Re: [Marxism] Edén Pastora, ‘Commander Zero’ in Nicaragua, Dies at 83

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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When he defected from the FSLN, Michael Baumann headlined his Militant article 
at the time: "Comandante Cero lives up to his name."

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis 
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2020 10:20 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Cc: Louis Proyect
Subject: [Marxism] Edén Pastora, ‘Commander Zero’ in Nicaragua, Dies at 83

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(Paul Berman used to attack the Sandinista government all the time in 
the Village Voice, touting Eden Pastora as the democratic alternative.)

NY Times, June 17, 2020
Edén Pastora, ‘Commander Zero’ in Nicaragua, Dies at 83
By Robert D. McFadden

Edén Pastora, a hero of the 1979 Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua who 
was known by his nom de guerre, Commander Zero — and who later turned 
against his victorious comrades in arms in a long counterrevolutionary 
war of words and guerrilla attacks that failed to budge the socialist 
regime in Managua — died early Tuesday in a military hospital in that 
city, the capital of Nicaragua. He was 83.



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[Marxism] FW: The Police and Surveillance State in the Post-Lockdown Phase

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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On behalf of Michael...

 

From: RKOB [mailto:ak...@rkob.net] 
Sent: Saturday, May 23, 2020 1:16 AM
To: Richard Fidler
Subject: The Police and Surveillance State in the Post-Lockdown Phase

 

Dear comrade,

You might be interested in a new essay which I have published. I would also 
appreciate if you could forward this email to the Marxism list for information 
purpose.

Best wishes,

Michael

The Police and Surveillance State in the Post-Lockdown Phase

A global review of the ruling class’s plans of expanding the bonapartist state 
machinery

By Michael Pröbsting, 21 May 2020

https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/police-and-surveillance-state-in-post-lockdown-phase/

 

Contents

 

Introduction

An expected development

The Lockdown was not directed against the pandemic

Which “new normal” is the ruling class planning for?

China: the most successful regime in making “Big Brother” omnipresent

Moscow follows the Chinese model and creates a “Cyber Gulag”

The U.S.: “the ancient past known as February” and today

European Union: surveillance and the model of “red/green zones”

India: State Bonapartism under semi-colonial conditions

South Africa: Lockdown imposed by a “progressive” government

Conclusions

 

 

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[Marxism] The long march of the locked-down migrants

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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This haunting song by Aadesh Ravi, Hyderabad-based composer, lyric writer and
singer, is surely one of the most powerful cries that's emerged about the
lockdown-driven migrations across India




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[Marxism] Planet of the Humans backlash

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https://yvesengler.com/2020/05/10/planet-of-the-humans-backlash/

The backlash may be more revealing than the film itself, but both inform us
where we are at in the fight against climate change and ecological collapse. The
environmental establishment's frenzied attacks against Planet of the Humans says
a lot about their commitment to big-money and technological solutions.



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Re: [Marxism] From a forthcoming article on socialist economic planning

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The role of planning in the ecosocialist transition – a contribution to the
debate
by Michael Löwy
https://tinyurl.com/txtgz4u


-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Jim
Farmelant via Marxism
Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2020 2:31 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Cc: Jim Farmelant
Subject: [Marxism] From a forthcoming article on socialist economic planning

>From a rough draft of a forthcoming article on socialist economic planning 
>being
written with Djamil Lakhdar-Hamina  and Brendan Sullivan.
--
Visions of Socialism:

One of the most striking phenomena in US politics since the 2008 economic crash
has been a revival of interest in socialism, especially among the Millennial
generation. In fact, you would have to go back some eighty or more years ago to
see a time when there was such a big interest in socialism. Even in the 1960’s,
the last period when we saw the flourishing of major leftist political movements
, there wasn’t so much a mass interest in socialism as much as there were
movements led by people who identified as socialists or communists. Most public
discussion then was over things like civil rights, black power, and opposition
to the Vietnam War. There wasn’t that much talk as to what a socialist
alternative to capitalism would look like, even though many political activists
back then would have described themselves as being anti-capitalist.



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Re: [Marxism] Webinar this Saturday - : SHINING THE LIGHT ON CUBA'S MEDICAL SOLIDARITY

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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This interview by an informed expert clarifies what is involved:

"For the emergency medical support, Cuba charges nothing. It depends on whether
host governments want to compensate the Cubans, but there is no price tag, as I
understand it. Likewise, for healthcare for what's called the Programa Integral
de Salud in poorer countries - sub-Sahara Africa is a good example - Cuba
charges nothing.

"However, for countries such as Qatar, where Cuba has got a hospital of 400
Cuban medical personnel, Cuba charges a lot of money. It charges less than what
the European and North American-trained doctors and nurses would charge, but it
does receive money from that. Estimates vary, but I would calculate about $6
billion goes into Cuban coffers as a result of Cuban medical services abroad.

"This money goes to maintain the Cuban medical system. So it is a form of
subsidizing the Cuban healthcare system, which I think makes eminent sense. For
the number of countries that pay for medical services, there is a sliding scale.
Some countries can afford to pay. Arab countries have a lot of petro-dollars
that they use. Angola, South Africa are fairly wealthy, they can pay. But if you
go to countries such as Gambia or Niger, you will see that  - if they do pay -
they will pay significantly less."




-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Chris
Slee via Marxism
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2020 7:38 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Cc: Chris Slee; Ken Hiebert
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Webinar this Saturday - : SHINING THE LIGHT ON CUBA'S
MEDICAL SOLIDARITY

My understanding is that the poorest countries don't have to pay anything, while
richer countries pay on a sliding scale.

Chris Slee


David Duport asks
Cuba still charges host countries for these medical missions, right?

I can't say that I know all the facts.  It would make sense if some countries
did pay.  The item below suggests otherwise.
ken h

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_medical_internationalism




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[Marxism] COVID-19 debt crisis: Is Modern Monetary Theory a solution? (GLW)

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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"While MMT proposes a solution to the problem of unemployment, it is often put
forward without sufficient cognisance of the fact that, for capitalism,
unemployment is not necessarily a problem to be solved, but rather a valuable
tool to maintain profits.

Having a pool of workers who are poor and unemployed keeps up competition for
jobs, which helps keep wages down. Economists even tend to define full
employment as being when 4-5% of people are unemployed. Anything lower than that
is viewed as undesirable, because it strengthens workers' bargaining power.

This doesn't mean that MMT should not be used to try to eliminate unemployment.
But, as long as capitalism exists, measures to eliminate unemployment will be
met with a war and not a thank you.

All the money and power of capital and its media and politicians will be brought
to fight against measures that would have all workers benefiting from decent
standards of living.

There are likewise problems if MMT were to be used as a solution to the
environmental crisis, if the capitalist sector left to its own devices. If an
army of job guarantee workers were enlisted to help save the planet while a
capitalist sector is left to destroy it, the climate catastrophe would merely be
postponed.

Also, on the environmental front, while MMT provides a means to solve
unemployment by using the economy to capacity, the environmental crisis means
that we may not want to use the economy to capacity."


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Re: [Marxism] [UCE] Howie Hawkins Twitter account restored!

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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I get this message when I click on the URL below: "Sorry, due to an error, we
are unable to fulfill your request at the moment. You may want to contact your
administrator or service provider with more details about what action you were
performing when this occurred. Could not find valid value for id"

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2020 9:22 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Cc: Louis Proyect
Subject: [Marxism] [UCE] Howie Hawkins Twitter account restored!

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https://hawkins2020.us/civicrm/mailing/view?reset=1

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[Marxism] FW: PDF DOWNLOAD of new Book on COVID-19 Global Counterrevolution

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Dear comrade,

The publication of my new book is now completed and it can be downloaded as a 
PDF on our website. I would appreciate if you could forward this email to the 
Marxism list for information purpose.

Best wishes,

Michael

 

The COVID-19 Global Counterrevolution: What It Is and How to Fight It

A Marxist analysis and strategy for the revolutionary struggle

by Michael Pröbsting

https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/the-covid-19-global-counterrevolution/

 

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Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. 
www.avast.com   





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[Marxism] FW: NEW BOOK on COVID-19 Global Counterrevolution

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Michael has asked me to forward this to the list. I do so as an act of 
solidarity and take no responsibility for the content, which I have not read.

Richard 

The COVID-19 Global Counterrevolution: What It Is and How to Fight It

A Marxist analysis and strategy for the revolutionary struggle

by Michael Pröbsting

https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/the-covid-19-global-counterrevolution/

 

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Virenfrei.  

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Re: [Marxism] Reformism Yesterday and Social Democracy Today

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But URL indicates that Jacobin posted the article in August 2018, when they 
were already beating the drums for Sanders.

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis 
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2020 10:19 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Cc: Louis Proyect
Subject: [Marxism] Reformism Yesterday and Social Democracy Today

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(From a 1985 Socialist Register article by Marcel Liebman. Could it 
possibly be the first inkling that the Jacobin intellectuals realize 
they have been wasting their time with this "democratic socialism" 
baloney? Probably not...)

Even the accomplishments of the old social democracy — the precious but 
limited reforms which did not even challenge the capitalist order — are 
beyond the grasp of contemporary reformism. Whilst tradition obliges us 
to use labels like “reformism” and “social democracy,” only those who 
stand to gain from them are fooled by them.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/08/social-democracy-marcel-liebman-socialist-politics

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[Marxism] The role of planning in the ecosocialist transition - a contribution to the debate

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The semiannual French review Les Possibles, a publication of Attac France, in
its most recent issue (23) features a number of articles on planning for the
ecological and social transition. Most are addressed to the issue of socialist
planning vs. capitalist markets that was prominent in the debates of 20th
century socialism. The contribution by Michael Löwy puts this debate in the
ecosocialist framework that has emerged in this century. My translation of it is
published below.

Michael Löwy is a Franco-Brazilian philosopher and sociologist, and emeritus
research director at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). He
is the author of numerous books, including The War of the Gods: Religion and
Politics in Latin America and Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin’s “On the
Concept of History.” He is also a leading member of the Global Ecosocialist
Network.

* * *

Ecological and social planning and transition

By Michael Löwy

April 3, 2020

The need for economic planning in any serious and radical process of
socio-ecological transition is winning greater acceptance, in contrast to the
traditional positions of the Green parties, favorable to an ecological variant
of “market economy,” that is, “green capitalism.”

In her latest book, Naomi Klein observes that any serious reaction to the
climate threat “involves recovering an art that has been relentlessly vilified
during these decades of market fundamentalism: planning.” This includes, in her
view, industrial planning, land use planning, agricultural planning, employment
planning for workers whose occupations are made obsolescent by the transition,
etc. “This means bringing back the idea of planning our economies based on
collective priorities rather than profitability….”[1]

Democratic planning

The socio-ecological transition — towards an ecosocialist alternative — implies
public control of the principal means of production and democratic planning.
Decisions concerning investment and technological change must be taken away from
the banks and capitalist businesses, if we want them to serve the common good of
society and respect for the environment.

Who should make these decisions? Socialists often responded: “the workers.” In
Volume III of Capital, Marx defines socialism as a society of “the associated
producers rationally regulating their interchange (Stoffwechsel) with Nature.”
However, in Volume I of Capital, we find a broader approach: socialism is
conceived as “an association of free men, working with the means of production
(gemeinschaftlichen) held in common.” This is a much more appropriate concept:
production and consumption must be organized rationally not only by the
“producers” but also by consumers and, in fact, the whole of society, the
productive or “unproductive” population: students, youth, women (and men)
homemakers, retired persons, etc.

Full: https://tinyurl.com/txtgz4u



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[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] FW: Michael Klare's Paean to the American Military

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Klare's is a military institution-centric framing with no regulatory or 
normative roles for local, national, regional, or international 
institutions. The book's present tense title is telling: what's just a 
possibility (hell breaking loose) is accepted as an inevitable reality, 
a law of nature. This is a closed system, and it is sealed against 
inquiry into causes and challenging facts. "Senior officials at the 
Department of Defense and the American intelligence community have 
peered into the future and seen this world." The thesis is that it may 
be possible to mitigate and adapt to climate change but untouched here 
are all the systemic causes of both proliferating emissions and of human 
disaster. The designation "resource-deprived states everywhere" is 
unquestioned by Klare and by the military: unasked, who exploits the 
resources?

The unquestioning endorsement of the American military is especially 
significant in view of Klare's previous critical work on America's 
energy wars and politics. He is the defense expert for the Nation 
magazine and is a frequent contributor to Counterpunch, Tomgram, and 
Democracy Now. His new book is acclaimed by Bill McKibben (founder of 
350.org) and human rights historian Adam Hochschild, and it was 
uncritically featured in the New York Times and The Guardian.

Full:







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[Marxism] FW: How the coronavirus pandemic is making strongmen stronger, from Hungary to Serbia to the Philippines

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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With governments around the world adopting extraordinary measures amid the
pandemic, ostensibly to protect their citizens - but often in directions that
have little or nothing to do with public health - one of the most potent
legacies of this era may prove to be a global erosion of democratic freedoms.

The power grabs have been dubbed "coronavirus coups" in some countries, and
three months into the crisis, with no end in sight, there are concerns that
leaders such as Hungary's Viktor Orban are capitalizing on COVID-19 to seize
powers they may never relinquish.

https://tinyurl.com/rqrpmeh




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Re: [Marxism] How Netflix And "Manning Marable" Killed Malcolm X (The Third Time) - CounterPunch.org

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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You tempt me to engage with the rest of that paragraph on George Breitman, in 
which you contrast to him what you call “the Marxist-Leninist view,” its main 
protagonist in your view being none other than... “Joseph Stalin.” Tell that to 
the dozens of oppressed nations and nationalities in Stalin’s USSR, from the 
Ukrainians to the Tatars.

But that’s like shooting fish in a barrel, so I won’t bother to go there. Rest 
content with the "imperfect" Amiri Baraka (how patronizing!) and your own 
professed perfection.

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Andrew 
Stewart via Marxism
Sent: Saturday, February 29, 2020 10:22 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] How Netflix And "Manning Marable" Killed Malcolm X (The 
Third Time) - CounterPunch.org

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How strikingly ironic that in the final lines of your rebuttal you end up 
reinforcing my argument:

“Malcolm did not complete this synthesis before he was
assassinated. It remains for others to complete what he began."

A) That anyone can look at the program that El-Shabazz was articulating at the 
time of his death and say it was somehow lacking is demonstrable of both 
paternalistic condescension and absolute cluelessness about the matter at hand. 
The Organization of Afro-American Unity was building a revolutionary 
internationalist bloc of power that accomplished far more than the tin-pot 
American Trots ever did. El-Shabazz was constructing multinational power across 
the Global South. His revolutionary education in prison was thoroughly soaked 
in Marxian thought, including Fanon and Du Bois. Plain and simple, the white 
American Left had more to learn from El-Shabazz than they had to teach him. His 
synthesis had been completed in prison and it was instead a matter of his 
rhetorical strategy evolving over the course of his ministerial career in order 
to better suit the nuances of his circumstances. The claim that he evolved or 
changed is complete garbage. It is interesting that you don’t include the lines 
from Kamau Franklin, author of the Breitman critique (perhaps you fear 
engagement with the substance of his points?), but oh well...

B) The multicultural religious Left has always accomplished more than the 
secular Left cults. Du Bois elaborated on this in THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK in 
the chapter about the Sorrow Songs. Martin Luther King Jr and El-Shabazz built 
power while the CPUSA and the Socialists and the Trotskyists didn’t. If you go 
back to the Debs era, the socialist periodical with highest subscription rate 
was a religious socialist one that crossed ethnic lines.

Amiri Baraka, imperfect in a few areas, hit the nail on the head here in his 
analysis of the Marable book:

https://blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com/2011/05/amiri-baraka-on-marables-malcolm-x.html?m=1

You obviously have more to learn from Malcolm X than he would from you or 
Breitman.

Best regards,
Andrew Stewart 
- - -
Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via 
https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/
Andrew Stewart writes: 

"[George] Breitman's Eurocentric Trotskyism articulates the claim that Black
nationalism is an ideological delusion that diverts from the revolutionary
cause. This is contrary to the Marxist-Leninist view, one embraced by Cuba and
China during the years El-Shabazz sought to build the bloc supporting the UN
petition, that the national liberation struggles are themselves revolutionary."

This is an outrageous misrepresentation. Anyone who has read George Breitman or
who knew him personally (as I did) would consider the view attributed to him by
Stewart to be beyond reason or belief. Breitman was one of the most far-sighted
Marxist sympathizers of Black nationalism in the United States. He probably did
more than anyone else to publicize Malcolm's revolutionary legacy (the real
legacy ignored by the Netflix series). Consider just this one brief excerpt from
his extensive writings spanning several decades. It is from "In Defense of Black
Power," (October 1966), available with many other works in the Breitman Archive
on Marxists.org.:

"Organizationally, the Black Power tendency is only in the early stages of its
development; the various groups and individuals who have raised the Black Power
banner have not yet defined their relations to each 

Re: [Marxism] Daniel J. Berrigan, Defiant Priest Who Preached Pacifism, Dies at 94

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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He died in 2016, as the article indicates.

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Subject: [Marxism] Daniel J. Berrigan, Defiant Priest Who Preached Pacifism,
Dies at 94

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https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/nyregion/daniel-j-berrigan-defiant-priest-who
-preached-pacifism-dies-at-94.html

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Re: [Marxism] How Netflix And "Manning Marable" Killed Malcolm X (The Third Time) - CounterPunch.org

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Andrew Stewart writes: 

"[George] Breitman's Eurocentric Trotskyism articulates the claim that Black
nationalism is an ideological delusion that diverts from the revolutionary
cause. This is contrary to the Marxist-Leninist view, one embraced by Cuba and
China during the years El-Shabazz sought to build the bloc supporting the UN
petition, that the national liberation struggles are themselves revolutionary."

This is an outrageous misrepresentation. Anyone who has read George Breitman or
who knew him personally (as I did) would consider the view attributed to him by
Stewart to be beyond reason or belief. Breitman was one of the most far-sighted
Marxist sympathizers of Black nationalism in the United States. He probably did
more than anyone else to publicize Malcolm's revolutionary legacy (the real
legacy ignored by the Netflix series). Consider just this one brief excerpt from
his extensive writings spanning several decades. It is from "In Defense of Black
Power," (October 1966), available with many other works in the Breitman Archive
on Marxists.org.:

"Organizationally, the Black Power tendency is only in the early stages of its
development; the various groups and individuals who have raised the Black Power
banner have not yet defined their relations to each other or united into a
single movement or federation. But numerically it is already considerably
stronger than the organized adherents of Malcolm's movement. The Student
Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE), groups in the new tendency, are national organizations, with thousands
of members or sympathizers. They have an experienced cadre of dedicated leaders
and activists, hardened in battle along many fronts and equipped with a variety
of skills. They represent the best of the new generation of young freedom
fighters who appeared on the scene around 1960, with a consistently more
militant outlook than that of previous generations and an enviable ability to
learn from experience and grow.

"Ideologically and politically, the Black Power tendency is also still in the
process of crystallization. But its direction-to the left-is unmistakably
indicated by the way it has broken away from several of the premises and
shibboleths of the old "civil rights" consensus. Internationalist and
anti-imperialist, it expresses solidarity with the worldwide struggle against
colonialism and neo-colonialism, condemns the US war in Vietnam and rejects the
contention that the freedom movement "should not mix civil rights and foreign
policy." It spurns the straitjacket of "non-violence" and proclaims the right of
self-defense. It challenges the fraudulent claim that freedom can be won through
the passage of a series of civil-rights laws that are largely un-enforced and
benefit mainly middle-class Negroes.

"Some of its adherents still believe in working inside the Democratic Party, but
others advocate a complete break with the Democrats and Republicans and the
establishment of independent black or black-led parties - not only in Lowndes
County, Ala., but in the Northern ghettos. Some accept capitalism; others are
talking rather vaguely about a cooperative based economy for the black community
that they think would be neither capitalist nor socialist; and there is also
evidently a pro-socialist grouping, as was shown when delegates at a Black Power
planning conference in Washington Sept. 3 posed the need to "determine which is
more politically feasible for the advancement of black power, capitalism or
socialism."

Unfortunately, the book cited by Stewart (The Last Year of Malcolm X: The
Evolution of a Revolutionary) is not on-line, although it can be purchased from
several sources. But anyone with a copy can see countless statements in it that
refute Stewart's libellous allegation. In particular, I recommend what Breitman
writes on pp. 55-56 and 66-69. As he states in the final paragraph of those
pages:

"[Malcolm's] uncertainty about the name to call himself arose from the fact that
he was doing something new in the United States -- he was on the way to a
synthesis of black nationalism and socialism that would be fitting for the
American scene and acceptable to the masses in the black ghetto. (An example of
the tendency of revolutionary nationalism to grow over into and become merged
with socialism can be seen in Cuba, where Castro and his movement began as
nationalist.) Malcolm did not complete this synthesis before he was
assassinated. It remains for others to complete what he began."

-- Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Andrew
Stewart 

Re: [Marxism] Global Research discusses tragic airliner crash

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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From the egg on our faces department at Global Research, the article (still 
there) is now preceded by this:

"Update

"The latest information suggests that the Ukraine plane was brought down by a 
missile, following statements emanating from the Iranian government."

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Ken 
Hiebert via Marxism
Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2020 1:46 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Global Research discusses tragic airliner crash

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As of this morning, this article still appears on the Global Research website.
I have omitted some of the article.
ken h

“Fake Intelligence”? Washington Blames Iran for Ukraine Airliner Crash. Was the 
Plane Brought down by a Missile?
Stephen Lendman

https://www.globalresearch.ca/blaming-iran-ukraine-airliner-crash/5700207 




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Re: [Marxism] Werner Angress’s “Stillborn Revolution: the Communist Bid for Power in Germany, 1921-1923” (part five, the conclusion)) | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Louis, I got as far as this, near the end of the second paragraph:
"The leaflet announced that any counterrevolutionary attack on the workers 
would be met by a general strike, and urged all proletarians to hum action 
committees and defense organizations within the next wry”, and to meet daily in 
the factories and other places of work hit discussions of the situation."

Could you proofread this text and repost it to your blog?

Thanks,
Richard

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From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis 
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2019 1:38 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Werner Angress’s “Stillborn Revolution: the Communist Bid 
for Power in Germany, 1921-1923” (part five, the conclusion)) | Louis Proyect: 
The Unrepentant Marxist

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This is the fifth and final part of a series of excerpts from Werner 
Angress’s “Stillborn Revolution: the Communist Bid for Power in Germany, 
1921-1923”.

Part one reproduces the chapter “The Genesis of the March Uprising” that 
deals with the poorly conceived ultraleft March 1921 Action of the 
German Communist Party that was based on a strategy shared by the CP 
leadership and the Comintern representatives in Germany, including Bela 
Kuhn. Breaking with the German party, Paul Levi called it the “greatest 
Bakunist putsch in history”.

Part two reproduces the chapter “The March Uprising and Its Failure”. It 
gets into the incredibly counter-productive tactics of the CP that 
treated SP workers who failed to join their adventurism as class enemies.

Part three reproduces the chapter “Retribution, Recrimination and 
Critique”, which sums up the thinking of the German CP and the Comintern 
on what went wrong. The united front strategy was an attempt to avoid 
the ultraleft mistakes of the March Action but it failed to acknowledge 
its author Paul Levi, who was the only Communist capable of overseeing 
its application.

Part four reproduces the chapter “Revolution in Preparation” that covers 
another fiasco that took place only two years later during October 1923. 
It flows from the same difficult circumstances, namely the goal of 
overthrowing a government led by the SP. Since the SP head of the 
government in Saxony supported the CP’s goal, this was not out of the 
question. However, the failure of the CP to win over the SP rank and 
file precluded a positive outcome.

In this the final part, you will be reading the final chapter of 
Angress’s book, which is titled The Abortive “German October”. It 
describes the inability of the CP to rally SP workers around the goal of 
overthrowing a government that many identified with. As stated above, 
this was not out of the question given the misery of the German 
population in 1923. But it required a more intelligent leadership in 
both the German party and the Comintern, which at this point was led by 
Zinoviev. The final pages of the chapter discuss how Zinoviev blocked 
with the German CP’s ultraleft faction led by Ruth Fischer and Arkadi 
Maslow against Trotsky. In 1924, the Comintern adopted the 
“Bolshevization” measures that both undermined a thorough accounting for 
what went wrong in Germany as well as fetishized the organizational 
methods of Lenin’s party, which became the norm for “Leninist” parties 
until now.

full: 
https://louisproyect.org/2019/12/04/werner-angresss-stillborn-revolution-the-communist-bid-for-power-in-germany-1921-1923-part-five-the-conclusion/
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Re: [Marxism] Putin and Bolivia

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The information in this article on Russian investments in Bolivia probably
explains why Putin's government was so quick to recognize the golpista
President's counter-revolutionary regime. They just want to do business,
political sympathies aside. As Lou says, geopolitics down the drain...

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Thomas
Campbell via Marxism
Sent: Sunday, November 17, 2019 9:46 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Putin and Bolivia

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It's strange that no one on this list knows that, before it threw him under
the bus the other day, apparently, the Putin regime was supporting Evo
Morales in its own peculiar way and, in turn, Morales was one of the few
world leaders who recognized the Kremlin's occupation of Crimea as
legitimate and made a good number of trips to Moscow.

About a month ago, the Russian investigative journalism website Proekt
reported that Rosatom, Russia's national nuclear energy corporation, had
sent a spin doctors to Bolivia to help Morale in his election company. Now
Quartz has summarized Proekt's article for English speakers.

https://qz.com/1749788/russia-allegedly-helped-evo-morales-in-bolivian-election/
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Re: [Marxism] [Discussion] Left of Europe, by Ashley Smith | Harper's Magazine

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As the first sentence states, this interview was published in New Politics this
last summer. Available on-line:
https://tinyurl.com/y68ydotk


-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2019 11:18 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] [Discussion] Left of Europe, by Ashley Smith | Harper's
Magazine

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Neil Davidson interview. Harper's used to have a strict paywall barrier 
but recently they have eased up a bit. I am not sure how many free 
articles you are allowed but this one should be retrieved.

https://harpers.org/archive/2019/10/left-of-europe-brexit-european-union/
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Re: [Marxism] Why Bolivian indigenous movements draw their power from oral history - NationofChange

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Here's my review of Ben Dangl's book:
Exploring the Indigenous background to Bolivia's 'Process of change'
https://tinyurl.com/y6eq25yj


-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2019 11:19 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Why Bolivian indigenous movements draw their power from oral
history - NationofChange

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https://www.nationofchange.org/2019/06/25/why-bolivian-indigenous-movements-draw
-their-power-from-oral-history/
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Re: [Marxism] Camejo and Shawki

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Not to mention Pedro's prediction of slowing economic growth from energy
shortages. Like so many (remember the late Mark Jones on this list?), there was
a tendency to view resource (and particularly oil) exploitation as a technical
question of physical availability (that was Hubbert's error) without factoring
in the role of the capitalist profit drive in finding new ways to develop new
sources (e.g. fracking, which now makes the US the largest oil producer
globally, or close to it). Oil production continues to increase, as does the use
of fossil-fuel energy. That's capitalism...

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Patrick
Bond via Marxism
Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2019 12:13 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Camejo and Shawki

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On 2019/06/27 3:58 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:
>
> I'm working on an article about the ex-ISO right now and accessed this 
> article I wrote in 2004 for background.
>
> http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/CamejoShawki.htm
> _ 


On Camejo: "He pointed to the likelihood that the United States has 
either reached the Hibbert curve or will soon do so. This means that the 
rate of economic growth will be slowed by energy shortages. We are also 
facing a situation in which home ownership has become a kind of savings 
plan for most working people, as house values increase as a result of 
cheap mortgage rates induced by low inflation rates. When rising energy 
costs leads to an inflationary spike, home values will begin to sharply 
decrease. The consequence might be massive consumer default and bankruptcy."

This is a line of argument I'm not too familiar with, but it's plausible 
since the oil price hit $145/barrel in 2008 (before crashing to $35 
within a few months). But I thought the general correlation of inflation 
to real estate was opposite to what's posited below (i.e., inflationary 
spikes allow real estate to hold value better than other commodity 
forms). Also, my sense of 2007-08 mortgage defaults in the U.S. was much 
more based upon the Exploding Adjustable Rate Mortgage phenomenon (a 
low-interest baiting, then switching to high rates after a few years), 
which especially hit African American neighborhoods, as well as those 
who were engaged in real estate flips coming up to the top of the 
Kuznets property cycle in particular locales in the U.S. Southwest, 
Florida and a few vulnerable cities. But I stand to be corrected. Has 
anyone revisited this?

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Re: [Marxism] Marta Harnecker has Passed Away -

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Fucking google translation!

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2019 8:14 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Marta Harnecker has Passed Away -

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https://walterlippmann.com/marta-harnecker-has-passed-away/
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Re: [Marxism] Trump and the reluctance to reckon with something fundamentally new

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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The role of the US sanctions is explained here, in an article by Mark Weisbrot
and Jeffrey Sachs (!):
Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela
https://www.alainet.org/es/node/199684

The article does not critique the disastrous failure of the chavistas to counter
Venezuela's dependence on hydrocarbons, and it ignores the role of the Obama
administration in initiating the sanctions (Obama was the first US president to
declare Venezuela "an usual and extraordinary threat to the national security"
of the United States). But it is an authoritative analysis of the devastating
impact of the US sanctions.

I concur with Chris Slee's concern over the failure of the US left to challenge
the blockade of Venezuela (and I add the overwhelming complicity of the Canadian
social-democratic and labour left in that blockade as implemented in turn by the
Trudeau government).

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Chris
Slee via Marxism
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2019 6:09 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Trump and the reluctance to reckon with something
fundamentally new

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Trump has backed off from threats to invade Venezuela, but as far as I am aware
there has been no change to the economic sanctions - which are an attempt to
impose an economic blockade against Venezuela.

The threat of invasion was, I think, psychological warfare rather than an
imminent threat.  An invasion may happen later, after Venezuela has been
weakened further by the blockade.

It disturbs me that the US left does not seem to be campaigning vigorously
against the blockade (as far as I can tell observing from afar).

Chris Slee

From: Marxism  on behalf of John Reimann
via Marxism 
Sent: Wednesday, 8 May 2019 2:41:06 AM
To: Chris Slee
Subject: [Marxism] Trump and the reluctance to reckon with something
fundamentally new

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A week ago, we had a short debate here on the significance of Trump's
defending the Russian presence in Venezuela. That defense came after Pompeo
and Bolton had rattled their sabres on that score and it also came an hour
or so after Trump had spoken with Putin. My view was that it was yet
another example of the degree to which Putin is pulling Trump's strings.
Another way of seeing it is that it's an example of how the mainstream of
the US capitalist class has largely lost control over its presidency. This,
of course, is a description of bonapartism, and while we're not all the way
there yet, I believe that's the essence of the issue. This, of course,
means a sharp transformation in how capitalism rules in the United States -
possibly the biggest political transformation since the US Civil War.

I also believe that the great majority of the left - including Marxists -
are having a hard time wrapping their heads around this transformation.
It's not easy to change our orientation, after all. In this article, I lay
out the argument and also the evidence for my view.

https://oaklandsocialist.com/2019/05/06/trump-and-the-reluctance-to-reckon-with-
something-fundamentally-new/

One detail: I quote an email from Michael Karadjis in the article. I do so
with his permission.

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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Re: [Marxism] William Krehm, Canadian Trotskyist activist and Spanish Civil War veteran, Died at 105 | Dead Obituary

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Posted on the Socialist Project list by Andy Lehrer:

William Krehm died this past Friday. While better known in recent years as the
founder and leader of COMER, the neo-social credit monetary reform outfit, Krehm
has a fascinating history as a Trotskyist in the 1930s when he was a member of
the Communist League of America, led a faction opposed to Maurice Spector, and
then left to join what became the   League for a Revolutionary Party (the
"Fieldites"), led by Krehm in Canada and which for a time, was larger in Toronto
than the Trotskyist organization of the time. In 1936, he went to Spain to
volunteer with the POUM in the Spanish Civil War, was in the same unit as Eric
Arthur Blair (George Orwell), and was jailed for three months by the Communists
when the POUM was outlawed.. He returned to Toronto and in 1938 organized an
anti-fascist counterprotest across from Massey Hall where Adrien Arcand's
fascists were holding a rally. He went to Mexico in 1940, and stood guard over
Trotsky's body at his funeral.

He then became a foreign correspondent for Time in Latin America, lost his job
after the Cold War made his views unpalatable, and ultimately returned to
Toronto where he abandoned left wing politics and first became a music critic
and then a real estate developer during the post-war property boom (and as such
campaigned against rent controls). Perhaps it's not surprising that when he
returned to political activity it wasn't as a socialist but as an advocate of
crackpot neo-social credit monetary theory.. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Krehm

Popplewell, Brett (May 18, 2008). "Toronto revolutionary, 93, girds for one more
battle". Toronto Star
https://www.thestar.com/news/2008/05/17/toronto_revolutionary_93_girds_for_one_m
ore_battle.html

Last Man Standing Of the 1,600 Canadians who volunteered to fight in the Spanish
Civil War, only one remains (The Walrus, December 2016)
https://thewalrus.ca/last-man-standing/

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2019 5:00 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] William Krehm, Canadian Trotskyist activist and Spanish Civil
War veteran, Died at 105 | Dead Obituary

https://deadobituary.com/william-krehm-canadian-trotskyist-activist-and-spanish-
civil-war-veteran-died-at-105


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Re: [Marxism] Krugman on two parties

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But it's all about the Republicans -- and thus an apparent argument in favour 
of the Democrats as the party that will still defend "American values."

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From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Anthony 
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Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2019 10:29 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Krugman on two parties

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Despite the bullshit, Krugman’s analysis of the two parties is
substantially correct.



The Great Republican Abdication: A party that no longer believes in
American values.

New York Times by Paul Krugman Opinion Columnist April 22, 2019



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Re: [Marxism] Revolutionary strategy and the electoral road | John Riddell

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Here is one such balance sheet, by Québec solidaire, the left party that
receives precious little attention on this list although many in the US and
(Anglo) Canadian left could learn much from its experience:
"Québec solidaire reviews the election and maps campaign on climate crisis"
http://tinyurl.com/y6y25gwj

Richard

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Lause via Marxism
Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2019 11:29 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Revolutionary strategy and the electoral road | John
Riddell

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Realizing that this is a regrettably short note, I am compelled to ask what
sort of strategic balance sheet have any of the groups engaged in electoral
politics ever written?

Or even a serious non-cheerleading analysis of their work after the end of
a particular campaign?

I suspect we know the answer.
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Re: [Marxism] Marxist Center Delegates Council Statement on the Dissolution of the International Socialist Organization (ISO)

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Where is there an official statement by the ISO of its dissolution?

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Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2019 8:46 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Marxist Center Delegates Council Statement on the Dissolution
of the International Socialist Organization (ISO)

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https://regenerationmag.org/marxist-center-delegates-council-statement-on-the-di
ssolution-of-the-international-socialist-organization-iso/
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[Marxism] Manifesto for a new popular internationalism in Europe

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Collective article presented by more than 150 co-signatories including Eric
Toussaint , Esther Vivas , Catherine Samary , Costas Lapavitsas , Stathis
Kouvelakis , Tijana Okic , Nathan Legrand , Alexis Cukier , Jeanne Chevalier ,
Yayo Herrero.

March 21, 2019

The ReCommons Europe Manifesto has been drawn up by a group of researchers and
activists from a dozen or so countries in Europe who wish to propose a plan to
be carried out by the radical left forces that want to create the conditions for
social change in the interests of the majority of the population after coming to
power in a European country with the active support of the population. It forms
part of the ReCommons Europe Project which was initiated by two international
networks, the CADTM and EReNSEP, and the Basque trade union ELA, with the aim of
contributing to the strategic debates taking place on the European radical left
today. It was written collectively in the course of meetings which took place in
2018. It follows on from the appeal entitled "Ten Proposals to Beat the European
Union", a collective document published by more than 70 signatories in February
2017.

http://www.cadtm.org/Manifesto-for-a-new-popular-internationalism-in-Europe


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[Marxism] ISO (and Mike Gonzalez) on Venezuela

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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https://socialistworker.org/2019/03/04/venezuela-on-the-brink

According to Gonzalez, it's just an inter-imperialist struggle. But these
imperialisms seem to be on opposite sides, so can we at least take a position
between sides? No, “there is nothing to choose between Guaidó and Maduro.” Nor
should the Venezuelan army defend the country's territorial sovereignty: “for
the immediate withdrawal of all troops from Venezuela’s border.” Also, support
for the Committee for the Defense of the Constitution’s call for a referendum,
which (not mentioned) they asked Guaidó to approve, in a meeting with him. And
the international left is to be condemned for “supporting” Maduro – no evidence
presented, the distinction between “defence” (against imperialism) and political
support being lost on Gonzalez. Not to mention various misstatements of facts,
hardly worth mentioning. Pathetic.

Richard


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[Marxism] THE EMPIRE BEHIND THE COUP

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Justin Akers Chacón, author of Radicals in the Barrio and No One is Illegal,
documents the ties connecting Venezuela’s right-wing coup-makers, Latin American
reactionaries and the bipartisan rulers of the world's most powerful government.
https://socialistworker.org/2019/02/26/the-empire-behind-the-coup





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[Marxism] Confront Imperialism and Don't Make Concessions: A Conversation with Nestor Kohan (Part 1)

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14346


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[Marxism] Inside the Neoliberal Laboratory Preparing for the Theft of Venezuela's Economy

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14337


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Re: [Marxism] What Happened to the Struggle for Socialism in Latin America?

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Maduro is the "counter-revolution." Today's "choice is between several 
imperialisms — the U.S. and Guaidó, Russian and China with Maduro."

What shit!! But thanks for reminding us, Lou, what an ignoramus Gonzalez is.

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis 
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2019 7:33 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] What Happened to the Struggle for Socialism in Latin America?

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Mike Gonzalez interview:

"Chávez was anti-capitalist in his discourse, but never had an 
anti-capitalist strategy. Expropriations were purchases and often in 
reaction to the disinvestment or flight of a specific capitalist."

https://truthout.org/articles/what-happened-to-latin-americas-socialism/

As if a strategy could have guaranteed success. Gonzalez, like his 
ideological partner Sam Farber, never consider the question of the 
relationship of class forces. If Venezuela had carried out the 
wide-scale nationalizations of the Cuban revolution, it would have faced 
sanctions, subversion and even military intervention that make the last 
5 years look small-scale by comparison. Cuba was able to survive because 
it had the backing of the USSR.

The simple truth is that Venezuela, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and any other 
peripheral society cannot survive on their own in a world where 
capitalist property relations prevail

The only way a "socialist strategy" might have worked in Latin America 
was if if it had been continent-wide in the same way Simon Bolivar had 
led. That would have required a different kind of leadership in Brazil 
than the Workers Party that was spineless.

It is easy for people like Gonzalez, Farber, et al to review what 
happened in Venezuela or Cuba like they were reviewing a movie. Let them 
go out and make their own. It ain't easy. I say that as someone who was 
deeply involved with Nicaraguan solidarity in the 80s and saw a country 
incapable of resolving contradictions of the kind that Marx referred to 
in the 18th Brumaire:

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; 
they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under 
circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The 
tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains 
of the living."
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Re: [Marxism] Marea Socialista

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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This interview was published more than three years ago. Note the date: April 15,
2016. Perhaps useful some background information, but seriously outdated. For
one thing, Marea Socialista split between its pro-Chavista and anti-Chavista
leaders.

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Anthony
Boynton via Marxism
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2019 1:21 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Marea Socialista

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https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11933
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Re: [Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Report from Venezuela

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This is a "party" that adheres to the political current led by the former 
Moreno PST based in Argentina.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partido_Socialismo_y_Libertad

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From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of John 
Reimann via Marxism
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2019 11:12 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Report from Venezuela

Here is a reprint from an article by the Party for Socialism and Liberation
in Venezuela. I don't know all the ins and outs of the different socialist
groups in Venezuela, but this article seems pretty close to reality there.


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Re: [Marxism] There’s a Voice Missing in Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma”

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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A similar take on Roma, along with some other films of 2018...

21 Dec 2018
The Globe and Mail 

For women in film, 2018 was a year of dirty laundry
By Kate Taylor

Movies such as Roma aim to celebrate their female characters, but can’t escape 
the limitations of being told from a male perspective

 Alfonso Cuaron’s black-and-white drama Roma stars Yalitza Aparicio as Cleo, a 
housekeeper in 1970s Mexico, and is dedicated to Cuaron’s childhood nanny, 
‘Libo.’ The film is visually exquisite and Oscar-worthy, but it fails to fully 
examine Cleo – or Libo’s – life experience.

As the year draws to a close, I have been catching up with the rave reviews of 
Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, the black-andwhite drama based on the director’s 
memories of Mexico City in the 1970s and dedicated to “Libo,” his childhood 
nanny. Focused on the stoical Cleo, the hardworking Mixtec housekeeper and 
caregiver for a family of six that is coming apart at the seams, it’s visually 
exquisite, a shoo-in for the best-foreign-language Oscar, and a film sure to 
reinvigorate complaints that subtitled movies are so seldom nominated for best 
picture.

But as critics discussed the almost mystical imagery surrounding the 
self-sacrificing Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), who proves ready to risk her life for 
her employer’s children in the film’s melodramatic climax, I found few reviews 
that echoed my own reactions. I can be a literal-minded viewer and couldn’t 
help noticing that nobody in this household ever walks the dog– and that in 
Mexico in 1970, domestic labour was apparently so cheap that upper middle- 
families had maids rather than washing machines.

There is an early scene in Roma in which Cleo climbs to the roof to scrub the 
laundry by hand and we see other maids, on neighbouring rooftops, doing the 
same, hanging the clothes to dry in the sun. The youngest of the family joins 
the servant and, annoyed a this older brother over a gunfight game gone wrong, 
plays at being dead. To coax him out of his sulks, Cleo joins him and the two 
lay together on a skylight, faces to the sun. “I like being dead,” Cleo says.

Writing on that scene in a sensitive review in The New Yorker, critic Anthony 
Lane commented on the nanny’s empathetic ability to enter the child’s 
imagination. I had taken her devotion to her charges for granted; my main 
reaction was that her remark indicated this was probably her first and only 
chance that day to put her feet up. Few reviews of Roma dwell on the exhausting 
domestic labour Cleo performs, giving Cuaron a pass as he idolizes his own 
servant in a way that exalts her without fully examining her experience.

Cleo was but one of 2018’s magical nannies; the other was Mary Poppins in a 
rather different but no less popular outing. Whether they were maids, 
mistresses or monarchs, there were many powerful female protagonists on film 
this year, from the deceptively self-effacing literary spouse Glenn Close 
played in The Wife to Saoirse Ronan’s fiery title character in Mary Queen of 
Scots. Hollywood wisdom has long held that male characters are safer bet sat 
the box office because men prefer male stories while female audiences will come 
along for the ride. In November, however, a study sponsored by the U.S. talent 
agency Creative Artists busted that myth, finding that from 2014-17 movies of 
all budget levels with a female lead actually generated more money at the box 
office. In 2018, as women turned criminal in action movies such as Widows and 
Ocean’s 8, there was a strong sense that female was the flavour of the year – 
but, of course, both those titles were directed by men.

In September, accepting an Emmy for directing Transparent, the TV show’s 
creator Jill Soloway issued a call to “Topple the patriarchy!” That slogan is 
actually a movement Soloway has launched, and if you check out its website, 
you’ll be surprised by its demands: that no men be allowed to make movies or TV 
shows (or any other art form) for 50 years. It’s more a political provocation 
than a practical suggestion. The point is that the forms, the images and the 
vocabulary of what we see on our screens have been shaped by an overwhelmingly 
male creative class to the point where it may be very difficult for other 
creators to imagine their own ways of seeing and telling within that system.

The manifesto also oversimplifies authorship: Auteur theory to the contrary, 
most movies aren’t made by a single (male) genius.

Take two recent girl-power art films as examples. The revisionist Mary Queen of 
Scots is based on a script written by a man (Beau Willimon) from a book written 
by a man (John Guy), but the film is 

Re: [Marxism] Hannah Arendt | Kanopy

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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For another view (indirectly) on Arendt and her "banal" view of Eichmann, watch
The People vs. Fritz Bauer, now on Netflix. 

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2018 12:24 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Hannah Arendt | Kanopy

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Watch film about Hannah Arendt for free. Kanopy.com offers German films 
streaming for free. I have parricular interest in the film since two of 
the characters--her husband Heinrich Blucher and Hans Jonas, a one-time 
friend who broke with her over her relationship to Heidegger and her New 
Yorker articles on Eichmann--were my professors at Bard and the New 
School that I was pretty close to.

https://www.kanopy.com/product/hannah-arendt-1

My review of the film:

https://louisproyect.org/2013/05/21/hannah-arendt/
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[Marxism] Nicaragua, April 2018 - Right-wing coup or popular revolt?

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Dick Nichols, in a 40-page report available on the Links web site
(http://tinyurl.com/yapj5z4a), conducts an exhaustive investigation into the
claims by the Ortega-Murillo regime that it was the target of a planned coup
attempt in April. He concludes:

"In the absence of evidence corroborating the Nicaraguan government's view of
the events of April as an attempted coup it will become increasingly difficult
to avoid the conclusion that the events of April were a peaceful protest that
state repression transformed into a citizen rebellion against the repression
itself and for the democratic replacement of the government implementing it.

"If this shortfall of corroborating evidence continues, the initial decision of
the Nicaraguan government to repress the protests, finalised by the "clean-up"
(limpieza) carried out in June and July, would make its view of the protests as
a coup instigated by the Nicaraguan right and the United States indispensable
for it - not as any description of reality but as justification of its own
choice to crush dissent with lethal force."

Valuable reading for anyone seeking the truth about what really happened in
Nicaragua. Dick confines his analysis to the April protests and subsequent
explanations by the regime attempting to justify its repression. For background
reading on the nature of the Nicaraguan government, I recommend Dan La Botz's
"What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution" (Haymarket), especially his
detailed account of Nicaraguan politics and the political corruption of the
Ortega leadership since the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in 1990.

Richard

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[Marxism] FW: The Lesson of Brazil (Pierre Beaudet)

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Pierre Beaudet, an editor of Nouveaux Cahiers du Socialisme, is a long-standing
member of the International Council of the World Social Forum, which first met
in 2001 in Porto Alegre, just a year before the Workers Party (PT) was elected
to the presidency of Brazil. The WSF has met almost annually since then in
Brazil and occasionally in other countries. Prof. Beaudet wrote this article the
day after the October 28 election of the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro as
president of Brazil, winning 55% over the PT’s 45%. It was first published in
Presse-toi à gauche. A shorter version was published in Le Devoir. My
translation. – Richard Fidler

* * *

The Lesson of Brazil

By Pierre Beaudet

The catastrophe — expected and foreseeable — has happened. This immense country,
with its 200 million inhabitants, is now in darkness. At best, it will take a
decade or two to emerge.

The ‘Colombian model’

It is of course very early to predict what will happen, but the election of the
fascist Bolsonaro raises two possibilities. The “optimists,” if one can put it
that way, think that a kind of Colombian-style regime will emerge:
authoritarian, militarized, using targeted repression against certain sectors of
the popular movement with the consent if not support of a vast sector of the
middle and popular classes. In Colombia, under Álvaro Uribe’s rule, the state
was reinforced and restabilized, benefiting from the militarist excesses of the
FARC. Today, Colombia emerges as a small regional power with a façade of
democracy, a fragmented opposition, and a solid alliance between the various
reactionary factions, not to mention the unfailing support of the United States.
In that country they assassinate, kidnap, destroy the opposition, but they leave
it a small place in a well-organized system that rules out any change. Has
history come to an end in Colombia? Of course not, it never does. Also, Brazil
is not Colombia. The popular movement did not become militarized. It still
enjoys broad electoral support (45% of the votes), foundations in the
institutions, states (provinces) and municipalities. All that cannot be
destroyed overnight. However…

The pessimistic scenario

Bolsonaro expresses the hope of sectors that are truly fascist, not only
authoritarian. The president-elect said it himself, he wants to “exterminate”
the left. Which could mean several things, such as a “purge” of the public
service, education and the cultural milieu, as the Turkish dictator has done in
his own way. But there is worse yet. In the Brazilian case it will be necessary
to break vast popular movements, including in the first place the powerful
landless peasants movement, the MST. For three decades this movement has sunk
roots in various rural sectors, with an organized network of establishments,
cooperatives and institutions. Although not obtaining the agrarian reform it
sought from its allies in the Workers Party (PT), the MST has established itself
in some regions as a mini “state within the state,” with hundreds of thousands
of members. Bolsonaro has said he will “clean them up” with the support of the
powerful agrobusiness sector, local notables and popular sectors fueled by junk
media and the evangelical churches. The MST, which fortunately has never toyed
with the militarist option, will have a hard time withstanding the shock, unless
other popular sectors join with it to build a sort of anti-fascist front. For
the moment, that’s unlikely. The trade-union movement, including the CUT, which
gave birth to the PT, is virtually paralyzed, in large part by the frontal
assault on the workers in recent years and the impact of “globalization.”
Reorienting toward primary resource extraction and agrobusiness, Brazilian
capitalism concluded that a working class organized in industry and public
services was due for slaughter.

Full: http://tinyurl.com/yb5r6o4e



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Re: [Marxism] Democrats and Trump

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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In answer to Tim Nelson, I tried to indicate some of the particular
circumstances behind the initial steps that led to QS in my comment concerning
Mark Lause's post:

"But this is the result of a long process that began about 20 years ago, when
some survivors of the old Trotskyist and “Marxist-Leninist” (Maoist) groups of
the 1970s began to get together and discuss how to build a new broad left party.
Over the next few years they reached broad agreement to put aside old doctrinal
differences of 20th century socialism and to focus on a few key programmatic
themes: feminism, left pluralism, opposition to global imperialism, and, not
least, in the Quebec context support for Quebec national independence from the
Canadian state (an intellectually liberating concept as it freed their thinking
from the restrictions imposed by the existing constitutional division of
powers). This could not have occurred until the dominant pro-independence party,
the Parti québécois (PQ), had become widely discredited as a result of its
implementation of capitalist austerity while in government and its failure to
win majority support for independence in the 1995 referendum.

"Crucially, the regroupment process sought ways to build alliances with the
existing social movements, especially the women’s movement (still relatively
strong at that time in Quebec, where the world march of women began) and the
“altermondialiste” (global justice) movement. More recently the fight against
climate change has become a dominant theme."

Although the Trotskyists had supported Quebec independence, the much larger
forces in the various M-L (Maoist) groups did not and they went into crisis
after the 1980 referendum; their opposition to feminism was another major factor
in their demise. The best elements in these groups learned the lessons and by
the mid-1990s saw the strategic advantage in promoting independence and
supporting the women's movement which was very active at the time. The crisis of
the Parti québécois acted as a detonator of the movement to build a left
political alternative.

As to Louis's suggestion of a march on Washington, below, I would add: And why
not propose a wide-open (or possibly delegated) conference in conjunction with
such a march, in which the various participants could attempt to identify and
begin to define some key objectives and demands around which a radical
anti-systemic political alternative might be built, and set up a representative
steering committee to pilot the project in coming months? That was how the
antiwar movement functioned best in the Sixties. I participated in some of those
marches and conferences, in which the various options for action were debated
and next actions were adopted (remember Fred Halstead taking on people like
Frank Emspak in a memorable debate at a conference in Washington, around 1965).
Those were heady days!

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2018 2:12 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Democrats and Trump

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On 11/2/18 1:45 PM, Michael Meeropol via Marxism wrote:
> RIGHT NOW -- we have a reason for a sustained movement -- resistance to
> Trump and Trumpism, resistance to revived out-there racism and the
> xenophobia that permits too many Americans to buy Trump's bullshit about an
> "invasion" --- that sustained resistance has got to continue -- and the
> coalition is very broad, including people we might otherwise want nothing
> to do with (remember "war criminals for peace" who joined the anti-Vietnam
> War coalition when Nixon was President!!) --- but that sustained movement
> (which will be with us through 2020 and maybe [gasp!] 2024) might be
> another 1970s moment to contemplate.

I think a united front against Trump is absolutely necessary but in 
bringing up the Vietnam antiwar movement that I was deeply involved with 
from 1967 to 1973 as an SWP member Michael points in the direction of 
what is needed today.

A mass demonstration in Washington is urgently needed to bring together 
every activist group and segment of the population they fight for. A 
million people will have much more impact than anything. I am not even 
arguing against DSA or whoever trying to get Democrats elected. People 
have made up their 

Re: [Marxism] Democrats and Trump

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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" Québec solidaire can be traced back to small, far left groups.  There were 
years of slogging before they got where they are today.  That, I think, is a 
lesson that can be taken from the Quebec experience."

Ken misses the point. The breakthrough in Quebec came in the late 1990s when 
the "small, far left groups" realized the need to stop slogging on their own, 
to rethink the question of how to build an effective party of the left, to set 
aside largely irrelevant or untimely differences and to single out key 
forward-looking themes around which to unite and reach out to broader forces.

Richard

-Original Message-

Ken Hiebert replies:
I read Richard’s reports on Quebec, and in particular Québec solitaire, with 
great interest.  And I expect others do as well, but I wouldn’t be surprised to 
learn that while they take heart from his reports they also feel that the 
situation is so different in their own country, that they can’t see how to 
apply the lessons of Quebec.
I will concede that there is insularity in English Canada. But even if in 
English Canada we are closer to the experience in Quebec, it also seems 
somewhat remote from what we confront in our own part of the country.

Speaking from a distance, I would still like to contribute to the discussion in 
the US.  If we are to make a break from the Democratic Party, it must start 
with the limited forces we now have.  The first initiatives will be small and 
have a modest impact.  Is there another way to break with the Democrats?  
Should we wait?  What would we be waiting for?  Inaction on our part only 
reinforces the hegemony of the Democratic Party.

Québec solidaire can be traced back to small, far left groups.  There were 
years of slogging before they got where they are today.  That, I think, is a 
lesson that can be taken from the Quebec experience.



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Re: [Marxism] Democrats and Trump

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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"We would also raise the need for Ocasio-Cortez, or any socialist, to use their
position to help develop a clear program that goes beyond reforms and poses a
clear alternative to the dysfunctional capitalist system. This is an important
part of building the socialist movement because again and again she will be
pressured to moderate her positions by defenders of capitalism. If she does,
this can lower the confidence of working people to fight for even modest
reforms. By outlining a bold vision for socialist transformation she can help
politically prepare a new generation for what will be needed: taking the biggest
500 corporations into democratic public ownership and rebuilding society on the
basis of democratically planned economy that puts human need before corporate
greed.

"Ocasio-Cortez will undoubtedly play a positive and important role by providing
a contrast to spineless corporate Democrats, but it's highly unlikely that
Ocasio-Cortez would take the approach proposed above. We outline it here to
raise the sights of our readers and explain a Marxist vision for the kind of
movement needed along with what role an elected socialist could play."

<
https://www.socialistalternative.org/2018/10/04/ocasio-cortez-provide-bold-lead-
socialists-elected-office/>


-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Mark
Lause via Marxism
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2018 2:59 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Cc: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Democrats and Trump

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SAlt?  Say it ain't so . . . . :-)

I saw a video of them singing "the Internationale" at their convention.
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Re: [Marxism] Democrats and Trump

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Oops, the references to 1972 and 1976 below should be, of course, to 2002 and 
2006. Guess I am still living in the 20th century.

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Richard 
Fidler via Marxism
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2018 9:58 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Democrats and Trump

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Thanks, Mark. 

 

It strikes me that “independent political action” in the US at present comes 
down to a largely ideological action – small sects running candidates in their 
own name hoping to attract some individuals to their “party,” or simply 
commenting from the sidelines. Perhaps that is all that is possible at this 
time, as you may be suggesting. Obviously, in Quebec (not in Canada as a whole, 
unfortunately) we are in a much more favourable position. Québec solidaire is a 
party with a much more developed program than anything you have in the USA, and 
is certainly much more influential than the DSA or any of the sects. 

 

But this is the result of a long process that began about 20 years ago, when 
some survivors of the old Trotskyist and “Marxist-Leninist” (Maoist) groups of 
the 1970s began to get together and discuss how to build a new broad left 
party. Over the next few years they reached broad agreement to put aside old 
doctrinal differences of 20th century socialism and to focus on a few key 
programmatic themes: feminism, left pluralism, opposition to global 
imperialism, and, not least, in the Quebec context support for Quebec national 
independence from the Canadian state (an intellectually liberating concept as 
it freed their thinking from the restrictions imposed by the existing 
constitutional division of powers). This could not have occurred until the 
dominant pro-independence party, the Parti québécois (PQ), had become widely 
discredited as a result of its implementation of capitalist austerity while in 
government and its failure to win majority support for independence in the 1995 
referendum.

 

Crucially, the regroupment process sought ways to build alliances with the 
existing social movements, especially the women’s movement (still relatively 
strong at that time in Quebec, where the world march of women began) and the 
“altermondialiste” (global justice) movement. More recently the fight against 
climate change has become a dominant theme.

 

Then they began a few electoralist experiments – a candidacy against the PQ 
prime minister, in which their candidate (Michel Chartrand, an old 
social-democratic leader) got about 18% of the vote, and most successfully in 
2001 in a Montréal by-election where their candidate (a leader of a short-lived 
municipal workers party in the early 1970s) got 24% of the vote. This led to 
the formation of a “union of progressive forces” (UFP) in 1972, followed in 
1976 by a merger with a coalition of feminist and community-oriented social 
movements to form Québec solidaire. 

 [snip]


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Re: [Marxism] Democrats and Trump

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Thanks, Mark. 

 

It strikes me that “independent political action” in the US at present comes 
down to a largely ideological action – small sects running candidates in their 
own name hoping to attract some individuals to their “party,” or simply 
commenting from the sidelines. Perhaps that is all that is possible at this 
time, as you may be suggesting. Obviously, in Quebec (not in Canada as a whole, 
unfortunately) we are in a much more favourable position. Québec solidaire is a 
party with a much more developed program than anything you have in the USA, and 
is certainly much more influential than the DSA or any of the sects. 

 

But this is the result of a long process that began about 20 years ago, when 
some survivors of the old Trotskyist and “Marxist-Leninist” (Maoist) groups of 
the 1970s began to get together and discuss how to build a new broad left 
party. Over the next few years they reached broad agreement to put aside old 
doctrinal differences of 20th century socialism and to focus on a few key 
programmatic themes: feminism, left pluralism, opposition to global 
imperialism, and, not least, in the Quebec context support for Quebec national 
independence from the Canadian state (an intellectually liberating concept as 
it freed their thinking from the restrictions imposed by the existing 
constitutional division of powers). This could not have occurred until the 
dominant pro-independence party, the Parti québécois (PQ), had become widely 
discredited as a result of its implementation of capitalist austerity while in 
government and its failure to win majority support for independence in the 1995 
referendum.

 

Crucially, the regroupment process sought ways to build alliances with the 
existing social movements, especially the women’s movement (still relatively 
strong at that time in Quebec, where the world march of women began) and the 
“altermondialiste” (global justice) movement. More recently the fight against 
climate change has become a dominant theme.

 

Then they began a few electoralist experiments – a candidacy against the PQ 
prime minister, in which their candidate (Michel Chartrand, an old 
social-democratic leader) got about 18% of the vote, and most successfully in 
2001 in a Montréal by-election where their candidate (a leader of a short-lived 
municipal workers party in the early 1970s) got 24% of the vote. This led to 
the formation of a “union of progressive forces” (UFP) in 1972, followed in 
1976 by a merger with a coalition of feminist and community-oriented social 
movements to form Québec solidaire. 

 

Since then QS has sought to operate as both “a party of the ballot-boxes and 
the streets” (the expression first popularized in France by the Ligue 
communiste révolutionnaire), although there is a strong pull toward electoral 
action as the priority. The party’s elected members see themselves as 
parliamentary spokespersons for the social movements, but QS still has to 
define more clearly how to work in conjunction with the broader social 
movements.

 

There is much more to be said, of course, and I have tried over the years to 
document and analyze this process for a non-Quebec English-speaking left 
audience. But I often wonder if a somewhat analogous process might be possible 
south of the border. You certainly have many mass protest movements, but as you 
say they tend to be one-off single-issue and “punctual” efforts, without 
sustained existence. However, the recent rapid growth of the DSA suggests there 
is an appetite for something more permanent and positive, even if its 
“socialism” is largely undefined. You also have an intellectually productive 
left judging from the materials often referenced on Marxmail (Counterpunch, 
Truthout, etc.) and of course the remnants of some 20th century sects such as 
the ISO or Against the Current. So far you lack (as do we in English Canada) 
some agglutinizing influence that could initiate a broader regroupment process. 
In Quebec this existed largely because of the Québécois national question and 
its radicalizing influence on young people. (This was completely misunderstood 
by the sole article Jacobin published on the recent Quebec election campaign.)

 

I’ll leave it there, for now. But as I say I think there is much the US (and 
Anglo-Canadian) left could learn from the Quebec experience. The language 
difference complicates this, of course. But that can be overcome with a little 
effort.

 

Richard

 

From: Mark Lause [mailto:markala...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2018 10:07 PM
To: Richard Fidler; Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Democrats 

Re: [Marxism] Democrats and Trump

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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This is a recurring discussion on Marxmail and on any number of left web sites 
at least once every two years in line with the US elections calendar. How do we 
build a mass left party in the mighty USA? May I modestly suggest you look at 
some nearby examples in other countries for some ideas on how this might be 
done. As it is, I think the US left suffers as much as the Anglo-Canadian left 
from its insularity. 

I posted this month two articles to this list that just might have some 
relevance to your dilemma, and as usual when I post such items they met with no 
comment and to my knowledge no interest. But I think some of you might find it 
useful to look a little more closely at a phenomenon right on your doorstep, in 
Quebec. Here, once again, are those articles. A search of the Marxmail archives 
would reveal much more. Or, for my pieces alone, a search of my blog: 
http://lifeonleft.blogspot.com/. Just look for "Québec solidaire." Every 
national experience is unique, sui generis. But some generalizations are 
possible, if we probe deeply enough. And there is much to learn from each.

http://tinyurl.com/y9b44aqr
and
http://tinyurl.com/y897vb7z

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of John 
Reimann via Marxism
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2018 2:41 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Democrats and Trump

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This thread has evolved into a discussion on the alternatives to the
Democrats and how that might develop. I believe one way it could develop is
for local movements to throw up candidates for local office, with such
candidates running on an explicitly anti-Democratic/Republican Party
platform and linking up the local issues with the need for a working class
party. I would like to point out that that is starting to happen - halfway.
We have had:


   - Nikita Oliver run for mayor of Seattle in 2017. Oliver has been active
   in various protest movements in Seattle for years.
   - Sarah Morken run for city council in Tacoma in 2017. Sarah has been
   active in the 15 Now campaign and various other protest movements in that
   city.
   - Cat Brooks running for mayor in Oakland at present. Cat is one of the
   most prominent figures in the equivalent of the Black Lives Matter movement
   in this city.
   - Noonie "Belden Man" Batiste running for congress in New Orleans.
   Noonie has been very active in the housing rights campaigns in that city.
   - Last but not least, Cliff Willmeng running for Boulder County (CO)
   commissioner. Cliff is probably the foremost radical anti-fracking activist
   in Colorado. I did an interview with Cliff here
   

   .

In several of these cases, such as Cat Brooks, the campaign is far from
clear about the necessity to break from the Democrats and build a working
class alternative. The campaign of Nikita Oliver has led to the formation
of a "People's Party", but it's far from clear how this "party" differs
from the Green Party.

Well over a year ago, a small group of us submitted a proposal to the East
Bay DSA chapter that we initiate a discussion within the chapter about
running our own local candidates on the basis described above. Predictably,
the chapter leadership nixed the idea. Instead, they and it seems DSA as a
whole have simply become the mobilizers for various liberal Democrats who
happen to call themselves "democratic socialist". But I do think that
potential for local candidates is there.

We should also keep in mind that a working class party does not necessarily
have to emerge through running candidates. It could emerge by coordinating
the movement in the streets and work places and in the unions too. There is
the potential for such a movement to develop around the issue of voter
suppression. Unfortunately, nobody on the left is really making much of an
issue of this. That leaves it up to the Democrats, who are channeling
everything into legal challenges. We saw how great that worked with the
election of George Bush!

Finally, as far as the Greens and the Peace and Freedom Party: I don't see
the Greens as being filled out by any significant sector of workers. So I
think it will remain stagnating in its swamp. As far as P, they have

[Marxism] FW: Québec solidaire prepares to confront a new government of austerity and social and ethnic polarization

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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http://tinyurl.com/y897vb7z

Québec solidaire’s 10 members of the National Assembly, elected October 1, took
their oath of office on October 17 in two parts.

The oath of allegiance to the Queen, required by the British North America Act
(now the Constitution Act) in order to take their seats in the Assembly, was
conducted behind closed doors, presided over by the secretary of the Assembly.

In a public ceremony held in the former chamber of the Legislative Council (the
appointed upper house abolished in the 1960s) the 10 MNAs pledged their “real”
loyalty “to the people of Quebec.” Then, to the acclaim of many supporters of
Quebec sovereignty, both QS and non-QS, they promised to introduce a bill to
abolish the oath to the Queen, described by the party’s co-leader Manon Massé as
“anti-democratic” and “archaic.”

Although symbolic, it was an auspicious gesture reflecting Québec solidaire’s
determination to present a real progressive alternative to the new government of
the Coalition Avenir Québec, sworn into office the following day.

A repositioning of Quebec’s economic elite

Winning 37.4% of the popular vote — 25.8% of the eligible electorate, given the
high abstention rate — the Coalition Avenir Québec holds 74 seats, a comfortable
majority of more than 60% of the 125 in the National Assembly. Once again, the
undemocratic first-past-the-post electoral system produces a result quite
unrepresentative of the voters’ choices. Doubts are widespread, therefore, that
the CAQ will adhere to its pre-election pledge to institute some form of
proportional representation which, had it applied to the October 1 results,
would have held it to minority government status. There is less doubt, however,
about how the CAQ will use its parliamentary majority to implement its
unabashedly pro-business and ethnically divisive program.

Founded seven years ago, the party is an amalgam of former Liberal and PQ
supporters assembled around a core element, the former right-wing Action
démocratique du Québec (ADQ), which split from the Quebec Liberal party in the
early 1990s in the wake of the demise of the Meech Lake attempt at
constitutional reform. It supports some vaguely articulated form of Quebec
autonomy but not independence. The CAQ is very much the instrument of François
Legault, a former Parti québécois minister and before that a prominent
businessman, founder and CEO of Air Transat. He personally selected the party’s
candidates. At least 32 of the party’s deputies — 43% of its caucus — are from
the business and managerial milieu.[1] And well over half of Legault’s cabinet,
announced October 18, are business people or journalists in mainstream or
business media.

The party is the product of a repositioning of the nationalist sector of
Quebec’s economic elite after the narrow defeat of the 1995 referendum on
sovereignty, writes Bernard Rioux, an editor of the left-wing on-line journal
Presse-toi à gauche. Successive PQ leaderships led the way, postponing their
hopes for a sovereign Quebec to an indefinite future while aligning their party
increasingly with neoliberal globalization, support of free trade and
privatization of public enterprises, establishment of fee-based public services,
reduced taxation of the wealthy, continued exploitation of fossil fuels and
concentration of media ownership. Legault, having abandoned the PQ, simply
aligned his new party with the federalism of the vast majority of the Québécois
bourgeoisie, which sees the Quebec government as its prime instrument for
gaining a strengthened role within the Canadian ruling class and through it with
global capitalism.

Full: http://tinyurl.com/y897vb7z



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[Marxism] FW: Solidaires Score Important Breakthrough in Quebec Election

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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https://socialistproject.ca/2018/10/solidaires-score-important-breakthrough-in-q
uebec-election/
or
http://tinyurl.com/y9b44aqr


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[Marxism] OECD report shows carbon pricing a failure

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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The OECD's 2018 survey of effective carbon rates (the sum of taxes and
cap-and-trade permits that price carbon emissions) implicitly admits that carbon
pricing is a failure as an effective mechanism to fight climate change. Based on
the record in 42 OECD and G20 countries, the "carbon pricing gap" between actual
prices and the Paris summit benchmarks for limiting emission increases to 2% is
"decreasing, but at a snail's pace."

"If the decrease were to continue by 1 percentage point a year, the gap would
close by 2095. Carbon prices need to increase considerably more quickly than
they have done in recent years in order to ensure a cost-effective low carbon
transition."

"The carbon pricing gap varies considerably across countries. The higher the
gap, the more likely it is that mitigation efforts are not cost-effective or
remain limited" and the country "will face higher transition costs." The lowest
gap is Switzerland's (27), the highest is Russia's (100). Canada's carbon
pricing gap is tallied at 65, just a bit better than the USA's 75.

http://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/effective-carbon-rates-2018-brochure.pdf

Richard

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[Marxism] Harvard's billion-dollar farmland fiasco

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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https://www.alainet.org/es/node/195306

One of the world’s major buyers of farmland is under fire for their involvement
in land conflicts, environmental destruction and risky investments.
A new report by GRAIN and Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos presents,
for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of Harvard University’s
controversial investments in global farmland. (in English)


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[Marxism] In memory of Fred Feldman (John Riddell)

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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In memory of Fred Feldman
(Including: A guide to Fred's online writings)

By John Riddell

Fred Feldman, a widely respected socialist activist and long-time leader of the
U.S. Socialist Workers Party, died August 25, 2018. An accomplished and
influential writer, Fred had fallen silent in recent years due to ill health.
Fortunately, most of his texts are online and easily accessible. A guide to his
writings is provided below.

Back in the early sixties, as a student activist, Fred was often arrested during
the Freedom Rides for Black human rights.  In 1964, Fred supported the
Socialists Workers Party (SWP) presidential campaign against L.B. Johnson and
Barry Goldwater. He soon joined the SWP. He wrote voluminously for SWP
publications, mostly on international issues, and served for many years as a
full-time volunteer on the staff of its publications and of Intercontinental
Press/Inprecor.

Full: http://tinyurl.com/y7cr9sm2




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Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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You are right about the Trotskyist parties' dogmatic adherence to a literal 
understanding of the Russian revolution experience. 

An exception: the US Socialist Workers Party in the late 1970s and early 1980s 
began to rethink these questions around their analysis of what they considered 
a transitional phase of "workers and peasants/farmers government." They were 
influenced in this by a re-examination of the Cuban experience and of course 
what they were following in Nicaragua, to which they gave close attention. 

However, they still saw the transition from the intermediary w and p government 
to a proletarian dictatorship (workers state) as occurring quite rapidly, which 
led them in the latter years of the Sandinista revolution to impose an analysis 
on Nicaragua that bore a curious resemblance to the permanent revolution 
template they claimed to have rejected. See their Central Committee's balance 
sheet of the Nicaraguan experience, which in my opinion is based on a set of 
hypothetical possibilities for deepening the revolution after the peace accord 
with the Contras that was quite unrealistic -- based in part on my own 
observations during an extended stay in Nicaragua in 1987. (The Militant, 
September 7, 1990 - it's online at http://themilitant.com/, Click on Search and 
follow the leads.) But by 1990 the SWP as a whole was a mess and incapable of 
serious theoretical debate and understanding, for reasons that have been amply 
explored on this list in the past.

For a more balanced assessment, see the final chapter (epilogue) in Matilde 
Zimmermann's excellent book, Sandinista: Carlos Fonseca and the Nicaraguan 
Revolution, published in 2000. Zimmermann, a former vice-presidential candidate 
of the SWP in the 1970s, worked in the Managua bureau of The Militant during 
the 1980s. She long ago left the SWP and now pursues an academic career, I 
believe.

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Louis Proyect [mailto:l...@panix.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2018 1:25 PM
To: Richard Fidler; 'Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition'
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions

On 9/5/18 1:07 PM, Richard Fidler wrote:
> Actually, Trotsky did generalize his theory in the late 1920s in the book
> Permanent Revolution.

Trotsky wrote: "Does this at least mean that every country, including 
the most backward colonial country, is ripe, if not for socialism, then 
for the dictatorship of the proletariat ? No, this is not what it means."

My statement is based on what Trotsky wrote: "Does this at least mean 
that every country, including the most backward colonial country, is 
ripe, if not for socialism, then for the dictatorship of the proletariat 
? No, this is not what it means." My experience is that just about every 
Trotskyist party did not grasp what Trotsky wrote here and particularly 
when it comes to Nicaragua.


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Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Actually, Trotsky did generalize his theory in the late 1920s in the book
Permanent Revolution. The problem is that the general thesis -- that "only the
workers and peasants will go all the way," as Sandino and Carlos Fonseca, the
Sandinistas' founder, put it, tells us nothing about immediate tasks upon the
seizure of power, or the tempo of the revolutionary process. That depends
entirely on many factors, both domestic and international, and above all the
development of mass consciousness in the given state.

The Sandinista leaders were influenced by the Cubans, above all. But the context
of their revolution was very different. Nicaragua lacked the profound historic
anti-imperialist traditions of Cuba. Its workers movement was smaller and had no
Marxist traditions. The Soviet bloc (with the exception of Cuba) was not
interested in providing anything like the material support and solidarity Cuba
enjoyed in the early 1960s, crucial to Cuba's survival and radicalization in the
conflict with the USA. Nicaragua was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, while in
Cuba the clergy was foreign-dominated (Spanish and Canadian origin) and widely
discredited by its integration with the landlord-bourgeois oligarchy. And so on
and on...

The Sandinistas can hardly be compared in any significant way with Mugabe or
Assad or many other nationalist leaders. The FSLN had a socialist project, but
in the given conditions (especially the contra war) had to make many retreats
and concessions. And of course they made many errors, some of which (e.g.
Atlantic Coast) they corrected, although perhaps too late. And they did not even
have a real party, or a party congress, until 1991 after their electoral defeat.
By then the cadre had been worn down, the masses were demoralized and simply
wanted peace. Ortega built his personal domination on the ruins of the FSLN
strategy and program of the 1980s. It's just that many of us (Lou included,
apparently) failed to pay much attention to Nicaragua after 1990 until we were
rudely awakened by the state repression of mass democratic opposition this year.

BTW, it is worth consulting the UN Human Rights inventory on the Nicaragua
repression, as it stood in mid-August:
https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/08/1017992. The full report is hyperlinked in
the first sentence.

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2018 11:32 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions

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On 9/5/18 11:23 AM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote:
> How has the colonial revolution degenerated so much? Isn't what we're
> seeing visible proof of the theory of permanent revolution? After all, the
> leadership of none of these revolutions linked the colonial revolution with
> the overthrow of capitalism itself.

Permanent revolution? Nicaragua?

Trotsky's theory is a product of his study of the Russian 
class-struggle. He did not develop it as a general methodology for 
accomplishing bourgeois-democratic tasks in a semi-colonial or dependent 
country. He was instead seeking to address the needs of the 
class-struggle in Russia. In this respect, he was identical to Lenin. 
They were both revolutionaries who sought to establish socialism in 
Russia as rapidly as possible. Their difference centered on how closely 
connected socialist and bourgeois- democratic tasks would be at the 
outset. Lenin tended to approach things more from Plekhanov's "stagist" 
perspective, while Trotsky had a concept more similar to the one 
outlined by Marx and Engels in their comments on the German revolution.

Trotsky sharpened his insights as a participant and leader of the 
uprising of 1905, which in many ways was a dress-rehearsal for the 1917 
revolution. He wrote "Results and Prospects" to draw the lessons of 
1905. Virtually alone among leading Russian socialists, he rejected the 
idea that workers holding state power would protect private property:

"The political domination of the proletariat is incompatible with its 
economic enslavement. No matter under what political flag the 
proletariat has come to power, it is obliged to take the path of 
socialist policy. It would be the greatest utopianism to think that the 
proletariat, having been raised to political domination by the 

Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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The key word of course is "maintains." That is, no major difference from the 
record under previous governments.

As to upholding a government because you can see no progressive alternative, 
isn't that the same argument used by "anti-imperialists" in Syria: that if 
Assad is overthrown, it will just mean placing ISIS, or Russia, or USA, or 
Turkey -- who else?  -- in charge. Better to support the monkey than the 
organ-grinder. In Nicaragua, the reality is that Ortega has removed from 
contention one opposition group after another, and barred the road to the 
emergence of a progressive alternative. Such an alternative is more likely to 
emerge from a powerful grassroots opposition movement that has managed through 
its own efforts to overthrow an autocratic regime.

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Louis Proyect [mailto:l...@panix.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2018 11:48 AM
To: Richard Fidler; 'Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition'
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions

On 9/4/18 11:20 AM, Richard Fidler wrote:
> Earlier today, Lou posted a reply to an article in the Scientific American by 
> a
> critic of Nicaragua's environmental abuses. It is worth reading the article 
> that
> is the target of the author, Paul Oquist: Nicaragua's Acions Cast a Shadow 
> over
> Its Leadership of Major Climate Group,

It is also noteworthy that the Scientific American article states:

Nicaragua maintains a “policy of permanent destruction of natural 
resources,” according to an e-mailed statement from environmental 
scientist Jaime Incer Barquero, who directed the country’s Ministry of 
Environment and Natural Resources during the presidency of Violeta 
Chamorro in the 1990s.

---

Maybe most people reading the article have no clue what was happening 
under Violeta Chamorro but citing the head of the Ministry of 
Environment and Natural Resources is rather disingenuous. Everybody is 
ready to see Daniel Ortega overthrown but until the student movement 
puts forward a program that makes clear its opposition to him being 
replaced by the gang that ran Nicaragua before Ortega's reelection, 
count me out of the Dan La Botz brigades.


 From Environmental Justice: International Discourses in Political 
Economy, edited by Paul Thompson, 2002:

Although having adopted the rhetoric of environmentalism, successive 
former Presidents Violeta Chamorro and Arnoldo Aleman showed a 
willingness to sacrifice environmental quality, worker health and 
safety, and decent wages and social services in favor of "structural 
adjustment" and neo-liberal economic policy. Private investment in 
resource extraction is being encouraged. In 1996, the Ministry of 
Environmental and Natural Resources (MARENA) and President Aleman 
granted Solcarsa, a subsidiary of the giant Korean-based multinational 
corporation Kumkyung, a 30-year timber concession covering 62,000 
hectares in the Autonomous North Atlantic Coast Region (RAAN)—the 
largest and longest ever granted in Nicaragua's history. The logging 
inflicted enormous damage on indigenous communities and the second 
largest rainforest in the Americas, and was a clear violation of 
Nicaragua's laws against mahogany exports and the right of the region's 
indigenous peoples to determine the use of local resources under the 
1987 Autonomy Law (the logging concession was later declared 
unconstitutional in February of 1997 by the Supreme Count of Nicaragua 
on the grounds that it violated Article 181 of the Constitution). 
Although the concession was revoked in late February 1998 because of 
local and international protests, another concession was granted to a 
"new company" PRADA two months later.

Government-owned industry and natural resources have been privatized, 
and new laws allow foreign interests 100 percent owner-ship of 
Nicaraguan companies. As a result, Canadian companies practicing 
open-pit gold and copper mining (which uses cyanide leaching to remove 
the precious metals from ore), are now creating severe environmental and 
human health problems throughout the country. Although some 
environmental programs will be maintained, it appears likely that the 
more comprehensive environmental programs initiated under the Sandinista 
government (and which do not receive external funding) will continue to 
be dismantled until there is a change in power. And in the wake of the 
devastation wrought by Hurricane Mitch, there will undoubtedly be 
increased exploitation of natural resources to generate foreign exchange 
and rebuild the collapsed economy. This is very likely to further deepen 
the vicious downward spiral of poverty and environmental 

Re: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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What has shocked so many -- especially those of us who were active in the
international Sandinista solidarity movement in the 1980s -- is the wave of
repression unleashed by the Ortega-Murillo regime since April 19. Never before
in Latin America has a government claiming to be on "the left" turned its police
(and, in Nicaragua, paramilitaries and sharpshooters) on peaceful, unarmed
demonstrators in the streets --  shooting hundreds, wounding thousands, even
denying them hospital care. 

Louis, in his rambling early attempt to figure out what was happening, cited
below, simply avoids referring to the initial repression, which in subsequent
weeks escalated until the Nicaraguan government itself now admits to some 230
deaths (overwhelmingly non-police), while independent human rights organizations
have documented more than 400. This balance sheet itself -- and the whitewashing
of it by the "oficialista" left (Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, etc.) on the usual
pretext that the US must be behind it -- calls for serious reflection about the
state of the left today not only in Nicaragua but throughout the region. As Lou
demonstrates in his own reactions, we are facing here some of the same
conflicting reactions that we saw in the initial responses internationally to
the Assad regime's violent suppression of the popular protests in Syria.

Earlier today, Lou posted a reply to an article in the Scientific American by a
critic of Nicaragua's environmental abuses. It is worth reading the article that
is the target of the author, Paul Oquist: Nicaragua's Acions Cast a Shadow over
Its Leadership of Major Climate Group,
http://tinyurl.com/ybf9akgq.

As a quick google search reveals, Oquist apparently hires himself out as a
scientific "advisor" to poor countries in the Central American-Caribbean region.
In Nicaragua, Ortega has even given him cabinet rank. At the Paris climate
summit in 2016, where he represented Nicaragua in place of Ortega who couldn't
be bothered attending, Oquist cast the lone vote against the final accord saying
it did not go far enough. However, when Trump later pulled out of the agreement
Ortega decided to sign on to it, and with Syria's recent adhesion only the
United States lies outside of it.

But Oquist is not just an expert on climate change and environment. He is a
vocal defender of the politics of Ortega-Murillo. For example, take a look at
his defence of the regime in a two-part interview on Democracy Now: 
Extended Conversation with Nicaraguan Government Minister Paul Oquist on
Escalating Crisis
http://tinyurl.com/yc7qsmjp

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2018 10:07 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Nicaraguan Contradictions

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https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/04/nicaraguan-contradictions/
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[Marxism] Background on Nicaragua events

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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There are now many informative and critical reports in Latin America on the
Nicaraguan repression since April, and even a fair amount in English. 

Here is a useful report on the Ortega-Murillo regime by Trevor Evans, for years
an economic advisor to the Nicaraguan government:
The Family-Party-State Nexus in Nicaragua,
https://socialistproject.ca/2018/05/family-party-state-nexus-in-nicaragua/

This recent report by Dan La Botz has some update material, and cites US
government statements that indicate the evolution of Washington's reaction to
the Ortega repression, and why it does not call overtly for the overthrow of the
regime.
Nicaragua's Popular Rebellion Stopped -- For Now


La Botz's book What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution: A Marxist Analysis,
published in 2016 (pb in 2018), but before the recent repression, contains a
very informative account in its final chapters of the devolution of the
Sandinista party since its 1990 electoral defeat, although I don't agree with
some of La Botz's theory on the origins of the Sandinista errors during the
revolutionary government of the 1980s.

Here is an update (with links to earlier accounts) on the state of the protest
movement and government attempts to suppress it:
The Crimes of the Regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo
http://tinyurl.com/ycl2rskt

Richard


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[Marxism] The Nicaraguan Crisis and the Manicheanism of the US Left

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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https://www.alainet.org/es/node/195088

By William I. Robinson, a long-standing critical Marxist analyst of Latin
American political economy in recent decades. For an account of the violent
repression of opposition protests by the Ortega-Murillo regime, don't miss the
article by Mary Ellsberg, linked by Robinson in his last paragraph:


Although the Ortega-Murillo regime was defended by the recent Foro de São Paulo
meeting in Havana of left parties and governments, the repression in Nicaragua
has provoked a number of statements in condemnation from a wide range of Latin
American left opinion. Here are two examples. Note the signatories, many of them
prominent Marxists and anti-imperialists.

Declaración urgente por Nicaragua, https://vientosur.info/spip.php?article14022
Solidaridad con el movimiento popular nicaragüense, http://tinyurl.com/ydzx23dq

Richard


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Re: [Marxism] Infiltrating the Left

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Aaron J. Leonard says:

"Malinovsky is referred to by Lenin in "Left Wing Communism: An Infantile
Disorder." Lenin says, on the one hand, Malinovsky sent thousands of committed
Bolsheviks to prison and death. On the other, tens of thousands were recruited
to the party. He's a template for why we don't need to worry about informants.
He's on the central committee of the Bolshevik Party. He's their representative
on the international. He is one of three people charged with ferreting out spies
in the Bolshevik Party. Yet he's an informant.

"Lenin saw in Malinovsky what he wanted to see: a working class guy who was an
intellectual and was willing to fight for the cause. [...]

"If Malinovsky actually did more good than harm for the Bolsheviks because he
was a good party member as well as an informant, then by that logic, let's have
twenty Malinovskys. Maybe we ought to just have all police informants because
then, jeez, we can seize state power. The logic does not hold."

This is stupid. First, what did Lenin write?

"While Malinovsky with one hand sent scores and
scores of the best Bolsheviks to penal servitude and to death, he
was obliged with the other to assist in the education of scores and
scores of thousands of new Bolsheviks through the medium of the
legal press."

"Scores and scores," not "thousands." And Lenin adds, in a footnote:

"Malinovsky was a prisoner-of-war in Germany . When he returned to Russia
under the rule of the Bolsheviks, he was instantly put on trial and shot by our
workers. The Mensheviks attacked us most bitterly for our mistake in allowing
an agent-provocateur to become a member of the Central Committee of our Party .
But when, under Kerensky, we demanded the arrest and trial of Rodzyanko, the
speaker of the Duma, because he had known even before the war that Malinovsky
was an agent-provocateur and had not informed the Trudoviks (peasant deputies .-
Ed.] and the workers in the Duma of this fact, neither the Mensheviks nor the
Socialist-Revolutionaries in Kerensky's cabinet supported our demand, and
Rodzyanko
remained at large and went off unhindered to join Denikin."

Much more could be said about this incident;see, for ex., Victor Serge's
account in " What everyone should know about repression,"
https://www.marxists.org/archive/serge/1926/repression/ch1a.htm#s8, Chapter
VIII.

In the interests of historical accuracy, at the very least,
Richard


-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2018 7:50 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Infiltrating the Left

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https://jacobinmag.com/2018/08/fbi-infiltration-new-left-aoki-sds
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[Marxism] U.S. dairy farmers look to supply management, as Trump urges Canada to kill it

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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In the U.S. dairy heartland, where low prices are forcing farm after farm into
bankruptcy, many producers are embracing supply management as a potential
saviour

TOM BLACKWELL   Updated: July 25, 2018
Edmonton Journal

WASHINGTON, D.C. - It's a favourite grievance in President Donald Trump's
Twitter blasts at his northern neighbour: "Canada is charging massive Tariffs to
our U.S. Farmers . Canada has treated our Agricultural business and Farmers very
poorly."

The source of Trump's ire is the supply-management system that controls milk
production in Canada and limits imports from the U.S.; America's NAFTA
negotiators want it dismantled.

Even in Canada, critics view supply management as an anti-competitive tool that
artificially inflates consumer prices, while other trading partners have also
complained.

But in the United States' troubled dairy heartland, where low prices are forcing
farm after farm into bankruptcy, many producers have taken a much different view
lately - they're actually embracing supply management as a potential saviour.

Representatives of the Ontario dairy marketing board toured Wisconsin in March
and Michigan last month, drawing hundreds of farmers eager to learn how the
system works. More trips are planned for later this year to Ohio and
Pennsylvania.

Full: http://tinyurl.com/yczplk4f


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[Marxism] FW: Revisiting the theory of super-exploitation

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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http://lifeonleft.blogspot.com/2018/06/revisiting-theory-of-super-exploitation_2
8.html
or https://tinyurl.com/y8cwcaoh

As part of his critical assessment and updating of the Latin American dependency
theory pioneered by Brazilian Ruy Mauro Marini,[1] Argentine economist Claudio
Katz analyzes a major component of that theory, the concept that waged workers
in the peripheral nations of global capitalism are “super-exploited.” He
suggests some necessary modifications of the theory in light of developments
since Marini’s day.

Marini’s thesis has been given new currency by some recent analyses of
imperialism in the twenty-first century such as John Smith’s book of the same
title.[2] Smith holds that Marini’s theory of super-exploitation is of
continuing relevance, and embraces the view that waged workers in the global
South are systematically paid below the value of their labour power, owing to
their greater oppression and exploitation. He argues that this constitutes a
third mechanism by which capital increases its surplus value, in addition to the
absolute and relative forms of surplus value analyzed by Marx.

Claudio Katz does not address John Smith’s recent book, although he cites in
places a 2010 work by Smith, listed among the references below.

Katz argues that the lower wages paid to workers in the periphery, like those of
workers everywhere, reflect the labour time that is socially necessary for the
reproduction of the labour force, but he emphasizes that this in turn is a
product of both material and subjective factors that differ depending on the
basket of goods required for workers’ subsistence in each nation (food,
clothing, housing, etc.) as well as their socially determined needs, including
rights won by the workers along with advances in productivity.

“Which goods are prioritized and which are discarded? Do these requirements
include the car, vacations and health services?” At the opposite pole, in
Bangladesh “the elementary reproduction of labour power reflects a basket of
ultra-basic consumption.” These things are not easy to quantify.

What is decisive is each country’s internal level of development and the
position it occupies in the stratifications of the global value chain, as
determined by the transfers of surplus value from backward to advanced
economies. But it remains true that although the rate of profit is higher in the
periphery, the rate of exploitation, as it is defined in Marx’s theory, remains
higher in the advanced countries at the center of global imperialism. The
“greater productivity in the metropolitan economies” co-exists with the “higher
profits derived from the prevailing brutality of labour in the periphery.”
Contrary to Smith’s thesis, there is no new mechanism for the production of
surplus value.

Katz, like Smith, notes that the shift in manufacturing toward the global East
works to increase global disparities. But he suggests that the contrast in the
value of labour power between center and periphery is mediated by the
development of what he terms “intermediate economies” like South Korea and
Brazil, their relative location in the global value chain being consistent with
the international transfers of surplus value as the main determinant of
underdevelopment. He develops this analysis in articles he has written on
another component of Marini’s thinking, the theory of sub-imperialism. More on
that later.

Claudio Katz’s article was first published on his web site as “Aciertos y
problemas de la superexplotación.” My translation from the Spanish.

– Richard Fidler

* * *

What is valid and what is problematic in the theory of super-exploitation

By Claudio Katz

SUMMARY

Marini postulated that the Latin American bourgeoisie recreates underdevelopment
by compensating for its unfavourable position internationally through
super-exploitation. He did not identify the payment of labour power below its
value with absolute surplus value or with increasing poverty.

But this sub-remuneration contradicts the logic of the labour market, which
determines the low wages of the industrialized periphery. Companies profit from
the existence of disparities in wages that are greater than differences in
productivity. The unevenness of development is highly conditioned by transfers
of surplus value to the advanced economies.

Dependency theory does not require a concept of super-exploitation that was
omitted by Marx. There are higher rates of surplus value in the center, but
greater restriction of consumption and labour stress in the periphery.

In a portrayal of generalized job insecurity, national differences in salaries
between the formal, informal and impoverished 

[Marxism] FW: Behind Venezuela's crisis: Nature, money and modernity in a petro-state

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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https://tinyurl.com/yabrv9qy

As widely reported, Venezuela is immersed in a major economic, social and
political crisis that shows no signs of early resolution.

Among its pressing problems, says Steve Ellner, are “four-digit annual
inflation, an appalling deterioration in the standard of living of both popular
and middle sectors, and oil industry mismanagement resulting in a decline in
production.”

The report by Ellner, a long-time scholar and resident of Venezuela, is highly
recommended for its analysis of the economic situation and the constellation of
political forces, as well as the limited options facing the government headed by
Nicolas Maduro. President Maduro was re-elected May 20 with a 68% majority but
54% of registered voters abstained due to the call for an electoral boycott by
the major opposition coalition.

Compounding the country’s many home-grown difficulties, some of which were
triggered by the sharp drop in global oil prices of recent years, is the
economic war being waged internationally against Venezuela. As Ellner explains,
Washington’s hostile actions, which have escalated since Obama incredibly
labelled Venezuela an “extraordinary threat to national security” of the USA,
“have impacted the Venezuelan economy in many ways.”

The Trudeau government is playing a major role in this offensive against
Venezuelan sovereignty, its economy and political leadership. It is
participating in the OAS-sponsored Lima Group of right-wing Latin American
governments aimed at isolating Venezuela internationally. Immediately following
Maduro’s victory in the May 20 election, Ottawa slapped new sanctions on
Venezuela, accusing the country’s leaders of murders and other human-rights
abuses, and hinting that Canada might ask the International Criminal Court to
prosecute Maduro’s government.

Venezuela’s crisis — heavily impacted by the decline in state oil revenues — has
led many, including some on the left, to question the resource extraction and
export strategies characteristic in varying degrees of all the “progressive”
governments elected in Latin America over the last twenty years.

Those strategies have deep roots, however, in the history and social structures
of Latin America established by foreign conquest and occupation and as they have
evolved in the two centuries since most countries gained their formal
independence from their colonial masters.

An outstanding analysis of the 20th century background is Fernando Coronil’s
book The Magical State: Nature, Money, and Modernity in Venezuela, first
published in English in 1997 and later translated into Spanish by a Cuban,
Esther Pérez. Coronil (1944-2011) was a Venezuelan anthropologist who spent much
of his academic career teaching in the United States.

Fernando CoronilA classic of Latin American economic and social history,
Coronil’s book was published by Nueva Sociedad in 2002, then reissued in 2013 by
the publisher Alfa, in Caracas. “One of the fundamental books for understanding
Venezuela,” write the editors of Nueva Sociedad in its March-April 2018 edition
(No. 274), it “helps us to advance in an analysis of current problems in
Venezuela in light of a rentier model that began in the 1930s and has lasted
under the Bolivarian Revolution, which today is facing its most critical
moment.”

The 2013 edition of the book contains a prologue by Venezuelan sociologist
Edgardo Lander, reproduced in almost its entirety in Nueva Sociedad. Published
below is my translation of Lander’s text. Where Lander quotes Coronil (indented
text), I have substituted the English text from his book, with the relevant page
references.

Coronil wrote in advance of the recent work by Marxist ecosocialists such as
Paul Burkett and John Bellamy Foster on the ecological content in Marx’s work,
most of which is still unknown in Latin America. One can only speculate as to
how a reading of their studies might have modified his critique of Marx’s
alleged failure to incorporate nature in his analysis of the process of wealth
creation.

A further caveat for readers in the “Canadian petro-state,” where the Trudeau
government is so committed to ecologically disastrous tar-sands extraction and
export that it has — contrary to all economic logic — nationalized Kinder
Morgan’s Canadian assets to ensure construction of the TransMountain bitumen
pipeline expansion to the west coast.

There is a fundamental difference between Venezuela, where rent from oil is the
main source of state income, and Canada with its developed manufacturing and
service sectors and diversified economy. As Trudeau says, the TransMountain
pipeline is an integral part of his government’s Pan-Canadian 

Re: [Marxism] Deciphering the Nicaraguan Student Uprising | NACLA

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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As she notes, the mass protests in Nicaragua resemble some of the popular
uprisings in the Arab Spring. She mentions Tahrir Square in 2011, but the
Nicaraguan protests, which are country-wide, more closely parallel the
"decentralized, social network-based, and horizontal social movements calling
for justice and democracy" in the initial anti-Assad uprisings in Syria. In
Nicaragua, however, the reaction has closed ranks and enlisted US and OAS
support in an effort to reach some accommodation with their erstwhile ally
Daniel Ortega.

Lacking a clear political program as an alternative to the authoritarian and
repressive Ortega-Murillo regime, the student leaders were vulnerable to
manipulation by pro-imperialist class forces, including those such as the COSEP
business interests, the Church, etc. that until recently were close allies of
Ortega. Some went to Miami where they supported threats by right-wing
Republicans to apply the Magnitsky law to Nicaragua, as the US and Canada have
already done to Venezuela.

Following a massive country-wide general strike last Thursday, June 14, in which
the business interests collaborated in an effort to regain some popular
legitimacy, the US ambassador Laura Dogu and Caleb McCarry, a representative of
the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, presented a proposal from Ortega to
the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference (CEN) and the Civic Alliance, which were
participating in an OAS-sponsored national dialogue operation. He had told the
US government he was prepared to have early elections in the first quarter of
2019, but insisted on remaining in office until then. He is also proposing
changes in Nicaragua's supreme electoral council, its Supreme Court and in some
other state institutions. 

However, even if an agreement on these or similar terms is reached, it is
unclear whether it would put an end to the popular uprising, the common demand
of which is for the removal now of Ortega-Murillo. The death toll, mainly as a
result of regime police action, is now above 175, with thousands of injured,
some of them denied public hospital access because of a directive issued by
Ortega's minister of health. Unfortunately, there is no real organized left
political opposition in Nicaragua, Sandinista dissident currents having long
been marginalized and often manifesting their own political disorientation in a
variety of relatively right-wing positions.

See the recent report by Nicaraguan sociologist Oscar-René Vargas, "Perspectivas
tras la masiva Huelga General," in Viento Sur. A French translation is available
in À l'Encontre. I am unaware of any English translation.

Richard



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From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2018 11:03 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Deciphering the Nicaraguan Student Uprising | NACLA

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Lori Hanson, who co-authored this article, was one of the first 
"experts" to breathlessly hail the student protests in Nicaragua. 
Therefor her growing wariness must be taken into account.

https://nacla.org/news/2018/06/15/deciphering-nicaraguan-student-uprising
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Re: [Marxism] Again on Capitalist Restoration in North Korea

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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In North Korea, a budding free market sows seeds for nuclear concessions
The Globe and Mail (Ottawa/Quebec Edition)11 Jun 2018
NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE 
ASIA CORRESPONDENT 
BEIJING

Read through North Korea’s constitution and you will discover a place where the 
state claims sole ownership over “all the natural resources, railways, 
airports, transportation, communication organs and major factories, 
enterprises, ports and banks.”

But the lofty ambitions of a socialist paradise have long since dimmed into a 
reality that the individual drive for profit offers a more reliable way to 
extract resources and meet peoples’ basic needs. North Korea has in many ways 
become a market-driven economy. It’s a fundamental change that has altered its 
dynamics of power and, some scholars believe, stands to push supreme leader Kim 
Jong-un toward nuclear concessions in order to boost his country’s economic 
prospects and maintain his own domestic authority.

On Tuesday, Mr. Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump are expected to meet in 
Singapore for the first summit between sitting leaders of the two countries. 
The U.S. President arrived in Singapore on Sunday following an acrimonious G7 
summit and an ongoing war of words with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Mr. 
Trudeau’s criticism of the President over his protectionist trade agenda was 
seen by Trump advisers as an attempt to make the U.S. leader look weak ahead of 
the Singapore summit. Mr. Trump has said he will settle for nothing less than a 
verifiable plan for complete denuclearization.

Among the most pressing questions hanging over their conclave is whether Mr. 
Kim’s intentions are different from his predecessors, who oversaw periods of 
détente, and even willingness to abandon atomic weapons, that invariably 
crumbled into acrimony and renewed nuclear terror.

The language Mr. Kim has used differs little from that of his father, who 
already in 2005 agreed to the “verifiable denuclearization of the Korean 
Peninsula in a peaceful manner.”

Thirteen years later, however, a few things have changed. Mr. Kim can now, with 
some degree of confidence, claim to have a completed nuclear program and the 
ability to deliver such weapons to the United States, something his father 
never possessed.

But the young dictator also presides over a country that has undergone a 
transformation in the past two decades, largely leaving behind the centrally 
planned model of old, with its state-appointed jobs and rationed food. The 
changes began after a devastating famine in the 1990s, but have arguably 
accelerated since the third-generation leader took power in late 2011, 
constraining Mr. Kim’s ability to act in economically damaging ways, such as 
pursuing a nuclear program that results in choking sanctions.

“Denuclearization could have a real chance this time,” said Byung-Yeon Kim, a 
scholar at Seoul National University and author of Unveiling the North Korean 
Economy.

He estimates that sanctions have hit North Korea hard enough to shrink its 
economy last year by 2 per cent, enough to provoke unhappiness among local 
elites and entrepreneurs. “Outside pressure can be translated into big internal 
discontent, which could be dangerous to his power,” Prof. Kim said. That 
economic discontent, if sanctions continue and it is sustained, could be enough 
to force Mr. Kim to give up nuclear weapons, he believes, lest he jeopardize 
his own position by angering his people.

Once the land of the “passive man,” North Koreans “have been born again, to be 
real individuals nowadays,” he said.

In modern-day North Korea, workers bribe officials so they can forgo the 
minuscule pay at their state duties in favour of more lucrative employment in 
mines and factories. Large numbers of people rely on their own ability to earn 
a private salary rather than the meagre rations doled out by the state. 
Department stores sell imported fridges and televisions to consumers with their 
own cash. Well-heeled investors pour cash into companies that are state-owned 
in name alone. Local academics turn to foreign consultants for guidance in 
product marketing. In some places, property rights change hands in a de facto 
real estate market.

“Every part of the economy that is actually working is marketized,” said Justin 
Hastings, a scholar at the University of Sydney. “And that includes state 
enterprises. That includes how state officials approach their own jobs. 
Everyone has to make money to support themselves.”

It’s a radical shift from the country envisioned by North Korea’s founders.

Under Soviet influence, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, its formal 
name, began 

[Marxism] Roadblocks and possibilities: The Nicaraguan student insurrection

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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A rather different take from Louis's
http://newsocialist.org/roadblocks-and-possibilities-the-nicaraguan-student-insu
rrection/
or
https://tinyurl.com/yahjwkyg


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Re: [Marxism] Nicaragua

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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More on Nicaragua today. Here are excerpts from something I submitted to 
another list recently:

http://newpol.org/content/are-we-eve-another-nicaraguan-revolution
by Dan La Botz

The political crisis in Nicaragua continues, and the death toll is now more than
30. ...

This seems a good time to provide some sort of
balance-sheet of where things stand. The coverage in Telesur and other Latin
American "left" news media is the usual kind of "blame the Empire" and "regime
change" narrative, although some critical left sources provide a much more
nuanced account. See, for example, the article posted today on Rebelión by
Mónica Baltodano, a prominent Sandinista leader in the 1980s during the first
Ortega government: "La Nicaragua sublevada,"
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=240864.

 She argues that the real government is the Ortega-Murillo duo together with 
the business organization
COSEP.

I have not yet read La Botz's book, which he mentions, but his account in this
article seems to correspond with my own limited reading on the recent Nicaraguan
experience (I have not been in the country since 1987). However, he makes a few
statements that surprise me, and I would expect him to sustain in his book, in
particular the allegation: "The revolution [of the 1980s] was founded on
deception. In a post-revolution secret three-day meeting, the Sandinista
directorate, the collective leadership, proclaimed that the party would be
Marxist-Leninist, would establish "the dictatorship of the proletariat," and
would become part of the Communist camp with the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc,
and Cuba." 

In fact, the Nicaraguan Constitution adopted in 1984 was one of the most
democratic and encouraging of participatory democracy of any I have seen,
although Venezuela's Constitution adopted in Chávez's first mandate may surpass
that. And in fact the "Eastern Bloc," with the exception of Cuba, gave very
little material aid or solidarity to the Sandinista Revolution, in contrast to
the USSR's support of Cuba in its revolution's early years.

The first Sandinista regime also made a laudable albeit belated effort to
accommodate the autonomy concerns of the largely-indigenous Caribbean coastal
communities. It was their distrust of the new Sandinista government that gave
the United States its first foothold for the establishment of the Contra forces
that did so much to wear down the Nicaraguan people during the 1980s.

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis 
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2018 3:32 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Nicaragua

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Among the many programs that have been developed and implemented by the 
[FSLN] government are Plan Techo, geared toward the distribution of zinc 
roofs in poor communities; Puestos de ENABAS, which offers basic 
foodstuffs at subsidized prices; Bono Productivo Alimentario, which 
distributes farm animals, seeds, and technical instruction to women in 
the rural sector; Usura Cero, which makes microcredit loans for 
small-business development; and Operacion Milagro, which provides free 
eye surgery for cataract patients. These initiatives have taken place 
against the background of two major reforms: free health care and free 
education. In 2009 the government declared the country free of 
illiteracy, having reached over 95 percent literacy in studies that 
followed the national literacy crusade (Radio La Primerisima, 2009).

These programs appear to be reducing poverty levels. Three studies 
concur in showing a significant reduction in the numbers of the poor. 
The government's National Institute of Information for Development, in 
its 2009 Measurement of Living Standards, found a 5.8 percent reduction 
from 2005, placing the percentage of poor at 42.5 percent. A study 
conducted by the Nicaraguan nongovernmental organization Fundacion 
Internacional para el Desafio Economico Global and financed by the Swiss 
Cooperation Agency and the Netherlands with technical assistance from 
the World Bank showed that poverty in Nicaragua went from 48.3 percent 
in 2005 to 44.7 percent in 2009, reflecting a decrease in both the urban 
and the rural sector (FIDEG, 2010; Pantoja, 2010). A second study 
(FIDEG, 2012) showed that the trend continued in 2011, when the 
proportion was 44.1 

Re: [Marxism] Nicaragua

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Here's the pdf version: 
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0094582X13480932
Note, however, that the article is dated 2013. There is much more to the story 
now, especially with the Ortega government's austerity measures, the result in 
part of sharp cutbacks in oil supplies under Venezuela's PetroCaribe program. 

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis 
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2018 3:32 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Nicaragua

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Among the many programs that have been developed and implemented by the 
[FSLN] government are Plan Techo, geared toward the distribution of zinc 
roofs in poor communities; Puestos de ENABAS, which offers basic 
foodstuffs at subsidized prices; Bono Productivo Alimentario, which 
distributes farm animals, seeds, and technical instruction to women in 
the rural sector; Usura Cero, which makes microcredit loans for 
small-business development; and Operacion Milagro, which provides free 
eye surgery for cataract patients. These initiatives have taken place 
against the background of two major reforms: free health care and free 
education. In 2009 the government declared the country free of 
illiteracy, having reached over 95 percent literacy in studies that 
followed the national literacy crusade (Radio La Primerisima, 2009).

These programs appear to be reducing poverty levels. Three studies 
concur in showing a significant reduction in the numbers of the poor. 
The government's National Institute of Information for Development, in 
its 2009 Measurement of Living Standards, found a 5.8 percent reduction 
from 2005, placing the percentage of poor at 42.5 percent. A study 
conducted by the Nicaraguan nongovernmental organization Fundacion 
Internacional para el Desafio Economico Global and financed by the Swiss 
Cooperation Agency and the Netherlands with technical assistance from 
the World Bank showed that poverty in Nicaragua went from 48.3 percent 
in 2005 to 44.7 percent in 2009, reflecting a decrease in both the urban 
and the rural sector (FIDEG, 2010; Pantoja, 2010). A second study 
(FIDEG, 2012) showed that the trend continued in 2011, when the 
proportion was 44.1 percent, with most of the reduction concentrated in 
the rural sector.

"The Twenty-first-Century Left in El Salvador and Nicaragua: 
Understanding Apparent Contradictions and Criticisms", Latin American 
Perspectives, May 2013
by Héctor Perla Jr. and Héctor Cruz-Feliciano
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[Marxism] FW: First Nations chiefs on Kinder Morgan blackmail

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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First Nations leaders pledge to block pipeline expansion as Kinder Morgan
blackmail exposes Trudeau's bluff on climate change strategy

Introduction

At the 2015 Paris COP 21 climate conference Justin Trudeau pledged his
newly-elected government would help "to limit global average temperature rise to
well below 2 degrees Celsius as well as pursue efforts to limit the increase to
1.5 degrees."[1]

The strategy adopted was two-pronged and contradictory on its face: implementing
gradual carbon price increases through carbon taxes or cap-and-trade mechanisms
while building more pipeline capacity to boost exports of fossil-fuel resources,
especially the products of Alberta's tar sands.

As environmentalists noted, the approach was inherently futile. Carbon taxes -
contingent on provincial government consent - assumed higher costs would induce
businesses to introduce less climate-destroying technology and practices. And
provincial consent was dependent on the federal commitment to pipeline
development, which inevitably would promote further fossil fuel exploration and
production.

>From the outset, Ottawa has faced opposition to carbon taxes from some
provinces, which fear such market-based mechanisms will discourage private
business investment. And mass popular opposition accompanied by the global
downturn in resource prices has already led to TransCanada's cancellation of its
$15.7 billion Energy East project and Ottawa's nixing of Enbridge's Northern
Gateway pipeline. Although Trump has now reversed Obama's stop to Keystone XL,
its future is still in doubt in the face of opposition from US environmental
activists.

That leaves Kinder Morgan's plan to duplicate its existing Trans Mountain
pipeline. It entails a $7.4 billion duplication of an existing pipeline from
Alberta, with a three-fold increase in capacity, that would carry tar sands
bitumen to a refinery in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby. From there tanker
traffic to hoped-for Asian markets would increase from a current five boats per
month to an estimated 34 threading their way through coastal tidal straits. The
plan has become the linchpin of the Trudeau government's hope to win support for
its approach from an Alberta government eager to get its petroleum to tidewater,
and which has hinged its carbon tax on completion of the Trans Mountain
project.[2]

The economic prospects behind the Kinder Morgan project are suspect, given the
declining prospects globally for new fossil-fuel export markets.[3] More
importantly, it has facing mounting protests from environmental and First
Nations activists. In recent weeks, dozens of demonstrators at the Burnaby
refinery have been arrested on trespassing charges. The newly-elected minority
NDP government, dependent on support from the Green party, which opposes Kinder
Morgan, has joined in legal challenges to the project. This has brought the B.C.
government into conflict with Alberta's, likewise held by the New Democratic
Party.

However, both governments have been boosting fossil-fuel exports.

B.C. premier John Horgan says he will limit the province's carbon tax rules
applying to a $40 billion Shell Canada-led LNG project in Kitimat. He prepared
the way for that project when he recently gave the go-ahead to completion of the
$10.7 billion Site C dam in northern B.C., which the NDP had campaigned against
prior to its election last year. The dam will provide electricity to the Kitimat
project.

Alberta premier Rachel Notley has been negotiating with Ottawa to exempt
tar-sands projects from federal climate reviews. B.C.'s support of the Kitimat
LNG project while opposing Trans Mountain as environmentally unsafe is
"hypocrisy," she notes, because it will be processing shale gas extracted in
Alberta.

Meanwhile, the OECD warned in December that "without a drastic decrease in the
emissions intensity of the oilsands industry, the projected increase in oil
production may seriously risk the achievement of Canada's climate mitigation
targets." The report noted that Canada has the fourth largest greenhouse gas
emissions of the OECD's 35 developed national economies. As for carbon taxes, it
said, Canada's regime "is far below that of other OECD member countries."

Then, on April 8 Texas-based Kinder Morgan announced it was suspending
"non-essential" spending on the Trans Mountain project and would cancel it
altogether if by May 31 it was not "guaranteed" the project could proceed
despite the B.C. opposition.

Full:





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Re: [Marxism] Chemical weapons redux: taking the world to the brink of annihilation | MR Online

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Mint Press was the source for another error-plagued and politically stupid
article on Bolivia headlined "Another Latin American soft coup on tap?" that
MRzine reposted on April 7. As in the case of Venezuela, a complex situation in
which the Morales government has made some egregious errors is attributed almost
100% to US imperialism. Articles like these discredit MRzine and harm the cause
of solidarity with the progressive forces in Latin America; when we propagate
them they make us look like idiots incapable of serious critical engagement with
reality. 

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2018 9:07 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Chemical weapons redux: taking the world to the brink of
annihilation | MR Online

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Sad to see MROnline serving as a propaganda outlet for the mass murder that took
place in Douma in December. I blame John Bellamy Foster and his Rasputin aide
John Mage for hiring someone with the same rancid politics as Yoshie Furuhashi.
I guess the only saving grace is that at least he or she does include some
useful posts. In seven years of genocidal war, Monthly Review has not published
a single article on Syria. Instead it has allowed the current online auxiliary
outlet and the one that Yoshie ran to crosspost the worst kind of garbage. Rick
Sterling's article linked below appeared on Mint Press, a tawdry publication
that was notorious for its article blaming East Ghouta rebels in 2013 for
gassing their own families through the accidental mishandling of sarin as if
they were the Three Stooges tossing around bottles. A few days after the article
appeared, the reporter under whose name it appeared demanded its retraction
since she had nothing to do with it. I doubt that Foster or Mage have given much
thought to Syria. 
At least Foster is spending his time productively researching and writing about
ecosocialism. On the other hand, Mage, who serves on the editorial board and has
never written a single article in the last decade, is a worthless individual
with no saving graces.


https://mronline.org/2018/04/11/chemical-weapons-redux-taking-the-world-to-the-b
rink-of-annihilation/
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Re: [Marxism] German Film Festival April 6-12 | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Another great film is The Architects, completed just as the wall was coming 
down, in 1989.

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Ernest 
Leif via Marxism
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2018 11:28 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] German Film Festival April 6-12 | Louis Proyect: The 
Unrepentant Marxist

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"Unlike all of the films about East Germany I am aware of, except for “Goodbye 
Lenin!”, “In Times of Fading Light” does not demonize German Communists, who 
tend to be depicted as mustache-twirlers like the Nazis they opposed."

Have you seen Christian Petzold's "*Barbara"*? In some sense Petzold's film 
follows Godard's dictum that the best way to critique a film is to make a film. 
Petzold, who created a Stasi character who defied the well worn stereotype, was 
obviously disturbed by "*The Lives of Others"*. It's a movie worth seeing.

E
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[Marxism] Madrid's mounting repression against Catalan movement provokes new international interest and solidarity

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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http://lifeonleft.blogspot.ca/2018/04/madrids-mounting-repression-against.html

The Spanish state’s repression against Catalonia’s democratic rights gets worse
every day. There are at this moment 10 leading politicians and activists in
prison, without having been condemned of any crime. They are accused of violent
rebellion, although they have never used violence. By mid April the two leaders
of the main Catalanist organisations, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sánchez, will have
spent 6 months in prison.

And apart from the 10 political prisoners and 6 political leaders in exile, from
1 October until now there have been: 1,500 people injured while voting or
demonstrating; 150 fascist attacks; 140 web sites closed; police attacks on
journalists; censorship of rappers, writers and artists…

In protest at this situation, there will be a united demonstration in Barcelona
on Sunday 15 April at 11 am, organised by a very broad platform of social
movements, including the ANC, Òmnium Cultural, trade unions, the neighbours’
organisations, youth movements, cultural and sporting organisations, the
federation of NGOs… It will be a massive call for solidarity with the political
prisoners, and with all those suffering the current attacks in Catalonia and
increasingly in other parts of the Spanish state.

We call on international solidarity movements to organise actions over the
weekend of 14 and 15 April: demonstrations, rallies, public meetings, symbolic
events…

If we allow repression to go unchallenged in Catalonia today, then fundamental
rights can be repressed tomorrow in any part of the world.

Please mobilise on 14-15 April. Defend democracy and human rights.  In Catalonia
and everywhere.

Full: http://tinyurl.com/ycekhrub



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[Marxism] [UCE] FW: Prominent intellectuals, activists speak out in opposition to U.S., Canadian sanctions against Venezuela

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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http://lifeonleft.blogspot.ca/2018/03/prominent-intellectuals-activists.html



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[Marxism] Imperialism today: a critical assessment of Latin American dependency theory

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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http://lifeonleft.blogspot.ca/2018/03/imperialism-today-critical-assessment.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/y9epy7bk

Brazilian economist and sociologist Ruy Mauro Marini (1932-1997) was a prime
exponent of what became known as dependency theory, an attempt to explain the
systemic unequal relations of the Latin American countries in particular with
the developed economies of the imperialist “North.” He was a close collaborator
of, among others, Vânia Bambirra and the recently-deceased Theotónio Dos Santos.
Marini’s best-known work, first published in Spanish in 1972, is Dialectics of
Dependency.[1]

Morini was a founder of the Brazilian Marxist organization Política Operária and
later, during his Chilean exile, a member of the Movimiento de Izquierda
Revolucionaria (MIR). Forced into exile again after the Pinochet coup, he taught
at the UNAM in Mexico for many years, returning to Brazil shortly before his
death from cancer in 1997.

In the following essay, Argentine Marxist Claudio Katz analyzes Marini’s work in
light of contemporary developments in global capitalism. He assesses Marini’s
attempt to understand and explain the initial developments in neoliberal
globalization and suggests some ways in which dependency theory might now be
renewed and updated. And he comments critically on the work of some current
proponents of versions of dependency theory.

Among Katz’s most recent works is Bajo el imperio del capital, also published in
French translation in Quebec.[2] Katz is a professor in the University of Buenos
Aires, a member of the left economists’ group (EDI), and a researcher with the
National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET).

Published by Katz on his web page, my translation from the Spanish.

– Richard Fidler

* * *

Imperialism and dependency: similarities and differences with the Marini era
By Claudio Katz

SUMMARY
The main theorist of dependency anticipated trends of neoliberal globalization.
He analyzed productive globalization, the centrality of exploitation and the
relative weight of surplus value transfers. But the employment crisis exceeds
what was envisaged by Marini, in a scenario disrupted by the mutation of the
United States, the collapse of the USSR and the rise of China.

Claudio KatzThe new national and social disparities emerge in an
internationalized economy, without correlation in states and ruling classes.
This absence of total transnationalization recreates dependency. The
semiperipheries present an economic dimension differentiated from the
geopolitical status of sub-imperialism. The “Global South” does not reincarnate
the old periphery, nor does it include China. There are solid pillars to renew
dependency theory.

Full: http://tinyurl.com/y9epy7bk




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Re: [Marxism] Imperialism and super-exploitation

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Argentine Marxist Claudio Katz has recently published a critical assessment of 
Marini's analysis of imperialism and dependency, as well as another article 
specifically addressed to controversies over super-exploitation. I will be 
posting an English translation of the first later today on my blog (will send 
to this list), and will probably translate the second within a few days. See 
the original articles at https://katz.lahaine.org/. 

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Patrick 
Bond via Marxism
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2018 12:54 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Imperialism and super-exploitation

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On 2018/03/12 05:50 AM, Philip Ferguson via Marxism wrote:
> As Smith so brilliantly shows, capital in the North restored much of 
> the fall in its profitability suffered in the 1970s on the back of the 
> super exploitation of the South:
> full at:
> https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/imperialism-and-super-exploitati
> on/
>

Thanks Phil,

First, it's also good to recall Michael's caveats: "I am not sure that Smith 
has proved that ‘super-exploitation’ is the dominant characteristic of modern 
imperialism.  As he shows, imperialism of the 19th century also relied on 
super-exploitation of the masses in the colonies (to the level of slavery) and 
that, in the industrialisation of imperialist countries like Britain in the 
late 18th and early 19th century, driving wages below the value of labour power 
was a powerful factor in the exploitation of labour (see Engels on The 
condition of the working-class in England). For that matter, super-exploitation 
is visible in the imperialist economies too..."

Second, you might know some of this debate has migrated to the Review of 
African Political Economy, where the "North" and "South" now also includes 
disputes over East and West, and the role of spatial processes as part of 
capital's super-exploitative armory:

http://roape.net/2018/01/10/david-harvey-denies-imperialism/
http://roape.net/2018/02/05/realities-ground-david-harvey-replies-john-smith/

However, neither Smith nor Harvey address the full implications of sub-imperial 
accumulation in the Mauro Marini tradition (a tradition which also centrally 
stresses the role of super-exploitation). I've nearly finished an intervention 
along these lines. Anyone else gathering information about these processes?

Cheers,
Patrick
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Re: [Marxism] The American West was even wilder--Cowboy Strikes

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Great review, and interview, Mark. Especially liked your last line. You reach a
whole new audience here, as I don't know of a doctor's or dentist's office in
English Canada that does not have Maclean's (a mass-circulation monthly
magazine) on its waiting-room periodicals table.

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Mark
Lause via Marxism
Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2018 10:59 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] The American West was even wilder--Cowboy Strikes

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This seemed worth sharing . . . .

http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/the-american-west-was-even-wilder-than-we-t
hink/
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Re: [Marxism] The rise and fall of Gerry Healy

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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This seems to be the book that Pitt published about 15  years ago on the UK web 
site What's Next. It is a good read. Also worth reading is Alex Mitchell's Come 
the Revolution - A Memoir, by the former editor of Healy's newspapers.

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis 
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2018 8:18 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] The rise and fall of Gerry Healy

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On 1/2/18 7:45 AM, Gregory Adler wrote:
> I am just curious as to whether there's anything specific  about the 
> useful warning from Pitt being reproduced now.

I love Bob Pitt's writing.
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Re: [Marxism] Bus workers union leader in Tehran

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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See http://tinyurl.com/yb49mbth


-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of John 
Reimann via Marxism
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2017 6:15 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Bus workers union leader in Tehran


Is it possible for this to be raised in any unions and messages of protest sent?

https://www.allianceofmesocialists.org/open-letter-tehran-bus-workers-syndicate-workers-labour-organizations-around-world/?utm_campaign=website_source=sendgrid.com_medium=email

John Reimann

--
"No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them."
Assata Shakur
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook 
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[Marxism] FW: Democratic Secular Palestine (Barry Sheppard)

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Not on-line, so full text below...

A Democratic, Secular Palestine for All Its Peoples
  
By Barry Sheppard
 
As Israeli troops violently suppress Palestinian protests, what road forward 
for the Palestinian struggle is again being seriously discussed.
 
An article in the December 8 New York Times with a headline “Two State Option, 
a Mideast Keystone, Is Sent Askew,” begins:
 
“President Trump, in formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on 
Wednesday, declared that the United States still supported a two-state solution 
to settle the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, provided it was 
‘agreed to by both sides.’
 
“For the first time in his 26 years as a peacemaker, the chief negotiator for 
the Palestinians did not agree.
 
“Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization 
and a steadfast advocate for a Palestinian state, said in an interview on 
Thursday that Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel ‘have 
managed to destroy that hope.’ He embraced a radical shift in the PLO’s goals – 
to a single state, but with Palestinians enjoying the same civil rights as 
Israelis, including the vote.”
 
“ ‘They’ve left us with no option,’ he said. ‘This is the reality. We live 
here. Our struggle should focus on one thing: equal rights.’ “
 
To understand how we got here, it is useful to review the historical 
development, beginning with the different approaches to the fight against the 
physical and cultural oppression of Jews in Europe, especially Eastern Europe. 
Zionism was always a generally rightist force within the European Jewish 
movement in the first half of the twentieth century, explicitly counter-posed 
to the socialist movement, including to Jewish socialists who outnumbered the 
Zionists. At times, the most reactionary Zionists even sought alliances with 
anti-Semites, since both sought the removal of Jews from Europe, although with 
opposing arguments. (There is an echo of this today, as the right wing of the 
Christian Evangelicals, who think all Jews, including in Israel, should go to 
Hell unless they convert to the Evangelical version of Christianity, yet they 
support Israel. Anti-Semites in the Alt-Right also support Israel.)  
 
After WWII, in the wake of the Holocaust, the Zionist movement gained strength. 
The British, French and U.S. imperialists threw their support behind the 
creation of a Zionist state in British-controlled Palestine. Without this 
imperialist backing, Israel would not and could not have been created. (Stalin 
backed the West in this endeavor but that’s another story.)
 
The creation of Israel meant the dispossession of an estimated 500,000 – 
700,000 Arab peoples, mainly Muslims and a large Christian minority, that had 
lived for over a millennium in what became Palestine. This created the 
Palestinian diaspora, in what the Palestinians refer to as the Nakba 
(catastrophe), an historical crime.
 
Ever since, it has been imperialist political and material support with money, 
arms and imperialist threats against resisting groups and Arab states that has 
kept Israel alive. One example: without the massive emergency airlift of heavy 
weapons by the U.S. to Israel in the 1973 Israeli-Arab war, Israel would have 
been defeated. (Then Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, later admitted that 
Israel, when it looked like it was losing the war, was ready to use nuclear 
weapons, which would likely have triggered Soviet intervention and World War 
III.)
 
The objective of the Arab states involved in the 1973 war was to take back the 
areas Israel conquered in 1967, not to attempt to destroy Israel. That the 
Israeli leaders were ready to use atomic weapons to keep its conquered 
territories is relevant to this discussion about the Israeli reality today.
 
What is the present situation? Israel occupied all of Palestine in the 1967 
war, as well as the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. Later, the Sinai was returned to 
Egypt when Egyptian President Sadat capitulated to Israel, but the West Bank 
remained under Israeli control to the present day. Gaza, a heavily populated 
urban strip of land, is brutally suppressed, its borders on land and sea 
patrolled by Israeli forces.  
 
The actual borders of Israel have been for 50 years not the pre-1967 “Green 
Line,” but the borders the Israeli armed forces defend, from the Mediterranean 
Sea to the Jordan River, from Egypt to Syria. Within these, its real borders, 
there is one currency, the shekel. There is one foreign policy, one army and 
navy and one government. (The Palestinian Authority is not the governmental 
power in the West Bank – it’s allowed 

[Marxism] How a Canadian website is being used to amplify the Kremlin's view of the world (Globe & Mail)

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Canada's top English-language daily takes a look at Global Research 
Subscriber only so here's the full text.

How a Canadian website is being used to amplify the Kremlin’s view of the world

The Globe and Mail (Ottawa/Quebec Edition)18 Nov 2017
CAMPBELL CLARK MONTREAL 
MARK MacKINNON RIGA

An obscure Canadian website that disseminates conspiracy theories and
Kremlin-friendly points of view is an amplifier of global disinformation,
according to NATO

In an upscale condo in Old Montreal owned by a retired University of Ottawa
professor sits the headquarters of a website that is now in NATO’s sights, with
the military alliance investigating, among other things, the online spread of
pro-Russia propaganda and of disinformation that props up the regime of
President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

The website, globalresearch.ca, is ostensibly the online arm of the Centre for
Research on Globalization, which has the trappings of a think tank and styles
some of its regular contributors as “senior fellows.” But it is the media that
matters: Its online content and its amplification on social media form the core
of its activities.

The site has posted more than 40,000 of its own pieces since it was launched in
2001, according to one long-time contributor. But it does more: It picks up
reports from other, often obscure websites, thus giving them a Global Research
link. Those reports often get cross-posted on a series of other sites or
aggressively spread across Facebook and Twitter by followers who actively share
or retweet them, including a number of social botnets, or bots – automated
accounts programmed to spread certain globalresearch.ca content.

The site has disseminated articles that claimed the Assad regime was not behind
the April chemical weapon attack that drew a punitive U.S. missile strike, also
suggesting it was a hoax and that the deadly nerve agent sarin was not used. It
spread other false reports, such as a claim that NATO was preparing to deploy
3,600 tanks near the Russian border as part of a mission to Eastern Europe.

The site initially drew attention for claiming that the Sept. 11 attacks in the
United States were a false-flag operation orchestrated by the CIA.
But what once appeared to be a relatively harmless online refuge for conspiracy
theorists is now seen by NATO’s information warfare specialists as a link in a
concerted effort to undermine the credibility of mainstream Western media – as
well as the North American and European public’s trust in government and public
institutions.

The spread of online disinformation had become a heated political concern amid
U.S. intelligence reports that Russia sought to use it to influence the 2016
U.S. presidential election. In May, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia
Freeland warned that such tactics could be used here. On Monday, British Prime
Minister Theresa May accused Russia of seeking to “weaponize information.” In
October, Facebook released a sampling of political ads bought by Russians that
were aimed at U.S. audiences – many were not about candidates but sought to gin
up divisions, including ads that supported and attacked the anti-racism movement
Black Lives Matter.

Global Research is viewed by NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of
Excellence – or StratCom – as playing a key accelerant role in helping
popularize articles with lit- tle basis in fact that also happen to fit the
narratives being pushed by the Kremlin, in particular, and the Assad regime.
At its headquarters in Riga, StratCom researchers consider globalresearch.ca to
be a link in a network that reposts such stories. “That way, they increase the
Google ranking of the story and create the illusion of multisource
verification,” said Donara Barojan, who does digital forensic research for the
centre. But she said she did not yet have proof that Global Research is
connected to any government.

The site’s founder, Michel Chossudovsky, has long been an iconoclast, a leftist
University of Ottawa economics professor who challenges mainstream capitalist
economics. Locally, he gained brief notoriety when his theories of Israeli
cabals sparked allegations of anti-Semitism. His site, globalresearch.ca, tends
to view the United States as a militaristic aggressor and NATO as its
warmongering tool – views also promoted by Russia. It also asserts the United
States is behind extremists such as the Islamic State and its allies, a view
promoted by the Assad regime.
So is globalresearch.ca just an outlet for views that happen to align with those
of the Kremlin and Damascus? Or is it affiliated?

Mr. Chossudovsky didn’t want to discuss that. He has spoken occasionally to

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: A Profile of John Grierson, Godfather of DocCinema | Videomaker.com

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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On John Grierson, by liberal columnist Robert Fulford:
http://www.robertfulford.com/JohnGrierson.html

Sent from my iPad
Interesting man no doubt.  Grierson had studied Hegel and I think he was very 
influenced by the Philosophy of Right in terms of his commitment to nation 
building.

But he was a social democrat with a penchant for pretending to be much more 
left wing than he was.  Thus he publicly screened Battleship Potemkin along 
with his own film Drifters (1929). He also claimed to have been there at the 
the release from prison in 1918 of the great Scottish radical John MacLean 
(1879-1923), but that is doubted.  In  the 60s he put Trotsky’s Literature and 
Revolution on his reading list.  I think that was partly in an effort to 
outflank the radical 60s generation.

He claimed to have put the working class up on the screen, but it was very much 
the working class who were loyal and hard working, and not at all threatening 
to the powers that be during the Great Depression.

Comradely

Gary



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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Paul Le Blanc: Re-Arming the Party: Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolution in 1917 | John Riddell

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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And the article by David Mandel I just posted today explains the reasons for
those differences among the Bolsheviks around the question of forming an
all-Bolshevik soviet government.

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Andrew
Pollack via Marxism
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2017 1:53 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Paul Le Blanc: Re-Arming the Party: Bolsheviks and
Socialist Revolution in 1917 | John Riddell

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On a related note, see this document just uploaded to MIA:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lozovsky/1917/letter.htm
... in which Lozovsky, in the revolution's first days, publicly opposes measures
taken, using logic similar to Z re not splitting (sic) the proletariat.
(p.s. This is yet again proof of why it's worth checking MIA's "What's New"
regularly)

On Mon, Oct 30, 2017 at 10:57 AM, Andrew Pollack 
wrote:

> By coincidence (or maybe not), MIA just uploaded two key documents 
> from the dispute:
> https://www.marxists.org/archive/zinoviev/works/1917/11/04.htm
> and
> https://www.marxists.org/archive/zinoviev/works/1917/10/11.htm
>
>
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[Marxism] They Dared: The Legacy of the October Revolution

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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David Mandel's contribution to the current debate on Bolshevik strategy in the
Russian Revolution. I cannot recommend too highly Mandel's book, just reissued
by Brill-Haymarket, The Petrograd Workers in the Russian Revolution -- an
account of the events from the standpoint of the workers in the industrial
capital of Russia, based on first-hand narratives, leaflets, newspapers, etc.
This article is an excellent summary of his underlying argument:
http://socialistproject.ca/bullet/1504.php. While it stands alone on its merits,
it can also be read as a valuable supplement to recent work by Lars Lih and Eric
Blanc excavating and explaining what really happened and was said in the events
and debates of 1917.

Richard



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[Marxism] 'Issue of popular sovereignty is front and centre': Podemos anticapitalists

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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http://lifeonleft.blogspot.ca/2017/10/issue-of-popular-sovereignty-is-front.html

Also,
A new stage opens in the Spanish state's war on Catalan self-rule
http://lifeonleft.blogspot.ca/2017/10/a-new-stage-opens-in-spanish-states-war.ht
ml




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Re: [Marxism] MARXISM, NATIONALISM, AND RUSSIA

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Just bear in mind that it was published in 1968, before publication of many
subsequent scholarly studies on these issues, such as Rosdolsky and Teodor
Shanin, etc., not to mention an English translation of Marx's ethnological
notebooks.

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2017 10:47 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: [Marxism] MARXISM, NATIONALISM, AND RUSSIA

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Journal of the History of Ideas
Vol. 29, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1968), pp. 231-252

MARXISM, NATIONALISM, AND RUSSIA
  BY NEIL A. MARTIN

  The XIXth-century founders of contemporary Marxism willed a
  surprisingly slim written legacy to their followers on what role, if
  any, nationalism would play in paving the road to socialism. Perhaps
  it was their preoccupation with economics, but the fact remains that
  neither Marx nor Engels took the time to lay down in black and white
  a cohesive national program for their disciples of yesterday and today
  to follow. Nevertheless, their comments on nationalism, scattered up
  and down their voluminous writings, had a significant effect on the
  revolutionary strategy of Lenin and the development of Bolshevik
  nationality policy. Their literary outpourings have assumed an even
  greater importance today in the face of the growing national move-
  ments in Asia and Africa. The conflict between nationalism and "pro-
  letarian internationalism" has sharpened in the last generation and
  posed a difficult question for Marxists concerning independence move-
  ments in the colonial and semi-colonial nations; namely, where do the
  loyalties of the industrial proletariat lie in freedom movements led
  by the national bourgeoisie?

---

This article is very good. Although it is on JSTOR, they make it available for
free reading (up to 3 articles actually) by registering at:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2708578?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Economic warfare in in Venezuela | MR Online

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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A warning, however. Pasqualina's article (a chapter in her book) contains no 
statistics beyond 2013, that is, before the precipitous drop in hydrocarbons 
prices on the world (and Venezuelan) market. That changed a lot, if not 
everything. A few months ago, she published an article arguing that Venezuela 
was not really dependent on hydrocarbon exploitation, or at least not nearly as 
dependent as is commonly thought. See Mitos sobre la economía venezolana (I) 
(versión ilustrada), 
http://www.15yultimo.com/2017/06/17/mitos-sobre-la-economia-venezolana-i-version-ilustrada/.
 She also argued that manufacturing production had held up well in the recent 
period, another unconventional reading. She promised a follow-up article 
outlining what she thinks is the road to be taken now toward "overcoming the 
so-called rentist petroleum model," but to date I am unable to locate it.

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Ralph 
Johansen via Marxism
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 1:56 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Economic warfare in in Venezuela | MR Online

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[Ellner intro cut]

What is written here raises a lot of questions: This book The Visible Hand of 
the Market: Economic Warfare in Venezuela has been written to correct for 
pervasive misinformation peddled by global politicians and media. It purports 
to detail how national food, medicines and hygiene products monopolies have 
contrived to produce disruption, disaffection and chaos.

Chavez's death and the little-known Maduro's accession, severely weakened as he 
narrowly won against all the forces arrayed against him, presented the 
oligarchy with their golden opportunity. They haven't carried it off. The book 
lists their main weapons: 1) planned shortage of essential materials; 2) 
induced inflation; 3) boycott in the supply of basic goods; 4) covert trade 
embargo and 5) international financial blockade, with gigantic transnational 
corporations and imperial power behind it all. Add to this bitter, protracted 
counter-revolutionary obstruction in the streets.

Despite massive opposition from banking, industry, market forces, the media and 
many in the bureaucracy, the wealthy classes and powerful US imperialist 
opposition, and of course with the positive support of the mass of the less 
well-off and abjectly poor sectors of the country, could it be of significance 
that because the military still supports the Bolivarian project throughout all 
the opposition's antics (unlike Chile in 1973) that it is still standing? Few 
know at close hand the machinations of corporate power as do the military, 
Chavez after all was one of them, and the oligarchy has failed to win them over.

Are the failure of disruptive tactics, street warfare, divisions in opposition 
leadership, and elections just completed favorable to the government (winning 
18 of 21 gubernatorial contests), a sign of a turnaround and the spluttering 
defeat of the counter-revolution? Are the essential moral and material 
resources of the regime and above all of the people, and course-correction in 
the design of the revolution going forward enough? Petrol prices are rising 
again. What next? As in pre-revolutionary Russia, people must be hungering for 
reliable, honest, resolute leadership, information and a road map. This book, 
ordered by Maduros to be distributed massively as part of the new offensive, 
and its prompt translation into English, the language of imperial power, could 
conceivably have enormous consequences in aid of the revolution.




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[Marxism] FW: The fight for independence in Catalonia: What lessons for Quebec?

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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The struggle for independence in Catalonia: What lessons for Quebec?

By André Frappier

October 3, 2017

The struggle of the Catalan people for their right to self-determination and
ultimately for their independence is certainly not commensurate with the
struggles Quebec has experienced in its recent past, if we consider the history
of the 1980 and 1995 referendums. Spain’s history and constitution, its
Francoist legacy, in a context of a European Union that is managing the
anti-popular austerity offensive, tend to give a form overtly more inflexible to
the Spanish government’s reaction in opposition to the Catalan nation. But while
that struggle is unfolding in a different context, it is important to examine
the situation and to draw some lessons for the struggle that we are carrying on
in Quebec.

Revisiting the past: differences and similarities with Catalonia

In the 1995 referendum, the Canadian government chose to bet on its defeat and
had allied with the NO forces in Quebec, as it had done in 1980. In doing so,
however, it did grant some validity to Quebec’s referendum exercise, which
represented a certain risk. As it happened, the NO obtained only 50.58% of the
votes in 1995, a significant decline in comparison with the 1980 referendum when
it had obtained 59.56%.

The Liberal government headed by Jean Chrétien had spared nothing, however. This
battle had to be won at any cost.

[Full: http://tinyurl.com/y7kdq6v8] 



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[Marxism] FW: Catalonia: After YES victory unions, social movements call general strike

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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In face of massive police repression, majority vote to found an independent
republic

Despite brutal attacks from police of Madrid’s Guardia Civil, millions of
Catalans defied a ban by Spain’s central government and its courts and made
their way to polling stations — many improvised in schools, arenas, hospitals
and other public facilities — to vote in the October 1 independence referendum.
Some 90% of the 2.2 million who managed to circumvent police barriers answered
“yes” to the question “Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in
the form of a republic?” Only 7.87% voted No, while blank and null votes
accounted for the remainder.

It was an impressive result in the circumstances. Although only 43% of the total
electorate of 5.2 million were able or willing to vote, another 777,000 voters
were blocked by police from casting ballots; about 400 polling stations out of
2300 had been shut down. It thus appears that a clear majority, on a clear
question, voted or wanted to vote for independence.

Announcing the result, Catalan government president Carles Puigdemont pledged to
declare an independent republic within 48 hours after the official vote count is
released, later this week, in accordance with the referendum law adopted
September 6 by Catalonia’s national assembly.

Meanwhile, a broad coalition of trade unions and political and social movements
has called a “general and social strike” for Tuesday, October 3, against
repression and in defense of freedom.[1] Their statement denounces “the
repression and infringement of rights and civil, sexual and political freedoms,
both individual and collective, that is being generated in Catalonia in the form
of a veiled state of exception.” It goes on to denounce “the pressures and
threats that the whole of the working and popular classes have suffered in these
recent weeks as well as the constant attacks on freedom of speech and the
continuous attempts to frighten the whole of the Catalan population.

“We want to make clear that in the face of the austerity policies that have
destabilized our lives in recent years and have dismantled the public sector
with a bank rescue plan, there is a need for us to organize and to advocate a
charter of social rights that incorporates all of the experiences, practices and
knowledges accumulated by the different social movements during all those years,
from the social and solidarity economy to the movement for food sovereignty,
from the defense of the territory to the feminist struggles and in opposition to
male violence against women, from the movements for peace to the recognition of
the rights of migrants.”

Full:
http://lifeonleft.blogspot.ca/2017/10/catalonia-after-yes-victory-unions.html





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[Marxism] Québécois rally in defense of Catalonia

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Re: [Marxism] Socialist Project in Canada--as bad as Global Research on Syria

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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What has happened to your search skills? Try these:
https://socialistproject.ca/bullet/1332.php
And there are other articles as well, including by myself...

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Louis Proyect [mailto:l...@panix.com] 
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2017 8:36 PM
To: Richard Fidler; 'Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition'
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Socialist Project in Canada--as bad as Global Research 
on Syria

On 9/11/17 8:31 PM, Richard Fidler wrote:
> That is why they are often read by far more people than party sites. 
> The idea is to acquaint readers with a variety of views one finds on 
> the left, to stimulate debate and critical analysis, much needed in this day 
> and age.

This might make sense if the Socialist Project ever ran anything on Syria 
except this kind of filth. It is essentially the Canadian version of Yoshie's 
MRZine, when it comes to Syria.


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Re: [Marxism] Socialist Project in Canada--as bad as Global Research on Syria

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Louis, you are making the same mistake you often make about independent
(non-party) left web sites. They may (like Socialist Project) publish or draw
attention to articles that do not express a "party line." In fact, as a
long-time member or associate of Socialist Project, I would be hard pressed to
describe what it's "line" is other than a determination to help build an
anticapitalist tendency in the Canadian left. 

That is why they are often read by far more people than party sites. The idea is
to acquaint readers with a variety of views one finds on the left, to stimulate
debate and critical analysis, much needed in this day and age.

I know this is hard to understand for someone like you who was trained in a
party that regarded all of its publications as "line" documents, and was very
harsh with those who intentionally or (as often as not) unintentionally strayed
from the "correct" line, but that's life. Relax, and take advantage of the
cornucopia of views one can find on sites like SP's. That's how many of us treat
Marxmail, in part because you save us from reading a lot of uninteresting stuff
in the New York Times or Washington Post, and you often point us toward more
interesting and relevant material, including some by non-Marxists, incredible as
it may seem.

Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2017 8:07 PM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Socialist Project in Canada--as bad as Global Research on
Syria

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On 9/11/17 7:57 PM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote:
> Louis, I don't see a link to the Crooke article.
> Anyway as I recall from discussions during the Panitch/Gindin betrayal 
> on Greece, those two are central to the Socialist Project. So I'm not 
> surprised if they have a Pink Tide line on Syria (but need citations).


It was in the News column on the right side of the page.

You can also find this:

The Much-Maligned Views of Rania Khalek on Syria Rania Khalek interviewed by
Justin Podur

https://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/1393.php

I have a suspicion that Podur, who is a total Assadist, is responsible for most
of this crap with Albo serving as his enabler.

Also, I wouldn't make an amalgam between Syriza and Syria even though they are
kind of spelled alike. I have my own views on Syriza that are distinct from
Panitch and Gindin but don't think that the word betrayal applies to what they
have written. In fact, we should fucking retire the word "betrayal" along with
"petty-bourgeois" and "revisionist". It has a kind of musty, cobwebs aura that
makes me glad I left the Trotskyist movement 39 years ago. I only wish it had
been 49 years ago.
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[Marxism] FW: Quebec independence a key to building the left in Canada

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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http://lifeonleft.blogspot.ca/2017/08/quebec-independence-would-open-new.html

Introduction

The 2017 edition of the Université populaire (the People’s University), meeting
in Montréal August 17-19, included a panel of speakers from Quebec and English
Canada on the possibilities for building a convergence of left forces in both
nations.

It was chaired and introduced by Andrea Levy, a Montréal-based editor of
Canadian Dimension, and included André Frappier, a former president of the
Montréal postal workers and now a leader of Québec solidaire; Kevin Skerrett, a
leading activist in Solidarity Ottawa; Corvin Russell, a Toronto solidarity
activist and recently co-author with Andrea Levy of an excellent paper, “Mapping
the Canadian Left: Sovereignty and Solidarity in the 21st Century;”[1] and
myself. I am a member of both Solidarity Ottawa and Québec solidaire.

The conference program introduced the topic as follows:

“The Canadian State is a common obstacle faced by progressive forces in Québec
and Canada that makes the creation of alliances as much a necessity as a virtue.
However, both in Québec and Canada, the left is mired in narrow ideological
perspectives and lacking real involvement in day-to-day struggles. The growing
resistance of Indigenous peoples is a game changer for both sides as it calls
into question the very foundations of the Canadian State. This session proposes
to look at how we might build toward a new convergence of forces. - How can the
Canadian left support the struggle for national and social emancipation in
Québec? - What are the weak points in the Canadian State and among the elites
seeking to maintain power. What sorts of struggles can we engage in jointly? -
How can progressive organizations in Canada and Québec develop a common strategy
of international solidarity with Indigenous peoples in Canada? - What means can
we use to fulfill these aims?”

Levy and Frappier spoke in French, the rest of us in English, with simultaneous
interpretation. The panelists’ contributions were followed by some stimulating
exchanges with members of the audience. Unfortunately, the session was not
recorded.

The following is a slightly expanded and edited version of my presentation.
Readers will note that, contrary to some assertions in the above note by the
conference organizers, I make some important distinctions between the lefts in
the two nations. – Richard Fidler

* * *

The program introduction speaks of “convergence” as the goal. And it speaks of
an impasse between the lefts in Quebec and Canada, implying a divergence. So
I’ll begin by exploring this. In what follows I will focus on what can be termed
the political left, seeking political solutions to the problems addressed more
generally by the various social movements. And I will treat the NDP as a part of
the broad “left” in English Canada, for reasons I explain later.

Full:
http://lifeonleft.blogspot.ca/2017/08/quebec-independence-would-open-new.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/ychffhq9



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[Marxism] Chavistas register highest vote since 2012 in Constituent Assembly election

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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http://tinyurl.com/y8ycykz3

 

The National Constituent Assembly elected in Venezuela yesterday with the sole
support of the Chavistas registered more than 8 million votes, or 41.53% of the
electorate. This was substantially more than the 7 million votes for Nicolás
Maduro in the 2013 presidential elections and much more than the 5.5 million
votes for the Chavista coalition in the 2015 legislative elections, when the
opposition won 7.7 million votes largely thanks to the abstention of some two
million former Chavista supporters. The country’s opposition parties, currently
in control of the National Assembly, boycotted the election.

 

Among the 545 constituentes elected were First Lady Cilia Flores, the first
Vice-President of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) Diosdado
Cabello, and the former foreign minister Delcy Rodriguez. The results were
announced by the president of the National Electoral Council (CNE) Tibisay
Lucena around midnight last night. So many Venezuelans lined up to vote that the
electoral process was extended to 10:30 p.m. 

 

The newly elected Constituent Assembly is made up of 364 members elected by
territorial constituency -- one per municipality, two per state capital and
seven per Capital District (Caracas) -- and 181 according to social or class
sector (24 students, 8 peasants and fishers, 5 business people, 5 disabled, 28
pensioners, 24 communal council representatives, 79 workers and 8 indigenous
(the latter to be elected this Tuesday in assemblies to be held in three
states).

 

The National Constituent Assembly (ANC) will begin sitting 72 hours after the
official declaration of those elected. Maduro has indicated that it will be
tasked with reforms of the economic and justice systems, reaffirmation of the
pluricultural character of the country, the “preservation of life on the planet,
“and the constitutional recognition of the all the government social and
cultural missions and the Communal Power. In popular assemblies held throughout
the country during the three months prior to yesterday’s vote some 22 sectors
and social movements (communes, workers, cultural and environmental collectives,
etc.) debated and adopted proposals for action by the ANC.

 

Maduro, in his victory speech last night, said the ANC will, among other tasks,
take action against the "parasitical bourgeoisie," largely held responsible for
the country's current economic crisis. (La Razo
 , Crore del Orinoco
 .)

 

For more on the election and the immediate tasks facing the Bolivarian Republic
of Venezuela, see

 

George Ciccariello-Maher, Which Way Out of the Venezuelan Crisis?
 

Joe Emersberger, Trump Is Not the Venezuelan Supreme Court
 

Boaventura de Sousa Santos, In Defence of Venezuela
 

 

 

 



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[Marxism] FW: Spanish Marxist on Catalonia referendum October 1

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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‘If I were Catalan, I would have no choice but to vote yes to independence’
Jaime Pastor, interviewed by Josep Casulleras Nualart

Introduction
On October 1, by decision of the Catalan government, the region’s voters will be
asked in a referendum “Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in
the form of a republic?”

The referendum, which is the culmination of years of mass mobilizations by
Catalans in favour of independence, has come under sharp attack by the Spanish
government headed by Mariano Rajoy, which in recent years has used the
Constitution, the central parliament and the courts to deny the Catalan people
the right to determine independently the constitutional status of their nation.
This is a case of longstanding oppression. Under the regime of General Francisco
Franco, which emerged triumphant in the Spanish Civil War, Catalans were even
denied the right to use their own majority language, Catalan.

A recent article published in the web-based daily Público entitled “Legitimacy
and legality. With the right to vote on October 1” attracted considerable
controversy. The author, Jaime Pastor, an influential Marxist activist and
intellectual, criticized leaders of Spain’s new left party Podemos who have
aligned themselves with the dominant Spanish nationalism in attacking the
October 1 referendum in Catalonia. Pastor is the author of, inter alia, a book
on the national question, the Spanish state and the left that in my opinion
contains one of the best explanations anywhere of the historical development of
the Marxist approach to the national question.[1]

Pastor’s article focused in particular on the prevalent misreading in Spain of
the international jurisprudence on the exercise of self-determination by
minority nations within existing states. In the following interview he defends
the Catalan referendum and addresses some of the major political implications of
the October 1 vote.

Jaime Pastor is a political science professor at the Universidad Nacional de
Educación a Distancia [National University of Distance Education] in Madrid and
editor of Viento Sur, a journal of ideas and analysis. The interview was first
published in Catalan. I have translated the Spanish text, which was published in
Viento Sur.

Of particular interest to Canadian socialists attempting to understand the
Quebec national question is the fact that Pastor speaks as a leftist in the
dominant nation, Spain, who advocates a vote for independence in the dominated
Catalonia. The reasons he gives — above all, the inability to remedy Catalonia’s
inequality under the existing Spanish constitutional and political regime —
could apply, mutatis mutandis, in Canada, where outside of Quebec (and now the
indigenous communities) there is an historic unwillingness to even discuss, let
alone accommodate, the demands of Québécois and indigenous peoples for
autonomous status as distinct nations within or without the Canadian social
formation. 

Most recently, the modest request by Quebec premier Philippe Couillard, a
staunch federalist, for a dialogue with Canadians aimed at eventually re-opening
constitutional talks in the hope of finally getting Quebec’s approval of the
1982 Constitution was met with a prompt No by Prime Minister Trudeau, who had
not even read Couillard’s 200-page book.[2]

Following Pastor’s argument, which I find compelling, I would argue that the
historical record proves that the Canadian left, and indeed consistent
democrats, must go beyond the defense of the right of self-determination and
support the demand of most progressives in Quebec (including in the left party
Québec solidaire) for independence, even if only to provoke a public rethinking
of the undemocratic nature of Canadian state structures and how they might be
reconceived and reconfigured, with or without Quebec, to facilitate the pursuit
of a progressive social agenda and solidarity among the constituent peoples
within the existing state.

This is timely reading during the official celebrations of what the dominant
authorities term the 150th anniversary of “Canada” — in fact, the granting by
the British monarchy in 1867 of home rule to four of its overseas colonies in
North America, with the definitive denial of nationhood to the Francophone and
indigenous peoples.[3]

– Richard Fidler

Interview with Jaime Pastor

You said “If I were Catalan, I would go to vote.” What would be your vote?

I am not an independentist, but I recognize that the attempt to federalize the
Spanish state has proved impossible. And I recognize that there is no desire for
a federal agreement among the majority of the Spanish parties. In that context,
I would 

[Marxism] Claudio Katz: The Left and Venezuela

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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SUMMARY

The media keep silent about the violence of the Venezuelan opposition and the
prevailing repression by the right-wing governments of Latin America. The
Right's strategy of an institutional coup faces serious limits, but the Left
must address this new threat, supporting anti-imperialist decisions and making a
distinction between the capitalist boycott and the government's ineffectiveness.

Adhering to social-democratic standards, the post-progressive "critical left"
objects to Chavismo, dismissing the danger of a coup, and mistakenly identifying
authoritarianism as the main danger. The dogmatists overlook the main enemy and
converge with the conservatives or slip toward passive neutrality.

The Right only wants elections it is sure it will win. In these very adverse
conditions, the Constituent Assembly re-opens opportunities and points to a
re-encounter with radical intellectual thought.

Full Text (pdf):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0Q-0xxlqzOeT1lxdDdZQ3hyQWM/view



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[Marxism] FW: US fines Honda for leasing cars to Cuba's embassy in Canada, in violation of Canadian law

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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NO TO THE U.S. ECONOMIC BLOCKADE OF CUBA! NO TO U.S. VIOLATION OF CANADIAN 
SOVEREIGNTY!  

 

-Isaac Saney, National Spokesperson, Canadian Network On Cuba, June 15, 2017-

 

The Canadian Network On Cuba (CNC) denounces the violation of the sovereignty 
of Canada by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Treasury 
Department.  OFAC fined the American Honda Finance Corporation (AHFC) $87,255 
for approving and financing between February 2011 and March 2014 the leasing by 
Honda Canada Finance Inc. of 13 cars to the Embassy of Cuba in Canada. 

 

This is an unambiguous act of hostility against Cuba carried out within Canada 
by Washington. The extraterritorial application of the U.S. economic blockade 
of Cuba targets not only Canada, as the AHFC is a subsidiary of the American 
Honda Motor Company, which is itself owned by Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and based in 
Japan, not the U.S.

 

Because Honda Canada Finance Inc. is a majority-owned subsidiary company of 
American Honda Motor Company, Washington insists that it follow U.S. law as 
demanded by the 1992 Torricelli Act and the 1996 Helms-Burton Act.

 

In short, U.S. law supplants Canadian law within Canada! 

 

Not only is this a violation of the sovereignty of Canada, it contravenes the 
Canadian Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act (FEMA). 

 

In response to the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton Bill, the Government of 
Canada specifically amended FEMA in order to protect Canada against the 
increasing extraterritorial nature of the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba. Thus, 
FEMA prohibits Canadian corporations from complying with the extraterritorial 
measures of U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba

 

This violation of Canadian sovereignty by the U.S. Treasury Department 
illustrates that Washington not only wages an economic blockade against Cuba 
but also a diplomatic and political blockade. 

 

Is this extraterritorial interference in Canadian sovereignty a warning that 
Canada-Cuba relations is now a direct target of the Trump administration?

 

The CNC calls on the Government of Canada to uphold the country's sovereignty 
and reject this or any other effort to implement in Canada the internationally 
condemned and illegal U.S. economic blockade of Cuba. 

 

The CNC urges the Canadian government and parliamentarians not to allow 
Canada's policy towards and relations with Cuba to be targeted or undermined. 



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[Marxism] The Chávez Hypothesis: Vicissitudes of a Strategic Project (Chris Gilbert)

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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A truly exceptional article, with a compelling argument well grounded in recent
experience:




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[Marxism] Major decisions face Québec solidaire at its forthcoming congress

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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Quebec’s broad party of the left, Québec solidaire (QS), will open a four-day
congress on May 19 in Montréal — the 12th congress in its 11-year history. The
delegates face a challenging agenda. It includes the final stage of adoption of
the party’s detailed program, a process begun eight years ago; discussion of
possible alliances with other parties and some social movements including a
proposed fusion with another pro-independence party, Option nationale; and
renewal of the party’s top leadership. 

Québec solidaire has attracted unusual media attention in recent months in the
wake of the February announcement by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the best-known
leader of Quebec’s massive student strike in 2012, that he had decided to join
the party and become its candidate to replace QS leader Françoise David, who
resigned in January, as the member of the National Assembly for the riding
(constituency) of Gouin in Montréal. Nadeau-Dubois — often referred to as GND —
also announced that he would campaign for election at this congress as the
party’s male co-spokesperson. He is widely expected to win the Gouin by-election
now scheduled for May 29. 

GND’s announcement, accompanied by his sharp attack on Quebec’s “political class
which for 30 years has betrayed Quebec,” prompted a flood of new membership
applications; within a few days the QS membership grew by about 5,000, a 50%
increase. An opinion poll at the time credited QS with 16% popular support, only
6 percentage points behind the Parti québécois in Montréal.[1] 

These were welcome developments for the party, which has failed since its
founding to elect more than three MNAs under Quebec’s undemocratic
first-past-the-post electoral system. Also, although QS benefited from the
militancy and popular support of the students’ struggle in 2012, gaining 4,000
new members for a time, it has suffered from a relative demobilization of social
movement activists since then, although the ecology movement in opposition to
climate change appears to be gaining in momentum.

Full: http://tinyurl.com/l7lxx77



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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Think Trump is an authoritarian? Look at his actions, not his words | Corey Robin | Opinion | The Guardian

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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And for further on this, see Dan La Botz's excellent piece on Trump: The First
100 Days,


Richard

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Mark
Lause via Marxism
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2017 9:21 AM
To: rfidle...@sympatico.ca
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Think Trump is an authoritarian? Look at his
actions, not his words | Corey Robin | Opinion | The Guardian

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This is the real key to understanding the innovation that is Trump.  He's a
media git with just enough transparent psychological issues to make him slightly
less predictable than a carved figurehead.  Where his behavior becomes
unpredictable is not on matters of his authoritarianism but a persistent
defensiveness about his image.

Even his blatant racism actually conjures the preoccupations of very traditional
(pre-1960s) big city Democratic machines . . . as befits his background.

ML
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[Marxism] FW: [historicalmaterialism] Digest Number 1100

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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From: historicalmaterial...@yahoogroups.com 
[mailto:historicalmaterial...@yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2017 10:21 PM
To: historicalmaterial...@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [historicalmaterialism] Digest Number 1100

 

 

 Yahoo! Groups

 

 HISTORICAL MATERIALISM INFORMATION LIST Group 


2 Messages 


Digest #1100 

1 

ANNOUNCEMENT: Wang Shiwei Documentary available on YouTube by "Historical 
Materialism News" editionstextuel 

2 

ANNOUNCEMENT: 1917 Russian Revolution Centenary Virtual Special Issu by 
"Historical Materialism News" editionstextuel 


Messages 


1 


 

 ANNOUNCEMENT: Wang Shiwei Documentary available on YouTube 


Wed Mar 29, 2017 12:55 am (PDT) . Posted by: 


 

 "Historical Materialism News" editionstextuel 


Wang Shiwei (1907-47) was a writer and translator. He is best known in China
today as the author (in 1942) of "Wild Lily", an essay supportive but
critical of China's wartime Communist Party, for which he worked as a writer
in Yan'an, the Chinese Communists' capital in the Anti-Japanese War. Wang
Shiwei, though not himself an out-and-out Trotskyist, had strong personal
ties to Wang Fanxi and other Chinese Trotskyists, and translated Lenin's
Testament for them. Writing "Wild Lily", which criticised inequality,
authoritarianism, and lack of "love and humanity" in the wartime Communist
movement, led to his arrest and imprisonment. He was sent to work in a
matchbox factory in Yan'an. He refused to recant, and continued to insist
that Wang Fanxi was a "Communist of humanity." During the evacuation of
Yan'an in 1947, in the civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists
under Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Shiwei was hacked to death with a sword on a
river bank near Yan'an, an execution of which Mao Zedong is said to have
disapproved. Since the start of People's China in 1949, "Wild Lily" has
featured in every movement of dissent, in part because the Maoists liked to
brandish it at critics as "negative study material" with which to frighten
them, so it was nearly always available. This film about Wang Shiwei was made
for Hong Kong TV by the radical filmmaker and academic Louisa Wei, an admirer
of the Chinese Trotskyists. Her next film is about Wang Fanxi.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GLJqDoYmxv0 [1]

 

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GLJqDoYmxv0

 

 Reply to sender .  

 Reply to group .  

 Reply via Web Post .  

 All Messages (1) . Top ^ 


2 


 

 ANNOUNCEMENT: 1917 Russian Revolution Centenary Virtual Special Issu 


Wed Mar 29, 2017 1:33 am (PDT) . Posted by: 


 

 "Historical Materialism News" editionstextuel 


This Virtual Special Issue brings together a selection of articles
from /*Revolutionary Russia*/ to commemorate the centenary of the momentous
events in Russia over the course of 1917. It was a year that witnessed
the 

[Marxism] FW: Greece still feels the pain, but with no gain in sight

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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The Globe and Mail (Ottawa/Quebec Edition) 
28 Feb 2017 
 
ERIC REGULY EUROPEAN BUREAU CHIEF ereg...@globeandmail.com

In spite of Brexit, the rise of Marine Le Pen and her armies of Euroskeptics, 
and the threat of Donald Trump-inspired trade wars, the euro zone – if not on 
fire – is chugging along rather nicely. Well, most of the euro zone. Greece is 
the glaring exception.

In the euro zone as a whole, annualized growth, at 2 per cent, is stronger than 
that of the United States. On Monday, we learned that the European economic 
sentiment indicator was at its highest level since the height of the crisis, 
while loan growth to households was up 2.2 per cent in January, year on year. 
Companies are hiring again.

And Greece? While not all of the economic numbers are dire, most are, and the 
big one – gross domestic product – is going in reverse again. According to 
Elstat, the Greek statistics office, GDP shrank 0.4 per cent in the last 
quarter of 2016 compared with the previous quarter. The economy is shedding 
jobs again and the banks’ tally of non-performing loans is climbing.

Nine years after the financial crisis that mutated at lightning speed into the 
debt crisis that sank Greece, the country is still under water. On Monday, the 
bailout monitors from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund 
parachuted into Athens to figure out what Greece needs to do to hit its fiscal 
surplus targets and qualify for bailout funding that would allow the government 
to make a €7-billion ($9.7-billion) debt payment in July.

Greece doesn’t need more austerity to qualify for more debt to make payments on 
debt that it can’t afford to repay – even the IMF agrees that Greece’s debt has 
become unsustainable. Greece needs a massive debt reduction or it needs to exit 
the euro – Grexit – with the latter looking increasingly attractive.

To be sure, the crisis that led to Greece’s collapse was largely 
self-inflicted, but the pain has gone on way too long and both sides are at 
breaking point. Greece seems to be the embodiment of Albert Einstein’s 
definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting 
different results. The endless cycle of austerity and bailout loans has been a 
catastrophe.

By now, 18 years after the introduction of the euro, it is clear that the 
common currency has been manna from heaven for only one country – Germany – 
moderately successful for several others, including the Netherlands, and a 
disaster for the Mediterranean countries, notably Greece, Portugal and Italy. 
The euro has acted as a devalued German mark, turning Germany into an export 
juggernaut.

Italy’s per-capita GDP has actually fallen by 0.4 per cent since 1999, 
according to calculations made by Bloomberg based on Eurostat figures. That’s 
why the Five Star Movement, the main Italian opposition party that is polling 
roughly equally with the centre-left Democratic Party, has vowed to hold a 
referendum on the euro if it wins the next election.

Greece’s experience with the euro has been miserable because it deprived the 
country of the traditional economic shock absorber – currency devaluation – 
giving Greece no choice but to inflict a direct devaluation on its citizens. 
That meant austerity – lower salaries, pensions and overall government 
spending, and higher taxes. As the economy lost more than a quarter of its 
output, investment euros and dollars fled, banks had to be propped up and 
capital controls put in place.

How much of Greece’s misery can blamed on the euro? A lot. We can deduce this 
by comparing Greece’s post-crisis recovery (or lack thereof) to the recoveries 
of other countries that went through their own crises at various times in 
recent decades, among them Turkey, Thailand, Indonesia, Argentina and Brazil. 
They all recovered, often strongly – no pain, no gain. Greece did not. Its pain 
is intact, its gain elusive.

According to IMF figures, the Greek economy boomed in both real terms and 
dollar-denominated terms in the pre-crisis years, when money was cheap and 
Greece was able to sell outlandish amounts of bonds with apparently no fear 
that its debt would become unsustainable. Greek governments had fudged the 
numbers for years, and the crisis exposed the sham that was Greece’s economy. 
Between 2007 and 2013, Greece’s real GDP per capita fell 26 per cent. The other 
crisis-struck countries experienced an average downturn of only 12 per cent.

As the Financial Times noted recently, on average, the economies of Turkey, 
Thailand, Indonesia, Argentina and Brazil outperformed Greece by an astounding 
40 percentage points in the nine years after