[Marxism] The making of a turkey

[Greg McDonald]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylSgGXOkQhg

The making of a turkey


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[Marxism] Mumia's Life Is On the Line: Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Him Now!

[a_indabronx]

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Appeals to Obama's Top Cop Eric Holder Spread Deadly Illusions
Mumia's Life Is On the Line: Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Him Now!

http://www.internationalist.org/mumialifeonline0911.html

The threat to Mumia Abu-Jamal's life is increasingly ominous. His lead 
attorney, Robert Bryan, warns: "There is an escalated effort by the 
authorities to see him die at the hands of the executioner. This is the most 
dangerous time for Mumia since his 1981 arrest." The U.S. Supreme Court has 
turned down Jamal's two appeals. If it were to rule in favor of the 
prosecution's appeal, this would open the way for Pennsylvania governor Ed 
Rendell to issue a third warrant of execution, which he has vowed to do. 
Contrary to the misplaced expectations of many, the Obama administration is 
not about to save Mumia. Around the world, hundreds of thousands have marched 
for this courageous champion of oppressed. Trade unions representing millions 
of members have rallied to the defense of Mumia. It is urgent to expand this 
support into powerful labor/black action, appealing to the integrated union 
movement to join with the black, Latino and immigrant poor to demand that he 
be liberated.


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Re: [Marxism] Honduras: Unequivocal signs of coming repression

[Greg McDonald]

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S. Artesian wrote:


So is it official now? Can we all agree that the "agreement" negotiated by
Shannon wasn't a victory? That it was a fraud? That Zelaya should have
never signed it, and the fact that he did says a lot about his class
allegiance?

Maybe we can take another look and understand that the forces driving this
conflict have far outstripped the issue of his presidency, and what the next
steps must be? Maybe?


PRESIDENT ZELAYA's Letter to the Presidents of the Hemisphere

"The Name of Our Country is América" - Simon Bolivar
The Narco News Bulletin
Reporting on the War on Drugs and Democracy from Latin America
November 24, 2009 | Issue #62

---
“Legalizing Coups d’Etat by Means of Spurious Electoral Processes
Divides the Unity of the Nations of América”
A Letter to the Presidents of the Hemisphere

By Manuel Zelaya Rosales
President of Honduras
November 22, 2009

Honorable Presidents
Nations of América

Dear Presidents,

I write you in my role as President of Honduras, valuing the excellent
relations between our countries and in defense of the democracy
violated in Honduras as consequence of the Military Coup d’Etat
perpetrated June 28 of this year, when soldiers invaded my home and at
gunpoint kidnapped and took me to Costa Rica.

The National Congress forged my resignation letter and, abusing its
power, emitted an illegal decree which “separated me from the charge
of Constitutional President” without Constitutional backing to do so.
The same was the case for the arrest order that the Court had emitted
without having received any legal complain and without my having been
cited to appear before any tribunal or trial. It has been condemned
and described by all the countries of the world as a violent and
surprising rupture of democratic order, a Military Coup d’Etat.

At this moment in Honduras we are in a de facto State. There is no
Constitution. Nor are there Constitutional powers because they have
been destroyed by force by the military Coup d’Etat on that ominous
day of June 28, 2009.

The Constitution of the Republic establishes in Article 3: “No one
owes obedience to an usurper government, nor to those who occupy
public positions or jobs by the force of weapons or using means or
procedures that bankrupt or fail to recognize what the Constitution
and the law establishes. Those actions by so-called authorities are
null and void. The people have the right to insurrection to defend the
Constitutional order.”

In reading that article, you can understand that the Honduran people
are legally empowered to act using all means, styles and forms that
they consider necessary to restore democracy. We have consciously
taken the path of peaceful resistance, with the goal of establishing
noncooperation and nonviolence like methods of civil disobedience and
twenty-first century popular struggle against the rise of military
force.

We thank the entire international community for your support for our
labor to reconstruct the State of Law, that being the last effort of
the poorly reached Tegucigalpa-San José Accord, backed by the OAS and
the US Department of State. Its letter and spirit has as its proposal
the “return of the title the executive branch to what it was prior to
June 28.” And it was openly violated by the de facto regime which in
which Mr. Micheletti pretends to head a government of reconciliation,
refusing to convene the National Congress, in definitive noncompliance
of the timeline and text.

Now, unilaterally, he seeks to utilize the aborted accord by convening
the National Congress on December 2, a date upon which the political
actors of the accord will have been substantially modified, in the
sense that by then they will have already been submitted to the
opinion ofthe voters without having restored Constitutional order.

The elections of November 29 and their use of public funds under a de
facto regime, without having previously restored democracy and the
State of Law as OAS and UN resolutions demand, without even having
installed the government of unity and reconciliation, are illegal,
illegitimate, and constitute a criminal act.

At the moment that the de facto regime with its soldiers convenes a
spurious electoral process under repression, without legal guarantees,
and without a political agreement, in which the military dictatorship
is the guarantor of the law, it only strengthens its actions of force
and impunity.

Precisely today, Channel 36, property of journalist Esdras Amado
López, the only television chain that has opposed the regime, has had
its signal blocked and taken off the air by the dictatorship.

The de facto regime has frontally disregarded the resolutio

[Marxism] Lenin's Tomb commentary on Islamofascism

[Louis Proyect]

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http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/11/third-reich-in-jerusalem.html


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[Marxism] Germany worries about new bubble

[Louis Proyect]

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http://wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/fina-n26.shtml
German politicians, media warn about the next global financial crisis
By Peter Schwarz
26 November 2009

Within Germany’s top political circles fear is growing of a second 
international financial crash exceeding in intensity and impact that of 
autumn 2008.

At the weekend, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang 
Schäuble (both Christian Democratic Union—CDU) warned that the economic 
crisis was far from over. “We have initially succeeded in limiting the 
effects of the crisis on people, but difficulties remain in front of 
us,” Merkel told a CDU meeting.

Schäuble compared the present financial crisis with the fall of the 
Berlin Wall twenty years earlier. “The financial crisis will change the 
world as powerfully as did the fall of the [Berlin] Wall. The balance 
between America, Asia and Europe is shifting dramatically,” he told Bild 
am Sonntag. He also appealed to bankers to exercise restraint when it 
came to their bonus payments.

Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, expressed 
fears about a social collapse if there is a new round of bank failures. 
“It is surely too early to say the crisis is over,” he told a European 
congress of bankers in Frankfurt, adding the warning: “Our democracies 
will not accept twice giving such extensive support to the financial 
sector with taxpayers’ money.”

The enormous stock market bubble that has formed over the past eight 
months is seen as the biggest source of danger of another crash. The 
most important share indices—the Dow Jones, the Japanese Nikkei and the 
German DAX—have risen by around 50 to 60 percent since March. The prices 
of crude oil, copper and other raw materials have also more than 
doubled. These enormous increases are not based upon any corresponding 
economic growth. On the contrary, economic activity has fallen in 
numerous countries and many firms are still posting losses.

The rally in stock prices is due to the enormous liquidity that 
governments and central banks have pumped into the economy. Financial 
establishments are able to borrow unlimited sums of money from the 
central banks at virtually zero interest, and thus make high profits 
from their speculative deals. The trillions in taxpayers’ money that are 
being spent to revive the economy do not flow into investments, but into 
speculative deals, high payouts to shareholders, and exorbitant bonus 
payments for the bankers.

“The stock markets are rising because so much money has to go 
somewhere—because shares per se are valued attractively,” writes 
Wirtschaftswoche, the German business weekly, in an analysis of the 
current stock exchange boom. According to the magazine, the 
price-earnings ratio—comparing the market value per share to the annual 
earnings per share of the respective enterprise—has reached a historic 
maximum of 133. A price-earnings ratio of 14 or more is considered to 
mean shares are valued excessively.

As a consequence of the crisis, hundreds of thousands of workers in the 
US alone are losing their jobs each month, workers are being forced to 
forgo wages, and social programs are being cut on a massive scale. At 
the same time, the orgy of enrichment of those at the top of society has 
reached the same level as prior to the crisis, or even higher.

The large investment banks and hedge funds will this year disburse over 
$100 billion in bonuses to their staff. Goldman Sachs, the US bank, has 
set aside $17 billion for this purpose. In Germany, the 30 largest 
enterprises listed on the DAX plan to transfer over 20 billion euros to 
their shareholders in the spring of 2010. That is 71 percent of their 
net profits. In the previous record year, 2007, the corresponding figure 
was only 45 percent. Proportionately less will be available for new 
investment.

This is the background to the warnings of Merkel, Schäuble and Trichet. 
They fear that the shameless enrichment of the financial oligarchy, 
linked with a new crisis on the financial markets, could unleash an 
uncontrollable social rebellion.

Many experts consider another financial crash to be inevitable. This 
week’s edition of Der Spiegel, the weekly newsmagazine, ran the 
following sensationalized headline, comic book-style, on its front page: 
“The trillion-bomb.” The 12-page accompanying article begins by 
asserting that the question is not whether the present stock market 
bubble bursts, but when…

There follows a devastating picture of the present state of capitalist 
society: “In the midst of a world economy still gripped by crisis, the 
financial elite is again accumulating billions,” the article states. 
“The old greed is there again, and the old hubris too.” Never before in 
modern economic h

[Marxism] A hiccup from the Cruise Missile left

[Louis Proyect]

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http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_left_fights_itself


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[Marxism] Soul-Searching in Turkey After a Gay Man Is Killed

[Louis Proyect]

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NY Times, November 26, 2009
Soul-Searching in Turkey After a Gay Man Is Killed
By DAN BILEFSKY

ISTANBUL — For Ahmet Yildiz, a stocky and affable 26-year-old, the 
choice to live openly as a gay man proved deadly. Prosecutors say his 
own father hunted him down, traveling more than 600 miles from his 
hometown to shoot his son in an old neighborhood of Istanbul.

Mr. Yildiz was killed 16 months ago, the victim of what sociologists say 
is the first gay honor killing in Turkey to surface publicly. He was 
shot five times as he left his apartment to buy ice cream. A witness 
said dozens of neighbors watched the killing from their windows, but 
refused to come forward. His body remained unclaimed by his family, a 
grievous fate under Muslim custom.

His father, Yahya Yildiz, whose trial in absentia began in September, is 
on the run and believed to be hiding in northern Iraq.

The case, which has caused a bout of national soul-searching, has 
underlined the tensions between the secular modern Turkey of 
cross-dressing pop stars and a more traditionalist Turkey, in which 
conservative Islam increasingly holds sway.

Ahmet Kaya, Ahmet Yildiz’s cousin, said Mr. Yildiz was the only son of a 
deeply religious and wealthy Kurdish family from Sanliurfa, in the 
predominantly Kurdish southeast.

Mr. Kaya said Mr. Yildiz, a straight-A physics student who had hoped to 
become a teacher, was tutoring fellow students so he could make extra 
money to live independently. But by coming out as gay in a patriarchal 
tribal family, he had become the ultimate affront to both religious and 
filial honor, even with parents who adored him.

“Ahmet’s father had warned him to return to their village and to see a 
doctor and imam in order to cure him of his homosexuality and get 
married, but Ahmet refused,” Mr. Kaya said. “Ahmet loved his family more 
than anything else and he was tortured about disappointing them. But in 
the end, he decided to be who he was.”

That clash of values permeates Turkish society. While Turkey’s 
aspiration to join the European Union is pushing the Muslim-inspired 
government to accept and even promote civil liberties for women and 
homosexuals, some traditionalists remain ill at ease with a permissive 
attitude toward sexuality and gender roles.

Until recently, so-called honor killings have been largely confined to 
women, who face being killed by male relatives for perceived grievances 
ranging from consensual sex outside of marriage to stealing a glance at 
a boy. A recent government survey estimated that one person dies every 
week in Istanbul as a result of honor killings, while the United Nations 
estimates the practice globally claims as many as 5,000 lives a year. In 
Turkey, relatives convicted in such killings are subject to life sentences.

A sociologist who studies honor killings, Mazhar Bagli, at Dicle 
University in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the southeast, noted that 
tribal Kurdish families that kill daughters perceived to have dishonored 
them publicize the murders to help cleanse their shame.

But he said gay honor killings remained underground because a homosexual 
not only brought shame to his family, but also tainted the concept of 
male identity upon which the community’s social structure depended.

“Until now, gay honor killings have been invisible because homosexuality 
is taboo,” he said.

Gay rights groups argue that there is an increasingly open homophobia in 
Turkey. The military, which is the guardian of Turkey’s secular state, 
regards homosexuality as a disorder.

Last year, a local Istanbul court ruled in favor of disbanding the 
offices of Lambda, the country’s leading gay rights group, after a 
complaint that it offended public morality. (The decision was later 
overturned by a higher court.)

Firat Soyle, a human rights lawyer for Lambda, who was advising Mr. 
Yildiz before his death, said that three months before the murder, Mr. 
Yildiz had filed a complaint at the local prosecutor’s office that he 
was receiving death threats from his family. Mr. Soyle said the 
prosecutor’s office had refused to investigate or provide Mr. Yildiz 
with protection. The local police and prosecutors declined to comment on 
the allegation because the case was continuing.

The murder has divided Mr. Yildiz’s neighbors in Uskudar, an old Ottoman 
district on the Bosporus in Istanbul where secular and religious Turks 
live side by side.

Ummuhan Darama, a neighbor of Mr. Yildiz, was shot in the ankle during 
the attack and has filed criminal charges against his father. She said 
that the police had visited her in the hospital after the episode, 
urging her to drop the charges and to avoid becoming involved in what 
they called a “dirty crime.”

Ms. Darama, a religious Muslim

Re: [Marxism] Eight Theses on the Economic Crisis

[brad bauerly]

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>
>
> What would make it a crisis of capitalism?  Was the Great Depression a
> crisis of capitalism?
>
> This is a good question and one that is rather difficult to answer.  I did
a bit of work on this issue for my MA thesis using Gramsci.  He conceives of
both economic crisis- crisis in capitalism- and what he calls an 'organic
crisis'- a crisis of legitimacy of the whole system or the social relations
(classes) as they currently are.  That is to say, that it is a political or
ideological question.  This is what I think Carrol was getting on about:
that an economic crisis does not necessarily lead to a crisis of
legitimacy for the ruling class, or a crisis of the ideology of capitalist
social property relations.  Unlike Carrol, I think these economic crisis
hold the potential to agitate and create a crisis of legitimacy for the
ruling class and the ideology of the system of class relations.   I think
the idea that only during 'good times' do people have the space, security
and courage to push for change, is fundamentally and historically wrong.
For under these 'good times', unlike during crises, any changes sought will
not challenge the dominant form of social relations because it is not seen
as the problem.  Rather, these 'good time' movements will seek to enhance
their position within capitalism, not challenge it, as they are still locked
in capitalist ideological understandings of the problems (this is the basis
of a strong critique of the movements of the 1960s, which I don't want to
get into).

I would argue, and this is just a matter of how you slice up the matter,
that the great depression was a crisis of capitalism- organic crisis- due to
the many who actually began to question the very class bifurcated basis of
our society as the root of their problems. Of course, the class ideology was
reasserted by the active intervention of the state and its ideological
apparatuses, and/or the failure of the left to seize the moment and push it
further and spread the ideological breakdown across society.  This same
reassertion seems to be at work again and I think the starting point of the
left versus the ruling class was at a much greater disadvantage, or level of
development, during this economic crisis than that one.  But, when the
second wave of the crisis hits, if the left is up to it, there will be
further openings that could be grasped.

Sol,

Brad

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Re: [Marxism] cutting and pasting staircase

[brad bauerly]

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>even if you cut and paste into an email application set up to send in
>plain text, you will still get this problem, for example gmail, which
>brad used to send his post.

>The only way to fix the text is to reformat the paragraphs, either by
>hand, or with something like emailstripper.
>Les

Is this really a problem that would merit such extra time and work on the
senders part?

Brad

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Re: [Marxism] cutting and pasting staircase

[Louis Proyect]

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brad bauerly wrote:
> 
>> even if you cut and paste into an email application set up to send in
>> plain text, you will still get this problem, for example gmail, which
>> brad used to send his post.
> 
>> The only way to fix the text is to reformat the paragraphs, either by
>> hand, or with something like emailstripper.
>> Les
> 
> Is this really a problem that would merit such extra time and work on the
> senders part?
> 
> Brad

Yes.

Comrades are going to have to get used to Les and my preoccupation with 
matters such as this.

I try to be fairly tolerant of ideological diversity here, but insist on 
formal standards that help make posts easy to read.


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Re: [Marxism] Bank bailout list

[S. Artesian]

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Bloomberg is a little bit off in their numbers-- which represent total 
potential obligations-- not current obligations.

For example the 1 trillion for the PPIP is the theoretical maximum possible 
commitment of the program, provided banks offer up most of  their MBS, ABS, 
etc. etc. for sale.  Actual amount of transactions so far?  I think it's 
around $40 billion, as banks, helped by a change in accounting rules, are 
carrying this junk on their books at face value, or cost, and are loathe to 
take the proverbial haircut in putting this paper into any market.  Sure $40 
billion is real money [or not] but significantly less than 1 trillion.

As for the $700 + stimulus program-- latest numbers are that about  $250 
billion has yet to be distributed and Geithner et al are looking to divert 
those funds to pay down the debt-- or more likely pay the interest on the 
debt when refunding gets more and more problematic.

FDIC has not drawn on its $500 billion credit line with the Treasury yet--  
but it will as the insurance fund technically has slipped into the red; it 
is on the hook to share significant losses on assets of failed banks taken 
over by "healthy" banks, and who knows what happens when and if banks that 
took advantage of the Temporary Loan Guarantee Program can't re-fund in the 
markets when that debt comes due?

The numbers are big, but not that big. Yet.  Things can always get worse. 
FNMA and FMAC are the black holes of the asset-backed universe, soon to be 
joined by the FHA, and... couple of the Federal Home Loan Banks are already 
below their mandated capital requirements.

A year or two ago, the Wall Street Journal ran an article on "defensive" 
investments in tough times, starting the article with acknowledging that 
"canned goods and firearms" seem like a solid bet.

Happy New Year.  Same as the old year.

- Original Message - 
From: "Shawn Redden" 
To: "David Schanoes" 
Sent: Thursday, November 26, 2009 10:01 AM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Bank bailout list




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Re: [Marxism] Honduras: Unequivocal signs of coming repression,

[Fred Feldman]

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Artesian writes:
So is it official now? Can we all agree that the "agreement" negotiated by
Shannon wasn't a victory? That it was a fraud? That Zelaya should have
never signed it, and the fact that he did says a lot about his class
allegiance?

Maybe we can take another look and understand that the forces driving this
conflict have far outstripped the issue of his presidency, and what the next
steps must be? Maybe?


Fred comments:
What is Artesian arguing for? Allowing for traditional transitional doo-dads
like Soviets that he may tack on, it is basically just another variant of
Socialism Right This Minute -- or Bust!"  And since virtually no one in
Honduras or, indeed, the world is fighting on this basis right now (partly
because Socialism Right This Minute is not possible anywhere at this
moment), he feels secure in his stance as The One Who Knows that the outcome
will always be "bust."

Artesian suggests that those who support the approach taken by the Honduran
popular movement on the restoration of Zelaya argued that "the issue of his
presidency" was the driving force of the conflict. On the contrary, we have
argued from the beginning that the issues "far outstripped the issue of his
presidency," being rooted in a developing popular revolt against the old
Honduran order, and that they were international as well extending across
Latin America and the Caribbean and beyond.

What we did not and do not do was reject the call for the restoration of
Zelaya, an elementary democratic demand that anyone who credibly claims
roots in the Marxist tradition, should support as a reflex of a class
position.

Frankly, most of the left has actually done creditably on this one. Only the
US Militant newspaper has abstained from the fight, arguing that the removal
of Zelaya was not a military coup (like the State Department, although for
their own vewy wevolutionary weasons) was simply a fight among the
bourgeoisie. Washington's aim in the conflict was not to help install
reaction but simply to establish a "stable" government. Thus the masses
should stay out of this conflict and take no side.

Artesian's position that the forces driving the conflict have far
outstripped the issue of Zelaya's presidency, which was recognized from the
beginning by almost all concerned, may represent a shamefaced version of the
argument that the masses have no stake in the issue of Zelaya's presidency
and should withdraw from the conflict over this. Unlike the Militant, which
favors mere abstention, Artesian seems to suggest the current popular
democratic national fight (which inevitably poses issues that go beyond
this) should replaced by one, in Honduras and everywhere, now and always for
socialism now.

I also disagree with Artesian's denunciation for Zelaya for signing the most
recent accords. I think he had no viable choice. A show of intransigeance on
this would have accomplished nothing for the struggle, making Washington's
shift to the side of the regime more smooth and reasonable-sounding here and
abroad. 'It would have given some of his erstwhile allies in Europe and
Latin America a chance to step away from him. The end effect of the
agreement was to make it clear that the regime and the US government were
blocking the restoration of elementary democratic norms.

My default position on Zelaya is that he remains a bourgeois-nationalist,
reform-oriented politician -- currently quite isolated on the currently
visible bourgeois spectrum of his own country. He has said or done nothing
since his overturn that requires me to change that, and nothing that
justifies withdrawing support for his restoration.

He has fought hard on the side of justice and democracy on this matter, thus
doing the best -- somewhat surpassing the best actually -- that could have
been expected of him.

The agreement was not a victory, but also not a defeat. It registered
diplomatic and political realities that had already taken shape in the
previous battles. That a popular democratic national movement has taken
shape that is still not strong enough to defeat the oligarchy and its
gunmen.

I would have preferred winning sooner, naturally, but I always had a sense
that this struggle would go on beyond the date scheduled for the elections.
I think this struggle -- not a nonexistent more advanced one that proclaimed
Marxists suck out of their thumbs -- is the road forward for the people of
Honduras today. 






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Re: [Marxism] The making of a turkey

[David Thorstad]

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There's an error in the map in this video, which shows the allegedly 
original range of the wild turkey as way too far south. I myself this 
year succeeded, after several failed attempts, to raise Eastern wild 
turkeys, and I released them into the wild in September. Some have no 
doubt been taken by predators (wolves, fox, mountain lions...), but some 
groups of one jake (as the males are known until later when they become 
toms) and hens have survived in my ideal rural woodsy setting. I live on 
the farthest north edge of the wild turkey's original range (northern 
Minnesota), where white settlers wiped out the native bird, now being 
reintroduced by the Department of Natural Resources--with a little help 
from myself and a few others. The Ojibwe traditionally use wild turkey 
feathers in some of their rituals. I will be curious to see how many 
survive the generally harsh winter.
This magnificent bird can fly 55 miles per hour, and run 35 miles 
per hour. It is a survivor, resembling in some ways the dinosaur 
ancestors of birds. The wild turkey looks and acts similarly to the 
velociraptor in /Jurassic Park/.

Greg McDonald wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylSgGXOkQhg
>
> The making of a turkey
>
>   



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Re: [Marxism] cutting and pasting staircase

[S. Artesian]

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I have to say I agree with L&L-- I try and do the editing when pasting a 
document.  It's kind of a gesture of courtesy and respect to the list 
members-- and since, when the heat gets turned up, we sometimes forget bits 
and pieces of that respect-- I think taking the effort to reformat is a 
measure of-- well almost solidarity.

- Original Message - 
From: "Louis Proyect" 
To: "David Schanoes" 
Sent: Thursday, November 26, 2009 10:30 AM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] cutting and pasting staircase




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Re: [Marxism] Bank bailout list

[Shawn Redden]

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On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 10:38 AM, S. Artesian wrote:

>
> For example the 1 trillion for the PPIP is the theoretical maximum possible
> commitment of the program, provided banks offer up most of  their MBS, ABS,
> etc. etc. for sale.  Actual amount of transactions so far?  I think it's
> around $40 billion, as banks, helped by a change in accounting rules, are
> carrying this junk on their books at face value, or cost, and are loathe to
> take the proverbial haircut in putting this paper into any market.


Thanks for the clarification on this article.  Do you think that Bloomberg's
numbers are meant to stir the pot with their lawsuit demanding the Fed
release their actual figures?

The paragraph is the essence of the mark-to-market vs. mark-to-model fight
that the banks 'won' last year, right?

Solidarity,
Shawn

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[Marxism] "Workers, upon having jobs, create rich people"

[Louis Proyect]

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BALTIMORE CITY PAPER | 11/24/2009
Crash Course
The Maryland Millionaire Count, Tax Scams, and Train Wrecks

by Edward Ericson Jr.
Win McNamee/Getty Images via Photo Journal
Your tax dollars at shirk

The Sun has some predictable drivel today regarding the state's 
all-important "millionaire" head-count. Seems it's gone down. By 30 
percent! And this is a terrible thing! And it's all because of taxes and 
Democrats!

Goddamn Democrats.

As the Sun reports, last year the stated number of "millionaires" in the 
state, for tax purposes, was 4,910. The year before that it was 7,067. 
The drivel part comes next:


 Sen. David R. Brinkley, a Frederick County Republican on the Budget 
and Taxation Committee, acknowledged that some taxpayers fell to lower 
income brackets because of the economy but insisted that some fled the 
state's higher taxes. As a financial planner, he said, he advised one 
millionaire client to move to Florida.

Way to advise there, Sen. Brinkley!

The problem with the story is it takes at face value Brinkley's 
claims—just as the media usually does—that slightly higher tax rates on 
wealthy people cause terrible unintended consequences for normal people. 
This is not entirely the reporters' fault; one can't light a Cohiba with 
a $100 bill these days without getting smoke in the eyes of half a dozen 
"economists" who'll insist that lower taxes on the rich are always the 
solution to every problem. But the story lacks context and carries no 
challenge to a crazy theory that's embedded in the criticism of 
tax-the-rich policies.

First, the context. The 7,067 millionaire count from 2007 represents 
about .3 percent of all state filers. The 4,910 count from 2008 is about 
.2 percent. Statistically, about .25 percent of American filers admit to 
$1 million or more in income. So Maryland's numbers are still in line 
with national norms.

But these numbers represent a fraction of those who actually netted $1 
million or more.

We know this because the IRS, in a roundabout way, estimated what it 
calls the "tax gap." It totals about $300 billion a year—or it did, 
anyway, last time they calculated, in 2001.

Tax lawyers like to say the poor cheat and the rich merely avoid. The 
2001 figures suggest that the rich cheat plenty, too, with more than 
$110 billion in missing income—tax receipts imputed to non-farm 
business, rents and royalties, sales of business property, and the like. 
These are not all millionaires, but they are not EITC filers, either. 
And since these figures don't count the money stashed in secret accounts 
in the Cayman Islands and Zurich—all of which is incorrectly assumed to 
be "legal" in this exercise—they likely understate the amount of tax 
cheating that the millionaire class does.

Critics of the millionaire tax say they've never heard of a poor man 
hiring a worker. Only the rich do that; therefore, to render the wealthy 
less so by taxation is to destroy jobs.

The theory presumes that the wealthy hire people out of charity. In this 
model, jobs are bestowed upon lucky workers by the industrious 
entrepreneur, who derives his own wealth from some magical practices 
(having nothing to do with the workers he may hire) which are anyway 
unfathomable to outsiders.

To hear self-proclaimed capitalists make this argument is irritating, 
because it suggests they don't understand how our economic system is 
supposed to work. They have the process exactly backwards.

In a capitalist system, investors make money not despite hiring workers, 
but because they hire workers who, if they are adequately managed, 
create value in excess of the wages and benefits they are paid. This 
value is called "profit," and the business' owner gets to keep that, 
after paying taxes.

In a properly functioning capitalist economy, rich people don't "create 
jobs" for workers; workers, upon having jobs, create rich people.

That's how the system works, in theory.

But the reality is different from the theory. In today's marketplace, 
the super-rich have become richer in large part by destroying jobs. They 
amass staggering wealth by gambling, and fraud, and they depend very 
dearly on government policies (especially very low taxes on so-called 
"capital gains") to protect what they have and allow them to grab more. 
In "capitalism" as it is actually practiced today, jobs really are a 
kind of charity, often superfluous to the amassing of multibillion 
dollar fortunes.

Today's millionaires and billionaires make their money by creating 
contracts—and a lot of those are, at their core, tax dodges. Consider 
the "lease-back" scam that gained popularity in the late 1990s.

In a lease back, a government entity—typically a town, county, or 
utility cooperative—agrees to lease its physical ass

Re: [Marxism] Honduras: Unequivocal signs of coming repression,

[S. Artesian]

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All that from one short post?  All that from arguing in several short posts 
against CB's chanting O-bam-a, O-bam-a, and against those hailing the 
agreement as a "victory"?  Wow, Fred, good for you.

You think I'm arguing for socialism right now or bust?  Nope.  I'm arguing 
for class-defined actions or the struggle will be busted.

You want to defend, as you do, support, as you admit, a "bourgeois 
nationalist," as you call him?  Go right ahead-- actually no, don't go right 
ahead-- you have no business, and I do mean business, imposing your 
preference, your support of bourgeois nationalism as the correct and only 
viable path, proper "stage" or phase, of struggle onto the urban and rural 
poor of Honduras.

I mean you can do it, as countless "Marxists" in "advanced" countries have 
done for 85 years or so, but it is just one more first world imposition, 
prejudice, pushed upon the colonized and exploited people of "less 
developed" countries.  "Real class struggle?  Real workers' revolution?," 
our Marxists have said, "Come on, get real.  You guys down there in those 
little countries are nowhere near developed enough, conscious enough to have 
a real class struggle, a real workers' revolution.  That's for us, your big 
brothers in El Norte, who will support your right to have a regular 
constitution, a regular private property, a regular exploitation, to the 
last drop of your blood."  I can't imagine the poor of the global south not 
dropping to their knees with gratitude at your munificence.

Oh I know such imposition is done with the best of intentions, is done based 
on "objective" assessments of "material" conditions, on the balance of 
forces, on the "special" circumstances of imperialist exploitation, but at 
the end of all that ideological posturing-- the first world "Marxists" are 
still cramming the struggle of other people into that first world bag, that 
first world trick bag-- of democratic nationalism.

Anyone interested in my views on Honduras can read them at:

http://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.com/2009/08/honduras.html


- Original Message - 
From: "Fred Feldman" 
To: "David Schanoes" 
Sent: Thursday, November 26, 2009 10:39 AM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Honduras: Unequivocal signs of coming repression,


> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
> Artesian writes:
> So is it official now? Can we all agree that the "agreement" negotiated by
> Shannon wasn't a victory? That it was a fraud? That Zelaya should have
> never signed it, and the fact that he did says a lot about his class
> allegiance?
>
> Maybe we can take another look and understand that the forces driving this
> conflict have far outstripped the issue of his presidency, and what the 
> next
> steps must be? Maybe?
>
>
> Fred comments:
> What is Artesian arguing for? Allowing for traditional transitional 
> doo-dads
> like Soviets that he may tack on, it is basically just another variant of
> Socialism Right This Minute -- or Bust!"  And since virtually no one in
> Honduras or, indeed, the world is fighting on this basis right now (partly
> because Socialism Right This Minute is not possible anywhere at this
> moment), he feels secure in his stance as The One Who Knows that the 
> outcome
> will always be "bust."
> 



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[Marxism] Trampling on Honduran Democracy

[Greg McDonald]

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Trampling on Honduran democracy
The election in Honduras has the blessing of the US, but not the
people, their president or the rest of the world

 Calvin Tucker  
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 November 2009 11.30 GMT

On Sunday, Honduras's coup regime, with the support of the US, is
staging a presidential election of a special kind. Voters will have a
choice of two candidates: the coup supporter Porfirio Lobo or the coup
supporter Elvin Santos. The anti-coup candidate, Carlos Reyes, has
withdrawn his nomination and condemned the election as fraudulent.

"Cash discounts" will be offered to anyone who can prove they voted,
courtesy of the country's coup-supporting big business federation.
Trade unions and social movements calling for a boycott of the
election are facing mafia-style threats, with the regime's chief of
police boasting that he has compiled a blacklist of "all those of the
left". "We removed the so-called head [the president, Manuel Zelaya],
and we know everyone, from A to Z, that forms part of these groups."

Those on the blacklist have good cause to be concerned. Since Zelaya
was overthrown by the military in June, 4,000 people have been
arrested, hundreds beaten and hospitalised and dozens charged with
sedition. Yet more have been kidnapped, raped, tortured, "disappeared"
and assassinated.

Independent media has fared little better. Anti-coup TV and radio
stations have been raided by the army and forced off air; their
broadcasting equipment confiscated or destroyed with acid. In one
case, journalists leapt from third-floor windows to escape the
soldiers.

Yet Hondurans have continued marching, striking, blocking roads – and
meanwhile getting used to day and night curfews, the smell of tear gas
and the grief for friends and family members murdered by the coup
regime. They have been struggling, not merely to protest at the
trampling of their democratic rights, but also because of the hope
which Zelaya had begun to inspire.

In a country marked by malnutrition and widespread illiteracy, in
which 10 families control most of the economy and the media and
dominate the state apparatus, Zelaya had begun a process of economic
and political empowerment for the impoverished majority. This included
a doubling of the minimum wage, the introduction of free school meals
and the provision of agricultural machinery for small farmers.

In line with demands from trade unions and social movements, Zelaya
had proposed a referendum on constitutional reform to be held on the
same day as a new president was elected. This proposal has been
ludicrously misrepresented as an attempt by Zelaya to extend his term
in office; a charge that is logically impossible to sustain but that,
with the help of much of the international media, became the central
justification for the military takeover.

In the first weeks following the coup it looked like Barack Obama's
pledge to "seek a new chapter of engagement" with Latin America might
actually have some substance. Obama spoke of the "terrible precedent"
that would be set if the coup was not reversed, and in July the US
gave its backing to the San Jose accord, a Costa Rican-brokered
compromise that would see Zelaya back in office, albeit as head of a
"unity government" and with him promising to shelve the constitutional
referendum.

Although this would have left much of the power in the hands of the
army and other state institutions controlled by the elites, hence the
reason the accord garnered US support, Zelaya took the view that it
was the best deal he was going to get and signed. But the coup leaders
refused, fearing that Zelaya's return would unleash an unstoppable
momentum for democratic reform. Instead they resolved to run out the
clock on the Zelaya presidency by hanging on until this month's
scheduled elections, and then to bank on US recognition of the new
government.

However, to the chagrin of the regime, the US administration, itself
divided over whether to support or oppose the coup, announced further
measures to isolate the de facto government. More aid was suspended,
visas to the coup plotters were revoked, and critically Hillary
Clinton's state department declared that the US would "not be able to
support" the outcome of the elections because of concerns that they
would not be "free, fair and transparent".

Following a state department visit in late October, the regime finally
caved in and signed a deal which provided the mechanism for Zelaya's
return to office. But behind the scenes, Clinton was already preparing
to sell out Honduran democracy.

For weeks, the hard right of the Republican party, under the
leadership of Senator Jim DeMint, had been threatening to block
Democrat nominees for key posts in Latin Americ

Re: [Marxism] Honduras: Unequivocal signs of coming repression

[Nestor Gorojovsky]

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==


I am afraid that though we might well LIKE to skirt people whose class 
allegiance we find doubtful, or not doubtful at all, we must not stay 
away from the concrete consciousness of the Honduran masses.

> S. Artesian wrote:
> 
> 
> So is it official now? Can we all agree that the "agreement" negotiated by
> Shannon wasn't a victory? That it was a fraud? That Zelaya should have
> never signed it, and the fact that he did says a lot about his class
> allegiance?
> 
> Maybe we can take another look and understand that the forces driving this
> conflict have far outstripped the issue of his presidency, and what the next
> steps must be? Maybe?
> 
> 
> PRESIDENT ZELAYA's Letter to the Presidents of the Hemisphere
> 
> "The Name of Our Country is América" - Simon Bolivar
> The Narco News Bulletin
> Reporting on the War on Drugs and Democracy from Latin America
> November 24, 2009 | Issue #62
> 
> ---
> “Legalizing Coups d’Etat by Means of Spurious Electoral Processes
> Divides the Unity of the Nations of América”
> A Letter to the Presidents of the Hemisphere
> 
> By Manuel Zelaya Rosales
> President of Honduras
> November 22, 2009
> 
> Honorable Presidents
> Nations of América
> 
> Dear Presidents,
> 
> I write you in my role as President of Honduras, valuing the excellent
> relations between our countries and in defense of the democracy
> violated in Honduras as consequence of the Military Coup d’Etat



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Re: [Marxism] A hiccup from the Cruise Missile left

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

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Can someone explain to me when these left-neoliberals became "the Left"?

On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 10:10 AM, Louis Proyect  wrote:

> http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_left_fights_itself
>

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[Marxism] Wit and grammar Re: Honduras: Unequivocal signs of coming repression, ,

[Nestor Gorojovsky]

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S. Artesian escribió:
> 
> Fred writes:
> 
> "Routine sectarian demagogy in response to reasoned argument from Artesian"
> 
> Thank you for recognizing that your response to my reasoned argument was 
> routine sectarian demagogy.

Witty and grammatically undisputable, thogh qute base, red herring. Word 
order, as I read Fred´s posting, should have been

"Routine sectarian demagogy from Artesian in response to reasoned argument"


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Re: [Marxism] Honduras: Unequivocal signs of coming repression,

[nada]

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I think Fred has a better handle on this than S. Art. The starting 
point, other than an objective analysis of the Zelaya personality and 
role, is where the masses themselves have struggle for.

At not point, *whatsoever* have the masses stopped demanding a 
restoration of the Presidency. At the core, this is the main immediate 
issue that hasn't faded at all. Secondly the call for a Constituent 
Assembly the MAIN underlying opposition by the US and the Golpistas 
because, unlike S. Art. IMO, they understand that this can open up a 
huge can of worms including but not restricted to constitutional 
expropriation of all natural resources in Honduras, thorough going land 
reform WAY beyond the limited version first articulated by Zelaya and 
massive socialization of various aspects of Honduran political economy.

I have mixed feelings about the actual agreement, of course, because at 
a certain point, only a mass, insurrectionary movement/strike is going 
to return Zelaya to the status quo. But the masses were literally 
dancing in th streets when the announcement was made about the 
agreement. You have to deal with that.

Some pertinent points from NRF Communiques 33 & 34:


1. If by 12 midnight today, Thursday, November 5 -- at the latest -- 
President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales is not reinstated, the National 
Front of Resistance Against the Coup will refuse to recognize the 
electoral process and its results.

2. We warn all organizations of the national Resistance that if 
President Zelaya were not to be reinstated within this time frame, they 
should be ready to carry out the actions necessary to deny any 
legitimacy to the electoral farce.

3. We call upon the international community to maintain its position of 
refusing to legitimize the de-facto regime and the elections of November 29.

 From *November 9, 2009:

*3. Now more than ever it is clear that the exercise of participatory 
democracy through the installation of a Constituent Assembly is not just 
a non-negotiable right but also the only way to provide the Honduran 
people with a democratic and inclusive political system.


Do not people on this list recognize what a huge radicalization this is?

David


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Re: [Marxism] Honduras: Unequivocal signs of coming repression,

[Nestor Gorojovsky]

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If there are signs of "coming repression", it is because we can sense 
something different, "coming unrest".

nada escribió:

> 
> I think Fred has a better handle on this than S. Art. The starting 
> point, other than an objective analysis of the Zelaya personality and 
> role, is where the masses themselves have struggle for.
> 
> At not point, *whatsoever* have the masses stopped demanding a 
> restoration of the Presidency. At the core, this is the main immediate 
> issue that hasn't faded at all.

Zelaya embodies popular sovereignty. We may like him or not, and we may 
search down his ancestry to the first Zelaya on Honduras to "discover" 
(oh, surprise, surprise) that he is coming from the ruling classes.

But this is not the issue at stake. It is popular sovereignty itself 
that has been questioned. This is why the masses will not stop demanding 
his restoration to Presidency. It is _their_ right, not Zelaya´s. And 
they struggle for their right, in the person of Zelaya. This right knows 
not of constitutional terms, that is why Zelaya must be reinstated even 
if he has "completed" his term.

> Secondly the call for a Constituent 
> Assembly the MAIN underlying opposition by the US and the Golpistas 
> because, unlike S. Art. IMO, they understand that this can open up a 
> huge can of worms including but not restricted to constitutional 
> expropriation of all natural resources in Honduras, thorough going land 
> reform WAY beyond the limited version first articulated by Zelaya and 
> massive socialization of various aspects of Honduran political economy.

Let us assume, as a hypotesis, that none of the above is achieved, not 
even SUGGESTED by a single member of the Constituyente (a Constitutional 
Assembly, BTW, that the Honduran oligarchy does not want to convene to 
the point that they made the coup against a faint menace of its 
convening). If the Constitutional reform opens up a debate on the role 
of foreign troops in Guatemala, and includes a proviso requesting full 
control of Soto Cano / Palmerola, this is almost ENOUGH for the US and 
the Guatemalan oligarchy to blast the whole edifice to rubble.

> 
> I have mixed feelings about the actual agreement, of course, because at 
> a certain point, only a mass, insurrectionary movement/strike is going 
> to return Zelaya to the status quo. But the masses were literally 
> dancing in th streets when the announcement was made about the 
> agreement. You have to deal with that.

Because the masses sensed that the Leviathan had not obtained all that 
it wanted, and that the way for struggle remained open.

The NRF Communiques quoted by "nada" codify this.



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[Marxism] [Fwd: [pr-x] Amy Goodman delayed at Canadian border]

[michael a. lebowitz]

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 Original Message 
Subject:[pr-x] Amy Goodman delayed at Canadian border
Date:   Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:34:35 -0800
From:   Kimball Cariou 
Reply-To:   RTL, project-x: it's ALL THE SAME 
To: 	RTL, project-x: it's ALL THE SAME , COAL 
OF COAL 




The latest episode in the assault on free speech and civil liberties in 
Canada:...


Amy Goodman, the popular co-host of the well-known Democracy Now! radio 
show, was scheduled to speak last night (Wed., Nov. 25) at the Vancouver 
Public Library. She is currently on a North American (mainly U.S.) tour 
to launch her new book, "Breaking the Sound Barrier". The Vancouver 
event was organized as a fundraiser by local campus and community radio 
stations. It appeared about 250-300 people were in the crowd.


At the starting time of 7 pm, one of the event organizers went to the 
microphone to explain that Goodman would be late - she was being 
questioned by Canadian border guards about her beliefs and the content 
of her Vancouver speech. The organizers said they still hoped to begin 
the event at 8 pm.


An hour later, Goodman did arrive. After the introductions, she told the 
crowd about her experience at the border. She was driving up from 
Washington and Oregon with a couple of co-workers. At the border, she 
was taken for questioning, and the computers of her co-workers were 
investigated. She told us that the guard interrogating her wanted to 
know what she would be speaking about, and to see her speaking notes. 
Goodman explained that she tends to speak without notes. In this case, 
she intended to begin the evening talking about the final essay in her 
new book, a piece dealing with the issue of US health care (or lack of 
it) as related to the theme of Canadian medicare and Tommy Douglas. She 
pointed out this essay to the border guard,  who then wanted to know 
"what else" she would speak about. She went on to explain that she would 
speak about other topics in the book, such as the wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, the climate change negotiations, etc. What else, the guard 
kept asking. Finally, he came out with the real question - did she 
intend to speak about the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, and what would she 
say?


Goodman told the guard that she is not a sports fan or an expert on the 
Olympics. This, she told the crowd, simply seemed to make matters worse. 
But finally, she was able to get through, her co-workers got their 
computers back, and they made it to the library. Her presentation was 
excellent.


But the whole thing does raise even more frightening questions about 
what the situation here will be in February, when the Canadian state's 
Olympic security paranoia is cranked up to full intensity.


Kimball Cariou


---
projec...@lists.resist.ca
https://lists.resist.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/project-x
Project-X list:
initiated for the (re)building of the Left.


--
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
 University Drive
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6

Director, Programme in 'Transformative Practice and Human Development'
Centro Internacional Miranda, P.H.
Residencias Anauco Suites, Parque Central, final Av. Bolivar
Caracas, Venezuela
fax: 0212 5768274/0212 5777231
www.centrointernacionalmiranda.gob.ve
mlebo...@sfu.ca



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[Marxism] 2009 movies wrap-up, part one

[Louis Proyect]

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My jaundiced take on:

1. Big Fan

2. The Messenger

3. Passing Strange

4. Summer Hours

5. (500) Days of Summer

6. Where the Wild Things Are

7. The Blind Side

full: 
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/2009-movies-wrap-up-part-one/


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[Marxism] Fourth International on Chavez's new international call: "We are present!"

[Stuart Munckton]

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http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1757/

IV Online magazine : IV418 - November 2009
Internationalism


 Chavez calls for Fifth International

Decisive lessons from Stalinism & social democracy
 *François Sabado* 



*During an international meeting of left parties held in Caracas from 19-21
November, 2009, Hugo Chavez launched a call for a Fifth Socialist
International which, according to him, should bring together left parties
and social movements. According to the president of the United Socialist
Party of Venezuela, the Fifth International must be “an instrument for the
unification and the articulation of the struggle of the peoples to save this
planet”.
*

*
*

*In a world political situation marked by a total crisis of the capitalist
system, this is a fact important enough to be underlined.
*

*
*

Indeed, leaders or parties who pose the question of an International do not
grow on trees. That is the first merit of Chavez’s call.


All the more so as this call is accompanied by a declaration which denounces
the systemic character of the capitalist crisis, beyond its financial and
banking dimensions, and reaffirms the perspective of a socialism of the 21st
century. It calls for an urgent mobilization against the new imperialist
offensive in Latin America, by the US administration and the Latin American
Right.


On the basis of this call, a broad world anti-imperialist front can be
established, to mark its solidarity with the struggle of the peoples for
their social and political rights, to oppose the new US bases in Colombia,
to support, in particular, the mobilization of the people of Honduras
against the new dictatorial regime.


In the trial of strength in which the imperialists are confronted with the
struggles of the peoples, such a world front would constitute an important
instrument to fight the power of the ruling classes, not only in Latin
America but in the whole world.


We are ready, as we have been since the beginning, in solidarity with the
Cuban revolution, the Bolivarian revolution, with the experiences in Bolivia
and Ecuador, to fully commit ourselves to the common fight against the
imperialist attacks imperialists and to take our full place in this world
anti-imperialist front.


It is also within this framework that the process of construction of a new
International would be posed. Chavez calls for the establishment of a
Socialist Fifth International. That puts back on the agenda the discussion
about a new International. Chavez situates the building of the Fifth
International in continuity with the Fourth. We have already declared on
many occasions: what do labels matter, if there is convergence over the
content. But the constitution of a new International implies a whole process
around a programme, policies, and an organization, which must be carried out
on the basis of a broad discussion with all the protagonists.


There is, indeed, a new historical period, where divergences between various
revolutionary currents can be surmounted on the basis of “a common
understanding of events and tasks”. From this point of view, it is not a
question of discussing the historical balance sheets of different currents,
but it is decisive to learn together the lessons from Stalinism and social
democracy, so that the tragedies and the errors of the past are not
repeated.


Each party, each organization, each current and each militant must
contribute to this debate. As for the Fourth International, it has already
formulated, on many occasions, its proposals:


* An anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist programme of emergency demands,
which starts from the demands and the social needs of the popular classes,
proposes a new distribution of wealth, public and social appropriation of
the key sectors of the economy and leads on to the revolutionary
transformation of society.

* Unity of action of all the organizations, currents and militants against
the attacks of the governments and the capitalist classes.

* Independence of the social movements, associations and trade-union
organizations with respect to parties and states.

* Solidarity with all struggles of peoples against all the imperialist
powers.

* The fight against oppressions and the defence of the rights of women,
homosexuals, young people and immigrants.

* The fight for governments of the workers and popular classes which satisfy
the principal social and ecological demands and base themselves on the
mobilization of the population and its control over the principal sectors of
the economy. This perspective implies not participating in governments which
manage the state and the capitalist economy along with the parties of the
centre-left or social democracy.

* 

[Marxism] Zelaya slams U.S.

[Greg McDonald]

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http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=112279§ionid=351020706

Press TV
November 26, 2009

Zelaya slams US over supporting coup regime

Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has slammed the US for
supporting Sunday's presidential elections, saying that the US is
supporting a coup-perpetrating regime.

"The United States is not just supporting the elections but it is
supporting the de facto regime, it is supporting the dictatorship, it
is supporting the coup-perpetrating regime," Zelaya said in a
telephone interview published on Thursday by the Brazilian website
UOL.

Zelaya was ousted by a military coup on June 28 and has been sheltered
in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa for over two months, since his
clandestine return to the Central American country.

Zelaya says that the election is "null and void" and insisted that "We
are going to formally question that election."

"Latin America already experienced about 80 coups, but they led to a
new constitution, a social pact towards a new constitution, and not to
an illegitimate call to elections under the leadership of a
dictatorship, without international observers, without the OAS
(Organization of American States), without the United Nations," he
said.
===


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[Marxism] 4 + 1 Internaional

[sobuadhaigh]

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I read with some interest that the Fourth International
has endorsed the call by Chavez to launch the Fifth 
Socialist International. Is this preplanned obsolescence
on their part or another attempt at entryism? According to
Francois Sabado,


>Chavez situates the building of the Fifth
>International in continuity with the Fourth. 

No, he did not as in the speech the lessons of the 1st, 
2nd and 3rd were discussed but the “4th” was not mentioned. 

>We have already declared on many occasions: what do labels matter, 
>if there is convergence over the content. 

Does that include the label “Trotskyite”?

>It is in this spirit that the Fourth international, its 
organizations 
>and its militants, will answer “Present”!

This sounds really stupid in English. The correct term is 
“Presente!”
without the “benefit” of translation. According to this rendition, 
the Fourth International sounds like a kid responding to a 
substitute 
teacher taking attendance.

I am not sure what will become of the Fifth Socialist International,
but I am pretty sure very few people will notice the passing of the 
Fourth.



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Re: [Marxism] Bank bailout list

[Rod Holt]

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There is a more up to date list at  which gives the name and amount  
received of every bailed-out financial institution up to June, 2009.  
The data are presented in reverse chronological order. Paybacks, if  
any are noted. It's most likely that these numbers are correct in  
their detail.
--rod

On Nov 26, 2009, at 7:38 AM, S. Artesian wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
> Bloomberg is a little bit off in their numbers-- which represent total
> potential obligations-- not current obligations.
>
> t
>
>
>
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
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> marxism/rholt%40planeteria.net



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[Marxism] reviewer wanted

[GEORGE SNEDEKER]

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I'm still looking for someone to review a collection of essays by one of the 
founding editors of the journal, Socialism and Democracy, Michael E. Brown 
entitled THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF COMMUNISM. Several of the essays were originally 
published in Socialism and Democracy. I misplaced the name of one of the people 
who had offered to review this book so if that person is still interested, 
please write to me again. I've made no decisions about the reviewer so anyone 
who is interested should paste a review they have written into a message and 
send it to me at snedek...@verizon.net for information about Socialism and 
Democracy, please  go to www.sdonline.org

Here are some of the blurbs from Temple University Press about the book: 

"A piece of original scholarship on a topic of great importance by one of 
the most profound and scholarly thinkers in the American academy! Essential 
reading
for anyone interested in the history of communism but also for advanced 
students and professors concerned with the methodological problems that arise in
writing any kind of history." 
-Bertell Ollman, Department of Politics, New York University and author of 
Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx's Method

block quote end

In this fresh appraisal of communism and anti-communism, with an emphasis on 
the American case, respected scholar Michael E. Brown examines the methods,
controversies, and difficulties involved in writing the history of communism. 
Arguing that one important way of understanding communism-other than as a
concrete political or ideological force-is as an expression of an essentially 
reflexive aspect of society that typically manifests itself in social movements.
In this regard, Brown understands the history of communism as part of the 
history of society. Examining works by E. P. Thompson, Karl Marx, and Pierre
Clastres, Brown develops the idea of history as an immanent feature of human 
activities. Taken together, the essays in this book-written over a period
of 20 years-offer a distinctive approach to the connections between social 
theory, criticism, and historiography and to what is "social" about "social
movements."


I should ad that this book is not a page turner! 

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Re: [Marxism] Honduras: Unequivocal signs of coming repression,

[S. Artesian]

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I wouldn't want anyone to think I had nothing else to say in response to all 
the profound insights into the situation in Honduras... just had to wait for 
the clock to get past midnight here in NYC.

So "Right," says Fred, "We always said the issue was more than just 
Zelaya's presidency."

Good.  Did any of those who always knew the issue was more than Zelaya's 
presidency translate that knowledge into actual programmatic content?  I 
mean constituent assembly has a nice sound to it, but what really is it's 
content in the 21st century, when Honduras has a constitution, a 
legislature, a supreme court?  What's the mean of a constituent assembly? 
To establish a liberal democracy?

Do we have a recent example of a constituent assembly working effectively to 
augment, quicken a social revolution?  We have a recent example of a 
constituent assembly not working effectively in Bolivia-- so ineffectively 
that it deadlocked and Morales took action unilaterally on dozens of items, 
right?

Is such a constituent assembly even possible?  Or is it that Zelaya's 
presidency and the demand for a constituent assembly will automatically lead 
to the "next stage" of the revolution?  OK, let's say it will.  What is that 
next stage?  How is the transition accomplished?

Certainly it's possible to work with class-based organizations agitating for 
a constituent assembly-- but the demand, like the institution itself, is 
powerless, obsolete even before birth without other more conscious demands--  
like maybe immediate withdrawal from CAFTA, back wages for all workers 
dismissed, or unemployed by actions taken by companies in response to 
unionization, like maybe disbanding of the Cobra Squadron, opening of the 
police files, abolition of the supreme court, confiscation of the largest 
landed estates, etc. etc. etc? How about dismissal of all charges against 
those arrested for protests since the coup?  How about shutdown of all 
prosecutors offices, with release of all information regarding actions taken 
against militants who have been imprisoned, or disappeared?

How about something about all the big agricultural growers having to pay a 
special tax with the funds to be administered by councils of urban and rural 
poor to provide clean water and proper sanitation to the majority of the 
population which has neither?

How about-- how about since an election was going to be held-- how about 
raising the issue of organizing a party to run candidates in that election 
with a program something like "how about"?

You say demanding a constituent assembly will bring all those issues into 
the open?  Then why not bring those issues to the front now, if, as we seem 
to agree, those are the real issues to be resolved?

And since any action, any candidate, any demonstration around these issues 
will bring the full repressive power of the state down on it, how about 
clandestine development of self-defense forces?

Now maybe that's being done. I certainly don't know. But I sure haven't 
heard a single word about even the possibility of such demands from Fred, 
Nestor, or even David.  All I've heard is the "possibility" of such issues 
being raised, of a can of worms being opened.   Why not propose the content 
rather than the form of the struggle?

Notice how the word "socialism" hasn't popped up once in that "how about" 
list?   Of course, the word democracy hasn't shown up either, and that is 
certainly by design, as the term is used in Honduras to confine the struggle 
to a certain stage, not effect a transition to the next stage.

If "only a mass insurrectionary strike is going to return Honduras to the 
status quo and Zelaya to power"-- than all those Marxists who have endorsed 
Zelaya as the representative of "popular sovereignty" have to explain the 
fact that all that was accomplished was a return to the status quo, that in 
fact a mass insurrectionary movement has been squandered in the maintenance 
of exactly the same social relations that existed before and after the coup. 
Are we going to say that the "material conditions weren't developed enough"? 
Are we going to say that "There is no alternative."?

If, in our discussions of China, it was evident, at least to some, that 
confining a class struggle, at any stage in its development, to the program 
of the "liberal, democratic bourgeoisie," subordinating that struggle to a 
"anti-imperial" struggle without specific class content, without 
articulation and action for social revoluton,  is a recipe for disaster, why 
is it now not so disastrous?




- Original Message - 
From: "nada" 
To: "David Schanoes" 
Sent: Thursday, November 26, 2009 1:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Honduras: Unequivocal signs of coming repression,


===

[Marxism] [Spanish, sorry] My cde. Battistoni answers to some "rrrrrrevolutionaries"

[Néstor Gorojovsky]

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[The problem with people such as S. Artesian is that there are too
many like him in Latin American politics.

Argentina is a special nurturing ground for this kind of "Marxists".
One of the most precious gems in this rather sullen jewelry is the
party known as Política Obrera, PO, led by the now quasi senile former
child of a poor Jewish family in Buenos Aires who wanted this
intelligent scion to become a Rabbi.

He became a Rabbi of sorts, in his Talmudic way to look on Marx and
the texts of Marxism.

At first glance, the followers of this child, whose nom de guerre is
"Altamira" (that is, more or less, "High-targeting", and this is why
my comrade Battistoni in the text below speaks of "Bajamira"; that is
"low-targetting") seem ultra-super-exra-Trotskyists, but essentially
they are pedantic reformists of the worst kind and sworn enemies of
the national revolutionary movements in Latin America such as they
are.

Battistoni´s comments on Baja/Alta-mira and his followers, which were
written as an introduction to this guy´s recently exposed opinions on
the Fifth International proposed by that class traitor Chávez, deserve
wider distribution, save me from responding to a recent incursion by
S. Artesian in this list and they are in Spanish, which makes them a
good reading for those who pontificate on Latin America but don´t even
know how to spell "mama" in the language Latin Americans speak, read,
dream into and cast their decrees, either revolutionary or
counter-revolutionary, into.

Those interested in what follows and with some difficulties with
acronyms, etc, just contact me. On private line.]


-- Mensaje reenviado --
De: Gustavo Battistoni 
Fecha: 27 de noviembre de 2009 03:20
Asunto: [R-P] Bajamira, como siempre...


[Afirma, muy suelto de cuerpo, Bajamira:

" Chávez, pero más que nada sus seguidores ‘marxistas', confunden
interesadamente la centralización revolucionaria que desarrolla un
partido de clase con la que ejerce un caudillo bonapartista. El
bonapartismo busca siempre un apoyo en las masas, es cierto, pero lo
hace mediante la regimentación y es un opositor violento a su acción
libre y autoemancipadora. Esta confusión ha convertido al bonapartismo
de masas en un ‘hecho maldito' de la sociedad burguesa, sea ésta la
francesa de Napoleón, incluso la alemana de Bismarck y, por cierto, la
argentina y venezolana del primer Perón y de Chávez."

Fantástica "reflexión".¿Chávez partidario de la regimentación?¿De la
negación de la "acción autoemancipadora?
Seguramente, se opone a la "emancipación" de la reacción venezolana, y
es partidario, además, de la "regimentación" de los pro-imperialistas...
Es increíble que alguien que se diga "marxista" no estudie el origen
de clase del fenomeno bonapatista.El bonapartismo nace de un "empate"
o "crisis de hegemonía" entre las clases sociales, que lleva a la
"sociedad" a definirse por un "gobierno" regresivo o progresivo.
La historia, que tiene horror al vacío, va siempre por delante de los
hueros teorizantes.¿Y por qué digo esto? Simplemente,porque al no
existir el "partido revolucionario", las clases oprimidas optan por la
mejor solución para ellas, que es en un país periférico, el cesarismo
o bonapartismo progresista.
Si un país tiene un partido "revolucionario", como el PO, ¿cómo las
masas no van a optar una y otra vez por el peronismo, que es un
representante de los intereses populares, más allá de algún periodo
"oscuro", como el menemato?.Lo mismo pasa en Venezuela,en Ecuador,en
Bolivia,en...
Un partido revolucionario, no se crea por decreto, ni por el deseo de
un "Trotsky de plazoleta", como Bajamira. Es una larga lucha,una dura
brega.Y arrogarse la representación o "vanguardia" de la clase
trabajadora, siendo una patrulla perdida, como "nuestro" PO, es de una
temeridad rayana con la vesania.
América Latina seguirá teniendo liderazgos "bonapartistas", mientras
la "izquierda" sea sectaria y contraria al deseo de las masas.Esto no
va sólo para el grupete de Bajamira.También hay algún grupo de
sedicente retórica de IN, que habla desde una torre de marfil, contra
Moyano y la CGT, haciéndole el juego a los Fayt y cia.
Uno, como militante de P y P, es consciente de su papel minoritario y
del camino "sinuoso" que deberemos recorrer para ganarnos la confianza
de la población.Ni el PO, ni la "izquierda" dogmática se hace cargo de
su sectarismo, de su insignificancia, descalificando al bonapartismo
progresivo sin reflexionar porqué este "hecho maldito" surge una y
otra vez en nuestra América difícil...
El "bonapartismo" o si queremos llamarlo, con palabras "nuestras",
peronismo, chavismo o como se nos ocurra, es la expresión profunda de
los intereses y deseos de las masas explotadas de nuestro
continente.Ninguna lectura esquemática y superfic

Re: [Marxism] [Spanish, sorry] My cde. Battistoni answers to some "rrrrrrevolutionaries"

[S. Artesian]

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That's not a problem for me, Nestor.  I'm sure it's a problem for you and 
your support of national bourgeois governments.

If you ever produced anything that was about real material relations 
between classes rather than personalities,  you might have less problems.

"Worst kiind of enemies of national revolutionary movements in Latin 
America."  Really?  Worse than Pinochet?  Worse than the Southern Cone 
alliance?  Worse than the contras?

You, Nestor, are certainly not the worst kind of pseudo-Marxist to make such 
a smear charge.  You are the rather ordinary kind-- on who has many 
postures, but no standing.

.
- Original Message - 
From: "Néstor Gorojovsky" 
To: "David Schanoes" 
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009 1:57 AM
Subject: [Marxism] [Spanish,sorry] My cde. Battistoni answers to some 
"rrevolutionaries"




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Re: [Marxism] [Spanish, sorry] My cde. Battistoni answers to some "rrrrrrevolutionaries"

[Néstor Gorojovsky]

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==


2009/11/27 S. Artesian :
>
> If you ever produced anything that was about real material relations
> between classes rather than personalities,  you might have less problems.

Of course, Vladimir Ilich Lenin was a real material relation between
classes, not a personality. So was, I guess, Martin Luther King. And
so is, certainly, David Schanoes. You confuse "real material
relations" with the crassest economicism and the dullest statistical
analysis. I got over that long ago. When I started understanding
history.

>
> "Worst kiind of enemies of national revolutionary movements in Latin
> America."  Really?  Worse than Pinochet?  Worse than the Southern Cone
> alliance?  Worse than the contras?

That is cheap demagoguery. Anyway, you should read your Lissagaray,
particularly when he says that those who build illusory worlds for the
workers are as criminal as cartographers who draw no reef where there
are many.

When the guys such as Altamira have some opportunity to lead
something, they are always the door opener for the most reactionary
classes. Enough for me.

Not a single answer more while you keep this mud slinging method alive.

-- 

Néstor Gorojovsky
El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autoría


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