[Marxism] [UCE] Michael Klare: Is a War With China on the Horizon?
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. * portent and ratchet http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176438/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_is_a_war_with_china_on_the_horizon/#more --- 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] A Brief History of People Using Romans 13 to Justify White Supremacy
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. * No, it is not Verse 13 that is used to justify slavery. Rarely, anyway. The Old Testament, more generally, is the handbook for all sorts of moral thuggery. The justification of slavery by white supremacists is easy as the Bible endorses out outright and not in the oblique phrases of *Apostle Paul, Chapter 13, Verses 1-3*. They asked who could question the Word of God when it said, "slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling" (Ephesians 6:5), or "tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect" (Titus 2:9). Do we need to be more explicit??? Seriously? The Bible is a *handbook* for owning slaves with numerous rules and regulations. The "Holiness Code" of the old anti-sex bigot, Leviticus was quite clear: It (Leviticus 25:44-46 on up) explicitly allows participation in the slave trade, with non-Israelite residents who had been sold into slavery being regarded as a type of property that could be inherited. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, there was no commandment that said "no person shall own another person". Just...wasn't...there... Conservative, alt-right, pro-slavery white supremacists are far more correct with regards to the moral preciseness and interpretations of the Bible than the liberal and "progressive" Christians who have to spin the entire grotesqueness to make the Bible look like a book of love and liberation. The Conservatives are correct. _ 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] A Brief History of People Using Romans 13 to Justify White Supremacy
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[Marxism] Girl with Down syndrome separated from mom at border
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[Marxism] Postwashington Melancholia II | Richard Seymour on Patreon
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[Marxism] Commentary on Sovietologist Steven Kotkin | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
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[Marxism] Army officially splits with West Point 'commie cadet' Spenser Rapone
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Re: [Marxism] Deciphering the Nicaraguan Student Uprising | NACLA
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 6/19/18 8:26 AM, Michael Marking via Marxism wrote: Oscar-René Vargas You can read more from Vargas in the ISO newspaper, including an article dated May 3 that stipulates: 27. The most important demands are: the formation of a provisional government with representation of the youth, honest academics, and other sectors of civil society (women, peasants fighting against the canal, miners). 28. The establishment of a Truth Commission to investigate and punish those responsible for the crimes and murders of 30 citizens, as well as the corruption of officials. 29. Call on the honest sectors of the Army and Police to support a Provisional Government. 30. The objective of an Interim Government would be, among other things, to change the logic of the "plunder state" (Estado-Botín), to abolish the current authoritarian system, to eliminate the political class's pervasive impunity, to defend natural resources (forests, water, biodiversity) and to fight to reduce social inequality. --- An Interim Government? What does that mean in the context of Nicaraguan politics today? The government will almost certainly be headed by a politician that garnered the largest vote in the last election, or a proxy for the party that ruled Nicaragua before Ortega's election in 2007. Unless this movement defines its political goals and challenges both Ortega/Murillo and the Liberal Party of Aleman and Montealegre, it will be a return to real Somoza-type policies, not the populism of the FSLN. Even Vargas understands this: 6. Without an existing leadership that is representative and visible, there is a fear that the social movement will move towards dispersion or anarchy. 7. An immediate meeting of youth leaders is necessary to establish a strategy and to lay out tactical steps to be taken. 8. It has to be noted that the social movement cannot be sustained without a recognized leadership. _ 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] Deciphering the Nicaraguan Student Uprising | NACLA
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 04:09:35PM -0400, Richard Fidler via Marxism 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. > * > >[...] > > See the recent report by Nicaraguan sociologist Oscar-René Vargas, > "Perspectivas tras la masiva Huelga General," in Viento Sur. A French > translation is available in À l'Encontre. I am unaware of any English > translation. > >[...] > (My Spanish isn't so good, but hopefully better than that of the robots... caveat lector) Perspectives/views after the massive general strike 15/06/2018 | Oscar-René Vargas 1. From 18 April to 13 June, 2018, Nicaragua endured 58 days of citizen protests, in which the people demanded the immediate departure of Ortega-Murillo from power. These demonstrations have been repressed by the state, at a cost of at least 168 deaths. 2. The Police, upon orders of Daniel Ortega, have been leading an offensive against the citizen insurrection, let by mercenaries, hit men, and riot squads that have caused terror among the Nicaraguan population. This strategy is said to be justified because the number of people in the civil rebellion, in different parts of the country, exceeds the number of regular police; for that reason the official strategy is to attack a different city each day. The Police have taken to the streets together with the hit men to intimidate the population and they destroy the barricades that the citizens have raised for their safety at the entrances to their neighbourhoods or cities. 3. The political action shows that the Ortega-Murillo Government doesn’t have the capability to confront all the situation at a national level. According to the 2016 annual report of the National Police, the most recent published, the country then had 15,139 on active duty to cover 121,428 square kilometers; that is, the republic had an average of 24 policemen for each 10,000 inhabitants in 2016, a figure which has not changed in April 2018, according to the 2018 General Budget of the Republic. 4. The government repression in various cities of the country, is a “strategy of terror” before the inability that the Police and the hit men have to stop the many marches and protests that have happened all over the country. Despite the brute force utilized by these para-police groups, the strategy of terror has produced no results for Ortega. 5. Ortega-Murillo have created, in two months, a criminal organization, because upon involving these marginalized groups into gangs, organizing them, arming them, and giving them a mantle of impunity, they are converted into the future criminal organization of the country, into the future gangs of Nicaragua. 6. It is necessary to be clear that Ortega-Murillo are not of the left, as many progressives at the international level think. Ortega-ism is a broken, corrupt, and backward system that discredits the left and progressive sectors of the world. 7. The Army has had a minimally passive complicity. There are various bad signs that point to partial Army participation, lending troops and military skills. According to the Political Constitution of Nicaragua, the Army is the only institution authorized to have a monopoly of force and of arms, in such a way that, at/upon not disarming the para-police, hit men, and thugs, it is placed at the side of Daniel Ortega. [I’m not sure what is said or implied here. The Constitution appears to allow the President to use the Army for internal purposes in case of major internal disorders, but immediately above the author says that para-police etc are being used by the President, so this seems contradictory. Maybe I just don’t apprehend the meaning. -translator] 8. Wednesday, 13 June, Ortega-ist paramilitary attacked, at night, people who maintained barricades at various points in the city of León. There was an attack in Masatepe by paramilitary and riot police, leaving at least four dead. People from different neighbourhoods in Managua reported gunfire at night. Furthermore, agents of the National Police captured every citizen who moved about at night. In the city of Diriamba, some 40 police that were stationed there, left their uniforms behind and went to observe the popular insurrections. 9. On Thursday, 14 June, all Nicaragua awoke to a national shutdown/strike, completely paralyzed by stoppages, empty streets and closed businesses. The stoppages remained without giving
[Marxism] How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country
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, 2018 How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country By Hiroko Tabuchi NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A team of political activists huddled at a Hardee’s one rainy Saturday, wolfing down a breakfast of biscuits and gravy. Then they descended on Antioch, a quiet Nashville suburb, armed with iPads full of voter data and a fiery script. The group, the local chapter for Americans for Prosperity, which is financed by the oil billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch to advance conservative causes, fanned out and began strategically knocking on doors. Their targets: voters most likely to oppose a local plan to build light-rail trains, a traffic-easing tunnel and new bus routes. “Do you agree that raising the sales tax to the highest rate in the nation must be stopped?” Samuel Nienow, one of the organizers, asked a startled man who answered the door at his ranch-style home in March. “Can we count on you to vote ‘no’ on the transit plan?” In cities and counties across the country — including Little Rock, Ark.; Phoenix, Ariz.; southeast Michigan; central Utah; and here in Tennessee — the Koch brothers are fueling a fight against public transit, an offshoot of their longstanding national crusade for lower taxes and smaller government. At the heart of their effort is a network of activists who use a sophisticated data service built by the Kochs, called i360, that helps them identify and rally voters who are inclined to their worldview. It is a particularly powerful version of the technologies used by major political parties. In places like Nashville, Koch-financed activists are finding tremendous success. Early polling here had suggested that the $5.4 billion transit plan would easily pass. It was backed by the city’s popular mayor and a coalition of businesses. Its supporters had outspent the opposition, and Nashville was choking on cars. But the outcome of the May 1 ballot stunned the city: a landslide victory for the anti-transit camp, which attacked the plan as a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money. An anti-transit flyer left by an Americans for Prosperity organizer. The group made nearly 42,000 phone calls and knocked on more than 6,000 doors in Nashville.CreditWilliam DeShazer for The New York Times “This is why grass roots works,” said Tori Venable, Tennessee state director for Americans for Prosperity, which made almost 42,000 phone calls and knocked on more than 6,000 doors. Supporters of transit investments point to research that shows that they reduce traffic, spur economic development and fight global warming by reducing emissions. Americans for Prosperity counters that public transit plans waste taxpayer money on unpopular, outdated technology like trains and buses just as the world is moving toward cleaner, driverless vehicles. Most American cities do not have the population density to support mass transit, the group says. It also asserts that transit brings unwanted gentrification to some areas, while failing to reach others altogether. Public transit, Americans for Prosperity says, goes against the liberties that Americans hold dear. “If someone has the freedom to go where they want, do what they want,” Ms. Venable said, “they’re not going to choose public transit.” The Kochs’ opposition to transit spending stems from their longstanding free-market, libertarian philosophy. It also dovetails with their financial interests, which benefit from automobiles and highways. One of the mainstay companies of Koch Industries, the Kochs’ conglomerate, is a major producer of gasoline and asphalt, and also makes seatbelts, tires and other automotive parts. Even as Americans for Prosperity opposes public investment in transit, it supports spending tax money on highways and roads. “Stopping higher taxes is their rallying cry,” said Ashley Robbins, a researcher at Virginia Tech who follows transportation funding. “But at the end of the day, fuel consumption helps them.” David Dziok, a Koch Industries spokesman, said the company did not control the activities of Americans for Prosperity in specific states and denied that the group’s anti-transit effort was linked to the company’s interests. That notion “runs counter to everything we stand for as a company,” he said. “Our decisions are based on what is most likely to help people improve their lives, regardless of the policy and its effect on our bottom line,” he said. Koch Industries has opposed steel tariffs, for example, even though the company owns a steel mill in Arkansas, he said. The group’s Nashville victory followed a
Re: [Marxism] Vietnamese demonstrate against Chinese imperialism
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 a good article, and I agree with its main message, that this movement against granting 99 year leases to SEZ's is much, much more than mere "anti-China nationalism." At the same time, that element is there. Here is another in-depth article that stresses the nationalistic element more, but is well worth reading: http://chuangcn.org/2018/06/vn-sez-sinophobia/ It's a rather complex mix: China is an emerging imperialist power (and even those who disagree will see it as sub-imperialist, or at least much closer to being imperialist than Vietnam!); its companies play a dominant and very exploitative role in Vietnam; much of the anti-China sentiment among workers targets Chinese - *and Taiwanese* - companies whose factory regimes are considered significantly more exploitative and militaristic than either those western MNCs (who can afford a little better) or, significantly, than local Vietnamese companies; while no-one should ever consider going to war over rocky islands in the South China Sea, the fact that it is the local superpower, China, claiming the entire sea as its own, right up the virtual sea borders of Vietnam, and acting aggressively on it (eg including ramming Vietnamese fishing boats and kidnapping dirt-poor Vietnamese fisherfolk); all these aspects mean that there is a certain progressive and anti-imperialist, even anti-capitalist, thrust to Vietnamese nationalism. On the other hand, there *is* an ugly chauvinism as well brewing behind some of this. Of course, this may draw on valid historical issues (China ruled Vietnam for 1000 years, invaded in 1979, violently seized the Paracel Islands in 1974 while Vietnam was still at war, violently seized one third of the Spratley Islands (killing dozens of Vietnamese soldiers) in 1988) - but of course an overly "historical" discourse is associated with reactionary ideas (exactly as it is in China, all the drawing of maps from the Sung Dynasty of 1000 years ago to try to "prove" ownership of rocky islands etc - why not thereby prove ownership of Vietnam!). And here is the interesting thing: in China, the reactionary nationalism over dominating the South China Sea marches in step with the CCP regime, but in Vietnam the more overtly nationalistic anti-Chinese discourse is ideologically anti-communist and very anti-CPV: their key discourse is that the CPV are "communist traitors" trying to sell out the country to China! Now, this itself has different elements. In claiming the CPV want to betray to China on the question of the rocky islands can only be seen as a right-wing revanchist view, because the CPV very much pushes Vietnam's (just, in my view) claim to the islands, but simply stresses that no Vietnamese blood must be spilt over unpopulated islands. The implication is, therefore, that the anti-communist nationalists advocate war with China over the islands; and the only way that could even possibly be conceived of would be via bringing in the US. On the other hand, where this movement claims the CPV regime is selling out to *Chinese capital* by granting foreign (presumably Chinese) MNCs 99-year leases over significant pieces of real estate, this does have a progressive character, as do the objections to Chinese (and Taiwanese) industrial thuggery and environmental vandalism. Even the last can have a double character; the extent to which some elements are more guided by nationalism could well mean objecting to the leases *because* they are Chinese rather than objecting to such imperialist control in general; but I think that is greatly exaggerated: while the fact that the expected benefactors are Chinese may well have given the movement extra impetus, now when people are in motion against giving up chunks of their country to foreign-controlled SEZ's, this will tend to push the movement in the direction of opposing any such sell-outs. If you look at the photos of the demonstrations, we mostly see '99' crossed out, rather than anti-China slogans. Still another aspect is that many of those protesting today are also objecting to a new government cyber security law, increasing state online surveillance. Again, this tends to get associated with what the opposition sees as the government's "too pro-China" policy, and can be twisted in an anti-communist fashion. Not entirely justified given that the CPV does not need to the CCP to tell it to act repressively; but by any comparison, the Chinese regime is significantly more repressive in virtually all aspects, as well as being more efficient about it (especially at online repression). In other words, many object to what they see as China's influence being both too capitalistic and too
[Marxism] Tribute to Paul Sweezy: A rapid comment on the article « A Marxist Correspondence » | Blog di rivincita sociale
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Re: [Marxism] Vietnamese demonstrate against Chinese imperialism
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. * Confirming the same trend http://www.atimes.com/article/vietnam-protests-bigger-than-anti-china-nationalism/ Am 19.06.2018 um 04:28 schrieb mkaradjis 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. * Vietnam protesters clash with police over new economic zones: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44428971 Video of the demonstration in Saigon on Sunday 10 June 2018 to protest against the proposed law to lease 3 special economic zones to Chinese developers for 99 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XEc1iHzo6s=share _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/aktiv%40rkob.net -- Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG (Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net) www.rkob.net ak...@rkob.net Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314 --- Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. 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
