[Marxism] Trumka nominated
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.johnhalle.com/political.writing/trumka.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] Trumka nominated
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Anybody know where we can find a political program for the USLP? 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] Trumka nominated [possibly faked]
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I think it would be best not to believe this announcement at this time. I just checked the original blog announcement; it is from John Halle who run the Corrente blog. The full headline of this announcement reads:Could it happen here? The latest in a series.Comments/discussion welcomed.Trumka Nominated Here is the website: http://www.correntewire.com/richard_trumka_accepts_labor_party_nod Anyone know how John Halle is and just how legitimate this source is? Manuel Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 09:18:30 -0400 From: gregm...@gmail.com CC: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Subject: [Marxism] Trumka nominated To: mtom...@hotmail.com == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.johnhalle.com/political.writing/trumka.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/mtomas3%40hotmail.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] Trumka nominated [possibly faked]
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It is, of course, satire. Greg On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 10:02 AM, Manuel Barrera mtom...@hotmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I think it would be best not to believe this announcement at this time. I just checked the original blog announcement; it is from John Halle who run the Corrente blog. The full headline of this announcement reads:Could it happen here? The latest in a series.Comments/discussion welcomed.Trumka Nominated Here is the website: http://www.correntewire.com/richard_trumka_accepts_labor_party_nod Anyone know how John Halle is and just how legitimate this source is? Manuel Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 09:18:30 -0400 From: gregm...@gmail.com CC: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Subject: [Marxism] Trumka nominated To: mtom...@hotmail.com == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.johnhalle.com/political.writing/trumka.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/mtomas3%40hotmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/gregmc59%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
[Marxism] Bob Gould
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Bob Gould died this morning (May 23, Australian time). Bob posted to this list for quite a while, and a lot of his Marxist writings are available at the Ozleft website and blog. http://ozleft.wordpress.com/ Bob was born into a Labor Party family, and in his teens joined the Communist Party of Australia, leaving in the mid-1950s to join the Trotskyist movement. He remained a Trotskyist for the rest of his life. Bob had been ill for some time and died suddenly as a result of a fall. A fuller account of his life will be available later. Ed Lewis 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] ISM: On June 5th support the Palestinian refugees’ right to return
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sunday, June 5, the 44th commemoration of the Naksa, or setback, Israel’s 1967 expulsion of 300,000 Palestinians following the Six-Day War, Palestinian refugees will return en masse to the borders. Announcing the mobilization on May 18, the Third Intifada Youth Coalition said, 'The last few days proved that the liberation of Palestine is possible and very achievable even with an unarmed massive march if the nation decides it is ready to pay all at once for the liberation of Palestine.' The Preparatory Commission for the Right to Return, a nonpartisan coordinating body, has requested that supporters of the Palestinian liberation struggle also take action on June 5, by staging rallies, marches, and protests throughout the world demanding Palestinian refugees’ right to return. Appropriate venues could include Israeli embassies, consulates, and missions, BDS campaign targets, and foreign governments and international organizations that enable Israeli crimes. http://palsolidarity.org/2011/05/18474 -- 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] Bob Gould II
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/end-of-cultural-chapter-as-beloved-bookseller-dies-at-74-20110522-1ez1f.html Google 'Ozleft' Australia for articles of his. 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] NYT says popular struggle in streets continues in Syria
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Introductory comments I think the biggest setback to the Arab Spring has not taken place in Bahrain or even in Algeria, but in Libya. And the prime perpetrator has not been the Gadhafi regime but the imperialist war which has deeply demoralized, disoriented and corrupted the once popular movement and rendered them utterly dependent on imperialism -- not the Libyan people -- for any prospect of victory. The imperialist war has fed reaction on all sides of the national division. For instance, I see no sign that the rebels have gained new support in any quarter of Libya since the NATO war began, whereas support for Gadhafi has become much more visible than it was, even in Benghazi where a pro-Gadhafi protest took place followed by many arrests of suspected Gadhafi supporters. I am, of course, like almost everybody on the list, opposed to the NATO attack. I think, however, that the defeat of the NATO attack is the lesser evil in this war, even if that means the continuation of the Gadhafi regime and the weakening or defeat of the rebel army. The appropriate slogan is something like NATO out of Libya NOW! I think combination slogans like Victory to the rebels -- No intervention are no longer appropriate because they are mutually contradictory (since the rebels are now completely intertwined with and cannot win without the imperialist intervention), and represent wishful thinking among opponents of the war about the situation in Libya today. One of the striking things about the Syrian struggle has been the complete absence as far as I can tell of calls for NATO arms, NATO bombings and NATO troops. In fact I have not even seen any support for imperialist sanctions coming from within the Syrian movement. Another reason why the Syrians have not followed the Libyan model is that Syria is a confrontation state relative to Israel, and the movement there seems at least as hostile (if not more so, as in Egypt) tlo Israeli aggression as the Assad government. Certainly, Israel seems to think so. Perhaps this is because they are learning something from the disastrous Libyan experience. Probably more important is the fact that Syria borders on Iraq, there are a million or more Iraqi refugees in the country, and Syrians have a pretty intimate knowledge of the cost to Iraq of the imperialist overthrow of a hateful dictator. All indications I see indicate that the costs of relying on imperialism to take out Gadhafi will not be less. I also see mo reason to believe that a NATO supported rebel regime will be substantially more democratic than Gadhafi regime. Of course it will be legal to hate Gadhafi (which is a gain) but, on the other hand it seems likely that it will be illegal not to hate him. Further the narrowing base of the base of the rebel movement today indicates to me that it will be unable to rule without Iraq-style or at least Haiti-style military occupation. Meanwhile the Syrian opposition soldiers on, continuing to focus primarily on popular mobilization against the repressive regime -- despite the heavy casualties. In this they remind me of the prolonged up and down movement that toppled the shah of Iran. Fred Feldman May 20, 2011 Syrian Protesters Defy Crackdown and Gain MomentumBy ANTHONY SHADID BEIRUT, Lebanon - Thousands of Syrians took to the streets in virtually every region of the country on Friday in what appeared to be a sign of new momentum and a potentially dangerous turn in the nine-week uprising. Activists said security forces killed at least 26 people and wounded hundreds. The resilience of the protests seemed to surprise even the activists themselves. The message delivered at many of the demonstrations, from Damascus, the capital, to the distant east to towns that had been the target of ferocious repression, was that the killing of hundreds and detention of thousands would not stifle opposition to four decades of authoritarian rule. No dialogue with tanks and soldiers, went one slogan. There were ominous signs, too, of communal strife and outbreaks of violence that are testing a government that has built its legitimacy on the promise of stability. The unrest has exacerbated sectarian tensions in a country with a Sunni Muslim majority and a mosaic of ethnic and religious minorities: Christians, Kurds and Alawites and other heterodox Muslim sects. Some of the worst unrest has erupted along the Sunni-Alawite fault lines in the cities of Baniyas, Latakia and Homs, and there are reports, though unconfirmed, of assassinations of security personnel and sectarian bloodletting. To minorities, the middle class and the business elite, the government has warned that it is us or chaos. But, an analyst based in Damascus argued, repression may be intensifying instability. If
Re: [Marxism] Ron Paul and the problems of the US Left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is McCarthyism. Ron Paul is neither a racist nor a nazi, but a clapped-out liberalism that has given up the demand for equality in favor of the demand for diversity - that has in other words substituted identity politics for class politics - has only one sin left in its decalogue: racism. Just as two generations ago those who attacked e.g. Robert Oppenheimer's opposition to the expansion of nuclear weapons had to dredge up his pre-war Communist contacts (quite real), so those who now want to discredit a politician not a member of the political class - not housebroken to the shibboleths of contemporary liberalism - have to find a similar smear - even though Paul is the only presidential candidate who is at once anti-war, anti-Wall Street, and anti-drug war - and has a national following (even if it isn't all PLU). The tactic of course is that used by Obama's partisans against the tea party movement - the inchoate expression of the outrage of at least half the US population, based on very real economic grievances. People are extremely bitter about an economy that they know is not run in their interest and about which they are being purposely misled by the business parties. And they're attacked by the Obama liberals as racists - naturally so that the economic grievances can be dismissed, without troubling Obama's sponsors in the US economic elite. Why not go after views that Paul actually holds? (The question is not rhetorical.) Top of the list is his libertarian economics, which privileges property over people. There is of course close to zero chance of the libertarian economic ideal's being adopted: it would be a nightmare, on the dubious assumption that it could even survive for more than a brief period without imploding, writes Chomsky. But it has provided some ideological cover for the generation-long counter-attack of neoliberalism, and exposing that would be worthwhile. (Neoliberalism of course is anti-racist, as Walter Benn Michaels points out: http://jacobinmag.com/archive/issue1/wbm.html.) Liberals actually interested in ending Obama's MENA wars, restraining the financial elite, and fighting the most racist policy of the federal government - the war on drugs - should be encouraging those views. Paul is doing so. Liberals, hot-foot from delivering the anti-war movement to Obama in the last election, aren't. A bad conscience, perhaps? On 5/20/11 7:09 AM, brad wrote: http://meldungen-aus-dem-exil.noblogs.org/post/2011/05/19/189/ 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] Ron Paul and the problems of the US Left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In response to the email by galiher in urging support for Ron Paul with a script that appears to come out of the Larouchite thinking, I would like to add my thoughts: Some comrades on this list might not be aware that U. S. Congressman Ron Paul (R - Texas), was on the board of the John Birch Society for two decades, before he decided to run in the U. S. Libertarian Party for president, beating Russell Means for that party's nomination, many years before he finally decided to run for U. S. president in the Republican Party in 2008. The anti-Marxist John Birch Society took a surprising position against the U. S. war against Iraq in 1991 and became official isolationists. This was fueled mainly by their anti-semiticism and their belief that Israel was the beneficiary of this war. The Birchers and their political ideological supporters, such as U. S. television commentator Patrick Buchanan, held the same position after September 11, 2001, with the U. S. War on Iraq. These Birchers (Ron Paul, Phyllis Schlafly being the most prominent long time Birch Society members) and their political thinkers (Pat Buchanan and his Sons of the Confederacy members) ARE racists and anti-labor and right wingers. Their views are not a contribution to Marxist thinking, just one of a side show of ideological supporters of Capitalism. They join the U. S. Larouchites and some other smaller political grouplets, in being current opponents of U. S. militarist expansion to control strategic minerals and remain a dominant empire in the world. These U. S. right wingers oppose close U. S. partnership with Israel and Britain, BUT FAVOR capitalism. Since they are NOT Marxists they do not understand the logic of U. S. militarism being used to control these minerals and spheres of control. These right wingers believe instead the U. S. military wars are done just for Israel or Britain, because of a Jewish conspiracy and not the U. S. capitalist empire leaders objectives, which the U. S. international partners comply with. There are similar groups holding this philosophy throughout the Arab world, such as the SSNP (Zawbaq Party) in Lebanon and the list goes on. They all are reactionary anti-Marxist, with different stages of pro-fascist elements, that try to appear to be populist while not in power, but they would in power be a classical fascist movement, and continue capitalism in their nations, including in the United States, such as under the Birchers, like Ron Paul. Due to lack of political awareness, many Ron Paul supporters do not know his long time connections to the John Birch Society, or even what the John Birch Society is. I believe Marxists need to be aware, to not blur the differences between those who might oppose a particular war or government and those that really are progressive and want a different economic system, run by and for working people. Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 11:43:53 -0500 From: galli...@illinois.edu CC: babscriti...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Marxism] Ron Paul and the problems of the US Left This is McCarthyism. Ron Paul is neither a racist nor a nazi, but a clapped-out liberalism that has given up the demand for equality in favor of the demand for diversity - that has in other words substituted identity politics for class politics - has only one sin left in its decalogue: racism. Just as two generations ago those who attacked e.g. Robert Oppenheimer's opposition to the expansion of nuclear weapons had to dredge up his pre-war Communist contacts (quite real), so those who now want to discredit a politician not a member of the political class - not housebroken to the shibboleths of contemporary liberalism - have to find a similar smear - even though Paul is the only presidential candidate who is at once anti-war, anti-Wall Street, and anti-drug war - and has a national following (even if it isn't all PLU). 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] Now overthrow the workplace Mubaraks
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Now overthrow the workplace Mubaraks, urges labour activist *Hossam el-Hamalawy* is a prominent journalist, activist and blogger whose website covers Egypt's current strikes http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/20/overthrow-workplace-mubaraks-urges-elhamalawy The revolution was against the Mubarak regime but all we've managed to do so far is remove Mubarak himself. The ones running the country right now are Mubarak's generals, who were the backbone of his dictatorship from day one. Many are therefore disappointed with Egypthttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/egypt's progress – me less so because I never had high expectations from an army takeover. But two things have changed in Egypt in the past 100 days which give me hope, and both relate to the fact that the revolution is unfinished. The first is that mass strikes are continuing. The second is that workers have taken the step of establishing independent trade unions, which I believe are the silver bullet for any dictatorship. Attempts are already under way by middle-class activists to place limits on this revolution and ensure it remains only within the realm of formal political institutions. Look at Wael Ghonim's famous tweet following Mubarak's overthrow saying mission accomplished. I have a lot of respect for Ghonim and what he has done for Egypt but he represents a certain type of middle-class politics where the sentiment is thank you, now go back to work, invest 100% of your energies into building the new Egypt and don't make trouble. . The army and the media echo this line, portraying striking workers as greedy and self-interested. But the main part of any revolution has to be socio-economic emancipation for the citizens of a country; if you want to eliminate corruption or stop vote-buying then you have to give people decent salaries, make them aware of their rights and not leave them in dire economic need. A middle-class activist can return to his executive job after they think the revolution is over, but a public transport worker who has spent 20 years in service and is getting paid only 189 Egyptian pounds a month – you can't ask this guy to go back to work and tell his starving kids at home that everything will be sorted out once we have a civilian government in the future. So this is phase two of the revolution, the phase of socio-economic change. What we need to do now is take Tahrir to the factories, the universities, the workplaces. In every single institution in this country there is a mini-Mubarak who needs to be overthrown. In every institution there are figures from the old state security regime who need to be overthrown. These guys are the counter-revolution. Maybe the counter-revolution isn't clearly organised with a specific command structure, but you have to assume that everyone who belonged to the old regime and enjoyed privileges under it is going to try to defend those privileges, and much of the malaise you see around you in Egypt today is down to that. There is huge resentment within the Egyptian working class about the neoliberal policies that have impoverished them over the past 20 years, and the struggle for change will be a dramatic one. No doubt the western powers and Arab monarchs who are already deeply unhappy at what they see taking place in Egypt will be even more dismayed at this. But however much pressure they put on the military junta, the pressure of the street can be stronger. The Egyptian people are vigilant about their own revolution. 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] ron paul
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == My take on Ron Paul from 2008. It hasn't changed. The man is not somebody any leftist should support: ron jacobs http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs01072008.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] Ron Paul and the problems of the US Left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I was neither urging support for Ron Paul nor defending Larouchite thinking. I was suggesting that it was wrong to dismiss Paul's position - and that of his considerable following - in opposition to the war, the bailouts, and the drug war - on the charge that he had formerly committed the Unforgivable Sin, racism. I was suggesting something like what Chomsky said recently: ...there is a right-wing populist uprising. It's very common, even on the left, to just ridicule them, but that's not the right reaction. If you look at those people and listen to them on talk radio, these are people with real grievances. I listen to talk radio a lot and it's kind of interesting. If you can sort of suspend your knowledge of the world and just enter into the world of the people who are calling in, you can understand them. I've never seen a study, but my sense is that these are people who feel really aggrieved. These people think, 'I've done everything right all my life, I'm a god-fearing Christian, I'm white, I'm male, I've worked hard, and I carry a gun. I do everything I'm supposed to do. And I'm getting shafted.' And in fact they are getting shafted. For 30 years their wages have stagnated or declined, the social conditions have worsened, the children are going crazy, there are no schools, there's nothing, so somebody must be doing something to them, and they want to know who it is. Well Rush Limbaugh has answered - it's the rich liberals who own the banks and run the government, and of course run the media, and they don't care about you -- they just want to give everything away to illegal immigrants and gays and communists and so on. Well, you know, the reaction we should be having to them is not ridicule, but rather self-criticism. Why aren't we organizing them? I mean, we are the ones that ought to be organizing them, not Rush Limbaugh - or Ron Paul. On 5/22/11 12:55 PM, John Obrien wrote: In response to the email by galiher in urging support for Ron Paul with a script that appears to come out of the Larouchite thinking, I would like to add my thoughts: Some comrades on this list might not be aware that U. S. Congressman Ron Paul (R - Texas), was on the board of the John Birch Society for two decades, before he decided to run in the U. S. Libertarian Party for president, beating Russell Means for that party's nomination, many years before he finally decided to run for U. S. president in the Republican Party in 2008. The anti-Marxist John Birch Society took a surprising position against the U. S. war against Iraq in 1991 and became official isolationists. This was fueled mainly by their anti-semiticism and their belief that Israel was the beneficiary of this war. The Birchers and their political ideological supporters, such as U. S. television commentator Patrick Buchanan, held the same position after September 11, 2001, with the U. S. War on Iraq. These Birchers (Ron Paul, Phyllis Schlafly being the most prominent long time Birch Society members) and their political thinkers (Pat Buchanan and his Sons of the Confederacy members) ARE racists and anti-labor and right wingers. Their views are not a contribution to Marxist thinking, just one of a side show of ideological supporters of Capitalism. They join the U. S. Larouchites and some other smaller political grouplets, in being current opponents of U. S. militarist expansion to control strategic minerals and remain a dominant empire in the world. These U. S. right wingers oppose close U. S. partnership with Israel and Britain, BUT FAVOR capitalism. Since they are NOT Marxists they do not understand the logic of U. S. militarism being used to control these minerals and spheres of control. These right wingers believe instead the U. S. military wars are done just for Israel or Britain, because of a Jewish conspiracy and not the U. S. capitalist empire leaders objectives, which the U. S. international partners comply with. There are similar groups holding this philosophy throughout the Arab world, such as the SSNP (Zawbaq Party) in Lebanon and the list goes on. They all are reactionary anti-Marxist, with different stages of pro-fascist elements, that try to appear to be populist while not in power, but they would in power be a classical fascist movement, and continue capitalism in their nations, including in the United States, such as under the Birchers, like Ron Paul. Due to lack of political awareness, many Ron Paul supporters do not know his long time connections to the John Birch Society, or even what the John Birch Society is. I believe Marxists need to be aware, to not blur the differences between those who might oppose a particular war or government and those that really are progressive and
[Marxism] Union's Hawkish Foreign Policy Agenda Hampers Defense of Teachers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Stephen Zunes, Truthout: Teachers and their unions are under assault throughout the country. Unfortunately, their ability to resist has been weakened by a series of actions over the past decade by the leadership of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), one of the largest and most influential teachers' unions. These actions have seriously damaged AFT's credibility among its membership and progressive allies when they are needed the most. Of particular concern has been the AFT's support for the Bush administration's militaristic agenda in the Middle East. http://www.truthout.org/unions-hawkish-foreign-policy-agenda-hampers-defense-teachers/1305738056 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] Chileans protest new hydro-electric project
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Chile's HidroAysen dam project provokes mounting anger By Annie Murphy Aysen For the past few weeks, Chile has seen repeated and increasingly angry protests after regulators approved plans to build dams in the south of the country. The project would see two rivers in the Aysen region of Patagonia dammed to provide hydroelectricity. HidroAysen, the company in charge of the project, says the dams are an environmentally friendly, low-impact solution to the nation's growing hunger for energy. Opponents, from conservationists to local farmers and scientists, argue that the dams will have dramatically negative effects on an important wilderness, as well as a vanishing way of life. HidroAysen didn't even consult with us; they showed up and gave us a relocation plan, as if they could kick us off our land before a decision was even made, says Lily Schindele, 39, who lives near one of the proposed dam sites with her husband and two children. Full: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13445300 --- Comments: this is an interesting conundrum for Chile's rulers in terms of the energy future of the country. They are saying that in order to exploit new copper deposits, another 12,000 MWs is needed (this seems VERY high to me, even for new smelters) and thus this new dam is needed.--DW 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] Union's Hawkish Foreign Policy Agenda Hampers Defense of Teachers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I thought Albert Shanker died. On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 11:44 AM, Dennis Brasky dmozart1...@gmail.com wrote: Stephen Zunes, Truthout: Teachers and their unions are under assault throughout the country. Unfortunately, their ability to resist has been weakened by a series of actions over the past decade by the leadership of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), one of the largest and most influential teachers' unions. These actions have seriously damaged AFT's credibility among its membership and progressive allies when they are needed the most. Of particular concern has been the AFT's support for the Bush administration's militaristic agenda in the Middle East. http://www.truthout.org/unions-hawkish-foreign-policy-agenda-hampers-defense-teachers/1305738056 Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/michael.perelman3%40gmail.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.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] UK ex-admiral urges complete rethink of Libya war -- says ground troops may be needed
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Printing sponsored by: guardian.co.uk UK and World news User comments Web News Sport Comment Culture Business Money Life style Travel Environment TV Blogs Data Mobile Offers Jobs News World news Nato Nato's mission in Libya needs a complete rethink, says former admiralRear Admiral Chris Parry says the campaign in Libya is fast becoming reminiscent of Afghanistan and Iraq Share Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 May 2011 17.11 BST larger | smaller Article history A building in Tripoli destroyed by a Nato air strike, according to Libyan authorities. Photograph: Sabri Elmhedwi/EPA Nato's military campaign in Libya defies strategic logic and needs to be completely rethought before the country descends into anarchy, a former Royal Navy admiral has warned. Rear Admiral Chris Parry said the conflict was becoming all too reminiscent of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a classic example of how to act in haste and repent at leisure. Writing in the Guardian, Parry says Nato must accept that the UN resolution which allowed coalition forces to protect Libyan civilians will not bring an end to the fighting, and that diplomats should now consider seeking a new mandate. What might a decent strategy look like? The Libyan people should, with international assistance, establish and articulate the political ends they require for themselves and their country. The UK and its Nato allies could then conduct a campaign that is built around an explicit political purpose, expressed in a single, unambiguous aim (the 'master principle of war'). That would focus and prioritise military activities. This would also enable a more sensible assessment of whether further authorisation from the UN might be required. Parry's analysis is understood to be shared by many senior strategists at the Ministry of Defence, who cannot speak out despite growing frustration at the limits of Nato's activity. Last week the chief of the defence staff, Sir David Richards, said Nato needed to increase its range of targets, and that it was legitimate to attack the infrastructure propping up Colonel Gaddafi's regime. He was supported by the defence secretary, Liam Fox. There are also a growing number of voices within the MoD who believe that Nato should now deploy the Royal Navy's response force task group, which is currently doing exercises off the coast of Cyprus. It is being kept there for just in case purposes. The task group consists of frigates, destroyers and support ships, as well as a contingent of Royal Marines. The move would put further symbolic pressure on Gaddafi, and give Nato the option of using a small number of ground troops should they be needed. However, deployment now is considered politically unacceptable. The prime minister has consistently ruled out putting troops on the ground, though that might become a necessity to provide stability if the country falls into chaos. Parry, who was once the MoD's director general of development, concepts and doctrine, argues that the campaign has lost its way for predictable reasons. As in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is easy, with overwhelming force and superior organisation, to gain control in a conventional conflict, he says. The real skill is to achieve a successful, enduring peace and political settlement. In its concentration on getting rid of Gaddafi, as an end in itself, too little attention has been paid to what happens afterwards. He fears that the campaign is being run on the cheap and by committee. There is no clear statement of ends. The ill-defined outcomes and parsimony about resources limit the ways in which the campaign can be conducted. 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] Union's Hawkish Foreign Policy Agenda Hampers Defense of Teachers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 6:20 PM, michael perelman michael.perelm...@gmail.com wrote: I thought Albert Shanker died. Best line from Woody Allen's Sleeper (1973) - How did the world end? A man named Albert Shanker got hold of an atomic bomb. 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] Swans Release: May 24, 2011
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Welcome to Swans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ May 23, 2011 $$$ Many thanks to Perle Deutsch-Shadpour, Helen Steve Mader, and CG for their generous financial contributions. $$$ Note from the Editors: Hallelujah, here it is, May 22, 2011, and we at Swans woke up alive today, having not been raptured -- we trust our dear readers are still with us as well (if you're out there, send us a Letter to the Editor to confirm...). With this farce behind us (until the next nutcase prediction), we can turn our attention to the matters at hand, with scandals aplenty and two high- profile politicos who are probably wishing they'd been raptured out of their public and private hell -- Arnold Schwarzenegger with his admitted lovechild, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn with his denied sexual assault. The former waited till he left the California governor office to come clean; the latter was charged before beginning his presidential campaign, leaving the 2012 French election landscape in shambles. At a time in which even the mainstream media can't spell Judgment Day correctly, who are we to judge? In fact, Gilles d'Aymery offers a different perspective on the crimes of DSK -- not the alleged personal assault, but the wholesale raping of nations he committed as head of the IMF. As always, a perspective you won't read in the MSM, and worthy of deliberation. History will judge America's intervention in the Philippines, and to help set the record straight, Michael Barker continues his analysis of the US meddling in that country's people-power movement. As for the US role in Libya, Aleksandar Jokic asked in an Op-Ed if we are a morally dumb nation, to which a high-ranking European military official took umbrage. The critic declined a public debate, so Jokic answers his charges herein, leaving the detractor unnamed. Turning our attention to less judgmental matters, Peter Byrne reviews the literary anthology edited by the Sarajevo-born American novelist Aleksandar Hemon, Best European Fiction 2011, and Isidor Saslav recounts his undeniably memorable recent musical and operatic tour through London, including a concert for his late friend, English bassoonist William Waterhouse. Byrne returns with a conversation that attempts to explain to a schoolboy the shrinking -- and growing -- middle class, while Femi Akomolafe converses about the significance of Osama bin Laden's death. Raju Peddada celebrates a monument of civilization and engineering feat, the F-1 engine that launched man into space, and Bashir Sakhawarz propels us to Delhi with a short story of an Afghan man's brief and jet-lagged layover with his intoxicating lover. Old friend Martin Murie graces our poetry corner with an excerpt of Casino Bear, and Claudine Giovannoni Guido Monte's multilingual verse take us to the Promised Land. We close with your letters, which judge Gilles d'Aymery as utterly wrong and utterly right about the US economy and its regressive tax system. # # # # # All the articles and the Letters to the Editor can be freely accessed from Swans front page. Please go to: http://www.swans.com/ You can also access our past issues at: http://www.swans.com/library/past_issues/past_issues.html And you have access to almost 15 years of archives by date, author, and subject at: http://www.swans.com/library/archives.html Remember, what's free to you is not to us! To help our work financially please visit 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 aymery AT ix.netcom.com. 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. (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.) Cordially, Gilles d'Aymery -- Swans Hungry man, reach for the book: It is a weapon. B. Brecht 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] From Cairo to Madison: The Arab Revolution and a World in Motion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Video of a talk by Tariq Ali on the significance of the revolts in the Middle East/North Africa: http://wearemany.org/v/from-cairo-to-madison 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] Two articles on Venezuelan land reform and food sovereignty fight
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == -- Venezuela’s battle for food sovereignty Sunday, May 22, 2011 By Federico Fuentes http://www.greenleft.org.au/taxonomy/term/670, Caracas http://www.greenleft.org.au/taxonomy/term/2499 When I asked Alfredo, a dairy farmer and president of the Prolesa milk processing co-operative in Tachira state, what food sovereignty meant to him, he said: “Food sovereignty is not only about being able to produce enough food to feed ourselves, it also means getting to a point where we can export food to other countries. “There’s a global food crisis, and each day more and more people are going hungry. As Venezuelan *campesinos.em [peasants] we need to realise that we have an obligation to the people of the world.”* This sentiment was shared by many of the campesinos I met during a recent three-week visit, together with a small delegation from the Venezuela Food Sovereignty project, to rural communities...read rest at http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/47647 Venezuela: Rural killers enjoy impunity Sunday, May 22, 2011 By Federico Fuentes http://www.greenleft.org.au/taxonomy/term/670 Having arrived back in Caracas after more than two weeks visiting various rural communities, leaders from the National Campesino Front Ezequiel Zamora (FNCEZ) told us that the bodies of two of their comrades, missing since April 12, had been found. Jose Joel Torres Leves and Agustin Gamboa Duran were leading land reform activists in the Comunal City Antonio Jose de Sucre, in Barinas state. On April 12, they were kidnapped by a group of heavily armed men wearing balaclavas who raided their family home. The thugs beat and tortured other male members of the extended family present, then tied them up and covered them over with black plastic. They warned the family that if anyone informed the authorities about their ordeal, they would be back to kill them all. Two days later, the bodies of Torres Leves and Gamboa Duran were found on the outskirts of the city, 17 kilometres from their home and with execution-style bullet wounds in their skulls. Their bodies were brutally disfigured almost beyond recognition. Such stories are a cruel feature of the life and death struggle in Venezuela’s countryside, as rich large landowners fight to hold onto their power and privileges in the face of government-promoted land reform to the benefit of poor farmers..read rest at http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/47646 -- “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism “The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker 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] [UCE] Venezuela's PSUV: Commitment to fight bureaucracy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://venezuelatranslatingtherevolution.blogspot.com/2011/05/commitment-to-fight-bureaucracy.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] Canada: NDP results widen space for social struggle
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The incumbent Conservative Party sailed to victory in Canada’s federal election on May 2 with the first majority government in the federal Parliament since the 2000 election. There was celebration in the boardrooms across the country. The victory caps a decades-long drive by much of Canada’s business elite to fashion a strong national government around a hard-right agenda. The result is a deep disappointment for progressive-minded people in Canada. The Conservatives led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper will form the most right-wing government in modern Canadian history, extending the regressive path of their two minority governments won in the 2006 and 2008 elections. * * But there is much in the election outcome to take encouragement from. The Conservative vote rose only by a modest two percentage points (to 40%) — notwithstanding the huge sums the party spent on its campaign and the support it received from nearly every daily newspaper in the country. In Quebec, its electoral fortunes continue to decline, down 25% from 2008 and 33% from 2006. For the first time in modern Canadian history, a party with roots in progressive social movements, including the trade unions, will form the official opposition in parliament. The social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) is broadly identified as a party of social reform. Its share of the popular vote across Canada nearly doubled, from 18% in 2008 to 31%, or 4.5 million votes. In Quebec, the party’s vote rise was astonishing — from 12% and one electoral seat to 43% and 59 of the 75 Quebec seats in the federal parliament. full article: http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/47666 -- “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism “The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker 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
