Re: [Marxism] Clay Claiborne on Syria and Jill Stein, responding to Louis on muftah.org
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Marx (and his US supporters in the Communist League) supported the Republicans because they represented a *revolutionary democratic* solution to slavery. This was in a period when Marx considered capitalism "progressive" against the slavocracy which represented a wholly different political economy. It is absolutely historically GROTESQUE to compare voting for Abraham Lincoln to Hillary Clinton. Are you stark raving mad, Thomas? David Walters _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Clay Claiborne on Syria and Jill Stein, responding to Louis on muftah.org
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 11/8/16 9:38 AM, DW via Marxism wrote: It is absolutely historically GROTESQUE to compare voting for Abraham Lincoln to Hillary Clinton. Are you stark raving mad, Thomas? Maybe I am missing something but Thomas cited an entirely different article by Marx that strictly opposed voting for bourgeois candidates: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2016-November/272775.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Clay Claiborne on Syria and Jill Stein, responding to Louis on muftah.org
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * What! Didn't Marx favor voting for Louis Napoleon to keep the reactionaries from taking power? At the very time Marx was writing this, Horace Greeley was yowling in the New York Tribune that voting for an abolitionist party rather than the Whigs aided only the proslavery Democrats (as though the Whigs weren't proslavery in their own right). ML _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Clay Claiborne on Syria and Jill Stein, responding to Louis on muftah.org
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * “Even In Constituencies Where There Is No Prospect Of Our Candidate Being Elected, The Workers Must Nevertheless Put Up Candidates In Order To Maintain Their Independence” “They Must Not Allow Themselves To Be Diverted From This Work By The Stock Argument That To Split The Vote Of The Democrats Means Assisting The Reactionary Parties” March 1850 By Karl Marx, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League [Excerpts] With a view to checking the power and the growth of big capital, the democratic party demands a reform of the laws of inheritance and legacies, likewise the transfer of the public services and as many industrial undertakings as possible to the state and municipal authorities. As for the workingmen – well, they should remain wage workers: for whom, however, the democratic party would procure higher wages, better labor conditions, and a secure existence. The democrats hope to achieve that partly through state and municipal management and through welfare institutions. In short, they hope to bribe the working class into quiescence and thus to weaken their revolutionary spirit by momentary concessions and comforts. The democratic demands can never satisfy the party of the proletariat. While the democratic petty bourgeoisie would like to bring the revolution to a close as soon as their demands are more or less complied with, it is our and our task to make the revolution permanent, to keep it going until all the ruling and possessing classes are deprived of power, the governmental machinery occupied by the proletariat, and the organization of the working classes of all lands is so far advanced that all rivalry and competition among themseIves has ceased until the more important forces of production are concentrated in the hands of the proletarians With us it is not a matter of reforming private property, but of abolishing it; not of hushing up class antagonism, but of abolishing the classes; not of ameliorating the existing society, but of establishing a new one. Even in constituencies where there is no prospect of our candidate being elected, the workers must nevertheless put up candidates in order to maintain their independence, to steel their forces, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party views before the public They must not allow themselves to be diverted from this work by the stock argument that to split the vote of the democrats means assisting the reactionary parties. All such talk is but calculated to cheat the proletariat. The advance which the Proletarian Party will make through its independent political attitude is infinitely more important than the disadvantages of having a few more reactionaries in the national representation. The gist of the matter is this: In case of an attack on a common adversary no special union is necessary; in the fight with such an enemy the interests of both parties, the middle-class democrats and the working-class party, coincide for the moment, and both parties will carry it on by a temporary understanding. This was so in the past, and will be so in the future. It is a matter of course that in the future sanguinary conflicts, as in all previous ones, the workingmen by their courage, resolution, and self-sacrifice, will form the main force in the attainment of victory. As hitherto, so in the coming struggle, the petty bourgeoisie as a whole will maintain an attitude of delay, irresolution, and inactivity as long as possible, in order that, as soon as victory is assured, they may arrogate it to themselves and call upon the workers to remain quiet, return to work, avoid so-called excesses, and thus to shut off the workers from the fruits of victory. T -Original Message- >From: Louis Proyect via Marxism>Sent: Nov 7, 2016 4:39 PM >To: Thomas F Barton >Subject: Re: [Marxism] Clay Claiborne on Syria and Jill Stein, responding to >Louis on muftah.org > > >On 11/7/16 4:31 PM, Jeff via Marxism wrote: >> >> Personally I don't think the Stein campaign is of great importance, but >> this piece also takes on broader questions of Syria and the (Western) >> left, and the way principles can be so easily compromised. > >Jeff, I have no idea of what your connection to Marxism is but when you >speak of principles, there is none more sacrosanct that refusing to vote >for bourgeois parties. All you need to do is read V.I. Lenin on the >Cadets. The fact that Clay was so completely isolated on Marxmail should >give you an idea of where people stand.
Re: [Marxism] Clay Claiborne on Syria and Jill Stein, responding to Louis on muftah.org
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 11/7/16 4:31 PM, Jeff via Marxism wrote: Personally I don't think the Stein campaign is of great importance, but this piece also takes on broader questions of Syria and the (Western) left, and the way principles can be so easily compromised. Jeff, I have no idea of what your connection to Marxism is but when you speak of principles, there is none more sacrosanct that refusing to vote for bourgeois parties. All you need to do is read V.I. Lenin on the Cadets. The fact that Clay was so completely isolated on Marxmail should give you an idea of where people stand. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Clay Claiborne on Syria and Jill Stein, responding to Louis on muftah.org
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Personally I don't think the Stein campaign is of great importance, but this piece also takes on broader questions of Syria and the (Western) left, and the way principles can be so easily compromised. - Jeff http://muftah.org/america-syria-green-party/ For America & Syria’s Sake, Don’t Vote Green Clay Claiborne November 7th, 2016 In general, the Western left has taken a shameful attitude toward the Syrian conflict. Instead of supporting the Syrian people’s struggle against dictatorship, many leftists have promoted an anachronistic view of Russia and its allies, and accused Syrian revolutionaries of being Western proxies. The approach to Syria taken by the U.S. Green Party, which is largely representative of the left in the United States, largely reflects these tendencies. Louis Proyect, a well-respected radical that for eighteen years has run MarxMail, an email list-serve of over 1500 Marxists activists and scholars, has, until recently, been a strong supporter of the Syrian revolution. He, like me, went against the tide of non-interventionist sentiment and supported Libyans and Syrians fighting against Russian-backed dictators to bring democracy to their countries. Anyone who has taken this path knows it can be a hard and lonely road. As it turns out, supporting the “wrong” revolutions can lose you friends fast on the American left. But, this year Proyect decided to come in from the cold and support the Green Party’s presidential candidate, Jill Stein – an American politician who actively favors the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Proyect’s support for the Stein campaign raises questions about how he can square this decision with his opposition to the Assad regime. He attempted to address this divergence in The Green Party and Syria, which was published on Muftah, on October 4, 2016. In his article, Proyect excuses Stein’s terrible position on Syria, in the service of building a third-party in American politics. It is a position that is both naïve and dangerous. Jill Stein and Syria As far as Jill Stein is concerned, the U.S. government must work with Syria, Russia, and Iran to restore all of Syria to Assad’s control. Stein posted a statement to this effect on her campaign website, Jill2016.org, on November 2, 2015. I call it “Putin Approved,” because it is hard to imagine what Assad or Russian President Vladimir Putin would not like about the policy position. In her statement, Stein supports the legitimacy of the forty-five-year-old Assad dictatorship, and by implication, certifies as legitimate Assad’s June 2014 88.7% election victory, in the midst of a raging civil war. She defines all rebels as “jihadi terrorists,” mimicking Assad’s own position on the opposition. Stein goes on to insist that no liberated areas of Syria should remain outside of Assad’s control, not even Rojava, a leftist Kurdish region that has managed to win a degree of autonomy. At no point does she present a plan for shared governance or a transition from Assad’s rule. On October 5, 2016 the Stein campaign deleted the statement and quietly replaced it with a shorter, less transparently pro-Assad policy. The revision was not mentioned on the campaign website, but was called out in a number of tweets. Despite this attempted face saving, it cannot be forgotten that Jill Stein has, in effect, demanded that every gain made by suffering and martyrdom since the Syrian revolution began in 2011 be abandoned and that “all of Syria” be returned to conditions of police state terror. While in Stein’s conspiracy fantasy world there are many theories about how U.S. President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton “orchestrated regime change” in Syria, the reality is that the Syrian people just got fed up. If Stein did not so easily fall for dictators willing to mouth off about Israel, and appreciated the everyday struggles of those living under Muammar Gaddafi in Libya or Bashar al-Assad in Syria, she would see that the impetus for revolution or “regime change” in those countries came from the people themselves. While Stein is free to believe Damascus’s denials about using sarin gas and barrel bombs, numerous reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations make it clear that the Assad government is a criminal regime with no regard for the right of it citizens. But, since the people either do not exist or are not that important for her, Stein can disregard their struggles, and, instead, take a self-important view that puts her country at the center of every important global event. Proyect on Stein In his Muftah,