Re: [Marxism] Global Research discusses tragic airliner crash

[John Edmundson via Marxism]

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No, I'm saying if their "false claim" argument about Iran turns out to be
true, which it is, then their parallel "false claim" about MH17 is also
true. Sorry I was being a bit too facetious and it didn't come across
clearly in a brief message. I am as convinced that Russia was responsible
for MH17 as I am that Iran was responsible for 752. Haven't they actually
tracked the missile back to a specific Russian anti-aircraft unit?

Cheers,
John

On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 2:26 PM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> On 1/13/20 8:10 PM, John Edmundson via Marxism wrote:
> > One bit I would agree with them on, in the light of Iran's admission is
> > this parallel:
> >
> > "Falsely claiming an Iranian missile may have brought down Ukraine
> Airlines
> > Flight 752 is similar to wrongfully accusing Russia for downing Malaysian
> > Airlines MH17 on July 17, 2014 in eastern Ukraine airspace."
> >
> > Cheers,
> > John
>
> What are you saying? That it wasn't a Russian missile that brought down
> MH17?
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-- 
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose
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Re: [Marxism] Global Research discusses tragic airliner crash

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 1/13/20 8:10 PM, John Edmundson via Marxism wrote:

One bit I would agree with them on, in the light of Iran's admission is
this parallel:

"Falsely claiming an Iranian missile may have brought down Ukraine Airlines
Flight 752 is similar to wrongfully accusing Russia for downing Malaysian
Airlines MH17 on July 17, 2014 in eastern Ukraine airspace."

Cheers,
John


What are you saying? That it wasn't a Russian missile that brought down 
MH17?

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Re: [Marxism] Global Research discusses tragic airliner crash

[John Edmundson via Marxism]

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One bit I would agree with them on, in the light of Iran's admission is
this parallel:

"Falsely claiming an Iranian missile may have brought down Ukraine Airlines
Flight 752 is similar to wrongfully accusing Russia for downing Malaysian
Airlines MH17 on July 17, 2014 in eastern Ukraine airspace."

Cheers,
John

On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 7:56 AM Richard Fidler via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> From the egg on our faces department at Global Research, the article
> (still there) is now preceded by this:
>
> "Update
>
> "The latest information suggests that the Ukraine plane was brought down
> by a missile, following statements emanating from the Iranian government."
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of
> Ken Hiebert via Marxism
> Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2020 1:46 PM
> To: rfid...@ncf.ca
> Subject: [Marxism] Global Research discusses tragic airliner crash
>
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>
> As of this morning, this article still appears on the Global Research
> website.
> I have omitted some of the article.
> ken h
>
> “Fake Intelligence”? Washington Blames Iran for Ukraine Airliner Crash.
> Was the Plane Brought down by a Missile?
> Stephen Lendman
>
> https://www.globalresearch.ca/blaming-iran-ukraine-airliner-crash/5700207
>  >
>
>
>
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-- 
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose
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[Marxism] You Don’t Need to Lie to Stop the War - Arc Digital

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Donald Trump is a bad man, presiding over the deaths of thousands of 
civilians in Iraq and Syria with a fast-tracked War on Terror that 
obliterated much of Mosul and Raqqa. Another bad man, who at times was a 
de facto ally in the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS, was Qasem 
Soleimani, the Iranian general who Trump assassinated via Reaper drone 
outside the Baghdad airport.


By acknowledging that they’re both bad men — that a man who bombed a 
mosque killed a man who starved a village — are we lending support to an 
impulsive and extrajudicial killing? Does citing Soleimani’s sins enlist 
us as co-signers of the drone strike?


https://arcdigital.media/you-dont-need-to-lie-to-stop-the-war-88204c0cfc57
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Re: [Marxism] How digital sleuths unravelled the mystery of Iran's plane crash | WIRED UK

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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I've seen a couple of different articles saying Iran "had to admit the
truth" once faced with the evidence. I'm a bit confused by this. Since when
has seeing evidence ever forced anyone in power to "admit the truth"? I'd
be interested in a more thorough analysis of why Iranian officials
eventually reneged knowing that it was the difference between keeping the
masses in their corner vs. re-awakening the mass revolts that had taken
place the months before. Surely they could have simply insisted that the
evidence is fake and it's a Zionist conspiracy and so on.

Amith R. Gupta


On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 9:36 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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> https://www.wired.co.uk/article/iran-plane-crash-news
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Re: [Marxism] Review: Syria after the uprisings, by Joseph Daher (Links)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 1/13/20 3:30 PM, Chris Slee via Marxism wrote:


http://links.org.au/syria-after-uprisings-political-economy-state-resilience




Slee: Daher claims that the regime's withdrawal was "probably the result 
of a tacit agreement with the PYD". (p.161)


But in fact the withdrawal was a result of popular pressure. The PYD 
mobilised the population to demand the withdrawal of Assad's army and 
crowds of local people, backed up by armed fighters, surrounded army 
bases. (This is documented in the book Revolution in Rojava by Michael 
Knapp, Anja Flach and Ercan Ayboga)


Reply: Anja Flach spent 2 years in the Kurdish guerilla army, making her 
a trustworthy voice on whether the PYD had a tacit agreement with the 
bloodiest dictator of the 21st century. Typical fare from Chris Slee.


Slee: But he claims that the PYD is repressive towards dissent. He 
speaks of "the authoritarian practices of PYD forces against rival 
Kurdish political actors and activists from other communities". (p.186)


It is true that the PYD has at times carried out repressive measures 
against opposition parties, but this to be expected in a society at war 
and under siege.


The repressive measures taken by the Rojava administration against some 
opposition groups (mainly those aligned with the KRG) can be compared 
with the repression in Russia following the 1917 revolution, and in Cuba 
following the 1959 revolution. A society under siege is unlikely to be a 
model of democracy.


Reply: Yeah, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

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[Marxism] Review: Syria after the uprisings, by Joseph Daher (Links)

[Chris Slee via Marxism]

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http://links.org.au/syria-after-uprisings-political-economy-state-resilience


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[Marxism] Iran Popular Protests Against Regime Intensify in Response to Iran Downing of Passenger Plane

[Chris Slee via Marxism]

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(From Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists)

Hello ,
We have published a new article on our website. Iran Popular Protests Against 
Regime Intensify in Response to Iran Downing of Passenger Plane
The eloquent statements and  slogans voiced by the latest wave of mass protests 
in Iran seem to indicate that the uprising has entered a new stage.  The 
efforts of the regime to derail the protests after the U.S. assassination of 
Qassem Soleimani and to give the impression that the Iranian …
You may view the latest post at 
https://allianceofmesocialists.org/iran-popular-protests-against-regime-intensify-in-response-to-iran-downing-of-passenger-plane/

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Re: [Marxism] The Good Soldier Svejk: or How to Stay Sane in an Insane World | Chris Guiton | Culture Matters

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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My father, writing under the name Lewis Allan collaborated with the Czech
American composer Robert Kurka on an OPERA based on the Hasek novel --
prompting me to read it in high school.   The opera has been performed from
time to time and dad was especially proud that it was translated into Czech
and performed there (even before Dubcek).

Don't know if there ever was a  recording made of it --- Norman Kelley
created the character for the City Center Opera company sometime in the
late 1950s 

Agree 1000% that the novel is worth re-reading for those of us who haven't
for a long time --- first time readers, you are in for a few belly-laughs
and sadness 



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Re: [Marxism] The Good Soldier Svejk: or How to Stay Sane in an Insane World | Chris Guiton | Culture Matters

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 1/13/20 1:53 PM, Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism wrote:


https://www.culturematters.org.uk/index.php/arts/fiction/item/3234-the-good-soldier-svejk-or-how-to-stay-sane-in-an-insane-world




One of the great novels of the 20th century. Reading it should be on 
every leftist's bucket list.

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[Marxism] The Good Soldier Svejk: or How to Stay Sane in an Insane World | Chris Guiton | Culture Matters

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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https://www.culturematters.org.uk/index.php/arts/fiction/item/3234-the-good-soldier-svejk-or-how-to-stay-sane-in-an-insane-world


Sent from my iPhone

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[Marxism] The ruthlessness of American Robber Baron Jay Gould - the Jeff Bezos of his time!

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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Jay Gould (1836-1892) was one of the most ruthless of the so-called robber
barons of America's Gilded Age. He gained his wealth through railroad stock
manipulation, but it was his acquisition and control of Western Union,
which had a near-monopoly on communications in that era, that caused
Americans to tremble and view him as a threat to democracy itself:



https://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=4013
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[Marxism] How digital sleuths unravelled the mystery of Iran's plane crash | WIRED UK

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.wired.co.uk/article/iran-plane-crash-news
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[Marxism] MALTHUS, NINETEENTH-CENTURY SOCIALISM, AND MARX

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/malthus-nineteenthcentury-socialism-and-marx/00FCADAD5BF8CE74AD6ADE8359ECF92C/core-reader
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[Marxism] NEO-MALTHUSIAN ENVIRONMENTALISM, WORLD FISHERIES CRISIS, AND THE GLOBAL COMMONS, 1950s–1970s

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/neomalthusian-environmentalism-world-fisheries-crisis-and-the-global-commons-1950s1970s/E4D000A80FE729AB4E72671B7B39C8CB/core-reader#
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[Marxism] An enslaved man was crucial to the Lewis and Clark expedition’s success. Clark refused to free him afterward.

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Washington Post, Jan. 13, 2020
An enslaved man was crucial to the Lewis and Clark expedition’s success. 
Clark refused to free him afterward.

By Hannah Natanson

York had done his job superbly.

Whether the enslaved, 30-something black man wanted to participate in 
Lewis and Clark’s expedition to the Pacific Ocean is impossible to know 
— almost certainly, no one ever asked him. Compelled to join by the man 
who owned him, William Clark, York proved crucial to the explorers’ 
success. He hunted for badly needed food, smoothed relations with Native 
American tribes, cared for the ill and helped discover new plants and 
animals.


So, after the voyage’s celebrated conclusion in September 1806 — as his 
fellow adventurers reveled in newfound fame, land grants and financial 
awards — York approached Clark, whom he had served since boyhood. Aware 
he would never receive land or payment, he suggested another form of 
compensation.


“York was demanding his freedom as his reward for his services on the 
expedition,” Stephen E. Ambrose wrote in “Undaunted Courage: Meriwether 
Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West.” “Clark 
refused to free him.”


Sacagawea famed, yet a mystery

Frustrated, York asked if he could at least move to Louisville to join 
his enslaved wife, who belonged to another man. He offered to hire 
himself out and send the money he earned to Clark. It was a far cry from 
freedom — but at least York would live with his love.


Again, Clark refused.

“[I will] permit him to Stay a fiew weeks with his wife ... [but] he is 
Serviceable to me at this place, and I am determined not ... to gratify 
him, and have directed him to return,” Clark (whose spelling was 
abysmal) wrote in an 1808 letter to his brother. “If any attempt is made 
by York to run off, or refuse to proform his duty as a Slave, I wish him 
Sent to New Orleands and sold, or hired out to Some Sevare Master until 
he thinks better of Such Conduct.”


York did not “run off,” Clark’s will prevailed and the unhappy man 
returned to his master’s home in St. Louis, Mo., in May 1809. Doubtless 
pining for his wife, York was “of very little Service to me, insolent 
and sukly,” Clark wrote to his brother. But Clark had a solution: “I 
gave him a Severe trouncing the other Day and he has much mended.”


America remained ignorant of Clark’s heinous treatment of York for 
almost two centuries — until the discovery of Clark’s letters to his 
brother in 1988.


“For years, historians maintained that [York] did receive his freedom 
from Clark at the conclusion of the expedition in compensation for his 
services on the journey,” Portland State University history professor 
Darrell Millner wrote in an article titled “York of the Corps of 
Discovery.” “As late as 1989, Ronald K. Fisher, in West to the Pacific, 
maintained that Clark gave freedom to his ‘friend York’ ... the 
reiteration of their ‘friendship’ is nearly inexplicable this late in 
the twentieth century.”


Millner’s article, published in 2003, was timed to coincide roughly with 
the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark’s expedition, which formally 
launched in May 1804.


“Because race has played such a complex and powerful part in American 
history,” Millner wrote, “York’s story can take us beyond the 
particulars of the expedition to an exploration of the racial realities 
and dynamics of American life ... [and of] the nation’s collective 
obsession with race.”


Hunting down runaway slaves: The cruel ads of Andrew Jackson and ‘the 
master class’


A ‘long acquaintance’

York was born into slavery.

His parents, known only as “Old York” and “Rose,” had long served 
William Clark’s father, John Clark, on his plantation in Caroline 
County, Va. Not much is known about them apart from their names, and 
York’s boyhood is also mostly blank.


Documents show only that William Clark inherited York — along with 
roughly a dozen other enslaved people — after his father died in 1799. 
Probably about 14 at the time, York began a new life as William Clark’s 
personal servant.


“York [grew up] with William, serving as his ‘companion’ and later 
‘manservant,’” Millner wrote. “William had other slaves ... but none 
were as closely associated with their master as York was.”


It’s likely that York slept within earshot of William Clark, according 
to the National Park Service. He probably ate food in the family 
kitchen, dressed in William Clark’s hand-me-downs and learned to imitate 
the habits and manners of the upper-middle-class Clarks — though law 
prohibited him from learning how to read or write.


By the early 1800s — when Clark was invited to join the 

[Marxism] ‘A Doubtful Freedom’ | Review of *The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War*, by Andrew Delbanco | David W. Blight | T

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/01/16/fugitive-slaves-doubtful-freedom/


Sent from my iPhone


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[Marxism] The War on the War on Cancer

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://theintercept.com/2020/01/12/cancer-trump-administration-epa-carcinogens-regulations/
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[Marxism] California's Indigenous History Is a Story of Genocide and Resistance

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://truthout.org/articles/californias-indigenous-history-is-a-story-of-genocide-and-resistance/
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[Marxism] The Origin of the Split and the Reconstruction of Unity by Karl Kilbom - COSMONAUT

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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The main goal of the socialist movement for Kilbom was to struggle for 
the betterment of the working-class and win influence over the 
middle-classes and peasants. In other words to organize primarily around 
class interests. He saw the constant infighting in the socialist 
movement as the main hindrance for this, seeing these battles as a 
distraction from actually taking on battles for working-class victories 
and organizing. One should, of course, be critical of his solution to 
the issue of disunity, but the text is an interesting highlight of the 
dangers that come with splits.


https://cosmonaut.blog/2020/01/12/the-origin-of-the-split-and-the-reconstruction-of-unity-by-karl-kilbom/
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[Marxism] Sam Mendes’s “1917,” a film of patriotic bombast

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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The New Yorker
The Beauty of Sam Mendes’s “1917” Comes at a Cost
By Richard Brody, January 7, 2020

Sam Mendes’s “1917,” a film of patriotic bombast, has an 
imagination-free script filled with melodramatic coincidences that 
trivialize the life-and-death action by reducing it to sentiment.


The most vulgar visual effect that I saw in a movie last year wasn’t 
Marvel-ous or otherwise superheroic; it was in “1917,” and depicted the 
death of a soldier in combat. The soldier is stabbed, and, as he bleeds 
out, his face is leached of pinkness and turns papery white just before 
he expires. The character’s death would have been as wrenching for 
viewers if the soldier’s appearance remained unaltered and he merely 
fell limp. Instead, the director, Sam Mendes, chose to render the moment 
picturesque—to adorn it with an anecdotal detail of the sort that might 
have cropped up in a war story, a tale told at years’ remove, and that 
would have stood for the ineffable horror of the experience. Instead, 
rendered as a special effect, the character’s end becomes merely 
poignant—not terrifying or repulsive—making for a very tasteful death.


That tastefulness is a mark of the utter tastelessness of “1917,” a 
movie that’s filmed in a gimmicky way—as a simulacrum of a single long 
take (actually, it’s a bunch of takes that run up to nine minutes and 
are stitched together with digital effects to make them look 
continuous). Yet that visual trickery isn’t the fakest aspect of the 
movie. Rather, the so-called long take serves as a mask—a gross bit of 
earnest showmanship that both conceals and reflects the trickery and the 
cheap machinations of the script, the shallowness of the direction of 
the actors, and the brazenly superficial and emotion-dictating music score.


The story is a sort of “Saving Private Ryan” in reverse, and that 
reversal is by far the most interesting thing about “1917,” with its 
suggestion of an antiwar ethos. Somewhere behind the lines in France, a 
young British lance corporal, Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), dozing 
during downtime, is awakened by a sergeant and told, “Pick a man, bring 
your kit.” Blake chooses a fellow lance corporal, Will Schofield (George 
MacKay), a friend who’d been napping in the grass alongside him. The 
sergeant sends the duo on a special mission: to cross the former front 
lines, now abandoned by German forces, and take a letter to a colonel 
who’s with his troops at a new forward position. That colonel is about 
to launch an offensive against the apparently retreating Germans, but 
aerial reconnaissance shows that the Germans are luring the colonel’s 
two battalions into a trap, and the letter is an order calling off the 
offensive. What’s more, the battalions to which Blake is being 
dispatched include his brother, a lieutenant.


Blake is outgoing and earnest, Schofield is a sarcastic cynic, and the 
implication is that Blake has been chosen for this mission not because 
he’s necessarily the best soldier to undertake it but because he’s 
uniquely motivated to complete it—because he knows that, if he doesn’t 
reach the colonel in time, his brother will be among sixteen hundred 
soldiers who will be entrapped and massacred. The darker suggestion, 
utterly unexplored, is that morale and commitment were issues in the 
British Army at this latter stage of the Great War (the action begins on 
April 6, 1917, and concludes the next morning), and that a soldier 
without Blake’s personal motive for saving the two battalions might not 
be trusted to put himself at risk to fulfill it.


What’s clear is that Schofield is dubious about the mission and 
resentful of Blake for choosing him as his partner. Of course, because 
“1917” is a film of patriotic bombast and heroic duty, Schofield’s mind 
will be changed in the course of the action. It’s only one in a series 
of painfully blatant dramatic reversals that wouldn’t be out of place in 
any of the comic-book movies that are so readily contrasted with 
“authentic” cinema. (For example, while Schofield has the cynicism 
knocked out of him, Blake—in another overlap with “Saving Private 
Ryan”—has to confront the painful consequences of his own warm-heartedly 
humane idealism.) The script is filled with melodramatic coincidences 
that grossly trivialize the life-and-death action by reducing it to 
sentiment: Schofield fills his canteen with fresh milk that he finds in 
a pail at a recently deserted farm, and eventually feeds an abandoned 
baby with it; Blake’s reminiscence of the blanket of cherry blossoms 
that covers his family’s garden is echoed in Schofield’s discovery of 
cherry blossoms scattered on a 

[Marxism] The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand: Capitalism As a State-Guaranteed System of Privilege

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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