from:"Fred Murphy via Marxism"

[Marxism] Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History

2020-07-03 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History - The New
York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Bernie Sanders Should Retool His Campaign to Lead the Charge Against Coronavirus

2020-03-25 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

*Just received via a DSA discussion board - *

Bernie Sanders has pivoted his campaign and the Our Revolution movement to
working on the coronavirus crisis. Among other things, Sanders has been
holding a series of superb roundtables with experts that are very
substantive on information and policy. Of course, there is little coverage
in the media of Sanders' work.

To see all of Sanders' roundtables on the coronavirus crisis, you can go to
his Youtube channel and scroll down to "Past Livestreams" or "Uploads."
Last night's roundtable, for example, with Congresswoman Jayapal and three
doctors, was outstanding:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH1dpzjCEiGAt8CXkryhkZg

On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 8:47 PM Gary MacLennan via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
> My comment on reading this article is that it sounds very sensible. [...]
>
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Impresssions of Coronavirus crisis

2020-01-26 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Ecosocialist epidemiologist *Rob Wallace*, author of *Big Farms Make Big
Flu*, is worth following on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/rob.wallace.3133

Rob posted this a few days ago:

“Wuhan has imposed a transport lockdown on air, train, and bus travel, with
17 dead in the city and nearly 600 cases across China, with cases spreading
out globally.

As the infection appears to have a week incubation period, there is no
stopping its spread. And it does appear infectious, with all 14 doctors and
nurses of an operation team infected by a patient whose infection was
unknown.

nCoV-2019's apparent mortality rate of 2% appears comparatively less than
SARS's 10%. But a small percent of a large number is still a large number.
Two percent of 1 billion infected means 20 million dead. And the mortality
speaks little of the possible evolution of the pathogen's virulence.

That's where we sit now.

Switching gears, a discussion about origins and blame I participated over
on Aaron Vansintjan's page. with minor edits, might be of some interest:

Paul Tang: while i'm no fan of mass-scale factory farming, my understanding
is that 2019-ncov is widely assumed to have its first animal-to-human
transmission at a wet market, which typically have live poultry, fish, etc
sourced from smaller farms (what a lot of people might call "organic" farms
owned by its farmers). the issue is more to do with the concentrated
variety of live animals and humans in a single place, although that isn't
to say that this can't happen as a result of factory farming as well. wet
markets were also implicated in the outbreak of sars, iirc.

(happy to be corrected if i'm wrong though!)

Aaron Vansintjan: My understanding is that though Chinese policy has been
to crack down on smaller, "unhygienic" farms in response to virus
outbreaks, blaming small producers, the issue is that the interplay of
small farming and mass industrial farming causes the virus to quickly
mutate. Without the industrial part, this wouldn't happen to the same scale.

Paul Tang: I agree that that definitely occurs, at least according to my
own reading on the matter, and I'm not at all denying there could be
consequences like what you've mentioned. (I hope I didn't come off as
demonizing small farmers!) Viral outbreaks also often have the perverse
effect of strengthening mass industrial farming in the sense that the state
response is to bolster it.

Chinese agricultural policy is a massive topic and there are multiple
political and ideological tensions in play even within the (quite opaque)
policymaking process; definitely worth a longer conversation, but perhaps
facebook isnt the right medium for it.

Rob Wallace: My [previous] comments [Aaron reposted] were directed at the
entirety of the periurban supply chain: from the deepest forest to rural
production and urban suppliers.

Worldwide even the wildest subsistence species are being roped into ag
value chains: Ostriches, porcupine, crocidiles, fruit bats, and the palm
civet, whose partially digested berries now supply the world's most
expensive coffee bean. Some wild species are making it onto forks before
they are even scientifically identified, including one new short-nosed
dogfish found in a Taiwanese market.

All are increasingly treated as food commodities. As nature is stripped
place-by-place, species-by-species, what's left over becomes that much more
valuable.

As Weberian anthropologist Lyle Fearnley points out, farmers repeatedly
manipulate the distinction between wild and domestic as an economic
signifier, producing new meanings and values, including to the very
epidemiological alerts issued in response to their sales. A Marxist might
push back that these signifiers emerge out of a context that presently
extends outside smallholder control.

So while the distinction between factory farms and wet markets isn't
unimportant, we may miss their foundational similarities (and dialectical
relationships).

As Aaron alluded to, the distinctions bleed together by a number of other
mechanisms. Many a smallholder, for instance, is in actuality a contractor,
growing out day-olds for industrial processing. So livestock--domestic or
wild--catch a pathogen forest-side before being shipped back to an urban
wet market or a processing plant on the outer ring of a major city.

Spreading factory farms meanwhile force increasingly corporatized wild
foods companies to trawl deeper into the forest, increasing the likelihood
of picking up a new pathogen, while reducing the environmental
stochasticity that the forest imposes on pathogens previously unable to
line up hosts in growing transmission chains and now suddenly sprung.

[Marxism] Fwd: French General Strike

2019-12-05 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

- Forwarded message -
From: Richard Greeman
Date: Thu, Dec 5, 2019 at 9:54 AM
Subject: French General Strike

*French Unions and Yellow Vests Converge;*

*Launch General Strike for Dec. 5 *

by Richard Greeman

(Montpellier, France) On the eve of an “unlimited” (open-ended) General
Strike called for Dec. 5, more and more unions and protest groups are
pledging to join in.

Two things are unusual about this strike. The first is that it is
open-ended, rather than the usual one-day ritualistic protest marches, and
it may be prolonged from day to day by workers’ assemblies as long as
necessary. The second is that the Yellow Vests, the self-organized,
horizontal, social movement that sprung up spontaneously just over a year
ago and is still popular despite severe repression, have decided to
converge with the strike.

Just as surprising, Philippe Martinez Secretary General of CGT, France’s
largest union federation, who had originally spurned the Yellow Vests,
immediately welcomed them, making for a heady mix. For the union leaders,
who try to control their followers tightly, the Yellow Vests are like a
loose canon on the deck of a ship. Who knows what may result?

The nation-wide strike was originally proposed by the CGT’s Martinez, in
response to the Macron Governments’ proposed neoliberal “reform” of the
France retirement system. Macron’s reform  would essentially gut France’s
solidarity-based retirement system. Even more than U.S. Social Security,
which even Trump and the Republicans don’t dare touch, retirement over here
is a sacred cow. It was established at the end of WWII when the Resistance
and the Communists were influential and the business class was in bad odor,
having collaborated with the Nazis. Under Macron’s proposed new ‘point’
system, many will lose up to 30% according to estimates, and future
governments could arbitrarily decide how much money each point is worth!

*The Camel’s Back*

This latest, and most sweeping of Macron’s two years’ string of neo-liberal
attacks on social welfare may prove to be the straw that breaks the camel’s
back; and camels are dangerously irascible animals known to bite or kick
their masters to death when mistreated.

The French were already in an angry mood in the Spring of 2018 when Macron
started pushing through his reforms, but they were disappointed when the
CGT and other union leaders imposed only stop-and-go, limited, local
strikes and failed utterly to counter-attack. It was on the grave of those
defeats that the spontaneous Yellow Vest movements sprung up like mushrooms
all over France last November, supported by over 70% of the French.

Although justifiably suspicious of unions, especially of the union leaders,
the Yellow Vests, after suffering a year of police brutality and prejudiced
media coverage, came around to the need for convergence. Thus, at our
fourth national Assembly of Assemblies on Nov. 3, we voted to join and “be
at the heart” of the Dec. 5 movement in the hope that “a defeat for the
government would open the road to other victories for our camp.”

Will the union leaders like Martinez stay the course? If they try to settle
with Macron piecemeal and divide the movement as they have in the past,
will the workers’ assemblies be able to stop them? Will the strike over
retirement benefits develop along broad social revolutionary lines like
similar horizontal movements in South America, the Middle East and
elsewhere? Will these international movements finally connect, as the
Yellow Vests’ Assembly of Assembly proposed when it dedicated our first
anniversary to social movements around the world?

The following leaflet, developed by the Yellow Vests of Uzès and
Montpellier, expresses the hopes and fears of the Yellow Vests on the eve
of this open-ended struggle:

*   “One for all and all for one !”*

For the past two years, a government of the rich has been imposing
« reforms » designed to deprive the French people of all the advantages won
by several generations of workers. For the past two years, Macron,
“President of the rich,” following the rules laid down by the European
Union of bankers and in defiance of the people, has been using police-state
methods to increase the inequality of an already unequal society for the
benefit of his Stock Market cronies through tax advantages and
privatizations.

Today, by attacking their retirements, this would-be Jupiter has succeeded
in uniting the French people – against him ! United, we have the power to
make him withdraw his so called « reform » of our pensions. That’s obvious.
But we must not

Re: [Marxism] Syria's Al-Assad: Trump, Openly Criminal, is the best US President we could Wish for

2019-11-02 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day 

On Sat, Nov 2, 2019 at 8:16 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.
> *
>
> https://www.juancole.com/2019/11/syrias-criminal-president.html
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com
>
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Re: Meet the Man Doing More to Protect America from ISIS than Donald Trump: Hassan Nasrallah, the Islamic World’s Che | Washington Babylon

2019-10-25 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Robert Fisk has rightly come in for much criticism on this list, but check
this out re Hezbollah and the Lebanon uprising -
https://secure-web.cisco.com/1AdQKu1VP8IfUv5oQ9z3XG41P-fxvCSYS80g29jpePCzok8ZIbZurdXrez8c4mTJmDYg4UGFGzBYIofAwYN92cdteQVtDClQEWfi9jPoXABcj2uGWPJgKnB1JiseceaUKifdTC3aFJlMeMt-5JFnF6nqA7TfsVbSomoW2bvris_aY1vf3xsmbdDCZS4njjxhb2QHzKogYk404L3aODnqiPtlHD5nWTg_aGx3OB0pJ8HD2qah4HaLYRTUH_4eKCKlJaA0OSc0Veo9tcsbvu1Gu4efqZPLb4Hz0uHJpYQE2ykhKxvupUk5BVhA6oGziGwLbjS6LpUl6wwVi3rDJIhg9o6G44dks4MeZ8P2zja7NC_AsihIpmVVAsym6bXbdwd5n/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fvoices%2Flebanon-beirut-protests-whatsapp-tax-hezbollah-michel-aoun-a9170716.html

On Fri, Oct 25, 2019 at 2:41 AM mkaradjis . via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: ...
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Review of Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society

2019-08-13 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Compare also to Sven-Eric Liedman, *A World to Win: The Life and Works of
Karl Marx - *also a comprehensive and sympathetic work, especially good on
the writing of *Capital *and generally in relating the life and times to
the economic and political works.
https://www.versobooks.com/books/3001-a-world-to-win

On Tue, Aug 13, 2019 at 10:44 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.
> *
>
> On 8/13/19 9:37 AM, Angelus Novus via Marxism wrote:
> >
> >
> > The review doesn't mention that the English translation is now available
> from Monthly Review Press.  Presumably it was written before publication of
> the English edition.
> > "Michael Heinrich has raised the standards of biographical writing with
> Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society. In content and scope, it is an
> unparalleled work of scholarship. It makes Marx relevant to our
> understanding of capitalist society, while cutting down the overgrown myths
> about him. It confronts those sworn enemies of Marx’s thought with the
> weapons of critique. It will challenge the ways avid readers of Marx think
> about the meaning his times, concepts and ideas have for the present."
> >
> https://medium.com/@jamespeter_76017/review-karl-marx-and-the-birth-of-modern-society-6e591bbfda01
>
> I'm 90 pages into this for a CounterPunch review. Heinrich's research is
> impressive, especially in shedding light on Karl Marx's father Heinrich
> who converted to Protestantism mainly to avoid anti-Semitic laws that
> would prevent him from becoming a lawyer. He was also a revolutionary
> democrat who helped organize a banquet where the left-leaning residents
> of Trier sang the "Marseilles" and other revolutionary songs from 1789.
> When I sit down to write my review, it will be interesting to compare
> this book (which is the first in a multi-volume series) to the classics
> like Mehring and newer books by Sperber and Wheen that I only have read
> in part. I won't waste time with this jerk.
>
> https://louisproyect.org/2016/08/15/who-is-gareth-stedman-jones-and-why-is-he-saying-such-stupid-things-about-marx/
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Re: fwd: Ecosocialism: Dystopian and Scientific

2019-04-29 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Many more essays by Kallis are collected in an eBook, *In Defense of
Degrowth*, available for $0 or a contribution at
https://indefenseofdegrowth.com/.

On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 11:46 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.
> *****
>
> On 4/29/19 11:25 AM, Fred Murphy via Marxism wrote:
> >
> > Degrowth is utopian, and that’s a good thing ...and it’s scientific, too
> >
> > By Giorgios Kallis *UnevenEarth* 4/26/19
> >
>
> Btw, Kallis is the co-author of this very important article that is
> behind a paywall. Contact me offlist if you want a copy.
>
>
> Is Green Growth Possible?
> Jason Hickel & Giorgos Kallis, New Political Economy
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Re: fwd: Ecosocialism: Dystopian and Scientific

2019-04-29 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Degrowth is utopian, and that’s a good thing ...and it’s scientific, too

By Giorgios Kallis *UnevenEarth* 4/26/19

*Excerpts from a rather long essay at*
http://secure-web.cisco.com/1-3I2_S3dpjtksenERIHoQCktywOuyXyYcxvetui_8bSeDPIIiF8PTpubGNBpyK-amXuVHkNS4TL3SH431LN4HxoeHyS9wxqGypxz1fQgnywTUZ26r-f2O4KBRawBezRly6g4DvnRf1Cblk0op-9pSVznOsy5coNEkKSOz9pEpPmAX1njm2S8RXZWNghl0u_aJd3oUxKAJqRLBs8XTSwy5uBROvmDjepPMU4eyYKBq2422ICEA29l3wBxWrrEwik4qz8EdqX-ei3-ZkUVVoSyE6jJW9dKTeIrx5pO9rahwN7QBN5MqOAsIA6VsY0cPFbYT8mIV_mwiPVi3OJVPWwUik7nl2XnAWmohKbFZHV2GGB8YTxB0lEeNkK2SPh14-bI/http%3A%2F%2Funevenearth.org%2F2019%2F04%2Fdegrowth-is-utopian-and-thats-a-good-thing%2F

What we dream about the future affects how we act today. If utopias express
our desires, dystopias distill our fears. Utopias and dystopias are images
we invoke to think and act in the present, producing futures that often
look very different from either our dreams or our nightmares.

An oft-repeated criticism against the green movement is that it is
dystopian and catastrophist (some call this ‘Malthusian’) when it comes to
its diagnosis, and utopian when it comes to its prognosis. On the one hand,
greens warn of a scary future of planetary disaster, and on the other,
offer a peaceful dreamland where people bike to their artisanal work and
live in picturesque houses with well manicured food gardens and small
windmills. Nowhere to see is a realistic political plan on how we could
ever escape from the current capitalist nightmare, and move to something
remotely close to an egalitarian and ecological future.

I won’t deny that some green writings, especially in the 1970s and 80s (but
also still today) merit this critique. But in the meantime, there has been
a lot of new thought, under the labels of ecosocialism, degrowth, or
environmental justice that cannot be caricatured and packaged in this
simplistic mold. And yet this is what geographer Matt Huber does in a
recent article published at the Socialist Forum, entitled Ecosocialism:
Dystopian and Scientific. Huber argues that there are two types of green
socialism, one that is utopian and unscientific, and one that is realistic
and scientific, his….

What I want to argue is that, first, being utopian is not a problem as
Huber makes it seem it is, and second, we [utopians] are scientific, at
least as scientific as Huber can claim his position is….

A scientific socialism, Huber tells us, is one ‘grounded in analysis of
what kind of socialist society is possible given historical and material
conditions’. So far so good. Only one problem: who is to judge what is
really ‘possible’?

Huber, for example, seems to think that something close to the energy or
material consumption of an average American, secured for everyone in the
world, is possible (Huber is against wasteful capitalism, and implies that
unnecessary production and consumption could be curtailed, but is not clear
what he classifies as waste –and in any case, insists on the point of
‘abundant energy’, which one can only think means at least as much energy
as it is currently consumed, if not more). Energy should come from
renewable energy, or why not 80% renewable and 20% nuclear, which is fine,
Huber claims – and food from robotic agriculture. Moreover, we will do all
this without exploiting anyone, taking everyone’s concerns democratically
into account, somehow minimizing damage, or at least making those on the
receiving side of such damage concede to it ‘democratically’….

Huber also has a second take on the meaning of ‘scientific’. He writes that
‘let’s get real, or ‘scientific’ … we are not going to win the masses of
workers with a socialist program based on … ‘drudgery for all’. Science
here seems to refer to realism about how can ‘we’ (sic) win the masses of
workers. There are problems with this formulation too.

First, even if Huber were right and there were a mass of workers that
wouldn’t be mobilized to anything that sounds like ‘less’, that still
wouldn’t make it materially possible to have ever more stuff. Huber argues
that given that the workers will never buy into a degrowth utopia then ‘the
key to an ecosocialist future is finding some way to replicate the
labor-saving aspects of the fossil economy with clean energy’.

This actually seems to me a very unscientific, and utopian in the bad sense
– having to ‘find some way’ to make something possible, independently of
whether it is materially possible or not. Rather than consider integrating
your political strategy to what is materially possible, the call here is to
bend material possibility, one way or the other, to what you came to think
as the only possible political strategy.

Re: [Marxism] New Carbon Capture Technology?

2019-03-03 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

How does this scale up? How much energy will it require, and from what
source? Are the metals consumed or recycled? Etc.

On Sun, Mar 3, 2019 at 7:22 AM Greg McDonald 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.
> *
>
>
> https://www.iflscience.com/technology/researchers-can-now-cheaply-turn-atmospheric-co2-back-into-coal/
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com
>
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300: Jason Berry: 9781469647142: Amazon.com: Books

2019-02-18 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Berry reviewed an earlier book, Ned Sublette's *The World That Made New
Orleans*, also quite good.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/books/review/Berry-t.html

On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 2:28 PM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

> (Heard the author being interviewed yesterday morning. The book sounds
> really interesting.)
>
> In 2015, the beautiful jazz funeral in New Orleans ...
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1469647141/
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com
>
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Harvey has begun a new series

2019-02-14 Thread Fred Murphy 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 also has a new podcast - here Harvey riffs on Shakespeare and Game of
Thrones to explain The Geopolitics of Capitalism:

http://anticapitalistchronicles.libsyn.com/the-geopolitics-of-capitalism-part-1-of-2


On Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 12:19 AM Ralph Johansen 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.
> *
>
> fyi:
>
> David Harvey has just begun a new course of lectures on Marx's Capital
> Volume I which, on the evidence of the 1st series, we can expect to be
> an entertaining, deeply probing and informative project.
>
> Harvey has been teaching this course annually and sometimes even more
> frequently at Johns Hopkins and then at CUNY since 1971. His last series
> on Capital was delivered in 2007 and since much has changed since he
> offers this new series. If anything I know of could make this supposedly
> turgid text an acceptably easy read, it's Harvey's commentary. He
> describes Capital 1 as a major work of literature, with its abundant
> references to the classics including Shakespeare, Balzac, the Greeks,
> Romans, Enlightenment figures as well as his contemporaries.
>
> Most importantly, it's become ever more clear in our time that the
> capitalist system is increasingly counterproductive and antagonistic to
> human welfare. We learn daily how cruel and irrelevant is this means of
> subsisting, which confines more of us all the time to the brutal
> "informal economy," how inimical it is to the lives of, at the least,
> the nearly half of us on the planet, more than 3 billion according to
> UNESCO, who still live on less than $2.50 a day, 1/3 in extreme poverty
> at less than $1.25 a day, and the 1 billion children who live in
> poverty. After all this time, running against the vaunted promise of
> "progress." While we here in the so-called "developed" regions consume
> at least 1/4 of the globe's resources, energy, GDP, and are the major
> contributors, certainly per capita and in terms of skewed net
> distribution, to the ruin of the ecology of our planet.
>
> Any reasonable person who has or hasn't given it much thought, plainly
> when confronted with these truths, must realize how insane that is and,
> if at all human in the sense of "humane", that person will understand
> the imperative need to change that system. Not "reform" it, since it's
> basic, driving premise and sine qua non is profit on investment, not
> human welfare. Human welfare is only served in capitalism within the
> confining and diminishing limits of profitability. Change it.
>
> And you don't change squat unless and until you understand it. To read
> this text is an essential beginning in that undertaking. So check it out.
>
> It begins here
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=526=n5vu4MpYgUo.
>
> This 1st lecture was given on Feb. 7 and the series continues weekly
> except for Feb. 14.
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com
>
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Renewed Labour | Issue 33 | n+1

2019-02-09 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Bolivian vice-president Alvaro García Linera is to Evo Morales as McDonnell
is to Corbyn.
https://www.viewpointmag.com/2015/02/25/burdens-of-a-state-manager/

On Sat, Feb 9, 2019 at 1:52 PM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
***
> McDonnell has broken a pre-2008 taboo by naming the system and calling
> it a problem, but transforming capitalism doesn’t sound the same as
> overthrowing it. ...
>
> full: https://nplusonemag.com/issue-33/politics/renewed-labour/
>
>
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] The Cuban counter-revolution shows its face

2019-02-03 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Not a difficult question to answer, in my opinion, since Cuba is a small
island in a world thoroughly dominated by capitalist ideology and
reactionary institutions. It's better that these ideas are now being
publicly aired, debated and combated in the course of a broad debate on the
new constitution, rather than being suppressed and driven underground to
fester.

On Sun, Feb 3, 2019 at 12:05 PM John Reimann 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.
> *
> ...ask ourselves how it is that these evangelical religious fanatics
> could get any sort of base in a country that overthrew capitalism
> generations ago..
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] IMPORTANT GILETS JAUNES INFO

2019-01-29 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

A more polished translation available at
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tc1xqm2pa7sb45i/2019-01-27_Appel-de-la-Assemblee_GJ.pdf?dl=0

My understanding is that February 5 is a one-day strike called by the CGT
but that some GJ forces are calling to extend it as in the Assemblies
statement.


On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 12:47 PM 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.
> *
>
> (From David McDonald on FB)
>
> PLEASE READ AND CIRCULATE -- IMPORTANT GILETS JAUNES INFO
>
> Note by David:
>
> Many many have wondered about the politics of the Gilets Jaunes because
> their protests have been so elemental and hostile to the existing
> political forces. Some, like Kester Ratcliff, have decided the GJ are
> unalterably right-wing in nature, but he's not the only one.
>
> Below, my Parisian correspondent summarizes and translates various
> portions of the statement issued by the first Assembly of the Assemblies
> in Commercy that ought to lay such fears to rest and inspire admiration
> and solidarity for the Gilets Jaunes. Do note that this (so far) most
> authoritative communication from the assembled GJ calls for a general
> strike on February 5.




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

[Marxism] Thousands protest in Istanbul, evoke Yellow Vests

2018-12-22 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

https://www.france24.com/en/20181222-thousands-protest-istanbul-against-higher-living-costs

 “Thousands of protesters on Saturday took to the streets in Istanbul to
demonstrate against the rising cost of living and crippling inflation in
Turkey.

“Surrounded by a heavy police presence, the protesters held banners with
references to the "yellow vest" movement in France, which began as a
demonstration against fuel price hikes but snowballed into anti-government
protests, an AFP correspondent reported.

“The protest, organised by the KESK, a confederation of public service
workers unions, drew people from all over Turkey including the northwestern
provinces of Edirne, Bursa and Yalova, the correspondent said.

“They shouted "work, bread, freedom" and also carried banners saying "the
crisis is theirs, the street is ours" and "Haziran" which means June in
Turkish.

“June refers to the mass 2013 demonstrations against President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan's rule sparked by the planned redevelopment of Gezi Park in
Istanbul”
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] The case against “The case against open borders” | SocialistWorker.org

2018-11-28 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Chacón affirms and concretizes bedrock principles of internationalism and
solidarity.

See also
https://www.viewpointmag.com/2018/11/07/from-what-shore-does-socialism-arrive/
:

“Today’s migration points to the multiple forms of exploitation and
dispossession that define the contemporary working class: from the
corporate land grabs, climate change, and state violence that make
subsistence farming impossible to the ways that the drug trade, finance,
and the “migration industry” are able to extract surplus independently of
the wage and, in the process, make life unliveable. Yet it also illustrates
the active capacity of the working class to pose new forms of resistance to
their subordination – or at least the conditions of their subordination –
within and in relation to the labor process.2 In other words, workers may
move to avoid specific working conditions, or to avoid being part of the
industrial reserve army that otherwise sets the conditions of exploitation
in a place like Honduras. In this sense, migration is autonomous because it
is something conceptually and logically prior to the emergence of the
state’s ever more extensive biopolitical and disciplinary border and labor
management techniques. These techniques don’t simply seek to stop migrant
flows, but actually use migrant flows to further segment and structure
labor markets along the migrant trail in the countries of origin,
reception, and those crossed along the way.”
“It is, after all according to Marx, the double freedom of
dispossession-cum-wage dependence which is the defining feature of the
working class and in this sense these individuals partaking in “the yearly
proletarian globe-hopping of seasonal workers by steamship, railroad and
automobile” or by “radical separation of airborne migration linked by years
of remittances and phone calls,” should hold a pride of place as the very
literal foot soldiers of the working class.4”
“The border and migration regimes of the capitalist state work not simply
to repel migrants or flex national sovereignty but to find new
opportunities for cheap labor, whether migrants are coming or going. The
point is that migrants are coming and going; their agency is the basis for
capital’s continually multiplying regimes of capture, and their movement is
thus part of a class struggle.”

On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 2:02 PM Michael Meeropol via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

> Though I am mostly persuaded by comrade Chacon's arguments against the
> Nagle article (which I haven't read) I do believe that we on the left face
> a conundrum ...

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

Re: [Marxism] What do socialists mean by socialism? | SocialistWorker.org

2018-08-29 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

FYI, Neal Meyer, cited in this article, is a leading figure in the new DSA
tendency Socialist Call - the ones who republished the Peter Camejo speech
Lou posted about elsewhere.

On Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 9:24 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.
> *
>
> By Todd Chretien
>
> https://socialistworker.org/2018/08/28/what-do-socialists-mean-by-socialism
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Gerald Horne’s The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean | Louis Proyect: The Unrepenta

2018-08-27 Thread Fred Murphy 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 of the same developments are covered at the international - or
Atlantic-wide - level by Rediker and Linebaugh's excellent The Many-Headed
Hydra.

PDF at
https://libcom.org/files/Linebaugh%20and%20Rediker%20-%20The%20Many-Headed%20Hydra%20-%20Sailors,%20Slaves,%20Commoners,%20and%20the%20Hidden%20H.pdfhttps://libcom.org/files/Linebaugh%20and%20Rediker%20-%20The%20Many-Headed%20Hydra%20-%20Sailors,%20Slaves,%20Commoners,%20and%20the%20Hidden%20H.pdf

On Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 8:31 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
> I had high hopes for Gerald Horne’s The Apocalypse of Settler
> Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in
> 17th Century North America and the Caribbean for a couple of reasons
_
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] Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, superstar -- and what Engels would have said about her

2018-08-26 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Lou, with all due respect you would get a better sense of DSA’s composition
if you attended some branch or working group meetings and talked with your
comrades.

On Sun, Aug 26, 2018 at 1:58 PM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> ...
> >
> > Millennials with a college degree. I'm sure that's exactly who is
> > joining the DSA. Back in 1971 I was at the SWP conference at Oberlin
> > (the New Radicalization one)...
> >
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, superstar -- and what Engels would have said about her

2018-08-24 Thread Fred Murphy 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'd of course have no problem with promoting socialism in the Daily News or
even the Post if it reaches working people, but I would not be surprised to
find that thousands of teachers, health-care workers, tech-industry
workers, and all sorts of precariously employed millennials with huge
student debts read the Times.

On Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 3:04 PM 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.
> *****
>
> On 8/24/18 2:50 PM, Fred Murphy via Marxism 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.
> > *
> >
> >
> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/opinion/sunday/what-socialism-looks-like-in-2018.html
> >
>
> Can't figure out why Corey Robin and Bhaskar Sunkara keep promoting
> socialism, at least as they see it, in the Washington Post and the NY
> Times. You'd assume that the Daily News, read by subway workers et al
> (at least those that still read newspapers), would be a more suitable
> location. I guess they are trying to reach other academics, or in
> Bhaskar's case, businessmen.
>
>
>
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, superstar -- and what Engels would have said about her

2018-08-24 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/opinion/sunday/what-socialism-looks-like-in-2018.html

On Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 1:35 AM Joaquin Bustelo via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
>
> * *
> *  *  *
>
> I was saying that even if they were as bad as some comrades claim or as
> what Engels said about the Henry George movement, I would still insist
> that this is the right approach. But in reality I do not believe any of
> those terms and phrases apply.
>
> Joaquín
>
>
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Is Science Hitting a Wall?, Part 1 - Scientific American Blog Network

2018-06-15 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

https://colddarkstars.wordpress.com/2018/06/13/ergodicity-as-the-solution-for-the-decline-of-science/
“In a previous post

I
explored the decline of science as related to the decline capitalism. A
large aspect of this decline is how the increase of informational
complexity leads to marginal returns in knowledge. For example, the last
revolution in physics appeared roughly one hundred years ago, with the
advent of quantum mechanics and relativity. Since then, the number of
scientists and fields have exponentially increased, and the division of
labor has become increasingly more complex and specialized. Yet, that
billion dollar per year experiment, the Large Hadron Collider, that was
created to probe the most fundamental aspects of theoretical physics, has
failed to confirm any of the new theories in particle physics.
 The
decline of science is coupled to the decline of capitalism in general, as
specialist and institutional overhead is increasing exponentially across
industries, but GDP growth has been sluggish since the 1970s.”

On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 5:48 PM 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.
> *
>
>
> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-science-hitting-a-wall-part-1/
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/maya-laser-lidar-guatemala-pacunam/

2018-02-03 Thread Fred Murphy 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 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:

>   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 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/
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Viewpoint magazine on imperialism

2018-02-02 Thread Fred Murphy 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 now see that Webber's article on Academia.edu is actually from the
Viewpoint issue as well.

On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 11:08 AM, Fred Murphy 
wrote:

> ...
> Meanwhile from another quarter, this just in -
> https://www.academia.edu/35821191/From_Nuestra_Am%C3%
> A9rica_to_Abya_Yala_Notes_on_Imperialism_and_Anti-
> imperialism_in_Latin_America_across_Centuries
>
> *WeltTrends* 136 Februar 2018
>>
>> Im November 2001 fasste der Chefökonom von Goldman Sachs die vier
>> „Schwellenländer“ Brasilien, Russland, Indien und China unter dem Akronym
>> BRICS zusammen. Aus der finanzstrategischen Überlegung wurde eine
>> politische der vier Staaten. Sie schlossen sich zu einer Gruppe zusammen,
>> später kam Südafrika hinzu. Jährlich finden Treffen statt, auf denen nicht
>> nur Positionen abgestimmt, sondern auch Institutionen aufgebaut werden. Im
>> *Thema* des Februar-Heftes wird eine kritische Bilanz der BRICS gezogen,
>> die deutlich macht, dass diese Gruppe trotz innerer Spannungen ein Pol der
>> multipolaren Welt ist.
>>
>
_
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] Viewpoint magazine on imperialism

2018-02-02 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

My quibble with the sub- characterization of the BRICs is that it implies
they act on behalf of one or another major or full-fledged imperialist
power, whereas they are mainly acting out of their own self-interest,
albeit in contexts where they are not the strongest powers. Who, for
example, would Russia be “subbing” for in Syria? Who is China or South
Africa subbing for in Africa?

On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 10:25 AM Patrick Bond  wrote:

> ... we may want to take up the question of whether the Russian -
> and broader BRICS agenda (which will be on display when their
> head-of-states-summit comes here to Johannesburg in late July) for that
> matter - is better described not as anti- or inter- ... but as
> sub-imperialist.
>
_
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] Viewpoint magazine on imperialism

2018-02-02 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

A great many interesting and provocative essays in the new issue of
Viewpoint - https://www.viewpointmag.com/2018/02/01/issue-6-imperialism/

For example, the lead article by Salar Mohandesi at
https://www.viewpointmag.com/2018/02/01/the-specificity-of-imperialism/

“Limiting imperialism only to the “West,” or even just the United
States, tends to obscure the imperialism of those states often
combatting that imperialism. Of course, there are enormous
differences between, for example, U.S. and Russian imperialism,
which become especially important when considering the struggles on
the ground today, but the fact remains that for those who call themselves
socialists, the ultimate objective must remain the abolition of both,
not the defense of one against the other.

“This point must be emphasized, since there is a tendency among some on
the left today to defend whatever regime opposes the United States,
whether it be Iran, Syria, North Korea, or Russia. The underlying
concerns animating this response are often very real: a desire to block
the violence of U.S. imperialism, a genuine commitment to peace in
war-torn regions, or an urgent need to counter most of the domestic left,
which still tends to implicitly or explicitly support U.S.
imperialism. Nevertheless, whatever its motivations, this kind of
anti-imperialism runs the risk of substituting antagonistic
relations between the classes comprising a state with the
antagonistic relations between nation-states. With classes
homogenized, and class struggle downplayed, or even erased, the
subject of liberation becomes the nation-state itself, not the working
classes. At its extreme, this kind of thinking can lead to supporting
authoritarian states founded on the destruction of the left and the
repression of workers’ self-activity because they are said to be
embarking on an autonomous, anti-imperialist path of development in
the face of “Western” imperialist depredations.”
_
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] These Sex Scandals Are Pushing The Country Further To The Right | Washington Babylon

2017-12-09 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Facebook post by Meredith Tax:

"A lot of commentary on Franken's resignation seems to pit short term
losses (we have lost a bulldog in the Senate) vs longterm moral and
credibility gains (Dems capturing the high ground from which we can
criticize the dogs in the GOP). The problem is, the high road can't be
constructed as a two lane highway.

The cesspool of the #Metoo revelations--and not only them-- shows the need
for a sweeping moral rejuvenation in US politics. What concerns me is that
the sexual part of this questioning has gotten separated from the other
moral questions we need to be mobilizing around, those pointed to by the
new Poor People's Campaign being led by Rev. Barber: King's “triple evils”
of racism, poverty and militarism, plus the threat to the planet. My
question: why isn't sexism also on this list?

It is essential for all of us who say #Metoo to make sure that the
perpetrators of the sexist power games that have defined so much of our own
lives be halted, interrogated, and called to account. But this fight needs
be integrated with the fights against racism, poverty, militarism and
planetary destruction. Unless we all start dealing with the whole shebang,
we are going to be repeating the same pattern that has deformed previous US
social movements, where feminists end up being in charge of sexual morality
and guys in charge of everything else. We already know where that leads."

On Dec 8, 2017 11:30 PM, "Mark Lause" <markala...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Excellent.  Exactly the kind of voices we aren't hearing on the idiot box.
>
> On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 10:23 PM, Fred Murphy 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.
>> *
>>
>> Listen to the second half of the 12/7 podcast with Liza Featherstone and
>> Jane McAlevey -
>> http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S171207
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 6:02 PM, Mark Lause 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.
>> > *
>> >
>> > What's complicated is precisely that it's being treated as something
>> very
>> > different than you and I would describe . . . as something that the
>> media
>> > and the great institutions are going to fix.  They won't.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 4:15 PM, Jeff <meis...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>> >
>> > > On 2017-12-08 21:59, Mark Lause via Marxism wrote:
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >> The sex scandals are a complex development.
>> > >>
>> > >
>> > > Let's see. For years women were abused but felt isolated, powerless,
>> that
>> > > they wouldn't be believed (and often weren't), would face
>> retributions,
>> > > would lose civil suits in court, and had much more to lose than gain
>> by
>> > > going public. With Bill Cosby for instance finally being exposed and
>> > going
>> > > down, followed by other celebrities and politicians, women gained
>> > > confidence, spoke out, and gave more confidence to other victims to do
>> > the
>> > > same. The flood gates opened.
>> > >
>> > > What's so complex about that?
>> > >
>> > > - Jeff
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > _
>> > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
>> > Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
>> > options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com
>> >
>> _
>> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
>> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt
>> ions/marxism/markalause%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] Middle EaBook Review – Helen Lackner’s ‘Yemen in Crisis: Autocracy, Neo-Liberalism and the Disintegration of a State’

2017-12-09 Thread Fred Murphy via Marxism

Middle East Centre – Book Review – Helen Lackner’s ‘Yemen in Crisis:
Autocracy, Neo-Liberalism and the Disintegration of a State’

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2017/12/08/book-review-helen-lackners-yemen-in-crisis-autocracy-neo-liberalism-and-the-disintegration-of-a-state/

“Lackner’s account shows that in 2011, when the crisis erupted in Yemen, a
breaking point had already been reached in many ways, as at that time
‘people’s living standards continued to deteriorate; the patronage and
nepotism-based autocratic rule had run out of steam (and cash); and rapid
population growth combined with mismanagement of limited natural resources,
water in particular, threatened the country’s very survival’. On this
basis, she conclusively argues that ‘reaching a sustainable peace will only
be possible if all the problems are addressed in synergy’ (p. 287).

“The strength of this book lies in the breadth of its topics and in their
balanced presentation. Lackner’s caution in properly weighting the details
of a very complicated set of developments can be attributed to her
long-standing research expertise and first-hand experience in Yemen.
Without losing sight of the details and many exceptions, she manages to
communicate the kind of macro-evidence and abstraction that allows
colleagues in other fields and the general public to grasp the overarching
situation. Moreover, in her book Lackner rebuffs some prejudices and
misperceptions that are common even in Yemen and therefore very difficult
to correct. In Chapter 5 on the Huthis – a commendably well-balanced
account of the rise and expansion of the Huthi movement in Yemen – she
criticizes the belief prevalent throughout southern Yemen that only the
south was being neglected and discriminated against. She rather argues that
this discrimination affected large parts of the population in the north
*and* south, and hence was a factor in the emergence of *both*
the Huthis and the southern secessionists. In contrast to the south,
however, the north ‘has not developed major internationally noticed
movements’ (p. 149). Praiseworthy also are some of her corrections in
relation to the local discourse in the south, which has been dominated by
emotional and contentious language even among scholars concerned with
southern Yemen, many of whom simultaneously function as political
activists. ‘When discussing differences with the North’, she argues,
‘otherwise reasonable southern intellectuals are wont to assert that “our
Southern tribes are different, they were civilized by the British for over
a century”, a laughable statement which reveals a lack of understanding of
both tribes and the colonial period when the British ignored the hinterland
tribes for most of their period in the region’ (p. 167). Lackner’s
neutrality and impartiality – one of the most important prerequisites for a
researcher – make this book immensely valuable.”
_
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: History's Emancipator: Did Abraham Lincoln Have "a Drop of Anti-Slavery Blood in His Veins"?

2017-11-26 Thread Fred Murphy 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 gained a better appreciation of Lincoln and the Republicans from reading
James Oakes's Freedom National. I have not seen any convincing refutations
of his view that the Republicans proceeded systematically to abolish
slavery starting with the First Confiscation Act in 1861.

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Freedom-National/


On Nov 25, 2017 5:39 PM, "Mark Lause 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.
> *
>
> Absolutely so.
>
> On Lincoln, it seems clear to me that he had some very radical ideas
> and--unlike any of us--felt no great compulsion to publicize them.
> According to his partner, William Herndon--who was rather openly a
> radical--Lincoln did not believe anyone could legislate change--which he
> thought to be pointlessly unworkable and politically suicidal.  His
> freethought and his view on civic equality for woman are good examples of
> this.
>
> Rather, Lincoln believed that a politician who saw public opinion moving
> forward should ratify the change and not permit it to be rolled back.  This
> was certainly his view after the Emancipation Proclamation when many
> Republicans wanted him to repudiate both the proclamation and the decision
> to authorize the recruitment of black troops.
>
> I am firmly with those historians who think of Lincoln as the best U.S.
> president, though--unlike most--I think that's a bit like being the most
> ethical human being in the present U.S. Congress.
>
> ML
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Finally, an escape from a capitalist-destroyed planet!

2017-11-16 Thread Fred Murphy 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 a mere 11 light years away - what could possibly go wrong?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/08/aurora-kim-stanley-robinson-review-science-fiction

On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 1:32 PM, Dennis Brasky 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.
> *
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/science/planet-ross-128.html
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Disaster Communism

2017-10-11 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

[From the System Change Not Climate Change Listserv -
the original was the Facebook status of a San Francisco resident]


*It is time for disaster communism.*

*The fires are still uncontained.  Over 8,000 people have already lost
everything, and while I pray that no one else loses their home, that looks
unlikely.  There is NO affordable housing in this area, in the Bay area,
including the north bay.  Where are all these people supposed to go?*

*It's time for some disaster communism, disaster socialism, some disaster
anarchism.  We know the speculators are drooling and champing at the bit
right now...there's so many ways to make a profit from a tragedy
(articulated clearly by Naomi Klein as "Disaster Capitalism").  If we move
forward in the capitalist way, each family's loss and struggle will be
their individual loss and struggle, and it will be horrific.  It will not
end well for anyone except those for whom things always end well, those who
can use money to wipe their butts with but never have anything to spare.*

*BUT what if we took a different way?  What if every single housing rights
organization, every homeless advocacy group, every student group, every
single left leaning politician, every agency that can participate, helped
all the people displaced by this fire to be TOGETHER in their struggles,
and demand something different?*

*What if we expropriated every unit in SF that is unoccupied for all but
two vacation weeks, and housed the people from that neighborhood in Santa
Rosa in them? I know the millennial tower is leaning, but maybe living in a
leaning tower will be better than a shelter, live in lopsided luxury for a
while?  What if every illegal air BnB unit was handed over to displaced
families?*

*What if every law enforcement agency came under immense pressure, from
above and below, to ignore property laws, refused to evict squatters?*

*What if every landlord who raised rent right now was not only prosecuted
and fined and shamed, but the property they were speculating on was
nationalized and given to the people who already live there, or to
displaced people?*

*What if every landlord had to show what their actual costs for maintaining
a property are, and were only allowed to charge %5 or 10% over that in
rent?  Or, better, what if we socialized all the housing, or at a minimum
all the unoccupied housing?  if SF had a 100% occupancy rate, we could
probably house everyone while rebuilding happens.*

*I mean, the possibilities are endless, and it's time.  It's time to shift
gears.  I mean, it's BEEN time.  But if the capitalist scum who have done
so much harm can see this as an opportunity, maybe we should do.  It's a
fucking literal opportunity to build a new world in the ashes of the old.*
_
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] Alexander Cockburn on the Alt-Right: A Prophecy or Fallacy?

2017-09-13 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

You say the Libertarians are doing the right thing - Who do you include
among the "Libertarians" and what "right things" are they doing?

On Sep 13, 2017 4:25 PM, "Andrew Stewart 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.
> *
>
> http://washingtonbabylon.com/alexander-cockburn-on-the-alt-
> right-a-prophecy-or-fallacy/
>
> --
> Best regards,
>
> Andrew Stewart
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Eve of Destruction...or Revolution?--review of Creating an Ecological Society

2017-08-08 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Good review - I just finished co-leading a study group on the book. One of
the best works of general socialist propaganda to come along in quite a
while.
http://marxedproject.org/event/creating-an-ecological-society/

On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 7:49 AM Ron Jacobs 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.
> *
>
>
> http://stillhomeron.blogspot.com/2017/08/eve-of-destructionor-revolution.html
>
> --
> Check out my newest books ,* Capitalism
> ,
> Daydream
> Sunset:60s Counterculture in the 70s
>  and Can We Escape the Eternal Flame?
>  >*
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Capitalism is national and imperialist, not transnational | Fred Magdoff | MR Online

2017-06-26 Thread Fred Murphy 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 like Saskia Sassen's approach to this question -

Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global AssemblagesPrinceton
University Press, 2008 updated 2nd ed. (1st ed. 2006)

*From the publisher*: Where does the nation-state end and globalization
begin? In *Territory, Authority, Rights*, one of the world's leading
authorities on globalization shows how the national state made today's
global era possible. Saskia Sassen argues that even while globalization is
best understood as "denationalization," it continues to be shaped,
channeled, and enabled by institutions and networks originally developed
with nations in mind, such as the rule of law and respect for private
authority. This process of state making produced some of the capabilities
enabling the global era. The difference is that these capabilities have
become part of new organizing logics: actors other than nation-states
deploy them for new purposes. Sassen builds her case by examining how three
components of any society in any age--territory, authority, and
rights--have changed in themselves and in their interrelationships across
three major historical "assemblages": the medieval, the national, and the
global.

On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 4:43 AM, Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via
Marxism  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.
> *
>
>
> https://mronline.org/2017/06/22/capitalism-is-national-and-
> imperialist-not-transnational/
>
>
>
>
>
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] ‘No Such Thing as Justice’ in Fight Over Chemical Pollution in China

2017-06-13 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

This essay has probably appeared here before, but it's the best there is on
China and the environment. Richard is expanding it into a book to be
published by Verso later this year or next.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31478-china-s-communist-capitalist-ecological-apocalypse

On Tue, Jun 13, 2017 at 9:17 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.
> *
>
> (I read shit like this and wonder how anybody on the left can consider
> China's government as environmentally-minded. It takes more than
> alternative energy to qualify. It is particularly galling when you consider
> how Roland Boer, the winner of the Isaac Deutscher prize in 2014, pumps out
> ridiculous defenses of "Chinese socialism" nonstop.)
>
>
> NY Times, June 13 2017
> ‘No Such Thing as Justice’ in Fight Over Chemical Pollution in China
> By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ
>
> [snip]
>
_
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] "Ground rent" thesis at the Left forum

2017-06-08 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

OK I get it, Fred Fuentes. D'oh.

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 5:45 PM, Fred Murphy  wrote:

> I agree with Patrick's quote, but I don't recall saying it :)
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 5:26 PM, Patrick Bond 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.
>> *
>>
>> On 2017/06/09 12:05 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:
>>
>>> ...I am for all attempts in Latin America to take control of country's
>>> resources and use it for the public good whether it was copper in Allende's
>>> Chile, oil in Venezuela, gas in Bolivia, etc. I thought that Federico
>>> Fuentes and the other Socialist Alliance comrades overprojected what was
>>> possible in Venezuela but I think he was right on this:
>>> http://climateandcapitalism.com/2014/05/19/dangerous-myths-a
>>> nti-extractivism/
>>>
>>
>> As Fred points out,
>>
>>Even some of the keenest critics of extractivism in Latin America...
>>acknowledge the need to differentiate between what they term
>>“predatory”, “sensible” and “indispensable” extractivism. It is also
>>true that most movements against specific extractive projects do not
>>propose ending all extractive industries and that within local
>>communities involved in such campaigns a variety of views exist.
>>
>>
>> Each case needs to be considered separately, but the overall net negative
>> wealth effect once GDP is properly corrected, suggests more caution is
>> needed.
>>
>> The other two factors that are more acute now than in 2014, are the
>> commodity price crash (especially in 2015) which in some cases led to
>> declining Western or BRICS corporate exploitation (especially of greenfield
>> projects) but in others led to more intense exploitation as shareholders
>> demanded profits based on high volumes of extraction rather than on the
>> high prices of prior years; and the imperative of climate change to leave
>> fossil fuels underground.
>>
>>
>> _
>> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
>> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt
>> ions/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] "Ground rent" thesis at the Left forum

2017-06-08 Thread Fred Murphy 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 agree with Patrick's quote, but I don't recall saying it :)


On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 5:26 PM, Patrick Bond 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.
> *
>
> On 2017/06/09 12:05 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:
>
>> ...I am for all attempts in Latin America to take control of country's
>> resources and use it for the public good whether it was copper in Allende's
>> Chile, oil in Venezuela, gas in Bolivia, etc. I thought that Federico
>> Fuentes and the other Socialist Alliance comrades overprojected what was
>> possible in Venezuela but I think he was right on this:
>> http://climateandcapitalism.com/2014/05/19/dangerous-myths-
>> anti-extractivism/
>>
>
> As Fred points out,
>
>Even some of the keenest critics of extractivism in Latin America...
>acknowledge the need to differentiate between what they term
>“predatory”, “sensible” and “indispensable” extractivism. It is also
>true that most movements against specific extractive projects do not
>propose ending all extractive industries and that within local
>communities involved in such campaigns a variety of views exist.
>
>
> Each case needs to be considered separately, but the overall net negative
> wealth effect once GDP is properly corrected, suggests more caution is
> needed.
>
> The other two factors that are more acute now than in 2014, are the
> commodity price crash (especially in 2015) which in some cases led to
> declining Western or BRICS corporate exploitation (especially of greenfield
> projects) but in others led to more intense exploitation as shareholders
> demanded profits based on high volumes of extraction rather than on the
> high prices of prior years; and the imperative of climate change to leave
> fossil fuels underground.
>
>
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt
> ions/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] "Ground rent" thesis at the Left forum

2017-06-08 Thread Fred Murphy 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 keep coming back to Richard Smith's "Six Theses..." as an uncompromising
ecosocialist framework for these discussions. It is long past time for
socialists to forgo and critique "productionist," "Promethean," or
"accelerationist" approaches to overcoming the planetary crisis.

http://thenextsystem.org/six-theses-on-saving-the-planet/

Thesis 2 (for example) - "We would have to 'contract and converge'
production around a globally sustainable and hopefully happy average that
can provide a dignified living standard for all the world’s peoples. To
effect such a balance, we would have to slam the brakes on out-of-control
growth in the Global North. We would need to retrench or shut down
unnecessary, resource-hogging, wasteful, polluting industries like fossil
fuels, autos, aircraft and airlines, shipping, chemicals, bottled water,
processed foods, pharmaceuticals, and so on. We would have to discontinue
harmful processes like industrial agriculture, fishing, and logging. We
would have to close down many services–the banking industry, Wall Street,
the credit card, retail, public relations, and advertising 'industries' —
built to underwrite and promote overconsumption. We would have to abolish
the military-surveillance-police state industrial complex, and all its
manufacturers, as this is just a total waste that’s only purpose is global
domination, state terrorism, destruction abroad, and repression at home. We
can’t build decent societies anywhere when so much of social surplus is
squandered on such waste.

"At the same time, we would be obliged to redirect considerable resources
to ramping up sustainable development in the Global South. We, in the
North, have a responsibility to help the South build basic infrastructure,
electrification, sanitation systems, public schools, health care, and so
on. We would help their citizens achieve a comfortable material standard of
living without repeating all the disastrous wastes of capitalist
consumerism in the North. After all, we owe them a huge debt: much of the
poverty of the South is the result of decades and centuries of the
industrialized North looting their resources. If we just stop this, the
South can use its natural resource wealth for its own sustainable
development. ..."
_
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 Iron Law of Institutions and the Left

2017-06-01 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

https://medium.com/@freddiedeboer/the-iron-law-of-institutions-and-the-left-735da96f61d3
_
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] The Chávez Hypothesis: Vicissitudes of a Strategic Project (Chris Gilbert)

2017-05-19 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

If you haven't read this I suggest you do so before writing (whatever your
opinion of GCM).

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2337-building-the-commune

Not sure I want to reply to Gilbert but I find the notion of communes in
> Venezuela troubling. Were they supposed to be an expression of dual power?
> When the government in power has created them, it sounds much more like a
> single power. I haven't been paying close attention to Venezuela since
> Maduro took over. To some extent that has to do with Chavismo support for
> Assad that makes the notions of 21st century socialism sound hollow. I may
> write something about the communes if I get a chance.
>
>
_
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] "Leninism" and Scientology [was: Reflections on the “party question”]

2017-05-17 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Your main point is well taken, but the Chartists/Occupy analogy is a big
stretch. The Chartists - described by Lenin as “the first broad, truly
mass, and politically organised proletarian revolutionary movement” - persisted
over more than a decade, presented a coherent program of democratic
demands; organized mass strikes, marches and petition campaigns; and
published a weekly newspaper, *The Northern Star*.  Occupy ... well, not so
much.

In any case, we would do well to study the Chartists at least as closely as
we do Lenin and the Bolsheviks. One place to start -
http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2042-the-dignity-of-chartism-on-the-legacy-of-dorothy-thompson


Go read about the Chartists which Marx and Engels hailed as the first
> workers party and explain to me the difference between them and the Occupy
> Movement.
>
_
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] Jeffery Webber and the "pink tide"

2017-04-26 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Haven't read it yet but I heard Jeff speak on the same themes at NYU a
couple months back, and the Jacobin article is a good summary.  I concur
with Andrew's point - sorting out the gains and losses from the so-called
Pink Tide experience is a valuable contribution. Will await Lou's in-depth
article before I comment further.

On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 1:46 PM, 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.
> *
>
> On 4/26/17 1:32 PM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote:
>
>> I've read about a third of the book and it's hardly the shrill told-you-so
>> caricature of Leninism which Louis makes it out to be.
>>
>
> As if the battle over control of Venezuela's state oil company in 2007 was
> between two neoliberal factions. Anyhow, I will be going into more depth
> tomorrow.
>
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt
> ions/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] not so fast, Lars!

2017-04-14 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Barry, correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to lack familiarity with some
basic concepts in Marxist economics, specifically the labor theory of
value. May I suggest this as a starting point -
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch02.htm#c6


On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 12:35 PM, Barry Brooks 
wrote:

> Thanks for the tip Fred. I read George Caffentzis, "Why Machines Cannot
> Create Value...
> https://libcom.org/library/george-caffentzis-letters-blood-fire
>
> What would swell the ranks Marxist revolutionaries?  I'll tell you
> after we get George out of the way.
>
> GC's "defense of the claim that machines do not create value" is a
> failure. His letters repeatedly prove that all human labor can not be
> eliminated. However, that fact does even imply that machines don't
> create any value.  What is this strange "value" that machine output
> does  not have?
>
> Self replication of automation is beside the point except to prove that
> human labor  can never be eliminated totally. OK, but how does the
> fact  that human labor was and will be always be necessary bear on why
> "value" is set by human labor? Self  replicating automation is
> impossible  and productivity  has  various limits, therefore  machines
> can't create value? What a leap of logic! When automation becomes
> self-replicating  will it be able to create value?
>
> "The ratio between workers caloric input and labor output could never
> reach 100%."  What about oil drillers? This false and irrelevant
> conclusion makes it clear that GC is taking sides and resorting to
> lawyer-like facts to win for his side. Damn the truth; just find data.
> Remember "How to Lie With Statistics?"
>
> Yes, machines don't give a "Magical something for nothing." Having
> dismissed magic as a threat to the singular source of value, GC has
> again  tried to divert our attention from the question, "can machines
> create value?"
>
> It all makes sense after one sees what Marx had in mind when he said
> machines can not create value.
>
> It seems that Marx-value is neither use-value nor exchange-value but
> just the wages generated. Since workers are not being paid when
> machines produce things, no value comes from machine production. That
> does not mean that no income is generated or that the output is just
> imaginary.
>
> #
>
> It's not a question of whether machines can do all work or whether AI
> will be smarter than people. The question is will smart machines be
> able to take over so much work from humans that we need to end wage
> dependence? If we believe as an article of faith that machines can't
> create "value" that does not mean that they can't replace workers.
>
> Marxists could insist giving "to each" a share of the non-value output
> produced by machines. That would swell the ranks Marxist
> revolutionaries.
>
> Our strange denial of the impact of machines have on the need for human
> work has rendered most Marxists harmless, and therefore tolerated in
> the academy as representatives of a monopoly radicalism. Capitalists
> also support wage dependence, maximum resource plunder, and the
> delusion that we are creators. All classes of parasites pretend they are
> THE creators. What we have been given and destroyed has no standing in
> the theories of of human pride.
>
>
>
>
_
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] not so fast, Lars!

2017-04-13 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Barry, check out George Caffentzis, "Why Machines Cannot Create Value:
Marx’s Theory of Machines" from *In Letters of Blood and Fire*. PDF of
entire book available at
https://libcom.org/library/george-caffentzis-letters-blood-fire

On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 12:09 PM, Barry Brooks 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.
> *
>
> DW,
>
> Without labor all income would be profit. The limit of productivity is
> full unemployment, and the necessary transformation of the working
> class into owners.
>
> Marx would not be so slow to see the changes we face, but he was not
> a follower.
>
> Barry
>
> > Barry initiated an interesting digression...Barry believes our species to
> > be parasites. How interesting and indeed, anti-Marxist. That the root of
> > the labor theory of Value is that we, humanity, take nature, build tools,
> > and change our environment. Boo hoo. Back to the trees you scallywags
> > There is no hope!!! No, Marx allowed us to analyses capitalism.
> Everything
> > else is about how we use that analysis. There is no profit without labor,
> > regardless of what it is you automate. It just changes where that power
> of
> > the working class lies. I suggest as an intro probably the best peice of
> > Marxist analysis I've read in the last 5 years as a start before you
> start
> > raising he Green flag off that branch you are clearly sitting on.
> >
> > https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/02/logistics-industry-organizing-labor/
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Socialist Action slides even further into tankiedom

2017-04-10 Thread Fred Murphy 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 ironically enough for the orthodox Trotskyists of SA who started out as
ardent defenders of Permanent Revolution, this line amounts to two-stage
popular frontism: “The defeat of imperialist intervention is the
*prerequisite* for the Syrian masses to organize their own independent
class-struggle forces aimed at fully meeting the needs and aspirations of
Syria’s workers and farmers as they strive *in the future* to build a
socialist society.”

On Mon, Apr 10, 2017 at 9:15 AM, Andrew Pollack 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.
> *
>
> Link to its new article at bottom.
>
>
> After supporting Assad's denial of responsibility for the chemical weapons
> attacks – and by this denial facilitating future such attacks
>  ...
>
_
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] Sanders: 'Make Democrats a party of the working class, not liberal elite'

2017-04-05 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Thought experiment: Let's say Sanders and Warren succeed beyond their
wildest dreams and either rout the neoliberal wing of the DP altogether or
break with the DP and successfully organize a new formation - in either
case, would it then be a working-class party? What else would have to
happen to make it so? While I see a lot of broadly reformist,
quasi-social-democratic ("progressive") programmatic points on the Our
Revolution website, I see nothing to indicate any aspiration to be a
working-class or social-democratic party.  And Google searches on "trade
unions" and "labor movement" on that site come up effectively empty.

https://ourrevolution.com/about/
https://ourrevolution.com/issues/

On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 2:09 PM, Mark Lause 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 idea of making the Democratic Party a vehicle suitable for change
> favorable to the workers goes back to the very origins of the party .
> ..
>
_
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] Lenin's theory of imperialism

2017-04-04 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Excellent indeed - in particular, a useful antidote to John Riemann's view
that the current world situation somehow evokes eve of World War I, with
China in the role of Germany and the USA as ... the Ottoman Empire?!

http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=13237

On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 8:08 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.
> *
>
> Excellent piece from Sam King, one of things discussed in our Imperialism
> Study Group.
>
> https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/lenins-theory-of-imperialism/
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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: A follow-up on the Enlightenment | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

2017-03-23 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Global Apartheid: On the historical superiority of the West
by Nauman Naqvi · March 21, 2017
http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153700

"Whether we moderns like it or not, no premodern state had ruled on the
basis of race, a doctrine and an idea that was and is inextricably tied to
the emergence of gora[*] nationalism and progress in the wake of the
‘Enlightenment’. The latter, let us pause and remark here with some
emphasis, given how banalised and obvious it has globally become, is a most
extraordinary historical periodisation in itself: for in the past,
‘Enlightenment’ would have been characterised of extraordinary, luminous
individuals. Now, entire peoples – people to be sure, as white as the light
of their self-nominated historical age – are to have become ‘Enlightened,’
no doubt the most remarkable instance of Gora’s ingenious flair for
historical self-glorification and sanctification, not to mention of Gora’s
genius for inventing a truly diabolically twisted secular metaphysics that
makes of (his own) wretched worldly history a theophanic event."

*Gora (racial epithet), or gaura, a Hindi and Indo-Aryan word for Europeans
or a light-skinned person.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gora

On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 1:56 AM, A.R. G via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

[...]
>
_
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] Fascism or Just More Barbarism?

2017-03-02 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Anemic turnout - in the low hundreds - for pro-Trump rallies:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/us/trump-rallies.html


On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 12:59 PM, Ken Hiebert 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.
> *
>
> Trump in Perspective: Fascism or Just More  Barbarism?
>
> http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=13187
>
>
> My comment on the article.
> ken h
>
>
> While fascists have taken heart form the Trump victory, I agree with the
> author that we are not at the point of fascism.
> My understanding of fascism is that it is a mass movement and it has the
> capacity to engage in street combat.  The relationship of forces has not
> gone that far, as yet.
>
> During the wonderful airport demonstrations I caught a fragment on cable
> TV that suggested Trump supporters were on their way to the Los Angeles
> airport.  I heard no more about that.  A strong fascist movement would have
> been able to mobilize anti-immigrant demonstrations at the airports, even
> going so far as to attack the pro-immigrant demonstrations.
>
> Again and again, since the inauguration, we have seen people in the
> street.  The Women's March, the Yemeni bodega owners, the Day(s) Without
> Immigrants.
> No doubt there were fascists that would have wanted to attack these
> demonstrations.  But they did not have the forces.
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Doug Greene on "Why Blanqui?"

2017-02-01 Thread Fred Murphy 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://marxedproject.org/event/the-life-and-thought-of-louis-auguste-blanqui/


On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 8:58 PM, Mark Lause 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.
> *
>
> Blanqui actually attempted to do things.  Admiration for him (as for
> Garibaldi) became a measure of how discontented people were with the
> ongoing radical talk shops.
>
> Btw, the contribution of his organized followers in the U.S. to the
> founding of the movement here is particularly neglected.
>
> ML
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Shock events

2017-01-31 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Not even Murdoch is a sure thing -

"21st Century Fox chiefs James and Lachlan Murdoch—CEO and chairman,
respectively—are the latest corporate leaders to come out against Donald
Trump's executive order banning citizens of seven predominately Muslim
nations from coming into the United States for 90 days and halting the
Syrian refugee program for 120 days.

"'21st Century Fox is a global company, proudly headquartered in the U.S.,
founded by–and comprising at all levels of the business – immigrants,' the
brothers wrote in an internal memo on Monday, referring to their father,
Australian immigrant Rupert Murdoch, the current chairman of Fox News. 'We
deeply value diversity and believe immigration is an essential part of
America’s strength.'..."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2017/01/30/21st-century-foxs-murdochs-come-out-against-immigration-ban-despite-fathers-ties-to-trump/#24d157ff4831

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 3:18 AM, Gary MacLennan via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
> ...
> CNN and the New York Times have also been dubbed the enemy. Only
> that old reprobate Rupert Murdoch seems to be on Trump’s side.
>  ...
>
>
_
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] Mexico's humiliation

2017-01-28 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Yep

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 6:52 PM, Joaquin Bustelo 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.
> *
>
> I didn't quite get this article you sent the link to.
>
> "For the past twenty days, Mexico has been living in a state of social
> unrest: Trump’s election stirred our spirit," it says.
>
> But from the moment he announced a year and a half ago, Trump provoked a
> very sharp reaction. Just look at the sdozens of canciones and corridos on
> youtube about him. Even pitiyanqui sugarwater salesman Vicente Fox was
> moved to say, "We're not going to pay for your fucking wall."
>
> México has been in a "state of social unrest" since, well, forever and
> certainly since Calderón sent the army to wage --and lose--  the war on
> drugs.
>
> But there was a qualitative change with Ayotzinapa, it just tore the
> country's heart out. I heard it on the radio show I co-host every day, and
> we're all the way in Atlanta.
>
> Brozo, in his last show last June, went over what they'd been covering for
> six years and listen to the part about ayotzinapa It starts a little before
> so you get the context):
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGSpu-gt-Nk=youtu.be=5m33s
>
> So this article seems sort of detached from that whole context.
>
>
> On 1/27/2017 4:28 PM, Fred Murphy via Marxism 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.
>> *
>>
>> http://www.publicseminar.org/2017/01/the-day-mexico-denied-trumpism/
>>
>> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt
> ions/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Mexico's humiliation

2017-01-27 Thread Fred Murphy 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/2017/01/the-day-mexico-denied-trumpism/


On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 8:07 PM, wytheholt--- 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.
> *
>
> Which means that you and I should  be shot for treason.
>
>
>
>  Joaquin Bustelo via Marxism  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.
> > *
> >
> >  From my blog:
> >
> >
> > This is the typical response of a spouse that is in an abusive marriage
> > and has so internalized the victimization that even after being slapped
> > around, they are begging the abuser to take them back. People in that
> > situation or who have survived it need all the love and respect and
> > support that can be mustered to help them escape and heal.
> >
> >
> > But what a president who acts this way on behalf of their country
> > deserves is to be shot for treason.
> >
> >
> > Full:
> >
> > https://hatueysashes.blogspot.com/2017/01/president-pena-
> nieto-should-be-shot-for.html
> >
> >
> > _
> > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> > Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/wytheholt%40cox.net
>
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] Alexander Bogdanov and Russian Machism

2016-12-23 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Can you expand the "See more"s and repost? Thanks!

On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 9:08 AM Jim Farmelant  wrote:

>
>
> We had the following exchange on my FB wall.
> ...
>
>
_
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] Alexander Bogdanov and Russian Machism

2016-12-23 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Jim, are you familiar with McKenzie Wark's *Molecular Red*? Good intro to
Bogadanov.
http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/1897-bogdanov-for-the-win
https://www.versobooks.com/books/1886-molecular-red

Also, Karen Barad - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Barad

On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 5:23 AM, Jim Farmelant 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.
> *
>
>
> In the early 20th century, the Russian Machists were mostly (though not
> exclusively) Bolsheviks like Alexander Bogdanov
> ...
>
_
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: 300 Casualties Standing Rock

2016-11-22 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 12:17 PM
Subject: 300 Casualties Standing Rock

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Monday, November 20, 2016 3:00pm
Prepared by Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council at the Standing Rock
Dakota Access Pipeline Resistance Camps

The Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council responded to a mass casualty
incident that began at 6pm yesterday evening. Approximately 300 injuries
were identified, triaged, assessed and treated by our physicians, nurses,
paramedics and integrative healers working in collaboration with local
emergency response. These 300 injuries were the direct result of excessive
force by police over the course of 10 hours. At least 26 seriously injured
people had to be evacuated by ambulance to 3 area hospitals.

Police continuously assaulted demonstrators with up to three water cannons
for the first 7 hours of this incident in subfreezing temperatures dipping
to 22F (C) causing hypothermia in the majority of patients treated.
Chemical weapons in the form of pepper spray and tear gas were also used
extensively, requiring chemical decontamination for nearly all patients
treated and severe reactions in many. Projectiles in the form of tear gas
canisters, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades led to numerous blunt
force traumas including head wounds, lacerations, serious orthopedic
injuries, eye trauma, and internal bleeding.

Every emergency medical unit from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation
responded to the incident and additional ambulances were sent from Cheyenne
River Sioux tribe (South Dakota), Kidder County, and Morton County. 3
seriously injured patients were transported directly by ambulance from the
scene and another 23 patients were transported by ambulance after initial
assessment and treatment in camp. Injuries from the mass casualty incident
include:

•An elder who lost consciousness and was revived on scene
•A young man with a grand mal seizure
•A woman shot in the face by a rubber bullet with subsequent eye
injury and compromised vision
•A young man with internal bleeding who was vomiting blood after a
rubber bullet injury to his abdomen
•A man shot in the back near his spine by a rubber bullet causing
blunt force trauma and a severe head laceration
•Multiple fractures secondary to projectiles fired by police

The Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council condemns the excessive police
violence and calls upon law enforcement to cease and desist these nearly
lethal actions. Specifically, we demand the cessation of water cannons in
subfreezing temperatures.

Our volunteers performed well under challenging circumstances last night,
but we would not have been able to do this without the help of water
protectors and local community members who transported patients to our
clinic, organized warming spaces, and provided food and tea. We
specifically want to thank the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe EMS services for
their excellent response and highest quality care in an unprecedented
situation. “They were phenomenal. They recognized the severity of what we
were dealing with, it could have been a lot worse” said Jazmine, a
volunteer physician from the Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council.

Donations for the medical and public health response can be made to the
Standing Rock Medic & Healer council at www.medichealercouncil.com/donate.

Water is Life, Mni Wiconi

Signed,

Linda Black Elk, PhD, Ethnobotanist, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
Michael Knudsen, MPH candidate, Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council
Noah Morris, EMT
Amelia Massucco, RN
John Andrews, RN
Kristina Golden, EMT, herbalist
Sebastian Rodriguez, RN
Rosemary Fister, RN, MNPHN, DNP Candidate
Rupa Marya, MD, DoNoHarm Coalition, University of California – San
Francisco
David Kingfisher, MD, JD, Wichita State University
Jesse Lopez, MD, Heartland Surgical Care
Kalama O Ka Aina Niheu, MD, Aha Aloha Aina
Howard Ehrman, MD, MPH, University of Illinois - Chicago
Geeta Maker-Clark, MD, University of Chicago
Elizabeth Friedman, MD
Vanessa Bolin, ALS Paramedic

Contact: Michael Knudsen, Medic Coordinator and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
ethno-botanist Linda Black Elk, PhD – medichealercoun...@gmail.com

Howard Ehrman, MD, MPH

University of Illinois Chicago

Assistant Professor

College of Medicine

School of Public Health

-- 
Fred Murphy  |  12 Dongan Place #206  |  New York, NY  |  212-304-9106
_
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 Radical Internationalism of Stefan Zweig

2016-11-21 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Zweig could be seen as part of a loose triumvirate with Victor Serge and
Walter Benjamin - stellar European intellectuals of the interwar period who
died in exile in more or less desperate straits - Zweig and Benjamin by
suicide, Serge ground down by prison and persecution.

Haven't read this yet, but also looks good - George Prochnik, *The
Impossible Exile*
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/books/review/george-prochniks-impossible-exile-about-stefan-zweig.html


Poorly served by Wes Anderson in the “The Grand Budapest Hotel” as a
> comic-opera figure in line with the director’s overripe pastel-colored
> sense of whimsy, Stefan Zweig now reappears
> ...
>
_
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] New theory of gravity might explain dark matter

2016-11-08 Thread Fred Murphy 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://phys.org/news/2016-11-theory-gravity-dark.html
_
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] Behind the Demonstrations in Morocco by Richard Greeman

2016-11-03 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

*Received from Richard with a request to post widely.*

*Behind the Demonstrations in Morocco*

By Richard Greeman

On Wednesday Oct. 26, the well-known Moroccan historian and human rights
activist Maâti Monjib and five of his colleagues were hauled into the High
Court at Rabat to answer charges of “attacks on national security” and
“receiving foreign funds.” They are facing up to five years in prison for
their activities as investigative journalists, human rights advocates and
members of the “February 20th Movement” -- the Moroccan version of “Arab
Spring” of 2011.

Two days later, anti-government demonstrations spread across Morocco after
social media spread the story of  Mousine Fikri, a fishmonger crushed to
death inside a garbage truck as he tried to block the destruction of a
truckload of his fish confiscated by police. The February 20th Movement,
long assumed dormant, sprang back to life and took the lead in organizing
the protests, which spread to 40 cities.

These two events – the Monjib trial and the demonstrations sweeping the
country -- are hardly unrelated. Monjib and his co-defendants, journalists,
media activists, and fighters for human rights, were already a thorn in the
side of the regime even before the 2011 rising. Since then they and their
colleagues have courageously struggled for media freedom while building the
on-line infrastructure of information and interaction that makes possible
real-time on-the-ground mobilizations like those taking place this week.
Their efforts have not gone unrewarded, despite years of government
harassment including base defamation campaigns in official media, bogus
arrests on morals charges and the current treason trial. As today’s
headlines illustrate, social media remain a potent tool in the hands of the
oppressed, and the authoritarian regime of King Mohammed VI had “good”
reasons to persecute media activists like Monjib and his friends.

A Long Tug of War

The mastery of social media has apparently leveled the playing field in
Morocco’s  long struggle for democracy and human rights. On the ground, it
helps coordinate mass mobilizations challenging the regime in the streets,
demanding an end to corruption, brutality, and injustice summed up by the
cry (and hash tag) of Hoga! (oppression). His Majesty, out of the country
on an official visit, has not returned to take charge of the emergency. In
any case the authorities dare not attempt to repress the demonstrations and
sit-ins by force on the eve of the upcoming COP conference in the Moroccan
city of Marrakesh, at which the Monarchy’s international reputation as a
progressive island of stability in the Arab world is at stake. The timing
couldn’t be worse for Mohammed VI.

The tug of war on the ground is matched by propaganda war in the air in
which for once both sides are well armed. The regime controls all the
official “vertical” media and can spin the truth in any direction. The
popular movement ripostes with its Internet-based, horizontal social media
and investigative journalist-bloggers. Here’s how the story of Mousine
Fikri’s death plays out in the rival media.

The regime is going through the motions of satisfying the call for justice
without actually seeking justice. The Royal Prosecutor in the town of Al
Hoseima noisily prosecuting eleven officials. This made the N.Y.Times. But
don’t look too closely. To calm the fury, the eleven police and fishery
officials have been locked up, but for “forgery” (in fact faulty paperwork
in recording the incident). They will be released when things calm down.
However the Prosecutor is not investigating the question of who gave the
order to turn on the crushing machine at the back of the empty garbage
truck. (The fish had not yet been loaded). According to the independent
on-line journal Le Desk, this operation requires the cooperation of two
workers: the driver to turn on the electricity in the cab and his assistant
to pull the lever at the back of the truck, where Mr. Fiki and his friends
were presumably visible. Eyewitnesses have been quoted saying they heard
someone give the order: “crush him.”

The authorities are classing Mr. Fiki’s death as an “accident.” In the
social media, it is called a “state-crime.” Few believe the regime will
keep its promises to “investigate” Fiki’s death: after five years the
Interior Ministry still has not found who was responsible for the deaths of
15 protesters on Feb. 20, 2011 -- the date which gave the popular movement
its name. The regime, through its official and allied websites, has also
been flooding the web with disinformation designed to confuse and discredit
what the protestors and the independent

[Marxism] Morocco's Al-Hoceima protests reflect 'a heavy legacy'

2016-11-01 Thread Fred Murphy 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.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/morocco-al-hoceima-protests-reflect-heavy-legacy-161101061913733.html
_
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: Millennials and “unnatural” deaths under Stalin | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

2016-10-27 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Minor quibble re "Isaac Babel, arguably the finest novelist to have emerged
out of the Russian Revolution" - Babel wrote short stories; the finest
novelist was Victor Serge, and the finest novel his Case of Comrade Tulayev
(imho).

On Wednesday, October 26, 2016, 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.
> *
>
>
>
> https://louisproyect.org/2016/10/26/millennials-and-unnatura
> l-deaths-under-stalin/
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt
> ions/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com
>

-- 
Fred Murphy  |  12 Dongan Place #206  |  New York, NY  |  212-304-9106
_
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 Nature of Capitalism | Jacobin

2016-10-26 Thread Fred Murphy 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 book is excellent and worth the effort if only for Chapter 13, a
thorough recasting of Capital volume 1 to account for capital's adoption of
fossil fuels and persistence in their use, environmental consequences be
damned.

On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 11:56 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.
> *
>
> A review of a book on climate change by Andreas Malm, who co-wrote a very
> good book on Iran. I doubt I will have time to read his book but there is a
> 100 page or so article that I printed out about a year ago that I should
> have time for.
>
> https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/climate-crisis-fossil-fue
> l-renewables-marx-malm/
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt
> ions/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com
>

-- 
Fred Murphy  |  12 Dongan Place #206  |  New York, NY  |  212-304-9106
_
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] Nader Atassi on the "regime change" bet

2016-10-04 Thread Fred Murphy 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.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/world/middleeast/us-suspends-talks-with-russia-on-syria.html

"Notably missing from the statement was any reference to steps the United
States might take to strengthen the Syrian opposition by providing
antiaircraft weapons or imposing economic sanctions to punish Russian
organizations that are helping the Syrian government.

"The Obama administration has announced that it will consider 'options and
alternatives.' But with Mr. Obama reluctant to intervene in the escalating
Syrian civil war or to risk an inadvertent confrontation with the Russian
military, it is not clear how much interest the White House has in pursuing
such options.

"Mr. Kerry said in a meeting with Syrian civilians last month that he was
one of three or four people in the administration who had previously argued
for using force against the Assad government, and that he had lost the
argument."

On Tue, Oct 4, 2016 at 7:50 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.
> *
>
> (Posted to FB)
>
> All of this Assad apologist posturing needs to be understood in terms of a
> bet.
>
> For the most part the US foreign policy establishment believes siding with
> Assad is wise given the threat of Islamists. There’s a small, vocal,
> neoconish contingent against this, but they’ve lost the fight so far. What
> some alt journalists are trying to do is a big gamble in terms of
> credibility but will reap big gains if it comes true: they are hoping the
> US switches to treating Assad as enemy #1 so they can ultimately say "we
> told you so." This would be a significant shift from the current position
> of cooperation with Russia and the need to preserve regime institutions vs
> Islamist threat. The problem is this fantasy that the US views the regime
> as its number one enemy is not the reality on the ground and any analysis
> that says so is obfuscatory unproven garbage.
>
> The bet is as follows: if the US does switch, the obscurantists can say we
> knew all along and traced the networks of regime change. But this entire
> logic is predicated on the fantasy that the foreign policy establishment
> will completely switch course from the current understanding.
>
> It’s a huge risk, but if this FP minority gathers enough power to change
> the US's position, Assad apologists can say they were right all along. This
> “we told you so” rhetoric will provide them with significant social and
> cultural capital within US alt-journalism world. And this is why they
> ignore the current US-backed slaughter: they see the development of a
> discourse opposing it and suspect it will become policy. Because if it
> becomes policy, their incorrect predictions and their wrong reading of the
> situation for 5 yrs will be vindicated.
>
> “This is what the US wanted all along” they will say. And they will pat
> themselves on the back while Syrian corpses pile up. But all indications
> show that this is not what will happen, despite the cries of outrage to
> Assad/Russian slaughter. And this is why they fail in their analysis but
> are also able to write off such crimes. Because, they insist, the worst is
> yet to come.
>
> But Syrians have been living the worst for years now. It’s about time you
> acknowledge this and forego your cheap bet.
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt
> ions/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com




-- 
Fred Murphy  |  12 Dongan Place #206  |  New York, NY  |  212-304-9106
_
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: In Putin’s Head: Book Review | New Politics

2016-09-25 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

See also
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/09/29/real-power-vladimir-putin/

On Sunday, September 25, 2016, 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.
> *
>
>
>
> http://newpol.org/content/putin%E2%80%99s-head-book-review
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt
> ions/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com
>


-- 
Fred Murphy  |  12 Dongan Place #206  |  New York, NY  |  212-304-9106
_
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] Achcar: The Syrian Truce and Obama's Exit Strategy

2016-09-20 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-syrian-truce-and-obamas-exit-strategy
_
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 Illiberal International

2016-09-16 Thread Fred Murphy 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 Illiberal International | Public Seminar

http://www.publicseminar.org/2016/09/the-illiberal-international/
_
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] Why Did Foucault Disregard Iranian Feminists in His Support for Khomeini?

2016-09-13 Thread Fred Murphy 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.truth-out.org/opinion/item/37454-why-did-foucault-disregard-iranian-feminists-in-his-support-for-khomeini
_
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] Smear campaign against Jill Stein by Democratic Party hack

2016-08-19 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

https://medium.com/@discomfiting/the-artful-anti-vax-smear-against-jill-stein-a82451945b48?source=linkShare-2211cee90f14-1471657305

On Wednesday, August 17, 2016, 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.
> *
>
> From Jill Stein for President Social Media Team:
>
> Please share widely. There is a smear campaign going on against Jill Stein
> ...



-- 
Fred Murphy  |  12 Dongan Place #206  |  New York, NY  |  212-304-9106
_
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] [UCE] Fwd: Morbid Symptoms | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

2016-08-04 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Audio of Achcar's talk at Socialism 2016 -
http://wearemany.org/a/2016/07/morbid-symptoms


On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 12:43 PM, Andrew Pollack 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.
> *
>
> Great review of a great book.
> I would only add that with the US bombing of Libya it's worth reviewing
> everything Achcar wrote on Libya. (And I'll look for video on Robin
> Yassin-Kassab's riff on that in which he mocks Westerns' denial of agency
> to Libyans.)
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com
>



-- 
Fred Murphy  |  12 Dongan Place #206  |  New York, NY  |  212-304-9106
_
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: Rich Man's War: Class, Caste, and Confederate Defeat in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley: David Williams: 9780820320335: Amazon.com: Books

2016-06-25 Thread Fred Murphy 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 has another book, Bitterly Divided: The South's Inner Civil War.
http://m.accessatlanta.com/news/entertainment/calendar/q-a-david-williams-historian-author-civil-war-how-/nQxmg/
On Jun 25, 2016 6:18 PM, "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.
> *
>
> As it turns out, I recommended the wrong book the other day that had "Rich
> Man's War" in the title even though it was germane to the topic of refusing
> to fight for the ruling class. Nelson Blackstock, who knows firsthand about
> the lives of workers in the South, clarified that the book he referred me
> to was about opposition to the Civil War, not WWI even though the class
> dynamics were identical. He was talking about a book very much in the
> spirit of "The Free State of Jones".
>
> 
>
> In Rich Man's War historian David Williams focuses on the Civil War
> experience of people in the Chattahoochee River Valley of Georgia and
> Alabama to illustrate how the exploitation of enslaved blacks and poor
> whites by a planter oligarchy generated overwhelming class conflict across
> the South, eventually leading to Confederate defeat.
> This conflict was so clearly highlighted by the perception that the Civil
> War was "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight" that growing numbers of
> oppressed whites and blacks openly rebelled against Confederate authority,
> undermining the fight for independence. After the war, however, the upper
> classes encouraged enmity between freedpeople and poor whites to prevent a
> class revolution. Trapped by racism and poverty, the poor remained in
> virtual economic slavery, still dominated by an almost unchanged planter
> elite.
>
>
> full:
> https://www.amazon.com/Rich-Mans-War-Confederate-Chattahoochee/dp/0820320331
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%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] [UCE] Re: [pen-l] Fwd: Debates within ecosocialism: John Bellamy Foster, Jason Moore and CNS | Louis Proyect: The Unrepenta

2016-06-21 Thread Fred Murphy 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 don't read the passage below in Foster's 2005 intro as "promoting
virtues"; rather he offers a reasonably accurate analysis of Soviet
historical development - parallel in most ways to Trotsky's assessment but
without the "degenerated workers state" formulation. State-capitalist or
Maoist analyses such as the one you seem to put forward are at a loss to
explain developments in the 1990's, when "the ruling stratum [did] turn
itself into a true ruling class..." In this regard, see
http://monthlyreview.org/2000/02/01/the-necessity-of-gangster-capitalism/

"Second, crucial to the foregoing argument has been recognition of the fact
that the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 was not the end, as often said, of
actually existing socialism but simply the termination of a historical
process that had commenced three quarters of a century before with the
first significant attempt to break away from capitalism and to build a
working socialist society. The Russian Revolution and subsequent
revolutionary breaks had occurred under extremely unfavorable conditions in
economically underdeveloped countries. Internal struggles and external
interventions brought most of these revolutions down not long after they
emerged. In the Soviet case the society had ceased to pursue a socialist
path toward equality and cooperation, in which the direction of the society
would be determined by its own working class, as early as the Stalinist
takeover in the 1930s. After that it became a stagnant post-revolutionary
(but no longer in any meaningful sense socialist) society, which still
managed to maintain itself in existence and to provide a modicum of
benefits to its population. Yet, its very stagnation guaranteed that it
must at some point in the future either move decisively toward socialism by
turning back to the masses, or toward capitalism by allowing the ruling
stratum to turn itself into a true ruling class, which would inevitably
choose capitalism over socialism. In the end the latter transpired. Hence,
the real defeat of socialism in the Soviet Union, as opposed to the demise
of the Soviet Union as a separate nation state, occurred not with the end
of the Cold War, but had taken place decades prior in the 1930s."

On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 11:13 AM, Joseph Green 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.
> *
>
> Correction to my last post on Foster's "Marx's Ecology":
>
> It was not in his book of 2000 but in his introduction to the July-August
> 2005 issue of Monthly Review  that John Bellamy Foster promoted the
> "post-revolutionary" virtues of the Soviet Union despite the bad things
> that
> happened. ("The Renewing of Socialism: An Introduction":
>
> http://monthlyreview.org/2005/07/01/the-renewing-of-socialism-an-introduction/
> )
> ...
>
-- 
Fred Murphy  |  12 Dongan Place #206  |  New York, NY  |  212-304-9106
_
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] [pen-l] Fwd: Debates within ecosocialism: John Bellamy Foster, Jason Moore and CNS | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

2016-06-19 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Foster is not being "denigrated" for his principal contribution to
ecosocialism - upholding and elaborating of Marx's notion of "metabolic
rift".  Rather, what is objectionable is Foster's sectarian
misrepresentation of other valuable contributions by Jason W. Moore. See
the Angus/Foster interview and my Comment at
http://climateandcapitalism.com/2016/06/06/in-defense-of-ecological-marxism-john-bellamy-foster-responds-to-a-critic/


On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 3:48 AM, Ratbag Media 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.
> *
>
> I don't know about all this...
>
> I think 'metabolic rift' is EXTREMELY useful as a means to continue
> the dialectical materialism of of Stephen Jay Gould and the
> Dialectical Biologists.
> Indeed I think it grounds all the business about historical
> materialism which so often is ruled by supposition and second
> guessing...and so often arrogantly schematic by Marxian wannabees.
> Ecological  and other sciences in the Soviet Union did outlast --for a
> time -- the Stalinist purges/censoring --as exemplified by the
> perspective of the historical psychology of Lev Vygotsky and Alexander
> Luria and the Soviet's advances in physics...and ecology.
>
> Indeed, getting back to Foster, the whole metabolic rift argument
> merges with the current dynamic of not only the green movement but
> climate science. While Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis is rooted in a lot
> of idealism, if the Marxist movement had been  more attuned to ecology
> back when it was first proposed, we could have negotiated a sharper
> ecosocialist shift than what we have been treated  from within the
> green movement.
>
> Indeed Barry Commoner is way outside the Marxist lazy bones on this
> issue... 'We' missed the boat.
>
> To now denigate Foster seems petty as he makes very clear that the
> tradition he embraces is rooted in biology and paleontology and
> ecology...and not Marxmail.
>
> 'Metabolic Rift' is a great way to comprehend the fossil fueling and
> organic thieving of capitalism -- especially when so many seek to
> divert attention to ethicism. I don't think it is an argument
> promoting 'balance' -- a boutique greenoid buzz term -- so much as a
> process ruled by the give and take of exploitation and the necessity
> of organic return.
>
> It is the same dynamic that drives Engel's 'Dialectics of Nature' .
>
> Whatever may be Foster's other positions being here ruled on  --
> personal depreciation  is hardly an argument re the main game.
>
> dave riley
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com
>



-- 
Fred Murphy  |  12 Dongan Place #206  |  New York, NY  |  212-304-9106
_
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] Safe nurse staffing, permanent revolution, and women's liberation

2016-06-16 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Andrew, thanks for bringing this victory to our attention. Your post calls
to mind  Nancy Fraser's essay "Behind Marx's Hidden Abode" in *New Left
Review* 86 (Mar-Apr 2014):

"Structurally, moreover, the division between social reproduction and
commodity production is central to capitalism—indeed, is an artefact of it.
As scores of feminist theorists have stressed, the distinction is deeply
gendered, with reproduction associated with women and production with men.
Historically, the split between ‘productive’ waged work and unwaged
‘reproductive’ labour has underpinned modern capitalist forms of women’s
subordination. Like that between owners and workers, this division, too,
rests on the break-up of a previous world. In this case, what was shattered
was a world in which women’s work, although distinguished from men’s, was
nevertheless visible and publicly acknowledged, an integral part of the
social universe. With capitalism, by contrast, reproductive labour is split
off, relegated to a separate, ‘private’ domestic sphere, where its social
importance is obscured. And in this new world, where money is a primary
medium of power, the fact of its being unpaid seals the matter: those who
do this work are structurally subordinate to those who earn cash wages,
even as their work also supplies necessary preconditions for wage labour.

"Far from being universal, then, the division between production and
reproduction arose historically, with capitalism. But it was not simply
given once and for all. On the contrary, the division mutated historically,
taking different forms in different phases of capitalist development.
During the 20th century, some aspects of social reproduction were
transformed into public services and public goods, de-privatized but not
commodified. Today, the division is mutating again, as neoliberalism
(re)privatizes and (re)commodifies some of these services, while also
commodifying other aspects of social reproduction for the first time. By
demanding retrenchment of public provision while at the same time massively
recruiting women into low-waged service work, moreover, it is remapping the
institutional boundaries that previously separated commodity production
from social reproduction, and thus reconfiguring the gender order in the
process. Equally important, by mounting a major assault on social
reproduction, it is turning this background condition for capital
accumulation into a major flashpoint of capitalist crisis. ...

"What counts as an anti-capitalist struggle is thus much broader than
Marxists have traditionally supposed. As soon as we look behind the
front-story to the back-story, then all the indispensable background
conditions for the exploitation of labour become foci of conflict in
capitalist society. Not just struggles between labour and capital at the
point of production, but also boundary struggles over gender domination,
ecology, imperialism and democracy. But, equally important: the latter now
appear in another light—as struggles in, around and, in some cases, against
capitalism itself. Should they come to understand themselves in these
terms, these struggles could conceivably cooperate or unite."

Full:
https://newleftreview.org/II/86/nancy-fraser-behind-marx-s-hidden-abode

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 9:42 AM, Andrew Pollack 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.
> *
>
> Yesterday the State Assembly in New York passed a bill sought by nurses
> which will force hospitals to have safe staffing levels, i.e. to have as
> many nurses as their patients need.
>  [snip]
>
_
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] Wikileaks reveals the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin

2016-04-03 Thread Fred Murphy 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://gu.com/p/4t26c 






-- 
Fred Murphy  |  12 Dongan Place #206  |  New York, NY  |  212-304-9106
_
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] [UCE] Syria and Surrealism

2016-01-22 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Syria and Surrealism, by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

"When Syria was a political issue, realists responded without imagination;
now that it has become a “security” issue, they are viewing it with
blinkers. Because ISIS is the primary concern for the US, they assume it
should be for Syrians too. Their pragmatic solution to the Syrian dilemma
is to court Assad to defeat or contain ISIS — and they are surprised when
Syrians don’t jump at the opportunity to ally with their main tormentor
against what for them is an ugly but manageable threat. They seem oblivious
that were ISIS to vanish tomorrow, the party to the conflict responsible
for 95 percent of the civilian deaths would still be in power — armed,
dangerous, and unaccountable. Nor do they understand that in making Assad’s
survival conditional on his usefulness against ISIS, they give him an
incentive to preserve the group, rather than destroy it and make himself
dispensable. Having learned nothing from the disastrous consequences of
America’s support for repressive dictatorships during the Cold War, they
want to regress to the troglodyte world of dungeons and dictators,
condemning Syrians once again to totalitarian rule (albeit now through
Russian hands)."

FULL: https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/syria-and-surrealism
_
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 Longer the People's President: the New Putin

2015-12-28 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

At Vladimir Putin's annual presidential press conference on December 17 "we
saw a Russian leader who has stopped being the people’s president and is
now serving the state-affiliated oligarchy. The detailed attention he used
to pay to the rights of the small man, and to social issues, has completely
disappeared. Instead, Putin defended all the controversial measures that
are irking the public: paid parking, the 'Platon' toll system for truckers,
and removing pension rights for working older citizens.

"In one illuminating exchange, Putin was challenged about the behavior of
the children of the elite. When he called the accusations 'problems of
secondary importance,' he inadvertently conceded the truth behind them. He
was effectively saying that these “secondary” things are indeed unpleasant,
but acceptable. Putin evidently sees discussion of the state oligarchy he
constructed, in which officialdom and business are closely intertwined, as
an issue for the elite, not the public—as a political matter and not one
for criminal investigation.

"To put it another way, Putin has stopped being a champion of the people
and become a champion of the elite. ..."

Full: http://goo.gl/dTD4Xh
_
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 Capitalocene | Public Seminar

2015-12-28 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Self-promotion, admittedly, but also promoting this pathbreaking book by
Jason Moore:
http://marxedproject.org/event/marx-nature-and-capital-a-study-group/

On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 9:50 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.
> *
>
> Jason W. Moore’s Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the
> Accumulation of Capital (Verso 2015) is an important book, in that it
> brings together the immense resources of world systems theory, critical
> geography and a certain strain of ‘green’ Marxism. Even though it refuses
> such terms, it does signal work in thinking through what the Marxist strand
> of historical sociology needs to be in the Anthropocene.
>
> Moore’s point of departure is the idea, close now to becoming a fact, that
> nature won’t yield free gifts any more. It’s the end of an era. It’s the
> end of what sustained capital accumulation hitherto. Capital not only
> exploits labor, it appropriates nature, and it has probably run out of
> nature it can get on the cheap.
>
> full: http://www.publicseminar.org/2015/10/the-capitalocene/
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at:
> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/fred.r.murphy%40gmail.com




-- 
Fred Murphy  |  12 Dongan Place #206  |  New York, NY  |  212-304-9106
_
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] Crowdsourced Geolocation and Analysis of Russian MoD Airstrike Videos

2015-10-06 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

*Initial Findings of the Crowdsourced Geolocation and Analysis of Russian
MoD Airstrike Videos from Syria
*

Yesterday Bellingcat launched an effort

to
use the Checkdesk platform 
to geolocate and collect additional information on videos posted by the
Russia Ministry of Defence showing their airstrikes in Syria. This was
triggered after the discovery that two videos the Russian Ministry of
Defence claimed were filmed in or near ISIS controlled Raqqa were
geolocated to locations over 100 miles west of Raqqa, in non-ISIS territory.

The first batch of videos including 14 videos, 12 of which have now been
geolocated.  This has revealed the following information –

   - 3 videos were verified as being in locations matching the title and
   description of the videos. In all 3 videos the targets of Russian bombing
   are described as “terrorists” rather than ISIS, which is taken as a catch
   all term for armed Syrian opposition groups.
   - 5 videos gave locations that were accurate, but described the attacks
   as targeting ISIS when there is no known current ISIS presence in those
   areas.
   - 2 videos gave the location as Raqqa, but were in fact filmed over 100
   miles west of Raqqa in areas with no known ISIS presence.
   - 1 video gave no location, but was geolocated to an area where there
   was no known ISIS presence, despite the title of the video claiming
   otherwise.
   - 1 video gave a location at the entrance to Ma’aart al Nu’man but was
   geolocated to an area 20km away from Ma’aart al Nu’man.

Based on the videos geolocated thus far there is no indication that the
Russian Ministry of Defence has targeted ISIS positions, or hit targets in
Raqqa, despite claims to the contrary.

Six new videos have been added to Checkdesk today for geolocation, which
you can visit here .


-- 
Fred Murphy  |  12 Dongan Place #206  |  New York, NY  |  212-304-9106
_
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] West Signals U-Turn Over Syria, Seeks Dialogue With Russia

2015-09-18 Thread Fred Murphy 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://sputniknews.com/europe/20150918/1027191591/West-Syria-Assad-dialogue-Russia.html
_
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] The relevance of Rosa Luxemburg

2015-06-02 Thread Fred Murphy 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.
*

Steve Fraser addresses the same question at greater length and with
considerably more sophistication in The Age of Acquiescence:
http://billmoyers.com/content/steve-fraser-age-acquiescence/


--

(Cohen is an idiot but this is worth reading.)

NY Times Op-Ed, June 1 2015
Wellness Trumps Politics
by Roger Cohen

[snip]
_
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

81 matches

Mail list logo