[Marxism] ......and its name is Communism | Jenny Farrell | Culture Matters

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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On the 170th anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto, Jenny 
Farrell introduces Brecht’s poetic re-writing of the Communist Manifesto, with 
its ‘spectre of communism, which continues to be a threat to the rulers and a 
friend to the damned of the earth.’
http://www.culturematters.org.uk/index.php/arts/poetry/item/2725-and-its-name-is-communism


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Re: [Marxism] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/maya-laser-lidar-guatemala-pacunam/

[Fred Murphy via Marxism]

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I was reading an interview with Jason Moore* yesterday where he associates
the crisis of European feudalism in the 14th century with the end of the
Medieval Warm Period. Reading this exchange I was curious if the same could
have affected the Maya - a quick Google search on “medieval warm period
maya” turned up this and a number of other relevant articles:
http://irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows92/irows92.htm

*Moore: “If you look just at the experience of Western Europe over the past
thousand years or so, you see that after 300, when the Roman Climate
Optimum—that is, the favorable climate for the Roman Empire—came to an end,
what happened? Well, Roman power collapses in Western Europe. By 500, the
peasants are occupying the villas, repurposing them, re-establishing
village life. Life expectancy rises. Gender equality increases. Fertility
falls. It is a golden age for everyday people. A similar story occurs about
the later Middle Ages, around 1290, when the medieval warm period comes to
an end. What happens? The Black Death. Once it hits in the 1350s, Europe’s
ruling classes try to reimpose serfdom, but the peasants and workers won’t
go for it. They say, hell no, we’re not going back.”  [By the way, his
first comment suggests that the “dark ages” and the “barbarians” may have
gotten a bad rap from historians wistful about the collapse of the Roman
Empire which was after all based in substantial part on slavery. The
fallacies of a stagist view of history - maybe there’s a problem with the
slogan Socialism or barbarism...]
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/raj-patel-jason-moore-history-world-seven-cheap-things-interview

On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 3:34 PM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> On 2/3/18 3:26 PM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote:
>
> > Jared Diamond's "Collapse" gives an interesting account of the collapse
> of
>
> the Mayan civilization. ...


> > John Reimann
> >
>
>  ...


> What is missing from Diamond’s analysis, however, is the *cause* of
> drought. One would think that an environmentalist would want to address
> this question. To discover the answer, you have to turn elsewhere. In
> particular, the work of anthropologist Brian Fagan is most instructive.
> In a series of books on ancient societies, he focuses on the role of El
> Niño-Southern California (ENSO) events in their collapse.
>
> ...


>
> full:
> https://louisproyect.org/2005/03/22/jared-diamonds-collapse-part-two/
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[Marxism] Japan from postwar take-off to economic stagnation (1945-1994)

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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The slightly odd second date is because in 1994 I wrote this essay.

I went back to university that year, after quite a few years as a factory
worker and labourer.  One of the courses I did was on 'Japan and the World
Economy' and this is an essay I wrote during that course:

"In 1945 Japan’s collapse appeared total.  Its military were defeated and
disarmed and much of its industry was destroyed.  Twenty-five percent of
the country’s wealth and $20billion in overseas assets were wiped out.[5]
Apart from the maintenance of the titular position of emperor, much of its
political power structure was also demolished.  How did it manage to
recover so quickly and become the second most important economic power in
the world?

"Takatoshi Ito sees Japan’s phenomenal growth from the perspective of
conventional supply side/demand side economics.[6]  For him, “growth can
occur through capital accumulation, through increases in working hours and
employment, or through technological progress that enhances the
productivity of existing capital and labour.”  The relative importance of
each of these factors is analysed by measuring how much they grew by and
then relating this to overall growth.  Not surprisingly, the conclusion is
drawn that in Japan “capital accumulation was more important than labour”
and that “More than half of Japan’s growth is attributed to ‘technological
progress and residuals’.”[7] At the same time, Ito sees a drawback to this
approach, namely, “It does not offer any explanation as to why those
factors behaved as they did.”[8] As he notes, it simply raises a series of
other questions.  these include the source of finance for the large
increase in capital stock, whether the particularly high rate of
technological progress is attributable merely to ‘catching up’ with the
West, and the role the government played in achieving high levels of
growth.  These are certainly important, but they do not by themselves go to
the heart of the issue. . .

full at:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/japan-and-the-new-world-order-1-from-postwar-take-off-to-stagnation-1945-1994/
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[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-War]: Booth on Hogeland, 'Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion that Opened the West'

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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-- Forwarded message --
From: H-Net Staff 
Date: Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 8:39 PM
Subject: H-Net Review [H-War]: Booth on Hogeland, 'Autumn of the Black
Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion that Opened the West'
To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org


William Hogeland.  Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the
U.S. Army and the Invasion that Opened the West.  New York  Farrar,
Straus  Giroux, 2017.  464 pp.  $28.00 (paper), ISBN
978-0-374-90177-6.

Reviewed by Ryan W. Booth (Washington State University)
Published on H-War (February, 2018)
Commissioned by Margaret Sankey

The eyes of the nation rested on the fate of the Old Northwest in
1794. Americans obsessively worried about it either falling into
British hands or becoming a permanent homeland for increasingly
hostile Native Americans. The twin goals of opening the West to
American settlement at the expense of indigenous peoples, and the
creation of regular army to protect and expand that enterprise,
coalesced in the 1790s to create the US empire. William Hogeland's
_Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the
Invasion that Opened the West_ provides a fresh narrative on this
pivotal period. The author's main thesis is that the creation of a
permanent military force, tested by war with the Miami Confederacy
and their vanquishing of the same, set the United States on the path
of "industrial and imperial power that, with victory in its first
war, the United States did go on to achieve" (p. 375). The Battle of
Fallen Timbers emerged as the moment that turned the US from nascent
weakling republic into a powerful empire intent on western expansion.


Hogeland's work is divided into three parts that follow a cause,
course, and consequences framework. Part 1 explores the various
machinations by British Americans to gain access to the Ohio Country.
The work pays special attention to George Washington and his exploits
both in real estate and with the Virginia militia during the Seven
Years' War. The author also reconstructs the lives of Blue Jacket and
Little Turtle as well as their tribal claims to their homelands. Part
2 focuses on the fledgling US and its various attempts to organize
its settlement claims to the Old Northwest and the people therein. As
the country grappled with its newly won independence, the
consequences of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and British intransigence
around the Great Lakes, the Americans frequently found themselves
between a rock and a hard place. They lacked the resources, prestige,
and strong military to project power into their newly acquired
territory. The problems were further compounded by botched treaty
negotiations and ruinous military expeditions led by Josiah Harmar
and later by Arthur St. Clair. Part 3 focuses on the efforts of
Anthony Wayne and his newly created and permanent US Army to avenge
St. Clair's defeat and establish American hegemony over the Native
peoples of the Ohio Country. With Wayne's successful battle at Fallen
Timbers, the remaining Indian confederates found no protection from
British forces and their coalition fractured. Thus, the United States
established its dominion over the Old Northwest and ended any serious
threats from Native Americans in the territory.

The book's strengths lie in the author's extensive research on
various figures such as George Washington and Anthony Wayne.
Washington's biography is well-trod territory, but Hogeland holds a
strong line to focus exclusively on his interests in the Northwest
Territories. His Washington appears as a calculating puppet master
intent on western land speculation. Where Washington was calculating,
Wayne appears every bit the rough-and-ready character that he was.
His troubles seem innumerable, from being a lady's man and terrible
planter to his sullen outbursts at perceived slights. This is all the
more remarkable given his "mad" skills of disciplining and training
an army; in this way, Hogeland draws on Alan Gaff's work in _Bayonets
in the Wilderness_ (2004). Other figures leave an impression, but are
even less edifying, such as Henry Knox, who seems only concerned with
lining his pockets at the government's expense. James Wilkinson
emerges as the most perfidious spy in US history, as well as
archenemy of "mad" Anthony.

The other main contribution is to revive the literature on the
conundrum of a standing army in the early republic. Most of the
founders also acknowledged that the militia was wholly inadequate to
the task of providing a consistent and disciplined system of
protection against all foreign and domestic enemies. This debate,
however, is not new and is 

[Marxism] Death of social democratic leader

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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Dave Barrett was the premier of BC from 1972 to 1975.
As time permits I may write about this government as I lived through the whole 
experience.
When he  became premier, owners of golf courses in BC were worried as to what 
his attitude would be.  As a boy, he was not allowed to be a caddy because he 
was Jewish.
ken h

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/former-bc-premier-dave-barrett-dies-at-age-87/article37840738/
 

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[Marxism] 150th anniversary of birth of Constance de Markievicz

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Today (Feb 4) marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the first woman
elected to the British parliament! This was in the general election of
December 1918, at the end of WW1. No, not a Tory reactionary, but an Irish
revolutionary - Constance Markievicz.

She was in jail at the time in London. She had been second-in-command lof
the insurrectionary forces at Stephen's Green during the 1916 Rebellion in
Dublin; after the surrender she was tried by court-martial and sentenced to
death, commuted to penal servitidue for life on account of being a woman.

The British were subsequently forced to release the prisoners, from the end
of 1916 to mid-1917. Considered one of the hardest of the hard-core, she
was in the very last group of prisoners to be released, returning to an
ecstatis welcome in Dublin.

In May 1918 she was arrested for sedition and again imprisoned in England.
It was here that she ran for parliament.

She stood on a platform of independence and radical social change in
Ireland and not taking her seat at Westminster if elected.

In that election, 73 seats were won by people who said they wouldn't take
their seat at Westminster if elected.

Markievicz was the founder of the very first republican paramilitary
organisation of the 20th century, Na Fianna Eireann. She was one of the
founding leaders, a few years later, of a workers' militia, described by
Lenin as "Europe's first Red Army".

And she subsequently led the women's wing of the Irish Republican Army,
Cumann na mBan.

She opposed the "Anglo-Irish Treaty" of Dec 1921, arguing that it was an
attempt by the ruling classes of England and Ireland to prevent the unity
of British and Irish workers and a betrayal of the masses of countries like
India and Egypt who were still struggling to free themselves from the yoke
of British imperialism.

Here is Markievicz's speech against the Treaty, delivered in the Irish
parliament, where she was minister of labour at the time.

https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/markievicz-speech-against-the-1921-treaty/
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[Marxism] John Pilger on the importance of documentaries

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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I first understood the power of the documentary during the editing of my
first film, The Quiet Mutiny. In the commentary, I make reference to a
chicken, which my crew and I encountered while on patrol with American
soldiers in Vietnam.

“It must be a Vietcong chicken – a communist chicken,” said the sergeant.
He wrote in his report: “enemy sighted”.

The chicken moment seemed to underline the farce of the war – so I included
it in the film. That may have been unwise. The regulator of commercial
television in Britain – then the Independent Television Authority or ITA –
had demanded to see my script. What was my source for the political
affiliation of the chicken? I was asked. Was it really a communist chicken,
or could it have been a pro-American chicken?

Of course, this nonsense had a serious purpose; when The Quiet Mutiny was
broadcast by ITV in 1970, the US ambassador to Britain, Walter Annenberg, a
personal friend of President Richard Nixon, complained to the. . . .

full at:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/john-pilger-we-need-to-keep-the-documentary-alive/
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[Marxism] Turkey: HDP calls for support for Rojava

[Chris Slee via Marxism]

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The left-wing Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has condemned Turkey's invasion 
of the Afrin region in northern Syria...

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/turkey-left-wing-hdp-opposition-calls-support-rojava/

An earlier Green Left Weekly article on the invasion:

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/afrin-invasion-turkey-northern-syria-democratic-revolution-russia-united-states/

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Re: [Marxism] Viewpoint magazine: Eric Blanc on Rosa L and the Polish Socialist Party

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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 Comments by Zbigniew Kowalewski via Facebook on Eric's article:

I strongly agree with Blanc when he says that "due to the prevailing
Marxist historiographical focus on Bolshevism and central Russia, the
distinct contributions and experiences of revolutionaries in the
borderlands of the Tsarist Empire have been mostly marginalized", or, to
say it more exactly, nearly totally ignored. I find that it is fine that
Blanc speaks about the PPS because of the historical importance of this
party in the Polish workers movement.

Some thinkers like Kelles-Krauz and other left-wing militants and currents
of the PPS elaborated some important and advanced ideas. Especially
Kelles-Krauz had advanced ideas on how to link the struggle for the
independence and unity of Poland with a workers' revolution. He was also,
in my opinion, brillant and unique among Marxists on the Jewish question in
Eastern Europe as a nationality question, but at the same time he was a
disappointing Polish statist on how to solve this question. In general, his
advanced ideas were not followed by the PPS leadership. He was criticized
for stressing too much the permanent revolution (the term was used in this
debate before the appearance of the first texts by Trotsky on permanent
revolution in Russia) and, on the other side, Pilsudski was criticized by
the leadership for not stressing permanent revolution enough or at all.

During the 1905 revolution the PPS build, under Pilsudski's command, an
impressive working-class based military organisation. It was the biggest
nad most active revolutionary armed organization in the Russian empire
during this revolution, and both Lenin and Trotsky observed it as an
experience that should be studied When, in 1939, Trotsky wrote that “the
theoretical work [on the question of workers’ self-defense] must consist of
studying the experience of military and combat organizations of the [among
others] Polish revolutionary nationalists”, he had in mind the Combat
Organization of the PPS active in the 1905 revolution (its characterization
by Trotsky as "revolutionary nationalist" was not exact, because it was a
socialist one).

After the 1905 revolution and the split of the PPS in two distinct parties,
the PPS-Left and the PPS-Revolutionary Faction (including the Combat
Organization), the latter quickly returned to the historical name, the PPS,
and established itself definitely as the majoritary but reformist party of
the Polish workers' movement. Inside the PPS, and later outside this party,
but with its support, Pilsudski developed its own "national-revolutionary
militarist" project, weekening progressively its links with the workers'
movement, finding a petty bourgeois base for its implementation, and
forming an alliance with Austria against Russia in the imperialist war.

The left of the PPS and, later, the PPS-Left as a distinct party were
unable to maintain its position, stressed in the article, on the Polish
nationality question and the fight for the independence of Poland in the
framework of a program and strategy of workers' revolution, The position
adopted by this party and presented in a positive light by him was
abandoned relatively quickly and became close to the position of Luxemburg
and the SDKPiL. So the evolution of the PPS-Left in this field finished in
a failure. And when, in 1918, the PPS-Left and the SDKPiL fused to form the
Communist Workers' Party of Poland (KRPP), later renamed Communist Party of
Poland (KPP), this new party was totally unable to put the nationality
question on the agenda. So, the PPS became the standard-bearer of the
independence and unity of Poland inside the workers' movement, adapting
itself and the majority of this movement to the building of a bourgeois
national State.

So, both sides of the workers' movement, the PPS on one side, and the
SDKPiL and the PPS-Left on the other side, failed dramatically. The former
fought for the independence and unity of Poland but abandoned the workers'
revolution, becoming the left-wing actor in the building of the bourgeois
state, while the latter fought for workers' revolution but ignored the
struggle for national independence. In this manner, both contributed to the
failure of workers' revolution in Poland. It should be clear, and I think
it is not in this article by Blanc, that there was never, on a long term, a
consistent current and/or party able to present a programmatic and
strategic alternative to the the positions of both the PPS and the SDKPiL.

But there is something else: and very important, too: both sides failed
totally to have a correct position on the nationality question of
Ukrainian, Belarusian and 

Re: [Marxism] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/maya-laser-lidar-guatemala-pacunam/

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 2/3/18 3:26 PM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote:


Jared Diamond's "Collapse" gives an interesting account of the collapse of
the Mayan civilization. As far as I can understand it, their civilization
was based partly slavery and partly feudal relations. Diamond writes: The
Kings' "attention was evidently focused on their short-term concerns of
enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with each
other, and extracting enough food from the peasants to support all those
activities Maya kings sought to outdo each other with more and more
impressive temples, covered with thicker and thicker plaster -- reminiscent
in turn of the extravagant conspicuous consumption by moern American CEO.
The passivity of Easter (Island) chiefs and Maya kings in the face of the
real big [environmental] threats to their societies completes our list of
disquieting parallels."

In his book, Diamond recounts the collapse of various other societies, from
the Norse society in Greenland to Anasazi society in America's Chaco Canyon
to Easter Island society. He also recounts how a few societies successfully
dealt with similar environmental challenges as those that collapsed. What
he doesn't point out is that all those societies that survived were
non-class societies and all those which collapsed were class societies. In
every case of a collapse, what comes clear is that the ruling class had to
maintain its methods of extracting wealth from nature because the culture -
and hence the justification for their rule - was based on that.

John Reimann



To begin with in replying to Diamond, it should be understood that Mayan 
collapse has to be put into some kind of historical context. Even those 
who agree with Diamond’s skewed analysis have to concede that the 
collapse was preceded by ten centuries of economic and social viability, 
marked as it was by feudal oppression. As Mayan scholar Robert Sharer 
wrote me a couple of weeks ago, every society might strive for such 
longevity regardless of the ultimate outcome. By contrast, the USA has 
been existence for less than 250 years but it is already threatening to 
destroy itself and the rest of the planet.


To start with, the Mayan territory was inimical to agriculture. It is a 
testimony to their ingenuity that they made it so productive for one 
thousand years. While Sharer believes that it was based on 
slash-and-burn (swidden) cultivation, scholars adduced by Diamond claim 
that Mayan population density could have only been allowed through more 
advanced–and more risky–technology including irrigation and hill slope 
terracing. Of course, it is highly speculative to estimate population 
density from over one thousand years ago, but taking Diamond at face 
value, there is still no question that the underlying soil fertility was 
poor at best.


Although Mayan society had endured drought over its thousand year 
history, there is evidence that the most severe drought coincides with 
the collapse. Although Diamond acknowledges that such droughts occurred, 
he thinks that they were only critical insofar as they coincided with 
“too many people” in a confined space.


What is missing from Diamond’s analysis, however, is the *cause* of 
drought. One would think that an environmentalist would want to address 
this question. To discover the answer, you have to turn elsewhere. In 
particular, the work of anthropologist Brian Fagan is most instructive. 
In a series of books on ancient societies, he focuses on the role of El 
Niño-Southern California (ENSO) events in their collapse.


In his latest, titled “The Long Summer: How Climate Changed 
Civilization,” Fagan points to the research done by climatologist David 
Hodell. By examining titanium traces in the waters off of Venezuela (a 
very precise way to measure droughts), Hodell concluded that a major 
ENSO event coincided with Mayan collapse. Archaeologist Dick Gill 
studied Swedish tree rings and came to similar conclusions.


Studying the evidence of Mayan ruins from this period, archaeologist 
Peter Harrison discovered evidence of cannibalism–a sure sign of a 
society driven to desperation. Another group of indigenous peoples, the 
Anasazi, whose social structures were similar to the Mayans, have also 
been connected to cannibalism. In their case, the findings have taken on 
a sensational aspect, especially when they are divorced from the 
climatological and economic circumstances that may explain them. In 
other words, cannibalism is not seen in the same terms as what happened 
to the Donner party, but rather as an expression of what Diamond termed 
“The Golden Age That Never Was.”


The scholar most 

Re: [Marxism] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/maya-laser-lidar-guatemala-pacunam/

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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Jared Diamond's "Collapse" gives an interesting account of the collapse of
the Mayan civilization. As far as I can understand it, their civilization
was based partly slavery and partly feudal relations. Diamond writes: The
Kings' "attention was evidently focused on their short-term concerns of
enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with each
other, and extracting enough food from the peasants to support all those
activities Maya kings sought to outdo each other with more and more
impressive temples, covered with thicker and thicker plaster -- reminiscent
in turn of the extravagant conspicuous consumption by moern American CEO.
The passivity of Easter (Island) chiefs and Maya kings in the face of the
real big [environmental] threats to their societies completes our list of
disquieting parallels."

In his book, Diamond recounts the collapse of various other societies, from
the Norse society in Greenland to Anasazi society in America's Chaco Canyon
to Easter Island society. He also recounts how a few societies successfully
dealt with similar environmental challenges as those that collapsed. What
he doesn't point out is that all those societies that survived were
non-class societies and all those which collapsed were class societies. In
every case of a collapse, what comes clear is that the ruling class had to
maintain its methods of extracting wealth from nature because the culture -
and hence the justification for their rule - was based on that.

John Reimann

-- 
"No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them."
Assata Shakur
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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[Marxism] Fwd: Nelson Blackstock, ¡Presente! | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Yesterday, Nelson Blackstock, a comrade and friend for nearly 50 years, 
died from the complications of Parkinson’s. He was a central leader of 
the SWP in the 1970s, serving as the editor of the Militant newspaper 
and on the political committee. Under ordinary circumstances, someone 
with those kinds of credentials would deserve an obituary in the 
Militant but Nelson became persona non grata to some extent because he 
was perceived as my friend. But it is just as possible that his death 
would have gone unnoticed since there were other “offenses” on his 
record after he had left the party in the mid-80s having nothing to do 
with me. When he and his wife Diane decided to take a trip to Cuba, they 
were told that sympathizers were not permitted to make such an 
unsupervised trip. They ignored the party’s instructions just as Nelson 
ignored its categorization of me as an enemy.


Being ostracized from the SWP and its periphery of sympathizers has 
Kafkaesque dimensions. Last year, when Priscilla Ring died, Nelson 
called party HQ in Los Angeles to find out where the memorial meeting 
was being held but was told that he was banned from the event. I 
surmised that this was because he was seen as my friend. This mattered 
more than his close ties to Harry and Priscilla Ring who had treated 
Nelson like a son in many ways. More recently, when Nelson tried to 
contact Jeff Powers, another diehard supporter of the SWP who was 
Nelson’s friend even longer than me, he got the cold shoulder. I doubt 
that the Jehovah’s Witnesses “shunning” behavior is more inhumane than this.


Nelson was born on September 7, 1944 to a working-class mother and 
father in suburban Atlanta. For most of his youth, they used an 
outhouse. His father sanded floors for a living and could easily be 
reduced to the status of a “deplorable” since his racial views were like 
those of other Southern whites. There’s a photo of his father holding a 
dead snake by its tail that Nelson treasured. If you look at it, you’d 
conclude that he was the least likely father to raise a son who would 
devote many years to opposing racism and capitalism.


full: https://louisproyect.org/2018/02/03/nelson-blackstock-presente/
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: National Socialist Furniture: Ingvar Kamprad and th e IKEA Vision

[Jim Farmelant via Marxism]

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In the case of Ingvar Kamprad, his support for Nazism can be attributed to the 
fact that his parents were immigrants from the Ingvar Kamprad, and his father 
and grandfather were pro-Nazi. But it was also the case that there was 
considerable sympathy for the Nazis among Sweden's upper class between the wars.

I remember years ago being shocked when I read Ingmar Bergman’s autobiography 
*The Magic Lantern*. Bergman pointed out that sympathy for Nazi Germany was 
widespread in the milieu in which he grew up. Some of his school teachers were 
openly sympathetic to the “new Germany.” One teacher used to spend his summers 
attending officers' meetings in Bavaria. Bergman's brother (who would later on 
enter the diplomatic corps) was an organizer for the Swedish National 
Socialists. Ingmar himself at the age of 16 went to Germany as an exchange 
student. Since, he was a pastor’s son, he was paired with a German boy who was 
also a pastor’s son. This German pastor was an ardent Nazi who was as prone to 
use texts from Mein Kampf for his Sunday sermons as he was the Gospels. As an 
exchange student young Ingmar became an enthusiast for Hitler’s regime. Bergman 
reported that his infatuation with Nazism lasted until after the end of WW II 
when finally the evidence of what the Nazis did to the Jews and others had 
become so strong as to become undeniable. However, in the meantime, Ingmar’s 
family had become close to the German family that he had boarded with. His 
sister became engaged to the German student that Ingmar had been paired with. 
He became a pilot in the Luftwaffe and was shot down and killed at the 
beginning of WW II.

I would also add that reading Bergman’s memoir seemed to me to shed new light 
on some of his best known films. I cannot avoid feeling, for example, that his 
film, The Seventh Seal, about the knight, Antoninus Block, who returns home to 
Sweden from the Crusades, thoroughly disillusioned, was reflective of Bergman’s 
own experience of becoming disillusioned with National Socialism and the Third 
Reich when they were defeated and Bergman became aware of how evil they were.

Jim Farmelant
http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
http://www.foxymath.com 
Learn or Review Basic Math


-- Original Message --
From: Louis Proyect via Marxism 
To: Jim Farmelant 
Subject: [Marxism] Fwd: National Socialist Furniture: Ingvar Kamprad and the 
IKEA Vision
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2018 07:45:30 -0500

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https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/02/national-socialist-furniture-ingvar-kamprad-and-the-ikea-vision/
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After Weeks Of Rumors, Joanna Gaines Comes Clean
risingstarnewspaper.com
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5a75fb5cd47497b5c4ef7st03vuc

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[Marxism] The Nunes Memo: Tempest in a teapot or tip of the iceberg

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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So now a new furor has broken out over the House Intelligence Committee
breaking precedent and releasing its “Nunes Memo”. Is this just a tempest
in a teapot, or is it the tip of the iceberg?"

Basically, the release of this memo is another step in Trump's drive to
seize personal control over the main institutions of the US government, to
rule "by fiat" as one article said about him. That's the meaning of all the
talk about "our democracy" being at risk. It means another step away from
capitalist (or "bourgeois") democracy and towards bonapartism. Here's why:

https://oaklandsocialist.com/2018/02/03/nunes-memo-tempest-in-a-teapot-or-tip-of-the-iceberg/


-- 
"No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them."
Assata Shakur
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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[Marxism] Fwd: Tomgram: Nomi Prins, How to Set the Economy on Fire | TomDispatch

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Wall Street is now thoroughly emboldened as the financial elite follows 
the mantra of Kelly Clarkston’s hit song: “What doesn’t kill you makes 
you stronger.” Since the crisis of 2007-2008, the Big Six U.S. banks -- 
JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, 
and Morgan Stanley -- have seen the share price of their stocks 
significantly outpace those of the S 500 index as a whole.


Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest 
bank (that’s paid $13 billion in settlements for various fraudulent 
acts), recently even pooh-poohed the chances of the Democratic Party in 
2020, suggesting that it was about time its leaders let banks do 
whatever they wanted. As he told Maria Bartiromo, host of Fox Business’s 
Wall Street Week, “The thing about the Democrats is they will not have a 
chance, in my opinion. They don’t have a strong centrist, pro-business, 
pro-free enterprise person.”


This is a man who was basically gifted two banks, Bear Stearns and 
Washington Mutual, by the U.S. government during the financial crisis. 
That present came as his own company got cheap loans from the Federal 
Reserve, while clamoring for billions in bailout money that he swore it 
didn’t need.


Dimon can afford to be brazen. JPMorgan Chase is now the second most 
profitable company in the country. Why should he be worried about what 
might happen in another crisis, given that the Trump administration is 
in charge? With pro-business and pro-bailout thinking reigning supreme, 
what could go wrong?


full: 
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176380/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins%2C_how_to_set_the_economy_on_fire/

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[Marxism] Fwd: Jacobin Is Fueling the Lies About Syria

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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By Daniel Lazare, a case-hardened Assadist:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/jacobin-fueling-lies-syria/
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[Marxism] [UCE] One Person’s Terrorist? Reflections on Zohra Drif’s Memoir of the Algerian Revolution | Bill Fletcher Jr. | The Nation

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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https://www.thenation.com/article/one-persons-terrorist-reflections-on-zohra-drifs-memoir-of-the-algerian-revolution/


Sent from my iPhone

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[Marxism] Fwd: Big Surprise: Rich Globalists Love Trump – LobeLog

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://lobelog.com/big-surprise-rich-globalists-love-trump/
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[Marxism] Fwd: Trading economics the Chinese way | Michael Roberts Blog

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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In my view, the Chinese economy remains at a structural crossroads.  The 
state and state enterprises continue to dominate the economy in 
investment, employment and production.  That means that foreign capital, 
domestic private capital and market forces do not hold sway, even though 
they have been increasing in weight and power over the last 30 years.


My view is controversial in Marxist circles. The vast majority of 
Marxist economists and ‘experts’ on Marx’s ‘theory of the state’ reckon 
that China is capitalist or ‘state capitalist’.  But for me, the class 
nature of the Chinese state remains open.


All I would add at this point is to remind readers of the data that I 
published in a past post on the sheer weight of the public sector and 
public assets in the Chinese economy.


full: 
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2018/02/02/trading-economics-the-chinese-way/

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[Marxism] Fwd: The Birth of Intermediacy? — Crooked Timber

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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I’m taking a break from reading stuff about political theory and 
liberalism and reading, instead, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and 
the Deep Origins of Consciousness [amazon]. It turns out Peter 
Godfrey-Smith on the octopus brain is more like Jacob Levy on 
Montesquieu and intermediacy than I was expecting. (The cover of Levy’s 
book is a bit tentacular. Maybe they should have played that up?)


http://crookedtimber.org/2018/02/01/the-birth-of-intermediacy/#more-43796
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