[Marxism] Ecuador, Venezuela: Danger south of the border | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Paul Kellogg * October 26, 2010 -- It is not difficult to see that the events of September 30, in the Latin American country of Ecuador, amounted to an attempted right-wing coup d’état. Mass mobilisations in the streets and plazas of Quito (the capital) and other cities – in conjunction with action by sections of the armed forces which stayed loyal to the government – stopped the coup before the day was out. But those few hours highlighted, again, the deep dangers facing those fighting for progressive change in Latin America and the Caribbean. Remarkably, the first task is to re-assert that in fact a coup attempt took place. In the wake of the failure of the coup, commentator after commentator was trying to minimise what happened. Peruvian “libertarian” Álvaro Vargas Llosa – darling of the World Economic Forum and outspoken critic of Che Guevara and the current governments of Bolivia and Venezuela – insists that it was not a coup just an “ill-advised, violent protest by the police against a law that cut their benefits”. Let us examine the facts... http://links.org.au/node/1960 * 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 join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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] NZ: Militant Unite union leader to contest by-election
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Also, an excellent radio interview with Matt McCarten at http://links.org.au/node/1962 Also deals with Matt's contacts with Peter Camejo and Jim Percy. 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] Al Jazeera on French Strikes
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Al Jazeera writes: "Protests in France appear to be losing momentum as the passing of a pension reform bill which they oppose seemingly draws near. Widespread strikes eased on Tuesday, with rubbish collectors in the southern city of Marseille and employees at three oil refineries going back to work. Students held protests but in relatively low numbers in comparison to large protests held during the past fortnight." Al Jazeera's correspondent in Paris, Jackie Rowland, would appear to be a paradigmatic case for world journalists. He has never really understood or supported the strikes and now appears like a black crow intent on presiding over the last rites. Daniel's news about the solidarity action in Belgium may though have given a boost to the strikers and hopefully Rowland is being overly optimistic and instead the strikes will continue and regather momentum. Whatever the case the struggle has been nothing less than heroic and a true inspiration. Joaquin wrote in a post earlier that things were looking ugly right now [in the States]. The French resisitance has been the exception to the bad news. Indeed from Brisbane looking towards Paris it has been very much a case of And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright. comradely Gary 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] NZ: Militant Unite union leader to contest by-election
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Matt McCarten's campaign in Mana (a heavily Pacific Islander and working class electorate) will be worth watching. While I broadly agree with what Joe Carolan writes in the GLW article Peter Boyle posted, I'll just point out that the leader of the New Zealand Labour Party is Phil Goff. The use of "Goof" is just Joe's wee private joke, which Australians and other non-New Zealand readers might not realise. Cheers, John 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] NZ: Militant Unite union leader to contest by-election
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By Joe Carolan In a daring and audacious move, Matt McCarten, General Secretary of the Unite Union, announced his candidacy in the Mana By Election in Wellington earlier today. Matt has had a quarter of century's experience fighting for New Zealand's poorest workers, and was a founding member of both the New Labour Party and the Alliance. More: http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/45834 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] WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Walks Out of CNN Interview
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == CNN had the appallingly bad editorial judgment to sic a young cub reporter to perform this hatchet job on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who was invited expressly to talk about the massive release of Pentagon documents which included the newly-disclosed deaths of 104,000 people while under the control of the occupying US government. He handled it with admirable reserve and dignity, and eloquently exposed CNN as the craven hacks that they truly are. How could any sentient viewer, having seen this, any longer rely for news on CNN, self-described as 'among the world's leaders in online news and information delivery'? http://readersupportednews.org/video/4-video/3731-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-walks-out-of-cnn-interview 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] Obama's Finest Hour: Killing Innocent People For "Made-Up Crap"
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It's funny how they use "dogmatic," isn't it? They believe things for which there is absolutely ZERO foundation in reality, but then complain that those who notice are "dogmatic." Just the flip side of teabag brains. 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] Obama's Finest Hour: Killing Innocent People For "Made-Up Crap"
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I read this on my local cable TV show, and a leading local liberal light - Robert Naiman of , who asserts that the Obama administration "isn't evil" - responded that Christ Floyd was "a dogma-head moron." On 10/26/10 2:35 PM, David Thorstad wrote: > An existentialist cri de coeur that, while refreshing, probably falls on > deaf ears among those who throw their votes away on presumed "lesser > evils"--not to mention those who don't even admit their error in viewing > Obama as the Great One pushing "hope" while advancing the interests of > Wall Street and the Pentagon. > David > == >> Obama's Finest Hour: Killing Innocent People For "Made-Up Crap" >> http://www.chris-floyd.com/articles/1-latest-news/2035-obamas-finest-hour-ki >> lling-innocent-people-for-qmade-up-crapq.html >> Written by Chris Floyd Monday, 18 October 2010 17:03 >> [...] 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] Argentine Trotskyist of the PO murdered by Peronists onWeds.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Been away a couple of days. Petroni a liar? I don't recall any incidents of him lying. I know LP unsubbed him after he got into with Nestor, but as I recall that exchange there didn't seem to be any lies in it. I'd be interested in learning exactly where Petroni lied... and what the truth is. 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] Argentine Trotskyist of the PO murdered by Peronists on Weds.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Nestor: "Dear David, I am in the bet position to handle all data available." WTF? You are god of all that is important from Argentina? Really? I trust you as much as I trust C. Petroni. No reason I should believe you or not more or less than him. If I find something interesting on his site, like the history of *Peronist* death-squads from the 1970s or something similar, I forward it here. Nestor: "Again: please go and read what has been published on Reconquista Popular on this bloody and horrible event. This is but a fraction of all that has been published, mainly from Peronist or Izquierda Nacional positions." Always good to have source material. So thanks for that. But you didn't forward this to THIS list, did you? (maybe I missed it...I took off a few days so maybe it slipped by on the list) I took the iniative to forward something I saw that would be of interest, but is obviously critical of Peronism and...no doubt"...Izquierda Nacional positions." Yes, Nestor, the Peronists and Izquierda Nacional hardly have a lock on the truth. I forwarded the particular news item because a Trotskyist was *murdered* by union thugs. I found this both sad and interestings as Argentina has had a particular sad history of union, mostly Peronist, attacks on Trotskyists in the union movement. That it is still going on is what is interesting *to me*. David 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] Argentine Trotskyist of the PO murdered by Peronists on Weds.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == If Louis wants to say that Petroni is a liar he will have to tell me what he’s referring to, I don’t know Petroni enough, and at any rate he’s not here to defend himself. So far, however, Petroni has simply reported what the masses (warning: the masses are only right when the Izquierda Nacional says so) are, that the unión bureaucracy has killed a PO militant, or to put it in the PO’s actually apt categorization –and I’m not a PO devotee-, that it has committed ‘a crime against the working class.’ I know that Petroni has been leading an effort to carry out an investigation on Moyano’s role in the CGT and his collaboration with the Triple A (created thanks to the general, lest we forget) and that doing this when Moyano is playing out the best hand for the Kirchners takes guts. I also know that Gorojovsky goes around pointing the finger to comrades with the accusation that they are “objective helpers of our murderers”, because he can’t argue himself out of a bottle. Yet he defends Moyano as the next hero of the Latin American Revolution. BUT even if, for the sake of “argument”, Moyano, by a lightning or something, has now become a good-natured fellow who will protect the interests of workers at all costs, What then, do Marxists do? “Hope” that things will go alright?, that by a struck of luck, by the pure subjectivity of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, imperialism will start crumbling? Well, that is exactly what Nestor is saying, he complains about the tercerizacion conditions but makes it a problem of the corrupt nature of Pedraza, who was cuddling with miss president courage a couple weeks ago...And the union bureaucracy? Ahh it doesn’t exist, except for some rotten tomatoes, let’s not be “idealists”… But what’s the solution to these problems? Of course, it’s a question of the good national nature of the Argentine bourgeoisie. See? It all fell from the sky…that's what I call a program for conscious political action. So much for 1st grade politics. p.s. The “hypothesis” that Moyano is a good-natured union leader is despicable enough, I mean Petroni might lie, but to defend Moyano like Nestor, to apologize for the Kirchner government like Nestor when it has already made perfectly clear that it is prepared to send in the gendarmes to repress workers, that’s just MERCENARY. Last time, when the workers of Kraft –who, by the way, went to strike and blocked roads to repudiate this murder-, were repressed, while Moyano complained that their demands were too “political” -though he know says that he was always trying to help them, which is belied by any allegation of the workers in the internal commission-, the blame was being put on Anibal Fernandez or Daniel Scioli or my dog. Were there any consequences for them? Yeah right... Yet, miss president courage, has proclaimed that she is prepared to suffer any political costs before repressing workers…who the fuck falls for this shit? Oh and the “data” in Nestor’s list? Same ol’ vomit of the official petty-bourgeois ideology so characteristic of the fake “socialistic” liberal mind, the crap that the defenders of the government are masters of. And now these MFS wanna blame the “crazy left” for being “divisive”, yea like the piqueteros, the unemployed (of whom you can see racist remarks in Nestor’s list, the only one where you can learn the truth, to be sure) are really being “divisive”, my God when will they learn to materialize their own food and shut the fuck up? p.p.s. sorry for the curse-words. 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] American-style
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 10/23/2010 8:04 PM, Mark Lause wrote: > Right now, is there any doubt that most people who call themselves > "progressive" voted for Obama and are actively trying to rationalize a > Democratic vote this election. Frankly, I think they're less pushing things > in a positive direction than my aging, bad-tempered cat, who has the good > sense to screech his discontent from time to time. Progressives who confine > themselves to such things are a bridge to nowhere. This is not the real problem. The problem is that there's no one else to vote for. Not in any realistic sense. And that, in turn, is a reflection of a deeper problem: There's no real, cohered, sustained social/protest movement that can give rise to an alternative in the electoral arena. If campaigning for Democrats is a waste of time, what does that make railing against it in the abstract? If God had meant for us to have a labor party, she would have given us a labor *movement.* It is the reality that we have no labor movement that is at the root of our difficulties. And I fear our difficulties have just begun. Things are getting very ugly. Joaquín 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] Anthony Brain analysis on what London Feminist conference represents?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == These brief comments update the line I argued in April 2010 in which I outlined how to apply the old American SWP prior to Barnes of a Leninist-Trotskyist strategy of what they called a combined revolution 3rd American Socialist revolution (see appendix which has the original April document) to the British situation before May 2010’s general election. It would be useful if other women comrades could write other reports about the London Feminist Network (LFN) conference in London held on October 23rd 2010. From the limited reading (I have only read Julia Long’s report) the main discussion was how to organise to stop Sexist violence against women. Due to British Capitalism’s decay all the old oppressions are coming to the surface. During the 1970s, Britain’s ruling class were able to buy off a layer of middle class women which weakened the social movements. It is very positive that there is a beginning of a sizeable Feminist movement of middle and working class women are emerging. The varied demands being raised by Feminists ranging from opposing violence against women to fighting against cuts which is going to hit working and middle class women hard are signs of a profound radicalisation against a Capitalist society which is making their oppression worse. April’s document dealt with how to apply the combined revolution strategy to Britain. All I add here is there should be campaigns like the LFN which bring together women fighting oppression in general and single issue campaigns which unite women and their allies around one or two issues. Trotskyists have to respect and argue why at this stage there should be women-only meetings because it is only by developing confidence of how they fight their oppression, will working/middle class women be able to unite with male workers and middle class men eventually to overthrow Capitalism. If British Capitalism is going to be overthrown male workers have to be broken from Sexism and won to fight for a specific programme to liberate working and middle class women from their oppression. One contradiction revealed in Long’s report is that all the panellists on the domestic violence workshop opposed campaigning for Sexist hatred laws. We should campaign for Sexist violence to be criminalised. By waging such a struggle you build a mass movement by the oppressed and their allies in the working class which begins to challenge Capitalist rule. Even if the ruling class makes concessions outlawing Sexist violence Trotskyists point out it is mass action which achieved this. Since the general election working class and middle class women are facing a massive onslaught through cuts. 70% of these women are going to suffer the most from these attempted cutbacks. A lot of working class women are on low incomes already. Social benefits (different categories of unemployed) on top of this are being slashed. Middle class women are being attacked with child benefit being reduced and with top-up University fees increasing. Trotskyists see other aspects of the middle class and women workers fighting their oppression by campaigning against Sexist violence and withdrawing licenses for lap dancing clubs which make super-profits by treating women as sexual objects. Long correctly sees the need to link up with ethnic minority women who suffer both Racism and Sexism. This started to happen at last Saturday’s conference. One major difference I have with Long is when she argues women from all classes can unite against Women’s oppression. It is class society which causes women’s oppression. Within this framework Trotskyists recognise specific social oppressions, and by fighting around a specific programme of demands for oppressed groups win them over to a workers struggle for power. Ruling class women while being oppressed as women will very mostly put their class interests first against an incipient Socialist revolution. Despite that difference of opinion with Long she is correct to praise the Dagenham film. This shows the potential of the oppressed and workers coming together to challenge Capitalism. 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] Zionists build new hasbara initiative
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/10/24/2741418/jfna-and-jcpa-create-6-million-network-to-fight-delegitimization-of-israel JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People Federations, JCPA teaming to fight delegitimization of Israel By Jacob Berkman · October 24, 2010 NEW YORK (JTA) -- The Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs are launching a multimillion-dollar joint initiative to combat anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns. The JFNA and the rest of the Jewish federation system have agreed to invest $6 million over the next three years in the new initiative, which is being called the Israel Action Network. The federations will be working in conjunction with JCPA, an umbrella organization bringing together local Jewish community relations councils across North America. The network is expected to serve as a rapid-response team charged with countering the growing campaign to isolate Israel as a rogue state akin to apartheid-era South Africa – a campaign that the Israeli government and Jewish groups see as an existential threat to the Jewish state. In fighting back against anti-Israel forces, the network will seek to capitalize on the reach of North America’s 157 federations, 125 local Jewish community relations councils and nearly 400 communities under the federation system. “There is a very, very high sense of urgency in [fighting] the delegitimizing of the State of Israel,” the JFNA’s president and CEO, Jerry Silverman, told The Fundermentalist. “There is no question that it is among the most critical challenges facing the state today.” In fact, Silverman added, Israeli leaders identify this as the second most dangerous threat to Israel, after Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Under a plan approved in late September during a special conference call of the JFNA’s board of trustees, the JCPA’s senior vice president, Martin Raffel, will oversee the new network. He will be working in concert with the head of the JFNA’s Washington office, William Daroff. Over the next several months, Raffel will be putting together his team, including six people in New York, one in Israel and one in Washington. The network will monitor the delegitimization movement worldwide and create a strategic plan to counter it wherever it crops up. It will work with local federations and community relations councils to enlist the help of key leaders at churches, labor unions and cultural institutions to fight anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns. Organizers of the network are looking at the response to an attempted boycott of the Toronto International Film Festival last year as a model for how the system could potentially work. When the festival organizers decided to focus on filmmakers from Tel Aviv, more than 1,000 prominent actors and filmmakers signed a statement saying that the organizers had become part of Israel’s propaganda machine, and they threatened to boycott the event. In response, the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles worked together to come up with a counter statement supporting the festival. The counter statement won the signatures of even more prominent Hollywood figures, including Jerry Seinfeld, Natalie Portman, Sacha Baron Cohen, Lisa Kudrow, Jason Alexander and Lenny Kravitz. “The partnership started last year around the Toronto international film festival,” said Ted Sokolsky, president of the Toronto federation. “We jointly produced an ad saying that we don’t need another blacklist." Sokolsky went on to say, "I spoke to Jay [Sanderson, the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles] and said, ‘Here, there are a lot of prominent Hollywood types on the delegitimization protest. Can you reach out to the Hollywood community and find some pro-Israel leadership?’ He reached out to some key leadership in Hollywood. And it was like waking up a sleeping giant. Then we realized we can’t all fight this alone." He added that "It was a great lesson and set a template on how to respond because clearly, the other side is running a linked campaign with international funding and global strategy but local implementation.” When similar delegitimizing attempts erupt, leaders of the new network plan to respond early, according to Silverman. “If the community in Chattanooga all of a sudden is faced with [a boycott of] Israeli products in the mall, they should be able to call the [Israel] Action Network and have response and implementation within 12 hours, and not spend time thinking about how to do it,” he said. “We should be able to do that in every community.” Toronto and Los Angeles are two of the largest federation
[Marxism] Arundhati Roy could face sedition charges
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Over statements supporting Kashmir self determination... http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/people/roy-may-face-sedition-charges-20101026-172js.html -- “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism “The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker 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] Anthony Brain has send this article about a London conference last weekend which shows a resurgence of Feminism!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.ukfeminista.org.uk/blog/80-reportonfilworkshop.html 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] NZ: Militant Unite union leader to contest by-election
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Union leader Matt McCarten has announced he will stand as a candidate in the Mana by-election. Wednesday Oct 27, 2010 The by-election will be held on Saturday November 20 and is taking place because Labour MP Winnie Laban is leaving Parliament to take up a position at Victoria University. Matt McCarten - the General Secretary of the Unite Union and a Herald on Sunday commentator - will be speaking to media this afternoon about his candidacy. Mana has been a safe Labour seat and the party is putting up Kris Faafoi, party leader Phil Goff's former chief press secretary, as its candidate. National is running Hekia Parata, who contested the seat in the 2008 general election. Jan Logie is contesting the seat for the Green Party. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10683379 See also: New-left rallies its forces to take on the new-right By Matt McCarten Sunday Oct 24, 2010 After two years it seemed the left was never going to get a break. I'm stoked to announce we have got it at last. Two weekends ago we had our first good news when the mayoral front-runners in our five major cities lost. The wins were significant politically in Auckland and Wellington. Who would have thought a small grey man called Brown could arouse so much enthusiasm? Mind you, if the right relies on a grey man called John Key to keep their party in the stratosphere I guess we can swoon for Brown. And just when the left were still hugging each other in delight, the Labour Party for the first time since who knows when got excited about being left-wing again. More: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/matt-mccarten/news/article.cfm?a_id=284&objectid=10682602 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] Econobubble
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Econobubble Revisited by Yanis Varoufakis In a recent article, I discussed the 2010 Economics Nobel Prize in rather unflattering terms. However, nothing beats the decision to award the 1997 Economics Nobel to Robert Merton and Myron Scholes for developing "a pioneering formula for the valuation of stock options." "Their methodology," trumpeted the Nobel committee, "has paved the way for economic valuations in many areas. It has also generated new types of financial instruments and facilitated more efficient risk management in society." If only the hapless Nobel committee had known that in a few short months the lauded "pioneering formula" would cause a spectacular multi-billion dollar debacle, the collapse of a major hedge fund (the infamous Long-Term Capital Management [LTCM] in which Merton and Scholes had invested all their kudos) and, naturally, a bailout by the reliably kind US taxpayers. full: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/varoufakis261010.html 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] American-style (sorry)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == WL, Don't apologize because this is exactly the kind of discussion I hoped to start: to examine the surface of American politics toward the goal of building a deep, long-range movement in America. I almost called this thread "Toward a Theory of Revolution (fundamental change) in America, but decided on the more general label of "21st Century American-style Socialism." It seems to me that there hasn't been a lot of really good comprehensive work of this kind in several decades, but I admit that I don't a have as close a relationship to the relevant literature as I once did. Nevertheless, fresh attempts are needed to identify the new forces or tendencies for revolution in America, as well as the counter-forces that function to preserve the status quo or worse. Your new post is a goldmine in this regard, so I will study it and get back to you asap? glenn > > == > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > == > > > > > I reread what I wrote and 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] Climate & Capitalism, October 26, 2010
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM An online journal focusing on capitalism, climate change, and the ecosocialist alternative. http://climateandcapitalism.com Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/CandC-FaceBook October 26, 2010 MOST ‘GREEN PRODUCT’ CLAIMS ARE MISLEADING http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3361 Nearly all “green” consumer products make at least one false, misleading or unproven environmental claim CANADA AND EU GIVEN ‘DODO AWARDS’ http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3359 Having repeatedly winning “Fossil of the Day” awards at international climate conferences, Canada now has a new dishonor to be ashamed of TEACH-IN ON BOLIVIA AND CLIMATE JUSTICE http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3354 Toronto November 13: Lessons from Bolivia Building a World Movement for Climate Justice SUPERCONSUMERS AT SEA http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3351 The battle of the super yachts AGAINST MAINSTREAM ECONOMICS: THE KICK IT OVER MANIFESTO http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3344 An international student movement to free the economics curriculum from its neoclassical straightjacket was launched last week at the University of California at Berkeley. IF WEALTH WAS HEIGHT, HOW TALL WOULD RICH PEOPLE BE? http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3336 Video: Barry Healy of Socialist Alliance makes some instructive comparisons…. BARRY COMMONER: CAPITALISM VERSUS THE ENVIRONMENT http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3331 It is hopeless to expect ecologically sound solutions from a system based on profit BILL MAHER: GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT A DEBATE http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3327 Video: There is no debate here, just scientists and non-scientists. And since the subject is science, the non-scientists don’t get a vote. Other recent articles SUPPRESSED REPORT CONFIRMS INTERNATIONAL VIOLATIONS BY CANADIAN MINING COMPANIES http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3325 BRITISH GREEN LEADER TO UNION CONFERENCE: ‘WE NEED TO FORGE AN ALLIANCE ‘ http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3308 RICHEST NATIONS AIM TO WRECK CLIMATE TALKS http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3290 THE NEW CLIMATE-CHANGE DENIALISM: WHO PROMOTES IT, AND HOW TO ANSWER IT http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3283 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] Obama's Finest Hour: Killing Innocent People For "Made-Up Crap"
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == An existentialist cri de coeur that, while refreshing, probably falls on deaf ears among those who throw their votes away on presumed "lesser evils"--not to mention those who don't even admit their error in viewing Obama as the Great One pushing "hope" while advancing the interests of Wall Street and the Pentagon. David == > Obama's Finest Hour: Killing Innocent People For "Made-Up Crap" > http://www.chris-floyd.com/articles/1-latest-news/2035-obamas-finest-hour-ki > lling-innocent-people-for-qmade-up-crapq.html > Written by Chris Floyd Monday, 18 October 2010 17:03 > > If ever I am tempted by the siren songs of my tribal past as a deep-fried, > yellow-dawg Democrat, and begin to feel any faint, atavistic stirrings of > sympathy for the old gang, I simply think of things like the scenario > below, sketched last week by Johann Hari, and those wispy ghosts of > partisanship past go howling back to the depths: > > Imagine if, an hour from now, a robot-plane swooped over your house and > blasted it to pieces. The plane has no pilot. It is controlled with a > joystick from 7,000 miles away, sent by the Pakistani military to kill > you. > It blows up all the houses in your street, and so barbecues your > family and > your neighbours until there is nothing left to bury but a few charred > slops. Why? They refuse to comment. They don't even admit the robot-planes > belong to them. But they tell the Pakistani newspapers back home it is > because one of you was planning to attack Pakistan. How do they know? > Somebody told them. Who? You don't know, and there are no appeals against > the robot. > > Now imagine it doesn't end there: these attacks are happening every > week somewhere in your country. They blow up funerals and family dinners > and children. The number of robot-planes in the sky is increasing every > week. You discover they are named "Predators", or "Reapers" – after the > Grim Reaper. No matter how much you plead, no matter how much you make it > clear you are a peaceful civilian getting on with your life, it won't > stop. > What do you do? If there was a group arguing that Pakistan was an evil > nation that deserved to be violently attacked, would you now start to > listen? > > ...[This] is in fact an accurate description of life in much of > Pakistan today, with the sides flipped. The Predators and Reapers are > being > sent by Barack Obama's CIA, with the support of other Western governments, > and they killed more than 700 civilians in 2009 alone – 14 times the > number killed in the 7/7 attacks in London. The floods were seen as an > opportunity to increase the attacks, and last month saw the largest number > of robot-plane bombings ever: 22. Over the next decade, spending on drones > is set to increase by 700 per cent. > > > Friends, it's very simple: if you support Barack Obama and the > Democrats -- > even if reluctantly, even if you're just being all sophisticatedly > super-savvy and blogospherically strategic about it, playing the "long > game" or eleven-dimensional chess or what have you -- you are supporting > the outright murder of innocent people who have never done anything > against > you or yours. You have walked into a house, battered down the bedroom > door, > put the barrel of a gun against the temple of a sleeping child, and pulled > the trigger. That is what you are supporting, that is what you are > complicit in, that is what you yourself are doing. > > But hey, let's be all super-savvy and eleventh-dimensional ourselves here > for a moment. Let's be pragmatic, and technocratic, let's be grown-ups, > let's not get sidetracked by a bunch of jejune, dorm-room, hippy-dippy > moralizing. No, let's concentrate on practicalities, let's get down to > brass tacks, let's be serious and focus on "what works" to protect our > national security. OK, so here's the practical result of the illegal > campaign of mass murder that Obama is waging on the sovereign territory of > one of America's allies: > > ... Drone technology was developed by the Israelis, who routinely use > it to bomb the Gaza Strip. I've been in Gaza during some of these attacks. > The people there were terrified – and radicalised. A young woman I know > who had been averse to political violence and an advocate of peaceful > protest saw a drone blow up a car full of people – and she started > supporting Islamic Jihad and crying for the worst possible revenge against > Israel. Robot-drones have successfully bombed much of Gaza, from secular > Fatah to Islamist Hamas, to the brink of jihad. > > Is the same thing happening in Pakistan? David Kilcullen is a > counter-insurgency expert who worked for General Petraeus in Iraq and now > advises the State Department. He has shown that two
Re: [Marxism] American-style
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The anti-intellectualism practiced within the Left is still a problem as far as I can see? 21st Century American computer-technology makes possible a new revolutionary agency? What's your view about how to build, or even begin to build, a collective revolutionary left? What do you think of using electoral politics as a tool for getting our message out? glenn Reply Until we learn how to speak in terms that match the way the American peoples think things out in real time, we are in trouble. How people think things out in real time express the moment. This is the essence of the American style. Yes, the electoral arena is an indispensible area of work. This may not entail voting for a democrat or republican candidate in a local race; running ones own "independent" candidate or "third party efforts." Much depends on local and state "third party laws," primary laws as who can vote for whom, forces available for petition campaigns, etc. The real action is the voters and the degree to which socialist literature can reach them. Voter registration remains a valid area of work the broad left can take part in. Living in Florida a couple of years gave me a new appreciation for voter registration and efforts to stay on the voting roll after Bush 2000. If in a given area social forces are ripe for an independent working class candidate, "go for it." If one is able to run a socialist or "Vote Communist Campaign" so be it. I do have some experience with successfully getting on the state ballot from the 1970's. "Back in the day" the Michigan Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and Communist Labor Party (CLP) successfully won ballot status during the same election. If memory serves me correct, each candidate required 20,000 signatures. This meant actually engaging the voting section of the proletariat. Since both parties name include "socialist" and "communist" this activity was a beautiful thing. There was the 1996 formation of the US Labor Party, which might in the immediate future need summing up to avoid some of the pitfalls of sustaining a party of labor. One thing is certain; "from nothing comes nothing" and a new Labor party is going to be built from fragments of the old organized labor - trade union, movement and fragments of the Democratic and Republican Party, and all smaller parties across the breath and depth of America. American is a huge country and one policy seems to me a mistake. Electing better politicians is important and mean those expressing the striving and needs of the working class, from the lens and standpoint of its most destitute sector. I have zero "national grand strategy," only a generalized "line of march," along the probable path our proletariat is increasingly pushed to travel as a way to socially necessary means of life. For instance, "boycott all elections without an alternative to Dems or Repubs" everyone in America means do not do electoral work since there is no rational reason to take part in voter registration in most places in America. Here is some of the problem: every time a major corporation publicly announces it is hiring, 10 - 30 thousand people show up. It is not yet clear to the American people that capital cannot employ all those willing to work. Electoral work for revolutionaries means taking this fact of our lives to voting America and asks them "how do we solve this problem?" By revolutionaries I do not mean socialist and communists, some who are revolutionary and reactionary. By revolutionary is meant those fighting a practical struggle to make government, state and the system favorable to the proletariat. There, I've said it again . . . proletariat. II. A section of the proletariat and its intellectual counterpart begins to "think things out" independent of the bourgeoisie; to the degree the living proletariat connection with bourgeois property in the process of production is broken. The proletariat is revolutionary in its decay as a class bonded to old social relations of production. The industrial proletariat of our past was not revolutionary in relationship to industrial capital or financial industrial capital and its institutional relations in the superstructure. This old proletariat was revolutionary in relations to manufacture, feudalism and the first stage of the industrial revolution. The failure of "social revolution of the proletariat" in the advanced countries was not a "subjective weakness of revolutionaries" - our parents and their parents, but an objectivem-mmaterial, impossibility. No class can overthrow the social relations of which it constitutes. Some deeply believe failure of revolution in Ame
[Marxism] Elegant take-down of Platypus publishing Islamophobic article
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2010/10/platypus-and-deustch-pitching-to-serve.html 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] In Belgium, Unions block Fuel Depots in solidarity with French strikers !
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Incredible news ! On Tuesday 26 October, Belgium trade unions started blocking fuel depots in Belgium in a show of solidarity with French strikers. Exasperated by the fact that Belgium fuel depots have been used extensively over the weekend to re-supply French service stations on the other side of the border, the FGBT (Federation Generale Belge du Travail) is preventing tank trucks from entering the depots of Feluy and Tertre in central Belgium. "Sarkozy is threatening the right of French workers to strike by forcing strikers to work against their will. He is also trying to break workers' solidarity by sending tank trucks to fill up with petrol in Belgium", a Belgium trade unionist told Le Monde (see article here) . http://felisniger.blogspot.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
[Marxism] Navajos Hope to Shift From Coal to Wind and Sun
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == NY Times October 25, 2010 Navajos Hope to Shift From Coal to Wind and Sun By MIREYA NAVARRO BLUE GAP, Ariz. — For decades, coal has been an economic lifeline for the Navajos, even as mining and power plant emissions dulled the blue skies and sullied the waters of their sprawling reservation. But today there are stirrings of rebellion. Seeking to reverse years of environmental degradation and return to their traditional values, many Navajos are calling for a future built instead on solar farms, ecotourism and microbusinesses. “At some point we have to wean ourselves,” Earl Tulley, a Navajo housing official, said of coal as he sat on the dirt floor of his family’s hogan, a traditional circular dwelling. Mr. Tulley, who is running for vice president of the Navajo Nation in the Nov. 2 election, represents a growing movement among Navajos that embraces environmental healing and greater reliance on the sun and wind, abundant resources on a 17 million-acre reservation spanning Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. “We need to look at the bigger picture of sustainable development,” said Mr. Tulley, the first environmentalist to run on a Navajo presidential ticket. With nearly 300,000 members, the Navajo Nation is the country’s largest tribe, according to Census Bureau estimates, and it has the biggest reservation. Coal mines and coal-fired power plants on the reservation and on lands shared with the Hopi provide about 1,500 jobs and more than a third of the tribe’s annual operating budget, the largest source of revenue after government grants and taxes. At the grass-roots level, the internal movement advocating a retreat from coal is both a reaction to the environmental damage and the health consequences of mining — water loss and contamination, smog and soot pollution — and a reconsideration of centuries-old tenets. In Navajo culture, some spiritual guides say, digging up the earth to retrieve resources like coal and uranium (which the reservation also produced until health issues led to a ban in 2005) is tantamount to cutting skin and represents a betrayal of a duty to protect the land. “As medicine people, we don’t extract resources,” said Anthony Lee Sr., president of the Diné Hataalii Association, a group of about 100 healers known as medicine men and women. But the shift is also prompted by economic realities. Tribal leaders say the Navajo Nation’s income from coal has dwindled 15 percent to 20 percent in recent years as federal and state pollution regulations have imposed costly restrictions and lessened the demand for mining. Two coal mines on the reservation have shut down in the last five years. One of them, the Black Mesa mine, ceased operations because the owners of the power plant it fed in Laughlin, Nev., chose to close the plant in 2005 rather than spend $1.2 billion on retrofitting it to meet pollution controls required by the Environmental Protection Agency. Early this month, the E.P.A. signaled that it would require an Arizona utility to install $717 million in emission controls at another site on the reservation, the Four Corners Power Plant in New Mexico, describing it as the highest emitter of nitrous oxide of any power plant in the nation. It is also weighing costly new rules for the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona. And states that rely on Navajo coal, like California, are increasingly imposing greenhouse gas emissions standards and requiring renewable energy purchases, banning or restricting the use of coal for electricity. So even as they seek higher royalties and new markets for their vast coal reserves, tribal officials say they are working to draft the tribe’s first comprehensive energy policy and are gradually turning to casinos, renewable energy projects and other sources for income. This year the tribal government approved a wind farm to be built west of Flagstaff, Ariz., to power up to 20,000 homes in the region. Last year, the tribal legislative council also created a Navajo Green Economy Commission to promote environmentally friendly jobs and businesses. “We need to create our own businesses and control our destiny,” said Ben Shelly, the Navajo Nation vice president, who is now running for president against Lynda Lovejoy, a state senator in New Mexico and Mr. Tulley’s running mate. That message is gaining traction among Navajos who have reaped few benefits from coal or who feel that their health has suffered because of it. Curtis Yazzie, 43, for example, lives in northeastern Arizona without running water or electricity in a log cabin just a stone’s throw from the Kayenta mine. Tribal officials, who say some families live so remotely that it would cost too much to run power lines to their homes, have be
[Marxism] Islamophobia at Brooklyn College
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://chronicle.com/article/My-Arab-Problem/125019/ By Moustafa Bayoumi This past August, I briefly occupied a small corner of the culture wars, and I felt like a fish in a fishbowl. Everybody was staring at a distorted image of me, and all I could do was blink and blow bubbles. I teach at Brooklyn College, where the undergraduate writing program has for the past several years assigned a "common reading" to all incoming freshmen. This year the program selected my book How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America, in which I tell the stories of seven Arab-American men and women, all in their 20s and living in Brooklyn, coping in a post-9/11 world. The criteria for the common reading are that the book should preferably be set in New York City, have a significant immigration component (since many of our students are themselves immigrants or come from immigrant backgrounds), and be in the form of life stories. It should be by a living writer, since the author is invited to the campus to talk with students. My book fit the bill. (Previous readings have included Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes and Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.) Everything was fine until about a week before classes began. That's when the chair of my department called me to report that the college had received a small number of complaints from alumni and an emeritus faculty member about the selection. She assured me that the college was standing by its decision, and the dean of undergraduate studies subsequently told me the same thing. But I knew that in today's wired world, administrators worry about complaints' hitting the Internet and going "viral." And that's exactly what happened. The tempest was kicked off when Bruce Kesler, a conservative California-based blogger who is a Brooklyn College alumnus, labeled me a "radical pro-Palestinian" professor in one of his posts and called the book's selection an "official policy to inculcate students with a political point of view." He said he was cutting out a "significant bequest" to the college from his will. (He didn't mention how significant his bequest would have been.) In another letter, posted on a different blog under the title "Brooklyn College-Stan," a retired Brooklyn professor wrote that assigning my book "smacks of indoctrination" and "will intimidate students who have a different point of view." My first reaction was one of disbelief. Wow, I thought, is my writing really that powerful? But on closer inspection, it became clear to me that my detractors hadn't actually read the book. Next I realized how insulting those objections were to our students, suggesting that they are unable to form independent judgments of what they read. Enlarge Image My Arab Problem 2 close My Arab Problem 2 I hoped the noise would fade, but within days, tabloid news media had grabbed the issue from the right-wing blogosphere. Articles appeared in New York's Daily News, The Jewish Week, and Gothamist and were picked up by The Huffington Post and New York Magazine. The New York Post ran an op-ed by a retired history professor at City College who deftly illustrated that one need read only a book's Amazon.com page to reach conclusions about it. The op-ed called the selection of my book a "scandal" and claimed that it paints "New Yorkers in particular as completely Islamophobic" (patently untrue). I received calls at home from television news shows, and the local Channel 11 even broadcast my picture, calling me "this guy!" in the teaser. I was ready to hide behind a piece of coral. Both The New York Times and The New Yorker pointed out that the controversy was driven almost entirely by off-campus conservatives, but it didn't matter. Now I—not those manufacturing the storm—had become the controversial one, and Brooklyn College was not advancing a liberal education by having students read a book about the post-9/11 life experiences of young Arab-Americans, but was, rather, "pushing" an "anti-American, pro-Islam" book, at least according to rightwingnews.com. I was getting a very personalized education about how all things Muslim are at the center of today's culture wars. I might have found the fracas amusing were it not unpleasant to be called all kinds of names in public. I certainly didn't recognize my book or myself in the descriptions being tossed about. I mean, the only radical organization I belong to is the Park Slope Food Coop (from which, I must confess, I've been suspended several times). My surprise at being at the center of a controversy, even a trumped-up one, wasn't based on naïvete. Rather, it came from the fact that the book had been out for two years already without sparki
[Marxism] Monday, October 25th : blockades in my hometown
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Here are a few pictures taken yesterday(october 25th) in my hometown. Strikers (auto workers, truckers, teachers, students, railway workers) blocking the entrance to the industrial park and the fuel depot : http://felisniger.blogspot.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
[Marxism] Seond unity leetter from Socialist Alternative to Solidarity (Australia)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dear Comrades, We were disappointed by your negative response to our letter of 28 September proposing the opening up of discussions on the possibility of unity between our two organisations. Socialist Alternative has maintained a consistent position since we were formed in 1995 of supporting unity between the organisations in Australia that stood in the international socialist tradition. Throughout that period important differences existed and continue to exist between the various groups over questions of perspectives and around tactical and organisational issues. However we don't believe that these differences are sufficient to rule out unity. Far from it. We see no reason why they can't be discussed and resolved through practical activity within the framework of one united organisation. So our support for unity is not based on some reappraisal of our assessment of Solidarity as an organisation or on some change in our own political orientation. It is our long standing position. We took the initiative of sending our letter because of the statement in your open letter to Socialist Alternative in July that "We have been encouraged to hear that the leadership of Socialist Alternative now envisages the possibility of fusing with Solidarity at some time in the future." We hoped that this might mean Solidarity was interested in taking practical steps in the direction of unity. Unfortunately you don't explain in your latest letter why you have abandoned that more positive attitude to unity. You raise a number of issues, such as our orientation in the federal elections, our approach to the Labor government, whether we should run left tickets against Labor in student elections, as barriers to unity. Undoubtedly there are differences between our organisations on these tactical questions but we don't see why they should stand in the way of unity. To rule out unity on the basis of these very specific tactical questions and the other trivial and quite nitpicking issues you raise seems to us to be a completely mistaken position. The divisive approach merely serves to weaken and discredit the whole international socialist current in Australia and the left more generally. Your approach seems to be one of turning tactical and other secondary issues into something approaching questions of fundamental principle. It is an approach we appeal to you to reconsider. Such an approach, if consistently adhered to on your part, would rule out the unity of the revolutionary forces in Australia at any stage in the future. There are always bound to be tactical and other secondary differences between and within socialist organisations. Take for example the question of the socialist approach to the ALP which has long been a controversial question on the left. Both Solidarity and Socialist Alternative view the ALP as a bourgeois workers party. We both called for a vote for Labor over the Liberals in the recent elections. We both argued against the common view on the left that independents holding the balance of power was a step forward. This is quite a high level of agreement and surely a basis for unity. Indeed it is a much higher level of agreement on the issue than has existed in the history of our movement. When the Australian and British Communist parties were formed in the early 1920s they united small socialist groups and individuals who had deep differences over the Labor party. Some groups opposed any participation in parliamentary elections; some considered Labor to be an outright capitalist party whereas others were for working inside the Labor party. Yet despite these differences it was an important step forward for the revolutionary movement when they united. In 1968 the British International Socialists put out a call for unity of the small revolutionary groups in Britain despite considerable differences in their approach to Labour. In the late 1980s the British Socialist Workers Party proposed unity with Militant, the socialist organisation working within the Labour party. More recently the supporters of the International Socialist Tendency in France joined the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) despite the fact that the NPA does not view the French equivalent of the ALP, the Socialist Party, as a bourgeois workers party and has a dismissive approach to it. In the 1970s the Socialist Workers Action Group (SWAG), the forerunner of Solidarity and Socialist Alternative, was active in the ALP. It was only after years of discussion and practical experience that SWAG concluded that it was pointless working in the ALP and adopted an analysis of the ALP as a bourgeois workers party. Viewed in this context Solidarity's disagreement with Socialist Alternativ
