Re: [Marxism] Leftist orientation guide to new NYU students

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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Seconded. I thought Bard was bad, NYU is far worse.

- Amith

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 10:10 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> On 8/31/15 8:46 PM, Michael Yates via Marxism wrote
>
>>
>> Maybe the best thing these students could have done was to enroll at
>> another school in the first place!
>>
>>
> An old friend from LA who has been in the film business for 40 years has a
> daughter who just completed her freshman year at NYU. She intended to be a
> film major. I spoke to him the other day. He told me that she is taking a
> year off from school, something he is taken in stride. She was involved
> with student activism like the people who put out the guide. I wouldn't be
> surprised that the school has turned her off as well.
>
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Re: [Marxism] Bloomberg: Islamic State Makes Appeal to American Libertarians by rolling out "non-fiat" currency

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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Nah, it will concern Paulists that Islamic State is lax on border security

- Amith

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 10:30 PM, Shalva Eliava via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> I'm sure the Paulistas and their ilk will begin flocking to
> ISIS-controlled territory now:
>
>
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-29/islamic-state-finds-gold-coins-are-a-steal-as-throwback-currency
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] Leftist orientation guide to new NYU students

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 8/31/15 8:46 PM, Michael Yates via Marxism wrote


Maybe the best thing these students could have done was to enroll at another 
school in the first place! 



An old friend from LA who has been in the film business for 40 years has 
a daughter who just completed her freshman year at NYU. She intended to 
be a film major. I spoke to him the other day. He told me that she is 
taking a year off from school, something he is taken in stride. She was 
involved with student activism like the people who put out the guide. I 
wouldn't be surprised that the school has turned her off as well.

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[Marxism] NYT: Caste Quotas in India Come Under Attack

[Shalva Eliava via Marxism]

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...This spring, with help from a loose network of friends, Hardik Patel
began organizing Patels all over Gujarat, a western state of 63 million
people, including roughly 10 million Patels. Meeting at farmhouses and
restaurants, connecting on Facebook and WhatsApp, they quickly turned
their shared resentment into an audacious plan that culminated on
Tuesday when Hardik Patel, a baby-faced 22-year-old, stood on a stage
here before 500,000 wildly cheering people, almost all of them young
Patel men, and took dead aim at an entrenched quota system that India’s
leading politicians have spent decades defending and expanding as a
means to win votes from one caste or another.

...When he ran for prime minister in 2014, Mr. Modi extolled the success
of what he called “the Gujarat model” — a set of business-friendly
policies he claimed had led to widely shared prosperity for the people
of Gujarat. Those claims have now been called into question by 500,000
of his most faithful supporters, many of whom, in dozens of interviews
last week, described a Gujarat where a young, educated work force is
finding it increasingly difficult to find good private-sector jobs.

...Not five miles away, across the Sabarmati River that bisects this
city, the fear was palpable in an impoverished, hopelessly overcrowded
neighborhood squeezed into a depression of land at the base of Ambedkar
Bridge, named for the principal architect of India’s Constitution.
Almost everyone in this neighborhood comes from a caste that benefits
from the quota system, including Narayan Parmar, 51, who said he felt
profoundly threatened by the demands of the Patidars.

Thanks to the quota system, Mr. Parmar landed a job 28 years ago at the
city’s sewage plant.

“It was a moment of immense happiness for me,” he said, sitting outside
a crumbling government housing block that looked as if one good shake
could bring the whole thing tumbling down. With its modest pension and
health benefits, and a steady paycheck of $375 a month, the government
job has allowed him and his family to escape the abject destitution they
otherwise faced with him eking out a living as a rickshaw puller.

Yet he and his neighbors are quick to point out the precariousness of
their gains. It is a good day, he said, when he can feed his family two
full meals. They line up each morning at a communal water line because
their taps spew filth, and the children here attend government schools
that have yet to see a computer.

The quota system helped Jitendra Jain, 40, become a lawyer, and yet, he
said, he still cannot escape this neighborhood because wealthy clients
simply will not hire a lawyer from his caste.

“I’m stuck in a cycle,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/world/asia/caste-quotas-in-india-come-under-attack.html?_r=0






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[Marxism] WSJ: Protests are erupting in Guatemala as the left tries to exploit an anticorruption probe.

[Shalva Eliava via Marxism]

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The usual shrill Cold War-esque phantasmagoria from Mary Anastasia
O’Grady. I wish she was right and that the radical left WAS about to
take over in Guatemala:  

http://www.wsj.com/articles/central-americas-next-flashpoint-1440975128

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[Marxism] Fwd: Greece: a New Beginning? A New Hope?

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/31/greece-a-new-beginning-a-new-hope/
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[Marxism] Jacobin's "War on Syria"

[Clay Claiborne via Marxism]

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New from Linux Beach:


 Jacobin's "War on Syria"
 

I was reminded that their tag line /"Reason in Revolt"/ has a /"take 
leave of senses" /double-meaning as I read *Jacobin*'s latest piece 
 
on Syria, a conflict that more and more is taking center stage in 
world affairs in spite of having been generally ignored, *"The War on 
Syria"*, published 27 August 2015 was written by *Patrick Higgins*, 
but I will treat it as representing the views of Jacobin on Syria, 
which it does.


The tag line of this article is /"*Foreign intervention has only 
worsened the situation in Syria*,"/ and as I said 
 
about the *Veterans for Peace* resolution title /"*Stop All Foreign 
Intervention In Syria*,"/ that's a position I can get 100% behind 
except, as with VFP, its definition of /"foreign intervention"/ 
doesn't include the Russians or Iranians, Hezbollah from Lebanon, 
Iraqi militias or Afghans recruited to fight for the Assad regime with 
the promise of an Iranian visa and pay, and now new Russian bases 
 
in Syria. They don't consider any of that /"foreign intervention"/ yet 
without all of that, Assad would have been toast long ago.


The piece begins with an obligatory description of the tragedy, /"As 
the human toll of the Syrian catastrophe spirals ever higher."/ It is 
very careful, however, to avoid any specifics about this catastrophe. 
Barrel-bombs for example. Then it complains:


And the specter of humanitarian crisis has compelled every stripe
of policymaker and pundit to call for some form of action — the
need to do something.

Here it artfully dodges the demand of the Syrian people for a no-fly 
zone, and acts as if the #ClearTheSky campaign doesn't exist for a reason.
*More...* 



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[Marxism] Leftist orientation guide to new NYU students

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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The guide you’re holding was made by a group of NYU student activists of
varying political perspectives. Our purpose here is to introduce 
incoming students to their new school in a way that cuts against the 
University’s Welcome Week programs. We hope to provide you with an 
understanding of what NYU is,what it does, and where to go if you want 
to change it.


full: 
https://nyudisorient.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/disorientationguide_final.pdf

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[Marxism] Venice Beach hotel owner arrested for ordering racist murder of homeless man

[Clay Claiborne via Marxism]

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Important Breaking News from Linux Beach:


 Venice Beach hotel owner arrested for ordering racist murder of
 homeless man
 


*Jascent Jamal Lee Warren*, 26, a homeless activist known as 
/“Shakespeare”/ to his friends, lay dead and another black man 
injured, after a security guard for a *Venice Beach* hotel acted on 
orders from the hotel owner to /"Kill that nigger"/ and started firing 
at a group of homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk early Sunday 
morning. While the man that did the shooting fled and is still at 
large, LAPD has announced that they have arrested another man 
associated with the murder, but have not said who he is. I have it on 
good information he it is *Sris Sinnathamby*, the owner of the 
*Cadillac Hotel* and the man witnesses say ordered this racist murder. 
The police are holding him on suspicion of murder for $1 million bond. 
That may sound like a lot but this man can easily afford it and the 
charge is murder.


Although the murder scene was crowned with satellite news trucks 
yesterday, the media has been very quiet on this story, mostly 
reporting it as a dispute among the homeless or another gang-related 
killing. 
*More ...* 



/These are dangerous times.../

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[Marxism] Fwd: Syria’s rebels are empire’s pawns (except America’s favorite proxy) | Free Charles Davis

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Notice, too, who the YPG thanked for saving Kobane: “the international 
coalition forces that have provided active support with airstrikes 
against ISIS,” as well as “Free Syrian Army groups” that continue to 
fight alongside it to this day. The Syrian regime, by contrast, came 
under both rhetorical and literal fire: As the Kurds were fighting ISIS, 
the “Baathist-fascist forces” of Bashar al-Assad – the YPG’s words – 
launched an attack on their purported friends, killing several militiamen.


full: 
http://freecharlesdavis.com/2015/08/31/all-rebels-in-syria-are-imperialist-pawns-except-americas-favorite-proxy/

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[Marxism] Leftist orientation guide to new NYU students

[Michael Yates via Marxism]

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Maybe the best thing these students could have done was to enroll at another 
school in the first place!   
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Re: [Marxism] U.S. Is Seen as Laggard...

[michael perelman via Marxism]

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Both Louis & Ken are right.  Our future is desperate & Ken is right that we
have to be able to get people ready to work up.  The left has not been able
to figure out how to extend the dialogue.  I suspect culture, movies or
music, properly done, could open up some doors.

On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 10:32 AM, Ken Hiebert via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Louis Proyect said:
> The pure insanity of the capitalist system. Melting ice in the Arctic
> spurs drilling for more oil that will lead to more greenhouse gases. We
> are fucked.
>
> Ken Hiebert replies:
> There may be powerful reasons for despair, but I am sure Louis does not
> intend for us to give up.  Despair and resignation might cause some people
> to turn entirely to individual pursuits.  If I believed that there was no
> hope at all, I might be tempted to take the money and become a climate
> change denier.  What difference would it make, other than to make my life
> more comfortable while we wait for the end?
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-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

530 898 5321
fax 530 898 5901
http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com
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[Marxism] Fwd: Jacobin and “The War on Syria”

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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A somewhat revised version of my commentary on Patrick Higgins's 
reactionary hackwork on Syria.


http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/31/jacobin-and-the-war-on-syria/
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[Marxism] FT: Podemos falls short of heaven but leaves its mark on Spain

[Shalva Eliava via Marxism]

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2e8efae2-4d68-11e5-b558-8a9722977189.html#axzz3kRsvc2cg


Podemos falls short of heaven but leaves its mark on Spain
José Ignacio Torreblanca
August 31, 2015 1:13 pm

Insurgent party still has power to shape the political mainstream,
writes José Ignacio Torreblanca


Less than a year ago, the leader of Spain’s leftwing insurgent party
announced its ambition “to storm the heavens”. The wind was then at the
back of Pablo Iglesias, who co-founded the upstart Podemos party with
fellow university professors in January 2014.

In European elections in May last year, the party racked up 1.2m votes,
capitalising on widespread anger at job losses, austerity measures,
corruption and inequality. According to the polls, the pony-tailed Mr
Iglesias seemed set to annihilate the country’s once formidable
Socialist party and perhaps even snatch power from the ruling
conservative Popular party. Mr Iglesias’s celestial slogan — lifted from
Karl Marx’s writings on the 1871 Paris Commune — encapsulated not just
Podemos’s take-no-prisoners approach to politics but also its hubris.

To understand Podemos one has to recall that it never aspired to become
just another party. Mr Iglesias always wanted to leave the comfort zone
of Europe’s far left and a discourse typically dominated by ideology
rather than policy, and win the hearts of a majority of Spaniards so as
to overturn what he described as the “1978 regime”— the liberal
democratic system that put an end to the Franco period.

But Podemos’ standing in the polls has all but halved from its peak, to
not much more than 15 per cent. The party performed disappointingly in
regional and municipal elections this year. Having lost the fuel to
storm the heavens, Podemos now seems heading back to earth, its support
dimmed by the Spanish economic recovery, an attempted comeback by the
Socialists and the emergence of another new party, Ciudadanos, a serious
challenger in representing anger at corruption and the parties of the
establishment. At present it seems that every passing day makes Podemos’
struggle a little more uphill.

The halt to the party’s blitzkrieg, however, does not spell the end of
the war. Polls anticipate that neither the Popular party nor the
Socialists are likely to have a comfortable majority after general
elections at the end of the year. Whatever the final outcome, both
Podemos and Ciudadanos will be important in the aftermath, given their
ability either to sustain minority governments or block their access to
power. Post-election politics is likely to resemble a war of attrition,
so it makes sense to dig deep trenches and prepare for a tumultuous
legislature, even for a snap 2016 election, if instability is not contained.

The window of opportunity to overthrow the 1978 regime is now closed but
there remains ample political space to exploit the weakness of the
country’s old left. Spain is just one of many European countries where
social democratic parties have agonised, suffered and split over their
failure to connect with the people in the post-crisis years. The
electoral miseries of Germany’s Social Democrats, the Socialist party in
France, the Labour party in Britain and Pasok in Greece attest as much.

Frustration with such parties has fuelled the rise of figures such as
Jeremy Corbyn, the hard left politician tipped to become Labour’s next
leader, and of parties such as Podemos and Greece’s Syriza. And even if
Podemos and Syriza are seeing their popularity slide as the normal rules
of politics resume, they are in no danger of leaving the scene. Leftwing
voters will still look for parties that seem to share their thirst for
equality and social justice.

The irony is that the insurgents’ current role will effectively sabotage
the chances of power of the left as a whole. With Podemos on the scene,
the Socialists’ hopes for stable government are much reduced. Both
insurgent and classic social democratic parties remain trapped in the
muddy waters of liberal democracy as their struggles for authenticity
weaken their chances of power. The heavens remain unstormed but Podemos
has changed the political weather.

The writer is head of the Madrid office of the European Council on
Foreign Relations






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[Marxism] Bloomberg: Islamic State Makes Appeal to American Libertarians by rolling out "non-fiat" currency

[Shalva Eliava via Marxism]

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I'm sure the Paulistas and their ilk will begin flocking to
ISIS-controlled territory now:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-29/islamic-state-finds-gold-coins-are-a-steal-as-throwback-currency







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[Marxism] [UCE] Window on Eurasia: Protests against Moscow’s Economic Policies Spread across Russia’s Regions

[Shalva Eliava via Marxism]

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This is still pretty small scale, but, seeing how it's unlikely that
things will get better there any time soon, I believe that these
protests will continue to spread and get bigger:

http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/08/protests-against-moscows-economic.html
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Re: [Marxism] Arab Countries Are Forcing Palestinian Exiles Back Into Syria

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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Jospeh Catron said (August 27):
Or, for that matter, why the international agencies tasked with
supporting refugees, like UNRWA and the UNHCR, are all broke, leaving
the less affluent countries of the region to absorb the burden as well
as they can.

UNRWA came perilously close to canceling the school year for millions
of Palestinian refugee children due to its ongoing budget crisis. And
it's supposed to provide for those displaced a second time from Syria
to boot!

But feel free to go on whinging about everyone except the affluent
governments of the First World if you get some kind of smug
gratification out of it.



Ken Hiebert replies:
Joseph Catron remarks got me thinking.  Who is advocating on behalf of Syrian 
refugees?  I checked the website of the Syria Solidarity Movement, a pro-Assad 
website.  An examination of the masthead and home page did not indicate any 
effort on behalf of Syrian refugees. http://www.syriasolidaritymovement.org/
My search was brief.   Perhaps Joseph can tell us what efforts are being made 
to advocate for more money for UNRWA and UNCR, also what efforts are being made 
to compel Western governments to accept more refugees.

As for Canada, where I am active, I did find this website.
https://lifelinesyria.ca/

My own efforts have been very small.  In 2011 I joined a committee to bring a 
Palestinian family from El Hol camp in Syria to Vancouver Island.  The policy 
of the Canadian government required us to undertake to raise somewhere in the 
neighbourhood of $25,000.00 to support the family for a year.  Also, as a 
committee, we were responsible to assist them in a number of ways.  (English 
lessons, trips to the doctor, to the pharmacy, travel up Island to visit 
relatives.)  After a year we were no longer responsible for them.
That committee is now being revived to bring another family to Vancouver 
Island.  A very small effort when you consider the scale of the tragedy.
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[Marxism] Fwd: Chris Hedges: The Great Unraveling - Chris Hedges - Truthdig

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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The ideological and physical hold of American imperial power, buttressed 
by the utopian ideology of neoliberalism and global capitalism, is 
unraveling. Most, including many of those at the heart of the American 
empire, recognize that every promise made by the proponents of 
neoliberalism is a lie. Global wealth, rather than being spread 
equitably, as neoliberal proponents promised, has been funneled upward 
into the hands of a rapacious, oligarchic elite, creating vast economic 
inequality. The working poor, whose unions and rights have been taken 
from them and whose wages have stagnated or declined over the past 40 
years, have been thrust into chronic poverty and underemployment, making 
their lives one long, stress-ridden emergency. The middle class is 
evaporating. Cities that once manufactured products and offered factory 
jobs are boarded up-wastelands. Prisons are overflowing. Corporations 
have orchestrated the destruction of trade barriers, allowing them to 
stash $2.1 trillion in profits in overseas banks to avoid paying taxes. 
And the neoliberal order, despite its promise to build and spread 
democracy, has hollowed out democratic systems to turn them into 
corporate leviathans.


Democracy, especially in the United States, is a farce, vomiting up 
right-wing demagogues such as Donald Trump, who has a chance to become 
the Republican presidential nominee and perhaps even president, or 
slick, dishonest corporate stooges such as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama 
and, if he follows through on his promise to support the Democratic 
nominee, even Bernie Sanders. The labels “liberal” and “conservative” 
are meaningless in the neoliberal order. Political elites, Democrat or 
Republican, serve the demands of corporations and empire. They are 
facilitators, along with most of the media and most of academia, of what 
the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of “inverted 
totalitarianism.”


full: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_great_unraveling_20150830
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