Re: [Marxism] [UCE] Fwd: Who's wasting their vote? | SocialistWorker.org
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 the SWP. Try ISO. > > > Just to take one tiny example from the SWP to show how when you start to > deviate from Marxism you end up throwing the method out with it: > > _ 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] UK matters
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 have not posted to the list lately on the Leadership crisis in the UK Labour Party. My excuse is that I have been thoroughly immersed in the twitter traffic and at some stage I should do reflection on that whole experience. To tweet is hopeless in terms of analysis but great in terms of egalitarianism and immediacy. I have had likes from George Galloway (2 đ), one from a Labour MPđ and one from Aaron Bastani of Novara Media (alas only one đ§). I have been studiously ignored by Owen Jones, whom I like but think needs to toughen up, and George Eaton who is on the right of the Labour Party spectrum, so who cares?. Worst of all all though Richard Seymour doesn't even seem to know of my existence đ. But apart from my desperate search for strokes, what have I learned? Well, I think it is worth noting that twitter provides an outlet for people who normally would be isolated. Thus the purge unleashed on the Corbyn supporters in the Labour Party membership has created a twitter storm. Moreover it is one that Watson, the Deputy Leader and Ian McNicol the Party secretary have had to address. It is no longer the case that someone can be made to vanish quietly from the electoral rolls. Victims tweet and their screams echo throughout the twitter sphere. Barristers appear and offer to defend the expelled. Curses and imprecations are showered on Watson and McNicol. No one, it would appear goes quietly into that good night anymore. Tweets attempt to contain analyses in the form of photos of texts and references to blogs and articles. So there is some scope to educate oneself. Best of all that tweets have heavily advertised Richard Seymour's book on Corbyn. I have to give a talk on it for the Socialist Alliance and will try and post it to the list as well. But for now I cannot recommend the book too highly. Richard belongs to the "pessimism of the intellect" school of Marxism, while I think we badly need some optimism even of the slightly foolish variety. But I loved his clinical analysis of Labour and what was for me almost holy scorn directed at the Blairite wing of the Labour Party. The book is superbly polemical and thoroughly analytical at the same time. In sort it is a brilliant achievement. But what happens now? Well I think the purge will not be of sufficient dimensions to prevent a Corbyn victory. The 172 parliamentarians that voted against Corbyn will then have a stark choice. They will either fight on in some form or seek surrender terms. Corbyn will accommodate them,I think, but his supporters may be difficult to control. There is real anger at the first wave of Blarite resignations that sought to force Corbyn to resign. There is even more anger springing from the second stage of the coup when Tom Watson of the Old Right and McNicol of the Soft Left took charge of the plotting. Their petty maneuvers to restrict members' rights and to raise the cost of being a supporter and to purge Corbyn's supporters have all generated hatred and that is not too strong a word to use. But it is significant that question time in Parliament yesterday, Labour members for the first time publicly supported Corbyn. So some of them would appear to be looking at the wall and noticing the writing and reacting accordingly. Hopefully, I will get time to talk more on the "what now?" Comradely Gary _ 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: Scratching the surface of Syria's ceasefire
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 Sam Hamad https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2016/9/14/scratching-the-surface-of-syrias-ceasefire _ 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: Globalisation and Milanovicâs elephant | Michael Roberts Blog
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. * So letâs sum up; what does all the analysis of global and national inequality tell us? First, that global inequality has increased since the early 1980s, when âglobalisationâ got moving. Second, that global growth of incomes has been concentrated in China, and to a lesser extent and more recently, India. Otherwise average global household income growth would have been much lower. Third, there has been a rise in average household incomes in the major advanced capitalist economies since the 1980s, but the growth has been much less than in China or India (starting from way further down the income levels) and much less than the top 1-5% have gained. Fourth, since the beginning of the millennium, most households in the top capitalist economies have seen their incomes from work or interest on savings stagnate and must rely on transfers and benefits to improve their lot. full: https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2016/09/14/globalisation-and-milanovics-elephant/ _ 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: John Kerryâs last hurrah: With the Syrian cease-fire, the secretary of state takes a parting swipe at Russophobia - Salon.com
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. * Patrick Lawrence, who used to write for Salon using the name Patrick L. Smith, is one of the biggest Assadist tools there is. This article should give you a sense of how much overlap there is today between US and Russian goals in Syria. http://www.salon.com/2016/09/14/john-kerrys-last-hurrah-with-syrian-ceasefire-the-secretary-of-state-takes-a-parting-swipe-at-russophobia/ _ 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] Colin Powell, in Hacked Emails, Shows Scorn for Trump and Irritation at Clinton
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. 15 2016 Colin Powell, in Hacked Emails, Shows Scorn for Trump and Irritation at Clinton By MICHAEL D. SHEAR WASHINGTON â Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has long been one of the high priests of the Washington establishment, staying quiet in this yearâs raucous presidential campaign while tending to his reputation as a thoughtful officer and diplomat. But a hack of Mr. Powellâs email this week has ripped away the diplomatic jargon and political niceties to reveal his unvarnished disdain of Donald J. Trump as a ânational disgrace,â his personal peeves with Hillary Clinton and his lingering, but still very raw, anger with the Republican colleagues with whom he so often clashed a decade ago. There has been an expectation that Mr. Powell, who waited until the final weeks to endorse Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, would do the same for Mrs. Clinton this year. But in one 2014 email released online, Mr. Powell lamented that while he respected Mrs. Clinton, he would ârather not have to vote for her,â describing the Democratic presidential nominee as having âa long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational.â The emails make clear that if Mr. Powell endorses Mrs. Clinton, he will be motivated by intense feelings about Mr. Trump, whom he also called an âinternational pariah.â In the email messages, which an aide to Mr. Powell confirmed were authentic, the retired four-star general who served as President George W. Bushâs top diplomat also accuses Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, of having embraced what Mr. Powell called a âracistâ movement when he aggressively questioned the validity of Mr. Obamaâs birth certificate and his legitimacy to serve as the countryâs top elected official. But the emails, many of which were sent in recent weeks, also reveal Mr. Powellâs disapproval of Mrs. Clintonâs handling of her email scandal and expose his sometimes unflattering observations of the Democratic presidential nominee and her husband. In a series of exchanges, Mr. Powell lamented efforts by Mrs. Clintonâs âminionsâ to drag him into the controversy surrounding her use of a private email server by claiming he had advised her on the issue. âH.R.C. could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me into it,â Mr. Powell wrote late last month, referring to Mrs. Clinton by her initials. âI told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini-tantrum at a Hamptons party to get their attention. She keeps tripping into these âcharacterâ minefields.â In the 2014 email, Mr. Powell, though offering no independent knowledge, alluded in graphic language to coverage in The New York Post suggesting that Bill Clinton had continued to cheat on his wife. The emails, some of which were first reported by BuzzFeed News, also show Mr. Powell venting about some members of Mr. Bushâs administration. In one reference to Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, he accuses âthe idiot Rummyâ of being disloyal to both President Bushes. In another email, Mr. Powell calls Dick Cheney, the former vice president, and his daughter Liz Cheney âidiots and a spent force peddling a book that ainât going nowhere.â Mr. Powell appeared to be angry that NBC proposed that he appear on âMeet the Pressâ with Mr. Cheney and his daughter, who were promoting a book they wrote together. In the email, Mr. Powell said the network agreed to invite the Cheneys at a later date. Mr. Powellâs emails appeared on a website called DCLeaks.com, which had previously posted documents that the site had obtained after hacks into the accounts of prominent Democrats and some Republicans, including Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the former commander of NATO forces in Europe, and George Soros, a wealthy backer of liberal causes. It is unclear who operates DCLeaks.com. Peggy Cifrino, an aide to Mr. Powell, responded Wednesday morning to an inquiry about the emails: âWe are confirming that General Powell has been hacked and that they are his emails. We have no further comment at this time.â Mr. Powell did not respond to an email sent directly to his personal account. In several emails, Mr. Powell suggested that speaking out against Mr. Trump would only add to the attention the Republican nominee was getting from the news media. Responding to a reporter asking for comment, Mr. Powell wrote last month that Mr. Trump is âhis own best enemyâ and added: âI will speak out when I feel it appropriate and not after every idiot thing he says.â But the emails make clear
[Marxism] Fwd: Why Assad's Army Has Not Defected | The National Interest
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 Assadist propaganda piece published in the magazine started by neocon Irving Kristol that has Henry Kissinger as an honorary chairman of the board. A while back it evolved in a "realist" direction not that inconsistent with Kissinger's Metternichian outlook. Just about every key outlet of bourgeois and leftist opinion seems united on the need to keep the gangster Bashar al-Assad on his throne. http://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-assads-army-has-not-defected-15190?page=show _ 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] era of endless wars
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. * Danny Katch does a great job of detailing the history, roots and impact of the bipartisan "War on Terror." IMO, Danny - like Ashley and others before him in the pages of SW - https://socialistworker.org/2016/09/15/how-the-era-of-endless-wars-began - doesn't let that history blind him to the tactical differences within the rulers' politicians about when and how to apply military power. And his hard-hitting attack on our rulers provides a context allowing for this recognition of reality: "Unfortunately, it's not just the right wing that doesn't seem to know its history. The leftists who look at the destruction wrought in Syria by an Assad regime backed by Russia and Iran and see only the threat of U.S. intervention are stuck in 2003. "They don't realize that Obama's imperial mandate has been to pull back from Bush's reckless drive toward regime change--and they seem to have forgotten, if they ever knew it, that when the Syrian people call for regime change, that's not a CIA plot, that's revolution." Those paragraphs are a breath of fresh air after reading the BAR garbage. _ 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 Assad's Army Has Not Defected | The National Interest
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. * Interesting. I never knew the *National Interest *was a neo-con journal. The reason, is that I never really cared to look beyond the specific issue that the NI excels in: the debates and discussions around military technology as used by the U.S. and and how it stacks up against other countries latest developments in human destruction. NI reflects the ruling class debates over military expenditures, weapons systems and deployment. NI plays the same role with regards to these issues as* Foreign Affairs *does in reflecting a wing of ruling class' foreign policy initiatives and proposals (and is still very useful in this role). I haven't read the article that Louis posted but you can be sure the ideas that flow from it due represent (or at least are read!) by various important policy wonks in the government (and despite it's neo-Con heritage, read by the same types in both parties). David _ 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] Mode of Production Theory according to Wikipedia
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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_of_production Nothing much on Russia and Chine as being State Capitalist. . .nothing on the Germanic Mode. . Best, Brian -- Brian McKenna, Ph.D. Anthropologist Department of Behavioral Sciences CASL 4025 University of Michigan-Dearborn Dearborn, Michigan _ 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 presidential horse race
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. * (Written on FB by my old friend from Bard College Richard Greener who worked in radio for about the same amount of time I have been involved with socialism.) Why am I asked so often if I "still think" Hillary Clinton is going to beat Trump with ease? After all, aren't the polls getting tighter and isn't the election getting closer by the day? No, this election is not close. We're watching too much television. A reminder not to pay attention to the âpretend journalistsâ who populate the TV channels like flies on a garbage heap. On commercial TV (and that includes Public Television, PBA), all the coverage of the presidential campaign is a show business production and all those involved in the coverage are performers. Ask their agents and bankers. "Broadcast journalism" is an oxymoron. As a former broadcaster I remember well that there are 168 hours in every week and each minute of those 168 hours requires programming. Plus, there are on average 16 minutes of commercials in each hour of TV programming. Many of those commercials are only 20 seconds; some are 30 seconds; the rest are 60 seconds. Between now and Election Day there will be hundreds of millions of dollars spent on both political commercials and regular product commercials on all TV networks and stations combined. In order to satisfy the demands of these advertisers, and justify the high prices charged, TV must deliver the highest ratings possible. In order to produce those high ratings the TV âpretend newspeopleâ will tell us with renewed urgency every day that the race is getting closer and closer, tighter and tighter, that the outcome is in question, and the next president could be⌠Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Either one â itâs a tossup! You better keep watching. This, of course, will be nonsense. It will be the same nonsense fed to us in 2008 and again in 2012. Do you remember that even Mitt Romney actually thought he was going to win and it never occurred to him to write a concession speech? People will believe anything. You'd never know it from TV, but we haven't had a close election since 2000. In 2008 Obama defeated McCain by 10 million votes and whipped him in the Electoral College 365 to 173. Yet, not a single TV channel told you this would happen by such a wide margin. Instead, they all pretended the race was getting closer and closer, tighter and tighter as Election Day loomed. In 2012 Obama beat Romney by 5 million votes, smashing him in the Electoral College 332 to 206. Yet, once more the TV channels all said the race was close and getting closer as we approached Election Day. Barack Obama won 2 landslide elections and neither of them was foreseen by anyone on TV. Is that even possible? Well, it was never reported this way. And of course, the same thing is happening again this year. The real "Reality TV" is not Trump, it's the TV coverage of the campaign. Don't believe what you see and hear, especially in the coming weeks. This race has never been close and it will not be close when the votes are counted. I believe HRC will win at least 35 states with 386 Electoral votes, while Trump wins at most 15 with only 152 Electoral votes. Some of you may recall my 2012 state-by-state predictions where I correctly predicted every state except one (Missouri). If anything, this time I'm overstating Trump's totals. He will save McCain's reputation because he may lose by as many as 15 million votes. When the totals are in and Hillary Clinton is easily elected you will not hear one word from the âpretend journalistsâ on TV about how badly they missed the results. And I am certain we will be subjected to the same bullshit once more in 2020. Thereâs no business like Show Business. As The Donald himself likes to say, "Believe me." _ 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: Snowden | 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. * Like Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and John Ford, Oliver Stone is a true auteurâa director who puts his unique stamp on a body of work defined by a particular theme and aesthetic. In Stoneâs case, it is the story of lost innocence as the protagonist discovers essential truths about himself and the debased American system he mistakenly believed in. In âBorn on the Fourth of Julyâ and âPlatoonâ, the hero is a young man who joins the military to defend freedom in Vietnam only realizing in the end that he was a hired gun for Wall Street as Smedley Butler once put it. Landing in that âWall Streetâ, a young stockbroker decides that jail and a loss of a lucrative career is preferable to robbing ordinary working people with a fountain pen as Woody Guthrie put it in âPretty Boy Floydâ. Even if âJFKâ trafficked in wildly improbable conspiracy mongering, it shared their basic message, namely that the military-industrial complex and the big banks are enemies of peace and freedom. full: https://louisproyect.org/2016/09/15/snowden/ _ 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] Doug Greene on The Communist Manifesto: A weapon of war
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. * With the exception of the Bible, no other work in history has been more praised and denounced, analyzed and criticized, both seriously and superficially, than the Communist Manifesto. Whenever the ruling class imposes censorship on works which contain âsubversiveâ ideas, the Communist Manifesto is inevitably at the top of the list. Students of history, politics, philosophy, sociology and economics who ignore the impact of the Communist Manifesto, do so at their peril. The Communist Manifesto is the one piece of writing by Marx and Engels that most people, not merely leftists, have read. It has been translated into almost every major language in the world and is the most influential political pamphlet ever written. There is not a single wasted word in the Communist Manifesto with its sweeping historical vision that simultaneously indicts and praises the capitalist order, while call upon the workers of the world to take action to overthrow it. Despite being written over 160 years ago, the Communist Manifesto remains as relevant as ever. For generations of workers, socialists and communists, whether in factories, manning the barricades, students, guerrillas in the jungles and hills, the Communist Manifesto was, and remains, a weapon of war. more: http://links.org.au/communist-manifesto-marx-engels-weapon-war-greene Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant http://www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math Watch: AlzheimerââŹâ˘s Reversal ââŹĹCocktailââŹďż˝ Changing Lives Nutrition and Healing http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/57db319e8dcd3319e6c9bst02vuc _ 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: Jo Cox, the White Helmets and the Baathist amen corner | 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. * Since the White Helmets documentary has generated an organized smear campaign, I am reposting this. https://louisproyect.org/2016/06/20/jo-cox-the-white-helmets-and-the-baathist-amen-corner/ _ 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: Kremlinology: an intervention | openDemocracy
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.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/sean-guillory/kremlinology-intervention _ 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