[Marxism] Turkish elections: HDP mass election rally bombed; Australian socialists condemn the murderous attack
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. * Two blasts ripped through a rally of the left-wing HDP (People’s Democratic Party) in the city of Amed (Diyarbakir) southeastern Turkey (North Kurdistan) on June 5, killing four people and injuring more than 400 just two days before a general election, the Dicle News Agency (DIHA) said. The HDP is presenting a strong challenge to the AK Party of authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59098. https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59186 -- “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism “The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker _ 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] Turkish elections: HDP mass election rally bombed; Australian socialists condemn the murderous attack
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 6/6/15 4:24 AM, Stuart Munckton via Marxism wrote: Two blasts ripped through a rally of the left-wing HDP (People’s Democratic Party) in the city of Amed (Diyarbakir) southeastern Turkey (North Kurdistan) on June 5, killing four people and injuring more than 400 just two days before a general election, the Dicle News Agency (DIHA) said. The HDP is presenting a strong challenge to the AK Party of authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59098. https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59186 I was vaguely aware of this party but had no idea that it had become so influential. It is not just left-wing. It is seen as Turkey's Syriza. My wife just told me that her relative in Izmir thinks it can break the two-party stranglehold on Turkish politics (Islamists vs. Kemalists.) http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01/turkey-greece-syriza-victory-kurds.html Turkey’s leftists, Kurds celebrate Syriza victory Late at night on Jan. 25, more than 500,000 Twitter followers of Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP) in Turkey, were dumbfounded by seeing him tweet in the Greek Cyrillic alphabet, which is fully incomprehensible to Turks. But, for careful eyes, the same tweet was reproduced in Turkish below the one in Greek. It said: “On the road for the downtrodden and workers, bon voyage, my brother.” A Turkish-Kurdish political leader born in 1972 was hailing a two years younger Greek counterpart on his election victory, wishing him well and calling him “brother.” Even if it comes from a Turkish politician with a Kurdish origin, it would have been unthinkable about a decade ago to call a Greek counterpart a “brother.” Turkey and Greece were two words always pronounced jointly ever since the end of World War II, but never in fraternal terms. Though joint recipients of the Marshall Plan that became NATO members jointly in 1952 and applied for membership for the EEC, the precursor of today’s European Union, they were considered each other’s nemesis. The emergence of the Cyprus question pitted them against each other and, since 1974, so have the questions on the Aegean Sea that they share, ranging from continental shelf to territorial waters to airspace. The two countries that constituted the southeastern flank of the NATO have become a permanent headache for the United States. In 1996, the two countries had, once more, come to the brink of war because of a dispute on the sovereign rights on a small, unpopulated rocky islet on the Aegean. The intense telephone diplomacy of Richard Holbrooke averted the war, therefore the collapse of NATO’s southeastern flank. That was the Imia/Kardak incident US President Bill Clinton made fun of in his memoirs. Greece became a member of the EU while Turkey declined to apply at the time. Greece managed to use its EU membership to block Turkey’s entry. It augmented the seemingly intractable problems of the two neighbors. The Greek national security doctrine in the 1980s was shaped against “the threat coming from the East” and two countries’ historiography stated that the national independence of each was won against the other. Abundant commonalities from their common heritage were simply forgotten. In Greece, being anti-Turkey had been a lowest common denominator for the parties on the right mainly, but also for those on the left and Turkey’s political spectrum had reciprocated in being anti-Greece when it came to issues of a nationalistic agenda. The exceptions were confined to peace activists on both sides of the Aegean and to internationalists, mainly on the far left. Syriza, the new radical left of Greece that won a stunning electoral victory Jan. 25, was the most outspoken of those in Turkey’s neighbor. Syriza was amazingly vocal in Turkey’s Taksim-Gezi upheavals in the summer of 2013. Its banner in English during Gezi that read The Sea Separates Us but the Dignity Unites was unforgettable for Turkey’s young activists. Also, one of Gezi’s victims targeted by police bullets, Berkin Elvan, 14 — of Alevi origin — became a symbol of solidarity for Syriza. The posters carrying his image with the slogan (also in Turkish) “You are our brother, Berkin” were seen during the Greek election campaign. Syriza is very sensitive to the Kurds’ plight in and around Turkey. A Syriza delegation visited the Turkish-Kurdish frontier settlements near Kobani in November, while the Kurds were engaged in their epic resistance against the Islamic State (IS). It's striking that the liberation of Kobani from IS coincided with the
[Marxism] Draft Dodgers Worsen Syrian Army's Woes
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. * WSJ, June 6 2015 Draft Dodgers Worsen Syrian Army's Woes --- Neighborhood sweeps, road checks used by regime forces to catch men avoiding service by Raja Abdulrahim Soon after the military police came looking for the 25-year-old computer engineer at his family's home, he fled Syria. He bribed a security officer to briefly remove his name from the list of men wanted for mandatory military service and paid a taxi driver $1,000 to drive him across the border into Lebanon. Like many young men living in government-controlled parts of Syria, he had been putting off conscription by paying $2,000 a year, hoping to avoid becoming cannon fodder for a military that has been hemorrhaging soldiers, either by death or defection, after more than four years of war. The reluctance of young men like him to join has left the Syrian army even weaker as it fights a multifront war. Instead, it has pulled inward, focusing on protecting parts of the country that are essential to President Bashar al-Assad's seat of power, say Middle East diplomats and a Syrian government official. That weakness was most apparent during recent defeats in the province of Idlib and the city of Palmyra; rebels and opposition groups said regime forces withdrew quickly rather than fight a prolonged battle. Monitoring groups and diplomats estimate the Syrian regime retains control of about a quarter of the country, with the rest held by the extremist Islamic State, myriad opposition rebels and Kurdish groups. Every man in Syria . . . tries his best not to serve in the army, the young engineer said. He can't imagine himself being a part of what's happening, part of a long war that doesn't seem to have an end. Finding that many men aren't answering their conscription notices, the regime has for months been aggressively sweeping up men in neighborhood raids, at road checkpoints and at border crossings -- and sending them to the front lines, according to residents and rebels, who have captured many of these draftees on the battlefield. I don't want to be a part of a conflict which is for a single man's benefit, said a 29-year-old who has a good job in Damascus but is making plans to flee the country anyway. This is a conflict that we, the normal people, have nothing to do with. Since the start of the antigovernment uprising in 2011, the military hasn't allowed any soldiers to be discharged, according to a brigadier general in Homs province. More recently there has been a crackdown on granting delays in military service. One officer was executed by the regime because of the large number of postponements he allowed in exchange for bribes, the brigadier general said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates the army has declined to 200,000 soldiers and officers, half the size it was before the uprising. They are aided by about 80,000 militia fighters. Ali Haidar, Syria's reconciliation minister, conceded that the army wasn't capable of defending every part of the country, such as the remote city of Palmyra. The regime faced sharp criticism in the wake of its rapid takeover last month by Islamic State militants. But Mr. Haidar said defending the desert outpost would have taken a large toll on Syrian forces. The wide deployment of the Syrian military is being studied anew, he said. The aim is to draw primary defensive lines to achieve victories that are more strategic than protecting remote areas and areas that are empty of residents and of economic life. The dwindling ranks are apparent even in the capital. Security checkpoints, which used to be manned by young conscripts and were an important show of the government's control, are now staffed by middle-aged men and sometimes even women. The National Defense Forces and popular committees -- militias turned into official security branches -- tempt recruits with $100 monthly salaries and special services at businesses and bakeries, where people line up for hours just to buy bread. But when weighed against the multiple defeats the armed forces have suffered and videos of soldiers killed at the hands of rebels or Islamic State, the incentives have proved less than convincing to many. As a result, there appears to be a growing dependence on foreign fighters, who have played an important role ever since the militant Shiite group Hezbollah helped retake in 2013 the strategic town of Qusayr along the Lebanese border. Recently, Syria asked Iran to send 100,000 fighters, according to the diplomat who regularly visits Syria. The request was denied because Iran feared turning the conflict into an open sectarian
[Marxism] Fwd: Ten minutes past midnight | Michael Roberts Blog
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * In the early hours of Friday morning, according to the British paper, the Daily Telegraph (DT), five key players in the Syriza government, meeting in the Maximus Mansion in Athens, took an important decision. They decided that the government would not pay the IMF its debt repayment instalment due that day. Apparently, the IMF’s Christine Lagarde was caught badly off guard. IMF officials in Washington were stunned. The Syriza leaders had the money to pay: it had been raked up from various sources and they had told Lagarde that they would pay. But at the late hour, they decided not to pay but instead ‘bundle’ all the repayments scheduled for June into one payment at the end of June – or €1.6bn. This was allowable under IMF rules but had only happened once before – by Zambia in the 1980s. The reason that PM Tsipras, finance minister Varoufakis and the other Greek government leaders decided to hold back payment was two-fold. First, they were really angry that the IMF and the Eurogroup had completely refused to make any serious compromises on the terms of an agreement to release outstanding funds under the existing ‘bailout’ package, despite the Greeks making huge concessions in the negotiations over the last few months since an extension was agreed last February. Also, the leaders knew that their Syriza party members and MPs were incandescent with rage at the attitude of the Troika (IMF, EU, ECB). There was no way that they were going to support any deal along the lines of yet further austerity and neoliberal measures demanded by the Troika. So the Greeks have fired a warning shot across the bows of the IMF and the Eurogroup, hinting that they may prefer to default rather than be forced into further concessions. full: https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2015/06/06/ten-minutes-past-midnight/ _ 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: Israel's Clandestine Alliance with Gulf Arab States is Going Public - The Intercept
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. * (Henry Kissinger: America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests. Same with Israel obviously.) Fast forward six years, and it seems as though the GCC states have finally readied themselves to go public about their warming relationships with Israel. In an event at the Council on Foreign Relations this week in Washington, reported on by Bloomberg’s Eli Lake, high-ranking former Saudi and Israeli officials not only shared the stage but disclosed that the two countries had been holding a series of high-level meetings to discuss shared strategic goals, particularly around the perceived regional ascendance of Iran. full: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/05/israel-gcc-alliance-shall-named/ _ 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] Imperialist cynicism / The US removes Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism
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. * Source: http://laizquierdadiario.com/The-US-removes-Cuba-from-the-list-of-countries-that-sponsor-terrorism The US removes Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism The US President, Barack Obama, had announced on April 14 that he would take Cuba off the list of countries sponsoring terrorism. A 45-day process of review, that ended this Friday, with a formal announcement from the State Department. *Juan Andrés Gallardo* @juanagallardo safari-reader://laizquierdadiario.com/Juan-Andres-Gallardoo *Spanish version from La Izquierda Diario http://www.laizquierdadiario.com/EE-UU-retira-a-Cuba-de-la-lista-de-paises-que-patrocinan-el-terrorismo* Taking Cuba off the list is a measure with a symbolic, more than practical, significance, because many of the benefits that Havana could obtain are limited by other sanctions, a result of the economic embargo, in force since the beginning of the decade of the 1960’s. According to the Reuters agency, a US official indicated that rescinding (...) the designation of Cuba is a big step, but in practical matters, the majority of the restrictions on exports and foreign aid will continue, given the broad commercial and weapons embargo. Cuba had said that its inclusion on the list of state sponsors of terrorism was an obstacle to re-establishing diplomatic relations and so that the so-called Interests Sections in Havana and Washington would become embassies. From the practical point of view, Cuba could not open a bank account in the US, for the functioning of its embassy in that country, for which reason it is expected that one of the next steps will be moving forward in the re-opening of diplomatic headquarters in both countries. Washington had placed Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1982, when it said that Havana backed armed guerrilla movements in Latin America. This only shows the enormous cynicism with which the United States manages to define a tailor-made concept of armed terrorism. *Imperialist cynicism* The idea that the US has a list of countries sponsoring terrorism is only the sign of an absolute hypocrisy, since it concerns the State that has most financed and supported terrorist actions throughout its history. To take only the most recent decades, it suffices to say that the United States not only supported all and each one of the Latin American dictatorships during the 1970’s, but that it financed various groups to destabilize governments that emerged from revolutionary processes throughout the world. It armed and financed the contras in Nicaragua; it did the same thing with the government of Iraq, to start a war against Iran, after the revolution of 1979, and it also did that with the Taliban in Afghanistan, against the USSR. Oddly enough, from there emerged two of of those that would be No. 1 enemies of the US, years later: Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US designed its own blueprint to determine what terrorism is and what anti-terrorism is. In an historic speech, George W. Bush warned the world that whoever is not with us, is against us. After this speech, hundreds of secret jails were installed in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, in which thousands of people accused of terrorism were tortured and brutalized, without any type of control. One of those jails is located in Guantánamo, on the island of Cuba itself, and, despite Obama’s promises to close it, it still continues to operate. The United States is the main ally of the terrorist State of Israel, the biggest recipient of military aid, that uses terrorist methods to assassinate and intimidate the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank. Another of its allies, Saudi Arabia, was at the forefront of financing the crushing of the Arab Spring and in supporting the Iraqi Sunni groups dissatisfied with the (dis)order after the setback of the US’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once again, from a part of those dissatisfied, the current Islamic State, a new No. 1 enemy of the US, has emerged . The doctrine imposed by the US after the September 11 attacks was meekly employed by many of the governments of the region, even those that call themselves progressive, in the form of anti-terrorist laws that violate the right of social protest, by worsening the punishments, and, in some cases, they permit greater interference by the US, that includes military bases, joint exercises, espionage and even US military intervention, as in the case of the so-called war against drug trafficking. As we see, the United States will be hard-pressed to be able to have some type of authority to bring something
[Marxism] on the death of Leonid Plyushch
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * see report at link (page 15) on how US Trotskyists organized support for Plyushch and other left Soviet dissidents on a clear political basis - at a time when tankies said chewing gum and walking at the same time was counterrevolutionary (sound familiar?) https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/swp-us/idb/swp-1970-76/n13-1976-dec-SWP-int-inf-bul.pdf _ 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] on the death of Leonid Plyushch
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * see also: - - Andrew Pollack https://www.facebook.com/andrew.pollack.16 report on his speech in Detroit: https://www.marxists.org/.../newspape/workerspower/wp223.pdf https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/workerspower/wp223.pdf Like https://www.facebook.com/andrew.pollack.16# · Reply https://www.facebook.com/andrew.pollack.16# · 6 mins https://www.facebook.com/andrew.pollack.16/posts/10204020133055713?comment_id=10204020136815807offset=0total_comments=3comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R1%22%7D https://www.facebook.com/andrew.pollack.16# - https://www.facebook.com/andrew.pollack.16 Andrew Pollack https://www.facebook.com/andrew.pollack.16 see also mention here:https://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1977/01/frameup.html Ernest Mandel: Speech at London Rally to Condemn Healyite Frame-up Campaign (January 1977) https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.marxists.org%2Farchive%2Fmandel%2F1977%2F01%2Fframeup.htmlh=DAQFOzWxOs=1 MARXISTS.ORG|BY ERNEST MANDEL - On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 11:29 AM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com wrote: see report at link (page 15) on how US Trotskyists organized support for Plyushch and other left Soviet dissidents on a clear political basis - at a time when tankies said chewing gum and walking at the same time was counterrevolutionary (sound familiar?) https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/swp-us/idb/swp-1970-76/n13-1976-dec-SWP-int-inf-bul.pdf _ 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] Turkish elections: HDP mass election rally bombed; Australian socialists condemn the murderous attack
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 06 Jun 2015, at 3:13 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: I was vaguely aware of this party but had no idea that it had become so influential. It is not just left-wing. It is seen as Turkey's Syriza. My wife just told me that her relative in Izmir thinks it can break the two-party stranglehold on Turkish politics (Islamists vs. Kemalists.) The stakes are very high. I know a few people within the party, who have been working all out for several months in hopes of ensuring they pass the 10% threshold. Polls have hovered between 9.5-10.5%, maybe trending slightly higher in the past month or so, although Turkish polling is notoriously unreliable. If they don’t pass 10%, AKP will quite possibly have the numbers necessary to push through some drastic constitutional changes that will have a devastating effect on opposition politics and the left. Apparently there have been police raids of polling stations and arrests of polling station workers in HDP areas just in the past few hours, but I don’t have reliable details yet. _ 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] I hear from cult leader David North
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 article by Niles Williamson in the WSWS is accurate [http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/06/05/ukra-j05.html]. AP correspondent Robert Burns correctly reported the testimony of Assistant Defense Secretary Robert Scher. The WSWS will post a reply on Monday to Mr. Proyect’s pathetic attempt to cover up for the nuclear policies of the Obama administration. _ 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: The American pseudo-left and the Democratic Party - World Socialist Web Site
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. * More from the lunatic fringe. http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/06/04/chic-j04.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] Greece! Re: Fwd: Ten minutes past midnight | Michael Roberts Blog
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Below is the full article in the Telegraph (by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard) which provides the information Michael Roberts uses to begin today's Ten Minutes Past Midnight essay which concludes with Roberts quoting himself from last March: *As I said in a post last March (https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/greece-breaking-illusions/): “the issue for Syriza and the Greek labour movement in June is not whether to break with the euro as such, but whether to break with capitalist policies and implement socialist measures to reverse austerity and launch a pan-European campaign for change. Greece cannot succeed on its own in overcoming the rule of the law of value.”* And here's a link to yesterday's Joseph Stiglitz article (which was published several places) arguing, like Evans-Pritchard, for the creditors to change course: Greece's creditors need a dose of reality – this is no time for European disunion by Joseph Stiglitz The Guardian, June 5 http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/05/greeces-creditors-need-a-dose-of-reality-this-is-no-time-for-european-disunion IMF has betrayed its mission in Greece, captive to EMU creditors The IMF’s Original Sin in Greece was to let Dominique Strauss-Kahn hijack the institution to save Europe's banks and the euro when the crisis erupted, dooming Greece to disaster. by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard The Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11654639/IMF-has-betrayed-its-mission-in-Greece-captive-to-EMU-creditors.html The International Monetary Fund is in very serious trouble. Events have reached a point in Greece where the Fund's own credibility and long-term survival are at stake. The Greeks are not withholding a €300m payment to the IMF because they have run out of money, though they soon will do. Five key players in the radical-Left Syriza movement – meeting in the Maximus Mansion in Athens yesterday – took an ice-cold, calculated, and carefully-considered decision not to pay. They knew exactly what they were doing. The IMF’s Christine Lagarde was caught badly off guard. Staff officials in Washington were stunned. On one level, the “bundling” of €1.6bn of payments due to the IMF in June is just a technical shuffle, albeit invoking a procedure last used by Zambia for different reasons in the 1980s. In reality it is a warning shot, and a dangerous escalation for all parties. Syriza’s leaders are letting it be known that they are so angry, and so driven by a sense of injustice, that they may indeed default to the IMF on June 30 and in so doing place the institution in the invidious position of explaining to its 188 member countries why it has lost their money so carelessly, and why it has made such a colossal hash of its affairs. The Greeks accuse the IMF of colluding in an EMU-imposed austerity regime that breaches the Fund’s own rules and is in open contradiction with five years of analysis by its own excellent research department and chief economist, Olivier Blanchard. Greece’s public debt is 180pc of GDP. The loans are in a currency that the country does not control. It is therefore foreign currency debt. The IMF knows that Greece cannot possibly pay this down by draconian austerity – the policy already implemented for five years with such self-defeating effects – and the longer it pretends otherwise, the more its authority drains away. It is has pushed for debt relief behind closed doors but only half-heartedly, unwilling to confront the EMU creditor powers head on. Objectively, it is acting as an imperialist lackey – as Greek Marxists might say. Indeed, it has brought about the worst possible outcome. The Fund’s man on the ground in Athens – Poul Thomsen – has pushed the austerity agenda with a curious passion that shocks even officials in the European Commission, pussy cats by comparison. This would be justifiable (sort of) if the other side of the usual IMF bargain were available: debt relief and devaluation. This how IMF programmes normally work: impose tough reforms but also wipe the slate clean on debt and restore crippled countries to external viability. It is a very successful formula. On the rare occasion when the IMF goes wrong it is usually because it tries to prop up a fixed-exchange rate long past its sell-by date. All of this went out of the window in Greece. The IMF enforced brute liquidation without compensating stimulus or relief. It claimed that its policies would lead to a 2.6pc contraction of GDP in 2010 followed by brisk recovery. What in fact happened was six years of depression, a deflationary spiral, a 26pc fall in GDP, 60pc youth unemployment, mass exodus of the young and the brightest,
[Marxism] Fwd: Je ne suis pas marxiste - Michael Heinrich
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. * Michael Heinrich argues that Marx was not after a “Marxism” as an identity-defining “truth.” Rather, he was more interested in the critical business of undermining certainties. Whoever visits the grave of Karl Marx at Highgate Cemetery in London encounters a gigantic pedestal upon which a gigantic bust of Marx is enthroned. One has to look up at him. Directly under the bust, “Workers of all lands unite” is written in golden letters, and further down, also in gold, “Karl Marx.” Below that, a simple, small headstone is placed within the pedestal, which names without pomp and gold those buried here: besides Karl Marx, there is his wife Jenny, his grandson Harry Longuet, and his daughters Eleanor and Helene Demuth, who led the Marx household for decades. full: http://libcom.org/library/%E2%80%9Eje-ne-suis-pas-marxiste%E2%80%9C _ 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: Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism: 1876. On Michael Löwy’s Ecosocialism
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * In its most general sense ecological socialism (ecosocialism) is a political movement for solution to the present day crisis of society and nature. While there is an increasing number of younger people who begin their political life as ecosocialists, in terms of theory and methodology ecosocialism finds its origins in various shades of socialism, in particular those that identify themselves as Marxist (The term is more problematic today than it was in Marx’s time, see Michael Heinrich, 2015). Although Marx and Engels were sensitive to environmental and ecological problems of their time and a number of notable socialists have shown similar sensibilities, ecosocialism as a self-conscious movement has emerged since the 1970s in response to the rise of environmentalism. As such ecosocialism is a movement in its infancy in philosophical, methodological, theoretical, and practical senses. A welcome addition to the ecosocialist literature, Michael Löwy’s Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe reflects this fact about ecosocialism. full: http://forhumanliberation.blogspot.com/2015/06/1876-on-michael-lowys-ecosocialism.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] This is pretty hilarious: Amazon.com selling ISIL's propaganda magazine, Dabiq
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. * Four different volumes of the magazine have been put for sale on the website of the American electronic commerce company since May 24. The seller is listed as the al-Hayat Media Center, ISIL's media arm focused to sell propaganda magazines to recruit militants in the West. http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/06/07/414670/ISIL-Takfiris-Amazon-Dabiq-terrorists -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The American pseudo-left and the Democratic Party - World Socialist Web Site
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. * Touché! I dig what Mark Twain purportedly said, but probably didn't: Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. It's not quite as poetic, but George Carlin did say, Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience. On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 3:54 PM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: but: Proverbs 26:5King James Version (KJV) Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. _ 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] Turkish elections: HDP mass election rally bombed; Australian socialists condemn the murderous attack
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My impression of this party is very positive, this election campaign it has
gone all out in a way it hasn't before and seems to have connected to
capture broad layers of Turkish society who want change, breaking beyond
its largely Kurdish background. the fact of these bombings and other
repression (have heard thousands of HDP electoral observers have now been
arrested) shows how seriously the regime views its threat.
On 7 June 2015 at 05:37, Andrew Pollack via Marxism
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:
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some of the best activists in NY around Gezi Park, the mining murders, etc.
are HDP supporters, will stay in touch re solidarity against the attacks
On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 11:37 AM, MM via Marxism
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu
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On 06 Jun 2015, at 3:13 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:
I was vaguely aware of this party but had no idea that it had become so
influential. It is not just left-wing. It is seen as Turkey's Syriza.
My
wife just told me that her relative in Izmir thinks it can break the
two-party stranglehold on Turkish politics (Islamists vs. Kemalists.)
The stakes are very high. I know a few people within the party, who have
been working all out for several months in hopes of ensuring they pass
the
10% threshold. Polls have hovered between 9.5-10.5%, maybe trending
slightly higher in the past month or so, although Turkish polling is
notoriously unreliable. If they don’t pass 10%, AKP will quite possibly
have the numbers necessary to push through some drastic constitutional
changes that will have a devastating effect on opposition politics and
the
left. Apparently there have been police raids of polling stations and
arrests of polling station workers in HDP areas just in the past few
hours,
but I don’t have reliable details yet.
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--
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism
“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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Re: [Marxism] The American pseudo-left and the Democratic Party - World Socialist Web Site
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 06 Jun 2015, at 8:07 PM, A.R. G via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: I think left blogger Louis Proyect should write a lengthy retort. To what end? And for whose benefit? https://xkcd.com/386/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The American pseudo-left and the Democratic Party - World Socialist Web Site
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. * One other thing, for the pro-Putin left, WWIII is always on the horizon. Last time it was over Syria--what a joke. http://louisproyect.org/2013/08/26/world-war-three/ _ 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] Turkish elections: HDP mass election rally bombed; Australian socialists condemn the murderous attack
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * some of the best activists in NY around Gezi Park, the mining murders, etc. are HDP supporters, will stay in touch re solidarity against the attacks On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 11:37 AM, MM 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 06 Jun 2015, at 3:13 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: I was vaguely aware of this party but had no idea that it had become so influential. It is not just left-wing. It is seen as Turkey's Syriza. My wife just told me that her relative in Izmir thinks it can break the two-party stranglehold on Turkish politics (Islamists vs. Kemalists.) The stakes are very high. I know a few people within the party, who have been working all out for several months in hopes of ensuring they pass the 10% threshold. Polls have hovered between 9.5-10.5%, maybe trending slightly higher in the past month or so, although Turkish polling is notoriously unreliable. If they don’t pass 10%, AKP will quite possibly have the numbers necessary to push through some drastic constitutional changes that will have a devastating effect on opposition politics and the left. Apparently there have been police raids of polling stations and arrests of polling station workers in HDP areas just in the past few hours, but I don’t have reliable details yet. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The American pseudo-left and the Democratic Party - World Socialist Web Site
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. * Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Proverbs 26:4 T -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Sent: Jun 6, 2015 2:43 PM To: Thomas F Barton thomasfbar...@earthlink.net Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The American pseudo-left and the Democratic Party - World Socialist Web Site Here, btw, was a comment on this from Karl Smith, a regular reader of my blog. I should add that he is a great admirer of the late Sam Marcy so this should have some additional weight: Freakin’ ludicrous! A 1/4 century after the the collapse of the USSR and the End of the Cold War, yet we hear this shit from both leftist sites as well as pseudo libertarian sites like Prison Planet. If this is what Ralph Nader means by a Left/Right alliance then it’s the 1st vestiges of his senility. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/thomasfbarton%40earthlink.net _ 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] Greece! Re: Fwd: Ten minutes past midnight | Michael Roberts Blog
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Alexandros Orphanides writes that in order to break with the EU's austerity policies (as promised in the January election), Greece must leave the Eurozone. And here's the link to a column by conservative journalist Ian Birrell in The Telegraph also arguing that Greece must leave the Euro - Who will put Greece out of its misery? It's time they left the euro by Ian Birrell, The Telegraph, June 5 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/11652648/Who-will-put-Greece-out-of-its-misery.html Syriza Has No Choice: Greece Must Prepare to Leave the Eurozone To break from the program of brutal austerity that has been imposed on Greece, its leaders have no choice but to take radical action. by Alexandros Orphanides In these Times, June 5 http://inthesetimes.com/article/18015/syriza_eurozone_exit While leaving the currency will most certainly be economically, politically and socially traumatic, the last five months of cyclical negotiations have proven to be ineffective in accomplishing the kind of change Syriza promised during its campaign. And the last five years have been disastrous for the people of Greece. When Syriza won Greece’s parliamentary elections in January of 2015, much ado was made in the international press about the rise of a new radical Left in Greece—a development that had punctured Greece’s longstanding two-party stalemate and opened up the possibility of rolling back the brutal austerity measures imposed upon it by “the troika,” the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. The upstart Leftists, born of anti-austerity social movements, won by running on a platform that highlighted two central positions. First, they would end the austerity that was driving Greece deeper into a humanitarian crisis. Second, they would keep the country in the European Union. Almost five months later, Syriza hasn’t made a radical break from the program of debt repayments and austerity. Fears of being catapulted out of the currency union have paralyzed attempts at equitable negotiations. Instead, the Greek government remains in an exhausting carousel of brief extensions and frequent meetings with creditors, as they virtually beg for more loans while simultaneously postponing any opportunity to address Greece’s pressing social issues. Meanwhile, the realities on the streets of Greece remain grim. Unemployment hovers at about 25 percent; cuts to healthcare have exacerbated public health concerns; and thousands of Afghan, Syrian and Eritrean refugees continue to pour in, seeking safe shores along the Mediterranean. And there are no signs of improvement on the horizon. Just this week, the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) forecasted worsening unemployment and a growing debt-to-GDP ratio in Greece in the coming months. This past Wednesday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met with his country’s creditors in Brussels to discuss the terms of Greece remaining in the currency union. Taking an optimistic tone, Tsipras maintains that Syriza’s proposal to reduce the austerity burden and allow his government some breathing room to address the social costs of the ongoing crisis is the only reasonable path forward. But Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup’s finance ministers, has been less optimistic that a deal will be struck on Greece’s terms. It appears that any deal will require Syriza to capitulate further by increasing sales taxes on prescription drugs, making cuts to already dramatically-reduced pensions and running an even larger budget surplus. Any steps in this direction would constitute the continued betrayal of Syriza’s original promise: to end the austerity. All this is important because, as of last Thursday evening, Greece has announced that it will not make the 305 million euro debt payment they were scheduled to make to the IMF this Friday. Instead, they will bundle this payment with the next and fork over 1.5 billion euros at the end of the month. This development pushes back the date of the payment and buys some time on the negotiations of “cash-for-reform,” whereby Syriza agrees to implement reforms aimed at producing “growth” by cutting into social spending in return for loans. By delaying the payment, Greece and its creditors will continue working on the differences they maintain over taxes and pensions. Taking a characteristically defiant stance, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, has implied that no more compromises can be made by Greece as the solvency issues have been “politically engineered by our creditors to try to squeeze us into effectively perpetuating this debt-deflationary crisis.” But
[Marxism] Fwd: For an independent left party: videos from Left Forum 2015
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 two videos below were made at last weekend’s Left Forum in New York and both reflect the mission of the North Star website, namely to help create a radical party in the United States along the lines of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, among others. full: http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=12306 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The American pseudo-left and the Democratic Party - World Socialist Web Site
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I think left blogger Louis Proyect should write a lengthy retort. - Amith On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 6:47 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * More from the lunatic fringe. http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/06/04/chic-j04.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The American pseudo-left and the Democratic Party - World Socialist Web Site
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 6/6/15 2:07 PM, A.R. G wrote: I think left blogger Louis Proyect should write a lengthy retort. - Amith Here, btw, was a comment on this from Karl Smith, a regular reader of my blog. I should add that he is a great admirer of the late Sam Marcy so this should have some additional weight: Freakin’ ludicrous! A 1/4 century after the the collapse of the USSR and the End of the Cold War, yet we hear this shit from both leftist sites as well as pseudo libertarian sites like Prison Planet. If this is what Ralph Nader means by a Left/Right alliance then it’s the 1st vestiges of his senility. Historians should recall that the only real Dr. Strangelove nuclear maniac that ever existed was JFK who threatened world disaster simply because he swore to unleash nuclear holocaust if The Soviets stuck a couple nukes 90 miles from the US in retaliation for the US installation of 1000 nukes on the Soviet border in Turkey. Few people realize that part of the Cuban Missile Crisis settlement deal was that yes, the Soviets would pull the Cuban missiles but only if JFK yanked the nukes from Turkey, which he ultimately did. If the late great attorney William Kunstler were alive today I’ll bet he advocate yanking that Nobel Peace Prize from Obama and giving it posthumously to Lee Harvey Oswald. Lets get some economic facts straight to disprove abject ridiculousness. The 1% of the USA, the Masters of the Planet, are still giddily pinching themselves over the biggest swindle ever recorded, that is, the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the Universe with the 2008 Bank Bailout orchestrated consummated by BOTH political parties in the US that are really 2 bickering factions of a One Party State run by the Pentagon, an entity that has always got it’s way since at least 1975 when Saigon was overrun by NVA troops. Although it lost that final battle it still won that War insofar as the almighty dollar is the primary currency in Vietnam today. The point is when the Ruling Class is at it’s strongest richest, precisely when the working class, the unions, the anti-war movement are at their weakest, is NEVER going to be the time the 1% lashes out in suicidal maneuvers like nuke strikes against Russia. NEVER. Especially since Russia, now part of the world stock market swindle, with all kinds of ex-pats squandering capital into places like Miami real estate, nevermind Putin’s Russia practically financing the entire Afghan war with billions in crude oil revenue every month billed to the Pentagon, nevermind the Pentagon turning a blind eye towards Russia’s slaughter of the Chechens and the razing of Grozny, nevermind the Ukraine, the coordinated destruction of the Maidan Movement and the shooting down of a passenger plane. Suicidal actions are the resort of fascists, like the Nazis, who are driven primarily to their dirty deeds by the FEAR of the organized working class opposition, eg, back in the day, the Communist parties their trade union proxies that willy nilly drew strength from the very existence of the USSR. The point is that the only reason that fascism doesn’t have a stranglehold today is because there is no organized working class resistance movement… at this juncture. It’s no accident that despite the historic professed anti-communism of the American Trade Union leadership, their red baiting machinations, etc.. that as soon as the USSR collapsed the American Trade Union Movement collapsed along with it. If the Occupy Movement wasn’t crushed, that is, if it grew and caught fire amongst the toiling 99%, then you’d know what all that military equipment the Pentagon gave local police forces was for, that is, then you’d know what fascism in America really looks like, and then you could talk about nuclear strikes against Russia for real, because foreign policy is always just an extension of domestic policy. _ 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
