date:20140615


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On 6/15/14 1:39 AM, Einde O'Callaghan via Marxism wrote:


I find it difficult to take any commentator who refers to Gilad Atzmon
favourably as a serious commentator!


In an exchange with Shamir, he explained that by "intervention", he 
didn't mean military attacks exclusively even though that's what most 
reasonable people would understand by the term. He meant interference as 
in NGO, CIA, and just about any other attempt by imperialism to 
influence the outcome in another country. It is not just that, it is 
also meant as an imperative to support the state that is being 
interfered with. This would have obligated us, for example, to support 
Mubarak or Putin's crackdown on NGO's, something that these people did. 
For my money, this is far worse than the knee-jerk CP support for the 
Kremlin that took place when Stalin was in power. At least they could be 
excused for defending socialism after a fashion. What this has to do 
with the Syrian Baathists, for example, is anybody's guess especially 
when Vogue magazine profiled the dictator in glowing  terms and Hillary 
Clinton referred to al-Assad as a "reformer".


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Re: [Marxism] [New Post] Goodbye, Lenin

2014-06-15 Thread Robert Schardein via Marxism

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http://www.critical-theory.com/fountain-of-the-future-or-the-greatest-statue-of-lenin-pissing-ever-created/




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Re: [Marxism] NYU's new board of trustees chair -- his charter school is tough on 5 year olds


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On 6/15/14 12:27 AM, Michael Smith via Marxism wrote:


A delightful piece, I thought,


I know that you enjoy being the contrarian, Michael, and that you are 
much closer to the conspiracist left than you are to Marxism but you 
must be aware that Shamir sees no difference between being a Jew and 
being a Zionist. In other words, he is the "leftist" counterpart of 
Abraham Foxman. Just take a look at this:


"Putin’s affability does not turn him into a bountiful source for every 
Jewish initiative. He stopped S-300 deliveries to Iran, but rejected all 
Israeli overtures asking him to ditch Iran, or Syria, or Hamas."


What is a Jewish initiative? Why did he use the word Jewish rather than 
Israeli? There are reports almost every day about the growing breach 
between Jews and Zionism and this human garbage tries to close it.


You really need to stop putting a plus where I put a minus.

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[Marxism] Blair: Intervene in Iraq against ISIS, accomodate with Assad

2014-06-15 Thread Michael Karadjis via Marxism

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Tony Blair: west must intervene in Iraq
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/15/tony-blair-west-intervene-iraq-isis-military-options?CMP=twt_gu

Ex-PM says allies should consider military options short of sending
troops after denying 2003 invasion led to Isis crisis

Tony Blair: 'It is in our interests for this jihadist extremist group to
be stopped in its tracks.' Photograph: ZUMA/REX

Patrick Wintour, Tracy McVeigh and Mark Townsend
Sunday 15 June 2014 20.20 EST
Tony Blair has urged western governments to recognise that they need to
take an active role in the Middle East, saying the west should consider
military options short of sending ground troops.
The former prime minister said there was a huge range of options
available, including air strikes and drones as used in Libya.
Blair was speaking on UK morning TV shows after writing a lengthy essay
setting out how to respond to the Iraq crisis, including his belief that
the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not the cause of the country's
implosion.
He said: "It is in our interests for this jihadist extremist group to be
stopped in its tracks. I understand entirely why people say 'it is
nothing to do with us and I don't want to hear about it'."

Advertisement
But he said the jihadis "are not simply fighting Iraqis and they are
also willing to fight us and they will if we don't stop them".
"It is vitally important that we realise what is at stake here and act.
We are going to have to engage with it or the consequences will come
back on us as we see in Syria today.
"The best policy for us to realise that whatever form of intervention we
choose is going to be difficult but it's better than the alternative.
You do not need to engage as we did in Afghanistan or Iraq, but we do
have interests in this."
Pointing out that as many people had been killed in Syria as in the
whole of Iraq since 2003, Blair said he would have supported military
intervention in Syria some time ago, and suggested that there may have
to be accommodation with President Assad.
His remarks drew criticism from Labour's former international
development secretary Clare Short, who accused Blair of behaving like an
American neocon, adding he had been consistently "wrong, wrong, wrong
about Iraq".
She said western interventions created more tension, anger and
bitterness in the Middle East, adding the invasion of Iraq "was done in
such a deceitful way and with a lack of preparation for what was going
to happen afterwards".
Short said the extremist views coming out of the Middle East came from
the Sunni community which was being financed by Saudi Arabia, a friend
of the west and Tony Blair.

She said: "More bombing will not solve it, it will just exacerbate it".
Alistair Burt, the former Conservative Middle East minister responsible
for working with Syrian democratic forces, said non-intervention in
Syria had been a disaster, just as intervention in Iraq had been a
disaster.
"There is a great danger to get back to one root cause and blaming what
happened in the past," he said. "We need to find the states in the area
that are going to tackle this problem because these states will
ultimately threaten them and others."
In a passionate essay published on his website, Blair said it was a
"bizarre" reading of the situation to argue that the US-British invasion
of Iraq had allowed the growth of Sunni jihadist groups such as the
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis), whose fighters have swept
through towns and cities north and west of Baghdad over the past week.
"We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that 'we' have caused
this. We haven't. We can argue as to whether our policies at points have
helped or not: and whether action or inaction is the best policy. But
the fundamental cause of the crisis lies within the region not outside
it.
"We have to put aside the differences of the past and act now to save
the future," says Blair, adding that force may be necessary. "Where the
extremists are fighting, they have to be countered hard, with force."
His intervention came as the Pentagon said that the US defence
secretary, Chuck Hagel, had dispatched the aircraft carrier USS George
HW Bush and two guided missile ships into the Gulf as a precautionary
measure.
Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the Bush
would be accompanied by the guided missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea
and the guided missile destroyer USS Truxton. The ships were expected to
arrive in the Gulf on Saturday night. Kirby described the deployment as
increasing Obama's martial flexibility "should military options be
required to protect American lives, citizens and interests in Iraq",
rather than signalling an imminent strike.
In London, government

[Marxism] Three elections, one story - The Hindu


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http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/three-elections-one-story/article6108338.ece

In this article Vijay Prashad writes:

"Assad would be mistaken if he reads the election results as a 
validation of his rule. It would be far better to see this as a serious 
call for an end to the war, and for his government to reach out to the 
rebels on the ground toward rapprochement."


I am rather dismayed to see this sort of punditry from someone who 
should know better. The formulation smacks of NY Times Op-Ed wise 
counsel to those in power. In days of yore, you would see someone like 
Anthony Lewis writing: "President Johnson should understand that 
continued bombing raids on Hanoi will only deepen Vietnamese resistance."


In fact, people like LBJ and Bashar al-Assad respond to one thing and 
one thing only: violence. In the case of the Vietnam War, it was rebel 
violence that decided the day. In Syria, it was MIG's and the failure of 
rebels to procure anti-aircraft weaponry (plus Hizbollah intervention) 
that allowed Bashar al-Assad to secure victory. The idea that he will 
"reach out" to rebels is patently absurd.


I don't know whether Vijay wrote such nonsense because that is what his 
editors in a bourgeois newspaper expected or because he believes it. For 
his sake, I hope it is the former.


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[Marxism] What Would Keynes Do?

2014-06-15 Thread Robert Schardein via Marxism

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Very much worth reading, if you haven't yet:

http://www.newstatesman.com/economics/2014/06/paul-mason-what-would-keynes-d


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[Marxism] Developments in India

2014-06-15 Thread Marla Vijaya kumar via Marxism

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Louis,
  I am deliberately keeping silent over the election outcome in India 
as I am deeply affected by the decimation of the Left. The middle classes have 
voted BJP to power on the premise that BJP has a strong leader and it will 
bring stability and development. This is largely a media creation and the 
middle class has been won over - though India's electoral system has given BJP 
280 odd seats out of 542 with just 31% of the vote and 11% of the total voters 
have actually voted for BJP.
The reason for the poor showing of Left is obvious. The villains are none other 
than the Left leaders themselves. They had abandoned class struggle and were 
busy with unprincipled election alliances with neoliberal minded bourgeoisie 
parties. They had put aside mass struggles and were busy lobbying with the 
government over benefits to middle peasants and aristocratic workers in 
organised sector. What is surprising is that even in the organised industrial 
sector, a majority of the workers are contract labour and the Left parties have 
marginal presence among them. They were busy lobbying for comparatively well 
paid regular workers. I had worked in a heavy industry for 37 years and I have 
seen that the workers are only interested in economic benifits and do not 
differentiate between BJP led union and Left led union. The feel they are 
middle class as they enjoy middle class incomes.
93% of India's workforce are in the unorganised sector, are poorly paid and 
live and work under appalling conditions. The Left parties have virtually 
abandoned them.
The Left had almost given up the fight against Hindu Fascist forces long before 
the election. I was shocked to hear from a Left Leader saying that anyway, Modi 
is going to win. What is the point in fighting now!
With such Left leaders, who needs class enemies?
I hope one day, the fragmented Left will realize the folly and come together, 
putting aside their difference and build up genuine peoples' struggles.
Vijaya Kumar Marla

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[Marxism] A Secret History of the Workplace


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NY Times Sunday Book Review, June 15 2014
Office Max
‘Cubed,’ by Nikil Saval
By RICHARD SENNETT

CUBED
A Secret History of the Workplace
By Nikil Saval

Illustrated. 352 pp. Doubleday. $26.95.
How you work depends in large part on the spaces in which you work. This 
big theme is taken up by Nikil Saval in “Cubed: A Secret History of the 
Workplace.” There is in fact nothing “secret” about this history; from 
the Civil War on, as the white-collar world grew, managers and designers 
thought out loud about where workers should sit, the furniture they 
should use, the walls and windows that should surround them. Instead of 
a secret history, Saval, an editor of n+1, has written something more 
interesting. He has infused a straightforward factual account with all 
sorts of literary, cultural and political insights; these make the story 
he tells more dark than dry.


There was no white-collar class in the modern sense before the late 19th 
century. Most offices were small, employing at most a few dozen clerks 
to service managers and partners; even big factories could be run lean. 
Offices themselves tended to be intimate and informal spaces, clerks and 
partners sitting near to, if not next to, one another. Everyone dealt 
with everything; spoken exchanges rather than paper memos got the work 
done. This was no happy paradise, as Saval shows in a brilliant analysis 
based on Herman Melville’s story “Bartleby the Scrivener”; rather, it 
was often an intimate tyranny. What’s more, the gulf separating 
threadbare existence from well-fed prosperity was dramatized in 
adjoining desks. Still, “the distance between junior clerk and partner 
was seen as both enormous and easily surmountable.”


Saval’s story is essentially about what happened when this office realm 
got bigger and more organized. In fact, as the office became a 
bureaucracy ruled by the internal division of labor, the American dream 
faded, though it was still trotted out ceremonially. National railroads 
and the coal and steel industries led the way in this transformation, 
requiring hundreds of specialized service workers rather than a handful 
of all-purpose clerks.


In a nice touch, Saval shows how the advent of the telephone and the 
typewriter aided this transformation, changing the office from a spoken 
to a written culture: The telephone forced people to keep records of 
far-flung, impersonal communications; the typewriter enabled them to do 
so. Architecturally, growth meant growth upward, since in many of 
America’s expanding cities land to spread out was increasingly scarce 
and costly. At first, designers had no idea how to organize the 
interiors of the metal-framed tall buildings that rose up toward the end 
of the 19th century. Saval suggests that the equally new vertical filing 
cabinet became a “metaphorical stand-in for the office itself,” with 
each floor in a building stacked up like a separate file. It’s a neat 
conceit; it may even have been true.


The time-and-motion engineer Frederick Taylor was the villain in this 
organizational effort. He sought to transform office work so that it was 
as efficient as manual labor in a factory. This translated into 
regimented work spaces: rows and rows of identical desks in open areas 
for the lower-level bureaucrats; cubicles nearly identical in form for 
middle-level functionaries; offices with some personal character for the 
few at the top. But it was clear by the end of World War II that 
regimented space could prove self-defeating; by then, the industrial 
analyst Elton Mayo and others had shown that the neat, filing-cabinet 
office was literally counterproductive, depressing and demotivating 
people, and so slowing them down.


Saval evocatively describes designs by a very few visionary architects 
who sought to humanize the workplace. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin 
Administration Building of 1906, for instance, a light-filled atrium 
space in Buffalo, was an early effort to do so; Mies van der Rohe’s 
Seagram Building in New York, finished in 1958, is about as beautiful an 
office environment as High Modernism could imagine. But what was the 
everyday alternative to routinized space if the designer was not a 
genius artist-architect backed by an unusually enlightened client? What 
is the vernacular form of the humane office?


The question is perhaps more complicated now than a half-century ago, 
because the work of white-collar organizations has been transformed in 
the last two generations. The corporate ladder on which a person climbs 
up or down, or at least stands, is gone; in its place is a more flexible 
organization, which means more short-term, episodic work. By my 
calculation, for example, white-collar workers changed employers four or 
five times on average

[Marxism] Chelsea Manning on the U.S. Military and Media Freedom


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NY Times Op-Ed, June 14 2014
The Fog Machine of War
Chelsea Manning on the U.S. Military and Media Freedom
By CHELSEA MANNING

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — WHEN I chose to disclose classified information 
in 2010, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to 
others. I’m now serving a sentence of 35 years in prison for these 
unauthorized disclosures. I understand that my actions violated the law.


However, the concerns that motivated me have not been resolved. As Iraq 
erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that 
unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the 
United States military controlled the media coverage of its long 
involvement there and in Afghanistan. I believe that the current limits 
on press freedom and excessive government secrecy make it impossible for 
Americans to grasp fully what is happening in the wars we finance.


If you were following the news during the March 2010 elections in Iraq, 
you might remember that the American press was flooded with stories 
declaring the elections a success, complete with upbeat anecdotes and 
photographs of Iraqi women proudly displaying their ink-stained fingers. 
The subtext was that United States military operations had succeeded in 
creating a stable and democratic Iraq.


Those of us stationed there were acutely aware of a more complicated 
reality.


Military and diplomatic reports coming across my desk detailed a brutal 
crackdown against political dissidents by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior 
and federal police, on behalf of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. 
Detainees were often tortured, or even killed.


Early that year, I received orders to investigate 15 individuals whom 
the federal police had arrested on suspicion of printing “anti-Iraqi 
literature.” I learned that these individuals had absolutely no ties to 
terrorism; they were publishing a scholarly critique of Mr. Maliki’s 
administration. I forwarded this finding to the officer in command in 
eastern Baghdad. He responded that he didn’t need this information; 
instead, I should assist the federal police in locating more 
“anti-Iraqi” print shops.


I was shocked by our military’s complicity in the corruption of that 
election. Yet these deeply troubling details flew under the American 
media’s radar.


It was not the first (or the last) time I felt compelled to question the 
way we conducted our mission in Iraq. We intelligence analysts, and the 
officers to whom we reported, had access to a comprehensive overview of 
the war that few others had. How could top-level decision makers say 
that the American public, or even Congress, supported the conflict when 
they didn’t have half the story?


Among the many daily reports I received via email while working in Iraq 
in 2009 and 2010 was an internal public affairs briefing that listed 
recently published news articles about the American mission in Iraq. One 
of my regular tasks was to provide, for the public affairs summary read 
by the command in eastern Baghdad, a single-sentence description of each 
issue covered, complementing our analysis with local intelligence.


The more I made these daily comparisons between the news back in the 
States and the military and diplomatic reports available to me as an 
analyst, the more aware I became of the disparity. In contrast to the 
solid, nuanced briefings we created on the ground, the news available to 
the public was flooded with foggy speculation and simplifications.


One clue to this disjunction lay in the public affairs reports. Near the 
top of each briefing was the number of embedded journalists attached to 
American military units in a combat zone. Throughout my deployment, I 
never saw that tally go above 12. In other words, in all of Iraq, which 
contained 31 million people and 117,000 United States troops, no more 
than a dozen American journalists were covering military operations.


The process of limiting press access to a conflict begins when a 
reporter applies for embed status. All reporters are carefully vetted by 
military public affairs officials. This system is far from unbiased. 
Unsurprisingly, reporters who have established relationships with the 
military are more likely to be granted access.


Less well known is that journalists whom military contractors rate as 
likely to produce “favorable” coverage, based on their past reporting, 
also get preference. This outsourced “favorability” rating assigned to 
each applicant is used to screen out those judged likely to produce 
critical coverage.


Reporters who succeeded in obtaining embed status in Iraq were then 
required to sign a media “ground rules” agreement. Army public affairs 
officials said this was to protect operational security,

[Marxism] War is the health of the state


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Wartime brings the ideal of the State out into very clear relief, and 
reveals attitudes and tendencies that were hidden. In times of peace the 
sense of the State flags in a republic that is not militarized. For war 
is essentially the health of the State.


Randolph Bourne, http://www.antiwar.com/bourne.php

---

NY Times, June 15 2014
The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth
by Tyler Cowen

The continuing slowness of economic growth in high-income economies has 
prompted soul-searching among economists. They have looked to weak 
demand, rising inequality, Chinese competition, over-regulation, 
inadequate infrastructure and an exhaustion of new technological ideas 
as possible culprits.


An additional explanation of slow growth is now receiving attention, 
however. It is the persistence and expectation of peace.


The world just hasn’t had that much warfare lately, at least not by 
historical standards. Some of the recent headlines about Iraq or South 
Sudan make our world sound like a very bloody place, but today’s 
casualties pale in light of the tens of millions of people killed in the 
two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Even the Vietnam 
War had many more deaths than any recent war involving an affluent country.


Counterintuitive though it may sound, the greater peacefulness of the 
world may make the attainment of higher rates of economic growth less 
urgent and thus less likely. This view does not claim that fighting wars 
improves economies, as of course the actual conflict brings death and 
destruction. The claim is also distinct from the Keynesian argument that 
preparing for war lifts government spending and puts people to work. 
Rather, the very possibility of war focuses the attention of governments 
on getting some basic decisions right — whether investing in science or 
simply liberalizing the economy. Such focus ends up improving a nation’s 
longer-run prospects.


It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but 
a look at American history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so 
easily. Fundamental innovations such as nuclear power, the computer and 
the modern aircraft were all pushed along by an American government 
eager to defeat the Axis powers or, later, to win the Cold War. The 
Internet was initially designed to help this country withstand a nuclear 
exchange, and Silicon Valley had its origins with military contracting, 
not today’s entrepreneurial social media start-ups. The Soviet launch of 
the Sputnik satellite spurred American interest in science and 
technology, to the benefit of later economic growth.


War brings an urgency that governments otherwise fail to summon. For 
instance, the Manhattan Project took six years to produce a working 
atomic bomb, starting from virtually nothing, and at its peak consumed 
0.4 percent of American economic output. It is hard to imagine a 
comparably speedy and decisive achievement these days.


As a teenager in the 1970s, I heard talk about the desirability of 
rebuilding the Tappan Zee Bridge. Now, a replacement is scheduled to 
open no earlier than 2017, at least — provided that concerns about an 
endangered sturgeon can be addressed. Kennedy Airport remains 
dysfunctional, and La Guardia is hardly cutting edge, hobbling air 
transit in and out of New York. The $800 billion stimulus bill, in 
response to the recession, has not changed this basic situation.


Today the major slow-growing Western European nations have very little 
fear of being taken over militarily, and thus their politicians don’t 
face extreme penalties for continuing stagnation. Instead, losing office 
often means a boost in income from speaking or consulting fees or a 
comfortable retirement in a pleasant vacation spot. Japan, by 
comparison, is faced with territorial and geopolitical pressures from 
China, and in response it is attempting a national revitalization 
through the economic policies of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.


Ian Morris, a professor of classics and history at Stanford, has revived 
the hypothesis that war is a significant factor behind economic growth 
in his recent book, “War! What Is it Good For? Conflict and the Progress 
of Civilization From Primates to Robots.” Morris considers a wide 
variety of cases, including the Roman Empire, the European state during 
its Renaissance rise and the contemporary United States. In each case 
there is good evidence that the desire to prepare for war spurred 
technological invention and also brought a higher degree of internal 
social order.


Another new book, Kwasi Kwarteng’s “War and Gold: A 500-Year History of 
Empires, Adventures, and Debt,” makes a similar argument but focuses on 
capital markets. Mr. Kwarteng, a Conservative member o

Re: [Marxism] Iraqi Sunni Scholars: Iraqi Rebels, Not ISIS, Who Faced The Iraqi Army

2014-06-15 Thread Greg McDonald via Marxism

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On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 10:28 PM, Dennis Brasky via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
>
> *Iraqi Sunni Scholars: Iraqi Rebels, Not ISIS, Who Faced The Iraqi Army  *
> *By MEM - *http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38813.htm
>
> June 14, 2014 -   The Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI) said on
> Friday that describing the rebels who drove the Iraqi army from several
> cities as operatives of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) is
> incorrect. They decried the designations as an attempt to abort the
> uprising in the country."
>
> FB sources from Mosul state there is jubilation in the streets due to the
> fact that the second in command under Sadaam Hussein, Ibrahim Ezat
> al-Dor, has returned to Iraq. The armed forces in control are a
> conglomerate of several groups..."a combination of Salafia Jehadia
> including Naqshbandia, ISIS, tribal fighters like the ones in Anbar, and
> officers from previous army, Jehad Wa al Taghieer, and others...Those same
> groups had serious political differences. They decided to coordinate till
> they liberate the country then solve their differences."
>
> 
>
>
>

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Re: [Marxism] NYU's new board of trustees chair -- his charter school is tough on 5 year olds


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On 6/15/14 9:20 AM, Louis Proyect wrote:
 Shamir sees no difference between being a Jew and being a Zionist. In 
other words, he is the "leftist" counterpart of Abraham Foxman. Just 
take a look at this:


"Putin’s affability does not turn him into a bountiful source for 
every Jewish initiative. ...


What is a Jewish initiative? Why did he use the word Jewish rather 
than Israeli?

Well, that's easy. The context is a discussion of Putin's rather
emphatically-demonstrated philo-Semitism, which in the Russian context is
a bigger deal than it would be in the American. Indeed the whole piece 
is largely
about how the philo-Semite/anti-Semite card is being played in the 
polemics over

the Ukraine brouhaha. I liked it very much and felt that it showed some
awareness of how many elements are in play, an awareness I find 
conspicuously

lacking on this distinguished list.

You really need to stop putting a plus where I put a minus.
Like all heuristics, it's not infallible. But as heuristics go, it's not 
bad.



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Re: [Marxism] NYU's new board of trustees chair -- his charter school is tough on 5 year olds

2014-06-15 Thread MM via Marxism

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On Jun 15, 2014, at 9:03 PM, Michael Smith via Marxism wrote:

> On 6/15/14 9:20 AM, Louis Proyect wrote:
> 
>> You really need to stop putting a plus where I put a minus.
>> 
> Like all heuristics, it's not infallible. But as heuristics go, it's not bad.

LP for substance, MS for style.

And don't make me choose - I'll go all Solomon on ur ass.

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Re: [Marxism] NYU's new board of trustees chair -- his charter school is tough on 5 year olds


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On 6/15/14 3:03 PM, Michael Smith via Marxism wrote:

Well, that's easy. The context is a discussion of Putin's rather
emphatically-demonstrated philo-Semitism, which in the Russian context is
a bigger deal than it would be in the American.


I really wonder if you have the foggiest idea of Shamir's rancid 
politics. He is a defender of the most disgusting pigs:


http://www.israelshamir.net/English/Eng9.htm
In 1996 he [Abbè Pierre] was hounded almost to death after he expressed 
his support for another friend of Palestine, Roger Garaudy, who wrote a 
book called The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics. A victim of Jewish 
swarm attack, he went into seclusion in Italy and  Switzerland, deserted 
by the very people he fought for.


This fear of Jewish swarm attacks has already brought much sorrow to 
mankind. In 1930s, the famous American aviator Charles Lindbergh called 
for the US to stay out of the approaching war in Europe. He was attacked 
by the Jewish media as a Nazi and a Hitler sympathiser, was besmirched 
and “overnight Lindbergh went from cultural hero to moral pariah”.


---


Garaudy writes books and articles trying to prove that the Judeocide was 
a "myth". He really is filth. In terms of Charles Lindbergh, he wrote 
about the Kristallnacht anti-Semitic attacks in Germany: "They have 
undoubtedly had a difficult 'Jewish problem,' but why is it necessary to 
handle it so unreasonably?"


Israel Shamir really is pure scum. I feel sorry for you that this 
apparently sails over your head.


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[Marxism] Left Forum panel discussion on Lenin and democracy | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist


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This is the first in a series of videos I made at the recently concluded 
Left Forum.


Even though I was reconciled to making some points about Lenin and 
democracy within the sixty seconds allotted me during the Q&A after the 
presentations above, I was not ready to limit myself to a question. 
After 30 seconds (I timed myself) of making some points about the 
Bolsheviks opposing democracy in the Ukraine after 1917, someone in the 
audience interrupted me, telling me that I could only ask a question. I 
gave up at that point and walked out in disgust. If I knew who the 
nitwit was, I would have written an open letter warning him that if he 
ever did it again, he’d regret it–dagnabit.


Now that I am back in my ‘hood—the Internet—I don’t have to show anybody 
my stinking badge as the Mexican bandit told Humphrey Bogart in 
“Treasure of the Sierra Madre”. I will have my say on these questions 
now and that’s that.


As might be expected from a panel organized by Paul Le Blanc, there was 
effusive praise for Lenin as a democrat. Nimtz just wrote a book titled 
“Lenin’s Electoral Strategy from 1907 to the October Revolution of 1917: 
The Ballot, the Streets – or Both” that can be yours for a mere $85. An 
educated consumer can listen to him and decide whether to pony up the 
cash. Ty Law focused most of his talk on the election campaigns being 
run by Socialist Alternative, including his own in Minneapolis.


full: 
http://louisproyect.org/2014/06/15/left-forum-panel-discussion-on-lenin-and-democracy/


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Re: [Marxism] NYU's new board of trustees chair -- his charter school is tough on 5 year olds


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On 6/15/14 3:27 PM, Louis Proyect wrote:
I really wonder if you have the foggiest idea of Shamir's rancid 
politics. 
I certainly do not, and don't much care. But I liked the Counterpunch 
essay --
thought it was rather insightful, and entertaining too. Both in a way I 
find

sadly lacking in the dour, dogmatical name-calling that constitutes much
of Left discourse, and particularly, I'm sorry to say, on this list.

It was just a couple of days ago that somebody was calling people 'dupes'
here, because they didn't agree with him/her about Syria.

Who really *enjoys* this kind of thing? Why?

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Re: [Marxism] NYU's new board of trustees chair -- his charter school is tough on 5 year olds

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Excuse me, but just out of curiosity, Michael, are you the same Michael
Smith was the editor of Heights and Valley News, the paper of the Columbia
Tenants Union back in the 1980s?


On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 4:17 PM, Michael Smith via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
>
> On 6/15/14 3:27 PM, Louis Proyect wrote:
>
>> I really wonder if you have the foggiest idea of Shamir's rancid
>> politics.
>>
> I certainly do not, and don't much care. But I liked the Counterpunch
> essay --
> thought it was rather insightful, and entertaining too. Both in a way I
> find
> sadly lacking in the dour, dogmatical name-calling that constitutes much
> of Left discourse, and particularly, I'm sorry to say, on this list.
>
> It was just a couple of days ago that somebody was calling people 'dupes'
> here, because they didn't agree with him/her about Syria.
>
> Who really *enjoys* this kind of thing? Why?
>
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/sranz18%
> 40gmail.com
>

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Re: [Marxism] NYU's new board of trustees chair -- his charter school is tough on 5 year olds


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On 6/15/14 6:44 PM, Sheldon Ranz wrote:
Excuse me, but just out of curiosity, Michael, are you the same 
Michael Smith was the editor of Heights and Valley News, the paper of 
the Columbia Tenants Union back in the 1980s?


Indeed I was. Are you related to John Ranz? Oh man, what a foolish
Kilkenny Cats donnybrook that was. Haven't thought of it in years. John
nearly strangled me with my own necktie on one particularly undignified
occasion. A tough old bird.





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[Marxism] Two Salvadoran Generals Ordered Deported for Civil War Torture

2014-06-15 Thread Greg McDonald via Marxism

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http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2014-06-12/news/el-salvador-civil-war-murders-jose-garcia-carlos-vides/

"It will be a victory for millions of victims who have demanded the United
States stop sheltering murderers and torturers."

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[Marxism] Israel Shamir: rightwing ideologue


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Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president 
step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, 
in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the 
power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other 
employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the 
centurion commands his minions.


So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed 
this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of 
unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive 
industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am 
sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it 
for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two 
months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to 
Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 
70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as 
foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out 
the folly of their own pride.


Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a 
"freeman" whimper.


So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically 
controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation 
that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" 
maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies 
give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert 
basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened 
American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, 
homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is 
often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this 
effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive 
government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, 
this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax 
break or incentive.


full: 
http://www.israelshamir.net/shamirReaders/english/Mishin--American-Capitalism-Gone-with-a-Whimper.php


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Re: [Marxism] Israel Shamir: rightwing ideologue


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On 6/15/14 8:45 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism quoted :


Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president 
step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear 
reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now 
has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume 
other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, 
the centurion commands his minions.


Louis seems to be indulging his penchant for sorting the sheep from
the goats here.

People are good guys or bad guys, white hats or black, reactionaries or
progressives, bourgeois or proletarian, tyrants or democrats, stupid or
intelligent, wrong or right, etc.

I don't understand this mentality. In my experience people can be fools
about one topic and quite astute about another; clever today and obtuse
tomorrow.

To be sure, there are people who are consistently stupid, though almost
none who are consistently wise. The people in the former category are
generally paid for it -- though not always.



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Re: [Marxism] Israel Shamir: rightwing ideologue


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On 6/15/14 9:19 PM, Michael Smith via Marxism wrote:

I don't understand this mentality. In my experience people can be fools
about one topic and quite astute about another; clever today and obtuse
tomorrow.


Actually I was rather shocked to see these musings from Shamir. I had 
regarded him in the past as a anti-Semitic crank and third-rate 
"anti-imperialist" but this rant against Obama undermining capitalism 
threw me for a loop, so much so that I will be blogging about it. I had 
him pegged as a Michel Chossudovsky type but he is apparently much more 
like Paul Craig Roberts or Rand Paul.


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Re: [Marxism] NYU's new board of trustees chair -- his charter school is tough on 5 year olds

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John Ranz is my father.

Well, this is all making sense now.  The CTU, as headed by Bruce Bailey,
was a notorious anti-Semitic outfit.  Your role was chief propagandist.
The flip, amoral tone that you have employed In your reading of Israel
Shamir's piece sounded familiar, and then I remembered it from your piece
in Heights and Valley News condemning Jacobo Timerman. the Argentine Jewish
publisher of La Opinion, tortured both as a Jew and an anti-fascist by the
military regime and who went on to condemn Israel's war against Lebanon.

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 7:02 PM, Michael Smith via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
>
> On 6/15/14 6:44 PM, Sheldon Ranz wrote:
>
>> Excuse me, but just out of curiosity, Michael, are you the same Michael
>> Smith was the editor of Heights and Valley News, the paper of the Columbia
>> Tenants Union back in the 1980s?
>>
>
> Indeed I was. Are you related to John Ranz? Oh man, what a foolish
> Kilkenny Cats donnybrook that was. Haven't thought of it in years. John
> nearly strangled me with my own necktie on one particularly undignified
> occasion. A tough old bird.
>
>
>
>
>
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/sranz18%
> 40gmail.com
>

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Re: [Marxism] Israel Shamir: rightwing ideologue

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And while you're at it, Louis, put in a plug for Shamir's blatant
homophobia, displayed in the very article you so kindly sent out.

I suppose that in Mr. Smith's experience, Hitler was bad about the Jews,
but good on animal rights; therefore, no moral judgment about him can be
made.

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 9:23 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
> On 6/15/14 9:19 PM, Michael Smith via Marxism wrote:
>
>> I don't understand this mentality. In my experience people can be fools
>> about one topic and quite astute about another; clever today and obtuse
>> tomorrow.
>>
>
> Actually I was rather shocked to see these musings from Shamir. I had
> regarded him in the past as a anti-Semitic crank and third-rate
> "anti-imperialist" but this rant against Obama undermining capitalism threw
> me for a loop, so much so that I will be blogging about it. I had him
> pegged as a Michel Chossudovsky type but he is apparently much more like
> Paul Craig Roberts or Rand Paul.
>
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/sranz18%
> 40gmail.com
>

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Re: [Marxism] NYU's new board of trustees chair -- his charter school is tough on 5 year olds


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On 6/15/14 9:38 PM, Sheldon Ranz via Marxism wrote:

  The CTU, as headed by Bruce Bailey,
was a notorious anti-Semitic outfit.


Well, who can blame him? The Jews smell like garlic, talk with their 
hands, were behind 9/11, own the TV, newspapers and radio, and killed Jesus.


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[Marxism] World Cup: Why I support Bosnia

2014-06-15 Thread Saman Sepehri via Marxism

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Why I support Bosnia!

I  was born and raised
in Tehran Iran,, I grew up on football (soccer or whatever  you yankees want to 
call it)  I played it every day at school at recess and
every day in our alley way in front of our house- 3 on  3, 2 on 2,  1on 1 just 
shooting the plastic ( non  regulation) ball around, after I got home from 
school...Until it got
dark.
I never  really played
again since I came to the US.
But I followed “soccer” or whatever you call it here –
Football to me; on and off.
Loved it when the Iranian team beat US 2-1 in the 98 World cup
– Hubris destroyed- The world power succumbs to counter attack twice of a much
smaller force.And US finishes last ranked in the world cup.

Now – today Iran is in the same World Cup Group as (football err soccer for you 
Yankees) world
power Argentina and smaller nations Bosnia,
Nigeria.
 
Nigeria’s Super Eagles :  Eh…. I am neither here or there about them- Oil 
Nation (like mine) – I have
always liked African Nations to do well against the colonial powers but  when 
the French side is mostly African and
North African (Evra,  Pogba, Sissoko, Sakho,  Varane, Sagna, Remy, Mavuba, 
Matuidi,… And
Thank you Ben zema with the beautiful goals against Ecuador) then one has to 
seriously
question borders in this world ( we always have ...as socialists have always 
done so,  but it seems that the world fits this now);
then one has to say f*** you the French National Front, and question what their
national (Front) team would look like (the Vichy National team, that is).

Back to Bosnia…They are in the same group as Iran and I like
Iran to do well …..But when Bosnia is in midst of all the political activity
and strikes...
When  the flood hits
and Edin Zdeko of Bosnian team organizes a twitter campaign to help… But not 
just
help Bosnia but also Serbia (Eddzecko: #HelpBosnia  BUT also #Help Serbia) 
after all that has
happened, the war, the ethnic cleansing. How can one not be moved by the sense
of solidarity???
If there is a salvation for us then sometimes events like
the World Cup can shed a light, provide an opportunity to let politics shine
through… whether through the strikes of transit workers or others on a much 
larger
scale, or on a much smaller scale as an individual.
 When in 2009 the
Green movement in Iran was vibrant we could have used every bit of support- some
provided that; some failed for whatever reason. But a number of Iranian National
Team players in 2009 wore the Green wristbands in support and paid for it.
Today if the our Bosnian brothers on the World Cup are
calling for help not just for themselves but to help their Serbian Brothers and
sisters then count me in--- As an Iranian I support Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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Re: [Marxism] Israel Shamir: rightwing ideologue

2014-06-15 Thread Ken Hiebert via Marxism

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The article is  by Stanislav Mishlin and not by Shamir, although it is on 
Shamir's website.
ken h




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Re: [Marxism] NYU's new board of trustees chair -- his charter school is tough on 5 year olds

2014-06-15 Thread Joseph Catron via Marxism

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On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 6:38 PM, Sheldon Ranz via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

The CTU, as headed by Bruce Bailey,
> was a notorious anti-Semitic outfit.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that was always your dad's claim
(and, at one point, the position of the Metropolitan Council on Housing,
although they'd stopped saying it by the time I got there). It might be
true, but I'd want to hear more about it before I take anyone's word on it.

> The flip, amoral tone that you have employed In your reading of Israel
> Shamir's piece sounded familiar, and then I remembered it from your piece
> in Heights and Valley News condemning Jacobo Timerman. the Argentine Jewish
> publisher of La Opinion, tortured both as a Jew and an anti-fascist by the
> military regime and who went on to condemn Israel's war against Lebanon.
>

This is a fine example of careless writing that means nothing. You've
completely neglected why Michael condemned him, whether the charges were
valid or baseless, etc. The biography of Timerman (whom I know nothing
about) may be admirable, but is completely beside the point.

-- 
"Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
lytlað."

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Re: [Marxism] NYU's new board of trustees chair -- his charter school is tough on 5 year olds

2014-06-15 Thread Joseph Catron via Marxism

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On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 6:55 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

The Jews smell like garlic, talk with their hands
>

Are you sure you haven't confused them with the Italians?

-- 
"Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
lytlað."

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[Marxism] Unions and the fight against redundancy

2014-06-15 Thread Philip Ferguson via Marxism

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It would be good if comrades in other countries (ie countries other than
NZ) could add experiences from there in relation to unions and the fight
against redundancies.  Comment on this article and the comments underneath
it:
http://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/unions-and-the-fight-against-redundancies/

Phil

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Re: [Marxism] NYU's new board of trustees chair -- his charter school is tough on 5 year olds