[Marxism] Two articles from Christianity Today

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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George Floyd Left a Gospel Legacy in Houston
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2020/may/george-floyd-ministry-houston-third-ward-church.html
 



The Revolution Will Not Be Videoed
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/may-web-only/dennis-edwards-george-floyd-revolution-will-not-be-videoed.html
 

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[Marxism] people know who the real looters are

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/28/progressives-say-people-know-who-real-looters-are-not-those-angry-over-police

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[Marxism] Chris Cooper Is My Brother. Here’s Why I Posted His Video.

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times Op-Ed, May 31, 2020, 10:56 a.m. ET
Chris Cooper Is My Brother. Here’s Why I Posted His Video.
We grew up in a family of activists. I wanted everyone to see his calm 
bravery.

By Melody Cooper

Ms. Cooper is a playwright and a film, TV and comic book writer. She is 
the sister of Christian Cooper.


I grew up in a family of activists and my parents were teachers. They 
raised me and my brother, Chris, to never shy from fighting injustice. 
From police brutality, to the war in Iraq, to climate change, we’ve 
lifted our voices in protest. So when I saw Chris’s video of his recent 
encounter with a white woman named Amy Cooper (no relation) in New 
York’s Central Park, it was surreal that he had captured on his 
cellphone the kind of racism we had always railed against. All of a 
sudden, I became one of the hundreds of black women who have watched a 
video of a loved one being accosted.


Fortunately for Chris, the situation remained verbal. For far too many 
black families, the result has been fatal; I do not watch those videos. 
I consider them an extended form of terrorism against the black 
community. I refuse to subject myself to the psychic, spiritual and 
emotional pain of watching them. With my brother, I got to see a black 
man survive what could have become a deadly situation. That was a relief 
and a cause for celebration for millions of people.


But as I replayed the video several times, I felt more and more uneasy 
and angry, until an overwhelming fear swept over me. My mind conjured up 
rapid images of police officers arriving and shooting first, or throwing 
Chris down and then beating and choking him. My brother. When I posted 
the video on Twitter, I didn’t yet know about George Floyd, whose 
killing last Monday by a police officer has prompted protests across the 
country, but I knew about Emmett Till. I knew I wanted to make sure that 
Amy Cooper would not have the chance to weaponize her racism against 
anyone else. She could have gotten my brother hurt or killed. I wanted 
my brother’s calm bravery, in the face of a threatening and cowardly 
act, to be seen. I wanted to shine a light not just on one person, but 
on the systemic problem of deep racism in this country that encourages 
her kind of behavior.


Racism affects all black people — men, women, boys, girls, gay, 
straight, nonbinary — no matter their state of employment or where or if 
they went to college. I have no doubt that if the police had showed up 
in the Ramble, a wooded area of the park where Chris had gone bird 
watching, my brother’s Ivy League degree and impressive résumé would not 
have protected him. Yet the Good Negro narrative has long allowed white 
people to feel comfortable speaking out against the mistreatment of 
particular black people: “He is just like us.” “She is a good one.” 
Every black person subjected to this kind of hatred needs recognition, 
justice and support.


I asked my brother for permission to post the video on Twitter, and I 
didn’t expect more than 100 responses since it was Memorial Day. I was 
shocked it struck such a chord. The post has now garnered more than 40 
million views and hundreds of thousands of likes from all over the 
world. In the responses, I saw anger and calls for social action, as 
well as expressions of joy that my brother had not been harmed, at least 
not physically.


When I’ve checked in with him over the past few days as we’ve fielded 
interviews and messages, I’ve asked “Are you, OK? How are you feeling?” 
Because even though he walked away, and even though I’m relieved, there 
still has been a toll. We felt it even before the incident with Amy 
Cooper. Every time we walk out of our door, we have cause to worry. My 
brother worries when he sneaks through the trees to catch a glimpse of a 
beautiful warbler. I worry when I check in late to an Airbnb, and every 
time my son gets in the car. Others wonder if a trip to the corner store 
or gas station might result in a phone call that will end their lives. 
So many of us in cities and towns across America are done with having to 
wonder if we’ll be put at risk by our mere existence.


While my brother and I condemn the death threats that have been made 
against Amy Cooper, demanding some form of accountability is one of the 
few ways we can create a deterrent that can lead to real change.


We live in a country where a white person breaking rules feels confident 
and comfortable calling the police to threaten a black person doing 
nothing wrong. This has to stop, whether through more discussion to 
raise awareness of the issue, or better enforcement of laws against 
false 911 reports.


Lots 

[Marxism] Minneapolis and the crisis of US capitalism

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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The greatest crisis for US capitalism since the Civil War?
"US capitalism is caught in a conflict of its own making. White supremacy
has been essential to the rule of US capitalism from its inception. Having
held black people down for so long, they have to let the cops run wild in
the streets of the black community. But every once in a awhile, when the
eyes of the rest of society are on them, they want to restrain those same
cops. Then it is too late."
https://oaklandsocialist.com/2020/05/31/minneapolis-and-the-crisis-of-us-capitalism/

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*“Science and socialism go hand-in-hand.” *Felicity Dowling
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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[Marxism] Mexico’s President Says Most Domestic Violence Calls Are ‘Fake’

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(AMLO, what a disappointment.)

NY Times, May 31, 2020
Mexico’s President Says Most Domestic Violence Calls Are ‘Fake’
By Natalie Kitroeff

The numbers were startling: In March, Mexico’s government said, the 
country’s emergency call centers were flooded with more than 26,000 
reports of violence against women, the highest since the hotline was 
created.


But Mexico’s president brushed aside his own cabinet’s announcement, 
suggesting, without evidence, that the vast majority of the calls for 
help were little more than pranks.


“Ninety percent of those calls that you’re referring to are fake,” said 
the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, when asked about the surge 
in calls at a recent news conference. “The same thing happens with the 
calls the metro gets about sabotage or bombs.”


Mr. López Obrador, a leftist populist, won the presidency more than a 
year ago by promising to transform Mexico into a more equal society, and 
he appointed the first cabinet with gender parity in Mexico’s history, 
giving prominent feminists top posts.


But the president has been unable to stem the daily murder of women in 
the country — and has, at times, appeared to dismiss the problem altogether.


When asked recently about femicide, the killing of women because of 
their gender, Mr. López Obrador said the issue “has been manipulated a 
lot in the media.” He blamed the killings on “the neoliberal model” and 
said “suddenly conservatives are dressing up as feminists” to attack him.


In March, when tens of thousands marched in the capital in the largest 
feminist protests in recent history, he said the movement was, partly, 
the work of political opponents “who want to see this government fail.”


Now, as the pandemic forces Mexicans to stay at home more often, Mr. 
López Obrador has been adamant that the crisis has not made life more 
dangerous for victims of domestic violence, because unlike in other 
countries, Mexicans “are accustomed to living together.”


While the United Nations has urged countries to step up measures against 
domestic violence during national lockdowns, Mr. López Obrador has 
called the Mexican family “exceptional” and “the most fraternal 
nucleus,” suggesting the bonds of kinship are shielding Mexican women 
from abuse.


“They said there was going to be domestic violence, and there wasn’t,” 
he said at a recent news conference, contradicting his own government’s 
statistics.


“He is the first president to outright deny that the violence is 
happening,” said Wendy Figueroa, the head of the National Network of 
Shelters, a group that oversees domestic violence shelters across the 
country.


This week, his administration was widely ridiculed after previewing a 
publicity campaign that urged would-be abusers to “not lose patience” 
and “breathe and count to 10”— messages that critics said had no chance 
of persuading men not to attack their wives or children.


One of the government videos depicted angry family members calming down 
after a narrator suggests waving “the white flag of peace” before 
“violence overcomes you.”


Martha Tagle, an opposition legislator, said the campaign “placed the 
responsibility for violence against women on the women themselves.”


The group responsible for organizing a feminist protest earlier this 
year wrote on Twitter that the Mexican government should “count to ten 
yourselves,” since “that’s the number of daily femicides in the 
country.” Candelaria Ochoa, the head of the National Commission to 
Prevent and Eradicate Violence Against Women, a federal agency, said the 
government was still fine-tuning the campaign to specifically condemn 
violence against women.


When asked about the president’s comments, Ms. Ochoa noted that most 
calls to the government’s 911 help line for all types of assistance are, 
in fact, pranks or non-urgent calls.


However, the government’s tally of the rise in domestic violence calls 
in March excluded calls that were not real emergencies, indicating that 
there had been a real increase.


Ms. Ochoa said that fewer women had been showing up at government-run 
offices that serve abused women, but she added that it was possible some 
women were less likely to venture out during the pandemic.


“Maybe women are not leaving their houses to report crimes or receive 
attention,” she said.


The president has also angered feminists by cutting the budget for day 
care centers. Last year, he abandoned a move that would have cut funding 
for domestic violence shelters after a swift backlash from human rights 
groups.


“He has suspended or eliminated programs that directly support the most 
vulnerable communities of 

Re: [Marxism] Are riots revolutionary? | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 5/31/20 10:01 AM, Ken Hiebert via Marxism wrote:


May I make a comment from a distance?  If I was given a choice between the 
previous period of relative inactivity and the current upsurge of struggle, I 
would take the current upsurge, with whatever shortcomings it has.  I think 
some of the shortcomings may be inevitable until a leadership gels. And this 
leadership is struggling to emerge from the smothering influence of the 
Democratic Party.   Within the current upsurge I would support those who are 
trying to promote self-organization and a perspective of ongoing struggle.
ken h


To anybody who might have gotten the wrong impression, my post was a 
polemic against a poetry professor who argues that riots are the form of 
the coming insurrection. That's from the Verso blurb, as if Tariq Ali 
doesn't know the difference between an insurrection and a revolution.


I also included FB posts by Rick Sklader who embraced the protests, 
including the burning of Target. He warned, however, about alt-right 
penetration of the protests that led to the burning of a library and a 
black-owned barbershop.


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[Marxism] Minnesota is a Blue State. Where is the “Lesser Evil” Now? | Left Voice

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.leftvoice.org/police-brutality-in-a-blue-state

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[Marxism] bellingcat - US Law Enforcement Are Deliberately Targeting Journalists During George Floyd Protests - bellingcat

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-enforcement-are-deliberately-targeting-journalists-during-george-floyd-protests/

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Re: [Marxism] Are riots revolutionary? | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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May I make a comment from a distance?  If I was given a choice between the 
previous period of relative inactivity and the current upsurge of struggle, I 
would take the current upsurge, with whatever shortcomings it has.  I think 
some of the shortcomings may be inevitable until a leadership gels. And this 
leadership is struggling to emerge from the smothering influence of the 
Democratic Party.   Within the current upsurge I would support those who are 
trying to promote self-organization and a perspective of ongoing struggle.
ken h
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[Marxism] Why the Fall Will Be a Liability Minefield, Colleges face lawsuits at every turn, and waivers won’t protect them

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Chronicle of Higher Education, May 29, 2020  PREMIUM
Why the Fall Will Be a Liability Minefield
Colleges face lawsuits at every turn, and waivers won’t protect them

By Alexander C. Kafka

With students, faculty, and staff returning to many campuses, this fall 
will be a Covid-19 liability minefield even under the best of circumstances.


Look what colleges are up against. Start with the mind-boggling 
public-health logistics of educational and residential life, and 
possibly of some athletics and other extracurriculars. Add the ebb and 
flow of off-campus students, visitors, and dining and retail personnel. 
Bring into the decision-making and approval loops administrators, the 
faculty, trustees, and layers of unions. Pressure-cook your plans in a 
matter of months with incomplete and evolving public-health 
recommendations. Then get the word out effectively before everyone 
arrives on campus.


College leaders may think they can eliminate liability with the stroke 
of a pen: Just have people sign waivers.


That's a seductive fantasy. No waiver can resolve all those headaches, 
according to a dozen lawyers who work with colleges.


“If you're asking someone to waive something you're saying, 'I might be 
doing something that could do you harm.'”
For starters, waivers wouldn’t protect universities from claims by 
faculty and staff, said Hope Sarah Goldstein, a partner with Bryan Cave 
Leighton Paisner. An employer cannot ask employees to sign away future 
claims from workplace-related injuries covered by workers’ compensation. 
Whether Covid-19 is covered under those compensation programs is another 
matter — one being argued and legislated in some states and cities, 
Goldstein said.


Most experts agree that for students, however, some document — if not a 
waiver then a disclosure or an acknowledgment of risk — can increase 
awareness of peril and underscore the communal responsibilities shared 
in a public-health crisis.


“It helps people to become partners in this decision,” said Michael 
Holt, a partner with Fisher Phillips. “We want to do that with 
everyone’s eyes wide open.”


It’s important that any such document not be what courts call “a 
contract of adhesion” — one that coerces a signer who has no other 
options or doesn’t understand them, said R. Craig Wood, of McGuireWoods. 
But if a student is 18 or older, and has the option, without penalty, to 
take a leave of absence or online class equivalents, an agreement to 
come to campus might have legal value — at least in some states.


Phrasing matters, and the word “waiver” itself can carry stigma. 
Waivers, said Holt, “are kind of troubling as a concept. If you’re 
asking someone to waive something you’re saying, 'I might be doing 
something that could do you harm.'”


“‘Waivers’ are a dirty word for lawyers,” said Anthony Russo, of the 
Russo Firm. Plaintiffs’ lawyers like him, he said, “are going to get our 
hands on that email discussion” in which someone spells out an 
unfortunate calculation putting revenue above safety, and that will cast 
any waiver in a particularly ugly light.



The Reopened Campus
What will it look like? What needs to happen? To explore the answers, 
read this new series and sign up for virtual events.


Welcome to the Socially Distanced Campus PREMIUM
The New Communication Plan? Overcommunication PREMIUM
What College Students Need Now PREMIUM
And with waivers, the devil is in the details. For instance, said Mark 
H. Moore, a partner with Reavis Page Jump, New York State has no general 
restriction on educational institutions requiring a waiver. It does 
impose restrictions, however, on waivers for landlords and for 
recreational activities, so should problems arise in a college dorm or 
gymnasium, the waiver might not apply anyway.


Beyond moral and strategic problems, waivers don’t offer colleges 
adequate legal protection, and they give a false sense of security, said 
Mark A. Goode, managing director of the North America 
public-entity-and-education practice at Willis Towers Watson, a 
risk-management, consulting, and brokerage company. Waivers “may lessen 
an institution’s effort to build solid risk-management practices,” he 
said. They are often vague or become outdated, making them “ripe for a 
plaintiff’s attorney to discount or even use the language in a waiver 
against the college.”


And, he said, “like the signage at a pool without a lifeguard saying, 
‘Swim at your own risk,’ it doesn’t necessarily protect the owner if 
someone drowns. Think of a small child who can’t read, or a person who 
can’t read English or can’t read at all. Waivers face the same arguments 
regardless of how well 

[Marxism] Some Words of Advice for our Comrades in the Streets - COSMONAUT

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Throughout the United States, revolt against police violence and the 
state has broken out in response to the callous murder of George Floyd 
at the hands of the police. To help contribute to this outbreak of 
militancy, we have published these words of advice on successful protest 
from Ahmed Nada, a veteran of the Egyptian protest movements in 2011, 
2012, and 2013.


https://cosmonaut.blog/2020/05/31/some-words-of-advice-for-our-comrads-in-the-streets/

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[Marxism] Capitulating to adults | Michael Roberts Blog

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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During the pandemic lockdown, I have been able to read a range of new 
economics books, some Marxist but most not.  It seems that many leading 
economists have published new stuff in the last two months. Over the 
next few weeks, I shall post some reviews of these.


I shall start with Sellouts in the Room by Eric Toussaint. Originally 
published in French and in Greek in March 2020 under the title 
Capitulation entre Adultes, the book will be available in English before 
the end of 2020.  Eric Toussaint takes us back to events of Greek debt 
crisis when the Troika (the EU Commission, the ECB and the IMF) tried to 
impose a drastic austerity programme on the Greek people in return for 
‘bailout’ funds to cover existing debts owed by Greek banks and the 
Greek government to foreign creditors, as credit for Greece in markets 
dried up and the government headed for default.


full: 
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2020/05/31/capitulating-to-adults/


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[Marxism] bellingcat - The Boogaloo Movement Is Not What You Think - bellingcat

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On May 26th, crowds gathered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to protest the 
death of 46-year-old George Floyd at the hands of the city’s police 
department. Floyd was black. Many of the protesters were people of color.


The department fired four policemen that same day, after footage emerged 
appearing to show Floyd being strangled by a white officer; the video 
shows him placing his knee on Floyd, cutting off his air supply. Firing 
these officers was not enough to defuse anger in the city where less 
than four years previously, a police officer shot a black man, Philando 
Castile, dead at a traffic stop after Castile informed him he had a 
legally purchased firearm.


On the internet, meanwhile, a largely white, and far right movement 
publicly contended over what risks its members should take to support a 
black man killed by police.


On the Facebook page, Big Igloo Bois, which at the time of writing had 
30,637 followers, an administrator wrote of the protests, “If there was 
ever a time for bois to stand in solidarity with ALL free men and women 
in this country, it is now”.


They added, “This is not a race issue. For far too long we have allowed 
them to murder us in our homes, and in the streets. We need to stand 
with the people of Minneapolis. We need to support them in this protest 
against a system that allows police brutality to go unchecked.”


full: 
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/27/the-boogaloo-movement-is-not-what-you-think/


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Re: [Marxism] on riots

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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From Facebook:

Johan Permakult Repost- troubling if true.

//I’m not usually on FB during Shabbat but I’ve been immersed in the 
news today. This post is from a friend’s timeline. He lives in 
Minneapolis and he reposted this eye witness description from his 
neighbor of what is actually happening there.


My City is under seige. Mt neighbor Jeff Forester sums up the situtation 
below:


So for those of you who are interested - I have no idea how national 
media is covering this - here is what is happening on the ground from my 
perspective. It is a long post.


All day yesterday people were out on the street helping businesses - 
EVERY SINGLE BUSINESS IN UPTOWN has boarded up windows and locked down 
their stores. The 3rd Precinct, which burned on down Thursday night, is 
on the east end of Lake Street. Uptown, where we live and the 5th 
Precinct police station is located, is three miles west on lake street. 
All of Lake Street was looted on Thursday night. On Friday EVERY 
BUSINESS on Lake Street and adjoining commercial districts, was boarded up.


Many spray painted murals on the plywood - let folks know they were a 
local or minority owned business. Essential businesses.


Last night was by far the worst night. Protests during the day were 
peaceful. There was an 8:00pm curfew. Everything changed when the sun 
went down. There are roving and highly organized bands of 
anti-government neo-nazi white men cruising the city, breaking off 
plywood, looting stores, and then setting them fire to the buildings.


On the Northside, which is predominately African American, the situation 
was much the same. Local civic groups were trying to protect local 
businesses and homes. there were many fires.


The violence and destruction is NOT being driven by local people. The 
cars on the streets have either removed their license plates, or have 
out of state plates.


Here is a post from a neighbor, "Everybody! We need to get our heads 
around what’s happening, Mpls and St Paul are being attacked by fascist 
“accelerationist” white crazies. Trying to divide & destroy us.


Accelerationism: the idea inspiring white supremacist killers around the 
world -Vox"


Expect these same types to infiltrate all of the legitimate protests 
happening in other cities in America. We are fighting an enemy within.


These "accelerationists" burned down the 5th Police Precinct, our post 
office, every pharmacy. The Wallgreens and CVS within a few blocks of 
our house are still burning this morning. The grocery stores were all 
hit. Every bank has been hit. Every liquor store, every gas station. 
They have guns and accelerants.


When National Guard show up, they disappear into the neighborhoods and 
have been setting fires. It is a violent game of arsonist wake-a-mole. 
There is no longer any fire fighting service available - overwhelmed. So 
neighbors are using garden hoses to put out the fires and save homes. 
Pictures neighbors are sharing - these are young white men, heavily armed.


According to authorities there are over 10,000 of these 
"accelerationists" in the city. St. Paul arrested over 50 people last 
night. ALL OF THEM were from out of state. The authorities are checking 
phones of the people they have arrested, doing contact tracing of sorts 
on these people. These people are connected to right wing militia style 
groups with a civil/race war fantasy. They are opportunistically using 
the legitimate, peaceful George Floyd protests as a cover to actualize 
their neo-nazi fever dream.


Gov. Walz just said, "If you know where these people are sleeping today, 
let us know and we will execute warrants. Allie and I were helping the 
owner of a commercial building up the street - a friend, and two of 
these guys came up to us. Wanted to know where the free food was being 
distributed. He gave them an address that was three blocks away. Had no 
idea what we were talking about - not from here.


Allie, the girls and I are fine and safe. Exhausted. Angry. We have not 
really slept in three days. Everyone in Minneapolis/St. Paul is the same.


So, what to do? Our neighborhood group is meeting at the park this 
afternoon. I think that they will organize our neighborhood watch to 
patrol, try to spot fires and get them out ASAP.


Major protests are planned for today. They want the other three police 
officers involved in George Floyd's murder arrested, they want the MN 
Attorney General, not the Hennepin County Attorney to manage the case. 
They want the MPD disbanded and reformed with many alternative public 
safety and law enforcement strategies used. But the legitimate protests 
will end at 8:00 pm.


The Gov. 

[Marxism] on riots

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Lou and I had a spat about this so long ago.  I am less sympathetic now to
riots than I once was. Burning down a building is never near as radical as
occupying it.

Riots don't really challenge private property rights and it is still
private property that is at the heart of capitalism.

Having said that my sympathies, of course, are totally with the people of
the USA in their struggle now against state brutality.

Comradely

Gary
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