Re: [Marxism] Marxism Digest, Vol 75, Issue 75
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Message du 30/01/10 20:00 De : marxism-requ...@lists.econ.utah.edu A : COMAGUER Copie à : Objet : Marxism Digest, Vol 75, Issue 75 Send Marxism mailing list submissions to marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to marxism-requ...@lists.econ.utah.edu You can reach the person managing the list at marxism-ow...@lists.econ.utah.edu When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Marxism digest... == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Today's Topics: 1. Storm of protest as Tony Blair slinks into Iraq inquiry (Nasir Khan) 2. Re: Banning Foreign Companies' Campaign Contributions (Michael Perelman) -- Message: 1 Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:14:09 +0100 From: Nasir Khan Subject: [Marxism] Storm of protest as Tony Blair slinks into Iraq inquiry To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition Message-ID: 18d70e601001300914r5fd6adb1ocadcbd06efef1...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 ?Blair lied, thousands died.? That was the chant which reverberated around Parliament Square, London, on Friday as former prime minister Tony Blair gave evidence to the Iraq inquiry. Even from the safety of the Queen Elizabeth II centre, where he had been spirited by his security detail hours before the inquiry was due to start, Mr Blair could not have failed to hear the fury of the hundreds of protesters who thronged the square throughout the morning. Full article: http://sudhan.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/storm-of-protest-as-blair-slinks-into-iraq-inquiry/ -- Message: 2 Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:43:33 -0800 From: Michael Perelman Subject: Re: [Marxism] Banning Foreign Companies' Campaign Contributions To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition Message-ID: 20100130184332.ga1...@ecst.csuchico.edu Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii My interest was about the banning US corporations that incorporate outside of the US then get all the favoritism of a US corporation. The nationalist fervor for excluding foreign corporations might at least force those companies to pay taxes. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com -- ___ Marxism mailing list Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism End of Marxism Digest, Vol 75, Issue 75 *** Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Self-service at CVS
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The CVS across the street has installed self-service check-out machines. This is apparently the latest trend in the retail industry to cut costs and boost profits. Of course, when they can clerks, that's a loss of buying power. It is especially galling to have to basically do work for free when I check myself out at CVS. Here's a blog article from Solidarity on this: http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/2350 Self-checkouts and other capitalist inconveniences Submitted by Nick on August 20, 2009 - 12:52pm Anyone who’s been to a supermarket within the past couple of years is undoubtedly familiar with the horrible phenomenon of “self-checkout” machines. It seems grocery stores have given up all pretense of caring about their customers; they’ve fired the cashiers and baggers and are forcing you to scan and bag the groceries yourself as a computerized voice commands you every step of the way. If you’ve used one, you know how extremely inconvenient this is. Because it’s a robot and not a person, you have to go through an extremely specific routine: scan item, place in bag, repeat. Any deviation from this, such as taking a purchase back out of the bag or shifting the items around so the milk doesn’t crush the tortilla chips, will cause the self-checkout station to say perplexing commands at you and possibly force the harried attendant, who has to watch over eight or ten of these things, to come over – after they’re done helping the three other people with the same problem – and make sure you aren’t trying to steal anything before you can scan your next item. I like to bring my own cloth shopping bags, but the self-checkout machines make this very difficult. And then there’s the matter of payment. A worker can sort bills and coins into a cash register much faster than a customer can insert them, one by one, into a little slot that sometimes rejects them for unknowable reasons. Last time I went to the store it took me about five minutes to buy four items. It’s striking how fast they’ve been able to essentially eliminate cashiers. The store I go to has been keeping only one or two normal checkout lanes open, even during peak grocery-shopping times, forcing almost everyone to use the self-checkout. It’s not much better with the regular checkout anyway, since they’ve already eliminated baggers. This is a pretty common phenomenon these days. At a lot of stores, staff have been cut to the point that it’s nearly impossible to ask someone where to find something – instead you’re supposed to use little computers with search functions. Of course, if you enter the wrong name for a product, it won’t be able to tell you where it is. The telephone voice-recognition systems that everyone hates are another example of this trend. This kind of “labor-saving technology” eliminates jobs, but it doesn’t actually save any labor – it makes things more difficult, not less. The difference is that the labor is no longer done by workers, but is foisted onto customers, thus expanding the company’s profit margin while producing inconvenience for everybody else. In a socialist society, we would presumably put such technology to its proper use – that of making life easier for workers and customers. Meanwhile, the UFCW would make a lot of friends if it mounted a campaign against those awful self-checkouts. * Nick's blog Self-check outs Submitted by Mary Struggler (not verified) on August 22, 2009 - 5:30pm. I hate the self check outs and never use them. I don't care how long the line is at the one open cashier. I'd rather wait in line for a wage earning employee than a darn robot that can't buy a car. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Self-service at CVS
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Most supermarkets have not totally eliminated check-out clerks, but have instituted a hybrid system as a transitional phase. Whenever I shop at one of these places, I boycott the self-check out and even urge others to do the same without making too much of a commotion. I think a boycott of self-checkout stations would be a great idea as a union organizing tactic, and would have strong support from the public. Greg Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] China said to lead race to make clean energy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == www.nytimes.com January 31, 2010 China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy By KEITH BRADSHER TIANJIN, China - China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world's largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year. China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world's largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants. These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China. Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, 'Made in China,' said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy. President Obama, in his State of the Union speech last week, sounded an alarm that the United States was falling behind other countries, especially China, on energy. I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders - and I know you don't either, he told Congress. The United States and other countries are offering incentives to develop their own renewable energy industries, and Mr. Obama called for redoubling American efforts. Yet many Western and Chinese executives expect China to prevail in the energy-technology race. Multinational corporations are responding to the rapid growth of China's market by building big, state-of-the-art factories in China. Vestas of Denmark has just erected the world's biggest wind turbine manufacturing complex here in northeastern China, and transferred the technology to build the latest electronic controls and generators. You have to move fast with the market, said Jens Tommerup, the president of Vestas China. Nobody has ever seen such fast development in a wind market. Renewable energy industries here are adding jobs rapidly, reaching 1.12 million in 2008 and climbing by 100,000 a year, according to the government-backed Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association. Yet renewable energy may be doing more for China's economy than for the environment. Total power generation in China is on track to pass the United States in 2012 - and most of the added capacity will still be from coal. China intends for wind, solar and biomass energy to represent 8 percent of its electricity generation capacity by 2020. That compares with less than 4 percent now in China and the United States. Coal will still represent two-thirds of China's capacity in 2020, and nuclear and hydropower most of the rest. As China seeks to dominate energy-equipment exports, it has the advantage of being the world's largest market for power equipment. The government spends heavily to upgrade the electricity grid, committing $45 billion in 2009 alone. State-owned banks provide generous financing. China's top leaders are intensely focused on energy policy: on Wednesday, the government announced the creation of a National Energy Commission composed of cabinet ministers as a superministry led by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself. Regulators have set mandates for power generation companies to use more renewable energy. Generous subsidies for consumers to install their own solar panels or solar water heaters have produced flurries of activity on rooftops across China. China's biggest advantage may be its domestic demand for electricity, rising 15 percent a year. To meet demand in the coming decade, according to statistics from the International Energy Agency, China will need to add nearly nine times as much electricity generation capacity as the United States will. So while Americans are used to thinking of themselves as having the world's largest market in many industries, China's market for power equipment dwarfs that of the United States, even though the American market is more mature. That means Chinese producers enjoy enormous efficiencies from large-scale production. In the United States, power companies frequently face a choice between buying renewable energy equipment or continuing to operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants that have already been built and paid for. In China, power companies have to buy lots of new equipment anyway, and alternative energy, particularly wind and nuclear, is increasingly priced competitively. Interest rates as low as 2 percent for bank loans - the result of a savings rate of 40 percent and a government policy of steering loans to renewable energy - have also made a big difference. As in many other industries, China's low labor costs are an
Re: [Marxism] Obama: I am not a radical or a Bolshevik
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I remember visiting Chicago during an election campaign in the early 1970s, and there were all these posters of Democratic candidates up. These included an ample supply of candidates who looked like Mary Travers or Abby Hoffman. Election time under any serious political machine is always going to be a bit like a visit from Barnum and Baileys. It'll always entice you with the image of what you want. It only works if the rubes don't look too closely. ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] glaciergate
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Shawn Redden wrote: To my eyes, it's not a world that the 'Global Warming' issue addresses in any meaningful way. Am I the only one who loses my mind when I see 'people' like Chevron or BP 'talk' about carbon footprints? Once, early in the disgusting campaign, I sent an e-mail asking about THEIR carbon footprint ... just to decompress. I would pay less attention to Chevron public service announcements on PBS than to this: New Left Review 61, January-February 2010 by Mike Davis WHO WILL BUILD THE ARK? What follows is rather like the famous courtroom scene in Orson Welles’s The Lady from Shanghai (1947). [1] In that noir allegory of proletarian virtue in the embrace of ruling-class decadence, Welles plays a leftwing sailor named Michael O’Hara who rolls in the hay with femme fatale Rita Hayworth, and then gets framed for murder. Her husband, Arthur Bannister, the most celebrated criminal lawyer in America, played by Everett Sloane, convinces O’Hara to appoint him as his defence, all the better to ensure his rival’s conviction and execution. At the turning point in the trial, decried by the prosecution as ‘yet another of the great Bannister’s famous tricks’, Bannister the attorney calls Bannister the aggrieved husband to the witness stand and interrogates himself in rapid schizoid volleys, to the mirth of the jury. In the spirit of Lady from Shanghai, this essay is organized as a debate with myself, a mental tournament between analytic despair and utopian possibility that is personally, and probably objectively, irresolvable. full: http://newleftreview.org --- The Moment Of Truth By Fidel Castro 18 December, 2009 Cuba.cu The news from the Danish capital gives a picture of chaos. After planning a conference with about 40 thousand people in attendance, the hosts find it impossible to honor their promise. Evo, the first of the two presidents of ALBA-member countries to arrive, stated some truths derived from the millennium-old culture of his people. According to press agencies he said that he had received a mandate from the Bolivian people to oppose any agreement that does not meet the expectations. He explained that climate change is not the cause but the effect, and that we all have an obligation to defend the rights of Mother Earth vis-à-vis a capitalist development model; to defend the culture of life vis-à-vis the culture of death. He also addressed the climate debt that the rich countries should pay to the poor countries and the return of the atmospheric space taken from the latter. full: http://www.aclimateforchange.org/profiles/blogs/fidel-castro-the-moment-of --- Jose Maria Sison: End Monopoly Capitalism to Arrest Climate Change Jump to Comments The following statement, “End Monopoly Capitalism to Arrest Climate Change” by Jose Maria Sison, Chairperson of the International League of People’s Struggle: Human societies have created the bases of our survival, sustenance and advancement through the use of our natural resources in production with rudimentary tools and rising levels of science and technology. Yet in no time in history has environmental destruction been systematically brought about in most parts of the world. The people of the world face today global poverty, economic wars and environmental crises. They are confronted by an escalating, more rapacious and vicious campaign of plunder by monopoly capitalism. This aggravates the already devastated and polluted natural environment. The massive dumping of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere by the operations of monopoly capitalist firms in the energy industries, manufacturing, transportation, industrial agriculture, mining, construction, etc. is now generating climatic changes that are causing massive devastation and loss of human lives around the world. full: http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/jose-maria-sison-end-monopoly-capitalism-to-arrest-climate-change/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Kazin pisses on Zinn's grave
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == === Kathleen de la Peña McCook Librarians and Human Rights http://justicelibraries.blogspot.com/ Little Mikey is no Walker in the City, is he? On 31 Jan 2010 at 11:18, Louis Proyect wrote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jan/30/howard-zinn-america Kazin, like Sean Wilentz who made a snide comment on Zinn in the AP obit, have had a grudge against Zinn for a long time. The fact that they used his death as an opportunity to repeat old charges is disgusting. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] glaciergate
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == At 10:37 AM -0500 1/31/10, Louis Proyect wrote: Shawn Redden wrote: To my eyes, it's not a world that the 'Global Warming' issue addresses in any meaningful way. Am I the only one who loses my mind when I see 'people' like Chevron or BP 'talk' about carbon footprints? Once, early in the disgusting campaign, I sent an e-mail asking about THEIR carbon footprint ... just to decompress. I would pay less attention to Chevron public service announcements on PBS than to this: Why? As much as I wish they were, these voices - Davis, Castro, Chavez, etc. - aren't driving the debate. In fact, they're fighting a rearguard action against the 'global warming' ideologues. Especially Chavez, whose remarks on Cophenhagen are especially noteworthy. Asserting one should ignore the very mouthpieces of this agenda - those who use 'global warming' to articulate a program of austerity for the masses - that Chavez _fought_ in Denmark (as illustrated by Castro's speech) is akin to the coach of a professional sports team saying that scouting the opposition is a waste of time. The hip-hop group dead prez have a great tune with a chorus that beings: know your enemy; know yourself - that's politics. The 'cap-in-trade'/air privatization agenda must get blown up, and the eco-gangsters must be brought to account. That's the bottom line, and anything that does otherwise on this issue is diversionary. I love Mike Davis and thank you for sending along the essay: it will be subway reading this week. I just finished using an essay he wrote in 2006 on Dubai in my class, and in the past have used selections from Late Victorian Holocausts and Dead Cities as well as an interview he gave to Socialist Worker on the climate. So his work isn't foreign to me. But the fact that Mike Davis thinks that capitalist development has screwed the world doesn't in any way encourage me to disregard the major new story that the major scientific mouthpiece for the 'global warming' agenda has an e-mail log to hearkens back to Enron. Solidarity, Shawn Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] glaciergate
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Sorry - I can't make any sense of this paragraph. What major new story? What is the reference to Enron meant to suggest? - Bill Shawn Redden wrote: But the fact that Mike Davis thinks that capitalist development has screwed the world doesn't in any way encourage me to disregard the major new story that the major scientific mouthpiece for the 'global warming' agenda has an e-mail log to hearkens back to Enron. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] glaciergate
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jan 31, 2010, at 10:37 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: New Left Review 61, January-February 2010 by Mike Davis WHO WILL BUILD THE ARK? I take no issue with Mike Davis's well-reasoned diagnosis of the desperate Anthropocene climate crisis. But, off topic, as a (perhaps imperfect) Wagnerian I cavil at this phrase: the Wagnerian hyperboles of Albert Speer in the Third Reich. There was nothing Wagnerian at all in the architectural monstrosities of Hitlerism. Almost all of the action in Wagner's operas takes place in the open air, with a few scenes in a natural cave (Venusberg in Tannhauser, Nibelheim in Das Rheingold) or in modest structures like a Sea-captain's home (Der Fliegende Hollander) a monastic refectory (Parsifal) a parish church (Die Meistersinger) or a forest hut (Siegfried, Die Walküre). The most notable building is the Erzburg Tonhalle (Tannhauser). Wagner's own home, Haus Wahnfried, is exceedingly modest, as is the Festspielhaus in comparison to all other 19th and 20th century opera houses. So the Wagnerian hyperbole must refer to Valhalla--which, of course, Wagner explicitly presents as the epitome of Machtdunkel (power blindness), useless, futile, paid for with stolen and accursed gold, and (like the Third Reich itself) doomed from the outset to fiery destruction. Or to Klingsor's illusory tower. In his madness Hitler imagined himself a Siegfried. He was nothing but a wannabe Klingsor. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Michael Kazin pisses on Zinn's grave
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == LProyect is too kind to Michael Kazin. Kazin ends his article with the statement: But no work of history can substitute for a social movement. Well, a clearer case of attacking a straw man has, perhaps, never been written. No one, certainly not Professor Zinn, would have claimed otherwise. However, one thing that Howard Zinn understood, is that people are not likely to organize succesfully into social movements unless they have some understanding of the past, including an understanding of past social movements. And Zinn attempted to provide his reader just that with his A People's History of the United States. What has Kazin done that is in anyway comparable? Jim F. http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant On Sun, 31 Jan 2010 11:18:53 -0500 Louis Proyect l...@panix.com writes: == http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jan/30/howard-zin n-america Kazin, like Sean Wilentz who made a snide comment on Zinn in the AP obit, have had a grudge against Zinn for a long time. The fact that they used his death as an opportunity to repeat old charges is disgusting. Even more disgusting is the wretched social democrat Kazin telling Guardian readers that Zinn was insufficiently anti-capitalist. Diet Help Cheap Diet Help Tips. Click here. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=Yv2EgmXAvvsBXaU3zNhK0gAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAYAAADNAAAYQAA= Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Self-service at CVS
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jan 31, 2010, at 9:41 AM, S. Artesian wrote: French supermarkets-- Champion, etc. introduced them awhile ago-- not too popular from what I observed in Paris, but then everything in Paris, including waiting in line, is viewed as an opportunity to engage in conversation and discussion K-Mart on Astor Place in Manhattan installed them about 5 years ago-- but had to have clerks available as so many customers were confused by the process-- and I think it presents a greater opportunity for pilferage-- scan the low priced article, but bag the high priced article. I can't imagine Whole Foods, anti-union or not, doing such a thing. Shane Mage shm...@pipeline.com L'après-vie, c'est une auberge espagnole. L'on n'y trouve que ce qu'on y a apporté. Bardo Thodol Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Self-service at CVS
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: The CVS across the street has installed self-service check-out machines. This is apparently the latest trend in the retail industry to cut costs and boost profits. Of course, when they can clerks, that's a loss of buying power. It is especially galling to have to basically do work for free when I check myself out at CVS. Here's a blog article from Solidarity on this: http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/2350 Self-checkouts and other capitalist inconveniences Submitted by Nick on August 20, 2009 - 12:52pm Anyone who’s been to a supermarket within the past couple of years is undoubtedly familiar with the horrible phenomenon of “self-checkout” machines. [...] The past couple of years? Longer, I think; Automats, certain phone exchanges and ATMs being the earlier examples that I can recall (though the Automat had people behind the coveys constantly feeding sliced pie, sandwiches and coffee as needed and someone out front to clean up after messy people). It's true, though: The trend towards automation has become almost irresistible and the complete mechanization of consumption may be part of it. I have a slight problem with some of the language in the article. I think that customer is another way of saying consumer, a term I consider, sociologically imprecise and misleading to anyone needing or aspiring to greater working class consciousness. Ralph Nader once came to my school to address us and I intended to ask him about the use of the consumer label so prevalent in his discourse but I had to leave for a class before the talk was over. Pity. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Self-service-at-CVS-tp27392731p27398936.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Self-service at CVS
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:41:02 -0500 S. Artesian sartes...@earthlink.net writes: French supermarkets-- Champion, etc. introduced them awhile ago-- not too popular from what I observed in Paris, but then everything in Paris, including waiting in line, is viewed as an opportunity to engage in conversation and discussion K-Mart on Astor Place in Manhattan installed them about 5 years ago-- but had to have clerks available as so many customers were confused by the process-- and I think it presents a greater opportunity for pilferage-- scan the low priced article, but bag the high priced article. That maybe their Achilles heel. What the stores might save in reduced labor costs may be lost through increasing pilferage. Then they either will have to hire extra clerks to guard against theft or they will have to increase the sophistication of the technology, which of course will make it more expensive. Might be cheaper then just to hire cashiers. Jim F. http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant Senior Assisted Living Put your loved ones in good hands with quality senior assisted living. Click now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=fMi3JRdOaaGP8qQzYognMAAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAYAAADNAAASUQA= Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Haiti, population and environment, RIP Howard Zinn Alistair Hulett, Indonesia, Cuba and S. Africa, Obama, Honduras
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Haiti; population and environment; RIP Howard Zinn Alistair Hulett; Indonesia; Cuba and S. Africa; Obama; Honduras * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to li...@dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. * * * Howard Zinn, 1922-2010: Howard Zinn interviewed by Dave Zirin http://links.org.au/node/1482 On May 2, 2009, the US International Socialist Organization invited Dave Zirin to sitdown and interview renowned historian Howard Zinn. * Watch here http://links.org.au/node/1482 People are not pollution -- Why climate activists should not support limits on immigration http://links.org.au/node/1478 By *Ian Angus* and *Simon Butler* January 25, 2010 -- Immigrants to the developed world have frequently been blamed for unemployment, crime and other social ills. Attempts to reduce or block immigration have been justified as necessary measures to protect our way of life from alien influences. Today, some environmentalists go farther, arguing that sharp cuts in immigration are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow climate change. However sincere and well-meaning such activists may be, their arguments are wrong and dangerous, and should be rejected by the climate emergency movement. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1478 Peter Hallward: Securing disaster in Haiti http://links.org.au/node/1476 By *Peter Hallward* January 21, 2010 -- Nine days after the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, it's now clear that the initial phase of the US-led relief operation has conformed to the three fundamental tendencies that have shaped the more general course of the island's recent history.[1] It has adopted military priorities and strategies. It has sidelined Haiti's own leaders and government, and ignored the needs of the majority of its people. And it has proceeded in ways that reinforce the already harrowing gap between rich and poor. All three tendencies aren't just connected, they are mutually reinforcing. These same tendencies will continue to govern the imminent reconstruction effort as well, unless determined political action is taken to counteract them. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1476 Indonesia: Thousands protest Yudhoyono's 100th day in office http://links.org.au/node/1486 Photos by *Ulfa Ilyas* and *PRP International* Jakarta, Indonesia -- January 28, 2010 -- Thousands of Indonesians staged a mass protest in front of the presidential palace. The protesters criticised the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's neoliberal policies and corruption on its 100th day in office. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1486 Cuba and the South African anti-apartheid struggle http://links.org.au/node/1485 /Twenty years ago, Nelson Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison in Paarl, South Africa, on February 11, 1990. That historic victory was the product of the long and courageous struggle of the oppressed people of South Africa. It was also a victory for the international movement against apartheid. Revolutionary Cuba played a vital role in the international movement against white minority rule in South Africa, as the following article describes. / * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1485 Alistair Hulett: `A truly great singer, songwriter, activist and socialist' http://links.org.au/node/1484 January 29, 2010 -- Alistair Hulett died at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow on Thursday evening, January 28, 2010. Alistair, a truly great singer, songwriter, activist and socialist, will be greatly missed by us all. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1484 Obama's State of the Union: Year one of a corporate presidency http://links.org.au/node/1483 By *Billy Wharton* January 27, 2010 -- From the start, Barack Obama's presidency has seemed like one big public relations campaign. Tonight's State of the Union address did little to dissuade one from this view. Sagging under the weight of depressed dreams of hope and change, he desperately needed to appear as though he was doing something to address the growing needs of the US people. Emphasis was on appearances, since Obama's speech delivered more of the same from his first year in office: high rhetoric with little substance. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1483 Haiti:
[Marxism] The Challenges of 21st Century Socialism in Venezuela
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23797 The Challenges of 21st Century Socialism in Venezuela Interview with William I. Robinson, Professor of Sociology, University of California at Santa Barbara By Chronis Polychroniou Editor, Greek daily newspaper Eleftherotypia Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Challenges of 21st Century Socialism in Venezuela
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23797 The Challenges of 21st Century Socialism in Venezuela: February 01, 2010 By William I. Robinson William I. Robinson's ZSpace Page Join ZSpace Interview with William I. Robinson, Professor of Sociology, University of California at Santa Barbara By Chronis Polychroniou Editor, Greek daily newspaper Eleftherotypia There are scare stories coming from Venezuela. The border is heating up, infiltration is taking place, a new Colombian military base near the border, US access to several new bases on Colombia and constant subversion. Is the regime concerned about a possible invasion? If yes, who is going to intervene? The Venezuelan government is concerned about a possible US invasion and certainly an outright invasion cannot be ruled out. However I think the US is pursuing a more sophisticated strategy of intervention that we could call a war of attrition. We have seen this strategy in other countries, such as in Nicaragua in the 1980s, or even Chile under Allende. It is what in CIA lexicon is known as destabilization, and in the Pentagon's language is called political warfare - which does not mean there is not a military component. This is a counterrevolutionary strategy that combines military threats and hostilities with psychological operations, disinformation campaigns, black propaganda, economic sabotage, diplomatic pressures, the mobilization of political opposition forces inside the country, carrying out provocations and sparking violent confrontations in the cities, manipulation of disaffected sectors and the exploitation of legitimate grievances among the population. The strategy is deft at taking advantage of the revolution's own mistakes and limitations, such as corruption, clientalism, and opportunism, which we must acknowledge are serious problems in Venezuela. It is also deft at aggravating and manipulating material problems, such as shortages, price inflation, and so forth. The goal is to destroy the revolution by making it unworkable, by exhausting the population's will to continue to struggle to forge a new society, and in this way to undermine the revolution's mass social base. According to the US strategy the revolution must be destroyed by having it collapse it in on itself, by undermining the remarkable hegemony that Chavismo and Bolivarianismo has been able to achieve within Venezuelan civil society over the past decade. US strategists hope to provoke Chavez into a crackdown that transforms the democratic socialist process into an authoritarian one. In the view of these strategists, Chavez will eventually be removed from power through any number of scenarios brought about by constant war of attribution - whether through elections, a military putsch from within, an uprising, mass defections from the revolutionary camp, or a combination of factors that can not be foretold. In this context the military bases in Colombia provide a crucial platform for intelligence and reconnaissance operations against Venezuela and also for the infiltration of counterrevolutionary military, economic sabotage, and terrorist groups. These infiltrating groups are meant to harass, but more specifically, to provoke reactions from the revolutionary government and to synchronize armed provocation with the whole gamut of political, diplomatic, psychological, economic, and ideological aggressions that are part of the war of attrition. Moreover, the mere threat of US military aggression that the bases represent in itself constitutes a powerful US psychological operation intended to heighten tensions inside Venezuela, force the government into extremist positions or into crying wolf, and to embolden internal anti-Chavista and counterrevolutionary forces. However, it is important to see that the military bases are part of the larger U.S. strategy towards all of Latin America. The US and the Right in Latin America have launched a counteroffensive to reverse the turn to the Left or the so-called Pink Tide. Venezuela is the epicenter of an emergent counter-hegemonic bloc in Latin America. But Bolivia and Ecuador, and more generally, the region's burgeoning social movements and left political forces are as much targets of this counteroffensive as is Venezuela. The coup in Honduras has provided impetus to this counteroffensive and emboldened the Right and counterrevolutionary forces. Colombia has become the epicenter regional counterrevolution - really a bastion of 21st century fascism. Chavez's Bolivian revolution has been very popular with the poor. Could you lay out how the Venezuelan society has changed since Chavez came to power? First
[Marxism-Thaxis] TheGreenBeautiful
I can't recommend this film enough. I would love to own it, but it's only available in the original French, and I'm not yet programmed to understand that language. The story centers on the people who live telepathically and in tune with nature. It begins with a call for volunteers for a trip to the earth where they've not been for 200 years. No one volunteers initially until one woman finally agrees to go. When she arrives in Paris, her magical powers cause havoc, inspiration and a series of very humorous moments. I had no intention of watching the whole 9 segments, but couldn't stop! Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreenBeautiful MW ^ CB: Wow ! Sounds like my kind of science fiction. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Rev. Jackson joins call for foreclosure moratorium
Bottoms up ! CB ^^^ http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=smenu=1twindow=mad=sdetail=8262wpage=1skeyword=sidate=ccat=ccatm=restate=restatus=reoption=retype=repmin=repmax=rebed=rebath=subname=pform=sc=1070hn=michigancitizenhe=.com Rev. Jackson joins call for foreclosure moratorium -- 1/31/2010 Victims, organizers plan to take struggle to shareholders, streets By Diane Bukowski Michigan Citizen DETROIT — The demand for a moratorium on foreclosures, first raised several years ago by Detroit’s Moratorium NOW! Coalition, is now being advanced nationally by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, leader of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. He was the keynote speaker Jan. 24 during a day-long mobilization against banks and mortgage companies at Central United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit. Jackson recalled that Michigan’s legislature declared a five-year halt to foreclosures during the Great Depression of the 1930s. He said the nation’s five largest banks have 3.3 million mortgages eligible for modification (monthly payment reduction), but have modified only 30,000. He castigated the U.S. Department of Justice for refusing to enforced recently enacted laws against foreclosures. These include President Barack Obama’s Helping Families Stay in Their Homes Act and the Home Economic Recovery Act, which require modifications in exchange for what may soon amount to $1 trillion in taxpayer bailouts. “Haiti has been devastated by a physical earthquake while we face an economic earthquake caused by greed and not governed by law. It’s time to revive the movement of the 1960s, to take our battle to shareholders’ meetings and the streets, to restructure the banks, not repossess churches and homes,” Jackson said. “The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to bankroll elections has emboldened Wall Street,” he observed. “Stocks for banks and insurance and pharmaceutical companies are on the rise, along with unemployment, foreclosures and poverty.” Jackson said banks make more money on foreclosures than on mortgages. In addition to government bail-out dollars and excessive fees, they profit by processing loans, bundling or securitizing them, and getting 80 percent of their value through foreclosure insurance paid for by the homeowner. During the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt, Jackson noted, it was illegal for banks and securities firms to be under the same roof, but laws against such combinations were struck down during President Bill Clinton’s term of office. Rainbow/PUSH is targeting Bank of America’s shareholders’ meeting Feb. 23 in Charlotte, North Carolina, for its first action, after a Feb. 20 gathering in Detroit. Bank of America (BOA) has 1.2 million homes facing foreclosure, but has granted modifications in only 100 cases. Michelle Hart said she and her elderly mother, who is suffering from pancreatic cancer, have experienced Bank of America’s greed first hand. They got an adjustable rate home loan from Countrywide through Bank of America and their payments increased dramatically. But BOA refused them a modification despite her mother’s illness. “We have been fighting Bank of America to stay in our home for almost two years,” Hart declared. “Meanwhile the market value has dropped, and the government is just backing the banks. I want everyone to contact the governor and their legislators. Homelessness is not something that should make profits for the banks.” Rev. Edwin Rowe, pastor of Central United, and attorneys Vanessa Fluker and Jerome Goldberg, who have devoted most of their practices to fighting foreclosures, reinforced Jackson’s call for a moratorium, to be won through marches on Washington and other tactics. “The banks signed contracts to keep people in their homes, but instead they are using our tax dollars to throw out our neighbors,” said Fluker. “As a result of a drop in property values, the total tax base of our communities is being destroyed. Why should we have to keep going to court to stop foreclosures and evictions?” She asked people to pack a State Court of Appeals hearing on the eviction of her client Marvin Morris. The hearing is to take place Tues. Feb. 2 at 10 a.m. at Cadillac Place, the state’s Detroit headquarters (formerly the GM Building) on W. Grand Blvd. Goldberg said more than 50 percent of foreclosures are now being carried out by the government itself, on mortgages insured by the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac agencies. Those entities were taken over by the federal government in 2008, costing taxpayers $400 billion, with another $400 billion currently being contemplated by Congress. The Center for Responsible Lending projects nearly 326,000 more foreclosures in Michigan from 2009 through 2012, and says that nationally, $1.9 trillion in homeowner wealth will be lost during the same period. “A moratorium on foreclosures can be declared through executive order by the President, and by Governor Jennifer Granholm declaring a state of
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Setting the record straight
On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:55:44 -0500 Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org writes: Looks like the real story to me. Notice the entry ends with Gerald Ford. Social liberalism was killed off during the Carter administration. The secret of all mysteries lies in the '70s. One of the ironies is that probably the greatest philosophical defense of American social liberalism, John Rawls's *A Theory of Justice* came out just as social liberalism was beginning to die out. I don't think that it is any great mystery what happened in the 1970s. In the mid-1970s, we had the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. It became clear that the institutional framework which modern capitalism had been working under since the 1930s and 1940s was no longer politically viable. It, therefore, came under challenge both from the left and the right. But as things turned out, the right (which was rapidly gaining the support of big business), was much better positioned to institute a new political framework than was the left. Hence, from the mid-1970s on, we see the rise of neo-liberalism, with the state attempting to promote economic expansion by holding down wages. Thus, the efforts to unravel the social safety net that that had been put in place under the New Deal and the Great Society. Jim F. http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant At 05:39 AM 1/26/2010, CeJ wrote: Sometimes in the American political lexicon, a 'liberal' is someone who espouses a very weak form of 'social democracy' European style. Classical liberals, an understanding most Americans know nothing of, have ended up over amongst the libertarians I suspect. I suspect the contradiction that lies within Barrage Obushwa is warpigism vs. social internventionist liberalism. A religious belief in America and its right to dominate the world is always the glue that keeps such incoherence going. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States History of modern liberalism in the United States ... _ If you don't know the '70s, you don't know shit! ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis Criminal Lawyer Criminal Lawyers - Click here. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=QWemd8GuspwwZyl1yNMMaAAAJ1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAYAAADNAAAiFgA= ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] NAACP Response to State of the Union address
Response to State of the Union address: We cannot be silent By Benjamin Todd Jealous NNPA Guest Commentary President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address is a testimony to the power of we: We, who dared to dream breaking the centuries-old color barrier at the White House was possible; we, who continue to fight for expanding voting rights; we, who battle tirelessly every election to maximize voter participation and minimize voter intimidation. His first State of the Union address is a paean to those who have joined together throughout history to change our country for the better. We are in crisis today. The greed of fat-cat bankers has unleashed a torrent of predatory lending and a trickle of permanent loan modifications that together are turning homeowners into the homeless. The unemployment rate for Americans of all colors is over 10 percent, Black and Brown American unemployment hovers above 15 percent. The jobless rate among African American men in many cities is over 50 percent. Approximately 50 million Americans lack health insurance. More than 50 million people in America — disproportionately children — don’t get enough to eat. The President unveiled new polices to support working families. He reiterated his commitment to rein in some of the worst excesses of Wall Street, and pledged his enduring dedication to bring health care to millions of uninsured Americans. He expressed his forceful and compassionate commitment to the people of Haiti — a swift, comprehensive response to the human tragedy that stands in stark contrast to his predecessor’s reaction to the thousands victimized by Hurricane Katrina. President Obama outlined the right agenda — one that is pro civil rights, pro human dignity, and pro the American Dream for every American. However, he cannot do it without us. Predatory banks, profit-driven health-care CEOs, and those big business leaders who would see our country and our families go bankrupt before they would pay their own way (or even a living wage) are committed to funding a fierce battle for the status quo. The Supreme Court, still dominated by those who helped steal the election in 2000 and their protégés, has unleashed unlimited amounts of corporate dollars into the political landscape with its ruling this month on campaign finance reform. President Obama has vowed to fight. He has pledged to reverse the worst impact of the Supreme Court decision. Yet without each of us fully engaged, loads of greedy multi-national corporate treasure will be used to crush his agenda and those who support it for simply daring to do the people’s will. Still we can win. Organized people ultimately trump organized money. But without you and all your friends and neighbors back on the battlefield, sowing and reaping the power of we, there is no guarantee progress will continue. Like every great wave, the one that made it possible for a Black family to live in the White House must be regenerated, or it ebbs. More importantly, our communities’ and families’ fates, which are in perilous condition, will ebb with it. We can be proud of the progress President Obama has made — implementing policies to stem massive job losses, extending health care coverage to millions of children, stabilizing the economy, increasing women’s ability to ensure fair treatment in the workplace, rebuilding the Justice Department and EEOC’s ability to protect Americans’ basic rights, and restoring our nation’s ability to protect its food and water. These are our victories. Some argue that our president has not pushed hard enough for the change we need. But just as this Administration’s greatest accomplishments lies in the hands of the idealists and organizers, so too must we claim the shortcomings. In too many instances in the past 12 months we have powered down, left the field for the bleachers, and chosen to play armchair pundit rather than continue to build and lead. If our president is not bold enough, it is up to us to build the next wave for bolder action. The great Frederick Douglass once said, “If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation … want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. ... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” We cannot be silent. The change we seek is in our hands. Benjamin Todd Jealous is President and CEO of the NAACP ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] involuntary acceleration hysteria
http://pressroom.toyota.com/pr/tms/toyota/toyota-consumer-safety-advisory-102572.aspx?srchid=K610_p228906387 Frequently Asked Questions For Sticking Accelerator Pedal Recall and Suspension of Sales Which models are affected by the recall/stop sale? Toyota’s accelerator pedal recall and suspension of sales is confined to the following Toyota Division vehicles: 2009-2010 RAV4, 2009-2010 Corolla, 2009-2010 Matrix, 2005-2010 Avalon, Certain 2007-2010 Camry 2010 Highlander except hybrid models, 2007-2010 Tundra, 2008-2010 Sequoia No Lexus Division or Scion vehicles are affected by these actions. Also not affected are Toyota Prius, Tacoma, Sienna, Venza, Solara, Yaris, 4Runner, FJ Cruiser, Land Cruiser, Highlander hybrids and select Camry models, including all Camry hybrids, which will remain for sale. What is the condition that has prompted Toyota to take this action? In rare instances, there is a possibility that certain accelerator pedal mechanisms may, mechanically stick in a partially depressed position or return slowly to the idle position. What is the likelihood that my vehicle will experience this condition? The condition is rare and does not occur suddenly. It can occur when the pedal mechanism becomes worn and, in certain conditions, the accelerator pedal may become harder to depress, slower to return or, in the worst case, stuck in a partially depressed position. Are you continuing to investigate other models? Toyota is confident that all models that contain the potentially sticking pedals have been identified. Why has Toyota stopped selling the affected vehicles? Until Toyota has finalized an appropriate remedy to address the potential for sticking accelerator pedals, a sales suspension is necessary. How long will this stop sale be in effect? New cars covered by this recall will not be delivered until a remedy is finalized and then implemented. When do you expect to have a remedy? We’re making every effort to remedy this situation for our customers as quickly as possible. What options are you exploring for a remedy? We are reviewing a number of different options, and we hope to announce a remedy soon. What should I do if I believe my vehicle is affected by this condition, i.e. I have noticed that my accelerator pedal is hard to depress, slow to return or is unsmooth during operation. What should I do? The vehicle should be driven to the nearest safe location, the engine shut off and a Toyota dealer contacted for assistance. What if you experience a sticking accelerator pedal while driving? Each circumstance may vary, and drivers must use their best judgment, but Toyota recommends taking one of the following actions: • If you need to stop immediately, the vehicle can be controlled by stepping on the brake pedal with both feet using firm and steady pressure. Do not pump the brake pedal as it will deplete the vacuum utilized for the power brake assist. • Shift the transmission gear selector to the Neutral (N) position and use the brakes to make a controlled stop at the side of the road and turn off the engine. • If unable to put the vehicle in Neutral, turn the engine OFF. This will not cause loss of steering or braking control, but the power assist to these systems will be lost. • If the vehicle is equipped with an Engine Start/Stop button, firmly and steadily push the button for at least three seconds to turn off the engine. Do NOT tap the Engine Start/Stop button. • If the vehicle is equipped with a conventional key-ignition, turn the ignition key to the ACC position to turn off the engine. Do NOT remove the key from the ignition as this will lock the steering wheel. If I am an owner of one of the affected vehicles, what action do I need to take? Toyota is working quickly to prepare a correction remedy and will issue owner notifications in the future. No action is required at this time unless you feel you are experiencing this condition. If you are experiencing this condition, immediately contact your nearest Toyota Dealer for assistance. Toyota stated that this did not affect new/low mileage vehicles, has the situation changed? The law requires that the entire universe of new vehicles identified in our recall notice must be included in the stop sale. Why are you stopping production at your factories? Production is being stopped temporarily at five North American production facilities to assess and coordinate activities related to the recall announced on January 21. What should I do if I still have questions or concerns? If you still have questions or concerns that have not been addressed here, please contact the Toyota Customer Experience Center at 1-800-331-4331. The Toyota Customer Experience Center hours are: Mon - Fri, 5:00 am - 6:00 pm PST Sat, 7:00 am - 4:00 pm PST ### The latest news about the sticking accelerator pedal recall: Statement from Toyota on Supplier CTS (Jan. 28, 2010) Toyota Temporarily Suspends Sale of Selected Vehicles (Jan. 26, 2010) Toyota Files
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Setting the record straight
Dear Jim and list, Jim, I don't think this gets to the heart of what happened in the 1970s. You put it down to neo-liberalism, but neo-liberalism is merely a policy at the level of the State, and it is not an ontological change in the structure of capitalism. But there WAS a major change that took place in the structure of not only American, but world, capitalism in the 1970s. That change was that in the 1970s for the first time in history TRANSNATIONAL capitalist corporations emerged which are so large in terms of turnover and product that they economically dwarfed all but the few richest nations, and they, for the first time in history, had come to collectively dominate economy and policy on a world scale, i.e. even the richest and most powerful nation-state - the USA - became in the 1970s very much subordinate to the transnational capitalist corporations. The age of capitalist nation-states dictating their own national economic policy completely died in the 1970s. Along with this, any attempt at reform on a merely national basis became utopian, if one takes account of this shift in power to the TRANSNATIONAL capitalist corporations. This has all been usefully summarised and theorised by Leslie Sklair in his books since 1990, though Sklair probably goes too far in suggesting that there is (already) a transnational capitalist class. That seems wrong, but the shift to transnational capitalist corporations now largely controlling economy and policy (instead of the State controlling them) is a fact and is a major change of which socialists need to take account if they are not to be starting from mistaken assumptions about the ontology of the world economy. Phil Walden -Original Message- From: marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Jim Farmelant Sent: 31 January 2010 16:35 To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Setting the record straight On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:55:44 -0500 Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org writes: Looks like the real story to me. Notice the entry ends with Gerald Ford. Social liberalism was killed off during the Carter administration. The secret of all mysteries lies in the '70s. One of the ironies is that probably the greatest philosophical defense of American social liberalism, John Rawls's *A Theory of Justice* came out just as social liberalism was beginning to die out. I don't think that it is any great mystery what happened in the 1970s. In the mid-1970s, we had the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. It became clear that the institutional framework which modern capitalism had been working under since the 1930s and 1940s was no longer politically viable. It, therefore, came under challenge both from the left and the right. But as things turned out, the right (which was rapidly gaining the support of big business), was much better positioned to institute a new political framework than was the left. Hence, from the mid-1970s on, we see the rise of neo-liberalism, with the state attempting to promote economic expansion by holding down wages. Thus, the efforts to unravel the social safety net that that had been put in place under the New Deal and the Great Society. Jim F. http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant At 05:39 AM 1/26/2010, CeJ wrote: Sometimes in the American political lexicon, a 'liberal' is someone who espouses a very weak form of 'social democracy' European style. Classical liberals, an understanding most Americans know nothing of, have ended up over amongst the libertarians I suspect. I suspect the contradiction that lies within Barrage Obushwa is warpigism vs. social internventionist liberalism. A religious belief in America and its right to dominate the world is always the glue that keeps such incoherence going. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States History of modern liberalism in the United States ... _ If you don't know the '70s, you don't know shit! ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis Criminal Lawyer Criminal Lawyers - Click here. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=QWemd8GuspwwZyl1yNMMaAAAJ1AP8t tsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAYAAADNAAAiFgA= ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Setting the record straight
even the richest and most powerful nation-state - the USA - became in the 1970s very much subordinate to the transnational capitalist corporations. The age of capitalist nation-states dictating their own national economic policy completely died in the 1970s. But that was the plan. An elite of Americans would dominate the world post 1945 and wanted to continue to do so until the end of humanity. Ask yourself why it is the US that dominates investment banking, hedge funds and private equity. Ask yourself why it is American companies that dominate desktop and server computing. Why does the US get to spend well over a trillion dollars it doesn't have on its superpower military, borrowing the money it needs to float it all from Europe, Gulf States, Japan, S. Korea and China? Clearly there is a nation-state superpower agenda your formulation seems to be missing out. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Setting the record straight
I don't buy the 'Trotskyite' theories of their origins, but I do get
that they were clustered around warhawk Demoncrat Scoop Jackson in the
1970s. Also, I don't necessarily agree with all of this analysis
cited below, which cites Lind, who is cited all over the internet.
Zbigniew Brezinzski would be the other nexus of human waste in the
1970s and early 80s here, and we have already seen how he has arisen
from the dead, like Volker, with Barrage Obushwa as prez.
Still yet another factor would be just how close Israel came to
causing a nuclear war because they were set to lose a conventional war
to Egypt in 1973. First, the US intervened massively to shore up the
depleted IDF, actually causing supply shortages in their logistical
chains to NATO Europe and SE Asia. Second, the US intervened to make
sure the Soviet Union didn't get involved. Third, Israeli leadership
would have unleashed their nukes if they were going to lose the
conventional war against Egypt. And they even further threatened to
try and destroy as much of the world as possible with their nukes
before they would ever accept defeat.
For some secular Jewish intellectuals who found they could not believe
in much of anything that the US was offering at the time, embrace of
Israel became their religion. Under Reagan this actually filtered down
to third and fourth generation 'Jewish Americans' outside of elite
intelligentsia (typically of Ashkenazic descent, meaning E.
European-Slavic cultures), making them still yet another white, mostly
male group of 'ethnics' who having lost their ethnic identity embraced
militarism, conservatism, and pro-zionism as their religion. Alan
Dershowitz and his popular appeal come to mind. Some of this makes its
way into popular culture now, with loads of stories about how Israel
and the Mossad and the IDF are such good guys and gals. It goes way
beyond the pointy-eggy-head perceptions of guys like Alan Greenspan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
Drift away from New Left and Great Society
Neoconservatives came to dislike the counterculture of the 1960s baby
boomers, and what they saw as anti-Americanism in the
non-interventionism of the movement against the Vietnam War.[citation
needed]
As the policies of the New Left pushed these intellectuals farther to
the right, they moved toward a more aggressive militarism, while
becoming disillusioned with President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great
Society domestic programs. Academics in these circles, many still
Democrats, rejected the Democratic Party's foreign policy in the
1970s, especially after the nomination of anti-war candidate George
McGovern for president in 1972. The influential 1970 bestseller The
Real Majority by future television commentator and neoconservative Ben
Wattenberg expressed that the real majority of the electorate
supported economic liberalism but social conservatism, and warned
Democrats it could be disastrous to take liberal stances on certain
social and crime issues.[21]
Many supported Democratic Senator Henry M. Scoop Jackson, derisively
known as the Senator from Boeing, during his 1972 and 1976 campaigns
for president. Among those who worked for Jackson were future
neoconservatives Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith and Richard Perle. In the
late 1970s neoconservative support moved to Ronald Reagan and the
Republicans, who promised to confront Soviet expansionism.
Michael Lind, a self-described former neoconservative, explained:[22]
Neoconservatism... originated in the 1970s as a movement of
anti-Soviet liberals and social democrats in the tradition of Truman,
Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey and Henry ('Scoop') Jackson, many of whom
preferred to call themselves 'paleoliberals.' [After the end of the
Cold War]... many 'paleoliberals' drifted back to the Democratic
center... Today's neocons are a shrunken remnant of the original broad
neocon coalition. Nevertheless, the origins of their ideology on the
left are still apparent. The fact that most of the younger neocons
were never on the left is irrelevant; they are the intellectual (and,
in the case of William Kristol and John Podhoretz, the literal) heirs
of older ex-leftists.
In his semi-autobiographical book, Neoconservatism: The Autobiography
of an Idea, Irving Kristol cited a number of influences on his own
thought, including not only Max Shachtman and Leo Strauss but also the
skeptical liberal literary critic Lionel Trilling. The influence of
Leo Strauss and his disciples on neoconservatism has generated some
controversy, with Lind asserting:[23]
For the neoconservatives, religion is an instrument of promoting
morality. Religion becomes what Plato called a noble lie. It is a myth
which is told to the majority of the society by the philosophical
elite in order to ensure social order... In being a kind of secretive
elitist approach, Straussianism does resemble Marxism. These
ex-Marxists, or in some cases ex-liberal Straussians, could see
themselves as a kind of Leninist group, you
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Setting the record straight
Getting around to more of the ancient mysteries of the 1970s and Reagan 80s. Operation Nickel Grass was a major sealift, too, with ultimately more moved by ship in order to re-supply the IDF. By the way, getting to end of the 1970s, the second oil shock was with the revolution in Iran, and the Gulf Arabs moved in to fill the loss of Iranian oil. And going into the 1980s we see another massive re-supply of Israel in their interventions in Lebanon, with much of the US-supplied equipment ending up in the hands of their Christian Phalangist allies. I remember how the M48A5 tank I trained on in my national guard unit simply disappeared overnight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nickel_Grass Operation Nickel Grass was an overt strategic airlift operation conducted by the United States to deliver weapons and supplies to Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The Military Airlift Command of the U.S. Air Force shipped 22,325 tons of tanks, artillery, ammunition, and supplies in C-141 Starlifter and C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft between October 14 and November 14, 1973. This rapid re-supply mission was critical to the Israeli military's ability to thwart the armed Egyptian and Syrian action to regain their sovereign territory; it had been captured and occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War. The overall re-supply effort soon had additional far-reaching effects beyond the immediate combatants. Following a further massive US pledge of support on October 19, the oil-exporting Arab states within OPEC held to their previously declared warnings to use oil as a weapon and declared a complete oil embargo on the United States, and restrictions on other countries. This, and the contemporaneous failure of major pricing and production negotiations between the exporters and the major oil companies both led to the 1973 oil crisis. - Effects Operation Nickel Grass had immediate and far-reaching effects. Arab members of OPEC had declared they would limit or stop oil shipments to the United States and other countries if they supported Israel in the conflict. Holding to their threats, the Arab states declared a complete oil embargo on the United States. Oil prices skyrocketed, fuel became scarce, and the United States was soon embroiled in the 1973 oil crisis. Nickel Grass also revealed a severe deficiency in American airlift capabilities: the need for staging bases overseas. Without Portugal's assistance, the airlift might not even have been possible. As a result, the U.S. greatly expanded its aerial refueling capabilities and made long-distance flight operations the standard rather than the exception. A GAO study of the operation discussed the shortcomings of the C-141A. As a result, the C-141B was conceived. The A models were sent back to Georgia where they were cut fore and aft of the wing, extended in length by three pallet positions, and refitted for in-flight refueling. Nickel Grass vindicated the Air Force decision to purchase the C-5 Galaxy. Since its introduction in 1970, the C-5 had been plagued by problems. The Air Force claimed to have rectified the problems, but the C-5 was still viewed by the press as an expensive failure. During Nickel Grass, C-5s carried 48% of the total cargo in only 145 of the 567 total missions. The C-5 also carried outsize cargo such as M60 Patton tanks, M109 howitzers, ground radar systems, mobile tractor units, CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, and A-4 Skyhawk components; cargo that could not fit in smaller aircraft. This performance justified the C-5's existence, and allowed the Air Force to move forward with their proposed upgrade to the C-5B variant. Another effect of the operation was the near-resignation of then United States chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) General George Brown. Brown was reportedly livid that American weapons and munitions were being sent to a foreign country at the same time that the American command in Vietnam was protesting a lack of supplies in its theater of operations.[11] ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Setting the record straight
On Mon, 1 Feb 2010 10:16:17 +0900 CeJ jann...@gmail.com writes: JF: I don't think that it is any great mystery what happened in the 1970s. In the mid-1970s, we had the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. It became clear that the institutional framework which modern capitalism had been working under since the 1930s and 1940s was no longer politically viable. It, therefore, came under challenge both from the left and the right. Yes, but RD said that the secret to all our mysteries now lies in understanding the 1970s. We can't even currently explain unintended acceleration in Toyotas now. Or how Abba would get a major musical based on their songs! Perhaps we don't understand the 1970s as well as we think we do. I think the sense of crisis was over the future of American domination of the rest of the world. Consider, Japan and W. Germany were surpassing the US in terms of industrial production, most visible with the automobiles and electronics. That was certainly one part of it. The Second World War had devastated industry in western Europe and Japan, leaving the US without significant competition. But by the 1970s, both western Europe (especially Germany) and Japan had completed their recoveries from the war and were now able to compete with the US. The threat of certain countries using OPEC to control the price of oil and even the supply of it, although a crisis for global capitalism (think of Japan with its total dependency on imported oil), in the US it was seen as a threat to American power. And then there was the humiliation of the Vietnam War, where global perceptions were that the US had lost or at least had met the limits of its own power. Also, the US by the mid-1970s was being perceived as starting to lose the cold war. Soviet-backed national liberation movements were making progress in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere. The Vietnam War itself, had left the US exhausted with the American public less than eager to see US military intervention in other countries (what the US ruling class called Vietnam syndrome). Also, we shouldn't leave out the impact of the great social movements of the 1960, including especially the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the student movement, and the women's movement. All of which weakened the legitimacy of the state, forced through significant social reforms. Labor insurgencies of various sorts became increasingly frequent at the time, and we have the case of France, where the student movement, at least for a while, was able to join forces with labor insurgents to shake the political foundations of that country. That sort of thing put the fear of God into the hearts of the US ruling class who was fearful of a similar occurence on this side of the Atlantic. By the early 1970s, the ruling classes of the US and UK were eager to find ways of rolling back the social gains of the 1960s which were seen as directly threatening the profits, social status, and political power of the ruling classes. Bourgeois economists were already openly talking about the need to tolerate higher rates of unemployment in order to dampen down wage demands. And within a few years this sort of talk began to be translated into policy, involving a tightening of monetary policy to force up interest rates, deregulation of industries (starting with transportation under the Carter Administration), the shift by the Federal government to an openly anti-labor stance, starting with Reagan's response to the PATCO strike (by a conservative union that had actually endorsed Reagan in 1980. And then there were the 'big bang' financial reforms of Thatcher, which threatened to make London the top center of financial activity, over NYC. What is ironic is that militarist Demoncrats and Repugnicans (who had been around a long time and hadn't just emerged in the 1970s) used rationales like 'deficits' to justify agendas against 'liberalism' (in terms of the government being involved in social agendas and spending) and then, from late Carter onwards, proceeded to drive up government deficits and trade deficits to unprecedented levels, much of which can be attributed to the military spending and their willingness to use Japan's and W. Germany's industrial capacity to meet American consumer needs as they did so. About the same time, American elites, under a supposedly 'free trade' and 'liberalization' regime (rhetorical regime), moved strongly, nationalistically and unilaterally to hem in Japan in terms of (1) the value of the yen (which has pretty much been appreciating since the 1970s and is the real cause of 'deflation' in Japan) and (2) in locking Japan out of processor chip-OS development for desktop and server computing (giving us American cartels in control of most of our computing). They also imposed import quotas on Japanese cars and automobile parts under Reagan and Bush
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Setting the record straight
Last one, which I guess does support the idea that the neocons are a product of this loss of the liberal consensus (expand social programs, concede to some civil rights, and win the Cold War against the Soviet Union both with military might and better rhetoric about freedom, democracy, human rights, etc). This is a review of a book by Pat Buchanan by a paleoconservative blogger. Excerpt only. I think the emphasis should be here on 'ex-liberal' , otherwise most of these people would never have functioned the way they did in American society (infiltrating elite society). We should also note that the Israeli agenda is still not yet complete. First, Iraq has not been broken up completely (yet). Two, Iran hasn't been 'regime changed' yet. Third, all Palestinians have not been forced to leave all of Palestine yet. Fourth, the goal of getting Arab accomodationism might not last if the price of oil goes down and all their development bubbles get wiped out. It's going to be an interesting decade, this next one. CJ http://www.daveblackonline.com/buchanan_is_right_about_the_righ.htm Buchanan Is Right About the Right Darrell Dow With Where the Right Went Wrong, Pat Buchanan takes aim squarely at the neoconservatives. Buchanan thus joins other paleoconservative and paleolibertarian authors such as Sam Francis, Paul Gottfried, Justin Raimondo and Joseph Scotchie who have offered up their own analyses, diagnoses, and prescriptions to decapitate the parasitical neocon host presently devouring the body politic. So who are these mysterious neocons, anyway? Neoconservatism originated in few periodicals and northeastern universities in the 1960’s. Its early exponents were largely Jewish and Eastern European. Today, neoconservatism claims such “luminaries” as Jeane Kirkpatrick, Bill Bennett, Michael Novak, Richard John Neuhaus, and a bevy of syndicated columnists. Buchanan calls them “ex-Trotskyites, socialists, leftists, and liberals who backed FDR, Truman, JDK and LBJ.” They are “the boat people of the McGovern revolution that was itself the political vehicle of the moral, social, and cultural revolutions of the 1960’s.” Skilled in the arts of political chicanery and bureaucratic infighting, the neocons migrated into the Republican Party during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Sam Francis explains why the neocons drifted to the right politically: The political impetus for neoconservatism was, first the threat to the integrity of universities and American intellectual life presented by the militancy of the New Left and the barbarism of the counterculture of the late 1960’s; secondly, the threat to Jewish academic and professional achievements in America presented by the quotas and affirmative action programs of the Great Society; and thirdly, the development of serious anti-Semitism on the Left and the Soviet alliance with radical anti-Western and anti-Israeli Arab regimes and terrorists. Another pillar of the neoconservative mind is the conflation of American and Israeli national interests, which is the root of the current mess in Iraq. In an essay in the Wall Street Journal, militant neocon Max Boot, who has called for the U.S. to take up the imperial burden, called support for Israel a “key tenet” of neocon ideology. Buchanan shows how the neocons used the cover of the billowing smoke of 9/11 to implement long-standing plans to remake the Middle East in Israel’s interest, with the invasion of Iraq at the top of the agenda. In 1996, a group called The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies published a paper for then Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu. The paper called for Israel to “destabilize, and roll-back some of its most dangerous threats,” and called the removal of Saddam Hussein “an important Israeli strategic objective.” The authors of this policy paper included attorney Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and Richard Perle – all prominent figures in the Bush administration. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Setting the record straight
1. In Japan, the history of the 1970s is often boiled down to these key events: Nixon Shock (that is actually shocks, i.e., currency, 10% tariffs on goods from Japan, and China), first oil shock, second oil shock. 2. About the Vietnam syndrome. Much misunderstood. It actually boils down to: war with draft vs. war (indeed wars) without draft. For the military leadership getting over the Vietnam syndrome was about finding faith in all the high tech weapons they had stockpiled under Reagan. As it turned out, a lot of them didn't work. But they were able to sell the public on the idea that they did, thus justifying the huge budgets spent, to be spent, they are spending etc. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Setting the record straight
I could also add that the top military leaders had two sources of doubt: 1. the high-tech weapons and reliance almost entirely on air power and its ability to drop bombs and missiles 2. the fighting coherence of the all-volunteer 'professional' military It's interesting how point 2 led to Abu Graib's obscene sadism. For any who were shocked at that sort of institutionalized sadism, I would point out that (1) it's found in American schools and prisons, (2) if you ever attended US military basic 'training' in the late 70s early 80s, you will recognize the behaviour all too well. The officers, after Vietnam, were worried about the ability of the career NCOs to control the volunteer enlisted across the lower ranks and throughout the less popular military specialities (combat arms, infantry, armor, artillery). So they re-doubled their efforts at using this sort of sadism to control the force, while at the same time creating a PR rhetoric about how the entire military was the most well-trained, most professional fighting force in the history of mankind. Some of the elite forces actually are, but they are not what everyone thinks of as elite--the elite are the USAF, the naval and marine airwings, the nuclear submarine force. Everything else is more like life at high school. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
