date:20191108

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Begin forwarded message:

> From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW 
> Date: November 7, 2019 at 7:57:19 AM EST
> To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> Cc: H-Net Staff 
> Subject: H-Net Review [H-War]:  Cotton on Knodell and  Axe, 'The 'Stan'
> Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> 
> Kevin Knodell, David Axe.  The 'Stan.  Illustrated by Blue 
> Delliquanti. Annapolis  Dead Reckoning, 2018.  Illustrations. 128 pp. 
> $16.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-68247-098-5.
> 
> Reviewed by Joshua Cotton (Jackson State University)
> Published on H-War (November, 2019)
> Commissioned by Margaret Sankey
> 
> The conflict in Afghanistan has drawn on to become the longest war in 
> US history. To date, an entire generation has been born and raised in 
> the eighteen years since the initial invasion of October 7th, 2001. 
> As a result of the near ceaseless conflict, more than sixty-nine 
> thousand coalition troops and thirty-eight thousand civilians have 
> lost their lives in the ongoing conflict.[1] The human cost of such a 
> protracted war can never truly be calculated and at best we can hope 
> to collect and curate an accurate record of the people caught in its 
> wake. Kevin Knodell, David Axe, and Blue Delliquanti's _The 'Stan_ 
> does just that in what many might find a peculiar way. _The 'Stan_ is 
> a graphic novel collection of short comics about the American 
> invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Told from the first-hand 
> accounts of US soldiers, Afghan security forces, and a Taliban 
> ambassador, _The 'Stan_ deals with multiple perspectives and 
> reactions to the conflict in seventeen short comics ranging from 
> before the invasion to Americans returning home during the 2013 
> security transfer. 
> 
> It may seem odd to some to retell the experiences of participants in 
> such a violent conflict in a graphic novel. For many the format is 
> synonymous with fiction and whimsy, but in the hands of a talented 
> author and artist it provides a medium that injects life and vibrancy 
> into historical accounts. Shifting viewpoints and dynamic visual 
> panels can redirect narrative focus from scholarly interpretation to 
> a sense of active participation in events. Details often drafted by 
> writers are ostensibly shaded by the flourishes of their literary 
> voice and academic interpretation; whereas the medium of the graphic 
> novel allows for a writer to submit only the facts and details 
> essential to the story, which an artist must then interpret much the 
> same way the reader would. This binary revision and perspective help 
> reshape narratives by removing trace elements of bias and are 
> especially effective when dealing with primary accounts as these 
> stylistic choices remove much of the author while maintaining the 
> authenticity of the interviewee. 
> 
> At its heart _The 'Stan_ is an attempt to humanize the conflict by 
> introducing readers to very real, very human participants in the 
> conflict. The larger politics of declining superpowers and fanatic 
> theocracies are only passing backdrops to the reactions and 
> experiences of those in the crosshairs of the conflict. _The 'Stan_ 
> begins with an account of the coming of the Americans as told by 
> Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan. Zaeef's 
> story begins with his involvement with the Mujahideen as a 
> fifteen-year-old boy during the Soviet occupation. His story harkens 
> back to the deep resolve of the war-hardened Taliban fighters who had 
> survived not only the Soviet invasion but also the brutality of the 
> warlords who preyed on the nation in the Soviet's wake. Most 
> poignantly, Zaeef scribbles: "Yet others were dancing to the drum of 
> the Americans. They failed to understand what the future held for 
> them" (p. 3). The next panel sees him bound and blindfolded in the 
> orange jumpsuit of a Guantanamo Bay detainee. Zaeef's story is a 
> fitting beginning for the book. It prepares readers for the sense of 
> futility that seems to permeate much of the rest of the book. Many of 
> the American soldiers display a sense of optimism about their initial 
> mission, which is quickly dashed by the constant threat of an 
> invisible insurgency, malfunctioning equipment, and an inability to 
> create a lasting peace and security for the civilian population and 
> their allies. 
> 
> There is an absurdity in war. _The 'Stan_ does not shy away from that 
> reality and it is demonstrated again and again throughout many of the 
> stories. Multi-million-dollar equipment

[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-War]: Golding on Randall, 'Exporting Revolution: Cuba's Global Solidarity'

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Begin forwarded message:

> From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW 
> Date: November 7, 2019 at 7:57:47 AM EST
> To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> Cc: H-Net Staff 
> Subject: H-Net Review [H-War]:  Golding on Randall, 'Exporting Revolution: 
> Cuba's Global Solidarity'
> Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> 
> Margaret Randall.  Exporting Revolution: Cuba's Global Solidarity.  
> Durham  Duke University Press, 2017.  Illustrations. 280 pp.  $26.95 
> (paper), ISBN 978-0-8223-6904-2; $99.95 (cloth), ISBN 
> 978-0-8223-6384-2.
> 
> Reviewed by Marcus Oliver Golding (University of Texas at Austin)
> Published on H-War (November, 2019)
> Commissioned by Margaret Sankey
> 
> "Exporting the revolution" became a synonym for impending communist 
> takeover in Latin America during the Cold War. The United States 
> employed this old phrase to characterize any action taken by Cuba 
> beyond its borders as a ploy to undermine democracy and capitalism in 
> the "free world." Margaret Randall's Exporting Revolution: Cuba's 
> Global Solidarity provides an alternative interpretation of this idea 
> by focusing on the revolution's policy of solidarity with the world. 
> The author asks what has motivated an underdeveloped nation, which 
> has faced an economic embargo for decades, to be generous with other 
> impoverished countries. Her main argument is that the roots of Cuba's 
> global solidarity lie in the New Man created by the revolution after 
> Fidel Castro's victory over Fulgencio Batista. The new regime 
> instilled generations of citizens with such values as selflessness, 
> kindness, and care for the less fortunate. This commitment to social 
> justice explains Cuba's seemingly unique approach to humanitarian aid 
> around the world. 
> 
> Randall examines Cuba's global solidarity policy by addressing 
> several domestic and international programs launched from the onset 
> of the revolution in 1959 until the second decade of the twenty-first 
> century. She also draws on her own experiences and engagement with 
> these initiatives as she lived and raised her children there for 
> several years. Randall concludes by arguing that Cuba's solidarity 
> might not be completely driven by altruism but that any capitalist 
> model of humanitarian aid pales in comparison with the example set 
> forth by the Caribbean island. 
> 
> Central to Cuba's solidarity policy are education and health care. 
> Since 1959 the country's main concern became providing free access to 
> education and health care for everyone on the island. Randall reveals 
> how during the first years of the revolution the government favored 
> quantity over quality of education, leading to deficiencies in the 
> system, such as poorly trained teachers. However, the state soon 
> overcame these hurdles by training qualified professionals and 
> eventually exporting educators to other countries in need of them. As 
> a consequence of these policies, the government eradicated illiteracy 
> from the island while citizens have enjoyed tuition-free education 
> since Castro's power grab. Mirroring its educational breakthroughs at 
> home, Randall shows Cuba's solidarity with the rest of the world 
> through such international programs as Yes I Can. Launched by the 
> state in 2001, this initiative has fought illiteracy in more than 
> thirty countries and has been praised for its effective pedagogic 
> methods by international organizations like UNESCO. 
> 
> Health care takes central stage throughout the book. The author 
> devotes significantly more time to explain the country's health-care 
> policies and humanitarian aid to other parts of the world. Randall 
> emphasizes the commitment of the Cuban government to free diagnosis 
> and healing for every citizen. She acknowledges that periods of 
> economic stress have left the island's hospitals bereft of medical 
> supplies. However, the author contends that those obstacles have not 
> stopped Cuba from having a health-care system where everyone is taken 
> care of, every child is vaccinated, and freedom of reproductive 
> choice has been available to all women. 
> 
> Internationally, Randall exposes how Cuba's need for helping others 
> has driven its citizens to different locations around the globe. From 
> providing doctors and health-care specialists to fight Ebola in 
> Sierra Leone to sending first response teams to regions struck by 
> natural disasters like in Peru and Pakistan, the revolution's 
> humanitarian aid model is characterized by its reach and

[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-War]: Walton on Wagner, 'Alice in France: The World War I Letters of Alice M. O'Brien'

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Andrew Stewart 
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Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via 
https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/

Begin forwarded message:

> From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW 
> Date: November 7, 2019 at 7:57:51 AM EST
> To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> Cc: H-Net Staff 
> Subject: H-Net Review [H-War]:  Walton on Wagner, 'Alice in France: The World 
> War I Letters of Alice M. O'Brien'
> Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> 
> Nancy O'Brien Wagner, ed.  Alice in France: The World War I Letters 
> of Alice M. O'Brien.  St. Paul  Minnesota Historical Society Press, 
> 2017.  Illustrations. 216 pp.  $17.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-68134-026-5.
> 
> Reviewed by Whitney Walton (Purdue University)
> Published on H-War (November, 2019)
> Commissioned by Margaret Sankey
> 
> These letters from Alice O'Brien are an excellent source for 
> understanding American women's involvement in World War I. They 
> reveal the high demand for American women's service in France in 
> several different capacities, including as drivers, canteen workers, 
> and nurses. Patriotism, anti-German sentiment, and enthusiasm for 
> being useful drove twenty-six-year-old O'Brien to respond to the call 
> for volunteers. Readers learn about the challenges of overseas 
> transport during war, the sorrow over so many young French and 
> American men dead or maimed, and the expectation of victory that 
> enabled everyone to continue.  
> 
> Editor Nancy O'Brien Wagner carefully reconstructs her grandaunt 
> Alice O'Brien's family and social class background in St. Paul, 
> Minnesota, prior to the outbreak of war in 1914. O'Brien was a 
> well-educated young woman from a family of means involved in the 
> lumber business. After completing her education at the Bennett 
> Finishing School for Young Women in Millbrook, New York, in 1911, she 
> traveled extensively in the United States and abroad; she was an avid 
> car driver, mechanic, and outdoorswoman, and she worked for the 
> suffrage movement. While O'Brien's motivations for volunteering for 
> war work are not entirely clear, Wagner notes that many in O'Brien's 
> peer group of East Coast-educated women and men supported the French 
> even before the United States entered the war in April 1917. 
> Thereafter, the American Red Cross and other relief organizations 
> redoubled their efforts to assist American soldiers and their allies. 
> Wagner reasonably speculates that O'Brien and three friends applied 
> to work for the American Fund for French Wounded (AFFW), rather than 
> the American Red Cross, because of personal connections, less 
> bureaucracy, and more opportunities, notably to be drivers and 
> mechanics. After providing several testimonials to American loyalty, 
> but undergoing no training, O'Brien and her friends set sail on the 
> French Line ship _Rochambeau_ on March 30, 1918. 
> 
> The letters from the ship convey wartime apprehension about submarine 
> attacks, blackout conditions on board, and sugar shortages, but the 
> heart of the book describes the experience of the German offensive 
> from the perspective of civilians in Paris and the rigors and 
> pleasures of canteen work. After surviving an air raid in Paris 
> unscathed, O'Brien wrote home: "We are living in thrilling times and 
> I would not give up the last few days for all the money in the world" 
> (p. 33). O'Brien and her friend Doris Kellogg did some driving in 
> Paris, fetching and delivering supplies, and constructing a working 
> automobile from parts, but they increasingly yearned to work in a 
> canteen for the Red Cross because the AFFW could not obtain cars from 
> the United States for the volunteers to drive and repair. Eventually, 
> the AFFW released them from their commitment since it could not 
> provide any work, and the young women joined the Red Cross and headed 
> to a canteen near Chantilly. 
> 
> O'Brien thrived on the long hours and constant activity at the 
> canteen. She described the food they prepared and distributed, the 
> almost round-the-clock shifts to accommodate French soldiers leaving 
> and returning to the front, and housing for the canteen workers. 
> After a military engagement when wounded soldiers flooded nearby 
> hospitals, the canteen workers pitched in to help in distributing 
> water, food, tobacco, and kind words. They mourned the young men who 
> did not survive. 
> 
> The letters raise several questions. Wagner suggests a connection 
> between O'Brien's driving and suffrage activism before the war: 
> "owning and driving a car were political statements" (p. 8). It would 
> be interesting to learn more about the effect of the war on

[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-War]: Price on Macintyre, 'The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War'

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Best regards,
Andrew Stewart 
- - -
Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via 
https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/

Begin forwarded message:

> From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW 
> Date: November 7, 2019 at 7:58:02 AM EST
> To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> Cc: H-Net Staff 
> Subject: H-Net Review [H-War]:  Price on Macintyre, 'The Spy and the Traitor: 
> The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War'
> Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> 
> Ben Macintyre.  The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story 
> of the Cold War.  New York  Crown, 2018.  Illustrations. viii + 358 
> pp.  $28.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-101-90419-0.
> 
> Reviewed by Cole Price (Air University)
> Published on H-War (November, 2019)
> Commissioned by Margaret Sankey
> 
> The Spy and the Traitor tells the story of two men connected by fate. 
> Colonel Oleg Anonyevich Gordievsky (the spy) is the son of a career 
> KGB officer. Superficially, he was born to become a spy in the 
> service of the USSR at the height of the cold war. His education and 
> position within the Communist Party set him up for long-term success. 
> However, upon a deeper dive, his family and surroundings helped 
> change his outlook on his place within the East versus West framework 
> of international relations. Ben Macintyre expertly weaves stories of 
> spycraft with the human yearning of freedom and paints Gordievsky as 
> not only a double agent but also a defender of democracy. Gordievsky 
> and his assistance to the British intelligence service MI6 proved 
> invaluable during the later stages of the cold war. 
> 
> Meanwhile, Aldrich Ames (the traitor) was the American Central 
> Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer whom the United States ordered to 
> track down the Soviet double agent (Gordievsky) providing the British 
> with intelligence. Unbeknownst to the CIA, Ames was a double agent 
> for the Soviets. Showing all the tell-tale signs of an individual 
> ripe for treason, Ames broke from the fog of his middling career and 
> found his true calling. His wife frivolously spent money they did not 
> have, and he felt the United States owed him a debt it did not pay. 
> Initially, he intended to spy for the Soviets once, but after he 
> realized how easy it was and how much money they would pay him, his 
> thirst was unquenchable. Additionally, Ames's secret agenda was to 
> unmask the double agent providing critical intelligence to the West 
> and expose him to the KGB. The cat and mouse race between Ames and 
> Gordievsky plays out in a concise and eloquent manner. 
> 
> The dance of spying and statecraft reaches its climax during Able 
> Archer 83, a command post exercise carried out in 1983 by the North 
> Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Soviet paranoia about a NATO 
> first strike against the USSR had risen in the previous two years. As 
> head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov initiated Operation Ryan in 1981. Ryan 
> was a far-reaching covert mission aimed at gathering intelligence on 
> NATO and the United States in the hopes of alerting Moscow of 
> imminent nuclear attack. In 1982, when Andropov succeeded Leonid 
> Brezhnev as head of the Soviet Union, Ryan's scope and resources 
> magnified. Once again Macintyre brilliantly weaves fact with suspense 
> in his retelling of how close the West and East came to nuclear war. 
> During Able Archer 83, the Soviets mistook NATO's heightened training 
> exercise as a pretext for a nuclear first strike. Unbeknownst at the 
> time, the Soviets truly believed NATO was preparing for a first 
> strike in a nuclear war and increased their own readiness posture to 
> respond. Soviet bombers and missiles were fueled, armed, and placed 
> on alert to retaliate against a NATO first strike. Once the exercise 
> ended, the Soviets lowered their readiness posture. Only through the 
> intelligence gathered by Gordievsky, which was passed by MI6 to the 
> CIA, did US president Ronald Reagan know how close both sides came to 
> unintended nuclear war. 
> 
> Lastly, Macintyre meticulously recounts Gordievsky's 1985 
> exfiltration from the USSR to the United Kingdom. The plan, codenamed 
> PIMLICO, showcased MI6's expertise as it evaded Soviet capture. 
> Gordievsky was transported in the trunk of a UK diplomatic vehicle 
> while passing through the USSR and Finland. Throughout the journey, 
> military officials and KGB officers looked for their lost 
> intelligence officer but came up empty. The British agents and 
> Gordievsky narrowly evaded capture at multiple points throughout the 
> journey and arrived safely in the UK. 
> 
> The coup de grâce occured once MI6 informed the Soviets that

[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-LatAm]: Cooley on Flint and Flint, 'A Most Splendid Company: The Coronado Expedition in Global Perspective'

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Best regards,
Andrew Stewart 
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Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via 
https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/

Begin forwarded message:

> From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW 
> Date: November 7, 2019 at 11:47:45 AM EST
> To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> Cc: H-Net Staff 
> Subject: H-Net Review [H-LatAm]:  Cooley on Flint and  Flint, 'A Most 
> Splendid Company: The Coronado Expedition in Global Perspective'
> Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> 
> Richard Flint, Shirley Cushing Flint.  A Most Splendid Company: The 
> Coronado Expedition in Global Perspective.  Albuquerque  University 
> of New Mexico Press, 2019.  Illustrations, maps, charts, tables. 464 
> pp.  $95.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8263-6022-9.
> 
> Reviewed by Mackenzie Cooley (Hamilton College)
> Published on H-LatAm (November, 2019)
> Commissioned by Casey M. Lurtz
> 
> "People of ambition were attracted to a very ambitious plan" (p. 
> 321). So Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint characterize the 
> fateful story of the so-called Coronado expedition. When don Antonio 
> de Mendoza started gathering resources, people, animals, and 
> information for a three-phase approach to Asia, he captured the 
> imagination of the young men of New Spain, eager for glory and 
> riches. The expedition to this Tierra Nueva north of New Spain was 
> meant to realize the original goals of Christopher Columbus's project 
> by establishing a direct route to Asia. The resulting company marched 
> northward on the advice of native guides, with livestock, friars, and 
> various specialists in tow, relying on corn tortillas for sustenance 
> and disrupting the lives of indigenous Tierra Nuevans despite the 
> leadership's unsuccessful attempts to improve their treatment. With a 
> focus on a flurry of activity from 1539 to 1542, Flint and Flint 
> reveal a history of bold-faced hope followed by doubt, destruction, 
> and disintegration of the expedition, which located neither Asia nor 
> the seven cities rumored to tower over the North. The ambition that 
> had fueled the set of plans then started to crumble as the era of 
> exploration gave way to the sobering development of bureaucratic 
> colonialism in New Spain. 
> 
> _A Most Splendid Company: The Coronado Expedition in Global 
> Perspective _is committed to demystifying the Coronado expedition. 
> Over eighty-nine chapters, the authors organize a colossal amount of 
> archival research into four chronological sections: "Essential 
> Background: Prior to 1530," "Before the Expedition: 1530-1539," 
> "During the Expedition: 1539-1542," and "After the Expedition: After 
> 1542." This study explores the many intersecting stories that came 
> together in this expedition. Flint and Flint seek to capture the 
> perspective of their historical actors by emphasizing their words, 
> worldview, and the contingent nature of their actions to pin down in 
> exacting detail the nature of the expedition and the logistics that 
> made it possible. 
> 
> New archival research from Spain and Mexico, maps from the John 
> Carter Brown collection, and other primary source material underpin 
> this analysis. Flint and Flint triumphed over a considerable archival 
> challenge: not only was the Coronado expedition remembered "as a 
> colossal fiasco" in colonial New Spain but there is also no 
> comprehensive list of its participants (p. 329). Flint and Flint have 
> accumulated a wide array of data through which to understand 
> expeditionaries' ages, diverse occupations, reliance on local guides, 
> and preexisting social connections. Such careful data collection will 
> doubtless provide the empirical backbone for a new generation of 
> scholarship committed to the history of colonial Latin America and 
> centuries of migrations across what today are the US-Mexico 
> borderlands. The authors supplement their litany of archival 
> discoveries and informative charts with archaeological remnants of 
> the voyage, including slingshot stones used by indigenous allies, 
> Murano and Spanish beads, horseshoe caret-head nails, and crossbow 
> bolt heads. This rich integration of archaeological evidence 
> highlights the expedition's material constraints and forces the 
> reader to grapple with the logistics of the expeditionaries' 
> achievement. 
> 
> Flint and Flint provide a comprehensive timeline of the events and a 
> succinct summary of hierarchies involved in executing and planning 
> the expedition. One of the central interventions of this study is a 
> revision of the expedition's leadership from viceroy to companies and 
> calpollis. Though the expedition was named for its young captain 
>

[Marxism] Paul Jay and Sharmini Peries Ousted from The Real News Network in June; Current Fundraiser Hides that Fact; Falling Viewership and Liberal Turn Result

2019-11-08 Thread Ralph Johansen via Marxism


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https://tinyurl.com/yytpqm3b

"I got this reply less than 24 hours later, from t...@therealnews.com 
headed “Your email:


Hi Ms. Webber –
Thank you for your note and request for information about the 
whereabouts of Paul Jay and Sharmini Peries.


Paul and Sharmini were on leave over the summer and subsequently left 
the organization, and are in conversations with the TRNN Board about 
finalizing the terms of their departure. Unfortunately we haven’t been 
able to comment while that process is underway.


The Board is in the process of launching a search for their successors.

All the best, and thank you for your support

Tom Livingston"

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[Marxism] 2020: The Incipient Bet - CounterPunch.org

2019-11-08 Thread Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism


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Great piece by Kirkpatrick Sale.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/08/2020-the-incipient-bet/
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[Marxism] Radical Commitments: The Life and Legacy of Angela Davis | Lydialyle Gibson | Harvard Magazine

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https://harvardmagazine.com/2019/10/radcliffe-institute-conference-on-activist-angela-davis


Sent from my iPhone

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[Marxism] Michael Bloomberg


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Michael Bloomberg, who has personal wealth in excess of 47 billion 
dollars (15 times that of Schultz), is also considering running for 
President in 2020 but as a Democrat, unlike Schultz. But like Schultz, 
he is kept up at night cowering under his blanket from the bogeyman 
Elizabeth Warren. With regard to her wealth tax, he told reporters: “We 
need a healthy economy, and we shouldn’t be embarrassed about our 
system. If you want to look at a system that’s non-capitalistic, just 
take a look at what was once, perhaps, the wealthiest country in the 
world, and today people are starving to death. It’s called Venezuela.”


I doubt that Bloomberg ever read Karl Marx but anybody who has concluded 
that there was socialism in Venezuela must have been reading Jacobin 
rather than V. 1 of Capital.


I worked on a project to automate the branch office of Salomon Brothers 
in London for Bloomberg back in 1975. When a co-worker learned that I 
was assigned to the project, she gave me a sour face. What’s wrong, I 
asked? She basically described the kind of person #MeToo would have 
protested back then if it had existed. On the trading floor at Salomon, 
there was a Latina secretary who used to deliver coffee to the traders. 
My co-worker, an African-American woman named Barrie, told me that as 
the secretary made her way across the floor,  he would yell out “Look at 
the tits on that broad” or words to that effect. Last September, the 
Atlantic reported on “‘I’d Do Her’: Mike Bloomberg and the Underbelly of 
#MeToo” that makes clear nothing has changed with him:


	From 1996 to 1997, four women filed sexual-harassment or discrimination 
suits against Bloomberg the company. One of the suits included the 
following allegation: When Sekiko Sakai Garrison, a sales representative 
at the company, told Mike Bloomberg she was pregnant, he replied, “Kill 
it!” (Bloomberg went on, she alleged, to mutter, “Great, No. 16”—a 
reference, her complaint said, to the 16 women at the company who were 
then pregnant.) To these allegations, Garrison added another one: Even 
prior to her pregnancy, she claimed, Bloomberg had antagonized her by 
making disparaging comments about her appearance and sexual 
desirability. “What, is the guy dumb and blind?” he is alleged to have 
said upon seeing her wearing an engagement ring. “What the hell is he 
marrying you for?”


https://louisproyect.org/2019/02/05/the-dark-night-of-the-soulless-bourgeoisie/
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[Marxism] Socialism in Our Time? | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist


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Until now, Catalyst has not published an article defending the “dirty 
break”, “inside-outside” tactic. In the latest issue, however, you can 
read a gargantuan article (14,258 words) titled “A Socialist Party in 
Our Time?” that is behind a paywall. One imagines (ahem) that getting a 
copy will not be that difficult in an age when information yearns to be 
free.


The co-authors are graduate students, Jared Abbott at Harvard and Dustin 
Guastella at Rutgers. Both are also DSA members and—I’ll bet—Bread and 
Roses members. They start by offering a socialist version of the 
Goldilocks story. On the American left, there are three beds. One is 
“movementist”, preferring demonstrations to electoral politics. But it 
is too “narrow” a bed since it cannot translate its street actions into 
policy. The other bed is also too narrow since it belongs to the 
“sectarian” left that stubbornly avoids all contact with the Democratic 
Party and sees the fight for socialism only possible by joining up with 
one of their Leninist groupuscules.


Abbot and Guastella invite us to snuggle up into the only bed that is 
the right size for any sensible person. It is “like the mass parties of 
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: an organization that 
competes for elections, mobilizes a mass base, and has a democratic 
internal structure.” This describes the socialist parties of the early 
20th century and the Communist Parties later on. Since the DSA is too 
small to effectuate a “clean break” for such a party, it instead has to 
be tactically clever and oh-so dirty.


full: https://louisproyect.org/2019/11/08/socialism-in-our-time/
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[Marxism] Hacking, Publishing Politically Unacceptable Content and Censorship Means We’re Losing Money: So Help Us Stay Afloat | Washington Babylon

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https://washingtonbabylon.com/wb-enemy-of-the-state/


Best regards,
Andrew Stewart 
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Re: [Marxism] On Coffee, Cantatas, and Unwed Daughters Crossing the Threshold - CounterPunch.org

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I respectfully disagree -
https://robertgreenbergmusic.com/

On Fri, Nov 8, 2019 at 8:23 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
> By David Yearsley, the greatest living musicologist.
>
>
> https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/08/on-coffee-cantatas-and-unwed-daughters-crossing-the-threshold/
>
>
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[Marxism] The Nation's anti-endorsement of Biden stand

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They'll almost certainly retract this in the name of "lesser evilism" if
Biden runs against Trump, but at this point, it's a surprise


"Biden's long record of poor judgment—on everything from the 1994 crime
bill that fueled mass incarceration to his botched handling of Anita Hill's
testimony against Clarence Thomas to his defense of Bill Clinton's brutal
welfare cuts to his support for the Iraq War to his role as cheerleader for
Wall Street deregulation," argues The Nation editorial, make the candidate
a uniquely weak opponent to put up against President Donald Trump, "whose
reelection poses a clear and present danger to America's survival as a
constitutional republic."



https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/07/answer-not-joe-biden-nation-magazine-issues-official-anti-endorsement

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[Marxism] No End in Sight for Jailed Gulag Historian Yury Dmitriyev

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Thirty-five-year-old Katerina blinks away the start of tears and says she
plans tomorrow to take to the jail warm clothing for winter to her father,
Stalin-era historian Yury Dmitriyev.

His decades-long research to expose the scale of the late Communist
leader’s terror have met with mounting criticism under Russian President
Vladimir Putin and landed him in jail in the Karelian capital of
Petrozavodsk in northwest Russia, on what his family and colleagues say are
false charges leveled to silence him and to deter others from disrupting
the rehabilitation of the late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

https://www.voanews.com/europe/no-end-sight-jailed-gulag-historian-yury-dmitriyev
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[Marxism] The cigarette - a political history

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The Cigarette – a Political History

On March 2019, writers Danuta Kean and Isobel de Vasconcellos released The
Emilia Report
,
comparing how 10 male and female writers received broadsheet coverage in
the same book market necessary for literary recognition. Perhaps to no
one’s surprise
,
their survey uncovered that new books by men receive 56% of review
coverage. Despite being bestselling authors, two female subjects received
no coverage of their books in newspapers. This market bias against female
writers certainly is nothing new. Indeed, England’s first published female
poet — Emilia Bassano, whom the report is named after — struggled to
sustain a living as a writer, received limited recognition, and was
completely overshadowed by male poets.

I bring up market bias and power balance to highlight the circumstances
prior to the release of Sarah Milov’s book, *The Cigarette: A Political
History*
,
when historians N.D.B. Connolly and Edward Ayers appeared on NPR’s “Here
and Now.” The show’s researchers heavily relied on Milov’s book as well as
Nan Enstad’s *Cigarettes, Inc.: An Intimate History of Corporate
Imperialism
* for
the segment. Though Connolly tweeted shout-outs to both women, neither one
of them were mentioned in the segment – nor, for that matter, even invited
to participate in a conversation that heavily built on their work. For
Milov, a tenure-track professor at the University of Virginia, the omission
meant her book was not marketed

to
NPR’s five million listeners. Everyone involved apologized and explained
that it was not malicious intent
,
but omissions like this are an indication of a broader problem
that disproportionately
tends to affect women.

*The Cigarette* is a fascinating book on a quintessential American product.
By looking beyond Big Tobacco, Milov illustrates surprising
interconnections between twentieth-century social movements that coalesced
around the cigarette, including environmentalists, activists, labor unions,
tobacco farmers, and even cigarette manufacturers. Above all, this is an
important book on the politics and power of citizen activism against
industry doubt-mongering and government regulation that worked against
citizens’ best interests. It’s also a stark reminder of the importance of
elevating women historians and acknowledging gender disparities in how
research is used and disseminated to the public — something that NPR is
apparently closely examining

for
its internal policies.

https://nursingclio.org/2019/11/06/if-you-liked-this-interview-youll-love-this-book-a-review-of-sarah-milovs-the-cigarette-a-political-history-2019/
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[Marxism] new evidence shows FDR’s bigotry derailed many Holocaust rescue plans

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Just the latest example of the moral/political bankruptcy of US liberals!

Not only was US president Franklin Roosevelt perfunctory about rescuing
Jews from the Nazis, but he obstructed rescue opportunities that would have
cost him little or nothing, according to Holocaust historian Rafael Medoff.

FDR’s role in preventing the rescue of European Jewry is detailed in a new
book called, “The Jews Should Keep Quiet
:
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and the Holocaust.”

Published in September through The Jewish Publication Society
, Medoff’s book includes
new archival materials about the relationship between Roosevelt and Rabbi
Stephen Wise, who the author sees as a sycophantic Jewish leader used by
Roosevelt to “keep the Jews quiet.”

According to Medoff, Roosevelt’s policies toward European Jews were
motivated by sentiments similar to those that spurred him to intern 120,000
Japanese Americans in detention camps as potential spies.



https://www.timesofisrael.com/historian-new-evidence-shows-fdrs-bigotry-derailed-many-holocaust-rescue-plans/
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[Marxism] Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement Fails Romanian and Bulgarian Migrant Workers | Lefteast


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Two weeks ago, on a Friday night, I was grabbing a bite to eat with a 
few Romanian colleagues at Bill’s Restaurant on Green Street in 
Cambridge, England. Two of us stepped outside for a cigarette. 
Mid-conversation, someone stopped and started yelling at the top of his 
lungs: ‘This is f*g bullshit. I can’t believe it.’ We thought his 
indignation must have to do either with our smoking or the fact that we 
were speaking Romanian. We concluded it was the latter.


http://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/withdrawal-agreement-bulgrom/
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[Marxism] On Coffee, Cantatas, and Unwed Daughters Crossing the Threshold - CounterPunch.org