[Marxism] Political Gingervitis Ep. 3

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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The new episode of a podcast intended to give laugh and thinking to lefties.

https://rimediacoop.org/podcast/political-gingervitis-episode-3-don-debar-and-david-abraham/

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[Marxism] New theory of gravity dispenses with "dark matter"

[Jeff via Marxism]

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At 15:26 08-11-16 -0500, Fred Murphy via Marxism wrote:
>
>http://phys.org/news/2016-11-theory-gravity-dark.html

As promised, I wanted to call attention to what will surely be a revolution in
physics regarding gravity, if it turns out to be correct. Louis occasionally 
posts Physics articles he finds in the popular press which vary greatly in 
quality and accuracy, but the ones proposing a whole new theory usually are 
on the fringe (but nevertheless taken seriously by physicists until they can 
be disproven) and probably aren't appropriate for the popular press inasmuch 
as they are long-shots. Any new theory of gravity, 100 years after the 
publication of Einstein's very successful General Theory of Relativity, 
would appear to fall in that category. However indeed the theory of Erik 
Verlinde (University of Amsterdam) is being taken very seriously and (as 
indicated in the article posted by Fred Murphy) has recently provided an 
alternate explanation of observed gravitational effects which have otherwise 
been ascribed to "dark matter."

Verlinde's theory explains gravity (an effect normally associated with large 
distances and large masses) as an "emergent property" arising from quantum 
mechanics (normally associated with very small distances and masses) and 
string theory (a rather esoteric but powerful theory underlying quantum 
mechanics itself, controversial among the physics community). That puts the 
details of his work beyond most physicists, and anything I am about to 
describe is therefore superficial as it is all way beyond me. Although this 
explanation of gravity has been worked on for at least 5 years, it has now 
received great recognition after Verlinde showed in a recent paper that the 
theory might be able to resolve the troubling issue of "dark matter," a 
hypothetical form of as-of-yet undetected matter responsible for the 
unusually large gravitational fields indicated by the observed rotation 
rates of galaxies. His claim is that the observations can be explained using 
his theory without requiring a "free parameter," that is an arbitrary 
number, unlike the dark matter explanation which requires one free parameter 
(the ratio of dark matter to ordinary, or "baryonic" matter). On the face of 
it that would mean his theory would be favored on the basis of Occam's Razor 
(accepting the simplest explanation consistent with observation and known 
facts). Also, very recently Dutch astronomers completed an analysis based on 
observations of gravitational lensing around some 33000 galaxies which is 
consistent with the new theory (but which doesn't rule out the dark matter 
explanation).

I should add that Verlinde's theory does not contradict Einstein's 
explanation of gravity as curvature of space-time. However it supplies a 
specific quantum mechanical explanation for that curvature due to the 
presence of mass, and (as I understand it!) the theory goes so far as to 
explain the very existence of space-time as an emergent result of mass 
itself using quantum mechanics.

When the above article was posted I began looking for material on Verlinde's 
theory, and although it had been somewhat covered in the wider press, I was 
disappointed to find that almost all of it was in Dutch. An obvious 
interpretation might be that this was only getting hyped up in the 
Netherlands as a matter of Dutch pride (nationalism!), distorting the view 
from where I stand. However I don't think that's the case (and anyway the 
more important indicator would be in reference to the relatively few 
physicists around the world with the required specialization, and their 
publications). I can now point to some non-technical material in English.

Here are a press release  and popular article regarding the recent 
observational support for the theory of emergent gravity:

http://www.astronomie.nl/#!/actueel/nieuws/_detail/gli/verlindes-new-theory-first-tested-weak-gravitation/

http://earthsky.org/space/1st-test-eric-verlinde-gravity-theory-gravitational-lens

And another non-technical overview of the issues (parts of which I'd 
question, especially calling gravity "an illusion"):
  
http://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2016/11/08/solution-to-dark-matter-proposes-that-gravity-is-an-illusion

And here is a youtube video of Verlinde speaking in English (if you can 
ignore the promotional crap from the publisher of the video) for a very 
general audience:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hByJBdQXjXU

Verlinde's recent paper describing his theory's explanation for what 
otherwise is attributed to dark matter can be downloaded from the following 
link. However it is extremely dense mathematical 

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The Roots of Trumpism

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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Apparently, the server for leftvoice is te4mporarily down.
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-War]: Beall on Richie, 'Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising'

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

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The text of the Polish socialist Zygmunt Zaremba's pamphlet The Warsaw Commune:
Betrayed by Stalin, Massacred by Hitler, originally published in 1947, first
English translation 1997, can be found on the Marxist Internet Archive <
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/zaremba/warsaw-commune/index.htm
>.

The progressive nature of the programme of the Warsaw fighters can be seen from
the demands that Zaremba listed:

1: A constitution ensuring that governments conform to the will of the people.
2: A democratic electoral law faithfully reflecting public opinion at the time
of the general and municipal elections.
3: An agrarian reform sharing out all agricultural land in excess of 50 hectares
along with German landed property, as determined by prior decree; the excess of
population being directed into industry and manufacture.
4: The socialisation of key industries.
5: The participation of the workers in the management of enterprises and
workers’ control of industrial production.
6: All citizens have the right to work and to a decent standard of living.
7: A proper distribution of social revenue.
8: All citizens have the right to education and culture.

Paul F

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[Marxism] Fwd: Fighting on All Fronts: Women’s Resistance in Syria

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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By Leila Al-Shami

http://aljumhuriya.net/en/aleppo/fighting-on-numerous-fronts-womens-resistance-in-syria


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[Marxism] Fwd: The Roots of Trumpism

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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By Charles Post

http://www.leftvoice.org/The-Roots-of-Trumpism


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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-War]: Beall on Richie, 'Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising'

[Jeff via Marxism]

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At 20:40 25-12-16 -0500, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:
>
>For comrades information, Andrzej Wajda, the Polish director who died in 
>October, made a film titled "Kanal"

>great film that is a bit hard to get a hold of 

Well I found it is available as a torrent and am now downloading a version that 
includes 3 subtitle files. If your software is up to scratch, you should be 
able to obtain it by starting your torrent program, and clicking on the 
following magnet link (or otherwise paste it into the address bar of your 
webbrowser as a single line):

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:03219efe954422209647695c625f055cdf010950=Kanal=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.leechers-paradise.org%3A6969=udp%3A%2F%2Fzer0day.ch%3A1337=udp%3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk%3A6969=udp%3A%2F%2Fexodus.desync.com%3A6969

- Jeff

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[Marxism] Fwd: Petition · Drexel University: 5,000 signatures to support George Ciccariello-Maher · Change.org

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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George is outspoken and witty and fiercely anti-racist.  He is being 
extensively harassed as the target of a racist internet troll campaign 
out of Breitbart (Stephen Bannon's rag).  They are harassing him at his 
place of employment. Preserve academic freedom (and wit and intelligence 
and anti-racism) in this nasty new era of living in the United States of 
Internet Trolls.  Support George.  Let Drexel know--in the midst of the 
deafening, organized troll-storm--that racist trolls deserve no platform 
in dictating academic discourse, let alone the off-duty tweets of 
academics.  They are being VERY noisy; we can't be silent.


https://www.change.org/p/drexel-university-5-000-signatures-to-support-george-ciccariello-maher


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[Marxism] Fwd: Ben Norton completes his Stalinist turn | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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When someone posted a link to Ben Norton’s attack on George Orwell, my 
first reaction was to shrug my shoulders and let it go. Ever since the 
lad got fired from Salon for violating their rules against writing for 
other publications, he has lost his bully pulpit for spreading Assadist 
lies. (I assume he was canned for writing an article for Intercept 
rather than incompetence even if Salon’s bar is set rather low in that 
regard.) Although I have my own problems with Orwell, I was more 
interested in Norton’s rather stupid and reactionary take on Trotskyism 
that amounts to a defense of Stalin’s betrayal of the Spanish 
revolution. It has been quite a few years since I have had to bother 
with writing about the Spanish civil war. To kill two birds with one 
stone, I hope to demonstrate how Norton has capitulated to Stalinism as 
well as to make some points about how Franco achieved his victory. 
Considering the fact that Bashar al-Assad is today’s Generalissimo 
Franco, it is not surprising that Norton can get Spain so wrong.


full: 
https://louisproyect.org/2016/12/26/ben-norton-completes-his-stalinist-turn/



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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Digging for cosmic gold: the hunt for dark matter at the bottom of a gold mine

[Jeff via Marxism]

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At 09:31 26-12-16 -0500, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:
>
>
>https://theconversation.com/digging-for-cosmic-gold-the-hunt-for-dark-matter-at-the-bottom-of-a-gold-mine-69890

This is a somewhat interesting article about a massive construction project 
for the direct detection of dark matter, with no scientific or technical 
details. On a related subject is some important new work in theoretical 
physics over which Fred Murphy earlier posted a link:

Fred Murphy via Marxism 15:26 08-11-16 -0500   [Marxism] New theory of gravity 
might explain dark matter

Unfortunately that post was overshadowed by the American election occurring 
at the same time, so I didn't answer it. However I will now dig up the 
material I would have referred to. Please see my next post if you are 
interested in physics developments.

The subject line of that earlier post is a bit misleading. The new theory 
doesn't explain dark matter but rather explains the observed gravitational 
effects heretofore ascribed to "dark matter", removing any need for 
postulating the latter. Since there's nothing good happening politically, I 
might as well post about physics, so stay tuned.

- Jeff
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[Marxism] Syria: Does any capitalist power have anything to offer?

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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"Syria: Can Any Capitalist Force Provide a Solution?

Posted on December 26, 2016

by oaklandsocialist 

Can any capitalist regime help the masses of Syrian people?

That is the question of the hour.

Some, incredibly including some socialists, believe so. They base this
belief on the view that the one and only problem the Syrian masses face is
the Islamic fundamentalists. On that basis, they are supporting Assad and
his allies. Let’s consider who these forces are..."

https://oaklandsocialist.com/2016/12/26/cananycapitalistforceprovideasolution/

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[Marxism] Fwd: Syria and the Antiwar Movement

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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A useful article.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/26/syria-and-the-antiwar-movement/


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[Marxism] Fwd: Syria: Can Any Capitalist Force Provide a Solution? | oaklandsocialist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://oaklandsocialist.com/2016/12/26/cananycapitalistforceprovideasolution/


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[Marxism] taking on Big Data

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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Another example of what Freddie Engels called "objective socialization"
(i.e. the centralization and concentration of capital making expropriation
under worker/community control increasingly possible).
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/technology/why-the-computing-cloud-will-keep-growing-and-growing.html?ref=todayspaper
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[Marxism] Fwd: The Crushing of Syria’s Civil Actors. Survival of Grassroots Structures is Crucial for Country’s Future

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/comments/2016C55_bkp_stolleis.pdf


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[Marxism] Fwd: Tibetans in anguish as Chinese mines pollute their sacred grasslands - The Washington Post

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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High in western China’s Sichuan province, in the shadow of holy 
mountains, the Liqi River flows through a lush, grassy valley, dotted 
with grazing yaks, small Tibetan villages and a Buddhist temple. But 
there’s poison here.


A large lithium mine not only desecrates the sacred grasslands, 
villagers say, but spawns deadly pollution. This river used to be full 
of fish. Today, there are hardly any.  Hundreds of yaks, the villagers 
say, have died in the past few years after drinking river water.


China’s thirst for mineral resources — and its desire to exploit the 
rich deposits under the Tibetan plateau —  have spread environmental 
pollution and anguish for many of the herders whose ancestors  lived 
here for thousands of years.


The land they worship is under assault, and their way of life is 
threatened without their consent, the herders say.


“Old people, we see the mines and we cry,” a 67-year-old yak herder 
said, requesting anonymity for fear of retribution. “What are the future 
generations going to do? How are they going to survive?”


full: 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/tibetans-in-anguish-as-chinese-mines-pollute-their-sacred-grasslands/2016/12/25/bb6aad06-63bc-11e6-b4d8-33e931b5a26d_story.html




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[Marxism] Fwd: Aleppo’s “Evacuation” Is a Crime Against Humanity - The New Yorker

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/aleppos-evacuation-is-a-crime-against-humanity


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[Marxism] Fwd: Digging for cosmic gold: the hunt for dark matter at the bottom of a gold mine

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://theconversation.com/digging-for-cosmic-gold-the-hunt-for-dark-matter-at-the-bottom-of-a-gold-mine-69890


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[Marxism] Fwd: Walter Rodney and the Racial Underpinnings of Global Inequality | Items

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://items.ssrc.org/walter-rodney-and-the-racial-underpinnings-of-global-inequality/



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