[Marxism] Colombian Elections

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Final note on the Colombian elections...

Last Sunday incumbent President Juan Manuel Santos was reelected for a
second term with about 8,000,000 votes. His opponent, the Uribista
candidate Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, got about 7,000,000 votes.

Santos was supported by his own party, the Partido de la U, and by the
Liberal Party, Cambio Radical, most of the elected officials of the
Conservative Party - but not its Presidential candidate,  and almost all of
the left. While the left parties did not endorse Santos, the main leaders
of the Polo Democartico Alternativo, Marcha Patriotica, the Progresistas
and the Partido Verde (which is not really very green or very left), all
endorsed Santos int he second round and campaigned for him. The one
important exception was Senator Jorge Robledo of the Polo who campaigned
for a blank vote.

Santos is a cold blooded murderer who brags of being the FARC's worst enemy
and enumerates the dozens of FARC leaders who have been killed on his
orders. Nevertheless, the Uribistas tried to paint him as a friend of the
FARC who was giving away the country to the FARC. The Uribistas spread
Bizzarre rumors like Santos planned to cut military pensions so that the
money could be transferred to the FARC.

The central difference between Santos and Uribe is that - like the United
States but unlike former President Alvaro Uribe and his acolytes, Santos
views military victories as the means to bring about a negotiated peace
with the FARC and the ELN rather than as an end in themselves.

Most of the left had some version of the view that this was more of a
plebiscite on the peace negotiations in which they voted yes than a
normal Presidential election. The Polo has announced that it will not
accept any posts in the government and will remain in opposition. It is not
yet clear what the Progresistas of Gustavo Petro are going to do.

Santos was elected the first time with the support of Uribe. His oppponent
in the second round of elections was Antanas Mockus of the Green Party.
Mockus received many of the votes of the left in that election (the
rest abstained or cast blank ballots.)

In conventional terms, Santos was elected the first time as the leader of a
center-right coalition, and elected the second time as the leader of a
center-left coalition.

This time around Santos used the pork barrel so freely that it is hard to
see how he will manage handing out the favors to such a varied array of
crooks and grafters.

The only ones left out of the party are the Uribistas, who Santos is now
making overtures to in an apparent effort to peal off the more opportunist
elements of Uribe´s coalition.

Uribe himself is in bitter opposition, having issued a barely veiled call
for a military coup immediately after the election results were announced
Sunday. TV stations started to broadcast his speech, and then abruptly cut
him off. Only later were carefully edited portions of the least
inflammatory parts of the speech broadcast.

El Tiempo, the most important newspaper in the country and the family organ
of President Santos, did not mention Uribe's speech the following day, and
to date has buried it with a very brief mention in the back pages.

What will happen next is far from clear. Santos will try to finish the
peace negotiations with the FARC as quickly as possible. Assuming that a
deal is made, it will be submitted to a referendum for approval of the
voters.

If a deal is made with the FARC, there will almost certainly be a deal with
the ELN which began a preliminary phase of negotiations the week before the
elections.

The electoral left was clearly strengthened by this election, although
it remains weak and divided. The Polo has recovered much of its former vote
getting ability, while the Progresistas have lost much of theirs.
Superficially the Polo seems to have recovered from the damage done to it
by the Samuel Moreno scandals.

Nevertheless, the independence of all sectors of the electoral left (except
Senator Robledo and his faction) is now in question.

On the horizon now there are several scandals and trials that have yet to
play out. They include the effort to extradite the former head of the DAS
(Colombian version of the FBI/CIA combined) under Uribe who is currently
avoiding prosecution in exile in Panama for a major bugging scandal in
which she orchestrated illegal eavesdropping on the Supreme Court and
opposition. They also include the trial of Oscar Zuluaga's IT chief who was
arrested for the same kinds of things during the election campaign.

Once a peace agreement is in place, it will include a truth commission
which will have the responsibility of digging out the reasons for the
conflict in Colombia and investigating the responsibility of of all the
different actors including 

[Marxism] Translators collective

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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I think this is a wonderful idea for any movement, but Michael Yates has a
point. However, if movement lawyers and doctors can work for free, I don't
see why translators can't do the same.

Everything Michael says about translating is true, except for one point:
you don't have to be able to write well in the language you are translating
from, only in the language you are translating to. If such a collective
were ever to be set up, it should work with teams of translators so that
someone, say Vladimir, would translate from English to Russian, and someone
else, say Karl, would translate from English to German, and someone else,
say Fred, would translate from German to English, and so on.

Any large, well organized social democratic party, revolutionary party,
workers international, or even a fucking church trying to evangelize people
to steal their money has to have a translation department within their
communications apparatus.

Best, Anthony
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[Marxism] Hard-boiled dectives: Dashiell Hammet

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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​The early hard-boled deteective fiction of the 1920's had a strong left
lean to epitomized by the work of Dashiell Hammet. Raymond Chandler edged
the genre to the right where it mostly stayed until writers like Chester
Himes, Walter Mosley, Sara Paretsky, and Tony Hillerman pushed it back a
little int he other direction. The genre contains all kinds of political
perspectives now. It seems to reflect the direction of class struggle as it
was a decade before the writers publish. Anthony
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[Marxism] An old enigma of the movement

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Decades ago, I spent a few years in the Workers League, the offspring of
the old Socialist Workers Party that led to the current abomination of the
Worldwide Socialist Web. The nemesis of the Workers League was the
Spartacisoid League which was inhabited by alcoholic vampires and
psychological damaged people.

One person who had passed through both of these august sects was a guy
named Shane Mage. Mage, despite his descent from Healyite orthodoxy into
Spatracisoid heresy and even worse, psychidelic Buddhism, as held in some
esteem by Workers League leaders. apparently, he had been a smart guy.

So when some one using that name popped up on this list, I paid attention.

Must be a different person, I thought.

Anthony


Shane Mage shm...@pipeline.com
To: Louis Proyect l...@panix.com
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Stalinist-Trotskyist bromance
Message-ID: de7aa513-bd72-4a3b-b67c-660557748...@pipeline.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes


On Nov 5, 2014, at 11:44 AM, Louis Proyect wrote:


 So weird to see Shane fulminating against the Fourth International
 for adapting to Stalinism when his primary role on Marxmail is to
 serve as a transmission belt for RT.com talking points.

I wonder where on RT.com (which, in fact, I have never even seen--
except maybe for occasional and unnoteworthy reposts on Johnson's
Russia List) it describes Putin as a Czar or refers to his KGB
status.  Louis and a few others posting on Syria and the Ukraine could
perhaps more properly be described as a transmission belt for
Washington Post Editorial Board talking points, but since I refuse to
accept slander as an acceptable element in political discussion I
would never say any such thing.


Shane Mage
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[Marxism] Add me to the list, too

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Although I have a low profile, you can add me to the list of those who are
against the Russian backed separatists.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Buffeted by strong winds but safe in the Andes

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Wow! Syriza won! And Miss Colombia is now Miss Universe! Mind blowing! And
Obama is doing what his lefty supporters wanted him to do all along! The
sun must be shining, so we should expect a shit storm. Best from Bogota,
Anthony
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[Marxism] Greece

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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*Greece*


The Greek crisis, and the crisis of Syriza, IMHO shows just how impossible
capitalism in one country is. Greece in not just in debt beyond the point
where it can every repay even if half the country starves to death, but it
has a long term negative trade balance. Greece, like the United States and
Great Britain, is subsidized by the rest of the world. It consumes more
than it produces. Unlike the USA and UK, Greece is not a central
imperialist power.


The Euro trap means that staying in the Euro zone and European Union
requires the Greek government, and now this means the Syriza government, to
starve the Greek working class and petty bourgeoisie to pay the debt. A
Grexit on the other hand will almost certainly have a devastating impact on
the domestic banking system in Greece and on Greece’s already disastrous
balance of trade.


In other words, unless the Germans play nice, Syriza has no short term
options that will alleviate the desperate situation of the Greek people.
And the German capitalists are not in the mood for playing nice because
Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and even France are waiting to see what
happens.


What to do?


Greeks are not going to have much choice but to fight each other for
survival. The Greek standard of living will fall further, maybe much
further.


The Greek bourgeoisie will transfer whatever assets they can, and that are
still in the country, someplace else.


If you just look at Greece alone, either the left, inside of Syriza and/or
outside of Syriza, will take power, nationalize the land, banks and
whatever large scale production there is in Greece, and impose a
dictatorship to guarantee basic minimum needs of the people. Or, the right
– almost certainly led by New Dawn, will bathe Greece in the blood of its
people, and sell the blood to the German vampires.


Of course, this leaves out a lot: most importantly it leaves out the rest
of Europe and it leaves out what happens between now and descent into civil
war in Greece.


Syriza is clearly trying to buy time. That’s why it blinked in the
negotiations with the European Finance Ministers. The question is, time to
do what?


The first thing that is obvious is that all of Europe is on the precipice.
Greece is going to default. If not last week, this summer, if not this
summer, than in January.


Not even Saudi Arabia’s wonderful present of lower oil prices is enough to
save Greece, or the rest of Europe.


When Greece defaults the train will start to roll: Spain, Italy, Portugal,
Ireland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary….France.


The meltdown that did not happen in 2008 will happen.


The Greek dilemma will become the European dilemma.


Will the rise of the new European left be fast enough, powerful enough, and
revolutionary enough?


Only time will tell. But this is where the efforts of Marxists should be.
If I were in Greece, I would be in Syriza on its left. If I were in Spain,
I would be in Podemos.


Best, Anthony
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[Marxism] What is Grace?

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlFCKZkeBrg
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[Marxism] Colombian elections

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Last week Colombia had its off-year elections: Governors, mayors,
departmental deputies (assembly people), city councils, and other local
offices.
The most important result was the very unsurprising loss by the Polo
Democratico in the mayoral election in Bogotà, the country's largest city
and the capital, to the zombie-like retread who has apparently risen from
the political graveyard, former mayor Enrique Peñalosa.

To make the loss even more humiliating, the Polo's candidate Clara Lopez
came in third behind Peñalosa and Rafael Pardo.  Peñalosa was backed by the
country's big construction companies, the municipal transportation cartel,
Cambio Radical - the party of the country's Vice President - and heir
apparent of President Juan Manuel Santos - and by the Conservative Party.
Pardo, the Minister of Labor in santos' cabinet who briefly served as
acting Mayor of Bogotà when outgoing Mayor Petro was suspended, was
supported by some of the country's biggest Banks and by the Liberal Party.
Lopez was supported by the widow of Julio Mario Santo Domingo - by far the
richest woman in Colombia, and by her own party and assorted unions.

The left had won the mayoralty in Bogotà three straight elections before
this. Rather than using their victories to strengthen any movement in the
streets, they did almost everything and anything else. The first  of the
three mayors, Lucho Garzon, used the job as a stepping stone into the
cabinet of Juan Manuel Santos. The second, Samuel Moreno, used the
opportunity to organize the massive wholesale robbery of the city. When the
scandal was blown open by then-Polo Senator Gustavo Petro, it led to the
unraveling of an enormous corruption scandal which nearly destroyed the
Polo. The Polo split, with Petro forming the Progresistas which allowed him
to win the next mayoral election. While Mayor, Petro managed to make
enemies of most of his friends and allies, and earn the bitter hatred of
the ctiies middle class, without gaining any new friends or allies, and
leaving the Progresistas a nearly dead shell of a political movement that
could not even field its own candidate for mayor this time around.

The Polo did win some city council seats, a couple of departmental
governors seats, and still has the possibility to come back as an electoral
force. if Peñalosa cold come back after his corrupt administration, almost
anything is possible.

How does this fit into the peace process? These elections were a clear
victory for the architect of that process, President Juan Manuel Santos,
and for his hand picked successor Vice-President Gèrman Vargas Lleras. The
parties of Santos' colaition: his own Partido de la U, Lleras' Cambio
Radical, and Pardo's Liberal party were the clear winners all around the
country.

The Uribistas were even bigger losers than the Polo. They lost both the
governorship of Antioquia and the mayoralty of mediìn (the capital of
Antioquia) the stronghold of the Uribistsas so-called Centro Democratico
Uribista. Their candidate for mayor Fracisco Santos (cousin of the
president) came in a miserable fourth place. This means Santas et al. will
be able to complete the peace process without major obstacles from the
militarily right. it also means their already dominant bargaining position
with the FARC will be even stronger.

More later, Anthony
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[Marxism] The death of an old comrade and friend

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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An old friend and comrade, Gino Pepi, recently died. A memorial and
celebration of his life is being held today. Gene was a great guy, and a
true working class hero. Here is a link to a little video his son posted on
YouTube, and the text of the invitation to the memorial celebration with a
little bio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0WZPAGt8do

Please join us celebrating the life of Eugene Pepi.

There will be time for Speaking, Musical Performance & Dancing. A Special
Gumbo will be served in Gino's honor as well as other small bites.

Gino was born and raised in San Francisco. As a young man he became
convinced of the need of an equal and just society, and dedicated his life
to socialism and to the struggles of the working class internationally. He
worked hard to enhance the living conditions of all Bay Area workers
especially B.A.R.T workers, fought against racism and discrimination,
defended immigrant workers and women’s rights, and participated in
countless efforts to stop wars and environmental destruction. When Gino
wasn't fighting tirelessly for the rights of the oppressed, he would dive
deep into his other passions, Zydeco dancing and Photography. Through dance
and music Gino made a long lasting group of friends that shared his joy and
passion for the sounds of Louisiana. Gino enjoyed life to its fullest. He
embraced all challenges with humor, honesty and with a strong sense of
solidarity.

We will remember you Gino.
This city will remember you.
Your friends, family and comrades will always remember you.

There will be time for Speaking, Musical Performance,Dancing, and food.

Please if you plan to Speak, Perform Music, etc. conatct me ahead of time
so that we can make a schedule.
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[Marxism] "Peace" in Colombia

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Today the government of Colombia and the FARC-EP signed off on a key part
of the peace agreement, "transitional justice". The deal establishes a
process for prosecuting FARC leaders and militants for serious war crimes,
and sentencing them to sentences of 5 to 8 years in a separate system of
incarceration from the ordinary prison system, provided they confess, and
to sentences of up to 20 years int he ordinary prison system if they do not
confess. Crimes by the Colombian military can be prosecuted through the
same special process. Where the paramilitary groups fit is not clear, since
they have already made a "peace" deal with its own transitional justice
measures. The FARC and the government agreed to complete peace talks within
six months, after which the FARC will have sixty days to disarm and
demobilize. The two sides agreed that the transition of the FARC from armed
protagonists into a political movement within the constitutional framework
of Colombia is a common goal. The deal was brokered by Cuba and Norway with
the help of the pope.

What does this all mean in real terms?

More later,

Anthony
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[Marxism] Ceasefire in Colombia

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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This is a key step in the peace process. The next step will be a referndum.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/world/americas/colombia-farc-peace-deal-rebels-cease-fire-santos.html?emc=edit_th_20160623=todaysheadlines=38183359
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[Marxism] Trumped?

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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A note from afar


Last night I watched my 15 minutes of reality show and was amazed at the
way things looked.


Donald Trump looked like a little boy bully who had been spanked, maybe
whipped, by his bully father.


He didn’t call anyone a liar or a wimp. He held his tongue instead of
interrupting.

Good boy, Donny, boy.


He looked miserable. He looked like he really, really wanted to have more
fun bullying little Mario and Teddy, but was afraid he would really get his
ass kicked if he did.

Maybe I misread the situation, but if I didn’t, who is dear old daddy? And
what did the whipping consist of?


Mario, Johnie, and Donny read their lines and played the game according to
the rules, too.


No food fight!


Boring.


But, interesting for what it says about the inner intrigues of the GOP. IMHO


Anthony
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[Marxism] The Elections in the USA seen from Afar

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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*The 2016 Elections from Afar*

The Republican debates remind me of food fights in the cafeteria of my
junior high school, but, entertainment aside, this year’s elections have
all the earmarks of an unprecedented political crisis in the United States.

The results of the civil rights movement and the upheaval of the 1960’s are
coming home to roost in a way that nobody anticipated. When John Kennedy
cynically calculated that he could put his presidential bid over the top
with black votes, he was right. But he must not have expected that he would
be assassinated not so long after, or that the southern democratic Party
would split, and end up in the Republican Party after a brief fling as an
independent party.

From the long view of history, the Republican party has been in terminal
decline ever since the close of the western frontier of the United States
in 1890. It was the party of the North that won the civil war: to be more
accurate the party of the northern capitalists, small businessmen and
farmers that won the civil war. Its electoral base was always the northern
farmers and petty bourgeoisie. That base began to shrink as a percentage of
the electorate as the great wave of immigrant workers that built the
railroads and factories in the United States after the civil war. That base
begin to shrink absolutely when the number of small farms began to decrease
with the close of the frontier and the inevitable series of shake-outs and
agricultural crisis that eventually created modern agro-business.

On the other hand, the hybrid monster of the Democratic Party began to grow
as soon as the immigrants became citizens and began to vote  (and they
began to vote even sooner in some places!) The new voters were not exactly
fresh off the boat or fresh off the farm, but they were divided into dozens
of nationalities and language groups. Against all odds they began to
organize themselves, but by the First World War were still divided, mostly
not organized into unions, and mostly dominated by the Democratic party’s
big city political machines. Those machines tied the immigrant working
class to the Jim Crow Democratic Party and the Ku Klux Klan of the south.

The decline was masked temporarily by two events: the passage of the 19th
Amendment to the constitution of the USA which gave women the right to
vote, and the cold war. The first improbably helped the Republicans recover
their electoral power when they opportunistically stole the platform of the
temperance movement and advocated the insane social experiment of
prohibition. Women’s enthusiasm for the Republicans wore off in a dozen
years or so, no doubt because prohibition was such as disasters, but also
because the Republicans were such a disaster in other ways and ended up
being universally blamed for causing the great depression. FDR’s landslide
victory in the 1932 elections showed the real shape of the American
electorate.

Whether or not the failure of the New Deal to overcome the agony of the
great depression might have led to the demise of the northern Democratic
Party and the formation of a mass working class party will never be known.
Certainly the support Roosevelt received from the Communist Party and the
Socialist Party helped prevent such a development. But what really saved
the northern Democrats was the Second World War. When Japan attacked Pearl
Harbor, Roosevelt was ready to become the great patriotic savoir of the
United States.

Cold War anticommunism allowed the Republicans to once again portray
themselves as patriots, even as the best patriots. The flirtation of the
whole party with Nazism in the 1930’s, and the open relations of important
parts of US business with the Nazi and Fascist regimes had badly damaged
the GOP’s patriotic credentials during World War II. When they were able to
nominate Dwight Eisenhower, the general who people credited with winning
the war in Europe, as their presidential candidate in 1952, the Republicans
were back in business.

In 1960 the cold war still dominated the thinking and the politics of the
United States. Kennedy’s cynical pragmatism fit right in.

Eight years later, it led to the Southern strategy of Richard Nixon. By the
time Nixon fell from power, the Southern Democrats had shifted almost
entirely into the Republican Party.

Still, this only bought the Republicans time because of the great change
created in the social consciousness of the United States by the 1960’s
cultural revolution. Racism was mortally wounded and beginning to die.

The invention of the Moral Majority, an offshoot of the Southern Strategy
by some Republican geniuses, was a sign that, at least in terms of
practical 

[Marxism] Is a Republican Meltdown on the agenda?

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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*Is a Republican Meltdown on the agenda?*



Although my crystal ball stopped working years ago, it looks to me like the
electoral system in the United States is entering a major crisis.

The center of the crisis right now is the Republican Party. What a circus!
What low-life clowns! How could any sane human being vote for any of them?

But this is the party of Lincoln. This is the Grand Old Party that won the
civil war and rebuilt the United States. This is the party of business;
this is the main party of the American capitalist class. And it is
self-destructing.

Food for thought.

Since the 1960’s the GOP has rebuilt itself into a new party. Clearly a
party of business owners and farmers in the 20th century United States was
doomed to be a minority party in elections. Even if every small business
owner voted for it, it would lose every election if the working class and
poor all voted for some other party. The party of business needed to
acquire voters from among the ignorant masses.

It found them after World War II by being more anti-communist than even the
Democratic Party. But, cold-war anti-communism was a card that had worn
thin by 1960.

John F. Kennedy’s razor thin election victor paradoxically gave the
Republicans the key to getting a lot more voters. Kennedy’s cynical ploy of
supporting black voting rights had helped him win the elections, but it
insulted and betrayed the southern Jim Crow base of his party. When
Kennedy’s southern born and bred Vice president, Lyndon Baines Johnson,
took over, he only made matters worse for his southern Democratic brothers
in arms by pushing through the Civil Rights Act.

The revolt followed when Alabama Governor George Wallace led the southern
Democrats out of the Democratic Party and temporarily into a short-lived
new party called the American Independent Party. The GOP saw the
opportunity to grab the very base of the old Democratic Party. Nixon’s
southern strategy swallowed the AIP whole, and took the Texas Democratic
Party along with it. By 1972 what had been the solid Democratic South had
been transformed into the solid Republican south.

Unfortunately for the GOP political strategists around Nixon, racism had
been dealt a powerful blow by the great uprising of youth and black people
of the 1960’s. Racism had not been killed, but it was mortally wounded and
has never recovered. The fact that Barack Obama was elected president is
very strong evidence of this. The fact that two of the most important
clowns in the Republican primaries this year, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have
Spanish last names, and the facts that one of the GOP candidates was black
and another was a woman are additional evidence.

The GOP needed to find another way to attract some other group of backward
people. They found it in religion. The Moral Majority helped Ronald Reagan
into the White House and transformed abortion from a medical issue into a
political litmus test.

To add to the toxic mixture, the GOP became the party of the National Rifle
Association.

This hybrid monster, led by the traditional Calvin Coolidge stratum of the
Republican Party, was headed for a disaster.

The problem is, even the most backward Republican voter expects something
in return for his vote. And the voter base of the Republican Party got
almost nothing from Republican victories. Less than nothing for most of
them when it comes to the nuts and bolts of “the economy stupid”.

Whether or not they were aware of the tenuous nature of their electoral
victories, the GOP was working hard to use its electoral base to give it
permanent dominance of the electoral system. They focused on gaining
control of the Supreme Court and state legislatures. These were the keys to
reversing the inclusion of poor people into the voting booths that had
resulted from the civil rights movement and the black rebellions of the
1960’s.

This strategy led to the creation of the Burger Supreme Court in place of
the Warren Supreme Court, and it lead to Republican control of almost 40
state legislatures and a cascade of big and small court decisions and
legislative actions that has whittled down the electorate to give a
minority party the position of the majority party in everything but
presidential elections.

And it is all unraveling in front of our eyes.

It is not just Ted Cruz and Donald Trump trashing each other’s wives. It is
not just the Tea Party faction of the GOP running candidates against
mainstream Republicans in primaries. It is not just the ever more intense
crisis in the Republican Congressional and Senate delegations.

The top of the Republican Party has fractured. The Koch brothers are not an
accident. 

[Marxism] President Elect Trump

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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All Hail!

Wow! What a weird week, what a weird time in history. Makes me think of my
old pal, Zippy. he reminds me of the new president of the United States

[image: Image result for zippy the pinhead]
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[Marxism] Nixon Part 3

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Who knows how this roller-coaster ride will go, but Donald Trump has
started his term in office in a weaker position than any president in the
last 100 years. His own party does not like him, his poll ratings are low
and falling, he has not suddenly become coherent after babbling
incoherently through his election campaign, and his inauguration has been
met with the largest wave of protests in the USA since the Viet Nam War.

Martin Luther King day this year had already turned into a national protest
against Trump, but the women's marches turned the anti-Trump anger out on a
scale far, far bigger than anyone, especially the protest's organizers, had
expected. It was not just the 500,000 plus people in Washington DC, the
750,000 plus people in LA, the 400,000 in New York, and the hundred
thousand plus crowds in cities from Boston to San Francisco, it was the
crowds of 20,000 in Houston, 15,000 in Nashville and several to tens of
thousands in dozens of other cities around the USA.

To start with, this movement is led by Democratic Party politicians with a
Democratic party agenda of saving what's left of the New Deal and Great
Society reforms, and saving Obama Care. For the Democratic Party, the true
aim of the agenda is to reverse their losses in the House of
Representatives and Senate (a product of their own electoral strategy).
Judging by the homemade signs in the marches, the agenda of the people in
the streets already goes further to include raising the minimum wage,
defending black lives, advancing immigrant rights, defending and advancing
LGBT rights, defending the environment...

Mobilizing people in the streets is exactly what the Democratic Party has
tried to steer clear of for years. And when people have taken to the
streets, all effort has been exerted to tamp the genie back down into the
bottle. Now, it seems that the genie is out and will be very hard to put
back.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Vote for Jill Stein

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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​Nothing good will every come out of voting for any Democrat or any
Republican. The "lesser "evil" left advocated voting for Adlai Stevenson,
John Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale...and on
to Barack Obama and now Hillary Clinton.​ What happened when the
Republicans won? Wars, attacks on the working class, the poor and
minorities. What happened when the Democrats won? The same thing!

What is different about this election? It is not that Trump is a racist or
a white nationalist, or that he is incoherent. Virtually every president of
the USA has been a racist, and not a few have been incoherent.

What is different is that the electoral system is in a crisis. The
Republican Party is split with half of its leaders withholding support from
their candidate who is a virulently racist and incoherent reality show
star. Meanwhile the Democratic party has a candidate whom any other
Republican other than Trump could beat without getting out of bed.

What should be done? We should stoke the fires of crisis to the extent that
we can. The best thing that could happen for the entire world with the
exception of the very rich int he United States would be the absolute
destruction of the two party system.

You can do a little bit to bring this about. Vote for Jill Stein.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Colombia votes No to peace agreement

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Colombia has voted No on the peace agreement with the FARC. Approximately
13,000,000 of the 34,000,000 people who were eligible to vote voted. The no
vote won by about 70,000 votes.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Colombian peace agreement

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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*Colombian Peace Agreement*

This Sunday October 2, Colombians will vote in a referendum on the peace
agreement signed on Monday September 26 between the FARC-EP  (Fuerzas
Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia – Ejercito Popular – Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia – Popular Army) and the government of Colombia.


Everyone I talk to, and all the polls, say the “yes” vote will win, but
that the “No vote will be substantial.


The peace agreement will result in the demobilization of the FARC and the
reintegration of the organization and its members into Colombia society. It
involves a number of important points about redistribution of land
expropriated during the long armed conflict, protection of FARC militants
from assassination and attack, a truth commission about the history of the
conflict and measures to help reintegrate the organization and its
militants into legality.


What will happen after the agreement goes into effect remains to be seen.


Here are some key issues:


What will the military, police and paramilitaries do this time?


After past agreements, notably the one with M-19, there were assassinations
of important leaders and militants. This situation is different, but the
strength of the “No” vote this Sunday will indicate the depth of popular
hatred for the FARC upon which the paramilitary and their legal leaders
like, notably former President Alvaro Uribe, base themselves. The
paramilitary demobilization while Uribe was president was a sham, and these
organizations continue to exist as organized criminal gangs and private
security companies with links to sections of the military and state
apparatus.


What will the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN) do?


Informal peace talks have been going on between the ELN and the Colombian
government throughout this year, and the FARC and the ELN are also reported
to be in talks, but so far there has been no start of a formal negotiation
process. If there is not, many people think there will be a military
offensive against them at the beginning of next year.


Will the FARC be able to become a legal political force in Colombia?


This is the biggest question of all. The FARC’s military strategy not only
resulted in the deaths of many who joined it to fight for a better
Colombia, it turned a large part of the Colombian working class and poor
against the left. The two great stones around the Colombian left’s neck are
the death and suffering caused by the FARC and the corruption of the legal
left when it has held office.


The very fact that the FARC has negotiated this peace agreement is a step
in the right direction.


Now the FARC will reappear in the arena of electoral politics, trade
unionism, and social movements.


Without speculating on what it will do, it is clear that this is the
beginning of a new chapter in Colombian political history.


Anthony
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[Marxism] Republican meltdown

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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*There Is a Republican Meltdown on the agenda*


In march I sent this list a long note asking the question, "Is a Republican
Meltdown on the Agenda?"


You can read it below if you want. At the time it went mostly unnoticed.


Now, the Republican meltdown is becoming a fact. Trump is not the cause, he
is just a catalyst in what was already a toxic cocktail waiting to explode.


The Democrats are likely to win the White House and the Senate, and go on
to appoint a historic Supreme Court majority. They may even win the House
of Representatives.


This will be a disaster for the lesser-evil left who have always argued
that we must support the Democrats because the Republicans are so much
worse. What will they argue if the Democrats win the whole show?


Lesser-evilism is pragmatic, and it has worked to a certain extent. You get
a road fixed and a school built here or there, you might even get more
democratic access to voting, at the price of wars, war machines, permanent
union busting...


But lesser evilism has gotten us into the fix we are in now. In the 1960's
the Black Panther Party began as the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.
Huey Newton and Boby Seale and their comrades read the law, got some guns,
and rode around following white cops in Oakland to prevent them from
murdering young black people on the streets of the city.


And, now the Black Lives Matter movement is still conducting the same fight.


What happened. What did the lesser evil Democrats do? We had Lyndon
Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.


You could look at our wars...Viet Nam, Central America, Yugoslavia, Iraq,
Iraq, Afghanistan...


Who led them? Republicans and Democrats arm in arm together.


We should be voting for the Green Party and/or any socialist candidates on
the ballot this year. And we should be looking forward to great
opportunities in the next four years because lesser-evilism may be in for
its biggest defeat in decades.


Here is what I posted in March.



"Although my crystal ball stopped working years ago, it looks to me like
the electoral system in the United States is entering a major crisis.


"The center of the crisis right now is the Republican Party. What a circus!
What low-life clowns! How could any sane human being vote for any of them?


"But this is the party of Lincoln. This is the Grand Old Party that won the
civil war and rebuilt the United States. This is the party of business;
this is the main party of the American capitalist class. And it is
self-destructing.


"Food for thought.


"Since the 1960’s the GOP has rebuilt itself into a new party. Clearly a
party of business owners and farmers in the 20th century United States was
doomed to be a minority party in elections. Even if every small business
owner voted for it, it would lose every election if the working class and
poor all voted for some other party. The party of business needed to
acquire voters from among the ignorant masses.


"It found them after World War II by being more anti-communist than even
the Democratic Party. But, cold-war anti-communism was a card that had worn
thin by 1960.


"John F. Kennedy’s razor thin election victory paradoxically gave the
Republicans the key to getting a lot more voters. Kennedy’s cynical ploy of
supporting black voting rights had helped him win the elections, but it
insulted and betrayed the southern Jim Crow base of his party. When
Kennedy’s southern born and bred Vice president, Lyndon Baines Johnson,
took over, he only made matters worse for his southern Democratic brothers
in arms by pushing through the Civil Rights Act.


"The revolt followed when Alabama Governor George Wallace led the southern
Democrats out of the Democratic Party and temporarily into a short-lived
new party called the American Independent Party. The GOP saw the
opportunity to grab the very base of the old Democratic Party. Nixon’s
southern strategy swallowed the AIP whole, and took the Texas Democratic
Party along with it. By 1972 what had been the solid Democratic South had
been transformed into the solid Republican south.


"Unfortunately for the GOP political strategists around Nixon, racism had
been dealt a powerful blow by the great uprising of youth and black people
of the 1960’s. Racism had not been killed, but it was mortally wounded and
has never recovered. The fact that Barack Obama was elected president is
very strong evidence of this. The fact that two of the most important
clowns in the Republican primaries this year, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have
Spanish last names, and the facts that one of the GOP candidates was black
and another was a woman are additional evidence.


"The 

[Marxism] US political crisis

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Whatever happens Tuesday, the political crisis in the USA is likely to
deepen. Will the GOP unite around a bill of impeachment against Hillary
Clinton, or will its fracks fracture further? if Trump is elected, how soon
will he face a conflict with the Congress? And, what will they all do if
the economy heads south next Spring?
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[Marxism] Narcos

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Louis is a good reviewer, but one piece of history that is totally fiction
in Narcos is the portrayl of an alliance between M-19 and Pablo Escobar
which is a fiction invented by the DEA and the paramilitaries and spread by
Alvaro Uribe. it should not be repeated on this list as if it were true,
especially since it has been used as justification for killing M-19 leaders.

Anthony
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Re: [Marxism] Narcos

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Me too, so these are my last words on Narcos. The M-19 leader Elisa Alvarez
in Narcos is a totally fictional character, unlike most of the key
characters in Narcos. Her character makes this part of the story hang
together dramatically. Unlike most of the series, this part is really
fiction. To my knowledge, Ana Carrigan has not explained why she believes
M-19 was financed by the Medellin cartel, and no one has ever published any
creditable evidence that it was. Nevertheless, the story has become
accepted as fact as the result of countless repetition. Anthony

On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 5:04 AM, Louis Proyect <l...@panix.com> wrote:

> On 12/13/16 12:34 AM, Anthony Boynton via Marxism wrote:
>
>>
>> Louis is a good reviewer, but one piece of history that is totally fiction
>> in Narcos is the portrayl of an alliance between M-19 and Pablo Escobar
>> which is a fiction invented by the DEA and the paramilitaries and spread
>> by
>> Alvaro Uribe. it should not be repeated on this list as if it were true,
>> especially since it has been used as justification for killing M-19
>> leaders.
>>
>>
> As I pointed out in my review, there was a consistent attempt to smear the
> left in "Narcos" so I would be happy to be found wrong on the M-19, however
> this caught my eye in the Wiki on the assault on the Palace of Justice:
>
> "Author Ana Carrigan, who quoted the June 1986 report in her book on the
> siege and originally dismissed any such links between the M-19 and the drug
> mafia, told Cromos magazine in late 2005 that she now believes that the
> mafia may have financially supported the M-19."
>
> There was a link to an article that no longer works so I couldn't follow
> up on this. Maybe others would be motivated to track it down but I am too
> busy with other matters now.
>
>
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[Marxism] The Comey "thang"

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Gary wrote, "This is big news here in Oz.  I have told everyone who will
listen (a
rapidly diminishing number!) that the Democrats are trapped by all this.
They are (very) reluctant  to be impeachers.  I think they would much
rather hope in Obama's words, that Trump "succeeds because then America
succeeds".

Impeachment will not happen if the Republicans do not split, and the
Democrats will not move for impeachment if they do not have at least 50
Republicans who are for impeachment in the house. The Republicans currently
have 238 seats in the house, the Democrats only have 193.

The likelihood that this will happen greatly increased today when
Deputy Att
​orney
 Gen
​eral ​
. Rod Rosenstein
​appointed former FBI Director
fDirector Robert S. Mueller III
​ to be the special prosecutor to investigate the connections of Trump et
al. to the Russians.

Rothstein, like Trump, is a Republican.

True, the Democrats do not want to impeach, but it is important to
understand that the Republicans are in the driver's seat here.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Russia/Trump

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*Reading the tea leaves*


This list has a tea leaf reading session going on about why FBI Director
Comey was fired by President Donald Trump.


After stirring them again, and examining them under a magnifying glass, I
have come up with the following reasoning.

First of all Donald Trump is in deep trouble over the issue of Russia. It’s
not just the Democrats who have an anti-Russia program, it is the
“internationalist” Republicans of the John McCain ilk. In fact, there is
little evidence that any significant sector of the Republican party
supports Trump’s Russian turn.


The Russian intervention into the elections was not an invention of
hysterical Democrats or of the New York Times. Cyber-warfare has been going
on world-wide for some time among businesses and states. The North Korean
cyber-attack against the Sony Films picture *The Interview *may have been
the funniest moment, but there have been plenty of serious moments
including the very recent attack against hospitals in the UK. In any case,
Trump’s infatuation with Vladimir Putin and Putin’s support for Trump were
both on the record in the media of the world. Why wouldn’t Putin try to
help Trump? He would have been an idiot not to.


The Russian state remains a competitor to the American state in
geopolitics. It has the only nuclear arsenal that can compete with that of
the USA, and it is aggressively countering US/NATO pressure on it: most
notably by its land grab in the Ukraine and its genocidal role in Syria.


Although both US and Russian imperialism are counter-revolutionary through
and through, that does not mean that their geopolitical interests are
identical. The French and German empires of 1914 were thoroughly
counterrevolutionary, but their geopolitical interests clashed.


What interests are at stake?


First of all client states. Every client state an imperial power has is a
client! Who buys arms from the biggest arms merchant in the world? (that
would be the USA) It’s client states!


Who buys arms from the Russians? Not too many client states these days, but
the market of the old Soviet Union is still holding up. Oh, and then there
is Syria.


Nevertheless, a significant sector of big US corporations are heavily
invested in Russia, and the GOP is still the party of business despite the
Clinton’s efforts to bring them all into the Democratic party family.
Corporations heavily invested in Russia include not only Mr. Tillerson’s
alma mater Exxon, but Boeing, Pepsi, Ford, Procter & Gamble, McDonald's,
Mondelez International, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Cargill, Alcoa,
General Electric, and Morgan Stanley.


They would like to have their cake and eat it, too. Keep the geopolitical
power of the United States, diminish Russian power still further, but get
rid of the sanctions against Russia so that they could get on with business.


Fat chance.


One significant overlap of ideology and interest between Putin and Trump is
on global warming. It doesn’t exist! But, if it did, opening up the arctic
to oil exploration and development would be just that much easier. Why not
make the Arctic Ocean navigable – and drillable - 365 days a year!


So far there is no evidence that President Trump is a deep thinker or
strategist. Trump appears to be a blow-hard idiot and a bully who was the
right man, in the right place at the right time. His Russia turn could be
no more than admiration and attraction for other blow-hard bullies.


But, maybe the man is more than he seems.


At the very least, he is a cunning and corrupt real estate developer.
Certainly, he has been attracted to doing business with the cunning and
corrupt operators in Moscow. Apparently, he has made no big deals in
Russia, but Trump is a man who has not released his income tax returns, and
who has built an opaque business empire of interlocking private
partnerships that no one has yet deciphered. What kinds of dirty deals are
hiding in that labyrinth can only be guessed at, but some dirty deals in
Russia would easily fit into Trump’s pattern of behavior.


And this raises another issue that the American ruling class has with
Trump. They do not like to be robbed. Sharp business practices are routine,
and that is why they do not normally put one of their own in the White
House. They hire lawyers like Obama and the Clintons, or put the idiot son
in charge. Now, the President is a member of their own class who is out to
rob the rest of the members of the country club and use the powers of the
state to do it.


True, a few of them have jumped on board. Some to participate in the
plunder, and others to try to control him, to guide him, to use him. This
in fact is what 

[Marxism] Der Speigel calls for Trump's removal

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/donald-trump-is-a-menace-to-the-world-opinion-a-1148471.html
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[Marxism] "Ground rent" thesis at the Left forum

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Hi everyone: This is a comment on the "ground rent" thesis about oil and
mining rents in Venezuela and other countries that Lou discussed in his
blog post about the Left Forum.

This thesis would be better if it were a "differential rent" thesis. Like
rents from agricultural land, rents from mining can also be differential
with above average rents accruing to especially productive mines or oil
fields, or to those located closest to markets. In addition, rents are
affected by market saturation in a way that is similar to profits.

In other words, you can have a crisis of over-production of oil. What
happened in the world markets for oil and its near substitutes (natural
gas, coal, etc.) was a crisis of overproduction caused by fracking in the
United States. That caused the collapse of oil prices in 2014 when the
Saudis decided to stop cutting production to prop up prices in the face of
Obama's fracking glut.

Because of differential rents, some oil producing countries were hurt worse
than others, Venezuela was particularly hard hit because of its heavy oils.

On top of this, the Chavezistas, despite being aware of the need to use oil
rents to diversify the Venezuelan economy to be more self-reliant - and
therefore less vulnerable to oil price swings and imperialist economic
warfare (among other things), failed to take any serious action. Chavez
died, Maduro was left holding the bag, Venezualans are leaving the country
in droves to do manicures in Bogotá, but the right is deathly afraid of
taking power in Venezuela because they will then have to take responsible
for the economic disaster which they helped create before Chavez came to
power, and for which they have no solution now.  I don't have much hope for
the Latin American left in the short-run, but learning the lessons of
Venezuela should be top priority.

Anthony
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[Marxism] On Venezuela

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My post on the "ground rent thesis" was mostly aimed at talking about how
differential rent works in mining and mineral extractions, but I mentioned
my opinion that Venezuela under the Chavistas had failed "to diversify the
Venezuelan economy to be more self-reliant."

This ruffled Lou's feather's, but it is a fact that no one can deny.
Despite big plans and lots of speeches, Venezuela's economy is less diverse
now then it was when Chavez was first elected. This is true not just for
industry, but for agriculture and tourism and every sector of the
Venezuelan economy.

I did not venture an opinion about the intentions of Chavez and his
followers, or about their big plans, or about their sincerity, or even
about why they failed.

IMHO Venezuela faces a crisis that in some ways is very much like the one
Cuba faced when Gorbachev pulled the rug out from under them. So far, the
Chavistas have not been able to mobilize the Venezuelan people to endure
their own "special period" and emerge from it in one piece. And, it does
not look like they have any ability to do so at this point.

This is not a good thing for Venezuela, or for anyone on this planet,
because the failure of the Venezuelan experiment will set the left back not
only in Venezuela, but everywhere in Latin America.

However, the drama is not over yet, and the unexpected is still very
possible.

All of Latin America remains extremely volatile. The right and the United
States have no solutions for any of the long standing problems of the
region. Witness Brazil. In Colombia, next door to Venezuela, the city of
Buenaventura, the main Pacific Ocean port of this country, just ended a
three week long "paro" that had many of the earmarks of a communal
insurrection. It occurred simultaneously with a month long public school
teachers' strike.

One of the lessons from the experience of the Soviet Union that everyone
should have learned, and that strongly applies to Venezuela, is that
socialism in one country, even a big country with a lot of natural
resources, is not possible in the long run. However, one of the lessons we
should all learn from Cuba is, that where there is a will, it can survive
for a long time against very stiff odds.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Kennedy School

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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The Kennedy School is also a training ground for future US approved leaders
of other countries. Two of the last three Presidents of Colombia, Pastrana
and Santos passed through, and many, many other Colombian political leaders
including Clara Lopez the former head of the Polo.

Anthony
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[Marxism] The Case Against Civilization

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Louis recently posted a New Yorker article on the Case against
Civilization. It was an essay by John Lanchester that was largely based on
the research and opinions of a guy named by James C. Scott who is Sterling
Professor of Political Science and Professor of Anthropology and
Co-Director of the Agrarian Studies Program, Yale University. The link
below takes you to a talk by Scott, you have to get through the first eight
minutes before things really get started. Interesting content, boring
presentation. Scott is some sort of anarchist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO__r8Q0bmU


Anthony
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[Marxism] Anti-racism in Winnipeg

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Those signs are all over the place in my current neighborhood in San
Leandro, CA competing with Black Lives matter signs.

Anthony
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[Marxism] FARC keeps its name, establishes a new political party

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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As far as I can tell, this piece of news has not made it to this list. The
FARC has established itself as a legal political party and kept the same
acronym with a slightly different name, Fuerzas Alternativas (instead of
Armadas) Revolucionarias de Colombia. Leaders of a section of the
fragmented Polo Democratico Alternativo attended part of the FARC
convention. Currently there are three leftist candidates, two formerly of
the Polo, running for president: Gustavo Petro (formerly mayor of Bogotá),
Clara Lopez (formerly the head of the Polo), and Piedad Cordoba (formerly a
Liberal Party Senator). It is too soon to tell whether the new FARC will be
able to swim in the electoral waters of Colombia, but it will certainly
play a role in rearranging the fragments of the left. Read more about this
in Spanish at this link
http://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/2017/08/27/colombia-las-farc-inician-su-congreso-en-que-se-tranforman-en-un-portido-politico-denominado-fuerzas-alternativas-revolucionarias-de-colombia/

Anthony
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[Marxism] The Gay Architects of Classic Rock

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Steve Hereen makes one good point about classic rock: it started in the
late 1940's as jump blues in the United States and became rock n' roll when
Alan Freed renamed it, BUT we still do not know how many of the early stars
and the people behind the scene were gay. Little Richard certainly was gay,
and there has always been a lot of speculation about the king himself
https://gcn.ie/elvis-presley-gay/

Classic rock in the USA, and the entire music business almost certainly had
many, many LGBT people in it, but given the repressive conditions of the
McCarthy era witch-hunts, nobody came out of the closet at the time, and
very few came out later.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Port Huron Statement

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Thank you Michael and Glenn. Sorry about the error. My point about the
statement's politics stands, and is borne out by the complete version.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Turner Classics "The Hollywood Blacklist"

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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*For all of the movie buffs on this list...*


*http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/1365242%7C0/The-Hollywood-Blacklist-Mon-Tues-in-November.html
*


THE HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST - MON & TUES IN NOVEMBER

"The Hollywood Blacklist" marked a turbulent period during the Cold War and
was the result of the American government embarking on what some considered
to be a "witch hunt" against communism, ruining many career and lives.
Beginning in 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
conducted a series of investigations into Hollywood actors, screenwriters,
directors and other creative types, inquiring into their ties to communism
and any motives they may have had to spread subversive ideas.

This month's Spotlight on TCM highlights the professionals that were
affected, along with the films they worked on or in. The month's films are
divided into categories and host Ben Mankiewicz will be joined by two
special co-hosts. On November 20 and 21, the author of *High Noon: The
Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic*, Glenn Frankel,
will sit down with Ben, and on November 27 and 28 actress and director Lee
Grant, who was directly affected by the Blacklist, will focus on comebacks
after the controversial investigations.

*Before the Blacklist - The Hollywood Ten* looks at the individuals who
were cited for contempt of Congress and blacklisted after refusing to
answer questions about their alleged involvement with the Communist Party:
screenwriters Alvah Bessie and Leslie Cole (*Objective, Burma!*, 1945),
Ring Lardner Jr. (*Woman of the Year*, 1942), John Howard Lawson (
*Counter-Attack*, 1945), Albert Maltz (*Pride of the Marines*, 1945),
Samuel Ornitz (*One Man's Journey*, 1933) and Dalton Trumbo (*Our Vines
Have Tender Grapes*, 1945); director/screenwriter Herbert J. Biberman (*The
Master Race*, 1944); and director Edward Dmytryk and producer/screenwriter
Adrian Scott (*Crossfire*, 1947).

*Before the Blacklist - Others Blacklisted (Writers and Directors)* includes
writer Sidney Buchman (*Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941), director John
Cromwell (*The Racket*, 1951), director Jules Dassin (*The Naked City*,
1948), director Irving Pichel (*The Man I Married*, TCM premiere, 1940),
writer-director Abraham Polonsky (*Force of Evil*, 1948) and writers
Marguerite Roberts and John Sanford (*Honky Tonk*, 1941).

*Before the Blacklist - Others Blacklisted (Actors)* features Morris
Carnovsky (*Gun Crazy*, 1949), Dorothy Comingore (*Citizen Kane*, 1941),
John Garfield and Norman Lloyd (*He Ran All the Way*, 1951), Marsha Hunt (*A
Letter for Evie*, 1945), Kim Hunter (*A Streetcar Named Desire*, 1951),
Karen Morley (*Scarface*, 1931) and Gale Sondergaard (*Anthony Adverse*,
1936).

*During the Blacklist - Working Abroad and Using Pseudonyms* is co-hosted
by Frankel with a focus on the talents that continued working by leaving
Hollywood and using false names or forgoing credit. Director Herbert J.
Biberman, writer Michael Wilson, producer Paul Jarrico and actor Will Geer
shot *Salt of the Earth* (1954) primarily in New Mexico and Mexico. Writer
Dalton Trumbo, who was fronted by Robert Rich on *The Brave One* (1956),
saw his Oscar® for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story go to Rich before
finally claiming it in 1975. John Howard Lawson, who co-wrote *Cry, the
Beloved Country* (1952) was not given a screen credit until after his
death. American-born director Jules Dassin (*Rififi*, 1955) relocated to
Europe so successfully that many thought he was a native Greek or
Frenchman. Joseph Losey, another American director, (*The Big Night*, 1951)
relocated to Great Britain and sometimes used the pseudonym "Joseph
Walton."

*After the Blacklist - Comebacks* is co-hosted by Grant. This night focuses
on those who were fortunate enough to reclaim their careers after surviving
the notoriety of the blacklist. These included director Martin Ritt (*Edge
of the City*, 1957) and actors Jeff Corey (*The Cincinnati Kid*, 1965),
Zero Mostel (*The Front*, 1976), Grant (*The Landlord*, 1970) and Howard Da
Silva (*David and Lisa*, 1962) among others in this month's programming.

By Roger Fristoe
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[Marxism] NYT As a Debt Deadline Looms for Venezuela, Maduro Is Defiant

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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As a Debt Deadline Looms for Venezuela, Maduro Is Defiant

By KIRK SEMPLE  and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
NOV. 2, 2017
Continue reading the main story
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Photo
President Nicolás Maduro said his vice president, Tareck El Aissami, left,
will lead the restructuring effort.CreditMiraflores Palace, via Reuters

CARACAS, Venezuela — With the threat of default looming over Venezuela
, President
Nicolás Maduro said late Thursday that his government would initiate a
restructuring and refinancing of the country’s foreign debt.

The announcement came at the deadline for a $1.2 billion payment by the
state oil company on a maturing bond, which Mr. Maduro said his government
would instead deliver on Friday.

Speaking on national television, Mr. Maduro said that his government was
fighting “a battle for the financial stability and tranquillity of
Venezuela.”

“We’re going to win this battle,” he vowed.

The move is an acknowledgment of how serious the government’s financial
problems have become, and throws further into doubt the future of the
country, which has been grappling with an economic crisis that has caused dire
shortages of food and medicine
.

Mr. Maduro has blamed the crisis in part on the Trump administration, which
he has accused of leading an “economic war” against his country through
economic sanctions intended to prevent Venezuela’s government from
contracting new debt.
Continue reading the main story

RELATED COVERAGE

   -
   Venezuelan Opposition Receives E.U.’s Sakharov Freedom Prize OCT. 26,
   2017

   

   -
   Deep Cracks Appear in Venezuela’s Weakened Opposition OCT. 24, 2017

   

   -
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   2017

   


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Given the sanctions, however, it remained unclear how Mr. Maduro intended
to restructure the government’s debt.

“There’s no way to restructure under existing U.S. sanctions, but the
government may be hoping that bond holders now pressure the Trump
administration to create an exemption to the sanctions,” said Risa
Grais-Targow, director for Latin America at Eurasia Group, a political risk
analysis firm.

In a challenge to the Trump administration, Mr. Maduro also named Vice
President Tareck El Aisammí

to
lead the efforts. Mr. El Aisammí has been sanctioned by the United States
over allegations that he is a narcotics trafficker, which blocks Americans
from doing business with him.

There was no grace period for the loan payment due on Thursday, and it
remained unclear how investors would react to the failure of the state oil
company, Petróleos de Venezuela, or Pdvsa, to make the payment on time.

But Diego Ferro, co-chief investment officer at Greylock Capital
Management, a New York hedge fund that invests in distressed high-yield
bonds, said the restructuring announcement could buy Mr. Maduro some time
with bondholders and the Venezuelan people.

“People were expecting the payment late anyway,” he said. “As of now they
have at least a few months to come up with an offer to put off litigation
in the United States. It will depend on what they offer” in terms of
payments of principal and interest.
Photo
Venezuela’s state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, or Pdvsa, has
offered leasing deals to Russian and Chinese companies. CreditRicardo
Moraes/Reuters

Mr. Maduro has sought to avoid a default, which could trigger years of
international legal battles among creditors for control 

[Marxism] DSA, Jacobin, elections

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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The growth of the DSA, electoral victories of milk-toast social-democrats,
and even the electoral victories of the Democratic Party as a whole should
be taken for what they are: a movement to the left by a very important part
of the voting age population of the United States. How far will this go? We
don't know yet, but I hope, and also predict, that it will become a new
wave of radicalization that will surpass that of the 1960's. Remember, how
mealy-mouthed and patriotic the SDS was in 1962? (If you don't the Porty
Huron statement can be found at the link below), but SDS and not the SWP
became the massive wave of radicalization in the early and mid-1960's.

How could it have been otherwise then, and how can it be otherwise now? Are
people who have been immersed in the glories of capitalism such as the Fall
of the horrible Berlin Wall and in the criminality of communism like that
Anglina Jolie hopes to use to win an Oscar going to start instantly
debating what happened in 1917 on this list when they first get mad enough
to go vote?

This year's election results are good news for the left, even though known
of us on this list led any insurrections.

http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/SDS_Port_Huron.html

Anthony
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[Marxism] Oil rents and intellectual property rents

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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According to the NYT, a big chunk of the venture capital in Silicon Valley
consists of recycled plunder and oil rents

"... mostly we need to talk about this money because, boy, is there a whole
lot of it — and as the world’s moneyed dictators, oligarchs and other
characters look for more places to park their billions, mountains more will
be coming to Silicon Valley."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/technology/unsavory-sources-money-fueling-tech.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld=click=world=stream=stream_unit=latest=3=sectionfront
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[Marxism] Okay, so who is

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Okay, so who is Ben Norton?
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[Marxism] These Sex Scandals Are Pushing The Country Further To The Right | Washington Babylon

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Rubbish.

The Women's marches the day after Trump's inauguration set the tone for a
new rise of the left in the United States, and this is an important
continuation of it.

In terms of Democrat-Republican political rivalry, Andrew has also
completely missed what is going on, probably because he himself is a
progressive Democrat and lesser evilist.

Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer et al. have pressured Conyers
and Franken to resign because they are planning to reprise the Hillary
Clinton strategy of 2016 in 2018. The Republicans are the party of racists
and rapists, and the Democrats are the anti-racists and anti-rapists -
therefore the Democrats need to say nothing else about anything else.

This strategy almost worked in 2016: Clinton won a popular majority of
nearly 3 million votes.

One reason Clinton did not do better was that she is the wife of Bill
Clinton, a man who has the reputation of a liar and abuser, even if he was
never convicted of anything. Hillary has the reputation of a woman who
accepted all of that in the name of lesser-evilism and getting herself
elected later.

Nancy Pelosi learned a lesson in 2016, and so did Chuck. Hence, they can
give up a couple of votes now in a gamble that it will help them out next
year. Why not? They are in the minority anyway and will continue to be
after Conyers and Franken are gone.

One of the best things that could happen to the United States, and to the
world,would be for BOTH imperialist parties of racists and rapists - those
would be the Democrats and the Republicans - to blow up into pieces.

Hopefully, the current me-too moment will help make this happen.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Venezuela's Future?

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Sri Lanka, Struggling With Debt, Hands a Major Port to China

New York Times by Kai Schultz Dec. 12, 2017



NEW DELHI — Struggling to pay its debt to Chinese firms, the nation of Sri
Lanka formally handed over the strategic port of Hambantota to China on a
99-year lease last week, in a deal that government critics have said
threatens the country’s sovereignty.

In recent years, China has shored up its presence in the Indian Ocean,
investing billions of dollars to build port facilities and plan maritime
trade routes as part of its “One Belt, One Road” initiative to help
increase its market reach.

Along the way, smaller countries like Sri Lanka have found themselves owing
debts they cannot pay. Sri Lanka owes more than $8 billion to
state-controlled Chinese firms, officials say.

Sri Lankan politicians said the Hambantota deal, valued at $1.1 billion,
was necessary to chip away at the debt, but analysts warned of the
consequences of signing away too much control to China.

“The price being paid for reducing the China debt could prove more costly
than the debt burden Sri Lanka seeks to reduce,” said N. Sathiya Moorthy, a
senior fellow specializing in Sri Lanka at the New Delhi-based Observer
Research Foundation.

Full article at
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/world/asia/sri-lanka-china-port.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld=click=world=rank=package=highlights=6=sectionfront
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[Marxism] State Capitalist State

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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mkaradjis wrote

that China is "...a kind of state-directed capitalism, like Keynesianism,
like fascism, like Nasserism/Peronism, like NICism etc. But a
"state capitalist state" as some kind of new social formation? A
tad unscientific I would think.

"Really, what is the big resistance still to recognising China as
a capitalist state?"

Personally, I think it is a capitalist state, but it is not the same kind
of capitalist state that Russia is, not the kind of capitalist state that
the United States is, not the kind of a capitalist state that France is...

China is a special kind of capitalist state very close to what Mexico was
during the long reign of the PRI. Social revolutions in both countries,
based on the peasantry and not the urban working class, led to transitional
revolutionary dictatorships. The PRI dictatorship always saw itself as
leading the capitalist development of Mexico, albeit it had a social
democratic view of its capitalism. The Chinese Communist Party believed
that it was leading a socialist country, but then pragmatically - and
self-consciously - decided to follow the capitalist road.

It has done so in a planned, thought out way led by the state and the
Communist Party.

This is almost the opposite of the collapse of planning that occurred when
the Soviet Union collapsed.

There is nothing unscientific about delineating different varieties of pigs
and cows. Why would it be unscientific to delineate different varieties of
capitalist political regimes?

Chinese capitalism shows the absolute limits of capitalist development on
this planet. Capitalism can no longer develop without being directed by the
state. This is only a stop gap because China is not exempt from the laws of
the world market and is likely to be at the center of the next great
crisis.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Alvaro Uribe - the most dangerous man in Colombian

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Dennis Brasky posted an article titled "Alvaro Uribe - the most dangerous
man in Colombian" which is generally correct about Uribe's evil record, but
behind the times about Uribe's plans for the 2018 elections. As of this
moment he is negotiating a deal to support Gérman Vargas Lleras's candidacy
rather than running one of his own puppets. Vargas Lleras was Juan Manuel
Santos's Vice President, and was in charge of controlling the pork barrel
for Santos. Lleras always kept a public distance from the peace process and
was considered to be Santos's back door to the Uribistas. Here is the
Wikipedia version of the man...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ%C3%A1n_Vargas_Lleras

It is way too early to tell what will happen in next year's elections, but
Vargas Lleras is clearly the candidate of the most important ruling class
factions as of this moment.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Trump, Korea and Trade

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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IMHO D. Trump does not really give a rat's ass about No. Korea one way or
the other, except that his current road show is a lever to help the
Republican Party maintain its majorities in the House and Senate in the
upcoming November elections. Sure, he would like to get a Nobel Peace Prize
for "ending the Korean War", and sure, there are opportunities for making
quick bucks in side deals by his daughter or some other member of his
coterie, but the big prize is Congress. Trump is all about getting power
and glory to make money, and making money to get power and glory.

Behind this man stands a sector of the ruling class who want to enrich
themselves at the expense of not only the working class and petty
bourgeoisie, but also of other members of their own class.

Trump's trade war is not about making the pie get bigger so that everyone
can have a nice slice, it is about reslicing a smaller pie so that those
favored by Trump can have a bigger piece. This is the operating principle
behind Trump's "policy". This, and survival, dictate Trump's actions.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Red-Brown Zombie plague

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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IMHO the plague is real, but not the result of nefarious infiltration (even
though there have always been infiltrators in any even moderately
significant leftist organization). This is the same type of phenomenon that
swept leftists into the cold war right during the witch hunts, and during
earlier periods of history (remember where Mussolini started). When leftist
individuals and small groups get disconnected from the working class and
mass movements on the left, some of them drift through the swampy waters
until a rightward eddy moves them into the enemy camp. In the post 1927
world, one major path has been from Stalinism to support of state regimes
in conflict with the USA and/or Western Europe. With the collapse of the
Soviet Union and the rise of Putin's klepto-orthodox rightist regime, it
was inevitable that some of the blindest and most corrupt supporters of the
old Soviet Union would go along for the ride, and that they would draw some
others into the right-wing eddies of the swamp along with them.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Subject: Fwd: Venezuela crisis is the hidden consequence of

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The article is more or less on the money, but the current deal between
Saudi Arabia, Russia, and tacitly US producers is to  stabilize prices at
$50/barrel. This price level will not sink Russia or Iran, will keep  the
US frackers working and making money, will keep the Chinese happy, and will
keep Venezuela with enough income to pay its debts in oil (primarily to
China) but not to feed its people. This is one reason the big banks, and
ipso facto the Trump administration, do not want the Maduro government to
fall. He is committed to payment no matter what whereas the opposition is
not trustworthy when it comes to paying what is due the banks (or anything
else.9

Anthony
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[Marxism] On China and Michael Roberts

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Tristan Sloughter wrote, "He (Michael Roberts) doesn't say it is a deformed
workers state, does he? He only argues that the main production (in China)
is not based on capitalist laws. There must be some way he can describe
such an autocratic state besides a capitalist state or a deformed workers
state?"

Yes, there is some way that the state in China can be described other than
as a "capitalist state" or "deformed workers state": it is a "state
capitalist state".

Anthony
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[Marxism] Hundreds Face Conspiracy Charges For Actions Of A Few During Inauguration Day Protests

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Black Bloc tactics are consciously planned, rather than spontaneous, acts
that have often lead to the arrest of protesters who did not participate in
the planning and who have no knowledge of the planning, object or intent of
the black bloc.

Of course, the capitalist state loves these tactics, and in fact if the
various police agencies are working up to speed, they have sent
provocateurs into the black bloc to promote these tactics. This is what
they did in the 60's and 70's in the USA, this is what they do all over
Latin America today. The "encapuchados" in Colombia are famous for their
potato bombs, and famously infiltrated.

The net effect of black bloc tactics is to make people who want to protest
peacefully wary of joining any demonstration, wary of joining any protest
movement in which the black bloc or similar formation is involved.

In the end, these tactics serve to demobilize mass movements and to
strengthen the capitalist state independently of justifiable rage against
the system of individual black bloc militants.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Chinese capitalism with special features

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China counts over 100 billionaires among top Communist legislators

By AFP 

PUBLISHED: 08:43 EDT, 3 March 2017 | UPDATED: 08:48 EDT, 3 March 2017


   -
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   - e-mail
   


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*17*shares

[image: China's ruling Politburo Standing Committee are given a round of
applause during the opening session of the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing,
on March 3, 2017]
+2

China's ruling Politburo Standing Committee are given a round of applause
during the opening session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on March 3,
2017

   -

China counts more than 100 billionaires among its top legislators, with 209
of the richest holding wealth nearly equivalent to Belgium's annual GDP,
according to a report released as the Communist Party's annual
parliamentary session started Friday.

A key focus of the sessions is eliminating poverty and creating a
"moderately prosperous society", a project President Xi Jinping has
frequently cited as a national priority in a country that suffers from a
gaping chasm between the rich and poor.

The annual session of the country's top political bodies started Friday
with a meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
(CPPCC), a group that is part of the Communist Party-controlled government
structure.

The opening of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's rubber-stamp
legislature, will be held Sunday, with the country's economic elite and top
leaders rubbing shoulders for some two weeks in the imposing corridors of
the Great Hall of the People, situated off Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Out of the more than 5,100 delegates to these two assemblies, 209 possess
individual wealth of more than 2 billion yuan ($290 million),
Shanghai-based luxury magazine publisher the Hurun Report said in a survey.

More than 100 of the wealthy individuals are members of the NPC, and 97 are
from the CPPCC.

According to the survey, their cumulative assets tallied "almost 3.5
trillion yuan" ($507 billion) -- nearly equivalent to the annual GDP of
countries such as Belgium, Sweden or Poland.

The majority of the wealthy delegates were businessmen, rather than
politicians who had spent their careers within the party apparatus.

Among them are the heads of internet giants, such as Pony Ma of Tencent and
Robin Li of Baidu, smartphone maker Xiaomi's CEO Lei Jun, and Zong Qinghou,
head of soft drink producer Wahaha.
[image: China's National People's Congress (NPC) is held at the Great Hall
of the People in Beijing]
+2

China's National People's Congress (NPC) is held at the Great Hall of the
People in Beijing

   -

Despite a large-scale anti-corruption campaign launched in 2013 by
President Xi to clean up the Communist Party's ranks, the heads of private
businesses remain welcome in the cavernous halls of power as Beijing seeks
to rebalance its economy towards domestic consumption and the services
sector.

Nevertheless, some wealthy entrepreneurs could be tempted to keep a low
profile this year as the Communist Party ups its attacks on real estate
"speculators" and "financial crocodiles".

While Xi has pledged to lift more than 45 million people out of poverty by
2020, his time in office has already been exceptionally good for the
country's wealthiest politicians.

While the economy as a whole has expanded at a rate of under seven percent
in recent years, the legislature's 100 or so dollar billionaires have seen
their cumulative wealth jump 64 percent since 2013 when he assumed the
presidency, Hurun said.
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[Marxism] Albert Matlz's America

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Apropos of Phillip Roth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhPwtnGviyg
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Re: [Marxism] Some thoughts on US perspectives

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Hmmm

This document says that Donald Trump's election was a defeat for the
working class in the United States, that it also would have been a defeat
for the working class if Hillary Clinton had won the election, and that the
working class does not exist as a coherent force in the United States.

It also says that the absence of a mass working class party is the key
factor in all of this, from which a reader might concludeall of US
history has been a long interrupted string of defeats for workers.

We must have returned to chattel slavery long ago, in fact it probably was
never abolished.

I recommend going back to the drawing board.

Anthony
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Re: [Marxism] Some thoughts on US perspectives

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Hi John: I wasn't confused, but your perspectives mix things up and add to
confusion IMHO. The recent elections were not an instance of class struggle
between the working class and the capitalist class. The working class was
absent. Working class individuals voted for ruling class candidates, but
the working class as a class did not participate.

Undoubtedly, the election of Trump reflects and is part of growing crisis
within the capitalist class, and the election of Trump has led to
additional attacks on the working class, class struggle by the ruling class
and its state against the working class, but the aftermath of his election
has also seen an upsurge of struggle  by sectors of the working class, most
notably women.

My point was simple: don't confuse elections which offer only ruling class
candidates with the class struggle.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Fracking and geopolitical sea change

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The NYT article below is a good general description of the sea change in
world energy markets that fracking in the USA has caused. That sea change
underlies a great deal of the geopolitical chaos and upheaval going on
which the Times only touches superficially from the point of view of US
imperialism. What this article flatly lies about is the role of the Obama
administration which made the change in fracking possible and quietly
helped it happen.

The new oil and natural gas dominance of the United States, and the
radically changed shape of the Hubbert curve for oil and gas due to
fracking, also underlies much of the disarray of the US ruling class
including the chance that Trump will survive in office. Remember Clinton’s
slogan, “It’s the economy stupid”.

Anthony

*Oil Boom Gives the U.S. a New Edge in Energy and Diplomacy*

New York Times by Clifford Krauss Jan. 28, 2018

HOUSTON — A substantial rise in oil prices in recent months has led to a
resurgence in American oil production, enabling the country to challenge
the dominance of Saudi Arabia and dampen price pressures at the pump.

The success has come in the face of efforts by Saudi Arabia and its oil
allies to undercut the shale drilling spree in the United States. Those
strategies backfired and ultimately ended up benefiting the oil industry.

Overcoming three years of slumping prices proved the resiliency of the
shale boom. Energy companies and their financial backers were able to
weather market turmoil — and the maneuvers of the global oil cartel — by
adjusting exploration and extraction techniques.

After a painful shakeout in the industry that included scores of
bankruptcies and a significant loss of jobs, a steadier shale-drilling
industry is arising, anchored by better-financed companies.

With the price of West Texas intermediate crude above $65 a barrel, a level
not seen in almost three years, the United States is becoming a dominant
producer. It is able to outflank competitors in supplying growing global
markets, particularly China and India, while slashing imports from the
Middle East and North Africa.

This year, the United States is expected to surpass Saudi Arabia and to
rival Russia as the world’s leader, with record output of over 10 million
barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency.

“This is a 180-degree turn for the United States and the impacts are being
felt around the world,” said Daniel Yergin, the economic historian and
author of “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power.” “This not
only contributes to U.S. energy security but also contributes to world
energy security by bringing new supplies to the world.”

Forecasts show that the United States could surpass Saudi Arabia as an oil
producer this year, with output exceeding 10 million barrels a day.

At the same time, the United States is becoming a major exporter of natural
gas, another outgrowth of the shale revolution, undercutting Russian energy
dominance over Eastern Europe.

The improving energy picture comes as the Trump administration is
attempting to increase offshore drilling and loosen other regulations on
fossil fuel development. But just as the surge in oil and gas production in
shale fields during the Barack Obama administration had little to do with
Washington, the current rise is the result of private companies responding
to global markets.

Read the complete article here

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/28/business/energy-environment/oil-boom.html
4�0�K
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Re: [Marxism] Can Trump keep up the happy face?

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I always like a lot of what John writes, but I have to take exception to
some of his observations. His latest, "Can Trump keep up the happy face?"
concludes with,

"In short, Trump will probably get a boost in his ratings following this
speech (his first State of the Union message). But he will not continue his
happy face. He cannot because his entire situation is too unstable. The
only question is when and how will a renewed working class movement
develop. In its absence, Trumps’ slide towards bonapartism will continue."

Trump really did not look all that happy while he was speaking, but that is
besides the important point: Trump has a lot of big problems that are
likely to get much worse soon even though there is no  "renewed working
class movement" in sight. The confrontation between Trump and the FBI, CIA
and the Democratic Party is a real crisis within the ruling class. John is
correct to write about Trump's corrupt relationship with the Russian
oligarch's, but misses the fact that this is exactly the point of conflict
within the ruling class that is leading to a governmental crisis.

The fact that this is happening in the midst of economic growth that has
resulted in labor shortages in places like the San Francisco Bay area where
John and I live has indeed given the working class unprecedented bargaining
power, but this has yet to result in any major advances made by workers
themselves.

That economic growth however, is making the crisis within the ruling class
even sharper, for the Republican Party, despite the fact that it loathes
Trump almost as much as his wife does, has decided to close ranks around
him.

This has brought us into uncharted waters, making this crisis potentially
much deeper than the Watergate crisis.

The second bone I want to pick with John is his talk statement that " Trumps’
slide towards Bonapartism will continue."

John is correct that Trump is attacking the institutions of the bourgeois
state across the board, including even the sacred dogs of the FBI and CIA,
and he is correct to imply that this is a big change from the actions of
his predecessors, but this is not a slide towards Bonapartism. Bonapartism,
in the sense of Louis Napoleon, is institutionalized in the Constitution of
the United States. What Trump is doing is accelerating the undoing of the
time honored and celebrated balancing act that epitomizes American
bonapartism.

While concentration of power in the office of the President has been going
on for a long time, what is different now is that Trump is trying to place
himself as an individual above the law and above the institutions of the
executive branch. This is not a continuation of the Bonapartism of Barack
Obama who also concentrated power, but who relied on and deferred to the
institutions of the executive branch.

Personally, I think this crisis is going to blow up before the working
class comes on stage, and that it will develop in a very unpredictable way
fraught with both danger and opportunity. Like John - I would be more than
happy to see a mass working class movement sweep all of the rascals out of
the halls of government. Who knows, maybe the crisis that is sweeping
through Washington DC will sned off enough sparks to light the fires of
working class anger.

Anthony






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[Marxism] Subject: [UCE] Michael Roberts on the stock market crash

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What Michael Roberts has left out of his analysis is the rising price of
energy. Falling energy prices, together with low interest rates and
histrionically very low real wages in the USA, were key to the recovery
since 2007. Energy prices are now increasing and oil has crept up to around
70/barrel.

This omission not withstanding, I think his guess that the next big crunch
will come in non-financial sector corporate debt, meaning debt centered in
industry/transportation, is a good bet, and rising energy prices will hit
this part of the debt structure harder than the financial sector.

Anthony
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Re: [Marxism] Subject: Fwd: The Bankruptcy of the American Left

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Anyone who quotes David North approvingly, as this guy Chris Hedges does,
has got to be entirely out of his mind.
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[Marxism] Quick note on Colombian elections

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*Quick note on Colombian elections*



Colombia has just elected Ivan Duque president. This should come as no
surprise to anyone who pays attention to Colombia (even though it does seem
to surprise the reporters at the Nation magazine
https://www.thenation.com/article/right-wing-wins-colombia-amid-divisions-left/).




Duque, like outgoing President Juan Manuel Santos is the scion of one of
the country’s powerful political families. His father, Ivan Duque Escobar,
was one of the most powerful 20th century Liberal Party politicians of
Antioquia. In the 1980’s, when Alvaro Uribe was mayor of Medellín, Duque’s
father was governor of Antioquia. Medellin is the capital of Antioquia and
the second largest city in Colombia. Another important friend of the two
men at the time was Pablo Escobar.



The younger Duque grew up surrounded by the politically powerful in Bogotá.
His father graduated to become the Minister of Mines and Development and
served as CEO of the municipally owned water company of Bogotá, SOFASA
(Renault manufacturing subsidiary), and Banco Popular. He also served on
the board of directors of the Banco de la Republica, the country’s central
bank. Duque’s mother also came from a politically important family.



Duque’s roots in the Liberal Party of Antioquia, plus a lifetime spent
making connections in the high society of Bogotá boosted him into the
Senate where he quickly became known as a friend of big business. He was
the key ally of the sugar and soft drink industries’ successful campaign to
squash the Minister of Health’s public education campaign against obesity.
From there, it was a hop, skip and a jump to becoming Alvaro Uribe’s chosen
successor.



The Uribista coalition has been in perpetual crisis. Aside from the number
of its leading figures who have fled into exile to avoid prosecution or
been convicted and served time in jail, the Uribistas are very short on
talent. During the last presidential election they had a field of primary
candidates who could barely compose sentences while standing on two feet.
Their eventual nominee, Ivan Zuluaga was a case in point.



One Uribista who could talk and think on his feet was Andrés Felipe Arias
Leiva. He was Uribe’s chosen successor eight years ago. Known as Uribito,
he was Uribe’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. Unfortunately
for Uribe’s plans, Uribito was sentenced to 17 years and 4 months of prison
for corruption. He fled to the United States where he now lives comfortably
and anonymously.



Duque is the new Uribito, but under new circumstances. The demobilization
of the FARC ended a whole period of history in Colombia, even though
guerrilla warfare continues. The ELN is expanding into some of the areas
which were once controlled by the FARC, but it is numerically weak and has
no popular support. Guerrillaism in fact, has no popular support.



Instead a broad, but not cohesive, social democratic movement has risen in
its place. Gustavo Petro personified it in the recent elections. While much
is made of Petro’s background in M-19, he is a man whose politics are very
flexible but tend more towards the ideas of 19th century French radicalism
with a hint of environmentalism mixed in than to anything anyone would
associate with the Paris commune or the Bogotazo.



Nevertheless, Petro is a fighter.



His eight million votes represent the largest mass left wing movement ever
seen in Colombia. It has two basic wings: a movement of the working class
and the very poor displaced people of the cities of Colombia, and a
movement of the university trained technocrats, bureaucrats, and
intelligentsia of the same cities. Petro is the titular leader of the
former while Sergio Fajardo, former mayor of Medellín is the titular leader
of the latter.



Duque’s speeches were full of bland, empty posturing attempting to appeal
to Fajardo’s base. He promised not to return to war and even promised to
protect the environment. Behind the empty phrases, Duque has already
launched a lottery for Ministries. Corruption even bigger than usual is the
guiding theme of the new government.



The great danger now is further revival of the paramilitaries. The old
paramilitary organizations have been demobilized and remodeled. During the
election campaign and now after the elections, the new paramilitary
organization, the Aguilas Negras (Black Eagles), closely tied to the
Medellín oligarchy and to the cocaine trade, has threatened Petro
supporters with assassination.



According to Indepaz (Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz –
Institute for Studies of Development and Peace), between January and May
this year there were 78 

[Marxism] What would have happened if...

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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No one knows what would have happened if

But the situation in Latin America - not just Nicaragua - in 1979 into the
mid 1980's was explosive. David wrote,

" Leaving that aside is if it's applied to Nicaragua, this means...what
exactly? Not seizing power? Limiting, even against the wishes of the rural
masses and urban workers further nationalizations? What would be the point
then of the FSLN coming to power if only to topple the hated dictatorship?
In fact, the self-limitations imposed by the FSLN worked out well, huh?
Plus, Louis, you make it out to seem as if nothing else was going on the
region...like El Salvador, Guatemala, etc. I am not arguing had, as A.
Sandino suggested..."only the workers and peasants can go all the way"
...that the results wouldn't of been any different. Though we never would
know had they, the FSLN, lead the masses to just that, that an even deeper
radicalization would not have shifted the entirety of Central America
working masses to consider socialist solutions. Revolutions happen when
it's least expected, afterall."

What would have happened if the Sandinistas had gone further? Two things
are likely, much deeper radicalization in the rest of Central America and
into Mexico and crucially Colombia, AND US military intervention. Almost
certainly, the proverbial shit would have hit the fan.

What would have happened in the United States? What would have happened to
Iran/Contragate?

What would the results of such a revolutionary crisis have been? We will
never know now, but the Sandinistas and their advisers and friends feared
that they would lose.

Considering where they are now, would this have been worse? or better?

And, what if the gamble had paid off?

Certainly there are no guarantees. The Bolsheviks took the gamble, and in
the end the Russian revolution failed, but certainly without taking that
risk, no revolution in one country is likely to spread and overcome its
isolation.

The path to international socialism almost certainly lies in a series of
successful socialist revolutions in individual countries rather than in one
gigantic international uprising.

Anthony
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[Marxism] What would have happened if

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Well, Lou...if you guys in New York City can pull off a revolutionary in
Brooklyn, I will do my best to join in.

Anthony
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[Marxism] From 2011 to 2016 hydraulic fracturing water use per well increased up to 770%, flowback increased up to 1440%.

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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 *http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/8/eaar5982
* *The intensification
of the water footprint of hydraulic fracturing*

*1.**Andrew J. Kondash**, *

*2.**Nancy E. Lauer** and *

*3.**Avner Vengosh***
*

 See all authors and affiliations

Science Advances  15 Aug 2018:
Vol. 4, no. 8, eaar5982
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aar5982



*Abstract*

Unconventional oil and gas exploration in the United States has experienced
a period of rapid growth, followed by several years of limited production
due to falling and low natural gas and oil prices. Throughout this
transition, the water use for hydraulic fracturing and wastewater
production in major shale gas and oil production regions has increased;
from 2011 to 2016, the water use per well increased up to 770%, while
flowback and produced water volumes generated within the first year of
production increased up to 1440%. The water-use intensity (that is,
normalized to the energy production) increased ubiquitously in all U.S.
shale basins during this transition period. The steady increase of the
water footprint of hydraulic fracturing with time implies that future
unconventional oil and gas operations will require larger volumes of water
for hydraulic fracturing, which will result in larger produced oil and gas
wastewater volumes.
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[Marxism] Ms. Ocasio-Cortez

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 I think the victory of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez in a Democratic Party primary is
fantastic news, but I would not have campaigned for her or voted for her.

Whether or not she does anything progressive, radical or even revolutionary
in the future is besides the point. What is important now is the fact that
the voters in that district voted for her and her program over the machine
hack and his program.

Those mostly working class voters are radicalizing. Her program will not
ever be promoted or voted into being by the Democratic Party, so those
voters will either have to give up and go home, or will come into conflict
with their party over this program.

That's a good thing.

How should revolutionaries relate to this movement? United in the streets
in demonstrations, united in the labor movement, but separate when it comes
to elections.

The idea that we always have to be with the masses, especially in a country
like the United States where a substantial part of the masses have
reactionary consciousness on many issues, is wrong.

Sometimes we have to explain and wait.

Despite the growing mass movements, and their tendency to grow together,
when it comes to supporting the party of war in the United States (that
would be the party of Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton
and Obama) we have to separate ourselves from working class supporters of
that party, including the ones who are trying to take it over and change it.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez 's election is not much different from the election and
reelection of Ron Dellums in Oakland/Berkeley. Dellums made lots of radical
speeches and received the enthusiastic support of a large part of the left
in the Bay Area. He was instrumental in deflating the movement for the
Peace and Freedom Party.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez may turn out to be different. Maybe, she will move left
and break with the Democrats. Maybe she will become a revolutionary. Maybe,
she will do great things. But for now she is part of one of the two most
powerful imperialist political parties on the planet.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Turkey Begins Ground Assault on Kurdish Enclave in Syria

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*Turkey Begins Ground Assault on Kurdish Enclave in Syria*

New York Times by Carlotta Gall  Jan.
21, 2018



ISTANBUL — Turkish troops crossed the Syrian border into a Kurdish enclave
on Sunday morning, beginning a ground assault against American-allied
militias there, in a clash of interests between the two NATO allies.

The Turkish incursion over United States protests not only underscores
Washington’s lack of influence with Ankara, but promises to complicate
relations with the Kurds, who have provided the ground troops for the
United States-led fight against the Islamic State militant group, often
called ISIS or ISIL.

With ISIS now in retreat, the Trump administration finds itself in a
difficult position, searching for a way to maintain relations with the
Kurdish groups without alienating Turkey, which considers them terrorists
and a threat to its territorial sovereignty. The Trump administration’s
plan of helping build a Kurdish border security force in northeast Syria
has been criticized by Ankara.

“The U.S. has tried to walk a very fine line in Syria, depending heavily on
the Kurdish rebels in the fight against the so-called Islamic State, while
not rupturing the already strained relations

between
Turkey and the U.S.” said Ali Soufan, a former F.B.I. counterterrorism
agent who is now chairman of The Soufan Group
.

“As the battlefield shrinks in Syria, the line has become near impossible
to maintain, and the U.S. will likely have to either dramatically scale
back its support of the Kurdish rebels — which would be seen as yet another
U.S. betrayal of the few groups that have consistently supported and helped
the U.S. in Syria and Iraq — or risk indirect and even direct conflict with
Turkey, a fellow NATO member.”

The assault also highlights the deepening ties between Russia and Turkey.
That relationship has recovered from the nadir it hit in November 2015,
when the Turks shot down

a
Russian fighter plane over Syria. Analysts say that Moscow, which controls
the skies in the area, almost certainly had to give the go-ahead for the
Turkish assault on the Kurds.

Full story here
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/world/middleeast/turkey-syria-kurds.html?emc=edit_th_180122=todaysheadlines=38183359
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[Marxism] Fourth International

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Ken Hiebert just posted  a message titles "Solidarity with the Rohingya
refugees in Bangladesh
STATEMENT OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL", and I have to admit that I am
confused. I have not followed all of the splits, fusions, twists and turns
of the fragments of Trotskyism for quite a while, so am not sure who is
using the name "The Fourth International" these days. Could someone please
enlighten me?

Thanks, Anthony
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[Marxism] November

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“Meanwhile, Mr. Trump is bulldozing congressional Republicans into a mass
grave. Democrats outnumber Republicans, so the latter depend on a sizable
turnout advantage to win elections and sustain minority rule. But Mr.
Trump’s brand of scapegoating demagogy, which Mr. Ryan as speaker has done
nothing but enable, is a turbocharged Democratic turnout machine that
converts swing districts into Democratic seats and converts enormous
Republican advantages into razor’s edge contests. Barring a miracle,
Republicans are going to lose their House majority, and even their Senate
majority, once thought untouchable, is no longer safe.”



https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/opinion/paul-ryan-donald-trump-republicans.html?action=click=Homepage=story-heading=opinion-c-col-left-region=opinion-c-col-left-region=opinion-c-col-left-region
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[Marxism] Book on Russia

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Try "The Conundrum of Russian Capitalism" by Ruslan Dzarasov
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[Marxism] Did Russian meddling swing the election? Does it matter?

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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John Reiman has misquoted me and misunderstood what I said in my recent
post (and probably what Mark Lause said as well). We can only guess why,
but to be charitable, he was probably just overly hasty to make a good
point.



And that is too bad, because I agree with his good point. Here it is



“One thing we have to realize is that in Russia, the "oligarchs" and the
Russian mafia are more or less one and the same. And I don't think we
really have to "guess" about Trump's connections: Trump IS connected with
the Russian mafia, he HAS served as a money launderer for them for years,
and there IS so much publicly known evidence that we don't have to "guess".
This has been in the public record for at least a year, if not longer.”



Just for the record, here is John’s unfortunate Bowdlerization:



"Anthony Boynton quotes Mark Lause approvingly: "Although we can only guess
based on what we know, Trump's behavior makes him look guilty as hell By
guilty, I mean deep-rooted financial ties between Trump and his circle with
the Russian oligarchs, among others."



But I did not write anything like that! Here is what I wrote,

“I agree with Mark Lause when he writes,



‘“I tend to think the entire issue (Russian intervention in the 2016 US
elections) as much more important than we tend to credit it. (But I tended
to think that we underestimated the importance of the impeachment question
on Nixon, too.)  Although we can only guess based on what we know, Trump's
behavior makes him look guilty as hell, and I'd bet that Mueller has
serious evidence against him . . . and is currently working to make the
case watertight.  By guilty, I mean deep-rooted financial ties between
Trump and his circle with the Russian oligarchs, among others.”

‘“The Republicans have generally demonstrated a complete lack of party
independence from the head of state . . . and the Democrats have shown a
complete inability to tie their shoes and take the most rudimentary steps.”’



“But, I think he misses what is happening in the world when he continues,

‘“All of which underscores the opportunities of which we could be taking
advantage, if we had genuinely independent social movements of any
persistence and scale . . . or any organizations more substantial than
social democratic bowling leagues.”’



“The fact of the matter is that a mass and multi-faceted social democratic
movement is growing

​in ​

the United States that includes the women’s rights movement (much more than
#MeToo), Black Lives Matter, the immigrants’ rights movement, the $15/hour
movement, the anti-gun movement and a much broader and deeper ferment.

​

“That deeper ferment is in part centered on the issue of democracy​ and is
deeply offended by the fact that Trump is in the White House despite having
lost the popular vote and patently having manipulated the vote in illegal
ways and with the aid of a foreign power.



“However you define “we” –the very broad left, the revolutionary left, the
Marxist left….- “we” are growing rapidly and are taking advantage of
opportunities. IMHO “We” includes much more than the old codgers who
graduated from the New Left of the 1960’s: “We” includes the new generation
of the left that is just coming to grips with the struggle.



“Rather than “Cheers”, I have to say, CHEER UP MARK, better days are
coming.”

Anthony
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[Marxism] Assadist and Putinist BS

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Given how willing Joaquin is to swallow all Trump, Putin et al.'s bullshit
propaganda about
everything, I have to ask him if he also believes in the Easter Bunny?

Joaquin knows that Putin has already terminated with extreme prejudice
thousands. Does he really
think his toleration of even his critics in the United States is limitless?
Does he think Putin's
toleration for Marxists is limitless?

Learn to spell indicments before you apply for another job in the media.
And please stop repeating brain-dead Assadist and Putinist imperialist
propaganda.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Another strike

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https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article220348595.html
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[Marxism] Democrats and Trump

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Trump has been a useful idiot for the Republicans, so the Democrats are
hoping to have their turn. This is a new twist on the old two party shell
game, that the DSA-Our Revolutipn left will bear a share of responsibility
for in the Democrats take control of the House. Also, the implications for
Democratic plans for impeachment are there for anyone interested to read.

First Up if Democrats Win: Campaign and Ethics Changes, Infrastructure and
Drug Prices

Representative Nancy Pelosi says House Democrats will focus on
infrastructure and prescription drug costs, in an effort to test President
Trump on bipartisan deals, if they gain control of Congress in the midterm
election.CreditCreditErin Schaff for The New York Times

New York Times By Nicholas Fandos Oct. 31, 2018

WASHINGTON — Democrats would use their first month in the House majority to
advance sweeping changes to future campaign and ethics laws, requiring the
disclosure of shadowy political donors, outlawing the gerrymandering of
congressional districts and restoring key enforcement provisions to the
Voting Rights Act, top Democratic leaders said on Tuesday.



If they win, they would then turn to infrastructure investment and the
climbing costs of prescription drugs, answering voter demands and
challenging President Trump’s willingness to work on shared policy
priorities with a party he has vilified. The idea, said Representative
Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, is to show voters that
Democrats are a governing party, not the leftist mob that Mr. Trump
describes — and to extend an arm of cooperation to the president after an
electoral rebuke.



“This is going to be a bitter pill for them all to swallow when they see
the election results, if they turn out as we expect,” Ms. Pelosi said in an
extended interview on Tuesday, predicting a Democratic wave. She added of
the prospect Mr. Trump would collaborate, “I don’t think he himself knows
what he is going to do.”



As Mr. Trump spends the final week of a scorched-earth midterm campaign
rallying his base around hot-button immigration issues and depicting
Democrats as a security threat, Ms. Pelosi and her deputies sought to
project a more modest and politically popular agenda on issues ranging from
health care to criminal justice changes. They said they would work to
improve the Affordable Care Act, for example, rather than rushing to
replace it with a single-payer health care plan.



Full article here
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/us/politics/democrats-midterm-elections.html
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Re: [Marxism] Democrats and Trump

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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A lot of us have spent years and decades trying. In California, the Peace
and Freedom Party was effectively scuttled by the Communist Party and other
supporters of the Democratic Party who gained control of its internal
machinery soon after it was formed. The old Socialist Workers Party ceded
this ground to the old CP by refusing to join this attempt at an umbrella
party to the left of the Democrats. Instead, it ran its own invisible and
useless sectarian campaigns. IMHO left third party efforts are essential,
but are unlikely to succeed in building anything significant until there is
a mass movement outside of the electoral arena.

Anthony

On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 9:57 AM Mark Lause  wrote:

> The bottom line is there should be some sort of national progressive
> alternative.  Whether it calls itself socialist or labor or anything isn't
> as important as challenging the dictatorship of capitalism.   This could
> have happened and it didn't.
>
> Notwithstanding complaints about Our Revolution or the ambiguities of the
> DSA--and let's throw in the almost religious flakiness of the
> Greens--something could have been done about this.  And years ago.
>
> There are literally thousands of us ready to throw ourselves into such an
> effort.  This could have happened easily if two or three or more of the
> various socialist tiddlywinks clubs had decided that building this
> alternative--even temporarily.
>
> Doesn't it make you wonder?  :-)
>
> Cheers,
> Mark L.
>
>
>
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[Marxism] Democrats and Trump

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Lou's idea of a "united front" demonstration against Trump could be a good
idea, but what unifying slogan do you think is likely to be used: Out Now!
Impeach Trump!?

In any case, I think the Democrats and most of their coterie are not likely
to be in the mood for demonstrations if they win the house, even less if
they win the Senate. If they do win one or both, it's very liked that any
demos will take on the coloring of "Impeach Trump" lending themselves to
the presidential campaigns of any Demo willing to latch on to impeachment.

Anthony
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[Marxism] (no subject)

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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*Impressions of elections in San Leandro*

Two years and three months ago, for reasons totally unrelated to politics,
we moved back to the United States from Colombia. After nearly twenty years
of life in Bogotá, we landed in San Leandro, California.

During that time, I kept up on the USA through Marxmail, the New York
Times, the Sacramento Bee and sundry other sources, but I paid close to
zero attention to the nitty-gritty details of local politics in this
country.

A few months after we arrived, Donald Trump was surprisingly elected. Ouch.
That was a wake-up call. I had thought that the next big crisis of
capitalism in the USA was going to be presided over by a Democrat and that
one result would be radicalization to the left of the Democratic Party -
something like what happened during the 1960’s when Kennedy and Johnson
presided over US escalation of the war in Viet Nam.

Now, it seems that the new radicalization is occurring during the
presidency of a racist, misogynist, authoritarian Republican. One
consequence is that radicalization to the left is occurring mostly in, and
through, the Democratic Party.

I guess you could say that the United States suffers from a form of bipolar
disorder.

Leaving aside any deeper discussion of the present conjuncture, here are my
impressions of the 2018 midterm elections from my current vantage point on
the border of East Oakland and San Leandro.

I live just inside of San Leandro at the north end of town, one block from
East Oakland (which is really in the southern part of Oakland). The
dividing line is Durant Avenue. When I was a kid, it was the dividing line
between all-white San Leandro, and all-black Oakland.

Segregation was a reality here even if it was not written into law. Here,
it was a strange kind of segregation because “white” in San Leandro meant
“not-black” most of the time, so English speaking Chicanos, various other
brown Latinos, Filipinos, and various Asians were able to live in San
Leandro and own property here.

Now both sides of the city line have integrated, but not in exactly the
same ways. Real estate prices are substantially higher here than they are
two blocks away in Oakland, so this part of San Leandro has gentrified with
leakage from Silicon Valley as well as gaining more Asian and Latino
residents, a substantial number of black residents, most of whom are
professional people, and a slew of multiracial and multicultural couples
with their kids. Now the neighborhood reminds me of the way south Berkeley
and north Oakland were back in the 60’s and 70’s.

Nearby East Oakland has mostly avoided gentrification, although real estate
prices there have risen apace with real estate prices throughout the Bay
Area. Integration there has taken the form of Latino and Asian renters
moving in. There are also a smaller number of white gentrifiers buying
moving in.

In 1960, this neighborhood was full of white trade unionists with a
smattering of small business owners and professionals. The Oakland General
motors plant was located just a few blocks away at Durant and East 14th St.
(now called International Blvd in Oakland). In 1963, GM opened its big new
assembly plant in Fremont, so the Oakland plant was turned into a parts
warehouse, but the adjacent neighborhoods remained UAW bastions: white GM
workers across East 14th street in an extension of San Leandro, and black
GM workers north of the plant and north of the white workers’ neighborhood.

In those days, there was also the giant Caterpillar tractor factory nearby
(the first Caterpillar factory anywhere, since Caterpillar was started here
in San Leandro.) My first wife worked there for a time. Not too far away,
there was a Mack Truck factory, a Peterbilt truck factory, a couple of GE
plants, many food processing plants, and dozens of machine shops and sheet
metal shops.

Black east Oakland was even more a bastion of trade unionism than was San
Leandro, especially the UAW, the ILWU and the UE.

East Oakland and San Leandro were right in the center of the World War II
industrial belt that snaked along the bay from Pittsburgh, California on
the Carquinez Straits, where US steel had a plant, through Martinez and
Richmond, where the oil refineries and chemical plants were located,
through the enormous Kaiser shipyards which stretched from Richmond almost
to Albany, through the foundries, glass factories, food processing plants,
and automobile, farm machinery and truck factories of Oakland, San Leandro
and Hayward.

In the center of it all was, and still is, the Port of Oakland. In the
1960’s it was transformed by the war in Viet Nam into one of the world’s
most important container ports.

[Marxism] Why Manafort matters

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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https://www.publicintegrity.org/2018/09/26/22258/manaforts-guilty-plea-goes-heart-russian-intelligence-operation-2016?utm_source=Watchdog_campaign=4f0beeb78f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_05_08_COPY_01_medium=email_term=0_ffd1d0160d-4f0beeb78f-101663225_cid=4f0beeb78f_eid=afdc6da885
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[Marxism] Peking University

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  The link provided by Red Arnie ran into a pay wall, so here is the whole
article

Chinese politics & policy Add to myFT Peking University threatens to close
down Marxism society Students continue to back workers in dispute over
trade union rights President Xi Jinping visits the Marxist literature
centre at Peking University in May to commemorate the 200th anniversary of
Karl Marx’s birth © Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock Share on Twitter (opens new
window) Share on Facebook (opens new window) Share on LinkedIn (opens new
window) Save Save to myFT Yuan Yang and Xinning Liu in Beijing SEPTEMBER
23, 2018 Print this page33 China’s most prestigious university has
threatened to shut down its student Marxist society amid a continuing
police crackdown on students who support workers in a dispute over trade
union organisation. Under China’s Communist party, Marxism has been part of
the compulsory university curriculum for decades. But universities are now
under pressure to embrace “Xi Jinping thought” as the president strengthens
his ideological control over the nation. The government is also inspecting
primary and secondary school textbooks to remove foreign content. Peking
University’s Marxist Society was not able to re-register for the new
academic year because it did not have the backing required from teachers,
the society said. “Everyone can see what the Peking University Marxist
Society has done over the past few years to speak out for marginalised
groups on campus,” it added. The threat to close the society follows a
summer of student and worker unrest in the Chinese manufacturing hub of
Shenzhen. Students from Peking and other elite Chinese universities were
detained for supporting workers trying to organise a trade union at a Jasic
Technology factory. While workers’ protests have become more common in
China, the support of a small yet growing student movement has made the
Jasic protests politically sensitive. Zhan Zhenzhen, a member of the
Marxist Society at Peking University, was among those arrested in Shenzhen
last month. In July, police detained about 30 workers in the biggest such
arrest since 2015. In August, police wearing riot gear stormed a student
dormitory and took away about 40 students who had been supporting the
workers, according to witnesses. Recommended Jamil Anderlini China is at
risk of becoming a colonialist power Mr Zhan and the Marxist Society
initiated an investigation into working conditions for low-paid workers at
Peking University this year. The group said its focus was labour rights,
and it gained media attention in 2015 when it published an earlier working
conditions report. The Marxist Society said it had approached teachers in
the university’s department of Marxism for support with registration but
had been refused, with no explanation. A teacher from another department
had volunteered to register the society but said his offer was rejected by
the university’s Student Society Committee. The university’s Marxism
department did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The
Student Society Committee declined to comment. Mr Xi visited Peking
University this year to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s
birth. “Peking University is the first place to spread and study Marxism in
China. It makes a great contribution to the spread of Marxism and the
foundation of China’s Communist Party,” he said at the time. Be alerted on
Chinese politics & policy Enable alerts Copyright The Financial Times
Limited 2018. All rights reserved. Latest on Chinese politics & policy
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COMMENTS (33) Sign in + Follow Submit Comment Please keep comments
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comments. Newest | Oldest | Most recommended Yu-Tai Chia 2 days ago Under a
communist government proletariat is supposed to dictate the political
power. What this story tells us is that the People's Republic of China is
not a proletariat dictatorship. What President Xi wants is an empire and he
is the emperor 

Re: [Marxism] How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump

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In response to Jason: A short list of the political reasons not to vote for
the Democrats were listed in my post. You could start with fracking,
continue with the deporter in chief, go on to drones...

If you think these are issues of individualistic moral analysis, it only
shows that you do not understand which side you are on. That would make you
one of the majority for now.

Anthony

On Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 5:20 AM Jason Hicks  wrote:

>
>
> > On Sep 24, 2018, at 7:50 PM, Anthony Boynton via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
> >
> > On one level things would have been decidedly different. The Democrats
> > complicity and agreement with, and even leadership of, many of the
> policies
> > now labelled with Trump’s name would be much harder to hide, so the
> growing
> > split and crisis in the Democratic Party would be much greater.
>
> An extremely important point and a key reason that voting for Democrats
> does not equate to political capitulation unless one has some kind of
> individualistic moral analysis rather than a political one.
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[Marxism] Donald Trump, Lumpen Capitalist

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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I didn't read Farber's article yet, but the entire coterie around Trump is
made up of lumpen-capitalists, a class fraction that proliferates whenever
and wherever the real rate of profit falls near or below zero. Accumulation
of wealth through scams, theft and plunder characterize this sector.

They have always had an important place at the margins in the USA, but have
grown in importance.

Look at Trump's Devos, Mercer, Zinke, Mnunchin

Anthony
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[Marxism] Jeremy Corbyn Will Decide What Happens to Brexit (Whether He Wants to or Not)

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Jeremy Corbyn Will Decide What Happens to Brexit (Whether He Wants to or
Not)

New York Times By Benjamin Mueller Jan. 16, 2019

LONDON — Within minutes after Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan for leaving
the European Union was resoundingly defeated on Tuesday night, the leader
of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, rose in Parliament and vowed
in thunderous tones to unseat her with a motion of no confidence.

For Mr. Corbyn, a soft-spoken outsider who stormed to the head of the
opposition party three years ago, the moment marked a crossroads. After
years of lying low on the question of Brexit, steadfastly refusing to
commit to a clear course, he finally made his move, thrusting himself into
the center of the debate, where he will have to choose a side.

Having risen to the edge of power by presenting himself as an authentic,
left-wing champion of grass-roots Labour members, it is increasingly
untenable for Mr. Corbyn to defy them and avoid a decision on Brexit.

“The danger here is that the shine is coming off the Corbyn project because
of his triangulation on Brexit,” said Michael Chessum of Another Europe Is
Possible, a left-wing group campaigning for Labour leaders to back a second
referendum on Brexit. “If people start to think that Corbyn is just another
politician like all the other politicians, that is the thing that will kill
the Corbyn project.”

The timing for a decisive move, after Mrs. May’s government had just
suffered the worst parliamentary defeat in Britain since the 19th century,
seemingly could not be more propitious.

Mr. Corbyn’s no-confidence motion will almost certainly fail on Wednesday,
returning Parliament to a state of paralysis. But he will be in a position
to exercise enormous influence over whatever plan emerges from the next
tumultuous weeks — if he defines his stance.

If he decided to back a “soft” Brexit, maintaining close ties with the
European Union, that proposal would probably pass. If he backed a second
referendum that could thwart Brexit altogether, that would have at least a
chance of passing. If he stood aside and let Labour lawmakers back a
version of Mrs. May’s deal, that, too, would be likely to pass.

Mr. Corbyn called a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Theresa May,
center, as soon as her Brexit proposal was defeated on Tuesday
night.CreditJessica Taylor/House of Commons, via Associated Press

 And if he turned his back on all those options, he could drastically raise
the chances of Britain leaving without a deal, risking a recession and
perhaps even shortages of food and medicine.

Still, the choice is not an easy one. The debate over Brexit within the
Labour Party, while milder than the warfare among Mrs. May’s Conservatives,
is dangerously divisive. To achieve his ultimate goal of returning Labour
to power and reversing decades of neoliberal policies, Mr. Corbyn needs a
united party.

That presents him with a dilemma. As a lifelong critic of the European
Union, which he has portrayed as a bankers’ club that blocks left-wing
policies, Mr. Corbyn is loath to reverse Brexit and anger working-class
Labour voters who opted to leave. But the Labour activists who powered his
unlikely leadership bid are putting enormous pressure on him to do just
that.

The predicament, growing more urgent by the day, mirrors questions
confronting left-wing parties in Europe and the United States about how to
fight populist movements that trade on anti-immigrant sentiment.

Should they stand up for open borders and multiculturalism and risk cutting
loose white workers who have drifted to the anti-immigrant right? Or try
winning back those voters with a liberal version of the crusade against
global institutions, trade pacts and migration?

“If you look around Europe, center-left parties are facing a dilemma,” said
Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London, who
has surveyed Labour membership on Brexit. “How do they maintain or even get
back an electoral coalition of workers and middle-class, more educated
voters?”

The daunting electoral math facing Labour has given Mr. Corbyn reasons for
remaining vague.

At the most recent general election, in 2017, the party achieved unexpected
victories in prosperous, pro-European parts of England. But if it is to
form a government after the next election — scheduled for 2022, should Mrs.
May’s government survive until then — it would also need the support of
pro-Brexit voters in small towns who remained loyal to the Conservatives
last time.

Mr. Corbyn also has allies within Labour cheering his strategy of not
taking any particular side. Like him, they rank membership in the European

[Marxism] Impeach Trump

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Two things.

First, why the Atlantic and other organs of liberal ruling class opinion
finally feel that they need to impeach Trump should not be that hard to
understand.

Trump almost certainly committed textbook treason in pursuit of a few
dollars. They don't care about the money as long as he is not robbing them
personally, but they do care about his project of wrecking the long term
global project of NATO, the European Union, and American military power
parked on bases all over the world so that his handlers in Russia can
recover some of Russia's own dissolving power.

Second, WE (Marxists and revolutionaries) should be happy that THEY (the
liberals) want to impeach Trump for our own entirely different reasons. Put
simply, we want to see the ruling class's political chumminess blow up. We
want them to hate each other, fight each other, destroy each other's power,
and in the process and MOST IMPORTANTLY, radically weaken the legitimacy of
the bourgeois state in the eyes of the working class and the oppress.

We should be happy when Trump wants to close a US military base because we
want to destroy US impoerialism, but not in order to support the military
designs of Assad, Putin, or some other capitalist despot. Our agenda is not
to replace US imperialism with Russian, Chinese or any other imperialism,
but to help foment world-wide socialist revolution (as improbably as that
may sound to those who have given up on this great project).

There are any number of little issues that follow, like the disgusting and
evil Mikhail Pence. A Pence presidency will be one of crisis, whether or
not the bourgeoisie can use it to patch up the palace or not after Humpty
Trumpty's great fall will depend on what the masses do outside the palace.
I am not talking about revolution here, I am talking about LA teacher's
strikes. It will also depend on other factors outside of the palace like
war and the world economy.

Best, Anthony
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[Marxism] Open borders

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IMHO "Open Borders" is what is required for all imperialist countries, but
not for other countries.

I am writing in reply to Michael Meeropol. He wrote,

"But until real wages in the world become equal with a "race to the top"
rather than a race to the bottom there will be a tension between open
borders and (global north) working class incomes 

"Pushing solidarity is important but there is no question that this reality
makes it doubly harder ... "

Open borders is the most basic democratic right, the right to move from one
place to another.

The fact that it contradicts the existence of nation states at a very
fundamental level makes it what people used to call a "transitional
demand", but in reality ALL programmatic issues that meet the needs of the
working class and oppressed are transitional because achieving any one of
them intensifies the crisis of the system in one way or another.

Achieving a $15/hour minimum wage in the USA is a good example of what I
mean.

Opponents of the working class always latch on to these effects: raising
wages will cause employers to lay off workers, opening the borders will
result in competition for jobs and resources, etc, etc.

To the extent that their arguments are true, a revolutionary and really
socialist program must have answers at a higher level.

At this point in history, our program cannot be achieved in the short run,
so our answers can serve only to educate small numbers of people.

By the same token, the programmatic points developed 50 or one hundred
years ago also need to be revised. How can anyone talk about
"nationalizing" an industry when all of the main industries operate
internationally? Take the automobile industry as an example. Nationalize GM
in the USA? What about Canada, China, Mexico and the other countries whre
GM operates?

Similarly, how can the global warming catastrophe be addressed within a
single "nation state", even one like the USA? Toothless climate change
treaties?

Capitalism has truly gone beyond the limits of the "nation-state" but
cannot do without it either.

On the other hand, if we just march around with signs saying "world wide
socialist revolution now!" we will be marching alone.

James Cannon, despite all of his warts and nose hair, once wrote about
agitation, propaganda and education. To this he should have added,
development of theory.

Today's left is atomized, but growing. Dominated by abject reformism, but
searching for answers to problems that reformism cannot solve.

There are grounds for hope, but not if we just adapt to the arguments
against struggle.

Anthony.
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Re: [Marxism] The controversial ending of the US war against Vietnam

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IMHO, the United States lost the wars in Indochina, but won a strategic
victory in the war against world revolution (misnamed the cold war).

The terrible destruction in Vietnam drew a new cordon around the countries
that had become independent of imperialism through revolution.

At the same time, the Nixon-Mao deal meant that China would not aid Vietnam
or any other revolutionary movement in return for access to US markets and
capital. An alliance that has lasted until now, although it may not last
much longer.

Michael Meeropol also raised another interesting question.

1. "Did the US in the end "WIN" the wars in Indochina by destroying the
indigenous independent revolutionary forces within "South" Vietnam thereby
leading to the conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam -- the
unification of Vietnam under the Northern regime rather than a true
compromise --- leading, ultimately, to the slide towards capitalism in
Vietnam ---?"

An important part of the independent revolutionary forces in the south in
1945 were the Trotskyists who were massacred by the Viet Minh not the
United States.

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/vietnam/pirani/index.htm

After that date, the rise of independent opposition forces in the south
faced not only the repression of the puppet South Vietnamese State and the
US, but the efforts of the NLF and Lao Dong (Communist Party) to
infliltrate and coopt them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/opinion/south-vietnam-had-an-antiwar-movement-too.html

Anthony
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[Marxism] How Can the Left Participate in Electoral Campaigns?? ? Organizing Upgrade

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Warren Mar's interesting article shows how the path of I Wor Kuen, a very
large Chinese immigrant and Chinese American Maoist movement in the late
1970's and early 80's, that was at first close to the Black Panther Party,
and then became a key component of the League of Revolutionary struggle,
one of the largest of the post Maoist parties in the USA followed a path
into the union bureaucracy and the Democratic Party through the
transmission belt of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow coalition. Their remnants are
now a key part of the Democratic Party and union bureaucracy (especially
Unite-Here and SEIU), especially in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Warren represents an important, but not very publicly visible, trend on the
left margin of the Democrats who have organized Asian workers into the
unions, and then marshaled them behind the Democratic Party machine.

Anthony
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[Marxism] Chavez and Venezuela

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Hugo Chavez, as brilliant and charismatic as he was, made the decisions to
mortgage Venezuela's future oil revenues to China at market prices, and he
used the money he received from the loans to subsidize his friends, most of
whom are long gone (The Kirchners, Lula). Maduro reaped the consequences,
but chose to fight to stay in power no matter what the consequences.
Stalinism, and its children, are still the syphilis of the workers
movement. Fools gold, is not gold. Generations will suffer from these
"mistakes".

Anthony
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[Marxism] Marea Socialista

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https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11933
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[Marxism] DSA gains in Chicago

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/03/americas-socialist-surge-chicago
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[Marxism] Mueller report

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https://publicintegrity.org/national-security/alex-finley-analysis/like-any-good-spy-story-the-barr-account-of-the-mueller-report-contains-mysteries/?utm_source=Watchdog_campaign=198d48c515-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_05_COPY_01_medium=email_term=0_ffd1d0160d-198d48c515-101663225_cid=198d48c515_eid=afdc6da885
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[Marxism] Bezos F****ing version of the Green New Deal

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Fucking fracking

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-a-green-new-deal-heres-a-better-one/2019/02/24/2d7e491c-36d2-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html?utm_term=.2dcac68762c0=nl_most=1
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[Marxism] Haussman's plan to save Venezuela

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Guaido and the Venezuelan pretenders have pretty much kept their mouth's
shut about their plans to "save" Venezuela's economy, but that does not
mean that they have not been planning. Guaido, Lopez and the Cisneros
family consigliere is name Ricardo Haussmann, a Venezuelan who is an econ
professor at Harvard. (You can read all about him here).

Here is the Haussman plan to save Venezuela:

https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/ricardo-hausmann

Haussman is correct about two things: Venezuela must default AND Venezuela
needs a big injection of cash from the outside. Whether he can sell this
plan to the bankers is another question. Haussmann would like imperialism
to make a long term investment in Venezuela to bring it back into the fold
of third world appendages of US imperialism, and make himself into the
country's savior in the eyes of its middle class and economics professors
everywhere. Aside from the political benefits, US imperialism would get
Venezuela's oil wealth back.

The problem is that Venezuela's oil is important only in the medium term
and long term. Venezuela's oil is heavy and expensive to take out of the
ground, expensive to transport, and expensive to refine. As long as the
fracking glut lasts, Venezuelan oil can be ignored. And, fracking is being
extended into other countries. Colombia is drilling its first 12 fracked
wells in a pilot project. Even though the British have suspended fracking
for now, fracking is being discussed everywhere in Europe where it is
technically feasible. China, too. India, also.

IMHO, the big oil companies are afraid that too much fracking could destroy
them by leading to a much greater collapse of prices than that which
occurred at the end of 2014. The Colombian Ministry of Mines and Energy
uses this fear as an argument to frack now rather than later, because the
prices may be too low to make any money.

On the other hand, even if most of Venezuela's debt is held by China and
Russia, there could be serious opposition to default by the New York and
London bankers because they are worried about a new financial crash, and
especially worried that it could be triggered by a Chinese financial
crisis.

Haussman may not get his big bail-out for the same reason.

If Venezuela defaults, but there is no bail-out, the economic situation
within Venezuela will get worse, not better. Then the new Guaido government
will have to rule with armed force just like Maduro, only with even less
popular support and even greater austerity.

Since this is not too difficult to figure out, neither the banks, the State
department nor the pentagon are likely to be very enthusiastic about regime
change in Venezuela.

Anthony




T
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[Marxism] Haussman Plan

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Oops. I forgot to include this list in my last post about Venezuela.
(thanks Richard for pointing this out).

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-30/harvard-guru-advising-guaido-has-harsh-message-for-bondholders

Anthony
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[Marxism] Brexit and Irish Unification

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*A St. Patrick’s Day Miracle: United Ireland*

*Brexit could do what centuries of Irish conflict could not.*

New York Times by Timothy Egan
 Contributing
Opinion Writer March 16, 2019





For going on three years now, Britain has taken a holiday from sanity. A
tiny island kingdom whose people once ruled nearly a fourth of the world’s
land area squabbles over the terms of its self-inflicted diminishing and
isolation.

And really, who cares? Those who believe that history has a wicked sense of
humor should care. From the depths of British bungling, hubris and
incompetence is emerging a St. Patrick’s Day miracle: the real chance of a
united Ireland.

After more than 800 years, it’s not just possible but also seems inevitable
that London’s ruling reach will no longer extend to part of the island west
of the Irish Sea. All of the centuries when borders from India to Africa,
from the Middle East to British Columbia, were drawn by besotted and
bewigged Englishmen may end with the whimpering last gasps of Brexit.

Delay Brexit, redo Brexit, no-deal Brexit. It hardly matters. As with the
fall of the Berlin Wall, you can sense the acceleration toward the
inevitable. Don’t wait for Her Majesty’s government to resolve the
sovereignty issues of Northern Ireland, which are now holding up the
divorce between Britain and the European Union. There is no solution.



Bear with me while I walk through the Groundhog’s Day of this muddle. When
Britain voted narrowly in 2016 to leave the union, it did so in a fit of
nationalism and xenophobia, and against the will of majorities in Scotland
and Northern Ireland.

Voters were promised a migrant-free Britain, unfettered from evil
globalists. Instead, they are getting a Balkanized Britain, its stagnant
economy at the mercy of forces they will no longer be able to influence in
Europe. The vote was a Trump-level temper tantrum that revealed the
fraudulence of conservative populism.

What has bollixed the formal exit — and is the root cause of all of the
rudderless rumblings in Parliament this week — is Northern Ireland. As
always, the most vexing of Britain’s old colonial possessions is the one
closest to Westminster.

The Brexit vote roused the ghosts from bloody eras past, those centuries
when it was a crime to be Irish in Ireland. The Troubles, three decades of
late-20th-century sectarian terror that took at least 3,500 lives, was the
latest iteration of that dead weight of memory.

“It almost didn’t matter where you started the story: it was always there,”
Patrick Radden Keefe writes in “Say Nothing,” his magnificent new account
of the awful years in the north.


The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 — an instance when “hope and history
rhyme” in the words of the poet Seamus Heaney — ended the Troubles.
Remarkably, it has held the peace, while essentially erasing the border
between the Republic of Ireland and the swath of historic Ulster belonging
to Britain.


No one wants to put up guard stations and customs checks along
the invisible 310-mile line separating prosperous Ireland, a member of the
E.U., from the shakily peaceful six counties of the north, which would
exit. And only the most hateful elements on both sides want a return of
violence that is sure to come with a hard border.


The solution? It’s there in the not-so-fine print of the peace agreement.
Should a majority of Northern Ireland residents desire to leave Britain, it
is required to call for a vote of those people.


That majority is fast approaching. What Prime Minister Theresa May of
Britain calls “our precious union” is held together by 10 members of
Parliament representing the old hatreds of North Ireland — the Democratic
Unionist Party. It was founded by Ian Paisley, a bigot with a Bible, who
opposed the peace agreement and referred to Catholics as scum who “multiply
like vermin.”


Keefe quotes an English journalist as saying that the unionists are “more
British than the British, about whom the British care not at all.”


Paisley is no longer with us. Nor is most of the dark sentiment he stirred
up. When the borders came down, so did many of the walls of religion and
nationality. Catholics, long a persecuted minority, will soon be a majority
in Northern Ireland if demographic trends continue.


But the conflict is less about one Christian sect against another. It’s
more about how to thrive in an interconnected world. The Republic of
Ireland is proudly progressive, led by an openly gay taoiseach, Leo
Varadkar, who is of Irish and Indian heritage. After a series of scandals,
the influence of the Catholic Church has greatly diminished. Last year,
Ireland 

[Marxism] She's just not worth it either

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2019/03/11/feature/nancy-pelosi-on-impeaching-president-trump-hes-just-not-worth-it/?utm_term=.e71c1c7387c2
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[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Another teachers' strike in the making

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[Marxism] Russia and Venezuela

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/russias-gazprombank-freezes-accounts-venezuelas-pdvsa-source-114958302--finance.html
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[Marxism] Coup en Venezuela?

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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It is not clear what is happening in Venezuela, but the President of the
National Assembly (a Cisneros family stooge) has just declared himself to
be the "acting President".

https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-46979533
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[Marxism] Elliot Abrams

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Just in case you don't remember, or are too young to remember

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlCGpDJd394
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Re: [Marxism] Marxism Digest, Vol 186, Issue 15

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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The obvious answer to the "Growth can't be Green" conundrum is that human
society has to shrink while raising the standard of living of the billions
at the bottom. How much sturm und drang is going to accompany this is
unknowable, but will certainly be enormous. Whether humanity can come out
of the tunnel at all is unknowable, but a few things are certain: we need a
global state with a global planned economy, and that requires socialist
revolution in most of the most powerful countries. Anthony

On Tue, Apr 9, 2019 at 11:00 AM  wrote:

> Send Marxism mailing list submissions to
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>
> Today's Topics:
>
>1.  A Netflix Nature Series Says to Viewers: Don?t Like What You
>   See? Do Something About It (Louis Proyect)
>2. Re:  Why Growth Can?t Be Green ? Foreign Policy (Barry Brooks)
>
>
> --
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2019 10:55:36 -0400
> From: Louis Proyect 
> To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
> 
> Subject: [Marxism] A Netflix Nature Series Says to Viewers: Don?t Like
> What You See? Do Something About It
> Message-ID: <9f06c30b-4673-9ef5-b96b-3734e84ea...@panix.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> NY Times, April 9, 2019
> A Netflix Nature Series Says to Viewers: Don?t Like What You See? Do
> Something About It
> By Jennifer Vineyard
>
> It?s a striking image, watching a walrus climb a rock cliff. During one
> episode of the new Netflix nature docu-series ?Our Planet,? we witness
> something that shouldn?t be happening ? and is only happening now, the
> producers say, because of climate change. Desperate marine animals
> driven away from their natural habitats are trying to adapt to shelter
> elsewhere, and falling to their deaths as a result.
>
> This is not the typical scenario featured in feel-good nature
> documentaries, but ?Our Planet? has a different aim. Its creators
> partnered with the World Wildlife Fund (and a team of scientists) to
> depict how various ecosystems around the world ? from the frozen Arctic
> to rain forest jungles to coastal seas ? are imperiled by human
> activity, and what can be done to protect or restore them. ?We were
> trying to get to the heart of the issue with each of the great global
> habitats,? said Keith Scholey, an executive producer of the series, ?and
> to be very clear about the elements of destruction and the solutions.?
>
> [A look at recent Netflix originals worth your time.]
>
> In phone interviews with Scholey and Adam Chapman, who produced and
> directed two episodes of the series, and, separately, with Sophie
> Lanfear, who produced and directed one episode, they shared their
> experiences making ?Our Planet.? These are edited excerpts from that
> conversation.
>
> How did your advocacy interest shape the filming and the production?
>
> SOPHIE LANFEAR The only reason I was interested in working on ?Our
> Planet? is that it had conservation very much at the heart of the
> series. Often it?s a last-minute thing ? two lines of commentary at the
> end of the show. To me, it?s about designing the whole structure of the
> film with a conservation message, and having the visual kinds of
> sequences that show you, not tell you, what is going on with the world.
>
> ADAM CHAPMAN We set up some stringent parameters when we were selecting
> what to do. The obvious one is that they had to be the most dynamic and
> new animal behaviors that we could find. And more important, each
> sequence had to represent a much greater truth about that habitat.
>
> LANFEAR For example, when I was designing [the second episode] ?Frozen
> Worlds,? I watched every single relevant documentary I could find, and
> what I found was that none of them told the story of sea ice. Sea ice
> isn?t just this vast nothing. It?s a living habitat. The 

[Marxism] James Robertson: roast in hell

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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http://www.bolshevik.org/1917/no8/no08nrth.html
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[Marxism] Ecuadoran corruption scandal behind Assange arrest

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Julian Assange's expulsion from the Ecuadoran embassy in London seems to
have been motivated, at least in part, by the INA papers corruption scandal

https://defend.wikileaks.org/2019/04/03/ecuador-twists-embarrassing-ina-papers-into-pretext-to-oust-assange/
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[Marxism] Social Democracy and Imperialism

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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Thanks for the Left Voice article. It accurately pinpoints imperialism as
the material basis for the rise of labor aristocracy and bureaucracy, but
it fails to address the real role of Karl Kautsky in relation to WWI. Since
the title of the article is "Social Democracy and Imperialism: The Problem
with Kautsky" this seems like a very important omission.

Kautsky was a centrist in regards to war, advocating an abstention on the
vote in the Reichstag when the key vote on the war budget came up in August
1914. Later he opposed the war. Kautsky's attitude to WWI was very much
like the attitude of Bernie Sanders et. al. to modern day US imperialism
(which was addressed by Left Voice) of giving it "critical support".

This is in fact key to the in and out strategy of DSA and Sanders which
mobilizes around reforms addressing the needs of the working class, and
oppressed such as Medicare for all, tuition free education, and the Green
New Deal, but ties those mobilized to the Democratic Party, a central
institution of imperialism.

Anthony
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[Marxism] US Shadow Banking

[Anthony Boynton via Marxism]

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*Risky Borrowing Is Making a Comeback, but Banks Are on the Sideline*

New and untested players, some backed by Wall Street, have helped borrowers
pile up billions in loans. What could go wrong?

New York Times by Matt Phillips June 11, 2019

A decade after reckless home lending nearly destroyed the financial system,
the business of making risky loans is back.

This time the money is bypassing the traditional, and heavily regulated,
banking system and flowing through a growing network of businesses that
stepped in to provide loans to parts of the economy that banks abandoned
after 2008.

It’s called shadow banking, and it is a key source of the credit that
drives the American economy. With almost $15 trillion in assets, the
shadow-banking sector in the United States is roughly the same size as the
entire banking system of Britain, the world’s fifth-largest economy.

In certain areas — including mortgages, auto lending and some business
loans — shadow banks have eclipsed traditional banks, which have spent much
of the last decade pulling back on lending in the face of stricter
regulatory standards aimed at keeping them out of trouble.

But new problems arise when the industry depends on lenders that compete
aggressively, operate with less of a cushion against losses and have fewer
regulations to keep them from taking on too much risk. Recently, a chorus
of industry officials and policymakers — including the Federal Reserve
chair, Jerome H. Powell, last month — have started to signal that they’re
watching the growth of riskier lending by these non-banks.

“We decided to regulate the banks, hoping for a more stable financial
system, which doesn’t take as many risks,” said Amit Seru, a professor of
finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “Where the banks
retreated, shadow banks stepped in.”

With roughly 50 million residential properties, and $10 trillion in amassed
debt, the American mortgage market is the largest source of consumer
lending on earth.

Lately, that lending is coming from companies like Quicken Loans, loanDepot
and Caliber Home Loans. Between 2009 and 2018, the share of mortgage loans
made by these businesses and others like them soared from 9 percent to more
than 52 percent, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication.

Is this a good thing? If you’re trying to buy a home, probably. These
lenders are competitive and willing to lend to borrowers with slightly
lower credit scores or higher levels of debt compared to their income.

They also have invested in some sophisticated technology. Just ask Andrew
Downey, a 24-year-old marketing manager in New Jersey who is buying a
two-bedroom condo. To finance the purchase, he plugged his information into
LendingTree.com, and Quicken Loans, the largest non-bank mortgage lender by
loans originated, called him almost immediately.

“I’m not even exaggerating,” he said. “I think they called me like 10 or 15
seconds after my information was in there.”

Quicken eventually offered him a rate of 3.875 percent with 15 percent down
on a conventional 30-year fixed-rate mortgage of roughly $185,000.
Eventually he found an even better offer, 3.625 percent, from the
California-based lender PennyMac, also not a bank.

“I really didn’t reach out to any banks,” said Mr. Downey, who expects to
close on his condo in Union, N.J., this month.

The downside of all this? Because these entities aren’t regulated like
banks, it’s unclear how much capital — the cushion of non-borrowed money
the companies operate with — they have.

If they don’t have enough, it makes them less able to survive a significant
slide in the economy and the housing market.

While they don’t have a nationwide regulator that ensures safety and
soundness like banks do, the non-banks say that they are monitored by a
range of government entities, from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
to state regulators.

They also follow guidelines from the government-sponsored entities that are
intended to support homeownership, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which
buy their loans.

“Our mission, I think, is to lend to people properly and responsibly,
following the guidelines established by the particular agency that we’re
selling mortgages to,” said Jay Farner, chief executive of Quicken Loans.

It’s not just mortgages. Wall Street has revived and revamped the
pre-crisis financial assembly line that packaged together risky loans and
turned those bundles into seemingly safe investments.

This time, the assembly line is pumping out something called collateralized
loan obligations, or C.L.O.s. These are essentially a kind of bond cobbled
together from packages of loans —