[Marxism] Global Popular Uprisings: Beijing Calls West to Jointly Defend “the Rule of Law”
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Global Popular Uprisings: Beijing Calls West to Jointly Defend “the Rule of Law” Central organ of the ruling Stalinist party reiterates the regime’s counter-revolutionary position By Michael Pröbsting, 30 October 2019 https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/global-popular-uprisings-beijing-calls-west-to-jointly-defend-the-rule-of-law/ -- Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG (Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net) www.rkob.net ak...@rkob.net Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314 -- Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Again on child poverty
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * When the poor finally explode in frustration and seize what they want, police deal to it. With clubs, if needed, with guns. Looting riots are rare in New Zealand, most recent was in 1932. Unemployed Aucklanders, provoked by police bashing their speaker, smashed shop windows and stole. In the ensuing repression hundreds were hurt or arrested. In ‘normal’ times deprived people are mostly controlled by other means, like words. Political spin is something authority has invested in, because it works. Used skillfully, words can deflect and defuse people’s anger. Pressing social problems can seem more manageable with an appropriate label. One of today’s most effective labels is Child Poverty. Just uttered by itself, Child Poverty sounds . . . full at: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/again-on-child-poverty/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Jill Lepore’s Liberal Gospel | The Nation
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Another good article from the latest Nation. https://www.thenation.com/article/jill-lepore-these-truths-this-america-review/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] August Nimtz: History, Geography and Contingency in the Making of a Black Communist. – MINNEAPOLIS INTERVIEW PROJECT
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Great mini-memoir by ex-SWPer and Marx/Lenin scholar August Nimtz. http://secure-web.cisco.com/16CggI6MdJpF10q921MmyR_hykdATn1PX4u8k9aWbkodgUvACS363ACb4QZyrArdqj9G29ATZmd06IRnZ-nemTvWAbQJRK4l9Rnzkhq7fbgGLuPgck_83Nf-L4Jm-pl_T3OpdNLTPYrCPdogT3g_OShsK0HccFq2zjVEMyjvdiytANs5SUVwB_aScA8S8mdIfeqeWDRw27q4AxwX3L76VEnPPmy0zJHy19hKG-JRybwM5iWb0Mzd5c5UdmrA7FrTBOefUlBvUCcp3-VZwKIMFHXrkfbP6IQrBi9-sZlJf8hylkm7pjwa-ELq44XC9O8P93OoiFZ2DDxgdW2UASoa87nylE3hbQnrOCpuegBPZnvQUW5ToWtIRYvx1YnkLjtosiclPfv-E5UuAsCQoO_mxAA/http%3A%2F%2Fturtleroad.org%2F2019%2F10%2F11%2Faugust-nimtz-geography-of-a-black-communist%2F _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Broadway
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Just started reading Samuel Stein's "Capital City" as background for an
article on the political economy of homelessness for Counterpunch.
Really interesting book filled with tidbits like how Broadway became an
exception to the grid pattern of NYC's avenues and streets. Turns out
that it was originally a Munsee path that predated the colonist project.
From Wikipedia:
Broadway was originally the Wickquasgeck trail, carved into the brush of
Manhattan by its Native American inhabitants.[notes 2][1] This trail
originally snaked through swamps and rocks along the length of Manhattan
Island.[notes 3]
Upon the arrival of the Dutch, the trail was widened[2] and soon became
the main road through the island from Nieuw Amsterdam at the southern
tip. The Dutch explorer and entrepreneur David Pietersz. de Vries gives
the first mention of it in his journal for the year 1642 ("the
Wickquasgeck Road over which the Indians passed daily"). The Dutch
called it the Heeren Wegh or Heeren Straat, meaning "Gentlemen's Way" or
"Gentlemen's Street" – echoing the name of a similar street in Amsterdam
– or "High Street" or "the Highway"; it was re-named "Broadway" after
the British took over the city, because of its unusual width.
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[Marxism] Whose Side Is Clarence Thomas On? | The Nation
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * (I've been plagiarized.) Robin mostly accepts at face value Thomas’s portrayal of himself as a race man deeply invested in black America. After all, Thomas quotes approvingly from Douglass. He talks admiringly of the black folk who persevered under the brutal reign of Jim Crow. He notes the continuing prevalence of anti-black racism, and he concerns himself with the racial consequences of disputed policies. But this is mostly pretense. When Thomas cites Douglass, he does so not to perpetuate that great man’s challenge to white supremacy but to burnish his own brand, signaling to black Americans that, beneath his reactionary politics, he has not forgotten where he came from and signaling to white Americans that he is no ordinary right-wing Republican but something more valuable: a black right-wing Republican with code-switching capabilities. https://www.thenation.com/article/enigma-clarence-thomas-book-review/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] support for an independent workers movement in Venezuela
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * "We, the undersigned labor and socialist activists, hereby express our support for a genuinely free and independent workers’ movement in Venezuela. We are concerned about the persecution of independent labor activists by the Maduro government. In doing so, we have nothing in common with US imperialism nor of its representative, Guaidó. They too completely oppose the rights and interests of workers. The US government has applied oil sanctions this year that worsen the already terrible economic hardships which the working class has to endure. "In particular, we would like to call your attention to the persecution of workers such as Rodney Álvarez and Jose Bodas and others who are opposed to U.S. imperialism but are also being repressed by the Maduro regime." Read full statement with more information here: https://oaklandsocialist.com/2019/10/29/for-independent-workers-movement-in-venezuela/ -- *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black Jacobins" by C. L. R. James Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Sandinista
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Stalin and Mao both started off as real revolutionaries --- getting power corrupted both terribly --- (think Stalin was worse! --- despite winning WW II) Very few behave as honorably as Nelson Mandela -- we might even count George Washington as a "good guy" -- he refused to become a "king" and accept a THIRD term That's why the anarchists are probably right! _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Sandinista
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The sad present of Daniel Ortega can be seen in the first link below. Especially sad because the Sandinistas inspired hope 40 years ago, as in the second link. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/magazine/ralph-drollinger-white-house-evangelical.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnSQFaHvxTI=PLw8I74P--tlVmX53NXBA_YtzoovpSfdlU _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Indian-Occupied Kashmir: European Right-Wing Extremists Go to Modi’s Rescue
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Indian-Occupied Kashmir: European Right-Wing Extremists Go to Modi’s Rescue by Michael Pröbsting, 29 October 2019 https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/indian-occupied-kashmir-european-right-wing-extremists-go-to-modi-s-rescue/ -- Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG (Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net) www.rkob.net ak...@rkob.net Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314 -- Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Open Letter In Support Of Trans Labour Members
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * John, just on the issue of "ME, a man" commenting on this. I'm asked to comment on it all the time. Secondly, far more importantly the majority of such businesses, where I am, are women owned or couples owned. This could not happen without initiating it or their buy in. If there was opposition by women to non-gender wash rooms, we would of heard it by now. Not a peep. I live in a highly feminist city, gay city, and transcity: San Francisco. Thirdly, they are and never were 'safe spaces'. This sort of nonsense (IMO) about bathrooms being safes paces because men are not "allowed" in do in fact make it quite UN-safe because it allows women to have half as many people there to stop an assault (as you acknowledged they take place there anyway, law or now law). The fact is that there are thousands of rapes committed in "women only spaces" because rapists violate the law and don't care about it (did you know that many places have no laws concerning this whatsoever? That this is based on cultural customs and not legal statute?). We would of course have to disagree with this about assaults being more likely in gender neutral bathrooms. This issue has, btw, zero to do with excluding transwomen from such spaces as they are, for all intents and purposes, women (fortunately the dystopian idea of genetic checks haven't made it feasible to exclude transwomen. Now such access just has to be legitimized in law). An example I stumbled across in Mexico City about 10 years ago was that there are women only cars on the Mexico City subway. I was shocked (simply because it was so unexpected by me and my friend I was traveling with). We were stopped by an armed (with an assault rifle) women cop who told us only women "beyond this point". It seems this was instituted on the demand of women who organized for this because of the epidemic of groping by men on the subway over years. Women have the choice of using this or the main set of integrated cars. This was totally supportable. Again, however, the issue of transwomen (who look like women and is key to this particular issue) are of course able to use this car since no one, the women on the car, the cops guarding it, and the potential molesters can't tell who is trans and who is not). But those on this list, some, would argue that transwomen shouldn't use such facility as in the Mexican subway system because "genetically they are men and that is what counts". And this goes to the heart of this discussion. I defend women only spaces when in fact they are a function of women (cis or trans) organizing to do so. This includes of course transwomen who ARE transwomen and not just men who say they want to transition. This last issue is a huge one and goes to the self-identity issue that has caused so much fanfare and hatred. BTW...I attended the ISO Socialism Conference, the one in 2017 that had over 2,000 attending and they made all rest/wash rooms gender neutral. There were no problems reported. Of course a socialist conference such as that obviously is not at all representative of society at large. What I see, *politically* the hot potato is not what you and I are politely discussing. Rather, it is over the issue of "self-ID". This is what is hugely complicated and often transcends the basic civil rights issues, or perhaps "subsumes it" as a better expression. I would like to see more information on this (this has to do with things like transathletes, locker rooms and other issues where it is *only* the self-identificiation that makes someone transgender and how to handle this in society. It is this issue above all else that has caused the heat, "de platforming" and so on. David W. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] NY Times: Democrats' Secret Plan to Kill Third Parties in New York
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * (This article focuses on third parties that frequently endorse major party candidates, but the Democrats' plan would also affect genuinely independent third parties, and make it for difficult for the Green Party to maintain its position on the New York ballot. The primary target of the proposal is the Working Families Party, which generally supports Democrats, but is to the left of Governor Cuomo.) By Vivian Wang Oct. 29, 2019 The chairman of the New York State Democratic Party is pushing a proposal that would essentially neuter almost all third parties, crippling one of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s biggest political nemeses but also potentially helping conservatives. The proposal from the chairman, Jay Jacobs, would quintuple the number of votes that a political party needs to guarantee a spot on the ballot in the next election. A party currently needs 50,000 votes for its candidate for governor to secure a spot for the next four years. Mr. Jacobs, in a private email to a group of state commissioners reviewing parts of New York election law, proposed raising the number to roughly 250,000. At first glance, it might seem a strange position for any Democrat, let alone the head of the state’s Democratic Party, to take. Nearly every minor party has fallen short of collecting 250,000 votes, including, and perhaps especially, the Working Families Party, a progressive group that shares many Democratic Party ideals yet has been one of the most reliable antagonists of Mr. Jacobs and his close ally Mr. Cuomo. Only the Conservative Party has been able to surpass the 250,000 vote mark in recent years. If just that party survived, a candidate could then run on both the Conservative and Republican lines — New York election law allows candidates to run on multiple lines — while a liberal candidate would have no such advantage. “Conservatives have an awful lot of support,” Mr. Jacobs said when asked about the idea. “There’s no question that they will have an easier time meeting these thresholds.” “I can see that that could be problematic,” he added. Mr. Jacobs, whom Mr. Cuomo appointed to the state commission, insisted that his proposal was aimed at reducing voter confusion and rooting out corruption among “sham” parties that he said trade their ballot lines for political favors. He did not specify which parties he was referring to. “A lot of people have been getting away with an awful lot for a long time,” Mr. Jacobs said. “In my mind, it will be better overall if elections are run with only really credible parties.” For the W.F.P. and its supporters, the proposal is the latest attempt by Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Cuomo to silence one of their most prominent political rivals. For the past few months, Mr. Jacobs has all but declared war on third parties, advancing multiple proposals to ban them. Mr. Cuomo, though he has not explicitly sought to ban the W.F.P., has said that he knew Mr. Jacobs’s stance when he chose him for the commission. The dispute is also the most recent front in the feud between Mr. Cuomo and an increasingly emboldened mass of left-wing activists and politicians who have cast Mr. Cuomo and his allies as centrists bent on obstruction. Mr. Jacobs made the proposal in an email on Oct. 16, soon after a meeting of the commission. It was created by the Legislature in April to design a small-donor matching system for state elections, but in the months since, much to the angst of the W.F.P., the commission also turned to the question of third parties. In the email, Mr. Jacobs asked a lawyer for the group, as well as the other eight commissioners, whether it had the power to raise the threshold for a guaranteed ballot line. Traditionally, the W.F.P. and other minor parties had been able to meet the 50,000-vote threshold relatively easily, in part because candidates are allowed to run on multiple lines, known as fusion voting. Progressives can, for example, choose to vote for the Democratic candidate on the W.F.P. line to send a message about their political priorities without worrying about wasting a vote. Mr. Jacobs asked the lawyer if the commission could require parties to achieve “an amount equal to 2 percent of all registered voters in the state” in races for president and governor. Two percent of New York’s 12,695,762 registered voters is 253,915 votes. In the last election for governor, the Conservative Party collected 253,624 votes. The W.F.P., the next highest vote-getter, collected about 114,000. Mr. Jacobs said the details of the proposal were not final. He said he had not yet discussed it with his fellow commissioners, who must vote to approve it. But he reaffirmed his
[Marxism] Fear on the Streets: Hezbollah and the Protests in Lebanon - CounterPunch.org
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Robert Fisk wakes up to the reality of Hezbollah siding with Lebanese elites. Too bad he didn't grasp how it was up to the same game in Syria starting in 2011. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/29/fear-on-the-streets-hezbollah-and-the-protests-in-lebanon/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Open Letter In Support Of Trans Labour Members
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * As for women's spaces being about safety vs prudery, of course women were not safe in that world when "People pissed, shit, washed, and did all manner of human social intercourse without regards to any sort of gender." Women would use chamber pots and empty them the next day rather than risk going out at night. So just because that was how things were didn't make it some kind of utopia. As Marxists we get that about the past, right. We don't romanticise it. And of course this is, and always has been a class issue.The wealthy were of course the first to get the gains. And in the third world, it a massive class issue for poor women. In places like India, poor women are fighting for those spaces now. Women have to 'hold on' all day, risking urinary tract infections, because there are no safe facilities and rapes often occur when they attempt to find somewhere to relieve themselves. https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2014/06/25/human-rights-gang-rape-sharmila-l-murthy It should be natal women who get to decide if self declared women are to be allowed into women's spaces. Cheers, John On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 4:02 PM John Edmundson wrote: > > > On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 3:02 PM DW via Marxism < > marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > >> [So...this is my first tippytoe into this debate, something I've avoided >> as it is impossible to have a calm rational debate about this, it seems, >> at >> least on the left. Ergo, my own ignorance around these questions will >> remain as such since no one can discuss it with me or others who are >> trying >> to figure it all out.--David W.] >> > > I certainly know where you're coming from there. This list should be a > place where such a civil discussion should be able to be held. > > >> John wrote the following: " >> So concern about trans women having unfettered access to women's spaces is >> patently *not* about transphobia, but about male violence - exactly the >> reason such female only spaces were established in the first place." >> >> >> Yeah...no it wasn't and it's both historically and anthropologically so >> much BS to say that. >> > > I was thinking of rape crisis centres when I made that point. Apologies > for being unclear about that. Obviously places like huts to keep women > apart during menstruation weren't what I was thinking about and are not an > issue for trans activists either as far as I know . . . > > >> Where I live in the Bay Area womens >> washrooms are going away replaced by non-gender specific ones in public. >> GOOD. > > > So you, a *man*, think it is good that "*womens* washrooms are going away > replaced by non-gender specific ones". Hmmm, I just don't see why women > should be being expected to give their spaces up yet be de-platformed or > threatened for questioning whether that is the way forward. > > >> Like the single non-gender bathroom and washrooms we find at small >> businesses (and that have always been found there) separating out >> washrooms >> and bathrooms was a function of KEEPING women separate from men for the >> obvious religious/cultural reasons and had zero to do with women spaces as >> "safe spaces". >> > > Washrooms etc, yes. Evidently the first incarnation of that was in Paris > (maybe the great exhibition?) and was seen as a curiosity. I used to think > the best option was to go for unisex but my wife pointed me to evidence > that unisex facilities are higher risk for male assaults on women, even > though obviously it is possible for men to assault women in women's toilets > etc also. She also pointed out that sometimes women really want that space, > such as when they have a heavy period to deal with, or even to get away > from unwanted attention. I've rethought my view on that. > > >> I've always felt the washroom/bathroom (as opposed to the changing room or >> locker room...a related but quite different issue) was a silly argument in >> terms of transwomen (or for transmen) who, for all appearances, are the >> sex >> they identify and whose outward appearance is what they choose...as wholly >> irrelevant to the trans rights issue anyway as trans people for centuries >> have used bathroom of their choice and no one is the wiser. > > > I won't argue with you on that. I think the current demand for this is all > about asserting a political point - that trans women are women - rather > than something that really needs to change. No one asks for ID now and > won't where self ID is enacted. > > >> Only the right >> wing has ever raised this as something to go after trans folks for. They >> lose every time in these arguments for that very reason. I believe in safe >> spaces for women *when they chose to
