[Marxism] Fwd: Inside Trump’s financial ties to Russia and his unusual flattery of Vladimir Putin - The Washington Post

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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So the bromance between Trump and Putin boils down to opportunities to 
build luxury condominiums in Russia.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-financial-ties-to-russia-and-his-unusual-flattery-of-vladimir-putin/2016/06/17/dbdcaac8-31a6-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html
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[Marxism] Robert Paine, Ecologist Who Found ‘Keystone Species,’ Dies at 83

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, June 18 2016
Robert Paine, Ecologist Who Found ‘Keystone Species,’ Dies at 83
By SAM ROBERTS

Robert Paine, a groundbreaking, hands-on ecologist who found that 
removing what he called a “keystone species” from an environment could 
profoundly affect the fortunes of neighboring species, died on Monday in 
Seattle. He was 83.


The cause was acute myeloid leukemia, his daughter Anne Paine said.

Dr. Paine demonstrated in his field work that certain species exert a 
disproportionate impact on their ecosystems and that their elimination — 
as a result of climate change, pollution or some other natural or 
man-made factors — can produce unexpected and far-reaching consequences 
for the local environment.


A teacher and researcher at the University of Washington for 36 years, 
Dr. Paine propounded his keystone theory in 1966 after studying ochre 
starfish, or sea stars, as they preyed on the mussel population along 
the rocky shore of Makah Bay, on the tip of the Olympic Peninsula in 
Washington State.


After he pried the starfish from rocks with a crowbar and hurled them 
into the sea, the mussels proliferated along the shore, displacing algae 
and limpets.


He found a similar chain reaction — or “trophic cascade,” as he called 
it — when sea otters vanished or were removed from an environment 
because of fur trading, pollution or marine predators. With the otters 
gone, sea urchins, which the otters had preyed upon, were now free to 
gobble up a larger share of kelp — food that would otherwise have 
sustained fish and crabs.


He identified the predator starfish and the otters as keystone species, 
taking the name from the wedge-shaped apex of an arch that keeps it from 
collapsing.


Dr. Paine, who had a passion for field work, conducted much of his own 
research on Tatoosh Island, an uninhabited rocky outcropping less than a 
mile off Cape Flattery, on the Olympic Peninsula. He discovered the spot 
in 1967 on a salmon-fishing trip.


Simon Levin, an ecologist and professor at Princeton University, wrote 
in an email that Dr. Paine’s “influence cannot be overestimated,” 
particularly his “notion that to understand systems one had to perturb 
them.”


“He helped make ecology an experimental science,” Professor Levin wrote.

Dr. Paine quickly achieved a stature in the scientific community that 
matched his 6-foot-4 frame. Several months after he published his 
seminal paper on keystone species in the journal American Naturalist in 
1966, he received a letter from Robert H. MacArthur, a leading ecologist 
at Princeton.


“This changes everything,” Professor MacArthur wrote.

Robert Treat Paine III was born in Cambridge, Mass., on April 13, 1933. 
His father, also named Robert, was a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts 
in Boston and a descendant of Robert Treat Paine, a Massachusetts lawyer 
who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His mother, the 
former Barbara Birkhoff, was a writer and photographer.


His marriage to the former Alice E. Coleman ended in divorce. In 
addition to his daughter Anne, he is survived by two other daughters, 
Susan Paine and Nancy Paine; five grandchildren; a great-granddaughter; 
and a brother, Garrett.


“All my early childhood memories involve biology,” Dr. Paine said in an 
online interview with the University of Washington’s biology department. 
“I remember sitting in the dirt driveway when I was around 2½ years old 
and watching ants. I was utterly fascinated with nature from a very 
young age.”


That fascination, along with an interest in birding, propelled him 
toward a study of fossils as a paleontologist and geologist. After 
graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1954, he 
served in the Army, then pursued graduate studies at the University of 
Michigan.


But at Michigan he shifted his focus, from extinct to animate objects, 
after taking a revelatory course on freshwater invertebrates given by 
the naturalist Frederick E. Smith, a faculty member. Inspired, he went 
on to earn a master’s degree and a doctorate in zoology.


He joined the faculty of the University of Washington in 1962 and was 
promoted to professor in 1971. He retired in 1998, but returned to 
campus regularly and established an endowment to support graduate research.


Dr. Paine preferred field work, as Jennifer Ruesink, a biology professor 
at the University of Washington, wrote in a tribute to him on the 
university’s website:


“Working on a remote island was not easy: leaps of faith across surge 
channels, slippery algae that could take down the most sure-footed, 
boats overturned and scientists bodily moved by rogue waves, all 
suppl

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Radical Leisure by Eva Swidler • Monthly Review

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Yes it is an interesting article, and we do need to be much more ambitions
and Utopian in our politics.  But the problem is that unemployment is not
leisure. Work and leisure exist together in a complex dialectic, and
Swidler sort of admits that.

The toxic impact of the destruction of the Indigenous economy here in
Australia has contributed to a dreadful situation in the former reserves.
In community after community there have been no jobs for decades.

Might return to this topic if I get the time.

comradely

Gary

On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 2:27 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Why work sucks and why academic leftists pay little attention to that fact.
>
> http://monthlyreview.org/2016/06/01/radical-leisure/
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[Marxism] Fwd: See Russia like no one else has

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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You can't make this shit up.
-- Forwarded message --
From: The Nation 
Date: Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 10:31 AM
Subject: See Russia like no one else has
To: acpolla...@juno.com





Dear Friend of *The Nation*,

*Join The Nation’s inaugural excursion to Moscow and St. Petersburg, from
September 4th — 14th.*

Calling on our network of contacts and connections in Russia, we’ve
designed a distinctive and exclusive program that promises to offer a rare
glimpse into the inner workings of a country at the very center of
geopolitics for many decades.
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After we fly into St. Petersburg, we’ll check in to the 19th-century
five-star Belmond Grand Hotel Europe. We’ll then spend five days touring
the renowned sights of this historic city and its surroundings, from the
Hermitage and the Nevsky Prospekt to the Grand Palace and gardens of
Peterhof, followed by private meetings with distinguished historians,
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the city’s 42 islands.

After taking a high-speed train to Moscow, we’ll travel to the city of
Sergiyev Posad and the Trinity Lava of St. Sergius, a UNESCO World Heritage
site. This destination brings medieval Russia to life with its stimulating
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In Moscow, we’ll stay at the InterContinental Tverskaya Hotel, a modern,
five-star hotel within walking distance of Red Square. We’ll take a private
escorted tour of the Kremlin, and meet with Pavel Palazhchenko (Mikhail
Gorbachev’s longtime interpreter and colleague) and Sergei Kapkov, Moscow’s
former culture minister, as well as other media and cultural figures. We’ll
also visit the Pushkin Museum, Gorky Park, and the famed Novodevichy
Cemetary.

*Click here for a detailed itinerary.
*

Throughout the trip, you’ll be accompanied by Teresa Stack, *The Nation*’s
president from 1998 to 2016 and a founder of our travel program, including
our annual seminar cruise (now in its 19th year) and the host of multiple
*Nation* educational trips to Cuba. Also joining us will be Natasha
Makarova, a Russian native who graduated from Moscow State Pedagogical
University in 2004 with a MA in linguistics and intercultural
communication. Natasha has led group-education tours in Russia for many
years.

For our travelers flying to St. Petersburg from New York City, the journey
will begin with a special event as editor and publisher Katrina vanden
Heuvel—along with renowned scholar of Soviet and Russian history and
politics, longtime *Nation* contributor, and former *Nation* columnist
Stephen F. Cohen—hosts an intimate conversation at *The Nation*’s Manhattan
office (Katrina and Stephen will not be accompanying us to Russia). Katrina
and Stephen have been visiting Russia for more than three decades, and they
have relationships with many of the country’s media, cultural, and
political leaders.
  [image: Book now!]



*The cost of this tour is $6,485/$7,365* per person (double/single
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and events.

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For further information or to register, contact Charles Bittner at
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[Marxism] Fwd: Putting Ben Norton under a microscope | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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When I visited the Verso office in Brooklyn for a panel discussion on 
Rosa Luxemburg last August, I ran into someone named Ben Norton who I 
knew vaguely as a critic of the crude “anti-imperialism” that had swept 
across the left like the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We chatted 
briefly about our shared political values and his latest career move, 
which was joining Salon.com as a staff member. I thought this was a 
welcome addition to a magazine that featured Patrick L. Smith, one of 
the worst propagandists for the Assad dictatorship to be found anywhere.


I never would have expected that within six months Norton would end up 
in the Smith/Cockburn/Fisk camp writing articles reinforcing the 
dominant narrative on the left that the USA was bent on “regime change” 
and that the Syrian rebels were reactionary jihadists engaged in a proxy 
war launched by the West against its perceived enemies in the region.


full: 
https://louisproyect.org/2016/06/18/putting-ben-norton-under-a-microscope/

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[Marxism] Is right-wing turn of certain British WRP leaders on the fascist murder of Jo Cox going to cayse their worse internal criss?

[Anthony Brain via Marxism]

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 ARE LAYERS OF THE WRP LEADERSHIP GOING TO THE RIGHT IN THEIR REACTION TO THE 
MURDER OF JO COX? BY ANTHONY BRAINU
  
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ARE LAYERS OF THE WRP LEADERSHIP GOING TO THE RIGHT IN THEIR REACTION TO TH...
 The WRP have made their worse mistake in defining the murder of Jo Cox as a 
deranged worker. There is now mentio...  |   |

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[Marxism] US underestimates civilian death toll of its bombings in Iraq and Syria by 95 percent

[Michael Karadjis via Marxism]

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US underestimates civilian death toll in Iraq and Syria by 95 per cent
Publication Date: 2016-06-18 06:58
http://www.orient-news.net/en/news_show/115320/0/US-underestimates-civilian-death-toll-in-Iraq-and-Syria-by

A new report says a U.S.-led coalition is bombing civilians to death and 
covering it up.


The United States-led coalition that is bombing Iraq and Syria may be 
underreporting the civilian toll of that war by as much as 95 precent, 
according to a new report released Friday by the monitoring group 
Airwars.


The U.S.-led coalition, which includes nations such as Britain, France 
and the Netherlands, has been bombing ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria 
since 2014, carrying out more than 13,121 airstrikes, or just over 19 a 
day. The vast majority of the strikes are carried out by the U.S., 
according to Airwars—68 percent in Iraq and 82.5 percent in Syria—with 
an estimated civilian death toll of at least 1,312 people.


Over the past six months it’s gotten worse, according to Airwars. 
“Between December and May, in both Iraq and Syria, there was a marked 
increase in the number of alleged casualty incidents and civilian death 
attributed to coalition actions,” it says. In Iraq, the group reports 
that between 297 and 518 civilians were killed by coalition airstrikes 
in this time. In Syria, between 197 and 274 civilians were killed, “a 38 
percent increase in likely civilian deaths above the previous six 
months.”


The U.S. has admitted to killing just 20 civilians. Its allies have 
admitted to none. “If correct, Airwars data suggests the coalition may 
be underreporting civilian deaths by more than 95 percent,” the report 
says.


The worst incident for civilians occurred on March 19 in the 
ISIS-occupied city of Mosul, when at least 25 innocents were killed when 
coalition airstrikes hit Mosul University in the middle of the day. As 
teleSUR reported at the time, such a strike on a civilian 
institution—confirmed by the U.S. Department of Defense—may constitute a 
breach of international law.


The U.S. and its coalition allies are not the only foreign governments 
reportedly killing civilians in the region. Of 630 alleged incidents 
where civilians died in Syria as a result of international airpower, 91 
percent have been attributed to Russia, according to Airwars, killing 
between 2,792 and 3,451 civilians between December 2015 and May 2016, 
largely as the result of airstrikes targeting non-ISIS forces and 
civilian areas, “particularly in and around Aleppo.”


The Russian government says its airstrikes have not killed any civilians 
since they began in Sept. 2015, TeleSUR reported


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[Marxism] Orlando - a letter from a socialist in America

[John Passant via Marxism]

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Orlando - a letter from a socialist in America

Basically the Orlando shooter was ignorant, self-conflicted, racist, 
sexist, homophobe, had a sick admiration for authority and was obsessed 
with guns and violence, eventually acting upon all of that.  Sorry 
folks, but your supposed “Islamic radical terrorist from Afghan” is as 
American as apple pie made with homegrown apples and baked in an 
American made oven.


http://enpassant.com.au/2016/06/19/orlando-a-letter-from-a-socialist-in-america/



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[Marxism] Fwd: Former Ambassador Robert Ford on the State Department Mutiny on Syria - The New Yorker

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/former-ambassador-robert-ford-on-the-state-department-mutiny-on-syria
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[Marxism] South Africa's four decades of violent policing

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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https://theconversation.com/soweto-uprising-four-decades-on-south-africa-still-struggles-with-violent-policing-60658
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[Marxism] documentation of decades of NYC spying is found

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/nyregion/old-new-york-police-surveillance-is-found-forcing-big-brother-out-of-hiding.html?_r=2
>
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