Re: [Marxism] Revolutionary Rojava: An polyethnic, feminist and anti-capitalist experiment (Links)

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 10/26/18 7:57 PM, Chris Slee via Marxism wrote:



http://links.org.au/revolutionary-rojava-polyethnic-feminist-anti-capitalist-experiment



"Öcalan's new approach emphasises organising alternatives to each part 
of the state, run by the people, which will ultimately replace the 
existing state."


The "existing state" is based in Damascus, right? Sorry. I can't buy 
this. The Kurds have never shown the slightest interest in confronting 
Assad. Rojova is an enclave in a tyranny--more or less the equivalent of 
Mondragon in Franco's Spain. Live and let live.


Marxist parties are about revolutionary struggles against the capitalist 
state. Anarchists, in contrast, are about creating alternative 
institutions within capitalist society. It is a variant on utopian 
socialism. Nobody could ever fault Robert Owens or Charles Fourier for 
establishing utopian colonies that elevated the working class but Marx 
and Engels had different ideas.


For Lenin, state power was the goal. For Bookchin, like Negri and Hardt 
in "Empire", the state is a poisoned pill. If you take state power, you 
will succumb to authoritarianism. The whole idea of Bookchin's 
"Libertarian Municipalism" was to sidestep these temptations. He wrote:


	Thus, libertarian municipalism is not merely an effort simply to “take 
over” city councils to construct a more “environmentally friendly” city 
government. These adherents or opponents of libertarian municipalism, in 
effect, look at the civic structures that exist before their eyes now 
and essentially (all rhetoric to the contrary aside) take them as they 
exist. Libertarian municipalism, by contrast, is an effort to transform 
and democratize city governments, to root them in popular assemblies, to 
knit them together along confederal lines, to appropriate a regional 
economy along confederal and municipal lines.


In the USA, such tactics could certainly make a place like Putney, 
Vermont less oppressive but in Assad's Syria, they are largely 
irrelevant to the broader confrontation between the Syrian workers and 
peasantry trying to win state power in order to put an end to torture 
and oligarchic rule. What are those millions supposed to do? Wait to be 
liberated by the YPG?


I can understand why non-Marxist radicals would see Rojova as the wave 
of the future. What is the Socialist Alliance's excuse?


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[Marxism] Veteran IRA activist's letter on the road from civil rights to armed struggle

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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I was a 17-year-old in 1969 living in the St James’s area off the Falls
Road. My interests were sport, the Beatles and girls. I was serving an
apprenticeship in an engineering firm where I had many Protestant friends.
In later years some of my friends were to become members of the RUC, UDR
and Prison Service. The Duke Street march was a catalyst which sent me on a
quick learning curve and the media was portraying the awakening of a
people’s revolution throughout the world. As a 17-year-old this excited me
and I wanted a part in this revolution, a part that would see me spend
nearly 22 years in jail.

I attended marches, rallies and protests but they were almost all attacked
by the RUC, B-Specials or unionist mobs. We were beaten, battered and burnt
out of our homes and then shot off our streets. . .

Full at:
https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/bernard-fox-letter-on-the-road-to-armed-struggle/
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[Marxism] Revolutionary Rojava: An polyethnic, feminist and anti-capitalist experiment (Links)

[Chris Slee via Marxism]

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http://links.org.au/revolutionary-rojava-polyethnic-feminist-anti-capitalist-experiment

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[Marxism] Fw: New post published Interview with Ali Adubisi, Director of the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights,

[Chris Slee via Marxism]

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From: Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists 
Sent: Wednesday, 24 October 2018 9:23 PM


Hello ,

We have published new blog in our website. Interview with Ali Adubisi, Director 
of the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights,
Below is an interview with Ali Adubisi, Director of the European Saudi 
Organization for Human Rights,  which is  currently working on defending  Israa 
al-Ghomgham.  Al-Ghomgham has been in pretrial detention in Saudi Arabia for 
the past three years and might be sentenced to death for her peaceful activism. 
  Her next …
You may view the latest post at 
https://www.allianceofmesocialists.org/interview-with-ali-adubisi-director-of-the-european-saudi-organization-for-human-rights/
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are 
posted.

Thanks & Regards
Admin


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[Marxism] Cesar Sayoc’s Home Was Foreclosed On By Steve Mnuchin’s Bank, Using Dodgy Paperwork

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://theintercept.com/2018/10/26/cesar-sayoc-foreclosure-steven-mnuchin/
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[Marxism] Could Trump Bring Down the American Empire?

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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A Cuban professor at the Higher Institute of International Relations in 
Havana endorses Gareth Porter's article claiming that Trump is a genuine 
peace president. The translation was by Walter Lippmann, the ex-SWPer 
who traded in his cult devotion to the SWP leadership for one devoted to 
the Cuban leadership. If this is the thinking in Cuba's political elite, 
they are sorely out of touch.


https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/26/could-trump-bring-down-the-american-empire/
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[Marxism] The Bread Factory; Monrovia, Indiana | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Under consideration are two distinctly uncommercial films that will 
appeal to those with unconventional tastes, i.e., the sort of people who 
read this blog on a regular basis.


“The Bread Factory” is a two-part narrative film that opened today at 
the Village East Cinema. This means that you are in for a four-hour 
drama about the struggle of a couple of elderly lesbians to keep a 
performance space specializing in classical fare such as Euripides’s 
“Hecuba” going in a fictional town called Checkford. For decades they 
have routinely received funding from the school board that viewed the 
Bread Factory (named after the factory that was converted into a warren 
of theaters and workshops) because it allowed schoolchildren to learn 
how to make films, act, write poetry, etc. in the evenings and weekends.


Now 88, Frederick Wiseman has just made his 47th film, a documentary 
titled “Monrovia, Indiana” that like every other is in his patented 
cinéma vérité style. Opening today at the Film Forum in New York, it is 
a profile of the people living in a small, farming town that would seem 
to fit the Red State profile. In 2008, Barack Obama spoke of such 
people. “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to 
people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade 
sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”


full: 
https://louisproyect.org/2018/10/26/the-bread-factory-monrovia-indiana/

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[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [Jhistory]: Walls on Rivero, 'Broadcasting Modernity: Cuban Commercial Television, 1950-1960'

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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-- Forwarded message -
From: H-Net Staff 
Date: Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 3:07 PM
Subject: H-Net Review [Jhistory]: Walls on Rivero, 'Broadcasting Modernity:
Cuban Commercial Television, 1950-1960'
To: 


Yeidy M. Rivero.  Broadcasting Modernity: Cuban Commercial
Television, 1950-1960.  Console-ing Passions: Television and Cultural
Power Series. Durham  Duke University Press, 2015.  264 pp.  $25.95
(paper), ISBN 978-0-8223-5871-8; $94.95 (cloth), ISBN
978-0-8223-5859-6.

Reviewed by Eric Walls (East Carolina University)
Published on Jhistory (October, 2018)
Commissioned by Robert A. Rabe

Walls on Rivero, _Broadcasting Modernity_

It is without question that the advent of television in the
mid-twentieth century drastically altered the sociocultural fabric of
Western societies where the technology first proliferated. The
utility of television as a tool for constructing new ideas about
social and political issues and creating new national identities that
could unite disparate social groups under a single banner was not
lost on the entrepreneurs who first invested in the fledging industry
or on governments that regulated its access. Sure, entertainment may
have been the primary purpose of television for its growing legions
of viewers in the first few decades of its existence, but for those
in positions of power this purpose was secondary to television's
usefulness as an arbiter of social consciousness and the
dissemination of propaganda. In _Broadcasting Modernity: Cuban
Commercial Television, 1950-1960_, television historian and
University of Michigan professor Yeidy M. Rivero examines this
phenomenon as it manifested in Cuba in the decade of television's
rise to prominence. Rivero broadcasts her thesis in the title of the
book, as she argues consistently throughout that Cuban television's
primary purpose in Cuban society of the 1950s was to foster the
concept, both internally and abroad, that Cuba was a modern and
progressive nation a step above most of its Latin American neighbors
and on par with the rest of the Western world.

At the dawn of the 1950s, Cuba was perhaps the most "modern" Latin
American nation, thanks in no small part to its close economic and
political ties to the United States. North American businessmen
provided much of the capital for Cuban business and industry and the
island served as the tropical playground for the rich and famous. The
elites and the rising middle class in Cuba were immensely proud of
Cuba's progress, especially after the passage of the very progressive
constitution of 1940, which mandated such forward-thinking policies
as public education and a minimum wage. Yet, this façade of
modernity belied a deep undercurrent of poverty and exploitation,
especially in the rural areas of the island, which prevented most of
its citizens from fully participating in modernity, a fact that was
discomfiting to many of the middle and upper classes in Cuban
society. Rivero argues that to prevent this discomfiture from
becoming discontent, and to ensure continued support for the status
quo, the Cuban government, first through legislation and eventually
by more direct intervention, manipulated the medium to maintain a
constant vision of Cuba as a beacon of progress and as a shining
example to the rest of Latin America of a "modern" nation. Every
image and sound broadcast over the airwaves had to, in one shape or
fashion, portray this message. Those that failed to do so were
eventually culled or adjusted until they did.

Rivero develops some very interesting theories that supply a
framework for the process by which the vision of modernity was
broadcast through Cuban television and internalized by the Cuban
public. She develops four interconnected paradigms that are centered
on the concept of the "spectacle." These are dubbed "Spectacles of
Progress," "Spectacles of Decency," "Spectacles of Democracy," and
"Spectacles of Revolution." Her concept of the "spectacle" is loosely
derived from the work of the French Marxist philosopher Guy Debord as
outlined in his treatise, _The Society of the Spectacle _(1967).
Debord posits that a "spectacle" is "not a collection of images, but
a social relation among people, mediated by images" (quoted, p. 7).
Its power "resides in its representation and its capacity to convey
positive outcomes for citizens and society at large" (p. 7). It was
precisely the conveyance of positive outcomes, in the present and the
future that became the penultimate goal of television broadcasting in
Cuba, no matter to what degree the representations of outcomes
differed from the reality for most Cubans. As much as television
helped to shape what came 

[Marxism] There’s a Black Man in the Children’s Area’ and Other Baseless Accusations

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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‘There’s a Black Man in the Children’s Area’ and Other Baseless Accusations
Readers share stories of themselves or friends and relatives deemed suspicious 
for simply walking around in their own skin.
By Rachel L. Harris and Lisa Tarchak, October 24, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/opinion/white-fear-black-crime.html

In “To the Next ‘BBQ Becky’: Don’t Call 911. Call 1-844-WYT-FEAR 
,”
 Niecy Nash, the actress and comedian, uses a satirical infomercial to call 
attention to society’s “fear of the other,” specifically when white people call 
the police on black people who are just going about their business. 

Readers responded with stories of when they or someone they knew had been 
unfairly targeted. Some challenged their accusers, others laughed them off. The 
exhaustion of constantly being watched was weighing on one reader, Kim 
, who wrote that while she laughed at 
the video, “the truth is, this stuff is not funny.” 

The infomercial may be fake, but our hotline is real and open to calls. Tell us 
your story by leaving a message at 1-844-WYT-FEAR or by emailing a video 
message to 844wytf...@nytimes.com .

‘There’s a black man in the children’s area.’

I am a librarian and a white woman. A few years ago, I was working at the 
reference desk at a library in a suburb of Salt Lake City when an older white 
woman came to me and whispered, “There’s a black man in the children’s area.” I 
looked at her with concern and replied, “What exactly would you like me to do 
with that information, ma’am?” “Well,” she sniffed, “I just thought you should 
know.” I replied, “I do know. That is Mr. —, he is our neighbor and brings his 
children to story time every week.”

I confess that I laughed and added, “I’ll be sure to inform him of your 
concern.” She blanched, scowled at me and scurried away. I smiled and waved, 
thinking, “This is the 21st century and this is a public building, you 
miserable old biddy.” — MS, Orlando 
‘How can I rob this place in a blizzard, wearing socks?’

I went to a famous medical school that I prefer not to name. I was studying in 
a conference room at midnight during a blizzard, wearing a baseball cap 
backward, a T-shirt and socks. Police officers approached me with reports that 
I was robbing the medical school and were in the process of handcuffing me when 
I said, "How can I rob this place in a blizzard, wearing socks?" 


They asked for proof that I was a medical student (a bunch of medical books 
wasn't enough). The problem was, we didn’t have student IDs. This was the fifth 
time I was harassed by police within six months. Soon after, the school issued 
IDs so that kids of color could prove that we belonged.

Twenty years have gone by and I'm routinely confused for the janitor, despite 
the fact that I am the medical director and chairman for 100-plus doctors. But 
at least nobody calls the police anymore. — JRMW, Minneapolis 


‘You should have seen her face when I said they were with me.’

I’m white, but I’ll never forget the time my son and his black friend — they 
were both about 8 or 9 at the time — went to an art store in Noe Valley, San 
Francisco, to get some markers. They came home empty-handed and told the same 
story: A salesperson in the store followed my son’s friend around and then told 
him to get out.

I brought them back to the store and sent them in first. Then I casually walked 
in, not acknowledging them, and pretended to shop. Immediately, the salesperson 
started following my son’s friend. You should have seen her face when I said 
they were with me.

The horror of this racism is that it starts when children are so young. It’s 
insidious and thoroughly rooted in our society. The amount of hurt it causes is 
incalculable and it has to stop. — Bonnie Weinstein, San Francisco 

‘There was a big difference between my white son walking to the store and her 
black son walking the same route.’

I’m an older white woman who shares a home with a black woman and her two sons. 
One evening, her oldest son, who is 18, wanted to walk up to the convenience 
store at the front of our neighborhood. She would not let him. She insisted 
that she drive him there. I gave her a bit of a hard time about babying her 
18-year-old, telling her that my son used to make that walk all the time when 
he was younger and that it was perfectly safe. 

A week or two later there was an 

[Marxism] Who is Cesar Altieri Sayoc?

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Washington Post, Oct. 26, 2018
Who is Cesar Altieri Sayoc? What we know about the suspected mail bomber 
arrested in Florida.

By Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Matt Zapotosky, Mark Berman and Annie Gowen

Next to the pro-Trump stickers plastered all over the white van 
authorities believe belongs to Cesar Sayoc are the names and photos of 
dozens of prominent Democrats and media figures — former secretary of 
state Hillary Clinton, former first lady Michelle Obama, former 
attorneys general Eric Holder and Loretta E. Lynch and filmmaker Michael 
Moore. There’s also a sticker declaring: “CNN Sucks.”


Authorities on Friday arrested Sayoc and identified him as a suspect in 
the sprawling mail-bomb scare that included at least a dozen suspicious 
packages sent to political and media figures, including many pictured on 
the van. Sayoc has been charged with five federal crimes, including 
transportation of explosives and threats against former presidents, and 
faces up to 58 years in prison if convicted, according to Attorney 
General Jeff Sessions.


Sayoc, a 56-year-old registered Republican, lives in Aventura, Fla., 
near the facility from where many of the packages were mailed, 
authorities said. In a criminal complaint, authorities said they lifted 
a fingerprint that matched Sayoc from the device sent to Maxine Waters 
and matched a DNA sample to Sayoc from two of the devices.


Sayoc, who was previously known to law enforcement officials, has been 
arrested nearly a dozen times in Florida, including a 2002 arrest for 
making a bomb threat. His criminal record in the state extends to the 
early 1990s, starting with his arrest for larceny at the age of 29, 
according to state records. Other charges of larceny, grand theft and 
fraud would soon follow across the southern part of the state.


In the 2002 bomb threat case, Sayoc pleaded guilty to the felony without 
a trial and was sentenced to probation, the records show.


According to Miami-Dade County jail booking records, Sayoc called 
Florida Power and Light and threatened to blow up the local electric 
utility. Sayoc said “it would be worse than Sept. 11″ and also 
threatened something would happen to the FPL representative he was 
talking to if the utility cut his electricity.


Debra Gureghian, the general manager of New River Pizza and Fresh 
Kitchen in Fort Lauderdale, said that Sayoc worked as a delivery truck 
driver for several months until he quit in January.


“He was crazed, that’s the best word for him,” she said. “There was 
something really off with him.”


The white van he drove to deliver pizzas was covered in disturbing 
images, she said, so the restaurant required him to park it on the side 
where it could not be seen.


“It was puppets with their heads cut off, mannequins with their heads 
cut off, Ku Klux Klan, a black person being hung, anti-gay symbols, 
torchings, bombings you name it, it was all over his truck,” Gureghian said.


He was kept on because he did his work reliably and good drivers are 
hard to find, she said. But he disturbed his co-workers with racist 
comments and texts.


“He was very angry and angry at the world, at blacks, Jews, gays,” she 
said. “He always talked about ‘if I had complete autonomy none of these 
gays or these blacks would survive.’ He never said he would kill them or 
murder them or bomb them he just said ‘if I had complete autonomy the 
gays, the black and Jews would not survive.’ He was very, very strange.”


A lawsuit in which Sayoc was deposed said he had been a manager at a 
strip club called Stir Crazy for 35 years. In that same deposition, 
Sayoc claimed he was also a pro wrestler, a Chippendales dancer, a 
professional soccer player in Milan, and an arena football player in 
Arizona.


Relatives of Sayoc could not be immediately reached for comment Friday. 
An attorney who had previously represented Sayoc declined through his 
law office to speak Friday, saying: “We know why you’re calling, and we 
have no comment.”


Daniel Aaronson, an attorney who has represented Sayoc over the years, 
said none of his clients were “as polite and as courteous and as 
respectful to me” as Sayoc was. He said Sayoc never discussed his 
political views; if he had, it might have sparked a dispute.


“In fact, I am a Democrat,” Aaronson told The Post. “I am very proud of 
some of the people that were targeted . . . so, if he had said anything 
along those lines, I certainly would have noted it, because we would 
have gotten into a political discussion.”


In one case, Aaronson said, Sayoc was charged with grand theft for 
taking a suit from a department store. In another, he said, Sayoc was 

Re: [Marxism] Cesar Sayoc, pipe bomb suspect, arrested: what we know - Vox

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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As an fyi, Sayoc also started a Facebook site "Kill all socialists."  Nice
that we're being thought about.

Also, the images he put on the side of his van included not only Democratic
politicians and people associated with the Democratic Party (as seen
through a rifle scope) but Jill Stein.

ML
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[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [Jhistory]: Patrick on Knobel, 'The Watchdog Still Barks: How Accountability Reporting Evolved for the Digital Age'

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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-- Forwarded message -
From: H-Net Staff 
Date: Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 3:08 PM
Subject: H-Net Review [Jhistory]: Patrick on Knobel, 'The Watchdog Still
Barks: How Accountability Reporting Evolved for the Digital Age'
To: 


Beth Knobel.  The Watchdog Still Barks: How Accountability Reporting
Evolved for the Digital Age.  Donald McGannon Communication Research
Center's Everett C. Parker Book Series. New York  Fordham University
Press, 2018.  vii + 149 pp.  $25.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8232-7934-0.

Reviewed by Justin Patrick (University of Toronto)
Published on Jhistory (October, 2018)
Commissioned by Robert A. Rabe

Beth Knobel's The Watchdog Still Barks: How Accountability Reporting
Evolved for the Digital Age is a paradigm-shifting piece of
qualitative research with potential to challenge the commonly held
belief that the accountability reporting on governments and
nongovernmental entities in the United States is not dying out in the
digital age, or at the very least, is not going down without a fight.
Knobel and her research team examined 5,571 front-page articles from
nine US newspapers, including three large national papers, four
medium-sized metropolitan dailies, and two local papers, in order to
identify the percentage of accountability reporting stories in the
month of April in 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011. The
accountability stories are further divided into deep accountability
reporting that required substantial investigative methods and simple
enterprise pieces, which, while tackling the same types of issues,
are more surface level. The book is broken into three main sections
for each of the three above newspaper categories plus an introduction
and conclusion containing additional analysis. Knobel's findings
ultimately conclude that for most of the newspapers studied, the
proportion of accountability reporting stories on front pages during
the sample period increased, suggesting that newspapers are investing
more resources into investigative pieces that cater more to their
distinct audiences. The study not only has significant implications
for perceptions of American journalism in the digital age but also
provokes thought on necessary methodological changes for the study of
journalism given recent technological advancements.

The three large papers Knobel chose, the _New York Times_, the
_Washington Post_, and the _Wall Street Journal_, all indicated
significant increases in the proportion of accountability reporting
stories on the front pages between 1991 and 2011; both the number and
proportion of deep accountability pieces for the three papers in
total increased from five (0.87 percent) in 1991 to twenty-three
(5.16 percent) in 2011 (pp. 24-25). The medium-sized papers, the
_Atlanta Journal-Constitution_, the _Minneapolis Star Tribune_, _The
Denver Post_, and the _Albany Times Union_, also increased their
proportions of accountability pieces with the exception of the Albany
paper, though most were faced with staff cuts and lower overall story
outputs, which leads Knobel to assert that to cope with financial
strain, the papers are focusing on creating original investigative
pieces as opposed to simply breaking news in order to stand out from
their competition. The financial strain was most evident in the small
newspapers, the _Bradenton Herald _and the _Lewiston Tribune_, with
the proportion of accountability reporting for each peaking in 1996
and 2001 respectively and demonstrating notable decreases thereafter,
though the 2011 percentages for both were still marginally higher
than those in 1991. Neither of the small papers were able to do much
in terms of deep accountability reporting, as the _Bradenton Herald
_increased from a single deep-reporting piece in April 1991 to two in
April 2011 while the _Lewiston Tribune_ was unable to create a single
deep-reporting piece for the length of the study period. Knobel
maintains that her interviews with current and former editors of the
nine newspapers reinforce her assertion that the commitment to
accountability reporting has become an increasing priority since 1991
and suggests that American newspapers need to keep increasing their
accountability journalism commitments in both quantity and quality to
remain successful given declines in overall readership.

The study obviously has a number of limitations, most of which Knobel
is cognizant of. Time and resource constraints prevented 2016 stories
from being included, which would have provided additional insight
into the effects of social media and the 2016 US presidential
election. Given the qualitative nature of the research that required
a thorough examination of 

[Marxism] Tommy Robinson invited to address US Congress members in Washington by Republican supporters | The Independent

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Two Zionist groups push to get fascist Tommy Robinson to speak in Congress.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tommy-robinson-jail-free-congress-us-republican-event-trump-visa-washington-speech-gosar-a8601866.html
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[Marxism] Cesar Sayoc, pipe bomb suspect, arrested: what we know - Vox

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/26/18027244/cesar-sayoc-arrest-bomb
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Re: [Marxism] Marxism Digest, Vol 180, Issue 38

[hari kumar via Marxism]

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 [Marxism] The-Opportunity-Costs-of-Socialism.pdf [not
sent]

Regarding the health care systems - and whether interim solutions short of
a fully communist health care systems are of any benefit to the working
class:
I have now worked in 4 health care systems as an academic intensive care
physician for children.  Having basically been left jobless as Thatcher cut
the NHS dramatically, I was forced to travel unless I went private.
In my own working life, I have no doubt that a capitalist system sponsored
'socialised' health care is infinitely superior. I do not think any one
working in the health care services, with any dual experience of a national
insurance plan (e.g. UK; Canada; much of Europe) versus a fully privatised
system (USA), could doubt that the first is superior - for the working
class.
1) Objective data; on adult mortality; on infant mortality; there can be no
doubt that despite the reformist aspects of the health care systems in the
former - confirms this. Myriads of data has supported this, much of it
adduced by PNHP and in the USA, Woolhandler and Himmelstein; and in Canada
by Guyatt.
2) No doubt that especially on issues of public health-prevention (Perhaps
for us, most importantly initially championed by Engels, then the great
physician Rudolph Virchow; and then by for , e.g., Henry Sigerist and of
course many, many others since), the capitalist health care systems
generally do not pay attention to this.
3) Nonetheless, capitalist systems have varied in their penetration of
prevention. For e.g. the Scandinavian systems, even now, with their
increasing concerns with cut-backs, have good (excellent) he alt care
preventive strategies for prematurity, for maternal benefits,
peri-pregnancy leaves etc.
4) The primary reasons for capitalist systems to introduce the health care
systems in general were, partly identified by Engels in his path-breaking
"Condition of the WC etc".  Namely (i) the scourges of contagion do not
restrict themselves to the workers alone, but - being infectious - 'travel'
- and thereby affect the ruling class also. Hence - the bourgeoisie
protects itself by reforms. Such as Jeremy Chadwick's immense sanitation
works in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. (ii) To enable a health
working class gun-fodder - witness the improvements post Boer War (iii) To
defang revolutionary ferment (iv) Finally, a heath work force by and large
increases dividends to an industrially inclined bourgeoisie (of less
importance as far as I can see to the financial capitalist sections). So -
objectively - many of the more far-sighted capitalist classes have accepted
that a decent helot care system overall - benefits they themselves.

I guess the point of this post is to just simply agree with Meeropol - that
it is worth protecting a 'socialised' system, and attempts to move towards
that. Albeit they are 'reformist'.  A single payer system is undoubtedly
better than otherwise, as it does reduce at least a couple of non-rational
drivers: The insurers and physicians tendency to bill for profit; and it
also potentially enables reducing drug expenditure.
Hari Kumar
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[Marxism] Michael Roberts on stock market volatility

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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Michael Roberts, foremost Marxist economist, on the stock market volatility.
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/correction/

A couple of things to point out:

1) As Roberts says, Trump's tax cuts did help increase the economic
expansion. The cuts helped raise profits, which did moderately stimulate
economic growth. Even though it's true that most of the money saved went to
stock buy-backs and things like that, some of it did go into the real
economy.
2) The (slow) increase in wages is, in fact, tending to destabilize the
economy. That's because increased wages cut into profits, which causes the
capitalists to be less willing to invest.
3) What all of this means is that for the economy to grow, workers have to
suffer.

John Reimann
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[Marxism] The Octopus | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Recently I had the opportunity to watch season one and two of “The 
Octopus” (La Piovra, another term for the mafia, just like Cosa Nostra), 
an Italian TV series that ran from 1984 to 2001. All ten seasons of this 
outstanding drama about one cop’s determination to take on and destroy 
the Sicilian mafia can be seen on MHz Choice, a VOD website devoted to 
European film and television and mostly focused on what the French call 
policiers and well worth the $7.99 monthly subscription fee. If after 
having seen my CounterPunch article about Swedish, Marxist-oriented 
detective series on Netflix, and moreover have appreciated such fare, 
you’ll be motivated to subscribe to MHz Choice since it has a sizable 
offering of Scandinavian crime fiction. For my money, literally 
speaking, this is the only genre on Netflix that is worth my while in 
recent years and if your tastes are similar to mine, MHz Choice is well 
worth the price of a subscription.


Having seen at least a half-dozen Italian films about the Sicilian mafia 
over the years, both narrative and documentary, the main takeaway is 
that the Italians would never dream of making the sort of films that 
established the reputations of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. 
Scorsese tends to portray his characters as morally deficient but even 
with the worst of them, like Joe Pesci’s Tommy De Vito in “Goodfellas”, 
you are likely to find them demonstrating a raffish charm. As for “The 
Godfather”, it depicts the Corleone family as the good guys sustaining 
the “honor” of a virtual benevolent society against the bad gangsters, 
no matter that no such family ever existed. The “Sopranos” on HBO was 
obviously made in the same spirit and helped to convey the impression 
that with their malapropisms, Tony’s gang was just a modern version of 
Shakespeare’s clowns but with a violent streak.


full: https://louisproyect.org/2018/10/26/the-octopus/
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[Marxism] University Backed by George Soros Prepares to Leave Budapest Under Duress

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Oct. 26, 2018
University Backed by George Soros Prepares to Leave Budapest Under Duress
By Benjamin Novak and Marc Santora

BUDAPEST — In 1989, as the Soviet Union crumbled and countries across 
Eastern and Central Europe emerged from decades of political oppression, 
a group of intellectuals led by the Hungarian-born philanthropist George 
Soros proposed a university that would help in the transition to 
democracy from dictatorship.


Two years later, Central European University was founded in Prague, 
dedicated to educating a new generation on the foundations of a free 
society, including a respect for the rule of law and universal human 
rights. In 1993, it moved to Budapest.


Now, as Hungary drifts toward authoritarian rule under Prime Minister 
Viktor Orban, the university says it is being forced to close its 
Budapest campus, portraying itself as a victim of Mr. Orban’s efforts to 
vilify Mr. Soros and to stifle dissent and academic freedom.


On Thursday, university officials said they would stop admitting new 
students in Budapest after failing to resolve a dispute with the 
government over a new law that appeared to require it to open a branch 
in the United States. Central European University is accredited in 
Hungary and the United States.


“For 18 months, we have defended our right to remain as a U.S. 
degree-granting institution in Budapest, but we are unable to secure the 
guarantees we need from the Hungarian government to preserve our 
academic freedom,” the university’s president, Michael Ignatieff, said 
at a news conference in the Hungarian capital. Mr. Ignatieff said that 
the university’s central operations would be moved to Vienna.


“This is our home,” Mr. Ignatieff said, adding that the university hoped 
to reach a last-minute deal that would allow it to stay in Budapest. “If 
the government thinks they can get rid of C.E.U., they’ve got another 
thing coming.”


Mr. Orban has long used Mr. Soros as a foil, rife with anti-Semitic 
tropes, casting him as the leader of a nefarious global cabal, 
determined to undermine Hungary’s Christian values and allow Muslim 
immigrants to overrun the country.


Mr. Orban has been the chief architect behind a campaign of 
misrepresentations and falsehoods aimed at Mr. Soros, even photoshopping 
him into campaign posters with opposition candidates during the 
country’s elections this past spring.


The attacks on Mr. Soros took a more dangerous turn this week in the 
United States, when someone sent an explosive device to his home in New 
York, one of at least eight such bombs sent to people frequently 
denounced by President Trump.


Mr. Soros, a Jew who survived the Nazi occupation of Budapest during 
World War II, has dedicated a large part of the fortune he made in the 
financial markets to promoting democracies around the world, much of it 
through the work of his Open Society Foundations.


At the same time, however, the country of his birth has been moving away 
from the values he spent a lifetime championing.


In May, the Hungarian branch of his foundation was forced to shutter its 
doors, citing the “increasingly repressive political and legal environment.”


Still, university officials pressed on, hopeful that they could come to 
a solution that would allow the school to stay open.


The university established educational programs with Bard College in New 
York in an attempt to comply with the new law requiring a presence in 
the United States.


“Hungarian authorities inspected these programs and the New York State 
Board of Education confirmed to the Hungarian authorities that C.E.U. 
was in compliance with the agreement by offering educational activity in 
the State of New York,” the university said in a statement.


“Nevertheless, the Hungarian authorities have indicated that they would 
not sign the New York State agreement,” the statement added. “All 
attempts to find a solution that would enable C.E.U. to remain as a U.S. 
degree-granting institution in Budapest have failed.”


The United States’ ambassador to Hungary, David B. Cornstein, issued a 
statement saying that the university “remains a priority for the U.S. 
Government” and that he would continue to work to try and find a solution.


Central European University is considered one of the leading 
institutions in the region, with a faculty made up of top scholars from 
around the world and some of Europe’s leading politicians.


Mr. Orban himself received a grant in the late 1980s from the Soros 
Foundations to study grass-roots democracy and the importance of a 
vibrant civil society in a free society.


He has moved a long way from the 

[Marxism] Fwd: William Blum

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(I'm obviously not a William Blum fan but am posting this in the spirit 
of solidarity.)


William Blum and the Anti-Empire Report


*From:* William Blum 
*Sent:* Thursday, October 25, 2018 9:19 PM
*To:* gsel...@att.net 
*Subject:* William Blum and the Anti-Empire Report

I'm writing to you in place of William Blum.

I'm his friend, his ex-wife, and the mother of his son, who lives in 
Germany.


He will not be able to write his Anti-Empire Report 
.


He had a very bad fall in his apartment. There he lay for many hours, 
maybe up to two days, unable to move, until a friend found him.


He was taken to the ICU. He is no longer in critical condition, but he 
is still confused, extremely weak, and can't move his right arm.


He has been in the hospital for more than two weeks now, and it is 
impossible to say how much longer he has to stay there, and he will 
certainly need long-term care.


As you may guess, he does not have the best of insurances. Which means: 
he needs your help!


If you wish, you can donate to Bill using the button below:

DONATE 
 




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Re: [Marxism] Understanding the Rise of the Radical Right - The Bullet

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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Agreed it was long -- but the key is that the analysis is based on hard
work of door to door canvassing and LISTENING --- something we on the left
often don't do 

I found the last paragraphs the most useful can skip (or skim) a lot in
the middle!

It also is more relevant to Europe where there is a well organized left --
In the US we are stuck with either splendid (=pure) isolationism or being a
"progressive wing" of the Democratic Party --- (neither of which is a
source of power)




> Seems rather prolix but I'll let comrades decide.
>
>
> https://socialistproject.ca/2018/10/understanding-the-rise-of-the-radical-right/
> _
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] Correction? | Michael Roberts Blog

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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But remember the old joke:  "The stock market has successfully predicted
seven of the last five recessions!"

On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 7:58 PM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

> *
>
> The US stock market turned volatile this week and has now erased all the
> gains made up to now in 2018 in just a week or so.  So much for Trump’s
> boast that things for rich investors have never been better.  The fall
> in the US market has been matched by similar drops in the European and
> Asian stock markets.  The all-world index has had its worst performance
> since the Euro debt crisis of 2012.
>
>
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[Marxism] This is Serious, Help Keep CounterPunch a Corporate-Free Zone

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/26/this-is-serious-help-us-keep-counterpunch-a-corporate-free-zone/
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[Marxism] When is it time for revolutionary politics in the imperialist world?

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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Don Franks’ critique of Mana’s anti-poverty campaign touched on the
contradiction between what seasoned activists in Mana know and what they
put forward in practice.  Don noted, “But MANA’s veteran activists
understand the basic nature of capitalism. Why do they wilfully
misrepresent it?”

This is at the very heart of far-left involvement in Mana/Internet Mana.
Sections of the far left continually make out that radical-reformist
politics are better than revolutionary politics most of the time in
practice.  So when are revolutionary politics to be argued and fought for,
and put before workers?  Apparently, not today.  Maybe tomorrow?  But then
tomorrow becomes today, and so, once again, the time is not right for
advancing revolutionary politics.

This self-limiting stance taken by the left groups involved in
Mana/Internet Mana – although at least ISO is engaged in some reconsidering
and useful open debate – means, in effect, that the time is never right for
advancing revolutionary politics.

Instead the far left groups, despite the subjective intentions of their
more radical members, play the role of gate-keeper, helping inhibit the
field of political discussion.  The way forward is not through discussion
and action around the expropriation of the capitalist class, but around
what tax rates should be and how state capitalist enterprise is supposedly
better than a mixed private-state ownership model. . .

full at:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/when-is-it-time-for-revolutionary-politics/
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