[Marxism] Chomsky speech at Columbia University video
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.zcommunications.org/zvideo/3318 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviews Robert Service's biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dear colleagues: I must announce that I will begin next week to see that my book on Trotsky before 'really existing' Socialism gets in print this year, where I have tackled Trotsky's writings on the nature of the Soviet experiment from the militarization of labour controversy towards the class nature of the Soviet state one , in a spirit opposite to the Service biography. As soon as it's published, I will inform you of that. Of course it will be published in Brazil, in Portuguese, and will have a far more limited repercusion than Service's work, but neverthless it will bear proof to the fact that new (and very different) interpretations of Trotsky's legacy are available. Comradely_Carlos E. Rebello Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] New housing trends
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == NY Times, January 2, 2010 For Some in Japan, Home Is a Tiny Plastic Bunk By HIROKO TABUCHI TOKYO — For Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas, home is a cubicle barely bigger than a coffin — one of dozens of berths stacked two units high in one of central Tokyo’s decrepit “capsule” hotels. “It’s just a place to crawl into and sleep,” he said, rolling his neck and stroking his black suit — one of just two he owns after discarding the rest of his wardrobe for lack of space. “You get used to it.” When Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 opened nearly two decades ago, Japan was just beginning to pull back from its bubble economy, and the hotel’s tiny plastic cubicles offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home. Now, Hotel Shinjuku 510’s capsules, no larger than 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide, and not tall enough to stand up in, have become an affordable option for some people with nowhere else to go as Japan endures its worst recession since World War II. Once-booming exporters laid off workers en masse in 2009 as the global economic crisis pushed down demand. Many of the newly unemployed, forced from their company-sponsored housing or unable to make rent, have become homeless. The country’s woes have led the government to open emergency shelters over the New Year holiday in a nationwide drive to help the homeless. The Democratic Party, which swept to power in September, wants to avoid the fate of the previous pro-business government, which was caught off-guard when unemployed workers pitched tents near public offices last year to call attention to their plight. “In this bitter-cold New Year’s season, the government intends to do all it can to help those who face hardship,” Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said in a video posted Dec. 26 on YouTube. “You are not alone.” On Friday, he visited a Tokyo shelter housing 700 homeless people, telling reporters that “help can’t wait.” Mr. Nakanishi considers himself relatively lucky. After working odd jobs on an Isuzu assembly line, at pachinko parlors and as a security guard, Mr. Nakanishi, 40, moved into the capsule hotel in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district in April to save on rent while he worked night shifts at a delivery company. Mr. Nakanishi, who studied economics at a regional university, dreams of becoming a lawyer and pores over legal manuals during the day. But with no job since Christmas, he does not know how much longer he can afford a capsule bed. The rent is surprisingly high for such a small space: 59,000 yen a month, or about $640, for an upper bunk. But with no upfront deposit or extra utility charges, and basic amenities like fresh linens and free use of a communal bath and sauna, the cost is far less than renting an apartment in Tokyo, Mr. Nakanishi says. Still, it is a bleak world where deep sleep is rare. The capsules do not have doors, only screens that pull down. Every bump of the shoulder on the plastic walls, every muffled cough, echoes loudly through the rows. Each capsule is furnished only with a light, a small TV with earphones, coat hooks, a thin blanket and a hard pillow of rice husks. Most possessions, from shirts to shaving cream, must be kept in lockers. There is a common room with old couches, a dining area and rows of sinks. Cigarette smoke is everywhere, as are security cameras. But the hotel staff does its best to put guests at ease: “Welcome home,” employees say at the entrance. “Our main clients used to be salarymen who were out drinking and missed the last train,” said Tetsuya Akasako, head manager at the hotel. But about two years ago, the hotel started to notice that guests were staying weeks, then months, he said. This year, it introduced a reduced rent for dwellers of a month or longer; now, about 100 of the hotel’s 300 capsules are rented out by the month. After requests from its long-term dwellers, the hotel received special government permission to let them register their capsules as their official abode; that made it easier to land job interviews. At 2 a.m. on one recent December night, two young women watched the American television show “24” on a TV inside the sauna. One said she had traveled to Tokyo from her native Gunma, north of the city, to look for work. She intended to be a hostess at one of the capital’s cabaret clubs, where women engage in conversation with men for a fee. The woman, 20, said she was hoping to land a job with a club that would put her up in an apartment. She declined to give her name because she did not want her family to know her whereabouts. “It’s tough to live like this, but it won’t be for too long,” she said. “At least there are more jobs here than in Gunma.” The government says about 15,800
Re: [Marxism] Manure
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Greg wrote: I don't understand the point of creating such an artificial distinction, when the articles I quoted both pointed out how PL 480 undermined domestic food production and consumption. BTW, what better way of creating a market for export than just such a practice. It's the same modus operandi used by Wal-Mart: create an overwhelming economy of scale, undermine the local mom and pop shops by lowering your prices, (or giving it away, as in the case of Peru), and then when you have priced your competition out of the market, raise your prices. Drug dealers also operate under similar premises, using giveways to hook new customers. Greg McDonald -- To me it is important to make the distinction because so many who study and write on PL480 have a very bad analysis of the role of the state. Most argue that the state acts at the behest of large US Ag TNC's who have effectively captured the state and international orgs. This focuses attention on the role of TNC's and the concentration of ownership and control of markets, which is somewhat what has happened, however, US Ag TNC's in the top 25 have declined in number over the last 10 or so years. The US state acted to alter the social relations through PL-480 not to benefit specific corporations and were not guided by those corporations to do so. The turn toward PL- 480 'food aid' was due to the increasing surpluses of US ag products and the desire to construct a world market. The state does not act to benefit of a handful of corporations for the most part, it acts to construct capitalist markets. To me this is the key to the US' success, its hegemony, which comes from acting in a relatively autonomous way for the benefit of global capital in general. Also the vast majority of PL-480 'food aid' is not given away but sold. It is simply a form of dumping cheap subsidised US ag products. Brad Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviews Robert Service's biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 2010/1/2 Carlos Eduardo Rebello crebe...@antares.com.br in a spirit opposite to the Service biography. This is the greatest news for 2010 so far. Congratulations. Mr. Service does great job for the class he belongs to. Anti-Marxism and Anti-Communism in his writigs must be attacked. I would even not mind to defend Stalin against him, because all his criticism is intended to destroy Marxism. I am looking forward to reading it. -- Dogan Göcmen (http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/) Author of The Adam Smith Problem: Reconciling Human Nature and Society in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations, I. B. Tauris, LondonNew York 2007 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviews Robert Service's biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dogan wrote, I would even not mind to defend Stalin against him, because all his criticism is intended to destroy Marxism. I am looking forward to reading it. And I look forward to reading an honest defense of Stalin. ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviews Robert Service's biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 2010/1/2 Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com And I look forward to reading an honest defense of Stalin. It is already there if you are an Italian or a German reader. Check out Domenico Losurdo's Stalin-book. -- Dogan Göcmen (http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/) Author of The Adam Smith Problem: Reconciling Human Nature and Society in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations, I. B. Tauris, LondonNew York 2007 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviews Robert Service's biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A short review of Domenico Losurdo's book on Stalin is below: *Stalin. **Story and Critics of a black legend** * (Domenico Losurdo, Stalin. Storia e critica di una leggenda nera, Carocci, Rom 2009, pp. 382) By Stefano G. Azzarà *Book Review* The historiography concerning the most important political leaders of recent history has been strongly influenced by their success and by the stability of the institutions they established or fostered. This is in particular valid for the fate of Stalin and the problem of Stalinism 20 years after the defeat of socialist system in Cold War and the decomposition of Soviet Union. In his book Italian historian of philosophy Professor Domenico Losurdo takes this unavoidable epistemological conditioning into account. Nevertheless, he places Stalin’s work in the broad sense of the term within the objective circumstances to avoid any negative effects of the permanently changing world public opinion. He does this by resorting to a strict comparative method. Indeed, in his book he methodically aims to compare facts and concrete political decisions in the consecutive periods of Soviet history to the facts and political decisions in the simultaneous life of the great powers in western and liberal world. Professor Domenico Losurdo does not ignore critical and unacceptable aspects of Soviet history and many political decisions Stalin made. However, he starts from an undeniable evidence: for long time after his death and “in an important historical period, Stalin and his country enjoyed sympathy, respect and even admiration not only from the inner circles of communist world movement”. Many statements of important political leaders in western countries show this sufficiently. However, this friendly reception changed immediately after the so-called Khrushchev-Report in 1956. In this report, Stalin is described as a “morbidly bloodthirsty, vain, ordinary dictator with ridiculous intellectual skills”. This description objectively coincides with the search for advantage of two converging fronts: On the one side, Anglo-Saxon sovietology, which, militarized by the culture of the Cold War, had an interest in finding ways of the confirmation of a “pureness of West” against a barbarian Bolshevist East; and on the other side, “Trotskyite Marxist left”, a “left”,* *which was since 1917 busy with claiming the “pureness of Marxism and Bolshevism” as opposed to the misery of real socialism,* *misery embodied in the single character of Stalin and in the “bureaucratic” circle around him. We can understand Stalin’s age, suggests Professor Domenico Losurdo, only by studying it in the context of an inextricable sequence of conflicts. Three civil wars crossed these years: the war between Bolshevik revolution and white army; the war caused by the “revolution from above” whit collectivization of farms and forced industrialization; and the war inside the Bolshevik leadership. And these civil wars are interlaced with an international conflict which was developed on many problems: World War I, national conflicts, “sanitary cordon”, Nazism and Fascism, Second World II, Cold War, struggles inside the socialist system and so on. As we can see, the most important problem is the permanent “state of exceptions” marking the life of Soviet Republic. Professor Losurdo uses here comparative method: how did liberal and “democratic” countries behave in their history, facing an external threat and facing the risk of the destruction of their national community and the State? This is the problem of total war in 20th century. And exactly in this problem Losurdo reveals the roots of “total mobilization”, a political phenomenon that in all countries involved in the crisis of the *Jus publicum europaeum* brings to a suspension of *habeas corpus*, to laws punishment of “collective responsibilities”, to executions by martial law, mass deportations, mass imprisonments and working fields, to a strong regimentation of society, to the terror against political enemies and people suspected for conspiracies and accused of being “objective enemies”. According to Professor Domenico Losurdo, this atrocities are foremost the atrocities of the war, experimented for a long time by the great western powers in their colonization campaigns. Nevertheless, in the face of these serious historical problems the Soviet leadership was absolutely unprepared and untrained and paid for a lot of subjective and ideological deficiencies. Especially influenced by a fanatic utopian messianism, Bolsheviks were forced to take their decisions. Against today’s historiographical mainstream, Losurdo asserts that on this political background Stalin has been an outstanding leader with his clearness of thought and temperance.
[Marxism] Paul Roberts Antisemetic Counterpuch Article
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I don't read Counterpuch regularly and don't wish to take my time researching this, so I have a few questions. Are blatantly antsemetic articles like Paul Roberts's standard fare? Do his conspiracy theories about the federal reserve, monetary policy and the Zionist takeover of the US go unchallenged by regular contributors like Alexander Cockburn. Are his chauvantistic appeals to real Christian Americans echoed by anyone else? Are they challenged? I ask these questions because I have had to deal with quite a bit of this antisemitic garbage as a an activist in the peace movement in Florida and I am curious if others on this list share my concerns. Best Regards, Jack Lieberman Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] A few words about education
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Anthony Boynton wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A few words about education, public education, private schools, and charter schools. I have been watching the sparks fly between Joaquin and Artesian regarding education and would like to make a few off the cuff remarks. Although I agree with Joaquin’s premise that the framework should be, fighting bourgeois education., rather than simply fighting bourgeois attacks on education, I think that the first step in fighting “bourgeois education” is defending and promoting the democratic right to free universal public education. In any case I want to address this issue in a different way. Capitalism already provides a type of free universal public education, I think. It comes through television, radio, movies, music and this synthetic medium we are using. Education comes to us as a commodity. On the whole, its message (or lesson) is what Christopher Lasch called the propaganda of commodities: Liberation is achieved, according to this view, if you constantly buy, consume and sell yourself within the confines of capitalist economic relations as defined by Madison Ave. Co.; shit like You've come a long way, baby!, etc. Maybe, if we succeed in placing commodity in the popular pejorative and attack bourgeois education as a promoter of it we may get the type of education you and I want for our families and our communities. I hope you'll agree that it's not enough to abolish the commodity aspect of capitalist bourgeois education if at the same time we do not abolish the commodity aspect of all other useful and productive work. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--A-few-words-about-education-tp26990268p26994229.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviews RobertService's biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Here we go again... Assumptions, ahistorical representation of problems of underdevelopment, and the following completely anti-materialist, anti-class basis for analysis: Professor Losurdo uses here comparative method: how did liberal and “democratic” countries behave in their history, facing an external threat and facing the risk of the destruction of their national community and the State? This is the problem of total war in 20th century. And exactly in this problem Losurdo reveals the roots of “total mobilization”, a political phenomenon that in all countries involved in the crisis of the *Jus publicum europaeum* brings to a suspension of *habeas corpus*, to laws punishment of “collective responsibilities”, to executions by martial law, mass deportations, mass imprisonments and working fields, to a strong regimentation of society, to the terror against political enemies and people suspected for conspiracies and accused of being “objective enemies”. Against today’s historiographical mainstream, Losurdo asserts that on this political background Stalin has been an outstanding leader with his clearness of thought and temperance. Again and again he tried to bring some “normality” into political and social life of his country. “During the three decades of Soviet Russian history led by Stalin, annotates Losurdo, “the most important aspect has not been the passing from party dictatorship to autocracy but the recurrent Stalin’s attempts to bring his country out of the state of exception to a relative normality”. However, these attempts failed. But they compel all fair historians to admit that Soviet history and Stalinism cannot be understood through the concept of “totalitarianism”. This history tells us instead of a gradual and contradictory establishment of a development of dictatorship”, by means of which Stalin tried to mobilize and “rehabilitate” the energies of his country in order to overcome a centuries-old Russian underdevelopment”. In other words, he tried to foster an accelerated development and to concentrate in few years the same course untwined in developed countries during many centuries. Comparative method to the democratic countries? That's a real Marxist, class, and honest analysis, no? And exactly what is bringing normality into political and social life? What is the content, the substance of such normality? All this faux-erudition says is that all the problems were due to Russia's lack of development, its isolation, and need to defend exactly that isolation-- that socialism is one country. There is nothing new, different in this-- it's the same old same old ideological horse galloping around the ring of the same circus under the same tent. Look, this honest assessment of Stalin is based on opposition to a phony libertarianism-- the bourgeois attack on Stalinism as totalitarian, and then conflating the phony libertarianism with actual Marxist critique to discredit such Marxists critiques, to avoid the material analysis of the relations of classes, internally and internationally, and what the attempt to bringa relative normality meant concretely to those classes and their struggles. Marxist analysis does not begin nor end with a critique of totalitarianism. It's not at all surprising that those who support, rationalize, the CPUSA's pseudo-Marxist support of liberal [in the US political menaing of the word], progressive, bourgeois democrats cannot distinguish between those liberal critiques and actual Marxist analysis when it comes to something they, the supporters, hold dear. - Original Message - From: Dogan Gocmen dgn.g...@googlemail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Paul Roberts Antisemetic Counterpuch Article
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Jolly Jack wrote: I don't read Counterpuch regularly and don't wish to take my time researching this, so I have a few questions. Are blatantly antsemetic articles like Paul Roberts's standard fare? Do his conspiracy theories about the federal reserve, monetary policy and the Zionist takeover of the US go unchallenged by regular contributors like Alexander Cockburn. Are his chauvantistic appeals to real Christian Americans echoed by anyone else? Are they challenged? I ask these questions because I have had to deal with quite a bit of this antisemitic garbage as a an activist in the peace movement in Florida and I am curious if others on this list share my concerns. Best Regards, Jack Lieberman It would be helpful if you provided here a link to one of the articles wherein you feel he (Roberts) waxes Anti-Semitic. I've read from him some very strong words in condemnation of Israel's Jewish state, its treatment of the Palestinians and its well-known attempts to influence U.S. policy via its lobbies in Washington, but I can't recall anything of a general or specific nature that he wrote that leads me to think he would be an Anti-Semite. That's why a link would be much appreciated. Maybe I'm too naive to have detected Anti-Semitism on his part or maybe he cleverly obscures it behind a feigned outrage at the truly outrageous fact of the existence of an apartheid Jewish state in the middle of a land populated largely by oppressed Semites of a different religion. Or possibly, just possibly, there's nothing fundamentally Anti- Semitic about the principled opposition against and strong condemnation of U.S. imperialism and its Zionist client state of Israel? -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Paul-Roberts-Antisemetic-Counterpuch-Article-tp26994085p26994488.html Sent from the Marxism mailing list archive at Nabble.com. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviews RobertService's biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S. Artesian's critique is accurate, insofar as it reflects Losurdo's method . . . . A more positive assessment of Stalin's role--or, at least, a less negative one--would turn on exactly how many Russians, particularly Communists died at his hands or whether these stories were actually misinterpretations of the plague or something. There are scholars in the former USSR--where the documentation and evidence actually is--who are working on these questions. ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviews RobertService's biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S.Artisan, you are probabily to quick to criticise a book which you probabily have had never in your hands. At this stage any debate with you about the book would not be fruitful. Comparative approach is one of the most important methodological devices which is also used by Marx not only in his historical studies. My support of CPUSA's electoral tactical support of Obama has nothing to do with Domenico Losurdo's book. My post was intended to inform the list members. Not more. Dogan Göcmen (http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/) Author of The Adam Smith Problem: Reconciling Human Nature and Society in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations, I. B. Tauris, LondonNew York 2007 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviews RobertService's biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A comparative approach can be very valuable for many things, but it can also be a distraction, aimed at changing the subject. For over a century, for example, reactionaries have attempted to muddy the waters of our Second American Revolution through an adulation of the proslavery Lost Cause of the seceding Southern states. They have done so, in part, through a comparative approach between the U.S. South and other slaveholding societies...and with the Northern states on such questions as race. In other words, slavery in the Southern US was awful, but much better than it was in some other places at other times. Or, Jefferson Davis may have had no use for black people, but Abraham Lincoln was a racist, too. Both these comparative approaches are utterly dishonest and deceptive attempts to put what was (and, in some respects, still is) the dominant interest in the US ruling class in its best possible light. ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviewsRobertService's biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'm criticizing the presentation of the review which you present, and uncritically, as an honest assessment of an honest book. Comparative approach can be done on a materialist basis, with actual historical analysis of the material relations of classes, and it can be done on an ideological basis without, and in opposition to, actual analysis of the class struggle that makes up real history. The reviewer of Losurdo's book takes the ideological approach. Your posting the review of Losurdo's book contains more than just the attempt to inform list members. It includes an endorsement of the review. As I said this is the same old, same old we get every time the history of the USSR, and the legacy of the official CP's comes up. There is 1000 times more information, more materialist information in certain books by certain established academics-- see for example The Economic Development of the USSR by Roger Munting, St. Martin's Press, 1982-- than in these ideological defenses. - Original Message - From: Dogan Gocmen dgn.g...@googlemail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviewsRobertService's biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Oh, cut the crap. Posting a review of a book in question IS NOT automatically a personal endorsement of a book, and there is not a single word in Dogan's message suggesting that he supports the review as an honest assessment of an honest book. If you want to be the list's pit bull I suggest that you campaign for it. In the meantime I reject your self nomination. - Bill S. Artesian wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'm criticizing the presentation of the review which you present, and uncritically, as an honest assessment of an honest book. (snip) Your posting the review of Losurdo's book contains more than just the attempt to inform list members. It includes an endorsement of the review. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviewsRobertService's biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Not trying to be a pit bulll, so since you apparently have a short-term memory problem, let me reproduce the sequence of comments: . 1. Dogan-- I would even not mind to defend Stalin against him, because all his criticism is intended to destroy Marxism. I am looking forward to reading it. 2. Mark--And I look forward to reading an honest defense of Stalin. 3.Dogan--It is already there if you are an Italian or a German reader. Check out Domenico Losurdo's Stalin-book. 4. Dogan-- A short review of Domenico Losurdo's book on Stalin is below: *Stalin. **Story and Critics of a black legend** * (Domenico Losurdo, Stalin. Storia e critica di una leggenda nera, Carocci, Rom 2009, pp. 382) 5. Then comes the review with presents Stalin as clear-eyed and temperate, and trying to restore the USSR to normalcy; oh and it throws in as the left and right hands of the same body, anglo-saxon anti-Sovietism and trotskyite claims to purity in socialism, both of which converge in Kruschev's denounciation of Stalin-- bloodthirsty, criminal etc. as being distinctly intemperate in the analysis of the USSR and Stalinism So--- with all due respect to logic, there's no leap required in concluding that Dogan is endorsing the review of a book that endorses the book that he has originally endorsed as an honest defense of Stalin. Maybe your logic is different, but that's mine. The crap you want to cut isn't coming from me. - Original Message - From: Bill Quimby wqui...@embarqmail.com To: David Schanoes sartes...@earthlink.net Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2010 12:59 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Trotsky lives -- Paul Le Blanc reviewsRobertService's biography. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Moderator's note
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == No Stalin/Trotsky debates here. Please. Or else. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] 15 Most Heinous Climate Villains
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=1237 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [Jewbonics] The Cairo Decalaration
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Gaza Freedom March has come to an end, but before the protesters dispersed they agreed on the following statement: End Israeli Apartheid Cairo Declaration January 1, 2010 We, international delegates meeting in Cairo during the Gaza Freedom March 2009 in collective response to an initiative from the South African delegation, state: In view of: o Israel’s ongoing collective punishment of Palestinians through the illegal occupation and siege of Gaza; o the illegal occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the continued construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall and settlements; o the new Wall under construction by Egypt and the US which will tighten even further the siege of Gaza; o the contempt for Palestinian democracy shown by Israel, the US, Canada, the EU and others after the Palestinian elections of 2006; o the war crimes committed by Israel during the invasion of Gaza one year ago; o the continuing discrimination and repression faced by Palestinians within Israel; o and the continuing exile of millions of Palestinian refugees; o all of which oppressive acts are based ultimately on the Zionist ideology which underpins Israel; o in the knowledge that our own governments have given Israel direct economic, financial, military and diplomatic support and allowed it to behave with impunity; o and mindful of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (2007) We reaffirm our commitment to: Palestinian Self-Determination Ending the Occupation Equal Rights for All within historic Palestine The full Right of Return for Palestinian refugees We therefore reaffirm our commitment to the United Palestinian call of July 2005 for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to compel Israel to comply with international law. To that end, we call for and wish to help initiate a global mass, democratic anti-apartheid movement to work in full consultation with Palestinian civil society to implement the Palestinian call for BDS. Mindful of the many strong similarities between apartheid Israel and the former apartheid regime in South Africa, we propose: 1) An international speaking tour in the first 6 months of 2010 by Palestinian and South African trade unionists and civil society activists, to be joined by trade unionists and activists committed to this programme within the countries toured, to take mass education on BDS directly to the trade union membership and wider public internationally; 2) Participation in the Israeli Apartheid Week in March 2010; 3) A systematic unified approach to the boycott of Israeli products, involving consumers, workers and their unions in the retail, warehousing, and transportation sectors; 4) Developing the Academic, Cultural and Sports boycott; 5) Campaigns to encourage divestment of trade union and other pension funds from companies directly implicated in the Occupation and/or the Israeli military industries; 6) Legal actions targeting the external recruitment of soldiers to serve in the Israeli military, and the prosecution of Israeli government war criminals; coordination of Citizen’s Arrest Bureaux to identify, campaign and seek to prosecute Israeli war criminals; support for the Goldstone Report and the implementation of its recommendations; 7) Campaigns against charitable status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). We appeal to organisations and individuals committed to this declaration to sign it and work with us to make it a reality. You may view the latest post at http://www.maxajl.com/?p=2798 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Paul Roberts Antisemetic Counterpunch Article
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I actually received the link from this list in a posting by Andrew Pollack earlier today. The link is:http://counterpunch.com/roberts12302009.html . Opposition to the state of Israel, or it's policies,is not what I am objecting about. I am curious, do you see what I find objectionable and fundamentally reactionary about this article? Best Regards, Jack Lieberman Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Pitfalls of Criticising Israel and Zionism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The post about Paul Roberts Antisemetic Counterpunch Article illustrates in so many ways, why I never write anything about Zionism/Israel - not even the Israeli government treatment of Israelis from Ethiopia. This is in spite of the fact that I dedicated most of my life to the anti-apartheid struggle and worked as a journalist, a writer and now an academic for 30 years, unflinchingly committed to social justice, equality and a better life for everyone. Nowhere in the Roberts article does he mention anything about Semites or Jews. Now, I am not that stupid not to know that one can conceal biases behind language (by admission or omission)!!! So... I will continue to never write anything substantive about Zionism and or Israel, and I will continue my commitment to justice fully aware that, to paraphrase Eli Wiesel: We might never have justice, but that should not stop us from fighting for it (and elsewhere).. One can not begin to fight against oppression of the Jews, and/or remembering the Holocaust, without (ALSO) examining events like Hiroshima and Nagasaki (among other) and to which I will add - the Palestinians, the indigenous people of North America, Africa and elsewhere. Nobody has a monopoly on suffering! Aluta Continua! Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Paul Roberts Antisemetic Counterpunch Article
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jan 2, 2010, at 2:55 PM, Jolly Jack wrote: I actually received the link from this list in a posting by Andrew Pollack earlier today. The link is:http://counterpunch.com/roberts12302009.html . Opposition to the state of Israel, or it's policies,is not what I am objecting about. I am curious, do you see what I find objectionable and fundamentally reactionary about this article? It is a simple matter for an educated person to make fools of these morons who profess to be Christians. However, these morons have vast constituencies numbering in the tens of millions of Americans. There are, in fact, more of them than there are intelligent, informed, moral, and real Christian Americans. I see nothing antisemitic in this. It's rather a sectarian trope--a blast against a different variant of his own (Christian) ideology, denouncing them as phony Christians. As one with revulsion for Christianity as such, I don't find this very objectionable because when thieves fall out the honest come into their own. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Lenin had it right
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Trotsky and Stalin invented the socialism in one country argument about Russia under the Stalin regime which gave socialism such a bad name. Some of the left who follow Trotsky hasten to crap on Stalin for his reactionary notion that a socialist organization of society had been achieved in Russia, and repeatedly point out that Lenin had it right: there had to be a revolution in and aid from an economically advanced country in order for a socialist society to develop in backward Russia, at some point in the future. But Trotsky, they conveniently forget, also claimed that Stalin's Russia was a socialist society, just one run by a pack of murdering thugs led by the tyrant Stalin. He argued that only a political revolution was necessary to rescue a Russian socialist organization of production from bad people. So, on the basic, Stalin and Trotsky were in complete agreement: Stalin's Russia was an example of socialism for the world to support and defend. Puke. Lenin, who knew better, repeated over and over until his death that Russia was a capitalist society, and, because of overwhelming economic backwardness, was not any form of socialist society whatever, despite the politics of the working class government in power presiding over Russia, his own government. This is repeated incessantly by Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33; August 1921 To March 1923. Plain as day. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] History going forward as biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In a message dated 1/2/2010 12:32:31 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, markala...@gmail.com writes: In other words, slavery in the Southern US was awful, but much better than it was in some other places at other times. Or, Jefferson Davis may have had no use for black people, but Abraham Lincoln was a racist, too. Both these comparative approaches are utterly dishonest and deceptive attempts to put what was (and, in some respects, still is) the dominant interest in the US ruling class in its best possible light. Comment Assessing the role of the individual in/as history is extremely complex, difficult, partisan and ideological. Sharp differences arise over articulating the role of Elvis Presley in the evolution of popular music in America. Elvis - (for me, and it is always for me even when the me is a political part), emerges as the individual to personify a moment in history. All the complex phenomena of his period of time, is expressed, or rather can be compressed, in Elvis as a bookmark. Karl Marx is no different in this sense. Also Michael Jackson . Huge divergence concerning Jackson’s bookmark as history and assessing his life as an individual emerged before he was placed in the ground. Discourse riveted to the individual proves their bookmark as history. One can more than less summarize environments, (also a partisan and ideological endeavor), only to confront a complex of individual events and actions shaping and motivating the individual, whose life force drives them to become a historical bookmark. At the end of the day, Lincoln emerged as the embodiment of a victorious collective will sufficient to win the war in favor of the political strivings of Northern capital. One can argue and subject any number of his decisions and polices to critique. Lincoln’s wartime leadership and generals can be dissected and studied forever, without in anyway altering the fact that he won. Lincoln’s generals and soldiers defeated the armies of Southern reaction. Lincoln’s greatness is proven by the fact he emerged as paramount leader, at a redefining moment in our history, where our history under went redefinition. All the complex phenomena of the Civil War years - and the period leading to Lincoln’s election, is expressed, or rather can be compressed, in Lincoln the individual. One can always speculate over what should have happened, or what could have happened, if a countless list of possible scenarios is used as a frame of reference. History does not lend itself to such retroactive unraveling and reconstitution except as speculation. In the end one is confronted with what actually happened, and the context - environments, in which what happened did in fact happen. When the proletariat seizes control of its history and studies its history as an emancipated and educated self governing mass, its choices, motivated by a society conception of change and choice can alter history going forward. That is why humanity has studied the generations forever. WL. (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Lenin had it right
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jan 2, 2010, at 3:56 PM, Thomas F Barton wrote: Stalin and Trotsky were in complete agreement: Stalin's Russia was an example of socialism for the world to support and defend. Mr. Barton should read something--anything--by Trotsky before committing any more such imbecilities. Puke. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] History going forward as biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jan 2, 2010, at 3:59 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: Assessing the role of the individual in/as history is extremely complex, difficult, partisan and ideological... And so before talking about history in relation to such recent figures as Jackson, Presley, Marx and Lincoln it would be well to remember Chou En-Lie's profound evaluation of the Great French Revolution: It's still too recent to determine. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] History going forward as biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Whoops! Sorry, Chou En-Lai! On Jan 2, 2010, at 3:59 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: Assessing the role of the individual in/as history is extremely complex, difficult, partisan and ideological... And so before talking about history in relation to such recent figures as Jackson, Presley, Marx and Lincoln it would be well to remember Chou En-L[ie]'s profound evaluation of the Great French Revolution: It's still too recent to determine. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/shmage%40pipeline.com Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Lenin had it right
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Lenin, who knew better, repeated over and over until his death that Russia was a capitalist society, and, because of overwhelming economic backwardness, was not any form of socialist society whatever, despite the politics of the working class government in power presiding over Russia, his own government. This is repeated incessantly by Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33; August 1921 To March 1923. Comment Interesting is the history of the theoretical underpinning that the first stage of communism was not possible outside of several advanced countries providing an international division of labor as the basis to defeat the commodity form; defeat the small producers in local (state) jurisdictions, and drag the economically backwards areas into the orbit of proletarian socialism. It is very accurate to say that Lenin and most Marxist considered socialism impossible outside of a series of revolutions in the advanced capitalist countries. Let’s attack the issue backwards. Section II. Marx and Engels introduced the world to a new way at looking at the life of society and the underlying motivation causing society to leap from one complex of productive forces and its corresponding social relationships of production to another. Thus, Marxists have through all our generations relied upon the writings of Marx and Engels in our theoretical unraveling of the society process.. Marx clearest writings on what constitutes the first stage of communism, popularized as “socialism” by Engels is perhaps his Critique of the Gotha Program. Marx describes the first stage of economic communism as a political form of the state, called the dictatorship of the proletariat, and a mode of distribution where the commodity form of the social product is systematically defeated by distributing a broad range of products outside the law of value. The mode of distribution is always a consequence of the mode of producing or its property features. Marx exposition can be challenging concerning what constitutes the first stage of communism, but we should try to unravel it. Quote “Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase proceeds of labor, objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.” (End Quote) Why is it that producers do not exchange their products when common ownership of the means of production is the prevailing mode of property? If this is true, what does it mean to say “the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products?” Exchange in political economy means the “mutual transferring from one individual or between groups of individuals products that have acquired a commodity form.“ Product exchange means the commodity form or a mode of distribution based on the individual selling something in order to buy something and the reverse. This in turn implies that the instruments or means of production are owned privately or by someone or a class, whose domination of these means and conditions compels non-owners to enter into the act of selling and buying. This act of selling and buying is the singular economic meaning of exchange . . . . . Or of exchange of commodities. When the individual confronts owners of property for wages, or the right to partake in society production and consumption, their labor acquires a commodity form exchangeable with other products with a commodity form. Value means exchange value in political economy, or rather exchange value means value. Without the private property principle in operation, products do not appear as a collection of exchange values - value, but rather a collection of things with a utility. (1) After the confirmation and validation of the October Revolution; after 1928, it seems the thinking of many Soviet Communists was as follows: (2) 1. If the state is the holder of property and government is established to administer to plan and administer the two general categories of production (means of production and means of personal consumption), that which is fundamental to reproduction of means of production and consumption, will not longer occur on the basis of capitalist private property, with its laws of anarchy of production
Re: [Marxism] History going forward as biography.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In a message dated 1/2/2010 4:36:08 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, shm...@pipeline.com writes: And so before talking about history in relation to such recent figures as Jackson, Presley, Marx and Lincoln it would be well to remember Chou En-Lie's profound evaluation of the Great French Revolution: It's still too recent to determine. Reply :-) That blows my mind. I always wondered it this is remarkable patients born of a long continuous history or the impact of a long history of Confucianism and its demand for conformity. Maybe a little of both. WL Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The Pitfalls of Criticising Israel and Zionism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:07:40 -0300 Nestor Gorojovsky nmg...@gmail.com writes: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Long time ago, Gary MacLennan bestowed on yours truly the (hopefully at least in part deserved) title of honorary Irishman. This is my day to return gifts. You are a honorary Jew, Gary. Gary MacLennan escribió: Hi Ismail, of course there are many, many Jews who are deeply scandalised and offended by what is being done in their name by the Israelis. Our moderator is one of them. For them to be a Jew is to be for human rights and social justice. They are proud of the Jews who fought for workers rights throughout the world. They are proud of the Jews who fought in the International Brigade in Spain. They are proud of the Jews who fought for the rights of Afro-Americans.That is the tradition of Judaism which they wish to keep alive and which the butchers of Tel Aviv wish to see buried. ... Rabbi Akiba when asked to teach the whole Torah, summed it all up by saying What is hateful to yourself do not to your fellow-man. There is nothing at all anti-Semitic by insisting that this is the truth of what it is to be a Jew and that Zionism is a hateful cancerous growth. See Bertell Ollman's essay, Letter of Resignation from the Jewish People http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/resignation.php Compare and contrast with Werner Cohn's Jews who hate Israel http://tinyurl.com/ydxg76f Jim F. Water Heater Some like it hot. Click now for a reliable new water heater! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=yWQMAHe-I5OOzv7yIvi7bQAAJ1BRugI4sJACAWmXIev8NAFPAAYAAADNAAAGIAA= Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The Pitfalls of Criticising Israel and Zionism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == gary... i fully accept/understand a small point; i don't believe that anything that is done by the state of israel has anything to do with jews or judaism. it is, in part, quite simply a repressive state which has aspects of its foreign policy which is damn despicable. my shirt-sleeve argument is like this: marx has as little to do with what happened under stalinism as jesus has anything to do with christianity today judaism has little to do with jewish solidarity with emancipatory politics. the same may be said of islam/muslims etc etc not that i speak on behalf of any religion or its followers. in peace... and with respect, always Aluta Continua! From: Nestor Gorojovsky nmg...@gmail.com To: Ismail Lagardien ilagard...@yahoo.com Sent: Sat, 2 January, 2010 17:07:40 Subject: Re: [Marxism] The Pitfalls of Criticising Israel and Zionism == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Long time ago, Gary MacLennan bestowed on yours truly the (hopefully at least in part deserved) title of honorary Irishman. This is my day to return gifts. You are a honorary Jew, Gary. Gary MacLennan escribió: Hi Ismail, of course there are many, many Jews who are deeply scandalised and offended by what is being done in their name by the Israelis. Our moderator is one of them. For them to be a Jew is to be for human rights and social justice. They are proud of the Jews who fought for workers rights throughout the world. They are proud of the Jews who fought in the International Brigade in Spain. They are proud of the Jews who fought for the rights of Afro-Americans.That is the tradition of Judaism which they wish to keep alive and which the butchers of Tel Aviv wish to see buried. ... Rabbi Akiba when asked to teach the whole Torah, summed it all up by saying What is hateful to yourself do not to your fellow-man. There is nothing at all anti-Semitic by insisting that this is the truth of what it is to be a Jew and that Zionism is a hateful cancerous growth. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/ilagardien%40yahoo.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The Pitfalls of Criticising Israel and Zionism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == a small correction/point of clarity i wrote judaism has little to do with jewish solidarity with emancipatory politics. what i should have written was: judaism has little or nothing to do with the participation in liberatory/emancipatory politics of individuals who consider themselves to be jewish Aluta Continua! Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Lenin had it right
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thomas F. Barton wrote: But Trotsky, they conveniently forget, also claimed that Stalin's Russia was a socialist society, just one run by a pack of murdering thugs led by the tyrant Stalin. He argued that only a political revolution was necessary to rescue a Russian socialist organization of production from bad people. So, on the basic, Stalin and Trotsky were in complete agreement: Stalin's Russia was an example of socialism for the world to support and defend. Puke. If I were such a complete jackass and idiot as Barton, I'd put a bullet through my head. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Barack Obama Worked For The CIA - John Pilger
I would guess that the 'spook' connection goes back to Obama transferring to Columbia and studying under Zbigniew Brezinski. You can see evidence of firm connections to the 'intel' side of the 'national security state' starting from there. It could go back to his parents, but I'm having a hard enough time getting information on Barry himself. His education is decidedly obscure, to say the least, until he gets to Harvard Law school. How much 'foundation' money poured into Columbia with the Zbigheadedone there, pontificating away on the Russians, the Soviet Union, with young Barry attending the lectures? We can see evidence for 'spookdom' all over Obama's administration. In that it is typical of a post WW II administration. For a start, the guy he appointed as head of CIA, Leon Panetta has been billed as an 'outsider' but is clearly a total intel community insider--that is the only way his own strange career makes any sense. The last time they brought him in to be a guy on the inside was director of OMB, so you had the military and intel interests making damn well good and sure that any Clinton 'balanced budgets' still kept the gravy train going their way. This actually was in close follow up to the 'consolidation' that had taken place under Poppy Bush, much of it overseen by Dick Cheney himself. Leon actually seems to be a spook who is not a career CIA man, which is altogether possible when you remember that there are so many other intel agencies and institutions in the 'national security state'. The CIA must have been in real disarray post 9/11, and we see the emergence of a Panetta faction to try and straighten things out--hence all the backbiting after the recent trouble, like the Nigerian bomber incident and the 'they got caught with their pants down' massacre in E. Afghanistan (apparently a drone base). I would bet military types hope the demonstrably incompetent CIA can be done away with or neutralized while all the military types the CIA has infiltrated into the military are working for the opposite. The most amazing thing about the airplane incident though was how they immediately sold a 'Yemen' connection--and the sheeple bought it! The other spook that is highly visible in the Obama administration isn't as far as I can tell ours--he's Israel's--Rahm(bo) 'the fireplug' Emanuel . No doubt he is there because they are worried about the evil Z(bigniew) man's influence. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Barack Obama Worked For The CIA - John Pilger
Or maybe Panetta is actually the CIA's man come back to help them out one last time before he bows out of 'public life'. At any rate, you can see the results of having so many factions in the national security state vying for more money to go their way. It looks like this time around Biden and Panetta argued the CIA could take care of Afghanistan, and McChrystal argued for a military special forces plan. Of course we will get a lot of both before it is all said and done, but it looks like the CIA is going to have to re-think their forward operations bases. BTW, as you read on enjoy the laughable propaganda about what war heroes Karzai and his CIA pals are. http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/observation-post/2009/12/catfights-amongst-the-us-spook.html CATFIGHTS AMONGST THE US SPOOKS By Chris Hughes on Dec 2, 09 10:09 AM in All's not well amongst the American spies, I hear. A veteran of the US spook world retired Admiral Dennis Blair was confirmed as President Barrack Obama's director of national intelligence soon after the inauguration. It was Blair who has had a running battle with CIA director Leon Panetta - another Obama appointee - over who will be the real don when it comes to American intelligence. The White House had given Blair the authority to evaluate the effectiveness of sensitive operations run by U.S. spies. This inevitably led to him treading on Leon Panetta's toes - and not in a good way. In a memo sent to staff on November 13, Blair went out of his way to note that this would include operations conducted by the CIA. It was a little vague, apparently but the point was definitely made. Blair was making it clear that he would now have a say about whether the agency's (CIA) covert action programs were worth the effort. In effect, Blair would now get to really mess with the CIA in a way that has never been possible before. Earlier in the year, Blair wanted the final say on who would be the government's principal intelligence representative in American stations abroad. Previously this was always decided by the CIA director--who before the creation of the DNI was known as director of central intelligence - basically the boss of all spies. This made sense, I am told , because station chiefs were almost always CIA officers. But Blair wanted to be the boss and discussions were had behind closed doors. Then the doors were opened and the row became quite public - ending in Panetta retaining that authority for the CIA. The turf fights occur because the position of DNI is itself unclear. Panetta has not lost out altogether in the matter of overseeing sensitive operations either. Blair's new responsibilities do not include authority of giving the nod to CIA operations themselves--even though that's what he wanted. Covert action remains a matter to be decided largely between Langley and the White House. And still the arguments continue - but it's all a product of the rearranging of the US intelligence world that took place after 9-11. This was a prime example of agencies within the intelligence community failing to share information with each other and with the law enforcement community. But Washington wanted to streamline U.S. intelligence, basically to create a less fractionalized community. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Activities_Division Afghanistan During the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Paramilitary Operations Officers were instrumental in training, equipping and sometimes leading Mujaheddin forces against the Red Army. Although the CIA in general and a Texas congressman named Charlie Wilson in particular, have received most of the attention, the key architect of this strategy was Michael G. Vickers. Vickers was a young Paramilitary Operations Officer from SAD/SOG. The CIA's efforts have been given credit for assisting in ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.[78] SAD paramilitary teams were active in Afghanistan in the 1990s in clandestine operations to locate and kill or capture Osama Bin Laden. These teams planned several operations, but did not receive the order to execute from President Bill Clinton because the available intelligence did not guarantee a successful outcome weighed against the extraordinary risk to the SAD/SOG teams that would execute the mission.[17] These efforts did however build many of the relationships that would prove essential in the 2001 U.S. Invasion of Afghanistan.[17] In 2001, SAD units were the first U.S. forces to enter Afghanistan. Their efforts organized the Afghan Northern Alliance for the subsequent arrival of USSOCOM forces. SAD, U.S. Army Special Forces and the Northern Alliance combined to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan with minimal loss of U.S. lives. They did this without the need for U.S. military conventional forces.[17][79][80][81] The Washington Post stated in an editorial by John Lehman in 2006: What made the Afghan campaign a landmark in the U.S. Military's history is that it was
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Barack Obama Worked For The CIA - John Pilger
And that highly fictionalized account of what went on in Afghanistan leads me to think all the more that the whole thing has been concocted to take away GUILT over 9/11 in the first place. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Barack Obama Worked For The CIA - John Pilger
One last follow up about this as it relates to Bill Clinton. The thing that really tied it up for Clinton was his second stretch as Arkansas governor, 1983-1992. He let the federal government, through the National Guard Bureau, pump money through his state into Central America to keep the not-so-covert covert war going against the Sandinistas. I'm sure Clinton looked at it as a way to get money from the military that otherwise normally wouldn't have come Arkansas's way (West Virginia did this too, a special project of Sen. Byrd). But one key difference is that in terms of airbourne operations, Arkansas is a lot closer to where (1) much of the US military is already located, such as Florida, Texas, Alabama and (2) closer to the 'theatre of operations', Central America. So one scam the NGB, state national guards and the US military had going was to heavily equip and outfit Guard and Reserve units to do their annual training in Honduras, and then the units would leave much of the gear in Honduras for the contras to get. By not asserting any sort of governor's privilege over all this (contrast this with Dukakis, who has Governor of Mass. somewhat objected) illegal operations he got his state federal spending and he made a lot of friends in the 'national security state'. I don't know what the chicken or the egg is here. Perhaps Clinton was already deep inside the 'national security state' and that is why he made the decisions as governor that he did. But it seems to me that up until that time he would have had a very unlikely path to national-level bipartisan politics. OTOH, after being so unsuccessful in his first term as governor of Arkansas, you do have to wonder about his political comeback, which led to his very successful and long run as governor and then his near-obscure path to Democratic Party nomination for presidential candidate. If nothing else he turned out to be far better at organizing his finances than the other Democrats and so was able to outlast his relatively slow start. Given the obscure source of funds in his earlier life, perhaps Clinton was always the 'candidate' of some element's of the national security state--picked from grad school on. Like Charlie Wilson or Leon Panetta, only more charismatic and less kooky than Wilson and more charismatic than Panetta (Hispanic and Italian names are still a no-no for national politics at the highest level, as are Asian or Asian Indian names or looks). When I saw Obama in 2004--and the reactions his rather awful speech at the convention got--I figured that there was no way we would not see him running for president as a Democrat the next time around (because I was sure Kerry was going to lose). I would bet top Democrats felt it was their best way to counter African Americans like Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice running as Republicans. The irony is neither of them are very popular with their own party in any sort of grassroots way. That grassroots being so parochial and even to quite an extent more racist and xenophoic than working class Democrats. They don't like Colin Powell for being such an uppity Caribbean self-made -- dare I say it -- intellectual. He seems to quite an extent like a bright but mostly self-educated man (who credits that to the discipline the military gave him, but I rather doubt that). And they probably don't like Condoleeza Rice for her professorial airs and her lesbianism. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
