[Marxism] Seattle demo against Assad's butchery of eastern Ghouta

[jgreen--- via Marxism]

  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.
*


1. Seattle demonstration in support of Eastern Ghouta
2. About the Ghouta protest in Seattle
3. Denounce Assad's butchery of the trapped people of Ghouta --
Support the Syrian people against imperialism and tyranny!
(SCSG leaflet for the Ghouta protest)

Taken from the Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice list for February 24, 2018.

1. A demonstration in support of eastern Ghouta

Free Syria Seattle held a demonstration in downtown Seattle on Friday, February 
23,  in 
support of the people in Ghouta. The announcement for the demonstration stated:

The Assad regime and Russia have decided to carry out the same genocide they 
committed 
in Aleppo, Homs, and Daryya to force the opposition and Free Syrian Army to 
give up Al 
Ghouta. Al Ghouta is the rural area around Damascus, and it includes several 
cities 
(Harasta, Douma, Zamalka, Ein Tarma, Kafer Batna, Hamoria). Last week, 100 
people 
(including children) have been killed on average per day by Russian air force 
attacks on 
hospitals and areas full of civilians. <>

2. About the Ghouta protest in Seattle

By Frank Arango, "Seattle Workers' Voice"

The Damascus suburban area of eastern Ghouta is the last rebel-held territory 
in that part of 
Syria. For four years its estimated 390,000 people have been under siege, and 
since 
November the dictator Assad and Russia have been stepping up their merciless 
bombing 
and artillery attacks. This week these attacks reached some of the highest 
levels of the entire 
war, with over 100 people being massacred from the skies day after day.

Pained and angry people around the world have mounted protests to demand the 
bombing 
be stopped and the siege lifted, and more protests are planned. The largest 
have been in 
Syria's Idlib Province, where even people from the refugee camps are 
demonstrating. There 
have also been protests of hundreds in Turkey and Germany, and perhaps 200 in 
Barcelona. 
Elsewhere, scores of people are usually demonstrating, and sometimes fewer. But 
all these 
demonstrations are important, and our Seattle experience shows some of the 
reasons.

Ten people turned out in Seattle in freezing weather on Friday night, February 
23. Naturally, 
everyone began introducing themselves, commenting on the state of the movement 
here and 
on the Syrian situation. But also, looking toward the future, lots of addresses 
were exchanged 
- an important step in building any movement.

Marchers carried signs that helped inform people on the streets about what is 
taking place in 
east Ghouta while I passed out 45-50 copies of the leaflet below. But we also 
learned things, 
such as that the Syrian rebellion continues to have a lot of support among 
working people. 
For example, despite the cold and wind, a woman bystander raised her fist and 
walked with 
me for awhile as she denounced Assad on one correct point after another. Also, 
at least two 
people went out of their way to greet and shake hands with our Syrian comrades. 
One of 
them denounced the bloody role of all the foreign powers, and the other, an 
African 
American, said he just couldn't find the words to express how much he supported 
the Syrian 
people, and most warmly thanked our comrade for organizing the event. For newer 
activists, 
and for all activists, it is incidents like these that drive home that the 
solidarity movement 
must be organized among working people. <>

3. Denounce Assad's butchery of the trapped people of Ghouta -- Support the 
Syrian people 
against imperialism and tyranny!
*Below is the text of the leaflet distributed at the Ghouta protest by the 
Seattle Communist 
Study Group:*

Inspired by the other Arab Spring uprisings, seven years ago the people of 
Syria began 
demonstrating against tyranny. When Bashar Assad's Ba'athist dictatorship 
responded with 
bullets, arrests and torture this soon became a movement of millions. In it, 
everyday people 
united with army defectors to take up arms, and during the next years they 
liberated large 
parts of the country, which the local people then ran. But first with the help 
of Iran, then 
Hezbollah (entering in 2012), and then imperialist Russia (entering in 2015), 
Assad was able 
to stalemate the uprising and go on a brutal counter-offensive in which Aleppo 
fell over a year 
ago. By that time close to 500,000 people had died as a result of Assad's fight 
to maintain 
power, and half of Syria's pre-war population was either internally displaced 
or refugees 
abroad. But Assad continues the bloodbath.

-Idlib Province and eastern Ghouta-

The northwestern Idlib Province is the last major rebel stronghold. It has an 
estimated 
population of 2.5 million, 

[Marxism] what a chemical attack in Syria looks like

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

  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 the everlasting shame and discredit of those on the left who, in the
name of "anti-imperialism" and 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend", have
supported or excused the murderous Assad thug regime!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-a-chemical-attack-in-syria-looks-like/
_
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: Moscow mired in Syria as Putin’s gameplan risks a deadly ending | World news | The Guardian

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/24/russia-putin-syrian-war-intervention-assad-ghouta-turkey-iran
_
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 people hate the NRA

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

  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.
*

You can make a case for ready access to guns.  We know that there is a left 
wing case, represented on this list by DW and represented elsewhere by a 
variety of organizations, for example, Socialist Action. 
https://socialistaction.org/2018/02/25/gun-control-workers-militias-how-socialists-view-the-issues/
 


And on the right, the NRA and others argue that with guns we can defend our 
rights, although it'’s not clear to me what they mean by rights.  But they are 
not willing to admit that widespread ownership of guns comes with a cost, guns 
coming into the hands of those who are inclined to do harm.  Famously, they say 
Guns Don’'t Kill People, People Kill People.  For a long time they were 
powerful enough that they could get away with such an inane statement.  It is 
this dishonesty that arouses anger.

On the left we should not repeat this nonsense .  If we are to argue for easy 
access to guns, we must be willing to look people in the eye and admit that 
there will be a cost in lives lost.

ken h

_
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] A "rude" union member

[John Reimann via Marxism]

  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 following two conversations have to be kept in mind when we think about
how to fight the coming US Supreme Court Ruling against public sector
unions.

“My union representative told me I’m rude.” So spoke the checker at the
grocery store I usually shop at. She also told me that she hasn’t seen that
rep in the store in a long, long time. But I recalled the time, a few years
ago, when that same checker had told me about having a conflict with
management and that same union rep came in, spent 45 minutes conferring
with the manager, and then told the worker she was in the wrong. I raised
that maybe that was the reason she wasn’t so friendly with that union rep.
(She’s always very friendly with me, though.) She nodded in agreement

"All the rational arguments, all the appeals to legality and justice are
irrelevant. Power is what counts. Power, and power alone. The unions will
only get that power by first and foremost mobilizing their own members, and
then linking that up with the growing movements we are seeing develop. But
they cannot mobilize their own members as long as those members don’t see
the unions really fighting for them. Nor as long as the members are
convinced that the union cannot win real gains for them."

https://oaklandsocialist.com/2018/02/25/a-rude-union-member/


-- 
*“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone
willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine
sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us
thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?” *Sophie Scholl,
executed by the Nazis 2/22/1943. She was 21 years old.
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
_
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: In the Cuban Sphere | The Nation

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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.thenation.com/article/in-the-cuban-sphere/
_
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] Congo for the Congolese!

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

  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.
*

Beneath Congo’s soil lies an estimated (at 2011 prices)

$24
trillion in natural resources, including rich supplies of oil, gold,
diamonds, the coltan used in computer chips, the cobalt and nickel used in
jet engines and car batteries, the copper for bathroom pipes, the uranium
for bombs and power plants, the iron for nearly everything. This wealth is
the source of untold suffering. Today, more Congolese are displaced

from
their homes than Iraqis, Yemenis, or Rohingyas. Yet their miseries are all
but invisible, in part because the identities and aims of Congo’s myriad
combatants are mystified by layers of rumor and misinformation, which serve
the interests of those profiting from the mayhem.

Congo’s chronic instability has always been rooted in external
interference. Created in the ninteenth century by Belgian imperialists, the
country was ruled during the cold war by the flamboyant, leopardskin-draped
dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who, in exchange for billions of dollars in CIA
cash, kept the nation’s riches under Western control. After the Berlin Wall
fell, the US, alarmed by Mobutu’s warming relations with Sudan’s Islamist
leadership, backed an invasion by the armies of Uganda and Rwanda that
toppled Mobutu and occupied over 1,000 square miles of eastern Congo, which
they proceeded to plunder for its natural resources. Most of the dirty work
was done by Congolese proxy forces armed, trained, and supported by Uganda
and Rwanda.

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/02/19/congo-for-the-congolese/
_
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: Alliance between the PKK and the Assad Regime: A Political Sect on the Wrong Track - Qantara.de

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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 as the Assad regime is foundering, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, 
PKK, is proving to be its loyal henchman. In this essay, Stefan Buchen 
writes that PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan made a deal with the Syrian 
regime back in the days of Hafez al-Assad


https://en.qantara.de/content/alliance-between-the-pkk-and-the-assad-regime-a-political-sect-on-the-wrong-track
_
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] David Graeber: manufactured ignorance: the strange case of Juan Cole and the Kurdish freedom movement

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

  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 a Syria solidarity list I made the following comment:
"By the way, Graeber and Ocalan share a penchant for half-baked historical
schemas, which can't help but skew their overall outlook and practice."
I read a couple of Ocalan's books and was shocked at the amateurish nature
of his analysis (including his bowdlerization of Engels), as well as the
opportunistic proposal to negotiate with existing regimes, all justified
with his slippery autonomy/confederalism proposal, which evades the
question of state power.
If it hasn't already been done, someone should draft a critique of
Ocalanism as a theory.
_
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: Ringworm affair (Israel) - Wikipedia

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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 came across a reference to this in an article by Ella Shohat, an 
Iraqi Jew who teaches media studies at NYU. Sephardic Jewish children 
who were part of the "population exchange" of the 1950s were subjected 
to radiation treatments in order to rid them of ringworm. The 
consequences for some was brain tumors later in life.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworm_affair_(Israel)
_
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] David Graeber: manufactured ignorance: the strange case of Juan Cole and the Kurdish freedom movement

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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 2/25/18 3:16 PM, Chris Slee wrote:

Louis Proyect says I have been "seduced by Murray Bookchin's ideology".  I have 
never read anything by Bookchin.


Ocalan is widely recognized as being a disciple of Murray Bookchin, even 
from afar. Your review has a section on Democratic Confederalism, which 
Öcalan openly admits is based on Murray Bookchin's writings.


You really have to begin engaging with Bookchin's theories if you still 
claim to be a Marxist. Bookchin was a fierce opponent of Marxism his 
entire life. Read his 1969 "Listen, Marxist!" to get an idea of where he 
is coming from:


	All the old crap of the thirties is coming back again—the shit about 
the "class line," the "role of the working class," the "trained cadres," 
the "vanguard party," and the "proletarian dictatorship." It's all back 
again, and in a more vulgarized form than ever. The Progressive Labor 
Party is not the only example, it is merely the worst. One smells the 
same shit in various offshoots of SDS, and in the Marxist and Socialist 
clubs on campuses, not to speak of the Trotskyist groups, the 
International Socialist Clubs, and Youth Against War and Fascism.



That was us he was talking about, well at least me.


_
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] David Graeber: manufactured ignorance: the strange case of Juan Cole and the Kurdish freedom movement

[Chris Slee via Marxism]

  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 Proyect says I have been "seduced by Murray Bookchin's ideology".  I have 
never read anything by Bookchin.

I have read some of Abdullah Ocalan's writings - see my review:

http://links.org.au/understanding-abdullah-ocalan-political-thought-kurdistan-womans-revolution-democratic-confederalism/

But what impresses me is not so much his writings (of which I have some 
criticisms) as the movement inspired by his writings, which is fighting for 
women's rights, ethnic and religious equality, democracy etc.

Of course, it is impossible to build socialism in one country, and still less 
in part of a country, and still less when under siege and subject to an 
invasion.  The experiment may be crushed militarily or degenerate under 
pressure.

But meanwhile solidarity is essential.

Chris Slee

_
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: [syriasolidarityinternational] New York City Emergency Rally for Syria Tomorrow Monday 2/26 at 5 p.m.

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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.
*





Permanent Mission Russian Federation 


136 E 67th St, New York, New York 10065

5 p.m.



Save Ghouta Emergency Rally and Vigil 






Save Ghouta Emergency Rally and Vigil





Bring your signs, candles and solidarity for the people of Syria. We 
demand that Russia and the Assad regime stop the bombing and lift the 
siege of Ghouta. Russia, Iran and Assad out of Syria now!
Freedom and justice for the disappeared and all political prisoners! War 
crimes must stop!!


*This action is called by Syria Solidarity New York City.*
---
To unsubscribe: 

List help: 

_
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] It Will Take a Political Revolution to Cure the Epidemic of Depression | Michael Bader | Alternet

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

  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.alternet.org/personal-health/it-will-take-political-revolution-cure-epidemic-depression


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

Re: [Marxism] Gun regulation,

[Tristan Sloughter via Marxism]

  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.
*

> Liberals and the leaders of almost every gun control organization that has 
> help organize or supported
> the recent student demonstrations are indeed anti-gun and want to ban guns, 
> full stop.

Who? Every time I see a liberal politician talk about gun control they start by 
talking about how much they love guns.

Maybe there are organizations pushing for disarming cops, repealing the second 
amendment and a federal buy-back program, but I'm guessing they are very small 
and powerless, if they exist at all.

Which is very much an issue and you claiming that liberal leaders are pushing 
changes that will actually make a difference just helps re-enforce the right 
wings narrative. Except for the ban on semi-automatic weapons. That would make 
a difference in the number of dead kids in school shoots. I have no idea how 
anyone can oppose that. 

Beyond that I don't see liberal leaders offering much to support. They put 
forward crap like focusing on the "terror watch list" or city hand gun bans 
that do nothing because you can simply skip over to the suburbs to pick one up.

The idea that it is more guns that the country needs would be laughable if it 
wasn't so sad and deadly. 

Also, I don't know that DW said this but it is something I often hear, that 
guns will help against police murder. Where does that come from? 

We need socialist gun control organizations that push for disarming cops, not 
socialists seemingly saying the Black men murdered by cops who "thought" they 
had a gun would have been alive if they actually did have guns. 
_
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 Philosopher Who Believed That Art Was Key to Black Liberation

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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 Sunday Book Review, Feb. 25, 2018
The Philosopher Who Believed That Art Was Key to Black Liberation
By MICHAEL P. JEFFRIES

THE NEW NEGRO
The Life of Alain Locke
By Jeffrey C. Stewart
932 pp. Oxford University Press. $39.95.

Alain LeRoy Locke’s drive to revolutionize black culture was fueled in 
no small part by his sense of self-importance. “When a man has something 
to be conceited over,” he wrote, “I call it self-respect.” Unlike many 
of his colleagues and rivals in the black freedom struggle of the early 
20th century, Locke, a trailblazer of the Harlem Renaissance, believed 
that art and the Great Migration, not political protest, were the keys 
to black progress. Black Americans would only forge a new and authentic 
sense of themselves, he argued, by pursuing artistic excellence and 
insisting on physical mobility. Psychological devotion to 
self-determination would transcend white racism and render stereotypes 
of black people obsolete. As Locke wrote in a draft of “The New Negro,” 
his seminal 1925 essay, “The question is no longer what whites think of 
the Negro but of what the Negro wants to do and what price he is willing 
to pay to do it.”


Jeffrey C. Stewart’s majestic biography, also titled “The New Negro,” 
gives Locke the attention his life deserves, but the book is more than a 
catalog of this now largely overlooked philosopher and critic’s 
achievements. Stewart, a historian and professor of black studies at the 
University of California, Santa Barbara, also renders the tangled knot 
of art, sexuality and yearning for liberation that propelled Locke’s 
work. Locke never completely untied that knot for himself, but he 
grappled with it until his death.


Locke was born in Philadelphia in 1885. His father, Pliny, was a law 
school graduate and frustrated radical who died when Locke was 6. 
Locke’s mother, Mary, provided a tenuously middle-class life for Alain 
with her salary as a teacher, and raised her son to play the aristocrat 
from the time he was young. Locke dressed immaculately and was taught 
not to kiss or touch strangers, for fear of germs. He and his mother 
disdained contamination in all forms, and made every effort to distance 
themselves from poor black people, to avoid being stained by 
association. Locke grew up determined to demonstrate his worth not by 
uplifting those less fortunate, but by cultivating a reverence for the 
arts. He was educated among wealthy white students at one of the city’s 
finest public high schools, and enrolled at Harvard at 19.


Even before college, Locke knew he was gay and that he would live his 
life as a gay man. These contradictory commitments — to respectable, 
elitist and homophobic black Victorianism on the one hand, and to his 
gay lifestyle on the other — produced a friction that sparked Locke’s 
intellectual fire. He was discreet about his queerness, but it was a 
public secret among those who knew him. After a stint at Oxford as the 
first African-American Rhodes scholar, Locke returned to Harvard and 
earned a Ph.D. in philosophy. Upon attaining his degree, he stepped 
confidently into the black intellectual vanguard, although he never 
gained the celebrity of the hetero-patriarchal “race men” of his time, 
like W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey.


In Locke’s view, publicly lauded black leadership was inhibited by its 
obsession with politics, protest and propaganda. In Stewart’s words, 
Locke believed that “the function of literature, art, the theater and so 
on was to complete the process of self-integration” and “produce a black 
subjectivity that could become the agent of a cultural and social 
revolution in America.” Locke turned his beliefs into action during the 
Harlem Renaissance, when he developed his theory of the “New Negro,” 
which became popular among black thought leaders. Locke’s version was 
distinguished by his ideas about migration, modernity and the city. He 
preferred Greenwich Village, where he eventually bought an apartment, 
but Harlem was a symbol: a caldron of black diversity and cultural 
production. The urban black citizen of Harlem would be a new man, an 
artist with a novel voice and purpose, unburdened by antiquated folk 
traditions and tired racial stigma.


Stewart suggests that Locke’s forays into poetry and fiction were 
stunted by his inability to speak openly about his sexuality. But he was 
a prolific essayist and critic, reviewing the work of black writers like 
Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen and René Maran. He edited a series of 
influential “Bronze Booklets,” including Ralph Bunche’s treatise “A 
World View of Race,” and managed fraught relationships with 

[Marxism] Harlem Wasn’t the Only Place With a Renaissance

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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 Sunday Book Review, Feb. 25, 2018
Harlem Wasn’t the Only Place With a Renaissance
By HERB BOYD

SMOKETOWN
The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance
By Mark Whitaker
Illustrated. 404 pp. Simon & Schuster. $30.

In the spring of 1910, not long after Robert L. Vann had passed his bar 
exam and opened a law office in downtown Pittsburgh, he had a meeting 
that would forever alter his fate. Vann had become a lawyer so he could 
pursue his dream of arguing criminal cases, but he had mostly been 
spending his time processing wills and property claims. Now five 
African-American investors had come to him with a proposition: They 
wanted to retain his legal services to incorporate their newspaper, The 
Pittsburgh Courier.


It didn’t take long before what was considered a little “pamphlet” 
evolved into a thriving publication and Vann became a business partner. 
Within a year he was the editor.


The Courier that Vann created and led for the rest of his life serves as 
a sort of crucible for the many events and personalities in Mark 
Whitaker’s engrossing “Smoketown.” Whitaker, a distinguished journalist 
and author of a memoir, “My Long Trip Home,” as well as an ill-timed 
biography of Bill Cosby, profiles a number of notable black figures from 
Pittsburgh and explores the intersection of their lives from the 1920s 
to the 1950s. He makes no attempt to compare this era with the Harlem 
Renaissance, though many of these remarkable people were part of that 
glorious period that lasted a little more than a decade, from the early 
1920s to the mid-30s.


Each personality, in separate chapters, provides an entree into a major 
“Smoketown” social, political or cultural development, be it sports, 
entertainment, the media or the arts.


Whitaker opens with a riveting scene featuring the great heavyweight 
champion Joe Louis. He delivers a vivid description of Louis’s victory 
over Max Schmeling in the summer of 1938, which avenged an earlier 
defeat. Louis, Whitaker writes, “drilled a right into the German’s jaw 
and a second into his midsection. A yelp resembling that of a stuck pig, 
a sound Joe remembered from his boyhood on an Alabama farm, rose from 
his opponent’s throat.”


Although Louis was not a native of Pittsburgh, by the ’30s his 
ascendance was due largely to coverage from the sportswriters at The 
Courier. Similarly, the reporters played a critical role in chronicling 
the rise of Jackie Robinson and baseball’s integration. And no reporter 
was more significant in this respect than Wendell Smith.


All during the grueling period when Robinson was breaking the color 
barrier in the major leagues, Smith was his companion, helping him deal 
with the daily slights and indignities. More than just a journalist on 
the story, Smith was counselor, bodyguard and press agent.


Whitaker also looks at Gus Greenlee, a pioneer in the Negro National 
League and the owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords; Billy Strayhorn, the 
composer and alter ego to Duke Ellington; the singer and bandleader 
Billy Eckstine; and the noted playwright August Wilson, all of whom were 
natives of the city and whose stories and exploits were often reported 
on in The Courier.


In addition to this focus on the renowned, Whitaker brings in a number 
of ordinary folks from East Liberty, Oakland, Homewood and the Hill 
District to give “Smoketown” the ballast of quotidian voices and 
memories. There is also mention here of the city’s black nationalist 
tradition and even a discussion of the political themes in Wilson’s 
plays, especially “Radio Golf” and “Jitney.”


Whitaker devotes a full chapter to the women at The Courier, including 
Daisy Lampkin, a society matron and N.A.A.C.P. leader who became the 
newspaper’s vice president; the secretary Edna Chappell; the gossip 
columnist Julia Bumry Jones; Hazel Garland, a onetime maid who would 
become the paper’s editor in chief; and the redoubtable Evelyn 
Cunningham, who ventured south to cover the burgeoning civil rights 
movement when she thought her Pittsburgh assignments weren’t challenging 
enough.


Cunningham reported early on the courage of Rosa Parks and the 
accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. These contributions, 
Whitaker writes, “foreshadowed strategies and tactics to come: the 
broadening of the movement to the cause of voting rights; the search for 
sympathetic, press-friendly victims who could inspire blacks and stir 
the conscience of whites.”


“For Evelyn Cunningham,” Whitaker continues, “it was also the beginning 
of a new life on the road, one that would make her one of the first 
journalists, black or white, to arrive at the next 

[Marxism] Pop quiz on arming teachers

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

  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 Victoria Times Colonist is the daily paper I receive.
The whole article is funny, in my opinion.

ken h


Pop quiz on arming teachers and other matters
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/jack-knox-pop-quiz-on-arming-teachers-and-other-matters-1.23184473
 


• If you were a teacher, would you rather be armed with:
A) An AR-15
B) A bottle of gin/Valium
C) Adequate classroom funding
D) A ground-to-air missile to take down helicopter parents

_
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: A Commune in Rojava? | New Politics

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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 Alex de Jong

http://newpol.org/content/commune-rojava
_
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] Gun regulation

[John Reimann via Marxism]

  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.
*

David once again misunderstands what I was saying.

In the first place, regarding the alleged need to have guns to stand up to
a repressive government: The far right most certainly takes that position,
but they are not alone. I don't know where David has been, but I've seen
many on the left take a similar position. It is an absolute fantasy which
distracts from the classic Marxist position of winning over the "workers in
uniform" (most importantly the National Guard, but NOT the police, who are
not workers in uniform).

David goes on at great length about Robert Williams and similar figures. I
don't know what that has to do with what I wrote, unless he is implying
that I believe in nonviolence as a principle. I never implied anything of
the sort.

Most telling about what he writes is his comment that the (armed) Redneck
Revolt "were in Charlettesville [sic] during the car attack by the racist
far right." Far from strengthening his argument, it does the exact
opposite! What good did an armed group do there to prevent attacks on the
anti-racists? None, whatsoever!

We have to think this through. Imagine workers going on strike in an open
carry state, one where bearers of arms are allowed to shoot somebody who
presents a "danger" to them. Imagine open carry scabs trying to go through
a picket line and being confronted by striking workers. David can say,
"yes, but the strikers could carry guns too," but the reality is that in
most of those situations they would not be using the guns first. They would
be trying to block the scabs through physical resistance, through force of
numbers. In such a situation, the scabs would be completely legal in
shooting strikers. Yes, I know, they've done that many times before, but
the open carry laws and the "self defense" laws make that much, much easier.

There's another, all too real instance: Ferguson. There, shortly after the
first few days of the mass protests, the Oath Keepers descended, offering
guns to the "good people of Ferguson." What good would that have done? The
police unleashed tear gas barrage after tear gas barrage at night and used
the excuse that they'd heard gunshots. (I was there; the police were
lying.) The presence of guns on the part of the protesters would not have
helped in the least.

All this talk of guns, by the way, serves as a distraction from what was
really absent: The role of the unions, meaning the organized working class
(what little of it remains). One UAW member I met there told me that his
local leadership had told him, "This is not our fight". Can you imagine?
Had the union leadership turned its membership out, that would have made
the difference, not guns on the part of a few individuals.

John Reimann

-- 
*“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone
willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine
sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us
thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?” *Sophie Scholl,
executed by the Nazis 2/22/1943. She was 21 years old.
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
_
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: Ecosocialist Bookshelf, February 2018

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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.
*

Five important books on famines and world hunger, on Ebola and other 
deadly epidemics that spread from animals to people, and on the 
pesticide poisons in our food.


http://climateandcapitalism.com/2018/02/25/ecosocialist-bookshelf-february-2018/
_
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 Gong of History; Or, What Is a Human? | Boston Review

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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://bostonreview.net/forum/remake-world-slavery-racial-capitalism-and-justice/peter-linebaugh-gong-history-or-what-human
_
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] [UCE]

[John Reimann via Marxism]

  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.
*

Excellent article from Alliance of Middle East Socialists:

"Thus the need to oppose the Assad regime’s bombing of Eastern Ghouta and
Idlib is not only a concern for people in the Middle East but should also
be a concern for anti-racist activists around the world. Allowing Assad and
his allies to continue their massacres in the name of “fighting terror”
will greatly strengthen those who want to repeat that scenario in the U.S.
and Europe and elsewhere. It will have consequences for Black Lives Matter,
Latinos, all people of color, Muslims and Jews

"Since January 20 however, when the authoritarian government of Erodogan
intensified its ongoing war on the Kurds and attacked the Afrin canton with
support from Russia, and by using Syrian Arab fighters from the anti-Assad
Free Syrian Army and the Islamic fundamentalist forces, the PYD leadership
has openly asked the Assad regime to come to its aid How could a
butcher regime which is currently engaged in decimating the people of
Eastern Ghouta and has been responsible, for the past seven years, for the
murder of half a million mostly innocent civilians, be called upon to
“save” the Kurdish masses? This is also a regime with extreme Arab
nationalist and racist policies toward the Kurds, some of whom were not
even recognized as Syrian citizens until 2011."

https://www.allianceofmesocialists.org/victory-assad-regime-ghouta-major-defeat-fighting-racism-capitalist-authoritarianism-globally/?utm_campaign=website_source=sendgrid.com_medium=email


-- 
*“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone
willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine
sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us
thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?” *Sophie Scholl,
executed by the Nazis 2/22/1943. She was 21 years old.
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
_
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] Times hails Rojavan feminism

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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 2/25/18 8:55 AM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote:


Reminiscent in tone and method of Hinton's "Fanshen" -- i.e. a detailed
account of real advances made but not a clue on the bureaucratic context.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/24/world/middleeast/syria-kurds-womens-rights-gender-equality.html?rref=collection%2Fissuecollection%2Ftodays-new-york-times


Hinton's book described a proletarian revolution even if tainted by 
Stalinist abuses. With Rojava, you get few abuses but with zero 
connections to the overall task of transforming social relations in 
Syria. Creating a utopia in Assadist Syria has about as much potential 
as creating one in Franco's Spain. Actually, one was attempted. It was 
called Mondragon.

_
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] Times hails Rojavan feminism

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

  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.
*

Reminiscent in tone and method of Hinton's "Fanshen" -- i.e. a detailed
account of real advances made but not a clue on the bureaucratic context.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/24/world/middleeast/syria-kurds-womens-rights-gender-equality.html?rref=collection%2Fissuecollection%2Ftodays-new-york-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] ‘Crisis Actor’ Isn’t a New Smear. The Idea Goes Back to the Civil War Era.

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

  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.
*

They should have mentioned Syria too

‘Crisis Actor’ Isn’t a New Smear. The Idea Goes Back to the Civil War Era.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/24/us/crisis-actors-florida-shooting.html?rref=collection%2Fissuecollection%2Ftodays-new-york-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

Re: [Marxism] David Graeber: manufactured ignorance: the strange case of Juan Cole and the Kurdish freedom movement

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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 2/24/18 11:32 PM, Chris Slee wrote:

Louis Proyect asks for a reference for my statement that:  "Turkish-backed groups, 
some of which use the label 'FSA', have attacked Rojava on numerous occasions."

"Turkish-backed groups" include ISIS, which has obviously attacked Rojava.  But 
Louis is probably asking about FSA groups.

Several examples are given in the book "Revolution in Rojava", by Michael 
Knapp, Anja Flack and Ercan Ayboga (Pluto Press, 2016).

Their most detailed account of conflict between the YPG and a section of the 
Free Syrian Army relates to events in Aleppo.  While Aleppo is not part of 
Rojava, the Kurdish areas of Aleppo followed similar policies to those in 
Rojava.  The attacks on the predominantly Kurdish Aleppo neighborhoods of Sex 
Maqsud (Sheikh Maqsoud) and Asrafiye by some Turkish-backed FSA groups reflect 
their hostility towards the Rojava revolution.

"Revolution in Rojava" outlines the conflict as follows:

"Both belligerents - the regime on one hand, and the FSA and other armed 
opposition groups on the other - pressured the YPG to take sides.

"The FSA, flush with money from the Arab-Sunni Gulf states, began 
systematically buying up property in the Kurdish neighborhoodsFSA members took 
to carrying their weapons around outdoors - but the councils [local councils 
established in the Kurdish neighborhoods] took notice and demanded that they cease 
doing so.



I am not going to bother finding instances of Kurdish bad behavior 
toward Arabs since that is a zero-sum game.


At this point, the real question is what Rojava has to do with the tasks 
Marx outlined in the Communist Manifesto. You apparently have become 
seduced by Murray Bookchin's ideology that has as much connection to 
proletarian revolution as Proudhon's.


Read the section "Socialist and Communist Literature" in the Communist 
Manifesto and remind yourself what Marx thought of Critical-Utopian 
Socialism and Communism.


Years ago I wrote a commentary on utopian socialism that dealt with 
Bookchin and his rivals at ZNet and elsewhere. I doubt if it will have 
much impact on someone as intoxicated with Bookchin's muddled ideas as 
you but others might find it worth reading:


http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/economics/neo_utopian.htm
_
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: The Rojova Illusion | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[mkaradjis . via Marxism]

  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.
*

Very good article. I'd like to comment on some sweeping points in one
paragraph, I realise your article was not focused on these issues from
6-7 years ago, but I'm actually building up a challenge to a number of
alleged certainties that have dominated our thinking on this, even
those of us who are not uncritical romanticisers of the PYD. First,
"Instead, the Kurds were confronted by a Syrian National Coalition
that was dominated by Muslim Brotherhood figures that shared the
prejudices of the Baathist dictatorship." You mean Syrian National
Council (same acronym) in 2011-12 (the much broader Coalition was
formed Dec 2012, in which the SNCouncil was but one component). It is
true that the refusal of the Syrian opposition political leadership to
come fully round to recognising autonomy and self-determination was a
negative point that began the process of alienating sections of the
Kurds.

However, in Dec 2011 the SNC released a declaration in Tunis, which
was formalised in June 2012 as its 'National Charter on the Kurdish
Issue', which reads in part: 1.The SNC and signatories confirm their
commitment to *constitutional recognition of the national identity of
Kurdish people*, and consider the Kurdish issue part and parcel of the
national discourse, and recognize the *national rights of the Kurdish
people* within the framework of the unity of Syria's land and people.
2. Signatories will work toward the abolition of all discriminatory
policies, decrees, and measures applied against citizens, addressing
their effects and implications and compensating those affected. 7. The
SNC and signatories shall hold events and activities to work towards
the recognition of the Kurdish issue in Syria, and acknowledging the
suffering that Kurdish citizens have endured through decades of
deprivation and marginalization, in order to build a new Syrian
culture based on equality and mutual respect." Now, this may not be
“the full program” and does not specifically advocate the right to
self-determination, but given that this was a process, it is difficult
to see such a statement offering “constitutional recognition of the
*national* identity of the Kurdish people” and recognising the their
*national* rights – rather than just their equal rights as citizens –
as a re-statement of Arab nationalist prejudices on the Kurdish issue
or a capitulation to Turkish interests.

Next, "The Kurds were represented on the SNC by members of the Kurdish
National Council that was loyal to the tribal leaders in Iraq and
hardly representative of the more radical leaders of the PYD." The SNC
and the KNC were both formed in October 2011. At that time, three
Kurdish parties were in the SNC: The Kurdish Future Movement [ie the
party of Mashaal Tammo, who was assassinated in late 2011, who de Jong
says was one of the "more militant" Kurdish groups formed after 2004,
which saw the PYD as collaborationist, and which took a powerful
anti-Assad stance and strongly advocated working with the Arab
opposition], the Kurdish Yekti Party [another "more militant" party de
Jong says played a role in the 2004 uprising but was critical of the
PYD] and the Kurdish Azadi Party. The KNC consisted of 11 Kurdish
parties, not only the KDP (S), the one considered to be Barzanist, but
also parties such as the Kurdish Youth Movement, which de Jong says
"tried to launch the first armed resistance against the Baath regime.
They accused the PYD of working with the state." The KNC  was not in
the SNC, but did its best to cooperate with it in the anti-Assad
uprising while trying to push the SNC to take a better position. In
January 2011, despite the SNC's Tunis declaration, the KNC decided it
was still not good enough and called on all Kurdish parties to quit
bot the SNC and the smaller, lame-duck, regime-tolerated, National
Coordination Body (NCB). The Yekti and Azadi parties did so and joined
the KNC, leaving only Tammo's Future Movement in the SNC, and the YPG
which refused to quit the NCB, despite the NCB having an almost
identical position to the SNC (not quite as good, actually).

It is hard to see how the PYD was "more radical" except in looking
after its own interests in the more narrow sense. The main difference
was that the KNC was fully in support of the anti-Assad uprising
whereas the PYD was ambivalent form the start. It is also difficult to
argue that the PYD's withdrawal from the revolution in mid-2012 (well,
unclear if it was ever "in" it, but its withdrawal of the Kurdish
regions which it had under its armed control) reflected a widespread
Kurdish mood of "alienation" from the opposition given that al across
the north in 2011 and 2012 there were joint 

[Marxism] How Arabs are complicit in massacring Eastern Ghouta's people

[mkaradjis . via Marxism]

  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.
*

Robin Yassin Kassab

How Arabs are complicit in massacring Eastern Ghouta's people

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2018/2/24/how-arabs-are-complicit-in-massacring-eastern-ghoutas-people
_
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] Syria: Turkey's hidden war against HTS in Idlib

[RKOB via Marxism]

  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.
*

*Syria: Turkey's hidden war against HTS in Idlib*

*/On the character of the military offensive of Nour al-Din al-Zenki and 
Ahrar al-Sham against Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham/*


/By Michael Pröbsting, 25.02.2018/

https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/turkey-s-hidden-war-against-hts-in-idlib/

--

Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG
(Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net)
www.rkob.net
ak...@rkob.net
Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314



---
Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
_
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