date:20110602


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(Lester Brown is a neo-Malthusian but this is still very much worth 
reading.)


NY Times Op-Ed June 1, 2011
When the Nile Runs Dry
By LESTER R. BROWN

Washington

A NEW scramble for Africa is under way. As global food prices rise and 
exporters reduce shipments of commodities, countries that rely on 
imported grain are panicking. Affluent countries like Saudi Arabia, 
South Korea, China and India have descended on fertile plains across the 
African continent, acquiring huge tracts of land to produce wheat, rice 
and corn for consumption back home.


Some of these land acquisitions are enormous. South Korea, which imports 
70 percent of its grain, has acquired 1.7 million acres in Sudan to grow 
wheat — an area twice the size of Rhode Island. In Ethiopia, a Saudi 
firm has leased 25,000 acres to grow rice, with the option of expanding. 
India has leased several hundred thousand acres there to grow corn, rice 
and other crops. And in countries like Congo and Zambia, China is 
acquiring land for biofuel production.


These land grabs shrink the food supply in famine-prone African nations 
and anger local farmers, who see their governments selling their 
ancestral lands to foreigners. They also pose a grave threat to Africa’s 
newest democracy: Egypt.


Egypt is a nation of bread eaters. Its citizens consume 18 million tons 
of wheat annually, more than half of which comes from abroad. Egypt is 
now the world’s leading wheat importer, and subsidized bread — for which 
the government doles out approximately $2 billion per year — is seen as 
an entitlement by the 60 percent or so of Egyptian families who depend 
on it.


As Egypt tries to fashion a functioning democracy after President Hosni 
Mubarak’s departure, land grabs to the south are threatening its ability 
to put bread on the table because all of Egypt’s grain is either 
imported or produced with water from the Nile River, which flows north 
through Ethiopia and Sudan before reaching Egypt. (Since rainfall in 
Egypt is negligible to nonexistent, its agriculture is totally dependent 
on the Nile.)


Unfortunately for Egypt, two of the favorite targets for land 
acquisitions are Ethiopia and Sudan, which together occupy three-fourths 
of the Nile River Basin. Today’s demands for water are such that there 
is little left of the river when it eventually empties into the 
Mediterranean.


The Nile Waters Agreement, which Egypt and Sudan signed in 1959, gave 
Egypt 75 percent of the river’s flow, 25 percent to Sudan and none to 
Ethiopia. This situation is changing abruptly as wealthy foreign 
governments and international agribusinesses snatch up large swaths of 
arable land along the Upper Nile. While these deals are typically 
described as land acquisitions, they are also, in effect, water 
acquisitions.


Now, when competing for Nile water, Cairo must deal with several 
governments and commercial interests that were not party to the 1959 
agreement. Moreover, Ethiopia — never enamored of the agreement — has 
announced plans to build a huge hydroelectric dam on its branch of the 
Nile that would reduce the water flow to Egypt even more.


Because Egypt’s wheat yields are already among the world’s highest, it 
has little potential to raise its agricultural productivity. With its 
population of 81 million projected to reach 101 million by 2025, finding 
enough food and water is a daunting challenge.


Egypt’s plight could become part of a larger, more troubling scenario. 
Its upstream Nile neighbors — Sudan, with 44 million people, and 
Ethiopia, with 83 million — are growing even faster, increasing the need 
for water to produce food. Projections by the United Nations show the 
combined population of these three countries increasing to 272 million 
by 2025 — and 360 million by 2050 — from 208 million now.


Growing water demand, driven by population growth and foreign land and 
water acquisitions, are straining the Nile’s natural limits. Avoiding 
dangerous conflicts over water will require three transnational 
initiatives. First, governments must address the population threat 
head-on by ensuring that all women have access to family planning 
services and by providing education for girls in the region. Second, 
countries must adopt more water-efficient irrigation technologies and 
plant less water-intensive crops.


Finally, for the sake of peace and future development cooperation, the 
nations of the Nile River Basin should come together to ban land grabs 
by foreign governments and agribusiness firms. Since there is no 
precedent for this, international help in negotiating such a ban, 
similar to the World Bank’s role in facilitating the 1960 Indus Waters 
Treaty between India and Pakistan, would likely be necessary to make it 
a reality.

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism


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On 6/2/11 9:05 PM, Tom Cod wrote:


Thanks, this one from her site is choice:

"dialecticians use obscure, non-materialist language invented by
ruling-class hacks 2400 years ago to make their theory work"



Yeah, everybody knows about Anaxagoras and his American Express gold card.


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Re: [Marxism] Libyan Rebels to Recognise Israel?


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On 6/2/11 8:59 PM, Eli Stephens wrote:



A 16-year-old article? That's the best you can do in your continued
attacks on Gaddafi? Perhaps you didn't notice this in the same linked
article:

"Moamer Kadhafi’s regime refused to recognise Israel, even after
Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat peace treaty with the country in
1979."


Actions speak louder than words. He expelled *all* the Palestinians from 
Libya. The fact that he used ultraleft verbiage makes it worse in many ways.



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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

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Thanks, this one from her site is choice:

"dialecticians use obscure, non-materialist language invented by
ruling-class hacks 2400 years ago to make their theory work"

In fact previously I had been reminded of the high caste screeds of
"Old Money" neocons like Allan Bloom and Roger Kimball about how
college students don't respect the classics and the "foundations" of
"Western Thought" anymore, getting instead into that bogey of
multiculturalism, dissing and "deconstructing" Plato, Plotinus,
Aquinas, Spinoza ad nauseum  as "Dead White Men" in favor of trashy
stuff like Kerouac and Ginsberg or even Ken Kesey.  What is this world
coming to?

On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 4:14 PM, Jim Farmelant  wrote:
> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
>
> On Thu, 2 Jun 2011 15:59:14 -0700 Tom Cod  writes:
>>
>
> For those interested, Rosa Lichtenstein has an entire website
> that is devoted to critiquing dialectical materialism.  See:
> http://www.anti-dialectics.co.uk
>
> Her essay, "Why I oppose dialectical materialism" is
> probably as good a place to start as any.
>
> http://www.anti-dialectics.co.uk/Why%20I%20Oppose%20DM.htm
>
>
> Jim Farmelant
> http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
> www.foxymath.com
> Learn or Review Basic Math
>
>
>

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Re: [Marxism] Libyan Rebels to Recognise Israel?

2011-06-02 Thread Eli Stephens

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A 16-year-old article? That's the best you can do in your continued attacks on 
Gaddafi? Perhaps you didn't notice this in the same linked article:

"Moamer Kadhafi’s regime refused to recognise Israel, even after Egypt’s 
President Anwar Sadat peace treaty with the country in 1979."

In any case, whatever grievances Palestinians have with Gaddafi, how do you 
suppose they're going to feel when the government you'd like to see come to 
power in Libya recognizes Israel as one of its first actions? Hell, even Iraq 
hasn't done that yet.

By the way, just for the record, I don't give much credibility to anything from 
the mouth of Bernard-Henri Lévy; I'm discussing this in a strictly hypothetical 
manner as if the news is true.



Eli Stephens
 Left I on the News
 http://lefti.blogspot.com

  

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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

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Just to be clear, like a number of people on here I don't go by
"Marxist", although I respect the tradition.


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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

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Atheist?

it's not an ideology, its a political movement and not one about
genuflecting before some historical demigod, that's the whole point.
That's the social psychology of religion.

On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 4:56 PM, Peggy Dobbins  wrote:

>
>  I am curious to see a short hand short list of what a  Marxist who
> dismisses dialectic materialism lists as Marxist?  Marx-isms?  Marxistic?
> Marxisticisms?
>

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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

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 I am curious to see a short hand short list of what a  Marxist who
dismisses dialectic materialism lists as Marxist?  Marx-isms?  Marxistic?
Marxisticisms?

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[Marxism] G.A. Cohen on YouTube

2011-06-02 Thread Jim Farmelant

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Recently, within the past few months a
number of videos of the late G.A. Cohen
have been uploaded to YouTube.  These
include both serious lectures such as his
lexture "Against capitalism"
Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA9WPQeow9c
and part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD1YEzd6QzQ

as well as a number of various comic videos like
"Marxist Boxing Match: Roemer vs. Habermas"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb1R3mjyZqc

There are also some videos of his mimicking
various philosophers like Gilbert Ryle or Alfred Tarski.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80AovwgVY8Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sPKS8wsnVw

Jim Farmelant
http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
www.foxymath.com
Learn or Review Basic Math

Groupon™ Official Site
1 ridiculously huge coupon a day. Get 50-90% off your city's best!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4de81c8b6b48c1b6f32st06vuc

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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

2011-06-02 Thread Jim Farmelant

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On Thu, 2 Jun 2011 15:59:14 -0700 Tom Cod  writes:
>

For those interested, Rosa Lichtenstein has an entire website
that is devoted to critiquing dialectical materialism.  See:  
http://www.anti-dialectics.co.uk

Her essay, "Why I oppose dialectical materialism" is
probably as good a place to start as any.

http://www.anti-dialectics.co.uk/Why%20I%20Oppose%20DM.htm

Jim Farmelant
http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
www.foxymath.com
Learn or Review Basic Math

> and also touches on the ridiculous attempts of Soviet philosophers 
> to
> impose this scheme on science which operates through the 
> "scientific
> method" not through cherry picking evidence to support some
> pre-conceived theory, whether dialectics or creationism or anything
> else.
> 
> 
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> Set your options at: 
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0juno.com
> 

Groupon™ Official Site
1 ridiculously huge coupon a day. Get 50-90% off your city's best!
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

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and also touches on the ridiculous attempts of Soviet philosophers to
impose this scheme on science which operates through the "scientific
method" not through cherry picking evidence to support some
pre-conceived theory, whether dialectics or creationism or anything
else.


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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

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Edmund Wilson in "To the Finland Station" does a good job of
dismissing dialectics or explaining why it is OK to have that
attitude.  He sees that as baggage from the whole school of "German
Philosophy" that Marx emerged out of which in turn was rooted in the
environment created by counterrevolution and reaction to the Jacobins
and the French Revolution and its relatively transparent libertarian
ideology, which Germany was in the heartland of then.  Thus, even
after 1815 the French were never so mired in that stuff, having had
huge and recent traditions of revolution to look to.  Nonetheless,
Wilson was a huge, but not uncritical, admirer of Marx and his ideas,
which like most people he came to in his own varied ways, mostly
through empirical observation.  The idea that he had a schematic
playbook where he struggled to connect the shifting dots ideologically
is silly, said Wilson.  Moreover, to hoist dialecticians on their own
petard, he characterizes it as schematic, formalistic and a simple
minded shibboleth: thesis, antithesis, synthesis.. . Yeah, OK.  Later
writers have commented on this stuff as the "reification" of Marxism,
creating a dense theory that can form the ethos and self justification
for a layer of intellectuals as high priests needed to interpret this
stuff instead of looking to this as a question of the struggle of the
working class around its own interests.


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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

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Yes, that's the name of the book I was thinking of.  I pray it escapes the
currently annointed priests.

On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 10:21 AM, David P Á  wrote:

>
> On 02/06/2011 15:55, Peggy Dobbins wrote:
> > The very best book *On Dialectic Materialism I ever read...,
>
> By chance may you be referring to this one?
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/index.htm
>
> It is referred by the title of Dialectical Logic, and I found it a very
> useful primer.
>
> --David.
> --
>
  *Equitable exchange of different forms of labor time, the **productivity
of which develops over time
unevenly*
* inevitably and so creates in time Surplus Labor Time, due to one yet due
the other.  This is the **Common
wealth*
*; we still see money changers steal, til here and there we read a bill to
guarantee us all a **Right to
Work*
* 20 hours a week (1000/year) that earns our **Right to
Life*
*, a livable wage pegged to the price of necessities*.

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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

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Up to a point.  The Workers League always said common sense is the
lowest form of formal logic, implying they had way surpassed that or
were they cult folks who hadn't even reached that level, members of a
"schizophrenic group"?  I could never spar with their Rube Goldberg
logic, although my canine intuition told me it was bullshit.

Common sense says don't drink Kool-Aid with poison in it, even a dog
knows that.  A Great Leader with a background in philosophy and the
radical left and a confirmed opponent of "bourgois ideology" who
talked all kinds of mumbo jumbo about "dialectics", Jesus, and the
"fascists comin' up the road" and all kinds of other shit at all hours
of the day and night said different, however, with tragic results
Leaving that aside, I don't think common sense is the accumulation of
error, nor have I ever intuitively agreed with bashing of empiricism
and pragmatism which represents a common approach to deconstructing
mysticism.  Carl Davidson has had some worthwhile ruminations on this
subject recently.  Tellingly, self avowed Stalinists are those who
most loudly have denounced this heresy.

The most important thing is for folks to keep their own counsel and be
critical minded and skeptical, in that regard the intuitive rules of
thumb of pragmatism et al are most important.  Hey, this tool doesn't
work . . . hmmm, must not be too good.

I had an email exchange with a survivor of the Peoples Temple back in
2008 around the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy, mentioning
I had been in a certain leftist cult group she was actually familiar
with, being someone who had emerged out of the radical movement in the
Bay Area.  How could this have happened?  "You know full well 'how
this could have happened'" she responded.

On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 8:22 AM, David P Á  wrote:

> Anything that can help people abandon common sense is to be welcome,
> given how common sense is the accumulation of error.
>
> --David.
>

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[Marxism] This is a trial I would take off time from work to attend


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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2011/06/goldman-sachs-subpoena.html

June 2, 2011
Will Lloyd Blankfein End Up in the Dock?
Posted by John Cassidy

What to make of today’s news that the Manhattan district 
attorney’s office has issued a subpoena to Goldman Sachs relating 
to its activities in the market for subprime securities?


In one sense, it comes as no surprise. Back in April, the Senate’s 
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a blistering 
report about Wall Street’s role in the credit crisis, claiming to 
have unearthed a “financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts 
of interest, and wrongdoing.” Those were the words of Carl Levin, 
the Michigan Democrat, who forwarded his six-hundred-page report 
to the Justice Department with the recommendation that it look 
into prosecuting Lloyd Blankfein and other Goldman bigwigs.


Attorney General Eric Holder and Cyrus Vance, Jr., the Manhattan 
D.A., wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they didn’t take Levin’s 
allegations seriously. (It isn’t clear yet whether Vance is acting 
independently or in concert with the Justice Department. My bet is 
it’s the former.) The issuing of subpoenas indicates that the 
government’s investigation is still at an early stage, and there 
is little, as yet, to suggest that Blankfein or any other 
Goldmanites will end up in the dock. Indeed, from what we know now 
the most likely outcome is that they won’t.


Levin made two charges against Goldman: that the firm misled its 
clients into purchasing mortgage securities at the same time that 
the firm was shorting them on its own account; and that Blankfein 
and some of his colleagues misled Congress about Goldman’s 
activities. Turning either of these accusations into criminal 
charges wouldn’t be at all easy.


The Securities and Exchange Commission, in its investigation into 
the notorious Abacus deal, has already trawled through the first 
area and evidently decided that it couldn’t make the charges stick 
in court. Why else would it have settled with Goldman for a mere 
$550 million? I still think the S.E.C.’s decision to settle 
prematurely was a serious error, especially since it didn’t 
involve any admission of wrongdoing on Goldman’s part. But proving 
that the firm committed a criminal fraud on its clients would 
present a very major challenge, should Vance and his colleagues 
move in that direction.


The same would be true of attempting to show that Blankfein 
deliberately lied to Congress when he averred—to Levin’s great 
annoyance—that during 2007 and 2008 Goldman didn’t maintain a big 
short position in subprime mortgage securities. Blankfein admitted 
that one branch of the firm—the prop trading desk—did at various 
times sell short a lot of junky mortgage bonds, but he claimed 
that other parts of the firm—the distribution arm, presumably—had 
a big long position in the same or similar securities, and that 
the two positions largely offset each other. If this is true, and 
surely it must be or Blankfein wouldn’t keep repeating it, the 
issue comes down to one of semantics: When is a short a short? 
Maybe I am being dim, but I struggle to see this as the basis of a 
criminal case.


Still, the issuing of subpoenas is undoubtedly more bad news for 
the embattled firm. There is never any knowing where a criminal 
investigation will lead. If Vance and, or, the Justice Department 
are seriously intent on making a case against Goldman, they have 
plenty of leads to follow up, and a strong political incentive to 
take a hard line. Three years after the start of the financial 
crisis, most Americans are convinced that Wall Street got off too 
lightly. A successful prosecution of Blankfein would launch Vance 
on the career path of Rudolph Giuliani and bury the notion that 
the Obama Administration is just another arm of Government Sachs.


For now, though, I just don’t see it.

(Endnote: Brad Hintz, a well-known Wall Street banking analyst, 
has put forward another reason to doubt that the government will 
eventually indict Goldman. Bringing criminal charges against a 
securities firm can effectively destroy it, just as it destroyed 
Drexel Burnham back in 1989-90. But Goldman, unlike Drexel, is 
“too big to fail”: its collapse could well cause a rerun of 
September, 2008. Said Hintz: “If an alleged violation is 
identified during a Goldman investigation, we expect a reasoned 
response from the Justice Department. In a worst case environment, 
we would expect a ‘too big to fail’ bank such as Goldman to be 
offered a deferred-prosecution agreement, pay a significant fine 
and submit to a federal monitor in lieu of a criminal charge.”)




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Re: [Marxism] Libyan Rebels to Recognise Israel?

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On 6/2/2011 4:03 PM, Ismail Lagardien wrote:

Libya’s rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) is ready to recognise Israel,
according to French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who says he has passed the
message on to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

http://www.english.rfi.fr/africa/20110602-libyan-rebels-will-recognise-israel-bernard-henri-levy-tells-netanyahu

They should be ashamed of themselves. Lucky we have defenders of
the Palestinians fighting on the other side.

The Philadelphia Inquirer
OCTOBER 5, 1995 Thursday FINAL EDITION

PALESTINIAN RIVALS UNITE IN ATTACK ON GADHAFI / LIBYA'S LEADER WAS
ASSAILED FOR FORCING PALESTINIANS TO MOVE TO GAZA OR JERICHO. HE
OPPOSES THE PEACE PACT. /

BYLINE: Sami Aboudi, REUTERS
DATELINE: RAMALLAH, West Bank

Supporters and Islamic opponents of PLO head Yasir Arafat, in a
rare show of unity, heaped scorn on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi
yesterday for what they called the "transfer" of Palestinians from
Libya.

Gadhafi, a rabid opponent of the PLO-Israeli peace accord, has
decided that Libya's 30,000 Palestinian residents should return to
Palestinian self-ruled areas and expose the shortcomings of the
peace deals.

In recent weeks, Libyan authorities have fired hundreds of
Palestinian expatriates from their jobs and confiscated their
houses. About 900 are stranded at a makeshift Libyan-run camp on
the border with Egypt, waiting for Egypt's permission - so far not
forthcoming - to cross to PLO-ruled Gaza and Jericho.

United Nations officials say more than 5,000 Palestinians have
been expelled in the last three months. Libya insists that the
Palestinians have chosen to leave in response to appeals from Gadhafi.

"This is a collective transfer, which is taking place in a strange
way in an Arab country," Yahya Yakhlof, director-general of the
Palestinian Culture Department, told a news conference.

"It is a new dagger that is added to the body of the Palestinian
people," said Sheik Hassan Yousef, who spoke on behalf of the
Islamic movement.

"President Gadhafi's step only pressures the Palestinian people to
accept even something worse than what we are already in," said
Yousef, referring to the Israeli-PLO peace moves, which Islamic
groups regard as a sell-out.

But Libya's deputy foreign minister yesterday rejected the
denunciations, saying Libya was, in fact, promoting Palestinians'
claims to a homeland.

"We are telling the entire world: Here is a people expelled from
its land by Israel," Abdelati al-Obeidi said during a visit to
Ukraine. "We have deported 5,000 to 10,000 Palestinians, why is
there such a fuss? Other Arab countries expelled Palestinians in
the past, yet everyone remained silent."

Obeidi said there was an "international policy" aimed at resolving
the Palestinian problem by dispersing them in various Arab countries.

"In this way, it is hoped the Palestinian problem will be resolved
when there are no more Palestinians wanting to return to their
homeland," he said.

"We are reminding the world that the Palestinian problem exists
and there are Palestinians now forced to live in exile. They have
the full right to return to their historic homeland. We do not
want the Palestinian people to live like refugees in tents and
receive humanitarian aid."

Thousands of Palestinian teachers and doctors moved to Libya in
the early 1970s, after Gadhafi opened his country to professionals
from Arab countries. But Gadhafi, who once was regarded as one of
the chief backers of the Palestinian cause, has become critical of
the Palestinians since Arafat signed an interim peace deal with
Israel in 1993.

He was even more critical of Arafat's recent accord with Israel on
handing over authority in the West Bank to the PLO.

During a news conference yesterday near the makeshift camp at the
border with Egypt, Gadhafi urged Arab countries to follow his
example and send home all Palestinians, in order to expose what he
said was Israel's plan to create a Palestinian state in name only.

"The Zionist plan is to create a Palestine without Palestinians. .
. . Other Arab countries are taking part in this Zionist plan by
allowing the Palestinians to stay in their land," he said.

Camp residents and Libyans cheered, waving banners saying,
"Palestinians should go home."

"If we prevent the Palestinians from the right to return, then we
are participating in the imperialist plan which calls for their
settlement in Arab lands forever," Gadhafi said.

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[Marxism] 1 response to Reich's Truth About the American Economy

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puzzlements addressed to Shorter work TIMErs(SWTers),

In the following excerpt from his recent Congressional testimony, Reich
said:
*
*
*But contrary to popular mythology, trade and technology have
not reduced the overall number of American jobs. Their more
profound effect has been on pay. Rather than be out of work,
most Americans have quietly settled for lower real wages, or
wages that have risen more slowly than the overall growth of
the economy per person. Although unemployment following the
Great Recession remains high, jobs are slowly returning. But
in order to get them, many workers have to accept lower pay
than before.*
*
*
Then he goes on to cite as coping mechanism 2, between 1) women entering the
labor force and 3) debt

*Coping mechanism No. 2: Everyone works longer hours. By the
mid 2000s it was not uncommon for men to work more than 60
hours a week and women to work more than 50. A growing
number of people took on two or three jobs. All told, by the
2000s, the typical American worker worked more than 2,200
hours a year - 350 hours more than the average European
worked, more hours even than the typically industrious
Japanese put in. It was many more hours than the typical
American middle-class family had worked in 1979 - 500 hours
longer, a full 12 weeks more.*
*
*
I'd like to see stats for his 'contrary to popular mythology.'  I wouldn't
question that people are working longer hours for lower hourly wages, yearly
salaries, and pay when you're finished and we'll tell you when that is.

The problem I see is the inability of people who have not bottomed out --
which includes Reich and most  I'll say "progressives" as well as
conservatives, with stable enough income to afford the time to comment
online -- is they maintain their right to remain ignorant of
a) what the smart capitalists -- big and little, liberal and conservative,
-- know and are acting on to protect their little families' from rainy days:
 the U.S. dollar is no longer a good vehicle for ensuring equitable
exchanges of different forms of labor time, and even less so, for exchanging
different forms of world average labor time (ie socially necessary labor)
 That is to say pundits are pontificating as if ignorant, tho I assume they
are doing what they can to protect the purchasing power of their portfolios.


b)Secondly they maintain the right to remain ignorant of the law of the
tendency of the rate of profit to fall.  I think the limits to growth people
on the SWT list "get" this, though not necessarily through the same set of
analytic glasses that convince me.  To wit:  the high wages and benefits
enjoyed by  organized industrial labor in the U.S. and Europe depended on
their producing more units of equal use value in much less time than other
(less competitive) workers producing items of similar use; AND even more
importantly, US and European high wages and benefits depended on the fact
that their commodities of necessity,  purchases they had to make (cars,
computers, Armani suits?) to do and keep their jobs (reproduce their labor
power) consumer commodities they had to purchase with their pay contained
less world average labor time than the items they produced (and that were
sold. Keysians recognize overproduction as a problem; some see compounded by
 their solutions)

I've been critiqued on the list by mainstream academic economists for the
limitation of my terms of analysis to those used by Marx and Engels and
encouraged to note that economists now see fit to seek ways to calculate the
cost of depleting non renewable resources at one end  and "positional
values" at the other. I have no problem seeing any commodity one must
purchase -- eg Armani suit, Country Club membership -- to get and keep one's
job as a use value embodying measurable world average labor time, which may
or not be realized.  And certainly the real value around which the price of
non renewable resources fluctuates can be computed by measuring the world
average labor time added in extracting them AND in manipulating the price we
pay.  The labor performed by price manipulators is onerous and difficult.  I
suspect they spend as much of their time feeling like slaves as like
masters.  We should free them.

I'm open to any non violently pursuable reform that guarantees the otherwise
unemployable -- whose  skill sets range more broadly than I can conceive --
a livable wage in exchange for 20 hours of labor, bossed time, a week.   I
would not discriminate against former price manipulators, lobbyists,
hedgefund packagers.

 (The cynic in me notes that right now it looks like the labor is going to
be the labor of taking and passing a urine test in Florida in exchange for
receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Famiies.  Maybe drug testing is The
Growth indu

[Marxism] Libyan Rebels to Recognise Israel?

2011-06-02 Thread Ismail Lagardien

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Libya’s rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) is ready to recognise Israel, 
according to French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who says he has passed the 
message on to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.


http://www.english.rfi.fr/africa/20110602-libyan-rebels-will-recognise-israel-bernard-henri-levy-tells-netanyahu

 

Ismail Lagardien

Nihil humani a me alienum puto

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Re: [Marxism] Diane Ravitch op-ed piece on education "reform"

2011-06-02 Thread Mark Lause

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Just to clarify... an emphasis on more testing is no better than an emphasis
on more teaching.

The kind of testing they want done is exclusively about job skills not about
education...  The humanities don't enter into any of it.  And testing is a
piss poor measure of learning.  Sometimes these things take time to sink in
and sometimes they sink in only in those areas to be tested for as long as
they'll be tested.   The testing emphasis is simply a scam...

Maybe the only bigger scam are "student evaluations"

ML

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[Marxism] Rejoice and Shout


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Without gospel music, there would not be Sam Cooke, Aretha 
Franklin, James Brown, Ray Charles and a host of other great Black 
rhythm and blues musicians. And without these musicians, there 
would certainly not be rock-and-roll. Given its overarching 
significance for American popular culture, which after all is its 
greatest contribution to world civilization, we can only rejoice 
over the arrival of “Rejoice and Shout”, the definitive 
documentary on gospel music starting tomorrow at the Film Forum in 
New York.


full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/rejoice-and-shout/


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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

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> * I recommend reading Evald Vassilievich Ilyenkov's  On Dialectical
> Materialism.  *
> *
> *
> * *
>
>> Subject:Books on Dialectical Materialism
>> Date:   Thu, 2 Jun 2011 01:51:34 -0400 (EDT)
>> From:   sha...@aol.com
>> To: l...@panix.com
>>
>>
>>
>> Some contributors recently commented on available works on
>> dialectical materialism. Works on this subject were available to
>> active Marxists from the twenties onward.
>
> --
>   *Equitable exchange of different forms of labor time, the **productivity
> of which develops over time 
> unevenly*
> * inevitably and so creates in time Surplus Labor Time, due to one yet due
> the other.  This is the **Common 
> wealth*
> *; we still see money changers steal, til here and there we read a bill to
> guarantee us all a **Right to 
> Work*
> * 20 hours a week (1000/year) that earns our **Right to 
> Life*
> *, a livable wage pegged to the price of necessities*.
>



-- 
  *Equitable exchange of different forms of labor time, the **productivity
of which develops over time
unevenly*
* inevitably and so creates in time Surplus Labor Time, due to one yet due
the other.  This is the **Common
wealth*
*; we still see money changers steal, til here and there we read a bill to
guarantee us all a **Right to
Work*
* 20 hours a week (1000/year) that earns our **Right to
Life*
*, a livable wage pegged to the price of necessities*.

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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

2011-06-02 Thread C. G. Estabrook


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The adjective doesn't really apply to philosophy as done in, say,  the 13th 
cent. European universities, aspects of which are enjoying a vogue in 
present-day academic philosophy.  See e.g. "Virtue and Politics: Alasdair 
MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism" (2011), ed. P. Blackledge & K. Knight.


On 6/2/11 9:13 AM, Tom Cod wrote:

like obscurantist medieval philosophy?




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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism


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On 6/2/2011 10:20 AM, Tom Cod wrote:


Hey, wasn't this guy one of the Soviet regime's ideological Three Card
Monte men?  The Healyites were into this intellectual psychology as
well which is designed to convince people to abandon their common
sense for some dimly understood dogma that served as theological
window dressing for obeisiance to the august and wise leader.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_card_monte


This mailing list has been very civil lately and I hope that it 
remains this way. Let's try to avoid needless acrimony.



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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

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Hey, wasn't this guy one of the Soviet regime's ideological Three Card
Monte men?  The Healyites were into this intellectual psychology as
well which is designed to convince people to abandon their common
sense for some dimly understood dogma that served as theological
window dressing for obeisiance to the august and wise leader.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_card_monte

On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 7:13 AM, Tom Cod  wrote:
> like obscurantist medieval philosophy?
>
> On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 6:55 AM, Peggy Dobbins  wrote:
>
>> understood.   I used to think that repressed intellectual advances were
>> inevitably re-discovered.  Now I'm not so optimistic*
>> *
>> *
>

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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

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like obscurantist medieval philosophy?

On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 6:55 AM, Peggy Dobbins  wrote:

> understood.   I used to think that repressed intellectual advances were
> inevitably re-discovered.  Now I'm not so optimistic*
> *
> *

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[Marxism] Venezuela to deliver another 'narco-terrorist' to its friend Santos?

2011-06-02 Thread michael a. lebowitz


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Venezuela's Interior Ministry has announced the capture in the state of 
Barinas of the singer and revolutionary, 'Julian Conrado' [Guillermo 
Enrique Torres], a former member of the Patriotic Union of Colombia and 
comrade of Raul Reyes [FARC leader killed in Colombia's invasion of 
Ecuador and reputed owner of the 'magic computer']. While there are few 
details available at this time from the Venezuelan government, President 
Santos of Colombia celebrated yesterday the capture of this person he 
described as a 'narco-terrorist' as the result of a Venezuelan operation 
assisted by Colombia police and intelligence and said that President 
Chavez had told him that Conrado would be delivered to Colombia (as had 
occurred recently with another activist called a narco-terrorist by 
Colombia, the Swedish citizen Perez Becerra). The People's Tribune, 
newspaper of the Communist Party of Venezuela declared its solidarity 
with Conrado; the title of its article asked if Venezuela had become a 
dangerous place for revolutionaries.

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


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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism

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The very best book *On Dialectic Materialism I ever read, reread, assigned
students, gave as gifts, was  Evald Vassilievich Ilyenkov's  On Dialectical
Materialism.  What I can understand that it never fails to astound me other
serious Marxists don't, may be attributable to that book.   That I don't
find it in a quick google gives me a small feeling of vomit rising in my
throat as I think of Alexandria and other things once known and/or better
understood.   I used to think that repressed intellectual advances were
inevitably re-discovered.  Now I'm not so optimistic*
*
*
* *

> Subject:Books on Dialectical Materialism
> Date:   Thu, 2 Jun 2011 01:51:34 -0400 (EDT)
> From:   sha...@aol.com
> To: l...@panix.com
>
>
>
> Some contributors recently commented on available works on
> dialectical materialism. Works on this subject were available to
> active Marxists from the twenties onward.

-- 
  *Equitable exchange of different forms of labor time, the **productivity
of which develops over time
unevenly*
* inevitably and so creates in time Surplus Labor Time, due to one yet due
the other.  This is the **Common
wealth*
*; we still see money changers steal, til here and there we read a bill to
guarantee us all a **Right to
Work*
* 20 hours a week (1000/year) that earns our **Right to
Life*
*, a livable wage pegged to the price of necessities*.

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[Marxism] Venezuela to deliver another 'narco-terrorist' to its friend Santos?

2011-06-02 Thread michael a. lebowitz


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Venezuela's Interior Ministry has announced the capture in the state of 
Barinas of the singer and revolutionary, 'Julian Conrado' [Guillermo 
Enrique Torres], a former member of the Patriotic Union of Colombia and 
comrade of Raul Reyes [FARC leader killed in Colombia's invasion of 
Ecuador and reputed owner of the 'magic computer']. While there are few 
details available at this time from the Venezuelan government, President 
Santos of Colombia celebrated yesterday the capture of this person he 
described as a 'narco-terrorist' as the result of a Venezuelan operation 
assisted by Colombia police and intelligence and said that President 
Chavez had told him that Conrado would be delivered to Colombia (as had 
occurred recently with another activist called a narco-terrorist by 
Colombia, the Swedish citizen Perez Becerra). The People's Tribune, 
newspaper of the Communist Party of Venezuela declared its solidarity 
with Conrado; the title of its article asked if Venezuela had become a 
dangerous place for revolutionaries.

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


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[Marxism] standing up/dancing for The Bill of Rights

2011-06-02 Thread Dennis Brasky

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Over 1,800 RSVP For Next Jefferson Memorial "Dance Party"



Oh, so you thought that the arrest of several
peoplewho
were dancing inside the Jefferson Memorial on Saturday afternoon would
be the end of the whole brouhaha? Think again: the same group of people who
put together the original demonstration are planning an even bigger display
of civil disobedience this weekend -- and over 1,800
peoplesay
they'll attend.

Adam Kokesh  and several others
-- a handful of whom were arrested by U.S. Park
Policeover
the weekend during a demonstration in protest of a U.S. Court of
Appeals ruling barring dancing inside the
Jefferson--
have posted a Facebook invitation to a "DANCE PARTY @ TJ'S!!!",
scheduled
to take place at noon this Saturday.

"Come dance with us! You don't have to risk arrest, you can dance on the
steps outside in support or join us in civil disobedience in the memorial!"
reads the invitation, which also proclaims that "THIS IS NOT A PROTEST! I AM
NOT ORGANIZING ANYTHING!" despite being arranged by several individuals.
Regardless of your thoughts on the protest or those behind it, there's
little doubt that a collection of over a thousand people could put a real
crimp into the "atmosphere of calm, tranquility, and reverence" inside the
Jefferson that the Court suggested dancing would compromise.

Based on the video of the arrests and the ensuing media coverage, the U.S.
Park Police have launched an "all-encompassing
inquiry"into
the arrests.



http://dcist.com/2011/05/jefferson_memorial_dancing.php

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Re: [Marxism] New title: Tony Cliff: A Marxist for his Time by Ian Birchall

2011-06-02 Thread Einde O'Callaghan


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On 02.06.2011 11:57, Tom O'Lincoln wrote:

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I am looking forward to this book even though I'm not Cliff's greatest
fan. Ian Burchill writes so well, and has lived through all of the
history for a very long time.

It's "Birchall", Tom. I'm afraid your mixing him up with the much 
inferior writer, the journalist Julie Burchill.


Einde O'Callaghan


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[Marxism] Fwd: Books on Dialectical Materialism


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Sent to me by accident rather than the list?

 Original Message 
Subject:Books on Dialectical Materialism
Date:   Thu, 2 Jun 2011 01:51:34 -0400 (EDT)
From:   sha...@aol.com
To: l...@panix.com



Some contributors recently commented on available works on
dialectical materialism. Works on this subject were available to
active Marxists from the twenties onward.
Edward Conze, known mostly for his later years as a Buddhist
scholar, was the author of "Introduction to Dialectical
Materialism," a compendium of articles he wrote for Plebs (or it
may have been Labour Mounthly) in the early twenties, as well as "
Scientific Thinking, an Introduction to Dialectical Materialism."
August Thalheimer, German Communist and then right oppositionist,
wrote "Introduction to Dialectical Materialism," a series of
lectures given at Sun Yat Sen University in Moscow for the
Comintern as a teaching vehicle for Chinese radicals studying
there in the twenties.
(Both Conze and Thalheimer were ihad associations with the POUM.
Conze wrote "Spain Today: Revolution and Counter Revolution"
written before the outbreak of the Civil War, and based in part on
Joaquin Maurin's "Revolution and Counter Revolution in Spain,"
which Conze had first intended to translate but then decided to do
his own work. Thalheimer's "Notes on a Visit to Catalonia" being
reports sent back to Heinrich Brandler in 1936 and available on
the net is an extremely insteresting document).


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[Marxism] Fwd: A Traven Contemporary and other thoughts


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Sent to me by accident rather than the list?

 Original Message 
Subject:A Traven Contemporary and other thoughts
Date:   Wed, 1 Jun 2011 23:38:07 -0400 (EDT)
From:   sha...@aol.com
To: l...@panix.com



Another interesting work that sprang from the Mexican Revolution
is Maneul Azuela's "The Underdogs" of Los de abajo.
Returning to Traven, however, it seems to me that theories that
Traven's works must have been the works of multiple writerss
because of his use of Spanish, English and other languages,
however, is misplaced. Europeans seem to have a propensity for
multiple languages, because of the closeness of boundaries and
thus adjacent linguistic groups, and, as well, the multilingual
nature of the pre-war European left. Examples of these would
include Max Beer, whose command of English, although much of what
he wrote was in German, is remarkable. See, for example, History
of Class Struggles or History of British Socialism. Jan Valtin
(Richard Krebs), author of Out of the Night and other novels, was
a multi-lingual German seaman who mastered English prose in San
Quentin. And Angelica Balabanoff - English, German, Russian and
Italian. Victor Serge, Russian, French and Spanish. You could add
to these the American, Waldo Frank who wrote in English, French
and Spanish.


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[Marxism] Tornado kills 4 in Massachusetts


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(This is as dramatic a sign of climate disorder as the murderous 
tornado in Joplin, Missouri. It is almost equivalent to an article 
with the heading "Blizzard kills 25 in Florida".)


NY Times June 1, 2011
At Least 4 Are Killed in Massachusetts Tornadoes
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

BOSTON — At least four people were killed when tornadoes touched 
down Wednesday in Springfield, Mass., and a number of nearby 
towns. The twisters flipped vehicles, collapsed buildings and 
stunned residents who are not used to such violent storms.


Gov. Deval Patrick activated the National Guard and declared a 
state of emergency. He said that at least two tornadoes had hit 
and that serious damage had been reported in 19 communities, many 
of them small towns along the Massachusetts Turnpike.


One man was killed when his car overturned in West Springfield, 
Mr. Patrick said. Two other deaths were reported in Westfield and 
one in Brimfield, he said, though he had no details.


With storms continuing into the night, Mr. Patrick found himself 
in the unusual position of instructing New Englanders more 
accustomed to blizzards to take shelter in basements and bathrooms 
if necessary.


The scope of the damage was still unclear, but photos and videos 
showed buildings with roofs and sides sheared off. The police were 
going door to door in some neighborhoods to make sure residents 
were unharmed.


“There’s just total destruction,” said Michael Day, a plumbing 
inspector from Agawam who was driving through West Springfield 
shortly after the first tornado struck around 4:30 p.m. “All I can 
hear is ambulances. There’s a lot of police sirens around and fire 
trucks.”


Tornado warnings had been issued for much of the state earlier 
Wednesday. One of the confirmed tornadoes traveled east from 
Westfield to Douglas, Mr. Patrick said, and the other traveled 
east from North Springfield to Sturbridge.


Mr. Patrick said 1,000 members of the Massachusetts National Guard 
were being dispatched to help with debris removal and, if 
necessary, search-and-rescue efforts. He said that State Senator 
Stephen Brewer had told him that Monson, a town of about 9,000 
east of Springfield, appeared to have suffered some of the worst 
damage.


“He said, ‘You have to see Monson to believe it,’ ” Mr. Patrick 
said. In Springfield, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno said in a briefing at 
11 p.m. that more than 40 residents had been injured and 250 were 
spending the night at a shelter set up in a local arena.


While tornadoes are relatively rare in New England, one that hit 
Worcester in 1953, known as the Worcester Twister, killed 94 
people and injured more than 1,000.


Senator John Kerry, who called the twisters a “once-in-100-years” 
event, said teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency 
were on the way.


Mr. Patrick said, “We are hoping and praying and working as hard 
as possible to keep the fatalities limited.”


Katie Zezima contributed reporting.


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[Marxism] Peak water in China?