Re: [Marxism] Sweden Elections - no gains for far right

[Daniel Lindvall via Marxism]

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In terms of percentages and seats, the news is that not that much has changed. 
The Sweden Democrats makes gains, but end up on around 5% less than many (me 
included) had feared. The Social Democrats only drop around 3%, still the worst 
result for almost 100 years, but again, the drop is around 5 points smaller 
than expected. The Left Party progresses, but less than we had hoped. However, 
the fall out can still be rather dramatic. With no clear centre-left or 
centre-right majority (they're practically even) and no official agreement 
between the parties of the two blocs like the one they made last time around - 
to allow the biggest bloc to form a governement to keep SD out - it's extremely 
hard to tell what our next government will look like. The tories and social 
democrats are not quite ready to jump into bed with each other yet, German 
fashion. At the same time, some of the smaller centre-right parties are still 
very reluctant to be seen to govern with support of the racists in SD.

My guess is that we will end up with a government based on social democrats, a 
couple of the smaller centre-right parties and the Greens, that just managed to 
stay in parliament. But that's just a guess. If so, in four years the social 
democrats could be reduced to Greek figures and SD would stand to gain even 
more. Either way, our next government will be worse than our present, which 
says a lot. More nasty neoliberalism is coming our way, in the country where 
inequality grows faster even than in the US or UK. Add to that that the next 
capitalist crisis is almost certain to arrive during the coming four years, and 
things look frightening, to say the least.



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Re: [Marxism] Grappling With the Racism of the DSA?s Founders

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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First, I have to admit that I find it deeply satisfying to see that I
garnered such a reaction, it means I struck a nerve. Either way one looks
at it, my ego profits mightily from this exercise. Way cool!

Here's a brief word on motivation:
All the material I cited and used in this piece was readily available
online and at my public library. The heaviest lifting I did in the research
was going to the nonfiction shacks and digging out an old Irving Howe book
and photocopying a few pages from it. Put another way, if the fruit were
hanging any lower, it would be touching the ground. It is way easy for the
liberal press to write something like this and leave out the caveats I put
in regarding the positive developments that the influx of new members has
had on the organization.

Next, I'll address some of the concerns raised <
https://hatueysashes.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-dishonest-sliming-of-dsa-and.html
>

A) OK, while Schachtman was dead before the organization was founded, it is
undeniable that the entire strategy of how DSA was originally intended to
operate was Schachtman-ite. Their opinion to Communism and the Soviet
Union, Eastern bloc, China, Vietnam, Laos, et al. was and remains Third
Camp-ism. Hell, Willy Brandt was far to the left of DSA then and now on
that topic!

B) Albert Shanker was given a soft-gloves treatment by Michael Harrington
during the 1968 strike and I made that pretty explicit. Considering the
level of guilt-by-association he engaged in during his life to chase
Communist teachers out of their jobs, the reverse in only the slightest
degree is pretty fair. Furthermore, in the polemic by Paul Buhle <
http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue23/buhle23.htm> we read "And so
Shankerism, hammered out against a background of both middle class
yearnings and ghetto rage, became the oddest possible American-style parody
of 'democratic socialism.'"

We read further "[T]he Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis Shanker was encouraged
by a group of self-proclaimed "democratic socialists" including, among
others, Michael Harrington, Tom Kahn and Bayard Rustin, with Max Shachtman
in the background as the powerful grey eminence. They considered parents'
"interference" to be intolerable for teacher-unionists, but they had a
purpose far beyond the districts of Greater New York. By 1968, they
envisioned themselves the heirs to the Meany labor empire. To demonstrate
their capacity to deliver the labor support and labor votes for a greater
coalition, however, they had to keep order -- at any cost." That doesn't
sound like "By the early 1970s these three were the political enemies of"
Harrington BY A LONG SHOT.

C) The nuance of where Rustin ended up is complicated by the fact that DSA
at one point was claiming him as their own online <
https://web.archive.org/web/20140408005047/https://www.dsausa.org/bayard_rustin_march_on_washington>.
WHOOPS! DSA wants to say their heritage includes helping organize the March
on Washington while skipping ownership of the rest of Rustin's career.
Sorry, doesn't work that way!

D) "But a small part of the SP led by Harrington resisted the drift to the
right and instead began to move to the left under the impact of the antiwar
and other protest movements of the 1960s..."

But not far left enough to endorse Jessie Jackson in the 1984 primaries,
thanks to the Zionist caucus in DSA. Or to endorse Noam Chomsky's call for
immediate and total withdrawal and cessation of hostilities in Vietnam. I
repeat, Harrington was actually to the right of Chomsky AND Walter friggin
Cronkite in 1968!

E) (This one is too hilarious to ignore...)

But Stewart has nothing but his own straw man compelling his recollection
of "the great quote of Amilcar Cabral," (by which I assume he meant to say,
"a quote from the great Amilcar Cabral" instead of implying that only once
in his life did Cabral say anything memorable.)

No, I meant to say "the great quote..." because it is a great quote. But to
derive from such a phrasing that there is an implication of denigration or
that I would not otherwise say Cabral is great merely shows a level of,
what should I call it, vulgar Derrida-inspired deconstruction verging on
blatant illiteracy? He who smelt it dealt it...

F) "That story, "How Long Was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Planning Her Run For
Public Office"" slimes her by implying she is a Kennedy family puppet."

Puppet, no. Connected Democrat who had a political machine behind her that
got her elected to a safely-blue seat, the longtime playbook of the left
wing of the Democratic Party? Yes.

And why do I say this? Easy. In Baltimore you currently have a working
class Black woman, Rev. Annie Chambers, 

Re: [Marxism] Opinion | Dirty Politics in New York - The New York Times

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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" Mr. Cuomo deserves a third term because of his potential to lead. He
should stop squandering that potential now. To be sure of it, New York
Democrats need to turn out in large numbers on Thursday to support every
reform-driven candidate possible — for the Legislature, for attorney
general, even for party committees. They can teach Albany a lesson it won’t
soon forget."

Even when they defend her from these charges, they endorse Cuomo. Not to
mention that they reaffirm the vitriol about the rise of anti-Semitism and
throw BDS under the bus.

One wonders why Cuomo wouldn't send out mailers of this nature given how
weak any criticism is.

Amith R. Gupta
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[Marxism] Opinion | Dirty Politics in New York - The New York Times

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times Sept. 9, 2018
Dirty Politics in New York
A last-minute mailer from Democrats wrongly describing Cynthia Nixon as 
anti-Semitic is a disgrace.


By The Editorial Board

This is dirty politics, nearly as sleazy as it gets.

Days before Mr. Cuomo’s primary race for re-election on Thursday, the 
New York State Democratic Committee has sent voters a campaign mailer 
falsely accusing his challenger, Cynthia Nixon, of being “silent on the 
rise of anti-Semitism.”


It says she supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against 
Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. She does not. It accuses Ms. 
Nixon of opposing funding yeshivas, private religious schools attended 
by many of the city’s Orthodox Jews. She has never said that.


“With anti-Semitism and bigotry on the rise, we can’t take a chance,” 
the mailer reads. “Re-Elect Governor Andrew Cuomo.”


This is the lowest form of politics, and the most dangerous, exploiting 
the festering wounds and fears along ethnic and religious lines.


“I didn’t know about the mailer,” Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference 
Sunday in Manhattan. “I haven’t seen the mailer.”


Sorry, Mr. Cuomo, but that strains credulity.

Mr. Cuomo dominates the state Democratic Party. It acts ethically or 
abominably at his direction, or at the very least, with his campaign’s 
blessing.


The committee no doubt sent this garbage in the cynical hope that it 
would prove effective with Orthodox Jews, who generally vote as a bloc, 
making them a sought-after constituency for New York politicians.


Geoff Berman, executive director of the state Democrats, said Saturday 
on Twitter that the mailer was “a mistake and is inappropriate and is 
not the tone the Democratic Party should set,” saying it wouldn’t happen 
again. Sunday, he went further, saying the party would “work with the 
Nixon campaign to send out a mailing of their choosing to the same 
universe of people.”


Even if that were possible so late in the campaign, it’s not enough.

Mr. Cuomo has an obligation to personally apologize and condemn these 
outrageous attacks. Voters deserve to hear Mr. Cuomo describe Ms. Nixon 
as a worthy opponent who abhors anti-Semitism. He should make sure that 
message gets to Orthodox voters ahead of Thursday’s elections. And he 
should fire the party official who came up with the idea for the flier.


While Mr. Cuomo is at it, he might also mention that Ms. Nixon attends a 
Manhattan synagogue. Saturday night, her rabbi, Sharon Kleinbaum, issued 
a joint statement with her wife, the teachers’ union leader Randi 
Weingarten, on Facebook, calling the charges in the mailer a “baseless 
lie.” Other Democrats have also condemned Mr. Cuomo and the Democratic 
Party for the flier.


State Sen. Liz Krueger, a Democrat who hasn’t endorsed a candidate in 
the primary, said in a statement released by the Nixon campaign on 
Sunday: “I am doubly offended and aghast that my party organization 
would produce and mail such a false, damaging attack on Ms. Nixon and 
then watch the Governor and key staff act surprised they had done this. 
Shameful.”


Given all the ethical lapses in Mr. Cuomo’s administration, of which he 
has also pleaded ignorance, this smear is appalling. It is the kind of 
cynical behavior that detracts from Mr. Cuomo’s often-impressive ability 
to govern. If he is not careful, it could make voters feel they have no 
choice but to vote for someone else.


Mr. Cuomo deserves a third term because of his potential to lead. He 
should stop squandering that potential now. To be sure of it, New York 
Democrats need to turn out in large numbers on Thursday to support every 
reform-driven candidate possible — for the Legislature, for attorney 
general, even for party committees. They can teach Albany a lesson it 
won’t soon forget.

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Re: [Marxism] Freedom and the Irish | Current Affairs

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 9/9/18 6:30 PM, John Obrien via Marxism wrote:

Did the moderator actually read this?


Of course I read it. What are the specific historical references to the 
island of Montserrat that you view as inaccurate? Furthermore, is the 
account of Irish-Americans having different views on abolition based on 
their class position objectionable? I thought this would be ABC's for a 
Marxmail subscriber. Try to be specific rather than bleating things like 
"Appears some academic wanting to show how much she knows. but reveals 
actually she knows very little." Do you know more than her about 
Montserrat, which takes up most of her article?

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Re: [Marxism] Freedom and the Irish | Current Affairs

[John Obrien via Marxism]

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I find this article offensive and poorly researched about Irish people's 
history and political involvement.


Did the moderator actually read this?


Appears some academic wanting to show how much she knows. but reveals actually 
she knows very little.

She distorts and omits much to justify her not identifying as Irish.  But her 
ancestry were with the oppressors

so there is some understanding of why she promotes privilege and does not want 
to identify with the history

of the Irish masses.



She states her opposition to "identity politics" and knows or cares little 
about her attacking Irish Americans

as being most reactionary - with no mention of the Catholic Church or her own 
Protestant Church influence

to accept and adapt and comply to the U. S. rulers.  She herself has adapted 
and conformed with this article

that does no service or provide any awareness to those interested in a free 
Irish workers state and the

history of those with Irish ancestry who continued,and continue, to resist 
injustice, as part of "their heritage"











From: Marxism  on behalf of Louis Proyect 
via Marxism 
Sent: Sunday, September 9, 2018 5:54 AM
To: causecollec...@msn.com
Subject: [Marxism] Freedom and the Irish | Current Affairs



(Gerald Horne covers these distinctions in great depth in "The
Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism")

There was a sharp social division between Montserrat’s predominately
Irish laboring class and the English and Anglo-Irish planters who
governed the island. Still more Irish arrived in Montserrat starting in
1649, when the armies of Oliver Cromwell, then Lord Protector of
England, defeated the rebelling Irish Catholic gentry, and the English
government began deporting political prisoners to the Caribbean. Other
Irish criminals and so-called “sturdy beggars” were transported to the
island, too, as a penal measure. Unlike other Irish bonded laborers, who
“voluntarily” sold their freedom for a period of years, these deportees
were sent to the New World against their will. On arrival, the
prisoners’ labor was purchased for a specific period of time, usually
for 10 to 12 years. Though this term of indenture was long, it was, at
the very least, finite. The same could not be said for the African
chattel slaves who began to be imported around the same time. They had
virtually no hope of earning or waiting out their freedom.

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[Marxism] The Rio Grande Is Dying. Does Anyone Care?

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times Op-Ed, Sept. 9, 2018
The Rio Grande Is Dying. Does Anyone Care?
Drained by farmers and divided by treaty, America’s second-longest river 
is running dry.

By Richard Parker

Mr. Parker is the author of “Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform 
America.”


EL PASO — One of North America’s great rivers is dying.

Stretching nearly 1,900 miles from the Colorado Rockies to the salty 
Gulf of Mexico, the Rio Grande has been the stuff of Southwestern lore, 
sustained entire cultures and nourished wildlife in an otherwise 
unforgiving part of the planet.


The Rio Grande is the third-longest river wholly in the United States, 
exceeded only by the Yukon and the combined Mississippi and Missouri 
Rivers. Yet this summer it nearly stopped flowing from Colorado into New 
Mexico. The muddy water that does flow into Texas is something of a 
mirage, released from reservoirs or even imported from faraway basins. 
Drained by farmers, divided by treaty, feuded over in courtrooms and 
neglected when not pumped and drained, the Rio Grande is at once one of 
America’s most famous rivers and one of its most abused.


The problem is compounded by the techniques that farmers and cities have 
developed to get around such water shortages: When rivers run low, they 
can tap into deep aquifers or pump water from hundreds of miles away. 
All of which raises a tough question for a technologically advanced 
country like ours. If we don’t think we need the Rio Grande for its 
water, are we willing to save it for its own sake?


The Rio Grande is so long that when Europeans first arrived they didn’t 
realize it was all the same, roiling body of water. It sustained tens of 
thousands of Native Americans: The Pueblo people populated the basin to 
the north, while tribes such as the Manso lived easily off the fish, 
ducks and bounty of the middle river, according to accounts by 
Franciscan monks in 1598 who accompanied the conquistador Juan de Oñate 
when his expedition forded the river.


Downstream, wrote the historian Paul Horgan in his book on the Rio 
Grande, “Great River,” published in 1954, “The river at Presidio came 
among willows, cottonwood, lilacs, mountains with attendant clouds, 
emerald green fields and pink sand, through a sweetness in the air made 
from all these together.” Some Native Americans called the river 
P’soque, or big river. The Spanish named the lower stretch Rio Palmas, 
for its thickets of palms.


As the centuries marched on, so did the Rio Grande’s names and uses. The 
Spanish farmed corn, chick peas and sweet onions while watching bald 
eagles snag five-pound fish from the water. After independence, Mexico 
named it the Río Bravo, or fierce river. American settlers in the 
Southwest called it the Rio Grande, and operated paddle wheelers on its 
southern stretches.


But with the turn of the last century came hydroengineering across the 
arid American West. Colorado, New Mexico and Texas divvied up the water 
with a compact in 1938; the United States and Mexico followed, in a 1944 
treaty. Life-giving water was reduced to mere debits and credits in an 
accounting ledger.


Ever since, the river has been tamed, dammed, channeled and diverted 
into aqueducts, canals and ditches. The American humorist Will Rogers 
liked to call the Rio Grande “the only river I know of that is in need 
of irrigating.” I grew up on this river; to this day, my mother’s 
neighbors still open a rusty metal gate to flood their yards with muddy 
irrigation water. And presto: Lawns, orchards and alfalfa bloom in the 
sandy, alluvial soil.


Today, however, there is less snowpack than ever, and the river is still 
hamstrung by obligations that are nearly a century old. This year the 
river gauge in Embudo, N.M. — a gauge established in 1881 and the oldest 
in the nation — recorded the lowest flows in history. Yet Texas and New 
Mexico are battling over the river’s water in the courts.


This year’s near disappearance took people by surprise. By late spring, 
snowmelt water was so sparse that around Albuquerque, where it runs near 
dry, sandy beds revealed where fish had clustered, awaiting their 
deaths. Hikers were horrified. “It was just sad,” said John Fleck, who 
directs the water program at the University of New Mexico. “It was just 
so sad.”


Snowmelt water was so sparse that around Albuquerque, sandy beds 
revealed where fish had clustered, awaiting their deaths.
To the north, the tiny silvery minnow, an endangered species that 
nourishes larger fish, is on the verge of disappearing even in the 
imported water, with just 5 percent of its historic population. For 
nearly 200 miles, from Fort Quitman, 

[Marxism] Harvard Is Vaulting Workers Into the Middle Class With High Pay. Can Anyone Else Follow Its Lead?

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Sept. 9, 2018
Harvard Is Vaulting Workers Into the Middle Class With High Pay. Can 
Anyone Else Follow Its Lead?

By Eduardo Porter

Martha Bonilla is not your typical middle-class worker. And it’s not 
just that she was born in a backwater of El Salvador and crossed Mexico 
hidden among a pile of bananas in the back of a truck to make her way 
illegally into the United States at age 20.


Like millions of Americans lacking a college degree, the 44-year-old 
mother of three works on the bottom rungs of the service sector, in a 
kitchen run by the food-service contractor Restaurant Associates in 
Cambridge, Mass. Food preparation and service is the lowest-paid 
occupational group in the economy; even in Boston, it typically pays 
less than $27,000 for a full-time, year-round job.


Yet there Ms. Bonilla sits at her kitchen table in the solidly 
middle-class neighborhood of West Roxbury. She and her husband, Felipe 
Villatoro, both legal residents, bought the house 12 years ago for 
$350,000. It’s their second; she rents the first to members of her 
extended family. The vacations in Florida, the 401(k), the $1,700 a 
month they pay for their daughter’s college tuition and fees — all speak 
of America’s dream.


“Coming to the United States was the best decision I ever made,” Ms. 
Bonilla said.


What’s the trick? Ms. Bonilla’s job with Restaurant Associates is to 
make breakfast and lunch for executives pursuing extension courses at 
Harvard Business School. At the university, service workers on the 
payroll of an outside contractor earn the same pay and benefits they 
would get as direct university employees — including health insurance 
and pension benefits, paid vacation and child care assistance.


This parity policy was formally adopted across the university 16 years 
ago by Lawrence H. Summers, then Harvard’s president. At a stroke, it 
ended the practice of outsourcing dining, security and other such 
services simply to save on labor costs. “The effect of this policy is to 
remove some of the economic incentives to contract out those positions,” 
said Michael Kramer, organizing director at the Cambridge area local of 
Unite Here, the union covering food service workers.


Critically, unions covering Harvard’s in-house janitors, cooks and 
guards — which had been losing ground to outside contractors — were 
empowered to bargain hard for pay and benefits without fear of 
encouraging more outsourcing. What’s more, contractors themselves became 
more union-friendly once the university took over the determination of 
wages and benefits. In 2001, before the policy was put in place, only 58 
percent of the workers at outside contractors operating at Harvard were 
represented by a union. By 2013, the share was 96 percent.


For Ms. Bonilla, the result is an hourly wage of more than $25. Adding 
the money from a part-time job cooking at a student dorm, most weeks she 
clears more than $1,500. That exceeds the typical weekly pay of a worker 
with a master’s degree. Adding in the wage of Mr. Villatoro, also a cook 
at the business school, the family earns almost $120,000 a year.


As the wages of American workers without a college education languish 
below where they were 40 years ago, Harvard’s experiment has led some 
economists and union organizers to think about similar arrangements to 
broadly benefit low-pay service workers, who form the biggest and 
fastest-growing part of the job market.


To be sure, Harvard’s employment policies affect a limited population. 
Only 275 dining workers, 404 security guards and the 370 custodial 
workers are employed by subcontractors, and another 1,105 work for the 
university. It’s an open question whether larger organizations, or those 
without multibillion-dollar endowments, can follow its lead.


“This is an important private-sector policy innovation — a very good 
template for a socially minded organization,” said Mr. Summers, whose 
tenure was sandwiched between his service as Treasury secretary in the 
Clinton administration and his time heading the National Economic 
Council under President Barack Obama. But he acknowledged that the 
experiment carries trade-offs.


Even if the goal is laudable — lifting workers from the bottom of the 
labor market into the middle class, stimulating the economy and pushing 
against the country’s widening wage inequality — Mr. Summers noted that 
policies like these “make it more expensive to do the things you do.” 
Setting too high a pay floor could force businesses to hire fewer 
people, making many worse off.


Still, some 45 million Americans work in low-end service jobs — personal 
care aides, cooks, 

[Marxism] China Is Detaining Muslims in Vast Numbers. The Goal: ‘Transformation.’

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Sept. 9, 2018
China Is Detaining Muslims in Vast Numbers. The Goal: ‘Transformation.’
By Chris Buckley

HOTAN, China — On the edge of a desert in far western China, an imposing 
building sits behind a fence topped with barbed wire. Large red 
characters on the facade urge people to learn Chinese, study law and 
acquire job skills. Guards make clear that visitors are not welcome.


Inside, hundreds of ethnic Uighur Muslims spend their days in a 
high-pressure indoctrination program, where they are forced to listen to 
lectures, sing hymns praising the Chinese Communist Party and write 
“self-criticism” essays, according to detainees who have been released.


The goal is to remove any devotion to Islam.

Abdusalam Muhemet, 41, said the police detained him for reciting a verse 
of the Quran at a funeral. After two months in a nearby camp, he and 
more than 30 others were ordered to renounce their past lives. Mr. 
Muhemet said he went along but quietly seethed.


“That was not a place for getting rid of extremism,” he recalled. “That 
was a place that will breed vengeful feelings and erase Uighur identity.”


This camp outside Hotan, an ancient oasis town in the Taklamakan Desert, 
is one of hundreds that China has built in the past few years. It is 
part of a campaign of breathtaking scale and ferocity that has swept up 
hundreds of thousands of Chinese Muslims for weeks or months of what 
critics describe as brainwashing, usually without criminal charges.


Though limited to China’s western region of Xinjiang, it is the 
country’s most sweeping internment program since the Mao era — and the 
focus of a growing chorus of international criticism.


China has sought for decades to restrict the practice of Islam and 
maintain an iron grip in Xinjiang, a region almost as big as Alaska 
where more than half the population of 24 million belongs to Muslim 
ethnic minority groups. Most are Uighurs, whose religion, language and 
culture, along with a history of independence movements and resistance 
to Chinese rule, have long unnerved Beijing.


After a succession of violent antigovernment attacks reached a peak in 
2014, the Communist Party chief, Xi Jinping, sharply escalated the 
crackdown, orchestrating an unforgiving drive to turn ethnic Uighurs and 
other Muslim minorities into loyal citizens and supporters of the party.


A sign describes this facility on the edge of Hotan, a city in Xinjiang, 
as a “concentrated transformation-through-education center.”
“Xinjiang is in an active period of terrorist activities, intense 
struggle against separatism and painful intervention to treat this,” Mr. 
Xi told officials, according to reports in the state news media last year.


In addition to the mass detentions, the authorities have intensified the 
use of informers and expanded police surveillance, even installing 
cameras in some people’s homes. Human rights activists and experts say 
the campaign has traumatized Uighur society, leaving behind fractured 
communities and families.


“Penetration of everyday life is almost really total now,” said Michael 
Clarke, an expert on Xinjiang at Australian National University in 
Canberra. “You have ethnic identity, Uighur identity in particular, 
being singled out as this kind of pathology.”


China has categorically denied reports of abuses in Xinjiang. At a 
meeting of a United Nations panel in Geneva last month, it said it does 
not operate re-education camps and described the facilities in question 
as mild corrective institutions that provide job training.


“There is no arbitrary detention,” Hu Lianhe, an official with a role in 
Xinjiang policy, told the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial 
Discrimination. “There is no such thing as re-education centers.”


The committee pressed Beijing to disclose how many people have been 
detained and free them, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed 
the demand as having “no factual basis” and said China’s security 
measures were comparable to those of other countries.


The government’s business-as-usual defense, however, is contradicted by 
overwhelming evidence, including official directives, studies, news 
reports and construction plans that have surfaced online, as well as the 
eyewitness accounts of a growing number of former detainees who have 
fled to countries such as Turkey and Kazakhstan.


The government’s own documents describe a vast network of camps — 
usually called “transformation through education” centers — that has 
expanded without public debate, specific legislative authority or any 
system of appeal for those detained.


The New York Times interviewed four recent camp 

Re: [Marxism] Old Chomsky Video re: Lenin

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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Though it's been a long time since I read it, E.H. Carr's first volume of
THE HISTORY OF SOVIET RUSSIA is quite detailed on the ins and outs of the
initial stages of the Bolshevik Revolution --- (I think the Revolutionary
period is covered in 3 volumes but the first has a lot of the stuff Chomsky
is referring to --- Unclear if Chomsky's speech is before Carr started
publishing )

Most communist historians (especially Trotskists) argue that Stalin
perverted Lenin and Trotsky's revolution --- but there is no question that
under the pressures of the Civil WAR, the rights of ALL citizens of
revolutionary Russia were subordinated to the needs to defend the new
country --- whether that was "forced" on Lenin or the very nature of his
(authoritarian) inclinations might be hard even for experts to tease out ...

On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 12:56 PM A.R. G via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Hi all,
>
> I found this old video of Chomsky criticizing Lenin as an opportunist in
> response to a criticism from a communist in his audience.
>
> https://youtu.be/yQsceZ9skQI
>
> Not knowing as much about the Russian Revolution, I was wondering if others
> could clarify what it is that Chomsky is talking about, what the underlying
> disagreement is, plus your own thoughts on why he is right or wrong.
> Thanks.
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Re: [Marxism] Is Russia Really ?Fascist?? A Comment on Timothy Snyder | PONARS Eurasia

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 9/9/18 3:42 PM, Andrew Stewart wrote:
its obligatory organizations (Hitler Youth etc). Trump and the GOP seem 
to want to punish the ‘improvident’ poor, whereas the fascists promoted 
a national community, purged of its dissidents and unassimilable 
minorities, in where all the ‘real’ members of the ‘volk’ would be taken 
care of. Fascism was communitarian, Trumpism is individualistic. Using 
the fascist label in an indiscriminate fashion conceals these basic 
economic and social goals, and so keeps us from understanding the Trump 
administration.”




It is necessary to understand the huge differences between 1932 and 
2018. In 1932, there were huge CPs and SPs everywhere and the example of 
the Soviet Union that appeared to be a workers paradise compared to the 
suffering taking place in the West.


So it was absolutely necessary for the ruling classes to con the workers 
into thinking that capitalism could be made to work for them if a strong 
state and a kind of planning was operative. This was what made FDR and 
Hitler in their own ways palatable to the workers.


In addition, in 1932 capitalism was still in its Fordist phase. The 
German, British and American bourgeoisie had a vested interest in 
reviving their economies since steel, auto and armaments were driving 
them rather than collateralized mortgage loans and Facebook.


Also, despite the weakness of the capitalist economies since the early 
70s (except for China), you don't have the kind of massive collapse that 
took place in the 1930s. Instead, it is a chronic low-grade economic 
fever that in the absence of Fordist manufacturing tends to lead people 
to seek individualistic solutions of the kind Michael Moore documented 
in "Roger and Me": raising rabbits for food; moving from Flint to 
Houston where there were jobs; taking programming classes at a community 
college, etc.


As I have said on many occasions, the good news is that there is no 
imminent threat of fascism in the USA.  The bad news is that there is 
neither an imminent threat of socialist revolution, the only thing that 
might provoke an American Hitler to be backed by the Koch brothers et al.

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Re: [Marxism] Is Russia Really ?Fascist?? A Comment on Timothy Snyder | PONARS Eurasia

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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There are several notions that arise for me. First, the fact that
austerity, be it liberal (as was the case under the Versailles treaty) or
neoliberal (as was/is/will be in the case of the American capital), always
has fostered the growth of fascism. In this sense Trump prepares the way
for the growth of fascism. Second, we are on the verge of a set of
developments within the Supreme Court that have profoundly awful
implications for minorities and women, including gerrymandering, crushing
of unions, and outlawing abortion, all policy hallmarks of fascism. Third,
there is a wide spectrum in the history of fascism in terms of rhetoric and
policy. Yes, Mussolini started out as a secularist and anti-clerical
politician who plagiarized major socialist policy goals. But by the end he
was invoking theocratic concepts. Furthermore, Hitler was fundamentally
different in his approach to the German Christian churches, from the start
he took advantage of the conservative inclinations in those polities to
actualize his gains. He was able to take advantage of the long history of
antisemitism in the Polish Catholic Church to actualize the Nazi holocaust
in a fashion that was far more impactful than in other countries where he
encountered resistance.

Robert Paxton, whose study on fascism is undeniably the most refined and
mature I have read, said the following in a piece I wrote for Washington
Babylon (https://wp.me/p7NYU8-C8):

There are 5 stages of fascism:

   1. *Intellectual exploration*, where disillusionment with popular
   democracy manifests itself in discussions of lost national vigor
   2. *Rooting*, where a fascist movement, aided by political deadlock and
   polarization, becomes a player on the national stage
   3. *Arrival to power*, where conservatives seeking to control rising
   leftist opposition invite the movement to share power
   4. *Exercise of power*, where the movement and its charismatic leader
   control the state in balance with state institutions such as the police and
   traditional elites such as the clergy and business magnates.
   5. *Radicalization or entropy*, where the state either becomes
   increasingly radical, as did Nazi Germany, or slips into traditional
   authoritarian rule, as did Fascist Italy.

Paxton tells me in correspondence “I think we can say that between a
fascist regime and the Trump administration there are similarities and
differences. The similarities were already apparent during the campaign.
Trump et al. employed campaign themes and techniques that recall fascism.
The classical fascist movements based their appeal on a diagnosis of
decline, caused by internal and external enemies, and remedial only by
strong executive measures. Trump and his associates made heavy use of
themes of decline, internal enemies, and forceful action, and these
continue to be the justification for unlimited executive power. Some other
themes that recall fascism include nationalist disdain for any kind of
international obligation or institution, placing the alleged needs of the
nation above the rule of law, and tolerating violent action against
dissenters. Trump and Bannon believe that the executive has unlimited
power, derived from “the people,” and that press criticism is treasonous.”

“Alongside these similarities, there is a major difference. The classic
fascist regimes set up highly regimented economies, in which business was
subordinated to national needs. These corporatist economies included an
early form of welfare state, though independent labor power had been
crushed. Trump and his associates, including the GOP majority in Congress,
want extreme deregulation. Whereas fascists subordinated individual
interests to an alleged national community interest, Trump and the GOP want
to subordinate community interests to private interests, meaning the
interests of the wealthy. Fascist regimes had high, progressive income
taxes. The Trump administration’s commitment to deregulation and to market
solutions to economic and social problems is altogether opposed to fascist
regimentation, with its colored shirts and its obligatory organizations
(Hitler Youth etc). Trump and the GOP seem to want to punish the
‘improvident’ poor, whereas the fascists promoted a national community,
purged of its dissidents and unassimilable minorities, in where all the
‘real’ members of the ‘volk’ would be taken care of. Fascism was
communitarian, Trumpism is individualistic. Using the fascist label in an
indiscriminate fashion conceals these basic economic and social goals, and
so keeps us from understanding the Trump administration.”

-- 
Best regards,

Andrew Stewart

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 9 

Re: [Marxism] A Letter to the Editor

[Ralph Johansen via Marxism]

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Exactly what was the reason for posting this to a Marxist list???

Is Ms. Simpson a Marxist




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Re: [Marxism] A Letter to the Editor

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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Exactly what was the reason for posting this to a Marxist list???

On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 1:53 PM Ralph Johansen via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
> Editor - I find Ms. Simpson's letter (Sept. 1) to be onionformed and
> insincelery stated. Why print such bananality? Contrary to what Simpson
> beleaves, we cannot just shrub off the impotato questions of the day,
> like: why are the poleaks spread so parsley in our community?
>
> I wish people would cactus what they peach. Most, however, are barley
> apple to orange their thoughts cornherently. I think I've salad enough
> on that subject.
>
> Ralph Johansen
> El Pasta
>
> (of unknown origin)
>
>
>
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[Marxism] A Letter to the Editor

[Ralph Johansen via Marxism]

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Editor - I find Ms. Simpson's letter (Sept. 1) to be onionformed and 
insincelery stated. Why print such bananality? Contrary to what Simpson 
beleaves, we cannot just shrub off the impotato questions of the day, 
like: why are the poleaks spread so parsley in our community?


I wish people would cactus what they peach. Most, however, are barley 
apple to orange their thoughts cornherently. I think I've salad enough 
on that subject.


Ralph Johansen
El Pasta

(of unknown origin)


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Re: [Marxism] Is Russia Really “Fascist”? A Comment on Timothy Snyder | PONARS Eurasia

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 9/9/18 1:39 PM, Ralph Johansen via Marxism wrote:


That's quite plainly not the case with Trump.


Yup. Trump has very little in common with fascism economically. Despite 
all the nationalist rhetoric, he is just the latest in a string of 
politicians going back to Reagan and Thatcher whose goal it is to reduce 
government spending to just about zero except for the military and the 
cops. The tax cuts should have made that clear.


I wrote about this in CounterPunch in October, 2017:

For all of the millions of words written about the fascist danger posed 
by Donald Trump, there are very few devoted to an actual analysis of 
fascist economics both as ideology and state policy. Instead there is a 
fixation on marchers in Charlottesville chanting “blood and soil” or 
other Nazi era memes. Before considering whether people like Donald 
Trump or Steve Mnuchin seek to impose a fascist dictatorship on the USA, 
it might be useful to take a look at some of the demands found in the 
Manifesto of the Fascist party founded by Benito Mussolini in 1919 that 
was co-written by labor syndicalist Alceste De Ambris and Filippo 
Tommaso Marinetti, the author of the 1909 Futurist Manifesto that had a 
powerful impact on Russian art in the 1920s.


+ A strong progressive tax on capital (envisaging a “partial 
expropriation” of concentrated wealth)


+ The quick enactment of a law of the state that sanctions an eight-hour 
workday for all workers


+ A minimum wage

+ The participation of workers’ representatives in the functions of 
industry commissions


+ To show the same confidence in the labor unions (that prove to be 
technically and morally worthy) as is given to industry executives or 
public servants


+ The seizure of all the possessions of the religious congregations and 
the abolition of all the bishoprics, which constitute an enormous 
liability on the Nation and on the privileges of the poor


full: 
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/10/27/the-political-economy-of-fascism/



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Re: [Marxism] Is Russia Really “Fascist”? A Comment on Timothy Snyder | PONARS Eurasia

[Ralph Johansen via Marxism]

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Random thoughts re Fascism.

Problems with its history and origins:

The Nazis, the Italian Fascists,Franco's Spain, a limited number of 
other European countries,Chile's Pinochet, possibly Argentina under 
Uruburu or the lieutenant //colonels//and the//desaparecidos, Brazil 
under Vargas facing depression conditions and capital flight, all those 
countries where there's some consensus as to the presence of this 
disease, every one had as common elements confronting working class 
militancy and gathering economic chaos.


In Nazi Germany, Hitler's regime was able to turn a failed Weimar 
social-democratic economy, with unprecedented inflation and double digit 
unemployment, around in one year. He did that by imposing Keynesian-type 
government spending, particularly on heavy industry and military 
hardware,while preventing spiraling inflation and wage rates by holding 
prices and wages down, by smashing dissidence, by imposing draconian 
discipline on the working class, by promising German recrudescence and 
lebensraum and the repudiation of Versailles, by inculcating 
antisemitism and the gypsy Roms as the despised other uniting jingoism, 
by moving through Europe and North Africa seizing needed resources and 
cheap labor. Mussolini, to an extent Franco, did likewise for the most part.


That's quite plainly not the case with Trump.

For the time being only, on the GDP front the ‘annualized’ rate of 
growth has been revised upward to 4.2%, the strongest rate on that 
measure since the middle of 2014***, ***and the official rate of 
employment is benign, all of which Trump can claim without any reason or 
connection as his doing.


But how is all this to be viewed as nascent fascism, when right wing 
policies, including authoritarian and neoliberal strategies, have less 
and less viability? None of the above has Trump got any purchase on. His 
right wing jingoist, racist, xenophobic policies will fail in the face 
of declining US competitiveness, transnational corporations exporting 
jobs (which will not return), capital and industrial production and many 
services to regions with cheaper labor, facing burgeoning 
automation/robotization/alternative intelligence and further loss of 
employment, and growing assertive independence elsewhere on the globe 
and alliances of convenience to alter the balance of power. In fact as, 
if I recall correctly Marx predicted, the historic trend is for 
equalization of wage rates globally, as the US productive sector 
atrophies, automation/artificial intelligence increases, and enterprise 
that is not locally based, including many services, moves offshore to 
take advantage of cheap labor, land, infrastructure and disciplinary 
factors, resource and production-factor advantages, as border 
restriction measures gradually are dispersed, and the US working class 
is left increasingly stranded and without organized resistance in a 
country with more workers than jobs.And most importantly, 
capital-induced/enhanced environmental chaos. The only recourse will 
have to be recognized as global organization and a changed system of 
production/survival. No "vicar's tea party," but as Engels said, when 
its time comes what revolution is?


As to the use of the term fascism to describe collaboration or close 
coordination between the corporation and the state, of what combination 
of corporation and state under capitalism anywhere can this not be said? 
It does describe forms of populist ultra-nationalism, racism and 
nationalism, racial superiority, inequality and xenophobia, all common 
to populist, authoritarian regimes, but in how many ways is it really 
consistent with historical fascism?


Moreover, the term "fascism" is inexact and has over time been used in 
ways that drain it of meaning. We remember that FDR and other populist 
US politicians advocating saving capitalism by government measures were 
widely and in facile fashion called fascist and authoritarian, serving 
the purposes of a significant, reactionary segment of capital. This has 
occurred in other contexts as well - even really-existing communist 
regimes, for example, pseudo-populists in South America, Peron in 
Argentina, many subordinate client states, or anything with a whiff of 
authoritarian rule or command economy. Huey Long, Father Coughlin, 
Senators Bilbo and McCarthy were called fascists.


However, the term neofascism might be more applicable elsewhere, in 
Europe especially and what is seen there as rising neofascism, but I 
wonder if that is so on close analysis, how their conditions differ or 
are similar to the 30s, and whether they arise today concomitantly with 
any 

Re: [Marxism] Amazon's antitrust activist

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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My comment on Facebook:

More liberal antitrust nonsense.
"She also said it “could make sense” to treat Amazon’s e-commerce operation
like a bridge, highway, port, power grid or telephone network — all of
which are required to allow access to their infrastructure on a
nondiscriminatory basis."
But those sectors show precisely why "better markets" are a diversion.

>
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] Grappling With the Racism of the DSA’s Founders

[Joaquin Bustelo via Marxism]

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On 9/7/2018 7:51 PM, Steven L. Robinson via Marxism wrote:


On the other hand, the legacy of Irving Howe - who is mentioned in the post 
that started this thread - is a real one, at least before the influx of new 
members. Even so,  whatever influence Howe's ideas - or those of Harrington, 
for that matter - might have on the 50,000 DSA members, would seem to be 
negligible.


I'm not sure "the legacy of Irving Howe" --the real one, whatever it may 
have been -- needs to be dealt with at all because, as you point out, 
90% of DSA's members have joined in the last two years and I doubt they 
have been influenced by the legacy of Irving Howe.


And although I, too, am a new member, I cannot claim political 
inexperience and especially not of currents and groups tangentially 
related to or descended from the Trotskyism in the United States.


Yet, when I saw the name of Irving Howe my reaction was: "Irving who? 
The guy who wrote World of our Fathers?"  So I'm not the one to judge him.


I had forgotten about him completely, and mind you, I remember covering 
some aspect of the change of the SP into SDUSA for the Militant because 
I was very proud of the headline, "Not socialist, not a party" and then 
talking to Peter Camejo about it and his idea to change our name to 
"Socialist Party" since it was now available (not sure he was totally 
serious about that, BTW, but he might have been --Camejo was like that).


So that was the first reason I didn't include him. The second reason is 
that the charges he lays against Howe are that he was a Zionist 
(perfectly true, I gather), that he was part of the cold-war 
anticommunist social democratic current years before DSA was founded, 
and that he never completely abandoned some of those views.


So? When the proof of the pudding is mainly Shanker's 1968 strike and 
something about Jack Newfield purging Cockburn from the Village Voice, 
it left me little to comment on, the Shanker thing having already been 
dealt with.


Also it is really hard to take up statements that seem so random. 
Consider this passage. After describing the 1968 conflict in New York 
and Shanker's reactionary role, he goes on:



*  *  *
“And so Shankerism, hammered out against a background of both middle 
class yearnings and ghetto rage,” writes Paul Buhle, “became the oddest 
possible American-style parody of ‘democratic socialism.’ The debates 
raged from New Politics and Dissent to the New York Times, with curious 
undertones which formal politics alone cannot fully encompass.”


In a 1984 essay by Howe titled “Reaganism: This Too Shall Pass” (could 
he have been more tone deaf?), we read “During the early 1960s, the 
country experienced a moment of good feeling. Sentiments of racial 
fraternity were in the air. By the late 1960s, blacks felt outraged. 
Searing conflicts broke out between black groups (a few committed to an 
extremism of imagery) and some of their allies of yesterday. The idea of 
‘going it alone’ took hold among black youth and intellectuals. 
Meanwhile, an ugly sentiment spread through white America.” Obviously 
playing in the background when those lines were composed were his 
memories of 1968.


Indeed, this is illustrative of the truly scandalous nature of DSA at 
its start. Rather than being beneficial as a counterforce to Reaganism 
and the Democratic embrace of neoliberal political economy, its founding 
leaders instead broke apart old community alliances that favored the 
Keynesian paradigm, such as between Blacks and Jews, which in turn 
created the opening for neoliberalism to go full-throttle with its 
pillage of the American welfare state.

*  *  *

 Let's unravel that if we can. The DSA's "truly scandalous nature ... 
at its start" in 1982 is proven  by the 1968 teacher's strike 14 years 
earlier led by someone who had nothing to do with the DSA, neither 
before it existed nor afterwards, and to boot was closely associated 
with a hostile political current. Howe's guilt, who in fact was in DSA, 
is shown by some very generic thing he wrote 16 years after the strike 
because "Obviously playing in the background when those lines were 
composed were his memories of 1968," which, given the context of this 
article, must have been about Oceanhill-Brownsville.


But I too, have memories of 1968.

That was the year of the Vietnamese Tet Offensive, the "clean for Gene" 
campaign and Johnson's surprising withdrawal from the presidential race 
as a result, Martin Luther King's assassination, the massive wave of 
Black urban rebellions that followed, the grape Boycott and César 
Chávez's fast, the SDS/SMC student strike against the war,  the Columbia 

[Marxism] Old Chomsky Video re: Lenin

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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Hi all,

I found this old video of Chomsky criticizing Lenin as an opportunist in
response to a criticism from a communist in his audience.

https://youtu.be/yQsceZ9skQI

Not knowing as much about the Russian Revolution, I was wondering if others
could clarify what it is that Chomsky is talking about, what the underlying
disagreement is, plus your own thoughts on why he is right or wrong. Thanks.
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[Marxism] China Is Detaining Muslims in Vast Numbers. The Goal: ‘Transformation.’

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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HOTAN, China — On the edge of a desert in far western China, an imposing
building sits behind a fence topped with barbed wire. Large red characters
on the facade urge people to learn Chinese, study law and acquire job
skills. Guards make clear that visitors are not welcome.

Inside, hundreds of ethnic Uighur Muslims spend their days in a
high-pressure indoctrination program, where they are forced to listen to
lectures, sing hymns praising the Chinese Communist Party and write
“self-criticism” essays, according to detainees who have been released.

The goal is to remove any devotion to Islam.

Abdusalam Muhemet, 41, said the police detained him for reciting a verse of
the Quran at a funeral. After two months in a nearby camp, he and more than
30 others were ordered to renounce their past lives. Mr. Muhemet said he
went along but quietly seethed.

“That was not a place for getting rid of extremism,” he recalled. “That was
a place that will breed vengeful feelings and erase Uighur identity.”

Though limited to China’s western region of Xinjiang, it is the country’s
most sweeping internment program since the Mao era — and the focus of a
growing chorus of international criticism.

China has sought for decades to restrict the practice of Islam and maintain
an iron grip in Xinjiang, a region almost as big as Alaska where more than
half the population of 24 million belongs to Muslim ethnic minority groups
.
Most are Uighurs, whose religion, language and culture, along with a
history of independence movements and resistance to Chinese rule, have long
unnerved Beijing.

After a succession of violent antigovernment attacks reached a peak in 2014
,
the Communist Party chief, Xi Jinping, sharply escalated the crackdown,
orchestrating an unforgiving drive to turn ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim
minorities into loyal citizens and supporters of the party.



https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/asia/china-uighur-muslim-detention-camp.html
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[Marxism] Amazon's antitrust activist

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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Amazon has more revenue than Facebook, Google and Twitter put together, but
it has largely escaped sustained examination. That is beginning to change,
and one significant reason is Ms. Khan.

Amazon has so much data on so many customers, it is so willing to forgo
profits, it is so aggressive and has so many advantages from its shipping
and warehouse infrastructure that it exerts an influence much broader than
its market share. It resembles the all-powerful railroads of the
Progressive Era, Ms. Khan wrote: “The thousands of retailers and
independent businesses that must ride Amazon’s rails to reach market are
increasingly dependent on their biggest competitor.”

Ida Tarbell, the journalist whose investigation of Standard Oil helped
bring about its breakup, wrote this about John D. Rockefeller
 in 1905:

“It takes time to crush men who are pursuing legitimate trade. But one of
Mr. Rockefeller’s most impressive characteristics is patience. … He was
like a general who, besieging a city surrounded by fortified hills, views
from a balloon the whole great field, and sees how, this point taken, that
must fall; this hill reached, that fort is commanded. And nothing was too
small: the corner grocery in Browntown, the humble refining still on Oil
Creek, the shortest private pipeline. Nothing, for little things grow.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/technology/monopoly-antitrust-lina-khan-amazon.html
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[Marxism] Is Russia Really “Fascist”? A Comment on Timothy Snyder | PONARS Eurasia

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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I think the author is trying to assert the general prerogatives of
academics to do the analyzing of fascism so there is an element of turf
battle, and not a small one, in Laruelle's critique.

It appears that she nails Snyder on the issue of over-promoting Ivan Ilyin
as the ideologue of Putin's fascism, as well as just plain catching him
lying on several occasions. But over-promoting one specific brand of
fascism does not in itself refute the general charge of fascism. I believe
the analysis put forward by whoever wrote Ravings of a Radical Vagabond
(not an academic platform, I can assure you) shows in great detail that
Putin is aligning with all manner of fascist-minded people, not excluding
people we used to regard as sort-of comrades. Of course this does not prima
facie make him a fascist.

There were innumerable different brands of fascism grouped together in the
Nazi party. Hitler famously refused to have any discussion of the NSDAP's
original 1923 program of 25 points, stating that a bad program was better
than a discussion of program. Behind that statement was the reality that
major currents in the NSDAP supported "left" elements of that program,
including the nationalization of industry, the suppression of interest on
loans, the absorption of the SA into the Reichswehr and other items about
which Hitler either did not give a shit or was totally opposed to. They
were allowed to co-exist because Hitler found them useful, as opposed to
politically correct. When no longer useful, such people and their
particular and peculiar takes on what fascism ought to look like were
simply exterminated, as happened in the Night of the Long Knives.

So, although she nails Snyder, I don't think she makes her case. I would
have to read a bunch of her stuff to figure out more about this. I may find
this site useful as I try to find critiques of Arendt. If anyone gets this
far in this piece and knows of such material, I would appreciate a citation.
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[Marxism] A witch hunt or a quest for justice: An insider’s perspective on disgraced academic Avital Ronell | Salon.com

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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One of the first tasks that must be undertaken soon after the triumph of 
socialism worldwide is the total restructuring of the academy so that 
idiots like Avitai Ronell can not assume power.


https://www.salon.com/2018/09/08/a-witch-hunt-or-a-quest-for-justice-an-insiders-perspective-on-disgraced-academic-avital-ronell/
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[Marxism] Satire and Subversion in Ishmael Reed’s “Conjugating Hindi” - Los Angeles Review of Books

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/satire-and-subversion-in-ishmael-reeds-conjugating-hindi/
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[Marxism] Freedom and the Irish | Current Affairs

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(Gerald Horne covers these distinctions in great depth in "The 
Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism")


There was a sharp social division between Montserrat’s predominately 
Irish laboring class and the English and Anglo-Irish planters who 
governed the island. Still more Irish arrived in Montserrat starting in 
1649, when the armies of Oliver Cromwell, then Lord Protector of 
England, defeated the rebelling Irish Catholic gentry, and the English 
government began deporting political prisoners to the Caribbean. Other 
Irish criminals and so-called “sturdy beggars” were transported to the 
island, too, as a penal measure. Unlike other Irish bonded laborers, who 
“voluntarily” sold their freedom for a period of years, these deportees 
were sent to the New World against their will. On arrival, the 
prisoners’ labor was purchased for a specific period of time, usually 
for 10 to 12 years. Though this term of indenture was long, it was, at 
the very least, finite. The same could not be said for the African 
chattel slaves who began to be imported around the same time. They had 
virtually no hope of earning or waiting out their freedom.


https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/freedom-and-the-irish
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[Marxism] Like frogs in a slowly boiling pot, Americans are finally realizing how dire their labor situation is

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-meyerson-labor-question-20180903-story.html
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[Marxism] bellingcat - The Battle of Idlib Opens with the Bombing of Medical and Rescue Facilities - bellingcat

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/09/09/battle-idlib-opens-bombing-medical-rescue-facilities/
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[Marxism] Rancière: ‘Post Democracy’, Populism, and Anti-Anti-Populism

[andrew coates via Marxism]

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Across the left Rancière is best known as a champion of the politics of the 
“principle of equality”, “the equality of anyone at all with anyone else”. 
This, the only universal in politics, is the perpetual up-setter of apple 
carts. Perhaps his most ambitious target is a vehicle that might be better 
called a juggernaut. This is “post-democracy”.

Pierre Rosanvallon has observed that he was one of the first to employ this 
term. “Post-democracy”(“post-démocratie”) has replaced the classical active 
‘subject’ and agent of politics, effaced before the technical regulation of 
society – in the interests of those who hold economic power. (La 
contre-démocratie. 2006). As Rancière has stated, “Post-democracy is the 
government practice and conceptual legitimisation of a democracy after the 
demos, a democracy that has eliminated the appearance, miscount, and dispute of 
the people and is thereby reducible to the sole interplay of state mechanisms 
and combinations of social energies and interests.”

https://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2018/09/09/ranciere-post-democracy-populism-and-anti-anti-populism-part-one/
[http://cdn.pearltrees.com/s/pic/th/ranciere-election-democratie-27770862]

Rancière: ‘Post Democracy’, Populism, and Anti-Anti-Populism (Part 
One).
‘Rancière: ‘Post Democracy’, Populism, and Anti-Anti-Populism. Part One. Maint 
fleur épanche à regret, Son parfum doux comme un secret, Dans les solitudes 
profoundes.” Many a flower regretfully Exh…
tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com

Andrew Coates.
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[Marxism] US Workers Are Striking Again | Eric Dirnbach | Jacobin

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/09/strikes-work-stoppages-united-states-bls


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[Marxism] Fiddling While Rome Burns and Venice Sinks: the Venice Film Festival | Dennis Broe | Culture Matters

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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http://www.culturematters.org.uk/index.php/arts/films/item/2882-fiddling-while-rome-burns-and-venice-sinks-the-venice-film-festival


Sent from my iPhone

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[Marxism] Rally in Solidarity with the Syrian People in Idlib

[RKOB via Marxism]

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https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/rally-in-support-for-idlib-8-9-2018/

--
Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT)
r...@thecommunists.net
www.thecommunists.net
Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314



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