[Marxism] The Cuban Contrast
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. * Let's recap what independent socialist Cuba dealt with after Irma. And contrast this with the Puerto Rican colony of the US as Trump's visit approaches. This report is from a few days ago. Do you think the kind of detail Cuba has managed to compile has happened in Puerto Rico? Never mind the spectacularly different outcomes? Which you will *NEVER *hear reported in the corporate media. In fact the Trump administration is seeking to make sure you won't hear from Cuba by stopping the issuance of visas to Cubans. Jon Flanders *"The National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) along the three chiefs of the strategic regions the country is divided into, reported the following figures to the Cuban National Defense president:* *Close to 1.9 million Cubans were evacuated to safer places. Up to date 11,689 people remain in shelters, receiving state support of food and other first need items in nine provinces. Over 158 thousand houses were affected: 14,657 were totally destroyed and 16,646 suffered large damages. Also, over 23 thousand lost their roofs, and over 100 thousand suffered some damages on them.* *The National Power Grid suffered major damages in most of the country. Some 4,000 poles were knocked down by the winds, close to 3 500 kilometers of power lines went down. Out of the 8 largest power plants, half of them had to halt due to the severity of the damages. Two weeks later, 99.9 percent of the country had the power restored.* *In telecommunications, a quarter of a million landlines were affected, as well as 1,471 internet lines. 27 phone towers fell along 4,764 poles. Today, 85.3 percent of these services are already restored."* http://en.granma.cu/tourism/2017-09-27/cuba-will-be-ready-for-tourist-high-season-without-a-trace-of-hurricane-irma http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2017-09-28/the-guiteras-thermoelectric-plant-up-and-running http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2017-09-27/the-havana-malecon-preparing-to-reopen-photos _ 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] profitting off Puerto Rico's tragedy
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/puerto-rico-rejects-loan-offers-accusing-hedge-funds-of-trying-to-profit-off-hurricanes/ _ 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] Professors Behaving Badly
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * NY Times Op-Ed, Oct. 1 2017 Professors Behaving Badly Gray Matter By NEIL GROSS Is there something about adjunct faculty members that makes them prone to outrageous political outbursts? In August, Michael Isaacson, an adjunct instructor of economics at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, wrote on Twitter, “Some of y’all might think it sucks being an anti-fascist teaching at John Jay College but I think it’s a privilege to teach future dead cops.” Though he later said he was not wishing for his students’ deaths, but merely predicting some would die, his post was roundly condemned. He received death threats and was suspended from his job, ostensibly in the interest of campus safety. There have been similar cases in recent weeks. A sociologist holding a temporary position at the University of Tampa was fired after tweeting that Hurricane Harvey was karmic payback for Republican-voting Texans. Officials at California State University, Fresno, dismissed a history lecturer for tweeting that “Trump must hang.” And an adjunct instructor in gender studies — who had already been fired from Rutgers — lost his fall employment offer from Montclair State University after the revelation that he’d tweeted about his wish to see President Trump shot. Conservative commentators have glossed these incidents as the latest evidence that college and university faculties have been taken over by left-wing radicals. But the incidents might be viewed as part of a different phenomenon: adjunct alienation. In American academia there are two tiers of employment. The first consists of professors on the tenure track or already tenured. Once they’ve proved themselves as teachers and researchers, their jobs are secure. The second tier is everyone else: lecturers who might be hired full time for a semester, but with no promise of continued employment; graduate teaching assistants; post-docs who work in labs; and instructors brought on part time to teach a class or two. The pay isn’t good. Although there’s considerable variation depending on the nature of the appointment, on average adjunct instructors receive only $1,000 for every course credit they teach. Most college courses are three or four credits, and full-time teaching loads pretty much max out at five classes a semester (at community colleges). You can do the math. Adjunct teaching has been expanding for three reasons. First, it’s much cheaper for colleges and universities. Second, American graduate schools award an enormous number of Ph.D.s, even in disciplines where jobs are scarce. Graduates who can’t find tenure-track positions may take adjunct employment rather than give up on the academic dream. And third, for decades conservatives have railed against the institution of tenure, which they see as protecting ideologues. Their attacks have succeeded in weakening it. But there’s reason to believe widespread reliance on adjunct faculty may encourage the very radicalism conservatives fear. Social scientists have found that when aspiring intellectuals face highly restricted employment opportunities, they often take refuge in extreme politics. In a 1996 study, the sociologist Jerome Karabel sought to identify the circumstances under which intellectuals, from would-be academics to writers and artists, embrace or rebel against the status quo. “Especially conducive to the growth of political radicalism,” he wrote, “are societies in which the higher levels of the educational system produce far more graduates than can be absorbed by the marketplace.” Frustrated that their long investments in education and cultural cultivation haven’t paid off, intellectuals in such societies train their anger — and ideas — at the economic and political systems (and social groups) they hold responsible. Professor Karabel cited the example of Germany in the 1930s, when a slow-moving academic labor market increased the appeal of Nazism for a surprising number of underemployed intellectuals. The same situation can breed support for radical movements of the left. Poor job prospects for American thinkers during the Depression helped draw many into socialism or communism. More recently, the sociologist Ruth Milkman found that well-educated millennials were overrepresented among Occupy Wall Street activists. These young people had spent their lives diligently preparing to enter the knowledge economy and became disillusioned when, after the financial crisis, it all seemed to be crashing down. It’s not hard to understand why American adjuncts today would feel frustrated with their lot. Throw that into the
[Marxism] In Crimea, Russian Land Grab Feeds Cries of ‘Carpetbaggers!’
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * NY Times, Oct. 1 2017 In Crimea, Russian Land Grab Feeds Cries of ‘Carpetbaggers!’ By NEIL MacFARQUHAR SEVASTOPOL, Crimea — More than three years after Russia snatched Crimea from Ukraine, the peninsula is suffering through an extended season of discontent. Shady, Kremlin-appointed bureaucrats are proving to be just as corrupt and inept as their Ukrainian predecessors. International sanctions, shrugged off in the heady days after the Russian annexation, have jacked up food prices while endlessly complicating ordinary aspects of life, like banking and travel. Perhaps most galling to Crimeans, the government is hauling thousands of residents into court to confiscate small land holdings distributed free as a campaign ploy in 2010 when Ukraine controlled the Black Sea peninsula. Residents of Sevastopol, famous as a historic battleground and home to the Black Sea fleet, were among the most vocal, militant supporters of Russia when it annexed Crimea. That was then. “I supported reunification because I thought that with Russia’s arrival things would improve,” said Lenur A. Usmanov, a rare outspoken Kremlin partisan from the Tatar minority who has since become a serial protester. “But there is no change.” Yevgeny V. Dzhemal, an activist lawyer fighting the mass land expropriation, put it even more succinctly: “They were bastards under Ukraine, too. Nothing has changed.” The United Nations issued a report this week accusing Russian security agencies of committing “grave” human rights abuses since the annexation. Many of those abuses occurred right after the annexation against those who resisted the takeover. Russia dismissed the report as “absurd” inventions spread by its opponents. Locals largely focus on different complaints. They invariably denigrate the new bureaucrats as carpetbaggers, using the word “varyagi” in Russian, an old word for Viking outsiders, especially when it comes to land confiscation. The city of Sevastopol claims that it must repossess at least 10,000 plots to help create a rational development plan. The owners howl that the “mass land grab” will benefit crooked developers and senior officials who covet what when stitched together amounts to sprawling tracts of choice seaside property. “Nobody thought it would be as bad, with issues emerging suddenly like the land plots,” said Roman Kiyashko, the burly Communist Party candidate for governor whose campaign slogan, “Your man from Sevastopol,” emphasized his native roots. “Russian officials act like an elephant in a china shop. They just implement their policies with no feedback.” Yet many natives stress that their grievances have not reached the point of reconsidering the internationally criticized 2014 referendum in which they voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia. “Stones can fall from the sky as long as we live in our Motherland,” said Oleg Nikolaev, a successful restaurateur, quoting a Russian expression. Taking back Crimea by force in 2014 was celebrated across Russia as a long-overdue restoration of lost superpower might. It made President Vladimir V. Putin wildly popular, something the Kremlin clearly hoped to capitalize on when it scheduled the upcoming presidential election for March 18, the fourth anniversary of the formal annexation of Crimea. For many, however, the euphoria around that date has gone as flat as old champagne. In Sevastopol, the main target of local ire is Dmitri Ovsyannikov, 40, one of a new, nationwide generation of young governors. Appointed acting governor by Mr. Putin last year, he has alienated many Sevastopolians by filling virtually every administrative post with fellow Moscow imports. Even some local officials who support Mr. Putin wonder privately why the president picked someone so aloof. Mr. Ovsyannikov managed to win a rare election to his post earlier this month. But analysts attributed that to a dismal turnout of just under 33 percent and the fact that Mr. Putin campaigned for him. Mr. Putin enjoys cultlike status for both taking back Crimea and for promising to rescue the Black Sea fleet that anchors in Sevastopol from rust bucket oblivion. “I remember at some point in the middle of 2000s I came here for the first time and I almost wept because Sevastopol — a special city for every Russian — was in a terrible state,” Mr. Putin said during one recent visit. Some Sevastopolians are doing the weeping now, convinced that Mr. Putin should rescue them anew. “Putin does not know what these rascals are doing — they want to seize all our land!” cried one man at a small, illegal protest in early September
[Marxism] Fwd: Russia's Empires - Valerie A. Kivelson, Ronald Suny - Oxford University Press
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. * Ronald Suny is outstanding. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/russias-empires-9780199924394 _ 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] Writing While Socialist
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. * A year ago, Mark Now of Workers Writers School (New York) and I had a conversation about ’socialist writing’ and the socialist writing workshops I had been teaching in India. This was published in Jacobin last year. This year, I taught a series of schools in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata – including alongside P. Sainath in Chennai. Mark talked to me once more about the experience. Our interview this time is published in the Boston Review. You can find it here: http://bostonreview.net/global-justice/vijay-prashad-mark-nowak-writing-while-socialist. Warmly, Vijay. _ 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
