Re: [Marxism] Letter to NYT Book Review on Darrow and Defenders
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks. Louis' point is well taken as well. On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 11:04 AM, Mark Lause wrote: 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] Transcending Medieval Economics
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In my new book, Sex, Lies and Economics, about early economics of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, one of the constant themes is the struggle against the medieval thinking. Beginning with William Petty, the early economists I am analyzing were following the new science, which emphasized close observation to replace received dogma. Here is a nice description of how the dogma was presented at the time. Notice how closely the medieval method resembles the scholastic method that the early economists opposed. In this sense, we are losing ground. Matters of exchange: commerce, medicine, and science in the Dutch Golden Age by Harold John Cook: More at: http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/transcending-medieval-economics/ -- 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] "Norway attacks: We can no longer ignore the far-right threat"
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == from today's Guardian, by Matthew Goodwin, who apparently specializes in the study of the BNP and their ilk: The tragedy in Norway this weekend may prove to be a watershed moment in terms of how we approach far right followers, groups and their ideology. Until now, European democracies and their security services had focused almost exclusively on the threat from al-Qaida -inspired terrorism. Rightwing extremist groups and their more violent affiliates were dismissed as a disorganised, fragmented and irrelevant movement. This conventional wisdom, however, ignored wider evidence of a more violent and confrontational mood that was emerging within European far right circles. This shift may have been a response to the arrival of al-Qaida-inspired terrorism, or a sense that far right political parties in Europe (such as the Norwegian Progress party of which the attacker was once a member) were not having enough influence on issues such as immigration. Two years ago, anti-terrorism officers in Britain warned of a growing threat from rightwing "lone wolves". At the same time, the US department of homeland security warned of the way in which the wider economic climate and election of the first African-American president could result in confrontations between rightwing extremists and government authorities "similar to those in the past" ... The sources of his ideological influences have started to become clear. He was far from what we might term a traditional rightwing extremist. While he was profoundly concerned about the effects of immigration, multiculturalism, Islam and the growth of settled Muslim communities, he was also dismissive of crude racial supremacist and neo-Nazi ideas and parties that espoused these ideas, naming for example the British National Party (BNP). It was, perhaps, his rejection of the BNP that prompted his interest in the English Defence League (EDL). While Breivik was impressed by the speed of their growth, he also praised "tactical choices" made by their leaders. This included an endorsement of the EDL's rejection of traditional white supremacist discourse and racism, and their decision to oppose Islam on cultural grounds. This distinction between traditional race-based forms of rightwing extremism (such as those of the BNP) and a new anti-Muslim narrative reflects a broader change within the European far right. Rather than oppose immigration and Islam on racial grounds (an argument that would attract little support), the emphasis shifts on to the more socially acceptable issue of culture: Muslims are not biologically inferior, but they are culturally incompatible, so the argument goes. The aim is to open modern far right groups up to a wider audience full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/24/norway-bombing-attack-far-right 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] Letter to NYT Book Review on Darrow and Defenders
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 7/24/11 1:31 PM, Tom Cod wrote: Today's NYT book review published a letter I wrote to them taking issue with a review of two bios of Clarence Darrow that impugned Darrow's defense of criminal defendants. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/books/review/entitled-to-a-defense.html?_r=1&ref=review This is the same exact problem I had with the documentary that William Kunstler's daughters made about him: Sarah Kunstler was 12 years old and her sister Emily was 10 when I met with Michael Ratner and his sister Marjorie Ratner, the wife of Bill Kunstler, at Bill Kunstler’s townhouse in Greenwich Village in 1988. I was there with Michael Urmann, the executive director of Tecnica, in order to get their advice over how to respond to the initial charges of the FBI that Tecnica was part of an espionage network running high technology out of Nicaragua into the USSR. Little did I suspect that Marjorie had begun to view her husband as having lost his radical mettle by this point, a view she expressed at some length in her daughters’ movie. The main complaint is that by the early 1980s, Kunstler had begun to sully his reputation by becoming an attorney for people like Larry Davis, a Black drug dealer who had shot 6 cops during a bust, El-Said Nosair, the Egyptian who had killed Meier Kahane, and most inauspiciously the Mafia don John Gotti, who is seen being embraced by Kunstler at the conclusion of a successful defense. These “bad guys” were nothing like the Chicago 8, the Lakota Indians leading the Pine Ridge occupation or any other of the “good guys”, both male and female, who had made the sixties and seventies so exemplary. Their gripe is reminiscent of what has been said about Ramsey Clark, who made his legal expertise available to Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein, two of the most hated figures of polite liberal opinion in the United States. Without dwelling too much on the political confusion of the Kunstler kids, I can only say that Kunstler was only following in the footsteps of people like Clarence Darrow, who not only defended John Scopes against charges of teaching Darwinian theory to his public school students, but the cold-blooded murderers Leopold and Loeb. If one believes that a Larry Davis did not deserve the best lawyer available to him, then clearly Bill Kunstler’s daughters did not understand their father very well. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/three-2010-documentaries/ 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] Letter to NYT Book Review on Darrow and Defenders
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Excellent and succinct, Tom. I suppose that a decline of understanding of and interest in an advocacy process reflects the general, well-orchestrated erosion of the entire idea of meaningful debate in the civic culture. ML 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] Chto Delat and Ostalgia
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Friday the NY Times had a glowing article on the “Ostalgia” showthat just opened at the New Museum. “When Repression Was a Muse” is the title of Holland Cotter’s piece and gives you a good idea of his angle: For some artists repression had a psychological upside. It gave their work a clear-cut sense of importance. It established art’s primary value as moral, not monetary; instrumental, not formal. If what you were doing was censorable, you could trust you were doing something right; heroic, even. And this attitude fostered solidarity and the growth of a counterculture in which experimentation, individuality and iconoclasm were protected and nurtured. All this is well and good, but you really have to wonder what this has to do with Ostalgia, the neologism that combines the word East (Ost) with nostalgia and that means a longing for the socialist past, no matter how bureaucratic. Perhaps no other work of art expresses this better than the film “Goodbye, Lenin” that I reviewed in 2004. Given the preponderance of bitter rejections of the socialist system on display at the New Museum, one wonders why they didn’t call it “Anti-Ostalgia” instead. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/chto-delat-and-ostalgia/ 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] Letter to NYT Book Review on Darrow and Defenders
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Today's NYT book review published a letter I wrote to them taking issue with a review of two bios of Clarence Darrow that impugned Darrow's defense of criminal defendants. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/books/review/entitled-to-a-defense.html?_r=1&ref=review 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] Norway killer espoused new right-wing, pro-Israel philosophy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Norway killer espoused new right-wing, pro-Israel philosophy July 24, 2011 http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/07/24/3088679/norway-killer-espoused-new-right-wing-pro-israel-philosophy BERLIN (JTA) -- The confessed perpetrator in the terror attack in Norway espoused a new right-wing philosophy allied with Israel against Islam - a trend in European populist and far-right movements that has Israel worried. In numerous online postings, including a manifesto published on the day of the attacks, Anders Behring Breivik pushed the "Vienna School" or “Crusader Nationalism” philosophy, a mish-mash of anti-modern principles that also calls for "the deportation of all Muslims from Europe" as well as from "the West Bank and the Gaza Strip." According to the manifesto, entitled "2083: A European Declaration of Independence" and published under the pseudonym Andrew Berwick, the "Vienna School" supports "pro-Zionism/Israeli nationalism." Breivik listed numerous European "Freedom Parties" and neo-Nazi parties as potential allies because of their anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim stance, and mentioned that right-wing populists like Dutch politician Geert Wilders "have to condemn us at this point which is fine. It is after all essential that they protect their reputational shields." Among the potential allies he listed for Germany were the three largest neo-Nazi parties - the National Democratic Party, Deutsche Volksunion and Republikaner. In Holland, Geert Wilder's "Freedom Party" topped the list, and the British National Party topped a long list of potential supporters in the United Kingdom. European right-populist parties increasingly have been waving the flag of friendship with Israel. Last month, after it emerged that German-Swedish far-right politician Patrik Brinkmann had met in Berlin with Israeli Likud lawmaker Ayoub Kara, deputy minister for Development of the Negev and Galilee, Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding that Kara be prevented from making further trips abroad. According to Ynet, Lieberman accused Kara of meeting with neo-Nazis and causing damage to Israel's image. Brinkman said he had reached out to Israeli rightists hoping to build a coalition against Islam. In postings on a website "document.no" that appear to be from Breivik, the poster pondered whether one could "accept the moderate Nazis as long as they distance themselves" from the extermination of the Jews. Meanwhile, Israel on Saturday night condemned the "revolting terror attacks" in Oslo. "Nothing at all can justify such wanton violence, and we condemn this brutal action with the utmost gravity," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "We stand in solidarity with the people and government of Norway in this hour of trial, and trust Norwegian authorities to bring to justice those responsible for this heinous crime." Israeli President Shimon Peres called the King of Norway, Harald V, to express the condolences of the people of Israel on the 93 deaths. "Your country is a symbol of peace and freedom. In Israel we followed the events over the weekend in Norway and the attack on innocent civilians broke our hearts. It is a painful tragedy that touches every human being. We send our condolences to the families that lost their loved ones and a speedy recovery to the wounded. Israel is willing to assist in whatever is needed," Peres said, according to his office. The King thanked Peres for his phone call and for the expression of Israeli solidarity. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visited Norway last week and was told that Oslo will recognize Palestine, but not immediately. 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] Anti-military protest attacked in Egypt
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 24.07.2011 16:09, Louis Proyect wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index//anti-scaf-%28army%29-march-attacked-in-egypt Anti-SCAF (Army) March Attacked in Egypt You forgot to mention that this is a repost of Hossam El-Hamalawy's blog at http://www.arabawy.org Einde O'Callaghan Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Anti-military protest attacked in Egypt
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index//anti-scaf-%28army%29-march-attacked-in-egypt Anti-SCAF (Army) March Attacked in Egypt The planned 23 July march on the Supreme Council of Armed Forces headquarters in Heliopolis started from Tahrir sometime close to 5pm. The march was initially around five thousand strong, but soon swelled to more than 20,000 protesters. I am giving here the most conservative estimate; some friends think the numbers went up to 50,000. Where did those people come from? They were ordinary people in the streets or residents we passed through their neighborhoods. And it is important to remember this, and shove it in the face of those who claim protests and marches do not enjoy the support of the public any more. The march left Tahrir via Abdel Moneim Riyadh Square, and continued down Emtidad Ramses Street, and into Ghamra. Protesters were chanting beautifully rhymed slogans against Field Marshal Tantawi, SCAF, and police torture. They were chanting for social justice, bread and civil liberties. As we approached Abbassiya, we started receiving news that the military police and the army special forces have blocked the road by the Nour Mosque withmachine gun-mounted armored vehicles and barbed wires. We also received news there were “thugs” preparing Molotov cocktails and swords awaiting us. But as we entered Abbassiya and passed by the cathedral, no problems whatsoever had happened. On the contrary, residents were cheering us on from their windows, and some were throwing water bottles on the demand of thirsty protesters. It was a scene that reminded me of the Friday of Anger march, except we were heading to Tahrir on that day to topple Mubarak, while yesterday we were marching on the same route in the opposite direction, heading to overthrow Mubarak’s loyal generals, the SCAF. The calm did not last for long. As soon as we reached the Nour Mosque, we found rows of army soldiers and officers, with the interior ministry’s Central Security Forces lined behind them. We stood our ground, demanding we pass. We were refused. Chants started immediately against Tantawi. The attack started. Young men carrying swords and knives flocked to our right, while others were stoning us from the side streets. Army soldiers kept firing their machine guns into the air, to be followed later by a chopper circulating over our heads. It was a war zone in every sense of the word. The army has been inciting against our march already for days on the state-run channels, accusing the Tahrir protesters of being “thugs, foreign agents” bla bla bla. The army also, according to Abbassiya residents I spoke with, has been going around the neighborhood since the previous night, telling its residents that they “will be attacked by foreign paid thugs” the following day. Those “foreign paid thugs” were of course, us. Those who attacked us yesterday included criminal thugs from the Waily district, but also some residents of Abbassiya who did buy the army’s lies. The army was already on the roof tops before our arrival, the same roof tops from which Molotov cocktails and rocks were showered at us. The clashes went on for hours. We were besieged: the army and the police on one side, while the thugs blocking our way back to Tahrir. Scores were injured and detained. I personally carried one protester to the nearby hospital, and his left leg was dislocated completely, before my right leg was injured by some projectile or rock, I don’t know. The army stood silent, watching the battle ground, hoping the thugs and the residents would finish us off, while the police was more than happy to join in by throwing rounds and rounds of tear gas. We managed to return to Tahrir in small groups via the neighboring hospital late at night. Dear SCAF, you are a bunch of filthy cowards, who resort to lies and knife wielding thugs to attack peaceful protesters. You prove day after day you are nothing but Mubarak’s loyal generals, who have hijacked this revolution. I wish nothing short of seeing you and your big boss Tantawi in court soon, to pay for your crimes. 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] Good article, bad title
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (A better title would have been "Ex-Schools Chief Emerges as Likely Murdoch Ally") NY Times July 23, 2011 Ex-Schools Chief Emerges as Unlikely Murdoch Ally By JEREMY W. PETERS, MICHAEL BARBARO and JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ This article is by Jeremy W. Peters, Michael Barbaro and Javier C. Hernandez. Joel I. Klein, the former New York City schools chancellor, was in a tricky position. Three weeks ago, Rupert Murdoch asked Mr. Klein, now his trusted deputy, to oversee an investigation into the phone hacking scandal that has deeply wounded the News Corporation and its chairman, something Mr. Klein was eager to avoid. “I am trying to get as far away from this as I can,” he lamented to a friend. He has not succeeded. Mr. Klein, who joined the News Corporation as a senior vice president in January, is not only responsible for the investigation that could uncover what company managers knew about the hacking, but he also has become one of Mr. Murdoch’s closest and most visible advisers throughout the crisis. His seemingly contradictory roles — de facto chief of internal affairs officer and ascendant executive with Mr. Murdoch’s ear — are raising questions about how robust and objective the internal inquiry can be. When Mr. Murdoch summoned a team of top deputies and outside consultants to London to help him manage the fallout from the hacking, Mr. Klein was one of the first to arrive, moving into a temporary office 20 feet from the chairman’s. When Mr. Murdoch and his closest advisers debated whether to accept the resignation of Rebekah Brooks, a newspaper executive at the center of the controversy, Mr. Klein pushed for her exit. When Mr. Murdoch wrote a statement to deliver to Parliament last week, Mr. Klein weighed in on the drafts. And while the world watched Mr. Murdoch and his son James testify, Mr. Klein sat directly behind them for three hours, occasionally cleaning his rimless glasses with his tie as he looked on in support. Mr. Klein’s dizzying journey, in under a year, from one of the nation’s foremost education reformers to the corporate consigliere for a media titan whose politics are far to the right of his own, has surprised and unsettled many friends and colleagues, who fear that he will be unable to extricate himself from a scandal that shows no sign of abating or, they say, ending well. “This was nothing he could have ever expected,” said Barbara Walters, a longtime friend of Mr. Klein’s. But in many ways, interviews suggest, his emergence as a dominant figure within the News Corporation is consistent with a biography that combines high-minded legal and social aims — antitrust law and education — with a driving, sometimes overwhelming competitive fire. “He has a take-no-prisoners attitude,” said Randi Weingarten, who battled Mr. Klein when she was head of the New York City teachers union. “He is a litigator. He is about winning.” It is a sign of how delicate Mr. Klein’s position inside the News Corporation has become that he was initially against the idea of an internal review. In April, after London’s Metropolitan Police arrested three News of the World journalists on suspicion of hacking, some executives pushed for an investigation that would have the full backing of the company’s board and senior management, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions taking place at the time. Mr. Murdoch opposed the idea outright. Standing firmly in his corner was Mr. Klein. “There was a clear message,” said one of the people who knew of Mr. Klein’s role and requested anonymity to divulge private conversations. “Stay out. And let Joel handle it.” Top lawyers and experts in corporate governance said the News Corporation should have hired outside legal counsel to oversee the inquiry, as dozens of companies like the American International Group and Fannie Mae have done in the past, rather than rely on an insider. “That is not standard practice,” said Charles M. Elson, an expert on corporate governance at the University of Delaware. “You cannot be seen as objective if you are inside.” The News Corporation says the investigative body will have true independence and the power to compel employees to cooperate. The company points to the appointment of Lord Anthony Grabiner, a prominent British lawyer who also sat behind the Murdochs during their testimony before lawmakers last week, as the body’s independent chairman. Lord Grabiner will report to Mr. Klein. Mr. Klein, in turn, will report to Viet Dinh, an independent director on the News Corporation board. Mr. Klein declined to be interviewed for this article. “We’ve been given a free hand,” said Lord Grabiner, who added that he and Mr. Klein never would have
[Marxism] Book plan by Anthony Brain how crisis of revolutionary leadeship can be resolved in all 3 sectors of world revolution by giving struggle for Socialism a conscious character!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://brainontrotskyisttheory.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-reconstructed-trotskyist-movement.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
