[Marxism] Ilya Matveev: Austerity Russian Style
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. * Austerity Russian Style Ilya Matveev November 19, 2014 OpenLeft.ru Reforms of the social sector in post-Soviet Russia have always had a very important feature: their course has been completely confusing and opaque, and everything connected to the reforms, even their strategic goals (!), has been shrouded in mystery. This is partly a consequence of the extreme fragmentation of the Russian state apparatus, unable to implement a completely coherent reform strategy, but in many ways it is a quite deliberate policy: a policy of disinformation. The Russian authorities are confident that painful reforms are not necessary to explain, let alone announce, sometimes. One can always give journalists the shake, because who are they anyway? As for the public, it suffices to blame them for not understanding the grand design, for confusing reform and optimization, optimization and modernization, modernization and business as usual. This “spy” policy towards reform leaves wide room for maneuvering. It is always possible to note the level of public indignation and pull back a bit (while making the obligatory remark, “That was the way it was intended!”). Read the rest here: http://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/ilya-matveev-austerity-russian-style/ _ 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] Kobanê, Turkey and the Syrian Struggle
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. * Kobanê, Turkey and the Syrian Struggle http://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/kobane-turkey-and-the-syrian-struggle/ Posted on November 19, 2014 Joseph Daher interviewed by Riad Azar November 18, 2014 An extended interview with Joseph Daher, a member of the Revolutionary Left Current in Syria, living in Switzerland, will be published in the forthcoming Winter 2015 issue of New Politics. Here we just post the questions dealing with Kobanê and Turkey. Daher is the writer and editor of Syria Freedom Forever, a blog dedicated to the struggle of the Syrian people in their uprising to overthrow the Assad authoritarian regime and to build a democratic, secular, socialist, anti-imperialist, and pro-resistance Syria. A Ph.D. student in Development, he works as an assistant at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. He was interviewed in Geneva on October 22, 2014, by New Politics board member Riad Azar, with some email updates. New Politics. Regarding the recent events in Kobanê, you have reported on a statement by the YPG General Command (the acronym for the People’s Protection Units, the currently recognized army of Syrian Kurdistan), and their fight against Islamic State (IS). The report details their determination to see the fight for Kobanê as the struggle for a free and democratic Syria. How do you read events in Kobanê and the struggle against IS, especially since the United States has not only been directly involved in airstrikes against IS, but has been sending supplies to Kurdish fighters? Joseph Daher. Let me begin by saying, as a question of principle, that we as the revolutionary left current in Syria support the self-determination of the Kurdish people, not only in Syria but also in Iraq, Turkey, and Iran as well, where they have been oppressed for decades. Further, in Syria we should not forget that the Assad regime developed a policy of colonization of northern and northeastern Syria, where the Kurds are very much present. We strongly condemn this. At the same time, we say also that we would like the Kurdish popular forces to become an ally with us, with the democratic and progressive forces of Syria, to build, and to struggle for democratic, socialist, and secular Syria. We are happy to note that the statement of the YPG Armed Forces goes in this direction. The latest events in Kobanê show once more that even though a U.S.-led coalition has recently strengthened its bombardments on IS forces, the intervention is still insufficient in many ways in protecting the Kurdish forces. The sending of arms is propaganda and solely to avoid a complete massacre of the Kurds. I think from the standpoint of the imperialist and sub-imperialist states, the issue of Rojava — which is the Kurdish autonomous region — is a problem and a challenge. These states only favor an autonomous region for Kurdish political forces that are submissive to imperialism, like Barzani in Iraq. Turkey does not want to see a challenge to the status quo that began with the 2013 peace process between the PKK and Turkey. If the PKK had bases in Syria, or ties with a sister organization — which is the YPG — it could challenge the status quo with Turkey. This is an important framework to think about when we speak about the U.S.-led intervention. Only now is the intervention taking a more direct form with some assistance given directly to the Kurdish forces by the United States. But it is very, very light. We will see what will happen. Of course, when Washington really wants to support an ally, like Israel — which is a surrogate of imperialism in the region — it really does work effectively. We should put Kobanê into a framework of the U.S.-led coalition, and also remind ourselves that the Rojava administration is a direct consequence of the Syrian revolutionary process. There is no way Kurdish autonomy could have existed without that process. Kurdish autonomy would never be given by the Assad regime, which is chauvinist and Arab nationalist. The Assad regime has been oppressing Kurdish national rights for forty years. It was the Syrian popular uprising that pushed the regime to withdraw from regions where the Kurds are a majority. And some very good things are happening in these areas, although we should not fetishize them; there are also problems. As a principle we support the self-determination of the people of an oppressed nation, but we can also criticize the political leadership. Just as we support the self-determination of the Palestinian people, but we should criticize very much the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. This does not stop
[Marxism] A young Canadian veteran of Afghanistan joins the Kurds
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The secular Kurds are attracting both left-wing volunteer fighters and more conservative young males with military backgrounds like Dillon Hillier, profiled below in the Ottawa Citizen and other major Postmedia dailies across Canada. The leftists identify in particular with the revolutionary democratic Kurdish forces in Turkey and Syria who have become widely admired internationally because of their inspiring defence of Kobani. Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to be attracted to the fight against the vague menace of “Muslim terrorism” promoted by Western politicians and the media and most graphically represented by ISIS. Such political views as Hillier holds, for example, are undoubtedly derived from his experience in the military and from his father, Randy, a Conservative member of the Ontario provincial parliament from a rural riding. Such are the contradictions of the Kurdish struggle, led by militias attached to left-wing parties who trace their origins to Marxism, heavily dependent on the military and political support of the US, itself a close NATO ally of the Turkish state which describes these militants as “terrorists” and has tried to crush them. In any case, it’s principled and necessary for the besieged Kurds to draw support from wherever they can get it. And in the case of Hillier and other volunteers like him, idealists at heart, their engagement with the Kurdish struggle is more likely than not to have a positive effect on their political understanding. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/calgary/Canadian+volunteered+fight+with+Kurds+against+ISIS+says+right/10402040/story.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Former Washington Post editor describes old age in poverty
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://www.iasc-culture.org/THR/THR_article_2014_Fall_McPherson.php _ 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: In Response to Pending Grad Strike at U. Oregon, Administration Urges Faculty to Make Exams Multiple Choice or Allow Students Not to Take Them | Corey Robin
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://coreyrobin.com/2014/11/21/in-response-to-pending-grad-strike-at-u-oregon-administration-urges-faculty-to-make-exams-multiple-choice-or-allow-students-not-to-take-them/ _ 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] Extolling Moderation to Get Cubans Talking About Politics
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, NOV. 22, 2014 Extolling Moderation to Get Cubans Talking About Politics By VICTORIA BURNETT MEXICO CITY — FROM a lectern covered in a lacy, white cloth at a provincial Cuban church center last month, Roberto Veiga González and Lenier González Mederos took turns talking before about 60 intellectuals and activists about the value of political dialogue. Not, perhaps, the most electrifying topic, but if politics is the art of the possible, it is a skill that the pair hope Cubans can master after wearying years of bombast and vitriol. “A plurality of views can coexist,” said Mr. Veiga, a lawyer and former magazine editor who, with Mr. González, has come to represent an emerging, less confrontational, approach to Cuban politics. Looking over his reading glasses at the opening of a two-day seminar on Cuban sovereignty, he added, “It is possible to think differently but work together.” If that is a difficult view to peddle in Washington, it is an even tougher sell in Cuba, where the state has, for decades, stifled debate and the government and its opponents are bitterly divided. “We Cubans are the enemies of moderation,” said Mr. González, a former journalist, by telephone from Havana. Mr. González, 33, and Mr. Veiga, 49, have been criticized as too timid by some in the opposition. But their dogged efforts to get Cubans talking have won them a strong following in Cuba’s tiny civil society. They are leading figures in an incipient culture of debate that has taken root in recent years, largely as President Raúl Castro has allowed greater access to cellphones and the Internet, and lifted some restrictions on travel, but also as the United States has lifted restrictions on Cubans’ visiting their relatives. The pair reflect a breakdown of the binary politics of pro- and anti-Castro Cubans that dominated for decades, and the development of a more diverse range of opinions, especially among younger Cubans, as they look to the era that will follow the Castros’ deaths. As editors, until recently, of a Roman Catholic magazine, the pair have created a space where dissidents, dyed-in-the-wool communists, artists, exiles, bloggers and academics can discuss national issues, both in print and at seminars held in a Catholic cultural center in Old Havana. Their new project, Cuba Posible — part forum, part online magazine, part research organization — aims to do the same, and will test the government’s threshold for debate as well as Cubans’ appetite for finding a third way. Serious and circumspect, Mr. González and Mr. Veiga lack the caustic eloquence of Yoani Sánchez, whose blog Generation Y has millions of readers, and the daring of some dissidents. They tread carefully, advocating political change without rupture and keeping some distance from the Castros’ most outspoken adversaries. THE two have become a double act, hosting debates together, traveling together for conferences and studying together in Italy for doctorates in sociology (Mr. González) and political science (Mr. Veiga). Both are Roman Catholics. Mr. González was raised in a religious family, and Mr. Veiga joined the church as an adult. Their faith, they say, fuels their quest for solutions. “We saw that there was a whole range of people who didn’t have anywhere to express themselves,” Mr. González said, adding, “We have a Christian calling to try to mend something that is broken.” Still, their styles are different: Mr. Veiga, a lawyer from the city of Matanzas, about 60 miles east of Havana, is preoccupied with issues like constitutional overhaul and chooses his words carefully. Cuba Posible does not advocate democracy, he said in a telephone interview, but promotes dialogues that incorporate “discernment of the question of how to advance toward fuller democracy.” Mr. González, who studied media and communications at the University of Havana, is more direct than Mr. Veiga and, acquaintances say, less patient. Cubans and political analysts say the pair are trusted and respected, even by those whose posture is more confrontational. Katrin Hansing, a professor of anthropology at Baruch College, who has known both men for years, said they were thoughtful and courageous. When they took over Lay Space, the Cuban Catholic magazine, in the mid-2000s, Mr. Veiga and Mr. González refocused it, to include essays from academics, economists and political scientists. They wrote editorials on the timidity of the government’s economic overhauls and the options for a transition to democracy. Their debates drew a spectrum of voices that Philip Peters, president of the
Re: [Marxism] Highway 61 Again--A Book Review
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Me and my best buddy hitched from DC to Nuevo Laredo towards the end of the Summer of 1958, likewise inspired by Kerouac. We wanted to have a life adventure (we did), meet interesting people (we did, including one solo driver that picked us up who may have been Paul Newman), smoke Mary Jane (we did), get laid (we did), drink (we did), and have bragging rights and cred in our college-bound circle (accomplished). I, too, wish I'd kept a journal or used a camera. On 11/21/14, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 11/21/14 3:07 PM, Ron Jacobs via Marxism wrote http://stillhomeron.blogspot.com/2014/11/going-down-highway-61-again.html I hitchhiked from Dallas to Baltimore on Highway 61 in August 1965. It is a miracle I made it in one piece. I was trying to emulate Jack Kerouac, it had nothing to do with civil rights. Had many incredible encounters including a ride with some guy in Maryland driving a hot-rod. I wish I had kept a journal. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/gulfmann%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Who’s Afraid of Democracy? | 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. * A guest post by Reza Fiyouzat The engineers know better, but the common story about Edison finally finding the one filament that did work suggests that it took more than a thousand tries. The social project of building a socialist society must surely be more complicated than that, and therefore will require many tries. So, let’s not be disheartened. We do know what does not work. That is a good continuing point; not a starting-from-scratch point, but a point of progress. In the Manifesto, Marx draws a comparison between the transitions from feudalism to capitalism to the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism. In other words, for Marx, there would not be one major event that would bring about world socialism, but a series of events and a long period of class struggles that would eventually overthrow capitalism as the dominant mode of production and social relations. Looking at it as a historical process, we must then assign characteristics to this process, so that we can determine at what stage of the historical process we stand today, and where to go from here. Traditionally, it has come to a few choices; one way to look at the transition to socialism is as a two-stage revolution with two historically distinguishable stages, the first ‘democratic’ and then ‘socialist’, with strict rules to be followed at each stage, in some prescriptions with experts at the helm of a revolutionary command center directing the revolution, deciding all the important decisions. Or, we can see it as a dynamic historical process with ups and downs for both sides of the class struggle, yet a process that can be influenced by the wise tactical and strategic interventions of revolutionaries, yet a process that has to be moved from below. Or, you can just characterize it as an uninterrupted process (as some do), or as the Trotskyist school suggests, a permanent revolution. If I were a Trotskyist, I would propose a reformulation in favor of a permanent revolution/counterrevolution. full: http://louisproyect.org/2014/11/22/whos-afraid-of-democracy/ _ 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] K. Le Guin's fiery speech, and the overwhelming reaction to it
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. * Books, you know, they're not just commodities. The profit motive often is in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words...I think hard times are coming, Le Guin continued, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries — the realists of a larger reality.” Full at: http://www.oregonlive.com/movies/index.ssf/2014/11/ursula_k_le_guins_fiery_speech.html --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [Pen-l] NYRB review of Naomi Klein
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On Nov 22, 2014, at 9:59 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: On 11/22/14 9:31 AM, Carrol Cox wrote: The fact that former Mayor Bloomberg could join the climate march ought to generate some caution. I agree with Carrol. We need a communistic climate change movement led by fighting detachments of an aroused proletariat. Not to mention, on a more serious note, that not all capitalists outside the coal, gas and oil industries are wedded to fossil fuels and unconcerned about their disruptive and potentially catastrophic effects. Bloomberg is a prominent spokesperson of this growing wing of the bourgeoisie. If solar and other alternative energy prices continue to fall in line with advanced technology and more widespread adoption and become more cost-effective and safer than environmentally destructive forms of energy, there's no reason to suppose today's capitalists would not do what previous generations of capitalists have done and move to superior forms of energy. It's not an inevitable development, but neither can it be ruled out. By Carrol's logic, leftists should never have thrown themselves into the great struggles of our time waged by trade unionists, blacks, gays, women, and opponents of the war in Vietnam because in each case liberal politicians and clergy were invited to march with demonstrators, who were, in the main, supporters of the Democratic Party. I think Carrol's tendency towards abstention flows from what is, IMO, his underlying view of the ruling class as diabolically monolithic and all powerful, with the more perniciously clever Democrats the greater evil. Go back and read his many posts on any number of subjects and you will see this theme expressed again and again. _ 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] Defending science, opposing capitalism
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. * Science and the Retreat from Reason review: http://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/9889/ Liberating science: http://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/science-capitalism-and-human-liberation/ Phil _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] State of class struggle: Ireland, New Zealand
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. * Living in New Zealand can be extremely depressing. Although protests here still take place, and once in a while there's even a big one, the protests are generally disconnected from each other and from any wider questioning of society. Very different from youthful years as a high school kid, when went up to the city centre one Friday night to a mass anti-Vietnam War march, a few Fridays later there would be a march on something else, organised by some of the same people, often belonging to the old Socialist Action League, then there'd be an all-Saturday anti-Vietnam War educational and planning conference, then a week or two later, a women's liberation picket, then a socialist educational gathering and on and on and on, interspersed with industrial pickets, workers' struggles. . . Now workers here hardly ever resist anything, even the loss of their own jobs. It's hard to predict exactly what the ruling class would have to do to provoke any sort of significant response. In Ireland meanwhile, where I spent a significant part of my political activity, recent years have seen massive mobilisations against austerity and against new taxes in the south such as the household tax and, now, the water tax. Hundreds of thousands have been out on the street, more refused to pay these taxes, although the Dublin government got round this with the household tax by declaring they'd take it out of people's pay packets. (They can't do this with the water tax, because they need to know how much water any household has used and part of the resistance is sabotage of the meters.) It's interesting how different capitalist countries have quite distinctive working class reactions to things. In the case of Ireland and NZ, it isn't just now that things are different. Both countries had very significant labour disputes in 1913 - in Ireland the 1913 lockout in Dublin is the most famous industrial dispute in the island's history; the waterfront dispute of 1913 in NZ led to the numerically largest number of workers in dispute with the government. In both cases, workers' protests were attacked by cops and people got badly beaten - in Dublin two workers were killed. The response was entirely different, however. In NZ, workers and militant unionists complained about police violence; in Dublin, the workers formed their own militia to put manners on the police, got arms and became what Lenin called Europe's first 'red army'. Uniformed and tooled up, they marched around Dublin over the next few years and just three years later were a key component in a revolutionary uprising. Ireland, of course, has a revolutionary tradition - republicanism - whereas NZ has none. There was some armed resistance by Maori to what was effectively the annexation of the country by Britain, but those who took part in armed resistance were a very small minority and never established any ongoing movement, least of all with roots in the working class, the way republicanism grew and developed as a 'lower orders movement' in Ireland. Armed poor people in Ireland were not commonplace, but they certainly weren't especially unusual either. And suggesting workers get armed was not way, way beyond popular consciousness. Similar differences exist in Europe - for instance, southern Europe (and to some extent France) have revolutionary traditions which make factory occupations, set-tos with the state, fighting in the street and so on, part of how the working class and radical middle class youth do business. It might to time to migrate to one of these places!!! http://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/working-class-resists-water-tax-in-south-of-ireland/ http://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/1913-ireland-and-new-zealand-when-workers-fought-back/ Phil _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Class struggle, Ireland
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. * Btw, I maintain a modest little blog about Irish politics, from a socialist-republican (Marx and co; Connolly, Costello) viewpoint at: http://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/ On it, you'll find the chapters of my old (120,000 word) MA thesis, which was on political movements in Ireland and the national struggle in the first three decades of the 1900s, a lot of material written by Constance Markievicz (which has subsequently gone up on the MIA, thanks!), some very interesting interviews done by my friend Mick Healy with republican veterans, stuff from groups such as the IRSP, RNU and eirigi. (I'm sympathetic to all three and also to the 32CSM; however, it was eirigi that I eventually chose to specifically hook up with and work with.) 2016 will be the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, and a great time for Marxmail readers to visit Ireland; there will be heaps on and there is already a political struggle both within the establishment and between the establishment and the folks who really do share the aspirations of the women and men of Easter Week. Phil _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
