[Marxism] Thailand: Blood flows as battle for each street rages

[Stuart Munckton]

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http://www.smh.com.au/world/blood-flows-as-army-tightens-its-grip-20100516-v6eh.html

Blood
flows as army tightens its grip

*
*

*The battle is fought street by street, casualty by casualty, writes Ben
Doherty in Bangkok.*


The driver of the motorcycle weaves at speed between the rocks and broken
glass, the rubbish and the burning tyres that are the detritus of this
street warfare, up Wireless Road towards Bumrungrad Hospital. On the back,
another man holds the shot man's head. Between clotted clumps of hair, blood
gushes, running down their bodies.

The unconscious man's limp bleeding bare foot drags along the road, leaving
a crimson trail.

Gunfire had been constant most of the afternoon at the site in the fortified
Red Shirt zone of the city, near the US and British embassies. But the guns
had quietened for several minutes. Perhaps emboldened by the respite, the
man had run forward to a new position.Moments earlier the man had been
crouched behind a wall of tyres, slowly building a barricade, designed to
slow, if never really stop, the progress of government troops stationed a
few hundred metres away.

Instantly, a single crack rang out, felling him. Two men ran, hunched over,
to drag him back to a side street and the motorcycle. The soldiers allowed
them to leave the zone with their critically injured friend, but they will
not be allowed back.

This is how the battle for Bangkok will be fought over coming days. Street
by street, inch by inch, casualty by casualty.

Scenes like this are being played out across the centre of the city, as
troops slowly squeeze in on the fortified camp that has been held by
anti-government Red Shirt protesters for weeks.

The Red Shirts have not yet lost any territory to the army, but the
government says it is prepared to wait them out, starving them of food,
water, power and contact with the outside world.

The Red Shirts are determined to fight back.

After two days of porous roadblocks which allowed supplies and extra Red
Shirts supporters in, the army has put up barricades and strung razor wire
across all roads leading to the protest camp. There are few ways in now.

Already there are reports the Red Shirts are running short of food and of
fuel. Scrambled mobile phone signals are making communications difficult,
and the weariness of constant fighting is taking its toll.

Despite the suffering, or perhaps because of it, the leaders on both sides
remain resolute.

The Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, has appeared on every Thai TV channel
promising to ''push forward'' with his plan to have the army forcibly remove
the protesters, while Red Shirt leaders have vowed to fight to the end.

But on the streets, there is fear. Fear is in the eyes of the Red Shirts'
guards standing defiantly, but nervously, at the fortified entrance to the
camp.

Full of bravado, Annan demonstrates his slingshot, pulling the rubber back
and forth, aimed at a sniper, real or imaginary, in a nearby building. At
his feet is a pile of rocks and lumps of concrete to hurl at oncoming
troops. In his back pocket is a homemade rocket launcher fashioned from
bamboo and scrap metal, to shoot fireworks at soldiers and police
helicopters. They are a feeble riposte to the rifles and M-16s of the
soldiers crouched behind sandbags and razor wire a few hundred metres away.

The barricade behind which Annan stands, built up over weeks of protest, is
a enormous wall of tyres and sharpened bamboo staves, four metres high. It
reeks of petrol. Expecting troops to march on them any day, the Red Shirts
have filled their barricades with fuel, ready to burn their city down before
they give it up.

''We are getting killed. We are all scared to get killed, but we stay.''

But fear is written, too, on the faces of the troops on Rama IV Road, at the
southern end of the Red Shirts' zone. Over loudspeakers, they plead with
protesters for peace. ''We are the people's army. We are just doing our duty
for the nation. Brothers and sisters, let's talk together.'' There is little
hope of that.

In the late afternoon on Ratchaprarop Road in Din Daeng, in the north of the
city, doing their duty includes firing live ammunition at anyone they see on
the street.

The army has designated it a ''live-fire zone'' because it is an entry point
to the city for Red Shirt supporters from the north-eastern provinces. Four
soldiers huddle behind a telephone box, signalling anxiously to colleagues
further back up the road. As a petrol bomb lands with a ''whump'' in the
middle of the road, three of them scurry back to the safety of a street
corner while one remains to provide covering fire. He quickly retreats too,
after firing a half a dozen rounds t

[Marxism] What's new at Links: Thailand, Nepal, soccer World Cup, solidarity with Greece, Southern Africa, Evo on climate, Scotland, climate debt

[glparramatta]

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What's new at Links: Thailand, Nepal, soccer World Cup, solidarity with 
Greece, Southern Africa, Evo on climate, Scotland, climate debt

* * *
*For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at 
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643

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.

* * *


Thailand: Tyrants cling to power over the dead bodies of the people


By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn*
Update, 03.25 hrs Sunday, May 16, 2010, Bangkok time -- Earlier on 
Saturday, unconfirmed reports indicated that Abhisit Vejjajiva's 
soldiers had shot dead at least 50 people. Later, 22 named deaths were 
confirmed by the Erawan emergency centre, and 172 injured (including one 
Canadian, one Polish, one Burmese, one Liberian). But an official from 
the centre says that the real death toll is higher but cannot be 
reported at the moment.

* Read more 


Nepal's May days: `This struggle has not ended. The general strike
was only a dress rehearsal' 

Story and photos by *Jed Brandt*, Kathmandu
May 11, 2010--The largest mobilisation of human beings in Nepal's 
history brought hundreds of thousands of villagers into the capital 
Kathmandu for the May 1 protests -- and the entire country to a 
standstill. On May 1, this city belonged to the members and supporters 
of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). From Kalinki to the 
Old Bus Park, packed buses poured into the city. Every seat and aisle 
was filled. Young men perched on the roofs. Bags of rice, lentils and 
vegetables were stockpiled in the schools, wedding halls and 
construction sites that served as makeshift camps for the protesters.

* Read more 


Thailand: Red Shirt protests -- what has been achieved?
???  

By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn*
May 11, 2010 -- Pro-democracy Red Shirt protests in Bangkok, which 
started in mid-March, are about to be wound up. Leaders [of the United 
Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, UDD] have accepted a 
compromise with the military-backed government of Abhisit Vejjajiva. 
Elections will not be held immediately, but on November 14.

* Read more 


Australia/Thailand: In solidarity with the democracy protests in
Bangkok 

By *Thai Red Australia Group for Democracy*
May 16, 2010 -- Since March 14, Bangkok has been the scene of mass 
pro-democracy protests. The protesters known as "Red Shirts" have 
demanded the resignation of unelected Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva 
and new elections. Abhisit came to power in December through the 
overthrow of a democratically elected government by right-wing "Yellow 
Shirt" gangs, assisted by the military and elements of the royal family.

* Read more 


South Africa: Will the World Cup party be worth the hangover?


By *Patrick Bond*, Durban
May 15, 2010 -- On June 11, South Africans start /jol/ing [/jol/ -- to 
have fun, to party] like no time since liberation in April 1994, and of 
course it is a huge honour for our young democracy to host the most 
important sporting spectacle short of the Olympics. All the ordinary 
people who have worked so hard in preparation deserve gratitude and 
support, especially the construction workers, cleaners, municipal staff, 
health-care givers and volunteers who will not receive due recognition.

* Read more 


Asian left parties: `In solidarity with the Greek people's
resistance against austerity' 

/The following joint statement of solidarity -- initiated by Socialist 
Alliance, Australia// -- has been signed by a number of left and 
progressive organisations in the Asia-Pacific region. If your 
organisation would like to sign on, please email 
internatio...@socialist-alliance.org./*
Joint statement from Asia-Pacific left and progressive organisations*
May 13, 2010
We, left and progressive organisations from the Asia-Pacific region, 
express our solidarity with the resistance of the Greek people against 
the harsh austerity being imposed upon them by the governments of the 
European Union (EU) and the Internation

[Marxism] India: "One Million Strong Against Green Hunt" on Facebook

[Politicus E.]

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http://bit.ly/aOgNIH


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[Marxism] 7 Year Old Killed By Police While Sleeping

[Sky Keyes]

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http://www.malcolm-che.com/2010/05/17/us-michigan-7-year-old-girl-aiyana-jones-killed-in-detroit-police-raid/

Seven-year-old Aiyana Jones was asleep on the living room sofa in her
family’s apartment when Detroit police searching for a homicide suspect
burst in and an officer’s gun went off, fatally striking the girl in the
neck, family members say.

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Re: [Marxism] why did the soviet union fall?

[Waistline2]

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In a message dated 5/16/2010 9:09:03 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, 
_magnoliabloomb...@gmail.com_ (mailto:magnoliabloomb...@gmail.com)   writes: 
 
> i am friends with an old hard-line stalinist who blames the  imperialist 
attacks on the soviet union for its fall... no - no - the soviet  union 
committed suicide by lack of  workers democracy.< 
 
 
Comment 
 
The crisis internal to the Soviet economic system (relations of production) 
 has its origin - taproot, in revolutionary changes in the means of 
production,  rather than political liberty, workers democracy or a lack of 
world 
revolution.  Since the world is round and everything is connected to 
everything else it is  helpful to begin with a concept of that, which is 
fundamental 
to society.  Democracy is not fundamental to unraveling a society. 
Important? Yes.  Fundamental? No. Democracy is a political form of the state 
and rule 
of a class,  that is operational based on something else. The productive 
forces and the  relations of production is the "something else," - our 
starting point and  general context, rather than the specific form of political 
liberty, i.e.  "workers democracy." . 
 
How this crisis internal to the Soviet economic system expressed itself in  
the political and ideological sphere - (party, state, government, workers  
combinations of all kinds, agricultural associations, etc.,) as Soviet power 
 confronted the world bourgeoisie is a big subject. 
 
In the 1970s and 1980s the Soviet Union was undergoing the evolutionary  
leap from the last stage of automation based on industrialization to the  
applications of advanced robotics and computerization to automated production  
processes. The productive forces of Soviet society (means of production + 
human  beings organized as class) were undergoing a qualitative change or as it 
is  called, "revolution." This in turn meant the death of the bureaucracy 
as it was  founded and had existed. 
 
This revolutionary impulse was expressed as the general demand for reform  
and revolution in the relations of production, specifically the social  
organization of labor, its deployment and administration or what is generally  
understood as the need to strengthen "proletarian democracy." Proletarian  
democracy is a wider concept of class and property + political liberty. 
 
There was of course the question of agriculture which is more complex. The  
fate of the small producer is resolvable and resolved on the basis of the 
growth  of industrial implements and expansion of the industrial 
infrastructure. This is  so because the small scale producer is small in 
relationship to 
their implements  of production and how this is expressed in the social 
organization of labor.  When qualitative change began in the means of 
production the industrial  infrastructure enters its period of revolutionary 
leap. 
The old form of class,  party, state, cultural clubs, educational 
institutions, armed forces, chess  clubs, etc., connected to and expressing the 
old 
social organization of labor  begin their polarization, decay and transition. 
The existence of the  bureaucracy, as this bureau system of administration cut 
across all facets of  Soviet life and all forms of society organizations 
was called into question. 
 

II. The Soviet Power was overthrown and its multinational state  dismantled 
as the political consequence of the failed August palace coup. I  retract 
my description of the palace coup - (eight maybe nine years ago), as an  
insurrectionary movement. It was not an insurrectionary movement precisely  
because it was not fused with the vanguard of the Soviet proletariat in motion. 
 
The growth of the bureaucracy or bureau system, generally called Stalinism  
by ideological Trotskyism, extinguished the revolutionary vision of 
communism,  blocked the revolutionary advance of Soviet society and established 
an  
irresolvable breach between the centers of revolutionary impulses and the 
form  of the party, state and government. 
 
Bureaucracy is the enemy of revolution by definition no matter what is  
historically peculiar form. However, bureaucracy - (any bureaucracy at any 
point  in history, within any given mode of production), can only be decisively 
 
defeated under specific conditions: when society is undergoing the  
revolutionary/evolutionary leap - transition. Until society is undergoing the  
evolutionary leap it is impossible to decisively defeat bureaucracy. One can of 
 
course always "hit" at the bureaucracy, but not dislodge it. 
 
This dynamic is playing itself out in the American trade union movement in  
real time. The old trade union bureaucracy, founded in correspondence to 
and as  an expression of the leap to the industrial union form and the 
organ

[Marxism] The new Obama theme song

[Greg McDonald]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08S4poMGvwA


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[Marxism] Sixty Minutes segment on BP

[Louis Proyect]

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http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490348n&tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel

This was an extraordinary interview with the chief electronics 
technician on the oil rig who makes the case that the explosion 
occurred because BP ignored safety guidelines in order to 
accelerate drilling, driven by the bottom line.


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[Marxism] Chris Hedges rant on BP

[Louis Proyect]

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BP and the ‘Little Eichmanns’
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/bp_and_the_little_eichmanns_20100517/
Posted on May 17, 2010

By Chris Hedges

Cultures that do not recognize that human life and the natural 
world have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic value beyond monetary 
value, cannibalize themselves until they die. They ruthlessly 
exploit the natural world and the members of their society in the 
name of progress until exhaustion or collapse, blind to the fury 
of their own self-destruction. The oil pouring into the Gulf of 
Mexico, estimated to be perhaps as much as 100,000 barrels a day, 
is part of our foolish death march. It is one more blow delivered 
by the corporate state, the trade of life for gold. But this time 
collapse, when it comes, will not be confined to the geography of 
a decayed civilization. It will be global.

Those who carry out this global genocide—men like BP’s Chief 
Executive Tony Hayward, who assures us that “The Gulf of Mexico is 
a very big ocean. The amount of oil and dispersant we are putting 
into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume’’—are, to 
steal a line from Ward Churchill, “little Eichmanns.” They serve 
Thanatos, the forces of death, the dark instinct Sigmund Freud 
identified within human beings that propels us to annihilate all 
living things, including ourselves. These deformed individuals 
lack the capacity for empathy. They are at once banal and 
dangerous. They possess the peculiar ability to organize vast, 
destructive bureaucracies and yet remain blind to the 
ramifications. The death they dispense, whether in the pollutants 
and carcinogens that have made cancer an epidemic, the dead zone 
rapidly being created in the Gulf of Mexico, the melting polar ice 
caps or the deaths last year of 45,000 Americans who could not 
afford proper medical care, is part of the cold and rational 
exchange of life for money.

The corporations, and those who run them, consume, pollute, 
oppress and kill. The little Eichmanns who manage them reside in a 
parallel universe of staggering wealth, luxury and splendid 
isolation that rivals that of the closed court of Versailles. The 
elite, sheltered and enriched, continue to prosper even as the 
rest of us and the natural world start to die. They are numb. They 
will drain the last drop of profit from us until there is nothing 
left. And our business schools and elite universities churn out 
tens of thousands of these deaf, dumb and blind systems managers 
who are endowed with sophisticated skills of management and the 
incapacity for common sense, compassion or remorse. These 
technocrats mistake the art of manipulation with knowledge.

“The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that 
his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to 
think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else,” 
Hannah Arendt wrote of “Eichmann in Jerusalem.” “No communication 
was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was 
surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against words 
and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such.”

Our ruling class of technocrats, as John Ralston Saul points out, 
is effectively illiterate. “One of the reasons that he is unable 
to recognize the necessary relationship between power and morality 
is that moral traditions are the product of civilization and he 
has little knowledge of his own civilization,” Saul writes of the 
technocrat. Saul calls these technocrats “hedonists of power,” and 
warns that their “obsession with structures and their inability or 
unwillingness to link these to the public good make this power an 
abstract force—a force that works, more often than not, at 
cross-purposes to the real needs of a painfully real world.”

BP, which made $6.1 billion in profits in the first quarter of 
this year, never obtained permits from the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration. The protection of the ecosystem did 
not matter. But BP is hardly alone. Drilling with utter disregard 
to the ecosystem is common practice among oil companies, according 
to a report in The New York Times. Our corporate state has gutted 
environmental regulation as tenaciously as it has gutted financial 
regulation and habeas corpus. Corporations make no distinction 
between our personal impoverishment and the impoverishment of the 
ecosystem that sustains the human species. And the abuse, of us 
and the natural world, is as rampant under Barack Obama as it was 
under George W. Bush. The branded figure who sits in the White 
House is a puppet, a face used to mask an insidious system under 
which we as citizens have been disempowered and under which we 
become, along with the natural world, collateral damage. As Karl 
Marx 

Re: [Marxism] why did the soviet union fall?

[Waistline2]

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>> what if the soviet ambassadors, consulars and diplomats had the  
confidence that trotsky and lenin had when they leafleted the rank and file  
soldiers at brest-litovsk? how far might the revolution have progressed around  
the world, then?<<
 
Comment 
 
Not very far. The diplomats would have been expelled and leaflets determine 
 nothing. 
 
The issue needs to be placed in a real historical context. Say for instance 
 America during the period in question. What was the state of the social 
movement  during this period? What was the state of organization of the 
communists? What  were their links and impact on that section of the 
proletariat 
in motion? If I  am not mistaken the treaty of brest-litovsk was signed in 
March 1918. What was  the state of the communist movement in America in say 
1919 and 1920? 
 
Leaflets from Russian - pardon, Soviet Communists, to American workers  
would have meant exactly what? The year 1919 was in fact one of a massive 
strike  wave - more than 3600 in all, involving more than 4 million workers. It 
got so  bad the Boston police department went on strike demanding union 
recognition to  fight layoffs. The great steel strike of 1919 was launched in 
September with  350,000 steelworkers demanding union recognition and the eight 
hour day, rather  than the typical 12 hour day. The strike was long and 
bitter climaxing in street  fighting in Gary, Indiana where eighteen strikers 
were murdered. By January the  strike collapsed. 
 
The question in my mind is the organization of the communists and  
revolutionaries in 1919/20 America and the material environment of the social  
struggle. This was a period of implosion of a large segment of the proletarian  
movement. Lots of infighting from demobilized soldiers seeking wages. And of  
course the form of the working class was in change driven by Henry Ford 
applied  assembly line production methods. The leap from craft to industrial 
union form  was speeding up. This defined the spontaneous line "of the 
workers."  

Further, did not Lenin and Trotsky disagree about the brest-litovsk treaty  
and how the Soviet government should withdraw from the war? At any rather,  
romantic notions of "workers struggle" have their place in our minds and 
hearts  but should never cloud our judgment and assessment of history and real 
world  politics. It serves no purpose to blame others for the evolution of 
our own  working class movement and the state of development of our 
communist  movement.
 
WL. 
 
 


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[Marxism] Glenn Ford on Obama's continuation of Imperialist Wars

[Greg McDonald]

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http://uhurunews.com/video/play?resource_name=bib-conference-glen-ford-on-obama-s-continuation-of-imperialist-wars-video


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Re: [Marxism] to read?

[Nestor Gorojovsky]

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guava tree escribió:
> do people think reading volumes 2&3 of Capital is more valuable than reading
> the Grundrisse? Or-- is one's time better spent reading Lenin, or even Hegel
> than moving into books Marx didn't have the time to put his finishing
> touches on?

Well, Engels (and probably and partially Marx) may have suggested read 
vols 2 and 3. The Grundrisse are just, as the word says, preparatory 
materials.



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[Marxism] Further thoughts on the UK 2010 election and its aftermath

[Ian Pace]

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I have refrained from commenting much on the several interesting threads that 
emerged on this list in particular in the period from when all the votes had 
been declared until the declaration of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat 
coalition, which is being spun by its leaders as 'Lib-Con', but known to some 
opponents as 'Con-Dem Nation' and various other things (one Labour MP 
suggested, quite acutely, that the most damaging thing is simply to keep 
calling it a 'Tory' government). Anyhow, my reticence on here is because of 
having been prepared in this election (in a way I was not prepared to do in the 
elections of 2001 and 2005, or even 1997) to actively urge support for Labour, 
and furthermore to be prepared to continue this, and campaign, after this 
election. This is not entirely inconsistent with the SWP position (as a lapsed 
SWP member - my various reasons for not renewing membership are for another 
occasion or post) which essentially endorsed 'lesser evilism' on this occasion, 
though urging support for TUSC candidates where they existed. I remain a little 
sceptical about the latter (but it wasn't an issue at least in my own 
constituency, where my local MP is and was Jeremy Corbyn) - at least in cases 
where it would have been likely split the vote and enable either a Tory or Lib 
Dem to win the seat. In this election every seat really did count; supporting 
Respect candidates in 2005 was another matter.

I'm sure this will be a red rag to many members; it is not a decision I took 
lightly, and probably requires some justification. I'd like to attempt to do so 
as well as offering some wider observations on the election:

First of all, I do believe that 'lesser evilism' should not be dismissed 
out-of-hand. As Richard Seymour and others have pointed out on this list, when 
faced with actual parliamentary elections which will have wide-reaching 
consequences, to simply abdicate entirely from the process neither serves any 
productive purpose (other than preserving some sense of personal purity which I 
find facile) nor precludes the possibility of other meaningful socialist 
organisation and action at other times.

I have no illusions whatsoever that the Labour Party is a socialist party, nor 
ever really has been. However, there are a few non-revolutionary socialists who 
remain affiliated to the party (including Corbyn). Under Blair, Labour went 
further in the direction of unfettered neo-liberalism than at any earlier time 
in its post-1945 history, and remains to the right even of numerous continental 
European Christian Democratic parties at least in terms of redistributive 
taxation. However, nuances still matter, certainly in terms of their policy 
implications and effect upon working people, and this election above all in the 
last two decades in the UK could (and now almost certainly will) usher in the 
most devastating consequences for the welfare state, the health service, 
education and much else (the latest blog post by Seymour - 
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-coalition-means.html - is very good 
on this). And I would even extend these nuances to cover the difference between 
Labour under Blair and Labour under Brown: in no sense can the latter be 
dissociated from the former, but the latter has undertaken certain actions 
including the nationalisation of Northern Rock or even the intervention on 
behalf of the banks. These, whilst undoubtedly serving the interests of 
capital, do betoken something of an ideological shift in terms of 
non-interventionist market ideology (there is of course the argument that these 
shifts constitute a regressive manoeuvre, consolidating a system for which the 
'free market' is nothing more than an ideological facade for a deeply regulated 
and jealously guarded state machinery for capitalism - right at the moment I'm 
still working through this for myself). More to the point, one can identify 
progressive policies - in terms of spending on education, health, etc., where 
there has indeed been a palpable difference compared to pre-1997 - that did 
occur throughout the New Labour period, as well as the fact that the party 
retained an umbilical relationship with organized Labour. These actions were, 
as I interpret it, possible only because of circle around Brown which 
co-existed together with the mixture of nationalism and toadying to US 
imperialism to be associated with Blair (from which of course Brown and his 
cohort can never be wholly dissociated). I certainly don't want to make too 
much of this, less still make this an issue of personalities within 'high 
politics'; just giving one reading of what may be minor, but nonetheless not 
insignificant, details.

The 'organic' relationship between Labour and the organized

Re: [Marxism] Communist debate group chooses Stalin as next topic

[Mehmet Cagatay]

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Louis wrote:

"I would suggest that comrades not waste time with these people.
They are either stupid beyond belief or involved with some kind of
juvenile prank."




I don't think they are either stupid or a part of a ridiculous prank but 
they're probably a bunch of serious and inquiring people utilizing their time 
by contemplating on socialist alternatives rather than to fool around with all 
the distracting stupidities that young minds are supposed to concern. However, 
they are obviously on the wrong track. I think myself as a half-crazy man who 
lives in a fantasy world but reading out of context quotes from Mao on "inner 
party unity" in front of a hammer and sickle flag is beyond my imagination. If 
you're concerned with dialectical materialism, make sure that the subject in 
question has at least an iota of connection with material reality. Organizing a 
high school debate on if Stalin is good or bad does not seem a proper way to 
practice it. 


  


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Re: [Marxism] Communist debate group chooses Stalin as next topic

[Jeffrey Thomas Piercy]

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On 05/17/2010 09:29 AM, Mehmet Cagatay wrote:
> utilizing their time by contemplating on socialist alternatives rather than 
> to fool around with all the distracting stupidities that young minds are 
> supposed to concern.

I resent the notion that those two are mutually contradictory. I'll keep
my sex, drugs and rock and roll, thank you very much.


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Re: [Marxism] Is this satire?

[Les Schaffer]

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the answer to the subject line question, is, unfortunately, NO.

it would be interesting to compare physics announcements in a 
fundamentalist country like the US with other countries. somewhere along 
the line, particle physicists and cosmologists began talking like 
priests about their results, like "explain human existence".

on the other hand, shorn of the hyperbole, the matter / anti-matter 
asymmetry is a very interesting *physics* result.

Les


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Re: [Marxism] Marxist science and technology list

[Les Schaffer]

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On 5/17/2010 2:58 PM, dan wrote:
>
> And automation... God, I'm like a little kid when it comes to
> automation.
>

lots of topics could be considered for a radical/science list. for a 
marxist, i would think a division of science as separate from technology 
and engineering would be a mistake.

however i am too tired out from debugging an embedded system for the 
last 48 hours to talk about robots sweeping our streets.

Les


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Re: [Marxism] Is this satire?

[Les Schaffer]

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since we are on the subject of satirical science, i submit for a little 
levity:


"""
Mathematical model explains marital breakups

Most people know love takes work, and effort is needed to sustain a 
happy relationship over the long term, but now a mathematician in Spain 
has for the first time explained it mathematically by developing a 
dynamical mathematical model based on the second law of thermodynamics 
to model "sentimental dynamics." The results are consistent with 
sociological data on marriage breakdowns.

... [snip]...

Durable relationships. Under the assumptions of the model, there is a 
unique effort policy that takes the initial feeling x0 to the unique 
equilibrium E. This is achieved by setting the initial effort at point A 
to get onto the stable manifold Ws+ and then following path AE to 
approach equilibrium. Image credit: PLoS ONE, 
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009881. See the paper for more details.
*"""

*http://www.physorg.com/news193298961.html



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Re: [Marxism] Is this satire?

[Joseph Catron]

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I trust we can all breathe more easily now that science has resolved this
longstanding puzzle:

"The presence of an attractive woman elevates testosterone levels and
physical risk taking in young men, according to a recent study in the
inaugural issue of *Social Psychological and Personality Science* (published
by SAGE)."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-03/sp-wdm031810.php

On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Les Schaffer wrote:

since we are on the subject of satirical science, i submit for a little
> levity:
>

-- 
"Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
lytlað."

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[Marxism] Bob Avakian Video

[Tom Cod]

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http://revolutiontalk.net/

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Re: [Marxism] Communist debate group chooses Stalin as next topic

[Jeffrey Thomas Piercy]

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On 05/17/2010 10:28 AM, Mehmet Cagatay wrote:
> As regards to drugs, I only had a brief experience with weed and it didn't go 
> well. You get a similar intoxication with alcohol without the unpleasant 
> bonus of headache. So you'd better stick to wine, beer and whiskey imho.  
>   

I consider it to always be worth pointing out that there's zero basis
for not counting alcohol in the "drug" category.

I started writing quite a bit about the qualities of other sorts of
drugs besides weed and booze, but decided I was probably getting far too
off-topic for this list, so I took it out. You're welcome, Louis.


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Re: [Marxism] Marxist science and technology list

[dan]

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Yes, Nestor, the physiological effects on a group of young women to the
presence of an attractive male in their midst would be a splendid
research program. You're a genius !
I suspect you'd have to get the funding from a "women's studies"
sociological department, but that would be easy enough to get. And if
they refuse, you could turn to a "LGB studies" department.
Come on ! It's a question that has been nagging mankind for the last 85
kya. I keep telling my wife that my female students like me for my wit,
easy-going (not drunken !) manners and ... my hansom good-looks. Or is
it just their grades ? 
My wife just snorts and rolls up her eyes and reminds me that I weigh
almost 84 kgs, do not shave frequently, drink too much, have never
(despite some promptings) involved myself with a parlementarian
political party, do very little sport, and, to conclude, had I not been
lucky enough to meet HER, a no-nonsense Indian woman, would have ended
up a miserable loner.
Well, she might be right on some points, but I still think I'm quite the
Casanova.
 





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Re: [Marxism] Bob Avakian Video

[Mark Lause]

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And you can run all ten videos on that page and listen to the ten most
dangerous men to American capitalism.  :-)

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Re: [Marxism] Marxist science and technology list

[dan]

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thanks for your post, waistline

I totally agree with you.  Marx's theoretical reasoning on the
development of the productive forces entails, as a logical conclusion,
complete automation. The endgame of the materialist dialectic. This can
surely not have escaped Marx.
And since Karl's lifetime, we have witnessed the leaps and bounds
(electricity, atomic energy, satellites, computers,...), right up to
eliminating the need for a human operator. But Marx had already
witnessed the industrial revolution, and that was quite enough to
foresee what was to come. Victorian science-fiction was already
flourishing. We are left at the same point, but with much stronger
arguments. Every single human being on earth COULD be fed, clothed,
housed and not have to work more than 2 hours a day in the bargain.

If the Soviet Union could industrialize itself in no time (1st and 2nd
plan), if the warring nations during WWII could increase their military
production fifty-fold in two years, then it is obvious that if a 2010
society were to envision complete automation, and direct all it's
energies towards achieving this goal by 2020, then it would be
accomplished.

I don't know whether the science of robotics has yet, as of 2010,
cleared all the obstacles in developing full automation. My guess is
that it has, nearly. However, picking tomatoes or building houses, are
extremely complex tasks for a robot to do well...But it can, and WILL
surely be done. Special pressure sensors will be developed for
tomatoe-picking robots, pre-fabricated walls and windows will be devised
for home-building robots, etc.

It is quite foreseeable. But meanwhile Capitalism will not die gently.
There will be terrible struggles as Capital seeks to continue sucking
surplus-value and, not finding enough of it, will start to self-destruct
(which it has been doing since the 70s).





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[Marxism] Apology/resub

[Louis Proyect]

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My apologies to Mikhail Rodsky from the Communist Debate Group who I 
unceremoniously and erroneously unsubbed this morning. I really have no 
excuse other than being a miserable old crank.

Lou


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[Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian

[dan]

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This is my 6th post, and therefore I'm over the limit (whoops and
cheers). But I couldn't bare to leave you ignorant my brethern (as St
Paul says), of the following information gleaned from Bob Avakian's
website. It's so funny I laughed until I cried, and my wife came down to
see what was the matter. This is real humour, because, as the saying
goes "it's easy to be funny, but much more difficult to be funny on
purpose."
Anyway, what got me laughing is the following, earnest, description of
Bob Avakian I found when I clicked the over-sized "who is Bob Avakian ?"
banner on his website. Enjoy.

"BOB AVAKIAN is a creative and wide-ranging thinker who, at the same
time, maintains a profound sense of the actual struggles, trends and
sentiments among the masses, the movements of opposition, and society
broadly. And, he is the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party,
USA, a Party which is seriously setting its sight on the seizure of
power right within the U.S. itself, and the revolutionary transformation
of society as part of the world proletarian revolution, and he is at the
same time a very important leader of the international revolutionary
movement and the international communist movement. He is one of those
truly rare individuals who emerge only occasionally as an especially
concentrated expression of the very best of what the revolutionary
people and their struggles can forge and bring to the forefront at
certain junctures in history."

No, really, could some US comrades please give me more details on this
guy ? It's just so ... bizarre !
 





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Re: [Marxism] Marxist science and technology list

[Darrel Furlotte]

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--
From: "dan" 

 "Marx's theoretical reasoning on the development of the productive forces 
entails, as a logical conclusion, complete automation." 

Comment:
The desire/projection for the complete automation of production is primarily a 
product of the extreme alienation of labor under capitalism.  "Free" labor is 
actually an enjoyable, healthy (social and personal) activity. Note that Marx 
projected communism as the "free association of producers"; not of consumers.
Darrel

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[Marxism] No civil libertarians on today's Supreme Court -- Obama's warning is being acted on

[Fred Feldman]

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This bit of ex-post facto legislation by Congress and President 
Bush has been upheld by the entire bloc of liberals plus federalist (in the
sense of federal government power freaks Roberts, Alito, and Kennedy. 
This is the first major decision since President Obama's endorsement of
judicial restraint and deference to congressional decisions regardless of
the constitutional provisions. 

Many have been worried about the possibility that Elena Kagan will be a kind
of liberal swing vote on the Supreme Court.  This should relieve their
fears. The entire liberal wing of the court is now a swing vote.` Without
their support this vote could not have gone for Roberts, Alito, and Kennedy.

How Kagan will actually vote is hard to determine. I don't think her past
record, colored by efforts to please her employers, tells us anything.
Actually, she is not guaranteed to join the bloc of liberal swing voters,
although her past record, insofar as there is one, does not guarantee
anything concerning someone whose whole career has been about pleasing the
authorities. Now, compared to the rest of us, she will be relatively free.
But is freedom what she wants? Well, we will find out. At any rate, I think
a fight against her in particular at this point is worth a plug nickel given
the responsiveness of the current court liberals, including retiring John
Paul Stevens, to Obama's signals.

No one should imagine that this is limited to the current focus on sexual
offenses. Not at all. It all depends on Congress.

If you are sentenced to twenty years for murder (really, not so much less
than a sexual offense, your term can be extended indefinitely unless the
cops and judges are convinced you might do so again. If you were charged
with robbing an apartment or mugging a passerby, how do you prove that you
might not do so again.

In fact, what we are confronted with is a society in which any offense
against the law can be punished with a life sentence, if Congress so decides
(and Congress will decide so if the ruling-class tabloids so rule, no matter
what the ruling-class New York Times might mumble in protest.

Imagine how enthused the "Mothers Against Drunk Driving" (well, many of
them, I suspect) would be if Congress or the state legislature adopted such
sentencing practices.

According to our NEW, IMPROVED SUPREME COURT, any sentence for any offence
can be a life sentence (and why not an ex post facto death penalty, I might
add) if a legislative body and associated executive so decides.

Were there no liberal heroes to stand up in this situation? There were two,
I admit. Clarence Thomas and (on some aspects) Antonin Scalia. Those who
want to have confidence in these defenders of what's left of our liberties
have my permission to do so.

For the rest, my advice to anybody who finds themselves threatened with
arrest and prosecution for a particularly unpopular (in the media especially
but also elsewhere} is simply "RUN! What do you have to lose, when a
sentence of thirty days or thirty years can become a life sentence (or more)
at the discretion of your local legislative body.
Fred Feldman



Supreme Court rules 'sexually dangerous' inmates can be held in prison
indefinitely

By Michael Sheridan
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Monday, May 17th 2010, 11:43 AM
The Supreme Court has ruled that federal officials can keep prisoners it
deems 'sexually dangerous' in jail, even after their prison terms have
expired.
Kyte/Getty
The Supreme Court has ruled that federal officials can keep prisoners it
deems 'sexually dangerous' in jail, even after their prison terms have
expired.
Take our Poll
Sex Offenders in Prison

Is it fair to keep someone incarcerated after their prison term has expired?
Yes, depending on the crime.
No, they've done their time.
I don't know
Related News

* Articles
* Supreme Court rules out life sentences without parole for juveniles
who haven't killed someone

Sex offenders can be kept in prison "indefinitely" if federal officials
believe they could still be a threat, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday.

The ruling supported the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, signed
by President George W. Bush in 2006, and authorized the civil commitment of
sexually dangerous federal inmates.

"A federal civil-commitment statute authorizes the Department of Justice to
detain a mentally ill, sexually dangerous federal prisoner beyond the date
the prisoner would otherwise be released," said Justice Stephen Breyer, who
wrote the majority opinion for the 7-2 ruling.

It is "a 'necessary and proper' means of exercising the federal authority
that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their
violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those
imprisoned an

Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian

[Tom Cod]

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[Below is an excerpt from Wikipedia's bio of Avakian that gives the short
version of his political history as figure in the history of the US New
Left]

It was at Berkeley through his involvement with the Free Speech Movement
that Avakian took his first steps into political activism. Avakian, in
different ways, and over a period of time, became deeply engaged in the
movements of the times: the anti-war movement, the student movement, the
black liberation movement, the developing women’s movement and the incipient
new communist movement in the U.S. Avakian's ideological and political
development can be traced through these rebellious times, as he developed
political relationships and friendships with many of the key figures of that
era, engaging in many debates with the various trends in the movement,
including working closely with the Black Panther Party, particularly Huey P.
Newton and Eldridge Cleaver.[18] Through his writing for the The Black
Panther newspaper[19] and Ramparts magazine,[20] his work in Students for a
Democratic Society and with the Peace and Freedom Party, and his
participation in the many struggles of the time, Avakian began to develop as
a revolutionary and seriously consider what kind of revolution and
revolutionary leadership was needed.[21]

In 1967 Avakian moved to Richmond, California, and started a collective "to
integrate with the proletariat and take radical politics to the
proletariat."[22] It was in this period that Avakian and others began to
more seriously study some of the "classics" of Marxism, as well as the
writings of Mao Zedong, more seriously engaging and exploring a theoretical
framework for their developing revolutionary inclinations.  In 1968 Avakian
played a central role in uniting a number of revolutionary collectives into
the Bay Area Revolutionary Union, with the view that this would be one
organization among many (such as the Black Panther Party as well as other
organizations and collectives) which at some point would build ideological
and political unity as the basis for a new multi-national communist
party.[23]

Into the 1970s these organizations continued to develop their positions on
important questions related to revolution and communism, questions such as:
If you are going to be for revolution, what kind of revolution? How can you
make that revolution? What kind of leadership do you need? What kind of
program do you need? What kind of forces do you need to mobilize and
unite?[24]  While fierce in his condemnation of all inequality and
oppression and an ardent supporter of those who genuinely fight for their
liberation,[25] he sought to understand the dynamic underpinnings of society
which give rise to inequality and oppression. This investigation along with
the debates and ferment of the times led him to view Marxism as the
theoretical framework that most scientifically synthesized an understanding
of the world.[26]

Through his writings in the Red Papers, the theoretical journals of the
Revolutionary Union,[27] Avakian began to develop a method and approach with
which to examine many of the key historical questions of the communist
movement and theory, as well as the sharp and controversial issues of the
day. These issues included whether the Soviet Union was still a socialist
country or whether Mao Zedong’s theses of "capitalist restoration" in the
Soviet Union was true;[28] whether China, under Mao, was a revolutionary
socialist country; what was the character of the oppression of black people
in the U.S. and the relation of this to revolutionary strategy,[29] and
other contested issues.  Through a very protracted process, which included
theoretical debate around the critical issues of what kind of revolution is
needed, issues of revolutionary strategy, and very closely linked to these
issues, the question of what comprises revolutionary leadership, Avakian
played a key role in the development of a new communist party in the U.S. In
1970 the Bay Area Revolutionary Union became a national organization
(renamed the Revolutionary Union); this organization itself went through
splits over positions in relation to the above questions.[30]This process
involved debates and sharp ideological struggles among revolutionary and
communist organizations (and individuals) throughout the country, and
culminated, in 1975, in the formation of the RCP.[31] At its founding
congress, Avakian was elected chairman of its central committee.

In 1976, shortly after the death of Mao Zedong, the followers of Mao (known
as the "Gang of Four")[32] were arrested and new leadership took over the
Communist Party of China. Among communists both within the U.S. and
internationally there were major differences on how to understand what had
happened in China. Within the RCP

Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian

[Tom Cod]

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For what its worth, the RCP was the main promoter of Guzman and Sendero
Luminosa in the US.

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Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian

[Manuel Barrera]

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ok, I'm having Steven Colbert moment; Y'all are jesting, right?!!

Manuel
 




> Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 17:45:58 -0700
> From: tomc...@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian
> To: mtom...@hotmail.com
> 
> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
> 
> 
> For what its worth, the RCP was the main promoter of Guzman and Sendero
> Luminosa in the US.
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
> Set your options at: 
> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/mtomas3%40hotmail.com
  

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Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian

[Mark Lause]

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I've just been looking around online to see if I could find a poster the RCP
did of him at one point.

I failed miserably, but recall it stopping me in my tracks on the street in
Chicago...and then doubling me over with laughter.   It was something
like

"The Ten Most Dangerous Men to American Capitalism:  Bob Avakian, Bob
Avakian, Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian,
Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian"

I think that was around 1979 or so, which means it has provided me
intermittent merriment for over 30 years.

It's one thing to have a cult of personality supported by a nation or a mass
party.  But when you try to build it and maintain it with something the size
of the Friends of the Northside Public Library, you're spoofing yourself.

ML

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Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian

[Manuel Barrera]

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Ok, now I see. Thanks Mark, 'cause my head was about to explode

Manuel
 




> Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 20:52:10 -0400
> From: markala...@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian
> To: mtom...@hotmail.com
> 
> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
> 
> 
> I've just been looking around online to see if I could find a poster the RCP
> did of him at one point.
> 
> I failed miserably, but recall it stopping me in my tracks on the street in
> Chicago...and then doubling me over with laughter.   It was something
> like
> 
> "The Ten Most Dangerous Men to American Capitalism:  Bob Avakian, Bob
> Avakian, Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian,
> Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian"
> 
> I think that was around 1979 or so, which means it has provided me
> intermittent merriment for over 30 years.
> 
> It's one thing to have a cult of personality supported by a nation or a mass
> party.  But when you try to build it and maintain it with something the size
> of the Friends of the Northside Public Library, you're spoofing yourself.
> 
> ML
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
> Set your options at: 
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Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian

[Jeffrey Thomas Piercy]

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On 05/17/2010 05:18 PM, dan wrote:
> No, really, could some US comrades please give me more details on this
> guy ? It's just so ... bizarre !

I'd also be curious for more information. What little I know of him is
that he had a significant role in the New Left, and founded the RCP,
which is currently the only (and I use the term incredibly loosely)
"major" Maoist party in the US. They seem to have bought into Mao's
endorsement of the Stalinist cult of personality and decided to make one
of their unexciting founder. Therefore, their constant praising of him
is as much a (moronic) political tactic as genuine sentiment.

Do I have that right?


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Re: [Marxism] Marxist science and technology list

[dan]

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So Darell, 

will you be happily going down shaft 12 of Rio Tinto's new copper mine
in Alaska ? Will you be engaging in healthy and recreational labour,
harvesting the corn of the Mid-West ? Would you have ENJOYED working
night-shifts on the Kazakhstan Agricultural Extension Program in the
Soviet Union in the 60s ?

Which begs the essential question : who is to perform all this salutary
labour ?

Who is to work the harvester for thousands of acres until they go
blind ? Who is to fill their lungs with dust ? Who is to destroy their
dorsal muscles carrying heavy loads ? 

What's wrong with full automation ?

 And why are you so worried about a Marxist society forgetting how
necessary and healthy labour is ? Would such people, living in a free
association of workers, become lazy and indolent ? So they need a "boss"
then, someone to put them to work, but then that would be a
contradiction. The bourgeois compulsion to see people at work is not a
serious reflection on the healthiness of hard labour.

Marx's anthropology of labour, Man being both an agent ON nature and a
part OF nature, does not preclude automation. Quite the opposite in
fact. 







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Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian

[Joseph Catron]

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On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 8:45 PM, Tom Cod  wrote:

For what its worth, the RCP was the main promoter of Guzman and Sendero
> Luminosa in the US.
>

Is, in fact:

http://www.csrp.org

-- 
"Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
lytlað."

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Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian

[Mikhail Rodsky]

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Anyone remember the bob Avakian Video game? It used to be downloadable. Here
is a discription of the game (thanks to a comrade on trainspotters)

> It's sometime in the foreseeable future and the masses have finally risen
up
> and overthrown the currupt government. The fight was hard and it was
tough,
> but the oppressed have broken their chains and freed themselves.
>
> Here's where the problem occured. While all of this was going on, the RCP
> manuevered its cadre and somehow -- through cons, lies, and other
> ridiculousness -- manuevered and appointed Chairman Bob as "dear leader
for
> life".
>
> You are Maria, a working class woman who fought in the revolution and who
> dreams of a better world. Other workers from your area, and all over the
> country, have decided to rebel against this new despot.
>
> You must manuever through several levels, defeating Chairman Bob's drone
> like followers and his person police force, until finally reaching and
> facing Chairman Bob himself!
>
> Be careful though, Chairman Bob is quite fast -- he has lots of experience
> running.
>
> When facing charges in 1981 for attempting to run on the White House lawn
> and throw red paint on Deng Xiaping (former leader of China, under whom
> capitalism was restored) he ran all the way to Europe, and he hasn't
> returned since!
>

M.

On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 9:06 PM, Joseph Catron  wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
> On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 8:45 PM, Tom Cod  wrote:
>
> For what its worth, the RCP was the main promoter of Guzman and Sendero
> > Luminosa in the US.
> >
>
> Is, in fact:
>
> http://www.csrp.org
>
> --
> "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
> lytlað."
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/marcelthemaoist%40gmail.com
>

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Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian

[Mark Lause]

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How big is "the major Maoist party" in the U.S. today?  And is its size
doubled by Bob Avakian's ten memberships?

ML

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Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian

[Ethan Young]

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Here's the quick & dirty on Chairman Bob. At the end of the 60s he was reading 
Mao and hanging out with the Black Panther Party, working with the Peace & 
Freedom Party, Ramparts mag - the Bay Area scene. Joined with an ex-CP, ex-PL 
full-fledged Maoist, Leibel Bergman, who was looking for a China-friendly 
alternative to the increasingly sectarian PL. They formed a local collective, 
Revolutionary Union, which picked up support from like-minded SDS and ex-PL 
types. Ran for nat sec of SDS at the convention of the split, June 1969 - 
promoted by the RYM II faction as a pro-worker counter to the Weatherman 
faction.

As RU grew nationally, Avakian distinguished himself as the last man standing 
in a series of faction fights, both inside the RU and in the broader Maoist 
trend. In short order, his RU became RCP, they declared themselves the vanguard 
party, he went to China and met Mao and Shanghai Cultural revolution sparkplug 
Zhang Chunqiao, and he broke with China and his mentor Bergman to support the 
Gang of Four after Mao's death and the rise of Deng. Then he blew the country 
when he faced prison time for disrupting Deng's visit to the U.S. [This is all 
in From Ike to Mao. Zhang, one of the Four, had curried PL in a similar way in 
the 60s, according to Roderick MacFarquhar's Mao's Last Revolution.]

Avakian's factional winning streak is his main similarity to Mao - up to now, 
when the meaning and purpose of Maoism as a political trend is up for grabs 
[Sendero, Naxalites and Prachanda-istas notwithstanding]. In fact, he has 
broken from both Sendero and the Nepalese Maoists. Only one remaining feature 
of Mao's Cultural Revolution - the RCP's ideological touchstone - is 
comprehensible in the RCP setting today: the personality cult. Like the 
pre-Deng CCP, the RCP can point to the trail of opponents defeated by Mao as 
proof that he is a genius and keeper of the flame. The problem is, the harder 
they promote this, the more grotesque they appear.

There is a revealing portrait of Avakian in Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's memoir, 
Outlaw Woman.
ethan young


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Re: [Marxism] Marxist science and technology list

[Waistline2]

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In a message dated 5/17/2010 4:45:53 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, 
_d.koech...@wanadoo.fr_ (mailto:d.koech...@wanadoo.fr)  writes: 
 
I don't know whether the science of robotics has yet, as of 2010, cleared  
all the obstacles in developing full automation. My guess is that it has,  
nearly. However, picking tomatoes or building houses, are extremely complex  
tasks for a robot to do well...But it can, and WILL surely be done. Special  
pressure sensors will be developed for tomato-picking robots, 
pre-fabricated  walls and windows will be devised for home-building robots, 
etc. 
 
Comment 
 
I believe the issue is more broad and detailed. Why presuppose the mass  
harvesting of tomatoes is desirable? If given the choice most people might  
prefer to eat specific kinds of vegetation based on seasons and what is  
indigenousness to their "neck of the woods."  Then the biogenetic  revolution 
makes indoor or patio harvesting of vegetation a simple matter.  Market 
relations and commodity exchange prejudice our view. For instance there  is no 
spontaneous human market for Mandarin oranges or French strawberries or  
tomatoes, although I accept the point you were making. . 
 
Further, healing the historic rift - metabolic breach, between town and  
country comes into play. The town must become more country and the country 
more  town. Plus in America we eat to damn much anyway under the ruthless 
impact of  the commercial food industry 24/7 campaigns. If the average American 
is 25 - 40  pounds overweight, there are 300 million of us and that is a lot 
of pounds. 
 
On the other hand homes - shelter, is a necessity. Education is a  
necessity. Reorganizing neighborhoods and wiping out crime is a necessity. Most 
 
crime is a product of property. 
 
On another note, the ousting of labor from production and most certainly  
from the production of commodities or to be precise the reproduction of the  
commodity form, is not the meaning of alienation. Alienation is bound up 
with  the living labor process of real people involved in real daily production 
rather  than those shoved outside a job - the production process. 
Alienation does not  arise form the division of labor but rather from the 
property 
form of society.  Alienation is effected upon a specific development of the 
means of production  but that is because these means of production have 
evolved as expressing and  manifesting a property relations. This is written in 
response to the below. 
 
"The desire/projection for the complete automation of production is  
primarily a product of the extreme alienation of labor under capitalism" 
 
I am not sure what "complete automation" mean in the above sentence?   
Automation was completed in the mid and late 1950’s. Automation is a concept of 
 
the automatic (automaton) self regulating machine, set into motion by an  
external energy source based on electro-mechanical principles as outlined in  
Marx Capital 1. The application of advanced robotics to automation is a 
whole  new ball game. A modern computer for instance is a new technology. Open 
it up  and look at it and compare it to Marx precise description of 
industrial machines  in Capital. These self regulating automatic 
electro-mechanical 
machines,  connected into a system of production that supplements the labor 
of the worker  is the meaning of automation, as Marx use the term. Our 
vision still suffers  from industrial concepts of time, space and process. 
 
Emancipation of the species is all about freeing the human - the  
individual, from the enslaving subordination to the division of labor, not  
simply 
capital. I am not suggesting you implied otherwise, just making a point. 
 
WL.
 
 


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Re: [Marxism] to read?

[s.artesian]

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And I would say skip the Lenin, read the Grundrisse, vols 2,3, and the economic
manuscripts 1861-1864.

-Original Message-



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[Marxism] Pesticides Linked to ADHD

[Dennis Brasky]

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>
> Kids Should Eat Organic Fruit
>
> By Sarah Klein, Health.com
>
> Children exposed to higher levels of a type of pesticide found in trace
> amounts on commercially grown fruit and vegetables are more likely to have 
> attention
> deficit hyperactivity disorder 
> (ADHD)than
>  children with less exposure, a nationwide study suggests.
>
> Researchers measured the levels of pesticide byproducts in the urine of
> 1,139 children from across the United States. Children with above-average
> levels of one common byproduct had roughly twice the odds of being diagnosed
> with ADHD, according to the study, which appears in the journal 
> Pediatrics.
>
>
> Health.com: 7 Stars with 
> ADHD
>
> Exposure to the pesticides, known as organophosphates, has been linked to
> behavioral and cognitive problems in children in the past, but previous
> studies have focused on communities of farm workers and other high-risk
> populations. This study is the first to examine the effects of exposure in
> the population at large.
>
> Organophosphates are “designed” to have toxic effects on the nervous
> system, says the lead author of the study, Maryse Bouchard, PhD, a
> researcher in the department of environmental and occupational health at the
> University of Montreal . “That’s how
> they kill pests.”
>
> The pesticides act on a set of brain chemicals closely related to those
> involved in ADHD, Bouchard explains, “so it seems plausible that exposure to
> organophosphates could be associated with ADHD-like symptoms.”
>
>   full article ---

> 
>
>
>

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[Marxism] Obama Has Learned Nothing from the BP Blowout

[Dennis Brasky]

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>
>
> <
> http://www.truthout.org/dave-lindorff-obama-has-learned-nothing-bp-blowout59577
> >
>
> Obama Has Learned Nothing from the BP 
> Blowout
>
> Monday 17 May 2010
>
> by: Dave Lindorff  |  
> *ThisCan'tBeHappening.net*
>
> President Obama claims to have learned a lesson from the disastrous blowout
> of British Petroleum drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico: a “cozy
> relationship” between the agency that regulates oil drilling, the Minerals
> Management Service, and the oil industry, he charges, allowed companies to
> drill in vulnerable offshore areas without properly assessing the risks to
> the ocean and its ecology.
>
> He’s only just figuring this out?
>
> Hell, we already had an example of the problem of “cozy relations” between
> regulators and industry. The bank crisis that produced the current recession
> was the financial equivalent of a much bigger oil-well blowout than the
> Deepwater Horizon rig. It was a catastrophic blowout of the entire global
> financial system--and it was precipitated by an identical “cozy
> relationship” between US bank regulators and the banking industry that they
> were supposed to be regulating. That financial blowout has left almost one
> in five US workers without jobs now for two years, with no end in sight. And
> like the giant hidden plumes of oil spreading out in deep layers of the Gulf
> and heading for the Gulf Stream, it also spread to Europe and beyond,
> hobbling economies around the world.
>
> But that’s only the beginning. If a “cozy relationship” between regulators
> and the industries they are supposed to be regulating is a bad thing when it
> comes to the oil industry, is this because the oil industry is particularly
> evil and corrupt or is it the principle of the thing? Of course not. As
> corrupt as the oil industry is, no one could say that industry is unique in
> its efforts to skirt rules, buy legislators, manipulate prices or poison the
> public.
>
> So why is the president only talking about this one “cozy relationship”?
>
> What about the drug industry and the Food and Drug Administration?
>
> What about the airline industry and the Federal Aviation Administration?
>
> What about the media and telecom industries and the Federal Communications
> Commission?
>
> What about agribusiness and the Agriculture Department?
>
> What about the National Transportation Safety Administration and
> Environmental Protection Industry and the auto industry?
>
> What about the chemical industry (and the oil companies!) and the EPA?
>
> What about the medical-industrial complex and the Department of Health and
> Human Services or the FDA or the Medicare administration?
>
> What about the nuclear industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?
>
> What about military contractors and the Department of Defense? (sic)
>
> The list of federal regulators that have “cozy relationships” with the
> industries they are supposed to be riding herd on goes on and on.
>
> Clearly this president isn’t serious in condemning the “cozy relationship”
> between this one industry, the oil companies, and its regulator, the MMS,
> which he now says he wants to have broken up into two parts--a regulatory
> arm and a revenue-collection arm.
>
> If he were, he’d be breaking up most of the federal agencies and
> departments into two parts--one a hard-nosed regulator to protect the
> public, the environment and the economy, and one, if needed, that might
> promote the activities and development of a particular industry.
>
> He’s not even suggesting doing that, and in fact, has not suggested that
> there is any problem at all with the regulation of the rest of the nation’s
> industries, although all the available evidence is dramatically to the
> contrary: that the whole regulator apparatus of the United States government
> has been hijacked by corporate interests.
>
> We’ve had the equivalent of huge wild-well gushers in most industries just
> in the past two years, including: massive outbreaks of contamination in the
> nation’s food supply, the bailiwick of the USDA; a wholesale failure of the
> auto industry to produce fuel-efficient vehicles, not to mention a deluge of
> safety problems (EPA and NTSA); monopoly practices and price gouging in the
> media/telecom industry (FCC); continuing concentration in the banking
> industry and a continuing refusal to address the bankruptcy crisis (Federal
> Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Comptroller’s Office, Treasury
> Dept.); ongoing destruction of croplands and old-growth forests (Interior
> Department and Bureau of Land Management), and corrupt bidding processes for
> military weapons. And that’s hardly

[Marxism] The Thirteen Housing Markets That Will Never Recover

[Dennis Brasky]

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==


>
>
>
>  New RealtyTrac numbers show that in April there were well over 300,000
> foreclosures and the figure in on track to be higher in 2010 than in 2009.
> Several research firms say that underwater mortgages have moved above 11
> million.
> <
> http://247wallst.com/2010/05/13/the-thirteen-housing-markets-that-will-never-recover/
> >
>
>
>
>

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Re: [Marxism] Further thoughts on the UK 2010 election and its aftermath

[Gary MacLennan]

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Very interesting post, Ian.  I myself think that we also need to factor in
some analysis of the 35% who did not vote and also to constantly bear in
mind that Toryism in the working class would appear to be an English
problem. Admittedly I say that as an Irishman with a deal too much
satisfaction.

As to how to react to Labour's defeat my thinking on the matter was heavily
influenced by the Tony Wood NLR article Good Riddance to New Labour that Lou
posted. So for me it is good riddance to Mandelson, Blair, Brown and all
that slew of pigs at the trough.

I have also finally decided that it is good that the Lib-Dems went with the
Tories. It clarifies things nicely.  It has also produced an incredible
amount of tortured bad faith in the pages of the Guardian, especially in
Polly Toynbee's column.

I tried to force myself to read David Milliband's statements but I couldn't.
My prediction remains, though, that he will try to do a balance between New
Labour and also to revive some of the links with the working class. that
might make for a few left sounding statements, but that is all they will be.
the golden rule is that all will be done with an eye to what the media and
the ruling class regard as acceptable.

As to what now?  Well the working class will have to learn to resist. It is
as simple and as difficult as that.  Something like the Poll tax
demonstrations is needed.  And I believe in my heart it will come.

On the cultural level I keep thinking that it is a mistake for the ruling
class to have the Cameron -Clegg clone act so visible. They do sound so
exclusively private school types. They may think they are born to lead, but
in the coming emergency their background means that they will not be able to
represent the "National Interest" despite all their rhetoric.  How can their
calls for sacrifice have purchase, even with the English?

Your post also had a good deal on the middle class or petit bourgeois.  We
have to bear in mind that this group is going to be hammered as well as the
working class. What impact this will have on their consciousness will be
linked to how the working class respond.  If the workers are tough and
decisive and brave, the middle class will slide in behind them, as their
"leaders" of course.

comradely regards

Gary

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