Re: [Marxism] Hegel : 'hopeless baggage'?

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 9:35 AM, shaun may  wrote:
>
>
>
> dave.x wrote : Marx's words are not holy writ on stone tablets.
>
>
> SM : That is true, of course, but that, firstly, does not deny the absolute 
> within the relative and the dialectics therein. Marx was not a historical 
> relativist. And, secondly, it does not deny Marx's METHOD which is animated 
> by DIALECTIC. And for very sound reasons. It is not really a matter of 
> reverence and I am never reluctant in drawing attention to dogmatism and 
> doctrinairism which, actually, is a fall into positivism. And you are, 
> indeed, correct to remind us of the 'holy writ' and 'stone tablets' approach 
> which contradicts the spirit of Marx. My response to your post was on the 
> question of METHOD. Why, later in your post, you have immediately chosen to 
> import and raise tangential questions of 'veneration' and reverence is a 
> mystery.  I was drawing attention (if you revisit my response to your post) 
> to the relationship between Marx and Hegel where he studied and critiqued 
> Hegel as a theoretical source of his own method. Reverence has absolutely 
> nothing to do with the matter. We are discussing method here not religious 
> devotion or gurus. Quine is undoubtedly located within the method of the 
> analytic and positivistic tradition. [A self-declared Empiricist.] And not 
> within the tradition of Hegel and Marx.
>
First let me say in responding to this - I guess I should not have
been surprised that my offhand remark about Hegel has drawn all the
Hegelians on the list out to defend their master, but it was hardly my
intention to discuss Hegel. In fact I have approximately zero interest
in doing so. I put my collected works of Hegel in a box ten years ago
and I have no intention of digging them up now in order to save face
on the internet. In any case you can't win an argument with people who
believe in circular logic. Mostly I feel sorry for poor youth who,
attracted to Marxism either from the movement or in school who then
find themselves feeling compelled  to try and read through all that
crap. It is such a profitless pain, no wonder they feel compelled to
defend it afterwards, sort of like those people who pay double for a
junk vacuum because they saw it on TV. To do otherwise would mean
admitting they were duped. Thus have the generations been occultized
into a certain 'Marxism'.

There is, yes, a 'tradition of Hegel and Marx' and Marx was indeed
apart of it. However there are other traditions that Marx placed
himself in relationship with and that exist in tension with his latent
Hegelianism, most notably materialist tradition that arose out of the
early modern rediscovery of ancient Epicureanism (see Jonathan
Israel's Radical Enlightenment). This is the philosophical tradition
that I care about in Marx, the tradition of Democritus, Epicurus,
Lucretius, Spinoza, Diderot, Holbach and others committed to radical
naturalism and materialism. Quine, Neurath, Dewey are located squarely
within this tradition. Hegel is incompatible with it. Marx is caught
in between. Marx was human - nihil humani a me alienum puto - and like
Whitman he was large, he contained multitudes. We can sort Marx out in
a lot of different ways, many of them incompatible, some more coherent
or more productive than others, but it is not my belief that there is
some one singular coherent truth about Marx or that we should take
from Marx or that can make all his pieces tie into a neat dialectical
bow.

>
>
> SM : Marx's critique of religion was very profoundly influenced by Feuerbach 
> as well as Hegel. We all know that Marx was not a dogmamonger even though 
> some *Marxists* are. But Marx's critique of religion - as the foundation of 
> later critique - was not a rationalistic, ideological critique (for example, 
> as we get with Dawkins today) but a revolutionary critique of the objective 
> social historical conditions which necessarily produce religious thought and 
> sentiment. He wasn't pointing the finger, blaming others for being religious 
> or trying to beat and batter their religious sentiments out of them by means 
> of 'rationalistic' argument, but trying to grasp the process of religion's 
> historical origination and development. Neither did he critique religion as a 
> sort of self-denying philosophical ordnance to remind himself not to be 
> dogmatic or doctrinaire. Marx's relationship with religion - as with Hegel 
> and Feuerbach - was a REVOLUTIONARY CRITICAL relation and not a rationalistic 
> one. It was a rational relation but not philosophically rationalistic. This 
> was the form of his *attachment* to Hegel and Feuerbach whom he critiqued as 
> a means towards developing his conception. And no more than that. It was 
> certainly no

[Marxism] Compositional differences in soybeans on the market: Glyphosate accumulates in Roundup Ready GM soybeans

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814613019201

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] To save the planet, we don't need to go green; we need to go red.

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


I like it. An integrated, hard headed, clear eyed vision is exactly what we
need. Doesn't have anything to do with the issue of GMOs though. That falls
or stand separately.


On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 6:30 PM, Leigh Phillips wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
> Further to the environment, GMO, technophobia, anti-science, new age,
> woolly-thinking, etc., discussion over the last 48 hours, the lead
> editorial in the latest Jacobin from Alyssa Battistoni I think get's it
> exactly right. Not ecosocialism, but what she calls 'cyborg socialism':
>
> https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/toward-cyborg-socialism/
>
> The history of environmentalism is littered with Malthusianism, ecological
> determinism, biological essentialism, and neocolonial conservationism. Left
> skepticism of — or perhaps more accurately, indifference to — engagement
> with ecological politics is certainly understandable. But we’re not talking
> about preserving an idealized concept of pristine, untouched nature — we’re
> talking about the world we choose to make, and the world we’ll have to live
> in.
>
> Green dominates the environmental landscape, from the light greenwash of
> “sustainable lifestyles” to the dark green of deep ecologists. But
> environmentalism is also black lung disease in coal-mining towns and toxic
> brownfields in urban neighborhoods, the iridescent sheen of an oil spill
> and the translucent white of melting polar ice caps.
>
> And so I cringe a bit at the term ecosocialism — it’s too earth-toned. What
> we need is a cyborg socialism that points not to the primacy of ecology,
> but to the integration of natural and social, organic and industrial,
> ecological and technological; that recognizes human transformations of the
> natural world without simply asserting domination over it.
>
> The Left doesn’t need to go green — to save the planet and the people on
> it, it needs to go red.
>
> Leigh Phillips
> European Affairs Journalist & Science Writer
> leigh.phill...@gmail.com
> Twitter: Leigh_Phillips
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
> Set your options at:
> http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/dave.xx%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] Frankenpolitics: The Left defence of GMOs,

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 1:51 AM, David P Á  wrote:

>
>
> This is in some sense true, but I'm afraid it's unavoidable. At this
> point natural selection isn't the only force out there. We practice
> artificial selection all the time. We change our environment in
> deliberate and planned ways. Given the population density of the world,
> there's not much of a way around it, and I'm not of the Malthusian bent
> that suggests the solution to this is for 95% of the people to die
> (others first, of course!).
>
> That said, there are two important aspects that make this not as much a
> problem as it could otherwise be.
>
> On one hand, yes, evolution is a powerful force; but it is a relatively
> slow one. As optimisation strategies go, I wouldn't consider it
> particularly strong. Planned outcomes are routinely better, hence why we
> bother with engineering, and, in a sense, why we are Marxists: we think
> a planned economy can work better than the anarchy of the market.
>
> On the other hand, while it's true that monoculture is problematic, the
> fact is, all agriculture is problematic. In that case, there's an
> argument for reducing the land, water and energy use that we need to
> dedicate to it, which entails increasing yields and this requires
> monoculture among other techniques.
>

> That's unlikely so long as we continue doing agronomy, but again,
> there's not much of an alternative. Perhaps agriculture was humanity's
> original sin, but once certain gates are crossed, there is no way back.
> While it is true that food distribution could and should be more
> equitable and efficient, and that there's a fair amount of slack
> regarding food that gets misallocated or destroyed for completely stupid
> reasons like fruit that doesn't look aesthetically perfect, it's
> nonetheless also true that given the resources (arable land, energy) and
> number of people, a step back towards reduced yields would result in a
> food catastrophe. The use and misuse of different techniques to avoid
> this outcome may be a bit too much like walking on the edge of an abyss,
> but what is the actual alternative? Localist low-yield solutions are
> completely unviable to take up the slack for commercial agriculture.
>
> Also, while it's true that evolution keeps finding ways around our
> safeguards, these workarounds are rarely metabolically free. The
> organisms (insects, etc) adapting to external threat must often spend
> resources on these adaptations that render them otherwise less fit.
> There may come a point when the fitness gradient we are able to create
> is too sharp and they can't climb it anymore.
>
>
---

First I am no Malthusian. Human population figures are not the best way of
framing the sorts of environmental problems we face. As for evolution it
operates on many timescales some of them very fast indeed, some very very
slow. For high dimensional optimization problems it is one of the most
powerful techniques we know. Human ability to manage complexity is limited
and some approaches work better than others. Human planning that does not
take into account basic facts about life on earth will fail given time and
while all agriculture may be problematic it is not equally so.

Localist solutions are not a panacea but they are not inherently low yield
and with the right sort of scientific and engineering applications can be
significantly improved. They can also address problems with the ecology of
monocropping and the dependence on pesticides. Of course that doesn't mean
all monocropping can be easily gotten rid of but a shift towards an
agriculture that is sensitive to local ecology and conditions, that is more
democratic, more 'food sovereign', more attuned to human needs and health
and every bit as integrated with modern science and engineering as modern
GMO'd monocultures should be the goal we are striving towards. There are
quite a few left wing biologists who have done work motivated in this vain,
I happen to be married to one of them. If you want an accessible scientific
summary I recommend 'Nature's Matrix' by Perfecto, Vendermeer and Wright.
Some interesting work has also been done in this direction in Cuba, see for
example the volume 'Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance: Transforming
Food Production in Cuba' by Funes, Garcia, Bourque, Nilda and Rosset.

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] Hegel : 'hopeless baggage'?

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Marx's words are not holy writ on on stone tablets. Marx began, and advised
others to begin with the criticism of religion, something he certainly
never forgot and his attachment to Hegel should be understood at least
partially in that light. It is a spirit completely at odds with the sort of
veneration with which Marxists have so often approached his work and and by
holy proxy, Hegel's. Marx took the best from what he found around him, the
latest science, the latest scientific philosophy, in a critical and
inquiring spirit. Those who wish to have real fidelity to his project
should do the same.

Marx criticized the facile and confused positivism of Comte, who wanted to
set up science as a sort of religion. It should be noted that modern
postivism doesn't really start until much later with Ernst Mach, whose
writings heavily influenced many in German social democracy and the second
international. In any case I am not a positivist but a post-Quinean
naturalist, the dual well springs of which are American
naturalism/pragmatism ala Dewey, Roy Wood Sellars, the early Sidney Hook,
and many others and the unorthodox marxist Otto Neurath, one of the leaders
of the Vienna Circle and who broke with Machian positivism in the mid
thirties in favor of a form of naturalism. I recommend the book 'Otto
Neurath: Philosophy Between Science and Politics' edited by Nancy
Cartwright if you are curious.

"
*We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but
are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away
a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is
used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship
can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction."*


*- Otto Neurath, quoted in Quine's Word and Object*

*"The task of philosophy is to become scientific."*

*- Immanuel Kant, from Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics*


On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 5:41 AM, shaun may  wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
> dave.xx wrote: *I think Hegel is hopeless baggage
>
> and Quine and modern naturalism is great, etc, etc.*
>
>
>
> Marx and Engels, and all the major figures who they
>
> subsequently influenced, would have disagreed. Here
>
> is link to a letter to Engels, dated Jan 16, 1858.
>
>
>
> http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1858/letters/58_01_16.htm
>
>
>
> And here is my very modest contribution after a reading of Hegel.
>
>
>
> http://spmay.wordpress.com/synopsis-of-hegels-science-of-logic/
>
>
>
> The 'empirical' is, of course, indispensable. But Positivism is a
>
> different question. In my opinion, summa summarum, the pentobarbital
>
> of the the critical faculties of any revolutionary.
>
> Didn't Marx refer to it as *Scheisspositivismus*? *Facts, facts, facts,
> only
> facts matter*. So said Gradgrind in Dickenshttp://shaunpmay.wordpress.com
>
> http://spmay.wordpress.com
>
> Take it easy  (favourite motto of Engels)
>
> Doubt everything (favourite motto of Marx)
>
> Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an
> institution?
> Groucho Marx
>
> 'Sir, if you were my husband, I would put poison in your coffee.'  Nancy
> Astor.
> 'Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it.' Winston Churchill.
>
> Blenheim Palace, 1912
>
>
>
>
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
> Set your options at:
> http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/dave.xx%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] Frankenpolitics: The Left defence of GMOs,

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


As a brief preface, I am by personal inclination about as the far from the
anti-science left as you could get, I gladly look forward to the day we can
all upload ourselves into a cyber-utopia, I think Hegel is hopeless baggage
and Quine and modern naturalism is great, etc, etc.

However I think there are serious reasons to be cautious about embracing
GMOs. In particular to be cautious about Monsanto's transgenic crops and
food staples.

One the issue of health effects and risks in humans is not proven, the sort
of independent studies to show that it is safe have simply not been carried
out. The one independent study from France that came out a while ago and
showed negative effects was methodologically flawed (which was known at the
review stage but published anyways because the results were notable) and
pulled due to political pressure, and has yet to be rerun with a better
setup. Of course there may be no human health effects and if there are
human health effects these may be due to particular techniques or
particular genes that are inserted and perhaps these can be fixed. So not a
reason for long term pessimism, but this is research that still needs to be
done and is not being done largely due to political/corporate pressure. A
certain amount of caution in mucking around with the world's basic staple
crops is warranted and that caution is simply not compatible with
Monsanto's bottom line.

The second reason to be cautious about Monsanto style GMOs is that it is
part of a whole model of crop production that essentially ignores
everything we know about evolution. Basically green revolution style
monocropping tends to be pretty destructive ecologically (lots of
clear-cutting of natural habitat, agricultural areas are turned into
ecological 'deserts' where only a few species can exist, patches of natural
habitat tend to become cut-off and isolated from each other leading to
population declines and extinctions, etc).

Genes of organisms in the wild are normally subject to all sorts of
competitive pressures from their environment and the other organisms around
them. However this is not true of modern mono-crops whose genetic makeup is
kept artificially static by modern agriculture. This means that modern
crops tend to suffer serious deficits of evolutionary fitness and simply
could not survive well without extensive human intervention to counter-act
this effect.

Further the organization of agriculture as vast monocultures with very
little to no genetic diversity (something that genetic engineering has made
worse) makes them radically vulnerable to all sorts of environmental
threats. You could think of each one as a little like a bomb sitting in the
world's grain house waiting to go off. So of course to prevent that from
happening and to keep yields from continuing to decline (and recent
evidence does point to them declining) humans have to do all sorts of
things, in particular what we have done is pesticides, new pesticides and
more of it. But pesticides are just a temporary fix (one with heavy, heavy
costs to human health and to the natural environment). It may slow done the
evolutionary counter-attack but it doesn't stop it. Evolution is one of the
most powerful optimization techniques of which we are aware. Like
antibiotics, modern monocropped agriculture may have been (and still be)
miraculous in its capacities, but these capacities are degrading and will
eventually be severely degraded if not gone altogether.

Like a gambler doubling down on a losing bet, this is where Monsanto's GMOs
come in. Monsanto is a pesticide company. They make GMOs in order to sell
pesticides. It is a bundled product. Genetic engineering as a way to sell
pesticide, which of course is capitalism in a nutshell. Analogies that come
to mind might be developing quantum computing as a way to promote
cigarettes or interstellar space travel as a way to sell more shampoo.
Doing something stupid and shortsighted with a powerful and highly advanced
technology. So incredibly blind. Evolutionary theory is deeply bound up
with modern genetics, their whole strategy is obviously unstable from an
evolutionary perspective and even some of their scientists must realize
this cannot work long term, yet it does not matter. Business concerns drive
the science not the other way around. Its end effect will be to take modern
agriculture further down an evolutionary black hole and to further the
ecological degradation from modern agriculture rather than to help humanity
find a way to sustainably feed itself and maintain a healthy environment.


On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 8:34 PM, Mark Lause  wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ===

Re: [Marxism] [lbo-talk] Pope Francis today denounced conservative icons Pat Buchanan and Sarah Palin,

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


You should click on the handy 'show facts' button at the bottom of the
article to highlight the portion that is true. Seems like nice feature.
Maybe GlobalResearch et all should consider adopting it.
On Nov 18, 2013 7:28 AM, "Shane Mage"  wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
>
> This is such an obvious Onion
>
> On Nov 18, 2013, at 8:44 AM, c b wrote:
>
>  CB: Long Live the South American Revolution !
>>
>> "VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis today denounced conservative icons Pat
>> Buchanan and Sarah Palin, calling their recent objections to his
>> leadership style “confusing,” “hypocritical” and “borderline-heresy.”
>> The pontiff—who was elected to lead the Roman Catholic Church in
>> March—complained that Buchanan and Palin should “look into their own
>> hearts” before questioning his actions, and suggested that they are
>> “simply jealous, having repeatedly failed to be elected to high office
>> themselves.” - See more at:
>> http://www.newslo.com/pope/#sthash.UmbtaZlm.dpuf
>>
>> ___
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
>
>
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
> Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/
> marxism/dave.xx%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] The Internet’s greatest disruptive innovation: Inequality

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.salon.com/2013/07/19/the_internets_greatest_disruptive_innovation_inequality/?source=newsletter

"If the logical consequences of Silicon Valley capitalist disruption
entails a society in which a minority reap disproportionate gains while the
majority struggles ever more ferociously to find a survivable niche, in the
long term, a politically explosive response will be inevitable.
Redistribution *will* happen.

Somewhere, Karl Marx is stroking his beard, and nodding: *See, I told you
so!"*

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] Juan Cole: Detroit’s Bankruptcy and America’s Future: Robots, Race, Globalization and the 1%

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.juancole.com/2013/07/bankruptcy-americas-globalization.html
Juan Cole: While other cities have avoided Detroit’s extreme fate, I think
the nation as a whole faces some of the intractable problems that the city
does, and I don’t think we have a solution for them... It seems to me that
we need to abandon capitalism as production becomes detached from human
labor. I think all robot labor should be nationalized and put in the public
sector, and all citizens should receive a basic stipend from it. Then, if
robots make an automobile, the profits will not go solely to a corporation
that owns the robots, but rather to all the citizens. It wouldn’t be
practical anyway for the robots to be making things for unemployed,
penniless humans. Perhaps we need a 21st century version of ‘from all
according to their abilities, to all according to their needs.’

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] 'Broken Oath': NSA Mudslinging Has Merkel on Defensive

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


The mighty Merkel, iron fist of European austerity, could be brought down?
But the SPD looks like it could be complicit as well.

http://m.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-911190.html

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Could NSA spying hurt California economy?

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


It will be interesting to see what the fallout is for the US tech industry.
Of course much of this could take years to manifest itself as it can be
difficult to replace a technology stack and alternatives may not exist for
some things. It is possible inertia and sunk costs will carry the US tech
sector through. However this is likely to put a severe strain on its hand
in glove relationship with the government security apparatus. But enough to
generate a real crack?

http://m.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jul/13/could-nsa-spying-hurt-california-economy/all/

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] cypherpunks

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Might be a good time to highlight Assange et al's recent book called
cypherpunks, which is well worth reading and which grew out of the 'World
Tomorrow' series on RT with that name.

A link to a review in the LA Times:
http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=1621&fulltext=1

"WIKILEAKS FOUNDER JULIAN ASSANGE’S newest book *Cypherpunks: Freedom and
the Future of the Internet* is intended as an urgent warning, but it seems
to have fallen on deaf ears. Despite boasting publicity blurbs from a
curious medley of public intellectuals — Slavoj Žižek, Naomi Wolf, and
Oliver Stone among them — *Cypherpunks *may just as well have sunk to the
bottom of the sea. Although Assange is one of the most vital and polemical
activists alive, nobody’s talking about *Cypherpunks*, and nobody seems to
have read it. This is a pity, since the book* *rings a justifiably strident
alarm bell over the erosion of individual privacy rights by an increasingly
powerful global surveillance industry. "

Here is the introduction, taken from here:
http://cryptome.org/2012/12/assange-crypto-arms.htm

Excerpted from *Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet*, by
Julian Assange with Jacob Appelbaum, Andy Müller-Maguhn and Jérémie
Zimmermann. OR Books, New York, 2012, 186 pages, Paper. Buy
online.
Cryptome review  of the
book.

Pages 1-7.

*INTRODUCTION: A CALL TO CRYPTOGRAPHIC ARMS *

This book is not a manifesto. There is not time for that. This book is a
warning.

The world is not sliding, but galloping into a new transnational dystopia.
This development has not been properly recognized outside of national
security circles. It has been hidden by secrecy, complexity and scale. The
internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the
most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The
internet is a threat to human civilization.

These transformations have come about silently, because those who know what
is going on work in the global surveillance industry and have no incentives
to speak out. Left to its own trajectory, within a few years, global
civilization will be a postmodern surveillance dystopia, from which escape
for all but the most skilled individuals will be impossible. In fact, we
may already be there.

While many writers have considered what the internet means for global
civilization, they are wrong. They are wrong because they do not have the
sense of perspective that direct experience brings. They are wrong because
they have never met the enemy.

No description of the world survives first contact with the enemy.

We have met the enemy.

Over the last six years WikiLeaks has had conflicts with nearly every
powerful state. We know the new surveillance state from an insider's
perspective, because we have plumbed its secrets. We know it from a
combatant's perspective, because we have had to protect our people, our
finances and our sources from it. We know it from a global perspective,
because we have people, assets and information in nearly every country. We
know it from the perspective of time, because we have been fighting this
phenomenon for years and have seen it double and spread, again and again.
It is an invasive parasite, growing fat off societies that merge with the
internet. It is rolling over the planet, infecting all states and peoples
before it.

What is to be done?

Once upon a time in a place that was neither here nor there, we, the
constructors and citizens of the young internet discussed the future of our
new world.

We saw that the relationships between all people would be mediated by our
new world, and that the nature of states, which are defined by how people
exchange information, economic value, and force, would also change.

We saw that the merger between existing state structures and the internet
created an opening to change the nature of states.

First, recall that states are systems through which coercive force flows.
Factions within a state may compete for support, leading to democratic
surface phenomena, but the underpinnings of states are the systematic
application, and avoidance, of violence. Land ownership, property, rents,
dividends, taxation, court fines, censorship, copyrights and trademarks are
all enforced by the threatened application of state violence.

Most of the time we are not even aware of how close to violence we are,
because we all grant concessions to avoid it. Like sailors smelling the
breeze, we rarely contemplate how our surface world is propped up from
below by darkness.

In the new space of the internet what would be the mediator of coercive
force?

Does it even make sense to ask this question? In this otherworldly space,
this seemin

[Marxism] Greenwald goes to town

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


While Bradley Manning is getting crucified (transcripts of the trial:
http://www.bradleymanning.org/stenographer-transcripts/stenographer-transcripts-from-the-court-martial)
Greenwald has been responding by posting one devastating expose after
another.

First we had the news about Verizon:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

Then the news that they are tapping into Google, Facebook et al in a
program called PRISM:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data

Then news about a US cyber-attack hit list:
http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2013/jun/07/obama-china-targets-cyber-overseas

What next? I don't know but it sounds like he has more coming:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/07/whistleblowers-and-leak-investigations

" I don't have time at the moment to address all of the fallout because -
to borrow someone else's phrase - I'm Looking Forward to future revelations
that are coming (and coming shortly), not Looking Backward to ones that
have already come."

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] Assange interview with Google CEO Schmidt and others

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange-Schmidt?

"On the 23 of June, 2011 a secret five hour meeting took place between
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who was under house arrest in
rural UK at the time, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Also in attendance was Jared Cohen, a former Secretary of State
advisor to Hillary Clinton and Lisa Shields of the Council for Foreign
Relations."

Some interesting insights into the technical side of Wikileaks
operations as well as insights into the political uses of technology
and lots of other interesting stuff. A bit long.


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] Reshoring Trend?

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Assembly of some Apple Macs is now being moved to the US from China.
There are some (limited) indications this is part of a wider trend or
reshoring industrial production to the US from Asia. Possible factors
mentioned below include: Rising labor costs and labor strife in Asia
(think Foxconn), stagnant or declining labor costs in the US (though
still much higher than in Asia), costs of transportation and proximity
to the US consumer market, the shale energy boom lowering
manufacturing costs in the US, and increased automation (in response
to rising labor costs in Asia) further reducing the labor cost
differential.

Some speculation: If this is true, I wonder if another component of
this trend might end up being the ongoing destruction of industrial
unionism in its heartland the US midwest. Perhaps in the aftermath of
all the ongoing destruction the midwest will end up getting remade as
some sort of home grown neoliberal free trade zone for multinationals.
This would jibe with some of the observations of geographical Marxists
like Harvey who have long pointed to capitalism's 'territorial' logic
(accumulation by disposession) or as Deleuze/Hardt/Negri might put it
'deterritorialization'.

-dave


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/technology/apple-to-resume-us-manufacturing.html?

"Apple plans to join a small but growing number of companies that are
bringing some manufacturing jobs back to the United States, drawn by
the growing economic and political advantages of producing in their
home market.

On Thursday, Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, who built its
efficient Asian manufacturing network, said the company would invest
$100 million in producing some of its Mac computers in the United
States, beyond the assembly work it already does in the United States.
He provided little detail about how the money would be spent or what
kinds of workers might benefit.

...

" Some analysts are hopeful that the move by a big, innovative company
like Apple could inspire a broader renaissance in American
manufacturing, but a number of experts remain skeptical.

“I find it hard to see how the supply chains that drive manufacturing
are going to move back here,” said Andre Sharon, a professor at Boston
University and director of the Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing
Innovation. “So much of the know-how has been lost to Asia, and
there’s no compelling reason for it to return. It’s great when a
company says they want to create American jobs — but it only really
helps the country if those are jobs that belong here, if it starts a
chain reaction or is part of a bigger economic shift.”

Over the last few years, companies across various industries,
including electronics, automotive and medical devices, have announced
that they are “reshoring” jobs after decades of shipping them abroad.
Lower energy costs in America, rising wages in developing countries
like China and Brazil, quality control issues and the desire to keep
the supply chain close to the gigantic American consumer base have all
factored into these decisions.

“Companies were going abroad in pursuit of cost reduction, and it
turns out there were a lot of unintended costs,” said Diane Swonk,
chief economist at Mesirow Financial. “America has been looking a lot
more competitive lately.”

Even so, the impact on the American job market has been modest so far.
Much of the work brought back has been high-value-added, automated
production that requires few actual workers, which is part of the
reason America’s higher wages are not scaring off companies.

American manufacturing has been growing in the last two years, but the
sector still has two million fewer jobs than it had when the recession
began in December 2007. Worldwide manufacturing appears to be growing
much faster, even for many of the American-owned companies that are
expanding at home. General Electric, for example, has hired American
workers to build water heaters, refrigerators, dishwashers and
high-efficiency topload washers, but continues to add more jobs
overseas as well. "
...
--
Followup piece discusses the possible role of automation in this trend:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/when-cheap-foreign-labor-gets-less-cheap/

"Nick Wingfield and I had an article in Friday’s paper about how some
American companies are “re-shoring” manufacturing they had previously
sent abroad. The scale of these efforts is still more anecdotal than
widespread at this point. Still, it’s worth examining why the United
States might be a more attractive place to locate yo

[Marxism] The Case of the Missing White Voters

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Interesting analysis of some demographics related to the election.
There has been a lot of talk about this election heralding a
demographic shift and undoubtedly there is a lot of truth to that but
it may be somewhat overstated. My own feeling is that disillusionment
with Obama and the democrats may have indeed played a significant role
(which would validate some of the analysis I have seen on this list).
I also wonder if some of the difference in how the rate of voting
participation for whites versus non-whites changed may have had to due
with fear of the consequences of white reaction under a Republican
administration thus keeping non-white participation rates comparable
to 2008.
-dave

---

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/11/08/the_case_of_the_missing_white_voters_116106-2.html

The Case of the Missing White Voters

...
Had the same number of white voters cast ballots in 2012 as did in
2008, the 2012 electorate would have been about 74 percent white, 12
percent black, and 9 percent Latino (the same result occurs if you
build in expectations for population growth among all these groups).
In other words, the reason this electorate looked so different from
the 2008 electorate is almost entirely attributable to white voters
staying home. The other groups increased their vote, but by less than
we would have expected simply from population growth.

Put another way: The increased share of the minority vote as a percent
of the total vote is not the result of a large increase in minorities
in the numerator, it is a function of many fewer whites in the
denominator.

So who were these whites and why did they stay home? My first instinct
was that they might be conservative evangelicals turned off by
Romney’s Mormonism or moderate past. But the decline didn’t seem to be
concentrated in Southern states with high evangelical populations.

So instead, I looked at my current home state of Ohio... Where things
drop off are in the rural portions of Ohio, especially in the
southeast. These represent areas still hard-hit by the recession.
Unemployment is high there, and the area has seen almost no growth in
recent years.

My sense is these voters were unhappy with Obama. But his negative ad
campaign relentlessly emphasizing Romney’s wealth and tenure at Bain
Capital may have turned them off to the Republican nominee as well.
The Romney campaign exacerbated this through the challenger’s failure
to articulate a clear, positive agenda to address these voters’ fears,
and self-inflicted wounds like the “47 percent” gaffe. Given a choice
between two unpalatable options, these voters simply stayed home."


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] Iran: Julian Assange is Mossad agent

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Nice bit on the Swedish judicial system and the Pirate Bay as relates
to Assange:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/01/wikileaks-sweden-pirate-bay


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] Talk on the IS and the rank and file upsurge of the 60s and 70s in the US

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Excellent talk on the IS experience in the rank and file upsurge of
the 1960s and 1970s:

http://wearemany.org/a/2012/06/revolutionaries-and-rank-and-file-upsurge-of-60s-and-70s

It has always struck me how so many radicals, even those who lived
through that era, seem largely unaware or ignorant of the extent,
history and significance of the rank and file upsurge of this period.
I was decently well read in radical and labor history but I had no
clue at all about this until I sat down in labadie archives a number
of years ago for a research project and had my mind blown. The IS was
deeply involved in these struggles and so reading their old material
is very interesting. Of course they were not the only ones and this
talk may therefore give one a one sided perspective on the whole
experience, still it is an important and useful perspective.

After listening to this consider listening to the excellent discussion
between Panitch, Gindin and Henwood on the subject of Panitcha nd
Gindin's new book, the making of Global Capital:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7vFPv2MjlA&feature=youtu.be

They argue (contra Brenner) that the extensive rank and file struggles
of the 60s/70s played a significant role in sparking the reaction by
global capital that we now call neoliberalism. They are not the only
ones to think that this was important, I know that Hardt and Negri and
also William Robinson share an analysis like that. I find it to be a
very plausible thesis.

-dave


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 Paul Ryan and Obama have in common

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


I don't buy the argument that the young 'Net Libertarians' will go for
Romney because of Ryan. For that to happen, the Republican campaign
would have to seriously change its messaging about social issues and
it would have to take a strong stance on internet freedom and I don't
see either of those things happening. It is true that a lot of young
people are disillusioned by Obama but that doesn't mean that young
former Obama voters are going to switch to Romney, if anything they
might just stay home. The other consideration for Romney beyond
Wisconsin's swing state status that seems likely is financial - an
attempt to extract more funding out out of Wall Street by selecting a
candidate supported by them. This is something that the Wall Street
Journal was advocating for prior to Romney's pick.
-dave


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] Former UK Ambassador on Assange Situation

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/08/americas-vassal-acts-decisively-and-illegally/

Posting in full due to DDOS attacks that have been occurring.
-dave
---

I returned to the UK today to be astonished by private confirmation
from within the FCO that the UK government has indeed decided – after
immense pressure from the Obama administration – to enter the
Ecuadorean Embassy and seize Julian Assange.

This will be, beyond any argument, a blatant breach of the Vienna
Convention of 1961, to which the UK is one of the original parties and
which encodes the centuries – arguably millennia – of practice which
have enabled diplomatic relations to function. The Vienna Convention
is the most subscribed single international treaty in the world.

The provisions of the Vienna Convention on the status of diplomatic
premises are expressed in deliberately absolute terms. There is no
modification or qualification elsewhere in the treaty.

Article 22

1.The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of
the receiving State may not enter
them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
2.The receiving State is under a special duty to take all
appropriate steps to protect the premises
of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any
disturbance of the peace of the
mission or impairment of its dignity.
3.The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other
property thereon and the means of
transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition,
attachment or execution.

Not even the Chinese government tried to enter the US Embassy to
arrest the Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen. Even during the decades
of the Cold War, defectors or dissidents were never seized from each
other’s embassies. Murder in Samarkand relates in detail my attempts
in the British Embassy to help Uzbek dissidents. This terrible breach
of international law will result in British Embassies being subject to
raids and harassment worldwide.

The government’s calculation is that, unlike Ecuador, Britain is a
strong enough power to deter such intrusions. This is yet another
symptom of the “might is right” principle in international relations,
in the era of the neo-conservative abandonment of the idea of the rule
of international law.

The British Government bases its argument on domestic British
legislation. But the domestic legislation of a country cannot counter
its obligations in international law, unless it chooses to withdraw
from them. If the government does not wish to follow the obligations
imposed on it by the Vienna Convention, it has the right to resile
from it – which would leave British diplomats with no protection
worldwide.

I hope to have more information soon on the threats used by the US
administration. William Hague had been supporting the move against the
concerted advice of his own officials; Ken Clarke has been opposing
the move against the advice of his. I gather the decision to act has
been taken in Number 10.

There appears to have been no input of any kind from the Liberal
Democrats. That opens a wider question – there appears to be no
“liberal” impact now in any question of coalition policy. It is
amazing how government salaries and privileges and ministerial
limousines are worth far more than any belief to these people. I
cannot now conceive how I was a member of that party for over thirty
years, deluded into a genuine belief that they had principles.


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] North Star shows the wayenefits to imperialist intervention

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


I don't know whether Pham has bent the stick too far in some of his
criticisms, I suspect he might. Still, it has been richly deserved. I
find most of it well on the mark. It is telling that the response to
this is pious warnings about 'crossing the line' or stern refusals of
comradeship. Every religion needs its heretics, I suspect Marxism is
no exception.
This conversation got me thinking about the earlier one on religion on
this list not too long ago, that stemmed from Louis posting some
statistic about how few in the US believe in evolution. I was strongly
tempted to reply to that debate due to my own experiences growing up
in the conservative Christian right but I did not as I still need more
time to articulate everything I want to say about those experiences. I
marvel at the refusal of so many to take the independent capacity of
religion seriously as a social/political movement. So many Marxists
would like religion to be able to reduce neatly down to class in some
economistic way. However it is an economism that has been abandoned in
so many other areas that one wonders why the rigidly economistic
interpretation of religion?
One thought I have had is that a serious inquiry on religion might
simply hit too close to home for many. Marxism, too survive has had to
turn into a quasi-dogma, a faith for dark times and when the call goes
out for it to be something more, for it to live up to the historical
moment, it falters and turns inward onto its dogma and its scriptures
unable to analyze the situation in a fresh way and come up with an
appropriate response.
Long ago Marx began his work with a critique of religion. It might be
something that we need to consciously renew if we are ever to make
socialist revolution a vital fighting force once again.  This true not
only because of powerful reactionary religious movements and their
pull on the working class but because of Marxisms own demonstrated
capacity for religious ossification.


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] some thoughts on Farber, the ISO, and Socialism 2012

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


For more on Cuba and Agroecology see Sustainable Agriculture & Resistance:
Transforming Food Production In Cuba by Funes, Rosset, et al.
On Jul 4, 2012 5:55 AM, "Louis Proyect"  wrote:

> ==**==**==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==**==**==
>
>
> On 7/3/12 10:47 PM, Tristan Sloughter wrote:
>
>> ==**==**
>> ==
>> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
>> ==**==**
>> ==
>>
>>
>> Damn, I wish I had gone to Farber's talk. I've been planning to read his
>> book 'Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment' because
>> I've waffled on my view of Cuba over the years and want to understand it
>> better. What I heard about his talk this year sounded more critical of
>> Cuba
>> than I can agree with at this time.
>>
>>  From what Louis said it seems I should also check out works by Peter
>>> Roman
>>>
>> and Richard Levins. Anything else?
>>
>>
>
> http://richardlevins.com/**writings/2009/10/28/cubas-**
> accidental-revolution.html
>
> “Cuba's Accidental Revolution”
> DateWednesday, October 28, 2009 at 09:51AM
>
> Comment on “Cuba's accidental revolution” (the review, not the movie)in
> The International Journal of Cuban Studies(1) 2008:
>
> The transition toward a sustainable agriculture in Cuba was no accidental
> revolution but the result of struggle between different views of
> development within the process of inventing the appropriate relation
> between an evolving socialist society and the rest of nature.
>
> The groundwork was laid in the 1960's and 1970's when labor law protected
> agriculture workers from pesticide poisoning by regular screening,
> micropresas were dug to make water available, and Fidel was circulating
> Rachel Carson's “The Silent Spring” among his friends. The Instituto
> Nacional de Sanidad Vegetal was experimenting with polyculture in their
> field plots in Guines de Melena, the Institute for Fundamental Research in
> Tropical Agriculture was examining the potential of ants as biological
> control agents, researchers at the Institute for Citrus Research were
> discussing integrated ecological agriculture. The Voisin system of
> rotational grazing was being introduced into dairying. In the 1970's, Cuban
> ecology was emerging fro the more classical colonial descriptive botany and
> zoology. A Communist Party nucleo of museum workers prepared its case for
> an ecological approach to development against the common dismissal of
> ecology as sentimental nostalgia for a golden age that never really existed.
>
> In 1981 the first national conference on ecology saw lively debates about
> pesticide use. Unlike the debates in other countries, they were not
> surrogates for vested interests but rather strong differences of opinion
> among people with a common goal. Therefore reason could eventually prevail.
> The defenders of pesticides embraced the liberal and Soviet view of
> “progress” along a single pathway from less developed to more developed, an
> evolution from labor intensive to capital intensive, from peasant
> heterogeneity to industrial homogeneity, from “traditional” to scientific
> knowledge, from dependence on nature to control of nature. The ecological
> side saw development as a branching process, and the evolution from
> capital-intensive to knowledge-intensive, from control over nature to
> nudging nature, from random heterogeneity through industrial homogeneity to
> planned heterogeneity. The landscape is seen as a mosaic of land uses, each
> with its own products and also its contribution to the whole. For instance,
> forests gave lumber, fruit, honey, and charcoal but also regulated the flow
> of water, provided refugia for beneficial insects, birds and bats; created
> special micro-climates at their edges, preserved biodiversity and offered
> shelter to farm workers. They also looked at agricultural science as itself
> a social product with priorities and concepts influenced by the dominant
> philosophy and the economics of research, thus encouraging a skeptical
> stance toward the prevailing world science. Representatives of the tourism
> and food industries were asking for help to mitigate their own
> environmental impacts. The meeting called for the environmental council to
> have enforcement powers.
>
> (clip)
>
>
> http://sdonline.org/44/**response-to-a-misinformed-**
> left-critique-of-cuba-2/

Re: [Marxism] Bukharin clears it all up

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 12:35 PM, Louis Proyect  wrote:
>
>
> As I pointed out in my comment, there is absolutely no indication that the
> ruling class of today is willing to act in its own long-term interests. If
> serious financial re-regulation is the only way to avoid a new financial
> meltdown, why is it so hard for Wall Street to back serious reform? If
> “fracking” will unleash carcinogens in the water supply that will cause
> cancer for the rich and poor alike, why won’t the billionaires who live on
> Park Avenue do something to protect our waterways?
>

I agree with this insight and in fact think that it needs to be taken
as a starting point for any serious analysis of 'where we are today',
but I think that this quote from Bukharin is thought provoking hardly
'clears it all up'. For that we would need a much more involved
analysis of the various forms of modern rentier capitalism and their
associated dynamics. Maybe this analysis exists, certainly I know
their are hints of it in Harvey's discussion of financialization.

Bukharin's account of the outlook of rentierism seems overly
psychological though I admit I have not read his entire analysis.
Certainly I can imagine that traditional agrarian forms of rentierism
were not very forward looking but then again that may have as much to
do with the dynamics of agrarianism as it does with rentierism. If in
rentierism we are discussing modern financial rentierism, the
rentierism of the banks, hedge funds, etc, then it seems to me that
there are at least a couple different dynamics to take into account.

One is an impetus to extreme short term thinking driven traditionally
by the quarterly cycle of the stock market (It is anecdotally well
known how a company's behavior becomes more driven by short term gain
at the expense of long term well being after going public, certainly
it was true of Borders Books where I used to work) and exacerbated by
the computerization of finance where profit is derived from all sorts
of extreme short term hedging and manipulation.

Another dynamic, perhaps somewhat less significant, but still
interesting, works in the other direction. Rentierism drives a search
for new revenue streams and new forms of revenue, higher 'ROI', etc.
One result of this is all sorts of speculative investment in the hopes
of striking a motherload. Silicon valley and is a prime example of
this, completely awash in all sorts of venture capital. I recently
read that even Justin Bieber (!) now fancies himself a venture
capitalist. This sort of rentierism can be very forward looking, even
to the point of sheer fantasy. Also there is the Ad-based rentierism
of the Google and Facebook varieties that also has certain dynamic,
more forward-oriented characteristics.

Another thing that seems off in Bukharin's discussion (though perhaps
less central to this discussion) is his discussion of the forward
looking nature of the proletariat. Today a scientific outlook seems
ever more the province of a narrow, somewhat privileged and isolated
strata of professional workers while much of the (at least in core
countries) decaying traditional proletariat has embraced various forms
of nostalgia, backwardness and fantasy (perhaps largely driven by the
collapse of alternatives to the existing order under neoliberalism).
At the very least current circumstances make it difficult to take the
traditional marxist association of a scientific outlook and the
proletariat for granted.

My own thought as to why the capitalist class seems unable to act in
its own (not even so long term) interests is that it is bound up in
two propositions. One that capitalism depends importantly on the State
for both legitimation and for purposes of its own regulation and long
term health. Two that capitalism has in some meaningful sense
globalized itself to the point where even the largest and most
powerful states such as the US or Germany can no longer provide this
role of legitimation and regulation  (in many ways neoconservatism can
viewed as the last gasp of this approach). The minimum entity that
could accomplish something like this now would be the G20, but this is
the loosest form of federalism. Capitalism is global and all of the
fundamental problems and challenges it faces are global and any
conceivable solution to them would also have to be global. Yet
capitalism has no effective way currently of organizing and carrying
out a global response to these issues or indeed any sort of global
initiative or regulation. I do not believe that it is in principle
impossible for capitalism to develop some more effective means of
global coordination and self regulation and even perhaps new forms of
global legitimation but is far from obvious how this might come about.
Until or unless it does I

Re: [Marxism] Marxist/leftist science fiction/fantasy lit

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Ken MacLeod is/was a trotskyist of sorts.
On Apr 14, 2012 10:52 AM, "Sun Eagle"  wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 
> Thanks. Also worth mentioning are the late Octavia Butler (the
> change-shifter series, esp. WILDSEED) and Samuel Delaney, for
> African-American science fiction is a sub-genre of its own. BTW, some
> astute readers have noted that Delaney's mammoth second novel, DHALGREN,
> bears an uncanny resemblence to Bowie's song "Diamong Dogs"---the Manhattan
> Chase Bank, the character who dresses like a priest to escape down an
> elevator shaft, packs of wild dogs roaming through a city that may not
> exist, etc. Since the novel came out before the album, and Bowie is an
> admitted sci-fi fan, you have to figure plagiarism on some level.
>
> Of interest to list members may be China's recommendations for 50 Sci-Fi &
> Fantasy Works Every Socialist Should Read, to be found here among other
> places:
>
>
> http://theweeklyansible.tumblr.com/post/20777236577/50-sci-fi-fantasy-works-every-socialist-should-read
>
> It's worth noting that several SF/F authors of note have been committed
> leftists, if not explicitly Marxists. H.G. Wells was a Fabian; Kim Stanley
> Robinson is a leftist, and both Ursula Le Guin and Michael Moorcock
> identify as anarchists.
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
> Set your options at:
> http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/dave.xx%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] Robin Hahnel on economic suicide

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


This is basically in line with the explanation given by William Robinson in
his work. A few years ago I would not have agreed with this, now I think it
is the only explanation capable of doing justice to our present reality. I
think this has significant political consequences also, including helping
to explain the disintigration of political lines oriented around
nationalist 'anti-imperialist' blocks.
On Feb 28, 2012 6:39 AM, "Louis Proyect"  wrote:

> ==**==**==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==**==**==
>
>
> I am not a fan of Parecon, the Albert-Hahnel blueprint, but this article
> is quite interesting insofar as it addresses the question of why the
> bourgeoisie acts against its long term interests--something that has
> puzzled me for some time now.
>
> http://www.newleftproject.org/**index.php/site/print_article/**
> understanding_ecomomic_suicide
>
> Understanding Economic Suicide
>
> In my January column I explained that by stonewalling financial regulatory
> reform and imposing draconian fiscal austerity in the midst of the worst
> economic recession in eighty years ruling elites in Europe, the US, and
> Canada have us on track for what amounts to economic suicide, putting the
> North Atlantic region fast on the road to becoming formerly advanced
> economies. How can this have happened? Why would our ruling elites engage
> in such counterproductive policies?
>
> Collapse of the Political Center Left
>
> Thatcher and Reagan launched the neoliberal counter revolution against
> regulated, mildly egalitarian capitalism in the early 1980s. But not until
> the political center-left had been turned into a willing center-right did
> the economic policies of the traditional political parties become barely
> indistinguishable.
>
> In the US in the 1990s it was the “liberal” Democrat Bill Clinton who
> “ended welfare as we know it,” pushed Congress to pass NAFTA and bring
> China into the WTO, and ended any pretence of regulating the financial
> industry when he signed legislation repealing the Glass-Steagall Act
> separating high risk investment banking from federally insured commercial
> banking. Today it is the “liberal” Democrat Barak Obama who pivoted from a
> woefully inadequate fiscal stimulus in 2009 to offer up social security and
> Medicare for deficit reduction in 2011. It is Barak Obama who aided and
> abetted Wall Street’s successful efforts to take the teeth out of the
> Dodd-Frank Wall Street Financial Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010
> before he signed it. And it is Barak Obama who scuttled international
> negotiations to avert climate change in Copenhagen and opportunistically
> absented himself from the debate as Congress failed to pass any legislation
> whatsoever to address climate change.
>
> The situation is no different in Europe. In Greece it was the Social
> Democratic government of George Papandreou who imposed fiscal austerity
> measure after fiscal austerity measure before he was finally forced to
> resign in November 2011. In Spain it was the Socialist government of Jose
> Luis Zapatero who presided over one fiscal austerity package after another
> when the economic crisis broke in 2008 until his party was overwhelmingly
> voted out of office in December 2011.
>
> It is hardly surprising that Tory Prime Minister David Cameron in the UK
> and Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Canada have embraced
> “blame the victim” fiscal austerity as the policy response long favored by
> conservative politicians. What has changed over the past decades is the
> extent to which only rhetoric, but not policies, change when center-left
> governments replace center-right governments.  Now, even when we vote
> overwhelmingly for “change you can believe in,” what we get instead are the
> same policies enriching the 1% at the expense of the 99% -- during good
> times as well as bad. The bottom line is poor and middle class people no
> longer have a major political party who even attempts to act in their
> interest anywhere in the North Atlantic region. Center-left political
> parties now behave as center-right parties used to behave, no matter what
> kind of populist rhetoric they resort to during election season.
>
> Multinational Corporations No Longer Care
>
> But if I am correct that failure to enact meaningful financial reform and
> launch a massive fiscal stimulus will doom the formerly advanced economies
> in the North Atlantic to stagnation and decline relative to other regions,
> why are our major corpora

[Marxism] Academic publishers - suicide bombers against the academy

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://archaeopop.blogspot.com/2011/12/academic-publishers-suicide-bombers.html

"For-profit academic publishing is a suicide bombing mission against
the academy. In pursuing their doomed business model, the big
publishers risk turning the work we do as scholars into a giant echo
chamber. Students take on a lifetime of debt, partly to pay for
journal subscriptions that enrich a few corporations. Scholars are
turned into serfs who must feed the beast new product for it to sell,
or risk losing their already tenuous livelihoods. Institutions
bankrupt themselves paying for ever more expensive journals without
which they cannot compete. Fewer and fewer people can read the rapidly
increasing number of scholarly articles.

Is that grim enough for you? It’s all true."


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] Mike Davis - Spring Confronts Winter

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2923

"Western post-Marxists—living in countries where the absolute or
relative size of the manufacturing workforce has shrunk dramatically
in the last generation—lazily ruminate on whether or not ‘proletarian
agency’ is now obsolete, obliging us to think in terms of
‘multitudes’, horizontal spontaneities, whatever. But this is not a
debate in the great industrializing society that Das Kapital describes
even more accurately than Victorian Britain or New Deal America. Two
hundred million Chinese factory workers, miners and construction
labourers are the most dangerous class on the planet. (Just ask the
State Council in Beijing.) Their full awakening from the bubble may
yet determine whether or not a socialist Earth is still possible."


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] Occupy Portland marches police around in circles

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.portlandoccupier.org/2011/12/15/occupy-portland-outsmarts-police-creating-blueprint-for-other-occupations/

Don't know how an important of a tactic this really is, but sort of amusing:

"The Portland Occupation stumbled upon a tactical innovation regarding
occupying public spaces. This evolution in tactics was spontaneous,
and went unreported in the media. On December 3rd, we took a park and
were driven out of it by riot police; that much made the news. What
the media didn’t report is that we re-took the park later that same
evening, and the police realized that it would be senseless to attempt
to clear it again, so they packed up their military weaponry and left.
Occupy Portland has developed a tactic to keep a park when the police
decide to enforce an eviction."


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] Meet the Ikea anarchists

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/15/ikea-anarchists-derritorial-support-group?


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] Harvey - The End of Capitalism? / Robinson - The Coming Chaos?

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


David Harvey lecture at Penn, 11/30, 'The End of Capitalism?'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYzKsiev43Q
A great recent lecture by Harvey, addresses capitalism, globalization
and the current crisis.

William Robinson also addresses this in an excellent recent piece on Al Jazeera:
Global Rebellion: The Coming Chaos
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2030121556567265.html

"As the crisis of global capitalism spirals out of control, the powers
that be in the global system appear to be adrift and unable to propose
viable solutions. From the slaughter of dozens of young protesters by
the army in Egypt to the brutal repression of the Occupy movement in
the United States, and the water cannons brandished by the militarised
police in Chile against students and workers, states and ruling
classes are unable to hold back the tide of worldwide popular
rebellion and must resort to ever more generalised repression.

Simply put, the immense structural inequalities of the global
political economy can no longer be contained through consensual
mechanisms of social control. The ruling classes have lost legitimacy;
we are witnessing a breakdown of ruling-class hegemony on a world
scale."


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] Suspect in Shooting of Giffords Ruled Unfit for Trial

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Jared Lee Loughner is mentally ill, a schizophrenic. This is different
from being a 'nutcase' in the sense of being a conspiracy theorist or
simply someone who is ignorant and/or illogical. Mental illness
deserves some degree of sympathy and understanding in my opinion.
Conspiracism, on the other hand, particularly on the left, deserves
exposure. If one wants a movement that is relevant to the real world,
making sure one is dealing with the real world is probably a good
start.
-dave

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 7:19 PM, Michael Smith  wrote:
> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
> On Wed, 25 May 2011 19:00:13 -0700
> michael perelman  wrote:
>
>> Of course, some people [nut cases] are claiming it never happened.
>
> They may be crazy, but perhaps they're not entirely
> stupid. I always encourage people to be skeptical about
> what they see on the teevee. Trouble is, they're very
> inconsistent about it.
>
> But then, I am too. I believe the things
> that coincide with my view of the world, and take
> a more skeptical attitude toward things that don't.
> This seems to be a common pattern.
>
> Craziness, as a diagnosis, is overused. Having odd beliefs
> is not an adequate criterion. If it were, then by mainstream
> social standards, everybody on this list would be crazy.
> Glass houses and all that.
>
> --
> --
>
> Michael J. Smith
> m...@smithbowen.net
>
> http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org
> http://www.cars-suck.org
> http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com
>
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
> Set your options at: 
> http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/dave.xx%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] Suspect in Shooting of Giffords Ruled Unfit for Trial

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/us/26loughner.html

Suspect in Shooting of Giffords Ruled Unfit for Trial

TUCSON, Ariz. — A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that Jared L.
Loughner was not mentally competent to stand trial on charges of
opening fire at a constituent event for an Arizona congresswoman in
January, killing 6 and injuring 13.

The ruling by Judge Larry A. Burns of Federal District Court means Mr.
Loughner will be sent to a federal psychiatric facility until Sept.
21, when a hearing will be held to determine whether he understands
the 49 federal charges against him and can help in his defense.

If so, the legal proceedings will resume. If not, Mr. Loughner will be
sent back for more treatment and more periodic evaluations to
determine if he has become competent. Potentially, he could remain
under doctors’ care indefinitely.

“At the present time, Mr. Loughner does not have a rational
understanding of these proceedings,” Judge Burns said.

The ruling came just minutes after Mr. Loughner was dragged from the
courtroom screaming.

“Thank you for the freak show,” he shouted. “She died in front of me.
You’re treasonous.”

 At his first courtroom appearance shortly after the shootings, Mr.
Loughner had his head shaved clean and stood absolutely erect. On
Wednesday, his hair was long and sticking out in all directions, he
had a scraggly beard and he slumped during the proceedings like an old
man. He put his head in his hands for some time just before his
outburst, which he shouted at full throttle as the judge was talking.

Court officers led him from the room. A short while later, when court
officers said Mr. Loughner had calmed down, he was led back into the
courtroom and Judge Burns asked him if he wished to stay and watch the
proceedings. Instead, Mr. Loughner chose to watch on a monitor from a
nearby room.

The ruling came after two experts who examined Mr. Loughner at a
federal psychiatric facility in Missouri determined that he was
mentally incompetent and that he appeared to suffer from schizophrenia
and experienced delusions and irrational thoughts.

Judge Burns said during the hearing that he had received two letters
from Mr. Loughner since his arrest, both complaining about his legal
representation. The judge told Mr. Loughner’s court-appointed lawyer,
Judy Clarke, that he did not intend to take up the issues in the
letters because he considered them a consequence of Mr. Loughner’s
mental illness.



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] Externalities

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


This is also a problem I have been thinking about a lot since the
downturn. I had expected a somewhat different policy reaction overall
to the crisis, had half-believed some of Obama's green economy
rhetoric (though was never a supporter), etc. I won't claim to have
found any truly satisfactory answers to this but one thing that I am
becoming convinced of is that this is bound up with the processes of
globalization and financialization that have occurred over the past
30+ years. I think they have in some ways changed the nature of the
game. To what extent does the US ruling class view itself as a
specifically US national ruling class and to what extent does it think
of itself as a global ruling class? The privileged white layers of
'middle class' workers in the US used to be able to count on a
commonality of 'national' interest and this is simply less true now
and this erosion is one of the factors behind the tea party phenomena.
I think the top layers of the ruling class are simply not that
interested in maintaining specifically national interests though they
are concerned about interests globally. I guess what I am saying is
that their interests appear very irrational when viewed in a national
context (So that one might be tempted to dump Marx for some variation
of Freudo-Marx and think that the ruling classes were simply crazy or
decadent) but less irrational when viewed in a global context.

Personally this means I tend to give some credit to people like
William Robinson. I am a long way from agreeing with all his
formulations but I think he is on to something important as well. A
shift in the interests in the top layers of the ruling class from
national to global driven by the growth of multinational production
chains and the creation of vast global financial markets would
potentially explain some of the apparent irrationality we are seeing.
I think we have also seen a shift in the nature of inter-imperialist
competition, from old style 'our capitalists versus yours' to one
based on state competition over becoming better investment vehicles
for transnational capital, bond markets, etc. This is a reason why
taxing the rich and/or corporation is off the table. If ruling class
interests were national some degree of shared sacrifice for the sake
of long term inter-state competitive advantage would be expected but
if it is now primarily global and competition is focused on attracting
and retaining investment then raising taxes on the rich or
corporations could put you at a serious disadvantage.

One of the things that keeps coming up in these discussions of
austerity why there -must- be cuts, the threat of public insurrection
be damned, is this fear of the bond markets. Is it real or an excuse?
The simpler explanation is that it is that it is real and that global
financial markets are in fact playing an important independent role in
disciplining national economies, even the largest like the US.

>From a global perspective how much sense does it make to maintain
large, inclusive 'middle classes' in the core countries? Maybe not too
much. Could be drag on becoming a better global investment vehicle.
Also could the globalization thesis account for some of the trend
toward authoritarianism, what Robinson calls '21st century fascism'? A
shift towards more authoritarian governance mechanisms could be a
natural consequence of a ruling class no longer closely tied to
national interests and dependent on national legitimation for its
authority. '21st century fascism' could be a bad term in that it makes
an analogy with twentieth century fascism when it is really a very
different beast though perhaps just as serious in its own way. There
is a broad right-wing authoritarian trend in the core countries that
has accelerated in this crisis instead of moderating. It isn't
explained by classical theories of fascism so what explains it? How do
we think about it? Another aspect may be that the ruling class is
aware that there is no way that capitalism will ever productively
assimilate billions of surplus workers (the 'planet of slums') and
that portions of humanity have to be walled off from each other in a
sort of global police-state/gated-community, the damned and the saved,
so to speak. I can't help thinking that Israel/Palestine has been the
test bed for this new form of capitalist governance.






On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 10:52 AM, Louis Proyect  wrote:
> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
> As you might recall, I have pondered long and hard the question of why the
> bourgeoisie is "threatening the lives of their grandchildren."

[Marxism] Libyan revolutionaries have taken Sirte!

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Nothing between them and connecting to long-suffering Misurata.

This could be the imperialist intervention that proves the rule.

I find the heroism of the Libyan people inspiring beyond words.

Goddamn,
-dave

Victory to the revolution! Down with Qaddafi! Down with imperialism!

This is a reply to an earlier message I was working on but didn't quite finish:

Qaddafi's advantage was not numbers but training and equipment. The
equipment has been neutralized by the airstrikes. The Libyan
revolutionaries conquered Ajdabiya not NATO. It looks like they have
already taken Ras Lanuf and gone farther. Sirte will be interesting as
that is where they were stopped last time and is one of the few
instances of probable 'popular' opposition to the revolution given its
connections to Qaddafi's tribe and status as alternate capital and
privileged seat of the bureaucracy. If they can take Sirte, I think it
will be mostly over for Qaddafi. Then they can link up with the the
rebels in the west at Misurata and elsewhere. I predict they will.

Imperialist interventions tend to be nasty, bloody, drawn out affairs.
I am going to predict that this will be the exception that proves the
rule. I could be very very wrong but I am going to make the call. The
downfall of Qaddafi will bring an end to the first chapter of the
Libyan revolution, not the last. Those who think that the revolution
has been hopelessly contaminated by the imperialist intervention are
mistaken though it -does- seriously complicate things. The victories
are not stage-managed events but are genuine. I believe there is wide
support for the revolution and even for the air strikes. I think this
has never been a genuine civil war but only appeared to become so. I
think this will become more apparent as the revolution continues its
advance. I think the leadership in Benghazi, while certainly a
bourgeois misleadership is not counter-revolutionary, at least not
yet, and that many of the criticisms being leveled at it are unfair
and unrealistic. Absolutely it will become an obstacle after Qaddafi
falls, but I have my doubts as to whether many of us could have done
much better. I could spend days taking apart all the stupid things
that have been said about them but it really isn't worth my time since
in the end it will be the masses that determine the ultimate character
of this not the putative leadership.

Imperialism has with its intervention bought itself a big seat at the
table in a post-Qaddafi Libya. It is largely a seat it would have had
anyway due to the sort of aid and assistance any such new government
would need. It just looks larger and more legitimate now. It will have
ensured stability inan oil producing region on Europe's southern
flank. More importantly imperialism will have established a successful
precedent for intervening in the revolutions in MENA. This will be a
serious consequence but not I think a fatal one. Who could really
believe that the entire middle east and north Africa could undergo
upheaval without it ending up in a confrontation with imperialism? Of
course it will. This is act one where it gets its foot in the door and
tries to legitimate and insert itself in the radically new terrain
that is opening up, the friendly smile that is the logical counterpart
of the mailed fist we see in the gulf.

I don't see any good coming out of supporting imperialism or
imperialist military interventions (on the part of the left or
generally). But I also think we need to recognize that the libyan
revolutionaries did what they thought they had to do to survive. If
the left internationally were stronger perhaps this sort of objective
contradiction wouldn't exist but now in this situation, with this
revolution it does. I hope and believe that it will not be a fatal
one.
-dave


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] Here we go again

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/world-news/chavez-solidarity-for-syrian-leader-2596398.html

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has expressed support for Syria's
president, calling him a "humanist" and a "brother" facing a wave of
violent protests backed by the United States and its allies.

Mr Chavez's support for President Bashar Assad follows his defence of
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who is fighting rebels backed by
international airstrikes.

Venezuela's socialist leader accused Washington of fomenting the
protests in Syria as a pretext for Libya-style airstrikes.

"Now some supposed political protest movements have begun (in Syria),
a few deaths ... and now they are accusing the president of killing
his people and later the Yankees will come to bomb the people to save
them," Mr Chavez said in a televised speech.




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] Zizek on Wikileaks and Imperialism

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n02/slavoj-zizek/good-manners-in-the-age-of-wikileaks

Not always a fan, but this is a clever essay worth reading:

Good Manners in the Age of WikiLeaks
Slavoj Žižek

In one of the diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks Putin and
Medvedev are compared to Batman and Robin. It’s a useful analogy:
isn’t Julian Assange, WikiLeaks’s organiser, a real-life counterpart
to the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight? In the film, the
district attorney, Harvey Dent, an obsessive vigilante who is
corrupted and himself commits murders, is killed by Batman. Batman and
his friend police commissioner Gordon realise that the city’s morale
would suffer if Dent’s murders were made public, so plot to preserve
his image by holding Batman responsible for the killings. The film’s
take-home message is that lying is necessary to sustain public morale:
only a lie can redeem us. No wonder the only figure of truth in the
film is the Joker, its supreme villain. He makes it clear that his
attacks on Gotham City will stop when Batman takes off his mask and
reveals his true identity; to prevent this disclosure and protect
Batman, Dent tells the press that he is Batman – another lie. In order
to entrap the Joker, Gordon fakes his own death – yet another lie.

The Joker wants to disclose the truth beneath the mask, convinced that
this will destroy the social order. What shall we call him? A
terrorist? The Dark Knight is effectively a new version of those
classic westerns Fort Apache and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,
which show that, in order to civilise the Wild West, the lie has to be
elevated into truth: civilisation, in other words, must be grounded on
a lie. The film has been extraordinarily popular. The question is why,
at this precise moment, is there this renewed need for a lie to
maintain the social system?

Consider too the renewed popularity of Leo Strauss: the aspect of his
political thought that is so relevant today is his elitist notion of
democracy, the idea of the ‘necessary lie’. Elites should rule, aware
of the actual state of things (the materialist logic of power), and
feed the people fables to keep them happy in their blessed ignorance.
For Strauss, Socrates was guilty as charged: philosophy is a threat to
society. Questioning the gods and the ethos of the city undermines the
citizens’ loyalty, and thus the basis of normal social life. Yet
philosophy is also the highest, the worthiest, of human endeavours.
The solution proposed was that philosophers keep their teachings
secret, as in fact they did, passing them on by writing ‘between the
lines’. The true, hidden message contained in the ‘great tradition’ of
philosophy from Plato to Hobbes and Locke is that there are no gods,
that morality is merely prejudice, and that society is not grounded in
nature.

So far, the WikiLeaks story has been represented as a struggle between
WikiLeaks and the US empire: is the publishing of confidential US
state documents an act in support of the freedom of information, of
the people’s right to know, or is it a terrorist act that poses a
threat to stable international relations? But what if this isn’t the
real issue? What if the crucial ideological and political battle is
going on within WikiLeaks itself: between the radical act of
publishing secret state documents and the way this act has been
reinscribed into the hegemonic ideologico-political field by, among
others, WikiLeaks itself?

This reinscription does not primarily concern ‘corporate collusion’,
i.e. the deal WikiLeaks made with five big newspapers, giving them the
exclusive right selectively to publish the documents. Much more
important is the conspiratorial mode of WikiLeaks: a ‘good’ secret
group attacking a ‘bad’ one in the form of the US State Department.
According to this way of seeing things, the enemy is those US
diplomats who conceal the truth, manipulate the public and humiliate
their allies in the ruthless pursuit of their own interests. ‘Power’
is held by the bad guys at the top, and is not conceived as something
that permeates the entire social body, determining how we work, think
and consume. WikiLeaks itself got the taste of this dispersion of
power when Mastercard, Visa, PayPal and Bank of America joined forces
with the state to sabotage it. The price one pays for engaging in the
conspiratorial mode is to be treated according to its logic. (No
wonder theories abound about who is ‘really’ behind WikiLeaks – the
CIA?)

The conspiratorial mode is supplemented by its apparent opposite, the
liberal appropriation of WikiLeaks as another chapter in the glorious
history of the struggle for the ‘free flow of information’ and the
‘citizens’ right to know’. This view reduces WikiLeaks to a radical
case of ‘investigative journa

[Marxism] The crisis in Libya: The ghost of Tony Blair

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


An interesting non-left analysis of imperial motivations:

"a low-key version of neoconservatism, wagering that gradual reforms
would bring more stability than despotism"

The crisis in Libya: The ghost of Tony Blair

Mar 24th 2011, 22:19 by Bagehot

http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/03/crisis_libya_1


A MONTH ago, David Cameron shuttled from Egypt to Kuwait, Qatar and
Oman to explain why—in his response to the spreading protests of the
Arab spring—he would not be Tony Blair. He did not use quite those
words. Instead, Britain’s prime minister portrayed himself standing
midway between two foolish extremes. On one side were the “naive
neoconservatives” who thought that democracy could be dropped from a
bomb bay at 40,000 feet (hello, Mr Blair). On the other, generations
of suave Foreign Office types, murmuring that “Arabs or Muslims can’t
do democracy”, and that stability is all.

Instead Mr Cameron announced an alternative, middle path. His
government would not press for instant democracy everywhere, but would
urge Arab leaders to grant basic rights—free speech, the right to free
assembly and the rule of law—precisely because denying people such
rights was a recipe for instability. At the time, Bagehot concluded
that this strategy was not so much a diplomatic third way as a bet on
events: a low-key version of neoconservatism, wagering that gradual
reforms would bring more stability than despotism.

One month on, events in Libya have outrun the prime minister’s
cautious middle way. Mr Cameron’s modest ambitions—standing up for the
right of ordinary Arabs to voice their hopes and frustrations—find him
transformed from pragmatist to war leader. To adapt the prime
minister’s own schema, he finds himself defending the most basic
rights of Libyans, namely freedom from brutal repression and the right
to self-determination, with bombs dropped from 40,000 feet.

So is Mr Cameron perforce adopting Mr Blair’s doctrine of liberal
interventionism? He insists not. “This is not another Iraq,” he told
Parliament on March 21st, in a six-hour debate filled with theatre
designed to convey that point, from Mr Cameron’s patience with
backbench interventions to the sight of the attorney-general sitting
at his side (government legal advice approving the Libya action was
summarised for MPs in an official note). Mr Cameron pointedly calls
the military action in Libya “necessary, legal and right”. Yet that
same neat tricolon captures something more complex than an outright
rejection of the Blair doctrine. Parsed carefully, its three elements
signify, in order: “not like Blair, definitely not like Blair—and a
rather Blair-like argument for war”.

If Britain lost a good deal of innocence in Iraq, that unhappy war has
not eradicated the appeal of “doing the right thing” for the political
class. Even after Iraq, pacifism does not occupy the moral high ground
in British politics. Two broad reasons were cited as MPs endorsed
military force against Muammar Qaddafi, by 557 to 13 votes. The first,
which united the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition with most of
the Labour Party, cast the use of military force as a response to a
humanitarian emergency. America, France and Britain had been in a
“race against time” to prevent a slaughter of civilians in Benghazi,
Mr Cameron told Parliament. Supporting the government, the Labour
leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband, drew comparisons with the
Holocaust and the Spanish civil war, and spoke of an international
“responsibility to protect”, when crimes against humanity loom.

Yet the public, wearied by years of entanglement in Iraq and
Afghanistan, seems queasiest about the Libya mission when it is cast
in purely altruistic terms. A poll asking if British forces should
risk death or injury to protect Libyan rebels from Colonel Qaddafi
found 53% opposed. Unsurprisingly, Mr Cameron is keen to assure
British voters this mission is not merely an outbreak of do-goodery,
but also “hard-headed” (a favourite Cameron phrase), rooted in
national interests, and limited in scope.

The prime minister duly offers a second, buttressing set of arguments
for war, couched in national-interest terms. Were Mr Qaddafi left to
kill, unchallenged, the international community’s word would be
exposed as hollow, his regime might return to exporting terrorism and
waves of refugees, and hopes for the Arab spring risk being dashed.
The prime minister’s sincerity is proved by the political risks he has
run, British sources argue. He has bound his fate to France’s Nicolas
Sarkozy, an alarmingly mercurial figure. What is more, when Mr Cameron
decided to join the French drive for a UN Security Council resolution
authorising military strikes, he didn’t know “where the Americans were
going with this”, sourc

Re: [Marxism] 10 Biblical atrocities

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 6:38 PM, Louis Proyect  wrote:
>
> http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2011/02/11/10-biblical-atrocities-that-go-overlooked-part-1/

People who grow up in a largely secular or even liberal religious
environment really don't have a clue as to what it is like to grow up
and have this beaten into your head everyday. They think one can
discount religious fundamentalism as a social force, that it all boils
down to class in some simple way, but it doesn't. It is an active,
very real, very material agent of reaction. It is brainwashing, it is
child abuse, it is a form of psychological torture that scars you for
life and it happens to millions of children in the US and millions
more around the world. People get annoyed at the 'new atheists' and
wonder why they are so damn uppity and obnoxious... well this and what
it does to people is the material basis for that.
-dave


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] Explanations of the Libyan war (was: Is the Benghazi government an "integral part" of the Arab revolutionary wave? (was: Re: The new head of the Benghazi government

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


I just want to make a couple brief points on this exchange:

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 10:10 AM, Lou Paulsen  wrote:
>
> Now, here’s the problem I have with that logic.  According to you, the 
> imperialists were completely happy with Gadhafi as their proxy and had no 
> desire to get any more from Libya – there was, in your view, no more to get 
> because Gadhafi was just as good a puppet for their purposes as any 
> reactionary ruler in the region.  Right?  So their whole purpose was to keep 
> what they already had in Libya, and defang any rebellion that might take it 
> away. But here are my issues:
>
> At step (d), the imperialists quickly branded Gadhafi’s regime as 
> “illegitimate”, something they have not yet done with ANY of the other Arab   
>  leaders under attack by the revolutionary wave.  And this, DESPITE the fact 
> that on the surface there was a high level of cozy collaboration between 
> Gadhafi and all these imperialist powers during the years immediately 
> beforehand.  Yet they turned on a dime and demanded that he get out!  How 
> does your account explain that?
>
> Much more importantly, at step (e) and (f), the imperialists went to war 
> against Gadhafi at a point when his government was just about to completely 
> put down the rebellion!  In other words, Gadhafi was about to re-establish, 
> on his own, the status quo which you believe (point a) was all that the 
> imperialists could possibly want.  According to you, he was about to do for 
> himself just what Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have done in Bahrain.  But 
> instead, the imperialists sent out war planes to stop Gadhafi from retaking 
> Benghazi.  This was the –precondition- for the creation of the Benghazi 
> government.  I don’t think your account begins to make sense of this.
>

Dave:
The imperialists had very little to do with making Gadhaffi illegitimate.

Gadhaffi became illegitimate because:
 - there was a mass uprising that deprived him of legitimacy.
- he decided to wage war on his own people.
- he actually sounds like an insane bloodthirsty dictator.
- he outraged world public opinion.

The fact is Gadhaffi bears much of the responsibility for his own
delegitimization. Add to that his past 'anti-imperialist' history and
it became untenable for western imperialist governments to do business
with him. His delegitimization is not some imperialist conspiracy,
rather it became an accomplished fact that the imperialists had to
respond to.



> Lou:
> I think this is a very crucial flaw in your account and shows that at least 
> one of your premises is wrong.
>
> In case you don’t see what I’m driving at, let me approach it from another 
> angle.  You are listening in on a conference call a week ago among Obama, 
> Sarkozy, and whatever other imperialists, generals, heads of state, advisors 
> and stooges you want to imagine are there.  Someone gives a factual summary 
> of the situation: the armed rebellion has been put down everywhere except 
> Benghazi, no more demonstrations are taking place in Tripoli, and Gadhafi 
> seems to be about ready to retake Benghazi.  Possibly someone predicts that 
> there will be great loss of life.  Possibly, based on your premises, someone 
> predicts that “at some future time, the rebellion might come back stronger 
> than before and take a leftward turn and mess up our great relationship with 
> our proxy Gadhafi.”  And on the basis of that – that! – they decide NOT to 
> wait and see what happens, they decide to send out fighter planes immediately 
> to save the rebels in Benghazi who according to
>  you are their class enemies.  Why does this make any sense?  Who said what 
> in the phone call to lead them to this conclusion?  Is that REALLY how they 
> would have reacted if Saudi Arabia or Kuwait were mopping up a democratic 
> insurrection? (Oh, yeah, they ARE doing that in Bahrain.)
>
> It might be that these imperialists were all wrong or stupid or radically 
> misinformed or experienced a moment of terrible judgment, or forgot where 
> their class interests lay, but I don’t believe it.  Generally I have a lot of 
> faith in the class consciousness of the imperialist bourgeoisie.

Dave:
Yes. This is very interesting. The fact is they rescued the revolution
in Benghazi instead of letting it be destroyed - something that
undoubtedly would have put a chill on the revolutionary wave in MENA
as a whole. I think it shows that they are very concerned about
maintaining the legitimacy of imperialist power in the region (in the
midst of an upheaval that is delegitimizing the political framework
they had previously relied on) and they saw this as an opportunity to
establish some credibility as well as a precedent for intervening in
the future. It shows they want to control and o

Re: [Marxism] [UCE] The health benefits of atomic bombing

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 7:14 PM, Marv Gandall  wrote:
>
> On 2011-03-23, at 9:50 PM, Les Schaffer wrote:
>>
>> On 03/23/2011 09:19 PM, Marv Gandall wrote:
>>> Japan’s radioactive fallout could have silver lining
>>
>> i hope you have a good reason for sending this along.
>
> You don't agree that nuclear explosions are beneficial for the surrounding 
> population, Les?

Shit. All this time I had been thinking MAD stood for Mutually Assured
Destruction but actually it was capitalist health care reform.
-dave


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] Mark Steel: It's Blair I feel really sorry for

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-its-blair-i-feel-really-sorry-for-2249936.html

Isn't it marvellous that all these governments are determined to do
"something" about Colonel Gaddafi? For example Hillary Clinton said
she supported military action once the Arab League – made up of
countries such as Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia – backed the
air strikes. And it is encouraging that the policy of not tolerating a
dictator has the backing of so many dictators.

Some people might suggest that one way King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia,
for example, might reduce the number of Arab dictators, would be to
stop being an Arab dictator, but that's because they don't understand
how complicated these things can be.

But presumably, once Gaddafi's been dealt with, these dictators will
back a UN resolution to bomb themselves, declaring, "The international
community can no longer sit back and watch me trample on my own
people, so I must be stopped. I give myself three days to recognise
the opposition and call elections, otherwise I will assist Nato in
bombing myself. Or maybe I should assist them, as they've sold me so
many of their weapons they can't have many left."

Others will say the West might now turn a blind eye to repression that
happens in countries which have backed the bombing of Libya, but that
would mean an American government has bombed somewhere without being
honest about its motives, and that would be highly cynical. For
example, Hillary's comments about the need to act once the Arab League
asked for help explain why no government helped Gaza when it was
attacked two years ago. Because Gaza obviously forgot to ask. It's a
bit shy, I suppose, and didn't want to be any trouble.

But the person to be most sorry for is Tony Blair, who must feel like
one of these people who get interviewed when their neighbour's gone
berserk and shot everyone in the shopping centre. Tony will make a
statement soon that goes "I knew Mr Gaddafi for years. He just kept
himself to himself, I had no idea he'd end up like this. I even had my
photo taken with him after selling him dozens of tanks – who'd have
guessed he'd use them for military reasons? I'm shocked."

The main argument for the bombing seems to be that we have to do
something. This suggests that up until now we've been doing nothing,
which is true if you don't count drawing the boundaries of Arab
countries in the first place, installing an assortment of Kings and
helping them to fire on anyone who objected, backing every Israeli
invasion, arming the Shah, arming and financing a list of dictators as
long as they sent us their oil, invading Iraq and then making Tony
Blair the Middle-East poxy sodding peace envoy, to give his job its
full title.

This may explain why most Arabs are reluctant to welcome Western
backing, and why they might reply to a question from Britain and
America that went "Can we just do nothing?" by answering, "Why don't
you give it a go? For about a hundred years. Then we'll see how we're
getting on and get back to you".

So while the people of Benghazi must have been relieved that the UN
has forced Gaddafi back, it must be in the same way that if you were
being attacked by robbers you'd be relieved to see the Mafia turn up
and fire on them.

Then afterwards you'd have a new problem, that you owed them
something. And that might be the aim of the governments involved in
the bombing. Because none of them have ever seemed bothered whether
the regimes in the Middle East are democratic, or brutal, as long as
they're happy to trade their oil on favourable terms. They want to
make sure that whatever emerges from these rebellions, there are
rulers who will carry on with that arrangement.

Or maybe Britain and America have got that feeling you get at a
fairground when you can't knock the tins off the shelf with the little
spongy ball. It looks so easy, so after each attempt you hand over
another pound and say, "Right. One more go. Surely I'll get it right
this time. Here goes. Whoops!"


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] Bombs over Libya

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article2041

 Bombs over Libya

Bertil Videt



Is the military action against Libya necessary and helpful in order to
stop Gaddafi’s regime’s onslaught on its opponents or is it an
imperialist aggression driven by strategical self-interest, which only
will make things worse for the Libyan people? The international left
is split on this question. And the question is truly complex and
cannot be answered by ready made slogans about always being opposed to
imperialist aggressions or unconditional support to the rebels. A
serious response must be based on a concrete assessment of the
situation in Libya, and not on abstract principles or revolutionary
rhetoric.

This weekend the bombs started falling over Libya, after the UN
Security Council gave green light for imposing a no-fly zone.

The double standards of the West are conspicuous. How can we trust
leaders who defended Mubarak till the last and who still even refuse
to condemn the Bahraini kingdoms’ use of lethal force against peaceful
protesters in being genuinely moved by the human rights situation in
Libya?

Equally, the responsibility of the West in creating the monster of
Gaddafi is obvious. There have certainly been ups and downs in the
relations between Tripoli and Western capitals reflected by the global
power balance. But on the bottom line, it is true that Gaddafi has
been supported and armed by the Western powers for decades.

Both these points make it clear that we should be extremely sceptical
about the former colonial powers sudden manifestation of goodwill
towards the Libyan people. But none of these points are, by
themselves, arguments for opposing the no-fly zone over Libya.

Rejecting Western military intervention in Libya requires a better
analysis of the risks and possible scenarios on the ground. And we do
need to address some rather difficult objections – namely the fact
that the leaders of the opposition forces have been calling for a
no-fly zone and that we have to come with better alternatives than
posting blogs of solidarity and anti-imperialism.

The fact that the leadership of the Libyan rebel forces over the last
days have asked for the West to impose a no-fly zone cannot be
neglected. If the left in the West does not address this, we will seem
very patronising towards the people who are risking their lives in a
very difficult struggle against a ruthless dictator. First of all,
nobody can really assess to which extent these leaders represent a
popular – and nation wide - will. Second, we should remember that it
had no resonance among the rebels when the idea of a no-fly zone was
expressed in the West about a month ago. At the time it seemed that
the rebels were heading towards victory, and its leaders argued
convincingly against a no-fly zone: a no fly zone is a military
intervention and Gaddafi can certainly use this to portray his regime
as the ones resisting imperialist aggression and hereby alienating the
rebels, who also indicated distrust in the true intentions of the
Western powers. As the pro-Gaddafi forces have gained momentum during
the last 1-2 weeks, the change of position among the rebel leaders
must be seen as a (perfectly understandable) sign of frustration and
desperation. The initial arguments of the rebels are still convincing,
even if the situation seems much more difficult today after Gaddafi
forces having taken over most of the country.

It is true that opposing military intervention puts the left in a
difficult position, where we seem to be unwilling to deal with real
life problems, and where our principles thus prevent us from saving
lives. We have to come up with better answers than vague statements
and long articles about solidarity with Libya and continued
anti-imperialist struggle.

First of all, very concretely, we can and should argue for sending
anti-aircraft defences and other weaponry to the rebels - so they get
a better chance of confronting the Gaddafi forces, who have been armed
by the West for decades. Luckily, the current interim administration
in Egypt (which border is near to Benghazi) is shipping arms over the
border.

Secondly, and more difficult, we have to face that what can be done
from outside Libya is very limited- especially by the Western regimes,
who have very little legitimacy among Arabs and who have a
responsibility for the current situation by supporting and arming
Gaddafi’s regime. An important point is to demand our governments to
stop their support for other dictatorships - to which there will be
resistance and similar situations can be foreseen in the future.

Thirdly, the risks of a military intervention are very high. Once the
war machine starts it does not stop easily - this can turn in to a big
scale war, the fo

[Marxism] FI Statement on Libya

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


This is making the rounds today:


Statement by the Fourth International



Down with the Gaddafi regime!

Stop the imperialist intervention now!

Support the Libyan revolution!




The intervention of the western powers in Libya constitutes a turning
point in the situation in the Arab region. Since the beginning of the
social and political shock wave which covers almost all the countries
of the Arab region, the Fourth International has stood on the side of
the democratic and social interests of the Arab people against their
tyrants. This has led us to full support for the Tunisian and Egyptian
revolutions alongside the revolutionary socialist militants of these
countries. This is why we supported all the democratic demands - right
to free expression, trade-union and political organization, pluralism,
freedom of the press; and social ones such as job creation, wage
increases, fight against high cost of living - of these popular
mobilizations, supported the overthrowing of the dictatorships, and
the demand for a real break with the former regimes in a democratic
and socialist perspective.

In Libya, this policy led us, from the beginning, to support the
mobilizations and then the popular insurrection to overthrow the
Gaddafi dictatorship. In Libya, solidarity with the popular
mobilizations means doing everything to help the people against
Gaddafi: total embargo on arms sales to the dictatorship, freezing the
assets of the Libyan regime abroad, organization of medical, food and
humane aid for the hundreds of thousands of Libyans persecuted by the
regime… Supporting the Libyan people and protecting the civilians,
means giving them the means to defend themselves against the massacres
by Gaddafi’s mercenaries freeing themselves from the dictatorship. The
Arab peoples and armies, starting with the Tunisians and Egyptians,
can play a decisive part in this military aid.

The French, English and American bombardments do not aim to “protect
the civil populations”, as is claimed in the UN Resolution Security
Council 1973 establishing a « no-fly zone » on Libya. As the hours and
the days pass, the goals of this UN resolution of appear more and more
“vague”. Is it really a question of protecting the civil populations?
Then why risk bombarding other civilians? Is it rather a question of
finishing with Gaddafi or of imposing an agreement on his regime, even
a partition of Libya? The risk of escalation that could lead to one or
more ground interventions cannot be ignored, contrary to what the
resolution says. In fact, for the imperialist coalition it is a
question of re-establishing itself in the area, trying to confiscate
the revolutionary process in progress by installing governments in its
pay, or by putting pressure on the processes underway. And their
strategic oil interests should not be forgotten. Lastly, how can
anyone believe these hypocritical governments, who are occupying Iraq
and Afghanistan and say they want “to protect the civil populations”
but leave the populations, in Bahrain, in Yemen, in Syria or in Gaza
to be massacred.


Support for the Libyan revolution and overthrowing the Gaddafi
dictatorship means today humanitarian and military aid to the
insurrectionists and an end to the imperialist intervention. The
Libyan people are not alone. Their fight is part of the current
revolutionary rise that is shaking the Arab world. It is more than
ever for the Arab peoples to take control over their destiny without
neocolonialist intervention by the western powers.



Secretariat of the Fourth International Bureau

March 23rd, 2011


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] Its the Popular Sovereignty, Stupid

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


[ The logic of these revolts is not socialist or even anti-capitalist.
But it will eventually lead in that direction. Neoliberalism and
imperialism are going to be fundamental barriers to this revolutionary
process but won't emerge as such until the people have managed to take
on and defeat their local strong man and elites. The decks have to
first be cleared for this to emerge as a really socialist struggle. We
need a certain amount of faith in the people and the working class if
we are going to be able to understand and have solidarity with this
movement. Imperialism is going to have a hell of a time crushing this,
though if Gadhaffi had managed to slaughter the revolution in Benghazi
I imagine it could have been rather demoralizing and put a serious
damper on things. The fact that imperialism didn't let this happen,
but instead has decided to pose as its savior, at least for the moment
(even as it turns a blind eye in Bahrain, Yemen and elsewhere), should
tell us something about the way imperialism operates and views its
interests in the region. -dave ]



Its the Popular Sovereignty, Stupid

Posted on 03/23/2011 by Juan

The logic of the Arab spring is about popular sovereignty. The people
power being displayed in the streets, on twitter and Facebook, is
intended to sweep away impediments to the expression of the will of
the people, mainly presidents for life. The Arab crowds are investing
their hopes in a new era of parliamentarism, in elections and
constitutions, in term limits and referendums, in the rule of law and
the principle that governmental authority must derive from the people.
It is not that they are John Stuart Mill liberals. The crowds have a
communitarian aspect, and demands jobs and for free formation of labor
unions and the right to bargain collectively form a key part of the
protest movements. But such labor organizing is also seen by movement
participants and part of the expression of the popular will.

That the movements have been so powerfully informed by this Rousseauan
impulse helps explain their key demands and why they keep spreading.
The progression is that they begin with a demand that the strong man
step down. If they get that, they want a dissolution of old corrupt
ruling parties and elites. They want parliamentary elections. They
want term limits for the president and reduction of presidential
powers. They want new constitutions, newly hammered out, and subject
to national referendums. They want an end to corruption and croneyism.
They aim for future governments to be rooted in the national will.

cont... http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/its-the-popular-sovereignty-stupid.html


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Libyan intervention threatens Arab Spring

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Except you've got it mostly backwards. They don't really want to role
them back, just limit and control them and orient them in a western
direction if possible. They are gambling that the Libya intervention
will give them regional credibility, but if past imperialist
interventions are any guide it will probably end up backfiring in some
god-awful mess. Which would further discredit imperialism in the
region. In any case the logic of these revolts is not going to be
friendly to imperialism and global neoliberalism in the long run. The
hypocrisy of the western imperial powers in relation to Bahrain, Yemen
and Saudi Arabia is not lost on the people in MENA I assure you.
-dave

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 10:20 PM, Stuart Munckton
 wrote:
> [This article makes an extraordinarily important point: this is not just
> about Libya but the Arab r evolt. And the imperialist bombings in Libya
> occur at the same time as the *imperialist* offensive by the imperialist
> clients to crush the revolutions in Bahrain and Yemen. It is part of the
> same broad offensive to roll back the revolutions while establishing a foot
> hold for direct imperalist intervention.]


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] Though i disagree on points. French NPA does its minimal duty

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


I don't know what exactly the NPA is saying just what I've seen on
International Viewpoint. I imagine there are a range of postions in
the organization from critical support to qualified opposition. This
is perhaps not surprising. I think we should be a little careful about
simply jumping off into a 'Hands off Libya!' campaign that doesn't
take into account the fact that the revolutionary movement on the
ground basically called for such intervention. Some have said that it
is not a real revolutionary movement or it is not worthy of support or
that they don't represent Libya or there were alternatives besides
intervention to being smashed - I don't buy any of that, and so I
think that makes the situation tricky if one actually cares about the
revolution in Libya and one cares about imperialist intervention.

 The task is to find ways of expressing Solidarity with the
revolutions in MENA, including Libya, while also consistently opposing
imperialist meddling in the region. This is something a lot of people
are wrestling with right now. There are those on the left who
basically want a 'humanitarian exception' to anti-imperialism for
intervention to stop genocide/massacre. It is interesting that this is
also the thinking of the hawks in the US State Department! The logic
of humanitarian interventionism can't be supported, it is bullshit
liberal moralism that functions to legtimate empire and will lead us
down the road to hell.

 On the other hand the reaction of much of the left to the
revolutionary wave in MENA - perhaps the most important political
event in a generation - has been mixed at best. I doubt we are winning
many friends. One can at least give the NPA credit for having some
nuance in their response to this and taking the solidarity question
seriously. Of course this intervention is likely to go bad very
quickly, and whatever support it has right now will start to dissipate
if it drags out or escalates. And when that happens a straight 'hands
off' line everyone can unite on makes sense. For now though some
nuance seems appropriate in expressing opposition to this. How best to
do that seems to me the current question.
-dave


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 Palestinian Crisis in Libya 1994-1996 (Interview with Professor Bassem Sirhan)

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Also an earlier piece:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-palestinians-understand-gaddafi-better-than-we-do-2239799.html

Somehow I don't think the western media has to work very hard to
demonize Gadhaffi. He basically did all their work for them. Damn
imperialist collaborator. And now they have the gall to ignore his
calls for intervention (on his side!).
-dave


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 Palestinian Crisis in Libya 1994-1996 (Interview with Professor Bassem Sirhan)

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


In relation to the Palestine-Libya-Gadhaffi issue check out the recent
piece by Robert Fisk (note Fisk has criticized the bombing campaign):

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-remember-the-civilian-victims-of-past-allied-bombing-campaigns-2247757.html


Robert Fisk: Remember the civilian victims of past 'Allied' bombing campaigns

People such as Raafat al-Ghosain are often tragically forgotten in the
fog of air attacks.


How life past catches up with life present. The Americans killed
Raafat al-Ghosain, puctured above, just after 2am on 15 April 1986. In
the days that followed her death, United States officials claimed that
Libyan anti-aircraft fire might have hit her home – watch out for
similar American claims in the coming hours – not far from the French
embassy in suburban Tripoli.

But three weeks later, the Pentagon admitted that three bombs dropped
from an F-111 aircraft as part of the US attack on Colonel Muammar
Gaddafi, in reprisal for an attack by Libyan agents on a Berlin
nightclub, had "impacted in the vicinity of the French embassy" and
had caused – to use the usual callous euphemism – "collateral damage".

Ms Ghosain was aged 18, a graduate from an English school on holiday
from London, a promising and beautiful artist whose individual death
went unrecorded in the country that killed her a quarter of a century
ago. Her mother was Lebanese and her father Palestinian, working for a
Libyan oil company. She is forgotten today.

We remember, as usual, our own dead. But not the dead of others,
Libyans or Lebanese, Afghans or Syrians. We blue-eyed folk count. The
rest are "collateral damage". I thought of Ms Ghosain yesterday
morning as the "Allies" – a phrase trotted out immediately by the
television clamouratti, I noticed – started their "ground preparation"
against Libya with their "air assets" against Colonel Gaddafi. Then it
was Ronald Reagan. Now it was Barack Obama. Better luck this time, I
suppose.

At the funeral of the civilian dead in Tripoli 25 years ago, Colonel
Gaddafi's mobs urged the press to the front of the cemetery. We were
to record the result of America's murderous onslaught first hand. But
when I saw the Lebanese and Palestinian flags over one of the coffins
– the cedar tree over a white and red tricolour, from the country
where I lived and still live – I ran through the overgrown cemetery
and sought out the dead girl's distraught and badly wounded mother,
Saniya. "We are Muslims but we have one God," she told me then. "We
are one people. I hope Mr Reagan understands that."

For years, Ms Ghosain's father, Bassam, sought redress. He witnessed
the suffering of his other daughter, Kinda, and asked the American
authorities to pay, at least for her schooling in Beirut since they
had caused her sister's death. Ms Ghosain had been sleeping in the
television room of their home, next to the French embassy, when she
was killed by a 2,000lb bomb which flattened the neighbours' house,
killing all five of them.

Mr Ghosain recorded what he saw when a Libyan civil defence team
raised the wall from his daughter's body: "She was lying on her back
with the head turned on the right cheek, she was intact, her hair
undisturbed, and a small streak of blood coming from the top side of
her head, flowing down her left cheek."

On that occasion, it was the death of an American soldier in a Berlin
nightclub that was the cause of the raid. Yesterday, of course, it was
a United Nations resolution to prevent Colonel Gaddafi from killing
civilians, just like Ms Ghosain.

Over the years, I got to known the Ghosain family in Beirut, wrote
about them, went out to lunch with them, visited their home where
their daughter's wonderful paintings still hang. I got to know the
parents, and also Kinda, who has since married. But it was with some
trepidation that I called them yesterday. Mrs Ghosain answered the
phone. "I hope they get him this time," she said. And I asked,
timidly, if she meant the man with the moustache. Colonel Gaddafi has
a moustache. Mr Obama does not. "Yes," she said. "I mean Ghazzefi."
"Ghazzefi" is the Lebanese Arabic pronunciation of the man's name.


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] Not in our name! Statement on Libya and International Solidarity

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article2039


 Not in our name!

The war in Libya, foreign military occupation in Bahrain and the
destruction of the Arab revolutions.
Mogniss H. Abdallah



Thus, the difficult debate on the introduction of a “no fly zone” in
Libya has led to a UN resolution that constitutes a green light for an
international military intervention in Libya. Without terrestrial
military “occupation”, it is specified. At the same time, the Saudi
army and the emirate’s police are disembarking in Bahrain to take part
in the crushing of a democratic and peaceful revolution: a military
attack was made Wednesday, March 16, 2011 to dismantle the camp in
Pearl Square, re-named Tahrir Square in explicit reference to the
Egyptian revolution. Helicopters shot at the people: there have
deaths, dozens of wounded who cannot reach Manama hospital under siege
by the Saudi army and armoured tanks. The regime has decreed martial
law and arrested figures from the democratic opposition , both Shiite
and Sunni. In Bahrain a protest movement for civile rights has been
met by repression under foreign military occupation… and under the
surveillance of U.S. 5th fleet which already has a naval base there.

Certain countries, like the United Arab Emirates, which are openly
taking part in the militaro-police occupation of Bahrain, were also
volunteers for the international intervention in Libya. Thus, regimes
directly involved in repression in one Arab country, claim to act
against repression and massacres in another Arab country? What
hypocrisy! International solidarity militants cannot accept under any
pretext this duplicity that threatens the future of the democratic
revolutions in progress in the whole of the Arab, Arabo-Berber and
African world. 
 In any case, and beyond the necessary evaluation of
the complex geostrategic interests concerned, we should seriously
question our role in the current situation. How could we be pleased
withe increasing militarization in Libya and elsewhere?

I would like to say frankly to sincere Libyan friends in their
aspirations with freedom: we unconditionally condemn the massacres of
the population in Libya by Kadhafi and his regime. But I am outraged
by the slogans “One, two, three, Viva Sarkozy” shouted in Benghazi,
and by the association of the National Council of Transition with the
saber-rattling Bernard Henri Levy.

Libyan friends, I would like also to intend you to clearly condemn the
racist exactions and the threats on a large scale against the African,
Egyptian and different black migrants, who compose a quarter of the
population of the country. I would like to see you supporting all the
people in struggle, starting with those of Bahrain and of Yemen, today
victims of a terrible repression carried out with the direct
complicity of those who in addition claim to be coming to your rescue.

International solidarity friends, when we support the Libyan people,
let us not hide our solidarity with the fights of all the Arab people.
And let us not be afraid of debates between us, including with our
Libyan comrades. No to unity on a minimal basis! Let us not be an
accessory to the balkanization of Libya and the countries in the area.
Also let us remember the precedent of Somalia dismantled under the
auspices of an international militaro-humanitarian intervention under
the pretty name of “Restore hope”.

Paris, March 18th, 2011

-Mogniss H. Abdallah, is an Egyptian writer and flim-maker living in
France. He has published "J’y suis, j’y reste ! Les luttes de
l’immigration en France depuis les années soixante", with Reflex, 2001
and has made several documentaries : Minguettes 83 : paix sociale ou
pacification ? (1983) ; Douce France, la saga du mouvement “beur”
(1992) ; La Ballade des sans-papiers (1996/97).


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Why the U.S. Went to War

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


It is a liberalish bit of mainstream reporting but it clearly outlines
an important set of US interests in the Libya intervention - that this
is intended to legitimize imperial power, establish a precedent,
'rehabilitate humanitarian intervention', and 'promote democracy'. As
such it is worth more than the reams conspiracism that passes for
analysis on much of the left. Any relation between such thought and
reality is often pure coincidence or worse.
-dave

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 2:29 PM, Eli Stephens
 wrote:
>
> I hope I don't need to warn comrades about the dangers of believing "spin" 
> articles like this. Any claims about who was pushing for war, who wasn't, 
> what their alleged reasons are, is all for public consumption. Any relation 
> between such articles and reality is strictly tangential if not orthogonal.
>
> Meanwhile, in REAL news ( 
> http://lefti.blogspot.com/2011/03/protecting-civilians.html ), the U.S. is 
> killing or at least shooting at civilians (including "rebels") in Libya, and 
> Israel continues killing civilians in Gaza.
>
>
>
> Eli Stephens
>  Left I on the News
>  http://lefti.blogspot.com
>
>
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
> Set your options at: 
> http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/dave.xx%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] Glenn Greenwald: How the US Government Strikes Fear in Its Own Citizens and People Around the World

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 11:06 AM, Ralph Johansen
 wrote:
> http://www.alternet.org/story/150330/


I just want to say this is a great, must-read piece by Greenwald that
outlines his own political development as well as what he views as the
very high stakes of the ongoing struggle over Wikileaks.
-dave


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Why the U.S. Went to War: Inside the White House Debate on Libya

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20110321/us_time/httpswamplandblogstimecom20110320whytheuswenttowarinsidethewhitehousedebateonlibyaxidrssfullnationyahoo

Why the U.S. Went to War: Inside the White House Debate on Libya

  By MASSIMO CALABRESI Massimo Calabresi   – Mon Mar 21, 1:40 pm ET

President Barack Obama says he's intervening to prevent atrocities in
Libya. But details of behind-the-scenes debates at the White House
show he's going to war in part to rehabilitate an idea.

Three weeks ago, I posted an article headlined, "Will Obama Order U.S.
Intervention in Libya?" It began: "It seems preposterous to suggest in
the wake of Iraq that the U.S. might intervene militarily to help
bring down another Arab regime. But the growing danger of a
humanitarian catastrophe created by Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, combined
with a surprisingly broad confluence of interests, has crisis watchers
inside and outside the administration seeing the telltale signs of a
conflict that could compel Obama into action." (See the coalition
troops' battle in Libya.)

My main argument was that if Gaddafi committed large-scale human
rights violations against his own people he would provide an opening
to those in the administration who wanted to rehabilitate the doctrine
of humanitarian intervention eight years after the Iraq war
discredited U.S.-led military actions abroad. As it turns out, Gaddafi
hasn't done enough to justify humanitarian intervention - despite
their rhetoric to the contrary, the administration and human rights
organizations admit that reports of potential war crimes remain
unconfirmed. Instead, interviews with senior administration officials
show that the rehabilitators convinced Obama to go to war not just to
prevent atrocities Gaddafi might (or might not) commit but also to
bolster America's ability to intervene elsewhere in the future.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing. The ability for the U.S. to muster
international force to prevent thugs from killing innocent people is
important. But the president and some of his advisers are so eager to
rehabilitate the idea of preventive intervention that they're
exaggerating the violence they say they are intervening to prevent in
Libya. "The effort to shoe-horn this into an imminent genocide model
is strained," says one senior administration official. That's
dangerous. Americans deserve an honest explanation when their leaders
take them to war. Moreover, the rhetorical focus on the crazy things
Gaddafi might do obscures the debate America should have before
intervening: does the value of preventing possible war crimes against
Libyans outweigh the risks to America's national security that come
with intervening? (See the stern message Gaddafi had for the allied
forces.)

Obama and his aides know they are taking a big risk. "It's a huge
gamble," says the senior administration official. The administration
knows, for example, that al Qaeda, which has active cells in Libya,
will try to exploit the power vacuum that will come with a weak or
ousted Gaddafi. They also know that the U.S. will have to rely on
other countries for the crucial task of rebuilding Libya and that the
region may in fact be further destabilized by intervention.
Outweighing that, the National Security Council's Ben Rhodes says, are
the long-term benefits of saving lives, protecting the possibility of
democratic change elsewhere in the region and - tellingly - ensuring
"the ability of collective action to be a tool in circumstances like
this."

One of the strongest voices in America for the idea of collective
action to prevent war crimes is Samantha Power, a senior director at
the National Security Council. In late 2006, Power told me that
international humanitarian intervention had been "killed for a
generation" by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Then a professor at Harvard
best known for her Pulitzer prize-winning history of America's
response to genocide (a book she wrote after covering the wars in
Bosnia and Croatia and studying the genocide in Rwanda) Power was a
strong believer in international intervention to prevent war crimes.
Like many others, she was frustrated that the cause of preventing
genocide had been undermined by George W. Bush's unilateral
intervention in Iraq, which discredited U.S. military action abroad
and made building coalitions to stop war crimes seemingly impossible.

But the Libyan uprising gave the humanitarian interventionists an
unexpected reprieve. The universal hatred of Gaddafi in the Arab
world, Europe's energy interests, fears of regional instability and
the backdrop of Arab democratic uprisings provided interventionists in
Washington unlikely allies at home and abroad. Power has argued from
the start of the Libyan uprising that the U.S. needed to be prepared
to interve

Re: [Marxism] Dialectics, Egypt and Libya

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 12:44 PM, Louis Proyect  wrote:
>
> The imperialists have used the revolution as an excuse to make war on
> Qaddafi in my opinion as a way of projecting US power in the Middle East, in
> exactly the same fashion as the war against Saddam.
>
> I think my mistake in predicting that a war would not occur is one of
> economic determinism. I assumed that because Libya was an open door for
> Western oil companies that there would be no need to invade, especially
> after reading Wesley Clarke's op-ed piece.
> the realpolitik oriented Pentagon:

Haven't had much time for this debate the last week but I have been
following it.

Brief note on Sarkozy - this may secure his position politically for
the time being despite unpopular austerity measures, same with
Cameron. I am not saying this is their sole motivation but it could be
one. They need to stabilize the political situation at home.

I think you are close here Louis, but not quite yet at the meat of
this. What is the the thinking of the State Department liberals? What
was the thinking of the neoconservatives? They didn't just want to
project US power, their goals are actually much much more ambitious
than that. They want to 'spread democracy', they want to eventually
remake the middle east politically and have relatively stable,
friendly western style neoliberal democracies there. It sounds a
little crazy and it is but they believe it, at least to some extent.
The neocons thought they could do this militarily. They tried and
failed in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly Iraq. Now with these
uprisings they see that as an opportunity to resurrect this plan by
trying to piggy-back it on the revolutionary movements. The realists
and the military have never really been completely on board with this
sort of thinking, thus their skepticism.

When the rebels in Libya appeared to be winning it would have looked
bad if the US had intervened. With them on the brink of destruction
the US looks good plus if the revolutionaries were defeated they lose
their chance. As for influence they don't need the military for that
they just need financial muscle, humanitarian aid, etc. I thought the
revolutionaries were going to be able to do it on their own, in which
case I don't think they would have militarily intervened. I was wrong
about that and so wrong about the intervention.  Personally I think
their dream of remaking the the middle politically will not work - at
least in the long run - because neoliberalism is politically
destabilizing and corrosive to democratic forms. If they could offer a
real social-democracy they might have a chance that just isn't in the
cards. Anywhere.
-dave


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] Wallerstein: Libya and the World Left

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Simone de Beauvoir’s
> maxim: “Wanting to be free yourself means wanting that others be
> free.”

On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 6:59 PM, Gulf Mann  wrote:
>
> What a wonderful sounding quote, although palpably untrue: as a rule,
> oppressors want to be free, even while they unite to deny such freedom to
> their victims.
>

It depends on one's definition of 'freedom'. Sartre and de Beauvoir
would have seen that 'freedom' of the oppressors as an expression of
'bad faith' adn not real freedom at all. The notion that freedom for
one implies freedom for all is one with deep roots in the republican
(and thus by extension the communist) tradition.
-dave


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] Einstein´s experiment, again [Re: The character of the rebellion in Libya]

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 2:49 PM, Néstor Gorojovsky  wrote:
>>
>> I note it also doesn't say 'bourgeois nationalists of the world unite!"
>> -dave
>
>
> I guess Dave considers everyone who disagrees with him on Libya a
> bourgeois nationalist.

That is not what I said. It is however what the so-called
'anti-imperialist' line often amounts to.
-dave


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 character of the rebellion in Libya

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 1:42 PM, Lüko Willms  wrote:
>   whow!
>
>   I guess that this counterrevolutionary left crowd has also misread the final
> sentence in Marx' "Communist Manifesto" as to read "proletarians of the
> world, unite!" instead of the much more modern "oppositionists of the world,
> unite!".
>
>
> Impressed
> Yours Lüko Willms

I note it also doesn't say 'bourgeois nationalists of the world unite!"

In any case the traditional marxist understanding of class is stuck in
the industrial era. Marx's own views on class underwent considerable
evolution over time and the picture one gets in Das Kapital is not the
same as in the manifesto.
-dave


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] Wallerstein: Libya and the World Left

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Wallerstein: Libya and the World Left

http://www.iwallerstein.com/libya-world-left/


excerpt:

The key struggle worldwide right now is the second Arab revolt. It
will be hard enough to obtain a truly radical outcome in this
struggle. Qaddafi is a major obstacle for the Arab, and indeed the
world, left. Perhaps we should all remember Simone de Beauvoir’s
maxim: “Wanting to be free yourself means wanting that others be
free.”


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] Stalin fan dismisses fear over thyroid cancer

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


In Soviet Russia, thyroid cancer cures you!


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] Maddow clip about Michigan bill

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUpO1QFMDtM&feature=player_embedded


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] intertubes culture

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/04/4chan-201104

4chan’s Chaos Theory
Founded in 2003 by 15-year-old Christopher Poole, 4chan, the online
hangout for millions of young people, unwittingly spawned the group
Anonymous, which sprang to the defense of WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange last December, attacking and taking down MasterCard’s and
Visa’s Web sites. Does the anti-Facebook ethos of one of the Web’s
largest active forums represent a movement or just mayhem? Vanessa
Grigoriadis peers into 4chan’s “hive mind,” a primordial soup of
teenage-male angst and cute cat photos.


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] Rebels Hold out in Zawiya, Eastern Ra’s Lanuf as Libyan Civil War Unfolds

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Also it is worthwhile noting that France has recognized the gov in
Benghazi now, though their thinking appears to be very much in the
minority among imperialist nations, which seem to be split over Libya
but leaning towards non-intervention. Which just goes to show how
wrong some of the left's instincts about this have been.
-dave



Rebels Hold out in Zawiya, Eastern Ra’s Lanuf as Libyan Civil War Unfolds

I just want to signal that some caution is in order about reading the
military and political situation in Libya. Muammar Qaddafi’s
counter-attacks are creating the image in the media of the momentum
being on his side, but in fact he is bogged down and making little
progress, despite the setback Thursday for the rebels at Ra’s Lanuf
(itself taken by a small amateur rebel force only last weekend).
Qaddafi’s military appears still not to have taken the city of Zawiya
after a massive assault, despite government assertions to the
contrary, which some Western news sources have unwisely credited
Zawiya is only 30 miles west of Tripoli. Although they have pushed
back a poorly organized small force at Ras Lanuf, the big cities of
the east remain united against them.

The rebels still have at least 75% of the country and 80% of the oil
wealth, and a lot of small towns would have to fall to alter that
calculus. While it is true that Qaddafi has jets and the rebels don’t,
jets don’t take territory. And, Qaddafi’s armor has performed poorly
in Zawiya, so his advantage in tanks seems hard to operationalize.

Aljazeera Arabic is reporting mid-day Friday Libyan time that downtown
Zawiya to the west of the capital of Tripoli remains in rebel hands
despite aerial bombardment today and despite a fierce tank and
artillery attack by pro-Qaddafi military forces during the past four
days. Qaddafi had claimed to have reconquered the city on Wednesday
and brought Western journalists to a pro-regime rally on the outskirts
of the town. Aljazeera’s reporter in the city says that Qaddafi’s men
have placed snipers on the walls above the entrances to the city and
are using Zawiya residents as human shields, but that the rebels have
reasserted themselves in the central square. The western city of Zuara
is also said by CNN to be supporting the Benghazi-based opposition,
and its tribes are lending support to Zawiya.

In the western town of Lanut, crowds came out Friday chanting against
Qaddafi and destroyed a stone representation of his “Green Book,”
which, in imitation of Mao Ze Dong, had embodied his political
philosophy for the masses.

In a counter-attack to the east, pro-Qaddafi forces have taken the
residential areas of the oil and refining town of Ra’s Lanuf, pushing
back the rebels who had taken it last weekend. The rebels have taken
up a position 12 miles to the east at Ra’s Lanuf’s industrial and
refining center and fierce fighting and bombardments around Ra’s Lanuf
are reported Friday morning. The eastern suburb of Ra’s Lanuf,
al-Uqaila, was bombarded from the air, and witnesses report plumes of
smoke rising from the blast sites. Intensive fighting is reported at
the refinery. The regime is clearly desperate to deny the rebels any
oil revenue they might realize from Ra’s Lanuf’s facilities, which
ordinarily produce 200,000 barrels a day.

continued:
http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/rebels-hold-out-in-zawiya-eastern-ras-lanuf-as-libyan-civil-war-unfolds.html


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Naval "arms" blockade nearing, "no-fly zone" being weighed (WP)

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


I am glad Fred and Matt have made a strong counterposition. That is
basically what I also was trying to do, perhaps without success.
Needless to say I am with Matt on this. Opposition to imperialism is
an important principle whose truth is the long bloody history of
imperialism and all that goes with that. Whatever short-term
expediancy a call for imperialist intervention might have in a
particular case such as Libya is out-weighed by its general and
ultimate consequences. We all know how imperialist interventions end
up and giving them any legitimacy is a serious mistake. In a
revolutionary org it is what one might call a 'splitting issue'.

Having said that, I would regard myself as a revolutionist first and
an anti-imperialist second.  For me anti-imperialism is derivative
from my revolutionary perspective. For others it might not be. Perhaps
this is what distinguishes a revolutionary anti-imperialism from other
sorts.  My first instinct  is solidarity with the revolutionary people
of Libya and their struggle. I qualify that solidarity with 'Hands off
Libya' because I know  what imperialist intervention means and how
important it is to counter liberal illusions in imperialism.
Imperialism is no friend to revolution. But I do not qualify my
support to revolution by whether, in desperation, some members of that
revolution ask for imperialisms 'help'. Nor do I qualify it by
whether, in some sense, they get it.  And if they then win I do not
think less of them for it. I do not, as a rule, hold up litmus tests
of revolutionary purity.

Some have argued that not all revolutions are 'progressive' and point
to the examples of the US Civil War and the revolutions of 1989. The
first was a rebelion by a regional ruling block that was defending a
mode of production based on slavery versus a comparatively progressive
bourgeois block. I don't see anything comparable in the case of Libya.
The uprising took place in all parts of Libya and  represented
basically all segments and tribes of Libya. Of course Gadhaffi has a
base of suport in his own tribe and in potions of the bureaucracy that
he has enriched and empowered (as can be seen in Sirte and parts of
Tripoli), but this hardly indicates a mass popular base. Nor is
Gadhaffi some sort of anti-imperialist or progressive as has been
conclusive demonstrated by Louis and others on this list over and over
again. If Gadhafi is able to use his imperialist supplied weapons to
drown the revolution in blood it will be a great loss to the world
revolutionary process that is in the process of developing.

The Libyan revolution is engaged in a difficult, life and death
struggle. I expect them to do everything in their power to win and
prevent a counter-revolutionary bloodbath such as what would surely
follow in the wake of a victory by Gadhafi. Their first duty is to
survive. By any means necessary as Malcolm said. Having said that I
don't really see imperialist intervention as a viable survival
strategy for them and I think many of them realize that. It would be
sort of like avoiding murder by committing suicide. In any case all
they really need are a few hand held missles and Gadhafi's aging tanks
and aircraft - which are his only real advantage - are history. I hope
they find a way to get them.

In regards to demos I see a primary purpose as the expression of
Solidarity with the revolutions in MENA. I think that call for
solidarity has a lot of resonance right now, both with workers in the
US and around the world. We need to be building that solidarity.
Revolutionary internationalism is a core principle. The fact is we
probably wouldn't have had wisconsin if it weren't for Egypt.
Anti-imperialism is a logical component of that internationalism and
making that connection is important, particularly when there is a war
drive and potential intervention on the horizon.  If the left opposes
imperialism without also standing in solidarity with the revolution it
puts itself outside the real struggle and solidarity of the working
class as it has expressed itself around the world. I agree with Matt,
it isn't a demo I am going to. We need to be on the right side on this
and that means -with- the revolutionary struggle of the Libyan people.


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] Libya: a tale of two headlines 8th March 2011

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 8:02 PM, Néstor Gorojovsky  wrote:
> 2011/3/8 dave x :
>> I have to think there is an
>> ideological component to this driven by liberal interventionism. In my
>> own reading of the situation, I think the rebels have done remarkably
>> well under a set of very difficult circumstances.
>> -dave
>>
>
> A couple of corrections.
>
> a) there is not an ideological component. There is an ideOILogical component
>
> b) a fraction of the rebels has done remarkably well, under a set of
> very difficult circumstances which for them, and for them only,
> include the absence of military intervention.

In regards to (a). The connection between the ideology of liberal
humanitarian interventionism and imperial geopolitical oil concerns is
indirect not direct. It is highly mediated. The guardian reporter is
not motivated by oil concerns but by the rather by the moral logic of
liberal imperialism. Just like your typical 19th century British
imperialist was motivated by the notion of 'White man's burden'. Of
course there is a real sense in which economic and geopolitical
concerns underlie these types of concerns but it isn't direct.

In regards to (b) what do you mean by 'and for them only'?
-dave


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] Libya: a tale of two headlines 8th March 2011

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


I have been noticing the difference in headlines between liberal
western sources like the Guardian and say Al Jazeera and Juan Cole for
a while now. It is really striking. I have to think there is an
ideological component to this driven by liberal interventionism. In my
own reading of the situation, I think the rebels have done remarkably
well under a set of very difficult circumstances.
-dave


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] Qaddafi Said to seek deal as Rebels Repel pro-Qaddafi Forces at Misrata, Ras Lanuf

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


"The inability of pro-Qaddafi forces on Monday to retake Misrata and
Ras Lanuf appears to have impelled Muammar Qaddafi  to begin
back-channel talks with the provisional government in Benghazi  about
circumstances under which he might step down. Reuters said that he is
seeking immunity from prosecution for himself and his family. The
National Libyan Council is said to have rejected this demand
initially, though Aljazeera Arabic quotes rebel leaders in Benghazi
who are willing to offer Qaddafi immunity if he will step down."

http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/qaddafi-seeks-deal-as-rebels-repel-pro-qaddafi-forces-at-misrata-ras-lanuf.html


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Gadhafi's militia storms key town (NYT), and my comments

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 6:25 AM, Néstor Gorojovsky  wrote:
>
> Of course, the Devil is clearer in his actions once in power. It is
> easier for an analyst to follow his actions. Apostates are so strange
> and require mental muscle.
>
> But substituting the Devil for the Apostates is bad business for the
> populations involved, who tend to "backwardly" support even the worst
> Apostate against the Devil. Only when the Devil is weak vis a vis the
> general mass of the population, or the Apostates have destroyed
> anything the True Lords of Faith had constructed, the masses begin to
> move against the Apostates. Only when they positively know that any
> movement by the Apostates will put them, the masses, in a worse
> position than before.
>

I guess I am an Apostate who lost his Faith and stopped believing in
the Devil a long time ago.

To the extent that I have faith in anything it is in the revolutionary
capacities of humanity. Perhaps it is misplaced but I am unwilling to
make that judgement apart from the trial of history. The masses in
Libya have taken their stand in this and so have you - but on opposite
sides.
-dave


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] Venezuelan Supreme Court Frees Jailed Union Leader

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Venezuelan Supreme Court Frees Jailed Union Leader

Caracas, March 6th 2011 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – On Thursday, the
Venezuelan Supreme Court over-ruled a decision by a lower court to
jail union leader Rubén González for seven years and six months for
his role in a 2009 iron miners strike.

...
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6045


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] Gadhafi's militia storms key town (NYT), and my comments

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Nestor,
You do not seem to understand that Gadhafi is gone, whether you can
compare him with Peron or not, whether he is in any way an
anti-imperialist or not, he is gone, finished, kaput. It is only a
matter of time. If he somehow manages to crush the rebellion, which I
doubt, it will simply mean that NATO will intervene to take him out
and they can install some shitty patsy. Why? Because Libya is on
Europe's southern flank. Because Libya has oil and they need it.
Because they need a 'credible partner' to deal with and Gadhafi no
longer is that, can no longer be that. Gadhafi is gone. The questions
are when, who takes him out, and who replaces him. If the Libyans can
succeed in their revolution and take Gadhafi out themselves they will
be infinitely better prepared for the challenge of how to deal with
imperialism than if the revolution gets permanently stalled and NATO
has to get involved.

You also do not seem to understand the balance of class power in the
imperialist homeland of the US. Despite the recent inspiring
occupation at Madison, I can guarantee you that there is no way that
we can stop any intervention into Libya. None. Not at this point. If
every marx-mailer in the US chained themselves to the Whitehouse gate
it would make the third page of the NYT but it would not stop their
plans.

To truly stop imperialist intervention we would need a mass movement
committed to US non-intervention. We would need an organized working
class capable of launching large-scale political strikes. We would
need dissension in the military. We are a long way from that. I am all
for building protest and saying 'US out' and 'Hands off' but at the
moment this is largely symbolic. With Vietnam doing this took years
and a large scale military draft. We don't have years and we don't
have a draft. Now the military is increasingly made up of robots and
contractors.

Much more real is the fact that many US workers are feeling some
identity with the rebellions and revolutions in the Middle East and in
Libya. Starting from a standpoint of solidarity with such revolutions
we have a way we can potentially explain to people how imperialism is
a threat to these revolutions, how it hurts and doesn't help, but it
will be a gradual process of building organization and consciousness.
At the moment there is little we can do to stop imperialist aggression
except registering our dissent and helping build a new workers and a
new anti-war movement here that is in solidarity with these
revolutions. Which is a reason why saying 'Victory to the Revolution!'
is in fact, very important.
-dave

On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 7:27 PM, Néstor Gorojovsky  wrote:
> Then, for God´s sake, don't worry about Gadafi's credentials any more.
> Take up your weapons and fight against that intervention NOW. Because
> it is ALREADY TAKING PLACE and it was taking place from the very
> beginning of the rebellion.
>
> I am not saying that all rebels were imperialist agents, etc.
>
> I am saying that the rebellion is proving, minute after shitty minute,
> a wonderful ground for imperialist agents to plant their murderous
> vegetables.


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] Libyan Republic Declared?

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Apparently they have a twitter feed:

http://twitter.com/#!/LibyanTNC


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 Middle East without borders?

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/201134154351741689.html

A Middle East without borders?
The nation state is ripe for change and people power offers new
opportunities for mapping the future of the region.
Mohammed Khan Last Modified: 05 Mar 2011 15:00 GMT

The modern geography of the Middle East was carved out by British and
French colonialists whose sole interest was in sharing the spoils of
war between themselves and in maintaining their supremacy over the
region in the early part of the 20th century.

The contours of the region, with its immaculately straight lines (see
maps of Algeria, Libya, Egypt and Sudan) are much the same today as
when they were first drawn up, despite decades of cross-border
encroachment and conflict.

Never has an imported concept been so jealously guarded by ruling
families and political elites in the Middle East as that of the nation
state, together with the holy grail of international relations theory,
state sovereignty.

The artificialness of the borders in question is not in doubt. Take a
look at any map of the Middle East prior to the 1916 Sykes-Picot
Agreement between Britain and France (when the division of the region
was finalised with no consideration for the thoughts of the people
that lived in it) and you will be hard pressed to find many physical
boundaries between, say, Syria to the north-east and Morocco to the
west.

What you may find, however, are free-flowing train routes spanning the
region. A relic of the old Hejaz Railway, which connected Damascus to
Medina, still stands (dilapidated) in the centre of the Syrian
capital. It once transported pilgrims to the Muslim holy city in
modern-day Saudi Arabia without the need for cumbersome visas and
frustrating bureaucrats. But that was obviously some time ago.

Trial and error

Over the course of recent history, Arab leaders have attempted to
foster closer unity in the Arab world whether in the form of the
22-member Arab League - "to safeguard the independence and sovereignty
[of Arab states]" - or the six-state Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) -
as a political, economic and security union in response to the Islamic
revolution in Iran.

However, the sanctity of the state itself, and its borders, has been
absolute within these blocs.

Possibly the greatest experiment in cross-border union, one which
admittedly lasted barely three years, began in 1958, when under a wave
of Nasserism sweeping the region, Egypt and Syria (and for a very
short period, Iraq) established the United Arab Republic (UAR).

Gamal Abdel-Nasser's demagoguery and penchant for power, however, and
the subsequent economic tumult felt in Syria, soon saw an end to that
project in 1961.

Theoretically, Egypt and Syria became one, as part of the UAR. Under a
single leadership (with devolved power), the UAR was supposed to
foster a spirit of togetherness and spur other countries in the region
to join up and expand the union.

That the project failed was in no way a reflection of the Egyptian and
Syrian peoples' desire to forge a single alliance. Together with the
then Yemen Arab Republic, the formation of a United Arab States was
also mooted.

That was the last we heard of a pan-Arab national project.

Arguably, the 1990s and the 2000s were the decades of cross-border
post-nationalism, especially with the rise of Islamic movements as
major political actors whose ideology was premised on Islamic ideals
that transcended national borders.

Analyse closely the manifestos of some of these movements, however,
and also consider their specific origins, and it soon becomes clear
that their political ambitions were, and are, ingrained firmly in the
states in which they emerged.

As such, the Islamic Salvation Front was a dominant actor in Algeria
and Algeria alone, while the Muslim Brotherhood's focus is on
political reformation in Egypt. The Brotherhood's offshoots are
similarly specifically state-centric.

These movements may well have ideological underpinnings that aim to
replicate the glory days of the early Caliphates or the Ottoman
Empire, but realism has dictated that they focus their energies within
specific national confines. This is unlikely to change anytime soon.

All for one

Given this recent history, then, is the idea of a borderless Middle
East still viable? It may well be when you consider that the
globalised nature of the world, in its present form, has thrown up
possibilities in the region that would have been inconceivable barely
a few years back.

More precisely, the political convulsions that the region is
undergoing right now have revealed glaringly the extent to which the
problems and, potentially, the solutions to the Arab world's ills are
remarkably similar. The political, economic and social suffocation
that

[Marxism] Saudis mobilise thousands of troops to quell growing revolt

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudis-mobilise-thousands-of-troops-to-quell-growing-revolt-2232928.html

Saudis mobilise thousands of troops to quell growing revolt

By Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent

Saturday, 5 March 2011

Saudi Arabia was yesterday drafting up to 10,000 security personnel
into its north-eastern Shia Muslim provinces, clogging the highways
into Dammam and other cities with busloads of troops in fear of next
week's "day of rage" by what is now called the "Hunayn Revolution".

Saudi Arabia's worst nightmare – the arrival of the new Arab awakening
of rebellion and insurrection in the kingdom – is now casting its long
shadow over the House of Saud. Provoked by the Shia majority uprising
in the neighbouring Sunni-dominated island of Bahrain, where
protesters are calling for the overthrow of the ruling al-Khalifa
family, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is widely reported to have told
the Bahraini authorities that if they do not crush their Shia revolt,
his own forces will.

The opposition is expecting at least 20,000 Saudis to gather in Riyadh
and in the Shia Muslim provinces of the north-east of the country in
six days, to demand an end to corruption and, if necessary, the
overthrow of the House of Saud. Saudi security forces have deployed
troops and armed police across the Qatif area – where most of Saudi
Arabia's Shia Muslims live – and yesterday would-be protesters
circulated photographs of armoured vehicles and buses of the
state-security police on a highway near the port city of Dammam.
Related articles

Although desperate to avoid any outside news of the extent of the
protests spreading, Saudi security officials have known for more than
a month that the revolt of Shia Muslims in the tiny island of Bahrain
was expected to spread to Saudi Arabia. Within the Saudi kingdom,
thousands of emails and Facebook messages have encouraged Saudi Sunni
Muslims to join the planned demonstrations across the "conservative"
and highly corrupt kingdom. They suggest – and this idea is clearly
co-ordinated – that during confrontations with armed police or the
army next Friday, Saudi women should be placed among the front ranks
of the protesters to dissuade the Saudi security forces from opening
fire.

If the Saudi royal family decides to use maximum violence against
demonstrators, US President Barack Obama will be confronted by one of
the most sensitive Middle East decisions of his administration. In
Egypt, he only supported the demonstrators after the police used
unrestrained firepower against protesters. But in Saudi Arabia –
supposedly a "key ally" of the US and one of the world's principal oil
producers – he will be loath to protect the innocent.

So far, the Saudi authorities have tried to dissuade their own people
from supporting the 11 March demonstrations on the grounds that many
protesters are "Iraqis and Iranians". It's the same old story used by
Ben Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak of Egypt and Bouteflika of Algeria and
Saleh of Yemen and the al-Khalifas of Bahrain: "foreign hands" are
behind every democratic insurrection in the Middle East.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mr Obama will be gritting
their teeth next Friday in the hope that either the protesters appear
in small numbers or that the Saudis "restrain" their cops and
security; history suggests this is unlikely. When Saudi academics have
in the past merely called for reforms, they have been harassed or
arrested. King Abdullah, albeit a very old man, does not brook rebel
lords or restive serfs telling him to make concessions to youth. His
£27bn bribe of improved education and housing subsidies is unlikely to
meet their demands.

An indication of the seriousness of the revolt against the Saudi royal
family comes in its chosen title: Hunayn. This is a valley near Mecca,
the scene of one of the last major battles of the Prophet Mohamed
against a confederation of Bedouins in AD630. The Prophet won a tight
victory after his men were fearful of their opponents. The reference
in the Koran, 9: 25-26, as translated by Tarif el-Khalidi, contains a
lesson for the Saudi princes: "God gave you victory on many
battlefields. Recall the day of Hunayn when you fancied your great
numbers.

"So the earth, with all its wide expanse, narrowed before you and you
turned tail and fled. Then God made his serenity to descend upon his
Messenger and the believers, and sent down troops you did not see –
and punished the unbelievers." The unbelievers, of course, are
supposed – in the eyes of the Hunayn Revolution – to be the King and
his thousand princes.

Like almost every other Arab potentate over the past three months,
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia suddenly produced economic bribes and
promised reforms when his enemy was 

[Marxism] WSJ: U.S. Wavers on 'Regime Change'

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703580004576180522653787198.html

U.S. Wavers on 'Regime Change'

By ADAM ENTOUS And JULIAN E. BARNES

WASHINGTON—After weeks of internal debate on how to respond to
uprisings in the Arab world, the Obama administration is settling on a
Middle East strategy: help keep longtime allies who are willing to
reform in power, even if that means the full democratic demands of
their newly emboldened citizens might have to wait.

A fighter for the Libyan rebels prepares for battle Friday against
forces loyal to Col. Moammar Gadhafi, on a day when the two sides
waged a fierce battle near Tripoli.

Instead of pushing for immediate regime change—as it did to varying
degrees in Egypt and now Libya—the U.S. is urging protesters from
Bahrain to Morocco to work with existing rulers toward what some
officials and diplomats are now calling "regime alteration."

The approach has emerged amid furious lobbying of the administration
by Arab governments, who were alarmed that President Barack Obama had
abandoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and worried that, if the
U.S. did the same to the beleaguered king of Bahrain, a chain of
revolts could sweep them from power, too, and further upend the
region's stability.

The strategy also comes in the face of domestic U.S. criticism that
the administration sent mixed messages at first in Egypt, tentatively
backing Mr. Mubarak before deciding to throw its full support behind
the protesters demanding his ouster. Likewise in Bahrain, the U.S.
decision to throw a lifeline to the ruling family came after sharp
criticism of its handling of protests there. On Friday, the kingdom's
opposition mounted one of its largest rallies, underlining the
challenge the administration faces selling a strategy of more gradual
change to the population.

Administration officials say they have been consistent throughout,
urging rulers to avoid violence and make democratic reforms that
address the demands of their populations. Still, a senior
administration official acknowledged the past month has been a
learning process for policy makers. "What we have said throughout this
is that there is a need for political, economic and social reform, but
the particular approach will be country by country," the official
said.

A pivotal moment came in late February, in the tense hours after Mr.
Obama publicly berated King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa for cracking down
violently on antigovernment demonstrators in Bahrain's capital. Envoys
for the king and his Arab allies shuttled from the Pentagon to the
State Department and the White House with a carefully coordinated
message.

If the Obama administration did not reverse course and stand squarely
behind the monarchy, they warned, Bahrain's government could fall,
costing America a critical ally and potentially moving the country
toward Iran's orbit. Adding to the sense of urgency was a scenario
being watched by U.S. intelligence agencies: the possibility that
Saudi Arabia might invade its tiny neighbor to silence the Shiite-led
protesters, threatening decades-old partnerships and creating vast
political and economic upheaval.

Washington's Approach

"We need the full support of the United States," a top Bahraini
diplomat beseeched the Americans, including Joint Chiefs of Staff
Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffery
Feltman, Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough, and other
top policy makers.

Arab diplomats believe the push worked. Defense Secretary Robert Gates
and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emerged as leading voices
inside the administration urging greater U.S. support for the Bahraini
king coupled with a reform agenda that Washington insisted would be
have to be credible to street protesters. Instead of backing cries for
the king's removal, Mr. Obama asked protesters to negotiate with the
ruling family, which is promising major changes.

Israel was also making its voice heard. As Mr. Mubarak's grip on power
slipped away in Egypt, Israeli officials lobbied Washington to move
cautiously and reassure Mideast allies that they were not being
abandoned. Israeli leaders have made clear that they fear extremist
forces could try to exploit new-found freedoms and undercut Israel's
security, diplomats said.
Regional Upheaval

"Starting with Bahrain, the administration has moved a few notches
toward emphasizing stability over majority rule," said a U.S.
official. "Everybody realized that Bahrain was just too important to
fail."

An exception to the policy of regime alteration is Libya, a longtime
U.S. adversary partially rehabilitated by the Bush administration
after Tripoli agreed to give up its nuclear program. Mr. Obama's
initial reaction was muted, but he later criticized Col. Moa

[Marxism] Libyan situation

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


News:

Reportedly there was again heavy fighting in Zawiyah to the west of
Tripoli Saturday. The pro-Gadhafi state TV declared that they had
retaken Zawiyah but those same reports also claim that pro-Gadhafi
forces have retaken a number of western cities which it can be
confirmed they have not taken. Other, probably more reliable reports
say that Gadhafi's forces have now withdrawn from Zawiyah leaving it
in revolutionary hands.

The revolutionary army advancing from the east that took Ras Lanuf has
now gone past it and has taken the small town of Bin Jawad in between
Ras Lanuf and Sirte which is the next destination. If Sirte is taken
the revolutionaries will be linked up with the liberated city of
Misrata to Tripoli's east. This would effectively mean all territory
to the east of Tripoli would be in revolutionary hands. The
revolutionary advance from the east is has been moving relatively
quickly against minimal opposition so far. Sirte could be more
difficult because the population may be loyal to Gadhafi. It also
appears that some fighting may have broken out in Tripoli itself
perhaps in anticipation of the revolutionary advance.
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/africa/2011/03/06/westbound-rebels-raise-questions
http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/rebels-take-hold-key-oil-cities-in-fierce-libyan-civil-war.html

The Guardian is taking a much more negative stance seemingly
contradictory to Al jazeera and juan cole, calling the military
stituation 'stalled':
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/05/gaddafi-opposition-libya-revolt

Analysis:

Gadhafi seems to have some serious problems militarily. Everything he
has tried to do has failed. Despite repeated efforts to secure his
flank to the west his forces have failed. Given the disparity of
forces one suspects that Gadhafi's military may be seriously
demoralized and/or seriously weakened. Given the advance from the east
they may well have to pull back from Zawiyah to redeploy. The defense
of Ras Lanuf was minimal. Will Sirte be a different question? There
has been a lot of talk about the threat of Gadhafi's airforce but most
of his planes have remained on the ground. Why? Are there enough
pilots and ground crews to run them? Have they been sabotaged? Or are
they waiting for something?

I suspect that Gadhafi may be seriously weakened due to defections,
low moral and even sabotage in his military. There may be those in the
transitional government who are stalling for some sort of western
military intervention. Or maybe it is just bureaucratic caution. The
guardian reports that pragmatism has replaced revolutionary fervor in
the revolutionary army, but this is contradicted by other reports
which seem to indicate that the westward momentum of the army is being
pushed from the bottom up despite the caution of some of the officers.
I wonder about the cast that the guardian and other mainstream western
sources are giving their reporting, whether it doesn't have a
political component so as to portray the revolutionaries as in need of
'assistance'.
-dave


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] Libyan Republic Declared?

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.p2pnet.net/story/49758

report of the declaration of a Libyan republic:

The Libyan Republic

Declaration of the Establishment of the National Transitional Temporary Council

In affirmation of the sovereignty of the Libyan people over the
entirety of their territory, land, sea, and air; and in response to
the demands of the Libyan people, towards the realization of the free
will with which they shaped the uprising of February 17th; and in
preservation of the Libyan people’s national unity; we resolve to
establish a national council named ‘the National Transitional
Temporary Council’ to be the only legitimate representative of the
Libyan people.

Article 1

Functions

1. To ensure the safety and peace of citizens and the national territory

2. To coordinate national efforts to liberate the remaining quarters
of the nation

3. To coordinate the efforts of local councils working towards the
return of civic life

4. To supervise the military council so as to ensure the realization
of a new doctrine for the national army towards the defense of the
Libyan people and protection of its borders

5. To supervise the election of a founding assembly charged with
developing a new constitution for the country to be submitted to
public referendum, so that the legitimacy of the constitution is
founded on:  the will of the people, the triumphant uprising of
February 17th, respect for human rights, guarantee of civil liberties,
separation of powers, an independent judiciary and the establishment
of national institutions that provide for broad and pluralistic
participation, the peaceful transition of authority and the right of
representation for every segment of Libyan society

6. To form a transitional government to pave the way for free elections

7. To conduct and to steer foreign policy, to organize relations with
foreign nations and international and regional organizations, and to
represent the Libyan people before them

Article 2

The Council’s Organizational Structure

1. The Council is composed of 30 members, representing all of Libya’s
regions and all segments of Libyan society, with youth membership
representing no less than 5 members.

2. The Council will select from its members a president, an official
spokesperson and coordinators for a variety of domestic and foreign
functions.

Article 3

Seat of the Council

The Council’s permanent seat is at the capital, Tripoli, taking
Benghazi as its temporary seat until the capital is liberated.

Article 4

It is the responsibility of the Council to set protocols for its
regular and emergency meetings and to make decisions in accordance
with the interests of the Libyan people, in a manner that does not
contradict the people’s demands, the basis of which were declared by
the uprising of February 17th:  the fall of the Gaddafi regime and the
establishment of a civil, constitutional and democratic state.


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] Bradley Manning to endure daily forced nudity

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Greenwald on forced nudity and the Manning situation:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/04/morrell/index.html
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/05/manning


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] Libyan rebels seize British SAS troops

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFLDE72500520110306

Libyan rebels seize British SAS troops-Sunday Times

LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) - Libyan rebels have captured a British
special forces unit in the east of the country after a secret
diplomatic mission to make contact with opposition leaders backfired,
Britain's Sunday Times reported. The team, understood to number up to
eight SAS soldiers, were intercepted as they escorted a junior
diplomat through rebel-held territory, the newspaper said.

The Foreign Office said in a brief statement it could neither "confirm
or deny" the report.

Earlier on Saturday the Geneva-based Human Rights Solidarity group,
which employs a number of Libyan exiles, told Reuters by telephone
that a team of "eight special forces personnel" had been seized by
rebels. Both the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office repeatedly
declined to comment on the group's report.

The SAS intervention apparently angered Libyan opposition figures, who
ordered the soldiers locked up on a military base, according to the
Sunday Times.

Opponents of longtime Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi fear he could use
any evidence of Western military intervention to rally patriotic
support away from a two-week-old uprising against his 41-year
autocratic rule.

Citing Libyan sources, the Sunday Times said the special forces troops
were taken by rebels to Benghazi, Libya's second largest city and
epicentre of the insurrection, and hauled before one of its most
senior politicians for questioning.

The paper said the junior diplomat they were escorting was preparing
the way for a visit by a more senior colleague ahead of establishing
diplomatic relations with the rebels.

The Sunday Times said Libyan opposition officials were said to be
trying to hush up the incident for fear of a backlash from ordinary
Libyans.

(Reporting by Stefano Ambrogi; editing by Mark Heinrich)


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] Paul street - Reflections on the Early Global Springtime of Peoples

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


It’s About Who’s Sitting in: Reflections on the Early Global
Springtime of Peoples
by Paul Street / March 5th, 2011

http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/03/it%E2%80%99s-about-who%E2%80%99s-sitting-in-reflections-on-the-early-global-springtime-of-peoples/#more-30199


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] Gadhafi's militia storms key town (NYT), and my comments

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Fred:
Gadhafi's reported victory in the latest round of the sea-saw battle for
Zawiya indicates that a stalemate is hardening. I don't think we should
exclude the possibility that the military morale and political will of the
insurgents are being undermined by leaders who tell them that the US will
break the stalemate and place the leaders in power.

Dave:
I don't think Zawiya indicates anything about a stalemate. Zawiya is
near Tripoli and to the west. What is remarkable here is that the
revolutionaries have held out for so long against Quadhafi's best
forces despite being so poorly organized and equipped. The main
revolutionary forces are advancing on Tripoli from the east, so far
successfully.


Fred:
This leaves out a living possibility. That is, that Chavez's offer is being
rejected so firmly because the section of the titular leadership that
decides such questions today is relying on Washington offers them a surer,
and, from their class standpoint, safer road to power (for them, not the
people in revolt, or the rest of the masses, either) than one that does not
rely on imperialist power.

Dave:
If I were a Libyan revolutionary I would not trust Chavez as an
arbitrator because of the way he took Quadhafi's side in this pretty
early on and because of his ostentatious support for Quadhafi in the
past. I would also find the notion of Quadhafi escaping the justice of
the people to be unacceptable and so any settlement with Quadhafi no
matter who mediated would be out except as a last resort.

Is it possible that some in the Benghazi government have ulterior
motives in not accepting mediation? Yes it is. But I would argue that
actually there is no way they could accept mediation due to popular
will. Their popular legitimacy (to the extent that they have it) would
be undermined if went into negotiations. Some at least in the
provisional government in Benghazi have called for air support but
have refused boots on the ground. I can understand their reasoning
here even though I think it is mistaken. It is also unclear how widely
that sentiment is shared. The fact that they limit the call to aerial
intervention tells me that intervention would probably be
controversial.

In regards to Chavez - does Chavez really think he can get Quadhafi to
leave? How clever/stupid is Chavez being? What does he know about
Quadhafi that we might not? I don't see it as 'wholly positive' as you
do. It will be far better for the revolution if they can bring down
Quadhafi themselves and Chavez's offer could likely (maybe already
has) rebound on the Bolivarian project in some dangerous ways.


Fred:
But isn't it possible that those who are calling for US air strikes and air
cover -- that is, for the US imperialists to break the stalemate and place
the titular opposition at the head of government -- are doing so out of
class consciousness, not simply confused "good" (from our standpoint)
intentions.

Dave:
I wouldn't doubt it. Reports indicate the current provisional
government in Benghazi is made up primarily of professionals, lawyers,
etc. At the moment this revolution is basically democratic in
character. Real class struggles probably won't start to really emerge
until after Quadhafi is gone. Right now everyone is focused on getting
rid of him.


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] Libya: Black Africans live in fear

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


see:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11139345
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/114672/20110221/libya-immigrants-tunisia.htm


Gadhafi as part of his 'rehabilitation' has been acting as Europe
racist immigration wall/buffer, maintaining large detention camps,
etc. He attempted to use this as a threat to get Europe to back him
when this thing started.
-dave


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] latest Juan Cole on Libya

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


If suspect that now that the situation in Libya has become a military
push on Tripoli from the east that Gadhafi's fall is just a matter of
time. His hold on Tripoli itself seems limited and he seems unable to
retake the western towns near Tripoli where the revolution is poorly
armed and organized. I think the rebels taking Tripoli and Gadhafi
themselves would be by far the most preferable outcome and at the
moment I don't see any reason to seriously doubt this. Of course the
longer this drags out the greater the dangers of imperialist
intervention and the greater the dangers that the spirit of the
revolution might be crushed in the context of civil war. But I think
there is still time. A Chavez mediated departure of Gadhafi would be
preferable to say a NATO organized military action to take out
Ghadafi. If that is the alternative then the Chavez move might pay
off. At the moment I believe that Chavez's move is a serious
miscalculation. We'll see.
-dave


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] latest Juan Cole on Libya

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/ras-lanuf-falls-to-rebels.html

"In a major push west, rebel forces in Libya are said by Reuters to
have taken the major petroleum and refining town of Ras Lanuf on the
Mediterranean coast east of the capital of Libya, consolidating their
control over the east of the country and its resources. "

While there continue to be Qaddafi regime attacks on eastern cities,
these appear either to be mere skirmishes or still-ineffectual bombing
runs. There was an explosion at an arms depot at Benghazi, the center
of the rebellion, on Friday, but is not clear whether it was an act of
sabotage or the result of an accident. BBC reports that shops close up
early in Benghazi and people are cautious about going out, so life is
still hard in the rebel-held territories.

Aljazeera English reports that esprit de corps is high in rebel-held
Ajdabiya and Brega/ Buraiqa.


Ras Lanuf Falls to Rebels

Posted on 03/05/2011 by Juan

In a major push west, rebel forces in Libya are said by Reuters to
have taken the major petroleum and refining town of Ras Lanuf on the
Mediterranean coast east of the capital of Libya, consolidating their
control over the east of the country and its resources.
Divided Libya

Divided Libya

While there continue to be Qaddafi regime attacks on eastern cities,
these appear either to be mere skirmishes or still-ineffectual bombing
runs. There was an explosion at an arms depot at Benghazi, the center
of the rebellion, on Friday, but is not clear whether it was an act of
sabotage or the result of an accident. BBC reports that shops close up
early in Benghazi and people are cautious about going out, so life is
still hard in the rebel-held territories.

Aljazeera English reports that esprit de corps is high in rebel-held
Ajdabiya and Brega/ Buraiqa.

In the west, pro-Qaddafi forces continued their attempt to roll back
the rebels around the capital, attacking liberated Zawiya and engaging
in fierce fighting with anti-Qaddafi crowds and military defect0rs, in
which some 30 persons were killed and more wounded. Both sides were
claiming control of Zawiya, just to the west of Tripoli, as night fell
Friday, which likely means that the city is divided.

In Tripoli itself, on Friday evening thousands of pro-Qaddafi
civilians rallied at Green Square. But in the working-class suburb of
Tajoura, hundreds demonstrated against Qaddafi after Friday prayers
before being dispersed by troops using live ammunition. Tajoura is
said to be without pro-Qaddafi police or security forces, and
essentially not in regime control.

If it is true that Ras Lanuf has fallen, then the momentum still seems
to be with the eastern rebels, who have been supporting themselves and
sending reinforcements as they have extended their sway toward the
west and fought off (as in Brega/ Buraiqa on Wednesday) regime
counter-attacks. That Ras Lanuf is an oil center with a major refinery
makes it an especially valuable asset for the rebels. About 1 million
barrels a day out of a pre-revolt 1.7 million b/d have been taken off
the market by the fighting in Libya.


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] Chavez gambles on Gaddafi diplomacy

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/201134121327738678.html

Chavez gambles on Gaddafi diplomacy
Hugo Chavez could yet emerge as a respected peacemaker over Libya, or
find himself on "the wrong side of history".
  Simon Hooper

fta:

'Honourable way out'

But, Salas warned, the only scenario in which Chavez could emerge in a
positive light would be in "facilitating the process in which Gaddafi
leaves the country".

"If he could provide an honourable way out for Gaddafi, in some ways
that would reduce the tensions and provide for some transition. He
could actually come out as a well-regarded mediator with international
credibility - or he could end up on the wrong side of history."

David Lehmann, Director of the Centre of Latin American Studies at
Cambridge, also suggested that Chavez could play a useful role between
Gaddafi and other Arab states because of their close ties through
OPEC, the global oil monopoly.

"Gaddafi has been expelled from the Arab League and the Saudis despise
him. Most of his friendships are to the south, so you could imagine
the Arab League might want somebody to come in and mediate," Lehmann
said.
Some see a contradiction between Chavez's "21st-century socialism" and
Venezuela's partnerships with countries such as Iran [EPA]

But Kozloff said Venezuela's relationship with Libya highlighted
bigger issues regarding Chavez's foreign policy, which has seen the
South American country forge high-profile strategic partnerships with
states such as Iran, Russia and Belarus in an effort to build a
"multipolar" alternative to Western supremacy.

Some see a contradiction between human rights abuses in those regimes
and Chavez’s "21st century socialism" ideology.

"While it's understandable that you’d want to build this multipolar
world against western imperialism, if that multipolarism consists of
Russia, China, and a bunch of authoritarian regimes then what use is a
multipolar world?" Kozloff said.

Chavez also risked finding himself isolated from the revolts sweeping
the Arab world, with possible implications for his leftist credentials
at home and abroad.

"Rather than expressing solidarity with this anachronistic generation,
he should be allied with the modern day movement in Egypt and
elsewhere," said Kozloff. "If he becomes involved in mediation [on
behalf of Gaddafi], then some in South America may not view that as
particularly progressive."

Gregory Wilpert, co-founder of the Venezuela Analysis website, said
there had been a "vigorous debate" within the pro-Chavez camp in
Venezuela over the regime's ties to Libya.

"One segment is defending Gaddafi as a fellow revolutionary and
another camp is condemning him and is urging the government to do so
too," said Wilpert.

"Opponents of Chavez are of course trying to take maximum advantage of
Chavez’s ties to Gaddafi by displaying this as proof that Chavez
himself is an autocrat."


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] LaBotz - The New American Workers Movement at the Crossroads

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/3208

The New American Workers Movement at the Crossroads

By Dan La Botz

The new American workers movement, which has developed so rapidly in
the last couple of months in the struggle against rightwing
legislative proposals to abolish public employee unions, suddenly
finds itself at a crossroads. Madison, Wisconsin, where rank-and-file
workers, community members, and social movement activists converged to
create the new movement, remains the center of the struggle. In Ohio,
which faces similar legislation, unions have also gone into motion,
while working people around the country have been drawn into the
fight.

In both states, things are coming to a head. In Wisconsin the courts
have ordered the capitol building closed and the governor is
threatening layoffs to begin next week. In both Wisconsin and Ohio the
legislators are threatening to push the bills through one way or
another. And now, in the fight to win, the movement has come to a fork
in the road.

Two different tendencies in the labor movement point in two quite
different directions. The top leaders of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win
unions like SEIU have thrown their weight into the struggle in the
only way that they know how. Following the model they use in political
campaigns, they have reached out to established organizations to build
coalitions. They have sent organizers into take charge and to reach
out to communities. Their goal is to rebuild their institutional power
and their relationship with the Democratic Party, hoping to turn the
upsurge in support for public employees into a political victory.

The Union Leaders’ Approach

In both Wisconsin and Ohio, while not publicly giving up the fight to
defeat the anti-union legislation, the top union officials quietly
suggest that the bills cannot be stopped in the legislatures. So the
unions in Wisconsin and Ohio indicate they will be turning
respectively to efforts at recall and referendum. With their usual
orientation toward political solutions, the unions’ Central Labor
Councils in Ohio return to their reliance on the Democratic Party and
prepare for the contest in the coming elections.

The unions’ top leaders at the national level shy away from mobilizing
the social and economic power of the unions to win this thing, turning
instead to their allies in the Democratic Party. It is not that the
union officials don’t want to win in Wisconsin and Ohio, but their
notions about how to win and what winning means represent a particular
conception of the role of the labor movement. For the AFL-CIO and
other major unions, winning means preserving, through political
influence, the existing model of collective bargaining—even though we
know that under the existing model unions have been losing for the
last 40 years.

The Workers Power Tendency

There is, however, another tendency in the new workers’ movement which
presents a different alternative. This alternative, which is not so
easy to name but which might be called workers’ power tendency, is
made up of those rank-and-file workers and their union stewards and
local officials, together with the community groups and social
movement activists who have rallied to the cause. This group includes
the teachers who called in sick and produced a virtual shutdown of the
schools in Madison and other parts of Wisconsin. It is made up of
firemen, policemen and other public employees who have spent every
available minute surrounding the capitol in spirited demonstrations.
And it includes the union, community and student activists who have
occupied the capitol building and made it the center and the symbol of
the new workers’ movement.

This tendency has demonstrated—even it is has not yet worked out an
elaborate position on paper or issued some sort of manifesto—that for
them winning means using workers’ power to stop the anti-union bills
and to stop concessions offered up by some of the union leaders. Some
of these workers have been holding on to the capitol risking arrest.
Others are considering some form of direct action or civil
disobedience.

These are the workers and their supporters who taken seriously the
call for a general strike issued by the South Central Federation of
Labor. Taking seriously the idea of a general strike of Wisconsin
workers doesn’t mean jumping into it. A general strike issue from the
ranks isn’t simply called—as some activists have been trying to do. A
general strike is mulled over, it is prepared through conversation,
discussion and debate. It is organized. And finally (but soon), when
the moment is right, it is begun when one crucial group of workers has
the courage to make the first move drawing others into the process.

How We Win Makes all the Difference

One might argue that

[Marxism] Richard Walker on the crisis in California

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Richard Walker - THE GOLDEN STATE ADRIFT
http://newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2868

kudos to Kasama:
California: From Golden State to Failed State?, Pt. 1
http://kasamaproject.org/2011/03/03/california-from-golden-state-to-failed-state-pt-1/

Information on the recent anti-cuts protest and occupation of Wheeler
hall at Berkeley:
http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_1753?nclick_check=1
http://sfist.com/2011/03/04/scenes_from_wheeler_hall_protest_at.php?gallery0Pic=1#gallery


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] Bill McKibben - My Life as a Communist

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


heh.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/28/AR2011022803518.html

My life as a communist

By Bill McKibben
Tuesday, March 1, 2011

My life as a communist actually began without me knowing it, on Friday
evening, when Glenn Beck  spent his program explaining about a
"communistic" conspiracy that included 10 groups in America. One was
350.org, a global campaign to fight climate change that I helped found
three years ago. He even put our logo up on his whiteboard - and next
to it a hammer and sickle.

Since I don't actually watch Mr. Beck, I didn't know about it until
e-mails began to arrive, informing me that indeed I was a communist.
My first reaction was: I'm not a communist. I'm a Methodist.

But then I reconsidered.



I turned 50 last fall - that's half a century not understanding who I
really was. There's something liberating about finding out. After all,
it was Marx who said that above 350 parts per million carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere, we can't have a planet "similar to that on which
civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted." No,
wait, those were NASA scientists. The same people who faked the moon
landing. This is a complicated world; I'm going back to the baseball
game.


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] From Latin America to the Arab World – What’s going on in Libya?

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Interesting article:

>From Latin America to the Arab World – What’s going on in Libya?
Send to friend Printer-friendly version

By Santiago Alba Rico & Alma Allende - Rebelion, March 3rd 2011

full: http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6035


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] Libyan rebels reject Hugo Chávez mediation offer

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Nestor:
It is too easy to tell me I slander those you have defined as
"revolutionaries" (without much experience of Lybian issues, I presume),
when I have simply shown that they are, at most, "rebels", with some
unsavory and (for a revolutionary) uncanny elements within.

Dave:
The Libyans don't have to prove their revolutionary-ness to you or me
or anyone else. They have already proven it to themselves with their
struggle, their courage and their blood. They will prove it to Gadhafi
too before this is done. One is not a revolutionary because you belong
to an organization with the word 'revolutionary' in its name or in its
program. One is a revolutionary because history makes one so, because
history transforms you, however quotidian or even reactionary one was
before.

Nestor:
Again: I am not as sure as most cdes. on this list that there exists room
for a democratic revolution in Lybia in the "formal" sense of the word that
does not fall prey, of necessity, of imperialist powers.

What sort of room was there in Russia in February 1917? Indeed what
sort of room was there for a communist revolution in October? Did
Lenin and Trotsky think the revolution could survive on its own? The
Libyan revolution is not occurring in a vacuum but in the midst a
great transnational revolutionary upheaval. That Nestor thinks it
might not succeed is no reason not to support the Libyan revolution. I
mean have you read Marx's Civil War in France? What chances did he
give them?
-dave


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] PL: Mass Pressure Leads Egyptian Prime Minister to Resign

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


It is obvious that Eli S, Walter L, Nestor G, as well as the PSL, WW,
Chavez and Venezuela, and many others who feel and think like them,
compose a significant element on the left as it currently exists. I
think it is useful to have this voice represented in on this list even
if it can also be irritating, wrong and in this situation, objectively
counter-revolutionary. Such is the situation of the left today - weak,
divided, and many of us on the wrong side of history. We were not
prepared for this revolutionary upsurge politically, theoretically or
practically. That is the way things happen sometimes.

This upsurge raises some serious questions. First there is the
question of Venzuela and Chavez. Chavez has created a horrible mess
and done serious damage to the Bolivarian revolution and to the left
in general with his approach to the revolution in Libya and he keeps
digging the hole deeper. Then there are the other Latin American
leaders such as Ortega and Castro.  Perhaps Castro gets a pass as he
is old and largely following Chavez's lead but what does this mean for
the Latin American left? For their revolutions? And for the many who
have followed them, taken them as guides to the future of socialism?

This upsurge also raises serious questions about the viability of the
campist 'anti-imperialist' approach in general, an approach that has
dominated much of the hard left since Vietnam. This approach has
always been flawed, but over time it has lost touch with reality,
perhaps due to reality continuing to change even as they have not. The
disjunction with reality is apparent on multiple levels.

It profoundly misunderstands the nature of imperialism, not realizing
how imperialism functions as a global system and putting, for example,
far to much weight on raw military intervention by imperialists but
not realizing that this is only one tool in the imperialist arsenal,
often not the preferred one and often not the most effective.

It regularly slips into conspiratorial thinking, imagining vast CIA
conspiracies and the like and in the process abandoning all pretense
to materialism and a scientific approach to politics.

It opposes real struggle and real revolution to fake idealized
versions whose conditions will never be met.

It ignores the present, actual slaughter and murder of revolutionists
in order to condemn a hypothetical, future slaughter whose likelihood,
character and extent are all subject to serious doubt.

It defends tired old monsters, insane in their dotage, corruption and
butchery and already given over to the empire, while slandering the
revolutionary workers and youth who are giving their blood to oppose
these tyrants and win their freedom.

It imagines that it should be the primary duty of the tiny fragmented
left in the US to 'oppose' imperialist intervention but thinks that
building worldwide revolutionary solidarity - the real primary task of
communists - is an obnoxious distraction from this. Never mind that
even truly mass demonstrations like we had before the Iraq war were
not sufficient to stop the imperialist war drive and the very notion
that they could was, in fact, an illusion. Never mind that Wisconsin
reveals that many American workers already naturally feel an
instinctive solidarity with the revolutions in the middle east even
while elements of the left are busy violating that solidarity by
defending the monster Gadhafi.

Educating people in the US to understand and oppose the workings of
imperialism can be a slow and painstaking task but these same people
often understand in their bones the right to rebel against injustice.
They secretly wish for it themselves. All the peoples of the world are
now secretly wishing it. That is why this revolution will continue to
spread no matter how 'anti-imperialist' the government it finds itself
opposed to. That is why 'Victory to the Revolution' should not be our
second demand. It should not be one demand among many. It should be
our first and primary demand. All others flow from it.

VICTORY TO THE REVOLUTION & HANDS OFF LIBYA
-dave


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] MRZine / Glen Ford on racist attacks on Africans

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


I really liked Matt Russo's comment on Louis's recent post (
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/glen-fordmrzine-on-racism-in-libya/
), I hope he doesn't mind if I repost it here:

-
Matt Russo:

The fake “antiiperialist” nonsense, now augmented with an equally fake
“anti-racial oppression” twist, rages on and like a bad case of
diarrhea, doesn’t know when to quit. Just like Gaddafi himself.

Now it’s fake and hypocritical because the whole
WW/PSL/Chavez/Ortega/MRzine/Ahmadinejad/Black Agenda tendency – an
opportunistic latch up if there ever was – really wants to support
Gadaffi. But they can’t directly do so for reasons Tony Blair and
Condi Rice could tell us about, so they have to resort to all sorts of
backhanded sludge, such as a relentless demagoguery – oddly mirroring
that of CNN and Cameron – on an imperialist intervention that the
pentagon and NATO are actually less than gung-ho on, and now, the
latest twist, pitting one oppressed group – Black Africa – against
another – Arabs, who objectively bear the brunt of imperialist
oppression on the world scale. That’s one of the finer strategic
points that is lost to the crude minds of our above opponents, for all
their pretense to “realpolitik”.

That’s only one of the multiple contradictions that this tendency is
riven through and through with. Oops, it looks like Black Africans
were oppressed under the Gadaffi regime as well! And what about Sudan,
past and present? Ooops, here the line appears to tilt “pro-Arab” in
this case, if this MRzine cartoon is any indication
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/bahady171110.html – and don’t
even mention Darfur.

In fact – with the notable exception of Fidel Castro – this bunch has
embarked on a *counter-revolutionary* intervention against the present
Arab revolutionary wave. First, beginning with Tunisia and Egypt, with
various dark murmurings about more “color-coded revolutions” cooked up
by the US State Dept. and the CIA. Then Iran. And now Libya and Black
Africa, every step of the way seeking for divisions and splits in the
revolutionary movement, in this particular case seeking to split off
the Libyan movement as an integral part of the pan-Arab revolution and
drive a geographical wedge between Egypt and North Africa. Oddly
enough, though I sincerely believe they don’t understand this
coincidence, that is exactly what imperialism seeks to do!

Obviously this is not a closely consolidated tendency – its a loose
and contradictory grouping with a variety of agendas. But their
relation to the present revolutionary tide was is generally one of
conservative counter-revolutionary fear. Even though that is not their
intention, this is where their positions coincide with those of
imperialism.

The same is also true of the Arab Revolution – like all genuine
revolutions, it contains a welter of conflicting tendencies, some
potentially co-optable by imperialism. But even imperialism is
thinking twice about pretending to do anything that might aid the
Libyan “rebels”.

The notable exception has been Fidel Castro, who has had the sense to
at least equivocate: http://www.counterpunch.org/castro03032011.html

It’s really a commentary on the intellectual caliber of our opponents
on the left that an old man in his dotage does a better job seeing
through events, in particular noting that we should not be fooled by
the “pro-interventionist” fishing expeditions through the Libyan
opposition by the usual lapdogs, apparently unaware that their master
is lass than enthusiastic.

Comment by Matt Russo — March 3, 2011 @ 8:38 pm


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] Latin America and the Arab revolution: the bankruptcy of Chavism?

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1999

IV Online magazine : IV434 - March 2011

Latin America and the Arab revolution: the bankruptcy of Chavism?

Ataulfo Riera


In Europe, governments are trying to prevent contagion and solidarity
between European workers and the Arab masses in revolt by brandishing
the scarecrow of Islamism. In Latin America, it is the Venezuelan and
Cuban progressive leaders themselves who are trying to isolate these
rising revolutions by affirming the supposedly “anti-imperialist”
character of the despotic Libyan, Syrian and Iranian regimes, which
are also being destabilized by the rising wave of peoples in struggle.

The Arab revolution constitutes a litmus test for imperialism, but
also for the Cuban and Chavist leaderships. However, if the latter
were also were completely taken by surprise by the upsurge of the Arab
masses, they seem at present to be still unable to grasp the nature,
the depth and the unity of the revolutionary process that is underway
in the entire region. They do not seem to understand at all the
powerful thirst for real democracy, for social justice, for
independence and sovereignty which motivate the Arab masses and the
formidable opportunity that their struggles offer to profoundly modify
the relationships of forces between capital and labour on a world
scale, and with imperialism.

The attitude of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez concerning the events in
Libya is particularly shocking. In a manner that is less pronounced in
the case of the first and pretty consistent in the case of the second,
they imply that the revolt of the Libyan people is the result of
manipulation, of an imperialist plot aimed at overthrowing an enemy
regime. Curiously, this “thesis” does not take up the official version
of the Libyan regime itself, according to which it is on the contrary
Al-Qaeda which is behind the “riots”! However, far from all these
delirious conspiracy theories, there is nothing “singular” or
“particular” about the revolution in Libya, no foreign plot directed
by the CIA or Bin Laden; on the contrary, it is an integral part of
the process of the Arab revolution which is breaking out throughout
the region. Furthermore, this is not happening by chance, since the
dictatorial Libyan regime is precisely geographically wedged between
the Tunisian revolution and the Egyptian revolution.

In spite of everything, Fidel Castro has declared that it “will be
necessary to wait as long as we have to in order to really know what
is truth and what is lies or half-truths in what we are being told
about the chaotic situation (sic) in Libya”. However, he draws an
immediate conclusion from it: “The worst thing now would be to be
silent about the crime that NATO is on the point of committing against
the Libyan people. For the leaders of this warmongering organization,
it is urgent. It must be denounced.” The difficulty is that, as
Santiago Alba Rico and Alma Allende point out, it is not the planes of
NATO which are today machine-gunning the Libyan people, it is the
planes of the Gaddafi regime! Thus, according to Fidel, it is not
urgent to denounce the carnage committed by Gaddafi against his people
and to choose the camp of the popular uprising, it is urgent to
demonstrate against the future and hypothetical intervention of NATO.
So in the name of the threat of a crime that remains a vague
possibility, we should “be silent” about a real crime that is actually
taking place.

Still according to this purely “campist” conception (“the enemies of
my enemies are my friends”), on February 25 President Hugo Chavez has
just, like Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, given his “support to
the Libyan government”, at the moment when it is massacring its people
with heavy weapons. Admittedly, there is no doubt that imperialism is
lying in wait and hopes to take advantage of the slightest
opportunity. Admittedly, we have to denounce the double morality of
imperialism, which condemns civilian victims in Libya, but not in
Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine. But that does not at all justify
support for a bloody tyrant, who is precisely giving imperialism a
wonderful opportunity to regain its balance and who, in spite of his
verbal outpourings about the so-called “green revolution", is at the
head of a system of exploitation and a corrupt regime which is part
and parcel of the imperialist network for plundering of the area and
its resources.

In Venezuela, revolutionary organizations such as Marea Socialista
have taken a clear decision in favour of the Libyan people and against
the dictator Gaddafi. We can only hope that the Venezuelan and Cuban
workers will be more capable of understanding what is at stake than
their leaders are. But, even if he comes to his senses and corrects

Re: [Marxism] Report from the Battle for Wisconsin

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


More updates:

Iraq Veterans Against the War gets involved:
http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/3206

Battle of Wisconsin #9: Change of Venue
http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/3205

Battle for Wisconsin #10: Inside-Outside
http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/3207


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] Libyan rebels reject Hugo Chávez mediation offer

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


By your standards there never has nor will there ever be a 'truly
revolutionary movement'. So you might as well give up on the
revolution thing thing now if that is going to be your line. And by
claiming that the Libyan revolutionaries are monarchists who want back
King Idris you slander them in the middle of a life and death struggle
on no substantive basis.

Having said that I have no particular wish to see you or walter
unsubbed as long as you aren't peddling nonsense conspiracies.
-dave


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] Libyan rebels reject Hugo Chávez mediation offer

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


They reject it as they rightly should. I imagine that Chavez may have
put some serious bad blood between him and revolutionaries in the
middle east with the way he has handled this. This mediation offer
just dug the pit bigger. I am guessing that the 'Hugo Chavez Stadium'
in Benghazi won't be keeping that name.
-dave

---
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/03/libyan-rebels-reject-hugo-chavez

Libyan rebels reject Hugo Chávez mediation offer

Leaders of anti-Gaddafi fighters say talk of peace is too late and
they will not negotiate via Venezuelan president
Martin Chulov  in Benghazi
#  guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 March 2011 16.52 GMT

Libya's rebel leaders have ruled out any attempt by Hugo Chávez to
broker a truce between them and Muammar Gaddafi, whom they insist must
leave the country.

"No one has told us a thing about it and we are not interested
anyway," said the spokesman of the national committee in Benghazi,
Abdul Hafif Goga. "We will never negotiate with him."

The rebel leadership said the international community had yet to
inform them of any initiative from the Venezuelan president, who
reportedly contacted the embattled Libyan leader earlier this week in
a bid to enter the fortnight-long violent standoff.

"Talk of peace is far too late," said a second member of the
organising committee, Salwa Bogheiga. "A lot of people have died and
there is no one to negotiate with. They lost that right when they
started killing people on 17 February."

The nascent rebel committee in Benghazi and the military leadership
that jointly run the eastern side of the country insist that they are
now too committed to consider any sort of ceasefire. They say that
Gaddafi would use it to re-organise his loyalist troops for a major
assault on rebel-held cities.

Details of what Chávez proposed to Gaddafi are scant. The Arab League
has also been told of the Venezuelan leader's offer but is similarly
in the dark about what it entails.

In Tripoli, the Libyan government said it accepted the Venezuelan offer.

The information minister, Andres Izarra, said the Arab League had
shown interest in Chavez's proposal to send an international
commission to talk with both sides in Libya.

Reports that Chavez's proposal was being taken seriously by Arab
leaders has pushed down oil prices.

In Benghazi, Khalid Alsahly, a lawyer who is acting as liaison officer
between the military and civilian councils, said: "The starting point
of our revolution is peaceful resistance, and we were peaceful until
Gaddafi's people started using guns and fire on us.

"Now we are training and, yes, we will march to Tripoli if necessary.
We have a very great number of young men who are being trained, and we
have the resolve.

"They are full of desire to change the Gaddafi regime and we will
march on Tripoli because we have the will to fight, and his people do
not. We will move when we are ready."


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] Spielberg to direct Assange biopic

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Apparently reality, as is so often the case, just isn't wrapped up in
a tidy enough bow. Luckily Dreamworks studios adn Steven Spielberg can
fix that - now we have Reality 2.0 the movie! Something to which we
can all look forward and even take the kids (unlike the real thing).
Who could Tom Hanks play? Maybe Assange's estranged leftist father.
Anyways, I can't wait for the review on the Unrepentent Marxist!

http://www.examiner.com/canada-movie-in-canada/stephen-spielberg-plans-biopic-of-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange


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] Libya: A Pox on Both Their Houses (and the U.S.)

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


>
> http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23481
>

This piece sounds pretty kooky to me and is the same place that
recently published this inanely stupid piece that Louis just
criticized:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23474

I am sorry to say but this debate is increasingly going to the nut house.
-dave


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] Has the 21st century begun?

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


An interesting response to the recent Hardt and Negri article (
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/24/arabs-democracy-latin-america
) in the guardian.

The Arab Revolution and the Coming Insurrection:Multitudinous or
Permanent? A response to Hardt, Negri and Newsnight
http://the19thbrumaire.blogspot.com/2011/02/arab-revolution-and-coming.html


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Two items on prospects for imperialist intervention in Lib

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 12:51 AM, Lüko Willms  wrote:

> Luko:
>   You must be willfully ignore the "Project for a New American Century", as
> those "neocons" dubbed their program.

Dave:
I am quite aware of it. Are you?

> Luko:
>   Unless you agree with the empire that "democracy" means the dictatorship
> by White House, Pentagon and Wall Street.

Dave:
That is a good rough definition of what 'democracy' means for them.
But only roughly.

> Luko:
>   But it doesn't look like, since you are with the empire's vultures like Ms.
> Clinton on first-name terms.

Dave:
And you are being a troll.

> Luko:
>   No, Sir, the issue is not some "model", but rule by Washington.
>   The issue is imperialism. Ruling the whole world by the US capitalists.
> Calling the shots not by the local people, but by the White House and Wall
> Street. To paraphrase Lincoln's famous formula: For each and every country
> government by the USA, thru the USA and for the USA (minor imperialist
> powers may take a minority share, as long as they respect the absolute
> dominance by the USA).

Dave:
And unless they want to maintain expensive occupying armies in every
country they need a model for how they are going to get various
proxies to rule in their stead. They call that model 'democracy'. That
is what I was discussing.

> Luko:
>   The only question for them: would the destructive intervention by the US
> military against Libya succeed in stopping the advance of the Arab revolution
> and kill it altogether, or would it on the contrary spark an explosion and
> hasten to "lose Arabia"?

Dave:
This is hardly the 'only question' but it is the part of the dilemma
that the imperialists face. I described this dilemma earlier. Any
military intervention on their part presents them with considerable
risks and a large scale military intervention would be difficult for
them to pull off logistically and and in terms of resources.

> Luko:
>   It is easy to cheerlead for the Arab revolution from the sidelines, but the
> real task for revolutionists is to stop their rulers hand and keep them from
> interventing against the revolution in the Arab nation.

Dave:
That would be nice but the left in the US, which is weak and divided,
isn't going to be able to do anything much on this, certainly not
'stop their hand'. We will be lucky if we can win Madison. Winning
that struggle would probably be the best way for those in the US to
build solidarity with the struggles in the middle east.

>
>   Hands off Libya!
>

Dave: Agreed.


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 items on prospects for imperialist intervention in Lib

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


To add to this - I think Bush and the neocons were absolutely sincere
in their stated wish to promote 'democracy' in Iraq and the Middle
East. We can debate this but I think they wanted to remake the middle
east politically. Certainly if you go back and read some of the neocon
literature prior to the invasion this is what they are talking about.
Iraq was going to be the new model politically in the middle east. If
it succeeded maybe they could get other regimes to follow suit.

Of course this turned out to be pure delusion on the part of the
neocons. But now that the people of the middle east are remaking the
political landscape all on their own they will no doubt see this as an
opportunity to push a neoliberal 'democratic' model like they wanted
to create in Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean Hilary isn't running around
hypocritically talking about democracy and 'internet freedom' for
nothing.

I think they will ultimately fail because I don't think such a model
ultimately offers anything to the newly revolutionary young people and
working classes of the middle east but it wouldn't surprise me if this
is the direction things turn in the near future. As I stated before,
this is going to be a process.
-dave


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] Marx on the subtleties of 'dialectics'

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 3:06 PM, Tom Cod  wrote:
>
> doesn't it really mean looking at something in a nuanced way with reference
> to all its contradictory aspects?  Who but maybe a middle school pedant
> follows the mechanical formal logic these "dialectics" purport to demolish?
>  From my days on the sectarian left, references to "dialectics" tended to be
> sanctimonious, mystical appeals to dogma resorted to when people,
> particularly snake oil peddling cult leaders, really didn't know what they
> were talking about.  And of course intuition has no place in either of these
> formalistic schemas.
>

I think there is a lot of truth to this. It makes me very skeptical of
many uses of the term though I still think it has its uses. Of course
when Marx was writing in the 1840's Hegel was the latest and greatest
in terms of German scientific methodology. I think a contemporary
discussion would have to take into account the (sea) changes that have
occurred in science since the 1840's and would have to abandon much of
the Hegelianism.
-dave


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 items on prospects for imperialist intervention in Lib

[dave x]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 2:09 PM, Fred Feldman  wrote:
> I want to note that the position that imperialism is only "watching
> helplessly" in  North Africa and the Middle East has not yet been expressed
> by anyone else on this list.,  So I want to know whether you are convinced
> that iimperialism is definitively kaput in  the Middle East, and if you
> don't ,  just what constitutes "watching helplessly>"  If you convince me,.
> I promise to join you in a joyous and prolonged dance around the maypole.
> Niothing would make me more happy to l;earning that at long last imperialism
> really can't "piss a drop."
>

Obviously I can't speak for David M but since I have also been
involved on this side of the discussion I would refer you to my post
here:

http://www.marxmail.org/msg88575.html

I have been saying since the beginning of this that yes the
imperialists have been caught off-guard (this seems obvious by their
confused responses) and that any -military- intervention on their part
is deeply problematic. And the sober imperialists like Gates recognize
that. Their options are seriously constrained militarily. That is a
far thing from saying that imperialism is 'kaput' in the Middle East.
In fact I recommend that you read up about imperialist
'democracy-promotion' strategy, this is the shit we need to watch out
for. The definitive text on this imo is Robinson's 'Promoting
Polyarchy'. There is a lot more to imperialism than straight out
military intervention. The immediate aftermath of these revolutions
will not be another (nominally?) anti-neoliberal pink tide. I think
the space for that is pretty constrained right now. In fact I would
agree with Achcar at the end of the interview I just posted. Broadly
speaking these are rebellions against neoliberal capitalism and they
have the potential to seriously challenge neoliberalism as a global
order but this isn't going to happen right away. Right now they are
just shaking it a bit. It is going to be a process.
-dave
-dave


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