[Marxism] Fwd: Hipsters for charter schools: The big lie “Togetherness” tells about race and education - Salon.com
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * HBO series developed by the Duplasse brothers (mumblecore filmmakers like Lena Dunham originally) make the case for charter schools. http://www.salon.com/2015/03/21/hipsters_for_charter_schools_the_big_lie_togetherness_tells_about_race_and_education/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Why Not Utopia?
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * (Bittman, a food editor, cites Karl Marx and Gar Alpervowitz favorably.) NY Times Op-Ed, Mar. 22 2015 Why Not Utopia? by Mark Bittman SOME quake in terror as we approach the Terminator scenario, in which clever machines take over the world. After all, it isn’t sci-fi when Stephen Hawking says things like, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” But before the robots replace us, we face the challenge of decreasing real wages resulting, among other factors, from automation and outsourcing, which will itself be automated before long. Inequality (you don’t need more statistics on this, do you?) is the biggest social challenge facing us. (Let’s call climate change, which has the potential to be apocalyptic rather than just awful, a scientific challenge.) And since wealthy people don’t spend nearly as high a percentage of their incomes as poor people do, much wealth is sitting around not doing its job. The result is that we’re looking at fewer jobs that pay the equivalent of what an autoworker or a teacher made in the ’60s and ’70s. All but a lucky few will either have the kind of service jobs that are now paying around $9 an hour, or be worse off. And if robots can think, be creative, teach themselves, beat humans at chess and even Jeopardy, flip burgers, take care of your aging parent, plant, tend and harvest lettuce, drive cars, deliver packages, build iPhones and run warehouses — Amazon’s “Kiva” robots can carry 3,000 pounds, stock shelves and select and ship packages — it’s hard to imagine what these jobs might be. Welcome to the Brave New World, one featuring even fewer haves and more have-nots than the current one. The winners and losers are the same, but the polarity is even more extreme. And although this is morally detestable, as Robert B. Reich, the former secretary of labor and current professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told me a couple of weeks ago, it’s also “a crass economic issue. Because as you have more and more people who are getting paid relatively little, the question in most economic heads is, where is the aggregate demand going to come from?” If no one can buy, there’s very little to sell; again, relative to their income, rich people don’t buy much. (A hundred million people with $100 each spend a lot more than one person with $10 billion.) In other words, almost everyone agrees that income inequality stinks, but what’s to stop it from getting worse? (Certainly not this week’s proposed budget!) Defeatism will only guarantee defeat, but there are short-term solutions that can come from both top and bottom. The government’s role should be to stop corporate handouts, accept that rising tides do not lift all boats and prioritize a decent life for all citizens through a desperately needed enormous public works program, one that would create at least some dignified and well-paying jobs. Those unable to get those jobs — and, given that one in six Americans qualifies for food stamps, it’s clear that there isn’t enough good work to go around — can survive only if income distribution is addressed. One way to do this is through the earned-income tax credit, a kind of reverse income tax, similar to Milton Friedman’s proposal and therefore acceptable to many Republicans. But this assumes that people have work that pays a taxable income, and that’s not a safe assumption. Better is the Guaranteed Basic Income, which is not universally despised (it’s at least as old as Thomas Paine, was endorsed by the economist Friedrich Hayek and was recently considered by Switzerland), because it would simplify matters and help keep the economy moving. How all of this would be financed is of course a question; we could make the income tax look like it did 60 years ago, when the top rate was 91 percent (and, by the way, the economy was just fine), or we could institute a 100 percent tax on wealth over $1 billion, or ... well, there’s no dearth of ideas. The way to address income distribution is to redistribute income. A combination of public works and guaranteed welfare (not, by the way, a dirty word) is the best top-down solution for the short term. But the bottom-up situation has even more potential for a more equitable economic system. What we’re seeing, on a small but growing scale, is a world where energy and even power may become increasingly decentralized, and communities are building more on local and regional levels, creating organizations that benefit more of their members. Worker ownership — which, for obvious reasons, combats income inequality directly
[Marxism] Fwd: To move beyond boom and bust, we need a new theory of capitalism | Comment is free | The Guardian
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * This is the year that economics might, if we are lucky, turn a corner. There’s a deluge of calls for change in the way it is taught in universities. There’s a global conference at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, where the giants of radical economics – including Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis – will get their biggest ever mainstream platform. And there’s a film where a star of Monty Python talks to a puppet of Hyman Minsky. Terry Jones’s documentary film Boom Bust Boom hits the cinemas this month. Using puppetry and talking heads (including mine), Jones is trying to popularise the work of Minsky, a US economist who died in 1996 but whose name has become for ever associated with the Lehman Brothers crash. Terrified analysts labelled it the “Minsky moment” full: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/22/to-move-beyond-boom-and-bust-need-new-theory-capitalism _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: California megadrought: It's already begun.
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * “California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus-year mega-drought), except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain,” wrote NASA water scientist and University of California-Irvine professor Jay Famiglietti. A better plan, he said, was for “immediate mandatory water rationing” across the state. Famiglietti’s work has focused on the shocking recent declines in groundwater across the West, where excessive pumping has caused the ground to sink at rates up to a foot per year and a measurable rise in global sea levels. full: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/03/20/california_megadrought_it_s_already_begun.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Chris Hedges: Journalism as Subversion - Chris Hedges - Truthdig
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * As the mass media, now uniformly in the hands of large corporations, turn news into the ridiculous chronicling of pseudo-events and pseudo-controversy we become ever more invisible as individuals. Any reporting of the truth—the truth about what the powerful are doing to us and how we are struggling to endure and retain our dignity and self-respect—would fracture and divide a global population that must be molded into compliant consumers and obedient corporate subjects. This has made journalism, real journalism, subversive. And it has made P. Sainath—who has spent more than two decades making his way from rural Indian village to rural Indian village to make sure the voices of the country’s poor are heard, recorded and honored—one of the most subversive journalists on the subcontinent. He doggedly documented the some 300,000 suicides of desperate Indian farmers—happening for the last 19 years at the rate of one every half hour—in his book “Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories From India’s Poorest Districts.” And in December, after leaving The Hindu newspaper, where he was the rural affairs editor, he created the People’s Archive of Rural India. He works for no pay. He relies on a small army of volunteers. He says his archive deals with “the everyday lives of everyday people.” And, because it is a platform for mixed media, encompassing print, still photographs, audio and film, as well as an online research library, it is a model for those who seek to tell the stories that global capitalism attempts to blot out. full: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/journalism_as_subversion_20150322 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Chris Borland Says He's Giving Back 3/4 Of His Signing Bonus After Retiring Due To Health Concerns
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The takeaway quote in this fascinating interview: You are not a commodity, you are a person. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/22/chris-borland-bonus_n_6919258.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Beyond Chron | Disability Rights Leader Kitty Cone Dies at 70
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * See transcript of interview with her at: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt1w1001mt;NAAN=13030doc.view=frameschunk.id=div00043toc.depth=1toc.id=div00043brand=oac4 Includes her discussions with Hugo Blanco, her time in the SWP, involvement in many movements On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 10:48 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://www.beyondchron.org/curtis-kitty-cone-disability- rights-hero-dead-at-70/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/ options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Frank Marshall Davis: Obama’s ‘Communist mentor’?
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Washington Post, Mar. 23 2015 Frank Marshall Davis: Obama’s ‘Communist mentor’? By Michelle Ye Hee Lee Rudolph Giuliani: Well, that I don’t feel it. I don’t feel it. I don’t feel this love of America. I think this man (Obama) was — when I talked about his background, I’m talking about a man who grew up under the influence of Frank Marshall Davis, who was a member of the Communist Party who he refers to over and over in his book, who was a tremendous critic of the United States. Kelly: But when you say he wasn’t raised to love America, I mean, he was raised in part by his grandparents, his – his grandfather served in World War II, his grandmother worked in a munitions plant to help the nation during World War II. I mean, to suggest he was raised by people who don’t love America, who don’t — didn’t help him learn to love America. Giuliani: Well, his — his grandfather introduced him to Frank Marshall Davis, who was a Communist. –Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Fox News interview with Megyn Kelly, Feb. 20, 2015 President Obama met Frank Marshall Davis four decades ago and saw Davis 10 to 15 times as a teenager. Yet the Obama-Davis relationship continues to be a concern among some politicians, as portrayed most recently by Giuliani during his Tour de President Obama Doesn’t Love America. Readers of The Fact Checker wanted to know if Giuliani’s comments were accurate. So we reached out to Cliff Kincaid, president of America’s Survival, a group that seeks to expose Communist and Marxist influences. It is research from Kincaid and a few others that has shaped the opinion of critics who believe Obama adopted radical, socialist ideologies under Davis’s mentorship. Davis was a journalist and activist who was associated with the Communist Party in the 1930s and 1940s. We interviewed Kincaid at the Conservative Political Action Conference. When The Fact Checker arrived, Kincaid had been waiting with four of his peers, stacks of documents and a video camera pointed at an empty seat saved for us. “The Frank in Obama’s book, ‘Dreams from My Father,’ is Frank Marshall Davis,” Kincaid said. “You don’t dispute that.” “It has been admitted,” he continued, “except that here we are, to be honest with you, seven years after we broke this story. … The Washington Post has not reported the facts about Obama’s relationship with Frank Marshall Davis. That’s why I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity so you can hear directly from us and see the material we have.” He and his peers do not outwardly label Obama a Communist, but believe Communist influences have been played down by the media. Obama has shown to be an ineffective Communist, if he were one. He has failed to unravel the capitalist system over the past six years that he has held the most powerful position in the world — though, as Obama says, “interesting things happen in the fourth quarter.” So we decided to take a definitive look at Davis’s Communist Party activities and his relationship with Obama, based on competing research by those who have spent years trying to posthumously vindicate or indict Davis. What was Frank Marshall Davis’s Communist influence on Obama? The Facts: The Case Against Davis Davis was born in Kansas in 1905. His encounters with racism and poverty throughout childhood inspired his life-long quest for racial and economic equality. He lived and worked in Chicago for most of his early adulthood, then moved to Hawaii, where he died in 1987. He was a prolific poet and political columnist. He associated with other black-rights activists and labor unions and decried Jim Crow segregation laws in his columns. His writings caught the attention of the FBI, which began tracking him in the 1930s, according to FBI records that Kincaid obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI was concerned with his role as executive editor of the Associated Negro Press, through which agents believed he was spreading Communist propaganda to the outlet’s members. Informants told the FBI that Davis was a member of the party and organized its marches. The FBI record of Davis contains what is purported to be his Communist Party identification number: #47544. (The number was obtained from a “highly confidential source,” the files show.) The House Committee on Un-American Activities was well aware of Davis by the late 1940s. Davis’s last identification as a Communist Party member was in 1952, and he stopped being active with the Hawaii Civil Rights Congress in 1956, the file says. When Davis took the Fifth Amendment in front of the Senate Internal Security
[Marxism] Fwd: Racists, Neo-Nazis, Far Right Flock to Russia for Joint Conference - BuzzFeed News
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * ST. PETERSBURG — A Scottish anti-abortion campaigner named Jim Dowson was railing against “Nazi fascists in the EU” in a hotel conference room when an image of a bare-chested Vladimir Putin riding a bear galloping through the Siberian wilderness appeared behind him. “The salvation of my generation is the great Russian people, because Vladimir Putin understands that the rights of the majority should be put before the whims and perversions of the minority,” Dowson said. “Obama and America — they’re like females! They’re feminized men. You have been blessed by a man who is a man! And we envy that.” full: http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/europes-far-right-comes-to-russia-in-search-of-shared-values _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] In Greece, Syriza Struggles to Deliver Promises as Money Runs Out
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * NY Times, Mar. 23 2015 In Greece, Syriza Struggles to Deliver Promises as Money Runs Out By JIM YARDLEY ATHENS — Glowering with disdain, Evangelos Venizelos stepped into the well of the Greek Parliament and ridiculed members of the country’s new leftist government. They had vowed to roll back unpopular austerity measures that Mr. Venizelos and the prior government had pushed through. They had promised that Greece would stop kneeling to European creditors. Mr. Venizelos, once a powerful minister given the task of defending austerity, offered a disgusted opinion: Who are you kidding? “You were grossly unprepared and naïve,” Mr. Venizelos boomed during last Friday’s debate over a government amnesty program to collect unpaid taxes. He added: “The government is fooling itself by using double talk. They are saying one thing in the country and another thing to the lenders.” Having promised an anti-austerity revolution, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party are now having a taste of comeuppance. Even as Syriza leaders say their program remains on track, the party is struggling to transition from rebel outsiders plotting to wrest Greek’s economic sovereignty back from Berlin and Brussels to running a government that is rapidly running out of money. Infighting is worsening as hard-core leftist factions grow frustrated by some of the compromises made by Mr. Tsipras in his continuing negotiations with creditors. Critics on the left and right are questioning whether the government has a viable plan to restart economic growth. And still unresolved is whether the government can strike a deal with Europe to keep the country afloat, an issue that will be front and center on Monday, when Mr. Tsipras meets in Berlin with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. Greece’s finances have deteriorated as postelection anxiety over uncertainty about the bailout spurred a spike in bank withdrawals. Tax collections also plunged, raising questions about whether the government would be able to pay state workers and meet other obligations. On Feb. 20, Greek leaders signed a four-month bailout extension with its three main creditors — the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission. Yet creditors have refused to release a critical 7.2-billion-euro, or about $7.8 billion, loan payment (money that Syriza had once vowed not to accept but that is now badly needed) until the government provides a list of acceptable structural reforms to replace pension cuts and other austerity measures that had been under consideration by the previous government. Having held office for only two months, Mr. Tsipras’s government might seem to be facing grossly unrealistic expectations, yet they are largely self-imposed. During the campaign, Mr. Tsipras told buoyant crowds that Syriza would repeal punitive austerity laws — practically on Day 1 — rehire fired public workers, stop privatizations of state-owned assets, force creditors to write down the national debt and tackle the corrupt oligarchical business elites that dominate the economy. As yet, none of that has happened, and the contentious talks with European creditors have created a sense of parallel realities, as Mr. Tsipras and his outspoken finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, continue to declare that Greece, not the lenders, are winning the standoff, even as they have already retreated from some campaign promises. On the streets of Athens, Syriza remains popular even as many people say they are waiting for action. Antigovernment protests had mostly dissipated in the weeks after Syriza’s election. Yet on Friday, a youth wing of the Communist Party staged a demonstration outside a Finance Ministry building as it revived demands for the reinstatement of slashed university funds. Syriza leaders reject any suggestion that European creditors are forcing them to walk the same line as their predecessors. Syriza had denounced the past government, a coalition led by the center-right New Democracy party, for allowing bureaucrats from creditor institutions to wield veto power on legislation. “These bills will be written here, because we will not continue the practice of having technocrats writing our bills,” Mr. Tsipras said last week as the government introduced its first major piece of legislation, named the humanitarian bill, to provide relief to the poor. Even as some European leaders have criticized Mr. Tsipras and Mr. Varoufakis for their confrontational approach to debt negotiations — and have accused them of stoking nationalist anger — the Greek public seems
[Marxism] Fwd: Beyond Chron | Disability Rights Leader Kitty Cone Dies at 70
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://www.beyondchron.org/curtis-kitty-cone-disability-rights-hero-dead-at-70/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The degradation of work and life
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * An article I wrote. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/29643-the-growing-degradation-of-work-and-life-and-what-we-might-do-to-end-it _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What is 'Grace?
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Yes, the videos were available. Extraordinary especially the snake dance one. I was interested in the presence of the male gaze as well of course in the dnance. the latter brought to mind these lines from Yeats Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul. Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? The lines have always been obscure to me, until I once watched a dance workshop performed by the Bangarra Aboriginal Dance troupe. The dancers were working with Indigenous adolescent boys and girls and where they succeeded most you could not tell the dancer from the dance. Perfect art seems effortless or as you might say born out of grace. comradely Gary On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 12:26 AM, Marla Vijaya kumar via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Sometime back, on a lazy evening my childhood friend asked me What is grace?I said it has nothing to do with beauty, but the way a person conducts himself/herself in daily life. I could recall so many people who had that quality. Here is one song from an old Urdu film, Anupama. Sharmila Tagore, the leading lady of the film exudes natural grace.Kuchh Dil Ne Kaha - Dharmendra - Sharmila Tagore - Anupama - Lata - Evergreen Hindi Songs | | | | | | | | | | | Kuchh Dil Ne Kaha - Dharmendra - Sharmila Tagore - An... | | | | View on www.youtube.com | Preview by Yahoo | | | | | There is another video, from the 1965 film, Dev Anand's 'The Guide', in which there is a traditional snake dance. Waheeda Rehaman, the heroine, effortlessly shows how the character in the film is seeking perfection in dance, her life's passion.Snake Dance - Waheeda Rehman - Dev Anand - Guide - S.D. Burman - Bollywood Dances | | | | | | | | | | | Snake Dance - Waheeda Rehman - Dev Anand - Guide - S.D... | | | | View on www.youtube.com | Preview by Yahoo | | | | | May be it is diversion after months of debate on Greece.Vijaya Kumar M _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/gary.maclennan1%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Adam Hanieh: power, wealth and inequality in the Arab world
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Fundamental rifts: power, wealth and inequality in the Arab world By Dr Adam Hanieh, monthly guest write, Middle East Monitor, March 2015 https://kiaoragaza.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/power-wealth-inequality-in-the-arab-world/ Dr Adam Hanieh is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Development Studies, SOAS, University of London Over four years since mass uprisings ousted sclerotic regimes in Tunisia and Egypt it can seem that the initial hopes represented by these movements lie in tatters. Libya, Syria, Yemen and Iraq remain mired in bloody armed conflicts that have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more within and across borders. In the pivotal case of Egypt, military rule has returned through the violent crushing of protests, the arrests of an estimated 40,000 people and the rebuilding of the repressive structures of the Mubarak era. Elsewhere, autocratic governments look more secure in their rule today than they have for many years. In assessing the current moment, though, we need to look beyond the headline coverage of war, displacement and sectarianism. The Arab uprisings were not simply struggles against authoritarian rule; they were ineluctably wrapped up with a decades-long stagnation in living conditions and profound inequalities in wealth and power. Without addressing these socio-economic roots of the region’s malaise, there is no way out of the current impasse. Even prior to the 2008-9 global economic crisis, the Arab world ranked near the bottom of the world in numerous development indicators. Average unemployment rates for Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia were higher than any other region in the world, while labour force participation rates were the lowest (less than half of the population).[1] For the Arab world as a whole, youth and female participation rates also ranked at the bottom of the globe.[2] In addition, those actually in employment tended to be in precarious, low-paid informal jobs; the countries of North Africa, for example, had one of the fastest-growing informal sectors anywhere on the planet.[3] There are many other statistics like these that could be recounted for poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy and other measures of social conditions; these are trends that have remained virtually unchanged for over two decades. Key to explaining these outcomes are the IMF and World Bank-sponsored economic policies pursued by Arab governments since the 1980s. Of course there were important variations in pace and scale, but virtually all Arab states moved to implement the standard menu of neoliberal policies: cutbacks to social spending, privatisation of land and other state assets, labour market deregulation, financial and trade liberalisation, and so forth. These policies were focused upon the promotion of private-sector growth, while shifting more and more people into a reliance on the market and simultaneously eroding forms of collective social support. Western states applauded and drove these moves; indeed, the poster-child of Arab neoliberalism, Mubarak’s Egypt, was anointed the world’s “top reformer” by the World Bank in 2008.[4] Not everyone, however, lost from these policies. Indeed, for several key countries, growing poverty levels occurred in tandem with high economic growth rates, demonstrating that wealth was flowing towards some and away from others. In Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan, for example, real GDP per capita rose consistently from 2003 up to the onset of the global crisis in 2008, while stock markets boomed.[5] With reference to Egypt, the United Nations has puzzled recently over the co-existence of these two trends – growing wealth on one side and growing poverty on the other – claiming that this constitutes a “paradox” and an unexpected outcome of standard economic models.[6] The supposed paradox, however, disappears once we reject positive-sum, mutually-beneficial assumptions about how markets operate. As social and economic life become more deeply embedded in market relations, those who hold the most power in those markets tend to benefit. The result is polarisation and inequality, not a uniform downward spiral (or, indeed, a steady upward climb) felt alike by all. In this regard, the neoliberal experience in the Arab world has been completely unexceptional; the same pattern can be seen replicated across the globe. This polarisation of wealth and power is critical to unpacking the social roots of autocracy in the Middle East. As the handmaidens of neoliberal reform, autocratic rulers not only enriched themselves and
Re: [Marxism] The degradation of work and life
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Great story. Love the demands and organizing approach at the end. Maybe we could get endorsers for a project to promote discussion of them? ps: Michael were your electrons tingling this morning? A Chinese comrade posted proudly on Facebook a picture of one of your books which he had picked up in Taiwan (along with one by Mandel). On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 11:57 AM, michael yates via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * An article I wrote. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/29643-the-growing-degradation-of-work-and-life-and-what-we-might-do-to-end-it _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Racists, Neo-Nazis, Far Right Flock to Russia for Joint Conference - BuzzFeed News
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 23/03/2015 04:28 μμ, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: * ST. PETERSBURG “The salvation of my generation is the great Russian people, because Vladimir Putin understands that the rights of the majority should be put before the whims and perversions of the minority,” Dowson said. “Obama and America — they’re like females! They’re feminized men. You have been blessed by a man who is a man! And we envy that.” full: http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/europes-far-right-comes-to-russia-in-search-of-shared-values In these milieus the Third Rome myth has a functional role linked with conspiracy theories, the apocalyptic anti-Christ, panslavism and of course great-Russian imperialism. The later is apparently the myth's real name. Comparing to them on this subject, the orthodox patriarch of Istanbul (entitled patriarch of Constantinople and New Rome himself) looks like a radical of the left when, defending his own reactionary ecclesiastical authority of course, refers to, as nationalist/racist heresy! An applied example of the Muscovite 3rd Rome myth is a Russian TV documentary film criticized by Irina Papkova: The “Third Rome” myth is simply stated: After the collapse of the Orthodox Byzantine Empire, the Russian Muscovite tsardom supposedly took over the mantle of the spiritual and political center of Orthodox Christianity, a burden which was seamlessly passed on to the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and subsequently to the Russian Federation. full: http://www.iwm.at/publications/5-junior-visiting-fellows-conferences/vol-xxiv/saving-the-third-rome/ JA PS: One must read 1443 as 1453 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Scary conference in Russia
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * So, the National Front won big in French municipal elections, (with Russian assistance) Poles are forming right-wing militias, (I haven't heard that one yet, but I don't follow Poland very closely so a reference or two would be very much appreciated) ceasefires have been violated by the Ukrainian government, (and by your tone here *only* by the Ukrainian government, which I find hard to believe) NATO is doing what NATO was *designed* to do, (even someone in opposition to NATO should hardly be surprised) and there was a conference in London having something to do with NATO and the Ukraine. (again, a reference or two would be appreciated) Maybe instead of complaining about other people not posting about such events you could attempt to enlighten us to their occurrence and significance. Even a link to the report you mentioned from Russia Insider would be appreciated, instead of assuming that subscribers would find the report on their own. If all of this is so crucial to understanding events in Europe it might be worthwhile to make the information as easy to find as possible. On Mar 23, 2015 2:23 PM, Roger Annis via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The National Front received 25 per cent of the vote in France's municipal election. Thousands of Poles are enrolling in paramilitary militias, following the lead of the extreme-right in Ukraine in making ready for war with Russia. The ceasefire in eastern Ukraine is routinely violated by the Kyiv regime and will inevitably fail so long as the neo-conservative government remains in power. NATO's military buildup continues apace in eastern Europe. Meanwhile, an important public forum took place in London UK on March 19 on 'NATO and the crisis in Ukraine'. Did you read about any of this on the Marxism list? No, but you can read an oh-so scary report about a one-day conference in St. Petersburg of the European right. Russia Insider has published a marvellous send-up of the hypocritical reporting by the New York Times of that conference. RA _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/micklane.jl%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Scary conference in Russia
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Hi Roger, I would actually like to hear more about those things. I think obv. Louis and some others post about Russia because they disagree with the take that much of the left has about Russia, Syria, and Iran as a sort of resistance axis, and much of that criticism against creeping Stalinism is warranted. But obviously that doesn't mean we have to endorse the enemy of the enemy in any place. I actually kind of agree with you that a handful of topics have been dominating the list (Greece, Ukraine) and I think if you have analysis you can offer about some of these developments in other parts of Europe (or perhaps the rest of the world) you should post it instead of maligning the anti-Putin line. - Amith On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 2:21 PM, Roger Annis via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The National Front received 25 per cent of the vote in France's municipal election. Thousands of Poles are enrolling in paramilitary militias, following the lead of the extreme-right in Ukraine in making ready for war with Russia. The ceasefire in eastern Ukraine is routinely violated by the Kyiv regime and will inevitably fail so long as the neo-conservative government remains in power. NATO's military buildup continues apace in eastern Europe. Meanwhile, an important public forum took place in London UK on March 19 on 'NATO and the crisis in Ukraine'. Did you read about any of this on the Marxism list? No, but you can read an oh-so scary report about a one-day conference in St. Petersburg of the European right. Russia Insider has published a marvellous send-up of the hypocritical reporting by the New York Times of that conference. RA _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Racists, Neo-Nazis, Far Right Flock to Russia for Joint Conference - BuzzFeed News
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * It's kind of awesome that they gathered in St. Petersburg's Holiday Inn. -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Aboriginal community closures in Western Australia are ‘an attempt to destroy our culture’
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Meriki Onus, protest organiser from the youth group Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance, spoke to Solidarity about the need to resist these community closures in Western Australia and the broader agenda of assimilation. http://enpassant.com.au/2015/03/23/aboriginal-community-closures-are-an-attempt-to-destroy-our-culture/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [Pen-l] Fwd: The assassination of Matiullah Khan | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 3/23/15 6:10 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: By an eerie coincidence, the very day I was writing my review of Anand Gopal’s “No Good Men Among the Living”, the N.Y. Times reported on his assassination. The Times might be good at reporting the facts but they tend to be disjointed. The article below quotes Anand on why Matiullah was killed but fails to place him into the broader context of Afghan politics. The passage from “No Good Men Among the Living” that follows the NY Times article will give you a better idea of how people “succeed” in Afghanistan, which is the same way that Tony Soprano succeeded but with the added complication of overlapping with some progressive steps forward, including his support for Heela’s candidacy as the first female senator in Afghanistan. If you’ve read my CounterPunch review of “No Good Men Among the Living”, you’ll recall that she was a courageous woman who defied paternalistic oppression—thus antagonizing both the Taliban and the miserable warlords like Matiullah Khan who they sought to overthrow. full: http://louisproyect.org/2015/03/23/the-assassination-of-matiullah-khan/ A horrible typo. It was not Anand who got assassinated but one of the warlords he wrote about. Sorry! _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Gaza protest declares: Venezuela, Palestine is with you!
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the Gaza Strip organized a rally in solidarity with Venezuela, in defense of Venezuela against the U.S. imperialist targeting of Venezuela's Bolivarian project, in particular a recent decree by the U.S. administration imposing new economic sanctions on Venezuela and labeling the country a 'national security threat' to the United States, a move that is a clear threat of escalated U.S. intervention against Venezuela and its elected government ... http://pflp.ps/english/2015/03/21/gaza-protest-declares-venezuela-palestine-is-with-you -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Trotskyists and Lars Lih
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Lars Lih's work on Lenin has certainly presented a few headaches to various Trotskyist groups. Below is Ben Lewis of the CPGB, who are very keen on Lih, looking at Peter Taaffe (patrriarch of SPEW - the mothership of the CWI): https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/bureaucratic-centralism-versus-democratic-centralism/ Phil _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: The assassination of Matiullah Khan | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * By an eerie coincidence, the very day I was writing my review of Anand Gopal’s “No Good Men Among the Living”, the N.Y. Times reported on his assassination. The Times might be good at reporting the facts but they tend to be disjointed. The article below quotes Anand on why Matiullah was killed but fails to place him into the broader context of Afghan politics. The passage from “No Good Men Among the Living” that follows the NY Times article will give you a better idea of how people “succeed” in Afghanistan, which is the same way that Tony Soprano succeeded but with the added complication of overlapping with some progressive steps forward, including his support for Heela’s candidacy as the first female senator in Afghanistan. If you’ve read my CounterPunch review of “No Good Men Among the Living”, you’ll recall that she was a courageous woman who defied paternalistic oppression—thus antagonizing both the Taliban and the miserable warlords like Matiullah Khan who they sought to overthrow. full: http://louisproyect.org/2015/03/23/the-assassination-of-matiullah-khan/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Greece - fascists at the gate
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * https://dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/greece-fascists-at-the-gate/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Scary conference in Russia
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 3/23/15 2:21 PM, Roger Annis via Marxism wrote: Did you read about any of this on the Marxism list? No, but you can in: The Nation Magazine Salon.com DissidentVoice MoonofAlabama WSWS.org Consortium News Global Research Truthout ZNet CounterFire VoltaireNet and many others. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Scary conference in Russia
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The National Front received 25 per cent of the vote in France's municipal election. Thousands of Poles are enrolling in paramilitary militias, following the lead of the extreme-right in Ukraine in making ready for war with Russia. The ceasefire in eastern Ukraine is routinely violated by the Kyiv regime and will inevitably fail so long as the neo-conservative government remains in power. NATO's military buildup continues apace in eastern Europe. Meanwhile, an important public forum took place in London UK on March 19 on 'NATO and the crisis in Ukraine'. Did you read about any of this on the Marxism list? No, but you can read an oh-so scary report about a one-day conference in St. Petersburg of the European right. Russia Insider has published a marvellous send-up of the hypocritical reporting by the New York Times of that conference. RA _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Scary conference in Russia
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Roger Annis said: The National Front received 25 per cent of the vote in France's municipal election. Thousands of Poles are enrolling in paramilitary militias, following the lead of the extreme-right in Ukraine in making ready for war with Russia. The ceasefire in eastern Ukraine is routinely violated by the Kyiv regime and will inevitably fail so long as the neo-conservative government remains in power. NATO's military buildup continues apace in eastern Europe. Meanwhile, an important public forum took place in London UK on March 19 on 'NATO and the crisis in Ukraine'. Did you read about any of this on the Marxism list? No, but you can read an oh-so scary report about a one-day conference in St. Petersburg of the European right. Russia Insider has published a marvellous send-up of the hypocritical reporting by the New York Times of that conference. Ken Hiebert replies: Roger says, The National Front received 25 per cent of the vote in France's municipal election. It is not clear to me what Roger intends us to conclude from this. Should we be more alarmed than we were before? Less alarmed? Should we reconcile ourselves to Russian support for the National Front? According to the BuzzFeed article A Russian bank gave France’s Front National — whose leader, Marine le Pen, is an open admirer of Putin’s — an $11.7 million loan last year. Does Roger believe this is true? False? If he believes it is true, how does he think we should react? Roger says, No, but you can read an oh-so scary report about a one-day conference in St. Petersburg of the European right. Roger, if these same forces held a conference in Vancouver, how would you react? Would you demonstrate against them? Would your assessment of the conference change if you learned that it was only for one day? _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Greece/Syriza: Time Isn’t on Our Side by Stathis Kouvelakis
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Time Isn’t on Our Side For Syriza, there is an alternative to “strategic retreat.” by Stathis Kouvelakis Jacobin magazine, March 23 https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/greece-syriza-eurogroup-negotiations-austerity . . . An Alternate Strategy The plan — or rather, the range of strategies — currently being considered by the Europeans can be summed up as follows: either trigger in the short term the collapse of the Syriza government, or, and this appears to be the prevailing option, drag it into a new strategic retreat in April, which will prepare the ground for a final capitulation in June. This approach seems to have been demonstrated by the Eurogroup’s decisions in earlier this month when, in a particularly tense atmosphere and with express procedures, the Greek side was forced to accept two important demands of the Eurogroup. Firstly, a very strict confirmation of “the commitments of no unilateral actions and no rolling-back on measures previously agreed needed to be respected at all times.” Secondly, the return to Athens of the “technical” teams of the troika. Beyond the symbolism, this move has a highly practical significance: it is on the basis of the collected data — which is expected to confirm the negative trends of public revenues, budgetary targets, and of the economy in general — that these teams will draft proposals for a new package of austerity measures. This package will eventually be presented by the lenders as the terms of a new “bailout”, to be “negotiated,” in reality imposed to the Greek government in the summer, when Greece has to deal with more than €10 billion in debt repayments. It is by now absolutely clear that remaining stuck in this deadly trap can only lead to the utter rout of the Syriza government and, moreover, to a collapse of the political and social forces that constitute its base, with direct and devastating consequences at the European and international levels. In that respect, the relative decline in support for Podemos in recent polls should already raise some concerns, even if it has also domestic causes. An escape from the current deadlock, however, has some prerequisites. The first is a break with the climate of complacency — in other words, breaking with the idea that, with appropriate media spin, every meeting with the European officials can be presented as a success and that the signed agreements can be tweaked at will. The sincerity and sober assessment required by the situation were best conveyed by Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis, who stressed before parliament this month that “the country is at war, a social and a class war with the lenders” and that in this war “we will not go like cheerful scouts willing to continue the policies of the memorandum.” This is the kind of language that international supporters of Syriza need to hear, and not the language of facile optimism that creates illusions and causes confusion that tomorrow may prove costly. In order for this battle to be won — and it should be emphasized that despite the setbacks and the losses, the outcome of the battle remains undecided — there needs to be proper preparation. Unfortunately, the February retreat turned out to be necessary inasmuch as it had to be proven, in real terms, that even with the most sincere intentions, the insistence on the strategy of staying within the euro whatever the cost can only lead to defeat. There is, of course, a range of unilateral measures that are necessary weapons in this battle and which logically come before the option of a Grexit. These include two measures that are longstanding components of Syriza’s program: capital controls, which also require strict public control of the banking system, and defaulting on debt payments. It should be clear, however, that these moves would bring about a dynamic that would breach fundamental constraints of the monetary union and would inevitably lead to the exit from it. In any case, the ECB’s relentless blackmail with its provision of liquidity places onto the agenda every day the issue of regaining sovereignty over monetary policy. From this point of view, the most reasonable proposal is a negotiated exit from the euro, which would be combined with a writing-off of the major part of the debt, and would free both sides from the negative effects of a forced Grexit and from the endless preoccupation with an unsustainable Greek debt. It is true that, given Syriza’s mandate on the issue of the euro, such a proposal would need to be validated by popular consultation. The possibility of a referendum in the case of an impasse in negotiations is currently under discussion by the government, as demonstrated
Re: [Marxism] Frank Marshall Davis: Obama’s ‘Communist mentor’?
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Louis, It was really amusing to see this level of paranoia in today's America about Communists. I thought the McCarthy mindset had gradually withered away as time passed. How can somebody believing in Marxist ideology be automatically labelled as involved in un-American activities. The Indian Communists may not be successful politically, but no one dares to call them Anti-India, except some hard core Hindu Fascists, who are on the fringe, though their party is in power now. People here in general are open minded about various ideologies.Vijaya Kumar Marla On Monday, March 23, 2015 9:00 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Washington Post, Mar. 23 2015 Frank Marshall Davis: Obama’s ‘Communist mentor’? By Michelle Ye Hee Lee Rudolph Giuliani: Well, that I don’t feel it. I don’t feel it. I don’t feel this love of America. I think this man (Obama) was — when I talked about his background, I’m talking about a man who grew up under the influence of Frank Marshall Davis, who was a member of the Communist Party who he refers to over and over in his book, who was a tremendous critic of the United States. Kelly: But when you say he wasn’t raised to love America, I mean, he was raised in part by his grandparents, his – his grandfather served in World War II, his grandmother worked in a munitions plant to help the nation during World War II. I mean, to suggest he was raised by people who don’t love America, who don’t — didn’t help him learn to love America. Giuliani: Well, his — his grandfather introduced him to Frank Marshall Davis, who was a Communist. –Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Fox News interview with Megyn Kelly, Feb. 20, 2015 President Obama met Frank Marshall Davis four decades ago and saw Davis 10 to 15 times as a teenager. Yet the Obama-Davis relationship continues to be a concern among some politicians, as portrayed most recently by Giuliani during his Tour de President Obama Doesn’t Love America. Readers of The Fact Checker wanted to know if Giuliani’s comments were accurate. So we reached out to Cliff Kincaid, president of America’s Survival, a group that seeks to expose Communist and Marxist influences. It is research from Kincaid and a few others that has shaped the opinion of critics who believe Obama adopted radical, socialist ideologies under Davis’s mentorship. Davis was a journalist and activist who was associated with the Communist Party in the 1930s and 1940s. We interviewed Kincaid at the Conservative Political Action Conference. When The Fact Checker arrived, Kincaid had been waiting with four of his peers, stacks of documents and a video camera pointed at an empty seat saved for us. “The Frank in Obama’s book, ‘Dreams from My Father,’ is Frank Marshall Davis,” Kincaid said. “You don’t dispute that.” “It has been admitted,” he continued, “except that here we are, to be honest with you, seven years after we broke this story. … The Washington Post has not reported the facts about Obama’s relationship with Frank Marshall Davis. That’s why I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity so you can hear directly from us and see the material we have.” He and his peers do not outwardly label Obama a Communist, but believe Communist influences have been played down by the media. Obama has shown to be an ineffective Communist, if he were one. He has failed to unravel the capitalist system over the past six years that he has held the most powerful position in the world — though, as Obama says, “interesting things happen in the fourth quarter.” So we decided to take a definitive look at Davis’s Communist Party activities and his relationship with Obama, based on competing research by those who have spent years trying to posthumously vindicate or indict Davis. What was Frank Marshall Davis’s Communist influence on Obama? The Facts: The Case Against Davis Davis was born in Kansas in 1905. His encounters with racism and poverty throughout childhood inspired his life-long quest for racial and economic equality. He lived and worked in Chicago for most of his early adulthood, then moved to Hawaii, where he died in 1987. He was a prolific poet and political columnist. He associated with other black-rights activists and labor unions and decried Jim Crow
Re: [Marxism] What is 'Grace?
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Gary, In November last year, I addresed a Leftist Youth Festival in South India's Hindu Holy City of Tirupathi. A mathematics Professor, Com. Nagaraju and his students had presented a balle on exploitation in the name of God. It was very impressive. I was thinking about it for a long time. Recently, when I went back to Tirupathi City, I asked Com. Nagaraju to compose a balle, based on Gorky's story, Danko's Heart. Are you aware of any videos of a balle or animation based on this story. It will be helpful for them.Vijaya Kumar Marla On Monday, March 23, 2015 11:51 AM, Gary MacLennan gary.maclenn...@gmail.com wrote: Yes, the videos were available. Extraordinary especially the snake dance one. I was interested in the presence of the male gaze as well of course in the dnance. the latter brought to mind these lines from Yeats Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul. Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? The lines have always been obscure to me, until I once watched a dance workshop performed by the Bangarra Aboriginal Dance troupe. The dancers were working with Indigenous adolescent boys and girls and where they succeeded most you could not tell the dancer from the dance. Perfect art seems effortless or as you might say born out of grace. comradely Gary On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 12:26 AM, Marla Vijaya kumar via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Sometime back, on a lazy evening my childhood friend asked me What is grace?I said it has nothing to do with beauty, but the way a person conducts himself/herself in daily life. I could recall so many people who had that quality. Here is one song from an old Urdu film, Anupama. Sharmila Tagore, the leading lady of the film exudes natural grace.Kuchh Dil Ne Kaha - Dharmendra - Sharmila Tagore - Anupama - Lata - Evergreen Hindi Songs | | | | | | | | | | | Kuchh Dil Ne Kaha - Dharmendra - Sharmila Tagore - An... | | | | View on www.youtube.com | Preview by Yahoo | | | | | There is another video, from the 1965 film, Dev Anand's 'The Guide', in which there is a traditional snake dance. Waheeda Rehaman, the heroine, effortlessly shows how the character in the film is seeking perfection in dance, her life's passion.Snake Dance - Waheeda Rehman - Dev Anand - Guide - S.D. Burman - Bollywood Dances | | | | | | | | | | | Snake Dance - Waheeda Rehman - Dev Anand - Guide - S.D... | | | | View on www.youtube.com | Preview by Yahoo | | | | | May be it is diversion after months of debate on Greece.Vijaya Kumar M _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/gary.maclennan1%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What is 'Grace?
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Yeats seem to be thinking of individual action vs. action for a group: “...the leaf, the blossom or the bole?” On Monday, March 23, 2015 11:51 AM, Gary MacLennan gary.maclenn...@gmail.com wrote: Yes, the videos were available. Extraordinary especially the snake dance one. I was interested in the presence of the male gaze as well of course in the dnance. the latter brought to mind these lines from Yeats Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul. Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? The lines have always been obscure to me, until I once watched a dance workshop performed by the Bangarra Aboriginal Dance troupe. The dancers were working with Indigenous adolescent boys and girls and where they succeeded most you could not tell the dancer from the dance. Perfect art seems effortless or as you might say born out of grace. comradely Gary _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Merkel and Tsipras meet; no resolution
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Merkel and Tsipras ease tension but do not find political solution Katherimini, Athens late night, March 23 German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras struck a conciliatory tone after their first bilateral meeting in Berlin on Monday but the Greek leader’s host insisted that she is not in a position to ease Greece’s liquidity problems on her own. The two leaders held a news conference after talks at the Chancellery that lasted more than an hour and before they were due to hold a working dinner. Both politicians sought to ease the tension that has built up between the two countries over the last few weeks, particularly due to comments from their finance ministers. Merkel and Tsipras insisted that their talks had been productive despite differences on a number of issues. “I did not come here to ask for financial aid,” Tsipras said. “I came for an exchange of our thoughts and opinions, to see where there is common ground and where there is disagreement.” Merkel said that she sensed an “appetite for cooperation” during the talks but insisted that she could not intervene to ease Greece’s liquidity concerns. She said it was paramount for Athens to present its list of reforms to its lenders, thereby paving the way for the disbursement of the 7.2 billion euros remaining in bailout loans. “Reforms have to be discussed with the institutions, not with Germany,” she emphasized. . . . http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_23/03/2015_548486 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
