Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Arizona Goes Over the Edge
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Greg McDonald-3 wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18sun3.html Arizona Goes Over the Edge Published: April 17, 2010 The Arizona Legislature has just stepped off the deep end of the immigration debate, passing a harsh and mean-spirited bill that would do little to stop illegal immigration. What it would do is lead to more racial profiling, hobble local law enforcement, and open government agencies to frivolous, politically driven lawsuits. [...] The Arizona bill is another reminder why the administration needs to push for real immigration reform. The failure to address it nationally has left the field wide open for this outrage, and we fear more to come. One explanation is that the capitalists are afraid. Another is they seek to profit from it as well. Some aim to make a buck by filling their private. for-profit prisons with undocumented aliens who will have to somehow pay for their keep. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prisons http://www.abtassociates.com/reports/priv-report.pdf Arizona May Turn Death Row Over to Private Companies http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/us/24prison.html There is no capitalist solution to this problem, mate, progressive or otherwise. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Arizona-Goes-Over-the-Edge-tp28286687p28286730.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] SF hotel workers strike the Hilton
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == nada-6 wrote: Not to defend HERE, but they are run locally by who ever is in charge. I think in SF if there is a serious organizing sentiment among rank and file workers, Local 2 here would attempt to organize them. David It wasn't local. It was to their national office in Washington; to a national organizer. The least she could have done was acknowledge my letter and say that she was too busy with the Elect Obama campaign to pay any serious attention to suffering workers in the South. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--SF-hotel-workers-strike-the-Hilton-tp28177662p28198572.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [microsound] Flash Mobs and Mob Violence
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == From Harper's this fascinating stuff: My crowd: Or, phase 5 http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/03/0080963 From Mediamatters: What if Fox News actually wants mob violence? http://mediamatters.org/columns/20100331 -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Flash-Mobs-and-Mob-Violence-tp28161618p28161618.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Google bans Cubnn blogger
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Stuart Munckton wrote: Google bans Cuban blogger Havana, March 29 (RHC-ACN)-- Internet giant Google INC cut off Cuban writer and essayist Henry Ubieta’s access to his ‘La Isla Desconocida’ (The unknown Island) blog, hosted on Blogger, and blocked his access to his Gmail account. -- “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism “The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker Hacked by Google! Likewise its departure from China; a complete mystery if one discounts the fiction that it was over a freedom of speech issue. Corporations are authoritarian entities within totalitarian capitalism. Their conception of free speech is as narrow as their private interests go, not a dollar more. Ubieta's dilemma is lamentable given the possibility of Google becoming a monopoly. Thanks to your heads up he and what he has to say may not sink into obscurity. Hopefully, he'll soon find a node at which to graft a healthy blog. In Europe it's pointless as he'd be preaching to the converted; in Latin America most forward- thinking people on the net know or have good idea of what Cuba is really all about. Whereas in the U.S. most are totally ignorant about Cuba or, at best, know only the worst aspects of that society (exaggerated and distorted, I'll bet). We are ignorant about Cuba generally and the internet, in the hands of the capitalist class helps reinforce and dis-inform us even further. And not just about Cuba, mind you. From the pop culture media, I remember, we were informed about the revolutionary possibilities of the new internet blogosphere. Were they wrong? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Google-bans-Cubnn-blogger-tp28160222p28160509.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] The next Ngo Dinh Diem?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36178710/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/ Karzai to lawmakers: ‘I might join the Taliban’ Afghan leader made threat twice at closed-door meeting, witnesses say Wasn't Karzai always a Talib? Bush's inside man in the Taliban? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--The-next-Ngo-Dinh-Diem--tp28142562p28145059.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] How Americans are propagandized about Afghanistan
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dennis Brasky-2 wrote: After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid. We have to go much higher in the chain of command, all the way to the top. Former Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush and his deputies should be required to explain how this and many other crimes took place during their watch. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--How-Americans-are-propagandized-about-Afghanistan-tp28144689p28145170.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Bye-bye to the humanities
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: [...] I would much prefer to define our current job-market difficulties as a problem in underdemand rather than oversupply. The facts, however, cannot be denied. After a generation of dithering, we need to act decisively to minimize the damage that our practices are inflicting on thousands of talented young women and men whose aspirations and idealism are jeopardized by our institutional inertia as well as by our laissez-faire, wishful thinking that the job market will simply take care of itself. If we should have learned one lesson from the current financial crisis, it is that all markets need vigilant oversight. Peter Conn is a professor of English and of education at the University of Pennsylvania. Oversight indeed! Shouldn't the task be to shut down the job market by abolishing the commodity status of labor? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Bye-bye-to-the-humanities-tp28139943p28146655.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Remembering [Political Murders in Dixie]
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Hunter Gray-2 wrote: [...] So far, I have not encountered any conspiracy theorist's research and work that was convincing. [...] History is fraught with political assassinations that were later revealed to be the product of conspiracy. One way to narrow down the list of who done it is to establish with some degree of certainty the why of the crime. Who would gain by it? Just because some southern elites at the time of the deed might resent the bad press does not automatically exclude them from the long list of suspects, I think. After all, for almost a century most of them had tolerated the terrorist acts so often directed against southern Negroes by the Klan. Other possible clues to resolving the who done it of the particular crime in question are the circumstance of MLK's visit to Memphis. Why was he there? He was there to speak in the churches attended by striking sanitation workers. A criminal mind--or minds--would reason that nothing better would frighten those striking workers back into submission than to have their spiritual leader killed in plain daylight. Chessboard mentality, I think. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Remembering--Political-Murders-in-Dixie--tp28133436p28136935.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] My youtube maiden voyage
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Tom Cod wrote: try getting the audio and video in sync. The Jeff Sommers talk recorded with my Panasonic had no problems. My introduction was recorded with Macbook's Photo Booth. I should add that Eli Stephens has been helping me get up to speed and I appreciate it very much. I am glad that he hasn't held my potshots against the PSL against me, a sign of a true communist. Look for a cheap or used copy of Premiere 6.5 or lower. Some of them still work well with the newer PC operating systems. With Mac they all work, god bless 'em. Or any other program in which you can split the audio and video streams and slide them back and forth if need be. For free software that helps resolve audio and video editing problems check out this web resource: http://www.doom9.org -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--My-youtube-maiden-voyage-tp28129395p28130442.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] socialist educational conference April 17-18
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Christine Gauvreau wrote: EAST COAST SOCIALIST EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE, APRIL 17-18 HOSTED BY SOCIALIST ACTION AT THE FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH, 2125 CHESTNUT ST., PHILADELPHIA Pinky the Cat visits the Radical Education Collective in Slovenia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_KD-5KhLfQ -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--socialist-educational-conference-April-17-18-tp28119010p28119048.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] US Manufacturing sector expansion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == brad bauerly wrote: I think the crisis is officially over. For whom? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--US-Manufacturing-sector-expansion-tp28112037p28114466.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Eric Foner on Twisting History in Texas
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dennis Brasky-2 wrote: By Eric Foner --- Clearly, the Texas Board of Education seeks to inculcate children with a history that celebrates the achievements of our past while ignoring its shortcomings, and that largely ignores those who have struggled to make this a fairer, more equal society. I have lectured on a number of occasions to Texas precollege teachers and have found them as competent, dedicated and open-minded as the best teachers anywhere. But if they are required to adhere to the revised curriculum, the students of our second most populous state will emerge ill prepared for life in Texas, America and the world in the twenty-first century. Another instance of micro-revisionism. My guess is that even if it succeeds in Texas it will fail to be a standard for the entire country because many other states will not do it out of fear of local repercussions. Large and influencial sectors of this country have become too diverse over the last 50 years for such a scheme to succeed country-wide. However, it may succeed in fragmenting the educational system nationally. That is, unless the state steps in through its USDOE http://www.ed.gov/ and does its job. I mean, isn't there a national education standard in the U.S? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that every state of the Union has laws requiring each and every parent to send their children to a school; public, private or home-schooling. In exchange the federal government provides billions of dollars annually to subsidize the building and maintenance of schools locally and helps, I dare guess, pay teachers' salaries though rebates and such. To deliberately expunge important educational information for the purpose of denying our children the ability to become better citizens and better workers should be considered a violation of their civil rights. Those Texas reactionary intellectuals who wish to re-write their kids' textbooks to hide the truth or revise history seem to forget that. They forget that however imperfect, corrupt and inefficient it may be, the capitalist state can still be used by an injured citizenry to put them in their place. Texas has large population of Native Americans, Hispanics and Africans. A class action suit brought against the Texas school board in their behalf would probably help bring temporary redress and establish an edifying precedent. I hope the federal and state courts become busy (once again) over this issue. BTW, the Texas schoolbook depository metaphor is funny and illuminating. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Eric-Foner-on-Twisting-History-in-Texas-tp28116018p28116176.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] What is the biggest flaw in the labor
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Vladimiro Giacche' wrote: In my opinion the LTV it's neither boring nor difficult to explain to common people (for postmodernist intellectuals things can be different, but I wouldn't care too much of it...). Agreed, but the question is a loaded one that invites derision, not serious speculation. The biggest flaw in the LTV? For the purpose of revolutionary education of workers, the Marxian Law of Value is flawless and priceless. Whence do wages come, and whence profits? What you now stand in need of, aye, more than of bread, is the knowledge of a few elemental principles of political economy and of sociology. Daniel De Leon, What Means This Strike? http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/wm_strike.pdf -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Re%3A--Marxism--What-is-the-biggest-flaw-in-the-labor-tp28093029p28094106.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] El camino hasta la autogestion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Daniel Koechlin wrote: El proletariado, si sigue manipulado por comunistas burocráticos, no cumplirá su papel histórico de emancipar a todas las clases sociales, ya que la burocracia se constituiría así en la nueva clase dominante, si las productoras y productores no ejercen plenamente su auto-poder mediante órganos de democracia directa, si el pueblo delega su misión política en las burocracias, no será nada. Para lograr la victoria, necessitamos que todo el poder sea a las asambleas: nadie debe decidir por el pueblo ni usurpar sus funciones con el profesionalismo de la política; la delegación de poderes no deberá ser permanente sino no burocrática, con personas elegibles y revocables por las asambleas en cualquier momento. ¿Donde ubicas estas asambleas? ¿Que función tienen, mas allá de elegir a los delegados o representantes? ¿Ademas del poder de revocación democrático, que mecanismos sociales o políticos existirían para prevenir que los órganos de dirección central se conviertan en instrumentos de dominación burocráticas? La transición al socialismo requiere la abolicion de el capitalismo y de el estado politico mas o menos simultanea. Digo mas o menos porque seria posible y hasta necesario mantener temporalmente alguna forma de gobierno político para defender la revolución. http://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/works/1913/130120.htm -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--El-camino-hasta-la-autogestion-tp28102672p28103531.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] The awful truth about Social Democracy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S. Artesian wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I've overposted, but I just have to answer this one: The Marxian Law of Value, I think, is the keystone upon which all other Marxian assumptions rest. It's the theory that helps explain the division of labor's product, the accumulation of capital and the class struggle, among other things. Take it out and the entire edifice of Marxian socialism collapses. __ 1.How does the law of value come into being? How is it created? The MLV is a theory that explains the accretion and division of use and exchange values created by the social relationship of owners and salaried or wage workers in the context of a society ruled to some extent by the institutions of private property and profit. More? Okay, the MLV is not the thing itself but the abstract, analytical description of of the thing. That is, the various phenomena that take place during, before and after the economic interaction between salaried employee and propertied business person. 2. Does the law of value exist universally and eternally, or is it historically specific to a certain social organization of labor? No. I mean yes. I mean no and yes. You know what I mean, I guess. 3. Does the law of value produce capitalists and proletarian, or does the organization of these classes produce the law of value? It's the chicken and the egg question that always gets me! Damn your eyes! Have you ever watched a chicken lay an egg? I mean, right there, in front of your eyes? Did you observe how her tiny little puckerhole widened and distended to horrendous proportions just to let out a fragile, white--almost translucent--container with an embryo inside of it? That's when you realize who came first, sir. 4. What is the essential condition for private property to become capital? That it be utilized for the production and reproduction of new use and exchange values and surplus values by the direct and indirect application of mental or physical labor which, in themselves, are or become values. What is necessary for labor to appear as wage-labor. Wages? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--The-awful-truth-about-Social-Democracy-tp28074046p28091661.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] What is the biggest flaw in the labor theory of value?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Emrah ER wrote: What is the biggest flaw in the labor theory of value? Only one thing: It's boring. Boring and too difficult to explain to intellectuals. Okay, two things. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--What-is-the-biggest-flaw-in-the-labor-theory-of-value--tp28090281p28091728.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] unions again
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Daniel Koechlin wrote: Post-industrial Western society in no way resembles 1914 Russia. Instead of building minuscule parties of the working-class, we should all help build powerful industrial unions of the working class. Elections are a farce, class war is the true state of affairs. And the corporate elites think they have won the class war. They can have Chinese and Bangladeshi workers produce clothes, Western consumers buy them and get green labels for their contribution to protecting the environment. There are no opponents. They can siphon off 90% of the surplus value and play the financial markets. There are no opponents. They will turn as green as spinach (like McDonalds) in order to remain in business. They will rationalize production, they will shed (like a snake) a third of the work-force, they will invest billions (Pepsi invests 1$ billion) in advertising. According to OECD statistics, only 17% of workers are unionized. According to an OECD poll, 64% of workers would like to join a union but are afraid of the negative consequences this would entail. Who is winning ? The capitalists ! True, but the class struggle is not over by a long shot. Okay, so there's no party out there to fully represent working class interests on the political front, nor a large (or even small) worker's union that will harness their latent power. Still, it doesn't mean (at least to me) that the class struggle is over or that the capitalist class has won it. Between the working class and the capitalist class, there is an irrepressible conflict, a class struggle for life. No glib-tongued politician can vault over it, no capitalist professor or official statistician can argue it away; no capitalist parson can veil it; no labor faker can straddle it; no “reform” architect can bridge it over. It crops up in all manner of ways, like in this strike, in ways that disconcert all the plans and all the schemes of those who would deny or ignore it. It is a struggle that will not down, and must be ended, only by either the total subjugation of the working class, or the abolition of the capitalist class. http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/wm_strike.pdf We are not yet totally subjugated, comrade. BTW, please tell us what YOU think is the purpose and objective of a powerful industrial union of the working class and why you think such a thing is still possible in spite of the ever-worsening condition of the proletariat? What should be its founding principles? That workers fear the negative consequences of attempting to unionize is understandable, given the din and power of negative and deceitful propaganda against unionism that's out there. But what about the negative consequences of not attempting to unionize? Does anybody ever talk about that? Is anyone pointing out to us that when a workers' union fails to acknowledge or abandons the class struggle in principle and practice it removes the force that animates it? Besides the potential gains and benefits of organizing around proletarian principles, what's the downside to not organizing? Is anyone besides yourself discussing that? Intervention and Union Work http://www.slp.org/pdf/mbrmtrls/intervention.pdf -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--unions-again-tp28074530p28076747.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] The awful truth about Social Democracy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Gary MacLennan wrote: Nevertheless the dialectic moves in mysterious ways and hopefully the ruling class are about to discover that the hard way. Thanks to Rosa Lichtenstein's deconstruction of dialectics and its advocates, I've come to abjure dialectics as mystical bullshit. Your statement goes a long way in helping me see the soundness of my decision. http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/index.htm -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--The-awful-truth-about-Social-Democracy-tp28074046p28076845.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] The awful truth about Social Democracy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S. Artesian wrote: Rosa is an ignoramus who hasn't read Marx, except for the preface to Vol 1, and she distorts that. Her methodology is 3Ds and an S: denial, distortion, disavowal and sophistry. Ask her any thing about the labor process, about the relationship of wage-labor to capital, about the accumulation of capital and the tendency of the rate of profit to decline and all you get back is how she doesn't have to do that, because Marx did it for us. And right she is! What else could puny Rosa add to something that more clever people than her have pretty much sewn up and bagged? Also, I would think that any proponent of dialectics would be more eager to debate the mysterious ways of dialectics with an Anti-dialectics than the boring topic of declining rates of profit, no? Strange. Why is that, that lack of response significant? Because those are the issues where dialectic resides; because that's the transposition of the dialectic from Hegel's spirit to the actual social organization of labor that Marx executes. As I understand it, Marx's investigations into capitalist economic relations rely on the materialist conception of history, not on some mystical mumbo-jumbo of thesis, antithesis, etc. It's the materialist conception of history, applied to the arithmetic of capitalism and its social evolution, I believe, that places Marxism firmly in the realm of science, where it belongs. It's not a philosophy of logic Marx is deploying, it's the analysis of the real content of history. What is this real content of history, please? Or are you saying that just to bewitch me, oh Wizard? She's a total phony. If I had known that my previous comment on a silly statement would elicit abuse of a person of the left that isn't here to defend herself I would have kept it to myself. No matter. It is a well known fact that it's not just the capitalists and their minions who prefer to insult and belittle those who would dare disagree with them. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--The-awful-truth-about-Social-Democracy-tp28074046p28078067.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [microsound] Taking Hostages
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == [T]he bourgeois of our days considers himself the legitimate successor to the baron of old, who thought every weapon in his own hand fair against the plebeian, while in the hands of the plebeian a weapon of any kind constituted in itself a crime. Senate Plays Game Of Chicken With Unemployment Benefits http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/25/senate-begins-game-of-chi_n_513620.html -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Taking-Hostages-tp28037768p28037768.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Another view of the health care legislation
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S. Artesian wrote: No, things have gotten worse for me as they have for almost everybody who isn't a bourgeois. I'm just one of those people who doesn't think that supporting the bourgeoisie, and their band aid legislation, makes it better. Doesn't mean I support ending unemployment benefits... just means that supporting bourgeois legislation regarding unemployment benefits, healthcare, investment, is not a winning tactic, effective strategy, or programmatic vehicle for actually eliminating poverty and immiseration. We are not, and should not, support bourgeois legislation. Marx wrote that the first principle of our party is not a farthing for this government. I think he meant what he said. Capitalist reforms are concealed measures of reaction, as KM correctly pointed out. Some reforms are, as in this case, I think, grudging concessions to the working class at times when the class struggle heats up. No single reform or set of reforms can ever topple capitalism or abolish any of it's industries in favor of the working class. That is, as long as they hold the principles of private property and profit inviolate and sacrosanct. That said, though, history has shown that ruling class reaction can spiral out of control precipitating exactly what it aimed to contain. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Another-view-of-the-health-care-legislation-tp28018367p28038224.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Union and party
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Daniel Koechlin wrote: There must be no separation between workers' union and political party. That was what caused the failure of the 2nd International and 3rd International. And look where that led them. Russia ? China ? Policy (internal and international) should be decided by workers themselves. The idea that union and party are two separate entities, the former being subordinate to the later, is a typically ruling elite idea. Let great thinkers come up with a Socialist utopia, while workers are confined to listening respectfully. Workers are incapable, or so Leninist thinking goes, of understanding the ins and outs of national policy. They need a Party of intellectuals to guide them. I am not against a party (a bunch of people) trying to convince people, but WITHIN A TRADE UNION. And openly. Be they Trotskyist or Maoist, as long as they hate bosses. The working class's aim is emancipation. I know that many people will denigrate the importance of strikes and organizing unions of the working class, and prefer building a party. GOod luck to them ! As I see it, workers should move beyond trades unionism onto class-wide industrial unionism; a type of unionism that encompasses all useful trades and occupations. Also, as I think you imply in your statement, the final goal of that unionism must be to take, hold and democratically operate the industries of the land and, intimately, the world. Where does this leave the political branch of the working class? Safely, I suppose, where it can be hacked off when it no longer serves any useful purpose to a newly re-organized society. Daniel De Leon had much to say in this respect (DDL was a co-founder of the original IWW in Chicago back in 1905). His few remaining political heirs are still advocating this approach albeit in a dimmer voice of late. It's something like a John the Baptist act; preaching in the wilderness. http://www.slp.org -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Union-and-party-tp27993933p27999804.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Subscribing to Harper's and the Nation
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: Not long after I left the SWP in 1979, I took out subscriptions to the Nation Magazine and Harpers. The Harpers subscription has been renewed continuously since then while I have let the Nation subscription lapse twice. [...] I conjecture that even Harper's has had its low points, throughout its long existence. In the early eighties I subbed it for at least a year and it seemed to me that it was convulsed by some literary or philosophical controversy that drew in the likes of John Gardner. I believe it was around the time of Panic Among The Philistine http://www.harpers.org/archive/1981/09/0024638 What it was all about I cannot remember as I was stupider then than I am now and because I can't access it from the archives of that great magazine. In fact, it might have been that article that made me sub to it, but I don't really remember. Also, I was first attracted to the SLP from a tiny ad at the back of Harper's that read What Is Socialism? The crosswords and anagrams, although full of interesting clues are Chinese to me. Pity, no? Anyway, I sure hope they get past their present difficulties if for no other reason that I love to read Scott Horton's essays. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Subscribing-to-Harper%27s-and-the-Nation-tp27910037p27912838.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [microsound] Glenn Beck, 'Social Justice' Liberation Theology
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Should a class conscious world-wide socialist movement ever gets under way, can religious people, lay and ordained alike, have a significant and edifying role in it? As you likely know, Glenn Beck went after religion the other day, inciting a chorus of protest from various sectors, including some conservative and liberal religious professionals. He coupled 'social justice' doctrines preached in many sects with evil Communism and Fascism. So far, none of Beck's detractors I've read, heard or seen has defended communism from the implied slur against it. In this, they play it safe while ceding considerable ground to Beck. I presume that most of you reading this understand that communism and fascism are irreconcilably and diametrically opposed the one to the other. I would argue that even Soviet 'communism', in spite of its apparent similarities with Fascism, was ideologically and in practice a world away from National Socialism. But this is a tangent, really It would be more interesting (to me, at least) to discover if Marxian Socialism owes anything to Judaism and Christianity. From the SLP I learned that the early Christian church had organized itself under a system of common ownership, as illustrated in the Acts of the Apostles. I suppose that in those days any viable form of communism meant a more or less equal partnership in a subsistence economy. Vows of poverty, once so common in most major religions, especially Christianity, perhaps became doctrine as a result of this realization. Anyway, my beef with this latest Glenn Beck flap started out because I expected someone, anyone, of his public detractors to point out that Liberation Theology has been largely accepted by at least one of the major branches of Christianity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Theology -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Glenn-Beck%2C-%27Social-Justice%27---Liberation-Theology-tp27898399p27898399.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] follow-up on Communists and Nazis
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == [...] Radek's lunacy struck a chord with the German Communist ultraleftists who went even further in their enthusiasm for the right-wing fighters. Ruth Fischer gave a speech at a gathering of right-wing students where she echoed fascist themes: [...] full: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/organization/comintern_and_germany.htm Is this the same Karl Radek that described Fascism as the iron hoop that keeps capitalism's 'barrel' from collapsing? Is that quote post or pre Nazi infatuation? Maybe he and others thought that the working class elements within the Fascist movement at the time in Germany could somehow be seduced into working class consciousness of the socialist kind by using racist rhetoric? This feeds my long-held paranoia that there was a bit of anti-Semitism in Stalin and his cohorts especially during their conspiracy against Trotsky. You're right, though: Lunacy, to think that fascism, already formed, can be co-opted or defeated with anything but violence. A 'baseball bat', in Woody's parlance. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--follow-up-on-Communists-and-Nazis-tp27855140p27858620.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] calling all rebels
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S. Artesian wrote: [...] So can we talk to any or any number of individuals and persuade them? Maybe and maybe not. But to do that requires that we separate them for the social movement, from the tea partiers, and we can only do that through merciless criticism and opposition. The path to unity is, I believe, positive consensus building. A model, if you will, of what we want in a post-capitalist democracy: A more perfect union, maybe? From personal experience I find that 'Merciless criticism' and 'opposition' can be helpful only when a common, fraternal bond has already been established. Otherwise it may result in further alienation, I think. Even so, merciful behavior, especially toward one's opponent (the Bible says 'enemies', I think) is still considered a virtue among most of the world's peoples. It probably boils down to a question of compassion and empathy as ways to bridge or abolish the alienation ideological differences. Erich Fromm talks a lot about this in his books and essays and even suggests areas in which Marx offered important insights into this very subject. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Calling-all-rebels-tp27821693p27858927.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Chushingura; Harakiri
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: The figure of the ronin, or unemployed samurai, is a staple of Japanese movies that received its most celebrated treatment in Akira Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo” and “The Seven Samurai”. Recently I saw two movies made in 1962—both available from Netflix—that offered starkly contrasting views of their ronin heroes, suggesting as a corollary alternative takes on Japanese culture and values. read full review: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/chushingura-harakiri/ Along with Seven Samurai, two of my favorite Jidaigeki films. In 'Harakiri' Tetsue Nakadai, I think, is unrecognizable from all the other characters he plays in the films I've seen. Kagemusha and Ran are prime examples. It seems to me that in Harakiri Kobayashi was able to successfully adapt the Italian neo-realist visual style to Jidakei, though Kurasawa had already achieved that some years before in Seven Samurai and 'To Live', in Gendaigeki. Chusingura, is most excellent even if overly-melodramatic. In my estimation its epic style and scope is at a par with Lean's 'Lawrence of Arabia'. My favorite part is when the young lord tries to fit in during the Shogun's emissaries visit' while the old, greedy lord conspires his downfall. The interiors are magnificent and the shots evoke the gorgeous watercolors I've seen on the net depicting the story. Thanks, Louis, for reminding me of this great cinema! -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Chushingura--Harakiri-tp27829141p27829945.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] self-portrait of classic American artist (patti smith's excellent communist song)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Pat Costello wrote: [...] Vengeful aspects became suspect and bending low as if to hear and the armies ceased advancing because the people had their ear and the shepherds and the soldiers lay beneath the stars exchanging visions and laying arms to waste / in the dust in the form of / shining valleys where the pure air / recognized and my senses / newly opened I awakened / to the cry Echoes of William Blake. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Re%3A--Marxism--self-portrait-of-classic-%22American-artist%22-%28patti-smith%27s-excellent-communist-song%29-tp27415158p27416267.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Self-service at CVS
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: The CVS across the street has installed self-service check-out machines. This is apparently the latest trend in the retail industry to cut costs and boost profits. Of course, when they can clerks, that's a loss of buying power. It is especially galling to have to basically do work for free when I check myself out at CVS. Here's a blog article from Solidarity on this: http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/2350 Self-checkouts and other capitalist inconveniences Submitted by Nick on August 20, 2009 - 12:52pm Anyone who’s been to a supermarket within the past couple of years is undoubtedly familiar with the horrible phenomenon of “self-checkout” machines. [...] The past couple of years? Longer, I think; Automats, certain phone exchanges and ATMs being the earlier examples that I can recall (though the Automat had people behind the coveys constantly feeding sliced pie, sandwiches and coffee as needed and someone out front to clean up after messy people). It's true, though: The trend towards automation has become almost irresistible and the complete mechanization of consumption may be part of it. I have a slight problem with some of the language in the article. I think that customer is another way of saying consumer, a term I consider, sociologically imprecise and misleading to anyone needing or aspiring to greater working class consciousness. Ralph Nader once came to my school to address us and I intended to ask him about the use of the consumer label so prevalent in his discourse but I had to leave for a class before the talk was over. Pity. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Self-service-at-CVS-tp27392731p27398936.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [microsound] Interview With Thomas Ferguson, Part 1 of 3
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Not long but interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4RN2x_7XocNR=1 -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Interview-With-Thomas-Ferguson%2C-Part-1-of-3-tp27297464p27297464.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [microsound] A Modest Proposal By The WIIU
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Draft Economic Platform of the WIIU Submitted by Detroit WA The Workers' International Industrial Union has a vision for the kind of future we want and need. But to get there, we have to fight for the common interests of all working people, both in the immediate and long term. We support any demands or policies that represent the genuine interests of working people, even if they are partial or piecemeal, as a means of improving the rights and livelihoods of our brothers and sisters, and providing a greater breathing space in which the revolutionary industrial union movement can organize for the political struggle against the employing classes. To that end, the WIIU advocates and fights for the following: 1. The reduction of the normal workweek to a maximum of six hours a day, five days a week, including time for participation in unions, workplace committees and assemblies, without loss of pay or benefits. Reduction to four hours a day, four days a week, without loss of pay or benefits and including time for participation, for dangerous or particularly demanding jobs. 2. Double-time pay for all hours worked over the normal workweek and over six hours a day. Prohibition of mandatory overtime and the provision of one hour off with pay for every two hours of overtime worked in a week. Uninterrupted weekly break of not less than 60 hours for all workers. 3. A minimum weekly wage of US$560 or living wage equivalent, whichever is higher, properly adjusted and tied, on a non-deflationary basis, to the cost of living. Raising of unemployment benefits to the minimum wage. Similar adjustments for all other non-executive remunerations and benefits. 4. The right of all working people, including enlisted personnel in the military, to organize themselves into unions and workplace committees in defense of their rights and interests. The right of the unemployed to organize into unions and similar economic organizations. Abolition of all laws against the right to organize, collectively bargain and strike. Abolition of laws that restrict the rights of labor unions and working people. 5. Prohibition of the use of prison labor for profit, as a supplemental or replacement workforce, or in other ways that undermine the position of the working class. Any prison labor must be meaningful, paid at a level consistent with equivalent non-prison labor, and the programs developed in coordination with appropriate unions, workers’ councils or assemblies. 6. All labor unions to be fully independent from the state, including free from state oversight and harassment. All officials in labor unions, from shop steward to the executive president, directly elected and recallable at any time. No union official to be paid more than the average wage of their membership. Revolutionary industrial unionism to be encouraged and promoted over craft unionism. 7. All decision-making and determination bodies for labor boards to be composed of a 50- percent minimum of workers. All decision-making and determination bodies for social welfare agencies to be composed of a 50-percent minimum of benefits recipients. 8. All social welfare benefits to be raised to the above minimum wage. Retirement pensions to be guaranteed by the state and paid out at the same rate the retiree made when they were working or the minimum wage, whichever is higher. 9. Free job training and retraining programs, under the control of unions, workers’ councils or assemblies, open to any working person. Such programs may be developed in conjunction with educational institutions. Funding for expansion of apprenticeship programs organized and controlled by labor unions. 10.Prohibition of mandatory retirement ages and economic restrictions on older workers. The right to retire for all workers after 30 years of continuous employment, regardless of specific occupation, and after 25 years if working in dangerous or particularly demanding jobs. 11. Mandatory price freezes on all staple goods and services. Massive penalties, up to and including seizure of all assets, for companies violating price regulations. Price freezes and a one-year payment moratorium on all rental properties. Cancellation of all mortgage debts below US$100,000. The above provisions can aid in giving workers as individuals a breathing space, but they do not address the inherently socially-unequal conditions that exist under capitalism. To begin any meaningful removal of the economic shackles that capitalist society places on working people, additional measures, which seek to transform the whole of the economy, are necessary. To that end, the WIIU advocates and fights for the following: 1. A heavily graduated and progressive income tax structure. Abolition of all tax loopholes and breaks for
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Dan LaBotz: What happened to the American working class?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: http://www.newpol.org/fromthearchives?nid=179 The class struggle is right there, palpable--at least to me--in every aspect of my life and those I know and love. Often, just in casual conversation, I detect it from people with whom I share only about 40 hours a week producing something useful. The class struggle is everywhere capitalism exists, as in earlier eras, like the Holy fucking Spirit. The easy explanation, I think, to the inattention and mental weakness of the U.S. working class in regards to the class struggle would be to blame it all on the mass media's attention-grabbing powers. I put a spell on you, 'cause you mine! I'll not deny the role it plays in seducing our minds with the opium of glamorous consumption, etc., but I'm not sure that its power is absolute and I presume that there must be other, equally important and powerful social forces at work shaping the WC's conceptions and conditioning their reaction to the struggle between themselves and their employer. The working class in the U.S. is very diverse. You, Louis, living in NYC, know this very well. (And yes, motherfuckers, I believe that NYC is the city most representative of the American reality, and a somewhat lamentable role model to many parts of the world, I'll admit.) I conjecture that the diversity of the U.S. working class influences the way in which each sector perceives its experience in the class struggle. Assuming this is correct, perhaps a cultural anthropologist could explain and illustrate the variety of ways in which ethnically and culturally different working class Americans experience class antagonism. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Dan-LaBotz%3A-What-happened-to-the-American-working-class--tp27291469p27292294.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] 1st international
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Mark Lause wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The loegality and lack of legality about these things is meaningless. The smaller group throwing out the larger group and claiming that it was larger illegally addresses nothing politically. Notwithstanding a brilliant critique of capitalism and a clear view of where humanity needed to move, Marx had very little idea of how best ot go about organizing a movement. For this reason, aspects of the history of the IWA read like lessons in self-imolation. The most tragic real result has left much unsettled between those who call themselves socialists and those who call themselves anarchists...and the creation of a mode of discussion that allows them to talk past each other in many cases. Those who talk past each other probably haven't defined their terms in ways their interlocutors can understand. I know I've been guilty of that on many occasions. Pity, no? On the legality issue, I fall strongly on the side of the law. The new law, that is. Capitalism must be made illegal; we need a new law to make it so. Only a revolution can enact such a law. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--1st-international-tp27259156p27283699.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] The Hypocrisy of Corporate Personhood
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Michael Perelman wrote: [...] during the height of the scandal regarding Enron's multibillion dollar frauds, a Wall Street Journal opinion piece entitled, Corporations Aren't Criminals, noted: Under the common law, a corporation could not be guilty of a crime because it could not possess mens rea, a guilty mind (Baker 2002). Sadly, the author was correct -- at least in so far as the current courts are concerned. In the eyes of some judges, the law goes even further than ruling that corporation that violate the law lack a guilty mind. They insist that corporate managers, who should possess a mens rea, have an ethical responsibility to violate the law when doing so will prove profitable for stockholders. For example, Frank H. Easterbrook and Daniel R. Fischel, the former a federal judge as well as a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago School of Law, wrote: The recent USSC decision seems to have included unions. That is, whatever goes by the name of organized labor these days. So, I assume, under that and possibly many other laws, the union is considered a corporation whose 1st amendment rights may not be abridged, right? I'm okay with that. Now, suppose one day a significant number of the working class comes together to form a big union and that union decides and manages to physically take over all the capitalist enterprises in which it was organized--expropriating its private owners-- and threatened to force itself upon all the other capitalist concerns, would it too be able to claim, under the law, that it was acting from a lack of a guilty mind? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--The-Hypocrisy-of-Corporate-Personhood-tp27282900p27283815.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] 1st international
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Mark Lause wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 12:50 AM, New Tet cchrist...@bellsouth.net wrote: On the legality issue, I fall strongly on the side of the law. The new law, that is. Capitalism must be made illegal; we need a new law to make it so. Only a revolution can enact such a law. The context of my comment was about whether Marx had legally thrown his opponents out of the IWA. My point was that an organizational resolution of the problem was not a political resolution of it. You're right, thank you. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--1st-international-tp27259156p27283882.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Liberal disgust with Obama
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S. Artesian wrote: No personal offense intended, but who gives a rat's ass about what liberals think of Obama? Positive, negative-- same-same [...] I do. And I try to compare the language of their own expectations and disappointments against mine. In trying to explain to a YouTube friend why I was determined to vote for Obama after nearly twenty years of abstention, I wrote, ...at the very least, I'd like to see proven once and for all time that in the U.S. a black person is just as capable of fucking up as any other person in the White House. I hope that for every disappointed Obama supporter that turns reactionary or extremist another is produced whose disillusion leads them to more radical thinking and acting. BTW, what's up with the card-check bill? Is that dead as well? Was it riding on the health care fiasco? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Liberal-disgust-with-Obama-tp27265612p27266467.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Liberal disgust with Obama
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S. Artesian wrote: To New Tet: You voted for Obama just to show that a black US man could fuck-up just like a white US man? I understand the sentiment, but it's only that-- a sentiment, an indulgence. Yes, indeed; that's why I said at the very least. Let me ask you how's that working out for you? Do you think you've accomplished the goal, and we have a black man who has proven himself capable of fucking up as much as a white man? And exactly what will that, has that accomplished? You HOPE there will be a zero-sum effect? That for every reactionary, we get a radical? Doesn't work that way, comrade, not even a little bit. If it did, the revolution would have taken place a long time ago. Okay, how about half a radical for every liberal renegade that Obama produces? Sound better? My ruminations on this matter are purely speculative, that's why I wrote I hope. How's that working out for the working class as a whole? Would you recommend doing it again-- I mean after all there have been a lot more white US men fucking up in the White House than our first and only so far black US man-- not to mention all the white women, black women, Hispanic men, Hispanic women, gay white men, gay black men, gay black women, gay white women that might demand equal time in the White House, and make equal claims on your vote? It's been done, I think. Many capitalist governments throughout the world already enlist the aid of an enormously diverse population at almost every level (especially here in the U.S.) and look how fucked up their economic system is! In my mind, the presidency, as a government job, is special, though. Unlike most other elected and non-elected government posts it is surrounded by an almost mythic aura created, I suppose, by able propagandists and kept alive by popular ignorance and gullibility. The point of my speculation that a black president could do no better that all the white ones that preceded him/her Isn't all you are really doing is playing a variation on the old Let's make it worse, so it has to get better ploy? I hadn't thought of it that way but, since you mention it, let me say that as long as revolutionary ideas remain the exclusive intellectual possession of a tiny minority of workers and their allies, I'll continue to believe that sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. Card check was dead months ago. Okay, thanks. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Liberal-disgust-with-Obama-tp27265612p27269309.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Victor Navasky's foolish illusions from about a year ago
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: Nation Magazine, February 2, 2009 Seeking Obama's Center Comment By Victor Navasky As I listened to Obama's inaugural address, although I harbored no illusions about the difficult task ahead, I felt that I was swimming in a sea of happiness, as I heard him gently but firmly declare the country's liberation from the past (rejecting as false the Bush administration's notion that national security is incompatible with constitutional liberty)[...] For some years now I too have thought that constitutional liberty and national security are incompatible. Does that make me a Bushie? I think it's wrong to conflate national security (as defined by the requirements of a nation state) with safety and constitutional liberty (as defined and administered by the capitalist class) with freedom. They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. --B. Franklin -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Victor-Navasky%27s-foolish-illusions-from-about-a-year-ago-tp27248555p27253781.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Freya von Moltke, Part of a Core of Nazi Resistance, Is Dead at 98
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Shane Mage wrote: In this thread there seems to be a consistent meme: Progressive Berlin versus Reactionary Vienna. Technologically that seems justified--Hitler and his V2 rockets, without which we wouldn't yet have the satellites by which this communication has become possible, sprung from Hohenzollern Berlin, not Habsburg Vienna. Historically, though, capitalist technological progress since Bismark has been destructive of the workingclass movement which Marx and Engels (correctly, IMO) identified as the sole social force capable of achieving real historical progress instead of advanced technological barbarism. There however is another type of human progress: the permanent advancement of the cultural and spiritual endowment of mankind. And here there is absolutely no contest. Berlin has given virtually nothing (Hegel is the sole exception) to our cultural and spiritual heritage. No city has given more than Vienna. I doubt it. Italy, almost alone, brought civilization to the region now occupied by Vienna. And to Italy the Greeks, among others. From mercantile Venice, Florence and Milan sprung cultural and spiritual treasures about which Vienna could only later wax lyrical. From London and points south came men of letters an wit that transcended their age. Is Shakespeare's contribution to this vast inheritance any less than the greatest of Mozart's or Beethoven music? Hey, I totally agree that Vienna is the source of the some of the finest music ever composed by the human mind and spirit, but dude, Vienna ain't the source of most (let alone all) the art, culture and knowledge Western civilization now commands. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Won%C2%B4t-break-a-promise%2C-but.-tp27160385p27187230.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] The left debates Avatar
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/the-left-debates-avatar/ One word: Snap! -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--The-left-debates-%22Avatar%22-tp27150178p27172175.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] More idiocy at Counterpunch
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Jay Clinton wrote: Circumcision is genital mutilation, and to call it anti-semitic to say so is absurd. It is an anthropological truth. This does not mean those who choose it should be denigrated. Unfortunately, children don't get to choose. It's hateful insinuation behind a Hedonist mask. It is anti-Semitic as well.. I have no doubt that it is a form of mutilation. I was referring to the notion advanced by this lady, Block, that circumcision in males as a custom is harmful. Just the same, I think that any controversy over male circumcision in general makes too big a deal out of such a little thing (compared to female genital mutilation which is cruel, inhuman and totally indefensible), wouldn't you agree? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--More-idiocy-at-Counterpunch-tp27015313p27070465.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] More idiocy at Counterpunch
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: From the article: Male circumcision slices off 5-20% of the penis, specifically the foreskin, the vital part of the male genitalia that protects the glans when it is flaccid and retracts sensuously to reveal his erection when fully aroused. Hard for me to think of my foreskin as being more than 1% of my penis and the sensuality of its retraction is, I think, purely subjective. Moreover, If block is correct in the matter of circumsicion, we can assume that Marx's was somehow responsible for his condemnation of capitalism. I think I'll get my dick cut. Be that as it may, one has to wonder about people who feel the need to reach down into someone else's crotch to pull out political arguments. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--More-idiocy-at-Counterpunch-tp27015313p27022424.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] A few words about education
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Anthony Boynton wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A few words about education, public education, private schools, and charter schools. I have been watching the sparks fly between Joaquin and Artesian regarding education and would like to make a few off the cuff remarks. Although I agree with Joaquin’s premise that the framework should be, fighting bourgeois education., rather than simply fighting bourgeois attacks on education, I think that the first step in fighting “bourgeois education” is defending and promoting the democratic right to free universal public education. In any case I want to address this issue in a different way. Capitalism already provides a type of free universal public education, I think. It comes through television, radio, movies, music and this synthetic medium we are using. Education comes to us as a commodity. On the whole, its message (or lesson) is what Christopher Lasch called the propaganda of commodities: Liberation is achieved, according to this view, if you constantly buy, consume and sell yourself within the confines of capitalist economic relations as defined by Madison Ave. Co.; shit like You've come a long way, baby!, etc. Maybe, if we succeed in placing commodity in the popular pejorative and attack bourgeois education as a promoter of it we may get the type of education you and I want for our families and our communities. I hope you'll agree that it's not enough to abolish the commodity aspect of capitalist bourgeois education if at the same time we do not abolish the commodity aspect of all other useful and productive work. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--A-few-words-about-education-tp26990268p26994229.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Paul Roberts Antisemetic Counterpuch Article
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Jolly Jack wrote: I don't read Counterpuch regularly and don't wish to take my time researching this, so I have a few questions. Are blatantly antsemetic articles like Paul Roberts's standard fare? Do his conspiracy theories about the federal reserve, monetary policy and the Zionist takeover of the US go unchallenged by regular contributors like Alexander Cockburn. Are his chauvantistic appeals to real Christian Americans echoed by anyone else? Are they challenged? I ask these questions because I have had to deal with quite a bit of this antisemitic garbage as a an activist in the peace movement in Florida and I am curious if others on this list share my concerns. Best Regards, Jack Lieberman It would be helpful if you provided here a link to one of the articles wherein you feel he (Roberts) waxes Anti-Semitic. I've read from him some very strong words in condemnation of Israel's Jewish state, its treatment of the Palestinians and its well-known attempts to influence U.S. policy via its lobbies in Washington, but I can't recall anything of a general or specific nature that he wrote that leads me to think he would be an Anti-Semite. That's why a link would be much appreciated. Maybe I'm too naive to have detected Anti-Semitism on his part or maybe he cleverly obscures it behind a feigned outrage at the truly outrageous fact of the existence of an apartheid Jewish state in the middle of a land populated largely by oppressed Semites of a different religion. Or possibly, just possibly, there's nothing fundamentally Anti- Semitic about the principled opposition against and strong condemnation of U.S. imperialism and its Zionist client state of Israel? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Paul-Roberts-Antisemetic-Counterpuch-Article-tp26994085p26994488.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Old Partner; The Chaser
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Two outstanding Korean movies opening today in NY. One is a documentary about husband and wife rice farmers in their 80s and their 40 year old ox, who is even older in human years. The other is a film noir about a detective turned pimp who is trying to track down the serial killer who has victimized his prostitutes. More than the pimp himself? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Old-Partner--The-Chaser-tp26970980p26975868.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Manure
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Tom Cod-2 wrote: [...] Shit, I remember one time, it must have been in the mid-60s when I was about 12-13 years old, a couple of us kids are going along a rural PA road with this farmer in a beat up old pick-up when a fancy MG sports car speeds past us. farmer goes, sheeet, boy, you take that fancy city slicker and you take the average farmer, put 'em in the woods with only a knife, who do you think is gonna survive? [...] Interesting how the farmer shared his homespun wisdom from the comfort of a beat up old pick-up truck! More fitting would have been to portray him lazily strolling along a country lane, sickle over his shoulder. Just the same, I find it disconcerting when I hear simplistic, delusional hypotheses like the one above, especially coming from city folk! It's like the one about giving everyone a million bucks and, before you know it... Life, in its complexity, cannot be reduced to a knife-wielding competition-in-the- woods metaphor. Much less into one involving only two people, I think. BTW, as evidence of the social backwardness and political naivete of the farmer as a class, considertheir no-longer-so-recent extinction. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Manure-tp26955855p26962047.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Manure
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Carrol Cox wrote: [...] The technology that makes farming possible has to be degveloped BEFORE farming can develop. [...] Not necessarily. Farming is a natural activity that even lower animals engage in without the use of technology as we understand it. For example, Some ants harvest and collect plants for fermentation and consumption and others raise and maintain other creatures in symbiotic/mutualistic relationships. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant-fungus_mutualism Moreover, the simplest kind of farming by humans presupposes the prior non-existence of technology. For example, the planting of cassava roots (a very starchy and yummy tuber known to have been consumed by pre-Columbian aborigines) requires the farmer to merely break the plant stalks at their nodes and drive them directly into the soil. The rest takes care of itself. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Manure-tp26955855p26962201.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Manure
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Greg McDonald-2 wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Tet wrote: Organic farming is interesting but hardly any proof of the existence of farmers as a class, no? That was the smallest possible subset I could think of, and it is growing in dynamic fashion. But if you insist, go ahead and knock yourself out, Einstein: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/ARMS/FarmsOverview.htm Strange, I still can't find anything there leading me to assume that farmers exist as a class anywhere in the U.S. Can you point me to some specific data that prove them to be a socio-economic class separate and distinct from either the proletariat or the capitalist class? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Manure-tp26955855p26962584.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Jim Cramer muses on Lenin
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GdSUSU6Uuz Learning 'Lenin' by rote. I get the feeling that some capitalists are genuinely worried about retribution. They see the writing on the wall (to steal an old joke) and don't care for its message one bit. Why else dwell on how badly it may have gone for the Russians as a consequence of having strung up the bankers? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Jim-Cramer-muses-on-Lenin-tp26954662p26963083.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [microsound] What to Do About In-Flight Restrictions?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Movies and GPS readouts during plane travel are being restricted or outright eliminated. This in spite of the recently reported heroics of passengers and crew (none of whom was a duly sworn officer of the law) . Not even hand-held video entertainment devices escape the ban. Oh my! I guess the flying industry will curtail the banal entertainment of its passengers in exchange for the quiet, introspective boredom of terror. On the other hand, maybe paperbacks, books and pamphlets will make a brief comeback amongst the weary traveler? If that happened it would be a small but possibly important and positive outcome of this newly-imposed repression. Distributing socialist leaflets at the local airport is a good idea now that so many people are likely to become bored with the humiliating tedium of feeling like a suspect every time they have to drag their suitcases from plane to plane to plane to plane. I recommend this one as possible model to follow: http://www.slp.org/res_state_htm/pol_promise.html -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/What-to-Do-About-In-Flight-Restrictions--tp26946390p26946390.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
