[Marxism] Fwd: Re: [Pen-l] Star Wars and the death of American cinema

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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The guy that John Wight thinks is me ain't me...


 Forwarded Message 
Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Star Wars and the death of American cinema
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2016 03:12:42 +0300
From: Maxim Linchits 
Reply-To: Progressive Economics 
To: 'Progressive Economics' 

This might be tangentially relevant. I've just had the pleasure of 
"debating" some of the Socialist Unity crowd recently, on topics ranging 
from Syria and  Ukraine. It was certainly a one of a kind experience. 
They really do circle their wagons around Putin and Assad. Some of the 
arguments were truly bizarre. Sometimes Assad was the Churchill or our 
day, other times he was Abe Lincoln. The Islamist rebels were naturally 
the SS, who should be exterminated mercilessly. The rest was just 
transparent hypocrisy.  Not ONE  word of criticism levelled at Assad or 
the Russians. The consensus is that what they say goes.


Interestingly enough, they  all assumed I was Louis Proyect. So when  I 
replied in Russian to show I was someone else  they blocked precisely 
those comments and then the IP. Many of the people there are as shrill 
and naïve as a five year old, and really can't take a joke or a jab. 
Figures. But they are probably right that Star Wars sucks, although 
their ideal seems to be a Sergio Leone "Western" monstrosity.


Fun crowd. They'll shower any "enemy of NATO" with praise. I wonder what 
would happen if they lived in say Russia. Those contrarians would 
probably be singing praises to NATO.



-Original Message-
From: pen-l-boun...@lists.csuchico.edu 
[mailto:pen-l-boun...@lists.csuchico.edu] On Behalf Of Louis Proyect

Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2015 11:02 PM
To: Progressive Economics 
Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Star Wars and the death of American cinema

On 12/31/15 2:41 PM, Marv Gandall wrote:

John Wight, writing in Counterpunch, sees Star Wars and other
contemporary shallow fare as cultural expressions of the neoliberal
zeitgeist, a reaction to the more creative and critical culture of the
rebellious 60’s.


That's the kind of stupid, dogmatic crap I would expect from someone who 
defended barrel bombing open-air markets in Syria. These "reviews"
trashing Hollywood blockbusters from Wight and from assorted 
contributors to Jacobin are a throwback to the film reviews that Irwin 
Silber used to write in the Guardian in the 70s. "Rocky"--oh so racist.
"The Green Berets"--oh so warmongering. It is a crude Stalinist mindset 
that is as predictable as it is useless. You would think that 
"alternative" media would hone in on the neglected films that need to be 
supported but instead we get this sort of thing. When I get around to 
reviewing "Bridge of Spies", I'll have a word or two about the East 
Germany studies professor who wrote about the film's Cold War mentality 
as if he could not come to terms with this being Spielberg's best film 
in years. To give credit where credit is due, James Agee gave a thumb's 
up to "Birth of the Nation" against its leftist detractors when he was 
the film reviewer for The Nation. People like Wight need to read Trotsky 
on art and literature but I guess he first needs to learn how to read.

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Re: [Marxism] Sidney Mintz, Father of Food Anthropology, Dies at 93

[Shalva Eliava via Marxism]

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The Braudel Center's Review dedicated an issue to his life and work last year...

> On Jan 1, 2016, at 4:46 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism 
>  wrote:
> 
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> 
> 
> NY Times, Jan. 1 2016
> Sidney Mintz, Father of Food Anthropology, Dies at 93
> By SAM ROBERTS
> 
> Sidney W. Mintz, a renowned cultural anthropologist who provocatively linked 
> Britain’s insatiable sweet tooth with slavery, capitalism and imperialism, 
> died on Sunday in Plainsboro, N.J. He was 93.
> 
> The cause was a severe head injury from a fall, his wife, Jacqueline Mintz, 
> said.
> 
> Professor Mintz was often described as the father of food anthropology, a 
> mantle bestowed on him after the critical and popular success of his 1985 
> book, “Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History.”
> 
> Even before that, though, he had stretched the academic boundaries of 
> anthropology beyond the study of aboriginal peoples. (He joked about those 
> who believed that “if they don’t have blowguns and you can’t catch malaria, 
> it’s not anthropology.”)
> 
> His groundbreaking fieldwork in the Caribbean was the basis of his book 
> “Worker in the Cane: A Puerto Rican Life History” in 1960, in which he 
> profiled the rural proletariat — the “millions of people in the world, nearly 
> all of them people of color, working at ghastly jobs producing basic 
> commodities, mostly for consumers in the West,” as he described them to the 
> journal American Anthropologist last year.
> 
> Professor Mintz also explored the legacy of language and religion that slaves 
> took with them from Africa. He was instrumental in creating a black studies 
> curriculum at Yale University in the early 1970s before joining Johns Hopkins 
> University, where he helped found its anthropology department in 1975 and 
> became professor emeritus in 1997.
> 
> The son of a restaurateur and an amateur chef himself, Professor Mintz was 
> best known beyond the academy and his own kitchen for his Marxian perspective 
> on the growing demand for sugar in Britain, beginning in the 17th century.
> 
> In his view, that hunger shaped empires, spawned industrial-like plantations 
> in the Caribbean and South America that presaged capitalism and 
> globalization, enslaved and decimated indigenous populations, and engendered 
> navies to protect trade while providing a sweetener to the wealthy and a 
> cheap source of energy to industrial workers.
> 
> “There was no conspiracy at work to wreck the nutrition of the British 
> working class, to turn them into addicts or ruin their teeth,” Professor 
> Mintz wrote in “Sweetness and Power.” “But the ever-rising consumption of 
> sugar was an artifact of interclass struggles for profit — struggles that 
> eventuated in a world market solution for drug food, as industrial capitalism 
> cut its protectionist losses and expanded a mass market to satisfy 
> proletarian consumers once regarded as sinful or indolent.”
> 
> He added, “No wonder the rich and powerful liked it so much, and no wonder 
> the poor learned to love it.”
> 
> Professor Mintz was as much at home in the 21st century as he was in the 
> 17th. In “Sweetness and Power” he observed that Americans were consuming more 
> by multitasking, writing, “Watching the Cowboys play the Steelers while 
> eating Fritos and drinking Coca-Cola, while smoking a joint, while one’s girl 
> sits on one’s lap, can be packing a great deal of experience into a short 
> time and thereby maximizing enjoyment.”
> 
> Sidney Wilfred Mintz was born on Nov. 16, 1922, in Dover, N.J., the son of 
> Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. His father, Solomon, was a dye maker 
> who became a clothing salesman. His mother, the former Fanny Tulchin, was a 
> seamstress and an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World. (By the 
> time the group was banned by the government as radical, he said, “she was 
> married and organizing only her kids.”)
> 
> His father was a dishwasher in a diner before buying it and converting it 
> into “the only restaurant in the world where the customer was always wrong,” 
> Professor Mintz said. (Its previous owner had been enticed to purchase a 
> Ferris wheel and left town with a carnival.) The diner went bust during the 
> Depression.
> 
> “Very early I became interested in how people acquired, 

Re: [Marxism] Kiev Struggles to Battle Rampant Corruption

[Shalva Eliava via Marxism]

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Yep. For those of us who can read Russian and Ukrainian and have been following 
the "revolution" since its inception, it's not a surprise. It just goes to show 
the futility of Maidan-type uprisings in a country where there is no concept of 
a non-Stalinist socialism among the mass of working people. What you see 
happening in Poland right now is pretty much the best you can hope for in these 
post-Stalinist countries (that or Russian imperialist control a la Moldova or 
Belarus); i.e. decidedly right-wing nationalist populism. In Ukraine it may be 
a far more violent affair since the ultra nationalists are being armed by 
various sides and manipulated by oligarchs like Kolomoyskiy...

> On Jan 1, 2016, at 7:09 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism 
>  wrote:
> 
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> 
> WSJ, Jan. 1 2016
> Kiev Struggles to Battle Rampant Corruption
> Nearly two years after revolution, Ukrainians say government is falling short 
> of promise to tackle graft
> By LAURA MILLS
> 
> KIEV, Ukraine—At a parliamentary meeting on combating corruption, Ukrainian 
> lawmaker Volodymyr Parasyuk sought to land his own blow against graft—by 
> kicking in the face an official he says owns luxury properties worth much 
> more than a state salary could provide.
> 
> Almost two years after a revolution that brought down a president, Mr. 
> Parasyuk’s outrage reflects public frustration that the new government isn’t 
> doing enough to tackle the rampant corruption that fueled the uprising and 
> that keeps Ukraine among the poorest nations in Europe.
> 
> “I wanted to remind him that he is made of the same sweat and blood as the 
> rest of us, because that is what these bureaucrats forget," said the 
> 28-year-old, one of the most visible protesters in the demonstrations that 
> helped oust pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. He has since 
> apologized to the nation for the attack in parliament in November, but says 
> he won’t do the same to the official, who denies enriching himself.
> 
> In the chaotic and combative politics of Ukraine—where parliament is the site 
> of frequent mass brawls—it is hard to untangle all the overlapping corruption 
> allegations and squabbling over who is to blame. Mr. Parasyuk himself was 
> named this week as receiving money from an organized crime suspect, a claim 
> he denies.
> 
> Economic overhauls have helped stabilize the economy and unlocked billions of 
> dollars from the International Monetary Fund, despite a 19-month conflict 
> with Russian-backed separatists. But most Ukrainians say the revolution’s 
> promise to replace rule by thieves with the rule of law has fallen short and 
> the government acknowledges that there is still much to be done.
> 
> Only 7% of Ukrainians said they saw an improvement in the fight against 
> corruption since then, according to a September poll by the International 
> Foundation for Electoral Systems. Only 5% say the new government has 
> addressed the issues, including corruption, that drove the revolution.
> 
> The failure is also frustrating Ukraine’s Western backers, who threw their 
> support behind another government after a pledge by leaders of an earlier 
> revolution in 2004 to “send bandits to jail” went largely unfulfilled.
> 
> U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visited Kiev in December and urged Ukrainian 
> lawmakers to crack down in a stern speech. This is “Ukraine’s moment,” he 
> said. “It may be your last moment. Please for the sake of the rest of 
> us…don’t waste it.”
> 
> Ukraine’s leadership has said it is trying to make up for lost time, 
> establishing a new Kiev-based specialized anticorruption prosecutor to tackle 
> a handful of high-profile cases and other offices meant to reduce graft. But 
> it argues its powers are limited.
> 
> “We are not in Stalin’s times—we can’t just give the order to arrest people,” 
> said Borys Lozhkin, President Petro Poroshenko’s chief of staff, in response 
> to a question about how many people the government is willing to arrest.
> 
> Mr. Lozhkin conceded that the General Prosecutor’s office, which investigates 
> a wide range of crimes and prepares cases for court at federal, regional, and 
> local levels, has traditionally been a place where corruption has flourished.
> 
> “It is much easier to find a new building than to rebuild an old 

[Marxism] Guardian: Nepalese women trafficked to Syria and forced to work as maids

[Shalva Eliava via Marxism]

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Long live the Assad-linked lumpenbourgeoisie...

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jan/01/nepal-women-trafficked-syria-forced-domestic-labour

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Re: [Marxism] 5 points to make on Syria and its future prospects

[Clay Claiborne via Marxism]

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On 12/31/2015 9:31 PM, Michael Karadjis via Marxism wrote:
1) In any imperialist-imposed “political solution” Nusra will of 
course be targeted in as similiar an intensity as ISIS 
The pro-Putin crowd, and that includes "good cop" Obama,  and our 
"friends" on the Left argue that al Nusra should be seem as the same as 
Daesh based on their shared ideology. Its hard to take that reason 
serious when it comes from people who clearly hold ideology in such low 
regard. Meanwhile, these stats on civilian deaths in 2015 tell a very 
different story:

from SNHR: http://sn4hr.org/blog/2015/12/31/16078/

ISIS (1366 civilian deaths)
al Nusra (89 civilian deaths)
Assad regime (12044 civilian deaths)

Happy New Year

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[Marxism] Fwd: Beat Generation questionnaire | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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My reply to this query:


 My name is Natalie H. and I am an eighth grader at xxx. I am doing 
a National History Day project (a nationwide competition that encourages 
students to write a thesis on an event in history) on the Beat 
generation. Due to your expertise, I would like to ask you a few 
questions. Unfortunately, this project was rather last minute and i 
won’t be able to use responses that come later than January 11th. If you 
would be willing to answer my interview questions I will post the full 
interview on my website under the bibliography tab. Thank you for your time.


Beat generation questionnaire

1. How do you feel the beat generation has shaped present day counter 
culture in general?

2. How do you think a present day beat movement would be received?
3. Do you have a favorite “Beat Generation” writer? Who is it, and why?

http://louisproyect.org/2016/01/01/beat-generation-questionnaire/
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[Marxism] Sidney Mintz, Father of Food Anthropology, Dies at 93

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Jan. 1 2016
Sidney Mintz, Father of Food Anthropology, Dies at 93
By SAM ROBERTS

Sidney W. Mintz, a renowned cultural anthropologist who provocatively 
linked Britain’s insatiable sweet tooth with slavery, capitalism and 
imperialism, died on Sunday in Plainsboro, N.J. He was 93.


The cause was a severe head injury from a fall, his wife, Jacqueline 
Mintz, said.


Professor Mintz was often described as the father of food anthropology, 
a mantle bestowed on him after the critical and popular success of his 
1985 book, “Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History.”


Even before that, though, he had stretched the academic boundaries of 
anthropology beyond the study of aboriginal peoples. (He joked about 
those who believed that “if they don’t have blowguns and you can’t catch 
malaria, it’s not anthropology.”)


His groundbreaking fieldwork in the Caribbean was the basis of his book 
“Worker in the Cane: A Puerto Rican Life History” in 1960, in which he 
profiled the rural proletariat — the “millions of people in the world, 
nearly all of them people of color, working at ghastly jobs producing 
basic commodities, mostly for consumers in the West,” as he described 
them to the journal American Anthropologist last year.


Professor Mintz also explored the legacy of language and religion that 
slaves took with them from Africa. He was instrumental in creating a 
black studies curriculum at Yale University in the early 1970s before 
joining Johns Hopkins University, where he helped found its anthropology 
department in 1975 and became professor emeritus in 1997.


The son of a restaurateur and an amateur chef himself, Professor Mintz 
was best known beyond the academy and his own kitchen for his Marxian 
perspective on the growing demand for sugar in Britain, beginning in the 
17th century.


In his view, that hunger shaped empires, spawned industrial-like 
plantations in the Caribbean and South America that presaged capitalism 
and globalization, enslaved and decimated indigenous populations, and 
engendered navies to protect trade while providing a sweetener to the 
wealthy and a cheap source of energy to industrial workers.


“There was no conspiracy at work to wreck the nutrition of the British 
working class, to turn them into addicts or ruin their teeth,” Professor 
Mintz wrote in “Sweetness and Power.” “But the ever-rising consumption 
of sugar was an artifact of interclass struggles for profit — struggles 
that eventuated in a world market solution for drug food, as industrial 
capitalism cut its protectionist losses and expanded a mass market to 
satisfy proletarian consumers once regarded as sinful or indolent.”


He added, “No wonder the rich and powerful liked it so much, and no 
wonder the poor learned to love it.”


Professor Mintz was as much at home in the 21st century as he was in the 
17th. In “Sweetness and Power” he observed that Americans were consuming 
more by multitasking, writing, “Watching the Cowboys play the Steelers 
while eating Fritos and drinking Coca-Cola, while smoking a joint, while 
one’s girl sits on one’s lap, can be packing a great deal of experience 
into a short time and thereby maximizing enjoyment.”


Sidney Wilfred Mintz was born on Nov. 16, 1922, in Dover, N.J., the son 
of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. His father, Solomon, was a dye 
maker who became a clothing salesman. His mother, the former Fanny 
Tulchin, was a seamstress and an organizer for the Industrial Workers of 
the World. (By the time the group was banned by the government as 
radical, he said, “she was married and organizing only her kids.”)


His father was a dishwasher in a diner before buying it and converting 
it into “the only restaurant in the world where the customer was always 
wrong,” Professor Mintz said. (Its previous owner had been enticed to 
purchase a Ferris wheel and left town with a carnival.) The diner went 
bust during the Depression.


“Very early I became interested in how people acquired, prepared, cooked 
and served food, and that all came from my father,” Professor Mintz told 
American Anthropologist. “I came by my interest in food honestly; 
feeding people had become what my father did for a living. As I grew, I 
was able to help.”


But when he was home from college during summers, Professor Mintz gorged 
on breakfast after his overnight shift at the local military arsenal — 
so much so, he said, that his father complained that “our financial 
security as a family would remain at risk until I moved out or lost my 
appetite.”


He received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Brooklyn College in 
1943, taught celestial 

[Marxism] Panadol Osteo, government cuts and tax avoidance

[John Passant via Marxism]

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Panadol Osteo, government cuts and tax avoidance

Obviously GlaxoSmithKline has seen an opportunity to increase its returns from 
an already highly profitable industry. Don’t imagine however that we as 
community will benefit indirectly through increased tax revenue from this 
profit gouging.

According to the Corporate Tax Transparency Report recently released by the 
Australian Tax Office, in 2012/13 GalxoSmithKline had sales of almost $1.5 
billion in Australia. However its taxable income was only $57.9 million on 
which it paid tax of just under $12 million.

GlaxoSmithKline: A tax avoider and a price gouger using the Turnbull 
government’s attacks on people in chronic pain to further advantage itself at 
our expense.

http://enpassant.com.au/2016/01/01/panadol-osteo-government-cuts-and-tax-avoidance/

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[Marxism] Kiev Struggles to Battle Rampant Corruption

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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WSJ, Jan. 1 2016
Kiev Struggles to Battle Rampant Corruption
Nearly two years after revolution, Ukrainians say government is falling 
short of promise to tackle graft

By LAURA MILLS

KIEV, Ukraine—At a parliamentary meeting on combating corruption, 
Ukrainian lawmaker Volodymyr Parasyuk sought to land his own blow 
against graft—by kicking in the face an official he says owns luxury 
properties worth much more than a state salary could provide.


Almost two years after a revolution that brought down a president, Mr. 
Parasyuk’s outrage reflects public frustration that the new government 
isn’t doing enough to tackle the rampant corruption that fueled the 
uprising and that keeps Ukraine among the poorest nations in Europe.


“I wanted to remind him that he is made of the same sweat and blood as 
the rest of us, because that is what these bureaucrats forget," said the 
28-year-old, one of the most visible protesters in the demonstrations 
that helped oust pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. He has 
since apologized to the nation for the attack in parliament in November, 
but says he won’t do the same to the official, who denies enriching himself.


In the chaotic and combative politics of Ukraine—where parliament is the 
site of frequent mass brawls—it is hard to untangle all the overlapping 
corruption allegations and squabbling over who is to blame. Mr. Parasyuk 
himself was named this week as receiving money from an organized crime 
suspect, a claim he denies.


Economic overhauls have helped stabilize the economy and unlocked 
billions of dollars from the International Monetary Fund, despite a 
19-month conflict with Russian-backed separatists. But most Ukrainians 
say the revolution’s promise to replace rule by thieves with the rule of 
law has fallen short and the government acknowledges that there is still 
much to be done.


Only 7% of Ukrainians said they saw an improvement in the fight against 
corruption since then, according to a September poll by the 
International Foundation for Electoral Systems. Only 5% say the new 
government has addressed the issues, including corruption, that drove 
the revolution.


The failure is also frustrating Ukraine’s Western backers, who threw 
their support behind another government after a pledge by leaders of an 
earlier revolution in 2004 to “send bandits to jail” went largely 
unfulfilled.


U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visited Kiev in December and urged 
Ukrainian lawmakers to crack down in a stern speech. This is “Ukraine’s 
moment,” he said. “It may be your last moment. Please for the sake of 
the rest of us…don’t waste it.”


Ukraine’s leadership has said it is trying to make up for lost time, 
establishing a new Kiev-based specialized anticorruption prosecutor to 
tackle a handful of high-profile cases and other offices meant to reduce 
graft. But it argues its powers are limited.


“We are not in Stalin’s times—we can’t just give the order to arrest 
people,” said Borys Lozhkin, President Petro Poroshenko’s chief of 
staff, in response to a question about how many people the government is 
willing to arrest.


Mr. Lozhkin conceded that the General Prosecutor’s office, which 
investigates a wide range of crimes and prepares cases for court at 
federal, regional, and local levels, has traditionally been a place 
where corruption has flourished.


“It is much easier to find a new building than to rebuild an old one,” 
Mr. Lozhkin said, referring to the new anticorruption prosecutor.


Critics have accused General Prosecutor Viktor Shokin of slow progress 
on prosecutions of high-level corruption and say he hasn’t done enough 
to deal with graft in his office. U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt has 
repeatedly called the office out as failing to follow through on any 
anticorruption reforms.


But Mr. Lozhkin said that the presidential administration didn't believe 
Mr. Shokin specifically was to blame for corruption in the prosecutor’s 
office.


The General Prosecutor’s office didn't respond to questions from The 
Wall Street Journal regarding the ambassador’s comments or other 
allegations of corruption. Mr. Shokin has denied that the prosecutor’s 
office is involved in wrongdoing or closing cases for any reasons that 
are illegal.


The office on Tuesday accused Mr. Parasyuk of receiving tens of 
thousands of dollars from another politician who has been formally 
charged with involvement in organized crime. Mr. Parasyuk, who hasn’t 
been charged, accused the general prosecutor’s office of fabricating the 
case. The office didn’t respond to a request for comment on his claim.


Mr. Yanukovych—whose opulent estate near Kiev has 

[Marxism] They had to destroy the city in order to save it

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/iraq-80-percent-ramadi-ruins-fighting-151231114030408.html
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[Marxism] Fwd: Our lives are richer for having known him | SocialistWorker.org

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Aaron Hess memorial.

http://socialistworker.org/2016/01/01/richer-for-having-known-aaron-hess
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[Marxism] Fwd: Amith, Who Do You Honor?

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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MondoWeiss, one of truly few intrepid news sources on Palestine, is about
to reach their year-end $90k goal, at which point they will be given an
additional $50k by a generous donor. Please consider pitching in!

- Amith

-- Forwarded message --
From: Adam Horowitz, Mondoweiss 
Date: Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 9:04 PM
Subject: Amith, Who Do You Honor?
To: Amith 


*Covering the War of Ideas in the Middle East since 2006* View this email
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Those
who invest in Mondoweiss often dedicate their donations to people; hopes;
dreams; or principles.
Your gift can also pay tribute to someone who inspires you.

Dear Amith,

Almost ten years ago, Mondoweiss was born when Phil Weiss decided to risk
his journalistic career in order to tell the truth about destructive
American policy in the Middle East—and its horrific human costs.
Today, one person’s commitment has blossomed into a far-reaching community,
bringing to the world sterling reporting, incisive analysis, stunning
photos and videos. Our mission, Amith, is to provide *Journalism That
Powers Justice
*—and
we hope and believe that often, we succeed at that mission. Our stories
reach mainstream pundits and even policy-makers, although they don’t admit
to it. (One of these days, ask me about how Mondoweiss turned up in
Hillary’s email...)

But even as our influence spreads—thanks to our readers, who share what
matters to them—I’m glad that in many ways our site still has many of the
qualities of a small community. People who check for new content as part of
their morning routine. Thoughtful discussions, in which issues and sources
are scrutinized from many angles. And an ability not to take ourselves—or
our political opponents—too seriously.

Our
task now is to continue to grow and expand our reach
,
while maintaining our strengths and serving our community. Today Mondoweiss
is poised to have more of an impact, and we owe it to advocates of sane,
humane foreign policy and Palestinian human rights to seize that opportunity

.

Three weeks ago, some of our most generous and strategic donors told us
they believed we could build a stronger organization—that the community
we’ve grown would be ready to push us to the next stage. We worked with
them with some trepidation to launch the year-end Challenge Campaign. In
many ways, we still expect to cover the news using today’s equivalent of
two tin cans and a string. Our challenge donors were challenging us not
only to inspire donations
,
but to think big about what Mondoweiss can achieve.

So here we are, on the last day of the campaign, and we’re well over 90
percent of our goal! Thanks to so many people who believe in the importance
of a responsible press, we’re within whispering distance of unlocking that
$50,000 Challenge Fund. All we need is another 20 or 30 gifts—with your help
,
Amith, we could get there by noon!

For those of you who have not yet contributed, it's not too late
.
Over
the past few weeks we’ve shared the highlights of 2015 - the interviews

, photos

 and videos

that
we're proudest of - to highlight the importance of the work we are doing.
Please check them out and share them.

I’ve also gathered some of the tributes we’ve received over the past few
years; have a look on the site

to
see some truly humbling comments. For example, one 

Re: [Marxism] Sabotaging the water tax in Ireland

[Einde O'Callaghan via Marxism]

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On 31.12.2015 03:04, DW via Marxism wrote:


Wait...what? Water is FREE in Ireland? Seriously? Out of curiosity...are
there any other countries where water is not metered?

It's not quite that simple. Water is already being paid for through 
various other taxes and surcharges. What people are objecting to is an 
attempt to make them pay for water yet again using a vehicle (Irish 
Water) destined to be privatised in the not too distant future as part 
of the neoliberal economic policies imposed by the EU after the 
politicians bankrupted the country by bailing out private banks.


In one attack a right-wing politician argued against the protestors. 
"You'd almost think that water falls from the sky ..." He missed the 
fact that in Ireland that's exactly where the water comes from.


Einde
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