Re: [Marxism] To A Locomotive In Winter
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. * Every time I am reminded of a Locomotive in winter, I think of this passage from Trotsky's "1905". He writes about the railroad strike that year, part of the Revolution. He writes about the strike as a 'thing' with it's own dynamic and personality: "Only for its own purposes did the strike allow itself to break the vow of immobility. When it needed news bulletins of the revolution it opened a printing works; it used the telegraph to send out strike instructions; it let trains carrying strikers’ delegates pass" "From time to time its attention wearied and its vigilance slackened, now here, now there. Sometimes a reckless train would break through the strike barrier: then the strike would set off in pursuit of it. The guilty train, like a criminal on the run, raced through dark and empty stations, unannounced by the telegraph, leaving a wake of fear and uncertainty behind it. But in the end the strike would catch up with the train, stop the engine, immobilize the driver, let off the steam." David Walters _ 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] Alerting developments on Syria
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. * Omar Sabbour says: "In combination with what appears to be Turkey's selling out of the rebellion, this is essentially merely a "publicisation" of the undeclared US-Russian-Turkish arrangement aimed at ending the armed resistance to Assad which had begun with the fall of Aleppo (when the US actually bombed rebel areas of the city during the siege and US officials [were] even justifying the Russian bombardment - whilst Turkey blocked arms supplies going in during the siege). Supporters of Turkey need to understand that whilst Turkey did indeed want to empower the rebels militarily to overthrow Assad (unlike Jordan), it has never been brave enough to cross the US red-lines which were explicitly against this policy". This account misses a key point - Turkey's desire to crush the Rojava revolution. This Kurdish-led revolutionary movement is seen as a threat to the Turkish state, which oppresses Kurds. But the increasing involvement of other ethnic groups in the movement does not lessen Turkey's hostility. Its democratic, feminist and secular character makes it a threat to Erdogan's reactionary and repressive regime. Suppressing the Rojava revolution was always one of Turkey's goals. But for a time this was combined with an anti-Assad policy. Turkey gave weapons and other aid to anti-Assad rebels. Probably Erdogan hoped that an Islamist government would come to power in Syria. But Russian intervention made the overthrow of Assad much more difficult. Turkey therefore abandoned this policy and now focuses solely on attacking Rojava and the broader Democratic Federation of Northern Syria. Some rebel groups have been coopted to participate in this attack. This change of policy by Turkey led to what Sabbour calls the "selling out of the rebellion". There was an "arrangement" berween Turkey and Russia. Turkey would stop trying to overthrow Assad. In return Turkey would be allowed to send troops into northern Syria to prevent the spread of the Rojava revolution. Chris Slee From: Marxism on behalf of Louis Proyect via Marxism Sent: Friday, 21 July 2017 12:06:10 PM To: Chris Slee Subject: [Marxism] Alerting developments on Syria 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. * (Posted by Omar Sabbour on FB.) Alerting developments on Syria - Warning for Syria groups 1) The end of the CIA "vetting" program of "arming rebels". For those who have closely followed Syria over the years, they will know of course that the CIA programme has not been dictated by actually providing weapons to the rebels directly (groups which received weapons directly from the US tended to have agreed not to use them against Assad, such as the SDF, New Syrian Army, Mou'tasem Brigade, Hamza Division), but in "co-coordinating" (i.e. controlling) the arms supply to them coming from other parties (i.e. Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and private parties - references for this can be found at the bottom [1]). This control has been exercised via two main "Operation Centres" - the MOC in Jordan and the MOM in Turkey - and has taken the form of determining the quantity and quality of weapons which are allowed to go in (for instance advanced weaponry are either restricted - such as anti-tank missiles - or altogether blockaded - such as anti-aircraft missiles; whilst the flow of regular weaponry and ammunition varies according to events and strategic interests on the ground) and which groups receive them. Of course the CIA and Jordanian intelligence had already been banning (the already previously restricted [2]) arms going into the South for the purpose of anti-Assad operations for years (https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/…/us-and-jordan-demand-sou…/), whilst in the North the CIA had restricted allowing arms to rebel operations even against ISIS [3] - though the degree of US control here had been much less than in the south, as the US had been circumvented more by Turkey (whilst Turkey always pressured the US to allow in an effective supply of weaponry to the rebels, by contrast Jordan had an effectively identical position to the US vis a vis Syria: i.e. supporting the survival of the opposition but not empowering it to overthrow Assad). What this news piece means, in other words, is that the US is going to try and institute a total blockade of any rebel weaponry going into north or south Syria. Th
[Marxism] Herbert L. Needleman, pediatrician who exposed dangers of lead poisoning, dies at 89 - The Washington Post
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://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/herbert-l-needleman-pediatrician-who-exposed-dangers-of-lead-poisoning-dies-at-89/2017/07/20/3bc644ba-6d53-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html?utm_term=.1e386e4296a3 Sent from my iPhone _ 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] THIS → Meet the man tackling the over-incarceration of Indigenous people in Canadian prisons
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://this.org/2017/07/17/meet-the-man-tackling-the-over-incarceration-of-indigenous-people-in-canadian-prisons/ Sent from my iPhone _ 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] To A Locomotive In Winter
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. * To A Locomotive In Winter by Walt Whitman THEE for my recitative! Thee in the driving storm, even as now--the snow--the winter-day declining; Thee in thy panoply, thy measured dual throbbing, and thy beat convulsive; Thy black cylindric body, golden brass, and silvery steel; Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides; Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar--now tapering in the distance; Thy great protruding head-light, fix'd in front; Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple; The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack; Thy knitted frame--thy springs and valves--the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels; Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily-following, Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering: Type of the modern! emblem of motion and power! pulse of the continent! For once, come serve the Muse, and merge in verse, even as here I see thee, With storm, and buffeting gusts of wind, and falling snow; By day, thy warning, ringing bell to sound its notes, By night, thy silent signal lamps to swing. Fierce-throated beauty! Roll through my chant, with all thy lawless music! thy swinging lamps at night; Thy piercing, madly-whistled laughter! thy echoes, rumbling like an earthquake, rousing all! Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding; (No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,) Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return'd, Launch'd o'er the prairies wide--across the lakes, To the free skies, unpent, and glad, and strong. _ 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: Red State, Blue State; Green State, Deep State
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. * Jeff St. Clair: It took the election of Trump to achieve the potential “intersectionality” of these two disparate branches of Deep State Theory. Here at last was a JFK-like figure of the nationalist right, a man who was ready to smash NATO to pieces, revoke global trade pacts, retreat from interventionist wars, make nice with the Russians and chase all the little Hitlers out of the CIA. Then it all began unravel under the weight of RussiaGate©, a faux-scandal concocted by the Deep State to serve as a slo-motion coup d’etat. The tragedy of Trump makes for compelling reading, including dozens of articles probing similar veins that have appeared here on CounterPunch. https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/21/red-state-blue-state-green-state-deep-state/ _ 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: Bernie Sanders Obamacare Rally: Not Socialist | Fortune.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. * Good stuff. Love the part about banks. _ 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: Bernie Sanders Obamacare Rally: Not Socialist | Fortune.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. * Odd to see this in Fortune. http://fortune.com/2017/07/11/bernie-sanders-obamacare-socialism/ _ 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 Revolutionary Imagination: Rosa for Our Times
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. * What does Luxemburg’s life and legacy have to say to the realities of modern politics? First, Luxemburg had no illusions that capitalism could meet the long-term needs of society. She was no Bernie Sanders-style reformer who expressed abstract sympathy for socialism while embracing the practical reform of capitalism as her actual end goal. While still in her 20s, she wrote her famous pamphlet, Reform or Revolution, taking on those in the German Social-Democratic Party (SPD) who saw the party’s steady growth in influence leading to the gradual emergence of a socialist society. Certainly, Luxemburg did not reject political campaigns for social reforms, as the SPD championed, only the idea that they were an end in themselves. Political action for social reform legislation could not be a “long-drawn out revolution” in disguise, as many in the SPD hoped. She argued that the ruling business owners, financiers, and manufacturers would never allow their power to be gradually taken from them. Writing at the dawn of the 20th century, Luxemburg concluded that “people who pronounce themselves in favor of the method of legislative reform in place and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modifications of the old society.” full: https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/21/the-revolutionary-imagination-rosa-for-our-times/ _ 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: TrumpWatch, Day 182: Trump Looks at Pardons for Himself and His Family - EA WorldView
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://eaworldview.com/2017/07/trumpwatch-day-182-trump-i-might-pardon-myself-and-my-family/ _ 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: Caitlin Johnstone and David Cobb Respond to Counterpunch
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://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/caitlin-johnstone-and-david-cobb-respond-to-counterpunch-9ca0d74183c7 _ 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: An Elusive Cold War Star | by Tim Page | The New York Review of Books
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. * In some ways, Cliburn’s life was similar to that of Charles A. Lindbergh. Both men were gangly young loners from small middle-American towns who followed their own stars and became spectacularly and enduringly famous before they knew what had happened. They both carried heavy geopolitical baggage: Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic was hailed as uniting the Old World with the New, while Cliburn was credited with helping calm near-apocalyptic global tensions. Both men earned their eventual front-page obituaries with a few extraordinary days in their mid-twenties: for all of Lindbergh’s activities after the Spirit of St. Louis bobbed and shook its way from New York to Paris in 1927, everything pales when set beside the thirty-three hours of that solo flight. Cliburn at his death was eulogized as though he were still a beautiful young pianist who had somehow come out of time to die at the age of seventy-eight. The contradictions within Cliburn’s personality, combined with his enormous fame, must have been difficult to reconcile.1 His public image was not an act: he really did live with his mother until her death in 1994 at the age of ninety-seven; he was a devoted Baptist who attended services at least once a week; he voted Republican, played for all the presidents from Eisenhower to Obama, and usually began his concerts with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” But he was also a gay man at a time when public knowledge of his homosexuality might have ruined not only his image, but also his career. Under such pressures, his playing suffered: “From the mid-1960s it seemed that he could not cope with the loss of freshness,” Michael Steinberg wrote in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. “His repertory was restricted; his playing, always guided primarily by intuition, took on affectations; and the sound itself became harsher.” full: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/07/13/van-cliburn-elusive-cold-war-star/ _ 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: Taxi Searchers | 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. * Paraphrasing Norman Mailer, after reading Andrew Stewart’s “Advertisement for Himself” in last weekend’s CounterPunch, I immediately downloaded his “Taxi Searchers: John Wayne, Robert DeNiro, and the Meaning of America” and found it completely absorbing. Although I have a particular interest in the work of John Ford, I can strongly recommend Stewart’s book to everybody as a successful multidisciplinary work that is so hard to find in scholarly treatments of film. With so many film scholars focusing narrowly on auteur theory, mise-en-scène, tracking shots and camera angles, it is a relief to read a young film scholar who makes the connection between film and politics. Since the two films under consideration are deeply immersed in the big questions of race and violence, it is almost impossible to analyze them out of their historical and social context. I had never made the connection between John Ford’s “The Searchers” and Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” but found myself saying “of course” after Stewart pointed out that both involve anti-heroes trying to “rescue” women who don’t really feel any such need. Another important insight found in Taxi Searchers is their proximity in time to two important reversals of imperial fortune. Ford’s film was made just two years after the French were defeated in Vietnam and Scorsese’s came out just a year after the Vietnamese kicked the imperialists out once again. full: https://louisproyect.org/2017/07/21/taxi-searchers/ _ 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: As Trump shores up Assad's genocidal regime, America's hard left is cheering him on - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.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. * Just one correction to David: Joanne Landy and her Campaign for Peace and Democracy have been wonderful at all points and on all questions since the regional revolution broke out. p.s. Speaking of that revolution, its flashpoint at this very moment is in Morocco, where revolutionary socialists are organizing amidst a mass uprising. See internationalviewpoint.org and my Facebook shares. p.p.s. The response to the Zionist attack on Al-Aqsa mosque in recent days would in the abstract be another flashpoint were it not for the fact that we know the Palestinian "leadership" will piss away this opportunity as well. On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 9:48 AM, David McDonald 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. > * > > Michael writes: > > >There are good reasons why the big majority >of leftists from Trotskyist, semi-Trot (eg state-caps) and anarchist >backgrounds have been fairly good on Syria. > > I'm not so sure, and I would like to hear what you think those reasons are. > > My research on Trotskyist groups on this question, which I admit is not > exhaustive even in the English-writing world, leads me to believe that this > poisonous trend crosses all sect boundaries. > > Among the US Trot & semi-Trot groups only the ISO is actually good and > covers Syria consistently. Socialist Alternative, the sister group of the > Socialist Party (UK) has a crappy position and does not cover the issue. > Socialist Action is by far the worst I have come across, and it is the > sentimental favorite of numerous former SWP-US members because it seems to > resemble the pre-Barnes-cult SWP. SA's position is based on an extremely > narrow reading of Permanent Revolution that goes more or less along the > lines of "get a real working class and we'll talk." > > On the other hand, as Marxmail subscribers know, the Oakland Socialists > have an excellent take on Syria despite having come from a Hoxhaite > background. Hoxha, you may remember, attacked both China and Russia (then > the Soviet Union) for insufficient Stalinism. > > On the third hand is the intermediate position of like Joanne Landy and Sam > Farber who are clear on the crimes of Assad but cannot find anyone to > support and would not send a pen knife to Syria. > > It is possible that I have mis-characterized something here, and, if so, my > apologies. I'm not really up for this sort of excavation anymore unless it > yields some immediate results. > > I would say "Go figure" except there is no one but us and a large bunch of > Arabs who get this. Of the Not-Trotskyist type formations, I think that a > history of looking for or at least accepting the idea of "Third Camp" makes > it easier to see through to the actual Syrian Revolution. > > The Arab Spring has altered the world. It requires revolutionaries in the > West to do more than try to apply lessons from the past. I am re-reading > "Orientalism" to try to get a handle. > > Reading Wendy Pearlman's "We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled -- Voices > from Syria" I was struck by the first-hand accounts from different cities, > towns, and villages in Syria of the moment when the dam broke. In numerous > cases people gathered tensely and silently until finally someone broke the > spell and unleashed the fervor brimming up in everyone's heart with a cry > of -- not "freedom", that was the second utterance -- but "Allahu Akbar." > _ > 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: As Trump shores up Assad's genocidal regime, America's hard left is cheering him on - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.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. * Michael writes: There are good reasons why the big majority of leftists from Trotskyist, semi-Trot (eg state-caps) and anarchist backgrounds have been fairly good on Syria. I'm not so sure, and I would like to hear what you think those reasons are. My research on Trotskyist groups on this question, which I admit is not exhaustive even in the English-writing world, leads me to believe that this poisonous trend crosses all sect boundaries. Among the US Trot & semi-Trot groups only the ISO is actually good and covers Syria consistently. Socialist Alternative, the sister group of the Socialist Party (UK) has a crappy position and does not cover the issue. Socialist Action is by far the worst I have come across, and it is the sentimental favorite of numerous former SWP-US members because it seems to resemble the pre-Barnes-cult SWP. SA's position is based on an extremely narrow reading of Permanent Revolution that goes more or less along the lines of "get a real working class and we'll talk." On the other hand, as Marxmail subscribers know, the Oakland Socialists have an excellent take on Syria despite having come from a Hoxhaite background. Hoxha, you may remember, attacked both China and Russia (then the Soviet Union) for insufficient Stalinism. On the third hand is the intermediate position of like Joanne Landy and Sam Farber who are clear on the crimes of Assad but cannot find anyone to support and would not send a pen knife to Syria. It is possible that I have mis-characterized something here, and, if so, my apologies. I'm not really up for this sort of excavation anymore unless it yields some immediate results. I would say "Go figure" except there is no one but us and a large bunch of Arabs who get this. Of the Not-Trotskyist type formations, I think that a history of looking for or at least accepting the idea of "Third Camp" makes it easier to see through to the actual Syrian Revolution. The Arab Spring has altered the world. It requires revolutionaries in the West to do more than try to apply lessons from the past. I am re-reading "Orientalism" to try to get a handle. Reading Wendy Pearlman's "We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled -- Voices from Syria" I was struck by the first-hand accounts from different cities, towns, and villages in Syria of the moment when the dam broke. In numerous cases people gathered tensely and silently until finally someone broke the spell and unleashed the fervor brimming up in everyone's heart with a cry of -- not "freedom", that was the second utterance -- but "Allahu Akbar." _ 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] These Americans Hated the Health Law. Until the Idea of Repeal Sank In.
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. * ("Voters have besieged their representatives with emotional telephone calls and rallies, urging them not to repeal, one big reason Republicans have had surprising trouble in fulfilling their promise despite controlling both Congress and the White House." Okay, so does this sound anything like Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini's first year in power? Corey Robin has likened Trump to Jimmy Carter in terms of his weakness. I think a better analogy is Bill Clinton after Ken Starr began investigating Whitewater. In a bourgeois democracy that has existed for over 200 years, it is not that easy to impose dictatorship.) NY Times, July 21 2017 These Americans Hated the Health Law. Until the Idea of Repeal Sank In. By KATE ZERNIKE and ABBY GOODNOUGH DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — Five years ago, the Affordable Care Act had yet to begin its expansion of health insurance to millions of Americans, but Jeff Brahin was already stewing about it. “It’s going to cost a fortune,” he said in an interview at the time. This week, as Republican efforts to repeal the law known as Obamacare appeared all but dead, Mr. Brahin, a 58-year-old lawyer and self-described fiscal hawk, said his feelings had evolved. “As much as I was against it,” he said, “at this point I’m against the repeal.” “Now that you’ve insured an additional 20 million people, you can’t just take the insurance away from these people,” he added. “It’s just not the right thing to do.” As Mr. Brahin goes, so goes the nation. When President Trump was elected, his party’s long-cherished goal of dismantling the Affordable Care Act seemed all but assured. But eight months later, Republicans seem to have done what the Democrats who passed the law never could: make it popular among a majority of Americans. Support for the Affordable Care Act has risen since the election — in some polls, sharply — with more people now viewing the law favorably than unfavorably. Voters have besieged their representatives with emotional telephone calls and rallies, urging them not to repeal, one big reason Republicans have had surprising trouble in fulfilling their promise despite controlling both Congress and the White House. The change in public opinion may not denote newfound love of the Affordable Care Act so much as dread of what might replace it. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that both the House and Senate proposals to replace the law would result in over 20 million more uninsured Americans. The shift in mood also reflects a strong increase in support for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor that the law expanded to cover far more people, and which faces the deepest cuts in its 52-year history under the Republican plans. Most profound, though, is this: After years of Tea Party demands for smaller government, Republicans are now pushing up against a growing consensus that the government should guarantee health insurance. A Pew survey in January found that 60 percent of Americans believe the federal government should be responsible for ensuring that all Americans have health coverage. That was up from 51 percent last year, and the highest in nearly a decade. The belief held even among many Republicans: 52 percent of those making below $30,000 a year said the federal government has a responsibility to ensure health coverage, a huge jump from 31 percent last year. And 34 percent of Republicans who make between $30,000 and about $75,000 endorsed that view, up from 14 percent last year. “The idea that you shouldn’t take coverage away really captured a large share of people who weren’t even helped by this bill,” said Robert Blendon, a health policy expert at Harvard who has closely followed public opinion of the Affordable Care Act. In 2012, when The New York Times talked to Mr. Brahin and others here in Bucks County, Pa., a perennial swing district outside Philadelphia, their attitudes on the law tracked with national polls that showed most Americans viewed it unfavorably. But now, too, sentiment here reflects the polls — and how they have shifted. Many people still have little understanding of how the law works. But Democrats and independents have rallied around it, and many of those who opposed it now accept the law, unwilling to see millions of Americans stripped of the coverage that it extended to them. “I can’t even remember why I opposed it,” said Patrick Murphy, who owns Bagel Barrel, on a quaint and bustling street near Mr. Brahin’s law office here in Doylestown. He thought Democrats “jammed it down our throats,” and like Mr. Brahin, he worried about the growing
[Marxism] Fwd: The Hall-Monitor's Tale: The Center's War on Chapo Trap House :: Politics :: Features :: Chapo Trap House :: Paste
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://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/07/the-hall-monitors-tale-the-centers-war-on-chapo-tr.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: Poor Whites and the Labor Crisis in the Slave South | LAWCHA
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://www.lawcha.org/2017/07/17/poor-whites-labor-crisis-slave-south/ _ 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] Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism | AeonIdeas
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://aeon.co/ideas/monopoly-was-invented-to-demonstrate-the-evils-of-capitalism?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=102e54dd0a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_07_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-102e54dd0a-69610821 Sent from my iPhone _ 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 Dirtbag Left can prevent the liberal elite bubble that brought us Donald Trump - 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. * More on Chapo Trap House. Unbelievable. http://www.salon.com/2017/07/21/the-dirtbag-left-can-prevent-the-liberal-elite-bubble-that-brought-us-donald-trump/ _ 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