From nmgoro at gmail.com Tue Sep 1 02:35:07 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 05:35:07 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Devaluation of the USDollar? Message-ID: <2fa158550909010135g43c34128o99d92f396dab3b0c@mail.gmail.com> Some insist here that US is about to devaluate (strongly) its currency within a few months. Anyone aware/interested/informed enough to give some hint on this list? -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From lueko.willms at t-online.de Tue Sep 1 00:35:27 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:35:27 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway In-Reply-To: <4A9C75AA.60904@gmail.com> References: <4A9C75AA.60904@gmail.com> Message-ID: <100.68060a00afc09c4a.025@lws-media.de> nada (dwaltersMIA at gmail.com) wrote on 2009-08-31 at 18:15:22 in about Re: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway: > > Luko...comparing the basic productivity of Chinese rail to US rail > is...weird. It is more than that: it is absolute nonsense. > But 2 million workers for the aged, decrepit Chinese rail system and this is also absolute nonsense. China is in the world league of high-speed rail systems like Japan, France, or Germany, except that the train technology for such high speeds still has to imported. Newly built lines for trains transporting tens of thousands of passengers per day at speeds of up to 350 km/h are certainly not "decrepit". The rail line to Lhasa is certainly not "decrepit". Even if there are, which is probable, parts of the Chinese rail network which are "aged, decrepit" this cannot be said for the whole network. > At least the Chinese ARE putting money again into rail... And that is the point. And they are investing heavily, more than any other nation in the world. Currently, as was explained in the IRJ articles which I linked to, they build the 1'300 km PDL (Passenger Dedicated Line) between Beijing and Shanghai designed for speeds up to 350 km/h. In a few years, China will have the largest high-speed network of all countries on this planet, more than Japan and France -- more than the USA is no criterion in this respect. In most other areas, comparisons with the USA are of interest: China is the largest country organising about one fifth of mankind, and is in many economic respects still behind the USA with its 300 million inhabitants (less than a quarter of the Chinese), but still being the largest internal market of all countries. And so this is an important mark. > The Chinese economy has bizarre "scissors" when it comes to > productivity. You could also say that in your jargon: "uneven and combined development". > Basically you have in China a whole sector of industry that works at > basically 1920 US productivity levels. We are talking about a Third world country which was colonized by the imperialist powers, including the USA, and only got free in 1949-53. > It is often bypassed by foreign owned or newer Chinese plants > with modern production methods. This is that weird scissors effect > that seems to exist there involving 10s of millions of workers! > This must throw tremendous contortions into the > hybrid capitalist/socialist economy there. Now imagine the contortions if all those workers were on the dole. China can't leap-frog into a perfect society with a perfect and hyper-productive production apparatus. It takes time and, to use one the phrases so much liked an "uneven and combined development". But develop they must. Cheers, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From lueko.willms at t-online.de Tue Sep 1 00:01:59 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:01:59 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway In-Reply-To: References: <100.78980d00bbe39b4a.042@lws-media.de> <64109A9FCE43464C935F432AD25EB846@dmsthinkpad> <100.6889090038089c4a.006@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <100.18370b00d7b89c4a.015@lws-media.de> S. Artesian (sartesian at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-08-31 at 21:33:34 in about Re: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway: > > > Does it include passenger operations? Because China's Rail Knowledge > magazine reports 77,000 KM of total track in China, not 60,000 for 2006. The Chinese MOR [Ministry of Railways] does operate both freight trains and passenger trains and some dedicated freight and some dedicated passenger lines. It seems you have not read the articles from the IRJ which I recommended. You seem also not to read my own contributions to this list, which you pretend to reply to. You even hide the information about which message you are replying to at the end of your contribution. As to the numbers, I quoted the _official_ statistics published by the UIC, and for 2008. I thought that as an old railwayman you would be able to look up the UIC statistics yourself. I am also astonished about your confusion of _line_ lenght and _track_ length. I quoted from the UIC statistics that China reported to dispose of 60'809 km of _lines_ by the end of 2008, out of which 25'793 are double track (or wider). This gives you the difference between the total _track_ length and _line_ length which you wonder above. By the way, among the UIC statistical data which I quoted, some of them are not for 2008, but for 2007: personnel, train-km, gross ton-km, tons of freight (not ton-km!). Cheers, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From sebastian at amadeobordiga.u-net.com Tue Sep 1 04:18:34 2009 From: sebastian at amadeobordiga.u-net.com (Sebastian Budgen) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 12:18:34 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] Now Out: HM 17.1 Message-ID: www.brill.nl/hima Historical Materialism Research in Critical Marxist Theory Volume 17 Issue 1 2009 CONTENTS Articles Marcus E. Green and Peter Ives Subalternity and Language: Overcoming the Fragmentation of Common Sense Henry Heller The Longue Dur?e of the French Bourgeoisie Michael L?wy Capitalism as Religion: Walter Benjamin and Max Weber Daniel Cho Adorno on Education, or, Can Critical Self-Reflection Prevent the Next Auschwitz? Reflections on ?Gewalt? ?tienne Balibar Violence Massimilano Tomba Another Type of Gewalt: Beyond Law. Re-Reading Benjamin Interventions Guglielmo Carchedi The Fallacies of ?New Dialectics? and Value-Form Theory Christopher J. Arthur Contradiction and Abstraction: A Reply to Finelli Review Articles Benjamin Noys on Ian Parker?s Revolution in Psychology: Alienation to Emancipation and Yannis Stavrakakis?s The Lacanian Left: Psychoanalysis, Theory, and Politics Marcel Bois on Christian Gotthardt?s Die radikale Linke als Massenbewegung. Kommunisten in Harburg-Wilhelmsburg 1918?1933 Tyson E. Lewis on Peter McLaren?s Capitalists and Conquerors and McLaren and Ramin Farahmandpur?s Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism From sebastian at amadeobordiga.u-net.com Tue Sep 1 04:19:01 2009 From: sebastian at amadeobordiga.u-net.com (Sebastian Budgen) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 12:19:01 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] Now Out. HM 17.2 Message-ID: www.brill.nl/hima Historical Materialism Research in Critical Marxist Theory Volume 17 Issue 2 2009 CONTENTS Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize Lecture Rick Kuhn Economic Crisis, Henryk Grossman and the Responsibility of Socialists Articles David McNally From Financial Crisis to World Slump: Accumulation, Financialisation, and the Global Slowdown Steve Edwards Apocalyptic Sublime: On the Third Brighton Photo Biennal Symposium on the Global Financial Crisis Samantha Ashman Editorial Introduction Costas Lapavitsas Financialised Capitalism: Crisis and Financial Expropriation Gary A. Dymski Racial Exclusion and the Political Economy of the Subprime Crisis Paulo L. Dos Santos On The Content of Banking in Contemporary Capitalism Reflections on ?Gewalt? (contd.) Luca Basso The Ambivalence of Gewalt in Marx and Engels: On the Interpretation of Balibar Review Articles Ian Hudson & Mark Hudson on Gavin Fridell?s Fair Trade Coffee: The Prospects and Pitfalls of Market Driven Social Justice, Daniel Jaffee?s Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival, and Laura Raynolds?, Douglas Murray?s & John Wilkinson?s Fair Trade: Th e Challenges of Transforming Globalization Richard Westra on Pierre Bourdieu?s Firing Back: Against the Tyranny of the Market 2, Global Turbulence: Social Activists? and State Responses to Globalization, edited by Marjorie Griffin Cohen and Stephen McBride, John Rapley?s Globalization and Inequality: Neoliberalism?s Downward Spiral and Anti-Capitalism: A Marxist Introduction, edited by Alfredo Saad-Filho Michele Filippini on Alberto Burgio?s Gramsci storico Richard Seymour on Markku Ruotsila?s John Spargo and American Socialism Robert Knox On Alain Supiot?s Homo Juridicus Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism Stefan Bollinger & Juha Koivisto Hegemonic Apparatus From naskha3 at gmail.com Tue Sep 1 04:38:23 2009 From: naskha3 at gmail.com (Nasir Khan) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 12:38:23 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] =?windows-1252?q?What_Obama_isn=92t_telling_you_about_A?= =?windows-1252?q?fghanistan?= Message-ID: <18d70e600909010338p5effae95vc0adf227d702360b@mail.gmail.com> By Anthony DiMaggio, ZNet, Aug 31, 2009 President Obama finds himself in a precarious position when calling for escalation of the war in Afghanistan. While this conflict is traditionally seen as the ?good war,? American and Afghan public support appears mixed at best. There is good reason to suspect that the limited support for war that exists will evaporate after casualties on both sides increase and Afghanistan?s security further deteriorates. A significant problem we run into when assessing the war is the tremendous lack of information available about Americans? reasons for opposing war. Scholars note the tendency of polling firms to ?socially construct? public opinion by refusing to ask questions about Americans? moral challenges to U.S. foreign policy. Benjamin Ginsberg argues in The Captive Public that ?polls generally raise questions that are of interest to clients and purchasers of poll data ? newspapers, political candidates, governmental agencies, and business corporations?questions of no immediate relevance to government, business, or politicians will not easily find their way into the surveys. This is particularly true of issues such as the validity of the capitalist economic system, or the legitimacy of governmental authority, issues that business and government prefer not to see raised at all, much less at their own expense.? Continues >> http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22481 From jnorem at cox.net Tue Sep 1 05:29:41 2009 From: jnorem at cox.net (John E. Norem) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:29:41 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Wallerstein: The Firestorm Ahead Message-ID: <4A9D05A5.7060502@cox.net> "The Firestorm Ahead" There is a firestorm ahead in the Middle East for which neither the U.S. government nor the U.S. public is prepared. They seem scarcely aware how close it is on the horizon or how ferocious it will be. The U.S. government (and therefore almost inevitably the U.S. public) is deluding itself massively about its capacity to handle the situation in terms of its stated objectives. The storm will go from Iraq to Afghanistan to Pakistan to Israel/Palestine, and in the classic expression "it will spread like wildfire." Let us start with Iraq. The United States has signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Iraq, which went into effect on July 1. It provided for turning over internal security to the Iraqi government and, in theory, essentially restricting U.S. forces to their bases and to some limited role in training Iraqi troops. Some of the wording of this agreement is ambiguous. Deliberately so, since that was the only way both sides would sign it. Even the first months of operation show how poorly this agreement is operating. The Iraqi forces have been interpreting it very strictly, formally forbidding both joint patrols and also any unilateral U.S. military actions without prior detailed clearance with the government. It has gotten to the point that Iraqi forces are stopping U.S. forces from passing checkpoints with supplies during daytime hours. The U.S. forces have been chafing. They have tried to interpret the clause guaranteeing them the right of self-defense far more loosely than the Iraqi forces want. They are pointing to the upturn in violence in Iraq and therefore implicitly to the incapacity of Iraqi forces to guarantee order. The general commanding the U.S. forces, Ray Odierno, is obviously extremely unhappy and is patently scheming to find excuses to reestablish a direct U.S. role. Recently, he met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq and President Masoud Barzani of the Kurdish Regional Government. Odierno sought to persuade them to permit tripartite (Iraqi/Kurdish/American) joint patrols in Mosul and other areas of northern Iraq, in order to prevent or minimize violence. They politely agreed to consider his proposal. Unfortunately for Odierno, his plan would require a formal revision of the SOFA agreement. Originally, there was supposed to be a referendum in the beginning of July on popular approval of the SOFA agreement. The United States was afraid of losing the vote, which would have meant that /all/ U.S. forces would have had to be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2010, one full year earlier than the theoretical date in the SOFA agreement. The United States thought it was very clever in persuading al-Maliki to postpone this referendum to January 2010. Now it will be held in conjunction with the national elections. In the national elections, everyone will be seeking to obtain votes. No one is going to be campaigning in favor of a "yes" vote on the referendum. Lest this be in any doubt, al-Maliki is submitting a project to the Iraqi parliament that will permit a simple majority of "no" votes to annul the agreement. There will be a majority of "no" votes. There may even be an overwhelming majority of "no" votes. Odierno should be packing his bags now. I'll bet he still has the illusion that he can avoid the onset of the firestorm. He can't. What will happen next? At the present, but this may change between now and January, it looks like al-Maliki will win the election. He will do this by becoming the number one champion of Iraqi nationalism. He will make deals with all and sundry on this basis. Iraqi nationalism at the moment doesn't have much to do with Iran or Saudi Arabia or Israel or Russia. It means first of all liberating Iraq from the last vestiges of U.S. colonial rule, which is how almost all Iraqis define what they have been living under since 2003. Will there be internal violence in Iraq? Probably, though possibly less than Odierno and others expect. But so what? Iraqi "liberation" - which is what the entire Middle East will interpret a "no" vote on the referendum to be - will immediately have a great impact on Afghanistan. There people will say, if the Iraqis can do it, so can we. Of course, the situation in Afghanistan is different, very different, from that of Iraq. But look at what is going on now with the elections in Afghanistan. We have a government put into power to contain and destroy the Taliban. The Taliban have turned out to be more tenacious and militarily effective than any one seemed ever to anticipate. Even the tough U.S. commander there, Stanley McChrystal, has recognized that. The U.S. military is now talking of "succeeding" in perhaps a decade. Soldiers who think they have a decade to win a war against insurgents have clearly not been reading military history. Notice the Afghan politicians themselves. Three leading candidates for the presidency, including President Hamid Karzai, debated on television the current internal war. They agreed on one thing. There must be some kind of political negotiations with the Taliban. They differed on the details. The U.S. (and NATO) forces are there ostensibly to destroy the Taliban. And the leading Afghan politicians are debating how to come to political terms with them. There is a serious disjuncture here of appreciation of realities, or perhaps of political objectives. The polls - for what they are worth - are showing that the majority of Afghans want the NATO forces to leave and the majority of U.S. voters want the same thing. Now look ahead to January 2010, when the Iraqis vote the United States out of Iraq. Remember that, before the Taliban came to power, the country was the site of fierce and ruthless fighting among competing warlords, each with different ethnic bases, to control the country. The United States was actually relieved when the Pakistani-backed Taliban took power. Order at last. There turned out to be a minor problem. The Taliban were serious about sharia and friendly to the emergent al-Qaeda. So, after 9/11, the United States, with west European approval and United Nations sanction, invaded. The Taliban were ousted from power - for a little while. What will happen now? The Afghans will probably revert to the nasty continuing inter-ethnic wars of the warlords, with the Taliban just one more faction. The U.S. public's tolerance for that war will evaporate entirely. All the internal factions and many of the neighbors (Russia, Iran, India, and Pakistan) will remain to fight over the pieces. And then stage three - Pakistan. Pakistan is another complicated situation. But none of the players there trust the United States. And the polls there show that the Pakistani public thinks that the greatest danger to Pakistan is the United States, and that by an overwhelming vote. The traditional enemy, India, is far behind the United States in the polls. When Afghanistan crumbles into a full-fledged civil war, the Pakistani army will be very busy supporting the Taliban. They cannot support the Taliban in Afghanistan while fighting them in Pakistan. They will no longer be able to accept U.S. drones bombing in Pakistan. So then comes stage four of the firestorm - Israel/Palestine. The Arab world will observe the collapse of U.S. projects in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The U.S. project in Israel/Palestine is a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Israelis are not going to budge an inch. But neither now, and especially after the rest of the firestorm, are the Palestinians. The one consequence will be the enormous pressure that other Arab states will put upon Fatah and Hamas to join forces. This will be over Mahmoud Abbas's dead body - which might literally be the case. The whole Obama program will have gone up in flames. And the Republicans will make hay with it. They will call U.S. defeat in the Middle East "betrayal" and it is obvious now that there is a large group inside the United States very receptive to such a theme. One either anticipates firestorms and does something useful, or one gets swept up in them. by Immanuel Wallerstein [Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global. For rights and permissions, including translations and posting to non-commercial sites, and contact: rights at agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.336.286.6606. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically, or e-mail to others, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To contact author, write: immanuel.wallerstein at yale.edu. These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.] From schaffer at optonline.net Tue Sep 1 06:18:01 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:18:01 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed?? In-Reply-To: <100.d8d60000be389c4a.011@lws-media.de> References: <3.0.3.32.20090831222047.0472a5f0@pop.xs4all.nl> <4A9C34C4.90807@optonline.net> <100.d8d60000be389c4a.011@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <4A9D10F9.3080909@optonline.net> L?ko Willms wrote: > Talk to a certain L.P. who is forwarding two-thirds of articles or > naked URLs and curtailing discussions. > so you are agreeing with me that we should have less forwarding and more discussion? except Lou is one of the people who forwards stuff and who actively engages in discussion on this list. i doubt anyone on this list would claim Lou is not so actively engaged. are you saying others forward articles because Lou does? if Lou stopped forwarding, others would too? the curtailing discussions must refer to when he unsubs people, which is a separate issue in my opinion. i'm with Mark Lause on this one, i would like to see more moderation in an effort to maximize discussion and minimize pissing contests and encourage forwarding to lead to discussion. Les From schaffer at optonline.net Tue Sep 1 06:32:59 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:32:59 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed?? In-Reply-To: <4A9C94AC.6010304@mail.ngo.za> References: <3.0.3.32.20090831222047.0472a5f0@pop.xs4all.nl> <4A9C34C4.90807@optonline.net> <4A9C94AC.6010304@mail.ngo.za> Message-ID: <4A9D147B.10709@optonline.net> Patrick Bond wrote: > I'm voting, as usual, for full posting of articles - copyrights be damned. > > The reason is that I sit at the base of Africa (in Durban) and I think > it's fair to say that this entire continent suffers a huge digital > divide in getting quick and reliable access to the internet. > i can think of two or three solutions to this problem... 1. a separate companion list for news and forwards 2. modifying Mailman behavior to route forwards only to people who want them. i have some ideas on this. 3. Mailman has a "Topics" feature which is currently disabled, see details below. if everyone who forwarded would put a keyword like [fwd] or [news-item] in their subject line, i think we could handle this. > So my vote is for comrades to be comradely, and post the entire article. > If Louis needs some extra money to handle the added bandwidth for the > listserve, I'll be first to pony up. > hold that thought .... Les Mailman Topics: The topic filter categorizes each incoming email message according to regular expression filters you specify below. If the message's Subject: or Keywords: header contains a match against a topic filter, the message is logically placed into a topic bucket. Each user can then choose to only receive messages from the mailing list for a particular topic bucket (or buckets). Any message not categorized in a topic bucket registered with the user is not delivered to the list. Note that this feature only works with regular delivery, not digest delivery. The body of the message can also be optionally scanned for Subject: and Keywords: headers, as specified by the topics_bodylines_limit configuration variable. From schaffer at optonline.net Tue Sep 1 06:40:07 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:40:07 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed?? In-Reply-To: <4A9D147B.10709@optonline.net> References: <3.0.3.32.20090831222047.0472a5f0@pop.xs4all.nl> <4A9C34C4.90807@optonline.net> <4A9C94AC.6010304@mail.ngo.za> <4A9D147B.10709@optonline.net> Message-ID: <4A9D1627.7090808@optonline.net> Les Schaffer wrote: > 3. Mailman has a "Topics" feature reading the Topics description again myself, it seems the Mailman behavior would need to be modified so that people could subscribe to news and fwded content particularly while still receiving regular postings. i would not want to require normal posts to be tagged as normal somehow. Les From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Sep 1 07:23:46 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 09:23:46 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway References: <100.78980d00bbe39b4a.042@lws-media.de><64109A9FCE43464C935F432AD25EB846@dmsthinkpad><100.6889090038089c4a.006@lws-media.de> <100.18370b00d7b89c4a.015@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <763CD5E2411A46968BD3B39594D468A7@dmsthinkpad> Actually, Luko I have a subscription to the IRJ, and I've read all sorts of rah-rah give me a big C articles about China's development. And I read your so-called contributions, responding in detail to the uncritical glowing reports of growth you provide. As for hiding the information about which message I am replying to-- obviously you're the one who doesn't read the contributions to the list as it is clear in the body of the response what I am replying to as I usually include quotes from the previous post. You raise all sorts of ridiculous charges-- previously claiming you had not idea what FDI was, that is was an US-centric term blah blah blah. I showed then that the term had been used on the list for sometime and that you had never raised an objection before. Now you make an equally absurd charge. As for the discrepancy in track-kilometers, or track mileage, I don't know how they count track-miles in China, but in the US the standard is to count exactly that -- track-miles, so if you have 4 tracks running between 2 points 50 miles apart, that's 200 track miles. Makes sense if you stop and think about [you might try that in between pom-pom classes], because your costs of maintenance are for maintaining 200 track miles, not 50; your tonnage per track mile is dispersed, perhaps equally, perhaps not but that doesn't matter, over the total track mileage-- that's one reason excessive track mileage, overproduction of track, was such a burden to US railroads in the 50s, 60s, 70s, driving up costs, driving down returns, and leading to much deferred maintenance. That's the big reason for introducing advanced signal systems that allow you to run at higher speeds in both directions on a single track. That's the big reason railroads don't construct passing sidings every 5 miles or so, making economic decisions which become operating decisions on how many sidings, how long the sidings, how many interlockings, how much multiple track territory they require and can be "redeemed" by operating revenues. Now this entire exercise started when you claimed, suggested, stated, asserted, whatever that China had possibly overtaken the US in freight transport. For 2008, US freight traffic declined about 1.5% from the previous year to 2773 ton-kilometers. China's grew, but by only half the rate of growth of 2007, by 3.5% to 2338 ton-kilometers. OK, no overtaking there. China has a network of, according to the UIC 60,000+ km, the US 192,000 + km so no overtake there. Tons hauled per train are at least 6-7 greater in the US than China, so no overtake there. And simple math will tell you, that for China to haul that amount of tonnage with so little tonnage on each train requires an extraordinary number of operating crews-- locomotive operators, conductors, etc, not to mention an extraordinary number of locomotives. So there's no overtake there, unless of course you think lots of locomotives moving light tonnage trains indicates growth, means more, which perhaps you do. So where is the overtake in freight rail transportation? Where is the overtake in labor productivity? Somewhere in the future? I have no doubt if China were to develop fully, to realize the potential of the labor and resources it has, it would by the very nature of its population exceed the current and future state of US capitalism. To do that however, to realize the potential of that labor and those resources, it will require a.... [here it comes] revolution, overthrowing the capitalist development which the CCP has administered in and to the country; and to do that will require an international revolution. So you keep at it with those pom-poms Luko, but spare us the bullshit charges, the misposting of statistics, and all the other craps that defines your "contributions." ----- Original Message ----- From: "L?ko Willms" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 2:01 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Sep 1 07:35:16 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 09:35:16 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Apropos of the Miracle of Railway Expansion in China Message-ID: <415E2989A6E64F01BEBF33BEFAEFEBC1@dmsthinkpad> Sorry for the long "cut" of the article, but I wanted to be fair and include the partially positive passenger service results, with the negative freight service results. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/guangshen-railway-announces-2009-interim-results-2009-08-26?newsid=969283042&dist=bigchartssymb%3DGSH&sid=16860 Guangshen Railway Company Limited ("Guangshen Railway" or the "Company") (HKEx Share Code: 525; SSE Share Code: 601333; American Depositary Shares ("ADS") Ticket Symbol: GSH) today announced the unaudited interim results of the Company and its subsidiaries (the "Group") for the six months ended June 30, 2009 (the "Period"). During the Period, operating revenues of the Company amounted to RMB5,858 million, representing an increase of 4.23% over the corresponding period last year. Profit from operations amounted to RMB867 million (2008 interim: RMB924 million). Profit attributable to equity holders amounted to RMB595 million (2008 interim: RMB674 million). The board of directors of the Company does not recommend the payment of any interim dividend for 2009. Mr. He Yuhua, Chairman of the Company said, "In the first half of 2009, due to a decrease in demand for railway passenger and freight transportation services caused by the global financial crisis and the H1N1 swine flu, coupled with factors including an increase in operating costs resulting from the expansion of the Company's operating scale and an increase in finance costs, the Company was faced with tough challenges in its operation and management. Faced with various difficulties, the Company has strengthened its sales and marketing efforts to increase traffic and revenues, consolidated and enhanced transportation resources to improve transportation capacity and efficiency, and actively controlled costs and expenses, thereby achieving a growth in transportation revenues." During the Period, passenger delivery volume of the Company was 41,316,000, a year-on-year increase of 1.10%. Revenue from passenger transportation rose 7.68% year-on-year to RMB3,512 million. Of such amount, the passenger delivery volumes of Guangzhou-Shenzhen trains, Through Trains and long-distance trains amounted to 16,172,000, 1,599,300 and 23,544,800 respectively, representing year-on-year increases of 3.90% and 2.42% and a decrease of 0.82% respectively; and realizing revenues of RMB990 million, RMB181 million and RMB2,341 million respectively, representing an increase of 2.86%, a decrease of 5.85% and an increase of 11.11% year-on-year respectively. Both passenger delivery volume and revenue of Guangzhou-Shenzhen trains posted growths mainly attributable to a considerable increase in passenger delivery volume in January and February as compared to the corresponding period last year, owing to this year's absence of natural disasters such as heavy rains, snowstorms and freezing weather during the Lunar New Year. In addition, Guangzhou-Shenzhen trains began to stop at each intermediary station from May 1, thereby stimulating the growth of passenger traffic at intermediary stations. Meanwhile, the introduction of the Guangshen Railway Peony Credit Card and the Guangshen Railway Fast Pass Card has facilitated traveling and attracted more passengers. In respect of long-distance trains, passenger delivery volume did not grow along with the increase in number of operated trains or the increase in transportation capacity, mainly due to the global financial crisis and the H1N1 swine flu. However, revenue from long-distance trains recorded a considerable increase, mainly owing to the reason that the Company has begun to undertake the operation of T97/8 trains from Beijing West to Kowloon (Guangzhou East) effective from January 1, 2009, thereby leading to a considerable increase in the relevant revenue. As regards Hong Kong Through Trains, due to the significant increase in the number of mainland passengers visiting Hong Kong, Beijing-Kowloon trains, Shanghai-Kowloon trains and Zhaoqing-Kowloon trains contributed to an increase in passenger delivery volume of Through Trains. However, the passenger traffic of Canton-Kowlon Through Trains, which had a higher average passenger revenue, recorded a substantial decrease under the impact of the global financial crisis and the H1N1 swine flu, thereby leading to a decline in Through Train revenues. During the Period, tonnage of freight transported by the Company amounted to 26.5406 million tonnes (2008 interim: 34.5508 million tonnes). Revenues from freight transportation reached RMB506 million (2008 interim: RMB636 million). The decreases in the Company's tonnage of freight and revenues from freight transportation were mainly due to the considerable declines recorded in both the Company's outbound and inbound freight tonnages which were in turn caused by the global economic crisis and the slowdown of China's macro- economy. From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Tue Sep 1 08:15:48 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:15:48 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans Message-ID: <4A9D2C94.2050608@gmail.com> The wiki entry, which is sort of 'rah rah', presents the growth of high speed rail in the PRC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China It's worth a look. Clearly, their investment *plans* include making China the largest high speed rail country in the world and probably more than Europe has as a whole. They are already producing their own rail sets, of course. A lot of this is updating existing lines to high speed, a lot of this is brand new right-of-way. It is serious. None of it, however, has anything to do with freight, which is, as S. Artesian points out, the heart, economically, of any rail system, in many ways. Its what keeps trucks off the road. I would ask that each of you do a small distillation of your POVs on this issue. S. Artesian already did one of them, with his point, a good one, about the reality of Chinese rail and how it stacks up against the US. Luko, I might point out that I tend to be 'rah rah' about Chinese infrastructure development. Rail only tells a small part of this story. No other country compares to the PRC in terms of what they have planned and it will, overall, benefit the Chinese people, even of some of this (like rail) is designed in part to satisfy outside and domestic capitalist interests. But the biggest problem IS productivity and it weights up on China tremendously, dragging both it's socialist and capitalist sectors down. Now in China, productivity, or it's increase, equals more unemployment. One of the major contradictions as China continues is march away from collectivized political economy. David From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Sep 1 08:18:57 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:18:57 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] A Depression sized event Message-ID: <4A9D2D51.2020903@panix.com> http://www.marxist.com/unfolding-capitalist-crisis-nightmare-for-workers.htm The Unfolding Capitalist Crisis ? a nightmare for workers everywhere Written by Rob Sewell Monday, 31 August 2009 The capitalist system is passing through its deepest crisis since the 1930s and the Great Depression. The apologists of capitalism ? including those in the labour movement ? had completely ruled out such a scenario. After all, they explained, capitalism has changed and governments are now able to over-come any deficiencies experienced by the markets. They have learned the lessons of the 1930s. ?Never again will we experience the horrors of the inter-war period?, the apologists of capital claimed. ?We have abolished boom and slump?, was their confident boast. Consequently, they declared that the ideas of Marxism were completely out of date. Marx was right against the apologists of capitalism when he claimed the crises would return. Drawing by Latuff. Now these people are being forced to eat their words. ?Today, they are struggling with the deepest recession since the 1930s, a banking system on government life-support and the danger of deflation. How can it have gone so wrong?? These are the words of Martin Wolf, economic strategist at the ?Financial Times?. ?Most of us ? I was one ? thought we had at last found the Holy Grail. Now we know it was a mirage.? (FT, 6/5/09) ?We have gone to the edge of an abyss that few thought was ever possible?, stated Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley, Asia. ?If the world pulls together, we can avoid the Armageddon endgame.? According to Bernie Sucher, head of Moscow operations at Merrill Lynch, ?Our world is broken ? and I honestly don't know what is going to replace it. The compass by which we steered as Americans has gone.? (FT, 10/3/09) Marxism long ago predicted this deep crisis. ?In the coming epoch?, wrote Ted Grant and Alan Woods, ?a new depression on the lines of 1929-31 is inevitable.? (World Perspectives, 1994) It was not possible to establish the precise timing of this eventuality as economics is not an exact science. However, while Marxism cannot provide a timetable of events, it can analyse and explain the general processes and contradictions unfolding within capitalism. Ever since its origins, the boom and slump cycle has been an inherent feature of the capitalist system. It is equivalent to the normal inhaling and exhaling of a human being. However, capitalism has piled up contradiction upon contradiction, which at a certain point, was always destined to produce a massive collapse of the productive forces. Over a sustained period, in an attempt to escape from these contradictions, astronomic amounts of fictitious capital and credit were artificially pumped into the capitalist system. The Federal Reserve made three interest rate cuts to boost consumer spending in 1998, to levels not seen since the 1950s. As a result, the personal consumption share of real GDP rose from 67% in the late 1990s to 72% in the first half of 2007. The booming housing market ? a classic speculative bubble - also allowed extensive borrowing on the increased paper value of property. This created the biggest credit bubble in history. Credit, which allows capitalism to go beyond its limits by temporarily expanding the market, exploded. Nevertheless even cheap credit has its limits. Debts have to be repaid with interest sooner or later. House prices can fall. The ?credit crunch? was an expression of this limit as borrowers began to default on a massive scale. All the factors which served to fuel the boom have now dialectically turned into their opposite, causing a mighty crash. World capitalism is experiencing a deep slump - indeed in many ways the present crisis is potentially even more serious than that of 1929-33. Its scope is much wider than the thirties and its impact has been far swifter. Between 1929 and 1933, the decline of industrial production in the United States was more than 48%. The decline in the current crisis has been similar, with US industrial production falling by 12.5% over the last 12 months. In Japan, the situation has been more serious with industrial production falling by 37% in 2008 and a projected fall of 25% this year, making the decline over two years more than 60%. In the Euro zone the fall in industrial production over the last year was in the order of 20%. In Eastern Europe and the Baltic States the situation is extremely grave, with Hungary chalking up a fall of 29% in industrial production over the last year. The exposure of Western banks in the region is a massive $1,600bn, a significant proportion held by Austrian banks, an ominous reminder that it was the collapse of the Austrian Credit-Anstalt bank that further intensified the slump in 1931. Despite all the talk of ?green shoots? of recovery, the situation remains extremely serious for capitalists internationally. According to two leading economists, Barry Eichengreen and Kevin O'Rourke, the recent slide of global industrial output tracks the decline in output during the Great Depression ?horrifyingly closely?. Within Europe, the decline in the industrial output of France and Italy has been worse than at the same point in the crisis as in the 1930s. In Britain, Germany, USA and Canada, the fall has been very similar. The collapse in the volume of world trade, at around 10%, has been far worse than was the case during the first year of the Great Depression. Despite the recent bounce, the fall in world stock markets is far larger than during the corresponding period of the Great Depression. The conclusion of both economists is posed starkly: ?Globally we are tracking or doing even worse than the Great Depression... This is a Depression-sized event.? What we are experiencing is a fundamental crisis of capitalism, with collapsing markets and over-production, leading to mass unemployment and cuts in living standards across the world. Apologists of capitalism today talk glibly of the crisis being caused by various things, such as ?de-regulation?, speculation (?short-term? selling), lack of credit, bad luck and so forth. We would say that these are nothing more than the appearances of crisis as opposed to the real causes of the crisis. While there are many secondary causes of capitalist crisis inherent in ?the real movement of capitalist production, competition and credit?, Marxists have always explained that in the final analysis real capitalist crisis is always a crisis of over-production. This means general over-production, both of consumer and capital goods for the purposes of capitalist production. This in turn, is caused by the market economy, and the division of society into mutually conflicting classes. Such a phenomenon is peculiar to capitalist society alone. ?The ultimate reason for all real crises?, explained Marx, ?always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses as opposed to the drive of capitalist production to develop the productive forces as though only the absolute [physical] consuming power of society constituted their limit.? In other words the capitalists are constantly revolutionising production, throwing enormous amounts of commodities onto the world market, which periodically come into conflict with the limits of consumption caused by the exploitation of the masses who are unable to buy the goods they produce, having been robbed of the full fruits of their labour by the bosses. Capitalists do not simply sell commodities, but aim to sell them at a sufficient profit to accumulate wealth for themselves. In a slump, they cannot continue to sell their commodities at a price that guarantees the necessary average rate of profit for the bosses. Prices are reduced. The surplus-value contained within the commodities cannot be realised as before, resulting in a collapse of profits. Factories are therefore closed and workers made unemployed, further reducing demand for consumer and capital goods in an ever downward spiral. ?In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity ? the epidemic of over-production?, explained Marx. Capitalist economists do not like referring to ?over-production?, but prefer the term ?over-capacity?, which is basically the same thing and expresses the limits of the market. ?The world is awash with goods?? explained ?Newsweek?. ?For economists, over-capacity is a tricky concept. Human wants are unlimited, so how could the world ever produce too much of a good thing? The key is what people can pay: In many goods sectors, prices still aren't low enough to bring forth enough buyers. There will have to be some combination of falling prices and destruction of productive capacity before supply and demand come back into balance.? (Newsweek, 4/2/09) This crisis of over-production has been unfolding on a world scale. As the ?Newsweek? article continues, ?That's not to say the Obama Administration is on the wrong track with its nearly $900 billion-plus stimulus plan. But it's important to have realistic expectations. The stimulus can ameliorate the downturn, but not prevent continued contractions in the sectors of the economy where global over-capacity is the most extreme. The world is able to make 90 million vehicles a year, but at the current rate of production, it's making only about 66 million, according to estimates from market researcher CSM Worldwide. Global production of semiconductor wafers is running at only about 62% of capacity, estimates market researcher iSuppli.? In relation to car production, ?Business Week? makes the following observation: ?Having indulged in a global orgy of factory-building in recent years, the industry has the capacity to make an astounding 94 million vehicles each year. That's about 34 million too many based on current sales, according to researcher CSM Worldwide, or the output of about 100 plants.? The article continues, ?To become profitable, according to Michelle Hill of consulting firm Oliver Wyman, U.S. automakers will need to close at least a dozen of their 53 factories in North America in the next few years.? (Business Week, 31/12/08) As we can see, we are not simply dealing with a normal cyclical crisis of capitalism. Such crises will continue periodically until the death of capitalism itself. Today we are seeing a cyclical crisis exacerbated by what Marxists refer to as an organic crisis of the capitalist system itself. Capitalism has become a barrier to the development of society, where the productive forces ? industry, technique and science ? are increasingly constricted and hemmed in by the nation state and private ownership of the means of production. This organic crisis is graphically illustrated today by the inability of capitalism to fully utilise the productive forces it has brought into being. It has become a fetter and drain on the productive forces, which are the key to the development of society. In times of boom, capitalism can only use 80% of productive capacity and in times of slump only 65%. In other words, 20%-35% of production cannot be utilised profitably. This clearly shows the impasse of the modern capitalist system and the unprecedented degree to which it is holding back society. ?The world's productive capacity is simply too big?, explains ?Newsweek?. ?That means prices need to fall further, or more factories need to close in the US and abroad, or some combination of the two.? (Newsweek, 4/2/09) This organic crisis, which emerged with a vengeance during the inter-war period, was temporarily overcome by the massive development of world trade following the Second World War. This development in turn had a dramatic beneficial effect on world production. The whole system of capitalism, where every factor interacts on every other factor, requires rising production, investment and an increased market in an upward spiral. With growing living standards, this provided the system with relative social stability. The 1974-75 world recession signalled the end of the upswing and ushered in a new period of crisis where capitalism could no longer reach the figures of growth, investment, profitability, etc., of its so-called Golden Age. While they were able to put off a deep crisis in the 1980s and 1990s and even into the new century, capitalist crisis has now returned with a vengeance. Today, all the fundamental contradictions have re-emerged and have served to intensify the crisis at all levels. World trade has collapsed, dragging down production. The development of the productive forces has reached a complete impasse as production tumbles in one country after another. The anarchy of the capitalist system itself has become a barrier to the progress of society, with millions losing their jobs, workplaces closing down and living standards falling. After a protracted delay of some 50 years, the capitalist system is returning to its ?normal? state of chronic instability. It is what Lenin and Trotsky called the ?historical crisis of the whole capitalist system.? A further contradiction that bears down upon capitalism and aggravates the crisis has been the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. The massive development of the productive forces following the war meant a colossal increase in investment. As the source of surplus value comes from the unpaid labour of the working class, the more spent on capital investment (constant capital) in proportion to that employing workers (variable capital) eventually results in a falling rate of profit. Marx referred to this double-edged ?law? as a tendency due to the fact that there were a whole series of counter-veiling factors, such as the increased exploitation of the working class, which could neutralise or reverse its effects ? for a time anyway. Throughout the post-war period, this tendency for the rate of profit to fall intensified the pressures on the capitalist class. After a period of high profitability throughout most of the 1950s, the rate of profit began to fall steeply by the mid-1960s. This decline carried on until the 1980s, when after a series of defeats for the working class, the capitalists began an all-out offensive to drive up profitability. The election victories of Thatcher and Reagan were the signal for this onslaught and a ?counter-revolution? on the shop-floor. Down-sizing, multi-skilling, short-term contracts and other techniques were introduced. This squeezing of the working class resulted in an increase in absolute and relative surplus value. In Marxist terms, this reduced necessary labour-time and increased surplus labour-time, and so increased the rate of surplus value. In the last decade, despite the loss of a million jobs, workers in British manufacturing have increased production by 50%. In other words, the capitalists have squeezed more unpaid labour from fewer workers. Other factors, such as pressure on real wages, the cheapening of commodities, globalisation and the intense exploitation of world markets also served to increase the rate of profit. Between 1989 and 1997, US corporate profits increased by about 82% and the corporate rate of profit by 27.8%. By 1997 profitability in the corporate sector had returned to within 15% of its 1960?s high. The non-manufacturing sector had recovered to above its 1969 level to within 15-20% of its heights in the post-war boom. Despite a dip in profitability during the recession of 2001, profits went on rising until the financial crisis hit in 2007. Today, with the world slump, the rate and mass of profit have collapsed. This is directly linked to the collapse of markets and the emergence of over-capacity and over-production. As Marx explained, ?It [capitalism] comes to a standstill at a point fixed by the production and realisation of profit, and not the satisfaction of requirements.? The credit boom allowed capitalism to artificially escape serious crisis for a whole period of time, but by using such measures to extend the market ? and therefore boost their profits - during a time of upswing rather than downturn, like pouring petrol on a blazing fire, they in turn laid the grounds for a massive collapse of the financial framework propping up the whole world capitalist edifice. The virtual disappearance of bank lending, as the world banking system rushed to try and shore up their wildly overstretched finance, left many firms unable to cope with even a small blip in their profits hence the cascade of closures and downsizing. That which had aided capital in the past is now having a reverse effect. This has resulted in a massive attack on the workers in Britain and elsewhere in an attempt to make them pay for the crisis of capitalism. British Airways workers were asked to take wage cuts or to work for one month without pay! The bosses are still intent in cutting wages and propose the sacking of some 6,000 workers ?to save the company?. More than half of British workers have experienced a cut in pay or hours or benefits since the recession began. Now six million public sector workers are being threatened with a pay freeze to help plug the swollen budget deficit. This is the real meaning of capitalist crisis for millions of workers. But despite the difficulties workers are not simply accepting these attacks lying down. Workers in Royal Mail, London Underground, Visteon, Vestas, the construction industry and many other sectors, have taken industrial action, and even occupied their workplaces, in defence of their livelihoods. There is enormous anger in the ranks of the working class that is threatening to explode. Even the capitalists are very worried about this increasing anger. ?There are many questions hanging over global financial markets, but none more pertinent, perhaps, than the following: will the global economy rebound in time to quell rising discontent among the millions of workers who have turned ? violently in some cases ? against capitalism?? asks Joe Quinian, a strategist at the Bank of America. ?The capitalist global order was under attack even before the current crisis began, but the virulence against free enterprise has become more intense in the last year. And with the global economy in the midst of the deepest declines since the Great Depression, the backlash is bound to intensify.? (Financial Times, 12/5/09) As a result, the capitalists are desperately looking for an economic recovery. But they are concerned that the present green shoots may well be no more than a false dawn. However, even when the recovery comes, as is inevitable, it will be very slow, painful and shallow. There is a dread that the world economy will go the way of Japan in the 1990s, with weak growth punctuated by periods of contraction. ?Empirical evidence of the effect of past crises shows ? that the economy will not return to its pre-crisis expansion path but will shift to a lower one. In other words, the crisis will entail a permanent loss in the level of political output?, states the recent European Commission report (FT, 3/7/09). The massive overhang of debt - personal, business and state - will be a colossal lead weight on the economy. The move to reduce the unprecedented levels of government deficits will result in massive cuts to public spending in the years that lie ahead. The British Treasury thinks that there will be a permanent loss of output amounting to 5% of national income, making households worse off by around ?75bn every year - forever. Government finances are spiralling out of control. The Institute of Fiscal Studies believes that public finances, which will require more than ?20bn cuts each year for at least the first parliament, will not return to ?normality? for another two decades. This means 20 years of austerity! Trish Haines, head of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, stated: ?People are talking about possible reductions in public spending of 10 to 15%, even of up to 30%.? These will be draconian cuts whoever wins the next election. The capitalist system has now become an enormous fetter on human society. The re-emergence of this organic crisis has enormous implications for the working class: a socio-economic system which proves incapable of developing the productive forces enters into steep decline. A new era of social revolution has opened up on a world scale, an era of revolution, counter-revolution and profound instability at all levels. Such a period will repeatedly propel the working class internationally to look for a way out of the crisis. It will place the socialist reconstruction of society on the order of the day as the only answer to capitalist crisis and the ills that go with it. From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Sep 1 08:34:26 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 10:34:26 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] A Depression sized event References: <4A9D2D51.2020903@panix.com> Message-ID: <56B36067B01B49F483A9D58A04F203EF@dmsthinkpad> And apropos of that, from Eurostat: July 2009 Euro area unemployment up to 9.5% EU27 up to 9.0% The euro area (EA16) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate2 was 9.5% in July 2009, compared with 9.4% in June3. It was 7.5% in July 2008. The EU27 unemployment rate was 9.0% in July 2009, compared with 8.9% in June3. It was 7.0% in July 2008. For the euro area this is the highest rate since May 1999 and for the EU27 since May 2005. Eurostat estimates that 21.794 million men and women in the EU27, of which 15.090 million were in the euro area, were unemployed in July 2009. Compared with June, the number of persons unemployed increased by 225 000 in the EU27 and by 167 000 in the euro area. Compared with July 2008, unemployment went up by 5.111 million in the EU27 and by 3.264 million in the euro area. These figures are published by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities ----- Original Message ----- From: "Louis Proyect" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 10:18 AM Subject: [Marxism] A Depression sized event From dn.rath at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 08:40:24 2009 From: dn.rath at gmail.com (DNRath) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 20:10:24 +0530 Subject: [Marxism] ON THE FACE OF DEATH--ORKERS PLIGHT IN ALANG SHIP YARD BREAKING Message-ID: <001b01ca2bdb$5139dfe0$5d53fea9@planet> Alang again in news ON THE FACE OF DEATH WORKERS PLIGHT IN ALANG SHIP YARD BREAKING "If I go to Alang maybe one person will die, but if I stay five people will die. says the worker". BY- DWARIKA NATH RATH Alang is again in news for a short time . The death of six workers in Alang Ship yard has again brought the plight of workers in ship breaking yard into focus temporarily after the Clemenceau and Blue Lady episodes. The group of six labourers had climbed on the ship on 4th.August morning to bring down cables of the ship. When they reached engine room of MSC Jessica, and started cutting operation, fire broke out in engine room. The six workers were charred to death. This is not the first time that workers were charred to death or crushed by the crane. One worker died in month of May and another in June. Death of workers have become routine affair and least cared. In last few months there were death in Adani power station, Tata's Nano factory construction in Sanand and now in again in Alang. concern over the death of one worker and six injured workers, working in the NANO car project in Sanand,. of TATA. This is the second incident of death of workers after the incident in Shiracha Power Plant of ADANI. , near Mundra . The Alang-Sosiya Ship-Breaking Yard (ASSBY) located in the Gulf of Cambay in the Bhavnagar District of Gujarat State in India is the biggest ship-breaking yard in Asia employing more than thousand workers dwindling from 10.000 to 40.000.There are around ten villages in the vicinity of ASSBY. They are Alang, Sosiya, Manar, Sathara, Kathwa, Bharapara, Mathavada, Takhatgadh (chopda), Jasapara and Mandva in 12 KM vicinity of sea coast. Conflict and amity is an usual phenomenon of the migrants with the locale. But segregation compel most of the migrants to stay in mushrooming slums which is humanly inhabitable in normal condition and full with the dust of asbestos.. Few stay in rented houses in different villages.The locals are content with small and medium business due to ASSBY. 99% migrants are engaged in ship breaking in comparison to only less than.1% local people. The migrants mostly from Orissa, UP. Bihar, Jharkhand etc. are very laborious.So the ship breakers prefer migrants in ship breaking more than the local people which is a very normal practice in Gujarat including in power loom sector at Surat, Salt factory at Kandla etc.There are 178 plots ASSBY that dismantle more than 2.5 million tons of material round the year and where 30 ships can be brokered in a month with an annual turnover of 3,500 crore. There are 2 departments to look after all these - one is Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) and another is Controller of Explosion (CoE). For breaking ship no- objection certificate is issued by GMB and cleaning certificate is issued by CoE. Alang is the classical case of violation of least regard for environment which is sacrificed for the fake economics growth.. Alang appears to be a place of Garbage Sale. Alang is not SEZ but SEZ like situation prevails. The press people cannot have free access. It is a place that symbolises the greed and exploitation, business by deceit violating all human norms and morals. The deaths and injuries are very common in Alang In May and June the death of workers was caused due to the crane's rope carrying big steel plates cut from discarded ships broke and fell on them. Only Rs 30,000 was given to their families as expenses for performing his last rites reacting to the meagre compensation, one of the worker said , "In cases of injuries, no case is ever registered. The ship-breaking companies at best give some token compensation for medical expenses." This is the reason why these companies never employ any worker permanently." Said the one of the workers. Where as Mr. V H Patel, Deputy Director of the Inspectorate of Factories at Alang, claims that proper compensation to victims' families has been paid. There is no medical insurance for the workers. This year in June. perhaps for the first time about 15.000 workers were in strike demanding workers colony, wage hike, hospitals, schools. As per the version of the Union leader of Alang Sosiya Ship Recycling and General Workers Association (ASSRGWA) since 1982, no basic amenities are provided to the workers though the Ship breaking is recognized as an industry. But Mr. Nikhil Gupta, joint secretary of Ship Recycling Association of India says that the workers are paid much more than the base daily wages amount ranging from Rs 128 to 136 for different categories. He alleged that the 'few elements from outside Alang trying to provoke workers for their vested interest." Similarly Green peace has been accused of defaming Alang, as a part of conspiracy. THE Alang Ship Breaking Yard has came into existence in the year 1982 There are 183 plots spread over around 10 kin long stretch along the sea coast of Alang & Sosia, -The first ship its first vessel - MV Kota Tenjong beached at Alang Ship Breaking Yard on 13th February, 1983. Alang beached 4,539 ships between 1983 and 2008 and handled tonnage to the tune of 3,19,89400 LDT (light displacement tonnage). During its prime in 1998-99, Alang handled a record 361 ships with 30,37,882 LDT. About 40. 000 workers were working in the peak period. 10.000 tons are scraped daily in Alang. The scraping meets 10 to 15 % of country's need.With 2.5m tones of steel a year feed 120 rolling mills in the country. earns 600 crs. to Govt. coffer.Tadaja out post earn Rs.70.000/ every day. GMB earned 100 cr. as premium from plot leases and 35 cr. as rent annually. 95 % are high quality steel. the purpose of dismantling is to recover steel and rest 5% are none steel matters which has to be separated from steel. This separation is the most risky one. These 5% are also consumer items old in local market in cheaper price. There is a heavy demand for all those items. Though there is global melt down but the it is a boon to ship breaking. Right now near about 200 ship are in wait for dismantling.. "Alang is all set to set a new record in scrapping largest number of ships in 2009 as more than 600 ships are available for dismantling in the international market due to slowdown in the global trades," said Vishnu Gupta, President of Alang Ship Breakers' Association. The greed of Ship breaking and recycling is so much that Alang is not free from explosives. Right now a ship named" Britain Star" carrying huge explosives has arrived in polt no-60 arrived on 11th August, which has taken away the sleep of the administration and the people of near by areas are scared. Unhealthy condition of workers and the contamination Most of the workers suffer from cholera, typhoid, and urticaria.. 8 person per 10000 suffer from urticaria where as in Alang it is 97% . Average 30 mishaps takes place every day. They are fatal. The have to be rushed to Bhavnagr. There is no well equipped hospital. It is presumed that Asia's biggest ship-breaking yard, is sitting on AIDS bomb. There are so far 75 confirmed HIV cases reported at Bhavnagar Hospital. There is no dearth of hooch too, which is operating under the very nose of the Police , though there is prohibition law in the state. The Supreme Court Supreme Court-appointed two-member committee in collaboration with the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH),Ahmedabad last year, to asses the health of the workers.The committee came out with the report that fatal accident rate in ship-breaking industry is in the range of 2 per 1000 as opposed to 0.34 per 1000 in the mining industry. But according to the Greenpeace and the International Federation of Human Rights the fatal accident rate at Alang is at 50-60 per year. This is considered the worst in the world, and 16 per cent of workers here are suffering asbestos related diseases. But from 1983 until 2004, the Gujerat Maritime Board (GMB) acknowledged 372 deaths. It is difficult to asses the exact number of deaths as the dead bodies are disposed off in secret and no records are maintained or available. Every sixth worker handling asbestos in the ship-breaking industry has shown signs of asbestosis from chest X-rays.16% which could further lead to lung cancer. According to Greenpeace, the soil and water levels around the Alang yard on the western coast are filled with dangerously high levels of toxic wastes. Extremely high levels of asbestos, heavy metals like arsenic, chromium, cadmium and hazardous and carcinogenic chemicals have been found near here. One kg of soil of Alang contains 77 mg chromium,90 mg iron,108 nichel,112 copper,35 mg arsenic,2mg lead,74 mg zinc. Lead is poisonous for blood, kidney and nerves. Arsenic poisoning also too hazardous. The remnants of hazardous elements will be there for 10 to 20 years with out carrying the activities of ship breaking. But it is termed as the with in permitted limit. Surprisingly the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Oscar Fernandez, recently stated in Lok Sabha, last time that the workers in Alang are undergoing regular medical check up and no worker is found to be suffering from asbestosis. One of the officers on Special Duty, GMB, said: "The penal provisions under the GMB Ship Recycling Regulations 2003, which include a fine of Rs 1,000 for a minor safety norm violation and operational suspension for a major one, are also being strictly enforced." GMB is satisfied that T 20.000 workers are trained and there have been no fatal accidents over the last two years. Use of Helmets , gloves are promised by the ship breakers but it is a mockery as the ship breakers would say the helmet or the gloves do not save lives. those using the helmet and gloves are ridiculed and the GMB is not at all serious about the matter. The GMB is more for the ship breakers than the workers. Of course the Surakhya Divas ( Safety Day) are observed with much fan fare and at times the Chief Minister Mr. Narendra Modi join the functions of Surakhya Divas and declare special packages foe ship breaking and public-private partnership (PPP) model in an apparent bid to infuse life into the 'dying' ship-breaking industry and to make Alang perform as per the international standards and to also promote it as a "green recycling facility" by using higher-end technologies But hardly there is any reference to the welfare of the workers. Workers whose responsibility? GMB officers at Alang say that the labourers are not the GMB's responsibility as it does not employ them. ``So there is no question of owning up for their welfare,' But one of the officers says that competition for jobs is so intense that workers can lose their jobs for being ill. "If you fall sick and take leave, there will be no job for you when you come back. under this circumstances of disowning the workers one can understand the plight of workers in Alang. "If I go to Alang maybe one person will die, but if I stay five people will die" This is the core of the reasons that lakhs migrate from their home state. this very aspect reflects the economic condition of the people The mad , desperate compulsion of the rural populace of rural India to migrate to the world of uncertainty and probable death again reflect the health of our country after the 62 years of independence. The response from the host states are too very shocking. The host states do least bother for their brethren people flocking to far land for bread. There are hue and cry when some thing happen in Australia but the Govt. care least for the migrating people. They never express or discus the plight of the migrants in the floor of the Assembly. Nor the labour officer rushes to the guest states to monitor whether Intra State Migration Acts and the labour laws are properly operative or not. The host states are happy to get rid of un employed s and over and above richer by Money Order economy. Due to this in different attitude of the host states the Ship breakers do not care to pay any attention to the workers. As if they are obliging the migrants offering a job in the ship breaking Yard. The railway trains in the country are routed to ferry the migrant workers to the destination uncertainty. The heart throbbing scenes of departures in the station of the migrants every day can remind the migration Burma and Rangoon in British India. An English film was made named Wages of Fear in 1950s. The film depicts the unemployed youths ready to take any risk to earn bread. There are wages of fear every where in the world. of the poor country. the rich country survive on the wages of fear of the poor , developing and under developed country.In Alang it is rather "Dare for the Wage". In the circus, the man enter the well of death in the motorcycle with the breathless silence of the audience. But in Alang the workers donot have any breathless audience to sympathise with them. Rather they have mercy less ship breakers, GMB and the Govt. Alang come under GMB, Gujarat Govt. But so many ministries have their stake here too. Ministry Industry, Commerce, Health, Labour, Law etc have their role in the ship breaking yard. Except the ministry of industry and commerce , whose main concern is revenue others hardly play their designated role. Ministry of health appears once in every year, on AIDs day. Ministry of environment is the slave to the dictum of LPG and some time barks to show it's existence.Alang is not a SEZ but it is like a SEZ . The working conditions in a ship breaking yard are such that life is cheaper than steel. As quoted in the Times of India dated 23.05.03, "Taking cognizance of frequent deaths at the yard due to lack of safety measures Gujarat High Court has directed the state government in 1997 with a legal framework to regulate the ship breaking activities, 'ship recycling yard regulation' - popularly known as Alang regulation. The new legal framework was put in place by enshrining it in the state government Gazette in August 2000. However, vested interests view it as an infringement on free activity that can be carried out in absence of safety measures. Hence, the Alang Act was never implemented". The nexus of Government officials, contractors and businessmen operating in that area ensure that the workers are not registered, do not get identity card by the employers, no information of working condition, false name are entered in the log book to evade to legal compensation in any eventuality. Under these circumstances it is high time for the intervention of higher authorities in the administration, government, civil liberties organization, labour organizations to come forward and take up the issue. Often media highlight the problems of Alang. But the authority has never paid any serious attention. A survey was conducted in 1999 by Bhavnagar University. Out of 361 workers 14 face accident, 11 suffer from burn, 14 from injuries. Only 10 wear helmets, 1 have the glove, and 3 uses welding glasses. 32 receive informal training, where as rest are untrained. So the crude and obsolete technology is the backbone of the ship breaking enterprises .GMB is only interested in revenue collection without much liability for the workers. Profit maximization is the main Mantra of the Govt. by reducing the cost of ship breaking. Though the Gujarat Govt is earning Rupees 3200 cores annually from the ship breaking, the Govt. is least attention environment and workers welfare. The Green Peace has come out with a powerful document titles,"End of Life Ships: The Human Cost of Breaking Ships," documents, with interviews and photographs, the horrific conditions at Alan in 2005. Virtually Alang is becoming the dumping ground of the developed country. Alang appears to be a place of Garbage Sale an epitome of globalization of waste violating all norms and guidelines of thre Basel Convention to which Govt. of India is a signatory. Basel Convention, regulates the trans-border movement of hazardous wastes but violated by the rich country and India is allowing hazardous substance in the name of development. On 2003,the Supreme Court declared , "before a ship arrives at port, it should have proper consent from the concerned authority or the state Maritime Board, stating that it does not contain any hazardous wastes or radioactive substances",. The government law states that "the ship-recycler shall not allow waste materials such as oil-cakes, scrap iron and other metallic and rubber pieces to be thrown into the sea or the seashore", There are 2 departments to look after all these - one is Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) and another is Controller of Explosion (CoE). For breaking ship no- objection certificate is issued by GMB and cleaning certificate is issued by CoE. We quote from the Times of India report published on 22.05.03 "Serious doubts are being raised over the way no objection certificates are doled out by regulating agencies like the Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) and the Controller of Explosion (CoE).----Though the GMB authorities continue to blame ship-owners after every mishaps, it is the system failure which is the root cause.---there is hardly any accountability on the part of various agencies that issue clearance certificates to ensure safety of workers. Incase of "Inville", authorities had issued safety clearance certifying the ship was fit for breaking .The Controller of Explosion had granted the "man entry", "gas free "and "hot work" approval certificate before dismantling commenced. Despite CoE clearance presence of hydrocarbon and gases in the interior of Inville"was detected." It is surprising how the certificates were granted there are ample traces of gases, Sulpher, furnace oil and other materials, which can wreak havoc if exposed to heat. "Said an official of Forensic Science Laboratory. While GMB officer in charge ----admits "probably there are lot of areas which are ignored. "And with Coe having it's office in Vadodara, functioning often becomes difficult Sources reveal that certificates are granted on mere verbal assurance and without any physical inspection. .Ship-owners often do not wait for all clearances certificates, says sources .With the prices of steel the prime extract from the ship, varying on day to day basis, ship breakers soften flout norms to sell off the scrap when prices go up .Some times , even ship breaking guide lines are ignored and interiors of the ship, which are normally broken down at the end of the operation, are dismantled earlier as there is good market for these products. This endangers the lives of 6the labourers as they working suffocating and unventilated compartments, amidst hazardous gases. The role of GMB in granting certificates is also being questioned. Even after a ship breaker obtains certificates from the Coe, it is the duty of the GMB to verify them before the final go ahead is granted. And the GMB has just a chief officer and three safety supervisors who are expected to completely survey the ship. " There could be slip-ups which come to light only after mishaps" admits Captain Deukar Of the three safety supervisors , only one is permanent employee, the others being on contract". This very Report exposes serious loopholes. Many ships enters illegally with the full knowledge of the GMB and hope to manage to stay for scraping. Many ships move here and there , some time to Pipavav port and fiannly shelterd in Alang. The ship breakers are confidence of manipulating and getting the sanctions. Clemensue and Blue Lady episode Alang was in world watch during the Clemensue episode followd by the Blue Lady The Clemencueau was to be sent back because of the popular protest in France and global pressure created by green peace. Of course the Supreme Court of India too ruled out the entry of Clemenceau but at the same time allowed the Blue Lad to be dismantled.. The French Ambassador did every thing to convince the India Govt. and the authority that the Clemeceau did not carry any hazardous materials. The Ministry of Environment was avoiding the responsibility on Clemenceau and pushed the it to Supreme court. The Govt. of Gujarat and the ship breakers were worried of the with drawl of Clemenceau from Alang.. There were demonstrations against the Green peace in Bhavnagar. Even the workers were waiting breathlessly for the clearance of Clemenceau. For them it was the question of bread and livelihood . On January 17, 2006, the Supreme Court of India observed: "We do not want the environment to be polluted. When the French Government had not permitted the ship to be broken there, why should we allow the ship to come to India? Whether breaking the ship will result in pollution or not is immaterial. The best thing will be to ask the ship to go back from where it started." But after two months passed a shocking judgment on Blue Lady ," In its order on 11 September, the Supreme Court said," It cannot be disputed that no development is possible without some adverse effect on the ecology and environment, and the projects of public utility cannot be abandoned and it is necessary to adjust the interest of the people as well as the necessity to maintain the environment. A balance has to be struck between the two interests. Where the commercial venture or enterprise would bring in results which are far more useful for the people, difficulty of a small number of people has to be bypassed. The comparative hardships have to be balanced and the convenience and benefit to a larger section of the people has to get primacy over comparatively lesser hardship." The Supreme Court also did not consider the application filed by Bhagvat Sinh Haluba Gohil, Sarpanch, Village Sosiya, Tehsil Talaja, and District Bhanvnagar on behalf of 30, 000 villagers and 12 panchayats of Bhavnagar district of Gujarat. The villages pleaded , "Blue Lady" (SS Norway) be not allowed to be dismantled at the Alang Ship-breaking yard." The villagers have argued that "The dismantling of the ship would have hazardous effect on the residents of the villages near the Alang ship breaking yard as the ship contains large amount of asbestos which, when exposed is hazardous to the health of the residents living in the twelve villages." The Supreme Court too disliked the trial by media with the following words. "We are shocked to find demonstrations are held and articles written, and if anyone is found to be doing so, he should prima facie be held for contempt of court and suitable action be taken against him," Judge Arijit Pasayat told the court. At time there are world wide attention for Alang on various issues. The Green peace . the foreign media BBC, Guardian, Newyork Times and important dailies try to high lights the issues related to environment and the exploitation of cheap labour. But the regional media is out and out unsympathetic to the plight of workers and the issues of environments. Raising the these issues is considered as snatching away the ship breaking yard from Alang to China, Bangladesh , Pakistan or other places. The attitude is at any cost the business must go on . This same attitude is harbouerd by the Govt. of Gujarat too. In spite of global attention on Alnag there is no respite and there is no intervention from Central Govt. or any quarter either for the benefit of the workers or to save the environments. After the Clemenceau thousand of workers went back to their home land to tell the untold story of exploitation before the media, because the both National as well as the International medias shadows the workers to high light about the plight of the workers due to unsafe working condition and the violation of all norms.(A TV crew from Paris interviewed the present writer who were later held up by the police in Bhavnagar). Though Alang was in the world watch of the media the workers lamented of loosing the bread due to the call back of Clemenceau which was compensated after allowing the Blue Lady. The teams after teams has visited Alang and surprisingly all the teams are satisfied . all the teams are in one opinions that there is threat form asbestos and it is with the permitted limit. the body appointed by SC . parliamentary body a team of ILO. World Bank - are with the same opinion of Metallurgical & Engineering Consultants (India) Limited (MECON) and Gujarat Ecology commission of Gujarat is well within legal parameters, Only the media and that too national and international media and the green peace are of different opinion. Now the UPA Govt. has decided to go ahead with approved Gujarat's Mithivirdi (Chhaya) site in Bhavnagar district for an 8,000 MW nuclear power plant. The People are protesting against it. This will be another bone of contention in coming days. The Alang Shipyard incident raises these following questions - 1) Safety norms 2) Plight of the migrant workers 3) And violation of all acts. And so these measures should be taken with utmost care- 1- First all all kind safety measures be taken to avoid accidents and deaths 2- Ship breaking should be considered as an Industry and comes under Factory Act and various provisions for safety as per Factory Act be Safety consciousness as a Culture be developed. 3- Ship breaking be made updated with improved technology. 4- All workers be given primary training about ship breaking and be provided with safety kits compulsorily. 5- GMB should be made responsible for all lapses and responsible officials be punished for all lapses. 6- The workers should be given Identity Card, appointment Card by the employers and Labour Dept. should follow strict vigilance in this regard. 7- Interstate Migrant Workers Act be applied which ensures accommodation, medical facilities, traveling allowances. 8- Human Right of all migrant workers and members of their families be protected as per the UN CONVENTION ON THE PROTECTION OF THE MIGRANT WORKERS AND MEMBERS OF THEIR FAMILIES. 9- Ship breaking can only be after decontamination of the hazardous substance. 10- A mandatory rule be framed to compel the owners of the ship to clean their ships before exporting them and ensure that tanks are gas free for hot work. 11- A full fledged Fire fighting unit with adequate number of trained fire fighters be kept ready round the cloak. 12- Eight hour working hour norms with weekly paid holidays workers be introduced. 13- A well equipped hospitals specially to take care of accidents of the workers be instituted. 14- Adequate death compensation to the members of the families be paid with out any administrative hurdles. 15- Planned accommodation for the workers be made. 16- Long term plan for infrastructure e.g. road ,housing, drainage, water, electricity be taken up along with social infrastructure like schools, hospitals etc. 17- Attention be taken to save marine ecology, and ecology imbalance be guarded. 18- Safe guard be taken because of social segregation of the migrants due to cultural divide. 19- The Labour Dept of Gujarat as well as the Labour depts. States from where the migration takes place must guard the interest of the migrants. And their working conditions 20- The Human Rights Groups joint Parliamentary teams be allowed to visit the ASSBY and their recommendations be mandatory for the GMB and the Govt of Gujarat. 21- A complain Secret Cell be instituted where the workers can complain fearlessly and get redressal with being sacked from the job. 22- The State from where migration takes place must keep the record of the workers, make routine enquiry about the migrants, and place the report in their respective house of the Assemblies. 23- GMB should take help of experts from different fields like engineers, marine science experts, environmental scientists, and experts in sociology and planning. This article is published in Indian Age- 1st. September 2009issue dn.rath at gmail.com From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Sep 1 09:43:26 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 11:43:26 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway References: <100.78980d00bbe39b4a.042@lws-media.de><64109A9FCE43464C935F432AD25EB846@dmsthinkpad><100.6889090038089c4a.006@lws-media.de><100.18370b00d7b89c4a.015@lws-media.de> <763CD5E2411A46968BD3B39594D468A7@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: For those wondering how railroads handle multiple track in their operating, financial statistical analysis, the AAR makes a distinction between roadway mileage operated, and track mileage operated. Roadway mileage is distinguished from track mileage by: "Miles of roadway excludes yard tracks and sidings, and does not reflect the fact that a mile of road may include two, three, or more parallel tracks. U.S. railroads also control an additional 417 miles of road in Canada and Mexico." AAR definitions. Track mileage accounts from multiple tracks and sidings. From lueko.willms at t-online.de Tue Sep 1 09:53:27 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:53:27 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans Message-ID: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> nada (dwaltersMIA at gmail.com) wrote on 2009-09-01 at 07:15:48 in about [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans: > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China > > It's worth a look. Clearly, their investment *plans* include making > China the largest high speed rail country in the world and probably more > than Europe has as a whole. According to a chart which I just saw in the "synopsis" of a study by the British Network Rail (the infrastructure company), taken from the UIC (International Union of railways) for existing and projected high-speed railways in 2025, China is top with 5678 miles (the British translated from km :-((), next Spain with 4415, and France with 4135. So already those two countries sum up to more than China. > None of it, however, has anything to do with freight, Sure, you are reporting from an article about high-speed rail, which is by definition _passenger_ railway. Look at my initial contribution on this topic, and follow the link to the article on the heavy haul Daqin freight line. > which is, as S. Artesian points out, the heart, economically, > of any rail system, in many ways. Just because the profit orientation destroyed passenger railways in the USA, it doesn't make freight "the heart". It is indispensable, but "the heart"? I disagree with that statement. > Its what keeps trucks off the road. Passenger railways simply provide more comfort and keep SUVs off the road... The whole thing again, to repeat, is to stress that China is not simply a cheap labor producing platform for the international market, dominated by imperialist capital, but that the Chinese use the proceeds from their production of consumer goods for extensive investments in the infrastructure. Here are two maps, in case somebody can read Chinese and explain some of the texts: > > Cheers, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- visit http://www.mlwerke.de Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotzki in German From lueko.willms at t-online.de Tue Sep 1 09:29:10 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:29:10 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway In-Reply-To: <763CD5E2411A46968BD3B39594D468A7@dmsthinkpad> References: <100.78980d00bbe39b4a.042@lws-media.de> <64109A9FCE43464C935F432AD25EB846@dmsthinkpad> <100.6889090038089c4a.006@lws-media.de> <100.18370b00d7b89c4a.015@lws-media.de> <763CD5E2411A46968BD3B39594D468A7@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <100.38380300c63d9d4a.031@lws-media.de> S. Artesian (sartesian at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-01 at 09:23:46 in about Re: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway: > > > As for the discrepancy in track-kilometers, or track mileage, I don't know > how they count track-miles in China, but in the US the standard is to count > exactly that -- track-miles, so if you have 4 tracks running between 2 > points 50 miles apart, that's 200 track miles. The UIC counts _line_ kilometers, and then tells out of which those _line_ kilometers have two or more tracks. I thought that was clear, but apparently it isn't. I didn't mention total _track_ length, but the _network_ length, which has an extension independently of being single or double tracked. So we have been talking at cross purposes. But also thanks for the reminder, that this is a list by USanians, of Usanians, and for USanians. > Now this entire exercise started when you claimed, suggested, stated, > asserted, whatever that China had possibly overtaken the US in freight > transport. No, it started with me reporting about extensive investment by China in its infrastructure, and especially in railways. But it seems that I have hit a US patriot in his heart when mentioning that China has bypassed the US capitalist freight railway companies in the tonnage transported by rail. And then you tell me that the US freight companies are much more profitable, by having cut back on each and every kind of manpower, than their Chinese counterpart. Strange. Well, I know why I am not calling myself a "Marxist". > So where is the overtake in freight rail transportation? Look at the numbers. > Where is the overtake in labor productivity? Somewhere in the future? Exactly. > I have no doubt > if China were to develop fully, to realize the potential of the labor and > resources it has, it would by the very nature of its population exceed the > current and future state of US capitalism. That's the point. > To do that however, to realize the potential of that labor and those > resources, it will require a.... [here it comes] revolution, > overthrowing the capitalist development which the CCP > has administered in and to the country; and to do that will require an > international revolution. Ah, and until then the Chinese have to wait and lay their hands idle, do nothing, stay out of development, stop building railways, etc, until Mr. Artesian has organized his right rrrrrrevolution? I understood from your previous postings that you even had preferred that we would stay in feudal times, roll back the Great French Revolution etc, just to avoid capitalism. No thanks. Cheers, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From RicardoStarkey at aol.com Tue Sep 1 10:11:28 2009 From: RicardoStarkey at aol.com (RicardoStarkey at aol.com) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 12:11:28 EDT Subject: [Marxism] Zizek essay Message-ID: _http://www.lacan.com/essays/?page_id=261_ (http://www.lacan.com/essays/?page_id=261) This somewhat rambling, and at times muddled essay by Slavoj Zizek is nevertheless very interesting in parts. He deals with the theme of the "Jew," among other ideas. This is its rather odd title: The Palestinian Question the couple Symptom / Fetish Islamo-Fascism, Christo-Fascism, Zionism mieux vaut un d?sastre qu?un d?s?tre Here are a few excerpts, chosen not particularly carefully: 'There are two different modes of ideological mystification which should in no way be confused: the liberal-democratic one and the Fascist one. The first one concerns false universality: the subject advocates freedom/equality, not being aware of implicit qualifications which, in their very form, constrain its scope (privileging certain social strata: rich, male, belonging to a certain race or culture). The second one concerns the false identification of the antagonism and the enemy: class struggle is displaced onto the struggle against the Jews, so that the popular rage at being exploited is redirected from capitalist relations as such to the ?Jewish plot.?' 'We all know the anti-Communist characterization of Marxism as ?the Islam of XXth century,? secularizing Islam?s abstract fanaticism. Jean-Pierre Taguieff, the liberal historian of anti-Semitism, turned this characterization around: Islam is turning out to be ?the Marxism of XXIst century,? prolonging, after the decline of Communism, its violent anticapitalism. However, if we take into account Benjamin?s idea of Fascism as occupying the place of the failed revolution, the ?rational core? of such inversions can be easily accepted by Marxists. The most catastrophic conclusion that can be drawn from this constellation is the one drawn by Moishe Postone and some of his colleagues: since every crisis which opens up a space for radical Left also gives rise to anti-Semitism, it is better for us to support successful capitalism and hope there will be no crisis. Brought to its conclusion, this reasoning implies that, ultimately, anti-capitalism is as such anti-Semitic ? It is against such reasoning that one has to read Badiou?s motto mieux vaut un d?sastre qu?un d?s?tre: one has to take the risk of the fidelity to an Event, even if the Event ends up in an ?obscure disaster.? The difference between liberalism and the radical Left is that, although they refer to the same three elements (liberal center, populist Right, radical Left), they locate them in a radically different topology: for the liberal center, radical Left and Right are the two forms of appearance of the same ? totalitarian? excess, while for the Left, the only true alternative is the one between itself and the liberal mainstream, with the populist ?radical? Right as nothing but the symptom of the liberalism?s inability to deal with the Leftist threat. When we hear today a politician or an ideologist offering us a choice between liberal freedom and fundamentalist oppression, and triumphantly asking a (purely rhetorical) question ?Do you want women to be excluded from public life and deprived of their elementary rights? Do you want every critic or mocking of religion to be punished by death??, what should make us suspicious is the very self-evidence of the answer ? who would have wanted that? The problem is that such a simplistic liberal universalism long ago lost its innocence. This is why, for a true Leftist, the conflict between liberal permissiveness and fundamentalism is ultimately a false conflict ? a vicious cycle of two poles generating and presupposing each other. One should accomplish here a Hegelian step back and put in question the very measure from which fundamentalism appears in all its horror. Liberals have long ago lost their right to judge. What Horkheimer had said should also be applied to today?s fundamentalism: those who do not want to talk (critically) about liberal democracy and its noble principles should also keep quiet about religious fundamentalism. And, even more pointedly, one should insist that the Middle East conflict between the State of Israel and the Arabs is an emphatically false conflict: even if we will all die because of it, it is a conflict which mystifies the true issues.' 'When Milner claims that class struggle, etc., are no longer divisive names, that they are replaced by ?Jew? as the truly divisive name, he describes a (partially true) fact, but what does this fact mean? Can it also not be interpreted in the terms of the classic Marxist theory of anti-Semitism which reads the anti-Semitic figure of the ?Jew? as the metaphoric stand-in for class struggle? The disappearance of the class struggle and the (re)appearance of anti-Semitism are thus two sides of the same coin, since the presence of the anti-Semitic figure of the ?Jew? is only comprehensible against the background of the absence of class struggle. Walter Benjamin (to whom Milner himself refers as to an authority, and who stands precisely for a Marxist Jew who remains faithful to the religious dimension of Jewishness and is thus not a ?Jew of knowledge?) said long ago that every rise of Fascism bears witness to a failed revolution ? this thesis not only still holds today, but is perhaps more pertinent than ever. Liberals like to point out similarities between Left and Right ?extremisms?: Hitler?s terror and camps imitated Bolshevik terror, the Leninist party is today alive in al Qaida ? yes, but what does all this mean? It can also be read as an indication of how Fascism literally replaces (takes the place of) the Leftist revolution: its rise is the Left?s failure, but simultaneously a proof that there was a revolutionary potential, dissatisfaction, which the Left was not able to mobilize.' From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Tue Sep 1 10:14:57 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:14:57 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway Message-ID: <4A9D4881.6060306@gmail.com> L?ko, here is where you are just down right obstinate: productivity. Yes, EXACTLY...when capitalist companies get better at productivity, developing those forces of production, it is the working class that pays with lower wages and higher unemployment (actually it could mean higher wages and higher unemployment, but that's another discussion). The *basis* of higher levels of productivity by US (and European) rail workers is stark and obvious to anyone who has traveled the rails in both regions, as I have. Taking the train from Shzechin (near Hong Kong) to Canton you see their maintenance of way brigades working their wooden rail road ties. *Hundreds of workers* working off of a flat car with NO machinery, whatsoever, not even cranes. They carry *buckets* of concrete, hand mixed, to short of sidings. This is like 1900-era tech. In the US it would be done by about a dozen workers with cement mixers, cranes, seemless rail installing machines etc etc. Now, having said that, I saw a photo of their building of their 30km maglev system. Modern machinery, what looked like very high tech, near-US standards for this non-rail railroad. I have no doubt they are *trying* to get better and be more productive. But it doesn't appear to be at all close that this point. Some obvious areas where productivity...as such...is simply stupid. In the US, operating depts have slimmed down to one or two workers per train set on freight. No more way cares, no more firemen, etc. This represents obviously only incremental levels of productivity but in their rush to break unions and smash working conditions, they made operators more 'productive'. I don't include this sort of thing as "productivity". But the basis of the lack of productivity at every single level by Chinese rail reflects massive under development and little in the advance of mechanization which in a collectivized economy could mean more and better technology, safer conditions and shorter hours w/ higher wages. Also, the fact that China has more high speed rail that France is...what? Hardly worth noting. France built their high speed rail in conjunction with Spain and German and England ("high speed" stops once you go through the Chunnel at Kent, but that's another story. Took this line twice, BTW). You have took at rail there as European, as a whole, and not as one country at a time. France has like 1/15 the population of China and like about 1/5 the size. You ought to use some multiplier factors if you are really going to compare. Saying China has more HSR than any other country is irrelevant. It's like when Khrushchev bragged the USSR produced more gross tonnage of steel than the US. Basically not as impressive as it sounds as a US steel worker in 1963 was about 10 times more productive than a Soviet one. In a certain way, L?ko, you are doing the same thing as Khrushchev. David From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Sep 1 10:48:00 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 12:48:00 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway References: <100.78980d00bbe39b4a.042@lws-media.de><64109A9FCE43464C935F432AD25EB846@dmsthinkpad><100.6889090038089c4a.006@lws-media.de><100.18370b00d7b89c4a.015@lws-media.de><763CD5E2411A46968BD3B39594D468A7@dmsthinkpad> <100.38380300c63d9d4a.031@lws-media.de> Message-ID: Your really are a slug. 1. I responded specifically to your comment that China has already overtaken the US in freight transport, an assertion you originally denied, as you used the word "possibly." I asked for the data. The numbers you provide show no such overtaking in freight operations, and certainly no overtaking in the productivity of labor. You are the person arguing for the glory of backwardness-- "look how many soybeans China produces, look how much maize, how much dairy. Why just look at those big numbers, and they're getting bigger!" But of course in terms of productivity, of releasing labor from the involution of agricultural production, there is no overtaking. And you can, and I'm sure will report, that average farm incomes in China are rising. Sure are, but you know why? Because, as in the US, most farmers are generating more income from non-farm activities. Anyway, you have failed to produce a shred of evidence about China overtaking the US in freight operations. 2. If you want to introduce data from the UIC, then you should qualify it. I suspect however that you introduced inaccurate data from the UIC, as the numbers from China's Ministry of Railways reports 78,000 km of route miles in 2008. The 60,000 km number is from 2005. Numbers are numbers. Wherever the numbers are developed it is important to specify exactly what the numbers are describing. Track miles are track miles. Roadway miles, or route miles are "net" miles, excising multiple track territory. AAR provides its number utilizing roadway miles. I have no problem providing definitions of the terms used. You might, in your catholic wisdom consider doing the same. 3. To use the term "patriotism" when discussing levels of productivity is a smear worthy of your demonstrated dishonesty and ignorance. You should never use a term in electronic correspondence that you wouldn't use in person. I think you're a cheerleading, unaware idiot. I have no problem saying that to your face. Your rank stupidity and gross ignorance, however does not make you a patriot or a shill for China's bourgeoisie, although I'm sure that's next on your agenda, right up there with China's perpetual growth overtaking everyone and everything. It simply makes you what you are-- a dissembler and a not very good one. 4. The Chinese don't have to "wait" for anything. Nobody says they shouldn't build railways or dams or factories or farms. We are not talking objects, use values, we are talking social relations of production and the conflict that develops between those social relations and the building of those objects, of those means of production-- the limits to the growth you so uncritically swallow as holy unction. as the real milk of "progress." We, that is to say Marxists, went through the same bullshit rah-rah growth cheerleading about the USSR in the 1930s ["Look! no depression." You wanna bet? Look a little bit more closely. Not the US style depression where output and employment tanked... but a good old fashioned bureaucratic recession where productivity actually declined, where accumulation was financed primitively by reducing consumption of workers and rural producers, the expropriation of subsistence producers' property]. We had the cheerleading then, hundreds of little wannabe Stakhanovs singing homages to the great growth, the "isolation" of the USSR from the vagaries of the world market. Not so isolated, however, as to avoid the horrendous toll of WW2. We heard the cheerleading again in the 1950s-- Look! First satellite! First dog in space! First man in space! Virgin lands! Look at the increase in grain production, cotton production!-- and where did that great mass of socialist growth go? We don't need to repeat those failures, that cheerleading a pseudo-socialism forward into yet another disaster for the urban and rural workers. . ----- Original Message ----- From: "L?ko Willms" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 11:29 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway S. Artesian (sartesian at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-01 at 09:23:46 in about Re: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway: > > No, it started with me reporting about extensive investment by China in > its infrastructure, and especially in railways. But it seems that I have hit a US patriot in his heart when mentioning that China has bypassed the US capitalist freight railway companies in the tonnage transported by rail. From nmgoro at gmail.com Tue Sep 1 11:12:55 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 14:12:55 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> 2009/9/1 L?ko Willms : > > ?The whole thing again, to repeat, is to stress that China is not simply a > cheap labor producing platform for the international market, dominated by > imperialist capital, but that the Chinese use the proceeds from their > production of consumer goods for extensive investments in the infrastructure. > Yes, this is the whole thing again. Civilized countries close the road to those who want to civilize themselves, said someone once. Currently, there is a Korean economist who stresses the same by saying that developed countries kick the ladder they used to climb in order no one climbs it again. Whether this ladder can be climbed without in some definitive way breaking out ("delinking") with imperialist control of the global market (and global does not mean foreign trade but, essentially, other countries? "domestic" markets) or not, is a settled point for Marxists: this simply can?t be done. It is one thing to _use_ capitalism, and a different one to _bow_ to capitalism. The whole thing when it comes to the China debate is whether the Chinese leadership _uses_ capitalism or _bows_ to it, which implies bowing to imperialism. China is not doing the latter. Doing the former, of course, entails the most serious risks. But no serious debate can be held on China if we do not start by the evidence that "the Chinese use the proceeds from their production of consumer goods for extensive investments in the infrastructure", that is they are bringing down to Earth the bourgeois fantasies of the Latin American bourgeoisies. If somebody believes that this has little or nothing to do with the relative weight of the bourgeoisie in the social structures of China and, say, Brazil (or, daresay, India), this is a mistake. -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From nmgoro at gmail.com Tue Sep 1 11:30:04 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 14:30:04 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Bajen un cambio, che Message-ID: <2fa158550909011030w77eb2b34s831ad1eeb626232e@mail.gmail.com> Here in Argentina, when a debate turns into foolish mud slinging, we say "Bajen un cambio, che". That is, "step down a gear, boys". More or less like "slow down the car". I would like S. Artesian and L. Willms to step down that gear, because the whole debate on railroading has been very interesting and it would be a sin to turn it into an idiotic quarrel. -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From shmage at pipeline.com Tue Sep 1 11:41:02 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 13:41:02 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sep 1, 2009, at 1:12 PM, N?stor Gorojovsky wrote: > ...The whole thing when it comes to the China debate is whether the > Chinese leadership _uses_ capitalism or _bows_ to it, which implies > bowing to imperialism. China is not doing the latter... Of course not. As a great empire China has a secure seat at the table, and as a rich one it receives the bows. But neither do the Chinese Stalinists *use* capitalism--they practice it and they always have, because capitalists is what they are. 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 michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Tue Sep 1 11:48:15 2009 From: michael at ecst.csuchico.edu (Michael Perelman) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 10:48:15 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Bajen un cambio, che In-Reply-To: <2fa158550909011030w77eb2b34s831ad1eeb626232e@mail.gmail.com> References: <2fa158550909011030w77eb2b34s831ad1eeb626232e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090901174815.GA24469@ecst.csuchico.edu> I find the exchange informative. > > I would like S. Artesian and L. Willms to step down that gear, because > the whole debate on railroading has been very interesting and it would > be a sin to turn it into an idiotic quarrel. > > -- > > N?stor Gorojovsky -- 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 marxistfront at yahoo.co.in Tue Sep 1 11:51:19 2009 From: marxistfront at yahoo.co.in (marxistfront at yahoo.co.in) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 23:21:19 +0530 Subject: [Marxism] Comrade Moni Guha Message-ID: Comrade Moni Guha 29th September 1914 - 7th April 2009 http://otheraspect.freewebpage.org Comrade Moni Guha breadth his last on the morning of 7th April 2009 in the city of Kolkata. He was 95. Born on 29th September 1914, comrade Guha was veteran of the Indian communist movement who devoted almost eighty years of his life upholding the banner of Marxism Leninism. Though never a successful mass leader of any political party comrade Guha always strove for organizing group of comrades who really understood the basic tenets of Marxism Leninism and who would be 'class-for-itself' and not just 'class-in-itself'. It is a remarkable testimony to his personal and political qualities that he was held in high esteem even by his critics. http://otheraspect.freewebpage.org From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Sep 1 12:40:02 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:40:02 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Chevron's desperate ploy Message-ID: <4A9D6A82.9060205@panix.com> NY Times, September 1, 2009 Chevron Offers Evidence of Bribery Scheme in Ecuador Lawsuit By SIMON ROMERO and CLIFFORD KRAUSS CARACAS, Venezuela ? The oil giant Chevron said Monday that it had obtained video recordings of meetings in Ecuador this year that appear to reveal a bribery scheme connected to a $27 billion lawsuit the company faces over environmental damage at oil fields it operated in remote areas of the Amazon forest in Ecuador. The videos, together with audio recordings obtained by businessmen using watches and pens implanted with bugging devices, appear to implicate Ecuadoran officials and political operatives, including possibly Juan N??ez, the judge overseeing the lawsuit, and Pierina Correa, the sister of Ecuador?s president, Rafael Correa. The recordings indicate that an Ecuadoran political operative was working to obtain $3 million in bribes related to environmental cleanup contracts to be awarded in the event of a ruling against Chevron. It was not clear from the recordings and transcripts provided by Chevron, however, whether any bribes discussed in the recordings were actually paid or whether Judge N??ez was even aware of plans to try to bribe him. The tapes also did not demonstrate whether the president?s sister was aware of the scheme or had participated in it. But in a statement that Chevron says illustrates that the judge?s handling of the case is flawed, Judge N??ez said on one of the video recordings that he planned to rule against Chevron by January and that damages could exceed $27 billion. Judge N??ez, who presides over the case from a cramped office in the town of Lago Agrio in Ecuador, could not be reached for comment on Monday. The recordings, which Chevron placed on its Web site, are the latest twist in a 16-year legal battle over oil contamination of jungle areas in northern Ecuador. Mr. Correa, a left-wing economist who rose from obscurity to become Ecuador?s strongest president in recent memory, has repeatedly sided with the plaintiffs in the case, prompting a fierce lobbying effort by Chevron in Washington to strip Ecuador of American trade preferences. That effort failed in June when the Obama administration, seizing a chance to improve ties with Mr. Correa, allowed the preferences to continue. But the release of the recordings will focus more scrutiny on Mr. Correa, who has come under pressure over his clashes with the media and accusations of corruption involving another family member, his brother Fabricio Correa, a prominent businessman. Alexis Mera, a legal adviser to the president, dismissed the recordings as ?approaching the level of defamatory libel.? He said Chevron was benefiting from the crime of intercepting conversations without authorization, reflecting ?a terrible legal strategy.? Steven Donziger, a lawyer representing the group of Ecuadorans who are suing Chevron, contending that they had been harmed by the oil contamination, said: ?I suspect this is a Chevron sting operation; there needs to be an investigation into Chevron?s role in this as much as the judge?s. I find it awfully odd that these individuals would secretly film meetings using James Bond devices like a spy watch and a spy pen. ?At the end of the day this will not affect the underlying case,? Mr. Donziger said, ?other than it might cause a short delay if the judge needs to be replaced.? Chevron said it had obtained the recordings from Diego Borja, an Ecuadoran who once worked as a logistics contractor for the company. The company said Mr. Borja had been working with an American businessman, Wayne Hansen, to secure water treatment contracts. Chevron said that neither man had been paid for the recordings, but that the company paid for Mr. Borja and his family to leave Ecuador because of concern about his safety. ?I?d like to think he brought them to us out of respect for our company and concern for what seemed to be transpiring here,? Charles James, an executive vice president of Chevron, said of the recordings in a telephone interview. ?We think this information absolutely disqualifies the judge and nullifies anything that he has ever done in this case.? In one of the recordings made in June, the political operative, Patricio Garc?a, who identified himself as an official in Mr. Correa?s political party, referred to $3 million in bribes to be split equally among the judge, the presidency and the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Mr. Correa?s party, Mr. Garc?a said, would receive the $1 million payment on behalf of the plaintiffs. In the same meeting, Mr. Garc?a told Mr. Borja how to approach Ms. Correa, the president?s sister, about the bribe. ?Tell Pierina clearly, ?Madam Pierina, what we came to do beyond anything else is to participate, participate in the remediation. That?s why I want to make you part of this,? ? he said. The recordings do not indicate whether Ms. Correa was aware of the efforts to include her in a bribery scheme. Nor is there confirmation that Mr. Garc?a was in fact in contact with her. Secret recordings of closed-door meetings have become a common feature of Ecuadoran politics. Mr. Correa, furious over the recent airing of a recording of a private conversation in his office with a cabinet minister and a member of congress, said he would request the shutdown of the television network that broadcast the recording. ?This is an attack on national security,? he said. But while Mr. Correa takes such recordings seriously, it is not clear if the people whose conversations about contract bribes were recorded by Mr. Borja grasped the complexity of the Chevron lawsuit. For instance, appeals by Chevron could delay for years the payment of damages that could be used for water cleanup contracts. Still, the recordings offered a glimpse into the murky world of Ecuadoran politics and business. In another reference to Ms. Correa?s ability to ensure that the contracts would be forthcoming, Mr. Garc?a said, ?Pierina knows absolutely everything.? He told Mr. Borja of a conversation he said he had with Ms. Correa, according to a transcript. ?So she says: ?Patricio, I just have to tell Rafael this one little thing, nothing else. Nothing else,? ? he said. Chevron said the assertion should be investigated. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: September 1, 2009 A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to the name of Rafael Correa's brother as Patricio Correa. Mr. Correa's brother is named Fabricio. Simon Romero reported from Caracas, and Clifford Krauss from Houston. Maggy Ayala Samaniego contributed reporting from Quito, Ecuador. --- http://ca.news.finance.yahoo.com/s/31082009/34/biz-f-business-wire-statement-amazon-defense-coalition-allegations-chevron-27b-ecuador.html Statement of Amazon Defense Coalition Over Allegations by Chevron in $27B Ecuador Environmental Case Mon Aug 31, 3:25 PM WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Statement from Karen Hinton, spokeswoman from Amazon Defense Coalition: ?The legal and scientific case against Chevron in Ecuador stands on the merits. The court-ordered damages assessment, ordered by a previous judge, found that 100% of Chevron?s former sites are contaminated with life-threatening toxins. On that basis, we believe Chevron is now liable for significant damages. ?We understand the seriousness of Chevron?s allegations. An appropriate investigation will determine whether the allegations are true or if they are the product of a dirty tricks campaign designed and financed by the company. It is clear from Chevron?s information that a former Chevron contractor appears to have been complicit in executing a bribery scheme involving an alleged official of a political party. It also seems clear from a review of Chevron?s transcripts ? whose authenticity has yet to be verified ? that the judge continually resisted the attempted bribery scheme put to him by a former Chevron contractor. ?It is the experience of the plaintiffs that Chevron has a long history of corrupt acts in Ecuador to evade accountability for its reckless environmental practices. The video seems to fit squarely into Chevron?s historic pattern of corruption in Ecuador. Ultimately, an investigation will determine the facts and Chevron?s role in this episode. ?If an investigation shows there is a problem, there are judicial mechanisms to address procedural problems in Ecuador that will preserve the integrity of the trial process. We have full confidence in the Ecuadorian judicial system, as does Chevron, given the case is taking place in Ecuador at the company?s request.? About the Amazon Defense Coalition The Amazon Defense Coalition represents dozens of rainforest communities and five indigenous groups that inhabit Ecuador?s Northern Amazon region. The mission of the Coalition is to protect the environment and secure social justice through grass roots organizing, political advocacy, and litigation. Amazon Defense Coalition Karen Hinton, 703-798-3109 Karen at hintoncommunications.com From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Sep 1 15:16:09 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 17:16:09 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> Hopefully, my last on this, until we get back to the nits and grits of railroad economics. Contrary to what Nestor writes-- No that is not the whole thing. Not by a mile. Does not that "whole thing" Nestor describes sound familiar to anyone? Doesn't it sound like we've been through this before? Doesn't it sound exactly like the old "stages" argument-- where capitalism must have its day can't be skipped over, because capitalism means development-- as long as its closely supervised by....by whom? I'm sure some imagine that what China has done is little more than an NEP on a grand scale. But that is exactly not what it has done. It hasn't made a tactical concession after a devastating civil war. It certainly isn't protecting its own workers and population from abuse by capitalists big and small, foreight and domestic. It isn't "buying time" while supporting, however misquided some of that support might be, the advance of international proletarian revolution. And that-- that advance is the whole thing. It seems to me Nestor is trying to transpose the "useful idiot" label to capitalism, as long as its a Communist Party using the capitalism. Just to refresh your memories, Gomulka "made use" of capitalism but didn't "bow down" to it. Hungary "made use" of capitalism, subsequent to the Soviet invasion, and they didn't bow down to it. Hell, even the USSR "made use" of capitalism without bowing down to it-- utilizing gas and oil exports to gather up hard currency and win diplomatic and political leverage over Europe. They all made use of capitalism and the world markets, without bowing down, until so time as the world markets decided it had no use for them, and then the bowing, deeply, started. And I CAN DENY that the whole thing is whether or not China is using the "proceeds from its production of consumer goods for intensive investment in infrastructure" because China has in fact NOT used its supposed proceeds from its export driven production to finance this round of stimulus. It has used debt, leverage, and radical increase in loan quantities from regional and local banks to jump start this program-- while the central bank continues to invest in US Treasury Instruments. We can absolutely deny that China has used proceeds from its export driven production to finance this round of stimulus, when China sees fit to authorize the CIC, the sovereign wealth fund, to participate in syndicated equity purchases to bail out the lead real estate firm behind the rapidly emptying Canary Wharf, but doesn't take those funds for domestic investment-- for eliminating pollution from lead smelters, for improving mine safety, etc. We can deny that the whole thing is whether China "makes use" of capitalism, or "bows down to it" and when those claiming that as the "whole thing" are simply exhibiting the classically political-economist confusion between the means of production as objects, and the means of production as commodities. So, no the whole thing is not "making use" or "bowing down," the whole thing is rather what class is being strengthened by the path, the policy, the economic programs currently in place in China. Who's getting stronger? The proletariat as a class conscious of itself? Or the bourgeoisie in China as a class? The bourgeoisie, in all their international glory are not at all useful, and not at all idiots when it comes to preserving their property. Those who think they "know the whole thing" are the ones who are denying what is going on in China. ----- Original Message ----- iFrom: "N?stor Gorojovsky" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 1:12 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans > 2009/9/1 L?ko Willms : > > Yes, this is the whole thing again. Civilized countries close the road > to those who want to civilize themselves, said someone once. > Currently, there is a Korean economist who stresses the same by saying > that developed countries kick the ladder they used to climb in order > no one climbs it again. Whether this ladder can be climbed without in > some definitive way breaking out ("delinking") with imperialist > control of the global market (and global does not mean foreign trade > but, essentially, other countries? "domestic" markets) or not, is a > settled point for Marxists: this simply can?t be done. It is one thing > to _use_ capitalism, and a different one to _bow_ to capitalism. The > whole thing when it comes to the China debate is whether the Chinese > leadership _uses_ capitalism or _bows_ to it, which implies bowing to > imperialism. China is not doing the latter. Doing the former, of > course, entails the most serious risks. But no serious debate can be > held on China if we do not start by the evidence that "the Chinese use > the proceeds from their production of consumer goods for extensive > investments in the infrastructure", that is they are bringing down to > Earth the bourgeois fantasies of the Latin American bourgeoisies. If > somebody believes that this has little or nothing to do with the > relative weight of the bourgeoisie in the social structures of China > and, say, Brazil (or, daresay, India), this is a mistake. From nmgoro at gmail.com Tue Sep 1 15:31:37 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:31:37 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <4A9D92B9.4000908@gmail.com> So that I was wrong. Not in what I wrote. But in what I DID NOT write. I considered it obvious of all obviousness that the process by which you could supersede the bourgeois limits to national independence against imperialism was the process described in Trotsky?s "Permanent revolution". Well, I se I should have done it. S. Artesian escribi?: > Hopefully, my last on this, until we get back to the nits and grits of > railroad economics. > > Contrary to what Nestor writes- From claraescher at yahoo.com Tue Sep 1 16:44:11 2009 From: claraescher at yahoo.com (Joanne Gullion) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 17:44:11 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Correspondence Message-ID: <9EDB1652-6274-47B2-9548-4D446A247D98@yahoo.com> Right now I subscribe and receive "The Latest 100 Marxmail Messages". What do I click on to respond to a message on that list so that it will be seen by Marxmail subscribers? i think you answered this for me before but I lost your response. I apologize. Joanne Gullion From schaffer at optonline.net Tue Sep 1 17:02:14 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:02:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Correspondence In-Reply-To: <9EDB1652-6274-47B2-9548-4D446A247D98@yahoo.com> References: <9EDB1652-6274-47B2-9548-4D446A247D98@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A9DA7F6.2000404@optonline.net> Joanne Gullion wrote: > Right now I subscribe and receive "The Latest 100 Marxmail Messages". > What do I click on to respond to a message on that list so that it > will be seen by Marxmail subscribers? reading the list via the web presents a challenge when you want to reply to a post. you need to begin an email addressed to marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu (soon to change i think), then cut and paste the subject of the post into the Subject line of your email, so that subscribers will be able to properly thread your message. Then you may want to copy snippets of the post you are responding to into your email, for continuity of discussion. Finally you type your response and send it off the list. unfortunately, in something like yahoo which Joanne appears to be using, it is near impossible to paste text in from a web page and make it appear "quoted", that is, indicate to the reader this is text you are responding to. i guess the best you can do is put a bunch of quote marks around the copied text .... there is another way to do this without receiving list emails, i have discussed it before, it is called GMANE, and it allows you to respond to posts just as if you were receiving them via email. write me offlist for instructions or see the archives. Les From sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com Tue Sep 1 17:21:15 2009 From: sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com (sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:21:15 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail lines Message-ID: <20090901232116.12A0420040@smtp.hushmail.com> Shane wrote: >But neither do the Chinese Stalinists *use* >capitalism--they practice it and they >always have, because capitalists is what >they are. > > In the undying spirit of narrow sectarian polemics, Shane interjects a clumsy broadside into a very interesting, and even nuanced debate about the direction and function of the Chinese economy. Okay comrade, remind me again just when China became capitalist. If Stalinism equals capitalism (as Stalin supposedly equals Hitler) then I still not quite sure of the date that the Communist Party of China became a corporation. 1921? 1927? 1949? 1966? The answer is important and when I pressed Louis on this matter his answer was the mid 90's, although according to my reading, there was only a 20% share of the economy in private hands then, which has increased now to 80%. Luckily for the PRC that 20% state sector includes banking and hence no financial meltdown last fall. The point that Luko makes that there is more at work than just a cheap source of labor for the West was amply supported by China's announcement that it would no longer export heavy metals after 2014. These leaves a lot of American and European manufacturers of advanced batteries and other alternate energy devices/machines scrambling for log term supplies. This announcement also coincides with the stated Chinese goal of jumping ahead in Automobile and truck design to electric powered vehicles. As anyone who has used a cell phone in China can can attest, a planned infrastructure improvement "jump" was made in the construction of an explemplary national grid for wireless service. Cell phone reception the middle of the Gobi desert is in fact a whole lot better than it is here just across the county line. None of the above makes China a socialist paradise and it is from my observation far from this goal and getting further away. China has in fact gone from being the most egalitarian society on earth in the late Mao era to where it now equals Nepal in social and economic inequality. However,I just don't get Shane's point. Is it that Maoism is Stalinism and China is still Maoist because of its embrace of capitalism? Does this mean the CCP, just like the CPSU, was really just a corporate entity looking for private profit all along? The argument is as ludicrous as the fervent belief in a Kenyan birth certificate for Barak Obama. From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Tue Sep 1 19:04:53 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:04:53 +1000 Subject: [Marxism] `Amanzi Ngawethu' (water is ours) -- Health and environmental victories for South African activists | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal Message-ID: <4A9DC4B5.6000209@greenleft.org.au> /The film /Amanzi Ngawethu (Water Is Ours)/ brings together protest songs, photos and video from people and organisations who are working in solidarity to reclaim human dignity and human rights. It was made by Christina Hotz, of Friction Films. / By *Patrick Bond * August 29, 2009 -- Durban -- In South Africa, major advances in health and the environment during the 2000s were only won by social activists by removing the profit motive; the challenge will be to combine their forces, to link some of the world?s most impressive social movements by ``connecting the dots'' between their sectorally discrete problems, ranging in scale from the status of women and children in the household to climate change mitigation. Full article (with great video) at http://links.org.au/node/1227 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 pt_costello at yahoo.com Tue Sep 1 19:37:59 2009 From: pt_costello at yahoo.com (Pat Costello) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 18:37:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism] "Lord of the flies" environment at U.S. embassy in Kabul Message-ID: <968734.43955.qm@web63105.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Our Embassy in Afghanistan Is Guarded by Sexually Confused Frat Boys By John Cook, Wonder what it's like to guard State Department facilities in Kabul? In photos first published by Gawker, security contractors get their kicks peeing on one another, simulating anal sex, doing "butt shots," and "eating potato chips out of ass cracks." These photos were provided to us by the Project on Government Oversight, which has just written a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton detailing its investigation into the "Lord of the Flies environment" that has overtaken the private contractors who guard State Department employees in Kabul, Afghanistan. According to POGO, employees of ArmorGroup North America?a unit of contracting giant Wackenhut?get their jollies off by "deviant hazing [that] has created a climate of fear and coercion, with those who declined to participate often ridiculed, humiliated, demoted, or even fired." What sort of hazing? The traditional desperately homoerotic frat boy kind, mostly involving eating and drinking things off of other men's butts. Also some nipple-biting, as you can see below. One POGO whistle blower described it thusly [PDF link]: "They have a group of sexual predators, deviants running rampant over there. No, they are not jamming guys in the ass per say [sic], but they are showing poor judgenment [sic]." Most of it appears to have been voluntary, but those who didn't really want to drink vodka shots out of the clenched butt-cheeks of their male co-workers were penalized and reported barricading themselves in their rooms. And sometimes the behavior extended to the locals: An Afghan national employed as a food service worker at the guard corps' base at Camp Sullivan submitted a signed statement dated August 16, 2009, attesting that a guard force supervisor and four others entered a dining facility on August 1, 2009, wearing only short underwear and brandishing bottles of alcohol. Upon leaving the facility, the guard force supervisor allegedly grabbed the Afghan national by the face and began abusing him with foul language, saying, "You are very good for fXXXing." The Afghan national reported that he "was too afraid of them I could not tell them any thing." So anyway, these are the people who are guarding our national security in Afghanistan, being paid vast multiples of what soldiers, sailors, and marines get with your tax dollars. Are these guys asking, or telling? full: http://gawker.com/5350465/our-embassy-in-afghanistan-is-guarded-by-sexually-confused-frat-boys/gallery/?skyline=true&s=x From lueko.willms at t-online.de Tue Sep 1 14:38:51 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:38:51 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway In-Reply-To: References: <100.78980d00bbe39b4a.042@lws-media.de> <64109A9FCE43464C935F432AD25EB846@dmsthinkpad> <100.6889090038089c4a.006@lws-media.de> <100.18370b00d7b89c4a.015@lws-media.de> <763CD5E2411A46968BD3B39594D468A7@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <100.e86804005b869d4a.039@lws-media.de> S. Artesian (sartesian at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-01 at 11:43:26 in about Re: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway: > > > "Miles of roadway excludes yard tracks and sidings, and does not reflect > the fact that a mile of road may include two, three, or more parallel > tracks. U.S. railroads also control an additional 417 miles of road in > Canada and Mexico." > > AAR definitions. That's more or less what the UIC statistics show in the column "Network length". Here is the URL for the UIC statistics available online: > Cheers, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From lueko.willms at t-online.de Tue Sep 1 23:18:31 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:18:31 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans Message-ID: <100.f895030027009e4a.046@lws-media.de> Shane Mage (shmage at pipeline.com) wrote on 2009-09-01 at 13:41:02 in about Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans: > > > On Sep 1, 2009, at 1:12 PM, N?stor Gorojovsky wrote: > > ...The whole thing when it comes to the China debate is whether the > > Chinese leadership _uses_ capitalism or _bows_ to it, which implies > > bowing to imperialism. China is not doing the latter... > > Of course not. As a great empire China has a secure seat at the > table, and as a rich one it receives the bows. But neither do the > Chinese Stalinists *use* capitalism--they practice it and they always > have, because capitalists is what they are. Well, I would not go that far and claim that the leadership of China, its "Communist" Party are capitalists or not, and in a way, I don't care. I know where they came from, I know about the treachery of that stalinist leadership, etc etc. But that is not what I am so concerned about. The one thing which I do stress, and which earns the wild opposition from ultraleft (i.e. bourgeois) sectarians like Sartesian, is that China _is_ developing and is not just serving the imperialist robbers to plunder the country, but tries to move up China's infrastructure and industry and agriculture to higher levels. China is no longer the country which suffered the suppression of the Boxer uprising by the combined Huns of the "civilised" West. China stands on its own feet, and that is good. Try and cry when you compare China with Congo, where the national government is not capable or not willing to curtail the wild plundering of its mineral resources. The US Wild West is child's play against what is going on in Congo (I mean what is now called the "Democratic Republic of Congo", with Kinshasa as its capital city, and called Zaire for a number of years). A real tragedy. The difference? In China an independent force had conquered state power in 1949, and lead a socialist revolution in the subsequent years to 1953, although a very deformed socialist revolution. But without that, the current progress in China would have been impossible. China would be subject to plunder like Congo is, and Korea and Taiwan, and India would be on the same level. China's independence achieved by its socialist transformation was a huge step forward for humanity; I am completely aligned with Malcolm X, the great US revolutionary, on this. Malcolm hailed the Chinese atomic bomb, as I hail today their advances in the railway network. All this in a, as many people subscribing to this list like to say, a "uneven and combined development". Yours, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- visit http://www.mlwerke.de Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotzki in German From lueko.willms at t-online.de Tue Sep 1 23:52:37 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:52:37 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> S. Artesian (sartesian at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-01 at 17:16:09 in about Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans: > > > So, no the whole thing is not "making use" or "bowing down," the whole > thing is rather what class is being strengthened by the path, the policy, > the economic programs currently in place in China. > Who's getting stronger? > The proletariat as a class conscious of itself? > Or the bourgeoisie in China as a class? Both of them. The Chinese nation is getting stronger. China is recovering from the defeat of the Boxer uprising, and from the Japanese invasion and occupation. China's infrastructure is being built up, the industry expands, and with the latter the proletariat is growing in numbers and in strength. As to the railways building programme, I don't know how much more should and could be done, but what they are doing is impressive. Maybe Sartesian has some suggestions what the Chinese should make different, which would be more productive for the discussion than his usual ultraleft musings. If a real workers-and-farmers government were in power in Beijing, what would that do different? Some of Sartesian's writings suggests that they should make millions of workers unemployed, in order to increase the per worker productivity... Yours, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From holmoff10 at hotmail.com Tue Sep 1 23:59:20 2009 From: holmoff10 at hotmail.com (Leonardo Kosloff) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 05:59:20 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ah, but Mage, you forget that in N?stor's dictionary it isn't social being, i.e. the social relation borne by the capital form, which determines consciousness, but the abstract consciousness (perdy, no other than that of the CCP bureaucracy) of commodity producers which determines the former, "uses" it. Indeed, the CCP bureaucracy doesn't bow down to imperialism, which is why they finance most of the Iraq carnage and exploit Chinese workers to a degree which makes the word "mutilation" sound hackneyed. Perhaps N?stor could use some of the data from Burkett and Hart-Landsberg to see that there never was, is, or will be a national process of capital accumulation other than the one which is determined by the unity of its global content. http://legacy.lclark.edu/~marty/China%20Transnational%20Accumulation.pdf Baj? un cambio, N?stor. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live: Make it easier for your friends to see what you?re up to on Facebook. http://windowslive.com/Campaign/SocialNetworking?ocid=PID23285::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_SB_facebook:082009 From ambrose-bulk at vrvl.net Wed Sep 2 00:03:16 2009 From: ambrose-bulk at vrvl.net (Ambrose Andrews) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 16:03:16 +1000 Subject: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed?? In-Reply-To: <4A9D147B.10709@optonline.net> References: <3.0.3.32.20090831222047.0472a5f0@pop.xs4all.nl> <4A9C34C4.90807@optonline.net> <4A9C94AC.6010304@mail.ngo.za> <4A9D147B.10709@optonline.net> Message-ID: <20b1e36e0909012303q58edf126pa551fafef4278795@mail.gmail.com> > Patrick Bond wrote: >> I'm voting, as usual, for full posting of articles - copyrights be damned. I agree, generally the burden of requiring *interactive* getting (by web) of things in the context of poor connectivity is greater than the burden of getting a large amount of redundant, but easily ignored plain text, even in that same context. 2009/9/1 Les Schaffer : > > i can think of two or three solutions to this problem... > > 1. a separate companion list for news and forwards I forsee a lot of confusion and peopl eforwarding to the long list and a lot of reminders and reinforcements being required to make this work. > 3. Mailman has a "Topics" feature which is currently disabled, see > details below. if everyone who forwarded would put a keyword like [fwd] > or [news-item] in their subject line, ?i think we could handle this. That might be the most realistic solution, and the easiest to teach people to conform to. -AA. -- Ambrose Andrews LPO box 8274 ANU Acton ACT 0200 Australia http://www.vrvl.net/~ambrose/ mailto:ambrose at vrvl.net voicemail:+61_261112936 work:+61_261256749 mobile:+61_415544621 irc:{undernet|freenode|oftc}:znalo xmpp:ambrose at jabber.fsfe.org skype:znalo7 CE38 8B79 C0A7 DF4A 4F54 E352 2647 19A1 DB3B F823 556A 6D19 0904 827C 9DB8 3697 32D0 1E11 403F 2BE1 From sabocat59 at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 01:57:55 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 03:57:55 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] G20 Protests in Pittsburgh Message-ID: <6e42edf00909020057u99907afpa9df1bac4e3e4e5b@mail.gmail.com> full: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090831_hedges_pittsburgh_g20_defiance/ Go to Pittsburgh, Young Man, and Defy Your Empire Email this item Email Print this item Print Share this item... Share x BlinkList this item BlinkList del.icio.us this item del.icio.us Digg this item Digg Facebook this item Facebook Fark this item Fark Furl this item Furl Google this item Google LinkedIn this item LinkedIn Mixx this item Mixx MySpace this item MySpace NewsVine this item NewsVine NewsTrust this item NewsTrust Propeller this item Propeller Reddit this item Reddit SphereIt this item SphereIt StumbleUpon this item StumbleUpon Technorati this item Technorati TwitThis this item TwitThis YahooMyWeb this item YahooMyWeb YahooBuzz this item YahooBuzz Posted on Aug 31, 2009 AP / Jack Dempsey Shock troops and ?free speech zones? have become the norm at mass gatherings in modern America. By Chris Hedges Globalization and unfettered capitalism have been swept into the history books along with the open-market theory of the 1920s, the experiments of fascism, communism and the New Deal. It is time for a new economic and political paradigm. It is time for a new language to address our reality. The voices of change, those who speak in powerful and yet unfamiliar words, will cry out Sept. 25 and 26 in Pittsburgh when protesters from around the country gather to defy the heads of state, bankers and finance ministers from the world?s 22 largest economies who are convening for a meeting of the G-20. If we heed these dissident voices we have a future. If we do not we will commit collective suicide. The international power elites will go to Pittsburgh to preach the mantra that globalization is inevitable and eternal. They will discuss a corpse as if it was living. They will urge us to remain in suspended animation and place our trust in the inept bankers and politicians who orchestrated the crisis. This is the usual tactic of bankrupt elites clinging to power. They denigrate and push to the margins the realists?none of whom will be inside their security perimeters?who give words to our disintegration and demand a new, unfamiliar course. The powerful discredit dissent and protest. But human history, as Erich Fromm wrote, always begins anew with disobedience. This disobedience is the first step toward freedom. It makes possible the recovery of reason. The longer we speak in the language of global capitalism, the longer we utter platitudes about the free market?even as we funnel hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the accounts of large corporations?the longer we live in a state of collective self-delusion. Our power elite, who profess to hate government and government involvement in the free market, who claim they are the defenders of competition and individualism, have been stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of our money to nationalize mismanaged corporations and save them from bankruptcy. We hear angry and confused citizens, their minds warped by hate talk radio and television, condemn socialized medicine although we have become, at least for corporations, the most socialized nation on Earth. The schizophrenia between what we profess and what we actually embrace has rendered us incapable of confronting reality. The longer we speak in the old language of markets, capitalism, free trade and globalization the longer the entities that created this collapse will cannibalize the nation. What are we now? What do we believe? What economic model explains the irrationality of looting the U.S. Treasury to permit speculators at Goldman Sachs to make obscene profits? How can Barack Obama?s chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, tout a ?jobless recovery?? How much longer can we believe the fantasy that global markets will replace nation states and that economics will permit us to create a utopian world where we will all share the same happy goals? When will we denounce the lie that globalization fosters democracy, enlightenment, worldwide prosperity and stability? When we will we realize that unfettered global trade and corporate profit are the bitter enemies of freedom and the common good? Corporations are pushing through legislation in the United States that will force us to buy defective, for-profit health insurance, a plan that will expand corporate monopolies and profits at our expense and leave tens of millions without adequate care. Corporations are blocking all attempts to move to renewable and sustainable energy to protect the staggering profits of the oil, natural gas and coal industries. Corporations are plunging us deeper and deeper as a nation into debt to feed the permanent war economy and swell the military budget, which consumes half of all discretionary spending. Corporations use lobbyists and campaign contributions to maintain arcane tax codes that offer them tax havens and tax evasions. Corporations are draining the treasury while the working class sheds jobs, sees homes foreclosed and struggles to survive in a new and terrifying global serfdom. This has been the awful price of complacency. Protests will begin several days before the summit. Many of the activities are being coordinated by Pittsburgh?s Thomas Merton Center. There will be a march Sept. 25 for anyone who, as Jessica Benner of the center?s Antiwar Committee stated, ?has lost a job, a home, a loved one to war, lost value to a retirement plan, gotten sick from environmental pollution, or lived without adequate healthcare, water, or food. ? ? There will be at least three tent cities, in addition to a Music Camp beginning Sept. 18 that will be situated at the South Side Riverfront Park near 18th Street. Unemployed workers will set up one tent city at the Monumental Baptist Church on Sept. 20 and five days later will march on the Convention Center. The encampment and the march are being organized by the Bail Out the People Movement. The Institute for Policy Studies, The Nation magazine, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, Pittsburgh United and other organizations will host events including a panel on corporate globalization featuring former World Bank President Joseph Stiglitz, along with a ?People?s Tribunal.? There will be a religious procession calling for social justice and a concert organized by Students for a Democratic Society. From lueko.willms at t-online.de Wed Sep 2 02:24:32 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:24:32 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] How many and which car plants to be closed in North America? (war: A Depression sized event) In-Reply-To: <4A9D2D51.2020903@panix.com> References: <4A9D2D51.2020903@panix.com> Message-ID: <100.201e0800c02b9e4a.054@lws-media.de> Louis Proyect (lnp3 at panix.com) wrote on 2009-09-01 at 10:18:57 in about [Marxism] A Depression sized event: quoting an article by a Rob Sewell, who in turn quotes "Business Week": > The article continues, "To become profitable, > according to Michelle Hill of consulting firm Oliver Wyman, U.S. > automakers will need to close at least a dozen of their 53 factories in > North America in the next few years." (Business Week, 31/12/08) In a message a few weeks ago I presented the "new GM", a new company formed under the name "General Motors Company", while the old GM was called "General Motors Corporation" and was subsequently renamed to "Motors Liquidation Company". Those plants and contracts (with dealers e.g.) which the GM management deemed to be profitable had been transferred from "General Motors Corporation" becoming the "Motors Liquidation Company" to "General Motors Company", while the "Motors Liquidation Company" has the only task to close the remaining plants etc. I would like to know which facilities have been transferred and which are destined to be closed (or already have been closed). I understand from the latest news, that NUMMI, the joint venture of GM with Toyota is now closed after first GM (or ML) had withdrawn and now Toyota is giving up on it, too. Could some comrade please provide the concrete information about the others, or point to an (accessible) source for that information? Comradely yours, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From mkaradjis at theplanet.net.au Wed Sep 2 02:25:26 2009 From: mkaradjis at theplanet.net.au (Michael Karadjis) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 15:25:26 +0700 Subject: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed?? In-Reply-To: <20b1e36e0909012303q58edf126pa551fafef4278795@mail.gmail.com> References: <3.0.3.32.20090831222047.0472a5f0@pop.xs4all.nl><4A9C34C4.90807@optonline.net> <4A9C94AC.6010304@mail.ngo.za><4A9D147B.10709@optonline.net> <20b1e36e0909012303q58edf126pa551fafef4278795@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: If this is some kind of plebescite, then I also cast my vote very strongly with Patrick, for the inclusion in most cases of full text of an article rather than just an url. Frankly, sending mere urls are a waste of good comrades' time, and I agree that this is much more a problem for comrades outside the imperialist centres, though it probably also is for poorer or less tech-savvy comrades even there. Obviously that needs to be reinforced with emphasis on other protocols, ie, always including an url with the text, always clipping most of the text of the article you're replying to, and, conversely, RETAINING the small part of the text you are replying to so that readers can make sense of discussions. Several regular posters here do not do the latter, and so except for anyone reading every post, some of their "replies" to nothing apparently look like sheer nonsense. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ambrose Andrews" To: "Michael Karadjis" Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 1:03 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed?? > Patrick Bond wrote: >> I'm voting, as usual, for full posting of articles - copyrights be >> damned. I agree, generally the burden of requiring *interactive* getting (by web) of things in the context of poor connectivity is greater than the burden of getting a large amount of redundant, but easily ignored plain text, even in that same context. From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Wed Sep 2 03:01:28 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:01:28 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed" Message-ID: <9D1AA90294BF4311B17107680C07DDFC@office1pc> Les wrote: 2009/9/1 Les Schaffer : > > i can think of two or three solutions to this problem... > > 1. a separate companion list for news and forwards From robertojorquera at yahoo.com Wed Sep 2 04:38:32 2009 From: robertojorquera at yahoo.com (Roberto Jorquera) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 03:38:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism] New videos uploaded to Direct Action Films Message-ID: <795952.94473.qm@web32004.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Hi All Please find below links to new videos uploaded to Direct Action Films Jaime Gajardo - Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Chile http://www.youtube.com/user/directactionfilms#play/all/uploads-all/2/6wMnC-wflXg Heryck Rangel - Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/user/directactionfilms#play/all/uploads-all/1/yAyg8aiEPu8 Heryck Rangel Entrevista con Palestine Remembered Roberto Jorquera Ph: 0425182994 __________________________________________________________________________________ Find local businesses and services in your area with Yahoo!7 Local. Get started: http://local.yahoo.com.au From sartesian at earthlink.net Wed Sep 2 06:12:18 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 08:12:18 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed" References: <9D1AA90294BF4311B17107680C07DDFC@office1pc> Message-ID: I don't really see a problem with the long posts. Yesterday, for example, DNRath posted a simply extraordinary, and long, article on shipbreaking in India. The list will be poorer without these types of contributions. Speaking of contributions, several days ago in discussing railroads and development I floated to the list several ideas about development in, and the development of the revolution in Mexico. I neglected to say that much of those ideas was worked out in offlist communication with Greg McDonald, whose own analysis sparked me to begin a deeper investigation of Mexico, and whose ideas, which sounded good to me before I started that investigation, sound still better now that I'm in the midst of it. From sartesian at earthlink.net Wed Sep 2 07:38:04 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 09:38:04 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Widely Proclaimed Uptick Message-ID: <1D8228D70FB1493A8E5054EDB3519D55@dmsthinkpad> New Orders New orders for manufactured durable goods in July increased $7.8 billion or 4.9 percent to $168.4 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This was the third increase in the last four months and the largest percent increase since July 2007. This followed a 1.3 percent June decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders increased 0.8 percent. Excluding defense, new orders increased 4.3 percent. Shipments Shipments of manufactured durable goods in July, up two consecutive months, increased $3.5 billion or 2.0 percent to $173.1 billion. This followed a 0.7 percent June increase. Unfilled Orders Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in July, down ten consecutive months, decreased $0.4 billion or 0.1 percent to $740.2 billion. This was the longest streak of consecutive monthly decreases since the series was first published on a NAICS basis in 1992 and followed a 0.8 percent June decrease. Inventories Inventories of manufactured durable goods in July, down seven consecutive months, decreased $2.7 billion or 0.8 percent to $314.1 billion. This followed a 1.5 percent June decrease. http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/m3/index.htm Today's Wall Street Journal and Financial Times have lead stories about the recovery in manufacturing being stronger than expected and indicating an end to the overall contraction. WSJ reports manufacturing gains in US, China, France, and Australia, with the pace of contraction in Germany and other nations slowing. In the US, the August 09 Institute of Supply Management survey index of purchasing manager crossed into positive territory [>50] for the first time in 19 months. Still, the numbers are not unequivocal, to say the least. Kansas City Fed reported manufacturing in the 10th District as still depressed. And the unfilled orders, and steady decline in inventories seems to belie the ISM survey of purchasing managers. Quite possible of course that manufacturers are "just in timing" their just-in-time orders, working down inventories wherever possible and producing goods only on month-to-month orders. This seems to fit with the decline in unfilled orders. So...being the well known pessimist that I am, defeatist actually when it comes to the capacity of the bourgeoisie anywhere to "make a nation stronger," or to benefit "both" workers and capitalists, I think the boost in the US, looking at the new orders in transportation, is probably a "one-off" event based on the 'cash for clunkers' deals. From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Sep 2 08:16:08 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:16:08 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Bush's third term Message-ID: <4A9E7E28.7030905@panix.com> Bush's Third Term? You're Living It By David Swanson It sounds like the plot for the latest summer horror movie. Imagine, for a moment, that George W. Bush had been allowed a third term as president, had run and had won or stolen it, and that we were all now living (and dying) through it. With the Democrats in control of Congress but Bush still in the Oval Office, the media would certainly be talking endlessly about a mandate for bipartisanship and the importance of taking into account the concerns of Republicans. Can't you just picture it? There's Dubya now, still rewriting laws via signing statements. Still creating and destroying laws with executive orders. And still violating laws at his whim. Imagine Bush continuing his policy of extraordinary rendition, sending prisoners off to other countries with grim interrogation reputations to be held and tortured. I can even picture him formalizing his policy of preventive detention, sprucing it up with some "due process" even as he permanently removes habeas corpus from our culture. full: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175109/david_swanson_the_more_things_change From sartesian at earthlink.net Wed Sep 2 08:24:47 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 10:24:47 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de><2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com><0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> Message-ID: So here we have LW's reasons to be cheerful. The Chinese nation is being strengthened, it is recovering from the Japanese invasion. It is throwing off the legacy of imperialist domination. And how is it doing this? Did China do these things in the period 1949-1979, when it was considered the beacon for world revolution? No. Did it do these things when the revolution expropriated, liquidated its own weak, comprador bourgeoisie and expelled the much stronger imperial bourgeoisie? Apparently not. Did the revolution accomplish these things when it "broke" with Kruschev's revisionism, staying "true" to the course of the "great helmsman's" own personal great helmsman? Apparently not. Did the revolution accomplish those things when creating, on however rudimentary a platform, a semblance of public, social, universal healthcare, a semblance of public education, "guarantees" of employment and social welfare. Nope, not then either. Did the revolution accomplish those things with its supposed "Cultural Revolution," dethroning the "capitalist roaders," and restoring the one true religion as expressed in the little red book. Nope. Not then. Nope, the revolution proved incapable of leading this recovery, when acting, at least partially, as a revolution. "Development" according to LW begins with creation of the SEZ in the Quangdong; with the pretty much unrestrained exploitation of young female labor in the SEZ. "Strengthening" starts with the creation of a nascent bourgeoisie, the nurturing of imperialist penetration into the economy, the enshrinement of private property, with a distorted version of Bukharin on steroids-- not "peasants enrich yourselves," not "socialism at a snail's pace" but "capitalists enrich yourselves," "capitalism at a cheetah's speed." So to those who want to know when China became "state capitalist," I would say, "Ask Luko. He seems to have it down pat." If you look at LW's "explanation," or pseudo-analysis, he says both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are getting stronger. How so? Is the proletariat stronger since healthcare has been essentially re-CLASS-ified? Has the proletariat been made stronger through the poisoning of the environment and by some of the population? Have the lead smelters causing brain damage in numbers of children made the proletariat stronger? Has the horrendous rate of mine accidents made the proletariat stronger? Has the unemployment of 15-20% of the workers in the export factories made the proletariat stronger? I know a spokesperson for the Ministry of Labor claimed 95% of those laid off workers had found new employment in cities, but when pressed to provide details as to how the data was collected, he could provide no such information. So how has the proletariat been made stronger? In numbers? I know LW loves gross, undifferentiated numbers, but then he should actually pay attention to gross undifferentiated numbers which have shown that since 1996 [or 1998, I forget which], actual numbers of manufacturing workers, industrial workers have DECLINED in China. So what constitutes the strengthening. Reports from organizers in China at the Left Forum Conference, as I posted here some time ago, argue that trade unions have been dramatically weakened, that unions are at a loss as to how to actually represent workers independently, and when necessary, in opposition to both the government and employers. Is that strengthening of the proletariat? Now of course LW and others can claim that even before 1979, the lead smelters and mines were killing people at high rates; that even before 1979 "universal healthcare" existed in name only and was actually rationed according to income, party status etc. But then what exactly was so revolutionary about the revolution to begin with? Going further, what LW offers us is nothing other than the old CORPORATIST capitalist ideology and advertising all dressed up in "East is Red" clothing-- the old corporatist ideology that argued that labor and capital could be harmonized, as long as the capitalists were allowed to call the turn; that labor and capital shared the same interests, as long as the capitalist named the interests; that labor and capital through the machinery of state and wisdom of bourgeoisie could be integrated into a grand, patriotic, national, popular front, as long as nobody was to concerned with what was actually going on behind the front. And I think LW can properly lay claim to the title of "The Left wing's Rostow." This is the same corporatist ideology that can and was expressed in its "benign" forms in the west in welfare capitalism before the great depression and the New Deal after the great depression; the same ideology that was expressed in Vargas' Nuovo Estado in Brazil; the same ideology that was imposed with some variations but such ferocity in Italy, Germany, Spain. It is the same corporatist ideology that is expressed, actually in Milton Friedman's pseudo laissez-faire anarcho-monetarism, where the benefits will flow to all because all can be reconciled in the market, and if you don't believe that, well we'll just have the PIDE, the DINA, the Cobra Squadron, the Interior Police, the death squads, prove it to you. It's the same ideology that infuses the "trickle down" theory of capitalism. But in reality what trickles down is the blood of the workers, a flow that begins as a trickle and becomes a torrent. In sum, all of LW's posturings are based once again on confusing objects with social relations, means of production as use-values rather than the commodities which they are in capitalism and in China. I've always thought that if you don't understand Capital Vol 1-- if you don't understand Marx's analysis of the commodity, then you understand nothing. LW proves exactly that. So the issue isn't "What suggestions do you have for making the Chinese railroad program more effective?" That's a BUSINESS question. I happen to work as a consultant now to railroad companies. And as a business, I would be happy to work in China, if invited and make their programs more effective. I did a little of that in Cuba-- for free. Would do the same in China, but not for free. The question is what social relations are dominant, are becoming dominant, are more dominant in China? What are the consequences, the results of those social relations? What would a real workers' and NOT FARMERS, poor rural producers do? Expropriate the bourgeoisie for starters... ----- Original Message ----- From: "L?ko Willms" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 1:52 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans > S. Artesian (sartesian at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-01 at 17:16:09 in > about Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans: >> >> >> So, no the whole thing is not "making use" or "bowing down," the whole >> thing is rather what class is being strengthened by the path, the policy, >> the economic programs currently in place in China. > >> Who's getting stronger? >> The proletariat as a class conscious of itself? >> Or the bourgeoisie in China as a class? > > Both of them. The Chinese nation is getting stronger. China is recovering > from the defeat of the Boxer uprising, and from the Japanese invasion and > occupation. China's infrastructure is being built up, the industry > expands, and > with the latter the proletariat is growing in numbers and in strength. > > As to the railways building programme, I don't know how much more should > and could be done, but what they are doing is impressive. Maybe Sartesian > has some suggestions what the Chinese should make different, which would > be more productive for the discussion than his usual ultraleft musings. > > If a real workers-and-farmers government were in power in Beijing, what > would that do different? From nmgoro at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 08:37:11 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:37:11 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Even Japan? Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <100.f895030027009e4a.046@lws-media.de> References: <100.f895030027009e4a.046@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <4A9E8317.3090506@gmail.com> L?ko Willms escribi?: > > In China an independent force had conquered state power > in 1949, and lead a socialist revolution in the subsequent years to 1953, > although a very deformed socialist revolution. But without that, the current > progress in China would have been impossible. China would be subject to > plunder like Congo is, and Korea and Taiwan, and India would be on the same > level. China's independence achieved by its socialist transformation was a > huge step forward for humanity I find the above of a great penetration. Yes, even the bourgeois states of South and East Asia owe whatever development they reached to the Chinese Revolution. In the Korean and Taiwanese cases, and less clearly in the Indian one, it was the imperialist fear of a "Chinese" contagion that provided an umbrella for some degree of self-centered capitalist development. I would add that perhaps even Japan does. From nmgoro at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 08:43:09 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:43:09 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Commendable [Re: China's high speed rail plans] In-Reply-To: <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <4A9E847D.6040806@gmail.com> L?ko Willms escribi?: > The Chinese nation is getting stronger. China is recovering > from the defeat of the Boxer uprising, and from the Japanese invasion and > occupation. China's infrastructure is being built up, the industry expands, and > with the latter the proletariat is growing in numbers and in strength. Please note that L?ko, when writing on China, always stresses the reperssion of the Boxer upheaval, where the German bourgeoisie and Germany in general had an outstanding (though not quite worthy) role. I think that it would be very healthy if other members of this list begin their criticisms to China by a reference to the Opium Wars. From nmgoro at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 08:44:35 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:44:35 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A9E84D3.2090905@gmail.com> Leonardo Kosloff escribi?: > Ah, but Mage, you forget that in N?stor's dictionary it isn't social > being, i.e. the social relation borne by the capital form, which > determines consciousness, but the abstract consciousness (perdy, no > other than that of the CCP bureaucracy) of commodity producers which > determines the former, "uses" it. No seas pelotudo, Leonardo. From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Sep 2 08:53:46 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <4A9E86FA.7060601@panix.com> L?ko Willms wrote: > > If a real workers-and-farmers government were in power in Beijing, what > would that do different? > > Some of Sartesian's writings suggests that they should make millions of > workers unemployed, in order to increase the per worker productivity... I haven't been paying close attention to this thread, but this strikes me as absurd. A real workers-and-farmers government, to use Trotskyist jargon, would first of all guarantee jobs for all since there is massive unemployment throughout China, a side-effect of a free market in labor. There would also be protection of safety on the job and vigilance against water and air pollution. A real workers-and-farmers government would also have a revolutionary foreign policy. China would not be turning a blind eye to US imperial aggrandizement in East Asia, to begin with. China would also respect the rights of Uighurs and Tibetans. I could go on at length, but this should suffice. From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Sep 2 09:00:10 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:00:10 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Trumbo documentary to air on PBS tonight Message-ID: <4A9E887A.2000600@panix.com> http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/dalton-trumbo/introduction-to-trumbo/1165/ Airs Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 8pm EST on PBS Adapted from his son Christopher?s 2003 play and based on the remarkable letters Dalton Trumbo wrote during the devastation wrought by the ?Red Scare? in mid-20th century. With credits for Kitty Foyle and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo to his name ? and the anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun ? the young Trumbo was one of the highest paid Hollywood writers. Refusing to testify before HUAC in ?47, he was part of the group known as the Hollywood Ten ? convicted for contempt, he spent 11 months in federal prison and lost all right to ply his craft. Writing 30 scripts under pseudonyms ? he won an Oscar in ?56 for The Brave One as Robert Rich ? he was not recognized publicly again until 1960, when Otto Preminger credited him on Exodus and Kirk Douglas did so on Spartacus ? actions considered to mark the end of the blacklist. As late as 1993, Trumbo was awarded a posthumous Acadamy Award for Roman Holiday (?53.) --- My review: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/trumbo/ From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Sep 2 09:16:56 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:16:56 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Todorov on torture Message-ID: <4A9E8C68.3080501@panix.com> http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee257 Intellectual Affairs Wrong Things, Rightly Named September 2, 2009 By Scott McLemee Suppose that, 30 or 40 years ago, the news media of the West had gotten hold of a KGB document reviewing its experiences in interrogating those who posed a menace to the peace, progress, and stability of the People?s Democracies. For younger readers, perhaps I should explain that the Soviet Union and its client states liked to call their system by that cheerful term. And yes, they were serious. Self-deception is a powerful force, sometimes. Suppose the report listed such methods of information-gathering as beatings, suffocation, and mock executions. And suppose, too -- on a lurid note -- that it mentioned using threats to murder or sexually violate members of a prisoner?s family. Now imagine numerous pages of the report were redacted, so that you could only guess what horrors they might chronicle. With all of that as a given, then... How much debate would there have been over the moral status of these acts? Would someone who insisted that they did not constitute torture get a hearing? Could a serious case be made that it was in the best interests of justice to move forward without dwelling on the past? If so, would such arguments have been presented in major newspapers, magazines, and broadcasts? Or would they have been heard in out-of-the-way meeting halls, where the only cheer was borrowed from posters of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship? This thought experiment comes to mind, of course, in the wake of reading about the report of the CIA?s Office of the Inspector General. The analogy is not perfect by any means. No comparable degree of ?openness? (however grossly inappropriate that word seems in this case) existed on the other side of the old Iron Curtain. But let?s not cheer ourselves hoarse over that fact just yet. Actions that would have been judged without hesitation to be torture if conducted by a member of the East German secret police (or, in the case of waterboarding, by the Khmer Rouge) did not meet the wonderfully scrupulous standards laid out seven years ago by the Department of Justice?s Office of Legal Counsel. If more testimony to the power of self-deception needed, this would do. When the CIA made its evaluation of various bloody-minded interrogation practices in 2004, the Bush administration?s response was reportedly frustration that the techniques hadn?t been more effective. The assessment of the Obama administration seems to be that torture has been both unproductive and damaging for ?soft power? ? a public-relations nightmare. This is progress, of a kind. If somebody decides to give up sociopathic behavior on the grounds it is proving bad for business, that is only just so much reason for relief. But it is preferable to the alternative. It might be possible to hold ourselves to higher standards than that. But first it would be necessary to face reality. One place to start is Tzvetan Todorov?s little book Torture and the War on Terror, first published in France last year and now available in translation from Seagull Books (distributed by the University of Chicago Press). Todorov once lived in what was called, at the time, the People?s Republic of Bulgaria. As an ?migr? in Paris in the 1960s, he wrote The Poetics of Prose and other standard works in structuralist literary criticism ? as well as a study of the idiosyncratic Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin that, in my opinion, made Bakhtin?s thought seem a lot more systematic than it really was. Over the past quarter century, Todorov?s concerns have shifted from the structuralist analysis of literary language to a moral inquiry into the historical reality of violence and domination, including books on the Nazi and Stalinist concentration camps. Torture and the War on Terror is more pamphlet than treatise. Some pages revisit points that ought to be familiar to anyone who has given any thought to the experience of the past eight years. To grasp the essential meaninglessness of a phrase like ?war on terror? (you can?t bomb a state of mind) does not require a degree in linguistics or rhetoric. But then, the ability to state the obvious can have its uses. The document prepared by the Justice Department in August 2002 carefully parsed its definition of torture so that it covered only acts leading to the "severe pain" characteristic of permanent ?impairment of bodily function.? Todorov does not hesitate to specify what is going on within that semantic maneuver: ?The reasoning of this memorandum ? paradoxically so, for a legal document prepared by competent jurists ? proceeds from a form of magical thinking insofar as it pretends that we can act on things by changing their names.? That about covers it. The expression ?magical thinking? covers a great deal of our public life in those years ? a time exemplified by the consistently miraculous heroics of Jack Bauer on ?24.? As both a student of the phenomenon of state violence and a former resident of People?s Bulgaria, Todorov is willing to recognize and name what has been going on this past decade. We need to read the following and remember that it is what goes in the history books: ?In prisons scattered throughout countries outside the United States, the detainees have been regularly raped, hung from hooks, immersed in water, burned, attached to electrodes, deprived of food, water or medicine, attacked by dogs, and beaten until their bones are broken. On military bases or on American territory, they have been subjected to sensory deprivation and to other violent sensory treatments, forced to wear headphones so they cannot hear, hoods so they cannot see, surgical masks to keep them from smelling, and thick gloves that interfere with the sense of touch. They have been subjected to nonstop ?white noise? or to the regular alternation of deafening noise and total silence; prevented from sleeping, either by use of bright lights or by being subjected to interrogations that can last twenty hours on end, forty-eight days in a row; and taken from extreme cold to extreme heat and vice versa. None of these methods cause ?the impairment of bodily function,? but they are known to cause the rapid destruction of personal identity.? Given the inefficacy of torture as a way to extract intelligence, its real ?value? comes in the form of retribution -- and the feeling of restored mastery this permits. ?Reducing the other to a state of utter powerlessness,? writes Todorov, ?gives you a sense of limitless power. This feeling is obtained more from torture than from murder, because, once dead, the other is an inert object that can no longer yield the jubilation that comes from wholly defeating the will of the other. On the other hand, raping a woman in front of her husband, parents, and children or torturing a child in front of his father yields an illusion of omnipotence and a sense of absolute sovereignty. Transgressing human laws in this way makes you feel close to the gods.... Torture leaves an indelible mark not only on the victim but also on the torturer.? Todorov might have pushed this line of thinking (with its nod to Hegel?s dialectic of the struggle for recognition) a lot further than he does. The ?indelible mark? can take various forms, and it is not restricted to those who directly wield the instruments of torture. The craving for ?an illusion of omnipotence and a sense of absolute sovereignty? is something best channeled into wish fulfillment-oriented forms of entertainment. There it can be aggrandized yet contained. Money and commodities change hands; the consumer gets a catharsis of sorts; civil society muddles along, and everybody wins. When sectors of the populace come to regard its pursuit in reality as a necessary part of the business of the state, things are on a different and more worrying terrain. A host of strange side effects then follow ? including nostalgia for 9/11 itself in some quarters, since the country was so deeply ?unified? on 9/12. A scarcely concealed yearning for another terrorist assault makes perfect sense, given that it would presumably justify another sustained effort to assert American omnipotence and sovereignty. (In saying it ?makes perfect sense,? I mean, of course, in a perfectly insane way.) ?As a rule,? writes Todorov, ?citizens in liberal democracies will condemn without hesitation the violent practices of a state that will tolerate torture, and especially of a state that systematizes its use, as in the case of totalitarian regimes. Now we have discovered that these same democracies can adopt totalitarian attitudes without changing their overall structure. This cancer does not eat away at a single individual; its metastases are found in people who thought they had eradicated it in others and considered themselves immune. That is why we cannot be reassured.? True enough. But we have a long way to go before reassurance will be desirable, let alone possible. From sartesian at earthlink.net Wed Sep 2 09:34:33 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 11:34:33 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Even Japan? Re: China's high speed rail plans References: <100.f895030027009e4a.046@lws-media.de> <4A9E8317.3090506@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4C1F6CA10E7544F0969E6A8B109F8D8C@dmsthinkpad> And while we're at it, while we're passing out the bromides, let's not forget the kudos to the USSR, which, despite the devastation executed by the Nazis -- a devastation from which the USSR despite strenuous efforts was never to fully overcome-- the USSR in its victory, and in its desire to create a "buffer" between itself and the predations of Western militarism, so scared the bourgeoisie that it MUST have stimulated, precipitated, caused the Marshall Plan, and the rebuilding of Western Europe... Of course that the rebuilding, as credited to the USSR, actually strengthened Western militarism, increased the strength of the bourgeoisie, and eventually led to the collapse of the USSR is a mere technicality. Hmmh.... we might just have stumbled upon the real function of the bureaucratic deformations/degenerations of social revolution in the capitalist world order: prompt the bourgeoisie to redevelop, restrengthen, reunify, recapitalize-- kind of like a TARP program for the bankers' bankers. at the expense, bought and paid for, of and by the prospects for international revolution. Is that what you mean, Nestor? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nestor Gorojovsky" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 10:37 AM Subject: [Marxism] Even Japan? Re: China's high speed rail plans I find the above of a great penetration. Yes, even the bourgeois states of South and East Asia owe whatever development they reached to the Chinese Revolution. In the Korean and Taiwanese cases, and less clearly in the Indian one, it was the imperialist fear of a "Chinese" contagion that provided an umbrella for some degree of self-centered capitalist development. I would add that perhaps even Japan does. From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Sep 2 09:50:08 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:50:08 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Review of David Harvey's latest Message-ID: <4A9E9430.8010504@panix.com> http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/016_03/4337 Sept/Oct/Nov 2009 Changing Places Scott McLemee It is unlikely that anyone has ever confused a page of Thomas Friedman?s with one of Immanuel Kant?s, but between them it is possible to triangulate a prevailing sensibility of the past two decades. Call it managerial cosmopolitanism. It celebrates the idea of a global civil society, with the states cooperating to play their proper (limited) role as guardians of public order and good business practices. The hospitality that each nation extends to visiting foreign traders grows ever wider and deeper; generalized, it becomes the most irenic of principles. And so there emerges on the horizon of the imaginable future something like a world republic, with liberty and frequent-flier miles for all. Admittedly, that last clause owes more to Friedman than to the K?nigsberg homebody. But the sense that an emergent mode of governance is always already implicit within the routine conduct of international trade was there in Kant?s own popular writings. And with this came a Timesman-like spirit of acquiescence. Fostering cosmopolitanism?precisely by adapting to it?is the duty of the wise burgher. Such notions have diffused widely enough that their provenance may not seem to matter. Besides, these ideas may not have as much market value now that even the erstwhile beneficiaries of ?globalization? cannot regard it as quite the name of their desire. But this makes David Harvey?s Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom strangely timely. Harvey digs beneath the cosmopolitan doxa to a layer of Kant?s thought?his concern with geography?that has returned with a vengeance, even for those who only crib from thirdhand cribs of Kant?s corpus. For despite Friedman?s hectic urgings to the contrary, the world is not, as it happens, flat. Indeed, its roundness and finitude are conditions for Kant?s own cosmopolitanism, because, he writes, human beings ?cannot infinitely disperse and hence must finally tolerate the presence of each other.? Kant lectured on geography for decades, regarding it as the fundamental science needed to ?create that unity of knowledge without which all learning remains only piece-work.? You can study a fair amount of Kant without ever suspecting this. The notes from the course?which he gave forty-nine times, nearly as often as those on logic and metaphysics?seldom receive more than a footnote in any biography. I have not read the notes, but the passages Harvey quotes are full of nonsense about how climate and terrain limit the moral and intellectual powers of lesser breeds in far-off lands. But Harvey?s book is not, happily, just another reminder that Enlightenment thought was not so enlightened after all. Nor is it a polemic in which cosmopolitanism itself is unmasked as neoliberalism with a human face. Harvey?s patient and systematic labor here involves unpacking the notions about space, place, and the relation of culture and environment that are embedded in arguments about globalization. To be sure, these are often implicitly deduced from neoliberal axioms. They ?assume a world of deracinated men and women; producers and consumers; buyers and sellers; entrepreneurs, firms, and megacorporations; and supposedly neutral but placeless institutions of market and the law.? But at the antipode we find ideologies of postcolonial resistance that rhapsodize about the ineffable depths of subaltern tradition while drawing on Martin Heidegger or Edmund Burke (or both, which gets kind of creepy). These are, obviously, counterposed ways of assessing capitalist modernity. But they both rest on implicit modes of cognitive mapping (to borrow a term from Fredric Jameson) that have political consequences. On the neoliberal globe, any local particularity (of landscape, climate, culture, etc.) exists primarily as a potential contributor or impediment to investment and accumulation. To oppose this reductive view of the lives of communities, something more is needed than dithyrambs to the indigenous. Harvey is mainly seeking to define the terms for a new critical geography?one quite consistent with Kant?s call for a body of knowledge enabling the development of cosmopolitan citizens, but without all that stuff about the natural advantage given to white people in governing the world. For all their scope and high degree of generality, Harvey?s chapters on the categories of space, place, and environment seem less like an actual atlas and more like the prolegomenon to a Marxist geographic system. But Harvey?s presentation is cohesive and lucid enough, and in any case far preferable to the sketchy and largely gestural vocabulary that has become all too familiar from the cultural-studies vulgate, with its ?sites,? ?boundaries,? ?displacements,? and whatnot. Without revisiting The Communist Manifesto on capitalism?s insatiable and tireless need not only to expand but to reorganize the world in its own image (pages as fitting for the 1990s as the discussion of crises in volume 3 of Capital is for today), Harvey takes the continuing vitality of historical materialism as a given. This means taking the claims of cosmopolitanism seriously as well; more seriously, perhaps, than some of its recent publicists. For capital is not all that crosses borders and establishes new relationships, contractual and otherwise. So does labor. A few years ago, American investment firms would shore up their claims to being ?global? by opening branches in distant countries, then not bothering to staff them. At the same time, their offices on Wall Street were cleaned by people whose map of the world included New York as the northernmost part of Latin America. Harvey?s book reflects the full range of this paradox?and thus serves as a reminder that there must be forged, somehow, a cosmopolitanism from below. Scott McLemee is a writer for Inside Higher Ed. From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Sep 2 09:51:52 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:51:52 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Down with positive thinking Message-ID: <4A9E9498.1040105@panix.com> http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/016_03/4340 Sept/Oct/Nov 2009 Positively Delusional John Summers Positive thinking should never be the same after Barbara Ehrenreich?s Bright-Sided. But as Ehrenreich herself shows in a sketch of the movement?s history, its theorists, hucksters, and practitioners have thumbed their noses at reason ever since Mary Baker Eddy popularized New Thought with the mind-over-matter healing doctrine of Christian Science. Led by preacher Joel Osteen, motivational guru Tony Robbins, and academic psychologist Martin Seligman, among many others, the national cult of uplift abounding has lately generated subprime mortgages, megachurches, and a ?pink-ribbon culture? that promotes a mind-cure-style approach to treating breast cancer: Maintaining a positive outlook, Ehrenreich learned firsthand, is supposed to boost the victim?s immune system. Ehrenreich is a sharp and reliable student of the divided middle class, as good as the American left can boast. In attacking the thick irrationality of our public lives, Bright-Sided homes in on a particularly salient line of argument?that positive thinking is not only preposterous but pernicious: ?The effort of positive ?thought control,? which is always presented as such a life preserver, has become a potentially deadly weight?obscuring judgment and shielding us from vital information. Sometimes we need to heed our fears and negative thoughts, and at all times we need to be alert to the world outside ourselves, even when that includes absorbing bad news and entertaining the views of ?negative? people. As we should have learned by now, it is dangerous not to.? Positive thinking, the stepchild of Emersonian self-reliance, ?has undermined America.? The thesis contains a paradox. Why should a movement committed in advance to the notion that prosperity is largely a matter of self-confidence flourish in times of institutional failure? Doesn?t preaching a doctrine of attitude adjustment insult one?s intelligence in a contracting labor market? In fact, Americans have always been great dreamers. The 1930s, the heyday of success manuals, made best-selling authors of idiots savants like Dale Carnegie, Walter Pitkin, Dorothea Brande, Napoleon Hill, and other fools for good news and easy money. Let Your Mind Alone!, cried James Thurber, in a 1937 collection of salvos aimed at these writers? contempt for social ethics. Then Norman Vincent Peale published The Power of Positive Thinking in 1952, and all was lost. The briskness and lucidity of the prose Ehrenreich deploys in reviving the struggle for national sobriety might make it easy to miss her erudition. Bright-Sided draws from a genre of radical social thought that tries to understand the eclipse of the Protestant ethic and the pursuit of wealth divested of morality. Ehrenreich nods to Donald Meyer?s The Positive Thinkers (1965), still the best study of the subject. But her argument also summons a number of other classic examinations of the dubiously rational American character, such as the portrait of ?cheerful robots? climbing the corporate ladder in C. Wright Mills?s White Collar (1951). Ehrenreich shows how rationality has lost out in corporate management since Mills?s day?but like him, she explains the ongoing appeal of positive thinking as a consequence of alienation. Positive thinking, she argues in fine left-wing fashion, is an ideology that sustains economic inequality by isolating individuals from brute facts. For all its nostrums, it has not made Americans any happier. Behind that tight smile lies the despair of helplessness. Her antidote remains much the same as the cure prescribed in the 1950s: ?anxious vigilance,? ?a certain level of negativity and suspicion,? and ?a relentless commitment to hard-nosed empiricism.? These admonitions are not likely to enlist already committed positive thinkers, and Ehrenreich acknowledges the intrinsic difficulty of reaching them: ?It remains the responsibility of each individual to sift through the received wisdom . . . and decide what?s worth holding on to. This can require the courage of a Galileo, the iconoclasm of a Darwin or Freud, the diligence of a homicide detective.? Certainly, given all that is required, rationalists would do well to cultivate an empirically grounded belief in the actual efficacy of ?critical thinking.? Yet Bright-Sided says nothing about politics. The hard form of positive thinking is junk science, to be sure. The soft form, though, may offer Americans a chance to participate vicariously in the national sport of ambition. Looking plainly at the environmental sources of breast cancer or the scourge of global warming??to always keep in view the specter of injustice,?as Ehrenreich advises?is to raise the possibility that there is nothing to be done by the powerless many, and much that will never be done by the powerful few. To embrace critical thinking under the illusion that it will make you happier is only to prepare for disappointment. The positive-thinking movement appears to be held together by deluded, isolated servants of the status quo. Meanwhile, the status quo?s permanent opposition on the left knows its own psychopathologies as resentment, anger, and moral vanity. Critical thinking, no less than the positive kind, can hurt your brain. John Summers is the author of Every Fury on Earth (The Davies Group, 2008). From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Sep 2 09:55:43 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:55:43 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Latest BookForum Message-ID: <4A9E957F.4010903@panix.com> I already posted a couple of articles from this outstanding magazine but there's plenty more. Check: http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/016_03 From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 10:12:43 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 12:12:43 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Latest BookForum In-Reply-To: <4A9E957F.4010903@panix.com> References: <4A9E957F.4010903@panix.com> Message-ID: Bookforum is great. They linked to one of my articles a few months ago and virtually single-handedly doubled our traffic. Admitedly the double of 150 isn't very much :) On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: > I already posted a couple of articles from this outstanding magazine but > there's plenty more. Check: > > http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/016_03 > From nmgoro at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 10:49:59 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:49:59 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Even Japan? Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <4C1F6CA10E7544F0969E6A8B109F8D8C@dmsthinkpad> References: <100.f895030027009e4a.046@lws-media.de> <4A9E8317.3090506@gmail.com> <4C1F6CA10E7544F0969E6A8B109F8D8C@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <4A9EA237.5070703@gmail.com> Well, S. Artesian, I don?t understand what you say here below, so that I can?t tell you if I agree with it or not. Anyway, I can only say that there WAS a Morgenthau plan for Germany. And that it was eventually discarded. S. Artesian escribi?: > And while we're at it, while we're passing out the bromides, let's not > forget the kudos to the USSR, which, despite the devastation executed by > the Nazis -- a devastation from which the USSR despite strenuous efforts was > never to fully overcome-- the USSR in its victory, and in its desire to > create a "buffer" between itsel From bbauerly at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 12:59:57 2009 From: bbauerly at gmail.com (brad bauerly) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 14:59:57 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Econ Rebounding? Message-ID: <55868ddf0909021159g69c3e02asf6825d314fbbe451@mail.gmail.com> "I think the boost in the US, looking at the new orders in transportation, is probably a "one-off" event based on the 'cash for clunkers' deals." S.Artesian can you please elaborate on this. Why do you still feel that there is no recovery? How do you incorporate the increased productivity and rebounded corp. profits data that just came out? Let's see the stocks are up (not too telling), so are corp. profit rates, so is productivity, so is manufacturing, credit has eased, banks are turning large profits...so how is this still a crisis for capitalism? Sure there is high unemployment but this does not mean a crisis for capitalism, only for workers. Could you please flesh out your argument whenever you get a chance. I would be interested in hearing others opinions on this as well and I think this a very necessary and important discussion. Brad From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Sep 2 14:02:32 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:02:32 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] American Casino; The Most Dangerous Man in America Message-ID: <4A9ECF58.8040106@panix.com> This month has been a very good one for leftist documentaries. Joining ?The Cove? and ?Crude? are two more films at the Film Forum. The first is ?American Casino?, which opens today. Directed by Andrew Cockburn (Alexander?s brother) and his wife Leslie, this amounts to a film version of Matt Taibbi?s hard-hitting Rolling Stone article on the subprime meltdown but without the gonzo flourishes. This will be followed by ?The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers? that opens on the 16th. Both movies are outstanding. read full review: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/american-casino-the-most-dangerous-man-in-america/ From johnaimani at earthlink.net Wed Sep 2 14:29:51 2009 From: johnaimani at earthlink.net (johnaimani) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 13:29:51 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] The German Auto Bubble-WSJ Message-ID: <15EC1F7789E74EC296A55D400D282392@D4PKYZ41> (JAI: Twice as big as the US 'Cash for Clunkers", programs which compel the destruction of still useful automobiles so as to encourage the purchase of new ones through taxpayer funded subsidy, the German program (as the US') is but modified Keynesianism, itself a re-reading of Marx exposition on the crisis of overproduction "Capital. Vol 3." Chap XV. Sec 3. "Excess Capital, Excess Population". http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch15.htm , is but yet another further attempt to inject purchasing power into a sector of the market (in this case auto and relateds) in hopes that the buying power of this sector will translate into the purchses of the products of other sectors. It is the same thing as the stock market bubble which burst in 2000, the Fed Reserve created housing bubble burst in 2006 (itselff created in response to the collapse of the stock market and the oil and commodities bubbles which burst last year. What next. Believe me they are thinking of something right now.) AUGUST 31, 2009 Germans Debate Whether Car Trade-In Plan Will Backfire By GEOFFREY T. SMITH FRANKFURT -- Germany's auto makers are worried about slumping sales when the government's "cash for clunkers" program expires this fall after running through its allocation of ?5 billion, or $7.15 billion. Even so, they don't agree with the dire forecasts in a study issued by German management consultancy Roland Berger. In the study, published Friday, Roland Berger said car sales in Germany may fall more than 20% next year, and that as many as 90,000 jobs may be lost across the industry by the end of 2011. One in two car dealerships could be threatened with failure, and gross domestic product could take a hit, it said. The detailed report by a well-known company with a long history in the auto sector caused a stir, underscoring nagging fears of a slump in demand and another sharp rise in unemployment once the Germany government winds down this part of its fiscal stimulus. The car scrappage program, which subsidizes new car purchases on old trade-ins, was a model for similar plans adopted elsewhere, including the U.S. Since early this year, it has bolstered Germany's big auto industry and helped gross domestic product to return to growth in the second quarter after a year-long recession. "The German car market is good for roughly 3 million to 3.3 million cars a year. This year, we will probably sell 3.7 million, and our forecasts are for 2.7-2.8 million next year," said Ralf Landmann, a partner with Roland Berger. "If you have 20% less demand for your products, its clear there's going to be an impact on the labor market," Mr. Landmann said. The Federal Statistics Office calculates that Germans spent ?36 billion on new cars in the first half of the year, generating a modest 0.1% increase in overall private consumption. But without the scrappage scheme, consumption would have fallen 1%, and the economy would have shrunk by even more. As it is, output in the second quarter was still down 5.9% from a year earlier. Carsten Dreger, an economist with the DIW research institute in Berlin, contends that not only was the cash-for-clunkers plan increasing 2009 demand at the cost of 2010's, it is also cannibalizing potential demand for other consumer goods this year. "Cash for clunkers" boosted August sales, but as WSJ's Neal Boudette and Dow Jones Newswires' Jeff Bennett report, auto dealers are already starting to see consumer interest drop off now that clunkers is over. Germany's car makers have already laid off most of the 100,000 temporary workers they employed a year ago, according to a spokesman for the Federal Association for Temporary Work in Berlin. The Roland Berger forecasts refer to cuts in their core personnel, an acutely sensitive topic. A spokesman for the Association of German Automakers, an industry body, disagreed with the Roland Berger forecasts, saying the industry hadn't taken on excess labor in the boom years in any case. "What wasn't built up in the first case doesn't need to be reduced," the spokesman said. Volkswagen AG has even promised to add jobs at Porsche AG once it completes its planned takeover of the company. VW has also just started its annual pay round negotiations with the IG Metall union. With unemployment already nearly at 3.5 million, and a jobless rate of 8.3%, the government is hoping that the recent economic improvement will be strong enough to stop another wave of job losses. The fate of Adam Opel GmbH's German employees has been one of the key sticking points in negotiations over the restructuring of GM's European operations, with the German government anxious to avoid any job losses. The Federal Labor Office is due to report August's unemployment data Tuesday. Analysts predict another 30,000 increase in those out of work. The government has subsidized companies to keep their workers on shorter working hours, rather than lay them off. Write to Geoffrey T. Smith at geoffrey.smith at dowjones.com Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page B3 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125167281358170797.html From sartesian at earthlink.net Wed Sep 2 14:38:44 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 16:38:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Econ Rebounding? References: <55868ddf0909021159g69c3e02asf6825d314fbbe451@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: You can have most of those things during an economic contraction-- increased corporate profits, modest recovery even in GDP, upticks month to month in output, without, in fact, capital starting another cycle of expanded reproduction. It's not just that I don't think there's a recovery, I think there is very little difference between the recovery and the contraction. In fact, that's one of the signature characteristics of the advanced capitalism, expansion and contraction take on the characteristics of each other. But here's more of why I don't believe in green shoots, recovery, etc. Bank conditions are worsening. Bank credit markets are simply not functioning. Corporate bond markets are functioning, but guess what? Defaults and failures are already at record levels. So far in 2009, 201 borrowers with a total of $453.1 billion in debt have failed. For all of 2008, the numbers were 126 borrowers and 433 billion in debt. Banks are not expanding loans, bank balance sheets have hardly improved, TALF is a failure-- straight away failure. 83 banks have failed so far in the US, depleting the FDIC fund to what, $10.4 billion, lowest level since 1993-- and the only reason the fund hasn't been wiped out is that the FDIC, in selling failed banks to other banks, has shouldered much of possible losses on $80 billion in troubled assets. Commerical real estate bankruptcies, delinquent and overdue loans are rising with $ 153 billion in repayments due in the near future. You want more? Here it comes. Lufthansa reports a 16% drop in revenue in the first half. Temasek [Singapore's sovereign wealth fund] has lost 22% of the value of its portfolio in the last 12 months. Coal overproduction is so dramatic that even the Wall Street Journal is worried about. Honda's net profit for the quarter ending June 30 dropped 96% from a year early. Nissan reported a loss of $1.5 billion; Daimler a loss of euro 1.02 billion; Renault a loss of euro 2.7 billion Unemployment rate in the Silicon Valley of the US is now 11.8 percent, higher than the 2001-2003 recession. [Speaking of relative worker productivity, there are 800 steel producing enterprises in China. The largest steel producer, BaoSteel produces only 5% of the total steel output. BaoSteel which has 108,000 employees produces approximately the same tonnage as Japan's Nippon Steel with 17,000 employees.] Warehouse vacancy rates in the US continue to climb vs rates in 2008. Should we talk earnings? Exxon's profits in the 2Q were 1/3 its earnings of a year earlier If you struggle through the reports and the balance sheets you find that the actual operating earnings as opposed to reported earning for US corporations are pretty miserable, as operating earnings eliminate the "one-offs" that were reported for the 2nd quarter. Internationally, the world's major airlines report a revenue drop of 30% from the year earlier. Leverage? In the next five years private equity and LBO funds must refinance $400 billion in debt. Exactly where and how that refinancing can be accomplished is a mystery for management of such funds, who are busy liquidating assets. Jumbo prime mortgages overdue in payment by more than 60 days have increased to about 7.5%. Remember, these are the prime loans. Auto sales in Japan in July were down 4.2% [except for supersmall compact cars with tiny engine displacements], the 12th straight decline. Chinese shipbuilder Conco[?-- think that's the name] reported 2Q profits down 71 percent. Regular prime mortgage default rate in US climbs to 13.8% Zim shipping, an Israeli company, with the 16th largest fleet of ships, and having ordered new ships to double its capacity is facing insolvency, hoping to get equity investments from shippers by offering them lower rates on haulage. FNMA reports a 2Q loss of $14.8 billion and seeks another $10 billion from the US Treasury. Office vacancy rate in the southern California area climbs to 24.6% in San Bernadino and Riverside. National rate climbs to 15.4% Maguire properties one of the largest office building holders in s. Cal walks away from 7 buildings, forfeiting them to creditors in lieu of payment on $1.06 billion in debt. Even then the company still owes $3.5 billion in debt. Aluminum spot prices soar while futures prices are declining. Stocks have risen from 2.4 million metric tonnes in January to 4.5 million in August while global consumption has declined 7 percent. IMF estimates Mexico GDP will decline 7.3 percent this year-- 80% of Mexico's exports are to the shrinking US market. Those exports have declined by 30 percent. Maersk shipyard to end production of container ships at its Odense steel shipyard. Company will report its first yearly loss since 1904. Shipping is the topic? OH, Hapag Lloyed is seeking a rescue package of euro 1.75 billion to avoid insolvency. Manufacturing productivity in US has soared, driving up profits. How has it soared? Because labor has been cut faster than output. Because capital spending is at its lowest rate. The EU continues to report deflationary price drops, shrinking GDP numbers, and increased unemployment. Hey, remember Dubai and those neat islands shaped like palm trees, coconuts, and sharks? The property market has collapsed, with prices down 50%, and both property owners and construction companies simply walking away from partially finished buildings. China? New project starts dropped in July, first time since October, according the China's National Bureau of Statistics, as the central bank seeks to gain control of lending activity. Oil products tankers are being seized by creditor banks as rents for the ships have decline 75 percent and companies can't make their payments. China has redeemed short term US treasury instruments..... so the money could be reinvested in long term US treasury instruments. That will show Geithner! In the US new home construction and permits declined in July, with multiple family units particularly hard hit. Cargill reports for its 4Q fiscal year that earning are down 69% from the year earlier. Deere reports its 3Q profit off 27%. A surge in home sales has been reported, fueled by... purchase of distressed properties. Only 36 percent of these sales were of non-distressed properties. And of these 36 percent non-distressed, only 1/3 were unforced, discretionary sales. The other 2/3 were sales initiated by owners facing financial difficulties, but not yet delinquent. 13.16%, over 1 trillion dollars worth, of US mortgages are more than 30 days delinquent or in foreclosure. US Dept. of Agric estimates US net farm income in 2009 will decline 38% from 2008 levels. Wait, wait.... don't go away, I've got plenty more........Like what banks are turning large profits? Goldman-Sachs? Morgan Stanley? The FDIC has 416 banks on its "trouble list" and last quarter 20% of all member banks reported net losses. And there's plenty more where that come from. There are a lot of other shoes that are going to drop off the stumbling feet of this millipede we call capitalism. ----- Original Message ----- From: "brad bauerly" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 2:59 PM Subject: [Marxism] Econ Rebounding? > "I think the boost > in the US, looking at the new orders in transportation, is probably a > "one-off" event based on the 'cash for clunkers' deals." > > S.Artesian can you please elaborate on this. Why do you still feel that > there is no recovery? How do you incorporate the increased productivity > and > rebounded corp. profits data that just came out? Let's see the stocks are > up (not too telling), so are corp. profit rates, so is productivity, so is > manufacturing, credit has eased, banks are turning large profits...so how > is > this still a crisis for capitalism? Sure there is high unemployment but > this does not mean a crisis for capitalism, only for workers. Could you > please flesh out your argument whenever you get a chance. I would be > interested in hearing others opinions on this as well and I think this a > very necessary and important discussion. > > Brad From epoliticus at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 16:20:38 2009 From: epoliticus at gmail.com (Politicus E.) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 18:20:38 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Testing .... Message-ID: -- "In the tender annals of Political Economy, the idyllic reigns from time immemorial ... the present year of course always excepted." -- A German refugee, circa 1867 -- http://epoliticus.wordpress.com/ From epoliticus at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 16:24:59 2009 From: epoliticus at gmail.com (Politicus E.) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 18:24:59 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Latest Articles on Sanhati Message-ID: Healthcare in India: Features of one of the most privatised systems in the world September 1, 2009 By Pinaki Chaudhuri, Sanhati Americans are currently engaged in a fierce debate regarding healthcare reforms - there is a growing demand for healthcare insurance coverage for all its citizens. Further, there is also a demand that the government should provide for healthcare insurance just like many other developed nations in the Western world. See this article for a basic orientation in the US healthcare debate (http://sanhati.com/articles/1733/). Let us now turn our attention to India. Here, the healthcare industry is dominated by private capital and its growth spiral is almost unregulated. On the other hand, 65 per cent of our population does not have access to modern medicine. It is even worse if one looks at the rural/urban divide : about 80 per cent of doctors, 75 per cent of dispensaries and 60 per cent of hospitals are located in urban areas. Since the process of liberalisation kicked in, the health infrastructure provided by the government has almost broken down. The overall private-public spending on healthcare is very little - it accounts for 4.8 per cent of India?s GDP. Of this, 3.6 per cent is contributed by the private sector and only the balance 1.2 per cent by the Government.... Read the full article at http://sanhati.com/excerpted/1759/ ***** Report on a recent mass rally against land acquisition in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand September 1, 2009 By Manali Chakrabarti, Sanhati Main yehan Nandigram bana doonga (I?ll make this a Nandigram) This is, apparently, what the Deputy Commissioner of Hazaribagh, Mr Vinay Chaubey, said on the 8th of August 2009, to a group of villagers in Arahara village, in the state of Jharkhand, who have been refusing to part with their land for compensation. The heavily armed police cover gave credence to this arrogant assertion.... Read the full article at http://sanhati.com/excerpted/1757/ From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Wed Sep 2 16:31:06 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:31:06 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatechers Message-ID: <4FC3AF966BDA4E9485C526355C4CB274@office1pc> The following is a short article from the liberal US magazine American Prospect by the liberal Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg. This provides factual counter-information to the article from Counterpunch which has been discussed by a number of comrades from the list, in which Alison Weir claimed, based on a Swedish article, that Israel is systematically harvesting the organs of Palestinian prisoners. The fact that the evidence for this is extremely non-conclusive at this point, to put it mildly, was highlighted by the fact that Weir felt obliged to support the claim by "proving" that Jews had drunk the blood of Christian children ("some" or ",mamy") during the Middle Ages, a claim that was used to justify killing and torturing thousands of Jews. In fact Jewish dietary law bans the aborption of blood of any kind, human or animal. In submitting the article in full, I am not staging a sit-in or an act of defiance of list law. But I am highlighting the role that articles, available in full to all list members, play in how I carry out a political discussion. I.E., the news (simplistically put, the facts as I know them) are central, not peripheral to the discussion. I will be submitting a second short post by Gideon Levy on this matter, which so far has been beneficial, not harmful, to the occupation. I want to be very clear. I do not exclude that instances of this have taken place. Prisoners are extremely vulnerable to all kinds of exploitation and brutal physical mistreatment, but the "proof" that Israel has built a vast reserve of Palestinian organs for Israeli use -- the claim made by Weir and the Swedish article on which Weir initially based her assertions (not about the Middle Ages -- is basically nonexistent at this point. Fred Feldman www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_invention_of_the_body_snatcher The Invention of the Body-Snatchers Take one Swedish journalist, one Israeli politician, add allegations of international organ trafficking, and you've got one international mess. Gershom Gorenberg | August 27, 2009 Lest there be any misunderstanding: As an Israeli and a Jew, I don't believe that the current government of Sweden is quasi-Nazi, that all Swedes are anti-Semites, or that I should boycott Ikea, the Swedish furniture firm. At the same time, to remove all doubt, I solemnly declare that I have never been involved in the international trade in organs for transplant. I do feel exceedingly silly bothering to make these denials. But they seem somehow necessary in light of the current Swedish-Israeli tensions, which are a product of egregiously incompetent journalism in a Swedish paper and equally irredeemable diplomacy by Israel in furious response. Technically speaking, the affair began last week with an article headlined "Our Sons Plundered for Their Organs" that appeared in the back pages of Aftonbladet, a major Swedish paper. Writer Donald Bostr?m began by describing the July arrest in New York of Levy Izhak Rosenbaum on charges of buying kidneys from Israeli donors and selling them in the United States to people in need of transplants. From there, Bostr?m leaps to describing "strong suspicions" among Palestinians that Israel has abducted young Palestinian men to "serve as the country's organ reserve before being killed." To prove that those suspicions warrant an International Court of Justice investigation into "possible Israeli war crimes," Bostr?m leaps back to 1992, when he was in the West Bank working on a book. At the time, he writes, a campaign was underway in Israel to register potential organ donors. Though the effort brought a large increase in potential donors, the country still suffered from a transplant shortfall. "While the campaign was in progress, young Palestinian men disappeared from villages in the West Bank and Gaza," Bostr?m says, adding that their bodies were later returned to their villages, after being cut open and sewed up. "There were rumors of a dramatic increase of young men disappearing, with ensuing nightly funerals of autopsied young men," he writes. Bostr?m himself witnessed the funeral of one Palestinian, whom he identifies as Bilal Achmed Ghanan, in the village of Imatin. Ghanan (or Ghanem, as he's identified in a reliable listing of Palestinian fatalities) was shot by Israeli soldiers and evacuated. When his body was returned for burial, Bostr?m photographed the sewn-up chest. In his1600-word article in Aftonbladet, Bostr?m has two sentences from an Israeli source, an army spokesperson who "claimed" that the allegations were false and that the Palestinians had simply undergone autopsies. Bostr?m dismisses that argument. (The Swedish article is here, an English translation from a Palestinian site here. A very precise Swede who checked the translation told me it's roughly accurate; my quotations include his corrections.) One would have to work hard to produce more biased reporting. The only actual connection between Rosenbaum's arrest and Bostr?m's allegations against Israel are that both involved Jews. Rosenbaum allegedly told clients that the kidneys were from Israelis, not for them. In 1992, the tail end of the first intifada, there was no "dramatic increase" in Palestinian fatalities. The numbers were up slightly from the year before, but far below the height of the uprising. In Bostr?m's article, the allegations of organ theft actually come from other Palestinians elsewhere in the occupied territories -- but not from Ghanem's family. Speaking to Israeli reporter Roni Shaked this week, family members said Ghanem was shot and died on the spot, making him an unlikely transplant source. The foundation of Bostr?m's story is Palestinian rumors, the coincidence that an Israeli donor-registration campaign took place while he was in the area, and a photo of a body on which an autopsy was performed. One might as well wander about Alabama interviewing people certain Barack Obama was born abroad, throw in a denial from the White House for "balance," and demand an investigation. And yet, only in a technical sense did the affair begin with Bostr?m's story. "No one even noticed the article -- which is, incidentally, anti-Semitic and absolutely untruthful -- when it was buried in the last pages of Aftonbladet," Lena Posner, leader of the Swedish Jewish community, later told the Israeli paper Ha'aretz. The diplomatic blowup and international attention actually came with the response of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. "This is an article that shames Swedish democracy and the entire Swedish press," said ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor, demanding that the Swedish government condemn the article. When Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt declined, citing his constitutional obligation to freedom of the press, his far-right Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, escalated the rhetoric. Stockholm's behavior, he declared, was "reminiscent of the stance of Sweden during World War II, when it also didn't intervene." Overnight, responsibility for an offensive article had expanded from a reporter and his editor to the entire Swedish press, to Sweden as a nation, which was failing to prevent Nazis from marching out of the pages of Aftonbladet and repeating the Holocaust. In a curious way, Lieberman's reaction reflected the same kind of thinking as Bostr?m's: For the writer, charges against a Jew in Brooklyn substantiated allegations against Israel; for the minister, an ignominious report in one newspaper rendered all Sweden guilty. At least among his natural audience, Lieberman's message resonated. An Internet petition demanding a boycott of Ikea and other Swedish companies, posted by a West Bank settler, had over 12,000 signatures by Tuesday. Meanwhile, Bostr?m was reportedly overwhelmed by interview requests from around the world. In Sweden, as local Jewish leader Posner commented, "the debate has changed from anti-Semitism to freedom of speech." Knowing how to respond to slander is never easy. The defamed party worries that silence will be taken as confirmation. In this case, though, saying nothing might have insured that Bostr?m's story quickly became fish wrap. If the Israeli government felt silence was untenable, it could have demanded a retraction from Aftonbladet or equal space for a response, or checked whether Swedish law allowed for a libel suit. A judgment against the paper by a Swedish court, as prominent Israeli legal commentator Moshe Negbi notes, "would help us much more than all the other steps, which have only hurt us." Domestically, Lieberman's response has a certain political logic. Over-the-top foreign condemnations of Israel boost support for defiant right-wing policies. The classic example is the U.N.'s 1975 "Zionism is racism" resolution, which set the stage for the Gush Emunim movement's first public success in expanding West Bank settlement. A newspaper article isn't a U.N. resolution, but Lieberman turned it into an affront by a government. Perhaps, though, it's a mistake to ascribe such calculations to Lieberman. Reflexively, it seems, he sees Israel as tottering on the edge of another Holocaust, and as he once told me in another context, "At the end of the day, we will be alone." Bostr?m merely reinforced his certainty. The lessons of the affair, I'd suggest, are these: Sometimes, some reports critical of Israel really are anti-Semitic. Nonetheless, hysterical responses replete with Holocaust references only increase the damage. At the least, they suggest that just because someone is out to get you, doesn't mean you aren't paranoi Gershom Gorenberg is a senior correspondent for The Prospect. He is the author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 and The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. He blogs at South Jerusalem. From epoliticus at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 16:51:36 2009 From: epoliticus at gmail.com (Politicus E.) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 18:51:36 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] BJP, CPM form alliance to win panchayat polls Message-ID: From shmage at pipeline.com Wed Sep 2 17:02:04 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 19:02:04 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatechers In-Reply-To: <4FC3AF966BDA4E9485C526355C4CB274@office1pc> References: <4FC3AF966BDA4E9485C526355C4CB274@office1pc> Message-ID: <14C62832-97A6-4A2D-9D93-CD35AFA215ED@pipeline.com> On Sep 2, 2009, at 6:31 PM, Fred Feldman wrote: > The following is a short article from the liberal US magazine American > Prospect by the liberal Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg... I am > highlighting the role that articles, available in full to all list > members, play in how I carry out a political discussion... > > "Bostr?m himself witnessed the funeral of one Palestinian, whom he > identifiesas Bilal Achmed Ghanan, in the village of Imatin. Ghanan > (or Ghanem, as he's identified in a reliable listing of Palestinian > fatalities) was shot byIsraeli soldiers and evacuated. When his body > was returned for burial, Bostr?m photographed the sewn-up > chest...The foundation of Bostr?m's story is... a photo of a body on > which an autopsy was [allegedly] performed... > ...Knowing how to respond to slander is never easy..." But this is a *lie*. If it is slander, the response is childishly easy: just exhume Ghanem's body and see if any organs are missing. The refusal of the occupation authorities to do this is presumptive evidence that the story is *not* a "blood libel" or other slanderous falsehood. 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 mqduck at mqduck.net Wed Sep 2 17:49:34 2009 From: mqduck at mqduck.net (Jeffrey Thomas Piercy) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:49:34 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] BJP, CPM form alliance to win panchayat polls In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A9F048E.10501@mqduck.net> For those of us who haven't memorized every acronym in every context under the sun, "BJP" stands for the Bharatiya Janata Party, a conservative, capitalist Hindu Nationalist party. The "CPM" is the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Politicus E. wrote: > >From the Times of India (29 August 2009): > > "BURDWAN: Arch rivals BJP and CPM on Friday formed an alliance to win > a gram panchayat election in Burdwan > district. > > "BJP leader Mala Dhara was made the chief of Purbasthali II gram > panchayat as the 'Jatiya Ganashakti Morcha', an alliance between BJP > and CPM, won ten out of 13 seats by defeating Trinamool Congress in > the trust vote. > > "With seven seats, Trinamool was earlier ruling the panchayat. > > "BJP MLA Swapan Debnath, however, described CPM as an "opportunist" > party and said the alliance was "made to honour people's > expectations"." > > SOURCE: > http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/BJP-CPM-form-alliance-to-win-panchayat-polls/articleshow/4946669.cms > > ________________________________________________ > 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/mqduck%40mqduck.net > > > From suarsos at alphalink.com.au Wed Sep 2 18:22:22 2009 From: suarsos at alphalink.com.au (Tom O'Lincoln) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 10:22:22 +1000 Subject: [Marxism] Max Lane's critique of Indonesian leftists Message-ID: <9635C2DB5F294A5C9626E281F24AF6A6@gx270> Nick, a belated thanks for your reply, which provides some valuable context. Neither of us is in a position to debate these issues in detail, but I'll make the following general comments. 1. I doubt if the PKI's uncritical support for Sukarno was a tactical question. I can understand there could be an argument for critical support of a nationalist leader, but even then it would be a *strategic uestion* -- and a pretty big one given the eventual horrific destruction of the PKI. 2. Anyway Prabowo ain't Sukarno, he's a very ugly character. Looking at the candidates in the elections, I really can't see any basis to distinguish. 3. Which is not to say I'm for a "boycott". This implies that the far left has the capability to make such a thing happen, which would be just as big an illusion as imagining it could have an electoral impact via Papernas or the PBR. Whatever the left does, it should reflect its real level of strength. From pbond at mail.ngo.za Wed Sep 2 18:30:12 2009 From: pbond at mail.ngo.za (Patrick Bond) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:30:12 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] Econ Rebounding? In-Reply-To: <55868ddf0909021159g69c3e02asf6825d314fbbe451@mail.gmail.com> References: <55868ddf0909021159g69c3e02asf6825d314fbbe451@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A9F0E14.9040101@mail.ngo.za> brad bauerly wrote: > ...so how is > this still a crisis for capitalism? ... I would be > interested in hearing others opinions on this as well and I think this a > very necessary and important discussion. > As I understand it, we've had a massive devaluation of financial capital over the past year, with roughly half the overaccumulated finance in world stock markets devalued down to the trough point in March. There was a major upturn in some markets after that, but the underlying problem - overaccumulated capital in the world economy's real sectors - is only now being devalorised. In South Africa this year, that's meant a third decline in the output of steel, autos, aluminum, etc, for both internal and export markets. But plenty more to shake out. The 'crisis of capitalism' continues insofar as the devalorisation required to clear all that economic deadwood is still in process. In SA, the working class is beginning to intervene against this - both in policy advocacy (for industrial protection, lower interest rates, exchange controls, etc) and in localised protests against the worst impacts, e.g. disconnections of water and electricity or other signs of municipal degradation. But even with some of the world's great working-class and poor people's movements (e.g. capable of busting Big Pharma's monopoly patents on AIDS medicines), the overall message I get is that class struggle is way too weak to consider this a crisis of capitalism 'from below'. It's still raining down on us 'from above', due to internal laws of motion and contradictions in the accumulation process... From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Wed Sep 2 20:01:03 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] ReL Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatechers, Message-ID: Concerning the claim that Israel has been harvesting organs from Palestinian bodies, Shane Mage wrote: But this is a *lie*. If it is slander, the response is childishly easy: just exhume Ghanem's body and see if any organs are missing. The refusal of the occupation authorities to do this is presumptive evidence that the story is *not* a "blood libel" or other slanderous falsehood. Fred comments: This is airtight logic if you accept Mage's premise that any charge that is not disproven by direct physical evidence must be presumed to be true. A claim that would be just as legitimate or illegitimate if the rumors were claiming that the Jews had sacrificed Ghanem and drained his blood for use in, say, Rosh Hashana or post-Yom Kippur meal ceremonies. (It is a little late or early for Passover, of course.) The assumption is that no one who makes a claim against Israel has any burden of proof at all, while every negative must be established as fact. Remember this is a rumor. No Palestinian political or religious authority has charged Israel with harvesting Ghanem's organs. His parents don't think so, or at least indicate that. THIS IS A RUMOR. Do the Israelis control his body? Where is he buried? Would they have to violate the already feeble "sovereignty" of the West Bank to exhume him? Would his family accede to exhuming him, since they don't buy the rumor? And let's remember that for the Israeli rulers, exhuming Ghanem's body would be a vivid reminder that they MURDERED him, which is a fact regardless of what, if anything untoward, happened to his body afterward. Why should they bother to exhume his body, when this would only redirect attention to their real crimes rather than to gossip which serves their purposes, both in portraying the Israelis as victims of the Palestinians and inspiring fears in the Palestinians about what crimes they are capable of, which are a lot? As a basis for accepting the rumor as fact, Mage's "logical" argument has no weight whatever. From pt_costello at yahoo.com Wed Sep 2 20:14:43 2009 From: pt_costello at yahoo.com (Pat Costello) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 19:14:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism] Family of Israeli organ theft victim wants probe Message-ID: <400609.65871.qm@web63106.mail.re1.yahoo.com> http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=105140§ionid=351020202 Family of organ-theft victim wants probe Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:07:11 GMT The family of a Palestinian at the center of the organ-theft story in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet has called for a probe into the death of their son. The family of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem--the 19-year-old Palestinian killed by Israeli soldiers in1992- called on legal and human rights groups to form an independent inquiry panel to investigate the killing of their son and his missing internal organs, Xinhua reported on Wednesday. The Ghanem family, from the village of Immatin in the district area of Nablus in northern West Bank, said Israeli soldiers abducted the body of their son after shooting him in the heart and handed it over without internal organs. The call was made after Aftonbladet published the article They plunder the organs of our sons, accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs from wounded or killed Palestinians. The author of the article Donald Bostrom said he had witnessed the Israeli raid into Ghanem's village during which the soldiers shot him at the gate of his home. Bostrom said the Israelis abducted Ghanem's body and returned it a week later with an incision from his neck to his stomach suggesting his organs had been taken. The article sparked outrage among Israeli officials who termed it as "groundless," "outrageous" and "anti-Semitic." Palestinian lawmaker Najat Abu Baker, who visited Ghanem's house on Wednesday, said the family will do whatever that is needed for the investigation, including "reopening the grave and taking samples in order to prove the truth." "The Israeli army is stealing the bodies of Palestinians killed by its soldiers, and then after one day or two, they bring the bodies back to their families without organs," said Abu Baker. "What Israel is doing is against humanity," she said. From shmage at pipeline.com Wed Sep 2 21:15:12 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 23:15:12 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] ReL Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatechers, In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4208B46E-9756-4603-9299-AF12E12C405C@pipeline.com> On Sep 2, 2009, at 10:01 PM, Fred Feldman wrote: > Concerning the claim that Israel has been harvesting organs from > Palestinian > bodies, Shane Mage wrote: > > But this is a *lie*. If it is slander, the response is childishly > easy: just exhume Ghanem's body and see if any organs are missing. > The refusal of the occupation authorities to do this is presumptive > evidence that the story is *not* a "blood libel" or other slanderous > falsehood. > > Fred comments: > This is airtight logic if you accept Mage's premise that any charge > that is > not disproven by direct physical evidence must be presumed to be true. The presumption--refutable--is established by the failure of the occupation authorities to provide direct physical evidence available to them. Fred adduces in their exculpation some supposed Zionist scruples about the family and Palestinian sovereignty. The murderers of Ghanem would feel no scruples about exposing his "autopsied" body to show that the organs are still there--if indeed they are. 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 Wed Sep 2 21:49:47 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:49:47 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Family of Israeli organ theft victim wants probe Message-ID: <8AD72C32A9A84660A5697483E3D6F304@office1pc> The tes Among other things, anti-Semitism has no better ally than the state of Israel.timony of Ghanem's family -- contradicting Goremberg's version -- shifts the burden of proof decisively. I never denied that the Israeli regikmr might be doing this. It will be good if this story -- which seems to have been a positive for the Israeli regime until now -- blows up in their murdering faces. Among other crimes of the Israeli state, anti-Semitism has no better ally in the world. Fred Feldman From elishastephens at hotmail.com Wed Sep 2 22:13:35 2009 From: elishastephens at hotmail.com (Eli Stephens) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 21:13:35 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatechers Message-ID: Fred writes: "This provides factual counter-information to the article from Counterpunch which has been discussed by a number of comrades from the list, in which Alison Weir claimed, based on a Swedish article, that Israel is systematically harvesting the organs of Palestinian prisoners." This is doubly incorrect. First of all, Alison Weir's article was no doubt *triggered* by the Swedish article, but it is hardly "based on" it. It contains extensive material covering a wide range of aspects of the subject. Secondly, the claim that Weir "claims" that Israel is "systematically harvesting etc." is just a damn lie. Here is the final paragraph of her introduction to the article: "The fact is, however, that substantiated evidence of public and private organ trafficking and theft, and allegations of worse, have been widely reported for many years. Given such context, the Swedish charges become far more plausible than might otherwise be the case and suggest that an investigation could well turn up significant information." "Plausible". "Suggest that an investigation could well..." Hardly a "claim" of "systematic harvesting." What the article DOES claim is that Israelis (not "Israel") has been guilty of systematically engaging in black market operations to buy kidneys from people in poor countries. Finally, let's reproduce Weir's final paragraphs: "Just as in the case of the rampage against Jenin, the attack on the USS liberty, the massacre of Gaza, the crushing of Rachel Corrie, the torture of American citizens, and a multitude of other examples, Israel is using its considerable, worldwide resources to interfere with the investigative process. "It is difficult to conclude that it has nothing to hide." A rather clear statement. And hardly a "claim that Israel is systematically harvesting the organs of Palestinian prisoners." Just an article filled with strongly suggestive evidence that it is, indeed, plausible that they are. Eli Stephens Left I on the News http://lefti.blogspot.com _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online. http://windowslive.com/Campaign/SocialNetworking?ocid=PID23285::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_SB_online:082009 From jnorem at cox.net Wed Sep 2 22:33:36 2009 From: jnorem at cox.net (John E. Norem) Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:33:36 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Samir Amin: Political Islam in the service of Imperialism Message-ID: <4A9F4720.5020202@cox.net> *Political Islam in the Service of Imperialism* *By Samir Amin* All the currents that claim adherence to political Islam proclaim the "specificity of Islam." According to them, Islam knows nothing of the separation between politics and religion, something supposedly distinctive of Christianity. It would accomplish nothing to remind them, as I have done, that their remarks reproduce, almost word for word, what European reactionaries at the beginning of the nineteenth century (such as Bonald and de Maistre) said to condemn the rupture that the Enlightenment and the French Revolution had produced in the history of the Christian West! http://rethinkingislam-sultanshahin.blogspot.com/2009/09/political-islam-in-service-of.html From holmoff10 at hotmail.com Wed Sep 2 23:29:15 2009 From: holmoff10 at hotmail.com (Leonardo Kosloff) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 05:29:15 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Nestor wrote: ?No seas pelotudo Leonardo?--->approx. "don't be a jerk Leonardo", but depending on the tone it could be meant truly maliciously, why, it is what it is... Despacito Nestor? I made a claim: saying that the CCP uses capitalism to build socialism prima facie implies that there is a consciousness outside of capitalism, or for that matter, any mode of production, which may wield it to its will. That this has nothing to do with Marx is clear, but perhaps reading (sorry "re-reading" section 1.4, chapter 1: 'the fetishism of commodities') might help refresh. I?m unaware if this is the ultimate gist of your argument, since I haven?t yet seen anything to the contrary in your comments, that?s what I take your proposition to mean. If this is not the case, then you?re most welcome to stick to your own advice: 'lower the gears' and explain. For indeed, I am sure you would not want anyone to think that starting from this idealist inversion one ought to conclude that every process of capital accumulation which takes concrete shape in its nation-state form has, in essence, the power to span the general production of commodities by putting in action the productive capacity which corresponds to the valorization of capital, 'the' subject which begets the development of the forces of production (today). This belief immediately translates to the myth that if this or that national economy doesn't attain its "full development", that can only be due to a "deformity", some internal "perversion", the "failure" of economic policy, or the barriers imposed on it by other external national processes of accumulation. In short, it would translate to an <> because it cannot see that the full deployment of the global essence of the accumulation process is realized in the necessity of the concrete form of differentiated national spheres. This it is, since it ascribes the capitalist mode of production potentialities which it can never have. But, pray, what kind of "pelotudo" like me dares contest the theoretician's authority? The question remains though, if it be so easy to dismiss this argument as "pelotudez" why not then do it with full force?, after all, the public could surmise out of this that Nestor is dodging the question...and wouldn't that be pure blasphemy? _________________________________________________________________ Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB_BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1 From lueko.willms at t-online.de Thu Sep 3 02:03:19 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:03:19 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatechers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <100.b0ad010047789f4a.071@lws-media.de> Eli Stephens (elishastephens at hotmail.com) wrote on 2009-09-02 at 21:13:35 in about Re: [Marxism] Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatechers: > > > Secondly, the claim that Weir "claims" that Israel is "systematically harvesting etc." is just a damn lie. Here is the final paragraph of her introduction to the article: > > "The fact is, however, so Weir claims that there are facts > that substantiated evidence of public and private organ > trafficking and theft, substanciated by evidence > and allegations of worse, have been widely reported for many years. Cheers, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From versomail at verso.co.uk Thu Sep 3 03:45:00 2009 From: versomail at verso.co.uk (Verso Mail) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 10:45:00 +0100 Subject: [Marxism] NEW TITLE: THE FOOD WARS BY WALDEN BELLO Message-ID: NEW TITLE: THE FOOD WARS Walden Bello Published 7th September 2009 ------------------------------------------ "Walden Bello is the world's leading no nonsense revolutionary." - Naomi Klein "Walden Bello is the world's best guide to American exploitation of the globe's poor and defenceless." - Chalmers Johnson "The Food Wars is brilliant and urgently needed ... Walden Bello's ethically grounded argument for food sovereignty, deglobalisation and listening to what peasants have to say is essential reading." - Annette Desmarais, La Via Campesina "A comprehensive and timely corrective to agribusiness-as-usual scenarios for solving the food crisis ... His solutions are compelling and critical for planetary sustainability." - Philip McMichael, Cornell University Violent protests across the global South, in response to rocketing food prices from 2006 to 2008, highlighted an intrinsic flaw in the modern system of world trade - one that poses a serious threat to regional and international stability. In The Food Wars, Walden Bello traces the evolution of this crisis, examining its eruption in Mexico, Africa, the Philippines and China. Daring in vision and impassioned in tone, The Food Wars speaks out against the obscene imbalance in the most basic commodities between northern and southern hemispheres. ------------------------------------------ WALDEN BELLO is founding director of Focus on the Global South and Professor of Sociology and Public Administration at the University of the Philippines. He teaches at the State University of New York at Binghamton. ----------------------------------------------------------- Read the article in The Nation that inspired the book here: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080602/bello Read Foreign Policy In Focus' interview with Walden Bello on China here: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6127 Read the Monthy Review's review of The Food Wars here: http://www.monthlyreview.org/090706bello-baviera.php ISBN 978 1 84467 3315 ?7.99 / $14.95 / Paperback / 192 pages The Food Wars is available from all good bookshops and: http://www.versobooks.com/books/ab/b-titles/bello_walden_the_food_wars.shtml UK: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781844673315/The-Food-Wars http://www.amazon.co.uk/Food-Wars-Walden-Bello/dp/1844673316/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251901901&sr=1-1 US: http://www.amazon.com/Food-Wars-Walden-Bello/dp/1844673316 ---------------------------------------- Visit Verso's new blog for information on our upcoming events, new reviews and publications and special offers. http://versouk.wordpress.com/ And get updates on Twitter too! http://twitter.com/VersoBooksUK ---------------------------------------- From jayclinton88 at yahoo.ie Thu Sep 3 05:32:38 2009 From: jayclinton88 at yahoo.ie (Jay Clinton) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 11:32:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Marxism] Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatechers In-Reply-To: <100.b0ad010047789f4a.071@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <701575.9904.qm@web24711.mail.ird.yahoo.com> So then, does this article constitute 'blood libel' against Ukrainians?: Inside a Creepy Global Body Parts Businesshttp://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,645375,00.html Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From nmgoro at gmail.com Thu Sep 3 07:13:53 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:13:53 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Correction Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A9FC111.3010404@gmail.com> Leonardo Kosloff escribi?: > Nestor wrote: ?No seas pelotudo Leonardo?--->approx. "don't be a jerk Leonardo", but depending on the tone it could be meant truly maliciously, why, it is what it is... > > Despacito Nestor? > > > I made a claim: saying that the CCP uses capitalism to build socialism prima facie implies that Blah blah blah All right, I change my wording. Don?t be such an antidialectic ignorant, Leonardo. Won?t waste my time with you. From jccol at aceweb.com Wed Sep 2 22:13:45 2009 From: jccol at aceweb.com (jc) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 21:13:45 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Fw: March Forward! veterans oppose Afghanistan escalation Message-ID: PEP ----- Original Message ----- From: ANSWER Coalition To: jccol at aceweb.com Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 1:44 PM Subject: March Forward! veterans oppose Afghanistan escalation Subscribe Photo: Zoriah Dear jerry, October 7, 2009 marks the start of the ninth year of the invasion of Afghanistan. On that day, there will be anti-war actions in cities and towns throughout the country. There will also be anti-war actions on Monday, October 5, and Saturday, October 17. We encourage everyone to read and pass along to their friends the statement below, released yesterday by March Forward! Please make an urgently needed donation to help support the anti-war movement! March Forward! veterans speak out against Gen. McChrystal's report "All foreign forces should leave Afghanistan now!" March Forward! is a group of anti-war veterans affiliated with the ANSWER Coalition formed In January 2009 by veterans and active-duty service members who had been seasoned activists and leaders in the movement against the Iraq war. Their goal was to unite those who have served and who are currently serving in the U.S. military. March Forward! was created in response to the pressing issues facing veterans and service members: the forced participation in these horrible imperialist wars, as well as economic hardship, inadequate care, and a lack of access to resources before, during and after military service, with the view that only grassroots organizing and a mass people's movement can solve these problems. March Forward! will be organizing against the war in Afghanistan, encouraging troops to refuse to fight, and building the struggle against all manifestations of the U.S. war machine. The war in Afghanistan, like the one we were sent to fight in Iraq, is based on lies and false rationales. Instead of expanding the war, all foreign troops should leave Afghanistan immediately. March Forward! supporter Ron Kovic eloquently stated: "As a United States Marine Corps Sergeant who served two tours of duty in Vietnam, and was shot and paralyzed from my mid-chest down in 1968, I strongly disagree with General McChrystal. The war in Afghanistan is a huge mistake, another Vietnam disaster in the making. I want to encourage every member of our military, every veteran, and citizen, to raise your voices against this war, to protest, to demonstrate, to do all that you can before more lives are lost." Gen. Stanley McChrystal, top commander of the Afghanistan war, has submitted his assessment report to the president. The report is another case of official double-speak. McChrystal essentially admits that the previous eight-year strategy has been catastrophic and an abysmal failure. Yet he announced in a statement on Aug. 31 that "success is achievable and [the war] demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort." As a politician/salesman in uniform, Gen. McChrystal is selling the country a bill of goods. He asks us to genuflect before the war machine and "trust" the generals. Deciphering McChrystal's real message is important for every member of the armed forces. In short he is saying: all we have to do is be prepared to send several thousand more US servicemembers to their graves while they try to kill tens of thousands more Afghans and then, or perhaps then, the US will have established a stable puppet government in Kabul. It's worth remembering Gen. McChrystal stated in April 2003 in a nationally televised Pentagon briefing on the operations in Iraq, "I would anticipate that the major combat engagements are over." The general is either a professional pitchman or a professional liar, or both. To read the full March Forward! statement, click here. We encourage veterans and active duty service members to join March Forward! and become a part of the anti-war movement. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition http://www.answercoalition.org/ info at internationalanswer.org National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389 New York City: 212-694-8720 Los Angeles: 213-251-1025 San Francisco: 415-821-6545 Chicago: 773-463-0311 Click here to unsubscribe from the ANSWER e-mail list. If this message was forwared to you and you'd like to receive future ANSWER updates, Click here to subscribe. From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Sep 3 07:24:40 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:24:40 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] More on Bush's third term Message-ID: <4A9FC398.60303@panix.com> NY Times, September 3, 2009 G.O.P. Support May Be Vital to Obama on Afghan War By HELENE COOPER WASHINGTON ? As President Obama prepares to decide whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan, the political climate appears increasingly challenging for him, leaving him in the awkward position of relying on the Republican Party, and not his own, for support. The simple political narrative of the Afghanistan war ? that this was the good war, in which the United States would hunt down the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks ? has faded over time, with popular support ebbing, American casualties rising and confidence in the Afghan government declining. In addition, Afghanistan?s disputed election, and the attendant fraud charges that have been lodged against President Hamid Karzai, are contributing further to the erosion of public support. A CBS News poll released on Tuesday reports that 41 percent of those polled wanted troop levels in Afghanistan decreased, compared with 33 percent in April. Far fewer people ? 25 percent ? wanted troop levels increased, compared with 39 percent in April. And Mr. Obama?s approval rating for his handling of Afghanistan has dropped eight points since April, to 48 percent. Congressional Democrats, particularly those on the left, report increasing disenchantment among constituents with the idea of a long and possibly escalating conflict in Afghanistan, especially as the American strategy comes to resemble a long-term nation-building approach rather than a counterterrorism operation. ?I and the American people cannot tolerate more troops without some commitment about when this perceived occupation will end,? Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said Wednesday in an interview. He said he had been to 60 town hall meetings in his state so far this year. During the first half of the year, he said, there were no comments about Afghanistan or Iraq. But in the past two months, that has changed, with more people focused on troop losses in Afghanistan. Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations and history at Boston University, said, ?There was a time, back in 2003 and 2004, when it was possible to drum up popular support for the war by attaching to the argument claims that the United States of America was eliminating evil and advancing democracy and women?s rights. ?But this is many years later, with the economy in shambles, 5,000 American soldiers dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those notions are no longer as compelling as they might have been. War exhaustion sets in,? said Professor Bacevich, author of ?The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.? Even one strain of conservative thinking has turned negative on the war. The syndicated columnist George F. Will wrote in a column published Tuesday that the United States should substantially reduce its presence in Afghanistan. But despite Mr. Will?s argument, national security hawks in the Republican Party ? not Mr. Obama?s most natural support base ? still back the president on Afghanistan. ?So far, to their credit, they?ve either remained silent or they?ve been supportive, guys like McCain and Graham,? said Matt Bennett, vice president of Third Way, a moderately left-wing think tank, referring to Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both Republicans. At the moment, Mr. Obama appears to still have the support of Democratic leaders in the Senate and the House, including Senator Harry Reid of Nevada and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California. Representative Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, indicated on Wednesday that he was not ready to jump ship. But he was not sounding a ringing endorsement, either. ?I was O.K. with the president?s efforts and goals in Afghanistan,? he said in a phone interview. ?At the same time, I?m open to hearing whether those are achievable, and as we debate that, we also need to think about what are the costs of reversing course.? But it was the Republican National Committee, and not the Democrats, that was sounding more solidly behind the president on Afghanistan. After Mr. Will?s abdication on Tuesday, the Republican National Committee quickly sent out an e-mail message and posted a statement, ?Stand Strong, Mr. President,? on its Web site to take issue with the conservative columnist. ?We agree with President Obama that ?we have to win? in Afghanistan and make sure that our commanders on the ground have the troops and resources they need,? the committee chairman, Michael Steele, said in the statement. He urged Mr. Obama to ?stand strong and speak out for why we are fighting there,? adding that Mr. Obama has said too little so far ?about why the voices of defeat are wrong.? Similarly, Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, said he would continue to back Mr. Obama ?as long as we?re making progress.? Senator Graham, for his part, was in Afghanistan last week, putting in a stint as Colonel Graham as he served out his Air Force Reserves duty rotation. He met with military officials and soldiers, and talked to Obama administration officials in Kabul, the capital, as well, and is supporting Mr. Obama?s Afghanistan strategy. Afghanistan, Mr. Graham said Tuesday in an interview, ?is where 9/11 was planned and executed. ?This is not Vietnam.? He said he would support a push for more troops in Afghanistan, but added that Mr. Obama would have to make a public case for it to convince wavering people on both the right and the left. ?The president needs to be more aggressive about taking ownership of this strategy, and reinforcing to this country the consequences of Afghanistan being lost and becoming a safe haven for Al Qaeda,? Mr. Graham said. The debate over Afghanistan will play out in the coming weeks, as the military decides whether to ask for more troops; commanders in Afghanistan have already said their forces are insufficient to get the job done. Mr. Obama himself must decide whether to make a more public push for a deeper United States commitment. Administration officials say privately that they believe that they have 12 months to show significant progress in Afghanistan before they totally lose public support. One danger for Mr. Obama is that he may be forced to abandon his own party on Afghanistan for the right, which could put him in a perilous position if Republicans at any point decide they do not want to support a Democratic president on the issue. ?Some people on the right think Afghanistan is hopeless, some people think this is Obama?s war and want to do to Obama the same thing the left did to Bush with Iraq,? Mr. Graham said. From sartesian at earthlink.net Thu Sep 3 07:31:16 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 09:31:16 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Correction Re: China's high speed rail plans References: <4A9FC111.3010404@gmail.com> Message-ID: That seems rather churlish of you Nestor. The comrade has simply pointed out that "thinking" or arguing that socialism, that revolutionists can "use capitalism" to build socialism is, at best, rank idealism. In the concrete world, such fantasies are never at their best, but always at their worst, and lead to destruction and debasement of the real prospects for social revolution. Maybe comrade Leonardo's language is a little opaque, but it's certainly worth grappling with to get to its extremely practical core. Opium Wars, and British preservation of the Portuguese monarchy by transporting it to Brazil to the contrary not withstanding, Leonardo has handed us a real issue in the so-called national development of China, or Vietnam, or Brazil. Engage or evade the issue as you wish, but that decision is your responsibility and not Leonardo's. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nestor Gorojovsky" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 9:13 AM Subject: [Marxism] Correction Re: China's high speed rail plans From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Sep 3 07:34:34 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:34:34 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Noam Chomsky on crisis and hope Message-ID: <4A9FC5EA.6030404@panix.com> Boston Review SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2009 Crisis and Hope Theirs and ours by Noam Chomsky Perhaps I may begin with a few words about the title. There is too much nuance and variety to make such sharp distinctions as theirs-and-ours, them-and-us. And neither I nor anyone can presume to speak for ?us.? But I will pretend it is possible. There is also a problem with the term ?crisis.? Which one? There are numerous very severe crises, interwoven in ways that preclude any clear separation. But again I will pretend otherwise, for simplicity. One way to enter this morass is offered by the June 11 issue of the New York Review of Books. The front-cover headline reads ?How to Deal With the Crisis?; the issue features a symposium of specialists on how to do so. It is very much worth reading, but with attention to the definite article. For the West the phrase ?the crisis? has a clear enough meaning: the financial crisis that hit the rich countries with great impact, and is therefore of supreme importance. But even for the rich and privileged that is by no means the only crisis, nor even the most severe. And others see the world quite differently. For example, in the October 26, 2008 edition of the Bangladeshi newspaper The New Nation, we read: It?s very telling that trillions have already been spent to patch up leading world financial institutions, while out of the comparatively small sum of $12.3 billion pledged in Rome earlier this year, to offset the food crisis, only $1 billion has been delivered. The hope that at least extreme poverty can be eradicated by the end of 2015, as stipulated in the UN?s Millennium Development Goals, seems as unrealistic as ever, not due to lack of resources but a lack of true concern for the world?s poor. The article goes on to predict that World Food Day in October 2009 ?will bring . . . devastating news about the plight of the world?s poor . . . which is likely to remain that: mere ?news? that requires little action, if any at all.? Western leaders seem determined to fulfill these grim predictions. On June 11 the Financial Times reported, ?the United Nations? World Food Programme is cutting food aid rations and shutting down some operations as donor countries that face a fiscal crunch at home slash contributions to its funding.? Victims include Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, and others. The sharp budget cut comes as the toll of hunger passes a billion?with over one hundred million added in the past six months?while food prices rise, and remittances decline as a result of the economic crisis in the West. As The New Nation anticipated, the ?devastating news? released by the World Food Programme barely even reached the level of ?mere ?news.?? In The New York Times, the WFP report of the reduction in the meager Western efforts to deal with this growing ?human catastrophe? merited 150 words on page ten under ?World Briefing.? That is not in the least unusual. The United Nations also released an estimate that desertification is endangering the lives of up to a billion people, while announcing World Desertification Day. Its goal, according to the Nigerian newspaper THISDAY, is ?to combat desertification and drought worldwide by promoting public awareness and the implementation of conventions dealing with desertification in member countries.? The effort to raise public awareness passed without mention in the national U.S. press. Such neglect is all too common. It may be instructive to recall that when they landed in what today is Bangladesh, the British invaders were stunned by its wealth and splendor. It was soon on its way to becoming the very symbol of misery, and not by an act of God. full: http://bostonreview.net/BR34.5/chomsky.php From sabocat59 at gmail.com Thu Sep 3 07:38:59 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 09:38:59 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Low-Wage Workers Are Often Cheated, Study Says Message-ID: <6e42edf00909030638p5e1dc120q9ffc7b0f8ecdb1f4@mail.gmail.com> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/us/02wage.html?_r=1&th&emc=th The original report in full: http://tinyurl.com/l22cly Low-Wage Workers Are Often Cheated, Study Says By STEVEN GREENHOUSE Published: September 1, 2009 Low-wage workers are routinely denied proper overtime pay and are often paid less than the minimum wage, according to a new study based on a survey of workers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Skip to next paragraph Multimedia Less Than the MinimumGraphic Less Than the Minimum The study, the most comprehensive examination of wage-law violations in a decade, also found that 68 percent of the workers interviewed had experienced at least one pay-related violation in the previous work week. ?We were all surprised by the high prevalence rate,? said Ruth Milkman, one of the study?s authors and a sociology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the City University of New York. The study, to be released on Wednesday, was financed by the Ford, Joyce, Haynes and Russell Sage Foundations. In surveying 4,387 workers in various low-wage industries, including apparel manufacturing, child care and discount retailing, the researchers found that the typical worker had lost $51 the previous week through wage violations, out of average weekly earnings of $339. That translates into a 15 percent loss in pay. The researchers said one of the most surprising findings was how successful low-wage employers were in pressuring workers not to file for workers? compensation. Only 8 percent of those who suffered serious injuries on the job filed for compensation to pay for medical care and missed days at work stemming from those injuries. ?The conventional wisdom has been that to the extent there were violations, it was confined to a few rogue employers or to especially disadvantaged workers, like undocumented immigrants,? said Nik Theodore, an author of the study and a professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois, Chicago. ?What our study shows is that this is a widespread phenomenon across the low-wage labor market in the United States.? According to the study, 39 percent of those surveyed were illegal immigrants, 31 percent legal immigrants and 30 percent native-born Americans. The study found that 26 percent of the workers had been paid less than the minimum wage the week before being surveyed and that one in seven had worked off the clock the previous week. In addition, 76 percent of those who had worked overtime the week before were not paid their proper overtime, the researchers found. The new study, ?Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers,? was conducted in the first half of 2008, before the brunt of the recession hit. The median wage of the workers surveyed was $8.02 an hour ? supervisors were not surveyed ? with more than three-quarters of those interviewed earning less than $10 an hour. When the survey was conducted, the minimum wage was $7.15 in New York State, $7.50 in Illinois and $8 in California. Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis responded to the report with an e-mail statement, saying, ?There is no excuse for the disregard of federal labor standards ? especially those designed to protect the neediest among us.? Ms. Solis said she was in the process of hiring 250 more wage-and-hour investigators. ?Today?s report clearly shows we still have a major task before us,? she said. The study?s authors noted that many low-wage employers comply with wage and labor laws. The National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small-business owners, said it encouraged members ?to stay in compliance with state and federal labor laws.? But many small businesses say they are forced to violate wage laws to remain competitive. The study found that women were far more likely to suffer minimum wage violations than men, with the highest prevalence among women who were illegal immigrants. Among American-born workers, African-Americans had a violation rate nearly triple that for whites. ?These practices are not just morally reprehensible, but they?re bad for the economy,? said Annette Bernhardt, an author of the study and policy co-director of the National Employment Law Project. ?When unscrupulous employers break the law, they?re robbing families of money to put food on the table, they?re robbing communities of spending power and they?re robbing governments of vital tax revenues.? When the Russell Sage Foundation announced a grant to help finance the survey, it said that low-wage workers were ?hard to find? for interviews and that ?government compliance surveys shy away from the difficult task of measuring workplace practices beyond the standard wage, benefits and hours questions.? The report found that 57 percent of workers sampled had not received mandatory pay documents the previous week, which are intended to help make sure pay is legal and accurate. Of workers who receive tips, 12 percent said their employer had stolen some of the tips. One in five workers reported having lodged a complaint about wages to their employer or trying to form a union in the previous year, and 43 percent of them said they had experienced some form of illegal retaliation, like firing or suspension, the study said. In instances when workers? compensation should have been used, the study found, one third of workers injured on the job paid the bills for treatment out of their own pocket and 22 percent used their health insurance. Workers? compensation insurance paid medical expenses for only 6 percent of the injured workers surveyed, the researchers found. From lueko.willms at t-online.de Thu Sep 3 07:41:08 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:41:08 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> S. Artesian (sartesian at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-02 at 10:24:47 in about Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans: > > > So here we have LW's reasons to be cheerful. The Chinese nation is being > strengthened, it is recovering from the Japanese invasion. It is throwing > off the legacy of imperialist domination. And how is it doing this? Did > China do these things in the period 1949-1979, when it was considered the > beacon for world revolution? No and so on, and so on. After this rant of yours, I have a question: what do you think of Pol Pot and the socalled "Khmer Rouge"? Wouldn't that suit your rrrrrrevolutionary thoughts (if I may call it so)? You know, I had before asked you, what a workers and farmers government in Beijing should do in your opinion. It seems to me from your rants that they should do certainly _not_ build up the infrastructure, and especially no railways. Yours, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Sep 3 07:49:25 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:49:25 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] [Fwd: Israeli Left Archive Up and Running] Message-ID: <4A9FC965.9040800@panix.com> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Israeli Left Archive Up and Running Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 15:40:00 +0300 From: Reuven Kaminer To: reuven.kaminer at gmail.com (Please ignore if irrelevant) To Whom it May Concern Dear friends, Re: www.israeli-left-archive.org The site has been transferred permanently to the distinguished International Institute of Social History in the Netherlands. The address remains unchanged but access and response time will be qualitatively improved. Since the site has been down for a while, please help us inform anyone interested in the history of the radical left in Israel that the site is up and running! ??? ???????? ???? ?????? ?????, ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ?????: ????? ?????????? ????????? ?????? ??????. ??? ????? ??????: WWW.ISRAELI-LEFT-ARCHIVE.ORG ?? ????? ????? ???? ????? ????? ?????. ???? ????? ?? ??? ???? ??????? ???????? ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ??? ????? ???????? ????????? ?? ????? ???????? ??????? ?? ???? ?? ???? ?????! -- Reuven Kaminer POBox 9013 Jerusalem 91090 Israel 972 2 6414632 From nmgoro at gmail.com Thu Sep 3 08:45:33 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:45:33 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Yes, I am maleducado from time to time Re: Correction Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: <4A9FC111.3010404@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A9FD68D.40004@gmail.com> "Churlish" translates as "maleducado" to Spanish. "Uncivil" may be a synonim. Thank you, S. Artesian. Honest. On to what really matters. Once I understood what "churlish" meant, I said to myself "Yes, I admit it. I am uncivil with the antidialectic approach of those who think of "revolutionists" in abstract. I don?t waste time with them". As time goes by, I begin to have a sense of urgency due to the limits of human life. I think the process is known as "growing up", or "aging" if you please. On the other hand, I have never advocated such a senseless position as Leonardo atttributes to me. But allow me to answer you, S. Artesian, not Leonardo: the "issue Leonardo hands us" can?t be discussed in abstraction of imperialism of all kinds, at any time. I mean, if we are Marxists, that is dialectical materialists, of course. It is a historical and political issue, it is the issue of how to conform a national front, how to lead it towards a socialist goal, and how to keep yourself marching towards socialism while fulfilling the tasks your bourgeoisie did not accomplish and foreign, imperialist, bourgeoisies, don?t want you to accomplish. This is not just a debate on words, a debate not just on opium wars. This is a debate on concrete positions against the will of the Chinese to have their own independent standing in global (and thus their own, because "global" in the lips of an imperialist means "in your own house, but not in mine") affairs. Positions of the US imperialist bourgeoisie included. Anything else is, in my churlish opinion, as sterile as onanism. I am not against onanism as a matter of principle, but I prefer other forms of satisfaction. At the very least, they allow you to know other people. Real people. S. Artesian escribi?: > That seems rather churlish of you Nestor. The comrade has simply pointed > out that "thinking" or arguing that socialism, that revolutionists can "use > capitalism" to build socialism is, at best, rank idealism. In the concrete > world, such fantasies are never at their best, but always at their wo From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Sep 3 08:42:52 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:42:52 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Afghanistan Syndrome Message-ID: <4A9FD5EC.4080609@panix.com> Obama Is Leading the U.S. Into a Hellish Quagmire By Mark Ames, AlterNet Posted on September 3, 2009, Printed on September 3, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/142388/ America now has more military personnel in Afghanistan than the Red Army had at the peak of the Soviet invasion and occupation of that country. According to a Congressional Research Service report, as of March of this year, the U.S. had 52,000 uniformed personnel and another 68,000 contractors in Afghanistan -- a number that has likely grown given the blank check President Obama has written for what's now being called "Obama's War." That makes 120,000 American military personnel fighting in Afghanistan, a figure higher than the Soviet peak troop figure of 115,000 during their catastrophic 9-year war. Just this week, General McChrystal, whom Obama appointed to command American forces in Afghanistan, is talking ofsending tens of thousands more American troops. At the height of the Soviet occupation,Western intelligence experts estimated that the Soviets had 115,000 troops in Afghanistan -- but like America, the more troops and the longer the Soviets stayed, the more doomed their military mission became. We're also heading into the same casualty trap as the Soviets did. This summer has been the deadliest in the eight-year war for American troops. While the number of uniformed Americans killed in combat in Afghanistan may seem comparatively low -- just over 800, most of those since 2007 -- the Soviets also suffered relatively light casualties. Between December 1979 and February 1989, just 13,000 Soviets were killed in Afghanistan, a seemingly paltry figure when you compare it to the 20 million Soviets killed in World War Two, and the millions upon millions who died in the Civil War and Stalin's Terror. Unlike America, Russians have a reputation for tolerating appalling casualty figures -- and yet the war in Afghanistan destroyed the Soviet Empire. Which only proves that crude number comparisons explain nothing at all in warfare today, particularly when that war is an occupation of an alien environment like Afghanistan. Why hasn't anyone pointed out that America's troop commitment now exceeds the Red Army's? For some inexplicable reason the corporate media has decided to shuffle the figures and exclude the US military contractors from the total figure of US military personnel. It makes no logical sense -- we still count the Hessians among the British forces in the War of Independence. It's as if the only thing left that Americans are capable of is accounting fraud -- the only talent we perfected over the past decade was how to move all the bad numbers off the official books, as if it's become an instinctive reflex. But just as those accounting tricks didn't change all those banks' and funds' insolvency, so the American media's troop-counting tricks, in which contractors are "off books," can't make the disaster in Afghanistan disappear. We're already more deeply invested in our Afghanistan war than the Russians were, and as we head into our ninth year -- the magic number for when the Soviets pulled out and their empire collapsed -- President Obama is dragging the country deeper into that disaster. (Moreover, if you add in all the NATO personnel -- useless as they are as a "fighting" force -- the number of Western troops already far exceeds the number deployed in the Soviet Union's "unwinnable" war.) The Afghanistan War has somehow escaped most of America's attention. People just assumed that since Obama is a decent guy with a sharper mind than Bush's, he must know what he's doing in Afghanistan, and his intentions can't be bad -- so why bother paying attention, when we have all these other problems here at home? Besides, war isn't a fun topic anymore. Thanks to Bush and Cheney, any talk of war is a total bummer, whether you're from the right or the left. And Americans don't like bummers -- instead, America is always "moving on" from its bummers. Nothing bums Americans out more than losing wars, which helps explain why Afghanistan is the most we've-moved-on subject of our time. The problem is that you can't move on from something while it's still a problem -- but try telling that to a nation of delusionals. Remember how long after Vietnam it took for for Americans to "move on" and get their war appetite back on? It took a decade before we could talk about 'Nam again, and that probably would have gone on longer if it wasn't for the kick-ass performance by Robert Duvall as Col Kilgore stirring a new generation's blood lust. (For a taste of just how cinematic this budding tragedy could be,< a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/10/in_afghanistan_with_the_isaf.html">click here to check out these amazing photos.) We suffered then from "Vietnam Syndrome," which was a strange way of assigning a mental illness to a totally rational aversion to invading far-away countries. This time it's going to be even worse, though: given our 0-2 war record this decade, and the shameful way that America's pseudo-imperialists snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq and Afghanistan, like a nation of Bill Buckners, it's no wonder no one here wants to talk about Afghanistan. Since we've already long ago "moved on" from Afghanistan, it means that our agony of defeat there will be far more painful than anything we've experienced before. The most frustrating thing is how obvious this catastrophe is: Obama is leading America into a predictable sequel of superpower-loses-in-hellish-Third-World-quagmire: he's doubling down troops in a war fewer people understand, a war that's growingincreasingly unpopularas the casualty count accelerates; investing more into a corrupt regime which just stole elections in a way that would make the hardliners in neighboring Iran blush; suicide bombers are beingdirected by the Afghan defense department to blow up American journalists, leading to a dusty version of the ol' "who's in charge here?" "I thought you were"; and now, the American right wing -- the only thing that approximates a real opposition this country -- is having a collective Walter Cronkite moment, withGeorge Will of all people leading the call for the West to pull its forces out now in order to limit the defeat's damage. George fucking Will as the conscience of our nation?! This must be what Marx meant by tragedy turning to farce. And through it all, the Russians must beenjoying America's decline more than anyone, after all the gloating we did over their downfall: in our two nations' ongoing Tom & Jerry Show, America's looming defeat is shaping up to be Russia's revenge on America's revenge for what Russia did to America in Vietnam. Which reminds me of an interview a couple of years ago I did with a former top Soviet advisor to the puppet Afghan government's General Staff, Pyotr Goncharov. I was still in Moscow then, and I was working on a story to counter the then-popular neocon meme that Iraq wasn't really the disastrous war that its critics said it was because after all, "only" 4,000 Americans died there. A lot of Russian nationalists still argue that they could have won the war in Afghanistan and that it wasn't going so badly, given the low body count--and yet the empire collapsed there. I was curious why even a police state like the Soviet Union collapsed, and what lesson America could learn from that. And this is where it got strange, because the first thing Goncharov said to me when I met him was, "I just want to say to you that what the Americans are doing in Afghanistan is perfect. You're doing everything right that we did wrong over there. You're not making any of our mistakes, and with my experience there, I can only commend you." Goncharov told me he was the top Soviet advisor to the Afghan regime's joint chiefs of staff from 1986-9, the year of the pullout, and today he is a leading military analyst on Afghanistan issues for state RIA-Novosti. He wasn't interested in my line of questioning about why low body counts are so devastating to superpowers -- instead, all he wanted to talk about was what a great man John McCain is. "Everything he proposes for the war in Afghanistan is exactly right. He really knows what he's talking about," Goncharov said. Then his otherwise cheerful face took on a confused almost dour expression: "But I have to ask: is it really possible that Americans will elect Barack Obama? Because this would be a disaster for the world. If Obama is president and he withdraws from Afghanistan, the whole world will pay, much worse than we all paid after the Soviet pullout. It can't really be possible that Obama will win, could it? I can't believe America would do that." Now we know how it really turned out: Barack Obama won the presidency, but in terms of dealing with Bush's war legacy it may as well have been McCain. Because Obama's Afghanistan War policy is indistinguishable from McCain's, which is why McCain has nothing but good things to say about Obama's conduct of the war. I always wondered after that interview with Goncharov what his reasoning was for supporting another Republican president, given the disaster America suffered under Bush: did he want America to get sucked into Afghanistan and collapse like his country did, out of vengeful spite? Or was Goncharov being sincere, as I think he was? My guess is that Goncharov really wanted McCain and genuinely liked him, because McCain was someone a military man like Goncharov could understand. And anyway, as intelligent and refined as Goncharov was, he proved what Obama is proving today: we never learn from our mistakes, as much as we pretend we do. Call it "Afghanistan Syndrome": Twenty years ago, Afghanistan was Russia's "Vietnam"; today, Afghanistan is becoming America's "Afghanistan." Obama is walking into this disaster like one of the doomed victims from the Scream series: everyone, including the protagonists, knows that it's going to be a disaster, everyone's seen the script so many times they can recite it from heart. And yet Obama's leading the nation into the trap all over again. And Obama can't even be compared to LBJ, who at least managed to give millions of Americans Medicare. What will Obama's legacy be? The PPIP program? Protecting AIG's bonuses? Read more of Mark Ames at eXiledonline.com. He is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond. From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Sep 3 08:45:21 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:45:21 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] [Fwd: re:Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatchers] Message-ID: <4A9FD681.2000708@panix.com> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: re:Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatchers Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 07:27:13 -0700 (PDT) From: sebastian tarazona To: lnp3 at panix.com Here is an interview and a debate from al-jazeera with Donald Bostr?m http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDBaod6B60c&feature=channel_page http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia-jEaymjIQ&feature=channel_page Notice that he in his article does'nt claim anything, he only reports the suspicions of about 20 palestinian families, whome he met in 1992, and who now have comfirmed what he reported they said to him at that time. He tried to get a prior version of the article published during that time but got turned down. Then he published one version in his book Inshallah from 2001, to witch nobody reacted. The current version i an opinion piece based on the families suspicions calling and arguing for theire right to an investigation, witch would really only amount to israel releasing the autopsy reports. here is the reliable translation of the article http://www.aftonbladet.se/kultur/article5691805.ab /sebastian t, malmo, sweden.. From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Sep 3 09:08:18 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:08:18 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Chomsky responds to Serbophobe Ian Williams Message-ID: <4A9FDBE2.6050309@panix.com> http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22503 From lueko.willms at t-online.de Wed Sep 2 23:57:36 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:57:36 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] The German Auto Bubble-WSJ In-Reply-To: <15EC1F7789E74EC296A55D400D282392@D4PKYZ41> References: <15EC1F7789E74EC296A55D400D282392@D4PKYZ41> Message-ID: <100.18d80500d05a9f4a.068@lws-media.de> johnaimani (johnaimani at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-02 at 13:29:51 in about [Marxism] The German Auto Bubble-WSJ: > > AUGUST 31, 2009 > Germans Debate Whether Car Trade-In Plan Will Backfire > By GEOFFREY T. SMITH > The car scrappage program, which subsidizes new car purchases on old trade-ins, was a model for similar plans adopted elsewhere, including the U.S. Actually, the model is France, where such programs were already implemented in the 1990ies, and the scrappage prime was increased from 300 Euro to 1000 Euro in late 2008. > "The German car market is good for roughly 3 million to 3.3 million cars a year. This year, we will probably sell 3.7 million, and our forecasts are for 2.7-2.8 million next year," said Ralf Landmann, a partner with Roland Berger. > [...] > Carsten Dreger, an economist with the DIW research institute in Berlin, contends that not only was the cash-for-clunkers plan increasing 2009 demand at the cost of 2010's, it is also cannibalizing potential demand for other consumer goods this year. The average age of the registered cars in Germany increased steadily from 6.2 years in 1988 (I don't find older numbers) to 8.2 at the end of 2008. There are a little more than 1 car per 2 inhabitants. The market is saturated: very few new buyers. The sales are mostly replacement of old cars. The scrappage scheme has given this replacement process a boost this year, strongly rejuvenating the car population in Germany. Of course, the replacement process will rather slow down after that, in absolute numbers, and the average age of the car fleet will grow again. > Germany's car makers have already laid off most of the 100,000 temporary workers they employed a year ago, according to a spokesman for the Federal Association for Temporary Work in Berlin. To clarify: they reduced the temporary (rented) workers in the last year. The car factories in Germany were hardly affected by the scrappage scheme, since mainly small and cheap cars were bought; those people who are rich enough to drive a big Mercedes, BMW, or Porsche, don't keep their cars for so lang that they could qualify for the scrappage scheme (minimum age of the scrapped car was 9 years) and for them the scrappage prime of 2'500 Euro would be lower than the sales value of the old car and too low for an incentive to buy a new one. The car factories in Germany were not very much affected by the scrappage scheme, since the cheaper models which sales were boosted by the scrappage scheme are mostly built in other countries. Negatively affected by the scrappage scheme are the independent workshops who live from the repairs of old cars. and the scrappage industry which had to rent additional storage space, was faced with heavily dropped prices for scrapped metal, and is forseeing a lower demand for used replacement car parts. Many of them were also hurt by having to destroy cars which were still in good shape and in many cases worth for a higher price on the used car market than the 2500 Euro scrappage prime. The export of such still usable cars to Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia was also heavily affected, since the law required the car to be really destroyed. Comradely yours, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From shmage at pipeline.com Thu Sep 3 09:30:35 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 11:30:35 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Afghanistan Syndrome In-Reply-To: <4A9FD5EC.4080609@panix.com> References: <4A9FD5EC.4080609@panix.com> Message-ID: <2071AFEB-0750-48E5-B84B-9D55912A0B05@pipeline.com> On Sep 3, 2009, at 10:42 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: > Obama Is Leading the U.S. Into a Hellish Quagmire > By Mark Ames, AlterNet > > America now has more military personnel in Afghanistan than the Red > Army > had at the peak of the Soviet invasion and occupation of that > country... I think this analogy is misleading. The Russian empire in Afghanistan confronted a fighting force organized, armed, and financed by the US empire with an impregnable rear sanctuary provided by the US's Pakistani satellite. And it had to do so with a thoroughly demoralized and inefficient military with nothing to fight for. But the US (not even counting its NATO auxiliaries) has the most deadly killing machine in the world there plus an equal number of highly (financially) motivated mercenaries. Plus a great deal to fight for-- multi-billion profits from the heroin trade and from the looting of the American taxpayer. Of course it's war is "unwinnable"--winning would mean the loss of everything it is really fighting for. When you've got the right war in the right place at the right time, as Obama says, you don't let it go so easily. 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 Thu Sep 3 09:40:35 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:40:35 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> Message-ID: Luko wrote: > S. Artesian (sartesian at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-02 at 10:24:47 in > about Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans: >> >> >> So here we have LW's reasons to be cheerful... [...] > You know, I had before asked you, what a workers and farmers > government in Beijing should do in your opinion. It seems to me from your > rants that they should do certainly _not_ build up the infrastructure, and > especially no railways. ====================================== I don't think this is at all what Artesian is saying. His workers and farmers government would certainly continue to build up infrastructure. The truly revolutionary changes such a government would introduce - the ones he has called for - would be to abruptly expel foreign capital and to stop financing the US trade deficit. These actions would bring the sputtering global economy to a crashing halt, but would also presumably precipitate worldwide revolutions. In other words, "the worse, the better". We can only speculate on this as the certain outcome, and that's all Artesian is doing. That's how I understand his position, and he can correct me if I'm misunderstanding it. From naskha3 at gmail.com Thu Sep 3 09:48:35 2009 From: naskha3 at gmail.com (Nasir Khan) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 17:48:35 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] Afghanistan looking more like Vietnam Message-ID: <18d70e600909030848t5081f7abted9fe9ebbca35cd7@mail.gmail.com> Afghanistan looking more like Vietnam Robert Scheer, SF Gate, September 3, 2009 True, he doesn?t seem a bit like Lyndon Johnson, but the way he?s headed on Afghanistan, Barack Obama is threatened with a quagmire that could bog down his presidency. LBJ also had a progressive agenda in mind, beginning with his war on poverty, but it was soon overwhelmed by the cost and divisiveness engendered by a meaningless, and seemingly endless, war in Vietnam. Meaningless is the right term for the Afghanistan war, too, because our bloody attempt to conquer this foreign land has nothing to do with its stated purpose of enhancing our national security. Just as the government of Vietnam was never a puppet of communist China or the Soviet Union, the Taliban is not a surrogate for al Qaeda. Involved in both instances was an American intrusion into a civil war whose passions and parameters we never fully have grasped and will always fail to control militarily. Continues >> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/02/EDE419HPL5.DTL From lueko.willms at t-online.de Thu Sep 3 09:55:05 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:55:05 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de> Marv Gandall (marvgandall at videotron.ca) wrote on 2009-09-03 at 11:40:35 in about Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans: > > > The truly revolutionary changes such a government would introduce - the ones > he has called for - would be to abruptly expel foreign capital and to stop > financing the US trade deficit. > > These actions would bring the sputtering global economy to a crashing halt, > but would also presumably precipitate worldwide revolutions. > > In other words, "the worse, the better". So, my question to you, too: what do you think about Pol Pot and his so-called "Khmer Rouge"? Do you think their strategy an example to follow? Yours, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Sep 3 10:03:41 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:03:41 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <4A9FE8DD.5070707@panix.com> Marv Gandall wrote: > The truly revolutionary changes such a government would introduce - the ones > he has called for - would be to abruptly expel foreign capital and to stop > financing the US trade deficit. > > These actions would bring the sputtering global economy to a crashing halt, > but would also presumably precipitate worldwide revolutions. > > In other words, "the worse, the better". TINA. From marvgandall at videotron.ca Thu Sep 3 10:24:38 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:24:38 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> Luko writes: Marv Gandall (marvgandall at videotron.ca) wrote on 2009-09-03 at 11:40:35 in about Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans: > > > The truly revolutionary changes such a government would introduce - the ones > he has called for - would be to abruptly expel foreign capital and to stop > financing the US trade deficit. > > These actions would bring the sputtering global economy to a crashing halt, > but would also presumably precipitate worldwide revolutions. > > In other words, "the worse, the better". So, my question to you, too: what do you think about Pol Pot and his so-called "Khmer Rouge"? Do you think their strategy an example to follow? ====================================== Of course not. And I think we could also agree that China's reverting to Maoist autarchy at this stage of it's historic development is also not the best course to follow, which is what Artesian seems in effect to be proposing. From elishastephens at hotmail.com Thu Sep 3 10:32:45 2009 From: elishastephens at hotmail.com (Eli Stephens) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 09:32:45 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatechers Message-ID: I believe (it wasn't 100% clear) that Luko was calling into question my statement that the claim that "Alison Weir claimed, based on a Swedish article, that Israel is systematically harvesting the organs of Palestinian prisoners" is a damn lie. Apparently he believes that "substantiated evidence of public and private organ trafficking and theft," evidence which Weir details in her article, is that same as "systematically harvesting the organs of Palestinian prisoners." It is not. Eli Stephens Left I on the News http://lefti.blogspot.com _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail? is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=PID23391::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HYGN_faster:082009 From marvgandall at videotron.ca Thu Sep 3 10:49:14 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <4A9FE8DD.5070707@panix.com> Message-ID: <17C1C7AB0AAA496F82B9B7520F263E2A@MARV> Louis writes: > Marv Gandall wrote: >> The truly revolutionary changes such a government would introduce - the >> ones >> he has called for - would be to abruptly expel foreign capital and to >> stop >> financing the US trade deficit. >> >> These actions would bring the sputtering global economy to a crashing >> halt, >> but would also presumably precipitate worldwide revolutions. >> >> In other words, "the worse, the better". > > TINA. ============================= There are many changes short of ending foreign direct investment and the accumulation of foreign currency reserves which the Chinese government could initiate or expand with respect to workers' and farmers' rights, social spending, official corruption, the environment, political rights, national minorities, etc. Demands with respect to all of these issues are being raised within China. There is no significant opposition to FDI or to the government's trade and currency policies. From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Sep 3 11:00:13 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:00:13 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Embedded with the Taliban Message-ID: <4A9FF61D.5080301@panix.com> Counterpunch, September 3, 2009 An Interview with Anand Gopal Embedded With the Taliban By RON JACOBS All of us are trying to make sense of the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, especially in the light of recent media reports telling of an even further escalation of the US involvement in those conflicts. Anand Gopal is a reporter based in Kabul who has reported from all parts of Afghanistan. He speaks the local language and often travels unembedded to the countryside to try to understand the perspective of Afghans. He was inspired to start covering Afghanistan after losing some friends in the 9-11 attacks. I heard Anand Gopal give a talk about Afghanistan earlier this summer (2009) and arranged to conduct an email exchange with him. Our exchange, while brief, provides a perspective sorely needed. Ron: I heard you speak about the US war in Afghanistan a couple months ago. You mentioned that you had "embedded" yourself with the Afghan Taliban. Could you tell us how you did so and, more importantly, what you observed? Anand: I have some well-placed Taliban contacts and I was offered a chance to come out and see how the insurgents really operate. Since there is so little about this in public domain, it seemed like an excellent opportunity. Passing from Kabul to the rural countryside where the Taliban holds sway was pretty illuminating: all traces of government presence vanish and instead the streets are filled with gun-toting insurgents. The Taliban rule through fear, but they also have a degree of support in the areas in which they exist. In some cases I saw locals coming up and offering them food or shelter. The insurgents, like most rural Afghans, were uneducated and not very worldly. However, they managed to develop a somewhat sophisticated analysis of the situation in Afghanistan. They felt that they were fighting to free their country from foreign oppression, and they felt that they were fighting to preserve their culture and values. We shouldn't read this to mean that they are heroic guerrillas or liberators of the Afghan people. They represent the values and outlook of rural Pashtun life, something that is not applicable to the rest of society, whether that be the urban population or non-Pashtun ethnic groups. This is why, for example, the Taliban has little support among these groups. Ron: Are the resistance forces getting stronger, like all the generals are saying? Would more US troops change anything in terms of their chances for victory? Anand: The insurgency is certainly getting stronger. The amount of area it controls grows yearly, and in the Pashtun areas it is much stronger than the Afghan government. This trend has occurred despite the yearly increase of troops in the country, so clearly just adding more troops is not enough to stem the insurgents' growing influence. Whenever new troops enter an area, the insurgents usually melt away or move to a neighboring area. It's very difficult to stamp out a guerrilla force by pure force of arms. Undercutting the growth of the insurgency would require bringing development, providing jobs and opportunities for social advancement to rural Pashtuns. It would also require bringing an honest and responsive government. Ron: Back in July, officials in DC said that the new commander of the occupying forces in Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal, will order all international forces in Afghanistan to stop starting fights with militants near the homes of Afghan civilians. The troops will still be allowed to return fire if they are ?in imminent danger,? but the preferred option will be to withdraw from the area. He also went on record stating that he would reduce the number of US air strikes. From your perspective and knowledge of the situation, has this really happened? Do you actually think this will occur in practice and, if so, will it make any difference in Afghan opinion regarding the presence of foreign troops? Anand: It's still too early to say what effect McChrystal's directives will have. The number of civilian casualties do appear to be down from last year, although its very difficult to say with certainly since many such cases are not reported. Moreover, the premise of the new strategic thinking from the U.S. military here is that there is a strict division between civilians and the insurgents. In fact, the dividing line is sometimes hard to draw. In many places where the insurgents operate, for example, they enjoy the active support and protection of the locals. How do you deal with such locals--as accomplices to the insurgents or civilians duped into supporting the guerrillas? It's one thing to draw this line on paper, but a completely different issue to do it in the heat of battle. For example, McChrystal's order to bar international forces from starting fights with militants near the homes of Afghan civilians would mean that very little fighting happens at all, since the Taliban (for example) are rooted in the villages and operate there. Moreover, McChrystal has made clear that the military component is only part of the strategy to turn things around here--equally if not more important is bringing good governance and economic opportunities. There has been no announcement of a plan to do this, nor is the military capable of doing it, so I suspect that the military will continue fall back on what it does best--fighting. On the same day that McChrystal announced his revamped counterinsurgency doctrine, U.S. forces raided a hospital, for example--a clear violation of international law and the new doctrine. Ron: Now, to Pakistan. What is going on in the Northwestern territory and other tribal areas? Anand: There has been a very perceptible shift in the last six months in Pakistan, starting this spring. The Pakistani Taliban was close to the height of its power then--they controlled large parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and significant swathes of the North West Frontier Province. But they seem to have overplayed their hand on two fronts. First, their rather brutal regime induced a popular backlash--many ordinary Pashtuns in these areas who initially supported the Taliban started to turn against them. Second, they moved close to the province of Punjab, which is the heart of Pakistan and the seat of the ruling establishment. While the Pakistani Taliban grew out of the radicalization surrounding the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, in recent years it turned its sights on the Pakistani state. By this year, things started to destabilize throughout the country, not just in the tribal areas. This induced a backlash by the Pakistani state, who dealt a swift defeat to Taliban forces in Bajaur agency and later moved into Swat and removed Taliban rule there. The series of setbacks for the Pakistani Taliban have continued into this summer. Their leader Baitullah Mehsud was recently killed by an American drone strike, and he was the glue holding together a very fractured movement. There are dozens of rival commanders, some at war with the Pakistani state, some at peace with Islamabad and at war with the Americans in Afghanistan, and some at war with each other. This has led to some disarray amongst the insurgent forces there, which very visibly affects the fight in Afghanistan. Last fall, for example, NATO and U.S. army supply routes (which comes through Pakistan and into Afghanistan) were in danger because the guerrillas kept attacking them. But this summer we've seen very few such attacks, which is a great boon to U.S. forces. Ron: Can you briefly describe what you see as the differences between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban? Do they coordinate activities at all? Is there shared leadership at any level that you know of? Anand: The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are distinct entities. The Pakistani Taliban is primarily at war with the Pakistani state, while the Afghan Taliban is entirely focused on fighting the Afghan state and the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Of course, the differences aren't entirely this clear cut--there are Pakistani Taliban commanders who don't fight against Islamabad and focus their energies solely in Afghanistan, for example. But overall the Pakistani Taliban has very little presence in Afghanistan, while the Afghan Taliban don't fight in Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban are products of the war-ravaged rural Afghan countryside. The Pakistani Taliban however are as much the product of the gross social and economic inequalities of the Pakistani tribal areas as they are of the events in Afghanistan. This means that the two movements have a very different character. The Pakistani Taliban tend to attack village chiefs and some landowners, creating an almost Robin Hood air about them--one of the reasons for their initial support amongst local populations--whereas the Afghan Taliban do nothing of the sort. The latter are allied with village chiefs and landlords. Moreover, the Pakistani Taliban are a product of the factious nature of tribal politics--the movement is delineated along tribal lines; often if two tribes are at war it means that the Taliban commanders from those tribes will be at war with each other as well. In Afghanistan, however, 30 years of warfare have eroded tribal structures in many parts of the country and we rarely see the Taliban caught up in tribal conflicts. The two movements are allies and do support each other when possible--for instance, Pakistani Taliban commanders run training camps and send suicide bombers into Afghanistan. But each group is mostly focused on the conflict in its own territory so this sort of coordination isn't substantial. Most of the Pakistani Taliban commanders have pledged fealty to Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban. But in practice, this means very little, since the Pakistani Taliban have complete operational and political independence. Ron: In the past couple years I have interviewed and communicated with members of the Labour Party of Pakistan--a left organization in Pakistan. Now, I know the Pakistani Left was decimated in the 1970s, but you mentioned in your talk that there is a left in Pakistan. Do you think they have the potential to influence Pakistani politics, given the corrupt and autocratic nature of the bourgeois politicians, the authoritarian military, and the influence of Islamist forces? Anand: The Left has shown that it has tremendous potential to influence Pakistani politics--the lawyers movement, which sought to reinstate sacked judges and defend the rule of law in the face of dictatorship--is a prominent example. One of the biggest challenges for the Pakistani left, however, is that its reach is limited in the tribal areas and the North West Frontier Province. This means that there are few credible alternatives for the millions of disillusioned and disaffected Pashtuns in those areas outside of traditional religious structures and extremist movements like the Taliban. And the burden that the Pakistani left bears is especially great considering the fact that there is essentially no left in Afghanistan. As many in the Pakistani left will tell you, a fundamentally transformative solution to the problems in Afghanistan cannot occur without a concomitant push to solve the problems of Pakistan. Ron: Thanks, Anand. I have a feeling we will be communicating with each other again about this subject. Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625 at charter.net From lueko.willms at t-online.de Thu Sep 3 08:49:06 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:49:06 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] Afghanistan Syndrome In-Reply-To: <4A9FD5EC.4080609@panix.com> References: <4A9FD5EC.4080609@panix.com> Message-ID: <100.b8b70d0062d79f4a.006@lws-media.de> Louis Proyect (lnp3 at panix.com) wrote on 2009-09-03 at 10:42:52 in about [Marxism] Afghanistan Syndrome: > > > Obama Is Leading the U.S. Into a Hellish Quagmire > By Mark Ames, AlterNet > Posted on September 3, 2009, Printed on September 3, 2009 > http://www.alternet.org/story/142388/ > > America now has more military personnel in Afghanistan than the Red Army > had at the peak of the Soviet invasion and occupation of that country. Mark Ames should know that there is no Red Army any more, and this since at least 1950. The "Red Army" was renamed shortly after the 2nd World War to "Soviet Army" (Sovietskaja Armija). I don't know the official designation after the dissolution of the USSR. Cheers, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Sep 3 11:42:27 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Latest analysis from the Iranian left Message-ID: <4AA00003.8050608@panix.com> The link below is to another analytical article by Milad S., a regular contributor to the Khiaban newspaper. This article is from issue #40 (August 24, 2009). Best wishes, Reza http://revolutionaryflowerpot.blogspot.com/2009/09/translation-of-article-by-milad-s.html From sartesian at earthlink.net Thu Sep 3 11:50:21 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 13:50:21 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de><2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com><0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad><100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de><100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de><100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> Message-ID: <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> Now you've gone off the track, Marvin. I was never a fan of Maoism to begin with, thought the "Cultural Revolution" was in fact a pre-emptive counterrevolution, manipulated by Mao to destroy his opponents in and out of the party under the slur of "capitalist roaders," a manipulation Mao had brought to its end when workers began to self-organize against the predations of the Red Guards. The Cultural Revolution, IMO, consolidating Mao's power, eliminating his opponents, allowed him to pursue the "Great Opening" with the west, and take the first steps on the course that brought us to the Guangdong and about $500 billion in FDI. Anyway, in going off the track you duplicate the error of LW, confusing "growth" with "development," "development" with "capitalist development," the means of production with the conditions, relations of production, and ultimately, use value with the production of exchange value. Talk about useless, abstractions, LW's "what would a real workers' and farmers' govt. do" is about as useless as you can get. First, why would a revolutionary struggle in China result in a "real workers'" government in what is already claimed to be a "workers and peasants state"? Such a government is purely an abstraction, as the struggle in China will inevitably require the expropriation of property-- what's left of the state owned property, and expropriation of the growing private sector. Such a workers', urban and rural, state, would certainly face a tremendous onslaught from the bourgeoisie within and without its borders, and so the question of "breaking" with the US by abolishing that connection of purchasing US Treasury instruments will not be a question at all, as the US will immediately embargo sales to China, and will refuse, probably to redeem the instruments that the "real workers' state" finds in its possession. But there is another issue that needs to be addressed. What constitutes economic development? Historically, for capitalism, development is constituted in the organization of wage-labor in the overall production processes, but the expulsion of wage-labor from any particular process. Development is measured by the change in the organic composition of capital, and capitals, with the increase of the technical basis. China clearly has adopted and adapted to this capitalist form of development. Whether or not you agree with LW's and Nestor's fantasy --that somehow the CCP is using capitalism to build socialism, and that sooner or later, the CCP will pull its great big trump card out of its sleeve, and laugh all the way to the Peoples' Bank--, for the last 30 years, China has overtly, explicitly, directly, adopted and adapted to the development of private property in the means of production, to capitalist development. So having adopted and adapted to that, the question of capitalist development requires us to look at exactly how China is engaging and experiencing the laws of that development-- and the law of simultaneous aggrandizement and expulsion of wage labor from the production process. Thus, when China's largest steel producer, produces the same volume or value of steel as a steel maker in Japan, but BaoSteel requires 6 times the labor force, then we have a productivity gap, which can survive for a period of time due to the dramatically reduced wages of the laborers in China. However, overproduction and declining profits bring that end. Prior to a drop in profitability, the situation of the less productive BaoSteel is parallel to that of a small agricultural producer in that as Marx puts it in Vol 3 "For the small farmer the limit of exploitation is not set by the average profit of the capital, if he is a small capitalist, nor by the necessity of making a rent, if he is a landowner. Nothing appears as an absolute limit for him, as a small capitalist, but the wages which he pays to himself, after deducting his actual costs. So long as the price of the product cover these wages, he will cultivate his land, and will do so often down to the physical minimum of his wages.... In order that that the small farmer may cultivate his land... it is therefore NOT NECESSARY [emphasis added], as it is under normal capitalist production, that the market price of his products should rise high enough to allow him the average profit....Therefore it is not necessary that the market price should rise, either as high as the value or as high as the price of production of his product. THIS IS ONE OF THE CAUSES WHICH KEEPS THE PRICE OF CEREALS LOWER IN COUNTRIES WITH A PREDOMINANCE OF SMALL FARMERS THAN IN COUNTRIES WITH A CAPITALIST MODE OF PRODUCTION...THIS LOWER PRICE IS ALSO A RESULT OF THE POVERTY OF THE PRODUCERS AND BY NO MEANS THE PRODUCTIVITY OF THE LABORERS {emphasis added, obviously}" Marx, Capital Vol 3 Part 6 Chapter 37 Sub-section V Metaire and Small Peasants' Property. Now this is an incredible passage, identifying the process of agricultural involution that defined rural production in China's past-- the use of labor at reduced wages to maintain or increase agricultural input, at the cost of declining productivity, and overall rural and urban stasis. But I think the passage can also be applied to China's direction in undertaking capitalist development based on its cheap labor policy for foreign producers, and its state/collective enterprises, like steel production, where productivity is so low. While so low productivity, low wage, excess labor inputs can of course bring lower prices, they cannot bring development, either capitalist or socialist. The Chinese leadership clearly sees itself as playing a large and growing role in the existing capitalist world order. To do that it has to scrap, quite literally, its current organization of agricultural and domestic production. [For the "real workers' state" to play a role in the expansion of revolution, it too would have to fundamentally reconfigure, alter, these proportions, ratios of living labor to the past accumulated labor of the machinery]. This is not an argument for unemployment. It is just the opposite, the only way social labor can develop is through its replacement in production by machinery, so that the social labor can be directed brutally by capital, in search of exchange value; rationally by the social laborers themselves in the satisfaction and creation of new needs. So productivity matters, it matter more in capitalist development; it matters the MOST in a socialist society. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marv Gandall" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 12:24 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans > >? > ====================================== > Of course not. And I think we could also agree that China's reverting to > Maoist autarchy at this stage of it's historic development is also not the > best course to follow, which is what Artesian seems in effect to be > proposing. > > > ________________________________________________ > 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 lnp3 at panix.com Thu Sep 3 12:00:58 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:00:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Mariategui Message-ID: <4AA0045A.2030308@panix.com> In preparing reading material for an Introduction to Marxism mailing list on Yahoo, I scanned in a chapter of Jose Carlos Mariategui?s ?Seven Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality?. One thing led to another and before long I had scanned in all seven essays which were then added to the Marxism Internet Archives: http://www.marxists.org/archive/mariateg/works/1928/index.htm Recently I decided to finish the job and scanned in the rest of the book, including an Introduction by Jorge Basadre, an author?s note, and a glossary. Basadre?s introduction is very informative, as this excerpt would indicate despite the reference to Christopher Columbus that might raise some eyebrows: >>On March 31, Variedades, a Lima journal, interviewed Mari?tegui for a series it was publishing. Mari?tegui refused to define art or his concept of life ?because metaphysics is not in style and the world is more interested in the physicist Einstein than in the metaphysicist Bergson"; and he stated that his ideal in life ?is always to have a high ideal.? In his opinion, journalism, the daily episodic history of mankind, had been created by the capitalist civilization as a great material, but not moral, instrument. He confessed that six or seven years earlier his preferred poets had been Rub?n Dar?o, later Mallarm? and Apollinaire, then Pascoli, Heine, and Aleksandr Blok, and that at the moment he preferred Walt Whitman. His favorite prose writers were Andreyev and Gorki. He considered the theater still too realist and analytic and hoped it would become impressionist and synthetic. ?There exist, however, signs of evolution. The Russian genius has created the ?grotesque? and the musical setting. In Berlin, in ?Der Blaue Vogel,? I saw ten-minute musical scenes that had more substance and emotion than many dramas of three hours.? Eleanora Duse, by then tired and fading, was the actress who had most impressed him. Among composers he preferred Beethoven, and his favorite painters were Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and Piero della Francesca, together with Degas, Cezanne, and Matisse and the Germ?n expressionist Franz Marc. He judged the contemporary epoch to be revolutionary, but more destructive than creative. As the men most representative of the times, he chose Lenin, Einstein, and Hugo Stinnes, in that order. From the past he admired Christopher Columbus and from the present ?the anonymous hero of factory, mine, and fields, the unknown soldier of the social revolution.? He enjoyed travel because he thought of himself as essentially a wanderer, inquisitive and restless. When asked which of his writings he liked best and was most satisfied with, he replied that they were still to be written. Regarding the so-called decadence of the Old World, he said: ?Europe?s decadence is this civilization?s decadence. The future of New York and Buenos Aires is tied up with the future of London, Berlin, and Paris. The new civilization is being forged in Europe. America has a secondary role in this stage of human history.?<< Mariategui?s wonderful author?s note is worth quoting in its entirety: I bring together in this book, organized and annotated in seven essays, the articles that I published in Mundial and Amanta concerning some essential aspects of Peruvian reality. Like La escena contempor?nea, therefore, this was not conceived of as a book. Better this way. My work has developed as Nietzsche would have wished, for he did not love authors who strained after the intentional, deliberate production of a book, but rather those whose thoughts formed a book spontaneously and without premeditation. Many projects for books occur to me as I lie awake, but I know beforehand that I shall carry out only those to which I am summoned by an imperious force. My thought and my life are one process. And if I hope to have some merit recognized, it is that?following another of Nietzsche?s precepts ?I have written with my blood. I intended to include in this collection an essay on the political and ideological evolution of Peru. But as I advance in it, I realize that I must develop it separately in another book. I find that the seven essays are already too long, so much so that they do not permit me to complete other work as I would like to and ought to; nevertheless, they should be published before my new study appears. In this way, my reading public will already be familiar with the materials and ideas of my political and ideological views. I shall return to these topics as often as shall be indicated by the course of my research and arguments. Perhaps in each of these essays there is the outline, the plan, of an independent book. None is finished; they never will be as long as I live and think and have something to add to what I have written, lived, and thought. All this work is but a contribution to Socialist criticism of the problems and history of Peru. There are many who think that I am tied to European culture and alien to the facts and issues of my country. Let my book defend me against this cheap and biased assumption. I have served my best apprenticeship in Europe and I believe the only salvation for Indo-America lies in European and Western science and thought. Sarmiento, who is still one of the creators of argentinidad [Argentine-ness], at one one time turned his eyes toward Europe. He found no better way to be an Argentine. Once again I repeat that I am not an impartial, objective critic. My judgments are nourished by my ideals, my sentiments, my passions. I have an avowed and resolute ambition: to assist in the creation of Peruvian socialism. I am far removed from the academic techniques of the university. This is all that I feel honestly bound to tell the reader before he begins my book. Lima, 1928 From sartesian at earthlink.net Thu Sep 3 12:01:54 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 14:01:54 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de><2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com><0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad><100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de><100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <4A9FE8DD.5070707@panix.com> <17C1C7AB0AAA496F82B9B7520F263E2A@MARV> Message-ID: <6F2EBE6ECF64464EA10A8A33A448D2A8@dmsthinkpad> Exactly how do you know that there is no opposition to FDI, to the government trade and currency policies? That's one thing. The other thing is why would you think that the actions that have taken place-- against the privatization and layoff of steelworkers which resulted in the death of a capitalist manager; the protests against the poisoned milk, milk that was produced by foreign and domestic partnership; protests against shoddy construction, against mine workers' deaths aren't expressions IN THE CONCRETE against FDI and current trade and currency policies? Because the workers at that steel plant didn't carry a banner that read, "Dear Marvin, We Are Against FDI." Returning to the first thing, according to an ex-friend of mine [he joined the CPUSA. I believe I was a liability to his advancement], who has spent considerable time in China at the invitation of unions, and institutes for the study of Marxism-- there happens to be opposition to exactly the trade and currency policies as practiced by the current CCP leadership. There is a left-wing inside the CCP itself that has taken stands against these policies. There is ongoing debate outside the party, in the universities, and institutions for special studies, about the course being followed. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marv Gandall" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 12:49 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans > > There are many changes short of ending foreign direct investment and the > accumulation of foreign currency reserves which the Chinese government > could > initiate or expand with respect to workers' and farmers' rights, social > spending, official corruption, the environment, political rights, national > minorities, etc. Demands with respect to all of these issues are being > raised within China. There is no significant opposition to FDI or to the > government's trade and currency policies. > > > > > ________________________________________________ > 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 dmozart1756 at gmail.com Thu Sep 3 13:21:34 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 15:21:34 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Lula Defies Transnational Capital (Or, maybe, kind of, thinks about it a little ) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53a1ffe70909031221w230ec508o153ba10d0bb0331@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 1:50 AM, Jewbonic wrote: > Jewbonics has posted a new item, 'Lula Defies Transnational Capital (Or, > maybe, > kind of, thinks about it a little )' > > It appears that Brazilian president Lula da Silva is pretty serious about > the > partial reverse of Brazilian national petroleum company Petrobras's partial > privatization [a word of background: in 1997 then-president Fernando > Henrique > Cardoso (FHC) partially privatized the company, selling 45 percent of its > shares > on international bourses]. The Brazilian left--usually sober-minded and not > exactly slavering [...] > > You may view the latest post at > http://www.maxajl.com/?p=1872 > > > From lnp3 at panix.com Thu Sep 3 14:15:46 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:15:46 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Google Groups searching?!? Message-ID: <4AA023F2.7010407@panix.com> I went to: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.socialism.trotsky/topics and did a search on "Stalin". Only one link turned up. That can't be right. Anybody have any ideas what is up? From srobin21 at comcast.net Thu Sep 3 14:24:36 2009 From: srobin21 at comcast.net (Steven L. Robinson) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 20:24:36 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Marxism] Google Groups searching?!? In-Reply-To: <4AA023F2.7010407@panix.com> Message-ID: <1790295034.7183311252009476654.JavaMail.root@sz0140a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Good question. You are not the first one who has commented on "problems" with google groups searching in recent days: ----- Original Message ----- From: Louis Proyect I did a search on "Stalin". Only one link turned up. That can't be right. Anybody have any ideas what is up? ________________________________________________ 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/srobin21%40comcast.net From lueko.willms at t-online.de Thu Sep 3 14:58:48 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:58:48 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> S. Artesian (sartesian at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-03 at 13:50:21 in about Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans: > > > Anyway, in going off the track you duplicate the error of LW, confusing > "growth" with "development," "development" with "capitalist development," > the means of production with the conditions, relations of production, and > ultimately, use value with the production of exchange value. You are confusing all that. You talk a gobble-de-gook of rrrrrevolutionary rethoric, when real, material questions are thrown up. > Talk about useless, abstractions, LW's "what would a real workers' and > farmers' govt. do" is about as useless as you can get. No, this is very concrete and very real. Would a worker's and farmers government build up the railway network, or would a Sartesian rrrrrevolutionary party in the central sovjet (we are in China, so the name must be red as red can be) vote for a programme of building 20'000 km of new railway lines, or would it vote against? And that is the same concrete issue if such a question is raised in the bourgeois parliament of a Third World country, like e.g. Argentina or Brazil. Or Taiwan or Korea. Would you -- as you do in the Chinese case -- agitate against building up the national infrastructure, or would you argue and vote for it? That is the question. Up to now, you have only thrown up rrrrevolutionary rethoric, and voted against the Chinese programme to build more railway lines, high-speed passenger lines, heavy-haul freight lines, mixed lines, etc. Sitting e.g. in the parliament of Argentina, one would be confronted with such questions: should the high-speed line from Buenos Aires to Rosario and Cordoba be built? Should Argentina import used locomotives and wagons from Spain? Should the country enhance the line from BA to Mar del Plata? I might have my opinions and maybe disagreements about priorities of various single projects, but I would vote for the every sensible step to build up the national infrastructure with both hands, and would even raise my feet if that helps. > First, why would a revolutionary struggle in China result > in a "real workers'" government it wouldn't. It would result in a workers and farmers government. In a political coalition of classes. > in what is already claimed to be a "workers and peasants state"? claims are your territory. > Such a government is purely an abstraction, as the struggle in China will > inevitably require the expropriation of property-- what's left of the state > owned property, and expropriation of the growing private sector. Well, if anything like that is to happen, it has to be done by a political power, and that is the power of our class (OK, the working class, which is maybe not yours) organised as state power. That is the first result of a revolution, or there is no revolution. Abstractions are your rrrrrevolutionary chats about "expropriation of property", about social relations etc etc. Everything nothing but emtpy talk, if you reject the political power of the working class which alone can bring it about. Cheers, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From nmgoro at gmail.com Thu Sep 3 15:47:15 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:47:15 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> L?ko Willms escribi?: > > Sitting e.g. in the parliament of Argentina, one would be confronted with > such questions: should the high-speed line from Buenos Aires to Rosario and > Cordoba be built? Should Argentina import used locomotives and wagons from > Spain? Should the country enhance the line from BA to Mar del Plata? I might > have my opinions and maybe disagreements about priorities of various single > projects, but I would vote for the every sensible step to build up the national > infrastructure with both hands, and would even raise my feet if that helps. Well, L?ko, there are already too many people who vote with their feet (or perhaps their hoof) there, but you would hardly like their company. You have the "agrarian" bloc, and you also have the "leftist" allies of that bloc. Lots of people voting with their feet. Or hoof. The "agrarians", of course, vote the way they do in their own interest. They may vote with their feet, but they think with their brains. A pity the anti-Kircherista "left", conversely, _thinks_ with their feet. Or hoof. As to the particular issue of the railroad network, I am always reminded of a _bourgeois_ economist, a Brazilian by name Darc Costa, who is now an advisor to Ch?vez. He wrote a book during the worst years of neoliberal domination where he advocated the creation of a South American (not Latin American, the Brazilian bourgeoisie finds it very difficult to swallow the challenge of fighting for the Caribbean and Central America with the Leviathan) "mega-state" that could generate a vast program of infrastructure where a dense South American network of railroads would interact with a net of inlnd channels (the three basins of the Orinoco, Amazon and Plata can be interconnected, you can enter the continent by way of the Orinoco delta and abandon it by way of the River Plate) in order to constitute a continental conveyor belt for goods and passengers (Costa?s idea is that although roads should be built first, in the end roads would be ancillary to these two networks). As to the question of "what?s the productivity of such a high investment in infrastructure", his answer was almost Marxist. He said that the productivity of infrastructure could not be measured, BECAUSE THE END PRODUCT OF INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT WAS PRODUCTIVITY ITSELF RATHER THAN ITS INCREASE. These issues are adamant in any Third World country. If you can?t guess this, then you not only can call yourself a Marxist, you can hardly call yourself a serious person. From sartesian at earthlink.net Thu Sep 3 15:52:58 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 17:52:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de><2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com><0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad><100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de><100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de><100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de><08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV><7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> Message-ID: Yeah, that's realistic-- "coalition of classes," "workers and farmers government," that's a very realistic assessment of the course of class struggle in China.. Yeah, trying to decide whether a high speed line should be built in Argentina while the bourgeoisie are in control, that's all very realistic Luko. Like that's the concern of Marxists-- while the bourgeoise are kept in power. Approving the bourgeoisie's budget. And when Argentina, or Bolivia, or Brazil, or China use that rail network to move troops to suppress strikes, how grateful everyone will be that you voted for "development." Why just pose this question for 3rd world countries? Why not France, Germany, US--certainly all countries, all workers benefit from the glories of Stakhanovite infrastructure development. I can see you now, taking your seat in parliament voting approval after approval of the bourgeoisie's budgets. Realistic: Vote yes on HSR for China-- no mitigation of lead smelter pollution. Realistic: Vote yes on HSR for Korea while the police hunt down the workers who occupied the Sanggyong factory [a company 50% owned by Shanghai auto]. Realistic: Vote yes HSR for Brazil while death squads continue to operate with impunity against the rural poor, squatters and indigenous peoples. Realistic: Vote yes on HSR in the US despite the devastation of New Orleans. Vote yes You're a regular little Kautsky with your super-realism. ----- Original Message ----- From: "L?ko Willms" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 4:58 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans S. Artesian (sartesian at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-03 at 13:50:21 in about Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans: > From sartesian at earthlink.net Thu Sep 3 15:57:16 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 17:57:16 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad><100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2ABE3E8B59FC498382DBC9AC222DCFB8@dmsthinkpad> And if you strip the question of infrastructure development away from the class analysis of the actual relations of production in 3rd world countries, if you regard infrastructure, development as a thing in itself, a "national" task, if you use that as an excuse to support, applaud, embrace expansion of the capitalist relations of production, then you're no Marxist, no way, you're a poseur . ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nestor Gorojovsky" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 5:47 PM Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans . These issues are adamant in any Third World country. If you can?t guess this, then you not only can call yourself a Marxist, you can hardly call yourself a serious person. From marvgandall at videotron.ca Thu Sep 3 19:38:31 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:38:31 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <4A9FE8DD.5070707@panix.com> <17C1C7AB0AAA496F82B9B7520F263E2A@MARV> <6F2EBE6ECF64464EA10A8A33A448D2A8@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: Artesian writes: > Exactly how do you know that there is no opposition to FDI, to the > government trade and currency policies? [...] > There is ongoing debate outside the party, in the universities, and > institutions for special studies, about the course being followed. ======================================== Note I said there appears to be no "significant" opposition to FDI or the government's trade and currency policies as there is, for example, in relation to land expropriations, factory layoffs, official corruption, environmental degradation, etc. There's undoubtedly debate within the circles you mention - as well as within the CCP - about the the scope and regulation of foreign investment, the revalution of the yuan, the diversification of the state's foreign currency reserves, and overreliance on export-led growth at the expense of domestic consumption. You'd hardly expect there to be otherwise, and these discussions have been well reported in the press and scholarly publications. But you've positioned yourself well outside of these Chinese reform currents by opposing in principle the presence of foreign firms in the country and the PBC's continued purchase of USD-denominated securities, even while acknowledging that any abrupt moves to expropriate foreign holdings or to spark a run on the dollar would lead to a grave international economic and political crisis whose outcome would more likely than not be catastrophic rather than positive for both the Chinese and American working classes. I'm understanding you correctly, no? From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Thu Sep 3 20:10:50 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:10:50 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, Message-ID: <4AA0772A.6060302@gmail.com> Well, I don't agree with S. Artesian. Of course we take positions on develop issues. If I were a union activist in China, in the rail unions, I'd be *demanding* more development. More money for maintenance of way, for better and faster trains, for more input into managing the still state-owned rail roads and to fight against any privatization efforts. Why WOULDN'T we do this? Because another sector of industry is run unsafely? This makes no sense. The Chinese nation is still in development. It is not an imperialist power (yet). Even as a developing capitalist nation, we defend China, as *any* Chinese revolutionary would, against capitalism and this means, even in an inevitably contorted way, development of the productive forces via infrastructure development. Let's use Nestor's country as an example. When Peron came to power he implemented what the left had demanded in the unions for decades: nationalization of British owned meat packing industry, one of the largest employers in the country. So...for workers in the industry and as a class as a whole, any further demands are then...what? Not important? Please. They would demand and expect and *expansion* and *modernization* of their industry. The same is true in China or any place where the issues of state control, privatization, national development come to the fore. These are not question to be *ignored* as S. Artesian unfortunately, advocates for. David W From sartesian at earthlink.net Thu Sep 3 20:21:43 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 22:21:43 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de><2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com><0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad><100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de><100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <4A9FE8DD.5070707@panix.com><17C1C7AB0AAA496F82B9B7520F263E2A@MARV><6F2EBE6ECF64464EA10A8A33A448D2A8@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <63B7EC10F1704BA38A83AE56E7C2245F@dmsthinkpad> No, you're not. Exactly what do you consider significant? Do you expect workers to suddenly leap forward, articulating a full revolutionary analysis of the current and future prospects of China? I think the protests than have developed, whether the precipitating event and/or focus is factory layoffs or land expropriations etc. are parts and parcel of the whole, of the opposition, sometimes more self-conscious sometimes less self-conscious, to the direction of the CCP's economic program. Again you assume you know exactly what and to what degree items, elements, programs are being disputed inside and outside the part when you write: " There's undoubtedly debate within the circles you mention - as well as > within the CCP - about the the scope and regulation of foreign investment, > the revalution of the yuan, the diversification of the state's foreign > currency reserves, and overreliance on export-led growth at the expense of > domestic consumption. You'd hardly expect there to be otherwise, and these > discussions have been well reported in the press and scholarly > publications. > > But you've positioned yourself well outside of these Chinese reform > currents " You can expect anything you want, but you do not know what the content of the debates are unless you have some inside source. According to my inside source, at our last discussion prior his elevation to exalted status in the CPUSA, the debates are not about reform, overreliance, revaluaton of the yuan, etc. but about exaclty those social relations, those class relations being prompted, quickened, promoted precipitated through this turn to capitalism. And for the record, I have never opposed "in principle the presence of foreign firms, the PBC's purchase of USD-denominated securities." I would oppose those things no more than I would oppose say, the government of France allowing China, Japan, or Germany to establish auto factories, steel plants in France, no more than I would oppose the European Central Bank purchasing US Treasury instruments. I wouldn't oppose it, I wouldn't support it. No more than I would support or oppose Lula's government in Brazil building a dam or a HSR network. No more for example than I think any socialist would or should have supported or opposed the establishment of a transcontinental railroad hookup in the 19th century USA, even if some jingoists, flim-flam artists, tried to sell it as necessary to a "national front," and to protecting US national sovereignty from the destructive predation of imperial Britain. I would neither oppose nor support the presence of foreign firms anymore than I think socialists in the US today should support the construction of dams in the Imperial or San Joaquin Valleys of California, even though the big landowners there are quick to point out the "benefits to all" of such efforts, of the number of jobs of agricultural workers that will be saved with "effective flood control." We are not about opposition or support of infrastructure, investment, or the accumulation of foreign hard currency reserves. The bourgeoisie and their agents do what they do to maintain the stability and dominance of their property, their mode of production, their profits, as the actual actions behind the bullshit from the landowners in the San Joaquin Valley have proven so many times. What is at stake is the social relations of production established in those actions. The opposition doesn't come in some misguided isolationism, or nationalism, just as the support doesn't come in the mindless flogging of gross numbers. The opposition or support is opposition to one class and support of the other class in establishing the social relations of production, not the instruments of production. As for your "spark a run on the dollar would lead to a grave international economic and political crisis whose outcome would more likely than not be catastrophic rather than positive for both the Chinese and American working classes," that is simply absurd and is nothing but the same type of baloney that some, in particular Doug Henwood spews to justify his support of the US bailout of the banks-- because to not support that bailout would have consequences that would supposedly by catastrophic. Do you support the bailouts, Marv? What makes you think that the current course of the CCP, the current symbiosis of the US Treasury and the PBC, is not going to prove disasterous and not just for the US and Chinese workers, but for workers all across Asia, Latin America, Europe, North America? Haven't we seen enough of capitalism to know what it's response to declining profits, overproduction, must be? Or as Ripley put it in Aliens, "Did IQs drop drastically while I was away?" Yesterday, or the day before, LW and Nestor were arguing how the Chinese revolution has to be given credit for stimulating capitalism to develop Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, etc. etc. even if only in defense, response to the revolution. [Note to Nestor: Marshall Plan, known as European Recovery Program, developed by Clayton and Kennan in the US State Dept. named for US Sec of State Marshall, in effect 1948-1952 involving capital injections and transfer to rebuild the economies of the Western European countries and contain the threat of revolution within those countries, while simultaneously contain the Soviet Union]. Well, you don't get the credit without taking the responsibility. So if the CCP gets "credit" for that, then they have to take responsibility for the subsequent strengthening of capitalism ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marv Gandall" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 9:38 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans From billyoc at gmail.com Thu Sep 3 20:26:13 2009 From: billyoc at gmail.com (Bill O'Connor) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:26:13 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Google Groups searching?!? In-Reply-To: <4AA023F2.7010407@panix.com> (Louis Proyect's message of "Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:15:46 -0400") References: <4AA023F2.7010407@panix.com> Message-ID: <87tyzjqwca.fsf@t22.Belkin> Louis Proyect writes: > I went to: > > http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.socialism.trotsky/topics > > and did a search on "Stalin". Only one link turned up. That can't be > right. Anybody have any ideas what is up? A search for the word "the" returned a whopping 186 links, so one link for Stalin seems reasonable. :) -- In Solidarity, Billy O'Connor From marvgandall at videotron.ca Thu Sep 3 21:09:28 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:09:28 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <4A9FE8DD.5070707@panix.com> <17C1C7AB0AAA496F82B9B7520F263E2A@MARV> <6F2EBE6ECF64464EA10A8A33A448D2A8@dmsthinkpad> <63B7EC10F1704BA38A83AE56E7C2245F@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: Artesian writes: > As for your "spark a run on the dollar would lead to a grave international > economic and political crisis whose outcome would more likely than not be > catastrophic rather than positive for both the Chinese and American > working > classes," that is simply absurd... It's the logical extension of your statement that "a workers'...state, would certainly face a tremendous onslaught from the bourgeoisie within and without its borders, and so the question of 'breaking' with the US by abolishing that connection of purchasing US Treasury instruments will not be a question at all, as the US will immediately embargo sales to China, and will refuse, probably to redeem the instruments that the 'real workers' state' finds in its possession." There's no question an American embargo and debt default would have a devastating effect on the living standards of Chinese, American and other workers and greatly raise the stakes of a military confrontation between the two powers. Do you really dispute this? > Do you support the > bailouts, Marv? No. I never have. I've previously stated that the Obama administration should have let the insolvent private banks collapse and instead allocated the resources to the formation of a strong national bank providing cheap credit directly to heavily indebted American households. From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Thu Sep 3 21:44:59 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:44:59 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] U.S. Suspends $30 Million To Honduras Message-ID: <1252035899.9056.0.camel@ubuntu.ubuntu-domain> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/world/americas/04honduras.html?em Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Thursday that the United States would formally suspend nearly $30 million in aid to the coup-installed government in Honduras. She also suggested for the first time that the United States might not recognize the country?s elections this fall if the ousted president was not returned to power by then. [...] From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Thu Sep 3 21:51:22 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:51:22 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] US cuts more aid to Honduras coup regime, rejects stacked election Message-ID: <36ADC8CD9BE54A958D46A547F69D750F@office1pc> Zelaya's Coup By Tom Hayden September 3, 2009 Email Print Share Buzz up!Buzzflash del.icio.us Digg Facebook Mixx it! Reddit What is this? Take Action Write a Letter Subscribe Now Text Size A A A Reuters Photos Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya. The US announcement of an aid cutoff to Honduras is a "direct blow" against the strategy of the coup regime in Honduras, deposed President Manuel Zelaya declared in an interview with The Nation today. Share this article Related Also By Battle for Honduras--and the Region Honduras Greg Grandin: The coup has encouraged those who want to halt the advance of the Latin American left. Immigrants Sound Off on Honduras Honduras Marcos Meconi & Joseph Huff-Hannon: Honduran immigrants in New York City discuss their view of recent events that removed President Manuel Zelaya from office. > More Zelaya's Coup Honduras Tom Hayden: In an exclusive Nation interview, the ousted Honduran president calls the new State Department aid cutoff a "direct blow" against the regime that exiled him. Federal Judge Weakens Oversight of LAPD Law & Justice Tom Hayden: Newly implemented reforms don't do enough to reverse a massive increase in the frisking of minority youths in the Los Angeles community. Has Bratton's LAPD Really Reformed? Law & Justice Tom Hayden: The Alex Sanchez case raises troubling new questions about the war on gangs. After an afternoon meeting between Zelaya and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the US government announced the termination of hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to Honduras and declared its refusal "for the moment" to support the Honduran elections scheduled for November. Zelaya said the "most significant" outcome of the meeting was the State Department's declaration that the elections will not be recognized, which "puts the United States in line with Latin America, because it was not said before." Zelaya announced that he is "prepared to return" to Honduras "independently of any US plans" and to "protect the population." The US declaration was a "great step forward" that puts intense pressure on the Micheletti regime in Honduras to commit to the peace proposals of former president Oscar Arias of Costa Rica. The aid termination will include $215 million in five-year Millennium Challenge grants, Zelaya said, in addition to $16 million in military aid already cut. Secretary Clinton chairs the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which meets this coming week. Asked if the American aid could be restored before the elections scheduled for November, Zelaya indicated that it could be, "when democracy is restored and President Zelaya returns." The Nation will post Tom Hayden's full interview with President Zelaya on September 4. About Tom Hayden Tom Hayden is a former California state senator and author of Street Wars (Verso, 2005). From schaffer at optonline.net Thu Sep 3 22:03:30 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:03:30 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatechers In-Reply-To: <4FC3AF966BDA4E9485C526355C4CB274@office1pc> References: <4FC3AF966BDA4E9485C526355C4CB274@office1pc> Message-ID: <4AA09192.4020607@optonline.net> Fred Feldman wrote: > In submitting the article in full, I am not staging a sit-in or an act of > defiance of list law. But I am highlighting the role that articles, > available in full to all list members, play in how I carry out a political > discussion. I.E., the news (simplistically put, the facts as I know them) > are central, not peripheral to the discussion. i didn't see an outpouring of discussion on this topic, in spite of its full posting to the list. i know i am fighting an uphill battle because Lou is willing to go along with this incessant forwarding. but while i am around helping Lou out with the list, i will continue to argue for higher discussion-to-forwarding ratio. Les From schaffer at optonline.net Thu Sep 3 22:15:00 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:15:00 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed?? In-Reply-To: <20b1e36e0909012303q58edf126pa551fafef4278795@mail.gmail.com> References: <3.0.3.32.20090831222047.0472a5f0@pop.xs4all.nl> <4A9C34C4.90807@optonline.net> <4A9C94AC.6010304@mail.ngo.za> <4A9D147B.10709@optonline.net> <20b1e36e0909012303q58edf126pa551fafef4278795@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA09444.9080209@optonline.net> Ambrose Andrews wrote: >> Patrick Bond wrote: >> >>> I'm voting, as usual, for full posting of articles - copyrights be damned. >>> > > I agree, generally the burden of requiring *interactive* getting (by > web) of things in the context of poor connectivity is greater than the > burden of getting a large amount of redundant, but easily ignored > plain text, even in that same context. > to repeat (ad infinitum?): while this is true for those who WANT all this content, it is not true for those of us who do NOT want all the forwarded content. i don't want to spend my time picking through marxmail posts looking for interesting discussions. i do want to spend time picking through interesting discussions finding pointers to more in-depth articles. > I forsee a lot of confusion and peopl eforwarding to the long list and > a lot of reminders and reinforcements being required to make this > work. > i am sometimes surprised at the immaturity of people who post to the list, particularly those just clueless about what it takes for a busy person to pick through written text looking for information and informative discussion. having said that, it wouldnt surprise me that confusion would ensue from setting up a companion list. but as long as Lou is keen to keep postings to marxmail relevant, clearly formatted, and easy to read, and as long as i am helping him with the technical details of an elist, i would push for list principles and structures which foster meaningful interchange amongst participants. which means, reminders and reinforcements, unfortunately. as i've said before, if someone wants a hand setting up a more free-form email list, i would be glad to point you in the right direction. >> 3. Mailman has a "Topics" feature which is currently disabled, see >> details below. if everyone who forwarded would put a keyword like [fwd] >> or [news-item] in their subject line, i think we could handle this. >> > > That might be the most realistic solution, and the easiest to teach > people to conform to. you may very well be right, and i will look into what modifications are needed to Mailman to make this so. but it WILL need modification to do what we speak of here. if it allows those who want news and forwarded content to get what they want, and those of us who do not want to pick thru that stuff to get what we want, me all for it. Les From sartesian at earthlink.net Thu Sep 3 22:38:31 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 00:38:31 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de><2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com><0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad><100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de><100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <4A9FE8DD.5070707@panix.com><17C1C7AB0AAA496F82B9B7520F263E2A@MARV><6F2EBE6ECF64464EA10A8A33A448D2A8@dmsthinkpad><63B7EC10F1704BA38A83AE56E7C2245F@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <8C566C24D6704B13856525E56FE0915B@dmsthinkpad> MG writes: It's the logical extension of your statement that "a workers'...state, would > certainly face a tremendous onslaught from the bourgeoisie within and > without its borders, and so the question of 'breaking' with the US by > abolishing that connection of purchasing US Treasury instruments will not > be a question at all, as the US will immediately embargo sales to China, > and > will refuse, probably to redeem the instruments that the 'real workers' > state' finds in its possession." There's no question an American embargo > and > debt default would have a devastating effect on the living standards of > Chinese, American and other workers and greatly raise the stakes of a > military confrontation between the two powers. Huh? That is certainly not the "logical extension of my statement," for you are claiming that an actual, and successful proletarian revolution in China would be a disaster for the workers of China, the US, and by extension, the entire world. So I guess the logical extension of your logical extension is that the world cannot afford such a revolution and we must work to prevent same, seeking instead the benign synchronization of the Chinese and US economies. Well, if that's your logic, then of course we should never have had any revolution, because didn't the living standards of the proletariat worsen after the October Revolution? Didn't the conditions of the sans-culottes worsen during the Convention? Sure did. Of course, conditions worsen when civil war is imposed on a class struggling to take power, to establish a new relation of production. So what should we do, besides I mean become social-democrats and vote our approvals of the bourgeoisie's various budgets which of course hold no immanent disaster for the living standards, or just the plain living, of the workers and poor? Like I said before, what makes you think that the current path of US-Chinese economic ties does not spell disaster for workers everywhere? Your argument is not a logical extension, its an irrational absurdity in that it assumes that capitalism itself does not create the conditions for revolution; that the revolutionary struggle is discretionary, voluntary and not driven by necessity. Your argument is an irrational absurdity in that it assumes that capitalism itself won't, if maintained in power, establish conditions one hundred times more horrific than the supposed disaster to the workers if a revolutionary state in China stops buying US Treasuries. Look back at every revolution that has failed, has been cut down, and what have the results been? Try Spain in the 1930s, China in the 20s, look at the reconstitution of European colonial rule in Asia after WW2. Look at Germany after 1933. Hell, look at the world after China, Germany, Spain, etc. etc. What made the conditions worse, the success of the revolution, or its defeat? And should those struggles have never been joined by the workers because of the prospect for defeat, for declines in living standards? As if it wasn't such declines that precipitated the struggles........ You don't have to look even that far back. To all those who think "development" "growth" "nationalization" is a social program so inherently revolutionary, look at the rule of the MNR in Bolivia 1952-1964 and its results. Look at Chile under and after Allende. What were the results of not following through on expropriation, and utilizing "development" "growth" "nationalization" strategies? Funny isn't it how neither Trotsky in his History of the Russian Revolution, nor Lenin in his various writing mentions that the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets during the 1905 or 1917 period, and particularly under Kerensky, pushed for "growth" "development" and "infrastructure" rather than articulate sharpening terms of class struggle. Can you imagine what might have happened if instead of "All Power to the Soviets," the watchword, the condensation of the program for revolution had been "Create two, three, many trans-Siberian Railroads!" "All Power to Infrastructure Investment!" It seems clear to me that the only alternative, the only way to preempt the disaster that is capitalism in its reproduction, in both expanding and contracting cycles, is through achieving just that thorough, complete, uninterrupted revolution. The only way to achieve that success in any one country, even one as resource rich as China, is by the reproduction of the revolution on an international scale. I think that's what a famous Marxist, not Ripley, meant by socialism or barbarism. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marv Gandall" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 11:09 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans > From RicardoStarkey at aol.com Thu Sep 3 22:53:14 2009 From: RicardoStarkey at aol.com (RicardoStarkey at aol.com) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 00:53:14 EDT Subject: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed?? Message-ID: In a message dated 9/3/2009 9:15:45 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, schaffer at optonline.net writes: "i don't want to spend my time picking through marxmail posts looking for interesting discussions. i do want to spend time picking through interesting discussions finding pointers to more in-depth articles." FWIW, I'm with Les on this issue. We all know where to find news on the net, and there's already so much to try to keep up with on this list, that I think it would be helpful to post only enough of the article to give us the gist, and to encourage us to read it (along with the URL, of course). OTOH, I don't know much about slow connections and bandwidth issues, so I'm in favor of the greater good. It's just that what I find most interesting here are the unvarnished opinions of my comrades, rather than the polished reports of professional journalists. From sukla.sen at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 00:13:49 2009 From: sukla.sen at gmail.com (Sukla Sen) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 11:43:49 +0530 Subject: [Marxism] [GreenLeft_discussion] US cuts more aid to Honduras coup regime, rejects stacked election In-Reply-To: <36ADC8CD9BE54A958D46A547F69D750F@office1pc> References: <36ADC8CD9BE54A958D46A547F69D750F@office1pc> Message-ID: <9e2acadd0909032313h60052427m4db2acebe51c6383@mail.gmail.com> Quote The US announcement of an aid cutoff to Honduras is a "direct blow" against the strategy of the coup regime in Honduras, deposed President Manuel Zelaya declared in an interview with The Nation today. Unquote What a sea change! Just compare with Sept 11 1973 (in Chile) or April 11 2002 (in Venezuela). It is one thing to tell that things have not changed enough - not even nearly enough. They must change much further. And quite another to claim: "not a damn thing has changed"! And to pretend that Obama is a Kim Il Sung or Khomeini. He can do whatever he wants. he can very well wave a magic wand. Only he is not! The massive burden of History, the US Congress, the Pentagon, the judiciary, the all-powerful lobbies, the media, and, not the least, the massive popular prejudices - just do not exist! Sukla On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 9:21 AM, Fred Feldman wrote: > > > Zelaya's Coup > By Tom Hayden > > September 3, 2009 > > Email > Print > Share > Buzz up!Buzzflash > del.icio.us > Digg > Facebook > Mixx it! > Reddit > What is this? > > Take Action > Write a Letter > Subscribe Now > Text Size > A > A > A > > Reuters Photos > > Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya. > The US announcement of an aid cutoff to Honduras is a "direct blow" against > the strategy of the coup regime in Honduras, deposed President Manuel > Zelaya > declared in an interview with The Nation today. > > Share this article > > Related > Also By > Battle for Honduras--and the Region > Honduras > > Greg Grandin: The coup has encouraged those who want to halt the advance of > the Latin American left. > Immigrants Sound Off on Honduras > Honduras > > Marcos Meconi & Joseph Huff-Hannon: Honduran immigrants in New York City > discuss their view of recent events that removed President Manuel Zelaya > from office. > > More > Zelaya's Coup > Honduras > > Tom Hayden: In an exclusive Nation interview, the ousted Honduran president > calls the new State Department aid cutoff a "direct blow" against the > regime > that exiled him. > Federal Judge Weakens Oversight of LAPD > Law & Justice > > Tom Hayden: Newly implemented reforms don't do enough to reverse a massive > increase in the frisking of minority youths in the Los Angeles community. > Has Bratton's LAPD Really Reformed? > Law & Justice > > Tom Hayden: The Alex Sanchez case raises troubling new questions about the > war on gangs. > > After an afternoon meeting between Zelaya and Secretary of State Hillary > Clinton, the US government announced the termination of hundreds of > millions > of dollars in assistance to Honduras and declared its refusal "for the > moment" to support the Honduran elections scheduled for November. Zelaya > said the "most significant" outcome of the meeting was the State > Department's declaration that the elections will not be recognized, which > "puts the United States in line with Latin America, because it was not said > before." > > Zelaya announced that he is "prepared to return" to Honduras "independently > of any US plans" and to "protect the population." The US declaration was a > "great step forward" that puts intense pressure on the Micheletti regime in > Honduras to commit to the peace proposals of former president Oscar Arias > of > Costa Rica. > > The aid termination will include $215 million in five-year Millennium > Challenge grants, Zelaya said, in addition to $16 million in military aid > already cut. Secretary Clinton chairs the Millennium Challenge Corporation, > which meets this coming week. > > Asked if the American aid could be restored before the elections scheduled > for November, Zelaya indicated that it could be, "when democracy is > restored > and President Zelaya returns." > > The Nation will post Tom Hayden's full interview with President Zelaya on > September 4. > > About Tom Hayden > Tom Hayden is a former California state senator and author of Street Wars > (Verso, 2005). > > __._,_.___ > Messages in this topic > ( > 1) Reply (via web post) > | Start > a new topic > > Messages > Green Left Weekly depends on your support! > > Subscribe to Green Left Weekly! > http://www.greenleft.org.au/subscribe.htm > > Make a donation to help Green Left Weekly continue! > http://www.greenleft.org.au/fogl.htm > > [image: Yahoo! Groups] > Change settings via the Web(Yahoo! ID required) > Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest| Switch > format to Traditional > Visit Your Group > | Yahoo! > Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe > > Recent Activity > > - 1 > New Members > > Visit Your Group > > Give Back > > Yahoo! for Good > > Get inspired > > by a good cause. > Y! Toolbar > > Get it Free! > > easy 1-click access > > to your groups. > Yahoo! Groups > > Start a group > > in 3 easy steps. > > Connect with others. > . > > __,_._,___ > From lueko.willms at t-online.de Fri Sep 4 00:42:58 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (Lueko Willms) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:42:58 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans Message-ID: <100.58150100f2b6a04a.024.lueko.willms.dialin@t-online.de> S. Artesian (sartesian at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-04 at 00:38:31 in about Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans: > > > Funny isn't it how neither Trotsky in his History of the Russian Revolution, > nor Lenin in his various writing mentions that the Petrograd and Moscow > Soviets during the 1905 or 1917 period, and particularly under Kerensky, > pushed for "growth" "development" and "infrastructure" rather than > articulate sharpening terms of class struggle. Can you imagine what might > have happened if instead of "All Power to the Soviets," the watchword, the > condensation of the program for revolution had been "Create two, three, many > trans-Siberian Railroads!" "All Power to Infrastructure Investment!" Where on this planet is currently the question of power so acutely posed as in Russia in 1905 or even more in 1917? Are there "consejos" for example in Argentina, which are about to take power in their own hands? Is there a major political upheaval in China, which poses immediately the question of political power? Oh, I forgot, the question of political power is irrelevant to your thoughts. But, by the way, the Petersburg Soviet did also not discuss motions like "Down with commodity relations!" or so. On the other hand it might have discussed trivia like street lighting. True is that the _historical_ turning points remembered by the historians are those referring to _political_ _power_ (and not the immediate severing of commodity relations and the revocation of the law of value), of forming a _workers_ _and_ _farmers_ _government,_ which the Soviet was, except that it had not yet taken central state power. Cheers, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From johnedmundson at paradise.net.nz Fri Sep 4 00:50:10 2009 From: johnedmundson at paradise.net.nz (John) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:50:10 +1200 Subject: [Marxism] [GreenLeft_discussion] US cuts more aid to Honduras coup regime, rejects stacked election In-Reply-To: <9e2acadd0909032313h60052427m4db2acebe51c6383@mail.gmail.com> References: <36ADC8CD9BE54A958D46A547F69D750F@office1pc> <9e2acadd0909032313h60052427m4db2acebe51c6383@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1252047010.5893.108.camel@john-desktop> On Fri, 2009-09-04 at 11:43 +0530, Sukla Sen wrote: > Quote > The US announcement of an aid cutoff to Honduras is a "direct blow" against > the strategy of the coup regime in Honduras, deposed President Manuel Zelaya > declared in an interview with The Nation today. > Unquote > > What a sea change! > Just compare with Sept 11 1973 (in Chile) or April 11 2002 (in Venezuela). > > It is one thing to tell that things have not changed enough - not even > nearly enough. They must change much further. > And quite another to claim: "not a damn thing has changed"! > And to pretend that Obama is a Kim Il Sung or Khomeini. Except nobody here has tried to claim that Obama is like Kim Il Sung. What's happened here is, two months after the coup, now that the US has decided where their best interests lie, they've apparently made their move. The difference here is that in Chile in '73, and in Venezuela in '02, the US was behind the coups. This one they weren't directly behind, so they needed to see how things panned out. If the Honduran people's response hadn't been so resolute, I could well imagine the Obama regime having quietly bided its time before eventually "facing reality" and recognising the Golpistas. A better indication of the true nature of the Obama administration's foreign policy can currently be found in Afghanistan. Cheers, John From joelmcosgrove at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 01:14:17 2009 From: joelmcosgrove at gmail.com (joel cosgrove) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 19:14:17 +1200 Subject: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed?? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I agree with Richard on this. I look at the list each day (or couple of days) and try to figure out what I need to read first. There are currently upwards of 4000 unread messages in the inbox. That's not to say i'm not against huge volumes of email, *if *it leads to further discussion. But a lot of it seems to just sit there. 2009/9/4 > In a message dated 9/3/2009 9:15:45 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, > schaffer at optonline.net writes: > > > It's just that what I find most interesting here are the unvarnished > opinions of my comrades, rather than the polished reports of professional > journalists. > From ffeldman at bellatlantic.net Fri Sep 4 02:41:08 2009 From: ffeldman at bellatlantic.net (Fred Feldman) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:41:08 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] invasion of the Israelii (or Jewish) bo9dy snatcchers Message-ID: <7E0B1E9CA5C54721AE1F6C597508FFA7@office1pc> Les wrote: i didn't see an outpouring of discussion on this topic, in spite of its full posting to the list. Les wrote: i didn't see an outpouring of discussion on this topic, in spite of its full posting to the list. Fred comments: No "outpouring," true. Just four or five, not counting yours kor my comnents other than the one you cited introducing the article, which I know you don't think counts as discussion because of the offense of posting an article. I am relieved to get your report that Louis has, in my opinion, a sounder view of this than you do. From lueko.willms at t-online.de Fri Sep 4 02:43:38 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:43:38 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> Message-ID: <100.708e01003ad3a04a.030@lws-media.de> Querido Nestor, Nestor Gorojovsky (nmgoro at gmail.com) wrote on 2009-09-03 at 18:47:15 in about [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans: > > > Well, L?ko, there are already too many people who vote with their feet > (or perhaps their hoof) there, but you would hardly like their company. No entiendo lo que tu quieres decir. Podrias elaborar, por favor? Saludos revolutionarios, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From nmgoro at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 02:56:36 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 05:56:36 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <2ABE3E8B59FC498382DBC9AC222DCFB8@dmsthinkpad> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> <2ABE3E8B59FC498382DBC9AC222DCFB8@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <2fa158550909040156n10c368e2m5dc60adbd43345e7@mail.gmail.com> A national issue is, by definition, a class issue. The national question is a class question. Imperialism 101, dear Artesian. Of course there are lots of class analyses to be made on the national question, and related issues. The first and foremost being what bloc of classes will succesfully confront, in the territory of a semicolonial or colonial country, the pressure of the bloc of classes that, from the imperialist countries, permanently attempts to drive the development of productive forces in the former towards the best satisfaction of the ruling class (and its associates) in the latter. But what am I doing. I already know what will S. Artesian answer, etc., etc. 2009/9/3 S. Artesian : > And if you strip the question of infrastructure development away from the > class analysis of the actual relations of production in 3rd world countries, > if you regard infrastructure, development as a thing in itself, a "national" > task, if you use that as an excuse to support, applaud, embrace expansion of > the capitalist relations of production, then you're no Marxist, no way, > you're a poseur > > . > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Nestor Gorojovsky" > To: "David Schanoes" > Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 5:47 PM > Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: > China's high speed rail plans > > > . > > These issues are adamant in any Third World country. If you can?t guess > this, then you not only can call yourself a Marxist, you can hardly call > yourself a serious person. > > > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism en lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/nmgoro%40gmail.com > -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From jnorem at cox.net Fri Sep 4 02:57:50 2009 From: jnorem at cox.net (John E. Norem) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:57:50 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Samir Amin critiques Stiglitz report Message-ID: <4AA0D68E.1090601@cox.net> This critique relates to the Report of the Commission of Experts of the President of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System . This commission was set up by the current president of the United Nations General Assembly, Padre Miguel D?Escoto, and presented to that Assembly at its meeting of 24?26 June, 2009. Professor Stiglitz, the chair of the commission, had clearly imposed his own personal views. Therefore I consider correct entitling my critique ?A critique of the Stiglitz Report?. The UN Assembly, therefore, experienced a setback, hardly noticed by the media. In reality, this was a victory for the countries of the South which, in abstaining from being represented at the required level, showed thereby, their refusal to ratify the unilateral decisions of the North, the only positions presented in the report. http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/58453 From nmgoro at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 03:00:26 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 06:00:26 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <100.708e01003ad3a04a.030@lws-media.de> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> <100.708e01003ad3a04a.030@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <2fa158550909040200l354c470ejeec4709482bbb35f@mail.gmail.com> Sorry, I was thinking in Argentinean parliamentary terms. "Voting with the feet", here, means "leaving the Hemicycle" so that the numbers fall below the minimum required to vote a law. "Voting with the ass" means remaining at one?s seat even though one does not favor a law, but at least provides the minimum number. This numer, here, is known as quorum. Many are "voting with their feet" on sublimate "Leftist" or "progressive" arguments here, solidly backing by that simple move the positions of the "agrarian" bloc. Keep in mind that the "agrarian" bloc is the ramhead of reaction and imperialism here. 2009/9/4 L?ko Willms : > Querido Nestor, > > Nestor Gorojovsky (nmgoro en gmail.com) wrote on 2009-09-03 at 18:47:15 in > about [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: ?China's > high speed rail plans: >> >> >> Well, L?ko, there are already too many people who vote with their feet >> (or perhaps their hoof) there, but you would hardly like their company. > > ? No entiendo lo que tu quieres decir. Podrias elaborar, por favor? > > -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From johnedmundson at paradise.net.nz Fri Sep 4 03:07:04 2009 From: johnedmundson at paradise.net.nz (John) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:07:04 +1200 Subject: [Marxism] [GreenLeft_discussion] US cuts more aid to Honduras coup regime, rejects stacked election In-Reply-To: <1252047010.5893.108.camel@john-desktop> References: <36ADC8CD9BE54A958D46A547F69D750F@office1pc> <9e2acadd0909032313h60052427m4db2acebe51c6383@mail.gmail.com> <1252047010.5893.108.camel@john-desktop> Message-ID: <1252055224.5893.140.camel@john-desktop> On Fri, 2009-09-04 at 18:50 +1200, John wrote: > On Fri, 2009-09-04 at 11:43 +0530, Sukla Sen wrote: > > Quote > > The US announcement of an aid cutoff to Honduras is a "direct blow" against > > the strategy of the coup regime in Honduras, deposed President Manuel Zelaya > > declared in an interview with The Nation today. > > Unquote > > > > What a sea change! > > Just compare with Sept 11 1973 (in Chile) or April 11 2002 (in Venezuela). > > > > It is one thing to tell that things have not changed enough - not even > > nearly enough. They must change much further. > > And quite another to claim: "not a damn thing has changed"! > > And to pretend that Obama is a Kim Il Sung or Khomeini. Actually having now read the story, it turns out the Obama government hasn't actually "done" anything at all. The money had already been suspended and they still haven't declared the coup to be a coup. I don't blame Zelaya for making a propaganda point about it - it's a moral victory - but it changes nothing. Certainly it's nothing to start getting all googly eyed about Obama over. Cheers, John From nmgoro at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 03:31:37 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 06:31:37 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, In-Reply-To: <4AA0772A.6060302@gmail.com> References: <4AA0772A.6060302@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2fa158550909040231v308aff6fqbdb2df820a7092db@mail.gmail.com> 2009/9/3 nada : > > Let's use Nestor's country as an example. When Peron came to power he > implemented what the left had demanded in the unions for decades: > nationalization of British owned meat packing industry, one of the > largest employers in the country. So...for workers in the industry and > as a class as a whole, any further demands are then...what? Not > important? Please. They would demand and expect and *expansion* and > *modernization* of their industry. Well, David, though of course I share the general thrust of your thought on this issue, there is a factual mistake in the above, a factual mistake that I would not be able to leave unnoticed because it has political consequences. In fact, Per?n did not nationalize the meat packing industry. He just promoted the meatpacking plants of the Corporaci?n Argentina de Productores de Carnes (CAP), and even that he did without great enthusiasm because the CAP was headed by oligarchs. Although our friend S. Artesian tends to believe I forget these issues, I never forget that Per?n was a bourgeois, not a socialist, leader. Thus, he kept his nationalizations ALWAYS to a minimum. But there exists something some like me like to call "permanent revolution", a political consequence of something else, which we like to call "uneven and combined development". This bourgeois "minimum" was unacceptable for imperialism, local oligarchs and even local bourgeois, an entirely different matter. Per?n ruled with working class support not because nationalizations of imperialist concerns was a part of the unions? programmes before 1945 but because it hadn?t been. In fact, this wasn?t even broached by labor in those times, poor understanding of imperialist activity in Argentina so blatantly characterized our "Left" that it left our working class without its own nationalistic, patriotic, and revolutionary program exactly when it was more necessary. So that economic nationalism against imperialist aggression was a _novelty_ in Argentina around 1945, nothing _that_ usual among local socialists or communists. Let us face it, Marxists, the workers supported Per?n because what he did was to adopt a general position of antiimperialist national defense, by nationalizing the general framework wherein the Argentinean economic life took place, something most Arg Marxists had no idea of before he came to power. Now, again. He did it as a bourgeois could do it. Cowardly, if moral cathegories can be used. He nationalized foreign trade, and he nationalized the financial sector as a whole (not private banks themselves, but again the general framework within which the banks operated). He nationalized the transportation system (both merchant navy and railroads), but he did _not_ nationalize the large ranches (estancias) that formed the kernel of oligarchic power. In the end, that is why he was overthrown in 1955, why the third Peronist term (initiated in 1973) came to so horrible a halt in 1976, and why this tepidly petty bourgeois Peronist government we have now is facing a probable defeat in 2011 that may have devastating and enduring effects on the general progressive and revolutionary trend in Latin America. Keep it clear, comrades: if Argentina falls in the hands of the sepoy, Quisling and proimperialists in 2011, the risks that Venezuela is isolated will grow at a geometric pace. This last fact is what makes Arg Marxists so necessary, BUT only if they reject the "classist" approach of the ultra-left. I don?t know if we shall have the time to do it in order to take over from the national bourgeois. In more senses than one, we are playing with fire here. -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From sartesian at earthlink.net Fri Sep 4 04:44:39 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 06:44:39 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.58150100f2b6a04a.024.lueko.willms.dialin@t-online.de> Message-ID: <9F3C3FB778C74AFE873E8D02E644FCC3@dmsthinkpad> Context Luko, context. You really have to read the posts before you spew your distortions. 1. The entire post to which you refer was a response to MG's speculation that the actions of revolutionary government/state in China, and the response of the bourgeoisie, would be devastating to the workers of China and the US, and produce a worsening of living conditions. 2. The entire post to which you refer dealt with actual revolutionary situations. 3. The paragraph regarding the Russian Revolution to which you refers follows and is linked directly to the preceding paragraph regarding the impact of "developmentalism" and nationalizations in the real revolutionary situations of Bolivia and Chile. 4. Indeed, the soviets may have discussed street lighting. The FEJUVE in El Alto in Bolivia certainly did, just as they discussed and took direct, collective action regarding the privatization of the municipal water supply. The difference between that and your cheerleading for the development of capitalism in China is the difference, well it's the difference between revolutionary organization, its struggle for power, and cheerleading for capitalism. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lueko Willms" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 2:42 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans From sartesian at earthlink.net Fri Sep 4 04:48:41 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 06:48:41 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de><100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de><100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de><08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV><7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad><100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com><2ABE3E8B59FC498382DBC9AC222DCFB8@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909040156n10c368e2m5dc60adbd43345e7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <78AE9C79B96D4360ADC565D5DCEBFA7B@dmsthinkpad> And I of course knew that is exactly how you would answer: imperialism automatically makes the national question a class question. Even granting that, Nestor, which in deeper conversation I would not, that doesn't mean that every response, ever action that appears to be national is anti-imperialist; and it doesn't mean that every action that appears to be anti-imperialist is automatically a class action. That's history 101. ----- Original Message ----- From: "N?stor Gorojovsky" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 4:56 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet,not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans From lueko.willms at t-online.de Fri Sep 4 04:36:10 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:36:10 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] =?utf-8?q?Voting_with_feet=2C_not_commendable_in_Argent?= =?utf-8?q?ina_Re=3A_=09China=27s_high_speed_rail_plans?= In-Reply-To: <2fa158550909040200l354c470ejeec4709482bbb35f@mail.gmail.com> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> <100.708e01003ad3a04a.030@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909040200l354c470ejeec4709482bbb35f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <100.809d05009aeda04a.031@lws-media.de> N?stor Gorojovsky (nmgoro at gmail.com) wrote on 2009-09-04 at 06:00:26 in about Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans: > > > Sorry, I was thinking in Argentinean parliamentary terms. > > "Voting with the feet", here, means "leaving the Hemicycle" so that > the numbers fall below the minimum required to vote a law. "Voting > with the ass" means remaining at one?s seat even though one does not > favor a law, but at least provides the minimum number. This numer, > here, is known as quorum. Thanks for the explanation, which will be useful for more people than just me. I actually intended my query mail as a private one, off-list... hm, good that it was diverted! Saludos, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From bbauerly at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 06:41:21 2009 From: bbauerly at gmail.com (brad bauerly) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 08:41:21 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed?? Message-ID: <55868ddf0909040541x71603594r2468b81d6cd9f7b8@mail.gmail.com> I think it is imperative that we allow posts of articles. In order to have discussion we must be discussing the same thing and we must begin at the same place. Without posts of articles we are all coming to the conversation with different levels of knowledge and understandings of an issue and it will only lead to more fighting and less fruitful discussions. Besides I like seeing what others are reading and finding interesting. Brad From intnsred at golgotha.net Fri Sep 4 07:05:02 2009 From: intnsred at golgotha.net (Intense Red) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 09:05:02 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] U.S. Suspends $30 Million To Honduras In-Reply-To: <1252035899.9056.0.camel@ubuntu.ubuntu-domain> References: <1252035899.9056.0.camel@ubuntu.ubuntu-domain> Message-ID: <200909040905.02470.intnsred@golgotha.net> > http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/world/americas/04honduras.html?em > Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Thursday that the > United States would formally suspend nearly $30 million in aid to the > coup-installed government in Honduras. But on the other hand (!) the US did not call it a military coup, which would have meant tighter restrictions on Honduras. And on the third hand, Democracy Now! reports this morning that the IMF is giving Honduras $150 million, which more than makes up for the loss of the $30 million from the US. -- "The courts have ruled that the police can search your data without a warrant, as long as others hold that data. If the police want to read the e-mail on your computer, they need a warrant; but they don't need one to read it from the backup tapes at your ISP." -- Security expert Bruce Schneier. From sartesian at earthlink.net Fri Sep 4 07:08:00 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 09:08:00 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Econ Rebounding? References: <55868ddf0909021159g69c3e02asf6825d314fbbe451@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: More reasons why I don't believe in the recovery : Wall Street Journal, September 5 2009 States Shut Down to Save Cash Maine Maryland Michigan Slash Service: 'Nightmare' at California Vehicle Registry [graphic] Feeling the Pinch: Imapct of budget cust and one day shutdowns Washington 7000 jobs eliminated California 27000 teachers laid off. Drivers can't register their cars in person. Arizona 1000 workers laid off. Furloughs [unpaid] of 1-2 days a month Wisconsin No birth certificate copies available Michigan 38,000 employees facing furloughs. Most stating shooting ranges and visitor center will be closed Maine Families cannot apply for food stamps or Medicaid Maryland The Highway Administration will be operating half the usual number of traffic patrols Georgia 25,000 employees facing furloughs. Lawyers can't file papers with the State Court of Appeals. __________________ But to our anarch-monetarist, liquidationist bourgeoisie, these are the very elements of a recovery, right? Like I said, the thing about capitalism is that contraction and expansion take on each other's characteristics. From holmoff10 at hotmail.com Fri Sep 4 07:14:26 2009 From: holmoff10 at hotmail.com (Leonardo Kosloff) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 13:14:26 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: @Nestor: Well, then, what makes you think that the Chinese bureaucracy won't betray the interests of workers, China's and the world's over, just as Peron did? (...taking into account that it is already doing that, unless you want to "dialectically" abstract from the fact that the CCP is Washington's main creditor.) _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail? is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=PID23391::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HYGN_faster:082009 From acpollack2 at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 07:31:39 2009 From: acpollack2 at gmail.com (Andrew Pollack) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 09:31:39 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] John Brown anniversary Message-ID: <2fa1449b0909040631x72e60e76r951e8769a1fbea75@mail.gmail.com> October 16th is the 150th anniversary of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and December 2 of his martyrdom. I had hoped by now I would have heard of some commemorative events (or at least publications) being planned, but not so far. This is to encourage anyone who has heard of anything -- or willing to organize something -- to spread the word. Andy Pollack From marvgandall at videotron.ca Fri Sep 4 07:55:13 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:55:13 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909011012x53e8dab2y5d3e4cdfe714637@mail.gmail.com> <0DE45B8437EB4C38B8C31798B6397369@dmsthinkpad> <100.b08f060025089e4a.049@lws-media.de> <100.0828070074c79f4a.005@lws-media.de> <4A9FE8DD.5070707@panix.com> <17C1C7AB0AAA496F82B9B7520F263E2A@MARV> <6F2EBE6ECF64464EA10A8A33A448D2A8@dmsthinkpad> <63B7EC10F1704BA38A83AE56E7C2245F@dmsthinkpad> <8C566C24D6704B13856525E56FE0915B@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: Artesian asks: > So what should we do, besides I mean become social-democrats and vote our > approvals of the bourgeoisie's various budgets which of course hold no > immanent disaster for the living standards, or just the plain living, of > the > workers and poor? ===================================== That is a good question, when socialism is only a metaphysical construct and no longer a material force in the working class. This leaves us in the advanced capitalist countries at the present time only to discuss the current world situation and the prospects for change over the internet or in small organized groups. And to support and (for those of us with the will and energy to do so) to participate in and try to advance the only social struggles going on today, which are between liberals and conservatives, and which turn on the democratic demands of organized workers, national minorities and immigrants, women, gays, environmentalists and other groups trying to defend their interests under capitalism. Also, to support anti-imperialist struggles abroad. If the above activity makes us social democrats, then we're all social democrats, no matter how much we reject the label and like to think of ourselves as otherwise. There are no longer any socialist parties, much less revolutionary socialist ones, aiming at take power on behalf of the working class to which we can affiliate. For me, a social democrat is one who believes the masses can take power and transform capitalist property relations through gradual, peaceful, and parliamentary means. I still don't accept this to be possible, and recent history has confirmed this. On the other hand, although I don't as yet see any indications of it, I believe a revival of the socialist movement is possible in China, the US, and elsewhere, given the right social conditions which I've discussed previously. Fundamental change in society, while long in preparation, tends to occur swiftly and unexpectedly. That lesson was also driven home by recent history - in this case, the rapid and wholly unexpected unwinding of the anticapitalist revolutions in both the USSR and China. From markalause at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 08:10:13 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 10:10:13 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] John Brown anniversary In-Reply-To: <2fa1449b0909040631x72e60e76r951e8769a1fbea75@mail.gmail.com> References: <2fa1449b0909040631x72e60e76r951e8769a1fbea75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Thanks for asking. :-) This is due out this fall. A cheaper, paperback version will follow.... ML RACE AND RADICALISM IN THE UNION ARMY In this compelling portrait of interracial activism, Mark A. Lause documents the efforts of radical followers of John Brown to construct a triracial portion of the Federal Army of the Frontier. Mobilized and inspired by the idea of a Union that would benefit all, black, Indian, and white soldiers fought side by side, achieving remarkable successes in the field. Against a backdrop of idealism, racism, greed, and the agonies and deprivations of combat, Lause examines links between radicalism and reform, on the one hand, and racialized interactions among blacks, Indians, and whites, on the other. full at http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/67zda4ns9780252034466.html From mikedjyates at msn.com Fri Sep 4 08:18:38 2009 From: mikedjyates at msn.com (MICHAEL YATES) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 07:18:38 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] john brown's anniversary Message-ID: Monthly Review will have an excellent essay on John Brown in the October issue. michael yates, associate editor From bbauerly at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 08:33:04 2009 From: bbauerly at gmail.com (brad bauerly) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 10:33:04 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Econ Rebounding? Message-ID: <55868ddf0909040733m38d4f29fg7ad4a2e93fb887e9@mail.gmail.com> All well and good S. Artesian. However, capitalism's self produced gravediggers are the workers, not financiers, world leaders or 'overaccumulation'. Otherwise Marx would have said capitalism produces its own graves or death, not gravediggers. The workers must destroy the system it will not destroy itself. Under the current supine politics of the working class we will get Patrick's "crisis solutions from above". It is fun, and serves a very real tactical political purpose, to argue that the 'end is nigh' for capitalism due to its own contradictions. However, sober analysis also reveals a very real lack of movement towards that end by the working class. How does this fact impact your analysis? Brad From sartesian at earthlink.net Fri Sep 4 08:59:55 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 10:59:55 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, References: <4AA0772A.6060302@gmail.com> Message-ID: <09514F6A840F448D86DFF35F6B578589@dmsthinkpad> David, Even if what you describe regarding Argentina were accurate, which it is not, that would be tangential to the truly critical issue. And what is that issue? Let's review, according to LW and Nestor, the CCP is not bowing down to capitalism, it is using capitalism to build socialism;it is using capitalism to make the Chinese nation stronger; in making the Chinese nation stronger, it, the embrace of capitalism is making theproletariat stronger. Transposing this all to neat and abstract formula to the actual course of development in China, LW's argument means, becomes: Without the original establishment of the special enterprise zone, without the removal of protections against the abuse and exploitation of the migrant workers, indeed without the limbo status of migrant, female, workers, without the explicit cheap labor policy, without reductions on taxes, levies, obligations afforded the FDI-- without all that there would have been no export driven growth or "development" of China's economy. With no export driven growth, there would have been no export earnings available to the CCP leadership of the state, without those export earnings, there would have been no "stimulus" money that could be turned to developing the domestic market, building the infrastructure, bringing the joy of HSR to China. Of course, the fact that export earnings are not being used as the stimulus is a mere technicality that we can ignore temporarily. So....? So you don't get one without the other. You don't get the heaven of "nation-building" without first, according to our glorious nation-builders, the hell of intense exploitation. [All hail Milton Friedman. No wonder the CCP invited him to China]. So...? So the real question isn't if you "vote" or demand "more development" when sitting in your seat in the bourgeoisie's parliament, or the party's bureaucratic development commission. The real question is do you vote, endorse, support, in fact subsidize, the intense exploitation that makes the supposed industrial garden of eden possible? The real question is what class does the development, and it's always a class doing the "developing" on that class' terms. Not only do you not get one without the other, so-called development without brutal exploitation with capitalism or the adaptation of capitalism, but even during this so-called development, even during the patriotic, and noble, and stirring nation building of constructing "public" utilities, railroads, dams, factories within a non-socialist, 1st,2nd, or 3rd world county, that very same intense exploitation is carried on by those developers, those nation builders, those patriots. You think not? Look at the accident rates on big construction projects in these countries. The exploitation and the "development" are part of the whole, and the whole is the reproduction of capital, of profit. So....? So returning to our issues of dams and railroads... we not only do not support the construction of dams and railroads, by the bourgeoisie, or by their state, we often times oppose that construction by the bourgeoisie; and if we don't oppose the construction itself, we always oppose the terms of that construction, the conditions of labor in that construction. You want to support a transcontinental railroad hookup in the US after the Civil War because that would be "developmental?" Do you support the transfer of public lands to the railroad companies--private in this case, but they could be nationalized, makes no difference? Do we then support the dispossession of the indigenous peoples from their lands because we are "nation-building." Do we then tolerate the brutal importation, exploitation, and even impressment of labor from other areas of the globe because we are "developing?" Of course not. But you could not separate those things from development under the capitalism of the 19th century. And similarly, you cannot separate similar, parallel, abuses from the "nation-building," "development" that embraces the substance of 20th and 21st century capitalism. You want to support the construction of dams under the New Deal? Do you think that construction of dams was separate and apart from the devastation of small scale farmers, the unemployment of urban workers creating a dispossessed and desparate army of the unemployed? You want to support the construction of dams and railroads in Brazil? Do you think that construction takes place without the dispossession of small, subsistence producers in rural areas, the uprooting and dispossession of the poor in both rural and urban areas? Let me give you an example that might help clarify the problem and the difficulties. Lets look at the US Army Corps of Engineers. The CoE is part of the Army's military command. It is responsible for the construction and maintenace of the facilities the US Army and Air Force require to train, deploy, support, and perform missions in fulfilling the policies and directive of the US. The CoE is also responsible for the maintenace, development, improvement of all the nation's waterways. In the 20th century, the Congress made it responsible for flood control along the country's waterways. OK, enough background. Do you vote yes on the US Army command's appropriation request that includes the money for the CoE's "benign" "developmental" infrastructure work? I don't know about you, but I vote no. I know you would never support such acts of dispossession and exploitation, but again within the framework of developing a capitalism, without the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, such development cannot be separated from dispossession and exploitation. ----- Original Message ----- From: "nada" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 10:10 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, > Well, I don't agree with S. Artesian. Of course we take positions on > develop issues. If I were a union activist in China, in the rail unions, > I'd be *demanding* more development. More money for maintenance of way, > for better and faster trains, for more input into managing the still > state-owned rail roads and to fight against any privatization efforts. > From sartesian at earthlink.net Fri Sep 4 09:01:43 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 11:01:43 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Econ Rebounding? References: <55868ddf0909040733m38d4f29fg7ad4a2e93fb887e9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I don't believe "the end is nigh." I am simply saying that the talk of recovery is vastly overrated, overrated in the terms that matter even to the bourgeoisie. ----- Original Message ----- From: "brad bauerly" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 10:33 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Econ Rebounding? > All well and good S. Artesian. From binesi at gvtel.com Fri Sep 4 09:19:41 2009 From: binesi at gvtel.com (David Thorstad) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:19:41 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] =?windows-1252?q?Pilger=3A_Power=2C_Illusion=2C_and_Ame?= =?windows-1252?q?rica=92s_Last_Taboo?= Message-ID: <4AA1300D.5040008@gvtel.com> Even if Pilger's optimism about what he calls "a certain populism" growing in the USA is exaggerated (and the I think it is), his expos? of Obama's smoke-and-mirrors pr for imperialism and the capitulation of most of what remains of the American "left" is right on. David http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/09/power-illusion-and-america?s-last-taboo/ -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: Attached Message Part Url: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/attachments/20090904/b0ac71eb/attachment.txt From jollyjack at jollyjack.org Fri Sep 4 09:35:06 2009 From: jollyjack at jollyjack.org (jollyjack at jollyjack.org) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 08:35:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism] T-Shirts with Marxist and Progressive Themes Available Message-ID: <130808.65579.qm@web37903.mail.mud.yahoo.com> To Readers of the Marxism List, Several?years ago?I sent a notice to the list announcing the opening of our web store promoting T-Shirts with Marxist themes. Since that time we have expanded our selection greatly to include buttons and hats and have added many new designs. ? Most of our shirts are?designed by Michael Martinez, a leader of Miami's Bolivarian Youth organization.?We have just introduced a new line of shirts commemorating Native American leaders, We also have shirts with poster art from the May 1968 revolt in France along with shirts honoring Gramsci, Trotsky and other revolutionary leaders. Of course we have a large number of shirts focused on our current struggles including health care. ??? ? Most of the shirts were designed by Michael and we produce them ourselves right here in Miami. They are all top quality and send a? progressive message.? We I would like to invite you to please visit our site and let us know what you think about it!? We can also design and produce T-Shirts for organizations, a mobilization or? businesses and have them union made if you wish.?Please? call me at 305-582-4846 if you are interested any special orders or requests. All of our profits go to support the progressive movement, so the?money generated by your purchases will be used to support the struggles you?believe in!? Please click the following link to reach our?store. http://www.radicaljack.com/ Best? Regards, Jack Lieberman From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Sep 4 11:52:27 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:52:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] The Palestinian body part controversy Message-ID: <4AA153DB.4090805@panix.com> Counterpunch Weekend Edition September 4-6, 2009 The Missing Link in Israeli Organ Theft? The Autopsy Surgeon Aftonbladet Forgot By JONATHAN COOK Nazareth The hyperventilating by Israel?s leaders [1] over a story published in a Swedish newspaper last month [2] suggesting that the Israeli army assisted in organ theft from Palestinians has distracted attention from the disturbing allegations made by Palestinian families that were the basis of the article?s central claim. The families? fears that relatives, killed by the Israeli army, had body parts removed during unauthorized autopsies performed in Israel have been overshadowed by accusations of a ?blood libel? directed against the reporter, Donald Bostrom, and the Aftonbladet newspaper, as well as the Swedish government and people. I have no idea whether the story is true. Like most journalists working in Israel and Palestine, I have heard such rumours before. Until Bostrom wrote his piece, no Western journalist, as far as I know, had investigated them. After so many years, the assumption by journalists was that there was little hope of finding evidence -- apart from literally by digging up the corpses. Doubtless, the inevitable charge of anti-semitism such reports attract acted as a powerful deterrent too. What is striking about this episode is that the families making the claims were not given a hearing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, during the first intifada, when most of the reports occurred, and are still being denied the right to voice their concerns today. Israel?s sensitivity to the allegation of organ theft -- or ?harvesting?, as many observers coyly refer to the practice -- appears to trump the genuine concerns of the families about possible abuse of their loved ones. Bostrom has been much criticized for the flimsy evidence he produced in support of his inflammatory story. Certainly there is much to criticize in his and the newspaper?s presentation of the report. Most significantly, Bostrom and Aftonbladet exposed themselves to the charge of anti-semitism -- at least from Israeli officials keen to make mischief -- through a major error of judgment. They muddied the waters by trying to make a tenuous connection between the Palestinian families? allegations about organ theft during unauthorized autopsies and the entirely separate revelations this month that a group of US Jews had been arrested for money-laundering and trading in body parts. [3] In making that connection, Bostrom and Aftonbladet suggested that the problem of organ theft is a current one when they have produced only examples of such concern from the early 1990s. They also implied, whether intentionally or not, that abuses allegedly committed by the Israeli army could somehow be extrapolated more generally to Jews. The Swedish reporter should instead have concentrated on the valid question raised by the families about why the Israeli army, by its own admission, took away the bodies of dozens of Palestinians killed by its soldiers, allowed autopsies to be performed on them without the families? permission and then returned the bodies for burial in ceremonies held under tight security. Bostrom?s article highlighted the case of one Palestinian, 19-year-old Bilal Ahmed Ghanan, from the village of Imatin in the northern West Bank, who was killed in 1992. A shocking picture of Bilal?s stitched-up body accompanied the report. [4] Bostrom has told the Israeli media that he knows of at least 20 cases of families claiming that the bodies of loved ones were returned with body parts missing, [5] although he did not say whether any of these alleged incidents occurred more recently. In 1992, the year in question, Bostrom says, the Israeli army admitted to him that it took away for autopsy 69 of the 133 Palestinians who died of unnatural causes. The army has not denied this part of his report. A justifiable question from the families relayed by Bostrom is: why did the army want the autopsies carried out? Unless it can be shown that the army intended to conduct investigations into the deaths -- and there is apparently no suggestion that it did -- the autopsies were unnecessary. In fact, they were more than unnecessary. They were counterproductive if we assume that the army has no interest in gathering evidence that could be used in future war crimes prosecutions of its soldiers. Israel has a long track record of stymying investigations into Palestinian deaths at the hands of its soldiers, and carried on that ignoble tradition in the wake of its recent assault on Gaza. Of even greater concern for the Palestinian families is the fact that at around the time the bodies of their loved ones were whisked off by the army for autopsy, the only institute in Israel that conducts such autopsies, Abu Kabir, near Tel Aviv, was almost certainly at the centre of a trade in organs that later became a scandal inside Israel. Equally disturbing, the doctor behind the plunder of body parts, Prof Yehuda Hiss, appointed director of the Abu Kabir institute in the late 1980s, has never been jailed despite admitting to the organ theft and he continues to be the state?s chief pathologist at the institute. Hiss was in charge of the autopsies of Palestinians when Bostrom was listening to the families? claims in 1992. Hiss was subsequently investigated twice, in 2002 and 2005, over the theft of body parts on a large scale. Allegations of Hiss? illegal trade in organs was first revealed in 2000 by investigative reporters at the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, which reported that he had ?price listings? for body parts and that he sold mainly to Israeli universities and medical schools. [6] Apparently undeterred by these revelations, Hiss still had an array of body parts in his possession at Abu Kabir when the Israeli courts ordered a search in 2002. Israel National News reported at the time: ?Over the past years, heads of the institute appear to have given thousands of organs for research without permission, while maintaining a ?storehouse? of organs at Abu Kabir.? [7] Hiss did not deny the plunder of organs, admitting that the body parts belonged to soldiers killed in action and had been passed to medical institutes and hospitals in the interests of advancing research. Understandably, however, the Palestinian families are unlikely to be satisfied with Hiss? explanation. If the wishes of a soldier?s familiy were disregarded by Hiss, why not Palestinian families? wishes too? Hiss was allowed to continue as director of Abu Kabir until 2005 when allegations of a trade in organs surfaced again. On this occasion Hiss admitted to having removed parts from 125 bodies without authorization. Following a plea bargain with the state, the attorney general decided not to press criminal charges and Hiss was given only a reprimand. [8] He has continued as chief pathologist at Abu Kabir. It should also be noted, as Bostrom points out, that in the early 1990s Israel was suffering from an acute shortage of organ donors to the extent that Ehud Olmert, health minister at the time, launched a public campaign to encourage Israelis to come forward. This offers a possible explanation for Hiss? actions. He may have acted to help make up the shortfall. Given the facts that are known, there must be at least a very strong suspicion that Hiss removed organs without authorisation from some Palestinians he autopsied. Both this issue, and the army?s possible role in supplying him with corpses, needs investigation. Hiss is also implicated in another long-running and unresolved scandal from Israel?s early years, in the 1950s, when the children of recent Jewish immigrants to Israel from Yemen were adopted by Ashkenazi couples after the Yeminite parents had been told that their child had died, [9] usually after admission to hospital. After an initial cover-up, the Yeminite parents have continued pressing for answers from the state, and forced officials to reopen the files. [8] The Palestinian families deserve no less. However, unlike the Yemenite parents, their chances of receiving any kind of investigation, transparent or otherwise, look all but hopeless. When Palestinian demands for justice are not backed by investigations from journalists or the protests of the international community, Israel can safely ignore them. It is worth remembering in this context the constant refrain from Israel?s peace camp that the brutal, four-decade occupation of the Palestinians has profoundly corrupted Israeli society. When the army enjoys power without accountability, how do Palestinians, or we, know what soldiers are allowed to get away with under cover of occupation? What restraints are in place to prevent abuses? And who takes them to task if they do commit crimes? Similarly, when Israeli politicians are able to cry ?blood libel? or ?anti-semitism? when they are criticised, damaging the reputations of those they accuse, what incentive do they have to initiate inquiries that may harm them or the institutions they oversee? What reason do they have to be honest when they can bludgeon a critic into silence, at no cost to themselves? This is the meaning of the phrase ?Power corrupts?, and Israeli politicians and soldiers, as well as at least one pathologist, demonstrably have far too much power -- most especially over Palestinians under occupation. Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are ?Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East? (Pluto Press) and ?Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair? (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net. Links [1] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1109437.html [2] http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8390&lg=en [3] http://www.slate.com/id/2223559/ [4] http://www.aftonbladet.se/kultur/article5652583.ab [5] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3766093,00.html [6] http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1173179 [7] http://www.israelfaxx.com/webarchive/2002/01/2fax0104.html [8] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/90518 [9] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/israel-seeks-lost-children-of-yemen-exodus-1318037.html From binesi at gvtel.com Fri Sep 4 11:56:33 2009 From: binesi at gvtel.com (David Thorstad) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:56:33 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] SPIEGEL ONLINE - Scandalous Images from Kabul: Guards at US Embassy Organized Humiliating Sex Games Message-ID: <4AA154D1.4060709@gvtel.com> The outrage many have expressed over this latest all-American wartime "sex scandal" is more amusing than outrageous, insofar as it demonstrates the following: 1. Universal homoerotic impulses can emerge in twisted (or, depending on one's point of view, creative) ways under wartime and all-male sex-deprived circumstances. Not all repressed homoerotic impulses come out in vanilla ways. 2. It is interesting how the ruling-class (and other) media have nearly completely suppressed the fact that the United States' Pashtun "allies" in Afghanistan practice pederasty (a form of male homosexuality that is also universal in Iran, despite the idiotic comments of Ahmadinejad at Columbia University that homosexuality doesn't exist in Iran). So, Our Savior's losing war in Afghanistan is tied to a tribe whose homosexual practices are illegal in most U.S. states. (I don't think they should be, but they are, and most American liberals, including most "leftists," think they should be.) I am sure many gay Americans would find some of these sex games fun. David ==================================================================================================== SPIEGEL ONLINE, 09/04/2009 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Scandalous Images from Kabul: Guards at US Embassy Organized Humiliating Sex Games --------------------------------------------------------------------- Photos of embassy guards holding sex parties in Kabul have caused a stir in Washington. Some of the men involved claim they were forced to participate by their supervisors at the ArmorGroup security firm. The scandal could yet again call into question the role of private contractors in US military missions. By Britta Sandberg You can download the complete article over the Internet at the following URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,646977,00.html From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Sep 4 12:28:17 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:28:17 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] A critique of Walter Benn Michaels Message-ID: <4AA15C41.50809@panix.com> Yesterday somebody posted a query on my blog: I?m wondering if you?ve read Walter Benn Michaels?s recent article on race and class in the LRB? Here it is: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n16/mich02_.html. I?d love to read your take on it, and I?m sure that other loyal readers would as well! In answering this, I should mention first of all that the always brilliant Richard Seymour of Lenin?s Tomb fame has taken up Michaels?s article. I should also mention that Michaels has written another provocative article on race, gender and class in the New Left Review. Titled ?Against Diversity?, the NLR article can best be summarized as an old-fashioned defense of class trumping race and gender. Although this has associations with the kind of dogmatic Marxism that allowed the CPUSA to stigmatize Malcolm X as a Black fascist and attack the Equal Rights Amendment, it is really a widespread tendency and has a long history as we shall see. For example, shock jock Don Imus could be heard in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina explaining the neglect of Black New Orleans residents as a ?class? issue rather one of ?race?. I don?t believe that NLR invited Don Imus to write something on these questions, however. read full article: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/a-critique-of-walter-benn-michaels/ From mdriscollrj at charter.net Fri Sep 4 12:29:36 2009 From: mdriscollrj at charter.net (Ralph Johansen) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:29:36 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Econ Rebounding?,# From: brad bauerly Message-ID: <4AA15C90.9050902@charter.net> brad bauerly wrote: ///All well and good S. Artesian. However, capitalism's self produced gravediggers are the workers, not financiers, world leaders or 'overaccumulation'. Otherwise Marx would have said capitalism produces its own graves or death, not gravediggers. The workers must destroy the system it will not destroy itself. Under the current supine politics of the working class we will get Patrick's "crisis solutions from above". It is fun, and serves a very real tactical political purpose, to argue that the 'end is nigh' for capitalism due to its own contradictions. However, sober analysis also reveals a very real lack of movement towards that end by the working class. How does this fact impact your analysis? I agree with both Brad Bauerly and David Schanoes here: necessity and opportunity, not inevitability. To extend the analogy, gravediggers only undertake their task when the corpus has become gravely ill. Again, as I read it, a historical materialist analysis of a system increasingly riddled with contradictions, from which it can emerge only at the expense of the working class, presents us not with the inevitability of collapse but with the necessity arising from the deterioration in socioeconomic conditions for collective action by the working class to overcome and replace the system that threatens us all. Otherwise what we face, clearly, are protracted chaos, including wars whose destructiveness increases exponentially, inexorably worsening environmental destruction, deepening unemployment, hunger, homelessness and poverty, and in any event the inevitable systemic response to resistance of further domestic repression. Whether the emerging conditions engender the appropriate response is the contingent variable. We shall see: "We'll see if it is", as poet E.B. White's Diego Rivera responded when Rockefeller asserted that, after all, it was his wall of the bank on which Rivera had painted the likeness of Lenin. Ralph From schaffer at optonline.net Fri Sep 4 12:31:12 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:31:12 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Econ Rebounding?,# From: XXX YYYYY In-Reply-To: <4AA15C90.9050902@charter.net> References: <4AA15C90.9050902@charter.net> Message-ID: <4AA15CF0.8010208@optonline.net> please make sure marxmail subscriber names do NOT appear in the Subject line. thanks. Les From schaffer at optonline.net Fri Sep 4 13:01:45 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:01:45 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] who uses which marxmail archive? Message-ID: <4AA16419.6010801@optonline.net> this is an informal poll of people reading marxmail via the web. if you can send me an email offlist ( les.schaffer at gmail.com ) letting me know whether you read the web via the '100 Latest Messages' page: http://www.marxmail.org/maillist.html or one of the archives at the Utah server: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/ http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/ it would be helpful to us to have this information. thanks Les From ewjohnson72 at yahoo.com Fri Sep 4 13:34:02 2009 From: ewjohnson72 at yahoo.com (Eric Johnson) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 12:34:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism] Cockburn takes jeff mackler to task In-Reply-To: <4AA15C41.50809@panix.com> Message-ID: <166298.73148.qm@web112223.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> http://www.counterpunch.com/cockburn09042009.html CounterPunch Diary Deeper Into the Tunnel By ALEXANDER COCKBURN As General Stan McChrystal plans his march on Washington to demand more troops in Afghanistan the antiwar movement lies on the sidewalk, as inert and forlorn as a homeless person in the rain at a street corner, too dejected even to hold up a sign. This is at a time that as Mark Ames has just pointed out, ?Obama is doubling down in Afghanistan with more troops deployed now than the Soviets ever had.? Yes, add up US troops and contractors and you get a US invasion of Afghanistan bigger than the Soviet force at its peak. Is there any sign of life in a movement that marshaled hundreds of thousands to march in protest against war in Iraq? Ah, but those were the Bush years. Now we have a Democrat in the White House. One person hasn?t tossed aside her peace sign. Cindy Sheehan sees war as war, whether the battle standard is being waved by a white moron from Midland, Texas or an eloquent black man from Chicago. But when she called for protesters to join her on Martha?s Vineyard to stand outside Obama?s holiday roost for four days at the end of August there was a marked contrast to the response she got when she rallied thousands to stand outside Bush?s Crawford lair. As John Walsh described it here last week, ?the silence was, as Cindy put it in an email to this writer, ?crashingly deafening.? Where are the email appeals to join Cindy from The Nation or from AFSC or Peace Action or ?Progressive? Democrats of America (PDA) or even Code Pink? Or United for Peace and Justice. And what about MoveOn although it was long ago thoroughly discredited as principled opponents of war or principled in any way shape or form except slavish loyalty to the ?other? War Party. And of course sundry ?socialist? organizations are also missing in action since their particular dogma will not be front and center. These worthies and many others have vanished into the fog of Obama?s wars.? Before he joined Sheehan on Martha?s Vineyard, Walsh says he contacted several of the leaders of the ?official? peace movement in the Boston area ? AFSC, Peace Action, Green Party of MA (aka Green Rainbow Party) and some others. Not so much as the courtesy of a reply resulted from this effort - although the GRP at least posted a notice of the action. Click through the leftish or progressive websites these days and you?ll find endless alarums about the renascent right, the brownshirt threat, the massed stormtroopers of Glenn Beck. You won?t find too much practical organizing against Obama?s escalation in Afghanistan. Take the craven behavior of the leadership of the October 17 anti-war protest in San Francisco, the first scheduled to be held in the Obama era. In the nuts-and-bolts details of organizing and endorsements, the saga tells us much about the spavined state of the antiwar movement. On August 29, the October 17 Coalition voted to endorse a protest at the Westin-St. Francis, one of the city?s flashier hotels, the following Friday where San Francisco Congresswoman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was to be honored with a $100 a plate breakfast. But by the end of the day the October 17 coalition leadership got cold feet when it learned that the host of the breakfast was none other than the San Francisco Labor Council. Now, in the Bay Area, the bleak truth is that organized labor?s participation in marches and demonstrations has been minimal since the first Gulf War. But rather than challenging the Labor Council about its apathy on the war questions and about its choice of Pelosi, a war supporter, as its breakfast honoree, the coalition ? replete with supposedly fiery socialists - promptly tried to cancel the protest. There?s nothing new here. Genuflections to the Labor Council has long characterized San Francisco?s anti-war movement leadership when it comes to determining its public agenda. Unsurprisingly, panic at anything to do with Israel?s conduct has characterized many of these more odious chapters in this history, as was forcefully demonstrated by the refusal of what was then called the Spring Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice to planks to its major marches against US intervention in Central America and apartheid in South Africa in 1985 and 1988 that demanded, ?No US Intervention in the Middle East,? and ?End US Support for Israeli Occupation,? respectively. In the spring of 1985, Israel was in its fourth year of occupation of Lebanon after an invasion that had been publicly supported by the AFL-CIO with no dissent from San Francisco?s labor bureaucracy. The main organizer of both of those marches was Socialist Action. In its newspaper this group regularly boasted of its anti-Zionism and solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Nonetheless, in this instance Socialist Action promptly turned into Socialist Inaction. The group was adamant about not allowing any demand that referred to the Middle East to be added to the Mobilization?s program. The limp excuse: ?labor will walk.? So determined was it, in fact, to keep the issue from being raised at the Mobe?s general meeting that Socialist Action had two of its members stand at the end of the aisle where she was sitting to keep Lebanese-born Tina Naccache, a well known radio host from Berkeley?s KPFA, from trying to approach a microphone and addressing the packed union meeting hall. It was considerably more difficult for Socialist Action and its allies to ignore the Palestinian intifada in 1988 but again they rose to the challenge, managing to appease the Labor Council by doing so. This required Socialist Action to cancel a general meeting of anti-war activists that quite likely would have led to the addition of a demand for an end to Israeli occupation. Today we find the very same Socialist Action leader, Jeff Mackler, longer of tooth but no closer to socialism, taking unilateral action to prevent the picketing of the Labor Council breakfast for Pelosi. In an email to the October 17 steering committee, Mackler described in rather comically elevated terms the proposed picket of the breakfast as a ?time bomb [that] was ticking?. I based my decision [to cancel the meeting] on a higher principle. We made a decision [to approve the picket] based on false information. No one knew that we voted to hold a demonstration at the Labor Council breakfast! No one knew that our coalition was going to be the ONLY initiator and sponsor of the demonstration! ?After I consulted with several of the leading forces present, it was clear that we had made a grave mistake that needed immediate correction.. The demonstration we had approved was essentially 3 days away and we had to assume that it was being built in our name, with our leaflet and with our approval. It is now clear that no one approved such a demonstration, with perhaps one exception, the maker of the motion who neglected to inform us of what we were voting for.? The maker of the motion was Steve Zeltzer, a long time labor activist who may be remembered, along with Jeffrey Blankfort and anti-apartheid campaigner, Anne Poirier, for having successfully sued the Anti-Defamation League for spying on them and thousands other activists in the late Eighties. ?We could have done ourselves great harm had we waited,? Mackler quavered. ?Had we not acted as we did, we might have lost the coalition or a good portion of it. We definitely would have lost the ability to ask in good faith for Labor Council support. And no one doubts that labor's support is critical in these days of terrible encroachments on the lives, health and stability of working people, not to mention the masses who are daily slaughtered in the course of the U.S. wars that we so strongly oppose.? Opposition to the war and the slaughter of the masses apparently stops and flees at the hideous possibility of causing embarassment to the San Francisco Labor Council. There is not a hint in Mackler?s lengthy email suggesting that the Labor Council might owe anti-war forces an explanation for having invited Pelosi in the first place. So Pelosi and the Council were spared embarrassment. ?As it stands now the event remains cancelled,? wrote Mackler contentedly, ?now agreed to by most everyone, and hopefully with the least amount of damage done.? The Executive Director of the Labor Council, Tim Paulson, who also happens to head the state Democratic Party?s labor caucus, was quick to show his appreciation to both Pelosi and to the October 17th Coalition while attacking Zeltzer. ?We are?honored to be visited by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who has been fighting tirelessly for real health care 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..? wrote Paulson in a letter to union members. ?I have recently received an email put out by Steve Zeltzer and was saddened to learn that Zeltzer is trying to organize and smear our event by protesting the Speaker at our celebration of Labor Day. ?Our partners in the anti-war movement have been calling me to say they are condemning this protest as irresponsible and divisive. U.S. Labor Against the War has written an email condemning this action. The A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition is also not supporting Zeltzer, and many progressive anti-war activists are emailing and calling the Labor Council to distance themselves from Zeltzer?s misguided efforts. ?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 anti-war movements condemn these efforts.? ?What labor and anti-war movements?? San Franciscans might legitimately ask. For the historical record, and for illustrations of the political effectiveness of causing embarrassment and rocking the boat, the last picket of a San Francisco Labor Council event took place at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco on October 15, 1987. It was the annual dinner that the Labor Council hosted for the Israeli Labor Federation, the Histadrut, which had an office at a San Francisco union hall and whose close business ties with apartheid South Africa had been exposed in the Israeli press. It was also the first public event of the Labor Committee on the Middle East which had been co-founded by Steve Zeltzer and Blankfort earlier that August. The featured speaker was to be Mayor Willie Brown and Zeltzer and Blankfort wrote him requesting that, as an opponent of apartheid, he cancel the speaking invitation and make a public statement condemning the Histadrut. Needless to say, Brown refused and along with Walter Johnson, the executive director of the Labor Council at the time, and many of the guests, were forced to enter the hotel by a side entrance to avoid crossing our picket line. As a result of the protest, which garnered considerable publicity, there were no more Labor Council dinners honoring the Histadrut and shortly thereafter, it closed its office and left the city. How Obama Can Save His Presidency Here we are in September, and what have Obama?s liberal supporters got to cling to by way of evidence that positive change is on the way? Economically, we seem to be heading?well ahead of schedule?into 1937, the year the New Deal crashed onto the rocks. The energy bill, driven by junk science and junk nostrums, has been a detour into disaster. Health reform is levitating toward the graveyard, borne along by Blue Dog Democrats, nerveless salesmanship by the White House and as ripe an eruption of insanity by the know-nothing legions as I?ve ever witnessed. Many Obama dreamers hoped that their man would introduce some minimal shift for the better in America?s relationship with the rest of the world. Now, as noted above, all they have to look forward to is Gen. Stanley McChrystal marching up to Capitol Hill and into the Oval Office to demand more troops for Afghanistan. In relations with Russia Obama and Vice President Biden have remained substantively committed to NATO expansionism. In Latin America, the handling of the coup in Honduras and warm relations with Colombia?s Uribe suggest a sinister larger strategy of counterattack on the leftist trends of the past few years. It?s a dark vista overall. Some big opportunities?like a frontal assault on the power of the banks and of Wall Street?will never return. What can Obama do to regain the initiative? There are two men capable of uniting large numbers of Ameri-cans in detestation: Dick Cheney and George Bush, in that order. Typically, Obama has hopped from foot to foot on his administration?s posture toward our Home Team Torturers. Now Attorney General Eric Holder has gingerly inclined to the view that maybe, perhaps, the US government should inch toward the legal stand-ard on prosecution of torturers required of it by a law signed by Ronald Reagan, not to mention the Geneva Conventions. With their drive for impeachment, the Republicans dominated the headlines and all but paralyzed the Clinton White House for two years. Now it should be payback time. Obama?s pledge to the American people: Cheney and Bush behind bars by 2012, plus Gonzales, Yoo, Addington and the rest of the pack. We crave drama. From Obama we?re not getting it, except in the form of racist rallies. This is his last, best chance. Exclusive to CounterPunch newsletter subscribers! In our latest newsletter, published this weekend, find Eugenia Tsao?s brilliant report on the booming global trade in Psychotherapeutics. As third world neoliberal economies plunge millions into hunger and desperation, sales of Prozac and other antipsychotics boom. Take the case of Argentina. Tsao writes: ?Within the first five years of the IMF?s ravaging of the Argentinean economy in the early 1990s, total pharmaceutical revenues rose 70 per cent: ? spooked by the proliferation of unlicensed copies of their patented compounds, multinationals like GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer ramped up their efforts to encourage Argentinean psychiatrists to prescribe Paxil and Zoloft by sending them on free trips to prestigious North American and European scientific congresses (otherwise unaffordable for most researchers in the global South) and supplying them with free samples of brand-name product (cherished commodities in underfunded state hospitals).? First World to Third: Don?t organize against imperial and local oppression. Blame yourself for being crazy and take Prozac. In the newsletter subscribers will also find Elyssa Pachico?s amazing account of how the US Patents office helped a Colorado man claim ownership of the Mexican mayacoba bean. Pachico reviews the long string of patent piracies in recent years in which even ayahuasca, the psychedelic used by Amerindian shamans for centuries, has been the target of First World biopiracy. Also in this latest newsletter you can find co-editor Alexander Cockburn?s detailed account of how al-Megrahi, the Libyan with terminal prostate cancer recently sent home from a Scottish prison amid a huge and vindictive uproar in the U.S., was framed in a successful bid by the U.S. and U.K. to pin the Lockerbie bombing of Panam Flight 103 on Qaddafi?s Libya. Subscribe today! Alexander Cockburn can be reached at alexandercockburn at asis.com From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 14:11:24 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 16:11:24 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Where jazz meets hip hop Message-ID: <5c2e4d230909041311y6fa620cdt855cab01f8db76f1@mail.gmail.com> Where jazz meets hip hop Detroit-born Karriem Riggins grooves at the corner By W. Kim Heron http://metrotimes.com/music/story.asp?id=14332 SEE ALSO More Jazz Stories Jazz fest highlights (9/2/2009) Some high notes among fest offerings Life lesson (9/2/2009) A tribute to Eric Dolphy ? years in the making The last king of swing (9/2/2009) Gerald Wilson paints his hometown in sound More from W. Kim Heron Jazz fest highlights (9/2/2009) Some high notes among fest offerings Life lesson (9/2/2009) A tribute to Eric Dolphy ? years in the making The last king of swing (9/2/2009) Gerald Wilson paints his hometown in sound By W. Kim Heron From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 14:15:19 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 16:15:19 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] U.S. Suspends $30 Million To Honduras In-Reply-To: <200909040905.02470.intnsred@golgotha.net> References: <1252035899.9056.0.camel@ubuntu.ubuntu-domain> <200909040905.02470.intnsred@golgotha.net> Message-ID: Reports right now make it seem likely that the IMF is going to withhold those funds in the wake of Clinton's announcement. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/03/imf-honduras-aid-zelaya On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 9:05 AM, Intense Red wrote: > > And on the third hand, Democracy Now! reports this morning that the IMF > is giving Honduras $150 million, which more than makes up for the loss of > the $30 million from the US. > > From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 14:18:49 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 16:18:49 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] U.S. Suspends $30 Million To Honduras In-Reply-To: References: <1252035899.9056.0.camel@ubuntu.ubuntu-domain> <200909040905.02470.intnsred@golgotha.net> Message-ID: Actually I'm sorry I linked to yesterday's article. Here is today's news http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/imf-may-withold-aid-honduras/ On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 4:15 PM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > Reports right now make it seem likely that the IMF is going to withhold > those funds in the wake of Clinton's announcement. > > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/03/imf-honduras-aid-zelaya > > > On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 9:05 AM, Intense Red wrote: > >> >> And on the third hand, Democracy Now! reports this morning that the IMF >> is giving Honduras $150 million, which more than makes up for the loss of >> the $30 million from the US. >> >> From tcod at hotmail.com Fri Sep 4 16:16:30 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 22:16:30 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Cockburn takes jeff mackler to task In-Reply-To: <166298.73148.qm@web112223.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <4AA15C41.50809@panix.com> <166298.73148.qm@web112223.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Well, at least Socialist Action and Jeff Mackler are involved in the anti-war struggle to the extent that they would earn the public animosity of Cockburn, a nationally known columnist, a fact that by itself merits respect from those of us who might not have been in SF during this particular incident. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online. http://windowslive.com/Campaign/SocialNetworking?ocid=PID23285::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_SB_online:082009 From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Sep 4 16:51:11 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:51:11 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Phil Gasper on Iran Message-ID: <4AA199DF.70400@panix.com> http://www.isreview.org/issues/67/critthink-iran.shtml ISR Issue 67, September?October 2009 CRITICAL THINKING by PHIL GASPER Which side are you on? Why are some U.S. leftists siding with the repressive Iranian regime against pro-democracy protesters? At the beginning of August, the government of Iran launched a trial against more than 100 of its most prominent opponents, claiming that they had conspired with foreign governments to overthrow the Iranian regime by organizing a campaign to discredit the legitimacy of the country?s presidential election in June. Among those accused were former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former deputy interior minister Mohammad Atrianfar, former deputy economic minister Mohsen Safai-Farahani, former deputy speaker of the Parliament Behzad Nabavi, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, as well as various Iranians living outside the country. That the conservative theocratic Iranian government, which has faced widespread street protests since the disputed election, should respond to its critics in this way was perhaps not surprising. Sadly, however, over the past few months, similar accusations have been leveled against the protesters by sections of the U.S. left. In fact a fierce debate has been raging on the left about the character of the protests in Iran and whether or not anti-imperialists in this country should support them. Neo-Stalinist groups like the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) and the organization from which it split a few years ago, the Workers World Party (WWP), have predictably denounced the protesters as stooges of Western governments, and accused them of being secretly funded by U.S. government organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy. Both PSL and the WWP operate on the principle that my enemy?s enemy is my friend, and have a history of supporting the repression of popular movements that challenge regimes that are opposed by the U.S. government. In 1956, the WWP supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary to crush a mass workers? rebellion calling for greater freedom, and which had begun to establish factory councils. Similarly, the WWP backed the suppression of Solidarity, the mass independent trade union in Poland in the early 1980s, and the Chinese government?s brutal crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. In the case of Iran, the argument is that simply challenging the regime?no matter how repressive it may be?plays into the hands of the U.S. and other Western imperialist powers, who would dearly like to reverse the results of the country?s Islamic revolution in 1979. Similar arguments have been made by a variety of other influential figures on the left including the Marxist sociologist James Petras, radical media critics Edward Herman (who has co-authored several books with Noam Chomsky) and David Peterson, and Yoshie Furuhashi, editor of MRZine, the daily Web magazine of the socialist journal Monthly Review. In fact MRZine has turned itself into a forum for critics of the Iranian protests and for apologetics for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, leading one member of the Monthly Review editorial board to resign. Much of the controversy has focused on the election itself, in which official results gave Ahmadinejad an unexpected landslide victory over the main opposition candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi. With an official turnout of 85 percent, Ahmadinejad was awarded 63 percent of the votes versus Mousavi?s 34 percent. The results were so hard to believe that they resulted in the biggest street protests in Iran since the 1979 Revolution. But Petras, Herman and Peterson, Furuhashi, and others all argue that there is no serious evidence that the results were rigged. According to Herman and Peterson, for example, in an article published in late July, allegations of ?massive vote fraud and a possible Mousavi majority are not based on any credible evidence whatsoever.? Herman and Peterson point to a preelection poll that gave Ahmadinejad 34 percent of the vote and Mousavi 14 percent. But it is worth noting that the poll was conducted by telephone from outside the country by the Washington organization Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion. As the Iranian historian Ervand Abrahamian points out, ?the name and location of the polling organization? may well have influenced the results. In any case, the poll was taken in May, several weeks before the election. Abrahamian notes, ?Once the actual electoral campaign?by law restricted to just ten days?got started, the race became much tighter.? Abrahamian points to three factors that may have shifted public opinion: ? First, a series of TV debates in which Ahmadinejad was generally thought to do poorly. Herman and Peterson dispute this, claiming that Ahmadinejad won the debates, but their only source for this is Time magazine journalist Joe Klein, who does not speak Farsi; ? Second, Mousavi?s reputation as a populist who reduced income inequality when he was prime minister during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s; ? Third, the role of the women?s movement, spurred into activity by the prominent role of Mousavi?s wife, an outspoken defender of women?s rights, in the campaign. The result was huge demonstrations around the country in favor of Mousavi. With the race apparently tightening, many observers expected that Ahmadinejad would not win over 50 percent of the vote and there would need to be a runoff. Newsweek cited an internal Iranian government poll that indicated that Mousavi would win twice as many votes as Ahamdinejad. According to Abrahamian, ?To preempt this, the Interior Ministry, which was running the election and was headed by a millionaire friend of Ahmadinejad, acted decisively, giving Ahmadinejad not just a majority but such a resounding one that dwarfed the votes gained by his opponents.? Abrahamian cites considerable circumstantial evidence that the elections were fixed: The [Interior] minister purged unreliable civil servants from the electoral commission. He restricted the number of permits issued to poll observers; prevented some of them from entering the 45,000 polling stations; set up more than 14,000 mobile electoral trucks (making the vote easy to fiddle); printed far more ballot papers than there were eligible voters; cut off communications to Mousavi and [another reformist candidate, Mehdi] Karroubi?s headquarters on the day of the elections (Mousavi?s office in Qom were torched in a mysterious attack); and, as a clincher, at the end of the election day, broke precedent by not having the ballots tabulated on the spot but instead rushed to the ministry where they were ?counted? by his aides. There is additional evidence. Farideh Farhi, an expert on Iranian elections at the University of Hawaii, with detailed knowledge of district-by-district voting trends concluded that the result was ?pulled out of a hat.? According to an analysis by the British non-governmental organization Chatham House (mentioned but rejected as speculative by Herman and Peterson), in order for Ahmadinejad to have won the 24.5 million votes awarded to him in the official tally, in a third of the country?s provinces he would have needed to receive the support ?not only all former conservative voters, all former centrist voters and all new voters but also up to 44 percent of former reformist voters?despite a decade of conflict between these two groups.? And Sadeq Saba, an Iranian affairs analyst for the BBC, found that instead of being reported by province, the ?results came in blocks of millions of votes,? with each candidate receiving almost exactly the same percentage in each block, with no significant regional differences in the vote, a result that went against ?all precedent in Iranian politics.? But whatever the results of the election, critics like Herman and Peterson are convinced that the ongoing protests that followed at the very least play into the hands of Western imperialism and may have been orchestrated from the outside. They describe the protests as ?yet another campaign that fits well with one of [the U.S.] government?s longest-running programs of destabilization and regime change.? And they argue that calling for solidarity with the demonstrators ?encourage[s] leftists to pull down their natural defenses against U.S. imperialism.? Going beyond this, they claim ?the protests are certainly not entirely ?homegrown? and have a pretty clear link both to direct destabilization campaigns and to the massive destabilizations imposed upon this region of the world by the United States and its allies.? Herman and Peterson even claim that opposition groups may have deliberately goaded the Iranian government into cracking down as part of a master plan: ?it wouldn?t be surprising if the Iranian financiers of the Mousavi campaign had concluded that they could achieve their political objectives best, not at the ballot box in June 2009, and not by arguing their case before the rigid bodies of Iran?s executive branch, but by tailoring their messages of dissent to foreign audiences, taking to the streets to provoke repressive responses by state authorities.? These allegations are deeply insulting to the millions of people who have participated in the demonstrations, and in particular to the dozens who have been killed by the authorities and the thousands who have been arrested and sometimes brutally tortured. There is certainly a long history of failed U.S. attempts to destabilize the current Iranian regime, but there is no evidence that the continuing protests are in any way the result of outside manipulation. Indeed, both the leadership at the top and the movement on the streets have been unequivocal in their opposition to such interference, and in particular to the long history of U.S. intervention in the region. In the end, Herman and Peterson?s case comes down to nothing more than a rhetorical demand for supporters of the protesters to demonstrate that no Iranians are on the CIA payroll. It is also nonsense to maintain that leftists cannot both unequivocally oppose U.S. imperialism and support the struggle for greater democracy, political freedom, women?s rights, independent unions, and other significant reforms in countries that are on Washington?s official enemies list. To maintain otherwise is by extension to believe that it would be better for movement activists in Iran simply to go home and tail behind the Ahmadinejad government because it is on the official U.S. enemies list. Those who believe that the protests in Iran are strengthening U.S. imperialism are also missing the real dynamic of what is going on. The world economic crisis has created a huge split in the Iranian ruling class over both domestic and foreign policy, which has created an opening for a movement from below to emerge. While politicians like Mousavi and former president Ali Rafsanjani are attempting to use the protest movement for their own purposes, they have been pushed to take more radical positions as a result of the street demonstrations, deepening the split and making it impossible for the movement to be completely repressed. In late July the death of two young protesters in state custody and reports of the torture of political prisoners created such public outrage that Iran?s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was forced to close the detention center involved and denounce the treatment of the prisoners held there. And while the demonstrators? demands began as relatively modest, the dynamic of the protest movement has created the possibility of a much greater radicalization. As Abrahamian, for example, rightly notes, ?By denouncing children of the [Islamic] revolution as foreign-paid ?counter-revolutionaries,? Kahmenei, Ahmadinejad and their allies have alienated a considerable proportion of the population?maybe even the majority?and could end up transforming reformists into revolutionaries.? To point this out is not to entertain fantasies of the imminent revolutionary overthrow of the current regime, but simply to be aware that the current crisis has created the possibility of rebuilding a genuinely left-wing revolutionary current in Iran for the first time since the left was wiped out by the Ayatollah Khomeini in the early 1980s. The future course of events in Iran is impossible to predict, but the potential emergence of a new left opposed to both U.S. imperialism and the current Iranian regime, is something that all genuine supporters of socialism and liberation can only embrace. Phil Gasper is the editor of The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History?s Most Important Document (Haymarket Books, 2005) and a member of the ISR editorial board. From lnp3 at panix.com Fri Sep 4 16:56:37 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:56:37 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Interesting China article Message-ID: <4AA19B25.8070609@panix.com> http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22515 From marvgandall at videotron.ca Fri Sep 4 17:16:35 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:16:35 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Interesting China article References: <4AA19B25.8070609@panix.com> Message-ID: Louis posted: > http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22515 ============================== Along the same lines, but from a right-wing source: "China is running away with the green technology prize. It has conquered a third of the world market for solar cells and is on a breakneck course to build 100 gigawatts of wind turbines by 2020... "The credit crunch has been brutal for solar start-ups in the West, but not for Chinese firms with access to almost free finance from the state banking system. "While the West bails out banks, China is spending a big chunk of its $600bn stimulus on 'clean tech' projects and a smarter grid. Yes, you still have to wear a face mask to breathe in the soot-blackened industrial hubs of the interior. By the same token, the solar-and-wind hub of Baoding has become the first carbon-positive city in the world." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/6077374/China-powers-ahead-as-it-seizes-the-green-energy-crown-from-Europe.html From pieinsky at igc.org Fri Sep 4 18:15:16 2009 From: pieinsky at igc.org (Jay Moore) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:15:16 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] John Brown anniversary In-Reply-To: <2fa1449b0909040631x72e60e76r951e8769a1fbea75@mail.gmail.com> References: <2fa1449b0909040631x72e60e76r951e8769a1fbea75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA1AD94.5030504@igc.org> About 10 years ago maybe, Noel Ignatieff and the Race Traitor folks tried to start up an annual commemoration of Brown's martyrdom at the farm in Elba (Lake Placid) upstate New York where Brown and several of his sons are buried under a huge glacial boulder (and practically in the shadow of the ski jump from the Winter Olympics. Some friends and I went once. Russell Banks (author of "Cloudsplitter" written in the voice of Brown's surviving son, Owen -- whom was named I think for Robert Owen) spoke and some black churches brought buses up from Harlem. I haven't heard anything about it in more recent years. So I assume it stopped happening. But check with them. Maybe they're doing something this year. Somebody definitely should have an observance. Either there and/or at Harper's Ferry. jay From tcod at hotmail.com Fri Sep 4 18:29:29 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 00:29:29 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] John Brown anniversary In-Reply-To: <4AA1AD94.5030504@igc.org> References: <2fa1449b0909040631x72e60e76r951e8769a1fbea75@mail.gmail.com> <4AA1AD94.5030504@igc.org> Message-ID: Didn't Owen Brown serve as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War? > Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 20:15:16 -0400 > From: pieinsky at igc.org > Subject: Re: [Marxism] John Brown anniversary > To: tcod at hotmail.com > > About 10 years ago maybe, Noel Ignatieff and the Race Traitor folks > tried to start up an annual commemoration of Brown's martyrdom at the > farm in Elba (Lake Placid) upstate New York where Brown and several of > his sons are buried under a huge glacial boulder (and practically in the > shadow of the ski jump from the Winter Olympics. Some friends and I > went once. Russell Banks (author of "Cloudsplitter" written in the > voice of Brown's surviving son, Owen -- whom was named I think for > Robert Owen) spoke and some black churches brought buses up from > Harlem. I haven't heard anything about it in more recent years. So I > assume it stopped happening. But check with them. Maybe they're doing > something this year. Somebody definitely should have an observance. > Either there and/or at Harper's Ferry. > > jay > > ________________________________________________ > 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 _________________________________________________________________ Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB_BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1 From markalause at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 20:08:36 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 22:08:36 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] John Brown anniversary In-Reply-To: References: <2fa1449b0909040631x72e60e76r951e8769a1fbea75@mail.gmail.com> <4AA1AD94.5030504@igc.org> Message-ID: The Bible Thumpers have made every effort to kidnap John Brown posthumously, but he was never intolerant or bigoted in his Christianity. I think he was certainly one of us in every important sense...though I can't for the life of me imagine him wading through emails. He used to pace in the back of meetings and complain.... "talk, talk, talk." Scholars usually make every effort to misrepresent his views on race as somehow unique, but he represented a genuinely egalitarian current in abolitionism. (I've plugged John Stauffer's book on the Radical Abolitionists before and am doing so again here....) His comrades in Kansas included people like the Wattles brothers...Augustus and John Otis Wattles, Fourierists whose community at Utopia, Ohio had been washed away by the river a few years before the struggle for Kansas began. The Wattles had started an illegal school here for blacks, and one of their students was Peter H. Clark, later known as the first prominent black socialist in U.S. history. Brown himself saw slavery as the greatest evil of his day...that capital should own laboring people...and he was absolutely correct in that, of course. However, he was always critical of the essential ethos of capitalism, criticized land monopoly, etc. His allies out in Kansas organized the first territorial women's rights organization there in 1859... The abolitionists hired and sent him, as a military advisor, Hugh Forbes, almost always misrepresented in the literature as a mercenary or crackpot. Forbes was the secretary of what became the First International in NYC, but had been in the British Army and was a veteran of the Italian revolutionary movements under Garibaldi. He is usually trashed in the literature because he was critical of the Harpers ferry scheme...and for good reason... Brown's friend and early biographer, Dick Hinton was a former Chartist who later helped officer one of the first black regiments raised...and the first to see action. After the war, he went on to organize sections of the First International and help to lead the early Socialistic Labor Party. It's worth noting that Hinton died back in London around the turn of the century, while he was on a research trip, hunting down old Chartists, etc. John Brown had been in Europe in the wake of the 1848-49 revolutions. And Hinton was always convinced that he had some direct ties to anticapitalist radicals there. ML From sabocat59 at gmail.com Fri Sep 4 20:16:06 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 22:16:06 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Town Hall Yell Meetings Message-ID: <6e42edf00909041916yd992dd1tb8b40c99a1a57f3a@mail.gmail.com> http://www.redstateupdate.com/video/death-panels-guns-health-care The boys from Murfreesboro strike again From schaffer at optonline.net Fri Sep 4 20:58:13 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:58:13 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] who uses which marxmail archive? Message-ID: <4AA1D3C5.1000006@optonline.net> someone asked me about searching the archives, http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/index.htm wishing it were faster. i highly recommend using google search for fast searches, particularly for stuff that has been in the archives "for a while"; remember that google will not scan the archives everyday like our search engine does. but, google is fast and accurate. for example, type this into google search: "John Brown" site:archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism finds much stuff (215 hits) from 2004-2006. Les From lueko.willms at t-online.de Fri Sep 4 23:53:43 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 07:53:43 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, In-Reply-To: <09514F6A840F448D86DFF35F6B578589@dmsthinkpad> References: <4AA0772A.6060302@gmail.com> <09514F6A840F448D86DFF35F6B578589@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <100.18f60000e7fca14a.002@lws-media.de> S. Artesian (sartesian at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-04 at 10:59:55 in about Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans,: > > > And what is that issue? Let's review, according to LW and Nestor, the CCP > is not bowing down to capitalism, it is using capitalism to build > socialism;it is using capitalism to make the Chinese nation stronger; in > making the Chinese nation stronger, it, the embrace of capitalism is making > the proletariat stronger. No that is not the issue. Or only the issue with what you imagine, but you have to discuss your own products of your own fantasy with those people dealing with your mind, but not with me. What you attribute to me is completely the product of YOUR OWN IMAGINATION. So, no need to deal with the rest of your stuff. Cheers, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From lueko.willms at t-online.de Fri Sep 4 23:49:53 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 07:49:53 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <100.3897080001fca14a.001@lws-media.de> Leonardo Kosloff (holmoff10 at hotmail.com) wrote on 2009-09-04 at 13:14:26 in about [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, : > @Nestor: Well, then, what makes you think that the Chinese bureaucracy won't betray the interests of workers, China's and the world's over, just as Peron did? (...taking into account that it is already doing that, unless you want to "dialectically" abstract from the fact that the CCP is Washington's main creditor.) > The Chinese stalinists have alway betrayed the interests of workers in China and the world over, so is there anything new you have to say? But what has that to do with the price of fish? Cheers, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com Sat Sep 5 01:38:34 2009 From: dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com (Dogan Gocmen) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 10:38:34 +0300 Subject: [Marxism] Interesting China article In-Reply-To: <4AA19B25.8070609@panix.com> References: <4AA19B25.8070609@panix.com> Message-ID: > http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22515 > > "Nonetheless, China's historic leap from oblivion into one of the top 21st century economies and its impressive results from recent stimulus initiatives both vividly illustrate the basic superiority of a centralized rational investment plan, even one so intrinsically flawed, over one dictated exclusively by the mad, chaotic rush for individual profit." The issue is not just about central planing. Every state does central planing, even those which are run by most radical neoliberal principles. Nazi-state for example did plan almost everything centrally. That is the goal of any given state. The question that need to be raised must go far beyond this formal criterion and focus on the content of what is being planed. In other words, if we consider the issues about central planing the focus above all must be property relations. Only on the basis of this we can classify states and their central planing policies. ------ 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 Midhurst14 at aol.com Sat Sep 5 02:06:50 2009 From: Midhurst14 at aol.com (Midhurst14 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 04:06:50 EDT Subject: [Marxism] Interesting China article Message-ID: This economy is guided by the idea introduced by Lenin in the 1920's Through this scientific view a Communist led economy will dominate the global economy as any reading of the Financial Times will illustrate And enunciated as follows George Anthony Japanese Communist Party Central Committee Chair Fuwa Tetsuzo lecture on ?Lenin and the Market Economy? Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing August 27th 2002. ?2 inc. postage & http://www.jcp.or.jp/english/jps_weekly/ 2002-0827-fuwa.html From dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com Sat Sep 5 03:18:57 2009 From: dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com (Dogan Gocmen) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 12:18:57 +0300 Subject: [Marxism] Interesting China article In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I usually like comrade Fuwa Tetsuzo. But the statement below is one of those which I do not share. Study for example the situation and the role of women in soviet society and compare it with any comparable capitalist society. When I visited some years ago Russia I attended a lecture on the situation of women in contemporary Russia by a professor of sociology. She said during the time of Stalin we experienced a dictatorial regime but it was also the time in which women enjoyed more freedom than before. There must be a reason that makes a liberal professor to say that. Perhaps there is a member on the list who may inform us about this. "Several decades later, when the Soviet Union was under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, the "introduction of a market economy" was much discussed. But during the preceding 60 years the Soviet Union completely changed itself. Substantial changes took place in the socio-economic system of the Soviet Union during and after Stalin's era. In effect, Soviet society had already become a system in which socialism or even a direction toward socialism was non-existent." ----- 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 sabocat59 at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 05:45:32 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 07:45:32 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Colombia Appeal Message-ID: <6e42edf00909050445j6b0a52e3w8486b25047dad8b7@mail.gmail.com> Colombia Support Network is grateful for the initiative of our Representative Tammy Baldwin in launching the following Dear Colleague letter questioning the increased military aid to Colombia and increase use of by the United States military of Colombian bases. PLEASE contact your respective Representatives in Congress and ask him/her to co- sign on to this letter. http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1870703/Baldwin%20on%20Bases9.3.09.pdf Colombia Support Network P.O. Box 1505 Madison, WI 53701-1505 phone: (608) 257-8753 fax: (608) 255-6621 e-mail: csn at igc.org http://www.colombiasupport.net From brennerl21 at aol.com Sat Sep 5 03:25:45 2009 From: brennerl21 at aol.com (brennerl21 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:25:45 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] The paperback edition of 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis has been published Message-ID: <8CBFC21FB34C22C-10AC-A88F@webmail-m092.sysops.aol.com> 9 5 09 Sisters and brothers, The paperback edition of 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis Edited by Lenni Brenner has just been published. There is one change from the hardcover edition, a better translation of Vladimir Jabotinsky?s ?The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs).? As his 1923 article about what he openly called ?Zionist colonisation? is the political and military ?bible? of Binyamin Netanyahu?s Zionist-Revisionist movement, the paperback translation clearly expresses the mentality behind Revisionism?s ties to Fascism and Nazism, and today?s Likud Party hyper-militarism. You can get a signed copy for $22 plus $2.77 for media mail postage. It will take 7 to 10 days to get to you after I get your check or postal money order. As soon as I get it, I?ll email you to let you know that the book is on its way. Send the check to Lenni Brenner POB 20598 Park West Post Office NY, NY 10025-1514 For purchases of 20 or more copies, the publisher offers a 40% discount from the list price. That's $13.20 per copy plus shipping costs. For a democratic secular binational Palestine/Israel in a democratic secular world, Lenni Brenner BrennerL21 at aol.com www.smithbowen.net/linfame/brenner From nmgoro at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 06:49:52 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 09:49:52 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2fa158550909050549r7f55556dte13f3b96425bd7b7@mail.gmail.com> I agree with all that Lueko has answered you, Leonardo you ignorant. I would add a single question: (a) what were the interests and desires of Arg workers that Peron, as you bluntly and automatically parrot, betrayed? And (b) who are you, what is the stool you stand up on to define what were, are or will ever be the interests of Arg workers? That is, who do you think you are, Leonardo? 2009/9/4 Leonardo Kosloff : > > @Nestor: Well, then, what makes you think that the Chinese bureaucracy won't betray the interests of workers, China's and the world's over, just as Peron did? (...taking into account that it is already doing that, unless you want to "dialectically" abstract from the fact that the CCP is Washington's main creditor.) > > _________________________________________________________________ > Hotmail? is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. > http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=PID23391::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HYGN_faster:082009 > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism en lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/nmgoro%40gmail.com > -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From nmgoro at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 07:01:54 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 10:01:54 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, In-Reply-To: <100.18f60000e7fca14a.002@lws-media.de> References: <4AA0772A.6060302@gmail.com> <09514F6A840F448D86DFF35F6B578589@dmsthinkpad> <100.18f60000e7fca14a.002@lws-media.de> Message-ID: <2fa158550909050601n6d3507eehf901a799700e9069@mail.gmail.com> 2009/9/5 L?ko Willms : > S. Artesian (sartesian en earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-04 at 10:59:55 in > about Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: > China's high speed rail plans,: >> >> >> And what is that issue? ?Let's review, according to LW and Nestor, the CCP >> is not bowing down to capitalism, it is using capitalism to build >> socialism;it is using capitalism to make the Chinese nation stronger; in >> making the Chinese nation stronger, it, the embrace of capitalism is making >> the proletariat stronger. > > ? No that is not the issue. Or only the issue with what you imagine, but you > have to discuss your own products of your own fantasy with those people > dealing with your mind, but not with me. What you attribute to me is > completely the product of YOUR OWN IMAGINATION. > > ?So, no need to deal with the rest of your stuff. > Really, S. Artesian, neither did I suggest this that you think I suggested. Please, use some degree of dialectical thinking as I have seen you use many times on this list... -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From sartesian at earthlink.net Sat Sep 5 07:46:23 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 09:46:23 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Interesting China article References: Message-ID: Apropos of the Soviet economy PRIOR to Perestroika/Glasnost... from The Economic Development of the USSR by Roger Munting [1982]: --Summary [of the late 1970s, to year 1980] "The exploitation of the natural resources of Siberia and he far east [with 80 percent of the fuel reserves] is necessary to meet the energy needs of the economy and provide vital foreign exchange. Ironically in order to develop these resources quickly imported technology [particularly Japanese] is required-- there being a direct oil-for-technology exchange. No doubt, exploitation and development could proceed without knowledge and equipment imported from capitalist countries, but it would be slower. Technological innovation has gone ahead at a faster rate in the capitalist world than within the USSR. In particular, the USA has been a fountain of technology and the capitalist market, and the international companies in particular, have enable new technology to be spread about the world. Some technological shortcomings may be one reason for the continued relative inefficiency of Soviet production. To secure Western technology the USSR in the 1970s became increasingly indebted to the Western banks and governments. While its credit has remained sound, the need to service such debts has in turn imposed further demands on the economy and in particular on the extraction of oil and other resources. In 1976, 22 percent of hard currency earnings were required for interest and amortization payments, and this at a time when, because of rising oil prices, the terms of trade have never been more favorable. One of the problems long evident in the Soviet economy has been its chronic inefficiency; reforms have not yet overcome the lags and transformed extensive productive techniques [based on increases in the proportions of labor power applied] into intensive [based on the substitution of machinery, thus amplifying the productivity of labor]. Low maintenance standards and long-neglected infrastructure investment in the past have meant that much investment has been needed for replacement rather than a net addition to capital stock. The scarcity of productive capital has been further exacerbated by the conflicting demands between the high costs of armaments, the huge costs of opening up new areas and resources and the increasing production of consumer goods. The 'problems' of the modern economy have not been absolute: growth has continued, consumption has improved. Rather the economy has failed to meet the expectations of the country and the political leadership, both in the particular-- the plan forecasts [the ninth 5 year plan being particularly disappointing]-- and in the general. In November 1979 President Brezhnev made public criticisms at the failure to meet plan figures...... not only were consumer goods in short supply but even coal and oil, and, as ever, meat. Plan targets for 1980 were reduced because of the very porr overall showing of industry in 1979. The output of many basic industries showed an absolute fall. As well as coal, steel production fell.... The superiority of the Soveit system in providing plenty, which had been the expectation of central planning remained unproven at the end of the 1970s." __________________ Now I bring this up not because I take any pleasure in the difficulties of central planning in the USSR-- I don't. I consider the Russian Revolution to be the greatest single event in all of human history. And I don't bring this up because I was a partisan of Gorbachev.. or Yeltsin. I was not. I consider the collapse of the USSR the greatest single defeat for human emancipation since the decapitation of the revolutionary wave that ran through Europe and Asia in the 1920s and 1930s. I bring this up because these difficulties of central planning, the "erosion" so to speak of the remnants of the Russian Revolution, took place prior to Gorbachev, took place in fact while the same property relations that dominated the economy during what Dogan and George probably consider the halcyon period, if not the golden age, at least the rising period of the Soviet state. The very same property relations created, or supported, or evolved into the terms of their own inadequacy. And Gorbachev with his "opening" did not just drop from the sky as some mole, some sleeper cell, some great traitor activated by the bourgeoisie when the time was right. The above listed failures of the Soviet economy are the backdrop, and the reason, for Gorbachev's ascent. Now we can say China has been more astute than the USSR:-- In adopting an explicit cheap labor policy, encouraging foreign investors to "enrich themselves," in demanding FDI rather than loans, in removing labor protections and denying even a legal status to migrant workers, the CCP has avoided the corrosive affects of international debt to the capitalist countries. Nevertheless the central planning, and the property relations that both Dogan and George find as critical and superior to that of modern capitalism proved inadequate in the case of the USSR. Which gets us right back to the NEP to which Tetsuzo likes to compare the Chinese adaptation, and embrace, of foreign and domestic capitalism. The NEP represented quite clearly to Lenin a tactical retreat, a necessary retreat brought about by the devastation of the civil war. At an earlier point in the then public debates about the Soviet economy, an accusation was made [I think by a Left Social Revolutionary] that the Bolsheviks had instituted "state capitalism." Lenin replied [perhaps wistfully] that "state capitalism" would be an improvement, an advance for the Soviet economy, describing the status of the economy as that of a "petty producer state." In that regard, there was no alternative to the NEP, and its adoption represented an "advance" not over socialism, not over planning, but over the petty producer mode that dominated the Soviet economy. It was a tactical retreat. And how was this retreat to be reversed? Clearly, it would not reverse itself. Clearly, there was a risk of creating a proto-bourgeoisie, of the development of the USSR stimulating private property and eroding social property. Clearly, also, based on everything we know about Lenin's life, Lenin's work, the reversal, the resolution of the conflicts created by this uneven and combined development/retreat of the Soviet economy, required the advance and success of the proletarian revolution in the advanced countries of Europe and the Americas. Without that, the course of the NEP, and even its violent abrogation, would make the USSR more vulnerable, more permeable to capitalism-- something proven violently, with a bang, by WW2; and tragically, in the collapse, with not only whimpers but howls, in 1991. There are many "interesting China articles" out there, not the least interesting an article in the Financial Times of August 25, 2009, about China's overproduction of fixed assets, about the amount of stimulus money that has found its way into the stock and real estate markets [based on estimates, and frankly, speculation since Chinese statistics can be pretty opaque]. What is less speculative is this: "The fiscal and monetary policy response to the crisis has mostly benefited the largest enterprises and biggest projects," Wang Yijiang, professor of economics and human resources management at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing. "The small and medium sized enterprise sector provides 75 percent of the jobs to China's urban workforce but it is shrining for the first time in 30 years of economic reforms." That contraction is of course part and parcel of the previous expansion based on "market reforms," which means profitability of the "market economy under socialism." The stimulus and recovery in China has been based exclusively on a gigantic, rapid increase in loan volumes. In 2007 or 2008, I believe the "private sector" output exceeded that of the state sector. Profitability has driven both sectors for sometime. Profitability declines, if they continue, means repayment of those loans will be questionable. That is exactly what happened in the west beginning in 2007. What we have right now in China is not the demonstration of the "superiority" of a "communist economy," but the creation of an financial and asset bubble. From nmgoro at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 07:53:11 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 10:53:11 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <78AE9C79B96D4360ADC565D5DCEBFA7B@dmsthinkpad> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> <2ABE3E8B59FC498382DBC9AC222DCFB8@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909040156n10c368e2m5dc60adbd43345e7@mail.gmail.com> <78AE9C79B96D4360ADC565D5DCEBFA7B@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <2fa158550909050653s6193814dsac462614241a7348@mail.gmail.com> No, that was NOT my answer. I did not say that imperialism makes it a class question. I say that the national question is always a class question. Which, of course, you will disagree with. In deeper or shallower conversation. What can I do. At least there are a couple of people who disagree with you and agree with me: Willms, Lippmann, and -Engels, Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, among others! 2009/9/4 S. Artesian : > And I of course knew that is exactly how you would answer: ?imperialism > automatically makes the national question a class question. ?Even granting > that, Nestor, which in deeper conversation I would not, that doesn't mean > that every response, ever action that appears to be national is > anti-imperialist; and it doesn't mean that every action that appears to be > anti-imperialist is automatically a class action. > > That's history 101. > -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From sartesian at earthlink.net Sat Sep 5 07:56:18 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 09:56:18 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, References: <4AA0772A.6060302@gmail.com><09514F6A840F448D86DFF35F6B578589@dmsthinkpad><100.18f60000e7fca14a.002@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909050601n6d3507eehf901a799700e9069@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <51E89C08641C4EDCA6B370EE4F6F351A@dmsthinkpad> NG wrote: " Really, S. Artesian, neither did I suggest this that you think I suggested" Really Nestor, what I stated is based on your statements and LW's. LW said explicitly that both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie were being made stronger in China. The Chinese "nation" is being made stronger, and see China is not a bourgeois nation, but a nation that experienced a revolution that expropriated its bourgeoisie and expelled the international bourgeoisie, I think it's fair to say that LW's statements clearly mean socialism is being strengthened. You yourself wrote: " It is one thing to _use_ capitalism, and a different one to _bow_ to capitalism. The whole thing when it comes to the China debate is whether the Chinese leadership _uses_ capitalism or _bows_ to it, which implies bowing to imperialism. China is not doing the latter. Doing the former, of course, entails the most serious risks. But no serious debate can be held on China if we do not start by the evidence that "the Chinese use the proceeds from their production of consumer goods for extensive investments in the infrastructure", that is they are bringing down to Earth the bourgeois fantasies of the Latin American bourgeoisies. If somebody believes that this has little or nothing to do with the relative weight of the bourgeoisie in the social structures of China and, say, Brazil (or, daresay, India), this is a mistake." You wrote the above lines jumping on LW's bandwagon about the whole thing. The fault is not in my dialectic, but yours. So do you NOT think socialism is being strengthened in China? Do you not think the creation of the SEZ in Guangdong was essential to China's present course? ----- Original Message ----- From: "N?stor Gorojovsky" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 9:01 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet,not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, From sartesian at earthlink.net Sat Sep 5 08:01:53 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 10:01:53 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de><100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de><08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV><7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad><100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com><2ABE3E8B59FC498382DBC9AC222DCFB8@dmsthinkpad><2fa158550909040156n10c368e2m5dc60adbd43345e7@mail.gmail.com><78AE9C79B96D4360ADC565D5DCEBFA7B@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909050653s6193814dsac462614241a7348@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7A929AC3CB1048A388AC40AC0034D69C@dmsthinkpad> Here's what you wrote: A national issue is, by definition, a class issue. The national question is a class question. Imperialism 101, dear Artesian. _____________ Seems clear to me that since the first 2 "lessons" are based on your introductory knowledge of imperialism, that imperialism is the determinant factor. With all your contortions and twists Nestor, you are rapidly distinguishing yourself as the Olga Korbut of the list. ----- Original Message ----- From: "N?stor Gorojovsky" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 9:53 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet,not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans From nmgoro at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 08:07:35 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 11:07:35 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, In-Reply-To: <51E89C08641C4EDCA6B370EE4F6F351A@dmsthinkpad> References: <4AA0772A.6060302@gmail.com> <09514F6A840F448D86DFF35F6B578589@dmsthinkpad> <100.18f60000e7fca14a.002@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909050601n6d3507eehf901a799700e9069@mail.gmail.com> <51E89C08641C4EDCA6B370EE4F6F351A@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <2fa158550909050707v59157e8dgd59d87b80291d5e5@mail.gmail.com> What I think is (a) that I am not informed enough on the Chinese situation as to provide a definitive statement on the consolidation (or not) of socialism there, and that (b) in the end I am not very enthusiastic around the debate over whether socialism is stengthened in China or not, since I am more interested in a debate over whether socialism is strengthened BY China through its economic development of China, which (c) whether under bourgeois rule or proletarian rule, is a challenge to the existing imperialist order inasmuch as it is not building an extrovert economy but a self-centered one, and in this sense, at the very least (repeat "at the very least"), (d) said economic development makes it harder for the imperialist core to extract surplus value from the periphery in order to keep their rusting social machinery in smooth motion. Which, taking into account that the socialist project is a _global_ proyect and socialist struggle is a _global_ struggle, may well be (e) a strong objective propeller towards a victory of socialist forces on the global scale in the very measure it implies a weaker imperialist bourgeoisie at the core. So that here is what I think and say: Since the imperialist bourgeoisie ruling the USofAm is _your_ direct enemy and _my_ indirect enemy, at the very least (again, I repeat, "at the very least") I find that this economic development gives an important help to the struggle for socialism the world over. 2009/9/5 S. Artesian : > NG wrote: ?" Really, S. Artesian, neither did I suggest this that you think > I suggested" > > Really Nestor, what I stated is based on your statements and LW's. > > LW said explicitly that both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie were being > made stronger in China. ?The Chinese ?"nation" is being made stronger, and > see China is not a bourgeois nation, but a nation that experienced a > revolution that expropriated its bourgeoisie and expelled the international > bourgeoisie, I think it's fair to say that LW's statements clearly mean > socialism is being strengthened. > > You yourself wrote: > > " It is one thing > to _use_ capitalism, and a different one to _bow_ to capitalism. The > whole thing when it comes to the China debate is whether the Chinese > leadership _uses_ capitalism or _bows_ to it, which implies bowing to > imperialism. China is not doing the latter. Doing the former, of > course, entails the most serious risks. But no serious debate can be > held on China if we do not start by the evidence that "the Chinese use > the proceeds from their production of consumer goods for extensive > investments in the infrastructure", that is they are bringing down to > Earth the bourgeois fantasies of the Latin American bourgeoisies. If > somebody believes that this has little or nothing to do with the > relative weight of the bourgeoisie in the social structures of China > and, say, Brazil (or, daresay, India), this is a mistake." > > You wrote the above lines jumping on LW's bandwagon about the whole thing. > The fault is not in my dialectic, but yours. > > So do you NOT think socialism is being strengthened in China? ?Do you not > think the creation of the SEZ in Guangdong was essential to China's present > course? > -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From nmgoro at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 08:09:10 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 11:09:10 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <7A929AC3CB1048A388AC40AC0034D69C@dmsthinkpad> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> <2ABE3E8B59FC498382DBC9AC222DCFB8@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909040156n10c368e2m5dc60adbd43345e7@mail.gmail.com> <78AE9C79B96D4360ADC565D5DCEBFA7B@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909050653s6193814dsac462614241a7348@mail.gmail.com> <7A929AC3CB1048A388AC40AC0034D69C@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <2fa158550909050709y738bfdc9rf16c83e9e02fb34e@mail.gmail.com> I don{t know who is Olga Korbut. If the intention is derogative, que te recontra por las dudas. And yes, imperialism is the determinant factor, as you put it. 2009/9/5 S. Artesian : > Here's what you wrote: > > A national issue is, by definition, a class issue. > > The national question is a class question. > > Imperialism 101, dear Artesian. > _____________ > > Seems clear to me that since the first 2 "lessons" are based on your > introductory knowledge of imperialism, that imperialism is the determinant > factor. > > With all your contortions and twists Nestor, you are rapidly distinguishing > yourself as the Olga Korbut of the list. > > > -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Sep 5 08:12:24 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 10:12:24 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, In-Reply-To: <2fa158550909050707v59157e8dgd59d87b80291d5e5@mail.gmail.com> References: <4AA0772A.6060302@gmail.com> <09514F6A840F448D86DFF35F6B578589@dmsthinkpad> <100.18f60000e7fca14a.002@lws-media.de> <2fa158550909050601n6d3507eehf901a799700e9069@mail.gmail.com> <51E89C08641C4EDCA6B370EE4F6F351A@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909050707v59157e8dgd59d87b80291d5e5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA271C8.6000302@panix.com> N?stor Gorojovsky wrote: > that the socialist project is a _global_ proyect My goals are actually much more modest, namely to have a mailing list for Marxists worldwide in which there is civil exchange/debates, where comrades can learn to agree to disagree. From shmage at pipeline.com Sat Sep 5 08:25:42 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 10:25:42 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <2fa158550909050653s6193814dsac462614241a7348@mail.gmail.com> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <100.20a10700d9e69f4a.007@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> <2ABE3E8B59FC498382DBC9AC222DCFB8@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909040156n10c368e2m5dc60adbd43345e7@mail.gmail.com> <78AE9C79B96D4360ADC565D5DCEBFA7B@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909050653s6193814dsac462614241a7348@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <225D96BA-45EE-40C9-B899-B4A0D93F214C@pipeline.com> On Sep 5, 2009, at 9:53 AM, N?stor Gorojovsky wrote: > > ...I say that the national question is always a class question... > > At least there are...people who..agree with me... Marx...among others! As illustrated by Marx's view of the national question among that "ethnic garbage," the southern slavs? As well as by your condemnation of the Tibetan and Uighur national struggles against domination by the capitalist Chinese empire? 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 holmoff10 at hotmail.com Sat Sep 5 08:42:55 2009 From: holmoff10 at hotmail.com (Leonardo Kosloff) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 14:42:55 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Nestor: I agree with all that Lueko has answered you Re: what is all that that he ?has answered??, he asked me a question, if I have anything to add to the little detail that the Chinese bureaucracy personifies the interests of capital, I assume he then acknowledges that that?s in fact the role of the CCP, am I right Lueko?, Nestor: Leonardo you ignorant Re: Nestor shows the level of his dialectical materialism once more and addresses me personally ??puteando?: throwing insult- before replying to my claim made two posts ago: that his comments so far implicitly take the consciousness of commodity producers as determined outside the sphere of capital accumulation, that is, as abstract consciousness,? do any of the Nestor?s posts mention value, relative surplus-value, methods of production in China?, do any of Nestor?s posts talk about how workers are separated from the conditions of production, capital is accumulated, in China? Not so far. Hence, unless we understand capital in the same terms of bourgeois political economy, the determinations of consciousness have not been addressed by Nestor -lest you think Marx wrote Capital because he was masturbating-, instead he proceeds to falsely S.Artesian's claim, which is the one my intervention started with: him saying the CCP ?uses? capitalism to build socialism, this was Nestor a few posts ago: 'It is one thing to _use_ capitalism, and a different one to _bow_ to capitalism. The whole thing when it comes to the China debate is whether the Chinese leadership _uses_ capitalism or _bows_ to it, which implies bowing to imperialism. China is not doing the latter. Doing the former, of course, entails the most serious risks. ' Nestor: I would add a single question: Re: As for the <> questions below? Nestor: (a) what were the interests and desires of Arg workers that Peron, as you bluntly and automatically parrot, betrayed? Re: Well Nestor, this might just be me masturbating here, but as I take it from the Communist Manifesto, the interests of Argentinean workers run parallel to the interests of workers around the world: the overthrow of capital. Now I suppose you mean specific issues, how Peron exterminated Montoneros, how he was a closet fascist, how he sold out YPF, how he opened the gates to the dictatorship which came after his terms? But may I kindly request you answer my question first, because I think the objective issues (capitalism, for only then can we begin to clear up how these interests have been betrayed) are a tad more important than ideological polemic, again, you wouldn?t want anyone to think that you?re just hiding behind your dialectical mantle in order to ensconce your evasion. Nestor: And (b) who are you, what is the stool you stand up on to define what were, are or will ever be the interests of Arg workers? Re: See above Nestor: That is, who do you think you are, Leonardo? Re: That?s a nice question to masturbate over, let me do that and get back atcha. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online. http://windowslive.com/Campaign/SocialNetworking?ocid=PID23285::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_SB_online:082009 From sartesian at earthlink.net Sat Sep 5 08:46:25 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 10:46:25 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, References: <4AA0772A.6060302@gmail.com><09514F6A840F448D86DFF35F6B578589@dmsthinkpad><100.18f60000e7fca14a.002@lws-media.de><2fa158550909050601n6d3507eehf901a799700e9069@mail.gmail.com><51E89C08641C4EDCA6B370EE4F6F351A@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909050707v59157e8dgd59d87b80291d5e5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <3BF6556B2D0147CBA7D54F752AD45E1E@dmsthinkpad> Nestor, You felt you were informed enough to agree with LW that China is using its export earnings to provide the stimulus to its economy when there is no evidence that export earnings have been so directed You felt you were informed enough to state that "the whole thing" [by which I think you mean the entire issue, the entire significance of class relations] is whether China is "bowing down" to imperialism or making use of imperialism. And you felt informed enough to state that China was making use of imperialism, and thus strengthening itself. When I state that you and LW think that China's development runs a course, a course of necessity, from the SEZs to the accumulation of export earnings to its expansion of infrastructure and that this constitutes the strengthening of socialism, that interlocked course of development indicates an advance for socialism... you say you never said any such thing. But then right here, in your post below you state: "I am more interested in a debate over whether socialism is strengthened BY China through its economic development of China, which (c) whether under bourgeois rule or proletarian rule, is a challenge to the existing imperialist order inasmuch as it is not building an extrovert economy but a self-centered one, > and in this sense, at the very least (repeat "at the very least"), > (d) said economic development makes it harder for the imperialist core to > extract surplus value from the periphery in order to keep their > rusting > social machinery in smooth motion. Which, taking into account that the > socialist project is a _global_ proyect and socialist struggle is a > _global_ struggle, may well be Which when taken with your earlier statements about the "whole thing" indicates clearly that you do think that in fact that course of economic development has strengthened socialism at least on the "global struggle" level. And clearly by your statement regarding "bourgeois or proletarian rule" China has/can done/do this regardless of the impact on its own social relations of production, regardless of which class relations are dominant are becoming dominant. This is what I mean by the Olga Korbut remark. You engage is such incredible contortions, flips, twists, fly-offs that you qualify as a gymnast. Needless to say I disagree with your (c) and (d), just as I disagree with your Imperialism 101. Is the national question a class question? That question means nothing. The question is WHICH CLASS? You, by your own admission, don't care-- "whether under bourgeois rule or proletarian rule is a challenge to the existing imperial order..." " making it harder...to extract surplus value from the periphery." Tell me Nestor, exactly where and how has China made it more difficult for the bourgeoisie to extract surplus value from the periphery? More than $600 billion in foreign direct investment, and the bourgeoisie did that why? Because it makes it harder to extract surplus value? Huh? It's not imperialism 101 you need, Nestor, it's Marx, Vol 1, Chapter 1 you need. ----- Original Message ----- From: "N?stor Gorojovsky" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 10:07 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet,not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans, > What I think is > > (a) that I am not informed enough on the Chinese situation as to > provide a definitive statement on the consolidation (or not) of > socialism there, and that > > (b) in the end I am not very enthusiastic around the debate over > whether socialism is stengthened in China or not, since I am more > interested in a debate over whether socialism is strengthened BY China > through its economic development of China, which > > (c) whether under bourgeois rule or proletarian rule, is a challenge > to the existing imperialist order inasmuch as it is not building an > extrovert economy but a self-centered one, > > and in this sense, at the very least (repeat "at the very least"), > > (d) said economic development makes it harder for the imperialist core > to extract surplus value from the periphery in order to keep their > rusting social machinery in smooth motion. Which, taking into account > that the socialist project is a _global_ proyect and socialist > struggle is a _global_ struggle, may well be > > (e) a strong objective propeller towards a victory of socialist forces > on the global scale in the very measure it implies a weaker > imperialist bourgeoisie at the core. From holmoff10 at hotmail.com Sat Sep 5 09:02:44 2009 From: holmoff10 at hotmail.com (Leonardo Kosloff) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 15:02:44 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAWQkY8Rlbg _________________________________________________________________ With Windows Live, you can organize, edit, and share your photos. http://www.windowslive.com/Desktop/PhotoGallery From tcod at hotmail.com Sat Sep 5 10:24:07 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 16:24:07 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] John Brown anniversary In-Reply-To: References: <2fa1449b0909040631x72e60e76r951e8769a1fbea75@mail.gmail.com> <4AA1AD94.5030504@igc.org> Message-ID: I once saw a photo of August Blanqui that eerily reminded me of Brown. >John Brown had been in Europe in the wake of the > 1848-49 revolutions. And Hinton was always convinced that he had some > direct ties to anticapitalist radicals there. > > 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/tcod%40hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail? is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=PID23391::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HYGN_faster:082009 From epoliticus at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 11:17:25 2009 From: epoliticus at gmail.com (Politicus E.) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 13:17:25 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Latest Articles from Sanhati Message-ID: A history of the brutal Rajarhat land acquisition, Bengal?s new IT hub August 29, 2008 By Santanu Sengupta, Sanhati. Translated from Rajarhaat - Uponogorir Ontorale Arto Manuher Kanna Rajarhaat, near Kolkata, is Bengal?s new IT hub and a hotspot for real estate investment. Within no time Rajarhat has become the hotbed of real estate investments with companies like DLF, Keppel Land, Unitech group, Singapore-based Ascendas, Vedic Realty, etc. coming in. Land prices have soared. The first phase of DLF?s Rs 280 crore (Rs 2.80 billion) IT project has been operational since 2005 and a second IT park is on the cards. Wipro, Infosys, IBM - all the major IT houses are in operation here, on subsidized lands. A wireless hub is in the offing. Contrasting with Singur-Nandigram, official state versions have given the picture that Rajarhat?s land acquisition from the mid 1990?s onwards has been peaceful. This is an account of the immense bloodshed that lay behind this acquisition, in a decade when the civil society and media wasn?t interested.... Read the full article at http://sanhati.com/excerpted/945/ ***** Vedic Village: A long history of brutality behind the final destruction Recently, Vedic Village, an upscale resort sprawling out in Rajarhat (near Kolkata), was torched down by angry villagers. This vent of public anger was the culmination of a history of brutal land acquisition in the area, perpetrated since the 1990?s by the CPI(M) and brought to fruition by armies of local terrors like Gaffar Mollah, Ruidas Mandal, and others. The following articles trace the recent history of this real estate-Party-musclemen nexus that finally led to the destruction of Vedic Village. 1. A history of the brutal Rajarhat land acquisition - booklet by CPIML(Liberation), translated by Santanu Sengupta, Sanhati. 2. Short introduction - Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati 3. Vedic Vultures - A hard look at the realtor-musclemen-CPIM nexus in Rajarhat by Sankar Ray 4. Left out of dazzle & delights, villagers may have struck back - An initial Times of India report, August 25 2009 5. Biplab Biswas arrested - the link between Vedic Realty and local tough Gaffar Molla - Times of India, August 27 2009 6. Souring of the urban-industrial vision: Gated communities want stronger gates - Reaction of realtors 7. Land cell goes against norms: Abdur Rezzak Mollah under the scanner - The Telegraph, August 31 2009 Read these articles at http://sanhati.com/articles/1766/ ***** Bastar rally of BSKSS: Demands, attitude towards Maoists and established activism By Gautam Navlakha and Asish Gupta. August 28, 2009. This article reports the first rally of a newly formed peasant organisation in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. The rally voiced its protest against corporate landgrab and the complicity of the state. Interestingly, the political background of members covers the full spectrum, bound together by common demands, and the attitude towards established social activism is one of watchful distance. Equally interesting is the attitude of attendees towards Maoists. This is a nominally edited version of the report on Radicalnotes. Read the full article at http://sanhati.com/articles/1762/ ***** PDS: cash instead of food, and other dismantling measures since liberalisation By Debarshi Das, Sanhati The first post-liberalisation assault on the Public Distribution System of India came in 1997. Instead of a universal system, beneficiaries were divided into two groups APL and BPL (above and below the poverty line). This drastically reduced the quantum of distribution courtesy bureaucratic machination. From 20.8 million tons in 1991 distribution plummeted to 10.9 million tons in 1999-2000. In Dharavi, one of the world?s largest slums, government officials could find no more than 153 poor families. In a country of 1160 million where three fourth of people cannot afford to spend more than two dollars a day, the central government?s estimates show 65 million poor Indians.... Read the full article at http://sanhati.com/articles/1756/ ***** Articles reporting effects of the current drought in India. This collection of reports on the drought in India appeared in Outlook. September 1, 2009. 1. Shadowed by the Rain Leaving farmland parched, farmers despondent & a nation worried, the monsoon strikes at the foundations of a still agrarian economy. 2. Gaya District, Bihar Bihar has declared 26 of its 28 districts drought-hit. And Gaya district has received only 350 mm of rainwater so far, against 950 mm last year. 3. Rae Bareli District, Uttar Pradesh Even in much-monitored parliamentary constituency of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi the plight of the harried farmer is hardly better than elsewhere 4. Rangareddy & Medak Districts, Andhra Pradesh The twin problems of drought and a fear of displacement have claimed 15 lives in the last couple of months. 5. Birbhum District, West Bengal At this time, these fields are usually green with paddy. Now, most of them lie uncultivated. Read these articles at http://sanhati.com/news/1761/ ***** Workers? Struggle at Paharpur Cooling Towers The following translation is an account of the workers? struggle at Paharpur Cooling Towers factory (company tagline: An ISO 9001 company), located along Diamond Harbour Road, Kolkata, West Bengal. The original Bengali article was written by Partha Koyal spanning three visits - it has been translated by Koel Das, Sanhati. Read the article at http://sanhati.com/excerpted/1767/ ***** Lokayat group, Pune: Literature and activities The Lokayat group is an activist forum based in Pune, India. As part of an effort to collect activist literature and feature various local efforts from all over the country, we are bringing our readers some material from the group, as well as an account of their recent activity. -Ed. Campaign literature aginst Coke [PDF, English] Campaign literature on privatization of Pune?s public transportation [PDF, English] Literature on Dow Chemicals [PDF, English] Read more at http://sanhati.com/literature/1769/ ***** Delhi public meeting and statement on impending offensive of the government The following statement was formulated during the course of a public meeting in Delhi on August 4 2009, on the impending armed offensive of the government ?to wipe out the CPI(Maoist)?. It reflects a certain aspect of civil society response to the issue. Read the statement at http://sanhati.com/news/1765/ From dmozart1756 at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 11:24:29 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 13:24:29 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Israeli organ theft story - The Guardian shows its mettle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53a1ffe70909051024y616e14e4wea7a427b1b36f374@mail.gmail.com> > > *Preface* > > This story was first offered to the Guardian?s Comment is Free site. It was > received on August 26 by Brian Whitaker, a commissioning editor at CiF and a > former Middle East editor of the newspaper, who responded that ?we?re minded > to use it? but that because the issue was ?a hot potato? it would take ?a > day or two? to decide. > > On September 3, more than a week later, Georgina Henry, CiF?s executive > editor, replied, apologising for the delay but saying she was going to > reject the piece. Her strange reasoning led to a short but revealing > correspondence. I include it *here > * for anyone interested. > > *The Guardian shows its mettle* > > *A brief correspondence with the editor of Comment is Free* > > By Jonathan Cook > > September 4 2009 > > clip - > > Liberal journalists in our mainstream media are always outraged at any > suggestion that their reports or views are in any way influenced by the > threat of retaliation from powerful interests. Students of the media are > taught that in Western democracies journalists on serious newspapers seek > the truth and, except in the case of the odd bad apple, refuse to submit to > intimidation. Israel offers a particularly interesting test case in this > regard. > > In reality, the fear of being labelled anti-Semitic is for most journalists > a powerful deterrent to engaging in strong criticism of Israel. Israel and > its supporters are only too aware of the power they have, which is why, when > mainstream publications step out of line by raising issues Israel would > rather were not examined, it leaps on them, flinging about the charge > recklessly. The orchestrated fury that greeted the Swedish newspaper > Aftonbladet?s article in August 2009 about the Israeli army?s possible > involvement in organ theft was intended precisely to remind other media not > to make a similar mistake themselves. > > The proper lesson for journalists to draw from the row over the Swedish > newspaper?s story was that, when one writes critically about Israel, one > should make sure to investigate the topic thoroughly, have a firm grasp of > the evidence and not push the argument beyond the limits of what can > reasonably be inferred. Those are worthy principles for any journalist to > follow (and ones that in this case Aftonbladet forgot to abide by), even if > they are more exacting requirements than those expected when writing about > most other countries. Think, for example, how deterred Western journalists > would be from following up a story that implicated the Venezuelan state in > the trafficking of peasants? organs, even if Hugo Chavez expressed outrage > at the suggestion. > > Unfortunately, however, the actual lesson of the Aftonbladet affair, the > one apparently intended for and digested by our media, is to keep quiet > about issues that Israel might get angry about. > > full - http://www.jkcook.net/Articles3/0419.htm#Top > > > > *The Missing Link in Israeli Organ Theft?* > > *The Autopsy Surgeon Aftonbladet Forgot* > > By JONATHAN COOK > > *http://www.jkcook.net/Articles3/0418.htm#Top***** > > > > All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it > is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." *Arthur > Schopenhauer* (1788-1860) > > ------------------------------ > From dmozart1756 at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 11:25:53 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 13:25:53 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Ira Chernus - Holocaust Still a Political Football Message-ID: <53a1ffe70909051025q7252eb94td16154c525f6c584@mail.gmail.com> > > * > > * > Ira Chernus, Truthout: "Matthew Rothschild and I both thought of Edward > Said when we read about two Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative > Council insisting that Gaza's schools should not teach the history of the > Nazi Holocaust. Cleric Yunis al-Astal said this would be 'marketing a lie' > and a 'war crime.' Jamila al-Shanti commented, "'Talk about the Holocaust > and the execution of the Jews contradicts and is against our culture, our > principles, our traditions, values, heritage, and religion.'" > > http://www.truthout.org/090509Z?n > > > All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it > is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." *Arthur > Schopenhauer* (1788-1860) > > ------------------------------ > From dmozart1756 at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 11:35:49 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 13:35:49 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Outrageous Behavior: Bogus Bluster From Bigwigs Hides Lockerbie Truth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53a1ffe70909051035p78b8b9e2od8f7d7f0da6578d9@mail.gmail.com> > > Empire Burlesque > Written by Chris Floyd Saturday, 05 September 2009 00:07 > > > > clip -- > > If you need more proof that we are living in a masquerade, in a world of > sham, show and deceit, in a veritable -- dare we say it? -- empire > burlesque, look no further than the recent manufactured "scandal" over the > release of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the bombing of > PanAm 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988. > > Al-Megrahi, who is dying, was released on "compassionate grounds" by the > Scottish government last week, and returned to a hero's welcome in his > native land of Libya. As soon as he was freed, we heard howls of outrage > from Washington: how could such a heinous killer be allowed to walk free? > There were stern words from the UK government in London, which pretended > that it had nothing to do with the Scots' decision. There was ponderous talk > from various punditti about a breach in the "special relationship," even of > boycotts of British goods. > > All of this -- every bit of it -- was just shoddy theatrics, a puppet show > for the rubes. You can bet that every single official trumpeting their moral > outrage at al-Megrahi's release knew the truth of the matter: he was not > released because he was dying, but because the slow-turning wheels of his > appeals process was about to force the release of hundreds of pages of > damning documents that would confirm, yet again, that he had been, as the > Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission put it, the victim of a > "miscarriage of justice" -- a frame job by the US and UK governments which > has been covered up, in admirable bipartisan fashion, for years. > > Why did they frame al-Megrahi, when they knew the real instigators of the > bombing? Because they needed the support of the instigators to launch the > wanton slaughterfest known as "Desert Storm." > > full article -- > > < > http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1832-outrageous-behavior-bogus-bluster-from-bigwigs-hides-lockerbie-truth.html > > > > > All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it > is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." *Arthur > Schopenhauer* (1788-1860) > > ------------------------------ > From epoliticus at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 12:58:55 2009 From: epoliticus at gmail.com (Politicus E.) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 14:58:55 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] India: Intensify the Struggle against Food Inflation and Hunger Message-ID: The following editorial appears in the September 2009 issue of Liberation, the monthly organ of the CPI(ML) Liberation. I have nominally edited the article to improve readability for the U.S. audience. ***** India observed her 62rd year of Independence with a solemn Prime Ministerial pronouncement: not a single Indian citizen would be allowed to go hungry. The Premier was immediately contradicted by reality and lampooned by fresh reports of starvation deaths (from Bihar) and farmers' suicides (from Andhra Pradesh). More ominously, we know that for every starvation death, there shall be at least a thousand men, women, and children eking out a miserable existence on one or half-a-meal per day. It is evident that 62 years of independence have not given us freedom from either extreme hunger, which results in starvation deaths and grabs headlines, or from endemic hunger, the silent killer which slowly slaughters tens of thousands across the land unnoticed, the deaths being explained away as those caused by "disease" or "improper food habits". The situation shall deteriorate further in the coming months, the Prime Minister and the Agriculture Minister inform us, with rising food prices and plummeting stocks of edibles. Their explanation centers on the poor monsoons and consequent drought conditions in 246 out of India's 593 districts, i.e., nearly half the country. Well, this appears to be quite a plausible argument. But wait, have not food prices been rising through the roof also during the past few years of good monsoons? Did India need unusual droughts, or floods, to experience a chilling series of starvation deaths and farmers' suicides during the previous term of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance; or to be ranked below countries of sub-Saharan Africa and all of South Asia, barring Bangladesh, in the Global Hunger Index and the India Hunger Index released by the International Food Policy Research Institute in October 2008? Food scarcity - at least for the poor - is thus perennial to this vast land of ours. Vagaries of monsoon only worsen it occasionally and do not constitute the root cause. So we cannot just let the powers that be cover up their own policy failures by finding a convenient scapegoat in the failure of monsoons. Why did they allow Indian agriculture, which boasts a much higher proportion of cultivable land compared to most other countries including China, to fall prey to decay and decline over the past six decades? What prevented them from expanding ? rather than curtailing, as they had actually been doing ? public investment in agriculture? Why does the Agriculture Minister denounce ?black marketeering or hoarding? but remain silent on forward trading in agricultural commodities, a major source of speculation and artificial rise in prices? We must confront the Union government with such questions. We must demand: (1) Meet the rural poor?s urgent need for a monthly provision of 50 kg rice, or wheat, at Rs. 2 per kg; (2) Bring edible oils, sugar, and pulses within the scope of Public Distribution System; (3) Implement the recommendations, hitherto neglected, of the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices on Minimum Support Prices; (4) Vastly expand the scope of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, not just as a relief measure but to improve rural infrastructure; (5) Mete out quick punishment to all officials responsible for delays and irregularities in the implementation of the N.R.E.G.A. While conducting militant agitations on immediate demands like these against the Central and State governments as well as various local authorities, we should bring pressure to bear on the Centre to expedite the proposed legislation that vows to convert food security into a legal entitlement. And why should bureaucrats, ministers and ?experts? alone determine the contents of the proposed bill? We should demand that peasants? and agrarian labourers? organizations, trade unions and other mass organizations must be consulted, so that the Bill really addresses their needs and aspirations. Once the Act is passed, we should start using it as a catalyst for action, a tool for collective bargaining to pressure the state machinery, as we have been doing with the N.R.E.G.A. In a country with 200 million food-insecure people - the largest number of hungry people in the world - the struggle against the increase in food prices and for freedom from hunger, including fear of hunger, is both an immediate and long term movement. We must lead and win both. ***** From holmoff10 at hotmail.com Sat Sep 5 14:53:12 2009 From: holmoff10 at hotmail.com (Leonardo Kosloff) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 20:53:12 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: First, I?d like to apologize to everyone for the stupid video I sent. It?s a song: ?who do you think you are?? by the spice girls, I was just trying to poke some little fun at the question Nestor asked me ?who do you think you are??, but I?ll promise I?ll be more serious from now on, I mean, more dialectical materialist, sorry. Lueko asked me if saying that the CCP personified the interests of capital was all I was planning to add. It?s not like I want to digress from the first question I posed to Nestor, or Lueko too, I suppose (CCP ?using? capitalism, etc. etc.) but I did share an article by Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett on how transnational accumulation undercuts the scale to which productivity is expanding in China, and I?ll leave the other ?less important? FDI issues aside for now. It?s from the (prissy) historical materialism journal but I think these guys are the ablest I read so far on China and, you know, it?s free, just a click. Yes, I didn?t pick out relevant quotes; I guess that makes me a lazy bastard. Here it is again: http://legacy.lclark.edu/~marty/China%20Transnational%20Accumulation.pdf But just what does accumulation mean? ?and it?s not like I?m trying to sound arrogant pretending you don?t know, it?s that I like to have things clear, you know, considering that the ?issue? of value was one of the most disputed problems in Marxist theory. As S.Artesian has been painstakingly trying to explain, it?s wrong-headed to look at capital as an agglomeration of use-values (GDP and shit like that, what has to be measured is how the mass of value has evolved and I?m not quite sure, nor have the time to go back at them right now, but I don?t think this was duly considered in previous posts) capital is a social relation, viz. the autonomized self-valorization of the commodity form in which private and independent labor is socially metabolized. And where does accumulation come from? It comes from the separation of the workers from the conditions of production. So when one looks at HSR, the important thing to consider is how these conditions are exacerbated. Since surplus-value originates in the production process it is also important to look at how labor relations have developed since the reform period and picture is hardly pretty, here?s some relevant papers by Simon Clarke http://www.warwick.ac.uk/~syrbe/china/ But what do all these economic categories have to do with the abstract heavenly question of consciousness?, it?s that unless we look at consciousness as bourgeois political economy does, an agglomeration of ideas, utilities, etc., consciousness, is but the generic way through which humans appropriate their medium, and so it is a result of how this metabolism instantiates itself. Perhaps you?ve heard of the work of Alfred Sohn-Rethel, who wanted to show that the Kantian system, as well as other general scientific and philosophical conceptions, had in fact resulted as the historical result from the act of real exchange, in other words, that the logic itself, and I dare include that of Hegel, is a particular way of thinking which comes from the mode of production, (mental) abstraction then comes from people?s own actions and that is why the fetishism of commodities is an immensely crucial dimension to grasp ?incidentally, also the reason why Stalinist ideology had to ?prove? this was just Marx masturbating, Althusser being the exemplary spokesman of this tradition, though he moved away from this in his later years- this is how I understand Marx?s critique of Hegel in the Paris Manuscripts. Yes, this I suppose is all very trivially accepted but then why do we go back, and put the question abstractly, ?how should the CCP use capitalism??, that is idealist. The objective perspective starts from looking at capital and what the necessary limitations to conscious political action springing from the determinations which ensue from the analysis are. That probably sounds haughty and anti-dialectical, but, looking at it this way, just to "illustrate", I claim for example that ?the? problem as regards our beloved ex-socialist Soviet state (USSR) was that the modality of accumulation, exclusively centered around the production of absolute surplus value, broadly put, with unchanging methods of production, made it impossible for ?full-blown? capitalist relations not to reestablish themselves. Is China on the same road to blind productionism?, not in the same exact way, clearly, and though I don't claim that the opponents to S.Artesian here are as blind as to understand the issues involved, it looks to me as though the logic you're putting forth is 'almost' a copycat...then again, there's always the Stalinist hope that Russia will regain its glory and this is all Putin's plan. But what is the role of capitalist incursion in China? Mainly, I think, that it works to sustain the fragmentation of workers into the two main groups of those with a high level of productive qualifications in evermore scientifically dominated production, and others who are mutilated to being appendices to machinery; this is manifest throughout the world, as far away as Argentina. Because surplus-value originates in the production process, this fragmentation is one of the main determinants of accumulation worldwide; it poses the concerted action of the world?s workers as an immediate political task as I see it. So here I come to my beloved land which I am so ignorant about. David put the analogy in terms of Peronist nationalizations, and Nestor correctly criticized his factual mistake. But wait, there?s more. Does accumulation ?linearly? expand productive capacity all the time? No, but to the extent we explain that by crying out loud: ?permanent revolution!?, ?combined development!? we are being as abstract as Milton Friedman. No, what one has to look at before crying about the parasitic agrarian capitalists of Argentina, which they are, is how the extraordinary rent which they cull out of the interloping of lots of small capitals and industrial foreign ?garbage? industries which can?t compete in the world market impinge on accumulation, what is specific about this? And the way I understand it, is that the expansion of accumulation acts as its own negation in putting a stoppage to the scale of production necessary to develop the productive forces in Argentina. So sure we can build lots of purrrty trains and railways, but we live in capitalism, and more shit don?t mean more power for workers just like that. Here?s a paper by Juan I?igo Carrera with, to my mind ?because I plagiarized all of the above from him-, a very thorough analysis of this and other things. In fact, the paper was written, again for Historical Materialism, specifically in regards to the 2001 events, but it has a lot of what I?m talking about. Because I?m short on time, and I?m lazy, I won?t select quotes for now, but the relevant part related to what I?ve been trying to say starts under the subtitle ?the specific form of accumulation in Argentina?. http://www.cicpint.org/jinigo/articulos/argentina/articulo%20HM.pdf He has other papers here, some in English, most in Spanish: http://www.cicpint.org/jinigo/pagina%20jinigo.html _________________________________________________________________ Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB_BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1 From sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com Sat Sep 5 16:07:58 2009 From: sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com (sobuadhaigh at hushmail.com) Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 18:07:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Obama and GOP support for Afghanistan Message-ID: <20090905220758.3B4C220041@smtp.hushmail.com> Louis posted an article from the NY Times on Obama quoting Andrew Bacevich, "a professor of international relations and history at Boston University" according to the Times. What was not mentioned was that he was also an armored cavalry brigade commander in Desert Storm and that his own son was killed in action in Iraq. He has now become a leading academic critic of American militarism. >Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations and history >at Boston University, said, ?There was a time, back in 2003 and 2004, >when it was possible to drum up popular support for the war by >attaching to the argument claims that the United States of America was >eliminating evil and advancing democracy and women?s rights. >?But this is many years later, with the economy in shambles, 5,000 >American soldiers dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those notions are >no longer as compelling as they might have been. War exhaustion sets >in,? said Professor Bacevich, author of ?The Limits of Power: The End >of American Exceptionalism.? From farmelantj at juno.com Sat Sep 5 17:05:34 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 19:05:34 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] The Boston Globe on radical films Message-ID: <20090905.190536.4756.5.farmelantj@juno.com> http://tinyurl.com/mlasou Rad, bad, & dangerous to know Films rarely take up radical causes. Thre result can be a mix of Karl and Groucho Marx. By Ty Burr, Mark Feeney, and Wesley Morris, Globe Staff | September 6, 2009 The revolution is once more being screened. Opening Friday is Uli Edel?s critically praised ?The Baader Meinhof Complex,?? which dramatizes Germany?s violent Red Army faction of the late 1960s and ?70s. Since the cinema is at once the most personal of art forms and a vast commercial enterprise, films about the radical left are rare and varied, from mawkish Hollywood tales to unstinting Maoist deconstructions. American filmmakers have tended to mine the era for human drama, even when dramatic engagement is beside the point. Europeans favor theory, however abstruse and humorless. The great radical movie - one that invites us in and connects the dots - may have yet to be made, but it?s not for lack of trying. (Maybe the rarely seen ?Milestones,?? from 1975, screening at the Harvard Film Archive on Sept. 26, will be it.) Meanwhile, we rate some of the contenders; four fists is as radical as we have seen. LA CHINOISE and WEEKEND (1967) 4 Fists With these two landmark works of agit-art, Jean-Luc Godard announced that narrative was a bourgeois contrivance and the cinema a weapon of revolution. ?Chinoise?? features actors playing students discussing radical theory; it?s a great time capsule and more critical than you?d think. The masterful ?Weekend?? simply envisions the end of the Western world, snarled in an infinite traffic jam. BANANAS (1971) 1 Fist ?A revolution is not a dinner party,?? Mao Zedong famously wrote. He didn?t say anything about a laff riot, though. In ?Bananas,?? Woody Allen heads off to Latin America in romantic pursuit of Louise Lasser. Becoming involved in a local guerrilla movement, he ends up revolutionary leader of the country. Allen, with his beard and combat fatigues, could be Fidel Castro - assuming Fidel joined the Friars Club. Who needs Annie Hall when you?ve got Gus Hall? DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975) 1 Fist Not a radical movie? That?s the point. When Al Pacino?s bank robber gets the crowds on his side by shouting ?Attica! Attica!?? he?s proving both how everything was political by the mid-1970s and how genuine radicalism had become co-opted by radical chic. In its backhanded way, that one scene marks the death of the ?60s. NETWORK (1976) 3 1/2 Fists Oh, the Ecumenical Liberation Army. So committed to assassinating news prophet Howard Beale (Peter Finch). So committed to negotiating a lucrative deal for its prime-time television show: ?The Mao Tse-Tung Hour??! These Black Power-ish radicals might be cutthroat negotiators, but showbiz can cheapen any cause. As the group?s no-nonsense leader, played by the great Laureen Hobbs, laments, ?The Communist Party?s not going to see a nickel of this . . . until we go into syndication!?? Word. REDS (1981) 3 Fists Easily the most problematic movie about radicals. On the one hand, there is the sweeping real-life love story of journalist John Reed (Warren Beatty) and his future wife, Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton), as the Russian Revolution swirls around them. The film?s so big-budget tame that Beatty, who also directed, screened it at the White House for an approving Ronald Reagan. On the other hand, ?Reds?? has actual, honest-to-God (oh, all right, honest-to-the-dialectic) radicals in it, like George Seldes and Scott Nearing. It?s hard to get more radical than that. PATTY HEARST (1988) 4 Fists Director Paul Schrader gives us America?s Most Famous Kidnapped Heiress a.k.a Tania the urban guerrilla. The superb Natasha Richardson rides Hearst?s trajectory from a pampered Berkeley 19-year-old to a bereted bank-robbing member of the leftist Symbionese Liberation Army, the radicals who kidnapped her. It?s part black comedy about race, class, and privilege, part psychological thriller. Did she really have no idea what she was doing? Schrader unequivocally did. RUNNING ON EMPTY (1988) 2 Fists Sidney Lumet?s drama, based on Naomi Foner?s Oscar-nominated screenplay, neatly captures the late-?80s take on ?60s radicals: flawed boomers led astray by their own ideals. Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti are very good as ex-campus guerrillas living underground in suburbia; River Phoenix, in one of his best mainstream roles, plays their very confused son. PANTHER (1995) 1 Fist Hot off ?New Jack City?? and his mostly-black western, ?Posse,?? Mario Van Peebles, working with dad Melvin, brought us an epic that managed to make the Black Panther Party seem like a bunch of grad students on poetry-slam night at the campus coffeehouse. It was righteous. But it was also stagy, like watching a movement?s greatest moments turned into a flashy movie of the week. I SHOT ANDY WARHOL (1996) 3 Fists Mary Harron?s sneaky, cheeky portrait of Valerie Solanas (Lili Taylor), the Factory hanger-on who, one evening in 1968, pumped a bullet into her mentor-tormentor Andy Warhol. The movie evenhandedly views Solanas as tough, funny, insightful, and bonkers - her anger toward men fueling both homicidal rage and a guerrilla feminism that continues to echo today. BAMBOOZLED (2000) 3 Fists In Spike Lee?s indignant satire, the radicals in question - a nitwit hip-hop outfit called the Mau Maus - kidnap the star of an appallingly popular minstrel entertainment hour and threaten to execute him during a live webcast. They owe a small debt to the Ecumenical Liberation Army of ?Network,?? but Lee?s rendition is sad as well as harshly funny: They have no idea what they?re doing. CECIL B. DEMENTED (2000) 3 Fists More irreverent lark than full-blown masterpiece, this John Waters farce gives us some deliciously bad rap and R&B numbers and a radical filmmaker whose guerrilla outfit (the Sprocket Holes) kidnaps a Hollywood star (Melanie Griffith) and, among other unprintable acts, forces her to star in their new budgetless feature. Needless to say, she comes down with an awesome case of Stockholm syndrome. You, meanwhile, might come down with a Patty Hearst flashback. Hell, Hearst might, too. She?s in the film! CHICAGO 10 (2007) 3 1/2 Fists Turning the transcripts of the landmark 1968 court case into an animated documentary reenactment may be a tad theatrical - but Abbie Hoffman would approve. Hank Azaria provides the voice of the Yippie prankster and Roy Scheider plays Judge Julius Hoffman, cluelessly turning the 10 activist defendants into counterculture martyrs. What happens to Bobby Seale (Jeffrey Wright) is still shocking to behold. CHE (2008) 4 Fists Nobody saw Steven Soderbergh?s four-hour epic. It wasn?t a biography of Che Guevara, per se, but a meticulously staged thesis about why revolutions don?t always work. Part of the reason, Soderbergh argues, is that Guevara thought of military strategies as being somewhat interchangeable. He had a one-size-fits-all attitude about revolution. And as his estate would discover in the decades since his death: That works better with T-shirts. ? Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company ____________________________________________________________ Wanna lose weight? Weight Loss Programs that work. Click here. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTFoYeXizVI8xgMGVCuLQgTe7Let6K75DGNcSSvMYyiE9FOgm4isO8/ From lnp3 at panix.com Sat Sep 5 17:13:18 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 19:13:18 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] The Boston Globe on radical films In-Reply-To: <20090905.190536.4756.5.farmelantj@juno.com> References: <20090905.190536.4756.5.farmelantj@juno.com> Message-ID: <4AA2F08E.1090603@panix.com> Jim Farmelant wrote: > > LA CHINOISE and WEEKEND (1967) > 4 Fists > > With these two landmark works of agit-art, Jean-Luc Godard announced that > narrative was a bourgeois contrivance and the cinema a weapon of > revolution. ?Chinoise?? features actors playing students discussing > radical theory; it?s a great time capsule and more critical than you?d > think. The masterful ?Weekend?? simply envisions the end of the Western > world, snarled in an infinite traffic jam. I don't know how many comrades have watched Godard movies, which are admittedly an acquired taste. When I went to see "Weekend" with a couple of Trotskyists in 1969, one fell asleep. For my money, this is one of the greatest movies of all time, leaving aside the radical nihilism that upset so many people at the time. http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/weekend.htm Weekend Recently I saw Jean-Luc Godard's "Weekend" at the Walter Reade Theater for the first time in well over 30 years. Soon after the film first appeared, it was regarded as a harbinger of the May-June '68 events in France. As we shall see, it is very difficult to try to superimpose any kind of "message" on a Godard film, least of all this one upon which ironies are layered on top of ironies. "Weekend" represents the culmination of Godard's ambivalent bid for commercial success. After making a big splash with his first film "Breathless" in 1960, Godard fought a continuing battle with the film industry to make movies that incorporated his Marxist beliefs and Brechtian aesthetic, as well as including just enough pizzazz to sell tickets. That conflict was dramatized in "Contempt", a 1963 Godard film that depicts an American producer played by Jack Palance bullying his European director (Fritz Lang) and screenwriter to show ever more nudity in a film version of Odysseus. In fact Joseph E. Levine, the vulgar but deep-pocketed producer of "Contempt", was making the same types of demands on Godard as "Contempt" was being made. "Weekend", made in 1967, was his nose-thumbing farewell to this world. Afterwards he would make films with the Dziga Vertov Group, a radical collective that produced low-budget agitprop without any commercial aspirations. "Weekend" is like no other film ever made. Set in a post-apocalyptic France in which the automobile is the ultimate symbol of bourgeois decadence and violence--evoking Mad Max and the B52s over Vietnam simultaneously--it makes no attempt to adhere to any sort of logic. As historical and fictional characters, ranging from St. Just to Tom Thumb, are dropped into the narrative, the two main characters never ask what they are doing there. More to the point, the two main characters--a vulgar, acquisitive and murderous middle-class husband and wife--never ask what they themselves are doing in such a nightmare. The opening scene of "Weekend" seems innocent enough. It depicts the husband Roland (Jean Yanne) and a male friend sitting on a terrace chatting amiably about nothing. For all we know, we are about to see a typical French comedy of manners like the kind that are churned out nonstop today. But almost immediately we see that something is wrong. A minor automobile accident in the parking lot beneath the terrace turns ugly as male and female occupants of one car punch and stomp the driver of the other car into unconsciousness. In the next scene we see the same friend with Roland's wife Corinne (Mireille Darc), who is sitting on a table in bra and panties. She spins out a sexually graphic anecdote about her involvement in a bizarre 'menage a trois' with a husband and wife. The anecdote is delivered in a monotone, even when it describes something as sensational as the husband dribbling an egg into her anus. The very affectless quality of her delivery is Godard's way of saying that the film will not cater to the audience's expectation of being titillated. There is no vulgarian Hollywood producer standing over his shoulder now. As the friend directs her to continue with the anecdote, he becomes a voyeur--just like the audience itself. Like everything else in the nightmare world of "Weekend", sex is just a commodity. The next scene is one of the most powerful ever seen in a Godard film. Roland and Corinne are stuck in a traffic jam on their way to Oinville, where they plot to kill to kill Corinne's father and gain control of his fortune. As Roland weaves his Facel-Vega sports car convertible in and out of the endless stream of cars and trucks to get to the head of the line, we feel as frustrated as one of the people in the jam. While horns never stop honking, the people curse at each other, and especially at Roland who is trying to edge his way to the front. Despite the scene's monotony, we stay focused as a result of Godard's clever use of visual incongruities a man in oilskins tending to his sailing boat, a truck containing exotic animals who seem impervious to the racket, people who have stepped out of their cars who are playing chess or drinking wine, etc. After an eternity, Roland reaches the head of the line and we discover the source of the jam-up. A horrible accident has left bloody bodies strewn across the road. Roland seems indifferent and steps on the gas to speed his way toward Oinville. In the next scene, Roland and Corinne stumble across another accident in a small, provincial town. A farmer has plowed his tractor into a Triumph sports car and killed the male driver. His girl-friend, attired in a blood-soaked dress, is screaming at the driver "It makes you sick that that we've got money and you haven't... You're pissed off because we fuck on the Riviera and you don't... I bet you don't even own [the tractor] and it belongs to one of those rotten unions or some fucking cooperative." The farmer answers her dispassionately, "If it weren't for me and my tractor, the French would have nothing to eat." If the audience's expectation is raised at this point that the film is about to make a transition toward Marxist didacticism, that vanishes rapidly as the farmer solidarizes himself with the screaming woman against Roland and Corinne who have begun to speed away from the scene "You can't leave just like that! Aren't we all brothers like Marx said? Bastards! Bastards!" The woman, whose shoulder the farmer's beefy arm enwraps, is more to the point "Jews! Filthy rotten stinking Jews!" Godard's relation to Marx and to Marxism was never a simple one. In a 1994 interview with Andrew Sarris, he comes across more as a Groucho Marxist. (It is entirely possible that Godard is pulling the literal-minded and obnoxiously liberal Sarris's leg.) Sarris You were considered a Marxist activist at one time. Godard Oh, no. Sarris You never were a Marxist? Godard I never read Marx. Sarris But you talked about Marx. Godard Yes, but only as a provocation, mixing Mao and Coca-Cola and so forth. In a 1965 interview with Cahiers du Cin?ma, Godard explains why there are no real communists in French cinema "It's impossible. If someone wanted to make a film about the life of a communist he would have terrible trouble with the Party, who would tell him what and what not to do. Suppose the character is selling 'Humandimanche' and he stops for a drink, they would say you couldn't possibly show a vendor of Humanit?-dimanche drinking. It's another kind of censorship. The Party is as tough with its students as De Gaulle and Fouchet [Minister of Education, 1963-1967] are with theirs." Suffice it to say that Godard, like many 1960s radicals, did not have to be convinced of the rottenness of the capitalist system. What he was more dubious about was the possible agency for abolishing that system. In France particularly, the CP was a symbol of accommodation to the capitalist system. Furthermore, it was difficult to look to the workers and peasants as instruments of change, since for all appearances the traditional enemies of the capitalist class seemed reconciled to co-existence with that system. When Godard eventually hooked up with the student radical movement after 1968, it was with the most romantic wing--the Maoists--who pinned their hopes on peasant insurgencies much more than industrial workers in the First World. After Roland and Corinne's Facel-Vega is destroyed in a head-on collision, they wander the French countryside trying to hitch a ride to Oinville. The landscape is strewn with wrecked cars and dead bodies. No explanation is given, but we are left with the distinct impression that the car culture has led to mass self-destruction. Like a degraded version of Mother Courage, Corinne tries to make the best of a terrible situation, scavenging designer clothing from the dead. Even after a collision has destroyed their car, she makes clear what her priorities are. As Roland drags himself from the wreckage, she screams, "Help! My Herm?s bag!" After they lose their car, reality begins to evaporate and the film takes a surreal turn. They run into Louis Antoine L?on de Sainte-Just (Jean-Pierre L?aud), a major figure of the French revolution who is striding across a pasture in 18th century clothing and intoning gravely from a book "Freedom, like crime, is born of violence. . . as though it were the virtue that springs from vice. . . fighting in desperation against slavery. . . . The struggle will be long and freedom will kill freedom. . . . Can one believe that man created society. . . in order to be happy and reasonable therein? No! One is led to assume that, weary of the restfulness and wisdom of Nature, he wishes to be unhappy and mad. I see only constitutions that are backed by gold, pride, and blood, and nowhere do I see ... the fairness and moderation that ought to form the basis of the social treaty." This brief, seemingly nihilistic outburst (Freedom will kill freedom!) sets the tone for the dark climax of the film. Roland and Claudine are captured by the Seine and Oise Liberation Front, who for all purposes seem like machine-gun wielding flower children who have risen like Phoenixes from the ashes of a burnt-out French society. In their woodland lair, the 'revolutionaries' beat drums, paint their naked bodies, and rape their captives. While they cavort, the band's cook, donned in a blood-soaked apron, chops up fresh meat with a frightening looking machete. When Roland is killed trying to escape from the camp, they chop him up and add him to the cook's enormous pot. The final scene depicts Corrine and Kalfon, the guerrilla, leader sharing a meal Corinne Not bad. Kalfon Yes, we mixed the pig with the remains of the English tourists. Corinne The ones in the Rolls? Kalfon That's right. There should be left-overs of your husband in there, too. Corinne When I'm finished, I wouldn't mind a bit more. So what kind of revolution would lead to cannibalism? The Marxist schema posits a revolutionary movement that rests upon the gains of civilization. Capitalism revolutionizes the means of production--including the modern automobile--as a precondition for social ownership of industrial society. Socialism would then consist of the rational use of the means of production for the good of society. Godard seems much more pessimistic about such prospects than ideologues of the French left that he was associated with. And this ultimately is what "Weekend" is about the dark underside of "civilization". Roland and Corinne's behavior, just as the behavior of their captors, seems to be a throwback to a pre-civilized past. When Roland and Corinne begin their trip toward Oinville, she asks him a question out of the blue "When did civilization begin?" Even in the unlikely event that Roland knew the answer to this question, it as just as unlikely that Corinne would understand him. In the final scenes of "Weekend", as the camera ranges over car wrecks and mounds of bloody corpses, we hear a voiceover that explains the evolution of civilization in terms found in Engels' "Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State" which are in stark contrast to the post-apocalyptic nightmare we are witnessing. While it is difficult to say whether Godard fully understood the message buried beneath the mass of conflicting words and images, at least the way I interpret it, it appears that he is meditating on the paragraph in the Communist Manifesto which is at odds with the standard interpretation assigned to it as one of inevitable triumph of the socialist cause. "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." The common ruin of the contending classes would certainly be the consequence of the failure of the working class to abolish the capitalist system. If the working class can not rise to the task of confronting its ruling class and if a party can not be built in time that is adequate to the task, perhaps our future will look more like "Weekend" than the one imagined by the official left with all its stagist pieties. From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 17:13:36 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 19:13:36 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] The Boston Globe on radical films In-Reply-To: <20090905.190536.4756.5.farmelantj@juno.com> References: <20090905.190536.4756.5.farmelantj@juno.com> Message-ID: DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975) 1 Fist Not a radical movie? That?s the point. When Al Pacino?s bank robber gets the crowds on his side by shouting ?Attica! Attica!?? he?s proving both how everything was political by the mid-1970s and how genuine radicalism had become co-opted by radical chic. In its backhanded way, that one scene marks the death of the ?60s. --- The writer of this article might've metioned that the Attica chant actually happened in real life during this episode. It wasn't something invented by some dried-up psuedo radical screenwriter. "Reds" is one of my favorite films. From farmelantj at juno.com Sat Sep 5 17:43:02 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 19:43:02 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] The Boston Globe on radical films Message-ID: <20090905.194303.4756.7.farmelantj@juno.com> On Sat, 05 Sep 2009 19:13:18 -0400 Louis Proyect writes: > > I don't know how many comrades have watched Godard movies, which are > > admittedly an acquired taste. When I went to see "Weekend" with a > couple > of Trotskyists in 1969, one fell asleep. For my money, this is one > of > the greatest movies of all time, leaving aside the radical nihilism > that > upset so many people at the time. "La Chinoise" can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube in ten segments at: http://tinyurl.com/n8n5ft Alas, YouTube only has clips from "Weekend." However, Godard's 1966 film, "Masculin Feminin," which did not get any mention in the Globe article, is available on YouTube in ten segments starting at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWpkEu2JR0c > > http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/culture/weekend.htm > Weekend > > Recently I saw Jean-Luc Godard's "Weekend" at the Walter Reade > Theater > for the first time in well over 30 years. Soon after the film first > > ____________________________________________________________ Huge inventory of scales for all your weighing needs. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTFnwkDrU9jxXF4VkZpSR2DCyG84oDSeZvaYmfQoBP3gcGZlbu6zgE/ From farmelantj at juno.com Sat Sep 5 17:58:43 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 19:58:43 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] The Boston Globe on radical films Message-ID: <20090905.195844.4756.8.farmelantj@juno.com> On Sat, 05 Sep 2009 19:13:18 -0400 Louis Proyect writes: > > > > > Godard's relation to Marx and to Marxism was never a simple one. In > a > 1994 interview with Andrew Sarris, he comes across more as a Groucho > > Marxist. (It is entirely possible that Godard is pulling the > literal-minded and obnoxiously liberal Sarris's leg.) That's sort of like what happened when Althusser in his memoirs claimed that he never read much Marx. Hordes of literal minded critics (at least in the anglophone world) jumped on that statement. It's obvious, to me at least, that Althusser was pulling his readers' legs but perhaps French humor doesn't translate well into English. > > Sarris You were considered a Marxist activist at one time. > > Godard Oh, no. > > Sarris You never were a Marxist? > > Godard I never read Marx. > > Sarris But you talked about Marx. > > Godard Yes, but only as a provocation, mixing Mao and Coca-Cola and > so > forth. > > ____________________________________________________________ Hard times? Career rut? Fast track your career with an online degree. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTKL6eXNfyFfWipoXA48nRnmijLXbH2RAUjPUgF54at1wegTGocASE/ From michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Sat Sep 5 20:54:23 2009 From: michael at ecst.csuchico.edu (michael perelman) Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 19:54:23 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, and Green Technology Message-ID: <4AA3245F.9070900@ecst.csuchico.edu> One of the keys to Green Technology may be buried in China. It has only recently begun to appear in the media, but for very different reasons. A couple of years ago, the New Scientist published a piece about the risks of the scarcity of rare minerals. Cohen, David. 2007. "Earth's Natural Wealth: An Audit." New Scientist Issue 2605 (23 May): pp. 35-41. Three facts are bringing this looming shortage to the attention of mainstream media. First, the US is dependent on exports of these minerals, while China is the main exporter. Second, these minerals are crucial for high technology, including both military and so-called Green Technologies. My next encounter with the rare earth problem came in David Cay Johnston's wonderful book. Here are my notes: Johnston, David Cay. 2007. Free Lunch: How The Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You With The Bill) (New York: Portfolio). 37: "In 1982, competing groups of scientists around the world found a way to combine iron and boron with a somewhat rare earth called neodymium to make extremely powerful and lightweight magnets. These magnets quickly found a market in computer hard drives, high-quality microphones and speakers, automobile starter motors, and the guidance systems of smart bombs." 38: "General Motors created a division to manufacture these magnets, calling it Magnequench .... Then in 1995 the automaker decided to sell the division. Because the deal was for only $70 million it attracted little attention. The buyer was a consortium of three firms .... but the real parties behind the purchase were a pair of Chinese companies -- San Huan New Material High-Tech Inc. and China National Nonferrous Metals. Both firms were partly owned by the Chinese government. The heads of these two Chinese companies are the husbands of the first and second daughters of Deng Xiaoping, then the paramount leader." 38: At the time, GM was trying to get a toehold in China. One of the Goddard's was at the time vice minister of the Chinese State Science and Technology Commission, which had the responsibility for acquiring military technology by any means. 39: The Clinton administration agreed the sale under the condition that the new owners keep the production and technology in the United States. The new owners began to buy factories in the United States including GA Powders, an Idaho firm that used government money to develop a monopoly on the production powerful methods. Then the Chinese company shut down American production and moved everything to China. The reference to Deng is interesting, as you will see in a moment. More at: http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=1245&message=6 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com From nmgoro at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 21:01:17 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 00:01:17 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <225D96BA-45EE-40C9-B899-B4A0D93F214C@pipeline.com> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> <2ABE3E8B59FC498382DBC9AC222DCFB8@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909040156n10c368e2m5dc60adbd43345e7@mail.gmail.com> <78AE9C79B96D4360ADC565D5DCEBFA7B@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909050653s6193814dsac462614241a7348@mail.gmail.com> <225D96BA-45EE-40C9-B899-B4A0D93F214C@pipeline.com> Message-ID: <2fa158550909052001n46d918fmf9372c364d05c179@mail.gmail.com> Marx?s Eurocentric mistakes only show him as a man of his times. He was no God, he was an European of the 29th Century. The best of all them, but one of them. Marx?s understanding of the national question, if you are interested in learning from it, can be read in Bloom?s "A world of nations", among other books. BTW, Marx?s political positions on the Southern Slavs became quite different to the stupid phrase you quote when he began to study it. His opinions on the role of Serbia, even his understanding of Serbian panSlavism ("they are panSlavists only in the measure of their backwardness", he explained to Engels, but he immediately asserted that if the national movement in Serbia won his battle, the Serbians would leave their sympathies to Tsarist Russia), were infinitely more interesting than your elementary propositions. We Marxists, by the way, only support national movements that forward the march towards socialism. Not every such movement does it. Imperialist backed "national" struggles do not count in this class. The day you overcome your liberal-progressive worship of those "national" movements that, in fact, seek to destroy larger national movements that tend to supersede imperialist domination, that day, you will begin to understand something in this terrain. In the meanwhile, learn. 2009/9/5 Shane Mage : > > On Sep 5, 2009, at 9:53 AM, N?stor Gorojovsky wrote: >> >> ...I say that the national question is always a class question... >> >> At least there are...people who..agree with me... Marx...among others! > > > As illustrated by Marx's view of the national question among that > "ethnic garbage," the southern slavs? ?As well as by your condemnation > of the Tibetan and Uighur national struggles against domination by the > capitalist Chinese empire? > > > 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 > > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism en lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/nmgoro%40gmail.com > -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From nmgoro at gmail.com Sat Sep 5 21:07:44 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 00:07:44 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2fa158550909052007l61dc4f7btab47f68ac8f0e96b@mail.gmail.com> Look, Kosslof, if you think the Montoneros were in any way on Per?n?s "left", as most standard "leftists" in Arg believe, then you are so far away from Marxism that, as I guessed, it is pointless to discuss any of these issues with you. 2009/9/5 Leonardo Kosloff : > > Nestor: I agree with all that Lueko has answered you > > Re: what is all that that he ?has answered??, he asked me a question, if I have anything to add to the little detail that the Chinese bureaucracy personifies the interests of capital, I assume he then acknowledges that that?s in fact the role of the CCP, am I right Lueko?, > > Nestor: Leonardo you ignorant > > Re: Nestor shows the level of his dialectical materialism once more and addresses me personally ??puteando?: throwing insult- before replying to my claim made two posts ago: that his comments so far implicitly take the consciousness of commodity producers as determined outside the sphere of capital accumulation, that is, as abstract consciousness,? do any of the Nestor?s posts mention value, relative surplus-value, methods of production in China?, do any of Nestor?s posts talk about how workers are separated from the conditions of production, capital is accumulated, in China? Not so far. Hence, unless we understand capital in the same terms of bourgeois political economy, the determinations of consciousness have not been addressed by Nestor -lest you think Marx wrote Capital because he was masturbating-, instead he proceeds to falsely S.Artesian's claim, which is the one my intervention started with: him saying the CCP ?uses? capitalism to build socialism, this was Nestor a few posts ago: > > 'It is one thing > to _use_ capitalism, and a different one to _bow_ to capitalism. The > whole thing when it comes to the China debate is whether the Chinese > leadership _uses_ capitalism or _bows_ to it, which implies bowing to > imperialism. China is not doing the latter. Doing the former, of > course, entails the most serious risks. ?' > > Nestor: I would add a single question: > > Re: As for the <> questions below? > > Nestor: (a) what were the interests and desires > of Arg workers that Peron, as you bluntly and automatically parrot, > betrayed? > > Re: Well Nestor, this might just be me masturbating here, but as I take it from the Communist Manifesto, the interests of Argentinean workers run parallel to the interests of workers around the world: the overthrow of capital. Now I suppose you mean specific issues, how Peron exterminated Montoneros, how he was a closet fascist, how he sold out YPF, how he opened the gates to the dictatorship which came after his terms? But may I kindly request you answer my question first, because I think the objective issues (capitalism, for only then can we begin to clear up how these interests have been betrayed) are a tad more important than ideological polemic, again, you wouldn?t want anyone to think that you?re just hiding behind your dialectical mantle in order to ensconce your evasion. > > Nestor: And (b) who are you, what is the stool you stand up on to define what > were, are or will ever be the interests of Arg workers? > > Re: See above > > Nestor: That is, who do you think you are, Leonardo? > > Re: That?s a nice question to masturbate over, let me do that and get back atcha. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online. > http://windowslive.com/Campaign/SocialNetworking?ocid=PID23285::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_SB_online:082009 > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism en lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/nmgoro%40gmail.com > -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From shmage at pipeline.com Sat Sep 5 21:29:25 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 23:29:25 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <2fa158550909052001n46d918fmf9372c364d05c179@mail.gmail.com> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> <2ABE3E8B59FC498382DBC9AC222DCFB8@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909040156n10c368e2m5dc60adbd43345e7@mail.gmail.com> <78AE9C79B96D4360ADC565D5DCEBFA7B@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909050653s6193814dsac462614241a7348@mail.gmail.com> <225D96BA-45EE-40C9-B899-B4A0D93F214C@pipeline.com> <2fa158550909052001n46d918fmf9372c364d05c179@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <61806F07-9703-4A10-8DBB-26946B841E99@pipeline.com> On Sep 5, 2009, at 11:01 PM, N?stor Gorojovsky wrote: > > We Marxists, by the way, only support national movements that forward > the march towards socialism. Not every such movement does it. So. All hail whatever Marxist Pope has decreed infallibly to his elect exactly which "proletarian nations" (like those that made a deal to divide up the area between them 70 years ago?) are "marching" (goose-stepping?) toward socialism and which oppressed peoples are too backward, too weak, too willing to accept help from suspect quarters, too impure to be anything but > ..."national" movements that, in fact, seek to destroy larger national > movements that tend to supersede imperialist domination... and so must be condemned with scarequotes when they assert their democratic rights against imperialist rule by a "larger national movement" constituting the second-strongest (but by far the oldest) empire in the world. That, presumably, is what is meant by saying that the "national question is a class question." 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 dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com Sun Sep 6 00:19:22 2009 From: dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com (Dogan Gocmen) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 09:19:22 +0300 Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, and Green Technology In-Reply-To: <4AA3245F.9070900@ecst.csuchico.edu> References: <4AA3245F.9070900@ecst.csuchico.edu> Message-ID: Hi Michael, This is what comes up when I click on the link you gave: "You are not allowed to edit this post." ------- 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 dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com Sun Sep 6 00:24:39 2009 From: dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com (Dogan Gocmen) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 09:24:39 +0300 Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, and Green Technology In-Reply-To: References: <4AA3245F.9070900@ecst.csuchico.edu> Message-ID: I got it Michael, it is on the front page of your web site. ----- 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 redarnie at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 00:45:26 2009 From: redarnie at gmail.com (Red Arnie) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 23:45:26 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Walter Benn Michaels Message-ID: <3577d2390909052345q1af67ab0j26665e0e18af651b@mail.gmail.com> Comrades and friends, With the defense of Michaels' dogma by supposed socialists, is there any wonder people of color in the U.S. feel isolated in the movement and have trouble recruiting peers to the socialist cause? When questioned about his rabid, anti-Asian racism, the writer Jack London frankly stated: "I am a white person first and a socialist second." How successful has the socialist movement in the U.S. been in dispelling this image among people of color? (As an aside, when anyone promotes London as a "socialist" or "progressive", that person is immediately suspect in my mind.) I would not characterize Michaels as a racist like London but I think an appropriate characterization of Michaels would be that he is a well-meaning white person first and a dogmatic, theoretician second. Neither London nor Michaels served or serves the movement much good. Fighting for racial equality can only be a "distraction" from the class struggle if the fight for racial equality ignores or denies class issues and capitalist oppression and exploitation. The fight for racial equality is futile without also fighting capitalism and the fight for socialism will be futile without fighting against racial inequality at the same time. Red Arnie From lnp3 at panix.com Sun Sep 6 06:58:07 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 08:58:07 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <2fa158550909052001n46d918fmf9372c364d05c179@mail.gmail.com> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> <2ABE3E8B59FC498382DBC9AC222DCFB8@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909040156n10c368e2m5dc60adbd43345e7@mail.gmail.com> <78AE9C79B96D4360ADC565D5DCEBFA7B@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909050653s6193814dsac462614241a7348@mail.gmail.com> <225D96BA-45EE-40C9-B899-B4A0D93F214C@pipeline.com> <2fa158550909052001n46d918fmf9372c364d05c179@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA3B1DF.5020200@panix.com> N?stor Gorojovsky wrote: > > The day you overcome your liberal-progressive worship of those > "national" movements that, in fact, seek to destroy larger national > movements that tend to supersede imperialist domination, that day, you > will begin to understand something in this terrain. > > In the meanwhile, learn. > http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/state_and_revolution/argentina3.htm Juan Per?n Coming to terms with Juan Per?n is necessary for two reasons. Firstly, Per?nism remains an important element of Argentine politics today, especially in the labor movement. Secondly, in many ways Hugo Chavez is a Per?n-like figure. For Marxists, such figures present a significant challenge. If we are for socialism, what is our attitude toward figures struggling against imperialism but who are not socialists? For some socialists, however, Per?n was not in a progressive struggle with imperialism. He is seen as some kind of Bonapartist caudillo at best, or fascist at worst. Before attempting to address the question of what Per?n stood for, it is necessary to review the economic problems that faced Argentina prior to his ascendancy. By the early 20th century, Argentina had already become dominated by a coalition of the local ruling classes based on the ranching, grain growing in the pampas; and the import-export and financial sectors in Buenos Aires, which supported the agrarian economy. The city's proximity to the pampas made it the political and commercial hub of the country, just as New York City was for the USA. These local fractions of the bourgeoisie had developed a very close relationship to Great Britain that relied on Argentina for its agricultural exports. The emergence of refrigerated ships ensured that meat could arrive in British seaports without any loss. Prior to this technical innovation, you had to ship livestock that naturally lost weight during the arduous trans-oceanic voyage. While this arrangement made Argentina relatively prosperous and allowed an upsurge of immigration, the economy was ultimately dependent on Great Britain. It also stunted local industrial growth since the relationship with Great Britain implied favoritism toward imported British manufactured goods. Local industry remained somewhat primitive and wage labor tended to be of an unskilled and part-time nature. The Radical Party mounted the first challenge to the entrenched class relationships. Their social base was in the petty proprietors, shopkeepers, intelligentsia, professionals and labor aristocracy of the cities and towns. The leadership, however, came mainly from landed interests that were shut out of the Argentina-England connection. Hip?lito Yrigoyen, the Radical who became president in 1916 and again in 1928, was himself a small landowner. Despite the name Radical, the party was incapable of breaking completely with the pre-existing class system. Basically, it sought to extend both geographically and socially the system that had defined Argentina's past. As long as the economy continued to expand, the Radical Party did not pose a threat to the status quo. The dominant ranchers and bankers probably understood that the system needed loosening up for it to survive over the long haul. With such a low level of class struggle in a period of rising economic expectations, it is no wonder that some segments of the labor movement developed reformist illusions. Corradi writes: "The undisputed economic hegemony of the landed elite throughout this period of middle-class government is even more clearly revealed by the vicissitudes of the Argentine socialist movement. That movement was born in the 1880's when inflation devoured the incomes of the incipient working class. With the subsequent expansion of Argentine exports, the favorable terms of trade stabilized the currency. Thus, the success of the elite's economic program won for them the support of the socialists, who from then on sought reform and not revolution. Social mobility also contributed to the bourgeois tendencies of the socialists. Eventually they became junior partners of the establishment. These are the historical roots of a spectacle that would puzzle some observers in 1945, when socialists and communists demonstrated against Per?n in the company of reactionary landlords." After Yrigoyen's re-election in 1928, things changed radically. With the stock market crash, the prices of meat and grain fell. Consequently, Argentina's gold reserves flowed outward to pay for imported goods. Multiplier effects worsened the economy overall and before long Argentina was in a deep social and economic crisis comparable to the one being suffered today. General discontent provoked the dominant landed and banking sectors to back a military coup against Yrigoyen and on September 6, 1930 General Jos? Felix Uriburu came to power. Despite being thrust into power by the old agrarian ruling class, the military junta was forced willy-nilly to address Argentina's underlying economic weaknesses. This led to the adoption of public works projects of a Keynsian nature. It also forced Argentina to begin a policy of national industrialization based on what is commonly known as "import substitution". This policy is associated with the name of Raul Prebisch, an Argentine economist who strongly influenced the dependency theorists of the 1950s, including Andre Gunder Frank and Samir Amin. While the junta began moving fitfully in this direction, it required the strong nationalist hand of Juan Per?n to fulfil it. Basically, the junta created a contradiction. While fostering the growth of local industry and a skilled modern proletariat, it was not ready to embark on a full-scale revolutionary nationalist path that would risk confrontation with its imperialist benefactors. Symptomatic of this failure of nerve was the 1933 Roca-Runciman Treaty which granted the British government import licenses for 85 percent of Argentine beef exports, while Argentina retained only 15 percent. There is little in Per?n's background to suggest that he would launch an ambitious drive to break with Argentina's past. He was born on October 8, 1895 in the town of Lobo, about sixty miles from Buenos Aires. His father was of Italian descent and name was probably shortened from Per?ni, the same name as the Neapolitan beer that you can find in many delis. He entered the military where he developed a rather unexceptional career, reaching the rank of captain. According to Robert Alexander, Per?n first took an interest in social problems when he observed the poverty of many of the conscripts who came into the army each year. For conventional bourgeois social scientists and their co-thinkers on the left, the key to understanding Per?n's future trajectory was the two years he spent in Germany and Italy as part of an army training delegation. He studied the fascist system in Italy and was impressed with Mussolini's oratorical hold on his followers and the role of the state in organizing the economy. Of course, if he had been sent to the USA instead, he probably would have been just as impressed with FDR's talents in this direction. According to Alexander, whose account is generally hostile, Per?n was not interested in simply copying Mussolini. He writes: "Years later Per?n claimed while talking with me that he had learned from what he thought were the mistakes of Mussolini, and he said that he had had no intention of repeating those mistakes. He argued, among other things, that Mussolini had erred in trying to impose a corporative state structure on Italian society, an attempt which Per?n saw as having been a failure." Additional "proof" of Per?n's fascist sympathies was his ties to the military junta of the 1930s, which had a pro-Axis tilt. Additionally, he became a member of the GOU (Group of United Officers), a lodge of military men who gathered together during WWII to discuss military and political questions. When the GOU eventually seized power in 1943, they allegedly based themselves on a document that predicted an Axis victory. After the world was divided into spheres of influence, Argentina would dominate Latin America. If this was all there was to Per?n, then perhaps his detractors would have a point. Instead, he embarked on a strongly leftist and pro-labor path. Shortly after the coup took power, Per?n persuaded his fellow officers to name him Secretary of Labor. Using this department as a battering ram, he challenged all the old dominant classes in Argentina and promoted the class interests of the workers and the nascent industrial bourgeoisie. The concessions made to the workers were only possible as a result of the "primitive accumulation" regime of the 1930s, which had imposed a draconian limit on wages in order to finance industrial expansion. By 1943, elements of wartime prosperity and prior capital accumulation made it possible for the creation of an ambitious welfare state that dwarfed similar efforts in the USA. In conjunction with his wife Eva, who had been a labor activist herself, Per?n aligned himself with the most important labor unions in the country. He forced employers to recognize and bargain fairly with new unions in the packinghouse, metal and textile industries. In addition, he built strong ties with older unions, including the railway and telephone. Again, we must turn to the hostile Robert Alexander for an account of what took place: "When Per?n went out to the town of Berisso, near La Plata, at the height of a packinghouse workers' strike and was seen to confer publicly with the leader of the walkout, Cipriano Reyes, it was no longer possible for the large foreign-owned packinghouses to refuse to negotiate with Reyes and his colleagues. Once and for all, an end was put to the age-old system of labor spies, to dismissals of any workers who joined a union, and to the beating up of labor militants. In its place came a strong union with collective bargaining between union and management. "What was true of the 'frigor?ficos,' or packinghouses, was also true of the other large industrial enterprises in the metropolitan area. However, Per?n's union-fomenting efforts were not confined to the Buenos Aires region. With his help the sugar workers of the northern provinces of Tucuman and Salta were unionized, as were the vineyard and winery workers of Mendoza and other mountain provinces. Even the workers on the great cattle and grain estancias were brought into a union." Answering those who would argue that Per?n's efforts were solely designed to build up corporatist type unions, Donald Hodges finds Argentine nationalism rather than European fascism of much more explanatory value. In particular he looks to the Radical Orientation Forces of the Argentine Youth (FORJA), which was founded by Radical Party youth leader Arturo Jauretche on June 29, 1935. The nationalism of the FORJA was predicated on a "revisionist" interpretation of Argentine history, one that saw the Europeanizing influence of Buenos Aires as an obstacle to future national development. In particular, they looked at the work of Ra?l Ortiz, who attacked British imperial policy in much the same manner as Alejandro Benda?a's dissertation that formed the basis of my first post. Another key FORJA figure was Manuel Ugarte who was expelled from the Socialist Party for nationalist deviations. It is significant that Jauretche, Ortiz and Ugarte all went to work in Per?n's first administration. It should remind of us how some former guerrilla fighters went to work for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. When the old landed gentry figured out what Per?n was up to, it didn't take long for them to organize a coup just like the kind that failed in Venezuela. It also failed in Argentina for the same reasons. The working people figured out that it was in their class interests to retain the nationalist movement in power. Just as occurred with Chavez, the military coup of October 1945 took Per?n to Martin Garcia island where he was held incognito. When the trade unions discovered what had taken place, they mobilized the ranks to march on Buenos Aires against the new regime of General Avalos. After hundreds of thousands of workers took control of the streets, the junta relented and Per?n was returned to power. He ran for office in the following year and became President of Argentina. Now that he had the full mandate of the nation, Per?n embarked on an ambitious program of social welfare and industrialization. He nationalized the railways and seized control of Axis property. Inside his administration you could find "moderates" and "extremists". (George Lambie uses these terms in his 1983 MA dissertation on Per?n. I am not sure whether he coined them or whether they were operative in 1946. In any case, there seems to be no reason to disagree with them as broad categories.) The two camps differed mainly on the pace of the social and economic reforms that were designed to break the hold of imperialism and the landed gentry on the country. The most prominent "extremist" was Miguel Miranda, who as head of the Economic Council advocated rapid industrialization under state control, financed by high prices for agricultural exports. Although the Per?n government specifically rejected the Soviet model and invited US investment in the country in a bid to break free of British domination, the USA remained hostile. Since Great Britain was the USA's main ally against the Soviet threat, any upstart country had to be taught to obey. Great Britain was clever, however. Rather than making a frontal assault on Argentina, it would try to figure out how to exploit differences between "moderates" and "extremists". When Argentina launched a five-year plan for economic development, Great Britain sought ways to slow down its implementation. The USA saw things the same way. In November 1945, Spruille Braden, who attempted unsuccessfully to tarnish Per?n as a fascist in the recent elections, made a speech in which he denounced any development policy designed "not to promote an increased productivity and a higher real income, but to serve the purposes of autarchy, neurotic nationalism and military adventure." (Cited in Lambie). It was clear that Argentina was the "neurotic nationalism" he was warning against. Key to Argentina's success was the ability to buy American capital goods such as farm machinery, machine tools, electronics, etc. Since WWII had devastated Europe and Great Britain, the Yankees were the only game in town. In 1946, Argentina's future looked bright since it had accumulated 150 million British pounds in the form of promissory notes with the Bank of England. Per?n hoped that the English currency would be convertible into dollars, which would allow him to buy American equipment. Great Britain refused to allow Argentina's notes to be converted into dollars. As Lambie points out, "The dollar shortage gave both the US and Britain a powerful lever by which to delay the diversification of the Argentine economy. By undermining Miranda and the Five Year Plan and encouraging ["moderate"] Bramuglia and a policy of slow industrialization under a system of free enterprise, it would be possible for the US to force Argentina to forgo its own economic development to contribute instead to Britain's economic recovery." Lambie's scholarship around these issues is very important. Even on the left, there is a tendency to look at the collapse of the Per?n experiment simply in terms of a failure to confront the local bourgeoisie. For example, Corradi writes: "In the absence of agrarian reform, no incentive had been offered to agricultural production. The country's most strategic productive activities were in fact penalized under the operation of the state trading and multiple-exchange-rate systems, which denied the producers, that is, the landowners, the benefits of high external prices without crippling their capacity to rebound as a pressure group either, and without diversifying agricultural production. In consequence of this, and as a result of the significant rise in the standard of living of the urban masses mobilized by Per?nism, a steadily increasing domestic consumption of meat and other foodstuffs inevitably reduced the country's exportable surpluses. The specter of dependency arose once more, even though the nature of dependency had changed. The development of consumer goods industries had reduced consumer imports. "But the ability to maintain existing industries depended upon the import of indispensable fuels and raw materials and imports of capital goods for industry and transport. As a result of Per?n's policies Argentina had an established "light" industry but was not in a position to promote its development without outside aid. One thing then became apparent: the utilization and direction of investment had been Per?n's worst blunder. Nearly 74 percent of the total increase in fixed capital had gone into non-productive activities. To give a striking example: between 1945 and 1946, over 50 percent of real investment of the national government was applied to national defense. Between 1947 and 1951 defense expenditures were reduced, but they still represented an extravagant 23.5 percent. The cost of living began to rise more rapidly than money wages, so real wages began to decline. At this time, "Per?n began to rely more on the redistribution of income between industries and occupations, thus reducing wage differentials between skilled and unskilled workers. Political patronage caused wages to rise substantially above output per worker. Government policies resulted in a redistribution of the labor force into the least productive sectors of economic activity. All these developments had serious implications for economic growth: it was simply a failure. At the end of Per?n's regime, per capita gross product was only 5.9 percent higher than in 1946. Per?n tried to salvage what he could. There was a shift in agricultural policy in the fifties. Per?n made friendly gestures toward foreign investors. He began sacrificing the two pillars of the regime: social justice and economic independence. "When the internal contradictions of his experiment forced an option between radicalization or reaction, he opted for the latter, but could not escape the political and institutional pressures he had created. Opportunism proved self-defeating. When hard times arrived Per?nism revealed its deepest conservative impulses. After all it had attempted to develop a populist labor policy within the institutional framework of capitalism. Laborism had been the strategy of its revolutionary phase. It had provided Per?nism with working class support. But it contradicted the requirements of capitalist accumulation which Per?n had not once challenged. Per?n had now to stabilize the hybrid system he had created: he began instituting repressive controls and freezing the class struggle by setting up corporativist institutions. In brief, he tried to build a power apparatus in order to free himself from the reactionary and radical cross pressures in the society." When the forces of reaction began to bear down on Per?n, there was only one class force capable of resistance. Imperialist pressure and hostile class forces in Argentina had taken their toll, however. Per?n was unwilling to turn to the same working-class forces that had come to his aid in 1945. After a military coup had unseated him in 1955, Per?n asked his sympathizers in high government positions and trade unions to resign in order to keep the peace. He also permitted the military to seize the CGT's (pro-Per?n trade union) arsenal of 5,000 rifles and revolvers. In an emotional speech to the nation on July 15, 1955, he said: "The Per?nist Revolution has ended; now begins a new constitutional stage without revolution ? I have ceased to be the leader of the National Revolution in order to become President of all the Argentines." In my next and final post on the collapse of Argentina, I will try to explain why a revolution in Argentina cannot reflect the interest of "all the Argentines." Sources: 1. chapter on Argentina by Juan Eugenio Corradi in Latin America: the struggle with dependency and beyond, edited by Ronald Chilcote & Joel Edelstein. 2. George Lambie, "The Failure of Peron's Economic Policies in the Immediate Postwar Years: a Case of Internal Mismanagement or International Manipulation" (MA dissertation, 1983) 3. Donald C. Hodges, "Argentina 1943-1976: The National Revolution and Resistance" (U. of New Mexico, 1976) 4. Robert Alexander, "Juan Domingo Per?n: a History" (Westview, 1979) From lnp3 at panix.com Sun Sep 6 07:04:21 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 09:04:21 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Life insurance now being bundled like subprime mortgages Message-ID: <4AA3B355.1060703@panix.com> NY Times, September 6, 2009 Back to Business Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance By JENNY ANDERSON After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one. The bankers plan to buy ?life settlements,? life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash ? $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to ?securitize? these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die. The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return ? though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money. Either way, Wall Street would profit by pocketing sizable fees for creating the bonds, reselling them and subsequently trading them. But some who have studied life settlements warn that insurers might have to raise premiums in the short term if they end up having to pay out more death claims than they had anticipated. The idea is still in the planning stages. But already ?our phones have been ringing off the hook with inquiries,? says Kathleen Tillwitz, a senior vice president at DBRS, which gives risk ratings to investments and is reviewing nine proposals for life-insurance securitizations from private investors and financial firms, including Credit Suisse. ?We?re hoping to get a herd stampeding after the first offering,? said one investment banker not authorized to speak to the news media. In the aftermath of the financial meltdown, exotic investments dreamed up by Wall Street got much of the blame. It was not just subprime mortgage securities but an array of products ? credit-default swaps, structured investment vehicles, collateralized debt obligations ? that proved far riskier than anticipated. The debacle gave financial wizardry a bad name generally, but not on Wall Street. Even as Washington debates increased financial regulation, bankers are scurrying to concoct new products. In addition to securitizing life settlements, for example, some banks are repackaging their money-losing securities into higher-rated ones, called re-remics (re-securitization of real estate mortgage investment conduits). Morgan Stanley says at least $30 billion in residential re-remics have been done this year. Financial innovation can be good, of course, by lowering the cost of borrowing for everyone, giving consumers more investment choices and, more broadly, by helping the economy to grow. And the proponents of securitizing life settlements say it would benefit people who want to cash out their policies while they are alive. But some are dismayed by Wall Street?s quick return to its old ways, chasing profits with complicated new products. ?It?s bittersweet,? said James D. Cox, a professor of corporate and securities law at Duke University. ?The sweet part is there are investors interested in exotic products created by underwriters who make large fees and rating agencies who then get paid to confer ratings. The bitter part is it?s a return to the good old days.? Indeed, what is good for Wall Street could be bad for the insurance industry, and perhaps for customers, too. That is because policyholders often let their life insurance lapse before they die, for a variety of reasons ? their children grow up and no longer need the financial protection, or the premiums become too expensive. When that happens, the insurer does not have to make a payout. But if a policy is purchased and packaged into a security, investors will keep paying the premiums that might have been abandoned; as a result, more policies will stay in force, ensuring more payouts over time and less money for the insurance companies. ?When they set their premiums they were basing them on assumptions that were wrong,? said Neil A. Doherty, a professor at Wharton who has studied life settlements. Indeed, Mr. Doherty says that in reaction to widespread securitization, insurers most likely would have to raise the premiums on new life policies. Critics of life settlements believe ?this defeats the idea of what life insurance is supposed to be,? said Steven Weisbart, senior vice president and chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group. ?It?s not an investment product, a gambling product.? After Mortgages Undeterred, Wall Street is racing ahead for a simple reason: With $26 trillion of life insurance policies in force in the United States, the market could be huge. Not all policyholders would be interested in selling their policies, of course. And investors are not interested in healthy people?s policies because they would have to pay those premiums for too long, reducing profits on the investment. But even if a small fraction of policy holders do sell them, some in the industry predict the market could reach $500 billion. That would help Wall Street offset the loss of revenue from the collapse of the United States residential mortgage securities market, to $169 billion so far this year from a peak of $941 billion in 2005, according to Dealogic, a firm that tracks financial data. Some financial firms are moving to outpace their rivals. Credit Suisse, for example, is in effect building a financial assembly line to buy large numbers of life insurance policies, package and resell them ? just as Wall Street firms did with subprime securities. The bank bought a company that originates life settlements, and it has set up a group dedicated to structuring deals and one to sell the products. Goldman Sachs has developed a tradable index of life settlements, enabling investors to bet on whether people will live longer than expected or die sooner than planned. The index is similar to tradable stock market indices that allow investors to bet on the overall direction of the market without buying stocks. Spokesmen for Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs declined to comment. If Wall Street succeeds in securitizing life insurance policies, it would take a controversial business ? the buying and selling of policies ? that has been around on a smaller scale for a couple of decades and potentially increase it drastically. Defenders of life settlements argue that creating a market to allow the ill or elderly to sell their policies for cash is a public service. Insurance companies, they note, offer only a ?cash surrender value,? typically at a small fraction of the death benefit, when a policyholder wants to cash out, even after paying large premiums for many years. Enter life settlement companies. Depending on various factors, they will pay 20 to 200 percent more than the surrender value an insurer would pay. But the industry has been plagued by fraud complaints. State insurance regulators, hamstrung by a patchwork of laws and regulations, have criticized life settlement brokers for coercing the ill and elderly to take out policies with the sole purpose of selling them back to the brokers, called ?stranger-owned life insurance.? In 2006, while he was New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer sued Coventry, one of the largest life settlement companies, accusing it of engaging in bid-rigging with rivals to keep down prices offered to people who wanted to sell their policies. The case is continuing. ?Predators in the life settlement market have the motive, means and, if left unchecked by legislators and regulators and by their own community, the opportunity to take advantage of seniors,? Stephan Leimberg, co-author of a book on life settlements, testified at a Senate Special Committee on Aging last April. Tricky Predictions In addition to fraud, there is another potential risk for investors: that some people could live far longer than expected. It is not just a hypothetical risk. That is what happened in the 1980s, when new treatments prolonged the life of AIDS patients. Investors who bought their policies on the expectation that the most victims would die within two years ended up losing money. It happened again last fall when companies that calculate life expectancy determined that people were living longer. The challenge for Wall Street is to make securitized life insurance policies more predictable ? and, ideally, safer ? investments. And for any securitized bond to interest big investors, a seal of approval is needed from a credit rating agency that measures the level of risk. In many ways, banks are seeking to replicate the model of subprime mortgage securities, which became popular after ratings agencies bestowed on them the comfort of a top-tier, triple-A rating. An individual mortgage to a home buyer with poor credit might have been considered risky, because of the possibility of default; but packaging lots of mortgages together limited risk, the theory went, because it was unlikely many would default at the same time. While that idea was, in retrospect, badly flawed, Wall Street is convinced that it can solve the risk riddle with securitized life settlement policies. That is why bankers from Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs have been visiting DBRS, a little known rating agency in lower Manhattan. In early 2008, the firm published criteria for ways to securitize a life settlements portfolio so that the risks were minimized. Interest poured in. Hedge funds that have acquired life settlements, for example, are keen to buy and sell policies more easily, so they can cash out both on investments that are losing money and on ones that are profitable. Wall Street banks, beaten down by the financial crisis, are looking to get their securitization machines humming again. Ms. Tillwitz, an executive overseeing the project for DBRS, said the firm spent nine months getting comfortable with the myriad risks associated with rating a pool of life settlements. Could a way be found to protect against possible fraud by agents buying insurance policies and reselling them ? to avoid problems like those in the subprime mortgage market, where some brokers made fraudulent loans that ended up in packages of securities sold to investors? How could investors be assured that the policies were legitimately acquired, so that the payouts would not be disputed when the original policyholder died? And how could they make sure that policies being bought were legally sellable, given that some states prohibit the sale of policies until they have been in force two to five years? Spreading the Risk To help understand how to manage these risks, Ms. Tillwitz and her colleague Jan Buckler ? a mathematics whiz with a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering ? traveled the world visiting firms that handle life settlements. ?We do not want to rate a deal that blows up,? Ms. Tillwitz said. The solution? A bond made up of life settlements would ideally have policies from people with a range of diseases ? leukemia, lung cancer, heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer?s. That is because if too many people with leukemia are in the securitization portfolio, and a cure is developed, the value of the bond would plummet. As an added precaution, DBRS would run background checks on all issuers. Also, a range of quality of life insurers would have to be included. To test how different mixes of policies would perform, Mr. Buckler has run computer simulations to show what would happen to returns if people lived significantly longer than expected. But even with a math whiz calculating every possibility, some risks may not be apparent until after the fact. How can a computer accurately predict what would happen if health reform passed, for example, and better care for a large number of Americans meant that people generally started living longer? Or if a magic-bullet cure for all types of cancer was developed? If the computer models were wrong, investors could lose a lot of money. As unlikely as those assumptions may seem, that is effectively what happened with many securitized subprime loans that were given triple-A ratings. Investment banks that sold these securities sought to lower the risks by, among other things, packaging mortgages from different regions and with differing credit levels of the borrowers. They thought that if house prices dropped in one region ? say Florida, causing widespread defaults in that part of the portfolio ? it was highly unlikely that they would fall at the same time in, say, California. Indeed, economists noted that historically, housing prices had fallen regionally but never nationwide. When they did fall nationwide, investors lost hundreds of billions of dollars. Both Standard & Poor?s and Moody?s, which gave out many triple-A ratings and were burned by that experience, are approaching life settlements with greater caution. Standard & Poor?s, which rated a similar deal called Dignity Partners in the 1990s, declined to comment on its plans. Moody?s said it has been approached by financial firms interested in securitizing life settlements, but has not yet seen a portfolio of policies that meets its standards. Investor Appetite Despite the mortgage debacle, investors like Andrew Terrell are intrigued. Mr. Terrell was the co-head of Bear Stearns?s longevity and mortality desk ? which traded unrated portfolios of life settlements ? and later worked at Goldman Sachs?s Institutional Life Companies, a venture that was introducing a trading platform for life settlements. He thinks securitized life policies have big potential, explaining that investors who want to spread their risks are constantly looking for new investments that do not move in tandem with their other investments. ?It?s an interesting asset class because it?s less correlated to the rest of the market than other asset classes,? Mr. Terrell said. Some academics who have studied life settlement securitization agree it is a good idea. One difference, they concur, is that death is not correlated to the rise and fall of stocks. ?These assets do not have risks that are difficult to estimate and they are not, for the most part, exposed to broader economic risks,? said Joshua Coval, a professor of finance at the Harvard Business School. ?By pooling and tranching, you are not amplifying systemic risks in the underlying assets.? The insurance industry is girding for a fight. ?Just as all mortgage providers have been tarred by subprime mortgages, so too is the concern that all life insurance companies would be tarred with the brush of subprime life insurance settlements,? said Michael Lovendusky, vice president and associate general counsel of the American Council of Life Insurers, a trade group that represents life insurance companies. And the industry may find allies in government. Among those expressing concern about life settlements at the Senate committee hearing in April were insurance regulators from Florida and Illinois, who argued that regulation was inadequate. ?The securitization of life settlements adds another element of possible risk to an industry that is already in need of enhanced regulations, more transparency and consumer safeguards,? said Senator Herb Kohl, the Democrat from Wisconsin who is chairman of the Special Committee on Aging. DBRS agrees on the need to be careful. ?We want this market to flourish in a safe way,? Ms. Tillwitz said. From ecosocialism at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 07:09:44 2009 From: ecosocialism at gmail.com (Ian Angus) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 09:09:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China / Fidel / Class / US Health Care Message-ID: <733b65360909060609t3e77ac71n28a3b8aed5ad6602@mail.gmail.com> SOCIALIST VOICE Marxist Perspectives for the 21st Century http://www.socialistvoice.ca September 6, 2009 SUFFERING AND STRUGGLE IN RURAL CHINA http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=584 Is China killing the goose whose golden eggs have financed its economic upsurge? John Riddell reviews ?Will the Boat Sink the Water,? a gripping first-hand portrayal of the suffering and struggles of Chinese peasants today. FIDEL: A TIME TO UNITE AND MARCH TOGETHER http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=580 "The establishment of seven U.S. military bases in Colombia poses a direct threat to the sovereignty and integrity of the other peoples of South and Central America with which our national heroes dreamed of creating the great Latin American homeland." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * New in LeftViews LeftViews is Socialist Voice's forum for articles related to rebuilding the left in Canada and around the world, reflecting a wide variety of socialist opinion. All LeftViews articles are listed at http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?cat=58 CLASS AGAINST CLASS? REAL WORLD ALIGNMENTS FOR REVOLUTION http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=574 Mike Ely of the Kasama Project says it is not true that we need to "unite the working class" as a prerequisite for a socialist revolution. Rather we should seek to unite working people and other oppressed people around a radical, socialist program. WILL U.S. HEALTH REFORMS HARM WORKING PEOPLE? http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=600 Fred Feldman, a long-time Marxist activist in the United States, argues that the left should not automatically dismiss the concerns of some opponents of proposed U.S. health care reforms. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Other recent articles: 'BLACK BOOK' EXPOSES CANADIAN IMPERIALISM http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=567 AFGHAN WOMEN?S RIGHTS LEADER SAYS FOREIGN TROOPS SHOULD LEAVE http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=539 TWO ACCOUNTS OF ENGELS? REVOLUTIONARY LIFE http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=534 CLIMATE JUSTICE: RED IS THE NEW GREEN http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=526 WORLD FARMERS? ALLIANCE CHALLENGES FOOD PROFITEERS http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=395 ************************* 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 sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Sep 6 08:07:01 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 10:07:01 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Working Poorer; Increased Accumulation, Reduced Reproduction; Or Why the Recovery IS the Contraction Message-ID: <8B5ADAD21C084819B97E6555D8182D10@dmsthinkpad> From meisner at xs4all.nl Sun Sep 6 08:32:06 2009 From: meisner at xs4all.nl (Jeff) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:32:06 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, and Green Technology In-Reply-To: <4AA3245F.9070900@ecst.csuchico.edu> Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20090906163206.0543b78c@pop.xs4all.nl> At 19:54 05/09/09 -0700, michael perelman wrote: >One of the keys to Green Technology may be buried in China. Just responding to the alarmist title of this post "Peak Rare Minerals," I don't see that there is a "peak" anything. When you point out that "China produces ... 95 percent of neodymium" that does NOT mean that there would ever be a shortage of it if it weren't exported by China. According to Wikipedia, the earth's crust contains 38 ppm of neodymium, a huge amount considering its limited use. If they aren't mining much of it elsewhere, I'm sure that is just because it is cheaper to obtain from China. Another claim I hear a lot is that the war in the Congo is driven by minerals, which I don't deny, but then the narrative goes on to say that "Mobile phones are dependent on Coltan (tantalum) mined in the Congo" as if this were a critical source for the mineral. Actually only a small amount of the world's tantalum is mined from that region. What's more, tantalum isn't necessarily required to manufacture modern electronics, it is only used to replace old fashioned electrolytic capacitors with the smaller variety made from tantalum. Those capacitors are just a tiny portion of the volume of a telephone and you'd never know the difference if tantalum weren't used. I don't think that there will be a "peak" of any mineral, because when the price goes up, they just find ways of obtaining it from methods which cost more. For instance, the production of oil from the tar sands in Canada becomes profitable with the rise in the price of oil, but then will become a large extra source of oil whenever the price exceeds that point. Same goes, I believe, for every mineral: it will be mined wherever and whenever it is profitable. And although I always hear about "Peak Oil" being some sort of disaster, I don't understand that because it would be a VERY GOOD thing if it were real! It would force a shift to greener energy BEFORE the CO2 level rises too high. Unfortunately there is little evidence of "peak oil" and it appears that the CO2 level WILL rise greatly because of the availability of oil and coal. Unless there is a different force for shifting energy production, but that clearly won't be the free market as long as there is an economic advantage in relying on fossil fuels. I'm not aware of any mineral that is reaching a "peak" in production as long as there is increasing demand, and I think that such headlines are alarmist and inaccurate. - Jeff From sabocat59 at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 08:54:07 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 10:54:07 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care Message-ID: <6e42edf00909060754s78d81919i4fb1774c9b558da9@mail.gmail.com> Fred Feldman wrote: About 50 million people are reported to have no health insurance of any kind. Source please? Greg McDonald From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Sep 6 09:01:26 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 11:01:26 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care References: <6e42edf00909060754s78d81919i4fb1774c9b558da9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <697B940C634E407F81AD2BCF7E6954E8@dmsthinkpad> In 2003, US Census Bureau reported 45 milllion US residents without health insurance. http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p60-226.pdf ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg McDonald" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 10:54 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care > From lnp3 at panix.com Sun Sep 6 09:27:43 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:27:43 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Good critique of Walter Benn Michaels's NLR article Message-ID: <4AA3D4EF.7010706@panix.com> http://pink-scare.blogspot.com/2008/10/against-diversity.html From michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Sun Sep 6 10:04:22 2009 From: michael at ecst.csuchico.edu (Michael Perelman) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 09:04:22 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, and Green Technology In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.20090906163206.0543b78c@pop.xs4all.nl> References: <4AA3245F.9070900@ecst.csuchico.edu> <3.0.3.32.20090906163206.0543b78c@pop.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <20090906160422.GA28092@ecst.csuchico.edu> Jeff, I agree with everything you said except your point about the word, peak. Mathematically, as long as a fixed supply exists, there will necessarily be a peak point in extraction. The debates about peak oil revolve around the question of the size of that fixed supply. You obviously understand that when you suggest that new methods of extraction might exist. Here are another problem arises because the extraction, as I understand it, requires removing an immense quantity of earth, then using solvents of some kind to separate out the minerals. In the case of gold, 1 ounce requires 30 tons of rock to be moved and then treated with cyanide. -- 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 mdriscollrj at charter.net Sun Sep 6 10:29:35 2009 From: mdriscollrj at charter.net (Ralph Johansen) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 09:29:35 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care S. Artesian" Message-ID: <4AA3E36F.5020704@charter.net> S. Artesian wrote: In 2003, US Census Bureau reported 45 milllion US residents without health insurance. http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p60-226.pdf Don't you agree that it should not be difficult to construct an extrapolation from these official 2003 estimates that would establish that, with the rise in layoffs and plant closures, the reduction in working hours and benefits generally in the past 4 years, including uninsured and unpolled immigrants, the number of those without health care by now stands at well more than 50 million? Ralph From mdriscollrj at charter.net Sun Sep 6 10:36:50 2009 From: mdriscollrj at charter.net (Ralph Johansen) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 09:36:50 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care Message-ID: <4AA3E522.5080506@charter.net> Re: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care S. Artesian" I'm sorry, Les, I did it again. I forget to remove the name from my cut and paste. etter next time. Ralph From sabocat59 at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 11:04:40 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 13:04:40 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care Message-ID: <6e42edf00909061004o14755f0je0e7c1cca3621d65@mail.gmail.com> Ralph Johansen wrote: Don't you agree that it should not be difficult to construct an extrapolation from these official 2003 estimates that would establish that, with the rise in layoffs and plant closures, the reduction in working hours and benefits generally in the past 4 years, including uninsured and unpolled immigrants, the number of those without health care by now stands at well more than 50 million? Well put. Getting an accurate assessment might prove difficult, however. Anyone up for the task? Greg From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Sep 6 11:11:37 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 13:11:37 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care S. Artesian" References: <4AA3E36F.5020704@charter.net> Message-ID: <05DFD6D7A6344E7FB7D2B5FDFEC71D5C@dmsthinkpad> Sure. Actually more than sure. Like unemployment figures, I'm certain non-insured numbers are under-reported. Census Bureau has probably updated its figures. I just downloaded the 2003 figures years ago. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ralph Johansen" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 12:29 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care S. Artesian" > > Don't you agree that it should not be difficult to construct an > extrapolation from these official 2003 estimates that would establish > that, with the rise in layoffs and plant closures, the reduction in > working hours and benefits generally in the past 4 years, including > uninsured and unpolled immigrants, the number of those without health > care by now stands at well more than 50 million? > > Ralph > From schaffer at optonline.net Sun Sep 6 11:22:04 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:22:04 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care In-Reply-To: <4AA3E522.5080506@charter.net> References: <4AA3E522.5080506@charter.net> Message-ID: <4AA3EFBC.6090202@optonline.net> Ralph Johansen wrote: > Re: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care > S. Artesian" > > > I'm sorry, Les, I did it again. I forget to remove the name from my > cut and paste. etter next time. > thanks ... if you are reading via the web and want to reply to a particular post, i would go to the page displaying the post itself and copy-and-paste the subject line, that way you wont accidentally include the subscribers name. Les From tcod at hotmail.com Sun Sep 6 11:30:29 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 17:30:29 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <2fa158550909052007l61dc4f7btab47f68ac8f0e96b@mail.gmail.com> References: <2fa158550909052007l61dc4f7btab47f68ac8f0e96b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Why do you say that? Clearly one can have differences with their tactics and strategy, but to say they were not a leftist group or were not to the "left" of Peron seems dubious and sectarian. Moreover, why then did the Peron regime and its successors do so much to repress and kill them? Surely you don't mean to suggest we shouldn't have solidarity with them? By that logic the Weathermen were to the right of Nixon? (BTW, there was an excellent three hour interview on C-SPAN2 last night with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn) > Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 00:07:44 -0300 > From: nmgoro at gmail.com > Subject: Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans > To: tcod at hotmail.com > > Look, Kosslof, if you think the Montoneros were in any way on Per?n?s > "left", as most standard "leftists" in Arg believe, then you are so > far away from Marxism that, as I guessed, it is pointless to discuss > any of these issues with you. _________________________________________________________________ Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB_BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1 From marxistfront at yahoo.co.in Sun Sep 6 12:31:52 2009 From: marxistfront at yahoo.co.in (marxistfront at yahoo.co.in) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:01:52 +0530 Subject: [Marxism] *ANTI-POSCO STRUGGLE* - *APPEAL FOR SUPPORT* Message-ID: ANTI-POSCO STRUGGLE* - *APPEAL FOR SUPPORT* *Friends,* For more than four years the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samity (PPSS) has been bravely resisting attempts to displace over 30,000 people in Jagatsinghpur District of Orissa by POSCO, a South Korean company, which wants to set up a steel company and a port on their lands. The US12 billion dollar project, being aggressively promoted by both Orissa and Indian governments, threatens the livelihood of thousands of agriculturists, workers, fisherfolks, rural artisans and small businesses in the area besides devastating the local environment and ecology. In the course of their peaceful and democratic non-violent struggle to prevent their lands from being forcibly acquired by POSCO, the members of PPSS have been brutally attacked by paid goons of the company and subjected to grueling economic blockades by the local administration. Several of their leaders, including Shri Abhay Sahu, veteran CPI leader in the area, have been put behind bars and false charges foisted on over 150 activists, both men and women. *Need For Doctors and Medicines: * As a result of all this there is now a grave medical emergency developing in the Erasama and Kujanga blocks of Jagatsinghpur district, the sites of the proposed land acquisition for the POSCO Steel Plant. There are dozens of activists who have fractured limbs due to violence by the company's hired musclemen, some of which include injuries from bomb attacks. They need orthopedic help and in some cases possibly even surgical intervention. Some women in the area are in late stages of pregnancy but unable to leave the area to get the medical care they need because of the fear of harassment and even arrest by the local police. Many other women have developed a range of gynecological problems that need urgent medical attention. There is severe malnutrition among children owing to the lack of income over the past few years as many local people have not been able to pursue their normal livelihoods because of the turmoil in the area. The general population of the affected villages also need help in combating malaria which is endemic to the area. There are also patients suffering from paralysis who need medical care. All these patients cannot go out and receive treatment because of the threat of arrests. Therefore, we appeal to you to help in mobilizing a support for a medical camp which can be organized by the anti-POSCO movement. Please contact; Satya Shivaram (0)9818514952, Prashant Kumar Paikray (0)9437571547 or K.P. Sasi (0)9945282056. *Protest on September 10: * A huge gathering of the people affected by POSCO will take place on September 10,, Balitutha, the entrance point of the proposed POSCO area. Many leaders of different anti-displacement struggles will address the gathering. The anti-POSCO movement appeals to all people's movements against displacement, movements against SEZ, mass organization leaders and like-minded activists to participate and express solidarity. *Need for Contributions:* There is an urgent need for contributions for the protest on September 10, medical care, legal defense and other expenses of the movement. We appeal to you to communicate to your friends and mobilize maximum support and inform Shri Prashant Kumar Paikray, the spokesperson of the movement (0)9437571547 at the earliest. *Send Letters of Protest:* The PPSS appeals to people all over India and around the world to show solidarity with the struggle by sending letters of protest to the Chief Minister of Orissa, Shri Naveen Patnaik, Naveen Nivas, Aerodrome Road P.O., Bhubaneswar, Orissa, Pin-751001, Email : cmo at ori.nic.in, Fax - 0674 2400100 and the Prime Minister, Shri Manmohan Singh, Room No.148B, South Block, New Delhi-110001, Fax-011 23016857, 23015603. If copies of protest letters are sent to antiposcosolidarity at gmail.com it can help the process further. *Prashant Paikray, POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samithy (PPSS)* *K.P.Sasi, Visual Search, **Bangalore* *Satya Sivaraman: **New Delhi*** *Magline Peter, Theeradesa Mahilavedi, Kerala* *Dhirendra Panda, Common Concern, Orissa* *Jagdish, New Socialist Alternative, **Bangalore*** *Rajaji Mathew, MLA, Chairperson, Kerala Legislative Assemby on Enviironment * *Anivar, Moving Republic, **Bangalore*** *(For Anti Posco Struggle Solidarity)* *antiposcosolidary at gmail.com* -- Click for exclusive coverage on the New Bajaj Pulsar 220 the fastest Indian bike http://www.zigwheels.com/Features/Bajaj-Pulsar-220-DTSi-Special-Coverage/Pul sar_20090623-1-1 _______________________________________________ Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list Marxist-Leninist-List at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list From meisner at xs4all.nl Sun Sep 6 12:39:16 2009 From: meisner at xs4all.nl (Jeff) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:39:16 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, and Green Technology In-Reply-To: <20090906160422.GA28092@ecst.csuchico.edu> References: <3.0.3.32.20090906163206.0543b78c@pop.xs4all.nl> <4AA3245F.9070900@ecst.csuchico.edu> <3.0.3.32.20090906163206.0543b78c@pop.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20090906203916.0327beec@pop.xs4all.nl> At 09:04 06/09/09 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote: >Jeff, I agree with everything you said except your point about the >word, peak. Mathematically, as long as a fixed supply exists, there >will necessarily be a peak point in extraction. Well you've obviously studied the economics of this, but what I have seen about "peak oil" seems oversimplified in several ways. For instance, it is often said that the "peak" occurs when half of the "fixed supply" has been depleted, but there is no reason to assume that that should even be approximately true. The production might well just increase to meet demand right up to the exact end of the supply, if it were simply like emptying a big can of oil that suppliers had. I would imagine that a "peak" in production will occur at the point where the cost of producing energy using oil exceeds the costs of energy from other sources (which are coming down) so it would have as much to do with other forms of production (and energy demand), not just how much oil is left in the ground. But my main point was that there might NOT be a "fixed supply" to speak of, but rather a supply which just becomes more and more expensive to tap, so that the ultimate amount available doesn't really enter into it. That is even more true for minerals, since I believe the supply is virtually endless if you're willing to dig deeper and bigger mines (not that I want them to!). >Here are another problem arises because the extraction, as I understand >it, requires removing an immense quantity of earth, then using solvents >of some kind Yes, that's not nice, but I thought you were originally addressing the economics of the matter. And in particular the implication that the Chinese might obtain a stranglehold on minerals needed for technological progress (in this case neodymium used for making the strongest permanent magnets for the most efficient and lightest motors and generators). If that were really a threat, then they would just gear up for mining it elsewhere. If they aren't doing that, it's because they trust the Chinese to continue supplying it at a better price. I think the discussion of such "shortages" has to do with the short-term price fluctuations that may concern industry and speculators, but the specter of any one country (or even a few countries) having long-term control of one essential resource doesn't seem like a real problem. They would find alternatives if and when they had to. >to separate out the minerals. >In the case of gold, 1 ounce requires 30 tons of rock to be moved and >then treated with cyanide. Yes that's disgusting, especially when you consider how much of that gold will be used only for its symbolic value (rather than the utilitarian value gold has in plating contacts for electrical connectors etc.). Note that the proportion you just gave of 1 ppm of gold in the ore they mine, is much lower than the 38 ppm of neodymium over the entire earth (not to mention its abundance where they actually mine it), and the yearly production (again according to Wikipedia) is only 7000 tons (but surely rising rapidly). Also, there may be a semantic confusion involved. Neodymium is classified as a "rare earth" according to its position on the periodic chart, but that is just the name for elements of atomic number 57 to 71. It isn't nearly as rare as gold or platinum. Its production being dominated by China doesn't seem to be of long-term significance, as far as I can tell, and it certainly isn't facing any "peak" in production due to depletion. - Jeff From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 13:02:33 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:02:33 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, and Green Technology Message-ID: <4AA40749.4010801@gmail.com> Don't confuse "rare earths" elements and compounds with "precious" metals. One can say that all precious metals are rare earths but not all rare earths are precious metals. Most rare earths are sold by by the lbs/kilo and all precious metals are sold by the ounce. China does in fact have most *known* rare earths, other countries notwithstanding. David From bbauerly at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 13:08:18 2009 From: bbauerly at gmail.com (brad bauerly) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 15:08:18 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Good critique of Walter Benn Michaels's NLR article Message-ID: <55868ddf0909061208j63a907d5y92b3ff77ab2592dd@mail.gmail.com> I am sorry but that is not a good critique of Benn Michaels. Like yours Louis it too is filled with strawperson arguments based on things that he never said. I am not going to get into specifics of his arguments, which I personally think he does not present very well, because it is clear that most are unable to maintain simple reading comprehension whenever someone mentions race and gender. A good critique would take what he actually says and show how some of it is empirically wrong and politically a bad tactic. I have yet to read such a critique and zero interest in writing it. Brad From bbauerly at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 13:10:11 2009 From: bbauerly at gmail.com (brad bauerly) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 15:10:11 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Whole lota red baiting goin' on... Message-ID: <55868ddf0909061210s4e90af3aue2300436d17ed401@mail.gmail.com> First Van Jones than this... Kennedy Connection to Ch?vez and Citgo By Kate Phillips As many wait to see what Joseph P. Kennedy II may decide about running for the Senate seat long held by his uncle, Edward M. Kennedy, The Boston Globe examines the political implications of Joe Kennedy?s work with Citgo and its ties to Hugo Ch?vez, the Venezuelan president. The Globe?s Michael Rezendes and Noah Bierman explain the landscape: Over the past four years, Citizens Energy Corp., the signature nonprofit founded by Kennedy in 1979 as a political launching pad, has grown from a local charity serving 10,000 Massachusetts homes a year into a national effort delivering free fuel to 200,000 households in 23 states. And Kennedy, a former U.S. representative, has relied almost exclusively on Ch?vez, a vociferous critic of the U.S. government, for that growth. Since 2005, Citizens? 877-JOE-4-OIL campaign has been sustained by the oil fields of Venezuela. Ch?vez, who controls the industry there, has delivered crude oil at no charge to a Citizens affiliate, which has resold it and used the money to pay for oil deliveries to America?s poor. In the past two years, Citizens has been given 83 million gallons of crude by Ch?vez and sold it for $164 million - money used to fund almost its entire philanthropic mission. Now, as Mr. Kennedy considers stepping into what is certain to be a contentious contest for the state?s first US Senate vacancy in more than 25 years, he will also almost certainly have to consider how his stewardship at Citizens would play in a campaign. In addition to forging increasingly close ties with Ch?vez and Citgo Petroleum Corp., an oil company controlled by the Venezuelan government, Mr. Kennedy has used the proceeds of Ch?vez?s donated oil to fund millions in advertising for the heating oil charity - $16 million over the last two winters alone. Those ads, in turn, prominently feature Mr. Kennedy, often personally delivering Ch?vez-funded oil to needy recipients. In February of last year, Mr. Kennedy defended the use of Venezuelan oil in an interview with a television station based in Springfield, Mass. He said: ?Some people say it?s wrong to take it,? in one of the other commercials. In the interview, he added: ?Given the fact that the vast majority of the oil from any one single place in this part of the country comes from Venezuela, then everyone who has a problem with us taking oil from Venezuela should hold I think themselves to the same standard, and they should be walking to work and not just be using oil products.? clip... http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/kennedy-connection-to-chavez-and-citgo/ From lnp3 at panix.com Sun Sep 6 13:15:09 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:15:09 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Good critique of Walter Benn Michaels's NLR article In-Reply-To: <55868ddf0909061208j63a907d5y92b3ff77ab2592dd@mail.gmail.com> References: <55868ddf0909061208j63a907d5y92b3ff77ab2592dd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA40A3D.20509@panix.com> brad bauerly wrote: > I am sorry but that is not a good critique of Benn Michaels. Like yours > Louis it too is filled with strawperson arguments based on things that he > never said. I am not going to get into specifics of his arguments, which I > personally think he does not present very well, because it is clear that > most are unable to maintain simple reading comprehension whenever someone > mentions race and gender. A good critique would take what he actually says > and show how some of it is empirically wrong and politically a bad tactic. > I have yet to read such a critique and zero interest in writing it. I don't think it is possible to mount a good critique of WBM (although I tried) because he speaks out of both sides of his mouth. His article reads like Jim Sleeper in one passage and like Rosa Luxemberg in another. That is his stratagem. He wants to be published in NLR rather than in Dissent Magazine. But when he says that anti-racism and anti-sexism are not part of the "left", then he really betrays his backward tendencies. As I pointed out to a fellow named Will Shetterly who has been taking up WBM's cause on my blog, there's a long line of "class" trumping race or gender on the left, usually however published in Dissent rather than NLR. Here are some snippets that I posted on my blog. Tomasky, a rascal if there ever was one, sounds most like WBM: 1) Jim Sleeper: I stuck to my claims, including an insistence that more than a few whites are readier to let go of the old racist coordinates than are some blacks, who have sought a perverse kind of comfort in guilt-tripping whites by finding racism in every leaf that falls. (http://www.jimsleeper.com/?p=13) 2) Todd Gitlin: MR. WATTENBERG: And you think the left now has taken their eye off the ball. Is that more or less the idea? MR. GITLIN: I think that many people, perhaps most on the left, orat least most who are visible, have gone down a path in which theyare obsessed with what differs between them and one ? one crowd and another. They are more obsessed with what divides them than what they have in common with the rest of humanity. MR. WATTENBERG: Who would these groups that engage in identity politics be, for specifics? MR. GITLIN: Many of them are so-called racial or ethnic minorities, or groups who are organized around their narrow group interest. They?re not all on the left, by the way. I mean, there?s also a right-wing version of identity politics, which is ? full: http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript235.html 3) Michael Tomasky: Imagine! The principle of diversity supported by a mostly Republican group to such an extent that Congress was taken aback. The revolutionaries dropped it, left it to the courts. These corporations were in fact making a common-good argument to the revolutionaries: Diversity has served us well as a whole, enriched us. And it?s not just corporate America: All over the country, white attitudes on race, straight peoples? attitudes toward gay people, have changed dramatically for the better. These attitudes have changed because liberals and (most) Democrats decided that diversity was a principle worth defending on its own terms. Put another way, they decided to demand of citizens that they come to terms with diversity. So it can work, this demanding. From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Sep 6 13:28:03 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 15:28:03 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, and Green Technology References: <4AA3245F.9070900@ecst.csuchico.edu><3.0.3.32.20090906163206.0543b78c@pop.xs4all.nl> <20090906160422.GA28092@ecst.csuchico.edu> Message-ID: Nope. Not true. The debates about "peak oil" do not, all of them, revolve around when the size of the fixed supply. The debates revolve around whether or not the representations of peak oil advocates are accurate. To say something has a definite supply is not to say tapping that supply will follow the "peak schematic," and in fact, in most "less developed countries" production and output have not followed the peak format. Extraction, rates of extraction, are social developments, not geological. Without technological advancements, production rates can remain at static levels. Technology applications are a social relation of production. Iron ore, coal, copper all have definite quantities. Has any of that production conformed to a peak schematic, based on depletion of reserves? Not hardly. Why oil is considered to be different than iron ore, coal, has much more to due with commerical fears rather than known reserves, known production patterns. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Perelman" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 12:04 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals,China, and Green Technology . Mathematically, as long as a fixed supply exists, there > will necessarily be a peak point in extraction. The debates about peak > oil revolve around the question of the size of that fixed supply. From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Sep 6 13:35:03 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 15:35:03 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care References: <6e42edf00909061004o14755f0je0e7c1cca3621d65@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5A4A2EF157014353A0DDAC0C6900368D@dmsthinkpad> I don't know that all that is necessary. 2009 Statistical Abstract of the US shows that for 2006, 47 million without health insurance, 15.8% of the population [est. at 250 million in 06]. So now we have a Census estimate of 300 million in the US-- 15.8% of with is what 47.4 million. Close enough to 50 million for government work. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg McDonald" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 1:04 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Socialist Voice: China /Fidel /Class/ U.S. Health Care From michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Sun Sep 6 14:41:02 2009 From: michael at ecst.csuchico.edu (Michael Perelman) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 13:41:02 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, and Green Technology In-Reply-To: References: <4AA3245F.9070900@ecst.csuchico.edu> <3.0.3.32.20090906163206.0543b78c@pop.xs4all.nl> <20090906160422.GA28092@ecst.csuchico.edu> Message-ID: <20090906204101.GA28232@ecst.csuchico.edu> If Sartesian means that the extraction rates need not conform to the bell curve. I agree, but extraction must reach a peak before the supply is exhausted. -- 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 michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Sun Sep 6 14:42:35 2009 From: michael at ecst.csuchico.edu (Michael Perelman) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 13:42:35 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, and Green Technology In-Reply-To: <4AA40749.4010801@gmail.com> References: <4AA40749.4010801@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090906204235.GB28232@ecst.csuchico.edu> Agreed. On Sun, Sep 06, 2009 at 12:02:33PM -0700, nada wrote: > Don't confuse "rare earths" elements and compounds with "precious" > metals. One can say that all precious metals are rare earths but not all > rare earths are precious metals. Most rare earths are sold by by the > lbs/kilo and all precious metals are sold by the ounce. > > China does in fact have most *known* rare earths, other countries > notwithstanding. > -- 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 michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Sun Sep 6 14:50:26 2009 From: michael at ecst.csuchico.edu (Michael Perelman) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 13:50:26 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, and Green Technology In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.20090906203916.0327beec@pop.xs4all.nl> References: <3.0.3.32.20090906163206.0543b78c@pop.xs4all.nl> <4AA3245F.9070900@ecst.csuchico.edu> <3.0.3.32.20090906163206.0543b78c@pop.xs4all.nl> <3.0.3.32.20090906203916.0327beec@pop.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <20090906205026.GC28232@ecst.csuchico.edu> On Sun, Sep 06, 2009 at 08:39:16PM +0200, Jeff wrote: > > I think the discussion of such "shortages" has to do with the short-term > price fluctuations that may concern industry and speculators, but the > specter of any one country (or even a few countries) having long-term > control of one essential resource doesn't seem like a real problem. They > would find alternatives if and when they had to. Yes, but to do so can require a decade or more. > Note that the > proportion you just gave of 1 ppm of gold in the ore they mine, is much > lower than the 38 ppm of neodymium over the entire earth (not to mention > its abundance where they actually mine it), and the yearly production > (again according to Wikipedia) is only 7000 tons (but surely rising rapidly). > You learn something everyday. Thanks. > Also, there may be a semantic confusion involved. Neodymium is classified > as a "rare earth" according to its position on the periodic chart, but that > is just the name for elements of atomic number 57 to 71. It isn't nearly as > rare as gold or platinum. Its production being dominated by China doesn't > seem to be of long-term significance, as far as I can tell, and it > certainly isn't facing any "peak" in production due to depletion. > As Sartesian noted, the peak can come at any point. It cannot be known to have occurred unless the output in the last period exceed all the existing [not necessarily known] supply. Even then, you can redefine the peak by measuring it in terms of output per second rather than output per year. But a peak will occur nonetheless. I guess with all the baggage associated with peak, I could have used another term. -- 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 nmgoro at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 15:48:02 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 18:48:02 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: <2fa158550909052007l61dc4f7btab47f68ac8f0e96b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2fa158550909061448i4a99bdb7mbd6e5208d1122652@mail.gmail.com> Of course we should have given them all our solidarity. But they were certainly NOT TO THE LEFT OF Per?n. Been explaining this on the list long ago. When and if I have time again will expand fully in the future. 2009/9/6 Tom Cod : > > Why do you say that? ?Clearly one can have differences with their tactics and strategy, but to say they were not a leftist group or were not to the "left" of Peron seems dubious and sectarian. ?Moreover, why then did the Peron regime and its successors do so much to repress and kill them? ?Surely you don't mean to suggest we shouldn't have solidarity with them? By that logic the Weathermen were to the right of Nixon? (BTW, there was an excellent three hour interview on C-SPAN2 last night with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn) > >> Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 00:07:44 -0300 >> From: nmgoro en gmail.com >> Subject: Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet, ? ? ?not commendable in Argentina Re: ? ? ? ?China'shigh speed rail plans >> To: tcod en hotmail.com >> >> Look, Kosslof, if you think the Montoneros were in any way on Per?n?s >> "left", as most standard "leftists" in Arg believe, then you are so >> far away from Marxism that, as I guessed, it is pointless to discuss >> any of these issues with you. > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. > http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB_BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1 > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism en lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/nmgoro%40gmail.com > -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From markalause at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 16:01:01 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 18:01:01 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution Message-ID: In a nutshell: * modern humans separated from Neanderthals around 300-400,000 years ago rather 500-600,000 years. * modern humans migrated out of Africa between 55-60,000 years ago rather than 70-80,000 years. * our African ancestral mother, "the mitochondrial Eve lived around 110-130,000 years ago, rather than 150,000-200,000 years ago. full The second point, revising the "out of Africa" timing is of particular interest. ML From sabocat59 at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 16:32:33 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 18:32:33 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution Message-ID: <6e42edf00909061532p1a68103en79c590a9a6619fe7@mail.gmail.com> Mark Lause wrote: The second point, revising the "out of Africa" timing is of particular interest. Could you elaborate on this? Greg McD From Waistline2 at aol.com Sun Sep 6 16:40:10 2009 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 18:40:10 EDT Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution Message-ID: In a message dated 9/6/2009 6:32:55 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, sabocat59 at gmail.com writes: The second point, revising the "out of Africa" timing is of particular interest. Could you elaborate on this? Greg McD Comment "They also got more recent dates for other crucial events such as the age of our African ancestral mother, known as mitochondrial Eve, from who all recent humans (Homo sapiens) descended. She was found to have lived around 110-130,000 years ago, rather than previous estimates of 150,000-200,000 years ago." Versus . . . . (Genesis Revisted by Zecharia Sitchin pg 199 Chapter 9 ?The Mother Called Eve.? Scanned from First Avon edition 1990. 17th printing.My personal copy of the book. ?Because a person's DNA keeps getting mixed by the genes of the generational fathers, comparisons of the DNA in the nucleus of the cell (which come half from mother, half from father) do not work well after several generations. It was discovered, however, that in addition to the DNA in the cell's nucleus, some DNA exists in the mother's cell but outside the nucleus in bodies called "mitochondria" (Fig. 62). This DNA does not get mixed with the father's DNA; instead, it is passed on "unadulterated" from mother to daughter to granddaughter, and so on through the generations. This discovery, by Douglas Wallace of Emory University in the 1980s, led him to compare this "mtDNA" of about 800 women. The surprising conclusion, which he announced at a scientific conference in July 1986, was that the mtDNA in all of them appeared to be so similar that these women must have all descended from a single female ancestor. The research was picked up by Wesley Brown of the University of Michigan, who suggested that by determining the rate of natural mutation of mtDNA, the length of time that had passed since this common ancestor was alive could be calculated. Comparing the mtDNA of twenty-one women from diverse geographical and racial backgrounds, he came to the conclusion that they owed their origin to "a single mitochon-drial Eve" who had lived in Africa between 300,000 and 180,000 years ago. These intriguing findings were taken up by others, who set out to search for "Eve." Prominent among them was Rebecca Cann of the University of California at Berkeley (later at Hawaii University). Obtaining the placentas of 147 women of different races and geographical backgrounds who gave birth at San Francisco hospitals, she extracted and compared their mtDNA. The conclusion was that they all had a common female ancestor who had lived between 300,000 and 150,000 years (depending on whether the rate of mutation was 2 percent or 4 percent per million years). "We usually assume 250,000 years," Cann stated. The upper limit of 300,000 years, paleoanthropologists noted, coincided with the fossil evidence for the time Homo sapiens made his appearance. "What could have happened 300,000 years ago to bring this change about?" Cann and Allan Wilson asked, but they had no answer.? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from _http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) From shmage at pipeline.com Sun Sep 6 16:48:57 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 18:48:57 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com> On Sep 6, 2009, at 6:01 PM, Mark Lause wrote: > > * our African ancestral mother, "the mitochondrial Eve lived around > 110-130,000 years ago, rather than 150,000-200,000 years ago. I have no idea how solid this idea of a "mitochondrial Eve" is. However, assuming that it is valid, what follows is that at some time in the evolution of *homo sapiens sapiens* there occurred such an enormous catastrophe that in the whole world only one *hss* couple survived, and so all the races have descended from that couple. This survivor event must have been so awesome that it's memory would have been conserved in story and legend by the survivors, and handed down as their most precious possession to their offspring. It is therefore of the greatest significance that so many "primitive" peoples have preserved the memory of their original ancestors, the single couple that survived a world-destroying catastrophe! Not to mention the "advanced" Christians, Jews, and Muslims who likewise trace their descent to a single couple--but have transfigured memory into "apocalyptic" texts that project the original catastrophe as a future "Day of Judgment." 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 Sep 6 16:57:30 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:57:30 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Swans Release: September 7, 2009 Message-ID: <4AA43E5A.7070109@panix.com> Swans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ September 7, 2009 $$$ - If you read Swans and appreciate the quality of its content please SUPPORT US FINANCIALLY. Thank you. http://www.swans.com/about/donate.html - $$$ Note from the Editors: There has been a recent uproar, if a scant news cycle can be labeled thus, over Scotland's compassionate release of convicted Pan Am Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi who is suffering from end- stage prostate cancer. Except it turns out that this "humanitarian" gesture allegedly had more to do with securing BP's $900 million oil exploration contract with Libya than showing empathy for a dying man -- an interesting backdrop for Gilles d'Aymery's Blips in which all politics is local, diverting our efforts toward saving community health centers instead of stopping the obscene military spending on ventures designed to preserve our (i.e., the elites') way of life. Or as Michael Barker notes in his research on modern-day slavery, capitalism has replaced the tangible slave shackles with less visible means of social control, and humanitarian groups appear more concerned with sustaining the capitalist elites than saving human life. Charles Marowitz whittles it down to a less subtle conjecture on the fundamental division between the Stupid and the Smart, the former believing that social reform equals dictatorship, while the latter take advantage of the dumbing-down to further their agenda. As Femi Akomolafe puts it in his dialogue on Nigeria's corruption, American wealth was built by robber barons and other scalawags who make Nigerian politicians look angelic... Tiziano Terzani's series of *Letters Against the War* continues to resonate with Martin Murie, who concurs that a defense of diversity among nations, instead of mindless uniformity built by market ideologies and the realities they forge, is fundamental for a shift away from the rule of Empire. Under the circumstances, the time has come for us to get some smarts, despite all those cuts in education funds. We'll begin our curriculum with Peter Byrne, who on this Labor Day reviews Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle's brilliantly conceived graphic tribute to the legendary Studs Terkel, after which the ever-colorful Art Shay gives a rave review of *Inglourious Basterds,* a make-believe account of a band of Jews' revenge against the Nazis. Concermaster Isidor Saslav reports on Bard College's annual Summerscape Festival, in which two operatic gems of converted Judaic culture are revived in the context of this year's featured composer, the anti-Semitic Richard Wagner. The poetry corner is edified by the primordial linguistic blending of maestro Guido Monte and a dreamy offering by Jeffery Klaehn. Finally, we learn from Raju Peddada's experiments in navigating the brazen world of auto repairs. We close with your letters, in which Peter Byrne answers the Saul Bellow debate, an uninsured reader responds to Jan Baughman's socialism sardonicism, and Charles Marowitz bids good riddance to Texas. As always, please form your OWN opinion, and let your friends (and foes) know about Swans. # # # # # http://www.swans.com/library/art15/desk089.html Blips #89 - From the Martian Desk - Gilles d'Aymery http://www.swans.com/library/art15/barker30.html Combating [Some] Slavery - Michael Barker http://www.swans.com/library/art15/cmarow146.html Smart Or Stupid? - Charles Marowitz http://www.swans.com/library/art15/femia18.html The Logic Of Corruption - Femi Akomolafe http://www.swans.com/library/art15/murie78.html *Hei Ram* (Oh God!) - Martin Murie http://www.swans.com/library/art15/pbyrne108.html Studs Reloaded - Book Review by Peter Byrne http://www.swans.com/library/art15/ashay14.html Sick Glourious Basterds - Film Review by Art Shay http://www.swans.com/library/art15/saslav14.html The Great Meyerbeer-Mendelssohn Mystery - Isidor Saslav http://www.swans.com/library/art15/gmonte75.html Chaos - Multilingual Poetry by Guido Monte http://www.swans.com/library/art15/klaehn02.html All My Life I've Dream(p)t Of You - Poetry by Jeffery Klaehn http://www.swans.com/library/art15/rajup20.html All Our Rough Rides - Raju Peddada http://www.swans.com/library/art15/letter173.html Letters to the Editor # # # # # Please, consider supporting our co-operative work financially. See http://www.swans.com/about/donate.html 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 tSwans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ September 7, 2009 $$$ - If you read Swans and appreciate the quality of its content please SUPPORT US FINANCIALLY. Thank you. http://www.swans.com/about/donate.html - $$$ Note from the Editors: There has been a recent uproar, if a scant news cycle can be labeled thus, over Scotland's compassionate release of convicted Pan Am Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi who is suffering from end- stage prostate cancer. Except it turns out that this "humanitarian" gesture allegedly had more to do with securing BP's $900 million oil exploration contract with Libya than showing empathy for a dying man -- an interesting backdrop for Gilles d'Aymery's Blips in which all politics is local, diverting our efforts toward saving community health centers instead of stopping the obscene military spending on ventures designed to preserve our (i.e., the elites') way of life. Or as Michael Barker notes in his research on modern-day slavery, capitalism has replaced the tangible slave shackles with less visible means of social control, and humanitarian groups appear more concerned with sustaining the capitalist elites than saving human life. Charles Marowitz whittles it down to a less subtle conjecture on the fundamental division between the Stupid and the Smart, the former believing that social reform equals dictatorship, while the latter take advantage of the dumbing-down to further their agenda. As Femi Akomolafe puts it in his dialogue on Nigeria's corruption, American wealth was built by robber barons and other scalawags who make Nigerian politicians look angelic... Tiziano Terzani's series of *Letters Against the War* continues to resonate with Martin Murie, who concurs that a defense of diversity among nations, instead of mindless uniformity built by market ideologies and the realities they forge, is fundamental for a shift away from the rule of Empire. Under the circumstances, the time has come for us to get some smarts, despite all those cuts in education funds. We'll begin our curriculum with Peter Byrne, who on this Labor Day reviews Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle's brilliantly conceived graphic tribute to the legendary Studs Terkel, after which the ever-colorful Art Shay gives a rave review of *Inglourious Basterds,* a make-believe account of a band of Jews' revenge against the Nazis. Concermaster Isidor Saslav reports on Bard College's annual Summerscape Festival, in which two operatic gems of converted Judaic culture are revived in the context of this year's featured composer, the anti-Semitic Richard Wagner. The poetry corner is edified by the primordial linguistic blending of maestro Guido Monte and a dreamy offering by Jeffery Klaehn. Finally, we learn from Raju Peddada's experiments in navigating the brazen world of auto repairs. We close with your letters, in which Peter Byrne answers the Saul Bellow debate, an uninsured reader responds to Jan Baughman's socialism sardonicism, and Charles Marowitz bids good riddance to Texas. As always, please form your OWN opinion, and let your friends (and foes) know about Swans. # # # # # http://www.swans.com/library/art15/desk089.html Blips #89 - From the Martian Desk - Gilles d'Aymery http://www.swans.com/library/art15/barker30.html Combating [Some] Slavery - Michael Barker http://www.swans.com/library/art15/cmarow146.html Smart Or Stupid? - Charles Marowitz http://www.swans.com/library/art15/femia18.html The Logic Of Corruption - Femi Akomolafe http://www.swans.com/library/art15/murie78.html *Hei Ram* (Oh God!) - Martin Murie http://www.swans.com/library/art15/pbyrne108.html Studs Reloaded - Book Review by Peter Byrne http://www.swans.com/library/art15/ashay14.html Sick Glourious Basterds - Film Review by Art Shay http://www.swans.com/library/art15/saslav14.html The Great Meyerbeer-Mendelssohn Mystery - Isidor Saslav http://www.swans.com/library/art15/gmonte75.html Chaos - Multilingual Poetry by Guido Monte http://www.swans.com/library/art15/klaehn02.html All My Life I've Dream(p)t Of You - Poetry by Jeffery Klaehn http://www.swans.com/library/art15/rajup20.html All Our Rough Rides - Raju Peddada http://www.swans.com/library/art15/letter173.html Letters to the Editor # # # # # Please, consider supporting our co-operative work financially. See http://www.swans.com/about/donate.html 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 eam. 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 lueko.willms at t-online.de Wed Sep 2 23:57:36 2009 From: lueko.willms at t-online.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?L=FCko_Willms?=) Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:57:36 +0200 (MES) Subject: [Marxism] The German Auto Bubble-WSJ In-Reply-To: <15EC1F7789E74EC296A55D400D282392@D4PKYZ41> References: <15EC1F7789E74EC296A55D400D282392@D4PKYZ41> Message-ID: <100.18d80500d05a9f4a.068@lws-media.de> johnaimani (johnaimani at earthlink.net) wrote on 2009-09-02 at 13:29:51 in about [Marxism] The German Auto Bubble-WSJ: > > AUGUST 31, 2009 > Germans Debate Whether Car Trade-In Plan Will Backfire > By GEOFFREY T. SMITH > The car scrappage program, which subsidizes new car purchases on old trade-ins, was a model for similar plans adopted elsewhere, including the U.S. Actually, the model is France, where such programs were already implemented in the 1990ies, and the scrappage prime was increased from 300 Euro to 1000 Euro in late 2008. > "The German car market is good for roughly 3 million to 3.3 million cars a year. This year, we will probably sell 3.7 million, and our forecasts are for 2.7-2.8 million next year," said Ralf Landmann, a partner with Roland Berger. > [...] > Carsten Dreger, an economist with the DIW research institute in Berlin, contends that not only was the cash-for-clunkers plan increasing 2009 demand at the cost of 2010's, it is also cannibalizing potential demand for other consumer goods this year. The average age of the registered cars in Germany increased steadily from 6.2 years in 1988 (I don't find older numbers) to 8.2 at the end of 2008. There are a little more than 1 car per 2 inhabitants. The market is saturated: very few new buyers. The sales are mostly replacement of old cars. The scrappage scheme has given this replacement process a boost this year, strongly rejuvenating the car population in Germany. Of course, the replacement process will rather slow down after that, in absolute numbers, and the average age of the car fleet will grow again. > Germany's car makers have already laid off most of the 100,000 temporary workers they employed a year ago, according to a spokesman for the Federal Association for Temporary Work in Berlin. To clarify: they reduced the temporary (rented) workers in the last year. The car factories in Germany were hardly affected by the scrappage scheme, since mainly small and cheap cars were bought; those people who are rich enough to drive a big Mercedes, BMW, or Porsche, don't keep their cars for so lang that they could qualify for the scrappage scheme (minimum age of the scrapped car was 9 years) and for them the scrappage prime of 2'500 Euro would be lower than the sales value of the old car and too low for an incentive to buy a new one. The car factories in Germany were not very much affected by the scrappage scheme, since the cheaper models which sales were boosted by the scrappage scheme are mostly built in other countries. Negatively affected by the scrappage scheme are the independent workshops who live from the repairs of old cars. and the scrappage industry which had to rent additional storage space, was faced with heavily dropped prices for scrapped metal, and is forseeing a lower demand for used replacement car parts. Many of them were also hurt by having to destroy cars which were still in good shape and in many cases worth for a higher price on the used car market than the 2500 Euro scrappage prime. The export of such still usable cars to Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia was also heavily affected, since the law required the car to be really destroyed. Comradely yours, L?ko Willms Frankfurt, Germany -------------------------------- From holmoff10 at hotmail.com Sun Sep 6 17:29:46 2009 From: holmoff10 at hotmail.com (Leonardo Kosloff) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 23:29:46 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: What's up N?stor? you forgot to tell Tom how ignorant he is, cambiaste la yerba? (changed the yerba?) By the way, I'm looking here for the sentence where I said Montoneros was to the 'LEFT' (with capitals) of Per?n, but no good...maybe you can dialectically materialize that for me, and yeah, how you mean left?, like, say, the CCP is to the LEFT of Chinese workers? Abrazo! _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online. http://windowslive.com/Campaign/SocialNetworking?ocid=PID23285::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_SB_online:082009 From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Sep 6 17:32:29 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 19:32:29 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com> Message-ID: <1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> You're right, you have no idea how solid this idea is. And your "catastrophe theory" proves it. First the mitochondrial Eve and the "primal" Adam did not exist at the same time. Secondly, the mitochondrial Eve is not every human's common ancestor. She is the Most Recent Common Ancestor of all currently living humans with respect to their matrilineal descent. Mitochondrial DNA does not engage in exchange with other genetic material, but is transmitted to successive generations as a virtual clone of the mother's DNA. What is called a mitochondrial Eve [and Eve is a bad way of classifying this] is the women whose mitochondrial DNA exists in all humans now alive. That doesn't make her our single, solitary woman ancestor. It makes her our MRCA traced back through our mothers. All human beings have ancestors not established by matrilineal descent. My grandmother on my father's side is not part of my matrilineal descent, but I am here descendant. I didn't get here mitochondrial DNA. I did get the mitochondrial DNA of my grandmother on my mother's side. In evolutionary genetics, the mitochondrial Eve is not a theory it is a mathematical fact, at least until there is proof that humans had multiple origins. Humans and chimps have a female Most Recent Common Ancestor, Chimps and Gorillas have a MRCA, evidence of which is contained again in the matrilineal line of descent as recorded in the mitochondrial DNA. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shane Mage" > I have no idea how solid this idea of a "mitochondrial Eve" is. > However, assuming that it is valid, what follows is that at some time > in the evolution of *homo sapiens sapiens* there occurred such an > enormous catastrophe that in the whole world only one *hss* couple > survived, and so all the races have descended from that couple. From markalause at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 18:41:44 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 20:41:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: <1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com> <1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: There were other females around at the time of that mitochondrial Eve. That's just how it's passed on generation after generation. As I understand it, mitochondrial DNA is outside of the nucleus of the cell and we get this from our mother's line. That means that our maternal grandmother's isn't part of our package. It's just that her DNA survived and others didn't. So the mitochondrial Eve is ancestral to all us but not the only female ancestor. It amazes me that this question of direct descent confuses people. Our Artesian colleague correctly takes a mathematical approach. The catastrophic events happen, particularly the genetic bottleneck around 74,000-75,000 years ago, which scientists very plausibly ascribe to the explosion of the supervolcano Toba in Indonesia. Suggestions are that the entire breeding stock of the human race globally was reduced into mere thousands. ML From epoliticus at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 19:14:33 2009 From: epoliticus at gmail.com (Politicus E.) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 21:14:33 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] India: Dealing with Monsoon Failure Message-ID: The following editorial was published in the Economic & Political Weekly (Vol. 44, no. 35). I give an extract below; the entire article is available at http://epw.in/epw/user/userindexHome.jsp epoliticus ***** Besides coping with the drought of 2009, strategies to live with monsoon failure need to be formulated. The revival of the 2009 south-west monsoon over the past 10 days in many parts of the country comes too late to save the kharif crop in the 246 districts that have been identified as drought-affected. The recent rains may help somewhat in augmenting drinking water supplies, in increasing the availability of fodder and in improving moisture content for a reasonable rabi crop, but the challenge of coping with what is likely to end up as a severe drought is still with us. The 25% deficiency in rainfall as of 26 August is larger than the shortfall in the last three major droughts (1979, 1987 and 2002), when the overall gap was 19%.... ***** From shmage at pipeline.com Sun Sep 6 20:26:36 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 22:26:36 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com> <1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: On Sep 6, 2009, at 8:41 PM, Mark Lause wrote: > There were other females around at the time of that mitochondrial > Eve... It's just that her DNA survived and others didn't. The question is why. > So the mitochondrial Eve is ancestral to all us but not the only > female ancestor. But the only female ancestor *from that time period*. There has been so much gene-mixing since then that any of Eve's sisters who had surviving female children would be certain to have as many detectable descendants, within a tiny margin of error, as Eve did. > > The catastrophic events happen, particularly the genetic bottleneck > around 74,000-75,000 years ago, which scientists very plausibly > ascribe to the explosion of the supervolcano Toba in > Indonesia...Suggestions are that the entire breeding stock of the > human race globally was reduced into mere thousands. A valuable admission. But one should doubt the plausibility of ascription to a unique event that just happens to leave unquestioned the dogma of sempiternal solar-system stability. Which Plato happens to have refuted some 2,400 years ago. 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 shmage at pipeline.com Sun Sep 6 20:59:05 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 22:59:05 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: <1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com> <1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: On Sep 6, 2009, at 7:32 PM, S. Artesian wrote: > > First the mitochondrial Eve and the "primal" Adam did not exist at > the same > time. > Why *an* Adam? Eve could have reproduced with any reasonable number of male co-survivors. You surely don't imagine hers as a monogamous patriarchal family, do you? > Secondly, the mitochondrial Eve is not every human's common > ancestor. She > is the Most Recent Common Ancestor of all currently living humans > with > respect to their matrilineal descent. Male descent, however, is irrelevant to this subject. How can Eve be "the Most Recent Common [female] Ancestor of all currently living humans" without being "every human's common ancestor" whether or not there were earlier ones? (the image of a "mitochondrial Eve" abstracts from her parents, including her father). > > In evolutionary genetics, the mitochondrial Eve is not a theory it > is a > mathematical fact, at least until there is proof that humans had > multiple > origins. > And, as I pointed out in reply to Mark, there has been so much gene- mixing since then that any of Eve's sisters who had surviving female children would be certain to have as many detectable descendants, within a tiny margin of error, as Eve did. > Humans and chimps have a female Most Recent Common Ancestor, Chimps > and Gorillas have a MRCA, evidence of which is contained again in the > matrilineal line of descent as recorded in the mitochondrial DNA. The implications of this for evolutionary theory are astounding. We usually think of evolution as being propelled by the accumulation of small changes over many generations within an interbreeding population. But if Eve had a mother, and she was human, she, not Eve, would be our mitochondrial grandmother. So if we posit single female ancestors, MRCAs, at every species boundary we end up with the version of evolution prescribed by the sect known as "Old Earth Creationists"-- a unique being created by divine genetic intervention (and appropriate complementary divine intervention in some adamic male) as the MRCA of each new species to emerge. 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 markalause at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 21:51:40 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 23:51:40 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com> <1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: Again, I claim to be nothing but a rank amateur in following these things. And I'm not entirely sure what the point of confusion is here... Let's start by throwing out the entire Biblical language the media used to spin the original story. The term "Eve" was in the post because it was in the story. It was in the story because it's the sort of hype that gets the cover of magazines. The mitochondrial DNA is NOT the result of the DNA involved in the genetic mingling of the sperm and the egg...the X and Y chromosomes in the nucleus. Mitochondrial DNA is OUTSIDE the nucleus and helps to fuel the cell. What you have of it is what the original egg had. So it only comes from yo mamma. Think of it this way: my mother had only boys. We have her mitochondrial DNA. We do not contribute eggs to the next generation, so that line comes to an end. So, there WERE many female contemporaries "Eve." They had kids. We are also their descendants. We just don't have their mitochondrial DNA, because--at some point--those lines came to an end. But here's where it gets interesting and perhaps is the source of the confusion here. We've been talking about the mitochondrial DNA from the same woman back at a certain point in time...AND we are talking about tracing different mitochondrial DNA after her. DNA of any sort doesn't reproduce itself exactly. It changes over time, and at a roughly predictable rates. Most mutations don't really affect anything and they never affect anything if they're in the mitochondrial DNA anyway...it just isn't used to pass on information for reproduction. So, if you can use those mutations to trace relationships among human populations and make some fascinating extrapolations about human migration in prehistory, etc. For example, they make a distinction between the population that left Africa on that last pulse and those that remained. The group that remains will have the widest variety of these mutations, while the one that migrates to another place will have a smaller variety of them. So they all start with mitochondrial DNA but then branch out into greater varieties of them. All the branches are identifiably of the original, but represent subsets with new mutations as well. These things DO have remarkable implications for evolution and human prehistory, though not those that Shane fears. We are now able to say incredible things with a remarkable level of certainty about what groups of people were doing in prehistory. ML From Waistline2 at aol.com Sun Sep 6 22:02:43 2009 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:02:43 EDT Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution Message-ID: >> I have no idea how solid this idea of a "mitochondrial Eve" is. However, assuming that it is valid, what follows is that at some time in the evolution of *homo sapiens sapiens* there occurred such an enormous catastrophe that in the whole world only one *hss* couple survived, and so all the races have descended from that couple.<< Comment There is no such thing as biological races on this earth. "Mitochondria Eve" traces origin of our species and point of location, because at this stage of science everyone is created as female and then differentiates into male and female as opposed to being male. That is why "mitro" is mitro. Try reading a book . . . ok. You were given source material on this subject. Apparently, there are time when you ascend beyond the plane of racial theory and support for the fascist ideology of eugenics. There are two issues involved in the "Women called Eve." Her name is not in dispute unless one wants to call her Lawanda! The transition from homo-sapien to homo sapien-sapien and then the evolution of homo sapien-sapien as migration from point of origin are the two issues. . The proposition of a catastrophe, setting into play human migration is sound and in conformity with the most elementary materialism in my opinion. Something happened to make the people say, "marines, we are outta here" or "In case you have not noticed we are getting the crap kicked out of us and its time to get the fuck out of here." The character and features of the catastrophe is a set of propositions that are mind-boggling and demand clarification. One such proposition must be the depletion of resources in a closed environment. In a word food depletion. This definition is quantitative and reveals nothing except a dry concept of "food" that no one agrees with because one must establish what constituted foodstuff in the period in question. Obviously no one ate one dollar McDonald cheeseburgers and SubWay sandwiches. One must consider what was the totality of substances consumed by our primitive man - their nutrient content and its impact of man as a metabolic unity 200,000 years ago. And then why a "change" in this equation drove or rather created the impulse for migration. This impulse for migration could not happen at one time due to our connection with the earth. Women started having ugly babies and dues penises did not get as hard as they once did; the wives started losing their normal fluids and their breast was flatter; people were hungry all the time and the sun no longer rise in the west and set in the east. Now it rose in the east and set in the west. A village meeting was called. The Great Mother said, "If I have to deliver another ugly ass baby I?m killing the mother." The Great father said, "I am not the father of that ugly ass baby. In fact, Billy Jean is not my lover. She?s just a girl that says I am the one. The kid is not my son." The village rose in revolt killing Big Daddy saying, "you were on the sense for 40 days and 40 nights. The baby is yours and ugly because you passed on ugly to it." The village idiot who was akin to the court jester, made the people laugh, struggle to the front of the crowd, and said, "I am not being funny but shit is fucked up. The land is cursed. We need to leave." The people became angry and rose in revolt killing the town idiot-jokester. Then the young people demanded to boil him and eat him. The village elders said no, "we do not eat people." The young people became rebellious and cooked the idiot anyway. Then they ate him. The young people were puzzled by the feel of human flesh in their mouths and took a plate of flesh to the elders. "Eat this." The elders refused. The young people grabbed one of the elders, bent his knee and placed a sharp rock to his throat and demanded the elder eat the flesh. The elder asked "why." The young man looked at the other elders with wide yes and said, "I wanted to know if this idiot clown mutherfucker taste funny to you." *** What was depleted in the environment or rendered unobtainable to create the historic impulse for migration? Then one must at least try to assemble an outline of why migration in turn creates another impulse for development of the material power expressed as alienated labor. Then one must assume and presuppose the impulse behind alienated labor driving agricultural production and the cultivation of grain. Why grain? What are the complex sense perceptions of the human that identify grain as the solution to a material problem? What is the material problem? Food or nutrient? What senses were deployed to reach the agreement for collective cultivation of grain? Sure, no one wants to eat a clown or meat that taste funny The answer to this question answers the rise of private property and mutherfuckers not eating food that taste funny. Hey, it aint Monday yet and still Sunday. Let?s go the Church. What does it really mean for Adam to be hurled into the earth as a tiller of the land? In the biblical Eden Adam did not work. Adman and Eve ate something that leads to being kicked out of the garden of Eden. In Eden, he did not have a work, much less a job, which would come after the advent of property. Eve?s life changes and she would now have PMS. What is a materialist unraveling of ancient materialism? Things get interesting. Adam is an ancient word - sound, for "earth" meaning "man of earth" or "the earthling." Figure it out for yourself. Here we inch close to what Marx called the root of man is man. In other words in Genesis one Homo sapiens is created after the cycles of earth formation. In Genesis ! man and woman comes in the sixth cycle of evolution. In Genesis One man and women appear together in creation as a unity on the sixth day. Genesis Two reads very different. Two homo-sapein-sapein are presupposed but something is wrong preventing reproduction. Dr. Feelgood is called in to solve the problem. After something from the rib of the male is extracted (DNA material) and added to the female, reproduction of species can take place. Stated in the language of our dying farms boyz, a mule cannot create another. Homo-sapien mating with homo-sapien-sapien poses problems. One generation. A mule is a hybrid and a hybrid cannot create another generation of hybrids without further genome alteration. Even when alterations to the genome are carried out longevity cannot be attained. Bladerunner all over again and again. Now you know why I hate the eugenicists and their phony science. The root of humanity has always been Africa and the question is why? Why Africa rather than our present North pole? The answer is Red and green. If man could only arise where he arose and where he arose can be established, then one must investigate the point of origin. Go figure. WL. From markalause at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 22:06:03 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:06:03 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: <6e42edf00909061532p1a68103en79c590a9a6619fe7@mail.gmail.com> References: <6e42edf00909061532p1a68103en79c590a9a6619fe7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Why I find the new date for the last big "out of Africa" pulsing of human population is that Toba (74,000-75,000 years ago) made any earlier migration (70,000 to 80,000 years ago) rather moot, because it wasn't likely to survive and there would have been much room for growth over some time afterwards. There's some controversy as to whether any human populations outside of Africa survived. The "tweaked" years for that last big push "out of Africa" (55,000 to 60,000 years) also places it a bit closer to that global "cultural revolution" revolution in tool making (and, by implication, much else) around 45,000-40,000 years ago. ML From sartesian at earthlink.net Sun Sep 6 22:06:04 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:06:04 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com><1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <65B1557EBA2F4737BFE10EE0A477A6A0@dmsthinkpad> First, you mentioned a "single couple," I was pointing out that the mitochondrial Eve had nothing to do with a notion of a single, founding couple. As for the rest-- you really need to look at this from the biological, genetic view, not from your ideological point of view. Most Recent Common Ancestor-- I said "Eve" is a bad way of classifying this. Yes, Eve had sisters-- guess what? They all had the same mitochondrial DNA. This has nothing to do with creationism. Read the science and get off your ideological, abstract, hermetically sealed, high horse. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shane Mage" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 10:59 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution From shmage at pipeline.com Sun Sep 6 22:06:59 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:06:59 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com> <1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <61F90EAB-F36A-4F7E-8A3C-7012690B6D30@pipeline.com> On Sep 6, 2009, at 11:51 PM, Mark Lause wrote: > > So, there WERE many female contemporaries "Eve." They had kids. We > are also their descendants. We just don't have their mitochondrial > DNA, because--at some point--those lines came to an end. > But what is the probability that, out of an interbreeding population large enough to speciate, all but *one* maternal line will gradually become extinct? Darwinian evolution can't handle the phenomenon of extinction by relying only on gradual processes. Catastrophes are needed. 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 shmage at pipeline.com Sun Sep 6 22:14:34 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:14:34 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: <65B1557EBA2F4737BFE10EE0A477A6A0@dmsthinkpad> References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com><1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> <65B1557EBA2F4737BFE10EE0A477A6A0@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <6B282374-F36C-40C7-A524-DE50910359AB@pipeline.com> On Sep 7, 2009, at 12:06 AM, S. Artesian wrote: > > Yes, Eve had sisters-- guess what? They all had the same > mitochondrial DNA. And if they did, they all had the same female ancestor. You may send us from Eve to Lilith, but the Lilith and her sisters problem remains the same as the Eve problem you want to escape. 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 Sun Sep 6 22:17:03 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:17:03 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com><1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> <65B1557EBA2F4737BFE10EE0A477A6A0@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: Let me try this one more time: The mitochondrial Mother of all Mothers, is the MRCA of all human beings who are alive today. She is NOT EVE. She is not the mother of all human beings who ever were, who ever have been. She is not necessarily the mother of all the mothers of all those human beings who have preceded us. So... there were previous MRCA's, but their offspring, and offspring's offspring have died OR the MATRILINEAL LINE OF DESCENT ended when one of the daughters of the daughters either had no offspring or had only male offspring. From markalause at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 22:18:31 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:18:31 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: <61F90EAB-F36A-4F7E-8A3C-7012690B6D30@pipeline.com> References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com> <1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> <61F90EAB-F36A-4F7E-8A3C-7012690B6D30@pipeline.com> Message-ID: Of course it can, Shane. The way to think of this is to go back before the "Eve" and ask how those lines disappeared. Every time a new human is created, it'll have the mitochondrial DNA of its mother's mother and that of its father's mother isn't passed on. Every role of the dice loses 50%. So, over time, the probability of having "lines" disappear are much higher than surviving. This is specially so when you have a small population. And human populations have always been extremely small until quite recently in the grand scheme of things. So in the thousands of years before the mitochondrial "Eve," those lines fall victim to the statistics. Hers survives...well, because somebody's has to... Otherwise, we'd have never had email... ML From Waistline2 at aol.com Sun Sep 6 22:52:02 2009 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:52:02 EDT Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution Message-ID: In a message dated 9/7/2009 12:07:27 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, shmage at pipeline.com writes: But what is the probability that, out of an interbreeding population large enough to speciate, all but *one* maternal line will gradually become extinct? Darwinian evolution can't handle the phenomenon of extinction by relying only on gradual processes. Catastrophes are needed. Shane Mage Comment Inbreeding is not a problem. The problem is bloodline on how the inbreeding is carried out. You were given specific source material on this question. Here is the formula. One can have the same mother but must have a different father to carry forth 3/4 healthy blood or what is called "god essence." Same mother and same father produces weakness and breach. Same father and different mother does not carry forth "god essence." Here is my dispute: you claim eugenics as the science of better humans. Produce the evidence and source material from the eugenics movement. WL. WL> From zimmer.tj at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 23:28:51 2009 From: zimmer.tj at gmail.com (Tyler Zimmer) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:28:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Good critique of Walter Benn Michaels's NLR article In-Reply-To: <4AA40A3D.20509@panix.com> References: <55868ddf0909061208j63a907d5y92b3ff77ab2592dd@mail.gmail.com> <4AA40A3D.20509@panix.com> Message-ID: > > A good critique would take what he actually says > and show how some of it is empirically wrong and politically a bad tactic. > Well, what he sloppily insinuates about income inequality and New Left movements being the cause of it, is easily refutable. But as far as tactics are concerned, I'd say that totally distorting the political trajectory anti-racist social movements with the explicit purpose of discrediting them, is a pretty awful tactic for building a broad-based Left. I read the PinkScare critique. How doesn't that provide a critique of "what he actually says"? -Tyler On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: > brad bauerly wrote: > > I am sorry but that is not a good critique of Benn Michaels. Like yours > > Louis it too is filled with strawperson arguments based on things that he > > never said. I am not going to get into specifics of his arguments, which > I > > personally think he does not present very well, because it is clear that > > most are unable to maintain simple reading comprehension whenever someone > > mentions race and gender. A good critique would take what he actually > says > > and show how some of it is empirically wrong and politically a bad > tactic. > > I have yet to read such a critique and zero interest in writing it. > > I don't think it is possible to mount a good critique of WBM (although I > tried) because he speaks out of both sides of his mouth. His article > reads like Jim Sleeper in one passage and like Rosa Luxemberg in > another. That is his stratagem. He wants to be published in NLR rather > than in Dissent Magazine. > > But when he says that anti-racism and anti-sexism are not part of the > "left", then he really betrays his backward tendencies. As I pointed out > to a fellow named Will Shetterly who has been taking up WBM's cause on > my blog, there's a long line of "class" trumping race or gender on the > left, usually however published in Dissent rather than NLR. Here are > some snippets that I posted on my blog. Tomasky, a rascal if there ever > was one, sounds most like WBM: > > 1) Jim Sleeper: I stuck to my claims, including an insistence that more > than a few whites are readier to let go of the old racist coordinates > than are some blacks, who have sought a perverse kind of comfort in > guilt-tripping whites by finding racism in every leaf that falls. > (http://www.jimsleeper.com/?p=13) > > 2) Todd Gitlin: > > MR. WATTENBERG: And you think the left now has taken their eye off the > ball. Is that more or less the idea? > > MR. GITLIN: I think that many people, perhaps most on the left, orat > least most who are visible, have gone down a path in which theyare > obsessed with what differs between them and one ? one crowd and another. > They are more obsessed with what divides them than what they have in > common with the rest of humanity. > > MR. WATTENBERG: Who would these groups that engage in identity politics > be, for specifics? > > MR. GITLIN: Many of them are so-called racial or ethnic minorities, or > groups who are organized around their narrow group interest. They?re not > all on the left, by the way. I mean, there?s also a right-wing version > of identity politics, which is ? > > full: http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript235.html > > 3) Michael Tomasky: > Imagine! The principle of diversity supported by a mostly Republican > group to such an extent that Congress was taken aback. The > revolutionaries dropped it, left it to the courts. These corporations > were in fact making a common-good argument to the revolutionaries: > Diversity has served us well as a whole, enriched us. And it?s not just > corporate America: All over the country, white attitudes on race, > straight peoples? attitudes toward gay people, have changed dramatically > for the better. These attitudes have changed because liberals and (most) > Democrats decided that diversity was a principle worth defending on its > own terms. Put another way, they decided to demand of citizens that they > come to terms with diversity. So it can work, this demanding. > > ________________________________________________ > 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/zimmer.tj%40gmail.com > From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 00:11:40 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 02:11:40 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Good critique of Walter Benn Michaels's NLR article In-Reply-To: References: <55868ddf0909061208j63a907d5y92b3ff77ab2592dd@mail.gmail.com> <4AA40A3D.20509@panix.com> Message-ID: > > Well, what he sloppily insinuates about income inequality and New Left > movements being the cause of it, is easily refutable. > > No where is this insinuated. I can't understand how anyone could take that reading from his article. What is stated is the truth that much of the apparent "progress" for minorities and women have a lot more to do with neoliberalism becoming the ruling ideology than it has to do with post-political identity movements. WBM goes too far and is a bit bombastic in some of his claims-- like that there "anti-fascism and feminism aren't inherently left-wing goals"... that's ridiculous, but I would rather have a return to "old left" ideology and class than the ineffectual muck we have right now. From nmgoro at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 06:01:40 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 09:01:40 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2fa158550909070501x6f7194aft67e5e18199bccf1e@mail.gmail.com> Socialist is where the workers are, Leonardo. As to the different way in which I deal with others, and with you, let us say that I don?t buy any form of na"iveness or ignorance on your part. And if there is some of the latter, then I try to shake you so as to make you discover that there exists something more than the stale "juanbejustista" world of I?igo Carrera (whom, BTW, I respect as a serious researcher whose ideological limits, to put it mildly, castrate however his results) 2009/9/6 Leonardo Kosloff : > > What's up N?stor? you forgot to tell Tom how ignorant he is, cambiaste la yerba? (changed the yerba?) > > > > By the way, I'm looking here for the sentence where I said Montoneros was to the 'LEFT' (with capitals) of Per?n, but no good...maybe you can dialectically materialize that for me, and yeah, how you mean left?, like, say, the CCP is to the LEFT of Chinese workers? > > > > Abrazo! > > _________________________________________________________________ > Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online. > http://windowslive.com/Campaign/SocialNetworking?ocid=PID23285::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_SB_online:082009 > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism en lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/nmgoro%40gmail.com > -- N?stor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autor?a From hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org Mon Sep 7 06:12:28 2009 From: hunterbadbear at hunterbear.org (Hunter Gray) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 06:12:28 -0600 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? [Early morn "Labor Day" thoughts] Message-ID: This is geared toward a discussion of sorts on RBB. And it isn't my Labor day -- but it'll do as a handle for this: Most of us are aware that third party efforts in this country, since the days of Debs and the pre-WW1 Socialist Party, have borne no fruit in the sense of really mass support. They have, in many cases, generated creative ideas and their activists have often been important forces in building constructive dissent and, in the case of the Left, achieving many significant victories in many grassroots social justice pursuits. They do provide alternatives for those who, in good conscience, cannot support either of the two major parties. But, bluntly, they haven't gotten to first base in meaningful political victories and achieving -- for better or worse, depending on the nature of the particular party -- systemic change. And, lately, they've just been very minor shadows. [Individual members continue to make activist contributions.] In 1991, a number of labor activists, including the late Tony Mazzocchi, Secretary-Treasurer of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union [now called PACE and tied, at least somewhat, to the Steelworkers union -- launched Labor Party Advocates. Though some long range hopes focused vaguely on a third party, the organization -- supported by some international unions, a range of local unions, and individuals [I was a member for years] -- saw its immediate role as hard-hitting advocacy, with an especial focus on the Democratic Party. But, in the end, a paucity of real solidarity in the union world and the corrosive effects of superficial Clinton "reforms" saw Labor Party Advocates fail to catch real fire, and it gradually faded. But, given the obvious dashing of hopes via the Obama administration and its spectacular downward spiral in conjunction with mounting crises on virtually every front, this general model, with a social justice constituency much, much broader than Labor alone, might now serve as a meaningful approach. If it can develop and maintain some genuinely visionary radical positions and, somehow, overcome the oft lack of inter-union solidarity, endemic Leftist bickering, the problem of some liberal timidity, ego trips -- and other obstacles including co-opting efforts by the Democratic "establishment," it just might emerge as a potent, highly constructive force. 'Way down the pike, who knows what could develop from it in a realistic third-party sense? Solidarity, Hunter [Hunter Bear] HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk Protected by Na?shdo?i?ba?i? and Ohkwari' Check out our Hunterbear website Directory http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm [The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray: http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm See Outlaw Trail: The Native as Organizer: http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm [Included in Visions & Voices: Native American Activism [2009] And see Personal Narrative: http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Sep 7 06:57:25 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 08:57:25 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Good critique of Walter Benn Michaels's NLR article In-Reply-To: References: <55868ddf0909061208j63a907d5y92b3ff77ab2592dd@mail.gmail.com> <4AA40A3D.20509@panix.com> Message-ID: <4AA50335.5050102@panix.com> Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > No where is this insinuated. I can't understand how anyone could take that > reading from his article. > To repeat myself, WBM is a *very* slippery character. His prose is open to multiple interpretations, no doubt a function of his exposure to too many ALA conferences. The other big problem is that he is fixated on campus politics. For him, the need to replace campus admissions based on race with one based on class is a kind of philosopher's stone. He just does not impress me as someone who has the whole gamut of the African-American experience in mind, just what is in his own backyard. Black workers have been struggling for a more *diverse* workplace since the 1960s. In fact the very first affirmative action case heard by the Supreme Court involved workers in the aluminum industry in the Deep South. How does that not involve class? Or to be more specific, class distinctions within the working class. The other thing worth noting is that WBM is not known as someone on the front lines when it comes to issues of war and peace, immigrant rights, etc. Basically he is an intellectual provocateur like Stanley Fish, who enjoys stirring things up. I should mention that Living Marxism, the magazine put out by the Spiked Online people, had the *same* analysis as him and enjoyed the static it generated on the left. Why people should take characters like WBM and Frank Furedi seriously is beyond me since they don't take their own selves very seriously. From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Mon Sep 7 07:10:52 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:10:52 +1000 Subject: [Marxism] What's new at Links: `Seattle' in Copenhagen, S. Africa, Paraguay, Venezuela, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Victor Serge, Indonesia Message-ID: <4AA5065C.9070002@greenleft.org.au> What's new at Links: `Seattle' in Copenhagen, S. Africa, Paraguay, Venezuela, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Victor Serge, Indonesia * * * 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/. * * * Call for a 'Seattle' approach to Copenhagen climate talks, Africans demand reparations By *Patrick Bond* September 5, 2009 -- Durban -- Here's a fairly simple choice: the global North would pay the hard-hit global South to deal with the climate crisis, either through the complicated, corrupt, controversial ``Clean Development Mechanism' (CDM), whose projects have plenty of damaging sideeffects to communities, or instead pay through other mechanisms that must provide financing quickly, transparently and decisively to achieve genuine income compensation plus renewable energy to the masses. The Copenhagen climate summit in December is all about the former choice, because the power bloc in Europe and the US have put carbon trading at the core of their emissions reduction strategy, while the two largest emitters of carbon in the Third World, China and India, are the main beneficiaries of CDM financing. * Read more `Amanzi Ngawethu' (water is ours); Health and environmental victories for South African activist /On September 2 and 3, 2009, the Constitutional Court of South Africa will hear the final appeal in a case brought by five Soweto residents challenging Johannesburg's discriminatory prepaid water meter system. Their six-year legal battle would reaffirm the constitutional right to water for all South Africans. / /Low-income communities in Johannesburg's townships do not have sufficient water resources and do not receive the same water services as residents in wealthier, often white, suburbs. Yet, the Bill of Rights of South Africa guarantees everyone's right to have access to sufficient water./ * Read more Paraguay: Change is still to come; The first year of Fernando Lugo's government / / By *Adolfo Gim?ne*, translated by *Federico Fuentes *for /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ August 14, 2009 -- Asunci?n -- The anniversary of the first year of Fernando Lugo's government coincided with a five-day national protest (August 10-15) organised by the United Popular Space (Espacio Unitario Popular, EUP), a coming together of many social organisations and left parties [1], with the support of figures from diverse political sectors, including the governor of the department of San Pedro, Jose Pakova Ledesma, from the Authentic Radical Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Radical Aut?ntico, PLRA). [Lugo was elected president on April 20, 2008, but did not formally take office until August 15.] * Read more Young Venezuelan revolutionary and environmentalist: `Tomorrow is too late' August 23, 2009 -- Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network national co-convenor *Frederico Fuentes* spoke to *Heryck Rangel* (pictured), an environmental activist and leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela Youth (JPSUV), about the challenges that the global environment crisis poses for Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution, and the planet. He also discussed the role of young people in Venezuela's revolution. * Read more Suffering and struggle in rural China */Will the Boat Sink the Water? The Life of Chinese Peasants./* By Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao. New York: Public Affairs 2006 Review by *John Riddell* Is China killing the goose whose golden eggs have financed its economic upsurge? Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao pose this question in their gripping portrayal of the suffering and struggles of Chinese peasants today. * Read more For people to people solidarity with Vietnam By *Peter Boyle* September 1, 2009 -- There has been a lot of media coverage in Australia around the August 31 return of the remains of the last two Australian armed forces personnel -- Canberra bomber pilots -- who were missing in action in the Vietnam War. But none of the articles put this in the context of the death and damage inflicted on the Vietnamese people by the United States and its ally Australia.Operating as part of the US Air Force's 35th Tactical Fighter Wing, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Canberra bombers flew 6% of the wing's sorties but inflicted 16% of the damage. Overall, 11,963 sorties were flown by the Canberra bombers in Vietnam and 76,389 bombs were dropped. Two Canberra bombers were lost in the process. * Read more Thailand: Time for democracy movement to be clear about how to fight (Da Torpedo ????? Redshirt strategy ??????????????) By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* September 3, 2009 -- On August 28, Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul (known by her nickname as "Da Torpedo") was sentenced to 18 years in prison for /lese majeste/ (insulting the royal family) after a secret trial in Bangkok. This is another example of how Thailand is rapidly coming to resemble authoritarian countries like North Korea. Other examples are the use of the /Internal Security Law/ to prevent peaceful demonstrations by the pro-democracy ``Redshirts'' and the way that the unelected prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, urged the military to kill demonstrators in April. What is also shocking is the way that there has been complete silence from so-called "human rights activists" and NGOs and academics in Thailand about what has been going on. This can only be described as shameful. Amnesty International's long-term policy of turning its back on Thai prisoners of conscience, jailed over lese majeste, is also appalling. It throws into question the role of that organisation. * Read more Victor Serge: `dishonest authoritarian', `anti-worker anarchist' or revolutionary Bolshevik? [The following exchanges were first published in the US socialist magazine /Against the Current/. Susan Weissman is the author of /Victor Serge: The Course is set on Hope/ and editor of /The Ideas of Victor Serge/ and /Victor Serge: Russia Twenty Years After/. She is a member of the editorial boards of /Against the Current/ and /Critique/. The first essay is adapted from a section of a paper she delivered at a July 2008 conference on Trotsky's legacy and first appeared in /Against the Current/, issue 136, September-October 2008. Following that is a response from Ernie Haberkern and reply by Susan Weissman. * Read more Indonesia: Parliament of the Streets demands free education and health care, housing for the poor Photos and text by *Ulfa Ilyas* On August 25, 2009, a demonstration was held in Jakarta, Indonesia, organised by the Parliament of the Streets Alliance at the inauguration of newly elected members of parliament. The protesters demanded free education for all citizens, free health programs, employment and housing programs for poor people. Henri Anggoro, a leader of the Poor People's Union (Serikat Rakyat Miskin Indonesia, SRMI), which organises in the sprawling shanty towns, said that experience has shown that parliament ignores the interests of the people. "They only represent the interests of a handful of people, rather than representing the people who elected them", he said. * 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 hartin at mail.desy.de Mon Sep 7 07:38:40 2009 From: hartin at mail.desy.de (Anthony Hartin) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 15:38:40 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution Message-ID: >The way to think of this is to go back before the "Eve" and ask how >those lines disappeared. Every time a new human is created, it'll have >the mitochondrial DNA of its mother's mother and that of its father's >mother isn't passed on. Every role of the dice loses 50%. So, over >time, the probability of having "lines" disappear are much higher than >surviving. Thats only true if the father's mother only ever has one child - a boy. The number of descendants bearing a female ancestor's mitochondrial DNA must be, the average number of female offspring reaching child-bearing age produced by a mother (A) times the number of intervening generations (N). The question is what is A? Its certainly something that varies over time and circumstances. If its not substantially bigger than 1, then one medium sized catastrophe has a good chance of wiping out a fairly large amount of lines. Of course if its less than 1 then it just takes a certain amount of time to wipe out a line From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Sep 7 07:45:51 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:45:51 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] =?windows-1252?q?South_Africa=92s_Poor_Renew_a_Traditio?= =?windows-1252?q?n_of_Protest?= Message-ID: <4AA50E8F.1080101@panix.com> NY Times, September 7, 2009 South Africa?s Poor Renew a Tradition of Protest By BARRY BEARAK SIYATHEMBA, South Africa ? This country?s rituals of protest most often call for the burning of tires, the barricading of streets and the throwing of rocks. So when the municipal mayor here went to address the crowd after three days of such agitation, the police thought it best to take him into the stadium in a blast-resistant armored vehicle. Chastened by the continuing turmoil, the mayor, Mabalane Tsotetsi, known as Lefty, penitently explained that all of the protesters? complaints would be given his full attention. But by then official promises were a deflated currency, and rocks and bottles were again flying as he retreated. The reasons for this community?s wrath ? unleashed first in late July and again briefly a month later ? were ruefully familiar to many South Africans. ?Water, electricity, unemployment: nothing has gotten better,? said Lifu Nhlapo, 26, a leader of the protests here in Siyathemba, a township 50 miles east of Johannesburg. ?We feel an anger, and when we are ignored, what else is there to do but take to the streets?? Civil unrest among this nation?s poor has recently gotten worldwide attention, and is often portrayed as unhappiness with South Africa?s new president, Jacob Zuma. Actually, these so-called service delivery protests have gone on with regularity for a long time. They vary in intensity ? mild, medium and hot ? and their frequency seems to rise and fall without a predictable pattern. Oddly enough, the protests can be seen as a measure of progress as well as frustration. Since the arrival of democracy 15 years ago, the percentages of households with access to piped water, a flush toilet or a connection to the power grid have notably increased. Those people left waiting are often angry, and so far their ire has not usually been directed at the president ? who has been able to use the protests to his political advantage ? but at municipal officials they consider uncaring, incompetent and corrupt. ?No one wants to be worse off than their neighbor,? said Kevin Allan, managing director of Municipal IQ, a company that monitors the performance of local government. ?People get impatient.? The places most ripe for unrest are neither the poorest communities nor those with the longest backlog in setting up services, he said. Most commonly, the protests are rooted in informal settlements that have sprung up near urban areas, where the poor who do not receive government services rub up against the poor who do. Whatever the causes for the protests, the governing African National Congress appears to take them quite seriously. Party leaders have been dispatched to hot spots, where they usually end up investigating their fellow party members. Local government, like national government, is largely dominated by the A.N.C. In Siyathemba, the emissary from on high was Mr. Zuma himself. On the afternoon of Aug. 4, his helicopter set down on a rocky soccer field, with bodyguards and a BMW waiting. He eventually proceeded to the town of Balfour, the seat of municipal government. Mayor Tsotetsi, at home at the time, rushed back to the office to meet his unannounced visitor. Commentators had a good laugh about that, presuming the mayor a goldbrick who likes to knock off early. ?There is no place that will be hidden from me,? Mr. Zuma announced, leaving the impression he was now a sort of caped superhero who would pop up wherever malingerers were not earning their government paychecks. Though the president also denounced lawbreaking by protesters, his visit seemed an endorsement to those here who had vented their anger. ?Zuma agrees with us, that all these mayors and councilors who are not performing have to go,? said Zakhele Maya, 26, another leader of the demonstrations. Siyathemba has a population of about 6,000 and an unemployment rate of 82 percent, more than triple the nation?s rate, according to official statistics. Most here live in shacks of corrugated metal, the roofs kept in place with strategically placed rocks. Many of the dwellings sag in the middle as if they were melting in the hot sun. Clusters of shacks here look about the same, but some are settlements that have been ?formalized,? which means that the hovels, however dilapidated, have electricity inside and a water tap and flush toilet nearby. Those people living in communities without this imprimatur must light their homes with kerosene or paraffin and wait in lines, pail in hand, at a single communal spigot. ?This is no way to live,? said Mercy Mbiza, 38. ?We have to dig a pit for a toilet, and when it?s full, we dig another. They tell us we are on a waiting list to get services. Whether I will die first, I don?t know.? Rumors ? true or not ? are dangerous combustibles in places like this. People are suspicious that money meant for them is being stolen or wasted by the big shots in Balfour. Some goings-on simply make no sense. For instance, Arlene Moloi?s house has four pillars and a roof and only emptiness in between. The municipality paid someone to construct it in 1996, but the builder suddenly disappeared after starting the job. ?The officials tell me they are waiting for the same man to come back and finish,? said Ms. Moloi, a 54-year-old widow. ?But it already has been 13 years.? The Siyathemba protests began with a meeting of disgruntled young people, some of them members of political youth groups, others players on sports teams. They compiled a list of their many grievances. They wanted more water and electricity, yes. But they also wanted better roads, a local hospital and a police station. Beyond that, they wanted jobs. This list of demands was left at the municipal hall in Balfour. ?Some of these things ? hospitals, police stations ? these are matters to take up at the provincial level,? said the municipality?s spokesman, Mohlalefi Lebotha. ?Where is the money for these things, not just to construct them but to sustain them?? At first, Mr. Tsotetsi did not meet with the disgruntled. Nor did he call a special session of the municipal council as the protesters had demanded. This slow, even indifferent response seemed to mock the petitioners? seriousness. After a mass meeting on a Sunday, many protesters took to the streets. The police confronted them, relying on a rather indiscriminate spray of rubber bullets. The crowd fought back, shouting ?azikhwelwa,? meaning that everything must shut down: no one goes to work, no one attends school. ?People knew how to act from the days of the liberation struggle,? said Mr. Maya, the protest leader. ?We sang the songs, telling those who are scared to step aside so the brave can move ahead and advance the struggle. ?In South Africa, the struggle is not yet over.? From shmage at pipeline.com Mon Sep 7 07:50:46 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 09:50:46 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com> <1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> <61F90EAB-F36A-4F7E-8A3C-7012690B6D30@pipeline.com> Message-ID: On Sep 7, 2009, at 12:06 AM, I wrote: > On Sep 6, 2009, at 11:51 PM, Mark Lause wrote: >> >> So, there WERE many female contemporaries "Eve." They had kids. We >> are also their descendants. We just don't have their mitochondrial >> DNA, because--at some point--those lines came to an end. > But what is the probability that, out of an interbreeding population > large enough to speciate, all but *one* maternal line will gradually > become extinct? Darwinian evolution can't handle the phenomenon of > extinction by relying only on gradual processes... On Sep 7, 2009, at 12:18 AM, Mark Lause wrote: > Of course it can, Shane. > Dinosaurs were extincted gradually? American horses, elephants, and camels? > The way to think of this is to go back before the "Eve" and ask how > those lines disappeared. Every time a new human is created, it'll have > the mitochondrial DNA of its mother's mother and that of its father's > mother isn't passed on. Every role of the dice loses 50%. So, over > time, the probability of having "lines" disappear are much higher than > surviving. > But speciation involves a growing population. In a population *large enough for Darwinian speciation to occur* and with each generation containing roughly equal numbers of males and females, a certain proportion of mothers will have multiple reproducing daughters, some only one, some none. So statistically some lines will go out while others multiply. The number of lines will dwindle, but each surviving line will have more members and that makes the probability of its disappearance dwindle with each generation. How small, then, must the original population be for there to be more than virtually no chance that *all but one* of the original lines will disappear? Humans did not descend from a single female or small group on an isolated island, like the Galapagos finches. They evolved in a large continent with a large prehuman population. > ...human populations have always been extremely small until quite > recently in > the grand scheme of things. So in the thousands of years before the > mitochondrial "Eve," those lines fall victim to the statistics... But "small...in the grand scheme of things" does not mean absolutely so small that random survival rates will gradually extinguish *all but one line*. That is why the "mitochondrial Eve" hypothesis is in contradiction to the "Darwinian gradual evolution" hypothesis of human origins. And the contradiction is crucial, because the hypothesis of constancy for the rate of change in mitochondrial DNA depends on the assumption of constancy in the environmental conditions determining that rate of change, and such gradualism would guarantee the survival of more than one line unless the original population was too small for Darwinian speciation to occur in the first place. The point is *only* this--the "mitochondrial Eve" hypothesis is only one, and very far from the most solid, piece of evidence pointing to the falsity of gradualism as explanation for the evolutionary process. Shane Mage > This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it > always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, > kindling in measures and going out in measures." > > Herakleitos of Ephesos From sartesian at earthlink.net Mon Sep 7 08:49:14 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 10:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com><1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad><61F90EAB-F36A-4F7E-8A3C-7012690B6D30@pipeline.com> Message-ID: <28C91121A374411BB7A44CA533BFF873@dmsthinkpad> Shane wrote: And the contradiction is crucial, because the hypothesis of > constancy for the rate of change in mitochondrial DNA depends on the > assumption of constancy in the environmental conditions determining > that rate of change, and such gradualism would guarantee the survival > of more than one line unless the original population was too small for > Darwinian speciation to occur in the first place. ___________________________________________ Just one point, mutations in mitochondrial DNA are not the product of changes in the environment. These mutations are not "adaptations," they are not "selected." [Most mutations have nothing to do with the environment]. In mitochondrial DNA the mutations are random errors in internal replication, which since there is no exchange of genetic material through sexual reproduction, form a "pristine" -- as they cannot be selected for-- "clock" for determining the times of the deviation from, and the origin of, the "template" mitochondrial DNA. I don't know Shane-- first eugenics, and now environmental changes causing mitochondrial DNA mutation-- sounds more like Lamarck than Darwin to me-- not that Lamarck didn't make important breakthroughs in evolution as an organic process. From gar.lipow at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 09:15:26 2009 From: gar.lipow at gmail.com (Gar Lipow) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 08:15:26 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] [Pen-l] Life insurance now being bundled like subprime mortgages In-Reply-To: <4AA3B355.1060703@panix.com> References: <4AA3B355.1060703@panix.com> Message-ID: On 9/6/09, Louis Proyect wrote: > NY Times, September 6, 2009 > Back to Business > Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance > By JENNY ANDERSON This takes an old (and disgusting) but profitable scam, and ruins it to generate bubble. Industry has made money by taking out life insurance on low paid workers, keeping it even after they leave the company. It makes a profit because certain types of whole life are in some ways tontines. If someone with this type of whole life policy cashes it in before they die, while some of the profit goes to the insurance company, a bit goes into the investment fund the policy holders have joint rights to. Because most people with whole life do cash it in before they die, someone who hold onto a whole life policy until death, and thus gets the investment plus the payout wins financially or rather their heirs do - getting a better payoff than investing the money themselves. Even though whole life pays a worse return than combined term plus saving the premium difference yourself, if you hang on to it until you did your heirs profit because you can some of the money invested on behalf of other premium holders. Since corporations can afford to hang on the the policies until the insured die, they had a pretty certain profit. But if these firms start a bubble, and people who want to cash out sell to them instead of surrendering policies to insurers, then nobody ends up with any one else's investment. Instead both death benefits and "cash value" for each insured have to be covered from premiums and investments on that insured. And "dead peasant" insurance will start having lower returns than standard investments. A silver lining? From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 09:36:42 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 11:36:42 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Good critique of Walter Benn Michaels's NLR article In-Reply-To: <4AA50335.5050102@panix.com> References: <55868ddf0909061208j63a907d5y92b3ff77ab2592dd@mail.gmail.com> <4AA40A3D.20509@panix.com> <4AA50335.5050102@panix.com> Message-ID: This is probably a very valid point. There should no question that the immigrant rights movements and organizing among other marginalized groups should be a primary focus for Marxists right now. I despise when people dismiss the White working class as hopelessly reactionary, but there is no doubt in my mind that the embryo of a mass movement would have to start in more fertile territory. As far as provocation goes if part of his essay challenged leftists who have been seeing Obama, Hillary and Condi as mostly beneficiaries of the upheavals of the New Left and the post-political left, instead of neoliberalism ethos. I think this is fundamentally correct. I was unaware of his stance on diversity in universities. It sounds arcane and reactionary. On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 8:57 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: > > Basically he is an intellectual provocateur like Stanley Fish, who > enjoys stirring things up. I should mention that Living Marxism, the > magazine put out by the Spiked Online people, had the *same* analysis as > him and enjoyed the static it generated on the left. Why people should > take characters like WBM and Frank Furedi seriously is beyond me since > they don't take their own selves very seriously. > > From bbauerly at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 09:52:40 2009 From: bbauerly at gmail.com (brad bauerly) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 11:52:40 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Marx in the Toronto Star Message-ID: <55868ddf0909070852x2149673dt3e4ac990435b4f29@mail.gmail.com> Marx and his ideas rise from the dustbin of history TheStar.com - Opinion - Marx and his ideas rise from the dustbin of history Profound understanding of capitalist dynamics has come to the fore during the current crisis September 07, 2009 *Leo Panitch *Research chair in comparative political economy and distinguished research professor of political science at York University Workers of the world unite! A new message for Labour Day 2009? What is the significance of the way not only John Maynard Keynes but even Karl Marx has been brought back into fashion amidst the global economic crisis? This is a question well worth pondering on the day that is officially designated to celebrate the class that Marx saw as carrying the promise ? and the responsibility ? of creating a better world. Twenty years ago, many cast Marx's ideas into the dustbin of history along with the statist Communist regimes that collapsed in 1989. Yet Marx, who more than any 19th century liberal economist or philosopher insisted that the state was an imposition on society and looked forward to it "withering away" after a proletarian revolution, would have been the severest critic of those regimes. As Joseph Schumpeter once said, there was as little in common between Marx and Stalinism as there was between Jesus and the Inquisition. In any case, as the globalization of capitalism quickened through the 1990s, it actually became more fashionable than ever to quote Marx, especially on how "the need for a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe," creating in the process "a world in its own image." But what was usually left out when the *Communist Manifesto* was quoted in this way in the 1990s was Marx's prescience on capitalist globalization "paving the way for more extensive and exhaustive crises." It has been this aspect of Marx's profound understanding of capitalist dynamics that has come to the fore in the current crisis. It does indeed seem to confirm that capitalism is like "the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the netherworld whom he has called up by his spells." But what is especially important to bear in mind on Labour Day is that Marx, unlike many of those Marxist economists who make it their business to predict economic crises, would have had no illusions that the purely economic contradictions of capitalism would bring about a better world. Marx knew very well that capitalism, by its nature, fosters social isolation, leaving "no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash payment." This creates passivity in the face of personal crises, from factory layoffs to home foreclosures. So, too, does this isolation impede communities of active, informed citizens from coming together to advance radical alternatives. Marx would look at this crisis from the perspective of what it would take for workers to overcome this all-consuming social passivity. He saw the trade unions developing in his own time as a step forward in relation to the "immediate aim" of "the organization of the proletarians into a class" whose "first task" would be "to win the battle for democracy." And Marx would today encourage the formation of those types of collective identities, associations and institutions through which people could redefine their needs and develop their ambitions and capacities to fulfil them by winning the battle for economic democracy. This is something no capitalist society can ever become. No such vision for enacting change has arisen from the labour movement in this crisis, at least not so far. Nor is it likely to emerge from the primarily defensive way trade unions are currently constituted. They do need to resist employer pressures to make workers bear the burden of the crisis in the public as well as the private sector. But their lack of ambition to organize and represent all workers in all facets of their lives, not only in terms of a narrow orientation to collective bargaining, is proving increasingly debilitating. It is significant that the Labour Day we celebrate today, legally established in 1895 to occur on the first Monday of September, involved Canada abjectly following what the U.S. government had done to avoid workers there joining in the celebration of May Day as the international workers holiday. This practice had been established in 1889 when the first congress of the Second International (the successor to the First International organized by Marx in the 1860s) called on workers everywhere to join in an annual one-day strike on May 1. This date was chosen to coincide with the timing of international protests against the bloody repression of workers in Chicago in 1886 who had been campaigning for an eight-hour working day. Unions in Canada, like those in the U.S., went along with politicians who sought to replace the May Day that symbolized labour's insurgent history and revolutionary potential with a state-sponsored "official" Labour Day holiday in September that symbolized the recognition of labour's search for respectability. This was epitomized by the free admission to the Canadian National Exhibition at the end of Toronto's annual Labour Day parade. But the global economic crisis once again points to why labour needs to move in the other direction. If the fashion of quoting Marx today is going to amount to much, labour will need to "recover the spirit of revolution," as Marx himself once put it, rather than "to set its ghost walking about again." From zimmer.tj at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 09:57:08 2009 From: zimmer.tj at gmail.com (Tyler Zimmer) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 10:57:08 -0500 Subject: [Marxism] Good critique of Walter Benn Michaels's NLR article In-Reply-To: References: <55868ddf0909061208j63a907d5y92b3ff77ab2592dd@mail.gmail.com> <4AA40A3D.20509@panix.com> <4AA50335.5050102@panix.com> Message-ID: > > No where is this insinuated. I can't understand how anyone could take that > reading from his article. > From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 09:59:41 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 11:59:41 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? [Early morn "Labor Day" thoughts] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I honestly don't think that our energies should be put toward electoral efforts by third parties. But there is no doubt that in the long-term a "party of the working class" is an absolutely necessity. Now I'm largely paraphrasing Larhs Lih and Mike Macnair, but such a party would need to be both a vanguard and a mass party. Kautsky (somewhat infamously) stated the need of the vanguard of the working class and intellectuals to bring the "good news" of socialism to workers, a mass party at the same time, because the party of the working class should be democratic, open and must clearly articulate its real platform (no modern Trotskyist hide-behind-a-front-group nonsense). The early SPD, which Lenin adapted to Russian circumstances (extreme state repression, illegality) modeled and the Bolsheviks around, pioneered rallies, petitions, all things we take for granted.... this adapted to the 21st century is an excellent model. In addition to simple trade unions, workers' clubs, community organizations, where all created on an openly working class, socialist basis. The Black Panther Party's efforts (free breakfasts, community centers, etc) is a more contemporary example of something similar to this. Basically it would take a mass workers' movement, combined with the "merger" of the socialist goal with a large chunk of that movement to build a principled *party of opposition* (one that does not aspire to ever manage the capitalist state or enter into coalition with capitalist forces). I don't think there is much hope in Green Party or Labor Party venture. This isn't even to mention that due to restrictive electoral laws the 3rd party venture is nearly impossible in the United States. For now building the embryo of a broad Marxist organization would be a good start. Maybe it's the naivety of youth, but I don't see why such an organization couldn't openly run candidates in Democratic primaries on an openly Marxist, oppositional platform for the sake of not a fantasy to "transform" or "push the Democrats left", but to reach out to progressive forces that are unfortunately held up in the Democratic camp? (Whether we like it or not they are there.) *recommended:* http://radicalebooks.blogspot.com/2009/07/revolutionary-strategy-by-mike-mcnair.html http://theactivist.org/blog/the-current-relevance-of-an-old-debate http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/index.htm I'm about to start up the BBQ, and I have no time to proof read this. (and I haven't put my contacts in yet.) Apologizes, Bhaskar On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 8:12 AM, Hunter Gray wrote: > > But, given the obvious dashing of hopes via the Obama administration and > its spectacular downward spiral in conjunction with mounting crises on > virtually every front, this general model, with a social justice > constituency much, much broader than Labor alone, might now serve as a > meaningful approach. If it can develop and maintain some genuinely > visionary radical positions and, somehow, overcome the oft lack of > inter-union solidarity, endemic Leftist bickering, the problem of some > liberal timidity, ego trips -- and other obstacles including co-opting > efforts by the Democratic "establishment," it just might emerge as a potent, > highly constructive force. 'Way down the pike, who knows what could develop > from it in a realistic third-party sense? > From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 10:02:02 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:02:02 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Good critique of Walter Benn Michaels's NLR article In-Reply-To: References: <55868ddf0909061208j63a907d5y92b3ff77ab2592dd@mail.gmail.com> <4AA40A3D.20509@panix.com> <4AA50335.5050102@panix.com> Message-ID: I was referring to the LRB article. I stand corrected. I still think there are a few coherent points in Michael's work, but it probably would be better for someone more nuanced and who has less open contempt for contemporary minority and feminist movement to say it. On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 11:57 AM, Tyler Zimmer wrote: > > > > No where is this insinuated. I can't understand how anyone could take > that > > reading from his article. > > > > From his NLR piece entitled 'Against Diversity': > > ?In 1947 ?seven years before Brown v. Board of Education, sixteen years > before The Feminine Mystique ?the top fifth of American wage-earners made > 43 > percent of the money earned in the US. Today that same quintile gets 50.5 > percent. The bottom fifth got 5 per cent of total income; today it gets 3.4 > percent. After half a century of anti-racism and feminism, the US today is > a > less equal society than was the racist, sexist society of Jim Crow. > Furthermore, virtually all of the growth in equality has taken place since > the Civil Rights Act of 1965- which means not only that the struggle > against > discrimination have failed to alleviate inequality, but that *they have > been > compatible with a radical expansion of it*. Indeed they have *helped to > enable the increasing gulf* between rich and poor.? > From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Sep 7 10:05:42 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:05:42 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? [Early morn "Labor Day" thoughts] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AA52F56.30002@panix.com> Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > Maybe it's the naivety of youth, but I don't see why such an organization > couldn't openly run candidates in Democratic primaries on an openly > Marxist, oppositional platform for the sake of not a fantasy to "transform" > or "push the Democrats left", but to reach out to progressive forces that > are unfortunately held up in the Democratic camp? (Whether we like it or > not they are there.) Anybody who runs as a Democrat is unlikely to have "openly Marxist" views. From shmage at pipeline.com Mon Sep 7 10:10:20 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:10:20 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: <28C91121A374411BB7A44CA533BFF873@dmsthinkpad> References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com><1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad><61F90EAB-F36A-4F7E-8A3C-7012690B6D30@pipeline.com> <28C91121A374411BB7A44CA533BFF873@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: On Sep 7, 2009, at 10:49 AM, S. Artesian wrote: > > And the contradiction is crucial, because the hypothesis of >> constancy for the rate of change in mitochondrial DNA depends on the >> assumption of constancy in the environmental conditions determining >> that rate of change... > > Just one point, mutations in mitochondrial DNA are not the product of > changes in the environment. These mutations are not "adaptations," > they are > not "selected." [Most mutations have nothing to do with the > environment]. > In mitochondrial DNA the mutations are random errors in internal > replication, which since there is no exchange of genetic material > through > sexual reproduction, form a "pristine" -- as they cannot be selected > for-- > "clock" for determining the times of the deviation from, and the > origin of, > the "template" mitochondrial DNA. > Mutations in mitochondrial DNA, like all other physical phenomena, are *caused*. Random they may be with respect to the life-history of the individual organisms in which they occur, but the frequency with which they occur in a population is determined by causal factors in the environment. If that frequency, that rate of change, is constant then the relevant environmental causality must also be constant. And that assumption, in the present state of scientific and historical knowledge, is quite unsupportable. 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 bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 10:15:02 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:15:02 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? [Early morn "Labor Day" thoughts] In-Reply-To: <4AA52F56.30002@panix.com> References: <4AA52F56.30002@panix.com> Message-ID: The same could be said of the Greens, except that primary campaign would be irrelevant. But what is the Democratic Party? Certainly it's largely neoliberal, bourgeois to say the least-- perhaps the world's second most enthusiastic major capitalist party. But is there not open primaries? Can a party without dues and with open primaries even be called a party? Such an electoral campaign would be important logical step at some point. An open, democratic, Marxist organization is obviously the more important and immediate task. Not that creating a viable party of opposition is *likely* to work, but I don't see how it's *possible* through the tactics that have been dominate on the American left. Louis Proyect: Anybody who runs as a Democrat is unlikely to have "openly Marxist" views. From sartesian at earthlink.net Mon Sep 7 10:18:24 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:18:24 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution References: <4AC81DF1-E94E-4C4C-B334-B66D28B758B2@pipeline.com><1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad><61F90EAB-F36A-4F7E-8A3C-7012690B6D30@pipeline.com><28C91121A374411BB7A44CA533BFF873@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <7B84C73F05BA4357B9ADAD519557C7A9@dmsthinkpad> Shane, You're just flat out wrong. The mutation that produces sickle cell was not caused by the environmental pressure of malaria in Africa, despite the fact that the mutation yields some resistance to the infection. The mutation once produced was "Selected For" and survived due to sexual reproduction where the mutation could remain dormant and not kill all the people, which would make it more fatal than the malaria. No wonder you like eugenics. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shane Mage" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 12:10 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Sep 7 10:32:06 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:32:06 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? [Early morn "Labor Day" thoughts] In-Reply-To: References: <4AA52F56.30002@panix.com> Message-ID: <4AA53586.3030708@panix.com> Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > The same could be said of the Greens, except that primary campaign would > be irrelevant. The Greens are dead, mostly the result of tail-ending the Democrats. > > But what is the Democratic Party? Certainly it's largely neoliberal, > bourgeois to > say the least-- perhaps the world's second most enthusiastic major > capitalist party. > But is there not open primaries? Can a party without dues and with open > primaries even be called a party? Btw, you need to clean up your email. These "stepladder" effects are strictly verboten. From sabocat59 at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 10:36:23 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:36:23 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Obama's tired of..... Message-ID: <6e42edf00909070936n6e055850wbe7e673eff83b84b@mail.gmail.com> http://tinyurl.com/ameg2k From markalause at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 10:57:33 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: <7B84C73F05BA4357B9ADAD519557C7A9@dmsthinkpad> References: <1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad> <61F90EAB-F36A-4F7E-8A3C-7012690B6D30@pipeline.com> <28C91121A374411BB7A44CA533BFF873@dmsthinkpad> <7B84C73F05BA4357B9ADAD519557C7A9@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: I'm not sure that what Shane's responding to as what I wrote is actually what I wrote. I don't, for example, understand how any of this has to do with extinction or with speciation. The mitochondrial DNA has nothing to do with the DNA in the cell's nucleus that passes on genetic information. In any event, we're talking about very tiny mutations. Something like a random bit of radiation knocks a piece in the DNA chain out of place. Or maybe it's just a mistake in replicating the DNA. This is almost always of the backup library of information for something like how long your eyelashes should grow. And the mitochronrial DNA isn't even in the nucleus where it matters anyway. So changing a species or causing an extinction is RIGHT OUT. But that tiny, discernible change gets passed on and genetic researchers can read that. Let's say you have Change A in the mitochondrial DNA of a woman in Africa living at a certain time. Everyone alive today has that Change A. That's all that "the mitochrondrial Eve" means. We ARE all her descendants. But we are also descendants of all her female contemporaries who were making viable contributions to the gene pool. That's essentially a dead certainty. ML On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:18 PM, S. Artesian wrote: > Shane, > > You're just flat out wrong. ?The mutation that produces sickle cell was not > caused by the environmental pressure of malaria in Africa, despite the fact > that the mutation yields some resistance to the infection. > > The mutation once produced was "Selected For" and survived due to sexual > reproduction where the mutation could remain dormant and not kill all the > people, which would make it more fatal than the malaria. > > No wonder you like eugenics. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Shane Mage" > To: "David Schanoes" > Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 12:10 PM > Subject: Re: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution > > > > ________________________________________________ > 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/markalause%40gmail.com > From tcod at hotmail.com Mon Sep 7 11:10:30 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:10:30 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <2fa158550909061448i4a99bdb7mbd6e5208d1122652@mail.gmail.com> References: <2fa158550909052007l61dc4f7btab47f68ac8f0e96b@mail.gmail.com> <2fa158550909061448i4a99bdb7mbd6e5208d1122652@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: What about the ERP? Wikipedia has an article on them that I think includes links to YouTube stuff on them in Spanish. they were at the heart of a heated faction fight within "the trotskyist movement" back in the 70s even though had summarily split from that at the time. While they were largely wiped out, Shining Path had more success with this strategy in Peru until they too were ultimately defeated. Then again, the demographics of Peru aren't the same as those of Argentina. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Revolutionary_Army_%28Argentina%29 _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online. http://windowslive.com/Campaign/SocialNetworking?ocid=PID23285::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_SB_online:082009 From markalause at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 11:14:40 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 13:14:40 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If there are two discussions going on here, let's separate them and do one at a time. I'm quite happy to discuss catastrophes, but they have no more to do with mitochondrial DNA.\ than changing tires on a bus.... Every act of reproduction loses the mitochondrial DNA coming through the father's side. It doesn't matter how many kids the couple has, the father isn't contributing anything that can convey his mother's mitochondrial DNA into the process. It's is always lost. No matter how many times you try. Then, too, you have to consider how few kids are going to make it to breeding age. An easily neglected factor today, perhaps. Still, what's being questioned here is the process of how this came to be. Those of us addressing this may or may not be explaining that in a way that those uncomfortable with it can understand it. But the outcome is what it is. We share the identifiable traits of a common female ancestor who lived in Africa at a certain period of time. If there's an alternative explanation that doesn't involve ouija boards and channeling, I've never heard it. ML From holmoff10 at hotmail.com Mon Sep 7 11:40:19 2009 From: holmoff10 at hotmail.com (Leonardo Kosloff) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:40:19 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ok, N?stor, when you have time, I'd appreciate you elaborate the ideological limits -indeed, ideology, in Marx and Engels' sense, is to turn everything upside down- of my anti-dialectical "juanbejustismo" (and for practical purposes, you're free to assume I'm I?igo Carrera's "disciple",) vis ? vis my allegations that you (and Lueko, to one degree or another,) so far have been indulging in idealist distributionist* reveries about the direction China is taking. But please, take your time,-"que se bajen los cambios"- and be clear about it, no going off in a tangent, and no "mirror proofs" -by this I mean, justifying your position by saying you're right just like that- I beg you, so we can all learn about my onanist tendencies. No joke here, I think, in my humble opinion, marxmailers will benefit, and truly, I can't wait to get shook up. * when I say distributionist, I'm referring, daring as I am, to Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme: "Vulgar socialism (and from it in turn a section of the democrats) has taken over from the bourgeois economists the consideration and treatment of distribution as independent of the mode of production and hence the presentation of socialism as turning principally on distribution." _________________________________________________________________ With Windows Live, you can organize, edit, and share your photos. http://www.windowslive.com/Desktop/PhotoGallery From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Sep 7 11:50:49 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:50:49 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AA547F9.4020704@panix.com> Leonardo Kosloff wrote: > * when I say distributionist, I'm referring, daring as I am, to Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme: > > "Vulgar socialism (and from it in turn a section of the democrats) has taken over from the bourgeois economists the consideration and treatment of distribution as independent of the mode of production and hence the presentation of socialism as turning principally on distribution." I don't think it is of much value to quote Karl Marx on the need for socialism. After I saw "Crude", the movie about the legal case being pursued in Ecuador against Chevron, I was struck by how important the election of Rafael Correa was to indigenous peoples. Here was a president who was willing to take the side of the people against imperialism, despite his failure to live up to Lenin's example. In Latin America, such presidents are products of the class struggle. When Indians fight for their rights, the election of a Morales or a Correa is a victory. We should not sneer at these victories. My main disagreement with Nestor is his tendency to apply such examples to Iran, China or other countries with nominally "anti-imperialist" governments but at least he errs on the side of living reality rather than quote-mongering from Marx. From sartesian at earthlink.net Mon Sep 7 12:00:06 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 14:00:06 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution References: <1A39EBFCBE084074B59553758CB0629E@dmsthinkpad><61F90EAB-F36A-4F7E-8A3C-7012690B6D30@pipeline.com><28C91121A374411BB7A44CA533BFF873@dmsthinkpad><7B84C73F05BA4357B9ADAD519557C7A9@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: ML wrote: We ARE all her descendants. But we are also descendants of all her female contemporaries who were making viable contributions to the gene pool. That's essentially a dead certainty. ML ____________________ That is exactly correct. There is a matrilineal line of descent that takes humans back to the most recent common ancestor. This line is established, maintained in the mitochondrial DNA. Tthe human genome, the "germ cell" DNA is the product of all the contributions to the gene pool. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Lause" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 12:57 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution From bbauerly at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 12:28:46 2009 From: bbauerly at gmail.com (brad bauerly) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 14:28:46 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? Message-ID: <55868ddf0909071128o4bb7e33cj17cbc47f97b94b60@mail.gmail.com> To activists in the US it should be painfully obvious to them that there is no hope for coalition building. It is either the Democrats or something outside of power. I don't understand all the talk about die Linke etc. It is kind of a waste of time. There will never be a coalition govenment between the left and center in the US. This has its negative and positive attributes but we need not spill a bunch of ink discussing why parlamentary coalitions fail. The negative of this is that good activists get pulled foolishly into the Democratic party only to be beaten down. As the old saying goes "the Democratic party is where social movements go to die". Hopefully the very recent past will convince most that this is no road for us to take. The positive attributes of the deformed politics of the US is that a true workers party could theoretically build a movement without having to govern and thereby avoid the pitfalls of bourgeois democracy. Now, such a party has not materialized but it could and it offers the best hope in the US IMO. It is this specificity of US politics which opens up the possiblity to transcend the old debate and to create the oppurtunity to do both party type organizing and the 'patient' strategy, that one of the articles Bhuskar posted puts forward, within one mass movement. Brad From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 12:40:58 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:40:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? In-Reply-To: <55868ddf0909071128o4bb7e33cj17cbc47f97b94b60@mail.gmail.com> References: <55868ddf0909071128o4bb7e33cj17cbc47f97b94b60@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA553BA.6000109@gmail.com> Brad is completely right in noting that a worker's movement would have to avoid coalitions with capitalist forces and must avoid governing the bourgeois state. Instead the party would have to be what Kautsky called one of "principled, sustained opposition". But Die Linke does have a significant minority, maybe 40 percent of the executive committee that appears to be for such a party. Lafontaine and the left-social democrats would be happy enough just pushing SPD a few steps to the left in a governing coalition with them. Die Linke managing the capitalist state at the region level in this economic climate will be an absolute disaster for them. They will have no choice, but to implement some sort of austerity. http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/783/oskarlafontaine.php It's a lot easier said than done. But since these basic tactics aren't yet commonsense on the far left we won't even have the chance to try and fail. These of course are just basic principles. It'll obviously take very creative 21st century thinking on top of this base to even achieve marginal success. ~ Bhaskar brad bauerly wrote: > To activists in the US it should be painfully obvious to them that there is > no hope for coalition building. It is either the Democrats or something > outside of power. I don't understand all the talk about die Linke etc. It is > kind of a waste of time. There will never be a coalition govenment between > the left and center in the US. This has its negative and positive attributes > but we need not spill a bunch of ink discussing why parlamentary coalitions > fail. The negative of this is that good activists get pulled foolishly into > the Democratic party only to be beaten down. As the old saying goes "the > Democratic party is where social movements go to die". Hopefully the very > recent past will convince most that this is no road for us to take. > > The positive attributes of the deformed politics of the US is that a true > workers party could theoretically build a movement without having to govern > and thereby avoid the pitfalls of bourgeois democracy. Now, such a party has > not materialized but it could and it offers the best hope in the US IMO. It > is this specificity of US politics which opens up the possiblity to > transcend the old debate and to create the oppurtunity to do both party type > organizing and the 'patient' strategy, that one of the articles Bhuskar > posted puts forward, within one mass movement. > > Brad > ________________________________________________ > From nmgoro at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 13:06:59 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:06:59 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <61806F07-9703-4A10-8DBB-26946B841E99@pipeline.com> References: <100.d8b8050077439d4a.037@lws-media.de> <08EA50D062FD4ED4BCC747FE337E7635@MARV> <7000832A87C046A79964FBCF155F2379@dmsthinkpad> <100.90110e00082ea04a.018@lws-media.de> <4AA03963.8090005@gmail.com> <2ABE3E8B59FC498382DBC9AC222DCFB8@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909040156n10c368e2m5dc60adbd43345e7@mail.gmail.com> <78AE9C79B96D4360ADC565D5DCEBFA7B@dmsthinkpad> <2fa158550909050653s6193814dsac462614241a7348@mail.gmail.com> <225D96BA-45EE-40C9-B899-B4A0D93F214C@pipeline.com> <2fa158550909052001n46d918fmf9372c364d05c179@mail.gmail.com> <61806F07-9703-4A10-8DBB-26946B841E99@pipeline.com> Message-ID: <4AA559D3.7040301@gmail.com> Oy vey, Shane, when will you begin to learn before you talk nonsense about "proletarian nations" and all that idiotic stuff? What about starting to question your mistaken notions on the national question. Shane Mage escribi?: > On Sep 5, 2009, at 11:01 PM, N?stor Gorojovsky wrote: >> We Marxists, by the way, only support national movements that forward >> the march towards socialism. Not every such movement does it. > > So. All hail whatever Marxist Pope has decreed infallibly to his > elect exactly which "proletarian nations" (like those that made a deal > to divide up the area between them 70 years ago?) are > "marching" (goose-stepping?) towa From farmelantj at juno.com Mon Sep 7 13:03:38 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 15:03:38 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? [Early morn "Labor Day" thoughts] Message-ID: <20090907.150339.4256.1.farmelantj@juno.com> On Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:05:42 -0400 Louis Proyect writes: > Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > > Maybe it's the naivety of youth, but I don't see why such an > organization > > couldn't openly run candidates in Democratic primaries on an > openly > > Marxist, oppositional platform for the sake of not a fantasy to > "transform" > > or "push the Democrats left", but to reach out to progressive > forces that > > are unfortunately held up in the Democratic camp? (Whether we > like it or > > not they are there.) > > Anybody who runs as a Democrat is unlikely to have "openly Marxist" > views. > To be fair to Bhaskar, I think he is suggesting that people who are already "openly Marxist" might want to consider running in Democratic primaries as a way of introducing Marxist ideas to those Democratic primary voters, who are progressively inclined. If I understand him correctly, what he is suggesting now is different from the Michael Harrington-type approach which would attempt to persuade progressives to attempt to capture the Democratic Party or at least push it to the left. I don't think that such a thing is possible and progressives who have attempted to do this have either come to grief or have themselves become co-opted by the DP apparatus and so cease to be progressives. Jim F. ____________________________________________________________ Degree with financial aid Connect to online colleges with financial aid provided. Free info. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=yTFEU1wZHIVrlmCIbhW_-AAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAQAAAAFAAAAAOpjDT8AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACDIgAAAAAA== From nmgoro at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 13:14:47 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:14:47 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: <2fa158550909052007l61dc4f7btab47f68ac8f0e96b@mail.gmail.com> <2fa158550909061448i4a99bdb7mbd6e5208d1122652@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA55BA7.7010900@gmail.com> I have also sent long commentaries on ERP to the list, long years ago. In a nutshell, ERP was never "Trotskyist" in any serious sense. Their tactics was horrible and (self)-murderous, such as were the other tactics of what I have come to call "substitutism on arms". In other times, we Marxists used to strongly criticize terrorism. Now we have to change the name the creature used to give to herself because the powers-that-be have taken it as theirs and have infused a different meaning to it. Their political positions (save for a small fraction which did not last too much longer than the "Camporista springtime seasion" early in 1973, the "ERP 22 de agosto") were of the stalest left wing anti-peronism. Same thing can be said, though with many caveats, of Montoneros or at least a good fraction of their leadership. I have had a very good relation with one of the ERP leaders after 1983. They had processed with a strong criticism their former mistakes. Am?lcar Santucho, that is his name, once told me "nos pasamos de voluntad de poder" ("we had too much will of power", which is as honest and dramatic an explanation as can be forced into six words (in Spanish). The question, as always, must be where are the working classes. That is where you can find socialism and the seeds of revolutions. Tom Cod escribi?: > What about the ERP? Wikipedia has an article on them that I think > includes links to YouTube stuff on them in Spanish. they were at the > heart of a heated faction fight within "the trotskyist movement" back > in the 70s even though had summarily split from that at the time. > While they were largely wiped out, Shining Path had more success with > this strategy in Peru until they too were ultimately defeated. Then > again, the demographics of Peru aren't the same as those of > Argentina. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Revolutionary_Army_%28Argentina%29 > > From markalause at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 13:07:36 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 15:07:36 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? In-Reply-To: <4AA553BA.6000109@gmail.com> References: <55868ddf0909071128o4bb7e33cj17cbc47f97b94b60@mail.gmail.com> <4AA553BA.6000109@gmail.com> Message-ID: Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > > Brad is completely right in noting that a worker's movement would have > to avoid coalitions > with capitalist forces and must avoid governing the bourgeois state. > Instead the party would have > to be what Kautsky called one of "principled, sustained opposition". > Yes, Bhaskar, following your inconsistencies on these things again confuses me. Didn't you support Obama and the Democrats because all other alternatives were pointless? How does that jibe with what you're now advising? And I'm absolutely befuddled by this discussion between you and brad about avoiding "coalitions"? Are you all equating this term with an alliance to the capitalist formations? Because, if you are, you're using the term incorrectly. And if you mean that progressive organizations shouldn't combine and function in coalitions, you're simply wrong. ML From nmgoro at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 13:19:13 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:19:13 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AA55CB1.3080504@gmail.com> Look, Leonardo, I am too short of time. I am against distributionism and its practical forms in Argentina. Can?t debate this in English here. But I engage in debates in Spanish in the place where I belong. As to the "juanbejustismo", I suggest you get a copy of Jorge Enea Spilimbergo?s "El socialismo en la Argentina", and his "La cuesti?n nacional en Marx", TO BEGIN WITH. Sorry not to have the time to engage in a debate with you on Marxmail, in January 2002 I informed all my comrades on English-based lists that I would be very busy in the historical period opened up by mass mobilisations in Argentina, and would not be able to . Thus I remain. Leonardo Kosloff escribi?: > Ok, N?stor, when you have time, I'd appreciate you elaborate the ideological limits -indeed, ideology, in Marx and Engels' sense, is to turn everything upside down- of my anti-dialectical "juanbejustismo" (and for practical purposes, you're free to assume I'm I?igo Carrera's "disciple",) vis ? vis my allegations that you (and Lueko, to one degree or another,) so far have been indulging in idealist distributionist* reveries about the direction China is taking. > > > > But please, take your time,-"que se bajen los cambios"- and be clear about it, no going off in a tangent, and no "mirror proofs" -by this I mean, justifying your position by saying you're right just like that- I beg you, so we can all learn about my onanist tendencies. No joke here, I think, in my humble opinion, marxmailers will benefit, and truly, I can't wait to get shook up. > > > > * when I say distributionist, I'm referring, daring as I am, to Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme: > > > > "Vulgar socialism (and from it in turn a section of the democrats) has taken over from the bourgeois economists the consideration and treatment of distribution as independent of the mode of production and hence the presentation of socialism as turning principally on distribution." > > _________________________________________________________________ > With Windows Live, you can organize, edit, and share your photos. > http://www.windowslive.com/Desktop/PhotoGallery > ________________________________________________ > YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > Send list submissions to: Marxism en lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/nmgoro%40gmail.com > From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 13:33:00 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:33:00 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? In-Reply-To: References: <55868ddf0909071128o4bb7e33cj17cbc47f97b94b60@mail.gmail.com> <4AA553BA.6000109@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA55FEC.3080104@gmail.com> I think I'm approaching my post-limit for the first time ever so I'll retire from this discussion for the time being after this. But, yes. I suppose I am the term incorrectly . And no, I didn't support Obama, in fact I voted for for Nader and the "Democratic Left @ GWU" a moderately sized progressive organization I helped found last year did not even go to nearby Virginia to canvas for Obama. Instead we chose to focus on local grassroots work with DC JWJ and others on community work. At one time I did however briefly subscribe to the notion that socialists could form a part of the left-wing tent of the Democratic Party. I would say that was before my politics became explicitly Marxist. What I am advising is simply what Marx, Kautsky, and Lenin did during their lives, with the exception of my perhaps adlib that Democratic primaries can be wielded for the purposes of guaging support and building visibility. A united, openly democratic Marxist party of opposition that builds all the organs of a mass party / worker's movement (community orgs, workers' medias, some cooperatives, unions). It's a hard task, some might argue an impossible one, but it seems like commonsense. Unfortunately it's /not/ what the far-left right now is engaged in. Right now we are either hiding behind front-groups, playing out popular-front fantasies with Obama, building micro-sects or in the case of some anarchists, playing revolutionists on the streets one weekend a year. How these basic principles will manifest themselves in the 21st century in the United States, given the lack of class identification here, etc. are /far/ more difficult questions that I'm sure other comrades, especially you Mark, are better equipped to deal with. Obviously marginalized communities, immigrant workers, communities of color would form a logical base for a party of this nature. Under what kind of platform could a group that unites the left stand on is a question that Louis has written extensively on. Mark Lause wrote: > Yes, Bhaskar, following your inconsistencies on these things again > confuses me. Didn't you support Obama and the Democrats because all > other alternatives were pointless? How does that jibe with what > you're now advising? > > And I'm absolutely befuddled by this discussion between you and brad > about avoiding "coalitions"? Are you all equating this term with an > alliance to the capitalist formations? Because, if you are, you're > using the term incorrectly. > > And if you mean that progressive organizations shouldn't combine and > function in coalitions, you're simply wrong. > > 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/bhaskar.sunkara%40gmail.com > From markalause at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 14:19:13 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 16:19:13 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? In-Reply-To: <4AA55FEC.3080104@gmail.com> References: <55868ddf0909071128o4bb7e33cj17cbc47f97b94b60@mail.gmail.com> <4AA553BA.6000109@gmail.com> <4AA55FEC.3080104@gmail.com> Message-ID: Good for you, then. My mistake on 2008. The $64,000 question, of course, is how to go about building the organization you're advocating. ML From bhandari at berkeley.edu Mon Sep 7 14:21:12 2009 From: bhandari at berkeley.edu (Rakesh Bhandari) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:21:12 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Total 10 Year Job Gains: Negative 203k In-Reply-To: <4AA56ADF.6080701@berkeley.edu> References: <4AA56ADF.6080701@berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <4AA56B38.5080503@berkeley.edu> http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/09/total-10-year-job-gains-negative-203k/ From holmoff10 at hotmail.com Mon Sep 7 14:37:22 2009 From: holmoff10 at hotmail.com (Leonardo Kosloff) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 20:37:22 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Louis Proyect wrote: "My main disagreement with Nestor is his tendency to apply such examples to Iran, China or other countries with nominally "anti-imperialist" governments but at least he errs on the side of living reality rather than quote-mongering from Marx." Well, Louis, as always, I think that depends on the context. For example, when the whole discussion starts to get embroiled with ?Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, agrees with me!? ?N?stor?s words, then should we not take a step back and see what Marx said? Is it enough to invoke the theories of Lenin or Trotsky out of nowhere? In fact, if you allow me the impudence, reading your posts on the latest events on Iran, you quote Trotsky quite a bit yourself. Same goes for when I talk to Stalinists who, and I suggest you experiment with this, can be caught saying exactly what Marx was going crazy about in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, a ?political? programme, and no, I?m not saying N?stor is one of them. So far the argument had been mainly centered, at least from my side, on the (determinative) role of accumulation (forgive me, I have to say this here, Marx said accumulation is ?the? independent variable,) is that orthodox, economistic, dogmatic, determinist? Not if one takes Capital as a political book, notwithstanding how Council Communists have made a religion out of this outlook, I think. I certainly didn?t mean any of this to be an abstract condemnation of the CCP, nor am I willing to abstract from the complications and propose instead to engage in the demonization spectacle, and even further, while I don?t accept, and think it is necessary to expressly reject, Nestor?s framework about ?using? capitalism, the way I understand it, the transitional period is capitalist, but then we have to measure how the production process is progressively veering toward socialist society in terms of productivity, organic composition of capital, labor relations, etc.. But I?m starting to notice here, that N?stor and I perhaps started with the left foot, so given the circumstances which I?m starting to feel out, and as I take it, that he is man of struggle, I?ll try to keep the quotes to a minimum, or just plagiarize them. Take a look at the I?igo Carrera article, it?s not just Per?n, there?s a specific ?pattern? to the expansive cycles in the agrarian sector, and their respective political representatives, and when the contraction starts to hurt, the blood starts to run. _________________________________________________________________ Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB_BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1 From lnp3 at panix.com Mon Sep 7 14:42:46 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:42:46 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AA57046.10003@panix.com> Leonardo Kosloff wrote: > But I?m starting to notice here, that N?stor and I perhaps started with the left foot, so given the circumstances which I?m starting to feel out, and as I take it, that he is man of struggle, I?ll try to keep the quotes to a minimum, or just plagiarize them. > Take a look at the I?igo Carrera article, it?s not just Per?n, there?s a specific ?pattern? to the expansive cycles in the agrarian sector, and their respective political representatives, and when the contraction starts to hurt, the blood starts to run. Nestor has been on Marxmail for 11 years since it began. And before that he was on the dreadful mailing list that preceded it. I am familiar with his ideas and have not been shy about raising my differences with him as the need arises. You, on the other hand, are new to the list and since you signed on you have been in one bitter exchange after another with Nextor. I think you would be better off establishing yourself with your own view on things rather than use Nestor as a punching bag. You should be able to write your own analysis of Aegentina or whatever without dragging Nestor into the fray. From nmgoro at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 14:51:14 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:51:14 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AA57242.7010009@gmail.com> Yes, perhaps we started on the wrong foot. I have never suggested that the transitional period should be capitalist just because it has to carry to end tasks that the bourgeoisie cannot take to their fulfillment. And, Leonardo, though I am no Peronist, not at all, I am still further from anti-Peronists, including those who tend to stress that there has been no "structural" difference between the patterns of accumulation under Peronist economic policies and non-Peronist (in fact, anti-Peronist) policies. What is an economic policy, in the end, but a way to guide accumulation towards a certain point against another point? Maybe some day we can have a talk, elsewhere, perhaps in Spanish, don?t know. Leonardo Kosloff escribi?: > Louis Proyect wrote: "My main disagreement with Nestor is his tendency to apply such examples > to Iran, China or other countries with nominally "anti-imperialist" > governments but at least he errs on the side of living reality rather > than quote-mongering from Marx." > > Well, Louis, as always, I think that depends on the context. For example, when the whole discussion starts to get embroiled with ?Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, agrees with me!? ?N?stor?s words, then should we not take a step back and see what Marx said? Is it enough to invoke the theories of Lenin or Trotsky out of nowhere? In fact, if you allow me the impudence, reading your posts on the latest events on Iran, you quote Trotsky quite a bit yourself. Same goes for when I talk to Stalinists who, and I suggest you experiment with this, can be caught saying exactly what Marx was going crazy about in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, a ?political? programme, and no, I?m not saying N?stor is one of them. > > So far the argument had been mainly centered, at least from my side, on the (determinative) role of accumulation (forgive me, I have to say this here, Marx said accumulation is ?the? independent variable,) is that orthodox, economistic, dogmatic, determinist? Not if one takes Capital as a political book, notwithstanding how Council Communists have made a religion out of this outlook, I think. I certainly didn?t mean any of this to be an abstract condemnation of the CCP, nor am I willing to abstract from the complications and propose instead to engage in the demonization spectacle, and even further, while I don?t accept, and think it is necessary to expressly reject, Nestor?s framework about ?using? capitalism, the way I understand it, the transitional period is capitalist, but then we have to measure how the production process is progressively veering toward socialist society in terms of productivity, organic composition of capital, labor relations, etc.. > From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 15:34:13 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:34:13 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Tough times likely fuel bank heists Message-ID: <5c2e4d230909071434o73ef2ae7r4816c3cd07974f78@mail.gmail.com> September 7, 2009 Tough times likely fuel bank heists Robberies down this year, but suburbs hit with rash of them BY CHRISTINA HALL FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER It's been a bad couple of weeks for banks in metro Detroit, authorities say. And the recent series of holdups, largely at suburban banks, showed no signs of slowing last week with yet another robbery Thursday at a Comerica Bank in Roseville. Aug. 18 was a particularly bad day: three holdups at three banks -- Huntington Bank in Clinton Township and two Charter One Banks, one in Roseville, the other in Taylor. Ray Roland, 34, who is accused of holding up the Huntington Bank, also faces charges in a spree that included a TCF Bank in Eastpointe on Aug. 17 and a National City Bank in Shelby Township on Aug. 19. The most shocking robbery came Aug. 10, in which authorities say Ihab Maslamani held a gun that may have been used in a murder to a customer's head during a holdup at the Flagstar Bank in Harrison Township. "It could be family situations, but I think in this area, a lot could be the economy," FBI Special Agent Sandra Berchtold said of what might motivate robbers. Authorities say the good news is that the number of bank, credit union and savings and loan association robberies logged by the FBI during the first six months of this year is down compared with the same period last year. Nationally, there have been 2,776 robberies reported through the end of June compared with 3,010 for the same period last year. In Michigan, there have been 79 robberies in the first half of this year compared with 130 during the first six months of 2008. The number of bank robberies logged by the FBI in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties also has been trending down. Authorities say the drop could be in part because of the arrest of serial robbing suspects like Alvin Murray, 52, who was known as the Heavy D Bandit and suspected of robbing or trying to rob almost a dozen metro Detroit banks in a two-month span last year. "I think some of those sprees definitely did some damage," Berchtold said. Yet authorities say they most fear a heist like the one in which Maslamani is accused of holding a gun to a customer's head during a bank robbery that occurred a day after police said he carjacked and killed Matt Landry of Chesterfield Township. A hostage situation during a bank holdup "would be the ultimate terror that we would very much like to avoid if at all possible," said Jason Korstange, director of corporate communications for TCF Bank. "It's just a bad deal all over." From tcod at hotmail.com Mon Sep 7 16:15:19 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 22:15:19 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <4AA55BA7.7010900@gmail.com> References: <2fa158550909052007l61dc4f7btab47f68ac8f0e96b@mail.gmail.com> <2fa158550909061448i4a99bdb7mbd6e5208d1122652@mail.gmail.com> <4AA55BA7.7010900@gmail.com> Message-ID: Yes, they openly and contemptuously repudiated "trotskyism" in favor of their version of "Guevaraism" The view you espouse I think was that of Nahuel Moreno and his faction of the PRT, a distinction the Wiki article on the PRT missed. > Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 16:14:47 -0300 > From: nmgoro at gmail.com > Subject: Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans > To: tcod at hotmail.com > > I have also sent long commentaries on ERP to the list, long years ago. > > In a nutshell, ERP was never "Trotskyist" in any serious sense. > _________________________________________________________________ With Windows Live, you can organize, edit, and share your photos. http://www.windowslive.com/Desktop/PhotoGallery From holmoff10 at hotmail.com Mon Sep 7 16:41:14 2009 From: holmoff10 at hotmail.com (Leonardo Kosloff) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 22:41:14 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: True enough. The way I started was stupidly insensitive, careless, perhaps I?m rubbing the crap from other lists, environments, etc., perhaps Louis, putting it in nationalists terms now, or at least those of my barrio, Saavedra, this is an all too common, but bad, habit for us Argentines, or porte?os, and you?re not used to it?yet. I?ve been reading Marxmail posts, wow can?t even remember, couple years maybe, and the posts in your blog too, which I found quite helpful, let it be said. But I had read some of N?stor?s posts before and even the differences you had with them, the reason I haven?t and am not able to be more ?active? is because?well, personal reasons of all sorts, studying, working, etc. etc., but I digress. I?ll try to make my views on the Universe a little clearer, evolving as they are, before we all die, but I can?t promise anything. I did say some if you plow thorugh my comments. Punching bag? No, I play futbol. N?stor, I?m not living in Argentina at the moment, but I go, was going, somewhat often, we?ll see about it then, I?ll try to read the books you?ve suggested. I?igo Carrera?s approach may be somewhat stale but: Si vogliamo che tutto rimanga come ?, bisogna che tutto cambi. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail? is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=PID23391::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HYGN_faster:082009 From christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at Mon Sep 7 16:50:46 2009 From: christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at (Christian Fuchs) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:50:46 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] CfP: Call for Chapter Abstracts for the Book "The Internet & Surveillance" Message-ID: <4AA58E46.4090508@sbg.ac.at> CfP: Call for Chapter Abstracts for the Book "The Internet & Surveillance" PDF version of CfP: http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/CfP_Internet_Surveillance.pdf Editors: Christian Fuchs, Kees Boersma, Anders Albrechtslund, Marisol Sandoval Supported by COST: European Cooperation in Science and Technology, COST Action Living in Surveillance Societies (LiSS, IS0807), Working Group 2: Surveillance Technologies in Practice Abstract submissions until October 15, 2009 (deadline) to christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at The overall aim of this collected volume is to bring together contributions that show how surveillance works on the Internet and which risks are connected to Internet surveillance in general and surveillance connected to "web 2.0" and "social software" in particular. The publication and publishing process is part of the COST Action "Living in Surveillance Societies" (LiSS) that is funded by the European Science Foundation (2009-2012, see http://w3.cost.esf.org/index.php?id=233&action_number=IS0807 for further information and details) and is a project by the LiSS working group "Surveillance Technologies in Practice". The editors are members of this working group. Routledge has expressed interest in publishing this volume. The collection of data for organizing bureaucratic and economic life is inherent in modern society. At the same time that privacy has been postulated as important value of modern society, privacy-threatening surveillance mechanisms have been structurally implemented and institutionalized in modern society. This collected volume explores perspectives on privacy, surveillance, and the privacy-surveillance-paradox in relation to the Internet. Background Many observers claim that the Internet has been transformed in the past years from a system that is primarily oriented on information provision into a system that is more oriented on communication and community building. The notions of "web 2.0", "social Software", and "social network(ing) sites" have emerged in this context. Web platforms such as Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Google, Blogger, Rapidshare, Wordpress, Hi5, Flickr, Photobucket, Orkut, Skyrock, Twitter, YouPorn, PornHub, Youku, Orkut, Redtube, Friendster, Adultfriendfinder, Megavideo, Tagged, Tube8, Mediafire, Megaupload, Mixi, Livejournal, LinkedIn, Netlog, ThePirateBay, Orkut, XVideos, Metacafe, Digg, StudiVZ, etc are said to be typical for this transformation of the Internet. No matter if we agree that important transformations of the Internet have taken place or not, it is clear that a principle that underlies such platforms is the massive provision and storage of personal data that are systematically evaluated, marketed, and used for targeting users with advertising. In a world of global economic competition, economic crisis, and fear of terrorism after 9/11, especially two kinds of actors are interested in accessing such personal data: corporations on the one hand and state institutions on the other hand. Will the Internet under the current societal conditions advance the intensification and extension of surveillance so that a coercive and totalitarian surveillance society that George Orwell would have only thought about in his worst dreams will emerge or not? Are there counter-tendencies? The contributions in this book deal with these topics by elaborating theoretical concepts and presenting the results of empirical case studies. We are especially interested in papers that do not primarily discuss single examples, but attempt to discuss Internet surveillance from a broad perspective that takes into account societal contexts or that embed examples or case studies into the discussion of societal contexts. Research Questions Chapters could for example relate to one or more of the following questions: * What is electronic surveillance? What are specific qualities of electronic surveillance on the Internet? How does Internet surveillance differ from other forms of surveillance? * Which theories do we need for thinking about Internet & surveillance? How important (or how outdated) are the thoughts by Michel Foucault and George Orwell for studying surveillance on the Internet? How suitable are the theories of thinkers like Max Weber, Karl Marx, Anthony Giddens, and others for the analysis and conceptualization of Internet surveillance? * What is the relationship of privacy and surveillance in respect to the Internet? * What is privacy, how should it be defined, and how does it change in the age of the Internet? * Is Internet surveillance a form of "new surveillance" (Gary Marx)? What are the differences and commonalities between Internet surveillance and concepts such as computer surveillance, dataveillance (Roger Clarke), the electronic panopticon (Mark Poster), electronic surveillance (David Lyon), the panoptic sort (Oscar H. Gandy), social Taylorism of surveillance (Frank Webster, Kevin Robins), or the synopticon (Thomas Mathiesen)? * What are the normative and ethical implications of Internet & surveillance? * What is a surveillance society and what is the role of the Internet in surveillance society? Should the notions of surveillance and surveillance society be used as general, neutral terms or as negative terms? What are the implications of certain definitions of surveillance and surveillance society for studying the Internet? * What does it mean to study Internet & surveillance critically? What is a critical theory of Internet surveillance, what are critical studies of Internet & surveillance? What are the ontological, epistemological, methodological, and axiological dimensions of such studies? * What are central aspects of the political economy of surveillance on the Internet? * What is the role of surveillance for "web 2.0" and "social software"? How is surveillance connected with mass self-communication and communication power/counter-power (Manuel Castells) in web 2.0? * What is the role of surveillance on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook? * How is surveillance used in the Internet economy? What problems are connected to surveillance in the Internet economy? What is the role of surveillance for Internet business models? * How does targeted advertising work as economic mechanism for generating profit? What are the problems that are connected to it? * Presentation and generalization of case studies about how specific Internet platforms (Google, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc) or applications use surveillance and about the connected problems and threats. * How are terms of use and privacy terms designed by Internet corporations in order to enable surveillance? What are the problems and societal implications connected to such practices? * How has surveillance on the Internet changed after 9/11? * Which different legal frameworks for surveillance on the Internet are there (international comparison) and how have they changed after 9/11? * What are the major threats and problems of surveillance on the Internet? * What is to be done in order to solve the problems that are connected to surveillance on the Internet? What is the role of information policies, data protection, governments, governance, civil society, and social movements in this respect? * How do social movements and groups that struggle against the establishment of a "maximum surveillance society" (Clive Norris and Gary Armstrong) make use of the Internet for cyberprotest and cyberactivism? * How do Internet & society have to be designed in order to avoid the emergence of a total surveillance society? Which alternative design principles for Internet & society are needed in this context? What is the role of privacy-enhancing Internet technologies in this context? * Which Internet surveillance technologies are there and how can they be systematically classified? * What is the role of surveillance and surveillance technologies in Internet-based eGovernment and eGovernance? Submission of Structured Abstracts: Please submit structured abstracts for chapter proposals, short author biography/biographies, and your contact details (in a word document) until October 15th, 2009 to Christian Fuchs by email: christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at. The editors are interested in abstracts for original, unpublished contributions that have not been submitted for consideration in journals or other publications. The abstracts should adhere to the following structured format and should have approximately 650-900 words. (1) Purpose What are the reasons for writing this chapter? Why is the topic important? What are the aims of research? What are the research questions? (2) Approach/Theoretical framework/Design/Methodology How are the objectives achieved? Include the main method(s) used for the research [theory construction is also considered as a method in this context]. What is the approach to the topic and what is the theoretical or subject scope of the paper? (3) Findings What was found in the course of the work? What are the main results presented in the chapter? This will refer to analysis, discussion, or results. (4) Research limitations/implications (if applicable) Suggestions for future research and any identified limitations in the research process. Implications for academic fields, disciplines, state of the art. (4) Practical and societal implications (if applicable) What outcomes and implications for practice, applications and consequences are identified? How will the research impact upon society? How will it influence public attitudes? How could it inform civil society or public or industry policy? What changes to human practices should be made as a result of this research? How might it affect quality of life? Not all chapters must necessarily have practical and societal implications. (5) Originality/value What is new in the paper? How does it differ from and go beyond the state of the art in respective research fields? State the value of the paper and for whom it is relevant. Author short biographies should be approximately 200-300 words and contain information on academic position, institutional affiliation, research interests and topics, major publications, projects, networks, affiliations, roles, etc. Time Schedule October 15, 2009: deadline for the submission of structured abstracts of chapter proposals End of October 2009: notification of authors on acceptance/decline of proposals; submission of the overall proposal, abstracts, author data to Routledge End of November 2009: decision on publication by the publisher End of September 2010: deadline for the submission of full chapters (further details will be announced) End of November 2010: feedback of review comments to the authors End of December 2010: submission of final versions of chapters January 2011: submission of final manuscript to the publisher About the Editors Christian Fuchs is associate professor for ICTs and society at the University of Salzburg, Austria. He is management committee member of the ESF COST Action "Living in Surveillance Society" (LiSS) and member of the LiSS working group "Surveillance Technologies in Practice". Kees Boersma is associate professor for science and technology studies at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is leader of the working group "Surveillance Technologies in Practice" and management committee member of the ESF Cost Action "Living in Surveillance Societies". Anders Albrechtslund is assistant professor for surveillance and ethics at Aalborg University, Denmark. He is management committee member of the ESF Cost Action "Living in Surveillance Societies" and member of the LiSS working group "Surveillance Technologies in Practice". Marisol Sandoval is research associate at the University of Salzburg, Austria. She is member of the working group "Surveillance Technologies in Practice" of the ESF Cost Action "Living in Surveillance Societies". - - - Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Fuchs Associate Professor Unified Theory of Information Research Group ICT&S Center University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 Personal Website: http://fuchs.uti.at Research Group: http;//www.uti.at Editor of tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-Operation | Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society http://www.triple-c.at Fuchs, Christian. 2008. Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge. http://fuchs.uti.at/?page_id=40 From jayroth6 at cox.net Mon Sep 7 17:11:49 2009 From: jayroth6 at cox.net (J Rothermel) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 19:11:49 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] 679,000 homeless students Message-ID: <4AA59335.1020309@cox.net> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/education/06homeless.html?_r=1 excerpt: "There were 679,000 homeless students reported in 2006-7, a total that surpassed one million by last spring, " ASHEVILLE, N.C. ? In the small trailer her family rented over the summer, 9-year-old Charity Crowell picked out the green and purple outfit she would wear on the first day of school. She vowed to try harder and bring her grades back up from the C?s she got last spring ? a dismal semester when her parents lost their jobs and car and the family was evicted and migrated through friends? houses and a motel. Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times Katrina Crowell and her children, Charity Crowell and Elijah Carrington, who were homeless for part of the last school year. More Photos > Charity is one child in a national surge of homeless schoolchildren that is driven by relentless unemployment and foreclosures. The rise, to more than one million students without stable housing by last spring, has tested budget-battered school districts as they try to carry out their responsibilities ? and the federal mandate ? to salvage education for children whose lives are filled with insecurity and turmoil. The instability can be ruinous to schooling, educators say, adding multiple moves and lost class time to the inherent distress of homelessness. And so in accord with federal law, the Buncombe County district , where Charity attends, provides special bus service to shelters, motels, doubled-up houses, trailer parks and RV campgrounds to help children stay in their familiar schools as the families move about. Still, Charity said of her last semester, ?I couldn?t go to sleep, I was worried about all the stuff,? and she often nodded off in class. Charity and her brother, Elijah Carrington, 6, were among 239 children from homeless families in her district as of last June, an increase of 80 percent over the year before, with indications this semester that as many or more will be enrolled in the months ahead. While current national data are not available, the number of schoolchildren in homeless families appears to have risen by 75 percent to 100 percent in many districts over the last two years, according to Barbara Duffield, policy director of the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth , an advocacy group. There were 679,000 homeless students reported in 2006-7, a total that surpassed one million by last spring, Ms. Duffield said. From pt_costello at yahoo.com Mon Sep 7 18:02:10 2009 From: pt_costello at yahoo.com (Pat Costello) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:02:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism] Establishing a maximum wage Message-ID: <364504.70472.qm@web63106.mail.re1.yahoo.com> The Most Promising Push Yet for a Maximum Wage August 23rd, 2009 Across the pond, in the UK, the idea of capping income is suddenly starting to make a respectable splash. By Sam Pizzigati The Great Depression gave us the minimum wage. Might we now see a ?maximum wage,? thanks to the Great Recession? That prospect now seems to have entered into the realm of political possibility. Last week, in a top British daily, 100 progressive luminaries published an open letter that has shoved the notion of a maximum wage onto the global public policy radar screen. These 100 leaders ? a group that included nationally known members of Parliament, Britain?s top labor union official, scholars, journalists, and widely respected human rights activists ? called on the UK government to ?take the moral lead? and establish a ?High Pay Commission? to end the ?unjust rewards? still relentlessly cascading into the pockets of Britain?s financial and corporate elite. ?Banking and executive remuneration packages have reached excessive levels,? read the open letter. ?We believe now is the time for government to take decisive action.? What sort of action? The High Pay Commission, the letter urged, ?should consider proposals to restrict excessive remuneration? via ?maximum wage ratios and bonus taxation.? In Britain, as in the United States, billions in taxpayer dollars have gone to bail out banks whose top executives recklessly drove their enterprises straight into the ditch as they chased after personal pay windfalls. Those same banks, buoyed up by bailout subsidies, are now restuffing power-suit pockets. Virtually every leading politician in the UK is ?talking tough? against this new bonus binge. But in Britain, again as in the United States, the tough talk has generated little action. Earlier this month, for instance, Britain?s top bank regulator backed down on bonus restrictions announced this past February. The original rules would have mandated banks to defer two-thirds of all bonus outlays for three years. The new rules redefine that mandate into a ?guidance? banks can park in some obscure file cabinet and ignore. This continuing failure to challenge rewards at the top can only spell trouble, notes the organizer of last week?s call for a High Pay Commission. ?I think all of us understand that greed and excess fueled the economic crisis and brought down the whole economy,? explained Gavin Hayes, the general secretary of the London-based Compass think tank, on a BBC national broadcast. ?Now is the right moment to rein in high pay. Otherwise months, years down the line, we could end up having another crash.?.... full article: http://extremeinequality.org/?p=181 From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 19:16:57 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:16:57 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans Message-ID: <4AA5B089.7040007@gmail.com> I appreciate Nestor's take on the ERP. First time I read anything he wrote on this. Santucho...any SWPers here remember if he was the guy who showed up at the SWP convention in 1973? At least he was NY I think. Very 'hush hush' and all that. I agree about the ERP's Trotskyism. It was "episodic" and but they certainly were not "anti-Trotskyist". They view the world revolution in terms of unity of the all the radical workers states: Cuba, N. Korea, Vietnam and the armed left in Latin America and South America and the 4th International in new sort of "5th International" opposed to Russian style communism. We have much of their writings translated into English if anyone wants to read them. They are quite fascinating to get a handle on how the politics of their...revolutionary will...manifested their POV on paper. It's our "Trotskyism and Armed Struggle" section of the ETOL: http://marxists.org/history/etol/document/argentina/prt/index.htm David From dmozart1756 at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 19:24:49 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 21:24:49 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Chomsky meets with Chavez in Venezuela In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53a1ffe70909071824l3a32a550ie4b5d72b30471d90@mail.gmail.com> > > > By Venezuelanalysis.com - Friday, 04 September 2009 > > < > http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/noam_chomsky_meets_with_chavez_in_venezuela.htm> > > > > M?rida, August 27th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- U.S. author, dissident > intellectual, and Professor of Linguistics at the Massachussetts Institute > of Technology Noam Chomsky met for the first time with Venezuelan President > Hugo Chavez in Caracas and analyzed hemispheric politics during a nationally > televised forum on Monday. > > Chomsky is well known in Venezuela for his critiques of U.S. imperialism > and support for the progressive political changes underway in Venezuela and > other Latin American countries in recent years. President Chavez regularly > references Chomsky in speeches and makes widely publicized recommendations > of Chomsky's 2003 book, *Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global > Dominance*. > > "Hegemony or survival; we opt for survival," said Chavez in a press > conference to welcome Chomsky. He compared Chomsky's thesis to that of > German socialist Rosa Luxemburg in the early 1900s, "Socialism or > Barbarism," and referred to Chomsky as "one of the greatest defenders of > peace, one of the greatest pioneers of a better world." > > Through an interpreter, Chomsky responded, "I write about peace and > criticize the barriers to peace; that's easy. What's harder is to create a > better world... and what's so exciting about at last visiting Venezuela is > that I can see how a better world is being created." > > During Monday's forum, which was broadcast on the state television station > VTV, Chomsky pointed out that the ongoing coup in Honduras, which began on > June 28th, is the third coup the United States has supported in Latin > America so far this century, following the coup against Chavez in 2002 and > Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. > > The nearly finalized deal to allow the U.S. to increase its military > presence on Colombian bases "is only part of a much broader effort to > restore Washington's capacity for intervention," said Chomsky. > > According to Chomsky, the region has the capacity to unite and form a > "peace zone" in which foreign militaries are forbidden to operate. > "Venezuela can help to advance this proposal, but it cannot do it alone," he > said. > > "The transformations that Venezuela is making toward the creation of > another socio-economic model could have a global impact if these projects > are successfully carried out," said the renowned author. > > Aporrea.org, a popular Venezuelan news and pro-revolution analysis website, > described Chomsky as oriented toward "libertarian socialism" and "vehemently > anti-Stalinist" in an introduction to a recent interview in which Chomsky > said U.S. President Barack Obama's foreign policy will be similar to that of > the second administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush. > > Chomsky addressed this issue during Monday's conference as well, commenting > that Obama "could have much to offer Latin America if he wanted to, but > hasn't given any signals that he does." He cited the U.S.'s indecisive > posture toward the coup in Honduras as evidence. > > Chomsky also addressed the media and freedom of expression in the U.S. "In > the United States the socio-economic system is designed so that the control > over the media is in the hands of a minority who own large corporations... > and the result is that the financial interests of those groups are always > behind the so-called freedom of expression," he said. > > Chomsky said the growing disappointment with the Obama administration in > the U.S. was predictable because the corporate media marketed Obama's > presidential candidacy on the slogan of "Change We Can Believe In" but > omitted concrete proposals for effective changes, and the Obama > administration has since shown an incapacity to institute such changes. > > Chomsky was accompanied in Caracas by the co-founder of South End Press and > ZMagazine and system operator of ZCom, Michael Albert, and the co-founder > and editor of Venezuelanalysis.com, sociologist Gregory Wilpert. > > FOR VIDEO FOOTAGE CHECK; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPVfRdLez4I > > > > The late Brazilian bishop Dom H?lder C?mara said it well: ?When I give food > to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, > they call me a Communist.? > > ------------------------------ > From jayroth6 at cox.net Mon Sep 7 20:39:00 2009 From: jayroth6 at cox.net (J Rothermel) Date: Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:39:00 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] PBS "History Detectives" Scottsboro Nine, ILD, James P. Cannon Message-ID: <4AA5C3C4.4010902@cox.net> Check your listings. Very good. http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/ http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigations/711_scottsboro.html ?SCOTTSBORO BOYS? STAMP AIRING: Season 7, Episode 11 THE DETECTIVE: Gwen Wright THE PLACE: Scottsboro, Alabama THE CASE: What is the connection between an inconspicuous black and white stamp purchased at an outdoor market and a landmark civil rights case? ?Save the Scottsboro Boys? is printed on the stamp above nine black faces behind prison bars and two arms prying the bars apart. One arm bears the tattoo ?ILD.? On the bottom of the stamp is printed ?one cent.? The Scottsboro Boys were falsely accused and convicted of raping two white girls in 1931 on a train near Scottsboro, Alabama. It took several appeals, two cases before the US Supreme Court, and nearly two decades before all nine finally walked free. *History Detectives* delves into civil rights history and consults with a stamp expert to discover how a tiny penny stamp could make a difference in the young men?s courageous defense effort. From glparramatta at greenleft.org.au Mon Sep 7 20:52:39 2009 From: glparramatta at greenleft.org.au (glparramatta) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:52:39 +1000 Subject: [Marxism] Paul Robeson: `The artist must elect to fight for freedom or slavery' | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal Message-ID: <4AA5C6F7.2010503@greenleft.org.au> By *Harry Targ* On September 4, 1949, an angry crowd surrounded the 20,000 friends of Paul Robeson who had come to hear him in an open-air concert at Peekskill, New York. After the event right-wing, anti-communist inspired mobs attacked supporters who were leaving the event. These attacks included smashing the windows of Pete Seeger?s automobile with several family members inside. Sixty years later we remember the great progressive Paul Robeson, his struggles for justice, and his refusal to bow to the politics of reaction. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1234 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 dmozart1756 at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 21:04:22 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 23:04:22 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] food for thought - Drugs and Social Progress Since the Greeks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53a1ffe70909072004r6ebfa0dnfd7d32366e6cb32b@mail.gmail.com> > > > > > The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization, 101 > > by Christy Rodgers / September 1st, 2009 > > clip -- > > Last year, a disenchanted classics major named D.C.A. Hillman published a > book called *The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western > Civilization*. It was his revenge on the academic community that had > censored his thesis, forcing him to remove the section dealing with > recreational drug use in Greek and Roman times in order to graduate. > > It?s a short but pithy book, aimed at the hypocrisy of the modern U.S. > stance on (some) drugs as much as at the stuffy classicists who maintained, > in the face of reams of textual evidence, according to Hillman, that ?[the > Romans] just wouldn?t do such a thing.? I?m not a classicist, but Hillman > doesn?t have to work very hard to convince me that Rome?s pleasure-seekers > didn?t just drink lots and lots of wine in those saturnalian romps of > theirs. > > *The Chemical Muse* is a brief overview of the evidence that the ancient > Greeks and Romans were both aware and tolerant of the use of psychoactive > substances: opiates, cannabis and other plant-based drugs, while they > simultaneously warned of the dangers of ?poisoning? (what we would refer to > as overdose) and prescribed precautionary remedies for it. In fact, > according to Hillman, the only aspect of drug use that was criminal in these > societies was the intentional poisoning of another person with a drug. > > Hillman is mostly interested in presenting his case from a civil > libertarian standpoint; since our own imperfect understanding of civil > liberties is largely derived from Classical society via the Enlightenment, > he wonders how we can have descended to a position so much less enlightened > in this regard than our primitive forebears in the ancient world. > > But in his defense of Greek and Roman recreational drug use, Hillman barely > touches on what is to me, the heart of the matter: drugs may have stimulated > the very visions and insights that gave early poets and philosophers levels > of understanding that Western civilization has built on ever since, while > systematically purging the parts of those understandings that didn?t gibe > with any practice not useful to refining social control and/or increasing > the production of profit. Hillman does make note of the pre-Socratics, chief > among them Pythagoras and Empedocles, for whom mysticism and rigorous > investigation of the natural world were no contradiction. He says: ?the > roots of Western philosophy reach deep into the fertile soil of the human > imagination, where shamanism, divination, and narcotic experiences have held > sway for thousands of years.? While this idea alone could easily be the > subject of a book, Hillman is more interested in documenting classical > references to drug use than to linking it to the production of important > concepts and archetypes, from mathematics to theology. > > full -- < > http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/09/drugs-and-social-progress-since-the-greeks/ > > > > > > > > The late Brazilian bishop Dom H?lder C?mara said it well: ?When I give food > to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, > they call me a Communist.? > > ------------------------------ > From nmgoro at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 21:15:19 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:15:19 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: <2fa158550909052007l61dc4f7btab47f68ac8f0e96b@mail.gmail.com> <2fa158550909061448i4a99bdb7mbd6e5208d1122652@mail.gmail.com> <4AA55BA7.7010900@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA5CC47.4@gmail.com> No, my view is not exactly that of Moreno. However, maybe you refer to the dispute between the PRT and PST of those times on electoral tactics, etc. Tom Cod escribi?: > Yes, they openly and contemptuously repudiated "trotskyism" in favor of their version of "Guevaraism" The view you espouse I think was that of Nahuel Moreno and his faction of the PRT, a distinction the Wiki article on the PRT missed. > >> Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 16:14:47 -0300 >> From: nmgoro en gmail.com >> Subject: Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans >> To: tcod en hotmail.com >> >> I have also sent long commentaries on ERP to the list, long years ago. >> >> In a nutshell, ERP was never "Trotskyist" in any serious sense. From dmozart1756 at gmail.com Mon Sep 7 21:42:12 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 23:42:12 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] The Organ Theft Affair Message-ID: <53a1ffe70909072042v4f2621b4r408519030243a162@mail.gmail.com> > > > Now Israelis Are Boycotting IKEA? > > by Kristoffer Larsson / August 27th, 2009 > http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/08/the-organ-theft-affair/ > > > > > > ------------------------------ > From sabocat59 at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 02:51:21 2009 From: sabocat59 at gmail.com (Greg McDonald) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 04:51:21 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Colombia Appeal Message-ID: <6e42edf00909080151j62dbd3j67bafe1ab2355e65@mail.gmail.com> PLEASE circulate this message widely We are re-sending this urgent request to contact your members of the House of Representatives to urge them to co-sign the following letter initiated by our Congresswoman, Tammy Baldwin : http://colombiasupport.net/2009/Baldwin-on-Bases9-3-09.pdf See the Action Center at our site: http://www.colombiasupport.net/actioncenter.html . AND ALSO Please write to Senator John Kerry (D) Massachusetts, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asking him to hold a public hearing regarding the military base negotiations between the Pentagon and the Colombian government. Senator Kerry can be contacted via Emily_barnes at foreign.senate.gov Write to Representative David Obey (D) Wisconsin, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, urging him to evaluate the decision to continue financing the war in Colombia. Representative Obey can be contacted via steve.marchese at mail.house.gov For background information regarding this issue please visit: http://colombiasupport.net/2009/background-on-military-bases-en.html Colombia Support Network P.O. Box 1505 Madison, WI 53701-1505 phone: (608) 257-8753 fax: (608) 255-6621 e-mail: csn at igc.org http://www.colombiasupport.net From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Sep 8 07:57:15 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 09:57:15 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] For those Interested, and in the NYC area Message-ID: <82E5351E86CE401BBE47DE246BE33415@dmsthinkpad> FALL-SPRING STUDY GROUP ON CAPITALIST CRISIS Following our (just concluded) summer class, Howie Seligman and I will again be doing a study group in the New York City area on Marxian theory and the current crisis. If you are interested, read on. All applicants welcome. TENTATIVE PLAN Loren Goldner and Howie Seligman will be organizing a study group, starting in October, for New York City-area people on Marx's Capital (and other writings), linking Marx's critique of political economy to the current crisis of the world capitalist system. The group will meet twice a month (day to be determined, based on people's availability), through May-June of next year, in a convenient Manhattan location (to be determined). Space will determine the number of participants, but we aim for between 10 and 25 participants, depending on interest. If you wish to participate, please contact Loren Goldner asap at lrgoldner at yahoo.com Participants should be committed to regular attendance and to keeping up with 50-100 pages of reading per meeting. Barring a need to change venues, the class will be free of charge, except for occasional contributions for photocopy expenses, refreshments, etc. Readings will consist of selections from Marx's Capital, and articles (to be decided in consultation with the group) on contemporary developments. The events of the past two years in particular have re-awakened a serious interest in both Marx's critique of political economy and in "current events" in the world economy. Goldner and Seligman will cooperate in putting the crisis into a Marxian theoretical perspective (Goldner), as well as providing insight into the more technical side of world market meltdown (CDO's, hedge funds, Ponzi schemes, etc.) (Seligman). The approach will not be merely "economic" (the Marxian CRITIQUE of political economy is not another variant of "economics") but will elucidate the impact of the crisis on ordinary working people, on developing actions against capitalist austerity in the US and around the world, and on the solution: abolition of the capitalist mode of production. If successful, the study group will continue through May-June 2010. In order to put together a viable group, we would like interested people to write something brief (200-300 words) about their background, the level of their knowledge of Marx and of the world economy, where they are coming from politically, and anything else they might consider relevant. We are oriented above all to educating present and future activists, and will give such people priority in participation. We also hope to have a predominance of young people who are new, or relatively new, to Capital and Marxist theory generally, but that will of course be determined by the response. Loren Goldner is a long-term independent writer and political activist. His work is available on the Break Their Haughty Power web site at http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner He has spent much of the past four years in South Korea, involved in the workers' movement there. Howie Seligman recently taught a course on Taxation and Finance at the NEW SPACE in New York City. Here is the course description and a biography. Taxation and Finance Howard F. Seligman The course will begin with a brief tutorial on conventional accounting, bookkeeping and financial theory. This will involve some hands on practical training, although the main emphasis will be on the history of the evolution of the theory from its original conception to the current methodologies. This will be followed by an examination of basic economics (price theory) and its use and abuse of (accounting/finance) statistics. Again, the history of the theory from its roots in philosophy and the social sciences to its current state of being applied mathematical models will be scrutinized. We will then survey the U.S. Income Tax System beginning with its history and moving on to its current state (of change) today. The focus will be on the behavioral implications of changes in the tax code and alternate systems being used in other countries (and being proposed by Congress today.) Applying the building blocks of finance and taxation, we will then look at the American financial markets and the culture of the corporation. Particular attention will be paid to 'Wall Street' and the 'entertainment industry' due to their growing influence in our everyday lives via the 'information society.' Emphasis will be placed on economic and non-economic forces that drive the markets and facilitate manipulation by the use of abstract numerical concepts. Finally, the natural symbiosis of private industry and governments will be the subject of specific anecdotes and case studies. No requirements other than potential enthusiasm/interest. Howard F. Seligman has been a self employed financial and tax consultant since 1984. Howard's practice specializes in the arts and entertainment fields, and he serves as the treasurer to more than fifteen arts and cultural organizations. Howard has taught accounting and finance at The Pratt Institute. His hobbies include playing Howie Solo, a singer and stand up comedian who can host your local fundraising event. He is currently researching a book on the history of the Jewish gangster in America. You can also see Howie in action at www.blip.tv search HOWIE SOLO From markalause at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 08:13:31 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 10:13:31 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] For those Interested, and in the NYC area In-Reply-To: <82E5351E86CE401BBE47DE246BE33415@dmsthinkpad> References: <82E5351E86CE401BBE47DE246BE33415@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: This looks like an excellent opportunity not only to study something important but for members of the list in the area to have a chance to discuss these things face to face. ML From markalause at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 08:18:20 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 10:18:20 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] technical...seeking space for website Message-ID: For about 14 years, I've maintained a website at Geocities, which has since been taken by Yahoo, which has not decided to close it down. I've migrated to Webring, which advertised a great deal to get people from geocities to come over. However, it has less tech support than the my cable TV company and the site is utterly unhelpful about what I want to do with it... I'm not concerned about online communities, linking to friends, posting pictures of my cat and linking them to pictures of other cats, etc... Any suggestions here for free web space friendly to iconoclastic politics? ML From sartesian at earthlink.net Tue Sep 8 08:21:03 2009 From: sartesian at earthlink.net (S. Artesian) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 10:21:03 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans References: <4AA547F9.4020704@panix.com> Message-ID: <95970A0BDBC348F297150CDA6BB38961@dmsthinkpad> Really? How important was it? Correa has been quite forceful, physically, in his rejection of the indigenous peoples' protest, led by CONAIE, against the mineral and mining law that declares minerals to be a public utility [thus giving mining something like eminant domain, and priority claims to water and land over communities], but a field for private development. Canada his excavated an open pit copper mine in Ecuador's Amazon region, which has become the target of further protests. To counter that resistance, Correa has invited the Canadians to demonstrate their sterling record of respect for indigenous cultures to the Ecuadorean people, stating: ""[Canada] has understood how to respect and benefit its ancestral peoples," said Correa during a national radio address. The first people to benefit in Canada from mining, he added, "are the ancestral peoples." I am not making this up. You can read more and Upside Down World. http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1871/49/ Taking the side of the people against imperialism-- when he is following the recommendations of the imperialists to substitue mining for oil drilling? No we shouldn't sneer at victories, nor should we disguise capitulation, betrayal as a victory. The wages of "nationalism" are nothing but surplus value to line the pockets of imperialism. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Louis Proyect" To: "David Schanoes" Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 1:50 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans > > After I saw "Crude", the movie about the legal case being pursued in > Ecuador against Chevron, I was struck by how important the election of > Rafael Correa was to indigenous peoples. Here was a president who was > willing to take the side of the people against imperialism, despite his > failure to live up to Lenin's example. In Latin America, such presidents > are products of the class struggle. When Indians fight for their rights, > the election of a Morales or a Correa is a victory. We should not sneer > at these victories. From acpollack2 at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 08:27:30 2009 From: acpollack2 at gmail.com (Andrew Pollack) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 10:27:30 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, and Green Technology In-Reply-To: <4AA3245F.9070900@ecst.csuchico.edu> References: <4AA3245F.9070900@ecst.csuchico.edu> Message-ID: <2fa1449b0909080727s633d8f09q2e8002aeeddff7b8@mail.gmail.com> Earlier in this thread someone said: "Another claim I hear a lot is that the war in the Congo is driven by minerals, which I don't deny..." ... and then refuted a more specific claim about a particular mineral. As far as I know this is the only time Africa was mentioned in this thread (I've admittedly only skimmed it). But it's enough of a hook to ask for others' opinions about a book review in the latest Against the Current on the war in the Congo: http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/2377 ... which argues that claims that the conflict was fueled by Western imperialist interests in the region's resources are "bunk" and that it is rather down to intra-African imperialism. I'm inclined to disbelieve this (I'm more inclined to believe the latter was fueled by the former), but haven't followed the conflict closely enough to say. From tcod at hotmail.com Tue Sep 8 08:54:04 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 14:54:04 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <4AA5B089.7040007@gmail.com> References: <4AA5B089.7040007@gmail.com> Message-ID: The only person I remember from Argentina at that convention was a representative of the Moreno group. Certainly Santucho did not show up as by that point they had launched armed struggle, something they formally announced at an armed press conference in the wake of the right-wing massacre that occurred on the occasion of Peron's return in 73 with Santucho having been quoted as saying among other things, "civil war has begun". Moreover, there is no way that any representative of that group would have shown up at the convention as they had already openly split with the Fourth International and "trotskyism" which they denounced as as an organization composed of opportunists and people who they denounced as outright CIA stooges and weren't about to subject their actions to any "discussion" with those people. I don't agree with that but that was their view which Santucho described as being inspired by Cuba, China and yes, Kim Il Sung. documents of the PRT-C were published for that convention ("El Unico Camino"-"The only road to workers power and socialism"), but for educational purposes for those within the FI that thought some were *apologizing* for them and still advocating a similar line, which some were. Thus any representative from any hush hush group was from some wannabe sect that admired them. No, they may not have been hostile to trotskyism in its essence, but they were hostile to "trotskyism" or "trotskyite sectarianism" if you know what I mean. I think workers world has a similar attitude in that regard, which I agree with in large measure and which the SWP to some extent officially adopted as part of its turn in 1983 eschew trotskyist for "communist". Seems I read somewhere that as a young man Santucho toured the American South in the 1950s, similar to the way Che traveled around S. America in the motorcycle diaries, although not on a motorcycle. _________________________________________________________________ Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB_BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1 From tcod at hotmail.com Tue Sep 8 08:58:35 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 14:58:35 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <4AA5CC47.4@gmail.com> References: <2fa158550909052007l61dc4f7btab47f68ac8f0e96b@mail.gmail.com> <2fa158550909061448i4a99bdb7mbd6e5208d1122652@mail.gmail.com> <4AA55BA7.7010900@gmail.com> <4AA5CC47.4@gmail.com> Message-ID: Exactly. The PRT denounced Moreno as Menshevik, but I think it's clear that all issues of armed self defense aside, that the ERP had gone over into reckless adventurism that was not only self-defeating but played into the hands of the military who used it to justify the Dirty War with devastating consequences for the left and society as a whole. > No, my view is not exactly that of Moreno. However, maybe you refer to > the dispute between the PRT and PST of those times on electoral tactics, > etc. > _________________________________________________________________ Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB_BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1 From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Sep 8 09:02:53 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:02:53 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Michael Yates book review Message-ID: <4AA6721D.80602@panix.com> In These Times Culture ? September 7, 2009 ? Web Only In and Out of the Working Class Radical economist and labor educator Michael Yates moves beyond the classroom to examine?with striking honesty?his own life. By Seth Sandronsky For decades, Michael Yates has been challenging and critiquing capitalism in books, articles and classrooms. But Yates?radical political economist, associate editor of The Monthly Review and author of Why Unions Matter and Naming the System: Inequality and Work in the Global Economy, among other books?has never delved into the politics of his own past. Until, that is, Yates wrote In and Out of the Working Class (Arbeiter Ring Publishing), published earlier this year. In this new book, Yates, 63, writes in the tradition of Douglas Dowd, a radical political economist whose Blues for America: a Critique, a Lament, and Some Memories, spans most of the 20th century. Yates? arc is the post-W.W.II era: his youth, adolescence and adulthood. In fiction, non-fiction and ?creative non-fiction,? Yates writes of laboring people such as himself immersed in everyday life, in households, schools and workplaces. Two pieces of fiction book-end the volume: A male youth wrestles with the siren call of gambling in the opening ?The Year of the Strike,? while ?A Lucky Man? closes the collection with a portrayal of an adult blue-collar worker seeking his fortune at the race track. Together, the two stories poignantly illustrate the risk-taking character of working-class life, where the wagering of resources offers a measure of relief. But it is always back to work, in all its cold realities. In and Out of the Working Class? (explicitly) autobiographical essays begin in Yates? working-class community of Ford City, in western Pennsylvania, where a plate glass factory offered union employment to the Yates family. Class intersects with gender and race during Yates? adolescence in the 1950s, when labor unions were strong enough to improve working people?s living standards. He paints realistic and sympathetic portraits of his family, foes and friends in these coming-of-age pieces. Yates is strikingly honest about performing in a minstrel show as a young teen. Under a teacher?s direction, Yates and his caucasian male classmates blacken their faces and mock African-Americans in dress and speech. ?Racism was such a fact of life that it was taken for granted,? he writes. Despite?or perhaps because of?the fact he grew up in a place far short of racial justice, Yates becomes a warrior in the fight against skin-color and gender prejudice. A logical growth of Yates? dissent is his involvement with minority Americans enmeshed in the huge U.S. prison-industrial system. His essay on teaching in prisons offers illuminating views of his locked-down students, who have a strong desire for education. Yates learns with and from them. Though Yates moved beyond his first job as a factory laborer to become a professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, he never forgets his roots. He moves up and out, but not away, from the consciousness of people who labor for a living. Crucially, In and Out of the Working Class never sugarcoats the working class, even as Yates highlights a social and economic system that spawns their alienation and exploitation. This is a major theme of his book, a recurrent problem that Yates deals with by supporting and forming bonds of solidarity with labor unions. As an activist academic, he does just that, helping low-wage service workers on campus to form a union. At one point in the late 1970s, Yates is the United Farm Workers? lead researcher. Oppressed farm workers and their allies forge first-ever contracts with growers and packers, but tragically, their gains are rolled back over time. Yates unpacks the harsh realities of such lessons and brings fresh viewpoints to the farm workers? movement. Hint: one legendary idol has clay feet. Yates writes movingly of hometown friends back from the jungles of southeast Asia as shattered shells of their former selves. This gut-punch to his senses deepened Yates? distaste for the status quo of capitalism, racism and sexism. As the black freedom and anti-Vietnam War movements grew during the 1960s, he dives into radical economic theory?including Karl Marx?s critique of capitalist production?and never looks back. As inequality rages in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, his political economy courses become less popular with his working-class students, which alienates him. Eventually, after beginning to write books and educate union workers, Yates leaves academe disillusioned. Does his journey of activism and criticism end? Not a chance. What he does next?travel the country with his wife for six years while at times taking menial jobs to understand life in America?is further proof that Yates is one of the most unusual and uncompromising political observers of our time. In and Out of the Working Class is a great addition to his already impressive ouevre. Seth Sandronsky is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Race and Class, Review of Radical Political Economics, Sacramento News & Review and Z Magazine, among other publications. He lives and writes in Sacramento, Calif., and can be reached at ssandronsky at yahoo.com. From nmgoro at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 09:37:33 2009 From: nmgoro at gmail.com (Nestor Gorojovsky) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:37:33 -0300 Subject: [Marxism] Left and right in Argentina, 1960s and 70s Re: Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: References: <2fa158550909052007l61dc4f7btab47f68ac8f0e96b@mail.gmail.com> <2fa158550909061448i4a99bdb7mbd6e5208d1122652@mail.gmail.com> <4AA55BA7.7010900@gmail.com> <4AA5CC47.4@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA67A3D.9040701@gmail.com> Tom Cod escribi?: > Exactly. The PRT denounced Moreno as Menshevik, but I think it's > clear that all issues of armed self defense aside, that the ERP had > gone over into reckless adventurism that was not only self-defeating > but played into the hands of the military who used it to justify the > Dirty War with devastating consequences for the left and society as a > whole. All forms of what I now call "armed substitutism" have the same consequence. The PRT, at least, were consequent to the end. Which has to be said on their behalf. But they, and the "Peronist" groups that espoused similar tactics (though this is more complex, since Peronist resistence against the 1955 coup and its aftermath had created a "resistence" myth of its own), in the end played into the hands not of the military (because the Armed Forces were divided on the issue of imperialism, and the action of these groups tended to push them back to unity under the proimperialist command) but of the oligarchic-imperialist establishment. By the way, and without any intention to be rude again, the last part of the last sentence implies, as a point of departure, that not every cat is brown in the (all capitalist, granted) ruling classes in Argentina. People who in abstract believe that every capitalist ruling class is a bourgeoisie (in classical terms) miss these minutiae that can throw a country like mine into hell. Now, this accepted, how can you or anyone suppose these formations were "to the Left" of Per?n? They certainly were not. Which does not imply that Per?n was a socialist, nor that the relative political and moral standing of both ERP or MOntoneros on one hand, and the pro-oligarchic military, on the other, allow to equate them as "two demons". From acpollack2 at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 09:48:07 2009 From: acpollack2 at gmail.com (Andrew Pollack) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 11:48:07 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] "keep the government's hands off my Medicare" Message-ID: <2fa1449b0909080848k65fc240bke144cba0ffebebee@mail.gmail.com> See "error number one" in Vicente Navarro's piece at today's Counterpunch, in which he agrees 100% with Fred's point about what the demand in the subject line really means. Navarro, for those unfamiliar with him, is one of the most prominent radical healthcare analysts. From Midhurst14 at aol.com Tue Sep 8 10:36:07 2009 From: Midhurst14 at aol.com (Midhurst14 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 12:36:07 EDT Subject: [Marxism] A Different Environmental Threat: Peak Rare Minerals, China, an... Message-ID: Have you ever heard of King Leopold of the Belgians The policy of imperialism in the area is guided by the same white mans greed George Anthony From tcod at hotmail.com Tue Sep 8 10:50:20 2009 From: tcod at hotmail.com (Tom Cod) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 16:50:20 +0000 Subject: [Marxism] Left and right in Argentina, 1960s and 70s Re: Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China'shigh speed rail plans In-Reply-To: <4AA67A3D.9040701@gmail.com> References: <2fa158550909052007l61dc4f7btab47f68ac8f0e96b@mail.gmail.com> <2fa158550909061448i4a99bdb7mbd6e5208d1122652@mail.gmail.com> <4AA55BA7.7010900@gmail.com> <4AA5CC47.4@gmail.com> <4AA67A3D.9040701@gmail.com> Message-ID: my comment was more of a generic observation, not one intended to hold forth on the specifics of Argentine society, a place I claim no particular expertise concerning. That was the problem with that group some us belonged to, is that they viewed themselves as possessed of that, like some sort of pale reflection of a Washington Think Tank which they dragged their naive members down into, objectively a Know Nothing like talk-shop diversion from real struggle that only served to reinforce in the minds of the more naive ruling class notions about "terrorism". If more time had been spent on issues like Watergate and other pertinent matters to us in the US at the time, that group perhaps would have remained relevant. Some articles in the paper on Argentina in the paper, maybe, and an educational maybe, but the idea that our job was to launch an amateurish "discussion" or Children's Crusade about what people down there should do, a country most of us knew little about, was misguided and inappropriate and an invitation to needless sectarianism and factionalism that constituted a diversion. > > By the way, and without any intention to be rude again, the last part of > the last sentence implies, as a point of departure, that not every cat > is brown in the (all capitalist, granted) ruling classes in Argentina. > People who in abstract believe that every capitalist ruling class is a > bourgeoisie (in classical terms) miss these minutiae that can throw a > country like mine into hell. > > Now, this accepted, how can you or anyone suppose these formations were > "to the Left" of Per?n? They certainly were not. > > Which does not imply that Per?n was a socialist, nor that the relative > political and moral standing of both ERP or MOntoneros on one hand, and > the pro-oligarchic military, on the other, allow to equate them as "two > demons". > > ________________________________________________ > 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? is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=PID23391::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HYGN_faster:082009 From farmelantj at juno.com Tue Sep 8 11:08:27 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 17:08:27 GMT Subject: [Marxism] Rosa Lichtenstein vs. Andrew Kliman on dialectics Message-ID: <20090908.130827.27880.0@webmail16.vgs.untd.com> http://marxisthumanistinitiative.org/2009/05/05/brief-comments-on-the-relationship-between-marxism-and-the-hegelian-dialectic/ ____________________________________________________________ Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTFoYe8lU85uYcRIvDDxylQWNTqWYRDL3I3QRFhweqjoBOJD0LwLo0/ From dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com Tue Sep 8 11:18:04 2009 From: dgn.gcmn at googlemail.com (Dogan Gocmen) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 20:18:04 +0300 Subject: [Marxism] Rosa Lichtenstein vs. Andrew Kliman on dialectics In-Reply-To: <20090908.130827.27880.0@webmail16.vgs.untd.com> References: <20090908.130827.27880.0@webmail16.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: "So the contradiction consists of an ATTEMPT (and thus it is a matter of consciousness, not just linguistic function) to identify something that does not identify it. Instead of being identified, the something is being assigned predicates, none of which serve to identify it. If I?m not mistaken, Hegel believes that this is endemic to the propositional form itself, and thus that the propositional form is incapable of expressing ?truth? (understood in a special technical sense here; Hegel is aware that the rose is in fact red.)." It is good that Mrs Lichtenstein gets some teaching in dialectics by Andrew Kliman. I hope she finally understands what she tries to write about. ----- 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 epoliticus at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 11:20:36 2009 From: epoliticus at gmail.com (Politicus E.) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 13:20:36 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] India: An Update from Lalgarh Message-ID: The following was published on 8 September 2009 at the Sanhati website. Note that P.S.B.J.C. refers to the People's Committee against Police Atrocities. epoliticus ***** Partho Sarathi Ray and Koustav De Encounter deaths, custodial beatings of PSBJC members , and the lajja-bisarjan protest Police reported of an extended encounter with Maoists on September 2 near Madhupur. In which allegedly 2 Maoists were killed, two others were arrested. http://www.anandabazar.com/archive/1090903/3med1.htm However, the PSBJC has asserted that the persons arrested and killed were all common villagers, supporters of PSBJC who were attending a rally called to protest the rape of a adivasi woman by the police. The police allegedly raped the woman by entering her house in the name of search-operation. The rally was reportedly 12,000 strong and unarmed when police started firing on the people without provocation. The PSBJC fully rejected the news of the encounter, stating it to be completely fabricated. According to the police and administration, on September 2 there had been a 4-hour long gunbattle between the combined forces and the Maoists near Madhupur village as a result of which two Maoists have been killed and two others have been arrested. On Thurssday, September 3, the two arrested people, Ajay Sana and Gautam Mahato, were produced in court where they were remanded to seven days of judicial custody. However according to sources in Madhupur village, on Wednesday afternoon the procession of PSBJC was proceeding from Madhupur, in Salboni block, towards Godamouli which is on the way to Sijua. Sijua is a CPI(M) stronghold and there have been previous attacks from this side on Madhupur (this correspondent has once witnessed such an attack himself). The procession was first fired on by CPI(M) harmads hiding in the jungles on the side of the road, and people started running back towards the village. Apparently the combined forces and the COBRA forces were searching in the jungles on the other side of the road and they started firing on these fleeing people. Two of the processionists, Hemanta Debsingha of Madhupur and Jaladhar Mahato of Goaltore were killed in the firing. Since then the administration have been claiming that these are Maoists. Both the PSBJC and the CPI(Maoist) have rejected the version. The PSBJC has called a 12 hour bandh in West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia against this. Beating of arrested PSBJC members In another action, the combined forces had arrested 14 women and 3 men from a PSBJC rally in the Tensabandh area of Kantapahari. Among the three men, Ajay Murmu of Sarasbediya and Vishwanath Soren of Darigeriya were beaten up brutally before being released in the night. The other man, Ramdulal Mandi, and the 14 women were also beaten up badly and when they were produced in the court they actually told the judge about the torture they have undergone. From eyewitness accounts, most of the women, including elderly women like Sumi Mandi, couldn?t even walk by themselves when they were produced in the court. Their limbs were swollen from the beating. There are also accounts of women being molested during the raids by the combined forces. However, according to the police version, when the police had raided Bansber village in search of Maoists, the women had tried to mobilize the villagers by blowing conch shells and beating drums. When the police lodged tear gas shells to disperse the villagers, the women had hurt themelves trying to flee. This sort of police version about injuries to prisoners is quite common. On the other hand, Shibu Pratihar, a PSBJC member who had been arrested from Sarenga in Bankura was found hanging in the toilet in the court house in Midnapore where he had been brought to appear before a judge. The police are claiming it as a suicide. The lajja-bisarjan protest In protest against these atrocities, especially the assault and molestation of the women, the women of Lalgarh have decided to go for ?lajja-bisarjan? protest, i.e they will strip infront of the police and the combined forces in the same way that the women of Manipur had done in front of the Assam Rifles headquarters a few years back. ***** From dwaltersMIA at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 11:53:55 2009 From: dwaltersMIA at gmail.com (nada) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:53:55 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Stone's "South of the Border" trailer Message-ID: <4AA69A33.4080904@gmail.com> http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/03/oliver-stone-south-of-the-border-hugo-chavez From david at miradoiro.com Tue Sep 8 13:13:48 2009 From: david at miradoiro.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?David_Pic=F3n_=C1lvarez?=) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 21:13:48 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] technical...seeking space for website References: Message-ID: <978EB7C9DB4A4F65890D173253795FD9@nautilus> > Any suggestions here for free web space friendly to iconoclastic politics? You could do worse than http://otaku.freeshell.org/index.cgi?join The ARPA membership level requires a one-time donation but it really is worth it imo. --David. From billyoc at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 13:56:44 2009 From: billyoc at gmail.com (Bill O'Connor) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:56:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] For those Interested, and in the NYC area In-Reply-To: (Mark Lause's message of "Tue, 8 Sep 2009 10:13:31 -0400") References: <82E5351E86CE401BBE47DE246BE33415@dmsthinkpad> Message-ID: <8763btnrb7.fsf@t22.Belkin> Mark Lause writes: > This looks like an excellent opportunity not only to study something > important but for members of the list in the area to have a chance to > discuss these things face to face. I can't recommend it enough. I just finished a close reading of Captial with Goldner and Seligman over the summer and I'll sign up for this fall/spring group as well. -- In Solidarity, Billy O'Connor From schaffer at optonline.net Tue Sep 8 14:00:01 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:00:01 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] For those Interested, and in the NYC area In-Reply-To: <8763btnrb7.fsf@t22.Belkin> References: <82E5351E86CE401BBE47DE246BE33415@dmsthinkpad> <8763btnrb7.fsf@t22.Belkin> Message-ID: <4AA6B7C1.30807@optonline.net> Bill O'Connor wrote: > I can't recommend it enough. I just finished a close reading of > Captial with Goldner and Seligman over the summer and I'll sign up for > this fall/spring group as well. what's the format? lecture, discussion, debate, argument, fist-fight (as happens on lists sometimes)? Les From markalause at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 14:17:45 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 16:17:45 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] For those Interested, and in the NYC area In-Reply-To: <4AA6B7C1.30807@optonline.net> References: <82E5351E86CE401BBE47DE246BE33415@dmsthinkpad> <8763btnrb7.fsf@t22.Belkin> <4AA6B7C1.30807@optonline.net> Message-ID: If some form of pie fight is involved, I expect one of you Gothamites to post clips to YouTube... ML From lnp3 at panix.com Tue Sep 8 15:31:35 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:31:35 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Yanomami Science Wars, part seven Message-ID: <4AA6CD37.3050700@panix.com> The more I study the adventures of anthropologists in Yanomami-land, the more surreally cinematic they seem. From the pistol-packing Napoleon Chagnon in a loincloth to Jacques Lizot?s homosexual harem, the need for a Francis Ford Coppola or a Werner Herzog cries out. I began reading Kenneth Good?s memoir ?Into the Heart: One Man?s Pursuit of Love and Knowledge Among the Yanomamo? mostly in search of information that ran counter to Chagnon?s ?fierce people? thesis. (There are at least three acceptable ways of spelling their tribal name: Yanomami, the most common, as well as Yanomamo and Yanomama.) But the more I read, the more convinced I became that Kenneth Good is one of the most remarkable denizens of this world imaginable. Indeed, so compelling was his story that Hollywood took out an option to turn his memoir into a movie but it was never made. Now that would have been something I would have paid top dollar to see. Kenneth Good first came to Yanomami territory in 1974 as a 27-year-old graduate student. Despite traveling there under the auspices of Napoleon Chagnon, he was much closer to Marvin Harris philosophically. As I discussed in a previous post, Harris challenged Chagnon?s ?fierceness? theory on the basis of cultural materialism, making the point that it was a struggle for food rather than females that explained clashes among the Stone Age peoples. As Good grew closer to the people he was studying, he was offered one of their daughters as a bride. As it turned out she was 9 years old at the time. More about this subsequently. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/yanomami-science-wars-part-seven/ From bhandari at berkeley.edu Tue Sep 8 18:40:19 2009 From: bhandari at berkeley.edu (Rakesh Bhandari) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:40:19 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Marx/Hegel Message-ID: <4AA6F973.5090209@berkeley.edu> To be sure, Marx coquettes with Hegel in his analysis of the value form as a unity of opposities, but Marx explains himself well enough that further study of Hegel's logic would shed no light at all on what he is saying. Just read Marx. Carefully. For example: http://tiny.cc/GsfFk Commodities are a unity of use value and exchange value. A commodity as a value unites the two as the exchange value for the owner and use value for the purchaser (David Harvey puts it well), but the value form externalizes the contradiction immanent in every commodity--it is both a use value and exchange value, but it can't be both at the same time--by making commodities use values alone and reserving for money a monopoly on exchange value or exchangeability (other commodities are no longer immediately exchangeable against the array of other commodities as in the expanded value form). Marx is not playing dialectical games here. He is trying to understand precisely the position of money in the circulation of commodities (and he loosely borrows the Hegelian idea of a unity of opposites in his analysis of the value form). Upon inspection, money turns out not simply to be a device to overcome the double coincidence of wants. In virtue of the role it acquires by its position as the equivalent, it may make sense to hoard it, that is to sell without any immediate intention to buy. Money after all is alone the materialization of the social abstract labor time of which all commodities exchange as expressions. The payoff here is the critique of Say's Law and Marx beats Keynes and economics to the punch by more than 70 years. Marx did not feel at home in the positivist world of Comte and the atomistic world of JS Mill. So yes he was drawn to Hegel, and he announces that, I think, so his audience will not be surprised by his speaking of unities of opposities, real contradictions, the creativity of negative forces, dialectical inversions, quantitative to qualitative changes and of epochal historical differences. But one only read Marx to understand what he means by these ideas and concepts. Marx cleans them of Hegelian baggage. Marx stands on his own. Look forward to disagreement. Rakesh From billyoc at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 18:52:27 2009 From: billyoc at gmail.com (Bill O'Connor) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:52:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] For those Interested, and in the NYC area In-Reply-To: <4AA6B7C1.30807@optonline.net> (Les Schaffer's message of "Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:00:01 -0400") References: <82E5351E86CE401BBE47DE246BE33415@dmsthinkpad> <8763btnrb7.fsf@t22.Belkin> <4AA6B7C1.30807@optonline.net> Message-ID: <87y6oplz1w.fsf@t22.Belkin> Les Schaffer writes: > Bill O'Connor wrote: >> I can't recommend it enough. I just finished a close reading of >> Captial with Goldner and Seligman over the summer and I'll sign up for >> this fall/spring group as well. > > what's the format? lecture, discussion, debate, argument, fist-fight (as > happens on lists sometimes)? Oh, no fistfights, but I keep a video camera in my bag just in case. :) It's a lecture and discussion format, participants read choice excerpts and summarize sections of the text(Capital) that they agreed to the previous week. Seligman discusses some aspect of nuts and bolts finance relevant to the weeks readings. -- In Solidarity, Billy O'Connor From markalause at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 18:57:07 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 20:57:07 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Marx/Hegel In-Reply-To: <4AA6F973.5090209@berkeley.edu> References: <4AA6F973.5090209@berkeley.edu> Message-ID: To be frank, this really sounds like an invitation to a silly discussion. The simple fact is that people are different. And lhow they approach things may change. Marx or Hegel or any other writer may connect with different individuals. And they will often do so differently lfor different people...or the same person at different times. One of the things I wanted to do when I returned to school was to read Hegel I didn't find it a waste of time, and often found myself laughing a great deal at the massively long sentences and tortured formulations...deliberately so. But these weren't without their enlightening qualities as well. If someone finds aspects of Marx's dialectical method hard to follow, they should try to read some else's presentation of it. There's no reason that, for some, Hegel can't make the connections. ML From bhandari at berkeley.edu Tue Sep 8 19:09:45 2009 From: bhandari at berkeley.edu (Rakesh Bhandari) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:09:45 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Marx/Hegel In-Reply-To: <4AA6F973.5090209@berkeley.edu> References: <4AA6F973.5090209@berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <4AA70059.4070808@berkeley.edu> Mark, The claim is that one can only understand Marx if one has mastered the whole of Hegel's logic, not that a mastery of Hegel's logic may allow a few individuals to better appreciate Marx's Capital. Lenin's claim strikes me as false; so does Dunayevskaya's claims about the Hegelian absolute. If I am trying to understand the way in which Marx understands the mediations that make up a totality or real contradictions or unities of opposites or epochal historical developments, what is it that Hegel alone will clarify about what Marx has written? If I am trying to understand Marx, my time would be better spent re-reading him than commencing a study of the whole of Hegel's logic. And I don't think Marx's beginning with the commodity is an attempt to mirror Hegel's beginning with sense certainty in the Phenomenology. Let's not forget that such a claim (Marx's Capital transposes Hegel's Phenomenology) was the central thesis of arch Marx critic Robert Tucker whose Marx reader is perhaps still the most widely used. Rakesh From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 19:24:33 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 21:24:33 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Marx/Hegel In-Reply-To: <4AA70059.4070808@berkeley.edu> References: <4AA6F973.5090209@berkeley.edu> <4AA70059.4070808@berkeley.edu> Message-ID: Many Marxist thinkers don't deal with dialectics, namely Gramsci with his philosophy of Praxis and Althusser's writings on contradictions in *For Marx *. From mschiller at pobox.com Tue Sep 8 19:26:36 2009 From: mschiller at pobox.com (martin) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 18:26:36 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? In-Reply-To: References: <55868ddf0909071128o4bb7e33cj17cbc47f97b94b60@mail.gmail.com> <4AA553BA.6000109@gmail.com> <4AA55FEC.3080104@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sep 7, 2009, at 1:19 PM, Mark Lause wrote: > The $64,000 question, of course, is how to go about building the > organization you're advocating. Does this thread ever resolve the question? martin From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 19:33:07 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:33:07 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? In-Reply-To: References: <55868ddf0909071128o4bb7e33cj17cbc47f97b94b60@mail.gmail.com> <4AA553BA.6000109@gmail.com> <4AA55FEC.3080104@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA705D3.6070008@gmail.com> Of course not. But I don't think I got any objections to the broad ideas I laid out (regurgitating the ideas of others of course). How to get those building micro-sects or pallin' around with BHO to get together and agree to a common program? Sounds almost impossible. At the very least we need the embryo of a campaign for something like this. One day :) martin wrote: > On Sep 7, 2009, at 1:19 PM, Mark Lause wrote: > > >> The $64,000 question, of course, is how to go about building the >> organization you're advocating. >> > > Does this thread ever resolve the question? > > martin > > ________________________________________________ > 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/bhaskar.sunkara%40gmail.com > From mschiller at pobox.com Tue Sep 8 19:41:12 2009 From: mschiller at pobox.com (martin) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 18:41:12 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? In-Reply-To: <4AA705D3.6070008@gmail.com> References: <55868ddf0909071128o4bb7e33cj17cbc47f97b94b60@mail.gmail.com> <4AA553BA.6000109@gmail.com> <4AA55FEC.3080104@gmail.com> <4AA705D3.6070008@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sep 8, 2009, at 6:33 PM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > Sounds almost impossible. At > the very least we need the embryo of a campaign for something like > this. One day :) We need Pogo. (perhaps 'we are the embryo') martin From markalause at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 20:28:14 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 22:28:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Marx/Hegel In-Reply-To: References: <4AA6F973.5090209@berkeley.edu> <4AA70059.4070808@berkeley.edu> Message-ID: No, you misrepresent what I said (again). The original statement was that Marx stands alone and that people shouldn't have to read Hegel to understand Marx. My argument is that people may well get a great deal out of reading Hegel...or Gramsci...or Althusser. Your have once more befuddled me with your assertion that Marxist writers don't deal with the dialectical method (particularly the very nature of praxis...) ML From markalause at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 20:31:59 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 22:31:59 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? In-Reply-To: References: <55868ddf0909071128o4bb7e33cj17cbc47f97b94b60@mail.gmail.com> <4AA553BA.6000109@gmail.com> <4AA55FEC.3080104@gmail.com> <4AA705D3.6070008@gmail.com> Message-ID: What is "the embryo of a campaign"? Is there a Bullshit Brain Trust somewhere making up these new terms? Because, if there is, I think I'd like to work there. I can come up with some really funny and meaningless words myself...... ML From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 21:00:58 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:00:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Marx/Hegel In-Reply-To: References: <4AA6F973.5090209@berkeley.edu> <4AA70059.4070808@berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <4AA71A6A.2060304@gmail.com> I don't see how I could misrepresent since I didn't read, much less reply to your post. But since I befuddled you.... isn't /materialisme aleatoire/ a fundamental rejection of dialectical materialism? Wasn't a common theme of Althusser's works the attempt to rid Marxism of the idealism that crept in from Hegelian dialectics. http://radicalebooks.blogspot.com/2009/06/for-marx-by-louis-althusser.html Now that I read it (for the first time) I don't see what anyone could find objectionable. Calm down and reply to the right person before you post. I'm fairly certain that I haven't ever misrepresented you since I can't recall any an particular incident where I bothered to engage with what you thought. // Mark Lause wrote: > No, you misrepresent what I said (again). > > The original statement was that Marx stands alone and that people > shouldn't have to read Hegel to understand Marx. My argument is that > people may well get a great deal out of reading Hegel...or > Gramsci...or Althusser. > > Your have once more befuddled me with your assertion that Marxist > writers don't deal with the dialectical method (particularly the very > nature of praxis...) > > ML > > ________________________________________________ > mail.com > From billyoc at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 22:45:49 2009 From: billyoc at gmail.com (Bill O'Connor) Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:45:49 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? In-Reply-To: (martin's message of "Tue, 8 Sep 2009 18:26:36 -0700") References: <55868ddf0909071128o4bb7e33cj17cbc47f97b94b60@mail.gmail.com> <4AA553BA.6000109@gmail.com> <4AA55FEC.3080104@gmail.com> Message-ID: <87my54n2te.fsf@t22.Belkin> martin writes: > On Sep 7, 2009, at 1:19 PM, Mark Lause wrote: > >> The $64,000 question, of course, is how to go about building the >> organization you're advocating. > > Does this thread ever resolve the question? Too early to tell. ;) -- In Solidarity, Billy O'Connor From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Tue Sep 8 22:50:43 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:50:43 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] What to do? In-Reply-To: References: <55868ddf0909071128o4bb7e33cj17cbc47f97b94b60@mail.gmail.com> <4AA553BA.6000109@gmail.com> <4AA55FEC.3080104@gmail.com> <4AA705D3.6070008@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA73423.90905@gmail.com> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_a_New_Workers'_Party .... where that project was at in 2004/2005 Mark Lause wrote: > What is "the embryo of a campaign"? > > Is there a Bullshit Brain Trust somewhere making up these new terms? > Because, if there is, I think I'd like to work there. I can come up > with some really funny and meaningless words myself...... > > 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/bhaskar.sunkara%40gmail.com > From stuartmunckton at gmail.com Wed Sep 9 01:04:03 2009 From: stuartmunckton at gmail.com (Stuart Munckton) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 17:04:03 +1000 Subject: [Marxism] Class war at Copenhagan climate talks Message-ID: <2c6145850909090004g2ca5d353hed01c10832470f90@mail.gmail.com> http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1100#more-1100 Class War at the Copenhagen Climate Change Talks September 3, 2009 *Climate change too is class war. Copenhagen is the next battle.* ** *Editorial from the coming issue of **Socialist Resistance* *, Thanks to **Liam Mac Uaid* * for making it available.* In December the world?s rulers will meet in Copenhagen to discuss what they will do when the notably unsuccessful Kyoto Protocol expires. They won?t be alone. Lobbyists from the aviation, petrochemical and mining industries will be pressurising them in defence of their ?right? to alter the planet?s climate by pumping millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Writing in this issue Phil Thornhill of the Campaign Against Climate Change says of Kyoto, ?it was so weak and so full of holes that it was not going to achieve any significant concrete results.? In Copenhagen the stakes are much higher. Earlier this year Kim Carstensen of the WWF said, ?We are at the point where our climate system is starting to spin out of control? the latest science confirms that we are now seeing devastating consequences of warming that were not expected to hit for decades .? Climate change will be a major element in the class struggle nationally and globally in the coming years. It is the world?s poorest who will suffer most and in the richer countries it will be working people, women and the vulnerable whom capitalism will try and force to pay the price for adapting to climate change. In Peru, as Derek Wall reports, clashes are taking place between a government intent on destroying forests in search of oil while the global levels of malnutrition are rising. In Britain the Vestas closure was an indication of just how unserious New Labour is about planning in a coherent way to create the sorts of jobs and industrial base that will be required if the economy is to become much less reliant on CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions. By contrast it effectively pours huge subsidies into the airline companies and is willing to force through airport expansion in the teeth of opposition from popular local campaigns. A group of eighty of the least developed countries, among which are many small island states, have called for reductions of at least 45 percent of CO2 below 1990 levels by 2020, in order to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees. For the low-lying island states this is a matter of existential significance. If the waters rise they will be submerged along with farming land in densely populated countries like Bangladesh and Egypt. By contrast the industrial countries responsible for most of the emissions are only proposing reduction by 16 to 24 percent by 2020 relative to 1990 levels and the United States has not even said it is willing to go that far. Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE) estimates that some 90 to 140 billion dollars a year might be needed to pay for climate change mitigation technologies and adaptation. The banking crisis has changed the way people think about billions of dollars, pounds and euros. Suddenly these sums seem well within the reach of governments. That is why socialists, environmentalists, trade unions and working class communities need to get their voice heard in the debate around Copenhagen. We have had some straws in the wind that this is starting to happen. Both the Visteon and Vestas struggles showed that working people are beginning to make the connection between their jobs, capitalism and the environment. The G20 protests and the Climate Camp are proof that radicalising young people understand the issues and many of the solutions much more clearly than New Labour. (I don?t think it?s that New Labour doesn?t understand ? but they are too tied to big business to carry out the policies that are needed.) Socialist Resistance will be supporting the demonstrations in Copenhagen. However even if you are not able to get there to be part of what will probably be one of the most important mobilizations to prevent climate change, there is still much that you can do. You could organise a local meeting of the Campaign Against Climate Change to discuss the issues, put motions through your union branch or conference, anything which poses alternatives to capitalist production. Climate change too is class war. There are only two real options on the table. The first is that proposed by the oil companies and their tame politicians. The second is what can be forced on them by the pressure of the organised working class and the strong, broad movement which offers solutions that favour the majority of humanity. Copenhagen is the next battle. -- "The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?" ? Jarvis Cocker "The basis of optimism is sheer terror" ? Oscar Wilde From robertojorquera at yahoo.com Wed Sep 9 04:26:30 2009 From: robertojorquera at yahoo.com (Roberto Jorquera) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 03:26:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism] New video uploaded to Direct Action Films - Walter Felix Part 1 (SPANISH AUDIO) Message-ID: <363081.76771.qm@web32006.mail.mud.yahoo.com> New audio uploaded to Direct Action Films English translation will follow in the next few days Walter Felix Part 1 (SPANISH AUDIO) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8SUXpNdslk Roberto Jorquera www.youtube.com/directactionfilms __________________________________________________________________________________ Get more done like never before with Yahoo!7 Mail. Learn more: http://au.overview.mail.yahoo.com/ From marvgandall at videotron.ca Wed Sep 9 07:31:31 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:31:31 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] The panic of 2008 Message-ID: <75E4324883264F80933DD90147DF31F0@MARV> Lehman's collapse almost brought down the money-market industry By Sam Mamudi, MarketWatch September 9 2009 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- As the threat of a Lehman Brothers bankruptcy grew last September, many money-market fund managers were wary but not worried. Their industry had quietly grown over the past generation to become a major rival to the banking system, with $3.5 trillion in assets. It had weathered crises such as the collapse of Baring Plc, the Asian currency mess of the late 1990s and the fall of hedge fund giant Long-Term Capital Management. Though some managers were talking to their boards and their staff, there wasn't a feeling of impending disaster. But all that changed in the late afternoon of Sept. 16, the day after Lehman actually went down. Reserve Primary Fund -- the oldest and fifth-largest fund in the business -- said it had about $785 million in Lehman debt that was now worthless and as a result it would price its shares at 97 cents. The impact of the first major retail money-market fund to fall below $1 a share -- to actually lose money for its investors -- was immense. In the two days after Reserve Primary's announcement, roughly 22% of all assets in institutional prime money-market funds -- those that invest in corporate debt -- were pulled out by panicked investors. As Lehman's fall spread fear throughout the financial system, money-market fund managers were squeezed on both sides: investors demanding their money and frozen credit markets where no one was buying. "Countless other money-market funds were poised to break the buck," said Peter Crane, president of Crane Data. "The mini-run would have spread to all funds." It was a pull-out unprecedented in scale. In the space of just two days -- Sept. 17 and Sept. 18 -- $210 billion was redeemed from institutional prime money-market funds. Overall the money-market fund industry saw roughly 7% of its total assets redeemed in those two days. While some of that was invested back into government money funds, the industry lost almost 4% of its assets in 48 hours, according to data from iMoneyNet. Even managers at funds with portfolios considered safe from the crisis were struggling with the market -- because there were no buyers, pricing the assets in some cases could have meant breaking the buck. In such cases, managers talked to their boards to explain when they didn't do daily pricing for their funds. "It was a shock in that the people who keep the machine going -- the broker-dealers -- suddenly weren't there to keep things going," said Mira Stevovich, manager of Ivy Money Market Fund and Waddell & Reed Advisors Cash Management. "You weren't sure when re-investing that there'd be anyone behind the securities to make a market if you had to sell." "There was a lot of fear, and no one knew what was going to happen," added Stevovich. Even without federal bank insurance, money funds had ballooned in the past several years as alternatives to holding cash. They often offered better interest rates than bank deposits, which were insured by the federal government up to $100,000 at the time (now $250,000). The sudden prospect of investors losing their savings following the Lehman collapse caused the run, but because it was mostly in electronic transactions, it didn't summon visions of anxious crowds banging on bank doors during the Great Depression. For many, however, the fear was just as palpable. "There was a concern that if something wasn't in place to regain investor confidence, after four or five days [the high redemption rate] would cause problems," said Debbie Cunningham, head of money-market funds at Federated Investors Inc. . "Selling into the market [to meet redemptions] was already a problem -- there was no liquidity." The panic was averted only after the Treasury Department on Sept. 19 stepped in and announced it would backstop money-fund assets, in a series of measures that slowly restored investor confidence. But industry officials are under no illusions about what might have happened. A year of trouble In reacting to that week's panic, the industry was both helped and hindered by its experiences over the previous 12 months. Troubles in the asset-backed securities market and exposure to special investment vehicles had hit money-market funds from late 2007 and into 2008. A MarketWatch study conducted at the time found that more than a dozen funds had looked to parent companies or other sources of credit to ensure they didn't break the buck. At least 20 had sought regulatory approval for support if needed. But the fact that the funds had come through such a choppy period unscathed meant that even though some funds were known to hold Lehman paper, few expected a fund to go under. "We'd gone through a series of problems leading up to Lehman," said David Glocke, who oversees Vanguard Group's taxable money-market funds and also manages its Treasury and Admiral Treasury funds. The funds didn't hold any Lehman paper. "Watching from the outside, we were completely shocked," when Reserve Primary broke the buck, he added. The shock was probably biggest among investors. At roughly $3.5 trillion, the money-market fund industry had grown by $1.5 trillion in the previous two years and much of that money, said Crane, likely came from investors fleeing other troubled assets, such as SIVs and auction-rate securities. At the first sign of trouble in money-market funds, these investors were likely to bolt once again. "It wasn't Lehman that killed Reserve Primary Fund, it was the run," said Crane. And fleeing investors caused the effective collapse of another fund, Putnam Prime Money Market Fund. Putnam closed the fund on Sept. 17 after it came under heavy redemption pressure -- investors cashing out created a liquidity squeeze that could only have been met by selling assets below par and thus breaking the buck. Putnam later sold the fund's assets to Federated, where it was merged into Federated Prime Obligations Fund . The Reserve had previously valued its Lehman paper at par, but then suddenly announced it was valuing the assets at zero, causing the panic. While many investors are still waiting to get their cash out of Reserve Primary, the firm said in late August that it values the Lehman debt at about 17 cents on the dollar and "shareholders could possibly receive up to 99 cents per share." Reserve Primary's basic problem was, of course, that it held Lehman paper on Sept. 15. All the managers who spoke to MarketWatch said they had no Lehman exposure and many said they had during the previous year's troubles been heading more and more into shorter-duration debt as well as Treasurys and agency debt. When the Lehman crisis hit, many managers said they doubled their holdings of debt with seven days or less to maturity, for instance, up from 15% of a portfolio to 30%. "One of the strengths of money-market funds is the ability to retool and adapt to the market conditions quickly," said Joe Benevento, manager of the DWS money market series of institutional funds. Dealing with a crisis But despite these efforts, even the most conservative managers found themselves on high alert. "There was a mismatch that lasted over the course of a few days due to the seizing up of the market and not having the liquidity to meet demands," said Benevento. The head of one of the largest money-market fund lines, who declined to be named because of the delicate nature of last year's events, said his fund managers, fearing the worst for Lehman, met with the funds' board during the weekend of Sept. 13 and Sept. 14 to apprise the board of the funds' status, none of which had Lehman debt. The funds had also been pulling in their average maturity and credit risk levels. The group head added that conference calls with sales staff around the country were also held during the weekend to provide them with talking points to deliver to worried clients. Federated's Cunningham said that had the investor panic lasted, Federated had a "bevy" of resources, both internal and external, to maintain liquidity, but that the firm "came closer than we ever thought possible" to using those measures. "You always talk about contingency planning in meetings, and then all of a sudden you find yourself in a situation where you could have to use that planning," she said. The worst of the crisis passed on Friday Sept. 19, when Treasury said it would insure all money-market funds that pay a fee -- the entire industry eventually joined the program. At the same time, the Federal Reserve said it would buy agency discount notes from primary dealers, acting as a backstop when and if money-market funds wanted to sell their assets. "The [Fed program] was one of the key things done to provide liquidity," said Benevento. Cunningham agreed, saying the program was a "great solution." Coupled with the insurance plan, due to expire on Sept. 18, the two measures were "enough for everyone to step back and take a breather," she said. Lower yields more safety One year later, and the money-market fund industry is roughly back to where it was just before Lehman collapsed, standing at about $3.5 trillion in assets and serving as a refuge for those on the sidelines. But last year's experience prompted government action on two fronts: from the Obama administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The administration's recommendations are still vague and won't be clear until the financial reform package is unveiled on Sept. 15. The SEC's proposals were published at the end of June. The plan calls for better credit quality, shorter maturities and more disclosure. "The proposals offer a greater level of protection for fund investors," said Vanguard's Glocke. "The rules now are for credit events, not liquidity events." Among the proposals are requirements for certain levels of assets that must be held in cash, Treasurys or holdings that can be cashed within one day, and limiting the maximum weighted average maturity of a fund's portfolio to 60 days, from the current 90 days. The SEC estimates its proposed changes would lower yields by between 0.02 to 0.04 percentage points. In a comment letter to the agency, Fidelity Investments said the potential yield reduction could be between 0.19 to 0.43 percentage points for institutional funds and 0.14 to 0.31 point for retail funds. Robert Deutsch, head of the global cash business at J.P. Morgan Funds, estimated the fall in yields would on average be between 0.05 and 0.1 percentage points. "You're giving up that yield to get extra safeguards," said Deutsch. "It seems like a good trade-off." Deutsch said he didn't think the lower yields would put off investors. After last year's panic, "there's been a big shift in how investors think, moving away from yield-chasing funds." Reserve Primary was among the highest-yielding funds in the industry. Despite the reform efforts, some say that last year's events may simply have to be seen as a once-in-a-lifetime event. "The SEC may be able to prevent one or two dominos from falling, but nothing could have prevented the complex series of events that led to what happened [last September]," said Crane. From marvgandall at videotron.ca Wed Sep 9 07:31:36 2009 From: marvgandall at videotron.ca (Marv Gandall) Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:31:36 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] "To a surprising degree..." (sic) Message-ID: Finance Overhaul Falters as '08 Shock Fades By DAVID ENRICH and DAMIAN PALETTA Wall Street Journal September 9 2009 Nearly one year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers sent shock waves across the globe, the world is a different place. The investment bank's messy death intensified the deepest recession since the Great Depression. It helped open the way to a bigger role for government in managing the economy. It cast doubts in the public's mind about the wisdom of relying on markets to correct themselves. But to a surprising degree, there are some big things that Lehman's demise hasn't changed. Nearly a year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers helped speed the U.S. toward a recession, the banking industry is getting back on its feet quicker than lawmakers can agree on new regulations. On the regulatory front, Democrats' efforts to rework the rules for finance have bogged down amid infighting between federal regulators, fury among bankers and opposition from many lawmakers who believe that further expanding the government's reach will only create new problems. The all-consuming debate over health care has damped enthusiasm for tackling such complex legislation. Meanwhile, major U.S. banks have regained their footing, and some of their swagger. Profits are off their lows. Large compensation packages are back. And so is risky business. Companies are selling exotic financial products similar to those that felled markets and the world economy last fall. And banks' appetite for risk has grown: The nation's top five banks collectively stood to lose more than $1 billion on an average day in the second quarter of 2009 should their trading bets go sour, a record level. Now, the federal government is locked in a kind of regulatory limbo. U.S. officials say they are committed to preventing history from repeating and have pleaded for fresh powers to do so. But today, they have few new options -- excepting another bailout -- should financial markets seize up again or a large institution totter. "There's no fundamental change in the way the banks are run or regulated," said Peter J. Solomon, a former Lehman vice chairman who runs an eponymous investment bank in New York. "There's just fewer of them." Washington officials say they are encouraged that financial markets and the economy appear to be healing after the turmoil. But they also say they feel an urgent need to establish new rules. "We are under no illusion that things left to their own devices will evolve back to a healthy normal," said White House National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers in an interview. "The concern...is that a resumption of confidence, which is a good thing, not become a return to hubris, which would be a very bad thing." Wall Street's rebound presents a mixed bag for consumers. These banks' clients are demonstrating a renewed appetite for risk, a sign that confidence is returning to markets. But credit remains scarce for all but the healthiest borrowers and lenders are imposing new fees and higher interest rates on credit cards and other products. Corporations, too, are likely to have trouble getting credit if they can't access the capital markets or have less-than-pristine debt ratings. The financial world has been on a wild ride since Sept. 14, 2008, the Sunday that Lehman toppled toward bankruptcy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from 11,422 on Sept. 12 to 6,547 on March 9. More than 100 banks have failed. The federal government has pumped more than $200 billion in taxpayer money into banks, and the government temporarily deemed the country's 19 largest as too big to fail in a disorderly fashion. Some of Wall Street's most notorious practices are unlikely to reappear. Banks say they've permanently abandoned housing risky assets in off-balance-sheet vehicles. Top banks have also stockpiled capital to raise their reserves to the highest levels in recent memory, providing a bigger cushion against market downturns. Last December, at a black-tie gala in New York's Plaza Hotel, Bank of America Corp. CEO Kenneth Lewis told a crowd of bankers to expect a humbler industry to emerge from the wreckage. "We play a supporting role in the economy, not a leading role. Financial services are a means, not an end," Mr. Lewis said. "There should be some humility in that." The audience applauded. But the mood has shifted as the Dow strengthened this year. Some of the government's rescue programs are coming to an end, and big banks are paying back funds they borrowed under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, releasing them from Washington's control. The top five Wall Street firms -- Bank of America, Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley -- made $23.3 billion in profits in the first six months of 2009. That compared with a $6.7 billion loss a year earlier at those banks and the companies they acquired, but it fell short of the $49.8 billion they earned in the first half of 2007, the peak of Wall Street's boom. These banks' biggest profit engines remain their trading arms, which place short-term wagers -- much of it with the firms' own money -- on stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies and other financial products and markets. Losses at these arms in recent years crippled firms such as Merrill Lynch & Co. and Citigroup. This year, trading has generated windfalls. In the first half of 2009, the top five firms generated $56 billion in trading revenue, compared with $22 billion in the first half of 2008 for those banks and the firms they acquired, and $58 billion at the boom's peak. On 46 separate days in the second quarter, Goldman's traders pocketed at least $100 million in revenue, while losing money on two days. Overall, the top firms are assuming greater trading risks than they were a year ago, based on a standard measure called value at risk. The $1 billion that the top five banks stood to lose on an average day in the second quarter represents an 18% increase from a year earlier and is up 75% from the $592 million in the first half of 2007, according to regulatory filings. Wall Street "has been tiptoeing back into the pond," said Robert Glauber, who ran the National Association of Securities Dealers, Wall Street's self-regulatory arm, until 2006. "They have short memories." Bankers' Pay Despite a continuing outcry over bankers' compensation, large pay packages are still the norm at some companies as they lure talent and try to keep competitors from poaching employees. In the first half of 2009, the top five firms set aside about $61 billion to cover compensation and benefits for their employees. A year earlier, the total for those firms, plus the big banks they subsequently acquired, was about $65 billion; in the first half of 2007, the figure was $77 billion. Per employee, the payouts may exceed previous years since the firms have collectively eliminated tens of thousands of jobs. Congress earlier this year imposed restrictions on bonus payments. So instead, several companies, including Bank of America and Citigroup, opted to pay larger salaries. J.P. Morgan is planning a similar move. The trend has caught the attention of world leaders. "The abatement of financial tensions has led some financial institutions to imagine they can return to the same modes of action prevalent before the crisis," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote in a letter to other world leaders on Sept. 3. The three leaders advocate strict new limits on bonus payments. Regulators have told banks to avoid excessive risk, but haven't been specific, executives say. In fact, federal officials are pushing banks to quickly return to profitability, which Wall Street executives have interpreted as a blessing of vigorous trading. Goldman and Morgan Stanley were expected to face tougher oversight after they converted last fall into bank holding companies overseen by the Federal Reserve, a move to gain access to government funding and ease concerns about their stability. Both have dialed back their bets with borrowed money. For every dollar of trading assets on their books, the firms are holding roughly twice as much capital as they did in prior years, according to Brad Hintz, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. This deleveraging makes their businesses safer but less lucrative. But much remains the same. Both firms were expected to sell power plants and oil rigs they own in their commodities-trading businesses, because commercial banks generally aren't allowed to hold such physical assets. But the banks, after a discussion with the Fed, believe they're allowed to keep them because of a provision in federal law that allows newly formed bank holding companies to retain certain long-held assets, according to people familiar with the matter. Exotic Vehicles Perhaps the best indicator of Wall Street's revived exuberance is its continued pursuit of exotic financial engineering. The market for credit derivatives, widely blamed for helping destabilize markets, remains vast. As of March 31, the notional value of credit derivatives outstanding in the U.S. banking system, a widely used measure, stood at $14.6 trillion, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. That was down 8% from three months earlier, but still almost triple the $5.5 trillion level of three years ago. Total return swaps -- a type of derivative that lost favor during the crisis -- are among the instruments regaining popularity, bankers and investors say. Banks use the swaps to provide hedge funds with low-cost financing, which the hedge funds in turn use to purchase leveraged loans or other assets from the bank. The hedge funds pledge the purchased assets as collateral for the loan. During the crisis, the swaps burned banks that seized collateral from hedge funds, only to find that the assets' values had plunged along with the overall markets. Even collateralized debt obligations, perhaps the biggest money-loser in Wall Street history, are staging a comeback of sorts. Banks are disassembling securities produced by bundling home and commercial mortgages and repackaging them into what market experts describe as mini-CDOs. The goal is to cobble the mortgage-backed securities, seen as high-risk, into instruments more palatable to investors. Wall Street firms defend their use of the complex products. "A structured or engineered product may be entirely appropriate for the purchaser," said Citigroup spokesman Alex Samuelson, whose bank is among those marketing new types of derivatives to investors. "They're not intrinsically bad." The Obama administration, financial regulators and many lawmakers believe that more regulation is necessary to protect the U.S. economy from another crisis and to bolster confidence. Certain elements enjoy broad support, such as a proposal to empower government officials to take over and break up large, faltering financial companies whose failure could destabilize the economy. Many policy makers believe that such powers would have allowed the government to mitigate the impact of Lehman's collapse. Geithner's Push But many Republicans and some Democrats are skeptical of some elements of the proposal, such as a proposed consumer-protection agency and a plan to expand the Federal Reserve's powers to regulate the country's largest financial institutions. In Washington on March 26, newly minted Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner took a rough outline of President Barack Obama's financial rules to Capitol Hill. Administration officials knew it would take months for these proposals to work their way through Congress. But Mr. Geithner argued that the government urgently needed the power to take over big failing companies. At a congressional hearing, he urged lawmakers to grant that authority "as quickly as you can." Political support was lukewarm. Rep. Don Manzullo (R., Ill.) called the idea "radical." In June, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) delayed an immediate vote on the issue, pending a broader review of financial regulation. In the meantime, regulators have tried to crack down on dozens of banks, slapping hundreds with penalties that restrict their growth and direct them to raise capital. The Fed has centralized more of its supervision of large banks through top officials in Washington. In July, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair told a congressional panel that big banks were able to essentially "blackmail" the government because some companies were so large that officials had no way of breaking them apart if they were to falter. Regulators know it would be difficult to break up Citigroup's complex bank holding company operations, for example, even if they wanted to. Bank of America, J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo & Co. each controlled more than 10% of the nation's deposits -- once a firm regulatory cap -- because of acquisitions performed during the heat of the financial crisis, sometimes at the government's urging. The Obama administration is expected to intensify its push for the new regulation regime in the coming weeks. During a weekend summit, the world's top finance ministers agreed to create higher capital requirements for top global banks once they recover from the financial turmoil, a move that would force them, in effect, to become more conservative. At the meeting in London, Mr. Geithner implored policy makers to continue fighting for tougher financial regulations in their own countries. "We can't let momentum for reform fade as the crisis recedes," he pleaded. From pbond at mail.ngo.za Wed Sep 9 07:46:33 2009 From: pbond at mail.ngo.za (Patrick Bond) Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:46:33 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] Class war at Copenhagan climate talks In-Reply-To: <2c6145850909090004g2ca5d353hed01c10832470f90@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c6145850909090004g2ca5d353hed01c10832470f90@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AA7B1B9.9070207@mail.ngo.za> And national/race/gender/eco war, too, for sure... Stuart Munckton wrote: > http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1100#more-1100 > Class War at the Copenhagen Climate Change Talks September 3, 2009 > Call for a ?Seattle? approach to Copenhagen climate talks, Africans demand reparations By Patrick Bond | LINKS | 7 September 2009 A `Seattle' in Copenhagen could scuttle a climate deal that only serves the richest countries. September 5, 2009 ? Durban -- Here?s a fairly simple choice: the global North would pay the hard-hit global South to deal with the climate crisis, either through the complicated, corrupt, controversial ``Clean Development Mechanism? (CDM), whose projects have plenty of damaging sideeffects to communities, or instead pay through other mechanisms that must provide financing quickly, transparently and decisively to achieve genuine income compensation plus renewable energy to the masses. The Copenhagen climate summit in December is all about the former choice, because the power bloc in Europe and the US have put carbon trading at the core of their emissions reduction strategy, while the two largest emitters of carbon in the Third World, China and India, are the main beneficiaries of CDM financing. What that means is that problems caused when Al Gore?s US delegation brought pro-corporate compromises to Kyoto in 1997 ? promising a US sign-on to Kyoto (hah, what a lie) in exchange for carbon trading - are going to now amplify, and haunt us for a very long time, unless serious reforms are achieved in Copenhagen. They won?t be, and nor will any substantive agreement emerge, hinted the new UN Development Programme director and New Zealand?s neoliberal former prime minister Helen Clark this week: ``The success of the Copenhagen summit on climate change in December will not depend on a final international deal being sealed there.?? In other words, prepare for a stalemate by a coalition of selfish, fossil-fuel addicted powers. Terribly weak targets may get a mention (or even no mention, as last time at Bali), but market mechanisms will be invoked as the ``solution?? so as to appease polluting capitalists and the governments under their thumb, especially US President Barack Obama?s. In contrast, there are attractive, simple mechanisms for financing Africa?s survival, including the militant ``ecological debt?? (or ``climate reparations??) demands now being made by environmental leaders of the African Union (AU), as well as Jubilee Africa?s request to just remove the damn boot from Africa?s financial neck by canceling ongoing debt repayments. On that score, in 2009 the lowest-income African countries are suffering a 50% increase in debt repayments (as a percentage of export earnings), according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As I noted four years ago, that means the Make Poverty History NGO-rockstar campaign was a farce. The only debt written off wasn?t possible to repay anyway, so for low-income Africa, ``debt relief?? was just an accounting gimmick and the G8?s real Gleneagles debt strategy was to squeeze Africa even tighter, as IMF data now shows. African Union role But, you may well ask, should anyone take anything said by the AU leadership seriously? The AU typically serves, as Zimbabwe?s new finance minister Tendai Biti once put it, as the continent?s ``trade union of dictators??. Heading the AU climate team is Ethiopian strongman Meles Zenawi, who also chairs South Africa's subimperialist New Partnership for Africa?s Development and thus gets invited to G20 gatherings along with Pretoria (better him than AU chair Moammar Gaddafi, reckon the others). Sometimes seen merely as a US puppet ? thanks to the disastrous, Washington-sponsored 2007 invasion of neighbouring Somalia ? Zenawi is rather more complex. He was once a self-described Marxist but is now a brutal tyrant whose troops have killed scores of students and other democrats, and who has just imposed a ban on international funding of local civil society aimed to intimidate critics. Quite ridiculous, isn?t it, for Zenawi to lead the charge, reportedly demanding a minimum of US$65 billion ? and up to $200 billion ? annually from the North by 2020? Well, no, not considering how much Africa will be devastated. Even Zenawi?s voice, and role in Copenhagen are potentially crucial in the struggle ahead. What a struggle it is. The most shocking probable outcome of climate change is that 90% of the African peasantry will be out of business by 2100 due to drought, floods, extreme weather events, disease and political instability, according to UN experts. The Climate Change Vulnerability Index, calculated in 2009 ``from dozens of variables measuring the capacity of a country to cope with the consequences of global warming??, listed 22 African countries out of 28 across the world at ``extreme risk??, whereas the United States is near the bottom of the world rankings of countries at risk, even though it is the leading per capita contributor to climate change. There is no question that those most responsible should pay reparations, now that we are aware of the damage being done by rising greenhouse gas emissions, and by the ongoing stubborn refusal by the rich-country government ? especially Obama?s - to cut back. The amounts can be debated, for of course $65 billion/year for Africa is way too low, given how much devastation to individuals and communities is already underway, how many economies will falter, and how many incalculably valuable species will be lost. But in addition to AU leaders, the world is awakening. After several years of hard work by World Council of Churches (WCC) members and staff, on September 2 the WCC?s central committee adopted a formal statement on the North?s ``deep moral obligation to promote ecological justice by addressing our debts to peoples most affected by ecological destruction and to the earth itself.?? The WCC slams ``the agro-industrial-economic complex and the culture of the North, characterized by the consumerist lifestyle and the view of development as commensurate with exploitation of the earth's so-called natural resources??, and cites the eco-debt definition pioneered by Accion Ecologica of Ecuador: ``historical and current resource-plundering, environmental degradation and the dumping of greenhouse gases and toxic wastes.?? Like the USA?s ``Superfund?? legislation or any other damages paid by corporations for messes made ? such as Thor Chemicals? notorious mercury spillage a few dozen kilometres from my Durban home, now leaking into the city?s bulk water supply at the Inanda Dam ? the point is to get a general estimate of clean-up costs and a rough estimate of damages done. As compensation, flows of grant funding are required ? hopefully via an accountable, fair, transparent system such as a basic income grant for all residents of Africa (a Namibian pilot is showing excellent results) ? instead of the kinds of corrupting carbon trade financing that dictators or big corporations currently grab hold of and redirect to adverse ends. Carbon market What is a carbon market regime and why is it counterproductive? This is the heart of the debate about the merits of a Copenhagen deal. Carbon trading allows corporations and governments generating greenhouse gases to seemingly reduce their net emissions. They can do this, thanks to the Kyoto Protocol, by trading for others? reductions (e.g. CDM projects in the Third World) or emissions rights (e.g. Eastern Europe?s ``hot air?? that followed the 1990s economic collapse). Why do they do it? The pro-trading rationale is that once property rights are granted to polluters for their emissions, a ``cap?? can be put on a country?s or the world?s total emissions (and then progressively lowered if there is political will). So as to minimise adverse economic impact, corporations can stay within the cap even by emitting way above it, by buying others? rights to pollute. But the carbon market isn?t working, for several reasons: * the idea of inventing a property right to pollute is effectively the privatisation of the air; * the corporations most responsible for pollution and the World Bank ? which is most responsible for fossil-fuel financing ? are behind the market, and can be expected to engage in systemic corruption to attract money into the market even if this prevents genuine emissions reductions; * many of the offsetting projects ? such as monocultural timber plantations, forest ``protection?? and landfill methane-electricity projects ? have devastating impacts on local communities and ecologies; * the price is haywire, having crashed by half in a short period in April 2006 and by two-thirds in 2008; * there is a serious potential for carbon markets to become an out-of-control, multi-trillion dollar speculative bubble, similar to exotic financial instruments associated with Enron?s 2002 collapse (indeed, many Enron employees populate the carbon markets); * as a ``false solution?? to climate change, carbon trading encourages merely small, incremental shifts, and thus distracts us from a wide range of radical changes we need to make in materials extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal; and * the idea of market solutions to market failure is an ideology that rarely makes sense, and especially not following the world?s worst-ever financial market failure. Recall that scientists insist an 80% cut in emissions will be necessary within four decades at most, with the major cuts before 2020. To achieve this, carbon markets won?t work, as the leading US climate scientist, James Hansen, remarked in opposition to Barack Obama?s cap and trade scheme. Obama?s legislation ? the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the US House of Representaives in June 2009 ? is so profoundly flawed it should be scrapped. Some excellent movements have sprung up to try to prevent US carbon trading and the destruction of Environmental Protection Agency powers to regulate carbon pollution, on which Waxman-Markey is especially wicked. (Please help by joining scores of groups disgusted with Obama?s legislation here and here ? and do give a miss to pro-``Hopenhagen'' campaigners like Avaaz, the World Wildlife Federation, the ``Climate Action Network?? and other deal-doers who either haven?t thought through the issues properly or who wallow in conflicts of interest as carbon-traders themselves.) In sum, the emissions trade is a bogus ``false solution??. Very different forms of climate finance are required at the Copenhagen summit in December, including the North?s payment of ecological debt. But Zenawi and others from Africa ? especially civil society ? will have to work much harder to put climate compensation on the agenda (and to ensure that governments corrupted by the fossil fuel industry and other transnational corporations, as well as local elites, do not become the vehicle for distributing the compensation). For a `Seattle? at Copenhagen While carbon trading is at the heart of Copenhagen negotiations, any deal done will be a step backwards. The Durban Group for Climate Justice ? founded in 2004 in South Africa - is the main civil society network explicitly fighting carbon trading; a superb analysis by Larry Lohmann is available from the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation at http://www.dhf.uu.se/pdffiler/DD2006_48_carbon_trading/carbon_trading_web_HQ.pdf. One of our other gurus, University of KwaZulu-Natal honorary professor Dennis Brutus, puts the challenge ahead quite frankly: ``My own view is that a corrupt deal is being concocted in Copenhagen with the active collaboration of NGOs who have been bought off by the corporations, especially oil and transport. They may even be well-intentioned but they are barking up the wrong tree.?? Instead of a bad deal, Brutus recommends that we all ``Seattle?? Copenhagen, i.e. the AU insiders work with massed protest outside to prevent the North from doing a deal in their interests, against Africa?s and the planet?s. A decade ago, that formula stopped the World Trade Organisation?s Millennial Round from succeeding in Seattle, and in 2003 the feat was repeated in Cancun. ``We?re outta here??, Zenawi may well say in Copenhagen, for on September 3, he issued a strong threat from Addis Ababa: ``If need be we are prepared to walk out of any negotiations that threatens to be another rape of our continent.?? To ``Seattle?? Copenhagen would entail civil society protesting outside and African governments working for Africans? interests inside, to halt a dirty deal that makes matters worse. Even with less than 100 days to go, Brutus insists it?s feasible, and would then allow us to move on to the real emissions reduction and alternative energy and production systems the world desperately needs. [Patrick Bond, director of the Centre for Civil Society in Durban, is co-editor of the UKZN Press book Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society: Negative Returns on South African Investments. This article was originally a ZNet commentary.] From marcel at cubaeducationtours.ca Tue Sep 8 02:01:17 2009 From: marcel at cubaeducationtours.ca (Marcel Hatch) Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 01:01:17 -0700 Subject: [Marxism] Invitation to visit Cuba Message-ID: Greetings from Cuba Education Tours, We're honored to extend a warm invitation on behalf of the Cuban people for you to come down and visit. They want to meet you, get to know you, and show you around. They feel they have a great country, history and culture to share with you -- much of which has been hidden for too long. Cubans are renowned for their kind effusive hospitality, sense of humor and heartfelt candor. They also hope to establish lasting friendships for understanding and cooperation with you. They've asked us to arrange four special learning and cultural programs for 2009. We're happy to oblige. These are the only people-to-people tours for Americans and Canadian available this year. They're fun and filled with fresh perspectives. * Boomers Whole Cuba Tour over U.S. Thanksgiving holiday * Cuban Holiday Discovery Tour for Christmas and New Years * 51st Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution Tour spanning New Years * Teachers Introduction to Cuba Tour during New Years Check out costs and detailed itineraries at http://CubaFriends.com Please call or write us with questions. We are here to help you experience Cuba firsthand. Our Canadian, American and Cuban staff ensures your island encounter is without equal. We've endeavored to define a new standard for green social tourism that lets you to witness the real Cuba and its people safely, with peace of mind. You'll return with enduring memories and many new amigos. Looking forward to meeting you in the Pearl of the Caribbean. Marcel Hatch Education Director Cuba Education Tours 2278 East 24th Avenue Vancouver, BC V5N 2V2 1-877-687-3817 Canada and US + 604-874-9048 International B.C. Travelers Assurance Fund Registration No. 34338 Providing educational and ethical Cuba travel since 2000 ________________________________________________________ * Consider sharing our letter with your colleagues, friends and family. In doing so you'll help us assist the Cuban people. From v_brown_au at yahoo.com.au Wed Sep 9 07:49:31 2009 From: v_brown_au at yahoo.com.au (Virginia Brown) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 06:49:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism] Why prison privatisation should be opposed: Direct Action Message-ID: <82654.88266.qm@web36805.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Why prison privatisation should be opposed ? By Kim Bullimore ? In August 2008, the NSW Labor government announced plans to privatise both the Parklea and Cessnock prisons in the wake of a budgetary blowout of $23 million in overtime payments to prison guards. NSW Corrective Services commissioner Ron Woodham told the November 11 Sydney Daily Telegraph that the partial privatisation of the prison system would save the government more than $42 million over the next four years. ? The NSW Labor government?s plan to partially privatise the NSW prison system is a part of an increasing trend across the developed capitalist world to privatise the management of prisons. Currently there are more than 200 privatised prisons around the world, housing more than 150,000 prisoners, including 160 privatised prisons in the USA, 21 in France, 12 in the UK and 12 in Australia. According to a ?Survey of Prison Privatization around the World? (on the website of the Israeli government), the 12 privatised prisons in Australia incarcerate 20% of Australia?s prison population. ? In 2004, a briefing paper to the NSW Labor government on prison privatisation, noted that Australia has the highest proportion of inmates in private prisons of any nation in the world. At the time, Australia had seven privately run prisons, housing 17% of Australia?s prisoners, while in the US, 7% of the 2 million prisoners were in privately run prisons. ? The extent of privatisation of prisons varies around the world. In some cases, privatisation refers solely to the private management of the government-built and legally owned prisons, while in other instances it can refer to prisons that have been designed, constructed and managed by private contractors. In all instances, however, the government pays the private contractor to operate the prison. The primary objective of the private contractor is to make a profit, usually by using prisoners as a cheap labour force. ? Racism and prisons ? In Australia, as with most developed capitalist countries around the world, the great majority of prisoners are from the poorest sections of the general population and/or oppressed racial minorities and/or suffer from mental illness. According to former US political prisoner and academic Angela Davis, who is now an active campaigner for prisoner rights, prisons in the capitalist system ?perform a feat of magic? by helping to ?disappear? societal problems. In her 1998 essay ?Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex?, Davis noted that ?imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many social problems that burden people who are ensconced in poverty?. ? According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), between 1996 and 2006, the number of people in prison had increased by 42%. Indigenous Australians constitute 24% of the prison population despite making up only 2% of the general population. In 2007, the Human Rights Law Resource Centre (HRLRC) noted that the national incarnation rates for Indigenous Australians was 11 times higher than non-Indigenous Australians. The incarceration rate for Indigenous children aged 10-14 years and Indigenous women was 30 and 20 times higher respectively than their non-Indigenous counterparts. ? The HRLRC also noted that about one-fifth of the prison population suffered ?serious mental illness?.? According to the HRLRC, ?there is substantial evidence from across Australia that access to adequate mental health care in prisons is manifestly inadequate, that the mentally ill in prison are often ?managed? by segregation, and that such confinement ? often for very long periods ? can seriously exacerbate mental illness and cause significant psychological harm?. In her 1998 essay, Davis noted that ?while government-run prisons are often in gross violation of international human rights standards, private prisons are even less accountable?.? Private prison operators will often seek to cut costs by reducing the health and living conditions of prisoners. ? In response to the NSW Labor government?s announcement on its plans to privatise? the operation of the Parklea and Cessnock prisons, prison guards have mounted a ?community campaign? to stop the privatisation and save their jobs. As a result of the campaign, Premier Nathan Rees has announced that the government would not privatise the Cessnock prison but would still move to privatise Parklea. While this is a partial victory in the anti-privatisation campaign and for prisoner rights, some in the broader labour and socialist movement are confused about the role of prison guards under the capitalist system, seeing them as no different to any other workers in capitalist society. ? This, however, is dangerously mistaken. As Frederick Engels observed in his 1884 book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, prisons and prison guards are part of the capitalist state machinery aimed at keeping the class struggle within specific boundaries in order to facilitate the continued domination of the capitalist class over the working class. Prison guards, like the police force, are therefore not part of the working class, but hired agents of the capitalist ruling class. ? Laborite view ? The idea that the police and prison guards are no different from any other worker is a reflection of the dominance of the class-collaborationist politics of the ALP within the broader labour movement. This view is based on an ideology that does not recognise that there is an irreconcilable antagonism of interests between the working class on the one hand and the capitalists and their agents on the other. Flowing from this, the Laborites accept the liberal-capitalist myth that the capitalist prison system is a ?public service? whose primary role is to ?rehabilitate? people convicted of breaking the (capitalist rulers?) laws. This liberal-capitalist view is reflected in the official name for the capitalist prison system ? ?Corrective Services?, even though less than 1% of what is spent by governments across Australia on this system is devoted to prisoner ?rehabilitation? programs. ? The Laborites view trade unions not as organisations to fight to liberate the working class from capitalist exploitation, but to bargain with employers over the terms of the capitalists? exploitation of workers, through negotiations over industrial relations laws, wages and working hours and conditions. Flowing from that view, the Laborite union officialdom has welcomed prison guards into the state-based public service unions. But when workers take strike action against their employers, the police and prison guards are there to weaken or break such action by arresting and jailing the strikers and their union leaders, never to act in solidarity with them against the employers. ? While it is understandable that the Laborites view the role of prisons and prison guards under capitalism as class-neutral, one wouldn?t expect this to be the case with those who regard themselves as revolutionary socialists. However, the Laborite view that prison guards are part of the working class has been propagated by both the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and the Socialist Alliance (SA). In the August 5 article in the CPA?s Guardian weekly, Len Waster argued that the anti-privatisation campaign by prison guards was part of the growing ?worker?s resistance? to the Rees government?s neoliberal agenda. According to Waster, ?for the first time ever, prison officers and prisoners are on the same side. Privatisation threatens prison officers with loss of conditions and job security, while prisoners face the prospect of being slave labour for the profit of multinational corporations?. ? In a range of material published over the last six months in Green Left Weekly and on the Socialist Alliance website, SA members have presented the same view. Thus, according to SA national executive member Peter Boyle, writing in the August 9 edition of GLW, ?rank-and-file prison workers, who rallied in Sydney on August 6 against the planned privatisation of Parklea prison by the NSW Labor government, had given up on the ALP?. Boyle, who is also the national secretary of the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP), which claims to be a ?Marxist tendency? in the SA, praised the prison guards? campaign as a sign of ?workers? wanting a political alternative to the ALP. ? SA leaders have also been peddling the liberal-capitalist myth that the capitalist state?s prison system is a class-neutral public service that can be reformed to meet the basic human rights of prisoners. Thus, in GLW?s June 21 ?Our Common Cause? column, Sanna Andrews and SA national convener Dick Nichols, who is also a DSP national executive member, argued that the key to stopping Indigenous deaths in custody isn?t doing away with the racist capitalist prison system, but to ?reform? this system by changing ?the underlying goals of the system and its management culture?. The ?basis for serious prison reform?, argued Andrews and Nichols, ?starts with prison officers, prisoners and concerned citizens strengthening the alliance to stop prison privatisation?. What Andrews and Nichols ignore, however, is that most Indigenous prisoners have died in the custody of the police or in government-run prisons. ? In a 2003 speech, Angela Davis noted that it was essential to make a ?distinction between transforming living and working conditions of prisoners as human beings, and reforming the prison for the sake of creating a superior and more effective apparatus of punishment?. She noted while human rights activists should ?make demands that will make life more liveable for [prisoners] while they?re inside?, it was crucial to recognise that ?those demands don?t have to be linked to a project to create better prisons. They can be linked to a project to abolish prisons? and the capitalist profit system that needs them. In addition, she argued that that the role of the workers? movement should be to defend the human rights of prisoners, both in state-run and privatised prisons. Socialists should oppose prison privatisation because it can worsen the conditions of prisoners, not because of its possible impact on the employment conditions of the capitalist government?s prison guards, the capitalist rulers? hired agents. [Kim Bullimore is an Aboriginal activist who has been involved for more than 12 years in anti-racism and Indigenous rights campaigning. She is a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.] From: Direct Action Issue # 15, September 2009 http://directaction.org.au/issue15/why_prison_privatisation_should_be_opposed From versomail at verso.co.uk Wed Sep 9 08:04:27 2009 From: versomail at verso.co.uk (Verso Mail) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 15:04:27 +0100 Subject: [Marxism] NEW TITLE: HUGO CHAVEZ PRESENTS SIMON BOLIVAR: THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION Message-ID: NEW TITLE: HUGO CHAVEZ PRESENTS SIMON BOLIVAR: THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION SIMON BOLIVAR Edited by Matthew Brown Published August 2009 "Do not measure your physical forces against those of the enemy, as there is no comparison between spirit and matter. You are men, they are beasts; you are free, they are slaves." - Simon Bolivar ------------------------------------ Launch event: 'Celebrating Venezuela!' WEDNESDAY 21ST OCTOBER, BOLIVAR HALL, LONDON, FROM 7.30PM On October 21st 2009, join the Ambassador H.E. Samuel Moncada, Tariq Ali, and Matthew Brown at Bolivar Hall for the launch of Verso's new book THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION. The event will be in celebration of the tenth year of the Bolivarian Constitution: the past decade has seen spectacular Bolivarian achievement; promoted primarily by Chavez, the 1999 constitution, which is still current, pledges human rights for all and socioeconomic improvements, as well as major governmental changes. ------------------------------------ In his introduction to this collection of Bolivar's writings, Hugo Chavez, the charismatic and controversial Venezualan president, explains why Bolivar, held as a model for subsequent Latin American radicals, continues to inspire. Welcomed as a potential saviour by the impoverished and greeted with considerable alarm by Washington, Chavez has adopted Bolivar's aims and ambitions for an integrated and liberated Latin America, dubbing his own programmes of social reform "the Bolivarian Revolution." Chavez traces Bolivar's transfiguration into the revolutionary known as El Libertador, and brings into relief his foresight in predicting North American dominance over Latin America - and therefore why Bolivar's writings continue to set fire today. The Venezuelan revolutionary Simon Bolivar, also known as El Libertador and the "George Washington of South America," was one of South America's greatest generals in the early nineteenth century. Bolivar's victories over the Spanish won independence for Bolivia, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Significantly, his project of freedom from colonialism also took a stand for the emancipation of slaves and social equality for all. This collection of Bolivar's writings covers the whole of his colourful political career, starting with the rousing words of his 'Oath Taken in Rome': "I swear by my Country that I will not rest body or soul until I have broken the chains binding us to the will of Spanish might!" ------------------------------------ Hugo Chavez is the President of Venezuela. A former army paratrooper, Chavez spent two years in prison after leading a failed coup in 1992 of the government of President Carlos Andres Perez. After being pardoned, he relaunched his party as the Movement of the Fifth Republic. He was elected President in 1998 in a landslide victory, and has since been re-elected twice. ------------------------------------ ISBN: 978 1 84467 381 0 ?7.99 / $14.95 / Paperback / 208 pages HUGO CHAVEZ PRESENTS THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION is available from all good bookshops and: http://www.versobooks.com/books/ab/b-titles/bolivar_simon_bolivarian_revolution_rev.shtml UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ch%C3%A1vez-presents-Bolivarian-Revolution-Revolutions/dp/1844673812/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252496433&sr=8-4 http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781844673810/Hugo-Chavez-Presents-Simon-Bolivar US: http://www.amazon.com/Bolivarian-Revolution-Revolutions-Simon-Bolivar/dp/1844673812 ---------------------------------------- Visit Verso's new blog for information on our upcoming events, new reviews and publications and special offers. http://versouk.wordpress.com/ And get updates on Twitter too! http://twitter.com/VersoBooksUK ---------------------------------------- From rajeshcherian at yahoo.co.in Wed Sep 9 08:51:13 2009 From: rajeshcherian at yahoo.co.in (Rajesh Roy) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 07:51:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism] India: An Update from Lalgarh In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <403337.21596.qm@web8408.mail.in.yahoo.com> Meanwhile, CPI(M) cadres are being murdered on a daily basis in Bengal by the infamous ultra-left right-wing political alliance.. ----- Original Message ---- From: Politicus E. To: rajeshcherian at yahoo.co.in Sent: Tuesday, 8 September, 2009 10:50:36 PM Subject: [Marxism] India: An Update from Lalgarh The following was published on 8 September 2009 at the Sanhati website. Note that P.S.B.J.C. refers to the People's Committee against Police Atrocities. epoliticus Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/rajeshcherian%40yahoo.co.in See the Web's breaking stories, chosen by people like you. Check out Yahoo! Buzz. http://in.buzz.yahoo.com/ From gkmilner at eftel.net.au Wed Sep 9 09:51:42 2009 From: gkmilner at eftel.net.au (G K Milner) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 23:51:42 +0800 Subject: [Marxism] Socialist Strategy: Letter to a Libertarian Friend Message-ID: <80D9F4E58D934B449B5B393F152C0A7F@GrahamPC> Passages from a letter to an anarchist friend, dealing with some time-honoured issues of socialist strategy http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=146674 From bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com Wed Sep 9 12:23:05 2009 From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com (Bhaskar Sunkara) Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:23:05 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Worker in a Worker's State by Miklos Haraszti Message-ID: <4AA7F289.4000801@gmail.com> Anyone read it? Thoughts? From david at miradoiro.com Wed Sep 9 12:27:47 2009 From: david at miradoiro.com (=?utf-8?Q?David_Pic=C3=B3n_=C3=81lvarez?=) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 20:27:47 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] Soviet supercomputing. Message-ID: <68FF6E7963BB408A88470905F5BD6FE4@nautilus> Recently I've found this article: http://www.inc.com/magazine/19960615/1967.html Does anyone have any interesting info about computing history in the fSU? --David. From markalause at gmail.com Wed Sep 9 12:34:10 2009 From: markalause at gmail.com (Mark Lause) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 14:34:10 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Thanks for the technical advice on the website Message-ID: I got some very good suggestions and really appreciate the input. Kudos to all the neo-Hegelian techies and others on the list. Solidarity! Mark L. From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Sep 9 13:34:51 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:34:51 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] How the Fed bought economists Message-ID: <4AA8035B.5070602@panix.com> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/07/priceless-how-the-federal_n_278805.html The Huffington Post September 9, 2009 The Federal Reserve, through its extensive network of consultants, visiting scholars, alumni and staff economists, so thoroughly dominates the field of economics that real criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members of the profession, an investigation by the Huffington Post has found. This dominance helps explain how, even after the Fed failed to foresee the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression, the central bank has largely escaped criticism from academic economists. In the Fed's thrall, the economists missed it, too. "The Fed has a lock on the economics world," says Joshua Rosner, a Wall Street analyst who correctly called the meltdown. "There is no room for other views, which I guess is why economists got it so wrong." One critical way the Fed exerts control on academic economists is through its relationships with the field's gatekeepers. For instance, at the Journal of Monetary Economics, a must-publish venue for rising economists, more than half of the editorial board members are currently on the Fed payroll -- and the rest have been in the past. The Fed failed to see the housing bubble as it happened, insisting that the rise in housing prices was normal. In 2004, after "flipping" had become a term cops and janitors were using to describe the way to get rich in real estate, then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that "a national severe price distortion [is] most unlikely." A year later, current Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the boom "largely reflect strong economic fundamentals." The Fed also failed to sufficiently regulate major financial institutions, with Greenspan -- and the dominant economists -- believing that the banks would regulate themselves in their own self-interest. Despite all this, Bernanke has been nominated for a second term by President Obama. In the field of economics, the chairman remains a much-heralded figure, lauded for reaction to a crisis generated, in the first place, by the Fed itself. Congress is even considering legislation to greatly expand the powers of the Fed to systemically regulate the financial industry. Story continues below Paul Krugman, in Sunday's New York Times magazine, did his own autopsy of economics, asking "How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?" Krugman concludes that "[e]conomics, as a field, got in trouble because economists were seduced by the vision of a perfect, frictionless market system." So who seduced them? The Fed did it. Three Decades of Domination The Fed has been dominating the profession for about three decades. "For the economics profession that came out of the [second world] war, the Federal Reserve was not a very important place as far as they were concerned, and their views on monetary policy were not framed by a working relationship with the Federal Reserve. So I would date it to maybe the mid-1970s," says University of Texas economics professor -- and Fed critic -- James Galbraith. "The generation that I grew up under, which included both Milton Friedman on the right and Jim Tobin on the left, were independent of the Fed. They sent students to the Fed and they influenced the Fed, but there wasn't a culture of consulting, and it wasn't the same vast network of professional economists working there." But by 1993, when former Fed Chairman Greenspan provided the House banking committee with a breakdown of the number of economists on contract or employed by the Fed, he reported that 189 worked for the board itself and another 171 for the various regional banks. Adding in statisticians, support staff and "officers" -- who are generally also economists -- the total number came to 730. And then there were the contracts. Over a three-year period ending in October 1994, the Fed awarded 305 contracts to 209 professors worth a total of $3 million. Just how dominant is the Fed today? The Federal Reserve's Board of Governors employs 220 PhD economists and a host of researchers and support staff, according to a Fed spokeswoman. The 12 regional banks employ scores more. (HuffPost placed calls to them but was unable to get exact numbers.) The Fed also doles out millions of dollars in contracts to economists for consulting assignments, papers, presentations, workshops, and that plum gig known as a "visiting scholarship." A Fed spokeswoman says that exact figures for the number of economists contracted with weren't available. But, she says, the Federal Reserve spent $389.2 million in 2008 on "monetary and economic policy," money spent on analysis, research, data gathering, and studies on market structure; $433 million is budgeted for 2009. That's a lot of money for a relatively small number of economists. According to the American Economic Association, a total of only 487 economists list "monetary policy, central banking, and the supply of money and credit," as either their primary or secondary specialty; 310 list "money and interest rates"; and 244 list "macroeconomic policy formation [and] aspects of public finance and general policy." The National Association of Business Economists tells HuffPost that 611 of its roughly 2,400 members are part of their "Financial Roundtable," the closest way they can approximate a focus on monetary policy and central banking. Robert Auerbach, a former investigator with the House banking committee, spent years looking into the workings of the Fed and published much of what he found in the 2008 book, "Deception and Abuse at the Fed". A chapter in that book, excerpted here, provided the impetus for this investigation. Auerbach found that in 1992, roughly 968 members of the AEA designated "domestic monetary and financial theory and institutions" as their primary field, and 717 designated it as their secondary field. Combining his numbers with the current ones from the AEA and NABE, it's fair to conclude that there are something like 1,000 to 1,500 monetary economists working across the country. Add up the 220 economist jobs at the Board of Governors along with regional bank hires and contracted economists, and the Fed employs or contracts with easily 500 economists at any given time. Add in those who have previously worked for the Fed -- or who hope to one day soon -- and you've accounted for a very significant majority of the field. Auerbach concludes that the "problems associated with the Fed's employing or contracting with large numbers of economists" arise "when these economists testify as witnesses at legislative hearings or as experts at judicial proceedings, and when they publish their research and views on Fed policies, including in Fed publications." Gatekeepers On The Payroll The Fed keeps many of the influential editors of prominent academic journals on its payroll. It is common for a journal editor to review submissions dealing with Fed policy while also taking the bank's money. A HuffPost review of seven top journals found that 84 of the 190 editorial board members were affiliated with the Federal Reserve in one way or another. "Try to publish an article critical of the Fed with an editor who works for the Fed," says Galbraith. And the journals, in turn, determine which economists get tenure and what ideas are considered respectable. The pharmaceutical industry has similarly worked to control key medical journals, but that involves several companies. In the field of economics, it's just the Fed. Being on the Fed payroll isn't just about the money, either. A relationship with the Fed carries prestige; invitations to Fed conferences and offers of visiting scholarships with the bank signal a rising star or an economist who has arrived. Affiliations with the Fed have become the oxygen of academic life for monetary economists. "It's very important, if you are tenure track and don't have tenure, to show that you are valued by the Federal Reserve," says Jane D'Arista, a Fed critic and an economist with the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Robert King, editor in chief of the Journal of Monetary Economics and a visiting scholar at the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank, dismisses the notion that his journal was influenced by its Fed connections. "I think that the suggestion is a silly one, based on my own experience at least," he wrote in an e-mail. (His full response is at the bottom.) Galbraith, a Fed critic, has seen the Fed's influence on academia first hand. He and co-authors Olivier Giovannoni and Ann Russo found that in the year before a presidential election, there is a significantly tighter monetary policy coming from the Fed if a Democrat is in office and a significantly looser policy if a Republican is in office. The effects are both statistically significant, allowing for controls, and economically important. They submitted a paper with their findings to the Review of Economics and Statistics in 2008, but the paper was rejected. "The editor assigned to it turned out to be a fellow at the Fed and that was after I requested that it not be assigned to someone affiliated with the Fed," Galbraith says. Publishing in top journals is, like in any discipline, the key to getting tenure. Indeed, pursuing tenure ironically requires a kind of fealty to the dominant economic ideology that is the precise opposite of the purpose of tenure, which is to protect academics who present oppositional perspectives. And while most academic disciplines and top-tier journals are controlled by some defining paradigm, in an academic field like poetry, that situation can do no harm other than to, perhaps, a forest of trees. Economics, unfortunately, collides with reality -- as it did with the Fed's incorrect reading of the housing bubble and failure to regulate financial institutions. Neither was a matter of incompetence, but both resulted from the Fed's unchallenged assumptions about the way the market worked. Even the late Milton Friedman, whose monetary economic theories heavily influenced Greenspan, was concerned about the stifled nature of the debate. Friedman, in a 1993 letter to Auerbach that the author quotes in his book, argued that the Fed practice was harming objectivity: "I cannot disagree with you that having something like 500 economists is extremely unhealthy. As you say, it is not conducive to independent, objective research. You and I know there has been censorship of the material published. Equally important, the location of the economists in the Federal Reserve has had a significant influence on the kind of research they do, biasing that research toward noncontroversial technical papers on method as opposed to substantive papers on policy and results," Friedman wrote. Greenspan told Congress in October 2008 that he was in a state of "shocked disbelief" and that the "whole intellectual edifice" had "collapsed." House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) followed up: "In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working." "Absolutely, precisely," Greenspan replied. "You know, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well." But, if the intellectual edifice has collapsed, the intellectual infrastructure remains in place. The same economists who provided Greenspan his "very considerable evidence" are still running the journals and still analyzing the world using the same models that were incapable of seeing the credit boom and the coming collapse. Rosner, the Wall Street analyst who foresaw the crash, says that the Fed's ideological dominance of the journals hampered his attempt to warn his colleagues about what was to come. Rosner wrote a strikingly prescient paper in 2001 arguing that relaxed lending standards and other factors would lead to a boom in housing prices over the next several years, but that the growth would be highly susceptible to an economic disruption because it was fundamentally unsound. He expanded on those ideas over the next few years, connecting the dots and concluding that the coming housing collapse would wreak havoc on the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) and mortgage backed securities (MBS) markets, which would have a ripple effect on the rest of the economy. That, of course, is exactly what happened and it took the Fed and the economics field completely by surprise. "What you're doing is, actually, in order to get published, having to whittle down or narrow what might otherwise be oppositional or expansionary views," says Rosner. "The only way you can actually get in a journal is by subscribing to the views of one of the journals." When Rosner was casting his paper on CDOs and MBSs about, he knew he needed an academic economist to co-author the paper for a journal to consider it. Seven economists turned him down. "You don't believe that markets are efficient?" he says they asked, telling him the paper was "outside the bounds" of what could be published. "I would say 'Markets are efficient when there's equal access to information, but that doesn't exist,'" he recalls. The CDO and MBS markets froze because, as the housing market crashed, buyers didn't trust that they had reliable information about them -- precisely the case Rosner had been making. He eventually found a co-author, Joseph Mason, an associate Professor of Finance at Drexel University LeBow College of Business, a senior fellow at the Wharton School, and a visiting scholar at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. But the pair could only land their papers with the conservative Hudson Institute. In February 2007, they published a paper called "How Resilient Are Mortgage Backed Securities to Collateralized Debt Obligation Market Disruptions?" and in May posted another, "How Misapplied Bond Ratings Cause Mortgage Backed Securities and Collateralized Debt Obligation Market Disruptions." Together, the two papers offer a better analysis of what led to the crash than the economic journals have managed to put together - and they were published by a non-PhD before the crisis. Not As Simple As A Pay-Off Economist Rob Johnson serves on the UN Commission of Experts on Finance and International Monetary Reform and was a top economist on the Senate banking committee under both a Democratic and Republican chairman. He says that the consulting gigs shouldn't be looked at "like it's a payoff, like money. I think it's more being one of, part of, a club -- being respected, invited to the conferences, have a hearing with the chairman, having all the prestige dimensions, as much as a paycheck." The Fed's hiring of so many economists can be looked at in several ways, Johnson says, because the institution does, of course, need talented analysts. "You can look at it from a telescope, either direction. One, you can say well they're reaching out, they've got a big budget and what they're doing, I'd say, is canvassing as broad a range of talent," he says. "You might call that the 'healthy hypothesis.'" The other hypothesis, he says, "is that they're essentially using taxpayer money to wrap their arms around everybody that's a critic and therefore muffle or silence the debate. And I would say that probably both dimensions are operative, in reality." To get a mainstream take, HuffPost called monetary economists at random from the list as members of the AEA. "I think there is a pretty good number of professors of economics who want a very limited use of monetary policy and I don't think that that necessarily has a negative impact on their careers," said Ahmed Ehsan, reached at the economics department at James Madison University. "It's quite possible that if they have some new ideas, that might be attractive to the Federal Reserve." Ehsan, reflecting on his own career and those of his students, allowed that there is, in fact, something to what the Fed critics are saying. "I don't think [the Fed has too much influence], but then my area is monetary economics and I know my own professors, who were really well known when I was at Michigan State, my adviser, he ended up at the St. Louis Fed," he recalls. "He did lots of work. He was a product of the time...so there is some evidence, but it's not an overwhelming thing." There's definitely prestige in spending a few years at the Fed that can give a boost to an academic career, he added. "It's one of the better career moves for lots of undergraduate students. It's very competitive." Press officers for the Federal Reserve's board of governors provided some background information for this article, but declined to make anyone available to comment on its substance. The Fed's Intolerance For Dissent When dissent has arisen, the Fed has dealt with it like any other institution that cherishes homogeneity. Take the case of Alan Blinder. Though he's squarely within the mainstream and considered one of the great economic minds of his generation, he lasted a mere year and a half as vice chairman of the Fed, leaving in January 1996. Rob Johnson, who watched the Blinder ordeal, says Blinder made the mistake of behaving as if the Fed was a place where competing ideas and assumptions were debated. "Sociologically, what was happening was the Fed staff was really afraid of Blinder. At some level, as an applied empirical economist, Alan Blinder is really brilliant," says Johnson. In closed-door meetings, Blinder did what so few do: challenged assumptions. "The Fed staff would come out and their ritual is: Greenspan has kind of told them what to conclude and they produce studies in which they conclude this. And Blinder treated it more like an open academic debate when he first got there and he'd come out and say, 'Well, that's not true. If you change this assumption and change this assumption and use this kind of assumption you get a completely different result.' And it just created a stir inside--it was sort of like the whole pipeline of Greenspan-arriving-at-decisions was disrupted." It didn't sit well with Greenspan or his staff. "A lot of senior staff...were pissed off about Blinder -- how should we say? -- not playing by the customs that they were accustomed to," Johnson says. And celebrity is no shield against Fed excommunication. Paul Krugman, in fact, has gotten rough treatment. "I've been blackballed from the Fed summer conference at Jackson Hole, which I used to be a regular at, ever since I criticized him," Krugman said of Greenspan in a 2007 interview with Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now! "Nobody really wants to cross him." An invitation to the annual conference, or some other blessing from the Fed, is a signal to the economic profession that you're a certified member of the club. Even Krugman seems a bit burned by the slight. "And two years ago," he said in 2007, "the conference was devoted to a field, new economic geography, that I invented, and I wasn't invited." Three years after the conference, Krugman won a Nobel Prize in 2008 for his work in economic geography. One Journal, In Detail The Huffington Post reviewed the mastheads of the American Journal of Economics, the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of Economic Literature, the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the Journal of Political Economy and the Journal of Monetary Economics. HuffPost interns Googled around looking for resumes and otherwise searched for Fed connections for the 190 people on those mastheads. Of the 84 that were affiliated with the Federal Reserve at one point in their careers, 21 were on the Fed payroll even as they served as gatekeepers at prominent journals. At the Journal of Monetary Economics, every single member of the editorial board is or has been affiliated with the Fed and 14 of the 26 board members are presently on the Fed payroll. After the top editor, King, comes senior associate editor Marianne Baxter, who has written papers for the Chicago and Minneapolis banks and was a visiting scholar at the Minneapolis bank in '84, '85, at the Richmond bank in '97, and at the board itself in '87. She was an advisor to the president of the New York bank from '02-'05. Tim Geithner, now the Treasury Secretary, became president of the New York bank in '03. The senior associate editors: Janice C Eberly was a Fed visiting-scholar at Philadelphia ('94), Minneapolis ('97) and the board ('97). Martin Eichenbaum has written several papers for the Fed and is a consultant to the Chicago and Atlanta banks. Sergio Rebelo has written for and was previously a consultant to the board. Stephen Williamson has written for the Cleveland, Minneapolis and Richmond banks, he worked in the Minneapolis bank's research department from '85-'87, he's on the editorial board of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, is the co-organizer of the '09 St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank annual economic policy conference and the co-organizer of the same bank's '08 conference on Money, Credit, and Policy, and has been a visiting scholar at the Richmond bank ever since '98. And then there are the associate editors. Klaus Adam is a visiting scholar at the San Francisco bank. Yongsung Chang is a research associate at the Cleveland bank and has been working with the Fed in one position or another since '01. Mario Crucini was a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in '08 and has been a senior fellow at the Dallas bank since that year. Huberto Ennis is a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, a position he's held since '00. Jonathan Heathcote is a senior economist at the Minneapolis bank and has been a visiting scholar three times dating back to '01. Ricardo Lagos is a visiting scholar at the New York bank, a former senior economist for the Minneapolis bank and a visiting scholar at that bank and Cleveland's. In fact, he was a visiting scholar at both the Cleveland and New York banks in '07 and '08. Edward Nelson was the assistant vice president of the St Louis bank from '03-'09. Esteban Rossi-Hansberg was a visiting scholar at the Philadelphia bank from '05-'09 and similarly served at the Richmond, Minneapolis and New York banks. Pierre-Daniel Sarte is a senior economist at the Richmond bank, a position he's held since '96. Frank Schorfheide has been a visiting scholar at the Philadelphia bank since '03 and at the New York bank since '07. He's done four such stints at the Atlanta bank and scholared for the board in '03. Alexander Wolman has been a senior economist at the Richmond bank since 1989. Here is the complete response from King, the journal's editor in chief: "I think that the suggestion is a silly one, based on my own experience at least. In a 1988 article for AEI later republished in the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Review, Marvin Goodfriend (then at FRB Richmond and now at Carnegie Mellon) and I argued that it was very important for the Fed to separate monetary policy decisions (setting of interest rates) and banking policy decisions (loans to banks, via the discount window and otherwise). We argued further that there was little positive case for the Fed to be involved in the latter: broadbased liquidity could always be provided by the former. We also argued that moral hazard was a cost of banking intervention. "Ben Bernanke understands this distinction well: he and other members of the FOMC have read my perspective and sometimes use exactly this distinction between monetary and banking policies. In difficult times, Bernanke and his fellow FOMC members have chosen to involve the Fed in major financial market interventions, well beyond the traditional banking area, a position that attracts plenty of criticism and support. JME and other economics major journals would certainly publish exciting articles that fell between these two distinct perspectives: no intervention and extensive intervention. An upcoming Carnegie-Rochester conference, with its proceeding published in JME, will host a debate on 'The Future of Central Banking'. "You may use only the entire quotation above or no quotation at all." Auerbach, shown King's e-mail, says it's just this simple: "If you're on the Fed payroll there's a conflict of interest." Elyse Siegel, Julian Hattem, Jeff Muskus and Jenna Staul contributed to this report Ryan Grim is the author of This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America From schaffer at optonline.net Wed Sep 9 14:27:12 2009 From: schaffer at optonline.net (Les Schaffer) Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:27:12 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Soviet supercomputing. In-Reply-To: <68FF6E7963BB408A88470905F5BD6FE4@nautilus> References: <68FF6E7963BB408A88470905F5BD6FE4@nautilus> Message-ID: <4AA80FA0.6030402@optonline.net> google: Lebedev Soviet computing Les David Pic?n ?lvarez wrote: > Recently I've found this article: > http://www.inc.com/magazine/19960615/1967.html > > Does anyone have any interesting info about computing history in the fSU? > From epoliticus at gmail.com Wed Sep 9 14:48:58 2009 From: epoliticus at gmail.com (Politicus E.) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 16:48:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] New Blog Entry: India's Favourite Fascist, Again Message-ID: One Myth, at least, the feringhee exploded, A secret wise men have never betrayed: Democracy is a form of government in which Heads are counted, but men never weighed. This poem by Iqbal embodies the political situation in contemporary Gujarat rather well. Narendra Modi is the genocidal avatar of the State. But the avatar metamorphosed, passing from genocide into genocide denial .... Read the entire blog entry at http://bit.ly/wdFWw. From dmozart1756 at gmail.com Wed Sep 9 15:34:27 2009 From: dmozart1756 at gmail.com (Dennis Brasky) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 17:34:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] =?windows-1252?q?Israel=92s_Arab_Citizens_Call_General_?= =?windows-1252?q?Strike?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53a1ffe70909091434oe560dd6me4fa8c16214a8f2c@mail.gmail.com> > > > Action against wave of ?racist? measures > > By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth > > The one-day stoppage is due to take place on October 1, a date heavy with > symbolism because it marks the anniversary of another general strike, in > 2000 at the start of the second intifada, when 13 Arab demonstrators were > shot dead by Israeli police. > full article -- > > http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23453.htm > > > > > The late Brazilian bishop Dom H?lder C?mara said it well: ?When I give food > to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, > they call me a Communist.? > > ------------------------------ > From sebastian at amadeobordiga.u-net.com Wed Sep 9 15:44:16 2009 From: sebastian at amadeobordiga.u-net.com (Sebastian Budgen) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 23:44:16 +0200 Subject: [Marxism] Haymarket Releases Paperback Editions of HM Book Series Message-ID: <018F2A5F-EE79-4AF8-9B28-99E438245DE8@amadeobordiga.u-net.com> www.HaymarketBooks.org Haymarket Books is pleased to announce the release, in collaboration with Brill academic publishers, of the Historical Materialism book series. We believe that the U.S. release of the 13 new titles in this series represents an important new addition to Marxist theory and historical research. As with the quarterly Historical Materialism journal with which it is affiliated, the titles in the HM book series address topics and themes of sustained interest to critical scholars. These include analyses of global political economy, the environment, ideology, and contemporary culture; new research and theory exploring the intersections between exploitation and oppression; and critical engagement among diverse currents of anti-capitalist thought. The series also includes the republication of classic texts in the Marxist tradition. The contemporary political moment is one characterized by intense turbulence and crisis, but also of intensifying possibility for those who seek to both interpret capitalist society as well as transform it. The publication of the Historical Materialism book series aims to make a contribution to the project of critical scholarship and social transformation. Alasdair MacIntyre's Engagement with Marxism Selected Writings 1953?1974 Edited by Paul Blackledge and Neil Davidson A selection of essays on Marxism from the author of the famous After Virtue. ISBN: 9781608460328 US $28 Althusser: The Detour of Theory Gregory Elliott Elliott offers a critical examination of the political and intellectual contexts of Althusser?s ?return to Marx? in the mid-1960s. For this second edition, he has added a substantial postscript surveying a comprehensive posthumous collection of Althusser?s work. ISBN: 9781608460274 US $28 The Clash of Globalizations Neoliberalism, the Third Way, and Antiglobalization Ray Kiely An examination of the politics of globalization and resistance, along with insights on the role of the state and the nature of combined and uneven development. ISBN: 9781608460229 US $28 Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism Edited by Jacques Bidet and Stathis Kouvelakis This international and interdisciplinary volume aims to provide a thorough and precise panorama of recent developments in Marxist theory in the US, Europe, Asia, and beyond. ISBN: 9781608460304 US $50 Criticism of Heaven On Marxism and Theology Roland Boer A critical commentary on the interactions between Marxism and theology in the work of Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Louis Althusser, Henri Lefebvre, Antonio Gramsci, Terry Eagleton, Slavoj Zizek and Theodor Adorno. ISBN: 9781608460311 US $28 Exploring Marx's Capital Philosophical, Economic, and Political Dimensions Jacques Bidet Bidet re-assesses Marx?s entire system in its set of constitutive categories: value, market, labor-power, class, exploitation, production, fetishism, and ideology. He looks at difficulties each encountered and their analytical value. ISBN: 9781608460281 US $28 Following Marx Method, Critique, and Crisis Michael A. Lebowitz Lebowitz analyzes Marxist methodology for addressing the falling rate of profit, crisis theory, monopoly capital, advertising and the capitalist state. ISBN: 9781608460335 US $28 Globalization: A Systematic Marxian Account Tony Smith This book examines the social-state, neoliberal, catalytic-state, and democratic-cosmopolitan models of globalization and how the functioning of each necessarily contradicts essential claims made by its leading advocates. Smith elaborates a positive, socialist alternative. ISBN: 9781608460236 US $28 Impersonal Power History and Theory of the Bourgeois State Heide Gerstenberger Gerstenberger?s critique of the structural-functionalist theory of the state, in both its modernization theory and materialist variants, opposes to these an explanation that proceeds from the long-term structuring effect of social practice. ISBN: 9781608460298 US $36 Making History Agency, Structure, and Change in Social Theory Alex Callinicos Drawing on classical Marxism, analytical philosophy, and a wide range of historical writing, Making History observes how human agents draw their powers from the social structures in which they are involved. ISBN: 9781608460205 US $28 Marxism and Ecological Economics Toward a Red and Green Political Economy Paul Burkett The first general assessment of ecological economics from a Marxist point of view, this title shows that Marxism can help ecological economics fulfill its commitment to methodological pluralism, and historical openness. ISBN: 9781608460250 US $28 A Marxist Philosophy of Language Jean-Jacques Lecercle This critique of the dominant views of language embodies a view of language as not merely an instrumental, but a social, historical, material, and political phenomenon. ISBN: 9781608460267 US $28 Pavel V. Maksakovsky: The Capitalist Cycle Translated by Richard B. Day This classic work in Marxist economic theory aims to provide a ?concluding chapter? for Marx?s Captial. Maksakovsy examines Marx?s economic methodology and constructs a comprehensive, dynamic theory of cyclical crises. ISBN: 9781608460182 US $20 Utopia, Ltd. Ideologies of Social Dreaming in England, 1870?1900 Matthew Beaumont This book uncovers the historical preconditions for the explosive revival of utopian literature at the nineteenth-century fin de si?cle, and excavates its ideological content. ISBN: 9781608460212 US $28 Also recently published by Haymarket, and part of the Historical Materialism Book Series: Lenin Rediscovered What Is to be Done? In Context Lars T. Lih Lih uses a wide range of previously unavailable sources to situate Lenin?s What Is to Be Done? within the mainstream of the European socialist movement of the time. This nuanced study upends traditional readings of Lenin and Russian history in the early twentieth century. $50 | ISBN: 9781931859585 Western Marxism and the Soviet Union Marcel van der Linden From socialist utopia to state capitalism, Marxist scholars have advanced widely divergent analyses of the Soviet Union. Van der Linden presents an encyclopedic review of the many theories and debates and assesses their contributions to Marxist political theory. $20 | ISBN: 9781931859691 The German Revolution Pierre Brou? | $50 | ISBN: 9781931859325 Between Equal Rights China Mi?ville | $18 | ISBN: 9781931859332 The Theory of Revolution in the Young Marx | Michael L?wy $15 | ISBN: 9781931859196 For individual orders, visit www.HaymarketBooks.org, call us at 773-583-7884 or visit your favorite independent bookstore. Contact Haymarket Books to request exam or desk copies of titles. For exam copies, please enclose payment of $5 for each book under $30 and $10 for books over $30 with your request. Haymarket Books provides free desk copies to professors assigning a book as required reading. Course adoption orders and trade distribution in the U.S. through Consortium Book Sales and Distribution: phone: 800-283-3572, web: www.cbsd.com; and around the world through Publishers Group Worldwide, phone: 212-614-7888, web: www.pgw.com . From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Sep 9 16:01:52 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:01:52 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Haymarket Releases Paperback Editions of HM Book Series In-Reply-To: <018F2A5F-EE79-4AF8-9B28-99E438245DE8@amadeobordiga.u-net.com> References: <018F2A5F-EE79-4AF8-9B28-99E438245DE8@amadeobordiga.u-net.com> Message-ID: <4AA825D0.3030000@panix.com> Sebastian Budgen wrote: > www.HaymarketBooks.org > > > > Haymarket Books is pleased to announce the release, in collaboration > with Brill academic publishers, of the Historical Materialism book > series. Excellent. Now if we can only get to read the HM Journal articles in their entirety a year after they were published or something like that. From lnp3 at panix.com Wed Sep 9 17:53:03 2009 From: lnp3 at panix.com (Louis Proyect) Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:53:03 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] American CP leader still solidly behind Obama Message-ID: <4AA83FDF.7090706@panix.com> http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8960/ From RicardoStarkey at aol.com Wed Sep 9 18:29:10 2009 From: RicardoStarkey at aol.com (RicardoStarkey at aol.com) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2