[Marxism] Nearly 300 Intellectuals Mobilize Against the Rise of a ‘Fascist Climate’ in Lebanon

2017-10-03 Thread mkaradjis . via Marxism
  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.
*

Nearly 300 Intellectuals Mobilize Against the Rise of a ‘Fascist
Climate’ in Lebanon

https://hummusforthought.com/2017/07/24/nearly-300-intellectuals-mobilize-against-the-rise-of-a-fascist-climate-in-lebanon/

_
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] Australian journalist memoir upsets Zionist snowflakes

2017-10-03 Thread Gregory Adler via Marxism
  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 haven't read this book yet but it looks like a worthwhile contribution to
exposing the reality of the oppression of the occupation of Palestine


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/israelpalestine-conflict-in-the-sights-of-john-lyonss-middle-east-memoir/news-story/eacd01d724e74de2f95075a77e143b63
_
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: Bleeding hearts at home, bleeding skulls abroad | AlJumhuriya.net

2017-10-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  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 most dangerous thinking is Manichean, the thinking of the binary,” 
said Yasser Munif, a Syrian activist and professor at Emerson College, 
during a September 23 discussion on capitalism and mass incarceration 
put on by the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Peace, Revolution and 
Social Justice. Anything can be tolerated when complicating factors like 
real human beings are erased, systemic atrocity made good or bad 
depending on which side of the ledger the perpetrator has been listed.


https://www.aljumhuriya.net/en/content/bleeding-hearts-home-bleeding-skulls-abroad
_
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] Moscow 1937

2017-10-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  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 Jairus Banaji)

Karl Schlögel (b. 1948), the German historian whose amazing book 
‘Moscow, 1937’ (the 2008 German title translates as ‘Terror and Dream’) 
is a brilliantly original if searing account of Stalin’s terror as it 
unfolded in Moscow and its surroundings in 1937.


It is unbelievable that there are still sectors of the Left (in 
countries like India, no less) willing to defend Stalin and his regime 
as if this was a revolutionary or left-wing thing to do!! At a memorial 
meeting for Tony Cliff in London in May 2000, I recall seeing at one of 
the stalls there a (North Korean? Chinese?) biography of Stalin which 
(and this is what caught my attention) had a long preface by Sitaram 
Yechury eulogizing Stalin to the skies. I haven’t been able to trace 
this publication but it exists. Even today the CPI(M) remains a largely 
unreformed Stalinist party.


About the mass executions at the Butovo shooting range on the outskirts 
of Moscow, Schlögel writes, “The overwhelming majority of the victims 
were workers who had until recently been peasants”. The majority of them 
“had no political affiliation, and only one half had higher education”. 
They were shortlisted not on the basis of concrete evidence of anything 
but of what the administration called ‘perpetrator profiles’!
Here, if you can stomach it, is an extract from a section of the chapter 
on Butovo; the section heading is ‘Sociology of a mass grave’:
The graves of Butovo contain the bodies of a cross-section of the Soviet 
population. Of those who were shot, most – 11,300 – came from Moscow and 
the Moscow region. Even so, the dead came from all over the Soviet 
Union: 2,652 victims came from every region of the USSR – European 
Russia, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East; 331 came from Ukraine, 98 
from Belorussia, 150 from the Baltic regions, Moldavia, the Caucasus 
republics, Central Asia and Kazakhstan. Over 100 victims came from the 
prisons and corrective labour camps. In around 300 cases there is no 
information at all. Because their files were not accessible, it has not 
been possible to give a breakdown of the figures in the huge number of 
cases of the 5,658 victims who were condemned as ‘criminals’.


It is an international mass grave. The corpses buried here include 
victims from Germany, Poland, France, the United States, Austria, 
Hungary, Romania, Italy, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Japan, India, China and 
many other countries, as well as many refugees and stateless persons. 
Around 70 per cent of those buried here are Russians. There is a 
disproportionate number of Latvians, Poles and Jews, followed by 
Ukrainians, Germans and Belorussians. Overall, the graves contain 
members of over sixty nationalities. Their arrests and murders were 
carried out at an astonishing pace. The cases that were processed 
fastest were those of ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’; the most 
difficult ones were those involving ‘spying’ or ‘terrorist activity’. 
The overwhelming majority of those shot – 80 to 85 per cent – had no 
political affiliation, and only one half had higher education. In a 
word, the victims were predominantly people who had no connection with 
politics or the nomenklatura. All age groups were represented among the 
dead. Those executed range from fifteen- to sixteen-year-old youths to 
old men of eighty. The inhabitants of entire settlements were dispatched 
to the mass graves of Butovo. On occasion, ten or thirty people from a 
single village or settlement would be killed in Butovo at one 
time…Married couples were shot – there are over forty couples buried 
here, parents with grown-up children, brothers and sisters – sometimes 
as many as five, six or eight members of the same family.


Family members living in different towns and regions were brought to 
Moscow and then shot there. Death in Butovo had a masculine face: 19,093 
men were shot and 858 women. Every class and stratum was represented in 
the mass graves. The overwhelming majority of the victims were workers 
who had until recently been peasants. Next came white-collar workers in 
Soviet institutions, and then peasants proper. Peasants who could 
neither read nor write and who put a cross under the record of their 
interrogation instead of a signature were accused of ‘Trotskyism’ or 
‘counter-revolutionary activities’ – words that simply did not feature 
in their vocabulary. Many of them died without ever having understood of 
what crimes they had been suspected and accused. Peasant families were 
accused collectively of spying. The peasants included the navvies 
(grabari) who were joined together in cooperative arteli and who 

[Marxism] Fwd: Trump's Puerto Rico Visit Is a Political Disaster - The Atlantic

2017-10-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  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.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/trump-puerto-rico-visit/541869/
_
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] shooting in Las Vegas

2017-10-03 Thread Tristan Sloughter via Marxism
  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.
*


> Gun control *politically* has very right wing and racist origins:
> The (Really, Really) Racist History Of Gun Control In America

Yes, this is true, but what does it say about whether there should or
shouldn't be controls on access to the type of weaponry used in Las
Vegas? It is important history, for more reasons than just gun control,
but our racist criminal "justice" system in general, and should inform
how any changes are approached, but should not shut down the discussion
on the need for controls like it so often does and is used to do on the
left.
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


Re: [Marxism] shooting in Las Vegas

2017-10-03 Thread Tristan Sloughter via Marxism
  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 Tue, Oct 3, 2017, at 03:59 PM, Chris Slee wrote:
> Some left groups oppose gun control on the grounds that workers and
> oppressed groups need to be armed to resist the violence of the state
> and right-wing groups.
I know. And there are instances that can be pointed to in US history
that prove their use as a deterrent. The first that come to mind are
stories I read in Hammer and Hoe. But that was almost 100 years ago,
when a single shooter from the 32nd floor 400 yards away couldn't shoot
500 people.
_
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] shooting in Las Vegas

2017-10-03 Thread DW via Marxism
  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 are positives and negatives to gun ownership. Today on facebook it is
literally THE topic of debate among many leftists.

--David Walters

Gun control *politically* has very right wing and racist origins:

The (Really, Really) Racist History Of Gun Control In America

The origin of gun control — and its impact on black Americans — is being
forgotten
by Jane Coaston

There was a time when the NRA fought for

a two-day waiting period on handgun sales and limits on concealed weapons
permits. And a time when then–California Governor Ronald Reagan signed
legislation forbidding the carrying of loaded firearms in public. Before
gun control became a progressive cause, it was a right-wing staple, and it
was aimed squarely at the rights of African-Americans nationwide.

The institution of slavery was written into the Constitution, but the
rights of African-Americans to defend themselves was most certainly not,
and concerns regarding slave revolts increased as the slave population
rose. States passed laws forbidding African-Americans from carrying
weapons. In South Carolina, slaves — who were "of barbarous, wild savage
natures" according to Colony Law

— could not have unsupervised access to weapons and could be killed freely,
provided the murder wasn’t “wanton.” In Florida, white “citizens patrols”
were permitted to search the homes of free African-Americans

for guns “and other offensive or improper weapons, and may lawfully seize
and take away such arms, weapons, and ammunition.” The message was clear:
guns — like the ballot box, marriage, and the right to free assembly — were
for white Americans only.

Many resisted, and did so with the very weapons they were forbidden to own.
Harriet Tubman rescued more than 300 people from slavery with a gun under
her arm .
Frederick Douglass wrote in 1854 that a good revolver was critical to
staying free: "Every slave hunter

who meets a bloody death in his infernal business is an argument in favor
of the manhood of our race."


FULL:
http://www.mtv.com/news/2900230/the-really-really-racist-history-of-gun-control-in-america/?fb_ref=fbshare_web
_
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] shooting in Las Vegas

2017-10-03 Thread Chris Slee via Marxism
  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.
*

Some left groups oppose gun control on the grounds that workers and oppressed 
groups need to be armed to resist the violence of the state and right-wing 
groups.

I believe there have been some cases in US history where the presence of armed 
black people deterred attacks by white racists.  But in general privately owned 
guns are not used for any progressive purpose.  Often they are used in family 
violence.  Where they have been used politically it is much more often by the 
right than the left.

In theory the idea that workers should be armed to resist state repression 
sounds correct.  But this seems a long way from the daily reality of gun use.

Chris Slee


From: Marxism  on behalf of Tristan 
Sloughter via Marxism 
Sent: Tuesday, 3 October 2017 12:10:22 PM
To: Chris Slee
Subject: Re: [Marxism] shooting in Las Vegas

  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.
*


> disarm the populace but not the government repressive forces.

Why not both?
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/chris_w_slee%40hotmail.com
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] Fwd: Donald Trump Helps Suffering Puerto Ricans By Throwing Paper Towels At Them | HuffPost

2017-10-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  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.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-helps-suffering-puerto-ricans-by-throwing-paper-towels-at-them_us_59d3db64e4b0218923e5b4f7
_
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: The political economy of hurricanes and debt | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

2017-10-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  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.
*


Yesterday I interviewed Ian Seda-Irizarry, an economics professor at 
John Jay College, about the situation in Puerto Rico, where he was born 
and raised, The interview covered this disaster as well as the ongoing 
economic disaster that makes recovery all the more difficult. Despite 
the grim situation, there are signs that a new left is emerging in 
Puerto Rico that prioritizes class demands and a new approach to the 
age-old question of the island’s colonial status. Ian recommends the 
following articles as good background on Puerto Rican politics and 
economics:


1) 
http://www.80grados.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Social-Desintegration-in-Colonial-Puerto-Rico.pdf
2) 
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Politics-Primaries-and-Crisis-in-Puerto-Rico-20160602-0035.html
3) 
http://www.fsdrecertification.com/sites/default/files/contentgroups/economics/SedaAJuntaforPuertoRico.pdf
4) 
http://www.fsdrecertification.com/sites/default/files/contentgroups/economics/02-Ian_1.pdf


Watch interview at: 
https://louisproyect.org/2017/10/03/the-political-economy-of-hurricanes-and-debt/

_
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

Even in Death, the Spy Kim Philby Serves the Kremlin�s Purposes (NY Ti mes)

2017-10-03 Thread Jim Farmelant via Marxism
  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.nytimes.com/2017/10/01/world/europe/russia-kim-philby-spy-defector.html

 
Even in Death, the Spy Kim Philby Serves the Kremlin’s Purposes
By ANDREW HIGGINS OCT. 1, 2017
 

A new portrait of the British double agent Kim Philby, second from right, at a 
state art gallery in Moscow. Mr. Philby defected to the Soviet Union from 
Britain in 1963. Credit James Hill for The New York Times
MOSCOW — Bereft of friends in Western capitals since its 2014 annexation of 
Crimea, Russia is celebrating the memory of the British K.G.B. spy Kim Philby, 
a stalwart supporter who stood by it through thick and thin – and spent the 
last 25 years of his life in Moscow, often drunk and miserable but still loyal.

Mr. Philby, a notorious double-agent who defected to Moscow in 1963 and died 
there in 1988, was recently honored with a portrait in a Russian state art 
gallery and is celebrated in a soon-to-be broadcast film on state television.

The adulation has now reached a new level with the opening of an exhibition in 
Moscow on the life and work of the best-known of the so-called Cambridge Five 
Soviet spies in Britain. It portrays Mr. Philby as an unwavering Russian 
patriot, and it includes the first public display of some of the more than 900 
secret British documents he passed on to the K.G.B., the Soviet-era spy agency.

The burst of tributes to Mr. Philby reinforces an escalating campaign by the 
Kremlin to burnish the image of the K.G.B., the former employer of President 
Vladimir V. Putin and many of his senior officials, and to make loyalty to the 
state the bedrock of Russia’s resurgence as a great power.


Items from Mr. Philby’s personal collection and from the K.G.B. on display at 
an exhibition in Moscow organized by the Russian Historical Society. Credit 
James Hill for The New York Times
Portraying Russia’s secret police officers as selfless public servants rather 
than lawless goons, however, has sometimes been an uphill struggle. Their 
public image took a big hit this week when Russian media reported that a 
Mercedes car driven by an officer in the Federal Security Service, the 
successor to the domestic branch of the K.G.B., had rammed a traffic police 
officer at high speed in central Moscow and killed him.


Mr. Philby, highly educated, well spoken and driven by hostility to fascism 
rather than by greed, fits perfectly with the image that Soviet and Russian 
intelligence operatives have of themselves. “He was an idealist,” said Mikhail 
P. Lyubimov, a former K.G.B. officer in London who saw Mr. Philby frequently in 
Moscow after his defection. “I knew him quite well. His idea was that he was 
not serving Stalin but the people.”

The Philby exhibition, which opened just a few days after the unveiling in 
Moscow of a giant statue in honor of the inventor of the Kalashnikov automatic 
rifle, is “all part of the drive to create a national idea that revolves around 
the military and special services,” said Mark Galeotti, a researcher on Russian 
security and intelligence issues at the Institute of International Relations in 
Prague.

Mr. Gaelotti said the celebration of Mr. Philby’s exploits also fit into 
efforts by security service veterans to rehabilitate the reputation of Felix E. 
Dzerzhinsky, the ruthless founder of the Soviet security apparatus whose statue 
in front of Lubyanka, the headquarters of the Soviet K.G.B., was toppled by 
pro-democracy protesters in 1991.

Among Mr. Philby’s personal papers now on display is the handwritten text of a 
message he sent to K.G.B. officers in 1977, the 100th anniversary of 
Dzerzhinsky’s birth. Hailing Dzerzhinsky as “your great founder,” he wished 
Soviet secret service officers “every success in your important and responsible 
labors” and expressed hope that “may we all live to see the red flag flying on 
Buckingham Palace and the White House.”


The British double agent Kim Philby during a news conference in London in 1955. 
An exhibition in Moscow includes the first public display of some of the more 
than 900 secret British documents he passed to the K.G.B. Credit Associated 
Press
Mr. Philby, a senior officer in Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, the 
intelligence agency also known as MI6, started working for Soviet intelligence 
in 1934 after falling in love with a young Austrian communist in Vienna. But 
while Mr. Philby’s 54 years of service to the K.G.B. were largely driven by an 
ideological commitment to Marxism, the spy has been rebranded as a Russian 
patriot.

The Moscow exhibition, which also includes Mr. Philby’s favorite pipe and 
armchair, along with other homey personal knickknacks, presents Mr. Philby as a 

[Marxism] mapping the crisis

2017-10-03 Thread Andrew Pollack via Marxism
  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.
*

Contrast this with what Jon and I posted re how Cuba knows, prepares, and
organizes for disasters: the maps described as missing in the article below
are that way because in our system it pays to keep people isolated and
ignorant.


A Mapathon to Pinpoint Areas Hardest Hit in Puerto Rico

“A map is foundational to a person’s being, almost,” Mr. Kunce said in a
telephone interview. “If you’re on the map, if your building, street,
neighborhood exists, you exist. And you have a voice.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/nyregion/maps-puerto-rico-hurricane-maria.html?ref=todayspaper
_
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] Istvan Meszaros

2017-10-03 Thread Michael Yates via Marxism
  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.
*

Monthly Review's comrade and friend,István Mészáros, died two days ago. He was 
one of the world's greatest philosophers, and a generous and warmhearted man. 
Hugo Chavez called him the "pathfinder" of 21st century socialism. He won the 
Deutscher Memorial Prize in 1970 for his book, Marx's Theory of Alienation. 
Part of the lecture he delivered in 1971 when he accepted the prize has been 
posted by Ian Angus. Take the time to read it. His insights into our 
environmental catastrophe, written 46 years ago, are even more relevant today. 
He was indeed a "pathfinder."

http://climateandcapitalism.com/2017/10/02/istvan-meszaros-capitalism-and-ecological-destruction/
_
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] Tom Petty on regretting his use of the Confederate flag

2017-10-03 Thread Andrew Pollack via Marxism
  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.
*

Amazing quotes. (Don't miss the ending.)
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tom-petty-on-past-confederate-flag-use-it-was-downright-stupid-20150714
_
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] Climate change's various victims

2017-10-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  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, Oct. 3 2017
‘We Don’t Exist’: Life Inside Mongolia’s Swelling Slums
By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia — The land beneath Dolgor Dashnyam’s home is wet 
and gritty and smells of decay. Here, atop one of Ulan Bator’s largest 
landfills, Ms. Dashnyam lives under a roof made of soggy mattresses. She 
spends her days rummaging through piles of gin bottles and discarded 
animal bones, picking up pieces of scrap metal to sell in order to buy 
water and bread.


Ms. Dashnyam, 55, was once an ambitious college graduate who dreamed of 
owning a farm and getting rich. But a scarcity of affordable housing has 
pushed her and thousands of low-income residents to the fringes of Ulan 
Bator, the city of 1.4 million that is Mongolia’s capital, where they 
struggle for basic necessities like food and clean water.


“Nobody cares about us,” said Ms. Dashnyam, who makes about $3 a day and 
says she has been unable to obtain government-subsidized housing. She 
was laid off from a job in farming. “We don’t exist.”


Hundreds of thousands of people have flocked to Ulan Bator in recent 
years, drawn by the promise of high-paying jobs and a path to the middle 
class. Many are fleeing harsh conditions in the countryside brought on 
by climate change, with droughts and bitter winters devastating fields 
and livestock.


Ulan Bator, nestled in a valley about 4,400 feet above sea level, was 
never designed to house more than a few hundred thousand residents. Now 
it is on course to expand indefinitely, raising fears that the 
government may not be able to keep up with the influx of migrants.


City officials, citing concerns about a lack of space at schools and an 
overburdened welfare system, said this year that Ulan Bator would not 
accept any more rural migrants. The government has cautioned against 
constructing homes in some areas because of the dangers of overcrowding.


Still, many Mongolians are defiant. On craggy hillsides and rocky 
plains, they are setting up makeshift shacks and gers, or yurts, the 
traditional homes of Mongolian nomads.


On a secluded hill in northern Ulan Bator, Enkh-amgalan Tserendorj, 50, 
washed clothes outside the family yurt, where she and her husband have 
lived since last year. Ms. Tserendorj said she did not want to live so 
far from downtown but had no choice. Under Mongolian law, citizens are 
entitled to claim small plots of land of about 7,500 square feet — about 
700 square meters — leaving many people struggling to find attractive 
spaces.


“It’s unfair,” she said. “Every good piece of land is occupied.”

Ms. Tserendorj’s 26-year-old son has tuberculosis, and she said the 
family’s isolation had made it difficult to find proper medical care. 
She said she was also concerned by a lack of reliable electricity and 
the threat of natural disasters like landslides.


Ulan Bator’s government has vowed to invest billions in affordable 
housing by 2030 and to begin transforming several yurt districts into 
residential complexes. The government hopes to have 70 percent of its 
citizens living in apartments by 2030, compared with about 40 percent 
right now. The city’s population is estimated to increase to 1.6 million 
by 2020, and 2.1 million by 2030, from 1.4 million in 2015.


But advocates say the government’s housing plan falls short. And some 
worry that the city does not do enough to protect residents who are 
forced by the government to leave their homes to make way for new 
construction.


“Families are living in fear that they will be left homeless,” said 
Nicholas Bequelin, the East Asia director for Amnesty International in 
Hong Kong. “The authorities are falling short in their responsibilities 
to protect residents’ rights.”


Climate change has intensified the pressure to resolve the housing 
crisis. Mongolia has been particularly hard hit, with a series of 
devastating droughts. Temperatures are also on the rise; this summer was 
the hottest in more than a half-century.


Gandavaa Mandakh, a former herder, moved to Ulan Bator three years ago 
from a town in southern Mongolia after losing dozens of cows, camels, 
goats and sheep during harsh winters.


Gandavaa Mandakh, 38, a former herder, now works as a taxi driver; his 
wife works as a cook at a Korean restaurant. They have three children 
and earn about $500 per month. Credit Bryan Denton for The New York Times
Mr. Mandakh, 38, now works as a taxi driver; his wife works as a cook at 
a Korean restaurant. They have three children and earn about $500 per month.


“Of course, we have many problems here,” he said, noting the city’s bad 
traffic and overcrowded schools. “But it’s still better 

[Marxism] what grassroots Puerto Ricans have done

2017-10-03 Thread Andrew Pollack via Marxism
  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.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/opinion/puerto-rico-trump.html?ref=todayspaper
_
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] shooting in Las Vegas

2017-10-03 Thread John Reimann via Marxism
  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.
*

Another interesting response to the mass shooting in Las Vegas: I have
heard two people say they didn't believe that the accused gunman, Stephen
Paddock, was the one who did it; they thought it was a set up. One person
was a young white nurse. She didn't seem to be a right winger. Just the
opposite, in fact. Had a kind of punk hair style and seemed
anti-establishment. (Also seemed to be very caring of her patients.) I just
overheard her in a situation where I couldn't say anything so I wasn't able
to delve any deeper.

The other was a 30 something year-old black guy. I had just opened a
conversation in the street with him as I passed him by while walking my
dog. "I think he was set up," this guy said. "I don't believe it was really
him."

"Why?" I said. "What makes people think that a wealthy, middle aged white
guy couldn't do this? If it had been somebody with a Muslim last name, or
somebody who wasn't white, would we be thinking that?" He immediately
agreed with me and then we had an excellent conversation about the social
situation that allows for something like this, Trump, all the deaths
elsewhere (such as in Syria). In other words, this was a thoughtful guy,
not some nut case. But it just shows the level of complete distrust in all
establishment sources, but a distrust that comes out in a very distorted
way.

-- 
"No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them."
Asata Shakur
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
_
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: ‘Spy Schools: How the CIA, FBI and Foreign Intelligence Secretly Exploit America’s Universities’

2017-10-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  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.insidehighered.com/news/2017/10/03/%E2%80%98spy-schools-how-cia-fbi-and-foreign-intelligence-secretly-exploit-america%E2%80%99s
_
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: Vulture Capitalists Circle Above Puerto Rico Prey

2017-10-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  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.truthdig.com/articles/vulture-capitalists-circle-puerto-rico-prey/
_
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] Che Guevara and Seamus Costello - 50th and 40th anniversaries of their murders

2017-10-03 Thread Philip Ferguson via Marxism
  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.
*

Some material on them on Redline:

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/che-guevara-and-seamus-costello/
_
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: Economic crises: look to science or the rain gods? | Michael Roberts Blog

2017-10-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  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.
*

Recently, mainstream economists have been debating yet again why 
‘economics’ was unable to see the global financial crash coming and/or 
provide effective policies to end what I have described as the Long 
Depression that has endured since the end of the Great Recession in 2009.


Mainstream economists John Quiggin and Henry Farrell summed up the 
debate in a paper: “some blame non-academic economists. Others blame 
prominent academics. Others still say that economic advice doesn’t 
really matter, because politicians will pay attention only to the advice 
that they wanted to hear anyway.”


But Quiggin and Farrell reckon the real reason that mainstream economics 
failed to be of any use was the lack of agreement among economists on 
what to do.  Economists could not agree on whether austerity was good or 
bad for the economy; or on whether economists had any influence over 
politicians.  And the reason for this lack of agreement was not due to 
differences on theory but to “sociology”.  By this they mean that 
mainstream economists are not pure objective ‘economists’ but are 
“deeply bound up with the political systems that they live within”


https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/economic-crises-look-to-science-or-the-rain-gods/
_
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] #FreeAlaa: 25 days for Alaa

2017-10-03 Thread MF Kalfat via Marxism
  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.
*

#*FreeAlaa* 

Letter from Alaa Abd El-Fattah: "Unlike me, you have not been defeated yet"
- Access Now

Alaa Abd El-Fattah says we shouldn't give up fighting for an internet of
diversity and complexity.

https://www.accessnow.org/letter-alaa-abd-el-fattah-unlike-not-defeated-yet/
_
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