[Marxism] happy may day

[MICHAEL YATES]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==



Solidarity to all those, and especially those in the Arab and Persian nations, 
who are fighting for a better world, one free from 
tyranny of every kind. 
 
Here is something I wrote a few years ago that seems appropriate on May Day.  
 
http://monthlyreview.org/commentary/can-the-working-class-change-the-world



  

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Comment: Cuba reconceives socialism

[Marce Cameron]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


>From "Cuba's Socialist Renewal"
http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com
To sign up as a follower or receive email updates click link above

The dust has settled from the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist
Party (PCC) and reactions are circulating in cyberspace from all
quarters, some better informed than others.

Link to comment:
http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/05/comment-cuba-reconceives-socialism.html


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Bart Ehrman - a one-man god fraud squad

[Dennis Brasky]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


clip -

As an undergrad at Chicago's Moody Bible Institute in the mid-1970s, Ehrman
was "an extremely zealous, rigorous, pious (self-righteous)" evangelical who
followed the school's draconian rules — no smoking, drinking, card-playing,
dancing, movies, or beards — because Bible verses seemed to support them.
Unlike most college students, unlike nearly all young Americans, Moody
students didn't question authority.

When you take the Bible literally, you don't subvert dominant paradigms.

Such bullet-proof belief "was comforting," Ehrman says now, "because we
thought we had a corner on the truth and that we were right and everybody
else was wrong. And these were eternal truths, so they were going to bring
us eternal life and everybody else was going to hell. It's very comforting
to think you're always right."

Studying for his PhD a few years later at Princeton Theological Seminary,
poring over each part of the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, the
born-again young scholar remained "passionate about my studies and the truth
that I could find." But what he found instead were errors. Contradictions.
Self-defeating arguments. Historical inaccuracies. And worse.

"The New Testament (not to mention the Old Testament, where the problems are
even more severe) was chock full of discrepancies. ... I wrestled with these
problems, I prayed about them. ... Eventually I came to realize that the
Bible not only contains untruths or accidental mistakes. It also contains
what almost anyone today would call lies."

full -


>
> http://www.alternet.org/story/150734/meet_bart_ehrman%3A_a_one-man_god_fraud_squad?page=entire
>

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] The Soviet Union Versus Socialism - Noam Chomsky

[Ismail Lagardien]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Apologies if this is "old news" Always interested in what people on the two 
lists (Marxism & LBO) think about some of the things I am reading.

In this article, which was written close to the end of the cold war, Noam 
Chomsky argues against the association of socialism with Bolshevism. 

"When the world’s two great propaganda systems agree on some doctrine, it 
requires some intellectual effort to escape its shackles. One such doctrine is 
that the society created by Lenin and Trotsky and molded further by Stalin and 
his successors has some relation to socialism in some meaningful or 
historically 
accurate sense of this concept. In fact, if there is a relation, it is the 
relation of contradiction."

Source: 
http://liberationfrequency.tumblr.com/post/5069389451/the-soviet-union-versus-socialism-noam-chomsky
 

 

Ismail Lagardien
Department of Politics and Public Administration

Elon University
Elon, NC
27244

Tel: +1(612) 227-5037 (Personal)

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Gorbachev quote hoax?

[Peggy Dobbins]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


I did see his Pizza TV ad. I can't document the report of his receiving a house 
on the Presidio in San Francisco

Peggy Powell Dobbins 
Sociology as an Art Form
www.peggydobbins.net




On Apr 30, 2011, at 3:21 PM, "michael a. lebowitz"  
> 
> 
>  a statement supposedly made by Gorbachev about how his subjective goal had 
> been to 'liquidate communism'. Trying to verify this statement, though, is 
> not so easy. 
>michael
> 
> 
> *
> 
> In an interview he gave on Turkish radio recently, Mikhail Gorbachev, the 
> former General Secretary of the CPSU and President of the Soviet Union, made 
> the shameful admission that his ambition, all along, was /"to liquidate 
> communism". /We publish below the transcript of Gorbachev's interview from 
> the latest edition of /North Star Compass/, organ of the Canadian based 
> Organising Committee for Friendship and Solidarity with Soviet People.
> 
> *
> 
> "My ambition was to liquidate communism, the dictatorship over all the 
> people. Supporting me and urging me on in this mission was my wife, who was 
> of this opinion long before I was.
> 
> "I knew that I could only do this if I was the leading functionary. In this 
> my wife urged me to climb to the top post.
> 
> "When I actually became acquainted with the West, my mind was made up 
> forever. I decided that I must destroy the whole apparatus of the CPSU and 
> the USSR.
> 
> "Also, I must do this in all of the other socialist countries.
> 
> "My ideal is the path of social democracy. Only this system shall benefit all 
> the people. This quest I decided I must fulfil.
> 
> "I found friends that had the same thoughts as I in Yakovlev and Shevernadze, 
> they also deserve to be thanked for the break up of the USSR and the defeat 
> of communism.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Michael A. Lebowitz
> Professor Emeritus
> Economics Department
> Simon Fraser University
> Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
> 
> Can be reached in Venezuela at
> Residencias Anauco Suites
> Departamento 601
> Parque Central,final Av. Bolivar
> Zona Postal 1010, Oficina 1
> Caracas, Venezuela
> (58-212) 573-4888
> my cell: (0416) 403 3038
> 
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
> Set your options at: 
> http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/pegdobbins%40gmail.com


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Gorbachev quote hoax?

[Shane Mage]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==



On Apr 30, 2011, at 4:44 PM, Doğan Göçmen wrote:


Michael,
the autheticity of this quote is not put into question.


On the  contrary, the source of the quote most definitely states that  
it has been put into question:
"Die Echtheit des Textes wird von den einen bezweifelt, von anderen  
für wahrscheinlich gehalten. Trotz oder wegen der flachen Diktion?"



 Can anyone verify it
independently? As may be guessed, colour me skeptical.
  michael





Shane Mage

"scientific discovery is basically recognition of obvious realities
that self-interest or ideology have kept everybody from paying  
attention to"



Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] re Gorbachev quote hoax?

[michael a. lebowitz]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Dogan wrote:



Michael,
the autheticity of this quote is not put into question. Rather the people
discussed at that time why he said that in 1999, and not before.
He had later an interview in Spiegel German weekly. If you read German or
have anybody around you who reads German may help with you with this:
http://67329.forumromanum.com/member/forum/forum.php?action=std_show&entryid=1098488182&USER=user_67329&threadid=2 



Thanks, Dogan. I'm not questioning whether Gorbachev was a Social 
Democrat (which he indicates in the 1993 Der Spiegel interview--- and, 
in using the term 'subjective', I was separating this from any 
consideration of his objective role). I see from the site you referenced 
that I am not alone in questioning the authenticity of what is described 
there as a 1999 speech at the American University of Ankara and also as 
a speech at the Technical University of the Middle East (METU)--- in 
contrast to the original descriptions of it as a newspaper interview and 
then a radio interview. Can you give an exact time and place of this? 
It's easy to see how such a story could be picked up, translated and 
repeated once it appeared on the web (and I still wonder about its 
disappearance from the 'Northstar Compass' of February 2000). Do you 
have a Turkish reference from that time?

best wishes,
michael

--
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6

Can be reached in Venezuela at
Residencias Anauco Suites
Departamento 601
Parque Central,final Av. Bolivar
Zona Postal 1010, Oficina 1
Caracas, Venezuela
(58-212) 573-4888
my cell: (0416) 403 3038


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Anthony Brain shows with evidence why the Monarchy failed in their manouvres to serve effective Aristocratic/Conservative Bourgeois interests!

[MARIAN BRAIN]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://brainontrotskyisttheory.blogspot.com/2011/04/why-manouvres-of-royal-wedding-has.html

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Iranian workers May Day declaration

[Louis Proyect]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==



http://revolutionaryflowerpot.blogspot.com/2011/04/iranjoint-statement-in-observation-of.html



Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Facebook political purges

[Joseph Catron]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 6:35 PM, Einde O'Callaghan wrote:

Regardless of all other considerations, the fact that 50 political accounts
> in Britain (actually at least one is Irish based) disappear on the day when
> the bulk of the media are distracted by the "Distraction of the Year" is
> rather suspicious - especially when it doesn't appear to have happened to
> similar accounts in other countries.
>

Doesn't seem suspicious to me. Some clever right-winger, probably British,
struck a blow against his enemies by getting a bunch of them knocked
offline, for an entirely predictable and (from my perspective) valid reason.
Perhaps this is a trick worthy of imitation, but I see little point in
bemoaning it. I think of it as the ACORN rule - you can make enemies, or you
can break every rule in the book, but when you do both simultaneously,
you're just asking for it.

-- 
"Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
lytlað."

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Gorbachev quote hoax?

[Doğan Göçmen]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Michael,
the autheticity of this quote is not put into question. Rather the people
discussed at that time why he said that in 1999, and not before.
He had later an interview in Spiegel German weekly. If you read German or
have anybody around you who reads German may help with you with this:
http://67329.forumromanum.com/member/forum/forum.php?action=std_show&entryid=1098488182&USER=user_67329&threadid=2



On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 11:21 PM, michael a. lebowitz wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
>I just returned from a conference in Beijing on the Fall of the USSR--
> 20 years later. I was surprised to hear several Russians (fighting old
> battles) and Chinese (fighting current battles) cite (as support of their
> Great [Bad] Man Theory) a statement supposedly made by Gorbachev about how
> his subjective goal had been to 'liquidate communism'. Trying to verify this
> statement, though, is not so easy. It is said to have been made in Ankara
> but in some accounts, it is from newspaper interviews when he attended a
> seminar of American University in Turkey and, in other accounts, from a
> radio interview. A Czech journal, DIALOG, is credited as a source in some
> cases and in all cases the Canadian site, 'North Star Compass' ['Dedicated
> to the Re-Establishment of the Soviet Union as a Socialist State'] is the
> immediate source from Feb 2000. I can't, however, find DIALOG, and the
> February 2000 North Star Compass does not at this time include the statement
> (although this site,
> http://www.lalkar.org/issues/contents/mar2000/gorbachev.html) does
> indicate that it was once there. Here's the opening of the quote from the
> above site (one of several repeating it). Can anyone verify it
> independently? As may be guessed, colour me skeptical.
>michael
> 
>
> *
>
> In an interview he gave on Turkish radio recently, Mikhail Gorbachev, the
> former General Secretary of the CPSU and President of the Soviet Union, made
> the shameful admission that his ambition, all along, was /"to liquidate
> communism". /We publish below the transcript of Gorbachev's interview from
> the latest edition of /North Star Compass/, organ of the Canadian based
> Organising Committee for Friendship and Solidarity with Soviet People.
>
> *
>
> "My ambition was to liquidate communism, the dictatorship over all the
> people. Supporting me and urging me on in this mission was my wife, who was
> of this opinion long before I was.
>
> "I knew that I could only do this if I was the leading functionary. In this
> my wife urged me to climb to the top post.
>
> "When I actually became acquainted with the West, my mind was made up
> forever. I decided that I must destroy the whole apparatus of the CPSU and
> the USSR.
>
> "Also, I must do this in all of the other socialist countries.
>
> "My ideal is the path of social democracy. Only this system shall benefit
> all the people. This quest I decided I must fulfil.
>
> "I found friends that had the same thoughts as I in Yakovlev and
> Shevernadze, they also deserve to be thanked for the break up of the USSR
> and the defeat of communism.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Michael A. Lebowitz
> Professor Emeritus
> Economics Department
> Simon Fraser University
> Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
>
> Can be reached in Venezuela at
> Residencias Anauco Suites
> Departamento 601
> Parque Central,final Av. Bolivar
> Zona Postal 1010, Oficina 1
> Caracas, Venezuela
> (58-212) 573-4888
> my cell: (0416) 403 3038
>
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
> Set your options at:
> http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/dgn.gcmn%40googlemail.com
>



-- 
Dogan Göcmen
http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/
http://www.dogangocmen.blogspot.com/

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Gorbachev quote hoax?

[michael a. lebowitz]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


I just returned from a conference in Beijing on the Fall of the 
USSR-- 20 years later. I was surprised to hear several Russians 
(fighting old battles) and Chinese (fighting current battles) cite (as 
support of their Great [Bad] Man Theory) a statement supposedly made by 
Gorbachev about how his subjective goal had been to 'liquidate 
communism'. Trying to verify this statement, though, is not so easy. It 
is said to have been made in Ankara but in some accounts, it is from 
newspaper interviews when he attended a seminar of American University 
in Turkey and, in other accounts, from a radio interview. A Czech 
journal, DIALOG, is credited as a source in some cases and in all cases 
the Canadian site, 'North Star Compass' ['Dedicated to the 
Re-Establishment of the Soviet Union as a Socialist State'] is the 
immediate source from Feb 2000. I can't, however, find DIALOG, and the 
February 2000 North Star Compass does not at this time include the 
statement (although this 
site,http://www.lalkar.org/issues/contents/mar2000/gorbachev.html) does 
indicate that it was once there. Here's the opening of the quote from 
the above site (one of several repeating it). Can anyone verify it 
independently? As may be guessed, colour me skeptical.

michael


*

In an interview he gave on Turkish radio recently, Mikhail Gorbachev, 
the former General Secretary of the CPSU and President of the Soviet 
Union, made the shameful admission that his ambition, all along, was 
/"to liquidate communism". /We publish below the transcript of 
Gorbachev's interview from the latest edition of /North Star Compass/, 
organ of the Canadian based Organising Committee for Friendship and 
Solidarity with Soviet People.


*

"My ambition was to liquidate communism, the dictatorship over all the 
people. Supporting me and urging me on in this mission was my wife, who 
was of this opinion long before I was.


"I knew that I could only do this if I was the leading functionary. In 
this my wife urged me to climb to the top post.


"When I actually became acquainted with the West, my mind was made up 
forever. I decided that I must destroy the whole apparatus of the CPSU 
and the USSR.


"Also, I must do this in all of the other socialist countries.

"My ideal is the path of social democracy. Only this system shall 
benefit all the people. This quest I decided I must fulfil.


"I found friends that had the same thoughts as I in Yakovlev and 
Shevernadze, they also deserve to be thanked for the break up of the 
USSR and the defeat of communism.






--
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6

Can be reached in Venezuela at
Residencias Anauco Suites
Departamento 601
Parque Central,final Av. Bolivar
Zona Postal 1010, Oficina 1
Caracas, Venezuela
(58-212) 573-4888
my cell: (0416) 403 3038


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] White House Threatens to Blacklist Paper for Covering Protest

[Dennis Brasky]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


White House Threatens to Blacklist Paper for Covering Protest

The *San Francisco Chronicle* is apparently in trouble with the White House
for posting video of a protest against the White House's treatment of
suspected *WikiLeaks *source Bradley Manning. The *Chronicle*'s Carolyn
Lochhead 
reports
:

The White House threatened Thursday to exclude the *San Francisco
Chronicle*from pooled coverage of its events in the Bay Area after the
paper posted a
video  of a protest at a San Francisco fundraiser
for President Obama last week, *Chronicle* editor Ward Bushee said. White
House guidelines governing press coverage of such events are too
restrictive, Bushee said, and the newspaper was within its rights to film
the protest and post this video –

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/29-9

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] The Encyclopedia of Anti Revisionism on-line: "The dirty little secret"

[Gulf Mann]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Let me second Dayne here, Waistline2. When I open one of your posts, I
always settle in, fire up a smoke, and put on my thinking cap. Thank you for
sharing.

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 10:26 AM, Dayne Goodwin wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 2:47 PM,  wrote:
>
> > . . . I believe I am the only comrade that communicates on list such as
> > this. The value of the list for me has been exposure to a vast amount of
> > literature and ideas.
> >
>
> Thank you for doing so.  Please keep it up.
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
> Set your options at:
> http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/gulfmann%40gmail.com
>

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Facebook political purges

[Einde O'Callaghan]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On 30.04.2011 15:52, Joseph Catron wrote:


On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 4:25 PM, Louis Proyect  wrote:

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=8064


No such thing:

http://www.jonworth.eu/over-50-political-accounts-deleted-in-facebook-purge-its-much-more-complicated

And
all the conspiratorial whining in articles like Socialist Unity's doesn't do
much to induce my sympathy.

Regardless of all other considerations, the fact that 50 political 
accounts in Britain (actually at least one is Irish based) disappear on 
the day when the bulk of the media are distracted by the "Distraction of 
the Year" is rather suspicious - especially when it doesn't appear to 
have happened to similar accounts in other countries.


These don't appear to be the only deletions undertaken by Facebook in 
their kowtow to British royalty - several people with the good or bad 
fortune to be called "Kate Middleton" received a similar treatment from 
Facebook: .


The deletion of the groups has got some media coverage, e.g. in the 
Guardian 
.


Einde O'Callaghan


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] The Encyclopedia of Anti Revisionism on-line: "The dirty little secret"

[Dayne Goodwin]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 2:47 PM,  wrote:

> . . . I believe I am the only comrade that communicates on list such as
> this. The value of the list for me has been exposure to a vast amount of
> literature and ideas.
>

Thank you for doing so.  Please keep it up.

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Massachusetts House Seeks to Limit Collective Bargaining

[Bonnie Weinstein]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Massachusetts House Seeks to Limit Collective Bargaining
"'Everybody’s pretty upset,' said Robert J. Haynes, president of the  
Massachusetts A.F.L.-C.I.O. 'It’s hard for me to understand how my  
good friends in the Massachusetts House, that have told me they  
support collective bargaining, could do this.' ...On Friday, Mr.  
Patrick said through a spokesman that labor must have 'a meaningful  
role' in determining how to control health care costs, though he did  
not elaborate. The House voted 111-42 in favor of the plan, with 81  
Democrats approving it."

By ABBY GOODNOUGH
April 29, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/business/economy/ 
30massachusetts.html?src=busln


BOSTON — Union leaders in this traditionally labor-friendly state are  
fuming over a plan passed by the Massachusetts House of  
Representatives this week to curtail bargaining rights for municipal  
workers, a highly unusual move by Democratic lawmakers.


The bill, passed late Tuesday night in advance of planned labor  
protests, would let local officials unilaterally set health insurance  
co-payments and deductibles for their employees after a monthlong  
discussion period with unions. Leaders of the House said it would  
save cities and towns $100 million in the budget year that starts in  
July.


While Republican-controlled legislatures in Wisconsin and Ohio this  
year have weakened the ability of public-sector unions to bargain  
collectively, and Republicans in other states have pushed for a  
variety of curbs on unions, Massachusetts is the first state where a  
Democratic-led chamber has voted to limit bargaining rights.


“Everybody’s pretty upset,” said Robert J. Haynes, president of the  
Massachusetts A.F.L.-C.I.O. “It’s hard for me to understand how my  
good friends in the Massachusetts House, that have told me they  
support collective bargaining, could do this.”


But the bill faces uncertain prospects in the Senate, which is also  
controlled by Democrats. Senate President Therese Murray said  
Wednesday that she was pleased the House had “moved the needle” on  
the contentious issue of health care costs, but she has not endorsed  
the plan.


Dave Falcone, a Senate spokesman, said Friday that Ms. Murray “has  
been consistent in her message that something has to be done, that  
there has to be savings, and that everyone should have a seat at the  
table.”


While Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, has not pledged to sign the  
bill if it reaches his desk, he proposed a similar plan early this  
year and praised the House this week for its “important” vote. He  
also raised concerns about a provision of the House plan allowing  
towns and cities to opt out of it and said unions must not have veto  
power over municipal health plans.


On Friday, Mr. Patrick said through a spokesman that labor must have  
“a meaningful role” in determining how to control health care costs,  
though he did not elaborate.


The House voted 111-42 in favor of the plan, with 81 Democrats  
approving it.


Representative Brian Dempsey, the Democratic chairman of the House  
Ways and Means Committee, said he supported it — and in fact helped  
create it — after seeing no other way of avoiding disastrous cuts to  
local public safety and education budgets. The legislature had urged  
municipalities and their unions to curb rising health costs for  
several years, he said, but with no success.


“We have to get a handle on this,” he said. “The fact of the matter  
is costs are going up and the money is not going to the areas we  
desperately need it to.”


He acknowledged, though, that it was “certainly difficult” to hear  
labor’s angry response.


Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers  
Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog group that supported the plan,  
said the health care costs for cities and towns had been growing by  
about 11 percent a year and “cannibalizing” local budgets.


“Yes, it’s a small curtailment of their collective bargaining  
powers,” Mr. Widmer said of municipal unions, “but with the corollary  
that it will save lots of their members’ jobs.”


Under the House plan, co-payments and deductibles for municipal  
workers would have to be at least equal to those of state employees.  
And unions would retain the right to negotiate what portion of  
premiums their members paid.


Mr. Patrick and House leaders have sought to head off comparisons  
with the legislation that Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin signed  
earlier this year, saying the Massachusetts plan does not go nearly  
as far. That did not stop the Republican Party of Wisconsin from  
proclaiming Mr. Patrick “an ally” on Friday and congratulating him on  
the bill. Mr. Patrick is to speak at a Democratic Party dinner in  
Wisconsin

Re: [Marxism] Facebook political purges

[Ismail Lagardien]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Thanks for the socialist unity link, Lou!
 

Ismail Lagardien
Department of Politics and Public Administration

Elon University
Elon, NC
27244

Tel: +1(612) 227-5037 (Personal)

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Facebook political purges

[Joseph Catron]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 4:25 PM, Louis Proyect  wrote:

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=8064


No such thing:

http://www.jonworth.eu/over-50-political-accounts-deleted-in-facebook-purge-its-much-more-complicated

And
all the conspiratorial whining in articles like Socialist Unity's doesn't do
much to induce my sympathy.

-- 
"Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
lytlað."

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Abdel Bari Atwan on Libya

[Louis Proyect]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Abdel Bari Atwan was born in Gaza, Palestine but has lived in London 
since 1979. He has been the editor of London-based al-Quds al-Arabi, an 
independent, pan-Arab daily newspaper since 1989


http://www.abdelbariatwan.com/OurPositiononLibya26April11.htm


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Facebook political purges

[Louis Proyect]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=8064


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] re The Encyclopedia of Anti Revisionism on-line: "The dirty little secret" 3

[waistline2]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


The Encyclopedia of Anti Revisionism on-line 
http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/erol.htm 
?
"The dirty little secret" 
part 3 version 2.0 
Waistline 
?
The "dirty little secret" is the impossibility of harmonious combining 
different and competing expressions of classes within the same organization and 
wanting the organization to remain an expression of the fighting sector of the 
proletariat. While many on the left were advocating and pushing for "black 
unity" of the "black community" we were splitting with the petty bourgeoisie 
and traveling in an entirely different direction. Every serious thinking 
revolutionary in America understood the LRBW was something different. What was 
different was that we defied and broke with the historic Negro Labor Council 
model, which was appropriate during the era of segregation. The reason we grasp 
the revolutionary presentation of the NNCQ on the first reading was because it 
tracked the class dynamic we expressed, rather than screaming the problem was 
racism and "white skin privilege." 
?
For our generation the class dialectic appeared as the impossibility of 
proletarians coexisting in the same organization with the petty bourgeoisie as 
a class expression, and carrying out a revolutionary struggle for reform. The 
black proletarians could not subordinate themselves to the black petty 
bourgeoisie and most certainly not the tiny Negro bourgeoisie. 
?
For a previous generation of communists, under conditions of segregation, this 
class dynamic (unity of all classes under segregation) could not be broken by 
political and ideological fiat. Screaming the proletariat must have an 
independent program, when such is not possible renders one impotent in the 
social struggle. This "all class unity" expressed itself in the CPUSA as the 
difference - unity and conflict - between the CPUSA's Dr. James Jackson versus 
Harry Haywood, Claudia Jones, and Pettis Perry. 
?
Dr. James Jackson expressed the fighting Negro bourgeoisie within the CPUSA. In 
our estimate, and apparently many other folks opinion, we expressed the first 
fundamental political rupture with the Negro bourgeoisie and through them all 
of capital. We understood this class dynamic as our "place in history." Such 
was the power of NNCQ when it was published. Today, this class dynamic no 
longer exist and our moment, the configuration of history that shaped who we 
were, who we use to be, is gone forever never to return. 
?
Time to die! 
?
We died twenty years ago and like our imperial capitalists sought out our new 
market for new life. Every class in history is rendered obsolete and 
antagonistic to the advance of industry. Not all at one time but inexorably. 
Hence, one retool, abolish the old form of organization, maintain your Marxist 
education and fight like hell to apply a line of march matching the new rising 
fighting sections of the proletariat. The Communist Labor Party was dissolved 
because we stood in our own way. The first step in the battle for a 
revolutionary party is the organization of a group of revolutionaries. Hence, 
the League of Revolutionaries for a New America. 
?
A party - nay any organization - formed on the basis of the last stage of the 
industrial revolution and the Negro Peoples Movement is an artifact befitting 
of the historical museum. In death everything becomes clear. We were never a 
party of the proletariat and could never become such. We were a fighting 
organization of revolutionaries, with Marxists at its core that "got lucky." In 
the process we won some folks - fighting leaders of the proletariat - to the 
cause of communism. Now, comes the real class warfare. 
?
Get on the ready line! 
?
Madison, Wisconsin and Benton Harbor, Michigan is a glimpse into the future as 
another layer of the proletariat is beat down and face having its labor 
rendered superfluous by the advance of industry and what we call the 
electronics revolution. Highland Park, Michigan inaugurated this new level of 
struggle a decade ago but we were very much alone at the cutting edge of a 
general shift in the state-corporation "link up." 
?
What is taking place is not "bad policy" by "bad people" but the capitalist as 
a class responding to the destruction of the old social organization of labor, 
polarization and shattering of class relations, as these old relations evolved 
based on the industrial production. Capitalist and proletarian alike are 
compelled to respond to the revolution in the means of production. 
?
The Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) system was field tested in Highland Party 
Michigan, based on legislative acts passed in 1988 and 1990. Like old boxers we 
were caught flatfooted needing to discover the means to combat fascism in 
power. The EFM is an executiv

[Marxism] re The Encyclopedia of Anti Revisionism on-line: "The dirty little secret" 2

[waistline2]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


The Encyclopedia of Anti Revisionism on-line 
http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/erol.htm 
"The dirty little secret" 
?
part 2 version 2.0 Waistline 
?
?
CL became unique by winning the proletarian core of the League of Revolutionary 
Black Workers (LRBW) to their specific approach to social revolution, and CL's 
signature approach to applied dialectics. This approach is located here: 
http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/articles/v21ed2art1.html 
?
It helped that CL Chairman was a "Negro proletarian intellectual" with a 
substantial grasp of reality. Detroit was home of CLR James and James and Grace 
Boggs, who collectively probably never recruited more than three workers in 
their entire life. Being black and Marxist was not sufficient reason for LRBW 
to express an interest in such "intellectual giants." 
?
When we entered the Communist League - nay the reason the LRBW listened to CL 
was its revolutionary position on the "Negro Question," and latter Nelson 
Perry's article "Syndicalism Disarms the Proletariat." 
?
The Communist League and later the Communist Labor Party did not arise out of 
the middle class or petty bourgeoisie. Much of the "Young Communist Movement" 
origins, down to individual leading members of the various groupings, was of 
the student movement. 
?
The Communist League, or rather the initial California Communist League was 
formed by eleven individuals galvanized by the Watts rebellion. Six of them 
were part of the breakup of the CPUSA and the Provisional Organizing Committee. 
When this dynamic was explained in the article "Dialectics of the development 
of the Communist League," various groups of the New Communist responded with 
polemics that collectively belong in the gallery of pettiness. Read for 
yourself a couple of response. "The Dialectics of the Communist League: 
Double-Dealing, Intrigue and Conspiracy - An Attempt to Liquidate the American 
Communist Movement." First Published: In El Fuego, a "Mao Tsetung Thought 
Journal on Theoretical and Political Problems of the American Communist 
Movement," No. 1, February 1974. 
http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-2/red-banner/index.htm 
?
Here our apparent purpose in life - as an organization - was to liquidate the 
American communist movement in total, because we had nothing better to do. 
?
There is the "National Executive Committee of the Central Organization of U.S. 
Marxist-Leninists" paper "Dialectics of the Development of Nelson Perry's Head. 
A Refutation of the Counter-Revolutionary Line of the So-called "Communist 
League." Part One: The Leaders of the "Communist League" are the Real Splitters 
and Saboteurs of the Marxist-Leninist Movement Today!" (June 1974) 
http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-2/perry-head.htm 
?
"Refutation" discloses the class origins of the "Central Organization of U.S. 
Marxist-Leninists," which of course is the student movement. Why were all these 
organizations origin in the student movement, when we grew out of the 
industrial proletariat with our youth in toll? 
?
We expressed a different American experience. European immigration and slavery 
defines American history. The American communist movement was to a large degree 
dominated by German immigrants, who tended to couch the social struggle in 
concepts and the sensibility of the mother country. We lacked the immigrant 
experience and expectation of inclusion into the system, being seven and eight 
generation Americans and two generations industrial proletarian. Much of the 
bitterness of the polemics was due to our 100% proletarian origin and character 
and our revolutionary position on the "Negro Question." Despite some 
theoretical errors and inaccuracies Peery's "Negro National Colonial Question" 
further developed Harry Haywoods "Negro Liberation" and became the "must read, 
must have" American Marxist document on the national-colonial question. 
?
Here we come to the "dirty little secret." 
?
The Communist League expressed class phenomena; the fighting section of the 
industrial proletariat in its exact historical features. The social movement 
between1958 - 1979 was dominated and defined by the Negro Peoples movement. The 
Communist League was formed and evolved from within this social movement as it 
evolved, polarized and split between its proletarian and bourgeois/petty 
bourgeois sector. Sure, CL's "position" on the Negro Question, the Southwest, 
the Indian nations and peoples and social revolution in America was well 
thought out, but that is not why we were different. Rather, we were different 
in the sense of our historical American roots, generations of industrial 
proletarians and this difference required thinking out all questions 
differently. Our sense of the evolution of the industrial system was differen