[Marxism] the taming of the american crowd
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Friends, We're excited to announce that The Taming of the American Crowd: From Stamp Riots to Shopping Sprees by Al Sandine has been named an Oustanding Academic Title by Choice magazine. According to Choice, these "outstanding works have been selected for their excellence in scholarship and presentation, the significance of their contribution to the field, and their value as important -- often the first -- treatment of their subject." Michael Yates, Editorial Director of Monthly Review Press 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] Loughner's last close friend said that he ignored TV and talk radio
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Marv says that right wing paranoia afflicts a large proportion of Arizona's white population. I have lived in Tucson and spent a few months in Flagstaff. In neither place did I find this to be true. There are plenty of Tea Party types, etc., but I think Denver, CO and much of the state of Colorado is worse by far, just for one example. Talk radio in Tucson was, when we lived there, much milder than in Colorado, where hatred rules. In Tucson, there is a large university, big American Indian, Chicano, and Mexican populations, and many whites who are liberal in outlook. It is amusing sometimes to listen to leftists from the east or other nations talk about the US southwest as if it were alien territory. It is not. Western Pennsylvania, where I lived for 55 years, is worse in terms of racism, for example, than Utah, Arizona, etc. I can attest to this from personal experience. Trying to make political connections between what Loughner did and the rightwing nightmare that is the United States seems foolish to me. In Flagstaff, after Rush Limbaugh urged his troops to be at a city council meeting where the city was considering a lawsuit against Arizona's draconian anti-immigrant law, those opposed to Rush's people showed up en masse and the pathetic Tea Partiers were exposed as the fools they are. This, union organizing, immigrant organizing, campaigns againt fascish sheriff Joe Arpaio, etc., these are what we should be doing. Not to mention agitating on behalf of the mentally ill like Loughner. Otherwise we're just like the people on MSNBC, who spend so much of there time bashing the far right and no time supporting the left. 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] blog post: radical labor education, part 2
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2011/01/04/radical-labor-education-part-2/ "While unions are indispensable organizations of the working class, they are not likely to lead a radical social transformation. They face inherent constraints. First, unions may replicate already existing divisions within the working class. Many occupations are segregated by gender. Nearly all coal miners are men. A union of coal miners is unlikely, therefore, to attack gender discrimination. It is more likely that sexism will become deeply rooted in the union itself. The same can be said about racial divisions. Black and white workers may cooperate in a strike and may work side by side, but this does not mean that the union will actively confront the racism that is pervasive in the United States. Second, unions are defensive organizations. In their day-to-day operations, they will be inclined to accept capitalism as a fact of life and try to do the best for their members within its confines. A union may begin with a radical perspective, but over time it is likely to accommodate itself to capitalism and “pragmatically” maneuver within it. In fact, acceptance of capitalism may become the ideology of a labor movement, as is true for most unions in the United States. Not only do U.S. labor leaders accept the system, but they have collaborated with employers to undermine attempts by workers here and abroad to forge radical labor organizations. Despite their limitations, unions, as we have seen in Part I, teach workers many useful things simply because they are collective organizations. In addition, they have sought to actively educate their members through formal programs. These have taken several forms: teaching English to newly-arrived immigrants, training shop stewards, and establishing full-blown college programs and technical training institutes. Radicals have played important roles in union-based education programs, but it can be difficult for them to teach with an independent spirit. Union leaders are interested in practical education, with a focus upon training union officials to better perform their jobs as stewards, negotiators, and contract administrators, and they may not see the need for a liberal education, much less a radical one. They are seldom keen on a critical analysis of the unions themselves, no matter how badly one is needed." . . . 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] Request for books, articles on the "Middle Class"
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A journalist friend of mine is planning a series on the middle class. He needs references on how we came to speak of a middle class, what the middle class is, why people identify as middle class, etc. You can reply either to the list or to me at mikedjya...@msn.com Michael Yates 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] blog post: those who dare to tell the truth
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/12/06/who-dares-to-tell-the-truth/ This is an excerpt from the blog entry: Aside from the usual suspects, such as Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, Assange and WikiLeaks have few supporters, certainly none that I know of in the mainstream media or in the halls of Congress. Why not? Doesn’t the public have a right to know what its own government does? Shouldn’t Assange be a hero instead of a villain? Here is what I believe is going on. We live in a society dominated by large corporations and their owners and financiers (often the same). The government serves their interests, in as many ways as possible—with tax money, with legislation, with court decisions, with police and military actions when necessary. Since these facts fly in the face of any claim that we live in a free and democratic country, they must be suppressed. One way to do this is for the system’s many and well-rewarded apologists to tell us, over and over again, in every imaginable venue, that they are either not true or don’t matter. But another way is to ignite the false democracy of patriotism, to make it appear as if it is us (all Americans) against them (our enemies). From earliest age, we are bombarded with nationalist propaganda. We live in the best country in the world. God shed his grace on thee. We are the world’s beacon of freedom. We are the shining city on the hill. We are surrounded by evil enemies who want to destroy our way of life. Everyone, everywhere wants the American Dream. Those who criticize the monied oligarchy that has the real power here are denounced as un-American. Those who are opposed to the capitalism that creates this oligarchy are branded communists or socialists, and these are by definition un-American. Popular culture is full of pithy patriotic slogans. America, love it or leave it. Support the troops. “If you’re runnin’ down my country, man, you’re walkin’ on the fighting side of me.” “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.” It is obvious, I think, that most of us buy right into this and are prepared, just like Wolf Blitzer , to agree not to know certain unpleasant truths and to howl like a bloodthirsty mob for the head of anyone who dares to tell the truth. Even most working men and women, those who are most damaged by our political and economic systems, buy into it. They wave their flags and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, despite the harsh economic and political reality that stares them in the face every day. Andy Stern, former president of our largest union and a member of President Obama’s thoroughly anti-working class deficit reduction commission, tells us that he won’t be beholden to labor when he decides which of the odious commission recommendations he will support. He will, instead, act in the national interest. I have news for Stern and for all workers. The national interest is nothing more than the interest of the rich. It has nothing to do with what is best for you and me. You can be sure that the same politicians who, in the interests of the wealthy, want to cut social security and destroy the unions of public employees, also want to eliminate WikiLeaks and put Julian Assange in prison or to death. We go along with this at our peril. In his great anti-Vietnam War anthem, “The War is Over,” Phil Ochs sang, “So do your duty boys and join with pride, Serve your country in her suicide, Find the flags so you can wave goodbye, But just before the end even treason might be worth a try, This country is too young to die.” I’m not sure that the United States isn’t already at least half dead. But if it is to raised back to life, we are going to need a lot more “treason,” and many more “traitors.” They will at least try to tell us the truth, to strike our freedom- and democratic-loving nerves, to goad us into action. This is why they are so dangerous to the powers that be; they threaten to remove the veil that so tightly covers our eyes. So all hail to Julian Assange, to Specialist Bradley Manning (who is charged with supplying WikiLeaks with documents giving us a damning picture of U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan), Daniel Ellsberg, to all of those who made the decision to make the truth known, to be citizens of the world. Regardless of the consequences. 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] an asshole economist chimes in on how to get the economy going
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In today's New York Times there is an article discussing the suggestions of various thinkers on what might sustain a growing economy in the future. (David Segal, "Some Very Creative Economic Fix-Its") Here is what one New York University economist had to say: _ Perhaps we are entering the era of the self-starter. Prof. Andrew aplin of New York University thinks so. He begins with the premise that in the coming global economy some people will succeed and others will not, and income inequality will grow. While it’s noble to focus on how to spread wealth around, he says that it might be wiser to think of ways the poor and middle class could cater to the economy’s biggest winners. “Unfortunately, there will be income inequality,” he says, “but enough people will make money that those who don’t would do well, in as much as they understand the needs of that group.” He says he expects a rise in what he call “artisanal services,” like cooks, nutritionists, small-scale farmers. He sees services emerging that aid the wealthy at the intersection of health and genetic science. He imagines a rise in technology services, too — experts who keep clients current about technology which can advance their interests in business, in the media, on search engines and so on. Professor Caplin worries that this concept might be caricatured as “cater to the rich.” But he suggested that this country could use a lot more non-judgmental thinking about the future of the United States economy. Any argument on that subject that starts with the word “should,” he said, is not nearly as useful as one that starts with “could” and has a firm grasp on “is.” “If you start with ‘should’ you get arguments where nobody makes any sense and where you can claim that some people are good and other people are bad,” he said, referring to recent skirmishes over Fed policy, deficits and other contentious topics. “With that sleight of hand you’ve ensured that you will not discuss anything of substance. You’ve just lined up two camps to fire at one another.” __ Is it time to take all neoclassical economists into the woods and shoot them? 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] blog post: "That Which is Full of Wonder"
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/11/24/that-which-is-full-of-wonder/ This is the last paragraph of the post: "Our hikes to famous arches like Delicate and Druid have turned us into arch “hounds,” always on the lookout for new ones. We were hiking on the Moab Rim Trail, and Karen spotted an arch along a cliff. We walked over to get a better view. In case it didn’t have a name, we christened it Karen’s Arch. In the distance were the rocky battlements created by the relentless knifing action of the Colorado River. From any vantage point, they look like eternal backdrops in a play that goes on forever. They reminded me of the “metaphysical” art of the Italian painter Georgio de Chirico. He painted urban landscapes that try to make us see the perfect Platonic forms that underlie what we think is reality. But de Chirico’s metaphysic is false. There are no true and eternal forms. There are only appearances, and these are always in flux. Some last a short time, like the artist’s paintings; others, like the rocks, last for millions of years. But all will turn to dust or sand someday. Only the universe itself might go on forever. Still, it gives me comfort to look at the arches, at the rocks around them, at the world we have but only partially created, and dream of those who came here before me and those who will come after." 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] blog post: change we (were foolish to) believe in
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/11/14/change-we-were-foolish-to-believe-in/ This is an excerpt from near the end of the post: "Now that the Republicans control the House of Representatives, will the Democrats stand tall and fight them off with progressive principle? Will they move to the left? Only a fool like Katrina vanden Heuvel could believe this. What is being played out here is as old as the rise of modern U.S. capitalism. The Democrats and the Republicans take turns serving the interests of capital. The Republicans rule with such disdain for the working class that a public backlash drives them from power. Then the Democrats promote capitalism with a human face. Business and its allies go wild and scare the people with stories about incipient socialism. These days, with a moribund labor movement and limited public political sophistication, the scare tactics work pretty well. The Democrats respond by moving to the right; the Republicans regain their lost political power; the Democrats shift further right; and then the Republicans win absolute power, and the whole sorry process starts over again. Watch now as Obama gravitates to the right. Watch as he parrots vanden Heuvel and babbles on about civility and calm debate. Watch as he caves on rescinding the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Watch as he turns up the heat on Iran when the next presidential election gets nearer. Watch how he champions every kind of environmental degradation, from offshore oil drilling to hydraulic fracturing. Watch how the liberals and their more thoughtless radical allies tell us that this is the most important election of our lifetimes." 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] Stephanie Coontz on "Mad Men" in Wash Post
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Allen Ginsberg had some redeeming value!! Well, that's good of Tom Cod to say so. When you can write a poem as good as Kaddish, let us know. "(some marxmailers) come and go, talking of Michelangelo." michael yates 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] blog post: strikes and spares
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/11/03/strikes-and-spares/ "We were in Las Vegas, a cheap stopover on our way to a month or so in southern Utah. Our hotel, South Point, is on Las Vegas Boulevard but far south of the Strip. It’s a good place to stay. The staff is friendly, and our room, which was larger than our old New York City apartment, cost $49 a night. Probably to make up for its out-of-the-way location, South Point is a self-contained entertainment complex, with a multiplex cinema, shops, equestrian arenas, performance stages, and a large bowling alley. I was excited to learn that the preliminary rounds of the World Series of Bowling were being held in the bowling center. I spent each night of our stay watching the action. Most of the best bowlers in the world were competing in a set of competitons, with the top eight eligible for the $50,000 first prize. The finals will be televised on ESPN in January. As I stood behind the seats observing the action, I thought about a sport I have loved since I was thirteen. It was 1959, and my father took me to the Polish Falcon Lanes to bowl. I was hooked right away, and for the next few years, I spent as much time in bowling alleys as I could: Falcon Lanes, the CU Club (operated by the Slovak Catholic Union), King Lanes, Highland Lanes, and any others I could find. When I got my own ball and shoes, I got the attendants at the local alleys to keep them behind the counter. That way, I avoided paying for a locker and didn’t have to sneak a heavy ball and shoe bag out of the house every time I wanted to practice. I’d just tell my parents (who kept a watchful eye on how I spent my time and money) that I was going to a friend’s house, and then I’d walk down the steep hillside path into town and go to whichever place I had last left my equipment. I’d lie to mom and dad about the money I earned delivering newspapers so I could use it to bowl. On certain days there were special prices—three or four games for a dollar. You could improve your game on the cheap. By fifteen, I was averaging about 180, a respectable score back then. The balls were made of hard rubber; the lanes were constructed of wood, conditioned with oil; the pins were heavy; and these features made high scores and averages difficult to achieve." . . . 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] blog post: These Homes Were Made (and Paid for) by You and Me
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/10/22/these-homes-were-made-and-paid-for-by-you-and-me/ "When we lived in Pittsburgh in the 1990s, my mother came to visit for a few days. She always wanted to see the Henry Clay Frick mansion, so we drove to Wilkinsburg, just outside the Pittsburgh city limits, to see it. Frick was the chief lieutenant of Andrew Carnegie and the architect of Carnegie Steel’s efforts to dislodge the union of skilled ironworkers from its mills. This led to the Homestead Steel Strike in 1892, one of the most famous working class struggles in U.S. labor history. Frick and Carnegie later parted company and feuded the rest of their lives. Frick abandoned his Pittsburgh home (though his daughter lived their until her death) and built a much grander residence in Manhattan. He said that the smoke from the mills in Pittsburgh was damaging his paintings. . . . 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] blog post: fear and loathing at saint vincent college, an upodate
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/10/03/fear-and-loathing-at-saint-vincent-college-an-update/ This is an excerpt from the blog entry. Towey was president of the college and a former Bush official (head of faith-based initiatives). The business school dean is a libertarian economist named Gary Quinlivan. "Among many other things, the complaint argues that *after Father Mark became faculty spokesperson but before the July 2009 raid on the computer, he was subjected to a campaign of harassment inside both the monastery and the college. He was accused of being drunk and disruptive at a student function and of spreading rumors about the motives of the adminstration. *after being accused of viewing child pornography, Father Mark suffered serious physical and emotional distress, which compelled him to seek therapy. He left the monastery for treatment in August 2009 but was ordered back by the archabbot, who then demanded that he admit himself to a place known for its treatment of pedophile priests. He refused. Later the archabbot forbade him to go back to his original treatment center, in effect guaranteeing his further mental and physical deterioration. *in August 2009, Father Mark took his case to canon (Church) officials who, like the police, found no evidence incriminating him. The canon experts presented their report to the archabbot in September 2009. *despite being aware of the police and canon official findings, Nowicki, Towey, and others continued to vilify Father Mark, by letter, email, in public forums, in the media, and in private conversations. The complaint says that Towey showed some faculty the images that were found on the computer and said that these were what Father Mark was looking at. One of these faculty, the dean of the business school, allegedly then told parents and others to stay away from Mark, implying that he was a child molester. The dean of the college is alleged to have done the same." 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] blog post: a nation in decline? Part 4: Mother Earth, What Have We Done to You?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/09/22/a-nation-in-decline-part-4-mother-earth-what-have-we-done-to-you/ "When we are on the road, Karen usually drives. I plot out the directions before we leave and write them down on the notepad most motels provide next to the telephone. Even though the route might be straightforward, I get nervous that we will miss a turn, and within a short time I reach in my pocket and get out the pad to check the directions. Then I grab our worn atlas to look at the map. I love to look at road maps. There on the page is the state we are in or going to, and I feel a sense of mystery. What will the town to which we are going look like? What about the landscape? The map might show mountains or desert, but mountains and deserts come in all shapes and sizes. Southern Utah is desert, and so is southern Arizona, but they are not at all alike. There are towns and places that I have always wanted to see. It might be the name, or a town’s remote place on the map, or something I remember from childhood. Winnemucca, Gila Bend, Deadwood, Fruita, Needles, Yuma, Barstow, Devil’s Tower, the oxbow in the Snake River, the Badlands, the Great Basin, the bristlecone pines, wild flowers in Death Valley. What will they be like? I imagine exotic locales, strange people, mystery. My heart beats faster as we get closer. Sometimes my expectations are exceeded. When we hiked to the oxbow, the view was dazzling and we saw moose crossing the river. On the hike out, we stopped at the Jackson Lake Lodge, where we stood on the terrace and looked at the Tetons, one of the most strikingly perfect mountain ranges in the country. We visited Death Valley this past March. The temperature was in the seventies; there was still snow on Telescope Peak; and just off the highway, there were millions of wild flowers, as far as the eye could see. A week later, we hiked through snow and on rocky fields 10,000 feet up in the White Mountains, determined to see the bristlecones. We didn’t make it to the oldest groves, but the ancient ones we did see were so starkly beautiful that we forgot the cold and stared in wonder." . . . 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] new blog post: a nation in decline?: part 2: signs of distress
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/09/03/a-nation-in-decline-part-2-signs-of-distress/ "The impact of the U.S. economic crisis has been geographically uneven (see map). You can’t miss it in Las Vegas, where there are half-constructed homes, ubiquitous "For Sale" signs, abandoned shopping plazas, and homeless and half-crazed men and women, in sharp contrast to the scene there a few years ago. But in Boulder, Colorado you would be hard-pressed to find such evidence. Housing prices have not collapsed; rents are astronomical; tourists abound; bars and restaurants are crowded; and the unemployment rate is low. There are problems. Small retail shops have closed; there is an inordinate number of sole proprietors (which could be a sign of inadequate decently-waged employment); there are many homeless persons; and much of the grunt work is done by Latinos who can’t afford to live in Boulder or, if they do, live in substandard housing. Yet, these same features have probably marked Boulder for years, predating the economic downturn. There has been a significant increase in people seeking food assistance in Boulder County, but this includes a much wider area than the city proper." . . . Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] self-indulgence
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == First, happy birthday Gary! Second, leave it to a priest to say something so preposterous. Michael Yates 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] blog post: from boulder north and west to portland, part 2
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/08/05/from-boulder-north-and-west-to-portland-part-2/ An excerpt about Portland: "Many familiar sites were still in place. Powell’s Books, the largest independent new and used bookstore in the United States, hasn’t moved, nor has Pioneer Square. The Saturday Farmers’ Market remains on the Park Blocks by Portland State University, and Carlo was selling the hot sausage sandwiches I bought every week. We noticed one thing especially that hadn’t changed. Portland is still a white city. The absence of people of color is startling for a city this large. It ranks fifth in whiteness among the forty largest major metropolitan; its city center ranks number one. Blacks comprise a mere 3 percent of the population. Portland and the entire state of Oregon were begun as exclusively white areas, with laws to maintain racial homogeneity. Racial purity has changed at a snail’s pace. I read once but can’t now remember where that one writer called Portland the "last bastion of Caucasian culture." This seems to still be true. Portland has many good features. It is a walkable and bikeable city, and it has decent public transportation. You can live there without a car. Flowers bloom and the trees keep their leaves for most of the year. There are many groceries that sell local and organic food. The music and arts scenes are vibrant. There is a university and a number of small liberal arts colleges. People live throughout the city, and there is a "green belt" around it, with abundant trails for hiking and walking. The Rose Garden is a flower-lover’s dream. But, it's a shame Portland is so damn white." michael yates 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] Marilyn Buck
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Our comrade in struggle, Marilyn Buck, died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. She was released from prison last week and died at home in New York CIty. Susie Day, now the Assistant Editor of Monthly Review, did a remarkable interview with Marilyn and Laura Whitehorn, which appeared in the summer 2001 issue of Monthly Review. I had the privilege of editing this summer issue and was deeply moved by the interview. You can read it at http://monthlyreview.org/0701day.htm. Michael Yates 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] blog post: from Boulder North and West to Portland, part 1
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I corrected some typos and did some needed editing to this post. So, if you read it and thought that I am now illiterate, please give it another chance! michael yates 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] blog post: from Boulder North and West to Portland, part 1
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/07/25/from-boulder-north-and-west-to-portland-part-1/ "We’re in our sixth month on the road. After a stay back in Boulder, Colorado to take care of personal matters, we traveled through Wyoming, Montana, and Washington, on our way to Portland, Oregon, where we lived for fifteen months in 2003 and 2004. We stopped first in Casper and Buffalo, Wyoming, neither of which will likely make you want to visit again. We did take a good hike on Casper Mountain, and we met some friendly Mormons having a breakfast cookout. Like so many small cities, Casper has alowed its downtown to be hollowed out, while the developments and strip malls outsied town have grown rapidly. Our hotel was five miles from town, close to a burgeoining healthcare center. As the United States gets older and less healthy, medical entrepreneurs have seen investment opportunities in such places. Motel and hotel capital always follows; recovering patients and visitors will need places to stay." . . . michael yates 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] Red Jackman
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I remember that talk and Red coming up to me afterward. Then it was interesting that you wrote about him. Good to see he is alive and well and sober too! Small world. One nice thing about our moderator is that he knows so many interesting people! Takes one to know one!! michael yates 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] query from a reader of Monthly Review/civil rights movement, etc.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In.com received the following note. Can anyone help him? Send to me at mikedjya...@msn.com I write you because I'm also a historian, and in the coming semester I will be teaching contemporary American history at the University of Copenhagen. Recently your magazine included an interview on Fred Hampton (http://www.monthlyreview.org/091201haas.php), which was translated into Danish in The New Clarté. I'm curious if there has been done any historical research into the many radical off-springs from the civil rights movement in the US in the 1960's (like Blackstone Rangers, Young Lords, Young Patriots, etc.)? I know some of these groups later degenerated into criminal, non-political, gangs, but still I think it could be very interesting for my students to get to know about this very diverse movement. Of course, if you have any recommendations for me with respect to historical books on the civil right movement in general, the Black Panther Party, or black national groups from the same period, I will also be very interested. Thanks to anyone who can help. michael yates 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] new blog post: growth! growth! growth!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/06/30/growth-growth-growth/ "The motor force of capitalist economies is the accumulation of capital—the drive by capitalists to make as much profit as possible and use as much of this profit as possible to expand their capitals. The growth of capital is built into the nature of the system; it is relentless and never-ending. To justify this growth, which has many socially negative consequences (environmental degradation and periodic economic crises to name two), the economic elite, their lapdogs in government, and the media they own, propagandize ad nauseam about the necessity of growth. Little thought is given to the nature of the growth or the distribution of the resulting income. Just growth. Any kind will do. Things will fall apart if we don’t have growth. Karen pointed out to me a recent example of the “growth is good” ideology. During the housing bubble, Arizona grew rapidly. Retirees flocked to Arizona, drawn to the warm and sunny climate and relatively cheap housing. Their incomes, construction, an expanding military, and immigration all kept demand for goods and services brisk and state and local government tax coffers growing. The latter in turn generated a growing supply of schools, roads, police forces, and the like, and the incomes of state and local public employees added more demand. Most production was buttressed by cheap immigrant labor. The public relations hype extolling the climate and the low prices and wages operated on overdrive and brought in new residents and tourists by the hundreds of thousands. Much of Arizona’s rapid growth was concentrated in the metropolitan areas surrounding Phoenix and Tucson. The population of Phoenix grew by 39 percent between 1996 and 2005, more than three times that of the United States as a whole. It is now the fifth largest city in the country, with about 1.6 million people. The greater Phoenix metropolitan area has more than four million inhabitants. There are seven nearby cities, also showing accelerated growth, with more than 150,000 persons. More than 500,000 people live in Tucson, and the great Tucson metropolitan region has a population in excess of one million. Preliminary estimates from the 2010 census show that nearly 82 percent of Arizona’s population lives in the Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas." . . . 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] new blog post: down along the coast, part 3
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == An excerpt. This post takes us down the big Sur Highway to Cambria, CA. Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/ "We asked the owner of a small bakery about visiting Hearst Castle. The house and grounds were made into a state park in 1958, and throngs of visitors have been coming ever since. She said that it was a little pricey to do the short tour, but if we wanted to learn about Hearst and "La Cuesta Encantada" (The Enchanted Hill), we should visit the museum at the Visitors’ Center. "It’s free," she said, and "you can decide if you want to visit the castle after you see the museum." This was good advice. The museum is interesting. There is nothing negative about the father of "yellow journalism" and the progenitor of Fox News, but the exhibits give you an idea of Hearst’s monomaniacal obsessions and fantastic wealth. Hearst inherited the 250,000 acres, with fourteen miles of shoreline, from his mother, and the property had been in his family since the 1860s. There are several large houses on the grounds; the largest one, the castle proper, contains 60,645 square feet of space. Besides the museum, the Visitors’ Center contains every imaginable type of Hearst memorabilia, as well as ample food venues, including a shop at which you can purchase beef from the Hearst ranch. Environmentally sound ranching practices, of course. We couldn’t bring ourselves to buy a ticket and take the five-mile bus ride up the steep and winding hills to see the house. We were sure both the ride and the vulgar displays of wealth would make us sick." michael yates 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] review of a book I wrote
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == My ego has gotten the best of me. This review of In and Out of the Working Class is so remarkably positive and insightful that I had to share it: http://www.socialiststudies.com/index.php/sss/article/viewFile/126/116 michael yates 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] new blog post: down along the coast, part 2
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/06/11/down-along-the-coast-part-2/ "At about the midpoint between Montera and Pigeon Point is the town of Half Moon Bay. Settled by Italian and Portuguese farmers and fishermen, it is now aimed at tourists, as is almost every town and small city anywhere near any natural attraction, or for that matter, with anything at all that can be hyped to the gullible. This can’t work for every town, just as every country can’t prosper by exporting goods and services alone. Half Moon Bay has managed to keep its downtown intact, and this alone makes it worth a visit. We did our laundry there, and we saw something common nearly everywhere in the country. Mexican men doing their laundry. Their wives and children are in Mexico; they are here, working or looking for jobs. On the corner, Mexican men congregated, shooting the breeze, while the white tourists cast wary eyes. In a bakery, an Anglo customer gruffly chastises the brown-skinned cashier for an error that turns out to be his." michael yates 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] new blog post: The "I" and the "we"
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/05/23/the-i-and-the-we/ "We have been nearly fifty days in California. It is a state of geographical extremes: the deserts, the Sierras, the long ocean coast, and the central valleys. It is a great agricultural state, and every visitor ought to travel through the San Joaquin, Imperial, or Sacramento Valleys to see the sources of the food we eat. Go during a harvest and watch the brown-skinned men, women, and children pick our crops, the people we fear and hate but without whom we wouldn’t have such cheap food or any at all. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, rice, milk, meat. It is all here in great abundance, and it is all produced from start to finish by the brown-skinned people. Cheap labor and subsidized capital are the basis of agriculture and most other businesses, and those that own the land and every other bit of capital aim to keep that labor cheap and those subsidies intact." michael yates Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] the united farm workers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By John Obrien's logic, historians shouldn't examine, analyze, or criticize any labor leaders who are dead. Sam Gompers did some good things,so I guess we should keep our mouths shut about his many flaws.Same for John L Lewis. And please note that what I wrote was a review of a book. Take some of this up with the author, Miriam Pawel. Frankly, I would read a book first before I criticized the reviewer. And What kind of a remark is it to say that you prefer books that criticize the capitalists? Well I like novels set in colleges. So what. Maybe what you're saying is that criticizing the UFW or Chavez is an act of class collaboration. I have heard that stupidity before. Same about agendas. People who assume that anyone critical of something that they think is good must have an agenda. Seems a very conspiratorial way of thinking. Perhaps you can point out what my agenda might be. It's Cesar's son Paul who is making money by exploiting his father's name, not me. Why don't you ask Huerta what she thinks and report back to us. Do some work. 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] New blog Post: The Rise and Fall of the United Farm Workers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Tom Cod appears to know nothing about the UFW,its history, etc. If he did, he wouldn't have posted such nonsense. The UFW as presently constituted hardly deserves the name "union." Do some research, Tom, you might learn something. Then again, maybe not. 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] New Blog Post: The Rise and Fall of the United Farm Workers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I have posted a review of Miriam Pawel's book, The Union of Their Dream at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org "After reading The Union of Their Dreams, Miriam Pawel’s fine account of the rise and fall of the United Farm Workers Union (UFW), I re-read an article I wrote for the Nation magazine in November 1977. In this essay, “A Union is Not a Movement,” I leveled some harsh criticisms at the union and its famous leader, Cesar Chavez. In response, the union’s chief counsel, Jerry Cohen, one of the major characters in Pawel’s book, threatened suit against the magazine. At the time I was upset, thinking that maybe I should have been more careful in what I had said. However, as The Union of Their Dreams makes clear, I need not have been, since everything I said was true. And then some. Nearly every book written about the UFW has placed Cesar Chavez front and center, and most of them have portrayed him as a cross between Gandhi and Jesus Christ. Chavez appeared on the scene, and everything changed. He did what no one had ever managed: the building of a strong union of the poorest of the poor—migrant farm workers. Pawel’s book has the great virtue of not making Chavez its main protagonist. Instead, she uses to excellent effect the journalistic technique of telling the story of the UFW through the eyes of several key participants in the struggle to build the union, none of them Chavez. He is, as he must be, always present in the book, but by focusing on the lives and actions of others, Pawel both demythologizes Cesar and shows that he was, himself, but one of many talented and dedicated people who made UFW history. . . ." 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] new blog post: Mining
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2010/05/01/mining/ The earth in the western United States is flush with minerals. Coal in Colorado and Wyoming. Copper in Arizona and New Mexico. Uranium in Utah and Arizona. Silver in New Mexico, Nevada, and California. Gypsum, potash, trona, and borax in the California, Utah, Wyoming, and Nevada deserts. Lead and zinc in New Mexico. Gold damned near everywhere. Many of these minerals have been and are critical to modern capitalist industry and finance, and so their exploitation was inevitable once our economic system took a firm hold on production and distribution. From the perspective of the native peoples, the workers, and the earth itself, the consequences have been catastrophic. I will have more to say about native peoples in later posts. But for now, consider the Navajo in Arizona, who not only worked in outsider-owned uranium mines on their land but used mine waste to construct flooring for their homes, not knowing and not being informed of the dangers, as they could and should have been. Cancer was rare among the Navajo, but now it is epidemic. For many days after we left Boulder, Colorado, we wandered around the arid deserts and canyons of the southwest. You can’t help but see mining and the devastation mining has wrought in these places. Coal is being ripped right off the top of the land, with the help of colossal shovels and trucks in Gillette, Wyoming, a town we visited several years ago. On our way to Tucson, we detoured into the mountains to Silver City, New Mexico. The drive was steep and spectacular, but just before Silver City, near the town of Santa Rita, we saw the “El Chino” mine, once owned by Phelps-Dodge and now the property of Freeport-McMoRan. It is a gigantic open pit copper mine, the third oldest in the world and once the world’s largest. Copper mining and processing destroys the earth, poisons the water, and kills the workers. The size of the pit and the extensiveness of the damage done have to be soon to be believed. Both the current and the past owners are notorious union busters and gross violators of human rights and environmental laws. Freport-McMoRan was in league with the murderous Suharto regime in Indonesia, actively participating with the Indonesian military in acts of violence, including murder, against workers and other “enemies” of the government. Phelps-Dodge’s labor and human rights violations are legendary, including the infamous Bisbee (Arizona) deportation, in which more than 1,000 striking Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) miners were arrested, at the behest of Phelps-Dodge executives, and transported by force without food or water for sixteen hours and left stranded in the deserts of New Mexico. In the 1980s, Phelps-Dodge locked out employers at its Arizona mines and in the course of a multi-year strike defeated the copper workers’ union (part of the United Steel Workers union). The parallels to the Bisbee strike are remarkable: COMMENTS, ADDITIONS, AND CORRECTIONS WELCOMED 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] new blog post: las vegas/it is us 95 not interstate 95
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Christian notes that Interstate 95 doesn't go through AZ, etc. I should have written US 95. 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] new blog post: Yuma
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org Yuma is one of those iconic towns of the west, like Tombstone. If Tombstone has its OK Corral, Yuma has its 3:10. Situated along the once mighty Colorado River, baking in the Sonoran desert, it is at the southwest tip of Arizona, just a few feet from the California border. According to Guinness, the area surrounding the city is the sunniest on earth, although NASA scientists say that this distinction is held by a Sahara Desert site in northern Niger. The sun shines in Yuma for 4,050 hours of the 4,456 hours of daylight during a year, or about 90 percent of the time. All that sun and the desert terrain make it hot, with an average daily high in July of 107 degrees Fahrenheit. On July 28, 1995, the temperature reached 124 degrees! We drove into Yuma on Interstate 8, which begins as a split with Interstate 10 north of Tucson. It’s all desert, all the time, although there are many lovely mountains, and the day we went, we saw brilliant bouquets of wildflowers, alongside the road and in the distance. The best scenery is on that part of the road that goes through the Sonoran Desert National Monument. It is always surprising to me to see how many mountains there are in desert regions, or that while you are driving, you begin to climb and might actually go through a pass. We noticed that the saguaro cactuses out our windows looked beaten down, almost all of them charred and scarred at their bases. Perhaps these sentinels of the desert had lost the battle to survive the modern human assault on their habitat. We passed the town of Gila Bend, about sixty miles from the Interstate 8/10 split, named for a sharp bend in the Gila River, which empties into the Colorado near Yuma. When I was a boy, I checked the newspaper every day for the lowest and highest temperatures in the United States. Gila Bend was a frequent winner for the high, as was its neighbor Yuma. Yuma is in a wide river valley, and the original inhabitants fished, hunted, and planted crops. Before it was defiled by so many dams, the Colorado was a rushing river, prone to massive flooding. This made crossing it a dangerous venture. Here, however, there are two large rocky mounds, one on each side of the river. "Indian Hill and Prison Hill narrowed and calmed the river just a few miles south of the confluence of the Gila, at the present location of Yuma, Arizona. " The Prison Hill in the quote is where the famous territorial prison was located. Parts of it are still there, and what is left is part of the Yuma Territorial Prison State Historical Park. When the prison closed in 1909, it fittingly became Yuma Union High School, perhaps like my high school, a prison for the mind. Indian Hill is on the California side of the Colorado, on part of the Quechan Indian reservation. The Quechen and the Cocopah Indians occupied the Yuma region when the Spaniards came calling. They were farmers and hunters, taking advantage of the river and the natural crossing. Spain and then the United States saw the usefulness of the crossing too, though they had different objectives in mind: military expansion, commerce, a place to build a bridge for settlers, prospectors, and the like. Though the Indians were friendly, they soon came into conflict with the Europeans, a conflict they eventually lost, along with their lands. We walked across the one-lane bridge, which is flanked by a railroad span, along which there is a steady flow of train traffic, and looked at the old mission church and the Quechan tribal buildings. A few hundred feet down the road, we saw a casino. Inside, there was the usual depressing sight of people losing money who cannot afford to do so, smoking and looking generally unhealthy. Indian casinos are often not owned directly by the tribe, and few native people benefit from them. 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] roaming around the deserts
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == We've been traveling around in the deserts--from Albuquerque to Tucson (via Silver City) to Yuma to Las Vegas to Death Valley. We noted three things so far: the military loves the deserts and fucks them up in every imaginable way; old folks love the deserts and have set up residences of all kinds, especially RV communiities, including a totally makeshift hardscrabble agglomeration of RVs in Quartzite, Arizona; and everywhere mineral extraction further wreaks havoc on the land, and also on the people--copper, silver, gold, molybdenum, gypsum, trona *(soda ash), borax, potash, and many others. There is amazing beauty on the desert. Today we visited Death Valley. Whole hills are covered with wildflowers, above the salt flats that look for all the world like they are covered with snow. I hope there wasn't any arsenic in the piece of the salt flat I licked! michael yates 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] blog post: Ludlow, Colorado/Windber, Pennsylvania
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org This was inspired by a visit to the Ludlow Massacre Memorial and Monument in Colorado Minerals and raw materials are the building blocks of industrial capitalism. No industrial revolutions would have been possible without iron, coal, copper, rubber, and similar substances. The extraction of such materials from the earth has been, without exception, a human enterprise mired in misery, in which one small class of persons viciously exploited other more numerous classes of workers and peasants, with the sole aim of making as much money as possible. Theft of land, forced migrations, enslavement, torture, murder, brutality of every imaginable kind, injury and death on the job, the poisoning of the air, soil, and water, even concentration camps, all giving evidence of what Marx said more than 140 years ago: ". . . capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt." Steel is a quintessential industrial commodity, and during the nineteenth century, its production was central to the development of the most important capitalist industry, the railroad. However, to make steel, you need coal, which is converted into coke, the latter needed to produce iron and steel. Coal is found in many parts of the world, including the United States. Originally, it was mined in deep underground cavities, and much of it still is, although surface, strip mining now accounts for about 40 percent of all coal production worldwide. Underground coal mining is inherently dangerous work, but the relentless drive of both the mine owners and the steel capitalists (often the same people) to cut costs and increase profits makes the work lethal. At the same time, the risk of the labor breeds a strong sense of cohesion among the workers. This solidarity was enhanced by the remoteness of many mines, which allowed the companies to contain miners and their families in isolated company towns, owned lock, stock, and barrel by the mine’s owners. In a company town, almost all economic activity was connected to mining. Social differences were clearly marked and unbridgeable. There were the miners, and there were the bosses. Working underground together and living above ground together created strong social class bonds. The companies recruited a polyglot workforce to break down the cohesiveness of the miners, but often as not this failed. In the United States, the United Mine Workers union (UMWA) early on embraced a diverse membership, including black miners, one of the first labor unions to do so. Miners learned quickly that it mattered not one whit whether the shovels were wielded by black or white hands or whether the men killed in an explosion were Italians or Greeks or Welsh. And at the end of work day, every miner’s face was black. Low wages, unsafe conditions, long hours, crooked scales, and totalitarian rule in the company towns (the companies had their own, state-deputized police) combined to cause the workers to embrace labor unions wholeheartedly, even in places, like rural Appalachia, where notions of rugged individualism were strong. Any attempts to unionize were met with utmost resistance, always wed to violence, by the coal operators. Given the array of implacable forces lined up against them, including police, politicians, national guards, even the U.S. Army, coal miners were, themselves, not averse to employing violent means to achieve their aims. The coalfields of southern Colorado were the scenes of a monumental and ultimately murderous labor struggle in 1913 and 1914. One of the major coal companies was the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company. It maintained company towns at the base of the Rocky Mountain foothills near the mine sites, including those of Berwind and Ludlow, south of the steel town of Pueblo. Berwind was named for the coal baron, Edward J. Berwind, who later sold his holdings to the Rockefeller company. More about him later. 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] reviewer wanted/nobody called me charlie
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == George is seeking a reviewer for the book Nobody Called Me Charlie by Charles Preston. I edited this book for Monthly Review Press. The author Charles Preston wrote it many years ago, and thanks to his son Gregor, who is now very ill, it was brought to our attention. Preston was a white Communist who went to work for Indianapolis's Black newspaper, The Indianapolis Recorder, the third oldest blakc paper in the United States. His memoir is a fascinating account of not just the journalist's craft but also of the many kinds of racism that pervaded the US in the three decades after WW2. For sports fans, I might add that Preston was sports editor at the paper for many years. He knew and wrote about all the great black athletes who made their way to Indainapolis--Floyd Patterson, golfer Charlie Sifford, the great Harelm Globetrotter stars, and of course, Oscar Robertson. Preston was also a good friend of a man who went on from Indianapolis to great infamy--Jim Jones. In the beginning, Jones was a champion of Black liberation. I urge list members to read this book, and I hope somemone will review it for George. Michael Yates 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] Blog Post: Conversations on the Trail
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Here is an excerpt. Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org Soon after we began the hike, we saw an ATV trying to climb a series of rugged rock steps. The driver had to get out of his vehicle and tie it to a tree so that it wouldn’t tip over backwards as he maneuvered up the steps. He pushed a button to raise the ATV’s body and then yanked, tugged, and pushed it over the rocks. Then he was on his merry way. A few minutes later, we stopped to rest and have a snack. A small dog was chasing after the ATV, and we thought it belonged to the driver. A woman walked by and asked us if we had seen a dog; a couple down the trail had lost theirs. We met her again hiking back to the trail head. She was from Mexico, near Monterrey, and had come to the United States with her parents when she was young. They had settled in the mining town of Price, Utah, where her father had worked in the coal mines. He only got work in non-union pits, so when he retired he had little savings. In poor health, he and his wife returned to Mexico, where they have friends and where it is cheaper to live. They had never learned much English, so they were happy to return to their homeland. Their daughter spoke English very well. She had moved to Moab a dozen years ago, and she now held two jobs, one at the local hospital and another at a Mexican restaurant. Immigrant-bashing is a staple of right-wing rhetoric in the United States, and it has increased during the current economic meltdown. I wonder what Glenn Beck and all the other haters would say to this woman and her parents. The good Mormons of Utah (Beck, by the way, is a Mormon) were happy to use up the bodies of the parents of our fellow hiker. It didn’t matter one bit that they couldn’t speak English. And somehow they managed to survive in a hostile and stark environment for many years without benefit of English fluency. Her father reminded me of my great-uncle, Alberto Benigni, who never mastered English but somehow managed to work in the mines from age nine to sixty-five. The children of immigrants always learn the new language. The hypocrisy of the xenophobes is shown when they denounce the teaching of English as a second language in our schools. Sink of swim, they say. Believe me, it will be the nation that sinks if we don’t encourage immigration. If the pasty-faced former alcoholic Beck and the dope-addled Rush Limbaugh are characteristic of the native stock, we are in a whole lot of trouble. We need more Mexicans, Indians, Chinese, Russians, you name it. We should take heed of what Karl Marx said, in a different context to be sure, about the English potters. He said that their health would have been still worse—from their wretched employment in potteries—had they not married people from healthier districts. During the final years of my teaching at the University of Pittsburgh campus in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, long after the steelworkers had died, retired, or left the region in despair, and no longer sent their ambitious kids to college, I was never more happy than when I had immigrant students. While the "American" students spent their time drinking and attending fraternity affairs, the foreigners were busy studying. 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] Blog Post: What I Said in 2002 about the FARC in Colombia and the Maoists in Nepal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org Below is an excerpt from Naming the System. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC is the Spanish acronym) is the oldest revolutionary army in Latin America. Since 2002, it has been under some of its severest attacks by the Colombian government under the right-wing president Álvaro Uribe, aided by considerable U.S. military aid and personnel, who are in Colombia allegedly to eradicate the drug trade, but really to contain and defeat the FARC. The FARC has suffered many blows in the past few years, including the death of its founder and leader Manuel Marulanda in 2008 and the murder of several of its top leaders. Yet, it continues to fight, and it still controls large areas of the country and maintains its capacity to disrupt the Colombian economy. An update on FARC, with an overall negative view of its future, can be found at http://www.coha.org/farc-a-perilous-future-a-grim-recent-past/ All things considered, I do not think the FARC can overthrow the government, and I think it is likely that the FARC has lost a good deal of its initial revolutionary trajectory. The prospects for the Maoists in Nepal are much more favorable. They have achieved remarkable victories since what I wrote about them, including the overthrow of the monarchy, victories in elections that resulted in their leader, Prachanda, becoming Prime Minister and then resigning, and now the real prospects of achieving victory and revolutionizing all of Nepalese society. A good summary review has been written by Gary Leupp at http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp02122010.html. It is important for a writer to periodically evaluate what he or she has written, in light of new developments. Too often, writers assume no responsibility for what they have written or said, no doubt believing that in a throwaway and amnesiac society, what they said won’t be remembered and they will never be called on it. I welcome comments. Michael Yates 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] Roger Casement
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Roger Casement figures prominently in a book that Monthly Review Press will publish in a few months. The book is The Devil's Milk by John Tully, and it is a tour de force of scholarship and exceptional writing. The title refers to rubber, and the book is a history of the rubber industry. It is one of the best books I have read in the last few years. Watch for it. Michael Yates 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] Howard Zinn is dead
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Howard Zinn provides a great role model for how to live a radical life. He wrote for the people and not just about them. Imagine how thrilling it must have been to see his People's History touch the mainstream, even getting mentioned on the Sopranos! And he taught as if it mattered. A fine man all the way around. Michael Yates 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] A review that made me blush
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In a book review in Monthly Review, Elly Leary called me "Gramsci's Grandchild." Now I can die a happy man! http://www.monthlyreview.org/100101leary.php Michael Yates 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] Radical Economics: A Clearer Look at Things, Part 2
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == New Blog Post at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org. Second part of chapter 6 of Naming the System. Michael Yates 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] Bina's paper
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == One thing I noticed about Bina's paper is the considerable amount of self-referencing; it borders on the egomaniacal. I once reviewed a book of essays he and some colleagues edited. It's mentioned in his end notes in the Iran article. A truly dreadful collection, with a couple of exceptions. And Bina's own essay was most dreadful of all. Maybe he was over his head talking about labor. His notes in the Iran essay seem to say that he is expert on nearly everything else. He trashes Baran and Sweezy nearly as badly as he does Monthly Review on Iran. My guess is that if Bina and Sweezy were taking insights out of their brains and throwing them in the ocean, Bina would exhaust his first and by a long margin. 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] blog post: the neoclassical economic dogma: part 2
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org 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] New Blog Post: The Neoclassical Economic Dogma: Part I
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == As I have done for many years, I am teaching a two-week course to labor union activists in a program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. It is a good group. I notice a lot of hostility to Obama and a good receptiveness to Marx. In the class, we contrast mainstream (neoclassical) and radical (Marxist) economics. I have decided to post on my blog two chapters from my 2003 book, Naming the System: Inequality and Work in the Global Economy. The first is on neoclassical economics, the second on Marxist economics. There will be four posts all told, two for each chapter. The first one is up now at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org. Michael Yates 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] final blog post from southern Utah
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org We drove back to Boulder from Moab on Wednesday, November 25. It already feels like we have been back for a month. Boulder has its good points, but when it is cold and the view outside our window is the same one we have been looking at for a year now, well, we get bored beyond words. People are out shopping for things they don’t much need and dining in second-rate restaurants that everyone raves about, going to stupid jobs, panhandling for change to buy drink and drugs. The whole thing seems so absurd. When you add to this the idiotic speech Obama gave at West Point, trying to justify murder and mayhem in Afghanistan as necessary for the good of the country, while workers can’t find employment, while the bogus healthcare bill is hailed as a legislative revolution, while the talking heads on television babble on and on, while the grossest corruption is now the coin of the realm, well Jesus H. Christ, let me out of here! Back to Moab maybe. There is a special place south of town. Make a right turn onto Angel Rock Road and drive past the shabby houses and trailers, with yards filled with junk and a few horses, to the Hidden Valley trail head. Rising above you is a steep and rocky cliff; it is impossible to spot the trail, so jumbled are the rocks. But the hike isn’t as hard as it looks; there are numerous switchbacks that lessen the verticality of the ascent. After a bit more than a half mile and some huffing and puffing, you will find yourself in an amazing valley. Stark and sheer cliffs are on your left, and on your right the valley gives way to more gradually graded rock formations. The ancient ones came here long ago, maybe coming down from the La Sal Mountains and finding there way to the Colorado River. There must have been game in the valley and some protection from the elements, and perhaps hostile humans too. A mile and a half brings you to the end of the valley and the beginning of a slick rock descent to the river, or just as many treks over the rocks as you care to take. Unless you know what you are doing, it is easy to get lost in this terrain, so we stick to the jeep trail or walk with an eye toward some easily recognized landmark. This year the trail appeared slightly more passable than in the past. Moab is jeep central, and it may be that some group of high-clearance, four-wheel drive enthusiasts did some repair work, perhaps for a road race or excursion of some sort. It would be exciting to ride a jeep over the slick rocks the whole way to the mighty Colorado. 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] another professor's good name dragged through the mud
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == James Towey, president of my alma mater (St. Vincent College in Latrobe, PA) and formerly the head of Bush's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, recently resigned, after a two-year period of rising, student, faculty, and alumni anger and protest. Towey is an utterly disgusting individual who ran roughshod over faculty, staff, and students. One of the faculty members who was outspokenly opposed to Towey (most of the tenured faculty signed a letter to the Board decrying Towy's administration) was a Benedictine priest and professor of anthropology, Father Mark Gruber. In what looks like an act of retaliation, Towey and his execrable crew of supporters, including the Archabbot Douglas Nowicki and a wretched monk name Campion Gavaler, had the Pennsylvania State Police confiscate Father Mark's computer, telling the police that it contained child pornography. This is not true. Read the story in today's Inside Higher Education for the details: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/30/vincent. I have been involved in alumni efforts to get rid of Towey and Nowicki. In all my years in academe, this is one of the lowest things I have seen. The professor has been denied the right to teach and to say Mass. He has hired a lawyer, however, and put his case to canon lawyers as well. There is every reason to think he will be completely exonerated. The police have refused to bring charges, and the initial Church investigation found no merit to the charges either. But his life is in shambles. It is more than ironic that a super righteous religious zealot like Towey would use child pornograhy charges against an opponent, knowing that this would resonate with so many people, in light of the horrible behavior of so many priests. By the way, before his gig with the Bush administration, Towey was US attorney for the Albanian charlatan, Mother Teresa. 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] blog post: Capitol Reef to Moab
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org (I'll bet there is not another travel essay about southern Utah that includes the words "Marx" and "simple commodity production.") We left Capitol Reef, wishing we could stay longer. The last leg of our trip would take us to one of our favorite haunts—Moab. The drive time is about four hours, but the nice thing about Utah is that the traveling is almost as enjoyable as the destination. There is seldom a boring mile. Most of the trip is along Utah 24, another “scenic byway,” not completely paved until the 1960s. After the Mormons colonized the southeastern part of Utah, in the years following the expedition through the Hole in the Rock, they began to backtrack westward and establish settlements. Some of the land surrounding the Fremont River was suitable for farming and ranching, and communities were formed in Hanksville, Caineville, Torrey, and Fruita. The last one was the most interesting. Founded around 1880 and originally named Junction because it was at the confluence of the river and Sulphur Creek, Fruita (pronounced “froot-uh”) became famous for its fruit trees. The village itself never housed more than a few families, but the orchards helped them to prosper. Utah.com tells us: Though it never comprised more than 300 acres Fruita — originally called Junction — became an important settlement due to its relatively long growing season and abundant water. Settlers from nearby Torrey and Loa — which each have 90-day growing seasons — arrived in Fruita and planted thousands of trees bearing Jonathan, Rome Beauty, Ben Davis, Red Astrachan, Twenty-Ounce Pippin and Yellow Transparent apples, Morpark apricots, Elberta peaches, Bartlett pears, Fellenburg plums, and the Potawatomi plum. Settlers also planted English and black walnuts and almonds. Grape arbors appeared later. The author might have added, but Anglos rarely do, that the Mormons in Fruita took advantage of irrigation paths first constructed by the true first settlers, the indigenous Americans. Most production in Fruita was either consumed domestically or bartered; if money was needed, the fruit could be sold in larger towns such as Richfield. The son of a school teachers at the one-room school that still sits beneath the cliffs that line the river remembers his parents owning a 1924 Chevy. His father was principal at the “big” school in Torrey and drove the car down the dirt road to be with his family in Fruita every weekend. Cash might have been needed for this automobile, though goods could have been traded for it. In either case, the economy of Fruita was what Marx called simple commodity production; at most money was a medium of exchange and the accumulation of capital was not in evidence. It also appears that Fruita was not a diehard Mormon community. There was never an LDS church, and residents don’t seem to have minded an occasional drink or a visit from local outlaws. 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] new blog post: Zion to Capitol Reef
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == That's a pretty fair film review, Louis! Abbey wrote his MA thesis on anarchism and the morality of violence if I am not mistaken. Abbey shows a lot of the best of anarchism. He has written some great stuff on his job as a welfare case worker in New York City. michael yates 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] new blog post: Zion to Capitol Reef
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org Here is the end of the post. I must be having premonitions of death! If you have time for only one hike, we think that a good bet is Chimney Rock/Spring Canyon. This can be a very long hike, and the entire Spring Canyon trek can take a few days. But you can tailor your walking to your time limitations. Traveling west from Torrey on Utah 24, you come to the Chimney Rock trail head on your left, a few miles into the national park but before the visitors’ center. There is a parking lot where the trail begins. You head up a slope and continue on it until you reach the top, overlooking the chimney rock, which, as the name implies, is a freestanding rock formation that looks like a primitive chimney. From the top, there is a good panoramic view Capitol Reef and Boulder Mountain. Most people continue the hike to make a loop back to the starting point, but a better option is to turn off the loop part way down the hill and head toward Spring Canyon. You will most likely be alone from here on; if you want a long hike, it is possible to follow the canyon all the way to the Fremont River on Highway 24, although if you do this, it is wise to have someone waiting for you with a car at the road. We just go as far into the canyon as we like. There are breathtaking cliffs, many side canyons, amazing desert varnish, Swiss cheese holes in the rocks, water (sometimes) from springs, trees, bushes, flowers, deep sand, and ravens sailing through the wind currents. There is something both supremely serene and foreboding here. The quiet envelops you, as if you were the only person on earth. But the helter-skelter pattern of fallen boulders, the ominous cracks in the rocks, the odd angles of some of the cliff walls, the softness of the sandstone, all tell us that the earth was made in chaos and will continue to be randomly shaken by cataclysms indifferent to human beings. Karen says that this canyon makes her think of the earth when it was young. Young and rambunctious. It is a place we always hate to leave. Go there if you can. And if you can’t, listen to the Shaker hymn. Think of the most peaceful and beautiful place in which you have been. Some day when you are too old to drive and too infirm to hike, a special person will take you there. You will lie down and look up at the bluest sky you have ever seen, high above the cliffs of rust and pink, and brown. And you will be glad that you lived. 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] blog post: zion national park
Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org “Zion”: A fortress. An ideal religious community. A sanctuary. A perfect place. Zion National Park is in that part of Utah known as “Dixie.” Brigham Young, looking both to consolidate his earthly empire and to begin cotton production, partly to make up for the lack of cotton fabric brought about by the Civil War, sent colonists into what is now the southwestern corner of the state. Later, Young build a summer home in the region’s largest settlement, St. George, which today is a city of nearly 80,000 people, its rapidly growing population driven in part by warm weather and proximity to Las Vegas. Like most of southern Utah, the landscape in Dixie is dramatic, nowhere more so than in Zion National Park. The great Zion Canyon dominates the park, carved deep into the sandstone by the Virgin River, which flows through the canyon at a very steep decline. The canyon itself is surrounded by sandstone cliffs that reach a height of more than 2,000 feet, making them the highest such cliffs in the world. The first Anglo to enter the canyon was Mormon settler Nephi Johnson. [Nephi is pronounced Neph-eye, and rhymes with Moroni, the angel who gave the golden tablets containing the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith and whose golden image adorns the top of the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City. Nephi is an important character in the Book of Mormon. According to the scriptures, he and his brother Laman came from Israel to the Americas, where they had a kind of Abel and Cain relationship. The followers and descendants of the bad brother, Laman, are called Lamanites. Mormons claimed that the Indians with whom they soon came into contact as they migrated west were Lamanites, no doubt justifying their treatment of native peoples, which included forced separation of Indian children from their parents and adoption and conversion by Mormon families.] Johnson’s Indian guide refused to enter what his people considered a sacred place, but Johnson traveled from the mouth of the canyon perhaps to The Narrows, where the space between the towering cliffs narrows dramatically, at point so small that a hiker can touch both walls with extended arms. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] blog post: interview with mike whitney
Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org This is an interview with me and Fred Magdoff 1. Mike Whitney---In your new book, "The ABCs of the Economic Crisis: What Working People Need to Know", you allude to right wing think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, which promote a "free market" ideology. How successful have these organizations been in shaping public attitudes about capitalism? Do you think that attitudes are beginning to change now that people understand the role that Wall Street and the big banks played in creating the crisis? Michael Yates: Corporate America began to wage what turned out to be a one-sided war against working people in the mid-to late-1970s, when it became apparent that the post-World War Two "Golden Age" of U.S. capitalism was over. As profit rates fell, businesses began to develop a strategy for restoring them. This strategy had many prongs, and one of them was ideological, that is, a struggle for "hearts and minds," to use a military term now being applied to Afghanistan. The presumed failure of Keynesian economics, marked by the simultaneous existence of escalating inflation and unemployment, gave the ideological struggle its foundation. Maybe there had been too many restrictions placed on the market, and these restrictions (minimum wages, health and safety regulations, laws facilitating union organizing in labor markets; public assistance in the form of money grants, housing subsidies, and the like; restrictions on the flow of money internationally) had led to results opposite those that liberal Keynesians had thought most likely. If these complex arguments could be tied to simple cliches, like "get the government off our backs," "the unions have gotten too powerful" (with always a hint that they are too radical thrown into the argument), and "welfare queens" (with that always popular whiff of racism), they could provide ideological cover for what was really a matter of corporate economics, namely the making of money. This ideological attack bore fruit quickly. President Carter appointed Paul Volcker to chair the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and Volcker, under the guise of fighting inflation, immediately began to snuff the life out of working class communities by forcing interest rates up to nearly 20 percent. Today, Volcker is treated like a hero by Democrats and above reproach (though ignored by President Obama’s more right-wing economic advisors), which shows just how far to the right economic discourse has moved. What Carter began, Reagan completed, firing the Air Traffic Controllers and putting the nail in labor’s coffin. Behind the scenes in all of this and growing in strength for the next twenty years (funded by wealthy business leaders) or so were the right-wing think tanks you mention. Just as retired generals go to work for military contractors and defeated politicians become lobbyists, government economic advisors get jobs at Heritage or the American Enterprise Institute or the Cato Institute. The staffs of these ideological centers churn out endless position papers and studies, which find their way into our newspapers and the offices of our congresspersons. A gigantic network of professors, journalists, politicians, lobbyists, and, today, a television network (Fox) bombard us with right-wing propaganda. That all of this has been successful is seen by the fact that the shibboleths of neoliberalism—such as the needs for privatization of public entities, the free reign of markets, the obviousness of the success of welfare reform, the evils of raising the minimum wage—are all commonplaces today. While the public now knows that something is rotten, I am not sure that neoliberal ideas are so under attack that they will lose their sway. I think that the tenacity of these ideas owes something to the lack of an ideological alternative, which, in turn, is due to the abject failure of organized labor to provide one. For example, we need universal health care. Labor, however, has not consistently argued in favor of this or supported it at all. Now Congress is poised to enact healthcare legislation that might well be worse than the profit-driven system we have all come to hate. Labor should refuse to support this legislation, but I doubt it will. Then, when the new healthcare plans fail to deliver the goods, the right-wing will be lying in wait, ready to pounce and say, "See, we told you so. The government always makes things worse." In other words, until there is a radical ideology to replace right-wing thinking, the latter is unlikely to lose its drawing power. Fred Magdoff: Although these institutions were very successful, along with a number of other forces, in shaping public attitudes toward the economy, the reality of the current severe economic condit
[Marxism] Glenn Beck goes after real socialists
I hope Beck keeps this up. Can't hurt MR sales!! Thanks for posting this, Louis. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] New book about the UFW
Miriam Pawel, who wrote a dynamite series on the United Farm Workers union (and its demise into a quasi-racket) when she was a journalist at the Los Angeles Times, has written a book, The Union of Their Dreams -- Power, Hope and Struggle in Cesar Chavez's Farm Worker Union (Bloomsbury Books). Check out her web site, which contains a treasure trove of information about the UFW: www.unionoftheirdreams.com. Miriam was vilifed by the hacks who now run the UFW and its subsidiary money-making schemes, proof positive that she was on to something. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] FW: [E of S] Why NFL OWners Must Flush Rush
Below is a column by Dave Zirin, in my opinion, the best sports journalist in the country. Why NFL Owners Must Flush Rush By Dave Zirin National Football League owners could be on the verge of a catastrophic error in judgment. In a league that is 70 percent African-American, an unapologetic racist is in talks to buy a team. Yes, Rush Limbaugh, along with St. Louis Blues owner Dave Checketts, is close to buying the St. Louis Rams. In his last NFL intervention, the man who claims “talent on loan from God” lasted less than a month as an NFL commentator on ESPN after saying the Philadelphia Eagles' Donavon McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed. Limbaugh said to KMOX radio, "Dave and I are part of a bid to buy the Rams, and we are continuing the process. But I can say no more because of a confidentiality clause in our agreement with Goldman Sachs." So Rush Limbaugh, champion of East Coast elite-bashing, is in financial cahoots with bailout world champion Goldman Sachs. But financial scuzziness aside, Limbaugh's bid must be stopped. The NFL owners have the power to nix any prospective owner, and if they have a shred of conscience in their overfed, underworked bodies, they should collectively veto Limbaugh's joining their exclusive club. This has nothing to do with Limbaugh's conservative politics. Most NFL owners are to the right of Dick Cheney. Over the last twenty years, officials on twenty-three of the thirty-two NFL clubs have donated more money to Republicans than Democrats. Most of them are also anonymous figures on the sports landscape. However, with Limbaugh at the helm, the face of one of the most valuable sports properties in the world would officially be a person who has a history of brazen contempt for people of African heritage. How can the NFL in good conscience embrace an owner who once said , "The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it." In a league that has practiced historic partnerships with the NAACP, how can you have an owner who has said, “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.: In a league with an all-white ownership and a paucity of African Americans in front office positions, how can you have an owner who says, “We didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.” In a league that has long had a mutually beneficial interaction with whoever was occupying the oval office, how can you have an owner who compares the President to a Nazi and says about “ life in "Obama's America" : “The white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on."’ And finally, in a league made up of predominately African-American athletes, how can you have an owner who says , "[Black people] are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?" You might think that NFL players with their nonguaranteed contracts and short shelf life may not be the first people to speak out against Limbaugh. But you'd be wrong. New York Giant Mathias Kiwanuka said in the New York Daily News , "I don't want anything to do with a team that he has any part of. He can do whatever he wants; it is a free country. But if it goes through, I can tell you where I am not going to play." McNabb said in his weekly press conference, "If he's rewarded to buy them, congratulations to him. But I won't be in St. Louis anytime soon." New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott said, "I can only imagine how his players would feel He could offer me whatever he wanted; I wouldn't play for him." In the NFL there has always been one code of conduct for players and one for ownership. Retired player Roman Oben called out the hypocrisy perfe ctly: "Character is a constant point of emphasis for NFL and team officials when it comes to the players; potential owners should be held to the same level of scrutiny and accountability." Oben is absolutely right. In a league where commissioner Roger Goodell constantly drones on about "character," the idea that a prominent bigot could rise to a position of power would be an example of unforgivable hypocrisy. Tell your local NFL owner: you must flush Rush. [Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing d...@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofspo...@gmail.com .] YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/mar
[Marxism] More tragedy and trouble in the Oak Creek country [Sedona, Arizona]
Thanks to Hunter Bear for posting on this tragedy in Sedona. We have been there many times and hike in Oak Creek canyon. Here is something we wrote about a hike we took nearby, with reference to some of the thing metnioned in Hunter Bear's post. A Hike in Sedona by Karen Korenoski and Michael Yates Sedona is a small town about twenty-five miles south of Flagstaff in north central Arizona. USA Weekend recently voted it the "most beautiful place in America." Sedona's setting is stunning. To get there from Flagstaff, you drive down Oak Creek Canyon on a steep and heavily switch-backed road. As the canyon deepens, you are surrounded by rugged rock-cliffed walls, and as you get closer to the town, the canyon opens to vistas of red-rock sandstone buttes, mesas, monoliths, and pinnacles. Fantastic shapes abound: Coffeepot Rock, Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock. The town used to be off the beaten path, known mainly as a setting for Western movies. But it has been discovered by wealthy tourists, sporting enthusiasts, and New Age types. The New Agers arrived in the 1980s, attracted by the "vortexes," magical and mystical places in the red rocks where electrical currents supposedly converge and in which, if you are in the right spot, you might have visions or even experience an out-of-body episode. Today Sedona is visited by four million people each year, and the town is filled with outsized mansions, resorts, hotels, gated condominium complexes, and smart shops. Sedona is a hiking mecca, with trails crisscrossing the landscape in every direction. You can hike up Wilson Mountain and look down on the town from a perch high above the helicopters that take well-heeled tourists sightseeing. You can stroll along the West Fork of Oak Creek, crossing the water several times on stepping stones and ending up in a canyon where you must wade and swim in the stream for miles to continue your hike. You can scamper up the slickrock (so named because it gets slippery when wet) in a hundred locations. If you're adventurous, you can take a hair-raising "Pink Jeep" ride over the seemingly impassable rock- stepped buttes. We have hiked several of Sedona's trails and always had an exhilarating time. This past summer, we spent a month in Flagstaff and drove to Sedona three times to hike. Our last hike there was into Boynton Canyon, a box canyon that ends in a cul-de- sac of multi-hued cliffs. In every beautiful town like Sedona there is a clash between public and private space. There are millions of rich people in the United States, and they want to own as much property as possible. The more desirable the place, the more they want to possess it. Most of Sedona's hiking trails are on publicly-owned land, under the administration of the National Forest Service or a state public land agency. However, public lands have always been available for private development in the United States. They have been used for animal grazing, mining, fishing, lumbering, even ski resorts. Dams on public lands provide the water for our desert cities, like Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. The Forest Service posts a sign that states, "Land of Many Uses." High above Albuquerque, New Mexico, at Sandia Peak, there is a mass of communications towers on public land. The Forest Service calls it a "steel forest." Without irony. On some public lands there are parking, picnic, and concession areas, and these are now routinely contracted out to private companies, which are responsible for maintaining trails, restrooms, and the like and which often charge a not insignificant entrance fee. This incensed us, since we had already purchased a pass giving us permission to use public lands. We were attracted to the Boynton Canyon hike by the description in our hiking guidebook: "This scenic and most visited box canyon in Sedona is also a vortex site. Ruins dot the red sandstone canyon walls. Towering buttes, crimson cliffs, and a quiet trail on the cool canyon floor all add up to magic, vortex or no." This book had never failed us. Each hike had been more spectacular than the last. Our excitement grew as we parked our car at the trail head. We had decided to visit the vortex site first. We walked a short distance along the main path and took a spur trail up to the Boynton Spires and the Kachina Woman monument. It was a clear cool morning; the heat of the day had yet to set in; and the sky was the pure blue color you see only in the desert West. We were admiring the beauty of the rocks and wild flowers as we climbed up the slick surface toward the spires. A sign pointed to the end of this part of the trail, at the top of the boulders. We anticipated a spectacular view of the canyon. But at the crest, i
[Marxism] Blog Post: Whither the National Parks?
Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org In light of the interest in the national parks of the United States generated by Ken Burns' new PBS documentary, I thought that readers might be interested in what I wrote about the parks in my book, Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate: An Economist’s Travelogue. I will have some additional thoughts after I view the entire series. I welcome reader comments. I have placed some new explanatory remarks in brackets. The Addendum provides a sketch of one of the main National Park concessionaires. Whither Our National Parks Between early May and late August [of 2004. Since then, we have been to many more parks and monuments], we visited Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest/Painted Desert, Rocky Mountain, Arches, Canyonlands, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier, Mt. Rainier, and Olympic National Parks, and Walnut Creek, Tuzigoot, Sunset Crater Volcano, Wupatki, Bandelier, and Colorado National Monuments. All are national treasures; each one has scenery as dramatic as most persons will ever see: natural bridges and arches, waterfalls, fantastic canyons, buttes, monoliths, and hoodoos, and astonishing rapids. We were in these parks dozens of times. Seldom were we disappointed; almost always we were exhilarated. It is impossible to see the Balanced Rock and Delicate Arch in Arches, Grand View in Canyonlands, the sand beaches and lush foliage in the Narrows in Zion, the thousand-year-old trees in Rainier’s Grove of the Patriarchs, or the eight-hundred-year-old petrified lava flows at Sunset Crater and not be mindful of the vast indifference of nature and our insignificant part in it. The human world, with its relentless injustices and inequalities, is put in sharp relief and made all the more intolerable. In the face of such beauty, it is surely an unforgivable crime for any society to let its people live in misery. But if the parks are beautiful, they are also the products of the social structures that created them. Yellowstone was our first national park, established in 1872. Already when George Catlin [painter, author, and traveler, 1796-1872] was waxing eloquent about establishing “a magnificent park, where the world could see for ages to come, the native Indian in his classic attire, galloping his wild horse, with sinewy bow, and shield and lance, amid the fleeting herds of elks and buffaloes,” white settlers and the government had begun brutal campaigns to remove the natives from their land. The history of the national parks is marked by systematic and, for the most part, successful efforts to remove indigenous people from them. In Yellowstone, for example, many Indians traversed what is today the park to hunt, but a cornerstone rule in the national parks is that there cannot be any hunting. In some cases the “treaties” entered into by the U.S. government guaranteed the Indian nations traditional hunting rights, but these agreements were routinely broken. (I put treaties in quotes because these treaties were ordinarily faits accomplis made after white settlers had entered and taken possession of land and the government stood ready to ratify this theft by force if necessary.) YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] in search of beethoven/mozart
Thanks to everyone for the many interesting comments about music. I learned a great deal. michael yates YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Blog Post: A Dirty Little Secret in Boulder, CO, with readers' responses.
I have posted our article on restaurant wood smoke (http://counterpunch.org/yates09152009.html) on my blog (http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org). We included an Addendum with comments from readers, including this gem: "I’ve recently read your story, and I can’t help but break out in outright laughter. You people are completely pathetic. MOVE! Your candy ass belly aching underlines the main problem in this country. You expect the whole world to revolve around your personal wants and needs. You move from one town to another, then grouch about city life. By all means, give us a list of how you "need" things to be, and we will completely revamp the WHOLE WORLD to your suiting. YOU want all your modern conveniences, but take no responsibility in how their made. You make me sick. Grab a piece of drift wood, and push yourself out into the Pacific. Do the world a favor. You’re just another example of good medical treatments gone to waste." The last line is in reference to our saying that one of us was recovering from cancer. Michael Yates YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] railroading economics
As the editor or Michael Perelman's fine book, Railroading Economics, I was pleased to see Artesian's perceptive gloss. I definitely give him an A+!! Thanks, I learned some things from your comments. It was good to see a person with a ton of real world experience in the railroad industry bring this experience to us as part of a commentary on a book. I look forward to more as you read more of the book. Michael Yates YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] latest blog post
Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org. Comments welcomed. "Control is the Name of the Game" The writer William Burroughs made the theme of “control” central to his work. He spent most of his life obsessed with the idea that he was under the insidious control of outside forces, and by extension, so were we all. His life can be seen as a quest to free himself from control: through drugs, through Scientology, and, most of all, through writing. There is no doubt that one reason why his works resonate with readers is that Burroughs was on to something important. Unfortunately, however, his diagnosis of the source of control was badly mistaken. Like the American libertarian he was, Burroughs believed that it was the government, which to him represented the forces of collectivization out to subordinate the free individual, that was trying to control us. Thus he was repelled by the socialism of the Soviet Union and even the social democracy of the Scandinavian countries. He feared that the more government there was, the closer we were to the kind of total control represented by fascism. [I might add that Burroughs’s obsession with the individual seems to have translated into an egotism that denied any social responsibility. He was a crack shot, yet he killed his wife with a pistol while playing a “William Tell” game and with a weapon he knew had an inaccurate sight. Then he quickly abandoned his son Billy, who was raised by Burroughs’s parents in Florida. Billy soon enough took to drugs and alcohol, but his father showed little concern. When Burroughs brought a teenage Billy to Tangier, the poor boy was constantly harassed by Burroughs’s gay companions for sex. Ultimately Billy had to have a liver transplant, one of the first performed by the legendary surgeon Thomas Starzl. The new lease on life soon gave way to old habits, and Billy destroyed the new liver as well. He died still a young man. Maybe fatherly concern and love would not have helped the son, but we will never know.] There is good reason to fear the government. Modern states, especially the United States, with its vast military apparatus, have an immense capacity to ruin any individual’s life. Should the U.S. government want me to disappear, I have no doubt that it could easily make this happen. And the U.S.S.R.’s government put dissidents in prisons, mental hospitals, or a grave. But what Burroughs failed to grasp, at least in the case of the United States and all other countries organized economically like it, was that it is the organization of the economy in a capitalist form that is the fountainhead of the control exerted over us and which is the source of our foreboding, our alienation. What makes us human is our self-conscious interaction with non-human nature and with other people who are, of course, a part of nature, as we go about producing that which satisfies our needs and dreams. This production, or work, is fundamental to our being and is the source of our remarkably complex social organization. Our understanding of what we are doing, our grasp that we alone can reshape the world around us and imagine ever more diverse and sophisticated productive activity, gives us not just food, but our art, literature, and science. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] blog post: Support the Troops? No! A Review of The Deserter's Tale by Joshua Key
Full at http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org The United States is the most warlike nation on earth and has been for a very long time. It would take too much space simply to enumerate all of the places where the United States is involved today in wars of one kind or another. Not only are U.S. troops actively fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, but our government has military bases in every part of the globe and CIA and other undercover agents in every country imaginable. Yet to hear our leaders and media pundits tell it, we are a peace-loving country. We are drawn into wars with great reluctance and only because of the bad behavior of others. We are good, and these others are bad, some so bad that they are the incarnation of evil, and it is our duty as the greatest place on earth to rid the world of this depravity. We have military outposts and soldiers in foreign countries only to ensure global security and safety. When the United States goes to war, then, our soldiers are the embodiment of our virtue, knights in shining armor sent forth to do good deeds. Newscasters never tire of celebrating and thanking our "heroes," those brave men and women who are sacrificing—and sometimes making the "ultimate sacrifice"—so that the rest of us can remain free. Neither the notion that the United States is a "peace-loving country" nor the image of our soldiers as "embodiments of our virtue" can stand up to a close look. The facts of U.S. war making and the unsavory motives behind it are easy enough to find. Just read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States for most of the details. Here I want to talk about the troops. Ever since the United States invaded Iraq, we have been admonished by nearly everyone to "support the troops." Even those opposed to the war use this slogan. When we lived in Estes Park, Colorado, we went to a meeting of a local organization called "Patriots for Peace." They were opposed to the war but said that we had to "support the troops." In the discussion that followed the meeting, we discerned an unwillingness by most of the participants to ever say anything negative about U.S. soldiers. If we say that we support the troops, doesn’t this mean that we also support what the troops are doing? If not, then it must mean that we are somehow able to divorce the soldiers as persons from their actions. I don’t see how this is possible. A person cannot be separated from his or her actions. "Actions speak louder than words." "By their fruits ye shall know them." These are cliches, but they are true. There is no other way to judge the troops that to judge their actions. Every year, in honor of my late father, who was indelibly shaped by his experiences in the Second World War, I read a book or two about war. This year I read The Deserter’s Tale by Joshua Key. Key grew up poor in a small Oklahoma town, without a father and a string of violent stepfathers. He learned how to shoot and hunt at a very early age, and he was adept at fighting and fixing things. Army recruiters found their way to the family trailer when he was in high school, but he didn’t join the army until he was in his early twenties. By then he was married with two children and another coming soon. He and his wife couldn’t make enough money to get by, no matter what jobs they took or how many time they moved in search of something better. Their debts began to pile up, mounting to near the breaking point after four trips to the hospital for a kidney stone. In desperation, he and his wife began to think about the military as a way out of their financial mess. The Marines turned him down because he had too many kids and too much debt. The army recruiter, however, saw a warm body who would help him meet his recruiting quota. He told Key how to answer the questions he asked and took a "don’t ask, don’t tell" approach to facts such as Key’s pregnant wife, his two herniated discs, his arrest for hitting a policeman, and his mounting debts. When Key said adamantly that he didn’t want to be separated from his family, the recruiter promised Key that he would get the training he wanted and spend his tour of duty building bridges in the United States, where he would be assigned to a "nondeployable base." Key duly enlisted and soon found out that everything the recruiter told him was a lie. Not long after basic and then specialized training, he was sent to Iraq. He had been taught to make and defuse bombs and mines. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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
