Re: [Marxism] Critique of Human Rights
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Peter Kulchyski's *Aboriginal Rights Are Not Human Rights*: http://arpbooks.org/books/detail/aboriginal-rights-are-not-human-rights Here's a sample: http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/human-rights-or-aboriginal-rights -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Supporting the Irish revolution, shopping with eirigi
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * While the class struggle is at a record low in this country, in Ireland significant sections of the working class in the south began battling in the aftermath of the financial sector meltdown there against attempts by the Fianna Fail/Greens coalition to impose austerity on them. The anti-working class measures were stepped up when the Fine Gael/Labour coalition took power: they have tried to impose household and water taxes on the population, as well as cutting benefits and pensions. Colluding with these enemies of the working class have been most of the trade union leadership. There is now real hatred in working class communities for the Irish Labour Party and for many of the trade union leaderships, leaderships who have done their damnedest to obstruct and prevent the working class fighting back. As long-time revolutionary Cork city activist James Macbarron noted in a comment on Redline, these working class communities provided massive majorities in support of same-sex marriage in then recent referendum, indicating the depth of solidarity with all the oppressed and discriminated against. In the north, too, there has been an increase in struggle, with rising protests against austerity, despite the attempts of trade union leaders to prevent and corral strike action. One of the products of the growth of working class militancy has been the growth of socialist-republicanism in the tradition of working class leaders like James Larkin and James Connolly. For instance, nine years old this year, is éirígí which has grown from a campaigns group of half a dozen people in Dublin into a militant socialist-republican party with circles across the island. . . full at: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/05/27/supporting-the-irish-revolution/ This includes three great video clips of eirigi speakers at protests in Dublin. Phil _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Critique of Human Rights
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://monthlyreview.org/1998/03/01/human-rights-imperialism/ http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/1/hawks-for-humanity.html - Amith On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 10:31 PM, MM via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 26 May 2015, at 6:46 PM, Douglas Medina via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: Does anyone have book suggestions for critiques of Human Rights? I am looking for Marxist/left critiques, obviosly. I am not too familiar with this literature so I figured the collective wisdom of this list might help. China Mieville’s “Between Equal Rights” is superb. Here’s a taste: Today, one category of international law seemingly ripe for ‘appropriation’ by the progressive Left is that of ‘human rights’. Domestically, it is true that there have been cases where human-rights legislation has been used to hold governments to account. Norma Woods, for example, used the Human Rights Act to force the British prison service to take responsibility for the sui- cide of her son Colin Williamson while he was in custody. The same language of human rights has also been used, however, by Madonna, in a case at least partially settled in her favour, to complain that she might be visible to countryside walkers through the windows of her £9m house. This tragicomically absurd range of applicability implies at the very least that the discourse is becoming etiolated through overuse, and that any radical power it contains will have to be wrested from it. In the words of Bill Bowring, one eloquent proponent of this strategy, no matter that ‘[h]uman rights talk is often and increasingly the meaningless rhetoric of the powerful and the oppressor... it becomes real when articulating the present, not the endlessly deferred, claims of the oppressed.’ There has been an enormous upsurge in publishing on human rights in international law. The claim that this literature reflects fundamental structural changes in the international system is discussed below. Here I focus on the notion of human rights as a contested ideological category, which can be used against those in power even when they themselves also invoke such rights – ‘[t]he question of human rights thus recovers the dimension eliminated in the process of instrumentalization in U.S. policy’. The problem is that even if one agrees with Bowring that such a discourse might provide space for radical critique of power, that is not all it does, and in its less desirable forms it is considerably more than ‘meaningless rhetoric’. Such writing often articulates a vision of ‘rights’ that: i) derives from bourgeois ‘negative rights which protect the individual from arbitrary state action and are associated with Western liberal democracies’ and thereby tacitly takes bourgeois capitalism for granted; ii) updates the notion of the civilising mission of the West by producing what Orford calls a ‘heroic narrative’ in which the West ‘is associated with attributes including freedom, creativity, authority, civilization, power, democracy, sovereignty and wealth’, and is the only agent capable of injecting them into a Third World cast as a passive object; and iii) by showing that the attempt to support ‘human rights’ involves international action, implies that human rights problems are intrinsically foreign, and that there are no abuses at home. ‘Many American thus believe and perpetuate the quaint fiction that human rights problems exist only in places that must be reached by crossing large bodies of saltwater.’ The point is not that the substance of particular conceptions of human rights cannot be marshalled to progressive discourse. The point is that the attempt to appropriate the international law of human rights for that project is precisely abstracting of that substance, and thus abstracted is easily reappropriated by those in power. In addition, because ‘the human rights regime... is composed of more than those legal rules and institutions that explicitly concern human rights’, such an ‘appropriative’ approach by implication legitimates not only specific other laws which may even ‘facilitate or excuse’ human rights abuses, but the very edifice of international law and juridical forms that has been so swingeingly criticised (sometimes by those now attempting to appropriate
[Marxism] Good for Iceland, I say!
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Iceland revokes 400 year-old legal right in Westfjords district to kill Basques on sight http://ind.pn/1PMXSb7 -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] socialist planning
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * What's below is part of the latest what's new at links post. I am SOOO glad John found his old article! It's a great overview of the issues involved, and a necessary intervention in the current debate. One quibble: I think he's too hard on Mandel for the latter's touting of a priori decisions, because the rest of Mandel's essay is full of examples of how workers would alter decisions ex post based on new information (and on that note I love John's paragraph about how workers' skills and knowledge, bred under capitalism, prepare them to be efficient planners). --- John Riddell: Socialist planning and the bureaucratic economy http://links.org.au/node/4438 By *John Riddell* May 17, 2015 -- The following previously unpublished position paper, pulled from my archives, was written in 1992. I am posting it in conjunction with my review of Michael Lebowitz’s *Contradictions of Real Socialism*. My comments raised many of the themes found in Lebowitz’s writings of that time, of which I was then quite unaware. My approach, however, gives more emphasis to the problem of economic allocation and the role of non-capitalist markets. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Greece's Solidarity4All U.S. speaking tour begins NYC today(5/26) thru mid-June
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I went to hear Christos last night (and actually helped a little bit with the organizing through the local Greece solidarity groups). He was wonderful! Don't miss his talks at Left Forum, and explore all the links in the CPD announcement. On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 12:56 PM, Dayne Goodwin via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://www.cpdweb.org/events/Greek-solidarity-tour.shtml _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Assimilation and the push to close down Aboriginal communities in Australia
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Paddy Gibson in Solidarity magazine looks at the renewed push to close remote Aboriginal communities and how it began with the Northern Territory Intervention from 2007. http://enpassant.com.au/2015/05/27/assimiliation-and-the-push-to-close-down-aboriginal-communities/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Who’s Lying About Syria’s Christian Massacre? - The Daily Beast
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Idrees Ahmad takes down Patrick Cockburn http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/27/who-s-lying-about-syria-s-christian-massacre.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] What's new at Links: Left wins in Spanish local polls, Ireland Yes, Pakistan, Venezuela, Socialist planning, Hijacking 'Anthropocene', Eyewitness Donetsk, John Riddell on Michael Lebowit
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * It's so great to see all these inspiring articles about the municipal elections in Spain - especially after forcing myself to read the Iglesias article and interview which Louis posted, both must-reads for a thorough understanding of his vapidity and liberalism. Mareas yes, media stars no! On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 3:52 AM, glparramatta . via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * What's new at Links: Left wins in Spanish local polls, Ireland Yes, Pakistan, Venezuela, Socialist planning, Hijacking 'Anthropocene', Eyewitness Donetsk, John Riddell on Michael Lebowitz * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed ( http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to linkssocial...@gmail.com *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. *Comments welcome on all articles *Return daily for new articles * * * Spain: Madrid and Barcelona show -- the greater the unity on the left, the bigger the win http://links.org.au/node/4443 By *Dick Nichols*, Barcelona May 27, 2015 – *Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal* -- Once the results of Spain’s May 24 local and regional elections became known the main lesson for the anti-austerity and anti-capitalist left was simply and starkly obvious: the more united and more involving of ordinary people its election campaigns were, the greater its gains and the greater the losses for the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE)—its main rival for the popular and working-class vote—and for the ruling conservative People’s Party (PP). Where the two main poles of the radical left in the Spanish state—Podemos and the United Left (IU)— managed to merge their forces in projects organised not as alliances between party apparatuses but as participatory citizens’ electoral campaigns, the results were at times little short of astounding. - Read more http://links.org.au/node/4443 Ireland: Yes win in marriage equality poll: Historic step for equality http://links.org.au/node/4437 May 23, 2015 -- Ireland has become the first country to legalise same-sex marriage through a popular vote, with indications from all count centres across the country showing Yes votes outnumbering No votes by about two-to-one. - Read more http://links.org.au/node/4437 Spain: How did the radical new mayor of Barcelona win Spain’s second city? http://links.org.au/node/4441 May 25, 2015 -- Former anti-eviction activist Ada Colau *was *elected the new mayor Barcelona in the municipal elections on May 24. Ahead of the victory of the radical campaigner, who was backed by a coalition including Podemos and United Left, she spoke to *Il Manifesto* newspaper. - Read more http://links.org.au/node/4441 Pakistan: Baba Jan contests election from jail http://links.org.au/node/4440 By *Farooq Tariq*, Lahore May 25, 2015 -- *Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal* -- Baba Jan, a federal committee member of the Awami Workers Party (AWP), is contesting the election for the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly seat (Hunza-6) from behind bars. He is in jail serving a life sentence handed down by an anti-terrorism court last year for raising his voice against police brutality and for the rights of Atabad disaster hit people. - Read more http://links.org.au/node/4440 Venezuela: Chavismo on the horns of a dilemma http://links.org.au/node/4439 By *Steve Ellner* May 22, 2015 -- Leftists in Venezuela put forward a number of different explanations for the pressing economic difficulties and growing discontent that has beset Venezuela and increases the possibility of an opposition takeover of the National Assembly in this year’s elections. - Read more http://links.org.au/node/4439 John Riddell: Socialist planning and the bureaucratic economy http://links.org.au/node/4438 By *John Riddell* May 17, 2015 -- The following previously unpublished position paper, pulled from my archives, was written in 1992. I am posting it in conjunction with my
[Marxism] Lapavitsas interview: on Greece leaving the Euro
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Part of Greece's ruling Syriza party is ready to abandon the euro Steven Zeitchik interviews Costas Lapavitsas Los Angeles Times, May 27 http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-greece-debt-qa-20150527-story.html . . . *What does all this mean for these debt talks? Does it mean that no matter what offer is on the table, an exit is still the wisest course, in your view?* I'm not part of the negotiating team. But I believe that if the country was offered the option of a front-loaded investment program that would revamp the infrastructure and would allow several key industries to benefit, and if this came with a relaxation of fiscal policy, then clearly that would be a path we would want. That's not on offer. What is on offer is basically a continuation of the policies we've been through in the last five years, with some tweaks. This is what the lenders want; this is the attitude of the EU. It's the same policy, but tweaked. And that's a death sentence for Greece. *And that's what you believe makes this such a clear decision.* It makes the exit a no-brainer. If Greece continues along the path it's been on for five years, Greece is finished, basically. There will never be a serious recovery, there will never be sustained growth, there will never be a reduction of unemployment. This will become an insignificant, stagnant, aging, irrelevant country on the fringes of Europe. . . . _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Critique of Human Rights
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Just to give you an idea of how complicated this can become. Today I went to a press screening for a film to be shown in the Human Rights Film Festival that opens on June 11th. It is a project of HRW that has been a year event for many years now. The film is titled 3 1/2 Minutes and is based on the trial of a white Floridian who shot a 17 year old Black to death because he mouthed off when he was asked to lower the rap music being played on a car radio. It is a powerful attack on the stand your ground law. On June 1, there's a screening for a new documentary on the Black Panthers. These are the kinds of films that benefit from the support of HRW. As I said, it is a mistake to reduce HRW to an imperialist stooge. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Syria/Iraq
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * In this morning's The Hindu, my opinion piece on the contradictions around the chaos of Greater Syria and Iraq. I build on an insight from Rami Khouri, to suggest: The long-term antidote to Da'esh is not Arab jails and American jets - but in the creation of an honest and wide-ranging political dialogue. However utopian this sounds, it is the only realistic pathway from the chaos that tears across Iraq and Syria. The full opinion piece is here: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/overcoming-a-resilient-islamic-state/article7252345.ece?homepage=true. It derives its analysis from the report I did on May 15: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/vijay-prashad-on-the-syrian-conflict-alqaeda-and-isis/article7206649.ece. In the next Frontline, I have a review of the new books by Reese Ehrlich and Charles Glass - will post that when it appears. Warmly, Vijay. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Critique of Human Rights
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I second the Mieville recommendation. This isn't bad either from a left-lib perspective: Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-opted Human Rights Отправлено с iPhone 26 мая 2015 г., в 12:48, Douglas Medina via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu написал(а): POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Does anyone have book suggestions for critiques of Human Rights? I am looking for Marxist/left critiques, obviosly. I am not too familiar with this literature so I figured the collective wisdom of this list might help. Douglas _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/shalva.eliava%40outlook.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] “The President Blinked”: Why Obama Changed Course on the “Red Line” in Syria | Obama at War | FRONTLINE | PBS
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * As the documentary details, wary of involving America in a potentially long-term military engagement, Obama decided to seek airstrike authorization from a Congress he knew to be opposed rather than proceed with his initial plan. full: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/obama-at-war/the-president-blinked-why-obama-changed-course-on-the-red-line-in-syria/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/obama-at-war/the-president-blinked-why-obama-changed-course-on-the-red-line-in-syria/ It’s a very interesting documentary that can be watched at the PBS site: http://video.pbs.org/video/2365496883/ http://video.pbs.org/video/2365496883/ Back in 2011, U.S. Ambassador Ford joined the anti-Assad demonstrators and it seemed at the time the U.S. would have been content to see the Syrian ruler fall. But when it became clear that Assad would hold on for a while, U.S. support for the revolt greatly faltered. The documentary has two themes: 1. Back in 2012, the Obama administration missed an opportunity to arm and support a moderate opposition. Ambassador Ford quit over the administration’s failure to do so. 2. At this point, there are no good options for the U.S.. None of the diplomats, generals or politicians like McCain have any workable suggestions. The bottom line seems to be that the Obama administration was initially nervous about militarily aiding a revolution it wasn’t sure would be compliant with U.S. imperialist aims in the region. The devil it knew was better than the devil it didn’t know, especially since Assad had proven to be a reasonable fellow — supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 1991 and rapidly privatizing state-owned businesses over the last couple decades. Glenn _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Snapshots from the Bay Area left: Todd Chretien reviews Chris Crass' Towards Collective Liberation
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://socialistworker.org/2015/05/27/snapshots-from-the-bay-area-left _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] French Muslims Say Veil Bans Give Cover to Bias
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * NY Times, May 27 2015 French Muslims Say Veil Bans Give Cover to Bias By SUZANNE DALEY and ALISSA J. RUBIN WISSOUS, France — Malek Layouni was not thinking about her Muslim faith, or her head scarf, as she took her excited 9-year-old son to an amusement site near Paris. But, as it turned out, it was all that mattered. Local officials blocked her path to the inflatable toys on a temporary beach, pointing at regulations that prohibit dogs, drunks and symbols of religion. And that meant barring women who wear head scarves. Mrs. Layouni still blushes with humiliation at being turned away in front of friends and neighbors, and at having no answer for her son, who kept asking her, “What did we do wrong?” More than 10 years after France passed its first anti-veil law restricting young girls from wearing veils in public schools, the head coverings of observant Muslim women, from colorful silk scarves to black chadors, have become one of the most potent flash points in the nation’s tense relations with its vibrant and growing Muslim population. Mainstream politicians continue to push for new measures to deny veiled women access to jobs, educational institutions and community life. They often say they are doing so for the benefit of public order or in the name of laïcité, the French term for the separation of church and state. But critics say these efforts, rather than promoting a sense of secular inclusion, have encouraged rampant discrimination against Muslims in general and veiled women in particular. The result has been to fuel a sense among many Muslims that France — which celebrates Christian holidays in public schools — is engaging in a form of state racism. The ban, some critics argue, also plays into the hands of Islamists, who are eager to drive a deeper wedge between Muslims and non-Muslims in the West. So far, France has passed two laws, one in 2004 banning veils in public elementary and secondary schools, and another, enacted in 2011, banning full face veils, which are worn by only a tiny portion of the population. But observant Muslim women in France, whose head coverings can vary from head scarves tied loosely under the chin to tightly fitted caps and wimple-like scarves that hide every strand of hair, say the constant talk of new laws has made them targets of abuse, from being spat at to having their veils pulled or being pushed when they walk on the streets. In some towns, mothers wearing head scarves have been prevented from picking up their children from school or from chaperoning class outings. One major discount store has been accused of routinely searching veiled customers. Some women have even been violently attacked. In Toulouse recently, a pregnant mother wearing a head scarf had to be hospitalized after being beaten on the street by a young man who called her a “dirty Muslim.” Statistics collected by the National Observatory Against Islamophobia, a watchdog group, show that in the last two years 80 percent of the anti-Muslim acts involving violence and assault were directed at women, most of them veiled. “What is revolting is that such things take place in broad daylight and with the total indifference of the people around,” said Abdallah Zekri, the group’s president. France, where Muslims make up an estimated 8 percent of the population, has long displayed discomfort with Muslim women who cover their heads, behavior that is standard in the Muslim world and is in keeping with the Quran’s teachings on modesty. But in recent years, French leaders appear ever more focused on banning veils. They have been driven by a number of factors, including the rise of a far-right movement that openly deplores what it calls the Islamization of France and the reality that homegrown Muslim extremists have carried out two of the worst attacks within France, including the shootings at the headquarters of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January. Mainstream politicians on the right, including former President Nicolas Sarkozy, are calling for veiled women to be barred from universities. Others in Mr. Sarkozy’s party want to see women who cover their faces in public brought up on felony charges. On the left, a small party has pushed for a law stopping veiled women from working in day care centers with government contracts. Even in President François Hollande’s Socialist government, Pascale Boistard, the junior minister for women’s rights, said in January that she was “not sure that the veil had a place at the university level.” Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, who
[Marxism] Kaplan says bring back imperialism to the Middle East
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Good for a laugh: http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/25/its-time-to-bring-imperialism-back-to-the-middle-east-syria-iraq-islamic-state-iran/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] 'May hope prevail in Greece and Europe': SYRIZA CC statement
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The following is the resolution of the central committee of SYRIZA, published on May 24 and is binding for the party collectively. The resolution is a product of consensus and has been voted for. It is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal for the information of the international left. http://links.org.au/node/4445 . . . ...the Greek economy is suffering unprecedented credit suffocation, as a result of rather obvious reasons. If this credit asphyxiation continues and things are brought to a breaking point, no one should doubt that the payment of salaries and pensions has an absolute priority over the payment of loan-instalments. People are above debt. The opponent however, is not only outside, but also within the walls. The oligarchy that was favoured and strengthened during the past 25 years, saw its power sky-rocket through the policies of extreme austerity and the deregulation of the labour-market during the 5 years of the memoranda. The outcome of the struggle against this oligarchy will be the judge of both the new government and Syriza as such. This struggle aims to establish a radically different social and economic model, which will be based on the redistribution of wealth, the promotion of equality, solidarity, the respect of public property, the support for the common goods, the support for wage labourers, and the respect for the environment. That is why it faces fierce reaction. The power block of the oligarchs has cast away its mask of “impartiality” for some time now, and has undertaken the confrontation with the government without political mediators and without pretexts. The daily attacks we face by the media of complicity (both print and electronic) are far from accidental. . . . The legislative work produced by the government so far, constitutes the clearest evidence of its aims regarding the negotiation. In a state of financial strangulation, the government moves consistently towards the implementation of The Thessaloniki Program [linked in text]: http://www.syriza.gr/article/SYRIZA---THE-THESSALONIKI-PROGRAMME.html We point out: 1) Addressing the humanitarian crisis through the voted programme that provides nutrition, shelter and free electricity, free medical care for those without health insurance, the abolition of the 5-euro fee to access public hospitals. 2) The first step for the restart of the economy through/ by the very successful provision that gives the opportunity to settle debts to the public sector and insurance funds in as many as 100 installments. 3) 4500 public employees rehired (cleaners, school guards, teachers and others) who were illegally fired by the memoranda governments. 4) The freeze of the zero-deficit clause the implementation of which would lead to the decrease up to 15% of the supplementary pensions as well as the freeze of the memorandum reforms that predicted new decreases in the main pensions and the limitation of the beneficiaries of Social Solidarity Benefit 5) The recruitment of health care personnel that will help the National Healthcare Service 6) The start of the restoration of the democratic liberties with the reinstatement of the public broadcaster, the reformation of the prison system, the provision of citizenship to to all children born and raised in Greece, the so-called second generation immigrants, the restoration of the hour of the prime minister in the parliament and the information/update of the journalists by the government spokesperson. 7) Dealing with corruption networks and the impunity of the oligarchs by taxing the triangular exchanges, the taxation for the first of the private television channels, the regulation of the chaotic radio and television landscape 8) The reinstatement of legal rules in the professional football 9) The progressive reforms in the educational system 10) Multidimensional foreign policymaking that promotes the peace and the boost of the economy We should also point the formation of committees by the parliament for: the Greek demand for WWII reparations from Germany the investigation of the memoranda an audit of the debt the institutions and the transparency in governmental decision-making. . . . The government has three key allies in this epic battle: The first one is our party. Syriza is the collective political expression of the workers, the youth and the movements. Furthermore, in this particular conjuncture, the party is the guardian of the programme and values of the left, the government’s shield against the war that is taking place and the night watcher that diagnoses deviations and mistakes on time, aiming to its immediate correction. The role of the
Re: [Marxism] Foyle's War on Palestine
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I love Foyle's war, well at lest the early seasons. I have not caught much of the later stuff. It is interesting how there is still an element of resentment against the Irgun especially for their blowing up of the King David Hotel and the hanging of the two British Sergeants. I actually met a man once who had helped to cut the hanged men down. He was still angry all these years later. Menachem Begin, the Irgun leader, was refused a visa to the Uk in 1955. When he came to visit the UK in the 70s, he had to defend himself from criticisms of his terrorist activities. Reportedly Thatcher found him difficult. The Foyle coverage might be part of the gradual shift to a slightly critical position of the Zionist State. Not though in the Murdoch Press. He will remain to his dying breath a thorough reactionary and supporter of all causes such as Zionism. comradely Gary On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 3:33 PM, Ken Hiebert via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I just watched Trespass, an episode from the 8th season of Foyle's War. Very interesting to see the news coverage from the time portraying Zionists as terrorists. Not everyone will share my taste, but i am happy to recommend the Foyle's War series. ken h _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/gary.maclennan1%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Left wins in Spanish local polls, Ireland Yes, Pakistan, Venezuela, Socialist planning, Hijacking 'Anthropocene', Eyewitness Donetsk, John Riddell on Michael Lebowitz
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * What's new at Links: Left wins in Spanish local polls, Ireland Yes, Pakistan, Venezuela, Socialist planning, Hijacking 'Anthropocene', Eyewitness Donetsk, John Riddell on Michael Lebowitz * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed ( http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to linkssocial...@gmail.com *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. *Comments welcome on all articles *Return daily for new articles * * * Spain: Madrid and Barcelona show -- the greater the unity on the left, the bigger the win http://links.org.au/node/4443 By *Dick Nichols*, Barcelona May 27, 2015 – *Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal* -- Once the results of Spain’s May 24 local and regional elections became known the main lesson for the anti-austerity and anti-capitalist left was simply and starkly obvious: the more united and more involving of ordinary people its election campaigns were, the greater its gains and the greater the losses for the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE)—its main rival for the popular and working-class vote—and for the ruling conservative People’s Party (PP). Where the two main poles of the radical left in the Spanish state—Podemos and the United Left (IU)— managed to merge their forces in projects organised not as alliances between party apparatuses but as participatory citizens’ electoral campaigns, the results were at times little short of astounding. - Read more http://links.org.au/node/4443 Ireland: Yes win in marriage equality poll: Historic step for equality http://links.org.au/node/4437 May 23, 2015 -- Ireland has become the first country to legalise same-sex marriage through a popular vote, with indications from all count centres across the country showing Yes votes outnumbering No votes by about two-to-one. - Read more http://links.org.au/node/4437 Spain: How did the radical new mayor of Barcelona win Spain’s second city? http://links.org.au/node/4441 May 25, 2015 -- Former anti-eviction activist Ada Colau *was *elected the new mayor Barcelona in the municipal elections on May 24. Ahead of the victory of the radical campaigner, who was backed by a coalition including Podemos and United Left, she spoke to *Il Manifesto* newspaper. - Read more http://links.org.au/node/4441 Pakistan: Baba Jan contests election from jail http://links.org.au/node/4440 By *Farooq Tariq*, Lahore May 25, 2015 -- *Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal* -- Baba Jan, a federal committee member of the Awami Workers Party (AWP), is contesting the election for the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly seat (Hunza-6) from behind bars. He is in jail serving a life sentence handed down by an anti-terrorism court last year for raising his voice against police brutality and for the rights of Atabad disaster hit people. - Read more http://links.org.au/node/4440 Venezuela: Chavismo on the horns of a dilemma http://links.org.au/node/4439 By *Steve Ellner* May 22, 2015 -- Leftists in Venezuela put forward a number of different explanations for the pressing economic difficulties and growing discontent that has beset Venezuela and increases the possibility of an opposition takeover of the National Assembly in this year’s elections. - Read more http://links.org.au/node/4439 John Riddell: Socialist planning and the bureaucratic economy http://links.org.au/node/4438 By *John Riddell* May 17, 2015 -- The following previously unpublished position paper, pulled from my archives, was written in 1992. I am posting it in conjunction with my review of Michael Lebowitz’s *Contradictions of Real Socialism*. My comments raised many of the themes found in Lebowitz’s writings of that time, of which I was then quite unaware. My approach, however, gives more emphasis to the problem of economic allocation and the role of non-capitalist markets. - Read more http://links.org.au/node/4438 Hijacking 'Anthropocene': Anti-green ‘Breakthrough Institute’ misrepresents science http://links.org.au/node/4436 By *Ian Angus* *“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” **—Lewis Carroll, *Through the Looking Glass May 19, 2015 -- What can lobbyists do when science contradicts their political messages? Some simply deny the science,
