[Marxism] More thoughts on Gaza
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I watched the Jon Snow Channel 4 piece on Gaza last nite on Youtube and it was magnificent. It was simple decent outrage about what is happening. I also looked up Uri Avnery, of Gush Shalom, to see what he was saying. I was provoked into this by a Washington Post piece which claimed the Israeli peace camp activists were behind Netanyahu. I have been critical of Avery's dream of a respectable Zionism, but his article was very good in its description of the 'mediators' http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/. They are an execrable bunch, especially the loathsome Tony Blair. There was also a discussion on Al Jazeera English that I sat through. What stuck with me most was the metaphor of 'mowing the lawn' to describe what Israel was up to in Gaza. The metaphor describes perfectly the thinking within Israel. It totally dehumanizes the Palestinians and positions them as the Feared/Despised Other. More than anything else the metaphor speaks to the moral bankruptcy of the Zionists. It also masks only slightly a fear that the Palestinians cannot be beaten. The grass will grow again and again and again. The political futility of trying to destroy Palestine is obvious to all but the most depraved. We now have a 72 hour truce. I hope that Netanyahu will have trouble in getting the killing frenzy going again. When the blood lust has cooled, I believe that even within Israel the realization that they have anathematized themselves will begin to penetrate. If nothing else they will see it in the eyes of their biggest supporters. Obama and Kerry will continue in public to speak in glowing terms of Israel, but when they leave the obligatory meeting with Netanyahu et al, they will hasten to wash their hands. No one likes the butcher and the torturer - the performer of the dirty business upon which all structures of oppression and exploitation necessarily rest. That is what Israel has become, an ever so eager peddler of dirty deeds. Some light unto the nations! comradely Gary Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Iran and Hezbollah break with Assad to support Hamas (well, kind of)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The title of course is a wild exaggeration, Hamas can only expect verbal support from Hezbollah and Iran (ie, like from everywhere else in the region) as they still prioritise killing Arabs and Muslims in Syria, but even a rhetorical difference with Assad is significant at this moment, brought on by Hamas' amazing show of *actual* resistance (as opposed to the BS resistance front). At the same time, the fact that Assad would so openly damn Hamas in its very hour of real resistance and pretend that his regime (which didn't shoot a single bullet near the Golan for 40 years) is ''real resistance simply demonstrates yet again how completely counterrevolutionary the regime is, not only within Syria but regionally. Assad spoke of the distinction between real resistance fighters, which we support, and amateurs who wear the mask of resistance according to their interests in order to improve their image or to consecrate their authority. That really takes the cake. MK Iran and Hezbollah break with Assad to support Hamas http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/nasralla-relation-renewed-hamas.html#ixzz38v2SSqvF GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The current war in Gaza has witnessed renewed contact between Hamas on the one hand, and Iran and Hezbollah on the other, following two years of a chill in relations. Summary Hezbollah and Iran have publicly declared support for Hamas in the Gaza war against Israel, but Syrian President Bashar al-Assad remains critical of Hamas and is reluctant to reconcile. Author Adnan Abu Amer Posted July 25, 2014 Translator(s)Rani Geha A political official in Hamas confirmed to Al-Monitor that Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas’ politburo, has recently received phone calls from Tehran initiated by Ali Larijani, chairman of the Shura Council, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and a senior Revolutionary Guard officer whose name he did not mention. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah called Meshaal on July 20. This was the first official contact between Hezbollah and Hamas since April, a Hamas official informed Al-Monitor. Hezbollah’s official website reported that, during his phone call with Meshaal, “Nasrallah praised the steadfastness of the resistance fighters in Gaza,” stressing that he “stands next to the Palestinian resistance and supports its conditions to end the battle.” Al-Monitor contacted a Palestinian official in Lebanon who mediated Hamas’ troubled relationship with Hezbollah, who said, “It is no secret that the relationship between the officials has not been great because of the crisis in Syria. But Iran contacting Meshaal through the head of the Shura Council Ali Larijani, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and a senior Revolutionary Guard officer on July 7 encouraged Nasrallah to call Meshaal despite the Syrian boycott of Hamas. Therefore, Nasrallah contacting Meshaal has not had positive echoes in Damascus.” The Palestinian official in Lebanon was probably alluding to the accusations of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against Hamas on July 16, when Assad commented on the Gaza war and urged “the distinction between real resistance fighters, which we support, and amateurs who wear the mask of resistance according to their interests in order to improve their image or to consecrate their authority,” referring to the Hamas leadership. A Hezbollah media official told Al-Monitor via phone from Beirut, “Syria has reasons that led it to have a rigid position when considering any reconciliation with Hamas, but we are confident that the Iranian diplomacy can find a formula between the two sides.” Sources from Hamas and Hezbollah revealed that there were attempts made in the last couple of months — before the Gaza war — to restore the axis of resistance and restore communication between Hamas and the Syrian regime. However, these attempts failed as the conditions were not ripe. A former member of the Iranian Shura Council and close associate of the decision-making circles in Tehran told Al-Monitor by phone, “Iran and Hezbollah’s contacts with Hamas did not find positive echoes in Syria, as Assad ‘vetoes’ the return of Hamas to the axis, which includes Damascus, Tehran and Beirut. However, Iran cannot remain idle as war rages in Gaza, while Hamas has made a remarkable military effort. Although Iran was absent from the current military scene — despite the training it offered — it wants to keep up with the political and diplomatic developments, even if this was to anger the Syrian president.” In response to a question by Al-Monitor about whether Meshaal may be invited to visit Lebanon soon and meet with Nasrallah, he said, “The party welcomes every ally and opens its doors to everyone. The Gaza war will have
[Marxism] Is there an 'anti-imperialist camp'? A debate (part 1)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Felipe Stuart and Michael Karadjis begin a debate on the concepts of the 'antimperialist camp. http://links.org.au/node/3978 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: For eastern Ukrainians, a growing doubt: Is Russia manipulating us? - CSMonitor.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == “I was pro-Russia, but I changed in one day,” says one young native of Donetsk who asked not to be named. She studied in Moscow and describes a natural, brotherly feeling that prevailed for decades between eastern Ukrainians and Russia. But two events in Donetsk changed her mind, because of how they were misrepresented on Russian television. In one case, she was in Moscow and shocked to see Russian state TV report that all residents of Donetsk marched on the streets with Russian flags, supporting Russian intervention to “protect” them. She knew it was not true. And in mid-March in Donetsk she witnessed pro-Russian activists attack a small protest against Russian interference with knives and clubs, killing one. Russian channels reported the event “upside down,” she says, and claimed that it was a “peaceful” pro-Russian crowd that was attacked. After that, she says, she “understood that they are manipulating us.” The result shattered her faith in Russia and its narrative, she says. “It’s like someone very close to you – like your husband – does something terrible to you.” full: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/0731/For-eastern-Ukrainians-a-growing-doubt-Is-Russia-manipulating-us Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] NEW FROM PLUTO PRESS: FREDRIC JAMESON: The Project of Dialectical Criticism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == FREDRIC JAMESON: The Project of Dialectical Criticism by Robert Tally Paperback | 9780745332109 | £16.99 / $28 / €22 Hardback | 9780745332116 | £65 / $105 / €80 Kindle | 9781783711611 | £16.99 / $28 / €22 EPUB | 9781783711604 | £16.99 / $28 / €22 PDF | 9781783711598 | £60 / $99 To buy the book with a 10% discount and free UK PP visit: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745332109; http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745334653# http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745334653# Praise for FREDRIC JAMESON: ‘One doesn't endorse one's self, but I can say that Tally's thorough and insightful review of my work will make it possible for readers to connect up parts they may have missed and to grasp the coherence of a long list of books and essays which might at first seem to wander across a variety of very different topics and interests. I'm most grateful to have available such a useful introduction to that work.’ – Fredric Jameson 'Robert Tally offers us an engaging, intimate, and elegant portrait of Fredric Jameson. Tally’s fine reconstruction of Jameson’s wide-ranging and often intimidating work offers a portrait of Jameson as a thinker who argues that we must interpret the world in order to change it.' - Benjamin Noys, author of The Persistence of the Negative Fredric Jameson is the most important Marxist critic in the world today. While consistently operating at the cutting edge of literary and cultural studies, Jameson has remained committed to seemingly old-fashioned philosophical discourses, most notably dialectical criticism and utopian thought. In Fredric Jameson: The Project of Dialectical Criticism, Robert Tally surveys Jameson’s entire oeuvre, from his early studies of Sartre and formal criticism through his engagements with postmodernism and globalisation to his recent readings of Hegel, Marx and the valences of the dialectic. The book is both a comprehensive critical guide to Jameson’s theoretical project and itself a convincing argument for the power of dialectical criticism to understand the world today. INSPECTION COPIES To request an inspection copy please send the following details to chr...@plutobooks.com: - the course name - the level of the course (level one, two, three or post-graduate) - the start date of the course - expected number of students on the course - name of local (or university) bookshop - full university address (this is where the book will be sent) We need all these details to be able to be able to process a request. Inspection copies are provided with an invoice that is cancelled if the book is adopted for a course, or returned in a resalable condition. You can also request inspection copies using our online form at www.plutobooks.com/lecturers.asp. EBOOKS Many Pluto books are available electronically. Libraries can subscribe to the Pluto eBook list via The Academic Library (www.theacademiclibrary.com). Individual titles can be ordered from many vendors, including Dawson ( www.dawsonera.com) in the UK and Ingram (www.myilibrary.com) in the UK, US and worldwide. REVIEW COPIES If you would like to request a copy of a book to review for a journal or other publication, please email our publicity team at public...@plutobooks.com j...@plutobooks.com, providing your contact details and the name of the publication you intend to review the book for. ORDERS To place an order, visit our website at www.plutobooks.com. MAILING LIST If you would like to join our mailing list, which includes special offers, news and events, go to www.plutobooks.com/subscribe.asp. SOCIAL MEDIA Twitter: @plutobooks Facebook: facebook.com/PlutoPress Blog: plutopress.wordpress.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Pollution and cancer
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dear George Johnson, I am currently reading Cancer Chronicles and am really impressed by both the elegance of your writing and your erudition. I am a film critic and am doing some background research for a review of Second Opinion: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering that opens in NY on Aug. 29. I used to work as a database administrator at Sloan-Kettering in the late 80s on patient registration systems and became interested in the politics of cancer as Samuel Epstein puts it, mostly as a function of my Marxist orientation. I read Epstein's book while there and Robert Proctor's much later on. I noticed that--unlike Epstein--Proctor was hesitant to make a link between pollution and cancer. All this was in the back of my mind when I began reading your account of Love Canal yesterday. I know that it is hard to argue with the data but I wonder whether your case would have been strengthened by a somewhat broader perspective. I have been paying pretty close attention to China over the past 30 years ever since the country abandoned socialism (even a distorted version) and plunged full speed ahead into capitalist development with zero concern over health and safety. I seemed to have recalled many reports on cancer clusters--so to speak--over the years. Refreshing my memory, I did a quick search and came up with this: http://igov.berkeley.edu/content/water-pollution-and-digestive-cancers-china Water Pollution and Digestive Cancers in China author(s): Avi Ebenstein 2008 Following China’s economic reforms of the late 1970s, rapid industrialization has led to a deterioration of water quality in the country’s lakes and rivers. China’s cancer rate has also increased in recent years, and digestive cancers (i.e. stomach, liver, esophageal) now account for 11 percent of fatalities (WHO 2002) and nearly one million deaths annually. This paper examines a potential causal link between surface water quality and digestive cancers by exploiting variation in water quality across China’s river basins. Using a sample of 145 mortality registration points in China, I find using OLS that a deterioration of the water quality by a single grade (on a six-grade scale) is associated with a 9.3 percent increase in the death rate due to digestive cancer, controlling for observable characteristics of the Disease Surveillance Points (DSP). The analysis rules out other potential explanations for the observed correlation, such as smoking rates, dietary patterns, and air pollution. This link is also robust to estimation using 2SLS with rainfall and upstream manufacturing as instruments. As a consequence of the large observed relationship between digestive cancer rates and water pollution, I examine the benefits and costs of increasing China’s levy rates for firm dumping of untreated wastewater. My estimates indicate that doubling China’s current levies would save roughly 29,000 lives per year, but require an additional 500 million dollars in annual spending on wastewater treatment by firms, implying a cost of roughly 18,000 dollars per averted death. Attachment Size Pollution_in_China.pdf 904.88 KB I know that you were not trying to write a comprehensive study of pollution and cancer but I was left with a worry that you were giving too much credence to an analysis I have seen over the years from your colleague at the NY Times Gina Kolata who has downplayed environmental factors to the point where she seems like a pro-chemical industry hack. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Pollution and cancer
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == An interesting, almost compelling review of Johnson's book: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/books/review/george-johnsons-cancer-chronicles.html?pagewanted=all_r=0 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Pollution and cancer
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 8/1/14 10:07 AM, DW via Marxism wrote: An interesting, almost compelling review of Johnson's book: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/books/review/george-johnsons-cancer-chronicles.html?pagewanted=all_r=0 I should mention that despite my misgivings on the environment/cancer argument made by Johnson, the book is an amazingly powerful work of prose. If I had run into someone who wrote like this when I was in high school, I might have majored in biology rather than religion at Bard College. Chapter 1 Jurassic Cancer As I crossed a dry, lonesome stretch of the Dinosaur Diamond Prehistoric Highway, I tried to picture what western Colorado—a wilderness of sage-covered mesas and rocky canyons—looked like 150 million years ago, in Late Jurassic time. North America was breaking away from Europe and Asia—all three had formed a primordial supercontinent called Laurasia. The huge land mass, flatter than it is today, was drifting northward a few centimeters per year and was passing like a ship through the waters of what geographers would come to call the Tropic of Cancer. Mile-high Denver was near sea level and lay about as far south as where the Bahamas are today. Though the climate was fairly dry, webs of rivulets connecting shallow lakes and swamps covered part of the land, and vegetation abounded. There were no grasses or flowers—they had yet to evolve—just a weird mix of conifers commingling with ginkgos, tree ferns, cycads, and horsetails. Giant termite nests soared as much as thirty feet high. Splashing and stomping through this Seuss-like world were Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Barosaurus, Seismosaurus—their bones buried far below me as I made my way from Grand Junction to a town called Dinosaur. Occasionally one can glimpse outcroppings of the Jurassic past, exposed by erosion, seismological uplift, or a highway department road cut—colorful bands of sediment that form a paleontological treasure house called the Morrison Formation. I knew what to look for from photographs: crumbling layers of reddish, grayish, purplish, sometimes greenish sediment—geological debris piled up over some 7 million years. Just south of the town of Fruita on the Colorado River, I hiked to the top of Dinosaur Hill, stopping for a moment to pick up a pinch of purplish Morrison mudstone that had fallen near the trail. As I rolled it in my fingers it crumbled like dry cookie dough. On the far side of the hill, I came to a shaft where in 1901 a paleontologist named Elmer Riggs extracted 6 tons of bones that had belonged to an Apatosaurus (the proper name for what most of us call a Brontosaurus). Alive and fully hydrated, the 70-foot-long reptile would have weighed 30 tons. Riggs encased the bones in plaster of paris for protection, ferried them across the Colorado on a flat-bottom boat, and then shipped them by train to the Field Museum in Chicago, where they were reassembled and put on display. After making my way north to Dinosaur (population 339), where Brontosaurus Boulevard intersects Stegosaurus Freeway, I stood at an overlook and watched Morrison stripes in a canyon reddening with the setting sun. But it was a little farther west, along the Green River in the western reaches of Dinosaur National Monument, that I saw the most beautiful example: a cliffside of greenish grays slumping into purples slumping into browns. It indeed resembled, as the woman at the park headquarters had told me, melted Neapolitan ice cream. It was somewhere in these parts that a dinosaur bone was discovered that displays what may be the oldest known case of cancer. After the dinosaur died, whether from the tumor or something else, its organs were eaten by predators or rapidly decomposed. But the skeleton—at least a piece of it—gradually became buried by windblown dirt and sand. Later on, an expanding lake or a meandering stream flowed over the debris, and the stage was set for fossilization. Molecule by molecule minerals in the bones were slowly replaced by minerals dissolved from the water. Tiny cavities were filled and petrified. Several epochs later dinosaurs were long extinct, their world overlaid by lakes and deserts and oceans, but this fossilized bone, encased in sedimentary rock, was preserved and carried through time. That hardly ever happened. Most bones disintegrated before they could become fossilized. And of the fraction that survived long enough to petrify, all but a few remain buried. The specimen, now labeled CM 72656 and housed at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, was a survivor. Unearthed by a rushing river or exposed by tectonic forces—somehow it was delivered to the surface of our world where, 150
[Marxism] Fwd: Pan-European far right conferences - Searchlight Magazine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (Was Boris Kagarlitsky there, I wonder.) Within a month’s time, two conferences of pan-European right-wing radicals took place. The first one took place in Vienna on the 31st of May and was hosted by Russian billionaire Konstantin Malofeev, the owner of the Moscow-based Marshall Capital. Malofeev is known for financing Russian right-wing extremists who are fighting against Ukrainian authorities in Eastern Ukraine: Igor Girkin, the former colonel at Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, and Aleksandr Borodai, a Muscovite businessman who is serving as “Prime Minister” of the virtual “Donetsk People’s Republic”. Due to the clandestine nature of the conference, the full guest-list is unknown but Austrian-Swiss journalist Bernhard Odehnal who has revealed this conference argues that the following people were present: Russian fascist Aleksandr Dugin; French National Front’s Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (granddaughter of Jean-Mari Le Pen) and Aymeric Chauprade; Austrian Freedom Party’s Heinz-Christian Strache, John Gudenus and Johann Herzog; Bulgarian Ataka's Volen Siderov; leader of the Spanish Catholic-monarchist Carlist movement Prince Sixtus Henry of Bourbon-Parma; and director of the Swiss financial company Edifin Serge de Pahlen. Many of the participants hailed Russian current president Vladimir Putin as Europe’s “redeemer” from Americanism, liberalism, secularism and homosexuality. The second pan-European far right conference took place in Stockholm on the 22nd of June and was called “Identitarian Ideas VI”. It was hosted by the Swedish far right think-tank Motpol (Antithesis) and Swedish far right periodical Nationell Idag (National Today). At this conference, Austrian identitarian ideologue Markus Willinger presented his new book Europa der Vaterländer (Europe of Fatherlands); Manuel Ochsenreiter, editor of the far right magazine Zuerzt! (First), was talking about geopolitics of the crises in Ukraine, Syria and Kosovo; while Patrik Forsén of the Swedish right-wing extremist Nordisk Ungdom (Nordic Youth), John Morgan of Arktos, Patrik Ehn from Nationell Idag, Eva Charlotta Johansson from Motpol, and Manuel Ochsenreiter discussed Ukraine, Russia and the United States. http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/news/featured-news/pan-european-far-right-conferences Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Times of Israel Op-Ed Advocates Palestine Genocide FULL TEXT | Mediaite
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.mediaite.com/online/whoa-times-of-israel-op-ed-advocates-genocide-against-gazans/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Củ Chi tunnels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Hamas's inspiration? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%E1%BB%A7_Chi_tunnels Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Hudson v Panitch
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Michael Hudson and Leo Panitch lock horns over the significance of the new 'BRICS bank', Russia's role in the global economy, etc., http://michael-hudson.com/2014/07/escaping-the-dollar/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Hudson v Panitch
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 8/1/14 5:06 PM, Steffan Wyn-Jones via Marxism wrote: Michael Hudson and Leo Panitch lock horns over the significance of the new 'BRICS bank', Russia's role in the global economy, etc., http://michael-hudson.com/2014/07/escaping-the-dollar/ Hudson wrote some good stuff on the world economy but he is a dyed in the wool Global Research type. On his website he has a transcript of an interview he did with RT.com, where he said that there was a Pinochet-type coup that took place in Ukraine (http://michael-hudson.com/2014/06/ukraines-gangster-state/). Even after Stephen F. Cohen downed 3 martinis, I doubt that he could come up with something more asinine than that. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Hudson v Panitch
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Agreed. And it's a shame because he has done very interesting work (on ancient economies for example), but he often intermixes it with conspiratorial Chossudovsky-style nonsense when it comes to contemporary analysis. Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 17:34:35 -0400 From: l...@panix.com To: mrpettymrsmo...@hotmail.com; marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism] Hudson v Panitch On 8/1/14 5:06 PM, Steffan Wyn-Jones via Marxism wrote: Michael Hudson and Leo Panitch lock horns over the significance of the new 'BRICS bank', Russia's role in the global economy, etc., http://michael-hudson.com/2014/07/escaping-the-dollar/ Hudson wrote some good stuff on the world economy but he is a dyed in the wool Global Research type. On his website he has a transcript of an interview he did with RT.com, where he said that there was a Pinochet-type coup that took place in Ukraine (http://michael-hudson.com/2014/06/ukraines-gangster-state/). Even after Stephen F. Cohen downed 3 martinis, I doubt that he could come up with something more asinine than that. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Film Review: Child of God
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I can't think of anything worse, a film directed by James Franco based on a Cormac McCarthy novel. --- James Franco wallows around in the backwoods muck with his latest directorial effort, Child of God, an adaptation of the 1973 Cormac McCarthy novel about a psychotic hick named Lester (Scott Haze) whose 1960s Tennessee life is defined by ever-abhorrent behavior. An opening close-up of Lester, his eyes turned upward in a menacing glare that invokes memories of many animalistic Stanley Kubrick protagonists, immediately establishes the feral nature of the story’s main character, who is then shown wildly objecting to the sale of his father’s farm. Split into three chapters, and embellished with a few instances of onscreen text as well as occasional narration from a variety of unidentified speakers, Lester’s subsequent saga is one of amplifying madness, as he sets up new residence in an abandoned woodland cabin, spies on the man who bought his daddy’s home, and gets his rocks off peeping on kids having sex in remotely parked cars. With spittle flying from his mouth, snot dangling from his nose, and slurry speech emanating from his filthy, beard-framed mouth, Lester exudes unhinged wildness, and his preference for groaning, growling and howling further solidifies him as more rabid dog than civilized man. Voiceover exposition reveals that Lester’s father abandoned him via suicide, though otherwise Child of God provides scant background on its center of attention, content to simply gaze with horrified fascination at Lester, whom Haze embodies with a full-throated lunacy that’s consistently captivating, at least until his screaming-crazy routine reveals itself to be one-note. At that point—which, admittedly, is about a third of the way through the story—the film turns monotonous, even as Lester indulges in increasingly wretched behavior that pushes the film into grim, sadistic territory. full: http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/content_display/reviews/specialty-releases/e3id12aca65814125e6d099f85b5d36115e Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Correct link: Is there an 'anti-imperialist camp'? A debate (part 1)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://links.org.au/node/3977 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Saudi Arabia joins the Axis of Resistance | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 8/1/14 8:23 PM, Michael Karadjis wrote: Thanks for this. Great article. Trouble is, Saudi Arabia can't decide which part of the anti-imperialist camp to join. You are writing here about the Saudis immanent meeting with Iranian leaders. I guess you can't keep track of the players without a scorecard. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Palestinian militants inflict substantial casualties on Israeli forces in Gaza - IHS Jane's 360
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.janes.com/article/41421/palestinian-militants-inflict-substantial-casualties-on-israeli-forces-in-gaza Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Closing of the Russian Mind: Four Snapshots
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Here are four reasons why, despite my affection for Kirill Medvedev's work, I found his recent appeal to the intelligentsia, youth, and all people of good will a little odd. He should be honest enough to know he is appealing to what is, increasingly, thin air. Fifteen years of Putinism has decimated public discourse and intellectual life in Russia, and now it seems that the regime wants to finish the once-mighty Russian mind off once and for all. Which is not to say that the pro-Putin euphoria described in the first two items is not a stage-managed affair to a huge degree, as obliquely suggested by the fourth item. 1) According to a survey published this week by the respected independent pollster Levada Centre, 82% of Russians believe MH17 was brought down by either a Ukrainian army fighter plane or missile. Just 3% thought the insurgents were to blame. Given these kind of figures, the prospect of Putin facing a backlash of public anger over suspected weapons supplies to separatist gunmen is virtually zero. Ironically, Putin probably faces more danger from Russians disappointed by his failure to provide more assistance to the rebels. “Many people feel cheated by his refusal to use military force [in east Ukraine],” Alexander Dugin, an ultranationalist thinker whose ideas are reported to have influenced recent Kremlin policy, told me recently. Western officials may be hoping economic sanctions will force Russians to rethink their support for Putin, but in reality such measures will achieve little more than an entrenchment of a growing fortress mentality. State media’s routine and increasingly vitriolic attacks on the west’s “decadent” morals mean Russians are likely to accept any economic and social hardships brought about by US and European sanctions. Tellingly, in another Levada Centre poll this week, 61% of Russians said they were unconcerned by the threat of sanctions, while 58% were similarly unfazed by the looming possibility of political isolation over the Kremlin’s stance on Ukraine. These head-in-the-sand attitudes are bolstered by what the director of Levada Centre, Lev Gudkov, calls a “patriotic and chauvinistic euphoria”rooted in the almost bloodless annexation of Crimea in March, which was popular among Russians across the political spectrum. It’s alsoworth noting that many “ordinary” Russians are uninterested in politics and have only scant knowledge of the issues at hand. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/31/vladimir-putin-western-sanctions-russia-flight-mh17-state-propaganda%20 2) MOSCOW, July 31 (RIA Novosti) - Life satisfaction and social optimism indices in Russia skyrocketed, reaching all-time highs despite political challenges according to polls conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM). “Within the last three months, indices of social well-being have shown unprecedented growth, stabilizing at extremely high levels. In June the satisfaction index reached its all-time high of 79 points and the indices of financial self-assessment and social optimism, now at 76 and 77 points respectively, have also risen and stabilized at new highs,” says the poll. The economic sanctions imposed by the US and EU over the crisis in Ukraine seem to have little effect on Russians. According to the polls, Russians are now far less concerned with the future of their country than they were last year. The number of Russians who have not ruled out the possibility of a war with neighboring countries is now 23 percent of the population, up from just 10 percent last year. However, the number of those concerned about a Western military threat has held steady at 13 percent for the past eight years. The VCIOM opinion poll was conducted in 2014, interviewing 1,600 respondents in 130 communities in 42 regions of Russia. Data are weighted by gender, age, education, working status and type of settlement. The polls have margins of error of no more than 3.4%. http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140731/191534494/Life-Satisfaction-in-Russia-Reaches-All-Time-High.html 3) It’s bad news for Russian bloggers, then, that starting today, anyone who attracts more than 3,000 daily readers to his blog is considered a de facto journalist and must register. (In a largely symbolic gesture, LiveJournal has already stopped reporting blog subscribers beyond the 2,500 mark.) Registration entails turning over your personal details to the government—including, of course, your name, meaning anonymous blogging is now illegal for many. (By the way, the law applies to any blog written in Russian for Russians; a post you write from a Brooklyn cafe could face censorship from Moscow.) Bloggers will also be held liable for any alleged misinformation they publish, even in comments written by
