever since the 19th century, there simply has not been enough bullion around to "float" the actual exchange values contained in the production of commodities. Now you might argue that then all the prices of those commodities should plummet, but we have an historical example of that plummeting-- in the "long deflation" generally from 1873-1892?96?, and that deflation in commodity prices had nothing to do with stores of gold or the "value of gold," but rather the transformation of capitalism from extensive appropriation of surplus value, i.e the aggrandizement of absolute surplus value, to intensive appropriation of surplus value, i.e the aggrandizement of relative surplus value through intensive application of machinery to commodity production. The gold fetish is the holdover, the nightmare of mercantilism from which the bourgeoisie have never completely emancipated themselves. Traders can make a lot of money trading, not owning, gold. All commodities are supposed to be trading platforms. Central banks don't make any money holding gold as a reserve, especially if, in the great secular shift to the "new industrializing economies of Asia," the demand is for liquidity, liquid assets, investable capital in production, rather than asset-backed securitization. So what's it mean, that India is buying gold? Several possible answers: 1) I don't know 2) they don't know 3) fear and greed [always a good answer when considering the actions of the bourgeoisie] 4) India anticipates another radical contraction in the global economy, and a dearth of demand for investing capital. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Donal ? C?faigh" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 11:57 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades Maybe two interesting FT articles related to this... From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Nov 4 11:44:40 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:44:40 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] =?windows-1252?q?How_the_Beatles_Destroyed_Rock_=91n=92?= =?windows-1252?q?_Roll?= Message-ID: <4AF1CB98.6050004@panix.com> From time to time, people question my right to blast a movie that I walk out of after 5 minutes, and occasionally refuse on principle to see. Well, this is a twist on that. I am going to recommend Elijah Wald?s new book ?How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ?n? Roll? without having read a word of it. How can I do something as outrageous as that, you ask? Okay, to start with Wald worked with folksinger Dave Van Ronk on ?The Mayor of MacDougal Street?, a book that really knocked me out when I read it as background research for an article on the folk music revival of the 50s and early 60s. That plus an interview with Nora Flaherty on WFUV that you can listen to in its entirety here convinces me that this is a book for anybody with an interest in American popular music and who enjoys a good read. read full review: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/how-the-beatles-destroyed-rock-%e2%80%98n%e2%80%99-roll/ From nchamah at gmail.com Wed Nov 4 11:44:43 2009 From: nchamah at gmail.com (Nchamah Miller) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:44:43 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] CANADA and Foreign Relations How many times must they spit at us before we fight back? Message-ID: http://latinascanada.blogspot.com/2009/11/canada-and-foreign-relations-how-m any.html Wednesday, November 4, 2009 CANADA and Foreign Relations How many times must they spit at us before we fight back? This week a network of solidarity groups had been making arrangements for presentations by a compa?era, a human rights activist, from Colombia and who would be speaking about the miscarriage of justice towards and deplorable conditions of political prisoners in the jails Colombia. True to form the Harper a la MacArthur stepped right in and denied this woman a visitor?s visa. We are aware that she is not the only person who has been denied a visitor?s visa, other Colombians and many brothers and sisters from the Palestinian struggle. We have to start keeping an account ? a historical record - to confront this government head on ? this is an abuse of power and a denial of freedom of speech. Does this not make Canadians born in Canada angry? Or is it just us born in different lands who come to find out that our ties with our countries are sabotaged and latently severed by the overt actions of a neo conservative government. Its time to do something about this - it is not acceptable and should not be just taken with a sigh. nchamah miller National Council for Latin American and Caribbean Women of Canada ? LATIN at S. From poeticaleconomy at yahoo.com Wed Nov 4 12:04:06 2009 From: poeticaleconomy at yahoo.com (Max Clark) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 11:04:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism] Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP Message-ID: <325114.50917.qm@web45011.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Sarkozy's eulogizing of Levi-Strauss is either some sadistic bufoonery or indicative of serious limits to Levi-Strauss' ouevre. I've only read the Nambikwara sections from Tristes Tropiques because Derrida critiqued them in Of Grammatology. Outside of that, all the seemingly difficult and infinitely varied, but lawful, intricacies of kinship patterns kind of intimidate me away from the rest of his works, although "Zeez" takes them up in a recent article on architecture. Also, I thought Piaget was the "father" of structuralism. Am I wrong in that? The very best, Max Clark http://clarkmax.blogspot.com From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Nov 4 12:06:44 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:06:44 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Dennis Perrin considers Ayn Rand Message-ID: <4AF1D0C4.3020600@panix.com> http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2009/11/atlas-insolvent.html From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Nov 4 12:31:17 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:31:17 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] On the Phiippines Message-ID: <4AF1D685.8010403@panix.com> Neoliberalism as Hegemonic Ideology in the Philippines by Walden Bello Paper delivered at the plenary session of the 2009 National Conference of the Philippine Sociological Society held at the PSSC Building on 16 October 2009 Why does the ideology of neoliberalism still exercise such influence in the Philippines despite the challenges it has faced from both the Asian and now global financial crisis? This paper seeks to shed light on how an ideology achieves hegemony, how this hegemony is maintained, and what happens when the claims of an ideology are contradicted by reality. I will use neoliberalism in the Philippines as a case study. Neoliberalism is a perspective that champions the market as the prime regulator of economic activity and seeks to limit the intervention of the state in economic life to a minimum. Neoliberalism in recent times has become identified with economics, given its hegemony as a paradigm within the discipline, that is, its excluding of other perspectives as legitimate ways of doing economics. Since economics is regarded in many quarters as a hard science, much like physics -- being, for instance, the only social science for which there is a Nobel Prize -- neoliberalism has had a tremendous and pervasive influence not only in academic circles but in policy circles as well. While the University of Chicago became the font of academic wisdom, in technocratic circles the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were seen as the key institutions that translated this theory into policy, to a set of practical prescriptions that were applicable to all economies. It is often surprising to realize how relatively recently neoliberalism has become a hegemonic paradigm. As late as the latter half of the 1970s, Keynesian economics, which promoted a good dose of state intervention as necessary for stability and steady growth, was the orthodoxy. In what used to be known as the Third World, developmentalism, which specified Keynesian economics to economies that were still insufficiently penetrated and transformed by capitalism, was the dominant approach. There was a conservative brand of developmentalism and there was a progressive one, but both saw the state, rather than the market, as the central mechanism of development. In the Philippines, neoliberalism first came in the form of the structural adjustment program imposed by the World Bank in the early 1980s, in the latter's effort to strengthen the economy's capacity to service its massive external debt. Structural adjustment helped trigger the economic crisis of the early 1980s, its contractionary effects being magnified by the onset of the global recession.1 The crisis was the country's worst since the Second World War, but the role of neoliberal economics in precipitating it was shrouded by its coinciding with the deep political crisis triggered by the Aquino assassination in August 1983. To most Filipinos, Marcos was the cause of both crises. full: http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/bello051109.html --- Harper's, Nov. 2009 New Books By Benjamin Moser Nowhere is the national forgetfulness as complete as it is with regards to our involvement in the Philippines at the turn of the twentieth century, a long and bloody colonial war that, Alfred W. McCoy insists in POLICING AMERICA?S EMPIRE: THE UNITED STATES, THE PHILIPPINES, AND THE RISE OF THE SURVEILLANCE STATE (Wisconsin, $29.95), would have enduring consequences for both nations. ?The few American observers who crossed the Pacific were often surprised to discover a police state quite unlike anything back home,? McCoy writes of the government that emerged once the United States?whom the Filipinos first saw as allies in their long struggle to free themselves from Spain?crushed the nationalist rebellion, which erupted when the Filipinos realized that the Americans were intent on replacing one foreign occupation with another. McCoy focuses on the principal institution of the American occupation?the police, and the ultramodern methods they deployed to gather and collect data: a ?colonial panopticon.? From Manila to Baghdad, the American empire, he argues, has always relied on coercion and a carefully dribbled dosage of scandal to keep the local elites in line, and it is the control of information?not the ?water cure? for torturing dissidents, nor the mouthings-off of the inevitable racists, nor the use of empire to strengthen domestic political and commercial interests?that is the real hallmark of America?s overseas adventures. McCoy traces the decay of civil liberties back home, including the internment of Japanese Americans and the Hollywood blacklists of the McCarthy era, to their origins in the Philippines. From tcod at hotmail.com Wed Nov 4 12:53:50 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 19:53:50 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP In-Reply-To: <325114.50917.qm@web45011.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> References: <325114.50917.qm@web45011.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Yeah, but I got a kick out of the part where he or one of his ilk referred to dialectical materialism as the marxists' "meta-narrative". _________________________________________________________________ Windows 7: Unclutter your desktop. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9690331&ocid=PID24727::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WWL_WIN_evergreen:112009 From tcod at hotmail.com Wed Nov 4 12:56:58 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 19:56:58 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades In-Reply-To: <8A0B6E6BAF1149BBBA901FB3AE57ADBC@MARV> References: <5C05582FDEFF40A4BE2318BF4F157085@MARV> <6E3083F025C84B6AB03BDEC20FE3DCC1@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: what's "carry trade"? _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft's powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Nov 4 13:15:51 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:15:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Latest from William Blum Message-ID: <4AF1E0F7.4070403@panix.com> Anti-Empire Report, November 4, 2009 http://www.killinghope.org/bblum6/aer75.html From invisibleman_24 at yahoo.com Wed Nov 4 13:48:38 2009 From: invisibleman_24 at yahoo.com (Adrian Bankhead) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 12:48:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <801616.85712.qm@web36107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> here's an explanation of the carry trade from Max Keiser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=JjglR2KYz5o --- On Wed, 4/11/09, Tom Cod wrote: > From: Tom Cod > Subject: Re: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades > To: "Adrian Bankhead" > Date: Wednesday, 4 November, 2009, 11:56 AM > > what's "carry trade"? > > > ??? > ???????? > ?????? ??? > ? > _________________________________________________________________ > Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft's powerful SPAM > protection. > http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ > http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a > message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/invisibleman_24%40yahoo.com > From sartesian at earthlink.net Wed Nov 4 13:52:22 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 15:52:22 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The mother of all carry trades References: <5C05582FDEFF40A4BE2318BF4F157085@MARV><6E3083F025C84B6AB03BDEC20FE3DCC1@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Nov 4 14:01:17 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:01:17 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Did Honduras deal weaken Zelaya? Message-ID: <4AF1EB9D.8070300@panix.com> from the November 03, 2009 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1104/p06s04-woam.html Did Honduras deal weaken Zelaya? What first seemed like a victory for ousted President Manuel Zelaya could become a setback for him depending on what ? and when ? the Honduran Congress decides. By Sara Miller Llana | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Mexico City When ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya and his successor, Roberto Micheletti, signed a deal last week to resolve the crisis that has crippled the Central American nation for four months, Mr. Zelaya was jubilant. He told his supporters he expected to be back in office in a week's time. But as the Honduran Congress, now the ultimate arbiter, prepares to decide whether that will indeed be the case the political waters are in many ways murkier than they have been since Zelaya was toppled on June 28. What first seemed like a victory for Zelaya and the diplomats who secured the deal could become a setback. "Everyone was congratulating the victory of diplomacy on Friday," says Miguel Calix, a political analyst in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. "If you read the deal carefully, Zelaya is weaker now than he was a week ago; the deal does not ensure that Zelaya will be president again." Under the terms of the agreement, which works off of an earlier proposal by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and brokered last week by US diplomat Thomas Shannon, a national unity government and truth commission are to be formed while the international community is asked to reverse suspensions in aid and recognize the Nov. 29 electoral process. But Zelaya's return to office is complicated and far from certain ? for now. Under the terms of last week's deal, Zelaya can return to office only if Congress approves. There is no timeline for Congress to vote, even though presidential elections are less than four weeks away. Here are two scenarios for the days to come: ? Congress could vote to restore Zelaya to the presidency. This is the scenario that the international community has been demanding all along ? threatening not to recognize Nov. 29 elections if Zelaya is not restored. It would be a diplomatic coup for the US, who got both sides to the negotiating table after talks stalled for months. However, the Honduran Congress backed Zelaya's ouster. Though the presidential contenders may broker a deal for Zelaya's return so that elections are recognized and aid restored, many lawmakers remain firmly opposed to Zelaya, who they accuse of trying to alter the Constitution to scrap presidential term limits. Zelaya denies this. And his supporters say they fear that Congress won't solve the issue quickly. "They are already showing signs of stalling," says Omar Rivera, a member of Zelaya's former government. On Monday Jos? Alfredo Saavedra, who heads the Honduran Congress, said that he had not yet decided when legislators will be called back into session, despite demands from diplomats not to delay the vote. Mr. Rivera says Congress could wait until after elections to make a decision. "If they do delay, there will be problems," says Rivera, who adds that Zelaya will not recognize a national unity government to be set up this week if a decision on his return is not first reached. ? Congress could reject Zelaya's return to office. Many observers are wondering how the US, which has hailed the deal as an "historic agreement," will react if Zelaya is not voted back into power or if Honduran lawmakers stall. For now, they have put their support behind the electoral process. Victor Rico, political affairs secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS), told the Associated Press that "the United States and the OAS will accompany Honduras in the elections." Recognition of elections is a relief to many Hondurans, and for many observers it's the key to moving past the political crisis. "[The deal] provides a path forward so that preparations for the election can get underway in a very serious way," says Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, a consultant group based in New York. "What this does is it legitimizes the election. ? I think that continues to be the key." But focusing on the election as the way out of the political crisis is not a solution in the eyes of Zelaya supporters, who will likely intensify their street protests if Zelaya is not restored to office. Many say that the US gains by being able to recognize the vote. "But we feel cheated by the US," says Rivera. "They do not care about the reinstatement of Zelaya, they just care about the elections." While Honduras is dependent on the US more than many other nations, it still remains unclear how the world community will react if Congress does not vote to reinstate Zelaya. If Zelaya is not reinstated, says Kevin Casas-Zamora, the former vice president of Costa Rica and now at the Brookings Institution, "you have no reversal of a coup d'etat," he says. He says that the world community would likely reject that scenario. "The issue will become all the more complicated," he says. "The champagne corks popped out too early." From kirazj at gmail.com Wed Nov 4 14:01:53 2009 From: kirazj at gmail.com (Kiraz Janicke) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 17:01:53 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Peruvian govt launches massive attack on indigenous organisations Message-ID: <21f111ae0911041301o1f221478ya515cd554dadb7a0@mail.gmail.com> Hi All,the Peruvian government has launched a massive attack on indigenous peoples through a request to dissolve the Amazon Interethnic Development Association of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), this is Peru's largest and most representative indigenous organisation, which groups numerous regional organisations, representing 65 different ethnic groups and has lead the struggle against the Garcia governments neoliberal decrees (which are part of the US Free Trade Agreement) aimed at opening up huge swathes of the Amazon to exploitation by transnational, logging, mining and oil companies. Since the indigneous uprising in Bagua in which an unknown number of indigneous people were massacred by Peruvian police, the leaders of AIDESEP have been facing political persecution, some have been arrested, and its president Alberto Pizango has been forced to flee the country and seek asylum in Nicaragua. Please find a statement below by Andean and Amazonian peoples protesting the governmentts attempts to dissolve their organisation. regards, Kiraz Peru: Pronouncement by the Andean and Amazonian Peoples For our rights and in defence of organizational autonomy Against the request by the Public Prosecutor of the Ministry of Justice to order the dissolution of the national organization of indigenous peoples that make up the Amazon Interethnic Development Association of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), the community organizations and indigenous peoples of Peru, and various civil society organizations, express the following: 1 .- That continuing with its policy of silencing the organizations representing indigenous peoples, the government through the Public Prosecutor, Ministry of Justice has requested the dissolution of the Interethnic Association for Development of the Peruvian Jungle, (AIDESEP), as notified October 15, 2009, by the 37th Criminal Court of Lima. This act corresponds to the interests of ending the representative organizations of indigenous peoples and communities and at the same time aims to sharpen social discontent promoting new processes of mobilization and uprisings, in order to later blame others. 2 .- Once again the government implements its policy of double standards, because on one hand it announces the installation of spaces for dialogue with indigenous organizations and the other seeks to dismantle the organizations that have spoken out against the unconsultative application of a series of public policies and legal measures that undermine our legitimate rights to self determination, land, consultation and others. This shows it is putting economic interests, before our rights as indigenous peoples. 3 .- We denounce this practice that is not unique to the incumbent government, but habitual of the regimes in recent decades. It seeks to silence and destroy existing organizations or generate other parallel entitites using individuals or organizations that lack representation and legitimacy, this and other situations have led to a series of recommendations by international agencies that monitor compliance with treaties and Conventions as in the case of CERD, CEACR-ILO, High Commissioner of United Nations and others. Given this situation we declare: We recognize AIDESEP in its condition as a territorial organization representing the indigenous Amazon people, with input and suggestions in defense of our rights as peoples during its years of existence. We also support its regional and community based organizations in the face of this attempt at dissolution by the current government. We reaffirm that their existence as distinct peoples is not subject to the will of the state and as such their organizational autonomy and institutional force must be respected. We reaffirm the just and legitimate defense of our rights as indigenous peoples and communities, as are recognized by the Constitution, international conventions and treaties. We reject the discriminatory state policy, which aims to interrupt the process of dialogue between the State and the legitimately elected representatives of Amazon Indigenous Peoples, which emerged after the events of Bagua. This should express and give effect to the agreements reached in the communities of the central and northern jungle. We demand the cessation of hostilities against the national indigenous organization AIDESEP and its leaders. There must be a waiver of claims against it and filing of complaints for acts that were not generated by the organization but were generated by unwise public policy and the denial of the existence of indigenous peoples by the current government. We demand the establishment of a horizontal dialogue process in good faith and the suspending of operations that attack this process under construction and do not contribute to confidence building between the parties. We demand that the situation of indigenous peoples are addressed in general, and that this includes the Amazon, the Andes and the coast, with the aim of determining national policies and that the State does not encourage fragmentation in its treatment [of indigenous peoples]. Lima, November 1, 2009. National Confederation of Communities Affected by Mining Peru - CONACAMI Andean Coordinator of Indigenous Organisations -IOTC Campesino Confederation of Peru - CCP National Agrarian Confederation - CNA Advisory Council of Indigenous Peoples of the Andean Community CCPICAN Indigenous Collective Program for Democracy and Global Transformation - PDTG *Translated by Kiraz Janicke for Peru en movimiento.com The original version in Spanish can be read here at Revista Mariategui * From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Nov 4 16:23:14 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:23:14 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Nice take-down of George Packer Message-ID: <4AF20CE2.5080102@panix.com> http://www.bookforum.com/review/4651 Nov 4 2009 Interesting Times: Writing from a Turbulent Decade by George Packer Christopher Hayes George Packer, a staff writer for the New Yorker since 2003, is plainly a master of his craft. The eight years? worth of reporting collected in his new anthology, Interesting Times?culled from the New Yorker as well as several other general-interest magazines?showcases his eye for the telling detail: ?The children?s legs swelled for lack of salt,? he notes in recounting the plight of a family from Sierra Leone chased into the bush by marauding rebels. The anthology also nicely points up his ear for the cutting and memorable quote: ?We?re like a frigging organ transplant that?s rejected,? an army officer says of the United States presence in Iraq. Packer captures scenes that, particularly in his Iraq reporting, give a hearty sense of the absurd. During a hectic meeting between dueling Sunni and Shiite factions in Iraq, a compulsively optimistic mayor cheerfully informs the participants that assembling at all is a triumph, a point he repeats even as the meeting descends into increasingly bitter recriminations. And no matter the topic?the journey of a secondhand T-shirt through the global economy, the unrelenting growth of an African megalopolis, or the ambivalence and desperation of Ohio?s white working class?the pieces read effortlessly. As most publishing enterprises wage a Hobbesian battle for the evernarrowing attention spans of their readers, Packer lets his material steadily widen its scope and teases out implications well beneath a story?s surface conflicts. And that?s where things in Interesting Times begin to go awry. Packer doesn?t present himself simply as a reporter; he views himself as a bit of a philosopher as well. ?My ambition as a journalist,? he says in the introduction, ?is always to combine narrative writing with political thought. Finding the balance is a continuous struggle, but each needs the other and is poorer without it.? But if his reporting is first-rate, his philosophizing leaves something to be desired. His main intellectual struggle is to explore what might be called a political epistemology: laying out how to shed ideological blinders so as to see the world in all its selfcontradictory complexity, while preserving some core, transcendent moral and political commitments. This means, most of all, that a writer must force himself to see the problems of the world as they really are and not simply as the reflection of his biases and beliefs. Yet neither should a journalist shrink from ?taking sides? or conceal his own ideological commitments behind the accretion of details in his reporting. ?One can only be honest about having a point of view while remaining open to aspects of reality?the human faces and voices?that might demolish it.? This outlook informs Packer?s quest?most notable in the profiles collected here?for a journalistic subject who approximates these virtues on the printed page. Throughout the pieces in Interesting Times, one encounters a philosophical protagonist who might be dubbed the idealistic, pragmatic iconoclast. Whether a Republican prosthetist, an Australian soldier-anthropologist, or a presidential candidate named Barack Obama, these characters reject the strictures of dogma and ideology and embrace a pragmatic ethos dictated by the cross pressures of a difficult, fallen world?while simultaneously in pursuit of some raw, irreducible moral commitment. Packer, one gets the sense, views himself as playing this role as well, and when the subject is his own work and writing, as in the introduction and an essay he wrote for Mother Jones in 2003, he is excessively?almost compulsively?self-questioning. Like someone running his tongue over a canker sore, Packer can?t seem to stop himself from returning to hard questions and asking whether he has lived up to the elevated epistemic standards he?s set: ?Lately I?ve tried to perform a diagnosis, taking myself as a starting point, to analyze our mental response to the inner disturbances of the times. What I?ve found are a variety of coping strategies that seem to allow us to handle the flow of information, but at the same time keep us from thinking clearly about it.? Noble as this might be in small doses, an extended reading of his work (particularly his writing in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks and during the run-up to the Iraq war) creates the unfortunate impression that Packer?s self-awareness may also be a form of moral vanity. It is all too easy to picture Packer, in many of the far-flung encounters recorded here, softly shaking his head that he is surrounded by people not nearly as sensitive or self-questioning or nuanced as he. In a 2004 piece that spends a good deal of time praising Joe Biden?s thoughtful hawkishness, he passes along an anecdote in which ?antiwar? Democrats balk at supporting a Biden-sponsored Iraq resolution because they ?were opposed to any war resolution at all.? After Biden warns them, ?Your principle is going to kill a lot of Americans,? Packer tells us that the meeting ended and ?Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and Senator Barbara Boxer of California left the room arm in arm, chuckling.? Obviously, they didn?t take war and peace as seriously as Biden or Packer. In addition, as Packer keeps alluding to his own finely filigreed conception of the issues at hand, he has a tendency to oversimplify the complicated (?Americans have never had an interest in empire building?) while overcomplicating the simple. At one point, he describes the Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya, whom he greatly admires and who advocated strenuously for the United States to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein, as a figure trying to ?think his way out of Iraq?s blood-stained history.? Packer attempted to do the same, as an early, if predictably anguished, supporter of the Iraq invasion and then a later, no less anguished, critic of the US occupation, a journey he recorded in his last nonfiction book, The Assassins? Gate (2005). And the central, tragic fact?which haunts every page of Interesting Times?is that Packer failed. A 2008 essay for the policy journal World Affairs (the most recent Iraq-themed piece collected here) finds Packer reflecting on the war?s lessons. He concedes, in the introduction, that his early writing on both Iraq and the so-called war on terror suffered from a ?tendency toward overreach,? which now makes him ?a little uneasy? about more sweeping pronouncements on the subject. Nevertheless, the World Affairs essay shows Packer?s more-nuanced-than-thou pose stubbornly intact. ?Once, after a trip to Iraq, I attended a dinner party in Los Angeles at which most of the other guests were movie types,? he writes. ?They wanted to know what it was like ?over there.? I began to describe a Shiite doctor I?d gotten to know, who felt torn between gratitude and fear that occupation and chaos were making Iraq less Islamic. A burst of invective interrupted my sketch: none of it mattered?the only thing that mattered was this immoral, criminal war. The guests had no interest in hearing what it was like over there. They already knew.? I can understand the frustration of a reporter feeling like he?s being humored only to the extent he agrees with his audience. But what Packer doesn?t say in this vignette is that those same knee-jerk LA liberals?and scores of other easily stereotyped righteous lefties?had opposed the war, while Packer supported it. Notwithstanding their supposed self-satisfied and moralistic ignorance, this is no small thing. It?s no doubt true that most of the people who took to the streets to prevent the Iraq war knew less about the Middle East than Packer did and that they hadn?t assembled a worldview as nuanced or complex as the one Packer worries over, again and again, in Interesting Times. And yet. In the end, reporters aren?t especially well served by a penchant for open-mindedness or observational depth if they also lack fundamental judgment on an issue as crucial as waging a war of choice on grounds that, to put things charitably, were profoundly misleading. For all Packer?s prodigious gifts as a writer and thinker, his work from the early part of this decade remind us that even committed pragmatists are capable of grave miscalculations when they affect to rise above the fray. This review will appear in the December-January issue of BookForum. Christopher Hayes is the Washington DC editor for The Nation. From farmelantj at juno.com Wed Nov 4 17:41:38 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 19:41:38 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP Message-ID: <20091104.194138.1476.0.farmelantj@juno.com> On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 11:04:06 -0800 (PST) Max Clark writes: > Sarkozy's eulogizing of Levi-Strauss is either some sadistic > bufoonery or indicative of serious limits to Levi-Strauss' ouevre. > I've only read the Nambikwara sections from Tristes Tropiques > because Derrida critiqued them in Of Grammatology. Outside of that, > all the seemingly difficult and infinitely varied, but lawful, > intricacies of kinship patterns kind of intimidate me away from the > rest of his works, although "Zeez" takes them up in a recent article > on architecture. > > Also, I thought Piaget was the "father" of structuralism. Am I wrong > in that? I think usually the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure is credited as the "father" of structuralism, being the originator of structural linguistics back in the early 1900s. Structural linguistics was later taken up by people like the American Leonard Bloomfield and Roman Jakobson. During the Second World War, Levi-Strauss made his way to the US since France under the Vichy regime was not a safe place for Jews. In the US he met with Jakobson and also became friendly with the anthropologist Franz Boas. Jakobson's extensions of structural linguistics made a strong impression on Levi-Strauss who proposed generalizaing it into a theory of human culture in which cultural phenomena such as myths, culinary customs, family structures etc would all be treated as signs, to which the principles of a generalized structural linguistics could then be applied. Jean Piaget did consider himself to be a kind of structuralist and indeed he wrote a book titled "Structuralism" in which he discussed structuralism as a methodology that was applicable not only to the human sciences across the board, but could also be applied to various other disciplines including philosophy, mathematics, biology, and even the physical sciences. Thus, he considered his own genetic epistemology to be a kind of structuralism. Lacan famously developed a structuralist reading of Freud's psychoanalysis. Althusser was called a structural Marxist, although he didn't like being called a structuralist because of his disagreements with Levi-Strauss. Jim F. > > The very best, > Max Clark > > http://clarkmax.blogspot.com > > ____________________________________________________________ Get Help With Your Credit Cards! Free online quote in 2 minutes. No credit check. No obligation! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=wtoZswf_sNzNb-S3FLA9qQAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAQAAAAFAAAAAHoRdz4AAANSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABI2lwAAAAA= From farmelantj at juno.com Wed Nov 4 17:47:46 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 19:47:46 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP Message-ID: <20091104.194746.1476.1.farmelantj@juno.com> On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 11:04:06 -0800 (PST) Max Clark writes: > Sarkozy's eulogizing of Levi-Strauss is either some sadistic > bufoonery or indicative of serious limits to Levi-Strauss' ouevre. > Levi-Strauss, when he was younger, certainly identified with the left. He had been active in student socialist organizations and the like. As a young teacher, he taught in the same lycee as the one where Sartre and de Beauvoir were teaching and he became friendly with them. Later on, he often wrote for Sartre's journal, Les Temps Modernes, where he sometimes debated Marxist dialectics with Sartre. I have read that after 1968, he shifted to the right politically. Some of the obits that I have seen indicate that in his later years he was pretty chummy with Jacques Chirac. Jim F. ____________________________________________________________ Online College Degrees Advance your education and jumpstart your career. Research schools! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=XDR-PXLl-rS4NFDtryIZQgAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAQAAAAFAAAAADvfTz4AAANSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABSJAAAAAA= From rosa.lichtenstein at googlemail.com Wed Nov 4 18:53:12 2009 From: rosa.lichtenstein at googlemail.com (Rosa Lichtenstein) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 01:53:12 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP In-Reply-To: <20091104.194746.1476.1.farmelantj@juno.com> References: <20091104.194746.1476.1.farmelantj@juno.com> Message-ID: Jim: "Levi-Strauss, when he was younger, certainly identified with the left. He had been active in student socialist organizations and the like. As a young teacher, he taught in the same lycee as the one where Sartre and de Beauvoir were teaching and he became friendly with them. Later on, he often wrote for Sartre's journal, Les Temps Modernes, where he sometimes debated Marxist dialectics with Sartre...." Maurice Bloch's Obit of Levi-Strauss in today's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/nov/03/claude-levi-strauss-obituary RL *http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/index.htm* ** On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 12:47 AM, Jim Farmelant wrote: > > On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 11:04:06 -0800 (PST) Max Clark > writes: > > Sarkozy's eulogizing of Levi-Strauss is either some sadistic > > bufoonery or indicative of serious limits to Levi-Strauss' ouevre. > > > > > Levi-Strauss, when he was younger, certainly > identified with the left. He had been > active in student socialist organizations > and the like. As a young teacher, > he taught in the same lycee as > the one where Sartre and de Beauvoir > were teaching and he became friendly > with them. Later on, he often wrote > for Sartre's journal, Les Temps Modernes, > where he sometimes debated Marxist > dialectics with Sartre. I have > read that after 1968, he shifted > to the right politically. Some of > the obits that I have seen indicate > that in his later years he was > pretty chummy with Jacques > Chirac. > > Jim F. > ____________________________________________________________ > Online College Degrees > Advance your education and jumpstart your career. Research schools! > > http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=XDR-PXLl-rS4NFDtryIZQgAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAQAAAAFAAAAADvfTz4AAANSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABSJAAAAAA= > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/rosa.lichtenstein%40googlemail.com > From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Wed Nov 4 20:57:31 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:57:31 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Paraguay Pres. Lugo fires army chiefs, dismisses coup rumors Message-ID: I found the article that follows these comments on the New York Times website. It disappeared entirely within minutes, before I could copy the URL, which may indicate that it was too important a story to be fit to print. Or maybe the problem was technical. The elite in Peru attempted to get rid of Lugo more than a year ago, because of a scandal over his sexual activities with adult women during his episcopate (he was formerly a Catholic bishop). The urban and rural masses in Paraguay (who know a thing or two about priests) took the revelations in stride and he rode out the media furor and rightist protests. Although Lugo may be right that the situation with the military is under control, we have to be alert and ready to protest. A shift back toward military rule is likely to start not in Venezuela or Bolivia but in countries where relatively progressive governments are less securely founded, have to chip away at the power of the oligarchy rather than make sweeping changes, and are thus highly vulnerable. Zelaya in Honduras is an example. One reason I expect continued strong resistance to restoring Zelaya in Honduras is that he would return to office not totally powerless --despite the terms of the agreement which seek to impose this -- but in a stronger political position because of the mass mobilizations and mass organization that has taken place in the country since the coup. I think Zelaya was right to agree to this accord, which represents a modest gain if it is carried out, but because it helps keep the regime on the defensive if they don't carry out its terms which are extremely generous to them. If they don't, I think they will find that -- despite their premature celebrations that their stacked elections and repression now have international sanction -- they are still in boiling water at home and abroad. That can only change if the mass struggle is defeated or divided. Hopefully, what has happened to the coup-makers in Honduras -- the organization and mobilization of the masses rather than their crushindefeat which was the plan, of course -- will deter would-be coup makers in Paraguay. But given the character of these types and their links to powerful imperialist sectors, there is no reason to assume this will be the case. Fred Feldman By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: November 4, 2009 Filed at 9:44 p.m. ET ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) -- Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo fired his military chiefs Wednesday, a day after denying he had worries about a coup amid calls for his impeachment. In a statement given to journalists at the presidential palace, Lugo named new commanders for the army, air force and navy without explaining his reasons. The new chiefs will assume their posts Thursday, said the statement signed by the president. There was no immediate reaction from the military or from the political opposition, which controls Congress. The new military commanders must be approved by the Senate, but Lugo had not yet submitted a formal request. The shuffling in the military command came only one day after Lugo, a left-leaning former Roman Catholic bishop, publicly dismissed speculation about a possible coup as he struggles with Congress over implementing economic and social changes. ''I can assure you as commander in chief of the armed forces that, institutionally, there is no danger of a military coup,'' he said Tuesday when asked about coup rumors. ''There could be small military groups that are connected to or could be used by the political class, but institutionally, the military does not show any intent of reversing the process of democratic consolidation.'' The rumors were apparently prompted by tanks seen headed from Paraguay's Brazilian border toward the capital. It turned out the tanks were simply returning after maintenance work in Brazil. Since winning the presidency last year and ending 61 years of domination by the conservative Colorado Party, Lugo has been trying to push reforms that aim to benefit Paraguay's numerous poor. He has criticized an elite class that ''sits comfortably in air-conditioned offices,'' while the poor ''survive on just one meal a day if they are lucky ... without safe drinking water, surrounded by misery.'' Lugo's rivals have been searching for ways to force him about of office before his term ends in August 2013. Last week, a majority of lawmakers threatened to mount an impeachment trial over comments he allegedly made in a poor neighborhood that some interpreted as a call for class warfare. Lugo denied saying that. Amid his troubles with the opposition, Lugo also drawn criticism from some supporters who are becoming disillusioned by his failure to find ways of using to overcome the opposition. From maxrlane at gmail.com Wed Nov 4 21:12:28 2009 From: maxrlane at gmail.com (Max Lane) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:12:28 +0800 Subject: [Marxism] New Blog on Indonesia, Australia etc Message-ID: <718c7feb0911042012k7c34aab4ld70f24b8e9e325bb@mail.gmail.com> www.maxlaneonline.com From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Wed Nov 4 21:27:33 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:27:33 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Zelaya protests US aide's unconditional OK of Honduras vote Message-ID: Ousted Honduran leader asks Clinton stand on coup By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ (AP) - 2 hours ago TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Ousted President Manuel Zelaya is asking the Obama Administration why, after pressing for his reinstatement, it now says it will recognize upcoming Honduran elections even if he isn't returned to power first. In a letter sent to the U.S. State Department on Wednesday, Zelaya asked Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton "to clarify to the Honduran people if the position condemning the coup d'etat has been changed or modified." His request came after Washington's top envoy to Latin America, Thomas Shannon, told CNN en Espanol that Washington will recognize the Nov. 29 elections even if the Honduran Congress decides against returning Zelaya to power. A U.S.-brokered deal reached last week leaves Zelaya's reinstatement in the hands of Congress, but sets no deadline as to when lawmakers must decide. Delays in the expected vote have generated fears in the Zelaya camp. "Both leaders took a risk and put their trust in Congress, but at the end of the day the accord requires that both leaders accept its decision," Shannon said. The U.S. has repeatedly pressed for Zelaya's reinstatement. President Barack Obama was explicit in a speech this summer: "America supports now the restoration of the democratically elected President of Honduras." In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Wednesday that the United States considers what happened in Honduras a coup and that Zelaya should be reinstated, but he said the focus now should be on implementing last week's deal between the ousted president's representatives and the interim government of Roberto Micheletti. "We've made our position on President Zelaya and his restitution clear. We believe he should be restored to power," Kelly said. "Our focus now is on implementing this process and creating an environment wherein Hondurans themselves can address the issue of restitution and resolve for themselves this Honduran problem." The deal left reinstatement in the hands of Congress, but hours after shaking hands, Zelaya and others indicated a behind-the-scenes arrangement had been made with Congress to reinstate him. "This signifies my return to power in the coming days, and peace for Honduras," he said. His comments, and U.S. approval of the deal, left many believing Congress was ready to put him back in office. "I think it was sort of assumed that there was a deal with Congress to reinstate him," said Dana Frank, a historian at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "But the U.S. negotiators may have underestimated the sheer nutso chaos of Honduran politics." The leaders of Honduras' Congress said Tuesday they would consult the courts and prosecutors before deciding when to submit the measure to the full Congress for debate, which they said could be after the elections. Congressional secretary Roberto Lara said lawmakers are still waiting to hear the opinions from the Supreme Court, which ordered Zelaya's ouster, the human rights commissioner, and the country's prosecutors, who charged him with betraying the homeland, abuse of power and other crimes. Also Wednesday, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, who were in Honduras to oversee implementation of the agreement, said they met with Zelaya, Micheletti and other officials, and have begun the creation of a unity government. According to the pact, the unity government, which should include both Zelaya and Micheletti supporters, needs to be established by Thursday. The verification commission, which also includes two Honduran representatives, didn't say if the deadline would be met. "I saw that everything takes time here but I'm convinced that we're now focused on bringing different groups together to create a new cabinet," Solis said. Juan Carlos Hidalgo, project coordinator for Latin America at Washington-based Cato Institute, said he doesn't expect Hondurans to be swayed by U.S. pressure. "If Congress doesn't reinstate Zelaya, it certainly will be a diplomatic embarrassment for the United States since they pressured so much for his reinstatement and even threatened to not recognize the election results," said Hidalgo. "But not recognizing a popular vote was a dead-end road for the U.S. and they knew it." Associated Press Writer Martha Mendoza in Mexico City contributed to this report. From sartesian at earthlink.net Wed Nov 4 23:42:42 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 01:42:42 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Paraguay Pres. Lugo fires army chiefs, dismisses coup rumors References: Message-ID: This, by Fred, is priceless: "I think Zelaya was right to agree to this accord, which represents a modest gain if it is carried out, but because it helps keep the regime on the defensive if they don't carry out its terms which are extremely generous to them. If they don't, I think they will find that -- despite their premature celebrations that their stacked elections and repression now have international sanction -- they are still in boiling water at home and abroad. That can only change if the mass struggle is defeated or divided." Like the regime gives a rat's ass.. Right Fred, and tomorrow the flying saucers will come out of the sky and carry us all off the the Hale-Bopp comet where we will live happily ever after. I think the term is "cognitive dissonance." For everything else, there's Mastercard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Feldman" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 10:57 PM Subject: [Marxism] Paraguay Pres. Lugo fires army chiefs,dismisses coup rumors From dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com Thu Nov 5 00:06:57 2009 From: dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com (Dogan Gocmen) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 09:06:57 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] On Hegel and Knowledge Economy Message-ID: My two conference papers "Hegel and the Enlightenment: An Essay on the *Phenomenology of Spirit*" and "Classical Political Economy, Ethics, Metaphysics and 'Knowledge-Based Economy OR Demystifying the the Mystified" are now available at: http://dogangocmen.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/hegel-and-enlightenment.pdf and http://dogangocmen.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/knowledge-based-economy2.pdf ---------------------- Dogan G?cmen (http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/) Author of The Adam Smith Problem: Reconciling Human Nature and Society in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations, I. B. Tauris, London&New York 2007 From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Thu Nov 5 01:21:04 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:21:04 +1100 Subject: [Marxism] Joint statement: Reject Australia's 'Indonesian solution'! Welcome the asylum seekers | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal Message-ID: <4AF28AF0.1050209@greenleft.org.au> Joint statement by the *Australian Socialist Alliance*; *Socialist Party of Malaysia* *(PSM)*;* Network of the Oppressed People (JERIT)*, Malaysia; *Confederation Congress of Indonesian Union Alliance (KASBI)*; *Working Peoples Association* *(PRP)*, Indonesia; *National Liberation Party of Unity (PAPERNAS)*, Indonesia; and the *Indonesian National Front for Labor Struggle (FNPBI)*** November 5, 2009 -- All respect for elementary human rights and dignity have been thrown overboard as the governments of Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia refuse to accept the latest wave of Tamil asylum seekers fleeing war and oppression in Sri Lanka and instead treat them like criminals. Full statement at http://links.org.au/node/1336 Subscribe free to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism From sartesian at earthlink.net Thu Nov 5 07:59:45 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 09:59:45 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots Message-ID: <252927000F5D4B3F8FCA33BA6A6D97E8@dmsthinkpad> PRODUCTIVITY AND COSTS Third Quarter 2009, Preliminary Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 9.5 percent annual rate during the third quarter of 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This was the largest gain in productivity since the third quarter of 2003, when it rose 9.7 percent. Labor productivity, or output per hour, is calculated by dividing an index of real output by an index of hours of all persons, including employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers. Output increased 4.0 percent and hours worked decreased 5.0 percent in the third quarter of 2009 (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual rates). From binesi at gvtel.com Thu Nov 5 09:21:16 2009 From: binesi at gvtel.com (David Thorstad) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:21:16 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] Maine nixes gay marriage but expands medical marijuana Message-ID: <4AF2FB7C.2010806@gvtel.com> Gay marriage proponents ought to drop that effort in favor of domestic partnership whereby any people living together (e.g., elderly siblings, roommates of either sex, lovers of either sex, etc.) can enjoy legal protections and benefits if they so desire. But maybe they're too wedded to the "marriage" elixir to move beyond seeking special rights and tax privileges for couples based on cohabitation and conjugal coupledom to supporting an expansion of rights having nothing to do with who one sleeps with. David ================================= A Setback in Maine for Gay Marriage, but Medical Marijuana Law Expands In a stinging setback for the national gay-rights movement, Maine voters narrowly decided to repeal the state?s new law allowing same-sex marriage . Full: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/us/politics/05maine.html?_r=1&ref=us From theguavatree at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 10:03:43 2009 From: theguavatree at gmail.com (guava tree) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:03:43 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots In-Reply-To: <252927000F5D4B3F8FCA33BA6A6D97E8@dmsthinkpad> References: <252927000F5D4B3F8FCA33BA6A6D97E8@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 9:59 AM, S. Artesian wrote: > PRODUCTIVITY AND COSTS > Third Quarter 2009, Preliminary > What exactly does "Output" entail? Do they have a way to account for a build-up of warehoused stock during a downturn? Across the board there are many layoffs (decreased hours) -- but when orders for goods start to grow can't companies simply sell their warehoused goods while compensating employees less because you've fired so many people? Can't this also be an "increase in productivity"? This seems to be what explains the QtoQ rise of productivity of 21% in durable manufacturing. The output from the previous quarter has risen 12.4% while the hours worked have decreased 7.2%. It seems that in times of severe exploitation this would indeed be possible--but how can one also be sure that this selling of previously unsold durable machines not also account for a sudden spike? I should maybe just read up on the methodology more. From acpollack2 at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 10:04:51 2009 From: acpollack2 at gmail.com (Andrew Pollack) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:04:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP In-Reply-To: References: <20091104.194746.1476.1.farmelantj@juno.com> Message-ID: <2fa1449b0911050904g51e9329ahf0787dd403183b1f@mail.gmail.com> It's been a long time since I read it, but as I recall Perry Anderson's "In the Tracks of Historical Materialism" helped me understand the whole crowd, i.e. structuralists, poststructuralists, and Marxists in or around them. Understand, that is, both their theories and where they were situated within broader social and political developments. By the way, a google to refresh my memory turned up this: http://www.springerlink.com/content/p4v25585342q385x/fulltext.pdf?page=1 ... the first page of a Dialectical Anthropology article assessing Levi-Strauss and his relationship to Marxism. Anyone with full access may want to look it over. From skeyesvogt at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 10:06:43 2009 From: skeyesvogt at gmail.com (Sky Keyes) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:06:43 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Black is Back Protest on Nov. 7 Message-ID: *Black is Back Protest on Nov. 7* *by Clay Wadena & John Leslie* On Nov. 7, a national demonstration, called by the Black is Back Coalition, will be held in Washington, D.C. There will be a march and a rally in Malcolm X Park. People are marching under the call, ?Resist U.S. Wars and Occupation in the U.S. and Abroad! Reparations Now!? Some additional demands are ?Free all political prisoners!? ?Single payer health care/Medicare for all!? ?Stop police violence and Black community containment policy!? ?Stop gentrification, home mortgage foreclosures! Bail out the victims!? and ?No AFRICOM!? Endorsers include the African Peoples? Socialist Party, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Mumia Abu Jamal, the hip-hop group Dead Prez, Pam Africa, Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report, Rosa Clemente (2008 Green VP candidate), the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, Larry Hamm of the Newark, N.J., Peoples? Organization for Progress, and others. For Black people of various political viewpoints to state their opposition to the policies supported by both major capitalist parties is only natural on the heels of eight years of the reactionary and racist policies of the Bush administration, including the criminal neglect of New Orleans both during and after Katrina. For many, however, the election of Barack Obamaincreased illusions that somehow U.S. capitalism might be humanized by his administration and the Democratic Party. Obama?s record in power is now clear: he is continuing the policies of the Bush regime with the wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. And again following in Bush?s footsteps, Obama has been quick to bail out the banks and big business with subsidies while leaving working people floundering in the economic crisis. Black people have borne the brunt of the recession. Black unemployment, now 15.4 percent by official figures, has surged much more drastically than that of whites (9 percent). Continuing as victims of Jim Crow?s legacy, Black people continue to be the ?first hired and the first fired.? Recently, ultra-right mobilizations in opposition to Obama?s proposed (far from adequate) health-care reforms have taken on a racist, and at times proto-fascist, character. Anti-reform reactionaries raised the slogan of ?take our country back??their code for calling for the removal of the first Black president. This racist reaction to Obama?s policies has served to reinforce the tendency of reformists to take an uncritical stance towards Obama. As the Black is Back ?Call To Action? states: ?Many well-meaning people in this country and around the world are afraid to take more progressive political positions for fear of being seen as anti-Black. ? The political paralysis now being experienced by anti-war and other progressive movements suffer from the lack of a Black-led anti-imperial movement to off-set the traps set by Obama?s so-called ?post-racial? politics that perpetuates the same oppressive militarist agenda well known during the Bush regime.? Revolutionary socialists recognize the need for a multi-racial fightbackagainst war, racism, and oppression. We also understand that the racist dynamics of U.S. society may require the self-organization of oppressed people into fighting organizations of their own. Black workers have traditionally played a vanguard role in the U.S. class struggle?from the formation of the CIO, to the civil rights movement, to the auto strikes of the 1960s (i.e.,Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement). Black is Back can be a step toward a revival of those goals. For more information go to http://blackisbackcoalition.org/ http://www.socialistaction.org/wadena1.htm From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Nov 5 10:17:11 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:17:11 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP In-Reply-To: <2fa1449b0911050904g51e9329ahf0787dd403183b1f@mail.gmail.com> References: <20091104.194746.1476.1.farmelantj@juno.com> <2fa1449b0911050904g51e9329ahf0787dd403183b1f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AF30897.5080709@panix.com> Andrew Pollack wrote: > It's been a long time since I read it, but as I recall Perry > Anderson's "In the Tracks of Historical Materialism" helped me > understand the whole crowd, i.e. structuralists, poststructuralists, > and Marxists in or around them. Understand, that is, both their > theories and where they were situated within broader social and > political developments. > By the way, a google to refresh my memory turned up this: > http://www.springerlink.com/content/p4v25585342q385x/fulltext.pdf?page=1 > ... the first page of a Dialectical Anthropology article assessing > Levi-Strauss and his relationship to Marxism. Anyone with full access > may want to look it over. I just collected a bunch of articles from the NY Review, JSTOR and New Left Review related to Levi-Strauss. Plus I am picking up "Savage Minds" and Bloch's "Marxism and Anthropology" at lunch. I have never read Levi-Strauss but I have a very high regard for Bloch's book that I read about 10 years ago. Will be blogging at least 2 articles about Levi-Strauss with an eye to relating it to the Chagnon controversies. Keep in mind that Jacques Lizot, Chagnon's nemesis, ended up in Yanomami-land under Levi-Strauss's auspices. From binesi at gvtel.com Thu Nov 5 10:23:45 2009 From: binesi at gvtel.com (David Thorstad) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:23:45 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] Rejecting the marriage equality agenda Message-ID: <4AF30A21.1060307@gvtel.com> Bay Area Reporter Guest Opinion Rejecting the marriage equality agenda Published 11/05/2009 by Martha Jane Kaufman and Katie Miles Equality California keeps on sending us videos of gay families: gay parents pushing kids on swings, gay parents making their kids' lunches, the whole gay family safe inside the walls of their own home. The message is clear: once you have children, your life instantly transforms into a scene of domestic bliss, straight out of a 1950s movie. Instead of dancing, instead of having casual sex, instead of rioting, gays have gone and had children! And now that they've had children, they won't be bothering you anymore. Once they can be at home with the kids, there's no reason for them to be political, after all. As young queers proud to be raised in queer families and communities, we're a bit confused. First of all, whoever said domesticity wasn't political? Wasn't it just a few years ago that feminists taught us that the personal is political? That cooking, cleaning, raising children and putting in countless hours of physical, emotional, and intellectual labor should not mean withdrawing from the public sphere or surrendering your political voice? We were raised by queers who created domestic lives that were always politically engaged, who raised kids and raised hell at the same time. What makes Equality California think that an official marriage certificate is going to make us any less loud and queer? We're seeing the marriage equality agenda turn its back on a tradition of queer activism that began with Stonewall and other fierce queer revolts and that continued through the AIDS crisis. We reject the agenda that gives top priority to the fight for marriage equality. We are seeing this agenda fracture our communities, promote certain family structures as the norm, pit us against natural allies, support unequal power structures, obscure urgent queer concerns, abandon struggle for mutual sustainability inside queer communities, and disregard our awesomely fabulous queer history. Children of queers have a serious stake in this. The media sure thinks so, anyway. The photographs circulated after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's 2004 decision to marry gay couples at City Hall show men exchanging rings with young children strapped to their chests and toddlers holding their moms' hands as city officials lead them through vows. As Newsom continues his political career, these images of children and their newly married gay parents travel with him, supposedly expressing how deeply Newsom cares about families. These photos, however, obscure very real aspects of his political record that have torn families apart: his disregard for affordable housing, his attacks on welfare, his support for increased policing and incarceration that separate parents from children, and his new practice of deporting undocumented minors accused ? not convicted ? of crimes. As young people with queer parents we are not proud of the "family values" politic put forth by these images and the marriage equality campaign. We don't want gay marriage activism conducted in our name. We think long-term monogamous partnerships are valid and beautiful ways of structuring and experiencing family, but we don't see them as any more inherently valuable or legitimate than any other family structure. We know that many families, straight or gay, don't fit the standards for marriage. In fact, we see many straight families being penalized for not conforming to the standard the government has set: single moms trying to get on welfare, extended family members trying to gain custody, friends kept from being each other's legal representatives. We have a lot in common with those straight families, perhaps more than we do with the kinds of gay families that would benefit from marriage. We believe that the argument for gay marriage obscures the structural, social, and economic forces that break families apart and take people away from their loved ones. Just for starters, there's the explosion in incarceration levels, national and international migration for economic survival, deportation, unaffordable housing, and lack of access to drug rehabilitation services. The argument for gay marriage also ignores the economic changes and cuts to social services that make it nearly impossible for families to stay together and survive: welfare cuts, fewer after school programs, less public housing, worse medical care, not enough social workers, failing schools, the economic crisis in general. The way that the marriage agenda phrases its argument about health care shows just how blind it is to the needs of the queer community. It makes it seem as though the queer community's only interest in health care is in the inclusion of some members of two-person partnerships in the already exclusive health care system. Actually, the question of universal health care is urgent to queers because large groups of people inside our communities face incredible difficulty and violence receiving medical care, such as trans people who seek hormone treatment or surgery, people who are HIV-positive, and queer and trans youth who are forced to live on the street. We believe that health care is a basic human right to which everyone is entitled, not one that should be extended through certain kinds of individual partnerships. Instead of equalizing access to health care, marriage rights would only allow a small group of people who have partnered themselves in monogamous configurations to receive care. If we accept the marriage agenda's so-called solution, we'll leave out most of our community. As the economy collapses, as the number of Americans without a job, without health care, without savings, without any kind of Social Security net increases, it's easy to understand how marriage has become an instant cure-all for some. Knowing that many in our community have lived through strained or broken relationships with their biological families, through the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, through self-doubt about and stigmatization of their relationships, we understand where the desire for the security promised by marriage comes from. However, we see the promotion of gay marriage as something that tries to put a Band-Aid over deeper sources of insecurity, both social and economic. With marriage, the state is able to absolve itself of responsibility for the well-being of its citizens, as evidenced by the Human Rights Campaign's argument that with gay marriage, the state could kick more people off of welfare. If the HRC got its way, the queers who do not want, or are not eligible for, marriage would be even less secure than before. We don't think that marriage rights activism can go along with other kinds of social justice activism, because the legal and economic structure of marriage undercuts the kind of justice we want for everyone. We're frightened by the way the marriage agenda wants to break up our community in this way, and we're committed to fighting any kind of politics that demonizes poor people and welfare recipients. We challenge our queer communities to build a politics that promotes wealth redistribution. What if, rather than donating to HRC, we pooled our wealth to create a community emergency fund for members of our community who face foreclosure, need expensive medical care, or find themselves in any other economic emergency? As queers, we need to take our anger, our fear, and our hope and recognize the wealth of resources that we already have, in order to build alternative structures. We're fed up with the way that the gay marriage movement has tried to assimilate us, to swallow up our families, our lives, and our lovers into its clean-cut standards for what queer love, responsibility, and commitment should look like. We reject the idea that we should strive to see straight family configurations reflected in our families. We refuse to feel indebted or grateful to those who have decided it's time for us to be pulled out from the fringe and into the status quo. We write this feeling as if we have to grab our community back from the clutches of the gay marriage movement. Queers are sexy, resourceful, creative, and brave enough to challenge an oppressive system with their lifestyle. Our families are tangled, messy, and beautiful ? just like so many straight families who don't fit into the official version of family. We want to build communities of families that can exist ? that do exist ? without the recognition of the state. We don't believe that parenting is cause for an end to political participation. We believe that nurturing the growth, voice, and imagination of children as a parent, a family and a community is a profoundly radical act. We want to build networks of accountability and dependence that lie outside the bounds of the government, the kinds of networks that we grew up in, the kinds of networks that we know support single-parent families, immigrant families, families who have members in the military or in prison, and all kinds of chosen families. These families, our families, work through our collective resources, strengths, commitments, and desires, and we wouldn't change them for anything. Martha Jane Kaufman and Katie Miles are queers raised by queers. Kaufman grew up in Portland, and currently lives in Boston. Miles grew up in San Francisco, and currently lives in New York. http://ebar.com/openforum/opforum.php?sec=guest_op From binesi at gvtel.com Thu Nov 5 10:50:02 2009 From: binesi at gvtel.com (David Thorstad) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:50:02 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] Rejecting the marriage equality agenda Message-ID: <4AF3104A.6050206@gvtel.com> Bay Area Reporter Guest Opinion Rejecting the marriage equality agenda Published 11/05/2009 by Martha Jane Kaufman and Katie Miles Equality California keeps on sending us videos of gay families: gay parents pushing kids on swings, gay parents making their kids' lunches, the whole gay family safe inside the walls of their own home. The message is clear: once you have children, your life instantly transforms into a scene of domestic bliss, straight out of a 1950s movie. Instead of dancing, instead of having casual sex, instead of rioting, gays have gone and had children! And now that they've had children, they won't be bothering you anymore. Once they can be at home with the kids, there's no reason for them to be political, after all. As young queers proud to be raised in queer families and communities, we're a bit confused. First of all, whoever said domesticity wasn't political? Wasn't it just a few years ago that feminists taught us that the personal is political? That cooking, cleaning, raising children and putting in countless hours of physical, emotional, and intellectual labor should not mean withdrawing from the public sphere or surrendering your political voice? We were raised by queers who created domestic lives that were always politically engaged, who raised kids and raised hell at the same time. What makes Equality California think that an official marriage certificate is going to make us any less loud and queer? We're seeing the marriage equality agenda turn its back on a tradition of queer activism that began with Stonewall and other fierce queer revolts and that continued through the AIDS crisis. We reject the agenda that gives top priority to the fight for marriage equality. We are seeing this agenda fracture our communities, promote certain family structures as the norm, pit us against natural allies, support unequal power structures, obscure urgent queer concerns, abandon struggle for mutual sustainability inside queer communities, and disregard our awesomely fabulous queer history. Children of queers have a serious stake in this. The media sure thinks so, anyway. The photographs circulated after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's 2004 decision to marry gay couples at City Hall show men exchanging rings with young children strapped to their chests and toddlers holding their moms' hands as city officials lead them through vows. As Newsom continues his political career, these images of children and their newly married gay parents travel with him, supposedly expressing how deeply Newsom cares about families. These photos, however, obscure very real aspects of his political record that have torn families apart: his disregard for affordable housing, his attacks on welfare, his support for increased policing and incarceration that separate parents from children, and his new practice of deporting undocumented minors accused ? not convicted ? of crimes. As young people with queer parents we are not proud of the "family values" politic put forth by these images and the marriage equality campaign. We don't want gay marriage activism conducted in our name. We think long-term monogamous partnerships are valid and beautiful ways of structuring and experiencing family, but we don't see them as any more inherently valuable or legitimate than any other family structure. We know that many families, straight or gay, don't fit the standards for marriage. In fact, we see many straight families being penalized for not conforming to the standard the government has set: single moms trying to get on welfare, extended family members trying to gain custody, friends kept from being each other's legal representatives. We have a lot in common with those straight families, perhaps more than we do with the kinds of gay families that would benefit from marriage. We believe that the argument for gay marriage obscures the structural, social, and economic forces that break families apart and take people away from their loved ones. Just for starters, there's the explosion in incarceration levels, national and international migration for economic survival, deportation, unaffordable housing, and lack of access to drug rehabilitation services. The argument for gay marriage also ignores the economic changes and cuts to social services that make it nearly impossible for families to stay together and survive: welfare cuts, fewer after school programs, less public housing, worse medical care, not enough social workers, failing schools, the economic crisis in general. The way that the marriage agenda phrases its argument about health care shows just how blind it is to the needs of the queer community. It makes it seem as though the queer community's only interest in health care is in the inclusion of some members of two-person partnerships in the already exclusive health care system. Actually, the question of universal health care is urgent to queers because large groups of people inside our communities face incredible difficulty and violence receiving medical care, such as trans people who seek hormone treatment or surgery, people who are HIV-positive, and queer and trans youth who are forced to live on the street. We believe that health care is a basic human right to which everyone is entitled, not one that should be extended through certain kinds of individual partnerships. Instead of equalizing access to health care, marriage rights would only allow a small group of people who have partnered themselves in monogamous configurations to receive care. If we accept the marriage agenda's so-called solution, we'll leave out most of our community. As the economy collapses, as the number of Americans without a job, without health care, without savings, without any kind of Social Security net increases, it's easy to understand how marriage has become an instant cure-all for some. Knowing that many in our community have lived through strained or broken relationships with their biological families, through the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, through self-doubt about and stigmatization of their relationships, we understand where the desire for the security promised by marriage comes from. However, we see the promotion of gay marriage as something that tries to put a Band-Aid over deeper sources of insecurity, both social and economic. With marriage, the state is able to absolve itself of responsibility for the well-being of its citizens, as evidenced by the Human Rights Campaign's argument that with gay marriage, the state could kick more people off of welfare. If the HRC got its way, the queers who do not want, or are not eligible for, marriage would be even less secure than before. We don't think that marriage rights activism can go along with other kinds of social justice activism, because the legal and economic structure of marriage undercuts the kind of justice we want for everyone. We're frightened by the way the marriage agenda wants to break up our community in this way, and we're committed to fighting any kind of politics that demonizes poor people and welfare recipients. We challenge our queer communities to build a politics that promotes wealth redistribution. What if, rather than donating to HRC, we pooled our wealth to create a community emergency fund for members of our community who face foreclosure, need expensive medical care, or find themselves in any other economic emergency? As queers, we need to take our anger, our fear, and our hope and recognize the wealth of resources that we already have, in order to build alternative structures. We're fed up with the way that the gay marriage movement has tried to assimilate us, to swallow up our families, our lives, and our lovers into its clean-cut standards for what queer love, responsibility, and commitment should look like. We reject the idea that we should strive to see straight family configurations reflected in our families. We refuse to feel indebted or grateful to those who have decided it's time for us to be pulled out from the fringe and into the status quo. We write this feeling as if we have to grab our community back from the clutches of the gay marriage movement. Queers are sexy, resourceful, creative, and brave enough to challenge an oppressive system with their lifestyle. Our families are tangled, messy, and beautiful ? just like so many straight families who don't fit into the official version of family. We want to build communities of families that can exist ? that do exist ? without the recognition of the state. We don't believe that parenting is cause for an end to political participation. We believe that nurturing the growth, voice, and imagination of children as a parent, a family and a community is a profoundly radical act. We want to build networks of accountability and dependence that lie outside the bounds of the government, the kinds of networks that we grew up in, the kinds of networks that we know support single-parent families, immigrant families, families who have members in the military or in prison, and all kinds of chosen families. These families, our families, work through our collective resources, strengths, commitments, and desires, and we wouldn't change them for anything. Martha Jane Kaufman and Katie Miles are queers raised by queers. Kaufman grew up in Portland, and currently lives in Boston. Miles grew up in San Francisco, and currently lives in New York. http://ebar.com/openforum/opforum.php?sec=guest_op From sartesian at earthlink.net Thu Nov 5 10:50:27 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:50:27 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots References: <252927000F5D4B3F8FCA33BA6A6D97E8@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: Also look at the Economic Indicators from the Census Bureau Economics's Briefing Room. I think unfilled orders have continued to decline, and warehouse stocks have also fallen... so they manufacturers might be running down warehouse stocks, reducing that carrying cost when possible, and then producing for "just in time delivery," based on reduced demand and shorter lead times from order to production to shipment. Here' their latest: Full Report on Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories and Orders September 2009 Summary New orders for manufactured goods in September, up five of the last six months, increased $3.3 billion or 0.9 percent to $356.1 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. This followed a 0.8 percent August decrease. Excluding transportation, new ordersincreased 0.8 percent. Shipments, up three of the last four months, increased$2.9 billion or 0.8 percent to $363.1 billion. This followed a 0.2 percent August decrease. Unfilled orders, down twelve consecutive months, decreased $3.3 billion or 0.4 percent to $733.3 billion. This was the longest streak of consecutive monthly decreases since the series was first published on a NAICS basis in 1992. This followed a 0.4 percent August decrease. The unfilled orders-to-shipments ratio was 5.83, down from 5.97 in August.Inventories, down thirteen consecutive months, decreased $4.8 billion or 1.0 percent to $492.6 billion.This was the longest streak of consecutive monthly decreases since February 2001-May 2002 and followed a 0.9 percent August decrease. The inventories-toshipments ratio was 1.36, down from 1.38 in August..... full at: http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/briefroom/BriefRm . ----- Original Message ----- From: "guava tree" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 12:03 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots From sandia1980 at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 11:16:58 2009 From: sandia1980 at gmail.com (sandia) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 13:16:58 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Militant online? Message-ID: <2ed7e4ad0911051016o21e39731ja02eb0532ae58d18@mail.gmail.com> Are the any online digital collections of The Militant (USA) from anytime between the 1930s and 1970s? -- sandia From jayroth6 at cox.net Thu Nov 5 12:06:08 2009 From: jayroth6 at cox.net (jayroth6) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 14:06:08 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP Message-ID: <29AEB1E3428B418883D295A65AA5C70A@belindaqzp8de2> http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed-evelyn/1967/savage-mind.htm Evelyn Reed 1967 The Savage Mind Claude Levi-Strauss. University of Chicago Press, 290 pp., $5.95. The erudite French professor, Claude Levi-Strauss, is today the most prestigious figure in the field of anthropology. The Savage Mind is a companion volume to his book Totemism, both originally published in 1962. The nineteenth-century founders of anthropology who discovered totemism regarded it as a central institution of the epoch of savagery. Levi-Strauss, on the other hand, sets forth the thesis that totemism never existed. "Heterogeneous beliefs and customs have been arbitrarily collected together under the heading of totemism." Thus the several generations of scholars who have tried to decipher the secrets of its origin, evolution and significance were victims of a "totemic illusion." Frazer's four-volume study of Totemism and Exogamy is to Levi-Strauss more a monument to fiction than a reliable accumulation of data on the subject, as a guide to prehistoric theory. Levi-Strauss sides with the anti-totemic school of anthropologists led by Boas, Goldenweiser, Lowie and others who have sought to dispose of the riddle of totemism by denying that it was a social and historical reality. This position corresponds to their denial that a primitive collectivist society, with fundamentally different relations, preceded the advent of civilization with its class-divided formations. For example, Levi-Strauss equates the castes of an aristocratic society with the kinship clans of equalitarian tribal society. Apart from its other features, totemism is inseparable from the classificatory system of kinship. Historically, totemic classifications, in which social relations were expressed through animals, plants and other things, were the earliest, most rudimentary from of the classificatory system. Later, with the casting off of this original shell, social relations came to be expressed in exclusively human kinship terms. But this is not the view of Levi-Strauss, who deals with both phenomena in The Savage Mind. Unlike the evolutionary thinkers, Levi-Strauss rejects any overall continuity of development in history. He belongs with the piece-meal anthropologists who sever history into fragments. A "total" history of mankind is impossible and would lead to "chaos," he says. "Insofar as history aspires to meaning, it is doomed to select regions, periods, groups of men and individuals in these groups and to make them stand out as discontinuous figures, against a continuity barely good enough to be used as a backdrop... It inevitably remains partial - that is, incomplete." From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Nov 5 12:09:51 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:09:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] And the Winner in Honduras is ... the United States? Message-ID: <4AF322FF.8030405@panix.com> Counterpunch, November 5, 2009 Saving Face, While Manipulating the Outcome And the Winner in Honduras is ... the United States? By JOSEPH SHANSKY Never underestimate the capabilities of the slightest American muscle-flexing. After deliberately failing to use its massive economic and diplomatic influence in the tiny Central American country, the US has reportedly given the international community reason to breathe a sigh of relief in what Hillary Clinton is calling an ?historic agreement?. According to the US, the Honduran governmental power struggle has been resolved, and an agreement for President Manuel Zelaya to be reinstated has been reached. All thanks to a breezy State Department intervention that could have come four months, twenty-six lives, hundreds of disappearances, and thousands of random detentions earlier for Honduran citizens. Instead they let it play out like an internal civil disagreement while watching from above until the time was politically opportune to step in. In other words, the two children who were bickering in what Henry Kissinger famously dubbed ?our backyard? have been rightfully scolded, and forced by Uncle Sam to make nice. As for President Zelaya, and his supporters both in the streets and at the Brazilian embassy, as well as the journalists who have been living in Tegucigalpa and around the country for much of the summer and fall? We can all go home; diplomatic dialogue has prevailed on both sides. Or so we?re told. The details of what is now being called the Guaymuras Accords are messy. They involve a series of conditions and fine print designed to continue the regime?s now-familiar tactic of delaying real progress through semantics and by creating more legal headaches. At the same time, any pressure on the US to fight for a constructive return of Zelaya?s presidential powers is now gone. Despite coup leader Roberto Micheletti?s claim that his de-facto government has made ?significant concessions? in the accords, the real concessions have come from the other side. All one needs to do is imagine how Zelaya?s supporters would have reacted soon after the coup to the type of ?power-sharing? agreement that is currently being celebrated. It would have been considered laughable. These are the basic terms both sides have agreed to: - Creation of a government of national reconciliation that includes cabinet members from both sides. - Suspension of any possible vote on holding a Constitutional Assembly until after Jan. 27, when Zelaya's term ends. - A general amnesty for political crimes was rejected by both sides - Command of the Armed Forces to be placed under the Electoral Tribunal during the month prior to the elections. - Restitution of Zelaya to the presidency following a non-binding opinion from the Supreme Court and approval of Congress - Creation of a Verification Commission to follow up on the accords, consisting of two members of the Organization of American States (OAS), and one member each from the constitutional government and the coup regime. - Creation of a Truth Commission to begin work in 2010. - Revocation of international sanctions against Honduras, following the accords. The accords give President Zelaya some of his original rights as the democratically-elected president of Honduras. But who knows when? As of October 31, there have already been several contradictory statements coming out from Micheletti?s team. One of his negotiators said that since Congress would not be in session before the elections, it is now unlikely that Zelaya would be returned to any kind of power before that date. If he is, it hinges on approval by the same Congress that approved his seizure and relinquishes his executive power over the armed forces. In the ?power-sharing? agreement, the coup government would retain control over the military, a critical advantage. It also dismisses amnesty for political crimes on both sides, but at the moment Zelaya is the one facing a mountain of trumped-up charges, thanks to a summer of legal proceedings which took place under an illegitimate government and a shady judicial system. Another obstacle to a rightful reinstatement may be the Honduran Supreme Court. For example, from Sept. 22 through Oct. 19, five constitutional rights were suspended under a decree by the coup government. These included personal liberty, freedom of expression, freedom of movement, habeas corpus, and freedom of association. This was based on a clause in the 1982 Constitution which allowed for such restrictions in states of emergency, and is a perfect example of why Hondurans are demanding a new Constitution. The Honduran Supreme Court, which has been described by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs as ?one of the most corrupt institutions in Latin America?,c can give a non-binding opinion regarding Zelaya?s return which Congress can then take or leave. However, this process takes time, again indicating stalling on the part of the coup regime. Perhaps most importantly, the push for a popular Constituent Assembly during his term has also been dropped by Zelaya and his negotiating team. This concession was what caused Juan Barahona, coordinator of the National Front Against the Coup and a key voice on Zelaya?s side, to drop out of negotiations a few weeks ago. The Constituent Assembly would have created a body to rewrite the 1982 Honduran Constitution in newly democratic terms. On June 28, the day that Zelaya was forcibly removed from power and ejected from the country, Hondurans were scheduled to vote on a non-binding referendum for a Constituent Assembly. The outcome was to determine whether or not to then have a vote to rewrite the outdated 1982 Constitution. Subsequent polls have indicated a majority of support in Honduras for this reform. In the big picture, this is the real change for the future which thousands of Hondurans have been fighting for in the streets. What the Guaymuras Accords do most is create a space for the United States to recognize the legitimacy of the upcoming presidential elections, scheduled for November 29. With National Party front-runner Pepe Lobo likely to win (thanks to a campaign season in which any independent voices were sharply silenced by media censorship), the US gets another puppet in the region to counter the influx of reform-minded leaders in countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. It?s the political equivalent of more foreign aid debt. Furthermore, throughout the entirety of the coup neither Secretary of State Clinton nor President Obama (surely occupied with political concessions of his own at home) have acknowledged the repression and violence perpetrated by the Micheletti government and Honduran military in its wake. They still refuse to do so. So the actual power returned to Zelaya may be symbolic at best. But it?s extremely important for another group involved - the Resistance movement all around the country. Since the announcement on October 30 of Zelaya?s pending reinstatement, people here have triumphantly taken to the streets in a manner unseen since?actually, two weeks ago when Honduras qualified for the 2010 World Cup. The unity of the Resistance has put continual pressure on the coup government. Its mobilization constantly put Honduras into the world spotlight, and highlighted the violent reaction of a surprised regime. Undoubtedly the violence would have been far more severe without the involvement of the Resistance. The psychological effects of bringing their President back in any way after 125+ days in the streets mark a clear victory for the movement. And of course there are enormous differences between the (relatively) bloodless Honduran coup and the devastating Kissinger days of the 1970s, which led to tens of thousands of CIA-sponsored murders and disappearances in countries like Chile and Argentina. Still, the bottom line remains the same. Military coups in Latin America are not a thing of the past yet, and their outcome can be strongly influenced, in fact practically determined, by the US. Time will tell if the events in Honduras were an isolated affair, or if they indicate the type of reaction we will be seeing to the new age of leftist revolutions in Latin America. What is clear now is that after months of refusing to take real diplomatic action, the State Department has found a way to not only save face internationally, but to manipulate the outcome to make it appear to be a foreign policy win for the US. Though it?s still early in the proceedings, a clear victor has already emerged in the Honduran stand-off. Joseph Shansky works with Democracy Now! en Espa?ol, He can be reached at fallow3 at gmail.com. This report also appears in Upsidedown World. From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Nov 5 12:14:00 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:14:00 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Rejecting the marriage equality agenda In-Reply-To: <4AF30A21.1060307@gvtel.com> References: <4AF30A21.1060307@gvtel.com> Message-ID: <4AF323F8.7020503@panix.com> This article appeared in the November 23, 2009 edition of The Nation. Stonewall 2.0 By Christopher Lisotta Before November 2008, Tanner Efinger was just another 24-year-old working at a bar in the city of West Hollywood, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) center of Los Angeles. "I was really not a political person, even a little bit," he says. "I didn't even know who Nancy Pelosi was and didn't really understand what a senator was." But that all changed after the election of Barack Obama and the passage of Proposition 8, the voter referendum that banned same-sex marriage in California. At a postelection Prop 8 rally, it hit Efinger that despite all the cultural assimilation he has witnessed in his young life, gay people were still second-class citizens when it came to legal rights. "It is totally unfair," he says. "I thought, 'I know nothing about politics, but what can I do? I don't even have activist friends.' So I started Postcards to the President." Using his workplace as a catalyst, Efinger encouraged people to write postcards to Obama encouraging him to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 federal legislation signed by Bill Clinton that defines marriage as something only between one man and one woman. "I like to joke he created a monster, and now he has to be prepared to feed it," Efinger says, touting Obama's call for supporters to be the change they believe in. Events at bars in New York and San Francisco followed, along with a website and Facebook page. According to Efinger, more than 15,000 postcards have been sent from thirty states, with his most recent Postcards to the President event taking place in Bowling Green, Kentucky. "It all happened so quickly," he says. "My life has changed completely." Efinger is not alone. Until late last year, LGBT activism had been dominated for more than a decade by a handful of established national organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, along with a network of statewide groups. These gay organizations saw scattered progress in the waning days of the Clinton administration and then fought vainly against a tide of state referendums banning gay marriage. But with Obama's election and the anger that grew out of Prop 8's unexpected passage, a host of twentysomethings have jumped into the fray with a new set of national strategies, often starting or joining new grassroots organizations that bypass the old guard. Arisha Michelle Hatch is a 27-year-old attorney in San Francisco who quit her job early last year and began phone-banking for Obama. "I haven't gone back to the law firm yet," Hatch explains, noting that in March she joined up with Courage Campaign, a California-based group that is pushing for gay equality. Hatch is now the Southern California field manager for the organization's equality program. But most recently she was on loan to Maine, fighting Question 1, the statewide same-sex-marriage ban. Hatch was stunned last November when California, which went heavily for Obama, also passed Prop 8. She was even more shocked when news reports connected Prop 8's passage to majority support from African-Americans. "I don't want to believe that of my people," she says. "It is important as a straight African-American woman brought up in a Baptist church to say, This is about equality, and it's not OK." The kids are not doing it all by themselves, however. Courage Campaign was begun by Rick Jacobs, an established organizer who was Howard Dean's California campaign chair in 2004. And Efinger has become more involved thanks to Cleve Jones, who as a young man worked for slain San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk and went on to create the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Now a labor activist, Jones began receiving thousands of e-mails from young people after they saw the Oscar-winning film Milk, which came out after the November election. In many of the e-mails Jones kept reading about young people's desire for a national march for LGBT equality, which at first he actively discouraged. "I viewed it through the lens of other marches," he says, "which had been enormously expensive, where some people weren't paid and other people were paid too much." Like many others, Jones assumed that with Obama entering the White House and Democrats holding majorities in Congress, a gay rights agenda would move forward. But then Obama picked antigay pastor Rick Warren to speak at his inauguration, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that repealing DOMA was not a priority. On his website veteran Democratic operator David Mixner called for a national marriage equality march in November; Jones wrote back that it should be a full equality march, in October and done for no money. Mixner agreed on an LGBT website and said Jones was organizing it. It was then that all hell broke loose, Jones recalls. "The whole chorus started singing about how this was impossible and irresponsible," he says of the more established LGBT rights groups. "But in the community people just totally got it and got it early. All I did was reach out." Privately many LGBT career advocates dismissed the march, suggesting it would be little more than a high school hot mess. Congressman Barney Frank publicly called it a "waste of time" and, using his signature wit, predicted that "the only thing they're going to be putting pressure on is the grass." But in the meantime younger, less experienced organizers jumped on board. Jones stresses that he played only a small part in organizing the event compared with the work done by the many young people he met through promoting Milk, including guys like Efinger. On Columbus Day weekend, Efinger and Jones joined some 200,000 demonstrators for a march that culminated in a rally in front of Capitol Hill. The weekend's activities included meetings with legislators, organizing seminars and other networking events that were set up without the support of established gay groups. Efinger notes that with a budget of just $200,000, the organizers pulled off an event that "cost less than a dollar a person." Besides being an activist incubator, the National Equality March was also an amplifier. Utah native Chloe Noble, 27, owned a cleaning service and had done some work with a local shelter, but when it became clear that Prop 8 had passed in part because of the heavy involvement of the Mormon Church, she got motivated. Noble, who identifies as "bi-queer," was shocked to find out that as many as 40 percent of homeless teens identify as LGBT, according to a study by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. That prompted her to begin a 6,000-mile walk across America to raise awareness of LGBT homeless youth through her organization Operation Shine. But Noble put her journey on hold when National Equality March organizers asked her to plan a youth event at nearby Gallaudet University the weekend of the Capitol Hill demonstration. She put together more than a dozen programs at the three-day fair, including a flash mob that involved hundreds of people. Back on the road, Noble says, "The youth that I worked with nationwide are really angry, and that's the most common thing I hear them say about what's happening in the United States." That anger has led to a sea change in the fight for LGBT equality, which had been dominated by state-by-state fights and an almost surgical focus on a limited number of federal issues, like repealing "don't ask, don't tell." In contrast the National Equality March demanded "equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states." Jones is fully aware that enthusiasm from marches and other big events comes and goes. From the post-Stonewall years to Harvey Milk, ACT UP and the development of an LGBT "market" by corporate advertisers, he's seen it all. But this time he feels things are different. After the election someone used the term "Stonewall 2.0," Jones says. "When I read that, I snickered out loud and said to myself, We'll see about that." But now Jones says that he is witnessing a "sustained national grassroots movement." "Not one of the national organizations has come close to it," he observes. Efinger is among the many trying to maintain the momentum from the National Equality March. He is working with the march's outgrowth organization, Equality Across America, to organize Congressional District Action Teams, or CDATS, in all districts to put pressure on local representatives. "This has been going on now for a full year," Jones says. "Part of it is Barack getting elected. You can be as cynical as you want, but you can't deny the milestone of that generation." Conrad Honicker is one of that generation. A senior in high school, he is already something of a veteran organizer. Soon after he came out at 14, Honicker led his first demonstration in his hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee. "It was the largest LGBT rally Knoxville had ever seen," he explains. He also fought to have a Gay-Straight Alliance club in his high school, a first for Knox County. Not only did Honicker succeed; the greater Knoxville area now boasts eight GSA clubs. Thanks to a National Equality March co-chair who was also a Knoxville native, Honicker was asked to be on the steering committee, which makes sense, since much of his free time is spent whipping together local rallies and other events, including a gay-friendly prom. "I guess I just like to stay busy organizing," he admits. When the march organizers proposed legislation as benchmarks to establish equality, Honicker noticed there was nothing youth-specific. "They were all really good pieces of legislation," he says. "Sure, I want to get married one day, but I'm certainly not thinking about it right now." Honicker suggested advocating federal antibullying legislation, "which is very much needed," he says with some tension in his voice. As an intern at the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, the local GSAs' national umbrella organization, Honicker attended Obama's June reception commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion. Honicker spoke to Obama about antibullying and felt that the president was very supportive. While other gay advocates have been skeptical of Obama's commitment, Honicker is willing to take the president at his word, even though he understands that older activists rue the lost opportunities of the Clinton years. "Maybe an older generation--anybody over 25--might be feeling like it's just going to be a repeat of the Clinton administration," Honicker says, fully cognizant that he has no political memory of those setbacks. "I don't think it's right that he's not just ending 'don't ask, don't tell' or not ending DOMA. But at the same time, that's not what I'm going to be complaining about," he adds. "I'm complaining about the policies and not him. We have to work to change how the system operates and how we function within the system." Christopher Lisotta is a writer and television producer in California. In 2005 he won a GLAAD Media Award for an article he wrote for The Nation. more... From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Nov 5 12:40:40 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:40:40 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Norman Levitt died Message-ID: <4AF32A38.1080200@panix.com> (Norman Levitt basically inspired Alan Sokal's hoax. Sokal is a well-meaning social democrat while Levitt's politics were suspect to say the least. He organized a conference at NYU on the "science wars" using Olin Foundation funding. In the issue that Sokal's hoax appeared, there were some trenchant replies to Levitt and his co-thinkers, including from Richard Lewontin. I once asked Sokal if he had ever read Lewontin. He confessed that he had not.) http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-10-26 Farewell to Norman Jay Levitt (1943?2009) It is with much sadness that we report the death of Norman Jay Levitt on Saturday, October 24, 2009, due to heart failure. His wife of 38 years, Renee Greene Levitt, reported the news to friends and colleagues of Norman, and announced that a memorial service will be held on Sunday, November 1 at 1:30 PM at Plaza Jewish Community Chapel, 630 Amsterdam Avenue at 91 St. She also asked that in lieu of flowers, memorial contributions be sent to the National Center for Science Education, 420 40th Street, Suite 2, Oakland, CA 94609. Our deepest condolences to Renee and to Norman?s family and extended family. Norman Levitt received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1967 and taught mathematics, specializing in topology, for forty years at Rutgers before retirement. He was a frequent contributor on public attitudes toward science, as well as the follies of academic life that arise in connection with misunderstanding of science, regularly contributing review essays for Skeptic, The New York Review of Books, and many other publications. His books include Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science (with Paul R. Gross) in 1994, The Flight from Science and Reason in 1997, and Prometheus Bedeviled: Science and the Contradictions of Contemporary Culture in 1999. In 1989 he published a technical work entitled Grassmannians and the Gauss Maps in Piecewise-Linear Topology. Norman was best known, however, for his relentless defense of science, particularly against those in the academy ? generally labeled as social constructivists, deconstructionists, or postmodernists ? who tended to lump science in with other cultural traditions as ?just another way of knowing? that is no better than any other tradition, and thereby reduce the scientific enterprise to little more than culturally-determined guess work at best and hegemonic power mongering at worst. In the pages of Skeptic, for example, he reviewed a number of books by such academics, most recently tearing into the British sociologist of science Steve Fuller for his expert testimony at the Dover trial in which Fuller defended Intelligent Design creationism as a legitimate science that deserves equal treatment with evolutionary theory. Already schedule for publication in the next issue of Skeptic was Dr. Levitt?s review essay entitled ?Science: A Four Hundred Page Hissy-Fit,? a review of Science: A Four Thousand Year History by Patricia Fara, which we are pre-publishing in eSkeptic in tribute to one of the finest writers to ever grace the pages of Skeptic. Editing Norman Levitt was unlike editing any other author in the 17-year history of the magazine. His vocabulary was unparalleled and his command of literature, history, and culture was second to none in the sciences. Norm, we shall miss you terribly. Your literal voice may be gone, but your literary voice will live on forever. ? Michael Shermer From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Nov 5 13:17:29 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:17:29 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP In-Reply-To: <29AEB1E3428B418883D295A65AA5C70A@belindaqzp8de2> References: <29AEB1E3428B418883D295A65AA5C70A@belindaqzp8de2> Message-ID: <4AF332D9.9090904@panix.com> jayroth6 wrote: > Curiously, Levi-Strauss claims that Marxism is the "point of departure" of his thought and that he aspires to a "theory of superstructures, scarcely touched on by Marx." Actually, his non-historical and non-materialist approach is far removed from the Marxist method. I will get into more detail on this, but there were problems with Marxist anthropology going back to the 19th century when social Darwinism had a disorienting effect on people like Plekhanov and Kautsky. Levi-Strauss's approach attempts to undercut the linear conceptions of vulgar Marxism through its use of universal "structures" but at the expense of social and historical explanations that make sense of the whole. My first reaction to the things I have been looking at is that he is very much a figure like Freud who also tried to extract universals out of the particular. This is the reason he dovetails so well with Lacan and other psychoanalysts who have helped to give structuralism, poststructuralism and postmodernism its distinctly ahistorical quality. Btw, Jay, can I persuade you to switch to gmail? Your email client has the same fucked-up problems as yahoo. From sartesian at earthlink.net Thu Nov 5 13:33:23 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 15:33:23 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] And the Winner in Honduras is ... the United States? References: <4AF322FF.8030405@panix.com> Message-ID: Gee... wonder where C B is with his chants of O bam a! O bam a! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Louis Proyect" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 2:09 PM Subject: [Marxism] And the Winner in Honduras is ... the United States? Counterpunch, November 5, 2009 Saving Face, While Manipulating the Outcome And the Winner in Honduras is ... the United States? By JOSEPH SHANSKY From sabocat59 at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 14:49:11 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 16:49:11 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] 7 Shot Dead at US military base Message-ID: <6e42edf00911051349q590bc79fq5b3171ff8982c406@mail.gmail.com> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8345713.stm Seven shot dead at US army base Seven people have been killed and at least 20 injured in a pair of shootings at the Fort Hood military base in Texas, the US Army has confirmed. One person has been arrested and at least one more is on the run, reports say. The base has been locked down. NBC News network said the two suspects were in military uniform and that the shooter-at-large was believed to have a high-powered sniper rifle. Fort Hood, near the town of Killeen, is the largest US base in the world. Home to about 40,000 US troops, the base lies between Austin and Waco, about 60 miles (97 km) from each city. It is not yet clear whether those reported killed and injured are civilians or military personnel. FORT HOOD Largest US base in the world Home to about 40,000 personnel Covers 15 sq miles (39 sq km) Built in 1942 Focus for anti-war protesters Includes two museums and a lake White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama had been briefed on the incident. Army spokesman Lt Col Nathan Banks at the Pentagon told the Associated Press news agency the shootings had begun at about 1330 (1930 GMT) on Thursday at a personnel and medical processing centre at Fort Hood. He said two shooters had been involved. The second incident took place at a theatre on the base, he said. NBC reports that the suspect in custody is in his 20s. At this point all those involved are believed to be military personnel, ABC reports. It says there are conflicting reports about whether there is a third shooter. A soldier stationed at Fort Hood told the BBC: "We're on lockdown. I heard the emergency announcement over the speakers outside and saw people rushing to get indoors. "In our office we're okay but we're hearing about the deaths. It's horrible and very shocking." Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, talking on CNN, said she had spoken to one of the generals at Fort Hood minutes ago, and he had suggested 30 people were wounded. Local congressman John Carter, speaking to NBC News, said gunfire had erupted during a graduation ceremony. The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says there are military police and Swat teams on the scene, and the FBI is on the way from Austin and Waco. Schools in the area have also been locked down. The units at the base will be deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some will have returned from there, our correspondent says. The base is essentially like a small town, he adds. There is a centre there that deals with combat stress. From sabocat59 at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 14:51:33 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 16:51:33 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Wal Mart Swine Flu policies contribute to spread of disease Message-ID: <6e42edf00911051351w625e1520nb44ba5d640d60a71@mail.gmail.com> http://washingtonindependent.com/66492/stay-home-if-you-have-swine-flu-unless-you-work-at-wal-mart Stay Home if You Have Swine Flu, Unless You Work at Wal-Mart Digg Tweet By Mary Kane 11/4/09 9:07 AM During the summer, when swine flu was not yet a widespread reality in the United States, giant retailer Wal-Mart made the news for being in talks with the government about possibly distributing the swine flu vaccine through its extensive network of stores. But now the swine flu has Wal-Mart under scrutiny for a very different reason: Accusations that the retailer is leaving employees infected with swine flu little choice but to come to work, due to its punitive sick leave policies. Citing a report by the National Labor Committee, the Institute for Southern Studies? argues on its blog Facing South that Wal-Mart is essentially contributing to the spread of swine flu by making it financially prohibitive for employees to miss work when they fall ill. Employees of the Arkansas-based retail giant ? even its food handlers ? feel they have no choice but to work when they?re sick. That?s because the company gives workers demerits and deducts pay for staying home when they?re sick or caring for sick children. It gets worse: The situation is particularly difficult for Wal-Mart workers who are single parents. The NLC reports on an instance in which an employee got a call from her four-year-old?s preschool telling her to pick up the child, who had a fever of 103 degrees F. Despite the fact that the employee had already worked for four hours that day, she got a demerit point for leaving and lost her wages for the rest of the day. The report says: ?Parents have no choice but to load their children up with Motrin and Dimetap to mask their symptoms so they can go to school.? Which, of course, leads to a vicious circle of other children at school becoming sick, and spreading it in their families. Not to mention the misery of a sick child facing a full day of school. What?s particularly interesting is that Wal-Mart includes on its Website some information about swine flu, including frequently asked questions. Here?s the answer to ?What should I do if I get sick?? Stay away from others as much as possible to keep from making others sick. Staying at home means that you should not leave your home except to seek medical care. This means avoiding normal activities, including work, school, travel, shopping, social events and public gatherings. Unless you work at Wal-Mart. Then, you?d better make it in for your shift if you don?t want your pay docked or possibly lose your job. From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 17:28:04 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:28:04 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Militant online? Message-ID: <4AF36D94.4060804@gmail.com> No. I wish, but no, they are not online. I've been working to put the *indexes* of each issue on line here: http://marx.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/ 1928?Volume 1 1929?Volume 2 1930?Volume 3 [incomlete] 1931?Volume 4 [incomlete] 1932?Volume 5 [incomlete] I've lost access now to the microfilm at Holt Labor since the this library is in stasis now until more funds come available. David From sandia1980 at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 18:09:35 2009 From: sandia1980 at gmail.com (sandia) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 20:09:35 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination Message-ID: <2ed7e4ad0911051709s4002b810n4c54973e5c9e7ecd@mail.gmail.com> http://www.blackcommentator.com/349/349_assassination_hampton_haas_review_bennett_guest.html -- sandia From theguavatree at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 18:29:57 2009 From: theguavatree at gmail.com (guava tree) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 20:29:57 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots In-Reply-To: References: <252927000F5D4B3F8FCA33BA6A6D97E8@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: A lot of that CBE data leads to a graph that looks like this which charts advance durable goods shipments, new orders and unfilled orders: (warning, PDF!) www.newyorkfed.org/research/directors_charts/pi_10.pdf What needs explaining to me is how from 2005 to 2008 new orders and shipments are staying relatively flat while Unfilled Orders start to rise to a great degree. This is manifested, I think, by the fact that the green dots of "new orders" in this period are on average *above* (greater than) the blue "shipments" line. From 1994 to about 2004, this was reversed with shipments mostly outpacing new orders (although you can also see a rise in new orders relative to shipments in the 90s--which leads to the rise in unfilled orders in the 90s until 2001). I guess my question is why shipments could not keep up with new orders in 2005-2008? To me, this looks like the complete opposite of a "demand side" problem--as you can see from the graph the unfilled orders almost doubling in a 3 year period meaning that there was plenty of work to be done, but an inability to rise to this demand. . . the excess of unfilled orders seems to point towards the decline of productivity in industry (trend of falling rate of profit), thus a lack of capital invested in durable goods manufacturing as opposed to non-productive sectors: real estate/derivatives? On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 12:50 PM, S. Artesian wrote: > > Also look at the Economic Indicators from the Census Bureau Economics's > Briefing Room. I think unfilled orders have continued to decline, and > warehouse stocks have also fallen... so they manufacturers might be running > down warehouse stocks, reducing that carrying cost when possible, and then > producing for "just in time delivery," based on reduced demand and shorter > lead times from order to production to shipment. > From holmoff10 at hotmail.com Thu Nov 5 18:48:38 2009 From: holmoff10 at hotmail.com (Leonardo Kosloff) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 01:48:38 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Claude Levi-Strauss, RIP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This, by Simon Clarke, is pretty good: http://soc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/3/405 He also wrote a book on the topic: "The foundations of structuralism: a critique of L?vi-Strauss and the structuralist movement." _________________________________________________________________ Windows 7: Unclutter your desktop. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9690331&ocid=PID24727::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WWL_WIN_evergreen:112009 From jayrothermel at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 16:22:38 2009 From: jayrothermel at gmail.com (jay rothermel) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 18:22:38 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] =?windows-1252?q?NYC_Meetings_hear_Marxist_analysis_of_?= =?windows-1252?q?=91Low-Wage_Capitalism=92?= Message-ID: <1f14bc450911051522q693abd83s4b52c3cc62302f5d@mail.gmail.com> http://brechtforum.org/events/low-wage-capitalism http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iszm4yqAdz0 http://www.workers.org/2009/us/meetings_1112/ Meetings hear Marxist analysis of ?Low-Wage Capitalism? By Dee Knight New York Published Nov 4, 2009 9:43 PM Fred Goldstein, author of ?Low-Wage Capitalism,? was the featured speaker at two recent New York events: a Brecht Forum meeting and a conference of the Union of Radical Political Economists (URPE) in Brooklyn. He was also interviewed on radio station WBAI-FM in New York and KFAI-FM in Minneapolis. These activities were part of the launching of the new book, a process that began formally in September. Another radio interview is slated for Nov. 16 on WHCR-FM in New York with Nellie Bailey, chair of the Harlem Tenants Council. And on Nov. 22 Goldstein will be hosted at the Hue-Man Bookstore and Cafe in Harlem. Goldstein?s talk at the radical Brecht Forum in Greenwich Village coincided with an official announcement that the U.S. economy had finally registered some growth in the third quarter of 2009, after two years of decline. Goldstein seized the moment to point out that official unemployment figures also grew in the same period, and are poised to top 10 percent. The so-called ?jobless recovery,? he observed, is a recent phenomenon, reflecting the growing crisis of capitalism overproduction brought on by the overall rise in the productivity of labor. Goldstein highlighted two key causes of the decline of workers? wages in the imperialist countries over the past three decades. The first was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the concomitant opening of China and India to external capitalist penetration, resulting in a doubling to three billion of the number of workers available for exploitation by imperialism. The second was the scientific and technological revolution?computers, the Internet, supertankers, satellites and software?which have made it possible for large corporations to create global webs of production, which he characterized as ?global chains of superexploitation.? He illustrated this by describing how a Dell computer is made in a web of factories around the globe, each with a cluster of suppliers that are forced to compete with each other. These combined factors have allowed the large corporations to push wages down drastically?and they are not yet satisfied. In his comments on the prospects for a fightback, Goldstein noted that two unions whose traditions are still rooted in the struggles of the 1930s have set examples for the future: the United Electrical Workers and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union on the West Coast. It is no accident, he observed, that these two unions have defied traditional ?business unionism? methods. UE Local 1110 carried out the seizure and occupation of Republic Doors and Windows in Chicago last fall, while the ILWU staged a one-day shutdown of West Coast ports on May Day, 2008, to protest the war in Iraq. It is notable that in the plant occupation at Republic Doors and Windows, immigrant and women workers took the lead. And in the port shutdown, a large percentage of the workers were African-American. These developments reflect a significant change in the makeup of the working class. Goldstein also highlighted the importance of labor-community alliances, not only to confront the bosses and the government but also to loosen the grip of union officials who are caught in the old patterns of ?labor peace? and class collaboration. Both of Goldstein?s presentations were captured digitally by People?s Video Network and will be available soon both at www.workers.org and on YouTube. The same is true for the radio interviews. Other aspects of the ongoing launch of ?Low-Wage Capitalism? include its presentation at a forum of progressive intellectuals in Europe by Workers World managing editor John Catalinotto and anticipated reviews in a number of progressive publications. Goldstein?s plans include visits to conferences and bookstores across the country during the coming year. ------------------------------ Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 19:39:58 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:39:58 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] =?iso-8859-1?q?Communiqu=E9_No=2E_33=2C_National_Front_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?of_Resistance_Against_the_Coup_in_Honduras?= Message-ID: <4AF38C7E.2090707@gmail.com> Communiqu? No. 33 The National Front of Resistance Against the Coup wishes to inform the Honduran people and the international community of the following: Whereas, 1. During the 131 days of continuous struggle, we have pushed for a peaceful solution to the political crisis in our country as a result of the coup d'?tat carried out by the Honduran oligarchy. In this period we have supported the efforts promoted by various national and international sectors, putting forward three key demands: (a) the return to constitutional order with the reinstatement of the legitimate president, Manuel Zelaya Rosales; (b) respect for the sovereign right to establish a National Constituent Assembly for the purpose of refounding our nation; and (c) punishment for those who have violated human rights. 2. The Tegucigalpa-San Jose agreement underscores the priority of returning to constitutional order and affirms, literally, the need to "return the holder of executive power to its pre-June 28 state through to January 27, 2010, which marks the end of the term of the current government." 3. The National Congress, co-author of the break with the constitutional order on June 28, is using delaying tactics by refusing to convene the full assembly of the Congress to revoke the decree that set up the de-facto regime. 4. The OAS and the U.S. government, which we consider to be an accomplice in the military coup, do not show an interest in the definitive departure of the coup perpetrators from political power. Therefore We Resolve That, 1. If by 12 midnight today, Thursday, November 5 -- at the latest -- President Jos? Manuel Zelaya Rosales is not reinstated, the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup will refuse to recognize the electoral process and its results. 2. We warn all organizations of the national Resistance that if President Zelaya were not to be reinstated within this time frame, they should be ready to carry out the actions necessary to deny any legitimacy to the electoral farce. 3. We call upon the international community to maintain its position of refusing to legitimize the de-facto regime and the elections of November 29. "We Are Resisting and We Shall Win!" Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. November 5, 2009 (translated from the Spanish by Alan Benjamin/The Organizer) From sartesian at earthlink.net Thu Nov 5 20:38:53 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 22:38:53 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots References: <252927000F5D4B3F8FCA33BA6A6D97E8@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <84B223CCD7554849AC05A8841DBE7E03@dmsthinkpad> Interesting question-- I think we need to look at the components of capital's recovery after 2003-- and those components were depressing wages below the year 2000/2001 level, and rigid restrictions on capital spending, and replacement. Values of fixed industrial assets actually decline in the US until 2006, when corporations, cash richer than rich, decide to resume capital spending, just in time to ride the rate of return on its way down. If the "liquidationist" recovery fo 2003 is an accurate representation then we can see the unfilled order path in this graph as representing the "opening up" of the corporate capital investment account to replace, improve, capital goods that had been starved of such expenditures. This really takes off in 2006 and goes hyper in 2007. The bourgeoisie, then, invest themselves, right out of the "good times," which on close inspection aren't all that different from the bad times. ----- Original Message ----- From: "guava tree" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 8:29 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots >A lot of that CBE data leads to a graph that looks like this which > charts advance durable goods shipments, new orders and unfilled > orders: (warning, PDF!) > > www.newyorkfed.org/research/directors_charts/pi_10.pdf > > What needs explaining to me is how from 2005 to 2008 new orders and > shipments are staying relatively flat while Unfilled Orders start to > rise to a great degree. This is manifested, I think, by the fact that > the green dots of "new orders" in this period are on average *above* > (greater than) the blue "shipments" line. From 1994 to about 2004, > this was reversed with shipments mostly outpacing new orders (although > you can also see a rise in new orders relative to shipments in the > 90s--which leads to the rise in unfilled orders in the 90s until > 2001). > From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Thu Nov 5 20:40:43 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:40:43 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] DeMint: Obama administration commits to Honduran elections without Zelaya Message-ID: <114E59147DC245609EE5C919BD33A294@office1pc> DeMint: Administration Commits to Recognize Honduran Elections Senator secures commitment for U.S. to back Nov. 29 elections even if Zelaya is not reinstated WASHINGTON, DC -- Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced he has secured a commitment from the Obama administration to recognize the Honduran elections on November 29th, regardless of whether former President Manuel Zelaya is returned to office and regardless of whether the vote on reinstatement takes place before or after November 29th. Given this commitment, which Senator DeMint has requested for months, he will lift objections on the nominations of Arturo Valenzuela to be Assistant Secretary of Western Hemisphere Affairs and Thomas Shannon to be U.S. Ambassador to Brazil. "I am happy to report the Obama Administration has finally reversed its misguided Honduran policy and will fully recognize the November 29th elections," said Senator DeMint. "Secretary Clinton and Assistant Secretary Shannon have assured me that the U.S. will recognize the outcome of the Honduran elections regardless of whether Manuel Zelaya is reinstated. I take our administration at their word that they will now side with the Honduran people and end their focus on the disgraced Zelaya." "My goal has always been to work with the administration to get the policy on the Honduran elections reversed. Now that this goal has been achieved, I will lift my objections to the two nominations. "This marks an important step forward for the brave people of Honduras. They are proving, despite crushing hardship and impossible odds, that freedom and democracy can succeed anywhere people are willing to fight for it. From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Thu Nov 5 20:54:08 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:54:08 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] =?iso-8859-1?q?__Communiqu=E9_No=2E_33_of_the_National_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Front_of__Resistance_Against_the_Coup?= Message-ID: <26500B21C5EF4C589E559411BB73E3F3@office1pc> Distributed by: The Organizer [theorganizer at earthlink.net] The National Front of Resistance Against the Coup wishes to inform the Honduran people and the international community of the following: Whereas, 1. During the 131 days of continuous struggle, we have pushed for a peaceful solution to the political crisis in our country as a result of the coup d'?tat carried out by the Honduran oligarchy. In this period we have supported the efforts promoted by various national and international sectors, putting forward three key demands: (a) the return to constitutional order with the reinstatement of the legitimate president, Manuel Zelaya Rosales; (b) respect for the sovereign right to establish a National Constituent Assembly for the purpose of refounding our nation; and (c) punishment for those who have violated human rights. 2. The Tegucigalpa-San Jose agreement underscores the priority of returning to constitutional order and affirms, literally, the need to "return the holder of executive power to its pre-June 28 state through to January 27, 2010, which marks the end of the term of the current government." 3. The National Congress, co-author of the break with the constitutional order on June 28, is using delaying tactics by refusing to convene the full assembly of the Congress to revoke the decree that set up the de-facto regime. 4. The OAS and the U.S. government, which we consider to be an accomplice in the military coup, do not show an interest in the definitive departure of the coup perpetrators from political power. Therefore We Resolve That, 1. If by 12 midnight today, Thursday, November 5 -- at the latest -- President Jos? Manuel Zelaya Rosales is not reinstated, the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup will refuse to recognize the electoral process and its results. 2. We warn all organizations of the national Resistance that if President Zelaya were not to be reinstated within this time frame, they should be ready to carry out the actions necessary to deny any legitimacy to the electoral farce. 3. We call upon the international community to maintain its position of refusing to legitimize the de-facto regime and the elections of November 29. "We Are Resisting and We Shall Win!" Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. November 5, 2009 (translated from the Spanish by Alan Benjamin/The Organizer) From jacdon at earthlink.net Thu Nov 5 21:37:24 2009 From: jacdon at earthlink.net (JacDon) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:37:24 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Activist Newsletter Message-ID: November 5, 2009 HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER/CALENDAR jacdon at earthlink.net, http://activistnewsletter.blogspot.com/ ?????????????????? ALL ARTICLES: http://activistnewsletter.blogspot.com/ ?????????????????? Contents: 1. PEACE MOVEMENT BLUES ? The Afghan war is expanding and the mass antiwar movement is contracting in a big way. Its base constituency, Democratic voters, is pulling back. Why, and what can be done to revive the struggle? 2. THE U.S. IN AFGHANISTAN: Part 1: Eight Years and Counting ? Arguing "This is a war of necessity," Obama plans to widen Bush's war of choice in Afghanistan. 3. THE U.S. IN AFGHANISTAN: Part 2: The Origins of a Bad War ? Washington's war in Afghanistan is one of several disastrous consequences of U.S. interference and subversion in that country beginning 30 years ago and is now transforming into the "Af-Pak" misadventure. 4. "BRING BACK THE DRAFT" ? Bill Moyers said it, in reference to White House plans in Afghanistan, but it was to make a larger and profound point. 5. AFGHANISTAN'S WOMEN AND THE WAR ?The plight of the overwhelming majority of Afghan women remains deplorable after all these years of U.S. occupation. They are caught between the Pentagon and the Taliban and want to be rid of both. 6. HONDURAS: OBAMA'S CREDIBILITY ON LINE ? "Obama now has a choice," writes Mark Weisbrot. "He can force the coup regime to honor the accord or lose further credibility among governments in the hemisphere and the world." 7. NY STATE SENATE MAY VOTE ON GAY MARRIAGE ? The Assembly has okayed same-sex marriage by a big margin. Now its the Senate's turn, possibly within days or weeks, but nothing's certain. 8. FILM REVIEW OF "CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY" ? Michael Moore features the reality of the economic crisis for America's usually-invisible poor and working class, writes Alex Knight. 9. PENTAGON INVOLVEMENT IN TORTURE DEATHS ? The Pentagon copied some of the CIA's torture techniques but applied them on a much larger scale to thousands of suspects in Iraq and Afghanistan, and caused many more torture deaths. 10. THE COVER-UP CONTINUES ? The New York Times sharply takes the White House to task for continuing the Bush Administration's cover up "of abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism." 11. UNCIVIL LIBERTIES: THE ASSAULT ON U.S. MUSLIMS ? "Relatively unseen, unknown, and definitely unabated, the assault on U.S. Muslims continues under the government's 'war on terror' and the political right's war on Islam," says Rev. David L. Ostendorf. 12. A NEW GENERATION RISES AT J STREET ? Britt Harwood reports: "The conflict between a love of Israel and a desire for peace was the dominant theme of J Street's much-anticipated inaugural conference... in Washington. The conference hosted an unexpectedly large crowd of more than 1,500 mostly left-leaning Jewish activists." 13. CLIMATE CHANGE AND DIET ? One of Britain's leading authorities on global warming says "Give up meat to save the planet." 14. TOP TEN IRAN MYTHS ? Professor Juan Cole discusses "The top things you think you know about Iran that are not true." 15. NEWS BRIEFS ?????????????????? ALL ARTICLES: http://activistnewsletter.blogspot.com/ ?????????????????? From michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Thu Nov 5 21:50:09 2009 From: michael at ecst.csuchico.edu (michael perelman) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:50:09 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] question about modernization Message-ID: <4AF3AB01.20804@ecst.csuchico.edu> A Chinese grad student asked me for some help. Any recommendations? Could you tell me if there is any scholar who does research on social modernization, compared to economic modernization and political modernization and even cultural modernization, in the United States? I'm thinking about what to write for my dissertation for a doctoral degree. You know, more and more social problems arise during China's modernization drive. The reason, I think, is that China's modernization now is more economic rather than social. So, a sound modernization should be a balanced one among social, political, cultural as well as economic, never just economic. Thus, I want to do some research on social modernization for China. Could you give me some advice from your perspective, for you are familiar with China and you also have insights into the economic system in place today? Thank you so much! -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com From guycarlos at msn.com Thu Nov 5 22:22:35 2009 From: guycarlos at msn.com (Guy Miller) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 23:22:35 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination In-Reply-To: <2ed7e4ad0911051709s4002b810n4c54973e5c9e7ecd@mail.gmail.com> References: <2ed7e4ad0911051709s4002b810n4c54973e5c9e7ecd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Linda and I went to a book signing for the Fred Hampton book at Northwestern tonight. The meeting was attended by about 250 people. Hampton's mother and brother Bill were present. The meeting was chaired by Bernadine Dohrn (who I didn't like 40 years ago and don't like now.) I had the privilege of speaking on the same platform with Fred Hampton on two occasions. It is hard to believe he was only 21 when he was assassinated. The Panthers attracted many talented and dedicated people. > From: sandia1980 at gmail.com > Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 20:09:35 -0500 > Subject: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination > To: guycarlos at msn.com > > http://www.blackcommentator.com/349/349_assassination_hampton_haas_review_bennett_guest.html > > -- > sandia > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/guycarlos%40msn.com From rholt at planeteria.net Fri Nov 6 00:17:31 2009 From: rholt at planeteria.net (Rod Holt) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 23:17:31 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots In-Reply-To: <84B223CCD7554849AC05A8841DBE7E03@dmsthinkpad> References: <252927000F5D4B3F8FCA33BA6A6D97E8@dmsthinkpad> <84B223CCD7554849AC05A8841DBE7E03@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <2D4355A1-83E9-479B-9CC5-739E4C48094A@planeteria.net> Part of the problem with the graphical presentation is that the shipped and new orders scale is quite different than the unfilled orders scale. For the former, 1 division is about 10% while for the latter it is 7 percent. Most of the time ?new orders? (the green dots) are most often below ?shipments.? How can one ship more (in dollars) than is ordered over a long time scale (15 years)? Even without going to the original data on a spread sheet, one can see that the eyeball average difference is just a few percent. Then consider that unfilled orders (back ordered goods) are 3 to 4 times greater that than shipments, which reflects the time lag between orders and shipments (i.e., the length of the pipeline), it is easy to see that shipments should exceed orders because of inflation; that is, the prices of delivered goods have been increased to cover inflation. When the economy turns downward, inventories increase (relatively) and an increasing percentage of orders are filled immediately. But because the shipped goods come from inventory, shipments should exceed new orders until inventory is reduced to the minimum. The effect on the ?booked to billed? ratio today is unusual because of actual deflation in producer prices. The ratio of back orders to shipments was around 3 in 1994, 2.6 in 2000, went to 3.9 at its peak in 2008, and is 4.3 today. The recent high numbers suggest that the pipe line is considerably longer in the last half of 2008 and today than in years past. Since inventory dumping dominated 2009, the only reason I can see for the long lead times is the extensive and bone deep cutting of the work force. The Advance Report released October 28, 2009 said: ?Nondefense new orders for capital goods in September increased $1.3 billion or 2.5 percent to $53.6 billion. Shipments increased $1.2 billion or 2.2 percent to $56.6 billion. Unfilled orders decreased $3.0 billion or 0.7 percent to $419.6 billion. Inventories decreased $2.3 billion or 1.7 percent to $132.4 billion.? This amounts to saying that orders increased right along with shipments while unfilled orders hardly changed. Inventories dropped significantly. It is possible for customers to cancel large orders, causing unfilled orders to drop immediately while all the other numbers could remain unchanged. But this does not seem to be significant in our case. My conclusion remains the same; we are observing an pronounced increase in the time it is taking to fill orders either because of a short work force or in problems getting tools and materials (likely due to credit problems) or both. Thus the velocity of capital circulation drops and as a direct result, the rate of profit drops with it. --rod =========== On Nov 5, 2009, at 7:38 PM, S. Artesian wrote: > Interesting question-- I think we need to look at the components of > capital's recovery after 2003-- and those components were > depressing wages > below the year 2000/2001 level, and rigid restrictions on capital > spending, > and replacement. Values of fixed industrial assets actually > decline in the > US until 2006, when corporations, cash richer than rich, decide to > resume > capital spending, just in time to ride the rate of return on its > way down. > > If the "liquidationist" recovery fo 2003 is an accurate > representation then > we can see the unfilled order path in this graph as representing the > "opening up" of the corporate capital investment account to replace, > improve, capital goods that had been starved of such expenditures. > This > really takes off in 2006 and goes hyper in 2007. The bourgeoisie, > then, > invest themselves, right out of the "good times," which on close > inspection > aren't all that different from the bad times. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "guava tree" > To: "David Schanoes" > Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 8:29 PM > Subject: Re: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots > > >> A lot of that CBE data leads to a graph that looks like this which >> charts advance durable goods shipments, new orders and unfilled >> orders: (warning, PDF!) >> >> www.newyorkfed.org/research/directors_charts/pi_10.pdf >> >> What needs explaining to me is how from 2005 to 2008 new orders and >> shipments are staying relatively flat while Unfilled Orders start to >> rise to a great degree. This is manifested, I think, by the fact that >> the green dots of "new orders" in this period are on average *above* >> (greater than) the blue "shipments" line. From 1994 to about 2004, >> this was reversed with shipments mostly outpacing new orders >> (although >> you can also see a rise in new orders relative to shipments in the >> 90s--which leads to the rise in unfilled orders in the 90s until >> 2001). >> > > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/ > marxism/rholt%40planeteria.net From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Fri Nov 6 05:45:27 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:45:27 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Honduran movements blast US deception, promise continued struggle Message-ID: <3C0ECF4B549249F99F7E31A40F2C2213@office1pc> Indigenous organization COPINH denounces Guaymuras Accords Posted: 04 Nov 2009 04:04 PM PST Civil Council of Popular and Inidigenous Organizations of Honduras - COPINH. THE TRAP OF THE ACCORDS OF THE GUAYMURAS-TEGUCIGALPA-SAN JOS? DIALOGUE" cite PRESS RELEASE. The Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), in the face of the signing of the accords to seek a solution to the crisis generatied by the military coup d'etat against the people of Honduras, emits the following communiqu?: 1. We have no trust in the negotiating commission of the coup regime given that they have never demonstrated a willingness to reinstate the constitutional president of the republic and its only purpose is to buy time to consolidate the objectives of the coup d'etat in looting the national treasury and imposing neoliberal projects of privatization of natural resources and state institutions. 2. We denounce the malicious and intentional attitude of the government of the United States of America, who take on ambiguous positions but behind the scenes have supported the coup-makers and if not how can they explain that in the kidnapping of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales they used the Palmerola base? If the yankees had so much will to contribute to the resolution of this crisis, why so much tolerance, patience and complacency with the coup-makers in lending themselves to a dialogue where they present deceiving agreements as a solution? 3. We call out people not to rest until we achieve the convoking of a popular and democratic national constitutional assembly, which should be made up of the different social sectors of the country such as women, feminists, youth, indigenous and black peoples, workers, the LGTB community, community councils, representatives of marginalized neighborhoods, teachers, artists, peasants, honest business people, intellectuals, professionals, the informal economy sector, alternative media, among others. 4. We urge the National Front of Popular Resistance to raise an initiative of dialogue and negotiation towards more dignified agreements in which the mediation shouldn't be to the liking and oversight of the yankee government, which has helped drive the coup d'etat against our people, but instead by people like Rigoberta Menchu, Adolfo P?rez Esquivel, democratic countries that make up the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA) and UNASUR, foundations like the Carter Foundation, social movements of hte countries of Latin America and the world like the Landless Peoples Movement of Brazil, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo of Argentina, the Scream of the Excluded, Jubilee South, the Convergence of Popular Movements of the Americas, the School of the Americas Watch, the platforms of solidarity with the Honduran people and others. For this the front should name a negotiating commission that understands that the coup-makers are perverse and that the State Department, the Pentagon and the U.S. government in general are driving the coup d'etat and proposing as key points the restitution of the President of the Republic Manuel Zelaya Rosales to govern for the time that the coup-makers robbed of his governing period, the installation of a national constitutional assembly and the dissolution of the coup congress, of the coup supreme court, of the coup public ministry, the reduction and purging of the armed forves, the definitive purging of hte national police and the punishment of the people involved in the coup d'etat and the violation of human rights. 5. We urge once again to the candidates of the Democratic Unification Party, the Popular Independent Candidacy, the PINU party and the Liberals who are in resistance to be consistent and renounce once and for all the participation in the electoral farce set up by the coup-makers, to our people we urge you not to participate in the electoral circus and to boycott that act of the coup-makers. 6. To the international solidarity we invite you to strengthen the support to the Honduran people not just as a principle of solidarity but for reasons of self-defense since if the coup-makers consolidate in Honduras the democratic spring of the peoples of the world and particularly the peoples of our America will end. With the ancestral force of Lempira, Iselaca, Mota and Etempica we raise our voices filled with life, justice, dignity, freedom and peace. HERE NOBODY IS GIVING UP! -------------------------------------------------------------------- From humaneco at hsph.harvard.edu Fri Nov 6 06:00:08 2009 From: humaneco at hsph.harvard.edu (Richard Levins) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:00:08 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] question about modernization In-Reply-To: <4AF3AB01.20804@ecst.csuchico.edu> References: <4AF3AB01.20804@ecst.csuchico.edu> Message-ID: <4AF3D77D.F29D.002C.1@hsph.harvard.edu> Dear Michael, I think the starting point is to question the notion itself, the idea that there is a single pathway of progress, from backward to advanced, and that the task of the "backward" is to advance along the same path as the present day "developed" countries as quickly as possible, accepting the miseries this creates as the costs of "progress". My own knowledge is centered on agriculture where we can see "modernization" as a branching process. The direction depends on who is in charge, e.g. from the heterogeneity of peasant farms we can go to giant monocultures of industrialized agriculture or the planned heterogeneity of ecological agriculture, or urbanization determined by real estate values vs by a combination of social and environmental needs, etc. Best wishes, Dick ========================= Richard Levins >>> michael perelman 11/5/2009 11:50 PM >>> A Chinese grad student asked me for some help. Any recommendations? Could you tell me if there is any scholar who does research on social modernization, compared to economic modernization and political modernization and even cultural modernization, in the United States? I'm thinking about what to write for my dissertation for a doctoral degree. You know, more and more social problems arise during China's modernization drive. The reason, I think, is that China's modernization now is more economic rather than social. So, a sound modernization should be a balanced one among social, political, cultural as well as economic, never just economic. Thus, I want to do some research on social modernization for China. Could you give me some advice from your perspective, for you are familiar with China and you also have insights into the economic system in place today? Thank you so much! -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/humaneco%40hsph.harvard.edu From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Fri Nov 6 07:18:33 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:18:33 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Honduras accord appears to unravel (US backs coup govt control of vote) Message-ID: <1CD76B5CC36342689B675F54E3D49E33@office1pc> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/world/americas/07honduras.html?_r=1&hp November 7, 2009 Honduras Deal Appears to Unravel By ELISABETH MALKIN MEXICO CITY ? An accord that would have unblocked the political standoff in Honduras has failed, the deposed president said Friday, a week after it was mediated by the United States. The deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, whose possible return to power was at the heart of the accord, is still a virtual prisoner in the Brazilian Embassy, where he took refuge six weeks ago after he secretly slipped back into Honduras. He is no closer to resuming his presidency, while the de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, and the people around him are still running the country. The accord also set Thursday as a deadline to name a unity government that would oversee preparations for a presidential election scheduled for this month. But none of this has happened. Critics said the accord was difficult to enforce because its only source of pressure was an American threat not to recognize the planned election. Mr. Zelaya said early on Friday that the accord failed after Mr. Micheletti moved to form a new government without him, Reuters reported. Mr. Zelaya had declined to name any members to the cabinet, Mr. Micheletti said, so he was going ahead without them. ?We?ve completed the process of forming a unity government,? Mr. Micheletti said in a televised speech quoted by Reuters. ?It represents a wide spectrum despite the fact that Mr. Zelaya did not send a list of representatives.? Mr. Zelaya said through a spokesman that the pact was dead and blamed the de facto government for its failure, Reuters said. As part of the deal, both Mr. Zelaya and Mr. Micheletti had agreed to put the question of Mr. Zelaya?s return to a vote in the Honduran Congress. But the accord set no deadline, and with congressional leaders yet to decide on a date for a vote, Mr. Zelaya seems unlikely to be returned to office. After threatening that it would not recognize the presidential election scheduled for Nov. 29 unless Mr. Micheletti signed on to the deal, the Obama administration hinted that it would accept the results even if the accord?s terms are not fully met. ?The bottom line is there will be no reversal of the coup d??tat,? said Kevin Casas-Zamora, a former vice president of Costa Rica and an analyst at the Brookings Institution. ?That cannot count as a diplomatic success.? American officials dismiss that conclusion, arguing that both sides have agreed to abide by Congress?s decision and that an election will resolve the crisis. The divisions in Honduras were on display on Thursday in Tegucigalpa, the capital, where Mr. Zelaya?s supporters were camped outside Congress to try to force a vote on his return. Regional splits were also appearing over how long the Honduran Congress could delay the vote and what the legislators? eventual decision should be. Ricardo Lagos, a former Chilean president who is on the verification commission set up to monitor the accord, said Thursday that Mr. Zelaya should be returned before the election. Critics say the de facto government appears to be stalling, expecting that once the elections go ahead, the international community will recognize them. What is more, they say, Mr. Shannon?s remarks on recognizing the elections leave the Obama administration with little leverage to enforce the accord. Christopher Sabatini, senior director for policy at the Council of the Americas, in New York, said that the Obama administration appeared willing to accept the elections? outcome rather than admit that there was no guarantee when and how Honduran legislators would vote. Richard Berry contributed reporting from Paris. From sartesian at earthlink.net Fri Nov 6 07:27:30 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 09:27:30 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots References: <252927000F5D4B3F8FCA33BA6A6D97E8@dmsthinkpad><84B223CCD7554849AC05A8841DBE7E03@dmsthinkpad> <2D4355A1-83E9-479B-9CC5-739E4C48094A@planeteria.net> Message-ID: <6D21D3A0AAE844F38527F7963768FF01@dmsthinkpad> Actually, I think it's possible to draw the exact opposite conclusion from the data presented in the Commerce Dept.'s briefing room-- unfilled orders drop as shipments increase over the previous period, and over the previous period's new orders, and new orders can be met out of inventory, which is also falling. I don't see how industrial production is being hampered, for the major durable goods producers in the S&P 500 by lack of access to credit, when corporate bond issuance, and bond purchases, have soared and the cash level of US industry is at all time highs. Certainly bank lending is still frozen, but during the 2003-2007 period, bank lending to industry contracted as a portion of the banks' own balance sheets, and as the source of funds for major US producers. I don't think there is an increase in the time it takes to fill orders for several reasons: 1) unfilled orders have dropped 2) average train speeds [rail accounts for 40% of goods shipped in the US.[true, 44% of train traffic is coal. And by the way, Buffett's bet on the BNSF is essentially a bet on 3 things: Powder River Basin coal, a revival down the road in container shipments, and grain], are up to such a degree that besides the locomotives placed in storage due to the 20% decline in traffic, railroads are able to increase the turnaround time of locomotives and use even fewer 3) "dwells"-- the elapsed time a freight car spends in yards prior to delivery to the customer has declined 4) increased delay in order fulfillment should manifest an inflationary pressure in the economy; there are no indications of that pressure. I absolutely agree that the velocity of capitalist circulation has dropped-- a drop manifested in the surplus of maritime vessels, freight cars, aircraft moved into storage; in the use of longer, slower, but cheaper maritime routing of goods; and last but certainly not east-- the velocity of money itself. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rod Holt" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 2:17 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots Since inventory dumping dominated 2009, the only reason I can see for the long lead times is the extensive and bone deep cutting of the work force. The Advance Report released October 28, 2009 said: ?Nondefense new orders for capital goods in September increased $1.3 billion or 2.5 percent to $53.6 billion. Shipments increased $1.2 billion or 2.2 percent to $56.6 billion. Unfilled orders decreased $3.0 billion or 0.7 percent to $419.6 billion. Inventories decreased $2.3 billion or 1.7 percent to $132.4 billion.? This amounts to saying that orders increased right along with shipments while unfilled orders hardly changed. Inventories dropped significantly. It is possible for customers to cancel large orders, causing unfilled orders to drop immediately while all the other numbers could remain unchanged. But this does not seem to be significant in our case. My conclusion remains the same; we are observing an pronounced increase in the time it is taking to fill orders either because of a short work force or in problems getting tools and materials (likely due to credit problems) or both. Thus the velocity of capital circulation drops and as a direct result, the rate of profit drops with it. --rod From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Nov 6 07:29:58 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:29:58 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Double standard on extradition: CIA agents vs. Roman Polanski Message-ID: <4AF432E6.2000307@panix.com> http://wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/pola-n06.shtml The US government?s double standard on extradition: CIA agents vs. Roman Polanski By David Walsh 6 November 2009 It is worth considering the contrast between the refusal of the US government to cooperate with the extradition to Italy of 23 convicted CIA and Air Force kidnappers, and its determined effort to see filmmaker Roman Polanski returned to Los Angeles so that ?justice can be served.? The CIA agents (and one Air Force colonel), in collaboration with the Italian intelligence services, organized the abduction of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, an Egyptian cleric, on a Milan street in February 2003 and flew him to Egypt, where he was sadistically tortured over several years. Nasr was never charged with a crime or brought before any court of law. An accompanying article posted today on the World Socialist Web Site explains the horrific details of the case, but it should be noted that Abu Omar alleges he was beaten severely by his CIA captors, that he was subsequently held in an underground cell in Egypt ?where you cannot distinguish between night and day, and the cockroaches and rats and insects walk all over? one?s body, and that he was ?hung up like slaughtered cattle, head down, feet up, hands behind my back, feet also tied together, and I was exposed to electric shocks all over my body and especially the head area to weaken the brain ?? Milan prosecutors provided evidence indicating that US involvement did not end with turning Nasr over to Egyptian authorities. The prosecutors produced cell phone and hotel reservation records revealing that Robert Seldon Lady, the CIA?s chief in Milan and one of the defendants in the case (who received an 8-year sentence in absentia), traveled to Cairo four days after Abu Omar was deposited there and stayed in the city for two weeks?no doubt, to see if the torture was bearing fruit. Lady fled the villa in northern Italy to which he had retired when the investigation into the Abu Omar case became more serious. He is assumed to be living in the US. There is no clamor, however, in the American media that ?Lady must face justice? for his serious crimes. In February 2007, after a judge in Milan ordered the group of American agents to stand trial on kidnapping charges, the Bush administration announced its intention to protect the CIA personnel. State Department legal adviser John Bellinger told a news briefing, ?We?ve not got an extradition request from Italy? If we got an extradition request from Italy, we would not extradite US officials to Italy.? In any event, the Italian government has steadfastly refused the prosecutors? extradition request. Prosecutor Armando Spataro told the media he was now ?considering asking Rome to issue international arrest warrants for the fugitive Americans on the strength of the convictions.? The right-wing Berlusconi government is unlikely to take any such action. The Obama administration is continuing the Bush policy, expressing its ?disappointment? with the Italian verdict and promising not to hand over the CIA criminals. The US Justice Department?s Office of International Affairs (OIA), which would handle any Italian request for extradition of the CIA agents from the US, treated the Polanski matter in a quite different fashion. Its agents monitored the film director?s movements in Europe since at least last December, according to emails obtained by the Associated Press, rejecting Austria as a possible site for his arrest before settling on Switzerland, after a tip from authorities there in September. On September 25, OIA officials emailed the Los Angeles district attorney?s office, confidently predicting that the Swiss would hold onto Polanski. ?Generally, Switzerland does not release fugitives sought for extradition,? the email explained. ?The default in Switzerland is that a fugitive will be detained until s/he is either extradited or determined by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court to be non-extraditable.? The campaign against Polanski, who pled guilty to having sex with a teenage girl in 1977 and then fled the US after a judge threatened to renege on a plea bargain agreement, is entirely vindictive. It is a sop to the right-wing ?family values? crowd that now has such a significant influence on social policy in the US. On October 2, a team of Polanski?s lawyers met with Justice Department officials, including Clinton appointee Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz, who oversees the OIA, in an effort to convince them to drop the extradition proceedings. The attorneys presented the Obama administration officials with arguments against returning Polanski to Los Angeles. They summarized allegations of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in the 1977 case, and contended that Polanski had little chance of receiving a fair hearing in California should he be extradited to the US. The Los Angeles County District Attorney?s Office said the ?lobbying? effort would have no impact on the process. Declared public information officer Sandi Gibbons, ?We will be following the procedure that we follow in all international extraditions. We send all the necessary materials to Washington and the request goes out from there.? And, indeed, the Swiss announced October 23 that the US government, through its embassy in Bern, had formally asked for Polanski?s extradition the evening before. When it comes to intelligence and military personnel guilty of major crimes, the Obama administration, like the Bush regime before it, flouts international law and protects the perpetrators. It proceeds with zeal when it comes to a film director wanted for a 30-year-old crime, whose prosecution is useful in whipping up social backwardness and strengthening the powers of the state. The double standard could hardly be clearer. From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Nov 6 07:33:58 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:33:58 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] [Fwd: [historicalmaterialism] Seminar: Towards A Marxist Analysis of the Global Crisis] Message-ID: <4AF433D6.90901@panix.com> http://www.iire.org Seminar: Towards A Marxist Analysis of the Global Crisis On 2-4 October, the IIRE held its first international Economy Seminar on the Global Crisis. Thirty-six participants, economists and non-specialists, from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America attended the three-day event which was open to activists from different tendencies of the radical left. The objectives of the seminar were to analyse the nature, characteristics and consequences of the current global economic crisis, from perspectives relevant to social activists, and to fortify the global network of Marxist economists. All talks will be available at the IIRE podcast, which we expect to launch with the next newsletter. For now it is possible to download all the talks in one file (original languages, more than 500MB). Three main questions guided the various sessions of the weekend. First, what is the nature or cause of the crisis? Second, what are the social, economic and political consequences? Finally, what are the links between the current economic crisis and the global ecological and food crises? A solid look at Keynesianism, Ernest Mandel's contribution on long waves and economic cycles and a (self-)critical take on discourse and propaganda were activities that peppered the debates. The seminar kicked off with a well-attended public meeting on the crisis with guest speakers Chris Harman of the SWP in Britain and IIRE fellows Michel Husson of the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies and Claudio Katz of the University of Buenos Aires. Fran?ois Chesnais (France) opened the seminar itself with an introduction on the role that the so-called financialisation of the economy had in the global crisis. He stated that the crisis cannot be labelled either financial or financialised. Rather, the current crisis has its roots deep in the process of capital accumulation, which, revealing its contradictions, should lead us to look at the dynamics of productivity, the rate of profit and its distribution. The discussion that followed generated a debate between over-accumulation versus under-consumption as explanations for understanding the crisis. Ozlem Onaran (Turkey), Claudio Katz (Argentina) and Bruno Jetin (France) presented reports on the conditions of the European, Latin American and Asian economies. The debates paved the way for a deeper understanding on how the crisis is perceived and dealt with in the different regions. Participants concluded that an essential characteristic of the crisis is the lack of de-linking tendencies among countries and continents; on the contrary, the efforts to save capitalism have been concerted and almost unanimous. Michel Husson (France) and Klaus Engert (Germany) analysed the crisis in the framework of the theory of long waves. According to this theory, elaborated by IIRE founder Ernest Mandel, it is possible to use important endogenous factors, i.e. related to the logic of capital and its internal contradictions, to explain the general fall in accumulation that began during the 1970s and has not yet concluded. This discussion left open the possibility of a new ascending wave of economic growth and capitalist accumulation dependent on such exogenous factors as a radical change of the relationship of forces between the classes. One of the conclusions, therefore, was that another wave of attacks on the working class is most likely on its way. Eric Toussaint (Belgium) emphasised that there is no automatic link between the fact that the crisis is being paid for by workers and the popular masses, and an increase of social struggles. Political, ideological and organisational factors will also play a role in the development of the struggles. Esther Vivas (Spain) and Daniel Tanuro (Belgium) brought in a fundamental analytical dimension with their introductions: the economic crisis cannot be observed in isolation from the global ecological and food crises. Vivas presented the causes and structure of the food crisis: the current model of agricultural and livestock production is in a large measure responsible for climate change. Tanuro demonstrated how the official, ruling class responses to climate change are insufficient, unreal, irrational and even put us in more danger. He argued that eco-socialists should push for and end to unnecessary production, the retraining of workers in affected sectors and the development of a new agricultural model instigated by radical anti-capitalist measures. Overall, the analyses revealed that the crisis is systemic, that those who are paying for it are the popular and working classes, and that now, more then ever, it is necessary to build an emancipatory, global anti-capitalist and eco-socialist project. From sartesian at earthlink.net Fri Nov 6 07:39:42 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 09:39:42 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots References: <252927000F5D4B3F8FCA33BA6A6D97E8@dmsthinkpad><84B223CCD7554849AC05A8841DBE7E03@dmsthinkpad><2D4355A1-83E9-479B-9CC5-739E4C48094A@planeteria.net> <6D21D3A0AAE844F38527F7963768FF01@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: Even paler: From Eurostat Fewer hours worked and more part-time work in the EU27 Sharp fall in employment among workers with low qualifications Employment in the EU27 and the euro area began to fall in the second quarter of 2008 as a result of the economic crisis. Between the second quarters of 2008 and 2009, employment1 dropped by 1.9% to 222.7 million persons in the EU27 and by 1.8% to 145.5 million in the euro area (EA16). However, the fall in employment was smaller than the contraction of economic activity (-4.9% GDP growth in the EU27 and -4.8% in the euro area in the same period). One of the reasons for this is the fact that employers can reduce the volume of hours worked and increase the use of part-time employment. This has been the case in the EU27 and in the euro area between the second quarters of 2008 and 2009. The analysis of the impact of the crisis on employment also shows that employees have been affected differently depending on their level of education. These data, published by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, come from a publication on the impact of the economic crisis on the labour market in the EU. This publication also includes information about people on temporary contracts and job opportunities during the crisis. Full-time employed work on average 0.7 hours less per week in the EU27 In the year up to the second quarter of 2009, the average number of actual hours worked per week by persons in full-time employment fell by 0.7 hours (from 41.0 hours per week to 40.3) in the EU27 and by 0.8 hours (from 40.8 to 40.0) in the euro area, while between the second quarters of 2007 and 2008 there had been a rise by 0.3 hours in both zones. Between the second quarters of 2008 and 2009, the number of weekly working hours of a full-time worker went down in 24 out of the 27 Member States. The largest falls were registered in Estonia (-1.5 h), Austria, Slovakia and Finland (all -1.4 h), Germany and Sweden (both -1.3 h), Denmark (-1.2 h) and Slovenia (-1.1 h). From binesi at gvtel.com Fri Nov 6 07:41:39 2009 From: binesi at gvtel.com (David Thorstad) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:41:39 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] 75% Young Americans Unfit for Military Duty Message-ID: <4AF435A3.2010606@gvtel.com> Junk food as the solution to U.S. militarism? David ================================================================== 75 Percent of Young Americans Are Unfit for Military Duty Andrea Stone 11/3/09 http://www.sphere.com/2009/11/03/70-percent-of-young-americans-are-unfit-for-military-duty/ WASHINGTON (Nov. 3) -- Are America's youth too fat, dumb or dishonest to defend the nation against its enemies? The latest Army statistics show a stunning 75 percent of military-age youth are ineligible to join the military because they are overweight, can't pass entrance exams, have dropped out of high school or had run-ins with the law. So many young people between the prime recruiting ages of 17 and 24 cannot meet minimum standards that a group of retired military leaders is calling for more investment in early childhood education to combat the insidious effects of junk food and inadequate education. "We've never had this problem of young people being obese like we have today," said Gen. John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He calls the rising number of youth unfit for duty a matter of national security. "We should be concerned about how this will impact this overstretched Army and its ability to recruit." Shalikashvili is among dozens of retired generals, admirals and civilian Pentagon officials who have banded together as Mission Readiness: Military Leaders for Kids. The group, which includes former NATO commander and presidential candidate Wesley Clark, will appear with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at the National Press Club on Thursday to urge immediate action to reduce dropout rates and improve the physical and moral fitness of the nation's youth. They will cite research that shows quality early childhood education raises graduation rates by up to 44 percent and reduces the odds of being arrested for a violent crime by age 18. Douglas Smith of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command said 2008 data shows about three in 10 youths have an initial barrier to enlistment. Most aren't insurmountable. "If you're overweight, we tell you to come back when you've lost the weight. If you don't score well on the armed forces aptitude test, we suggest you study and take it again," he said. Between 2004 and 2008, the Army more than doubled the number of "conduct" waivers it granted to would-be soldiers with criminal or misdemeanor records. The loosened standards proved necessary in a time of war and amid a booming economy that forced military recruiters to work overtime to fill the ranks. The new warnings about a generation of couch potatoes comes just weeks after the Pentagon announced its best recruiting year since the all-volunteer force began in 1974. The economic meltdown and rising unemployment, combined with bigger military bonuses and benefits, enticed hundreds of thousands to enlist despite the inevitability most would be sent to war. The plethora of would-be recruits allowed the military services to be choosier after years of taking in more high school dropouts and those needing extra physical training to meet weight requirements. Recruiting may have gotten easier, but "the good times don't stay forever," warned David Segal, a University of Maryland military sociologist. When the economy recovers and young people are able to get jobs or can afford to go to college, the military will be faced with the same out-of-shape, ill-prepared pool of recruits as before. "Recruiting will get tough again," he said. "The trend line is clear: The youth population is getting less healthy." From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Nov 6 07:49:35 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:49:35 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Hot Excess Supply of Labor Action! Message-ID: <4AF4377F.7010206@panix.com> (This blog item was adorned with an image of the cover of Karl Marx's "Theories of Surplus Value") http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/hot-excess-supply-of-labor-action-wages-productivity-and-the-market Hot Excess Supply of Labor Action! Wages, Productivity and the Market In this glorious 3rd quarter of the year, something rather amazing has happened. Overall, companies reported that "worker productivity" was up by 9.5% while actual hours worked was down 5%. This means exactly what you think it means. Mostly it means that there is no reason for companies to do any hiring. Why? Because they are doing just fine without you. Unit labor costs, for those of you who are not economists, are pretty much what they sound like: the cost of an employee, divided by the value of a worker's output. This quarter, unit labor costs were down 5.2%. This is terrific news for companies, and the stock market was well up today on the news?and with anticipation for tomorrow's official release of October's unemployment numbers. The forecast is for 175,000 more jobs lost in October. Unemployment will be at a 26-year high! And yet it will be "good news," because it beats the direst predictions (as well as September's numbers). This means, it turns out, more productivity! Why would this be happening, you are perhaps wailing! This would be happening because corporations of all industries and all sizes have realized that in times of massive unemployment, workers will do anything at all?for instance, the labors of one or two of their laid-off former coworkers?so as not to be cast out into a market where there are no jobs. Hey, you there! You, whining about your (admittedly quite terrible) workday: the only answer for you is to leap off the cliff and quit your job before it quits you. Just go on and quit the market before it wrings your neck. From marvgandall at videotron.ca Fri Nov 6 07:49:58 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:49:58 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Honduras accord appears to unravel (US backs coup govt control of vote) References: <1CD76B5CC36342689B675F54E3D49E33@office1pc> Message-ID: Unlike others on the US right (and left), the editors at the Wall Street Journal understood from the beginning what lay behind the deal and who benefited (not the "good guys" or Hondurans", as they would have it), but it still remains to be seen whether it will demobilize the popular movement. * * * Honduras 1, Hillary 0 A Honduran compromise provides Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with an elegant diplomatic exit. Wall Street Journal editorial October 31 2009 The big news in Honduras is that the good guys seem to have won a four-month political standoff over the exile of former President Manuel Zelaya. Current President Roberto Micheletti agreed yesterday to submit Mr. Zelaya's request for reinstatement as president to the Supreme Court and Congress, and in return the U.S. will withdraw its sanctions and recognize next month's presidential elections. Mr. Zelaya, whose term would have expired in January, isn't likely to be reinstated, given that the court has twice ruled against his right to remain in office. The Honduran Congress, which voted in June to remove Mr. Zelaya, will then use that high court's opinion to decide if he should be restored to power. There is a risk that Venezeula's Hugo Ch?vez and other Zelaya allies will try to buy support for their man and stir other trouble. But Hondurans who have rightly stood up to enormous U.S. pressure to reinstate Mr. Zelaya aren't likely to be intimidated now. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton trumpeted the result as a diplomatic triumph, but it's more accurate to say that it extricated her and the Obama Administration from the box canyon they entered by throwing in with Mr. Zelaya. Hondurans had deposed Mr. Zelaya on entirely legal grounds for threatening violence and violating the country's constitution in an attempt to run for a second term. The U.S. nonetheless meddled and demanded that Mr. Zelaya be reinstated. But Hondurans refused to bend, and the State Department apparently decided at last that Honduras was going to go ahead with its election whether the U.S. agreed or not. The Honduran compromise provided Mrs. Clinton with an elegant diplomatic exit. Washington and the Organization of American States have now promised to send observers and recognize the elections; there will be no amnesty for Mr. Zelaya if he is charged with a crime; and the zelayistas will renounce their plans to call for a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. If Mrs. Clinton wants to call this a victory, it is?for Honduras. From sartesian at earthlink.net Fri Nov 6 07:52:03 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 09:52:03 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Double standard on extradition: CIA agents vs. RomanPolanski References: <4AF432E6.2000307@panix.com> Message-ID: <72CBDE3590CB426B837AA2AA6273AE9C@dmsthinkpad> 1) I thought we were going to drop the Polanski bit 2) If we aren't, we can at least correct the misrepresentations: The "campaign" against Polanski? What campaign? Request for extradition had existed for years, and had not been acted upon, possibly due to Polanski's collections with the California Repubs and Dems, you think? Reagan? Pled guilty to having sex with a teenage girl? Actually, plea bargained with the good old boy prosecutor in order to avoid charges of rape, sodomy, assault, kidnapping. 3) Polanski has "little chance" of getting a fair trial in the US? Right, rich white men with connections in Hollywood are so oppressed, so subject to nightrider justice-- and lynching no? You want to point out the hypocrisy of the US, as if hypocrisy is an issue when dealing with the US government? There are far better ways to do this without making a martyr of a man who raped a minor-- raped, assaulted, forced a 13 year old girl to have sex with him after she had refused, after she said no. You want to talk about hypocrisy? How about the hypocrisy that surrounds this treatment of Polanski vs the treatment afforded to Mike Tyson, who also raped a women, stuck around for his trial, was convicted and served his time? Anybody know the WSWS "position" on that? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Louis Proyect" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:29 AM Subject: [Marxism] Double standard on extradition: CIA agents vs. RomanPolanski http://wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/pola-n06.shtml The US government?s double standard on extradition: CIA agents vs. Roman Polanski By David Walsh 6 November 2009 From farmelantj at juno.com Fri Nov 6 07:59:45 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 14:59:45 GMT Subject: [Marxism] 75% Young Americans Unfit for Military Duty Message-ID: <20091106.095945.15823.1@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> There is nothing really new about military recruiters complaining about American youth's lack of physical fitness. Similar complaints were made by military officials at the time of both the First and Second World Wars. In fact physical education was introduced into American public schools back in the 1920s in response to complaints from the military during WW I. Jim F. ---------- Original Message ---------- From: David Thorstad Subject: [Marxism] 75% Young Americans Unfit for Military Duty Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:41:39 -0600 Junk food as the solution to U.S. militarism? David ================================================================== 75 Percent of Young Americans Are Unfit for Military Duty Andrea Stone 11/3/09 http://www.sphere.com/2009/11/03/70-percent-of-young-americans-are-unfit-for-military-duty/ ____________________________________________________________ Medical Insurance Quotes Compare medical insurance companies and save money now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=4fmUMDEXGIvaliNMRtTj-gAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAQAAAAFAAAAAB6drj4AAAMlAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABJQNgAAAAA= From acpollack2 at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 08:15:39 2009 From: acpollack2 at gmail.com (Andrew Pollack) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 10:15:39 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] [Fwd: [historicalmaterialism] Seminar: Towards A Marxist Analysis of the Global Crisis] In-Reply-To: <4AF433D6.90901@panix.com> References: <4AF433D6.90901@panix.com> Message-ID: <2fa1449b0911060715j77dc3817xe554234a33f9957@mail.gmail.com> I see the announcement at the IIRE site for the seminar, but not the description Louis forwarded -- which means I don't see the link to the transcripts. Sounds like it was a great event. From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Thu Nov 5 21:02:47 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:02:47 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Honduran movements cite US treachery, call for continued fight Message-ID: <5C31DB77AB1E4D4298356D932148B6D8@office1pc> Indigenous organization COPINH denounces Guaymuras Accords Posted: 04 Nov 2009 04:04 PM PST Civil Council of Popular and Inidigenous Organizations of Honduras - COPINH. THE TRAP OF THE ACCORDS OF THE GUAYMURAS-TEGUCIGALPA-SAN JOS? DIALOGUE" cite PRESS RELEASE. The Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), in the face of the signing of the accords to seek a solution to the crisis generatied by the military coup d'etat against the people of Honduras, emits the following communiqu?: 1. We have no trust in the negotiating commission of the coup regime given that they have never demonstrated a willingness to reinstate the constitutional president of the republic and its only purpose is to buy time to consolidate the objectives of the coup d'etat in looting the national treasury and imposing neoliberal projects of privatization of natural resources and state institutions. 2. We denounce the malicious and intentional attitude of the government of the United States of America, who take on ambiguous positions but behind the scenes have supported the coup-makers and if not how can they explain that in the kidnapping of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales they used the Palmerola base? If the yankees had so much will to contribute to the resolution of this crisis, why so much tolerance, patience and complacency with the coup-makers in lending themselves to a dialogue where they present deceiving agreements as a solution? 3. We call out people not to rest until we achieve the convoking of a popular and democratic national constitutional assembly, which should be made up of the different social sectors of the country such as women, feminists, youth, indigenous and black peoples, workers, the LGTB community, community councils, representatives of marginalized neighborhoods, teachers, artists, peasants, honest business people, intellectuals, professionals, the informal economy sector, alternative media, among others. 4. We urge the National Front of Popular Resistance to raise an initiative of dialogue and negotiation towards more dignified agreements in which the mediation shouldn't be to the liking and oversight of the yankee government, which has helped drive the coup d'etat against our people, but instead by people like Rigoberta Menchu, Adolfo P?rez Esquivel, democratic countries that make up the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA) and UNASUR, foundations like the Carter Foundation, social movements of hte countries of Latin America and the world like the Landless Peoples Movement of Brazil, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo of Argentina, the Scream of the Excluded, Jubilee South, the Convergence of Popular Movements of the Americas, the School of the Americas Watch, the platforms of solidarity with the Honduran people and others. For this the front should name a negotiating commission that understands that the coup-makers are perverse and that the State Department, the Pentagon and the U.S. government in general are driving the coup d'etat and proposing as key points the restitution of the President of the Republic Manuel Zelaya Rosales to govern for the time that the coup-makers robbed of his governing period, the installation of a national constitutional assembly and the dissolution of the coup congress, of the coup supreme court, of the coup public ministry, the reduction and purging of the armed forves, the definitive purging of hte national police and the punishment of the people involved in the coup d'etat and the violation of human rights. 5. We urge once again to the candidates of the Democratic Unification Party, the Popular Independent Candidacy, the PINU party and the Liberals who are in resistance to be consistent and renounce once and for all the participation in the electoral farce set up by the coup-makers, to our people we urge you not to participate in the electoral circus and to boycott that act of the coup-makers. 6. To the international solidarity we invite you to strengthen the support to the Honduran people not just as a principle of solidarity but for reasons of self-defense since if the coup-makers consolidate in Honduras the democratic spring of the peoples of the world and particularly the peoples of our America will end. With the ancestral force of Lempira, Iselaca, Mota and Etempica we raise our voices filled with life, justice, dignity, freedom and peace. HERE NOBODY IS GIVING UP! -------------------------------------------------------------------- From poeticaleconomy at yahoo.com Fri Nov 6 08:36:16 2009 From: poeticaleconomy at yahoo.com (Max Clark) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 07:36:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism] Badiou's critique of Lacan (book excerpt) Message-ID: <224905.17477.qm@web45012.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Here below stands Section 2, Book VII of?Alain Badiou's 'Logics of Worlds' (pages 477-482 in the Verso edition). I found it surpassing. --Maxine http://clarkmax.blogspot.com/2009/11/badious-critique-of-lacan.html From michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Fri Nov 6 09:02:43 2009 From: michael at ecst.csuchico.edu (michael perelman) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 08:02:43 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] 75% Young Americans Unfit for Military Duty In-Reply-To: <20091106.095945.15823.1@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> References: <20091106.095945.15823.1@webmail02.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <4AF448A3.3050206@ecst.csuchico.edu> Also, General Louis Hershey's (we old guys remember him) testimony was important in getting the school lunch program passed. farmelantj at juno.com wrote: > There is nothing really new about > military recruiters complaining > about American youth's lack of > physical fitness. Similar complaints > were made by military officials at > the time of both the First and Second > World Wars. In fact physical education > was introduced into American public > schools back in the 1920s in response > to complaints from the military during > WW I. > > Jim F. > > > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 www.michaelperelman.wordpress.com From shmage at pipeline.com Fri Nov 6 09:04:44 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 11:04:44 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Double standard on extradition: CIA agents vs. RomanPolanski In-Reply-To: <72CBDE3590CB426B837AA2AA6273AE9C@dmsthinkpad> References: <4AF432E6.2000307@panix.com> <72CBDE3590CB426B837AA2AA6273AE9C@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <3CC28F08-48B9-40AF-9C78-9382CC76D439@pipeline.com> On Nov 6, 2009, at 9:52 AM, S. Artesian wrote: > 1) I thought we were going to drop the Polanski bit... How sad to find professed leftists standing in solidarity with the LA Public Prosecutors Office (of McMartin fame) and the Bush-Obama "Justice" Department and cheering on their persecution of a world famous artist who is also a holocaust victim. Shane Mage > This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it > always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, > kindling in measures and going out in measures." > > Herakleitos of Ephesos From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Nov 6 09:10:59 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:10:59 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Double standard on extradition: CIA agents vs. RomanPolanski In-Reply-To: <3CC28F08-48B9-40AF-9C78-9382CC76D439@pipeline.com> References: <4AF432E6.2000307@panix.com> <72CBDE3590CB426B837AA2AA6273AE9C@dmsthinkpad> <3CC28F08-48B9-40AF-9C78-9382CC76D439@pipeline.com> Message-ID: <4AF44A93.3050704@panix.com> Shane Mage wrote: > On Nov 6, 2009, at 9:52 AM, S. Artesian wrote: > >> 1) I thought we were going to drop the Polanski bit... > > > How sad to find professed leftists standing in solidarity with the LA > Public Prosecutors Office (of McMartin fame) and the Bush-Obama > "Justice" Department and cheering on their persecution of a world > famous artist who is also a holocaust victim. > Can't people read something I post for information's sake without using it as an excuse to get into a pissing contest? From acpollack2 at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 09:24:51 2009 From: acpollack2 at gmail.com (Andrew Pollack) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 11:24:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Officials Defend Distribution of Flu Vaccine to Companies Message-ID: <2fa1449b0911060824n133a2680l52852dd62470fba4@mail.gmail.com> New York Times November 6, 2009 Officials Defend Distribution of Flu Vaccine to Companies By JENNY ANDERSON New York City health officials have distributed small amounts of the swine flu vaccine to some major New York companies, including Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, even as shortages continue. Citigroup has received 1,200 doses, more than half of what it requested, health officials said, and in late October, Goldman received 200 of the 5,400 doses it asked for. By contrast, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center received 200 of the 27,400 doses that it requested for its workers, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Jessica Scaperotti, a health department spokeswoman, said the priority was to get the vaccine to pediatricians, obstetricians, gynecologists, community health centers and public and private hospitals. Private companies that have asked for the vaccine are also eligible to receive it, as long as it is distributed to people who are considered at risk. Citigroup and Goldman Sachs said they had administered the vaccine to pregnant women and employees with serious health conditions. News reports on Thursday that the two banks and other companies received doses of the vaccine led Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a former New York City health commissioner, to send out a letter reminding officials nationwide to make sure the vaccine goes only to people in high priority groups. Any decisions ?that appear to direct the vaccine to people outside the identified priority groups have the potential to undermine the credibility of the program,? he said. Michael T. Osterholm, the director of the Centers for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the focus on the banks was a distraction. ?They?re not going to be giving it to the top bankers,? he said. ?There?s no reason a high-risk person should get it at a public clinic instead of at work.? A spokeswoman for Goldman said the bank, ?like other responsible employers, has requested vaccine and will supply it only to employees who qualify.? The city?s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, said: ?My understanding is that Citi had multiple clinics and facilities, and they placed several orders. The person filling these might not have realized it was one company.? ?We are dealing with thousands of providers and thousands of orders,? Dr. Farley said. ?It?s not all going as smoothly as we would like it to go.? Other major employers that have received the vaccine include Time Warner, Columbia University and the Federal Reserve Board of New York. More than 858,000 doses have been ordered for New York City, and 39 percent of them were set aside for school vaccination programs, 21 percent for private pediatricians, 19 percent for hospitals and 6 percent for doctors and employee health services. Many hospitals and pediatrician?s offices are waiting to get their supplies. Continuum Health Partners, which includes Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke?s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, has received limited shipments for employees and patients, a spokesman for the group, Jeff Jacomowitz, said. The health department said the group had requested 91,200 doses and had received 10,100 at the end of October. The group?s hospitals have 24,577 employees and 2,727 beds, Mr. Jacomowitz said. Once the vaccine became more available in late October, Dr. Farley said, ?We tried to give something to everyone so they could all get started.? Vaccine shortages are widespread because of production problems. One federal official predicted in the spring that as many as 120 million doses would be available by now and about 200 million by the end of the year. According to the C.D.C., 35.6 million doses are available. In New York, elementary schools with fewer than 400 students received vaccines in late October, and larger elementary schools will begin their vaccine program next week. Vaccines will be available to middle and high school students starting this weekend. From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Nov 6 09:36:12 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:36:12 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Honduras Deal Appears to Fall Apart Message-ID: <4AF4507C.9020003@panix.com> NY Times, November 7, 2009 Honduras Deal Appears to Fall Apart By ELISABETH MALKIN MEXICO CITY ? An accord that would have unblocked the political standoff in Honduras has failed, the deposed president said Friday, a week after it was mediated by the United States. The deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, whose possible return to power was at the heart of the accord, is still a virtual prisoner in the Brazilian Embassy, where he took refuge six weeks ago after he secretly slipped back into Honduras. He is no closer to resuming his presidency, while the de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, and the people around him are still running the country. The accord also set Thursday as a deadline to name a unity government that would oversee preparations for a presidential election scheduled for this month. But none of this has happened. Critics said the accord was difficult to enforce because its only source of pressure was an American threat not to recognize the planned election. Mr. Zelaya said early on Friday that the accord failed after Mr. Micheletti moved to form a new government without him, Reuters reported. Mr. Zelaya had declined to name any members to the cabinet, Mr. Micheletti said, so he was going ahead without them. ?We?ve completed the process of forming a unity government,? Mr. Micheletti said in a televised speech quoted by Reuters. ?It represents a wide spectrum despite the fact that Mr. Zelaya did not send a list of representatives.? Mr. Zelaya said through a spokesman that the pact was dead and blamed the de facto government for its failure, Reuters said. As part of the deal, both Mr. Zelaya and Mr. Micheletti had agreed to put the question of Mr. Zelaya?s return to a vote in the Honduran Congress. But the accord set no deadline, and with congressional leaders yet to decide on a date for a vote, Mr. Zelaya seems unlikely to be returned to office. After threatening that it would not recognize the presidential election scheduled for Nov. 29 unless Mr. Micheletti signed on to the deal, the Obama administration hinted that it would accept the results even if the accord?s terms are not fully met. ?The bottom line is there will be no reversal of the coup d??tat,? said Kevin Casas-Zamora, a former vice president of Costa Rica and an analyst at the Brookings Institution. ?That cannot count as a diplomatic success.? American officials dismiss that conclusion, arguing that both sides have agreed to abide by Congress?s decision and that an election will resolve the crisis. The divisions in Honduras were on display on Thursday in Tegucigalpa, the capital, where Mr. Zelaya?s supporters were camped outside Congress to try to force a vote on his return. Regional splits were also appearing over how long the Honduran Congress could delay the vote and what the legislators? eventual decision should be. Ricardo Lagos, a former Chilean president who is on the verification commission set up to monitor the accord, said Thursday that Mr. Zelaya should be returned before the election. Critics say the de facto government appears to be stalling, expecting that once the elections go ahead, the international community will recognize them. What is more, they say, Mr. Shannon?s remarks on recognizing the elections leave the Obama administration with little leverage to enforce the accord. Christopher Sabatini, senior director for policy at the Council of the Americas, in New York, said that the Obama administration appeared willing to accept the elections? outcome rather than admit that there was no guarantee when and how Honduran legislators would vote. Richard Berry contributed reporting from Paris. From giobon at comcast.net Fri Nov 6 09:44:55 2009 From: giobon at comcast.net (Bonnie Weinstein) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 08:44:55 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination In-Reply-To: References: <2ed7e4ad0911051709s4002b810n4c54973e5c9e7ecd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi Guy, Thanks for this excellent book review. We will try to print it in our January/February 2010 issue. I remember those times. In solidarity, Bonnie Weinstein On Nov 5, 2009, at 9:22 PM, Guy Miller wrote: > > Linda and I went to a book signing for the Fred Hampton book at > Northwestern tonight. The meeting was attended by about 250 > people. Hampton's mother and brother Bill were present. The > meeting was chaired by Bernadine Dohrn (who I didn't like 40 years > ago and don't like now.) I had the privilege of speaking on the > same platform with Fred Hampton on two occasions. It is hard to > believe he was only 21 when he was assassinated. The Panthers > attracted many talented and dedicated people. > > > > >> From: sandia1980 at gmail.com >> Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 20:09:35 -0500 >> Subject: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination >> To: guycarlos at msn.com >> >> http://www.blackcommentator.com/ >> 349/349_assassination_hampton_haas_review_bennett_guest.html >> >> -- >> sandia >> >> ________________________________________________ >> YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. >> Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu >> Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/ >> marxism/guycarlos%40msn.com > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/ > marxism/giobon%40comcast.net From jayrothermel at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 09:51:13 2009 From: jayrothermel at gmail.com (jay rothermel) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 11:51:13 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] SK Strike Victory Message-ID: <1f14bc450911060851h77ca937pe58dfcec727d8d5b@mail.gmail.com> SK Hand Tools Strikers Win! By Stephanie Weiner Chicago, IL - "We won!" Text messages with those words went out the night of Nov. 3 from the SK Hand Tool strikers to family members and supporters. Reports went right to the fact that the SK Hand Tool workers will have health insurance. There was more than that to celebrate as the workers left the final agreement vote late Nov. 3 to go back to tear down the strike tent on 47th Street. They have been on strike for ten weeks - since Aug. 25. In category after category, they could point to the truth in the lesson that when you fight back, you win victories. Not only did they win their health insurance coverage, but the workers will have their pensions protected and the ability to buy into family health coverage with the Teamster 743 Health and Welfare Committee's Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans. The salary component was more than what was offered to them before the strike. Richard Berg, the Teamster Local 743 president who was the chief negotiator, said, "What they were fighting for was health coverage for themselves but also for all Chicago and all U.S. workers." Striker John McHale pointed to one of the key factors they had going for them right from the start when he said, "We had a unanimous vote among the workers to go for the strike." The overwhelming support this strike got from the labor movement also helped to make them into a national force. Over and over there were examples of labor solidarity, like when their strike was put front and center at this years Chicago Labor Day parade. The Network to Fight for Economic Justice made a commitment to support the strike as one of its first examples of collective actions. As Armando Robles from UE Local 1110 put it, "I waited nine months to see what the next Republic Windows and Doors struggle would be, and it wound up happening just down the street from my own house." Other factors always mentioned by workers were that they had Teamsters Local 743 President Richard Berg and folks like Treasurer Gina Alvarez who were down for the true fight. The workers were outraged that the boss failed to give the workers notice that their health insurance was canceled. Another factor that McHale and others have often explained is that they began the strike in the very moments of the national debate on health care. They were able to become the national face of what a loss of health coverage really looks like for workers. As an example of this, the strike became such a powerful force that the politicians like Illinois' Governor Quinn, Congressman Luis Gutierrez and even the U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis felt the need to weigh in with support for the strike. Other strategic decisions, such as the informational leafleting in front of Sears stores and the call-in campaign, were successful in getting Sears, a major buyer of SK hand tool products, to pressure company owner Claude Fuger back to the table. The 24-hour, seven day a week strike changed the lives of many workers. Norma Trinidad, an SK worker for 23 years, said in every speech she gave, "We will always remember how workers and other community activists supported us." They began the strike with only one of the 70 workers ever having experienced a strike before to becoming a tight crew of people who literally turned steel delivery trucks away with their picket lines, again and again. The famous navy blue Teamster 743 t-shirt says on the back, "An injury to one is an injury to all," in many languages. These strikers saw that slogan come to life each day. In the next days and weeks the strikers will begin to sum up and share their stories about how, in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, they became working-class heroes and an inspiration to the whole nation. This week, when they march back together into work at the 47th Street site wearing their Teamster 743 gear, they will say, "Yes we did!" From sartesian at earthlink.net Fri Nov 6 10:01:44 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 12:01:44 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Double standard on extradition: CIA agentsvs. RomanPolanski References: <4AF432E6.2000307@panix.com> <72CBDE3590CB426B837AA2AA6273AE9C@dmsthinkpad><3CC28F08-48B9-40AF-9C78-9382CC76D439@pipeline.com> <4AF44A93.3050704@panix.com> Message-ID: "Can't people read something I post for information's sake without using it as an excuse to get into a pissing contest?" I think so. But there's nothing informative about the WSWS article counter-posing the request for extradition of Polanski vs. the refusal of the US to produce the CIA agents found guilty by an equally hypocritical Italian judge. That's just celebrity pandering. We might want to balance that off against the US insisting that the Taliban surrender Al Qaeda or face military attack-- something along those lines. Isn't every application of bourgeois justice an exercise of double standard? When the Bush administration prosecutes Sam Waksal from ImClone for securities fraud, and Martha Stewart for insider trading, isn't that a double standard, given the fact that Waksal was a big contributor to the Dems, and Bush's own executive agencies-- Interior, Justice, Education, etc. were knee-deep in fraud, abuse, illegality, etc. etc? Why not the Cuban 5 vs. Posada Carriles? If we want to show hypocrisy, I offer just a few examples: How about the lack of criminal prosecutions against the officers of BP after the report by the Chemical Safety Board, and OSHA, detailing systematic disregard of operating safety leading to an explosion that killed 15? How about the fact that a Canadian citizen, while changing planes in the US, was seized, and transported to the midEast where he was held for 3 years and tortured, with of course no charges no evidence, and has just had his suit against the US govt. dismissed in US federal court? From jayrothermel at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 10:02:40 2009 From: jayrothermel at gmail.com (jay rothermel) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 12:02:40 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Re SK Strike Victory Message-ID: <1f14bc450911060902x2fdb30bds5550a1837e9f2c45@mail.gmail.com> Sorry, here is the correct link to the story I posted: http://www.fightbacknews.org/2009/11/5/sk-hand-tools-strikers-win Another story on the SK victory: http://socialistworker.org/2009/11/06/sk-workers-claim-victory THE SK Hand Tools struggle broke out a time when far bigger unions have been unwilling or unable to stand up to employer demands for concessions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, work stoppages involving 1,000 or more workers are down 95 percent over last year--and are at the lowest level since records were first kept in the 1940s. The SK Hand Tools strike was too small to be included in those statistics. But it showed the potential for workers' struggles to rally support at a time when there is growing anger at the bankers and the wealthy, while workers face their worst prospects in decades. The workers' picket line on Chicago's Southwest Side became a regular stopping point for members of other unions and activists of all kinds. Strikers were featured at a variety of labor and social movement events, from the Chicago Federation of Labor's Labor Day rally, to an immigrants' rights march the same day, and to a meeting with LGBT activist Cleve Jones to build the National Equality March in Washington, D.C. Activists from around the city attended a successful fundraiser at the Local 743 union hall. "All the people who came to our line gave us a big boost in our spirits," Lunar said. "We are very thankful to people who donated food and money, or just their time. It really helped keep our spirits up. It was the most amazing experience. We didn't feel alone for a minute." A major factor in the struggle was Local 743's New Leadership reform slate, headed by local President Rich Berg, who also served as chief negotiator with SK Hand Tools management. Since replacing a corrupt union leadership--including officials who are now in jail--Local 743's new administration has focused on rebuilding rank-and-file activism. The SK Hand Tools strike highlighted the stark differences between the reformers and the old guard. "For years, I heard people say, 'The union doesn't do anything but take money from our pockets,'" Lunar said. "Today, people realize that it's important to have a strong union." From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Nov 6 10:08:46 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:08:46 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Anthropology and imperialism Message-ID: <4AF4581E.40307@panix.com> Counterpunch Weekend Edition November 6-8, 2009 From Malinowski to Human Terrain Systems Empires and the Sullying of Anthropology By ROBERT LAWLESS In the September 30, 2009, online edition of CounterPunch in an article titled ?Country of Constant Sorrow: McChrystal's Afghan Desolation,? Vijay Prashad wrote, ?Enter a war zone with the expectation that the heavy armor will coerce the population into electing a favorable head of state; if this fails, then take refuge in your anthropologists, who will find a quick way to ?nativize? the war and help you clamber onto the helicopters. The country you have left behind is now more of a humanitarian disaster than when you self-righteously flew in on the wings of humanitarian interventionism.? The notion of anthropologists being helpmates in the First World conquest of the Third World seems now to have become embedded in the day-to-day understanding of the Bush-initiated Iraq-Afghanistan cultural-military fiasco. Whether political scientists, philosophers, area specialists, or whoever actually fills the ?societal? expert position on the Human Terrain Systems (HTS) teams, anthropologists apparently are to take the blame. And anthropologists themselves are not exempt from furthering this notion. Perhaps the most notorious anthropologist associated with the U.S. military?s HTS is Montgomery McFate, who writes primarily for military publications and whose pivotal article ?Anthropology and Counterinsurgency? appeared in the April 2005 issue of Military Review. A hapless mix of shoddy history and misdirected anthropology, her article was, nevertheless, reprinted in the 2007 edition of Annual Editions Anthropology -- along with articles by Conrad Kottak, Richard Lee, and Ralph Linton, and in the 2009 second edition of Classic Readings in Cultural Anthropology, edited by Gary Ferraro -- along with brand-name anthropologists such as Horace Miner, Clyde Kluckhohn, Edward T. Hall, Richard Lee, and E. E. Evans-Pritchard. Why McFate deserves to be in this company is unclear; there are many other articles by respectable anthropologists that clearly explained the HTS affair. [Among them have been David Price?s path-breaking contributions on this site and in our CounterPunch newsletter. Editors.] Making McFate?s piece widely available only further sullies anthropology. Anthropology hardly needs a renewed association with First World empires; it has obviously had difficulty living down its close association with colonialism in its formative recent past. The great British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, one of the most important founders of modern anthropology who provided a model for nonjudgmental, systematic, long-term fieldwork -- the hallmark of anthropology -- was director of the International African Institute in London for a few years, and in that position he was concerned primarily with helping British colonial officials with their problems. One specific problem for Britain centered on getting the indigenes to work hard on the cash-crop plantations owned by the Europeans. In a 1929 article Malinowski wrote: ?The simplest experience teaches that to everybody work is . . . unpleasant, but a study of primitive conditions shows that very efficient work can be obtained, and the Natives can be made to work with some degree of real satisfaction if propitious conditions are created for them. . . . In Melanesia I have seen this applied on some plantations. Use was made of such stimuli as competitive displays of the results, or special marks of distinction for industry, or again of rhythm and working songs. . . . Such things must never be improvised -- an artificial arrangement will never get hold of native imagination. In every community I maintain there are such indigenous means of achieving more intensive labour and greater output.? And in further advising about the duties of the anthropologist Malinowski wrote, "He should formulate his conclusions in a manner so that they can be understood by those who carry out policies. He also has the duty to speak as the natives' advocate, without, however, succumbing to an outburst of pro-native ranting. Through comparative study he can discover and define the common factor of European intentions and of African response. . . . Knowledge gives foresight, and foresight is indispensable to the statesman and to the local administrator, to the educationalist, welfare worker, and missionary alike." Notice that it is European intentions and African response. Notice that "knowledge" and "foresight" is for the European colonialists, not for the ?natives.? No anthropologist in these early years suggested that anthropology should be used to help the indigenes throw off the yoke of colonial oppression or that anthropologists should study the contradictions and weaknesses of colonial imperialism so that the indigenes could strike at the heart of the oppressors. Malinowski was, of course, a product of his time. And before World War II it was widely assumed in the colonial metropoles, that colonialism was beneficial in the long run to everyone; backward peoples were, after all, being civilized so that they could enjoy the benefits of modernization and civilization in the future. And these early anthropologists strove to enlighten the rulers and protect the ruled from the more brutal aspects of colonialism, such as forced labor. Today, however, most anthropologists have moved beyond this 1920s colonial version of the discipline. Some anthropologists even at the time escaped this ethnocentric perspective. Franz Boas, the founder of U.S. anthropology, famously critiqued anthropologists involved with the U.S. military in World War I in his 1919 letter to the Nation titled ?Scientists as Spies.? His student, and my first anthropology instructor, the great Melville J. Herskovits, refused government financial assistance for Northwestern University?s African Studies program and he also refused to accept government officials into the Ph.D. program. These towering figures certainly would not allow anthropology to be sullied. The discipline did, however, suffer some sullying during World War II and the subsequent Cold War. Anthropologists? activities in World War II are examined in David Price?s 2008 Anthropological Intelligence, and the Thailand part of Project Agile is examined in Eric Wakin?s 1992 Anthropology Goes to War. One would hope, however, that modern-day anthropologists have learned the lesson and that such sullying and empire-helpmate activities would no longer occur. As Price wrote on October 1-15, 2009, however, in an article in CounterPunch newsletter titled ?Anthropology, Human Terrain?s Prehistory, and the Role of Culture in Wars Waged by Robots,? ?Human Terrain Systems is not some neutral humanitarian project, it is an arm of the U.S. military and is part of the military?s mission to occupy and destroy opposition to U.S. goals and objectives. HTS cannot claim the sort of neutrality claimed by groups like Doctors Without Borders, or the International Committee of the Red Cross.? In October 2007 much to its credit the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association denounced HTS for its failure to follow the fundamental principles of anthropological ethics. Out of the 261 comments from members of the American Anthropological Association in the blog accompanying the statement of the executive board the vast majority overwhelmingly condemn the participation of anthropologists in HTS. The few anthropologists engaged in these neocolonial enterprises cannot be said to represent the discipline, but they have received considerable publicity thereby sullying anthropology?s reputation. Exactly what they expect to accomplish anthropologically is not entirely clear. They are a fairly motley bunch. The ones that we have information on seem to have little if any expertise in the Middle East. And most of them are not exactly forthcoming about their activities -- nor is the U.S. military. One who has written rather openly is Marcus Griffin, who has a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Illinois and who, until recently, was an assistant professor at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, a rapidly growing public university with an enrollment of about 5,000. Griffin has been the subject of several articles, has written about his experiences in his own blog, and has briefly replied to criticism in the anthropological blog Savage Minds. In an article in the April 21, 2008, issue of Newsweek titled ?A Gun in One Hand, A Pen in the Other? written by Dan Ephron and Silvia Spring it is pointed out that Griffin ?had never been to the Middle East before he arrived in Iraq last fall,? though he had spent much of his life in the Philippines with his anthropologist father who does research on the Agta of Northern Luzon. Ephron and Spring noted that although he is a civilian Griffin wore army clothing and carried a rifle. The reporters stated, ?For their services, the anthropologists get up to $300,000 annually while posted abroad -- a salary that is six times higher than the national average for their field.? The rest of the Newsweek article is largely critical of the HTS program, which, it reported, ?was handed to BAE without a bidding process.? BAE Systems is a company that apparently lives off U.S. Department of Defense contracts. According to their website, BAE Systems currently has positions open for HTS Reachback Research Center Analyst, Human Terrain Systems Analyst, Human Terrain Systems Research Manager, and HTS Team Leader. A more critical article by Dahr Jamail in the May 1, 2009, edition of Truthout titled ?An Anthropologist and Army Medics Work at a Medical Clinic in the Shabak Valley in Afghanistan? pointed out that HTS developed ?into a $40 million program that embedded four or five person groups of scholars in the aforementioned fields in all 26 US combat brigades that were busily occupying Iraq and Afghanistan.? Jamail reported that Griffin, ?while preparing to deploy to Iraq at part of an HTS team, boasted on his blog, ?I cut my hair in a high and tight style and look like a drill sergeant . . . I shot very well with the M9 and M4 last week at the range . . . Shooting well is important if you are a soldier regardless of whether or not your job requires you to carry a weapon.?? An article meant to be favorable toward HTS and toward Griffin was datelined Baghdad and released by the American Forces Press Service on January 25, 2008. Titled ?Anthropologist Helps Soldiers Understand Iraqis? Needs? and written by Sgt. James P. Hunter, U.S. Army, it characterized Griffin as ?an anthropologist working for the 101st Airborne Division?s 2nd Brigade Combat Team? who is bringing ?his knowledge and experience to the fight? and ?is helping soldiers better understand the needs of the Iraqi people.? The article focuses on Griffin?s study of Iraqi local markets, which he toured accompanied by an armed escort. In responding to questions of ethics posed by anthropologists on the popular blog Savage Minds in August 2007, Griffin wrote: ?I am deploying in a few days and time is very short. I work sixteen hour days and can expect to do so from now on seven days a week until I?m given R&R in six months. That is not an exaggeration. I am not evading questions about ethics, I simply cannot devote the time to my blog because my blog is not my job, just a way to show my students how I am doing my job away from the classroom. I write in it when I can. ?As for going native, how can I possibly help the Army use fewer bombs and bullets to achieve the operational goal of securing neighborhoods from sectarian, criminal, and political violence if I don?t know anything about Army culture and don?t seem to care about living as they do? Living with the Iraqi population is simply not an option -- the last time I checked people get their heads cut off or are shot by a sniper for lingering around. Personally, I think going to Iraq tests the current relevance of anthropology. We?ll see how relevant the discipline is and how well or poorly I perform as an anthropologist. My blog will contain posts about it all. My next entry will be from downrange. Ciao.? Griffin?s blog is currently unavailable. Griffin is no longer with Christopher Newport University and is, in fact, now employed by BAE Systems. In response to questions I recently posed to Griffin, he wrote on October 7, 2009, ?I am currently getting ready for a trip to Afghanistan and not able to give answering these questions priority. Perhaps when I return next month I will have more time.? In a similar fashion to the problems faced by psychologists dealing with the role of a few of their cohorts? compliance with torture, anthropologists will need to cleanse the standing of the profession not only by careful discussion of the issues but also by taking action that clearly separates the discipline of anthropology from war, spying, empire building, and military adventures. Robert Lawless teaches anthropology at Wichita State University . He has done fieldwork in the Philipinnes, Haiti , Florida and New York (studying urban hippie communes in the early 1970s). He can be reached at robert.lawless at wichita.edu From acpollack2 at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 10:11:43 2009 From: acpollack2 at gmail.com (Andrew Pollack) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 12:11:43 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] [Fwd: [historicalmaterialism] Seminar: Towards A Marxist Analysis of the Global Crisis] In-Reply-To: <2fa1449b0911060715j77dc3817xe554234a33f9957@mail.gmail.com> References: <4AF433D6.90901@panix.com> <2fa1449b0911060715j77dc3817xe554234a33f9957@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2fa1449b0911060911x4d3eb2e1qf3f06a001260ba4@mail.gmail.com> found the link to the papers: http://gate.iire.org/ecosem09/ecosem09.zip ps See latest MR for articles on the ecology/economy link referred to by a couple of the speakers at the seminar From sebastian at amadeobordiga.u-net.com Fri Nov 6 10:16:45 2009 From: sebastian at amadeobordiga.u-net.com (Sebastian Budgen) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 18:16:45 +0100 Subject: [Marxism] Seminar: Towards A Marxist Analysis of the Global Crisis Message-ID: <9AE263A2-D327-48CE-A95D-5711E56CC712@amadeobordiga.u-net.com> Sorry, the link is: http://gate.iire.org/ecosem09/ecosem09.zip From acpollack2 at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 10:40:51 2009 From: acpollack2 at gmail.com (Andrew Pollack) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 12:40:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Seminar: Towards A Marxist Analysis of the Global Crisis In-Reply-To: <9AE263A2-D327-48CE-A95D-5711E56CC712@amadeobordiga.u-net.com> References: <9AE263A2-D327-48CE-A95D-5711E56CC712@amadeobordiga.u-net.com> Message-ID: <2fa1449b0911060940n3b5a4d22xb84cfbb15d6e70d7@mail.gmail.com> I just downloaded and opened the zip. These are all mp3 files, but the announcement said text files are available. On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 12:16 PM, Sebastian Budgen wrote: > Sorry, the link is: http://gate.iire.org/ecosem09/ecosem09.zip > From sabocat59 at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 10:44:02 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 12:44:02 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Anthropology and imperialism Message-ID: <6e42edf00911060944j6b5b3664u4cdf5a9c7c88979f@mail.gmail.com> It's good to see my former teacher has not lost his edge. Greg From nmgoro at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 10:48:03 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:48:03 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Honduras Deal Appears to Fall Apart In-Reply-To: <4AF4507C.9020003@panix.com> References: <4AF4507C.9020003@panix.com> Message-ID: <4AF46153.9090009@gmail.com> No deal will stand in Honduras while it does not recognize the fact that the National Front is a new, central political force in that country. Louis Proyect escribi?: > NY Times, November 7, 2009 > Honduras Deal Appears to Fall Apart > By ELISABETH MALKIN > > MEXICO CITY ? An accord that would have unblocked the political > standoff in Honduras has failed, the deposed president said > Friday, a week after it was mediated by the United States. > From sabocat59 at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 11:17:37 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 13:17:37 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] 75% Young Americans Unfit for Military Duty Message-ID: <6e42edf00911061017g46674c55yaf8f6a088cb2205a@mail.gmail.com> Too Fat to Fight http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11062009.html From theguavatree at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 12:11:23 2009 From: theguavatree at gmail.com (guava tree) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 14:11:23 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots In-Reply-To: <2D4355A1-83E9-479B-9CC5-739E4C48094A@planeteria.net> References: <252927000F5D4B3F8FCA33BA6A6D97E8@dmsthinkpad> <84B223CCD7554849AC05A8841DBE7E03@dmsthinkpad> <2D4355A1-83E9-479B-9CC5-739E4C48094A@planeteria.net> Message-ID: > My conclusion remains the same; we are observing an pronounced > increase in the time it is taking to fill orders either because of a > short work force or in problems getting tools and materials (likely > due to credit problems) or both. Thus the velocity of capital > circulation drops and as a direct result, the rate of profit drops > with it. > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?--rod I can't tell now exactly whether this is true or the reverse-- I do think the point about the short work force is a strong one as the massive layoffs in manufacturing in the three year period of 2001-2003 are quite shocking. Those are easy to find here: http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag31-33.htm And the fact that manufacturing labor was not available as orders came in in 2005-2007 does seem to point towards unfilled orders rising precipitously in my head at least. wouldn't potential problems in the work force and credit problems (disputed by S.Artesian) also point towards a problem in the rate of profit in manufacturing around 2001--a crisis that results in mass layoffs? Will have to do more research around this area From dmozart1756 at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 12:23:31 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 14:23:31 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Double standard on extradition: CIA agents vs. RomanPolanski In-Reply-To: <3CC28F08-48B9-40AF-9C78-9382CC76D439@pipeline.com> References: <4AF432E6.2000307@panix.com> <72CBDE3590CB426B837AA2AA6273AE9C@dmsthinkpad> <3CC28F08-48B9-40AF-9C78-9382CC76D439@pipeline.com> Message-ID: <53a1ffe70911061123k3ac3eea3j173a6fdcf9bbd5d1@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 11:04 AM, Shane Mage wrote: > > > How sad to find professed leftists standing in solidarity with the LA > Public Prosecutors Office (of McMartin fame) and the Bush-Obama > "Justice" Department and cheering on their persecution of a world > famous artist who is also a holocaust victim. > > > So I suppose that a world famous artist or holocaust victim has a get out of jail free card for sexual assault. How sickening to find professed Marxists apologizing for the rape of a teenager. From fred.fuentes at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 12:52:32 2009 From: fred.fuentes at gmail.com (Fred Fuentes) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 15:22:32 -0430 Subject: [Marxism] Statement by Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Message-ID: ------------------------------ Statement by Honduran President Manuel Zelaya: *PRESIDENCY OF THE REPUBLIC* *From the Desk of the President **Tegucigalpa November 6, 2009 *Translation by Patricia Adams, The Quixote Center. *Original Spanish version below. * *DELCARATION* *Our weapon are ideas, our struggle is peaceful* *Agreement Failed because of Micheletti's Failure to Comply.* In the face of the mockery that Mr. Micheletti has made of the Honduran People and the International Community: boycotting the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Agreement; letting the deadline for the creation of the Government of Unity pass without convening the National Congress, as is within his power and responsibility to do per the written agreement; the lack of a will to fulfill the Agreement in both letter and spirit is clear; ignoring the Plan Arias proposal, as well as the OAS and the UN resolutions; we declare that the Agreement has been a failure, because of the failure of the de facto regime to comply with the commitment to organize and install a government of unity and national reconciliation by this date; a government which should by law be presided over by the President elected by the People, Jos? Manuel Zelaya Rosales. 1. We are not willing to give up the rights of the people by legitimating this Coup d'Etat. 2. We do not accept the militarization of society nor that the President of Honduras be named by the elite of the Armed Forces. 3. Democracy is the highest good of society and is the only path for confronting the problems of the third poorest economy in Latin America, and therefore we are not willing to be cheated nor that our Democracy be robbed from us. 4. The permanent violations of Human Rights, the cancellation of public freedoms, the confiscation of communication media, as well as the status of the President elected by the people who is surrounded by the military inside the Brazilian Embassy and the political witch hunting, is all proof of the preparation of an enormous Political-Electoral fraud on November 29th. 5. We announce that we will completely ignore this electoral process and the results of the aforementioned evils, elections under a dictatorship are a fraud for the people. 6. We invite the Ministers of the OAS to make immediate pronouncements about the actions of the government legitimately elected by the people of Honduras, and to continue to condemn and ignore this de facto regime. 7. On behalf of the people, we thank the International Community, the OAS, Secretary Insulza, the ex-President of Chile Mr Ricardo Lagos Escobar, and the US Labor Secretary Mrs Hilda Sol?s. *PRESIDENCIA DE LA REPUBLICA* * * *Del Escritorio de Se?or Presidente Tegucigalpa 6 de noviembre del 2009* *PRONUNCIAMIENTO* *Nuestra armas son las ideas, nuestra lucha es pacifica* *Fracasa Acuerdo por Incumplimiento de Micheletti.* Ante la burla que el Se?or Micheletti ha inferido al pueblo Hondure?o y a la Comunidad Internacional, Boicoteando el Acuerdo Tegucigalpa/San Jos? y dejar que se vencieran los plazos para la Organizaci?n del Gobierno de Unidad al no convocar al Congreso Nacional de acuerdo a sus facultades y compromisos suscritos, evidentemente se manifiesta la falta de voluntad para cumplir la letra y el esp?ritu del Acuerdo, desconociendo la propuesta del Plan Arias, la resoluciones de Organizaci?n de Estados Americanos de Naciones Unidas, declaramos fracasado el Acuerdo por el incumplimiento del r?gimen de facto del compromiso de que a esta fecha deb?a de estar organizado e instalado el gobierno de unidad y de Reconciliaci?n nacional; El que por ley debe de ser presidido por el Presidente Electo por el Pueblo Jos? Manuel Zelaya Rosales. 1. Que no estamos dispuestos a perder los derechos del pueblo legitimando este Golpe de Estado. 2. No aceptamos que se militarice la sociedad y que el Presidente de Honduras sea nombrado en las C?pulas de las Fuerzas Armadas. 3. La Democracia es un bien supremo de la sociedad y es el ?nico camino para enfrentar los problemas de la tercera econom?a mas pobre de Latinoam?rica por lo que no estamos dispuestos a permitir que nos roben con este tipo de trampas nuestra Democracia. 4. Las violaciones permanentes de los Derechos Humanos, la cancelaci?n de las libertades p?blicas, y la confiscaci?n de medios de comunicaci?n al igual que la situaci?n del Presidente electo por el pueblo rodeado por militares en la sede Diplom?tica del Brasil y la persecuci?n Pol?tica es la prueba evidente de la preparaci?n de un gran fraude Pol?tico-Electoral para el 29 de noviembre. 5. Anunciamos nuestro total desconocimiento a este proceso electoral y a los resultados por los vicios antes mencionados, elecciones bajo dictadura son un fraude para el pueblo. 6. Invitar de manera inmediata a los Cancilleres de la OEA a que se pronuncien sobre lo que acontece en el gobierno leg?timamente electo por el pueblo Hondure?o y continu? la condena y el desconocimiento a este r?gimen de facto. 7. Agradecemos al pueblo el apoyo brindado por la Comunidad Internacional, a la Organizaci?n de Estados Americano, secretario insulsa al ex Presidente de Chile Se?or Ricardo Lagos Escobar, a la Ministra de Trabajo del Gobierno de Estados Unidos Se?ora Hilda Sol?s. From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Nov 6 12:55:18 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:55:18 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Democrats trash Sarbanes-Oxley Message-ID: <4AF47F26.8010905@panix.com> NY Times, November 6, 2009 High & Low Finance Goodbye to Reforms of 2002 By FLOYD NORRIS It took just five weeks after the WorldCom accounting scandal erupted in 2002 for Congress to pass, and President George W. Bush to sign, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. That law required public companies to make sure their internal controls against fraud were not full of holes. It took three more years for Bernard Ebbers, the man who built WorldCom into a giant, to be sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the fraud. Mr. Ebbers will be 85 years old before he is eligible for release from prison. He may be freed, however, before the law is ever enforced on the vast majority of American companies. A Congressional committee voted this week to repeal a crucial part of the law. Other parts are also under attack. Sarbanes-Oxley was passed, almost unanimously, by a Republican-controlled House and a Democratic-controlled Senate. Now a Democratic Congress is gutting it with the apparent approval of the Obama administration. The House Financial Services Committee this week approved an amendment to the Investor Protection Act of 2009 ? a name George Orwell would appreciate ? to allow most companies to never comply with the law, and mandating a study to see whether it would be a good idea to exempt additional ones as well. Some veterans of past reform efforts were left sputtering with rage. ?That the Democratic Party is the vehicle for overturning the most pro-investor legislation in the past 25 years is deeply disturbing,? said Arthur Levitt, a Democrat who was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission under President Bill Clinton. ?Anyone who votes for this will bear the investors? mark of Cain.? Those who favored the amendment saw it differently. They were simply out to help small businesses, which would be burdened by having to report on whether they maintained acceptable financial controls, and to have auditors check on whether those controls did work. They also suggested that more foreign companies would list their securities in the United States if they were spared that onerous requirement. No one seems to have asked if investors really would benefit from making it easier to invest in companies that fear such an audit. There are other threats to Sarbanes-Oxley as well. The law set up a long-overdue system of regulating the accounting industry, which had proved time and again that it was incapable of effective self-regulation. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has done a credible job, but a month from now the Supreme Court will hear a case that could drive it out of existence. The Sarbanes-Oxley law also took steps to reinforce the independence of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which writes accounting rules in the United States. By giving the board a secure source of financing, legislators said they were protecting it from the threats of the companies that had previously made donations to keep the board functioning. But this Congress has made clear that independence for the accounting rule writers can go too far ? particularly if the rules force banks to reveal the horrid mistakes they previously made. This year, a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing at which legislators sought no facts but instead threatened dire action if the chairman of the financial accounting board did not promptly make it easier for banks to ignore market values of the toxic securities they owned. The board caved in, which may be one reason why banks are reporting fewer losses these days. But the board?s retreat was not enough to satisfy the banks. The American Bankers Association is now pushing Congress to give a new systemic risk regulator ? either the Federal Reserve or some panel of regulators ? the power to override accounting standards. The view of the bankers is that the financial crisis did not stem from the fact that the banks made lots of bad loans and invested in dubious securities; it was caused by accounting rules that required disclosure when the losses began to mount. The amendment approved this week dealt with Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley, which has become a rallying cry for opponents of regulation. Some Democrats seem to think that passing it will be seen as pro-business, and thus help to protect vulnerable Democrats who in 2008 won seats previously held by Republicans. The sponsor of the amendment, Representative John Adler of New Jersey, is one such legislator. Section 404 was adopted with little controversy in 2002, and for good reason. It simply mandated that public companies report on the effectiveness of their internal financial controls, and that auditors render an opinion on them. Since the law already required companies to maintain effective controls ? and had done so since 1977 ? it seemed unlikely that would increase costs much for any company that was already in compliance. And it was crystal clear that controls either did not exist, or were evaded, at WorldCom and Enron. Unfortunately, when those Section 404 audits began to be conducted for the largest companies, they were costly. Partly, that was caused by badly designed and overly cautious audits conducted by inexperienced auditors. Experience reduces costs to some extent, and in 2007, the Securities and Exchange Committee and the accounting oversight board adopted reforms to make the audits much less expensive. The section has never been enforced for most companies. The S.E.C. repeatedly delayed the effective date for companies with market capitalizations under $75 million, as lobbying grew bolder and legislators like Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, opposed enforcement of the law. Mr. Bush?s last S.E.C. chairman, Christopher Cox, avoided making a decision by ordering one more study that would arrive after he was gone. That study showed that Section 404 costs had come down significantly, and last month the S.E.C. under its new chairwoman, Mary L. Schapiro, announced that in the middle of 2010 ? eight years after the law was passed ? all public companies would have to start complying. It took just one month for the House committee to vote to gut Sarbanes-Oxley. It voted to exempt those companies worth less than $75 million, and asked for a study on whether companies worth less than $250 million should be allowed to stop complying with the law. In doing so, it turned aside a plea from Ms. Schapiro, whose opinions carry far less importance in this Congress than those of lobbyists who claim to represent small business. The Supreme Court case, to be heard Dec. 7, is on the somewhat arcane question of whether it was legal for Congress to require that the members of the oversight board be appointed by the S.E.C. rather than by the president or someone directly responsible to him, like the secretary of the Treasury. If the Supreme Court rules that the board is illegally appointed, Congress could quickly act to save it by changing the appointment process. But who can be confident that this Congress would want to save the reforms of 2002? Floyd Norris comments on finance and economics in his blog at nytimes.com/norris. From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Nov 6 13:07:03 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:07:03 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Obama caters to Zionists Message-ID: <4AF481E7.2000902@panix.com> (Dreyfuss's article is useful but it is mistitled. It should be "Obama Succeeds in Middle East" since his intention all along was to help Israel achieve its aims.) http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/493335/obama_fails_in_middle_east Obama Fails in Middle East posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 11/06/2009 @ 08:56am The announcement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he will not run for reelection is the exclamation point on the utter collapse of the Obama adminstration's Middle East policy. Launched to great expectations -- the appointment of George Mitchell, Obama's Cairo declaration that the plight of the Palestinians is intolerable -- it is now in complete disarray. It is, without doubt, the first major defeat for Obama's hope-and-change foreign policy. Here's how it unraveled. First, Obama began a test of strength with Israel over that country's policy of illegal settlements, an expansion of its occupation of the West Bank driven by extremist, right-wing settlers who are fanatical, Bible-believing cultists who think that Israel has some God-given right to that territory. The settler-kooks -- indeed, one of their past leaders was named Rabbi Kook -- are supported by ultra-hardliners in Israel's security establishment, who see the West Bank as strategic depth in Israel's defense posture. What happened after Obama told Israel it had to stop settlements? Nothing. Score: Netanyahu 1, Obama 0. Next, the Obama adminstration capitulated, refusing to insist on any penalty for Israel's defiant intransigence. Not even a hint of any retaliation by the United States to enforce what it had called the path to a peace deal. No talk of reducing US aid to Israel, or cutting back on US-Israeli military cooperation, or anything. Score: Netanyahu 2, Obama 0. Then, while all this was going on, Obama hinted that he might announce, this fall, something like a comprehensive US plan for the Middle East. Everyone knows what a solution looks like: withdrawal by Israel from the West Bank, dismantling of the settlements, an end to the Gaza embargo, the division of Jerusalem, some swapping of land to account for slight changes in borders (especially around the capital), and a formula to account for the Palestinians' right-of-return, involving financial compensation -- plus security arrangements. But months later, Obama has refused to even hint at his own plan for the region, caving in to Israel's demands that all of that be saved for "negotiations." Score: Netanyahu 3, Obama 0. Finally, the United States cravenly supported Israel over the Goldstone Report on Gaza, the report that accused Israel (and Hamas) of war crimes during the December-January conflict there. Score: Netanyahu 4, Obama 0. Secretary of State Clinton then put the final icing on the rotten cake, praising Netanyahu, an extremist, far-right ultra-nationalist, for his decision to expand, not halt, settlements. Clinton's blunder, which shocked and stunned Palestinians and Arab leaders, represented the ultimate cave-in to Netanyahu and Co. Final score: Netanyahu 5, Obama 0. Reports the New York Times today: "Mrs. Clinton's visit, which she characterized as a success, sowed anger and confusion among Palestinians and other Arabs after she praised as 'unprecedented' the offer by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to slow down, but not stop, construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank." One of the Palestinians' most experienced, veteran deal-makers, Nabil Shaath, a Fatah old-timer said of Obama's collapse: "There was high expectation when he arrived on the scene. Now there is a total retreat, which has destroyed trust instead of building trust." Abbas may or may not reconsider his decision, and of course the elections that are supposed to take place in January are still in limbo over the inability of Fatah and Hamas to strike a deal. But, by refusing to compel Israel to make a real offer to the Palestinians, the United States has once again shafted Palestinian moderates like Abbas, who can't credibly claim to have won anything for their constituents. In so doing, Obama is fueling the extremists, bomb-makers, and rocket launchers in Hamas, a fundamentalist, Muslim Brotherhood-founded movement that wants no compromise. Heck of a job, Baracky! Abbas said that he was "surprised" -- bitterly angry and really pissed off, is more accurate, I am sure -- by Clinton's comments on Israel's settlements policy. And Clinton, asked about Abbas' move, delivered an insouciant fuck-you to Abbas: "We talked about his own political future. I look forward to working with President Abbas in any new capacity." From fred.fuentes at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 13:57:46 2009 From: fred.fuentes at gmail.com (Fred Fuentes) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 16:27:46 -0430 Subject: [Marxism] State Department on breakdown in dialogue in Honduras Message-ID: Ian Kelly Department Spokesman Washington, DC November 6, 2009 ------------------------------ A week ago, Honduran negotiators, with the support of the OAS and friends in the region, achieved an historic victory for democracy in their country by signing the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord. That agreement spells out a step-by-step process for Honduras to re-establish democratic and constitutional order and move toward national elections with the support of the international community. The United States and the international community applauded the Honduran people for addressing the political crisis in their country with patriotism and pragmatism. The process of reconciliation in Honduras took another step forward this week with the formation of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord Verification Commission, including members from Honduras and the international community. During a November 3-4 visit to Honduras, the Commission emphasized the need for phased implementation of the Accord and underscored the importance of the next step in the process: the formation of a Government of Unity and National Reconciliation. The Commission welcomed efforts by both sides to form such a government by the November 5 deadline. In the wake of the Commission visit, the two sides made significant progress toward the formation of the unity government. For that reason, we were particularly disappointed by the unilateral statements made by both sides last night, which do not serve the spirit of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord. As the Verification Commissioners have noted, both sides need to work together implement the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord. We urge both sides to act in the best interests of the Honduran people and return to the table immediately to reach agreement on the formation of a unity government. The formation of a Government of Unity and National Reconciliation will serve the Honduran people and will change the political dynamics in the country in a positive way. It is urgent that this government be created immediately. The Honduran people have made clear that they want to move forward. They deserve leadership that looks to the future, in the interest of all Hondurans. Complete and timely implementation of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord is the path to that future, and the formation of a Government of Unity and National Reconciliation is the next vital step forward. From sartesian at earthlink.net Fri Nov 6 13:58:13 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 15:58:13 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots References: <252927000F5D4B3F8FCA33BA6A6D97E8@dmsthinkpad><84B223CCD7554849AC05A8841DBE7E03@dmsthinkpad><2D4355A1-83E9-479B-9CC5-739E4C48094A@planeteria.net> Message-ID: The problem in 2001, actually beginning with the Asian "financial" crisis of 1997-1998, was overproduction; overproduction of the means of production of capital; actual real investments in new and/or improved productive capacity, communications, and transport. This overproduction first became evident in the semiconductor industry around 1995, which of course only triggered more investment in more efficient productive capacity and greater output. This investment drove the rate of return down, nowhere more acutely than in the oil industry which sent out its usual S.O.S to its trusty OPEC flunkees. There was no shortage of manufacturing labor in the period leading up to 2001; there was no shortage of manufacturing labor in the 2005-2007 period. There were no extended lead times for deliveries of shipments; there wasn't even the overloading of the transport system as occurred with the rail industry when the Union Pacific took over the Southern Pacific and the Missouri Pacific in the 90s and through its supreme arrogance, demolished their traffic handling expertise, and almost brought freight operations to a standstill in all points west of Chicago. The 2005-2007 period is a period when US manufacturing corporations are doing reasonably well-- that is to say, making money based on wage-control, increased exports due to depreciation of the dollar, the war-- while at the same time US transportation corporations are having a rather difficult time given the price of oil-- with autos, trucks and airlines taking the biggest hits. Flush with cash, US manufacturing resumed capital spending in 2006 to mark the peak in the rate of return, but was never strapped for workers. Which durable goods producers in the 2005-2007 period experienced credit problems? Well I can tell you auto parts manufacturers did-- Delphi and the like, but did that slow down the automobile industry? Not hardly, and Delphi's problems were certainly not triggered by a dearth of available labor, skilled or unskilled. The only time I can recall such a thing, an increasing demand for labor in manufacturing and industry after 1969 in the US, was after the recovery from the OPEC 1 recession of 74-75. In the period 1976-1979, with interests rates extremely high, industry attempted a micro-reversal of the trend towards expropriation of relative surplus value through the substitution of machinery-- and actually hired more and paid more for labor while restraining capital investment to control interest expenses. This contributed to the inflationary pressures in the system and we all know what we got next-- OPEC 2, Thatcher, Reagan, and Vulture-- I mean Volcker. ----- Original Message ----- From: "guava tree" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 2:11 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The Roots of the Pale Green Shoots > My conclusion remains the same; we are observing an pronounced > increase in the time it is taking to fill orders either because of a > short work force or in problems getting tools and materials (likely > due to credit problems) or both. Thus the velocity of capital > circulation drops and as a direct result, the rate of profit drops > with it. > --rod I can't tell now exactly whether this is true or the reverse-- I do think the point about the short work force is a strong one as the massive layoffs in manufacturing in the three year period of 2001-2003 are quite shocking. Those are easy to find here: http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag31-33.htm And the fact that manufacturing labor was not available as orders came in in 2005-2007 does seem to point towards unfilled orders rising precipitously in my head at least. wouldn't potential problems in the work force and credit problems (disputed by S.Artesian) also point towards a problem in the rate of profit in manufacturing around 2001--a crisis that results in mass layoffs? Will have to do more research around this area ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/sartesian%40earthlink.net From harry.feldman at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 15:48:39 2009 From: harry.feldman at gmail.com (Harry Feldman) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 09:48:39 +1100 Subject: [Marxism] Anthropology and imperialism Message-ID: <4af4a7cc.9613f30a.6fd9.1a39@mx.google.com> A couple of posts from my blog apropos Human Terrain teams: http://bureauofcounterpropaganda.blogspot.com/2007/03/handmaidens-of-imperia lism.html http://bureauofcounterpropaganda.blogspot.com/2008/12/lethal-effects-targeti ng.html From sandia1980 at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 17:43:13 2009 From: sandia1980 at gmail.com (sandia) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 19:43:13 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination In-Reply-To: References: <2ed7e4ad0911051709s4002b810n4c54973e5c9e7ecd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2ed7e4ad0911061643q1df984f1n681db1e2980b8b54@mail.gmail.com> > It is hard to believe he was only 21 when he was assassinated. ?The > Panthers attracted many talented and dedicated people. Very true. Hampton, in particular, was truly special. He had no interest in cultivating the cult-of-personality worship that other Panther leaders like Huey P. and Cleaver did. He was gathering together a multi-racial/ethnic working-class youth coalition in Chicago when he was killed. He had the moral authority to pull something like that together. He was one of the closest things to Malcolm after Malcolm, in terms of his strategic thinking, idiom and the trust he endeared. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtORI3ZlPeg -- sandia From tcod at hotmail.com Fri Nov 6 19:14:02 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 02:14:02 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination In-Reply-To: <2ed7e4ad0911061643q1df984f1n681db1e2980b8b54@mail.gmail.com> References: <2ed7e4ad0911051709s4002b810n4c54973e5c9e7ecd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Amen, brother. I had the privilege of seeing Fred Hampton at the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) convention in Chicago in November 1968 as a 15 year old high school activist, but some of the older "leading comrades" felt scandalized by him and later by the Panthers generally, seeking to *set us straight* on this. Of course they would tell you that's not a function of their own deep seated conservatism, whether of a "petty bourgois" middle class early-60s college student type or disgruntled "proletarian" activists frozen in time in the 1930s variety, but rather an expression how "ultraleft" and undisciplined the movement had become which really didn't have too many principles with "counter-culturalists" snake dancing around Liberals like Peter Paul and Mary and "Stalinists" or "Stalinoid Liberals" like Pete Seeger and Angela Davis, yippies and other assorted wierdos. Yes, the Panthers DID stand on the shoulders of Malcolm X in promoting political independence and armed self defense and jokey orthodox naysayers of that who purport to uphold the legacy of Malcolm do so in the way social democrats upheld Marx, by turning him into a harmless icon that masked over their essentially right wing social democratic hostility to much 60s radical movement. Ditto for their attitude on SDS etc. As Fidel once commented, folks like that wouldn't recognize a revolution if occurred right under their nose and if they did, you can count on them opposing it. It is to the credit of Workers World Party and even ISO that their spirit of solidarity on this was 180 degrees away from that. > From: sandia1980 at gmail.com > Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 19:43:13 -0500 > Subject: Re: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination > He was one of the closest things to > Malcolm after Malcolm, in terms of his strategic thinking, idiom and > the trust he endeared. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtORI3ZlPeg _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141665/direct/01/ From mikedjyates at msn.com Fri Nov 6 19:25:09 2009 From: mikedjyates at msn.com (MICHAEL YATES) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 18:25:09 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] blog post: three weeks in southern utah: 1. boulder to zion national park Message-ID: Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org For the third time in four years, we visited southern Utah in November. There are five national parks here and many other beautiful public spaces. I don?t think there is a more spectacular place in the country. The high sandstone cliffs of Zion National Park, the hoodoos and fantastical shapes of Bryce, the upheaved earth and gigantic rocks of Capitol Reef, the Delicate Arch in Arches, and the harsh grandeur of Canyonlands all make you happy that the national government has not caved in completely to the private interests that would mine and drill every inch of these special places if they could. And I doubt the Mormon hierarchy would try to stop them. I can?t imagine that Orrin Hatch is a "vagabond for beauty," like Everett Reuss, the intrepid young chronicler of these vast and sparsely settled lands. We left Boulder, Colorado at five o?clock in the morning and, helped by the light of a full moon, made our way south to Interstate 70, passing through Golden, where the Coors Brewery pollutes the air, while it produces the brew that helps fund the far right. Coors? advertisements would have us believe that it makes its beer in the Rocky Mountains. The truth is that Golden is just another sprawling suburban mess, its developments of oversized and cookie-cutter houses mocking the foothills, canyons, and mountain streams nearby. Interstate 70 traverses the whole of Colorado and most of Utah. In these states, it is an engineering marvel, winding its way through, around, beside, and over mountains, canyons, and rivers. We were horrified to see the dead pine trees, killed by infestations of beetles, that cover the mountain slopes west of the Continental Divide. Their brown visages are more disturbing to the eye than even the long ski-slope scars above the ski slums that attract thousands of enthusiasts every winter weekend, clotting the highway with huge traffic jams on Fridays and Sundays. Towns like Vail were developed in part by well-connected ski paratroopers from the Second World War. I wish these expert skiers had stayed back East and left the mountains alone. Development for whatever purpose seems to know no limits; nature and beauty always take a back seat to naked self-interest. Vail is a monument to this. . . . From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Nov 6 19:26:28 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:26:28 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination In-Reply-To: References: <2ed7e4ad0911051709s4002b810n4c54973e5c9e7ecd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AF4DAD4.1040502@panix.com> Tom Cod wrote: > Amen, brother. I had the privilege of seeing Fred Hampton at the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) convention in Chicago in November 1968 as a 15 year old high school activist, but some of the older "leading comrades" felt scandalized by him and later by the Panthers generally, seeking to *set us straight* on this.As Fidel once commented, folks like that wouldn't recognize a revolution if occurred right under their nose and if they did, you can count on them opposing it. It is to the credit of Workers World Party and even ISO that their spirit of solidarity on this was 180 degrees away from that. That's because he went way over his 30 minute time allotment. After he had harangued us for an hour, Derrick Morrison came up 3 times to get him to wind it down. And each time he raised the level of vituperation against us and kept going. I am very sorry he got killed by the cops, but my impression of him was: an egotistical, ultraleft jerk. I took a week off from work to attend this convention and wanted to hear what people in my own organization had to say, not a guest. I think the only people around this time who were into soaking up every word from a Panther for hours on end were SDS'ers. I preferred Marxism myself. Additionally, Tom,why don't you switch to gmail. Your posts have all the ill behavior associated with yahoo. From michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Fri Nov 6 19:28:01 2009 From: michael at ecst.csuchico.edu (Michael Perelman) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 18:28:01 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] question about modernization In-Reply-To: <4AF3D77D.F29D.002C.1@hsph.harvard.edu> References: <4AF3AB01.20804@ecst.csuchico.edu> <4AF3D77D.F29D.002C.1@hsph.harvard.edu> Message-ID: <20091107022800.GA4246@ecst.csuchico.edu> Dear Richard. I agree. Allen Ding told me about your meeting. I like him very much. On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 08:00:08AM -0500, Richard Levins wrote: > Dear Michael, > I think the starting point is to question the notion itself, the idea that there is a single pathway of progress, from backward to advanced, and that the task of the "backward" is to advance along the same path as the present day "developed" countries as quickly as possible, accepting the miseries this creates as the costs of "progress". My own knowledge is centered on agriculture where we can see "modernization" as a branching process. The direction depends on who is in charge, e.g. from the heterogeneity of peasant farms we can go to giant monocultures of industrialized agriculture or the planned heterogeneity of ecological agriculture, or urbanization determined by real estate values vs by a combination of social and environmental needs, etc. Best wishes, Dick > > > ========================= > Richard Levins > > >>> michael perelman 11/5/2009 11:50 PM >>> > A Chinese grad student asked me for some help. Any recommendations? > > Could you tell me if there is any scholar who does research on social > modernization, compared to economic modernization and political > modernization and even cultural modernization, in the United States? I'm > thinking about what to write for my dissertation for a doctoral degree. You > know, more and more social problems arise during China's modernization > drive. The reason, I think, is that China's modernization now is more > economic rather than social. So, a sound modernization should be a balanced > one among social, political, cultural as well as economic, never just > economic. Thus, I want to do some research on social modernization for > China. Could you give me some advice from your perspective, for you are > familiar with China and you also have insights into the economic system in > place today? Thank you so much! > > -- > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA > 95929 > > 530 898 5321 > fax 530 898 5901 > http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/humaneco%40hsph.harvard.edu > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/michael%40ecst.csuchico.edu -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com From tcod at hotmail.com Fri Nov 6 20:13:53 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 03:13:53 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Fred Hampton In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Louis: I took a week off from work to attend this convention and wanted to hear what people in my own organization had to say, not a guest. I think the only people around this time who were into soaking up every word from a Panther for hours on end were SDS'ers. I preferred Marxism myself. Response: That's exactly what I'm talking about and I regret you still feel this way. It seems that you still adhere to this whole sectarian world view that you excoriate us to break from, your comment about SDS speaks volumes in that regard. As a 15 year old, I really didn't give a fuck about "our organization" except to the extent that it reflected the real mass movement in the streets which SDS and the Panthers embodied. Thus I found the attitude and views you're conveying-those of the leadership, then and later on, confusing and incredibly demoralizing, I mean I used to have a YSA Che poster on my wall at that time, it was that that attracted me to the YSA in the first place, but then again listening to speakers drone on about how many subscriptions we sold in Binghamton or Hayward trumps Che, Malcolm or the Black Panthers. That's the mentality of groups like the Worker League or the Socialist Labor Party that counterpose themselves to the real movement which is never clean and acceptable to polite society or some orthodoxy and that's what they did with Hampton ratchet up the volume in response. The reality of life in the ghetto was something a world away from life among college students and cult sectarians, ostensible millenialists who could in such glib and smug fashion dismiss the Black Panthers and their historical role, but then again that's because at bottom the YSA never rose above being a sect whose ranks were filled by naive youth whose perceived conservatism was pandered to by the leadership. Yes, we did some good stuff back then in terms of mass demos, but to counterpose that, instead of juxtaposing it, to the rest of the movement is wrong and objectively gives a *left cover* to attacks by the right wing and the government. Thus instead of walking away from the protests in Chicago in summer of 1968 and then distancing itself from and badmouthing the Chicago 8 like the leaders did, they should have closed ranks with them and then we could have had the Chicago 10 with Halstead and Camejo right in the thick of it. The other thing was that a leader of the Chicago SWP in this period was FBI and Chicago police informant Ed Heisler. I mean this was 1968, revolution was everywhere, and we're worrying about "our organization"? What is wrong with that picture? That's what I liked about the Workers World convention I went to in the mid-70s: its fundamentally agitational and movement oriented character. The SWP talked a lot about united front, but except for New Mobe in 1969 they were into the united front of themselves and their periphery. _________________________________________________________________ Windows 7: Unclutter your desktop. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9690331&ocid=PID24727::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WWL_WIN_evergreen:112009 From tcod at hotmail.com Fri Nov 6 20:20:11 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 03:20:11 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Fred Hampton In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: brings to mind those guys that walked out on Dylan in Newport 65, hey they didn't come there to listen to crappy electrical music from some egotistical jerk. _________________________________________________________________ Bing brings you maps, menus, and reviews organized in one place. http://www.bing.com/search?q=restaurants&form=MFESRP&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MFESRP_Local_MapsMenu_Resturants_1x1 From sartesian at earthlink.net Fri Nov 6 21:22:47 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 23:22:47 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Fred Hampton References: Message-ID: <4D705E95AFB9473E849429DE7A2D888F@dmsthinkpad> Actually, Dylan was/is an egotistical jerk, and should have been walked out on during his "acoustic phase." But that's a whole other argument. From kenmor1968 at gmail.com Fri Nov 6 23:44:34 2009 From: kenmor1968 at gmail.com (Kenneth Morgan) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 22:44:34 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Fwd: Fred Hampton In-Reply-To: <4D705E95AFB9473E849429DE7A2D888F@dmsthinkpad> References: <4D705E95AFB9473E849429DE7A2D888F@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: S. Artesian wrote: >Actually, Dylan was/is an egotistical jerk, and should have been walked out >on during his "acoustic phase." .. >But that's a whole other argument. Mention of Dylan reminds me of a story Joan Baez tells, when she checked in at an anti-Vietnam war demo where she was to perform. One of the organizers asked her, "is Bob with you?" Baez replied, "Bob who?" "Bob Dylan", replied the other person, to which Baez responded, "no, why would he be?" That says it all. ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/kenmor1968%40gmail.com From noswine at gmail.com Sat Nov 7 05:24:18 2009 From: noswine at gmail.com (Asad Haider) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 07:24:18 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Fwd: Fred Hampton In-Reply-To: References: <4D705E95AFB9473E849429DE7A2D888F@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <6c69fa0c0911070424n7c407544x5e74076c1bb6978b@mail.gmail.com> An excellent article on Dylan by Bill Drummond of the KLF: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/oct/02/folk On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 1:44 AM, Kenneth Morgan wrote: > S. Artesian wrote: > >Actually, Dylan was/is an egotistical jerk, and should have been walked > out > >on during his "acoustic phase." > .. > >But that's a whole other argument. > > Mention of Dylan reminds me of a story Joan Baez tells, when she checked in > at an anti-Vietnam war demo where she was to perform. One of the organizers > asked her, "is Bob with you?" Baez replied, "Bob who?" "Bob Dylan", replied > the other person, to which Baez responded, "no, why would he be?" That > says it all. > > > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/kenmor1968%40gmail.com > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/noswine%40gmail.com > From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 06:01:57 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:01:57 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Chris Harman died Message-ID: <4AF56FC5.5060001@panix.com> http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/11/chris-harman-rip.html Saturday, November 07, 2009 Chris Harman RIP posted by lenin I am saddened to hear the news that Chris Harman, revolutionary socialist and leading theoretician of the International Socialist tradition, died following a cardiac arrest in Cairo last night. Before his death, he edited the International Socialism journal, and had written an accessible critique of mainstream economic theory, Zombie Capitalism. I personally owe a considerable portion of my Bildung to the man, as it was trawling his back catalogue - Explaining the Crisis, Economics of the Madhouse, etc., plus innumerable articles for International Socialism, (sophisticated polemics against high theorists such as Ernest Mandel and Alec Nove among them) - that enabled me to first get a basic grip of some economic theory. In addition, his historical work, culminating in the magisterial A People's History of the World, provided an invaluable introduction to the topics I would later have to deal with in my degree. Generations of socialists will owe a similar debt, I expect. He is also one of the few such writers to have his work recommended in an album sleeve. From marvgandall at videotron.ca Sat Nov 7 06:12:11 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:12:11 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Rise of the dark pools Message-ID: From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 07:02:16 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:02:16 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Problems composing a reply Message-ID: <4AF57DE8.7050600@panix.com> Take a look at this: http://www.marxmail.org/tomcod_mail_reply.png This is a screen snapshot of what I see when I tried to reply to Tom Cod's message. He is using Hotmail, which does not seem to have the "long line" problem that occurs much more frequently (always?) with Yahoo. In order for me to reply to his message, I have to scroll to the extreme right in order to see the entire sentence. Usually, when I run into this, I just give up since it is not worth the hassle. In the interests of communication, I strongly urge comrades to switch to Gmail if you have been made aware of the problem, as Jay Rothermel did. We need to make it as easy as possible to have exchanges and now allow these sorts of glitches to stand in the way. Here is the subscription page for Gmail: http://www.gmail.com I should add that I am using Thunderbird for email, which according to Les handles answering Yahoo mail without problems, but alas not for me. In any case, it is a good idea for comrades to standardize on Gmail and Thunderbird since it allows Les to troubleshoot problems. From binesi at gvtel.com Sat Nov 7 07:21:08 2009 From: binesi at gvtel.com (David Thorstad) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:21:08 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] Hilarious roundtable of gay strategizing Message-ID: <4AF58254.9090708@gvtel.com> While quite funny in places, this is an excellent critique of how wrongheaded the current gay agenda is. David http://www.bilerico.com/2009/11/why_gay_marriage_is_the_end_of_the_world_or_the_qu.php From meisner at xs4all.nl Sat Nov 7 07:38:00 2009 From: meisner at xs4all.nl (Jeff) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:38:00 +0100 Subject: [Marxism] Problems composing a reply In-Reply-To: <4AF57DE8.7050600@panix.com> Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> At 09:02 07/11/09 -0500, you wrote: > >.... >In the interests of communication, I strongly urge comrades to switch to >Gmail Lou, you must be aware of what an unreasonable demand that is! I absolutely reject any website, for instance, that tells me I have to use a different browser or to install their preferred software; those are decisions I will make based on the whole of my computer experience, not an individual request (which, of course, would often conflict with an equally unreasonable request from a different source!). Secondly, you must realize that it would be more reasonable for you to simply switch to a more compatible email client, rather than everyone on hotmail or yahoo (both of which I despise) to act in order to comply with your particular situation! But I'm not even going to suggest that. Although I don't have a hotmail account to play around with, I am PRETTY SURE they have a setting for "wrapping" of composed emails. So if you are on hotmail, go to their configuration screen and find that setting. Send an email to yourself to test it. If the email is still unwrapped (as Louis objects to) then resizing the window you read it in will alter where a new line begins. If it is wrapped, new lines will always begin on the same words (unless you make the window so small it still needs to wrap some lines in the reader, as Lou's email program doesn't do properly). There was an objection to Yahoo mail, but I can see that Yahoo does it both ways depending on the user's setting. I expect that hotmail has the same option available. - Jeff From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 07:57:02 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:57:02 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Problems composing a reply In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> References: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <4AF58ABE.1030104@panix.com> Jeff wrote: > Lou, you must be aware of what an unreasonable demand that is! I absolutely > reject any website, for instance, that tells me I have to use a different > browser or to install their preferred software; those are decisions I will > make based on the whole of my computer experience, not an individual > request (which, of course, would often conflict with an equally > unreasonable request from a different source!). People don't have to switch to Gmail. All I am saying is that I tend to avoid replying to Yahoo and Hotmail messages with the "long line" problem. Plus, Les has already urged comrades to adopt Thunderbird and Gmail for Marxmail communications since it makes it a lot easier to resolve one technical problem or another. In terms of getting Thunderbird to handle Yahoo "long line" problems, there may be a way to do it but I haven't figured it out. Then again, since I only have 41 years of experience as a computer programmer, maybe I still need to learn my craft. From antidoxic at gmail.com Sat Nov 7 08:08:35 2009 From: antidoxic at gmail.com (Emrah Goker) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 17:08:35 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] "A Nato Without Turkey?" from WSJ Message-ID: David Schenker, Soner ?a?aptay's (author of that "Is Turkey Leaving the West?" article, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65634/soner-cagaptay/is-turkey-leaving-the-west) colleague from Washington Institute of Near East Policy, on the same topic, saying about the same thing: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013004574517210622936876.html I guess the pro-Israel opinion technicians in the US media are cooking something. Smells like horseshit. From aero.elastic at live.com Sat Nov 7 08:31:15 2009 From: aero.elastic at live.com (Aero Elastic) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 10:31:15 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] hotmail email Message-ID: so, here is a brand new Windows Live (TM) hotmail account to see how well it handles email formatting. a cursory glance at the options page reveals no way to set up any things like proper word wrap etc. i have yet to hit the Enter key so it will be interesting to see how this comes out on marxmail. and oh by the way, you have to click on the Rich text option and set it to plain text otherwise our totalitarian moderators will bite our heads off, those lackeys! there are plenty of options for parental controls and what not. this is the software Jeff wants us revolutionaries to use for submitting to marxmail? phooey! aero.elastic _________________________________________________________________ Windows 7: Unclutter your desktop. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9690331&ocid=PID24727::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WWL_WIN_evergreen:112009 From info at kersplebedeb.com Sat Nov 7 08:33:29 2009 From: info at kersplebedeb.com (kersplebedeb) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:33:29 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Bob Dylan [was Re: Fwd: Fred Hampton] In-Reply-To: <6c69fa0c0911070424n7c407544x5e74076c1bb6978b@mail.gmail.com> References: <4D705E95AFB9473E849429DE7A2D888F@dmsthinkpad> <6c69fa0c0911070424n7c407544x5e74076c1bb6978b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AF59349.5060908@kersplebedeb.com> last month i had the exceptional pleasure of reading Mike Marqusee's The Chimes of Freedom: The Politics of Bob Dylan's Art, which i cannot recommend strongly enough for anyone who enjoys Dylan's music and is coming from the left. It was a particular surprise as i knew nothing of the book beforehand, it was just a chance find at a bookstore bargain-bin. Marqusee puts Dylan in the context of the relationship between the left and 20th century American folk music, arguing that the latter was strongly influenced (and tainted) by the "social patriotism" of the popular front period, and that Dylan's appeal partly came from the fact that he broke with this sick pro-Americanism. Indeed, Marqusee makes a good case that a lot of Dylan's "specialness" comes from the fact that he adopted positions about five minutes before they would be embraced by the counterculture, and people were drawn to this regardless of the fact that the singer would often turn around and reject said positions just moments later. it is a great book. Asad Haider wrote: > An excellent article on Dylan by Bill Drummond of the KLF: > http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/oct/02/folk > > On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 1:44 AM, Kenneth Morgan wrote: > > From schaffer at optonline.net Sat Nov 7 08:35:23 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:35:23 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] hotmail email In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AF593BB.80709@optonline.net> Aero Elastic wrote: > there are plenty of options for parental controls and what not. this is the software Jeff wants us revolutionaries to use for submitting to marxmail? phooey! Dear aeroelastic: your two paragraph message came in as two very long lines. i am sorry to have to say this, but your efforts to set up a brand new hotmail email account were a waste of time. even by your own admission hotmail offered you no formatting alternatives, such as word wrap and what not. why stick with such capitalist rot? yours in the wind induced vibrations, Les From guycarlos at msn.com Sat Nov 7 08:36:32 2009 From: guycarlos at msn.com (Guy Miller) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 09:36:32 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination In-Reply-To: <4AF4DAD4.1040502@panix.com> References: <2ed7e4ad0911051709s4002b810n4c54973e5c9e7ecd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No doubt Hampton was out of line at that convention. I remember feeling sorry for Derek Morrison being put in that position. But to draw the conclusion that Hampton was nothing but an "egotistical, ultra left jerk," from that one occasion is a hair trigger reaction. The Panthers were a work in progress. They were thrown up as a response to the struggle as it was happening, consequently they didn't have the luxury of acquiring a deep grounding in Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist theory. Its too bad they never learned the niceties of parliamentary etiquette either, which of course has its place. > Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 21:26:28 -0500 > From: lnp3 at panix.com > Subject: Re: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination > To: guycarlos at msn.com > > Tom Cod wrote: > > Amen, brother. I had the privilege of seeing Fred Hampton at the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) convention in Chicago in November 1968 as a 15 year old high school activist, but some of the older "leading comrades" felt scandalized by him and later by the Panthers generally, seeking to *set us straight* on this.As Fidel once commented, folks like that wouldn't recognize a revolution if occurred right under their nose and if they did, you can count on them opposing it. It is to the credit of Workers World Party and even ISO that their spirit of solidarity on this was 180 degrees away from that. > > That's because he went way over his 30 minute time allotment. After he > had harangued us for an hour, Derrick Morrison came up 3 times to get > him to wind it down. And each time he raised the level of vituperation > against us and kept going. I am very sorry he got killed by the cops, > but my impression of him was: an egotistical, ultraleft jerk. I took a > week off from work to attend this convention and wanted to hear what > people in my own organization had to say, not a guest. I think the only > people around this time who were into soaking up every word from a > Panther for hours on end were SDS'ers. I preferred Marxism myself. > > Additionally, Tom,why don't you switch to gmail. Your posts have all the > ill behavior associated with yahoo. > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/guycarlos%40msn.com From schaffer at optonline.net Sat Nov 7 08:38:18 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:38:18 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Problems composing a reply In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> References: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <4AF5946A.4070407@optonline.net> Louis Proyect wrote: > > I should add that I am using Thunderbird for email, which according to > Les handles answering Yahoo mail without problems, but alas not for me. it must be some setting i am using but i can't figure out what it is. here is my buffer replying to Tom's message: http://www.marxmail.org/notha-cod-reply.PNG you see it is wrapped fine. however if you check the text view of his message (Ctrl-u or Apple-u) you will see he does in fact have one long line. Thunderbird will display this correctly wrapped in reading mode as well. Les From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 08:39:22 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:39:22 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] hotmail email In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AF594AA.5010304@panix.com> Aero Elastic wrote: > > so, here is a brand new Windows Live (TM) hotmail account to see how well it handles email formatting. a cursory glance at the options page reveals no way to set up any things like proper word wrap etc. i have yet to hit the Enter key so it will be interesting to see how this comes out on marxmail. and oh by the way, you have to click on the Rich text option and set it to plain text otherwise our totalitarian moderators will bite our heads off, those lackeys! > > there are plenty of options for parental controls and what not. this is the software Jeff wants us revolutionaries to use for submitting to marxmail? phooey! Plus, it has the fucked up, god-damned "long line" problem. Please excuse my language. From aero.elastic at live.com Sat Nov 7 08:48:20 2009 From: aero.elastic at live.com (Aero Elastic) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 10:48:20 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] hotmail email Message-ID: > Plus, it has the fucked up, god-damned "long line" problem. Please > excuse my language. plus it has these really annoying ads on the right hand side when you are reading the email. i am trying to concentrate and here in the space of two emails i am bombarded by an ad from Dell Computer (don't they know i JUST bought a new machine from them???) and from classesUSA.com featuring a very slim and fit young woman running at top speed through the white space that Firefox provides her. it's all so very disorienting here at Windows Live (TM). all that's solid has melted into white space. aero.elastic _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft's powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 08:50:39 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:50:39 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination In-Reply-To: References: <2ed7e4ad0911051709s4002b810n4c54973e5c9e7ecd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AF5974F.6060603@panix.com> Guy Miller wrote: > No doubt Hampton was out of line at that convention. I remember feeling sorry for Derek Morrison being put in that position. But to draw the conclusion that Hampton was nothing but an "egotistical, ultra left jerk," from that one occasion is a hair trigger reaction. The Panthers were a work in progress. They were thrown up as a response to the struggle as it was happening, consequently they didn't have the luxury of acquiring a deep grounding in Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist theory. Its too bad they never learned the niceties of parliamentary etiquette either, which of course has its place. > Guy, your email has the pernicious "long line" problem. I am not surprised since you are using msn.com. Also, you failed to clip extraneous text. Please don't do this again. With respect to the substance, the Panthers never understood defensive formulations. The fetish with guns doomed them from the beginning. While the initial impression of Black people with guns was inspirational, it should have never been elevated into a quasi-guerrilla warfare posture. Slogans such as "off the pigs" were supremely stupid. Here's how the Organization of Afro-American Unity that Malcolm founded formulated the question of self-defense. The Panthers extolled Malcolm. It is doubtful that they understood him: In order to enslave a people and keep them subjugated, their right to self-defense must be denied. They must be constantly terrorized, brutalized, and murdered. These tactics of suppression have been developed to a new high by vicious racists whom the United States government seems unwilling or incapable of dealing with in terms of the law of this land. Before the emancipation it was the Black man who suffered humiliation, torture, castration, and murder. Recently our women and children, more and more, are becoming the victims of savage racists whose appetite for blood increases daily and whose deeds of depravity seem to be openly encouraged by all law enforcement agencies. Over five thousand Afro-Americans have been lynched since the Emancipation Proclamation and not one murderer has been brought to justice! The Organization of Afro-American Unity, being aware of the increased violence being visited upon the Afro-American and of the open sanction of this violence and murder by the police departments throughout this country and the federal agencies -- do affirm our right and obligation to defend ourselves in order to survive as a people. We encourage the Afro-Americans to defend themselves against the wanton attacks of racist aggressors whose sole aim is to deny us the guarantees of the United Nations Charter of Human Rights and of the Constitution of the United States. The Organization of Afro-American Unity will take those private steps that are necessary to insure the survival of the Afro-American people in the face of racist aggression and the defense of our women and children. We are within our rights to see to it that the Afro-American people who fulfill their obligations to the United States government (we pay taxes and serve in the armed forces of this country like American citizens do) also exact from this government the obligations that it owes us as a people, or exact these obligations ourselves. Needless to say, among this number we include protection of certain inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In areas where the United States government has shown itself unable and/or unwilling to bring to justice the racist oppressors, murderers, who kill innocent children and adults, the Organization of Afro-American Unity advocates that the Afro-American people insure ourselves that justice is done -- whatever the price and by any means necessary. full: http://www.malcolm-x.org/docs/gen_oaau.htm From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 08:52:28 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:52:28 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Problems composing a reply In-Reply-To: <4AF5946A.4070407@optonline.net> References: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> <4AF5946A.4070407@optonline.net> Message-ID: <4AF597BC.9060709@panix.com> Les Schaffer wrote: > Louis Proyect wrote: > it must be some setting i am using but i can't figure out what it is. > here is my buffer replying to Tom's message: > > http://www.marxmail.org/notha-cod-reply.PNG > > you see it is wrapped fine. however if you check the text view of his > message (Ctrl-u or Apple-u) you will see he does in fact have one long > line. Thunderbird will display this correctly wrapped in reading mode as > well. The problem is not in reading the mail from Yahoo et al. Thunderbird handles this okay. It is *replying*. When you try to reply, the "long line" phenomenon kicks in. Just try it... From schaffer at optonline.net Sat Nov 7 08:54:32 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:54:32 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Problems composing a reply In-Reply-To: <4AF597BC.9060709@panix.com> References: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> <4AF5946A.4070407@optonline.net> <4AF597BC.9060709@panix.com> Message-ID: <4AF59838.7020508@optonline.net> Louis Proyect wrote: > The problem is not in reading the mail from Yahoo et al. Thunderbird > handles this okay. It is *replying*. When you try to reply, the "long > line" phenomenon kicks in. Just try it... the pic i posted IS a reply buffer. it must be some setting i have enabled, but i cannot figure out what it is. Les From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 08:57:49 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:57:49 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Problems composing a reply In-Reply-To: <4AF59838.7020508@optonline.net> References: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> <4AF5946A.4070407@optonline.net> <4AF597BC.9060709@panix.com> <4AF59838.7020508@optonline.net> Message-ID: <4AF598FD.9010402@panix.com> Les Schaffer wrote: > > the pic i posted IS a reply buffer. it must be some setting i have > enabled, but i cannot figure out what it is. And you have an engineering degree from MIT and a PhD in physics from Cornell! That's an argument for Gmail if there ever was one. From schaffer at optonline.net Sat Nov 7 09:01:50 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:01:50 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Problems composing a reply In-Reply-To: <4AF598FD.9010402@panix.com> References: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> <4AF5946A.4070407@optonline.net> <4AF597BC.9060709@panix.com> <4AF59838.7020508@optonline.net> <4AF598FD.9010402@panix.com> Message-ID: <4AF599EE.9010203@optonline.net> Louis Proyect wrote: > That's an argument for Gmail if there ever was one. the next time i come visit i'll bring my laptop and we can compare settings. i swear i've never done anything to make Thunderbird handle these long lines properly, it just does. but maybe somehow, mysteriously, Thunderbird KNEW my desires. Les From aeroelastic at yahoo.com Sat Nov 7 09:10:19 2009 From: aeroelastic at yahoo.com (aeroelastic) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 08:10:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism] hotmail email Message-ID: <161777.86828.qm@web59202.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Dear Aero Elastic: i applaud your efforts to try Windows Live (TM), nee hotmail. i wanted to share my experiences with that other great configurable system, Yahoo!, nee yahoo mail (or is it yahoo email nee Yahoo!?) i get the same silly ads here in yahoo land. plus, when i click on Options, i see no way to control line wrapping. its not even clear how to make this vital message go out as plain text. lets see what happens when i clock on this here "Rich text" link ... ahh, tahts to switch to rich text, so then i AM in plain text" praise the lawd!!!! lets see if we get one long line with this here email system. aeroelastic (note, no period in the name) From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 09:10:23 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:10:23 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A solution for Yahoo, etc. Message-ID: <4AF59BEF.1050602@panix.com> I just googled "thunderbird replying wrapping problem" and came up with a solution here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=416106&start=0 All you have to do is select "Edit/Rewrap" when you are in reply mode and everything lines up properly. This is an additional step, but worth it to me. From schaffer at optonline.net Sat Nov 7 09:12:43 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:12:43 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] hotmail email In-Reply-To: <161777.86828.qm@web59202.mail.re1.yahoo.com> References: <161777.86828.qm@web59202.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4AF59C7B.6030507@optonline.net> aeroelastic wrote: > lets see if we get one long line with this here email system. yes, aeroelastic, you too have the one-long line problem. sorry, charlie. Les From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 09:14:37 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:14:37 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A solution for Yahoo, etc. In-Reply-To: <4AF59BEF.1050602@panix.com> References: <4AF59BEF.1050602@panix.com> Message-ID: <4AF59CED.2080409@panix.com> Louis Proyect wrote: > I just googled "thunderbird replying wrapping problem" and came up with > a solution here: > > http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=416106&start=0 > > All you have to do is select "Edit/Rewrap" when you are in reply mode > and everything lines up properly. This is an additional step, but worth > it to me. In reading the exchanges in the Mozilla forum above, I found a link to a another thread that revealed a way to configure Thunderbird so that the "long line" problem is nipped in the bud. I will try it later: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=414482&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=wrap howdy DaBigKahuna, [1] thanks for the info! [2] so the msgs you send in html do NOT ever show this problem? [3] i was actually looking for info about the last part of that example. [*blush*] i was VERY unclear ... here's the actual question i should have asked in time [3] above ... was "format=flowed" in the source anywhere at all? [4] from reading thru the forum, i think that some of the persons you are emailing to are running email clients that do NOT handle format=flowed correctly. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Plain_text_e- ... t.3Dflowed you can disable YOUR use of format=flowed by doing this ... - tools/options/advanced/general-tab/config-editor that will bring up the about:config pref editor window - enter "flowed" in the filter box that will filter out everything EXCEPT the format=flowed prefs - here are the prefs that you should see ... [they should both be UNbold] mailnews.display.disable_format_flowed_support = false mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed = true - if you rt-clk on each one and select "toggle" they will flip values. you want them to be thus ... = 1st to be TRUE = 2nd to be FALSE - close the about:config window by clicking the "x" in the upper right corner of that window [yes, it has no close button! [*grin*]] - exit tbird - restart tbird - send a plaintext test msg with a few long lines to one of the folks that have been returning your msgs with those nasty long, long lines and see what the result is. [5] this bug ... - wrapping of quoted flowed (f=f) lines disobeys limit for chars per line https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=173918 ... seems to be related to the problem you are seeing. hope that helps, lee From schaffer at optonline.net Sat Nov 7 09:21:41 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:21:41 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A solution for Yahoo, etc. In-Reply-To: <4AF59CED.2080409@panix.com> References: <4AF59BEF.1050602@panix.com> <4AF59CED.2080409@panix.com> Message-ID: <4AF59E95.3010409@optonline.net> Louis Proyect forwarded: > - here are the prefs that you should see ... [they should both be UNbold] > mailnews.display.disable_format_flowed_support = false > mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed = true > > - if you rt-clk on each one and select "toggle" they will flip values. > you want them to be thus ... > = 1st to be TRUE > = 2nd to be FALSE my settings are the default but i have no problem replying to one-long line posts. i swear this is a conspiracy. but try it and see if it helps. by the way, i am using Thunderbird 2.0. damn, you are too. i give up. Les From sartesian at earthlink.net Sat Nov 7 09:22:42 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 11:22:42 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination References: <2ed7e4ad0911051709s4002b810n4c54973e5c9e7ecd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <242E95F81FA14429BC917D8B8E05DD72@dmsthinkpad> Sure the Panthers were a work in progress, or more accurately a work in regress, since the Black Panthers I first knew about were the Panthers in the Lowndes Co {Alabama}Freedom Organization, organized by SNCC voter-registration workers and the African-American community. Be that as it may-- you can't analyze the Panthers without analyzing the historical background, and the Panthers' own decomposition under both government repression, and as a result of their rejection, and opposition, to class-conscious struggle, their embrace of black capitalism [surely I'm not the only one who remembers Huey Newton's face on the dollar bill on the cover of the Panther newspaper], etc. And surely I'm not the only one who recalls the Panthers' explicit turn against the proletariat and embrace of the "lumpen-proletariat." I vaguely recall having a discussion with some Panthers who urged "bombing the factories." To say the Panthers "didn't have the luxury of acquiring a deep ground in Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist theory" because "they were thrown up as response to the struggle as it was happening," is I'm sure well-intentioned but a)just not historically accurate and b) a bit patronizing. First, part of the attraction that the Panthers held was their announced understanding of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-Fanonist-etc. etc. theory as it applied to African-Americans. Secondly, for several years, Huey Newton was incarcerated in prison where, according to his own statements, he read Fanon, Marx, Lenin etcetcetc, with such intensity that he actually damaged his own eyesight. The Panthers as a confrontational combat organization never existed separate and apart from their claim to existence as the embodiment of a Marxist vanguard, and the purveyors of revolutionary theory. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Guy Miller" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 10:36 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] New book on Fred Hampton assassination > > No doubt Hampton was out of line at that convention. I remember feeling > sorry for Derek Morrison being put in that position. But to draw the > conclusion that Hampton was nothing but an "egotistical, ultra left jerk," > from that one occasion is a hair trigger reaction. The Panthers were a > work in progress. They were thrown up as a response to the struggle as it > was happening, consequently they didn't have the luxury of acquiring a > deep grounding in Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist theory. Its too bad they > never learned the niceties of parliamentary etiquette either, which of > course has its place. From sartesian at earthlink.net Sat Nov 7 09:24:47 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 11:24:47 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Problems composing a reply References: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> <4AF5946A.4070407@optonline.net><4AF597BC.9060709@panix.com> <4AF59838.7020508@optonline.net> <4AF598FD.9010402@panix.com> Message-ID: In that case, from now on it's Dr. Schaffer. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Louis Proyect" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 10:57 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Problems composing a reply And you have an engineering degree from MIT and a PhD in physics from Cornell! From sartesian at earthlink.net Sat Nov 7 09:31:27 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 11:31:27 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] "A Nato Without Turkey?" from WSJ References: Message-ID: Speaking of Turkey, Loren Goldner, having just returned from Turkey has posted this: ?Socialism in One Country? Before Stalin, and the Origins of Reactionary ?Anti-Imperialism?: The Case of Turkey, 1917-1925 at: http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/turkey.html From schaffer at optonline.net Sat Nov 7 09:36:22 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:36:22 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Problems composing a reply In-Reply-To: References: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> <4AF5946A.4070407@optonline.net> <4AF597BC.9060709@panix.com> <4AF59838.7020508@optonline.net> <4AF598FD.9010402@panix.com> Message-ID: <4AF5A206.3090504@optonline.net> S. Artesian wrote: > In that case, from now on it's Dr. Schaffer. when i was a kid at summer camp the father of one of my camp mates was a doctor (dentist actually, as i recall). one day on the baseball field i said "Hi Mr XXXX!!!" all excited, and the guy looks me right in the eyes and says Dr. XXX!!!!. ever since then i decided these additions to our names serves a foul purpose. Les From meisner at xs4all.nl Sat Nov 7 09:47:48 2009 From: meisner at xs4all.nl (Jeff) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:47:48 +0100 Subject: [Marxism] The very worst slander...... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20091107174748.04f849cc@pop.xs4all.nl> At 10:31 07/11/09 -0500, Aero Elastic wrote: > >so, here is a brand new Windows Live (TM) hotmail account.... >this is the software Jeff wants us revolutionaries to use for submitting to marxmail? Absolutely the worst thing you could have said about me!! Hotmail is a part of MICROSOFT which I absolutely HATE almost as much as the system that it epitomizes! What's more I recommend everyone NOT to use a Webmail service (like hotmail, yahoo, gmail, and many others) using your browser, but rather to use an email program on your own computer. Webmail services always involve advertising (displayed when you use it, and/or in the messages you send as you notice below!). And using webmail, YOUR data resides on THEIR server, rather on your own computer where you have complete control over it. At best webmail is convenient for when you are travelling, but only then. So I NEVER NEVER advocated use of hotmail, Windows Live, Yahoo, Gmail=Google, or any of the others, and I DO expect an apology for having insinuated that I was in league with the most despicable corporation of the information age! My only point was that the incompatibility involved had to do not with the sender of unwrapped emails (which is not uncommon or troublesome in almost all cases), but with the program READING it. Apparently Les and Louis are starting to agree with me, by searching for the setting that should have been taken care of long ago and silently. - Jeff phooey! > >aero.elastic > >_________________________________________________________________ >Windows 7: Unclutter your desktop. >http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9690331&ocid=PID24727::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-U S:WWL_WIN_evergreen:112009 From schaffer at optonline.net Sat Nov 7 10:20:13 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:20:13 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The very worst slander...... In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.20091107174748.04f849cc@pop.xs4all.nl> References: <3.0.3.32.20091107174748.04f849cc@pop.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <4AF5AC4D.8020905@optonline.net> Jeff wrote: > > Absolutely the worst thing you could have said about me!! i've unsubbed that swine aero.elastic. > My only point was that the incompatibility involved had to do not with the > sender of unwrapped emails (which is not uncommon or troublesome in almost > all cases), but with the program READING it. Apparently Les and Louis are > starting to agree with me, by searching for the setting that should have > been taken care of long ago and silently. 1. people read via the web too. the "latest 100" and archives.econ.utah.edu now wrap the text properly, but the fast-response pipermail archive at Utah cannot be so adjusted. 2. yahoo and hotmail have no facility for line wrap adjustment. 3. there are big issues cutting and pasting into both these emailers, as i recall, a whole notha issue. 4. years and years of experience helping people with these types of accounts lead me to believe they are unmanageable: what they give is WHAT you must take. 5. as for "Les and Louis ...", this is as much an argument for using Thunderbird as not, it is vastly configurable. it's just that i have yet to figure out why my Thunderbird wraps on reply and Lou's does not. Les From giobon at comcast.net Sat Nov 7 10:59:36 2009 From: giobon at comcast.net (Bonnie Weinstein) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 09:59:36 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Marooned on Sea of Iraqi Oil, but Unable to Tap Its Wealth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <84F78474-28FF-4B21-8024-5F5B5C244127@comcast.net> Marooned on Sea of Iraqi Oil, but Unable to Tap Its Wealth ?The area around Basra, Iraq?s second largest city and main port, accounts for as much as 80 percent of the country?s oil production. It has emerged as Iraq?s best hope for stability and prosperity as it prepares to sell off its top undeveloped oil fields to foreign companies at an auction next month.? By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS November 8, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/world/middleeast/08basra.html? ref=world BASRA, Iraq ? The orange glow of the giant natural gas flares in the oil fields around Basra represents this bustling city?s wealth of natural resources. But for the impoverished people who live near them, the flames only serve as a reminder of their inability to share in the riches that lie beneath their feet. The area around Basra, Iraq?s second largest city and main port, accounts for as much as 80 percent of the country?s oil production. It has emerged as Iraq?s best hope for stability and prosperity as it prepares to sell off its top undeveloped oil fields to foreign companies at an auction next month. Of the five largest fields that will be bid on, four are in or around Basra. Despite the riches trapped below its oil fields, though, this city of three million is among the poorest places in a poor country. People in neighborhoods within a few miles of fields with so much oil that it floats atop the surface in huge black pools live amid mud and feces. Carts pulled by overworked donkeys compete with cars for space on streets. Childhood cancer rates are the highest in the country. The city?s salty tap water makes people ill. And there is more garbage on the streets than municipal collectors can make a dent in. The hundreds of thousands who live in the villages around the fields all dream of finding oil work, but that is unlikely. Those who apply are almost always told they lack the education or experience for oil work. But they believe that their only real deficiency is a lack of connections and money for bribes. ?People sit here in the evenings and they watch the flames and wonder how rich they would be if they had only one hour of those oil exports,? said Naeem al-Moussuawi, who lives in one of Basra?s poorer villages. Last month, after Iraq?s Oil Ministry announced that it planned to hire workers for its Basra-based South Oil Company, thousands of people waited in line for applications ? some for days. Among them were men in tattered clothing with bare, muddy feet. When the line got unruly, the police were called. Some applicants were beaten. More than 27,000 applications were filled out for 1,600 jobs ? most of which require a college education or experience, and most Basrans have neither. In the village of Asdika, oil pipelines run along the perimeter, and several thousand people live in ramshackle houses of gray cinder blocks and plastic sheeting for roofs. There is no garbage collection, and household trash is thrown outside to rot in the sun. There is no sewer system, so wastewater from houses is dumped outside, attracting thousands of flies to the lakes of raw sewage that have formed outside most homes. Almost everyone is unemployed. The village is on government property ? an oil field ? and its existence is illegal. Residents say the police show up occasionally and threaten to bulldoze the houses. Hussein Flaeh, 29, an unemployed father of two, has lived in Asdika since 2003. Fifteen members of his family live in a concrete-block house with three small rooms. One recent morning, Mr. Flaeh?s youngest child, Essam, born two weeks ago, was placed outside to get some fresh air. The baby?s face was almost immediately covered by hungry flies. Asked whether he had ever applied for a job at the oil refinery, Mr. Flaeh appeared perplexed and did not answer. Pressed, his gentle face turned hard. ?You can?t even reach it,? he said. ?Don?t even talk about it.? Government officials in Basra have called for a fee of $1 to be placed on each barrel of oil produced in the province that would then be dedicated to local uses instead of going to the central government. But even if Basra suddenly became awash in oil money, the construction of new housing, offices and even farmland would be prohibited because almost everything is situated atop untapped reserves of crude oil. ?Ninety percent of Basra is an oil field,? said Ahmed al-Sulati, a member of the local provincial council. ?We can?t build anything here. We need to have more housing in some neighborhoods, but we can?t because we are surrounded by oil.? In the meantime, Mr. Sulati said, ?We are getting sick from breathing gas, and the streets are getting destroyed by the oil trucks.? During a recent speech, Ali Ghalib Baban, Iraq?s minister of planning, said Basra was on the cusp of being ?one of the world?s most important economic centers.? But in the village of Shuiba, so close to the city?s refinery and major fields that the air is heavy with the smell of petroleum, farmers have stopped growing tomatoes and now rent their fields to truck drivers who park their tankers there for about 80 cents a night. It is the village?s single school, however, that is the source of most of Shuiba?s concerns. Some classes have more than 55 students packed inside, and boys and girls must be taught together, which has led some parents to keep their daughters at home. There are no bathrooms, and some classrooms have no electricity. The school grounds are littered with piles of garbage. Oil workers live on the opposite side of the village. In the poorer half of Shuiba, the workers are regarded with envy and loathing. Not a single resident from the poor side has been hired for an oil job. ?Everyone would like to work for the oil company,? Mr. Moussuawi said. ?We know we are poor and many of us are not well educated. The problem is they see the trucks full of oil and they wonder where the money is going.? But even in Shuiba?s better-off half, adjacent to Basra?s sprawling refinery, residents say they have unmet needs. The housing is neat, there is no trash and the streets are paved, but there is crowding and rising unemployment even among the college-educated sons and daughters of oil company managers, they say. ?You need to know somebody or pay a bribe to work there,? said Najim Khadim, 26, the son of Shuiba?s unofficial mayor, Mohammed Khadim, who has worked for 38 years at the refinery, where he is a supervisor. The son, who has a college degree in chemistry, said not even his father had been able to help with a job. The going rate for bribes for a job, he said, is $2,000 to $5,000, which he said he refused to pay. A visitor is brought a glass of tap water. It tastes as salty as the water in the rest of town. Duraid Adnan and Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting. From schaffer at optonline.net Sat Nov 7 11:04:27 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:04:27 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Problems composing a reply In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> References: <3.0.3.32.20091107153800.04f60430@pop.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <4AF5B6AB.6040307@optonline.net> Lou: ok, i figured out why i do not have the long line when i reply. you wont believe this, but: for each account in Thunderbird, you can go to the settings for that account and click on Composition&Addressing and click ON the use of HTML formatting. the text then gets properly wrapped in the reply buffer. but if you so desire you can still SEND the message in plain text, as i do. weird but true. however, the one-long-line stuff in the quoted text will still go out as one long line. it's just that it does not display as such in Thunderbird. so long as you specifically do NOT set the lists.econ.utah.edu as an HTML domain in Thunderbird, the message will get sent out in plain text if it came in as plain text. i don't make this stuff up. Les From tcod at hotmail.com Sat Nov 7 11:55:22 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 18:55:22 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] New Book on Fred Hampton Assasination In-Reply-To: <4AF59349.5060908@kersplebedeb.com> References: <4D705E95AFB9473E849429DE7A2D888F@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: I think Guy Miller hits the nail right on the head. Proyect quotes from Malcolm on the OAU, so? I don't see those views in contrast to the Panthers at all. Rather, they embodied the application of that approach to the more radicalized situation of the late 60s. Did the Panthers make mistakes? sure, who doesn't? But to have carped from the sidelines with no roots in the black community was wrong and demoralizing. I note the CP, for all its faults, had a different approach and was in the thick of solidarity with them and made political gains in that milieu. Quite frankly, raising Malcolm against the Panthers came across like Kautsky raising Marx against the Bolsheviks. I have no doubt whatsoever that Malcolm would not have taken that view and would resent his image being appropriated to themselves by these sectarians whom he would have viewed as trying to make him a miilquetoast "King" figure against "black power" militants (not that that is an accurate take on King at all). Rather he would have been in the front lines of the struggle to defend the Panthers like the CP, Workers World and other activists were. Moreover, that the Panthers didn't embrace orthodox marxism, so what? (what did the Republic door sit in strikers embrace?) History never operates by some orthodox playbook, adherence to which is always an excuse for abstention from what's really going on or for stabbing it in the back. The Panthers were a mass organization thrown up spontaneously by the mass movement. Miller's attitude of solidarity on that is entirely correct. Yeah, they even had a rock/soul group called The Lumpens, so what? What were the demographics of the black community at the time? get real! All this comes from a know-it-all sectarian milieu of intellectuals that had few links to the black community yet presumed to pretentiously lecture it from the sidelines. What did they know about police harassment in Oakland, about Harlem, about the south side of Chicago? maybe they read something about it somewhere? Thus any healthy spirited radical of that era is gonna have a really hostile gut reaction to that bullshit which really represents playing it safe and ducking for cover politically-social opportunism Lenin excoriated Kautsky about: caving into scandalized respectable bourgois public opinion on the basis of idealized orthodox marxism when times get tough and represented their-not the only time they did that-, breaking ranks with the radical movement on a cutting edge issue on that basis. I note however it wasn't always like that with "the trots". I remember the YSA had another poster when I was in high school when Eldridge Cleaver was on the lam: Eldridge Cleaver welcome here. We've seen this before though in the history of the radical movement though when for example the SP wrote the IWW out of the movement or tried to on the basis of sanctimonious orthodoxy when they became just *too radical* for them. The Panthers were an historical vanguard; the trots were and are a sectarian milieu that nobody heard of. Of note, however, is the different attitude of European Trotskyists (who used "ultra-left" as a self-descriptor) and who championed the struggle of the Panthers in that period. _________________________________________________________________ Bing brings you maps, menus, and reviews organized in one place. http://www.bing.com/search?q=restaurants&form=MFESRP&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MFESRP_Local_MapsMenu_Resturants_1x1 From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 12:08:30 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:08:30 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] New Book on Fred Hampton Assasination In-Reply-To: References: <4D705E95AFB9473E849429DE7A2D888F@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <4AF5C5AE.7090501@panix.com> Tom Cod wrote: > I think Guy Miller hits the nail right on the head. Proyect quotes > from Malcolm on the OAU, so? If you can't tell the difference between "off the pigs" and Malcolm's formulations, you obviously don't understand the abc's of Marxism. Read Trotsky's history of the Russian revolution for an understanding of defensive formulations. The seizure of power in October 1917 was framed in terms of defending Soviet legality. > > I have no doubt whatsoever that Malcolm would not have taken that > view and would resent his image being appropriated to themselves by > these sectarians whom he would have viewed as trying to make him a > miilquetoast "King" figure against "black power" militants (not that > that is an accurate take on King at all). Actually, Malcolm and Martin were converging by the time of Malcolm's assassination. Malcolm was moving toward a mass movement orientation and Martin was moving toward a more revolutionary perspective. > I remember the YSA had another poster > when I was in high school when Eldridge Cleaver was on the lam: > Eldridge Cleaver welcome here. Krapp's Last Tape. From rjacobs3625 at charter.net Sat Nov 7 12:13:42 2009 From: rjacobs3625 at charter.net (Ron J) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:13:42 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Bob Dylan Message-ID: <4AF5C6E6.4070100@charter.net> I always get a kick out of doctrinaire leftists when they talk about Bob Dylan. It reminds me of monotheists discussing polytheism. http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs10182003.html From tcod at hotmail.com Sat Nov 7 12:36:54 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 19:36:54 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Hampton In-Reply-To: <4AF5C6E6.4070100@charter.net> References: <4AF5C6E6.4070100@charter.net> Message-ID: No, the issue is one of solidarity, not pettifogging analyses of ancient texts regarding idealized versions of century old revolutions. This is of a piece of Lenin's description of Kautsky's "marxism": How Kautsky turns Marx into a Common Liberal. It's fine that the trots support the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 (albeit an idealized schoolbook version worthy of the "Founding Fathers"), they just missed the boat on the one in the 1960s. Moreover, the description of the Panthers presented here is one that is deeply rooted in a caricature of the capitalist mass media that speaks for itself. No, we don't need to study shit or know anything about "marxism" to know what side we're on or to close ranks with oppressed people. Its a basic issue of street politics that the trots failed miserably. Oppose Book Worship! http://www.marx.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_11.htm Louis: If you can't tell the difference between "off the pigs" and Malcolm's formulations, you obviously don't understand the abc's of Marxism. Read Trotsky's history of the Russian revolution for an understanding of defensive formulations. The seizure of power in October 1917 was framed in terms of defending Soviet legality. _________________________________________________________________ Windows 7: Unclutter your desktop. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9690331&ocid=PID24727::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WWL_WIN_evergreen:112009 From tcod at hotmail.com Sat Nov 7 12:56:39 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 19:56:39 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Hampton In-Reply-To: References: <4AF5C6E6.4070100@charter.net> Message-ID: Black Panther Party Program courtesy of Dave W. and the MIA: http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/1966/10/15.htm so there was a lot more to it than "off the pigs" just as the Bolshevik Revolution included a lot of vulgar rhetoric not included in Trotsky's book. _________________________________________________________________ Windows 7: Unclutter your desktop. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9690331&ocid=PID24727::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WWL_WIN_evergreen:112009 From rjacobs3625 at charter.net Sat Nov 7 13:02:21 2009 From: rjacobs3625 at charter.net (Ron J) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:02:21 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Panthers Message-ID: <4AF5D24D.8000009@charter.net> The Panthers were more than gun fetishists. They understood the doctrine of self-defense and carried guns during their copwatch drives mainly because was the only way the Oakland cops would acknowledge them and leave whatever citizen they were harassing alone. I don't know anything about the convention to which you refer other than what has been written here, but my initial reaction is that the SWP needed to hear more speakers from the Panthers and other third world revolutionary organizations. However, like I said, that is just a gut reaction and not based on any study of the particular convention. The fact that Louis waters everything down to a statement like "(guns) should have never been elevated into a quasi-guerrilla warfare posture. " shows that he has either chosen to ignore the differences within the Panthers after Cleaver split to Algeria or that he doesn't know about them. These splits were centered around differences on the nature of the US in 1969-1971--pre-revolutionary or revolutionary state? Cleaver and most of the international wing felt that the US was in a revolutionary state. this led them to act as if the revolution was underway. It meant that they formed the BLA, supported Weather, and made a number of other mistakes. The Oakland led wing was incorrect in that it believed the US was in a pre-revolutionary state but was convinced that the time was right for community organizing, political parties, etc. The gun became much less of a political tool. At the same time, the forces of COINTELPRO were doing whatever they could to destroy the party. Lies, snitch jackets, drugs, gangsters infiltrating...you name it. As for Fred Hampton, he was killed precisely because he was building a "rainbow coalition" of proletariat and lumpen forces in Chicago that scared the shit out of the powers in control. If he had not been assassinated, there is a possibility that the Panthers might have remained a united organization dedicated to building a revolutionary party based on their principles. Unfortunately, the State's fetish with guns took care of that. -ron jacobs Guy Miller wrote: > No doubt Hampton was out of line at that convention. I remember feeling sorry for Derek Morrison being put in that position. But to draw the conclusion that Hampton was nothing but an "egotistical, ultra left jerk," from that one occasion is a hair trigger reaction. The Panthers were a work in progress. They were thrown up as a response to the struggle as it was happening, consequently they didn't have the luxury of acquiring a deep grounding in Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist theory. Its too bad they never learned the niceties of parliamentary etiquette either, which of course has its place. > Louis wrote: >With respect to the substance, the Panthers never understood defensive formulations. The fetish with guns doomed them from the beginning. While the initial impression of Black people with guns was inspirational, it should have never been elevated into a quasi-guerrilla warfare posture. Slogans such as "off the pigs" were supremely stupid. From tcod at hotmail.com Sat Nov 7 13:49:45 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 20:49:45 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Panthers In-Reply-To: <4AF5D24D.8000009@charter.net> References: <4AF5D24D.8000009@charter.net> Message-ID: many thanks to the brother from: www.route-one.org > Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 15:02:21 -0500 > From: rjacobs3625 at charter.net > Subject: Re: [Marxism] Panthers > > The Panthers were more than gun fetishists. They understood the > doctrine of self-defense and carried guns during their copwatch drives > mainly because was the only way the Oakland cops would acknowledge them > and leave whatever citizen they were harassing alone. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141665/direct/01/ From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 14:14:59 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:14:59 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Panthers In-Reply-To: <4AF5D24D.8000009@charter.net> References: <4AF5D24D.8000009@charter.net> Message-ID: <4AF5E353.1030807@panix.com> Ron J wrote: > my initial reaction is that the SWP needed to > hear more speakers from the Panthers and other third world revolutionary > organizations. However, like I said, that is just a gut reaction and > not based on any study of the particular convention. Actually, if you heard one speaker from the Panthers, you heard them all. They were mostly into dispensing rhetoric, not analysis. > The fact that > Louis waters everything down to a statement like "(guns) You were in the 8th grade in 1968, weren't you, Ron? I marvel at your ability to "educate" me about the Panthers. Here's the Panther movie "Off the Pig". Comrades can get a good idea of how fucking ultraleft they were from it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSlpRp4wLCw I am working my way through Thomas Sugrue's book on the Civil Rights movement in the North. You really develop an appreciation for how activists in the 40s and 50s drew the masses into struggle. As veterans of the CIO organizing drives, they understood the importance of mass action. The Panthers were basically urban Narodniks, Robin Hoods who identified with the screwball urban guerrilla movements of that time that was helping to destroy the left in Argentina, Turkey, Germany and elsewhere. They saw Black working people as an audience to cheer them on. It was bad enough to make Blanqui blanch. Romanticizing these mistakes today is probably worse than the initial errors since at least a 23 year old in 1968 was reacting to huge social pressures. But to try to spin them positively today is very sad. Tom Cod has an excuse I suppose. He is stuck in this period and only lights up when the focus is on events that took place 40 years or so ago. I think historical perspective gives us the ability to understand why the 60s imploded. Why people would refuse to take advantage of historical perspective is beyond me. I have deep scars from living through this period but at least understand well enough today that you should not stick your finger into an electrical socket. From marvgandall at videotron.ca Sat Nov 7 15:16:51 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:16:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] New Book on Fred Hampton Assasination References: <4D705E95AFB9473E849429DE7A2D888F@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: Tom Cod writes: > I note the CP, for all its faults, had a different approach and was in the > thick of solidarity with them and made political gains in that milieu... =============================================== The CP was uniformally opposed to the Panthers' program and tactics in much the same way the SWP was. Within both organizations, however, there were members who had a more tolerant approach to the Panthers and those who could barely contain their hostility - often corresponding to whether they were working class veterans of the 30's who formed the core of the leadership or younger 60's activists who had occasion for more frequent contact with the BBP in common milieus. The same internal tensions between older working class leaders and younger student recruits were observable in relation to much of the political work conducted by both organizations within the antiwar, women's, and other protest movements in and around the universities. For the CP, see relevant excerpts from the Dorothy Healey's memoir here: http://books.google.ca/books?id=vO5lJouCyPUC&pg=PA208&lpg=PA208&dq=communist+party+and+black+panthers&source=bl&ots=HrzKZvcOJ8&sig=YHuFCeadCSTpHcLLyr6g-q7dr1I&hl=en&ei=Uen1SvngDYeV8AbmkKDzCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBIQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=communist%20party%20and%20black%20panthers&f=false From markalause at gmail.com Sat Nov 7 15:38:17 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 17:38:17 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Panthers In-Reply-To: <4AF5E353.1030807@panix.com> References: <4AF5D24D.8000009@charter.net> <4AF5E353.1030807@panix.com> Message-ID: If many of us had been born black instead of white, we'd have probably been involved with the Panthers, which may explain the reluctance to criticize. "There but for the fortune..." Surely, though, we have to recognize that the Panthers became such a rich fishing pond for agents and provacateurs because it earlier made itself a petri dish for debilitating ultraleft disorders. Panther strategy never got beyond rheotric. It scorned defensive formulations as reformist, but the goal of all the fiery talk was to leverage attention and resources to the black community through its own agency without having to stage mass mobilizations and rebuild a mass movement. If the truth be told, this strategy worked to a very limited extent but at a horrific price. What was needed was something that could have tapped and organized the mass political disaffection in the black community. Had the Panthers been such a vehicle, the "Sixties" would have ended very differently...and we'd be living in a different country than we are. ML From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 15:40:52 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:40:52 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] New Book on Fred Hampton Assasination In-Reply-To: References: <4D705E95AFB9473E849429DE7A2D888F@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <4AF5F774.9010605@panix.com> Marv Gandall wrote: > The CP was uniformally opposed to the Panthers' program and tactics in much > the same way the SWP was. Within both organizations, however, there were > members who had a more tolerant approach to the Panthers and those who could > barely contain their hostility - often corresponding to whether they were > working class veterans of the 30's who formed the core of the leadership or > younger 60's activists who had occasion for more frequent contact with the > BBP in common milieus. That was true initially but by 1970 all the Trotskyist youth had become fed up with the Panthers. With their Maoist "serve the people" crap, with their braggadocio, with their sexism (agreeing with Stokely Carmichael the only position for women in the movement is "prone"), with their tendency to declare people counter-revolutionary at the drop of a hat. From sartesian at earthlink.net Sat Nov 7 16:12:00 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 18:12:00 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Bob Dylan References: <4AF5C6E6.4070100@charter.net> Message-ID: <359A88881F9041D7B85445B2168F7FCD@dmsthinkpad> I just thought his music sucked. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron J" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 2:13 PM Subject: [Marxism] Bob Dylan >I always get a kick out of doctrinaire leftists when they talk about Bob > Dylan. It reminds me of monotheists discussing polytheism. From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 16:22:25 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:22:25 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Last Call at the Tin Palace Message-ID: <4AF60131.1010705@panix.com> A new book of poems by Paul Pines, an old friend from Bard College and a very talented writer. http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/last-call-at-the-tin-palace/ From sartesian at earthlink.net Sat Nov 7 16:29:21 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 18:29:21 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Hampton References: <4AF5C6E6.4070100@charter.net> Message-ID: <191FBB86A9E947589B578BC198589C25@dmsthinkpad> Spoken like a true American. You just forgot to add "ban the books," and of course America's favorite "burn the books." And after that? Throw in Henry Ford's "History is bunk" because why even look at history, if we don't have to study shit or know anything about anything? As if book worship has anything to do with analysis of the Panthers' politics... The Panthers read books. The Panthers claimed they were applying the "lessons" of those books to situation in the US. The Panthers claimed to be a "vanguard," the repository of theory and practice, of historical struggle, so it might be thoughtful, on our part, to read some of the books, and subject the Panthers' own history to a bit of lesson-taking-- lesson number 1 being "try not to repeat the same errors in the same ways." I would take your statements a little more seriously, Tom, if you, eschewing books, provided a single bit of analysis of the rise and fall of the Panthers-- of the limits to their emphasis on community over class, of their turn towards black capitalism, "progressive" Democrats-- the Panthers endorsed Ron Dellums in Berkeley/Oakland-- and finally their anti-working class ideology and "theory," embracing the "lumpen" as the true revolutionary force-- their version I guess of street politics. I never knew Fred Hampton-- Hanrahan had him murdered before I got back to Chicago. Murder it was. Martyr Hampton is. But being a martyr doesn't make one a fountainhead of knowledge. I read a couple of Hampton's speeches back in the day and they were more than wrong-headed, more than inaccurate... as were Huey P.Newton's, Cleaver's, Seale's. The Panthers struck a gallant pose. But posing only gets you so far in the material world. And again the issue is not one of solidarity-- being in sds no one was more solid in their solidarity with the Panthers, their defense of the Panthers than we were-- even when they showed up at our door and demanded a $600 payment from us to "the vanguard party" to support "the vanguard party's struggle." I told them we already gave at the factory. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Cod" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 2:36 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Hampton > No, we don't need to study shit or know anything about "marxism" to know > what side we're on or to close ranks with oppressed people. Its a basic > issue of street politics that the trots failed miserably. Oppose Book > Worship! > > From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Nov 7 17:53:25 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:53:25 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] [Pen-l] for Mondragon fans... In-Reply-To: <93dbbd490911070809jd3a2a6ehae1e78d9397f0791@mail.gmail.com> References: <93dbbd490911070809jd3a2a6ehae1e78d9397f0791@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AF61685.3030607@panix.com> Jim Devine wrote: > Check out this great piece by Carl Davidson on the joint project of > Mondragon and the United Steel Workers to create worker-owned and -run > coops in the U.S. Such good news about an alternative, pro-worker way > to grow our economy out of this recession: > > http://beavercountyblue.org/2009/11/04/steelworkers-seek-job-creation-via-worker-owned-factories/ Critique of Anthropology, Dec 1999; vol. 19: pp. 379 - 400 The Mondrag?n Model as Post-Fordist Discourse: Considerations on the Production of Post-Fordism by Sharryn Kasmir This article is intended as a contribution to the ethnography of con- temporary capitalism. I analyze the case of the Mondrag?n cooperative model and consider what its international fame tells us about the regime of post-Fordism. I explore the constitution of the Mondrag?n model through the singular discourse of labor?management cooperation. I show how the model is produced by the discursive practices of omission and decontextualization. Mondrag?n can only be constructed as an alternative to and critique of capitalism if (1) workers? experiences are erased; (2) politics are marginalized; and (3) the cooperatives are de-territorialized from the global economic context. By pro- viding the missing contexts, I offer a competing narrative, portraying cooperation as a class-interested discourse that undermines workers? power. My account of how the Mondrag?n model was produced is a revealing case of the production of global capitalist discourses in a period of economic and ideological shifts to post-Fordism. "Visit Mondrag?n and other cooperatives in Spain with a group of North Americans concerned about the future of our economies. Corporate restructuring, changes in technology, trade policy and global competition continue to result in absentee-owned manufacturing facilities moving to lower-wage states and third-world countries. Join other North Americans concerned about their communities where this globalization of work, capital flight and changes in corporate strategy are resulting in net job losses, wage reductions, plant closings and increased poverty. "... Can vast productivity gains and profits in the high-tech marketplace be organized to provide more families with good jobs? . . . Can we develop a creative alternative to unemployment?s social consequences: depression, crime, alcoholism, family breakdown, abuse of women and children? And an alternative to unemployment?s economic costs .... "Investigate a successful alternative: the Mondrag?n group of large-scale, high-tech, industrial and community-based companies.... Worker-owners have built a large democratically-controlled complex where they experience dignified work which is strategically and socially anchored in their communities. The[y] benefit themselves through wages, pensions, growth of their capital investments in their own diversified groups of companies and job security. Worker owners? self interest has also led them to make the necessary investments in technical education and occupational retraining needed for competitive, technological change. They have not suffered the growing and polarizing income and skill inequality of North American workers." (Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center Web Page ) This advertisement for a study tour of the Mondrag?n cooperatives is posted on the World Wide Web by Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center (IJPC), a non-profit, religious organization whose mission is to promote social and economic justice. IJPC considers the Mondrag?n cooperative group, located in the Basque region of Spain, to be a primary model for economic-justice-oriented business and is dedicated to replicating Mondrag?n-style cooperation in the United States. IJPC is hardly alone among liberal and progressive groups in its attention to Mondrag?n. Tours are tailored for activists, planners and scholars who are interested in creating cooperatives in underdeveloped or deindustrialized regions, applying the lessons of Mondrag?n to ex-communist economies, or seeing the inter- nationally renowned cooperatives for themselves.2 Mondrag?n has been constituted as a world-wide economic tourist attraction for those who criticize capitalism?s excesses and seek a more just economy. Paradoxically, Mondrag?n is also a destination for corporate executives who are determined to restructure labor?management relations and rein- vigorate profits. For example, in 1989, while I was conducting fieldwork in Mondrag?n,3 a management team from Polaroid arrived to visit the co-operatives. Polaroid was considering offering a stock option plan to its employees. Their tour guide, a manager in the cooperative system, told me that the team members? mission was to determine if they could transfer ownership without yielding power to employees. The Polaroid team hoped to find in Mondrag?n a model for using ownership to control employees. Like social-justice-minded scholars and activists, Polaroid managers too were inspired by Mondrag?n. This incongruous confluence of interests in Mondrag?n raises important questions: How are we to understand the ubiquitous appeal of the Mondrag?n cooperative model? Why would multinational corporate executives and justice-oriented activists, community-based economic developers and pro-worker academicians prefer the same business model? How might the search for ?kinder? or more ?compassionate? capitalism, which leads liberals and progressives to Mondrag?n, be inflected by corporate interest in the cooperatives? From jayrothermel at gmail.com Sat Nov 7 18:00:04 2009 From: jayrothermel at gmail.com (jay rothermel) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 20:00:04 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] 7th Grader Confronts BNP Fascist During School Feild Trip Message-ID: <1f14bc450911071700g5a3bb5bfs9aeba87fc1238d9c@mail.gmail.com> From farmelantj at juno.com Sat Nov 7 18:42:21 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 20:42:21 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] New Book on Fred Hampton Assasination Message-ID: <20091107.204222.5956.1.farmelantj@juno.com> On Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:40:52 -0500 Louis Proyect writes: > Marv Gandall wrote: > > The CP was uniformally opposed to the Panthers' program and > tactics in much > > the same way the SWP was. Within both organizations, however, > there were > > members who had a more tolerant approach to the Panthers and those > who could > > barely contain their hostility - often corresponding to whether > they were > > working class veterans of the 30's who formed the core of the > leadership or > > younger 60's activists who had occasion for more frequent contact > with the > > BBP in common milieus. > > That was true initially but by 1970 all the Trotskyist youth had > become > fed up with the Panthers. With their Maoist "serve the people" crap, > > with their braggadocio, with their sexism (agreeing with Stokely > Carmichael the only position for women in the movement is "prone"), > with > their tendency to declare people counter-revolutionary at the drop > of a hat. > It is perhaps telling that David Horowitz was gravitating towards the Panthers precisely at the time that most of the radical left was running the other way. Jim F. ____________________________________________________________ Medical Insurance Quotes Compare medical insurance companies and save money now. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=FkdMopCGrXsU2pwSAiiorgAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAQAAAAFAAAAAB3JmD4AAAMlAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABJQNgAAAAA= From bob.morris at gmail.com Sat Nov 7 20:26:35 2009 From: bob.morris at gmail.com (Bob Morris) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 19:26:35 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] New Book on Fred Hampton Assasination In-Reply-To: <4AF5F774.9010605@panix.com> References: <4D705E95AFB9473E849429DE7A2D888F@dmsthinkpad> <4AF5F774.9010605@panix.com> Message-ID: <275dee160911071926t1be7d076m588d1d2a2be5f71d@mail.gmail.com> ?it?s just idiocy for the Panthers to talk about all power growing from the barrel of a gun when the other side has all the guns.? -- Saul Alinsky From shmage at pipeline.com Sat Nov 7 20:56:30 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 22:56:30 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Vanguard (was Re: Hampton) In-Reply-To: <191FBB86A9E947589B578BC198589C25@dmsthinkpad> References: <4AF5C6E6.4070100@charter.net> <191FBB86A9E947589B578BC198589C25@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: On Nov 7, 2009, at 6:29 PM, S. Artesian wrote: > ...The Panthers claimed to be a "vanguard,"... What exactly is a "vanguard?" For every great commander, from Hannibal to Rommel, the role of the vanguard is to be first to attack the enemy's front line. It is expected to undergo heavy casualties* in order to draw the enemy forces to the point of attack while your own forces prepare the decisive blow elsewhere. Victory depends on the cavalry on the wings and, above all, on the strategic reserve**. The Panthers did indeed act like the vanguard--of an army that had not yet even been mobilized. They were decimated accordingly. *When King David wanted to get rid of an inconvenient husband he ordered his general to put him in the vanguard. **At the crucial point of the Battle of France in May 1940 the British commander asks his octogenarian French counterpart, Weygand, "where is the stratgic reserve?" Answer: "there is none." Shane Mage > This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it > always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, > kindling in measures and going out in measures." > > Herakleitos of Ephesos From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Sat Nov 7 21:08:21 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:08:21 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] NYT edit indicates "int'l community" sees thru Shannon-Micheletti trickery Message-ID: <251C79A7C84E4FA7B882EEB3E0F7E830@office1pc> November 7, 2009 Editorial Coup, Uninterrupted The Obama administration has worked hard, if somewhat episodically, to try to resolve the political crisis in Honduras. Last week, it looked as if the administration had pulled it off. The deal is now unraveling because of the obstinacy of Honduras?s ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, and the man who ousted him, Roberto Micheletti. But we fear Washington also miscalculated that obstinacy. The agreement was brokered by Costa Rica?s president, ?scar Arias, with some strong last-minute arm-twisting from Washington. It was a good one. Mr. Zelaya would be allowed to finish out his term, which ends in January. But he would do nothing to try to hang on to power. He and the coup plotters would be granted amnesty for any previous misdeeds. That would have been good for Honduras. And it would have sent a clear message to all of Latin America that coups are no longer tolerated. But when it came time to implement the deal, it began to fall apart. The rival leaders were supposed to establish an interim unity government this week. When they could not agree on who would lead the cabinet, Mr. Zelaya refused to appoint any members and Mr. Micheletti formed a new government without the ousted president. The two men also had agreed that the Honduran Congress would be given the final decision about whether to reinstate Mr. Zelaya. But there was no deadline, allowing his opponents to delay a vote. Mr. Micheletti always wanted to play out the string to get through presidential elections, scheduled for Nov. 29. The situation wasn?t helped by the Republican members of the United States Congress who traveled earlier to Tegucigalpa to cheer on the coup makers. (They appear far more concerned about Mr. Zelaya?s cozy relations with Venezuela?s Hugo Ch?vez than democracy.) We fear the Obama administration made things even worse by suggesting that it would recognize the results of the election even if the Honduran Congress decided against returning Mr. Zelaya, briefly, to office. We appreciate the administration?s desire to encourage a Honduran solution. But that erased the most effective American leverage on the de facto government. On Friday, the State Department sounded as if it had figured that out, warning that ?failure to implement the accord could jeopardize recognition of the election by the international community.? It needs to leave no doubt. It needs to send its negotiator, Thomas Shannon, an assistant secretary of state, back to Honduras to get the deal back on track. An election run by the coup plotters won?t be credible to Hondurans ? and it shouldn?t be to anyone else. From markalause at gmail.com Sat Nov 7 21:20:38 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 23:20:38 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Vanguard (was Re: Hampton) In-Reply-To: References: <4AF5C6E6.4070100@charter.net> <191FBB86A9E947589B578BC198589C25@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: Military analogies have their limits, but a very badly led force can also take heavy casualties. Great losses, in and of themselves, do not a vanguard make. ML From mqduck at mqduck.net Sat Nov 7 21:21:38 2009 From: mqduck at mqduck.net (Jeffrey Thomas Piercy) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:21:38 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Bob Dylan In-Reply-To: <359A88881F9041D7B85445B2168F7FCD@dmsthinkpad> References: <4AF5C6E6.4070100@charter.net> <359A88881F9041D7B85445B2168F7FCD@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <4AF64752.1040202@mqduck.net> Every middle-aged person I know loves him, except my father who thinks... his music sucks. He doesn't have radically different musical tastes in general, he just doesn't like Dylan. Maybe it's cause by a rare, recessive anti-Dylan gene. I don't know. S. Artesian wrote: > I just thought his music sucked. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ron J" > To: "David Schanoes" > Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 2:13 PM > Subject: [Marxism] Bob Dylan > > >> I always get a kick out of doctrinaire leftists when they talk about Bob >> Dylan. It reminds me of monotheists discussing polytheism. From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Sat Nov 7 21:22:10 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:22:10 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Felipe Stuart: comment on NYT edit on Honduras Message-ID: <5EA087A42EA1435FB743C337275B6A5B@office1pc> Felipe Stuart is a comrade with many years of experience in Central America. The New York Times edit is reprinted in my previous post on this list. Fred Feldman Felipe Stuart comments: What the New York Times fails to acknowledge is that Washington's strategy of putting the coup regime and the Constitutional government of Honduras on the same plane of legitimacy is really the key to legitimize the coup -- at least among consumers of manufactured and manipulated opinion in the USA and other imperialist powers. This is central to Obama's exercize of "Smartpower" as Eva Golinger has to cogently explained in her website Postcards from the Revolution (http://www.chavezcode.com/). Smartpower is just a buzzword for an ageold ruling class strategy of saying one thing and doing another, or of gloving the iron fist with silk. Nevertheless, the Times clear statement that elections organized by the coup regime will not be reconized by the international "community" indicates the impasse that Clinton and Shannon's theatrics have reached in their Hondurastan. As President Zelaya Rosales has affirmed, supporters of democracy in their country will not accept an "Afghan-style" election designed to defraud the population? and legitimize the coup. The only real way out of the Constitutional crisis will be the convoking of a Constituent Assembly to reform the Constitution and remove anti-democratic restrictions in this Carta Magna that the army crafted and imposed on the country. The thirst of the masses in Latin America for the right to full and ongoing participation in political life and public affairs can no longer be ignored. That is the lesson of Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Nicaragua in recent years; and the lesson of the Honduran resistance movement that has become one of the major actors in Honduran politics. The resistance mounted against the coup since June 28 has led to greater unity, stamina, and policital saavy among popular movements. There is no going back to a pre coup alignment of class and social forces. No matter whether Zelaya is returned to the Casa Presidencial or not, the oligarchy has been weakened by its June 28 gamble. Emboldened or not by their exercize of repression and terror against the population, they now face a medium and longterm struggle with class adversaries who are much more aware and steeled in struggle. The class dictatorshop of oligarchs and military officers can only face the future in trepidation and soiled underpasnts. Today's editorial in the Mexico City daily La Jornada offers a very different analyisis from that of the NYTimes, much more reflective of democratic opinion in Latin America and the Caribbean region. South of the Rio Bravo the great fear is that the US has gained ground in a new offensive against Latin American unity and liberation, as evidenced by Obama's placing of US bases in [Colombia], continued efforts to strangle the Cuban revolution, and consolidation of its power and outreach from its aircraft carrier named USS Honduras. For those who read Spanish, you can call up the Jornada edit at http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/11/07/index.php?section=edito From ben.peterson.fl at gmail.com Sun Nov 8 06:16:25 2009 From: ben.peterson.fl at gmail.com (Ben Peterson) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 00:16:25 +1100 Subject: [Marxism] Nepal Update-Lal salamBlog Message-ID: <729a1afc0911080516o3c7fd448l1d4467e0d7b00bc2@mail.gmail.com> http://maobadiwatch.blogspot.com/2009/11/nepal-update.html *"In defense of Civilian Supremacy over the military and the democratic ?New Nepal? process the revolutionary movement of Nepal, led by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) has initiated a nation wide ?Peoples Movement? to topple the government and anti-people force*s." From lnp3 at panix.com Sun Nov 8 07:01:14 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:01:14 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Reuven Kaminer on who killed Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) Message-ID: <4AF6CF2A.9020405@panix.com> For unlimited distribution Excuse multiple posting From the desk of Reuven Kaminer November 8, 2009 Who Killed Abu Mazen? Who Caused His Death? Hillary Clinton killed Abu Mazen. Barack Obama set him up last June in his Cairo speech and Hillary killed him dead. Her repeated declarations last week regarding ?unprecedented concessions? by Netanyahu on the settlement issue completed the job. Are we exaggerating? Is Abu Mazen still alive? One would hope that as just another pensioner, Abu Mazen, will enjoy a healthy and vigorous private retirement. But politically he has become, despite illustrious chapters in his younger years, a political corpse. He simply bet everything on the U.S. And when it turned out that all the services he rendered to the U.S. were used and exploited by Obama to increase pressure against his own people, he was forced to understand that the game was over. Abu Mazen was not born to deceive his people. But he (and many others) deceived themselves regarding Clinton, her boss and her associates. Is it clinically possible that Abu Mazen died of shame? Of course, Clinton is a highly regarded figure. But the Clinton aura is just another trap. For her own convenience, she can turn the most faithful ally into a political non-entity. Abu Mazen began the descent to his own elimination last month when he issued orders to connive with Clinton to prevent the UN Human Rights Council from discussing the Goldstone Report. And now, Ms. Clinton, speaking words of adoration for Bibi, in her recent trip to the ME, finished him off. There are three major lessons here, if you will. The first is the danger and the illusions of the theory which holds that since we live in a unipolar world, nothing can be done without an alliance with the US, which supposedly holds all the cards. Let the case of Abu Mazen be a lesson to all that hitching your wagon to the US train is the best way to go nowhere. The second lesson is that Clinton?s knife in Abu Mazen?s back may well be a faithful reflection of US policy and practice all over the place. Obama?s rhetoric notwithstanding, his administration, so far, is a continuation of Bush?s. Obama is indeed under tremendous pressures and he may well decide on an orderly retreat. But so far, things gets worse and worse and the waters of the Potomac get muddier by the day. Hope, yes ? illusions, no. The third lesson is that Abu Mazen sealed his fate at least two years ago when he introduced a permanent U.S. military delegation into the West Bank. Headed by General Dayton, the US units were involved in an operation to establish ?law and order.? Interestingly enough, this involved military and intelligence coordination between Jordan, the Palestinian forces and the Israeli Defense Forces, under General Clayton?s aegis. A lot of Abu Mazen?s friends would have served him well if they had told him loud and clear back then that this meant, in fact, an end to his political independence. From lnp3 at panix.com Sun Nov 8 07:08:28 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:08:28 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Basra's oil dividend Message-ID: <4AF6D0DC.6030003@panix.com> NY Times, November 8, 2009 Marooned on Sea of Iraqi Oil, but Unable to Tap Its Wealth By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS BASRA, Iraq ? The orange glow of the giant natural gas flares in the oil fields around Basra represents this bustling city?s wealth of natural resources. But for the impoverished people who live near them, the flames only serve as a reminder of their inability to share in the riches that lie beneath their feet. The area around Basra, Iraq?s second largest city and main port, accounts for as much as 80 percent of the country?s oil production. It has emerged as Iraq?s best hope for stability and prosperity as it prepares to sell off its top undeveloped oil fields to foreign companies at an auction next month. Of the five largest fields that will be bid on, four are in or around Basra. Despite the riches trapped below its oil fields, though, this city of three million is among Iraq?s poorest places. People in neighborhoods within a few miles of fields with so much oil that it floats atop the surface in huge black pools live amid mud and feces. Carts pulled by overworked donkeys compete with cars for space on streets. Childhood cancer rates are the highest in the country. The city?s salty tap water makes people ill. And there is more garbage on the streets than municipal collectors can make a dent in. The hundreds of thousands who live in the villages around the fields all dream of finding oil work, but that is unlikely. Those who apply are almost always told they lack the education or experience for oil work. But they believe that their only real deficiency is a lack of connections and money for bribes. ?People sit here in the evenings and they watch the flames and wonder how rich they would be if they had only one hour of those oil exports,? said Naeem al-Moussuawi, who lives in one of the poorer villages in the Basra area. Last month, after Iraq?s Oil Ministry announced that it planned to hire workers for its Basra-based South Oil Company, thousands of people waited in line for applications ? some for days. Among them were men in tattered clothing with bare, muddy feet. When the line got unruly, the police were called. Some applicants were beaten. More than 27,000 applications were filled out for 1,600 jobs ? most of which require a college education or experience, and most Basrans have neither. In the village of Asdika, oil pipelines run along the perimeter, and several thousand people live in ramshackle houses of gray cinder blocks and plastic sheeting for roofs. There is no garbage collection, and household trash is thrown outside to rot in the sun. There is no sewer system, so wastewater from houses is dumped outside, attracting thousands of flies to the lakes of raw sewage that have formed outside most homes. Almost everyone is unemployed. The village is on government property ? an oil field ? and its existence is illegal. Residents say the police show up occasionally and threaten to bulldoze the houses. Hussein Flaeh, 29, an unemployed father of two, has lived in Asdika since 2003. Fifteen members of his family live in a concrete-block house with three small rooms. One recent morning, Mr. Flaeh?s youngest child, Essam, born two weeks ago, was placed outside to get some fresh air. The baby?s face was almost immediately covered by hungry flies. Asked whether he had ever applied for a job at the oil refinery, Mr. Flaeh appeared perplexed and did not answer. Pressed, his gentle face turned hard. ?You can?t even reach it,? he said. ?Don?t even talk about it.? Government officials in Basra have called for a fee of $1 on each barrel of oil produced in the province, which would then be used for local projects instead of going to the central government. But even if Basra suddenly became awash in oil money, the construction of new housing, offices and even farmland would be prohibited because almost everything is situated atop untapped reserves of crude oil. ?Ninety percent of Basra is an oil field,? said Ahmed al-Sulati, a member of the local provincial council. ?We can?t build anything here. We need to have more housing in some neighborhoods, but we can?t because we are surrounded by oil.? In the meantime, Mr. Sulati said, ?We are getting sick from breathing gas, and the streets are getting destroyed by the oil trucks.? During a recent speech, Ali Ghalib Baban, Iraq?s minister of planning, said Basra was on the cusp of being ?one of the world?s most important economic centers.? But in the village of Shuiba, so close to the city?s refinery and major fields that the air is heavy with the smell of petroleum, farmers have stopped growing tomatoes and now rent their fields to truck drivers who park their tankers there for about 80 cents a night. It is the village?s single school, however, that is the source of most of Shuiba?s concerns. Some classes have more than 55 students packed inside, and boys and girls must be taught together, which has led some parents to keep their daughters at home. There are no bathrooms, and some classrooms have no electricity. The school grounds are littered with piles of garbage. Oil workers live on the opposite side of the village. In the poorer half of Shuiba, the workers are regarded with envy and loathing. Not a single resident from the poor side has been hired for an oil job. ?Everyone would like to work for the oil company,? Mr. Moussuawi said. ?We know we are poor and many of us are not well educated. The problem is they see the trucks full of oil and they wonder where the money is going.? But even in Shuiba?s better-off half, adjacent to Basra?s sprawling refinery, residents say they have unmet needs. The housing is neat, there is no trash and the streets are paved, but there is crowding and rising unemployment even among the college-educated sons and daughters of oil company managers, they say. ?You need to know somebody or pay a bribe to work there,? said Najim Khadim, 26, the son of Shuiba?s unofficial mayor, Mohammed Khadim, who has worked for 38 years at the refinery, where he is a supervisor. The son, who has a college degree in chemistry, said not even his father had been able to help with a job. The going rate for bribes for a job, he said, is $2,000 to $5,000, which he said he refused to pay. A visitor is brought a glass of tap water. It tastes as salty as the water in the rest of town. Duraid Adnan and Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting. From rjacobs3625 at charter.net Sun Nov 8 07:47:37 2009 From: rjacobs3625 at charter.net (Ron J) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:47:37 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Re;Panthers Message-ID: <4AF6DA09.9030400@charter.net> My age in 1968 is pretty much irrelevant here. History lives on. If I were to use one's age as a method of determining whether or not I should read what someone says on this list, than the whole bunch of us have no right to discuss Marx, the Russian revolution, the Paris Commune, etc. since I doubt very much most if not all of us were alive during Marx's lifetime or any of these events. You believe the Panthers were ultraleft--that's an argument that is valid. Your insinuation that I have no right to disagree with you because I was in 8th grade in 1968 is not only an insult to 8th graders, but totally irrelevant in terms of the discussion about the Panthers. If you want to make some genuine political points, no problem but if you want to belittle those who disagree with you because they don't meet your age specifications for the discussion, well..... Louis wrote" You were in the 8th grade in 1968, weren't you, Ron? I marvel at your ability to "educate" me about the Panthers. From lnp3 at panix.com Sun Nov 8 07:53:00 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:53:00 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Trotsky, Kahlo and Rivera characters in new novel Message-ID: <4AF6DB4C.7000709@panix.com> NY Times Book Review, November 8, 2009 Barbara Kingsolver?s Artists and Idols By LIESL SCHILLINGER Skip to next paragraph THE LACUNA By Barbara Kingsolver 507 pp. Harper/HarperCollins Publishers. $26.99 A skinny young boy holds his breath and dives into the mouth of an underwater cave ? a lacuna ? swimming toward pale blue light as his lungs scream for oxygen. He emerges, gasping, in a ghostly cenote, a sinkhole in the Mexican jungle fringed with broken coral, wedged with human bones: a place of sacrifice and buried remembrance. When the tide rushes out, it will take the boy with it, ?dragging a coward explorer back from the secret place, sucking him out through the tunnel and spitting him into the open sea.? He?ll paddle to shore and walk home, obsessed forever after by hidden passages that contain deeper meanings ? meanings that only art may recapture. He?ll acquire a notebook and fill it with stories and memories; when it?s full, he?ll begin another and then another. But were he to consign these notebooks to the scrapheap, how would their mysteries be known? Who dares plunge into the wreckage of a discarded history, not knowing the risks of retrieval? Barbara Kingsolver?s breathtaking new novel, ?Lacuna,? follows this quiet, dreamy boy, Harrison William Shepherd, from 1929 to 1951. When we first meet him, he?s 12 years old, living at a hacienda on Isla Pixol with his self-dramatizing mother, Salom?, both of them petrified by the howling monkeys in the trees above, which they believe to be carnivorous demons. ?You had better write all this in your notebook,? Salom? tells Shepherd, ?so when nothing is left of us but bones, someone will know where we went.? A year earlier, Salom?, a slang-slinging Mexican beauty, had ditched her drab American husband (Shepherd?s father) in Washington, D.C., and chased an oilman back to his Mexican estate. On Isla Pixol, as Salom? sulks over her love life like a bobby-soxer, lonely Shepherd befriends the hacienda?s cook, who turns the boy into a sous-chef while innocently cluing the kid into his sexuality (which bobby-soxers will never unleash). Shepherd?s other close companions are the volumes in the hacienda library and his notebook, which he regards as ?a prisoner?s plan for escape.? In the short term, though, it?s Salom? who escapes Isla Pixol, dragging the boy with her, bolting for Mexico City in pursuit of an American she calls ?Mr. Produce the Cash? ? and, after him, others. His mother is not a puta, Shepherd reflects, with detached sympathy, even as he overhears her ?bedroom jolly-ups? through thin walls. She?s just a romantic woman who yearns for ?an admirer? as she tries to put a roof over their heads. Nonetheless, while still in his teens the boy embarks upon a different path, toward a life unruled by passion. ?People contort themselves around the terror of being alone, making any compromise against that,? he observes later in life. ?It?s a great freedom to give up on love and get on with everything else.? But it?s a freedom more easily imagined than lived. Leaving his mother to her Mme. Bovary messes, Shepherd parlays his domestic skills into a job mixing plaster for Diego Rivera?s murals (?It?s like making dough for pan dulce?) and joins the Rivera household as cook and typist for Rivera, his artist wife, Frida Kahlo, and later for their guest, the exiled Communist leader Leon Trotsky. In this incendiary, revolutionary household, Shepherd keeps mum and lets louder egos roar, just as he did on Isla Pixol. Baking bread by day, he records the daily dramas of this entourage by night, along with a draft of his first novel, an epic of the Aztec empire. But in 1940, when Trotsky is assassinated, Shepherd leaves Mexico, spooked by the virulent press that denounces his employers and their murdered ward ?like the howlers on Isla Pixol.? At the age of 24, he returns to the United States and settles in Asheville, N.C. There he becomes a reclusive, gentlemanly author of swashbuckling Mexican historical novels (?Vassals of Majesty,? ?Pilgrims of Chapultepec?) until the ungentlemanly House Un-American Activities Committee drags him into the spotlight, rewriting his character in crude strokes for the public stage. Shepherd had thought discretion would protect him, since his private thoughts were safely interred in his journals. ?Dios habla por el que calla,? he likes to tell his devoted Asheville secretary, Violet Brown: ? God speaks for the silent man.? But Brown, who knows that God doesn?t always speak as loudly as Senator ?McCarthy, tells her boss that unlike another local writer, Thomas Wolfe, he was prudent to set his fiction outside Asheville ? and America. ?People love to read of sins and errors, just not their own,? she remarks. ?You were wise to put your characters far from here.? As it turns out, they weren?t far enough. The book we read today, Brown reveals, was assembled by herself in 1959 from Shepherd?s junked notebooks and sealed for 50 years, to be opened in 2009 ? when she hoped it could inform readers about ?those who labored and birthed the times they have inherited.? How can the experiences of a fictional loner merge with those of larger-than-life figures who played a pivotal role in world politics? And what can readers learn from their intersection? Those are the questions answered by this dazzling novel, which plunges into Shepherd?s notebooks to dredge up not only the perceptions they conceal but also a history larger than his own, touching on everything from Trotskyism, Stalinism and the Red scare to racism, mass hysteria and the media?s intrusion into personal and national affairs. More than half a century on, names like Trotsky, Rivera, Kahlo and McCarthy can lose their definition, like coins with the faces rubbed off. Shepherd?s reminis?cences step in where the historical record can?t, restoring human contours. To Shepherd, working as a cook in the Rivera kitchen, Trotsky was more than a defender of the working man; he was a person of flesh and blood ? ?compact, muscular,? with the build of a peasant, who clasped a pen ?as if it were an ax handle? and liked to feed chickens when he wasn?t unspooling his thoughts on the Fourth Inter?national. Trotsky?s optimism ? while he was in exile and under death threats ? leads Shepherd to marvel, ?Does a man become a revolutionary out of the belief he?s entitled to joy rather than submission?? Frida KAHLO tells Shepherd he has a ?pierced soul? like her own and respects his artistic commitment, even as she teases him cruelly for his closeted sexual drives. ?To be a good artist you have to know something that?s true,? she tells him; and reputation isn?t worth worrying about. ?People will always stare at the queer birds like you and me,? she says, in a spirit of defiance, not empathy. Coasting on a pleasure boat through the floating gardens of Xochimilco with Trotsky (who was briefly her lover), Shepherd and Trotsky?s secretary, Van, whom Shepherd secretly loves, Kahlo buys a woven toy called a trapanovio ?for catching boyfriends? and taunts him to try it on Van. Shepherd keeps the toy as a ?souvenir of a remarkable humiliation.? Yet Shepherd, who learned compassion for others, if not for himself, at his diva mother?s knee, soothes Kahlo when Rivera wants a divorce. ?Even in her disconsolate state she looked like a peacock,? he notices. ?Perfectly dressed in a green silk skirt and enough jewelry to sink a boat. Even drowning, Frida would cling to vanity.? Such texture doesn?t interest the heavies from the House Un-American Activities Committee, for whom the names Trotsky, Rivera and Kahlo set off ?Communist-menace alarm bells. In 1947, meeting with his lawyer in North Carolina to discuss a letter from J. Edgar Hoover, Shepherd doesn?t understand why the F.B.I. would care about his Mexican past. ?I was a cook,? he explains. ?Let me just say,? the lawyer replies, ?these subtleties are lost.? ?The Lacuna? can be enjoyed sheerly for the music of its passages on nature, archaeology, food and friendship; or for its portraits of real and invented people; or for its harmonious choir of voices. But the fuller value of Kingsolver?s novel lies in its call to conscience and connection. She has mined Shepherd?s richly imagined history to create a tableau vivant of epochs and people that time has transformed almost past recognition. Yet it?s a tableau vivant whose story line resonates in the present day, albeit with different players. Through Shepherd?s resurrected notebooks, Kingsolver gives voice to truths whose teller could express them only in silence. Liesl Schillinger is a regular contributor to the Book Review. From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Nov 8 08:59:53 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 10:59:53 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Trotsky, Kahlo and Rivera characters in new novel References: <4AF6DB4C.7000709@panix.com> Message-ID: <82B3E98BC0AD4C728BF09C77774512E0@dmsthinkpad> Heard her speak at the New York Public Library Nov. 4. As one part of her research, she said, she prepared dishes from Frieda Kahlo's cookbook. She said she had wanted to leave Frieda completely out of the story, but simply couldn't, and that once engaged Frieda's character almost took her, Kingsolver, over until she "slammed the door" on her. Her writing life became so intense that it took over her dreams, leading her to tell her husband one morning, "I dreamt I was cooking for Trotsky." Just started the book, which has a great voice-- not as great as the five voices she gave speech to in The Poisonwood Bible-- but it's still early in the book. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Louis Proyect" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 9:53 AM Subject: [Marxism] Trotsky, Kahlo and Rivera characters in new novel From anthony.boynton at gmail.com Sun Nov 8 09:49:46 2009 From: anthony.boynton at gmail.com (Anthony Boynton) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 11:49:46 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party Message-ID: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> The Black Panther Party failed, just like the SWP, the CP, and just like every other would-be wannabe revolutionary party in the history of the USA. But, the BPP was an authentic working class revolutionary organization which rose from the proletarian cauldron of Oakland, California. Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver looked around for whatever revolutionary theory they could find, and what they found was the Communist Party USA, and third worldist Maoism. They didn?t find Trotskyism because the Trotskyists of the SWP and IS were small in number, and focused on the unions and UC Berkeley, not the impoverished black youth. Mao said power grows from the barrel of the gun, and evidently in 1966, in West Oakland, it did. The police were almost all white, and almost all recruited from the deep South. They carried guns and used them against black people. When Huey and his small group began patrolling the streets of Oakland following the police, they did so with their guns in the open. They read the constitution, they consulted lawyers. And then they acted in a way that scared the shit out of the police, energized the community, and temporarily stopped the police from shooting innocent people. Their inspiration may have also come from the ILWU, whose honor guard marched armed with polished steel loading hooks. Not exactly pacifists, and not very defensive. Two area wide general strikes had occurred in recent west Oakland history: the great San Francisco/west Coast General Strike of 1934, and the Oakland general strike of 1948. The organized labor movement was still extremely powerful in the Bay Area by 1966 when the BPP came into existence, but labor was doing nothing to prevent the restructuring of the local economy which was in effect expelling black working class youth from the working class. One of the key factors was the containerization of cargo which was destroying employment at the ports of Oakland and San Francisco of Oakland. Traditional break bulk cargo ships required crews of dozens of longshoremen working several days to load and unload one ship. Container ships could be loaded or unloaded at special capital intensive terminals with very small crews in very short times. Containerization became possible because of the provisions in the 1961 contract between the International Longshormen and Warehousemen?s Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) Those agreements became known as the Modernization and Mechanization agreements. Up until that agreement, the giant container ports planned for the West Coast were essentially blocked. ILWU contracts included manning agreements stipulating the numbers of men to be sent by the union controlled hiring halls to load or unload a ship. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/PMA+Chief+Seeks+To+Modernize+West+Coast+Waterfront%3B+Calls+for+%60New...-a085888949 The M&M agreements opened the door to containerization, and led immediately to the opening of the Oakland container terminal in 1962. Still one of the largest container ports in the world, by the mid 1960?s Oakland had become the second largest container port anywhere. Those agreements guaranteed that high seniority members of the ILWU would be grandfathered in at high salaries, and offered preferential positions in training programs for the very highly paid and secure position of crane operators, but the old manning schedules which had guaranteed high levels of relatively well paid employment for unskilled workers were scrapped. Along with them the job possibilities of thousands of black youth in West Oakland were also scrapped. (These agreements were especially important for the US war against Viet Nam at the time, since the Robert McNamara version of war depended on massive use of arms and men, most of which were shipped out of Oakland.) Jobs in the port plummeted, and so did ILWU membership. Unemployment in the ghetto skyrocketed, especially among black youth. The generation gap which appeared throughout the United States in the 1960?s was especially strong in places like Oakland. Older black workers were mostly union members. Many owned their ?own? houses in West Oakland, East Oakland, West Berkeley, Richmond and other black neighborhoods (but not in the segregated towns and neighborhoods like San Leandro and the Berkeley hills.) They worked on the docks, at the GM factory in Fremont, or in the hundreds of small and medium sized factories that lined the bay from Fremont in the south to Martinez in the North. New factories, like the GM factory in Fremont, were built far from the ghetto neighborhoods, public transportation to these factories was minimal or non-existent. The fastest growing industrial sector, the arms industry centered around FMC corporation in San Jose, California, and Lockheed Missiles and Space in Sunnyvale. Both were far from the north bay black communities and were inaccessbile by public transportation. Older workers and their unions were conservative in the light of the growing unemployment among black youth. They negotiated contracts aimed at preserving the jobs of current union members, making and small gains in wages and benefits. Politically they supported the Democratic Party. In the early 1960?s when the conditions which created the BPP were being formed, the liberal Governor of California, Edmund G. Brown (Jerry Brown?s father) offered ?fair housing? to the black community and ?education? to black youth. Brown and the Democrats received the overwhelming support of the unions, the leaders of the black community, and the black voters. Neither the promise of ?fair housing? nor the promise of improved education became realities, but they were sufficient to provide the issues through which an enormous revival of the right wing was mobilized. This began in the 1966 election race for Governor, when Ronald Reagan, the former president of the actors union (Screen actors Guild) became the Republican candidate for governor, and campaigned on an anti-welfare and anti-Berkeley platform. Anti-welfare was thinly veiled code for anti-black, since welfare subsidies had grown most where unemployment had grown most: the ghettos of LA and the Bay Area. Anti-Berkeley meant pro-war since Berkeley was the west coast center of the movement against the Viet Nam war, but it also meant anti-public education. Reagan?s victory, and later re-election, strengthened the growth of the new right in California, which became the seed bed for what was to become known as the as the homeowners tax revolt. That revival later organized itself around the now infamous ?Proposition 13? aimed at forever rolling back and capping California property taxes (which pay for public education, fire departments, water systems, etc.) Proposition 13 was an enormous political success for the right. It remains one of the elements of the current fiscal crisis in California and of other state governments. It also propelled Ronald Reagan into the governor?s mansion in Sacramento, his first big step towards the White House, and molded the new version of right wing ideology which later morphed into Reaganism/Thatcherism and on to neo-liberalism. For black youth in the ghettos like Oakland, the working class organizations of their parents offered no hope, no jobs, no future. They offered just ?nope?. So when Maoists said, ?Dare to struggle, dare to win?. And Huey and his friends rode around behind the cops with guns openly displayed, and the cops backed down. The youth were electrified. And when they took a couple of busloads of armed youth up to the state capital to defend their right to bear arms, it gathered national and international attention. The panthers started to grow like wildfire, even though they did not know what they were doing. They were learning on the job because the traditional working class organizations and the left had failed them. Anyone who walked through Oakland?s black neighborhoods could easily see for themselves the enormous popularity of the Panthers. Panther posters and graffiti were everywhere. Anyone who lived there in the middle and late 60?s could easily attest that the majority of black people, including even the older homeowners, were proud of the Panthers. This fact was attested to a half decade later, when ? after having suffered the murders of dozens of party members, and the imprisonment of most party leaders, Eldridge Cleaver nearly won election as mayor of Oakland. It?s true the BPP failed. It?s true that both wings of the panthers failed in their efforts to defend themselves against COINTELPRO. But we should look at their failure in the context of what it was, the failure of honest revolutionaries who started their struggle alone because the traditional left, which included most importantly the SWP and CP-USA, had totally failed the black youth of the United States. One thing that the Panthers did, which the SWP did not do, and which the CP tried to sabotage, was to join and build the Peace and Freedom Party for the crucial 1968 elections. That effort was essentially aimed at uniting all of the various factions of the black movement, the anti-war movement, and the ?left? into one electoral campaign for ?peace? meaning an end to the US war against Viet-Nam, and ?freedom? which meant ?freedom? for black people and other people of color from racism. The failure of that effort was due to various factors: the Communist Parties support for the imperialist Democratic Party?s Lyndon Baines Johnson (and Hubert Humphrey after LBJ withdrew), the Socialist Workers Party?s sectarian abstention from the Peace and Freedom Party effort, and the raucous sectarian fighting of the various Maoists factions being highest on the list. (It also failed because the police agents within the process worked overnight to feed the various existing antagonisms.) The 1968 elections were an enormous lost opportunity for the left in the USA. Instead of leading to a real revival of the left after its repression during the post-war anti-communist withchunts (often referred to as McCarthyism), the left?s failure in 1968 presaged the calamity which was about to befall it in the 1970?s. (One element of the SWP's failures, and of the trditional left's failures, was undoubtedly related to the fact that they were based on the East Coast, eseecially New York city, which were the least representative areas socially and politically in the United States. You could say they had no feel for what was happening out west, even though they did have branches and members in those places. ) The Panthers were not gun fetishists, nor were they electoralists, even though they carried guns and participated in elections. They were just new at what they were doing ? which was the most honorable thing I can imagine: struggling against great odds to build a revolutionary movement under very difficult conditions. And those difficult conditions include the near total absence of any real support or leadership from those who could have and should have provided it. The BPP was formed in 1966, by 1970 it was finished. Personally I think no one on this list has the right to be flippant about martyrs like Mark Hampton, no matter how much they may have disliked him and no matter how wrong he might have been on any issue. And personally, I think the BPP, with all of its many major faults, was the most important development of genuine revolutionary consciousness in the USA since the founding of the Communist Party. Anthony From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Sun Nov 8 10:23:05 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:23:05 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Trotsky, Kahlo and Rivera characters in new novel Message-ID: <4AF6FE79.8040502@gmail.com> Barbara Kingsolver was in the YSA with me in Tucson in mid 1976. I only recently realized she' become a well known novelist. Good for her! David From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Nov 8 10:37:42 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 12:37:42 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Trotsky, Kahlo and Rivera characters in new novel References: <4AF6FE79.8040502@gmail.com> Message-ID: Well, you should drop her a line. It's not just that she's well known, she's also a great writer, The Poisonwood Bible being, IMO, the best US novel since.... [you get to fill in the blank]. ----- Original Message ----- From: "nada" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 12:23 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Trotsky, Kahlo and Rivera characters in new novel > Barbara Kingsolver was in the YSA with me in Tucson in mid 1976. I only > recently realized she' become a well known novelist. Good for her! > > David From Waistline2 at aol.com Sun Nov 8 10:49:24 2009 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 12:49:24 EST Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party Message-ID: In a message dated 11/8/2009 11:50:43 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, _anthony.boynton at gmail.com_ (mailto:anthony.boynton at gmail.com) writes: >> The Black Panther Party failed, just like the SWP, the CP, and just like every other would-be wannabe revolutionary party in the history of the USA. But, the BPP was an authentic working class revolutionary organization which rose from the proletarian cauldron of Oakland, California. Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver looked around for whatever revolutionary theory they could find, and what they found was the Communist Party USA, and third worldist Maoism.<< Reply Dear Comrade, your comment were deeply moving, insightful and fascinating. I have forwarded them to a writer?s project I am involved in. The CP did in fact abandon the struggle of the black masses and by doing such created a political vacuum in the social movement of blacks. The SWP and general Trotskyite movement never had any roots in the movement of blacks other than tailing various national leaders. This is due to a function of their ideology and political outlook. The Panther?s - as did we, emerged out of the political vacuum. Below are some notes earnestly written before reading your comments. These notes were personal and never meant for the list. Will stay in touch, preferably off line. WL. Huey?s P. Newton?s ?Black Panther Party? formed, consolidated and existed within a political continuum. The immediate political landscape on which the BPP was formed was the Watts Rebellion of 1965. Watts expressed a development in the social struggle against Jim Crow segregation and police violence. Watts in turn expressed a new boundary in the social struggle earlier expressed as the 1963 Birmingham riot, where black steel workers were forced into struggle against their local fascist thugs. The link between Birmingham 1963 and Watts 1965, as a spontaneous social impulse and social consequence was mass rejection of the reality of ?non-violence? as a strategy. In American history, the Watts rebellion completed the encirclement of American imperialism by the fighting colonial masses. No one sat up in meeting and argued over how to ?get the masses? to reject non-violence as a strategy. Rather, these social explosions are organic and expressed the momentary collapse of the political middle or ?overrunning? of all the organizations mediating relations within and between classes. Spontaneous rebellions over run all society structures of mediation as a section of the masses directly confront the state as state. The founders of the BPP - in Oakland, felt an urgency to ?do something? and respond to the spontaneous impulses of the blacks to remedy and address their grievances. One of the historic grievances was and is a militant fight against police violence and fascist methods of control in the old South. The BPP and other scattered grouping throughout the country adopted armed self-defense as an intimate component of their political strategy, along with demands for community control of the police. The scope of the rebellions of the late 1950?s, 1960s and 1970s remain to be examined in totality. Somewhere I recall reading states that over 2,000 (two thousand) occurred. The Cleveland story is important and being written. In Cleveland Ohio the intensity of the armed self-defense movement, which compelled the local authority and policing powers to negotiate and stay out of areas of the city dominated by the revolutionaries, need to be presented in a similar back drop you provide. In Cleveland the revolutionaries never adopted an attitude of ?bombing the workers out of the factory,? as articulated by Katherine Cleaver during this period of her youthfulness. The struggle of the industrial core of the unionized workers had peaked and was in a period of ebbing simultaneous with the rise of the Negro Peoples Movement of the fifties and early 1960s. Between 1948 and 1965, unemployment remained low and real take home pay for factory workers rose 2.1 percent a year. Although blacks were entering the lowest rung on the ladder of the industrial social order, most did not benefit as much as their Anglo counterparts and the whites at large. Reuther had consolidated his control of the UAW on the basis of war production; the promise of the GI Bill and general capital expansion as the rebuilding of Europe, rather than exploitation of the colonies of American imperialism. Thus, the working class remained split expressing conflicting spontaneous motion. This historical split is rooted in the workers completion for wages as the condition for the existence of capital. One of its forms in America has always been the color factor. The motion of the white majority was for advancement up the social ladder based on capital expansion. This produced the ideology of ?go slow.? The blacks pushed hard for inclusion. The demand for an ending of Jim Crow and its destruction as pushing for entry into the system and better paying jobs exceeded the ability for advancement of the white workers seeking to enjoy the fruits of America?s post war status. Every section of the working class wanted in and reform of the system. The BPP ideology was in fact anti-working class to a degree. So was our?s in Detroit. However, none of either groups ideology was anti-proletariat, if one means the property form of bourgeois servitude. A section of the industrial workers - in the large industrial unions, were able to accumulate capital reserves. Another section of the industrial workers could never accumulate reserves and literally were dominated by the moments they could sell their labor power or "exist by the hand out of the government." No one can agree with the most reactionary and chauvinistic sector of the working class and their leaders, dominating the union movement. One section of the working class always fights another section as part of the revolutionary process. Capital rest exclusively on wage labor and the condition for wage labor - as the form of bourgeois property, is competition for wages. Competition means fighting. End (Again, this was a personal note part of an extensive collection of ?bits of writings.?) From youcanemailbenhere at yahoo.co.uk Sun Nov 8 11:22:12 2009 From: youcanemailbenhere at yahoo.co.uk (Ben Ben) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 18:22:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Marxism] Goodman Sachs: we're doing God's work Message-ID: <227478.36068.qm@web26308.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ** As I recall, the money changers were briskly sent packing rather that rewarded for kick starting the economy of Judea... "The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which has attracted widespread media attention over the size of its staff bonuses, believes banks serve a social purpose and are doing "God's work."" full: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20091108/tts-uk-goldmansachs-blankfein-ca02f96.html From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Nov 8 11:44:06 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 13:44:06 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party References: Message-ID: I was wondering when comrade Melyn/Waistline woud enter into the discussion, and I'm glad he did. Nobody is NOT defending the Panthers, but defense does not imply, include, require uncritical allegiance. The Panthers after all have a history, a history of their rise and fall, and that history is material, based on the interaction of their organization with the larger determinants of capitalist exploitation. So arguing that Fred Hampton, had he survived, would have built a cross-color, class-conscious organization is just not supported by that history; not by the history of the Panthers' own internal organization and its ideological expressions, and not by what followed after Fred Hampton-- if Fred Hampton was in fact capable of executing that tremendous shift in, of, and with the Panthers, then somebody else also in the Panthers, a whole bunch of somebody elses would have been able to articulate, organized, express just that same shift after Hampton's death. We are talking about, first, foremost and last, SOCIAL forces, not individual personalities. I don't think the problem was with the Panthers' reliance on guns-- I think the expression of the problem was the Panthers' attempting to monopolize the notion of armed self-defense, claim it as their property, the hallmark of a "vanguard," and then utilize the ideology of armed self-defense separated and apart from class-conscious struggles. Armed self-defense has a long, and noble, tradition among African-Americans in the US particularly as an adjunct to political, economic, social struggle after the Civil War when the demolition of Reconstruction was undertaken in the South. Mao said political power grows out of the barrel of a gun? Chalk that up to one more thing where Maoism tails after the bourgeoisie, and pre-bourgeoisie; chalk that up to one more example of commodity fetishism existing right in the core of the Chinese Revolution. I mean somebody said way before Mao "War is the continuation of politics by other means" or something like that, right? So what? Any political power can get guns. What counts is the class and the class consciousness the utilizes guns for their use value, and does not fetishize them as an independent social power. Is it realistic to argue that the Panthers' turn towards black capitalism, lumpen, and progressive Democrats was solely the result of government repression, infiltration, etc.? If that's the case, and the Panthers' own organization, ideology, had nothing to do with it... how is any revolutionary organization going to defeat government repression, infiltration? Somewhere along the line, real history has to be apprehended, criticized, captured so we can maybe avoid repeating the same old same old one more same old time. ----- Original Message ----- From: From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Nov 8 11:46:20 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 13:46:20 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Goodman Sachs: we're doing God's work References: <227478.36068.qm@web26308.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Well, if the banks are serving a social purpose, let's let the market reward them, rather than the evil government bail them out. If they're doing god's work, let god reward them in the great by and by after we dispatch them from this planet. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ben Ben" > > "The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which has attracted widespread > media attention over the size of its staff bonuses, believes banks serve a > social purpose and are doing "God's work."" > > full: > http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20091108/tts-uk-goldmansachs-blankfein-ca02f96.html > > From lnp3 at panix.com Sun Nov 8 11:52:15 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:52:15 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> S. Artesian wrote: > Somewhere along the line, real history has to be apprehended, criticized, > captured so we can maybe avoid repeating the same old same old one more same > old time. Exactly. We all hail Che Guevara as an exemplary revolutionary, but the Bolivian mission was doomed from the start since it was based on a fetishization of the foco. We give enormous credit to Allende for dying with a machine gun in his hand defending the Popular Front but politically he helped create the conditions in which Pinochet came to power. We read and reread Trotsky's writings but understand (at least some of us anyhow) that the Fourth International was a sectarian mistake. Revolutionary politics has to avoid nostalgia at all costs or to put it in the words of Karl Marx, we need the ruthless criticism of everything that exists including our own history. The bourgeoisie has the guns and the money, but we rely on our class analysis which can serve as a scalpel in struggle. But clutching to one outmoded idea or another only serves to thwart our ultimate goal. From biastg at embarqmail.com Sun Nov 8 12:14:28 2009 From: biastg at embarqmail.com (Thomas Bias) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 14:14:28 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party In-Reply-To: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> References: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> Message-ID: <000301ca60a7$b1e28da0$15a7a8e0$@com> Louis, I can understand why from this vantage-point one can consider the founding of the Fourth International a "sectarian mistake." However, at the time that Trotsky proposed it, Stalinism was not only a mass movement in the working class throughout the world, it was capable of any kind of crime imaginable. The Spanish Civil War, for example, was in progress at the time that the F.I. was being organized and was at the center of political debate. It always struck me as a new recruit to the YSA in 1969 how much energy the older generation used to denounce Stalinism and educate us on its crimes. The Fourth International was launched to combat Stalinism and social democracy in the working class, with the belief that without doing so socialist revolution was not possible. We are living in a different world today. The Soviet Union is no more, and its bureaucracy has gone over to building a capitalist (with no modifier) state. The Stalinists in the U.S. and Europe are now playing the role that social democrats once played. Significant sections of the social democrats, at least in the U.S. and U.K., have gone completely over to the right (remember, the older neocons were social democrats in the earlier years). It's possible, indeed likely, that the original purpose of the Fourth International is no longer relevant. That does not necessarily mean that the decision to launch it was a "sectarian mistake." The test of practice has not been kind to any tendency of the socialist movement, and it has caused some former comrades (Les Evans, for example) to reject socialism entirely. We have to concentrate on the present-day reality. I don't believe in judging what our comrades did in the 1930s through the prism of political reality today. I think they made the best judgment that they could have made in the conditions of their time. But let's not spend a lot of energy and time on it. I was in Washington yesterday at a very small but important antiwar demonstration that was about 75% African-American, organized by the Black is Back Coalition. This is a politically uneven group, but the work they have started is vital. Let's put our energy into making political movements like this one successful. Tom -----Original Message----- From: marxism-bounces+biastg=embarqmail.com at lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-bounces+biastg=embarqmail.com at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis Proyect Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 1:52 PM To: Thomas Bias Subject: Re: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party S. Artesian wrote: > Somewhere along the line, real history has to be apprehended, criticized, > captured so we can maybe avoid repeating the same old same old one more same > old time. Exactly. We all hail Che Guevara as an exemplary revolutionary, but the Bolivian mission was doomed from the start since it was based on a fetishization of the foco. We give enormous credit to Allende for dying with a machine gun in his hand defending the Popular Front but politically he helped create the conditions in which Pinochet came to power. We read and reread Trotsky's writings but understand (at least some of us anyhow) that the Fourth International was a sectarian mistake. Revolutionary politics has to avoid nostalgia at all costs or to put it in the words of Karl Marx, we need the ruthless criticism of everything that exists including our own history. The bourgeoisie has the guns and the money, but we rely on our class analysis which can serve as a scalpel in struggle. But clutching to one outmoded idea or another only serves to thwart our ultimate goal. ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/biastg%40embarqmail.com From shmage at pipeline.com Sun Nov 8 12:40:50 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 14:40:50 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Goodman Sachs: we're doing God's work In-Reply-To: <227478.36068.qm@web26308.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <227478.36068.qm@web26308.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5AB0B1D9-EB75-4D56-B1C3-10B59B841162@pipeline.com> On Nov 8, 2009, at 1:22 PM, Ben Ben wrote: > ** As I recall, the money changers were briskly sent packing rather > than rewarded for kick starting the economy of Judea... Not exactly. The messianists objected to their accepting Roman coins (bearing the graven image of the deified Augustus) in exchange for Hebrew ones (ritually required for the purchase of sacrificial animals and birds) *inside* the Temple precinct. It was a preliminary purification, an adumbration of the Temple's destruction and rebuilding promised by the pretender to the throne of David. Shane Mage > This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it > always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, > kindling in measures and going out in measures." > > Herakleitos of Ephesos From lnp3 at panix.com Sun Nov 8 12:41:11 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:41:11 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party In-Reply-To: <000301ca60a7$b1e28da0$15a7a8e0$@com> References: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> <000301ca60a7$b1e28da0$15a7a8e0$@com> Message-ID: <4AF71ED7.7080201@panix.com> Thomas Bias wrote: > > We have to concentrate on the present-day reality. I don't believe in > judging what our comrades did in the 1930s through the prism of political > reality today. > Exactly. Trotsky was doing the only thing that he was capable of doing back then, but we have no such constraints today. Speaking of constraints, I would urge comrades once again to not do what Tom just did, namely to include my entire post in his reply. Here is a procedure that I would like everybody to print out and tape to their computer: How to reply to a Marxmail message 1. Select reply in your email program. 2. Type in your response. 3. Before selecting send from your email program, review your reply from beginning to end. This is done by pressing the keys on your keyboard that look like this respectively: /|\, \|/ or "page up" and "page down" if you are cursed to use a Wintel computer. Alternatively, you can go from top to bottom with something called a mouse that ordinarily comes with your computer. This is an object about the size of a potato that has either one, two or three buttons that come in handy launching programs, etc. 4. If you find any extraneous text in your reply, please clip it before pressing send. Here is how one dictionary defines "extraneous": "not forming an essential or vital part b : having no relevance " Here is a good example of extraneous text. If I wrote a 2000 word article on why the Fourth International was a doomed venture that you disagreed with, you should write your reply without including my entire article. A paragraph from the beginning should suffice. Here is the main reason that Les and I want you to do this. It bothers us to no end to see such sloppy and lazy behavior from people intent on overthrowing the capitalist system. Plus, we are neat freaks and anal compulsive so please humor us lest we have to put you on moderation From meisner at xs4all.nl Sun Nov 8 13:02:22 2009 From: meisner at xs4all.nl (Jeff) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:02:22 +0100 Subject: [Marxism] Black antiwar demo?! In-Reply-To: <000301ca60a7$b1e28da0$15a7a8e0$@com> References: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20091108210222.04932b2c@pop.xs4all.nl> At 14:14 08/11/09 -0500, Thomas Bias wrote: > > I was in Washington yesterday at a very small but important >antiwar demonstration that was about 75% African-American, organized by the >Black is Back Coalition. Could you possibly write a few more words about that demo and the forces behind it? I was very surprised last night to have heard a brief report on Dutch (mainstream!) radio news about an "anti-imperialist" demonstration of American blacks dissatisfied with Obama, but could hardly believe it! Now that you confirmed it, I searched on the web to find the following story by AFP, but perhaps you could expand on it. Once again I was disappointed that its planning hadn't been mentioned on this list (or did I miss it?) while there is no lack of commentary on what the BPP did wrong 40 years ago. Which I find important and interesting, but I would hope that current developments are followed with equal seriousness, rather than waiting 40 years to complain about everything that should have been done differently. - Jeff ------------------------------------------------------ African-Americans slam Obama in White House protest (AFP) ? 20 hours ago WASHINGTON ? Decrying Barack Obama as "white power in black face," hundreds of African-Americans marched on the White House Saturday to protest policies of the first black US president, and demand that he bring US troops home. More than 200 people gathered for the first public demonstration by African Americans against the Obama administration since his historic inauguration in January, and slammed the president for continuing what they described as Washington's "imperialist" agenda around the world. "We recognize that Barack Hussein Obama is white power in black face," civil rights activist Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black is Back coalition which arranged the protest, called into a megaphone as the group marched outside the mansion's gates. "He is a tool of our imperialist enemies and we demand our freedom. And we demand that Obama withdraw all the troops from Afghanistan right now." Protesters also called for Obama to order troops out of Iraq and to scrap Africom, the controversial year-old United States Africa Command, and demanded "hands off" Venezuela and ends to the Cuba embargo and the Zimbabwe blockade. Several demonstrators held up placards bearing messages such as "US out of Afghanistan" and "Stop US war against Iraq." Charles Baron, a New York city councilman and former member of the Black Panthers, a Black Power movement in the mid-1960s and 1970s, attacked the president for turning a cold shoulder to the plight of African-Americans. "We're not satisfied with him, and... this hope and change rap has not been a reality for black people," Baron told AFP during the demonstration. "We are glad that Barack Obama broke up the white male monopoly on the White House, but we were not looking for a change in the occupant of the White House from white to black, we were looking for change in foreign policies and domestic policies," he added. "To have a black person exploiting me just like a white person, that's no easier pain." The group also was calling for the release of former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in 1982 of killing a white police officer and sentenced to death. The US Supreme Court upheld Abu-Jamal's conviction in April and rejected his bid for a new trial. Black Americans voted overwhelmingly for Democrat Obama in last year's election, when he defeated Republican Senator John McCain. About 13 percent of US citizens are African-Americans. From markalause at gmail.com Sun Nov 8 13:17:54 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 15:17:54 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Black antiwar demo?! In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.20091108210222.04932b2c@pop.xs4all.nl> References: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> <000301ca60a7$b1e28da0$15a7a8e0$@com> <3.0.3.32.20091108210222.04932b2c@pop.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: Interesting article. Particularly, the bits on the "hundreds of African-Americans" or "more than 200 people." Even a moderately serious effort at organization should have been able to get a little beyond the old "small but spirited" category.... ML From ecosocialism at gmail.com Sun Nov 8 13:23:38 2009 From: ecosocialism at gmail.com (Ian Angus) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 15:23:38 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] New at Climate and Capitalism - Nov 8/09 Message-ID: <733b65360911081223m72af4150w5a6ff821a81adc62@mail.gmail.com> CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM An online journal focusing on capitalism, climate change, and the ecosocialist alternative. What's new at http://climateandcapitalism.com November 8, 2009 UPDATE ON ?THE GLOBAL FIGHT FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE? http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1255 Canada?s leading publisher and distributor of progressive books will publish a North American edition of The Global Fight for Climate Justice. ECOSOCIALIST ROUND-UP, 2 http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1252 Kate Evans posts a hard-hitting comic book about carbon trading; William Bowles takes a new look at William Morris; Permaculture expert Robyn Francis on what we can learn from Cuba?s ecological footprint. CLIMATE TALKS ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1249 David Spratt, co-author of Climate Code Red: The Case for Emergency Action, on why the major powers are sabotaging negotiations for a climate treaty. From shmage at pipeline.com Sun Nov 8 13:39:57 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 15:39:57 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Goodman Sachs: we're doing God's work In-Reply-To: <5AB0B1D9-EB75-4D56-B1C3-10B59B841162@pipeline.com> References: <227478.36068.qm@web26308.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <5AB0B1D9-EB75-4D56-B1C3-10B59B841162@pipeline.com> Message-ID: <4CD207D9-C7CD-459C-9FCE-D6E6AB74311B@pipeline.com> On Nov 8, 2009, at 2:40 PM, Shane Mage wrote: > On Nov 8, 2009, at 1:22 PM, Ben Ben wrote: >> ** As I recall, the money changers were briskly sent packing rather >> than rewarded for kick starting the economy of Judea... > > Not exactly. The messianists objected to their accepting Roman coins > (bearing the graven image of the deified Augustus) in exchange for > Hebrew ones (ritually required for the purchase of sacrificial animals > and birds) *inside* the Temple precinct. It was a preliminary > purification, an adumbration of the Temple's destruction and > rebuilding promised by the pretender to the throne of David. > I might have added that it was above all a deliberate provocation designed to force the Herodians into a confrontation with his armed messianists at Gethsemane, which as we all know ended so disastrously. > Shane Mage > >> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it >> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, >> kindling in measures and going out in measures." >> >> Herakleitos of Ephesos From christopher.hutch at gmail.com Sun Nov 8 13:44:31 2009 From: christopher.hutch at gmail.com (Christopher Hutchinson) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 15:44:31 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Black antiwar demo?! In-Reply-To: References: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> <000301ca60a7$b1e28da0$15a7a8e0$@com> <3.0.3.32.20091108210222.04932b2c@pop.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: I was there yesterday and I thought it was significant stepforward. Look the reality is was it is... regional antiwar marches get 1000 people and the Black is Back march and rally had between 200 and 300 people. For the first time I was able to really meet, build and politik with a significant number of black radicals and socialists that I have never met. There were also young students who for them this was a new experiance and were able to step off the sidelines of history and start making it. I also thought the speakers were fantastic from Nellie Bailey and Larry Hamm to Pam Africa all made great points that highlighted the need for a continued resistance to the Obama administration. I think there was a serious effort to organize this march and I would like to say that the African Peoples Socialist Party comrades did an excellent job organizing for this event. I will definitely look forward to working with all the serious brothers and sisters who made this rally and march possible. Uhuru! Christopher On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 3:17 PM, Mark Lause wrote: > Interesting article. Particularly, the bits on the "hundreds of > African-Americans" or "more than 200 people." Even a moderately serious > effort at organization should have been able to get a little beyond the old > "small but spirited" category.... > > ML > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/christopher.hutch%40gmail.com > From marvgandall at videotron.ca Sun Nov 8 14:58:38 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:58:38 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party References: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> <000301ca60a7$b1e28da0$15a7a8e0$@com> Message-ID: Thomas Bias writes: > The Fourth International was launched to combat Stalinism and social > democracy in the working class, with the belief that without doing so > socialist revolution was not possible. ==================================== It's a little more complicated than that. The Trotskyists had been combatting social democracy and Stalinism within the international working class for more than a decade prior to the formation of the Fourth International, but as open or closed factions within these parties and the organizations they controlled. They chose not to pronounce themselves an independent party under their own banner because they understood they did not have the forces to warrant that status and that appeals to the working class to consider their small band as an alternative to the CP's and SP's would be met with derision, further contributing to their isolation. However, when it became clear that they could not reform these parties from within, they decided in 1938 to proclaim the Fourth International, justifying the decision mostly on the basis of future expectations - that the coming world war was certain to produce the conditions for the triumph of the infant international "party" over both capitalism and Stalinism. As the FI's founding document put it: "At the beginning of the war the sections of the Fourth International will inevitably feel themselves isolated...However, the devastation and misery brought about by the new war, which in the first months will far outstrip the bloody horrors of 1914-18 will quickly prove sobering. The discontents of the masses and their revolt will grow by leaps and bounds. The sections of the Fourth International will be found at the head of the revolutionary tide. The program of transitional demands will gain burning actuality. The problem of the conquest of power by the proletariat will loom in full stature." (The death agony of capitalism and the tasks of the Fourth International" http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/tp-text.htm#op) Trotsky was even more emphatic at an SWP meeting to celebrate the founding of the FI. "During the next ten years", he forecast, "the program of the Fourth International will become the guide of millions and these revolutionary millions will know how to storm earth and heaven." ("On the Founding of the Fourth International" http://www.marx.org/archive/trotsky/1938/10/foundfi.htm) That he well understood the contingent basis for the formation of the new party was evident in his remarks a year later, at the outbreak of WWII in September, 1939, and less than a year before his assassination in Mexico, when he ruminated on "the present war and the fate of modern society": "By the very march of events this question is now posed very concretely. The second world war has begun. It attests incontrovertibly to the fact that society can no longer live on the basis of capitalism. Thereby it subjects the proletariat to a new and perhaps decisive test. "If this war provokes, as we firmly believe, a proletarian revolution, it must inevitably lead to the overthrow of the bureaucracy in the USSR and regeneration of Soviet democracy on a far higher economic and cultural basis than in 1918...If, however, it is conceded that the present war will provoke not revolution but a decline of the proletariat, then there remains another alternative: the further decay of monopoly capitalism, its further fusion with the state and the replacement of democracy wherever it still remained by a totalitarian regime..An analogous result might occur in the event that the proletariat of advanced capitalist countries, having conquered power, should prove incapable of holding it and surrender it, as in the USSR, to a privileged bureaucracy. Then we would be compelled to acknowledge that the reason for the bureaucratic relapse is rooted not in the backwardness of the country and not in the imperialist environment but in the congenital incapacity of the proletariat to become a ruling class. Then it would be necessary in retrospect to establish that in its fundamental traits the present USSR was the precursor of a new exploiting r?gime on an international scale. "...The historic alternative, carried to the end, is as follows: either the Stalin r?gime is an abhorrent relapse in the process of transforming bourgeois society into a socialist society, or the Stalin r?gime is the first stage of a new exploiting society. If the second prognosis proves to be correct, then, of course, the bureaucracy will become a new exploiting class. However onerous the second perspective may be, if the world proletariat should actually prove incapable of fulfilling the mission placed upon it by the course of development, nothing else would remain except openly to recognize that the socialist program based on the internal contradictions of capitalist society, ended as a Utopia." ("The USSR in War" http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/09/ussr-war.htm) We'll never know whether and how Trotsky might have revised his shattered perspectives and the tiny movement's pretense of being an international party (or thinly-disguised versions of same) had he lived to see the outcome of the war, but his followers chose to ignore the faulty premises which had given birth to the FI and in their various rising and falling incarnations have all largely operated as on the margins of political life ever since. From biastg at embarqmail.com Sun Nov 8 15:02:39 2009 From: biastg at embarqmail.com (Thomas Bias) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 17:02:39 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Black antiwar demo?! In-Reply-To: References: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> <000301ca60a7$b1e28da0$15a7a8e0$@com> <3.0.3.32.20091108210222.04932b2c@pop.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <004501ca60bf$30731970$91594c50$@com> Hutch: I quite agree! Larry Hamm is someone I have worked with very well in the past and look forward to working with in future. His organization, the People's Organization for Progress, is still reeling from the loss of its vice chairwoman Vickie White, who in many ways was the organizing backbone of the group. She died this summer of deep-vein thrombosis at the age of 46, and we are all still grieving. I thought Cindy Sheehan gave a great speech, too. I do think there are organizational details that the coalition could have done a lot better, not the least of which is a lot more lead time. But these are the things which can be learned by experience and discussion with experienced people. Most of the POP members who were there are people whom I know, and I discussed with a number of them the idea of reviving the NJ Peace and Justice Coalition, which brought together the suburban-based peace committees and the Black community organizations, along with NOW and the Industrial Union Council (the NJ CIO) to organize the August 25, 2007, demonstration in Newark. No one disagrees. Tom From darrel.furlotte at gmail.com Sun Nov 8 18:18:29 2009 From: darrel.furlotte at gmail.com (Darrel Furlotte) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 20:18:29 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] =?iso-8859-1?q?Ch=E1vez_calls_on_Venezuelans_=22to_prep?= =?iso-8859-1?q?are_themselves_for_war=22?= Message-ID: <5AE442E1FA144EE99CC533E285A70C9F@DarrelPC> I'm forwarding this on from Phil. ...Darrel Folx This "last minute" news release appeared on the Pagina 12 website at 15:10 hours Buenos Aires time. It reports today's Venezuelan president Hugo Ch?vez's appeal to Venezuelan patriots "to prepare themselves for war," an attack from Colombia orchestrated and financed by Washington (a surrogate war). I don't think we should take Hugo Ch?vez's appeal as a "cry wolf" panic response to escalated provocations against Venezuela and by extension the whole ALBA process. There can be no doubt at this point that the agreement to turn over military bases in Colombia to the USA and the now evident, undeniable US support to the coup regime in Honduras are the spearhead of a new imperialist offensive against Latin America's struggle for unity and real independence from US domination. The principal and immediate target of this offensive is the ALBA alliance and the main governments that have lead it - Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Ecuador, with Venezuela in the front line because of the depth of the Bolivarian revolution and the specific economic weight of the country. That does not, however, dictate when and where the next blow will come. There is a continental alert now about maneuvers in Paraguay to mount a coup against the Lugo presidency. This was picked up on Saturday by the prominent Chilean Senator, Alejandro Navarro. He urged Latin American's to be "on the alert" for possible coups in the region, and in particular for the situation in Paraguay. In an interview with TeleSUR, the Senator said that the "situation in Paraguay must be monitored, we have to be attentive. President (Fernando) Lugo has made important changes that could lead to a coup, and stated that "Latin America and its institutions must be on top of what is happening there." Senator Navarro compared the Paraguayan scenario with that of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Honduras, countries that have been victims of interference and sabotage ol projects under construction, and said that "there is a wave of counterrevolution against political and social projects" in Latin America. To the senator's list of targeted countries we should add both Nicaragua and Venezuela, and also Cuba now faced by Obama's decision to uphold the trade embargo and stiffen its impact. In Nicaragua efforts to destabilize the government have escalated, especially since the coup in Honduras. The so called "democratic opposition" (read "oligarchic and proimperialist" opposition) is silent about the military coup in our neighboring country, and even the self-proclaimed Sandinista Recovery Movement (MRPS) - led by Comandantes Henry Ruiz and Monica Baltodano - can do no better than appeal to Arnoldo Aleman's PLC (Constitutional Liberal Party) to make common cause with them to oust the Ortega government, or at least to prevent its re-election in 2011. The political gulf and divide in Nicaragua is really between economic and social forces who prefer to go with the USA and live off its droppings, and those who want to go the road of sovereignty, real independence, and economic collaboration with Latin American and Caribbean countries, especially in the frameork of the ALBA alliance. This is an objective process, impacting on all political parties and organizations, regardless of their professed aims. There is no middle road in the country, and the choice is between the oligarchy allied with Washington, and the Sandinista project, allied with ALBA and the Latin American unity movement. Getting back to Ch?vez's war alert, I think it is important that we take seriously his appeal and the words of our Chilean brother quoted above. More than ever solidarity must be approached in its broader Latin American and ALBA framework, and not restricted to a country-by-country approach. Our enemies in Washington don't analyze their strategies country-by-country, but regionally and globally, and then act locally blow by blow. Felipe Stuart Managua ========================>>> article follows below, in Spanish >>> 15:10 > "VENEZUELA NO VA A SER JAMAS UNA COLONIA YANQUI" http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/ultimas/20-134931-2009-11-08.html Ch?vez llam? a "prepararse para la guerra" El presidente venezolano record? a los responsables militares que deben prepararse "para la guerra" e inst? a los ciudadanos a "defender la patria" ante futuras agresiones armadas que advirti? podr?an ser orquestadas por Estados Unidos desde suelo colombiano. Ch?vez advirti? a Obama que "no se vaya a equivocar y vaya a ordenar usted una agresi?n abierta contra Venezuela usando a Colombia, porque nosotros estamos dispuestos a todo". "No perdamos un d?a en nuestra principal misi?n: Prepararnos para la guerra y ayudar al pueblo a prepararse para la guerra, porque es responsabilidad de todos", dijo Ch?vez durante su programa semanal de radio y televisi?n "Al? Presidente". "Se?or comandante de la guarnici?n militar, batallones de milicia, vamos a adiestrarnos. Estudiantes revolucionarios, trabajadores, mujeres: todos listos para defender esta patria sagrada que se llama Venezuela", agreg?. Ch?vez, critic? una vez m?s el acuerdo militar firmado en estos d?as entre Estados Unidos y Colombia e inst? a su par estadounidense Barack Obama a no caer en la tentaci?n de una agresi?n contra Venezuela. "Se?or presidente Obama, no se vaya a equivocar y vaya a ordenar usted una agresi?n abierta contra Venezuela usando a Colombia (...) Porque nosotros estamos dispuestos a todo, Venezuela no va a ser nunca jam?s una colonia yanqui ni colonia de nadie", asegur?. Estados Unidos podr? usar de forma controlada siete bases militares colombianas en virtud del acuerdo firmado en estos d?as que, seg?n Ch?vez, es una amenaza para toda la regi?n. El gobierno colombiano "se transfiri? ahora a Estados Unidos. Ya no est? en Bogot?, ahora est? en Estados Unidos. Eso hay que saberlo. Lamentablemente es as? (...) El gobierno y la oligarqu?a colombiana ahora se quitaron las m?scaras", denunci?. Seg?n Ch?vez, a partir de ahora, "los militares yanquis podr?n andar en Colombia a sus anchas" como si se tratara "de un estado de la uni?n". "Los dos gobiernos se han unido para tratar de mentirle al mundo (...). Esto es la entrega de un pa?s", insisti? el mandatario. Ch?vez congel? sus relaciones con Colombia a finales de julio debido a este acuerdo militar entre Bogot? y Washington. Desde entonces, el comercio bilateral se ha desplomado y la tensi?n ha ido en aumento, sobre todo en la regi?n de frontera. From sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com Sun Nov 8 20:20:29 2009 From: sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com (sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:20:29 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Book on Fred Hampton Message-ID: <20091109032029.5A75C11803D@smtp.hushmail.com> Louis wrote: >... by 1970 all the Trotskyist youth had become >fed up with the Panthers... with their Maoist >"serve the people" crap, ...with their braggadocio, >...sexism (and) ... their tendency to declare >people counter-revolutionary at the drop >of a hat. > > Apart from a commitment to serve the people, this description of the Black Panther Party sounds depressingly similar to quite a few other groups. One wonders why Trotskyist youth were so tolerant of their own leadership in the era of Jack Barnes, industrial concentration, and mass purges. From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Nov 8 20:52:13 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 22:52:13 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party References: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> Message-ID: <3439454EA2B54BE68BC7B81F680D4BE8@dmsthinkpad> Anthony has provided a very thoughtful and insightful examination of the historical background to the Panthers organization, and the impact of that organization during that period. The "list" as a list would be remiss in not recognizing Anthony's contribution. Anthony's presentation points out why the Panthers concentrated on community rather than traditional class issues, and perhaps even the Panthers "celebration" of the "lumpen," which I think-- and thanks to Melyn-- really is a mis-identification of the unemployed portion of the proletariat as lumpen. The apprehension of the real history of the Panthers, the critical analysis of the Panthers, includes an apprehension of the necessity to engage, and engage with, the Panthers on "thematic," tactical and even strategic issues during that period. Tom Cod, with whom I often disagree, is correct in regard to this-- not engaging with the Panthers, like not engaging in actions of mutual support with those at the Democratic Convention in 1968 was a mistake as great as the mistakes made by the Panthers and/or those at the convention in 1968. What the Panthers always lacked, missed, in their analysis of US capitalism, in their program for revolution, for the emancipation of black Americans, was that the source of that emancipation was necessarily bound up in the reason, cause, historical determinants of their oppression-- that is to say the need for black labor, and black labor not on an individual basis, but black labor on a collective social basis. At its very best, the period of Radical Reconstruction after the Civil War, the Northern radical capitalists never could realize the essential social role of black labor, imagining instead at best a black peasantry, a black yeoman farm culture, when no such culture existed in the South, and no such culture, economic organization could be created in the South --given the material demands of manufacturing in the North, in Britain, and in Europe, --given the fact that the Civil War proclaimed the impossibility of peasant production, of "subsistence plus" production, and the beginning of the end for yeoman farming. So Reconstruction is undermined almost from its inception, not just by the reconstitution of the plantation and the Southern white power, but the reconstitution of the plantation under the aegis of "modernizing" capitalism. By the recession of 1873, the fate of Reconstruction is signed, sealed, delivered. But at every point since then, the emancipation of African-Americans is the emancipation of black labor. And I think this what the Panthers failed to embrace. Anyway, thanks to Melvyn for sharing his thoughts with me and making me review mine. From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Nov 8 21:04:38 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 23:04:38 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Marooned on Sea of Iraqi Oil, but Unable to Tap Its Wealth Message-ID: <2ED0B2A4757F4B7584522EF75C260E92@dmsthinkpad> And there will more marooned in more oil. Friday's Wall Street Journal, that a consortium led by Exxon, including Shell, won the contract to develop Iraq's West Qurna 1 field. The contract is a 20 year service agreement, with payment based on increasing the output of the field, currently at 260,000 barrels a day. Exxon estimates that it can boost production fairly easily and rapidly to 2.3 million (yep, million) barrels a day. How confident is Exxon. Enough to put its money where its mouth is-- reducing its demand for incentive payments from $4 per barrel to $1.90 a barrel-- yes those are the real numbers-- Exxon knows it can make a profit producing that oil for a meager payment of $1.90 a barrel. Hats off to Exxon for renewing my faith in the extraction of relative surplus value, and the reciprocating/inverse relation between mass and rate of profit. Of course, the International Energy Agency is revising downward its estimates for the increase in oil consumption over the next 10 years, but capitalism would be nothing without overproduction. From markalause at gmail.com Sun Nov 8 21:07:44 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 23:07:44 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party In-Reply-To: <3439454EA2B54BE68BC7B81F680D4BE8@dmsthinkpad> References: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> <3439454EA2B54BE68BC7B81F680D4BE8@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: To establish anything vital and more permanent, the radicalization of the 1960s had to expand beyond the campus in a more organized fashion and to to do so with a strategic emphasis on the struggles coming out of the black and hispanic communities. The emergence of the Panthers demonstrated that there was an objective basis for such a possibility. In hindsight, its political trajectory, foreshadowed the course of that entire radicalization. The reason this discussion over the Panthers is so sharp is because they were so important. The sharpness of the criticism is a reflection of our regret that that imporance had not been expressed in a more positive fashion.... ML From anthony.boynton at gmail.com Sun Nov 8 21:40:24 2009 From: anthony.boynton at gmail.com (Anthony Boynton) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 23:40:24 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Criticism of the past Message-ID: <7b8a676d0911082040q13e4669ftae1381769cfa266a@mail.gmail.com> I don't have much time for this list these days, but want to make one more comment on the Panthers and the failure of the SWP and CP to provide the leadership they could have and should have in the 1960's. It is not nostaligia, Louis, to explain what happened. The fact that young revolutionaries died because they had no leadership from those who were more experienced, and who had a moral obligation to try to lead the struggle is an important lesson for the future generations. The new left that we hope will arise in the USA is very, very unlikely to receive any practical leadership from the old left. They are likely to repeat the mistakes of the BPP, and make a lot of new ones. Old timers like us will never connect to the new revolutionary generation if we do not show respect for the dead youth of the past. That's not nostaligia, that's just the ABCs. Anthony From nitin.kumar56 at gmail.com Sun Nov 8 21:40:44 2009 From: nitin.kumar56 at gmail.com (Nitin kumar) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 10:10:44 +0530 Subject: [Marxism] What is happening in India Message-ID: Have a look what is hapenning in India. The media is not covering anything. Therefore blogs. Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition n Marxist tradition -- Nitin Kumar Civil Engineering. IIT Bombay From sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com Sun Nov 8 21:41:09 2009 From: sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com (sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:41:09 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] In Defense of the Black Panther Party Message-ID: <20091109044109.6C8302803F@smtp.hushmail.com> Artesian wrote: >Mao said political power grows out of the >barrel of a gun? Chalk that up to one more >thing where Maoism tails after the bourgeoisie... >I mean somebody said way before Mao >"War is the continuation of politics by >other means" or something like that, right? >So what? ... I am so glad Artesian has read "Vom Krieg" as it is a work well worth studying. The best English translation is by Michael Howard and Peter Paret published by Princeton. The index is useless but someone else has actually compiled a better one and posted it here: As long as we're talking about the intersection of guns and politics, actually reading the source documents of the Chinese revolution also has merit. Mao was well aware of of Clausewitz and quoted him in "On Protracted War" written in 1938. As to the phrase about political power growing out of the barrel of a gun, it was written later that same year in "Problems on War and Strategy." That simple formulation equating political power and armed struggle derives from two sources. Mao believed that there was no real parliamentary road to socialism and that the specific conditions of China required the Communist Party to have its own army. "Without armed struggle neither the proletariat, nor the people, nor the Communist Party would have any standing at all in China and it would be impossible for the revolution to triumph." from "Introducing The Communist" (October 4, 1939). The Black Panther party also embarked on creating a "politics of arms" which served brilliantly as a form of political theater but which had no chance to survive a confrontion with the forces of repression. I liked the term Louis used, "armed narodniks" except that the narodniks were by and large earnest members of the middle classes trying to convert the peasantry in the same way the earnest young militants of the SWP were sent into factories. Whatever the faults of the Panthers, they were not missionaries. From darrel.furlotte at gmail.com Sun Nov 8 21:59:52 2009 From: darrel.furlotte at gmail.com (Darrel Furlotte) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 23:59:52 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] "A 'no' heard round the world": US Ford workers defy union leadership: Message-ID: <381FE2E57209482388A796FE65776457@DarrelPC> "A 'no' heard round the world": US Ford workers defy union leadership: www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/11/07/no-heard-round-world-us-ford-workers-defy-union-leaders By November 1, United Auto Workers (UAW) members at Ford had overwhelmingly rejected contract modifications, in voting that concluded - not coincidentally - the day before Ford announced new profits. This was the second set of modifications to the UAW-Ford contract proposed this year. The first were voted up in March, but the members saw these as a "giveback too far." The concessions just voted down were to last until 2015, i.e. through the new contract still to be negotiated for 2011. They included severe limitations on the right to strike, a six-year freeze on new-hire pay that had already been cut in half, and the reduction of skilled trades classifications. The argument of the company and the union leadership was that these measures were needed to "match" the labor cost savings at the bankrupt Chrysler and General Motors corporations. At half pay, young auto workers will not be able to buy the cars they build. With the average nonunion industrial pay in the United States substantially higher than the $14.50 that Ford new-hires currently get, what does Ford-let alone the UAW-think it's doing? Anyone who has been subject to the discipline needed in a modern auto assembly plant knows that - short of fascism - you can't effectively run one here for this kind of pay. The top goal of this savage pay cut is not so much immediate savings as the extermination of the UAW as a respected force on the shop floor as well as politically. Ford will raise pay later, but hopes to dictate its own terms. Solidarity House argued for the attempt to put Ford workers in line with those at bankrupt GM and Chrysler by appealing to the downward "pattern" that now includes non-union transplant companies. As many workers said during the campaign, "Bring them up to us, not us down to them." The most prominent sentiment on the shop floor and around local halls was that we must vote "no" in order to hold on to the right to strike over wage raises in next year's contract negotiations. Ford and the UAW bureaucracy countered that the union has not struck Ford since 1976. Members replied, "If it's not that important, then why do they want to take it away from us?" There was no good answer to that. Anger was very palpable during voting at union halls around the country. At UAW 600, local staff backed off as a line of Truck Plant voters hissed at them that they would take only Vote No leaflets. The coming result of the vote was clear from the early count, ending in a 70% No vote among production workers and 75% No among skilled trades, for an overall 72% No vote, according to a letter to the membership from Vice President for UAW-Ford, Bob King. (UAW Solidarity House has released only percentages, not a national count. Only an internal union appeal extracted a count in 2005.) During the Vote No campaign, the national union leadership lost political control of the most important Ford plant in the US if not the world, the Dearborn Truck Plant, one of the plants in UAW Local 600. Full-time Truck Plant bargaining committeeperson Gary Walkowicz, who has long been a national leader against concessions at Ford, plant president Nick Kottalis, and five other Dearborn Truck Plant union officers came out with a signed statement against these concessions during the campaign. The Truck Plant makes the F-150 pickup truck and a huge proportion of Ford profits. Members there voted No by 93%. Skilled trades worker Judy Wraight was one of the authors of the Local 600-wide "vote no" leaflet quoted below. Across all Local 600 Ford plants, the vote was No 3087, Yes 823. The new faultline in the Ford empire should be an inspiration to workers everywhere. A Ford executive responding to the vote in Kansas City - earlier and virtually equal to that in the Truck Plant - said he was "shocked." And perhaps Ford workers have somewhat alarmed the U.S. ruling class as a whole. The national contract rejection sprang from factors ranging from a sense that Ford had come back for concessions a time too many, to rebellion by lower-level union officers in touch with the rank and file, to a presence of radicals, including socialists, in some key plants. It is the first time a national auto contract was ever voted down by a majority of the membership! In the wake of the rejection vote, UAW president Ron Gettelfinger said there would be no more negotiations until 2011. But two days after the vote results were announced, Reuters reported: "Ford Motor Co. will continue meeting informally with United Auto Workers leaders to discuss labor issues following the rejection of concessions by U.S. rank-and-file workers, a top executive said..." Such talks are always said to be underway, but Ford was making a point by making this statement at this time: We're back at concessions bargaining the day after. An excerpt from a leaflet signed by 18 opponents of the concessions at UAW Local 600 UAW stated the following: "The strike threat defends our money, benefits, rights-and UAW political clout.Power in Washington starts with our power right here (for true national health insurance, converting closed plants to greener jobs and alternative transportation for auto and other workers, and defending the gains of civil rights movements, etc.). "International solidarity: CAW-Ford members like Lindsay Hinshelwood at Oakville (Ontario) assembly also organize against concessions. We need an independent Council of union reps and workers across borders, not Ford lobbying the International Metalworkers Federation Ford Network. Ford wants to lead the race to the bottom internationally." It remains to be seen whether unity against company attacks and rejection of timid union leadership can be converted into a sustained rank-and-file organization for action including strike mobilization, union democracy, and international solidarity. This could feed social movement unionism, helping to unite the working class and reverse the decades-long decline of the union movement in the United States. For activists at Ford, the way forward is upward but not yet entirely clear in its details. The vote was notably dependent on a "No" or neutral position taken by shop-floor officers who had supported all the concessions up to now. Some of these officers concluded during the campaign that they could not be re-elected if they supported the latest concessions at a company returning to profitability. What will those who followed the rank and file yesterday do tomorrow? Such questions will be prominent until union officers have to side more consistently with a rebellious rank and file. The 2010 UAW Convention delegate and other local elections, as well as the 2011 contract, are good opportunities. The UAW Convention next year is in Detroit. Despite efforts at international solidarity against union concessions at Ford, the Canadian version of these concessions has been adopted by vote of the Canadian Auto Workers union by 83%. Today international union solidarity is required for any comprehensive fight for jobs, pay and working conditions. (There is more coverage of this struggle at the rank-and-file labour movement publication Labor Notes and UAW rank-and-file group Soldiers of Solidarity.) Ron Lare is a retired member of UAW Local 600 and former executive board member. From cbcox at ilstu.edu Sun Nov 8 22:47:35 2009 From: cbcox at ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:47:35 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party References: Message-ID: <4AF7ACF7.489CC377@ilstu.edu> I haven't read more than a few sentences from a coup;le post on this, and I have no time now to give to it. I will toss out a couple flat statements. 1. Anyone who calls the Panthers ultra-left (a) doesn[t really understand the concepts of ultra-left and ultra-right (or left and right opportunism), and (b) probably is pretty ignorant of the actual practice of the Pdanthers. 2."The 60s" must be seen on the basis of a careful historical consideration of what were the real limits beyond which the collective left movement of the period could not surpass. Attempts to explain the period in terms of errors are really rather stupid. By 1969 or so all that could be achieved at that time had been achieved, though the corpse remained active for a few years until the defeat of ERA put a tombstone on its g rave. ......The Panthers represented the high point of that period, the furthest reach of its political practice. Doomed to fail, but a beacon for the future. 3. The failure of white leftists to defend the Panthers against the heavy repression of 1969-70 is the greatest blot on the whole period. Carrol From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Sun Nov 8 23:04:03 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:04:03 +1100 Subject: [Marxism] What's new at Links: Honduras, John Bellamy Foster, refugees, Lenin, Peru, Austria, land grab, ecosocialism, Nepal, carbon trading Message-ID: <4AF7B0D3.2030106@greenleft.org.au> What's new at Links: Honduras, John Bellamy Foster, refugees, Lenin, Peru, Austria, land grab, ecosocialism, Nepal, carbon trading * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to links at dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. * * * Honduras: Deal to restore Zelaya collapses under weight of US-coup regime's duplicity By *Stuart Munckton* November 8, 2009 -- The accord signed on October 30 to resolve the crisis that has brought Honduras to a standstill since the June 28 military coup has collapsed. The coup leader Roberto Micheletti has continued to refuse to accept the accord's insistence that elected President Manuel Zelaya be reinstated. * Read more John Bellamy Foster: `The roots of the world ecological crisis' October 29, 2009 -- "We have no other word but crisis to describe it, really. It's very different than the economic crisis that we are now in, in the sense that even a very, very severe economic crisis, such as the one that has been present since late 2007 ... still is, in many ways, a cyclical event... These crises are periodic -- it's part of the nature of capitalism... But what we are talking about as the world ecological crisis is another kind of crisis.'' * Read more Joint statement: Respect human rights -- free the refugees! Reject Australia's 'Indonesian solution'! Welcome the asylum seekers Joint statement by the *Australian Socialist Alliance*; *Socialist Party (Australia)*; *Socialist Party of Malaysia* *(PSM)*;* Network of the Oppressed People (JERIT)*, Malaysia; *CWI Malaysia*; *Confederation Congress of Indonesian Union Alliance (KASBI); **Working Peoples Association* *(PRP)*, Indonesia;* National Liberation Party of Unity (PAPERNAS)*, Indonesia; *Indonesian National Front for Labor Struggle (FNPBI)*; *Socialist Worker New Zealand, **Socialist Alternative* (Australia)*, Partido Lakas ng Masa*, Philippines, *Transform Asia*, *Labour Party Pakistan*, *Resistance* (Australia) and *Militan-Indonesia* * Read more Lenin's place in history By *Graham Milner* Lenin stands out as one of the unquestionably great personalities of 20th century history. Yet such has been the impact of this man on the course of history in this century that his life and ideas have often become the subject of either the most vicious distortion or the most abject and craven cult-worship. * Read more Peru: Government launches attack on Indigenous peoples' organisation Introduction and translation by *Kiraz Janicke* November 4, 2009 --The government of Peru has launched a massive attack on Indigenous peoples through a request to dissolve the *Amazon Interethnic Development Association of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP)*, Peru's largest and most representative Indigenous organisation. * Read more Austria: Students occupy universities; mass demonstrations and broad solidarity throughout the country / /By the *international press working group, Occupied University of Vienna *November 3, 2009 -- Throughout the last few years, studying conditions at Austrian universities have dramatically declined. The introduction of tuition fees, a massive cutback of democratic structures and lack of course availability are only some examples. Reasons can be found in the huge decline in university funding on the one hand and the introduction of the three-level "Bologna" system on the othe, resulting in the implementation of admission reductions and limits. On October 22, students' dissatisfaction turned into savage protest. * Read more Corporate investors lead rush for control of poor countries' farmland With all the talk about "food security," and distorted media statements like "South Korea leases half of Madagascar's land," it may not be evident to a lot of people that the lead actors in today's global land grab for overseas food production are not countries or governments but corporations. So much attention has been focused on the involvement of states, like Saudi Arabia, China or South Korea. But the reality is that while governments are facilitating the deals, private companies are the ones getting control of the land. And their interests are simply not the same as those of governments. * Read more Fourth International debates `ecosocialism' By *Michael L?wy** * October 10, 2009 -- Daniel Tanuro's report on climate change [Report on climate change at the IC of the Fourth International] is one of the most important documents produced by our movement in recent years. It is an invaluable contribution to the political arming of revolutionary Marxists and to making them capable of facing up to the challenges of the 21st century. * Read more Nepal: Interview with the UCPN (Maoist)'s Baburam Bhattarai: `We have not abandoned the revolutionary path' October 26, 2009 -- This interview first appeared on the web site of the Britain-based World People's Resistance Movement (WPRN). It has been posted at /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ with permission. *Baburam Bhattarai* is a politburo member of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and was finance minister in the former Maoist government led by Prachanda. * Read more Climate change: The carbon trading debacle By *Carter Burke* October 28, 2009 -- The next major international summit on climate change will be held in Copenhagen in early December, 2009. The position of the United States in these talks remains ambiguous. * Read more * * * Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Nov 8 23:17:36 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 01:17:36 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party References: <4AF7ACF7.489CC377@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: <65E6C8EA6BDE4CC09ADEED13FADD233E@dmsthinkpad> What failure to defend the Panthers? There certainly was no failure of SDS and its offshoots to defend the Panthers. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 12:47 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party From stuartmunckton at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 01:34:28 2009 From: stuartmunckton at gmail.com (Stuart Munckton) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 19:34:28 +1100 Subject: [Marxism] =?windows-1252?q?Michael_Lebowitz_on_Venezuela=3A_=91A_?= =?windows-1252?q?new_state_must_be_constructed_from_below=92?= Message-ID: <2c6145850911090034v5f31f44ek6a1824052c5c618e@mail.gmail.com> Michael Lebowitz on Venezuela: `Socialism requires a new state from below' *http://links.org.au/node/1341 Michael Lebowitz* interviewed by *Jos? Sant Roz* for *Aporrea*, translated by *Kiraz Janicke * November 5, 2009 -- *Venezuelanalysis.com-- *On the question of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, Michael Lebowitz is one of the thinkers who has penetrated deepest into our process. He plunges his scrutinising gaze into its most diverse and conflicting issues, in order to calmly and forcefully reveal its truth with knifelike clarity. He talks like a peasant or a worker who dips into the reality that they experience, that they suffer and feel. At the Centro Internacional Miranda, I had a chance to converse with Lebowitz, a professor from the Simon Fraser University in British Columbia (Canada). Lebowitz is the author of outstanding books such as *Socialism does not fall from the sky* (much discussed by President Ch?vez) and *Build it now: Socialism for the 21st Century*. I do not hesitate to declare that Lebowitz is an essential light for us in the Bolivarian revolutionary process. Many problems and many concerns were raised in this interview and he responded to them with simple and accurate clarity. [For more by Michael Lebowitz, click *HERE* .] *Jos? Sant Roz: **We are concerned with the issue of socialism, but there is sometimes a big difference between what is said and what is done in reality. * *Michael Lebowitz:* This is always going to be true. But the first thing we need to do is to create a vision and for this you need the words. There is an old saying that if you do not know where you want to go, any road will take you there, but no, this is not true; rather, if you do not know where you want to go, *no* road will take you there. And I think that in Venezuela, with the development of the concept of socialism for the 21st century, we know where we want to go. We don?t want to move towards a society in which the state directs everything. It should be a society where people develop themselves through their practice, through their protagonism. This vision is clear and it is a vision that is very different from the experiences of socialism in the 20th century. That is the first step, a very important step, but now we come to the crucial step: Understanding how this should be done in practice and how can we establish the institutions that allow people to develop. This is being developed now through the communal councils, workers' councils, where people participate in making the decisions that affect them. The problem, though, is that it?s not so easy to do that when there are people who want to do everything for others from above. They say: we are going to create communal councils everywhere, communes everywhere. And if the people are not ready to develop their communal councils, they say we?ll do them ourselves. Part of the problem is impatience that does not respect the process and the time that must elapse for people to develop themselves. Furthermore, there are people who are totally opposed to the idea that the people themselves make their own decisions. The clearest case can be seen with workers' participation. There are people who believe that workers are unable, that they are not prepared, and that they don?t have the knowledge to make decisions affecting their work process. The result of this attitude is reflected in the fact that electricity outages are occurring throughout all of Venezuela. The workers know what the problems are, but they have not been allowed to implement the solutions, to take the necessary steps to prevent such outages. Vision is important but it is not enough; it is not sufficient--- struggle is always necessary. *When you say that there are people who oppose this process are you also referring to people within chavismo? * Yes, of course, within *chavismo*. That's why, for example, there is no workers' participation at PDVSA [the state oil company]. *Sim?n Bol?var founded Gran Colombia on December 17, 1819, and died on December 17, 1830, and then this tremendous work he created with his great strength and will disappeared. What if Hugo Chavez were to disappear today? * I think it would be a great loss, not only for Venezuela but for the whole world, because under the leadership of Hugo Chavez the hope that was lost has been restored, the hope that there is an alternative to neoliberalism. If such a thing occurred at this time it would be more than a loss, it would be a tragedy, because I think the process is not sufficiently developed that it could continue with leadership from below. Perhaps by 2020 there would be a possibility that the process could continue without Chavez. But right now, no. *What can be done to ensure that there are substitutes that can take over the struggle from Chavez without much trauma?* There are people working very close to Chavez, in his circle, who have Chavez's ideas, his vision, his consciousness, but they lack the charisma of the president to lead. At the same time there are others that are much better known, but I'm not sure they share the project that President Chavez is leading. And today I am speaking very carefully, sometimes I say this very strongly and openly. *With the oil situation, which remains our major export product, and in the face of the new global drama of high food prices, we find ourselves with a situation of abandonment in the countryside: how in a short period of time, could we structure a form of economy different from that of mono-production imposed on us by capitalism?* Oil is not a problem but a blessing. There are many countries in the same situation where agriculture has been abandoned or has been more or less marginalised by transnational corporations. The existence of oil resources allows the Venezuelan state to take a part of this revenue to build infrastructure and create conditions in the countryside so that people feel they want to return to work in the countryside and see that it is possible to have a good life. With the food crisis it is absolutely essential to encourage people to go to live in the countryside. With oil revenues these conditions can be created. Compare this situation with the situation in Cuba where they also have problems with agricultural production, and where people are leaving the countryside, and they do not have the oil revenue to attract people back to the countryside. What appears to be happening in Cuba is that they are saying we will allow private property in agriculture [and thus attract people] and some people will make lots of money producing and selling food at great profit. In Venezuela it is possible to use part of the oil wealth to create units of agricultural production in the countryside and to attract people, not through high incomes for producers but based on the quality of life that these people can enjoy living in the country. Agriculture has been an area where all attempts to build socialism have failed. The Soviet Union ignored agriculture and in some rural areas it was impossible to walk or drive on the roads. People had to bring products to market by air. China said that they would not follow the Soviet path, and would develop agriculture, but they didn?t. They were still extracting resources from the countryside for industry. So instead of what happened in other places where agriculture served industry, here in Venezuela, you can do the opposite: make oil serve agriculture. *If the countryside is abandoned, it will require a long time to train people who want to do the jobs required by agriculture. People have changed a lot in the cities and it would be very difficult to convince them to be ?peasant? farmers. * Yes, it will take time. This is not going to happen overnight. But I think that President Chavez understands this problem. It is no coincidence that there are so many *Hello President* shows in rural cooperatives, in the new socialist farms. I think it's a way of saying to people who are living in the hills and *barrios* and who are spending a lot of time trying to get to work, to say, look, it's time for a change. There is much more you can do. In Brazil the Movement of Landless Workers [MST] has many young people, and when the MST occupies land, they gain land for these families to begin a new life. In Brazil the stereotype that all farmers are old is not true. Perhaps what is needed is to launch a campaign aimed at young people to facilitate this process of repopulation of the countryside. *In view of the international situation: we are very threatened; how should we prepare ourselves to face a more critical situation in northern **South America**?* I just finished a book that addresses an issue which is the problem of the old state that progressives have appropriated, and not necessarily by force. In the long run, socialism requires that the old state is replaced by the new, the state from below. The immediate situation requires, though, that the two states complement each other. The new state from below that helps people develop cannot initially have a global vision. The old state, though, is in the habit of giving orders from above. What is essential is to develop the interaction between the two states and for a time you have to walk on two legs; and the same is true when it comes to preparing for a crisis of military intervention. That implies having a traditional army that can protect people, but we should also arm the people and develop the militias from below. [Michael Lebowitz is a Canadian Marxist economist. He is the director of the ?Transformative practice and human development? program at the Caracas-based left-wing think tank, the Centro Internacional Miranda. He is professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University and author of *Build it Now: 21st Century Socialism* and the 2004 Isaac Deutscher-prize winning *Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class*. Translator's note ? this is a slightly abridged translation of the first part of a three-part interview with Michael Lebowitz carried out in late September.] -- A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias." ? Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism "The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?" ? Jarvis Cocker From stuartmunckton at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 03:04:45 2009 From: stuartmunckton at gmail.com (Stuart Munckton) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 21:04:45 +1100 Subject: [Marxism] In Britain, 73% wants troops out of Afghanistan Message-ID: <2c6145850911090204w28ed41efj5a10f40bf607e057@mail.gmail.com> Friday, 6 November 2009 73% of British public want troops brought home Nearly two weeks ago I blogged about a Channel 4 poll which investigated public attitudes to the occuaption of Afghanistan. Now they've done *a new poll*, to guage the impact of the news about the 5 UK soldiers killed this week and the revelations about the Afghan elections. It reveals a sharp increase in support for bringing the troops home. The figure for wanting troops withdrawn either immediately or within the next year has risen from 62% to an astonishing 73%. This is clearly opposed to government (and, for that matter, official Opposition) policy. It serves as the basis for renewing and strengthening the movement to end the war and occupation. -- A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias." ? Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism "The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?" ? Jarvis Cocker From gary.maclennan1 at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 03:54:24 2009 From: gary.maclennan1 at gmail.com (Gary MacLennan) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 10:54:24 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] In Britain, 73% wants troops out of Afghanistan In-Reply-To: <2c6145850911090204w28ed41efj5a10f40bf607e057@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c6145850911090204w28ed41efj5a10f40bf607e057@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I have been in London for tend days giving and attending seminars at the IOE with Roy Bhaskar and it has enabled me to catch up on things British.When I was here two years ago there was a mood of near total despair among Left academics abuo0t the inevitable return of the Tories. New Labour conservatism is seemingly about to make way for the original Tory 'vermin'. But I think I detect a certain air of unease in ruling circles and most of it concerns the Tories' EU policy and the war in Afghanistan. Stuart is quite right;support for the war has collapsed and there is no possibility of a revival any time soon. The shootings by the 'mentored' cop in Helmand province and even the Ft Hood slaughter have all dinted the resolve to see this war through. And of course the election farce was terribly damaging. So I do not think that the coming Cameron govt will have as easy a time as he would like. It is just possible that this time around the resistance will be more effective. Let's hope so. regards Gary From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 07:13:03 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:13:03 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Charged with espionage!?!? Message-ID: <4AF8236F.40100@panix.com> Iran charges three detained Americans with espionage Reuters Monday, November 9, 2009 8:44 AM TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has charged three detained U.S. citizens with espionage, the official IRNA news agency quoted a judiciary official as saying on Monday. "The three are charged with espionage. Investigations continue into the three detained Americans in Iran," Tehran general prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said. The three were held after they strayed into Iran from northern Iraq at the end of July. The three, SHANE BAUER, 27, SARAH SHOURD, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, crossed into Iranian territory nearly two months ago. Their families say they strayed across the border accidentally. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested in an interview with the American television network NBC in September that the Americans' release might be linked to the release of Iranian diplomats he said were being held by U.S. troops in Iraq. Under Iran's Islamic sharia law, espionage is punishable by death. ---- http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090622/bauer Iraq's New Death Squad By Shane Bauer This article appeared in the June 22, 2009 edition of The Nation. June 3, 2009 The light is fading from the dusty Baghdad sky as Hassan Mahsan re-enacts what happened to his family last summer. We're standing in the courtyard of his concrete-block house, his children are watching us quietly and his wife is twirling large circles of dough and slapping them against the inside walls of a roaring oven. He walks over to his three-foot-tall daughter and grabs her head like a melon. As she stands there, he gestures wildly behind her, pretending to tie up her hands, then pretending to point a rifle at her head. "They took the blindfold off me, pointed the gun at her head and cocked it, saying, 'Either you tell us where al-Zaydawi is, or we kill your daughter.'" "They just marched into our house and took whatever they wanted," Hassan's mother says, peeking out the kitchen door. "I've never seen anyone act like this." ---- From Sarah Shourd's blog: http://unfetteredeyes.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/plastered-with-gaza-posters/ Plastered with Gaza Posters Posted in Uncategorized on May 3, 2009 by unfetteredeyes It?s been more than 4 months since the Israeli Massacre in Gaza. These pictures were taken in Syria and Lebanon where posters, billboards and photographs like these are a backdrop to daily life. While for the rest of the world the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is old news, in the cities of Damascus, Allepo, Shatilla people?s grief and rage has yet to abate. ---- From Josh Hattal's blog: http://joshfattal.wordpress.com/june-2009-the-amount-that-i-have-is-the-amount-that-i-owe/ I received the most exciting, synchronistic email the other day from a friend telling me about Land Reform in America. Looking at the subject line, I thought perhaps it was an April Fools joke. I opened the ?body? of the email and their she lay, land reform American style. It was synchronistic because I had just spent a night at a beautiful manor outside of Lisbon. Apple, citrus, olive, plum trees, stone terraces, multiple springs, and waterworks accompanied a squatting community of about 10 people. They were neighbors to ?the ambassador? but nobody seemed to mind, the potential is impressive. Now they have rocket stove technology. As if that project was not beyond the means of those squatters, the non-profit in town took a field trip to the edge of town. Before the ?carnation revolution? in Portugal (1974), a family fled. Forty years later, three cottages, two five-story hotels and one Olympic sized tilapia trout pond and acreage of forest is being negotiated with the landlord at give-away rates. Of the six interested visitors from the non-profit, the three women said ?no way?, and the three men ?hell yeah?. It would require years or millions of dollars of clean up and renovation for it to be usable. It makes the lodge area of Aprovecho look like a government office. From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 07:15:56 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:15:56 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Why Kucinich voted no on health care "reform" Message-ID: <4AF8241C.70302@panix.com> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/08-0 Why I Voted NO by Dennis Kucinich We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system. Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick. But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies - a bailout under a blue cross. By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress' blog, Think Progress, states, 'since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.' Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that 'money will start flowing in again' to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy. During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies. Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks' hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy - in which most Americans live - the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street. This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America's manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care. Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America's businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals. From ecosocialism at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 07:18:48 2009 From: ecosocialism at gmail.com (Ian Angus) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 09:18:48 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: Quebec Language Rights / Hijab Debate / U.S. vs Honduras Message-ID: <733b65360911090618k7de20515l471a9345a588b3b0@mail.gmail.com> SOCIALIST VOICE Marxist Perspectives for the 21st Century http://www.socialistvoice.ca November 9, 2009 QU?B?COIS DENOUNCE SUPREME COURT ATTACK ON LANGUAGE RIGHTS http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=735 by Richard Fidler The October 22 ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada overturning yet another section of Quebec?s Charter of the French Language (CFL) has been met with angry protests by a broad range of opinion in the province. WHAT THE QU?BEC DEBATE ON THE HIJAB CONCEALS http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=731 A LeftViews article, by Benoit Renaud To give in to the fear campaign against Muslims by prohibiting the wearing of any religious insignia in the public sector would undermine our efforts to mobilize against the war and imperialism, against xenophobia and discrimination against immigrants OBAMA AND CLINTON USE ?SMART POWER? AGAINST HONDURAS by Eva Golinger http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=739 The Obama administration has opted for fusing military power with diplomacy, political and economic influence with cultural penetration and legal manoeuvring. They call this ?Smart Power.? Its first application is the coup d?etat in Honduras. ************************* Other recent articles: THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HARDY: A FORGOTTEN CHAPTER IN THE WORKING CLASS FIGHT FOR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=725 REVOLUTIONARIES AND BROAD LEFT PARTIES http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=721 ************************* SOCIALIST VOICE Web: http://www.socialistvoice.ca Email: socialistvoice at sympatico.ca Editors: Ian Angus, Roger Annis, John Riddell Associate Editor: Mike Krebs Readers are encouraged to forward or distribute Socialist Voice as widely as possible. To subscribe, send a blank email to Socialist-Voice-subscribe at yahoogroups.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Socialist-Voice-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com FEEDBACK: Socialist Voice welcomes questions, comments and debate on the articles we publish. Please use the `Feedback' box at the bottom of each article on our website. LINK DOESN'T WORK? Some email programs block links to websites. If clicking on a link in Socialist Voice doesn't work, try holding down the CTRL key as you click, or copy the link address into your browser. From binesi at gvtel.com Mon Nov 9 07:24:51 2009 From: binesi at gvtel.com (David Thorstad) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:24:51 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] Queer Kids of Queer Parents Against Gay Marriage! Message-ID: <4AF82633.9020102@gvtel.com> Resist the Gay Marriage Agenda! By queerkidssaynomarriage It?s hard for us to believe what we?re hearing these days. Thousands are losing their homes, and gays want a day named after Harvey Milk. The U.S. military is continuing its path of destruction, and gays want to be allowed to fight. Cops are still killing unarmed black men and bashing queers, and gays want more policing. More and more Americans are suffering and dying because they can?t get decent health care, and gays want weddings. What happened to us? Where have our communities gone? Did gays really sell out that easily? As young queer people raised in queer families and communities, we reject the liberal gay agenda that gives top priority to the fight for marriage equality. The queer families and communities we are proud to have been raised in are nothing like the ones transformed by marriage equality. This agenda fractures our communities, pits us against natural allies, supports unequal power structures, obscures urgent queer concerns, abandons struggle for mutual sustainability inside queer communities and disregards our awesomely fabulous queer history. Children of queers have a serious stake in this. The media sure thinks so, anyway. The photographs circulated after San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom?s 2004 decision to marry gay couples at City Hall show men exchanging rings with young children strapped to their chests and toddlers holding their moms? hands as city officials lead them through vows. As Newsom runs for governor these images of children and their newly married gay parents travel with him, supposedly expressing how deeply Newsom cares about families: keeping them together, ensuring their safety, meeting their needs. These photos, however, obscure very real aspects of his political record that have torn families apart: his disregard for affordable housing, his attacks on welfare, his support for increased policing and incarceration that separate parents from children and his new practice of deporting minors accused ? not convicted ? of crimes. As young people with queer parents we are not proud of the ?family values? politic put forth by these images and the marriage equality campaign. We don?t want gay marriage activism conducted in our name ? we realize that it?s hurting us, not helping us. Full: http://queerkidssaynomarriage.wordpress.com/ From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 07:30:44 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:30:44 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Queer Kids of Queer Parents Against Gay Marriage! In-Reply-To: <4AF82633.9020102@gvtel.com> References: <4AF82633.9020102@gvtel.com> Message-ID: <4AF82794.3000304@panix.com> David Thorstad wrote: > Resist the Gay Marriage Agenda! > > By queerkidssaynomarriage > > David, these two bloggers are the same people who wrote the Bay Area Reporter article you forwarded to the list last Thursday. If your intention is to demonstrate a significant trend against this demand by millions of gay people by gays themselves, you are doing a shitty job. From acpollack2 at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 08:04:38 2009 From: acpollack2 at gmail.com (Andrew Pollack) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 10:04:38 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party In-Reply-To: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> Anthony Boynton's detailed look at the context in which the BPP emerged is very important. In reading David Hilliard's autobiography recently I was struck by how many times, before, during and after his Panther days, he got jobs on the docks and later became a union organizer. The point being the potential for a more working-class based party (rather than lumpen) was there, had help from the Old Left not been so absent, as the community which justifiably admired the Panthers was a predominantly working-class community -- the most exploited part of it. That absence of the Old Left was also striking when reading the countless times he (and other Panthers in their autobiographies) say "we couldn't have known," "we never expected," etc., the kind of COINTELPRO dirty tricks and murder that they encountered. And every time I read that I said to myself, there were hundreds of CP, SWP and others in the Bay Area to tell them they had just spent 20 years going through similar repression! Nonetheless, despite Carroll's assertion, the Panthers were most definitely ultraleft in their rhetoric and analysis. Yet there was a continuity with the theory and practice of Malcolm X, Robert F. Williams, the Deacons for Defense, and others, which means with more support from others, both in practice and theory, the ultraleft side could have been reshaped into a more rounded perspective. And here Anthony's recounting of the ILWU defense guard practice is an important example. Andy Pollack From kmccook at tampabay.rr.com Mon Nov 9 08:12:54 2009 From: kmccook at tampabay.rr.com (kmccook at tampabay.rr.com) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:12:54 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] NOW Opposes Health Care Bill That Strips Millions of Women Message-ID: <4AF83176.24803.3B0BA28@kmccook.tampabay.rr.com> NOW Opposes Health Care Bill That Strips Millions of Women of Abortion Access: Says Bill Obliterates Women's Fundamental Right to Choose. The House of Representatives has dealt the worst blow to women's fundamental right to self-determination in order to buy a few votes for reform of the profit-driven health insurance industry. We must protect the rights we fought for in Roe v. Wade. We cannot and will not support a health care bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion. http://www.now.org/ From nmgoro at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 08:13:00 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 12:13:00 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party In-Reply-To: <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2fa158550911090713r3069dd1bn79e627fd393650c5@mail.gmail.com> 2009/11/9 Andrew Pollack : > That absence of the Old Left was also striking when reading the > countless times he (and other Panthers in their autobiographies) say > "we couldn't have known," "we never expected," etc., the kind of > COINTELPRO dirty tricks and murder that they encountered. And every > time I read that I said to myself, there were hundreds of CP, SWP and > others in the Bay Area to tell them they had just spent 20 years going > through similar repression! > Nonetheless, despite Carroll's assertion, the Panthers were most > definitely ultraleft in their rhetoric and analysis. Political deafness may have proved equally strong if the Old Left had realized they would be of some use to bring the BPP to a more proletarian, less lumpen, policy. This was, at least, what many in Argentina discovered when trying to tell people in the "armed groups" of the 70s that they were following a wrong path and that they would discover it cruelly while, unwillingly, setting conditions for a historic defeat of the Argentinean people and the working class. I can?t remember how many times many of us explained those comrades that in supporting the bourgeois chief from _within_ the chief?s party, they would be forced not just to oppose by any means available the fading military dictatorship, but also to confront, BY ANY MEANS AVAILABLE, with that chief. And then we brought to the conversation the tragedies of Shanghai, 1927. To no avail. Our discourse was clear, crisp, full of experience and understanding. But their deafness (and blindness) was politically -and socially- stronger than any debate. And they were THE BEST, THE FLOWER OF A GENERATION. -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From wsredden at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 08:15:50 2009 From: wsredden at gmail.com (Shawn Redden) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 10:15:50 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] war games Message-ID: In light of the ominous news about the foundation-funded 'hiker-journalists' kickin' it in Northern Iraq, this report is interesting. You know what they say - perfect practice makes perfect: ------ http://www.israelnationalnews.com/SendMail.aspx?print=print&type=0&item=134215 US Generals Flood Israel for Exercise against 'Specific Threats' Cheshvan 16, 5770, 03 November 09 08:39 by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu (Israelnationalnews.com) An unprecedented number of American generals, along with 1,400 U.S. army soldiers, are participating with top IDF brass in the high-level Juniper Cobra military exercise that one U.S. Navy commander said is aimed at "specific threats." Public affairs officials interrupted the naval commander in order to divert the conversation from the scenario of Israel attacking Iran's nuclear facilities and defending itself from a counter-attack. One senior IDF source told BBC magazine, "I've never seen so many American generals".... From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 08:22:14 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:22:14 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] war games In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AF833A6.1000608@panix.com> Shawn Redden wrote: > In light of the ominous news about the foundation-funded > 'hiker-journalists' kickin' it in Northern Iraq, this report is > interesting. You know what they say - perfect practice makes perfect: > What foundation funding are you talking about? From binesi at gvtel.com Mon Nov 9 08:22:46 2009 From: binesi at gvtel.com (David Thorstad) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:22:46 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] Queer Kids of Queer Parents Against Gay Marriage! Message-ID: <4AF833C6.7050101@gvtel.com> Louis: David, these two bloggers are the same people who wrote the Bay Area Reporter article you forwarded to the list last Thursday. If your intention is to demonstrate a significant trend against this demand by millions of gay people by gays themselves, you are doing a shitty job. ====== Sorry, and thanks. Nope. Trends had nothing to do with it. The piece was a well-reasoned, radical critique of the liberal gay agenda. I think the Maine vote may show a "trend," if one is looking for one. The only "trend" I see for now is one toward liberalism by both gays and leftists. David From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 08:23:40 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:23:40 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Deserving a place among philosophers Message-ID: <4AF833FC.5050108@panix.com> NY Times, November 9, 2009 An Ethical Question: Does a Nazi Deserve a Place Among Philosophers? By Patricia Cohen For decades the German philosopher Martin Heidegger has been the subject of passionate debate. His critique of Western thought and technology has penetrated deeply into architecture, psychology and literary theory and inspired some of the most influential intellectual movements of the 20th century. Yet he was also a fervent Nazi. Now a soon-to-be published book in English has revived the long-running debate about whether the man can be separated from his philosophy. Drawing on new evidence, the author, Emmanuel Faye, argues fascist and racist ideas are so woven into the fabric of Heidegger?s theories that they no longer deserve to be called philosophy. As a result Mr. Faye declares, Heidegger?s works and the many fields built on them need to be re-examined lest they spread sinister ideas as dangerous to modern thought as ?the Nazi movement was to the physical existence of the exterminated peoples.? Full: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/books/09philosophy.htm --- David Hume, ?Of National Characters?: I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negroe slaves dispersed all over Europe, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho? low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but ?tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly. --- John Locke, Constitution of Carolina: ?Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute authority over his Negro slaves, of what opinion or Religion so ever.? --- John Stuart Mill, ?Considerations on Representative Government??: When proper allowance has been made for geographical exigencies, another more purely moral and social consideration offers itself. Experience proves that it is possible for one nationality to merge and be absorbed in another: and when it was originally an inferior and more backward portion of the human race the absorption is greatly to its advantage. --- Immanuel Kant, ?From Physical Geography; On Countries That Are Known and Unknown To Europeans; Africa?: When an Indian sees a European going somewhere, he thinks that he has something to accomplish. When he comes back, he thinks that he has already taken care of his business, but if he sees him going out a third time he thinks that he has lost his mind, as the European is going for a walk for pleasure, which no Indian does; he is only capable of imagining it. Indians are also indecisive, and both traits belong to the nations that live very far north. The weakening of their limbs is supposedly caused by brandy, tobacco, opium and other strong things. From their timidity comes superstition, particularly in regard to magic, and the same with jealousy. Their timidity makes them into slavish underlings when they have kings and evokes an idolatrous reverence in them, just as their laziness moves them rather to run around in the forest and suffer need than to be held to their labors by the orders of their masters. Montesquieu is correct in his judgment that the weakheartedness that makes death so terrifying to the Indian or the Negro also makes him fear many things other than death that the European can withstand. The Negro slave from Guinea drowns himself if he is to be forced into slavery. The Indian women burn themselves. The Carib commits suicide at the slightest provocation. The Peruvian trembles in the face of an enemy, and when he is led to death, he is ambivalent, as though it means nothing. His awakened imagination, however, also makes him dare to do something, but the heat of the moment is soon past and timidity resumes its old place again? --- Thomas Jefferson, ?Notes on the State of Virginia: A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed.It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait, of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch. Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved. From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 08:31:38 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:31:38 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Queer Kids of Queer Parents Against Gay Marriage! In-Reply-To: <4AF833C6.7050101@gvtel.com> References: <4AF833C6.7050101@gvtel.com> Message-ID: <4AF835DA.1050709@panix.com> David Thorstad wrote: > Sorry, and thanks. Nope. Trends had nothing to do with it. The piece was > a well-reasoned, radical critique of the liberal gay agenda. I think the > Maine vote may show a "trend," if one is looking for one. The only > "trend" I see for now is one toward liberalism by both gays and leftists. Liberalism can be described as a political philosophy of capitalist reform. How in the world is gay marriage liberal? It is a civil right type of demand. If the state of Mississippi made "miscegenation" illegal, would you accuse Black and white couples of liberalism if they sought to wipe the law off the books? From dmozart1756 at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 08:39:18 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 10:39:18 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party In-Reply-To: <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <53a1ffe70911090739i533ad2ebodd149d08d107d688@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 10:04 AM, Andrew Pollack wrote: > > That absence of the Old Left was also striking when reading the > countless times he (and other Panthers in their autobiographies) say > "we couldn't have known," "we never expected," etc., the kind of > COINTELPRO dirty tricks and murder that they encountered. And every > time I read that I said to myself, there were hundreds of CP, SWP and > others in the Bay Area to tell them they had just spent 20 years going > through similar repression! > > Wasn't this the same SWP that restricted its participation in the Freedom Riders to writing about it in The Militant? From biastg at embarqmail.com Mon Nov 9 08:41:18 2009 From: biastg at embarqmail.com (Thomas Bias) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 10:41:18 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Queer Kids of Queer Parents Against Gay Marriage! In-Reply-To: <4AF833C6.7050101@gvtel.com> References: <4AF833C6.7050101@gvtel.com> Message-ID: Just on the substance of what these two young lesbians are saying: I sympathize with a lot of it, especially remembering the passionate discussions that went on until all hours of the night in David's Thorstad's apartment in the summer of 1971 when I crashed there while on temporarily assignment at 410 West (and thank you for that, David!). I have often told people that if you had raised the slightest suggestion at that time that in 2009 gay people would be in the streets demanding the right to marry, you would have been answered by peals of contemptuous laughter. However, the authors make one basic mistake: they assume that being gay makes one radical, and it isn't so. Gay people are, as we know, in all classes, all races, in every walk of life. We may disagree with them, but there are gay people who are patriotic and wish to join the military. And there are gay people who want the white-picket- fence, "normal family" life. They have the right. My opinion: gay liberation is about the right of individual gay people to make choices freely for their own lives. And that means that it's wrong to exclude them from the armed forces, and if the state has provision for civil marriage for heterosexual couples, it is blatant discrimination to deny it to homosexual couples. One could argue that the state should abolish civil marriage for both straights and gays, and I might even agree with that. But that's not on the agitational agenda today. Nevertheless, I think that the ideas that are presented in "Resist the Gay Marriage Agenda!" should be heard and taken seriously. Tom From dmozart1756 at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 09:09:17 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:09:17 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Book Review - Israeli Apartheid - A Beginner's Guide Message-ID: <53a1ffe70911090809p54978381l87cb13e08ef34475@mail.gmail.com> > > > http://pulsemedia.org/2009/11/07/israeli-apartheid-a-beginners-guide/ > From sartesian at earthlink.net Mon Nov 9 09:13:58 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:13:58 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8D45397F34284AFFA45B0DF178B8AF41@dmsthinkpad> What is meant by ultra-left? Of all the things I disagree over with Carroll, I do agree that those who use "ultra-left" to describe the Panthers are more than making a mistake; they are not coming to grips with just that real history that might prevent repetition of the failure of the Panthers . The Panthers were not opposed to operating in conjuction, coalition with other groups. They were not opposed to electoral tactics [Eldridge Cleaver ran for pres as the PFP candidate]. The Panthers did not adopt radical "offensive" tactics; initiate ultra-left campaigns as the term is usually used. The issue of arms was always raised as armed self-defense. I think we can see the absurdity of the application of this term if we ask: Was "Black Power" an "ultra-left" response on the part of SNCC, and the other activists who were convinced that African-American emancipation had to be forged, organized, led, directed by African-Americans themselves? We recognize Black Power as an advance of the movement, a proto class-consciousness that had nothing in common with "ultra-leftism." We recognize today-- at least I think we do-- that Black Power was an essential manifestation of, and for, the movement for emancipation. The Panthers do not represent a break with this development of Black Power. That they proved incapable of transcending the limits of black power is a product of history, a product of the working class inability to transcend its own limits as a class-in-itself. Doesn't mean we don't analyze the real limits to the Panthers; the real mistakes, decomposition and disintegration of the Panthers politics. It means we don't try and force that history and those limits into categories that are comfortable for some, but inadequate for all. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Pollack" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 10:04 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party From wsredden at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 10:04:23 2009 From: wsredden at gmail.com (Shawn Redden) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 12:04:23 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] war games In-Reply-To: <4AF833A6.1000608@panix.com> References: <4AF833A6.1000608@panix.com> Message-ID: At 10:22 AM -0500 11/9/09, Louis Proyect wrote: >Shawn Redden wrote: >> In light of the ominous news about the foundation-funded >> 'hiker-journalists' kickin' it in Northern Iraq, this report is >> interesting. You know what they say - perfect practice makes perfect: >> > >What foundation funding are you talking about? New America Media, for whom at a couple of them were working as reporters and photo-journalists at the time of their vacation getaway in occupied Iraq, lists the usual suspects on their website (scroll down): http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_custom.html?custom_page_id=87 I'm not drawing any conclusions, but circumstantial evidence does count for something. Considering the $400 million operation (see Seymour Hersch's article "Preparing the Battlefield") to help provoke regime change in Iran, and the role played by foundation funding in similar operations worldwide, one ought to wonder about the curious story that has been spun here. On a side note, Natan Sharansky, who just finished up a speech on C-Span at the "Hooray for Israel" conference, is one scary guy. Shawn From wquimby at embarqmail.com Mon Nov 9 10:11:04 2009 From: wquimby at embarqmail.com (Bill Quimby) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:11:04 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] FYI - A Treasure Of Online Academic Books Message-ID: <4AF84D28.3050403@embarqmail.com> Just recently discovered AAAARG.ORG at http://a.aaaarg.org - a treasure of online academic books - philosophy, history, theory, feminism, much badiou, much adorno, much marcuse, some classic marxist texts, mouffe and laclau, some entire issues of Historical Materialism, and on and on. And you can subscribe to a newsletter announcing just-added material. Not sure about the legal-challenges of services of this type, but they seem to be increasing - see http://www.scribd.com for another source of online material, for example. You might want to take advantage of them before they disappear! (Still though - I find it very difficult to read book-length texts on my comp and am always tempted to print - if not the whole text, portions of interest. Don't know if it is just me, but there do seem to be some serious "machine readability" issues to be resolved before ebooks are the norm.) - Bill From dmozart1756 at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 10:27:27 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 12:27:27 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Best Video You'll Ever See on Bolivarian Venezuela In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53a1ffe70911090927ra86e1d9pd2fb56d5e4d0021c@mail.gmail.com> Jewbonics has posted a new item, 'The Best Video You'll Ever See on > Bolivarian > Venezuela' > > > You may view the latest post at > http://www.maxajl.com/?p=2402 > > From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 10:32:53 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:32:53 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] war games In-Reply-To: References: <4AF833A6.1000608@panix.com> Message-ID: <4AF85245.10400@panix.com> Shawn Redden wrote: > New America Media, for whom at a couple of them were working as > reporters and photo-journalists at the time of their vacation getaway > in occupied Iraq, lists the usual suspects on their website (scroll > down): > > http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_custom.html?custom_page_id=87 So I guess this is what allows you to concur that they are guilty of espionage, comrade Vyshinsky? Here, btw, is how this kind of craziness has gnawed away at the Pacifica Radio Network's innards: http://www.counterpunch.org/boal10062009.html October 6, 2009 From Farce to Tragedy The New Crisis at Pacifica By IAIN BOAL On September 17 the Governance Committee of the Pacifica National Board passed a resolution expressly designed to find out whether Amy Goodman?s Democracy Now! program is getting CIA funding through covert channels like the Ford Foundation for suppressing the ?truth? about the 9/11 ?over-up? The author of the resolution, Chris Condon, made it clear that he wrote a motion on funding disclosure specifically to find out "where the hell Amy Goodman's money is coming from". Condon?s campaign for reelection to the KPFK Local Station Board in Los Angeles is endorsed by the current interim Executive Director of Pacifica and chair of the Pacifica National Board, Grace Aaron. Despite being thrown out of the Church of Scientology, Aaron still publicly identifies herself as ?a follower of the teachings of L Ron Hubbard?. What on earth is going on here? Listeners to the largest independent radio network in the US, whose broadcast signals are powerful enough to reach a fifth of the entire population, are no strangers to faction fights among staff and local boards, especially at the largest stations, WBAI (New York), KPFA (Berkeley), and KPFK (Los Angeles). But veterans of the now legendary 1999 crisis could be forgiven for thinking that Pacifica had safely resumed its mission of promoting understanding between peoples and individuals through peaceable dialogue. Many will be dismayed to learn that Pacifica is once again on the edge of the abyss. (clip) From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 10:36:25 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:36:25 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Final Thoughts on the Kovel Affair Message-ID: <4AF85319.9000803@panix.com> Counterpunch, November 9, 2009 Bard and the Lobby Final Thoughts on the Kovel Affair By JOHN HALLE In June of 2007, the left website CounterPunch published a short piece of mine addressing the decision of Depaul University to deny tenure to Prof. Norman Finkelstein. Among the forty-odd emails I received in response was one from Bard Professor Joel Kovel. Having served as a Green Party ward Alderman, I was familiar with Joel's Green Party activism and had read occasional articles by him over the years. Also, I had just accepted a position at the Bard Conservatory of Music and was looking forward to having at least one other co-worker to compare notes with as we entered the post-Bush era. I would have been pleased to have had communications from others at Bard but none was forthcoming. Whether this was due to Joel being the only faculty member to read CounterPunch, simple reticence on the part of those who did, or lack of interest in, or lack of sympathy with Finkelstein's plight, I can't say. As I recall, I assumed the latter, as this was consistent with a longstanding belief on my part that the reputation of colleges as bastions of left wing thinking is grossly exaggerated, most notably when it comes to the Israel/Palestine question. Nothing in the subsequent years here has given me much cause to revise this presumption, not, to be sure, the Bard community's response to Joel's termination, as I will discuss shortly. Some months after Joel's email, I had the opportunity to return the favor and to revisit the question of Bard's general political orientation. Joel's book "Overcoming Zionism" had been withdrawn by its publisher Pluto Press under pressure from the Israel lobby in what can reasonably be described as the contemporary equivalent of a book burning. Just as he had been the only Bard faculty member to respond to my piece in Counterpunch, so too was I the only member of the Bard community to respond to his request to join the thousands of others who had sent expressions of protest. When Joel returned to Bard in the fall of 2008, we decided to get together for a weekly meeting which would develop into the eco-socialist lunches, billed in flyers we distributed around campus as an informal discussion of political events from a left perspective, open to all interested students, staff, faculty and community members. Most weeks the group numbered between 8 and 12. Aside from ourselves (and my wife, on occasion) all of the participants would be students. No faculty member attended or expressed any interest in attending or even (with one exception) asked about the group. While much of the conversation tended to revolve around the Obama campaign and the prospects for an Obama administration, Israel and attitudes towards Israel on the Bard campus were an occasional topic. While no particular consensus was reached, it is fair to say that the administration's later description of "anti Zionism" as "uncontroversial" would have been greeted with some skepticism by most of those attending. **** Following the Israeli attack on Gaza in December, our shared skepticism as to the willingness and capacity of the Bard community to view Zionism critically would be strongly vindicated. Insofar as anti-Zionism is interpreted, minimally, as criticism of military aggression by the Israeli government, there was nothing of the sort to be found at precisely the time when its presence ought to be most apparent. One searched in vain for joint letters, demonstrations, flyers, teach-ins, or other expressions of concern at the unfolding atrocity. There was, it should be noted, one faculty member, the college chaplain, who conspicuously weighed in on the subject of the Gaza attacks-on the side of the Israeli Defense Force. While I had, as mentioned, long since parted with any illusions as to what to expect from academics in these sorts of circumstances, it was still a bit shocking to find a supposed voice of moral conscience in an appearance on the far right radio station WABC, championing the bombing of civilian targets and denouncing as anti-semitic those who raised questions as to its moral legitimacy. This constituted the extent of the visible faculty response to Gaza. There may have been private expressions of concern or even grief-and perhaps public expressions, though if so, none of them found their way back to Bard in any visible form. Given that more than a few Bard faculty members are frequently granted high profile platforms for the expression of their views, any expression of protest would have registered, so it is a reasonable assumption that they didn't exist. I would like to emphasize that I bring up these facts not out of any personal dissatisfaction with the Bard faculty as a group or animus towards the college chaplain as an individual. My years at Yale were notable for many cordial relationships with colleagues who were universally to the right of me politically and who were, in more than a few cases proud and even virulent reactionaries. Imposing a political litmus test for those with whom I work and socialize would be a recipe for professional suicide, not to mention, misanthropy. Rather, this context is required to respond to repeated claims emanating from the Bard administration in response to the Kovel affair that Bard is a campus which not only tolerates and but celebrates dissident political views. This general proposition is not supported by any facts that have been apparent in my two years here. And on the specific claim in question, that anti-Zionism is uncontroversial, the silence with which the faculty greeted the Gaza attacks is a prima facie refutation of this proposition, one which is even more glaring when seen in the light of the numerous cris-de-coeur emanating from some of Israel's staunchest advocates in the months since the attacks. I should also mention here that it does not follow from the above that Joel's charges of political interference in Bard's decision not to renew his contract have any de facto or de jure legitimacy. Nor does it follow that the faculty members who served on the committee evaluating Joel's contributions to Bard (one of whom was the Bard chaplain mentioned above) were unable to exercise independent judgement of Joel's work. However, with the particular issue in question, suspicion is surely called for given the numerous and well document instances of interference in academic affairs by what has become known as the Lobby. **** By now, the Lobby's crackdown on criticism of Israeli human rights abuses on college campuses should be more than familiar, as every week seems to brings a new and disturbing attempt at academic suppression. The most recent is a charge of misconduct being brought against UC Santa Barbara Prof. William Robinson on direct orders from ADL chairman Abe Foxman. Not long before came news of Clark University having rescinded an invitation to Norman Finkelstein under pressure from Jewish student organizations. Prior to that was an effort at intimidation waged by Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz against Hampshire College students supporting sanctions directed at firms profiting from the West Bank occupation. These join targeted attacks on Columbia Professor Joseph Massad, University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole, and, of course, Finkelstein himself, to mention only a few cases. That none of these have been mentioned by the administration in responding to Kovel's charges of political interference is disappointing and has fueled suspicion outside of Bard in capitulating to pressure in its decision to remove Kovel academic freedom has been, yet again, violated. There is also at least a whiff of arrogance in Bard's assumption that the illustrious legacy of Hannah Arendt and its description in the Princeton Review as "the most liberal of the liberal arts colleges" exempts it from answering questions about the troubling context of Kovel's termination. But as the school's connection with its storied radical history recedes into the distant past, it will find that this defense is increasingly less available. Indeed, by now there are very few remaining indications of the radical dissent which it claims to be encoded in its institutional DNA. A strong indication along these lines can be obtained by a perusal of faculty lists in the relevant departments. It will be immediately noticed that the most recognizable names derive from their association not with, for example, the New Left Review, Z, the Left Forum, or even the Nation but with the establishment neo-liberalism of the New York Review, the New Yorker and New Republic (whose publisher, uber-Zionist Martin Peretz, serves on the Bard Board of Trustees). Few Bard faculty would be described, or, I would guess, would describe themselves as political radicals. Another indication of the actually existing political orientation of Bard is provided by Kovel's replacement in the Alger Hiss chair by an historian whose work provides a defense of, and has been celebrated by those embracing, the most strident varieties of cold war anti-communism. Then there is the increasingly close relationship with its Hudson Valley neighbor West Point which has resulted in appearances on the Bard campus by military functionaries addressing such topics as counter-insurgency warfare. These augment other recently invited speakers discussing Islamic fundamentalist terror and violence, with few if any challenging establishment orthodoxy on these matters. All this, according to administration critics, signals a broader effort to legitimate Bard in establishment circles one which requires that it rid itself of left-wing gadflies such as Kovel. **** These and other efforts at mainstreaming Bard have, it would appear, met with some success among their target demographic, namely those major donors who are lavishly financing campus initiatives including the much trumpeted Bard-Al Quds joint degree program, a multi-million dollar Frank Gehry designed performing arts center, and an elegant new science building. At the same time, there is some evidence that the strategy has begun to backfire with its primary constituency (or, more precisely, market), namely the students who are willing to dispense with the $40,000 yearly tuition which, it is said, accounts for the bulk of Bard's operating revenues. This base consists of more than a few who, despite their necessarily privileged backgrounds have more or less leftist sympathies and come to Bard based on its reputation-as opposed to its current reality. Some eventually come to recognize that while these views are not actively discouraged, nor are they encouraged or nurtured by the current composition of the faculty. The surprising level of activism precipitated by the Kovel case was likely indicative of a growing dissatisfaction among these sorts of students and the administration is correct to be concerned of the possible effect on Bard's traditional applicant pool and by extension, finances. There is a chance, albeit a small one, that bottom line considerations will make it necessary for Bard for to reassert its identity as a bulwark of what used to be called the dissenting academy. If so, it has more that a little work to do. Rehiring Kovel is one step in this direction; however, Joel is now 70 and doing so would amount to no more than a reaffirmation of Bard's past. What is needed is a tangible demonstration that a commitment to dissent defines Bard's present and, one hopes, Bard's future. An action which Bard could take along these lines would be to install Norman Finkelstein as the next occupant of the Alger Hiss chair. Finkelstein's presence at Bard would, of course, indisputably remove any question as to influence of the Lobby on Bard's hiring decisions. But, more importantly, Finkelstein's combination of an impressive scholarly resum? with a long standing record of challenging the most sacrosanct conventional wisdoms make him a scholarly model for the traditions which have defined Bard, and which continue to have resonance for more than a few Bard students. This is what we should expect of the academy at its best-one which takes seriously its responsibility to tell the truth and expose lies. It is more than likely that this suggestion will be passed off as frivolous by those who are in a position to act on it. If so, those doing so should consider that this itself is an indication of the gap between Bard's self-image and the objective reality of where it stands when it is called to do so. Perhaps the best possible outcome of the Kovel affair is for the school to begin to recognize how far it needs to go to bridge this gap. John Halle is Director of Studies in Music Theory and Practice at Bard College. He can be reached at: halle at bard.edu From sartesian at earthlink.net Mon Nov 9 11:28:53 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 13:28:53 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] war games References: <4AF833A6.1000608@panix.com> <4AF85245.10400@panix.com> Message-ID: Lou, I think Shawn explicitly said he wasn't drawing any conclusions, but that the whole affair is "curious." I think that's a reasonable characterization. I find it hard to believe anybody just strays over the border into Iran, although that doesn't mean they strayed with the intent to do anything other than photograph. It's just curious. And curiouser, given the covert operations funded by the US government. I don't think these actions by the regime in Iran can be characterized as "reactionary," and in that the actions differ from the actions taken by the regime against the protests. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Louis Proyect" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 12:32 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] war games From dmozart1756 at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 11:35:22 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 13:35:22 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The bitter tears of Johnny Cash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53a1ffe70911091035m2509c242q6eb33ea62bcfebf3@mail.gmail.com> > > clip -- > > In July 1972, musician Johnny Cash sat opposite President Richard Nixon in > the White House's Blue Room. As a horde of media huddled a few feet away, > the country music superstar had come to discuss prison reform with the > self-anointed leader of America's "silent majority." "Johnny, would you be > willing to play a few songs for us," Nixon asked Cash. "I like Merle > Haggard's 'Okie From Muskogee' and Guy Drake's 'Welfare Cadillac.'" The > architect of the GOP's Southern strategy was asking for two famous > expressions of white working-class resentment. > > "I don't know those songs," replied Cash, "but I got a few of my own I can > play for you." Dressed in his trademark black suit, his jet-black hair a > little longer than usual, Cash draped the strap of his Martin guitar over > his right shoulder and played three songs, all of them decidedly to the left > of "Okie From Muskogee." With the nation still mired in Vietnam, Cash had > far more than prison reform on his mind. Nixon listened with a frozen smile > to the singer's rendition of the explicitly antiwar "What Is Truth?" and > "Man in Black" ("Each week we lose a hundred fine young men") and to a folk > protest song about the plight of Native Americans called "The Ballad of Ira > Hayes." It was a daring confrontation with a president who was popular with > Cash's fans and about to sweep to a crushing reelection victory, but a > glimpse of how Cash saw himself -- a foe of hypocrisy, an ally of the > downtrodden. An American protest singer, in short, as much as a country > music legend. > > < > http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/11/08/johnny_cash/index.html?source=newsletter > > > From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 11:39:17 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:39:17 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] war games In-Reply-To: References: <4AF833A6.1000608@panix.com> <4AF85245.10400@panix.com> Message-ID: <4AF861D5.7070104@panix.com> S. Artesian wrote: > Lou, > > I think Shawn explicitly said he wasn't drawing any conclusions, but that > the whole affair is "curious." > You're right. It was an implicit smear. From wsredden at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 11:47:32 2009 From: wsredden at gmail.com (Shawn Redden) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 13:47:32 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] war games In-Reply-To: <4AF85245.10400@panix.com> References: <4AF833A6.1000608@panix.com> <4AF85245.10400@panix.com> Message-ID: "So I guess this is what allows you to concur that they are guilty of espionage, comrade Vyshinsky?" our "New American" defender tweets. He's so clever sometimes. Good for lots of laughs - especially when it comes to his sacred cows. Shawn From lefrak at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 12:01:41 2009 From: lefrak at gmail.com (Paul Lefrak) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 14:31:41 -0430 Subject: [Marxism] FOX Finds a New Black Boogeyman/More Buses for 11/12 Message-ID: I submit this mostly for comrades on the east coast of the U.S. who can possibly make it to D.C. on Nov. 12 for a protest at the U.S. Department of Justice demanding a civil rights investigation for Mumia Abu-Jamal. And for everyone: If you're not familiar with Mumia's case--he is currently on death row in Pennsylvania, victim of a racist frame-up for his political beliefs--you need to familiarize yourself with his case. See the website below. This is an example of something that can be done NOW, more productive than deciding which label to apply to the BPP forty years later. Apropos of that, Mumia Abu-Jamal was the founder of the Philadelphia chapter of the Panthers when he was 16. He has been on death row the majority of his life. Nonetheless, he continues to write weekly columns on various political topics which are distributed worldwide and come from a solid revolutionary anti-capitalist perspective. They can be found at the www.freemumia.com website as well. We can attach whatever label we want to the Panthers but they recruited the finest of their generation. They were not a monolith so facile labels are really not appropriate. Sure they made mistakes, but someone like Mumia Abu-Jamal is a product of that organization and he needs our defense RIGHT NOW. As a side note, I highly recommend Sis. Marpessa's email list (write her at the address below) which always has important info about U.S. political prisoner issues, police brutality, and Black power politics and lists key events related to these struggles within the U.S. Paul Lefrak M?rida, Venezuela ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sis. Marpessa Date: 2009/11/9 Subject: !*FOX Finds a New Black Boogeyman/More Buses for 11/12 To: nattyreb * DEMAND A CIVIL RIGHTS INVESTIGATION FOR MUMIA 11/12 IN D.C. AT THE D.O.J. FOR MORE INFO (http://www.freemumia.com) AND TRANSPORTATION: NYC 212-330-8029, Philly 215-476-8812, Washington DC 301-762-9162 ================= From: Sis. Kiilu / Freedom Archives THIS IS REALLY SCARY!!!* * BUT PLEASE READ!* **I met Linn Washington in Phila. in 1995 when I managed to cover (for Black August '95 on KPFA) the last August hearing with Mumia present in court. He is a fine journalist and has been there for Mumia from the gitgo. During that last August hearing, Judge Sabo was demonstrating his overt racism blatantly (moreso than any other white racist judge I'd ever seen, and I'd seen several by then). Then Gov. Tom Ridge (who became the National Security Advisor post 9/11) had signed a death warrant and Mumia was scheduled for execution August 17. We raised hell with MOVE in the lead and the death penalty was rescinded. But here we are again, almost 20 years later, with Mumia still on death row, our movement in the doldrums, and right-wing mass media crucifying him as we speak. But can we blame it all on Fox? I think not. I think we have to blame our collective selves for the present-day passivity and non-movement. We -- especially Black and Brown folks -- have dropped the ball big time. Oh, we can find all kinds of excuses -- but *excuses are like assholes, everyone's got one. And dammit, we've got to TCB and step up the pressure on this system to abolish the death penalty and free our political prisoners * Mumia, as Linn details, is the victim of the Phila. reactionary, racist power structure that could not tolerate such a politically charged voice, truly *the voice of the voiceless. * **The oldest civil rights organization in the country is celebrating its 100 anniversary this year. Where have these -- johnny come lately -- NAACP folks been all this time?? They have chapters all across this country, yet they've left the organizing around Mumia's case to left-wing white folks whose denied racism has successfully run folks of color, esp. Blacks, right out of the campaigns. Are we gonna step back and let our stand-up brother who has dedicated his entire life (co-founded the Philly BPP chapter when he was about 16 years old, becoming its Minister of Information) be murdered by the State? Without a real fight??? KN http://www.counterpunch.org/ November 9, 2009 *Glen Beck's Mumia Obsession **Fox Finds a New Black Boogeyman*By LINN WASHINGTON, Jr. R elax Rev Jeremiah Wright. The Fox News cable channel crew has discovered a new all-purpose black boogey-man to rile latent racial animosity in America: Mumia Abu-Jamal, the internationally acclaimed death row journalist. Abu-Jamal is now a regular reference in the weapons of mass deception arsenal employed by Fox and its friends to demonize their enemies de jour. A few weeks ago, the campaign mounted by two Fox ideological allies that successfully sacked Fox liberal commentator Dr. Marc Lamont Hill highlighted Hill?s backing of a fair trial for Abu-Jamal as an objectionable offense. Far-right agitators David Horowitz and Cliff Kincaid saw sinful scandal in FOX simply employing Columbia University Professor Hill for what the scholar was: a liberal hired by Fox to question postures conservatives proclaim sacrosanct. Kincaid, in an October 19th posting on his Accuracy in Media site, scored Hill for calling Abu-Jamal a ?freedom fighter and political prisoner.? Earlier this summer Fox?s onslaught against now former White House ?Green Jobs Czar? Van Jones frequently cited Jones? support for Abu-Jamal who is on Pennsylvania?s death row due to a controversy mired conviction for killing a Philadelphia policeman. For weeks, Fox?s popular Glenn Beck bashed Jones for supporting efforts to free ?a communist cop killer? ? irrespective of the fact that Abu-Jamal is not a communist and card carrying communists never reference Abu-Jamal as a member of their movement. Frequent emphasis by advocates of Abu-Jamal?s execution, including Fox hosts, that courts have repeatedly held-up Abu-Jamal?s conviction ignore an improbability embedded in that accurate statement about this case. The same Philadelphia and Pennsylvania courts that have found major flaws in 86 Philadelphia death penalty convictions between Abu-Jamal?s December 1981 arrest and October 2009 declare that not a single error exists in America?s most publicly contentious murder case. Pa courts, for example, find no foul in prosecutors improperly excluding blacks from Abu-Jamal?s trial jury, manipulating evidence and making secret deals with alleged eyewitnesses ? all fundamental fair trial violations producing favorable actions by those courts for defendants in numerous cases. Another example is Pa State and federal courts voiding 22 death penalties because of failures by defense lawyers to present any mitigating evidence for their clients during death penalty phase hearings following guilty verdicts. However, those same courts found no fault in the failure of Abu-Jamal?s trial counsel to present any mitigating evidence during the penalty phase hearing. A problem more troubling than the penchant of Fox and friends to fudge facts is the fact that too much of the mainstream media uncritically embraces rhetoric oozing from the far right, rarely subjecting that rhetoric to full and fair reporting that is supposed to be the cornerstone of journalism. This lack of full and fair reportage polluted coverage of the onslaught against Van Jones and has long corrupted coverage of the controversial Abu-Jamal conviction. A September 6, 2009 *New York Times* article on the resignation of Van Jones from his White House post listed Jones? public support of Abu-Jamal as one of Jones? alleged liabilities. However, that *Times *article lacked any reference to the fact that Jones, as an Ivy League trained lawyer involved with social justice issues, could legitimately have concerns about the disturbing evidence of fair trial rights violations enmeshed in Abu-Jamal?s conviction. ?Human rights organizations have pointed to egregious procedural mistakes in Abu-Jamal?s original trial, which were obviously rooted in a background of prevalent racism,? stated a resolution approved on October 28th by the City Council of Munich, Germany. Elected leaders in over twenty-five cities from San Francisco to Copenhagen have approved resolutions demanding a new trial for Abu-Jamal. The seminal February 2000 Amnesty International report on the Abu-Jamal case concluded that ?numerous aspects of this case clearly failed to meet minimum international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings.? Yet, the *New York Times* and other major American newspapers deemed Amnesty International?s Abu-Jamal report not worthy of coverage despite major papers carrying nearly thirty articles referencing other AI actions during a ten-day time period surrounding release of that Abu-Jamal report. Philadelphia?s largest newspaper, *The Philadelphia Inquirer*, ran a 53-word News Brief on page 2 of its B-section on that thirty-five page AI report. Although the AI report was the first from a major organization to thoroughly document egregious shenanigans by the Pa Supreme Court in the Abu-Jamal case, ? the *Inquirer* did not consider that report significant enough for full article coverage despite having published 67 articles mentioning Abu-Jamal in 1999 alone The mainstream news media?s mile-wide-but-inch-thick coverage of Abu-Jamal aids the ability of Fox, its friends and others to exploit public misunderstandings about this case. Fair trial proceedings are a fundamental tenant of American democracy. Yet, the judge presiding during Abu-Jamal?s trial displayed unfair bias by proclaiming before jury selection that he was going to help prosecutors ?fry the nigger.? While such an overtly racist remark generally constitutes a judicial error requiring reversal of a conviction, a Philadelphia judge ruled no error existed because the jury not the judge convicted Abu-Jamal. That ruling contradicts the reality that judges control what evidence a jury hears. That Amnesty International report noted that ?the jury was left unaware of much of the crucial information regarding? the policeman?s death due in part to ?the overt hostility of the trial judge.? Surprisingly, a mainstream media usually quick to prick racially inflammatory remarks exhibits little interest in numerous instances of racism infecting the Abu-Jamal case. Evidence of outrageous errors underlying Abu-Jamal?s conviction literally hides in plain sight. One glaring example is photos of the December 1981 crime scene taken by police investigators that do not show a critical element of the prosecution?s case against Abu-Jamal. The eyewitness testimony of cab driver Robert Chobert was a central pillar of the prosecution?s case against Abu-Jamal but police crime scene photos do not show Chobert?s cab behind the slain officer?s patrol car where prosecutors claimed it was parked when Abu-Jamal killed Officer Daniel Faulkner. Four police photos capturing different angles of the crime scene contained in the trailer for a forthcoming film about Abu-Jamal?s case do not show Chobert?s cab. There are only two possible scenarios for the missing cab in those crime scene photos: either police tampered with the crime scene by removing the cab or the cab was never there. Either scenario is a major legal violation warranting a new trial. Curiously, inconsistencies in crime scene evidence and irregularities in court rulings rarely elicit attention in mainstream media coverage of the Abu-Jamal case that takes a guilty-as-charged tact. Yet these inconsistencies and irregularities are what fuel the vast international movement supporting a new trial for Abu-Jamal. On Thursday, November 12th, Abu-Jamal supporters have scheduled a rally at the US Justice Department headquarters in Washington, DC urging Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a civil rights investigation into violations rampant in this contentious case. One major civil rights violation often overlooked by Abu-Jamal supporters and ignored by his opponents occurred during a critical 1995 appeal hearing. Pa?s then Governor Tom Ridge sabotaged that proceeding by improperly issuing a death warrant based on confidential information Ridge?s aides obtained from state prison personnel who were illegally intercepting mail sent to Abu-Jamal by his defense lawyers. Ridge?s warrant enabled biased trial Judge Albert Sabo to rush that appeal hearing where Sabo denied defense lawyers standard opportunities to adequately gather and present evidence. While a federal appeals court faulted prison personnel for illegally opening Abu-Jamal?s legal mail neither federal nor state courts have found any fault in the damage to fair trial proceedings done by Ridge?s malicious action. One problem with mainstream media coverage of the Abu-Jamal case and other instances of racial related injustices from the criminal justice system to other sectors of society like education or employment is that coverage presents racial inequities as isolated instead of endemic. Failure to present inequities in context deprives the public of proper understanding. The 1968 Kerner Commission Report on race relations in America faulted the news media for this failure. As noted in the Kerner Report, ?If what the white American reads in the newspapers or sees on television conditions his expectation of what is ordinary and normal in the larger society, he will neither understand nor accept the black American.? *Linn Washington Jr.* is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa. He writes regularly on the Abu-Jamal case, inequities in the justice system and racism in the news media. Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863-9977 www.Freedomarchives.org Questions and comments may be sent to claude at freedomarchives.org From markalause at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 12:07:49 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 14:07:49 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party In-Reply-To: <8D45397F34284AFFA45B0DF178B8AF41@dmsthinkpad> References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> <8D45397F34284AFFA45B0DF178B8AF41@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: In the sense that Lenin used "ultraleft," it is not a moral judgment or pejorative term but a political disorder that disconnected the vanguard from the masses. It also implied a strategic orientation centered on a ruling class agency of change rather than fostering the self-organization of the masses. This can be done centered in many ways, including strictly electoral efforts to put more "progressive" or "moral" people in office, or moral suasion aimed at those in office. ML From wsredden at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 12:24:24 2009 From: wsredden at gmail.com (Shawn Redden) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 14:24:24 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] war games In-Reply-To: References: <4AF833A6.1000608@panix.com> <4AF85245.10400@panix.com> Message-ID: At 1:28 PM -0500 11/9/09, S. Artesian wrote: > >I think that's a reasonable characterization. I find it hard to believe >anybody just strays over the border into Iran, although that doesn't mean >they strayed with the intent to do anything other than photograph. It's >just curious. Exactly. Even if that's all they were doing was take pictures, good photography of the border of Iraq and Iran (an area where aerial photography might be problematic) might itself prove to be a valuable resource for reasons totally independent of why they were looking for good shots. That said, the story that they were vacationing on the border of a war zone and a declared enemy can't seriously pass the smell test to anyone with even a partially functioning olfactory system. That's not to say there isn't an explanation; only that I haven't heard a serious one yet. The bottom line is this: regardless of the motives or intentions of those imprisoned - they could be Chavistas and anti-Zionists - we know that the people from whom they are/were collecting a paycheck aren't trying to create a workers' government. They're trying to geostrategically further theirs. That's about all we know, as far as I can tell. Yet, for reasons passing understanding, the motives and actions and behavior of those people are, to some, off limits and undeserving of scrutiny (but only sometimes). When it's one of those times, watch your step. Shawn From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 12:35:17 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:35:17 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] George Packer-Mark Danner pissing contest Message-ID: <4AF86EF5.9020603@panix.com> Before getting into the details of this feud between two very unsavory characters taking place in the Sunday NY Times Book Review, it would be useful to put that section into some kind of context. For years now, it has been the practice of the Sunday review to assign right-leaning characters to write hostile reviews of left-leaning authors, while at the same time it will never, for example, invite a Noam Chomsky to review a Paul Berman book. The book review section exists as a kind of rightist enclave at the Times, drawing inspiration ideologically from the neoliberal New Republic and neoconservative National Review in roughly equal parts. The current editor is Sam Tannenhaus, who wrote an admiring biography of the McCarthyite stool pigeon Whittaker Chambers. He is now at work on a new biography of the reptilian William F. Buckley. Before Tannenhaus, the review was edited by Mitchel Levitas, the son of Sol Levitas who was editor of the New Leader, a magazine that accepted funding from the CIA. Levitas, a Russian emigrant and Menshevik, apparently had a big influence on his son who accepted a post on the board of directors of the Tamiment Library at NYU, a first-rate repository of socialist and labor publications. Ostensibly, his tepid social democratic beliefs had recommended him to NYU. But when the Tamiment displayed some sympathy and support for the reputation of Alger Hiss, Levitas blew a gasket, stating: ?To have the Hiss banner flown from the Tamiment flagstaff was just an insult.? It was of course a logical transition from bashing Hiss to writing valentines to Whittaker Chambers. read full article: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/george-packer-mark-danner-pissing-contest/ From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 12:50:30 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:50:30 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] war games In-Reply-To: References: <4AF833A6.1000608@panix.com> <4AF85245.10400@panix.com> Message-ID: <4AF87286.4040409@panix.com> Shawn Redden wrote: > Exactly. Even if that's all they were doing was take pictures, good > photography of the border of Iraq and Iran (an area where aerial > photography might be problematic) might itself prove to be a valuable > resource for reasons totally independent of why they were looking for > good shots. That said, the story that they were vacationing on the > border of a war zone and a declared enemy can't seriously pass the > smell test to anyone with even a partially functioning olfactory > system. That's not to say there isn't an explanation; only that I > haven't heard a serious one yet. Look, if you take the trouble to read what these people have written, you will know that they seek out "hot spots". These are not typical backpackers. They are *activists*. It would be weird if they turned up in Costa Rica rather than Kurdistan. From cbcox at ilstu.edu Mon Nov 9 13:12:10 2009 From: cbcox at ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:12:10 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> <8D45397F34284AFFA45B0DF178B8AF41@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <4AF8779A.4C8164E6@ilstu.edu> I believe I posted to this effect a few months ago. Lefto opportunism or Ultra-Left is characterized by an overestimation of the strength of capital, an under-estimation of the strength of the working class. Using this description, I see the most destructive ultra-leftism of the '60s to have been the SWP policy of "single-issue" demonstrations. The grounds for this, whatever fake grounds the SWP used to defend it, was the principle that capitalist culture/ideology was so overwhelmingly powerful that workers could escape it only if their political education was kept under the close control of the Party which was in possession of the only correct theory of proletarian ideology and of correct revolutionary theory. Luckily this policy failed completely of its purpose, and thousands, tens of thousands, of workers (the students were part of the working class) were able to engage in thought and practice through which they developed a far richer political culture than did so many of those who were under the thumb of SWP ideolgoues. Of all the barriers to working-class unity, that of the physical separation of black and white workers by racially segregated housing is perhaps the greatest. A working-class movement of even minimal chances of breaking this barrier is a movement the revolutionary leadership of which has a strong base in the Black Community, but which _also_ recognizes the essential political task of organizing black-white unity. The only political organizatin in the '60s that fully realized this task was The Black Panthers. History never repeats itself, and the only lesson it teaches is the lesson that nothing is to be learned from it. (Historical Thinking in Marxist terms invlveds "reading histoyr backwards" (Ollman's phrase), as imaged in Marx's obsrvation in the Grundrisse that "The anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the ape." It is NOT true that starting with the anatomy of the ape one has any information whatever on the anatomy of man.) Most efforts to "earn from history" fail to do history backwards, and therefore blunder seriously. So the particular practice and theory of the Panthers will never be relevant again. But there general example, viewed from the needs of the present, is essential to intelligent left thinking. Carrol From sartesian at earthlink.net Mon Nov 9 13:36:40 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 15:36:40 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com><2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com><8D45397F34284AFFA45B0DF178B8AF41@dmsthinkpad> <4AF8779A.4C8164E6@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: <0FE820DAB82540E0A857B8B7699C8744@dmsthinkpad> Carroll wrote: History never repeats itself, and the only lesson it teaches is the lesson that nothing is to be learned from it. So what a fool Marx was to actually study history. What a waste of time Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution is. All hail Henry Ford. History is bunk. You're lack of understanding of Marx is equal to your lack of understanding of evolution and physiology. It is absolutely true that in studying the anatomy of the ape one develops information on the anatomy of man. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 3:12 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party >I believe I posted to this effect a few months ago. > From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 14:03:18 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:03:18 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Complete Guide to Killing Non-Jews Message-ID: <4AF88396.5020406@panix.com> (Posted to Doug's list by Brian Atinsky, an Israeli.) Roi Sharon / The Complete Guide to Killing Non-Jews /*Ma?ariv, 9.11.2009, p. 2 */ For the Hebrew original: http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/964/186.html // When is it permissible to kill non-Jews? The book Torat ha-Melekh [The King?s Teaching?INT], which was just published, was written by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the dean of the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in the community of Yitzhar near Nablus, together with another rabbi from the yeshiva, Yossi Elitzur. The book contains no fewer than 230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guide for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew. Although the book is not being distributed by the leading book companies, it has already received warm recommendations from right-wing elements, including recommendations from important rabbis such as Yitzhak Ginsburg, Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef, that were printed at the beginning of the book. The book is being distributed via the Internet and through the yeshiva, and at this stage the introductory price is NIS 30 per copy. At the memorial ceremony that was held over the weekend in Jerusalem for Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was killed nineteen years ago, copies of the book were sold. Throughout the book, the authors deal with in-depth theoretical questions in Jewish religious law regarding the killing of non-Jews. The words ?Arabs? and ?Palestinians? are not mentioned even indirectly, and the authors are careful to avoid making explicit statements in favor of an individual taking the law into his own hands. The book includes hundreds of sources from the Bible and religious law. The book includes quotes from Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, one of the fathers of religious Zionism, and from Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, one of the deans of the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, the stronghold of national-religious Zionism that is located in Jerusalem. The book opens with a prohibition against killing non-Jews and justifies it, among other things, on the grounds of preventing hostility and any desecration of God?s name. But very quickly, the authors move from prohibition to permission, to the various dispensations for harming non-Jews, with the central reason being their obligation to uphold the seven Noahide laws, which every human being on earth must follow. Among these commandments are prohibitions on theft, bloodshed and idolatry. [The seven Noahide laws prohibit idolatry, murder, theft, illicit sexual relations, blasphemy and eating the flesh of a live animal, and require societies to institute just laws and law courts?INT] ?When we approach a non-Jew who has violated the seven Noahide laws and kill him out of concern for upholding these seven laws, no prohibition has been violated,? states the book, which emphasizes that killing is forbidden unless it is done in obedience to a court ruling. But later on, the authors limit the prohibition, noting that it applies only to a ?proper system that deals with non-Jews who violate the seven Noahide commandments.? The book includes another conclusion that explains when a non-Jew may be killed even if he is not an enemy of the Jews. ?In any situation in which a non-Jew?s presence endangers Jewish lives, the non-Jew may be killed even if he is a righteous Gentile and not at all guilty for the situation that has been created,? the authors state. ?When a non-Jew assists a murderer of Jews and causes the death of one, he may be killed, and in any case where a non-Jew?s presence causes danger to Jews, the non-Jew may be killed.? One of the dispensations for killing non-Jews, according to religious law, applies in a case of din rodef [the law of the ?pursuer,? according to which one who is pursuing another with murderous intent may be killed extrajudicially] even when the pursuer is a civilian. ?The dispensation applies even when the pursuer is not threatening to kill directly, but only indirectly,? the book states. ?Even a civilian who assists combat fighters is considered a pursuer and may be killed. Anyone who assists the army of the wicked in any way is strengthening murderers and is considered a pursuer. A civilian who encourages the war gives the king and his soldiers the strength to continue. Therefore, any citizen of the state that opposes us who encourages the combat soldiers or expresses satisfaction over their actions is considered a pursuer and may be killed. Also, anyone who weakens our own state by word or similar action is considered a pursuer.? Rabbis Shapira and Elitzur determine that children may also be harmed because they are ?hindrances.? The rabbis write as follows: ?Hindrances?babies are found many times in this situation. They block the way to rescue by their presence and do so completely by force. Nevertheless, they may be killed because their presence aids murder. There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.? In addition, the children of the leader may be harmed in order to apply pressure to him. If attacking the children of a wicked ruler will influence him not to behave wickedly, they may be harmed. ?It is better to kill the pursuers than to kill others,? the authors state. In a chapter entitled ?Deliberate harm to innocents,? the book explains that war is directly mainly against the pursuers, but those who belong to the enemy nation are also considered the enemy because they are assisting murderers. Retaliation also has a place and purpose in this book by Rabbis Shapira and Elitzur. ?In order to defeat the enemy, we must behave toward them in a spirit of retaliation and measure for measure,? they state. ?Retaliation is absolutely necessary in order to render such wickedness not worthwhile. Therefore, sometimes we do cruel deeds in order to create the proper balance of terror.? In one of the footnotes, the two rabbis write in such a way that appears to permit individuals to act on their own, outside of any decision by the government or the army. ?A decision by the nation is not necessary to permit shedding the blood of the evil kingdom,? the rabbis write. ?Even individuals from the nation being attacked may harm them.? Unlike books of religious law that are published by yeshivas, this time the rabbis added a chapter containing the book?s conclusions. Each of the six chapters is summarized into main points of several lines, which state, among other things: ?In religious law, we have found that non-Jews are generally suspected of shedding Jewish blood, and in war, this suspicion becomes a great deal stronger. One must consider killing even babies, who have not violated the seven Noahide laws, because of the future danger that will be caused if they are allowed to grow up to be as wicked as their parents.? Even though the authors are careful, as stated, to use the term ?non-Jews,? there are certainly those who could interpret the nationality of the ?non-Jews? who are liable to endanger the Jewish people. This is strengthened by the leaflet ?The Jewish Voice,? which is published on the Internet from Yitzhar, which comments on the book: ?It is superfluous to note that nowhere in the book is it written that the statements are directly only to the ancient non-Jews.? The leaflet?s editors did not omit a stinging remark directed at the GSS, who will certainly take the trouble to get themselves a copy. ?The editors suggest to the GSS that they award the prize for Israel?s security to the authors,? the leaflet states, ?who gave the detectives the option of reading the summarized conclusions without any need for in-depth study of the entire book.? One student of the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in Yitzhar explained, from his point of view, where Rabbis Shapira and Elitzur got the courage to speak so freely on a subject such as the killing of non-Jews. ?The rabbis aren?t afraid of prosecution because in that case, Maimonides [Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, 1135?1204] and Nahmanides [Rabbi Moses ben Nahman, 1194?1270] would have to stand trial too, and anyway, this is research on religious law,? the yeshiva student said. ?In a Jewish state, nobody sits in jail for studying Torah.? From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Nov 9 14:13:02 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:13:02 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Who Will Be Sent to Afghanistan? Message-ID: <4AF885DE.5090003@panix.com> http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175136/jamail_and_lazare_who_will_be_sent_to_afghanistan_ Tomgram: Jamail and Lazare, Who Will Be Sent to Afghanistan? In a grim November 3rd Wall Street Journal piece (buried inside the paper), Yochi Dreazen reported record suicide rates for a stressed-out U.S. Army. Sixteen soldiers killed themselves in October alone, 134 so far this year, essentially ensuring that last year's "record" of 140 suicides will be broken. This represents a startling 37% jump in suicides since 2006 and, for the first time, puts the suicide rate in the Army above that of the general U.S. population. After eight years of two major counterinsurgency wars (and various minor encounters in what used to be called the Global War on Terror), with many soldiers experiencing multiple tours of duty, with approximately 120,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq and almost 70,000 in Afghanistan, with the Afghan War clearly in an escalatory phase, commanders in the field calling for 40,000-80,000 more American troops, and base construction on the rise, the military's internal problems are clearly escalating as well. As Dahr Jamail, author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Sarah Lazare report, under these circumstances, the Army is digging deep for deployable troops; in fact, it's dipping into a pool of soldiers who have already been damaged or even broken by their experiences in our war zones -- and that's just to meet present deployment needs. Perhaps it's not surprising then that Dreazen included this striking passage in his report: "At a White House meeting Friday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff urged President Barack Obama to send fresh troops to Afghanistan only if they have spent at least a year in the U.S. since their last overseas tour, according to people familiar with the matter. If Mr. Obama agreed to that condition, many potential Afghanistan reinforcements wouldn't be available until next summer at the earliest." In translation (if Dreazen is correct), that means, in a private brainstorming session with the president, the Joint Chiefs have evidently put the brakes on implementing the full-scale plan of Centcom Commander David Petraeus and Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal to send a massive infusion of new troops to Afghanistan any time soon. It's worth asking -- though no one, as far as I can tell, yet has -- whether this may be a modest Afghan equivalent of the "Shinseki moment" before the invasion of Iraq. (Then, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki warned in Congressional testimony that, if we invaded, we would need "several hundred thousand" troops -- numbers not available -- for the occupation to follow. He was laughed into retirement by the Bush-appointed civilian leadership of the Pentagon.) At the same time, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, has just made it clear that the Pentagon will once again request supplemental war-fighting funds sometime next year, over and above the $130 billion Congress appropriated only a month ago in the Defense Department budget. These will be based, in part, on a calculation that each 1,000 new troops sent to Afghanistan must be supported by an extra billion dollars in funds. (You can do the math yourself on those 40,000 troops and then wonder just where all that money is going to come from.) We are, in fact, facing an ongoing disaster not just for the U.S., but for the U.S. military. Read the following piece and ask yourself: What state would a military have to be in to consider sending such men back into a war zone? A desperate military is, of course, the answer -- a military rubbed raw and, as the shocking mass murder spree at already stressed-out Fort Hood may indicate, on edge in a way that perhaps no one has quite grasped. Tom ---- Where Will They Get the Troops? Preparing Undeployables for the Afghan Front By Dahr Jamail and Sarah Lazare As the Obama administration debates whether to send tens of thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan, an already overstretched military is increasingly struggling to meet its deployment numbers. Surprisingly, one place it seems to be targeting is military personnel who go absent without leave (AWOL) and then are caught or turn themselves in. Hidden behind the gates of military bases across the U.S., troops facing AWOL and desertion charges regularly find themselves in the hands of a military that metes out informal, open-ended punishments by forcing them to wait months -- sometimes more than a year -- to face military justice. In the meantime, some of these soldiers are offered a free pass out of this legal limbo as long as they agree to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq -- even if they have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In August 2008 at TomDispatch.com, we reported on the deplorable conditions at the 82nd Replacement Barracks at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There, more than 50 members of Echo Platoon of the 82nd Airborne Division's 82nd Replacement Detachment were being held while awaiting AWOL and desertion charges. Investigations launched since then -- in part in response to our article -- have revealed that the plight of members of Echo Platoon is not an isolated one. It is, in fact, disturbingly commonplace on other bases throughout the United States. And it is from these "holdover units," filled with disgruntled soldiers who have gone AWOL, many of whom are struggling with PTSD from previous deployments in war zones, that the military is hoping to help meet its manpower needs for Afghanistan. Nightmare in Echo Platoon On August 16th, determined to put an end to unbearable mental and psychological pain, Private Timothy Rich, while on 24-hour suicide watch, attempted to jump to his death from the roof of Echo Platoon's barracks (where he had been held since being arrested for going AWOL). Prior to his suicide attempt, Rich had been offered amnesty by the military in exchange for agreeing to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq. He had already been through a hellish year awaiting a discharge and treatment for mental health problems. "I want to leave here very bad," he explained. "For four months they have been telling me that I'll get out next week. I didn't see an end to it, so I figured I'd try and end it myself." He fell three stories, bouncing off a tree, before hitting the ground and cracking his spine. The military gave him a back brace, psychotropic drugs, and put him on a renewed, 24-hour suicide watch. While he has recently been discharged from the military, Rich was not atypical of the soldiers of Echo Platoon, some forced to wait a year or more in legal limbo -- in dilapidated buildings under the authority of abusive commanders -- for legal proceedings to begin, and many struggling with mental illness or PTSD from previous deployments. As Specialist Dustin Stevens told us last August: "[It's] horrible here. We are treated like animals. Some of us are going crazy, some are sick. There are people here who should be in mental hospitals. And the way I see it, I did nothing wrong." Shortly after our story was published, Stevens told us that at least half a dozen soldiers in the platoon, including him, were suddenly given trial dates. Although he was likely to be found guilty and face punishment, Stevens claimed to be "relieved" to have an end in sight. Soon after, according to Echo Platoon informants, their barracks were condemned as a result of a military investigation of the site and, on October 19th, the platoon itself was disbanded. Recently, due possibly to the attention his story drew to the mistreatment and indefinite detention soldiers were facing in Echo Platoon, Stevens was informed by the military he would be "chaptered out" -- in other words, given an administrative discharge from the Army -- and will not be forced to serve formal prison time. James Branum, Stevens' civilian lawyer, as well as the legal adviser to the G.I. Rights Hotline of Oklahoma and co-chair of the Military Law Task Force (MLTF), summed developments up this way: "After repeated complaints and congressional inquiry, Echo Platoon was shut down. The whole place was shut down. Everyone was scattered to other units. If your old unit still exists, they are sending you to your old unit. We know that at least one of the NCOs [non-commissioned officers] in charge of Echo Platoon was fired. I think this is a positive thing." Echoes of Echo The troubling state of affairs in Echo Platoon may only have been the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Army holdover units. Evidence suggests that soldiers being held on other bases in the United States for AWOL and desertion face similar apathy or intentional neglect ? and that they, too, are often left with the choice between living in legal limbo or agreeing to be sent to a war zone. Scott Wildman, a former Army Specialist, went AWOL in 2007 when he was unable to receive adequate help for severe PTSD sustained after a 15-month deployment to Iraq. In February 2009, he finally turned himself in at Fort Lewis in Washington State, only to find himself lost in a labyrinthine bureaucracy. For the first four months, he was not allowed to leave a confined area and was forbidden even to walk around by himself. Here's how he describes his experience: "I was flipping out. My wife had left me while I was over there. I hadn't seen my kids in a couple years. I came home and tried to get help. At Fort Lewis, they do not care about you. I had been diagnosed by civilian and military doctors with severe depression, PTSD, and severe anxiety. When you are at the unit, they make fun of you. They crack PTSD jokes. They all have it too, but they're too cool." During the eight months he has been held at Fort Lewis, Wildman claims he has suffered verbal abuse and substandard mental healthcare. "The command treated me like dirt. My commander ignored me for the first couple months until my roommate jumped me. They'll make sure you're in the room and call you a 'bunch of PTSD pussies.'" Four weeks ago, Wildman was informed that he would be court-martialed, but was not given a trial date. Feeling he had no other choice, he went AWOL again and remains so today. "I'd been going to see some military counselors, but we weren't making progress on the real problem?. They give us classes on calm and peacefulness, but they are right near the shooting ranges. There's gunfire and explosions all around, people being screamed at all the time because it's infantry. It's not a good place for someone with [mental health] issues." At one point, despite a confidentiality protocol that should have prevented it, Wildman's commanders went through his medical evaluations and found out that he had been involved in the accidental killing of two little girls in Iraq. They proceeded to needle him by threatening to write him up for war crimes. Explaining why he once again went AWOL, Wildman says, "I didn't know what was going to happen next. I had to remove myself from that situation." "Examples of how the military is treating soldiers, like the case of Wildman, are common," comments Kathleen Gilberd, co-chair of the MLTF. She also points out that the Army, stretched thin by years of multiple deployments to two war zones, has taken to downplaying potentially severe medical conditions to keep soldiers eligible for service overseas. It is commonplace, she reports, for formerly AWOL soldiers to be "bribed" with offers of having all charges, or potential charges, dropped, as long as they accept deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. "A lot of folks who are under-diagnosed or misdiagnosed are being deployed second and third times," she adds. "Barrier mechanisms that should prevent this from happening are being routinely ignored... If someone is on psychotropic medication or is diagnosed with a fresh psychiatric condition, there should be a 90-day observation period and delay, under DOD [Department of Defense] policy." Remarkably, that sometimes-ignored 90-day hold period for military personnel on psychotropic medications does not always apply to soldiers who are diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI) of a sort commonly caused by roadside bombs. According to an Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center analysis, reported in the Denver Post in August 2008, more than "43,000 service members -- two-thirds of them in the Army or Army Reserve -- were classified as nondeployable for medical reasons three months before they deployed" to Iraq. The process, if anything, only seems to be accelerating when it comes to Afghanistan. Deploying the Undeployables Not all soldiers go AWOL in order to save their minds and bodies. Some are trying to save their families. One soldier held in Bravo Platoon, a holdover unit of the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs (who did not want his name made public) disclosed that, having returned from service in Iraq, he was told he would soon be redeployed there. Because his mother was ill, he refused and was threatened with a court martial. "When I turned myself in, I submitted a binder with letters from my mom's doctors and state officials that made clear that I needed to be home to take care of my mother. At that time, they had me on restriction and lockdown 24/7 to keep me from leaving again. Later they punished me. I was assigned extra duty and received a rank reduction from E3 to a private. I was treated like crap." He and the other soldiers in his holdover platoon were subjected to verbal abuse and made to do menial jobs. He claimed that he was threatened daily with being sent to the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the military's maximum security correctional facility -- and then was urged to agree to go back to Iraq instead. It made no difference that he had "no-go" orders from doctors at Fort Carson exempting him from overseas deployment. His commander promised him a clean slate if he would redeploy to Iraq, insisting that the only alternative was a court-martial. Despite a regimen of humiliation, he stood his ground and was finally discharged for family hardship in September 2008. There were at least 11 other soldiers then in Bravo Platoon. Like their counterparts in Echo, most were told that their records would be wiped clean once they agreed to redeploy. The alternative was a non-judicial punishment, followed by a court-martial some months down the line. As he tells it, Sergeant Heath Carter, originally based at Fort Polk, Louisiana, found himself torn between pressing family needs and an indifferent military command. On returning from the invasion of Iraq, he discovered his daughter living in what he believed to be an unsafe environment. Heath and his new wife started consulting attorneys in order to secure custody of the child. Precisely during this time, the military began changing Carter's duty station. He was moved from Fort Polk to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, then on to Fort Stewart, Georgia, reducing his chances of gaining custody. Convinced that this was a crucial matter for his daughter, he requested compassionate reassignment to Fort Leavenworth, Missouri, about two hours away from her. His appeals to the military command, to his chaplain, even to his congressman failed. In May 2007, having run out of options, he went AWOL from Fort Stewart, heading home to fight for custody, which he won. This January 25th, however, he was arrested at his home by Military Police, who flew him back to Fort Stewart where he has been awaiting charges for the past eight months. Being a sergeant, he is in a regular unit, not a holdover one. Initially, his commander assured him he would be sent home within a month and a half. Several months later, the same commander decided to court-martial him. Carter feels frustrated. "If they had done that in the beginning, I would have been home by now. It's taken this long for them to decide. Now I have to wait for the court-martial. If we had known it would take this long, my family could have moved down here. Every time I ask when I'll have a trial, they say it's only going to be another two weeks. I get the feeling they're lying. They've messed with my pay. They're trying to push me to do something wrong." His ordeal has forced Carter to reflect on America's wars. Once, he admits, he was proud of his mission in Iraq. Now, he sees things differently. "I don't think there is any reason for us to be there except for oil." His wife, who witnessed her husband's callous treatment, says, "He's been there [Iraq], done that, and seen horrible, terrible things, so of course he doesn't want to go back." While the Obama administration decides how many thousands of troops to send to Afghanistan, service men and women are already facing repeated deployments, oftentimes while having already been diagnosed with medical conditions that should render them unfit for deployment. Nothing has changed for these beleaguered troops, except the venue of their maltreatment and the desperation with which the military is now struggling to make the necessary deployment numbers as it continues to fight two endless wars. Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan (Haymarket Books, 2009), and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for nine months, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey over the last five years. Sarah Lazare is the project coordinator for Courage to Resist, an organization that supports troops who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is also a freelance writer. Bhaswati Sengupta contributed to this report. From meisner at xs4all.nl Mon Nov 9 14:16:08 2009 From: meisner at xs4all.nl (Jeff) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:16:08 +0100 Subject: [Marxism] FOX Finds a New Black Boogeyman/More Buses for 11/12 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20091109221608.04754c34@pop.xs4all.nl> At 14:31 09/11/09 -0430, Paul Lefrak wrote: >I submit this mostly for comrades on the east coast of the U.S. who can >possibly make it to D.C. on Nov. 12 for a protest at the U.S. Department of >Justice demanding a civil rights investigation for Mumia Abu-Jamal. I would strongly endorse that suggestion, given the symbolic importance of Mumia's frame-up. I'd urge you to demonstrate for that reason alone, for there is essentially zero likelihood of the US government actually initiating a civil rights investigation on Mumia's behalf, which (if done fairly) would call for a reversal of his murder conviction (the federal government already acted to reverse his death sentence 8 years ago in order to insure that he remains and dies in prison without protests igniting around an actual execution. For accuracy I should note that an execution is still not ruled out in the case of a winning supreme court appeal by the prosecution or if so ordered by a new jury, though these are quite unlikely). The article by Linn Washington included in this post is also very good and worth reading, but I must take issue with one paragraph: > >For weeks, Fox?s popular Glenn Beck bashed Jones for supporting efforts to >free ?a communist cop killer? ? irrespective of the fact that Abu-Jamal is >not a communist and card carrying communists never reference Abu-Jamal as a >member of their movement. Ahem. Of course I don't want to get into questions of semantics and above all I realize that the list archives are indexed by Google and read by the right wing. Labels aren't very important in themselves, but suffice it to say that Mumia has written hundreds of editorial pieces which decry not only racism and police brutality (of which he was a victim), but he writes eloquently against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, imperialism (in its economic, political, as well as military aspects), and of suffering caused by the capitalist economic system. He supports labor, women's rights and gay rights. He speaks highly of the revolutions in Cuba, Vietnam, Algeria etc. I could go on. Linn Washington's quip may have played well to the intended audience of his publication, but you can well delete it from the article and read it again. (I'll also forgive his ignorant reference to "card carrying communists"). Mumia was framed because of his political clarity and ability to communicate such views to a mass audience as a journalist. That's why his frame-up is of such importance, and the importance of publicizing his plight hardly needs further explanation. - Jeff From marvgandall at videotron.ca Mon Nov 9 14:06:52 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:06:52 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> <8D45397F34284AFFA45B0DF178B8AF41@dmsthinkpad> <4AF8779A.4C8164E6@ilstu.edu> Message-ID: <34C61A789E54463CB3EA0B2D39CFBB17@MARV> Carrol writes: > Left opportunism or Ultra-Left is characterized by an overestimation of > the strength of capital, an under-estimation of the strength of the > working class. Using this description, I see the most destructive > ultra-leftism of the '60s to have been the SWP policy of "single-issue" > demonstrations. =========================== Hardly. Your description is opposite the one used by Marxists, who viewed "left adventurism" or "ultra-leftism" as an overestimation of working class strength and an underestimation of the resources available to the ruling class, leading to failed premature efforts to seize power as, for example, in Hungary, Germany, and elsewhere in the immediate aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution. "Right opportunism" was considered to consist in an underestimation of the workers' fighting capacity and an exaggerated respect for capital, the most common indictment which was levelled against social democratic party and trade union leaders by Marxists. Critics of the SWP did not see it as "ultra-left" for refusing to integrate pro-NLF themes into it's antiwar work, but as being to the right of themselves, self-described "revolutionaries", for failing to do so. From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 14:29:45 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:29:45 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] The Complete Guide to Killing Non-Jews, Message-ID: <4AF889C9.2030408@gmail.com> Totally disgusting, of course. It's like a guide to kosher dietary laws, written as if separate laws exist (which in their minds is true) between Jews who are somehow more human and non-Jews as being some sort of animal. The basis of this doesn't start with these so-called "scholars" but actually goes back to the old Babylonian Talmud. It is the basis of a study & book by Israel Shahak, the famous anti-Zionist Jewish scholar who "exposed" the "racist basis of modern day Zionism in the intrinsic racism of Judaism". Anyway, these Talumudic 'studies' are subsidized lock, stock and paper, by the Israeli State which pays these yahoos to sit around and 'study Jewish law' instead of going out and actually working for a living. David From shmage at pipeline.com Mon Nov 9 15:16:04 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 17:16:04 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Complete Guide to Killing Non-Jews In-Reply-To: <4AF88396.5020406@panix.com> References: <4AF88396.5020406@panix.com> Message-ID: <121ED047-E067-419B-B411-65C5065B2282@pipeline.com> On Nov 9, 2009, at 4:03 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: > (Posted to Doug's list by Brian Atinsky, an Israeli.) > > Roi Sharon / The Complete Guide to Killing Non-Jews > > /*Ma?ariv, 9.11.2009, p. 2 */ > > For the Hebrew original: > http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/964/186.html // > > When is it permissible to kill non-Jews? The book Torat ha-Melekh > [The King?s Teaching?INT], which was just published, was written > by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the dean of the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in > the community of Yitzhar near Nablus, together with another rabbi > from the yeshiva, Yossi Elitzur. The book contains no fewer than > 230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind > of guide for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is > permissible to take the life of a non-Jew. > > Although the book is not being distributed by the leading book > companies, it has already received warm recommendations from > right-wing elements, including recommendations from important > rabbis such as Yitzhak Ginsburg, Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef, that > were printed at the beginning of the book. The book is being > distributed via the Internet and through the yeshiva, and at this > stage the introductory price is NIS 30 per copy. At the memorial > ceremony that was held over the weekend in Jerusalem for Rabbi > Meir Kahane, who was killed nineteen years ago, copies of the book > were sold. > > Throughout the book, the authors deal with in-depth theoretical > questions in Jewish religious law regarding the killing of > non-Jews. The words ?Arabs? and ?Palestinians? are not mentioned > even indirectly, and the authors are careful to avoid making > explicit statements in favor of an individual taking the law into > his own hands. The book includes hundreds of sources from the > Bible and religious law. The book includes quotes from Rabbi > Abraham Isaac Kook, one of the fathers of religious Zionism, and > from Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, one of the deans of the Mercaz Harav > Yeshiva, the stronghold of national-religious Zionism that is > located in Jerusalem. > > The book opens with a prohibition against killing non-Jews and > justifies it, among other things, on the grounds of preventing > hostility and any desecration of God?s name. But very quickly, the > authors move from prohibition to permission, to the various > dispensations for harming non-Jews, with the central reason being > their obligation to uphold the seven Noahide laws, which every > human being on earth must follow. Among these commandments are > prohibitions on theft, bloodshed and idolatry. [The seven Noahide > laws prohibit idolatry, murder, theft, illicit sexual relations, > blasphemy and eating the flesh of a live animal, and require > societies to institute just laws and law courts?INT] > > ?When we approach a non-Jew who has violated the seven Noahide > laws and kill him out of concern for upholding these seven laws, > no prohibition has been violated,? states the book, which > emphasizes that killing is forbidden unless it is done in > obedience to a court ruling. But later on, the authors limit the > prohibition, noting that it applies only to a ?proper system that > deals with non-Jews who violate the seven Noahide commandments.? > > The book includes another conclusion that explains when a non-Jew > may be killed even if he is not an enemy of the Jews. ?In any > situation in which a non-Jew?s presence endangers Jewish lives, > the non-Jew may be killed even if he is a righteous Gentile and > not at all guilty for the situation that has been created,? the > authors state. ?When a non-Jew assists a murderer of Jews and > causes the death of one, he may be killed, and in any case where a > non-Jew?s presence causes danger to Jews, the non-Jew may be > killed.? One of the dispensations for killing non-Jews, according > to religious law, applies in a case of din rodef [the law of the > ?pursuer,? according to which one who is pursuing another with > murderous intent may be killed extrajudicially] even when the > pursuer is a civilian. ?The dispensation applies even when the > pursuer is not threatening to kill directly, but only indirectly,? > the book states. ?Even a civilian who assists combat fighters is > considered a pursuer and may be killed. Anyone who assists the > army of the wicked in any way is strengthening murderers and is > considered a pursuer. A civilian who encourages the war gives the > king and his soldiers the strength to continue. Therefore, any > citizen of the state that opposes us who encourages the combat > soldiers or expresses satisfaction over their actions is > considered a pursuer and may be killed. Also, anyone who weakens > our own state by word or similar action is considered a pursuer.? > > Rabbis Shapira and Elitzur determine that children may also be > harmed because they are ?hindrances.? The rabbis write as follows: > ?Hindrances?babies are found many times in this situation. They > block the way to rescue by their presence and do so completely by > force. Nevertheless, they may be killed because their presence > aids murder. There is justification for killing babies if it is > clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation > they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with > adults.? > > In addition, the children of the leader may be harmed in order to > apply pressure to him. If attacking the children of a wicked ruler > will influence him not to behave wickedly, they may be harmed. ?It > is better to kill the pursuers than to kill others,? the authors > state. > > In a chapter entitled ?Deliberate harm to innocents,? the book > explains that war is directly mainly against the pursuers, but > those who belong to the enemy nation are also considered the enemy > because they are assisting murderers. > > Retaliation also has a place and purpose in this book by Rabbis > Shapira and Elitzur. ?In order to defeat the enemy, we must behave > toward them in a spirit of retaliation and measure for measure,? > they state. ?Retaliation is absolutely necessary in order to > render such wickedness not worthwhile. Therefore, sometimes we do > cruel deeds in order to create the proper balance of terror.? > > In one of the footnotes, the two rabbis write in such a way that > appears to permit individuals to act on their own, outside of any > decision by the government or the army. > > ?A decision by the nation is not necessary to permit shedding the > blood of the evil kingdom,? the rabbis write. ?Even individuals > from the nation being attacked may harm them.? > > Unlike books of religious law that are published by yeshivas, this > time the rabbis added a chapter containing the book?s conclusions. > Each of the six chapters is summarized into main points of several > lines, which state, among other things: ?In religious law, we have > found that non-Jews are generally suspected of shedding Jewish > blood, and in war, this suspicion becomes a great deal stronger. > One must consider killing even babies, who have not violated the > seven Noahide laws, because of the future danger that will be > caused if they are allowed to grow up to be as wicked as their > parents.? > > Even though the authors are careful, as stated, to use the term > ?non-Jews,? there are certainly those who could interpret the > nationality of the ?non-Jews? who are liable to endanger the > Jewish people. This is strengthened by the leaflet ?The Jewish > Voice,? which is published on the Internet from Yitzhar, which > comments on the book: ?It is superfluous to note that nowhere in > the book is it written that the statements are directly only to > the ancient non-Jews.? The leaflet?s editors did not omit a > stinging remark directed at the GSS, who will certainly take the > trouble to get themselves a copy. ?The editors suggest to the GSS > that they award the prize for Israel?s security to the authors,? > the leaflet states, ?who gave the detectives the option of reading > the summarized conclusions without any need for in-depth study of > the entire book.? > > One student of the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in Yitzhar explained, from > his point of view, where Rabbis Shapira and Elitzur got the > courage to speak so freely on a subject such as the killing of > non-Jews. ?The rabbis aren?t afraid of prosecution because in that > case, Maimonides [Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, 1135?1204] and > Nahmanides [Rabbi Moses ben Nahman, 1194?1270] would have to stand > trial too, and anyway, this is research on religious law,? the > yeshiva student said. ?In a Jewish state, nobody sits in jail for > studying Torah.? > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/shmage%40pipeline.com Shane Mage Shane Mage > This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it > always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, > kindling in measures and going out in measures." > > Herakleitos of Ephesos From elishastephens at hotmail.com Mon Nov 9 15:33:38 2009 From: elishastephens at hotmail.com (Eli Stephens) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 14:33:38 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] FOX Finds a New Black Boogeyman/More Buses for 11/12 Message-ID: An important article on a pending Supreme Court case involving "states rights" which may have a significant impact on Mumia's case: http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=13213 Eli Stephens Left I on the News http://lefti.blogspot.com _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft's powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ From michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Mon Nov 9 16:37:27 2009 From: michael at ecst.csuchico.edu (Michael Perelman) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 15:37:27 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Deserving a place among philosophers In-Reply-To: <4AF833FC.5050108@panix.com> References: <4AF833FC.5050108@panix.com> Message-ID: <20091109233727.GB6130@ecst.csuchico.edu> I would nominate William Petty as the pioneer in "scientific" racism. Here is a snippet from my incomplete book ms. Sex, Lies, and Economics: The Amazing Story of Economics and Economists Before Adam Smith Although Petty may have been willing to overturn the conventional social order in England, he took a less generous view of people's potential in other parts of the world. In England, he estimated the value of people to be about 70 pounds per head. In contrast, he suggested that the appropriate way to value human cost of the invasion of Ireland would be to use the prices of slave auctions: 25 pounds per man and 5 pounds per child (Petty 1691b, p. 152). Winthrop Jordan claims: "Petty ... was the first to emphasize the gradation among groups of men on the basis of physical distinctions" (Jordan 1995, p. 224). He regarded Africans as the lowest of mankind. Petty even tried to rank people from different parts of Africa according to which were more "beastlike" (Petty 1667, p. 31). However, unlike later British racists, who explained their contempt for the Irish because of their racial similarity to Africans (Beddoe 1885, p. 5; Peart and Levy 2005, p. 35), Petty did not seem to regard the Irish as inferior. He blamed an engrained culture made worse by the influence of the clergy. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com From tcod at hotmail.com Mon Nov 9 16:44:13 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 23:44:13 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Fred Hampton In-Reply-To: References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Louis: >You were in the 8th grade in 1968, weren't you, Ron? I marvel at your >ability to "educate" me about the Panthers. Actually Ron was from the University of Maryland campus that I attended from1971-1976 but was several years older being from among those activists that had been in SDS. More on this at: http://www.route-one.org/ There's a lot of talk about Argentina etc. but no mention of Newark, Watts, the ghetto rebellions after MLK's assassination etc which was the context of the emergence of the Panthers. No, the issue is not one of nostalgia at all but of a spirit of solidarity (to say nothing of "sensitivity" to their situation) and how to approach frontline movements and activists. The approach of moderator and his cothinkers was to view them as "opponents" they had to arrogantly counterpose themselves to, a fundamentally sectarian and inept outlook. The broad mass of the movement including organizations led by veterans of the 30s and the 40s, like the Communist Party and Workers World, was different which is why they made gains in the black community and were able to have some influence with Panther activists and the trot milieu didn't. Same attitude to a slightly lesser extent emerged around Native Americans and Wounded Knee. How are you going to supposedly teach these front line militants lessons in organizing their own communities if you have no roots in it and how are you gonna get those roots if you diss em by arrogantly talking down to them while their under fire in the manner of German High Doctor? It's politically wrong and socially inept, if a politically safe approach. The attitude expressed by moderator is the type of self serving caricature of the movement, unwittingly recycling right wing stereotypes about the movement, that the trots used to justify their abstention from it. I regret he has not moved farther away from that attitude. Another example: when we were occupied by the National Guard at Maryland in 1972 and placed under martial law for a week, the Party branch in DC's lack of enthusiasm for this was palpable and they did virtually nothing to get involved in this, even though we were ten miles away and later when the campus YSA organizer gave a report on this to the Branch displaying a full page red fist logo poster from the campus daily newspaper, a "leading comrade" rushed up screaming that he was "miseducating" people with that "ultraleft" stuff. Of course she had never bothered to come out on campus to check things out. That a couple of those YSAers we lost to WWP in the wake of this who ended up going to Cuba in 1974 didn't faze them, they didn't care, they were too busy worried about stuff like "the internal crisis in the Fourth International" and other irrelevant *inside baseball* bullshit that made them feel important but, like them, had little to do with the progressive movement. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141665/direct/01/ From tcod at hotmail.com Mon Nov 9 16:47:28 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 23:47:28 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] New Book on Fred Hampton Assasination In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Gee, so what about Angela Davis and her trial in Marin County. C'mon. > From: marvgandall at videotron.ca > Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 17:16:51 -0500 > Subject: Re: [Marxism] New Book on Fred Hampton Assasination > To: tcod at hotmail.com > > Tom Cod writes: > > > I note the CP, for all its faults, had a different approach and was in the > > thick of solidarity with them and made political gains in that milieu... > =============================================== > The CP was uniformally opposed to the Panthers' program and tactics in much > the same way the SWP was. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141665/direct/01/ From tcod at hotmail.com Mon Nov 9 16:56:03 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 23:56:03 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Fred Hampton In-Reply-To: References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: sorry about the spacing. Not the way it looked when I wrote it. > From: tcod at hotmail.com > Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 23:44:13 +0000 > Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fred Hampton > To: tcod at hotmail.com > > > Louis: >You were in the 8th grade in 1968, weren't you, Ron? I marvel at your > ability to "educate" me about the Panthers. > Actually Ron was from the University of Maryland campus that I attended from1971-1976 but was several years older being from among those activists that had been in SDS. More on this at: > http://www.route-one.org/ > There's a lot of talk about Argentina etc. but no mention of Newark, Watts, the ghetto rebellions after MLK's assassination etc which was the context of the emergence of the Panthers. . . . _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141665/direct/01/ From tcod at hotmail.com Mon Nov 9 17:09:56 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:09:56 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] In Defense of the Black Panther Party In-Reply-To: <20091109044109.6C8302803F@smtp.hushmail.com> References: <20091109044109.6C8302803F@smtp.hushmail.com> Message-ID: And a caricature of Mao's ideas and the Chinese Revolution as well which occurred because of the mobilization of the broad masses by the CCP and the Red Army. I guess Mao was "tailing after the bourgoise" in October 1949, so why do they hate him so much? Hey, "who lost China?" For my review of Paret's book on Clausewitz on Amazon (3rd one down): http://www.amazon.com/Clausewitz-State-Peter-Paret/product-reviews/069100806X/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 > Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 23:41:09 -0500 > From: sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com > Subject: Re: [Marxism] In Defense of the Black Panther Party > To: tcod at hotmail.com > > Artesian wrote: > >Mao said political power grows out of the > >barrel of a gun? Chalk that up to one more > >thing where Maoism tails after the bourgeoisie... > >I mean somebody said way before Mao > >"War is the continuation of politics by > >other means" or something like that, right? > >So what? ... > > I am so glad Artesian has read "Vom Krieg" > as it is a work well worth studying. The > best English translation is by Michael Howard > and Peter Paret published by Princeton. > > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tcod%40hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141665/direct/01/ From markalause at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 17:17:14 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 19:17:14 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Fred Hampton In-Reply-To: References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: This is not a binary up-or-down choice between the Panthers and the SWP or the CP. What one said about the other's work may have been true without vindicating their own work. As far as that goes, what both said about the other's work may have been true (or not) without telling us much about their own work. ML From tcod at hotmail.com Mon Nov 9 17:18:30 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:18:30 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party In-Reply-To: <000301ca60a7$b1e28da0$15a7a8e0$@com> References: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> <000301ca60a7$b1e28da0$15a7a8e0$@com> Message-ID: And what struck me was how in the process how little time was devoted to exposing the crimes of Franco and fascism with the onus therefor being shifted to the "Stalinists", many of whom were victims of fascist repression, arguments recycled and coopted constantly by neo-cons, ex-trot or not: quite frankly an anti-communist obsession that fit in well with the atmosphere in this country at that time, explaining how bad those commies really were. After having gotten to know some communists later I started to question that orthodoxy which kind of went against the grain of my upbringing in a liberal FDR loving family of WW2 veterans, not that Stalin wasn't a creep, the 1939 pact with Hitler being the all time low for him and the CPs who upheld that. > From: biastg at embarqmail.com > Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 14:14:28 -0500 > Subject: Re: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party > To: tcod at hotmail.com > > Louis, I can understand why from this vantage-point one can consider the > founding of the Fourth International a "sectarian mistake." However, at the > time that Trotsky proposed it, Stalinism was not only a mass movement in the > working class throughout the world, it was capable of any kind of crime > imaginable. The Spanish Civil War, for example, was in progress at the time > that the F.I. was being organized and was at the center of political debate. > It always struck me as a new recruit to the YSA in 1969 how much energy the > older generation used to denounce Stalinism and educate us on its crimes. > The Fourth International was launched to combat Stalinism and social > democracy in the working class, with the belief that without doing so > socialist revolution was not possible. > _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft's powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ From cbcox at ilstu.edu Mon Nov 9 17:33:02 2009 From: cbcox at ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:33:02 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] A few words In Defense of the Black Panther Party References: <4AF7135F.7090007@panix.com> <000301ca60a7$b1e28da0$15a7a8e0$@com> Message-ID: <4AF8B4BE.17824F8E@ilstu.edu> Tom Cod quotes: > > From: biastg at embarqmail.com > > Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 14:14:28 -0500 > > > > However, at the > > time that Trotsky proposed it, Stalinism was not only a mass movement in the > > working class throughout the world, it was capable of any kind of crime > > imaginable. The Spanish Civil War, for example, [clip] I may have made this point before, but it is still, I think, relevant. Those who raise questions concerning the errors or crimes of the "stalinists" really should feel obliged to develop in some detail their position on the struggles of the Guelfphs and Ghibelines, and in the process elaborate a critique of Dante's position on this struggle. Carrol From cbcox at ilstu.edu Mon Nov 9 17:59:55 2009 From: cbcox at ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:59:55 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] Fred Hampton References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AF8BB0B.F91346B5@ilstu.edu> Again, I am behind on reading posts, having been in Amherst since Thursday, and probably won't catch up. Apologies if this repeats points already made. Fred Hampton spent the last few months of his life going from Black high school to Black high school -- and what was he telling them: he was condemning the Wetherman tendency. That repeated polemic against the Weatherman, delivered to Black high school students, catches up THE chief contribution of the Black Panther Party: The need for the development of a complex political movement that linked Black and white revolulutionary organizations int a commone struggle to break the barrier to class unity represented by racism (structural and ideologoical). The Weatherman tendency grew from a repudiation of that as a possible political goal, since white workers were so deeply racist that no change was possible on their part. (As one of them once argued with me, socialism in the United States would probably require somethng like a lenghy occupation of the U.S. by the PLA. The Weather loons really were loons.*) The Panther Pary rejected this, and constantly looked for white/Black cooperation. Panthers came over to Bloomington(Illinois) from Peoria, for example, to cooperate with the ISU SDS chapter in attempting to recruit ISU students to participate in the RYM2 October 1969 demonstrations in Chicago. Fred Hampton himself spoke at ISU only a couple weeks before his murder. I do not think the specific errors made by any political grouping of the past are of any interest (other than antiquarian) whatever. Errors are repeated, but never in any form that is a recognizable repetitionof the same error in earlier peiods. Criticism of the Weatherman tendency, for example, will do nothing whatever to protect against the identical error in the fture, since those who will make that error will be convinced that they are entirely different from the Weatherman tendency. My remarks above on Eatherman are meant to help clarify a political principle that still holds: that "black-white" unity (or cooperation) can coame aboaut _only_ through the leadership of Black revolutionary forces. Weatherman terrorism is a triviality; their rejection of this principle was profound, and this principle still holds today. Carrol From guycarlos at msn.com Mon Nov 9 18:25:20 2009 From: guycarlos at msn.com (Guy Miller) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 19:25:20 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] Fred Hampton In-Reply-To: <4AF8BB0B.F91346B5@ilstu.edu> References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: It is amazing how little the Weather-underground people have learned over the last 40 years. It is to the Panthers' credit that they viewed the "Days of Rage" as the spoiled-brat tantrum that it was. Somehow people like Dohrn and her union busting husband Bill Ayers come through life like the children of privilege they are. Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 18:59:55 -0600 > From: cbcox at ilstu.edu > Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fred Hampton > To: guycarlos at msn.com > > Again, I am behind on reading posts, having been in Amherst since > Thursday, and probably won't catch up. Apologies if this repeats points > already made. > > Fred Hampton spent the last few months of his life going from Black high > school to Black high school -- and what was he telling them: he was > condemning the Wetherman tendency. That repeated polemic against the > Weatherman, delivered to Black high school students, catches up THE > chief contribution of the Black Panther Party: The need for the > development of a complex political movement that linked Black and white > revolulutionary organizations int a commone struggle to break the > barrier to class unity represented by racism (structural and > ideologoical). The Weatherman tendency grew from a repudiation of that > as a possible political goal, since white workers were so deeply racist > that no change was possible on their part. (As one of them once argued > with me, socialism in the United States would probably require somethng > like a lenghy occupation of the U.S. by the PLA. The Weather loons > really were loons.*) The Panther Pary rejected this, and constantly > looked for white/Black cooperation. Panthers came over to > Bloomington(Illinois) from Peoria, for example, to cooperate with the > ISU SDS chapter in attempting to recruit ISU students to participate in > the RYM2 October 1969 demonstrations in Chicago. Fred Hampton himself > spoke at ISU only a couple weeks before his murder. > > I do not think the specific errors made by any political grouping of the > past are of any interest (other than antiquarian) whatever. Errors are > repeated, but never in any form that is a recognizable repetitionof the > same error in earlier peiods. Criticism of the Weatherman tendency, for > example, will do nothing whatever to protect against the identical error > in the fture, since those who will make that error will be convinced > that they are entirely different from the Weatherman tendency. My > remarks above on Eatherman are meant to help clarify a political > principle that still holds: that "black-white" unity (or cooperation) > can coame aboaut _only_ through the leadership of Black revolutionary > forces. Weatherman terrorism is a triviality; their rejection of this > principle was profound, and this principle still holds today. > > Carrol > > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/guycarlos%40msn.com From tcod at hotmail.com Mon Nov 9 19:02:42 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:02:42 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Fred Hampton In-Reply-To: References: <7b8a676d0911080849o1ed86f8bvd2ddc677c1ee4244@mail.gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911090704mafaf833h3387296e29cd4e63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: guycarlos at msn.com > Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 19:25:20 -0600 > Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fred Hampton >Dohrn and her union busting husband Bill Ayers . . . How so? I hadn't heard of that and couldn't google anything up on it offhand. _________________________________________________________________ Find the right PC with Windows 7 and Windows Live. http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/pc-scout/laptop-set-criteria.aspx?cbid=wl&filt=200,2400,10,19,1,3,1,7,50,650,2,12,0,1000&cat=1,2,3,4,5,6&brands=5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16&addf=4,5,9&ocid=PID24727::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WWL_WIN_evergreen2:112009 From sabocat59 at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 19:02:51 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 21:02:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] PSUV backs Chavez call to prepare for invasion ... 7, 000 paramilitaries in Venezuela Message-ID: <6e42edf00911091802o37c47b26h852d61834f14398a@mail.gmail.com> http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=85879 PSUV backs Chavez call to prepare for invasion ... 7,000 paramilitaries in Venezuela VHeadline News Editor Patrick J. O'Donoghue reports: The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) held a Monday morning session to analyze commentaries made yesterday by President Chavez during his Alo Presidente radio show. Maria Cristina Iglesias and Jorge Rodriguez said at a press conference afterwards that the PSUV leadership supports President Chavez' call for the country to get ready to defend national territory and sovereignty because of the US-Colombian military agreement to tackle unfriendly governments in the region. Rodriguez declared that the decision of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to treat Chavez' call as an aggression against his country and lodge a formal complaint at the UN and Organization of American States (OAS) is "cynical" because by signing on the dotted line with the USA, Uribe has declared war on all his neighbors. Rodriguez warned that the presence of US troops (and mercenaries) on Colombian soil would herald an increase in the drug trade as occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan. The PSUV has called its patrols, especially in border states, to a rally on Friday against imperialism and in favor of peace. Iglesias confirmed that everything is ready for elections on Saturday to choose delegates to the party's extraordinary congress the following Saturday. During question time, Rodriguez denied that the party had discussed internal problems, stating that different currents of opinion flourish in the party but there is a solid unity. The differences, he concluded, are political but not ideological. Former Executive Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel has criticized the reaction of the opposition, which he dubs "dumb and insensitive" to the possibility of war ... "it hasn't said a single word about something that the whole of the region has condemned," Colombian paramilitaries operating inside Venezuela, he maintained, are the fifth branch of the Colombian Armed Force ordered to do its dirty work. Rangel complained that in Venezuela people did not pay attention to opportune denunciations when the phenomenon first appeared. There are 7,000 paramilitaries operating inside Venezuela, he claimed, not just in border areas but in the barrios of Caracas and the main cities. Union Radio has just published news that the Brazilian Senate received Chavez' warning as a "bombshell." On Friday, the Senate will vote Venezuela's entry into the Southern Cone Economic Zone (Mercosur). Yesterday, Chavez reminded Venezuelan military officers of the old adage that if you want peace, you must prepare for war. From sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com Mon Nov 9 19:24:14 2009 From: sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com (sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:24:14 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Marxmail at its finest Message-ID: <20091110022414.A814411803D@smtp.hushmail.com> There are times on this list when I forget the cynicism and irritation some of the debates engender and truly appreciate the work of Louis and Les at making the whole thing go. Such has been my response to the series of posts on the Black Panther Party. I found it absolutely fascinating to read the radically different responses of Tom and Louis to the same event - the speech by Fred Hampton to a YSA convention in Chicago in 1969. I was not surprised by the resulting dismissal/glorification of the Panthers and expected the debate to simply stagnate and end there. Instead, thanks to Anthony's superb piece on 8 Nov. and the impressive response of the same day by Artesian, this exchange became something far greater. I can honesty say that thanks to the the quality of these contributions I was also moved to re-evaluate some of my own judgments on this period and consider those years again in a new light. There is now on the "A Few Words in Defense of the Black Panthers" thread a recurring memory of the disconnect between different generations of revolutionaries and the tragic failure to support and learn from each other. I remember well when Gus Hall was denouncing every radical group outside the Communist Party as the "phony left" while at the same time the country was on fire with outrage and anger over racism and imperialism. Nestor wrote powerfully of the agony across the generational divide in Argentina as young activists hurled themselves into their repressive state, only to be consumed. There are no easy answers to these questions and very few places to discuss and struggle with them. This time Marxmail has proven itself more than equal to the task. From farmelantj at juno.com Mon Nov 9 19:38:47 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 21:38:47 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Complete Guide to Killing Non-Jews, Message-ID: <20091109.213848.4688.1.farmelantj@juno.com> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:29:45 -0800 nada writes: > Totally disgusting, of course. It's like a guide to kosher dietary > laws, > written as if separate laws exist (which in their minds is true) > between > Jews who are somehow more human and non-Jews as being some sort of > animal. > > The basis of this doesn't start with these so-called "scholars" but > > actually goes back to the old Babylonian Talmud. It is the basis of > a > study & book by Israel Shahak, the famous anti-Zionist Jewish > scholar > who "exposed" the "racist basis of modern day Zionism in the > intrinsic > racism of Judaism". > > Anyway, these Talumudic 'studies' are subsidized lock, stock and Shahak, as most people here probably know, was vehemently attacked for his writings concerning Jewish law in regards to gentiles. Back in 1965, Shahak reported to the Israeli press that he had personally witnessed the following incident: an orthodox Jew saw an injured non-Jew on the Sabbath. To save the man's life, it was necessary to call an ambulance. The Jew had a phone handy but would not permit to be used in violation of the sabbath, since the injured person was a non-Jew. The Summer 1966 issue of Tradition, an orthodox Jewish journal, ran an article by Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, who later became the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, which provided its own version concerning the facts, or alleged facts of the case, plus an analysis of the ruling made by Israeli Chief Rabbi I. J. Unterman. http://www.edah.org/backend/document/jakobovits1.html In the article its is claimed that Shahak, when challenged to produce his "Orthodox Jew," was forced to admit that this Jew did not exist. However, no citations are made as to where or when Shahak was said to have made this admission, which I find a bit strange. Presumably, either this alleged admission was so well known at the time that it was thought unnecessry to include citations, or the author was making this up out of whole cloth. Anyway, the author notes that Rabbi Unterman in fact ruled that Jews were obliged to come to the aid of injured or sick non-Jews, even when to do so required violation of the Sabbath. In this sense, the article would seem to refute Shahak's claims, but a close reading of the rationales provided for this ruling that even so, Shahak was on to something here. The commandment to observe the Sabbath, in principle, is supposed to take precedence over even the preservation of life. In practice, exceptions were made to allow for actions necessary for saving life. When a Jew's life was at stake, the violation of the Sabbath was permitted on the grounds, that such a violation would actually lead to increased observance of the Sabbath, because the saved person would be able to fulfill the mitzvah in the future. When the person, whose life at stake, is a gentile, the rationale advanced was, that such a violation of the Sabbath was necessary for the "ways of peace," in order to protect the lives of Jews from the emnity of the gentiles. Rabbi Jakobovits' article makes those very points. Now in theory at least there might come a time where the situation of the Jews becomes so secure that they need not worry about the emnity of the gentiles. Under such conditions, then the requirement that Jews break the Sabbath in order to save life of a gentile would presumably cease to be operative. However, even in the here and now, certain exceptions were recognized where one would not obligated to violate the Sabbath to save a non-Jew's life. For example, if the person in question was from a city with which the Jews were at war with at the time, then the obligation to save that person life by violating the Sabbath would not apply. Apparently, such considerations were cited by Dr. Baruch Goldstein (who people here may remember was the guy who shot up a mosque some years ago causing massive loss of life) as justification for his refusal to treat non-Jewish patients ____________________________________________________________ Blue Cross Health Plans Quote & compare top health plans like Blue Cross, Aetna, and more! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=kNVceI2wuCYEQ9gea1b1qgAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAQAAAAFAAAAACwQhD4AAAMlAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOGiQAAAAA= From farmelantj at juno.com Mon Nov 9 19:42:29 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 21:42:29 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Fred Hampton Message-ID: <20091109.214230.4688.2.farmelantj@juno.com> On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:02:42 +0000 Tom Cod writes: > > > From: guycarlos at msn.com > > Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 19:25:20 -0600 > > Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fred Hampton > > >Dohrn and her union busting husband Bill Ayers . . . > How so? I hadn't heard of that and couldn't google anything up on it > offhand. > > No doubt Bill Ayers is guilty of all manner of sins, but this is the first time I have heard of him being accused of union busting. I'd like to see chapter and verse about when and where he did such a thing. Jim F. ____________________________________________________________ Medical Transcription Earn a Medical Transcription Degree Online or at a campus near you. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=DspwgqltenX4XE4bHUeu4AAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAQAAAAFAAAAAM_3Uz4AAAMlAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABNlaAAAAAA= From pieinsky at igc.org Mon Nov 9 19:52:51 2009 From: pieinsky at igc.org (Jay Moore) Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:52:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] An Opening in Consciousness! Message-ID: <4AF8D583.20900@igc.org> "Worldwide poll: Vast majority say capitalism not working" http://rawstory.com/2009/11/survey-capitalism-not-working/ From sartesian at earthlink.net Mon Nov 9 20:03:37 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 22:03:37 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Marxmail at its finest References: <20091110022414.A814411803D@smtp.hushmail.com> Message-ID: Brother Melvyn's comments to me offline made me move past my initial reaction of objection to the "beatification" of Fred Hampton and review my own contact with Stokely Carmichael before the Panthers, and then the work in SDS with the Panthers. And his comments made me re-read Anthony's post, which is really quite excellent. So... What I do know, what brought me into contact with SNCC, the SCLC in Chicago, SDS, the Panthers, the Peace and Freedom Party, Kenny Cockerel, the LRBW back in the day still pushes the critique and opposition to capital-- that in the history and future of the struggle for the emancipation of black labor in the US resides the key to future of the emanicpation of all labor. Someday I'll tell you the story of carrying the $5,000 (? can't remember the exact amount) in cash raised at the P&FP convention in Ann Arbor to the bank, with a bodyguard appointed by Eldridge Cleaver. I could barely keep from rolling on the ground with laughter, imagining what I, it, must look like to all the cops tailing us. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 9:24 PM Subject: [Marxism] Marxmail at its finest From russo.matthew9 at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 20:45:34 2009 From: russo.matthew9 at gmail.com (Matthew Russo) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 19:45:34 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] =?windows-1252?q?Economists_Seek_to_Fix_a_Defect_in_Dat?= =?windows-1252?q?a_That_Overstates_the_Nation=92s_Vigor_=28NYT=29?= Message-ID: <1b7033e60911091945g4c973d76n9e8b79565fa7723f@mail.gmail.com> Pertains to an earlier discussion of post 2000 productivity growth in the US - Matt: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/economy/09econ.html?ref=business A widening gap between data and reality is distorting the government?s picture of the country?s economic health, overstating growth and productivity in ways that could affect the political debate on issues like trade, wages and job creation. .... The fundamental shortcoming is in the way imports are accounted for. A carburetor bought for $50 in China as a component of an American-made car, for example, more often than not shows up in the statistics as if it were the American-made version valued at, say, $100. The failure to distinguish adequately between what is made in America and what is made abroad falsely inflates the gross domestic product, which sums up all value added within the country. American workers lose their jobs when carburetors they once made are imported instead. The federal data notices the decline in employment but fails to revalue the carburetors or even pinpoint that they are foreign-made. Because it seems as if $100 carburetors are being produced but fewer workers are needed to do so, productivity falsely rises ? in the national statistics. That may help to explain why the recovery from the 2001 recessionwas a jobless one for many months and why the recovery from this recession is likely to generate few jobs for many months. On another front, many argue that labor productivity is rising faster than the pay of workers who made the greater productivity possible. That argument would be watered down if more accurate data showed that productivity had been overstated. ?What we are measuring as productivity gains may in fact be changes in trade,? said William Alterman, assistant commissioner for international prices at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. .... The problem is particularly acute in manufacturing. Imported components constitute an ever greater share of the computers, autos, appliances and other finished merchandise that roll off assembly lines in the United States ? and an ever greater share of all of the nation?s imports. From stuartmunckton at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 21:56:51 2009 From: stuartmunckton at gmail.com (Stuart Munckton) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:56:51 +1100 Subject: [Marxism] Venezuela, Colombia and the threat of war in Latin America Message-ID: <2c6145850911092056p7e7a209cm5a242c4a46460c62@mail.gmail.com> http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/817/42020 Venezuela, Colombia and the threat of war in Latin America Kiraz Janicke, Caracas 7 November 2009 *The possibility of an imperialist war in the Americas came a step closer on October 30, when Colombia and the United States finalised a 10-year accord. The agreement allows the US to hugely expand its military presence in the Latin American nation.* It comes as the US seeks to regain its dominance over Latin America, which has declined over the past decade in the context of a continent-wide rebellion against neoliberalism ? spearheaded by the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. To regain control of its ?backyard?, the US has resorted to more interventionist measures. This is reflected by the recent military coup in Honduras, destabilisation of progressive governments in Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Paraguay and a massive military build-up in the region. The US has also built new military bases in Panama and has reactivated of its Fourth Fleet to patrol Latin American waters. Over the past decade, the Venezuelan government, which is the fifth largest oil exporter in the world, has sharply increased social spending. This had led to some significant achievements, such as the halving of poverty levels, the eradication of illiteracy, and the provision of free universal education and healthcare for the poor. In 2005, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared the revolution to be socialist in its aims. Since then, the government has sought to promote grassroots democracy and participation, through the creation of institutions such as urban land committees, health committees, grassroots assemblies, communes, workers? councils and communal councils. However, these pro-poor policies have bought the Chavez government into conflict with powerful economic interests in Venezuela and the US. The new US-Colombia military deal poses a direct threat to this radical process of social change. Tensions between Venezuela and the US-aligned government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe have risen because of the military agreement. With the finalisation of the accord, Chavez declared that Colombia had handed over its sovereignty to the US. ?Colombia today is no longer a sovereign country ... it is a kind of colony.? Under the deal, the US military has full access to two air bases, two naval bases, three army bases and all international civilian airports across the country. This is in addition to existing US use of two other military bases in Colombia. The deal also grants US personnel full diplomatic immunity from prosecution for any human rights abuses or other crimes committed on Colombian soil. US officials claim publicly that only 800 personnel will operate in Colombia, but the deal places no limits on the number of military personnel that can be deployed. The US has repeatedly denied that Colombia will be used as a launch pad for military interventions in other South American countries. However, as James Suggett said in a November 4 Venezuelanalysis.com article, the US military?s financial documents tell a different story. ?The Pentagon budget for the year 2010 says the Department of Defense seeks ?an array of access arrangements for contingency operations, logistics, and training in Central/South America??, Suggett said. It ?cites a $46 million investment in the ?development? of Colombia?s Palanquero air base as a key part of this?. The 2010 fiscal year budget of the US Air Force Military Construction Program, said the Palanquero base ?provides a unique opportunity for full spectrum operations ? where security and stability is under constant threat from narcotics funded terrorist insurgencies, *anti-US governments*, [my emphasis] endemic poverty and recurring natural disasters?. Colombian paramilitaries operating illegally in Venezuela?s oil-rich border regions, together with the right-wing opposition in Venezuela, are the advance guard of imperialist plans to defeat the Bolivarian revolution. Tensions flared in recent weeks when the bodies of nine Colombians, believed to have been executed by an illegal armed group, were found dumped in the border state of Tachira in October. The Venezuelan government said the group was part of a ?paramilitary infiltration plan.? In addition, Venezuela announced it had captured three Colombians inside Venezuela accused of spying for Colombia?s intelligence service. On November 2, armed gunmen shot two Venezuelan National Guard members dead at a border checkpoint. In response, the Venezuelan army has begun massive security sweeps of the border region. Former Colombian president Ernesto Samper, who has criticised the bases deal, said in a recent interview ?we are in a pre-war situation ? the situation could harden and reach extremes.? An armed conflict is a possibility. However, the current tactic of the US is to destabilise the Venezuelan revolution in the hope that it will collapse. A war would also be dangerous for the US ? already bogged down in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Even a proxy war via Colombia could easily spiral out of control. Latin America?s poor, downtrodden and marginalised have had a taste of independence; it is likely they would fight back. From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #81711 November 2009. -- ?Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.? ? Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism ?The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?? ? Jarvis Cocker From dmozart1756 at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 22:09:49 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:09:49 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Jack A. Smith, "Peace Movement Blues" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53a1ffe70911092109tc242213p13d2325554d5c8fb@mail.gmail.com> * * > > In our talks with people about the movement's decline, the main emphasis > always pointed to the fact that the constituency for our broad peace > movement was disintegrating. At issue is figuring out exactly why, and then > how to help rebuild our forces. The question of "why" isn't difficult. In > addition to talks with a number of movement organizers and unwavering > activists., we have communicated with quite a few readers about this matter > in person and mainly by email (over 85% of our 3,500 Activist Newsletter > readers voted Democratic last November). The conclusion is that the > Democratic voters who have stopped showing up do so for one or more of three > reasons: (1) The big majority simply don't want to publicly oppose a war > waged by a Democratic president -- especially when he is under strong attack > by the Republicans. (2) Some think it is a "good" war. (3) Some believe that > peace demonstrations "don't do any good" and that we're "just talking to > ourselves." Let's examine this point by point. > > http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/smith071109.html > From stuartmunckton at gmail.com Tue Nov 10 03:39:18 2009 From: stuartmunckton at gmail.com (Stuart Munckton) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:39:18 +1100 Subject: [Marxism] Honduras resistance statement on the situation Message-ID: <2c6145850911100239l26d185dav71064cfad50570a3@mail.gmail.com> Monday, November 9, 2009 National Front of Resistance Against the Coup: The elections will not be recognized, the struggle continues http://hondurasresists.blogspot.com/2009/11/national-front-of-resistance-against.html The National Front of Resistance Against the Coup declares to the Honduran people and the International Community 1. Since the midnight deadline of Thursday November 5th passed without the restitution of legitimate president Manual Zelaya, we declare we will actively not recognize the electoral process of 29 November of this year. Elections which are imposed by a de facto regime that represses and violates the human and political rights of the citizenry would only validate nationally and internationally the oligarchical dictatorship and secure the continuation of a system which marginalizes and exploits popular sectors in order to guarantee the privileges of a few. Participation in such a process would give legitimacy to the coup regime and to its successor which would be fraudulently installed on January 27, 2010. 2. The refusal to acknowledge the electoral farce will remain firm between now and the elections even if President Manuel Zelaya is re-instated. A period of 20 days is too little time to dismantle an electoral fraud conceived to ensure that one of the representatives of the coup-making oligarchy will be put in place and therefore give continuity to its repressive and anti-democratic project. The prior statement does not mean that we have renounced our fundamental demand that constitutional order be returned to Honduras, including the return of President Zelaya to the position he was elected to fill for four years by the Honduran people. 3. Now more than ever it is clear that the exercise of participatory democracy through the installation of a Constituent Assembly is not just a non-negotiable right but also the only way to provide the Honduran people with a democratic and inclusive political system. 4. We denounce the complicit attitude of the US government, maneuvering to stall the crisis and now showing its true intention to give validity to the coup regime, thereby ensuring that the successor government will be docile in the face of the interests of transnational companies and their goal of regional control. Therefore, we consider correct the decision made by President Zelaya to declare the failure of the Tegucigalpa Agreement, an agreement which is part of the US strategy to stall Zelaya's restitution in order to validate the electoral process. 5. We call on all organizations and candidates in the November 29thelections to act in accordance with previously-stated commitments and publicly pull out of the electoral farce. 6. We call together the mobilized and as yet unorganized sectors of the population to join actions which reject the electoral farce and promote acts of civil disobedience, as supported by Article 3 of the Constitution of the Republic, which gives us the right to disobedience and popular insurrection. 7. To the friendly nations and peoples of the world, we call on you to maintain political pressure to overthrow the military dictatorship imposed by oligarchy and imperialism, as well as commit to recognize neither the illegitimate elections of November 29 nor the spurious authorities who seek to pass as representatives elected by the people. "We resist and we will win." Tegucigalpa November 9th, 2009 -- ?Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.? ? Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism ?The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?? ? Jarvis Cocker From marvgandall at videotron.ca Tue Nov 10 06:02:29 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:02:29 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] =?windows-1252?q?_Re=3A__Economists_Seek_to_Fix_a_Defec?= =?windows-1252?q?t_in_Data_That_Overstates_the_Nation=92s_Vigor_=28NYT=29?= References: <1b7033e60911091945g4c973d76n9e8b79565fa7723f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Matt Russo posted: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/economy/09econ.html?ref=business A widening gap between data and reality is distorting the government?s picture of the country?s economic health, overstating growth and productivity in ways that could affect the political debate on issues like trade, wages and job creation. ================= Maybe also oil... Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower By Terry Macalister Guardian Monday 9 November 2009 The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves. The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow ? which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies. In particular they question the prediction in the last World Economic Outlook, believed to be repeated again this year, that oil production can be raised from its current level of 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels. External critics have frequently argued that this cannot be substantiated by firm evidence and say the world has already passed its peak in oil production. Now the "peak oil" theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. "The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. "The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this. "Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further... Full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency From stuartmunckton at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 22:44:41 2009 From: stuartmunckton at gmail.com (Stuart Munckton) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:44:41 +1100 Subject: [Marxism] Venezuela launches military operations on border to protect Coltan, fight drug trafficking Message-ID: <2c6145850911092144j50a06a2aq6d855124bdb92644@mail.gmail.com> Coltan is extremely valuable and sought after mineral. And the resource at the centre of the Congo's bloody civil war. Which makes it an impressive find for a country like Venezuela, worth a lot, but must make them wish it was found somewhat *further* from the border with Colombia, and not in an area infested with paramilitaries Something else to add to the explosive mix that threatens to explode into war.. Venezuela Launches Military Operations on Border to Fight Drug Trafficking and Protect Coltan Reserve http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4920 Published on November 7th 2009, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com Vice President and Defense Minister Ramon Carrizalez visiting the Coltan reserve on Thursday (YVKE) M?rida, November 6th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- On Thursday, Venezuela announced the expansion of military operations along its western border in order to fight drug trafficking and protect a recently discovered reserve of coltan from illegal mining. In what is titled Operation Blue Gold, 15,000 Air Force, Army, and Navy personnel will protect the coltan reserve, which straddles the states of Bolivar and Amazonas. The government announced the discovery of the Coltan reserve last month. It coincided with the announcement of a public investment plan for the coming year aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing. On Thursday, Vice President and Defense Minister Ramon Carrizalez visited the site of the reserve in an indigenous community called El Paloma, and said the troops would help combat drug trafficking and illegal armed groups in the region, in addition to protecting the reserve. ?We have more than 15,000 men deployed along our western border, combating all the crimes that occur along the border, as you know, crimes which come from another country and are not ours,? said Carrizalez to reporters from the state television channel VTV. Carrizalez also displayed a sample of coltan in its unprocessed form, and explained that it is a highly coveted mineral because of its usefulness in satellites, missiles, computers, cellular phones, and other electronic devices. ?It is a mineral of strategic character, and therefore it stimulates the imperial appetite and the appetite of the business people who seek to obtain maximum profit without giving importance to environmental damage or the destabilization of countries,? said Carrizalez. Carrizalez made specific reference to the civil war-plagued Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it is estimated the world?s largest coltan reserves lie, and where Belgium and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) collaborated of the U.S. government to overthrow the first democratically elected prime minister in 1964. *Zulia, Tachira, and Apure States * Also on Thursday, Minister for Justice and Internal Affairs Tarek El-Aissami said 3,000 troops would be deployed to the Sierra de Perija region in the states of Tachira and Zulia in order to impede the passage of drug traffickers and eradicate the illicit cultivation of crops that are processed into illegal drugs. The sparsely populated and forested Sierra de Perij? is one of the most conflict-ridden regions of Venezuela. In addition to drug traffickers, it is suspected that illegal armed groups from Colombia travel in the region. Local indigenous peoples have protested coal mining and violent persecution by large estate owners, and accused the government of not granting them the land titles due to them by law. Last year, El-Aissami announced that the government plans to build five military bases in the Sierra de Perija region to fight drug trafficking and impede overflow fighting from the Colombian civil war. ?The Bolivarian government has been assuming responsibility for the fight against illicit drug trafficking and its consequences. For this reason, for the third consecutive year, Venezuela was certified by the United Nations as one of the countries where there is no cultivation of plants with which illegal drugs are produced,? said El Aissami on Thursday. The minister also said the Armed Forces will deploy air and ground troops to the extensive, flat plains of Apure state to destroy illegal airplane landing strips that drug traffickers use to transport drugs from Colombia to the United States and Europe. Venezuela sustains anti-drug cooperation agreements with 37 countries and extradited suspected drug traffickers to Colombia, Italy, the United States, Belgium, and France last year. Drug seizures have increased by two thirds since Venezuela stopped collaborating with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in 2005 on suspicion that the DEA was spying. -- ?Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.? ? Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism ?The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?? ? Jarvis Cocker From nmgoro at gmail.com Tue Nov 10 05:02:04 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:02:04 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Venezuela, Colombia and the threat of war in Latin America In-Reply-To: <2c6145850911092056p7e7a209cm5a242c4a46460c62@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c6145850911092056p7e7a209cm5a242c4a46460c62@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2fa158550911100402u481d92bdi6b6741b9ad5a8a1a@mail.gmail.com> The threat is actual. No kidding. Border incidents have already begun. 2009/11/10 Stuart Munckton : > http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/817/42020 > > > Venezuela, Colombia and the threat of war in Latin America > Kiraz Janicke, Caracas > 7 November 2009 > > > *The possibility of an imperialist war in the Americas came a step closer on > October 30, when Colombia and the United States finalised a 10-year accord. > The agreement allows the US to hugely expand its military presence in the > Latin American nation.* > -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Nov 10 06:37:53 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:37:53 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Zizek on the Berlin Wall Message-ID: <4AF96CB1.9090308@panix.com> NY Times, November 9, 2009 Op-Ed Contributor 20 Years of Collapse By SLAVOJ ZIZEK TODAY is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. During this time of reflection, it is common to emphasize the miraculous nature of the events that began that day: a dream seemed to come true, the Communist regimes collapsed like a house of cards, and the world suddenly changed in ways that had been inconceivable only a few months earlier. Who in Poland could ever have imagined free elections with Lech Walesa as president? However, when the sublime mist of the velvet revolutions was dispelled by the new democratic-capitalist reality, people reacted with an unavoidable disappointment that manifested itself, in turn, as nostalgia for the ?good old? Communist times; as rightist, nationalist populism; and as renewed, belated anti-Communist paranoia. The first two reactions are easy to comprehend. The same rightists who decades ago were shouting, ?Better dead than red!? are now often heard mumbling, ?Better red than eating hamburgers.? But the Communist nostalgia should not be taken too seriously: far from expressing an actual wish to return to the gray Socialist reality, it is more a form of mourning, of gently getting rid of the past. As for the rise of the rightist populism, it is not an Eastern European specialty, but a common feature of all countries caught in the vortex of globalization. Much more interesting is the recent resurgence of anti-Communism from Hungary to Slovenia. During the autumn of 2006, large protests against the ruling Socialist Party paralyzed Hungary for weeks. Protesters linked the country?s economic crisis to its rule by successors of the Communist party. They denied the very legitimacy of the government, although it came to power through democratic elections. When the police went in to restore civil order, comparisons were drawn with the Soviet Army crushing the 1956 anti-Communist rebellion. This new anti-Communist scare even goes after symbols. In June 2008, Lithuania passed a law prohibiting the public display of Communist images like the hammer and sickle, as well as the playing of the Soviet anthem. In April 2009, the Polish government proposed expanding a ban on totalitarian propaganda to include Communist books, clothing and other items: one could even be arrested for wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt. No wonder that, in Slovenia, the main reproach of the populist right to the left is that it is the ?force of continuity? with the old Communist regime. In such a suffocating atmosphere, new problems and challenges are reduced to the repetition of old struggles, up to the absurd claim (which sometimes arises in Poland and in Slovenia) that the advocacy of gay rights and legal abortion is part of a dark Communist plot to demoralize the nation. Where does this resurrection of anti-Communism draw its strength from? Why were the old ghosts resuscitated in nations where many young people don?t even remember the Communist times? The new anti-Communism provides a simple answer to the question: ?If capitalism is really so much better than Socialism, why are our lives still miserable?? It is because, many believe, we are not really in capitalism: we do not yet have true democracy but only its deceiving mask, the same dark forces still pull the threads of power, a narrow sect of former Communists disguised as new owners and managers ? nothing?s really changed, so we need another purge, the revolution has to be repeated ... What these belated anti-Communists fail to realize is that the image they provide of their society comes uncannily close to the most abused traditional leftist image of capitalism: a society in which formal democracy merely conceals the reign of a wealthy minority. In other words, the newly born anti-Communists don?t get that what they are denouncing as perverted pseudo-capitalism simply is capitalism. One can also argue that, when the Communist regimes collapsed, the disillusioned former Communists were effectively better suited to run the new capitalist economy than the populist dissidents. While the heroes of the anti-Communist protests continued to dwell in their dreams of a new society of justice, honesty and solidarity, the former Communists were able to ruthlessly accommodate themselves to the new capitalist rules and the new cruel world of market efficiency, inclusive of all the new and old dirty tricks and corruption. A further twist is added by those countries in which Communists allowed the explosion of capitalism, while retaining political power: they seem to be more capitalist than the Western liberal capitalists themselves. In a crazy double reversal, capitalism won over Communism, but the price paid for this victory is that Communists are now beating capitalism in its own terrain. This is why today?s China is so unsettling: capitalism has always seemed inextricably linked to democracy, and faced with the explosion of capitalism in the People?s Republic, many analysts still assume that political democracy will inevitably assert itself. But what if this strain of authoritarian capitalism proves itself to be more efficient, more profitable, than our liberal capitalism? What if democracy is no longer the necessary and natural accompaniment of economic development, but its impediment? If this is the case, then perhaps the disappointment at capitalism in the post-Communist countries should not be dismissed as a simple sign of the ?immature? expectations of the people who didn?t possess a realistic image of capitalism. When people protested Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the large majority of them did not ask for capitalism. They wanted the freedom to live their lives outside state control, to come together and talk as they pleased; they wanted a life of simplicity and sincerity, liberated from the primitive ideological indoctrination and the prevailing cynical hypocrisy. As many commentators observed, the ideals that led the protesters were to a large extent taken from the ruling Socialist ideology itself ? people aspired to something that can most appropriately be designated as ?Socialism with a human face.? Perhaps this attitude deserves a second chance. This brings to mind the life and death of Victor Kravchenko, the Soviet engineer who, in 1944, defected during a trade mission to Washington and then wrote a best-selling memoir, ?I Chose Freedom.? His first-person report on the horrors of Stalinism included a detailed account of the mass hunger in early-1930s Ukraine, where Kravchenko ? then still a true believer in the system ? helped enforce collectivization. What most people know about Kravchenko ends in 1949. That year, he sued Les Lettres Fran?aises for libel after the French Communist weekly claimed that he was a drunk and a wife-beater and his memoir was the propaganda work of American spies. In the Paris courtroom, Soviet generals and Russian peasants took the witness stand to debate the truth of Kravchenko?s writings, and the trial grew from a personal suit to a spectacular indictment of the whole Stalinist system. But immediately after his victory in the case, when Kravchenko was still being hailed all around the world as a cold war hero, he had the courage to speak out passionately against Joseph McCarthy?s witch hunts. ?I believe profoundly,? he wrote, ?that in the struggle against Communists and their organizations ... we cannot and should not resort to the methods and forms employed by the Communists.? His warning to Americans: to fight Stalinism in such a way was to court the danger of starting to resemble their opponent. Kravchenko also became more and more obsessed with the inequalities of the Western world, and wrote a sequel to ?I Chose Freedom? that was titled, significantly, ?I Chose Justice.? He devoted himself to finding less exploitative forms of collectivization and wound up in Bolivia, where he squandered all his money trying to organize poor farmers. Crushed by this failure, he withdrew into private life and shot himself in 1966 at his home in New York. How did we come to this? Deceived by 20th-century Communism and disillusioned with 21st-century capitalism, we can only hope for new Kravchenkos ? and that they come to happier ends. On the search for justice, they will have to start from scratch. They will have to invent their own ideologies. They will be denounced as dangerous utopians, but they alone will have awakened from the utopian dream that holds the rest of us under its sway. Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities in London, is the author, most recently, of ?First as Tragedy, Then as Farce.? From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Nov 10 06:41:12 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:41:12 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] A speculative recovery? Message-ID: <4AF96D78.6010204@panix.com> http://wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/econ-n10.shtml Speculative recovery sows seeds of an even greater economic crash By Barry Grey 10 November 2009 Last Wednesday the Federal Reserve Board?s policy-making Federal Open Market Committee announced it was holding its target federal funds interest rate to the current level of zero to 0.25 percent. While that decision had been widely anticipated, there was much speculation that the Fed would employ language in its announcement to indicate that it would soon begin to raise interest rates. In the event, the Fed repeated its recent mantra of keeping interest rates ?exceptionally low? for ?an extended period of time.? A change in the formula from ?an extended period of time? to ?for some time? would have been seen as a signal that the Fed was preparing to shift from its policy of near-zero rates. The Fed?s signal of no early end to its extraordinarily cheap credit policy sent stock markets surging. Since the Fed announcement last Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has surged hundreds of points, despite Friday?s dire Labor Department report of an official US jobless rate of 10.2 percent. On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 205 points, closing at a 13-month high of 10,227. This most recent surge in stock prices continued a trend that has emerged in recent weeks: stocks moved in close and inverse relation to the value of the dollar on world currency markets. Last Wednesday, the dollar fell the most in relation to the euro in two months. That trend continued Monday, with the dollar once again falling to $1.50 versus the euro. Also in keeping with recent trends, oil, gold and other commodities surged as stocks rose and the dollar fell. The connection between soaring asset prices and a falling dollar points to the extraordinarily speculative and unstable character of what is being called a global recovery from the financial crisis and recession of 2008 and early 2009. It is a recovery in corporate and bank profits and financial assets that is richly benefitting the most powerful financial interests in the US and around the world, even as joblessness and poverty soar and basic production remains mired in the deepest slump since the Great Depression. It is a ?recovery? that is driven almost entirely by a surge in speculation in risky assets fuelled by the US government?s policy of virtually free credit for the major banks and a vast buildup of debt. As CNBC commentator Charles Gasparino put it in a November 6 column in the Wall Street Journal, ?Interest rates are close to zero; in effect the Federal Reserve is subsidizing the risk-taking and bond trading that has allowed Goldman Sachs to produce billions in profits and that infamous $16 billion bonus pool (analysts say it could grow as high as $20 billion). The Treasury has lent banks money, guaranteed Wall Street?s debt and declared every firm to be a commercial bank? They are all ?too big to fail? and so free to trade as they please?on the taxpayer dime.? The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Morgan Stanley has concluded that the amount of cash circulating in the global economy is at its highest level by far since the firm began tracking it 30 years ago. This vast wave of hot money can find no profitable outlet in production, so it is being pumped into stock markets and speculation on commodity prices and currencies. The result is a colossal global asset bubble that must sooner or later burst. Here are some indications of the scale of this bubble: ?Since its March 9 low, the Standard & Poor?s 500 stock index has gained more than 50 percent. An index of stocks for 22 ?emerging market? countries (including Brazil, China and India) has doubled from its recent low. Oil, now around $80 a barrel, has increased 150 percent from its recent low of $31. Gold is near an all-time high, around $1,090 an ounce.? (Robert J. Samuelson in Monday?s Washington Post). A central component of this policy is a tacit encouragement of the ongoing fall in the dollar. Ultimately, the decline in the dollar is dictated by the objective decline in the global position of American capitalism. The financial crash and ensuing global recession, which began in the US, have further eroded global confidence in the dollar as it has diminished the weight of US gross domestic product relative to global gross domestic product. This is a profoundly destabilizing factor in the world economy, which renders any recovery fragile and ultimately unsustainable. Increasingly, the unique role of the US dollar as the world?s major reserve and trading currency is being called into question. This was highlighted last Tuesday when India?s central bank announced it had purchased 200 metric tons of gold on offer by the International Monetary Fund. In making the announcement, India?s finance minister said that the US and European economies had ?collapsed.? The Indian purchase came a few months after China, which holds an estimated $1.4 trillion in dollar assets, revealed that it had almost doubled its gold reserves in the past six years. The buildup of gold reserves is part of a growing move by creditor nations away from the dollar. As BusinessWeek reported last month: ?Instead of buying just dollars for their foreign exchange reserves, they?re diversifying into other currencies. The countries that reveal the composition of their reserve holdings put 63 percent of their new reserves into euros and yen in the second quarter, according to an analysis by Barclays Capital.? The mid- to long-term implications of the erosion in the world position of the dollar are massive. A strong and stable dollar was the bedrock of the international capitalist monetary system that was established at the Bretton Woods conference at the end of World War II. The dollar has served for nearly seven decades as the world?s supreme trading and reserve currency. The unique and privileged position of the dollar?which brought with it immense advantages for US capital?was based on the unchallenged economic supremacy of the US at the end of the war. That, in turn, was founded on the global dominance of American industry. The long-term decline of American capitalism, reflected most importantly in the decay of its industrial base, resulted in the massive global imbalances between debtor nations?first and foremost, the US?and creditor nations, such as China, Japan and Germany, which led to the implosion of the world economy a year ago. It is the transformation of the US from the industrial powerhouse of the world to the center of global financial speculation and parasitism that, in the final analysis, underlies the erosion in the international position of the dollar. This underscores the reckless character of US monetary policy. The United States is flirting with the disaster of a precipitous fall in the dollar, which has already declined 15 percent since its recent high last March against the currencies of Washington?s major trading counterparts. A full-blown dollar crisis would wreak havoc on the US and world economy. It would compel the US to sharply and precipitously raise interest rates, plunging the US economy into a depression and bankrupting major financial institutions. It would choke off the US market for export-oriented countries such as China, Japan and Germany and spark competitive currency devaluations and trade war measures. Nevertheless, to gain a short-term trading advantage against its capitalist rivals and provide the liquidity to enable major US banks to reap bumper profits and award their executives and traders record bonuses, the US, through the Fed, has carried out the electronic equivalent of printing a trillion dollars and flooding the financial markets with cheap credit. It has done so knowing that the dollar will continue to fall, making US exports cheaper and foreign imports more expensive. The short-term effect is an intensification of global monetary and trade tensions. Last Friday the US levied duties against Chinese steel pipe imports. This followed Washington?s imposition two months ago of tariffs against Chinese tire imports. China responded Friday by denouncing ?abusive protectionism? and pledging to retaliate against US autos and other exports to the Chinese market. The provocative character of the US move on Friday is underscored by the fact that it precedes by less than a week President Barack Obama?s trip to Asia. Meanwhile, New York University economist Nouriel Roubini is sounding the alarm over an alternate scenario for the dollar that would likewise have disastrous economic consequences. Roubini, who came to prominence by predicting in 2006 the impending collapse of the housing bubble and financial meltdown, is warning of a short-term rally in the dollar that will result in a collapse of the global asset bubble. In a November 1 Financial Times column entitled ?Mother of All Carry Trades Faces an Inevitable Bust,? Roubini writes: ?Since March there has been a massive rally in all sorts of risky assets?equities, oil, energy and commodity prices? and an even bigger rally in emerging market asset classes (their stocks, bonds and currencies).? He contends that at the heart of this rally is ?the weakness of the US dollar, driven by the mother of all carry trades.? The latter term refers to the speculative practice of borrowing cash in currencies with low interest rates and investing the cash in assets denominated in more expensive currencies. The US dollar has supplanted the yen as the major funding currency in carry trades. Speculators are borrowing dollars in highly leveraged trades, betting that the dollar will decline further, and using their resulting profits to invest in risky assets around the world. As a result, speculators are effectively borrowing dollars not at the zero interest rate set by the Fed, but at very negative rates?as low as minus 10 or 20 percent on an annualized basis. As a result, Roubini states, carry trade investors have been realizing total returns in the 50-70 percent range since March. As the ?reckless? US policy is forcing other countries to keep their interest rates artificially low, ?the carry trade bubble will get worse? the perfectly correlated bubble across all global asset classes gets bigger by the day.? One day the bubble will burst, as economic factors or an external event?such as a military attack on Iran?lead the dollar to ?reverse and suddenly appreciate.? Roubini concludes: ?But the longer and bigger the carry trades and the larger the asset bubble, the bigger will be the ensuing asset bubble crash. The Fed and other policymakers seem unaware of the monster bubble they are creating. The longer they remain blind, the harder the markets will fall.? Roubini is not alone. Last week, both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank issued warnings of growing asset bubbles, fueled by hot money, in the Asian economies. To the extent that the US and international bourgeoisie has a strategy to deal with the massive growth of debt that is funding the speculative ?recovery,? it is to impose the full cost of the crisis on the working class. Last month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) declared that spending on health, education and other social programs will have to be cut as countries deal with the high levels of debt incurred in the financial crisis and recession. The OECD was seconded last week by the International Monetary Fund, which issued a statement calling for a decade of sweeping spending cuts and tax increases across the industrialized world. The IMF specifically urged a sharp reduction in the growth of spending for health care and pensions. For its part, the Obama administration is committed to the same policy, pledging to reduce government and business costs for health care as a prelude to a regime of fiscal austerity. Its goal is to reduce the consumption of the working class, using mass unemployment to drive down wages, boost labor productivity, and turn the US into a cheap labor center for exports to the world market. From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Nov 10 06:49:16 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:49:16 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] How the Stupak Amendment Radically Undermines Abortion Rights Message-ID: <4AF96F5C.2060902@panix.com> How the Stupak Amendment Radically Undermines Abortion Rights By Rachel Morris, Mother Jones Online Posted on November 10, 2009, Printed on November 10, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/143849/ Will health care reform come at the expense of abortion rights? The Democrats? historic health care bill squeaked through the House on Saturday only after pro-life forces scored a major victory. Despite months of wrangling over the public option and the price tag, in the end the legislation?s fate turned on an eleventh-hour push by conservative Democrats to broaden the bill's existing limits on government funding of abortion, in the form of an amendment authored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.). Here?s what happened and what it means. The Stupak amendment mandates that no federal funds can be used to pay for an abortion or "cover any part of any health plan" that includes coverage of an abortion, except in cases where the mother?s life is in danger or the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. The first part of the amendment isn't new. The 1976 Hyde Amendment already prevents the use of federal dollars to pay for most abortions. Where pro-lifers won big was on the second part, which could significantly limit the availability of private insurance plans that cover the procedure. That?s because Stupak?s amendment doesn?t just apply to the public option?the lower-cost plan to be offered by the government. The House health care bill will also provide subsidies to help people and small businesses purchase plans on an exchange. This represents a lucrative new market for insurers: anyone earning less than $88,000 for a family of four qualifies for assistance, as well as certain small companies. But to gain access to these new customers, insurers will have to drop abortion coverage from their plans. Around 87 percent of plans cover abortion (though not all employers choose to actually include it). But under the House bill, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 21 million people will participate in the exchanges by 2019 and that 18 million of them will do so via government subsidies. In theory, insurers could create separate plans for women who don?t qualify for credits but still want to buy a plan on the exchange. In reality, this is unlikely to happen, meaning that even women who purchase plans entirely with their own money in the new market may be unable to obtain one that offers abortion coverage. Over time, the goal is for many more people to join the exchanges?the bigger they are, the more effective they'll be. Not only will this put greater numbers of women in the same bind, it could affect abortion coverage in private plans outside the exchanges, too. "How big will exchanges have to be in an insurer's business model before they decide it's easier to standardize their coverage?" said Adam Sonfield, senior public policy associate of the Guttmacher Institute, a policy and research organization that focuses on reproductive health. The Stupak amendment says that women are free to buy an optional rider to their plans that would cover abortion, as long as no money appropriated by the bill is used to pay for it. Critics call this ridiculous. People don?t think they?ll need coverage for most medical procedures until the day they actually need it; as detractors of the amendment have pointed out, no one plans for an unplanned pregnancy. Imagine if all insurance plans worked like a smorgasbord, in which you tried to guess the operations and medicines you might require sometime in the future. How many procedures would you actually fork out for in advance? Five states already have similar "rider" laws in place, but according to Sonfield, "No one seems to have come up with evidence that these plans are ever sold." Proponents of the Stupak amendment insisted that they were simply making sure that health care reform complied with the Hyde Amendment. But by constricting private coverage for abortions, they expanded Hyde?s reach. And Stupak?s sweeping measure was hardly the only option on the table. Until around 8 p.m. on the day before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to marshal her caucus around an amendment offered by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), which would have allowed women to isolate their federal subsidies in a separate account and pay for abortions out of their premiums instead. But that compromise fell through after a vigorous lobbying push by the Conference of Catholic Bishops, which instructed priests around the country to raise the issue in their churches. In the end, the Stupak amendment passed 240-194, with 64 Democrats voting in support. (Twenty-three of those Democrats ultimately voted against the health care bill.) There are two big questions as the health care reform fight moves to the Senate. First, will the Senate mimic Stupak? So far, its leading proposal contains no equivalent provision, but abortion foes, emboldened by their biggest triumph in years, are sure to push for one. Second, if a bill passes the Senate, will the Stupak amendment be stripped out in subsequent House-Senate negotiations? House Democrats? chief deputy whip, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), has reportedly collected signatures from 41 Democrats vowing to oppose the final bill if the Stupak provision remains in. That?s enough to prevent legislation from passing. But 41 Democrats supported both the Stupak amendment and health care reform, which is also enough to block the legislation if all of them decided abortion financing was a deal-breaker. Following the House vote, the White House declined to condemn or support the anti-abortion provision. There?s no way to predict what will come next in this high-stakes legislative tussle, but one thing is clear: in the push to provide access to health care for all Americans, abortion is now the official political football. Rachel Morris is the articles editor in Mother Jones' Washington bureau From shmage at pipeline.com Tue Nov 10 07:11:40 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:11:40 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] How the Stupak Amendment Radically Undermines Abortion Rights In-Reply-To: <4AF96F5C.2060902@panix.com> References: <4AF96F5C.2060902@panix.com> Message-ID: <05C46994-ECBA-43CB-85F4-D63653055C4A@pipeline.com> On Nov 10, 2009, at 8:49 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: > How the Stupak Amendment Radically Undermines Abortion Rights > By Rachel Morris, Mother Jones Online > Posted on November 10, 2009, Printed on November 10, 2009 > http://www.alternet.org/story/143849/ > > Will health care reform come at the expense of abortion rights? > The Democrats? historic health care bill squeaked through the > House on Saturday only after pro-life forces scored a major > victory. Despite months of wrangling over the public option and > the price tag, in the end the legislation?s fate turned on an > eleventh-hour push by conservative Democrats to broaden the bill's > existing limits on government funding of abortion, in the form of > an amendment authored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.)... Now this is what is really notable: simply by *abstaining* on Stupak the Repugnicons would have killed the bill. Why didn't they? Because, I suggest, the word came down from the health-insurance industry lobbyists that the huge subsidies and captive consumers make this a good bill--for them. Only Kucinich among the Dumbocrats seems to have got the message--and voted NO! Shane Mage > This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it > always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, > kindling in measures and going out in measures." > > Herakleitos of Ephesos From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Nov 10 08:11:12 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:11:12 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] =?windows-1252?q?Economists_Seek_to_Fix_a_Defect_in_Dat?= =?windows-1252?q?a_That_Overstates_the_Nation=92s_Vigor_=28NYT=29?= References: <1b7033e60911091945g4c973d76n9e8b79565fa7723f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <03BA242FC88045F6AFCD1CDDBD593C8A@dmsthinkpad> Can we get off this merry-go-round? Every time the spot price of oil doubles, the same old same old record gets played-- peak oil, shortages just around the corner, the US is applying pressure to the IEA according to unnamed sources. You think this might have anything to do with the fact that IEA has just lowered its estimates for consumption of oil over the next decade, the run-up in oil prices is part of another asset-bubble, and traders want to keep the prices up based on the "bigger fool" theory of capitalist reproduction? You think? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marv Gandall" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 8:02 AM Subject: [Marxism] Re: Economists Seek to Fix a Defect in Data That Overstates the Nation?s Vigor (NYT) Matt Russo posted: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/economy/09econ.html?ref=business A widening gap between data and reality is distorting the government?s picture of the country?s economic health, overstating growth and productivity in ways that could affect the political debate on issues like trade, wages and job creation. ================= Maybe also oil... Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower By Terry Macalister Guardian Monday 9 November 2009 From marvgandall at videotron.ca Tue Nov 10 08:56:59 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:56:59 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] =?windows-1252?q?_Re=3A_Economists_Seek_to_Fix_a_Defect?= =?windows-1252?q?_in_Data_That_Overstates_the_Nation=92s_Vigor_=28NYT=29?= References: <1b7033e60911091945g4c973d76n9e8b79565fa7723f@mail.gmail.com> <03BA242FC88045F6AFCD1CDDBD593C8A@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <751E6F16626C4F67BED8976C026CF289@MARV> ----- Original Message ----- From: "S. Artesian" To: "Marv Gandall" Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 10:11 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism]Economists Seek to Fix a Defect in Data That Overstates the Nation?s Vigor (NYT) Can we get off this merry-go-round? Good idea. ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/marvgandall%40videotron.ca From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Nov 10 09:25:53 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:25:53 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] How the Stupak Amendment Radically Undermines AbortionRights References: <4AF96F5C.2060902@panix.com> Message-ID: <8A63E2F1CA0A453BBCD45FDEC3243C06@dmsthinkpad> This amendment is truly a vicous assault on women's reproductive health, with an eye not only of proscribing abortion, making access to a legal medical procedure almost impossible, but with translating that "success" into a similar attack on womens' access to safe birth control. I want to ask, when looking at the pictures of Nancy Pelosi accompanying the articles on passage of the House version of the bill, "Why is This Woman Smiling." We know the answer-- because she is being paid to smile. This health bill is worse than a boondoggle-- it is an attack on womens' and public health. The single alternative is not single payer, but free, universal healthcare, with no restrictions on womens' control of, or access to safe medical procedures to control, their reproductive health. Nice "transitional" demand might be "Repeal the Hyde Amendment." ----- Original Message ----- From: "Louis Proyect" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 8:49 AM Subject: [Marxism] How the Stupak Amendment Radically Undermines AbortionRights How the Stupak Amendment Radically Undermines Abortion Rights By Rachel Morris, Mother Jones Online Posted on November 10, 2009, Printed on November 10, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/143849/ From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Nov 10 10:19:35 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:19:35 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] The Good Soldier Message-ID: <4AF9A0A7.7050402@panix.com> With the massacre at Fort Hood and reports that President Obama is about to approve the sending of 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, ?The Good Soldier? arrives at movie theaters in the nick of time. What is needed desperately right now is a shot in the arm for the antiwar movement and this deeply moving documentary about the conversion of five soldiers to the cause of peace supplies it in spades. It opens tomorrow at the Village East Theater in NYC tomorrow and elsewhere around the country soon thereafter. Check http://www.thegoodsoldier.com/ for screening information. Covering some of the same territory as the 2006 ?The Ground Truth?, including one of its principals?the remarkable Marine Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey, ?The Good Soldier? is distinguished by its ability to evoke the often painful stories out of the five veterans to maximum effect. While not quite dealing with the same subject matter of Ford Maddox Ford?s 1915 novel with which it shares its title, this documentary directed by the wife and husband Lexy Lovell and Michael Uys could have begun with the same words that open Ford?s novel: ?This is the saddest story I have ever heard.? Unlike the Ford novel, however, this story ends happily as the five soldiers unburden themselves from their guilt and join the antiwar movement as an act of salvation both for them and for humanity. full review: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/the-good-soldier/ From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Tue Nov 10 10:40:31 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:40:31 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Zizek on the Berlin Wall Message-ID: <4AF9A58F.9000208@gmail.com> What a fascinating and interesting review, thanks for posting this. From acpollack2 at gmail.com Tue Nov 10 10:52:43 2009 From: acpollack2 at gmail.com (Andrew Pollack) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:52:43 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Zizek on the Berlin Wall In-Reply-To: <4AF9A58F.9000208@gmail.com> References: <4AF9A58F.9000208@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2fa1449b0911100952i6eb6fe61sbc0d30ffddf79c18@mail.gmail.com> Agreed. Finally something by Zizek that's readable. What I found particularly intriguing was the story about Kravchenko. See reviews of his first book at: http://www.marx.org/archive/glass/1946/08/ussr.htm http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/judd/1946/10/kravchenko.html And see his "I Chose Justice" at http://books.google.com/books?id=6KK8guKbfqkC&pg=PA236&lpg=PA236&dq=kravchenko+capitalism&source=bl&ots=WCVBLnxkCT&sig=ClOYqwWQQnBF-BmiLf_tSq7P1Gc&hl=en&ei=r6b5Soq2LsyKnQfbt4TtDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=kravchenko%20capitalism&f=false I haven't had much time to skim it yet but note that it's published by a conservative group. And although many of the concluding pages are missing, it seems like an argument for a stronger welfare state to be better able to combat "Communism". On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 12:40 PM, nada wrote: > What a fascinating and interesting review, thanks for posting this. > From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Nov 10 11:26:13 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:26:13 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Victor Grossman on the fall of the Berlin Wall Message-ID: <4AF9B045.6080109@panix.com> http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/grossman101109.html The Fall of the Wall by Victor Grossman I hate to sound like the grouchy Grinch. Here in Berlin radio and TV are celebrating the Fall of the Wall twenty years ago so intensively there's hardly a moment for the weather report, which, unfortunately for all the planned events, turned out nasty and rainy. From my window I just watched the fireworks' brave attempts to spite the clouds and drizzle. It is well-nigh impossible to be nasty about that strange event in 1989 when a seemingly random remark by an East German big shot opened the gates to a mass rush by East Berliners to West Berlin and, soon after, points further westward. There was general euphoria, bliss, the commonest word was "Wahnsinn" -- "insane, crazy, unbelievable." Then and now it seemed petty to entertain even the tiniest critical idea. Without a doubt, the great event permitted happy reunions of many families and opened the way for East Germans to visit no longer only Prague, Warsaw, or Moscow but also Paris, Washington, and Munich, as well as West Berlin. It was truly a blissful occasion. TV has shown the film footage a thousand times but the crossing, embraces, the dancing on the wall are still moving, even to tears. But as a socialist American, one of a handful who lived on the eastern side of the Wall, who tries to analyze history, I find it impossible to banish certain heretic recollections and doubts. For moments of mass euphoria, wonderful as they are for those involved, do not always explain history. And for me too many issues and questions remain unexplained or simply unasked. Why does no one recall that it was Eastern Germany, the GDR, which pushed for reunification during the postwar years while Chancellor Adenauer brusquely rejected all proposals, even general elections? Only then, and after West Germany set up its own state, formed an army, joined NATO, and insisted on regaining huge hunks of what was now Poland, were such attempts finally abandoned. Why is it never mentioned that the GDR, though certainly undergoing an economic crisis, was in less of a crisis than all of Germany today, and that until its very end it had no unemployment, no homelessness, free medical care, child care, education, and a sufficiently stable standard of living? Why is it forgotten that many of its travel restrictions had been considerably eased in the two previous years, so that not only pensioners, who were always able to visit West Germany, but 1-2 million GDR citizens had been able to visit West Germany in 1987-1989? Young people wanted desperately to travel, it is true; but their chances of being able to were already improving. Sadly, there was often a stuffy, intolerant atmosphere in the GDR, traceable to the limitations of its aged leadership, to bad traditions inherited from (or in part imposed by) the USSR, but also to a kind of paranoia which was, however, not fully unrealistic in its fears of being swallowed by West Germany, which is just what finally happened. From the start geographically and historically Germany's weaker third, the GDR was always under powerful, merciless attack. This created endless problems for GDR leaders, which they were never able to solve satisfactorily. Nevertheless, most participants in the demonstrations and rebellions in the fateful autumn of 1989 wanted an improved GDR not a dead one. Only after Chancellor Kohl, Willy Brandt, and other West German leaders promised them not only freedom but all the consumer goods they had gazed at so enviously in TV shows -- summarized most succinctly with the two words West marks and bananas, rarely available in the GDR -- were they lured by the seductive songs of the Lorelei beauties from the Rhine. Many have done very well thanks to their status as Federal German citizens. Certainly all consumer goods and travel possibilities are available. The leaden speeches and dull media articles are gone and forgotten, though replaced by endless platitudes and deadening commercials. For freedoms won, however, there have been freedoms lost. In the GDR, according to one bon mot, you were wise not to criticize Honecker and other government or party big shots, but you could say whatever you wanted against your foreman, the manager, the factory director. Today, it was found, this was reversed. People were fired for rejecting unpaid overtime, for asking what a colleague earned, for simply being suspected of eating a company-owned roll or forgetting to turn in a 13 cent coupon. Beggars, the homeless, patrons of free food outlets, people with untreated tooth gaps -- all unknown in GDR days -- are now taken for granted. So are towns with closed factories and a population of pensioners, with most young people off somewhere far away hunting jobs. Another factor was important to historians: the GDR had been founded with certain basic principles. Above all, as a bulwark against fascism, led for many years almost exclusively by anti-Nazis, replete with books, films, theater, even the names of streets, schools, and youth clubs anti-fascist in nature. This was in extreme contrast with a West German establishment whose military brass and diplomatic corps, academia, police, and courts, up to the peak of the government were riddled with former Nazis, not a few of them earnest criminals. In 1961 when the Wall was built they were still to a remarkable degree in leadership. When the Wall came down in 1989 most old Nazis were retired or dead, but the giant concerns, trusts, and banks which built up Hitler and made billions from his war -- and hundreds of thousands of slave laborers -- were for the most part still powerful. When the Wall went down they swarmed back to East Germany and beyond -- the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania. Their army and navy, built by war criminals, still led by militarists, was no longer blocked by the GDR and was maneuvering or fighting in parts of Africa, the Near East, Afghanistan. Two wars have been waged since the Wall went down. And while the GDR had aided Allende, Vietnam, Algeria, Nicaragua, the ANC and SWAPO of southern Africa, the Federal Republic was always on the other side. Yes, the euphoria of the common people who always suffer from the deeds of the big shots was understandable. But today in all Germany wealthy men in towering skyscrapers coolly decide the fates of tens of thousands: fire 3,000 here, 10,000 there, move this factory a thousand miles eastward, close that one. It is as if they were playing some gigantic Monopoly game. Nokia, Opel-GM, Siemens, pharma firms, weapons makers: to a great extent they rule the roost, more than ever with the newest German government, despite its sweet smiles about Freedom and the Wall. But isn't there just a note of worry in their declamations? The latest crisis, by no means cured, is making some people think a bit more carefully. Some of them even spite the media and their pronouncements and vote for a party which calls for re-thinking, sometimes even for socialism. Not the same as in the GDR with its many weaknesses, but a state no longer ruled by the Monopoly men in their skyscrapers. Perhaps the ingenious domino ceremonies and slightly soggy fireworks in their insistence on "We Are the Greatest" reflect these very worries. Victor Grossman, American journalist and author, is a resident of East Berlin for many years. He is the author of Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany (University of Massachusetts Press, 2003) From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Nov 10 13:29:01 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:29:01 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Mean Green Shoots Message-ID: <00DAF79514214877B3C3A721576141D5@dmsthinkpad> Reported by US Bureau of Labor Statistics: EXTENDED MASS LAYOFFS - THIRD QUARTER OF 2009 Employers initiated 1,776 mass layoff events in the third quarter of 2009 that resulted in the separation of 277,924 workers from their jobs for at least 31 days, according to preliminary figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of extended mass layoff events reached a record high for any third quarter (with data available back to 1995). (See table A.) Third quarter program highs in the number of events were also recorded in half of the 18 major industry sectors, 2 of the 4 geographic regions, 4 of the 9 divisions, and 15 states. From wquimby at embarqmail.com Tue Nov 10 14:45:32 2009 From: wquimby at embarqmail.com (Bill Quimby) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:45:32 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Comp Help Needed - Reverb In Online Spoken Videos - Cure? Message-ID: <4AF9DEFC.8030000@embarqmail.com> I find that many of the online videos I want to see - on YouTube for example, are recorded in class lecture halls with no sound absorption. The result is that the video sound has a high degree of reverb - to the point of making it difficult to listen, especially if it lasts for 5 minutes or more. An example is the debate between Alex Callinicos and Martin Wolf (cited on Lenin's Tomb) at the address below http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6CZAQvAMaY Admittedly my computer has a very old - 10 years at least - sound card, and trashy speakers. Is there anything I should do or can do to improve the sound quality on my end, or does the limitation of the recording equipment (and the sound environment) at the source make any effort on my part useless? - Bill From Paula_cerni at msn.com Tue Nov 10 15:09:39 2009 From: Paula_cerni at msn.com (Paula) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:09:39 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Change in Putin's Russia, by Simon Pirani In-Reply-To: <175261DA-720C-438F-A4CA-0A1FDE8EFEC6@wanadoo.fr> References: <175261DA-720C-438F-A4CA-0A1FDE8EFEC6@wanadoo.fr> Message-ID: Message forwarded in case you haven't seen it. -------------------------------------------------- From: "S?bastien Budgen" Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 7:28 AM To: Subject: [historicalmaterialism] Change in Putin's Russia, by Simon Pirani > Dear friends, > > You are invited to two events to mark the publication of my book > CHANGE IN PUTIN?S RUSSIA: POWER, MONEY AND PEOPLE this month by Pluto > Press. > > On Thursday 3 December, at 6.30-8.30 pm, a BOOK LAUNCH will be held at > the Calthorpe Arms, 252 Grays Inn Road, London WC1 (5 mins walk from > Kings Cross, Russell Square and Chancery Lane tubes). All welcome! > > On Wednesday 2 December, at 7.0 pm, I will give a talk about the book, > followed by discussion, at Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, > London N1 (2 mins walk from Kings Cross tube). (Note. This is the > place to hear a talk: there won?t be one at the book launch!) > > There is more information about the book here: > > www.powermoneyandpeople.com > > And you can order it from Amazon here: > > http://www.amazon.co.uk/Change-Putins-Russia-Power-People/dp/0745326900/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256217505&sr=8-1 > > Please pass this on to others who might be interested. > > Best wishes, > > Simon Pirani. > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/historicalmaterialism/ > > <*> Your email settings: > Individual Email | Traditional > > <*> To change settings online go to: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/historicalmaterialism/join > (Yahoo! ID required) > > <*> To change settings via email: > historicalmaterialism-digest at yahoogroups.com > historicalmaterialism-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com > > <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > historicalmaterialism-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com > > <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: > http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > From meisner at xs4all.nl Tue Nov 10 15:20:33 2009 From: meisner at xs4all.nl (Jeff) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:20:33 +0100 Subject: [Marxism] Comp Help Needed - Reverb In Online Spoken Videos - Cure? In-Reply-To: <4AF9DEFC.8030000@embarqmail.com> Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20091110232033.04bb00b4@pop.xs4all.nl> At 16:45 10/11/09 -0500, Bill Quimby wrote: >I find that many of the online videos I want to see - on YouTube >for example, are recorded in class lecture halls with no sound >absorption. The result is that the video sound has a high degree of >reverb Actually the reason is because they placed the recording microphone somewhere in the room, rather than on the podium in front of the speaker's mouth (or equivalently, using a feed from the sound board). The sound quality was ruined before it even got digitized. >Admittedly my computer has a very old - 10 years at least - >sound card, and trashy speakers. This has nothing to do with your computer per se; it is an audio problem period. > Is there anything I should do >or can do to improve the sound quality on my end Not much, but I can make one suggestion. More of the reverberation you hear is at lower frequencies whereas most of the useful speech information is at higher frequencies. Frequencies below 300 Hz are unneeded for comprehension (as are frequencies above 3000 Hz, but that's not the issue). You can adjust the bass and treble controls, or even better use a graphic equalizer to eliminate frequencies that are not needed for comprehension. However that may be aesthetically unpleasing since the actual tone of the speaker's voice will be altered and sound "tinny." Some computer sound driver software includes tone controls, but usually not. Some computer speakers have bass and treble controls. But the best solution is to run your computer's sound output into your stereo (or buy a cheap stereo amplifier for the purpose: you can just as well hook it up to cheap "bookshelf" speakers if you are not interested in music quality). If the stereo has a graphic equalizer that is even better. Otherwise turn down the bass all the way, and turn up the treble until you can't stand it anymore: that will give you the best clarity for speech purposes (but again, it will not sound natural). With an equalizer turn the lower frequencies (below about 300 or 500 Hz) all the way down. In the computer I'm using right now, I've plugged an 1/8" splitter into the audio output jack (a cheap adapter that sends the signal to two 1/8" jacks) and plug "computer speakers" into one, and the other goes to a cable to the aux. input of my stereo for when I'm listening to music. (Listening to music through average computer speakers means you miss all the deep bass!). - Jeff From Paula_cerni at msn.com Tue Nov 10 15:29:57 2009 From: Paula_cerni at msn.com (Paula) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:29:57 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Venezuela, Colombia and the threat of war in Latin America In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: As Nestor says, the threat is actual. But the analysis posted so far on this list is na?ve and one-sided. Venezuela also has been vying for economic, political and military power in the region for some years now. No surprise if rivalries eventually result in all-out war, with Colombians, caught in the middle, the main victims. Paula From Paula_cerni at msn.com Tue Nov 10 15:37:11 2009 From: Paula_cerni at msn.com (Paula) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:37:11 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Iran and Saudi Arabia Message-ID: Inter-imperialist rivalries between Iran and Saudi Arabia play out in Yemen and fuel Shia-Sunni conflict: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8352783.stm Paula From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Nov 10 15:45:03 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:45:03 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Iran and Saudi Arabia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AF9ECEF.7020807@panix.com> Paula wrote: > Inter-imperialist rivalries between Iran and Saudi Arabia play out in Yemen and fuel Shia-Sunni conflict: > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8352783.stm For newcomers to Marxmail, please understand that Paula has a heterodox definition of imperialism and it is really not worth having an argument about since it lacks traction not only here, but on the left in general as well. Not to speak of the solar system. From ernestleif at gmail.com Tue Nov 10 15:50:07 2009 From: ernestleif at gmail.com (Ernest Leif) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:50:07 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Zizek on the Berlin Wall In-Reply-To: <2fa1449b0911100952i6eb6fe61sbc0d30ffddf79c18@mail.gmail.com> References: <4AF9A58F.9000208@gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911100952i6eb6fe61sbc0d30ffddf79c18@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I'm never sure what all fuss about Zizek is. He seems to me like the Hipster's Marxist, and a thoroughly obtuse one at that. Maybe someone on this list can explain the fascination with his ideas. ELB From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Nov 10 15:52:38 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:52:38 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Zizek on the Berlin Wall In-Reply-To: References: <4AF9A58F.9000208@gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911100952i6eb6fe61sbc0d30ffddf79c18@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AF9EEB6.9090505@panix.com> Ernest Leif wrote: > I'm never sure what all fuss about Zizek is. He seems to me like the > Hipster's Marxist, and a thoroughly obtuse one at that. Maybe someone on > this list can explain the fascination with his ideas. Jeez, I have the same question. From nmgoro at gmail.com Tue Nov 10 16:06:57 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:06:57 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Zizek on the Berlin Wall In-Reply-To: References: <4AF9A58F.9000208@gmail.com> <2fa1449b0911100952i6eb6fe61sbc0d30ffddf79c18@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AF9F211.40907@gmail.com> Dear Ernest, this article by Zizek has little to do with what is generally (and generously) defined as "his ideas", which are as obscure as those of Heraclitus without the alibi of precedence in the history of philosophy. Beginnings are always obscure, but willful obscurity is a sign of decadence. Many of Zizek?s so-called ideas are prime benchmarks for some Sokal test. However, I believe that here we are confronted with something different. I profit from the little space of this posting to just declare that Venezuela cannot have an "expansive" policy in Latin America, and thus I can?t leave Paula?s assertions uncommented, Moderator notwithstanding. What Paula calls "expansion" of Venezuela is more or less as if a Paula of yore had defined the policies of the Union States in the age of Lincoln an expansive move on the CSA. Neither is or was. Ernest Leif escribi?: > I'm never sure what all fuss about Zizek is. He seems to me like the > Hipster's Marxist, and a thoroughly obtuse one at that. Maybe someone on > this list can explain the fascination with his ideas. > > ELB From russo.matthew9 at gmail.com Tue Nov 10 16:40:42 2009 From: russo.matthew9 at gmail.com (Matthew Russo) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:40:42 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Zizek on the Berlin Wall Message-ID: <1b7033e60911101540l5e63aa79lcf397e0302f88b81@mail.gmail.com> [Hope the CR formatting doesn't get too hosed] With his clown suit off. It is an appropriate warning about the political direction taken by disillusion with capitalism and "democracy" in E. Europe. The excerpt below raises the most interesting questions: "This is why today?s China is so unsettling: capitalism has always seemed inextricably linked to democracy, and faced with the explosion of capitalism in the People?s Republic, many analysts still assume that political democracy will inevitably assert itself." "But what if this strain of authoritarian capitalism proves itself to be more efficient, more profitable, than our liberal capitalism? What if democracy is no longer the necessary and natural accompaniment of economic development, but its impediment?" Actually there has never been any "natural" connection between modern democracy and capitalism. That illusion comes from 19th century Britain, where it was the capitalist, free trade Liberals, the lineal descendants of the 18th century Whig Dissident tradition, excluded from the spoils of Empire on religious grounds, crowded into the purely "Little England" capitalist industrial enterprises in order to make their way in the world, who also led the drive for extension of the suffrage. The great counter-example is none other than the "homeland of democracy", itself, the United States before the Civil War, where the "democracy" under the figurehead of Andrew Jackson possessed a distinctly anticapitalist edge - and not uncoincidentially, in a seemingly curious role reversal, an anti-New England Yankee edge as well - the cousins of those same English Dissidents. In those days, to be called a "capitalist" was to have an insult hurled at one, to be considered someone who fed at the public trough for private gain. Hence the present case of the PRC is not really mysterious at all, if we hold to the perspective established after the Russian Revolution that we still very much live in the transition from capitalism to - well, it used to be called "socialism", but by any other name it will still be the same rose in my eyes if we succeed in avoiding a civilizational catastrophe and build on relatively intact forces of production. In this context the PRC remains a transitional state and social formation even as the mode of production becomes more coherently capitalist (of a rather odd developmental type, if you compare it to the U.S. from the Civil War to the 1920's). It is this that Putin thinks of when he regrets the dissolution of the U.S.S.R.: that a Soviet Union intact would have been a far better environment for the restoration of the capitalist mode of production, than the farcical "Made in U.S.A." mess he inherited - really, a shift from the incoherent forms of production, with elements part capitalist, part socialist without either being dominant, that characterized the U.S.S.R. in the past - no wonder "it didn't work". In short, PRC type formations ARE the optimal way forward for the capitalist mode of production today and in the future - not uncoicidentially the leading imperialist countries, especially the U.S.A. and Britain, are trodding down the PRC path in their own way in a kind of "bureaucratic" state monopoly capitalism with "Anglo characteristics" (as the CCP leadership would tutor to them), including an evacuation of the real effectivity of the private property form otherwise misnomered "neoliberal privitization" - the present "health care" process in the U.S.A. being an excellent example. And in the case of the U.S.A. there is a hoary old tradition of "state intervention" to fall back on, dating back to the very foundation of the Federal Republic, with its now antediluvian, transitional (unbeknown to its founders) project for the creation of a synthetic "state bourgeoisie" out of the swarming, relatively undifferentiated mass of petit bourgeois dirt farmers, barter merchants, small proprietor shop manufacturers, land speculators, swindler - and huckster - settlers of every stripe - a "sack of potatoes" of truly continental scale. The lives of Jackson, Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, and John C. Calhoun (before this latter shifted to being the mouthpiece of the Slaveocracy in the 1830's) were the leading avatars of this process, and the Democratic Party they founded the chosen vehicle. A state and social formation that turned out to be transitional _to_ capitalism - the highest, final and 'most perfected' of all from the early modern epoch that opened with the triumph of the Dutch Revolt and the English Revolution in the 1640's - somehow managed to survive into the new transitional epoch. How these arbitrary juxtaposed strata, as if suddenly thrown together by an earthquake from sedimentary layers formed in distinctly different historical conditions, will interact will be very interesting to watch and, should there be some significant slippage, to hopefully act in as well. In this historical context the radical right reaction makes perfect sense, just as that of classical fascism did at the beginning of the transitional era. And as Zizek correctly points out, it is hardly limited to Eastern Europe, as the present cases of Italy, France Britain and of course the recent hysterical antics here in the U.S. as well as recent stirrings in parts of Central and South America attest to - they represent an international danger. But they do seem to have more state sanction in Eastern Europe - I'd like to try walking past a police station wearing a big red Che Guevara shirt in Warsaw sometime to test this. -Matt Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:37:53 -0500 From: Louis Proyect Subject: [Marxism] Zizek on the Berlin Wall To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition Message-ID: <4AF96CB1.9090308 at panix.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed NY Times, November 9, 2009 Op-Ed Contributor 20 Years of Collapse By SLAVOJ ZIZEK From schaffer at optonline.net Tue Nov 10 17:07:27 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:07:27 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Comp Help Needed - Reverb In Online Spoken Videos - Cure? In-Reply-To: <4AF9DEFC.8030000@embarqmail.com> References: <4AF9DEFC.8030000@embarqmail.com> Message-ID: <4AFA003F.6090102@optonline.net> Bill Quimby wrote: > Is there anything I should do or can do to improve the sound quality on my end i listen to this stuff with headphones and its not a problem... i think it would sound worse on speakers, since your room will also highlight the low frequency stuff that Jeff pointed out. Les From russo.matthew9 at gmail.com Tue Nov 10 17:10:44 2009 From: russo.matthew9 at gmail.com (Matthew Russo) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:10:44 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] An Opening in Consciousness! Message-ID: <1b7033e60911101610v1b8756c6o1df2752820d4009f@mail.gmail.com> Can't speak for the integrity of the poll, but found this remarkable: "In only the United States (25 percent) and Pakistan (21 percent), did more than one in five people agree that capitalism works well in its current form, the poll conducted for BBC Worldsaid." Could there be any greater irony than in the association of these two states concerning public opinion of capitalism? Perhaps it is the perception of the utter hopeless corruption of the state that informs them that "capitalism is working great!" Too bad they didn't poll Afghanistan: "Capitalism rocks, dude!" But look at Mexico right next door: Capitalism sucks!! say almost 40% with another 40% saying it needs reform...keep your eye on the Immigrant Rights Movement. It's a fuse waiting for a light. -Matt Message: 16 Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:52:51 -0500 From: Jay Moore Subject: [Marxism] An Opening in Consciousness! To: Marxism List Message-ID: <4AF8D583.20900 at igc.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed "Worldwide poll: Vast majority say capitalism not working" http://rawstory.com/2009/11/survey-capitalism-not-working/ From russo.matthew9 at gmail.com Tue Nov 10 17:30:58 2009 From: russo.matthew9 at gmail.com (Matthew Russo) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:30:58 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] Economists Seek to Fix a Defect in Data That Message-ID: <1b7033e60911101630i6e9f533gdabee57a28f95207@mail.gmail.com> A pity that the oil pricing question got piggybacked onto what I was interested in hearing about: How manufacturing labor productivity is measured in the U.S. That has nothing to do with the pricing of petroleum, which as a mineral resource is principally rent-bearing as its wild price swings show, i.e. principally a means for the distribution of surplus value in the form of surplus profit, though there is a minor capitalized component in its extraction and distribution, ex- refinery. So petroleum is apples and oranges here. Don't want no merry-go-rounds here. -Matt ----- Original Message ----- From: "S. Artesian" To: "Marv Gandall" Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 10:11 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism]Economists Seek to Fix a Defect in Data That Overstates the Nation?s Vigor (NYT) Can we get off this merry-go-round? Good idea. From wquimby at embarqmail.com Tue Nov 10 17:46:31 2009 From: wquimby at embarqmail.com (Bill Quimby) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:46:31 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Comp Help Needed - Reverb In Online Spoken Videos - Cure? In-Reply-To: <4AFA003F.6090102@optonline.net> References: <4AF9DEFC.8030000@embarqmail.com> <4AFA003F.6090102@optonline.net> Message-ID: <4AFA0967.4090802@embarqmail.com> Yes, that helped a lot! Thanks Les! - Bill Les Schaffer wrote: > Bill Quimby wrote: >> Is there anything I should do or can do to improve the sound quality on my end > > i listen to this stuff with headphones and its not a problem... i think > it would sound worse on speakers, since your room will also highlight > the low frequency stuff that Jeff pointed out. > > Les > > > > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/wquimby%40embarqmail.com > From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Nov 10 19:00:02 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:00:02 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Communism & Cinema In-Reply-To: <4AF6BDB4.12038.13AE1AE@aymery.ix.netcom.com> References: <4AF6BDB4.12038.13AE1AE@aymery.ix.netcom.com> Message-ID: <4AFA1AA2.2060500@panix.com> Gilles d'Aymery wrote: > Lou, > > The attached text file is an article in French on the importance of cinema in > the history of communism, from Lenin on. It was written by a French historian > and published in Le Monde. I don't know whether you can read in French. If > not, perhaps you could post it to the List and ask whether a member would be > willing to translate it (I can't due to time constraint). g. > If any comrade can do a translation of this very promising article, please contact me or Gilles at aymery at ix.netcom.com. Here is how it starts: http://www.lemonde.fr/opinions/article/2009/11/07/camera-faucille-et-marteau_1264255_3232.html Cam?ra, faucille et marteau Par Antoine de Baecque LE MONDE | 07.11.09 Antoine de Baecque est historien. N? en 1962, il a travaill? sur les pratiques culturelles de la R?volution fran?aise ainsi que sur le cin?ma et le th??tre fran?ais contemporains. Auteur de nombreux ouvrages, il est critique et ?diteur. Il a notamment coordonn? la "Petite anthologie des Cahiers du cin?ma" (avec la collaboration de Gabrielle Lucantonio). Dans ses Souvenirs, Anatoli Lounatcharski, commissaire du peuple ? l'instruction publique en 1917, ?voque un entretien avec L?nine : "Vladimir Ilitch me dit que l'on s'efforcerait de faire quelque chose pour accro?tre les moyens du d?partement cin?ma. Il souligna la n?cessit? d'?tablir une certaine proportion entre les films divertissants et les films scientifiques. Vladimir Ilitch me dit qu'il fallait s'engager dans la production de films nouveaux, p?n?tr?s des id?es communistes et refl?tant l'activit? sovi?tique. ?Vous devrez d?velopper et promouvoir un cin?ma sain dans les masses, dans les villes et encore plus dans les campagnes, me confia-t-il. Vous devez absolument vous souvenir que, de tous les arts, le plus important pour nous, c'est le cin?ma.?" From maxclark84 at gmail.com Tue Nov 10 19:07:04 2009 From: maxclark84 at gmail.com (Maxwell Clark) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:07:04 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Zizek on the Berlin Wall Message-ID: <545b0da0911101807o69b249a2l737005087e591b08@mail.gmail.com> 1. "But what if this strain of authoritarian capitalism proves itself to be more efficient, more profitable, than our liberal capitalism? What if democracy is no longer the necessary and natural accompaniment of economic development, but its impediment?" I quake at the truth of the above. But let them do their worst. Tis but their own grave-digging and whatnot. Or no? 2. Yeah Zizek for getting published in the NYT! Yeah us! We need more of this. Next one of us from the Marx-Mail massif! The very best, Max Clark http://clarkmax.blogspot.com p.s. absinthe is crucial to understanding van gogh. shit is legal again or something. just drank a bunch. word. From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Nov 10 20:01:30 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:01:30 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Zizek on the Berlin Wall References: <545b0da0911101807o69b249a2l737005087e591b08@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <3AA9767A35AC4C6AAA3FBBA69220668B@dmsthinkpad> It's historical, isn't it? Sometimes the more authoritarian, sometimes the less. Sometimes the carrot, sometimes the stick. Sometimes small property feels safe and secure, other times it feels itself being upended, expelled, crushed, and the small property-holders rush out into the streets only too eager to complete the job big capitalism has initiated-- driving down wages below subsistence, marching off to war-- another way of driving wages below subsistence and incinerating the overproduced means of production at the same time. But I don't buy is that China represents a new paradigm for capitalism, which I think means for those who suggest it is so, that somehow the CCP, the State Council actually control the economy, and the market forces, rather than being controlled by them. I don't think that's the case-- certainly not in the export/import sector of the economy, certainly not in the special enterprise zones; certainly not in basic industry-- cement, steel, aluminum, etc. where overproduction has been officially acknowledged as the looming threat to economic stability. From russo.matthew9 at gmail.com Tue Nov 10 21:20:50 2009 From: russo.matthew9 at gmail.com (Matthew Russo) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:20:50 -0800 Subject: [Marxism] China: America's Head Servant? Message-ID: <1b7033e60911102020if612cfbn2a034592a883d666@mail.gmail.com> The NLR makes another connection to the real world. -Matt http://www.newleftreview.org/A2809 Free, should be accessible. .... Beijing is well aware that further accumulation of foreign reserves is counterproductive, since it would increase the risk associated with the assets China already holds or else induce a shift to ever riskier ones. The government is also very aware of the need to reduce the country?s export dependence and stimulate the growth of domestic demand by increasing the working classes? disposable income. Such a redirection of priorities has to involve moving resources and policy preferences away from the coastal cities to the rural hinterland, where protracted social marginalization and underconsumption have left ample room for improvement. But the vested interests that have taken root over several decades of export-led development make this a daunting task. Officials and entrepreneurs from the coastal provinces, who have become a powerful group capable of shaping the formation and implementation of central government policies, are so far adamant in their resistance to any such reorientation. This dominant faction of China?s elite, as exporters and creditors to the world economy, has established a symbiotic relation with the American ruling class, which has striven to maintain its domestic hegemony by securing the living standards of us citizens, as consumers and debtors to the world. Despite occasional squabbles, the two elite groups on either side of the Pacific share an interest in perpetuating their respective domestic status quos, as well as the current imbalance in the global economy. Unless there is a fundamental political realignment that shifts the balance of power from the coastal urban elite to forces that represent rural grassroots interests, China is likely to continue leading other Asian exporters in diligently serving?and being held hostage by?the us. The Anglo-Saxon establishment has recently become more respectful towards its Asian partners, inviting China to become a ?stakeholder? in a ?ChiAmerican? global order, or ?g2?. What they mean is that China should not rock the boat, but should continue to help maintain American economic dominance (in return, perhaps, for more consideration of Beijing?s concerns over Tibet and Taiwan). This would enable Washington to buy precious time to secure its command over emergent sectors of the world economy through debt-financed government investment in green technology and other innovations, and hence remake its ailing supremacy into a green hegemony. This seems to be exactly what the Obama administration is betting on as its long-term response to the global crisis and declining American power. If China were to re-orient its developmental model and achieve greater balance between domestic consumption and exports, it could not only free itself from dependence on the collapsing us consumer market and addiction to risky us debt, but also benefit manufacturers in other Asian economies that are equally eager to escape these dangers. More importantly, if other emerging economies were to pursue a similar re-orientation and South?South trade were to deepen, then they could become one another?s consumers, ushering in a new age of autonomous and equitable growth in the global South. Until that happens, however, a recentring of global capitalism from West to East and from North to South in the aftermath of the global crisis remains little more than wishful thinking. From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Tue Nov 10 23:31:27 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:31:27 +1100 Subject: [Marxism] What is 'left' about 'the left' in South Africa? | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal Message-ID: <4AFA5A3F.3060901@greenleft.org.au> By *Dale T. McKinley* November 5, 2009 -- For several years now, but particularly since the ascendancy of Jacob Zuma and his South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU) allies within both the African National Congress (ANC) and the state, ``the left'' in South Africa has come to be almost completely associated with (and presented as) the SACP, COSATU and, to a lesser extent, the ANC itself. Even though this state of affairs ignores a wide range of organisations and people that can stake a serious claim to being part of ``the left'', the fact is that contemporary politics in South Africa are dominated, in one way or another, by these three alliance partners. As such, it is a good time to pose a critically important question: What is ``left'' about ``the left'' in South Africa? Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1347 Subscribe free to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal at http://www.feedblitz.