Re: [L-I] smoking guns II
Tony Abdo: But the main line of attack has to be the corporate selling of drugs and guns. Liberalism. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] smoking guns II
Lou, do you mind explaining why it is 'liberalism' to attack the promotion of the gun and tobacco culture by corporations looking for sales? Tony Because they have already have UTNE Reader and Garrison Keilor to do that. I have no idea where you picked up such terminology like "promotion of the gun" but it smacks of "make love, not war" bumper stickers on Volkswagon Beetles in 1969. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] The legacy...part 1
Don't know if I'd go that far. Leys used to espouse a dependency theory see esp. his *Underdevelopment in Kenya* (1974,U of Cal.) a classic Baran-type analysis. He says "To my mind underdevelopment theory represents an immense advance, politically and intellectually, over conventional development theory (or modernisation theory-SP)." pxii. In the last 20 or so years though, he has given up on it for he contends that dependency or underdevelopment theory has failed to explain the "African Tragedy" as he puts it. He now seems to think that sub-saharan Africa has never been capitalist at all and this is one of the problems. Leys now, justifiably I guess, is resigned to complete pessimism as everything tried in S. Africa has failed completely and only made the overall socio-economic-political situation worse. The situation there today is about as good as it's going to get barring significant drastic changes in the international political economy. A more optimistic (and complete) analysis is given by Patrick Bond in his various books. Sam Pawlett I stand corrected. Furthermore, as a rule of thumb whatever Sam says I agree with in advance. Unless, of course, it is related to the topic of wild life preservation. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] The legacy...part 1
At 11:27 AM 1/29/01 -1000, you wrote: Lou wrote: Henwood used to argue, except they formulated it slightly differently. They said that imperialism was manifested by the refusal of Great Britain, USA et al to invest in Africa. ..., the imperialists prevented multinationals from "developing" Africa. Steve responds: Well, if that is Henwood's argument, it's not that far from Frantz Fanon, who argued that advanced capitalist countries frequently set conditions for investment on newly decolonized countries that keep them from being able to experience development *and* if they refused they would be faced with the very real threat of withdrawl altogether of financial assistance (which Fanon also felt they were owed from the advanced cap. world as reparations for years of pilfering of colonial economies...). Well, okay. Frantz Fanon made no pretenses of being a Marxist. If Henwood simply dropped that pretension himself, there would be less controversy around his views in cyberspace. (I should add that his print views are largely unobjectionable, although having little to do with classical Marxism.) Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Critical History of the U.S.
There is one book that stands head and shoulders over all others: Howard Zinn "People's History of the United States" At 02:39 PM 1/28/01 -0600, you wrote: Hello everybody - That would be extremely appreciated if somebody on this list could recommend the best critical books on the U.S. history (in English). On the U.S. history in general - not just dedicated to some particular events. Were any Russian/Soviet books on the U.S. history translated into English? Thanks! Alexander ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] The legacy...part 1
At 04:37 AM 1/28/01 -0500, you wrote: Macdonald Stainsby wrote: Any comments? - Macdonald A question first: Who are Colin Leys and Leo Panitch? I am not familiar with their history (either that, or I simply cannot recall it at the moment). Comradely; James Paris, MWG-IWC Leo Panitch co-edited Socialist Register with Ralph Miliband, who died a couple of years ago. As Mark Jones pointed out, the SR was very close to Monthly Review and many of the same writers publish in both: Ellen Meiksins Wood, Patrick Bond, John Bellamy Foster, Bill Tabb, David Harvey, et al. If you had to pick and choose among Marxist journals based on the academy, I suppose that MR and SR are the least compromised. Leys is a specialist in "development theory", Africa in particular. According to Sam Pawlett, he comes at things from the same angle as Robert Brenner which is to say that he is skeptical of the"development of underdevelopment" thesis--another way of saying that imperialism exists. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Congo
s forged strong links with internet companies, including cSscape, a US corporation that has worked for Monsanto's PR company, the giant Burson Marsteller. Other hi-tech companies supporting Institute for Ideas include Gap21 - which calls itself a "21st century dialogue on globalisation and power", Internet Freedom, a radical free speech group, and Designagenda, an internet design operation set up by LM writer and academic Andrew Calcutt. For those with a morbid curiosity, I recommend a trip to: http://www.spiked-online.com, the new website of the Furedi cult. It contains all the usual garbage, including a defense of the right to hunt foxes. It also includes an article by Dr. Norman Levitt, their new friend, who is upset over the government turning the Kennewick bones to the Umatilla tribe. Levitt is an interesting character. He was the NYU professor who got Alan Sokal on the warpath against pomos. While Sokal is a social democrat, Levitt is a neoconservative whose animosity against postmodernism comes from the same place as New Criterion and the rest of the rightwing haters of 'political correctness'. Levitt organized his own conference on the "science wars" at NYU that was funded by the ultraright Olin Foundation, that made its money in weapons manufacturing. He is the perfect playmate for the Furedi-Heartfield-Hume gang of black-clad, hair-geled, Grundrisse-quoting Thatcherites. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Democratising Africa
Yoshie/Heartfield: In Uganda, the United States already had a useful ally in Yoweri Museveni, whose rebellion had overthrown the democratically elected independence leader Milton Obote. Democratically elected independence leader Milton Obote? What a joke. Heartfield's attack on Museveni because he has refused to schedule elections seems misdirected. I recommend that people serious about the problems of Africa take a look at Basil Davidson's "The Black Man's Burden", which explains exactly why there is more going on in Uganda than suspending elections. "Yet it was in this dire situation, however paradoxically, that some of the worst sufferers from misrule and militarized mayhem had begun to present evidence of social renewal. A regime of reconstruction in Uganda headed by Yoweri Museveni after years of strong-arm misery under Idi Amin or Milton Obote was a case in point, rare but by no means unique. This regime of Musevenis National Resistance Movement reached power late in the 1980s when the whole of Uganda was in the last extremes of disintegration, and the odds against its survival, let alone recovery, had to remain heavy. Yet its early years into the 1990s produced the makings of peace and reconciliation where no hope of either had existed before. Fear retreated. The possibility of civil government instead of executive abuse began to emerge. Genuine moves toward the democratization of executive power thrust up their challenge to despair. It was even as though Ugandas long years of clientelist tyranny had cleared the way for grass-roots political life to push a harvest of renewal up through soil that had seemed irretrievably ruined. "Resistance committees at village, parish and district level have been encouraged by the National Resistance Movement to elect local leaders," Victoria Brittain reported in 1987. These began to form themselves into nine-person local executives which "take care of community security and the distribution of basic commodities such as sugar, salt or soap, which had simply vanished with the collapse of [Ugandas] economic and social infrastructure." And as may really happen in times of renewal "at the base of society," all this began to create "new local initiatives, which range from brick-making, maize processing, brewing, to co-operative shops, football pitches and chess clubs for youths" who "used to roam about with the soldiers, fighting, thieving, raping, outside any family or village life." Yet all this was then found to be more than a flash in the pan of optimism. Three years later Britain would report that "the old strongmen" of Ugandas statist structures had been successfully "challenged by the resistance committees, many of them made up of peasants," to a point at which "local decision-making, including the settlement of land disputes, has given the committees control over the lives of their communities." If Yoshie wants to understand Africa, I'd advise her to read Basil Davidson--the author of 27 books on the continent and a radical--rather than James Heartfield, who writes nothing but puff pieces on LBO-Talk. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Learning (was Re: Congo)
I don't recommend the mode of argument -- if you can call it that -- that you are employing here. In many circles, purist leftists tried to discredit _everything_ that Michel Chossudovsky wrote because he cited a couple of right-wing sources in his articles, etc.; _all_ info provided by Jared Israel because of his willingness to share the podium with Justin Raimondo, etc.; etc. Your argument is similar to their tactics. Chussodovsky is a revolutionary. Furedi is a libertarian. That's what he told the Guardian newspaper. Look at Yoshie trying to dissolve the class line between us and a libertarian who sets up conferences with a shadowy 'intelligence-gathering' consulting company paying top dollar to set up a table in the lobby. Do you think the bourgeois press is lying when it states that all these people from Furedi's group are collaborating with ultrarightists? One should be willing to learn about Z from even those with whom one disagrees on A-Y; and learning about Z from someone doesn't imply the acceptance of his or her views on A-Y. It's as simple as that. Unfortunately, few Western leftists are capable of doing so. We have a long way to go before rebuilding the Left. Empty platitudes. Rebuilding the left? Everybody in Great Britain agrees that the LM cult is a renegade from Marxism. Even Phil Ferguson, their erstwhile supporter, says that they are no longer part of the left. Perhaps we have disagreements about what the "left" means, Yoshie. People who network with the Wise Use movement are not part of the left, Yoshie. The Committee in Defense of Private Property placed the Furedi-ite Channel 4 documentary attacking the Greens on their website, while their leader Ron Arnold wrote for LM magazine. This is the same Ron Arnold who worked for Reverend Moon. Is Ron Arnold part of the left? Exactly who on the left has associated themselves with this cult other than Doug Henwood? Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] Illiterate blacks
Svetlana: May be I am mistaken because of my imperfect English but, in my opinion, the fraze from that letter "They bused illiterate blacks to the polls ", means not that the author considers that all Negro race is illiterate, but the indication to the fact that the operatives from the democratic party used dishonestly the illiterate, retarded representatives of this race at the elections. Svetlana, literacy tests were used to exclude Blacks from voting in the South for most of the 20th century. Sharecroppers, who could not read because of poor education, were literate enough to tell the difference between the name of a racist and a desegregationist during Jim Crow years. When Marxists give credit to the notion that illiteracy is some kind of litmus test for voting, then we have no business talking about revolution. Revolutions of the 20th century have been made by illiterate people. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] To moderators from Russia
I and my comrades in Russia want to read Vladimir Bilenkin`s point of view on problems disturbing us in living discussion with all other participants of your list. I hope, you will heed our request and correct the situation. Comradely, Svetlana Baiborodova I think Vladimir was thrown off not for what he wrote about Russia, but what he wrote about the USA where he lives: "The big problem in Florida was that democratic operatives gave voters the wrong information. They bused illiterate blacks to the polls and told them to punch a hole on every page - forgetting there were 2 pages of presidential candidates. . . .The reasons the dems didn't want to join in on the black complaints was simple. Black voting in Florida was up 65%. A full 16% of all votes cast in Florida were cast by black voters. Yet, only 13% of Florida's population is black. It's almost impossible to make a claim that they were disenfranchised, when they were actually overrepresented at the polls." This business about busing "illiterate blacks to the polls" is racist. Frankly, I was shocked to read this. I haven't seen anything Vladimir has written in probably 5 years when he was one of the most disruptive Trotskyists in cyberspace. I am afraid he has shifted far to the right. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Re: Russia: CPRF Leader Interviewed - Russia TV
I do not know whether General Makashov was a CPRF CC member, but he was elected on the CPRF slate to the Duma. Unfortunately it will be rather easy to find more antisemitic quotes from leading CPRF members. Johannes Just as you will find antisemitic quotes from leaders of the German Communist Party in the 1920s, including Ruth Fischer who was herself of Jewish origin. When a society is in deep crisis, there is a tendency to find scapegoats. Jews have traditionally played that role in Russia and Germany. In the USA, it is blacks who fill that role. The real question, however, is not what racist comments are uttered by one or another official of the CPRF, but what economic measures can resolve the crisis and relieve the tensions that give birth to racial demagogy. From that standpoint, there can be little doubt that the CPRF's program is what Russia needs. While making all sorts of concessions to "free market" orthodoxy, it is an attempt to reverse the course set by Yeltsin and continued now by Putin. Unfortunately, the people in charge of the CPRF are steeped in bureaucratic modes of functioning that prevent them from mobilizing the power of Russian workers to dislodge the gang in power right now. They have much in common with Milosevic, who can also be faulted for using "business as usual" methods at a time of deep crisis. If Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union can not generate true communists, then the situation will continue to deteriorate with all the resultant woes of xenophobia, suicide, alcoholism, dope addiction, prostitution, etc. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Owen-the-Kid Panics Old Goats
Owen presents a balanced analysis. Jones and Proyect start arguing that the list should be wound up, Is Owen somehow threatening civilisation as we know it? What left list-politics is really behind all this going on? Can someone explain? Steve Myers. Sure. This list has been dominated by crude flame-wars between ultra-sectarian Trotskyists and Mao/Stalinists for the past 3 months or so. In general what gets posted to this list are position papers, pronunciamentos, manifestos, etc., of the sort that are found on Hillier's M-L list and which hardly seem worth maintaining a mailing list for. Every micro-group or individual who has been waging ideological warfare here for the past 3 months would do just as well to keep a website going, rather than use a listserv, which is more geared to thoughtful discussion. Ps - Macdonald patronisingly refers to Owen as "the lad is 16". Well my mini dictionary refers to lad as meaning kid or male child. Then, just as I go to SEND this post, I read that Proyect is now saying the CPRF economic programme is just what Russia needs - when in fact their economic practice is to vote for every one of Yeltsin's or Putin's budgets, to back bosses against strikers and occupations consistently, to work with fascists in doing this, Proyect, are you doing this on purpose, are you really not as bright as you pretend, are you trying to disrupt this list come on, which is it? This is a useless discussion unless I understand where you stand ideologically. If you are a 'state capitalist', then we need to discuss class formation in the Soviet Union. But what you write above is just cheap demagogy not worth responding to. (With respect to Owen's tender age, I was a freshman in college at that age and if I turned in a paper with baseless allegations as he just did, I'd get an F.) pps - And Proyect, yes Ruth Fischer did make antisemitic comments as did other leaders of the KPD in the 1920s - and they were not challenged by other communists - why do you think the hell Hitler found it so easy to scapegoat Jews, when the working class 'leadership' were antisemitic themselves!! They should have been using their press, educating their cadre and militant workers, as Lenin did in Russia, against antisemitism! The existing working class leadership in Russia is following the German road today - and you excuse this instead of railing against it! I will leave the railing to you. It seems like this is a talent you possess in abundance. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Notes from Louise Bryant Six Red Months in Russia [reformatted]
At 12:59 PM 1/16/01 -0800, you wrote: Lenin 'will flay an opponent in debate and walk out of the hall arm-in-arm with him.[...]' *** The purpose of L-I summed up 84 years ago. Macdonald I want to expand upon this a little. In a very real sense, these mailing lists are a microcosm of the kind of revolutionary party we aspire to build in real space. If people come to a mailing list, especially a Marxist mailing list, with the attitude that it is someplace just to "make the record", then it will not get off the ground. Mailing lists require a certain amount of loyalty and committment. They require people to conform to a certain open-minded culture that might be at odds with the kind of "them versus us" mentality that characterizes the vanguard left today. I strongly suspect that in our socialist future (and without socialism, we have no future), people will look back at these dark ages we are living in and wonder how such a destructive subculture operated in the name of socialism. More than anything, Lenin's gesture symbolizes the kind of culture we need to build. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Re: Owen-the-Kid Panics Old Goats
At 06:33 PM 1/16/01 -0600, you wrote: Well I do 'fret'. I am not sure what is supposed to be accomplished by removing Vladimir Bilenkin, Steve Myers, and Owen Jones from the list? And I say this from having been admonished myself in the past, for the level of rhetoric I have engaged in with 2 of these individuals. This is not about censoring a point of view. It is about trying to move away from dead end factionalism. There were problems with James (Red Rebel) Tait, the DHKC, and A. Wosni as well. I can't even remember if they were unsubbed or not. This mailing list had turned into trench warfare of the kind that destroyed mailing lists in the past. My only observation is that unless it can figure out what it's mission is--and adhere to it--it will be vulnerable to destructive interventions. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Re: Lenin on the role + work of Party media
Mac wrote: I am curious as to whether anyone has a citation for when Lenin said that "What is to be done?" had become irrelevant. I tend to believe it has some benefits we can learn from (as in which questions to ask), but am skeptical of the relevance it has for actions we might take in 2001. Neil Harding, "Lenin's Political Thought", V. 1, p 161 The ideas which Lenin set out in What Is To Be Done? were, as we have seen from the previous chapter, inextricably connected with the power struggle proceeding within the R.S.D.L.P. in the years from 1899 to 1903. The bulk of the pamphlet is quite unintelligible if divorced from this immediate context. In 1907 Lenin insisted that the arguments and organisational principles of What To Be Done? were not intended as general statements of everlasting applicability but were, on the contrary, pertinent to a particular situation faced by the Russian movement at a particular moment of its development. "Concerning the essential content of this pamphlet it is necessary to draw the attention of the modern reader to the following. "The basic mistake made by those who now criticise What Is To Be Done? is to treat the pamphlet apart from its connection with the concrete historical situation of a definite, and now long past, period in the development of our Party." (CW, v. 13, p. 101) Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] On Centrism Today.
Yoshie: Lenin's criticism of Economism (socialism conflated with trade-unionism) still stands, and if the criticism of Economism is what Lou means by "centrism," a "swamp," etc., I cannot agree more. I am not sure what you are trying to say. If you are trying to establish connections between Economism and centrism, then we disagree. Economism was a current in the emerging Russian socialist movement that opposed a nation-wide organization. It instead advocated struggles at the plant-gate level around demands that were of immediate interest to the working class. It was an obstacle to the consolidation of a nation-wide Marxist movement. Centrism, by and large, refers to a current *within* Marxism that emerged after 1917 and which occupies a space between the Second International and the Third International. Forces opposed to the creation of a Third International, such as the French Socialist Party and the German Independent Socialist Party, are classic "centrists". Although these types of parties existed throughout the 20s and 30s (they are virtually extinct today in the advanced capitalist countries but occasionally crop up in the third world--the MIR in Allende's Chile might be called a centrist type formation), there was little to distinguish them ideologically from Marxism broadly defined. Economism came to an end at the famous split conference that generated the "What is to be Done" pamphlet. The closest one comes to such a phenomenon today is autonomist Marxism, which makes a fetish of local organizing and eschews challenging the state on a national level. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] Re: The Guinea Pigs Of Kano
ections in developing countries uncover more problems with data integrity and informed consent than inspections in the United States. Trovan's Troubled History Early Development A team led by Pfizer researcher Katherine Brighty synthesizes Trovan (trovafloxacin) for the first time in a laboratory. A broad-spectrum antibiotic, Trovan attacks bacteria responsible for a wide range of illnesses. Pfizer eventually launches the biggest clinical trial program in company history, encom-passing 13,000 patients in 87 studies in 27 countries. 1996: Tests in Nigeria, Approval Request April 3 to May 15: Pfizer researchers conduct human experiment in Kano, Nigeria, to compare the drug to another antibiotic in treating 200 children with bacterial meningitis. Researchers say the trial is a success. Dec. 30: Pfizer files for approval to sell Trovan in the U.S. for a variety of infections. 1997: Inspection, FDA Approval June: FDA inspects Pfizer's files on the Nigerian Trovan experi-ment, later cites numerous record-keeping deficiencies. October: Pfizer withdraws FDA application for use of Trovan to fight bacterial meningitis in children in an epidemic. Dec. 18: Pfizer physician Juan Walterspiel sends letter to Pfizer's chairman, alleging unethical practices in the Nigerian experiment. Dec. 19: FDA approves Trovan for combating 14 bacterial infections in adults. Human experiments for other possible Trovan uses continue. 1998: Sales Launch, A Death Reported February: Pfizer sponsors a launch meeting for Trovan in Orlando. The drug quickly becomes one of the most prescribed antibiotic brands in the United States. Pfizer reports sales top $ 160 million in Trovan's first year; 2.5 million prescriptions are written by mid-1999. Also that month, Pfizer responds that after an extensive review of the Nigeria experiment, Walterspiel's claims determined unfounded. Walterspiel terminated. May 15: Walterspiel sues Pfizer, claiming he was fired for raising ethical questions about the Nigeria experiment. Pfizer denies claim; suit later dropped. July 3: The European Union approves sale of Trovan for adults. September: FDA approves adding wording to Trovan labels in the United States that note that liver abnormalities and hepatitis have occurred in Trovan patients, and that "liver failure . . . has also been reported rarely." Dec. 1: FDA receives report of the death of a Trovan patient that the agency says is associated with liver injury. 1999: Call for Ban, New Restrictions May: Pfizer warns European doctors that 140 Trovan patients have suffered liver damage. June 3: The non-profit group Public Citizen asks the FDA to ban Trovan, arguing liver problems surfaced in animal and human experiments even before it was approved for sale. June 9: FDA advises that Trovan's use be restricted to patients with serious diseases in institutional settings. Agency reports more than 100 cases of liver damage among Trovan patients, including six deaths. Pfizer later suspends pediatric experiments. July 6: Lawsuit filed against Pfizer in South Carolina on behalf of Trovan patient. Other suits follow in Illinois and New York. Cases pending. About This Series Today: Nigeria In sub-Saharan Africa, an American pharmaceutical giant tests an unapproved drug on desperately ill children in an epidemic. The experiment illustrates a booming, poorly regulated system of international drug testing that far too often betrays its promises to patients and consumers. Monday: Regulation The global boom in overseas drug testing means some of the newest drugs coming to U.S. consumers are tested far from the scrutiny of Food and Drug Administration investigators in countries that may have few inspectors and little history of examining drugs for safety and effectiveness. Tuesday: Informed Consent Testing in far-flung countries has weakened basic protections for naive, impoverished or uneducated human subjects who try experimental drugs because they are desperate for medical treatment. Wednesday: China A massive blood harvest among Chinese peasants yields precious genetic material that means millions for a U.S. company and Harvard University. But the impoverished participants say they didn't get what they were promised. Thursday: Latin America The dramatic increase in huge drug trials has left domestic and U.S. regulators struggling to keep up. It also has left open the possibilities for mistakes, mismanagement and outright fraud. Friday: Thailand Staggering under an HIV epidemic, Thailand opens itself to experiments by foreign researchers. But what do the Thai people have to risk and what do they get in return? Contributors "The Body Hunters" is the result of an 11-month reporting effort on five continents led by reporters Joe Stephens, Deborah Nelson and Mary Pat Flaherty of The Washington Post's investigative staff. In addition to reporting from Washington and other U.S
Re: [L-I] On Centrism
Johannes wrote: In recent postings other organisations have been referred to as beeing 'centrist'. Though especially in Trotskyite circles this is a very popular attribute given to political (mostly other Trotskyites) adversaries, as a moderator I would like to point out, that this kind of lingo is not particularly encouraged on L-I. Rather than using just a shorthand, I would prefer to see an example and an explanation what is meant in detail and let the reader come to its own conclusion. Trotsky called centrists, like the POUM allegedly, revolutionary in word and reformist in deed. I personally identify with the centrist current and think that Marxism can learn much from a group like the POUM. Basically the POUM-ists broke with the FI because they felt it was a hindrance to being rooted in the Spanish class struggle. Looking at the sorry record of the official Trotskyist group in Spain, it looks like they hit the nail on the head. Of course they adapted to the reformists, but affiliation with the FI was no cure for that. Such affiliation would only guarantee the purism of a church. I also identify strongly with the forces in the world Communist movement who questioned the wisdom of the 21 points of the Comintern. If Marxism had heeded their advice, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] On Centrism Today.
It is entirely possible, nay necessary, to learn from centrists, especially like the POUM, but does Louis Proyect really want to stay in that mish-mash of political confusion? Or is it just an emotional response to their bravery and general anti-Stalinist approach to life. Explain yourself comrade. from a self-declared and unashamed centrist, but one who desperately wants to break out of this morass - - Steve Myers. I will tell you the same thing that I told Yoshie Furuhashi on the Marxism list. I like what you call the mish-mash, but I prefer to call it a swamp. All sorts of lovely, green things grown in the swamp. Have you ever seen an orchid? Or an Snowy Egret stretching her wings? Or bearded oaks? Or magnolias? It's enough to make a grown man cry. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] What is to be Done
I want to address the malaise that exists on this mailing list, which can be diagnosed as a misinterpretation of the role of Lenin, whose example it purports to honor. It is poorly understood nowadays, but Lenin was preoccupied with unifying the left rather than dividing it. Some of the polemics that have become holy writ are of course concerned with "split" questions such as what stance to take toward WWI, but many more are literally obsessed with the question of how to unite the Marxist movement in Russia. Or in the case of "What is To Be Done", how to build a movement where none existed on a national level. Even with respect to this famous "split" conference, it is not so widely known that the Mensheviks adopted the Bolshevik organizational resolution within a couple of years and that Lenin himself viewed the pamphlet "What is to be Done" as obsolete not five years after it was written. This might seem like heresy to some of the frequent posters here, but the goal of revolutionary politics is to get people to AGREE with your ideas rather than DISAGREE. Getting people inflamed with your ideas does not bring the revolution closer. Getting them to embrace them is the goal. As a rule of thumb, the best approach is to not worry about what your "revisionist" opponents are writing, but to go ahead and put forward an analysis of capitalist society and a set of strategies and tactics geared to moving the class struggle forward. This in fact is what established Lenin's reputation. His study of the development of capitalism in Russia was an audacious examination of how market forces were overturning the peasant communes in the countryside. By making a concrete analysis of concrete class relations, he fortified his theoretical and political orientation WITHOUT having to say a word about his opponents. I know that it is very burdensome to attempt to analyze one's native country. To make an intelligent analysis of Great Britain or Germany would condemn one to long hours in the library or on the Internet to come up with useful statistics that can be integrated into an article. I suppose that although Marx practically made the London Library Reading Room his second home, one can have a lot more fun drinking beer, kicking around a soccer ball and flaming people on Leninist-International. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] Bloodbath in Turkey
. Parliament approved the amnesty bill 10 days ago, but it was vetoed by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, formerly chief judge of Turkey's high court, as unconstitutional. Parliament was scheduled to debate the bill again Wednesday and analysts say it will probably override the veto. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] Turkish hunger strike
Hunger Striking Turk Inmates Weaken on 'Death Fast' By REUTERS Filed at 11:18 a.m. ET ANKARA (Reuters) - The health of some Turkish inmates on the 35th day of a ``death fast'' hunger strike over planned prison changes has begun to fail, a human rights worker said on Friday. More than 800 leftist Turkish prisoners across the country have gone on hunger strike to protest against government plans to transfer inmates from large wards to cells. Forty inmates were beginning to see the symptoms of failing health for refusing all food and water after vowing to fast until death. ``The situation is growing worse. Many of the hunger strikers are losing their vision and have memory loss,'' said Mesut Cetiner of the Human Rights Association (IHD), which is monitoring the unrest. Eleven prisoners starved to death in 1996 in a protest against prisoner transfers. The Justice Ministry declined to comment for this story. The Anatolian news agency said 31 protestors at a jail in the western city of Aydin had quit the strike on Thursday. Another 815 protesters are drinking small amounts of water mixed with sugar, Cetiner said. Some 30 relatives of the protestors have also gone on hunger strike in Ankara and the southeastern city of Adana, he said. ``We're already dead in our homes as we watch our sons die,'' sobbed a mother of a hunger striker at an IHD press conference earlier this week. ``I gave a healthy son to the system and I want a healthy son to come home.'' Plans to transfer prisoners to maximum security jailhouses have sparked criticism among inmates, families and rights activists. They argue the cells, which hold one to three people, will isolate prisoners, leaving them vulnerable to assault. Turkish police are often accused of torturing those in their custody. But authorities say the cell system meets European standards and, moreover, will break the influence of organized criminals and political prisoners who recruit and run gangs in the dormitory-style wards with weapons smuggled in from the outside. The government has proposed a general amnesty that would free tens of thousands of felons to ease the overcrowding. The IHD's Cetiner says the amnesty would not affect the hunger strikers, because the legislation excludes those convicted of political crimes. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Re: Serbia a typical postcommunist state
snia. "WE ARE VERY CONCERNED ABOUT THE LACK OF MOVEMENT ON FUNDAMENTAL REFORMS, SUCH AS PRIVATISATION AND THE PROPERTY LAW," SAID MR GELBARD, ADDING THAT MOSLEM POLITICIANS HAD BLOCKED PROPERTY LAWS WHICH WOULD ENABLE THE RETURN OF CROATS AND SERBS TO SARAJEVO. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Re: Serbia a typical postcommunist state
Now now, lad...you seem to be the one who keeps re-joining lists you denounce as cesspools of revisionism and/or get kicked off of, are you not? but I love ya anyway... Macdonald Actually, John Lacny's list, which was supposed to be a Milosevic-free environment, is one of the most boring places on the Internet. I think Owen hangs around us reprobate Stalinist-Fascist types because we are much more interesting. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Re: Serbia a typical postcommunist state
n), 29 June 1990, p. 11. 15. NED Annual Report, 1990, op. cit., pp. 6-7, 23. 16. The Times (London), 7 July 1990, p. 11. 17. The Times Higher Educational Supplement (London), 13 July 1990, p. 9. 18. The Guardian (London), 12 July 1990, p. 10; The Times (London), 20 July 1990, p. 10. 19. The Times (London), 28 July 1990, p. 8; 30 July, p. 6. 20. Ibid., 27 August 1990, p. 8. 21. The Times Higher Education Supplement (London), 14 December 1990, p. 8. 22. Russ Bellant and Louis Wolf, "The Free Congress Foundation Goes East", Covert Action Information Bulletin, Fall 1990, No. 35, pp. 29-32, based substantially on Free Congress Foundation publications. 23. New York Times, 9 October 1990, p. D20. 24. The Guardian (London), 29, 30 August 1990, both p. 8. 25. NED Annual Report, 1990, op. cit., p. 23; Los Angeles Times, 3 December 1990, p. 13. 26. Howard Frazier, editor, Uncloaking the CIA (The Free Press/Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, 1978) pp. 241-8. 27. The Guardian (London), 7 November 1990, p. 10. 28. The Times Higher Educational Supplement (London), 16 November 1990, p. 11. 29. The Guardian (London), 9 June 1990, p. 6. 30. The Times (London), 24 November 1990, p. 10; 27 November, p. 16. 31. The Times Higher Educational Supplement (London), 30 November 1990, p. 8. 32. The Guardian (London), 30 November 1990, p. 9; The Times (London), 30 November 1990, p. 10. 33. Los Angeles Times, 3 December 1990, p. 13. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., 6 February 1994, article by Carol J. Williams. 36. Ibid., 13 June 1991, p. 14. 37. National Endowment for Democracy, Washington, D.C., Annual Report, 1991 (October 1, 1990 - September 30, 1991), p. 42. This is a chapter from Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II by William Blum http://members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm (Notice the capital "A" and the underline ( _ ) Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] Mac's computer problems
Hello Louis I'm sending this on behalf of Macdonald. Could you please notify his co-moderators that he is still having computer problems? He has to have his whole hard drive re-built, so he is very behind on his list duties. It should not be too much longer, but he is getting really concerned about his list. Thanks, Louis. Donna Stainsby (Mac's mother) Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] Re: The sell-out has already started
According to these sources, in the fist year of joint production, about 4,500 workers will be employed at salaries of approximately 800 Deutschmarks, to produce the Peugeot 206. Gee whiz, I wonder why they have decided to start making the 206 in Yugoslavia. === Sunday Business, December 12, 1999 Call for strike at Peugeot By Jon Menon Peugot bosses and unions at the carmaker's factory near Coventry will hold talks on Tuesday in an effort to settle a dispute over working hours, which threatens production of the French company's successful 206 model. The 4,400 employees at the Ryton plant and a nearby parts factory represented by the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union and the Transport and General Workers' Union are seeking a 35- hour working week in line with their French counterparts, following legislation which cuts hours in France from 1 January 2000. The unions claim the normal 39-hour week worked at the plant is longer than the pattern at other UK carmaking factories including the Rover, Jaguar and Ford operations. Duncan Simpson, national officer for the AEEU, said: "We have bitten the bullet for a number of years to raise productivity. It is unacceptable. We will try to reach an agreement but industrial action has not been ruled out."Peugeot claims the factory has the highest running costs in its group. The company claims its schedules will push up productivity levels at the Ryton plant. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] Re: American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee
Any news of protests elsewhere? Yoshie NY Times, Oct. 7, 2000 Times Square Marchers Protest Killing of Palestinians By AMY WALDMAN Several thousand demonstrators gathered south of Times Square during the evening rush yesterday to protest the killing of dozens of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in recent days and what they characterized as blind American support for Israel. They said they wanted Americans to hear of their pain and to question Washington's financial support for a government that, as one protester had scrawled on a sign, uses "missiles against rocks." They said they wanted to force elected officials and candidates for office to acknowledge their political power. On countless posters they hoisted the photocopied image of 12-year- old Muhammad al-Durrah in his father's arms, fatally wounded in the crossfire in Gaza between Israeli and Palestinian forces. In the Mideast, the death toll from eight days of violence rose to 77 yesterday. The fighting began after a highly publicized visit by Ariel Sharon, the Israeli right-wing opposition leader, to a holy mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem. Palestinians say the visit was a challenge to peace. Israeli officials say the Palestinians used the visit as a pretext for an uprising. Yesterday's protest in Times Square showed how the Mideast situation is touching New York City. Over the last week, the police have reported several possible bias attacks linked to the renewed tensions, although local Arab and Jewish leaders have taken pains to urge people to avoid violence. Yesterday's protest was largely peaceful, although two people, Nael N. F. Msallam and Mahmoud Abedalgader, were charged with reckless endangerment and public disorder, said Officer Guy Braun, a police spokesman. Marchers chanted "We're Muslims, we're Americans and we vote," a message Mason Mohamed, a 24-year-old college student born in Yemen, said he was particularly eager to send to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic candidate for Senate from New York. "I don't approve of Hillary Clinton backing up Israel just to get votes," he said. "She doesn't know Arabs, Muslims vote. I do, and I'm not going to vote for her." To express sorrow over children killed in the Mideast violence, children were brought to the rally. They held flowers, sat under police barricades, and pressed forward to share their thoughts. Several said they would not forget the image of Muhammad slumped in his father's arms, an image shown frequently on television and in the nation's newspapers this week. "From the inside, I feel very bad; the kid who got shot, I feel awful," said Diana Awawdeh, 10. "I felt someone was shooting part of my heart." Diana and her brother had come with their mother, Abeer Awawdeh, 35, a homemaker and mother of six, from Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Ms. Awawdeh, a Palestinian, said, "We want Clinton and Albright to announce on TV that they are standing with us," referring to President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. "Especially Clinton: he is hiding from us." She and her neighbors and their children had crowded by the dozens onto the train to ride to Manhattan. The point, she and others said, was to show solidarity with Palestinians and unity to the world. Yusef Al-Abad, a 28-year-old aeronautical engineer, said: "Every Palestinian has a goal in their lifetime to eventually go back to Palestine. We want to show Israel that we will unite. We will unite one day soon in Israel, just like in Times Square." Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] Forwarded from Nestor (Moyano proposals)
os de corrupción los cuales deberán ser penalizados severamente; otorgar reintegros que compensen las asimetrías cambiarias que se han registrado desde 1992 a la fecha; apoyar ágil y efectivamente a las empresas seleccionadas que aspiren a exportar. 13. Respecto al MERCOSUR deberá acordarse con Brasil, en forma inmediata, un sistema que compense las asimetrías cambiarias y de subsidios, de cuyo resultado se analizará la conveniencia de cuotificar temporalmente el intercambio. Deberá, asismismo, asegurar acuerdos comerciales compensados con las restantes zonas comerciales del mundo, con salvaguardas contra eventuales asimetrías, dentro de los mecanismos de consenso nacional entre las partes involucradas, para evitar las decisiones arbitrarias que pueda incurrir el sector gubernamental, tal como han prevalecido durante la última década. Se deberá establecer un sistema de contralor de la integración nacional de manufacturas que penalice la integración fraudulenta mediante el uso de conjuntos subintegrados por piezas importadas. 14. El Estado deberá crear un sistema eficiente y rápido de controlar la formación de precios en las operaciones intra-empresas de multinacionales. 15. Reducción inmediata de las tarifas de las empresas monopólicas privatizadas y arbitrio por el Estado de una auditoría integral de las mismas a fin de definir las nuevas pautas de regulación de los márgenes de ganancia. Reiteramos que la Confederación General del Trabajo no combate ni combatirá contra ningún Gobierno democrático. Combatimos contra los verdaderos responsables de la pauperización y marginación de nuestros pueblos, contra aquellos que incluso condicionan a nuestros propios gobiernos imponiéndoles las actuales políticas antipopulares y antinacionales y que son quienes han debilitado tradicionalmente, nuestras democracias. Y ese poder es el del capital financiero internacional y sus organismos de control y regulación: el Fondo Monetario Internacional, el Banco Mundial y la Organización Mundial de Comercio. Con ellos confrontamos. PROPUESTAS DE LA CGT PARA LA REACTIVACIÓN Y EL EMPLEO (Programa de 5 puntos elevado a Gobierno Nacional) Sólo los que se resignan a este modelo de exclusión creen que no es posible el crecimiento con Justicia Social en la Argentina. Por eso los intentos de mayor precarización y flexibilización laboral. Hoy es evidente que necesitamos reactivar la economía. Por suerte no hay contradicción alguna entre la reactivación y la justicia social. Todo lo contrario, para reactivar es indispensable promover una rápida redistribución del ingreso a favor de los sectores más castigados de la sociedad. Hay que devolver poder adquisitivo a los desocupados, a los jubilados y a los salarios más bajos. Sólo así se volverá a poner en marcha la producción de consumo masivo y el empleo. Por eso proponemos: 1. El inmediato otorgamiento de un subsidio de 400 pesos a un millón de jefas y jefes de hogar desocupados. 2. El incremento del haber mínimo jubilatorio a 400 pesos mensuales. 3. El aumento del Salario Mínimo, Vital y Móvil a 400 pesos mensuales y la recomposición gradual de los salarios básicos de los convenios colectivos de trabajo. 4. La eliminación total del IVA a los bienes que integran la canasta básica de consumo popular aumentando así el poder de compra real de las familias con menores recursos. 5. El aumento sustantivo de los aranceles a la importación a fin de proteger la producción y el trabajo nacional evitando que la expansión de la demanda se transforme en una mayor invasión de bienes importados. Nos preguntarán cómo financiar estas medidas. Nosotros contestamos: con la misma reactivación, con mayor consumo, producción e ingresos tributarios, con menor evasión de los grandes contribuyentes, con las sobreganancias de las empresas monopólicas, con impuestos a los dividendos de las empresas financieras y con una Aduana eficiente que haga efectivo el cobro de los nuevos montos arancelarios. Reactivar es una necesidad indispensable para salvar nuestra industria, nuestras PyMES y nuestros puestos de trabajo. Es también un acto solidario e impostergable ante la emergencia de hambre, pobreza, exclusión y desamparo que castiga a millones de nuestros compatriotas. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Re: Owen's unconscious and the British Fleet
ent Alvaro Obregón, who once said, "I do not know of a single general able to resist a cannonade of one million pesos," Frigerio got no less than two hundred generals to serve on the boards of corporations he either influenced, owned or controlled. Once Frondizi was elected, he gave the oligarchy tax concessions and lucrative contracts, all in the interests of the kind of 'development' promoted by the likes of Walt Rostow and Brad DeLong. This went hand in hand with opening up Argentina to aggressive foreign investment. To show his sincerity, he agreed to pay American corporations $60 million for twenty-two power plants expropriated by Perón. Although some projects were successful (joint oil exploration with Standard Oil in Patagonia), others were colossal flops. Steel production had ground to a halt. By 1962 the country was only producing 600,000 tons when it needed 3,000,000. Meat production dropped from a high of 145,000 metric tons under Perón to 87,000 by the end of 1961. With the drop off in production, a destructive trade imbalance ensued: YearDeficit (in millions) 1960$237 1961$450 1962$$640 These imbalances, in turn, caused the money supply to tighten up and inflation outran wage increases. In the period following the overthrow of Perón, wages went up 400 percent while the price of food went up 750 percent. The economic contradictions deepened. This led to a series of workers revolts in cities like Cordoba where auto workers built barricades and fought the army and police. Due to a combination of political immaturity and sectarianism, a revolution did not occur in Argentina despite a clear desire for fundamental change. We are fortunate to have compañeros like Nestor on these mailing lists who represent the collective memory of Argentina's working class. Now that workers in Argentina have answered the military, the comprador bourgeoisie and their friends in the United States with a general strike, we might once again see a re-emergence of the old mole revolution. This time we are pledged to strengthen the Marxist pole through all means available to us. This is the meaning of proletarian internationalism. (This post relied heavily on information contained in the chapter on Argentina in the out-of-print "The Great Fear in Latin America" by John Gerassi. Gerassi was Latin America bureau chief of Time Magazine and his book is an indispensable guide to the realities of Latin American politics. I also recommend Eduardo Galeano's "Open Veins of a Continent".) Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] The Yugoslav Election
Tony Abdo: Let me make this perfectly clear. People and groups like Doug Henson, Ralph Nader, Solidarity, Labor Militant, the SWP, the CP, the DSP, the SP, and etc. and so on, are not going to be our allies in this project. Is this the Doug Henson of Left Muppet Observer fame? Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] Forwarded from Left Directory
Hope you do not mind us sending this e-mail. We hope that you find the content informative and useful and, if so, would you please forward to as many people as you can from your address book and any mailing lists you maybe on. We are attempting to launch the first ever UK left-wing interactive manifesto with the intention of forging a 'new left' in Britain that could unite many disparte groups/individuals around common issues. Once the interactive part is complete we intend to put together an editorial board and prepare it for publication. So, who are we? Left Directory is the most comprehensive gateway for left and radical websites on the Internet. In addition to it left portal function visitors are kept informed of forthcoming events and the lastest labour news that is updated daily. Visitors can also get a free 'leftdirect' e-mail address which can be accessed at any time on any computer around the world. Left Directory also have an active discussion page for those interested in engaging on political issues. As the site is completely democratic, there are no restrictions on any topic people wish to discuss. More recently, Left Directory has added a music feature titled 'Working Class Hero' that is facilitated by Red Planet records. Also recently Left Direct has launched the first ever left- wing interactive manifesto where vistors are invited to write their contribution which will form part of the final piece which is intended to be published. In the near future Left Directory hopes to re-design its pages to enhance the existing features and add new ones like weekly articles. In the spirit of the site, Left Direct invites suggestions and comment from visitors. So, visit Left Directory at: http://www.leftdirect.co.uk You can also e-mail them at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] All the best and thanks for taking the time to read this e-mail. Remember, we would greatly apprecaite it if you can distribute the contents of this e-mail as far and wide as you can through your address book, mailing lists, web pages, publications, usenet groups and whatever else. The more people become involved with the manifesto the more represnetaive and therefore more valid it will be. Thanks http://www.leftdirect.co.uk Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] American Gypsy website
It is at: http://www.americangypsy.com and it is very informative. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] Speaking the same language?
Mr. Holberg: And something else: Marxists don't need to adore the working class (no matter what nationality) for what it is (as a class in itself it is mainly material for exploitation).Marxists look to the working class as it can be and as it must be if it wants the liberate itself and by this mankind as a whole. Therefore there is no need to defend every sort of narrowmindedness within the working class, and if people live in a foreign country for decades and don't hardly speak a single sentence in that country's language (Johannes: please don't deny that there are people like that!) this is nothing to defend. It's simply narrow minded and in fact reactionary. We should be Marxists, not liberal dogooders with a bad consciousness. We should tell it like it is. ] The only thing reactionary here is the notion that speaking the same language is "progressive". The most combative section of the US working class today are Latino janitors in Los Angeles and meat-packers in the midwest, most of whom speak English either haltingly or not at all. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Re: What to do if the KLA and NATO fight (Fwd from Louis Proyect)
xport commodities. These interrelated goals became the driving-force behind agrarian planning. Is this a joke? The woman I met who went on a German Communist Party delegation with initial sympathies with Cuba (i.e. she had nothing to do with Trotskyism) did not have that impression, and she had a guided tour by the regime intended to show her only the positive side. But she still saw the privileges for the bureaucracy. For instance, bureaucrats have dollars, and that gives them an infinite advantage over everyone. They also have reserved hospitals, and special privileged schools. There is also a pretty nice section of Havana with nice apartments for the officials. You won't believe it, perhaps, but I'm consulting unbiased primary evidence, not hagiography written by miserable ex-Trotskyists. You're right. I don't believe it. As Johannes said, the chief icon of the July 26th was Marti, the Cuban independence fighter. This really reflects the petty bourgeois nationalist character of the insurrection. However, since it was a multi-class organisation, there were different icons depending on which class or strata you belonged to. If Johannes said it, it must be true. Hardly my conception of a workers' state. Do you think that the consciousness of the working class is as a ruling class? Of course it is not, they wield no political power. But somebody must wield political power. Call them who you like, officials or bureaucrats. Castro explains himself by saying the working class will not be able to achieve political power until they have sufficient class consciousness and education, and also denounced workers' self-management viciously. Useless jargon. Don't get things mixed up - the *Revolution* enjoys extraordinary support, but the regime does not, and has got considerably less popular during the Special Period. People who have gone to Cuba who have talked to Cubans - and this is very hard since it is illegal for a Cuban to talk to a foreigner - will pledge their support for the Revolution and even list its various achievements, but they are very critical about Castro. More anecdotal evidence. Okay, let me respond in kind. I talked to Bessie Goldstein who came back from a "Grandmothers for the Advancement of Afro-Cuban Music" delegation. She said that the government enjoys extraordinary support. If Cuba was a healthy workers' state, the Soviet Union would not have come so enthusiastically to its aid for it would have posed a threat to the continued rule of its bureaucracy. Nothing was more dangerous to it than a healthy workers' state in the world. But Cuba didn't even have elections until the 1980s. It rarely even has Party Congresses. Hardly the socialist society which I have in mind. Yes, the mind is a dangerous thing to waste. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] What to do if the KLA and NATO fight (Fwd from Louis Proyect)
Who has ever claimed that ideological exposure from the sidelines of the class struggle is enough? Of course the Bolsheviks did take an active and leading part in the day to day class struggle, but they were not economists, and they knew that consciousness was the key to a proletarian revolution. Not really. What you call consciousness I regard as socialist ideology. In point of fact, revolutions generally take place in advance of acceptance of socialist ideology by the great majority. The common misconception of Marxists idealists is that a decisive majority of a population will become committed socialists (more specifically, committed to a particular interpretation of the "Russian questions") prior to a revolution. Average working people only make revolutions when the old system is seen as intolerable. Although the Cuban revolution is widely regarded as being vastly inferior to the Russian revolution in terms of the level of consciousness, it is doubtful that there is much difference between the two. Keep in mind that overwhelming majority of the participants in 1917 were peasants who sought an end to the war and land reform, you can even argue that more Cubans were ideologically committed to socialism in 1959. This is why while actively fighting and organizing wherever the masses and the working class in particular were and fought the Bolsheviks led an ideological struggle against the misleaders and/or all other political forces. You however seem to think that taking part in ongoing class struggles will lead to a revolution (we are talking here about a socialist revolution!) by itself. This is the kind of spontaneism which Lenin always and ardently fought against. Already in 1905 he wrote in "The Reorganization of the Party" (LW Vol.10, p.32): "The working class is instinctively, spontaneously Social Democratic, and more than ten years of work put in by Social Democracy has done a great deal t o t r a n s f o r m t h i s s p o n t a n e i t y i n t o c o n s c i o u s n e s s." I don't know how much Lenin took part in demonstrations or strikes when in Switzerland, but I know that he wrote lots of polemics. What is if not outright idealist so at least mechanical materialist ans metaphysical in reality is to neatly separate thinking from 'the living class struggle'. Ever heard about dialectics? A.Holberg Mr. Holberg, I have never read anything in your posts except this kind of abstract theorizing. Lenin most certainly did not write and think this way. When you do descend into the concrete, it is to write truly reactionary garbage like this: "On the other hand we might argue that since there is such a lot of money in Germany (albeit not in the right hands) this country should offer medical help without thinking about the costs. If however the costs are an important argument the point that over 50% of those who don't know the language sufficiently die soon after the transplantation seems to be important. The article does not say what has happened to the ones who had transplantation in the US and did not speak English. If it was proved that the argument of the hospital is not true the discussion ought to begin anew. Up to that point however I would reject the racism-'argument' (not that racism isn't widespread in German society, but it is also used as a cheap argument by by a certain number of foreigners who are treated like they are because OF THEIR VERY PERSONAL FAULTS), let alone the 'Nazi'-accusation. We should not let devaluate the notion of 'racism' or 'enemity towards foreigners'." Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] What to do if the KLA and NATO fight (Fwd from Louis Proyect)
I dont want to speculate much about the 'ifs' in history, but I doubt there would have been an October uprising without thr previous split of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. By the same token I think its the tragedy of the German revolution that the forces around Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg stayed too long inside the SPD. Johannes Yeah, this is just what I was talking about. Lenin's central committee voted against overthrowing Kerensky in October because it went against Bolshevik orthodoxy. The only top leader who backed the April Theses was Trotsky, a career Menshevik. Meanwhile, the Comintern expelled Paul Levi, a disciple of Rosa Luxemburg for opposing Bela Kun's ultraleftism. Then they turned around and renounced the ultraleftism that they were responsible for in the first place. And what happened to Levi? He continued to be excluded from the German CP, which kept going downhill from that point. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Re: What to do if the KLA and NATO fight (Fwd from Louis Proyect)
Owen Jones: I think that the proposition that the Cuban and Russian Revolutions have little differences is absurd. The Russian Revolution was led by the revolutionary proletariat, whilst in the Cuban Revolution, the peasantry were in the driving seat. That is hardly a subtle difference, and in both cases that force which carried out the revolution reflected on to the state that was created. Actually the Cuban countryside was distinguished by large scale wage labor on plantations, while Czarist Russia had extensive subsistence holdings, sharecropping and other semifeudal class relations. When you are in the library studying about the Yugoslav economy, you might want to take a look at James O'Connor's "Origins of Socialism in Cuba". Anyway, the October Revolution was led by a party that represented the very vanguard of the most revolutionary workers, with a consciously revolutionary programme for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of a socialist society under the dictatorship of the working class, with the ultimate aim of communism. Actually the historic program of the Bolshevik party called for no such thing. Instead it called for a radical republicanism with the Bolsheviks functioning as Jacobins. That is why the central committee objected to the April Theses. It went against their "program". The Cuban Revolution was led by the peasantry, not by the most advanced section of the proletariat. Its held a radical bourgeois-democratic programme that included land reform and independence from US imperialism. It would never have become any form of workers' state if it had not been for the existence of the Soviet Union; if such a revolution were repeated today, capitalism would not be overturned. But what if Nazi spies had assassinated Churchill? Because the insurrection was led by a peasant guerrilla army, from its ranks rose the bureaucracy; not necessarily a Stalinist bureaucracy, and indeed in the first regime there were bourgeois ministers. Can you name them? But in this revolution it was the peasantry that carried out the historic tasks of the proletariat, not the working class itself. Because of its petty-bourgeois nature, it did not have a revolutionary proletarian revolution that called for world revolution or accepted that its continued existence depended on workers' revolution in the advanced capitalist nations. You have to get away from this "called for" stuff. It is the bane of the "T-ist" movement. inevitably doomed to failure. There is no form of workers' democracy - and no, these "mass organisations" Castro fans speaking about were established and run by the bureaucracy to aid its continued rule, far from being any organ of workers' political rule. Did you ever hear of Escalante? The glorification of the Cuban regime, even by those on the Trotskyist Left, is as a result of the relative benevolence of the bureaucracy compared to, say, Romania. A puzzling bureaucracy that enjoys no material priviliges. Stalinism is not the same everywhere. Romanian Stalinism as different to Polish Stalinism, which differed from North Korean Stalinism, and so on. Yes, but the July 26th movement was inspired ideologically by Mariategui, not Stalin. You don't even have to go to the library to find out what he stands for. His writings are online at the Marxists archives. Someone I spoke to who visited Cuba as part of a German Communist Party delegation (i.e. she is NOT a Trotskyist and I didn't read it in Workers' Liberty) spoke of how when she was there, there was discontent amongst workers, and how two were simply sacked with impunity for being mildly late. I guess that settles it. The "Friends of the USSR" of the 30s are really not that different from the "Friends of Cuba", whose members range from bored old Trots to soft-hearted liberals. I realise in an epoch of reaction it's tempting to clutch at straws and to think that there is at least some refuge on the planet, but these illusions are misplaced and hardly confidence inspiring. Hmmm. During the 1930s visits to the USSR were carefully managed by the state. Hence the "Potemkin Villages". In the year 2000 people visiting Cuba are free to go where they want and when they want. Most report that despite consumer good shortages, the government enjoys extraordinary support. I suppose that if you go to the island with ideological predispositions you will see none of this. Basically I think that if you can't see it, you are allowing sectarian biases to cloud your thinking. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] What to do if the KLA and NATO fight
A. Holberg: sometimes only enemy. I'm also in favour of limited tactical alliances with such forces, but these have to include a political fight to warn their popular basis against the upcoming betrayals of their misleaders and to organize the working class for the anavoidable final showdown with these temporary allies. Verbal radicalism. Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Re: a clip of bourgeois news on Colombia
n. Analysts say that a few of the 32 victims may, in fact, have been rebel collaborators. However, Carlos Castano, the leader of Colombia's largest paramilitary organization, told Bogota's El Tiempo newspaper that the slaughter was unwarranted. "It doesn't bother me when the guilty die. What bothers me is when the innocent die, and, as far as I know, there were innocent (victims) in Barrancabermeja," Castano said. "They were just innocent kids," said Norma Amador Rodriguez, the mother of a 25-year-old man who was executed. Luz Marina Lopez, 44, lost a son and a daughter in the attack and now must raise three grandchildren. The Colombian government has offered Lopez about $ 15,000 in compensation, but that has brought new complications. Her daughter's ex-husband has suddenly appeared to demand a cut of the money. Meanwhile, Lopez isn't sure how to break the news to her grandchildren that they are orphans. "Every time a car or taxi drives by, they run to the door crying: 'Mama is home,' " Lopez said. "I tell them that she went out for a walk and will be back soon." Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
[L-I] Forwarded from Nestor
estamente responsables de haber colaborado con los grupos de tareas que practicaron el terrorismo a domicilio durante el último gobierno militar y les organizan una suerte de clarinada frente a su casa, a la vez que dejan marcas o seqales en el lugar a fin de que el vecindario se entere de que en ese edificio reside un personaje aborrecible. El jueves zltimo hubo un "escrache" en un lugar poco habitual: la sede del Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. La destinataria de la demostracisn de repudio fue la presidenta de la asociacisn Amigos de esa institucisn, Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier, seqalada como supuesta responsable de haber provocado en 1976 el secuestro y la desaparicisn de 400 obreros y militantes barriales en la provincia de Jujuy. Que la agrupación Hijos utilice metodologías de antigua prosapia nazi suena a ironí -o sarcasmo- de la historia, dada la filiación ideolóica del grupo. Aunque, si se lo mira bien, el asunto no debe sorprender: los violentos de todos los pelajes se parecen inquietantemente unos a otros. En el caso de la señora de Blaquier, el episodio tuvo una derivación inesperada: puso al desnudo el desembozado oportunismo del director del museo, Jorge Glusberg, quien aprovechs la "volada" para exigir la renuncia de la titular de la asociacisn Amigos, con quien mantiene un largo y enojoso pleito burocratico-polmtico. Por lo demas, la principal vmctima del "escrache" resultó la escultura "Clamor a la fraternidad" de Luis Arata, sobre cuya dura piel se practicó desaprensivamente toda clase de leyendas y pintadas, sin que se tenga noticia de que el director del museo -responsable obvio del patrimonio de la institucisn- haya manifestado su disgusto. Al contrario, lo que se sabe es que Glusberg confraternizó amablemente con los revoltosos y hasta colaboró con ellos para indicarles el domicilio exacto en el que debían efectuar su simbólico gesto de repudio. Copyright c 2000 La Nacisn | Todos los derechos reservados carmelo j. pugliarello Buenos Aires - 2000 Lic. Néstor M. Gorojovsky Dirección de Estadísticas del Sector Primario Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos Argentina Tel.: (0541) 349-9728 Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
Re: [L-I] Fiji
At 10:54 PM 7/27/00 +1200, you wrote: I have just read Lou Paulsen's commentry on the attempted coup by terrorists in Fiji. All I can say, as a hostage held for 56 days, that what he/she has written is nonsense. Speight is a criminal - there ar emany charges pending against him in Fiji courts; all the key players are either convicted criminals or bankrupts (who rose to quick fame after the 1987 military coups, borrowing heavily from the state bank and eventually driving it down to the point of it being sold to a foreign company); the so called thousands of supporters in th marches were no more than 1,600; the so called thousands turning up to suppport speight were again no more than 2,000 - as I saw and estimated them at the peak period around 28-29 May. And believe me, Melanesian Fijians as a race are not oppressed in Fiji by any other race - of course, as workers, like workers of all other ethnic groups in Fiji, they are exploited by those very forces which orchastrated the terrorists to take the elected government hostage. Ganesh Chand Interesting. I wonder if Comrade Chand speaks for himself or for a current within the Fiji Labour Party. Over on the Marxism mailing list, we have been discussing Fiji for over a week now. Lou Paulsen's post was just the tip of the iceberg. As a member of the Fijian left, perhaps you can answer a couple of factual questions that came up: 1. What percentage of the Trade Union Congress is Fijian? 2. What percentage of the FLP is Fijian as opposed to Indo-Fijian? 3. I have read that last September Chaudry announced that the government would assume control over land, as is the case in Malyasia. Are you aware of any such proposals? Finally, what is the position of the FLP on land ownership as such? Is is for removal of indigenous ownership rights? Louis Proyect The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org ___ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
