[Marxism-Thaxis] Could God die again ?

[CeJ]

We already got the atheist millenarianism revival with that stupid
book, Empire.

But looking back, way back, we see that:

Here was an action man. But alas M&E reviled him--and resented him.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Weitling

Wilhelm Weitling
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Wilhelm Weitling.

Wilhelm Weitling (October 5, 1808 – January 24, 1871)[1] was an
important early German anarchist, communist or socialist. Part of the
utopian socialism movement, he was viewed with contempt by Marx[2] and
Engels[3] (although the latter, at a very early period, called him the
founder of German communism[4]).
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Life
* 2 Works
* 3 Notes
* 4 References
* 5 See also
* 6 External links

[edit] Life

He was born in Magdeburg, Prussia.[1] As a travelling sartorial
journeyman/apprentice he came to Paris in 1838, during the July
Monarchy, and later to Switzerland. Working twelve-hour days as a
tailor, he still found time to read Strauss and Lamennais. After
joining the League of the Just in 1837, Weitling joined Parisian
workers in protests and street battles in 1839. Tristram Hunt called
his doctrine "a highly emotional mix of Babouvist communism,
chiliastic Christianity, and millenarian populism":

Following the work of the Christian radical Felicité de Lamennais,
Weitling urged installing communism by physical force with the help of
a 40,000-strong army of ex-convicts. A prelapsarian community of
goods, fellowship, and societal harmony would then ensue, ushered in
by the Christlike figure of Weitling himself. While Marx and Engels
struggled with the intricacies of industrial capitalism and modern
modes of production, Weitling revived the apocalyptic politics of the
sixteenth-century Münster Anabaptists and their gory attempts to usher
in the Second Coming... Much to Marx and Engels's fury, Weitling's
giddy blend of evangelism and protocommunism attracted thousands of
dedicated followers across the Continent.[5]

In the book Gospel of Poor Sinners he traced communism back to early
Christianity.[6] [7] His book Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom was
praised by Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach and Mikhail Bakunin, the
latter of whom Weitling was to meet in Zürich in 1843.[8] Karl Marx,
in an 1844 review, referred to the "unbounded brilliance of the
literary debut of the German worker,"[9] but "what won from Marx this
high-sounding praise was simply the fact that Weitling's appeals were
addressed to the workers as a class."[10]

During his stay in Zürich, he was arrested for revolutionary
agitation, and extradited to the Kingdom of Prussia. From there he got
the chance in 1849[11] to emigrate to the United States (as one of the
Forty-Eighters).
[edit] Works

He published several revolutionary works:

* Die Menschheit. Wie Sie ist und wie sie sein sollte, (1838/39)
German text online
* The Poor Sinner's Gospel, (Das Evangelium eines armen Sünders. 1845)
* Ein Nothruf an die Männer der Arbeit und der Sorge, Brief an die
Landsleute, (1847)
* Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom, (Garantien der Harmonie und
Freiheit), (1849) German text online

___
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] Christian Story of Jesus's Birth Is a Myth Born of Politics

[CeJ]

Christian Story of Jesus's Birth Is a Myth Born of Politics

http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2010-January/024987.html

>>First century Christians remembered very well that according to Jesus
"You shall love the Lord your God with heart, mind, soul, and
strength." Jesus was their Lord. They did not have divided loyalties.<<

I would say, NO, not true. The author places far too much onus on the
first century Christians,
who would have been Jews, Samaritans, Hellenized Jews and Samaritans,
and Judaizing Hellenics and Romans. Perhaps that tendency was stronger
the more you got away from Palestine and Mesopotamia.

One tension that was always there was the nature of Jesus Christ. For
some, he was God's gift,
a prophet, a messiah, a teacher (rabbi), but not a god nor God. For
all the success Christianity then enjoyed, one large dichotomy was
between 'trinitarians' and 'non-trinitarians', although this doesn't
seem to have been a clear dichotomy in the religion's first century,
but later. At any rate, those who could not accept JC as a god, or
were born into those traditions, participated in a type of
Christianity that co-existed and often largely assimilated to Islam.
Jews and Samaritans who could not accept him as a messiah might well
have ended up in Palestinian and Mesopotamian forms of Rabbinical
Talmudic Judaism. (However, Rabbinical Judaism has periodically been
open to other messiahs as well).

If you look at how Islam portrays Jesus Christ (and Mary) in their
texts and oral traditions you might get a stronger sense of how he was
variously perceived in the now remote late classical, early middle
ages.
You will also note how various forms of 'Abrahamic' religions that the
post-mo minds think of as 'ancient' or 'classical' were really the
product of the early middle ages (i.e., trinitarian Christianity,
rabbinical Judaism, Karaite Judaism, Islam).  Which might bring us to
all sorts of interesting political questions.


CJ

___
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] Popularity of Atlas Shrugged: r ( theory, practice)

[CeJ]

I really like Carrol. I'm still waiting for him to acknowledge that I
was the one who initiated the comparisons of Osama bin Laden with
Pancho Villa (I  prefer the revolutionary politics of the latter
though, while Carrol seemed not to know about them at first). Why he
sticks around to be a pincushion on a list like LBO-T is difficult to
fathom. He must really be deepdown some sort of masochist.

I would say we need to get beyond these simplistic 'theory' vs.
'practice' distinctions. You derive 'theory' from what people actually
do, how they act. Not how they justify it or conceal it.

In stated theory, Obama is a 'fiscal hawk' (or did you mix your
metaphors there CB, war hawk, fiscal conservative). In practice he is
as militaristically dissolute as his predecessor. And that is the
reckoning that is drawing near for him and the 'consensus' he now gets
from the ruling classes in the US, Europe, and developed E. Asia. Most
Europeans and E. Asians probably don't know that (1) no, the US does
not have a system of public-provided health care or health insurance
and (2) what is left of entities like AIG still dream about ravaging
OECD systems so they can get profits from private insurance. If they
do know, it would be only because they rented Moore's film on DVD.

The new 'reform' government of Japan is trying to get itself worked up
enough to challenge him on US military bases here. So there is one
small crack in the consensus. Everywhere else it seems, because one
guy managed to stuff his BVDs with plastic explosive, all systems are
GO.

I thought that 'theories in action' were what 'thaxis' was all about
anyway. The best way for Obama to change his theory would be to stop
doing what he is doing. The hope of some wishy-washy Democrats and
Independents was this guy was going to listen to 'reason' more than
the Bushwa warpigs.

Oops. I forgot to discuss Rand. I think perhaps at least one
LBO-Talker noticed what I already had--she isn't a half-bad novelist.
I'd rather read her than any number of novelists of the 20th century
(although I'm coming around to, for example, reading CP Snow again).
And she warrants some discussion for her contribution to some
philosophical issues, if only because she was such a good
'popularizer' of an idea of philosophy, while at the same time being
so hostile to the usual way in that dillettantes use--religion.

CJ

___
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] Barack Obama Worked For The CIA - John Pilger

[CeJ]

CB:>>What is WMR material ?<<

It's just a blogger who tries to look like he is his own 'news
service'. Most of what he has written is just speculation mixed with
the facts as we know them already published at left-wing sources like
Zmag, Pilger, and Blum. He cobbled together that stuff and put his
right-wing spin on it and the right-wing blogs and even major media
outlets have stared crediting him with the story. If you followed the
controversy on Marxmal list you would have noticed. If you had blogged
'WMR' and 'Obama' and 'spooky' it would probably take you to the
putrid source.

As for what ghost told me about PEN-L, all I had to do was look at the
web archive and the , ummm, almost total lack of discussion outside of
the usual shameless self-promoters. Looks like Prof. Milquetoast got
his wish.

As for that ghost, it must have been the same one who made you
buttered popcorn and watched the Obama campaign with you.

CJ

___
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] Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühri ng ?

[CeJ]

Oops I just posted a reply to JF's bounce box.

Here it is again.

MF>>Marx & Engels, while generally favorable
to free trade, weren't always as gung-ho
about it as Engels was in Anti-Durhing.
In other writings, they recognized that
under certain conditions that infant industry
arguments for protectionism did have some
strength.  And Marx at times advanced the
argument that if Ireland were to win
its independence that one of the economic
advantages it would experience would be the
freedom to impose protectionist policies
that would enable it to industrialize itself.<<

One proviso they imposed consistently was always on small, isolated
economies that would do better with strategic protection. But I think
mature Marx and Engels realized how naive they had been about Henry
Clay's America (and as CB alluded to, 19th century slavery, which had
replaced the earlier system of indentured servitude mixed with
slavery, was at the center of the 'riches' of the South).

And then there was the hope that 'free trade' better creates the
situation for capitalism to be replaced. They weren't really gung-ho
about any theory or conditions under which capitalism operated, were
they? That is the entire problematic of their prodigious output. We
got a post-mo communications theory of capitalism's destruction that
is quite analogous (e.g.,  Baudrillard).

CJ

--
Japan Higher Education Outlook
http://japanheo.blogspot.com/

ELT in Japan
http://eltinjapan.blogspot.com/

We are Feral Cats
http://wearechikineko.blogspot.com/

___
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] Could God die again ?

[Jim Farmelant]

 
On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:49:44 -0500 Ralph Dumain
 writes:
> "The weak points in the abstract materialism of natural science, a 
> materialism that excludes history and its process, are at once 
> evident from the abstract and ideological conceptions of its 
> spokesmen, whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own 
> speciality."
> 
>   --- Karl Marx
> 
> 
> Terry Eagleton is a disgrace. As for Schneider, the content of his 
> article belles its bullshit title. There's no connection between the 
> 
> Death of God movement and the new atheism, or the old. So here are 
> my 
> bullet points.
> 
> 1. 'Death of God' theology can be criticized in the same manner as 
> Marx criticized Young Hegelians like Bauer and Feuerbach---the 
> discussion remains entirely within the boundaries of ideology--in 
> this case mythology--and simply juggles mythical concepts cut off 
> from the realities that generate them. Only the higher criticism of 
> 
> the early 19th century made something progress, whereas the Death of 
> 
> God movement simply rationalized a dying (for the intelligentsia) 
> religion. Altizer is an interesting character, but it's all nothing 

Feuerbach was a rather important thinker for the
Death of God crowd.  Then again, the theologians
had already pretty much "baptized" him anyway.
Karl Barth, the proponent of neo-orthodoxy, had
already Feuerbach a central figure for 20th
century theologians.  And likewise Nietzsche
and Freud had become required reading for
the theologians too. I suppose that
intellectually, the radical theology movement,
including the Death of God crowd, pretty much
regurgitated the ruminations of the Young
Hegelians, and those influenced by them
in the 19th century.


> 
> more than the retooling of mythology within mythology.
> 
> 2. The lack of sophistication of Dawkins, Harris, Shermer and others 
> 
> in or out of the official grouping of the "new atheists", is another 
> 
> matter entirely. They don't have to be familiar with the intricacies 
> 
> of theology and prove their competence thereto in order to engage in 
> 
> debate about the falsehood of religious belief. All this liberal 
> religion is very much a subterfuge in any case, playing a shady game 

The New Atheists, in my judgment, know enough theology
in order to be able to debink its claims.  Where they are lacking in
sophsitication is in their grasp of social theory, both
Marxist and non-Marxist.  Their explanations of religion and
religious phenomena, therefore, tend to biologistic, idealist,
and abstract as a consequence.  

> 
> of "as if" while being very cagey about what one actually commits 
> oneself to--a game played by intellectuals who are too smart to 
> believe what the ordinary person purports to believe but not honest 
> 
> enough to cut oneself loose from it. One finds this among liberal 
> Jewish, Christian, and presumably other religionists.

That's long been the position that humanist philosophers
have taken in regards to liberal theology., i.e. Sidney Hook, and Corliss
Lamont.

> 
> What Dawkins et al are deficient in is far more serious. First, they 
> 
> are philosophically naive or inept. They don't understand the 
> interplay between the realms of philosophy and empirical science 
> (cum 
> scientific theory), and they don't understand how philosophy works. 
> 
> So when they make the leap to philosophical statements, they think 
> they are still engaging in straightforward scientific propositions.
> 
> But it's much worse than this. Dawkins et al don't know, AND DON'T 
> WANT TO KNOW, anything about history or society or politics. 
> (Hitchens knows something, but doesn't want to know it anymore, 
> except for name-dropping self-promotion.) They want to read society, 
> 
> culture, and history directly off of biological evolution or 
> cognitive psychology, unmediated by any engagement with real history 
> 
> or sociology.
> 
> 
> 
> At 02:39 PM 1/5/2010, c b wrote:
> >Could God die again?
> >Death of God theology was a 1960s phenomenon that casts light on 
> the
> >narrowness of the current debate
> >
> >
> >
> >Nathan Schneider
> >guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 October 2009 09.00 BST
> 
> 
> ___
> 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
> 
> 
 

Love Spell
Click here to light up your life with a love spell!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=M5A_47JH9RXrBsf2KgqXcQAAJ1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAYAAADNRwA=

___
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] Popularity of Atlas Shrugged: r ( theory, practice)

[c b]

Carrol Cox is a Marxism-Thaxis alum

CB

Message: 4 On PEN-L
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 2010 10:56:38 -0600
From: Carrol Cox 
Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Popularity of Atlas Shrugged


The basic fact about _all_ "belief systems" is that holders of any given
belief may have quite contrary positons on every fucking issuye, public
or private. You simply cannot deduce practice from theory. We are our
history, and that history leads us into certain kinds of social
practice, which we then _express_ in terms of whatever belief strucutre
we happen to hold at that moment.

What Joanna describes is that some adolescents happen to come upon Rand
and find that she offers a rationale for what they are already
practicing. She provides them with rhetoric,but the practice would still
exist had she never been born, only it would be wrapped in some other
rhetoric.

One of the features of capitalist culture is that the wildest
combinations of belief and practice can exist. Surely there exists at
least one or two  persons who (a) support socialist revolutoin and (b)
are devoted followers of Rand.

Carrol


Response to this:

Apparently Atlas Shrugged continues to be very popular:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged

In the wake of the late 2000s recession sales of Atlas Shrugged have
sharply increased, according to The Economist magazine and The New
York Times. The Economist reported that the fifty-two-year-old novel
ranked #33 among Amazon.com's top-selling books on January 13,
2009.[8]

Interestingly the antiwar libertarian Justin Raimondo suggests that
Rand might have done a bit of plagiarising. John Galt is in Atlas
Shrugged!

 Justin Raimondo has observed similarities between Atlas Shrugged and
the 1922 novel The Driver, written by Garet Garrett,[14] which
concerns an idealized industrialist named Henry Galt, who is a
transcontinental railway owner trying to improve the world and
fighting against government and socialism. I

___
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] How Atheists Can Use Christianity

[c b]

On 1/5/10, Ralph Dumain  wrote:

> This is a disgusting reactionary fraud down to
> its subatomic particles. Next comes another
> revival of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

^^^
CB: subatomic paticles ?

Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a different "error" than "Jesus was
a revolutionary ", no ?

^
>
> At 02:13 PM 1/5/2010, c b wrote:
> >How Atheists Can Use Christianity By Nathan
> >Schneider, The Guardian Posted on January 5,
> >2010, Printed on January 5, 2010
> >http://www.alternet.org/story/144931/ James
> >Wood, a writer who himself has lived between the
> >tugs of belief and unbelief, made an eloquent
> >call in the New Yorker last August for "a
> >theologically engaged atheism". Concluding a
> >review of Terry Eagleton's recent attack on
> >Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, he
> >imagines something "only a semitone from faith
> >[which] could give a brother's account of
> >belief, rather than treat it as some unwanted
> >impoverished relative." At the American Academy
> >of Religion meeting in Montreal last year, he
> >may have gotten his wish, or something
> >resembling it. Following an apocalyptic sermon
> >from "death of God" theologian Thomas J.J.
> >Altizer, to the podium came the ruffled
> >Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a
> >self-described atheist and "materiaalist through
> >and through", before an audience of religion
> >scholars, theologians, and costumed adherents.
> >He spoke of truths Christianity alone possesses
> >and how Christ's death reveals that "the only
> >universality is the universality of struggle."
> >Atheism, he explained, is true Christianity, and
> >one can only be a real atheist by passing
> >through Christianity. "In this sense, I am
> >unconditionally a Christian", said Žižek. He is
> >one of several leading thhinkers in recent years
> >who, though coming out of a deeply secular and
> >often-Marxist bent, have made a turn toward
> >theology. In 1997, Alain Badiou published a
> >study of the apostle Paul, whom he took as an
> >exemplar of his own influential philosophy of
> >the "event". Three years later, Giorgio Agamben
> >responded in Italian with The Time That Remains,
> >a painstaking exegesis of the first ten words of
> >Paul's Letter to the Romans. The purpose of both
> >was not a more enlightened piety, but an inquiry
> >into the texture of revolution. Paul is
> >significant to them because he ushered in, and
> >in the process described, a genuinely
> >transformational social movement. These atheist
> >theologians speak from a sensation of political
> >atrophy; they're assembling a barricade against
> >the onslaught of global capitalism and the
> >tireless inanity of jingoistic violence. But
> >don't expect to find them wafting into church on
> >Sunday morning. Although elievers have welcomed
> >literary theorist Terry Eagleton's critique of
> >Dawkins and Hitchens, at a talk in New York this
> >September, he declared he has nothing to say
> >about prayer and is "presently distant from the
> >institutional dimension" of religion, even if
> >falling short of outright atheism. When I asked
> >him, in a subsequent interview, what he wants of
> >his readers, he replied, "I'm certainly not
> >urging them to go to church. I'm urging them, I
> >suppose, to read the Bible because it's very
> >relevant to radical political concerns." Yet
> >some "real" theologians are starting to follow
> >this phenomenon with interest, seeing in it an
> >opportunity to rejuvenate their own enterprise.
> >The Anglican John Milbank, in a recent book he
> >wrote with Žižek called The Monstrosity of
> >Christ, saidd of his co-author, "In an important
> >sense, he bears a theological witness".
> >Searching for political answers, Žiž¾ek and the
> >others have unearthed some of the forgotten
> >radicalism of earliest Christianity, and they
> >insist on its relevance today. Yet they also
> >represent a threat to the religious status quo.
> >What does it mean, after all, if atheists are
> >doing theology better than believers? "Žiž¾ek's
> >work is hazardous to the health of cardboard
> >theology and the church on which it rests", says
> >Creston Davis of Rollins College in Florida, who
> >edited and orchestrated The Monstrosity of
> >Christ. "It is time we took theology back out of
> >the hands of business-class freeloaders." There
> >is in this theological turn, also, a dangerous
> >desire. Nobody seems willing to die for a
> >secular philosophy any more, yet in today's
> >"post secular" religion, blood sacrifice
> >abounds. The suicide bombers and abortion-doctor
> >killers whom we all decry seem able to tap into
> >a well of deep conviction like what brought Paul
> >and other early Christians to be martyred for
> >their faith. A politics capable of organizing
> >people to resist the intrusions of capital and
> >ideology would certainly require that kind of
> >commitment. Theology, perhaps, provides a point
> >of access to these ambivalent powers in human
> >na

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Could God die again ?

[c b]

On 1/5/10, Ralph Dumain  wrote:
> Yes, but I'm not using the artificial grouping of "new atheists"
> created by the news media. There are prominent atheists of different
> stripes. I'm addressing only the non-philosophers--the scientists or
> quasi-scientists--who engage in philosophical arguments. Dawkins is
> no philosopher, and neither is Harris. Michael Shermer, who is I
> guess an old or at least not new atheist, is the worse of the
> lot--well, maybe Harris is--as Shermer is peddling a load of
> fertilizer called "evolutionary economics" and whose major
> inspiration is Ayn Rand.
>
> I'm not so familiar with Dennett, but the last presentation I
> remember he did in DC was so godawful, I'm inclined to dismiss him,
> too. Philosophy in the USA is pretty damn narrow as well.




CB: Of course, all of them are selling books and entertainers, and
they have to say something (pseudo-)new.  "Don't be a copycat" is an
important American value. (Dawkins is British, ok).

What are some of the ways in which they stumble and stunt philosophically ?


>
> At 04:34 PM 1/5/2010, c b wrote:
> >  Ralph Dumain  wrote:
> >
> >
> >What Dawkins et al are deficient in is far more serious. First, they
> >are philosophically naive or inept. They don't understand the
> >interplay between the realms of philosophy and empirical science (cum
> >scientific theory), and they don't understand how philosophy works.
> >So when they make the leap to philosophical statements, they think
> >they are still engaging in straightforward scientific propositions.
> >
> >^
> >CB: Not defending anybody, but isn't Dennett a philosopher or philo pro ?
> >
> >^
> >
> >
> > > But it's much worse than this. Dawkins et al don't know, AND DON'T
> > > WANT TO KNOW, anything about history or society or politics.
> > > (Hitchens knows something, but doesn't want to know it anymore,
> > > except for name-dropping self-promotion.) They want to read society,
> > > culture, and history directly off of biological evolution or
> > > cognitive psychology, unmediated by any engagement with real history
> > > or sociology.
> >
> >
> >CB:   Biologist Dawkins , like Jared Diamond, seems to become a
> >"species" of Social Darwinists/Vulgar materialists, not surprisingly.
> >They reduce human history to natural history.
> >
> >___
> >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 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 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] Could God die again ?

[Ralph Dumain]

Yes, but I'm not using the artificial grouping of "new atheists" 
created by the news media. There are prominent atheists of different 
stripes. I'm addressing only the non-philosophers--the scientists or 
quasi-scientists--who engage in philosophical arguments. Dawkins is 
no philosopher, and neither is Harris. Michael Shermer, who is I 
guess an old or at least not new atheist, is the worse of the 
lot--well, maybe Harris is--as Shermer is peddling a load of 
fertilizer called "evolutionary economics" and whose major 
inspiration is Ayn Rand.

I'm not so familiar with Dennett, but the last presentation I 
remember he did in DC was so godawful, I'm inclined to dismiss him, 
too. Philosophy in the USA is pretty damn narrow as well.

At 04:34 PM 1/5/2010, c b wrote:
>  Ralph Dumain  wrote:
>
>
>What Dawkins et al are deficient in is far more serious. First, they
>are philosophically naive or inept. They don't understand the
>interplay between the realms of philosophy and empirical science (cum
>scientific theory), and they don't understand how philosophy works.
>So when they make the leap to philosophical statements, they think
>they are still engaging in straightforward scientific propositions.
>
>^
>CB: Not defending anybody, but isn't Dennett a philosopher or philo pro ?
>
>^
>
>
> > But it's much worse than this. Dawkins et al don't know, AND DON'T
> > WANT TO KNOW, anything about history or society or politics.
> > (Hitchens knows something, but doesn't want to know it anymore,
> > except for name-dropping self-promotion.) They want to read society,
> > culture, and history directly off of biological evolution or
> > cognitive psychology, unmediated by any engagement with real history
> > or sociology.
>
>
>CB:   Biologist Dawkins , like Jared Diamond, seems to become a
>"species" of Social Darwinists/Vulgar materialists, not surprisingly.
>They reduce human history to natural history.
>
>___
>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 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] Could God die again ?

[c b]

 Ralph Dumain  wrote:


What Dawkins et al are deficient in is far more serious. First, they
are philosophically naive or inept. They don't understand the
interplay between the realms of philosophy and empirical science (cum
scientific theory), and they don't understand how philosophy works.
So when they make the leap to philosophical statements, they think
they are still engaging in straightforward scientific propositions.

^
CB: Not defending anybody, but isn't Dennett a philosopher or philo pro ?

^


> But it's much worse than this. Dawkins et al don't know, AND DON'T
> WANT TO KNOW, anything about history or society or politics.
> (Hitchens knows something, but doesn't want to know it anymore,
> except for name-dropping self-promotion.) They want to read society,
> culture, and history directly off of biological evolution or
> cognitive psychology, unmediated by any engagement with real history
> or sociology.


CB:   Biologist Dawkins , like Jared Diamond, seems to become a
"species" of Social Darwinists/Vulgar materialists, not surprisingly.
They reduce human history to natural history.

___
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] How Atheists Can Use Christianity

[Ralph Dumain]

This is a disgusting reactionary fraud down to 
its subatomic particles. Next comes another 
revival of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

At 02:13 PM 1/5/2010, c b wrote:
>How Atheists Can Use Christianity By Nathan 
>Schneider, The Guardian Posted on January 5, 
>2010, Printed on January 5, 2010 
>http://www.alternet.org/story/144931/ James 
>Wood, a writer who himself has lived between the 
>tugs of belief and unbelief, made an eloquent 
>call in the New Yorker last August for "a 
>theologically engaged atheism". Concluding a 
>review of Terry Eagleton's recent attack on 
>Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, he 
>imagines something "only a semitone from faith 
>[which] could give a brother's account of 
>belief, rather than treat it as some unwanted 
>impoverished relative." At the American Academy 
>of Religion meeting in Montreal last year, he 
>may have gotten his wish, or something 
>resembling it. Following an apocalyptic sermon 
>from "death of God" theologian Thomas J.J. 
>Altizer, to the podium came the ruffled 
>Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a 
>self-described atheist and "materiaalist through 
>and through", before an audience of religion 
>scholars, theologians, and costumed adherents. 
>He spoke of truths Christianity alone possesses 
>and how Christ's death reveals that "the only 
>universality is the universality of struggle." 
>Atheism, he explained, is true Christianity, and 
>one can only be a real atheist by passing 
>through Christianity. "In this sense, I am 
>unconditionally a Christian", said Žižek. He is 
>one of several leading thhinkers in recent years 
>who, though coming out of a deeply secular and 
>often-Marxist bent, have made a turn toward 
>theology. In 1997, Alain Badiou published a 
>study of the apostle Paul, whom he took as an 
>exemplar of his own influential philosophy of 
>the "event". Three years later, Giorgio Agamben 
>responded in Italian with The Time That Remains, 
>a painstaking exegesis of the first ten words of 
>Paul's Letter to the Romans. The purpose of both 
>was not a more enlightened piety, but an inquiry 
>into the texture of revolution. Paul is 
>significant to them because he ushered in, and 
>in the process described, a genuinely 
>transformational social movement. These atheist 
>theologians speak from a sensation of political 
>atrophy; they're assembling a barricade against 
>the onslaught of global capitalism and the 
>tireless inanity of jingoistic violence. But 
>don't expect to find them wafting into church on 
>Sunday morning. Although elievers have welcomed 
>literary theorist Terry Eagleton's critique of 
>Dawkins and Hitchens, at a talk in New York this 
>September, he declared he has nothing to say 
>about prayer and is "presently distant from the 
>institutional dimension" of religion, even if 
>falling short of outright atheism. When I asked 
>him, in a subsequent interview, what he wants of 
>his readers, he replied, "I'm certainly not 
>urging them to go to church. I'm urging them, I 
>suppose, to read the Bible because it's very 
>relevant to radical political concerns." Yet 
>some "real" theologians are starting to follow 
>this phenomenon with interest, seeing in it an 
>opportunity to rejuvenate their own enterprise. 
>The Anglican John Milbank, in a recent book he 
>wrote with Žižek called The Monstrosity of 
>Christ, saidd of his co-author, "In an important 
>sense, he bears a theological witness". 
>Searching for political answers, Žiž¾ek and the 
>others have unearthed some of the forgotten 
>radicalism of earliest Christianity, and they 
>insist on its relevance today. Yet they also 
>represent a threat to the religious status quo. 
>What does it mean, after all, if atheists are 
>doing theology better than believers? "Žiž¾ek's 
>work is hazardous to the health of cardboard 
>theology and the church on which it rests", says 
>Creston Davis of Rollins College in Florida, who 
>edited and orchestrated The Monstrosity of 
>Christ. "It is time we took theology back out of 
>the hands of business-class freeloaders." There 
>is in this theological turn, also, a dangerous 
>desire. Nobody seems willing to die for a 
>secular philosophy any more, yet in today's 
>"post secular" religion, blood sacrifice 
>abounds. The suicide bombers and abortion-doctor 
>killers whom we all decry seem able to tap into 
>a well of deep conviction like what brought Paul 
>and other early Christians to be martyred for 
>their faith. A politics capable of organizing 
>people to resist the intrusions of capital and 
>ideology would certainly require that kind of 
>commitment. Theology, perhaps, provides a point 
>of access to these ambivalent powers in human 
>nature and the chance to carefully, thoughtfully 
>mobilize them anew. "It is clear that liberalism 
>has run out of ideas," adds Creston Davis. 
>Philosophy's turn to theology, he believes, is 
>"a step in the right direction toward taking 
>care of the poor and struggling for a

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Could God die again ?

[Ralph Dumain]

"The weak points in the abstract materialism of natural science, a 
materialism that excludes history and its process, are at once 
evident from the abstract and ideological conceptions of its 
spokesmen, whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own speciality."

  --- Karl Marx


Terry Eagleton is a disgrace. As for Schneider, the content of his 
article belles its bullshit title. There's no connection between the 
Death of God movement and the new atheism, or the old. So here are my 
bullet points.

1. 'Death of God' theology can be criticized in the same manner as 
Marx criticized Young Hegelians like Bauer and Feuerbach---the 
discussion remains entirely within the boundaries of ideology--in 
this case mythology--and simply juggles mythical concepts cut off 
from the realities that generate them. Only the higher criticism of 
the early 19th century made something progress, whereas the Death of 
God movement simply rationalized a dying (for the intelligentsia) 
religion. Altizer is an interesting character, but it's all nothing 
more than the retooling of mythology within mythology.

2. The lack of sophistication of Dawkins, Harris, Shermer and others 
in or out of the official grouping of the "new atheists", is another 
matter entirely. They don't have to be familiar with the intricacies 
of theology and prove their competence thereto in order to engage in 
debate about the falsehood of religious belief. All this liberal 
religion is very much a subterfuge in any case, playing a shady game 
of "as if" while being very cagey about what one actually commits 
oneself to--a game played by intellectuals who are too smart to 
believe what the ordinary person purports to believe but not honest 
enough to cut oneself loose from it. One finds this among liberal 
Jewish, Christian, and presumably other religionists.

What Dawkins et al are deficient in is far more serious. First, they 
are philosophically naive or inept. They don't understand the 
interplay between the realms of philosophy and empirical science (cum 
scientific theory), and they don't understand how philosophy works. 
So when they make the leap to philosophical statements, they think 
they are still engaging in straightforward scientific propositions.

But it's much worse than this. Dawkins et al don't know, AND DON'T 
WANT TO KNOW, anything about history or society or politics. 
(Hitchens knows something, but doesn't want to know it anymore, 
except for name-dropping self-promotion.) They want to read society, 
culture, and history directly off of biological evolution or 
cognitive psychology, unmediated by any engagement with real history 
or sociology.



At 02:39 PM 1/5/2010, c b wrote:
>Could God die again?
>Death of God theology was a 1960s phenomenon that casts light on the
>narrowness of the current debate
>
>
>
>Nathan Schneider
>guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 October 2009 09.00 BST


___
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] Could God die again?

[c b]

  wrote:
>
> That's a criticism that is often made
> of Dawkins et al.  In reality, Dawkins
> is quite aware of the fact that theologians
> have a variety of "sophisticated" notions
> of God, but he also knows that most of
> these notions have little to do with the
> beliefs embraced by the folk that sit in
> the pews.  Dawkins is also quite aware that
> many of these "sophisticated" notions of
> God are, in comparison with the notions
> embraced by most believers, literally
> nonsensical.  They are not even false.
>
> Jim F.


^^^
CB: Not even false ?  Like no excluded middle ?

>
> -- Original Message --
> From: c b 
> To: Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and 
> the thinkers he inspired 
> Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Could God die again?
> Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 15:06:47 -0500
>
> Unlike some of the prominent atheists of today, these thinkers knew
> intimately the theology they were attacking. Life after God, they
> believed, could not move forward without understanding the debt it
> owed to the religious culture that had gone before. Consequently the
> movement went far beyond the simplistic, scientistic concept of God
> common to both contemporary atheists and many of their critics: a
> cartoonish hypothesis, some kind of all-powerful alien.
>
> ^
> CB: Don't most believers have a relatively "simplistic" concept of God ?
>
> ^^^
>
> Altizer spoke of the God of direct experience; van Buren, the God
> conjured in language; and Cox, the God that arises in the life of
> societies. These are incisive approaches that, lately, have too often
> been forgotten in exchange for the caricature.
>
>
>
>
> 
> Weight Loss Program
> Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here!
> http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=2XTCUBimeFSKQCjIdRvpVgAAJ1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAYAAADNAAAEUgA=
>
> ___
> 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 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] Could God die again?

[farmela...@juno.com]

That's a criticism that is often made
of Dawkins et al.  In reality, Dawkins
is quite aware of the fact that theologians
have a variety of "sophisticated" notions
of God, but he also knows that most of
these notions have little to do with the
beliefs embraced by the folk that sit in
the pews.  Dawkins is also quite aware that
many of these "sophisticated" notions of
God are, in comparison with the notions
embraced by most believers, literally
nonsensical.  They are not even false.

Jim F.

-- Original Message --
From: c b 
To: Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and the 
thinkers he inspired 
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Could God die again?
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 15:06:47 -0500

Unlike some of the prominent atheists of today, these thinkers knew
intimately the theology they were attacking. Life after God, they
believed, could not move forward without understanding the debt it
owed to the religious culture that had gone before. Consequently the
movement went far beyond the simplistic, scientistic concept of God
common to both contemporary atheists and many of their critics: a
cartoonish hypothesis, some kind of all-powerful alien.

^
CB: Don't most believers have a relatively "simplistic" concept of God ?

^^^

Altizer spoke of the God of direct experience; van Buren, the God
conjured in language; and Cox, the God that arises in the life of
societies. These are incisive approaches that, lately, have too often
been forgotten in exchange for the caricature.





Weight Loss Program
Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=2XTCUBimeFSKQCjIdRvpVgAAJ1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAYAAADNAAAEUgA=

___
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] Could God die again?

[c b]

Unlike some of the prominent atheists of today, these thinkers knew
intimately the theology they were attacking. Life after God, they
believed, could not move forward without understanding the debt it
owed to the religious culture that had gone before. Consequently the
movement went far beyond the simplistic, scientistic concept of God
common to both contemporary atheists and many of their critics: a
cartoonish hypothesis, some kind of all-powerful alien.

^
CB: Don't most believers have a relatively "simplistic" concept of God ?

^^^

Altizer spoke of the God of direct experience; van Buren, the God
conjured in language; and Cox, the God that arises in the life of
societies. These are incisive approaches that, lately, have too often
been forgotten in exchange for the caricature.

___
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] Could God die again ?

[c b]

Could God die again?
Death of God theology was a 1960s phenomenon that casts light on the
narrowness of the current debate



Nathan Schneider
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 October 2009 09.00 BST

It is a familiar scene. A religious revival has just swept through the
United States, spurred in part by fear of a non-Christian foe abroad.
Among its dissidents there arise a handful of outspoken men – say,
three or four of them – proclaiming as loudly as they can a caustic
version of atheism, one directed especially at the US's brand of
public religion. They inspire a volley of responses from the pious and
enough public enthusiasm to make their books bestsellers, all the
while forcing us to ask once again what the place of religion is and
should be in the modern world.

This could be the early part of the present decade, at the height of
the Bush years, and the men, the so-called new atheists: Richard
Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. But it
could also be the middle of the 1960s, and the men, of all things,
theologians.

"Death of God" theology was a movement that reached its peak in April
1966, when Time magazine published what became one of its
biggest-selling issues. The cover simply asked, in large red letters
over a black background, Is God Dead? The cover story, written by John
T Elson, explained the ideas of a crop of young theologians who were
raising Cain in American seminaries by proclaiming, in the words of
Friedrich Nietzsche, "God is dead!"

Because of Elson's death on 7 September, death of God theology has
been back in the news. And the timing may be just right; perhaps it
can help us dig our way out from the tiresome trenches of the new
atheist controversy.

According to two of the movement's chief exponents, Thomas J J Altizer
and William Hamilton, it represented "an attempt to set an atheist
point of view within the spectrum of Christian possibilities." They
took it as a given that the onset of modernity had undermined the
traditional idea of God. Altizer sought to reframe theology by
affirming both God's absence and a world redeemable through faith in
human creativity. The death of God, he argued, should be embraced as
the fulfillment of Christ's incarnation and death, the final
self-emptying of God into us and the world. The uproar caused by these
assertions nearly cost him a job at Emory University. Hamilton lost
his.

Those associated with the movement took pains to insist that they each
took quite different approaches. Paul van Buren, for instance, argued
that the language of "God" is no longer adequate and needs to be
discarded in exchange for a renewed focus on the ethics of the
historical Jesus.

Two others, Harvey Cox and Gabriel Vahanian, began from the belief
among sociologists at the time that an inevitable process of
secularisation was at work, leaving religion on the margins of the
social structure. Cox embraced the prospect of a "secular city," one
infused with a renewed Christianity, freed from the dogmatic and
institutional trappings of churchiness. Vahanian, in his 1961 book The
Death of God, decried the bland religious revival that the likes of
Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale had carried out in the 1950s as
"domesticated" and its God, as actress Jane Russell then put it, "a
livin' doll." He sought a new kind of faith that would tolerate no
such impostors.

Implicitly or explicitly, these radicals took their bearings from the
memory of the second world war. All cited the influence of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer's call for "religionless Christianity" in his letters from
a Nazi prison. They often shared the podium with Richard Rubenstein, a
rabbi who declared God unthinkable after the Holocaust.

Unlike some of the prominent atheists of today, these thinkers knew
intimately the theology they were attacking. Life after God, they
believed, could not move forward without understanding the debt it
owed to the religious culture that had gone before. Consequently the
movement went far beyond the simplistic, scientistic concept of God
common to both contemporary atheists and many of their critics: a
cartoonish hypothesis, some kind of all-powerful alien. Altizer spoke
of the God of direct experience; van Buren, the God conjured in
language; and Cox, the God that arises in the life of societies. These
are incisive approaches that, lately, have too often been forgotten in
exchange for the caricature.

Ultimately, the death of God movement fizzled after only a few years
in the limelight. It turned out to be a last gasp of the liberal
Protestant theology that was quickly losing ground in American culture
and politics to a more literalistic evangelical tide. The rise of such
conservative religion at home and abroad forced sociologists to recant
the strongest versions of the secularisation thesis. Just last year,
Christianity Today had its own cover with a black background and red
letters. It said, God Is Not Dead Yet.

The movement's prophets, looking back, don't agree

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why Did Engels Write Anti-D�hring ?

[farmela...@juno.com]

Marx & Engels, while generally favorable
to free trade, weren't always as gung-ho
about it as Engels was in Anti-Durhing.
In other writings, they recognized that
under certain conditions that infant industry
arguments for protectionism did have some
strength.  And Marx at times advanced the
argument that if Ireland were to win
its independence that one of the economic
advantages it would experience would be the
freedom to impose protectionist policies
that would enable it to industrialize itself.

Jim F.

-- Original Message --
From: CeJ 
To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühring ?
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 19:02:50 +0900

Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühring ?




Weight Loss Program
Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=85OQhOcYOcPqVKSphevunwAAJ1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAYAAADNAAAEUgA=

___
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] Christian Story of Jesus's Birth Is a Myth Born of Politics

[c b]

Christian Story of Jesus's Birth Is a Myth Born of Politics

By Rev. Howard Bess, Consortium News
Posted on December 23, 2009, Printed on January 5, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/144510/

The Advent season is a fun time. For many Christians, it is the
happiest season of the year. The joy comes from the anticipation: "Joy
to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king."

I do not desire to dim the lights of Christmas, but it might be
helpful to some to hear what the stories of Jesus birth are really
about.

There are four versions of the life of Jesus. We call them the
Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Only two of the versions say
anything about the birth of Jesus.

Mark, the first of the Gospels, begins the Jesus story with Jesus as
an adult. John, the last Gospel written, likewise says nothing about
the birth of Jesus. Matthew tells the birth story in only a few short
paragraphs. Luke's version of the beginnings of Jesus is four times as
long as that of Matthew.

Those two versions are very different. Luke plays with a much larger
cast. His flair for the dramatic is pronounced. He includes an
abundance of poetry and music with the support of angelic hosts.

Reconciling the two versions has been tried by many, but never with
success. They are two different stories. They each have their own
distinctive version of the events that surrounded the birth of Jesus.

In attempting to understand the meaning of the birth stories, we ask
some familiar questions. Who wrote the material? When did he write it?
Why did he write it? For whom was he writing? What literary device was
the author using?

The actual authors of the two stories (who wrote them down) are
historically unknown. The stories were written 40 to 50 years after
the death of Jesus. The reason the narratives were written is a bit
more complicated.

By the time of the writings, Christians and Christian churches were
under severe persecution by their Roman masters. The growth in the
number of followers of Jesus was dramatic and had become a matter of
concern to local puppet rulers.

Lord had become the title given Jesus throughout the churches. Calling
someone "Lord" had the companion confession of servitude. For
Christians of the late first century CE, Jesus was the true possessor
and ruler of their lives.

Under the Caesars, Augustus and Octavian, the mantle of divinity was
claimed for the Roman emperor. They claimed the titles Lord, Son of
God, Bringer of Peace, and Savior of the World.

First century Christians remembered very well that according to Jesus
"You shall love the Lord your God with heart, mind, soul, and
strength." Jesus was their Lord. They did not have divided loyalties.

The ancient world was full of miraculous birth stories. It was a
favorite way for rulers to claim divine rights. It was a literary tool
that was waiting for early Christians to use to declare the divine
specialness of the one they called Lord.

The birth narratives that were eventually attached to Matthew's and
Luke's Gospels, were stories that were created and circulated to
counter the claim of the Caesars to be divine and worthy to be called
Lord. Every claim of specialness for Caesar was countered by the claim
that all his titles belonged to Jesus.

The birth narratives are as much political treatise as theological
statement. They cannot be found as a part of the earliest memories of
followers of Jesus and make sense only in the context of their Roman
oppressors claim for divinity.

For whom were the birth narratives written?

The intended audience was probably internal. The early church needed
celebrations to remind Christians who they were. Communion and baptism
became the tools to remember the death of Jesus and his resurrection.
The birth narratives were the perfect base for a celebration of his
coming into the world.

What literary device was used by the authors?

Broadly speaking the authors were storytellers. They were not
historians. Their work cannot be understood as history.

The birth narratives are properly called myths. A myth by definition
is any story or report in which God or a God is the primary actor.
Angels, free-moving stars, dreams, and unexplained bright lights are a
part of the tools of mythology. Christians and the world at large have
not been served well by attempts to read the birth narratives as
history.

Just as many children feel deceived when they find out Santa is not
real, many Christians feel deceived when they conclude that Jesus was
not born of a virgin and that a star did not travel through the sky
and come to rest over a particular place in Bethlehem.

As a Christian, I embrace the belief that a loving God is active in
the affairs of the world. I believe that Jesus from Nazareth is Lord.
I believe he is Son of God. I believe he is Bringer of Peace. I
believe he is Savior of the World.

These are the messages so beautifully told in the birth narratives. It
doesn't matter whether or not Jesus was born in Bethle

[Marxism-Thaxis] How Atheists Can Use Christianity

[c b]

How Atheists Can Use Christianity
By Nathan Schneider, The Guardian
Posted on January 5, 2010, Printed on January 5, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/144931/

James Wood, a writer who himself has lived between the tugs of belief
and unbelief, made an eloquent call in the New Yorker last August for
"a theologically engaged atheism". Concluding a review of Terry
Eagleton's recent attack on Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens,
he imagines something "only a semitone from faith [which] could give a
brother's account of belief, rather than treat it as some unwanted
impoverished relative."

At the American Academy of Religion meeting in Montreal last year, he
may have gotten his wish, or something resembling it. Following an
apocalyptic sermon from "death of God" theologian Thomas J.J. Altizer,
to the podium came the ruffled Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a
self-described atheist and "materialist through and through", before
an audience of religion scholars, theologians, and costumed adherents.
He spoke of truths Christianity alone possesses and how Christ's death
reveals that "the only universality is the universality of struggle."
Atheism, he explained, is true Christianity, and one can only be a
real atheist by passing through Christianity. "In this sense, I am
unconditionally a Christian", said Žižek.

He is one of several leading thinkers in recent years who, though
coming out of a deeply secular and often-Marxist bent, have made a
turn toward theology. In 1997, Alain Badiou published a study of the
apostle Paul, whom he took as an exemplar of his own influential
philosophy of the "event". Three years later, Giorgio Agamben
responded in Italian with The Time That Remains, a painstaking
exegesis of the first ten words of Paul's Letter to the Romans. The
purpose of both was not a more enlightened piety, but an inquiry into
the texture of revolution. Paul is significant to them because he
ushered in, and in the process described, a genuinely transformational
social movement.

These atheist theologians speak from a sensation of political atrophy;
they're assembling a barricade against the onslaught of global
capitalism and the tireless inanity of jingoistic violence. But don't
expect to find them wafting into church on Sunday morning. Although
elievers have welcomed literary theorist Terry Eagleton's critique of
Dawkins and Hitchens, at a talk in New York this September, he
declared he has nothing to say about prayer and is "presently distant
from the institutional dimension" of religion, even if falling short
of outright atheism. When I asked him, in a subsequent interview, what
he wants of his readers, he replied, "I'm certainly not urging them to
go to church. I'm urging them, I suppose, to read the Bible because
it's very relevant to radical political concerns."

Yet some "real" theologians are starting to follow this phenomenon
with interest, seeing in it an opportunity to rejuvenate their own
enterprise. The Anglican John Milbank, in a recent book he wrote with
Žižek called The Monstrosity of Christ, said of his co-author, "In an
important sense, he bears a theological witness". Searching for
political answers, Žižek and the others have unearthed some of the
forgotten radicalism of earliest Christianity, and they insist on its
relevance today. Yet they also represent a threat to the religious
status quo. What does it mean, after all, if atheists are doing
theology better than believers?

"Žižek's work is hazardous to the health of cardboard theology and the
church on which it rests", says Creston Davis of Rollins College in
Florida, who edited and orchestrated The Monstrosity of Christ. "It is
time we took theology back out of the hands of business-class
freeloaders."

There is in this theological turn, also, a dangerous desire. Nobody
seems willing to die for a secular philosophy any more, yet in today's
"post secular" religion, blood sacrifice abounds. The suicide bombers
and abortion-doctor killers whom we all decry seem able to tap into a
well of deep conviction like what brought Paul and other early
Christians to be martyred for their faith. A politics capable of
organizing people to resist the intrusions of capital and ideology
would certainly require that kind of commitment. Theology, perhaps,
provides a point of access to these ambivalent powers in human nature
and the chance to carefully, thoughtfully mobilize them anew.

"It is clear that liberalism has run out of ideas," adds Creston
Davis. Philosophy's turn to theology, he believes, is "a step in the
right direction toward taking care of the poor and struggling for a
better future for the world."


Nathan Schneider lives in New York City and writes about religion. He
blogs at The Row Boat.

© 2010 The Guardian All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/144931/

___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or un

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühri ng ?

[c b]

On 1/5/10, CeJ  wrote:

> Go back in your history far enough and you see how free trade wasn't
> really the reality of the British or the Americans. In the first half
> of the 19th century, many Americans talked the Adam Smith talk, but
> walked the 'national dirigiste development' walk. See, for example,
> the 'American System' advocated by Henry Clay but derived from
> Alexander Hamilton. America had largely grown rich from agriculture,
> forestry, shipbuilding, whaling and, for the elite, land speculation.
> But the only way to develop manufacturing was to set up policies that
> favored American manufacturers. One of the first by the way was arms
> manufacturing.

^^^
CB: And American labor that built these riches was largely not doubly
free ( smile).

^
>
>

___
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] Barack Obama Worked For The CIA - John Pilger

[c b]

On 1/4/10, CeJ  wrote:
> Here is one follow directed to CB.
>
> On the near moribund PEN-L

^
CB: Who told you ? A ghost ?



you stated that Obama didn't criticize
> Clinton much. Actually he did.

^
CB: Not when I was watching the campaign.  He specifically talked
about the last _eight_ years.  He was running as a regular Democrat.
Why would he criticize the previous Democrat ?

^^

He didn't really identify himself with
> the Clinton presidency very much at all and even said Reagan was a
> more important leader to his sense of politics. I think all that was
> before he and Hilary and BIll started exchaning pot shots because H.
> was losing.

^^^

CB: Even then , he didn't target Bill Clinton. He really didn't
criticize Hillary Clinton that much. He didn't have to. Suddenly, he
had a commanding lead. It was shocking.




>
> But I don't think you will find much difference between Obama and the
> establishment guy who really gave him his biggest break--John Kerry.
> And you saw very early on Kerry endorsing Obama, long before his
> victory over H. was assured.
>
> The biggest difference between Obama and Kerry would have to be that
> the largely inchoate populist independents didn't vote for Kerry but
> they did vote for Obama. Perhaps the large African-American turnout
> also helped (did more register and vote that for the usual imperialist
> Democrat?).   It was a similar such populist outpouring that got
> Carter in.
>
> So far I find Obama to be most similar to Carter of all the presidents
> so far, except in the Carter era the shame over the Vietnam war and
> its unpopularity kept major expansion of US militarism in check, at
> least in fiscal terms, until the last year of the Carter presidency.
>
> Obama has wholeheartedly embraced the Reagan
> approach to the military and security apparatuses--give them more and
> more until they ask for more and more then give them even more than
> that.
>
> A fiscal reckoning is drawing near for the guy though.


CB:  I thought he was a deficit hawk (smile)


>
> ___
> 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 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] Barack Obama Worked For The CIA - John Pilger

[c b]

What is WMR material ?

On 12/31/09, CeJ  wrote:
> Actually the youtube title is sensationalistic because in this little
> clip you will see Pilger do more analysis of Bushwa and Obama than you
> will see watching a year of Wolf Blitzer on CNN--starting with
> 'class', which is a term Marxists are familiar with.
>
> I would be wary of the 'WMR' material that is out there in blogdom,
> but Pilger is as always credible and to the point.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lciMExazVqw
>
>
>
> CJ
>
>
> --
> Japan Higher Education Outlook
> http://japanheo.blogspot.com/
>
> ELT in Japan
> http://eltinjapan.blogspot.com/
>
> We are Feral Cats
> http://wearechikineko.blogspot.com/
>
> ___
> 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 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] Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dü hring ?

[c b]

On 1/5/10, Ralph Dumain  wrote:
> I've been doing this for years and years. And I
> guess I won't be free of this burden till all the
> CPers, Trots, and Maoists are long gone. Briefly:


CB:  We've bee doing if for more years than you. We plan to out last you

^


>
> See my review of:
>
> Dialectics
> Bout: Richard Norman vs. Sean Sayers (book review)
>
> And as for Engels' perspicaciousness, see this well-known excerpt:
>
> Engels
> contra Holism [my title]
>
> But for some of Engels'  mess-ups, see:


CB: There's a thread on Marxism-Thaxis from a few years back on this
issue.  The question is can we trust Van Heijennoort to understand
dialectics and dialectical contradictions as well as Engels.  Engels
might have perceived dialectical aspects to this situation that Van
Heijennoort didn't.  My money is on Engels over Van Heijennoort as far
as digging dialectics.


>
> Friedrich
> Engels and Mathematics by Jean Van Heijenoort
>
> A couple of key points about the logical
> ambiguity of diamat: Engels constantly conflates
> empirical and logical matters, reflected in his
> formulation of dialectical "laws". The notion of
> a set of dialectical laws applying uniformly to
> nature, society, and thought is confused and
> sloppy. This actually takes what's interesting
> about dialectical method entirely out of the
> picture. Engels delivers in these instances only
> vaguely on a far more promising goal of
> dialectics as the science of "universal
> interconnection". (Actually, this notion is also
> mystified via an excessive holism.) But Engels is
> at other times quite perceptive, as in the quote
> adduced above. That is, dialectics as
> epistemology involves a total process of analysis
> and synthesis, or, as Lenin later put it, "the
> splitting up of a single whole and the cognition
> of its contradictory parts". Quotes like these
> are not terrifically precise, but they get at
> what matters about dialectics applied to the
> ideology of the natural sciences. The three
> dialectical laws, though heuristically useful at
> times, are trivial by comparison.


CB: Engels discussion of dialectical laws is in _The Dialectics of
Nature_. To get Engels fuller think on dialectics ( including
"epistemology" and natural sciences) that book should be read in
conjunction with  _Ludwig Feuerbach_, _Socialism:Utopian and
Scientific_  and _Anti-Duhring_.   Engels appended to _ Ludwig
Feuerbach_ and published for the first time The Theses on Feuerbach.
This fuller discussion overcomes "triviality".  "The Dialectics of
Nature" are notes for a book not published.

>
> The relevance here of Engels as critic of Duhring
> is reflected also in Marx, e.g. in this notable quote from Capital:
>
> "The weak points in the abstract materialism of
> natural science, a materialism that excludes
> history and its process, are at once evident from
> the abstract and ideological conceptions of its
> spokesmen, whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own speciality."
>
> A contemporary example is the childish
> application of evolutionary theory to
> psychological and social analysis, a la Dawkins'
> memes and other BS. Dialectics as epistemology is
> about the nature of abstraction, its connection
> to empirical reality, and the interconnections in
> empirical reality which abstraction must learn to
> reproduce conceptually.


CB:  A crisper discussion of dialectics as epistemology is in the
above named from Engels,  and in _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_
by Lenin
^

 But the bullshit that
> comprises the standard expositions of diamat
> actually represses recognition of the
> subject-object relationship between the
> dialectics of cognition and the empirical world
> it must appropriate via the means of abstraction.
> Hence this murky porridge of the fictive uniform
> laws of nature, society, and thought that obliterates all distinctions.
>
> What does Riggins write? The same old brain-dead
> CP marxist-leninist textbook crap:

^


CB:   What's the proof that your brain is alive ?




>
> "Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühring?
> Thomas Riggins
> http://paeditorsblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-did-engels-write-anti-duhring.html
>
> The same crap, of course, has been endlessly
> recycled by all the Stalinist, Trotskyist, and
> Maoist epigones. As I've repeatedly emphasized,
> I'm not one who disses or dismisses Engels, or
> Lenin. After a century of the latter and a
> century and a third of the former, is it too much
> to ask greater logical precision at last? These
> criticisms have been floating about in one way or
> another for decades. The only thing left worth
> discussing is why otherwise intelligent people
> keep falling for the same nonsense. It's a
> non-trivial question. We could go back to the
> 1930s debates for example in

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dü hring ?

[Ralph Dumain]

I've been doing this for years and years. And I 
guess I won't be free of this burden till all the 
CPers, Trots, and Maoists are long gone. Briefly:

See my review of:

Dialectics 
Bout: Richard Norman vs. Sean Sayers (book review)

And as for Engels' perspicaciousness, see this well-known excerpt:

Engels 
contra Holism [my title]

But for some of Engels'  mess-ups, see:

Friedrich 
Engels and Mathematics by Jean Van Heijenoort

A couple of key points about the logical 
ambiguity of diamat: Engels constantly conflates 
empirical and logical matters, reflected in his 
formulation of dialectical "laws". The notion of 
a set of dialectical laws applying uniformly to 
nature, society, and thought is confused and 
sloppy. This actually takes what's interesting 
about dialectical method entirely out of the 
picture. Engels delivers in these instances only 
vaguely on a far more promising goal of 
dialectics as the science of "universal 
interconnection". (Actually, this notion is also 
mystified via an excessive holism.) But Engels is 
at other times quite perceptive, as in the quote 
adduced above. That is, dialectics as 
epistemology involves a total process of analysis 
and synthesis, or, as Lenin later put it, "the 
splitting up of a single whole and the cognition 
of its contradictory parts". Quotes like these 
are not terrifically precise, but they get at 
what matters about dialectics applied to the 
ideology of the natural sciences. The three 
dialectical laws, though heuristically useful at 
times, are trivial by comparison.

The relevance here of Engels as critic of Duhring 
is reflected also in Marx, e.g. in this notable quote from Capital:

"The weak points in the abstract materialism of 
natural science, a materialism that excludes 
history and its process, are at once evident from 
the abstract and ideological conceptions of its 
spokesmen, whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own speciality."

A contemporary example is the childish 
application of evolutionary theory to 
psychological and social analysis, a la Dawkins' 
memes and other BS. Dialectics as epistemology is 
about the nature of abstraction, its connection 
to empirical reality, and the interconnections in 
empirical reality which abstraction must learn to 
reproduce conceptually. But the bullshit that 
comprises the standard expositions of diamat 
actually represses recognition of the 
subject-object relationship between the 
dialectics of cognition and the empirical world 
it must appropriate via the means of abstraction. 
Hence this murky porridge of the fictive uniform 
laws of nature, society, and thought that obliterates all distinctions.

What does Riggins write? The same old brain-dead 
CP marxist-leninist textbook crap:

"Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühring?
Thomas Riggins
http://paeditorsblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-did-engels-write-anti-duhring.html

The same crap, of course, has been endlessly 
recycled by all the Stalinist, Trotskyist, and 
Maoist epigones. As I've repeatedly emphasized, 
I'm not one who disses or dismisses Engels, or 
Lenin. After a century of the latter and a 
century and a third of the former, is it too much 
to ask greater logical precision at last? These 
criticisms have been floating about in one way or 
another for decades. The only thing left worth 
discussing is why otherwise intelligent people 
keep falling for the same nonsense. It's a 
non-trivial question. We could go back to the 
1930s debates for example in Britain, in which 
J.D. Bernal dogmatically deflected all doubts 
expressed about diamat, or more recently to the 
past few years to the publishing record of the 
Marxist Educational Press in the USA, including 
its journal NATURE, SOCIETY, AND THOUGHT, which 
also reflects the schizophrenia of people capable 
of logical sophistication but beholden to the 
banalities of orthodoxy as well. I tend to think 
there's a combination of causes here: both the 
appeal of a superficially logical world view 
which contains a rational element buried under 
logical confusion, combined with a dogmatic 
fealty to what is taken to be Marxist-Leninist 
tradition. This is the only reason to continue beating a long-dead horse.


At 04:15 AM 1/5/2010, D. Göçmen wrote:
>Of far greater importance than Engels' 
>nebulously conceived dialectics of nature is his 
>criticism of Duhring's metaphysical approach. 
>Ralph, can you please explore on that a bit more 
>please. Thank you, Doğan Göçmen http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/



>http://www.dogangocmen.blogspot.com/ 
>-Original Message- From: Ralph Dumain 
> To: 
>marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Sent: Tue, 
>Jan 5, 2010 10:14 am Subject:  Re: 
>[Marxism-Thaxis] Why Did Engels Write 
>Anti-Dühring ? Hopefully, the next installment 
>will be better than this. 

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühri ng ?

[CeJ]

Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühring ?

Marx and Engels rejected utopian/non-scientific socialism, and
resented anything that might have more popularity or appeal than their
own ideas--especially in the German-speaking world. They could also be
highly polemical, vindictive (and repetitious) bastards, as Stirner
had found out. And recall if you will what a rise  Wilhelm  Weitling
got out of them.

Duhring was at least up until his run-in with the professoriate, a
successful German academic who attacked 'Marxist socialism' and
criticized Marx's publications. He also advocated views in in
political economy and social philosophy identifiable with Friedrich
List, which included ideas quite anathema to the mature stances of
Marx and Engels--protectionism, harmonious labor-capital relations.

Duhring is described now as an influential anti-Semite because he
helped contribute to the rise of 'scientific racism' (they threw the
term 'scientific' around a lot in the 19th century, but we post-mos
still do, don't we?).

However, that doesn't really seem to have been a major critical
concern for Marx or Engels (unless I missed something while reviewing
this). I guess one irony of history is that the sort of economics that
Duhring advocated, however unoriginally got from List, who got it from
the Americans dealing with British and French economic power, seems to
have survived 1989 intact and in far better shape than 'socialism' or
'Marxism'.

Go back in your history far enough and you see how free trade wasn't
really the reality of the British or the Americans. In the first half
of the 19th century, many Americans talked the Adam Smith talk, but
walked the 'national dirigiste development' walk. See, for example,
the 'American System' advocated by Henry Clay but derived from
Alexander Hamilton. America had largely grown rich from agriculture,
forestry, shipbuilding, whaling and, for the elite, land speculation.
But the only way to develop manufacturing was to set up policies that
favored American manufacturers. One of the first by the way was arms
manufacturing.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/index.htm

Part II: Political Economy — Written mainly between June and August
1877. (The last chapter was actually written by Marx.) Published under
the title Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der politischen Oekonomie in
Wissenschaftliche Beilage and in the supplement to Vorwärts between
July and December 1877.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch22.htm

* * *

What, then, is the final result of our analysis of Dühring's "very own
system" of political economy? Nothing, except the fact that with all
the great words and the still more mighty promises we are just as much
duped as we were in the Philosophy. His theory of value, this
"touchstone of the worth of economic systems" {499}, amounts to this:
that by value Herr Dühring understands five totally different and
directly contradictory things, and, therefore, to put it at its best,
himself does not know what he wants. The "natural laws of all
economics" {D. C. 4}, ushered in with such pomp, prove to be merely
universally familiar and often not even properly understood platitudes
of the worst description. The sole explanation of economic facts which
his "very own" system can give us is that they are the result of
"force", a term with which the philistine of all nations has for
thousands of years consoled himself for everything unpleasant that
happens to him, and which leaves us just where we were. Instead
however of investigating the origin and effects of this force, Herr
Dühring expects us to content ourselves gratefully with the mere word
"force" as the last final cause and ultimate explanation of all
economic phenomena. Compelled further to elucidate capitalist
exploitation of labour, he first represents it in a general way as
based on taxes and price surcharges, thereby completely appropriating
the Proudhonian "deduction" (prélèvement), and then proceeding to
explain it in detail by means of Marx's theory of surplus-labour,
surplus-product and surplus-value. In this way he manages to bring
about a happy reconciliation of two totally contradictory modes of
outlook, by copying down both without taking his breath. And just as
in philosophy he could not find enough hard words for the very Hegel
whom he was so constantly exploiting and at the same time
emasculating, so in the Kritische Geschichte the most baseless
calumniation of Marx only serves to conceal the fact that everything
in the Cursus about capital and labour which makes any sense at all is
likewise an emasculated plagiarism of Marx. His ignorance, which in
the Cursus puts the "large landowner" at the beginning of the history
of the civilised peoples, and knows not a word of the common ownership
of land in the tribal and village communities, which is the real
starting-point of all history — this ignorance, at the present day
almost incomprehensible, is well-nigh surpass

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Barack Obama Worked For The CIA - John Pilger

[yves coleman]

Thanks for your detailed answers.


Le 5/01/10 9:37, « CeJ »  a écrit :

> 
> Perhaps the more interesting issue here is the one of conflict within
> the 'ruling class'.
> 
> Bush seemed to have near-universal support over his post-9/11
> policies. And a war is often a good way to bring together the
> imaginary--even hysterical--interests of the ruling class with the
> religio-nationalist interests of the ruled, so as to keep the class
> conflicts in check (the real interests of the ruling class being
> perpetuation of rule, enrichment for their factions). I say that more
> or less amounts to the post-modern version of fascism, others argue
> against the use of such terminology. I think the deniers ought to have
> to spend one week in Iraq or Afghanistan and be forced to tell the
> Americans how the shit the US serves up tastes so good and how much
> they love them for it. Then they might change their minds about the
> semantics. (I agree on the other hand that the old definition of the
> term regarding mass parties who could and did take political power in
> nations is largely obsolete.)
> 
>  The ruling class debate under Clinton was whether to proceed with
> impeaching him over a blowjob--or not. The majority were for
> politically damaging him to the point where he did almost nothing in
> office except bomb Iraq and Yugoslavia, but note how abruptly the
> impeachment movement collapsed when they realized what they were about
> to do (and remember Joe Leiberman was the Judas then too who helped
> take it that far). Even Clinton's bombing of Yugoslavia, if you review
> the votes in Congress, reveals the ruling class was split against him,
> which is unusual because wars in the US are at least at the beginning
> quite popular, especially ones where the US gets to show overwhelming
> might and not suffer many casualties (although the much-vaunted US
> military never did show any effectiveness whatsover against Serb
> forces in Kosovo--which is why they chose the 'bomb Yugoslavia'
> option).
> 
> The ruling class debate under Bush was far less contentious. One, it
> was over how best to cover up the fact that the national security
> state in charge of 'national security' (while enriching itself) had
> fucked up so badly that it had only managed to enrich itself. The
> solution? Start wars and conflicts on multiple fronts and scare the
> shit ouf the civilian populations of 'western democracies'. While
> enriching themselves.
> 
> The next ruling class debate under Bush was over the war on
> Iraq--which if you remember had been going on for over a decade.
> Clinton had even bought himself some relief by signing on to
> full-blown 'regime change' and increasing military spending in his
> last two years in office. The debate wasn't about whether to wage the
> war but rather how to do it. Often the discussion was about how to bring
> NATO and UN satellites along for the war. The inner debate though was
> about just how much of the US's extremely expensive military to commit
> to the invasion and first two years of occupation.
> 
> Under Obama the ruling class showed itself -- I'm guessing -- AGAINST
> major health care reform--that is, a public option. So although the
> ruling class overall supports Obama and his policies so far in terms
> of dropping bombs and assigning troops, they didn't support his stance
> on health care. But he only made that stance in 2008, before he took
> office. I didn't note any impassioned speeches from the guy when the
> actual debate in Congress was taking place. He simply diddled himself
> and played with Gen. McChrystal. Like most presidents the man has
> the power--and apparently the will--to start new wars, even destroy the world,
> but he can't take a disciplined stand on health care. I think behind
> all that nice dental work and ghost-authored speeches,
>  like a lot of people who studied under Zbigniew,
> Obama really doesn't give a shit either. He makes Bill Clinton look
> like a vertebrate.





___
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] Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühring ?

[D. Göçmen]

 


Of far greater 
importance than Engels' nebulously conceived 
dialectics of nature is his criticism of 
Duhring's metaphysical approach.

 
Ralph,
can you please explore on that a bit more please.
Thank you,

 

Doğan Göçmen
http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/
http://www.dogangocmen.blogspot.com/

 

 

-Original Message-
From: Ralph Dumain 
To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
Sent: Tue, Jan 5, 2010 10:14 am
Subject:  Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühring ?


Hopefully, the next installment will be better 
than this. This one is devoid of serious content 
and repeats unexamined cliches. Of far greater 
importance than Engels' nebulously conceived 
dialectics of nature is his criticism of 
Duhring's metaphysical approach. In this respect, 
Engels' work does have something in common with 
Marx's THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY.

The real unity of the world consists in its 
materiality, and this is proved not by a few 
juggled phrases, but by a long and wearisome 
development of philosophy and natural science. -- F. Engels


At 02:36 PM 1/4/2010, c b wrote:
>Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühring?
>Thomas Riggins
>
>http://paeditorsblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-did-engels-write-anti-duhring.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 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] Barack Obama Worked For The CIA - John Pilger

[CeJ]

Perhaps the more interesting issue here is the one of conflict within
the 'ruling class'.

Bush seemed to have near-universal support over his post-9/11
policies. And a war is often a good way to bring together the
imaginary--even hysterical--interests of the ruling class with the
religio-nationalist interests of the ruled, so as to keep the class
conflicts in check (the real interests of the ruling class being
perpetuation of rule, enrichment for their factions). I say that more
or less amounts to the post-modern version of fascism, others argue
against the use of such terminology. I think the deniers ought to have
to spend one week in Iraq or Afghanistan and be forced to tell the
Americans how the shit the US serves up tastes so good and how much
they love them for it. Then they might change their minds about the
semantics. (I agree on the other hand that the old definition of the
term regarding mass parties who could and did take political power in
nations is largely obsolete.)

 The ruling class debate under Clinton was whether to proceed with
impeaching him over a blowjob--or not. The majority were for
politically damaging him to the point where he did almost nothing in
office except bomb Iraq and Yugoslavia, but note how abruptly the
impeachment movement collapsed when they realized what they were about
to do (and remember Joe Leiberman was the Judas then too who helped
take it that far). Even Clinton's bombing of Yugoslavia, if you review
the votes in Congress, reveals the ruling class was split against him,
which is unusual because wars in the US are at least at the beginning
quite popular, especially ones where the US gets to show overwhelming
might and not suffer many casualties (although the much-vaunted US
military never did show any effectiveness whatsover against Serb
forces in Kosovo--which is why they chose the 'bomb Yugoslavia'
option).

The ruling class debate under Bush was far less contentious. One, it
was over how best to cover up the fact that the national security
state in charge of 'national security' (while enriching itself) had
fucked up so badly that it had only managed to enrich itself. The
solution? Start wars and conflicts on multiple fronts and scare the
shit ouf the civilian populations of 'western democracies'. While
enriching themselves.

The next ruling class debate under Bush was over the war on
Iraq--which if you remember had been going on for over a decade.
Clinton had even bought himself some relief by signing on to
full-blown 'regime change' and increasing military spending in his
last two years in office. The debate wasn't about whether to wage the
war but rather how to do it. Often the discussion was about how to bring
NATO and UN satellites along for the war. The inner debate though was
about just how much of the US's extremely expensive military to commit
to the invasion and first two years of occupation.

Under Obama the ruling class showed itself -- I'm guessing -- AGAINST
major health care reform--that is, a public option. So although the
ruling class overall supports Obama and his policies so far in terms
of dropping bombs and assigning troops, they didn't support his stance
on health care. But he only made that stance in 2008, before he took
office. I didn't note any impassioned speeches from the guy when the
actual debate in Congress was taking place. He simply diddled himself
and played with Gen. McChrystal. Like most presidents the man has
the power--and apparently the will--to start new wars, even destroy the world,
but he can't take a disciplined stand on health care. I think behind
all that nice dental work and ghost-authored speeches,
 like a lot of people who studied under Zbigniew,
Obama really doesn't give a shit either. He makes Bill Clinton look
like a vertebrate.

-- 

CJ
Japan Higher Education Outlook
http://japanheo.blogspot.com/

ELT in Japan
http://eltinjapan.blogspot.com/

We are Feral Cats
http://wearechikineko.blogspot.com/

___
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] Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühri ng ?

[Ralph Dumain]

Hopefully, the next installment will be better 
than this. This one is devoid of serious content 
and repeats unexamined cliches. Of far greater 
importance than Engels' nebulously conceived 
dialectics of nature is his criticism of 
Duhring's metaphysical approach. In this respect, 
Engels' work does have something in common with 
Marx's THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY.

The real unity of the world consists in its 
materiality, and this is proved not by a few 
juggled phrases, but by a long and wearisome 
development of philosophy and natural science. -- F. Engels


At 02:36 PM 1/4/2010, c b wrote:
>Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühring?
>Thomas Riggins
>
>http://paeditorsblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-did-engels-write-anti-duhring.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