Re: [Marxism] reset to 5.31.2008
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Joaquin, I don't know the websites you suggest, so have no sense of why they would a better place to post. Enlighten us since you seem to be an expert in their positions. --Kathleen Librarians and Human Rights http://justicelibraries.blogspot.com/ === On 23 Jan 2010 at 10:08, Louis Proyect wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Joaquin Bustelo wrote: You will probably be more comfortable posting in forums like the Huffington post or MSNBC or with that sort of outlook. Continuing to post here most likely will simply get you pilloried. 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] Recession's impact on upstate New Yorkers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (An article from my hometown paper.) http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100124/NEWS/1240344 News Recession reveals new face of homeless in mid-Hudson 'It could happen to you or your neighbor' By Steve Israel Times Herald-Record January 24, 2010 2:00 AM Lounging in his box seat near the sparkling green baseball diamond, feet on the dugout roof as he munches a hot dog, no one could possibly know the dad is homeless — not even his kids next to him. But after the dad had taken those kids to the Hudson Valley Renegades game — buying the great seats to salvage a shred of dignity — the divorced ex-Wall Street worker drops his children at their mom's house. Then he drives to the Walmart parking lot, sets the front seat of his SUV in the reclining position, covers himself with one of his 8 blankets and goes to sleep in his only home, his car. This is the face of the new — and hidden — mid-Hudson homeless: middle-class men and women without a safety net who, when they lose their jobs, often live under the public radar by finding shelter in cars and on couches. This dad was a computer analyst from the city who just a few years ago was earning enough money — $80,000 per year in salaries and bonuses — to buy a new, three-bedroom $250,000 colonial home on three-quarters of an acre in Orange County, with a finished basement, a backyard swing set and a basketball hoop. Then the dad — who wants to be called Lenny because he's too embarrassed to give his real name — loses his job in the Wall Street layoffs that have so far cost more than 100,000 financial workers their positions. The Bronx native, who had been living paycheck to paycheck to pay more than $3,000 per month in expenses that included a $1,500-per-month mortgage from Countrywide, cannot pay his bills, not even with his wife's $500-per-week office job. He opens the mail to find threatening foreclosure notices. He picks up the phone to hear threatening foreclosure phone calls. He has no savings. He has no job. He loses his home. He has enough pride not to want to tell his only close relative, his elderly mother, that he's losing everything, this man without a college degree who built a new life by working. So on a hot and muggy August day three years ago, he shuts the door of his dream home one final time. With a backpack containing his $100 leather jacket from the Gap, some clothes, toiletries and pictures of his kids, Lenny, then 55, heads to the place that — along with brief stays in an apartment, two filthy motels and a long stay in a clean shelter — would be his new home for months, that SUV with 200,000 miles on it. I can't even articulate how (crappy) I felt, Lenny says. So when he finally gets some money from the sale of that house — after settling his divorce — he wants to do something for the kids he'd read bedtime stories to. He buys them those Renegades season tickets. The best, he says. You do anything for normalcy. Face of homeless has changed The new, often hidden homeless are middle-age ex-Wall Street workers like Lenny, who sleep in cars beneath towering mall lights, play poker on laptops and read library books about larger-than-life heroes like Joe DiMaggio. They sneak showers at truck stops and work temporary jobs at malls including Woodbury Common. It's not drug addicts or derelicts; it's teachers, secretaries, truck drivers, says Lenny, ticking off some folks he's met at soup kitchens and shelters. The new homeless are mothers like Monticello's Sherry Sanders, who quits her waitress job that paid as much as $800 a week to move to the mountains from New Jersey with a boyfriend. Then she loses her new $15 per hour house-cleaning job when the resort closes. She ends up sleeping on friends' couches after the relationship ends. All she has left is the eyeliner she wears to remind her of better days. Pride doesn't allow her to tell her married kids about her homelessness. The new homeless are young office worker moms like Middletown's Tanya Covert, who could not pay the $2,000 per month it costs for her to rent, heat, power and eat in her mobile home. So she too ends up homeless, finding shelter for herself and her little girl in a motel room just outside her daughter's school district. She waits weeks to tell the school she's homeless — and eligible for free meals — for fear the girl will have to transfer from the school she loves. The new homeless include a real estate broker whose income has been slashed from $200,000 to $20,000. They include a nurse and a carpenter, a teacher and a secretary who have been living on the thin ice of the recession economy and have fallen through the cracks when they lose their jobs. The face of the homeless
Re: [Marxism] Recession's impact on upstate New Yorkers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=892270category=ALBANY 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] A history of capitalism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (The author is a libertarian who defends the Brenner thesis.) The New York Times Book Review January 24, 2010 Capitalist Chameleon By STEPHEN MIHM THE RELENTLESS REVOLUTION A History of Capitalism By Joyce Appleby 494 pp. W. W. Norton Company. $29.95 What is the nature of capitalism? For Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian-born economist whose writings have acquired a special relevance in the past year or two, this most modern of economic systems “incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.” Capitalism, Schumpeter proclaimed, cannot stand still; it is a system driven by waves of entrepreneurial innovation, or what he memorably described as a “perennial gale of creative destruction.” Schumpeter died in 1950, but his ghost looms large over Joyce Appleby’s splendid new account of the “relentless revolution” unleashed by capitalism from the 16th century onward. Appleby, a distinguished historian who has dedicated her career to studying the origins of capitalism in the Anglo-American world, here broadens her scope to take in the global history of capitalism in all its creative — and destructive — glory. She begins “The Relentless Revolution” by noting that the rise of the economic system we call capitalism was in many ways improbable. It was, she rightly observes, “a startling departure from the norms that had prevailed for 4,000 years,” signaling the arrival of a new mentality, one that permitted private investors to pursue profits at the expense of older values and customs. In viewing capitalism as an extension of a culture unique to a particular time and place, Appleby is understandably contemptuous of those who posit, in the spirit of Adam Smith, that capitalism was a natural outgrowth of human nature. She is equally scornful of those who believe that its emergence was in any way inevitable or inexorable. Appleby believes that intimations of capitalism’s rise first surfaced in the Netherlands, where an otherwise unremarkable country with few resources of its own managed to catapult itself to wealth and prominence in the space of a century. While Appleby lingers on the Dutch — and even manages to make things like the herring trade sound interesting — her principal subject is Britain, which she considers the true cradle of capitalism. Her focus on Britain has little to do with William Blake’s “dark satanic mills” and other symbols of the Industrial Revolution. Instead, Appleby sees in mundane changes in agriculture the beginnings of later, more dramatic, developments. In 16th-century Europe, she observes, about 80 percent of the population was engaged in agriculture — roughly the same proportion as at the time of the Roman Empire. By 1800, the British farming population had dropped by more than half, thanks to innovations that produced a new, commercial agriculture, like crop rotation and the private enclosure of public lands. These efficiencies created a huge pool of surplus labor, setting the stage for the more visible British capitalism in the coming centuries. It is to Appleby’s credit that she spends time on a subject like this, which is too often slighted in popular histories. In a similar spirit, she captures how a new generation of now forgotten economic writers active long before Adam Smith built a case “that the elements in any economy were negotiable and fluid, the exact opposite of the stasis so long desired.” This was a revolution of the mind, not machines, and it ushered in profound changes in how people viewed everything from usury to joint stock companies. As she bluntly concludes, “there can be no capitalism . . . without a culture of capitalism.” Unfortunately, not all the new things replacing the old were good. Appleby dutifully describes the rather ugly forces that the quest for profit unleashed, from an enormous expansion of the African slave trade to the increasingly grim working conditions in factories. She doesn’t merely tell the history of capitalism, but what she calls the “shadow history of anticapitalism” — the resistance to the revolutions that capitalism wrought. Labor leaders come and go in her story, as do more radical figures: Karl Marx, Emma Goldman, many others. But make no mistake: this is a book that emphasizes capitalist enterprise, not resistance to it. The individual entrepreneur is at the center of her analysis, and her book offers thumbnail sketches of British innovators from James Watt to Josiah Wedgwood. She continues on to the United States and Germany, giving readers a whirlwind tour of the lives and achievements of a host of men whom she calls “industrial leviathans” — Vanderbilt, Rockefeller and
Re: [Marxism] [microsound] Dan LaBotz: What happened to the American working class?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Class consciousness took its biggest hit in the post-World War II period when U.S. society was suburbanized. When workers lived in apartment buildings and stopped at the local tavern after work, when people organized rent parties to save families from eviction, when workers walked together or rode the bus or subway together to get to their jobs, class consciousness was a lot stronger. When workers were put behind their white picket fences and Chevrolets in the 1950s, when face-to-face conversation was replaced by the stream of noise from television, workers became much easier to control. Of course, the debt burden of mortgages contributed mightily to a reluctance to strike. The current recession is the first to call suburbanization into question. Home ownership has been, throughout the baby-boom generation's lifetime, the best investment for economic security for the relatively privileged working-class family. That may no longer be the case. This is as dramatic a change in the objective political situation as the collapse of Stalinism at the beginning of the 1990s. I am not claiming to have a thorough analysis right now, but we certainly need one. This is what we need to be talking about, getting to understand, and applying to our day-to-day political work. Tom 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] Argentina's debt as tragedy and farce
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == a rough translation... The debt is not the problem By Juan Kornblihtt The fight between the government and the opposition for the so-called Bi-centennial Fund and whether the money should come from the funds held by the state or the central bank’s reserves, shows the programmatic coincidence of interests of the two sides. The distinction is only a tactical one. The government and the opposition are in agreement as to the return to the indebtedness cycle of the 90’s. The difference is that that the government aspires to imitate Menem and Martínez de Hoz but trying to avoid ending up as Raúl Alfonsín o Celestino Rodrigo. On the other hand, the opposition wants to be Menem starting 2011, but they also want the government to make the previous adjustment (i.e. to assume the role of the disgraceful fallen). The two coincide in becoming indebted once again and favoring foreign lenders and national capitals on the workers’ backs, upon whom the burden of these policies will ultimately fall. From resolution 125 to the nationalizations of the AFJP (pension funds) In spite of official rhetoric, the scene of general crisis of capital accumulation in Argentina is set. After the devaluation, the means of support for the recovery was the strong increase in agrarian rent, pushed by the rise in soy prices. This allowed for protectionist scheme based on an undervalued exchange rate and subsidies which compensated for the low competitiveness of local industries, whether national or foreign ones. This explains the recovery of industrial activity and employment after the debacle of 2001. But to protect means to transfer real resources, and if the great majority of capitals receives more than they give, it is necessary for them to find new sources. A part of what was spent in keeping the dollar high and providing subsidies came from the rent captured through retentions, and the surplus value due to the increase in the rate of exploitation of workers, captured through taxes. However, another important part did not have a real grounding. The pesos to buy dollars, the credits via bond emissions and the subsidies were made, largely, with monetary emission without backing, which accelerated inflation. Therefore, the protectionist effect of the 3 to 1 exchange rate lost its potency. Adding to this, the government’s fiscal problems were brought to the surface, particularly those of the provinces, although also, and in a more and more pressing manner, those of the national state. The looked-for solutions always went in the same direction: to get fresh funds to keep transferring them to the local and foreign bourgeoisie through exchange protection and subsidies. First increasing the retentions, and then nationalizing the AFJP. But the plan which was always behind this whole pursuit was becoming indebted again. In fact, Cristina Kirchner’s presidential campaign was pulled through coquetting abroad with future lenders and promising “juridical safety” and exchange and tariffs adjustments as offerings to get fresh money. Cristina’s plan to go back to the 90’s is implicit in her electoral platform, beyond the rhetoric of her speeches. That is why the cover of the number 39 of the paper El Aromo, of November 2007, under the title “Results and Prospects”, showed Cristina face to face with Menem. In spite of the polemics which this generated, the comparison was and is pertinent. Nonetheless, that plan could not be implemented exactly as Cristina wanted. Even though she replaced any vestiges of Keynesianism and put some of the most rancid orthodox neoliberals as functionaries in the ministry of economy, this symbolic gesture was not enough for the international banks to lend the money. The main problem in spite of all these gestures is that Cristina’s plan to be Menem ran into the financial fall down and the scarcity of credit. This explains why the payment to the Paris Club could never concretize itself even with all the repeated negotiations, nor was the situation with the bonds which had defaulted fixed, the government’s will notwithstanding. The key to the problem is not in the lack of will or a firm government position in the negotiations, but in the lack of credit. The conditions of the Kirchnerist menemization The objective of paying the debt is to borrow again and cover up the increasing accumulation problems. To do this, the government needs two things. The first and fundamental one is financial availability on an international level. The second one is solvency, even if only superficially. This is why the government cannot use its own funds, given that, beyond the manipulations of the INDEC (the national institute of statistics and census, which releases
[Marxism] When the Media Is the Disaster: Covering Haiti
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == When the Media Is the Disaster: Covering Haiti Rebecca Solnit, Author of A Paradise Built in Hell, about Hurricane Katrina Posted: January 21, 2010 12:56 PM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-solnit/when-the-media-is-the- dis_b_431617.html Soon after almost every disaster the crimes begin: ruthless, selfish, indifferent to human suffering, and generating far more suffering. The perpetrators go unpunished and live to commit further crimes against humanity. They care less for human life than for property. They act without regard for consequences. I’m talking, of course, about those members of the mass media whose misrepresentation of what goes on in disaster often abets and justifies a second wave of disaster. I’m talking about the treatment of sufferers as criminals, both on the ground and in the news, and the endorsement of a shift of resources from rescue to property patrol. They still have blood on their hands from Hurricane Katrina, and they are staining themselves anew in Haiti. Within days of the Haitian earthquake, for example, the Los Angeles Times ran a series of photographs with captions that kept deploying the word “looting.” One was of a man lying face down on the ground with this caption: “A Haitian police officer ties up a suspected looter who was carrying a bag of evaporated milk.” The man’s sweaty face looks up at the camera, beseeching, anguished. Another photo was labeled: “Looting continued in Haiti on the third day after the earthquake, although there were more police in downtown Port-au-Prince.” It showed a somber crowd wandering amid shattered piles of concrete in a landscape where, visibly, there could be little worth taking anyway. A third image was captioned: “A looter makes off with rolls of fabric from an earthquake-wrecked store.” Yet another: “The body of a police officer lies in a Port-au-Prince street. He was accidentally shot by fellow police who mistook him for a looter.” People were then still trapped alive in the rubble. A translator for Australian TV dug out a toddler who’d survived 68 hours without food or water, orphaned but claimed by an uncle who had lost his pregnant wife. Others were hideously wounded and awaiting medical attention that wasn’t arriving. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, needed, and still need, water, food, shelter, and first aid. The media in disaster bifurcates. Some step out of their usual “objective” roles to respond with kindness and practical aid. Others bring out the arsenal of clichés and pernicious myths and begin to assault the survivors all over again. The “looter” in the first photo might well have been taking that milk to starving children and babies, but for the news media that wasn’t the most urgent problem. The “looter” stooped under the weight of two big bolts of fabric might well have been bringing it to now homeless people trying to shelter from a fierce tropical sun under improvised tents. The pictures do convey desperation, but they don’t convey crime. Except perhaps for that shooting of a fellow police officer -- his colleagues were so focused on property that they were reckless when it came to human life, and a man died for no good reason in a landscape already saturated with death. In recent days, there have been scattered accounts of confrontations involving weapons, and these may be a different matter. But the man with the powdered milk? Is he really a criminal? There may be more to know, but with what I’ve seen I’m not convinced. What Would You Do? Imagine, reader, that your city is shattered by a disaster. Your home no longer exists, and you spent what cash was in your pockets days ago. Your credit cards are meaningless because there is no longer any power to run credit-card charges. Actually, there are no longer any storekeepers, any banks, any commerce, or much of anything to buy. The economy has ceased to exist. By day three, you’re pretty hungry and the water you grabbed on your way out of your house is gone. The thirst is far worse than the hunger. You can go for many days without food, but not water. And in the improvised encampment you settle in, there is an old man near you who seems on the edge of death. He no longer responds when you try to reassure him that this ordeal will surely end. Toddlers are now crying constantly, and their mothers infinitely stressed and distressed. So you go out to see if any relief organization has finally arrived to distribute anything, only to realize that there are a million others like you stranded with nothing, and there isn’t likely to be anywhere near enough aid anytime soon. The guy with the corner store has already given
[Marxism] Obama's Indian problem
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2010/jan/11/native-americans-reservations-poverty-obama 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] Dan LaBotz: What happened to the American working class?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Of course, in the grand scheme of things, the boomers have already taken massively big hits ever since we've come of age. And younger workers have faced ever declining prospects. I know college graduates who waited tables when they were students, graduated, and kept the same job waiting tables because there's just nothing better. This is outrageous, but nobody really seems that outraged. You can't help but wonder how bad things have to get before workers: 1) start to take serious notice of it; 2) realize that its a social question faced by everybody who works; and, 3) take action in response. 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] reset to 5.31.2008
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Mathew Russo wrote: 1) The Democrats, like the Republicans are not simply capitalist parties, but as Obama is demonstrating beyond all possible doubt, the former, like the later, is an utterly reactionary rightwing party, albeit more moderately rightwing, while the latter is the party of the radical right. In no way is the Democratic Party a liberal party. What exactly do you mean? You are not using the term 'liberal' in the completely incorrect common way used in the US, are you? Can we please make a conscious effort on this list to use the term in its more precise way- meaning economic liberty, liberalism/neoliberalism... This is also the way the rest of the world uses it. If we do that. Then yes, the Democratic party is probably the most liberal party in the entire world. 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
[Marxism] [microsound] Interview With Thomas Ferguson, Part 1 of 3
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Not long but interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4RN2x_7XocNR=1 -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Interview-With-Thomas-Ferguson%2C-Part-1-of-3-tp27297464p27297464.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
[Marxism] HOW MANY CRIMES CAN THE U.S. COMMIT IN A CENTURY?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == HOW MANY CRIMES CAN THE U.S. COMMIT IN A CENTURY? EVIDENTLY THEIR ABILITY TO MORE AND MORE EGREGIOUS CRIMES ARE LIMITLESS! IT'S UP TO US TO STOP THEM! U.S. OUT OF HAITI NOW! LEAVE THE FOOD AND SUPPLIES AND GET THE HELL OUT! AND TAKE YOUR GUNS AND TANKS WITH YOU! U.S. Marines prevent the distribution of food to starving people due to lack of security. They bring a truck full of supplies then, because their chain of command says they haven't enough men with guns, they drive away with the truckload of food leaving the starving Haitians running after the truck empty-handed! This is shown in detail in the video in the New York Times titled, Confusion in Haitian Countryside. The Marines--the brave, the strong--turn tail and run! INCAPABLE OF DISTRIBUTING FOOD TO UNARMED, STARVING, MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN! http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/01/22/world/americas/ 1247466678828/confusion-in-the-haitian-countryside.html?ref=world 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 death of the American newspaper
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/the-death-of-the-american-newspaper/ 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 impact of financial crisis on California college students
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == NY Times, January 24, 2010 Students Face a Class Struggle at State Colleges By KATHARINE MIESZKOWSKI At 2:29 p.m. on Jan. 12, Juan Macias, 19, a sophomore at San Francisco State University, sat in a cafe near the engineering firm where he works part time as an office assistant, staring at a laptop computer screen. In one minute he would get a crucial opportunity to register for classes for the spring semester. “This is so nerve-wracking, he said as he waited for the clock to signal that his assigned registration period had begun. Hours earlier, scrutinizing the class schedule, he considered about 30 courses — then had to rule all of them out. They were full. The last slot on the waiting list for a 146-seat introductory physics class he has been trying to join for a year had disappeared minutes before, taken by another student with an earlier registration period. “You’re trying to compete with all the other students, when we all want education,” said Mr. Macias, a business major. “It really makes me angry.” His classes — the ones that had an opening — begin on Monday. Welcome to state-run higher education in California. Mr. Macias is just one of more than 26,000 students at San Francisco State, and now educational opportunities cost more and are harder to grasp and even harder to hold onto than ever before. Mr. Macias’s experience of truncated offerings, furloughed professors and crowded classrooms is typical. Neither of Mr. Macias’s parents went to college; his father is a railroad conductor. One of his five siblings dropped out of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo to go to community college because of financial constraints. Terry Hartle, the senior vice president of the American Council on Education, a trade association representing colleges and universities, confirmed that higher education in California has become akin to navigating an obstacle course. “There are an awful lot of students in California who are having similar problems,” he said. “This is a potential tragedy for individual students.” In 1960, he added, the state created “the gold standard in high-quality, low-cost public higher education. This year, the California legislature abandoned the gold standard.” Because of state budget cuts to higher education, San Francisco State is now offering 3,173 course sections, 12 percent fewer than two years ago. From the university administration’s point of view, that is not as bad as it might have been: over $1.5 million in federal stimulus money prevented more draconian cuts. Among other things, oversubscribed classrooms can force a student like Mr. Macias, who must be enrolled full time to keep financial aid, to take courses that might have little to do with his progress toward graduation. This semester, he is signed up for a biology class, but was unable to get into the companion laboratory class. His other courses are a workshop on the “history, aesthetics, mechanics and politics of rap music and hip-hop culture,” a class built around the campus radio station, KSFS, and a class called “The Origins of Rock,” which is supposed to be for upperclassmen. He is on the waiting list for a humanities class called Style and Expressive Forms and a physics laboratory class, which he hopes will help him get into the physics lecture class. They are meant to be taken together. But taking any class you can get into just to stay enrolled is no recipe for excelling academically. Last semester his grades suffered. “I’m taking these classes that I don’t care about, getting bad grades in these classes,” Mr. Macias said. “That’s affecting my G.P.A., at the same time that I’m fighting so that I can have grades. It’s really contradictory.” And it is not just classes that he has to deal with this semester. He must also deal with the legal system. He faces misdemeanor trespassing charges as a result of joining last semester’s protests of the budget cuts. Still, things could be worse. If he were a year younger, he would not be able to take classes at San Francisco State. This spring, cutbacks have largely ended the opportunity for community college students to move into the state university system, which enrolls 433,000 students. Mr. Macias transferred a year ago from Allan Hancock College, a community college in Santa Maria. Also, in response to budget cuts, San Francisco State plans to reduce enrollment more than 10 percent for the 2010-11 academic year. “These students are being told the doors to the university are closing,” said Kenneth Monteiro, dean of the university’s College of Ethnic Studies, where even the student resource center has been shuttered for lack of funds. This academic year, the university
Re: [Marxism] HOW MANY CRIMES CAN THE U.S. COMMIT IN A CENTURY? this is the wrong question!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == If you will allow me, the question IS: How long can the US get away with it!? Is http://www.ilagardien.com My little space in the e-world: A profit-free zone :-) Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.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
[Marxism] The Working Class Has Spoken. Will ( AFL-CIO) President Trumka Listen?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == FYI: The following post by me is from the Peace and Freedom Party Blog: http://peaceandfreedom.org/blog/?p=1793#more-1793 This post is an edited comment made on a posted article the AFL-CIO NOW web site. The article, with all the comments, can be read here: The Working Class Has Spoken. Will Democrats Listen? My comment is really an perhaps expression of wishful thinking. The labor movement and it’s leaders have been the fully corrupted “business partners” to corporate capitalism for decades, The lack of a “left” today is due to absence of a mass independent, anti-capitalist (socialist) labor movement or political party that represents the economic interests of the working class. -- “The Working Class Has Spoken. Will Democrats Listen?” Obviously not! The Democrats and Obama are now the ruling party to further looting the treasury and destruction of the public services essential to working people. Everything “accomplished” in this first year of Obama has been to restore and expand the wealth of Wall Street, the profits of Big Business, the transfer of social wealth to the military-industrial complex with more wars for more profits, the corrupt enrichment of “Health Care” corporations, etc. All this “recovery” of profit and wealth by the ruling elite from the the economy invariably impoverishes working people. The more important question that must be asked now is this: ” The Working Class Has Spoken. Will ( AFL-CIO) President Trumka Listen?” President Trumka has refused to listen to the delegates to the AFL-CIO in Pittsburgh in September that unanimously voted to support “single-payer” health care legislation. He also refused to listen to the 500 plus union locals that voted for “single payer” Medicare-for-All. Mr. Trumka continues to support Obama’s “Health Care Reform”, with all it’s obvious faults, often posted on this (AFL-CIO) blog. There are powerful steps that Mr. Trumka, the AFL-CIO leadership, and the leadership of organized labor could easily take, if they would just listen to the explicit demands of union members. Organized labor must also listen to the painful outcries and demands of millions of un-organized working people, not just organized “middle-class” workers, as all workers and their families are being impoverished and destroyed by Obama and the Democratic Party. It is vitally important for “leaders” to “listen”. But more importantly it is time to ACT! Organized labor leadership must now SPEAK OUT NOW and to ORGANIZE NOW to promote the economic interests of all working people. In the process, the organized trade union movement membership will undoubtedly increase and trade unions will become the powerful instrument of working class power. Here are some ACTIONS that the trade unions need to make, after listening and understanding, based on the needs of the working class today: 1. Announce that the AFL-CIO no longer supports Obama’s “Health Care Reform” in any form, and is supporting the legislation for “Medicare for All” single payer health care. 2. Announce that the AFL-CIO no longer supports neither Republican nor Democratic Parties, as both are consumed with corrupt corporate money and interests. Neither party represents the economic interests of working people, organized or unorganized. Both corporate controlled parties have betrayed the vital economic needs of all working people, organized and unorganized. 3. The AFL-CIO realizes now that the simple strategy of trade unionism, the economic struggle for a contract with an employer, is now an inadequate strategy to meeting the needs of organized workers. 4. The struggle for economic betterment of organized working people must now be greatly expanded into a political struggle. Sociali Security, Medicare, minimum wages, OSHA safety conditions, section 8 housing support, pensions, unfair working conditions, etc. are all now secured and protected from government legislation at federal, state and local levels of government. 5. Therefore, the AFL-CIO, along with other union organizations, under these dire economic and political conditions, is calling for a founding convention of a new political party dedicated to promoting the economic and social interests of all working people, organized and unorganized. The new party, by refusing all corporate money and agendas, will involve millions of working people in democratic political struggle to secure the vital needs of the people. 6. The the economic and social needs of working people never find any expression in the corporate owned mass media nor even in the corporate controlled public media such as NPR and PBS. Thus we announce a new effort to
[Marxism] British Admission That Iraq War Was illegal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://pubrecord.org/multimedia/6701/officials-british-government/ I recently had an exchange with a close friend who tried to argue about the legitimacy of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan My last words on the matter was; Tell the Iraqis and the Afghanis who are being killed that the wars are legal Is http://www.ilagardien.com My little space in the e-world: A profit-free zone :-) Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com 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
[Marxism] John Halle responds to Mark Danner op-ed piece on Haiti
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (Halle teaches music at Bard while Danner teaches some kind of bullshit about humanitarian intervention. After Kovel's firing, Halle is the only real leftist still teaching there.) Mark Danner's Choice by John Halle A long standing staple of Fox News discourse claims that liberalism in the academy holds sway as a kind of semi-official ideology. This view is largely correct, though it should be kept in mind that it is the liberalism targeted in recent denunciations by Adolph Reed and Chris Hedges, not the radical leftism of teabaggers and other fantasists of the right. A more or less paradigmatic example of the former can be found in Mark Danner's recent NY Times Op-Ed To Heal Haiti, Look to History which would be quickly been picked up at commondreams.org, Democracy Now! and grit.tv among other sites. That the piece would be promoted by web organs of the authentic-as opposed to liberal- left was, at least superficially reasonable in that Danner's (or for that matter anyone's) minimally accurate thumb nail sketch of Haitian history could not fail but to deliver a stridently anti-imperialist message: Haiti has functioned as a state built for predation and plunder, starting with the complete eradication of its native population, to its establishment as the most brutal of slave states, to its functioning in the 20th century as a paradigmatic kleptocracy presided over by a string of vicious dictators serving themselves and the interests of foreign capital. Danner's bill of particulars, many of these laid on our doorstep, is of course regrettable, disturbing, and even damning and as such provides an opportunity for the displays of teeth gnashing and garment rending which liberals can be relied on to engage in. Their doing so requires, however, that one condition is met: that these instances are all safely in the past. Thus, what is predictably missing in Danner's discussion is anything other than the vaguest allusion to the recent history of Haiti. And it is this history which is largely responsible for the almost inconceivable scale of the devastation caused by what would otherwise be a major, but by no means unprecedented disaster. The relevant cause, as is described in the works of Robert Fatton, is demographic: for the past three decades the city of Port au Prince has grown from approximately 300,000 to over 2.5 million inhabitants. Lacking the infrastructure required to support this population and the financial wherewithal to develop it, most residents of the capital lived in slums lacking the most basic sanitation facilities, with only sporadic access to safe drinking water and frequently subjected to protracted encounters with what NGO's somewhat euphemistically refer to as food insecurity. Moreover, it hardly needs to be mentioned, building codes were non existent. It was eminently predictable from these initial conditions that a 7.0 Richter Scale seismic event would materialize as it did with countless thousands buried under rubble, those able to extract themselves doing so in a weakened condition sometimes literally dying of thirst or through opportunistic infections. If we want to understand as opposed to merely wring our hands about this epic tragedy, we need to inquire into why these conditions obtained. What accounted for the massive influx into Port au Prince from the rural, agricultural areas? Danner indirectly alludes to the crucial in his proposal to America (to) throw open its markets to Haitian agricultural produce and manufactured goods, broadening and making permanent the provisions of a promising trade bill negotiated in 2008. Danner has this exactly backward. As Fatton and others have noted, it is not the failure of the U.S. to open its markets, but rather the converse which is directly implicated in the catastrophe- which is to say two decades of extortionate neo-liberal trade pacts which required Haiti to open its markets to U.S. goods. Chief among these are heavily subsidized U.S. agricultural products, most notably rice. These were dumped on Haiti with similar results to that in much of the third world: Farmers unable to compete with cheap imports were driven off their land, selling out to multinational agribusiness and developers, initiating an exodus to the cities offering the prospect of employment in manufacturing sector albeit at near starvation wages. This is now an old story applying to much of the third world and told in numerous places, most comprehensively in Mike Davis's Planet of Slums. And so it is reasonable to ask why does Danner fail to mention it? The answer is necessarily a matter of speculation though it is probably not too cynical to assume that Danner is well aware that
Re: [Marxism] HOW MANY CRIMES CAN THE U.S. COMMIT IN A CENTURY?this is the wrong question!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == But the real question is Who's gonna stop 'em? - Original Message - From: Ismail Lagardien ilagard...@yahoo.com To: David Schanoes sartes...@earthlink.net Sent: Sunday, January 24, 2010 5:02 PM Subject: Re: [Marxism] HOW MANY CRIMES CAN THE U.S. COMMIT IN A CENTURY?this is the wrong question! == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == If you will allow me, the question IS: How long can the US get away with it!? Is http://www.ilagardien.com My little space in the e-world: A profit-free zone :-) Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/sartesian%40earthlink.net 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] Hugo Chavez Did Not Accuse the U.S. of Causing the Haitian Earthquake
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Hugo Chavez Did Not Accuse the U.S. of Causing the Haitian Earthquake by The Anti Press Chávez acusa a EE.UU. de provocar el seísmo de HaitíOn January 19, Spanish newspaper ABC, a newspaper of record in Spain, published a story entitled Chavez Accuses US of Causing Earthquake in Haiti. The story was quickly picked up by websites around the globe -- most quoting Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as saying the U.S. used a new tectonic weapon to induce the Haitian earthquake. This was, according to Chavez -- only a drill, and the final target is destroying and taking over Iran. Within the actual story, ABC noted that the information came from an obscure opinion post on the website of a Venezuelan state television channel, VIVE Television. The post referenced a supposed Russian military report on American seismic weapons. All quotes subsequently attributed to Chavez regarding Haiti and earthquake weapons were in fact direct quotes from this web posting -- none of which was ever uttered by Chavez. Spurred on by the international attention being received by its first story, ABC posted a second article on January 20 under the banner The Secret Weapon to Cause Earthquakes in which it cites Chavez as having blamed the US for razing Haiti. By the time the story had run its course, it had been covered with varying degrees of accuracy by corporate news channels, foreign outlets eager to accuse the U.S. of another evil deed, and conspiracy websites happy to have their ideas officially validated. In the end, it serves as one more reminder to those who prefer truth over ideological delusion: there are some subjects for which the myths of journalistic standards will still be displayed -- stories about the government of Venezuela are not one of those subjects. This article was first published by The Anti Press on 22 January 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes. Vea también: Otra mentira de la prensa derechista: Chávez se suma a la teoría conspiranoica del HAARP (libreXpresion.org, 20 Enero 2010). URL: mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/media250110.html 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] A different approach from Avatar
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dominican Today News - Santo Domingo and Dominican Republic January 24, 2010, Updated 11:38 AM Paris.– US actor Danny Glover, who plans an epic next year on Haitian independence hero Toussaint-Louverture, said he slaved to raise funds for the movie because financiers complained there were no white heroes. Producers said 'It's a nice project, a great project... where are the white heroes?' he told the press during a stay in Paris this month for a seminar on film. I couldn't get the money here, I couldn't get the money in Britain. I went to everybody. You wouldn't believe the number of producers based in Europe, and in the States, that I went to, he said. The first question you get, is 'Is it a black film?' All of them agree, it's not going to do good in Europe, it's not going to do good in Japan. Somebody has to prove that to be a lie!, he said. Maybe I'll have the chance to prove it. Toussaint, Glover's first project as film director, is about Francois Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803), a former slave and one of the fathers of Haiti's independence from France in 1804, making it the first black nation to throw off imperial rule and become a republic. The uprising he led was bloodily put down in 1802 by 20,000 soldiers dispatched to the Caribbean by Napoleon Bonaparte, who then re-established slavery after its ban by the leaders of the French Revolution. Due to be shot in Venezuela early next year, the film will star Don Cheadle, Mos Def, Wesley Snipes and Angela Bassett. 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] A different approach from Avatar
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Kind of/sort of believable but...I don't know... where are the white heroes?? Book of Eli was just produced with Denzel Washington the ONLY hero. In fact, many of Washtington's films are based on HIM being the heroe. And when has Hollywood money ever shied away from Black films?? I think it has more to do with the politics of the movie dealing with the Haitian revolution rather the whites being bad guys only. Also...saddly, all the starts are African Americans, no use of Haitian actors? DW 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] Showdown in Nepal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I avoid posting articles from other sources here, but tonight I am making an exception. Mike Ely at the Kasama Project put this up today on both the main Kasama site and on the Revolution in South Asia site. It is well worth reading and considering: Nepal: Ring The Bell Loudly To put this as bluntly as I can: The Nepali Maoists are preparing right now (i mean over the next few weeks) for what-may-be a decisive military/political confrontation with the reactionary government and army. The insurrection they have been preparing so carefully and so long may take place over the next two months. The Maoists are seeking to mobilize the people (based on the understanding that their enemies will be wanting to act closely with Indian intrigues, and can be isolated by exposing those intrigues.) Their Indian, Nepali and American enemies understand this. Their revolutionary core base knows this. And we need to know it. I will be ringing this bell loudly, and more loudly… and I want you to join me in ringing this bell. Everyone we know and meet should start to consider how they can discuss and explain this important revolution in (what may be) its most bold and desperate hour. The endgame is now taking shape in Nepal, perhaps in the next month or two, as the Maoists sum up their repeated “dress rehearsals” in Kathmandu and evaluate when (exactly) to go for a seizure of power. It is possible that they will decide not to go for the final revolution this spring. But more likely (at this point) is that, through tremendous efforts and unexpected events, they will now rise in a test of strength — and fight for a peoples democratic Nepal — the birth of a Nepal on the socialist road. It may be the first serious (and potentially successful) attempt at communist revolution in decades. With the utmost respect, I would like to disagree with the following claim: With the spearhead directed against India, the PLA [Maoist Peoples Liberation Army] is looking to the south, rather than being readied to do battle with the Nepal Army and the other repressive forces of the state.” This misreads the situation. The reactionary/monarchist Nepali Army’s limited-but-real popular prestige in Nepal has been precisely based on their history of (supposedly) upholding Nepali independence against India. In their moves to isolate and then defeat that National Army, the Maoists (and their Peoples Liberation Army) are politically claiming that national banner (AWAY from the monarchists’ army) in order to expose, divide and defeat that National army as Indian puppets and collaborators (which they are). This is not some diversion from the preparations for power — It is one important way the Nepali Maoists are dividing their enemies and winning over intermediate forces (including in and around that Army itself), precisely as the Maoists work to sum up a series of dress rehearsals for power. We need to be preparing ourselves (here in the U.S.) for a political offensive of popularization and exposure — with teach-ins, outreach, and the active organization of all who can be won to such an effort. And for us to play our role, we need to clearly understand that we may (from now to spring) be facing the key time for “speaking on another plane” and to much wider audiences (as the Maoists own actions push them into the headlines). Revolution in South Asia http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/nepal-ringing-the- bell- loudly/#more-7103 Kasama Project site http://kasamaproject.org/ 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] Naxalites and the Popular Front
==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==
Artesian wrote:
Think history has clearly shown that never is the
proper answer to when it makes sense for socialists
to enter into bourgeois governments.
I think Artesian may be on to something here as evidenced
by the situation in W.Bengal and the entrenched position
of the CPI-M via their popular front alliances with various
bourgeois partners. What kind of results has this produced
for the people, especially the poorest and most oppressed?
The party program sounds resolute, but how effective
has it been?
{From ‘People’s Democracy and it Progamme’)
While adhering to the aim of building socialism in our country,
the Communist Party of India (Marxist), taking into consideration
the degree of economic development, the political ideological
maturity of the working class and its organisation, places
before the people as the immediate objective, the establishment
of people's democracy based on the coalition of all genuine
anti-feudal, anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist forces led
by the working class on the basis of a firm worker-peasant
alliance.
I will leave it to others here to show me of the CPI-M did
indeed achieve a people’s democracy in one, two or even three
provinces while they functioned as the regional authority
for the Indian state in alliance with the Congress party.
Elsewhere In India I am aware of the many problems which
the bourgeois regime is no closer to solving now then they
were 40 years ago. It is this stark fact which is at the
base of the Naxalite insurgency.
An article from the Economist in 2006, described
the conditions endured of some of the poorest and
most oppressed in the villages of the Bastar forest:
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=77992
47
In the tiny, dirt-poor villages scattered through the forest,
the Indian state is almost invisible.
In one there is a hand-pump installed by the local government,
but the well is dry. There are no roads, waterpipes, electricity
or telephone lines. In another village a teacher does come, but,
in the absence of a school, holds classes outdoors. Policemen,
health workers and officials are never seen. The vacuum is filled
by Naxalite committees, running village affairs and providing
logistic support to the fighters camping in the forest. For the
past year, those fighters—mostly local tribal people—have been
battling not just the police and the six paramilitary battalions
deployed in the district, but their own neighbours.
The “Viceland website also gives a tour of this same region:
http://www.viceland.com/int/v13n10/htdocs/mao1.php?country=us
There are some 30 tribes in Chhattisgarh, and they all have
different languages and levels of socioeconomic development
ranging from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to factory workers.
What unites them is poverty and isolation. In Chhattisgarh, a
common cure for financial trouble is to murder your family
and then commit suicide. A common thing for young girls to
do here is get raped by a forest officer….
The reason things in Chhattisgarh have remained so fucked
despite 60 years of official concern for the backward population
is basically this: Money allocated for development of tribal
areas gets wheedled away by corrupt officials at every level
of India’s bureaucracy. Vijay has written of this insurgency
extensively and his argument is that it serves no purpose
but to make the condition of these people worse and that
support for armed struggle in general is the clueless pastime
of the intellectual.
VJ wrote:
The gun is an anthem for the deracinated middle class romantic,
but not the glory song for the dispossessed, for whom only
suffering comes at the gun's mouth.
Something tells me that the those in India confronting the
police and paramilitary death squads are not middle class
romantics bit rather those who are sick of being abused,exploited
and robbed becasue hey are the most abused,
exploited and robbed.
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[Marxism] 'Flaming Liberalism'
==
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==
S.Artesian wrote:
I think the issue of importance is the execution of militants, no?... and
that the criticism of their flaming liberalism is a little misplaced
when a
party that prefers a right wing government is setting militants aflame.
In case anybody missed the paragraph, here it is:
The Maoists-TMC has now killed over two hundred people since late 2007
(most are members and supporters of the CPM, with just a few being
members
of other political parties that are either in the Left Front or else
affiliated with it).
No, no, David, the key paragraph in Vishay's Counterpinch article
is the one I quoted:
Rather than make the case that there is space within the (however
limited) democratic institutions, people like Arundhati Roy trumpet the
armed road. Patient work through the democratic institutions produced
the important developments for the Dalit [oppressed caste] movement and
the working-class movement. For example, Reservations for
underprivileged castes did not come from the armed struggle. It was a
direct beneficiary of the use of the democratic institutions. The gun is
an anthem for the deracinated middle class romantic, but not the glory
song for the dispossessed, for whom only suffering comes at the gun's
mouth. It is the dispossessed who die in these armed struggles, both
from the guns of the revolutionaries and those of the State.'
I'm surprised to see that you appear to accept this argument
(which, self-criticism department, I probably should have tagged
'Hysterical Liberalism'); after all, it would suggest condemnation of,
among others the struggles in Nepal, those of the Tamil people and,
earlier, those of the Vietnamese--- and, on the other hand, the
acceptance of the 'historic compromise' of the CPI-M, which has been
aggressively pursuing primitive accumulation, displacing peasants in
order to give land to capitalist industry (all on the logic of
developing productive forces).
So, David, do you accept this account of the 'mayhem'?Who are these
'Maoists' who are engaged in 'mayhem'? According to Arundhati Roy
(Guardian, 30 October 2009):
Right now in central India, the Maoists' guerrilla army is made up
almost entirely of desperately poor tribal people living in conditions
of such chronic hunger that it verges on famine of the kind we only
associate with sub-Saharan Africa. They are people who, even after 60
years of India's so-called independence, have not had access to
education, healthcare or legal redress. They are people who have been
mercilessly exploited for decades, consistently cheated by small
businessmen and moneylenders, the women raped as a matter of right by
police and forest department personnel.
Clearly, Roy should 'trumpet' the CPI-M's record of demonstrating
the beneficiary use of India's democratic institutions instead of
talking about those 'Maoist murderers'. Indian state policy now, she
notes, is to launch a full assault-- beginning with a propaganda war
(introduced here by Vijay). But, how, she asks, 'will the security
forces be able to distinguish a Maoist from an ordinary person who is
running terrified through the jungle? Will adivasis carrying the bows
and arrows they have carried for centuries now count as Maoists too? Are
non-combatant Maoist sympathisers valid targets? When I was in
Dantewada, the superintendent of police showed me pictures of 19
Maoists that his boys had killed. I asked him how I was supposed to
tell they were Maoists. He said, See Ma'am, they have malaria
medicines, Dettol bottles, all these things from outside.'
As for the precise details of this story of 'Maoist mayhem' that David
appears to accept, I'll leave it to comrades in India to comment. I do
note, however, that this 'Maoist-TMC' offensive appears to be denied by
Mamata Banerjee ('whose authoritarian populism draws from both Juan and
Evita Peron' according to Vijay), leader of the TMC.
michael
--
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
University Drive
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Director, Programme in 'Transformative Practice and Human Development'
Centro Internacional Miranda, P.H.
Residencias Anauco Suites, Parque Central, final Av. Bolivar
Caracas, Venezuela
fax: 0212 5768274/0212 5777231
www.centrointernacionalmiranda.gob.ve
mlebo...@sfu.ca
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[Marxism] Cuban doctors' battke for life in Haiti
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Believe it or not, Rush Limbaugh has actually claimed that Cuyba is doing nothing, zip for Haiti post-earthquake. And in case you doubt him, I checked. He considers Cuba's supposed refusal to aid Haiti a good example for the United States. Fred Feldman GRANMA INTERNATIONAL Havana. January 21, 2010 Cuban doctors waging arduous battle for life in Haiti http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2010/enero/juev21/cuban-doctors-haiti-ing.html PORT-AU-PRINCE.-Three new aftershocks were reported in this capital yesterday, including one of 6.1 magnitude, for a total of 88 such temblors related to the earthquake that struck the city on January 12, according to the Emergency Operations Center in the Dominican Republic. An AFP cable stated that at least four buildings collapsed without leaving victims. Just one week after the devastating earthquake, the arduous and humanitarian labors of the Cuban doctors in the Haitian capital now amount to more than 13,418 consultancies, with 1,078 operations, more than 550 of them considered major surgery. The Cuban doctors have also assisted 38 births. At this point, Cuba has two field hospitals in that long-suffering country, one of which was set up last Tuesday 60 kilometers from Port-au-Prince, and where 17 patients have undergone surgery. Doctors from Cuba, Spain, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela and Canada, among other nations, are working shoulder to shoulder on the humanitarian task of saving lives in the face of this colossal natural disaster. For its part, DPA reported that a humanitarian brigade from Nicaragua in Haiti rescued two young students trapped in the rubble of a university in the capital. The UN has stated that, to date, 121 survivors have been found and that there are still hopes of finding more people. (Translated by Granma International ) 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] Fidel Castro: We send doctorsd
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Has anyone yet seen a story about the US personnel rescuing anybody, treating anyone's illness, setting up a field hospital, helping people find shelter, caring for children? I have seen such stories even about Israeli personnel in Haiti. US? So far, none. No doubt once things settle a bit, they will set up kiosks where Haitians can (indeed, had better) buy health insurance. The following is from CubaNews. Fred Feldman Fidel Castro brings readers up to date with this essay with the facts as they have evolved on the ground in Haiti, and then placing these Haitian events into their historical context. But first a five-minute long National Public Radio NPR report from Haiti on the Cuban medical aid team. (There's one sentence of stupid political carping, but the rest of the report is exceptionally good.) LISTEN TO NPR REPORT: http://tinyurl.com/ycnrnfs === Reflections by Comrade Fidel http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/reflexiones/2010/ing/f230110i.html WE SEND DOCTORS, NOT SOLDIERS. In my Reflection of January 14, two days after the catastrophe in Haiti, which destroyed that neighboring sister nation, I wrote: In the area of healthcare and others the Haitian people has received the cooperation of Cuba, even though this is a small and blockaded country. Approximately 400 doctors and healthcare workers are helping the Haitian people free of charge. Our doctors are working every day at 227 of the 237 communes of that country. On the other hand, no less than 400 young Haitians have been graduated as medical doctors in our country. They will now work alongside the reinforcement that traveled there yesterday to save lives in that critical situation. Thus, up to one thousand doctors and healthcare personnel can be mobilized without any special effort; and most are already there willing to cooperate with any other State that wishes to save Haitian lives and rehabilitate the injured. The head of our medical brigade has informed that 'the situation is difficult but we are already saving lives.' Hour after hour, day and night, the Cuban health professionals have started to work nonstop in the few facilities that were able to stand, in tents, and out in the parks or open-air spaces, since the population feared new aftershocks. The situation was far more serious than was originally thought. Tens of thousands of injured were clamoring for help in the streets of Port-au-Prince; innumerable persons laid, dead or alive, under the rubbled clay or adobe used in the construction of the houses where the overwhelming majority of the population lived. Buildings, even the most solid, collapsed. Besides, it was necessary to look for the Haitian doctors who had graduated at the Latin American Medicine School throughout all the destroyed neighborhoods. Many of them were affected, either directly or indirectly, by the tragedy. Some UN officials were trapped in their dormitories and tens of lives were lost, including the lives of several chiefs of MINUSTAH, a UN contingent. The fate of hundreds of other members of its staff was unknown. Haiti's Presidential Palace crumbled. Many public facilities, including several hospitals, were left in ruins. The catastrophe shocked the whole world, which was able to see what was going on through the images aired by the main international TV networks. Governments from everywhere in the planet announced they would be sending rescue experts, food, medicines, equipment and other resources. In conformity with the position publicly announced by Cuba, medical staff from different countries -namely Spain, Mexico, and Colombia, among others- worked very hard alongside our doctors at the facilities they had improvised. Organizations such as PAHO and other friendly countries like Venezuela and other nations supplied medicines and other resources. The impeccable behavior of Cuban professionals and their leaders was absolutely void of chauvinism and remained out of the limelight. Cuba, just as it had done under similar circumstances, when Hurricane Katrina caused huge devastation in the city of New Orleans and the lives of thousands of American citizens were in danger, offered to send a full medical brigade to cooperate with the people of the United States, a country that, as is well known, has vast resources. But at that moment what was needed were trained and well- equipped doctors to save lives. Given New Orleans geographical location, more than one thousand doctors of the Henry Reeve contingent mobilized and readied to leave for that city at any time of the day or the night, carrying with them the necessary medicines and equipment. It never crossed our mind that the President of that nation would reject the offer and let a number of
Re: [Marxism] 'Flaming Liberalism'
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The only issue I am raising at this juncture, and the key issue, is the execution of CPI-M militants, by the Maoists. Is this happening? You don't deny it. Such killings have happened before. My own opposition to popular fronts and class collaboration is pretty well known. I haven't changed my views a bit in regard to that. I don't think execution of CPM militants in the field creates any real mechanism for defeating a popular front. Of course Vishay is going to attempt the validity of the CPI-M program, but that's not the issue. We know that program for what it is. The issue is the execution of rank and file political workers, supporters of a Marxist group by another so-called Marxist group. If you think that executing CPI-M and other militants because of their class collaboration program is either a secondary issue or proper tactics then simply say so, and explain why such actions are proper in India, but are not proper in say Bolivia, or Ecuador, or even Venezuela. - Original Message - From: michael a. lebowitz mlebo...@sfu.ca 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-Thaxis] Setting the record straight
Setting the record straight by: Sam Webb January 20 2010 tags: Obama, elections, strategy and tactics, communists It is said by some on the left that the Communist Party USA has no differences with President Obama. Just to set the record straight: we do and we express them. For example, we opposed the nearly unconditional Wall Street bailouts and deployment of more troops to Afghanistan. We argued for a bigger stimulus package. And we said the president should push the envelope more; otherwise he runs the danger of the extreme right turning the popular discontent over the economic crisis against him, the Democratic Party, and the people's movement that supports his agenda. Isn't this what we saw in Tuesday's election in Massachusetts, where a right-winger was elected to the Senate? But in expressing our differences with the president, communists go to great lengths to state them in a constructive and unifying way. We don't do it to score points or demonstrate our militancy. We don't lose sight of the class nature of this struggle. The main organizations of the working class and people are not always in sync with the president on every issue either. But they don't turn their differences into an unbridgeable divide between them and him. In fact, they consider him a friend and are mindful of the unrelenting attack, steeped in racism and other forms of division, coming from right-wing extremists, against our nation's first African American president - something that was so evident in the Senate election in Massachusetts. The left has something to learn from the approach of these people's organizations. We are too comfortable in our role as an exceedingly small, but principled and militant grouping in U.S. politics. Such a posture, which could easily gain greater currency in the aftermath of Tuesday's election, may feel satisfying, but it won't help us evolve into a political player that exercises a major influence on U.S. politics nor get us a flea hop closer to socialism. In my view, the president has made mistakes, particularly his handling of the financial, jobs and health care crises, but he isn't the main obstacle to social change; he is not the enemy, or even an enemy. President Obama is a reformer, not a socialist reformer, not a radical reformer, and not even a consistent anti-corporate reformer, but a reformer nonetheless whose agenda creates space for the broader people's movement to deepen and extend the reform process in a non-revolutionary period. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson were Democratic Party regulars, but, with the help of a popular and sustained insurgency, both of them stepped outside of their comfort zone and morphed into change-makers, thus opening up space for substantive reform - Roosevelt with the New Deal and Johnson with civil and voting rights, Medicare, federal aid for education and the War on Poverty. Unfortunately, Johnson's mistaken decision to escalate the war in Vietnam stained, perhaps irreparably, his presidency and historical legacy. Barack Obama in my opinion has the same potential to grow on the job and enact reforms that measurably improve the lives of the American people and reframe our nation's place in the world. Right-wing extremists and powerful sections of capital feel much the same. Hence, the formidable opposition striving to sabotage, block or contain even the tiniest reforms by any means necessary. To make matters much more difficult, the broad coalition supporting reform is not yet of sufficient size, strength and understanding to consistently elect people's candidates as well as guarantee passage of the president's reform agenda - let alone radical reforms such as sustainable and just economic development, a national profit-free health service, a massive full employment program with affirmative action and living wage guarantees, fully funded, integrated, quality public education from child care to college, and a new foreign policy that accents peace, cooperation, equitable relations and a commitment to end global poverty. Until that movement is at such a level, it is premature to say what the political limits of this president are, or, to put it differently, smugly dismiss him as simply another Clintonian Democrat. When our movement reaches the level of the popular upsurges of the 1930s and '60s, we will be in a better position to say where he fits on the political spectrum and whether his views are elastic enough to accommodate more deep-going changes. Don't think we will succeed if the Obama presidency fails. If it fails, we will once again be fighting an uphill, defensive struggle as we were in the Bush and Reagan years, or worse. Witness the election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate. There will inevitably be differences and tensions with this White House as we go forward. In most instances, the differences will pivot around the pace and depth of reform; in some instances, such as the decision to escalate the war in
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Setting the record straight
Brain-dead. Delusional. Cretinous Party USA on its deathbed. At 09:34 AM 1/24/2010, c b wrote: Setting the record straight by: Sam Webb January 20 2010 tags: Obama, elections, strategy and tactics, communists ___ 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] Setting the record straight
Already dead, The Ghost of Stalin On 1/24/10, Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org wrote: Brain-dead. Delusional. Cretinous Party USA on its deathbed. At 09:34 AM 1/24/2010, c b wrote: Setting the record straight by: Sam Webb January 20 2010 tags: Obama, elections, strategy and tactics, communists ___ 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 ___ 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] Setting the record straight
On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:52:04 -0500 Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org writes: Brain-dead. Delusional. Cretinous Party USA on its deathbed. Can anyone figure out what the CPUSA gets in return for its apparently unrecquited love for Obama and the DP? Jim F. At 09:34 AM 1/24/2010, c b wrote: Setting the record straight by: Sam Webb January 20 2010 tags: Obama, elections, strategy and tactics, communists ___ 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 Senior Assisted Living Put your loved ones in good hands with quality senior assisted living. Click now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=clfnFIot4-pMl77gxPeSqgAAJ1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAYAAADNAAASUQA= ___ 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] Setting the record straight
An award for better political thinking than the anti-Obama left. On 1/24/10, Jim Farmelant farmela...@juno.com wrote: On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:52:04 -0500 Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org writes: Brain-dead. Delusional. Cretinous Party USA on its deathbed. Can anyone figure out what the CPUSA gets in return for its apparently unrecquited love for Obama and the DP? Jim F. At 09:34 AM 1/24/2010, c b wrote: Setting the record straight by: Sam Webb January 20 2010 tags: Obama, elections, strategy and tactics, communists ___ 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 Senior Assisted Living Put your loved ones in good hands with quality senior assisted living. Click now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=clfnFIot4-pMl77gxPeSqgAAJ1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAYAAADNAAASUQA= ___ 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 ___ 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] Setting the record straight
This sort of politics worked during the New Deal, which was the CPs heyday. And that was partially because the nebulous long-term vision of socialism could be seen as the logical conclusion of short-term reform efforts and the growth in power of labor organizations, and because using the state to reform the capitalism system could be seen to involve using the state or gaining control of the state to take social democracy to its logical conclusion. And because the CPUSA could be seen as a viable, effective organization that could achieve tangible goals. NONE of these conditions are present now. This means that Webb is enacting a form of ritual cleansing and bonding, the same sort of nonsense I used to hear at Blowhard Bondan's Socialist Scholars Conferences--preaching to the faithful, admonishing them for their faults, and cathartically reasserting their fundamental values. This is a ritual performance for the faithful and a reinfiorcement of the delusion that the CPUSA and American democracy have a future. At 10:35 AM 1/24/2010, Jim Farmelant wrote: On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:52:04 -0500 Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org writes: Brain-dead. Delusional. Cretinous Party USA on its deathbed. Can anyone figure out what the CPUSA gets in return for its apparently unrecquited love for Obama and the DP? Jim F. At 09:34 AM 1/24/2010, c b wrote: Setting the record straight by: Sam Webb January 20 2010 tags: Obama, elections, strategy and tactics, communists ___ 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] Setting the record straight
Ralph Dumain wrote: This sort of politics worked during the New Deal, which was the CPs heyday. And that was partially because the nebulous long-term vision of socialism could be seen as the logical conclusion of short-term reform efforts and the growth in power of labor organizations, and because using the state to reform the capitalism system could be seen to involve using the state or gaining control of the state to take social democracy to its logical conclusion. And because the CPUSA could be seen as a viable, effective organization that could achieve tangible goals. NONE of these conditions are present now. This means that Webb is enacting a form of ritual cleansing and bonding, the same sort of nonsense I used to hear at Blowhard Bondan's Socialist Scholars Conferences--preaching to the faithful, admonishing them for their faults, and cathartically reasserting their fundamental values. This is a ritual performance for the faithful and a reinfiorcement of the delusion that the CPUSA and American democracy have a future. CB: How about a little crititicism-self-criticism. Since you ain't go no viable, effective organization that could achieve tangible goals nor do any of the other left critics of the CPUSA, we can presume that your political analysis and discussion is a form of ritual cleansing and bonding and nonsense. ___ 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] Marxism-Thaxis Digest, Vol 75, Issue 21: Setting the record straight
As a former member of the Communist Party of Britain, and a continued activist in struggle on such issues as Palestine, I cannot subscribe to the basic analysis of Sam Webb in Setting the Record Straight. I wrote to the UK Morning Star the following after the Scott Brown victory: So the Barack bubble has burst, just one short year after the world rapturously hailed the new dawn of a new presidency, supposedly to move on from the dreadful disillusion of the Bush years. But now a new disillusion has set in, as Obama fulfills the classic function of 'left' opportunism, to see the system through an otherwise insoluble crisis, to pave the way for the next swing to the right. 'Things can only get better', 'Yes we can' . . . Blair and Obama have many things in common, as under the first, things only got worse, and the true lesson to be drawn from the failure of Obama's sloganising appears to be 'No we can't'. This is what the pundits are trying to teach us. Just as the disenfranchisement of Labour's core voters has paved the way for the advance of the BNP here, Obama's refusal to honour his pledges appears to leave his supporters nowhere to go but down. It doesn't have to be like that. If what we might call the scientific left were to have provided all along a clear analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of this reliance on political charisma (a study of Plekhanov might be a good place to start), to have used the Blair/Obama phenomenon to build an accurate critique that didn't take us by surprise when leaders break their promises, we could turn disillusion into disenchantment. It doesn't have to be like that. If, at last, we begin to look reality square in its ugly face, things could, indeed, start to get better. But I must say that most of the responses in this list have been infantile in the extreme. There are interesting parallels between FDR and Obama, but important differences also. It would be helpful if people on the left, instead of internecine name-calling, were to examine those parallels and differences and develop appropriate strategies for the current capitalist crisis. It is tempting to regard this crisis as terminal. But it will not be so, unless we on the left face up to our revolutionary responsibilities. NOTE FOR THOSE OUTSIDE UK: Things can only get better was Tony Blair's New Labour theme tune in the 1997 general election. BNP, British National Party, is a fascist organisation making worrying advances in the polls, because of the alienation of the white working class. This may strike a chord on the US side of the Atlantic. --- Go well. Karl Dallas Follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/karldallas Want to help the people of Palestine? Then follow http://www.twitter.com/bradfordvp and http://www.twitter.com/dpalestine 2010/1/24 marxism-thaxis-requ...@lists.econ.utah.edu Send Marxism-Thaxis mailing list submissions to marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to marxism-thaxis-requ...@lists.econ.utah.edu You can reach the person managing the list at marxism-thaxis-ow...@lists.econ.utah.edu When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Marxism-Thaxis digest... Today's Topics: 1. Setting the record straight (c b) 2. Re: Setting the record straight (Ralph Dumain) 3. Re: Setting the record straight (c b) 4. Re: Setting the record straight (Jim Farmelant) 5. Re: Setting the record straight (c b) 6. Re: Setting the record straight (Ralph Dumain) 7. Re: Setting the record straight (c b) etc ___ 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] Marxism-Thaxis Digest, Vol 75, Issue 21: Setting the record straight
On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:57:51 + Karl Dallas karldal...@f2s.com writes: As a former member of the Communist Party of Britain, and a continued activist in struggle on such issues as Palestine, I cannot subscribe to the basic analysis of Sam Webb in Setting the Record Straight. I wrote to the UK Morning Star the following after the Scott Brown victory: So the Barack bubble has burst, just one short year after the world rapturously hailed the new dawn of a new presidency, supposedly to move on from the dreadful disillusion of the Bush years. But now a new disillusion has set in, as Obama fulfills the classic function of 'left' opportunism, to see the system through an otherwise insoluble crisis, to pave the way for the next swing to the right. Right, except I don't think that one can even call what Obama is doing. 'left' opportunism. That is a label that could be applied to what FDR was doing with his New Deal or Lyndon Johnson with his Great Society. What Obama has been doing hardly measures up to what Roosevelt or Johnson tried to do. And in fact this has been the case with the last three Democratic Presidents, starting with Carter. And I suspect that things are not so different in the UK. The British Labour Party, it seems to me, began shifting to the right under James Callahan. Then once knocked out of power by Thatcher, it briefly shifted to the left, and then resumed moving rightwards when it became apparent that it might soon return to power. That process continued, first under Kinnock and then under Blair who eventually became PM. 'Things can only get better', 'Yes we can' . . . Blair and Obama have many things in common, as under the first, things only got worse, and the true lesson to be drawn from the failure of Obama's sloganising appears to be 'No we can't'. This is what the pundits are trying to teach us. Just as the disenfranchisement of Labour's core voters has paved the way for the advance of the BNP here, Obama's refusal to honour his pledges appears to leave his supporters nowhere to go but down. It doesn't have to be like that. If what we might call the scientific left were to have provided all along a clear analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of this reliance on political charisma (a study of Plekhanov might be a good place to start), to have used the Blair/Obama phenomenon to build an accurate critique that didn't take us by surprise when leaders break their promises, we could turn disillusion into disenchantment. It doesn't have to be like that. If, at last, we begin to look reality square in its ugly face, things could, indeed, start to get better. But I must say that most of the responses in this list have been infantile in the extreme. There are interesting parallels between FDR and Obama, but important differences also. At this point, I think the differences between Obama and FDR are of more importance than the similarities. First of all while both presidents came into office during periods of economic crisis, FDR did so when the US was on the brink of civil unrest (And it should be noted that Socialists and Communists had been spending years organizing councils of the unemployed). Therefore, he perceived the need for taking dramatic actions. Even though during the 1932 campaign, he had condemned Hoover for engaging in deficit spending and promised to balance the budget, FDR, as soon as he entered the White House, all that talk about balancing the budget went out the window because he realized that the fiscal orthodoxies of the day would only result in disaster if he stuck to them. Obama, in contrast, took office in a country that was still politically quiescent. And unlike the 1930s, the radical left in the US is almost non-existent. Up to now there has been nothing like the movement to organize the unemployed that existed in the early 1930s. FDR as president face strong pressures from the left and those pressures helped his administration's policies to the left. Obama has been largely spared such pressures. Instead, much of the radical left, such as it is, has actively embraced Obama, and so have enable him in shifting rightwards, since Obama, not surprisingly, has concluded that these people have no place else to go. The CPUSA's embrace of Obama is simply one of the more outrageous examples of this phenomenon, but not the only example. Secondly, FDR was, unlike Obama, to the manor born. As a member of the old money bourgeoisie, he had a special self-confidence, which allowed him to break with the conventional wisdom so that he could better defend the long term best interests of this class. He was therefore able to accept being denounced as a traitor to his class, with a certain amount of equanimity. Obama, in contrast, is sort of the epitome of meritocracy, and as such, seems to be temperamentally inclined to embrace uncritically the conventional wisdom, as that's understood in
