[Marxism] video: 1989 local meeting on labor party

[John Reimann via Marxism]

  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.
*

Here are segments of a video of an important union meeting that was held in
1989.


*Tony Mazzocchi of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW) speaking at
a meeting of AFSCME Local 444 in favor of a labor party (in 1989).*
*If this reformist union leader could understand that it was a class
question, why can’t socialists?*

In that year, AFSCME Local 444 in Oakland, CA, sponsored a meeting for Tony
Mazzocchi, national secretary treasurer of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic
Workers (OCAW) to speak on the need for a labor party in the US. Mazzocchi
later said that the success of that meeting and a similar one in New York
was what inspired him to start a national organization called Labor Party
Advocates, later called the Labor Party. In actuality, it never became a
real party and, in fact, never really got full lift off. The main reason
was that Mazzocchi was unwilling to make an open break with the rest of the
national union leadership. However, that meeting has some small historical
importance. Also what was said at it is significant and helps give a sense
of the times and how they differed from today.

A video was made of that two hour meeting. We reproduce below an edited
version of that video in four segments of about 15 minutes each. We are
doing it that way because most people won’t watch a two hour video, but
we’re putting the link to the full video here also, if anybody wants to
watch it. Also, we are putting an audio-only link here for those who like
podcasts at the bottom of this page.

https://oaklandsocialist.com/2017/10/06/ocaws-tony-mazzocchi-and-his-campaign-for-a-labor-party-in-1989-some-lessons-for-today/
-- 
"No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them."
Asata Shakur
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
_
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] International Alternative Right

[Steve Heeren via Marxism]

  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.
*

Very informative report on the various forms of Far Right groups, 
leaders, and their online presence:  http://hopenothate.org.uk/


I took it from the article in The Stranger about Seattle's racist right 
groups which Louis posted. Some very interesting demographics there, too.

--


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

_
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 Left-Wing Case Against Catalan Independence | Benjamin Studebaker

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

  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 left-wing case against" something the neo-Francoist state is bashing,
gassing and shooting to try to stop. To be honest, it would be more
reasonable to present a case for Catalans *freely choosing* to remain part
of Spain, which is not what the actual battle is over The battle is over
their right to make that choice. The headline, therefore, is actually
misleading: it is a case against self-determination. And whatever you think
about the Catalan separating, denying self-determination in a situation
like this will only strengthen Catalan national and cultural feelings.

Worse, far worse, it tries to blame Catalans for the austerity and
underdevelopment that people in Andalusia are subjected to. Catalans should
suffer under a neo-Francoist state because the same neo-Francoist state
treats other worse. It is not a good argument. I don't doubt a good case
can be made to fight for a democratic, federal Spanish state with national
and cultural rights respected, based on social justice, but this is not
that case or even close it. And any such case is for the Catalans to weigh
up.

In the meantime, the Catalans continue to stare down brutal repression and
push ahead with a struggle causing a severe crisis for the Spanish state.

stuart

On 6 October 2017 at 12:50, Alan Bradley 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.
> *
>
> From: Louis Proyect
> > Thoughts?>
> https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2017/09/22/the-left-wing-
> case-against-catalan-independence/
> It's a bit "some guy pontificates about something he knows nothing about".
> The sectarian know-it-all reflex at work.
> This bit is a scream: "Why should the poor and working people of Spain
> allow Catalonia to just walk out the door and abandon them?"
> It ain't the poor and working people of Spain who are beating the shit out
> of the Catalans.
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/
> stuartmunckton%40gmail.com
>



-- 

www.greenleft.org.au * subscribe
 * donate

_
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 Left-Wing Case Against Catalan Independence | Benjamin Studebaker

[Alan Bradley via Marxism]

  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.
*

From: Louis Proyect 
> Thoughts?>
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2017/09/22/the-left-wing-case-against-catalan-independence/
It's a bit "some guy pontificates about something he knows nothing about". The 
sectarian know-it-all reflex at work.
This bit is a scream: "Why should the poor and working people of Spain allow 
Catalonia to just walk out the door and abandon them?"
It ain't the poor and working people of Spain who are beating the shit out of 
the Catalans.
_
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] FW: The fight for independence in Catalonia: What lessons for Quebec?

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

  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 struggle for independence in Catalonia: What lessons for Quebec?

By André Frappier

October 3, 2017

The struggle of the Catalan people for their right to self-determination and
ultimately for their independence is certainly not commensurate with the
struggles Quebec has experienced in its recent past, if we consider the history
of the 1980 and 1995 referendums. Spain’s history and constitution, its
Francoist legacy, in a context of a European Union that is managing the
anti-popular austerity offensive, tend to give a form overtly more inflexible to
the Spanish government’s reaction in opposition to the Catalan nation. But while
that struggle is unfolding in a different context, it is important to examine
the situation and to draw some lessons for the struggle that we are carrying on
in Quebec.

Revisiting the past: differences and similarities with Catalonia

In the 1995 referendum, the Canadian government chose to bet on its defeat and
had allied with the NO forces in Quebec, as it had done in 1980. In doing so,
however, it did grant some validity to Quebec’s referendum exercise, which
represented a certain risk. As it happened, the NO obtained only 50.58% of the
votes in 1995, a significant decline in comparison with the 1980 referendum when
it had obtained 59.56%.

The Liberal government headed by Jean Chrétien had spared nothing, however. This
battle had to be won at any cost.

[Full: http://tinyurl.com/y7kdq6v8] 



---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.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] liberals vs. revolutionaries on Catalonia

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

  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.
*

1. A chauvinist liberal attack on the independence movement:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/group-of-social-scientists-working-at-various-universities-and-citizens-in-barcel

2. Several articles by revolutionaries in support of the movement are at
internationalviewpoint.org
_
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] Istvan Meszaros

[Ralph Johansen via Marxism]

  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.
*

Mészáros is the author of works justly praised as magisterial, like 
/Beyond Capital/ and /Social Structures of Forms of Consciousness/, but 
his work can seem daunting and some may not stay the course to 
appreciate the value of his offerings.


I have really learned a lot from Meszaros. I believe that one day he 
will receive his due as one of the most effective interrogators of our 
time, and one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century.


The Necessity of Social Control (2014) is a recent concise, accessible 
overview of Mészáros’s ideas, a broad survey of his work from his 
critique of bourgeois economics to the structural crisis of the capital 
system to the transition to socialism. Reading it may stir the reader to 
go further into and receive greater benefit from his writings.


John Bellamy Foster in his foreword to The Necessity of Social Control:

“István Mészáros is one of the greatest philosophers that the historical 
materialist tradition has yet produced. His work stands practically 
alone today in the depth of its analysis of Marx’s theory of alienation, 
the structural crisis of capital, the demise of Soviet-style 
post-revolutionary societies, and the necessary conditions of the 
transition to socialism. His dialectical inquiry into social structure 
and forms of consciousness—a systematic critique of the prevailing forms 
of thought—is unequaled in our time.”


Tribute to Meszaros from Judith Orr, author of Abortion Wars, the fight 
for reproductive rights (Policy Press) and Marxism and Women’s 
Liberation (Bookmarks Publications): 
https://www.facebook.com/judith.orr.581/posts/10159391768355427


His works online, in addition to various videos and articles: 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/index.htm




---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
_
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: CounterPunch fund drive | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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://louisproyect.org/2017/10/05/counterpunch-fund-drive-2/
_
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] [UCE] On Che Day replacing Columbus Day on Monday, October 9

[Ralph Johansen via Marxism]

  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://la-epoca.com.bo/index.php?opt=front=detalle=3949

https://www.theguardian.com/world/1967/oct/10/cuba.fromthearchive


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
_
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] Historical Materialism Montreal 2018: The Great Transition - May 17-20th 2018

[Jon Fox via Marxism]

  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.
*

Call for Papers

Historical Materialism presents: The Great Transition - Setting the
Stage for a Post-Capitalist Society

17-20th May 2018 at Université du Québec à Montréal, Québec, Canada

Organized in collaboration with the Nouveaux cahiers du socialisme,
Critical Social Theory at McGill and the Institut de recherche sur
l’émancipation.

Deadline: November 15, 2017

To submit a proposal: http://thegreattransition.net

After years of revolt and mobilization following the economic crisis of 2008,
from Occupy Wall Street to Bernie Sanders, from the Maple Spring through
Nuit Debout (and without forgetting the tragic backlash aimed at Syriza) to
the complex evolution of the Pink Tide in Latin America and the democratic
socialism of Rojava, the domination of the capitalist economy has been
questioned on numerous occasions. In order to pass from multiple resistances
to a convergent offensive, it seems imperative to elaborate a real project of
transition out of capitalism, building on the critical knowledge produced both
 at the university and in social movements.

For the conference The Great Transition: Setting the Stage for a Post-
Capitalist Society we invite everyone to reflect on this question along one
of our three general lines of inquiry: critiques of capitalism, anti-capitalist
transition strategies and post-capitalist models


You will find more details under: https://thegreattransition.net/call-for-paper/

Submissions must be sent through this form before November 15, 2017:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSepq74_siifc87E72cWc8uv93q5G5rTfoYWPrXq7oNtDtdQSg/viewform

The Great Transition Collective
i...@thegreattransition.net
https://thegreattransition.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

[Marxism] Anne Wiazemsky, RIP

[Jim Farmelant via Marxism]

  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.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/05/anne-wiazemsky-french-actor-novelist-and-muse-to-jean-luc-godard-dies-aged-70

Anne Wiazemsky, the actor best known for her appearances in films of the French 
Nouvelle Vague and marriage to director Jean-Luc Godard, has died aged 70 after 
a battle with cancer. “Anne died this morning. She had been very sick,” her 
brother Pierre told AFP.

Born in Berlin in 1947, Wiazemsky was the granddaughter of novelist and Nobel 
literature laureate François Mauriac. At 18, she made her debut in Robert 
Bresson’s celebrated 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar, about a farm girl’s 
relationship with her pet donkey. During the film’s production Bresson became 
obsessed with Wiazemsky, regularly propositioning her on set. “At first, he 
would content himself by holding my arm, or stroking my cheek. But then came 
the disagreeable moment when he would try to kiss me ... I would push him away 
and he wouldn’t insist, but he looked so unhappy that I always felt guilty,” 
she recalls in her memoir Jeune Fille.

A year later Wiazemsky met Godard, at the time at the height of his fame, and 
appeared in his 1967 film La Chinoise, a tale of Maoist revolutionaries living 
in Paris. The pair married during the film’s production, and Wiazemsky went on 
to appear in other Godard films, including black comedy Weekend and One Plus 
One, an agitprop collage that featured scenes of the Rolling Stones recording 
Sympathy for the Devil interspersed with documentary footage of revolutionary 
insurrection. Yet, as Godard became more immersed in the social uprising in 
France and elsewhere in 1968, the marriage became strained. “The further it 
went on, the more our paths diverged,” she told AFP in an interview earlier 
this year. The pair divorced in 1979.

Wiazemsky continued to perform in films, most notably alongside Terence Stamp 
in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Italian arthouse work Theorem. The film was banned for 
obscenity in Italy in 1968 for its story of a mysterious stranger who seduces a 
whole family.

In her later years Wiazemsky published more than a dozen novels, including 
2015’s Un an après, about her relationship with Godard. The book became the 
basis for Michel Hazanavicius’s Redoubtable, and one of Wiazemsky’s last public 
appearances was at the film’s premiere at the Cannes film festival in May. 
According to Hazanavicius, Wiazemsky was reluctant to allow him to adapt her 
book but relented when he said that the film would be funny. “She said, ‘I 
think it was a funny relationship and a funny time,’” Hazanavicius recalled.




Jim Farmelant
http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
http://www.foxymath.com 
Learn or Review Basic Math


Actress Tells All: "I Felt Bloated, Tired...Now I Know Why"
Activated You
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/59d66c861fb316c856184st01vuc

_
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] Moshé Machover Expelled From UK Labour Party for 'Anti-Semitism'

[Paul Flewers via Marxism]

  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 Labour Party's Thought Police -- sorry, Compliance Unit -- has really done
it this time in its campaign against party members who are left-wingers and
critics of Zionism. It has expelled Professor Moshé Machover, a founder of the
Israeli socialist group Matzpen, on the grounds of anti-Semitism, for an
historical study that he wrote for the Labour Party Marxists. This is truly the
theatre of the absurd... or the 'big lie' of Goebbels... or the jurisprudence of
Vyshinsky. 

Moshé's article can be found here <
http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/anti-zionism-does-not-equal-anti-semitism-2/
>.

Moshé's comments  <
http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/in-defence-of-history-reinhard-heydrich-zionism-and-saying-the-unsayable/
>.

More at Tony Greenstein's site <
http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/professor-moshe-machover-israeli-anti.html
>.

Paul F

* * * 
Below is the Jewish Socialist Group's statement on this farce <
http://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/jewish-socialists-group-statement-in-support-of-moshe-machover
>.

Dr Moshe Machover – a lifelong Israeli socialist, anti-racist and
anti-imperialist, who has lived in Britain since 1968 – has been expelled from
the Labour Party accused of writing “an apparently antisemitic article” and
accused of “involvement and support for” two organisations, the Labour Party
Marxists and the Communist Party of Great Britain.

The accusation regarding the “antisemitic” article references the controversial,
flawed definition of antisemitism, which the JSG and many others on the left
have challenged <
http://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/fight-antisemitism-and-defend-free-speech
>.

Moshe Machover has been a friend of the Jewish Socialists’ Group for more than
30 years. He has spoken at JSG meetings, written for Jewish Socialist magazine,
and participated in campaigns for social justice with us. We know him as an
outstanding and sophisticated thinker and analyst, a fighter for human rights
and social justice, and a consistent opponent of all reactionary ideologies and
actions.

The JSG is not affiliated to the Labour Party but we have strongly criticised
the right wing-led campaign to smear left wing activists as antisemites <
http://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/statement-on-labours-problem-with-antisemitism-from-the-jewish-socialists-g
>.

The Labour Party has a duty to take action against genuine examples of
antisemitism and other forms of racism and bigotry. In line with the Chakrabarti
Inquiry, however, we:
* favour education rather than heavy-handed disciplinary measures
* expect transparent, fair and just process with regard to complaints against
members
* support Shami Chakrabarti’s desire to encourage respectful free speech within
the Party.

The JSG chooses to support individuals suspended or expelled from the party on a
case by case basis.In this case we fully support Moshe Machover and call for his
expulsion to be rescinded and for his immediate reinstatement as a member of the
Labour Party.

The JSG recognises the article by Moshe Machover, that has been cited,as a
critique of the political ideology of Zionism, not of Jews. Indeed the article
exposes antisemitic ideas.

The JSG rejects any McCarthyite-style attempt to expel members for alleged
“involvement and support for” other left groups on the basis of writing articles
and attending and participating in meetings. It is common practice for Labour
members of all levels to speak and participate in events of other groups, and
have articles published, representing their individual viewpoints, in a range of
publications.

Solidarity with Moshe Machover!

_
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 Left-Wing Case Against Catalan Independence | Benjamin Studebaker

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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.
*

Thoughts?

https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2017/09/22/the-left-wing-case-against-catalan-independence/
_
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] Punch a white supremacist in the face?

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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.
*

"Speakers encouraged followers to take the Gandhi approach and continue 
getting punched in the face a la Richard Spencer. The media will have no 
choice but to turn to its side, their reasoning went. Taylor, Dr. 
Johnson, and the other speakers are all pretty married to this strategy. 
They also disapprove of their followers using ethnic slurs in public 
because it gives the media soundbites to latch onto."


http://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck-into-seattles-super-secret-white-nationalist-convention
_
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 Past That Divides: Russia’s New Official History - Carnegie Moscow Center - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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.
*

Nearly one hundred years ago, the Soviet regime was born in the fires of 
the October 1917 Revolution. As a result, throughout the Soviet era, all 
revolutionary, freedom-loving phenomena related to the country’s 
national liberation—including the period’s romantic fervor in the 
arts—had positive connotations. This is one feature of the Soviet period 
that the Putin era cannot share, because the latter is, in essence, 
counterrevolutionary. In fact, many characteristics of the current 
Russian model of authoritarianism, such as its repressive nature and its 
crusade against anything that can be broadly interpreted as extremism, 
stem from the government’s fear of color revolutions, the Arab Spring, 
and the Ukrainian Maidan movement of 2013–14.


The paradox is that, historically, Russia’s current political regime was 
born out of a peaceful bourgeois revolution, the liberal political and 
economic reforms of the early 1990s. This dissonance shapes the regime’s 
ambiguous relationship to the past. Although the current leadership 
ultimately hails from a revolution in the population’s mindset, in the 
country’s economic system, and in its political structures, the Kremlin 
is obsessed with its own self-preservation, and it cannot stand anything 
revolutionary.


This mentality determines, for example, the negative attitudes of 
Russian elites, including Putin himself, both toward Vladimir Lenin as a 
symbol of the 1917 revolution that in some ways points toward a very 
different period, the democratic revolutionary unrest and so-called 
chaos of the 1990s. In early 2016, Putin said of Lenin, “Letting your 
rule be guided by thoughts is right, but only when that idea leads to 
the right results, not like it did with Vladimir Ilyich . . . In the end 
that idea led to the fall of the Soviet Union.” He went on to say, 
“There were many such ideas as providing regions with autonomy and 
others . . . They planted an atomic bomb under the building that is 
called Russia which later exploded. We did not need a global 
revolution.”15 Public attitudes toward Lenin are relatively positive. In 
a March 2017 survey, 56 percent of respondents agreed that Lenin played 
a positive role in history.


What is a major challenge for the Russian authorities in 2017 is that it 
is impossible for them to ignore the centenary of the October 
Revolution, but it is unclear how they should commemorate it. The only 
idea that the government and the Russian Orthodox Church have come up 
with is to frame ongoing societal divisions as a chance for 
reconciliation between revolutionary Reds and the opposing Whites—even 
though these categories from Russian history have no relevance in the 
present. The limitations of this approach are underscored by the state’s 
controversial announcement in January 2017 that it would seek to 
transfer the ownership of Saint Isaac’s Cathedral in Saint Petersburg to 
the Russian Orthodox Church, which some residents opposed. (The 
cathedral had been put under state control during to the Soviet era and 
was transformed into a museum.) Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All 
Russia tried to portray this development as an opportunity to achieve a 
measure of civic unity, saying, “the symbol of the reconciliation of our 
people . . . Consensus about returned churches should serve as the 
embodiment of consensus and mutual forgiveness between the Reds and the 
Whites, between the believers and the non-believers.”16 Contrary to this 
sentiment, however, the situation involving Saint Isaac’s Cathedral 
actually caused a serious conflict that did not unite but polarized not 
only residents of Saint Petersburg but nearly the entire nation into 
camps of supporters and opponents of the decision. As a result, if the 
cathedral became a symbol of anything, it embodied a societal split 
rather than an instance of reconciliation.




full: 
http://carnegie.ru/2017/10/05/past-that-divides-russia-s-new-official-history-pub-73304

_
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] Drug shortages are new concern in wake of storm

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

  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 Times article is online as well; see my post earlier this morning.
_
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] Drug shortages are new concern in wake of storm

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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's the title of the lead article in the print edition of today's NY 
Times. My first reaction was to be appalled by the consequences for 
Puerto Ricans that will no longer have access to antibiotics and other 
essential medicines.


But when you begin reading the article, you see that it has an entirely 
different focus:


Federal officials and major drugmakers are scrambling to prevent 
national shortages of critical drugs for treating cancer, diabetes and 
heart disease, as well as medical devices and supplies, that are 
manufactured at 80 plants in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.


Pharmaceuticals and medical devices are the island’s leading exports, 
and Puerto Rico has become one of the world’s biggest centers for 
pharmaceutical manufacturing. Its factories make 13 of the world’s 
top-selling brand-name drugs, from Humira, the rheumatoid arthritis 
treatment, to Xarelto, a blood thinner used to prevent stroke, according 
to a report released last year.


With business of nearly $15 billion a year at stake in Puerto Rico, drug 
companies and device makers are confronting a range of obstacles on the 
island: locating enough diesel fuel for generators to run their 
factories; helping their employees get to work from areas where roads 
are damaged and blocked, electricity is down and phones don’t work. 
Companies have taken out radio ads pleading with workers to check in. 
The pharmaceutical and device industries contribute to the employment of 
nearly 100,000 people on the island, according to trade groups.


“Some of these products are critical to Americans,” Scott Gottlieb, the 
commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told a congressional 
panel this week. “A loss of access could have significant public health 
consequences.”


---

To understand how pharmaceuticals became a major part of the island's 
economy, you need to read this article in Dollars and Sense:


Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States. Colonial status, with some 
exceptions, is not a good basis for economic progress.


Recently, the details of the Puerto Rican economic mess, and especially 
the financial crisis, have become almost daily fodder for the U.S. 
press. Yet, the island’s colonial status and the economic impact of that 
status, which lie at the foundation of the current debacle, have been 
largely ignored.


Puerto Rico, like other colonies, has been administered in the interests 
of the “mother country.” For example, for many years, a provision of the 
U.S. tax code, Section 936, let U.S. firms operate on the island without 
incurring taxes on their Puerto Rican profits (as long as those profits 
were not moved back to the states). This program was portrayed as a job 
creator for Puerto Rico. Yet the principal beneficiaries were U.S. 
firms—especially pharmaceutical firms. When this tax provision was in 
full-force in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it cost the U.S. 
government on average more than $3.00 in lost tax revenue for each $1.00 
in wages paid in Puerto Rico by the pharmaceuticals. (What’s more, the 
pharmaceuticals, while they did produce in Puerto Rico, also located 
many of their patents with their Puerto Rican subsidiaries, thus 
avoiding taxes on the profits from these patents.)



full: http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2015/1115macewan.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] Fwd: Barbarian Virtues | The Nation

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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.
*

Interesting critique of James Scott's "Against the Grain" that blames 
farming for all the ills that followed the creation of class society and 
the state. Not having read the book but being somewhat familiar with the 
thesis, it fails to address the question of how we move forward to a 
better world. Clearly, hunting-and-gathering will not work. However, the 
primitive communism that existed for millennia prior to class society 
suggests that a "moral society" is possible. That "moral society" will 
be built on the technology that capitalism created. With the genie out 
of the bottle, we have no other recourse except to make him work for us 
rather than the ruling class.


https://www.thenation.com/article/barbarian-virtues/
_
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: Vast animal-feed crops to satisfy our meat needs are destroying planet | Environment | The Guardian

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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 ongoing global appetite for meat is having a devastating impact on 
the environment driven by the production of crop-based feed for animals, 
a new report has warned.


The vast scale of growing crops such as soy to rear chickens, pigs and 
other animals puts an enormous strain on natural resources leading to 
the wide-scale loss of land and species, according to the study from the 
conservation charity WWF.


Intensive and industrial animal farming also results in less nutritious 
food, it reveals, highlighting that six intensively reared chickens 
today have the same amount of omega-3 as found in just one chicken in 
the 1970s.


full: 
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/05/vast-animal-feed-crops-meat-needs-destroying-planet

_
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: ZCommunications » Corporate-state degeneracy

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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.
*

By Patrick Bond

Last week a conceptual barrier carefully constructed by elites since 
2015 was suddenly cracked at the University of the Witwatersrand Great 
Hall, by two of South Africa’s leading economic personalities: Pravin 
Gordhan, who served as a pro-business Finance Minister for seven years 
until being fired in March, and super-consultant Iraj Abedian, who in 
1996 had co-authored the country’s post-apartheid homegrown structural 
adjustment programme. Two more solid bourgeois representatives would be 
hard to find.


They both came to Wits to attack the enabling role of auditing firm KPMG 
in the scandal involving the “Zupta” network, a fusion of the patronage 
system within President Jacob Zuma’s government and the Gupta brothers 
from India who over the past decade have successfully “state captured” 
several large parastatal corporations and government ministries.


However, instead of focusing on one firm, they made an unusually 
passionate case against what is sometimes termed White Monopoly Capital 
(though the two obviously wouldn’t name the beast as such given its 
controversial recent past). A few voices have made the same point, such 
as the leading trade union federation’s policy director Neil Coleman. In 
April, he asked, “Do we have to choose between a predatory elite and 
white monopoly capital?”


The moniker WMC comes from old texts drafted decades ago by SA Communist 
Party intellectuals, and is not related to Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran’s 
Monthly Review version. Indeed it was only in 2016 that Zuma’s son 
Duduzane – an extremely close associate of the Guptas – asked London PR 
firm Bell Pottinger to find “a narrative that grabs the attention of the 
grassroots population who must identify with it, connect with it and 
feel united by it.” The twitter bots and other machinery Bell Pottinger 
deployed did indeed popularise WMC, but then the backlash was so severe 
that last month, the firm suffered a mass boycott by clients disgusted 
when a hack of Gupta emails revealed the extent of the rot, and went out 
of business.


full: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/corporate-state-degeneracy/
_
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] how Puerto Rico is run for Big Pharma

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

  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'm sure the drug sector  has been mentioned in the articles detailing
Puerto Rico's dependent economy but it's good to have an article
specifically on the island's biggest industry.
Hurricane Damage in Puerto Rico Leads to Fears of Drug Shortages Nationwide

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/health/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-pharmaceutical-manufacturers.html?ref=todayspaper
_
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: It Is Time to Transform, Not Just Rebuild, in Puerto Rico

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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.truth-out.org/opinion/item/42152-it-is-time-to-transform-not-just-rebuild-in-puerto-rico
_
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 Thermodynamic Theory of Ecology | Quanta Magazine

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  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.quantamagazine.org/the-thermodynamic-theory-of-ecology-20140903/
_
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