Re: [Marxism] Stathis Kouvelakis It's Time for a Rupture
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 07/05/2015 07:57 μμ, Dayne Goodwin wrote: I hope you are not right that any efficacious popular mobilization could ever be introduced from above is a mistaken hypothesis. For one thing, i hope that Syriza's relationship with 'the people' is not experienced as simply from above. I don't know if my poor english betrayed my thoughts but i agree that, although syriza has notoriously weak links with its electoral base and the working class, its relationship with the people is not at all to be summed up as from above. And of course it will never be too late for the people to intervene, otherwise what's the point to be Marxist? What i argue is that when a government says repeatedly to the people everything is under control, there is no reason to worry about, an agreement with our *partners* is more than certain and imminent ... , this government can not make a sudden U turn, as Kouvelakis is suggesting, say to this very people well you know, these guys were not really our partners; in fact they are bloodthirsty capitalists! Let us take the streets to confront them and expect a popular mobilization of a *complementary* and politically subjugated character, as it is meant to be. THAT would be an impossibility from above. If a popular mobilization is to be expected hoped and prepared, it would have an autonomous and independent from the state character and of course it is unpredictable what could trigger it. What makes me skeptical about, is that there appear to be many people around here in greece, including antarsya as a whole and Kouvelakis co inside syriza, who do hang, one way or another, their hopes on a working class mobilization, but they do nothing to prepare or even prepare themselves about it! Though all my references are obviously in greek, the climate i describe is also detectable into Kouvelakis' text. All about people's mobilization is just a wish, and this is the case not only for Kouvelakis co inside syriza, but for the overall antarsya as well. JA _ 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] another step down for Socialist Action
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. * Since this disagreement seems to come up over and over, is there a coherent critique of Marcy’s theory of “global class struggle” that is the ideological justification for supporting Assad, Putin and others? Louis might have posted a critique a while back, but I couldn’t locate it. 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
Re: [Marxism] another step down for Socialist Action
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. * Excellent question. I've only written accounts of the symptoms. But in the old SWP(US) bulletins at MIA there are documents and reports responding to Marcy/Copeland et al. Of course they should be updated for today. On my way out the door but will look for them later. On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 4:01 PM, Glenn Kissack 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. * Since this disagreement seems to come up over and over, is there a coherent critique of Marcy’s theory of “global class struggle” that is the ideological justification for supporting Assad, Putin and others? Louis might have posted a critique a while back, but I couldn’t locate it. Glenn _ 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
Re: [Marxism] Leftist Party's Win in Alberta May Affect Future of Oil Sands
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. * DemocracyNow! May 7 http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/7/headlines Leftist NPD Ousts Conservatives in Canadian Province of Alberta In Canada, the left-leaning New Democratic Party has won a historic victory in the traditionally conservative province of Alberta. Voters elected the NDP to a majority government of 53 seats, up from just four seats. The win ousts the Conservative party of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper after more than four decades in power. Alberta has long been known as Canada’s most right-wing province. The incoming premier, Rachel Notley, celebrated her victory. bq. *Rachel Notley*: I don’t know, I think we might have made a little bit of history tonight. I believe that change has finally come to Alberta. Notley has promised to review oversight of Alberta’s energy sector and the royalty payments of its corporations, which extract oil from the carbon-intensive tar sands. The NDP has also vowed to increase corporate tax rates, raise the minimum wage, and work cooperatively with the province’s indigenous communities. On a national level, the Alberta NDP is also expected to pressure the Canadian government to change its environmental policy, and will drop the province’s lobbying effort for the Keystone XL pipeline. On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 12:12 PM, Steve Heeren via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: Most of us up here call them the tar sands, not the oil sands which is a PR tactic from oil producers wanting to hide the tarry nature of bitumen, the only ingredient from which oil can be extracted. There is no oil in the sand, water, or clay which constitutes, along with the bitumen, the tar sands. Even MacLean's magazine appears to go along with the CAPP spin. _ 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] question re Israeli training of US cops
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. * Here's some info, with links, from an impeccably pro-Zionist source. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/homeland.html Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant http://www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math -- Original Message -- From: Andrew Pollack via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Subject: [Marxism] question re Israeli training of US cops Date: Thu, 7 May 2015 12:10:45 -0400 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. * Rania Khalek has a new, good article on Baltimore/Israel policing parallels -- and collaboration. The headline, and a section in the second half, emphasizes the latter, i.e. that many US police departments have sent personnel to Israel for training: http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-trained-police-invade-baltimore-crackdown-black-lives-matter Now here's the question: As far as I know, the police/army suppression of riots in the '60s occurred without any training of US forces by Israel, and yet were obviously equally bloody, vicious and gratuitous in use of violence. Same further back in US history. I raise this because when Ferguson jumped off some seemed to claim that without Zionist training our pigs wouldn't have been as repressive and well-armed, or at least not as much so. Frankly that seems like hogwash to me. But the question then is why is this training and collaboration happening? My guess is that a) they're junkets, i.e. a good way to pad the departments' budgets and show the boys a good time, and b) more importantly, that the Zionists have more training in recent years in crowd control and thus are a little sharper on their game (i.e. the components of the Empire are leapfrogging each other in combat readiness and efficiency). Thoughts? ps: for a good overview of the fire last time, see: http://socialistworker.org/2015/05/06/rebellion-and-the-black-working-class _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/farmelantj%40juno.com High School Yearbooks View Class Yearbooks Online Free. Reminisce Buy a Reprint Today! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/554baba2520df2ba031e6st01vuc _ 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: Neglected masterpieces of cinema | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
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 latest issue of Class, Race and Corporate Power is now online. Founded by Ronald Cox, a professor at Florida International University, it is a bold attempt to create a unified voice for academics and non-academics on the left as an Open Access journal—in other words, one that does not make use of dead trees and that costs $35 per issue. The journal includes peer-reviewed articles and non-peered as well, such as the one I have in the current issue titled “Neglected Masterpieces of Cinema”. A while ago Ronald asked to write something on the top radical films. My response was to adapt ten reviews that I had posted over the years that met two criteria: --The films should be ones that the average leftist might not be familiar with, such as—for example—“Crimson Gold”, the 2003 Iranian film that is a lacerating critique of class inequalities and religious authoritarianism that was like others directed by Jafar Panahi almost certain to get him arrested and banned from making films. --The films should also be available through online streaming, either for free on Youtube or at places like Fandor.com, one of the alternatives to Netflix that I have recommended to CounterPunch readers. full: http://louisproyect.org/2015/05/07/neglected-masterpieces-of-cinema/ _ 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] question re Israeli training of US cops
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'd also point out that there is an analogous phenomenon taking place wherein the US, drawing down some of its forces abroad, is beginning to use the same equipment and militarization on domestic police. In the same way Israel and its lobbyists wanted to show that they were on the forefront of the US war on terror in the early 2000s, they are now trying to jump on the same security apparatus bandwagon as it begins to aim more domestically. - Amith On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 6:20 PM, Joseph Catron 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 would add c): It's a good way for local politicians, pretty much all of whom aspire to higher office, to suck up to the Israel lobby at minimal cost to themselves. Here's another example of the same dynamic at work in Baltimore: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/baltimore-confronting-unchallenged Fleshing out b), the Zionist military has spent decades innovating new ways to surveil populations. The NYPD's supposedly-disbanded Demographics Unit was modeled in part on how Israeli authorities operate in the West Bank, a former police official said. http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2011/With-CIA-help-NYPD-moves-covertly-in-Muslim-areas And with a lot of police departments blending their counter-terrorism and protest policing functions, it stands to reason that some might look to Tel Aviv, for which they've never been distinguishable, for pointers. http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/how-the-nypds-counter-terror-apparatus-is-being-turned-on-police-protesters-119 http://gothamist.com/2015/01/30/well_just_use_handguns.php But I don't know how much of that kind of collaboration takes place on these junkets organized and publicized by ostensibly private-sector lobby groups, which always reek of political theater to me. -- 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/amithrgupta%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
Re: [Marxism] question re Israeli training of US cops
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 would add c): It's a good way for local politicians, pretty much all of whom aspire to higher office, to suck up to the Israel lobby at minimal cost to themselves. Here's another example of the same dynamic at work in Baltimore: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/baltimore-confronting-unchallenged Fleshing out b), the Zionist military has spent decades innovating new ways to surveil populations. The NYPD's supposedly-disbanded Demographics Unit was modeled in part on how Israeli authorities operate in the West Bank, a former police official said. http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2011/With-CIA-help-NYPD-moves-covertly-in-Muslim-areas And with a lot of police departments blending their counter-terrorism and protest policing functions, it stands to reason that some might look to Tel Aviv, for which they've never been distinguishable, for pointers. http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/how-the-nypds-counter-terror-apparatus-is-being-turned-on-police-protesters-119 http://gothamist.com/2015/01/30/well_just_use_handguns.php But I don't know how much of that kind of collaboration takes place on these junkets organized and publicized by ostensibly private-sector lobby groups, which always reek of political theater to me. -- 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] More articles on Baltimore, racism, class inequality
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 long, painful and repetitive history of how Baltimore became Baltimore http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/29/the-long-painful-and-repetitive-history-of-how-baltimore-became-baltimore/ These shocks happened, at least 80 years of them, to the same communities in Baltimore, as they did in cities across the country. Neighborhoods weakened by mass incarceration were the same ones divided by highways. Families cornered into subprime loans descended from the same families who'd been denied homeownership — and the chance to build wealth — two generations earlier. People displaced today by new development come from the same communities that were scattered before in the name of slum clearance and the progress brought by Interstate highways. And the really terrible irony — which brings us back to Baltimore today — is that each of these shocks further diminished the capacity of low-income urban black communities to recover from the one that came next. It's an irony, a fundamental urban inequality, created over the years by active decisions and government policies that have undermined the same people and sapped them of their ability to rebuild, that have again and again dismantled the same communities, each time making them socially, economically, and politically weaker. ___ Ellis Cose: Baltimore cries out for end to denial http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/04/29/shooting-ferguson-baltimore-america-black-crisis-column/26573293/ America unquestionably has improved since King gave his life fighting for equality. Even so, in this much-improved America, blacks are nearly three times as likely to live in poverty as whites. And though black hope soars and opportunities abound, life remains far from fair. African Americans continue to suffer in the job market, even when they are every bit as qualified as whites. One widely cited study found that black men lacking criminal records were less likely to get callbacks than white men with records. Even having a name that sounds black is enough to reduce the likelihood of getting a job interview or of being taken seriously by an unknown professor. And when it comes to the odds of being imprisoned or shot by police, a black male is the last thing you want to be. Black men are more than six times as likely to be imprisoned as white men, and young black males are 21 times more likely to be shot by cops as their white counterparts. Put it together, and you have three interrelated problems, none of which we seem capable of or willing to come to terms with. One is the ongoing depression in many communities of color; the second is our continuing inability to see beyond race, even as we congratulate ourselves for being colorblind; and the third is the oft-witnessed dynamic between young men of color and police officers (rooted in stereotypes and fear) that too often leaves men of color either humiliated or hurt. _ In Baltimore, riots appear where urban renewal didn't http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-west-baltimore-20150429-story.html#page=1 _ Race, Class and Neglect http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/opinion/paul-krugman-race-class-and-neglect.html [T]he riots in Baltimore, destructive as they are, have served at least one useful purpose: drawing attention to the grotesque inequalities that poison the lives of too many Americans. Yet I do worry that the centrality of race and racism to this particular story may convey the false impression that debilitating poverty and alienation from society are uniquely black experiences. In fact, much though by no means all of the horror one sees in Baltimore and many other places is really about class, about the devastating effects of extreme and rising inequality. Take, for example, issues of health and mortality. Many people have pointed out that there are a number of black neighborhoods in Baltimore where life expectancy compares unfavorably with impoverished Third World nations. But what’s really striking on a national basis is the way class disparities in death rates have been soaring even among whites. Most notably, mortality among white women has increased sharply since the 1990s, with the rise surely concentrated among the poor and poorly educated; life expectancy among less educated whites has been falling at rates reminiscent of the collapse of life expectancy in post-Communist Russia. And yes, these excess deaths are the result of inequality and lack of opportunity, even in those cases where their direct cause lies in self-destructive behavior. Overuse of prescription drugs, smoking, and obesity
[Marxism] Fwd: Syria Special: 3 Reasons Why Assad Will Lose The War | EA WorldView
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://eaworldview.com/2015/05/syria-special-3-reasons-why-assad-will-lose-the-war/ _ 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] Women still do most of the cleaning: is it putting their health at risk?
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 the end of the article hints at but doesn't state is the long-suspected connection between environmental exposure to cleaning fluids and the epidemic of breast cancer in women. Les On May 7, 2015, at 8:02 AM, Shalva Eliava via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/30/american-cleaning-institute-us-labor-deep-clean-scjohnson-walmart _ 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 Workers Living on the Edge
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.nytimes.com/2015/05/02/arts/design/i-too-am-america-shares-snapshots-from-workers-living-on-the-edge.html ‘I, Too, Am America’ Shares Snapshots From Workers Living on the Edge The photographers were about two dozen employees from chains like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Subway and Burger King, who turned their cameras on their neighborhoods and families, their errands and needs. They took pictures of greasy burgers, stacks of pre-made fries in cardboard boxes and homes with empty refrigerators and bare living rooms. Children peer out of abutting cribs. A woman’s back-of-the-envelope budget calculation, scrupulously accounting for $1.50 in cash, finds that, after bills at the end of the month, there is barely $77 left over for food, transportation and community college courses. _ 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: Capitalism and Slavery | The Nation
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[Marxism] Fwd: M. Panayiotakis: On SYRIZA, negotiations and compromise
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 for the lamentations regarding SYRIZA's alleged capitulation coming from the left: I'm not sure where these are derived from. Certainly they aren't based on the actual government policies being introduced. As we speak many small steps in reversing the austerity disaster of the past 5 years have been implemented: --abolishing the entrance fee to public hospitals and making them available to everyonewhether or not they are insured (a big deal in a country where by now 20% of the population is uninsured) --re-establishing collective bargaining and labor rights and restoring by law the minimum wage (in two steps, over a period of a year, which is indeed a retreat from the initial intentions, but nonetheless a break with the past 5 years of continuous reductions) --the public broadcaster ERT has been reopened and all of its employees rehired. Private TV channels exempted from all sorts of fees and taxes forever are now facing a huge bill and their illegal (and decried even by Freedom House) monopoly over the digital TV spectrum is being ended --also within the year, a number of public employees, most prominently the cleaning ladies of the Finance Ministry (despite obstacles by a reactonary judiciary) will also be rehired, including around 4500 new nurses and doctors to support the decaying health system --primary residences are again protected by law from foreclosure as are savings from confiscations from private debts. And (smaller than initially planned but significant nonetheless) emergency aid (electricity, transportation, housing and food) for the most afflicted has began to be delivered, while banks were forced to follow suit in removing debt burdens from the poorest --meanwhile oligarchs are being brought to justice for tax evasion for the first time ever - with the help of the Lagarde list, tax avoidance by the rich is being addressedconcretely again for the first time, while a deal with Switzerland has been inititiated that will tax depositors there immediately --the corrupt edifice of (oligarch-run) football is being attacked anti-environmental mining is being impeded with the obvious intent of being stopped while the mother company is being prosecuted for tax-avoidance --an instalment plan on tax and social security arrears (vetoed in the past by the troika) has been (quite succesfully) implemented and in fact extended --this government has begun to address corruption on all scales, from procurements to clientelist networks of graft full: http://www.analyzegreece.gr/topics/greece-europe/item/196-michalis-panagiotakis-on-syriza-negotiations-and-compromise _ 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] Leftist Party’s Win in Alberta May Affect Future of Oil Sands
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. * (Despite the election of the NDP, one might conclude that things will not change that much according to this: http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-ndp-discovers-the-oil-sands/) NY Times, May 7 2015 Leftist Party’s Win in Alberta May Affect Future of Oil Sands By IAN AUSTEN OTTAWA — With an economy dominated by the oil industry and a conservative, free-market political tradition, Alberta has long been cast as the Texas of Canada. But on Tuesday, not only did the province’s voters put the Progressive Conservative Party out of power after 43 years, they elected a government from the far left of Canada’s mainstream political spectrum. The unexpected rise of the New Democratic Party, which was partly founded by labor unions, may have implications for Alberta’s oil sands, which, many critics say, enjoyed a light regulatory touch under Conservative governments. And with a federal election coming this year, the result will not be welcomed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative whose party’s power base is in Alberta, along with his own parliamentary constituency. The New Democrats had always been distant also-rans in Alberta, Canada’s most conservative province, so there was skepticism before the election about polls that showed the party far ahead. But broadcasters declared about an hour after the polls closed that the party, under its leader Rachel Notley, had won a strong majority of seats in the provincial legislature. Preliminary results indicated that the New Democrats would have 53 seats, up from four, while the Conservatives would fall to third place, with 11 seats, behind the Wildrose Party, another right-of-center group, with 21. The defeat of the Conservatives followed a budget crisis brought on by declining oil prices. Six months ago, the party brought in Jim Prentice, a former member of Mr. Harper’s federal cabinet, to replace a leader who had been accused of profligate personal spending. Duane Bratt, the chairman of policy studies at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, said that Mr. Prentice and his party had failed because they simply attacked their opponents rather than deal with the issues that had led to growing disaffection among voters. “They ran a fear-and-loathing campaign again,” Mr. Bratt said. After the results became clear, Mr. Prentice resigned as the party’s leader, as well as from his seat in the legislature, to which he had been narrowly re-elected. The collapse of Alberta’s Conservatives, who in December marked the longest time in power for a single party in any Canadian province, may partly reflect changing demographics within a province whose settlers, in the early 20th century, included large numbers of Americans. Alberta’s politicians have tended to come from long-settled families and to have links to farming or the oil industry. But Naheed Nenshi, the current mayor of Calgary and one of Canada’s most admired politicians, is a Harvard-educated Muslim academic, born in Canada to parents from Tanzania. Like many Canadian mayors, Mr. Nenshi is an independent who has not aligned himself with a party, though Conservatives have campaigned against him. Mr. Prentice called an election about a year earlier than required. When he took power, the biggest threat to the Conservatives appeared to be the Wildrose Party, which is slightly to its right. At first, it appeared that Mr. Prentice had defused his political opposition by welcoming nine members of Wildrose, including its leader, into the Conservatives. “They thought they would have a free ride,” said Jack Mintz, the director of the school of public policy at the University of Calgary. But the move backfired. Because the Conservatives had stridently campaigned against Wildrose in 2012, Mr. Bratt said, many voters saw the move as cynical. Of the nine defectors, plus two earlier ones, only three ran in Tuesday’s election. The others retired or were unable to secure nominations. The province’s budget woes were another blow to the Conservatives. Falling royalty payments because of low oil prices are expected to cut revenue this year by up to seven billion Canadian dollars, or $5.8 billion. Mr. Prentice responded with a budget that many conservatives saw as not cutting spending enough, while many on the left thought that the cuts were too deep and that corporations should have been taxed more. The party was also hurt by Mr. Prentice’s political style and by campaign blunders. Having quit as vice chairman of a large Toronto-based bank to return to politics, Mr. Prentice sometimes acted like an executive lecturing employees.
Re: [Marxism] Stathis Kouvelakis It's Time for a Rupture
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 07/05/2015 01:49 πμ, Dayne Goodwin via Marxism wrote: It’s Time for a Rupture The fear of Greek exit from the euro should no longer cripple us. by Stathis Kouvelakis Jacobin magazine, May 6 https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/kouvelakis-syriza-ecb-grexit Between Kouvelakis' lines one can hear echoed St Paul's exclamation: dixi et salvavi animam meam. Because although he is right saying that if with the February 20 agreement the lenders had agreed to “ensure liquidity,” if they had delinked its provision from the specific austerity plans they seek to impose, they would simply have deprived themselves of the most significant means of exerting pressure they have at their disposal. That Tsakalotos believed they would do this smacks of extreme political naivety, if not willful blindness he suffers himself from the same illness. That Kouvelakis believes the activation of the popular mobilization is always at the disposal of the government, smacks of extreme political naivety, if not willful blindness. And this, not only because the people is not some kind of matter inert to the political messages of retreat that government emits since February; not only because a popular mobilization -beyond a mere demonstration- can not take place on demand; not only because bourgeois parties and their EU allies will not confine themselves to just watching the show; not only because there has not been any organizational initiative to shape an eventual popular mobilization. There is also a fundamentally wrong working hypothesis that any efficacious popular mobilization could ever be introduced from above... JA _ 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] question re Israeli training of US cops
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. * Rania Khalek has a new, good article on Baltimore/Israel policing parallels -- and collaboration. The headline, and a section in the second half, emphasizes the latter, i.e. that many US police departments have sent personnel to Israel for training: http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-trained-police-invade-baltimore-crackdown-black-lives-matter Now here's the question: As far as I know, the police/army suppression of riots in the '60s occurred without any training of US forces by Israel, and yet were obviously equally bloody, vicious and gratuitous in use of violence. Same further back in US history. I raise this because when Ferguson jumped off some seemed to claim that without Zionist training our pigs wouldn't have been as repressive and well-armed, or at least not as much so. Frankly that seems like hogwash to me. But the question then is why is this training and collaboration happening? My guess is that a) they're junkets, i.e. a good way to pad the departments' budgets and show the boys a good time, and b) more importantly, that the Zionists have more training in recent years in crowd control and thus are a little sharper on their game (i.e. the components of the Empire are leapfrogging each other in combat readiness and efficiency). Thoughts? ps: for a good overview of the fire last time, see: http://socialistworker.org/2015/05/06/rebellion-and-the-black-working-class _ 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] E.C.B. Doubts Add to Uncertainties on Greek Debt Lifeline
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 7 2015 E.C.B. Doubts Add to Uncertainties on Greek Debt Lifeline By JACK EWING and LIZ ALDERMAN FRANKFURT — As Greece mounts an 11th-hour diplomatic offensive across Europe to secure financial aid that it desperately needs to avoid a default, patience with Athens is wearing thin at the European Central Bank. That could pose big problems for Greece, since the central bank is the country’s biggest creditor and a necessary source of financial support for struggling Greek commercial banks. A majority of the members of the European Central Bank’s influential Governing Council are increasingly uncomfortable with the central bank’s growing financial exposure to Greece, according to people with knowledge of the group’s discussions. Members worry that the council has already stretched rules to extend additional help to the banks, whose financial health has been in serious decline because of Greece’s deep economic downturn. A statue of the goddess Athena in Athens. Greece is struggling to avert bankruptcy.Explaining the Greek Debt CrisisAPRIL 8, 2015 The European Central Bank has already lent about 110 billion euros, or about $120 billion, to banks in Greece — more than to any other country’s financial institutions, relative to the size of the economy. The banks need the cash to continue providing credit to the Greek economy. And while the central bank does not want to provoke a mass failure of Greek banks, or force Greece out of the eurozone, it may soon be compelled to tighten its flow of credit to the banks if Greece does not produce a set of economic overhauls that its creditors are demanding. Any significant economic changes are proving difficult for the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, which was voted into power in January on promises to relieve Greece of the austerity measures demanded by its foreign lenders. On Wednesday, the central bank’s Governing Council met in Frankfurt but did not impose any new restrictions on Greece. Instead, the council was planning to closely watch the outcome of a meeting in Brussels on Monday between Greece and the Eurogroup of finance ministers from eurozone countries. As it has been doing routinely for several months, the central bank again raised the limit on emergency cash for Greek banks. Policy makers there will decide whether Greece has come up with an adequate set of economic overhauls required before they will release more financial aid to the country, which is quickly running out of money. On Wednesday, Greece found funds to make a €200 million payment to another of its creditors, the International Monetary Fund. But on Tuesday, Greece must give the I.M.F. an additional payment of about €750 million — money that the Tsipras government says it will be hard-pressed to find. More than two months have passed since European leaders in late February negotiated a deal to extend Greece’s €240 billion bailout program and to unlock an additional €7.2 billion from that program. Even if Greece can meet next week’s I.M.F. repayment, the country desperately needs the additional funds to avoid defaulting on billions of euros in other debt payments that are due in coming weeks. The financial and political implications of a potential Greek default or the country’s forced or voluntary exit from the euro currency union are hard to predict. Since that February deal, the stalemate and rancor between Greece and its creditors have deepened, and creditors have repeatedly withheld additional aid until Greece provides a list of measures to increase tax revenue, contain spending and overhaul the economy that they find satisfactory. In addition to the central bank and the I.M.F., Greece’s other big creditor is the rest of the eurozone. Should that stalemate continue after Monday’s meeting of Eurogroup finance ministers, the European Central Bank, whose credit program with Greek banks also hinges on the assessment of Greece’s other creditors, might be compelled to pull back, the people with knowledge of the Governing Council’s discussions said. “Another negative eurogroup would probably force their hand,” said Lefteris Farmakis, an economist at Nomura in London. If the central bank curtailed its assistance, Greece’s banks could be forced to take drastic measures, like imposing restrictions on how much money depositors could withdraw. That would send ripples through the economy and fan further uncertainty about whether Greece could remain within the eurozone. On Tuesday, Greek government officials traveled to various European capitals to meet with leaders and policy makers,
[Marxism] Fwd: The Price of Nice Nails - NYTimes.com
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 super-exploited women in upscale nail parlors. Am only furnishing the link since the graphics are essential. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/nyregion/at-nail-salons-in-nyc-manicurists-are-underpaid-and-unprotected.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] question re Israeli training of US cops
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'm guessing option b. On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 12:10 PM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: But the question then is why is this training and collaboration happening? My guess is that a) they're junkets, i.e. a good way to pad the departments' budgets and show the boys a good time, and b) more importantly, that the Zionists have more training in recent years in crowd control and thus are a little sharper on their game (i.e. the components of the Empire are leapfrogging each other in combat readiness and efficiency). Thoughts? _ 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] Stathis Kouvelakis It's Time for a Rupture
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 think you are right about Kouvelakis, JA, particularly the brief and context-less bow to popular mobilization: The only escape route from the threatened confinement in the cage of the Memoranda, and derailment of the government’s project, lies in the activation of the popular mobilization... You have put Kouvelakis in good company with that Catholic confessional I have spoken and saved my soul. Marx ends his Critique of the Gotha Program with that Latin phrase. I hope you are not right that any efficacious popular mobilization could ever be introduced from above is a mistaken hypothesis. For one thing, i hope that Syriza's relationship with 'the people' is not experienced as simply from above. And i don't think that it is already too late for efficacious popular mobilization - neither in Greece nor elsewhere. I expect that there will be new developments and the situation may change in ways that make widespread progressive popular mobilization more obviously appropriate, constructive and necessary. Dayne On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 7:28 AM, ioannis aposperites via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: On 07/05/2015 01:49 πμ, Dayne Goodwin via Marxism wrote: It’s Time for a Rupture The fear of Greek exit from the euro should no longer cripple us. by Stathis Kouvelakis Jacobin magazine, May 6 https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/kouvelakis-syriza-ecb-grexit Between Kouvelakis' lines one can hear echoed St Paul's exclamation: dixi et salvavi animam meam. Because although he is right saying that if with the February 20 agreement the lenders had agreed to “ensure liquidity,” if they had delinked its provision from the specific austerity plans they seek to impose, they would simply have deprived themselves of the most significant means of exerting pressure they have at their disposal. That Tsakalotos believed they would do this smacks of extreme political naivety, if not willful blindness he suffers himself from the same illness. That Kouvelakis believes the activation of the popular mobilization is always at the disposal of the government, smacks of extreme political naivety, if not willful blindness. And this, not only because the people is not some kind of matter inert to the political messages of retreat that government emits since February; not only because a popular mobilization -beyond a mere demonstration- can not take place on demand; not only because bourgeois parties and their EU allies will not confine themselves to just watching the show; not only because there has not been any organizational initiative to shape an eventual popular mobilization. There is also a fundamentally wrong working hypothesis that any efficacious popular mobilization could ever be introduced from above... JA _ 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] Appeal to support the Resisting Greek people and its truth Commission on Public Debt
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. * For the People’s right to Audit public debt http://cadtm.org/Appeal-to-support-the-Resisting To the people of Europe and the whole world! To all the men and women who reject the politics of austerity and are not willing to pay a public debt which is strangling us and which was agreed to behind our backs and against our interests. We signatories to this appeal stand by the Greek people who, through their vote at the election of 25th January 2015, became the first population in Europe and in the Northern hemisphere to have rejected the politics of austerity imposed to pay an alleged public debt which was negotiated by those on top without the people and against the people. At the same time we consider that the setting up of the Greek Public Debt Truth Commission at the initiative of the president of the Greek Parliament constitutes a historic event, of crucial importance not only for the Greek people but also for the people of Europe and the whole world! . . . _ 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] another step down for Socialist Action
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 occasionally check SA's site to see if they've made further progress in their efforts to ingratiate themselves with the campists (i.e., the Marcyite neo-Stalinists of WWP and PLS). So with their antiwar (i.e. UNAC) conference starting today, I figured they might have published something aimed at attendees. Boy was I right. And boy am I nauseated. Much of the article repeats old lines and claims, but it's still worth noting given the context (I can totally imagine, for instance, an SA member approaching the openly pro-Assad Syrians in attendance and eagerly trying to sell them this issue). But there are some new twists too, and even repeating the old lies becomes more criminal as the plight of heroic Syrians gets darker. So here's some lowlights (my comments in brackets): http://socialistaction.org/imperialisms-terrorist-war-in-syria/ Title: Imperialism’s terrorist war in Syria [The headline itself makes clear there is no revolution in Syria, no progressive armed groups, only imperialist war.] Published May 7, 2015 | By Socialist Action http://socialistaction.org/author/socialistactionusa/ *By JEFF MACKLER* [Jeff starts by reminding readers of his view of the nature of the conflict:] ... the Obama administration['s] effort to bring down the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. [an effort which we know doesn't exist] [Then follows mention of recent anti-Assad force victories, which is the presumed reason (in addition to the conference) for running something this month.] To date all Obama administration efforts to lend a semblance of secular credibility to the Free Syrian Army... have come to naught. Thus, the FSA, which alternately fights alongside the U.S. and Egyptian-sponsored terrorist groups or skirmishes against them, has little or no weight in Syria itself. [So there is no significant secular opposition to Assad. Tell that to the thousands who still turn out for rallies, the tens of thousands engaged in organizing education, healthcare, basic survival, the hundreds of thousands trying to survive against both sides.] The imperialist-funded and U.S.-Saudi-abetted terrorist military advance in Syria brings these forces closer to Syria’s coastal cities, a current stronghold of the Syrian government. The Syrian press agency *Sana* reported that Syrian government forces were “facing the terrorist groups flowing in huge numbers through the Turkish border.” [oh by all means Jeff take your war reporting from *Sana*; what else is a Marcyite to do when RT or presstv's websites are down?] [Now comes the really infuriating parts:] What began four years ago in the initial stages of the Arab Spring as a popular uprising—undoubtedly with the clandestine encouragement of U.S.-funded NGOs [!!!] —against the Assad regime’s lack of democracy and corruption [only lack of democracy and corruption, not torture, murder, beatings, physical silencing of all independent voices], and its imposition of neoliberal austerity measures, rapidly devolved into an imperialist assault on Syria with the “regime change” intention of replacing Assad with a more U.S.-friendly capitalist government. [Once again the mythical regime change efforts, and the declaration that after a very brief initial stage, the masses' efforts were nonexistent.] Today, those radical or socialist forces that participated in the earliest anti-Assad mobilizations, which were brutally crushed by Assad, have no significant presence in Syria. [So everything we know from syriafreedomforever and similar sources - in fact their very existence - is a lie, a fantasy, whatever. From conversations on leading SA bodies before I quit I can tell you that leading SA members' ability to deny reality, to ignore all evidence, is truly astonishing.] We know of no independent forces with sizable social weight in the country. [SA, in contrast, has how much social weight? How many guns and prison cells does SA face, in contrast to the real ones faced every day by brave Syrian revolutionaries?] The construction of a revolutionary socialist party remains a critical, although long-term, perspective and necessity. [And of course the first task in constructing such a party is to deny that those most open to revolutionary ideas don't exist!] The initial short-lived rising of oppressed Syrian peasants and some elements in the working class has been transformed into a U.S. and allied-led reactionary effort, employing even the most ardent terrorist groups, who off and on ally with imperialism to achieve their own anti-social ends, to further globalize U.S. imperialism’s reach and control of the people and resources of the region. [There's your moneyshot; SA's traitorous
