Re: [Marxism] Amazon's robotics
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 then there is farm robotics https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/608847/robotic-farmers-can-literally-reap-what-they-sow/ Les _ 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 Russian Reader: Chutzpah
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. * Thomas Campbell wrote https://therussianreader.com/2017/09/12/chutzpah/ Here’s the score, boys and girls. This is what happens, sooner or later, to everyone who has a beef, however minor, with the Putin regime. They get a visit from a “policeman” who is indistinguishable, in his behavior, looks, and speech, from an ordinary thug. For all that, justification on the ground and all that, what is the essential difference between RT, BBC and VOA? Yes, the Russian regime is from what I know everything you say it is. and which for reasons of state and economic insecurity that we could go into is, counter-productively in the long run and like most third world regimes, more repressive, corrupt and hostile to dissent than many western governments. So then how about the US regime? In terms of its relative effect on the lives or life chances of countless working class inhabitants of the planet, and its threat to the long-term viability of our species, when it threatens to spread nuclear annihilation and selective murder by drone and space technology all over the place, denies and impedes any meaningful action on climate deterioration, prevents labor mobility and rise in living standards in every corner of the globe while enhancing capital mobility without impedance to the benefit of US capital, and consumes the preponderance of the world's assets, many irreplaceable? Need I elaborate further? Have you for example in the past few days seen our media outlets' smug, self-serving coverage of North Korea, 9-11 and Hurricanes Harvey and Irma? Would you be posting, not just on VOA, but on the organs of a vicious US media conspiracy which conceals all that I describe and requires truth-seekers with vital information to resort to an outlet no less venal but open to an essential critique of US corporate and governmental actions? --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ 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] Houston’s Floodwaters Are Tainted With Toxins, Testing Shows
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * NY Times, Sept. 12 2017 Houston’s Floodwaters Are Tainted With Toxins, Testing Shows By SHEILA KAPLAN and JACK HEALY017 HOUSTON — Floodwaters in two Houston neighborhoods have been contaminated with bacteria and toxins that can make people sick, testing organized by The New York Times has found. Residents will need to take precautions to return safely to their homes, public health experts said. It is not clear how far the toxic waters have spread. But Fire Chief Samuel Peña of Houston said over the weekend that there had been breaches at numerous waste treatment plants. The Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday that 40 of 1,219 such plants in the area were not working. The results of The Times’s testing were troubling. Water flowing down Briarhills Parkway in the Houston Energy Corridor contained Escherichia coli, a measure of fecal contamination, at a level more than four times that considered safe. In the Clayton Homes public housing development downtown, along the Buffalo Bayou, scientists found what they considered astonishingly high levels of E. coli in standing water in one family’s living room — levels 135 times those considered safe — as well as elevated levels of lead, arsenic and other heavy metals in sediment from the floodwaters in the kitchen. “It suggests to me that conditions inside the home are more ideal for bacteria to grow and concentrate. It’s warmer and the water has stagnated for days and days. I know some kids were playing in the floodwater outside those places. That’s concerning to me.” The Associated Press and CNN last week reported high levels of E. coli contamination, but did not specify where the samples were taken. The E.P.A. and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have expressed concern about toxic floodwaters, but have not made public the results of sampling they may have done. Residents and medical professionals said they are seeing infections that likely resulted from exposure to the dirty floodwaters. Dr. Beau Briese, an emergency room physician at Houston Methodist Hospital, said he had seen a doubling in the number of cases of cellulitis — reddened skin infections — since the storm. He said it was a more modest increase than he had expected, and that the infections had been successfully treated with antibiotics. Dr. David Persse, the chief medical officer of Houston, said residents caring for children, the elderly and those with immune disorders should try to keep them out of homes until they have been cleaned. “Everybody has to consider the floodwater contaminated,” Dr. Persse said. He also warned residents to avoid letting cuts and scrapes come into contact with the floodwaters, which can cause infection. Brad Greer, 49, developed two scabby infections on each of his legs where rain boots had irritated his skin. He took antibiotics, but on Saturday, he said, he started feeling lightheaded and weak as he and his brother-in-law tried to move possessions from Mr. Greer’s flooded home. He went to the emergency room at Houston Methodist, where he was put on an intravenous drip and given another antibiotic prescription. Mr. Greer said swimming pools around his neighborhood are rank. “All the pools are just giant toilets you’re unable to flush,” he said. The lab analysis was paid for by The Times. The sampling was conducted by a team from Baylor Medical College and Rice University, working with the Houston health department’s Bureau of Pollution Control and Prevention. The group, accompanied by Times reporters, took water and sediment samples last week by boat, truck and on foot. The samples were analyzed by A & B Labs, a state-certified service that often works with federal agencies. The dearth of information about the safety of the water has upset many residents, including Maria Sotolongo, who lives with her husband and three children on Briarhills Parkway, an upscale development in Houston’s West Oaks/Eldridge neighborhood. “Nobody has told us not to come,” Mrs. Sotolongo said on Sunday, the first day she was able to get back into her house. Earlier in the week, she had helped The Times’s team reach her home by boat in order to take water and sediment samples on what had been her front lawn. “It’s a horrific smell and full of gunk,” she said. “We’ve seen fish in parts of the kitchen.” Mrs. Sotolongo was well outfitted in rubber boots, gloves and a mask. But some families in inundated neighborhoods in west Houston said they had developed staph infections and other health problems after wading through waters released from reservoirs that swamped their
[Marxism] The Russian Reader: Chutzpah
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://therussianreader.com/2017/09/12/chutzpah/ Here’s the score, boys and girls. This is what happens, sooner or later, to everyone who has a beef, however minor, with the Putin regime. They get a visit from a “policeman” who is indistinguishable, in his behavior, looks, and speech, from an ordinary thug. Today, it happened to my friends Lika and Alik, who are not only some of the nicest folks I’ve ever met, but run the invaluable Jewish Community Center on Rubinstein Street on a shoestring budget. Here’s what Lika wrote about their encounter with the Putinist police: I just got a visit from two plainclothes “policemen.” What was their business? Literally: “Have you been writting all kinds of crap on Facebook about wogs getting beaten up?” I am conveying what they said to me. The prosecutor’s office found your message, which you wrote one and a half years ago. We need a clarification from you. I see he’s holding printouts from the Sova Center. I told them they had woken up on time, since one and half years had passed since then. After I said that, one of the “policeman” was rude to me. “Why do you write garbage? Do you have nothing to do?” I asked him not to talk to me like that and show me his ID. He refused and behaved very aggressively. My husband tried to take his picture on the phone, but he threatened to smash the phone. He really was holding papers from the prosecutor’s office. Supposedly, they had been given three days to take care of the matter. I said I could deal with it on Friday morning. The conversation ended with our promising to call the police and closing the door. There is no doubt they were from the police, judging by their behavior.)) I am writing a complaint to the prosecutor’s office. Here is a photo of one of the “heroes.” ___ I myself just got chewed out, on a leftist mailing list, for writing a “screed” about how Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky had sold out to Putinism by appearing on RT. What is worse, the super-righteous Hedges, an ordained minister, if I’m not mistaken, has even started presenting a program on the channel. Why do I object so strongly to this? Because whether they know it or not, Hedges, Chomsky, and everyone who behaves like them is putting their stamp of approval on the way this country is misruled by thugs like the ones who just visited and threatened my friends Lika and Alik. Make no mistake: this is not a one-off, random incident. This is something that has happened millions of times, and often in much rougher form, since Putin took charge of Russia eighteen years ago. So, when you say to yourself that your “anti-imperialist” (or whatever) message is so earth-shakingly important that you’ll go on a TV channel paid for by Russian taxpayers, but run as a flagrant anti-US, anti-western, pro-Assadist, pro-Putinist propaganda outlet by thieves, crooks, and thugs who openly intimidate, assault, and sometimes murder these same taxpayers for the “criminal” act of disagreeing with the general line or drawing attention to a wrongdoing or demanding that state officials, including police and judges, actually do their jobs in keeping with the Russian Constitution, the Russian law codes, and the international and European conventions on human rights to which Russia is still a signatory, you have to have a lot of chutzpah. In fact, you have to have decided, whether consciously or not, that ordinary taxpaying Russians who don’t toe the Putinist line are your enemies, and you don’t mind at all if they’re crushed in the dirt by absolute fucking scumbags as long as self-righteous snake oil salesmen like Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges have yet another “outlet” for their tiresome message, which we all memorized years ago and which, in fact, they’ve had no trouble at all disseminating at will to whoever will listen for years on end. Pretending that they’re “forced” to go on RT, because they can’t get a hearing anywhere else, is the last refuge of an “anti-imperialist” scoundrel. TRR _ 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: Marxism, the Arab Spring, and Islamic fundamentalism | International Socialist Review
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 Joseph Daher. http://isreview.org/issue/106/marxism-arab-spring-and-islamic-fundamentalism _ 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] Fwd: Free speech and fighting the right on campus | International Socialist Review
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://isreview.org/issue/106/free-speech-and-fighting-right-campus _ 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] Fwd: April 1917: How Lenin Rearmed | International Socialist Review
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. * An answer to Lars Lih and Eric Blanc even though they are only mentioned in the endnotes. http://isreview.org/issue/106/april-1917-how-lenin-rearmed _ 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: Rhode Island Socialists split from Socialist Alternative
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. * "Capitalism creates structured capital and labor markets, and differential standards of living, by ethnicity and nation - and by gender." (sic) sounds good, thanks. However, wouldn't pointing out that "mean White people" will still "fuck things up. Because of their ideas [read their primarily male history of privilege]" will not be ended simply because the material basis behind gender and race oppression had been "exposed"? Indeed, wouldn't it take even more revolutionary struggle that would only begin with the elimination of the capitalist mode of production because "mean White . . . ideas" would still prevail over generations? Isn't this observation at least partially apparent in the struggles with race and gender oppression in revoutionary Cuba? I think the observation of the materialist basis of gender and racial oppression is insufficient a basis to engage in solidarity and struggle with oppressed peoples. We are not "sections" that simply require to be "intersectioned". The whole basis of "intersectionality" itself seems a rather a "mean White" construct to align White progressive sensibilities with "solidarity" with oppressed peoples. If we are in fact one (working) class, why should "we" be conceptualized into sections and reconciled into a framework of "intersectionality"? Such a concept wreaks of that liberal "otherism" idea. I almost (only "almost") prefer somebody to argue we are only one "class" than such a liberal "Marxist" framework delimiting women and other oppressed peoples as "sections" of th working class. _ 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 Trump-Putin coalition for Assad lays waste to Syria: Imperial agreement and carve-up behind the noisy rhetoric
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. * Response to Chris Slee (first part - re Turkey etc, will post later). Chris: “The reference to "the complete absence of any military clash between the US and Assad in the Obama years" could be taken as implying that the US has always supported Assad, ever since the start of the uprising in 2011. “But in considering the lack of direct military clashes between the US and Assad during the Obama period, we should not forget that allies of the US did intervene militarily. Israel bombed Syria on a number of occasions. Turkey and the Gulf states supplied weapons to rebels (albeit limited in quantity and quality).” “Allies of the US” are not the US. For example, Iraq is a close ally of the US, in fact essentially a creature of the US invasion and occupation, the crowning act of US aggression this century, and Iraq actively supports Assad, in fact, as my article documents (see links), this involves nothing less than an invasion of Syria by 20,000 troops of the US/Iran-backed Iraqi regime. Al-Sisi’s bloody Egyptian tyranny is a US ally, and has sent arms and even military personnel to Syria to aid the Assad regime. Jordan is a US ally and has used its leverage over the southern FSA (given geography) to wind down the southern front against Assad, and when tasked jointly by the US and Russia to draw up a list of “terrorist” organisations to be excluded from talks, came up with a list of some 160 rebel groups, about half the insurgency! A list partly based on an earlier list drawn up by the UAE, another US ally. Lebanon is a US ally (5th largest recipient of US arms in the world), and it is quite remarkable how US arms manage to turn up with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The silly trope about “reactionary” or” US-backed” regimes supporting the Syrian opposition (albeit “for their own reasons”) relies on the idea that such regimes are limited to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey (and even that needs to take into account how hostile the first is to the second two, and hence their “support” was based precisely on their own rivalries). The majority of “reactionary” and “US-backed” states in the region either vigorously back the reactionary Assad regime, are neutral, or are effectively pro-Assad and anti-revolutionary. All that aside, these states are not puppets of the US, on either side, they act on their own interests. If Chris thinks Turkey, for example, backed the Syrian rebels because it is a “US ally,” then he presumably thinks the US told Turkey to send the Mavi Mamara to try to break the siege of Gaza too. Chris should also consider that, to the extent that the US had any relation to the arming of the Syrian rebels by these three states, its main role was always to try to limit the quantity and quality of the arms sent, restrict who they could be sent to, act to coopt those who got a few arms to divert them away from the struggle against Assad, and above all to ensure that no anti-aircraft weaponry got to the rebels ever, in an overwhelmingly air war launched by the regime. In the first few years, Israel (US ally, but once again, not puppet) was strongly pro-Assad, but with the greater Iranian involvement on Assad’s side by late 2013, together with the 2013 overthrow of the anti-Assad MB regime in Egypt (which had threatened an Egypt-Hamas-Syrian rebel alliance with heavy MB influence, but this danger was now reduced with Sisi's coup), Israel developed a new policy aimed largely at keeping Hezbollah away from the Golan and hitting warehouses or convoys where it suspected advanced weapons were being delivered to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Yet it has still never armed any rebel faction, the rebels remain relentlessly in support of regaining the Golan, and no Israeli hits on Hezbollah have ever directly aided rebels while clashing with Hezbollah. However, Chris continues: “I think that initially the US probably wanted Assad to be replaced. While he had collaborated with the US in some ways, he was not totally reliable. Thus I think the US had a perspective of removing Assad, and bringing a section of the opposition into the government, while keeping the regime largely intact.” We are all entitled to think what we want. Evidence is better. Initially the US - Hilary Clinton no less - strongly supported Assad the “reformer”, while telling “US ally” Mubarak to “step down” within a week or so of the beginning of the Egyptian uprising. The equivalent Obama statement asking Assad to “step aside”, by contrast, came some 6 months, and thousands of killings, later. But as Chris says, the aim was only ever replacing the Assad figure, not the regime - the US aimed to keep the regime intact, strengthened by removing the
Re: [Marxism] [UCE] Re: Rhode Island Socialists split from Socialist Alternative
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. * Capitalism creates structured capital and labor markets, and differential standards of living, by ethnicity and nation - and by gender. Once formed, they have material consequences, and they evolve through oppression and struggle - over ideas, but even more so against the structures nourishing such crimes. As I've said in my Facebook notes on intersectionality, national and gender-based oppression on and off the job won't be eliminated without destruction of the laws of motion of capitalism, and the fragmented and discriminatory family and neighborhood structures which buttress those laws - a destruction which must involve conscious assaults against national and gender oppression. _ 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] Re: Rhode Island Socialists split from Socialist Alternative
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 explicitly state that when all is said and done, when class is exposed or eliminated, mean white people will still fuck things up - because of their ideas." Yes, Andrew. And, your problem with that point is? _ 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: Why in god’s name did the Socialist Project decide to recommend Alastair Crooke’s article hailing Assad’s victory? | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
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/2017/09/12/why-in-gods-name-did-the-socialist-project-decide-to-recommend-alastair-crookes-article-hailing-assads-victory/ _ 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] Rhode Island Socialists split from Socialist Alternative
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. * Lot of good stuff in this document. Note however the section "Race and Racism." Many forces on the Left have always criticized CWI and sections for their economism. The RI comrades however do so by reference to liberal/Maoist theories of privilege, whiteness, etc., and explicitly state that when all is said and done, when class is exposed or eliminated, mean white people will still fuck things up - because of their ideas. _ 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 on 'The Irish Revolution'
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've stuck up a fascinating article by Aindrias O Cathasaigh about James Connolly's writings and the inadequacy of a lot of the collections. The article comes a 2015 issue of the now defunct independent Irish left journal *Red Banner*: https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2017/09/12/where-oh-where-is-our-james-connolly/ There's a short note on CLR James' 1935 visit to Dublin and a link to a fascinating article on the visit, written by Dublin historian and blogger Donal Fallon, whose work is always worth reading: https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2017/09/12/c-l-r-james-visit-to-dublin-in-1935/ A 1932 letter by the leadership of the IRA to the men and women of the Orange Order: https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2017/08/26/1932-open-letter-from-leadership-of-irish-republican-army-to-men-and-women-of-the-orange-order/ Back in 1995/96 I wrote a 120,000-word MA thesis on revolutionary Ireland in the early 1900s; the thesis chapters are here: https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/category/thesis-chapters/ Phil _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] "Why George Bernard Shaw Had a Crush on Stalin"
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/2017/09/11/opinion/why-george-bernard-shaw-had-a-crush-on-stalin.html The analysis doesn't go very deep, but IMO we should use this op-ed to lobby the publisher of Paul's book on the subject to put it back in print. Paul Flewers, The New Civilisation?: Understanding Stalin's Soviet Union 1929-1941 _ 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
