Re: [Marxism] Exemplary American universities

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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"An obvious question, then, is how we are to understand the fact that we've
made so much progress in some areas while going backwards in others. And an
almost equally obvious answer is that the areas in which we've made progress
have been those which are in fundamental accord with the deepest values of
neoliberalism, and the one where we haven't isn't. We can put the point more
directly by observing that increasing tolerance of economic inequality and
increasing intolerance of racism, sexism and homophobia - of discrimination
as such - are fundamental characteristics of neoliberalism. Hence the
extraordinary advances in the battle against discrimination, and hence also
its limits as a contribution to any left-wing politics. The increased
inequalities of neoliberalism were not caused by racism and sexism and won't
be cured by - they aren't even addressed by - anti-racism or anti-sexism."

Walter Benn Michaels 

Great. Now the professoriat is producing KKKommunists.



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Re: [Marxism] reset to 5.31.2008

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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Louis writes: "Look, Joaquin, you are not the best person to lecture others
on the evils of the Democratic Party considering the nonsense you were
favoring us with in 2008 when you were citing Lenin as an authority on the
tactical permissibility of voting for Obama."

I stand by what I wrote then and what I just wrote. 

Voting in bourgeois elections is strictly and solely a *tactical* question.
The position of the SWP and derivatives, which Louis holds, that it is a
matter of "principle" is essentially dogmatic-religious. And the mantra
often heard in the SWP of old, that it is a matter of principle because
elections are about which class shall rule, is electoral cretinism of the
purest water. And nowhere more than in the United States, which has not seen
an actual class movement of the working class *as such* in living memory.
Such motion as there has been here in the direction of independent political
action by working people has had a distinctive character of being an
ideological movement centered among the intelligentsia (thinking here of the
Nader campaigns). And despite mine and Louis's and everyone else's fervent
hopes that those would be a precursor of broader motion, an indication of
things to come, that did not turn out to be the case. 

Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky ALL accepted and applied this idea that
voting in bourgeois elections is a tactical question. Lenin thought that
increasing the number of representatives of the workers party in the Duma
justified making an alliance with bourgeois parties against the more
reactionary parties, even though it also meant voting for those bourgeois
parties. And Trotsky thought and said it was ok to support a Black democrat
as an expression of support to the democratic right to political
representation being fought for by a movement among Black people.

Louis disagrees with me on what I think is the plain meaning of what the
Bolsheviks did in elections and what Trotsky wrote.  

That is why Louis finds an inconsistency between what I wrote in 2008 and
what I write now. Because since he views voting as a matter of principle, he
thinks I've already sinned and reproaches me with, in essence, let him who
is without sin throw the first stone.

The differences between Louis and I on this question of elections go back to
my earliest days on the Marxism list. We disagreed in the 2000 election (I
later came to the conclusion that probably I'd been wrong to take an
abstentionist stance, but behind the disagreement was also two different
approaches, one that nearly absolutized the value of even purely symbolic
"political independence" in elections, contrasted to my view which attaches
a lot less political significance to the act of voting). We agreed
tactically in later elections (the California gubernatorial race, 2004
presidential) and disagreed again in 2008, and perhaps my biggest
differences were not so much with Louis, whose exact tone and stance doesn't
really stand out in my memory, but certainly many/most of the ardent
McKinney and/or Nader supporters here who took a sectarian and denunciatory
stance towards the motion/interest/excitement around Obama's campaign. And
not just here. I thought the tone of Black Agenda Report, and my friend
Bruce Dixon, was terribly narrow and sectarian, in Bruce's case perhaps
understandably so since he's from Chicago and thus knew Obama.

But my point in 2008 and now is that it isn't really about Obama or the
Democrats, but about how working people --and in the Obama case, especially
Blacks and Latinos-- are trying to give expression to their interests in the
electoral arena. That was Lenin's point in his polemic against the
ultralefts at the beginning of the 1920's. 

People from the SWP background are going to come back with, but those were
workers parties Lenin was talking about. But I believe they're wrong to say
that sort of reasoning and tactic must be limited to Stalinist and social
democrats, i.e., bourgeois politicians from BOURGEOIS "workers" parties.
Thus, for example, in the 1870's Marx expressed disappointment that English
union leaders who had been put up as candidates by (if I remember right) the
Liberal Party had not won office, because, Marx said, that would have been
the surest way of getting rid of the whole lot. 

Clearly, Marx did not then have a full understanding of the resilience of
bourgeois influence and reformist illusions in the working class, not having
gone through the experiences we have had since then (and which, as Lenin
explained, have a material base in countries like the United States in the
relative privileges of working people made possible by imperialism
super-profits). But, basically, Marx's approach was the same as Lenin's (and
Lenin later quotes this passage in establis

Re: [Marxism] reset to 5.31.2008

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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Kathleen [kmcook] writes about the Democrats: "The party needs to get back
to honesty and open government."

Hi. Let me suggest you're on the wrong mailing list. There isn't anyone
hereabouts who think the Democrats were EVER about "honesty" and "open
government" and much less that somehow they were democratic until May 2008.
The Democrats are the oldest continuous capitalist party in the world, and
as such are merely continuing to be true to the tiny clique of bankers and
big businessmen (and, yes, it had been almost exclusively "men")  who have
been he true masters of this country since it was founded. 

You will probably be more comfortable posting in forums like the Huffington
post or MSNBC or with that sort of outlook. Continuing to post here most
likely will simply get you pilloried.

Joaquin




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[Marxism] Marcyite bombast (was: Solidarity with Haiti and Demands on the U.S.Government)

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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from the IAC:

"Tons of supplies could be parachuted to desperate people in immediate need
of food and especially water."

This is idiotic beyond belief. Proof once again that the most significant
contribution the Marcyites, like most of the US left, couid make to the
bright communist future of humanity is to dissolve.

Joaquin




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Re: [Marxism] Fidel: Haiti puts spirit of cooperation to test

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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DAVID asks:

A generally good editorial by Castro on Haiti. But...did anyone catch this?
...

"Climate change is threatening the whole of humanity. The earthquake in
Port-au-Prince, barely three weeks after the Copenhagen conference, reminds
us all of how selfishly and arrogantly we behaved there."


Did I miss something or there some connection between Climate change and
this earthquake??? What is he trying to say here?


*  *  *

Not a connection but a contrast. He says in the preceding sentence, "En
Haití se pondrá a prueba cuánto puede durar el espíritu de cooperación,
antes de que el egoísmo, el chovinismo, los intereses mezquinos y el
desprecio por otras naciones prevalezcan." 

"In Haiti how long the spirit of cooperation can last before it is overcome
by egoism, chauvinism, petty interests and the disregard for other nations
will be put to the test." What he is doing is contrasting the spirit of
cooperation evidenced in Haiti with the contrary attitudes displayed in
Copenhagen.

Joaquín



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Re: [Marxism] Fuck 'em

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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I agree with Louis that debates can be a good thing. BUT NOT IN THIS CASE. 

I don't care how good the "reputations" of some of these people who have
decided to become CIA stooges USED to be. They are scabs and should be
treated as such. They are scoundrels that need to be DENOUNCED, not
"debated."

Take, for example, one of those Louis cites, Ron Waters. He has written an
extensive justification for the statement, assuming the stance of a former
sympathizer of the revolution who has become disenchanted. In fact, he is
the most vulgar sort of State Department liberal, who, when facts fail him,
doesn't blanche at deploying bigotry and deception.

"The Cuban revolution was based on Marxist ideology, which officially
denigrates any consideration of race as chauvinistic," he wrote and goes on
to pile contemptible lie upon astounding stupidity. This guy thinks his
readers are such ignorant MORONS that among the charges he levels at the
Cuban government is that Blacks receive fewer remittances from abroad. 

Of course! The overwhelming, crushing majority of afro-Cubans have ALWAYS
supported the revolution. They don't have relatives in imperialist countries
that can send them money.

Another of his charges: that African students in Moscow in 1989 complained
about racism there, and, well, Cuba is also communist, ain't it?

Reading Waters's vile anti-Cuba tract exposes just how much of a complete
frame-up is going on. After ADMITTING the tremendous progress of Blacks
under the revolution, to where Blacks and Mulattos enjoyed
disproportionately HIGHER graduation rates from university careers, he
nevertheless blandly asserts, without citing a shred of (needless to say,
fabricated) evidence that "As in other Latin countries, blacks in Cuba have
been bunched at the lower rungs of the economic structure," and that while
it is true Cuba's constitution prohibits racism, "it’s commonplace
throughout Latin America for countries to have anti-racism laws on the books
which are widely ignored in practice."

This is nothing but a cheap attempt to use vulgar prejudice against Latin
America to make up for the lack of any facts. So steeped is the professor in
imperialist ideology that he denigrates Cuba's role in kicking apartheid's
ass into the dustbin of history, saying Cuba's contribution was limited to
"a small contingent" when in fact many tens of thousands of Cuba fought in
Africa, thousands shed their blood for the liberation of Africa, and Cuban
forces played the decisive role in the military defeat of the apartheid
regime which led to its political capitulation and elimination.

He also tried to make it seem like there's some huge movement of Cuban
Blacks that he is supporting: "With this letter, black leaders in the
Diaspora are coming to support the consensus of Afro-Cubans like Dr. Carlos
Moore, Miami based writers and activists Enrique Patterson, Victoria
Ruiz-Labrit, and others who are increasingly making public a dialogue that
authorities within Cuban have marginalized for years. A telling comment by
urban scholar Alejandro de la Fuente was that, 'the ultimate irony is that
the same government that did the most to eliminate racism also did the most
to silence debates about its persistence.'"

>From context, it seems clear enough that de la Fuente is a Black Cuban.
Later Waters cites him AGAIN: "Alejandro de la Fuente, the dissident
scholar, called the belief that the Revolution would itself eliminate racism
a 'polite fiction.'"

Me, I'm a suspicious type. I practice journalism as a form of organized
distrust. And when I see someone described as an "urban scholar"  it draws
my attention. Someone is trying to pull a fast one. A scholar in urban
affairs, sure, but an urban scholar? Literally it means he lives in a city,
hardly a credential worth noting. It's the sort of phrase meant to lull the
careless reader (in other words, let's be frank, Americans) into thinking
the person has been presented as highly qualified.

So I googled him. Maybe I found the wrong guy, but the one I found isn't
some Havana-based Black dissident but a University of Pittsburgh history
professor who sure looks white to me. Leading me to think he is the right
guy is that he has several publications on subjects like race and slavery in
Cuba, has a 1980's law degree from the University of Havana (and a later PhD
from Pittsburgh in 1996). His CV suggests he left Cuba nearly 20 years ago,
which is perfectly understandable, as those were the worst days of the
"special period" following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But what's  going on when he's presented next to a claimed "consensus of
Afro Cubans" with his statement used as an explanation of that consensus?
And look at the statement itself: "the ultimate irony is that the same
gove

[Marxism] Thoughts on "terrorism" and decadence [was: The Martyr's wife]

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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There is a lot to reflect on in the anti-US  attacks of the
post-Bush era. To me, they speak to the growing decadence and
disfunctionality American civilization -- if that word can be said to
stretch enough to encompass the U.S. today.

The attempted blowing up of Delta Flight 253 shows extremely limited
operational capacity by Al Qaeda. Compared to the earlier actions like 9/11,
the sending of a lone passenger, who bought his ticket with cash and
traveled without luggage, and was unable to detonate the explosive he had,
is quite feeble. It also seems to indicate that what is left of Al Qaeda has
either a monomaniacal fixation on aviation or no confidence in its own
people being able to operate in the United States once they get off the
plane. 

But perhaps more revealing was the U.S. handling of this individual:
a man who paid cash for his ticket and had no luggage --two circumstances
that supposedly should set off alarm bells calling for extra screening--
provoked no such response. Nor did his father's turning him in as a
potential terrorist weeks before the attack trigger any effective action.
The ostensible reason --the "consular" (read: CIA) official in Nigeria who
took the information misspelled the man's name only shows the pervasive
culture of incompetence that has settled over the country. Complemented with
the complacency that allowed the designers of the terrorist and visa
matching software to not even offer what Google does to the average internet
user -- a list of alternative spellings if there are no or few hits.

Worse was the response after the fact -- no one allowed to go to the
bathroom or handle in-cabin possessions in the last 90 minutes of
international flights. The U.S. government INSISTS that planes be blown up,
if at all, well ahead of their scheduled arrival. It's a sensible measure
that displays the modern version of hard-headed Yankee practicality: sparing
people a fruitless trip to the airport and keeping grieving relatives out of
TV camera viewfinders, which is the sort of thing that can drive a
president's popularity down in a hurry. 

Further measures are in the works: a billion dollar's worth of peep
show scanners. Sure, there are all kinds of substances they wouldn't pick up
but hey, at least it reminds the public to be VERY SCARED and --or so it is
hoped-- that the government is trying to protect them. The machines are
being configured so they DON'T store a record of each scan. This because
even though the software has been written to produce a photographic negative
of the nude body, storing the image of minors would still run afoul of child
pornography laws. 

And, of course, we have the designation of more than a dozen
countries for heightened harassment of its citizens. How much "thought" went
into this measure is shown by the inclusion of Cuba, simply because US
propaganda puts the island on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, to
justify the blockade, which fools absolutely no one, judging by the
well-nigh unanimous yearly condemnations of the blockade by the UN General
Assembly. But they wanted some sort of "objective" criteria for the
profiling, so they highlighted that it applied to people from "state
sponsors of terrorism." Yet then tying the "countries of interest" like
Afghanistan and Nigeria to the terrorist one has only intensified the
hornets nest of diplomatic complications for the state department, as US pet
and puppet regimes say, in essence: "we've spent years brown-nosing and THIS
is the thanks we get?"

As for the effectiveness of the measure, it can be mathematically
PROVEN that this kind of targeted screening is even less effective than
merely random screening. Ditto for "no fly" lists. The reason is that,
assuming a certain minimum level of resources and resourcefulness on the
part of the attackers, what is ACTUALLY being done is provide a road map to
accessing the less-scrutinized passenger cue. If you have been barred from
flying under a certain name with an Afghani passport, choose a different
name with, say, Sri Lankan documents.

This means that the chances of detection are less than if the
intensive screening resources were randomly distributed among all travelers.

This is largely what is known as "security theater," alleged
precautions that in reality afford little or no additional security, like
the posting of national guard troops in airports right after September 11 --
with the soldiers barred from carrying live ammo for their rifles. Bruce
Schneie, who is credited with having originated the term security theater,
wrote recently on cnn.com that, in essence, most of what the U.S. is doing
is trying to prevent the last terrorist attack -- in essence, an ap

Re: [Marxism] Lenin had it right

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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Thomas F. Barton wrote: 

"But Trotsky, they conveniently forget, also claimed that Stalin's Russia
was a socialist society, just one run by a pack of murdering thugs led by
the tyrant Stalin.  He argued that only a political revolution was necessary
to rescue a Russian socialist organization of production from bad people.

"So, on the basic, Stalin and Trotsky were in complete agreement: Stalin's
Russia was an example of socialism for the world to support and defend.
Puke."

If I were such a complete jackass and idiot as Barton, I'd put a bullet
through my head.



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[Marxism] Was this about spending? [was: "WSWS: Socialism and the defense of public education"

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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I must confess that I have to admire Sartesian's feistiness and combativity
on this issue. Even when he contradicts what he said the day before and
tries to refute the data I presented WITHOUT any data of his own, he does it
with vigor and style.

So, for example, after the detailed and precisely sourced factual
presentation I made showing that per-student spending has been rising for a
HALF CENTURY, Sartesian scolds me: "Who said anything about spending being
the measure of educational support..."

Actually, it was Sartesian who brought up the matter of finances. This is
what he said in one of the posts I was answering:

"Public schools are failing because the obligation to public education has
been attacked.  And it has been attacked because providing an adequate
public education for all is too expensive, too demanding for the
bourgeoisie."

This says the bourgeoisie is not spending enough. They found it "too
expensive." The obvious and inescapable conclusion is that the attack
consists of a reduction in funding, or at least that such a reduction is a
central, decisive component of the attack. 

I happened to know the data did not support this, and quite carefully and
systematically documented BOTH the decades-long policy of the ruling class
to INCREASE funding for K-12 schools AND the reality that within certain
limits --$8,800/pupil to almost $14,000, in the cases I presented from metro
Atlanta-- there simply is NO CORRELATION between the amount spent and better
or worse outcomes (as measured by graduation rates, SAT scores, college
admissions, etc). 

The use of average and median expenditures per pupil outrages Sartesian, but
this seems to be just a pretend outrage for purposes of muddying the waters
that they may seem deep.

If he had a serious objection to using the per-pupil figure, he would have
proposed looking at some other figure. But he can't have it both ways,
saying one day, the ruling class is attacking public education because it
found it too expensive, and the next day objecting that what is involved
doesn't have anything to do with money and anyways the per student figures
are the wrong ones to use but I won't tell you which are the right ones.

In reality, Sartesian presents NOTHING beyond contradictions to his previous
statements and unsupported assertions. He does not adduce a single fact, not
even an anecdote to challenge the validity of the data I presented. He wants
the figures "unpacked," why maybe "maintenance" and "fuel charges" and
"guards" are included! 

But what's the point? That schools should be left unguarded, dirty and
without heating?

What he's doing, of course, is trying to suggest the figures aren't
comparable, they're apples and oranges, as if one school spent 90% of its
budget on toilet paper and another one on most of it on chalk. 

He even tries to give the impression that he has his own metric: 

"What are the efficiency coefficients of such spending," he thunders. I
couldn't help but burst out laughing. What a choice bit of windbaggery!
"Efficiency coeffcients" -- the master key to economic science at long last
discovered and right here on the Marxism list! 

Alas! He "forgot" that efficiency has to be judged or measured with some
goal, end or purpose in mind. For example, are we talking about efficiency
in sending kids to college, or sending them to prison? They are not the same
thing. Maybe in keeping with a subject that has been much in the mind of
list members, the "efficiency coefficient" is the amount of manure per
$1,000 spent dumped into the sewage system. Or maybe it's the amount of
manure per $1,000 spent per pupil. 
 
OK, enough fun, let me take up Sartesian's argument as if it were serious. 

For my MAIN argument, that the ruling class has had an obvious policy of
INCREASING the resources available to education, as indicated by a HALF
CENTURY of steady growth in per-pupil school budgets, the issue Sartesian
raises -- whether or not the expenses are comparable BETWEEN schools -- is
entirely irrelevant. What he would have needed to suggest is that year to
year comparisons are not meaningful because one year MOST of the nation's
k-12 budgets were spent on (say) toilet paper and the following year they
were spent on chalk and the year after that on school lunches. He doesn't
raise this, of course, because everyone could see at a glance the assertion
is absurd.

Everyone knows what a school is based on experience, what they do, what they
spend money on.

Sartesian's OTHER claim is that spending between comparisons between school
districts in the same area and between schools in the same district are not
valid. 

Since Sartesian provides not even a shred of evidence or a single scrap of
data by why to judge the validity of his warning, it rema

Re: [Marxism] In Cuba, Hopeful Tenor Toward Obama Is Ebbing

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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Yes the shift in tone has been VERY striking. The first indication that I
noticed was Fidel's column on Obama's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize.
This was followed by a savage comment from Fidel read by Hugo Chavez at the
ALBA summit, and pretty much everyone on the revolutionary left in Latham
have aligned themselves with Fidel. 

He may no longer be "commander in chief" of Cuba's armed forces, or
President of the Island's government, but he is still looked to for
leadership --and followed-- by the revolutionary-patriotic-anti-imperialist
left of "our" America.

Two big factors that have soured the civility appear to have been the CIA
agent who snuck into Cuba as a tourist, the socalled "contractor." The other
are the sharply escalated provocations from Colombia, including the signing
of an agreement giving the United States nine, if I remember right, military
bases, the repeated border incursions, and now UAW over flights.

I hope these over flights give Venezuelan hackers a good chance to darkle
this tech. Obviously, what was said about the unscrambled picture
transmission in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that all the data streams are
simply wide open, but even if the command stream is encoded, it should not
be hard to find the frequencies and jam them.

Based on Obama's track record in winding down U.S. involvement in the Muslim
World, we have every reason to fear a U.S.-sponsored war in South America
soon, if not a direct imperialist military intervention.

Joaquin



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[Marxism] Share your smokes or PLUNK! ( was: "Obama's spooky past?")

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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Ralph Johansen:

"On the banned list are any questions about Obama's post-Columbia University
employment with ... a ... company that WMR previously reported was a front
for the CIA

"Obama, using the name Barry Soetoro and an Indonesian passport issued under
the same name, traveled to Pakistan during the U.S. buildup to assist the
Afghan mujaheddin

"WMR has learned from informed sources in Kabul that Obama has been
extremely friendly, through personal correspondence on White House
letterhead, with a private military company that counts among its senior
personnel a number of Afghan mujaheddin-Soviet war veterans

"In 1981, Obama spent time in Jacobabad and Karachi, Pakistan, and appeared
to have an older American 'handler,' possibly a CIA officer

"Obama has suspiciously refused to release his transcripts from Occidental
or Columbia University"

*  *  *

I cannot find words strong enough to express my ABSOLUTE OUTRAGE that
someone who OBVIOUSLY has such fine smoking materials as kumrad Ralph
Johansen has failed to share them. After all, I only had throat cancer, not
lung removal.

The principle is the same as in the Godfather, namely and to wit:

If Don Corleone has all the judges and politicians in his pocket, he MUST
share them. 

Of course, it isn't so much a matter of allowing us to draw water from the
well as allowing us to draw smoke from the waterpipe.

AND, no, contrary to the Godfather, Ralphey is NOT allowed to get a
reasonable fee for this sharing. After all, we are all communists here!

As for the rest of it, anyone who displays an IQ below freezing, never mind
below the age of my next door neighbor's newborn, gets to have a rule set up
for them so they go straight into the null file ... even if you think you're
Joseph Hansen.

Here's my wishes for the rest of kumrad Johansen's life to be as significant
as what he's done until know.

PLUNK!

Oh yeah, and here's a suggestion for Louis. There should be a rule against
recursive self regurgitation for list members, prohibiting comrades from
sticking their heads so far up their asses that it starts coming out of
their throats.

Joaquin



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Re: [Marxism] WSWS: Socialism and the defense of public education

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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[This piece is somewhat disjointed and repetitive in places, having been
written in bits and pieces over a few days. But I don't have the time to
reorganize it all. I'm satisfied that the argument presented is coherent and
well substantiated factually, even if stylistically inelegant.]

S Artesian writes: "So... are we supposed to be against public education?"

What a pretty word, "public" education! 

But what is the reality that hides behind that word? 

A bourgeois state monopoly that imposes unequal, discriminatory, education,
EDUCATION AS PREDATION, where Blacks and Latinos in inner cities are crammed
into pre-prison institutions designed to break them into servile slaves and
where only half or fewer even complete a miserably inadequate course of
studies. But even among relatively more privileged layers, it is first and
foremost NOT education but indoctrination, the inculcation of an ideology
designed to preserve and re-enforce imperialist domination and privilege,
exploitation and oppression, and capitalist rule. Even what might be
considered "education" strictly speaking has been sharply curtailed and
crippled so as to minimize the risk to the bourgeoisie of challenges from
the masses generally but especially from the intelligentsia in training,
despite the fact that this ill-serves the increasing need of the bourgeois
economy for technical, professional and scientific cadre.

Sartesian argues: "We aren't against public health measures because the
state administers that program. We aren't against libraries because cities
administer those.  We aren't against access to clean water because the state
regulates that program."

But those analogies all break down. What Sartesian shows by presenting them
is that he does not understand the central issue involved, which is
POLITICAL, who is in control and what ends that control is used for.

We are "for"  public libraries but most decidedly AGAINST the state
censoring or dictating the content of libraries instead of leaving it to
autonomous institutions staffed by professional librarians who are
influenced in choosing what to make available by the interests of the users.
We are for public health but AGAINST the state meddling in medical matters
(abortion! contraception! condoms! needle exchanges!); those should be in
the hands of medical personnel who base their actions and policies on
scientific knowledge. (And in the case of the treatment of an individual, in
consultation with that person, of course.)

As for clean water and even garbage collection, these are quite different as
they are not institutions mostly or at least significantly guided by or
meant to reproduce bourgeois political/ideological/cultural hegemony (but we
most certainly DO object when on the basis of bourgeois ideology the state
sticks its nose where it doesn't belong, e.g., the brou-ha-ha against
fluoridation some decades back.

And how do things stand with "public" schools compared to libraries and
hospitals? Are schools autonomous entities functioning with state financing
but with educational professionals in charge and influenced, among other
things, by the interest and desires of students and parents? Do the
newspaper editorialist rage and progressive-minded elements of the public
rise up in protest when government bodies try to dictate to schools what
they should or should not offer, as happens with libraries?

Even in the form of a question, the idea doesn't pass the giggle test.
Through myriad mechanisms, from direct positive law at the federal and state
level, school district board policies, to less transparent mechanisms (such
as the stranglehold Texas censors have over what goes into textbooks) public
schools are not merely financed by the bourgeois state, they are RUN by the
bourgeois state in a very intentional fashion. It may be that the conditions
do not yet exist to significantly challenge, much less break the state
monopoly of education especially as applied to the most oppressed layers of
the working people. But it is nevertheless a shameful capitulation to
bourgeois liberalism to support this state monopoly with the excuse that we
are defending the right to an education unburdened by high --and for many
families, impossible-- economic costs.

Getting society as a whole to assume responsibility for the cost of the
formal education of the new generations and appointing the
bourgeois-imperialist state headmaster in chief are two different things. 

*  *  *

For some, the big enemy of "public" education is school choice. But what is
wrong with freedom of choice in schooling? 

How does God make it so that a government school, and the one just down the
street --oh happy coincidence!-- is the IDEAL one for ALL the children who
live in the neighborhood? Or never min

Re: [Marxism] WSWS: Socialism and the defense of public education

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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Some comments on Sartesian's latest. My comments are preceded by "JOAQUIN
COMMENT" and set off by a line with three asterisks {*  *  *) from what
Sartesian wrote.

*  *  *

And I can tell without any question, the best thing I did for my daughters
[the elder being 1 year old at the time, the younger still 6 years from
conception] was to move to New York City where I knew they would be able to
obtain a decent public education in the city school system [obviously this
was a while ago], and would learn that most of the world is not white.

JOAQUIN COMMENT: In other words, you were able to effectively choose the
schools your children attended, rather than accept the public schools the
state monopoly on education imposed on people in the area where you were
living before. Should the ability to choose the schools you want your
children to go to be limited to those with the financial and other
circumstances that permitted you to do this, and denied to everyone else?

*  *  *

Yes, public schools are failing children-- but failing the most in areas
blighted by the disaggregation of capitalism since the 1970s,  driven
forward during the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and now Obama
administrations.  Public schools are failing because the obligation to
public education has been attacked.  And it has been attacked because
providing an adequate public education for all is too expensive, too
demanding for the bourgeoisie.

JOAQUIN COMMENT: This Jeremiad about the underfunding of public education is
wrong. As I point out in my long post giving chapter and verse and precise,
verifiable references, for 50 YEARS average per pupil spending on school
operating expenses have been increasing at a yearly rate of 3% OVER and
ABOVE, on TOP OF, the rate of inflation. 

In  addition, I demonstrate with some precision and detailed sourcing that
academic achievement (as that is conventionally understood, i.e., graduation
rates, test scores, etc.) are a function of the socio-economic standing of
the student body and NOT AT ALL WHATSOEVER on the level of spending within
certain bounds.

Quite simply, your these about what is going on in American public schooling
is an economist myth.

*  *  *

You can give your child the best education you can at home, perhaps better
than most public schools, but that ability you have does nothing to address
the SOCIAL problem of decaying public education-- your efforts don't address
the social causes, and the  social remediations necessary, and requiring
COLLECTIVE effort, to provide that education.

You may have the ability to provide home schooling-- most people do not,
just as most people cannot provide adequate medical care for themselves;
most people cannot maintain private adequate supplies of clean drinking
water .

Nobody says your motivations and the motivations of those around you aren't
positive, noble.  But those actions reflect an atomized, fragmented response
that perpetuates the social decomposition that is made manifest in the
declining quality of public education.

JOAQUIN COMMENT: It is quite striking how Sartesian castigates Tom Bias for
exercising his parental RIGHT to choose how his children would be educated
while being completely blind to the REALITY that he, Sartesian, DID EXACTLY
THE SAME THING by maneuvering to place his children in the NYC school
system, the school system that spends by far the most per pupil of the 100
largest US school systems -- more than $16,000 dollars EACH compared to a
national median of $9,000 and change in 2006 -- and I suspect Sartesian did
not move to the catchment area of the worst public schools in the New York
City system.

Having adopted this INDIVIDUAL solution, something Sartesian claims
"perpetuates the social decomposition that is made manifest in the declining
quality of public education" he preaches the need for "COLLECTIVE effort"
that "addresses the social causes, and the social remediations necessary" to
take on "the SOCIAL problem of decaying public education."

How Tom Bias as an INDIVIDUAL was supposed to conjure up this "COLLECTIVE
effort," a movement that quite simply did not happen to exist then (and does
not happen to exist now) is something that Sartesian does not address.

But implicit in what Sartesian says is the American leftist curse of
voluntarism, of thinking that somehow if you just keep doing what is
supposedly the right thing time and time again, at some point somehow it
will magically work. I say it is a CURSE because it keeps comrades from
squarely confronting the reality that things we hoped would happen and tried
to make happen IN FACT did not happen, and if we want to change that, or at
least be effective doing something that DOES work, even if only in a much
more modest way, it would behoove us to under

Re: [Marxism] WSWS: Socialism and the defense of public education

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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I have a much longer post dealing with this subject that's been held up for
moderator approval for exceeding some character count, but in the meantime
I'll reply to Harry Feldman's questions. What's below is all his except
those segments labeled "JOAQUIN RESPONSE". And my previous response is
separated from his next query by a line with three asterisks (* * *).

* * *

When Marxists 'insist on the state fully funding the education of children
with the parents free to send their children to whatever school they chose',

-  Who determines what full funding is and on what basis?

JOAQUIN RESPONSE: I generally try to avoid the drawing up ideal plans full
of all sorts of complicated mechanisms. So my answer will seem
unsatisfactory, but here it is: The government will determine the funding on
the basis of how much it costs. 

But concretely, should a struggle erupt somewhere, I'd say take the current
per-pupil expenditures as a starting point in formulating concrete demands,
giving special attention to those expenditures at "normal" private schools
(but not the hyper-costly schools for millionaires like the place where
Obama's kids go). The idea is that the full amount of money would come from
the government but would go with the student, or through the student, so to
speak, but to receive it a school would have to accept that as the full
tuition payment. Careful thought would be needed on mechanisms to prevent
discrimination. One exception to the full tuition rule I suspect might be
that the funds to finance the religious part of instruction at a
denominational school would need to come from elsewhere than the state
tuition payment. But I would  say be flexible about this, in the sense that
if the school has a prayer in each classroom in the morning, no, it isn't
required that two minute's worth of the teacher's salary come from the
Church or special payments by parents. But it a teacher spends half their
day leading religion classes, then yeah, half their salary should come from
other funds.

* * *

-  If schools are resourced equitably, on what basis would parents
choose their children's schools?

JOAQUIN RESPONSE: On whatever basis the parents want to use. If they want
their child to go to a religious school, or one based on a particular
political or ethical or instructional philosophy, or one that has a great
football program or any other specialization, all of those seem valid to me.


* * *

-  Do you envision any geographical limitations on parents' choice?
If a parent in Eastern Samoa prefers a school in Maine, do we insist their
transport and living expenses be fully funded?

JOAQUIN RESPONSE: My points were political, not the outline of a bigger and
more detailed schema. So in response to the first part of your question, I'd
say the limits should be set by what's been considered within more or less
normal bounds in the given area, but let's burn that bridge when we cross
it. The part about American Samoa is obviously silly. But there will be
cases where extra expenses will have to be covered for some children, for
example those with special needs.

* * *

-  Do children have any role in school choice?

JOAQUIN RESPONSE: That would be between them and their parents, surely. If
an old enough teen feels strongly enough about it, they can go to court and
ask to be emancipated, I guess. Personally, I think by the time an
adolescent in reaching high school, their views should normally play a
significant or major role in the decision of where to go. But I can't
imagine that public authorities attempting to *enforce* that on parents
could be anything but a can of worms. 

* * *

Regarding religious schools and home schooling, who would set 'certain
minimum standards' and on what basis?

JOAQUIN RESPONSE: The standards would be the same for all schools, whether
religious or otherwise, but would obviously need to be adapted for home
schooling situations. As for their author and content, I'd just refer to
what Marx wrote: 

"'Elementary education by the state' is altogether objectionable. Defining
by a general law the expenditures on the elementary schools, the
qualifications of the teaching staff, the branches of instruction, etc.,
and, as is done in the United States, supervising the fulfillment of these
legal specifications by state inspectors, is a very different thing from
appointing the state as the educator of the people!"

I would add here that the situation Marx refers to in the US, I suspect was
based on probably exaggerated or inaccurate reports and even if not was
probably already far from what he had read about and describes in many
cases. But be that as it may, it is certainly not the situation today. Of
course Marx's thought would need to be expanded to 

Re: [Marxism] WSWS: Socialism and the defense of public education

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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David quotes from the Communist Manifesto, to criticize my position against
control of education by the bourgeois state:  

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of
children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with
industrial production, &c, &c.

David says this is "From the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO on what communist would
like see under communism:" but that is not exact. These are the initial
measures that Marx and Engels say will be "pretty generally applicable" in
advanced countries immediately following the seizure of power.

At any rate, whether under full-fledged communism, forever, or initially,
the point is *precisely* that the measure is not proposed for a bourgeois
government *at all.* That is the essence of the LaSallean positions that
Marx objects to in  the Gotha programme -- that the LaSalleans abstract from
the character of the state. 

David does the same thing: "I'm sure, if we look hard enough, we will see
similarities, someplace, between the San Mateo School District curriculum
and the 19th Century Prussian military oriented education." 

The irony is completely misplaced. The similarity rests in that, quite
simply, both the Prussian and the American education are designed to defend
and promote the interests of an enemy class. 

Like, duh ...

Joaquin



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Re: [Marxism] WSWS: Socialism and the defense of public education

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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Jeremy writes: "This a vital socialist perspective on the on-going
destruction of public education in the U.S.  From the World Socialist Web
Site (WSWS) http://www.wsws.org.";

This "defence of public education" stance is not Marxist, or at any rate,
not Marx's, no matter how many self-styled "Marxists" defend it. Marx did
not support state (or religious) control of education, as anyone who has
bothered to read the Critique of the Gotha Programme and *think about* its
meaning will soon realize:

*  *  *

"Elementary education by the state" is altogether objectionable. Defining by
a general law the expenditures on the elementary schools, the qualifications
of the teaching staff, the branches of instruction, etc., and, as is done in
the United States, supervising the fulfillment of these legal specifications
by state inspectors, is a very different thing from appointing the state as
the educator of the people! Government and church should rather be equally
excluded from any influence on the school. Particularly, indeed, in the
Prusso-German Empire (and one should not take refuge in the rotten
subterfuge that one is speaking of a "state of the future"; we have seen how
matters stand in this respect) the state has need, on the contrary, of a
very stern education by the people.

But the whole program, for all its democratic clang, is tainted through and
through by the Lassallean sect's servile belief in the state, or, what is no
better, by a democratic belief in miracles; or rather it is a compromise
between these two kinds of belief in miracles, both equally remote from
socialism.

*  *  *

Thus far Marx. The original is here:


I, for one, do not believe that the main problems with education in the
United States today are just lack of funding, a result of growing
inequality, a budget attack launched by Reagan, and so on.

On the contrary, at least as big or an even bigger problem with education is
the control of education by the bourgeois state, and the concomitant assault
on science, intellectual curiosity, rigor and integrity that has been
carried out since the end of the 1960's by bourgeois education authorities.
The seeming fragmentation of the school system into myriad schools should
not fool us into thinking there is no overall direction: there clearly is,
even when this is not done through diktat by the central government but
through think tanks, task force recommendations, state legislative meddling,
right wing school board takeovers and so on. 

The bourgeoisie decided as a result of the youth radicalization of the
1960's that the (brief, by historical standards) upgrading of educational
content and quality for broad masses of young people of the post-WWII era
and especially post-Sputnik decade had to be reversed, even though that was
hardly an educational nirvana. This reversal they have carried out with
tremendous effect, but it is a mistake to focus the critique on education
*spending.* There is room for complaint there too, of course, but an
obsessive focus on the *economics* obscures the *political* issue of control
of education by the bourgeois state. A control that comes down to a state
monopoly on education for the majority of working people, most of all Blacks
and Latinos.

Why, for example, are we so insistent on singling out for special
condemnation the private, for-profit schools, charter schools, and similar?
Aren't the regular "public" schools just as completely controlled by the
bourgeoisie? And aren't most of the latter, especially in inner city Black
and Latino neighborhoods, an absolute abomination? Do we really think it
makes a difference whether the directing body is called "Board of Directors"
or "Board of Education?"

The issue is often presented as mainly one of economics or, worse, unions,
teacher pay, tenure, seniority and so on. Frankly, I think those are
secondary if not tertiary. It is painful to have to point this out, but the
MAIN concern of the ruling class in relation to education is HOW children
are "educated," their regimentation, acculturation and indoctrination. 

I have been appalled over the past several years at the quality of education
my children have received in jr. high (now "middle school") and high school.
And these are not the pre-prison hellholes that pass for schools in poor
neighborhoods. My exposure has been to what is (reputedly and test-score
wise) the best public high school in the county (adjacent to the Emory
University campus and whose catchment area is to a large degree upper middle
class professionals and similar) and in a nearby private school surrounded
by million-dollar homes and known as an academically demanding,
intellectually stimulating place founded by progress

Re: [Marxism] Productivity and real income

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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Barry Brooks replies to me, "Productivity is output/hour. I specified real
output; not money output. Real output is physical output; not money output.
Using nominal money values is the best way to get confused about economics."

Really? Look at the passage I originally quoted from Barry: "Real income can
not have a simple relation to productivity" 

Yet if Barry is talking about productivity measured as a physical mass of
products, the sentence is nonsense, based as it would be on a confusion of
use value and exchange value. If you want to talk about productivity in
terms of sacks of sugar per worker or per acre, fine, but then wages have
absolutely nothing to do with it. You might as well be talking about wages
in relationship to the whiteness of the refined sugar or the density of the
sugar syrup when the cane is pressed. 

In addition, because we do live in a capitalist economy, net value added per
unit of labor is PRECISELY the definition of labor productivity in this
society. And money is the conventional measure of economic value. 

Overall productivity of labor, so that one can speak in terms of "real
income" generally, can't have any other meaning, because --for example-- how
are you going to determine productivity increases/decreases as production
shifts? Say the demand for hummers decreases and for Honda Fits increases,
so that some factories are shifted over from production of one to the other,
or which is the same thing, hummer factories close and Fit factories open?
By total gross weight of the vehicles produced? By the number of units? By
number of potential passengers of each kind of vehicle times number of units
produced? By maximum payload weight carried for one hundred miles divided by
fuel consumed? By the average reflectivity index of the paint jobs on the
vehicles?

All I am doing, of course, is simply repeating in a different form Marx's
argument for the labor theory of value and in particular that it is ABSTRACT
human labor, stripped of all specificity, including that tied to any
particular good or service, that underlies (economic) value, and that
economic value in this sense has nothing to do with the specific usefulness
or physical characteristics of any given commodity. 

Thus, nothing is more absolutely and immediately necessary to human (and
other) life than air; nevertheless, despite its tremendous "use value," air
has absolutely no exchange value, no economic value AT ALL under normal
circumstances. 

One more thing about Barry's view of economics, which is the fetishization
of physical products and the way he counterposes them to "services." This
idea that ONLY physical goods can be considered commodities is not Marxist.
To convince yourself of this you need only reflect on the fact that "labor
power" --the capacity to labor-- is a commodity whose quantity is measured
in time. And Marx makes very clear that the commodity IS labor power --not
labor itself, but the capacity to work. When you consider services, labor
power is precisely what you are buying, even though now it is concrete and
not abstract labor. But the same is true of the labor power a factory owner
purchases. This can and often does include all kinds of very specific
skilled labor, very concrete labor, and in general labor power is never
bought and left simply as abstract, generic labor power, but specifically
applied. How is hiring a gardener, driver, or heart surgeon any different
than what a factory owner building cars does? That the gardener you hire
brings his own lawnmower and the surgeon comes complete with operating
theater and ancillary staff? There is nothing mysterious about a worker
providing their own tools or renting them. And even workers in a factory
have ancillary staff, everyone from maintenance to bookkeeping. So why is
the labor power of an electrician a commodity when the factory owner buys it
but not when the electrician fixes something in my house? Why is the
refrigeration technician's labor power a commodity when it is bought to
maintain cold storage in a meat plant but not when s/he fixes my
refrigerator?

I suspect that lurking somewhere in the background of this glorification of
physical products and denigration of services is a (pseudo) Marxist
workerist mysticism about the "point of production," and so on.

Joaquin



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Re: [Marxism] Productivity and real income

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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 Barry wrote: "Real income can not have a simple relation to productivity.
Even if politics and policy allowed real wages to track worker productivity
there are other limits to real income."

Isn't "productivity" a completely bogus measure, from the point of view of
Marxist economics?

The bourgeois definition of productivity is the average monetary value added
by one hour of labor. However, for Marxists it is precisely labor time that
underlies (economic) Value. Hence the real value imparted by an average hour
of (simple, lowest-common-denominator, so to speak} labor CANNOT increase,
by definition, and when the dollar amount added by an hour of labor
increases, the bourgeois statisticians are really picking up something else
-- for example an increase in the overall skill level of labor (since an
hour of "complex," skilled human labor counts for more than an hour of
simple, unskilled labor), uncounted or undercounted inputs a proportionate
part of whose value is preserved in the products of labor, or monetary
inflation that is not registered as such by standard bourgeois measures.

Joaquin




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[Marxism] When Justice is the Criminal II --Bartow, FL

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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Fla. man exonerated after 35 years behind bars
By MITCH STACY (AP) - 7 hours ago

BARTOW, Fla. - James Bain used a cell phone for the first time Thursday,
calling his elderly mother to tell her he had been freed after 35 years
behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

Mobile devices didn't exist in 1974, the year he was sentenced to life in
prison for kidnapping a 9-year-old boy and raping him in a nearby field.

Neither did the sophisticated DNA testing that officials more recently used
to determine he could not have been the rapist.

[...]

Attorneys from the Innocence Project of Florida got involved in Bain's case
earlier this year after he had filed several previous petitions asking for
DNA testing, all of which were thrown out.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h-Io4q44R7xoFi78PEyLMe8G1q
zQD9CL8H181



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Re: [Marxism] Leninism: It's not what you think|LinksInternationalJournal of Socialist Renewal

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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David wrote: "I was thinking mostly of the situation in Spain and, afaik,
other European countries"

Agreed. I think the dynamics in MASS parties, real parties, is another thing
altogether from tiny ideological nuclei. The former have an organic
rootedness in society so they do not splinter in the same way.

j.



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Re: [Marxism] Leninism: It's not what you think | LinksInternational Journal of Socialist Renewal

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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Dan Russell writes: <>

What I mean is the one-size-fits-all prescription of organizing a small
propaganda nucleus around a "full" or "correct" program -- probably not too
much different from what Dan means by saying we should be "pushing real
hard" for "our principles and overarching goals of organizing ourselves
against the ruling class." And my observation is that, no matter how
disappointing the concrete results, latter-day Leninists are just one-trick
ponies -- they keep doing the same thing. The key strategic line of the
organization is ALWAYS to build the organization.

As to the "vanguardist" model and the celebrated phrase in the Manifesto
"The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most
advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country,
that section which pushes forward all others..." it needs to be read in the
context of what comes before it in that section: 

"The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other
working-class parties. 

"They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as
a whole. 

"They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape
and mould the proletarian movement."

It is also best understood in light of Marx and Engels's own concrete
efforts on the organizational plane. That tells us how THEY understood these
positions. And there, the truth is that Marx and Engels joined the Communist
League when it adhered to their ideas and then led the way in dissolving it
when the revolutions of 1848 broke out as the Communist Manifesto was just
coming off the press. For most of that upsurge, their practical activity
took place through three vehicles: a democratic association of all
anti-monarchical forces in Cologne; a Cologne workers association, and above
all, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, a newspaper. 

Following the defeat of the revolutions of 1848, Marx and Engels briefly
reconstituted the Communist League in exile, hoping a new upsurge would soon
follow, but reconsidered once a capitalist economic expansion set in, and
dissolved it again. Then for more than a decade they took part in  no
organization. 

When there was a revival of the workers movement, Marx joined (in 1864) the
effort to organize what is now known as the first international. This was a
completely heterogeneous formation that included everyone from
conservative/chauvinist English trade union tops to continental anarchists
and Irish patriots. After the Paris Commune, the circumstances that had made
the international possible (created by a very initial and in a sense "naive"
rebirth of working class activity and organization) were no longer present
in Europe, so they transferred the seat of the international to the U.S.,
where, they hoped, a formation like it might still have a positive role to
play (by and large it didn't).

Subsequently Marx and Engels  associated with what became German social
democracy but placed no special stress on "party building" nor did they go
out of their way to promote it or lend it their considerable prestige. In
Britain, where they were living, and had many contacts in the workers
movement dating back to the early 1840's, they never lifted a finger to
promote the organization of a workers party around their views. As for the
United States, where the ostensible Marxists were organized in what became
the SLP, Marx and especially Engels who lived longer than Marx, were harshly
critical of the group.

In general, as is clear from the critique of the Gotha and Erfurt programs,
they were FOR workers parties having a correct program but they did not
agitate for nor push organizing groups around their program. They viewed
workers parties as something that emerged from the development of the class
struggle, not something that could be conjured up by voluntaristic efforts. 

There is a well-known phrase of Marx from the cover letter he wrote to the
critique of the Gotha Program, (a text that had been drafted as the fusion
document of the grouping that was more-or-less Marxist in Germany and the
followers of LaSalle): "Every step of real movement is more important than a
dozen programmes."

But to really understand it, it helps to read the rest of that paragraph in
Marx's letter: "If, therefore, it was not possible - and the conditions of
the item did not permit it - to go beyond the Eisenach programme, one should
simply have concluded an agreement for action against the common enemy. But
by drawing up a programme of principles (instead of postponing this until it
has been prepared for by a considerable period of common activity) one sets
up before the whole world landmarks by which it measures the level of the
Party movement."

The most curious phrase is the last one: "the l

[Marxism] On the cancer thing (was: RE Leninism...)

[Joaquin Bustelo]

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Louis wrote: "There were articles in the NY Times recently about how cancer
therapies can fog one's mind. Clearly, this has not affected Joaquin at
all...".

Thanks to Louis and the many others who expressed their well-wishes
throughout the ordeal. 

On cancer therapy and the mind, tho', that was the one thing I was
*completely* unprepared for. The truth is I wound up in a complete fog;
there are tons of things that happened during the therapy that I don't
remember, and pretty much the entire period of the therapy and a month or
two after it are a fog. Yesterday, for example, waiting at a car dealership
where I'd driven a friend to pick up her car (my ex, actually, who pretty
much saved my life by taking me in when I had pretty much collapsed unable
to take care of myself), I saw a people magazine from a couple of months ago
with a cover picture and headline about remembering Patrick Sweazy. I said I
must have missed it and she responded that we'd talked about his death at
the time, I just didn't remember. 

In my case, in addition to the chemo, the "chemo brain" effect was magnified
(doctors told me) because of --in essence-- starvation. When I was first
diagnosed (in May) I was grossly overweight at nearly 250 lbs; this morning
I weighed 179 lbs. Throat cancer treatment is extremely harsh. The chemo
makes you sick and it also affects your brain, but the radiation leaves you
unable to eat after a while, and in my case (as is often true) not even
swallow much. I was fed through a stomach ("PEG") tube, but the most I ever
got in through that route in one day was 1500 calories worth of Ensure, only
about 2/3rds of what I needed. And as it turns out, the human brain uses
about 1/4th of the calories we take in, assuming a normal diet. The impact
was that after several weeks of extreme undernourishment (losing 4-5
lbs/week) + chemo I became pretty much completely dysfunctional, not even
able to keep track of my medicines, and it was only a month and a half or
two months later, when I was finally able to begin eating again, that I
recovered the ability to function on my own again.

During that period of "the fog" I *think* I looked in on the 100 latest
messages frequently --I had tons of time to kill-- but don't remember
anything specific. For the last six weeks or two months I have been lurking
often but somehow not quite up to posting again. I thought of doing so
around the LeBlanc/ISO thing but never got it together. One thing I have
learned is to listen more to my body, to myself as a living organism, rather
than just to myself as a thinking/willful being. Now, for whatever reasons,
I feel differently about posting than even a couple of weeks ago. And not
just about posting. My appetite has started to come back (a little, not
much, but welcome nonetheless). Things taste (a little) better. I'm not
quite as tired after work. 

So I've become more conscious that I'm still in the process of recovering
from the treatment (the treatment, yes, ironically NOT the cancer. Where it
was would have made it deadly soon enough, but it had not yet caused any
overt symptoms at all -- it was a very lucky break that my doctor felt the
small lump on my neck when she did my annual physical, and although she
thought it was almost certainly an inconsequential swollen lymph node, she
did have me do follow up tests to make sure.)

As for any ongoing "chemo brain" effect, the person that probably knows me
better than anyone, and just happens to be a nurse with a lot of cancer
experience (treating it, not as a patient) tells me she thinks I'm over it
now. A lot of it in my case wasn't the chemo anyways, but the lack of
nutrition. 

But if any one out there is facing or faces something like this in the
future, remember to ask the drs. and get guidance and an understanding that
it will affect you mentally and very severely. In my case it wasn't just the
fog, but panic attacks, racing thoughts and so on that I think I might have
coped with better if I had been conscious from the outset of what would --or
could-- happen to me mentally during treatment. I'm sure I was told
*something* beforehand but I totally did not get it. And from talking to
others, I don't think my mental side effects were extreme, I just got
blindsided.

At any rate, it's nice to be back.

Joaquin



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Re: [Marxism] Leninism: It's not what you think | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

[Joaquin Bustelo]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


I agree with Louis that Paul Kellog's critique of the myth of Leninist
centralism, while welcome, is hardly new or original, repeating what's been
said on Marxmail over the past decade, and before then by Peter Camejo and
Hal Draper, among others. (On the Marxmail material, in addition to Louis's
presentation that he referred to, he has continued to make available on the
web site my own "Critical Comments on Democratic Centralism," which is here:
http://www.marxmail.org/DemocraticCentralism.pdf.)

There is, however, something else that may be said about Kellog's piece. He
misses the bigger myth about the Leninist Party, which is not just about how
it is organized but about its political centrality. This is the idea that
the strategic task of revolutionary socialists is to "build" such a Party;
and the adjunct theses that the way to do this is to create an organization,
no matter how tiny to begin with, around the full and correct program.

>From a Marxist point of view, this is wrong because it views the party as an
expression of ideas rather than of a class movement. As the Communist
Manifesto makes clear, the correct name for a group with overriding
"principles" of its own "by which to shape and mould the proletarian
movement" is sect. (See Chapter II of the Manifesto, "Proletarians and
Communists," which is here:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
.)

Obviously since class and more generally social struggles are political
struggles, there is a need for a political instrument, and therefore a
"party," although experience shows that the forms can be quite varied and do
not necessarily conform to normal preconceptions of a "party." And obviously
such a party will have a series of immediate and longer-term measures it
aims to implement which is why it seeks political power, in other words, by
its nature is has a "program."

But experience shows that the creation of tightly-knit membership
organizations around a full or correct program --a complete ideological
package-- leads not to a party but a sect, and, over time, a multiplication
of sects. And this has proved true for all sorts of flavors of "Leninism":
Trotskyist, state capitalist, Maoist, etc.

There is, in addition, another problem that comes with this sort of
"Leninism," which is voluntarism. That is the idea that what we have to do
is try real hard or push real hard or work real hard and what failed
yesterday will be crowned with success tomorrow. 

I was struck by this both in Paul LeBlanc's explanation of why he was
joining the ISO as well as in some recent discussions (not just online)
about prospects for the emergence of a mass antiwar movement.

In the case of LeBlanc, I was struck by his hopes for openness in the ISO to
discussing whether Cuba is state capitalist or a workers state. The more
interesting question is why the ISO has a position on this at all. I
understand the why historically, going back to the fight and split in the US
Socialist Workers Party 70 years ago (!) on the Russian question. But what
is the political meaning of the ISO having the Cuba position today, whether
the current one or LeBlanc's alternative? 

In the case of the antiwar movement, I am struck by how often some of the
reasons why people aren't demonstrating are overlooked. 

One is quite simply that despite everything we hear about there not being a
draft and so on, people DID demonstrate, massively and repeatedly, both in
the U.S. and internationally, leading up to the invasion of Iraq. And, from
the point of view of your average demonstrator, it did absolutely no good. 

The other is quite simply that Obama continues to be well-regarded,
especially among those who are against his war policies. It is true his job
approval rating is now a touch below 50%, but that is a peculiar number. The
big majority --say 40 of the 50%-- are people who have always been against
him, and mostly they are FOR the war. Now there are in addition 10 more who
have been Obama supporters and have grown disenchanted enough to say they
disapprove of how he is handling his job.

Yet beyond job approval, his Q score remains quite solid and when you remove
the right-wingers from the sample, it is still well-nigh astronomical among
the rest of the population. Disenchantment is growing but it has yet to
become truly massive and turn into resentment and opposition. Perhaps it
will by March 20, but if it doesn't, while Obama's personal popularity
remains this high, the prospects for mass protests against the war remain
remote, in my estimation, despite majority opposition to the war in public
opinion polls. 

This in my mind tends to raise the question of whether an all-out-to-a
march-on-Washington central focus is really indicated. I suspect

[Marxism] FW: To Count and be Counted: Latinos and the 2010 Census

[Joaquin Bustelo]

 



From: Mexican American Political Association [mailto:newslet...@mapa-ca.org]

Sent: Friday, October 02, 2009 3:48 PM
To: jbust...@bellsouth.net
Subject: To Count and be Counted: Latinos and the 2010 Census

October 02, 2009

Greetings!

To Count and be Counted: Latinos and the 2010 Census 
Center for Migration and Development 
Wallace Hall 
Princeton University, NJ 

Speech by: Nativo Vigil Lopez, National President, 
Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) - 
nativolo...@mapa-ca.org. 

Culpable, culpable, culpable, guilty, guilty, guilty - 85 times guilty. This
is what I observed in a recent trip to Tucson, Arizona, the current
epicenter of anti- immigrant laws, policies, and practices - the laboratory
as we call it - when I attended the federal court hearing of the day of the
recent batch of immigrant detainees who allegedly attempted to enter the
U.S. without inspection. This is a daily occurrence, an average of 85
individuals, who are legally processed through the government's program
called "streamline," which results in their incarceration and eventual
removal to their country of origin. Annually the number comes to 25,000 such
summary hearings and removals. On that particular day all of the detainees
were of Mexican origin, but one, and ten were women. All were clearly of
indigenous stock, rural workers; one-fourth only spoke their native
language, not fluent even in Spanish. They were held in a private detention
facility, a nice name for a prison, which has a contract with the government
that brings down $13 million monthly to its owner. 

Within one hour all 85 individuals had been advised of their rights by the
judge, a Latina, counseled by their court-appointed attorneys (some
Latinos), entered their guilty pleas, and been sentenced to time served, 30,
60, 120, and 180 days - after which they will be turned over to the
Immigration and Custom Enforcement for deportation. They were ushered out of
the hearing room by Latino federal marshals. And, if per chance they are
detained again they could face up to ten years in federal prison. Their
crime - seeking to work in the U.S. This is what we refer to as the
criminalization of immigrant workers and the criminalization of work. And,
boy, did I feel proud about the ultimate success of affirmative action for
Latinos - judges, attorneys, marshals, interpreters, clerks, even
prosecutors. Yes, we have truly arrived. 

I point this out today due to the impression it made on me - the streamlined
manner in which immigrants detained at the border are incarcerated and
processed for removal, and the use of private prisons in this mix; and the
collateral relationship with the issue we are addressing today. In fact,
deportations are up over any quarter during the Bush administration; removal
hearings are up beyond the Bush experience; enforcement of employer
sanctions and the resulting terminations are up; yes, the trains run on time
under the Obama administration. Google the word ENDGAME and you will
conclude that the more things change the more they remain the same - at
least as this applies to immigration law enforcement from one administration
to another, irrespective of political party. The ENDGAME strategy was
designed by the Department of Homeland Security under President Bush and its
operational objective is the physical removal of millions of undocumented
persons from the U.S., obviously preceding any eventual legalization
program. 

An August 3rd article by Julia Preston for the New York Times reminded us
that, "After early pledges by President Obama that he would moderate the
Bush administration's tough policy on immigration enforcement, his
administration is pursuing an aggressive strategy for an illegal-immigration
crackdown that relies significantly on programs started by his predecessor."


I made the trip purposely last week to witness Obama's streamline program
for myself; the renunciation of legal rights by indigenous immigrants; their
inability to obtain bond while they prepare for their defense (this has been
disallowed in such hearings); and the use of private prisons subsidized by
the American taxpayer to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars,
annually. 

If I ever had any doubts about the correctness of the tactic of
noncooperation and noncompliance with the U.S. Census, Tucson, Arizona
removed them from my mind. Tucson, the old outpost cowboy town of bandits,
cattle smugglers and rustlers, made it crystal clear that we are on the
right road in not cooperating with an immoral and bad government. 

But I was not always of this mind-set. In April of this year I was quoted as
follows by the newspaper, Orange County Register, "I'm absolutely elated
that there are pastors more radical than me but I think the target is
misplaced." The article went on to relate that my organization, the
Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, would instead encourage the undocumented
to participate and be counted. If not,

Re: [Marxism] Chavez was right [was: RE: Cháve z and Holocaust indifference]

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Leonardo Kosloff: "The point is Chávez evades the question because he wants
to, or rather, sees it as necessary to, build a political-economic (those
are different sides of the same coin) alliance with Ahmedinejad. If you
think this is something to celebrate, then 'unthinkingly' is perhaps a word
which this disagreement should have started with in the first place."

But why should Chávez answer any questions like this AT ALL? His job
description IS NOT "comment on current events" but "defend the national
interests of Venezuela." What is dismissed as an "alliance" with Ahmedinejad
which is not "something to celebrate" is instead the confluence of the
national interests of Venezuela and Iran, two countries that are special
targets of imperialism.

Chávez does not "evade the question." On the contrary, he exposes the
political motivation of those trying to drive a wedge between third world
countries for the benefit of imperialism. 

Joaquin




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Re: [Marxism] Chavez was right [was: RE: Cháve z and Holocaust indifference]

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Mina Khanlarzadeh: "then what is the difference between Hugo Chavez and Fox
news? they both ignore atrocities commited by their favorite governments."

Another demonstration of how imperialist pressure distorts people's
thinking. To put an equal signs between the white genocide against native
peoples or the crimes of American imperialism in Afghanistan and Iraq today
and the alleged rhetoric of Ahmadinejad around the holocaust or the supposed
repression in Iran betrays complete disorientation. 

And I say "alleged rhetoric" and "supposed repression" because, as we say in
Spanish, "a mi no me consta": I do not know these things for a fact. And
I've been in the journalism racket long enough to be suspicious of reports
about an alleged outrageous statement that do not have the direct quote in
the second sentence. And I am also suspicious of alleged "tweeter
revolutions" in countries where 99% of the people don't have Internet and
the local language doesn't even use the same character set as English. That
raises the very interesting question: ¿who are these rank and file
demonstrators who supposedly send reports IN ENGLISH to U.S. and other
imperialist news organizations?

As to "what is the difference between Hugo Chavez and Fox News," the
difference is precisely this: Hugo Chavez is the president of Venezuela, Fox
News is a right-wing journalistic outlet. 

This raises the question of why Hugo Chavez is expected to comment on these
matters that in no way involve Venezuela. He isn't a bourgeois calumnist nor
a talking head gasbag on TV: there is a world of difference between what a
president is supposed to do and what a TV news network is supposed to do. In
the specific case of Chavez, his commitment is to defend the interests of
Venezuela as a nation and of its working people. I know this is a difficult
concept for many on the left (and especially I think from the Trotskyist
tradition) but commentary from the sidelines is not the essence of politics.
The essence of politics is relating to real live forces.

In this regard, Chavez is undoubtedly correct to try to develop and solidify
a common front of Third World countries and not join in imperialist
campaigns to isolate a country like Iran. Especially at a time when Iran is
under growing imperialist pressure and even threats of military attacks. 

Joaquin



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Re: [Marxism] Free pamphlet: `The Labour Aristocracy: The material basis of opportunism in the labour movement' | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

[Joaquin Bustelo]

JTP: Actually, that's what "freeware" means. Unfortunately, there's no
convenient term in English for GNU-style free software, at least not without
borrowing from other languages ("libre software"/"software libre" being a
good choice).

Freeware/free software to me means both free as in freedom and as in free
beer, not just free of charge.

J.



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Re: [Marxism] Long posts not allowed??

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Carroll: "none of those posts ever bothered even to hint that perhaps we
should ask Lenin's question (even if we didn't accept his answers, which fit
1905): WITBD."

"The absence of interest in this question; in fact the absence any hint that
the question existed, pretty much convinced me that the list was only
concerned with daily movement for its own sake (a la bernstein), with hopes
for the future occasionally thrown in for decoration."

Those of us that have been around for a while have all had occasion, often
many, to hear and perhaps even participate in formulating very self-assured
and categorical responses to the question of What Is To Be Done. While some
may disagree, blaming the vicissitudes of their particular sect or current
on objective circumstances, the perfidy of the bureaucracy (whether of the
misnamed "socialist" countries of unhappy memory or the almost as misnamed
U.S. "labor" movement), I believe the fault lies not in the stars, but in
ourselves.

Never mind not believing his answers a century ago apply to our situation,
Lenin posed the question WITBD at a specific time, when the Russian labor
movement was mature enough to make possible the drawing together of
scattered elements into a genuine workers party. The conditions that would
make possible the drawing together of such a party do not exist in the
United States nor have they for many decades. (I leave aside the question of
whether the Henry Wallace Movement, the Peace and Freedom Party, the Greens,
the Nader campaigns or similar could have eventually opened the door or led
to such a party. At any rate none of those efforts were a labor party, not
even in embryo because they lacked any real or organic connection to the
class movement, and that mainly because there is no politically independent
class movement.)

All the myths about "Leninist party" notwithstanding, WITBD is not about
organization at bottom but rather about the relationship between the nascent
party and the working class movement of which the party is the political
expression. That is why despite his insistence on the need for skilled
conspirators working underground ("professional revolutionaries") he did not
treat the RSDLP as a closed circle with only members allowed access to
"internal" debates but rather these were carried out in public through
articles in the periodical press and special pamphlets. That is because in
Lenin's conception, which is the Marxist conception, the party is rooted in,
grows out of the actual class movement when it reaches a certain level of
development. That sort of class movement is precisely what we lack.

The most eloquent testimony to the lack of conditions anything like those
that led Lenin to pose his famous question is that with all sorts of
socialist groups in the U.S. adopting policies of colonization of factories,
industrial concentration, making their home in the working class, turning to
industry, or whatever phrase the specific outfit chose in order to claim
they were doing something different from everybody else, when in reality
they were all doing pretty much the same thing, none of them recruited a
single genuine hereditary proletarian from all their union and workplace
focus, or as close to as makes no difference. Instead, the union work
"recruited" socialists by the score into dropping their work as socialists.
This is not just a question of people adopting a mask or being discrete to
protect their livelihood or approaching their coworkers at a level they can
understand. I believe rather it is a function of the kind of labor movement
that we have, what Lenin called "a bourgeois labour movement." (See
"Imperialism and the Split in Socialism" here:
.)

Attempts by socialists to seriously lead current unions have led to some
more militant, combative or honest union leaderships, but has not meant a
break with the bourgeois labor movement, and cannot do so under current
circumstances because it is not a question of ideas in someone's head but
rather social realities. Bourgeois forces are completely hegemonic in the
organized labor movement. So for example, arguments in favor of political
independence from bourgeois parties in unions today have a completely
theoretical and unreal character, because a real party of working people
does not exist. And even if you had been able to convince some local or
other body to back Nader in one of his presidential campaigns, or McKinney,
the real meaning of that position is that the union is trying to pressure
the bourgeois  parties, usually the Democrats, into making more concessions.
And for all the other positions involved in the election, for Congress,
state legislature, city council, etc., the unions will back the Democrat or
if s/he is particularly repugnant, abstain in the given race, which has
pretty much the same meaning as voting for Nader, a move to pressure the
Democrats, not a break with them.

A similar statement

Re: [Marxism] Obama strengthens Cuba blockade

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Obama did not "strengthen" the Cuba blockade. He has merely continued it,
and as the article notes, since the Helms-Burton Act, it is no longer within
the president's authority to lift this measure, although he can weaken it by
having the executive branch issue licenses that legalize otherwise
prohibited activity. This he has already done very substantially in relation
to Cubans in the U.S.; visits and remittances have increased substantially
because the Bush-era once in three year restriction on visits and miserly
limit on remittances have been lifted. 

As for other restrictions that he could lift on travel and businesses, there
are all kinds of petitions pending. It looks like Obama at this time is not
prepared to do much more than what he's already done (which was what he
promised in the campaign) at least for the time being. But what he has done
does not "strengthen" the blockade. And you'd need to study the legislation
closely to assert that his continuing the "state of emergency" isn't
necessary to the license-granting authority of the executive. I seem to
remember that Helms-Burton was formulated in that way, i.e., those
provisions took effect if the executive failed to act. But that was many
years ago and someone would have to check the exact provisions of that law.
If what I remember is right, then what Obama has done is to merely preserve
the executive branch's authority to waive elements of the blockade through
specific licenses. 

At any rate, given the relaxation of restrictions on Cubans in the U.S., if
you tell someone who has been following the issue closely that Obama has
strengthened the blockade they're likely to look at you a little funny. 

Joaquin




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Re: [Marxism] Examples of the use of force by American forces against its citizens.

[Joaquin Bustelo]

"If you're going to bring up Kent State, you should also include Jackson
State. A similar massacre but of African-American students occurred at
Jackson State University at roughly the same time as that of Kent State."

There is a certain logic in excluding Jackson State, as well as the untold
number of lynchings, primarily in the South, that were carried out with the
lead taken by government officials. It's what Malcolm X said about not being
an American, but one of 22 million Black victims of Americanism. This is, in
a way, separate and apart from the point made about "citizens" versus all
people who live in the U.S.

Joaquín



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Re: [Marxism] Michael Moore, Anti-Union

[Joaquin Bustelo]

If Michael Moore is anti-union, apparently the labor movement doesn't
realize it. -- Joaquín

FROM the PR Newswire

Nurses, AFL-CIO Unions to Host Michael Moore and Special Screening of New
Film at AFL-CIO Convention At Monday Forum Supporting Medicare for All

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- The California Nurses
Association/National
Nurses Organizing Committee, joined by other AFL-CIO unions, will host
filmmaker Michael Moore at a special reception Monday night, along with a
screening of his highly anticipated new film, "Capitalism:  A Love Story" at
the AFL-CIO national convention in Pittsburgh.

Moore will speak at the reception, which will outline the ongoing campaign
for
single payer healthcare reform by expanding Medicare to everyone.

He will be joined by AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Richard Trumka, expected to
be elected AFL-CIO President at the convention; Rose Ann DeMoro, Executive
Director of the CNA/NNOC, the nation's largest union of RNs; Leo Gerard,
President of the United Steel Workers; and Greg Junemann, President of the
International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.




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