[Marxism] SDC: New stage in Syria after defeat of ISIS (Kurdistan 24)

[Chris Slee via Marxism]

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https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/9e865473-52da-4254-959a-630df5019590



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Re: [Marxism] Bernie Sanders Is in Trouble - POLITICO Magazine - Actually We Are in trouble

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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"It is about organizing our class around all their struggles, including
basic things like unions."

Oh, the AFL-CIO isn't mouth-on-tit with the Dems? News to me!

I agree a presidential campaign must be merely a catalyst for a larger
organizational project that is about a wider social movement. Norman Thomas
made this point in an interview:



But to suggest a struggle for basic needs is synonymous with organizing
institutions beholden to the duopoly is ridiculous. If anything it needs to
build a project that is directly oppositional to the auxiliaries of the
duopoly, meaning caucuses of the Democrats such as the AFL-CIO's political
endorsement process. Unions in America furthermore have not been about
radical solidarity since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act,
instead they have been about increasing worker purchase power as a
component of the free market capitalist system, something Reuther described
in detail in 1958 . So spare me the
revolutionary pap about a reformist project.

And again, I repeat, who exactly ARE you organizing?

-- 
Best regards,

Andrew Stewart

Message: 2
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2019 11:18:41 -0700
From: DW 
To: Andrew Stewart via Marxism 
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Bernie Sanders Is in Trouble - POLITICO
Magazine - Actually We Are in trouble
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

Andrew, it's not about organizing actively for a political candidate at
all...that is crass electoralism that really has little to do with radical
oganizing at all, IMHO. It is about organizing our class around all their
struggles, including basic things like unions. That the center of this
should be elections is really pointing people in the wrong direction. I'm
all for having an electoral component of any organizing campaign, but the
former should be in support of the latter.

David Walters

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[Marxism] European Parliament’s anti-communist resolution draws widespread criticism

[Richard Modiano via Marxism]

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A number of communist parties, as well as progressive sections in Europe,
have condemned a controversial resolution passed by the European Parliament
on September 19. The resolution was tabled by the center-right European
People’s Party group (EPP Group). While emphasizing the importance of
“remembrance” for the future of Europe, the resolution goes so far as to
equate communism with Nazism. It also calls for the erasure all memorials
of “totalitarianism” across Europe, including memorials dedicated to the
Red Army.

https://mronline.org/2019/09/30/european-parliaments-anti-communist-resolution-draws-widespread-criticism/
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[Marxism] (25) LoCura- "Guerriller@s" music video - YouTube

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0s9z2ZhhDU
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Re: [Marxism] Bellingcat: "left" and right wing Pro Assad groups receiving money from Assad

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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Yes, I definitely agree that Paul and the rest of their decision to do
Birthright for Syria is tonedeaf to say the least. I can't agree with that
decision, and in the past when I was offered such opportunities to attend
similar trips I of course always declined. We don't need to hold water for
that murderous thug.

But this piece really is a slash-and-burn. I don't think the author
realizes how long Paul has been around and exactly how far that reach goes.
Genuine grass roots activism is filled with all sorts of people, it is
cheap to dig through it and look for people who said this or that.

Likewise, the jab about Soros is quite cheap. They didn't quote Paul but
they emphasized that Soros is Jewish as if to say that criticizing Soros is
intrinsically anti-Semitic. There is no doubt that NGOs and philanthropists
have completely derailed the Palestine solidarity movement through
NGO-ization. Soros might not be personally responsible but his ilk of
liberal donors absolutely have done a number on movement organizing. The
concerns Paul has voiced in the past about the co-optation of the BDS
movement by people with bad politics is a very real issue, but the article
would make you think it's just some sort of anti-Semitic crank nonsense.

I also take issue with them going after various people over 9/11 conspiracy
theories. It is obvious why people in the Arab and Muslim community have
endorsed such theories: They were the ones blamed for 9/11. They may not be
correct to believe such theories but to mock them and suggest that they are
all nut jobs for having those beliefs really strikes me as arrogant.

Amith R. Gupta


On Thu, Oct 3, 2019 at 7:58 PM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> On 10/3/19 7:31 PM, A.R. G via Marxism wrote:
> >
> > The rest of the article isn't news. Yes, people involved in Left
> organizing
> > can have bad politics and some of them believe in conspiracy theories.
> But
> > that isn't itself an excuse to engage in conspiracism or exaggeration.
>
> The article is timely, however, in light of the filthy public relations
> these scumbags are doing for Assad right now after their Potemkin
> Village tour of Syria. Pediatric hospitals are being bombed in Idlib and
> these people are writing about how great it is that Assad crushed al-Qaeda.
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] Bellingcat: "left" and right wing Pro Assad groups receiving money from Assad

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 10/3/19 7:31 PM, A.R. G via Marxism wrote:


The rest of the article isn't news. Yes, people involved in Left organizing
can have bad politics and some of them believe in conspiracy theories. But
that isn't itself an excuse to engage in conspiracism or exaggeration.


The article is timely, however, in light of the filthy public relations 
these scumbags are doing for Assad right now after their Potemkin 
Village tour of Syria. Pediatric hospitals are being bombed in Idlib and 
these people are writing about how great it is that Assad crushed al-Qaeda.





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Re: [Marxism] Bellingcat: "left" and right wing Pro Assad groups receiving money from Assad

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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This article is frankly, quite shit. Association for Investment in Popular
Action Committees was set up as the umbrella non-profit for a bunch of Bay
Area-related activism, including the Free The Cuban 5 campaign, the Free
Palestine Movement, the Northern California chapter of the ISM, and others.
The common theme is that Paul Larudee is involved. That isn't a surprise,
given that Paul has been a pretty predominant fixture of the Bay Area
anti-war organizing scene for decades.

Syria Solidarity Movement is just another one of the various organizing
initiatives that uses the Association as a fiscal sponsor. Most activist
groups don't have the time to start their own 501c3. The article makes it
seem as though the Association is some sort of separate shadowy entity, and
the title you added to the topic makes it even worse by suggesting that
Assad himself is somehow involved. Of course, there is no evidence anywhere
that Assad or his regime are actively funding the Association (which would
be illegal) and there is nothing in the article that suggests otherwise.
Moreover the Association long predates the Syria Solidarity Movement or the
armed conflict in Syria. Basically, the article points out that a
non-profit affiliated by Paul Larudee is funding various initiatives with
which Paul Larudee is associated. Surprise.

It's also quite clear that the author of the piece does not have a sense of
humor and completely missed the joke: "While obscure, and not to be
confused with the “AIPAC” that supports the state of Israel"

The rest of the article isn't news. Yes, people involved in Left organizing
can have bad politics and some of them believe in conspiracy theories. But
that isn't itself an excuse to engage in conspiracism or exaggeration.

Amith R. Gupta


On Thu, Oct 3, 2019 at 12:24 PM John Reimann via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> An interesting and detailed article on which groups on both the right and
> the "left" are getting money from Assad and his representatives. It should
> surprise nobody as far as those on the right. In reality, it shouldn't
> surprise anybody as far as those on the "left", but it might. They range
> from former liberal Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinic to Ajamu Baraka.
> Paul Larudee (whom I used to know personally) is also big on the list. The
> Syria Solidarity Movement figures big time in this list, as one would
> expect.
>
> Although Jeff Mackler did not directly receive any of that money, many of
> those endorsing him have.
>
>
> https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2019/09/30/pro-assad-lobby-group-rewards-bloggers-on-both-the-left-and-the-right/?fbclid=IwAR0raK2iu2YxDNHD5jneDkwCzPRIgS8879Xb-YsYN9HX_xXUtp7rJUW89ZE
> John Reimann
> --
> *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black
> Jacobins" by C. L. R. James
> Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] ICE told him to come on Thursday. He brought 20 others along. - News - providencejournal.com - Providence, RI

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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https://secure-web.cisco.com/16Xo5iYmJfuFTBdKV-tFHmW-Ytzjtm5A2ym6DW8Yv0TClvFwF3vRmN6EZ2QR0Q_EeCjaVQq-QhxiV7Wskn0aGI16U3cW83cvLnvminKmR2kGVCiRcT1HCnvPTmi8TI3zxEKdjkWrJgsmmfxJCoDn3XojRCWbXnGDmLWF1YL-Zv0g25GIdOkMKYalyK3gnlwqUvnsrfoajphjYPtfMlv5C9f9wMnTS-Xcx31Me-FIAQ6sA3fkwG2iDlxknfnQIsENABDbNsBBG6VrA_Fh1TAkh85fcxLNPWgKCqsxmt-O7GntsafVz0zRvHUxw3CYBLx2jBgcI4Dvla4vDEIwzn65EUimnTXk3aI3I7KAXvCDof0g7JY_y1FGeBYlvFVTfCUgT/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.providencejournal.com%2Fnews%2F20191003%2Fice-told-him-to-come-on-thursday-he-brought-20-others-along


Best regards,
Andrew Stewart 
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[Marxism] Kennedy and Cuba - Operation Mongoose

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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When the Soviet Union put nuclear missiles in Cuba nearly 60 years ago,
American officials refused to believe that at least one Soviet motivation
was the defense of Cuba. But declassified U.S. documents published in
the *Digital
National Security Archive* (DNSA) confirm a series of sometimes frenetic
covert operations ordered by the Kennedy White House and run by the CIA in
those years to overthrow the Castro regime that in hindsight make Moscow’s
(and Havana’s) concerns about defending the island much more credible.



https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2019-10-03/kennedy-cuba-operation-mongoose
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[Marxism] Boris Johnson in Ireland

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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From today's NY Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/opinion/britain-ireland-brexit.html?action=click=Opinion=Homepage


DUBLIN *— *When Boris Johnson visited Ireland’s prime minister, Leo
Varadkar, in Dublin last month as part of a last-minute scramble to reach
some sort Brexit deal, the two leaders began their day with a media
briefing on the steps of one of Dublin’s grandest buildings. In the
Edwardian Baroque style, it was built by the British authorities while the
Irish were intensifying their struggle for independence. “Fortuitously,”
the Heritage Ireland website snarkily notes
,
“the complex was completed in 1922 and was available immediately to be
occupied by the new Irish Free State government.” Rarely has the word
“fortuitously” elided so much.

Mr. Johnson, shirt askew, hair a mess, shambled like a drugged bear to the
podium and gripped it. Mr. Varadkar looked on, gym fit and poised in a
sharp suit. The contrast was more than superficial. Britain has long since
lost its empire — and this prime minister looks set to break up the United
Kingdom itself. He had come to Dublin for talks about the vexed issue of
the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is
still a part of the United Kingdom. Mr. Johnson needed either to bully
Ireland into abandoning the so-called backstop, which protects the Good
Friday Agreement and the European Union’s single market, or to make Ireland
look so intransigent that it could be blamed for pushing Britain into a
no-deal Brexit.

Mr. Varadkar delivered a telling speech. He compared the tasks facing Mr.
Johnson, who must negotiate the future of a Britain outside of the European
Union, with the labors of Hercules. Ireland wished to be Britain’s “friend
and ally, your Athena,” Mr. Varadkar said.

It was an elegantly delivered kick in the arse. Hercules’s labors were
penitential — prone to fits of madness and having killed his family, he was
about to continue on a murderous rampage when Athena, goddess of wisdom,
saved him from his own folly by knocking him unconscious.


British prime ministers are not used to coming to Ireland cap in hand, and
Mr. Johnson left Ireland having achieved nothing. A few days after he had
been compared to the son of Zeus, he chose instead to invoke as his hero
the Incredible Hulk. Hulk “always escapes,” he reassured the British
public. “The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets.” We Irish could not
resist a superior smirk.

Eight centuries after an English king invaded and subdued it, Ireland is no
longer the dominated island. Commenting on Mr. Johnson’s September visit in
the Irish Times, the author Fintan O’Toole wrote
that
for the first time since 1171, Ireland is now the more powerful nation. The
Brexiteers, he wrote, approach Ireland “through a strange swamp of
contradictory impulses: rage and envy, thwarted superiority and indulgent
self-pity.”

Not long after leaving Dublin, Mr. Johnson flew off to New York, where he
maundered on about Prometheus at the United Nations Summit on Climate
Change. While he was there, the British Supreme Court ruled that his
suspension of Parliament last month had been illegal, and that he misled
the Queen. Since he swaggered into office just over two months ago, Mr.
Johnson has lost every vote. He no longer has a majority and his own party
is in open rebellion. His attempt to bulldoze through a no-deal exit has so
far been thwarted by legislators, who passed a law against it. Nonetheless,
he flew back from the United States in full Hulk mode, aggressive, bullish
and entirely unapologetic.

Mr. Johnson has tried to use the old British imperial tactic of “divide and
conquer,” traipsing around Europe trying to find someone who will break
ranks and blame the Irish for the impasse. Instead, the other 27 nations
have bonded in solidarity with Ireland and have spoken as one of the need
to uphold the Good Friday Agreement, which brought peace to Ireland by, in
part, avoiding a hard border. Today, when Mr. Varadkar says “we,” he means
we, the European Union.

After months of prevarication and bluster, Mr. Johnson this week presented
the European Union with a set of insolently half-baked proposals,
describing the question of the border as “essentially a technical
discussion.” Mr. Johnson sent an aide to 

[Marxism] Pure and simple electoralism (was Bernie Sanders is in trouble)

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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I was about to write something similar to what David wrote. One historic
dividing line between the revolutionary left and the reformist left was
always their attitudes towards elections. For revolutionaries, elections
are a means to mobilize and organize the working class and the oppressed.
Getting candidates elected, even electing majorities, does not overthrow
the capitalist state. In fact, it only makes the danger greater as history
has shown. Remember what happened to the people of Chile and the government
of Salvador Allende.

IMHO, other kinds of militancy are more important right now than
participation in the 2020 election. There is no movement for a third party
on the left. At this point I plan to support whomever the Greens run. If
they did not run anyone, I would support the awful and irrelevant campaign
of Jeff Mackler, but either of these choices is just to add one vote of
protest against the capitalist state and its two party electoral system.

This does not mean that the mass social democratic electoral movement is
unimportant. Bernie Sanders and DSA are both important, but fundamentally
flawed by their work building the Democratic Party. Working together with
these people inside of protest movements, unions and other non-electoral
struggles should be tied to criticism of their electoralism from outside of
the Democratic Party.

Anthony

Anthony
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[Marxism] Bellingcat: "left" and right wing Pro Assad groups receiving money from Assad

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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An interesting and detailed article on which groups on both the right and
the "left" are getting money from Assad and his representatives. It should
surprise nobody as far as those on the right. In reality, it shouldn't
surprise anybody as far as those on the "left", but it might. They range
from former liberal Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinic to Ajamu Baraka.
Paul Larudee (whom I used to know personally) is also big on the list. The
Syria Solidarity Movement figures big time in this list, as one would
expect.

Although Jeff Mackler did not directly receive any of that money, many of
those endorsing him have.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2019/09/30/pro-assad-lobby-group-rewards-bloggers-on-both-the-left-and-the-right/?fbclid=IwAR0raK2iu2YxDNHD5jneDkwCzPRIgS8879Xb-YsYN9HX_xXUtp7rJUW89ZE
John Reimann
-- 
*“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black
Jacobins" by C. L. R. James
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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[Marxism] New Scrutiny of Museum Boards Takes Aim at World of Wealth and Status

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Oct. 3, 2019
New Scrutiny of Museum Boards Takes Aim at World of Wealth and Status
By Robin Pogrebin, Elizabeth A. Harris and Graham Bowley

Warren B. Kanders, a vice chairman of the Whitney Museum of American 
Art, had just been driven out by a cascading protest over his company’s 
sale of law enforcement and military supplies. And his fellow trustee 
Kenneth C. Griffin was livid.


So hours after Mr. Kanders resigned in July, Mr. Griffin, a hedge fund 
titan and one of the world’s richest men, followed him out the door, 
quitting in outrage during a conference call with other board members.


Before lunchtime, the Whitney had lost two major benefactors — the lobby 
is named after Mr. Griffin, and Mr. Kanders and his wife have an 
adjoining stairwell.


By the end of the day, Mr. Griffin had changed his mind. But according 
to people privy to the events, he did so only after Leonard Lauder, the 
cosmetics scion and the museum’s powerful chairman emeritus, phoned Mr. 
Griffin from a boat to coax him back.


Mr. Griffin was not the only wealthy arts patron unnerved by what had 
happened — the tumult at the Whitney sent a lightning bolt through the 
entire museum world. If board members can be forced out because of what 
they do for a living, what does that mean for cultural institutions that 
depend on their generosity to survive?


“There is a slippery slope if you get very precious about holding out a 
litmus test for service on a board,” said Reynold Levy, the former 
president of Lincoln Center and a philanthropy expert. “This can be 
stretched to the point where it becomes very difficult to attract and 
retain board members.”


Anyone who scans the financial records of major American museums, or 
talks to their leaders and donors, can gauge just how much is at stake.


In the absence of significant public support, some museums rely on board 
members for upward of one-fifth of their annual budgets. The price of 
admission to the boards remains steep, often millions of dollars to 
enter, and annual donations of six figures to keep a seat. Those boards 
are also dominated, as they have been for years, by the likes of Mr. 
Griffin, Mr. Kanders and Mr. Lauder from finance, real estate and the 
corporate executive suite.


In return for their donations, board members gain admission to an 
exclusive cultural club others yearn to join; give arts organizations 
their cachet and connections; and provide a power base that commands the 
attention of public officials. They also get a boost in status, rare 
access to artists and curators as well as the public recognition that 
comes with giving back.


Thanks to trustees’ support, the public gets to enjoy Picassos, 
Rembrandts, Shakespeare in the Park.


But an emboldened activist movement is holding a mirror up to this 
bargain, loudly questioning whether the greater good is served, even if 
not everyone agrees on who and what qualifies as “good.”


The Whitney protests, ignited by a report that tear gas made by a 
Kanders company had been used against migrants at the southern border, 
started out with noisy gatherings in the museum lobby calling on Mr. 
Kanders to step down. As he stood his ground, the protesters became more 
confrontational, marching to his Greenwich Village home and posting his 
address on Instagram for others to find. Eventually, several artists 
withdrew from the Whitney Biennial in solidarity, threatening the 
museum’s signature exhibition. Mr. Kanders resigned soon after.


Pressure is building on other cultural institutions as well, with 
demands they become more representative of the communities they serve. 
In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio has made city grants conditional on 
boards’ increasing their diversity.


Max Hollein, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which 
recently swore off money from members of the Sackler family with links 
to OxyContin, acknowledged that “we have to be clear about how we accept 
donations.”


But he also emphasized that the museum as we know it would not exist 
without the board that props it up.


“Institutions in the U.S. are built on philanthropy,” he said. “That 
means a significant amount of individual support.”


Dollars and sense

At the Whitney, some 10 to 12 percent of the $60 million annual 
operating budget comes from board contributions, a number that just 
begins to quantify what trustees pay for other things, like construction 
projects and tables at fund-raisers. In Mr. Kanders’s 13 years on the 
board, his donations approached $10 million.


The Museum of Modern Art estimates that its trustees contribute as much 
as 20 percent of its $175 million 

Re: [Marxism] Saving the Planet Without Self-Loathing

[DW via Marxism]

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I think he is correct generally about human's relationship of nature but he
has underplayed the destructive part of that relationship. I'd even say he
is somewhat flip about it while acknowledging it at the same time. He also
has forest vs grasslands wrong by excluding the role of grass eaters as the
*key* element in keeping a balance between forest and grasslands *and*
building the soil.

David Walters
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[Marxism] Saving the Planet Without Self-Loathing

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(This article by Christian Parenti is a critique of degrowth. In the 
excerpt below, you get an analysis that I am very familiar with. In 1991 
William Cronon wrote a book titled "Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the 
Great West" that made the case that the city's stockyards were part of 
its "ecology". This is really batty stuff.)


The truth is, we are not intruders. In reality, humans have always been 
an environment-making species. In fact, every species is.


What we call “nature” or “the environment” is ultimately just the sum 
total of layer upon layer of organism-environment interactions. Thus it 
is dynamic, not static. Every organism interacts with, and impacts, its 
environment. At the same time, every organism is always also part of the 
external environment of all other organisms.


https://jacobinmag.com/2019/10/environment-making-climate-change-green-new-deal
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[Marxism] Breaking the Silence in Calabria

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NY Review, OCTOBER 24, 2019 ISSUE
Breaking the Silence in Calabria
by Alexander Stille

The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World’s 
Most Powerful Mafia

by Alex Perry
William Morrow, 333 pp., $27.99

When I traveled to Calabria in the early 1990s, its mafia, known as the 
’Ndrangheta, had a far more pervasive and suffocating hold on the region 
than the Cosa Nostra had on Sicily or the Camorra had on Campania. In 
the plains around the port city of Gioia Tauro, the livestock of local 
mafia bosses, known as “sacred cows,” wandered freely and ate wherever 
they pleased. In Taurianova, ’Ndranghetisi killed a man, cut off his 
head, and used it for target practice in one of the main piazzas. 
Throughout the region, I routinely saw trash rotting in the streets: 
local ’Ndrangheta families had won contracts for trash removal, and 
there was not much pressure on them to actually remove it.


The towns looked poor, but expensive luxury cars were frequently parked 
in their centers, often illegally. A hapless, dedicated traffic cop had 
been shot and killed for placing a parking ticket on one belonging to an 
’Ndrangheta boss. In the evenings, when the towns were dark and quiet, I 
had the impression that people had entirely surrendered and stayed 
safely inside their houses.


When I returned to Calabria a couple of years ago, however, it seemed 
radically different: there were anti-mafia groups and lively public 
debates about the influence of the ’Ndrangheta. There was even a “No 
Bull” movement to try to address the “sacred cow” problem. Mafia-type 
organized crime depends in part on a social consensus made up of tacit 
acquiescence, a culture of silence, and a mixture of fear and respect, 
mingled with suspicion of legal authorities. That consensus had begun to 
break down in Sicily twenty-five or thirty years ago when the ruthless 
brutality of the Cosa Nostra became evident, while serious efforts by 
police, prosecutors, and ordinary citizens to challenge its power gained 
in credibility. The same thing appeared to be happening in Calabria.


The ’Ndrangheta, along with the Cosa Nostra and the Camorra, is one of 
Italy’s major crime organizations, and although it is the least well 
known of the three, it is likely the most powerful. The name 
“’Ndrangheta” is believed to have been derived from the Greek word 
andragathia, meaning goodness and manly virtue—Calabria in antiquity was 
part of Magna Grecia, and many words in its local dialects come from 
ancient Greek. An important part of the ’Ndrangheta’s strength is its 
seeming impenetrability: by limiting its membership strictly to close 
blood relatives, it reduces the likelihood of betrayal, since turning on 
your partners in crime means turning on your own family. Each family is 
linked to a town and its surrounding area, while also being part of a 
larger hierarchical structure. Individual families enjoy a fair degree 
of autonomy in running their affairs, but an elected leader (capo 
crimine) is chosen to help adjudicate disputes among them in order to 
minimize violence. The Cosa Nostra is also organized into “families,” 
but while blood relations are important, membership is also open to 
enterprising and violent young men outside of immediate kinship groups. 
The Camorra is even more loosely structured, which has resulted in 
almost constant jockeying for power, as well as a great deal of violence 
and many defections.


The Cosa Nostra suffered huge setbacks during the late 1980s and 1990s: 
its dominant clans murdered virtually all the public officials who 
opposed them while carrying out a vicious extermination campaign against 
other mafia families. This provoked a huge police crackdown, which was 
backed by large public demonstrations, and it resulted in hundreds of 
former members agreeing to testify in dozens of major trials. The 
’Ndrangheta moved aggressively into the Cosa Nostra’s drug markets and, 
taking advantage of widespread Calabrian immigration to four continents 
(North and South America, Northern Europe, and Australia), it expanded 
rapidly around the world while maintaining its compact clan structure. 
It was, as the journalist Alex Perry writes in his excellent new book, 
The Good Mothers, “a diabolical perversion of the Italian family, which 
was the heart and essence of the nation.”


By shrewdly reinvesting drug profits in vast real estate holdings and 
legitimate businesses, the ’Ndrangheta has been remarkably successful. 
“The prosecutors’ best guess,” Perry writes, “was that every year the 
organization amassed revenues of $50 billion to $100 billion, equivalent 
to up to 3.5 

[Marxism] Against Climate Barbarism: A Conversation with Naomi Klein - Los Angeles Review of Books

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/against-climate-barbarism-a-conversation-with-naomi-klein/
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[Marxism] Unmaking the Real Estate State - Los Angeles Review of Books

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Review of Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State By 
Samuel Stein


https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/unmaking-the-real-estate-state/
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[Marxism] Turkish scientist gets 15-month sentence for publishing environmental study | Science | AAAS

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https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/turkish-scientist-gets-15-month-sentence-publishing-environmental-study
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