[Marxism] What spectre is haunting the Chinese academy?
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. * https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/09/china-universities-must-become-communist-party-strongholds-says-xi-jinping The above article in the Guardian deal with Xi Jinping's speech about the need for ideological control of the academy. I snipped the following excerpt "Carl Minzner, an expert in Chinese law and politics from Fordham University in New York, said Xi’s speech appeared to signal the next phase of a decade-long campaign to wrest back control of areas it feared were “getting out of control” such as the media, public interest law and academia. “What you are seeing is a reassertion of ideological control because they feel that colleges and schools are the hotbeds for ideas that potentially could be problematic; ideas of constitutionalism, ideas of liberalism." Are the spectre of constitutionalism and liberalism haunting the Chinese Academy? Are Chinese students different from student elsewhere, who are moving into opposition to neoliberalism? I taught at a provincial Chinese University for the whole of 1990 and traveled reasonably widely at that time. I have often remarked that I never encountered a single Marxist.: Many members of the CCP but never a Marxist. In my classes on literature there was clearly articulated opposition to discussing the social or political context of the literary work. I interpreted that as a backlash against Maoist aesthetic tyranny. But I would say that the dominant political note was not a longing for constitutionalism or liberalism or pragmatism but an abiding hatred of the CCP hierarchy in the post Tienanmen Square climate. The university establishment countered with a pro-Confucian campaign. But I did not perceive any great impact among my students. There was evidence of Maoist nostalgia outside the academy. Of course all that is long ago and it is 24 years since I have been to China. But I like to hope that maybe, just maybe, the youth of China will find their way to assert the traditional desire of the young for autonomy and social justice in a way that is not based on liberalism and constitutionalism. comradely Gary _ 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] Fwd: Shackles and Dollars - The Chronicle of Higher Education
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. * Historians have been addressing this question for a long time. To be fair to the economists, sociologists and others, historians don't read each other either. The old notion of "keeping up with the literature" is a hangover from the 1950s when much of the profession--or someone in their circle--was at least acquainted with virtually everyone else in the field. The expression has rather evolved to become "keeping up with the most important works being added to the literature." And this is largely a matter of keeping track of what the newly minted scholars are producing in the elite universities. Yes, class does apply here, as well. For this reason, scholars continually reinvent the wheel. Or is it rediscovered? And is it rediscovery if we are unsure about the previous incarnations of the concept? Is it round or merely circular with dimensionality? And is it still really a wheel if it's not part of a set of similar such artifacts? And is it the wheel that's important or our idea about the identity of the wheel that we find so moving? Solidarity! Mark L. _ 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: And who are we to say the Syrian revolution is dead? - Al Jazeera English
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.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/12/syrian-revolution-dead-161207115345297.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
[Marxism] Fwd: Shackles and Dollars - The Chronicle of Higher Education
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. * Louis posted an essay, Shackles and Dollars, that is well worth reading. It is about the controversy between neoclassical economists and historians over slavery, with a focus on criticisms of Edward E. Baptist's The Half That never Was, a most remarkable book. I wrote this on Louis's Facebook page: "This is a very interesting essay. Quite frankly, the economists as almost always have a very narrow view of life. They think the world, no matter the issue, can be modeled mathematically. And variables isolated as if the world were a mechanism devoid of any and all social relationships, So in the end, there is really no point debating them. That the enormous increase in labor productivity within the slave cotton economy was due to new seeds, with no consideration of the relations of production Baptist so eloquently examines would be funny if it weren't so disgusting. And for the black economist Trevon Logan to argue that Baptist was mainly using slaves to satisfy his own need to tell us something new . . ." is truly preposterous. Though it does show that the neoclassical poison can be imbibed by anyone." _ 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: Shackles and Dollars - The Chronicle of Higher Education
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. * Baptist’s language is extreme, and he has been criticized for stretching sources to the point of putting words in slaves’ mouths. But his principal concerns are of a piece with the growing literature on "Slavery’s Capitalism," to borrow the title of a new essay collection. Recent scholarship has stressed slavery’s modernity, its profitability, and its centrality to national development, as Harvard’s Sven Beckert wrote in a 2014 Chronicle Review survey of this research. Cotton accounted for more than half of U.S. exports. Planters drew on global markets to finance slave agriculture. Northern mills spun slave-grown cotton. "The slave economy of the Southern states had ripple effects throughout the economy," Beckert wrote, "not just shaping but dominating it." If this doesn’t seem novel, in some ways it isn’t. Earlier scholars, from black Marxists like C.L.R. James and Eric Williams to neoclassical economists like Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, dealt with related themes. But what is important to understand is how much the new work departs from the paradigm that shaped historians’ views for decades. Slavery, as Eugene D. Genovese presented it in his 1974 book Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (Pantheon), was a unique constellation of labor relations that was in the capitalist world, but not of it. Genovese saw the institution as a self-contained system marked by frequent bargaining between master and slave over the limits of slaveowners’ authority. http://www.chronicle.com/article/ShacklesDollars/238598 _ 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: An Islamophobic progressive? | SocialistWorker.org
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. * From Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to supposed liberal firebrand Elizabeth Warren and down through the ranks, leading Democrats have gone out of their way to say they will give Trump a chance. Their behavior proves they are more concerned with the stability of the two-party system than with resisting Trump's reactionary agenda. But Gabbard's political project is more disturbing than the usual opportunist behavior of a cynical and calculating politician. It flows from her commitment to Hindu fundamentalism. Gabbard is a devotee of the Hindu sect Gaudiya Vaishnavism and apparently a follower of a splinter group from the Hare Krishnas. Like anyone else, Gabbard's religious affiliations, in and of themselves, should not be the subject of criticism. But in her case, they are connected to reactionary political positions. Thus, Gabbard has expressed deeply homophobic sentiments in common with the religious doctrine she embraces. Gabbard only recently disavowed her previous anti-LGBT bigotry when she decided to run for Congress in one of Hawaii's most liberal districts. full: https://socialistworker.org/2016/12/08/an-islamophobic-progressive _ 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: Tie-wearing fascists: Western elites do business with Assad
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. * Assad and his wife have a remarkably similar background to many elite figures in the West. Like Libya's Gaddafi dynasty, the House of Assad has strong connections to the United Kingdom. Bashar was studying ophthalmology in London when his brother Bassel dashed his chances of becoming president by smashing his Mercedes into a roundabout at 80mph. His wife, Asma, is British-Syrian, went to a private school, studied at King’s College, London and spent time working as a banker before becoming First Lady. The regime has sought to capitalise on Asma and build up an image for her as a sort of Syrian Princess Diana, including through her involvement in charity work. Her philanthropy, alas, does not extend to asking her husband to stop gassing Syria's civilians. Even the regime's poisonous propagandist, Bouthaina Shaaban, was educated at the University of Warwick, and the language she uses in interviews with western media outlets suggests the extent to which she understands western liberals and how to appeal to their values; Assad means stability, secularism, safety from the massed forces of jihad. For this, Syria must burn, but the ends justify the means. It is, of course, nonsense. The idea that Assad can be portrayed as a force for stability when he barely governs his disintegrating country, when he relies on foreign militias, jihadists and sectarian fanatics to provide his ground troops and Russia to provide most of his air power, is absurd. Assad as the last bulwark of civilisation against terrorism is a laughable idea, given it is widely known that the government flooded the country with jihadists to swallow up the revolution, and that his regime appears to have extensive links with IS. For some people, Assad's actions since 2011 haven't been enough to put them off. The extermination of half a million people aside, Bashar's just like us, right? It might not be completely delusional, after all. full: https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2016/12/8/tie-wearing-fascists-western-elites-do-business-with-assad _ 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: Are Jill Stein and the Green Party Being Played By Democrats? Will the Recount Split the Green Party? | Black Agenda Report
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. * By Bruce Dixon. The problem is the way the Green party is currently organized. It’s a national federation of state parties that doesn’t really require much of its state level affiliates. There is no common definition of who party members are, and consequently party officers, however highly motivated they might be, are not accountable to any significant base of members. In most cases there is no stable source of party funding like membership dues to fund offices, organizers or any of the activities which you’d expect to see in a bona fide party of the left. There are a number of Greens around the country (I’m one of them) intent on transforming their party into a dues-paying membership based organization with a more explicitly socialist bent which can fund offices, organizers and carry on some of the social movement activities which US leftists have been accustomed to leaving in the hands of nonprofits funded by the one percent. But this is for the months to come. Right now, it’s difficult to argue that the Green national steering committee has a whole lot more small d democratic legitimacy than the Stein campaign. If this is a movement and we’re building a real party we have to get used to handling disagreements without pronouncing anathema on one another. full: http://blackagendareport.com/node/5477 _ 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] [UCE] book for review
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. * Socialism and Democracy is looking for someone to review a very interesting new book: Edited by Andrew T. Lamas, Todd Wolfson, and Peter N. Funke: The Great Refusal, Temple University Press. This book deals with the relevance of Herbert Marcuse's social theory to the understanding of contemporary social movements. If you are interested in reviewing this book, write to me at george.snede...@verizon.net George Snedeker Book review Editor _ 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: I’m the union leader Donald Trump attacked. I’m tired of being lied to about our jobs. - The Washington Post
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. * https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/08/im-the-union-leader-donald-trump-attacked-im-tired-of-being-lied-to-about-our-jobs/ _ 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] Trump’s Likely Labor Pick, Andrew Puzder, Is Critic of Minimum Wage Increases
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, Dec. 8 2016 Trump’s Likely Labor Pick, Andrew Puzder, Is Critic of Minimum Wage Increases By NOAM SCHEIBER and MAGGIE HABERMAN President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to name Andrew F. Puzder, chief executive of the company that operates the fast food outlets Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. and an outspoken critic of the worker protections enacted by the Obama administration, to be secretary of labor, people close to the transition said on Thursday. Mr. Puzder has spent his career in the private sector and has opposed efforts to expand eligibility for overtime pay, while arguing that large minimum wage increases hurt small businesses and lead to job loss among low-skilled workers. He strongly supports repealing the Affordable Care Act, which he maintains has helped create a “restaurant recession” because rising premiums have left middle- and working-class people with less money to spend dining out. Mr. Puzder will arguably have less experience in government than any labor secretary since the early 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan appointed a longtime construction executive named Raymond J. Donovan. Mr. Donovan’s tenure was marked by an easing of numerous regulations. In selecting Mr. Puzder, Mr. Trump appears to be banking on the idea that he can replicate some of his own appeal. Mr. Puzder, too, is a successful businessman prone to making populist pronouncements — he complained that “big corporate interests” and “globalist companies” were supporting Hillary Clinton in the presidential election — and the occasional streak of political incorrectness. The advertisements that Mr. Puzder’s companies runs to promote its restaurants frequently feature women wearing next to nothing while gesturing suggestively. “I like our ads,” he told the publication Entrepreneur. “I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s very American.” But Mr. Trump is also taking a risk that a wealthy chief executive will be viewed as a credible advocate for workers. In a 2012 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Puzder’s company listed his base salary as over $1 million. “Annual base salaries should be competitive and create a measure of financial security for our executive officers,” the filing said. Many advocates of raising the minimum wage significantly argue that it is necessary to provide a measure of financial security to ordinary workers. _ 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] Washington Post Refuses to Retract Article Defaming Naked Capitalism and Other Sites
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.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/washington-post-refuses-to-retract-article-defaming-naked-capitalism-and-other-sites.html?utm_source=feedburner_medium=email_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29 My message sent to wapo: I am old enough to remember seeing in the news reel at my local theater Joseph McCarthy holding up to the cameras a piece of paper and intoning in his inimitable droning voice, "I have here in my hand a list of 205 known members of the Communist Party who were “working and shaping policy” in the State Department. People's livelihoods and reputations were thereby smeared for life. Never did McCarthy back his claims with evidence, nor did he retract his scurrilous accusation. Now, tell me how what Jeff Bezos and co. are doing in this instance is in any significant way different from what McCarthy did to these people back in 1956. What finally put it squarely before the American public in its proper dimensions and earned McCarthy Congressional censure was when Boston attorney Joseph Welch asked McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” Ralph Johansen Someone added at Naked Capitalism: But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture, Tell them that God bids us do good for evil: And thus I clothe my naked villainy With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil. [Shakespeare, King Richard III, Act 1] --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ 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] Philly socialists
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. * Posted to FB by Tim Horras: Very proud of Philly Socialists, which has just surpassed 100 dues-paying members here in Philadelphia. While we remain a somewhat idiosyncratic, highly localized phenomenon within the socialist milieu, in the half-decade since our founding (2011) we have grown in leaps and bounds, so we must be doing something right. While at this time we are based in a single city, I can see a day not too long from now when we unify and fuse with other like-minded socialist collectives and come into our own as an increasingly resonant voice within the larger movement. This process is already well on its way thanks to the hard work of our comrades at Kentucky Workers League. Next year, my goal is to focus on organizing at the national level with the help of Will Emmons, Justin Stanley and others. 2017 will mark several big changes in my life. In addition to the birth of my daughter, I will be resigning from my five-year tenure as Chair of this organization. I couldn't imagine leaving my post with the organization being any better positioned than it is right now. It's inspiring to see the young leaders in the group who have taken up the banner and are preparing to strike it in a new direction. While I plan to offer my counsel, the party will be theirs to lead. But don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. There's a big to-do in Washington D.C. next month I'm expecting to attend. Maybe you've heard about it? I'll be there, but I won't be up on the dais with the sycophants, fawning over the president-elect. I'll be in the streets with tens of thousands of ordinary Americans, saying: "Not without a fight!" _ 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: Donald Trump Attacks President Of Union That Represents Carrier Workers | The Huffington Post
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[Marxism] Fwd: bellingcat - How Relevant to Syria is Syria’s Regime? - bellingcat
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * In the recent Aleppo offensive in February of 2016, in which opposition forces headed largely by Jabhat Fatah al-Sham captured numerous strategic points involved in breaking the siege of eastern Aleppo city, alleged Hezbollah fighters were captured on video mocking the Syrian Arab Army for being effectively nonexistent. “We can’t find them anywhere,” one Hezbollah fighter says, perhaps referencing reported cases of SAA fighters fleeing from their positions – like in the heavily fortified military academy complex – in response to successful advances by opposition fighters. These two instances are simply a slice of all the unheard chatter shared between fighters across the battlefield in Syria, but they capture the current state of Assad’s armed forces better than most: both involve foreign agents – fighting on behalf of Assad – speaking contemptuously of the regime they’re fighting for. full: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2016/12/08/relevant-syria-syrias-regime/ _ 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] After the fall of East Aleppo
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. * Privately, Lavrov, like Pyrrhus before him, fears what victory looks like. What does “inhabited Syria”, the phrase I used earlier, actually mean, when victory has been declared? A pile of rubble, one ruined city after another, whose citizens will be totally dependent on aid for years to come? To support the areas their bombers have destroyed, Russia will have to start putting hospitals and doctors on the ground, which they have already started doing in east Aleppo. These, in turn, will require protection, Russian boots on the ground who will then become targets for rebel attacks. Air power is no use in a guerilla urban war. Think of how long the Taliban have survived the might of US and allied air power. For, with the fall of Aleppo, the tables will turn once again, as they did when Russia entered the war. Rebel forces will no longer be protecting areas from the assault of pro-Assad militias. They will instead mount classic guerilla hit-and-run attacks on areas under government control. Assad does not have the capacity to provide the physical protection conquered areas need. full: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/when-aleppo-falls-822497804 _ 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
