[Marxism] 68th anniversary of assassination of Gandhi

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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January 30 marks the 68th anniversary of the assassination of Mahatma
Gandhi.  While widely held up as the key figure responsible for the
independence of India and a pacifist icon, the story of Gandhi and Indian
independence is much more complex.  Whether his pacifism really worked is
highly debatable. . .

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/30/14114/
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[Marxism] Two-state, one-state

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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I used to tend to think of the Israeli government as pretty shrewd
operators.  However, these days they seem to have maybe screwed up.  Arafat
effectively surrendered to them and was willing to be their stooge - but
they destroyed him.  They have done the same thing with the Palestinian
Authority.

The Brits always played stooges and handed authority over the oppressed to
the stooges at some point.  Ireland is a classic example.

Most recently, the Brits figured out who in the Provos' leadership was up
for a deal and fastened on Adams (and McGuiness) and did a deal with them.

But the Zionist leaders just don't seem interested in deals and handing
over some authority to stooges as the price for maintaining the overall
set-up - the method of reworking the set-up by a bit of exclusive
inclusiveness as it were.  They just seem to want to humiliate *all* the
Palestinians, even the most supine people like the Fatah leaders.  It's all
stick and no carrot, which doesn't seem a very clever and sophisticated way
for oppressors to operate.
On the other hand, folks like Netanyahu received their political education
in the US, whose rulers are less sophisticated operators than the old
British and French imperialists were.  Since the stick usually worked well
for the US imperialists - well, up until Vietnam - perhaps they never
really learned the importance of the carrots, and so the Zionists they
trained didn't either.

I think another element is that the Zionist state is, of necessity, pretty
brittle.  It's one thing to use carrots when you're British imperialism and
your colonies are thousands of miles away, or across a stretch of sea in
the Irish case; it's quite another thing to use the carrot when the people
you're oppressing are among you and next to you.  It seems that the Zionist
state, by its very nature, may have little negotiating room, little 'give'
in it.

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/is-there-a-two-state-solution-to-israel-palestinian-conflict-2/

A couple of other pieces on Redline folks might be interested in:
For a campaign of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/for-a-campaign-of-solidarity-with-the-palestinian-struggle/
NZ interview with Leila Khaled:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/10/27/nz-solidarity-activist-interviews-leila-khaled-2010/
Veteran Israeli Marxist Moshe Machover on Does Israel have a future?:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/does-israel-have-a-future/
Veteran British anti-imperialist and working class activist Tony Greenstein
on Israel: world's most racist state?:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/08/15/israel-worlds-most-racist-state/
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[Marxism] Building the Irish revolutionary movement

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Material about the Irish socialist-republican organisation eirigi:

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/interview-with-john-mccusker-a-leading-figure-in-eirigi/
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[Marxism] Is 'two-state solution' dead?

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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At the Palestine Solidarity Campaign AGM last weekend in London, the
Palestinian ambassador to Britain declared that the two-state solution was
dead and actually called for a unitary state.

Interesting given that the Palestine Authority that he represents are
two-state quislings.

Whatever about Palestinian quislings - yesterday, today and tomorrow - the
Zionist state has made a two-state solution impossible anyway.

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/is-there-a-two-state-solution-to-israel-palestinian-conflict-2/
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[Marxism] Bloody Sunday

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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January 30 marks the 44th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when the British
Parachute regiment opened fire on peaceful civil rights marchers in Derry
city in Ireland.

A few years ago I wrote about Bloody Sunday, but more looking at how the
 response of the southern state at the time showed the movement had them on
the back foot.  Indeed, the cops in Dublin largely stood by while a mass
protest took place outside the British embassy, with left-republicans
burning the building down.

The southern state desperately needed to get back on the offensive and
re-establish their control of society.  They managed to succeed in doing
this, so that when tens of thousands of people next marched on the British
embassy - during the 1981 hunger strikes - they were beaten off the streets
and mass protests in Dublin were even halted for a while.

https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/the-burning-of-the-british-embassy-40-years-on/
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[Marxism] NZ Labour Party's historic racism

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Labour's racist roots:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/labours-racist-roots-2/

First Labour government wanted 'Aryan' immigrants, not Jewish refugees from
Nazism:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/26/first-labour-government-wanted-aryan-immigrants-not-jewish-refugees-from-the-nazis/

A stain that won't wash off - Labour's campaign against those with 'Chinese
surnames':
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/a-stain-that-wont-wash-off-labours-racist-campaign-aganst-those-with-chinese-surnames/
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[Marxism] NZ first Labour government wanted 'Aryan' immigrants not Jewish refugees from Hitler

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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While the Labour Party showed its knee-jerk racism in relation to the
Chinese yet again last year - a modern-day equivalent to the early party's
keen support for the White New Zealand policy - few people are aware of the
first Labour government's shoddy record in relation to refugees,
particularly Jewish refugees, from Nazism in Europe in the late 1930s and
early 1940s. . .

full at:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/26/first-labour-government-wanted-aryan-immigrants-not-jewish-refugees-from-the-nazis/
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[Marxism] A NZ communist visits Oakland

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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by Don Franks

Earlier this month I took a trip to the States, to visit a musician friend
from Oakland.

When she drove me round her home neighbourhood, Amirh pointed out numerous
houses that had unwillingly been vacated in recent years. Live examples of
a burning issue for locals  – gentrification.

To long-term Oakland residents, “gentrification” means displacement of the
former working class residents, by means of rent rises and aggressive house
buy-ups.

Between 2000 and 2013 Oakland lost almost a quarter of its. . .
full at:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/american-notes-oakland-workers-down-but-not-out/
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[Marxism] Popular resistance during WW2

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Donny Gluckstein (ed), *Fighting on all Fronts: popular resistance in the
Second World War*, London, Bookmarks, 2015; reviewed by *Philip Ferguson*

This is a fascinating book.  Its ten contributors provide eleven chapters –
two are by Gluckstein – on people's resistance to dictatorship in Europe
and Asia/Pacific during World War 2 and struggles within two capitalist
democracies (Australia and Ireland, the latter not being formally involved
in the second great imperialist conflagration).

The struggles range from Jewish resistance to the Nazis and the Holocaust
in Eastern Europe, especially Poland, to the Slovak national uprising of
1944 to resistance to French rule in Algeria to Burmese resistance to both
British and Japanese imperialism to the Huk rebellion in the Philippines. .
.

full at: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/23/14129/

Other recent stuff on Redline.

I've put up the nice tribute to Richard Levins that Rob Wallace posted on
facebook and there's an article about how the newly-appointed
general-secretary of the Labour Party (NZ) is fittingly symbolic of the
party's role as capitalist managers (the dude is an actual capitalist
manager):
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/new-labour-party-general-secretary-indicative-of-partys-managerial-capitalism/

Plus there's a major extract from an interesting letter in the *Weekly
Worker* on the state of the British working class:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/disengaging-in-britain/
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[Marxism] The broad party question after Syriza

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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I liked Mick's article.  I think it is very good.

Of course there is also the nagging thing that social democrats will always
behave like social democrats and sell out, so there's not a lot of point in
denunication.  Nevertheless, Mick and co have obviously been proven right.

SA (Socialist Alternative), of which he is one of the central leaders, has
pursued a course of trying to unite the Australian anti-capitalist left on
a solid anti-capitalist basis, so it is not like they are simply
sectarians.  Apart from the small RSP, no-one else has been interested in
uniting with SA; they prefer the world of fake internationals and
sect-building.  The SA-RSP fusion , meanwhile, seems to have been very
successful.

I'm also impressed by the fact that Mick (for many decades a partisan of
state-cap theory) - and others - led the way in SA's dropping of
state-capitalist theory as a core of what SA stood for, something which
acted as an obstacle to party-building rather than facilitating it.

I think too that the British SWP's argument against participation in Syriza
was a hoot given what the SWP not only participated in, but helped initiate
and lead in Britain (eg Respect coalition, which was a dog's dinner if ever
there was one).

By contrast to SA,  SocAll (Socialist Alliance) has got weaker and weaker,
politically and numerically.  The old DSP's 'broad party' strategy simply
didn't work.

Here's John Percy's critique of the broad party strategy internationally.
John, a veteran leader of the DSP, helped lead the RSP fusion and died
(recently) a member of SA.

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/an-international-balance-sheet-of-the-broad-party-strategy/

Phil
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[Marxism] Marxism and women's liberation

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Excellent 2004 essay by Australian marxist Sandra Bloodworth:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/marxism-and-the-fight-for-womens-liberation-2004/
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[Marxism] New on Redline

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Hi folks,

Below are recent pieces that have gone up on Redline blog, ranging from
Rosa Luxemburg to the NZ Labour Party to the 1916 Irish rebellion.

We've stuck up some interesting thoughts by Jara Handala, a socialist
activist in Britain and former member of that country's biggest left group,
the SWP.  The piece is interesting because it's a very sober assessment:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/disengaging-in-britain/

The NZ Labour Party has appointed a new general-secretary.  This business
figure reconfirms that Labour is not only a capitalist party in terms of
politics, but in social composition it is dominated by the liberal
professional class:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/new-labour-party-general-secretary-indicative-of-partys-managerial-capitalism/

British Marxist Kenan Malik looks at the Charlie Hebdo killings, censorship
and politics one year on:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/kenan-malik-on-charlie-hebdo-one-year-on/

One of the main features of Redline since we set up in mid-2011 has been
examining the lack of working class resistance in this country.  Links to a
bunch of our articles on this subjected can be found here:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/whatever-happened-to-workers-resistance/

We remember Rosa Luxemburg, murdered on January 15, 1919, with several
pieces.
Thousands turn out to commemorate Luxemburg and Liebknecht:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/14/thousands-turn-out-for-luxemburg-and-leibknecht/
Rosa Luxemburg on tariffs, protectionism, reformism:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/15/rosa-luxemburg-on-tariffs-protectionism-reformism/
Rosa Luxemburg - murdered by social democrats, January 15, 1919:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/rosa-luxemburg-murdered-by-social-democrats-january-15-1919/

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising in Ireland.
Several members of the Redline collective are members of Clann eirigi;
eirigi is a new Irish revolutionary movement that started ten years ago to
fight for national liberation and socialism.  This piece contains info on
some events in Christchurch and Dunedin marking the 100th anniversary and
links to articles on the Rising at The Irish Revolution site, which is
connected to Redline.  See:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/12/100th-anniversary-of-irelands-1916-rebellion/

See also:
The Key-English government in the context of capital accumulation in NZ:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/the-key-english-government-in-the-context-of-capital-accumulation-in-new-zealand-today/
Our pieces on work/life balance issues:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/worklife-balance/

And we've put up a great piece on the unions and the fight for equal pay in
Australia that recently appeared in the print review, *Marxist Left Review*,
an excellent journal put out by Socialist Alternative (SA) in Australia:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/equal-pay-is-a-class-issue-trade-unions-and-the-fight-for-equal-pay-in-australia/

Phil
for Redline Blog Collective
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[Marxism] Geoff Pilling, British Marxist, 1940-1997

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Geoff Pilling was a very fine British Marxist writer on political economy.

A couple of his works are now up on the Marxist Internet Archive, including
his fine book Marx's 'Capital': philosophy and political economy.

Below is a review of the book when it first came out in 1981.  The review
is by my friend Tony Norfield, one of my favourite Marxist writers on
politics and economics.

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/pillings-marxs-capital-philosophy-dialectics-political-economy/

Both Pilling and Tony deserve a wide readership.

Phil
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[Marxism] Roger Casement, British diplomat and Irish revolutionary

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Interesting piece on Casement by my friend Liam O Ruairc:
http://thepensivequill.am/2016/01/the-ghost-of-roger-casement-is-beating.html
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[Marxism] Changes in bourgeois ideology

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/bourgeois-ideology-popular-attitudes-shifts/
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[Marxism] Labour Party in NZ

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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While there has been a lot of ferment around the rise of Jeremy Corbyn to
the leadership of the British Labour Party, in New Zealand the LP remains
thoroughly Blairite.  Indeed, the rise of Corbyn - safe as he ultimately is
- seems to be a bit embarrassing for the NZ party.

The appointment of a new general secretary is simply another indicator of
how totally dedicated a band of capitalist managers the NZ Labour Party are:

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/new-labour-party-general-secretary-indicative-of-partys-managerial-capitalism/
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[Marxism] Nora Connolly O'Brien

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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I'm a strong admirer of hers and her conversation with CLR James gives a
glimpse into what a no-nonsense person she was.

She's never really received her due.

Part of this is due to the particularly sexist nature of the society that
was created after the 1921 Treaty.  And part of it is that in the major
political battle in which she was a key player - Republican Congress in the
mid-1930s - her main opponent, Peadar O'Donnell went on to be a famous
writer and leftist public intellectual.

I plan to write some kind of proper appreciation of her, but here's
something I wrote not long ago which argues she was right and O'Donnell
wrong in Republican Congress.  The piece is not all about her, because it's
in the context of a forum group being established bearing O'Donnell's name,
but folks might be interested:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/new-peadar-odonnell-society-a-few-comments/

And here's a wee piece on her by eirigi:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/nora-connolly-a-brief-note-on-her-life/#more-4408
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[Marxism] Kenan Malik on Charlie Hebdo, one year on

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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"It is a year today since Islamist gunmen burst into the Paris office
of *Charlie
Hebdo*, killing 12 people, including eight of the magazine’s staff. A few
days after the attack I was interviewed by the BBC. ‘Don’t you think’, the
interviewer asked, ‘ that the degree of solidarity expressed towards*Charlie
Hebdo* represents a turning in attitudes to free speech?’ ‘I doubt it’, I
replied. ‘There may be expressions of solidarity now. But fundamentally
little will change. If anything, the killings will only reinforce the idea
that one should not give offence.’
full at
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/kenan-malik-on-charlie-hebdo-one-year-on/
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[Marxism] Bowie

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Thanks Stuart for your comments about Australia.

You should write a letter to the Weekly Worker re the Abse letter about
"Fascist Bowie".

They have a very lively letters column and your letter would be read by
thousands of people,

The letters column of the current issue, which contains Tony Abse's letter
about Bowie, is here: http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1089/letters/

Phil
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[Marxism] C.L.R. James anecdote re Nora Connolly O'Brien

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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A mate of mine in Belfast sent me the following anecdote - CLR James
talking about Irish revolutionary Nora Connolly O'Brien (Connolly's eldest
daughter and a participant in the events of the 1916 rebellion, war for
independence and civil war; during part of the civil war she was acting
paymaster-general of the IRA.  She was friendly with the Trotskyists and
exchanged some mail with Trotsky himself.)

"I met Nora Connolly O'Brien. She came to London for the ILP. I had invited
her. I remember that woman, because in those days the British Trotskyite
revolutionaries were no more than left wing Labour. So I went to meet her
and invited her to come over here and speak, and she did. Coming from the
railway station we crossed the river by Parliament, and she said, 'You
should have done away with that years ago, it is easy from the river'. So I
said 'Yes, we are revolutionaries, but bombing the Houses of Parliament is
useless.' (She responded) 'You're talking of something that you know
nothing about!' She instinctively saw the revolutionary possibilities.
'From this side of the river you could bomb the Houses of Parliament and
get away with it.'

"When Anna Grimshaw later asked James about his visit (to Ireland) he 'said
that he didn't really understand what it meant to be revolutionary until he
went to Ireland. The English 'revolutionaries' were of a very different
kind than the Irish revolutionaries who really understood armed struggle
and revolutionary conflict'."

>From Christian Hogsbjorg's book on CLR James in Imperial Britain.

Phil
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Re: [Marxism] David Bowie

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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I'm in a public library, and the computer timed out just as I was writing a
follow-up email to say I didn't necessarily agree with everything in Abse's
letter.  In fact there was a letter directly underneath his which made the
point that artists are to be judged artistically, not politically.

But I thought a lot of people may not have known about Bowie's attitude to
British fascism, so I posted it for informational reasons.

I have one Bowie album, 'Hunky Dory', which I really like.  There are a few
songs on 'Aladdin Sane' which I quite like and I recall from high school
parties.  But most of Bowie's stuff leaves me cold.  I'd rather have
Madonna pop songs, frankly.

I also do find it odd that in the intensely political 1970s in Britain
Bowie managed to say bugger all about anything, including art and culture.
I think it is fair enough to say that he put himself forward as an 'artist'
with all kinds of cultural pretensions, but had no no vision of society at
all, other than toying with a sort of degenerated Weimar Republic set of
depictions that had little to do with bourgeois society in the Britain of
his time.

Kinda odd when even someone like Paul McCartney was singing (and being
banned for it) 'Give Ireland Back to the Irish'.  A whole heap of British
musicians of that decade had, and expressed, political views - usually of a
progressive kind.  Quite different from the US music scene.

On the other hand, some black American soul artists who know about their
art did rate stuff like Bowies 'Young Americans' album.

Phil


On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 2:00 PM, Louis Proyect  wrote:

> On 1/14/16 7:44 PM, Philip Ferguson via Marxism wrote:
>
>> Unlike John Lennon or Bob Dylan or Jimi Hendrix (or, some would argue,
>> Tory
>> squire Sir Mick Jagger in his youth), there is absolutely no sign that he
>> ever made even one political statement supporting our side.
>>
>
> These people need to read some Trotsky. He praised Celine, who was not a
> fascist under the influence of cocaine but one in the marrow of his bones.
> Trying to find anything "progressive" in Celine is a waste of time. What
> recommended him to Trotsky was his corrosive vision of bourgeois society,
> in a way a precursor to Holluebecq.
>
>
> https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/08/writer.htm
> Literary primness is foreign to Malaquais; he avoids neither forceful
> expressions nor vexatious scenes. Contemporary literature, especially the
> French, is as a rule more free in this respect than the old naturalists of
> Zola’s times, condemned by the rigorists. It would be ridiculous pedantry
> to pass judgment as to whether this is good or bad. Life has become more
> naked and merciless, especially since the World War, which destroyed not
> only many cathedrals but also many conventions; there is nothing else for
> literature to do than to adjust itself to life. But what a difference
> between Malaquais and a certain other French writer, who made himself
> famous a few years ago with a book of exceptional frankness! I am referring
> to Celine. No one before him had written about the needs and functions of
> the poor human body with such physiological persistence. But Celine’s hand
> is guided by embittered hurt, which descends to calumny of man. The artist,
> a physician by profession, seems to have the desire to convince us that the
> human being, obliged to discharge such low functions, is in no way
> distinguishable from a dog or a donkey, except perhaps by greater slyness
> and vengefulness. This hateful attitude toward life has clipped the wings o
> Celine’s art: he has not gone beyond his first book. Almost simultaneously
> with Celine, another sceptic became famous . Mairaux, who sought
> justification of his pessimism, not below, in physiology, but above, in the
> manifestations of human heroism. Malraux wrote one or two significant
> books. But he lacks backbone. He is organically seeking some outside force
> to lean on, some established authority. The lack of creative independence
> has envenomed his latest books with the poison of falsehood and has
> rendered them unfit for consumption.
>
>
>
>
>
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[Marxism] David Bowie

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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An interesting letter in the Weekly Worker, following the death of Bowie:

Fascist Bowie

In 1976, David Bowie, in his late 20s and already a public figure for about
a decade, not content with giving a Nazi salute from the back of a Mercedes
(Hitler’s favourite car) in the middle of Victoria Station, told*Playboy*:
“Britain is ready for a fascist leader … I think Britain would benefit from
a fascist leader. After all fascism is really nationalism … I believe very
strongly in fascism; people have always responded with greater efficiency
under a regimental leadership … Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock
stars … You have got to have an extreme-right front to come up and sweep
everything off its feet and tidy everything up.”

Apparently that is all OK for most of the so-called left, because Bowie was
high on cocaine at the time and later gave 50p to the Anti-Nazi League in
the 1990s (or some such nonsense), as they kept repeating *ad nauseam* on
Facebook every time I raised the issue of his totally unambiguous praise
for Hitler and fascism (which*Guardian* obituaries call “flirting”).

Unlike John Lennon or Bob Dylan or Jimi Hendrix (or, some would argue, Tory
squire Sir Mick Jagger in his youth), there is absolutely no sign that he
ever made even one political statement supporting our side. A lot of his
individualistic stuff clearly gives sustenance to the right, which is why
David Cameron, Tony Blair and the Archbishop of Canterbury (a former oil
trader from Eton) were so keen to mourn him.

Yet most of these very same self-defining Marxists who would not hear a
word against a fascist propagandist on Facebook were more or less saying in
January 2015 that the martyred leftist atheist cartoonists of *Charlie
Hebdo *were blaspheming Islamophobes who deserved what they got. And they
would probably agree with the Vatican’s condemnation of the first
anniversary issue, attacking the survivors for their more generalised
onslaught on all monotheistic religion, exemplified by their image of a
Judaeo-Christian god.

Maybe those who thought the title track of *Black star*was a hymn of praise
to IS were right and maybe these so-called leftists would endorse such
sentiments. Words fail me.

*Toby Abse*
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[Marxism] Rosa Luxemburg

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Thousands turn out for Rosa and Karl:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/14/thousands-turn-out-for-luxemburg-and-leibknecht/

Rosa on tariffs, protectionism, reformism:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/15/rosa-luxemburg-on-tariffs-protectionism-reformism/
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[Marxism] Fwd: When workers had class

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Thanks.

Something must have gone wrong with the formatting.

I'll fix it now.

Hope you had a good Xmas and New Year.

Phil



On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 2:50 PM, Thomas  wrote:

> What is an "indexjock"?
> Sentence two below]
>
> T
>
>
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[Marxism] Capitalism loves to tax

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Despite all the free market rhetoric, the simple reality is that capitalism
can't function without a strong state, including one that steps in to make
up for the continuous failures of 'the market'.

On Tuesday, there was a very interesting article in the *Irish Times* on
the various levies charged by the southern Irish state, levies which are
designed basically to underwrite the market.  They involve quite a range of
stuff from a levy people are charged on plastic bags to the water charge
levy.

See:
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/personal-finance/when-the-levees-break-consumers-pay-nine-levies-1.2493795
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[Marxism] When workers had class

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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With the class struggle currently in suspension, very few people, including
workers themselves, see the working class as the critical agent of social
change.  It has become much more fashionable to view ‘new social
movements’, intellectuals and so onindexjock as those who can effect
change.  And change itself is perceived as being organised from within the
power structures of society and even then in only the narrowest terms.
Industrial workers, meanwhile, are regarded as the most backward section of
society, to be controlled by the liberals staffing the state apparatus.

These two books are a powerful rejoinder to such fashionable snobbery.
They deal with. . .

Full at: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/when-workers-had-class/
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[Marxism] 100th anniversary of 1916 Irish rebellion

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/12/100th-anniversary-of-irelands-1916-rebellion/
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[Marxism] Moderation - clarification

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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When I said "However I received a number of offensive emails from him
off-list" I was, of course, referring to Luko, not Louis!

Phil
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[Marxism] Moderation

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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I wasn't going to get into a flame war with Luko on the list as that is not
what this list is for.  Louis puts a great deal of work into the list and
in finding interesting material and posting it here, and deserves better.

However I received a number of offensive emails from him off-list, the
worst of which suggested that the reason we reblog stuff on Redline could
be for financial gain - he began quizzing me about ads on Redline and I
explained to him that we do not put up the ads, they are done by
wordpress.  We gain no money form the ads, we don't solicit donations
either and we don't even have a bank account.

I was especially insulted because I have been unemployed for 18 months,
living off my redundancy pay.

When I told him I found his email stuff to me offensive, he denied he had
said any such thing - although there is t was right in front of me (and
him) and demanded I apologise or he'd 'expose' me on marxmail.

He then began stalking me on the internet.

The guy is nasty, vindictive and a nutter.

Good riddance.

Phil
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[Marxism] Al-Jazeera and Qatari foreign policy

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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I watch Al-Jazeera (English) quite a lot; it's so much better than NZ
television news and a lot of what passes for current affairs here.

However, Al-Jazeera is also closely tied to the Qatari ruling elite, not
only in terms of funding and editorial management, but in reflecting the
standpoint of the Qatari elite on various things.

This is especially true of Al-Jazeera Arabic, which pretty closely reflects
the foreign policy interests and imperatives of the Qatari elite.

My friend Karim Pourhamzavi and I have just had an article published
in the *Journal
of Media Critiques* on this subject which folks might be interested in.
You can read it here:
http://mediacritiques.net/index.php/jmc/article/view/57/39

For anyone who missed an earlier post of mine, Karim also wrote an opinion
piece re the heightening of Iran-Saudi tensions; it first appeared late
last week in the *Otago Daily Times*, but has been getting republished in
various other places, which is excellent.
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/369024/regional-rivalry-ratcheted-notch

Phil
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[Marxism] Commodifying tertiary education

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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During the postwar boom New Zealand had 'free' tertiary education.  I was
an undergraduate student a while after the boom ended, but my fees at
Canterbury University as a full-time student were $NZ40 a year (that's less
than 60 US dollars) and it was possible to earn that with just a week's pay
in the factory job I had in the holidays between school and university.

In the late 1980s, the fourth Labour government began introducing 'user
pays' as part of its right-wing economic reforms.  Student fees began to
rise massively and education has been commodified quite a bit since then -
although students today still only pay about 30% of what it costs to have
them at university.

While NZ is a specific case of the commodification of tertiary education,
the trend is global, so folks might be interested in this:

Commodifying education: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/1238/

Looking at what has happened in universities, it seems to me that the
process of turning universities into technocratic institutions, which was a
feature of the 1960s, got halted by revolts by students (and, to some
extent, staff).  But the right-wing economic reforms across most of the
First World in the 1980s kick-started the process again.  This time round
it has met with much less resistance, so has continually eroded the old
bourgeois-liberal notion of a liberal university education.

Phil
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[Marxism] Songs of protest in Aotearoa (New Zealand)

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/revolting-the-sound-of-protest-in-aotearoa/
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[Marxism] Work/life balance - a sick joke under capitalism

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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I've been struck in the past few years by the amount of discussion in
'mainstream' circles about the work/life balance and its importance.  Even
some business guru types will bang on about it.

Yet there is almost no discussion in the 'mainstream' about structural
obstacles to achieving a good work/life balance.

The end of the postwar boom meant that, suddenly, bourgeois ideology
shifted form questions like "What on earth are we going to do with all the
free time we're going to have due to the technological revolution?" to
justifying the fact that we had to work longer, harder, faster due to the
onset of the much more 'normal' boom-bust pattern of capitalism.

Moreover, not only has work become harder and faster in terms of
day-to-day, it has also become longer in that we need to work more hours to
get sufficient pay to make ends meet plus in many advanced capitalist
countries the retirement age is being raised.

And then there's the Third World. . . the majority of humanity.

I tried to get to grips with some of these issues (in the First World) in
these pieces:
Whatever happened to the leisure society?:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/whatever-happened-to-the-leisure-society/
The piece on pensions and the retirement age:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/pensions-and-the-retirement-age-the-problem-is-capitalism-not-an-aging-population/
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[Marxism] This is Ireland: we do fight back

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/05/30/this-is-ireland-we-do-fight-back/

Plus: Ireland - this is what resistance looks like:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/30/irish-lessons-this-is-what-resistance-looks-like/

We could do with some of this in NZ where things like workplace closures
are more likely to be met by workers bursting into tears than resisting.

Phil
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[Marxism] Richard Behal interview pt 3

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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I've stuck up part three of a lengthy interview conducted by my friend Mick
Healy with legendary Irish republican veteran Richard Behal.

https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2016/01/09/richard-behal-interview-pt-3/

Other recent material on The Irish Revolution blog includes. . .

Connolly, the Dublin Steampacket Company dispute and the 1916 Rising:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/connolly-the-dublin-steampacket-company-dispute-and-the-1916-rising/
This is a fascinating article on an important industrial dispute that broke
out shortly before the Rising and Rayner argues it had a significant impact
on Connolly's role in the rebellion

James Connolly, imperialism and anti-imperialism:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/12/09/james-connolly-imperialism-and-anti-imperialism/

Red nationalism of the blood or cultural gesture:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/red-nationalism-of-the-blood-or-cultural-gesture/

Imperialism, Connolly and Lenin - some comments:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/12/05/imperialism-connolly-and-lenin-some-comments/

James Connolly, Germany and the First World War:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/james-connolly-germany-and-the-first-world-war-was-connolly-a-proto-lenin/

Phil
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[Marxism] NZ imperialism and Samoa

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Although most of the left in NZ treat NZ as if it is a neo-colony, the
reality is that it is an imperialist player. These days, it occupies a
position where it's role is one of a kind of boutique imperialism (to
borrow a phrase coined by my friend Tom O'Lincoln about Australia).

One of the places on the receiving end of NZ imperialism historically has
been Samoa.

Samoa: what NZ did:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/samoa-what-new-zealand-did/

Depriving Samoans of immigration and citizenship rights:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/depriving-samoans-of-immigration-and-citizenship-rights/

On NZ imperialism more generally, see:

New Zealand: neo-colony of junior imperialist?:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/05/05/new-zealand-neo-colony-or-junior-imperialist/

NZ elite win seat on UN Security Council:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/nz-elite-win-seat-at-un-security-council-dont-celebrate-organise/

And an interesting article by a leading Green Party figure, Keith Locke
(who osme folks here will remember, esp older Canadian cdes) who is now a
liberal-nationalist but once was a Marxist.  This is from when he was a
Marxist:
Campaigning against 'foreign control': is it progressive?:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/09/22/campaigning-against-foreign-control-is-it-progressive/

Phil
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Re: [Marxism] About Amazon

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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It's a great example of how capitalism creates these developments that
could be amazing, but completely distorts them because of the profit motive.

Phil


On Sat, Jan 9, 2016 at 4:08 PM, Andrew Pollack  wrote:

> Excellent piece. More proof that Amazon is objective socialization on
> steroids - and therefore ripe for the plucking once workers' struggles,
> especially by Amazon workers, pose the question of putting its technical
> and organizational advances in our hands.
>
> On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 8:14 PM, Philip Ferguson via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
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>>
>> Amazon - the global digital East India Company of the 21st Century?:
>>
>> https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/10/18/amazon-the-global-digital-east-india-company-of-the-21st-century/
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>
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[Marxism] About Amazon

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Amazon - the global digital East India Company of the 21st Century?:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/10/18/amazon-the-global-digital-east-india-company-of-the-21st-century/
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[Marxism] Saudi Iran tensions

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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A mate of mine had an article published in the Otago Daily Times - the
Dunedin daily paper - yesterday, which folks might be interested in.

http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/369024/regional-rivalry-ratcheted-notch

Phil
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[Marxism] World War 2: the battle of the books

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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James Heartfield, author of the excellent Unpatriotic History of the Second
World War, on the battle of the books about WW2:

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/11/26/second-world-war-the-battle-of-the-books/

There is a link at the end to a video of Heartfield speaking on his WW2
book.

Phil
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[Marxism] Marxism and women's liberation

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Links to some excellent articles on Redline blog on this subject:

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/marxism-and-womens-liberation/
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[Marxism] Workers, unions and the fight for equal pay in Australia

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/equal-pay-is-a-class-issue-trade-unions-and-the-fight-for-equal-pay-in-australia/
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[Marxism] Labour parties and their left oppositions

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Just as, in the imperialist countries, the ruling class requires a 'loyal
opposition' in the form of Labour parties - indeed, today LPs are generally
an integral part of capital's political establishment, not oppositional in
any sense - so Labour parties require internal loyal oppositions.

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/08/21/labour-parties-and-their-left-oppositions/
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[Marxism] Rosa Luxemburg, murdered January 15, 1919

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Rosa Luxemburg's last article:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/rosa-luxemburgs-last-article/

Rosa Luxemburg's political legacy:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/rosa-luxemburgs-political-legacy/

Rosa Luxemburg on Marxism, class struggle and the fight for women's right
to vote:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/rosa-luxemburg-on-class-struggle-and-the-fight-for-womens-right-to-vote/
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[Marxism] Saudi dictatorship's dirty tricks

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Wikileaks exposure of Saudi regime's dirty tricks:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/06/26/wikileaks-exposes-saudi-dictatorships-dirty-tricks/

Phil
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[Marxism] Saudi Arabia state policy

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/saudi-arabia-changing-the-succession-to-intensify-the-war/
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[Marxism] Connolly, the Dublin Steampacket Co. dispute and the 1916 Rebellion

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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All too often, James Connolly’s last months tend to be seen as a period in
which he compartmentalised his tasks, dividing his time between preparing a
military uprising and, to a lesser extent, performing basic trade union
work. An extreme variation of this is that he followed the majority of his
socialist contemporaries in abandoning the class struggle at least until
the end of the World War, if not altogether, and that, in any case, he
never organised an actual, or, anyway a major strike.

None of these assumptions is true. The full facts of his wartime career
show him to have been acting as a socialist, even if, as he admitted, other
socialists would not understand.

His guiding strategy was summarised in the last paragraph of the Resolution
on War, passed in 1907 by the Socialist International’s Congress at
Stuttgart:
"In case war should break out... it is the duty of the working classes and
their parliamentary representatives to intervene in favour of its speedy
termination and with all their powers to utilise the economic and political
crisis created by the war to rouse the masses and thereby to hasten the
downfall of capitalist class rule."

This has been ignored all too often by those trying to explain Connolly’s
first World War strategy. This ignorance is helped by the fact that. . . .

full at:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/connolly-the-dublin-steampacket-company-dispute-and-the-1916-rising/
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[Marxism] Some tales from the 1960s

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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The 1968 strike by women car workers that helped launch the women's
liberation movement in Britain:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/class-gender-the-1960s-and-made-in-dagenham/

The Profumo Affair - a moral panic:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/the-profumo-affair-a-moral-panic-between-austerity-britain-and-the-swinging-sixties/

The 1968 student rebellion in Mexico:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/the-1968-student-rebellion-in-mexico/

The October 1968 Olympics and the spirit of freedom:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/the-1968-olympics-and-the-spirit-of-resistance/

France in May-June 1968 - the glimmer of revolution:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/france-may-june-1968-the-glimmer-of-revolution/
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[Marxism] Ireland water tax - hilarious

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Einde wrote:
>In one attack a right-wing politician argued against the protestors.
"You'd almost think that water falls from the sky ..." He missed the
fact that in Ireland that's exactly where the water comes from.

That made me laugh out loud mate.

It's like something out of Monty Python or Father Ted.

Made my day.

Happy New Year.

Phil
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[Marxism] Palestinian liberation

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Some key pieces from Redline:

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/03/palestinian-liberation/
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[Marxism] Irish revolutionary calendar - Irish Citizen Army

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/03/irish-revolutionary-calendar/
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[Marxism] Palestinian liberation

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/01/03/palestinian-liberation/
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[Marxism] Sabotaging the water tax in Ireland

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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One of the advantages of a country having a revolutionary tradition, as
Ireland does, is that people have a lot less worry about challenging the
state, including the cops.

In Ireland, people have boycotted the water tax
(non-registration/non-payment), marched in their hundreds of thousands, and
also engaged in physically attempting to stop water meters being put in
and, where Irish Water has been able to install meters, sabotaging the
meters.

eirigi has helpfully produced a video encouraging sabotage of these meters
and showing people how to do it.

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/eirigi-video-on-water-meter-sabotage/
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[Marxism] Irish songs of resistance

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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I've stuck up Damien Dempsey sing 'James Connolly' at one of the mass
anti-water tax rallies in Dublin and him and Glen Hansard singing the old
Brendan Behan song 'The Aul' Triangle' at another anti-water tax rally,
with some extra verses added with anti-water tax lines:

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/31/songs-of-resistance-james-connolly-and-the-aul-triangle/

Phil
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[Marxism] Ireland: 21st century Irish republicanism

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Revolutionary Ireland: eirigi statement:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/revolutionary-ireland-eirigi-new-year-statement/

The New IRA and socialist-republicanism in the 21st century:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/the-new-ira-and-socialist-republicanism-in-the-twenty-first-century/

Republicanism in the 21st century - report on a meeting:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/republicanism-in-the-twenty-first-century-report-on-a-meeting/

Building an alternative movement in Ireland - interview with eirigi
national chairperson Brian Leeson:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/07/31/building-an-alternative-movement-in-ireland-interview-with-eirigi-national-chairperson-brian-leeson/
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[Marxism] Irish lessons: this is what resistance looks like

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Over the past couple of years, while the working class in New Zealand lets
itself be walked all over, workers in Ireland – on both sides of the border
imposed by British imperialism – have been resisting austerity.  The most
powerful expression of this resistance has been that hundreds of thousands
of workers in the south have been on the streets in local communities and
city and town centres opposing the water tax imposed by the Fine
Gael-Labour government.

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/30/irish-lessons-this-is-what-resistance-looks-like/
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[Marxism] Music

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Seth Lakeman is probably my favourite gigging musician right now - even
ahead of Peter Hammill - and Damien Dempsey is my second or third (with
Hammill in there).

If you liked the videos I posted links to, you might fancy these reviews of
Lakeman and Dempsey.

Damo does the Dux (review of a Damo gig in Christchurch, NZ):
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/damo-does-the-dux-gig-review/

And on Seth Lakeman's last two albums and a wonderful gig of his at Lusty
Glaze, on the outskirts of Newquay in Cornwall (the town is the surfing
capital of Britain, while Cornwall is one of my favourite places in the
world):
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/12/30/seth-lakemans-workers-lives-review-of-tales-from-the-barrelhouse-and-word-of-mouth/
This article also has links to some of my favourite Seth songs, performed
at the beautiful Minack Theatre by Land's End.

Phil
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[Marxism] Music for the holiday season

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Something completely different.  Here are a few music videos I think are
pretty cool, the first one I discovered about a fortnight ago, the others
are old favourites:

Hypnotic Wheels, 'Down in Mississippi' (the old JB Lenoir classic):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nymrjpgpt8A&google_comment_id=z12rgxagqrjyeztqy04cixsamubigpvb0bc

Look at pretty much anything by Seth Lakeman, such a down-to-earth, modest,
wonderfully-talented dude.  Especially anything from his concert at the
stunning Minack Theatre in Cornwall in 2009.
For instance, 'Blood Upon Copper':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WauBCZjOANc
'Blood Red Sky':  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDdVWgk0fvI
'Greed and Gold': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui2bN7B-1uA
'How Much': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhdWsHEuSw0
'The Storm':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwLK0rJ3keA&list=RDDwLK0rJ3keA#t=0

And the wonderful Damien Dempsey, performing 'Masai':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk1Nz6McGxk
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[Marxism] Recent on Redline

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Capitalist modernisation and the left:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/24/capitalist-modernisation-and-the-nz-left/

Veteran Iranian revolutionary Torab Saleth on the class nature of the
regime:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/23/veteran-iranian-revolutionary-on-the-class-nature-of-the-regime/

Can anything be done? revolutionary politics and organising in NZ today:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/28/can-anything-be-done-revolutionary-politics-and-organising-in-new-zealand-today/

Developing Marxist theory today:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/22/developing-marxist-theory-today/
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[Marxism] Michael Roberts, Marx, crisis theory

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Thanks Louis for drawing attention to Michael Roberts' new series of
articles on Marx and capitalist crisis.

Roberts is one of my three or four favourite bloggers.  His blog is a
wonderful source of both factual information and theory.  Long may he
continue.

Phil
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[Marxism] Can anything be done - revolutionary politics and organising in NZ today

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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This is a very NZ-specific article; indeed it's very specific to a
particular organisation, but the problems are ones encountered across the
NZ left and probably reflected elsewhere, although to a lesser degree:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/28/can-anything-be-done-revolutionary-politics-and-organising-in-new-zealand-today/

Phil
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[Marxism] Low horizons and the legacy of defeats

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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I wrote this over three years ago, about the NZ situation, but I think it
has some relevance throughout the imperialist world.  In NZ the working
class is more passive than just about anywhere, but the problems discussed
in the piece characterise the working class in most of the imperialist
countries, certainly the predominantly English-speaking ones: Canada, US,
Australia, NZ, Britain.

Rosa Luxemburg noted that if people don't move they don't notice their
chains.  What will bring about some serious motion in the working class in
these countries?

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/low-horizons-and-the-legacy-of-defeats/
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[Marxism] How the Mo Ibrahim Award demeans African people

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/09/20/how-the-mo-ibrahim-award-demeans-african-people/
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[Marxism] Eagleton on intellectuals vs academics

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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“Intellectuals are not only different from academics, but almost the
opposite of them. Academics usually plough. . .

Great wee (two-paragraph) comment by Eagleton on the distinction.
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[Marxism] Western creations that bit back

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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How Washington created Osama Bin Laden:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/how-the-west-created-osama-bin-laden/

Israel's role in the creation of Hamas:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/israels-role-in-the-creation-of-hamas/
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[Marxism] Remembering George Habah, Palestinian revolutionary intellectual and freedom fighter

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/remembering-george-habash/
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[Marxism] Capitalist modernisation - the NZ case

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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On this blog and previously in *revolution* magazine and *The Spark*newspaper,
we have argued for almost two decades that the NZ ruling class has been
undertaking a modernisation project.  I’m not a huge base-superstructure
fan but, to sum it up in those terms, which can be useful short-hand, they
have been bringing the superstructure in line with the base. . .
full at:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/24/capitalist-modernisation-and-the-nz-left/
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[Marxism] Oops, forgot this one on the Provisionals

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Anyone for tennis?
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/anyone-for-tennis/

Phil
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[Marxism] Marxism and the Iranian revolution

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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By an ex-Fedayeen (Minority) activist:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/marxism-and-the-iranian-revolution/

Here's an interview I did the following year with that activist:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/repression-and-resistance-in-iran-interview-with-yassamine-mather/

Here's an interview I did in 2008 with a central leader of the Iranian
Trotskyist movement at the time of the 1979 revolution/counter-revolution;
this comrade was from the European (as opposed to US-based) part of the
merger which created the united Iranian section of the FI.  At the top of
this feature is a piece he wrote on the working class movement in Iran in
2014; underneath that is the interview (Torab remains a committed Marxist
but he's not a Trotskyist these days):
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/the-working-class-movement-in-iran-2014-and-a-2008-interview-with-torab-saleth/

I think we'll be putting up a couple more pieces on the
revolution/counter-revolution of 1979 by Torab.  (It's very simplistic to
simply talk about the 1979 revolution when it was actually interwoven with
a counter-revolution and it was the latter which triumphed.)

One of my best mates, who also lives in my house, is an Iranian political
refugee, albeit of much more recent times.  I've had some very interesting
discussions with him about how the imperialists - most particularly the US
- were in discussions with the Khomeini current about replacing the shah.
He's very busy with his PhD and academic articles at present, but I'll ask
him to write something on this.

Phil
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Re: [Marxism] Libya - the rule of the militias

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Saman wrote:

> What came after the Shah was worse? What kind of a statement is this? So
> would it be better not to have had the 1979 Revolution?
>

Of curse, I didn't say any such thing.  My point was that what came after
was worse than the shah and, as evidence, I noted that the Islamic Republic
was far more successful at wiping out the left than the shah ever was.


Let's not mix up the shortcomings of the left at a historical juncture
> (ideologically, politically, organizationally, etc...) which did not allow
> it to take advantage of a monumental historical opportunity; with
> dismissing the revolution itself. This is so un-Marxist.  We did not like
> the result of the revolution, so we just write it off. Forget that history
> does not bend to our desires and whims- damn that materialism.
>


Never wrote off the revolution of late 1978-early 1979.

But the left was so focused on getting rid of the shah they played down the
danger of the Islamists - well, they played it down *and* made out that
people like Khomeini weren't really all that bad.



Even with what came (Islamic republic) the society was completely
> transformed in a way that the Islamic republic Guardians cannot contain its
> development.
>


Isn't this unhistorical?  You're assuming that the society wasn't already
being transformed in ways which the shah could not contain.

Indeed, the shah set off a train of events that made his own dictatorship
unsustainable.  The new regime *set back* many of these developments - eg
women's rights - making the conditions of the fight for a socialist
revolution *more difficult*.  Could the Pahlavis have lasted another 35
years, as the Islamic elite's dictatorship has?



I still think the revolution was a huge step forward for the development of
> the material conditions and the possibility of a socialist future- despite
> the Islamic regime (not because of it).
>


And why would this not have also been the case under the Pahlavi
dictatorship?  Why would the material conditions not have continued to
develop without the Islamic regime?



Unfortunately too many Iranians, even some of them part of the left, repeat
> the same thing "Shah was better". This effectively puts you in a
> counter-revolutionary posture.
>


What succeeded *was* a counter-revolution.  A counter-revolution triumphed
over an incipient revolution.  I'm not going to do anything so silly as to
say "This effectively puts you in a counter-revolutionary posture",
however.  I simply think you are wrong.


Name-calling and "who was worse" sloganeering is not a good substitute for
> actual analysis.
>


Saman, you've done a bit of name-calling yourself here and you've done some
sloganeering about "who was worse".

My position is that the left (internationally and within Iran) vastly
underestimated the danger of the Islamic current led by Khomeini.  And they
paid a huge price for that error.  Do you really disagree?

Phil
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[Marxism] Tracing the degeneration of the Provos in Ireland

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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The Provisionals (IRA/SF) have long since traversed the path from
revolutionary opponents of British imperialism and the neo-colonial state
in the south of Ireland to major props for both.

This degeneration is one of the major subjects on the irish revolution blog.

'The burning of the British embassy - forty years on' is a 2012 piece
examining how the Provos had the initiative in the early 1970s, especially
after the British massacre of civil rights marchers in Derry in January
1972, but lost it fairly quickly.  In 1972 the southern state was powerless
to prevent the burning down of the British embassy in Dublin in the wake of
the Derry massacre; by the time of the hunger strikes of 1981, the southern
state, despite the mass sympathy for the hunger strikers, felt confident
enough to beat mass protests off the street in Dublin.  I examine this
process here:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/the-burning-of-the-british-embassy-40-years-on/

Former IRSP political education officer Liam O Ruairc traces the political
degeneration of the Provos in a three-part series on the blog.
Pt One:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/a-history-of-the-provisional-republican-movement-part-one-of-three/
Pt Two:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/a-history-of-the-provos-part-two/
Pt Three:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/a-history-of-the-provos-part-three/

Here is a speech by Liam in Hamburg last year on winners and losers in the
'peace' process:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/winners-and-losers-in-the-peace-process/

Here's a piece by me from 2005, which first appeared in the *Weekly Worker*
in Britain, drawing on my own experience as a Sinn Fein activist (1986-94):
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/behind-the-betrayal-of-the-irish-freedom-struggl/

Here's an interview I did with Gerry Ruddy.  Gerry was involved in PD, the
pioneering 'new left' group that emerged in the north in 1968; he was later
in the IRSP for many years:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/interview-with-veteran-socialist-republican-gerry-ruddy/

Phil
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[Marxism] Short primers on capitalism

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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How capitalism works - and doesn't work:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/how-capitalism-works-%E2%80%93-and-doesn%E2%80%99t-work/

How capitalist ideology works:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/how-capitalism-works/
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Re: [Marxism] Libya - the rule of the militias

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Qaddafi was a brutal dictator, the article doesn't suggest otherwise.

But the point of getting rid of people like him is to have *something
better* - not something worse.

On the one had we have the people who dress up corrupt repressive dictators
as 'anti-imperialists' and prettify them.  But the alternative is not to
adopt an Anybody But Qaddafi (or whatever dictator) and not worry about the
consequences.

People did this with the shah of Iran and what came after was worse - and
certainly far more effective at annihilating the left.

Phil

On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 6:28 PM, Clay Claiborne  wrote:

> What would the rule of a self-armed people look like and what would its
> critics call it?
>
> Qaddafi's police state murder of 1200 prisoners in 2009?, that wasn't
> chaos.
> Sending in helo gunships to settle southern tribal disputes, that wasn't
> chaos.
> When Qaddafi gunned down 700 protesters in Green Sq. 21 Feb 2011, that
> wasn't chaos
> Venezuela, with 10 times the murder rate of Libya in 2014, that was chaos,
> Syria is better off with no no-fly zone.
>
> I guess its all a matter of perspective.
>
> Expecting a revolution with no chaos is like expecting a revolution with
> no detractors.
> .
> Why would I read this article? I already know what happened and why.
>
>
> Clay Claiborne, Director
> Vietnam: American Holocaust 
> Linux Beach Productions
> Venice, CA 90291
> (310) 581-1536
>
> Read my blogs at the Linux Beach 
> 
>
>
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[Marxism] What was Jesus?

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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At Xmas time, an interesting piece:
Jesus wasn't a Christian; he was a Jewish revolutionary:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/04/03/jesus-wasnt-a-christian-he-was-a-jewish-revolutionary/
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[Marxism] NZ Labour Party and anti-Chinese racism

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Back in February 2002, Labour prime minister Helen Clark apologised to New
Zealanders of Chinese descent for the racism of the poll tax imposed on
Chinese migrating to New Zealand from 1881 until the 1930s – it was finally
abolished in 1944, but hadn’t been collected for some years before that.

At its peak the poll tax was a hundred pounds – the equivalent of at least
several years work (according to the*Herald *report on the apology, this
was the equivalent of ten years work
, but
this seems an exaggeration as this would mean an income of only
four shillings a week).

Clark was offering the apology, so it seemed, on behalf of the government
and trying to make up for the record of the governments of the poll-tax
era.  What she omitted, however, was that the early Labour Party was
viciously racist against the Chinese.

See: Labour’s racist roots


Moreover, that early racism hardly ended in 1944.  Her own government
rushed through legislation to make it harder for Chinese to gain entry and
earlier this year tried playing the anti-Chinese card to shore up its poor
poll ratings, blaming people with ‘Chinese-sounding surnames’ for the
housing shortage and high home prices in Auckland.

See: A stain that won’t wash off – Labour’s racist campaign against those
with “Chinese surnames”


Happily, that campaign didn’t win much support

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[Marxism] Libya - the rule of the militias

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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*In October 2011 the corrupt and repressive regime of Muammar Gaddafi was
overthrown in Libya by a set of rebel forces backed by NATO.  Very quickly
the country descended into chaos, broken up into a series of areas run by
rival warlords and their militias.  The Libyan people have paid a high
price for their ‘liberation’.  The following article was written a year
later, in October 2012, and explains what happened and why.  The article
has certainly been confirmed by events since.*

*After NATO, another key imperialist institution, the United Nations, began
playing a central role in the ongoing chaos.  Now a new peace deal is
supposed to unite the country behind a single parliament – two parliaments
emerged after the overthrow of Gaddafi – and a government has been
appointed.  The prospects of peace, let alone peace and prosperity, seem
very limited however.  Once again Western intervention has wreaked havoc.*

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/20/libya-after-gaddafi-the-rule-of-the-militias/
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[Marxism] Bourgeois ideology - what was once solid melts into air

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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*How capitalist ideology works
*

*Pensions and the retirement age: the problem is capitalism not an aging
population
*

*‘Respect for diversity’: 21st century NZ capitalism’s necessary ideology
*

*Marxism, mysticism and modern theory
*

*Can “we” afford a living wage?
*

*The Alasdair Thompson affair, NZ capitalism and ruling class ideology
today
*


*Alan Turing and the changes in bourgeois ideology
*

*The impact of women’s changing role in the workplace
*

*Southern Irish society and politics and the referendum on gay marriage
*
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[Marxism] Science, science fiction, reason

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Science and the retreat from reason:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/9889/

Science, capitalism and human liberation:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/science-capitalism-and-human-liberation/

Ken MacLeod on science fiction after the end of history:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/from-the-vaults-science-fiction-after-the-end-of-history-1998/
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[Marxism] How capitalism survives - opening a discussion

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/11/15/how-capitalism-survives-opening-a-discussion/
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[Marxism] Korsch and Marx plus

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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The best book on Marx I think I ever read was by Karl Korsch.  it was
written in the mid-1930s.  I actually thought it was better than the book
for which Korsch is most renowned, 'Marxism and Philosophy'.

Korsch also wrote an excellent introduction to a 1930s edition of Capital:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/karl-korsch-on-tremendous-and-enduring-impact-of-marxs-capital-1932/

Another excellent piece on Capital - well, capital, the working class and
Marx's critique of political economy:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/capital-the-working-class-and-marxs-critique-of-political-economy/

And an excellent piece by one of my favourite writers on Marx's philosophy
and economics, the late and lamented Geoff Pilling, here on Marx's critique
of classical political economy:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/marxs-critique-of-classical-political-economy/

Phil
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[Marxism] South Africa and the continuing consequences of 'race' over class

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/south-africa-and-the-consequences-of-race-over-class/
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[Marxism] John Percy on balance sheet of 'broad party' strategy

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Been around for a few years but worth a read:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/an-international-balance-sheet-of-the-broad-party-strategy/

And the problems of overly narrow groups:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/bureaucratic-centralism-versus-democratic-centralism/
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[Marxism] Precarious work

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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While the notion of precarious workers is starting to be investigated by
sociologists, it's hard to see these workers as marginal - there actually
just isn't a lot of secure work about these days, even in much of the
imperialist heartland world.

Some pieces from Redline:

Information technology and the rise of a new servant class:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/information-technology-and-the-rise-of-new-zealands-modern-servant-class/

Where 'talents' go to die - diary of a US call centre worker:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/where-talents-go-to-die-diary-of-a-us-call-centre-worker/

Diary of an office worker:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/diary-of-an-office-worker-2/

Bending over backwards - NZ's temp economy and capital's growing need for
flexible labour:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/information-technology-and-the-rise-of-new-zealands-modern-servant-class/

The real working life of a chef - a view from the inside:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/the-real-working-life-of-a-chef-a-view-from-the-inside/

The political economy of low-wage labour:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/the-political-economy-of-low-wage-labour/
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[Marxism] Revolution and counter-revolution after the 1916 Rebellion

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Here's a few pieces I wrote on this period.  They were written in 1995 and
the first few months of 1996.  There's been a lot of new information and
scholarship over the past 20 years, obviously.  But I think these pieces
hold up well.

Republicans and the national independence struggle, 1916-21:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/republicanism-and-the-national-independence-struggle-1916-21/

The working class and the national struggle, 1916-1921:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/the-working-class-and-the-national-struggle-1916-1921/

Women's rights and the national struggle, 1916-1922:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/women%E2%80%99s-rights-and-the-national-struggle-1916-1922/

>From Truce to Treaty: the pan-nationalist front divides:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/from-truce-to-treaty-the-pan-nationalist-front-divides/

Civil war, counter-revolution and the consolidation of the Free State:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/civil-war-counter-revolution-and-the-consolidation-of-the-free-state/

Winners and Losers in an Unfree State:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/chapt-12-winners-and-losers-in-an-unfree-state/
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[Marxism] Refugee crisis: capitalist world strangled by wars and poverty

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/refugee-crisis-a-capitalist-world-strangled-by-wars-and-poverty/
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[Marxism] 40th anniversary of defeat of imperialism in Vietnam

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/vietnam-40th-anniversary-of-the-triumph-over-imperialism/
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[Marxism] Imperialism, Connolly and Lenin - some comments

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/12/05/imperialism-connolly-and-lenin-some-comments/
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[Marxism] The way forward for workers and trade unionists

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Veteran workplace union activist and Marxist Don Franks addressed a meeting
organised by the Workers Educational Association in Christchurch (New
Zealand) this month two years ago on the way forward for workers and union
activists.

Don was a militant union delegate in one of the big car plants in
Wellington in the 1970s.  After it closed down in the 1980s he became a
cleaner for the rest of his working life, as well as being active in the
cleaners' union.  He's probably the most experience shopfloor militant in
the country, albeit recently retired.


https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/12/08/which-way-forward-for-workers-and-unions/
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[Marxism] Chinese investment in Africa

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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A few days ago Louis posted an interesting piece about Chinese investment
in Nigeria.

I was sick a couple of days and ended up watching TV a lot during the day.
One of the things I watched was a travel show about Namibia.  A bit
depressing - a couple of decades after 'freedom' massive poverty and
inequality remains the order of the day.  But the show also had a few bits
about Chinese investment there; the Chinese seem to be major outside
investors in Namibia.

They are also now significant investors in the Pacific.  This presents
Australia and NZ with a few interesting contradictions.  On the one hand,
both countries had rigid white immigration policies directed primarily
against the Chinese, were hostile to China in the Cold War yet now have
vital trade links with China.

China, for instance, is now NZ major export market - it even overtook
Australia a year or two back in that regard.  China is a more important
trade partner than the United States for both Australia and New Zealand.
And with a substantial wealthy class and a huge middle class (in straight
numerical terms) China is likely to remain a key export destination for
what bourgeois economists call value-added export goods from Australia and
NZ.

Yet, historically, we have really close ties with the United States, going
back over 100 years, but becoming even more strong during WW2 and the Cold
War.  The NZ ruling class tends to be a bit less ra-ra for the US than
Australia, but the ruling classes on both sides of the Tasman are in a bit
of a bind.  On the one hand, historically allied with the US in
Asia-Pacific, now more profitable links with China while at the same time
wary of Chinese investment and influence in Pacific island countries.

You'd almost feel sorry for the Chinese.  They were hated by the US ruling
class when they were 'communist' and they're hated, possibly even more, now
they're very successful capitalists.
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[Marxism] Leila Khaled poster

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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A great poster of the iconic Palestinian revolutionary - it only costs a
few bucks and this is a great way to support the Irish revolutionary
movement eirigi:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/leila-khaled-poster/

There are also excellent posters of Lenin, Marx, Che and other iconic - as
well as Irish - revolutionary figures.

Phil
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[Marxism] James Connolly, imperialism and anti-imperialism

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Excellent piece by my friend Liam O Ruairc on Connolly, imperialism and
anti-imperialism.

>Connolly developed a number of innovative theoretical positions regarding
the relationship between marxism and anti-imperialism; positions heretical
to both conventional forms of Irish nationalism and the form of socialism
espoused by the Second International prevalent during his life time. He was
among the first to combine the politics of anti-imperialist nationalism
with international marxism in the colonial arena. His fundamental teaching
is that the struggle for national liberation from imperialism is not
opposed  to the struggle for socialism but and integral and necessary part
of it. This is why, in his view, “The cause of labour is the cause of
Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour. They cannot be
dissevered” (Connolly 1988, 175).  Why are the two interdependent? . . .
 full at:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/12/09/james-connolly-imperialism-and-anti-imperialism/
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[Marxism] Video of eirigi chairperson speech to 2015 ard fheis

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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eirigi is probably the most exciting development since the formation of the
IRSP over 30 years ago.  While the core of eirigi came out of the Provos
(IRA/SF), they are very keen supporters of Seamus Costello, who left the
Officials to found the IRSP.  (The other most well-known IRSP founder being
Bernadette Devlin).

Anyway, here is the address to the 2015 national conference of eirigi in
late November by party chairperson Brian Leeson:

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/06/eirigis-2015-ard-fheis-national-conference-chairpersons-speech/

Phil
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[Marxism] India's own military-industrial complex

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/indias-rising-corporate-military-complex-a-critical-appraisal/
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[Marxism] New on The Irish Revolution

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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A discussion on Connolly, German imperialism, WWI and imperialism.

Hopefully interesting.

Here is Liam O Ruairc, an independent socialist-republican, who was the
IRSP education officer for about ten years:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/james-connolly-germany-and-the-first-world-war-was-connolly-a-proto-lenin/

Here's my follow-up comments:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/12/05/imperialism-connolly-and-lenin-some-comments/

Here's an excellent piece from Liam about the international significance of
1916:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/the-global-historical-significance-of-the-1916-rising/

Another piece by Liam looks at two quotes attributed to Connolly:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/11/30/hold-on-to-your-rifles-and-let-no-shot-be-fired-in-ulster-notes-on-two-remarks-attributed-to-connolly/

A short piece on lesbian revolutionaries of the Rising and afterwards:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/gay-women-and-men-and-1916/

Phil
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[Marxism] New on Redline

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Farewell Jill Brasell:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/farewell-jill-brassell/
Jill was an early member of the Wellington Women's Liberation Front and
active in the new revolutionary left circles that began emerging in NZ in
the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as being a talented musician.  She
died of cancer at the start of this week.  Her funeral in Wellington was
attended by about 300 people, a mark of the respect for her.  Jill was also
involved in the founding of Redline blog.

Imprisoned PFLP leader Ahmad Saadat calls for sustaining and strengthenng
the new intifada:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/imprisoned-pflp-leader-sustain-and-strengthen-new-intifada/

The NZ Labour Party has been in the poll doldrums since its defeat in 2008.
 it has now lost three elections in a row and still can't get above 30% in
the polls.  In the past 6 years it has also had five leaders.  Current
leader Andrew Little's recent reshuffle of the shadow cabinet is unlikely
to change anything in the fortunes of this wretched party.  However,
unfortunately, it is not going away soon:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/labours-reshuffle-makes-no-difference-to-anything/

Lutte Ouvriere on the Paris attacks:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/french-revolutionaries-on-paris-terrorist-attacks/

NZ police censorship:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/11/26/police-censorship-the-jarrod-gilbert-case/
The cops are the most politically-correct of the NZ government depts, but
every now and then we get a glimpse beneath the pro-diversity ideological
waffle.

'Respect for diversity': NZ capital's new necessary ideology:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/respect-for-diversity-modern-nz-capitalisms-necessaryby-ideology/
The NZ ruling class has long since embraced 'respect for diversity' as a
key ideological and organising principle.  We explain why and reassert the
necessity for class-based politics

Phil
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[Marxism] Free Ahmad Saadat

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Next month will mark the 14th anniversary of the abduction and imprisonment
of Ahmad Saadat by the Israeli state.  Ahmad is the general-secretary of
the leading left-secular Palestinian organisation, the PFLP.

The case of Ahmad Saadat:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/the-case-of-ahmad-saadat-palestinian-revolutionary-leader-and-political-prisoner/

Phil
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[Marxism] Sustain and strengthen the third intifada - PFLP leader Sa'adat

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/imprisoned-pflp-leader-sustain-and-strengthen-new-intifada/
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[Marxism] James Connolly, Germany and World War 1 - was Connolly a 'proto-Lenin'?

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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by *Liam O Ruairc*

This article will question the thesis that Connolly’s stance on the First
World War was similar to that of Lenin’s and argues that he favoured a
German victory on socialist grounds. Lenin saw the First World War as a
product of the general crisis of capitalism and imperialism and sought to
transform the imperialist war into civil war. Connolly’s stand on the first
world war as W.K. Anderson notes “frequently been compared with Lenin’s”
(W.K. Anderson (1994),*James Connolly and the Irish Left*, Dublin: Irish
Academic Press, 63).  It is often assumed that Connolly’s position on the
question of the First World War was, with only minor if any qualification,
similar to that of Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

C. Desmond Greaves, for instance, argues that “Connolly’s thought ran
parallel with Lenin’s… almost phrase by phrase” and only the Irish labour
movement together with the Bolsheviks and the Serbian socialists opposed
the war (C.Desmond Greaves (1961), *The Life and Times of James
Connolly, *London:
Lawrence & Wishart, 353).  Bernard Ransom’s study of Connolly’s marxism has
argued along similar lines that Connolly’s stance on the First World War
was substantially similar to that of Lenin’s (Bernard Ransom (1980),
*Connolly’s
Marxism*, London: Pluto Press, 79).  Such has been the accepted viewpoint
for many studies of Connolly. This has less to do with Connolly’s actual
stance on the First World War than using Connolly as a trojan horse to
introduce Leninism in Ireland.

Joseph O’Connor related in a letter to the *Irish Times *(5 August 1976
page 11) the circumstances behind the construction of the ‘Leninist’
Connolly myth:

“I was involved, though somewhat passively, in an earlier cycle of this
controversy. It was not conducted publicly but within a limited circle of
members of the British Communist Party and some members of the. . .

full at:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/james-connolly-germany-and-the-first-world-war-was-connolly-a-proto-lenin/
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[Marxism] Oops, Philippines - one last comment

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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My computer time at the library ran out so I had to end hurriedly.

I did have one further comment.

Now perhaps Andy might admit his comment about Leila Khaled was stupid as
was his over-reaction to her speaking at an ILPS gathering - she also spoke
at the anti-APEC rally and elsewhere while in Manila.

Now I'm done re the nonsense about the Philippines and my view of it.

I will, of course, be continuing to post about the PFLP, an organisation on
which most of the far left in the English-speaking world has a disgraceful
record.

Just as we should be supporting secular, progressive forces in Syria
against the Assad dictatorship, so we should be supporting secular,
Palestinian forces against the Zionist state.

Phil
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[Marxism] Background on Philippines left

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Dave Riley writes:
>For Ferguson to cover for Sison on that point  is obscene.

Ah, the Trotskyist school of falsification.  I did not cover for Sison
killing anyone.

And I certainly didn't show him around my hometown as Dave did:
>Jose Maria Sison is a nice enough guy as I  showed him and his partner
around my home town of Brisbane and chaired his local meetings back in
the mid eighties.. He also writes pretty good poetry.


This whole thing arose when Andy P blasted Leila Khaled for speaking at an
ILPS event in Manila.  (She also spoke at other events).

I asked Andy how it was OK for anti-Assad forces to get material aid from
the imperialists but not for Leila Khaled to speak on an ILPS platform.

(I should *repeat* here that I have no problem with progressive Syrians
getting material aid from wherever they can in their struggle against the
Assad dictatorship; equally I have no problem with Leila - denounced by
Andy as a 'tired old Stalinist' - speaking on an ILPS platform.

Rather than answer my question Andy chose to attack Sison's record and
since Andy clearly didn't intend to answer my question I made a silly
throwaway comment about Sison's past.

Hands up, it was a stupid comment on my part.

But, hey, I never acted as his host like you did!

And I don't go round denouncing heroic revolutionary fighters like Leila
Khaled for speaking on an ILPS platform.

Andy is obsessed by the ILPS and it clouds his judgment.

And there I shall leave it.

Phil
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