Re: [Marxism] Bono bullshit, chapter 473
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis wrote: Look, I think that Bono and Buffett are pretty bad but it is important for the left not to quote people out of context. Buffett said this in the context of favoring a return to a more progressive income tax, not in the spirit of Atlas Shrugged. True, but it also should be remembered that Jay Z is also a major league wanker. And most disturbingly, the conversation also included the magazine's founder, Steve Forbes. By associating with the major league tax avoider Forbes, Bono is not only betraying the poor and oppressed, but the entire human race, as revealed by the fearless Michael Moore ... http://www.afn.org/~iguana/archives/1999_01/19990106.html Michael Moore's investigation reveals Awful Truth about Steve Forbes January 1999 We were at a loss to respond to the fact that the unspeakably wealthy Steve Forbes, right wing presidential candidate, would be speaking on campus, PAID by student fees. Forbes is worth between $400 and 500 million, but since he won't release his tax returns, we don't know exactly. We bet he didn't pay much in the way of taxes. We think it's only fair, however, that we here reveal the terrifying information about Steve Forbes Michael Moore uncovered in his most recent film The Big One. (Which, incidentally, is now available on video at the Civic Media Center.) But first, a memo to Steve Forbes' lawyers: THIS IS SATIRE. -The Editors Michael Moore: Ever wonder what happened to Steve Forbes? He appeared from nowhere, had you ever heard of him before? Ever notice when he was on TV his eyes never blinked? Really, he never blinked. I saw him on Larry King, he never blinked, the whole time, the whole hour, he never blinked. Couple nights later he was on Nightline and they had the camera on him for a full minute. Not once did the eyes blink. I thought, this is very strange, so I called New York Hospital asked for a doctor in the Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat Division and I said Doctor I'm watching TV right now and this guy on there, his eyes have not blinked for a full minute, is that possible? He said No! The human eye needs to blink every 15 to 20 seconds. Now we're into 2 minutes and this guy's eyes have not blinked, not once. And the doctor said, and I quote: Well ...that's not human. Not human. Right. I'm thinking Don't look at his eyes. Then he hits us with a sound, flat tax, flat tax, flat tax. So back in February I was here in Des Moines for the Iowa caucuses and I decided to go over to the Forbes headquarters to see if Steve was some kind of freak X-File brother from another planet. This guy comes out and he says Hi, my name is Chip Carter Chip Carter? Jimmy Carter's son? No, I'm the other Chip Carter. He had this weird look in his eyes too. [We interviewed him on tape.] Michael Moore: How long has Mr. Forbes been here? Chip Carter: He's really only been on the ground for 6 to 8 weeks. MM: Steve Forbes was born where? CC: I have no idea, I can't remember. MM: You don't know... Where did Steve Forbes come from? CC: Steve Forbes seems to have come from nowhere. Pretty much. MM: Where is nowhere? CC: Somewhere out there. MM: (I'm freaking out, I'm thinking, OK, I am not going to die in Des Moines, taken away by space beings calling themselves the Forbes campaign.) Where are you taking the Spaceship here after Iowa? CC: Uh, I'm going to go home to Oklahoma for a few days and rest and then they'll send me to another state. So the guy's disappeared right? And the only time that you have any idea that they are still with us is if you ever notice certain people reading the publication with the name Forbes, the name of their leader, on the magazine? These men in three piece suits, white guys, who look like they've got a lot of money? They're the aliens. Beware of these people. 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] Bono bullshit, chapter 473
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 19.12.2010 10:26, Nick Fredman wrote: By associating with the major league tax avoider Forbes, Bono is not only betraying the poor and oppressed, but the entire human race, as revealed by the fearless Michael Moore ... That Bono is a shit is no surprise to those of us who've followed his political statements over the decades. B9ono has always associated himself with those in power and has never ever been a radical of any sort and so it's pointless to talk of betrayal. Bono's up there with Mother Theresa as one of the greatest hypocritical pious shitbags of recent history. Einde O'Callaghan 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] Terry Eagleton on The death of universities
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/17/death-universities-ma laise-tuition-fees The Guardian 17 December 2010 *The death of universities Academia has become a servant of the status quo. Its malaise runs so much deeper than tuition fees* Terry Eagleton Are the humanities about to disappear from our universities? The question is absurd. It would be like asking whether alcohol is about to disappear from pubs, or egoism from Hollywood. Just as there cannot be a pub without alcohol, so there cannot be a university without the humanities. If history, philosophy and so on vanish from academic life, what they leave in their wake may be a technical training facility or corporate research institute. But it will not be a university in the classical sense of the term, and it would be deceptive to call it one. Neither, however, can there be a university in the full sense of the word when the humanities exist in isolation from other disciplines. The quickest way of devaluing these subjects short of disposing of them altogether is to reduce them to an agreeable bonus. Real men study law and engineering, while ideas and values are for sissies. The humanities should constitute the core of any university worth the name. The study of history and philosophy, accompanied by some acquaintance with art and literature, should be for lawyers and engineers as well as for those who study in arts faculties. If the humanities are not under such dire threat in the United States, it is, among other things, because they are seen as being an integral part of higher education as such. When they first emerged in their present shape around the turn of the 18th century, the so-called humane disciplines had a crucial social role. It was to foster and protect the kind of values for which a philistine social order had precious little time. The modern humanities and industrial capitalism were more or less twinned at birth. To preserve a set of values and ideas under siege, you needed among other things institutions known as universities set somewhat apart from everyday social life. This remoteness meant that humane study could be lamentably ineffectual. But it also allowed the humanities to launch a critique of conventional wisdom. From time to time, as in the late 1960s and in these last few weeks in Britain, that critique would take to the streets, confronting how we actually live with how we might live. What we have witnessed in our own time is the death of universities as centres of critique. Since Margaret Thatcher, the role of academia has been to service the status quo, not challenge it in the name of justice, tradition, imagination, human welfare, the free play of the mind or alternative visions of the future. We will not change this simply by increasing state funding of the humanities as opposed to slashing it to nothing. We will change it by insisting that a critical reflection on human values and principles should be central to everything that goes on in universities, not just to the study of Rembrandt or Rimbaud. In the end, the humanities can only be defended by stressing how indispensable they are; and this means insisting on their vital role in the whole business of academic learning, rather than protesting that, like some poor relation, they don't cost much to be housed. How can this be achieved in practice? Financially speaking, it can't be. Governments are intent on shrinking the humanities, not expanding them. Might not too much investment in teaching Shelley mean falling behind our economic competitors? But there is no university without humane inquiry, which means that universities and advanced capitalism are fundamentally incompatible. And the political implications of that run far deeper than the question of student fees. Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math How to Stay Asleep Cambridge Researchers have developed an all natural sleep aid just for you. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4d0e0cbc43067218da7st05vuc 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, Dec. 19, 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 ++ December 19, 2010 WHO PAYS THE REAL COSTS FOR OIL FROM SHALE? http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3668 The country and its people could be paying the costs decades after it ceases to provide any material benefit to society. BOLIVIA’S DISSENT STRIPS THE CANCUN DEAL NAKED http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3666 Bolivia was not an obstacle to progress at Cancun’s climate talks. It was rather the only nation daring enough to tell the truth. Now only mass mobilisation can shift the power balance CUBAN STATEMENT ON CANCUN DEAL http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3660 “The Bolivian delegation is speaking here in the name of the peoples of Our America and deserves consideration and recognition in Cuba’s opinion.” TAKING GREENWASH TO ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3651 A group of design students produces the ultimate greenwash advertising campaign. A brilliant parody CHURCH LEADER SLAMS CANADA’S PM ON CLIMATE CHANGE http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3649 Stephen Harper fails the tests of truth and accountability CANCUN: CLIMATE CAPITALISM WINS, EVERYONE ELSE LOSES http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3649 Now the challenge for climate justice movements across the world is to not only continue – and dramatically ratchet up – vibrant grassroots activism against major fossil fuel emissions and extraction sites +++ Other Recent Articles: BOLIVIA: CANCUN DEAL IS HOLLOW AND FALSE; ITS COST WILL BE MEASURED IN HUMAN LIVES http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3612 15 YEAR OLD WARNS RULING CLASS: WE WILL FIGHT BACK! http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3632 INDIGENOUS ACTIVISTS SLAM CANCUN BETRAYAL; MASS MOVEMENTS ARE OUR ONLY HOPE http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3620 IN CANCÚN, EVO MORALES LED THE FIGHT FOR MOTHER EARTH http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3625 MICHAEL LÖWY ON ECOSOCIALISM http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3628 FRIENDS OF THE EARTH: CANCUN DEAL MERELY PREVENTS COLLAPSE; LEAVES KYOTO ON LIFE SUPPORT http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3622 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' lesson on Haiti:
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == *WikiLeaks' lesson on **Haiti**: * What the US embassy cables reveal about Washington's malign influence should make Latin American nations quit the UN force http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=iqnuv6babet=1104097017242s=109652e=001I7X-pe43j3CHcjA4ec8q2zp80WWzYBlwHyTEu0lVnKHw7-tJYBsld6UBBf998N15-VWmWjyoREZFR8hkpiWyH-4CB-4H5hqlM0cdhAHXi0LGmSGIkiqgKvGeDhXbTpudl7UN8SLXi3uUUe6eiUVajTpdfC0X34847tgAyC8GiYfDO9c3tFddHc_x6geANrZtmVl3EMRcAkU= http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/17/haiti-wikileakshttp://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=iqnuv6babet=1104097017242s=109652e=001I7X-pe43j3CHcjA4ec8q2zp80WWzYBlwHyTEu0lVnKHw7-tJYBsld6UBBf998N15-VWmWjyoREZFR8hkpiWyH-4CB-4H5hqlM0cdhAHXi0LGmSGIkiqgKvGeDhXbTpudl7UN8SLXi3uUUe6eiUVajTpdfC0X34847tgAyC8GiYfDO9c3tFddHc_x6geANrZtmVl3EMRcAkU= 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] YouTube - An Irishman abroad tells it like it is
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 19.12.2010 18:50, Bill Stephens wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koY6kXhQDQofeature=player_embedded What this man has to say is much more important than any bullshit that Bono spouts. 1,256,557 views so far! Einde O'Callaghan 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] opposition from leading left Obama supporter
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == While a Marxist analysis would not concentrate so much on individual personality traits, this possibly reflects an important break within the left supporters of Obama camp -- An Historical View from the Sanctimonious Left By Carl Bloice - BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Black Commemtator - December 16, 2010 clip - Smarting from the complaints within his own party about the tax deal he and the Republican leadership had hatched, an increasingly defensive President Obama said, this is the public option debate all over again. Then, he claimed, that while he was able to pass a meaningful reform, progressives had instead viewed it as weakness and compromise that there was no public option in his healthcare plan. Now, if that's the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, and then let's face it, we will never get anything done. This is a big, diverse country, Obama said. Not everybody agrees with us. I know that shocks people. This country was founded on compromise. I couldn't go through the front door of this country's founding, he added. And you know, if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn't have a Union. When I read those words my first thought was: that's not how Abe Lincoln viewed it. full - http://www.blackcommentator.com/406/406_lm_sanctimonious_left.php 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] Richard Holbrooke Represented the Worst of the Foreign Policy Establishment
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.truth-out.org/richard-holbrooke-represented-worse-side-foreign-policy-establishment65933 http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/15/richard_holbrooke_dies_at_69_remembering 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] opposition from leading left Obama supporter
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/19/10 4:02 PM, Dennis Brasky wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == While a Marxist analysis would not concentrate so much on individual personality traits, this possibly reflects an important break within the left supporters of Obama camp -- An Historical View from the Sanctimonious Left By Carl Bloice - BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Black Commemtator - December 16, 2010 Interesting. Bloice is a leader of the Committees of Correspondence, a Eurocommunist split from the CPUSA that I would have described as being to its right. But it is clear that I am wrong. The CofC, on the all-important question of how to regard Obama, is far more radical. 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] Richard Holbrooke Represented the Worst of the Foreign Policy Establishment
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == An excellent summary of Holbrooke's career from Richard Becker: From the viewpoint of Marxism, war and diplomacy are not viewed as opposites: one ending in violence and the other in peaceful resolution. Diplomacy and war alike are tactics used in pursuit of class interests. U.S. imperialism seeks to dominate the world on behalf of U.S. capitalist corporations and banks. War and diplomacy use different but parallel and interconnected methods to achieve the same objectives for the ruling class of any society. Full article: http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticleid=14905 Eli Stephens Left I on the News http://lefti.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
Re: [Marxism] US Cables Portray a Different Side of Brazil's Lula da Silva:
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/19/2010 3:23 PM, Dennis Brasky wrote: Brazilian troops in Haiti - a trifle less than a true-blue proletarian program. Dennis Brasky, it's not that you don't have a clue. It's that when the cluetrain comes, you just won't take delivery. You're AFRAID to know the truth. I took the time to show you, chapter and verse, how this pseudo proletarian class line arrogance led you not just to swallow imperialist propaganda, but embarrass yourself by recommending it to this list. And not any old imperialist propaganda. BAD imperialist propaganda. STUPID imperialist propaganda. Imperialist propaganda you can see through by simply reading two or three of the original cables published on the WikiLeaks web site on which the story was based. You SHOULD HAVE KNOWN the cables Kozloff used were the ones you needed to look at because a yanqui imperialist author --a former analyst of the liberal Washington imperialist think tank COHA, no less-- was talking smack about a Latin American leader who has NOT been an imperialist stooge. And the author took the trouble of NOT linking to, and NOT providing exact references that would make the cables easy to find in 5 seconds, although they were easy enough to unearth in 5 minutes. What *more* do you need to have a flashing neon sign reading BULLSHIT ALERT ... BULLSHIT ALERT ... BULLSHIT ALERT going off in your head when you read an article? Do you REALLY think liberal, progressive or even socialist authors of the imperialist variety really would be upset by Lula betraying everybody and their sister on the Latin American left? Do you really think they would be denouncing him?? Does the phrase consider the source ring any bells AT ALL??? Now you say, oh, but I've got a ton more shit about Lula, even if the last load I dumped on the list was imperialist bull, what about Haiti? Sorry. I'm not going there. I'm not spending any more of my time drilling down on Brazil's policies. Because YOU are not spending any time on it. YOU are being completely unserious. Tell me you've dug down. Do MORE than quote one sentence and give me a link that's obviously second-or-third hand. Explain to me WHY the sentence you've quoted is the real core truth of the matter. Back it up with direct quotes and direct links to the original source material. And while we wait for you to complete your homework, let me add: YOU are completely ignoring points that life-long comrades much more intimate with Latin America than you are have been trying to tell you. And because at bottom this isn't a dispute just about facts but about political line, political approach. Let me put it to you bluntly. The system is IMPERIALISM. The weightiest layers (at least) of the working classes of the imperialist countries and above all the United States are the willing ACCOMPLICES of their imperialist masters because they materially BENEFIT from the superprofits their masters exact from the colonial and semicolonial countries. UNTIL and UNLESS those superprofits are stopped up, socialist revolution is *impossible* in the imperialist countries. And that is not some small complicity. The United States is carrying out wars that are, in and of themselves, crimes against humanity. And everyone knows it. The United States is committing unspeakable atrocities, murdering civilians, even children, by the tens of thousands. Running a network of torture centers undreamed of by even a Torquemada. If some judge somewhere understood the precedent set in Nuremberg and was in a position to --had the power to-- apply it to today's world, a few hundreds --nay, a few thousand-- American officials and officers would stand before a firing squad. Just in the first round. And if the charges against him are true, Bradley Manning would get, not the torture of solitary confinement, but the Nobel peace prize. I honestly believe that if the United States set up gas chambers for Muslims most Americans would applaud. You see, the department of homeland security has declared the threat level to be pink with purple spots. We can't have that. Nor people traveling without showing us what's underneath your clothes. I mean, PURPLE SPOTS! And Americans, REAL Americans will run around in a panic shouting Pink! Purple spots!!! I mean, mix up red and white, and then blue, and what do you get? That's what superprofits and resulting imperialist privilege will get you. Therefore, the heart of the struggle at this time is the struggle to STOP the massive transfer of surplus value from the Third World to the imperialist nations. IF there is a possibility that the world imperialist system and the pre-eminent imperialist power will suffer a qualitative, game-changing setback to their bank
Re: [Marxism] US Cables Portray a Different Side of Brazil's Lula da Silva:
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 10:08 PM, Joaquín Bustelo jbust...@bellsouth.netwrote: I know some class-reductionist, workerist comrades don't like it because it isn't a comic-book simple class against class situation with all the workers, peasants and honest professionals and intellectuals lining up on one side, all the bosses, strikebreakers, scab herders and their stooges in academia and the media on the other. Bustelo creates a straw argument. I fully understand and support every positive step and micro step taken in South America, as well as the Middle East and everywhere else against imperialism, no matter who leads it I do not equate a Lula, Kirchner, Ahmadinejad, with imperialism and fully support any and all moves toward a united Latin America. But I also do not try to prettify these individuals, movements or governments (ANC) and all of their policies in the name of anti imperialism. 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] NYT: temporary work becoming a permanent thing
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Despite a surge this year in short-term hiring, many American businesses are still skittish about making those jobs permanent, raising concerns among workers and some labor experts that temporary employees will become a larger, more entrenched part of the work force. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/business/economy/20temp.html?hp=pagewanted=all 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-Thaxis] Terry Eagleton on The death of universities
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/17/death-universities-ma laise-tuition-fees The Guardian 17 December 2010 *The death of universities Academia has become a servant of the status quo. Its malaise runs so much deeper than tuition fees* Terry Eagleton Are the humanities about to disappear from our universities? The question is absurd. It would be like asking whether alcohol is about to disappear from pubs, or egoism from Hollywood. Just as there cannot be a pub without alcohol, so there cannot be a university without the humanities. If history, philosophy and so on vanish from academic life, what they leave in their wake may be a technical training facility or corporate research institute. But it will not be a university in the classical sense of the term, and it would be deceptive to call it one. Neither, however, can there be a university in the full sense of the word when the humanities exist in isolation from other disciplines. The quickest way of devaluing these subjects short of disposing of them altogether is to reduce them to an agreeable bonus. Real men study law and engineering, while ideas and values are for sissies. The humanities should constitute the core of any university worth the name. The study of history and philosophy, accompanied by some acquaintance with art and literature, should be for lawyers and engineers as well as for those who study in arts faculties. If the humanities are not under such dire threat in the United States, it is, among other things, because they are seen as being an integral part of higher education as such. When they first emerged in their present shape around the turn of the 18th century, the so-called humane disciplines had a crucial social role. It was to foster and protect the kind of values for which a philistine social order had precious little time. The modern humanities and industrial capitalism were more or less twinned at birth. To preserve a set of values and ideas under siege, you needed among other things institutions known as universities set somewhat apart from everyday social life. This remoteness meant that humane study could be lamentably ineffectual. But it also allowed the humanities to launch a critique of conventional wisdom. From time to time, as in the late 1960s and in these last few weeks in Britain, that critique would take to the streets, confronting how we actually live with how we might live. What we have witnessed in our own time is the death of universities as centres of critique. Since Margaret Thatcher, the role of academia has been to service the status quo, not challenge it in the name of justice, tradition, imagination, human welfare, the free play of the mind or alternative visions of the future. We will not change this simply by increasing state funding of the humanities as opposed to slashing it to nothing. We will change it by insisting that a critical reflection on human values and principles should be central to everything that goes on in universities, not just to the study of Rembrandt or Rimbaud. In the end, the humanities can only be defended by stressing how indispensable they are; and this means insisting on their vital role in the whole business of academic learning, rather than protesting that, like some poor relation, they don't cost much to be housed. How can this be achieved in practice? Financially speaking, it can't be. Governments are intent on shrinking the humanities, not expanding them. Might not too much investment in teaching Shelley mean falling behind our economic competitors? But there is no university without humane inquiry, which means that universities and advanced capitalism are fundamentally incompatible. And the political implications of that run far deeper than the question of student fees. Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math How to Stay Asleep Cambridge Researchers have developed an all natural sleep aid just for you. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4d0e0cbc3b5537ba231st03vuc ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
