date:20150116

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thank you very much dave. this is helpful. yes, it is too much to ask for 
simplicity in 2015. 

it's still the early hours here in san francisco. i've given the piece a once 
over but will need to read it carefully. some things struck me though. 

1. she seems to be fixated on whether or not the individuals at charlie hebdo 
are racists, and thus herself, not whether the cartoons themselves (perhaps 
more) were racist. this is suspicious of course. at least since monroe 
beardsley's the possibility of criticism (1970) we are confident to separate 
the work from the artist. racist art can be produced by artists who have no 
such feeling. the intentions of the artist are not necessary to judge the work. 

2. she creates quite a lot complexity that is worthy of rupert murdoch's 
legions (spell correct offered lesions), such as pointing out that their are 
different kinds of muslims, different kinds of africans, etc. she even uses (in 
fact opens with) some fox news rhetorical flourishes. if i may be so quaint, 
i'm not sure how meaningful this is. just because there are different 
ethnicities within christianity (there's a chinese christian church in my 
neighborhood) doesn't mean that i wouldn't recognize a jab at white america in 
a religious caricature containing fat white texans (questions of hegemony 
aside). 

3. this is a bit of a broadstroke and it's early. i'm not sure she really 
adequately addresses whether or not she is a member of the oppressed siding 
with her oppressors. so the title is not something i'm prepared to run away 
from. 

4. wouldn't it be ironic if i f c harlie hebdo is racist, then so am I became 
another slogan of freedom-loving imperialists. 




- Original Message -

From: dave x via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu 
To: Charles Faulkner lacena...@comcast.net 
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 10:00:34 PM 
Subject: [Marxism] If Charlie is racist, then so am I by Zineb el- Rhazoui 

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Since the Article11 piece by Olivier Cyran was posted here, I thought this 
reply from the same period, also translated from French, deserved posting. 
Every bit as biting and worth reading. More than enough accusations of 
orientalism and racism to go around in this discussion, IMO. 

http://thecharnelhouse.org/2015/01/15/if-charlie-hebdo-is-racist-then-so-am-i-zineb-el-rhazoui-responds-to-olivier-cyran/
 
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Re: [Marxism] If Charlie is racist, then so am I by Zineb el- Rhazoui

2015-01-16 Thread David P Á via Marxism

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A few responses:

On 16/01/2015 12:17, Charles Faulkner via Marxism wrote:
 1. she seems to be fixated on whether or not the individuals at charlie hebdo 
 are racists, and thus herself, not whether the cartoons themselves (perhaps 
 more) were racist. this is suspicious of course. at least since monroe 
 beardsley's the possibility of criticism (1970) we are confident to separate 
 the work from the artist. racist art can be produced by artists who have no 
 such feeling. the intentions of the artist are not necessary to judge the 
 work. 

Aside from death of the author considerations which in my view are
irrelevant, I don't think she's grounding her case on the lack of
subjective racism in the magazine's members, but in the context and
social purpose in which the magazine existed and to which it was
deployed. It's one thing to say that one can be antiracist and produce
racist content by accident, it's another thing to say so when this
content is being used by antiracists to combat racism. At that point we
need some kind of means to determine how content produced by antiracists
to combat racists and taken up for this purpose can still be racist.

 2. she creates quite a lot complexity that is worthy of rupert murdoch's 
 legions (spell correct offered lesions), such as pointing out that their are 
 different kinds of muslims, different kinds of africans, etc. she even uses 
 (in fact opens with) some fox news rhetorical flourishes. if i may be so 
 quaint, i'm not sure how meaningful this is. just because there are different 
 ethnicities within christianity (there's a chinese christian church in my 
 neighborhood) doesn't mean that i wouldn't recognize a jab at white america 
 in a religious caricature containing fat white texans (questions of hegemony 
 aside). 

Well, the key in these distinctions is, in my view, to articulate a case
for distinguishing criticism of Islamists, criticism of Islam, and
racism. If you think all criticism of Islam is per se and necessarily
racist, then sure, she's obfuscating. I personally can't subscribe to
that position though.

 3. this is a bit of a broadstroke and it's early. i'm not sure she really 
 adequately addresses whether or not she is a member of the oppressed siding 
 with her oppressors. so the title is not something i'm prepared to run away 
 from. 

I think she addresses this fairly adequately when she refers to the
oppression secularists and women suffer in the maghreb. Now if your view
is that this is secondary, or irrelevant, on the light of oppression of
racial or religious minorities in Europe, you may still consider that
she's somehow betraying herself. I'm really dubious of propositions like
this, first because I don't consider religious identities worth much,
but second because people aren't singly constituted by the fact of
coming from an area with a given hegemonic religious background. It
would be like accusing Rosa Luxemburg of being antisemite and
anti-polish, since both as a Jew and as a Pole she made a firm case
against religious identities (judaism and catholicism). It also gives no
room for recognition that such religious identities aren't the end of a
person and can themselves be oppressive. In my opinion she makes this
case better than I can hope to, though.

 4. wouldn't it be ironic if i f c harlie hebdo is racist, then so am I 
 became another slogan of freedom-loving imperialists. 

Sure, and all the more likely if the left doesn't come to its senses and
stops this reflexive defence of religion.

--David.
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[Marxism] Fwd: Family's Obit for Frank Fried - Presente! Jan. 24 Memorial Service in Alameda, CA


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Frank Fried, 1927-2015, Presente!

Franklin Fried, who devoted more than 70 years to supporting and 
fighting for freedom, justice, equality, and liberation for working and 
oppressed people in the U.S. and around the world, died Tuesday, Jan. 
13, at his home in Alameda, California. He was 87.


Frank Fried was the principal presenter of folk and popular music in 
Chicago for a quarter of a century, but he always thought of himself, 
first and foremost, as a revolutionary socialist. In his own view, his 
signal achievement was a historic 1968 series of benefit concerts for 
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which he organized at the 
request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He also produced the Beatles’ 
1964 and 1965 Chicago appearances, along with innumerable concerts by 
the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Miriam Makeba, Pete Seeger, Frank 
Zappa, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and many other artists.


Frank was a radical, a socialist, and a labor and civil rights activist 
throughout his life, and he took great pride in never having abandoned 
his principles of fair play throughout his storied show business career. 
“After shaking hands with some managers and promoters in the business, 
you would have to check if you still had all your fingers,” he would 
half jest. The colorful story of how he tried to be different, with 
mixed success, is recounted on his website, showbizred.com.


Frank was born in 1927 on Chicago’s north side. His father, a lawyer in 
private practice, died when Fried was a child. His mother, who worked as 
a secretary for the Illinois State Athletic Commission, felt compelled 
to send Fried to a military school for proper discipline. After military 
school, he attended the University of
Chicago. He dropped out after two years to serve in the United States 
Navy at the end of World War II.


After the war, Fried joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) as a 
teenager and worked as a welder in Chicago’s booming U.S. Steel South 
Works plant. He was attracted to the SWP’s democratic vision of world 
socialism. In 1947, he and his Chicago comrades helped lead a broad and 
successful defense campaign for James Hickman, who was up on murder 
charges. Hickman, an AfricanAmerican sharecropper who had recently 
moved his family to Chicago from the South, was accused of shooting the 
landlord who had burned his family out of their apartment, killing three 
of Hickman’s children. With help from SWP organizers, community pressure 
got the charges reduced and Hickman released. The dramatic story is 
recounted in a recent book from Haymarket Press, People Wasn’t Made to 
Burn, which is dedicated to Frank.


Frank called the campaign “perhaps the party’s finest hour” and credited 
that organizing experience for much of his later success in building 
broad coalitions for social justice. Frank had a remarkable ability to 
collaborate with folks from across the left spectrum, and to help others 
reach out and build in ways they would not have done without his help 
and counsel.


A few years later, Frank was expelled from the SWP along with prominent 
dissident Bert Cochran and many of the party’s foremost intellectuals 
and labor activists. In 1954 Fried helped that group launch the American 
Socialist, a magazine that aimed to free the idea of socialism from its 
association in the American mind with Stalinist dictatorship, and he 
traveled the country promoting it.


The magazine folded in 1959, a victim of the poisonous cold war 
atmosphere, Frank said later. “The trajectory that we expected of 
hooking up with militant sections of the labor movement and a new 
beginning of the radical movement never happened,” he explained. “The 
group did not leave much of a footprint, but individuals played an 
important role in the labor and civil rights movement, and the 
attractive style and open tone of the magazine did leave an imprint on 
the New Left that came after us,” he added.


For Frank, the value of the American Socialist group lay in reaching out 
and attempting to regroup with other socialists without rejecting its 
Trotskyist background. “We attempted to bring our heritage to the 
problems and radical language and organization of the modern world 
without ever forgetting the legacy of Leon Trotsky, who had an 
incredible impact on me as he stood up for workers democracy against the 
tides of history,” he said.


Frank stumbled into show business when he met the Austrian folk singer 
Martha Schlamme at the Gate of Horn, an early folk music venue in 
Chicago, in 1958. In need of a job and intrigued by the power of folk 
songs to move people emotionally and politically,

[Marxism] Ocean Life Faces Mass Extinction, Broad Study Says


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NY Times, Jan. 16 2015
Ocean Life Faces Mass Extinction, Broad Study Says
By Carl Zimmer

A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds 
of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing 
unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them.


“We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said 
Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa 
Barbara, and an author of the new research, which was published on 
Thursday in the journal Science.


But there is still time to avert catastrophe, Dr. McCauley and his 
colleagues also found. Compared with the continents, the oceans are 
mostly intact, still wild enough to bounce back to ecological health.


“We’re lucky in many ways,” said Malin L. Pinsky, a marine biologist at 
Rutgers University and another author of the new report. “The impacts 
are accelerating, but they’re not so bad we can’t reverse them.”


Scientific assessments of the oceans’ health are dogged by uncertainty: 
It’s much harder for researchers to judge the well-being of a species 
living underwater, over thousands of miles, than to track the health of 
a species on land. And changes that scientists observe in particular 
ocean ecosystems may not reflect trends across the planet.


Dr. Pinsky, Dr. McCauley and their colleagues sought a clearer picture 
of the oceans’ health by pulling together data from an enormous range of 
sources, from discoveries in the fossil record to statistics on modern 
container shipping, fish catches and seabed mining. While many of the 
findings already existed, they had never been juxtaposed in such a way.


A number of experts said the result was a remarkable synthesis, along 
with a nuanced and encouraging prognosis.


“I see this as a call for action to close the gap between conservation 
on land and in the sea,” said Loren McClenachan of Colby College, who 
was not involved in the study.


There are clear signs already that humans are harming the oceans to a 
remarkable degree, the scientists found. Some ocean species are 
certainly overharvested, but even greater damage results from 
large-scale habitat loss, which is likely to accelerate as technology 
advances the human footprint, the scientists reported.


Coral reefs, for example, have declined by 40 percent worldwide, partly 
as a result of climate-change-driven warming.


Some fish are migrating to cooler waters already. Black sea bass, once 
most common off the coast of Virginia, have moved up to New Jersey. Less 
fortunate species may not be able to find new ranges. At the same time, 
carbon emissions are altering the chemistry of seawater, making it more 
acidic.


“If you cranked up the aquarium heater and dumped some acid in the 
water, your fish would not be very happy,” Dr. Pinsky said. “In effect, 
that’s what we’re doing to the oceans.”


Fragile ecosystems like mangroves are being replaced by fish farms, 
which are projected to provide most of the fish we consume within 20 
years. Bottom trawlers scraping large nets across the sea floor have 
already affected 20 million square miles of ocean, turning parts of the 
continental shelf to rubble. Whales may no longer be widely hunted, the 
analysis noted, but they are now colliding more often as the number of 
container ships rises.


Mining operations, too, are poised to transform the ocean. Contracts for 
seabed mining now cover 460,000 square miles underwater, the researchers 
found, up from zero in 2000. Seabed mining has the potential to tear up 
unique ecosystems and introduce pollution into the deep sea.


The oceans are so vast that their ecosystems may seem impervious to 
change. But Dr. McClenachan warned that the fossil record shows that 
global disasters have wrecked the seas before. “Marine species are not 
immune to extinction on a large scale,” she said.


Until now, the seas largely have been spared the carnage visited on 
terrestrial species, the new analysis also found.


The fossil record indicates that a number of large animal species became 
extinct as humans arrived on continents and islands. For example, the 
moa, a giant bird that once lived on New Zealand, was wiped out by 
arriving Polynesians in the 1300s, probably within a century.


But it was only after 1800, with the Industrial Revolution, that 
extinctions on land really accelerated.


Humans began to alter the habitat that wildlife depended on, wiping out 
forests for timber, plowing under prairie for farmland, and laying down 
roads and railroads across continents.


Species began going extinct at a much faster pace. Over the past five 
centuries,

[Marxism] US to train Syrian rebels

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http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0KP0FO20150116?irpc=932
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[Marxism] Fwd: Supersizing Manhattan: New Yorkers rage against the dying of the light | Cities | The Guardian


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http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/16/supersizing-manhattan-new-yorkers-rage-against-the-dying-of-the-light
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Re: [Marxism] US to train Syrian rebels

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All I'm saying is curioser and curioser.

On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 9:04 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote:

 On 1/16/15 8:56 AM, Ron Jacobs via Marxism wrote:


 http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0KP0FO20150116?irpc=932



 The U.S. military is planning to deploy more than 400 troops to help
 train Syrian rebels to fight the ISLAMIC STATE, along with hundreds of U.S.
 support personnel, a Pentagon spokesman told Reuters on Thursday.

 Yes, the USA trains rebels to fight ISIS, while Assad drops barrel bombs
 on the rebels. This is all part of the American imperialist strategy to
 consolidate a stable Baathist state over the ashes of a failed armed
 struggle. The NY Times report on the peace negotiations conveyed this
 exactly:

  “The U.S. has no irons in the fire,” Mr. Hokayem said. “It basically
  wants to maintain the illusion of involvement, while maintaining the
  reality of disentanglement and distance from this whole nightmare.”



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[Marxism] Fwd: A Fetid Wind of Racism Hovers Over Europe » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names


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By Shlomo Sand

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/16/je-suis-charlie-chaplin/
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[Marxism] Fwd: Stephen Somerstein Photos in ‘Freedom Journey 1965’ - NYTimes.com


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Photography show based on Selma to Montgomery freedom march

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/arts/design/stephen-somerstein-photos-in-freedom-journey-1965.html
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[Marxism] Fwd: Why the U.S. Prefers Assad to ISIS in Syria - Washington Wire - WSJ


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The news that the Obama administration supports Russian efforts to 
convene negotiations between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s 
government and opposition forces is a stunning reminder of where U.S. 
policy on Syria has devolved. As happened with the Russian chemical 
weapons proposal of  2012, Vladimir Putin is once again rescuing U.S. 
Syria policy from itself. The Moscow talks are not likely to succeed. 
But the announcement reflects a growing view in Washington that  Mr. 
Assad, while a huge part of the problem, may also now be part of the 
solution. Washington will not abandon President Barack Obama’s “Assad 
must go” trope. But the administration clearly is moving to accept that 
Mr. Assad isn’t going anywhere. And here’s why.


full: 
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/01/15/why-the-u-s-prefers-assad-to-isis-in-syria/

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[Marxism] Fwd: Latest FBI Claim of Disrupted Terror Plot Deserves Much Scrutiny and Skepticism - The Intercept


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This will probably turn out to be another entrapment case.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/16/latest-fbi-boast-disrupting-terror-u-s-plot-deserves-scrutiny-skepticism/
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[Marxism] Fwd: The Ukrainian labour movement is growing again | Observer Ukraine


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Workers’ protests picked up noticeably in mid-December when the 
Verkhovna Rada (parliament) made public the 2015 state budget bill. It 
contains far reaching cuts in health, education and social security and 
threatens workers’ legal rights (see details below).


The 2015 budget was denounced by the two trades union centrals – the 
Federation of Trade Unions and the Confederation of Independent Trade 
Unions, by five oblast (provincial) trades union councils 
(Transcarpathia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv and Vynnytsia), by 
Kyiv city trades union council, and by many local meetings of miners, 
teachers, industrial and public service workers.


full: 
http://observerukraine.net/2015/01/16/the-ukrainian-labour-movement-is-growing-again/

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[Marxism] Fwd: Duke, facing opposition from evangelists, drops plan to allow Muslim call to prayer from chapel tower @insidehighered


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https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/16/duke-facing-opposition-evangelists-drops-plan-allow-muslim-call-prayer-chapel-tower
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[Marxism] US SWP's Education for Socialists bulletins online

2015-01-16 Thread DW via Marxism

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All the non-copyrighted Education for Socialist bulletins are now on line
at:

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/swp-us/education/

This is a large collection of Marxist educational material on sorts of
topics,  however much of it only relevant to the more narrow confines of
the SWP brand of Trotskyism. Nevertheless it represents a great
achievement.

The page is a listing of all the links to the bulletins and lists every one
we know about including the post 1980 ones that were copyrighted.

Thanks to Marty Goodman of the Riazanov Library Project for the work of
digitizing these bulletins and the Holt Labor Library for providing the
hard copy.
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Re: [Marxism] US SWP's Education for Socialists bulletins online

2015-01-16 Thread DW via Marxism

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Yeah, I may of overstated this. This is a reflection of the SWP's positions
by and large. They are not general educational material on Marxism in the
broadest sense. Interestingly, the 1950s series of educational bulletins
are oriented more to political economy and general Marxism-Leninism. But
these take up specifically the SWP's politics and outlook. By narrow I was
think of the rather massive bulletins on characters like Gerry Healy.

DW
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[Marxism] ‘Provocative’ Bolshevik anti-Religious Caricatures.

2015-01-16 Thread andrew coates via Marxism

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Charlie: We Publish ‘Provocative’ Bolshevik anti-Religious Caricatures.
In the light of the Charlie Hebdo controversy. 






Very British Bolsheviks Shocked by Soviet Islamophobia!



We defend our beloved Charlie to the hilt. 

But there are those who do not – apparently from the very British Bolsheviks.

As Seymour writes ” How dare you call this horseshit ‘satire’?”

Some more ‘horseshit’, from the early Soviet Union.


Pics of anti-religious, and specifically anti-Islamic, caricatures from the the 
early 1920s Soviet Union.


Our oh so-British Bolsheviks should surely protest to Lenin!


https://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/charlie-we-publish-provocative-bolshevik-anti-religious-caricatures/


Andrew Coates 
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Re: [Marxism] US to train Syrian rebels

2015-01-16 Thread Clay Claiborne via Marxism

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Curious why the US has been saying for 4 years now that its going to start
training Syrian rebels any day now?
Curious why they keep lying?
Curious why you keep spreading their propaganda as if it had some substance?

Clay Claiborne, Director
Vietnam: American Holocaust http://VietnamAmericanHolocaust.com
Linux Beach Productions
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 581-1536

Read my blogs at the Linux Beach http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/
http://wlcentral.org/user/2965/track

On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 6:13 AM, Ron Jacobs via Marxism 
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:

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 All I'm saying is curioser and curioser.

 On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 9:04 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote:

  On 1/16/15 8:56 AM, Ron Jacobs via Marxism wrote:
 
 
  http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0KP0FO20150116?irpc=932
 
 
 
  The U.S. military is planning to deploy more than 400 troops to help
  train Syrian rebels to fight the ISLAMIC STATE, along with hundreds of
 U.S.
  support personnel, a Pentagon spokesman told Reuters on Thursday.
 
  Yes, the USA trains rebels to fight ISIS, while Assad drops barrel bombs
  on the rebels. This is all part of the American imperialist strategy to
  consolidate a stable Baathist state over the ashes of a failed armed
  struggle. The NY Times report on the peace negotiations conveyed this
  exactly:
 
   “The U.S. has no irons in the fire,” Mr. Hokayem said. “It basically
   wants to maintain the illusion of involvement, while maintaining the
   reality of disentanglement and distance from this whole nightmare.”
 
 
 
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Re: [Marxism] US to train Syrian rebels

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Actually, just curious what they are really up to?  I'm not convinced that
your perspective regarding the rebels is accurate at all.  I also am not
convinced that they are all pawns of the US or Saudi Arabia and Qatar. I do
agree with you, Louis and a multitude of others that Assad and his regime
is criminal. I am not convinced that the US is propping up that regime,
despite their history of doing so up until the seemingly failed Arab Spring.

On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 11:06 AM, Clay Claiborne clayc...@gmail.com wrote:

 Curious why the US has been saying for 4 years now that its going to start
 training Syrian rebels any day now?
 Curious why they keep lying?
 Curious why you keep spreading their propaganda as if it had some
 substance?

 Clay Claiborne, Director
 Vietnam: American Holocaust http://VietnamAmericanHolocaust.com
 Linux Beach Productions
 Venice, CA 90291
 (310) 581-1536

 Read my blogs at the Linux Beach http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/
 http://wlcentral.org/user/2965/track

 On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 6:13 AM, Ron Jacobs via Marxism 
 marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:

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 All I'm saying is curioser and curioser.

 On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 9:04 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote:

  On 1/16/15 8:56 AM, Ron Jacobs via Marxism wrote:
 
 
  http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0KP0FO20150116?irpc=932
 
 
 
  The U.S. military is planning to deploy more than 400 troops to help
  train Syrian rebels to fight the ISLAMIC STATE, along with hundreds of
 U.S.
  support personnel, a Pentagon spokesman told Reuters on Thursday.
 
  Yes, the USA trains rebels to fight ISIS, while Assad drops barrel bombs
  on the rebels. This is all part of the American imperialist strategy to
  consolidate a stable Baathist state over the ashes of a failed armed
  struggle. The NY Times report on the peace negotiations conveyed this
  exactly:
 
   “The U.S. has no irons in the fire,” Mr. Hokayem said. “It basically
   wants to maintain the illusion of involvement, while maintaining the
   reality of disentanglement and distance from this whole nightmare.”
 
 
 
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[Marxism] Fwd: BBC News - The rubber glove rebellion


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(All this crap about the weak-tea Keynesianism of Syriza doesn't seem to 
grasp what is happening at the grass roots level.)


A group of middle-aged cleaners have become heroes to Greeks hit hard by 
austerity for refusing to go quietly when their jobs were cut. They have 
clashed with police and camped for months in central Athens - their 
defiance springing from decades of low-paid work and hard lives as 
mothers, wives, widows or divorcees.


You wouldn't know to look at it that the messy makeshift camp is the 
epicentre of a protest that's touched a nerve in Greece - and given the 
government more than a mild headache.


There's a pop-up tent with an inflatable mattress, some plastic chairs, 
a table, a fridge and a microwave. Posters of red rubber gloves making 
fists or victory signs adorn the concrete pillars. A banner made from a 
sheet is splashed with big red letters: Sit-in protest by the cleaners 
of the finance ministry.


full: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30811426
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Re: [Marxism] If Charlie is racist, then so am I by Zineb el- Rhazoui

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Aside from death of the author considerations which in my view are 
irrelevant, I don't think she's grounding her case on the lack of 
subjective racism in the magazine's members, but in the context and 
social purpose in which the magazine existed and to which it was 
deployed. It's one thing to say that one can be antiracist and produce 
racist content by accident, it's another thing to say so when this 
content is being used by antiracists to combat racism. At that point we 
need some kind of means to determine how content produced by antiracists 
to combat racists and taken up for this purpose can still be racist. 

yes, i hope that death of author considerations are irrelevant. but that wasn't 
the limit of beardsley's argument. it also applied when the artist herself was 
unaware of her intent or worse, deceptive. the upshot was that the work stands 
on its own quite aside from the intent an artist had when it was made. 
beardsley concluded that criticism was impossible if we had to rely solely on 
author intention. 

so when we actually have the artist's intentions expressed we have a 
complication, not a solution. 

when i was on tour in southeast asia in the marine corps (post vietnam, boat 
people and killing fields) i often saw darkie toothpaste. my apologies for the 
content but for those who are unaware of its existence here is a wikipedia link 
with an image ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie ). now if our asian friends 
mention that it was a harmless image only intended to sell a helpful product 
for oral hygiene, i hope we would have a response quite aside from standard 
rhetoric about capitalism. 

i am quite willing to accept that there is a difference between racist art 
employed by a racist and racist art employed by an an anti-racist but both are 
offences if only of different degree. 

Well, the key in these distinctions is, in my view, to articulate a case 
for distinguishing criticism of Islamists, criticism of Islam, and 
racism. If you think all criticism of Islam is per se and necessarily 
racist, then sure, she's obfuscating. I personally can't subscribe to 
that position though. 

i don't. 

religion is simply a fact. it goes well beyond simple accusations of 
oppression. we atheists on the left need to get over ourselves with our pious 
superiority. we are the minority. denigrating religion with offensive 
caricatures of its believers is a doomed project. if we want to claim moral 
superiority over religious hierarchy, we must demonstrate respect for all 
people and condemn goofy ethnic images. 


I think she addresses this fairly adequately when she refers to the 
oppression secularists and women suffer in the maghreb. Now if your view 
is that this is secondary, or irrelevant, on the light of oppression of 
racial or religious minorities in Europe, you may still consider that 
she's somehow betraying herself. I'm really dubious of propositions like 
this, first because I don't consider religious identities worth much, 
but second because people aren't singly constituted by the fact of 
coming from an area with a given hegemonic religious background. It 
would be like accusing Rosa Luxemburg of being antisemite and 
anti-polish, since both as a Jew and as a Pole she made a firm case 
against religious identities (judaism and catholicism). It also gives no 
room for recognition that such religious identities aren't the end of a 
person and can themselves be oppressive. In my opinion she makes this 
case better than I can hope to, though. 

having been oppressed and then siding with liberators who are also oppressors 
isn't so uncommon. 

i haven't gone back to her text yet but she also uses techniques of 
distraction. one such, her claim of being married to a black man. it reminds me 
somewhat of jarheads i knew who married locals, made claims of purity of racial 
thought with proof in their marriage and then went on to express some of the 
most unlightened racist garbage i've heard in my life. and i've dealt with klan 
dialogue! i'm not saying she's being racist herself but maybe, just maybe, her 
defence of charlie hebdo, at a time that it was being criticized for it's 
racism, is little more than locating the butter on bread. 

Sure, and all the more likely if the left doesn't come to its senses and 
stops this reflexive defence of religion. 

who would you say is doing this? 

best regards. 

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Re: [Marxism] US to train Syrian rebels


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On 1/16/15 11:22 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:

I will let Craig speak for himself


My apologies. I meant Clay. I guess my long-standing affinity for French 
cooking explains this error--not the first time!

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[Marxism] Fwd: ‘I Am Marxist’ Says Dalai Lama


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(Clearly he doesn't appreciate the brilliant NEP-like approach in China 
which allows billionaires to have membership in the CP while Tibet is 
subject to national oppression. One supposes that this is necessary 
given the feudal threat posed by Tibet.)


The Tibetan spiritual leader partly blamed capitalism for inequality and 
said he regarded Marxism as the answer: In capitalist countries, there 
is an increasing gap between the rich and the poor. In Marxism, there is 
emphasis on equal distribution,” he said, adding that “many Marxist 
leaders are now capitalists in their thinking”.


http://www.newsweek.com/i-am-marxist-says-dalai-lama-299598
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[Marxism] Fwd: Economic Solutions: Two Perspectives from the Bolivarian Left | venezuelanalysis.com


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http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11160
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[Marxism] Assassination Nation

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http://stillhomeron.blogspot.com/2015/01/assassination-nation.html
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[Marxism] Fwd: Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty - The Washington Post


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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html
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Re: [Marxism] If Charlie is racist, then so am I by Zineb el- Rhazoui

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my reply with darkie toothpaste example. 

- Original Message -

From: Charles Faulkner via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu 
To: Charles Faulkner lacena...@comcast.net 
Cc: Marxism Serve marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu 
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2015 8:25:50 AM 
Subject: Re: [Marxism] If Charlie is racist, then so am I by Zineb el- Rhazoui 

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Aside from death of the author considerations which in my view are 
irrelevant, I don't think she's grounding her case on the lack of 
subjective racism in the magazine's members, but in the context and 
social purpose in which the magazine existed and to which it was 
deployed. It's one thing to say that one can be antiracist and produce 
racist content by accident, it's another thing to say so when this 
content is being used by antiracists to combat racism. At that point we 
need some kind of means to determine how content produced by antiracists 
to combat racists and taken up for this purpose can still be racist. 

yes, i hope that death of author considerations are irrelevant. but that wasn't 
the limit of beardsley's argument. it also applied when the artist herself was 
unaware of her intent or worse, deceptive. the upshot was that the work stands 
on its own quite aside from the intent an artist had when it was made. 
beardsley concluded that criticism was impossible if we had to rely solely on 
author intention. 

so when we actually have the artist's intentions expressed we have a 
complication, not a solution. 

when i was on tour in southeast asia in the marine corps (post vietnam, boat 
people and killing fields) i often saw darkie toothpaste. my apologies for the 
content but for those who are unaware of its existence here is a wikipedia link 
with an image ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie ). now if our asian friends 
mention that it was a harmless image only intended to sell a helpful product 
for oral hygiene, i hope we would have a response quite aside from standard 
rhetoric about capitalism. 

i am quite willing to accept that there is a difference between racist art 
employed by a racist and racist art employed by an an anti-racist but both are 
offences if only of different degree. 

Well, the key in these distinctions is, in my view, to articulate a case 
for distinguishing criticism of Islamists, criticism of Islam, and 
racism. If you think all criticism of Islam is per se and necessarily 
racist, then sure, she's obfuscating. I personally can't subscribe to 
that position though. 

i don't. 

religion is simply a fact. it goes well beyond simple accusations of 
oppression. we atheists on the left need to get over ourselves with our pious 
superiority. we are the minority. denigrating religion with offensive 
caricatures of its believers is a doomed project. if we want to claim moral 
superiority over religious hierarchy, we must demonstrate respect for all 
people and condemn goofy ethnic images. 


I think she addresses this fairly adequately when she refers to the 
oppression secularists and women suffer in the maghreb. Now if your view 
is that this is secondary, or irrelevant, on the light of oppression of 
racial or religious minorities in Europe, you may still consider that 
she's somehow betraying herself. I'm really dubious of propositions like 
this, first because I don't consider religious identities worth much, 
but second because people aren't singly constituted by the fact of 
coming from an area with a given hegemonic religious background. It 
would be like accusing Rosa Luxemburg of being antisemite and 
anti-polish, since both as a Jew and as a Pole she made a firm case 
against religious identities (judaism and catholicism). It also gives no 
room for recognition that such religious identities aren't the end of a 
person and can themselves be oppressive. In my opinion she makes this 
case better than I can hope to, though. 

having been oppressed and then siding with liberators who are also oppressors 
isn't so uncommon. 

i haven't gone back to her text yet but she also uses techniques of 
distraction. one such, her claim of being married to a black man. it reminds me 
somewhat of jarheads i knew who married locals, made claims of purity of racial 
thought with proof in their marriage and then went on to express some of the 
most unlightened racist garbage i've heard in my life. and

Re: [Marxism] If Charlie is racist, then so am I by Zineb el- Rhazoui

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sorry this was to a friend not on the list. 

- Original Message -

From: Charles Faulkner lacena...@comcast.net 
To: Charles Faulkner lacena...@comcast.net, Activists and scholars in 
Marxist tradition marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu 
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2015 9:58:44 AM 
Subject: Re: [Marxism] If Charlie is racist, then so am I by Zineb el- Rhazoui 

my reply with darkie toothpaste example. 

- Original Message -

From: Charles Faulkner via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu 
To: Charles Faulkner lacena...@comcast.net 
Cc: Marxism Serve marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu 
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2015 8:25:50 AM 
Subject: Re: [Marxism] If Charlie is racist, then so am I by Zineb el- Rhazoui 

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Aside from death of the author considerations which in my view are 
irrelevant, I don't think she's grounding her case on the lack of 
subjective racism in the magazine's members, but in the context and 
social purpose in which the magazine existed and to which it was 
deployed. It's one thing to say that one can be antiracist and produce 
racist content by accident, it's another thing to say so when this 
content is being used by antiracists to combat racism. At that point we 
need some kind of means to determine how content produced by antiracists 
to combat racists and taken up for this purpose can still be racist. 

yes, i hope that death of author considerations are irrelevant. but that wasn't 
the limit of beardsley's argument. it also applied when the artist herself was 
unaware of her intent or worse, deceptive. the upshot was that the work stands 
on its own quite aside from the intent an artist had when it was made. 
beardsley concluded that criticism was impossible if we had to rely solely on 
author intention. 

so when we actually have the artist's intentions expressed we have a 
complication, not a solution. 

when i was on tour in southeast asia in the marine corps (post vietnam, boat 
people and killing fields) i often saw darkie toothpaste. my apologies for the 
content but for those who are unaware of its existence here is a wikipedia link 
with an image ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie ). now if our asian friends 
mention that it was a harmless image only intended to sell a helpful product 
for oral hygiene, i hope we would have a response quite aside from standard 
rhetoric about capitalism. 

i am quite willing to accept that there is a difference between racist art 
employed by a racist and racist art employed by an an anti-racist but both are 
offences if only of different degree. 

Well, the key in these distinctions is, in my view, to articulate a case 
for distinguishing criticism of Islamists, criticism of Islam, and 
racism. If you think all criticism of Islam is per se and necessarily 
racist, then sure, she's obfuscating. I personally can't subscribe to 
that position though. 

i don't. 

religion is simply a fact. it goes well beyond simple accusations of 
oppression. we atheists on the left need to get over ourselves with our pious 
superiority. we are the minority. denigrating religion with offensive 
caricatures of its believers is a doomed project. if we want to claim moral 
superiority over religious hierarchy, we must demonstrate respect for all 
people and condemn goofy ethnic images. 


I think she addresses this fairly adequately when she refers to the 
oppression secularists and women suffer in the maghreb. Now if your view 
is that this is secondary, or irrelevant, on the light of oppression of 
racial or religious minorities in Europe, you may still consider that 
she's somehow betraying herself. I'm really dubious of propositions like 
this, first because I don't consider religious identities worth much, 
but second because people aren't singly constituted by the fact of 
coming from an area with a given hegemonic religious background. It 
would be like accusing Rosa Luxemburg of being antisemite and 
anti-polish, since both as a Jew and as a Pole she made a firm case 
against religious identities (judaism and catholicism). It also gives no 
room for recognition that such religious identities aren't the end of a 
person and can themselves be oppressive. In my opinion she makes this 
case better than I can hope to, though. 

having been oppressed and then siding with liberators who are also oppressors 
isn't so uncommon. 

i

Re: [Marxism] ‘Provocative’ Bolshevik anti-Religious Caricatures.

2015-01-16 Thread Ken Hiebert via Marxism

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Andrew Coates sends some Bolshevik posters to the list.  
https://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/charlie-we-publish-provocative-bolshevik-anti-religious-caricatures/
He describes them as ‘Provocative’ Bolshevik anti-Religious Caricatures.   I 
encourage others to have a look at these posters.
I cannot read Russian or whatever language is used in the posters, so I would 
have to appeal to those who can to help us understand how the posters would 
have been received by workers and peasants in the Asian Soviet republics. Were 
these in fact anti-religious posters or were they intended to denounce the 
reactionary role of some religious leaders?  Were the Bolsheviks hoping to 
separate some religious believers from reactionary religious figures?
What impact did the posters have?

And that leads me back to the questions I have asked previously on this list.  
Did the Charlie Hebdo cartoons have the effect of freeing some Muslim young 
people from religious belief?  Did the cartoons have the effect of weakening 
the influence of the most reactionary currents within the Muslim community?

ken h
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Re: [Marxism] If Charlie is racist, then so am I by Zineb el- Rhazoui

2015-01-16 Thread David P Á via Marxism

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On 16/01/2015 17:24, Charles Faulkner wrote:
 yes, i hope that death of author considerations are irrelevant. but that 
 wasn't the limit of beardsley's argument. it also applied when the artist 
 herself was unaware of her intent or worse, deceptive. the upshot was that 
 the work stands on its own quite aside from the intent an artist had when it 
 was made. beardsley concluded that criticism was impossible if we had to rely 
 solely on author intention. 

Sure. I have issues with this position but they are not germane. What
I'm pointing at though is that there is a context. It is not just the
matter of intent, but the matter of the actual outcomes involved.

 i am quite willing to accept that there is a difference between racist art 
 employed by a racist and racist art employed by an an anti-racist but both 
 are offences if only of different degree. 

Sure, but this is affirming the consequent. The question is determining
whether products of an anti-racist magazine, that are deployed to
anti-racist ends, and which seemingly successfully carry out this
purpose, can be said to be racist in the first place. Or rather, at this
point we need a bit of a theory of racist art: is it a formal or a
material issue? Is it contextual or it inheres to particular features no
matter how they are utilised? My own view on these matters is
consequentialist: if something tends to disarticulate and combat racism,
it is not racist; if it does the opposite, it is racist.

 religion is simply a fact. it goes well beyond simple accusations of 
 oppression. we atheists on the left need to get over ourselves with our pious 
 superiority. we are the minority. denigrating religion with offensive 
 caricatures of its believers is a doomed project. if we want to claim moral 
 superiority over religious hierarchy, we must demonstrate respect for all 
 people and condemn goofy ethnic images. 

Capitalism is simply a fact. [...] We communists on the left need to get
over ourselves with our pious superiority. We are the minority.
Denigrating capitalism with offensive caricatures of the bourgeoisie is
a doomed project. Etc. Religion is a fact, just like capitalism and
alienation and class society are facts. A fact we must endeavour to get
rid of.

 having been oppressed and then siding with liberators who are also 
 oppressors isn't so uncommon. 

Perhaps it isn't, but this siding is extremely dubious to me. What's the
theory here, that the PCF is the major cause for oppression in Morocco?
This all seems to presuppose that anticlericalism and oppression can be
straightforwardly conflated, which is really weird to me. I genuinely
don't understand why there's so much reverence for religion. I'd say
it's related to the way it permeates US and English-speaking societies
in general but I could well be talking nonsense.

 i haven't gone back to her text yet but she also uses techniques of 
 distraction. one such, her claim of being married to a black man. it reminds 
 me somewhat of jarheads i knew who married locals, made claims of purity of 
 racial thought with proof in their marriage and then went on to express some 
 of the most unlightened racist garbage i've heard in my life. and i've dealt 
 with klan dialogue! i'm not saying she's being racist herself but maybe, just 
 maybe, her defence of charlie hebdo, at a time that it was being criticized 
 for it's racism, is little more than locating the butter on bread. 

Thing is, at this point those people who have made up their mind that
this is about racism are probably not going to change it. But I don't
see those things as attempts to distract, I see those things as attempts
to place matters in context and to try to call attention and explain to
people that maybe there is something else going on than their default
assumptions. I get the feeling that for some people making arguments of
why something isn't racist seems to be taken as a proof of racism
itself... Let's put it this way: is there any utterance that could be
made by her in the article that might change your mind? Or is it all
going to be read as siding with oppression, defending her material
interest and distracting or obfuscating? The least one can do is assume
good faith, in my opinion.

 who would you say is doing this? 

I'd say your paragraph regarding how religion is a fact and we have to
live with it (like people have said we have to live with rain and taxes
and slavery and illiteracy) counts as what I'd consider reflexively
defending religion.

--David.
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Re: [Marxism] ‘Provocative’ Bolshevik anti-Religious Caricatures.

2015-01-16 Thread David P Á via Marxism

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On 16/01/2015 20:16, Ken Hiebert via Marxism wrote:
 And that leads me back to the questions I have asked previously on this list. 
  Did the Charlie Hebdo cartoons have the effect of freeing some Muslim young 
 people from religious belief?  Did the cartoons have the effect of weakening 
 the influence of the most reactionary currents within the Muslim community?

I think so. It's a difficult question to answer definitively, but my
impression is that such anticlerical views have been useful both in
France and abroad for these purposes, and perhaps the republishing of
one of them by a Turkish newspaper may be regarded as evidence towards this.

--David.
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Re: [Marxism] If Charlie is racist, then so am I by Zineb el- Rhazoui

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 i am quite willing to accept that there is a difference between racist art 
 employed by a racist and racist art employed by an an anti-racist but both 
 are offences if only of different degree. 

Sure, but this is affirming the consequent. 


i am confused here. what consequent am i affirming? as i alluded the art can be 
determined to be racist apart from any adjective you want to employ with the 
artist. 


The question is determining 
whether products of an anti-racist magazine, that are deployed to 
anti-racist ends, and which seemingly successfully carry out this 
purpose, can be said to be racist in the first place. Or rather, at this 
point we need a bit of a theory of racist art: is it a formal or a 
material issue? Is it contextual or it inheres to particular features no 
matter how they are utilised? My own view on these matters is 
consequentialist: if something tends to disarticulate and combat racism, 
it is not racist; if it does the opposite, it is racist. 


how would you say that the images in question combat racism? please don't say 
that it was done by anti-racists because you seem to be saying that if you 
determined a priori that these guys are a-okay, that they can do no wrong. for 
me the proof was in the images. 


 religion is simply a fact. it goes well beyond simple accusations of 
 oppression. we atheists on the left need to get over ourselves with our pious 
 superiority. we are the minority. denigrating religion with offensive 
 caricatures of its believers is a doomed project. if we want to claim moral 
 superiority over religious hierarchy, we must demonstrate respect for all 
 people and condemn goofy ethnic images. 

Capitalism is simply a fact. [...] We communists on the left need to get 
over ourselves with our pious superiority. We are the minority. 
Denigrating capitalism with offensive caricatures of the bourgeoisie is 
a doomed project. Etc. Religion is a fact, just like capitalism and 
alienation and class society are facts. A fact we must endeavour to get 
rid of. 


yea, that's cute but you conveniently left out my 2nd sentence. capitalism and 
religion are very different facts. religion is intertwined with how most people 
see themselves as persons and collectively that is distinct from capitalism. 
indeed, we recently have seen some cracks in a unity of purpose between 
capitalists and religious leaders. one can easily imagine a people throwing off 
capitalism and clinging to their religion. (oops! we don't have to imagine!) 

just as you won't convince people of the efficacy of socialism (or what have 
you) by mocking and insulting them you won't convince them of the errors in 
religion ... only more so. 


 i haven't gone back to her text yet but she also uses techniques of 
 distraction. one such, her claim of being married to a black man. it reminds 
 me somewhat of jarheads i knew who married locals, made claims of purity of 
 racial thought with proof in their marriage and then went on to express some 
 of the most unlightened racist garbage i've heard in my life. and i've dealt 
 with klan dialogue! i'm not saying she's being racist herself but maybe, just 
 maybe, her defence of charlie hebdo, at a time that it was being criticized 
 for it's racism, is little more than locating the butter on bread. 

Thing is, at this point those people who have made up their mind that 
this is about racism are probably not going to change it. But I don't 
see those things as attempts to distract, I see those things as attempts 
to place matters in context and to try to call attention and explain to 
people that maybe there is something else going on than their default 
assumptions. I get the feeling that for some people making arguments of 
why something isn't racist seems to be taken as a proof of racism 
itself... Let's put it this way: is there any utterance that could be 
made by her in the article that might change your mind? Or is it all 
going to be read as siding with oppression, defending her material 
interest and distracting or obfuscating? The least one can do is assume 
good faith, in my opinion. 


but don't you see that the same open mindedness could be extended to cyran? oh, 
but he's someone with a grudge. forget him. 

and i am not discounting her at all. she makes a case that shows how complex 
the problem is. i thought i acknowledged that. and i am grateful to you for 
sharing it because it addressed my earliest questions to the group. however, 
could she say anything that would erase the images and time? how could she? she 
doesn't even address their objectionable content. rather she paints a different 
picture of the people

[Marxism] Fwd: Voltaire versus Mohammad | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist


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http://louisproyect.org/2015/01/16/voltaire-versus-mohammad/
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[Marxism] News of Ukraine on Jan 16, 2015

2015-01-16 Thread Roger Annis via Marxism

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Jan 16, 2015


Among the items posted today to 'The New
Cold War: Ukraine and beyond' is a speech by Australian independent
journalist John Pilger, delivered to the Logan Symposium of the Center for 
Investigative Journalism,
at the Barbican Center, London UK, on Dec. 5, 2014. http://newcoldwar.org/


Pilger's speech is titled, 'War by media and the triumph of propaganda'.
He opens it by noting, The world is facing the prospect of major war,
perhaps nuclear war, with the United States clearly determined to isolate and
provoke Russia and eventually China. This truth is being turned upside down and
inside out by journalists, including those who promoted the lies that led to
the bloodbath in Iraq in 2003.


A portion of Pilger's speech is
dedicated to Ukraine. He says, The
suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news
blackouts I can remember. He goes on to tear into liberal media who he accuses 
of acting
as handmaidens to a new cold war. He says their inversion of reality is
so pervasive that Washington's military encirclement and intimidation of Russia
is not contentious. 

You can read or watch Pilger's speech here. 

Also on the New Cold War.org website today are these stories:

·
The airport of Donetsk is liberated, but it is utterly wrecked after
months of Ukraine army attacks

·
Interview with the prime minister of the Donetsk Peoples Republic

·
Pipeline wars in Europe: Russia says a new pipeline to Turkey will end transit
of gas through Ukraine and the EU can forget about the South Stream pipeline
being built; it will have to deal with Turkey to buy its gas.

·
Ukraine
Parliament votes for military mobilization in 2015

 

And read yesterday's
feature article by Halyna Mokrushyna, 'Petro
Poroshenko with the “civilized” in Paris: The other Ukraine must be heard'.




  
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Voltaire versus Mohammad | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

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bravo. really good stuff. 

- Original Message -

From: Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu 
To: Charles Faulkner lacena...@comcast.net 
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2015 1:29:39 PM 
Subject: [Marxism] Fwd: Voltaire versus Mohammad | Louis Proyect: The 
Unrepentant Marxist 

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http://louisproyect.org/2015/01/16/voltaire-versus-mohammad/ 
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Re: [Marxism] US SWP's Education for Socialists bulletins online

2015-01-16 Thread Stuart Munckton via Marxism

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Great resource. Without suggesting it should b taken, or can be applied,
wholesale at all, Joe Hanson's one on a workers' and farmers government is
off some interest in light of possibility of left government being elected
in Europe and event he experience of radical governments in Latin America
in recent years.

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/swp-us/education/1974-04-apr-Workers-and-Farmers-Government-EfS.pdf

On 17 January 2015 at 02:43, DW via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu
wrote:

Yeah, I may of overstated this. This is a reflection of the SWP's positions
by and large. They are not general educational material on Marxism in the
broadest sense. Interestingly, the 1950s series of educational bulletins
are oriented more to political economy and general Marxism-Leninism. But
these take up specifically the SWP's politics and outlook. By narrow I was
think of the rather massive bulletins on characters like Gerry Healy.

DW
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--
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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Re: [Marxism] News of Ukraine on Jan 16, 2015


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On 1/16/15 4:28 PM, Roger Annis via Marxism wrote:



Among the items posted today to 'The New
Cold War: Ukraine and beyond' is a speech by Australian independent
journalist John Pilger, delivered to the Logan Symposium of the Center for 
Investigative Journalism,
at the Barbican Center, London UK, on Dec. 5, 2014. http://newcoldwar.org/



This Pilger is a piece of work. In an article all about the 
untrustworthy bourgeois press, he states:


And again, supposedly liberal media are the censors. Citing no facts, 
no evidence, one journalist identified a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine 
as the man who shot down the airliner. This man, he wrote, was known as 
The Demon. He was a scary man who frightened the journalist. That was 
the evidence.


I tried in vain to find such an article. The closest I came was to a 
Guardian article dated July 29, 2014 that states:


If the Ukrainian security services, the SBU, are to be believed, the 
Demon and a group of his men were responsible for shooting down Malaysia 
Airlines flight MH17 over the region a fortnight ago.


Hardly what I would call a malevolent accusation after the fashion of 
Judith Miller.


In fact the Guardian has not been a propaganda outlet for Kyiv. In fact, 
you can find numerous articles by Seumas Milne taking the Kremlin's 
side. Not to speak of carrying John Pilger's In Ukraine, the US is 
dragging us towards war with Russia.


If only RT.com was 1/10th as trustworthy as the Guardian. It is 
possible, of course, that Pilger was referring to another article in 
another paper but with his slovenly work ethic, who could possibly 
figure out what he was referring to?



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Re: [Marxism] ‘Provocative’ Bolshevik anti-Religious Caricatures.

2015-01-16 Thread DW via Marxism

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Actually nothing in these posters or, even the ones LINKED from within the
article, are from EARLY 1920s but from the LATE 1920s. There appears to be
in the page indicated the early 1920s one from that, which is not
'satire' but educational and addresses very specifically the subjection of
women. In case anyone wanted to know Lenin's views on religion and the
RSDLP's position toward those believers among the working class, here is an
essay where he takes on the flaming atheists in the movement who want
nothing more than to attack religion:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm

It should be noted also that Bolshevik women cadre after 1918 wore the vale
in Soviet Central Asia as to better talk with Muslim women about the
problems of Islam and their oppression by it. At no point did they make fun
or satire of Islam. At least I've not been able to find it. Obviously that
would of been ... counter-productive.

DW
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[Marxism] Fwd: Patriotic group formed to defend Russia against pro-democracy protesters | World news | The Guardian