[Marxism] A Canadian activist on the refugee crisis

[Ken Hiebert 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.
*

Harsha Walia is with No One Is Illegal



It's been a tremendous week in migrant justice. Like all of you, I am 
continuously horrified and pained at the photos pouring in of the global 
refugee crisis unfolding before our eyes. This has been going on for years and 
then last week the photos and news hit of the Kurdi family and their attempts 
to come to Canada. This has, finally, rightfully sparked national and 
international outrage, as well as immense solidarity.

 
The Kurdi family are three of almost 60 million displaced people around the 
globe this year, and over 45,000 people have died crossing borders since 2000. 
Even though international leaders posture about 'humanitarian solutions', the 
reality is that the roots of the crisis remain unaddressed and borders remain 
closed. As Max Fisher writes, “a single dead refugee child is a tragedy, but a 
million suffering refugees are a threat."

 
The number of refugee claims in Canada decreased by 50 percent and the number 
of accepted refugees dropped by 30 percent between 2006 and 2012. The federal 
government deported 117,531 people between 2006 and 2014, including to 
countries with official moratoriums on deportation. 


I know these statistics inside and out because this week we released our 
multimedia project http://www.neverhome.ca on this government's discriminatory 
immigration and refugee policy over the past decade. Never Home has garnered 
lots of attention and the Toronto Star calls it "an innovative multimedia 
project that puts a human face on the impact of the drastic changes made by the 
Conservative government to the immigration and refugee system in the past 
decade." Here is an oped I wrote on it in the Vancouver Sun: 
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Opinion+does+Canada+jail+migrants/11330390/story.html

 
Fifty people have spent over one thousand unpaid hours to bring these stories 
and information to you because we know that lives depend on it. Lives like the 
Kurdi family. As Diana, shares in Never Home, "It was the Canadian government 
that really killed my dad... I don’t want this to happen to anybody else like 
it did to my family." Our comprehensive Never Home website features a report 
with multilingual resources, videos and stories of migrants, and high impact 
visuals. I ask you to take some time to check out Never Home, to talk about it 
with your friends and family, and share it with your networks.


This week newspapers are also filled with headlines of Harper and European 
leaders saying that further military action in Syria is necessary to resolve 
the crisis. (Here Sozan Savelaghi’s response to this on CTV National News 
Channel: http://on.fb.me/1NWtrNV) This makes me so angry and I have a lot of 
rage. Rage because further militarization will not bring liberation and 
exclusionary border policies kill. Rage that families have to make *private* 
sponsorships and wait over a year instead of the government welcoming refugees. 
Rage that many Canadians believe refugees are terrorists, undesirable, 
unwelcome. Rage that politicians have no context for living in war zones, have 
no context for deep poverty, for trauma, for running from bombs and still feel 
they can judge whether others are 'legitimate' refugees or not.

 
Canada is not only complicit in refugee exclusion, but also complicit in 
creating massive displacement around the world, just as it does upon these 
Indigenous lands – from its role in the coups in Haiti, to Canadian 
corporations creating devastation like Nevsun in Eritrea or Goldcorp in 
Honduras, to Canada’s overwhelming role in causing climate change that impacts 
countries like Bangladesh and the Philippines and at the same time forcing 
export-free zones and Structural Adjustment policies that ensures the 
exploitation of labour within (like sweatshops) and from (like the temporary 
foreign worker program) these countries. 

 

Naomi Klein focused a talk yesterday on the refugee crisis and these kinds of 
connections, watch here: http://youtu.be/a5LuIAJEFUc


This is not inevitable. We can all create the momentum necessary to shift from 
indifference and racism to solidarity. Around the world and across Canada, tens 
of thousands are taking to the streets declaring "Refugees Welcome.” I have 
received dozens of humbling messages from Indigenous land defenders, friends 
and mentors offering refuge based on Indigenous laws and protocols, affirming 
No One Is Illegal, Canada Is Illegal. German residents have convinced their 
government to allow over 800,000 refugees to enter the country, while over 
10,000 Icelandic families have opened their homes to refugees. It’s time for us 

[Marxism] Some facts, not Tony Abbott lies, about Australia's pathetic refugee intake

[John Passant 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 facts, not Tony Abbott lies, about Australia's pathetic refugee intake

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott claims we are number one per 
capita in taking in refugees. We are not.  We are not number one but 
number 27 per capita. This is a good analysis with, you know, FACTS, not 
Tony Abbott lies, about Australia's pathetic response to refugees. It is 
from the Refugee Council of Australia.


http://enpassant.com.au/2015/09/07/some-facts-not-tony-abbott-lies-about-australias-pathetic-refugee-intake/

_
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] Palestinians and Israelis in Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata

[Gary MacLennan 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.
*

There is so much in this essay. So rich and thoughtful.  I have myself been
doing a piece on song and how it helps us access the angels of our better
natures. For a long time, I have been fascinated, for example, in the
history of the Civil War ballad, Loreena and how it was blamed by one
Confederate general for the loss of the war. It is one of my fondest
memories, the playing of this for Bhaskar at a seminar at the Institute in
London.

I have also been doing some work on war and song and contrasting Kubrick
and Loach's approaches as shown in Kubrick's Paths of Glory and Loach's
Days of Hope.

comradely

Gary

On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 4:11 AM, Hans G Ehrbar via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>   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.
> *
>
>
> Rob Kapilow is a famous conductor, composer, and popularizer
> of classical music.  His NPR series "what makes it great"
> explains specific pieces by Mozart, Beehoven, et al, to a
> broad audience.  This email here is a comment about
> Kapilow's interpretation of Beethoven's Sonata for violin
> and piano No 9 Op 47, also called the Kreutzer Sonata.
>
>
> http://www.npr.org/2009/10/14/113764595/beethovens-kreutzer-sonata-connections
>
> If you follow this link (which is from 2009), you can read:
>
> > The violin plays the opening in a major key, and then the
> > piano reinvents it in a minor key.  But what really
> > interests Beethoven, Kapilow explains, is how the idea
> > ends "with three repeated notes and a resolution down a
> > half-step.  Just this tiny little fragment.  And he starts
> > working with it, seeing what he can invent out of it,
> > trying it again in the violin and in the piano, always
> > three repeated notes, and down."
>
> > After a bit, Beethoven whittles the idea down even
> > further, fiddling just with the half step, taking it both
> > up and down.
>
> In the associated podcast Kapilow speaks this same text in
> words while playing Beethoven's motifs on the piano.  The
> listener can verify that this is what Beethoven is doing,
> and better appreciate the beauty of the music because
> Kapilow has made some of the structure explicit which makes
> the music beautiful.  The half note interval at the very end
> of the introductory passage is so-to-say the atom, the
> building block, from which the entire sonata is assembled.
>
>
> Then Kapilow compares the composer's disassembling and
> re-assembling of a musical theme with the creation of the
> universe.  This is where he goes too far.  Instead of
> interpreting Beethoven, Kapilow uses Beethoven's authority
> to promote a mistaken world view, namely downward
> reductionism.  It is simply not true that a look at the
> atoms puts us into the center of the universe, as Kapilow
> says.
>
> Kapilow explains to the listener, correctly, how Beethoven
> is looking for connections between his atomic musical
> themes.  But Kapilow himself does not give these connections
> the ontological priority which they deserve.  On the
> contrary, he brings the following example (not on the
> website itself but this is the podcast at 4:12):
>
> > It is kind of like, (inaudible) Palestinians and Israelis,
> > but Beethoven is always saying, if you look deeper, they
> > are just both people.  If you go down to the subatomic
> > level, we are all E and F.  And once we realize what we are at
> > base, we can make connections that no one would never had
> > made before.
>
> This passage has it all backwards.  Kapilow does not acknowledge
> how connected everybody living on this planet is and how
> dependent we are on each other.  The connections which he
> implores the individuals to establish already exist.  The
> connection is primary, not the atomization.  Kapilow does
> not see that the atomized interactions between individuals
> is an artefact of capitalism.  The capitalists are
> connected alright but they are pitting the working class
> individuals against each other.  Instead of seeing that
> society consists of connections, and that we have to change
> the social structure in which we are embedded in order to
> tear down the walls of the open air prison that is
> Palestine, Kapilow thinks that society is made up of atomized
> individuals and that these individuals must remember that
> the individuals on the other side of the wall are human
> beings too, in order for this wall to topple.
>
> Kapilow is 

[Marxism] The problem is capitalism, not just who manages it

[John Passant 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 problem is capitalism, not just who manages it

While I think it is fantastic that the likes of Jeremy Corbyn are 
raising a whole range of issues from taxing the rich to re-nationalising 
public goods, from cutting billion from defence spending to supporting 
refugees and recognising Palestine, and by doing that giving hope to the 
millions disenfranchised by the tweedledee and tweedledum of neoliberal 
politics, we need to be clear that the real problem is capitalism, not 
just who manages it and how they do so.


In the long term the only way we can win a better society is by us, the 
vast majority, uniting to overthrow capitalism and organising production 
democratically to satisfy human need.


http://enpassant.com.au/2015/09/07/the-problem-is-capitalism-not-just-who-runs-it/


_
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] Abusing the Syrian refugees another time

[Michael Karadjis 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.
*

-Original Message- 
From: Vladimiro Giacche' via Marxism


Oh yes, NYT is a very reliable source. I remember very good articles 
on Iraq in 2002 & 2003... (and only later their excuses - but 
curiously only when Iraq was already invaded)


-Original Message- 
From: A.R. G via Marxism


I also find it very strange that someone would categorically write off 
the

NYT. Even when they spew propaganda it's usually by megaphoning official
opinions.

MK: Precisely, official opinions. Like this one:
Editorial of the New York Times on April 2, 2015: “the reality is that 
Mr. Assad has become a necessary, if still unpalatable, potential ally 
in combating the Islamic State” 
(http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/opinion/the-crimes-of-terrorists.html?_r=0) 


_
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] Assad regime responsible for 87.5% of civilian deaths in Syria since March 2014 - Elizabeth Tsurkov

[MM 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.
*

(Graph at FB link)

"The Assad regime is responsible for 87.5% of civilian deaths in Syria since 
March 2014. The percentage before March 2014 was even higher as ISIS didn't 
exist before April 2013 and the uprising was entirely peaceful for the first 
few months, but Assad's forces have been killing civilians since March 2011.

"This is why Syrians are fleeing their homeland. Dealing with ISIS alone will 
not solve the problem.

"Source for the data: 
http://sn4hr.org/blog/category/report/monthly-reports/victims-death-toll/“


On FB: 
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153537571121358=a.10150423449646358.379424.543376357


_
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] Abusing the Syrian refugees another time

[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.
*

On 9/6/15 3:51 PM, Lüko Willms via Marxism wrote:

And thy are abused again by the right wing of the imperialist war
mongers who use them as pawn for their war drive, to call for
increasing the US aggression against Syria by indiscriminate
bombings.


Yes, down with indiscriminate bombings.

NY Times, Dec. 28 2013
Deadly Syrian Bomb Strikes Crowded Aleppo Market
By ANNE BARNARD

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian government forces continued their bombing 
campaign in the northern city Aleppo on Saturday, with a single strike 
in a crowded vegetable market killing at least 21 people, activists and 
residents said.


Activists in Aleppo said that more than 400 people had been killed in 
nearly two weeks of airstrikes and barrages of improvised “barrel bombs” 
packed with explosives that are dropped from low altitudes by helicopters.


Peace talks brokered by Russia and the United States are scheduled to 
begin Jan. 22 in an attempt to end the Syrian civil war, which began as 
a protest movement against President Bashar al-Assad. After a government 
crackdown, it transformed into a conflict that has killed more than 
120,000 people.


Many activists contend that the government is increasing the use of 
force to demoralize the opposition and gain ground before the 
conference. Others believe that the attacks are meant as revenge for 
recent insurgent assaults in Adra, north of Damascus, in which many 
civilians were reported to have been killed.


Videos posted by activists in the Tareek al-Bab and Al Myassar 
neighborhoods in Aleppo showed buildings and market stalls reduced to 
rubble and residents expressing shock and despair.


In the market area, which was hit by a barrel bomb, one man gestured 
into a car.


“There were two women and a man with their kids,” he said. “We just 
found pieces of the kids.” The women, he said, were decapitated by the 
blast, and he described how he and others used plastic bags to carry 
away the remains of more than 20 victims. “May God give you what you 
deserve, you tyrant!” he shouted, referring to Mr. Assad.


Nisreen Manafikhi, an activist from Aleppo, said in a Skype interview 
that 22 people had been killed in the market attack, which also 
collapsed a residential building, and that 10 others had died in nearby 
airstrikes. Videos showed men, apparently in shock, squatting atop piles 
of stone. Streets were strewn with rubble, and entire blocks of 
buildings were damaged.


In another video, a young boy spoke through tears as he stood in the 
rubble, saying no fighters had been killed.


“I would not mind if those killed were from the people who raised their 
weapons against him,” he said, referring to Mr. Assad. “All the dead are 
poor civilians trying to make a living in the vegetable market. We are 
not fighters, and fighting is not our business; we want to make a living.”



_
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: Slaves: The Capital that Made Capitalism | Public Seminar

[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.
*



http://www.publicseminar.org/2015/08/slaves-the-capital-that-made-capitalism/
_
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] Abusing the Syrian refugees another time

[Vladimiro Giacche' 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.
*

Oh yes, NYT is a very reliable source. I remember very good articles on Iraq in 
2002 & 2003... (and only later their excuses - but curiously only when Iraq was 
already invaded)
I would suggest to find better arguments against the reasonable words of Lüko. 
Only a suggestion...
Bye

VG


> 
> 
> On 9/6/15 3:51 PM, Lüko Willms via Marxism wrote:
>> And thy are abused again by the right wing of the imperialist war
>> mongers who use them as pawn for their war drive, to call for
>> increasing the US aggression against Syria by indiscriminate
>> bombings.
> 
> Yes, down with indiscriminate bombings.
> 
> NY Times, Dec. 28 2013
> Deadly Syrian Bomb Strikes Crowded Aleppo Market
> By ANNE BARNARD
> 


_
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] Corporate media calling for deepening the war against Syria

[Clay Claiborne 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.
*

Well said!

On 9/4/2015 1:01 AM, Michael Karadjis via Marxism wrote:


Oh, I thought I made quite clear when I sent the article that I didn't 
agree with a lot of it (check my post, not the piece of the article 
that Luko extracts and writes "Michael Karadjis wrote".


I


_
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] Corporate media calling for deepening the war against Syria

[Clay Claiborne 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 Friday, September 4, 2015 5:00 PM, A.R. G via Marxism wrote:
What makes you think that limited intervention along the lines of 
no-fly zones would create some sort of fundamentally different reality 
on the ground? Is there precedent for that working elsewhere? 

Duh! Libya!

I know Libya is the "anti-imperialist" poster child for a failed 
intervention but I consider it an example of a very successful NATO 
intervention that should be applauded and emulated. True Libya is a mess 
right now. That is often the case for the decade following a successful 
revolution. Besides, what was it before on the day when Qaddafi 
massacres 1200 prisoners in a yard or 700 protesters in Green Sq., or 
the daily terror that Libyans lived through for decades. The UN mandate 
was to save lives, not remake the Libyan state or Libyan society - that 
truly would have been imperialist intervention. Libya's problems today 
aren't the return of NATO intervention. Only those who think there was 
no Libyan uprising, just a NATO plot starting with the Tripoli housing 
protests in mid-January 2011, can think that. Libya's problems today are 
those of Libyans and I have no doubt that in time they will work them out.


So what do you think would be going on in Libya today had there been no 
no-fly zone? You think everything would be just peachy-keen? I think it 
would be like Syria. Libya is a mess right now, but with 1286 violent 
death so far in 2015 , it is a 
far, far safer place than Syria. Syrians are fleeing to Libya because it 
is safer. If not for the NATO intervention, Qaddafi would probably still 
have air supremacy today no matter how much territory he lost -  the 
thing about [regional] air supremacy - once you are "allowed" it by 
those who control global air supremacy, you need very little territory, 
just backers with deep pockets, to keep your side of the conflict going.


So to answer your question with a question: Why aren't barrel-bombs 
falling in Benghazi and Misrata and why are more people likely to die 
violently this week in Syria than this year in Libya?

_
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] Abusing the Syrian refugees another time

[Vladimiro Giacche' 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 totally agree with Lüko Willms 
VG

> The refugies from Syria have been abused by the warring parties in Syria, by 
> Turkey, by Greece (under the famous "left" Syriza government!), by Macedonia, 
> by Hungary, by Austria and are being abused again by the German authorities, 
> who will quickly show them the right place in some refugee retainment center, 
> despite the posturing they display today in face of the unbeateable human 
> wave streaming up the Balkan from the Aegean islands off the Turkish coast. 
> 
>  And thy are abused again by the right wing of the imperialist war mongers 
> who use them as pawn for their war drive, to call for increasing the US 
> aggression against Syria by indiscriminate bombings. 
> 
> 
> Cheers, 
> Lüko Willms


_
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] Abusing the Syrian refugees another time

[A.R. G 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.
*

Michael,

As much as that is a statement by the NYT Editorial Board, it is worth
noting that such sentiments about the Middle East seep even into their
supposedly non-editorial coverage.

- Amith

On Sun, Sep 6, 2015 at 9:26 PM, Michael Karadjis 
wrote:

> -Original Message- From: Vladimiro Giacche' via Marxism
>
> Oh yes, NYT is a very reliable source. I remember very good articles on
>> Iraq in 2002 & 2003... (and only later their excuses - but curiously only
>> when Iraq was already invaded)
>>
>
> -Original Message- From: A.R. G via Marxism
>
> I also find it very strange that someone would categorically write off the
>>
> NYT. Even when they spew propaganda it's usually by megaphoning official
> opinions.
>
> MK: Precisely, official opinions. Like this one:
> Editorial of the New York Times on April 2, 2015: “the reality is that Mr.
> Assad has become a necessary, if still unpalatable, potential ally in
> combating the Islamic State” (
> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/opinion/the-crimes-of-terrorists.html?_r=0)
>
>
_
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] Abusing the Syrian refugees another time

[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.
*

On 9/6/15 5:59 PM, Vladimiro Giacche' wrote:

Oh yes, NYT is a very reliable source.


What sort of sick nonsense is this?

It is difficult for me to deal with the "anti-imperialist" left that is 
now rallying around someone who would make Pinochet blanch. Here is the 
fucking video of the barrel bombing in Aleppo. Now tell me that this is 
fake:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEeE7nd4fPQ
_
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] Abusing the Syrian refugees another time

[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.
*

And it isn't like this isn't exactly what Assad had been saying he'd do
for a decade: http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/590.htm

But I feel some here would defend even the 80's massacres as the proper
response... Which shouldn't be surprising, if in this day and age with
the constant feed of pictures, video and stories directly from Syrians,
they are still able to look away, it must be easier when far less was
and is available.

And the same people who complain when the NYT is used as a source are
the ones claiming it is the Islamist's crimes that predominate in Syria.
But why do they think that!? It is what has been on the front page of
the papers that can't be trusted for years! So how could it be true?
_
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] Krugman Down Under

[Gary MacLennan 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.
*

Krugman's presence is causing something of a stir in the Social Media of
the leftist Laborites. As I posted before I welcome that, because it is a
crack in the TINA monolith. In fact in conversation with a Federal Labor
member of parliament some time ago  I urged him to campaign for a Krugman
tour of Australia.

But, at the same time, I am fundamentally puzzled as to why people will
listen to Krugman and not to better economists like Michael Roberts or our
own Rick Kuhn or Bill Mitchel.  In his take on Hegel's Master-Slave
dialectic Bhaskar wrote of how the slave wants reconciliation and mutual
forgiveness with the master and not the abolition of all master-slave
relations.  Keynesianism seems to hold out the promise that the boss can
once more be one's "mate"..  But of course the historical fact is that the
boss was seldom, if ever, the worker's mate.

Corbyn's election campaign is also having something of an effect.  Though,
he would appear to be too radical for many of the soi-disant Labor Leftists.

My explanation for all this is that there is a steady drift to the Left.
This is based first of all as a rejection of austerity economics. There are
also splits emerging within the intelligentsia many of whom are growing
alarmed at the increasing likelihood of another economic crash. Here in
Brisbane a number of capitalists also wrote an open letter to the Labor
State government begging them to spend on infrastructure to "save
Queensland".

But it is the discontent among the people which is for me to the fore and
the thought that as Murdoch puts it, they are becoming "ungovernable".


comradely

Gary
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Alienation and the contemporary workplace

[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.
*

On the work process in a modern whiteware factory:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/from-the-vaults-a-nightmare-in-whiteware-the-teamwork-system-exploitation-and-alienation/

Diary of an office worker:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/diary-of-an-office-worker-2/

The real working life of a chef:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/the-real-working-life-of-a-chef-a-view-from-the-inside/

Phil
_
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] Corporate media calling for deepening the war against Syria

[Joseph Catron 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 Sun, Sep 6, 2015 at 11:44 PM, Clay Claiborne via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

I know Libya is the "anti-imperialist" poster child for a failed
> intervention but I consider it an example of a very successful NATO
> intervention that should be applauded and emulated.
>

Just remember this line if you're ever remotely tempted to take Clay's
opinions seriously, on grounds principled or pragmatic.

"Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
lytlað."
_
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] Capitalism and the modern university

[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.
*

Terry Eagleton on the death agony of the modern university:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/terry-eagleton-on-the-death-agony-of-universities/

Grant Pheloung on Behind the crisis in liberal education:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/08/30/from-the-vaults-behind-the-crisis-in-liberal-education/

Philip Ferguson on Slump capitalism vs free university education:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/from-the-vaults-slump-capitalism-versus-free-education/
_
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 US economic system is unjust. Says who? Says billionaire Donald Trump | US news | The Guardian

[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.
*

But now Trump is able to finance his own campaign, meaning that unlike 
other candidates, he doesn’t have to think before he speaks about Wall 
Street, taxes or pretty much anything else. The result, of course, has 
been that he has been an equal-opportunity offender – literally.


What is intriguing is that among those he is offending are some who 
would love to support a leading Republican: business interests and 
especially Wall Street. But Trump instead is doing what other candidates 
have feared to do, and standing firm as the “disrupter”.


He blasted Jeb Bush’s ties to Wall Street, arguing that the latter’s job 
as an adviser to Lehman Brothers (for which he earned $1.3m a year) 
should disqualify him from the presidency. He has suggested changing the 
tax code to punish companies that base factories in other countries, and 
forcing companies to give up plans to dodge that tax code by merging 
with non-US businesses and shifting their headquarters abroad, a process 
known as “inversion”.


full: 
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/06/donald-trump-us-economic-system-unjust

_
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] Syrian refugees

[Michael Karadjis 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.
*

-Original Message- 
From: Ken Hiebert via Marxism


I did a quick survey of groups that I identify as favourable to the 
Syrian government.  I wanted to see how they are responding to the 
current refugee crisis..

I did not see any response.

MK: Well, there is a political issue here. Their guru had this to say on 
those taking refuge in Europe, reminding one more of the rhetoric of the 
other group of western political parties identifying as favourable to 
the Syrian regime:


"Terrorism will not stop here, it will export itself through illegal 
immigration into Europe" 
https://twitter.com/Presidency_Sy/status/346700451087015937



_
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] Misleading propaganda about "no fly zone" (was: This is what it’s come to: Letting Syria die watching Syrians drown)

[Lüko Willms 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 Freitag, 4. September 2015 at 10:01, Michael Karadjis via Marxism wrote:

> A US imposed no-fly zone that instead targets the warplanes in the sky

The right wing propaganda for a more vigorous imperialist aggression to put a 
subservient regime in place in Damascus does of course lie about the so called 
"no fly zone". 

No, a "no fly zone" does not really involve "targetting warplances in the sky", 
but heavy bombing of the ground. 

It means not only destroying airports, but first and foremost destroying all 
air defenses of the country of which the imperialist aggressor wants to take 
control of, and this needs massive bombing. 

> Oh no! Imperialist intervention!

> The irony being that the US is vigorously opposed to any no-fly zone! 

One of your leaders, Ms. Hillary Clinton, had made clear when she was the US 
foreign minister, that bombing Syria is a not so easy as assinating some people 
in Asia or Africa by teleguided killing machines -- among several reasons -- 
the Syrian government has an effective air defense. While the Ghaddafi regime 
of Libya had given up their air defense on demand of the imperialist powers for 
being accepted as a good friend of imperialism. Libya has suffered 
corresondingly. Syria on the other hand could at least avoid such terror 
bombing as Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya suffered. And Vietnam, and Laos, and 
Korea, and and and 

> and saves lives of civilians? 

The 10 year "no fly zone" war with "sanctions" against Iraq has killed 500'000 
Iraqi children. Another of your leaders, Ms. Madeleine Albright, who was US 
foreign minister back than, thought that this was worth it. 

No, imposing this so sweet sounding "no fly zone" is as murderous as any other 
imperialist aggression. It just saves some lives of the aggressor's canon 
fudder, who kill in Asia and return daily home from "work" to their family home 
in, say, Kansas. 

As a side note, there is another big error in the post by Mr. Karadjis:

> So you want to oppose imperialist intervention - good, so when do you 
> think it began? As myself, Louis, Clay and others have shown 
> [...] in 2012. 

 Far off the mark. The imperialist intervention began in at least 1914. 

 And has never stopped since. 


Cheers, 
Lüko Willms

  
_
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: Syrian Druze City Turns On Assad After Top Cleric Killed By Car Bomb

[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.
*



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/syrian-druze-cleric-killed_55eaf607e4b03784e2760c15
_
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] Syrian refugees

[Lüko Willms 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 Samstag, 5. September 2015 at 15:31, Ken Hiebert via Marxism wrote:

> I did a quick survey of groups that I identify as favourable to the
> Syrian government.  I wanted to see how they are responding to the current 
> refugee crisis..
> I did not see any response.

  You looked up US-american organizations. They would perhaps react to the 
refugees dying at the US-border against Mexico, but why should they take a 
position on a European issue, the huge wave of refugees fleeing the Third World 
countries in Africa and Asia? 



 
Cheers, 
Lüko Willms

_
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] Syrian refugees

[A.R. G 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.
*

But they're all US orgs that focus on intervention in Syria.

To play devil's advocate (I need to practice playing devil's advocate
because I'm training to be a lawyer and decidedly going to Hell), many of
the refugees fleeing for Europe (including the one that Merkel patronized)
were Palestinian, but most "Palestine solidarity" groups did/said very
little, and in fact most don't even focus on the refugees that aren't
trying to cross into Europe. Many of the people who died trying to get to
Malta were Palestinians, for example.

I've done my best personally but that's no excuse for the movement as a
whole.

I don't think it makes perfect sense to expect any of the groups taking
whatever position it is to put out statements, but perhaps they should.

The xenophobic rhetoric from Assad is so twisted, and in fact is not unique
to Europe but also common throughout the Arab world, where Syrian refugees
(Assad's "illegal immigrants") are seen as terrorist agents. Assad is
willing to use xenophobic rhetoric to defend crackdowns on his victims. He
is basically doing the same thing that Israel does when it tells other
regimes in the region to look out for Palestinian "terrorists" among the
refugee camps, etc.

- Amith

On Sun, Sep 6, 2015 at 9:41 AM, Lüko Willms 
wrote:

>   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 Samstag, 5. September 2015 at 15:31, Ken Hiebert via Marxism wrote:
>
> > I did a quick survey of groups that I identify as favourable to the
> > Syrian government.  I wanted to see how they are responding to the
> current refugee crisis..
> > I did not see any response.
>
>   You looked up US-american organizations. They would perhaps react to the
> refugees dying at the US-border against Mexico, but why should they take a
> position on a European issue, the huge wave of refugees fleeing the Third
> World countries in Africa and Asia?
>
>
>
>
> Cheers,
> Lüko Willms
>
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.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

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The US economic system is unjust. Says who? Says billionaire Donald Trump | US news | The Guardian

[A.R. G 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.
*

He's so rich that he can upset the rich. Damn.

- Amith

On Sun, Sep 6, 2015 at 9:07 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>   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.
> *
>
> But now Trump is able to finance his own campaign, meaning that unlike
> other candidates, he doesn’t have to think before he speaks about Wall
> Street, taxes or pretty much anything else. The result, of course, has been
> that he has been an equal-opportunity offender – literally.
>
> What is intriguing is that among those he is offending are some who would
> love to support a leading Republican: business interests and especially
> Wall Street. But Trump instead is doing what other candidates have feared
> to do, and standing firm as the “disrupter”.
>
> He blasted Jeb Bush’s ties to Wall Street, arguing that the latter’s job
> as an adviser to Lehman Brothers (for which he earned $1.3m a year) should
> disqualify him from the presidency. He has suggested changing the tax code
> to punish companies that base factories in other countries, and forcing
> companies to give up plans to dodge that tax code by merging with non-US
> businesses and shifting their headquarters abroad, a process known as
> “inversion”.
>
> full:
> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/06/donald-trump-us-economic-system-unjust
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.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

Re: [Marxism] Syrian refugees

[Michael Karadjis 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.
*

-Original Message- 
From: Louis Proyect via Marxism


It is important to understand that the latest wave of refugees are from
the middle class as opposed to those who ended up in Turkey or Lebanon
since it takes substantial sums to pay for a trip on a boat, even as it
entails terrible risks. The flight of the middle-class indicates that
the Baathist state is crumbling from within as wealthier Sunnis are
deserting a system that was useful to them in the past. This no doubt is
related to stepped up Russian intervention as Assad's pals are trying to
plug the leaks.
_

Yes, including a lot of Alawites who see the futility of dying for the 
regime:


Syria Deeply had the rare opportunity to speak to Alawite supporters of 
Assad who have fled the country nonetheless.


When 24-year-old Hussain fled his village in Syria for Mersin, Turkey, 
six weeks ago, it didn’t feel like a choice. Knowing that he would 
eventually be called for mandatory military service in the Syrian army, 
he packed his bags and made the dangerous journey across the border. “I 
did not want to join the army – this is not my battle,” he told Syria 
Deeply


http://www.syriadeeply.org/articles/2015/08/7912/assad-support-alawites-syria/ 


_
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] Misleading propaganda about "no fly zone"

[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.
*

On 9/6/15 9:26 AM, Lüko Willms via Marxism wrote:

  Far off the mark. The imperialist intervention began in at least 1914.

  And has never stopped since.


Except that Syria is not Iraq. The "anti-imperialist" left insists on 
seeing Syria as if Obama were George W. Bush but a better analogy would 
be with Chechnya, a country that was an experiment for the sort of 
scorched earth tactics now being employed in Syria against "takfiri". 
Just do a Google/Image search of "Grozny" followed by one of "Aleppo" 
and you'll see what I mean.


Grozny: 
http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/Ivtgu2AgbWlw/s/900/russia-chechnya-grozny-war-ru102563.jpg


Aleppo: http://theloquitur.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Syria1.jpg
_
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] Syrian refugees, and the human wave breaking down all barriers, showing the power of a mass movement

[Lüko Willms 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 Samstag, 5. September 2015 at 18:01, Louis Proyect via Marxism speculated:

> It is important to understand that the latest wave of refugees are from
> the middle class as opposed to those who ended up in Turkey or Lebanon
> since it takes substantial sums to pay for a trip on a boat, even as it
> entails terrible risks. 

  Have you asked any of them? 

  It is rater correct to assume that they came right of the refugee camps in 
Turkey, seeing a chance to get out of harms way and to a safe place, since they 
saw the success of other refugees trying the long sea route from Libya to 
Lampedusa. And worried by the change in policy by the Turkish government to 
actively intervene in the Syrian civil war (and against the Turkish und Syrian 
Kurds at the same time). But this is also just speculation. 

  Fact is that, while in the current wave of refugees trying to reach Germany 
those from Syria seem to be a majority, but there are also lots of other 
countries, namely Iraq and Afghanistan. All from countries which had been 
militarily attacked by US imperialism. 

  And a central observation has to be stressed, namely that this mass movement 
had overcome the border police of Makedonia, Hungary, Austria and Germany, just 
by their sheer numers. They have proven the power of the mass movement. 

  And they have show that and how the masses put forward their own leaders, 
those who took the initiative to walk from Budapest to the Austrian border, 
having been abused by the treachery of the right-wing hungarian government. 

  Those Syrians who took the lead chose not to take part in the Syrian civil 
war for a government acceptable to imperialism, but showed themselves capable 
of leading mass movement. 


 
Cheers, 
Lüko Willms

_
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] Syrian refugees, and the human wave breaking down all barriers, showing the power of a mass movement

[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.
*

On 9/6/15 9:39 AM, Lüko Willms via Marxism wrote:

   Have you asked any of them?


No. I read newspapers instead:

Financial Times, Sept. 2 2015:

In normal times, couples like Manal, an engineer, and her husband 
Ibrahim, a lawyer, could buy a two-hour flight from Istanbul to Budapest 
for less than €200. Instead, the young Syrian professionals were forced 
to pay smugglers €3,000 on a month-long trek by foot and sea.

_
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] No to intervention - victory to the Syrian revolution

[John Passant 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.
*

No to intervention - victory to the Syrian revolution

We, socialists of Turkey and Syria, reject all political and military 
intervention of foreign powers to Syria; whether it is claimed against 
ISIS, Assad or the PKK.  No to AKP-US intervention, victory to the 
Syrian revolution!


To read the joint statement by revolutionary socialists from Turkey & 
Syria in English click here.


http://enpassant.com.au/2015/09/06/no-to-intervention-victory-to-the-syrian-revolution/

_
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] New Zealand's flag debate and referendum

[Gary MacLennan 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.
*

Phil

It might be the Irish in me that objects to the "butchers' apron"  but I
welcome the abandonment of the Union Jack even if it is only in the
corner.  There are symbols and symbols, as you well know.   I recall
wrestling with a fascist thug in the 70 to protect the red flag.  Well to
be honest I twisted his finger!  But it was not only about symbols.

As for your other remarks about the parlous state of the NZ working class
and the push to enfold them all into the modern  nation, I agree of
course.  Still what we are seeing is a split between conservatives and
neoliberal radicals.  Here in Australia it is manifesting itself with a
revival of the Australian Republican movement.

comradely

Gary

On Sun, Sep 6, 2015 at 1:40 PM, Philip Ferguson via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>   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 NZ flag features the Union Jack in the top left corner with the rest of
> the flag being the southern corss constellation, very, very similar to
> Australia's.  They have one more star on theirs.
>
> As part of the modernisation of NZ capitalist society, prime minister John
> Key initiated a flag discussion and two referenda.
>
> A bunch of alternative flags have been created, with a 'representative'
> panel of NZers going through these and whittling the laternatives down to
> 4.  This has been done.  Next there will be a public referendum to find the
> most popular of these four.  Then there will be a further referendum in
> which the winner will be pitted against the existing flag.
>
> What's going on?
>
> https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/redlines-guide-to-a-new-kiwi-flag/
>
> Phil
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/gary.maclennan1%40gmail.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] The raw material of exploitation: Harry Braverman's 'Labor and Monopoly Capital'- lecture and essay by Doug Enaa Greene

[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.
*

Here is the essay in Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
http://links.org.au/node/4566

And here is the video of the talk delivered yesterday  by Doug Greene at the 
Center for Marxist Education in Cambridge, MA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs1fxy9g5kc








Jim Farmelant
http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimfarmelant
www.foxymath.com
Learn or Review Basic Math
_
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] Food Industry Enlisted Academics in G.M.O. Lobbying War, Emails Show

[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.
*

(Go to 
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/us/food-industry-enlisted-academics-in-gmo-lobbying-war-emails-show.html 
to read email discussed in the article.)


NY Times, Sept. 6 2019
Food Industry Enlisted Academics in G.M.O. Lobbying War, Emails Show
By ERIC LIPTON

WASHINGTON — At Monsanto, sales of genetically modified seeds were 
steadily rising. But executives at the company’s St. Louis headquarters 
were privately worried about attacks on the safety of their products.


So Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, and its industry partners 
retooled their lobbying and public relations strategy to spotlight a 
rarefied group of advocates: academics, brought in for the gloss of 
impartiality and weight of authority that come with a professor’s pedigree.


“Professors/researchers/scientists have a big white hat in this debate 
and support in their states, from politicians to producers,” Bill 
Mashek, a vice president at Ketchum, a public relations firm hired by 
the biotechnology industry, said in an email to a University of Florida 
professor. “Keep it up!”


And the industry has.

Corporations have poured money into universities to fund research for 
decades, but now, the debate over bioengineered foods has escalated into 
a billion-dollar food industry war. Companies like Monsanto are squaring 
off against major organic firms like Stonyfield Farm, the yogurt 
company, and both sides have aggressively recruited academic 
researchers, emails obtained through open records laws show.


The emails provide a rare view into the strategy and tactics of a 
lobbying campaign that has transformed ivory tower elites into powerful 
players. The use by both sides of third-party scientists, and their 
supposedly unbiased research, helps explain why the American public is 
often confused as it processes the conflicting information.


The push has intensified as the Senate prepares to take up 
industry-backed legislation this fall, already passed by the House, that 
would ban states from adopting laws that require the disclosure of food 
produced with genetically modified ingredients.


The efforts have helped produce important payoffs, including the 
approval by federal regulators of new genetically modified seeds after 
academic experts intervened with the United States Department of 
Agriculture on the industry’s behalf, the emails show.


Charla Lord, a Monsanto spokeswoman, said the company’s longstanding 
partnership with academics helped demystify the science. “It is in the 
public interest for academics to weigh in credibly, not only to 
consumers but to stakeholders like lawmakers and regulators as well,” 
she said.


But even some of the academics who have accepted special “unrestricted 
grants” or taken industry-funded trips to help push corporate agendas on 
Capitol Hill say they regret being caught up in this nasty food fight.


“If you spend enough time with skunks, you start to smell like one,” 
said Charles M. Benbrook, who until recently held a post at Washington 
State University. The organic foods industry funded his research there 
and paid for his trips to Washington, where he helped lobby for labels 
on foods with genetically modified ingredients.


On the other side, the biotech industry has published dozens of 
articles, under the names of prominent academics, that in some cases 
were drafted by industry consultants.


Monsanto and its industry partners have also passed out an undisclosed 
amount in special grants to scientists like Kevin Folta, the chairman of 
the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida, to 
help with “biotechnology outreach” and to travel around the country to 
defend genetically modified foods.


“This is a great 3rd-party approach to developing the advocacy that 
we’re looking to develop,” Michael Lohuis, the director of crop 
biometrics at Monsanto, wrote last year in an email as the company 
considered giving Dr. Folta an unrestricted grant.


Dr. Folta said that he had joined the campaign to publicly defend 
genetically modified technologies because he believes they are safe, and 
that it is his job to share his expertise. “Nobody tells me what to say, 
and nobody tells me what to think,” he said, adding, “Every point I make 
is based on evidence.”


But he also conceded in an interview that he could unfairly be seen as a 
tool of industry, and his university now intends to donate the Monsanto 
grant money to a food pantry. “I can understand that perception 100 
percent,” he said, “and it bothers me a lot.”


Players in a Safety Debate

The moves by Monsanto, in an alliance with the Biotechnology Industry 
Organization and the 

[Marxism] Palestinians and Israelis in Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata

[Hans G Ehrbar 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.
*


Rob Kapilow is a famous conductor, composer, and popularizer
of classical music.  His NPR series "what makes it great"
explains specific pieces by Mozart, Beehoven, et al, to a
broad audience.  This email here is a comment about
Kapilow's interpretation of Beethoven's Sonata for violin
and piano No 9 Op 47, also called the Kreutzer Sonata.

http://www.npr.org/2009/10/14/113764595/beethovens-kreutzer-sonata-connections

If you follow this link (which is from 2009), you can read:

> The violin plays the opening in a major key, and then the
> piano reinvents it in a minor key.  But what really
> interests Beethoven, Kapilow explains, is how the idea
> ends "with three repeated notes and a resolution down a
> half-step.  Just this tiny little fragment.  And he starts
> working with it, seeing what he can invent out of it,
> trying it again in the violin and in the piano, always
> three repeated notes, and down."

> After a bit, Beethoven whittles the idea down even
> further, fiddling just with the half step, taking it both
> up and down.

In the associated podcast Kapilow speaks this same text in
words while playing Beethoven's motifs on the piano.  The
listener can verify that this is what Beethoven is doing,
and better appreciate the beauty of the music because
Kapilow has made some of the structure explicit which makes
the music beautiful.  The half note interval at the very end
of the introductory passage is so-to-say the atom, the
building block, from which the entire sonata is assembled.


Then Kapilow compares the composer's disassembling and
re-assembling of a musical theme with the creation of the
universe.  This is where he goes too far.  Instead of
interpreting Beethoven, Kapilow uses Beethoven's authority
to promote a mistaken world view, namely downward
reductionism.  It is simply not true that a look at the
atoms puts us into the center of the universe, as Kapilow
says.

Kapilow explains to the listener, correctly, how Beethoven
is looking for connections between his atomic musical
themes.  But Kapilow himself does not give these connections
the ontological priority which they deserve.  On the
contrary, he brings the following example (not on the
website itself but this is the podcast at 4:12):

> It is kind of like, (inaudible) Palestinians and Israelis,
> but Beethoven is always saying, if you look deeper, they
> are just both people.  If you go down to the subatomic
> level, we are all E and F.  And once we realize what we are at
> base, we can make connections that no one would never had
> made before.

This passage has it all backwards.  Kapilow does not acknowledge
how connected everybody living on this planet is and how
dependent we are on each other.  The connections which he
implores the individuals to establish already exist.  The
connection is primary, not the atomization.  Kapilow does
not see that the atomized interactions between individuals
is an artefact of capitalism.  The capitalists are
connected alright but they are pitting the working class
individuals against each other.  Instead of seeing that
society consists of connections, and that we have to change
the social structure in which we are embedded in order to
tear down the walls of the open air prison that is
Palestine, Kapilow thinks that society is made up of atomized
individuals and that these individuals must remember that
the individuals on the other side of the wall are human
beings too, in order for this wall to topple.

Kapilow is preaching all this to the choir in a very literal
sense, namely, to musicians who have devoted their lives to
touching strangers on a deep emotional level, and their
audiences.  Those moved by and interested in Beethoven
usually do not have to be told about the humanity that
connects us all, they listen to Beethoven because they long
to experience this bond.  The admonition to recognize our
joint humanity can therefore not be directed at the
listeners of Kapilow's podcast.  There is no need for these
listeners to act.  This absence is the last thing I would
like to mention in this essay.

Hans G Ehrbar

_
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] Guardian: Portuguese Communist ​party on course for election success

[Shalva Eliava 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.
*



http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/06/portuguese-communist-party-on-course-election-success
_
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] Syrian refugees

[Ken Hiebert 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.
*

Lüko Willms said:
  You looked up US-american organizations. They would perhaps react to the 
refugees dying at the US-border against Mexico, but why should they take a 
position on a European issue, the huge wave of refugees fleeing the Third World 
countries in Africa and Asia? 

Ken Hiebert replies:
They could be demanding that the US accept more refugees.  According to the 
article below,  "The U.S. has admitted roughly 1,500 Syrian refugees since 2011 
and says that it will resettle no more than 8,000 by the end of 2016. "

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/09/04/major-culprit-creating-crisis-us-rebuked-failing-refugees
The aid group International Rescue Committee is circulating a petition for the 
the U.S. to resettle at least 65,000 Syrian refugees by 2016, and it has so far 
garnered nearly 12,000 signatures. And 14 Senate Democrats have joined in the 
call to "dramatically increase the number of Syrian refugees that we accept for 
resettlement."


_
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] Syrian refugees

[Lüko Willms 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 Sonntag, 6. September 2015 at 15:17, Michael Karadjis via Marxism wrote:

> including a lot of Alawites who see the futility of dying for the regime:

  or for any of the other groups jockeying for the position of the quisling of 
the "International Community" or for the totalitarian Islamic State which at 
least is in a fundamental opposition to imperialism and the balkanization of 
Arabia by the European colonialists. 


 
Cheers, 
Lüko Willms

_
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] Abusing the Syrian refugees another time

[Lüko Willms 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 Samstag, 5. September 2015 at 15:37, A.R. G via Marxism wrote:

> It's worth noting, it's not always clear exactly what or whom the refugees
> are fleeing. Many of the Syrian refugees I spoke with in Egypt and Lebanon
> blamed ISIS and the Nusra Front rather than the regime, although that was
> not necessarily a prevailing view. In any case I don't know why you would
> expect any of these groups to issue statements, but they easily could by
> doing what they always do and blaming the resistance.

 The refugies from Syria have been abused by the warring parties in Syria, by 
Turkey, by Greece (under the famous "left" Syriza government!), by Macedonia, 
by Hungary, by Austria and are being abused again by the German authorities, 
who will quickly show them the right place in some refugee retainment center, 
despite the posturing they display today in face of the unbeateable human wave 
streaming up the Balkan from the Aegean islands off the Turkish coast. 

  And thy are abused again by the right wing of the imperialist war mongers who 
use them as pawn for their war drive, to call for increasing the US aggression 
against Syria by indiscriminate bombings. 

 
Cheers, 
Lüko Willms

_
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