Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Re: Black Hisotry Month: 1999

[Waistline2]

African American History Month's true meaning
By Nelson Peery

African American history is the heart of the history of our country.

Understanding the exploitation and political maneuvering of the black 
minority of the population is key to understanding American history. Political 
control of the black population created the economic, political and moral 
wherewithal for the ruling class to accumulate unheard-of wealth, conquer 
defenseless 
peoples, and finally establish its hegemony around the world. This is not the 
African American history our government wants known or taught.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, under enormous political and moral pressure, 
made "Negro History Week" official in the 1940s. It was conceived to teach 
the other Americans about the special contributions African Americans made to 
the development of our country.

Special interests soon saw African American History Month as a vehicle to 
help achieve their political goals. Some struggled to make it a celebration 
wherein the African Americans would talk to themselves about themselves. Others 
set 
about making it a celebration of outstanding individuals. Few made a critical 
examination of the historical role played by the African American masses. It 
was a role seldom under their control.

full: http://www.lrna.org/league/PT/PT.1999.02/PT.1999.02.3.html

___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Re: Black Hisotry Month: Watts 1965, turning point

[Waistline2]

The historical significance of the Watts uprising 
August 2000 


by Nelson Peery 

August 11 marks the 35th anniversary of the Watts rebellion. Why did it 
happen? Armed, mass uprisings are a specific stage of struggle against an 
oppressing state power. In the struggle against violent oppression, the masses 
become 
conscious of themselves. Rejecting the compromised leadership of the reformist 
elite, they inevitably turn to defensive violence. 

Watts was the culmination of this process within the African American freedom 
movement. The rejection of reformist leadership and the subsequent fighting 
in Harlem, Detroit, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Cleveland and numerous other places 
was not lost on the people of Watts. 

By 1965, the distrust of the "power structure," be it black or white, was 
near total in the Ghetto. This was clearly shown at the beginning of the 
fighting 
in Watts. The African American newspaper The Sentinel called the uprising the 
most disgraceful day in African American history. The respected "militant" 
comedian Dick Gregory mounted a police car with a bull horn and crudely 
demanded 
that the people calm down and go home. A young man with a single-action .22 
hesitated for a moment, then shot Gregory instead of the cop standing beside 
him. It is noteworthy that as the fighting began, not one so-called leader left 
the police side of the barricades to defend the interests of the people. 

Throughout 1963, 1964 and into 1965, the crisis in the reformist leadership 
intensified as the tactics and leadership of the Freedom Movement shifted back 
and forth between the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) led by 
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and the scattered local, semiorganized 
movements led by mainly young people who did not have access to city hall. The 
SCLC 
was mainly Southern, based in the churches and the black middle class. The 
local 
movements were throughout the country and based in the streets. (The 
excellent video "At the River I Stand" clearly shows this division during the 
struggle 
in Memphis that led to King's death.) 

It was not possible for the SCLC to deal with the thousands of daily acts of 
humiliation, brutality, unemployment and poverty that were part of the system 
of American apartheid. As the masses resisting segregation were met by brute 
force from the police, they turned toward meeting violence with violence. Any 
impulse toward violent defense forced the SCLC to sharpen it's call for 
nonviolence, which deepened the division. Nonviolence was the only form of 
black 
struggle acceptable to the white liberals. They were indispensable to the 
reform 
struggle, hence the inability of the reform leaders to compromise. 

An example of this was the situation in Birmingham, Alabama where black 
strikers were attacked by dogs, Bull Conner's police force and mobs of white, 
civilian fascists. When the workers organized to defend themselves, Reverend 
King 
was brought in to calm the situation. "Remember always that the nonviolent 
movement seeks justice and reconciliation, not victory," he told them. "Let our 
blood flow, not theirs." 

On August 15, 1965 after observing the situation in Watts, Dr. King said, "It 
was necessary that as powerful a police force as possible be brought in to 
check them." Police informants advised against him entering Watts for fear he 
might be killed. 

These quotes are not intended to denigrate Dr. King, who gave his life in the 
struggle. Our intent is to show the deepening class divisions that brought 
about the uprising.

full: http://www.lrna.org/league/PT/PT.2000.08/PT.2000.08.3.html

___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis

[Marxism-Thaxis] Detroit: Water Held Hostage

[Waistline2]

Detroit: Water Held Hostage 


By Maureen Taylor

Editor's note: Maureen Taylor, at right, chairperson of the Michigan Welfare 
Rights Organization, made the speech below at the "Water for People Not for 
Profit" workshop at the 2004 World Social Forum in Boston. Maureen discusses 
Michigan's struggle against the privatization of water. She is available to 
speak 
through Speakers for a New America. Call 800-691-6888 or email 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Production is what fuels society. It has always been that way. From the 
cotton gin, to the steam engines, electric engines, gas engines, gas 
generators, 
every kind of technology has moved society ahead. Society organizes around 
technology's ability to feed, house, clothe, provide healthcare, to provide the 
things that people need. Things changed in the early 1970s with the computer 
chip. The chip replaced labor. We got laid off because there was technology 
that 
could do our job. The paradigm says, "You work, you get a check, you buy, you 
consume, when your money is gone you go to work again." That's the cycle. Now 
you're laid off. You will get upset and not take this madness lying down. So 
they create an entire propaganda to say that there is something wrong with you. 
You lost your opportunity because of something you did. Then, we say, hey "Liz 
lost her job. Oh. I heard she was drinking. Oh, that's why she lost her job." 
So, we don't say anything when we clearly know there's a problem.

This is why poor people are so passive. Everything and anything can happen to 
us. We know it is wrong, but we're the last voice to talk about it. Rather 
than complain and organize, fight and resist, we take a second job or a third. 
We allow our water to be cut off. We get tubes and hoses and run them from my 
neighbor's house to my house. We do anything rather than say, "Damn it, I'm one 
of God's children. I'm not giving into this mess. We're going to have water 
for everybody, or nobody will have water. But, whether it is the Patriot Act, 
the Sixth Fleet, or police brutality - all kinds of things are put out to 
convince us that the easiest thing to do is to suffer.

In Detroit, between June 1 of 2001 and June 1 . . .

full: http://www.lrna.org/league/PT/PT.2005.2/PT.2005.2.5.html

___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis

[Marxism-Thaxis] Re: Black Hisotry Month: African Americans and the Struggle for a New Society

[Waistline2]

African Americans and the Struggle for a New Society 


African American history is the heart of American history. This is true 
because the manipulation and the exploitation of African Americans, along with 
their ceaseless struggle for freedom and equality, has somehow been at the 
center 
of virtually every major political and economic turning point in the countryÂs 
history. This fact is reflected today in the growth and consolidation of a 
new class of poor with African Americans at its core, a class that is compelled 
to fight for a new society.

We talk of a "new class" of poor because this poverty is unprecedented in its 
nature and scope. Advancing electronic technology is so revolutionizing the 
economy that jobs are being eliminated faster than they are being created. This 
process is creating a new class of people who are essentially economically 
superfluous; their labor is no longer needed. This class includes not only the 
permanently unemployed, but the millions of temporary and contingent workers 
and the low-wage workers who don't even make enough to live on. The first to be 
plunged into this new poverty were the unskilled and semi-skilled, but today 
even highly skilled workers are not safe from having their jobs automated or 
outsourced. 

After World War II, with the mechanization of Southern agriculture and the 
ending of legal segregation, the number of African Americans working as 
laborers 
and semi-skilled assembly line workers in the nationÂs factories increased 
suddenly and substantially. And it was precisely this section of workers that 
was the first and the hardest hit by the process of people being replaced first 
by automation, and then by robots and computers. Millions of African American 
workers were concentrated in the manufacturing sector, and this sector was the 
first to be robotized. This process continues to accelerate. From 1995 to 
2003, 11 percent of the industrial jobs were eliminated worldwide, yet global 
industrial production rose by 30 percent in the same period.

This process of robotizing production is creating a kind of poverty never 
seen before in this country. It is creating a new class of permanently poor and 
destitute people who are essentially outside the capitalist economy. For 
historical reasons â because of the legacy of slavery and racism â the 
African 
American worker is at the core of this new class.

But though the core of this new class of poor is African American, the new 
poverty that is developing is not based on racism. Racism may shape its form, 
but the driving force in the creation of the new poverty is electronics, and 
electronics will continue to wipe out jobs, regardless of the color or the 
skill 
level of the worker who holds the job. The petty privileges once enjoyed by 
the white worker are rapidly disappearing as millions of once stably employed 
white workers are plunged into poverty. While people of color are 
disproportionately poor, two-thirds of the poor are white. 

Nonetheless, the grim statistics bear out the position of the African 
American worker at the heart of the new class of poor: 

- By one estimate, nearly 25 percent of all African Americans have incomes 
below the official poverty line. Other sources put the figure at 33 percent.

- 12 percent of African American men ages 20 to 34 are in jail, compared with 
1.6 percent of white men in the same age group. 

- 74 percent of those sent to prison on drug charges are black. 

- 50 percent of New York CityÂs black males are unemployed. 

These figures should be seen in the context of the overall polarity of wealth 
that has developed in our country: 

- The top 1 percent of all U.S. households own 38 percent of all wealth. 
Wealth inequality generally fell from 1929 to the mid 1970s, but since then, it 
has doubled.

- 5 percent of Americans own 59 percent of all wealth; the top 20 percent own 
83 percent of all wealth. The bottom 20 percent have zero wealth.

- The value of the minimum wage has fallen 35 percent in real terms since its 
peak in 1968.

full: http://www.lrna.org/league/PT/PT.2005.2/PT.2005.2.1.html
___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Applied Dialectics of Change

[Waistline2]

Institute Resource Paper #4
The Shape of History: Historical Materialism, Electronics and Value

full: http://www.scienceofsociety.org/inbox/res4.html

Marxism is, first and foremost, the science of society. Through examination 
and experimentation, by applying theory through practice and, through practice, 
refining theory, we can determine the pathways and attractors (to borrow the 
language of complexity theory) that give shape and direction to social 
development and change.


Historical materialism

Karl Marx determined that the basis of understanding society lay in 
understanding how societies organize to meet their material needs. This social 
organization is in turn determined by the available productive forces â the 
technology 
and knowledge and organization â in a given period. Each qualitative advance 
of technology defines a period, or stage of human history. These periods have 
distinctive corollary forms of social or productive relations. Marx recognized 
that the relatively mobile (i.e., they are constantly developing) forces of 
production race ahead of the relatively static relations of production (the 
relationship of individuals and groups of people to one another in the process 
of 
production), laying the basis for transformation in society: 

___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Applied Dialectics of Change

[Waistline2]

Entering an Epoch of Social Revolution

Including additional essays "Dialectics of the Leap and the Destruction of 
Capitalism" and... "Polarization in U.S. -- Basis for a Workers Party" 

(c) Copyright April, 1993
Workers Press
P.O. Box 3705
Chicago, IL 60654
full: http://www.scienceofsociety.org/texts/epoch/epoch.complete.html

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This pamphlet, like most inquiry into something new, was a long 
time birthing.

It began with scattered statements during the late 1960s and early 
1970s noting the shift from labor saving to labor replacing means 
of production.

By the middle 1980s, we realized that we were seeing the science 
of society -- Marxism, being vindicated before our eyes. These 
labor replacing means of production, hostile to the existing 
productive relations, were creating an epoch of social revolution.

This understanding had to be transferred to the comrades and 
friends of the Communist Labor Party (CLP). It was correct to 
write the pamphlet despite our scattered and scanty knowledge. 
Were it to be rewritten many of its foundations could be 
strengthened. Many of its projections could be clarified.

The pamphlet however, represents the moment when the CLP realized 
an era was ending and the form of our movement was moribund. Hence 
the pamphlet is more than simple propaganda. It is historical for 
us. Therefore it should not be changed in a substantial way. It is 
a summary of the CLP's estimate of history.

Qualitatively new means of production are in deepening antagonism 
with private, capitalist ownership of socially necessary means of 
subsistence.

Permanent, structural unemployment is pervasive and growing. 
Increasing numbers of proletarians cannot sell their only 
commodity -- labor power. Production with high technology is 
forcing industrial production (i.e. human labor coupled with 
electromechanics) off the market. The economy -- based on the 
buying and selling of labor power -- is being irreversibly 
destroyed. The destruction of the economy will force society to 
reorganize. This reorganization will change the forms of ownership 
of socially necessary property from private to public. Only then 
will the economy conform to the productive capacity of robots and 
computers.

The new means of production, by creating a new epoch of social 
revolution, have destroyed the communist movement that arose with 
industrialization.

**

DIALECTICS: QUANTITY, QUALITY, THE ANTAGONISTIC ELEMENT

Quality (in the sense we are using it) is a process. The sum total 
of the stages of development (quantity) of the process is the 
process. Thus, there cannot be a separation between quantity and 
quality. Every quantity is qualitative. Since life is specific, 
every quality is expressed quantitatively.

Growth, or motion, takes place in definite and indispensable 
stages. A change of environment exacerbates internal 
contradictions. Each stage grows out of the preceding one and 
connects to it. Each stage has its set of internal contradictions 
that describe its motion inside the general qualitative 
contradiction that covers the process. Therefore, each stage of 
growth is both inner-connected and inter-connected.

In _Dialectics of Nature_, Engels gives examples of the 
transformation from one quality to another. "All qualitative 
differences in nature rest on differences of chemical composition 
or on different quantities or forms of motion (energy) or, as is 
almost always the case, on both. _Hence it is impossible to alter 
the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or 
motion_, i.e. without quantitative alternation of the body 
concerned [emphasis added]."[6]

An increase of intensity and change in the form of contradiction 
marks each stage of quantitative development. The final stages of 
contradiction create the conditions for the introduction of 
antagonism.

___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Old Thread: Dialectics of Nature

[Ralph Dumain]

I made a comparable argument as part of a recent discussion in a local 
philosophy group.  The topic was emergence.  I made a pitch for Engels as a 
pioneer of this concept.  Curiously, much of the literature on the 
subject--including encyclopedia articles--is heavily biased in citing its 
history.  Usually there is a focus on the British emergentists, and no 
mention at all of Hegel, Engels, or any Soviet work.  Part of this I think 
is due to the provincialism of Anglo-American philosophy.  Another failure 
of the literature is to make a clear distinction between the mystical 
idealist versions of emergentism and emergent materialism.  In fact, we 
have a theoretical biologist in our midst who is a devotee of Whitehead and 
Bradley's internal relations.  He has been ambiguous about what exactly he 
is committed to, but I smell a rat.

I've also been using the emergentist concept in some of my thinking in 
progress on Marx, particularly Marx's curious statements on science in the 
1844 manuscripts.  I find some interesting ideological turns going on these 
days in cosmology at one end and cognitive science on the other, and I 
relate these to a fundamental contradiction of bourgeois consciousness that 
Marx point to, but my project is to elaborate the idea in ways Marx did not 
likely intend in those texts.

Lisa would have been rather resistant to emergentist claims, from what I 
remember.  I called her attention to some work on activity theory, which 
was presented at an APA meeting in New York--it must have been at the end 
of 1995.  Lisa was not impressed.  As an evolutionary biologist she used 
statistical models to study foraging behavior and did not believe that 
'consciousness' mattered.  I got rather short-tempered with her in some of 
the discussions we had, and we never had a chance to hammer out our 
differences.  Beginning with my suspicions about sociobiology, I was very 
skeptical of the intellectual irresponsibility of biologists who overstep 
their limitations in making claims about society.  Lisa was committed to 
natural science, was adamantly opposed to the social constructivism which 
had poisoned the left by this time, but was interested in Donna Haraway and 
curiously tolerant of Lucy Irigiray[sp?].  Besides being an 
environmentalist, Lisa was also a feminist and gay rights activist.

Curiously, my shameless political incorrectness attracted rather than 
repelled Lisa.  She considered me a kindred spirit, I suppose to the 
consternation of her many PC male feminist admirers in the left.  I recall 
at least one other fellow who became infatuated with her.  We used to talk 
about this as well as the craziness in the New York left and on the Marxism 
lists.  She was a total e-mail addict: she couldn't enough of this 
stuff.  Aside from biology, she was studying economics and philosophy on 
the side.  She was insatiable in intellectual matters as in every other 
respect.  She was a piranha in her passion for intellectual input and 
synthesis.  She was also a very, emotional, sensitive person--she had a 
special look in her eyes, that haunts me to this very day.  She had a 
variety of interests and talents in addition to science--she was into 
folk-dancing, and she made clothing.  She had it all, she did it all.  She 
was only beginning to realize her potential when she died shortly after her 
35th birthday.  How it pains me to write these lines.

At 01:28 PM 2/19/2005 -0800, Steve Gabosch wrote:
I took a peek at some of the posts on Engels and Dialectics of 
Nature.  Sorry about the loss of Lisa, she was clearly a very able thinker 
and writer.  Thank you, Ralph, for sharing your fond memory of her.

My own take on dialectics fits very closely with Engels, along the lines 
George Novack argues.  I do agree that the dialectical laws of nature can 
be generalized, as Engels attempted in his studies.  But what Engels did 
was just a beginning.

Christian Fuchs has an article in a 2003 issue of Nature Society and 
Thought (Vol 16 No 3) entitled The Self-Organization of Matter that 
continues the discussion of finding parallels between dialectics and what 
I tend to call emergence theory (aka hierarchy theory, self-organization 
theory, complexity science, and many other terms coming out of general 
systems theory from the 1960's and earlier).  I think Engels, and for that 
matter, Novack, would find this exploration very fruitful.  I am beginning 
to become aware of some of the work Soviet scientists have done in earlier 
decades along these lines - B.M. Kedrov, for example.

The concept of the transformation of quantity into quality, thought of 
merely as mechanical cause and effect, is commonplace - apply enough heat 
and water boils.  But in Dialectics of Nature, among other things, Engels 
was exploring something much more general about this concept - the 
transformation of energy from one form to another, such as from mechanical 
to electrical.  A liquid changing to a gas is just one

[Marxism-Thaxis] Another Old Thread: Marx conceiving of nature dialectically

[Charles Brown]

Here's some of the later thread debating the dialectics of nature.

CB

^^^


M-TH: Re: Abstract & concrete people/s 

Charles Brown marxism-thaxis 
Mon, 07 Dec 1998 09:57:08 -0500 

*
>>> Andrew Wayne Austin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 12/06 7:22 PM >>>
List,

I don't know what is relevant about Godena expelling people on
Marxism-Sciences. He didn't expel me, anyway. As I recall people were
expelled because they broke the rules. But, again, who cares about this. I
left the list because people were advancing absurd theories employing
dialectics to explain astronomical phenomena


Charles: Everyone is familiar with the term
the "fixed stars" in the sky. It is interesting
to me how the develop of astronomical
science recently has demonstrated
less and less fixity to the stars. This
is a development in the direction
of a dialectical structure.




Second, as Bhaskar and others have pointed out, while the concept of
contradiction might be used as a metaphor for any sort of tension or
strain, its specific meaning, not only for Marx, but generally, refers to
human action and human things. Why muddy the water by creating a
self-sealing line of reasoning?
_

Charles: I am trying to figure our whether you
are saying that Marx and Engels have a 
different position on this issue .
Are you ?


In his Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation, Bhaskar notes four broad
sorts of contradictions (I think it is found in here, but it has been a
while since I read this book): (1) logical inconsistencies (traditional
logic only recognizes contradiction in logical operation) (2) oppositions
between tendencies inherent in social forces of relatively independent
origins (3) historical/temporal contradictions, oppositionals that emerge
from the operation of some thing or situation (such as class struggle) and
(4) structural/systemic contradictions, involving contradictions between
things that exist at two different levels of reality. The latter two are
dialectical. These are all present in Marx's work, and they possess two
features generally: (a) they are real oppositions and (b) they can be
described in terms of oppositions. While I have my problems with Bhaskar's
own theory of society (it is too subjective), his interpretation of Marx's
work is pretty good. Bhaskar has been an important figure in stressing the
fact that what was unique about Marx's theory was what concerned with
history and society. 
_

Charles: For a contrary view see.

_Dialectical Contradictions: Contemporary
Marxist Discussions_ Marxist Educational
Press 1982

and Lenin's Philosophical Notes On Dialectics.





Third, following Carver's argument, while Marx admired Darwin's argument,
particularly because it showed how biological science could advance a
process of change non-teleologically, he did not adopt this logic for his
own study of society (except for metaphorically in some places in
Capital), nor did he appear to think that his method had much to help with
Darwin's argument.Indeed, it was *Engels* who made the parallel after
Marx's death. 
___

Charles: No, we discussed this on LBO.
I believe Marx wrote a letter
that directly contradicts you.

For now in the Afterword to the
Second German Edition to Vol.I
of Capital Marx, quotes a Russian
reviewer of Capital who said

"in his (Marx's) opinion ever 
historical period has laws of its own...
As soon as soiciety has outlived a given
period of development, and is passing
over from one given stage to another, it
begins to be subject also to other laws.
In a word, economic life offers us a phenomena
analogous to the history of evolution in 
other branches of biology..."

Marx says, "Whilst the writer pictures
what he takes to be actually my
method, in this striking and
[as far as my own application of 
it] generous way, what else is he
picturing but th dialecical method ? "

See also, "Karl Marx's Study of
Science and Technology" by Pradip
Baksi in Nature, Society and Thought"
Vol. 9, No. 3  (Believe I saw a brief
article of Andy's in that journal once) 


The importance of understanding this is that it shows that
Marx held that an evolutionary theory that operated on a logic different
from the logic of historical development in the social realm was
completely (or nearly completely) valid.


Charles: Don't see this demonstrated.


__

Charles: The dialectics in both is that they
see the world as changing rather than
fixed. The basis of change ,the contradiction, is
different in each.



Had Marx believed that the
dialectic was a universal principal, one found in the natural world, then
he would have admonished Darwin's theory not praised it. 


Charles: Darwin's theory is not fully dialectical

Stephen Jay Gould's theory of punctuated 
equilibrium makes Darwinism more fully
dialectical,as it adds revolutions to 
the evolution. However, Darwin's theory
was welcomed by Marx as relatively dialectical
compared to creationism with no change. 

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Old Thread: Dialectics of Nature

[Steve Gabosch]

I took a peek at some of the posts on Engels and Dialectics of 
Nature.  Sorry about the loss of Lisa, she was clearly a very able thinker 
and writer.  Thank you, Ralph, for sharing your fond memory of her.

My own take on dialectics fits very closely with Engels, along the lines 
George Novack argues.  I do agree that the dialectical laws of nature can 
be generalized, as Engels attempted in his studies.  But what Engels did 
was just a beginning.

Christian Fuchs has an article in a 2003 issue of Nature Society and 
Thought (Vol 16 No 3) entitled The Self-Organization of Matter that 
continues the discussion of finding parallels between dialectics and what I 
tend to call emergence theory (aka hierarchy theory, self-organization 
theory, complexity science, and many other terms coming out of general 
systems theory from the 1960's and earlier).  I think Engels, and for that 
matter, Novack, would find this exploration very fruitful.  I am beginning 
to become aware of some of the work Soviet scientists have done in earlier 
decades along these lines - B.M. Kedrov, for example.

The concept of the transformation of quantity into quality, thought of 
merely as mechanical cause and effect, is commonplace - apply enough heat 
and water boils.  But in Dialectics of Nature, among other things, Engels 
was exploring something much more general about this concept - the 
transformation of energy from one form to another, such as from mechanical 
to electrical.  A liquid changing to a gas is just one of countless 
examples of quantitative transformations of energy and with qualitative 
effects.

The advent of scientific measuring instruments and computer processing 
since WWII has created an explosion of information about how things work - 
how things change. A more sophisticated concept of the transformation of 
energy forms largely unavailable to 19th century scientists has been 
gaining ground - the concept of what I tend to call "emergent levels" to 
help me organize my own thoughts about this.  Quantitative changes in one 
level of organization of matter and energy generate changes in "higher" 
levels that in turn transform the overall system.  Fuchs summarizes many of 
the principles of self-organization with many terms familiar from 
Prigogine, chaos theory, complexity science and so forth; terms like 
feedback loops, bifurcation points, complexity, hierarchy, synergism, 
historicity, etc. etc.

Perhaps the most important application of this concept of "emergence" - 
(using this term this way is my layperson's (autodidactic) attempt at 
finding a generalizing term) - is the Marxist concept of "base and 
superstructure" summarized by Marx in that oft-quoted passage in Critique 
of Political Economy.  Leaving aside the many instances of mechanical 
vulgarizations of this terminology of base or foundation and 
superstructure, the essential "dialectical" explanation Marx and Engels 
offered with this concept - conceptualizing "emergent levels" (there I go, 
using that term again) in history between economic systems, classes and 
legal-political systems - between the forces of production and the 
relations of production - has become one of the most important scientific 
concepts of all time.  It has become the scientific basis of working class 
revolution and the possibility of abolishing capitalism in our time.

If Fuchs and others who are exploring this relationship between dialectics 
and what I am calling "emergence" - (Fuchs calls it "self-organization," 
maybe that is a better term) - are on the right track, then we could see 
Engels' efforts in Dialectics of Nature as a remarkable anticipation of 
scientific concepts that could only develop decades later when the capacity 
to measure nature and process data about it has come much farther 
along.  But more remarkably, the scientific approach to analysis and 
generalization that Engels and his cothinker Marx developed with the 
materialist dialectic is applicable to all sciences - not just to the 
latest discoveries of molecular biology and cosmic theory - but also to the 
science of social revolution, the greatest task facing humanity.  And that 
is a powerful method, indeed.

Thinking of Ralph's admiring comments and the handful of her posts that I 
looked at, I wonder what Lisa would think about this line of argument about 
dialectics, what questions she would ask, what evidence she would demand to 
back up such concepts and claims 

Best,
- Steve Gabosch

At 12:15 PM 2/19/2005 -0500, you wrote:
Reading this old thread of my late beloved Lisa brings back a lot of 
memories.  I do not, remember, however, how this discussion proceeded from 
there.  I do remember that it was an unfinished discussion, and that I had 
it in the back of my mind to engage Lisa once again attempting to divert 
her attention from dead-end leads and toward another direction.  She was 
engaged and committed to the study of this material,. and to engagement 
with the marxists o

[Marxism-Thaxis] Old Thread: Dialectics of Nature

[Charles Brown]

Good to make your acquaintance , Ralph.
There was _another_ big thread debating Engels idea that there is a
dialectics of nature, and especially as to whether Marx agreed with Engels.
I'll bring link that.



http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/1998-December/012853.htm
l


http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/1999-January/013151.html

M-TH: Engels's formulations on dialectics 
Andrew Wayne Austin marxism-thaxis 
Mon, 4 Jan 1999 14:19:48 -0500 (EST) 

Previous message: M-TH: Engels's formulations on dialectics 
Next message: M-TH: Engels's formulations on dialectics 
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] 

This will get anyone into the Thaxis archive point for the second really
long thread. Jim F. participated.

Charles

^^^





Reading this old thread of my late beloved Lisa brings back a lot of 
memories.  I do not, remember, however, how this discussion proceeded from 
there.  I do remember that it was an unfinished discussion, and that I had 
it in the back of my mind to engage Lisa once again attempting to divert 
her attention from dead-end leads and toward another direction.  She was 
engaged and committed to the study of this material,. and to engagement 
with the marxists on the lists she moderated, perhaps much more than it or 
them deserved.  Lisa had a voracious, unquenchable passion for knowledge 
and synthesis, and she studied a variety of subjects in addition to her 
professional scientific competence.

I still think my interventions were sound.  I did have to deal with the 
consequences of using a word without checking its meaning in the 
dictionary--"prevarication."  Occasionally in our private discussions we 
would step on one another's toes, but she couldn't get enough of them.

I remember that I had it in mind to discuss with Lisa something that was 
confusing her at the time, still struggling with Engels.  It was on the 
question of dialectical "laws", which she tacitly assumed, as do sloppy 
Marxist thinkers on the subject (i.e. most of them), that these "laws" are 
something like laws of nature.  Engels himself is responsible for this 
half-assed thinking, which is why I don't think it is useful to invest 
oneself in what Engels literally says.  I meant to broaden the discussion 
to get Lisa out of struggling with an arguing against what is essentially a 
dead-end position.  But then Lisa died suddenly, and this conversation, 
like many other conversations between us, was cruelly ended by 
circumstance. Sigh.

At 06:09 PM 2/18/2005 -0500, Charles Brown wrote:
>Dialectics of Nature
>
>ROSSERJB at jmu.edu
  

-TH: Re: Marx conceiving of nature dialectically 
Andrew Wayne Austin marxism-thaxis 
Tue, 5 Jan 1999 14:03:17 -0500 (EST) 

Previous message: M-TH: Re: Marx conceiving of nature dialectically 
Next message: M-TH: Political Prisoner's post 
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] 




On Tue, 5 Jan 1999, Charles Brown wrote:

>I would say Marxism has a REBUTTABLE PRESUMPTION that the universe is
>material. This is stronger than agnosticism or Kantianism, but weaker
>than what I have put on this thread. This means that until something pops
>up that is not material, then we presume and anticipate AND INVESTIGATE
>everything presuming it is material. 

Two interrelated problems with this argument. First, if we presume that
everything is material then we run into the same problem that we do when
we presume that everything is dialectical or that everything is God or
that everything is ideas, etc. Second, and this follows from the first, if
we are precise in defining what we mean by material, then we can only do
so by differentiating it from what is not material. Charles seems to
believe that everything in the universe is material and that there is
nothing that contradicts this presumption. But are the contents of
thoughts material? No; they are ideas. And it cannot be said that the
content of thoughts is a reflection of the material world for a very basic
reason: Is God part of the material world? Is God not content for some
thought? No, God is not part of the material world, and, yes, God is the
content of thought, therefore not all thought is material, and if some
thought is not material (actually no thought is material) then not
everything that exists is material since surely people have thought. 
Therefore Charles' premise fails on the facts, not only on logic. There is
more than material and thought in Marx's system; there is the social
world, and there is the physical substratum. If we define material
precisely, the way Marx does, then we don't run into the problems of
vulgar philosophical materialism. 

>Otherwise, the fundamental question of philosophical materialism would be
>revisited by every scientific investigation. 

First, revisiting assumptions in sci

[Marxism-Thaxis] Black History Month: The legacy of Benjamin J. Davis

[Charles Brown]

  
Benjamin Davis  
The legacy of Benjamin J. Davis



Ben Davis was born September 8, 1903, in Dawson, Ga. He grew up in a
relatively privileged African American home. His father was the editor and
publisher of the Atlanta Independent, a Black paper with a wide distribution
throughout the South, and was also a member of the Republican National
Committee. 

Davis attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, then Amherst College in
Massachusetts, where he secured his B.A. degree. From there he entered
Harvard Law School, graduating in 1930 at the age of 27. Eminent scholar
W.E.B. Du Bois, who knew him as a student activist at Morehouse, said Davis
never thought of his own advancement as apart from that of his people and
the working class. 

After finishing law school, in the midst of the Great Depression, Davis
returned to Atlanta to practice law. One of his first cases was that of
Angelo Herndon, African American leader of the local Young Communist League,
who had organized a large hunger march of Black and white unemployed to
Atlanta's City Hall demanding jobs or bread. It was virtually illegal for
Blacks and whites to march together. Seeing Blacks and whites united in
struggle in the Jim Crow South around basic economic issues frightened the
racist establishment. The police were ordered to stop the march, Herndon was
roughed up, arrested and charged with insurrection based on an old statute
left over from slavery. 

The Herndon case, like the Scottsboro case, was shrouded in racism. It also
raised the related issue of the right of working people to organize in
defense of their class. 

The International Labor Defense headed by William L. Patterson was called in
to defend Herndon. When local racist establishment lawyers refused to take
the case, young Ben Davis agreed to become Herndon's attorney. Davis
described the trial as a turning point in his life, saying, "In the course
of trying that case I suffered some of the worst treatment along with my
client, with the judge calling me 'n---' and 'darkie' and threatening to
jail me." 

Herndon was convicted, but the ongoing campaign of organizations like the
ILD led to his early release from prison. 

As a result of that experience, Davis joined the Communist Party. As he put
it, "It required only a moment to join but my whole lifetime as an American
Negro prepared me for that moment." 

Putting aside the pursuit of personal wealth and power, Davis dedicated his
life to the liberation of his people. 

In 1935 he moved to New York and became editor of the Negro Liberator, and
later of the Party's newspaper, the Daily Worker. 

As Harlem organizer of the Party, Ben became a widely respected and popular
figure. He led hundreds of actions against racism and discrimination, and
helped build grass-roots coalitions with labor, churches, fraternal
organizations, and tenants' groups in Harlem. He worked closely with Rev.
Adam Clayton Powell in many successful battles, including the "don't buy
where you can't work" campaign to integrate the workforce on Harlem's famed
125th Street, and the "pay your utility bill in pennies" campaign which
forced Con Edison to hire Black workers. Through these experiences, Davis
and Powell developed a strong friendship and mutual trust. 

Davis was an internationalist who saw the struggle for the day-to-day needs
of the African American masses as linked to the struggle against imperialism
and capitalism. He was an outspoken supporter of socialism and solidarity
with the struggle for African liberation. He strongly supported the Soviet
Union and recognized its role in the worldwide struggle for liberation. He
won the respect and admiration of working people in Harlem because of his
consistent commitment to freedom. 

In 1943, after Powell was elected to Congress, Davis was elected to Powell's
City Council seat, becoming the second African American elected to the
Council from Harlem. He was reelected in 1945 by a wider margin. 

Powell enthusiastically backed Davis, saying in his endorsement statement,
"Mr. Davis' long record in the fight against discrimination and poll-taxes
justifies his election. We have got to wipe Jim Crow out of New York City
and Mr. Davis is the man to carry the fight where I left off in the City
Council." 

In the City Council, along with his comrade Peter V. Cacchione, Davis waged
many battles for justice for New York's working people. 

Long-time Harlem resident and close comrade and friend William L Patterson,
of "We Charge Genocide" fame, said Davis saw his role "not to help the rich
rob the poor," but "to awaken the people as to what they had to do to see
that the city's slums were destroyed and that the Black ghettos, cursed with
imposed vice, were turned into showplaces of pride and beauty." 

As a council member, Davis won passage of the first resolution declaring
Feb. 13-19 Negro History Week. During his tenure he introduced 25 bills

[Marxism-Thaxis] Genocide And The Reawakening Of The African Mind

[Charles Brown]

Genocide And The Reawakening
Of The African Mind


By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill 

On October 25, 1996, the National Black United Front (NBUF) launched
its Genocide and Human Rights Campaign against the numerous genocidal
policies of the United States Government. 

This campaign was developed in response to the revelations of the
San Jose Mercury News stories, written by Gary Webb, that documented "the
Contra-run drug network [that] opened the fast conduit between Columbia's
notorious cocaine cartels and L.A.'s Black neighborhoods. The flood of the
insidous white powder helped to make crack affordable in poor communities
where its use eventually became epidemic." 

Webb's series revealed, "The local dealers' profits from the crack
sales also made it easier for vicious street gangs such as the Bloods and
the Crips to buy Uz's and other assult weapons. That, in turn, made it
easier for the gang to try to slaughter each other in turf wars, taking the
lives of children and scores of other innocents in drive-by shootings." 

in the September 3, 1996 issue of the Final Call newspaper this
story was headlines. Most the white media in this country did not respond to
these allegations. The Final Call headline article and subsequent articles
on this issue made it possible for large numbers of Africans in America, and
around the world, to be informed about the Webb series. 

The white media that did respond, ran articles challenging the
validity of Webb's research. 

NBUF developed a Petition Declaration Campaign, "charging genocide
by the U.S. Government against the Black population in the United Sates."
This petition was circulated throughout the African Communities in the
United States, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. 

Additionally, NBUF, with the assistance of Bob Brown of the All
African People's Revolutionary Party, coducted intensive research on the
various aspects of genocide being committed against African people in this
country. Also, NBUF developed "38 Counts of Human Rights Violations" by the
United Sates Government and its co-conspirators against the African
Community. 

In our efforts to reenact the 1951 Genocide Campaign launched by
William Patterson, Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois, we travelled to Geneva,
Switzerland and submitted 157,000 signatures on the petitions to the Offices
in Charge of the High Commission of Human Rights of the United Nations on
May 21, 1997. 

NBUF submitted our petitions and complaints of Human Rights
violations by governments, the United Nations established in 1970, after
many years of debate and discussion, what is called the 1503 procedure. The
1503 procedure if the outgrowth of the Economic and Social Council of the
United Nations that adopted this "procedure for dealing with communictaions
realting to violations of human rights and fundamental freedom." 

According to this procedure our petition and complaint will be
elgible to be considered in July of this year. 

It is important that we remind ourselves of the definition of
genocide that the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted in the
Genocide Convention in 1948. It is different to understand our present
condition in the world without understanding the meaning of genocide. 

Article II of the genocide Convention defines genocide as; "Any of
the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
nation, ethnic, racial or religious group as such: 

A. Killing members of the group; 

B. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to memebers of the group; 

C. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical; destruction in whole or in part 

D. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; 

E. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group;" 

The NBUF Genocide and Human Rights Campaign officially concluded in
March of 1998. We are grateful to the more than 250,000 African people who
signed our petitions and agreed with our complaint that the United States
Government, through numerous of its policies, is committing genocide against
African people in this country. 

Dr. Asa Hilliard recently wrote a most insightful book (1997) titled
SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind. He explains that the United
Nations definition of genocide clearly indicates that African people are
victims of genocide. 

Dr. Hilliard points out that "The genocidal practices of slavery,
lynching, colonization, etc. are easy to identify, but the more recent
institutionalized recent and covert froms of genocide produced by legal
systems, educational systems, public health systems, etc. are difficult to
distinguish." 

In this regard, Dr. Hilliard writes - "There is no public outcry
over these latter forms of genocide for two prim

[Marxism-Thaxis] Declaration of Genocide by U.S. Government

[Charles Brown]

Declaration of Genocide by U.S. Government

Against the Black Population in the United States

http://www.nbufront.org/jpgs/geno.jpg> 

A National Petition Drive and Campaign

 
http://www.nbufront.org/bbrown/hrgprof.html
 

Table of Contents 

* Origin of the NBUF National Petition Drive and Campaign. 

* The NBUF Petition 

* For People of African Descent. 

* For Our Supporters, Allies and Friends. 

* Request for Endorsements and Support. 

* Report/Update on the NBUF Petition Drive and Campaign. 

* List of Endorsers and Participants. 

* Number of signatures collected as of ___. 

* Past meetings, activities and events. 

* Calendar of Planned Meetings, Activities and Events. 

* African Liberation Day, May 17-25, 1997. 

* Submission of Petitions to United Nations, May 26, 1997. 

* Other, Related Petition Drives and Campaigns. 

 

Origin of the NBUF Petition Drive and Campaign

 

On Friday, October 25, 1996, the National Black United Front (NBUF) launched
a National Petition Drive charging the United States Government with
genocide.

The National Black United Front takes the position that the proliferation of
the distribution and sale of crack cocaine by Africans in America street
organizations has reached epidemic proportions, causing serious harm to the
African community in America. This harm can only be described as acts of
genocide by the United States government through its Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA).

In addition to the acts of genocide perpetuated through the CIA and in this
recent revelation, acts of genocide can also be attributed to the
government's use of taxpayers resources to wage war on a segment of the
American population. this can be evidenced by the following:

1. Cutting back on welfare programs and so-called housing reform; 

2. Privatization of public housing and land grab schemes by private
developers of inner-city neighborhoods; 

3. Privatization of public education under the banners of choice, charter
schools, and vouchers; 

4. Racist immigration policies; 

5. Privatization of basic health care and lack of public policies that will
lead to an AIDS cure; 

6. Building of prisons and the expanding incarceration of millions of
Africans and Latinos, primarily youth, as a solution to social, economic and
political problems in the United States. 

The results of these public policy retrenchments has caused devastation of
African communities throughout America. This has caused vast wastelands of
violence, poverty and ignorance resulting in the destruction of generations
of African youth.

During the month of May 1997, the National Black United Front plans to
submit these petitions to the United Nations as part of the annual African
Liberation Day activities. Also, NBUF will commemorate the delegations led
by Paul Robeson and William Patterson that presented the historic "We Charge
Genocide" complaint to the United Nations in 1951.

 

The NBUF Petition For People of African Descent

 

To Download a Copy of this Petition.

* Petition Page 1
http://www.nbufront.org/bbrown/PetitionPage1.html> 

* Petition Page 2
http://www.nbufront.org/bbrown/PetitionPage2.html> 

To register yourself and/or your Organization.

To continue reading.

To return to Table of Contents.

 

The NBUF Petition For Our Allies, Supporters and Friends

 

To Download a Copy of this Petition.

To register yourself and/or your Organization.

To continue reading.

To return to Table of Contents.

 

Request for Endorsements and Support

 

The National Black United Front requests the endorsement and support of all
organizations representing People of African descent in the United States,
and worldwide, on this Petition Drive and Campaign. NBUF also invites other
Peoples, movements and organizations to endor4se and support this effort. 

Specifically, NBUF is requesting that organizations formally endorse this
Petition Drive and Campaign, and participate through the securing of
signatures on petitions in the communities, at the work-sites and on the
colleges campuses where they work. Organizations can also help raise the
funds and in-kind resources needed to mount this nationwide and worldwide
effort.

To E-mail your Endorsement and Pledge of Support.

To continue reading.

To return to the Table of Contents.

 

Other Petition Drives and Campaigns

 

. Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika

 

To Download a Copy of these Petitions.

To E-mail a Registration for Yourself and/or your Organization.

To continue reading.

To return to the Table of Contents.

 

 

 

Report/Update on the NBUF National Petition Drive and Campaign

 

As of ___

 

. List of Endorsers and Supporters

* Pan-African Roots. 

* Provisional Governement of Republic of New Afrika. 

. 

. Number of Signatures collected:

Area/Organization Total Amount collected

Chicago, IL NBUF Chapter 16,000

Kansas City, MO NBUF Chapter 3,000

. Past Meetings, Activities and Events:

* January 24, 1997 NBUF Central Commit

[Marxism-Thaxis] Re: Tragedy of the Commons

[Waistline2]

>>>CORRECTION:
overgrazing by the common people did NOT occur.
sorry. 

Comment 

Upon first regarding of comments on "Global warming: "tragedy of the commons" 
 revisited
(s. artesian)" I had made the mental correction based on many of your 
previous writings and comments which generally and specifically treats property 
- 
property relations, as a very lengthy historical curve. Commodity exchange on 
the 
basis of the bourgeois property relations is relatively young and the world 
dominance or universality of bourgeois exchange relations is even younger. 

Then one has to examine means of consumption in an all sided manner. The 
origin of need and how bourgeois property inherits and then creates a unique 
set 
of needs - (not use values since nothing can pass into exchange without a use) 
that serves as the basis of its self reproduction is absent from the theorists 
of depletion assertions. The depletionists scream "use value" over and over 
meaning the utility of a thing, when in fact utility is experienced - realized, 
on the basis of its exchange property as a commodity. 

No screams the depletionists. Oil is needed under capitalism and socialism 
and a tuna fish sandwich is experienced by the tongue and human organism. One 
would think that oil pumped itself and morphed itself into a finished product 
and tuna fish leaped from the water onto ones plate. 


<<<>

No one denies the role of human agency - man, in what can be called the 
widening breach in the biosphere. This man or human agency is a property 
relations 
and not an abstract biological organism. Human agency experience itself 
through/as property relations. You have stated no more than this. 

That aspect of Global warming expressing human agency cannot be detached from 
property and bourgeois property and the industrial form of society in which 
the last final form of property is expressed. For various reasons Soviet 
industrial socialism could not magically "leap" outside of property relations 
simply 
because the communist thought it was a good idea or because an individual 
believes that Soviet society had no property relations. The state as property 
owner is a property relations even if it is a transition to a property less 
society. Yes, it is important that laws are enacted that prevent anything other 
than means of consumption from passing into the hands of the individual, but 
the 
dissolution of property and its impact in the minds of men requires centuries 
in my opinion. 

"The real measure, then, of whether a resource is likely to be over-exploited 
is NOT the measure of how *truly* democratic (as opposed, simply, to its 
corporately infiltrated governance) is its oversight." 

THE PROPERTY QUESTION COMES FIRST and defines exploited and "over exploited." 
Next comes science - accumulated knowledge that pushes the boundary of the 
"law of unknown result" and clarify and expands our universal understanding of 
the metabolic process. Democracy founded on ignorance - in the historical sense 
and not political fiat or governance, is not really democratic. Or rather 
democratic ignorance. We are forever historically inaccurate if not outright 
wrong and that is the logic of knowledge. This inaccuracy and being "wrong" is 
relative and in relationship to new methods and forms of understanding. That is 
how I understand the meaning of the law of unknown results, which becomes 
knowable little by little as the boundary of what is being examined expands. 

'The Tragedy of Private Property' ... must also embrace the Tragedy of 
Nutrition. The "Tragedy of Nutrition" was coined by Professor Arnold Ehert in 
the 
1920s and I simply borrowed his phrase and framework. There is also a profound 
theory approach involved in these questions of over consumption, over 
population, the carrying capacity of the earth and the arithmetic of food in 
relations 
to human population. The philosophy of materialism and the materialist 
conception of history begins with eating after we presuppose the existence of 
man/women. 

There is much non Marxist approach to the issue of the environment, 
sustainability, over population and the carrying capacity of the earth 
concepts. 

Waistline 

___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis

[Marxism-Thaxis] l Salaam Comrade Robeson

[Charles Brown]

  

l Salaam Comrade Robeson

Vijay Prashad
Assistant Professor of International Studies
Trinity College



Acknowledgements to Elisabeth Armstrong and Johnny Williams for leads and
for interpretation.

Paul Robeson, 1931  


The Sun is ours. The earth will be ours.
Tower of the sea, you will go on singing.

Pablo Neruda, "Ode to Paul Robeson."

1957 was a poor year for the
ambitions of US imperialism in South Asia. In March, the Communist Party of
India won the Kerala elections and took power on 5 April (or, according to
the CIA, they "established a significant beachhead in Kerala"); on 2
October, the USSR launched Sputnik I and appeared to be ahead in the "space
race"; the late 1955 visit of Khrushchev and Bulganin to India compounded
fears that India was to "go Communist" (Nehru had not yet illegally deposed
the CPI government in Kerala; that took place on 31 July 1959). India's
nonaligned foreign policy and its principled stand in the UN with regard to
the US in Korea raised the ire of the theorists of "containment" who
dominated the US establishment. In this context, US President Eisenhower
called his closest advisors to the White House on 12 November 1957. One of
his aides offered those present the following, a standard US view of India
at the time: "Aid to India will be a very hard proposition to sell because
their behavior has been very offensive on the Communist issue, and because
they have gone out of their way to insult us on many occasions." Not four
months later, the Indian government validated these remarks on the occasion
of the birth anniversary of an admirable man, Paul Robeson.

 Full at:
 
http://www.proxsa.org/politics/robeson.html


___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis

[Marxism-Thaxis] Black History Month: Eslanda Cardozo Goode, chemist, activist, anthropologist

[Charles Brown]

 
The Next International may declare the first week of May Communist History
Week.

John Henry

^^




 

Eslanda Goode




 

Eslanda Goode, the daughter of John Goode and Eslanda Cardozo, was
born in Washington   in 1896. Her father died when she was six and the rest
of the family moved to New York City > . 

In 1912 Goode won a four-year scholarship to the University of
Illinois. After graduating in 1917, she accepted an offer as histological
chemist at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York. 

Goode married Paul Robeson
  in 1921 but continued
her studies and after graduating from the University of Chicago in 1923,
Goode became the first African American analytical chemist at Columbia
Medical Centre. Her book, Paul Robeson, Negro, was published in 1930. 

Goode became increasingly concerned with the issue of civil rights
 . She also became
close friends with the radical political figures, Emma Goldman
  and Alexander Berkman
 . In her autobiography
Goldman wrote that "Essie (Goode) was a delightful person, and Paul
(Robeson) fascinated everyone."

In 1932 Goode became her Robeson's manager and was closely
associated with his various political campaigns. This included opposition to
fascists in Europe and attempts to persuade Congress to pass anti-lynching
  legislation. 

Goode and her husband, Paul Robeson , were both supporters of the
Popular Front 
government in Spain  . On
the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War

Goode was active in raising money for the International Brigades
 . In January 1938
Goode, Robeson joined Charlotte Haldane
 , Secretary of the
Dependents Aid Committee, in Spain.

Goode studied social anthropology at the London School of Economics
and Political Science 
(1936-37) and in the Soviet Union at the National Minorities Institute
before publishing African Journey in 1945. 

Goode and Robeson's political activities led to them being
investigated by House of Un-American Activities Committee
  (HUAC). The government
decided that both were members of the American Communist Party
 . Under the terms of
the Internal Security Act
 , members of the
party could not use their passports. Blacklisted at home and unable to
travel abroad, Robeson's income dropped from $104,000 in 1947 to $2,000 in
1950. 

Both Goode and Paul Robeson
  opposed the Korean
War   and drew attention
to the murders of Harriet and Harry S. Moore
  on 25th December,
1951, because of their attempts to establish a branch of the National
Association for the Advancement of Coloured People
  (NAACP) in Heartbreak
Ridge in Florida. She wrote they were killed "not on Heartbreak Ridge on the
distant battlefield of Korea, but on Heartbreak Ridge here in Mims,
Florida." Their assassination proved, she wrote, that the world prestige of
the United States was being threatened by "a few vicious, powerful active
Un-Americans." 

When Goode appeared before the House of Un-American Activities
Committee   in 1955 she
pointed out to the senators: "You're white and I'm a Negro, and this is a
very white committee." She denied being a member of the American Communist
Party   but praised
its policy of being in favour of racial equality. 

In 1958 the government lifted the ban it had imposed prohibiting the
Robesons from leaving the United States. The couple moved to Europe where
they lived for five years. Eslanda Goode died of cancer in 1965




___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Old Thread: Dialectics of Nature

[Ralph Dumain]

Reading this old thread of my late beloved Lisa brings back a lot of 
memories.  I do not, remember, however, how this discussion proceeded from 
there.  I do remember that it was an unfinished discussion, and that I had 
it in the back of my mind to engage Lisa once again attempting to divert 
her attention from dead-end leads and toward another direction.  She was 
engaged and committed to the study of this material,. and to engagement 
with the marxists on the lists she moderated, perhaps much more than it or 
them deserved.  Lisa had a voracious, unquenchable passion for knowledge 
and synthesis, and she studied a variety of subjects in addition to her 
professional scientific competence.

I still think my interventions were sound.  I did have to deal with the 
consequences of using a word without checking its meaning in the 
dictionary--"prevarication."  Occasionally in our private discussions we 
would step on one another's toes, but she couldn't get enough of them.

I remember that I had it in mind to discuss with Lisa something that was 
confusing her at the time, still struggling with Engels.  It was on the 
question of dialectical "laws", which she tacitly assumed, as do sloppy 
Marxist thinkers on the subject (i.e. most of them), that these "laws" are 
something like laws of nature.  Engels himself is responsible for this 
half-assed thinking, which is why I don't think it is useful to invest 
oneself in what Engels literally says.  I meant to broaden the discussion 
to get Lisa out of struggling with an arguing against what is essentially a 
dead-end position.  But then Lisa died suddenly, and this conversation, 
like many other conversations between us, was cruelly ended by 
circumstance. Sigh.

At 06:09 PM 2/18/2005 -0500, Charles Brown wrote:
Dialectics of Nature
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]  Fri, 14 Jun
1996 05:10:59 -0500 (EST)
*   Previous message: Labor Party platform

*   Next message: Dialectics of Nature

*   Messages sorted by: [ date ]
  [ thread ]
  [ subject ]
  [ author ]


___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis