[Marxism] Jakob Moneta has passed away
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Jakob Moneta, a former editor of many years of the IG Metall trade union newspaper "Metall", as well as a long-time member of the Fourth International in Germany, has passed away at the age of 97. http://www.scharf-links.de/50.0.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=22625&tx_ttnews[backPid]=56&cHash=c54da7edeb 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] General Strike Comics: Ventriloquists
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == After almost two years on hiatus General Strike Comics is back with fresh material... here's the first of many more to come. www.GeneralStrikeComics.com in solidarity, Hutch 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] Red Plenty
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Funny, I was just thinking a couple hours ago while walking dogs that I hadn't really read anything on this subject. Are there other works people can recommend on any period of the USSR and how its economic system worked both internally and externally? Alec Nove's 'Economics of Feasible Socialism' has criticism of the USSR planning system, which means he offers a discussion of how it functioned, and his 'The Soviet Economic System' is worth reading too. Paul Cockshott & Allin Cottrell's 'Towards a New Socialism' (that is available online), while not focusing on the USSR experience, has good stuff on how economic planning with computers can actually work, instead of just short assertions that "it can be done", and they deal with the USSR experience to some extent as well. See also their 2008 foreword to the Czech translation of the book and the section 'Historical failings of socialism'. http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/index.html In Louis' writings on computers and socialism he criticises Cockshott-Cottrell for utopian schemes, but I see the value of their work in offering valuable ammunition for discussions with people who think socialism is a good idea but doesn't work in practice. Most of the marxist discussion on planned economy I've read is very vague, and a lot of it seems to rely on communist abundance which is thought to solve all problems in the end (thus e.g. Ernest Mandel in 'Marxist Economic Theory', which is a rather old book I admit).. Whereas Alec Nove didn't believe it was possible to plan an economy (like the USSR) that produces 12 million products, politically much more radical David McNally in his 'Against the Market' doesn't believe that it's possible to plan even hundreds of thousands of products, so he makes a virtue out of necessity by saying that well it's doesn't really make even sense to try to plan everything, and besides many prices could be regulated. Unless you've got something like Cockshott-Cottrell's book (which was written as a reply to Nove's 1983 book), it's hard to argue against this credibly. -- jjonas @ nic.fi Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The consequences of an attack on Iran
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The consequences of an attack on Iran are no joke http://www.lobelog.com/consequences-of-an-attack-on-iran-are-no-joke/ 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] Red Plenty
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 3/4/12 9:29 PM, Tristan Sloughter wrote: Are there other works people can recommend on any period of the USSR and how its economic system worked both internally and externally? I recommend Moshe Lewin's "Russia-USSR-Russia". This is something I posted on Rotten Timber based on Lewin: Lewin recounts that the Soviet government announced the first five year plan in 1928. Stalin loyalists, like Krzhizanovksy and Strumlin, who headed Gosplan, the minister of planning, worried about the excess rigidity of this plan. They noted that the success of the plan was based on 4 factors: 1) five good consecutive crops, 2) more external trade and help than in 1928, 3) a “sharp improvement” in overall economic indicators, and 4) a smaller ration than before of military expenditures in the state’s total expenditures. How could anybody predict five consecutive good crops in the USSR? The plan assumed the most optimistic conditions and nobody had a contingency plan to allow for failure of any of the necessary conditions. Bazarov, another Stalin loyalist in Gosplan, pointed to another area of risk: the lack of political cadres. He warned the Gosplan presidium in 1929, “If you plan simultaneously a series of undertakings on such a gigantic scale without knowing in advance the organizational forms, without having cadres and without knowing what they should be taught, then you get a chaos guaranteed in advance; difficulties will arise which will not only slow down the execution of the five-year plan, which will take seven if not ten years to achieve, but results even worse may occur; here such a blatantly squandering of means could happen which would discredit the whole idea of industrialization.” Strumlin admitted that the planners preferred to “stand for higher tempos rather than sit in prison for lower ones.” Strumlin and Krzhizanovksy had been expressing doubts about the plan for some time and Stalin removed these acolytes from Gosplan in 1930. In order for the planners, who were operating under terrible political pressure, to make sense of the plan, they had to play all kinds of games. They had to falsify productivity and yield goals in order to allow the input and output portions of the plan to balance. V.V. Kuibyshev, another high-level planner and one of Stalin’s proteges, confessed in a letter to his wife how he had finessed the industrial plan he had developing. “Here is what worried me yesterday and today; I am unable to tie up the balance, and as I cannot go for contracting the capital outlays—contracting the tempo—there will be no other way but to take upon myself an almost unmanageable task in the realm of lowering costs.” Eventually Kuibyshev swallowed any doubts he may have had and began cooking the books in such a way as to make the five-year plan, risky as it was, totally unrealizable. Real life proved how senseless the plan was. Kuibyshev had recklessly predicted that costs would go down, meanwhile they went up: although the plan allocated 22 billion rubles for industry, transportation and building, the Soviets spent 41.6 billion. The money in circulation, which planners limited to a growth of only 1.25 billion rubles, consequently grew to 5.7 billion in 1933. Now we get to the real problem for those who speak about “planning” during this period. As madcap and as utopian as the original plan was, Stalin tossed it into the garbage can immediately after the planners submitted it to him. He commanded new goals in 1929-30 that disregarded any economic criteria. For example, instead of a goal of producing 10 million tons of pig iron in 1933, the Soviets now targeted 17 million. All this scientific “planning” was taking place when a bloody war against the Kulaks was turning the Russian countryside into chaos. Molotov declared that to talk about a 5-year plan during this period was “nonsense.” Stalin told Gosplan to forget about coming up with a new plan that made sense. The main driving force now was speed. The slogan “tempos decide everything” became policy. The overwhelming majority of Gosplan, hand-picked by Stalin, viewed the new policy with shock. Molotov said this was too bad, and cleaned house in the old Gosplan with “all of its old-fashioned planners” as he delicately put it. When Stalin turned the whole nation into a work camp in order to meet these unrealistic goals, he expanded the police force in order that they may function as work gang bosses. Scientific planning declined and command mechanisms took their place. As the command mechanisms grew, so grew the administrative apparatus to implement them. The more bottlenecks that showed up, the greater the need for bureaucrats to step in and pull levers. This
[Marxism] Workers Hold Key to Reigniting Egypt’s Revolution
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.alternet.org/story/154297/workers_hold_key_to_reigniting_egypt%E2%80%99s_revolution?akid=8333.201902.fvf3R2&rd=1&t=6 Workers Hold Key to Reigniting Egypt’s Revolution New pro-labor coalitions are forming in Egypt, but can they reinvigorate a stalled movement for social justice? 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] Climate & Capitalism, March 5, 2012
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM An online journal focusing on capitalism, climate change, and the ecosocialist alternative. http://climateandcapitalism.com ++ March 5, 2012 Online now …. BOOK REVIEW: GREEN WASHED: WHY WE CAN’T BUY OUR WAY TO A GREEN PLANET http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=6769 A powerful critique of green shopping that falls short on solutions MINING BOOM ACCELERATES LAND GRABBING AND ECOSYSTEM DESTRUCTION http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=6758 “This trend is now a major driver of land grabbing globally, and poses a significant threat to the world’s indigenous communities, farmers and local food production systems, as well as to precious water, forests, biodiversity, critical ecosystems and climate change.” MALAYSIA: LARGEST ENVIRONMENTAL PROTEST CONDEMNS TOXIC REFINERY PLANS http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=6751 “The message is clear. The people have spoken up… The people do not want the Lynas Project in Malaysia” FUKUSHIMA DISASTER WAS CAUSED BY JAPAN’S NUCLEAR AUTHORITIES, NOT THE TSUNAMI http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=6746 “This disaster was predictable and predicted, but happened because of the age-old story of cutting corners to protect profits over people” DVD NOW AVAILABLE: “A DARKER SHADE OF GREEN: REDD ALERT AND THE FUTURE OF FORESTS” http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=6740 Global Justice Ecology Project and Global Forest Coalition announce the release of the DVD of ”A Darker Shade of Green: REDD Alert and the Future of Forests.” NATURAL GAS: ANOTHER MAGIC BULLET THAT WON’T STOP CLIMATE CHANGE http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=6738 “If you take 40 years to switch over entirely to natural gas, you won’t see any substantial decrease in global temperatures for up to 250 years. There’s almost no climate value in doing it.” NO TIME TO WASTE ON TRANSITION TO GREEN ENERGY http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=6734 Even if we convert totally tomorrow, it would be decades before the transition from coal-based power brings temperature benefits. We have delayed too long already and it is time to get started. +++ TOO MANY PEOPLE? Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis by Ian Angus and Simon Butler Haymarket Books, 2011 Order today at your favorite bookseller, or from ++Haymarket Books http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Too-Many-People ++Ecosocialist Bookstore http://astore.amazon.com/climaandcapit-20 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] Red Plenty
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Funny, I was just thinking a couple hours ago while walking dogs that I hadn't really read anything on this subject. Are there other works people can recommend on any period of the USSR and how its economic system worked both internally and externally? Thanks, 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] Red Plenty
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I've only had time so far to skim the long discussion at Crooked Timber. And it seems way too much of it focuses on planning under Stalin, and not on the early 60s attempt to use computers -- although given that the folks advocating greater use of computers then generally saw it as helping with a move toward greater reliance on market mechanisms, that period only goes so far as an example of wasted potential. But the key in this whole debate for me is what Louis wrote in his piece on Nove: "Not only does my experience in the business world at odds with Nove's theories, I also have witnessed the impact automation can make in a revolutionary society. I was formerly the President of Tecnica, a technical aid project for Nicaragua. One of our volunteers wrote a database application that ran on a single PC which kept track of spare parts for private and government enterprises in Nicaragua at the height of the contra war. This modest little application had a MAJOR impact on Nicaragua's ability to keep key industries going during the war. Imagine what large-scale automation could have meant in a Nicaragua at peace. " That one seemingly tiny yet hugely historic example certainly agrees with what I wrote in the MR anthology on "Capitalism and the Information Age" about computers as an aid to democratic planning. Ironically today's Times Business section has an article on IBM's introduction in Rio of a software system which integrates data from many different agencies covering different sectors of city life (weather, traffic, housing, etc., etc.) to aid with disaster planning: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/business/ibm-takes-smarter-cities-concept-to-rio-de-janeiro.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=business One critic points out that they don't use it for infrastructure planning, which sets the stage for how disasters play out. But they COULD use it for that. And for purposes of our discussion, the "they" should be workers and neighborhood councils who take an active part in gathering, submitting, and analyzing the data at all levels. 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] Pipelines
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Does anyone know of any particularly good comprehensive web resources on existing and proposed natural gas pipelines, especially in Central and East Asia? (With maps would be great.) Thank you. W. Cerion 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] Why Israel Couldn¹t Take Out Iran¹s Nuclear Program Even if It Wanted To
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == > > That "line" article doesn't even INCLUDE the word "Ahmadinejad," much > less represent "defending him." > In http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/us-hands-off-iran.html: "The destabilization campaign may also lead to a “pro-democracy” movement, possibly a variation in the right-wing “Green Movement” that arose in June 2009." Then, http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/iran-green-movement-vs-egypt-revolution.html "Right after the June 12, 2009 elections, even during the peak of large Green demonstrations, there were marches and rallies in support of President Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei, including the June 17 “unity” rally in Tehran and the June 19 Friday Prayers at Tehran University, each attended by hundreds of thousands. So, while in Egypt and Tunisia it is close to the absolute majority of the people on one side and the state on the other, in Iran there have been two groups of people demonstrating, one for and one against the regime." You don't have to support Mousavi to be on the side of the Iranians who are fed up with rigged elections and the right wing populist regime of Ahmadinejad. The PSL's "analysis" of these situations are laughable. It is amazing how blinded people can become and how many "useful idiots" there are for these sorts of governments. 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] Why Israel Couldn¹t Take Out Iran¹s Nuclear Program Even if It Wanted To
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == David: "For us in the West, our only role is to prevent US and Zionist intervention in Iran. It is not, for one iota, to "defend Ahmadinejad" and the gov't in Tehran. Not for a second. You destroy any credibility by doing this and end up as a bit player with no lines in this same play. That's the role the Eli's PSL and groups like the PSL are playing right now if his views are that of the PSL." For the record, the PSL and ANSWER were principal organizers of many of the demonstrations calling for "No War on Iran" which took place last month: http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/no-war-on-iran.html And if you want to know the views of the PSL, you should read them, e.g., here: http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/us-hands-off-iran.html That "line" article doesn't even INCLUDE the word "Ahmadinejad," much less represent "defending him." And many others: http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/search/search.jsp?query=iran&folderID=1 68310601&includeSubfolders=true 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
Re: [Marxism] Why Israel Couldn¹t Take Out Iran¹s Nuclear Program Even if It Wanted To
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == > > For us in the West, our only role is to prevent US and Zionist intervention > in Iran. It is not, for one iota, to "defend Ahmadinejad" and the gov't in > Tehran. Not for a second. You destroy any credibility by doing this and end > up as a bit player with no lines in this same play. That's the role the > Eli's PSL and groups like the PSL are playing right now if his views are > that of the PSL. > > David > well said, comrade. so clear. Gary 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] Why Israel Couldn¹t Take Out Iran¹s Nuclear Program Even if It Wanted To
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == David: "Eli's argument boils down to: "Ahmadinejad says they are not building nuclear WMD, so we should believe him"." My post was aimed at one simple notion, namely, to rebut the idea (whether it actually came from Fidel or not) that Ahmadinejad is on a "nuclear kick." Speeches like the one I quoted at length, and many others, clearly make that a preposterous idea. They don't necessarily disprove that Iran has some secret nuclear weapons program, or the desire to have one, although the complete lack of evidence that it does is certainly relevant in that regard. Speaking of preposterous, then there's this from David: "The "problem" is that their enrichment facilities are built like military bunkers. Why? Sure, the idea of course would be to protect them. But building a very expensive, every expansive enrichment and fuel fabrication facility 600 ft under groups and NOT allowing IAEA inspectors in belies their claim that it's "only for civilian uses". I mean, why? Iran has an absolute right under the Nuclear non-Prolifieration Treaty of which they are signatories to enrich fuel for peaceful purposes. This means, under IAEA inspections, they can do almost anything they want. There is simply no reason to "protect" these facilities." It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud at this notion. Yes, Iran has an absolute right under the NPT to do what it is doing. And the U.N. resolutions and blockades leveled against it by the "international community" (i.e., the U.S. and its allies) quite clearly demonstrate that those rights mean nothing in the real world. And as to why they might want to protect them from attack, gee, I just can't imagine. We only have the precedent of Iraq and Syria, AND the constant threats of such attack from virtually every U.S. and Israeli politician and government official of any importance (outside of the U.S. Military). So gee, I just can't imagine why they would take such threats seriously. "In my view they either throw their facilities wide open, or withdraw from the NPT and state clearly they are aiming to achieve nuclear weapons capability." Why would they state clearly they are aiming to achieve nuclear weapons capability when they have stated as clearly as possible (evidently not clearly enough either for U.S. politicians and media, or for David either for that matter) that they are NOT aiming to achieve nuclear weapons capability? "For us in the West, our only role is to prevent US and Zionist intervention in Iran." Quite right. And one of the ways to do that is to TELL THE TRUTH, and rebut the lies that permeate the U.S. media. 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
Re: [Marxism] Why Israel Couldn¹t Take Out Iran¹s Nuclear Program Even if It Wanted To
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The idea that Ahmadinejad says anything of 'truth' is absurd for us as Marxists to take for granted, as Eli on more than one occasion has done. Eli's argument boils down to: "Ahmadinejad says they are not building nuclear WMD, so we should believe him". I'm glad he's not gonna be doing PR for the revolution here in the U.S. Being someone who opines on nuclear issues now and again here (and will be speaking on it at the Left Forum) I will give you my own view on Iran and WMD. Iran has restarted the US inspired program pushed on the Shah of Iran back in the 1970s to build nuclear plants. That is commercial nuclear plants. One Russian plant is now on line and pumping out energy into the Iranian electrical grid. The Shah's plan, and now the Islamic Republic's plan, is to build 19 more. Specific vendors are not mentioned and no tenders have been issued asking vendors to build them. Obviously the Russians have a lead, a wink and a nod on this should the Iranians add concrete to paper plans. Expect the S. Koreans to bid heavily for these if it ever happens. They need to build the nukes in order to stop burning oil and natural gas in them since it's eating into their ability to export same to the West and East. What many anti-nuclear activists don't realize that it is not the plants, per se, that reprsent any threat, what so ever. No *commercial* nuclear plant has ever provided the raw material, or irradiated material in the form of Pu-239 to make a weapons. Smaller, research reactors have, however. Making the material for nuclear WMD is a very 'cheap' thing to do compared to making carbon-free nuclear generation. The technology behind plutonium production is, unfortunately, an 'easier' engineering accomplishment than building and running a nuclear power plant. The plutonium breeders don't have turbines and generators. They don't have massive cooling towers (small ones), they don't have a pressurized reactor vessel. Essentially they are small and cheap. What is the link then between 'civilian' nuclear energy and military WMD? It's in the actual human resources on the one hand...nuclear engineers for one, and, the fuel enrichment that a country needs to get one part of every nuclear weapon, U235, in high enough enrichment to go bang (and if using plutonium, to make the plutonium go bank). Now, what are the reason for the Iranians to enrich U235? There are several. Iran want's to be a leader in medical isotopes. You need a nuclear power plant, one *similar* to the weapons ones, to make medical isotopes. The entire N. American supply of these is produced from one Canadian reactor. Iran genuinely wants to lead in this sort of cancer treatment and, production of the needed isotopes. This is their stated reasons for enrichment. Secondly, the Iranians do NOT want to rely on the Russians for fueling their later set of reactors or even for the next refueling of their new reactor at Bushswer. They do not trust the Russians even though the Russians have been virtually their only European ally. The Iranians want energy 'sovereignty' and they want it in a big way. The idiot "Islamic economists" in Iran completely set up their own country to be an energy vassal state of Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E because they simply refused to invest in refinery capability after the Iran-Iraq War destroyed most of their productive capacity. Iran only produces like 30% of it's own gasoline and diesel, having to export crude oil west across the Gulf to get refined and shipped back. This is why Iran will suffer more than any country in the region if there is a war. Their energy will simply stop and the country will grind to a halt. This will put yet more pressure on their heavily urbanized society. So, they want to produce their own reactor fuel, for both their R&D medical reactors and their nuclear power plants. The "problem" is that their enrichment facilities are built like military bunkers. Why? Sure, the idea of course would be to protect them. But building a very expensive, every expansive enrichment and fuel fabrication facility 600 ft under groups and NOT allowing IAEA inspectors in belies their claim that it's "only for civilian uses". I mean, why? Iran has an absolute right under the Nuclear non-Prolifieration Treaty of which they are signatories to enrich fuel for peaceful purposes. This means, under IAEA inspections, they can do almost anything they want. There is simply no reason to "protect" these facilities. You could have full time IAEA inspectors onsite 24/7 365 and make it impossible for some military aggressor to take them out. Instead, they *act* as if they building WMD with these nuclear facilities. Knowing they have an enemy in Washington and in Jerusalem, knowing that for the past 20 years every overture m
[Marxism] US Congress passes authoritarian anti-protest law (WSWS)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A bill passed Monday in the US House of Representatives and Thursday in the Senate would make it a felony—a serious criminal offense punishable by lengthy terms of incarceration—to participate in many forms of protest associated with the Occupy Wall Street protests of last year. Several commentators have dubbed it the “anti-Occupy” law, but its implications are far broader. The bill—H.R. 347, or the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011”—was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate, while only Ron Paul and two other Republicans voted against the bill in the House of Representatives (the bill passed 388-3). Not a single Democratic politician voted against the bill. The virtually unanimous passage of H.R. 347 starkly exposes the fact that, despite all the posturing, the Democrats and the Republicans stand shoulder to shoulder with the corporate and financial oligarchy, which regarded last year’s popular protests against social inequality with a mixture of fear and hostility. Among the central provisions of H.R. 347 is a section that would make it a criminal offense to “enter or remain in” an area designated as “restricted.” The bill defines the areas that qualify as “restricted” in extremely vague and broad terms. Restricted areas can include “a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting” and “a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance.” The Secret Service provides bodyguards not just to the US president, but to a broad layer of top figures in the political establishment, including presidential candidates and foreign dignitaries. Even more sinister is the provision regarding events of “national significance.” What circumstances constitute events of “national significance” is left to the unbridled discretion of the Department of Homeland Security. The occasion for virtually any large protest could be designated by the Department of Homeland Security as an event of “national significance,” making any demonstrations in the vicinity illegal. For certain, included among such events would be the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, which have been classified as National Special Security Events (NSSE), a category created under the Clinton administration. These conventions have been the occasion for protests that have been subjected to ever increasing police restrictions and repression. Under H.R. 347, future protests at such events could be outright criminalized. The standard punishment under the new law is a fine and up to one year in prison. If a weapon or serious physical injury is involved, the penalty may be increased to up to ten years. Full Text: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/mar2012/prot-m03.shtml Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Facebook frustration
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == formerly of the SWP On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 9:44 AM, Tom Cod wrote: > Some people publish huge amounts of stuff. My friend Bob S, from SDS, > cranks out 20-30 per day, Kipp D of the SWP is a large producer as > well, which is fine. I think my top ten producers probably post up to > 80 posts per day. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Facebook frustration
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == "Unfriend" is different from "unsubscribe", the latter meaning a person's posts will not be published to your home page, a setting that can be altered at will, meaning you still have access to this person's page and posts. Anyone who has a large number of friends has to restrict the number of people they are subscribed to in order to make their site manageable. It's sort of like fielding a barrage of phone calls in a busy office. Some people you might not be able to talk to, but it would a rare person who you would block from calling in the first place. Some people publish huge amounts of stuff. My friend Bob S, from SDS, cranks out 20-30 per day, Kipp D of the SWP is a large producer as well, which is fine. I think my top ten producers probably post up to 80 posts per day. I simply can 't have all of them flooding in all the time 24/7, so I'll often rotate who gets published from time to time. In addition you can click "important only" to minimize. I would never unfriend someone, however, for a logistical reason like that as I value my connection with them. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Facebook frustration
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 3/4/12 12:33 PM, Mark Lause wrote: It's the nature of American civilization at this point that it makes a certain portion of its population sociopathic. One other problem I have with FB is how bereft it is of serious discussion or debate. And often when it occurs it is with people who you really have little or no affinity with. Yesterday a grad student in London named Sebastian wrote glowingly about Steve McQueen's "Shame", a movie I really hated, even more so than "Hunger", his horrible movie about Bobby Sands. When I took exception to the film, I found myself in an argument with people on Sebastian's wave-length, who are grad students like him or junior faculty members. When one of them wrote "Also, what about someone like Tarkovsky? His films are suffused with emotion, but his characters are either detached or otherwise somewhat lacking in internal life. They are tools to engender a kind of purely temporal experience of cinematic haecceity", I chuckled at the use of the word "haeccity" and signed off. There are frequently good discussions engendered by something that Doug Henwood writes or Corey Robin wrote (I unfriended him a while back out of pique, probably a mistake) but that's about it. 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] Where Are the Troubled Consciences over Greece?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I hear Leftists complaining of this all the time . . . and very rightly so. Greece is the future being designed for Italy, Spain and southern Europe. And when austerity doesn't solve the problems there, it will be extended across the continent. 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] Facebook frustration
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I, too, accept all friend requests from real people. If you click on the profile, a quick look can reveal sales scams, etc. In some years, I've only unfriended a few people. One was this character who entered into a rant about how critics of the wars are objective allies of the terrorists who should be put up against a wall and shot. The guy was genuinely hurt when I unfriended him and actually messaged me to ask why. I replied that I have no "friends" who want me killed. He said that he had exaggerated and didn't really want me killed . . . just confined indefinately. It's the nature of American civilization at this point that it makes a certain portion of its population sociopathic. 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] Ginia Bellafante attack on BDS
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, 04 Mar 2012 12:00:39 -0500 Louis Proyect wrote: > Her writing has been criticized for its superficial treatment of gender > issues: Her 1998 Time cover story "Is Feminism Dead?" was critiqued by > Erica Jong. Now *that* is funny. A writer too shallow for *Erica Jong*? -- -- Michael J. Smith m...@smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com http://cars-suck.org 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] Red Plenty
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (The liberals at Crooked Timber are organizing a seminar on this book that Marxists Ken McLeod and Paul Cockshott admire. I browse Crooked Timber on a daily basis since it is an important forum for liberal and social democratic academics but rarely post, especially after some comment I wrote about Yugoslavia was removed by one of their moderators for no other reason that he didn't like what I wrote politically. I will be commenting on this book, however, since it deals with questions very close to my heart: computers and socialism. Check http://crookedtimber.org/2012/03/03/red-plenty-2/ for their opinion and mine under the comments.) NY Times Sunday Book Review March 2, 2012 Comrades, Optimize! By ANDREW MEIER RED PLENTY By Francis Spufford 434 pp. Graywolf Press. Paper, $16. While many look back on the Soviet Union and fixate on the politics, purges and wars, the British writer Francis Spufford, in his latest high-wire act, has devoted Stakhanovite study and considerable literary muscle to another endeavor. He tells the story of “an idea,” the dream that mobilized a generation, created one of history’s largest industrial monsters and ultimately doomed it to failure. “Red Plenty,” as its title suggests, is the story of the Bolshevik promise of abundance. Spufford’s odds of success were tall, for he has not only created a genre-bender — part novel, part history — he’s taken as his subject what may be the most boring corner (central planning) of a very boring field (Soviet studies). From the preamble: “This is not a novel. It has too much to explain, to be one of those. But it is not a history, either, for it does its explaining in the form of a story.” Radical? Not really. At least, not on Russian turf. Think: “Darkness at Noon,” “Doctor Zhivago,” “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.” “Storifying” history, for Solzhenitsyn, was old hat. “The Gulag Archipelago,” though he did not deem it literature, bears the subtitle “An Experiment in Literary Investigation.” Still, Spufford juggles well, and includes 53 pages of endnotes. The result is a marvel — at once pure skazka, an old-style Russian fairy tale, and a deeply researched history populated with characters, episodes, even dialogue, snatched from history. Spufford the fabulist conjures up the fluorescent dead-dull drone of Soviet life, the post-Stalin, pre-Brezhnev heyday, flowing with dread and promises, a realm where briefcases bang “hollow” on knees, clouds “unzipped their bellies and let down the snow,” skin in banyas (bathhouses) looks “like willow-pattern china” and wheat fields “smell like bakery dust.” We gain entrance, as well, to a realm normally roped off to trespassers: Soviet cybernetics — the science of control systems. Making Soviet theory sexy, Spufford describes flirtations at the “Cybernetics Kaffee-klatch” in Akademgorodok (the Siberian Mecca of Soviet science) and duels over “irrational pricing” at a Politburo dacha. Spufford tells us, in the notes, how often he has “cheated.” And yet he has not only researched in the hinterlands but devoured shelffuls of abstruse tomes, everything from “Factory and Manager in the U.S.S.R.” (Joseph S. Berliner, Harvard University Press, 1957) to the “Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia” (Steidl, 2004). Who else has parsed the “potato-optimizing program” of the Moscow Regional Planning Agency or delved into “Building the Svetlogorsk Artificial Fiber Plant” (Sovetskaya Belorussya, Dec. 2, 1962)? Pity the double vision: the novelist dreaming plotlines while scouring Gosplan statistics till the eyeballs turned red. But it was worth it. In one memorable scene, we meet the future Nobel Prize-winning economist Leonid Kantorovich in 1938, his mind set spinning by a request from the Plywood Trust of Leningrad to optimize production. What if, he daydreams, “in the face of the patched and mended cosmos, always crumbling of its own accord, always trying to fall down, it built; it gained 3 percent more of what humanity wanted, free and clear, just as a reward for thought”? And here is Spufford’s young believer, Volodya, late of Moscow State University, when a price hike on meat yielded the Soviet Union’s most violent postwar strike, in Novocherkassk in 1962. Volodya watches in horror as his bright shining future begins to bleed: “These bullets were not disappearing into the blue, they were being drilled deliberately into the flesh of the crowd — which shook, which fissured, which fell apart and revealed that it was made only of the single bodies of men and women and children. A man of 60-something, gray beard, drinker’s cheeks, was turning baffled on the spot just where Volodya was looking, everyone around him lurching into
[Marxism] Where Are the Troubled Consciences over Greece?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Where are the "troubled consciences" over Greece? by Steven Colatrella J'accuse! I accuse all the intellectuals, the social democrats, the liberals, the leftists looking elsewhere, especially across Europe, of not speaking out against the atrocities perpetrated on the people of Greece. Had Stalin done to Greece what the IMF/EU Commission and ECB (the Troika) has done, the nouveau philosophe's would have issued a new encyclopedia over it, and all the ex-Communist Party members would have taken a break from ringing their hands over the Soviet crushing of workers' revolutions in Prague, Budapest and Gdansk (never calling them that of course) to beat their breasts over it. Had Hitler done to Greece what the Troika has done all the anti-fascists around Europe would commemorate it with a national day of memory. Had the United States done it all the facile leftist anti-imperialists, searching for a way to not notice the exploitation of their own national firms in Eastern Europe or Asia or Africa would mass in the hundreds of thousands to protest. Had a corrupt nationalist government done this, Thomas Friedman and Kristoff would have filled the NY Times with editorials over it by now. Full article: http://www.pmpress.org/content/article.php/20120213051943755 Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Facebook frustration
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I have elected to accept every Facebook friend request. I don't necessarily need so many friends but I like the comfort of knowing that the gendarmes who monitor Facebook and other social and political forums (like Marxmail I assume) have a harder time telling what's really important to me. Dan 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] Ginia Bellafante attack on BDS
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (This is the same idiot who wrote a snide piece on OWS early on. She really is a piece of work. From the wiki on her: Her writing has been criticized for its superficial treatment of gender issues: Her 1998 Time cover story "Is Feminism Dead?" was critiqued by Erica Jong. According to Jong, "Time's idiotic cover story on feminism is, in short, a symptom of what's wrong, not an analysis".[4] Salon.com described it as "poorly thought-out".[3] Her 2011 New York Times review of the TV series Game of Thrones was widely criticized as sexist for suggesting that only sexual content might motivate women to watch a complex fantasy story.[5] NY Times March 2, 2012 Food Co-op Politics Leave a Bad Taste By GINIA BELLAFANTE Many years ago, after graduating from college to a $15,600-a-year job as an editorial assistant, I moved to Park Slope, celebrating my pioneering spirit. It was the late 1980s, long before the affluent enclaves of Brooklyn had become an ever-expanding temple to all the different things that might be done with Tuscan kale. The Park Slope Food Co-op was the center of culinary interest, such as it was. I wanted to love it, but a brief flirtation confirmed my suspicions that the co-op was a place where people in overalls behaved unpleasantly toward you and where arriving at consensus over the price of a plum took longer than the first and second phases of the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks. Collectivism, of course, makes a fetish of process. That is probably the most benign way to interpret what has recently been going on at the co-op, the largest in the country, owned and operated by its 16,000 members. For a few years now, a small contingent has been debating whether the organization should join the global movement known as BDS, which calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it returns all Arab land occupied in 1967. Every other week, the co-op’s newspaper is consumed not only by epic, impassioned, sometimes-vitriolic letters about the issue, but also letters about how to talk about the issue, about how to think about the Middle East and about the appropriateness of these kinds of debates in a place that above all exists to purvey the right kind of clementine. There are letters about the kinds of typographical errors made in these letters. At the co-op’s next monthly meeting, on March 27, a vote will be conducted to decide whether a bigger vote, among all co-op members, ought to be conducted, authorizing a boycott of Israeli products. Calling for a boycott of Israeli-made foods at the Park Slope Food Co-op turns out to be a lot like calling for a boycott of Speedos in Minsk. In addition to Sodastream seltzer makers and replacement cartridges, there are currently only a handful of foods in the whole establishment produced in Israel. One of them, an olive spread made by a company called Peaceworks, uses olives grown in Palestinian villages and glass jars made in Egypt. The company diverts 5 percent of its profits to peace-promoting causes. That a protest of this scope would be both dubious as a symbolic gesture and utterly absurd as a means of levying economic impact has hardly diluted the tensions of those invested. Great effort is being made to defeat something unlikely to occur. Inside the co-op, an antiboycott faction, which calls itself More Hummus Please, has arisen and organized a conference under the heading The Israeli/Palestinian Conflict Today: Obstacles and Opportunities, scheduled for Sunday. Regional experts and academics like the philosopher Michael Walzer were invited to speak. Presumably, less energy has gone into creating super PACs. In seeking the best way to deliver its message to the world of Park Slope, the group reached out to the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York and a local rabbi, Andy Bachman of Congregation Beth Elohim, who counseled the antiboycott people to keep the tone of the event nuanced. Sunday’s conference will be held at Old First Reformed Church, near the co-op. “The BDS people have been having their events in the co-op itself,” Marion Stein, a 15-year member, told me, “and that’s something that we in the Hummus group find very upsetting.” The intensity of the conversation belies the extent to which the vast majority of co-op members don’t care about a potential boycott, Ms. Stein acknowledged. This was borne out as I stood in front of the co-op one rainy afternoon last week and met several people who knew nothing about the debate and several others who had no interest, and more who were irritated by the fact the discussion was taking place at all. “The whole thing is ridiculous,” Matt Lewkowicz, a young composer, said of the boycott. “I
[Marxism] Evict us, we multiply
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Evict Us, We Multiply by Pham Binh of Occupy Wall Street on March 2, 2012 At 9 a.m., as most of us clocked in to work for the 1%, occupiers in New York City clocked in to work for the 99% by assembling in Bryant Park to take action against the members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a powerful corporate lobbying group that literally writes legislation. The call to “shut down the corporations” on #F29 came from Occupy Portland weeks ago. Actions spanned the nation and coincided with anti-austerity protests in Spain and Belgium. Targets included Pfizer, Bank of America, Wal-Mart, AT&T, and others. Three Wal-Mart warehouses in Mira Loma, California were closed by the time occupiers got there. The mood was festive and defiant, a real achievement given the cold, the rain, and the turnout (about 100). After leaving Bryant Park, occupiers spoke on the people’s mic in front of Pfizer before returning to the park for drumming, chanting, singing, and a teach-in by America’s top muckraker Matt Taibbi on Bank of America, the next target of the roving march. Taibbi spoke under an umbrella, discussed the ins and outs of mortgage-backed securities fraud, and noted how the 1% hedge their election bets by giving generously to both parties. No matter who wins in November, the 99% lose. Two parties, 1%. The most popular chants of the day: “Robbers, thieves, protected by police!” “A, anti, anticapitalista!” “From New York to Greece, fuck the police!” “Evict us, we multiply! Occupy will never die!” The last of these was chanted loudest and most insistently. But is it true? From the beginning of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) on September 17, 2011, the mainstream media and some in the progressive community have speculated endlessly about Occupy’s demise. We were on our last legs before we were even born. They focused on allegedly insurmountable difficulties: first the lack of “demands,” ideology, or agreed-upon political strategy, then Occupy was too middle class, white, straight, and male to gain traction with workers, women, LGBTs, and people of color who make up most of the 99%, and now they point to the fact that we’ve been evicted from most of our encampments. The wiseacres failed to understand something very simple: stumbling is not falling, as Malcolm X said. Look at it this way: when Gadhafi’s government went postal on the Libyan people in early 2011, was it the end of the Libyan revolution? No. Gadhafi’s failed to extinguish the flames of revolution with Libyan blood despite his best efforts. Instead, he created a subterranean fire by driving the organizing underground into neighborhood cells in Libya’s capital Tripoli. With NATO fighters screaming overhead and an offensive by militias from the west, these cells launched a carefully planned uprising on August 20, the day the Prophet Muhammed captured Mecca, adding Gadhafi to the list of dictators ousted by the Arab Spring cleaning and giving heart to the Syrians who quickly began to chant, “Bye, bye Qaddafi, Bashar your turn is coming.” full: http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=303 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] Why Israel Couldn¹t Take Out Iran¹s Nuclear Program Even if It Wanted To
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Lawrence Wilkerson has been good on a variety of issues (including the Cuban Five), but I have to take issue with this: " Here¹s another tidbit for you. I was in Havana when Ahmadinejad was there. I can¹t reveal my sources, but not only did the Cuban government give him a third- or fourth-level awardwhich really made him angry because it wasn¹t the top or even the second-level awardthey also delivered him a message from Fidel Castro: get off this nuclear kick. Fidel is very anti-nuclear, as you might imagine, given his experience with the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think he, Kennedy, and Khrushchev all realized that they took the world to the brink of extinction. Here¹s our archenemy in Cuba advising our archenemy in Iran that they¹re on the wrong track." Now I can't speak for Fidel or know what he thinks, but I do know this - the idea that Ahmadinejad is on a "nuclear kick" is utterly preposterous. Every word he has ever spoken on this issue is exactly the opposite of being on a "nuclear kick." Here ( http://lefti.blogspot.com/2006/04/irans-intentions.html ) is a speech Ahmadinejad gave in 2006, which needless to say received no publicity in the U.S. (I had to transcribe it myself): "Sciences and technologies thanks to the faith in God is in the service of humanity. It is science tempered by faith that serves peace and progress. We have declared on numerous occasions that we seek peace and stability on the basis of faith in humanity, in a unitary God, and in justice for the entire human race. We have declared many times, and we declare again, that our nuclear technology is in the service of peaceful goals. We declare that mass destruction weapons are sought by those who still think in the mode of 50 years ago. Those who think that political equations and cultural and economic equations can be solved to their benefit by relying on arsenals of mass destruction weapons. Our nation is a civilized nation, a cultured nation, that relies on the faith and will of its young nationals. Our nation, in order to achieve its aspiration, relies on the thoughts and beliefs and enhanced values that lie in the Islamic culture and Iranian culture. Our nation does not elicit its power from nuclear weapons. The power of our nation is rooted in the justice of its beliefs. "We have declared and I declare again that the total sum of our nuclear activities in all phases were under the full supervision of the atomic agency, and today we also wish to stay under the supervision of the IAEA and continue our activities. What we have achieved and will achieve in the future will be in the framework of the legitimate rights of Iran and based on the universally accepted laws including the laws of our nation and the IAEA under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. We, on the basis of international rules and our legitimate rights, continue our path towards having nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, our nation in its advancement path, faces some bad temper, some law-breaking, and some coercion by some nations. Of course it is not without precedent in our history. In the movement for nationalizing our oil industry which was our legitimate right, some of these same powers stood up against us and boldly defied the legitimate rights of Iran. Of course, the product of this was a permanent hatred of them rooted in the hearts of our nation. And they today, with the same argument, with the same literature, and with psychological warfare, they try to prevent Iran's access to its legitimate rights. I advise them not to repeat the bitter experience of the past and to respect the rights of the Iranian people. I urge them not to create a permanent hatred in the hearts of the Iranian nation for themselves and in the world. "We have declared many times and I declare here again that the Iranian progress and power will always be in the service of peace and stability for its neighbors and the entire world, and it will be such in the future." These are hardly the words of a man on a "nuclear kick." 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
Re: [Marxism] Knowledge in the Global Political Economy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I tend to see much of this as pure and simple propaganda. Whatever we hear tends ultimately to be from official or institutionally allied sources. In the wider society, healthy skepticism is a dying art. 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] Anthony Shadid's last days
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == NY Times March 3, 2012 Bearing Witness in Syria: A Correspondent’s Last Days By TYLER HICKS It was damp and cold as Anthony Shadid and I crossed in darkness over the barbed-wire fence that separated Turkey from Syria last month. We were also crossing from peace into war, into the bloodiest conflict of the Arab Spring, exploding just up the rocky and sparsely wooded mountain we had to climb once inside. The smugglers waiting for us had horses, though we learned they were not for us. They were to carry ammunition and supplies to the Free Syrian Army. That is the armed opposition group, made up largely of defectors from President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal army, we had come to interview, photograph and try to understand. The ammunition seemed evidence of the risk we were taking — a risk we did not shoulder lightly. Anthony, who passionately documented the eruptions in the Arab world from Iraq to Libya for The New York Times, felt it was essential that journalists get into Syria, where about 7,000 people have been killed, largely out of the world’s view. We had spent months planning to stay safe. It turned out the real danger was not the weapons but possibly the horses. Anthony was allergic. He did not know how badly. He had a terrible allergic attack that first night after we crossed over the barbed wire. He had another attack a week later, as horses led us out of Syria, just 45 minutes from safety. He died during that attack, at only 43, his wife and nearly 2-year-old son waiting for him in Turkey. He did not write his articles from our eventful week of reporting and shooting pictures in Syria; his notes, taken obsessively, are barely decipherable. But he would have wanted a record of this final trip, some hint of the questions we sought to answer: Who were these fighters, and did they have any chance of beating the Syrian government? How were they armed and organized? Was the conflict, as in Iraq, worsening sectarian tensions? Just who supported whom? Unlike Anthony, I do not speak Arabic. I’m a photographer who was most interested in capturing images from an expanding war zone. But I will do my best to convey a sense of what Syria, on edge, was like — in a week that invigorated Anthony as a reporter and witness. He could not wait to get back to write. Getting the News Syrian tanks blocked the roads leading in and out of the towns scattered across Idlib Province, a center for the insurgents, and we were surprised by how close we had to pass them on the drive into town. “This is really threading the needle,” Anthony said as we navigated a small, unguarded road that the insurgents considered safe. The men driving us described passable roads as “clean.” Our journey in took us to a group of men who would be our guides in Syria. They call themselves activists, and unlike the fighters, they’re the civilian side of the revolution. They, too, are risking their lives to tell the world what is happening to their country. Almost all of them have been jailed and tortured. One showed the marks on his legs where he had been tortured with electricity. Another had scars on his wrists from being tightly bound for so long in a cell. None have seen their families for months, and they routinely change where they sleep as a safety measure. It was clear that they understood the importance of having Anthony there. Foreign journalists are valuable for getting news out of Syria and into a wider world that might be able to help them (though that wider world seems uncertain about how to do so). His Arabic allowed him to speak directly to people without the buffer of an interpreter. As always, he conveyed a genuine interest that made people open up to him; everyone was equal, no story insignificant. Most fighters we met had recently defected from the Syrian Army, some just days earlier. I was surprised by how open they were. Only rarely would one cover his face or ask that I not take a picture. Most proudly displayed their military ID cards, holding them up like trophies. They said they defected because they refused to obey orders to kill their own people. Anthony and I talked often about what would happen if this struggle did not go their way. As defectors, capture would mean certain death. There have been many reports of jihadis or other foreign fighters flowing into Syria, as if it were the next Afghanistan or Iraq. That is the story the Assad government has used as a justification for cracking down so violently. We saw no evidence of that in Idlib — only Syrians. Anthony was not a thrill seeker, but he understood that the truth had to be found at the source. This is a war, and barracks interviews could not replace the firsthand accounts
Re: [Marxism] Knowledge in the Global Political Economy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 7:01 PM, Ismail Lagardien wrote: > == > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > == > > > I am writing a short essay for a journal/magazine, on "knowledge" in the > global political economy. It's not for peer review, but a fairly respected > journal. > > My basic argument is that we make a big mistake to think of "knowledge in > the global economy" as that which is relevant to, useful for or helps shore > up liberal capitalist orthodoxy. In other words the only knowledge that is > necessary is that which promotes and protects global corporate/capitalist > interests. > > Any ideas? > > > > Ismail Lagardien > > Nihil humani a me alienum puto > > Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/mayes yes ur right that in modern capitalist society knowledge is basically skew in favor of justification of the system, i strongly feel for heresis or unorthodox economic knowelge, micheal kelchky or keynesian traditiuon shoud be followed. and parotien sociology might even helpful. for latest global capitalism paul krugman_ economics of depression is useful as well. 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] Knowledge in the Global Political Economy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I am writing a short essay for a journal/magazine, on "knowledge" in the global political economy. It's not for peer review, but a fairly respected journal. My basic argument is that we make a big mistake to think of "knowledge in the global economy" as that which is relevant to, useful for or helps shore up liberal capitalist orthodoxy. In other words the only knowledge that is necessary is that which promotes and protects global corporate/capitalist interests. Any ideas? Ismail Lagardien Nihil humani a me alienum puto Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Facebook frustration
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 03.03.2012 23:17, Louis Proyect wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 3/3/12 5:05 PM, Joseph Catron wrote: If you don't feel like waiting for them to show up, go to their profiles, click "Subscribed," then "Unsubscribe." It's as quick and easy as removing them from your "Friends" list altogether, without the hurt feelings or ensuing drama. As anybody who knows me, this is not my style. What is the point of having an "unsubscribed" "friend"? This has a Pecksniffian odor. They can read what you post - which is probably why they asked you to friend them in the first place! 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] Why Israel Couldn’t Take Out Iran’s Nuclear Program Even if It Wanted To
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30698.htm Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Facebook frustration
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 03.03.2012 15:54, Louis Proyect wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I simply don't understand how comrades with a large number of FB "friends" can wade through all the stuff to find something relevant. I only have 330 friends and it takes forever to go through the posts. I know that some people who are really into it have more than a thousand "friends". It is the same kind of complaint I used to hear from people who unsubbed from Marxmail because they couldn't deal with the volume. That is why I set a 5 post a day maximum. Part of the problem is that my FB friends feel the need to convey information that will not be news to anybody on top of current events. For example, I don't need to be informed about Rush Limbaugh's sexist radio commentary. I guess that goes with the territory when you become "friends" with total strangers. Using the subscribe function you can limit the types of posting you get - so for example I've cut the posts about games from all my FB friends. It gives you a bit more control than simply unfriending them. 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] Robert Fisk on the Assad regime
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-fearful-realities-keeping-the-assad-regime-in-power-7534769.html Best, Jamie. 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
