Re: [Marxism] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's ....
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Class war I understand . . . race and sex as part of that . . . but generational? WTF bullshit is this? How gratifying it would be for the ad-men of the 1960s and 70s to know that their Pepsi-generation categorizing of people into market niches would be so automatically puked up decades later by radicals! And hearing self-described Barnesites bitch about being uncomradely is a bit like listening to Charlie Manson complain about rude language in front of Scarlett O'Hara. Hypocrisy doens't begin to cover it. 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
Re: [Marxism] History of the German Social Democratic Party
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'm sure there are better sources in German, but the standard English book, I think, remains Richard W. Reichard, *Crippled from Birth*: German Social Democracy, 1844–1870. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1969. 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] What happened before the Big Bang?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I don't want to get sidetracked, but in what way is there no evidence that time exists? What kind of solipsistic nonsense is that? I'm sure Kant was great but what does he have to do with anything? Wasn't he a philosopher who flourished in Germany when it was a bastion of anti-Jacobin reaction? OK, maybe I don't know too much about it; quite frankly never had much interest in it. Edmund Wilson in "To the Finland Station" commented that a certain doctrinaire quality of religiosity to Marxism was rooted in its development out of "German Philosophy" which itself was a product of a reactionary, sanctimonious culture rooted in Prussian, Austrian and Tsarist autocracy. The center of European revolution at that time, France, produced an entirely different sensibility which had taken an entirely different route in deconstructing the aristocratic and feudal world view. As to the Big Bang thing, I think these thinkers are trying to demystify that hypothesis and put it on a more materialist footing through an evidence based approach. "Philosophers have interpreted the world in different ways, the point is to change it" Karl Marx "Theses on Feuerbach" On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 8:26 AM, Sun Eagle wrote: > == > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > == > > > Philosophers have often arrived at scientific conclusions before scientists, > because, as Rimbaud once said, "science is too slow." Kant, in the CRITIQUE > OF PURE REASON . . . . 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] History of the German Social Democratic Party
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Comrades, I would appreciate your suggestions for recent books on the history of the German Social Democratic Party from a variety of Marxist perspectives, with an emphasis on the period leading up to its formation in 1863. Thank you. epoliticus 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] REMEMBERING CLEVELAND DONALD, JR.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == FEBRUARY 2, 2012 The news of Cleveland Donald, Jr.'s passing comes as a stunning and extremely heavy shock to myself and Eldri. We have corresponded very regularly with Cleveland on a number of social justice matters -- including global issues involving people of color -- for the past several years. We have known him since he was 15 years old and a founding member of the North Jackson NAACP Youth Council to which I was Advisor. He played a major role in the development of our Jackson Boycott in 1962-63 which grew into the massive Jackson Movement of 1963. Along with a great many other people in that epoch of great struggle, he and his parents ran many risks of many kinds. But Cleveland and his family always kept going toward the Sun, steadily and sturdily. Eldri has always recalled giving Cleveland several of her college philosophy books which he devoured -- and always saved. Just two weeks or so ago, he wrote to congratulate me on having been one of four Native civil rights activists honored on Martin Luther King Day. He also gave the basic points of a fine and inspirational sermon he had just composed. Cleveland will always go on fighting and learning for very good causes. A great many of us will always carry him with us. And here is a written account of mine involving a very long telephone coversation Cleveland and I had in 2009: A LONG TALK AND A LONG WALK, BACK AND FORTH THROUGH TIME [HUNTER BEAR/HUNTER GRAY -- SUMMER, 2009] Yesterday around these parts -- as has been the case for weeks -- we've had extremely heavy rain. Record-setting and the whole region is under a serious flash-flood watch. Up here on our Idaho hill we are, of course, "high and dry" with a large blooming green yard area and the ever-imperialistic Russian Olive tree [only one of our many trees] moving again to try to envelop our house. Josie [our youngest] and Cameron and Baby Aiden ["Exit"] were in the nearby small town of Inkom which was inundated with flash flood stuff but were on higher ground at Cameron's aunt's home -- and eventually got back to Pocatello. Last night, my great Cat, the indefatigable Sky Gray awakened me as usual around 2 a.m. There is some question as to whether she sees me as a playmate or a plaything but her singular attention and devotion to me are infinite. [I am sure this strikes a considerable note of resonance with the several Cat people on some of these lists, e.g., David McReynolds, Sam Friedman, and Lois Chaffee.] Intermixed with all of this, was a very long and excellent phone visit with Cleveland Donald, Jr. who called from the East Coast where he's a Black Studies -- and also Caribbean -- professor at a large university. And, at the same time, he's a busy clergyman. It was a time machine kind of conversation -- laced with dramatic Mississippi episodes and the names of old friends, some still with us, some gone, and some -- like murdered Medgar Evers -- long gone. Cleveland was one of the first Jackson kids I met when I assumed the role of "Adult Advisor" of the then tiny -- about nine members -- North Jackson NAACP Youth Council at the end of the summer of 1961 soon after we came to Tougaloo College. At that time, he was 14, a serious guy who, when he visited us at Tougaloo, often became engrossed in Eldri's several books on philosophy -- some of which she subsequently gave him. Meeting in semi-clandestine fashion in an old church in the northern part of Jackson, the Youth Council grew steadily, carried out manageable and effective single-issue civil rights thrusts, and in the early fall of 1962, numbered several dozen stalwarts -- ranging in age from nine years into the early 'twenties. Most were in high school. Early on we ditched and ignored -- with Medgar Evers' [NAACP field secretary] quiet approval the requirement by the National NAACP office that all Youth Council members anywhere had to belong formally to the NAACP. At the same time, the Youth Council began to stimulate student activism at Tougaloo College -- then a few miles north of Jackson. I met regularly with the North Jackson kids at the church and many began coming to our home on the Tougaloo campus. Lots of Tougaloo students also came to our place -- and the Salter home became known to Magnolia friends and foes alike as "Salter's coffee house." The activist dream of a widespread multi-issue economic boycott of downtown Jackson -- with the longer range vision of widespread and massive nonviolent direct action focused on even more issues -- began with the Youth Council but very early on sparked great good fire at Tougaloo. Thus in that fall of '62, we planned the Jackson Boycott and its increasingly possible large scale direct act
Re: [Marxism] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's ....
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Creepy was an unfortunate choice of words that I regret saying. It's just that you upset people, Louis, when you lose your temper, and you make people afraid of joining if if they think they are going to make you mad. I spent years and years in the U.S. SWP and loved every minute of it but always feel self-conscious about sharing my experiences for fear I may rub you the wrong way. > From: davidrrowla...@hotmail.com > Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2012 18:05:48 -0500 > Subject: Re: [Marxism] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's > To: davidrrowla...@hotmail.com > > == > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > == > > > > I just don't understand how and why people can have anything to do with him. > He is positively creepy. > > > > > Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2012 17:50:39 -0500 > > From: jayrother...@gmail.com > > Subject: Re: [Marxism] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's > > To: davidrrowla...@hotmail.com > > > > == > > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > > == > > > > > > > > > > The next time you post some stupid shit to Marxmail, you will be unsubbed. > > > Go read some Neil Harding or Lars Lih and get up to speed on Lenin > > > scholarship before you waste bandwidth here. > > > > > and > > > > > > > What a callow little prick. > > > > > and > > > > > > > Don't you fucking understand that the discussion is about the differences > > > between how your little sect is organized and how the historical Bolshevik > > > party was organized? I was writing about this shit when you were a gleam > > > in > > > your daddy's eye. > > > > > > Get lost, you two-year old. > > > > > > > > > are perfect examples of the kind of intimidating and histrionic > > posturing that stops pro-Barnes list members like myself from joining in. > > What a pathetic and wretched way to treat comrades, and far from the first > > time! > > > > Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu > > Set your options at: > > http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/davidrrowlands%40hotmail.com > > > Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/davidrrowlands%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
[Marxism] Addendum Re: Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's ..
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == One more thing I should add to my last post. I mentioned that revolutionaries can and should organize themselves as revolutionaries in the kind of mass socialist parties that are needed. However, I should add that throughout the history of such parties, like in the various Second International parties, the development of such revolutionary tendencies is usually an organic response to some sort of topical controversy or event. The most extreme example of course being something like a sell-out parliamentary leadership voting for a war or something along those lines, but also according to less dire but nonetheless burning questions, like the constitution of a left-wing in the Socialist Party of America organized around support for the IWW. Even the various Communist Parties of the early Third International, whatever problems inherent in the Zionievist model of organization, were organic breaks from the parties of the Second International. By contrast, most contemporary "cadre-style" small socialist groups aren't constituted out of an organic development within some broader context, but are rather organized around very tightly delineated programmatic or theoretical points, and usually also specific claims to a particular organizational/theoretical lineage. In the case of the most pathological groups, like the Sparts or whatever, it's just amusing and sad. In the case of the saner and reasonable groups, however, it's kind of vexing. Like for example, I don't understand why the International Socialist Tendency or the Mandelite Fourth International do not have common groups in most countries. At least in Germany they are united in a broader formation like DIE LINKE, but in national contexts like the USA, lacking any kind of mass socialist formation, I don't understand why groups like the ISO and Solidarity aren't in some kind of common organization. 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] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's ....
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == > > The next time you post some stupid shit to Marxmail, you will be unsubbed. > Go read some Neil Harding or Lars Lih and get up to speed on Lenin > scholarship before you waste bandwidth here. > and > What a callow little prick. > and > Don't you fucking understand that the discussion is about the differences > between how your little sect is organized and how the historical Bolshevik > party was organized? I was writing about this shit when you were a gleam in > your daddy's eye. > > Get lost, you two-year old. > are perfect examples of the kind of intimidating and histrionic posturing that stops pro-Barnes list members like myself from joining in. What a pathetic and wretched way to treat comrades, and far from the first time! 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] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's ....
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Incidentally, Lih's and Harding's books are available for purchase at: http://www.haymarketbooks.org Robin. Sent from my iPhone On Feb 2, 2012, at 2:35 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: > == > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > == > > > On 2/2/12 5:24 PM, Adam Proctor wrote: >> >> Keep discrediting yourself, comrade. I've had about enough of this for >> another year. >> > > The next time you post some stupid shit to Marxmail, you will be unsubbed. Go > read some Neil Harding or Lars Lih and get up to speed on Lenin scholarship > before you waste bandwidth here. > > > Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/redasheville%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] From Occupy to Workers Control: Professors Elaine Bernard and Immanuel Ness
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == From the Boston Occupier: http://bostonoccupier.com/2012/02/02/from-occupy-to-workers-control-professors-elaine-bernard-and-immanuel-ness/ From Occupy to Workers Control: Professors Elaine Bernard and Immanuel Ness By Doug Greene on 2/02/12 On Friday, January 20, Professors Elaine Bernard and Immanuel Ness spoke at Encuentro Cinco, a community organizing space in Chinatown, as part of the Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series. The series is coordinated by Free School University – a working group of Occupy Boston – and has featured professors from universities across the East Coast in the last four months, including Noam Chomsky and Bruno Bosteels among many others. Bernard and Ness came to discuss the possibility of the Occupy Movement moving from encampments to workers taking power. Immanuel Ness, a political science teacher at Brooklyn College, is a longtime labor organizer and activist. He co-edited the book Ours to Master and to Own: Workers Councils from the Commune to the Present with Dario Azzellini, which covers 22 instances of workers’ factory occupations and councils since the Paris Commune of 1871. Elaine Bernard is the executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. Bernard contributed to Ours to Master and to Own with a chapter that details her experience and research as a part of the largely women’s British Columbia’s Telephone Workers’ Occupation of 1981. Ness discussed workplace activism in the United States and how “occupying workplaces and enterprises is a much larger task than occupying a public place,” referring to the idea of a worker council where workers are able to manage and produce democratically at the point of production, without bosses. Ness explained that the aspiration for workers councils in the United States has its roots in a long tradition of workplace autonomy from the nineteenth century “where workers demanded certain respect and were producers on their own.” Workers were able to have such power because their unions were able to dictate wages to bosses. However, workers lost their autonomy with the rise of mass production industries by the early 1920s that cheapened their labor, simplified work, and allowed for easier control by capital. In response, unions such as the Congress of Industrial Organizations sought to organize everyone in a factory in order to build working class power. The mass strikes of the 1930s were an examples of what workers’ direct action. Ness explained that the Flint Sitdown Strike of 1937 for union recognition of in the automobile industry showed the power of workers who sit down and take over a factory. Bernard discussed the Telephone Workers’ Occupation seizure of phone exchanges which arose as part of a long struggle between the company and workers over automation and the contracting out of work which weakened the power of the union. As the workers fought to sustain their job security, they questioned the right of the company to determine the choices of equipment and the nature of work. She discussed how the telephone workers were able to get on the public’s side. The workers wanted to provide good phone service to the wider community and felt that “automation was removing the human factor.” The union went out to talk with the public and took on their side by acting as a whistle blower. For example, when the company planned to increase phone fees, the union urged for no rate increase while the company provided poor service. Bernard contrasted the workers before the occupation, who were subdivided into different job categories based on gender. Once the occupation began, the workers went to around the exchanges and learned what their coworkers did. The workers ran the exchanges cooperatively with better service and less stress. Bernard said that “workers began to see themselves as whole people, who were thinking very differently about themselves, their communities and their rights.” Bernard finished her talk by saying that worker occupations and the Occupy Movement show “things can happen very quickly and we can dream the impossible.” During the discussion period, Ness discussed the strengths and weaknesses of worker cooperatives. Although cooperatives show a different way to organize production, Ness warned “cooperatives don’t challenge capitalist logic since they are working within the logic of profit.” Many in the audience stressed the value of direct action and self-organization rather than waiting for a union to come and help them. Some of those in the audience advocated moving towards workplace takeovers as the next stage of the Occupy movement. Send list submissions to: Marxism@gree
[Marxism] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Adam Proctor: > These are not the issues of most of the revolutionary organizations of today. Probably not, since the American SWP under Barnes strikes me as a particularly pathological case, but I think the main point Louis is constantly trying to make in his various writings on the organization question is that the world does not need more "revolutionary organizations". What we need are mass movements (like Occupy Wall Street) and mass socialist parties (like the NPA or DIE LINKE). These parties should be anti-capitalist, explicitly socialist, and multi-tendency, but the division between "revolutionary" and "reformist" parties belongs to a historical constellation that is now past and will probably never return again, at least not in that form. Of course, self-described "revolutionaries" can find a home in such parties and even continue as formal organizations within them. I think the non-pathological revolutionary organizations like the ISO recognize this, hence their work around Green Party campaigns and working with people like Camejo. 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] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's ....
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Feb 2, 2012, at 4:41 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: > > What a callow little prick. > Einde phrased it far better than I, perhaps, but the sentiment is the same. I genuinely hope you can move beyond past the regrets you seem to still harbor regarding the political activity of your youth. Until then, I would only ask that you do not paint today's revolutionary left with a 1970's-era SWP brush. We can do so much better than that, don't you think? Best, Adam 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] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's ....
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2/2/12 4:38 PM, Einde O'Callaghan wrote: During all my years in the British IS/SWP and since in the various incarnations of the tradition here in Germany I've never experienced anything like this. That's probably true but there's more to politics than avoiding stark raving lunacy. I tend to think that such practices have roots in adverse objective circumstances and attempts to force the pace through voluntarist action. Formal political theories may strengthen or weaken such tendencies, but they aren't the cause. All I can say is that the American ISO was expelled from the British-led "workers international" on the flimsiest of grounds, so much so that Kevin Murphy, the fellow who won the Deutscher prize a couple of years ago, went around referring to its leader as Stalinnicos. As I have tried to make clear, the Cliffites were nowhere as bad as the Cannonites but it's hard not to be. Anyhow, the goal is not to avoid becoming a deranged sect-cult but in becoming a *genuine* vanguard party. In my estimation, it is a huge mistake to organize parties on the basis that Tony Cliff laid out. 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] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's ....
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2/2/12 4:24 PM, Adam Proctor wrote: Seriously, Louis -- Go see a shrink for those kinds of problems of accepting your past. These are not the issues of most of the revolutionary organizations of today. Get over it, stop fighting your shadow battles, and join the rest of us in shaping the future. ...or, stay old and bitter. I guess you can always do that. What a callow little prick. 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] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's ....
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 02.02.2012 20:53, Louis Proyect wrote: Later that day I told some close friends who were about as alienated from the party leadership and its idiotic "turn" as I was that I was saying things I did not believe. I just wanted to fit in. Here I was, a rebel from the age of 13 censoring myself. Nobody tortured me into making a fool of myself. I did it all on my own. Unbelievable. I'm sorry to hear about the distorted political heritage you stumbled into, Louis. But your attempts to generalise from your limited experience just don't work. During all my years in the British IS/SWP and since in the various incarnations of the tradition here in Germany I've never experienced anything like this. Only during my mercifully brief encounter with the British SLL (later WRP) - admittedly at a distance since I was in Ireland at the time - did I encounter anything like this - but luckily I got out before I was embittered by the experience - although it did put me off joining an organisation for a number of years. I would hazard a guess that these practices popped up in a number of organisations from various political tendencies - including possibly my own in a number of countries - but I don't think this means that such tendencies are inherent in any particular political strand claiming to have Leninist roots. Indeed I've come across similar tendencies among anarchists and other non-Leninist socialist traditions too. I tend to think that such practices have roots in adverse objective circumstances and attempts to force the pace through voluntarist action. Formal political theories may strengthen or weaken such tendencies, but they aren't the cause. Einde O'Callaghan Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's ....
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == All of us who were members of the SWP in the 1970s (I joined in 1971) have stories they can tell along the lines that Louis is telling below. My big story, which have I have told many times, is my participation in printing the dishonest internal bulletins "explaining" the "split of the Internationalist Tendency party from the Socialist Workers Party" in 1974 and keeping quiet about it, even though I knew, from what I had been told by Al Hansen prior to working on them, that the party leadership was lying. That's not how we did things in the Fourth Internationalist Tendency, and if it had been, I would not have stayed in it from 1984 until we dissolved it into Solidarity in 1991. Our discussion bulletin was permanently open; we published differing points of view in the "Bulletin in Defense of Marxism," and no one ever felt inhibited about expressing her or his point of view. Paul Le Blanc, who had gone with Socialist Action in 1983, resigned from SA and joined us in 1985 after SA split, with the minority going on to form Solidarity. In subsequent debates within FIT, Paul and I were almost always in agreement. We had our share of problems in the FIT, but lack of democracy was not one of them. The last thing we need right now is a scholastic argument over quotations or WWTBHD (what would the Bolsheviks have done). I'm of the belief that our organizational practices in the SWP had developed as they had in order to combat a Communist party, union bureaucracy, and--later--petty-bourgeois forces in the "new left" that were able to wreak considerable havoc. I agree with Peter Camejo's comment that without the SWP's intervention, the CP would have "flushed the antiwar movement down the toilet of the Democratic party." But those organizational practices were a double-edged blade, as Jim Cannon himself knew well. As much as I loved and respected Breitman, Lovell, and others of that generation, the way they turned over the party leadership to Barnes and his associates amounted to--in Bob Dylan's words--putting "guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children." Trainor, to his credit, tried to do something about it, but he did it wrong, in my opinion. Whatever we might say about Leninism and theories of organization, the fall of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe and China have changed the political landscape as much as the Russian Revolution did in 1917. The kind of battle we had to do in the New Mobilization Committee is not on today's agenda. The last thing we need are generals who are intent on fighting wars that were concluded long ago. Rather than go into the new political struggles armed with a program to convince all these newly radicalizing people that WE have the ANSWERS, maybe we need to (1) get involved, (2) do some work and earn some respect, and (3) listen to what these folks are saying before we start shooting our mouths off. Of course, that's what I said back in 1978 inside the SWP, but I don't think anyone was listening, at least not then. Tom >From Louis: "Later that day I told some close friends who were about as alienated from the party leadership and its idiotic "turn" as I was that I was saying things I did not believe. I just wanted to fit in. Here I was, a rebel from the age of 13 censoring myself. Nobody tortured me into making a fool of myself. I did it all on my own. "Unbelievable." Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tgbias%40ptd.ne t 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] Paul Le Blanc responds to Pham Binh's ....
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == > > These are not the issues of most of the revolutionary organizations of > today. Really? I'd be happy to believe that. But from the outside looking in the SWP, RCP and some others have appeared to still have these problems. Hopefully I am wrong due to my lack of interactions with them... Tristan 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] Report of the Arab League Mission to Syria
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2/2/2012 8:45 AM, Eli Stephens wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The report, whose complete leaked text along with excerpts and commentary can be found here, paints a rather different picture than the one being promulgated by the Western corporate media. So naturally I haven't read a word of it there. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29025 http://www.intifada-palestine.com/tag/sudanese-general-mustafa-al-dabi/ Observers Court Controversy in Syria by Sami Moubayed The Arab League Observer Mission has raised a stir since arriving in Syria last week. At first, the Syrian opposition welcomed them heartily, believing that they were there to stop the violence, and oversee implementation of an agreement that included an end to military operations and release of prisoners arrested for taking part in demonstrations since mid-March. The appointment of Sudanese General Mustafa Al Dabi as head of the League delegation, however, raised red flags in the Syrian street. His appointment was very controversial — to say the least — given that he had served as military intelligence officer under Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir. A few years back, Al Dabi had barely escaped a warrant for his own arrest, similar to the one issued for Al Bashir by the International Criminal Court, for “genocide in Darfur”. His performance since arriving in Damascus did not help soothe the fears of his Syrian critics, especially after remarking that the situation in war-torn Homs was “reassuring”. The word “reassuring” was hardly appropriate, after all, for a city that has seen a horrific death toll, been subject to intense military operations, and where sectarian violence has recently flared up between Sunnis and Alawites. Al Dabi, the Syrian opposition claimed, has neither the professional credentials to head the mission nor the moral fibre for such a job. Since he was his country’s ambassador to Qatar in 1999-2004, however, the Syrian government is also equally alarmed by his appointment. They see him as Qatar’s man on the League delegation — certainly worrying for Damascus. Public opinion on the Syrian street is divided in evaluating the observer delegation. Some claim that the observers are nothing but a fabricated theatrical stunt, agreed upon behind closed doors between the Arab League and Syrian officialdom. Al Dabi will make sure that they do not author a report that is too critical of the Syrian government, they claim. When asked for evidence, these sceptics point to the observers’ sluggish movement and the controversial remarks of Al Dabi, which were music to the ears of Syrian authorities. They claim that the Arab League has been a failed organisation from Day One, which never succeeded — not once in its 67-year history — in solving any Arab crisis. Others, however, believe the opposite. They argue that the observers are hiding behind niceties to first win the trust of the Syrian government, before coming up with a very critical report in February that will be used to internationalise the Syrian crisis, legitimising it at the Security Council. That is what Scott Ritter did after all, when he served as weapons inspector to Iraq in 1991-1998, and this was repeated before 2003 by UN inspector Hans Blix. Had it not been for Russian pressure, Syria would not have signed the MoU with the Arab League in December. The Russians insisted, claiming that Syria should not give the League any pretext to take the matter to the UN. If Arab cover was lifted, the Russians said that it would be very difficult to ward off a new UN Resolution, once it leaves rotating presidency of the Security Council on January 1. Syrian authorities at first were very critical of the three-page League protocol, and the observers, claiming that they infringed upon Syrian sovereignty. The original draft, they argued, did not recognise existence of the Syrian government, stating that the observers could travel as they pleased and meet whomever they wanted, without consultation with Syrian authorities. Syria insisted that all activity within the country be done in coordination with the state — and the League, perhaps unwillingly, said yes. They then demanded that point of reference for the observer mission be League Secretary-General Nabeel Al Arabi and not Qatari Prime Minister Shaikh Hamad Bin Jasem Al Thani. Again, the League nodded affirmatively. They then asked that no Turkish observers be present on the mission, which the League also accepted. By accepting these four point
[Marxism] The Komen Foundation Pinkwashes Anti-choicers, Punks Planned Parenthood
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.thenation.com/blog/166026/komen-foundation-pinkwashes-anti-choicers-punks-planned-parenthood The Komen Foundation Pinkwashes Anti-choicers, Punks Planned Parenthood Katha Pollitt on February 1, 2012 - 6:52pm ET Remember when anti-choicers got LifeWay Christian Resources to pull its pink-covered Here’s Hope Breast Cancer Bibles from Walmart and other stores because one dollar of every sale went to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation? The antis were upset that the wealthy and influential breast-cancer charity made grants to Planned Parenthood for breast exams and mammograms for low-income women. And remember when Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio, told his flock to stop raising money for Komen because someday in the future it might endorse stem cell research? Crazy, right? (clip) 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] Obama's bromance with Robert Kagan
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/obamas-bromance-with-robert-kagan/ 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] Report of the Arab League Mission to Syria
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The report, whose complete leaked text along with excerpts and commentary can be found here, paints a rather different picture than the one being promulgated by the Western corporate media. So naturally I haven't read a word of it there. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29025 Eli Stephens Left I on the News http://lefti.blogspot.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Le Havre: Movie about Working Class Solidarity in Provincial France
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I stumbled onto this on Facebook. For what it's worth, John Barzman, whom some of us recall from the SWP, is currently a history professor at the university in Le Havre and has written a book (in French) about the history of the longshoremen there. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/le-havre-cannes-review-2011-189014 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] What happened before the Big Bang?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/what-happened-before-the-big-bang-the-new-philosophy-of-cosmology/251608/ 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
