Re: [Marxism] Pension cuts and the Australian Greens
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. * Good on you John. The Greens leader is a real goose. He has been sucked into being responsible, which of course is defined largely by the Murdoch Press. What will emerge here is a first you, then me exercise where the Greens and Labor will take turns at passing the unpopular legislation of the government. That is exactly what the Democrats and the Labor Party did under Howard. It is quite clear that the Greens have no intention at present of becoming an anti-austerity force. They will go the way of the Democrats unless the left inside the Greens takes control. comradely Gary On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 6:07 PM, John Passant 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. * Pension cuts and the Australian Greens In their eagerness to prove their 'realistic and pragmatic' credentials the Greens have been sold a pension pup that attacks retired workers but leaves the superannuation of the rich untouched. http://enpassant.com.au/2015/06/20/pension-cuts-and-the-greens/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/gary.maclennan1%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] Pension cuts and the Australian Greens
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. * Pension cuts and the Australian Greens In their eagerness to prove their 'realistic and pragmatic' credentials the Greens have been sold a pension pup that attacks retired workers but leaves the superannuation of the rich untouched. http://enpassant.com.au/2015/06/20/pension-cuts-and-the-greens/ _ 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] New DNA Results Show Kennewick Man Was Native American
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 am not sure that anybody serious made idiotic Norse claims, etc. The question was whether science could use the remains to cast more light on the complexities involved in the peopling of the Americas, that is the origins of the native peoples here at the time of the European discovery. That it has done. On Jun 19, 2015 11:04 AM, 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. * NY Times, June 19 2015 New DNA Results Show Kennewick Man Was Native American by Carl Zimmer In July 1996, two college students were wading in the shallows of the Columbia River near the town of Kennewick, Wash., when they stumbled across a human skull. At first the police treated the case as a possible murder. But once a nearly complete skeleton emerged from the riverbed and was examined, it became clear that the bones were extremely old — 8,500 years old, it would later turn out. The skeleton, which came to be known as Kennewick Man or the Ancient One, is one of the oldest and perhaps the most important — and controversial — ever found in North America. Native American tribes said that the bones were the remains of an ancestor and moved to reclaim them in order to provide a ritual burial. But a group of scientists filed a lawsuit to stop them, arguing that Kennewick Man could not be linked to living Native Americans. Adding to the controversy was the claim from some scientists that Kennewick Man’s skull had unusual “Caucasoid” features. Speculation flew that Kennewick Man was European. A California pagan group went so far as to file a lawsuit seeking to bury the skeleton in a pre-Christian Norse ceremony. On Thursday, Danish scientists published an analysis of DNA obtained from the skeleton. Kennewick Man’s genome clearly does not belong to a European, the scientists said. “It’s very clear that Kennewick Man is most closely related to contemporary Native Americans,” said Eske Willerslev, a geneticist at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Nature. “In my view, it’s bone-solid.” Kennewick Man’s genome also sheds new light on how people first spread throughout the New World, experts said. There was no mysterious intrusion of Europeans thousands of years ago. Instead, several waves spread across the New World, with distinct branches reaching South America, Northern North America, and the Arctic. “It’s probably a lot more complicated than we had initially envisioned,” said Jennifer A. Raff, a research fellow at the University of Texas, who was not involved in the study. But the new study has not extinguished the debate over what to do with Kennewick Man. Dr. Willerslev and his colleagues found that the Colville, one of the tribes that claims Kennewick Man as their own, is closely related to him. But the researchers acknowledge that they can’t say whether he is in fact an ancestor of the tribe. Aruna Balasubramanian, 6, looked at a female mummy at the “Secrets of the Silk Road” exhibit at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia.Exhibition Review: ‘Secrets of the Silk Road’ at Penn Museum - ReviewFEB. 20, 2011 Nonetheless, James Boyd, the chairman of the governing board of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, said that his tribe and four others still hope to rebury Kennewick Man and that the new study should help in their efforts. “We’re enjoying this moment,” said Mr. Boyd. “The findings were what we thought all along.” The scientific study of Kennewick Man began in 2005, after eight years of litigation seeking to prevent repatriation of Kennewick Man to the Native American tribes. A group of scientists led by Douglas W. Owsley, division head of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution, gained permission to study the bones. Last year, they published a 670-page book laying out their findings. Kennewick Man stood about 5 foot 7 inches, they reported, and died at about the age of 40. He was probably a right-handed spear-thrower, judging from the oversized bones in his right arm and leg. Based on the chemical composition of his skeleton, the scientists concluded that he originally lived on a distant coast. However he got to Kennewick, the Ancient One had been embraced by the community there: his body was buried carefully after his
[Marxism] Spain: 'Popular unity' councils sworn in amid huge enthusiasm
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. * Dick Nichols, Barcelona The squares in front of scores of town halls across the Spanish state were jam-packed with enthusiastic crowds on June 13. Tens of thousands had gathered to celebrate the inauguration of progressive administrations elected in a leftward swing in the May 24 local government elections for Spain’s 8144 councils. https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59290 -- “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
[Marxism] Letter from the US: The racist Charleston massacre has clear political roots
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 mass murder of nine African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina by a white racist has been widely denounced. But to understand this hate crime – a terrorist attack - it has to be put into a broader political context. The killer, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, deliberately spared the life of one woman, telling her he wanted her to report on what he had done. He told her, among other things, that he decided to kill Black people because they “are taking over the country”. In short, his motives were blatantly political. And the killings occur in the political context of the rise of the new Black Lives Matter movement with its mass mobilisations since Ferguson last August, and the racist counter-movement spearheaded by the police in reaction to it. https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/59284 -- “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
[Marxism] Alexander Markov: A Soundtrack to Soviet Africa
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXWwF08U6zQ Alexander Markov Soviet Filmmakers in Africa from the 1960s to the 1980s In 1960, seventeen African countries gained their independence. For the two superpowers, competing for influence in the Cold War, these “new” countries were obvious opportunities for deploying their own power. Under Khrushchev’s Thaw, Soviet foreign policy increasingly focused on Africa and the Arab world, which became priorities for proactive Soviet diplomacy. The 1960s thus witnessed the heyday of African studies in the Soviet Union. A number of Soviet filmmakers were dispatched to the continent to produce newsreels and documentary films whose mission was to record the “friendships” between the Soviet socialist specialists at the helm of scientific progress and the African socialist hopefuls who had just broken free from the yoke of colonialism. The films were given titles such as Hello, Africa!, We Are with You, Africa!, and Good Luck to You, Africa!, to convey that desire for friendship unambiguously, and to contrast starkly with films produced on the other side of the Iron Curtain, such as the notorious Italian documentary about the “dark continent,” Farewell Africa (Addio Africa, 1966), which speculated that civil wars and bloody conflict would set the continent ablaze after the European colonialists exited it. Read the rest here: https://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2015/06/20/alexander-markov-a-soundtrack-to-soviet-africa/ _ 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: Charleston shooting: Judge Gosnell presiding over Dylann Roof's case previously reprimanded over racist language - Americas - World - The Independent
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.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charleston-shooting-judge-gosnell-presiding-over-dylann-roofs-case-previously-reprimanded-over-racist-language-10333701.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
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Charleston shooting: Judge Gosnell presiding over Dylann Roof's case previously reprimanded over racist language - Americas - World - The Independent
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * So basically, they've hired Chris Rock to be the judge on this one - Amith On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 3:39 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. * http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charleston-shooting-judge-gosnell-presiding-over-dylann-roofs-case-previously-reprimanded-over-racist-language-10333701.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] In Ukraine, Corruption Concerns Linger a Year After a Revolution
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The most interesting element of this article is the mention of Bruce P. Jackson, who led the charge for the NATO expansion, which was intended to include the Ukraine.. Here is what I wrote about him the The Confiscation of American Prosperity: Bruce Jackson, whose career, deserves an entire book, seems to personify this brand of insider military Keynesianism. Jackson was born into the stratosphere of the military-industrial complex. His father, William Harding Jackson, was deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1951 to 1956. Perhaps then nobody should be surprised that the Army assigned a young intelligence officer of such noble pedigree to work in the Pentagon as a military intelligence officer in the 1980s. During the Reagan and Bush Senior administrations, he labored under leading Pentagon hawks, such as Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney. Jackson left the military to begin a brief career in investment banking with Lehman Brothers between 1990 and 1993—no doubt with the expectation that his Pentagon contacts would prove valuable. Jackson also joined in with the Project for a New American Century (Project for a New American Century 2001). Indeed, Jackson’s wide network must have paid off. In 1993, he catapulted himself into a high position with a leading military contractor,Martin Marietta, as Director for Corporate Development Projects and Director for Strategic Planning. In 1995,Martin Marietta merged with Lockheed. At the newly formed Lockheed Martin, Jackson assumed the position of Director of Defense Planning and Analysis. In 1997 the company promoted him first to Director of Global Development and finally to Vice President for Strategy and Planning. The newly formed Lockheed Martin was the ideal employer for Bruce Jackson. Although the company may be most famous for selling the government $640 toilet seats, such trivial transactions are nothing for the most powerf l weapons contractor in the world. Tim Weiner, the New York Times’s crack reporter on the defense beat, sketched out the breadth of Lockheed’s ties with the government: Lockheed Martin doesn’t run the United States. But it does help run a breathtakingly big part of it. Over the last decade, Lockheed, the nation’s largest military contractor, has built a formidable information-technology empire that now stretches from the Pentagon to the post office. It sorts your mail and totals your taxes. It cuts Social Security checks and counts the United States census. It runs space flights and monitors air traffic. To make all that happen, Lockheed writes more computer code than Microsoft. . . . It creates rockets for nuclear missiles, sensors for spy satellites and scores of other military and intelligence systems. The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency might have difficulty functioning without the contractor’s expertise. But in the post-9/11 world, Lockheed has become more than just the biggest corporate cog in what Dwight D. Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex. It is increasingly putting its stamp on the nation’s military policies, too. . . .“It’s impossible to tell where the government ends and Lockheed begins,” said Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group in Washington that monitors government contracts. “The fox isn’t guarding the henhouse. He lives there.” (Weiner 2004). In 2005, Lockheed Martin earned $37.2 billion. A mere 2 percent of its revenue came from sales to the private sector. Another 13 percent of its sales came from foreign governments, mostly close military allies to the United States, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Chile. Here again, influence with the U.S. government pays healthy dividends. As Bob Elrod, a senior executive in Lockheed’s fighter plane division, explained, all of these foreign sales are guaranteed by the U.S. government (St. Clair 2005, 150). On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 8:43 AM, 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. * NY Times, May 18 2015 In Ukraine, Corruption Concerns Linger a Year After a Revolution By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN KIEV, Ukraine — The country is on the cliff of bankruptcy. A spate of politically motivated killings and mysterious suicides of former government officials has sown fear in the capital. Infighting has begun to splinter the
[Marxism] Assad-friendly Al-Akhbar: Walid Jumblatt Mediates Agreement with Nusra Front allegedly involving forced conversions
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://english.al-akhbar.com/node/24027 I was hoping some on the list (particularly Michael Karadjis and others who have been following the Syrian Resistance on the ground more closely) could give some background/commentary/clarification on what to make of this. From what I know, Jumblatt is a member of powerful Lebanese political family and the head of the Lebanese Druze PSP, and he has had a mixed relationship with the Hezbollah-Assad axis in the past. As we saw in that Al Jazeera clip a few months ago, there are some caricatures that are against Assad who have called for all sorts of terrible crimes to happen on an ethnic/cultural basis against those groups alleged to be insufficiently rebellious against Assad, such as the Alawites. We also saw Al Nusra fighters carrying out a massacre of Druze last week, although the details, motives, and response from both Nusra and the other factions has been blurry. What should we make of this? Is it true that Jumblatt is okay with Al Nusra killing/forcibly converting Druze, or is that fabricated/propaganda? Any analysis would be appreciated! - Amith _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Charleston shooter's personal 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. * In case anyone missed it: http://lastrhodesian.com The manifesto is here: http://lastrhodesian.com/data/documents/rtf88.txt -- 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: Charleston shooting: Judge Gosnell presiding over Dylann Roof's case previously reprimanded over racist language - Americas - World - The Independent
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. * If only. Wiki: Rock is a vocal critic of racial profiling and often speaks of the everyday racism he feels he experiences, despite being famous.[42][43] In a 2013 episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld, Rock and Seinfeld are pulled over by the police for speeding. In the episode Rock admits to Seinfeld that If you weren't here, I'd be scared. Yeah, I'm famous - still black. T -Original Message- From: A.R. G via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Sent: Jun 20, 2015 11:54 AM To: Thomas F Barton thomasfbar...@earthlink.net Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Charleston shooting: Judge Gosnell presiding over Dylann Roof's case previously reprimanded over racist language - Americas - World - The Independent POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * So basically, they've hired Chris Rock to be the judge on this one - Amith On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 3:39 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charleston-shooting-judge-gosnell-presiding-over-dylann-roofs-case-previously-reprimanded-over-racist-language-10333701.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] Orwell, Huxley and America’s Plunge into Authoritarianism
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. * *counterpunch* Weekend Edition June 19-21, 2015 *Legitimizing State Violence* *Orwell, Huxley and America’s Plunge into Authoritarianism* by HENRY A. GIROUX In spite of their differing perceptions of the architecture of the totalitarian superstate and how it exercised power and control over its residents, George Orwell and Aldus Huxley shared a fundamental conviction. They both argued that the established democracies of the West were moving quickly toward an historical moment when they would willingly relinquish the noble promises and ideals of liberal democracy and enter that menacing space where totalitarianism perverts the modern ideals of justice, freedom, and political emancipation. Both believed that Western democracies were devolving into pathological states in which politics was recognized in the interest of death over life and justice. Both were unequivocal in the shared understanding that the future of civilization was on the verge of total domination or what Hannah Arendt called “dark times.” full: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/19/orwell-huxley-and-americas-plunge-into-authoritarianism/ Brian McKenna _ 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: Charleston shooting: Judge Gosnell presiding over Dylann Roof's case previously reprimanded over racist language - Americas - World - The Independent
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. * That routine has always made me feel uncomfortable. The whole idea of good negro, bad negro is a terribly racist concept, and as you can see with the judge in this case, that is what he got in trouble for in 2003: There are four kinds of people in this world -- black people, white people, red necks, and n*s,” Gosnell said at the time. - Amith On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 8:16 PM, Thomas thomasfbar...@earthlink.net wrote: The Chris Rock material referenced may be found here: https://vimeo.com/79811169 T -Original Message- From: A.R. G Sent: Jun 20, 2015 1:48 PM To: Thomas Cc: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Charleston shooting: Judge Gosnell presiding over Dylann Roof's case previously reprimanded over racist language - Americas - World - The Independent I was more referring to Chris Rock's infamous -- and characteristically ridiculous -- routine on the difference between black people and n*s, which it sounds like what this idiot judge said in 2003 On Saturday, June 20, 2015, Thomas thomasfbar...@earthlink.net wrote: If only. Wiki: Rock is a vocal critic of racial profiling and often speaks of the everyday racism he feels he experiences, despite being famous.[42][43] In a 2013 episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld, Rock and Seinfeld are pulled over by the police for speeding. In the episode Rock admits to Seinfeld that If you weren't here, I'd be scared. Yeah, I'm famous - still black. T -Original Message- From: A.R. G via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Sent: Jun 20, 2015 11:54 AM To: Thomas F Barton thomasfbar...@earthlink.net Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Charleston shooting: Judge Gosnell presiding over Dylann Roof's case previously reprimanded over racist language - Americas - World - The Independent POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * So basically, they've hired Chris Rock to be the judge on this one - Amith On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 3:39 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charleston-shooting-judge-gosnell-presiding-over-dylann-roofs-case-previously-reprimanded-over-racist-language-10333701.html _ -- - Amith _ 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: A handbook to the first months of SYRIZA-ANEL government
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 handbook to the first months of SYRIZA-ANEL government published in Tales from the streets of Athens by Quincey AnalyzeGreece! June 18 http://www.analyzegreece.gr/tales-from-the-streets-of-athens/item/237-a-handbook-to-the-first-months-of-syriza-anel-government From the streets and movements of Athens, pages of the Greek press and labyrinthine world of social media, comrade Quincey is sending his “reports” for AnalyzeGreece!, characterized by his particular style of writing and blasphemous humor. Keep up with the Tales from the Streets of Athens to stay updated on what is going on in contemporary Greece, the country where, for the first time, the Left is (or, according to some, is supposed to be) in power. by Quincey Athens, 18th June 2015. Every time that Alexis Tsipras comes out of a negotiations’ session with TIFKAT (The Institutions Formerly Known As Troika), he puts the tape recorder on: “We’ve had a very constructive discussion”. Junker or Merkel (or any random eurocrat that happened to pass by) respond in an equally predictable manner: “We agreed to intensify the efforts to reach a deal”. This situation has been dragging on for four months now, and the boredom it has generated could kill even the most patient follower of international economic developments. For this reason, let’s try to forget for a moment the negotiations’ issue and focus on everything else the Greek government has been working on since its appointment, on January 26th. The question that shall be brought forward is one that, up to date, no one was willing or able to address (peculiarly enough, not even the SYRIZA and government officials): What the hell has the SYRIZA-ANEL government been doing all this time, apart from negotiating with its creditors? The answer may be found below, through a list I compiled from various sources. The list is not exhaustive, I focused on issues which I consider interesting for an international audience. So, here it goes: The SYRIZA-ANEL government initiatives’ list, as of today. 1. The government passed the humanitarian crisis bill, which will provide some 300.000 families with food stamps, free electricity, and a rent supplement. 2. It confirmed universal, free access to uninsured Greeks (not migrants) to the public health system. 3. Abolished the 5 euro public hospital entrance fee/ticket. 4. Abolished pension cuts (which were scheduled to take place automatically in February 2015). 5. Reopened the Public TV/radio broadcaster (ERT). ERT had been shut down 2 years ago, by the right-wing Samaras government. 6. Re-hired some 4.000 public officers who had been sacked by the previous government, among which the cleaning ladies of Finance Ministry (who achieved nation-wide fame thanks to their long and consistent struggle). 7. Canceled the hood law, under which dozens, perhaps hundreds of people arrested during protests, were risking up to 7 years imprisonment. 8. Theoretically speaking, the government abolished the new maximum security prison where political prisoners were held (not all prisoners have been transferred to normal facilities). 9. Non-regularized migrants held in detention camps are –supposedly- gradually released (the extent to which this process is actually taking place is debatable); police controls on migrants are significantly milder. 10. Generally speaking, police repression of protest is significantly milder (compared to the previous governments, one could say non-existent). 11. The Greek Parliament introduced an Odious Debt Committee to control for the legitimacy of the public debt (a mostly symbolic move). 12. The Greek Parliament founded the German War Reparations Committee (Greece has not been repaid the obligatory “loan” Nazi occupiers extracted during WWII, nor any war reparations). 13. The government introduced installments and discounts to help citizens and companies pay their debts to the state and pension funds. 14. A new bill will grant Greek citizenship to second generation migrants. 15. A bill is about to be voted, which will expand civil union to cover homosexual couples, granting them equal rights to the ones married couples enjoy. 16. An educational reform has been announced. The reform re-establishes academic asylum (abolished in 2011), reduces high-school students’ workload and allows for the so-called “perpetual students” (those who failed to get their degree on time) to retain their university student status. 17. The Minister of Labour, Panos Skourletis, has just announced that a (most-needed) labor reform, which would re-establish collective bargaining and collective agreements (practically abolished in 2012) will be introduced in the
[Marxism] Intercept: Long Before Dylann Roof, South Carolina Massacred Emanuel Churchgoers
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. * Roof, who embraced white supremacy, killed nine church members Wednesday evening. The white supremacist-controlled state of South Carolina killed 35. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/20/state-massacred-members-charleston-emanuel-ame-church -- 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: Charleston shooting: Judge Gosnell presiding over Dylann Roof's case previously reprimanded over racist language - Americas - World - The Independent
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 was more referring to Chris Rock's infamous -- and characteristically ridiculous -- routine on the difference between black people and n*s, which it sounds like what this idiot judge said in 2003 On Saturday, June 20, 2015, Thomas thomasfbar...@earthlink.net wrote: If only. Wiki: Rock is a vocal critic of racial profiling and often speaks of the everyday racism he feels he experiences, despite being famous.[42][43] In a 2013 episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld, Rock and Seinfeld are pulled over by the police for speeding. In the episode Rock admits to Seinfeld that If you weren't here, I'd be scared. Yeah, I'm famous - still black. T -Original Message- From: A.R. G via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu javascript:; Sent: Jun 20, 2015 11:54 AM To: Thomas F Barton thomasfbar...@earthlink.net javascript:; Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Charleston shooting: Judge Gosnell presiding over Dylann Roof's case previously reprimanded over racist language - Americas - World - The Independent POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * So basically, they've hired Chris Rock to be the judge on this one - Amith On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 3:39 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu javascript:; wrote: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charleston-shooting-judge-gosnell-presiding-over-dylann-roofs-case-previously-reprimanded-over-racist-language-10333701.html _ -- - Amith _ 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] Sunday NY Times Magazine article on Wisconsin unions versus Scott Walker
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 am only first getting around to reading this article from last week at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/magazine/scott-walker-and-the-fate-of-the-union.html. It seems very worth reading.) At the foot of a hill in Bay View, a quiet Milwaukee neighborhood near Lake Michigan, stand seven pear trees. In front of them is a small wooden plaque that recounts the events of May 5, 1886, when some 1,500 workers, most of them Polish immigrants, marched on the Rolling Mills iron plant. The Milwaukee Iron Company built the plant and the neighborhood where its employees lived, and it demanded in return that they work as many as 16 hours a day, six days a week. A citywide strike for an eight-hour day and better working conditions had shut down every large factory in Milwaukee except Rolling Mills, and as the marchers began climbing the hill toward this last holdout, members of the Wisconsin National Guard fired down on them. They killed seven people, including a 13-year-old boy. Jeremiah Rusk, the governor of Wisconsin, had given the order. “I seen my duty, and I done it,” he later said. At the time he thought he might become president, but in the end he never ran. Until 1986, when the Wisconsin Labor History Society began holding an annual commemoration, the Bay View Massacre was largely forgotten. In 1996, the society planted the pear trees, one for each person killed. Many of the great labor battles that followed the Bay View Massacre — Pittsburgh’s Homestead Strike of 1892; Colorado’s Ludlow Massacre of 1914 — also ended in violent defeat for the workers. Yet the defeats, in their very brutality, also forged a sense of solidarity that eventually produced great labor victories, including the eight-hour workday, enshrined into federal law during the Depression, and the passage of the 1935 Wagner Act, which guaranteed the right to strike and remains labor’s greatest means of leverage. That same year, the American Federation of Labor fully chartered A. Philip Randolph’s Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a black union. From 1935 to 1947, union membership in the United States quadrupled, from 3.5 million workers to nearly 15 million workers, fueled by the pro-union policies of the New Deal and a labor shortage during World War II. By the mid-’50s, more than a third of American workers belonged to a union. In 1941, when the movement was still ascending, William Ruggles, a 40-year-old editorial writer for The Dallas Morning News, coined the slogan “right to work.” Ruggles was alarmed by the growing strength of the labor movement, which in his view was intent on forcing all workers into unions. He proposed a constitutional amendment that would prohibit workers from having to pay dues to a union in order to hold a job in a “union shop.” “If the country does not want it, let us say so,” he wrote. “If we do want it, adopt it and maintain forever the right to work of every American.” The day after the editorial was printed, a Houston political activist named Vance Muse called Ruggles to ask permission for his organization, the Christian American Association, to pursue the proposal. Ruggles agreed and suggested to Muse that he call it a “Right to Work Amendment.” Muse, an avowed racist — he told a United States Senate committee in 1936, “I am a Southerner and for white supremacy” — held a special animus toward unions, which he believed fostered race-mixing. In “Southern Exposure,” a 1946 book about racism in the South, the muckraking journalist Stetson Kennedy quoted Muse’s pitch on the need for right-to-work, in which he said: “White women and white men will be forced into organizations with black African apes, whom they will have to call ‘brother’ or lose their jobs.” But Muse was also an effective fund-raiser — he received support from General Motors and the du Pont family, among others — and lobbyist. In 1944, the Christian American Association sponsored the amendment that made Arkansas one of the country’s first right-to-work states. By 1947, 10 more states, most of them in the South, had become right-to-work, embodying the growing national backlash against labor brought on by the Red Scare. That same year, over President Harry Truman’s veto, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which undercut the Wagner Act by placing numerous restrictions on unions, among them a clause granting states the power to become right-to-work. Muse died in 1950, but his campaign had already been taken over by more mainstream proponents. In 1955, Fred Hartley, the former congressman from New Jersey who helped draft Taft-Hartley, founded the National
[Marxism] Glenn Greenwald - The refusal to label the Charleston murders as terrorism
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[Marxism] multipolar world pro-Confederates in the news again
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 an article today about who wants the Confederate flag banned or honored, one of those quoted is the head of the League of the South: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/20/us/outrage-vs-tradition-wrapped-in-a-confederate-flag.html You may remember him from the UNAC/IAC trip to Moscow: http://threewayfight.blogspot.com/2015/02/moscow-conference-draws-fascists-neo.html Does anyone remember if UNAC/IAC ever sufficiently apologized for consorting with such murderous scum? _ 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] SEIU Tops in Bitter Internal War
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Dave Regan: another worthless piece of shit masquerading as a labor leader. SEIU: another top-heavy bureaucracy full of high-priced bureaucrats parading as a labor union. Sure there are plenty of good people in the union, but the structure is rotten. It was amusing to read that Regan harassed Delores Huerta of UFW fame. For her, turn about is fair play. She was a major league harasser in her day, of anyone who didn't worship Cesar Chavez and anyone interested in rank and file 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] An Alternative for SYRIZA, Solidarity (U.S. socialist organization)
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * An Alternative for SYRIZA by Achilleas and Eleni Achilleas and Eleni are Greek socialists and activists, friends of Solidarity, currently residing in the U.S. Solidarity, June 12 https://solidarity-us.org/site/node/4449 . . . It is now pretty much accepted by friends and foes of SYRIZA that the belief in the ability of the government to implement anti-austerity policies within the EU (let alone within the Eurozone (EZ)) is a pipe dream. This belief can only lead to continuous retreats with the only visible end an economy with labor force conditions akin to that of China. But why was SYRIZA unable to diagnose this accurately and timely? In our opinion, the reasons lie in the political analysis of SYRIZA leadership, which is shared by much of the European left. According to this analysis, neoliberalism is an ideology, one of the many possible manifestations of capitalism and it can thus be reversed within the EU if appropriate political parties come to power. The recent crisis, it is said, is the result of such neoliberal policies that were enacted by right-wing governments (with Thatcher and Reagan always listed as the villains) and greedy capitalists all over the world in the end of the 70s, thus ending the post-war social-democratic consensus. This analysis disregards a number of systemic components of capitalism, such as (a) that capital is always greedy—by necessity; (b) these policies have been consistently implemented by both center-right and center-left (social-democratic/liberal) governments over the last 30 years and cannot be attributed just to economically conservative politicians; (c) neoliberalism is a structural phenomenon that occurred in the 70s when the internationalized economy, dominated by the emergence of the transnational corporations and faced with declining profits and stagnation, became incompatible with the social-democratic consensus. The emerging globalized economy necessitated a different, more extroverted/competitive economic model in place of the model of production/consumption for the domestic market (this of course does not mean that such a change was unavoidable due to some kind of material law of History, but was a result of the objective and subjective conditions of that time). Consequently in today's internationalized economy there cannot be any kind of capitalism other than a neoliberal one, and thus, any return to Keynesian/New Deal politics is impossible, since such policies require a strong nation state and relatively closed economies. To put it differently, capitalism will commit suicide if it accepts such policies. . . . The above analysis prescribes a possible viable solution to the Greek crisis: exit the EZ/EU, issue a national currency, and immediately impose unilateral debt write-off. Liberated from the noose of the EU treaties and regulations, Greek people will have the freedom to follow a sovereign monetary and fiscal policy and form trade and international alliances to the best of their interests. Pressured by the people, the government will be able to increase and reprioritize public spending so as to effectively and rapidly fight unemployment, to control capital movement and achieve redistribution of wealth through taxation, to enhance and reconstruct domestic production, to strengthen democracy, transparency, and social control of all aspects of public life. It should be clear that such a solution does not even remotely constitute an end of the social struggle towards a fair and equitable democratic society (such a teleology is in any case foreign to democracy). However, given the realities of the devastated Greek economy and society, this solution may provide a fruitful beginning. It is, for sure, a steep path to follow. Nevertheless, it is more immediate than a generalized social revolution (which part of the radical left sees as a prerequisite for change), which would require vastly different objective and subjective conditions. At the same time, it is not a reformist approach, as it identifies the core of the problem, which is the globalized neoliberal capitalist system, and aims for direct, substantial changes outside this system. This transition strategy will initiate and cultivate a public discussion, engage and educate the people, and encourage them to think outside the asphyxiating systemic box, while at the same time improving their material conditions (at least in the long run). This is not a suggestion for an instructional or patronizing left; it is a suggestion for a left that demolishes all taboos and inflexibilities, inspiring and unifying people in this crucial crossroad. . . . Solidarity to Greek people who fight for hope!
[Marxism] Telegraph's Evans-Pritchard condemns troika: Greek debt crisis is the Iraq War of finance
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. * [Thanks to Art Young for sharing this article with me. I would have put it on the list yesterday afternoon but the list was down from mid-day into the evening, at least i wasn't able to get anything to appear on the list. Dayne] Greek debt crisis is the Iraq War of finance Guardians of financial stability are deliberately provoking a bank run and endangering Europe's system in their zeal to force Greece to its knees by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard The Telegraph, June 19 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11687229/Greek-debt-crisis-is-the-Iraq-War-of-finance.html Rarely in modern times have we witnessed such a display of petulance and bad judgment by those supposed to be in charge of global financial stability, and by those who set the tone for the Western world. The spectacle is astonishing. The European Central Bank, the EMU bail-out fund, and the International Monetary Fund, among others, are lashing out in fury against an elected government that refuses to do what it is told. They entirely duck their own responsibility for five years of policy blunders that have led to this impasse. They want to see these rebel Klephts hanged from the columns of the Parthenon – or impaled as Ottoman forces preferred, deeming them bandits - even if they degrade their own institutions in the process. If we want to date the moment when the Atlantic liberal order lost its authority – and when the European Project ceased to be a motivating historic force – this may well be it. In a sense, the Greek crisis is the financial equivalent of the Iraq War, totemic for the Left, and for Souverainistes on the Right, and replete with its own “sexed up” dossiers. Does anybody dispute that the ECB – via the Bank of Greece - is actively inciting a bank run in a country where it is also the banking regulator by issuing this report on Wednesday? It warned of an uncontrollable crisis if there is no creditor deal, followed by soaring inflation, an exponential rise in unemployment, and a collapse of all that the Greek economy has achieved over the years of its EU, and especially its euro area, membership. The guardian of financial stability is consciously and deliberately accelerating a financial crisis in an EMU member state - with possible risks of pan-EMU and broader global contagion – as a negotiating tactic to force Greece to the table. It did so days after premier Alexis Tsipras accused the creditors of laying traps in the negotiations and acting with a political motive. He more or less accused them of trying to destroy an elected government and bring about regime change by financial coercion. I leave it to lawyers to decide whether this report is a prima facie violation of the ECB’s primary duty under the EU treaties. It is certainly unusual. The ECB has just had to increase emergency liquidity to the Greek banks by €1.8bn (enough to last to Monday night) to offset the damage from rising deposit flight. In its report, the Bank of Greece claimed that failure to meet creditor demands would “most likely” lead to the country’s ejection from the European Union. Let us be clear about the meaning of this. It is not the expression of an opinion. It is tantamount to a threat by the ECB to throw the Greeks out of the EU if they resist. This is not the first time that the ECB has strayed far from its mandate. It forced the Irish state to make good the claims of junior bondholders of Anglo-Irish Bank, saddling Irish taxpayers with extra debt equal to 20pc of GDP. This was done purely in order to save the European banking system at a time when the ECB was refusing to do the job itself, betraying the primary task of a central bank to act as a lender of last resort. It sent secret letters to the elected leaders of Spain and Italy in August 2011 demanding detailed changes to internal laws for which it had no mandate or technical competence, even meddling in neuralgic issues of labour law that had previously led to the assassination of two Italian officials by the Red Brigades. It demanded changes to the Spanish constitution. When Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi balked, the ECB switched off bond purchases, driving 10-year yields to 7.5pc. He was forced from office in a back-room coup d’etat, albeit one legitimised by the ageing ex-Stalinist EU fanatic who then happened to be president of Italy. Lest we forget, it parachuted in its vice-president – Lucas Papademos – to take over Greece when premier George Papandreou merely suggested that he might submit the EMU bail-out package to a referendum, a wise idea in retrospect. That makes two coups d’etat. Now Syriza fears they are angling for a third. The creditor power
[Marxism] Reason: What Really Happened in the Waco Motorcycle Gang Massacre?
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 right gets it, well, right, on a situation a lot of leftists got wrong: Everyone involved in this wants the other side of the story out there ... There has been a false narrative put out by police of this huge biker melee and it isn't reality. Someone pulled a gun on somebody else and fired two or three shots. There was not this army of people shooting at each other. That never happened. It was mainly the police shooting at sitting ducks, or running ducks. http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/18/what-really-happened-in-the-waco-motorcy See this cop-talking-point-spouting, social justice nitwittery: http://www.salon.com/2015/05/20/white_americas_waco_insanity_the_shocking_realities_it_ignores_about_racism_violence If your politics ever lead you to echo police clams about police shootings, be sure you're doing it all wrong and start over. -- 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
