Re: [Marxism] Thomas Piketty Interview: Economist Discusses His Distaste for Marx | New Republic
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == An important interview in which he exposes his willful ignorance. He admits never having read any Marx except the Manifesto, yet blithely slanders Marx for having no data. So leave aside the fact for now that he says nothing about surplus value, rates of profit (falling or otherwise), or any other key Marxist economic concept (well, not nothing: he lies and claims Marx didn't deal with productivity increases). What he means by Marx having no data is that Marx doesn't accumulate the kind of data that can be plugged into an x-y graph comparing two variables, which is the be-all and end-all for mainstream economists (Piketty doesn't do it in a particularly sophisticated way, but that's for he and his colleagues to deal with). Marx DOES include more than enough data to prove the validity of his formulas for surplus and profit rates and on that basis to outline laws of motion, patterns of accumulation etc. And all that is a solid basis for empirical investigations like those of Shaikh and Tonak on national accounts which expose Piketty's data for the amateurish conglomeration it is. On Tue, May 6, 2014 at 8:55 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117655/thomas-piketty- interview-economist-discusses-his-distaste-marx Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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] tankies abuse Cecily McMillan's cause
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://rt.com/op-edge/157084-protests-activist-wall-street/ 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] (no subject)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is the best reporting and analysis I've seen yet on this incident. I have been unpleasantly surprised at how quickly some of my friends rushed to share the most common account, which portrays those inside the building as innocent bystanders or at most peaceful protesters, leaving out entirely their role in the violent battles. Which, as the AWU statement makes clear, is context, but not an excuse for their deaths. Please use the link at the bottom of Sergii's post and share the statement. On Mon, May 5, 2014 at 8:56 AM, Sergii Kutnii mnkuts...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == More than 40 people were killed and nearly 200 were wounded in the tragic clash of right-wing combatants in Odessa on May 2: football hooligans and Euromaidan self-defence on the one side; Stalinists, pro-Russian paramilitaries and local police force on the other. It started as a belligerent mob, comprised of men with “St. George’s ribbons” and red armbands (such armbands were also spotted on some police officers), wielding clubs and firearms, approached the march “for united Ukraine” which was made up of right-wing football hooligans joined by a large crowd of civilian people. As fighting began between the sides, the riot police provided cover to the attackers and cooperated with them. 4 people were killed. It is noteworthy that in the previous days the Antimaidan protesters had repeatedly marched along the centre of Odessa and never met any physical counteraction either from their political opponents or the police. Civilian “pro-Ukrainian” crowd didn’t disperse after the shootings; enraged, they started the counterattack. As the fighting became sufficiently intense, some of pro-Russian combatants withdrew to the Afina trading center, which was then blocked by the police. The crowd, incited by hooligans, followed the other part of the attackers and proceeded to rout the Antimaidan camp, located near the Trade Union house. The Antimaidan protesters fled to that building and then the entrances were barricaded. It should also be noted that Alexey Albu, leader of Stalinist Borotba organization, personally urged protesters to come inside the blocked building, although never joined them himself. We see this as a proof enough to any left or anarchist organization in the world to sever any ties, either financial or informational, with this organization. By sending them money you would fund the civil war; by spreading their statements and supporting them morally you would contribute to their war propaganda. Violence continued, as Euromaidan crowd surrounded the Trade Union house and combatants from both sides fired shots and hurled Molotov cocktails both to and fro the roof of the building. At this moment is still unclear which factor contributed the most to the fire, which burned some and suffocated others to death. We are sure that the violence of right-wing hooligans was the integral part of this tragedy. However, it is clear that this violence was planned for and counted on. The people who should also be held responsible are the pro-Russian instigators and the local police, who supported them. Members of AWU wish to express their deepest mourning for the victims. They fell prey to the interests of the forces that consistently try to instigate a civil war in Ukraine. Sadly, large parts of the working class are disoriented and serve as merely blind puppets in the hands of such forces, giving their lives for utterly stupid and meaningless things and ideas. The immediate effect of the escalation of this tragically pointless conflict is the split of the working class in Ukraine. While some workers are threatening with a political strike in support of the Antimaidan, several members of the (pro-Maidan) Confederation of Free Trade Unions are being kidnapped by Antimaidan forces. Instead of taking a united stance against the neoliberal policies of the government, proletarians are busy fighting each other for the interests of various bourgeois cliques. The final result of such policies will be a civil war in Ukraine, which will mean an ultimate catastrophe for the working class. We are not pacifists and will be at the side of the working class whenever it fights against the bourgeoisie, no matter what forms this fight takes — but this is not the case in Ukraine nowadays. The disoriented and weak proletariat will be busy engaging in self-destruction; the outcomes will be drastic fall of life standards, rise of unemployment and criminal activities, and loss of huge
Re: [Marxism] The settlers/colonizers of Eastern Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == a comrade sent me some Chris Ford articles offline after a Facebook discussion; I haven't had time to read them yet but he's definitely worth following On Mon, May 5, 2014 at 10:13 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 5/5/14 9:59 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: I wonder if an English-language Marxist history of the Ukraine exists. I am referring on and off to Orest Subtelny's 900 page book but despite being informative lacks a class perspective. Roman Szporluk seems a bit more grounded in Marxism although it is hard to tell where he is coming from politically. The benefits of being a Columbia University retiree: Maĭstrenko, IvanBorot'bism : a chapter in the history of Ukrainian Revolution / Ivan Maĭstrenko ; with a new introduction by Chris Ford ; translated by George S.N. Luckyj with the assistance of Ivan L. Rudnytsky. Maĭstrenko, Ivan. Stuttgart : Ibidem, 2007. On Ivan Maistrenko: Majstrenko was applying positions held by many Marxists of pre-Stalinist Russia to Stalinist Russia: “Russia was always the land where Asiatic and European influences clashed”, the European being the revolutionary democracy with whose defeat “the victory of Stalinism signified for Russia the victory of Asiatic influences ... During 20 years of Stalinist rule Marxist teaching became an empty ritual and the Russian imperialist doctrine became predominant. It revived the spirit of Asiatic traditions, in particular unlimited absolutism.” [10] Chris Ford Supporter of Republican Marxist Bulletin full: http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backiss/ vol3/no3/ford.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Susan Abulhawa: Palestine can be won in a street fight
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What a fucking hypocrite. Someone who can write this piece of pro-Assad garbage has nothing to contribute to Palestinian liberation. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/09/20139128423864516.html On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Joseph Catron jncat...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This global street is where a defenceless oppressed indigenous people have a chance at justice. There is nothing for us in negotiations with the powerful elite. http://aje.me/1iNga5u -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Susan Abulhawa: Palestine can be won in a street fight
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yeah, you're right: an injury to one is an injury to... one. Look, the point of the original slogan is not just an appeal for basic solidarity borne of decency and humanity -- which Abulhawa clearly lacks -- it's also a strategic appeal for the unity which, if undermined -- as Abulhawa does -- dooms all sectors of a struggle. On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 10:11 PM, Joseph Catron jncat...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Right, Andy. The author of *Mornings in Jenin*, which has inspired hundreds of thousands in 26 languages, has nothing to contribute to Palestinian liberation. (rolls eyes, goes back to real things) On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 4:58 AM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com wrote: What a fucking hypocrite. Someone who can write this piece of pro-Assad garbage has nothing to contribute to Palestinian liberation. -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Alain Badiou on Ukraine, Egypt and Finitude [23th April 2014]
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Notice his denial that there even is a Ukrainian nation. Maoist asshole. It has no past because we do not know where all this is coming from, for example the fact that Ukraine is a component part of what was for centuries called Russia; that only very recently did an independent Ukraine take shape, within the framework of a very particular historical process: the unravelling of the Soviet Union On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 5:21 PM, Ralph Johansen mdriscol...@charter.netwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What strikes me about the Ukrainian situation, considering what we learn reading the press, listening to the radio etc., is that it is captured and understood according to an operation that I would call the complete stagnation of the contemporary world. The commonplace narrative is to say that Ukraine wants to join free Europe, breaking with Putin's despotism. There is a democratic and liberal uprising whose goal is to join our beloved Europe -- the motherland of the freedom in question -- while the sordid, archaic manoeuvres of the Kremlin's man, the terrible Putin, are directed against this natural desire. What is striking in all this is that everything is framed in terms of a static contradiction. Well before the Ukraine affair there was already a fundamental schema constantly at work, distinguishing the free West from all the rest. The free West has but one mission, that of intervening everywhere it can in order to defend those who want to join it. And this static contradiction has neither a past nor a future. It has no past because -- and it is particularly typical in the Ukrainian case -- nothing about Ukraine's own real history is ever considered, named or described. Who cared about Ukraine before last week? Many people did not even have much idea where it was... Ukraine, champion of European freedom, suddenly takes to the stage of History; and this is possible because what is taking place there can be described in terms of the static contradiction between Europe, motherland of freedom, democracy, free enterprise and other such splendours, and then all the rest, including Putin's barbarism and the despotism that goes with it. It has no past because we do not know where all this is coming from, for example the fact that Ukraine is a component part of what was for centuries called Russia; that only very recently did an independent Ukraine take shape, within the framework of a very particular historical process: the unravelling of the Soviet Union. Similarly, the fact that Ukraine has always had separatist tendencies and that these have constantly been reactive: that is, backed by strongly reactionary powers and even worse. The Ukrainian Orthodox clergy, whose sacred city is Kiev, has played a determining role in all this, and it goes without saying that it is the most reactionary on Earth, a megalomaniac centre of Imperial Orthodoxy. This separatism at certain moments reached extremes that no one could forget, particularly not the Russian people, knowing that the vast mass of the Nazi-armed and organised armies coming from Russian territory were Ukrainian. The Vlasov army was a Ukrainian army. Today we can even read the history of Ukrainians turning entire villages to blood and fire, including French ones. A good part of the repression of the /maquis/ in central France was carried out by Ukrainians. We are no identitarians, we are not going to say: 'What bastards, those Ukrainians!', but all this does constitute a history, the history of a certain number of the political subjects in Ukraine. Moreover, the contradiction has no future, because the future is pre-constituted: the Ukrainians' desire will be to rally to good-old Europe, an already-existing citadel of freedom. The operations imposing this finitude here bear on time itself. If time is finished, it is because it has been stopped. The time of propaganda is an immobile time. It is very difficult to make propaganda for a time-in-becoming: we can make propaganda for what /is /but not for what /is/ /becoming/. And here we have the propaganda that the Ukrainian uprising is static, in that it came out of nothing and is heading towards something that already existed, democratic free Europe. full at: http://simongros.com/text/articles/alain-badiou/alain- badiou-ukraine-egypt-finitude-present-defaults-unless-crowd-declares/ --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
[Marxism] RS backs Sabbahi in Egypt's presidential campaign
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == For those unfamiliar with Sabbahi, he's a self-defined Nasserist (of the kind which Adam Hanieh proves is irrelevant in today's economy), and a supporter of the regime's war on terror, while sometimes criticizing specific aspects of it. The endorsement of this bourgeois politician is in my opinion pure popular front/lesser-evilism, and the rationale is opportunist (the masses are supposedly too lacking in consciousness now to understand a boycott). I am NOT interested in a slagging match or collective dumping on the RS, even though I believe this endorsement, like their earlier one of Morsi's candidacy, has to make me question whether they should be reclassified as centrist rather than revolutionary. I AM interested in thoughtful commentary and pedagogical explanations to help RS comrades understand why this is wrong and hopefully to get the decision overturned. http://socialistworker.org.uk/art/38004/Statement+by+the+Egyptian+Revolutionary+Socialists+on+the+presidential+elections+27+April+2014 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] The Ukranian-SyrIan Arms Connection?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The author is Amal Saad-Ghorayebhttp://english.al-akhbar.com/author/amal-saad-ghorayeb. She has been roundly criticized as a pro-Assad hack for the last couple years. See the articles on the site. On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 8:48 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 4/28/14 6:25 PM, Greg McDonald wrote: weapons [the federal government claims]. The Left party’s expert for foreign affairs, Sevim Dagdelen, is alarmed by the government’s ignorance: “It is scandalous that the federal government can not convey anything about the whereabouts of these weapons. ” To make matter worse, Berlin “can not dispel the suspicion that these weapons have been passed on to Islamist holy warriors to cause a regime change in Syria. “ http://resistance-episteme.tumblr.com/post/84116917056/ ukraine-funnels-light-arms-to-jihadis-in-syria-via This fucking imbecile you are quoting describes herself as supporting Greater Syria nationalism and has written an article castigating a section of the left that tries to stake out a third way between the jihadists and the Baathists. In other words, she feels that the only honorable position for the left is supporting the Baathists wholeheartedly, which for me is like supporting Pinochet or Sisi. I really what has happened to Greg McDonald over the last year or so. His brain seems to be rotting out. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] The Ukranian-SyrIan Arms Connection?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == ok, the blogger is Check out her articles on Syria: masterpieces of Maoist filth in support of Assad and other resistance heroes. Dog-shit motherfucker. How DARE she abuse the names of Lenin and Gramsci this way! On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 9:05 PM, Joseph Catron jncat...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 3:54 AM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com wrote: The author is Amal Saad-Ghorayeb Not unless I've missed something and she's now writing for SPIEGEL. I suspect you mean, The blogger is..., which is rather different. -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] A note on the costs of journals and books from a Southeast Asian comrade
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A crucial point, which overlaps with Louis's point yesterday about South African workers -- a very practical matter right now as NUMSA is carrying out what they explicitly call Marxist-Leninist education. On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 10:08 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks for the very clear views below, which is very important. You are in New York City, with access to Columbia University, and you are seething with anger: Imagine a top young professor here earning 450 USD a month in a top State University, to subscribe to Marxism Today or some such journal: it will not happen. Imagine a working class professor in some working class private university here earning 200USD a month: MIA is a lifeline for some of them. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] War by Other Means: The Violence of North Korean Human Rights
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well maybe it's poorly written but the abstract makes this paper sound like an academic version of the tankies' apologetics for this insane and oppressive regime Just because Washington is the aggressor doesn't mean Kim (what version are we up to? III? IV?) lives in this galaxy On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 9:21 PM, Dennis Brasky dmozart1...@gmail.comwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://japanfocus.org/-Christine-Hong/4100?utm_source=March+31%2C+2014utm_campaign=China%27s+Connectivity+Revolutionutm_medium=email Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] War by Other Means: The Violence of North Korean Human Rights
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == No, I only read the abstract. By poorly written I meant that perhaps you, who have read the article, could tell us if it was worth reading because there's more to it than is in the abstract. The abstract sounds like she's saying that because the US is the murderous aggressor (which it is) that North Koreans shouldn't worry about human rights. And by extension that because the US raises human rights issues that those issues are off limits. sort of in the spirit of this recent inanity: http://www.existenceisresistance.org/archives/4222 On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 9:42 PM, Dennis Brasky dmozart1...@gmail.comwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == You actually read that entire article in 8 minutes? Wow! I sensed no apologetics but a historical context of US destruction (3 million dead, every structure of the country leveled by bombing), as well as 60 years of threats, war-game rehearsals, and sanctions. On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 9:29 PM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well maybe it's poorly written but the abstract makes this paper sound like an academic version of the tankies' apologetics for this insane and oppressive regime Just because Washington is the aggressor doesn't mean Kim (what version are we up to? III? IV?) lives in this galaxy On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 9:21 PM, Dennis Brasky dmozart1...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://japanfocus.org/-Christine-Hong/4100?utm_source=March+31%2C+2014utm_campaign=China%27s+Connectivity+Revolutionutm_medium=email Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/dmozart1756%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] War by Other Means: The Violence of North Korean Human Rights
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Also, the article cites the We Charge Genocide petition of 1951, a brilliant and on-target expose' of Washington's human rights hypocrisy. But think of the weakness of such an expose' considering that its core organizers and public representatives were all well-known apologists for Stalin, and therefore subject to the charge of hypocrisy themselves ? A check of The Militant from the same period will turn up countless articles similarly exposing Washington's hypocrisy without fear of being attacked for supporting repression except by wilful liars. On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 9:49 PM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.comwrote: No, I only read the abstract. By poorly written I meant that perhaps you, who have read the article, could tell us if it was worth reading because there's more to it than is in the abstract. The abstract sounds like she's saying that because the US is the murderous aggressor (which it is) that North Koreans shouldn't worry about human rights. And by extension that because the US raises human rights issues that those issues are off limits. sort of in the spirit of this recent inanity: http://www.existenceisresistance.org/archives/4222 On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 9:42 PM, Dennis Brasky dmozart1...@gmail.comwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == You actually read that entire article in 8 minutes? Wow! I sensed no apologetics but a historical context of US destruction (3 million dead, every structure of the country leveled by bombing), as well as 60 years of threats, war-game rehearsals, and sanctions. On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 9:29 PM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well maybe it's poorly written but the abstract makes this paper sound like an academic version of the tankies' apologetics for this insane and oppressive regime Just because Washington is the aggressor doesn't mean Kim (what version are we up to? III? IV?) lives in this galaxy On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 9:21 PM, Dennis Brasky dmozart1...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://japanfocus.org/-Christine-Hong/4100?utm_source=March+31%2C+2014utm_campaign=China%27s+Connectivity+Revolutionutm_medium=email Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/dmozart1756%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] NYU investigating pro-Palestine 'eviction notice' fliers | 7online.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == by coincidence this meeting was already scheduled for tonight: http://www.nycga.net/events/bds-strategy-organizing-with-tidal-magazine-and-elias-khoury/ see also the petition here: http://www.change.org/petitions/nyu-community-and-beyond-stand-in-solidarity-with-nyu-sjp?utm_source=share_petitionutm_medium=facebookutm_campaign=share_facebook_mobilerecruiter=90720792 On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 9:17 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news%2Flocal% 2Fnew_yorkid=9515834 Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century online complete
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I read the opening and concluding sections. Liberal numbers-crunching overlaid with a rejection (and distortion) of Marxism. All in the service of glorifying income inequality as THE source of all ills and a progressive tax as the panacea. From Henry George through David Graeber and now Piketty, the monocausalists never go away. I'd be particularly interested in Shane's take on Piketty's claim that Marx didn't understand productivity. On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 8:36 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 4/22/14 8:31 AM, Andrew Pollack wrote: A couple comrades sent it to me offlist (thanks!), I guess they downloaded it before removal. I'm happy to send to others, but is there another way? http://thepiratebay.se/search/piketty/0/99/0 Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Madina Tlostanova: We are witnessing an alarming revival of old-fashioned geopolitics | LeftEast
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The section Louis excerpted may be the best, but the whole thing is worth reading. At the start there's a disquisition on spatial versus temporal analyses which I'm not qualified to judge (is it a methodological breakthrough? philosophy? poetry? ), but then she has some new useful info on Crimea and especially the Tatars, and then some cogent points about the respective group-think of Russians and Americans toward each other (i.e. a critique of tankie-style thinking but in a broader social context). See also her links toward the end. Love LeftEast! On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 10:36 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == JS: One thing that has been overshadowed by the current tensions in Crimea is the emergence and growth of a “new left” in the former state socialist region. What are your thoughts and ideas about the various examples of new left activism across the region – from Bulgaria and Romania to Bosnia and Croatia? Do you see this as a phenomenon in Russia? MT: The growth of the new left in the former socialist region is indeed an interesting and important phenomenon which I think can be a topic of a separate conversation. I am not really the right person to talk about this as I am more familiar with its contemporary activist art manifestations and gender and feminist movements. In Eastern and South Eastern Europe this sensibility and an interest in neo-Marxist, anarchist and various transversal discourses is linked among other things with the disillusionment with neoliberalism and the disappointment in the West. The so called new Europeans are systematically shown their place and fortress Europe prevents them from becoming the real Europeans with no prefixes while the pullback from any welfare state policies in the direction of the rampant neoliberal agendas in their own countries does not really leave the Eastern Europeans many options to chose from. However the kind of leftist discourses and practices we find in their case is often a far cry from the classical left because it incorporates other theories and experiences, it is much more nuanced, we find in these positions the postcolonial theory overtones, the eco-feminist, eco-anarchist and transgender discourses. In other words they overcome the previous problematic narrow spaces of Marxism, such as its blindness to race and gender. This reformed new left in the post-socialist world is usually very critical to the experiences of real socialism (there is no nostalgia for that in their case) but at the same time is free from the ignorant and unreasoning fascination with the West that many Soviet dissidents expressed before precisely because they knew very little of the West. It is crucial to divide these tendencies from the nostalgic Soviet ideologues (we still have some of those in Russia) and the remaining old fashioned post-Soviet pro-Western conservatives for whom any association with Marxism or socialism is a taboo. It is really funny how the official legitimized academic ideologies in Russia do not coincide with the rest of the world in this respect. Recently I talked with one Russian “luminary” indologist who was puzzled to learn about the existence of some suspicious postcolonial studies and when forced by the European colleagues to write an article about it, found out from some secondary source that Edward Said was a Marxist. This was enough for the luminary to stigmatize Said as a bad scholar without even attempting to read or understand him. This is what you would associate with the old dissident positioning. It is outdated of course but these people are still often determining the academic climate in Russia. At the same time there is a parallel life of younger leftist scholars, activists and artists in this country who are grounded in the Western neo-Marxist tradition rather than Russian. They mostly publish in their own journals, internet resources, travel, study, and work abroad and lack the previous Soviet isolationist tendencies. A good example is Victor Misiano’s famous Moscow Art Magazine with its very specific circle of authors of a clearly leftist stance many of whom live abroad or are better known there as representative cases of contemporary Russian leftist art like e.g. the Chto Delat group. I have been teaching for twenty years in different Moscow Universities and I have a feeling that now the students are also more and more often turning in the direction of leftist discourses which is a relatively new phenomenon for Russia. Before it was
Re: [Marxism] Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century online complete
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Great job, Charlie. You hit so many crucial points. I'm going to share it now on a Facebook thread in which some self-declared radicals are all ga-ga about how Pinketty has supposedly opened new, never-before-opened doors to discussion. And, despite admitting they haven't read the book, piled onto me for suggesting he's just another liberal defending the system! On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 6:06 PM, Charlie charles1...@sbcglobal.net wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Andrew Pollack wrote: ...glorifying income inequality as THE source of all ills and a progressive tax as the panacea. From Henry George through David Graeber and now Piketty, the monocausalists never go away. To be fair, Piketty does not indict wealth inequality as the source of all ills. (He welcomes a large amount of inequality on Horatio Alger grounds.) His main concern is that rentier wealth threatens democracy. As for monocausal, it depends on the cause. The capital-labor relation is a good candidate, no? My review of Piketty is at http://mltoday.com/professor-piketty-fights-orthodoxy-and- attacks-inequality Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century online complete
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A couple comrades sent it to me offlist (thanks!), I guess they downloaded it before removal. I'm happy to send to others, but is there another way? On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Kathleen McCook klmcc...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == No copyright on this? Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Crimea Tatars say leader banned by Russia from returning
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks very much for this, which of course is big news given the salience of the Crimean Tatar issue and of Mr. Dzhemilev in particular (I think a while back there were some posts here about his defense campaign in NY in the late 70s early 80s.) I'm checking around with contacts for more info. On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Ken Hiebert knhieb...@shaw.ca wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2014/04/22/Crimea-Tatars-say-leader-banned-by-Russia-from-returning.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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] Fwd: Support May Day! Support Vets for Peace rally!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Note the suggested slogans below for the UNAC contingent at the (WWP-led) May Day demo. A coalition whose positions on war are supposedly aimed ONLY at the US government is clearly here crossing over implicitly into supporting that government's opponents. How else can one say no war on workers in the Ukraine or no war on Syria, Iran, Ukraine, Russia but not say a word about Russia's aggression in the Ukraine, or Assad's continual war by siege and barrel bomb? Are those not acts of war against the Syrian and Ukrainian peoples? Andy Some other possible slogans for our contingent: No war on workers at home, No war on workers in Ukraine! International Mayday! / Endless War Steals from the Poor Mayday 2014: No war on Immigrants, or workers ANYWHERE! / No War on Syria, Iran, Ukraine, Russia Money for Jobs, Not for War! -- Forwarded message -- From: UNAC unacpe...@gmail.com Date: Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 11:55 AM Subject: Support May Day! Support Vets for Peace rally! To: unac-...@googlegroups.com unac-...@googlegroups.com *Please join UNAC at the Mayday Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights march and rally on Mayday, May 1, 2014 starting at Union Sq., NYC. The various countries represented by the immigrant communities throughout the New York area are countries that have a US military presence and /or under economic pressure by US imperialism. Workers throughout the world and in the US are feeling the brunt of the world crisis of capitalism. Therefore, UNAC will help organize an antiwar contingent in this important demonstration for worker and immigrant rights. Please join us.* *We will gather during the afternoon of May first starting at 12 noon at Union Square (14th B’way, NYC).* *We will form our contingent and march to various locations in lower Manhattan starting at 5:30 PM. Please join us for as much of the day as you can. * May 1st Coalition’s MAY DAY 2014 is endorsed by: • Acción 21 • AFSCME LOCAL 375 • Anakbayan NJ • Anakbayan NY • BAJI • BAYAN USA • The Black Institute • Building Bridges – WBAI Radio • CAAAV • Centro Tecum Uman • Colectivo Honduras USA Resistancia Libre • Hot Crusty Workers • FIERCE • FIST • Fuerza de La Revolucion • GABRIELA NY • Int’l Action Center • Int’l Youth Alliance • La Peña del Bronx • Laundry Workers Center • LynneStewart.org • Mesa de La Izquierda Dominicana • Migrant Power Alliance • MIGUA • Million Workers March • National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON) • NY Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines • NYSYLC • Occu-Evolve • Occupy Action Council • Pakistan USA Freedom Forum • People’s Power Assembly • People’s Organization for Progress NJ • Philippine Forum • 99 Pickets • Picture the Homeless • Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban Five • Pro-Libertad Freedom Campaign • Raza Youth Collective • RSCC • Sisa Pakari Centro Cultural y Laboral • TRABAJADORES POR LA PAZ • United National Anti War Coalition • Voz Latina on WBAI • Women’s Fightback Network • Workers Communist Organization • Workers World Party • YA YA *• We demand Legalization for All, End to Deportations and Detentions, and an End to militarization of our borders. * *• We demand a $15 Minimum Wage. Everyone deserves a living wage. * *• We demand immediate contracts for all city employees. No concessions! No givebacks! Full retro pay!* • Housing, Healthcare, Education and Jobs for All • End U.S. Wars, Bring the Troops Home • Stop Racist War on Black Community and All People of Color (POC) • Climate Justice Now • Abolish the Prison Industrial Complex • International Solidarity, No to TPP • Stop the violence against Transgender POC, and all LGBT Communities • End Common Core • Gentrification of our Communities Some other possible slogans for our contingent: No war on workers at home, No war on workers in Ukraine! International Mayday! / Endless War Steals from the Poor Mayday 2014: No war on Immigrants, or workers ANYWHERE! / No War on Syria, Iran, Ukraine, Russia Money for Jobs, Not for War! UNAC will have some signs, please also bring your own in English and Spanish or other languages. For more information, call Joe at 518-281-1968 *Please also join Veterans for Peace on April 26 in NYC* *April 26 • 5 pm-9 pm* *Judson Memorial Church in NYC* *55 Washington Square South* The rally will be for a Full Disclosure – An Honest Commemoration of the American War in Vietnam. For more information, please click here: http://www.stopthesewars.org/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups UNAC-NYC-announcements group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to unac-nyc+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more
Re: [Marxism] Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century online complete
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == the first link is to the French original, the second, which presumably is the English, doesn't work On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 1:49 PM, Ralph Johansen mdriscol...@charter.netwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == For the folks at home, thanks to Michael Roberts, all goddamd 600-odd pages [though it's compressed into 400-odd in pdf format]: wp146 http://thenextrecession.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/wp146.pdf Thomas_Piketty,_Arthur_Goldhammer_Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century__2014 http://thenextrecession.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/ thomas_piketty_arthur_goldhammer_capital_in_the_ twenty-first_century__2014.pdf --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Probably controversial: Boris Kagarlitsky on Ukraine: From the Maidan to the revolution?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == My first reaction, given what I've read about the situation, and my sense of K.'s politics, is that this is wishful thinking which dangerously understates or even denies Putin's direct hand in what clearly seem to be an act of imperialist aggression by Moscow. BUT Given that we've all weighed evidence and theories carefully in recent years to try to distinguish the revolutionary from the reactionary, the real from the bogus, the manipulated from the genuine, from Syria to Egypt to Thailand to Ukraine to Venezuela... For that reason my second reaction is to say to K.: sounds like bullshit to us, but we're all for cross-border Ukraine/Russia workers' solidarity, and while the pro-Putinites taking over police stations don't appear to have any connections or even any interest in anti-oligarch mobilizing in either country, go ahead, Boris, prove us wrong. We'll be delighted if you can. On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 6:14 PM, glparrama...@greenleft.org.au wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Probably controversial: Boris Kagarlitsky on Ukraine: From the Maidan to the revolution? http://links.org.au/node/3806 Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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] Ukraine article
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Finally had a chance to scan a 1989 article by Zbigniew Kowalewski, For the Independence of Ukraine, from International Marxist Review. It's an incredibly detailed and valuable look at how the Bolshevik position developed in theory and practice and the role of Ukrainian Marxists and nationalists. Hopefully soon it will be uploaded, in the meantime if anyone would like a copy message me. 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] Brecht Forum victim of NY real estate
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I don't know, Joe, will find out. My own comment posted on a Facebook version of the announcement: On the most obvious level this is a huge loss for the Left given the amazing array of speakers and topics hosted by the Brecht over the decades. And yet on a deeper level a serious examination of the history, purpose and function of the school must be undertaken. From the beginning the NY Marxist School (Brecht's original incarnation) was an incorrect rejection of the notion of a party-sponsored educational institution (see article below), and of parties themselves. We need to make a virtue out of necessity and rebuild the historic and correct tradition of education by revolutionary socialist parties which can be not only as broad as the Brecht was, but in addition tied to actual movement building and strategy development. http://brechtforum.org/socialist-education-new-york-marxist-schoolhttp://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbrechtforum.org%2Fsocialist-education-new-york-marxist-schoolh=0AQHRzS0Fs=1 On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 12:56 PM, Joseph Catron jncat...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It's strange to me that this happened at the Brooklyn Commons. When I last had dealings with it, renting office space there in a group with Andy P., it epitomized affordability. Does anyone know if the Commons hit some kind of economic crunch, raised its rents for another reason, or if the bottom completely fell out of Brecht's finances? -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] The Sadness of Post-Militance: Some Reflections on Brown University?s 'New Directions in Palestine Studies' Conference
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Actually the political problem with the Palestine solidarity movement, in the US at least, is that there are way too many PFLP supporters among the middle-aged leadership. That of course means reinforcing pro-Assad neutralist positions on Syria, and on Palestine itself, because of the PFLP's decline into a non-strategic routine (and often into NGOs), it means that these elders are incapable of training the youth politically. In fact the overwhelming majority of SJP activists I know are incredibly dedicated young hijabis who seem generally unaware of the PFLP -- which at least means a tabula rasa for the Arab new left. On the latter, see http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/02/did-arab-leftists-betray-revolu-201421674037574769.html On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 12:46 AM, Philip Ferguson philipfergus...@gmail.comwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Very interesting article. However, I think the author is over-pessimistic in relation to the Palestinian movement. The PFLP is very much alive and kicking and up for being engaged with. I am always astonished about how, while the vast bulk of the hard left supports the Palestinian cause, the solidarity movement in the West is quite small and there is a great deal of reluctance to solidarise in any meaningful way with the PFLP. Part of the responsibility on Marxists in the imperialist countries is to support liberation movements in the Third World. Yet, somehow, the Palestinian secular-revolutionary movement has never been as 'acceptable' as many other liberation movements in other parts of the world. The evolution and fate of the PFLP is partly tied to the western left and its solidarity (or lack thereof). Phil Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] PFLP
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == thanks Ken. For those unfamiliar with the CPP/NPA, it's headed by a psychopathic murderer of his own comrades and other leftists (Jose Maria Sison), has a Maoist surround the cities peasant strategy and a nonMarxist analysis of Philippines society (claiming it's semifeudal/semicolonial). If god forbid they ever took power, their regime would be somewhere along the Pol Pot/Mao spectrum. On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 11:29 PM, Ken Hiebert knhieb...@shaw.ca wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Prompted by the discussion of the PFLP, I went to their website. ken h PFLP salutes Filipino revolutionary New People's Army on 45th anniversary http://pflp.ps/english/2014/03/pflp-salutes-filipino-revolutionary-new-peoples-army-on-45th-anniversary/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Jacobin: The Shopping Mall's Socialist Pre-History
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == see Dolores Hayden, The Grand Domestic Revolution On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 4:55 AM, Joseph Catron jncat...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Now this is interesting: The inventor of the American suburban shopping mall was a socialist. Could his creation have been saved? https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/04/the-last-shopping-mall -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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] article query
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'm trying to get the article below, which is in Kim's new book. The book is well worth buying but I wanted to make sure some healthcare labor activists see this particular chapter. Competition and conflict: Union growth in the US hospital industry Economic and Industrial Democracy February 2014 35: 5-25, first published on November 5, 2012 doi:10.1177/0143831X12462491 Andy 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] tankies' 3 Hersch
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Mark Jensen, leader of a Portland UFPJ affiliate and retailer of all myths pro-Assad, posted approvingly Hersh's article. I sent the reply below (did I miss any other rebuttals worth citing?) To the ufpj-news list: This nonsense has been widely debunked, among other places here: http://warincontext.org/2014/04/06/seymour-hershs-alternate-reality/ and here http://brown-moses.blogspot.com/2014/04/what-does-seymour-hersh-knows-about.html It's disturbing that tankies would pass along such obviously absurd stories because they're so eager to deny the grassroots Syrian Revolution and whitewash Assad's crimes. But joy fills their hearts because now they can in addition show their devotion to Putin with similar alacrity. Andy 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] Putin's eastern Ukraine ploy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/08/donetsk-barricades-kharkiv-protest-ukraine-russia The key quote: The Donetsk protesters based their call for independence from Kiev on charges that the post-Yanukovych government was serving western interests and ruining the economy. 'Now the economic problems are only starting, and more people will come here,' Alexander [an unemployed Donetsk resident] said. 'They need to put their energy towards something. That's why I'm for federalisation and a referendum.' Nonsense, of course (although the jobless man quoted may really believe it), as federalisation will do nothing to free Ukrainian or Russian workers on either side of the border from austerity, whether imposed by the EU/IMF or Moscow. Clearly what is needed is a revival of the Moscow antiwar protests with an explicitly articulated anti-oligarch message, and with support demos in Kiev, Donetsk, New York, etc. etc. Andy 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] Seymour Hersh as Dorian Gray | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Oh, definitely, I'll take the word of an Assad supporter like Jonathan Cook over our dear moderator any day. See this piece for instance by that scumbag Cook (in which his foil is that very same moderator): http://mondoweiss.net/2013/11/analogy-syria-palestine.html On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 1:15 PM, Ben Braam b.bra...@kpnplanet.nl wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is more my cup of tea: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2014-04-08/seymour-hersh-and-the-spineless-nay-sayers/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Putin's eastern Ukraine ploy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == That's why I said federalisation will do nothing to free Ukrainian or Russian workers on either side of the border from austerity, whether imposed by the EU/IMF or Moscow. On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 2:07 PM, DW dwalters...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Actually, Andy, while anti-war protests in Moscow would be good, as important, and terms of the economics: what is required is a mass No to Europe movement throughout Ukraine as their independence is about as sovereign being in the EU as it would be with the Russian customs union. They are almost equally as bad. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Left Out? The Syrian Revolution and the Crisis of the Left | Firas Massouh - Academia.edu
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == thanks for posting what is this from? On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 1:12 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == https://www.academia.edu/3497857/Left_Out_The_Syrian_ Revolution_and_the_Crisis_of_the_Left Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Ultrarightists attack the left in Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I know, right? I mean look at all the fascists bred by Brecht and Grass... not to mention our homegrown German rightist Vonnegut. Michael, save me some of what you're smoking. On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 6:39 PM, Michael Smith m...@smithbowen.net wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Apr 3, 2014, at 6:33 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2014/03/the-abuse-of-ukraines-best-known-poet.html Zhadan has found a robust audience outside Ukraine. His work is popular in Germany. Always a bad sign. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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] WE'RE the problem!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Says Ajamu Baraka. We being the white left that is helping to put fascists in power all over the world. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/02/left-white-solidarity/ He names no names, just says a dozen times that we've all forgotten the European racist colonial history and now we're its accomplices. Repeat ad nauseam. And then again. This is another case of a left celebrity who I stopped paying attention to after reading a couple mediocre columns. I couldn't remember if he was an anarchist or a Maoist like his old man, so I went to the About section of his page and found a long long long list of his many accomplishments. I guess the label I'd apply is NGO-hopper. 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's new at Links: Maduro in NYT, Egypt, S. Africa, 'NASA' study?, racism and counter-revolution, Ukraine, Sheppard reviews Tate, Spain, Bosnia, Slovenia
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Just read the Ukraine piece (the whole issue looks amazing). Does anyone know more about the interviewee's group? Seems pretty level-headed and talks a good class-based, internationalist line (which by itself isn't enough proof). Andy On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 3:43 AM, glparramatta glparrama...@greenleft.org.auwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Maduro in NYT, Egypt, S. Africa, 'NASA' study?, racism and counter-revolution, Ukraine, Sheppard reviews Tate, Spain, Bosnia, Slovenia * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialismor on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed ( http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to linkssocial...@gmail.com *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. *Comments welcome on all articles *Return daily for new articles * * * Nicolás Maduro in 'New York Times': 'A call for peace' http://links.org.au/node/3788 The following article appeared as an op-ed in the April 2, edition of the /New York Times/. It is reproduced at /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ in interests of solidarity. By *Nicolás Maduro*, president of Venezuela. April 2, 2014 -- /New York Times/, CARACAS, Venezuela --- The recent protests in Venezuela have made international headlines. Much of the foreign media coverage has distorted the reality of my country and the facts surrounding the events. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/3788 Egypt: Take action now against mass death sentences http://links.org.au/node/3781 By *Egypt Solidarity* March 25, 2014 -- A court in the Upper Egyptian province of Minya has sentenced 529 defendants to death in a trial which has been condemned as grotesque by Amnesty International. Take action now -- sign our statement using the form at http://egyptsolidarityinitiative.org/ 2014/03/25/take-action-on-egypt-death-sentences/ . Signatures will be published and delivered to the Egyptian embassy by April 28, the likely date for an appeal against the sentences. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/3781 South Africa: 'Challenge the neoliberal ANC government and its capitalist allies' http://links.org.au/node/3787 Statement of the *Democratic Left Front*, South Africa April 2, 2014 -- On the eve of the May 2014 national elections the Democratic Left Front held its second conference since its formation in 2011 at Stay City in Berea, Johannesburg, from March 27-30, 2014. One hundred and forty delegates representing a number of important popular movements, independent trade unions, women, youth, socialist and environmental organisations from around the country met and were decisive in embracing the NUMSA break with the Tripartite [[African National Congress, Congress of South African Trade Unions, South African Communist Party] Alliance and the building of a mass united front and a movement for socialism. We believe that this represents the most significant opportunity for placing democratic, left socialist politics at the centre of our country's political system. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/3787 What did that 'NASA-funded collapse study' really say? http://links.org.au/node/3786 By *Ian Angus* March 31, 2014 -- If hundreds of newspaper and online reports are to be believed, scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Agency have proven that Western civilisation will collapse unless we radically reduce inequality and shift to renewable resources. That would be important news if it were true. Is it? * Read more http://links.org.au/node/3786 Venezuela: Racism and the counter-revolution http://links.org.au/node/3785 By *Arlene Eisen* March 27, 2014 -- It's late morning in Caracas, February 12, 2014. From the restaurant inside the hotel around the corner from Plaza Venezuela we can hear chanting, but it's too muffled to understand. Are they yelling /Maduro Salida/ or /Maduro/burro Salida/[1] or something else? From the window, we can see people, almost all smiling white people, streaming down the street to join the first huge anti-government demonstration that signalled the onset of the current outrages in Venezuela. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/3785 Ukrainian leftist: 'The enemy is within -- whether in Russia,
Re: [Marxism] Socialist Action secedes from internationalism, joins tankies
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Interesting points. Questions: 1. Who are the Triad? 2. Not sure what you're referring to re Mandel. On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 2:27 PM, Matthew Russo russo.matth...@gmail.comwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well, shame on Jeff Mackler. It is not like he couldn't find better perspectives to compare with from organizations in the Trotskyist tradition. Even his old nemises in The Militant come off better. Here is the operative line: In both instances, however, it is critical to understand that U.S. imperialism remains the most powerful actor on the world stage--dominant as never before in history in the military arena, and using this power and its far-flung military bases to its economic advantage wherever possible. The theoretical matter in dispute here between the pro-Putin and the revolutionary Marxist left, is over the shape of imperialism today. On the one side we have the theory of a supposed global U.S. hegemony, a singular, united super-imperialism, espoused not only by the ANSWER tankies but also the MR school and Socialist Register (see Panitch Gindin's The Making of Global Capitalism for a good example of this view), together with the eccentric Negri Hardt version. Mackler takes an apparently centrist position covered with weasel-wording. U.S. imperialism remains the most powerful actor on the world stage only implies that there are other, lesser imperialist rivals on the same stage, and Mackler is careful not to draw this implication out in the open. Instead the argument shifts to that of dominant...in the military arena, a different matter from considerations on *imperialism*, as this is not reducible to a military apparatus (if we adhere to a Leninist concept, of course, and it is remarkable how little Lenin references the question of imperialist military power in his pamphlet, written in the middle of a world war!). On this point several things: The very over-reliance on the military (and auxiliary spy security) apparatus for imperialist leverage is in reality a symptom of overall weakness in the position of U.S. imperialism. By contrast, the 19th century global hegemony of British imperialism - a real global hegemon of the time - rested upon a remarkably relatively small military apparatus. Further, the efficacy of military force has generally declined with the qualitative leap in its lethality since the end of WW2. If this does not absolutely rule out its use in another world war (I am not a sanguine as Louis about this prospect, but think the prospect small), it does greatly reduce the efficacy of military force as a means of imperialist leverage, as its maximization cannot be realized due to the prohibitive cost of an all-out war. Finally, even the limited use of military force by the U.S. has not only not been very effective, but even counterproductive, producing a weakening of U.S. imperialism. We saw this in Vietnam yesterday, and in Iraq most recently. In both cases the U.S. invested the *main body* of its available active ground combat forces, resulting in both military defeat in the end, and economic disorder on a world scale. The conclusion Mackler seeks to avoid is that maybe Lenin's original view is the right one, and not that of Kautsky, the theory especially endorsed by Panitch Gindin. In actually the real U.S.hegemony over its Triad partners, and limited to that Triad and satellites, does not correspond to Kautsky's Kantian vision of an ultra-imperialism as a voluntary concert of imperialist powers, none hegemonic over the others. This is a concept of imperialism as policy - of which use of military leverage is but one policy option - because there is no theoretical reason why they all just can't get along in the collective interests of world capitalism. The U.S. in contrast, first imposed its own military dominance over the Triad, then earned their consent to US hegemony through an expansive economic policy (contrary to what postwar Trotskyists like Ernest Mandel thought, a miscalculation that helped precipitate the explosion of the Trotskyist international movement). But the Triad has never been hegemonic on the world scale, despite transitory appearances in the 1990's. Rather, it resembles nothing so much as the Spanish-Hapsburg Empire at the end of European world feudalism in the 16th-17th centuries, with the mightiest armed force in Europe unable even to crush the Dutch revolt in Holland, nor able to bring Tudor England or Northern European princes to heel. Instead the whole edifice
[Marxism] social roots of Black Death
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (sorry if this came up already, although I did check) The papers are full of reports on a study of the remains of Black Death victims, and the study's conclusion that the plague was spread by air and not by rats. And all the reports say that the overwhelming majority of victims were poor, and that they typically showed signs of malnutrition and brutal over-work. On the one hand these findings would seem to me mean an end to the standard conclusion: gee, if only they'd known more about hygiene and it's slightly more progressive version gee, if only there had been less inequality there'd have been fewer rats to carry it. Instead, the new conclusion would seem to have to be a more general version of the last, i.e. if there had been less poverty and inequality far fewer people would have been susceptible to the disease. Which only reinforces what we already know about the correlation between health and social conditions. A recent example of that correlation is in this article, found coincidentally when googling for Black Death: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gregory-seal-livingston/the-new-black-death_b_3541862.html (Although his political conclusion is a crock (pun intended). Below are other quotes from reports on the new study. While the correlation itself is not new, it does seem to me that its reappearance in a study of an illness on the scale of the Black Death makes it easier to remind people of the similarly enormous death toll that climate change is getting ready to exact -- again, very disproportionately among the poor and oppressed. Excerpts: These were, by and large, poor people. Many of the skeletons showed signs of malnutrition consistent with the Great Famine that struck Europe 30 years before the Black Death. Many had back injuries suggesting lives of hard labor. One man became a vegetarian late in life, indicating he may have entered an order of monks. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/30/london-skeletons-crossrail-black-death_n_5058845.html The poor health hints at how easily the plague swept across the continent. The disease was pneumonic - not bubonichttp://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/29/black-death-not-spread-rat-fleas-london-plague - meaning that coughing and sneezing likely spread the sickness. Then rampant malnutrition perhaps widened its swath... Their research also provided additional information about 14th century Londoners. Roughly 40 percenthttp://www.ibtimes.co.uk/see-video-black-death-victims-unearthed-by-london-rail-tunnelers-1442539 of the skeletons belonged to people who grew up outside of London -- even as far as Scotland -- suggesting migratory patterns similar to today. London has always been a big draw. Almost all of them had back damage and strain, which evinces heavy manual labor. So while the findings debunk bubonic plague common-knowledge, the AP's Jill Lawless http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/london-skeletons-reveal-secrets-black-death-23114929notes that they affirm one Middle Ages adage: life then was nasty, brutish and short. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/31/everything-you-know-about-the-black-death-is-wrong-say-the-bones/ 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] Socialist Action secedes from internationalism, joins tankies
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == That's a parody of the real title: Crimea secedes from Ukraine, joins Russia http://socialistaction.org/2014/03/crimea-secedes-from-ukraine-joins-russia/ The photo at top of young women with beaming smiles and Russian flags carries the AP caption: *Crimeans celebrate after vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.* The article starts by dismissing any criticism of the Russian aggression, either military or electoral. The bulk of the article is (mostly) accurate detailing of the US/EU stake in the Ukraine. Then the standard slurs against Maidan are recycled, with the new claim that it was a predominantly middle-class movement. Then comes SA's ritualistic lecturing of the masses that their uprisings around the world in recent years have failed for lack of a revolutionary party. Which is true enough -- but I call it lecturing because SA decided soon after the Arab Revolution began that it wanted no part in helping to build such a party until the masses came to consciousness. Duh. Andy 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] Socialist Action secedes from internationalism, joins tankies
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == ps I forgot to mention their total omission of the Crimean Tatars. Missing Gerry Foley. On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 1:25 PM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.comwrote: That's a parody of the real title: Crimea secedes from Ukraine, joins Russia http://socialistaction.org/2014/03/crimea-secedes-from-ukraine-joins-russia/ The photo at top of young women with beaming smiles and Russian flags carries the AP caption: *Crimeans celebrate after vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.* The article starts by dismissing any criticism of the Russian aggression, either military or electoral. The bulk of the article is (mostly) accurate detailing of the US/EU stake in the Ukraine. Then the standard slurs against Maidan are recycled, with the new claim that it was a predominantly middle-class movement. Then comes SA's ritualistic lecturing of the masses that their uprisings around the world in recent years have failed for lack of a revolutionary party. Which is true enough -- but I call it lecturing because SA decided soon after the Arab Revolution began that it wanted no part in helping to build such a party until the masses came to consciousness. Duh. Andy 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] social roots of Black Death
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'm not saying this is the first time social conditions were acknowledged as causative or contributory factors to mass mortality from the plague. I'm saying the new findings on the means of transmission potentially shed a slightly different light on who died when and how. Perhaps more of the sickly poor were more susceptible to the plague because it was airborne and not spread by rats, Perhaps also that says something about the plague's dissipation as well. Remember that there were many different studies on causes, transmission rates, likely carriers/sufferers etc. of AIDS. Even though all the reputable studies agreed on the basics, the nuances were important for our understanding. On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 1:20 PM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == No doubt, the upper crust that were out on their isolated estates may have stood a better chance of survival. However, the overwhelming majority of people in Europe were terribly poor, undernourished, overworked, etc.--especially where you had the kinds of concentrations that really spread the plague. Certainly, the more you are undernourished and overworked, the better your chances of ending in a plague pit, but most of the bones in the plague pit Mrs. Miggens finds while digging in her rose bed are not likely to be royals. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] The next stage in the global offensive by U.S. imperialism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks, Matthew. These examples of ANSWER et al. ignoring the imperialist nature of Russia, China etc. are important. Wonder if they'll come up with a label for this category of countries. PS Got any references on Parvus's activities during the war? On Sun, Mar 30, 2014 at 6:55 PM, Matthew Russo russo.matth...@gmail.comwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Here for your reference, or perhaps just to ruin your day, is the ANSWER perspective couched as a grand historical narrative: http://www.answercoalition.org/national/news/crimea-referendum-history.html?utm_source=newsletterutm_medium=emailutm_content=majorutm_campaign=ANSWER%20Newsletter No surprises, completely trapped in its time warp. I would draw attention instead to the fundamental organizing concept: Imperialism as a single, global economic system. According to this, after WW2, imperialism was organized under the hegemony of a *single* imperialist state, the U.S. In general, this would be indistinguishable from Kautsky's concept of ultra-imperialism since the hegemonized imperialist partner countries by definition, *consent* to U.S. leadership. That much is accurate. However, I seem to recall that the USSR and the PRC made their exit from the imperialist system for a time. Further, the colonial state structures that organized the system rapidly collapsed after the war. How then can imperialism be seen as a unitary global economic system when such vast geopolitical swathes remained either in unstable relation or completely outside it? Contradiction #1. It follows from this that the U.S. was not *globally* hegemonic. Then post-Soviet Russia and China re-entered the system, decisively after 2000. But not under a U.S. hegemony, but as new contending imperialist great powers, together with lesser ones such as India or Brazil. Further, the old Triadic core of the system went into a stagnation and decline that shows no sign of a decisive exit. At this point one can talk about imperialism as a single *global* economic system, but only in the Leninist, and not Kautskyian sense, of a world divided between states, and where the U.S. is still not globally hegemonic (and never will be). But this is the point Brian Becker has to dodge so as to maintain his Kautskyian theory of imperialism: But the inherently expansionist nature of modern day imperialism puts it on a continual collision course with Russia, China or any national entity or mass movement that serves as a brake or an obstacle to its desire for unfettered domination over the planets' land and resources. Russia, China but national entities, not imperialist powers in their own right, grabbing for their share of the planets' land and resources. Why hang your counter-hegemonic strategic hat on such non-global non-entities? Of course, because they are very much global entities, growing on average considerably faster than the stagnant, sluggish Triad. Hello, Chinese capital anyone, buying shit left and right around the world? ANSWER simply proposes to align with the up and coming imperialists against the old and flagging ones. Like I said, it's the Alexander Parvus Brigade, guided by Kautsky's revisionist theory of imperialism. -Matt Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] New ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis is entirely right about the problem with viewing the Ukraine/Russia/US/EU conflict at the level of global geopolitics. And it's not just that Smith and his friends, by doing so, ignore the social system underlying that strategic battle: their characterization of the players and their motives in that battle perverts, in an implicit or at least subtle way, how that system works. For instance, Smith says: Nothing quite like this this move on the geopolitical chessboard has happened since the U.S. became the world's single superpower over two decades ago. So we have not two imperialist powers, one old and strong but weakening (the US), the other newer but trying to assert itself (Russia), but rather a single superpower, the US. This goes even further than the tankies' argument that we should support the weaker imperialist power; Smith sees only one superpower (whose alleged social uniqueness is never defined). Then Smith says: The purpose is to compromise Russia's revival as a regional power critical of U.S. policies. Not a power trying to dominate other countries' markets and labor, but one that is critical. (Which, of course, is why the tankies love the Iranian, Syrian and other regimes, because they'll talk shit to Obama.) Andy On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 8:01 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 3/28/14 7:01 PM, Jack A. Smith wrote: What Really Happened In Ukraine? Nothing quite like this this move on the geopolitical chessboard has happened since the U.S. became the world's single superpower over two decades ago. So funny to see someone actually refer to the geopolitical chessboard that I have been referring to for months now as antithetical to how Marxists view the world. Fundamentally, this grants Obama and Putin the high ground as players with the right to exchange pawns. Jack is a sympathizer of the Party of Socialism and Liberation that traces its lineage to a split in the SWP of the USA over how to regard the Hungarian Revolution. Sam Marcy supported Russia's crushing of the revolution on the basis of a global class war thesis and went on to form the Workers World Party, from which the PSL split over unspecified differences. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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] query re A. Roy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Three years after the fact I got around to reading Arundhati Roy's Walking with the comrades. I had heard that it was a debunking of some myths about the Naxalites, and figured ok, whatever, that's comradely of her, a nice balance to media lies. But one thing and another made me decide to read it, and I was extremely disappointed by its liberal approach. She's got many moving examples of heroism by the villagers, and even their rank-and-file Maoist friends, and many horrifying examples of state and corporate violence. Yet when admitting past, present and potentially future crimes by the Party leadership, her response is consistently ooh, that's bad and terrible, but the State is worse! Not a clue of possible alternative strategies. Fortunately I found soon after the piece below, on global south Maoism more generally, which is a welcome emotional and political antidote to Roy and other radical chic fellow-travelers: http://isreview.org/issue/87/maoism-global-south PS: I have to admit I've read at most one other article by Roy, I don't remember which, but it was years ago and liberal enough that I swore off her. But I suppose the renewed attention to her requires me to read more. Am I missing something? Does she have some unique contribution I'm not aware of? Andy 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] query re A. Roy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == And this one, which says it all so succinctly: http://kafila.org/2010/03/22/response-to-arundhati-roy-jairus-banaji/ On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 3:45 PM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.comwrote: Three years after the fact I got around to reading Arundhati Roy's Walking with the comrades. I had heard that it was a debunking of some myths about the Naxalites, and figured ok, whatever, that's comradely of her, a nice balance to media lies. But one thing and another made me decide to read it, and I was extremely disappointed by its liberal approach. She's got many moving examples of heroism by the villagers, and even their rank-and-file Maoist friends, and many horrifying examples of state and corporate violence. Yet when admitting past, present and potentially future crimes by the Party leadership, her response is consistently ooh, that's bad and terrible, but the State is worse! Not a clue of possible alternative strategies. Fortunately I found soon after the piece below, on global south Maoism more generally, which is a welcome emotional and political antidote to Roy and other radical chic fellow-travelers: http://isreview.org/issue/87/maoism-global-south PS: I have to admit I've read at most one other article by Roy, I don't remember which, but it was years ago and liberal enough that I swore off her. But I suppose the renewed attention to her requires me to read more. Am I missing something? Does she have some unique contribution I'm not aware of? Andy 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] query re Trotsky and Dewey
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is embarrassing because a) I should know where it is, and b) even if not I should be able to find it using the MIA search function. Anyway, if I remember right, somewhere Trotsky criticized Dewey because the latter, after exonerating Trotsky of Stalinist charges, used the same article or platform to criticize Trotsky himself, and apparently Trotsky thought that was inappropriate procedurally. Does anyone recall where this was said? Andy 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] Ma'an: Activists hold global day of action for Palestinian right of return
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == My Facebook comment on this: Counterposing the Right of Return to Victory for the Syrian Revolution? The original Call for actions today supporting the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees was neutral in its ambiguity (neutral of course being an oxymoron in times of revolution and war). But the statements supposedly made today by organizers in this Ma'an article make them sound like they're actively counterposing the two: i.e. the solution for the plight of refugees in Yarmouk and other Syrian camps is not victory over their executioner, that collaborator with Israel, Bashar al-Assad, but rather return to Palestine at some undefined future point (by which time, who knows how many will have escaped Assad's barrel bombs and starvation sieges?). If Ma'an is distorting the organizers' statements the latter need to say so. If not, they need a serious lesson in what it means to make and support revolutions. http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=683729 The original call: http://uspcn.org/2014/03/11/return-unifies-us-march-22-2014/ On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 2:20 PM, Joseph Catron jncat...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By insistence on the unity and cohesion of our people everywhere, the unity of their struggle, and the oneness of their destiny, the right of return to their homes of origin and other national principles can be achieved http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=683729 -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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] great new column on Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Among other things, the author raises Chechnya not only to remind us of Putin's bloodthirst, but also concerning Western indifference at the time. http://newsocialist.org/741-crimea-a-divisive-dangerous-assault 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] All the conspiracy theories about weapons being smuggled to rebels to fuel a proxy war have no leg to stand on
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == re the weapons that never came: at the post-rally conference Saturday in DC, a State Department hack went through a list of things US money was supposedly going to (bakeries, social services, etc.) and then gave the crowd a wink and a nod and said it also goes to things we can't talk openly about. The crowd wasn't having it. ps re the author, Racan Alhoch: keep your eyes open for his columns; he's very well-respected as an activist and journalist in Syrian-American circles. 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] calculus of war
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This morning I read at least three new articles, progressive and mainstream, about the disincentive to a broader war over Ukraine facing EU banks/investors. Then there was an article speculating on incentives to Russia for and against further aggression based on its oil supply to EU (foregone profits versus turning the screw). Now obviously the calculations of states in these situations have to take into account short, medium and long term benefits and downsides of making war. It's not a simple calculus, and certainly not one without a heapin' helping of irrationality. So has anyone got good references on the topic? Andy 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] calculus of war
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks for the various references and comments, all useful! On the one hand, they reinforce my assumption that at this point the contending imperialisms each have too much to lose (and the Western ones are too unsure of themselves) to resort to all-out war (as opposed to Russian military takeovers of marginal areas which the US acquiesces to while it continues its own more subtle economic enfoldment in the region). BUT The other part of my question is at what point would the contenders decide they have more to gain than lose by putting their foot down? What, for instance, pushed the two sides over the edge in August 1914? 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] Trotsky on Ukraine: The Problem of Appealing to Old Documents
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Paul is 100% right about the need to factor in the changed demographics. (Plus there's the question of the Crimean Tatars.) But the reason I keep referring to those articles (and several others by Trotsky which I have in a list) is for his METHOD. For instance, in the same general period Trotsky was explaining how defense of Finnish independence was a red herring used by those wanting to abandon defense of the Soviet Union. Yet at the same time he was insisting on the fight for an independent Soviet Ukraine EVEN if it momentarily weakened defense of the Soviet Union, because in the long run politically it was essential for that defense. This is the same method used by Lenin in looking at Serbia vis-a-vis Austria, i.e. the two different contexts for judging its fight. 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] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == what the fuck are you talking about? On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 5:00 PM, sha...@aol.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yeah. Andrew Pollack said that. My grandmother would tell Andrew Pollack to have his head examined. Has he ever read a shred of Lenin on the National Question. Doubtful, no evidence of it shows. Wayne Collins -Original Message- From: Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com To: Wayne M. Collins sha...@aol.com Sent: Mon, Mar 10, 2014 7:37 pm Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fascism? == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == serious as a heart attack Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Democracy Important to Most Ukrainians
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Crimean Tatars most definitely don't want to be part of Russia. And as Clay documents the wishes of the rest of the population must be viewed in the context of Hitler's march into the Sudetenland parallel. Where was the movement for Crimean affiliation to Russia before? I admit I haven't seen an explanation for why Russia gave Crimea to Ukraine originally. But the wishes of the indigenous Tatars -- and the latter's desire for unity in Ukraine -- come first! On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 12:32 PM, Clay Claiborne clayc...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 03/12/2014 07:34 AM, DW wrote: In 1992 when Ukrainians voted for independence from the USSR/Russia it passed in the 80 percentiles everywhere in Ukraine, including the east AND Crimea. Conditions change obviously, and can do so overnight. Foreign troops can invade overnight, No one on this list doubts that most of the population in Crimea wants to split from Ukraine Let me speak up and say I do. I do know that Russia has taken complete control of Crimea. All Crimea Ukrainian broadcast outlets (20) save one Crimea Tatar (Russia is on a charm offensive among Crimea Tatars, NOW. No one Russia doesn't want in Crimea can't cross the border, which is being heavily guarded, You can only fly to Crimea from Russia now. The peninsula is being heavily propagandized by pro-Russian views only. Pro-Ukraine reporters and news outlets have been attacked and beaten by Pro-Russia thugs, same is true about any pro-Ukraine protesters with the courage to come out under these circumstances. Russian forces have taken over most government institutions. There have been reports that many of the pro-Russia demonstrator are paid or imported and we have know way of knowing to what extend that is true. The up coming vote doesn't even allow for a vote to stay with Ukraine, its a rigged vote with the choices being yes, now and yes, later, no isn't an option. Most importantly, given the facts on the ground and the response of Ukraine and international community, it seems pretty certain that Russia will control Crimea with an iron hand going forward, many who oppose the Russian takeover can be expected to remain silent or even fledge support out of a sense of self preservation. Given these facts, and especially given your revelation that previously 80% of Crimea wanted independence from Russia, I have many doubts about what the population of Crimea wants. The same situation in Kosovo where, Wasn't ethnic cleansing going on in Kosovo at the time? Didn't the Yugoslavian army attack Kosovo Albanian villages? Weren't there about 15 massacres of Albanians by Serbs? Nothing like that has happened in Crimea so in what world can in be regarded as the same situation? The idiocy of the current Kiev gov't in passing a serious of undemocratic laws, the most important one of which was the return to the post-Orange Revolution that eliminated Russian (and other languages) as official languages, though quickly vetoed by the interim-President, is what Russians in the east of their country remember. Hadn't Russian been an official language in Ukraine since August 2012 or about 17 months before repeal was attempted? I am not supporting its repeal, just pointing out a context that rarely gets mentioned. Clay Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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] great new SW article on Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://socialistworker.org/2014/03/11/ukraine-and-the-national-question very wide-ranging and thorough 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] US confiscating a quarter of 'Holy Land Five' wife's wages
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == fucking outrageous let us know how to help On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 9:40 AM, Joseph Catron jncat...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I cannot begin to imagine how this could possibly be legal. (And knowing Ghassan, one of his daughters in New York, and two of his brothers in Gaza, you can imagine how hot under the collar I am about it. But I guess that's neither here nor there.) According to the family's legal team (who have lodged an appeal to quash the writ) by garnishing Salem's wages, federal prosecutors are functionally punishing her and children for the alleged criminal actions of their father. If confirmed, the court order may heighten the climate of fear already faced by Muslims and Palestine activists across the country. http://electronicintifada.net/content/us-confiscating-quarter-holy-land-five-wifes-wages/13231 -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] great new SW article on Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I don't think you read the article. On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 10:00 AM, DW dwalters...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Andy I agree. It's a very interesting article on the balance of different nationalism and how they arrived. My main criticism of this is that it fails utterly to place the rise of nationalism outside the Russian-Ukrainian divide, avoids mentioning the issue of the EU (and how that would undermine Ukrainian sovereignty even *greater* than the proposed Customs Union with Russia) and NATO designs as well on the region. David Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Marv makes a lot of good points -- which is why I was sorry to see this: Yet the clear impression conveyed by Clay, Andy, yourself and a few others is that this government is somehow worth defending against the greater evil represented by Putin and the Russians. I don't think Clay or Louis believe that, and I certainly don't. I agree 100% with you that we don't have a dog in this interimperialist fight. What we HAVE said is that we oppose Russian troop movements and any other military actions, and that Russia, not some phantom or threatened US invasion -- is the main factor here. Yes, Russia has invaded Ukraine and should withdraw. By the same token the US should stop meddling in Ukraine. BUT we have put so much emphasis on Russia's actions to counter the tankies' absurdities about which imperialist power is most active in Ukraine. And I unfortunately have to agree that the left has a long row to hoe -- but that's another reason for us to be clear on who's doing what, and opposing all the exploiters and war-makers, all their states and parties. Andy 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] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This round was completely unnecessary. Marv made a simple mistake -- he focused on our denunciation of Russia and extrapolated that incorrectly into our supposed support for the government of Ukrainian oligarch set B (following set A). There was no need for Louis to Democrat-bait him. Then Clay made his own false extrapolation. Clay, it's PRECISELY by refusing to support either imperialism that we can best promote the class struggle by workers on each side, and therefore in mutual support of each other. On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 5:10 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 3/10/14 3:18 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: Yet the clear impression conveyed by Clay, Andy, yourself and a few others is that this government is somehow worth defending against the greater evil represented by Putin and the Russians. I suppose someone who has made the case for voting Democrat every 4 years would be tempted to ascribe this motive to me. It is what Freud called projection. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Two fronts in the immigrant workers' movement
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Lou will certainly provide his own answer, but let me say why I appreciate his insistence on being precise on this issue. Fascism was analyzed by Trotsky as a very particular tool used by the ruling class, with a particular mass base wielded in particular ways against particular working class dangers to their rule. It's not the same as more stable forms of capitalist dictatorship, nor of Bonapartism -- although a given state could pass from one to the other. So the point of the analytical exercise is to see what the ruling class is doing and why -- or what those to whom it has temporarily handed power are doing,and why and on that basis to develop a working class response. Use MIA's search function, select Trotsky from the drop-down list, and type bonapartism and then fascism On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 7:15 PM, Joseph Catron jncat...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == About 150 people are on the fourth day of a hunger strike at an immigration detention centre in the US state of Washington, officials say. Supporters say the detainees are protesting over their treatment at the facility as well as calling for an end to deportations. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-26523111 This afternoon, 250 migrants, who have lived in the United States most of their lives, are attempting to reenter the country after being deported. Many entire families are returning, while others are coming to rejoin family members still living in the United States. The group is chanting 'undocumented and unafraid' as they cross through the U.S. portal that separates Tijuana from San Diego. http://wagingnonviolence.org/2014/03/full-families-challenge-u-s-mexico-border-mass-reentry I haven't had a fast enough Internet connection to watch the livestream of the reentry, but the immigrant youth organization United We Dream tweeted about an hour ago that they had made it in. If you use Twitter, follow the #Not1More and #BringThemHome hashtags, respectively, for more on these campaigns. -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == sorry,I put this on the wrong thread. Here it is again in the proper one: Lou will certainly provide his own answer, but let me say why I appreciate his insistence on being precise on this issue. Fascism was analyzed by Trotsky as a very particular tool used by the ruling class, with a particular mass base wielded in particular ways against particular working class dangers to their rule. It's not the same as more stable forms of capitalist dictatorship, nor of Bonapartism -- although a given state could pass from one to the other. So the point of the analytical exercise is to see what the ruling class is doing and why -- or what those to whom it has temporarily handed power are doing,and why and on that basis to develop a working class response. Use MIA's search function, select Trotsky from the drop-down list, and type bonapartism and then fascism On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 7:18 PM, Jeff meis...@xs4all.nl wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == At 18:45 10-03-14 -0400, Andrew Pollack wrote: This round was completely unnecessary. Marv made a simple mistake I don't think Marv made a mistake. I think he posed the wrong question: whether we defend the government, whatever that exactly means. The question is whether we support their self-determination, self rule, or as Clay said territorial integrity. Of course when we talk about the third world and colonialism, Ukraine doesn't normally spring to mind. But in the current situation (as well as during some history) that is exactly the right analogy. It's disingenuous for Marv to shift the discussion of our attitude to the government, as he knows damn well none of us defend capitalist governments. That doesn't prevent us from defending the interests of people living under those governments, including resistance to foreign invasion. I absolutely agree with Clay's statement, below. - Jeff Ukraine territorial integrity is worth defending. Russian imperialist militarism and annexation is worth opposing. The Ukrainian masses who made this overthrow possible are my dog in this fight. If all you see in Ukraine is inter-imperialist rivalry, then you are blind to the class struggle and how the working class builds its power and consciousness through participation in the mass struggle. -- he focused on our denunciation of Russia and extrapolated that incorrectly into our supposed support for the government of Ukrainian oligarch set B (following set A). There was no need for Louis to Democrat-bait him. Then Clay made his own false extrapolation. Clay, it's PRECISELY by refusing to support either imperialism that we can best promote the class struggle by workers on each side, and therefore in mutual support of each other. On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 5:10 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 3/10/14 3:18 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: Yet the clear impression conveyed by Clay, Andy, yourself and a few others is that this government is somehow worth defending against the greater evil represented by Putin and the Russians. I suppose someone who has made the case for voting Democrat every 4 years would be tempted to ascribe this motive to me. It is what Freud called projection. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/meisner%40xs4al l.nl Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What Charles asks fits with an additional point I was going to raise. Yes, we absolutely must update and expand the definition based on experience (and on theoretical maturation if it has happened). For instance, when the Arab Revolution broke out, a lot of people referred sloppily to the supposed deep state in Egypt without breaking it down, or after hearing someone else use it and just carelessly regurgitating it. And they didn't compare Egypt's supposed deep state with other dictatorships (i.e. the military ownership of a substantial part of the economy, its rivalry with the intelligence/police arm of the state, etc.). So capitalist dictatorships vary by place -- and by time. Mandel in Trotsky as Alternative very succinctly distinguishes the Bonapartist stage from fascism. There were a succession of Bonapartist regimes in Germany before the bourgeoisie called on Hitler to smash completely working-class organizations. And he points out that people today who talk about creeping fascism in fact are looking at creeping Bonapartism, as the strong state (an autonomous executive) grows. And he points out that there's a life and death concreteness to the distinction in terms of who you organize against with what demands -- and even if you can organize above ground without getting shot. On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 8:04 PM, Charles Faulkner lacena...@comcast.netwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == andrew, just a question to you, louis or anyone because i agree with your analysis and direction of your inquiries, but i am concerned about a too limited definition, perhaps historically limited, of fascism given the capacity of capital to incorporate lessons from nazi germany and the relative success of neutralizing the working class during the same time. do you agree we should have a more current/flexible definition of fascism nearly 70 years after the fall of historical fascism? much has happened since then. it seems we could do so without forgetting trotsky, neumann, et al. - Original Message - From: Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com To: Charles Faulkner lacena...@comcast.net Sent: Monday, March 10, 2014 4:33:47 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fascism? == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == sorry,I put this on the wrong thread. Here it is again in the proper one: Lou will certainly provide his own answer, but let me say why I appreciate his insistence on being precise on this issue. Fascism was analyzed by Trotsky as a very particular tool used by the ruling class, with a particular mass base wielded in particular ways against particular working class dangers to their rule. It's not the same as more stable forms of capitalist dictatorship, nor of Bonapartism -- although a given state could pass from one to the other. So the point of the analytical exercise is to see what the ruling class is doing and why -- or what those to whom it has temporarily handed power are doing,and why and on that basis to develop a working class response. Use MIA's search function, select Trotsky from the drop-down list, and type bonapartism and then fascism On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 7:18 PM, Jeff meis...@xs4all.nl wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == At 18:45 10-03-14 -0400, Andrew Pollack wrote: This round was completely unnecessary. Marv made a simple mistake I don't think Marv made a mistake. I think he posed the wrong question: whether we defend the government, whatever that exactly means. The question is whether we support their self-determination, self rule, or as Clay said territorial integrity. Of course when we talk about the third world and colonialism, Ukraine doesn't normally spring to mind. But in the current situation (as well as during some history) that is exactly the right analogy. It's disingenuous for Marv to shift the discussion of our attitude to the government, as he knows damn well none of us defend capitalist governments. That doesn't prevent us from defending the interests of people living under those governments, including resistance to foreign invasion. I absolutely agree with Clay's statement, below. - Jeff Ukraine territorial integrity is worth defending. Russian
Re: [Marxism] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I hope comrades will read Louis's article. Link again is: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war/fascism.htm Among many other things, he explains clearly Bonapartism and fascism, i.e. the differences between them as well as the transition from one to the other in both directions. On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 8:21 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 3/10/14 8:04 PM, Charles Faulkner wrote: do you agree we should have a more current/flexible definition of fascism nearly 70 years after the fall of historical fascism? In the early days of Marxmail, long before I began blogging (indeed, there was no such thing as blogging at the time), I posted a series of articles about fascism that was prompted by fears by some that the Buchanan campaign marked a fascist threat. If I sound a bit jaded on these questions, it is only because I have been hearing it since 1967 when I joined the SWP. Back then it was the Wallace campaign. Now it is the Tea Party. None of this makes sense when ordinary bourgeois democracy is knocking the labor movement on its ass. When the Boeing machinists go out on strike to defy a wage freeze and use dynamite against the cops, like German strikers did in the early 20s, then you should begin paying attention to fascists being called in to reinforce capitalist law and order. Here's the concluding article in http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/ mydocs/fascism_and_war/fascism.htm 7. PAT BUCHANAN AND AMERICAN FASCISM The United States in the 1930s became a battleground between industrial workers and the capitalist class over whether workers would be able to form industrial unions. There had been craft unions for decades, but only industrial unions could fight for all of the workers in a given plant or industry. This fight had powerful revolutionary implications since the captains of heavy industry required a poorly paid, docile work-force in order to maximize profits in the shattered capitalist economy. There were demonstrations, sit-down strikes and even gun-fights led by the Communist Party and other left groups to establish this basic democratic right. Within this political context, fascist groups began to emerge. They drew their inspiration from Mussolini's fascists or Hitler's brown- shirts. In a time of severe social crisis, groups of petty-bourgeois and lumpen elements begin to coalesce around demagogic leaders. They employ radical sounding rhetoric but in practice seek out working- class organizations to intimidate and destroy. One such fascist group was the Silver Shirts of Minneapolis, Minnesota. In chapter eleven of Teamster Politics, SWP leader Farrell Dobbs recounts How the Silver Shirts Lost Their Shrine in Minneapolis. It is the story of how Local 544 of the Teamsters union, led by Trotskyists, defended itself successfully from a fascist expedition into the city. Elements of the Twin Cities ruling-class, alarmed over the growth of industrial unionism in the city, called in Silver Shirt organizer Roy Zachary. Zachary hosted two closed door meetings on July 29 and August 2 of 1938. Teamster moles discovered that Zachary intended to launch a vigilante attack against Local 544 headquarters. They also discovered that Zachary planned to work with one F.L. Taylor to set up an Associated Council of Independent Unions, a union-busting operation. Taylor had ties to a vigilante outfit called the Minnesota Minute Men. Local 544 took serious measures to defend itself. It formed a union defense guard in August 1938 open to any active union member. Many of the people who joined had military experience, including Ray Rainbolt the elected commander of the guard. Rank-and-filers were former sharpshooters, machine gunners and tank operators in the US Army. The guard also included one former German officer with WWI experience. While the guard itself did not purchase arms except for target practice, nearly every member had hunting rifles at home that they could use in the circumstance of a Silver Shirt attack. Events reached a climax when Pelley came to speak at a rally in the wealthy section of Minneapolis. Ray Rainbolt organized a large contingent of defense guard members to pay a visit to Calhoun Hall where Pelley was to make his appearance. The powerful sight of disciplined but determined unionists persuaded the audience to go home and Pelley to cancel his speech. This was the type of conflict taking place in 1938. A capitalist class bent on taming workers; fascist groups with a
Re: [Marxism] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Clay I'll take your word for it that I misinterpreted what you said. A) because we're all so close that it's a matter of nuance and emphasis, B) because after a long day -- including another fight with that reactionary Pham Binh -- I'm too brain dead to worry about nuance among comrades. :) Chicken shit motherfucker, posing as Nott George Sabra, called OPENLY for the Ukraine left to ally with fascists and rightists,said it in black and white, and then denies it. And gets inexperienced immature jerks to pander to him just because it's a chance to badmouth a Marxist. 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] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == serious as a heart attack http://notgeorgesabra.tumblr.com/post/78848780314/2-russias-1-ukraine On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 10:28 PM, h0ost h...@mailoo.org wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 03/10/2014 10:13 PM, Andrew Pollack wrote: -- including another fight with that reactionary Pham Binh -- I'm too brain dead to worry about nuance among comrades. :) Chicken shit motherfucker, posing as Nott George Sabra, called OPENLY for the Ukraine left to ally with fascists and rightists,said it in black and white, and then denies it. And gets inexperienced immature jerks to pander to him just because it's a chance to badmouth a Marxist. Sorry for asking what may be a silly question, but are you serious about Pham Binh above, or is this said in jest? Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] What is Russian Crimea's stand on the Right of Return?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Great stuff. Clay! I'm hoping we can find more info on the socioeconomic conditions of the Crimean Tatars. By the way I didn't know until today about this aspect of the ethnic cleansing: Most of the Crimean Gypsies were deported with Crimean Tatars because many of them had Muslim names. The next group of Crimeans to be deported, Greeks, Bulgarians and Armenians, did not leave Crimea until the last week in June. This group also included individuals with foreign passports, citizens of Turkey, Greece and Iran. Altogether there were about 39,000 people. http://www.usukraine.org/crimean_tatars.shtml On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 12:13 AM, Clay Claiborne clayc...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is the second in a trilogy of posts about Ukraine directed at the now suddenly interventionist Left. The first was The truth about the leaked Maidan sniper story http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-truth-about-leaked-maidan-sniper.html . I started to call this one Why the Crimea Referendum is illegitimate but in the end I went with: What is Russian Crimea's stand on the Right of Return? http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-is-russian-crimeas-stand-on-right.html Since Putin has seized Crimea from Ukraine with naked military aggression, now plans to use the device of a referendum on self-determination to complete its annexation to Russia, and it appears nobody is going to stop him, it is fair to ask: What does all this mean for Crimean Tatars and how does this Russian /right of self-determination/ square with their rights? The Palestinians weren't the only people forced off of their land in the last century. Crimea was once very different, for hundred of years the majority of the population was Crimea Tatar, in fact the word /Crimea/ is the Crimean Tatar name for the capital of the peninsular during the time of the Golden Horde [1240-1502]. When Crimea was liberated from the Nazis in 1944, Joseph Stalin accused all Crimea Tatars of collaborating with the Nazis and ordered them removed. 200,000 Tatars were given 30 minutes to collect their belongings before they were put in cattle cars for the long trip to Siberia. Half of them never got there; they died along the way. They were not free to return to Crimea until after the fall of the Soviet Union. After this indigenous Muslim population was subjected to mass deportation, Russians from other parts of the USSR were brought to Crimea to be settled in the newly emptied Tatar homes. That's how Crimea got its clear Russian majority. Stalin's policy of moving the Tatars out and Russians into Crimea wasn't an invention of communism; it had been Russian policy ever since it conquered Crimea in 1783. Before Gorbachev's /perestroika/, Crimean Tatars were banned from even crossing the border into Crimea. As soon as they could, many Tatar started repatriating back to Crimea. The Ukraine census of 2001 had them at 12% of the population, now they are estimated to be about 14% of the population of Crimea and the trend of Crimea Tatars returning to the only homeland they have ever had is continuing. Needless to say, there are those among the now dominate Russian population that are not entirely happy with these changing demographics, especially when they come with disputes over property rights. Now, taking advantage of the turmoil created by the Ukrainian revolution, Russia has sent in its army to the cheers of this Russian population. Like the bandits they are, they don't identify themselves, but they are carrying out an armed occupation of the peninsular. And under these conditions they propose to hold a vote as to whether Crimea will stay in the Ukraine or become part of Russia. Its interesting to note that a third choice, complete independence, isn't even on the ballot. ... *This is also overlooked and very important:* The Russian occupation also violates the 1994 Budapest Memorandum http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2014/03/budapest-memorandum-and-counterpunch.html agreement by US, UK, France Russia to guarantee the territorial integrity of Ukraine in return for giving up the bomb. This may yet yield the darkest result of the world allowing Crimea to be taken from Ukraine by Russia without a fight. If all the countries of the world draw the appropriate conclusions about the value of international guarantees of territorial integrity, and decide, they too need a bomb to defend themselves, then there will be hell to pay
[Marxism] UNAC supports Russia, Assad
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I've pasted the whole UNAC statement below as it's not on their website yet and went out only by email and Facebook. They take Russia's side in the conflict, citing Putin's fears about attack and encirclement. And they mention in passing that Syria is under attack in a sentence listing imperialism's various aggressions. By coincidence SA -- half of the leadership of UNAC -- came out with its own statement on Ukraine yesterday: http://socialistaction.org/2014/03/7822/ I'd be curious what comrades think about its estimate of the relative strengths of US and Russian imperialism. The statement does have a fair amount of criticism of Great Russian chauvinism now and then. But I'm sure my Ukrainian and Russian friends are going to correctly resent the near-invisibility of the Ukrainian people in the article. (Plus out of nowhere they repeat twice the claim that Assad didn't use chemical weapons!) Time to dissolve UNAC and build the real antiwar/solidarity movements! Andy *The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) Demands US Hands off Ukraine and Venezuela* *The United States government is the main instigator of the present crises in both countries.* The hypocrisy of Secretary of State John Kerry's statement on Face the Nation, You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext, is beyond belief. What about the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, or regime change in Libya, or the threats to bomb Syria and attack Iran? The US has waged a massive propaganda campaign of misinformation, distortion, and outright lies and the national media has taken the State Department's facts and disseminated them without question or challenge. News about the US/EU role in creating the current crisis is buried. The US is the only country that has its troops throughout the world in over 120 countries. It sends drones and special operations forces to kill anyone and anywhere it chooses and uses its vast economic power to undercut any government that will not submit to its policies. Although there is lip service to concerns about democracy and sovereignty, the reality is that the US acts in the interests of preserving its imperialist power and wealth. Ukraine and Venezuela are not exceptions to this rule of imperialist intervention. For 20 years, $5 billion was invested in Ukraine to support the opposition and to create tens of thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to move the country more towards the US and EU and their policies. In an intercepted phone call between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador to Ukraine, she discusses who the US wants to be the head of the new illigitimate government, and lo and behold, the US pick, Arseniy Yatseniuk, is named as the interim Ukrainian leader. This is clearly outside intervention in the affairs of a sovereign country that would not be tolerated if directed at the US or its allies. What are the real objectives and why is Russia so alarmed? Could it be the US-NATO campaign to militarily surround Russia and bring neighboring countries into the western military and financial orbit? Might it be that the largest supply of natural gas in the world is in Russia and the pipelines go through Ukraine, or that global warming is opening the Arctic to oil drilling and Russia borders the Arctic? It is clear that Russia will not passively sit by while the Western-backed coup, led by violent fascist forces and local billionaires, overthrows a democratically elected government and installs a puppet regime on its border. Confederate flags and fascist symbols go up in Kiev City Hall By treaty, Russia can have 25,000 troops in Crimea. To protect its military base there and to protect the people in the Eastern and Southern parts of the country, where the coup is not supported, Russia has moved some troops to the Ukrainian border and into the Crimean peninsula. Many in the east and south are fearful of the new coup government and the neo-Nazi and nationalist forces that led the street demonstrations. The escalating threats of military and economic aggression towards Russia should not be taken lightly. Washington's recklessness and disregard for humanity have resurrected the worst vestiges of cold war politics. They have created a dangerous situation that can generate a real war with an adversary with a powerful military of its own. The US is similarly intervening in Venezuela. There, the US government wants a return to policies which brought the benefits of that nation's oil wealth to a privileged few. The Bolivarian Revolution has been supported by a majority of Venezuelans in election after election. Yet the United States persists in
[Marxism] new Left Opposition statement
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Good reminder of who was at Maidan; good approach toward imperialisms; good action proposals. http://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/left-opposition-ukraine-saved/ 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] query
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I stumbled on a good column by Marko Attila Hoare, who seems to have written some good things on Syria and the Balkans. His Wiki says he signed the Euston statement, and maybe he's been dissected here before. But I'm curious if anyone knows more about him: the fact that he helped with the Workers' Aid convoy to Tuzla in 1995 is intriguing, what with Tuzla being the initiator of the current revolt in Bosnia. 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] Tatar Sunni Muslims pose a threat to Russia's occupation of Crimea | World news | theguardian.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Russian referendum imposed on Crimea is obviously bogus. And the existing Crimean Tatar leadership there, gathered in their mejlis, have said piss off, we're Ukrainian, and we'll decide ourselves how to address our real problems both as Ukrainians and as Tatars. On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 12:31 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/05/tartar- ukraine-sunni-muslims-threat-russian-rule-crimea Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Crimean Shock Waves
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis is very right about the need for scrupulous accuracy. But thanks very much Ron for so much useful detail. The Marx/Engels stuff is here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/russia/crimean-war.htm But also type Crimea in the search field at marxists.org for much more on Crimea by them and others ps yesterday I compiled a list of about 15 Trotsky articles discussing the Ukraine as a Facebook Note, for those of you who are my FB friends. I can post the list here tonight also. On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 8:23 AM, Ron Jacobs ronj1...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://stillhomeron.blogspot.com/2014/03/crimean-shock-waves.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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] Left anti-imperialists try to convince Syrian Revolutionaries to surrender (i.e. make peace with the regime)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.antiimperialista.org/all_sides_consultation_syria_vienna 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] Left anti-imperialists try to convince Syrian Revolutionaries to surrender (i.e. make peace with the regime)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Hadn't heard about the Syria Solidarity Committee and didn't find by googling. URL? By the way, Clay, if I didn't thank you yesterday for the Libya piece, thanks. Almost every exchange I have with tankies includes at least one sneer of how's Libya working out for you? On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 9:09 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 3/4/14 8:44 AM, Andrew Pollack wrote: http://www.antiimperialista.org/all_sides_consultation_syria_vienna There are a number of people who have signed on to this whose main problem is ignorance rather than being soft on Baathism, like Ronnie Kasrils and Immanuel Wallerstein. But these names are a dead giveaway as to its agenda: Mairead Maguire Paul Larudee Cynthia McKinney Tariq Ali Eric Walberg Larudee has some gumption running around pretending that he is for peace. Since he is on the Steering Committee of the Syria Solidarity Committee chaired by Sara Flounders, who is he trying to kid? According to this view, Syria is in danger of being overtaken by terrorists from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Libya, and other sources, and that they will tear the country apart. Whatever the faults of the Assad regime, therefore, it is the only thing preventing the utter destruction of Syria. And who is sponsoring the foreign terrorists and their arms? Western governments sell most of the arms to countries that then transfer them to the insurgents. If the U.S. and other governments want to prevent such transfers, it would be a simple matter to do so through conditional end user agreements. The Western countries themselves are therefore perpetuating the carnage. Some of the key organizers like Wilhelm Langthaler are old hands at this kind of peace initiative. MRZine (where else?) posted an earlier venture he headed up along the same lines back in 2012, with many of the same endorsers including Samir Amin, Ernesto Cardenal (how depressing is that?) and Mairead Maguire. http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/syria101212p.html International Initiative to Stop the War in Syria: Yes to Democracy, No to Foreign Intervention! We, the undersigned, who are part of an international civil society increasingly worried about the awful bloodshed of the Syrian people, are supporting a political initiative based on the results of a fact-finding mission which some of our colleagues undertook to Beirut and Damascus in September 2012. This initiative consists in calling for a delegation of high-ranking personalities with international public lives to go to Syria in order to discuss the current situation with the main political actors and to pave the way for a negotiated political solution of the armed conflict in Syria which seriously threatens world peace and the existence of Syria as an independent and sovereign nation. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Left anti-imperialists try to convince Syrian Revolutionaries to surrender (i.e. make peace with the regime)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Oh, them. I lost track of them after Mother Agnes's tour. Thanks for bringing them again to our attention. Here's a particularly disgusting piece by them supporting Assad's siege -- and telling Palestine solidarity groups to refrain from issuing pro-Revolution statements! Fucking political thugs. http://www.syriasolidaritymovement.org/2014/02/15/ssm-statement-on-yarmouk/ Note also their heavy reliance on RT. On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 9:15 AM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com wrote: Hadn't heard about the Syria Solidarity Committee and didn't find by googling. URL? By the way, Clay, if I didn't thank you yesterday for the Libya piece, thanks. Almost every exchange I have with tankies includes at least one sneer of how's Libya working out for you? On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 9:09 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 3/4/14 8:44 AM, Andrew Pollack wrote: http://www.antiimperialista.org/all_sides_consultation_syria_vienna There are a number of people who have signed on to this whose main problem is ignorance rather than being soft on Baathism, like Ronnie Kasrils and Immanuel Wallerstein. But these names are a dead giveaway as to its agenda: Mairead Maguire Paul Larudee Cynthia McKinney Tariq Ali Eric Walberg Larudee has some gumption running around pretending that he is for peace. Since he is on the Steering Committee of the Syria Solidarity Committee chaired by Sara Flounders, who is he trying to kid? According to this view, Syria is in danger of being overtaken by terrorists from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Libya, and other sources, and that they will tear the country apart. Whatever the faults of the Assad regime, therefore, it is the only thing preventing the utter destruction of Syria. And who is sponsoring the foreign terrorists and their arms? Western governments sell most of the arms to countries that then transfer them to the insurgents. If the U.S. and other governments want to prevent such transfers, it would be a simple matter to do so through conditional end user agreements. The Western countries themselves are therefore perpetuating the carnage. Some of the key organizers like Wilhelm Langthaler are old hands at this kind of peace initiative. MRZine (where else?) posted an earlier venture he headed up along the same lines back in 2012, with many of the same endorsers including Samir Amin, Ernesto Cardenal (how depressing is that?) and Mairead Maguire. http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/syria101212p.html International Initiative to Stop the War in Syria: Yes to Democracy, No to Foreign Intervention! We, the undersigned, who are part of an international civil society increasingly worried about the awful bloodshed of the Syrian people, are supporting a political initiative based on the results of a fact-finding mission which some of our colleagues undertook to Beirut and Damascus in September 2012. This initiative consists in calling for a delegation of high-ranking personalities with international public lives to go to Syria in order to discuss the current situation with the main political actors and to pave the way for a negotiated political solution of the armed conflict in Syria which seriously threatens world peace and the existence of Syria as an independent and sovereign nation. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics. utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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] a labor perspective on Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well this is good but not surprising news. In Bill Onasch's new edition of his weekly labor column he denounces oligarchs and imperialists on all sides and ends with this: *Ukranian independence should be defended and the rights of Russian and Jewish ethnic minorities should be respected. But such lofty ideals are not the driving force of this crisis. It's a battle between oligarchs and superpowers over economic and geopolitical advantage.* *War to choose between the introduction of European austerity such as exhibited in Greece, or indebtedness to Russia, is not in the interest of working people anywhere. None of the characters currently occupying the stage are good guys. Our people-the workers and farmers of Ukraine-are still to be heard from.* http://kclabor.org/wordpress/?p=359 I said above this is not surprising because Bill is nobody's fool on any issue. One hopes that the FOBs who've been pandering to the tankies will reverse course and follow his lead. (The other feature in the column is on the XL pipeline; Bill is a regular commenter on labor's enironmental approaches.) Andy 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] ZCommunications » The Antiwar Movement and Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Bravo Frank Brodhead! (who is he, anyway?) By the way he mentions Russians posting antiwar stuff on the Internet, but yesterday there were many antiwar rallies in Russia, some participants wearing Ukrainian colors! THAT's bravery! I've been agitating friends that we should come up with an antiwar statement. The UNAC CC met last night and will surely come out with something absolving Putin of all blame (that's been the line of many unorganized tankies as well). I wonder how the anti-imperialists view the antiwar activists inside Russia -- imperialist dupes? paid fifth column? Anyway our statement should oppose ALL imperialist intervention in Ukraine, whether US/EU and Russian; support self-determination for Ukraine and support for a worker/Left wing of the anti-oligarch movement; support solidarity between workers of all countries against their own oligarchs/capitalists (including ours in the US); demand the release of all detained in Russia yesterday. And no doubt other points I'm forgetting. Andy On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 7:53 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A third concern that I have when reading some of the writing on the Left about the US-Russian-Ukrainian situation is the disappearance of actually-existing people. For example, Bruce Gagnon has been a stalwart in the US antiwar movement for decades. Yet in his piece on Ukraine posted on his website and circulated on the UFPJ list today, the people who live in the Ukraine are invisible. They are not part of the story. Max Blumenthal piece on Alternet (Is the U.S. Backing Neo-Nazis in the Ukraine?) was similar, in that the 99 percent of Ukrainians who are not neo-nazis were not part of the story. Millions of Ukrainians protested the corrupt regime of Yanukovich; and a large proportion of them also want nothing to do with the Opposition, who robbed the country blind when they were in power. The US antiwar movement needs to keep the aspirations and needs of Ukrainians in our minds and hearts, even as we are protesting US attempts to manipulate Ukrainian politics and US military threats against Russia. full: http://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-antiwar-movement-and-ukraine/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] ZCommunications » The Antiwar Movement and Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == love that last paragraph! And all useful info. can we quote you on Facebook? ps re Max Blumenthal: he's also weird on the geopolitics of the US and Zionism, refusing to see Israel as a junior partner/attack dog of the US. Yes, they have autonomous interests and strategies, but he tends to lean toward the US national interest side. On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 12:11 PM, h0ost h...@mailoo.org wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 03/03/2014 11:50 AM, Ken Hiebert wrote: Ken Hiebert replies: I am sure others have made this point, but I am struck by the charge that populations in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are anti-Communist and (some) even fascistic. These tendencies are very much present. But what does this say about the experience of really existing socialism? Does this tell us that socialism was a failure? Or that it wasn't really really existing socialism? I'd wager a guess that the vast majority of Ukrainians are definitely not ultra-nationalists. I can speak with more confidence about Bulgaria, since I grew up there and go back every summer (while i haven't been to the Ukraine since 1989). If you ask people who were teens (such as me) and older during 1990, many will tell you that they imagined capitalism and Euro integration to mean combining the best features of Bulgarian socialism (welfare state, guaranteed employment, very low level of work discipline, universal access to education, long vacations: nobody argued for giving those up in 1990, etc.), with everything people imagined the U.S. to be from Hollywood films. Intellectual dissidents - who were almost all liberals - in turn, would talk about basic democratic rights, freedom of movement, multi-party system, etc: - ideas which were widely popular as well. But, the vast majority was definitely not harping for a return to the fascist government of the 30s, or some contemporary nationalism of the sort. Even today, the nationalists can't win majorities in elections. Today, we're reading a large number of statements of actions of unity, where Ukrainians are calling for the independence of Ukraine, with the people in political control. That's a broad statement, but the ultra-nationalists are a minority. However, they are much better organized at the moment, and do have explicit Western support. The same seems to be apply for pro-RUssian nationalists backed by Russia. I think ultra-rightism in E. Europe is definitely a product of post-Soviet capitalism, which took the contradictions and problems caused by Soviet policies, and amplified them to levels organic to capitalism. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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] anyone read this?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Looks useful. I stumbled on it while searching for Lenin on Zimmerwald and Kienthal. http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/War-on-War 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] LeftEast posts Antarsya's Ukraine statement
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == LeftEast is THE radical source on Ukraine (and Bosnia and on and on). http://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/solidarity-with-ukraine-against-imperialist-eu-imf-pillaging/ 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] Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I agree with every word of your reply, Michael! And I've seen what you describe in many pro-Syria Revolution activists' posts. Fortunately, there's a very broad global milieu of committed socialists and anarchists taking the lead in that work who are clear on these questions. On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 7:09 PM, Michael Karadjis mkarad...@gmail.comwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yes that's true Andy. However, the problematic aspect of this is that *some* of the Syrian or pro-Syrian activists have reverted to the why doesn't this weak Obama US leadership do something to stop Russia in Ukraine, like Obama was supposedly weak (rather than entirely complicit with the Assadian counterrevolution) on Syria. A very small jump from that to neo-conism, but ironically its really just been raising its head now over Ukraine (as if there were even the slightest parallel between the two cases). Even worse, at least one or two have gone further and identified the Syrian uprising with the Venezuelan uprising. Obviously I know who's fault this is: the fault of Chavez, Maduro and Castro, due to the reactionary positions they have adopted kin relation to the Syrian revolution. What is happening is that some of these activists, who understandably more concerned with the daily defense of an entire people dodging Pol Pot/Assad destroying, killing and starving his whole country, have little time to indulge in working out Venezuela's internal situation, when all they hear is some leader over there expressing support for their butchers. However, at the end of the day, they are doing the same thing as Chavez/Maduro/Castro, the same putting pluses where someone else puts minuses, without having learnt to think. Confronting them with good information is important at this point. -Original Message- From: Andrew Pollack And re what Clay said:You got THAT right! When I post anti-tankie stuff concerning Ukraine on Facebook, the quickest and most common likes come from Syrian and other Arab anti-Assad activists. And not just because they've felt Russia's heavy hand themselves, but because they've learned -- or already knew -- how to use their bullshit detectors. Andy On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 11:04 AM, Clay Claiborne clayc...@gmail.com wrote: = Well, if there is a silver lining to this, maybe it that our Syrian brothers and sisters can see that its not personal with these so-called leftists. Clay Claiborne, Director Vietnam: American Holocaust http://VietnamAmericanHolocaust.com Linux Beach Productions Venice, CA 90291 (310) 581-1536 Read my blogs at the Linux Beach http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/ http://wlcentral.org/user/2965/track On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 7:48 AM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Comrades, I just wanted to say how incredibly useful the posts today and the last few days by all of you have been. I spent a good chunk of time last night responding to U.S. tankies who won't believe anything positive about the masses in Maidan, who see nothing wrong with anything Putin is doing, who leap to defend him just because he's the enemy of our enemy. And they do so with the typical snotty, sarcastic, self-important tone of the truly ignorant. So all your posts have served as emotional reinforcement on top of being politically useful. Thanks! Andy Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/clayclai%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/mkaradjis%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com Send
Re: [Marxism] Communiques from the Borotba Socialist Party in the Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks for the summary! Following up on your question at the end, what do comrades make of Kagarlitsky's take on the various left groups (at the bottom): http://links.org.au/node/3734 On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 1:54 AM, h0ost h...@mailoo.org wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Their English language section is fairly up to date: http://borotba.org/newsen.html There is a Communique #6 which has not been translated as of yet: http://borotba.org/kommyunike_n6_obedineniya_borotba_i_czentra_antifashistskogo_soprotivleniya.html It sheds interesting light on today's events in Kharkov. Since the article will most likely be translated, I'll attempt to only summarize it here. According to the post, a Borotba anti-fascist combat assault group, together with other anti-nationalist and anti-fascist forces, occupied the city administration building. The building itself was guarded by the Right Sector, which was apparently defeated in street combat, and forced to kneel at the square in front of the protesters. The crowd numbered 40,000. Borotba's slogan at today's events: Our position: the Ukrainian people must decided their own fate. We do not support any foreign intervention in our internal affairs. The organization participated in mass gatherings in Donetsk, Krivoi Rog, and Odessa, where they raised a proposal (to be entered in the local legislature) calling for the creation of an Odessa Autonomous Republic. A lot has been written about leftist comrade's difficult struggle in the Ukraine: they are small in numbers, operating under conditions of liberal and nationalist hegemony. However, these communiques - at least to me - seem to indicate a rapid upswing in organizational capacity. The focus is on rejecting outside interventions, mobilizing a fight against ultra-rightists (their Centre of Antifascist Resistance, and emphasizing internationalism, and class struggle. This must be an incomplete picture. I'm curious what other leftist comrades are doing, the various anarchist and syndicalist formations. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Communiques from the Borotba Socialist Party in the Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == who then are more progressive groups? On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 10:14 AM, Sergii Kutnii mnkuts...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Borotba lies. First, the defenders of the regional administration were not only from the Right Sector. There were many people from Kharkiv Maidan which is dominated by liberals and the left. And Borotba allied themselves with the most reactionary Russian imperial chauvinists. In the Russian tricolor-bearing mob in Kharkiv there also were many Russian citizens who came through the still transparent and easy to cross Russian-Ukrainian border, mainly from the nearby Russian city of Belgorod. And one interesting fact is that the guy that placed Russian flag on the Kharkiv administration building is presumably Mika Ronkainen from Moscow. The folks found a picture of him posing in Nazi uniform on the internet. https://www.facebook.com/anton.shekhovtsov/posts/10201780277884459. He is a far right Russian activist that took part in Kremlin-sponsored movement 'The Locals' that promoted xenophobia in Moscow. And Borotba allied itself with those guys! The pro-Russian mob has beaten badly many Kharkiv Maidan activists, some left sympathisers among them, including Sergii Zhadan, a well-known anarchist-leaning Ukrainian writer - that's what our comrades in Kharkiv say. Borotba itself is a post-Stalinist current, lead by ex-CPU members. From the very beginning it was an electoral project, aimed at integrating in the Party of Regions regime and taking the place of CPU. That means they chose to appeal to the same electoral base and they have many former CPU members in their ranks. CPU was never built as a class party. It was exploiting the Soviet nostalgia in the 90s which at times gave them huge support. But Soviet nostalgia of the 90s was a controversial mix. Some wished the better living standards and social security of Soviet times and to some - mainly Russian community - national union with Russia was more important. In fact, in the post-Soviet countries there's now sort of an 'ideological continuum' from Stalinists to Russian imperial chauvinists. Over time socialist sentiment waned. That meant that pro-Soviet currents drifted to the right and got isolated in the south-eastern regions where most ethnic Russians live. So Borotba naturally shares those weak points of CPU. Though trying to maintain itself as a socialist organisation, it has to make concessions to Russian imperial sentiment. That's why it was hard to them to come to terms with Maidan which is strongly anti-imperial but easy to ally with imperial revanchists. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Simon Pirani on current situation in Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Great article! By the way, here's the latest from the Brit soft tankies who run Stop the War. Fairly soft, but pro-Russian if only by omission. http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/analysis/17064-ukraine-between-russia-and-the-west On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 2:07 PM, Sergii Kutnii mnkuts...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == ... In a discussion with British leftists about Ukraine yesterday, the opinion was voiced that anti fascism, meaning opposition to the new government in Ukraine, is the priority, and that it would be no bad thing if the Putin regime put arms in the hands of anti fascist militia. But there are no anti fascist militia. The European left should not use this crisis to indulge its own fantasies.Yes, we in Europe should do everything we can to help Ukrainian socialists and trade union organisations who have come under attack from right-wing nationalists and fascists, as I argued in an earlier post. But there is no question about where the greatest threat is coming from to working-class solidarity, to social movements, and to the attempts of people in Ukraine and Russia to shape their own future ... it comes from Putin's militarism. ... http://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/ukrainians-russians-and-europeans-against-putins-war/ My comment - Simon speaks Russian and has direct connections to Ukrainian and Russian left. His opinion should be taken into account. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Simon Pirani on current situation in Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I spoke too soon: here's the SWC itself, pretty wretched: http://stopwar.org.uk/news/ten-things-to-remember-about-the-crisis-in-ukraine-and-the-crimea#.UxPHvPldU0I On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 6:40 PM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com wrote: Great article! By the way, here's the latest from the Brit soft tankies who run Stop the War. Fairly soft, but pro-Russian if only by omission. http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/analysis/17064-ukraine-between-russia-and-the-west On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 2:07 PM, Sergii Kutnii mnkuts...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == ... In a discussion with British leftists about Ukraine yesterday, the opinion was voiced that anti fascism, meaning opposition to the new government in Ukraine, is the priority, and that it would be no bad thing if the Putin regime put arms in the hands of anti fascist militia. But there are no anti fascist militia. The European left should not use this crisis to indulge its own fantasies.Yes, we in Europe should do everything we can to help Ukrainian socialists and trade union organisations who have come under attack from right-wing nationalists and fascists, as I argued in an earlier post. But there is no question about where the greatest threat is coming from to working-class solidarity, to social movements, and to the attempts of people in Ukraine and Russia to shape their own future ... it comes from Putin's militarism. ... http://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/ukrainians-russians-and-europeans-against-putins-war/ My comment - Simon speaks Russian and has direct connections to Ukrainian and Russian left. His opinion should be taken into account. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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] Russian Left statement on invasion of Crimea
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'm posting the full googletranslate English version on the assumption that not everyone has that feature. IMO a great statement deserving immediate proper translatoin. http://openleft.ru/?p=1994 Crimea - not our and your Editorial http://openleft.ru/?author=5 / Published today / Ukrainian peninsula is not lucky enough to be at the intersection of Russian imperialist ambitions and rough nationalist policies new Ukraine. Open Left states - self-determination movement in Crimea and its value exceeds the imperialist game and nationalist fervor. Today more than ever it is necessary to call a spade a spade: what's going on these days and hours in the Crimea, is a classic act of imperialist intervention on the part of the Russian state. Intervention stupid cowardly and inconsistent - in fact, the way is also the regime of Vladimir Putin. We see that the scenario of pressure on Ukraine to continue writing on a course of action: two weeks ago, the Kremlin, without considering the consequences, Yanukovych pushed on as a brutal power sweep Maidan week ago - supported the failed separatist disoriented Congress officials in Kharkov, now in progress went seemingly firmly forgotten over the past decade Crimean card. The first two scenarios failed: one fast and bloody, the second - almost instantly and disgraceful. Difficult to say exactly how the Crimean fail, but that it will happen, no doubt. The Russian state has repeatedly demonstrated how it can quickly take its allies. From the very beginning the dramatic development of the situation in Crimea Kremlin also leaves characteristic dotted lines possible retreat. Despite the fact that Russian troops took control of a number of strategic sites and actually control the airspace over the peninsula http://lenta.ru/news/2014/02/28/remain/ , the official position continues to insist that what is happening is the internal conflict http://ria.ru/world/20140228/997570180.html and the planned military exercises. On a solid support can not expect Russia Viktor Yanukovich, with its vague status simultaneously legitimate president and an international villain, giving a press conference in Rostov, obviously, in a third, intermediate quality. Hostage situation remains and the new leadership of the Crimea, favorites with the direct participation of Moscow. Question vynesennny referendum May 25, opens a wide field of possibilities for further backroom trade - and the main imperialist players, the U.S. and the EU, and with the new Ukrainian government, controlled by the old oligarchic partners Kremlin entourage of Yulia Tymoshenko. Answer yes to this question (which is obviously ready to give the vast majority of the Russian population of Crimea), in its most radical version may lead to recovery in some form of autonomous status of Crimea sample of 1992, which in today's conditions to turn the region into a permanent source of internal tension in Ukraine and ensures the impossibility of joining NATO in the foreseeable future. The position of this Authority will be in a constant economic and political dependence on Russia, while its inhabitants are deprived of even those formal rights enjoyed by Russian citizens. In that case, if Moscow succeeds, use the Crimea card to effectively blackmail their senior Western partners to achieve redistribution of influence within the new political order in Ukraine as a whole, in the Crimea will not change nothing at all (except, perhaps, the provisions Sergei Aksenov and his colleagues in the Russian unity, which will also have to move to Rostov or Barvikha). [image: ] http://openleft.ru/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/.jpg In any case, the outcome of the referendum, as well as, in principle, the fate of the Crimean population (not only Russian, but Ukrainian and Tatar), will be decided behind closed doors. His genuine right to self-determination to be trampled until and Crimea, and Ukraine as a whole, will be the scene of a clash of interests of external forces - both from the West and the East. Slogan federalization of the country, which used to be irresponsible to speculate politicians from the Party of Regions, in fact would just solution for Ukraine, with its heterogeneous culturally, linguistically and national population. The very principle of federation in a multinational state was a democratic way to relieve the conflict when the moment guaranteed equality and freedom of decision-making at the local level for each of its components. However, recent history shows Ukraine - in a weak state, this slogan does not mean anything else, as the distribution of spheres of influence between its more powerful neighbors, each of whom is interested in continuing escalation of conflicts and differences, rather than eliminating them. For
Re: [Marxism] On the organizational perspectives of the ISO leadership | External Bulletin
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == They are definitely NOT falling apart in New York. On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 7:08 PM, DW dwalters...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The funny thing is I see no evidence the ISO is being pulled apart. Projection, maybe? David Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] [Pen-l] Prediction: Ukraine's love affair with the West will be short-lived
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The speculations in this thread about popular reaction to coming austerity reinforce the importance of making contact now with Ukrainian leftists. One particularly good site to follow their doings is: http://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/ ... which also covers Bosnia and other flashpoints. Odds are in the course of making connections we'll also meet some young Ukrainians (and, again, Bosnians etc.) in the US (and Western Europe etc.) willing to help do solidarity. For those of you familiar with New York's reactionary Ukrainian mainstream organizations, don't laugh; after all there's a very vibrant Greek Left coalition here which arose and flourishes despite similarly conservative mainstream Greek NY politics. (Same for Egyptians, Turks and others here.) On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 11:38 AM, h0ost h...@mailoo.org wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 02/28/2014 11:12 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: siness. If Ukraine is about to undergo a Greek-style austerity program, that will direct anger at the government, not at the Kremlin. Will the fascists use violence against the protests that will surely emerge, just as Golden Dawn does in Greece? Call me old-fashioned but I think that imposing austerity will force Ukrainians to seek a permanent solution to their woes. That's something nationalism has no answer for. And austerity is definitely going to be imposed, if judged by the repeated pronouncements of the new government, EU, US and IMF officials. I think the scenario you've outlined is highly probable, the details surely to emerge as those struggles begin. The cynical side of me thinks that stormtroopers exist today to pre-empt large scale organized leftist mobilizations. As those develop, the street thugs will be deployed to smash them, which of course can work, or not. And increased proliferation of ultra-nationalist movements across the EU, something which is happening publicly, is also not an accident. As we know now, Operation Gladio was a reality, and the crux of that kind of preventative anti-leftist strategic thinking must still be going on in Brussels and Washington in some way influencing policy. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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
Re: [Marxism] Whither Ukraine? » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The articles Marilyn cites: Problem of the Ukraine (also known as Question of the Ukraine): http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/04/ukraine.html Independence of the Ukraine and Sectarian Muddleheads: http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/07/ukraine.htm The other two are available in the pdfs of the Socialist Appeal; index below, will send direct links tonight http://marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/index.htm#SA On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 2:21 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By Marilyn Vogt-Downey, the SWP's expert Sovietologist back in the day. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/27/wither-ukraine/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/acpollack2%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] two important new Balkans articles
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Historical and analytical context of current Bosnian and other struggles, and a call for reviving the struggle for a Balkan socialist federation, against both EU and Russian capital and their local clients. http://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/balkans-for-the-peoples-of-the-balkans/ What next for the Bosnian plenums? Suggestions for how to expand and restructure them, including building new ones below and above city/town level, and in the workplace, the latter as part of making plenums a vehicle for deepening the anticapitalist struggle. http://roarmag.org/2014/02/bosnia-plenums-direct-democracy/ 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] WWP liquidates national question in Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks, Jay. Loved your comments on the WWP article. Note in particular these quotes from it: They [right-wingers] chose bondage to Western finance capital rather than emergency assistance from Russia... ... in the struggle between Russian capital and Western imperialism, the worst outcome is for Washington, Wall Street and the Pentagon to extend their reach to the borders of Russia and gain domination over the former Soviet republics. U.S. imperialism is a far more dangerous enemy to the people of the world than Russia. Their victory in Ukraine would strengthen their empire and give them more resources to oppress and exploit workers in the U.S. Now forgive me if I'm forgetting something, but when did Lenin ever say Germany was a lesser evil than the Tsar? WWP's position has nothing in common with Lenin's, who, while saying the main enemy is at home, NEVER stopped praising Liebknecht and calling on German workers to overthrow their government. WWP's obscenities make me value even more the Balkans article forwarded earlier this morning. Below again my post from yesterday re WWP's upcoming rally, the basis of which is the analysis in Goldstein's article. PS: Now here's a must-NOT attend: the tankies' Venezuela/Ukraine rally:http://www.iacenter.org/actions/venezuela-ukraine022414/ See also their new article on Bosnia, a monument to lying hypocrisy: the justified praise for workers' self-activity there is totally negated by their continued support for the genocidal Stalinist Milosevic regime which helped imperialism blow the country to smithereens and re-privatize it:http://www.iacenter.org/balkans/bosnia012214/ On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 9:52 AM, jay rothermel jayrother...@gmail.comwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/02/26/ukraine-venezuela-u-s-wages-dirty-wars/ WWP lays it on the line: 300 years of Russian oppression of the Ukraine is a lesser evil than an imperialist trade deal with Washington that might thwart Putin. WWP doesn't pit it like that, again ignoring the historical context of national oppression by Russia against Ukraine. Russian oppression of Ukraine has been a consistent and devastating fact of life for Ukrainian workers and farmers for centuries. Except for the period 1917 to 1924, it was continued in the Soviet period through today, not jus under the tsar. In the period after 1924, such oppression was rationalized murderously as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Is it any wonder in such a historical context that Ukraine's workers and farmer have been repeatedly driven into the arms of the class enemy? When today's Ukraine CP voted for Yanukovich's crackdown and laws restricting free speech and assembly, IN PARLIAMENT, the cause of communism and motion toward class consciousness was again dealt a blow. This is the objective historical context for pulling down some Lenin statues and vandalizing Soviet-era public art. Telling workers of the world that fascism has triumphed in Kiev is premature, dishonest, and demoralizing. It dehistoricizes the fruits of past struggles against, and analysis of, fascism. It is subjective emitionalisms rum wild. Telling workers of the world that political explosions and unexpected events are a conspiracy to thwart Russia's regional moves toward political suzerainty, and not part of the normal and understandable workings of the capitalist crisis, cuts against a materialist understanding of history and BREEDS DEMORALIZATION, wrecking any motion toward class consciousness and class CONFIDENCE. Jay Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/acpollack2%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] Bosnia, Ukraine articles
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I've lost track of what I've posted here vs. FB and what others have posted, so just in case: 1. I had seen this elsewhere but it's worth reposting. Notice the spaces open to the Left, despite a recognition of the right's dominance. Note also the request for anti-oligarch solidarity. http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3292 2. Great column on what's different about the Bosnia revolt: http://www.salon.com/2014/02/24/bosnia_the_european_unrest_we_should_be_talking_about/?source=newsletter 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] March 5, NYC, rally in solidarity with Venezuela
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://july26coalition.org/wordpress/join-us-on-wednesday-march-5-2014-in-solidarity-with-venezuela-and-to-defend-president-nicolas-maduro/ 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] new Social-Darwinist study needing reply
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Gregory Clark claims explicitly that social class is a product of inheritance: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/your-fate-thank-your-ancestors/?_php=true_type=blogshprref=opinion_r=0 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] Alison Jolly, pathbreaking primatologist
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/19/us/alison-jolly-76-dies-discovered-female-dominance-in-lemurs.html?_r=0 She found that male primates are not always dominant, but just as importantly (and no doubt connected) is her finding that human intelligence evolved not primarily through the development of weapons and tools, but rather through experience in social interaction (e.g. lemurs playing together, mutual grooming, and networking). Andy 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] For members only ISO documents now available: when will they ever learn?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'm still not convinced that comrades are distinguishing the two issues: a) the security and political reasons for having private discussions, on which there can be many opinions (and which can vary by circumstance -- would you demand a union going on strike allow all its plans to be visible to the boss (think Flint sitdown ruse)?) and b) the right of any individual to know before she speaks who will and will not hear her words. So let me make the distinction for you: anyone on this thread who says there is no such right under clause b) above, everything you ever say to anyone at any time from here on out is fair game to be broadcast to the whole world from this point on. So do NOT share with me off the record anything personal. Andy 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] Bosnia Herzegovina Finally Rising Out of the Ashes? » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == And check regularly here: http://bhprotestfiles.wordpress.com/ Several new files just this afternoon. Mostly -- and thankfully -- statements from each town's plenum; but also see statement of observer organization of the FI in Croatia at http://bhprotestfiles.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/the-exceptional-meaning-of-the-tuzla-plenum/ 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] For members only ISO documents now available: when will they ever learn?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Sorry, but whoever posted these -- and whoever reposts them -- is bullshit. Even if you think an organization should not keep documents and discussions members only -- which is a pretty big if in these days of hyper-homeland-security -- it is NOT the business of any nonmember to override the democratic decision of the members of that group. Even aside from security reasons, people have a right to say things knowing who the audience is -- and who it is NOT. No-one else has a right to decide that FOR 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
[Marxism] on independent political action
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3271 by Dan La Botz. A good short overview of the current terrain. Overlaps with remarks he made at the multi-group forum at the Brecht (video online, don't have URL handy). 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] Sectarianism and the Arab revolutions
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A short but on-target analysis of where sectarianism comes from. While each country/sect/nationalist formation gets only brief mention, that's in the service of his main argument, which is that the specificity of a country's combined and uneven development is at the root of its particular variant of sectarianism and its particular overlap, and conflict, with bourgeois nationalist politics. This article should inspire detailed studies of each case and further comparative analysis. http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=12521 Sectarianism and the Arab revolutions,*by Bassem Chit* *What explains sectarian divisions such as the Shia-Sunni divide in the Middle East? Lebanese socialist Bassem Chit rejects claims that sectarianism is a pre-modern force and argues it is rooted in the pattern of capitalist development and crisis in the region.* 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
