[Marxism] Christopher Hitchens -- An 'Expert' on George Orwell
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In a big article on George Orwell's Animal Farm in the Guardian's literary review supplement (17 April 2010), Christopher Hitchens writes: 'There is, however, one very salient omission. There is a Stalin pig and a Trotsky pig, but no Lenin pig. Similarly, in Nineteen Eighty-Four we find only a Big Brother Stalin and an Emmanuel Goldstein Trotsky. Nobody appears to have pointed this out at the time (and if I may say so, nobody but myself has done so since; it took me years to notice what was staring me in the face).' http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/17/christopher-hitchens-re-reads-an imal-farm This statement is factually incorrect. I had an edited collection of essays on Orwell published in 2005, George Orwell: Enigmatic Socialist. In my contribution, 'I Know How But I Don't Know Why: George Orwell's Conception of Totalitarianism', I wrote: 'The taciturn, devious and ambitious Napoleon is clearly Stalin, and the more inventive and vivacious Snowball is an equally obvious Trotsky... There is, however, no porcine Lenin, as Major (Marx) dies just before the animals take over the farm, although the displaying of Major's skull is reminiscent of the rituals around the embalmed Bolshevik leader.' John Molyneux wrote in his contribution, 'Animal Farm Revisited', an article originally published in 1989: 'It is clear that Napoleon represents Stalin, just as Old Major is Marx and Snowball is Trotsky. Who then represents Lenin? Since Orwell depicts the Rebellion as led by two pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, one is forced to the conclusion that Napoleon also represents Lenin. Thus in Animal Farm the figures of Lenin and Stalin are merged into one character.' So it can be seen that Hitchens is making a totally unwarranted assertion. I sent the e-mail below to the paper. Paul F 'To the Editor, Guardian Review 'Dear Sir 'Re: Christopher Hitchens, 'Where's Lenin?', Guardian Review, 17 April 2010. 'Christopher Hitchens is quite wrong in arrogantly insisting that nobody but himself has pointed out that there is no Lenin figure in George Orwell's Animal Farm. I noted the absence in 'I Know How But I Don't Know Why': George Orwell's Conception of Totalitarianism', in a collection of essays that I edited, George Orwell: Enigmatic Socialist (London, 2005). In his contribution to the collection, 'Animal Farm Revisited', John Molyneux also noted the absence of a porcine Lenin, and considered that Orwell merged the characters of Lenin and Stalin in the pig Napoleon. 'Yours faithfully 'Dr Paul Flewers' 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 Roots of Stalin in the Tea Party Movement
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Tea Party movement's dirty little secret is that its chief financial backers owe their family fortune to the granddaddy of all their hatred: Stalin's godless empire of the USSR. The secretive oil billionaires of the Koch family, the main supporters of the right-wing groups that orchestrated the Tea Party movement, would not have the means to bankroll their favorite causes had it not been for the pile of money the family made working for the Bolsheviks in the late 1920s and early 1930s, building refineries, training Communist engineers and laying down the foundation of Soviet oil infrastructure. The comrades were good to the Kochs. Today Koch Industries has grown into the second-largest private company in America. With an annual revenue of $100 billion, the company was just $6.3 billion shy of first place in 2008. Ownership is kept strictly in the family, with the company being split roughly between brothers Charles and David Koch, who are worth about $20 billion apiece and are infamous as the largest sponsors of right-wing causes. They bankroll scores of free-market and libertarian think tanks, institutes and advocacy groups. Greenpeace estimates that the Koch family shelled out $25 million from 2005 to 2008 funding the climate denial machine, which means they outspent Exxon Mobile three to one. full: http://www.alternet.org/story/146504/ 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] Medical Insurance Companies Hold Billions of Dollars in Investment Stocks With Fast Food Chains!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/15/insurance.fast.food.stock/index.html Study: Insurance companies hold billions in fast food stock By Sarah Klein, Health.com April 15, 2010 5:24 p.m. EDT * 11 insurance companies own about $1.9 billion in fast-food chain stock, report shows * Fast-food companies included McDonald's, Burger King * Researchers: Companies should sell stock or use their influence to make fast food healthier * Researchers used a database of financial filings and news reports to estimate investments (Health.com) -- The fast-food industry has long been under fire for selling high-fat, high-calorie meals that have been linked to weight gain and diabetes, but the financial health of the industry continues to attract investors -- including some of the leading insurance companies in the U.S., a new study reports. According to Harvard Medical School researchers, 11 large companies that offer life, disability, or health insurance owned about $1.9 billion in stock in the five largest fast-food companies as of June 2009. The fast-food companies included McDonald's, Burger King, and Yum! Brands (the parent company of KFC and Taco Bell). Companies from both North America and Europe were among the insurers, including the U.S.-based Massachusetts Mutual, Northwestern Mutual, and Prudential Financial. The researchers say insurance companies should sell their fast-food stock or use their influence as shareholders to make fast food healthier, by pressuring big restaurant chains to cut portion sizes or improve nutrition, for instance. There's a potential disconnect between the mission of insurance companies and the often-unhealthy food churned out by companies like McDonald's, they write. The insurance industry cares about making money, and it doesn't really care how, says the senior author of the study, J. Wesley Boyd, M.D., an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, in Boston. They will invest in products that contribute to significant morbidity and mortality if doing so is going to make money. Boyd and his colleagues used a database that draws on financial filings and news reports to estimate the fast-food investments of the 11 companies. Their findings appear in the American Journal of Public Health. 7 health insurance horror stories Massachusetts Mutual and Northwestern Mutual -- which both offer life, disability, and long-term care insurance -- owned $367 million and $422 million in fast-food stock, respectively, much of it in McDonald's, the authors report. Prudential, which offers life insurance and long-term disability coverage, held $356 million in fast-food stock, according to the study. Insurance companies disputed these figures. Andrea Austin, the assistant director of corporate relations for Northwestern Mutual, in Milwaukee, says the company's investment in fast-food companies is only about $250 million, and was at the time the study was conducted. That amounts to about one-fifth of 1 percent of the company's portfolio, she adds. Austin also disagrees that the company's fast-food investments represent a disconnect with its mission. We have to determine what's going to give our policy owners value, she says. We have to make sure we fulfill our obligations to them, and to do that we invest in a wide variety of industries. It's that diversification that enables us to return value to them. In an e-mail, MassMutual spokesman Mark Cybulski called the study's findings absolutely incorrect and said that as of December 31, the company's holdings of fast-food-related stock amounted to just $1.4 million, which represents less than one-hundredth of 1 percent of the company's $86.6 billion in cash and total invested assets. Austin says she has no idea why the figures differ and says that Northwestern Mutual doesn't use subsidiaries. Theresa Miller, the vice president of global communications for Prudential Financial, said in an e-mail that she could not discuss the specifics of the company's portfolios. But she noted that the investments in the report are within index funds, and that a large portion are managed on behalf of third-party clients. MassMutual, Northwestern, and Sun Life (another insurer mentioned in the report) have contested Boyd's findings in the past. Last year Boyd led a similar analysis, published as a letter to the editor in the New England Journal of Medicine, that found that seven insurance companies held some $4.5 billion in tobacco-company stock. Then, too, Cybulski said that MassMutual's holdings were just a fraction of what Boyd and his colleagues claimed. According to Boyd, the discrepancy in his figures and those cited by MassMutual may be due in part to two factors: Insurance companies may invest in
Re: [Marxism] Christopher Hitchens -- An 'Expert' on George Orwell
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Funny, I always thought that everyone agreed that Old Major represented both Marx and Lenin. Isn't that what you guys assumed? On 04/18/2010 05:03 AM, Paul Flewers wrote: In a big article on George Orwell's Animal Farm in the Guardian's literary review supplement (17 April 2010), Christopher Hitchens writes: 'There is, however, one very salient omission. There is a Stalin pig and a Trotsky pig, but no Lenin pig. Similarly, in Nineteen Eighty-Four we find only a Big Brother Stalin and an Emmanuel Goldstein Trotsky. Nobody appears to have pointed this out at the time (and if I may say so, nobody but myself has done so since; it took me years to notice what was staring me in the face).' http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/17/christopher-hitchens-re-reads-an imal-farm This statement is factually incorrect. I had an edited collection of essays on Orwell published in 2005, George Orwell: Enigmatic Socialist. In my contribution, 'I Know How But I Don't Know Why: George Orwell's Conception of Totalitarianism', I wrote: 'The taciturn, devious and ambitious Napoleon is clearly Stalin, and the more inventive and vivacious Snowball is an equally obvious Trotsky... There is, however, no porcine Lenin, as Major (Marx) dies just before the animals take over the farm, although the displaying of Major's skull is reminiscent of the rituals around the embalmed Bolshevik leader.' John Molyneux wrote in his contribution, 'Animal Farm Revisited', an article originally published in 1989: 'It is clear that Napoleon represents Stalin, just as Old Major is Marx and Snowball is Trotsky. Who then represents Lenin? Since Orwell depicts the Rebellion as led by two pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, one is forced to the conclusion that Napoleon also represents Lenin. Thus in Animal Farm the figures of Lenin and Stalin are merged into one character.' 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] An Opening in Consciousness!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A good development no doubt. 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] Lake Victoria is dying
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://trueslant.com/josephtreaster/2010/04/17/a-dying-african-lake-polluted-overfished-bad-and-getting-worse/ 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 Roots of Stalin in the Tea Party Movement
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 2010/4/18 David Thorstad bin...@gvtel.com: The Tea Party movement's dirty little secret is that its chief financial backers owe their family fortune to the granddaddy of all their hatred: Stalin's godless empire of the USSR. The secretive oil billionaires of the Koch family, the main supporters of the right-wing groups that orchestrated the Tea Party movement, would not have the means to bankroll their favorite causes had it not been for the pile of money the family made working for the Bolsheviks in the late 1920s and early 1930s, building refineries, training Communist engineers and laying down the foundation of Soviet oil infrastructure. The comrades were good to the Kochs. Today Koch Industries has grown into the second-largest private company in America. With an annual revenue of $100 billion, the company was just $6.3 billion shy of first place in 2008. Ownership is kept strictly in the family, with the company being split roughly between brothers Charles and David Koch, who are worth about $20 billion apiece and are infamous as the largest sponsors of right-wing causes. Maybe due to the fact that the family has direct knowledge that socialism CAN work? -- Néstor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autoría 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] Reading Ethan Bronner in Gaza
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 2:59 AM, Jewbonic wordpr...@maxajl.com wrote: Jewbonics has posted a new item, 'Reading Ethan Bronner in Gaza' The razor-wire and concrete frontier between Israel and Gaza is intermittently interrupted by remote-controlled metal observation towers equipped with motion sensors. When the sensors detect something, the metal petals atop the towers peel back, blooming. A small bloom means the interior camera is peering around. A big bloom occurs when the people controlling the machine [...] You may view the latest post at http://www.maxajl.com/?p=3467 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] Christopher Hitchens -- An 'Expert' on George Orwell
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I remember asking a teacher whether Old Major was Lenin or Marx in the 8th grade in a not-that-extraordinary public school. Her reply was that he was a amagalmation of the two. I love how Hitchens thinks he's breaking some sort of new ground here Sent from my iPhone On Apr 18, 2010, at 8:37 AM, Jeffrey Thomas Piercy mqd...@mqduck.net wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Funny, I always thought that everyone agreed that Old Major represented both Marx and Lenin. Isn't that what you guys assumed? 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] Book by Alan Badiou The Meaning Of Sarkozy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Lara Crete: Dear Loius/Less, hope you will find it worth of posting Thank very much Alan Badiou: “The Meaning of Sarkozy” Can we talk about the “legacy of the Soviet Union” without analyzing the Communist hypothesis, its legacy and intervals, which arrested its development ? Hardly so.We can victoriously sink into discussions on “ who raped whom in the World War II”, we can fearlessly spit into the Stalin’s face ( not making a small effort to glance through his anti-racial work, such as “The National Question” ), we can take the dead sites: one of Trotsky, another of Stalin and become “the enemies within” and we can certainly blame the Soviets’ people of Russia for committing the crime against humanity by selling out this very hypothesis. I wish, I am convincing, representing Alain Badiou’s book : “ The Meaning Of Sarkozy”. The good French does not waste a word while going into depth of the history of the Communist hypothesis and emerges from there with the certainty,which only the great optimism is capable for. Alain Badiou: “ There have been two sequences in the communist hypothesis: that off its setting up, its installation, and that of the first attempt of its realization. The first sequence runs from the French Revolution to the Paris Commune, sayfrom 1792-1871. It lasted nearly eighty years.” () “The second sequenceran from 1917 ( the Russian Revolution) to 1976. The second sequence,which has ran for over half a century was very complex and was dominated by the question of time.How to achieve victory? How, as against the Paris Commune,to endure in the face of the bloody reaction of the possessors and their mercenaries? How to organize the new power,the new state,in such a way as to protect it from destruction by its enemies?Lenin’s great question was to answer these questions” (...) “What the nineteenth century dreamed of and experimented with the twentieth century had to accomplish fully”. (...) “Between the first and the second sequence, between Marx and the early Lenin, there were forty years of triumphant imperialism”. I am talking about sequences of the communist hypothesis, separated by intervals, when this hypothesis is untenable, even absurd and criminal, and has to be abandoned”. (...) “The strategic problem bound up with the third sequence”... Our time is “now”, the interval is tuff...”What Is To Be Done”? Alien Badiou: “We must re-establish the hypothesis in the field of ideology and action” LC: The search of the meaning of Sarkozy, or the meaning of Obama- Bush, or of Gorbachev- Putin-Medvedev leads to the only conclusion: there is no other “meaning” in our time ruling regime,but the necessity to take care of the masses education in Marxism- Leninism,what must lead to the reformation of the masses consciousness. Such is the meaning of the Alan Badiou book. It certainly echoes the meaning of Hegel’s insistence on the theoretical education of masses at his time,when he was reflectioning on the outcome of The French Revolution.In this light, the Conference dedicated to the Restoration of the Marx Movement in Europe,which took place in Italy in midd December and which was organized and lead by the prominent Professor of Philosophy Domenico Losurdo, must be greeted by Marxists as the huge step toward this goal. 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] Nice Ian McEwan takedown
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == McEwan, once upon a time, was a good novelist. I think it is not just a coincidence that his novels following his conversion to Euston Manifesto politics are crappy. The latest involves philosophizing about global warming, which he appears to be concerned about, through the medium of a main character, a grossly overweight and disgusting physicist working on technological solutions. Go figure. Here's a snippet from Walter Kirn's review in today's NY Times: What makes “Solar” such a noble nullity is that it answers these challenges so easily, with such a quotient of stress-free mastery that they feel less like challenges than like problems in a literary exam the author has devised as a means of proving his own prowess. This may be Beard’s story, but it’s McEwan’s vehicle, constructed to let him pull all the showy turns of the major contemporary novelist and ambitious public intellectual: personalizing the political, politicizing the personal and poeticizing everything else. The tip-off is Beard, who’s endowed by his creator with precisely the vices — apathy, slothfulness, gluttony and hypocrisy — that afflict the society the book condemns, threatening to cook the human race in the heat-trapping gases released by its own arrogance. Because a fictional character can exhibit only so much awareness of his own thematic utility, Beard doesn’t notice any of this, merely regarding himself as a colorful eccentric. But readers will see him for what he is: a figure so stuffed with philosophical straw that he can barely simulate lifelike movement. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/books/review/Kirn-t.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
Re: [Marxism] Christopher Hitchens -- An 'Expert' on George Orwell
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, 18 Apr 2010 05:37:25 -0700 Jeffrey Thomas Piercy mqd...@mqduck.net writes: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Funny, I always thought that everyone agreed that Old Major represented both Marx and Lenin. Isn't that what you guys assumed? Next, the gin-soaked-popinjay will be telling us that Orwell got the idea of Emmanuel Goldstein's The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism from James Burnham's The Mangerial Revolution. Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant On 04/18/2010 05:03 AM, Paul Flewers wrote: In a big article on George Orwell's Animal Farm in the Guardian's literary review supplement (17 April 2010), Christopher Hitchens writes: Get Free Email with Video Mail Video Chat! http://www.juno.com/freeemail?refcd=JUTAGOUT1FREM0210 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 image Microsoft doesn't want you to see: Too tired to stay awake, the Chinese workers earning just 34p an hour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266643/Microsofts-Chinese-workforce-tired-stay-awake.html The image Microsoft doesn't want you to see: Too tired to stay awake, the Chinese workers earning just 34p an hour By Liz Hull and Lee Sorrell Last updated at 12:29 AM on 18th April 2010 * Comments (202) * Add to My Stories Showing Chinese sweatshop workers slumped over their desks with exhaustion, it is an image that Microsoft won't want the world to see. Employed for gruelling 15-hour shifts, in appalling conditions and 86f heat, many fall asleep on their stations during their meagre ten-minute breaks. For as little as 34p an hour, the men and women work six or seven days a week, making computer mice and web cams for the American multinational computer company. Worn out: Some of the workers making computer accessories for Microsoft at a Chinese factory Worn out: Some of the workers making computer accessories for Microsoft at a Chinese factory This photo and others like it were smuggled out of the KYE Systems factory at Dongguan, China, as part of a three-year investigation by the National Labour Committee, a human rights organisation which campaigns for workers across the globe. The mostly female workers, aged 18 to 25, work from 7.45am to 10.55pm, sometimes with 1,000 workers crammed into one 105ft by 105ft room. They are not allowed to talk or listen to music, are forced to eat substandard meals from the factory cafeterias, have no bathroom breaks during their shifts and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC. The workers also sleep on site, in factory dormitories, with 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28in-wide plywood boards. They 'shower' with a sponge and a bucket. And many of the workers, because they are young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC claimed. The organisation said that one worker was even fined for losing his finger while operating a hole punch press. Microsoft is not the only company to outsource manufacturing to KYE, but it accounts for about 30 per cent of the factory's work, the NLC said. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech and Asus also use KYE Systems. Microsoft, which exports much of the hardware made at the factory to America, Europe and Japan, said that it is taking the claims seriously and has begun an investigation. One employee told the NLC: 'We are like prisoners. It seems like we live only to work - we do not work to live. We do not live a life, only work.' The NLC's report included an account from one worker whose job consisted entirely of sticking selfadhesive rubber feet to the bottom of Microsoft computer mice. But the monotony of sitting or standing for 12 hours, applying foot after foot to mouse after mouse, was not the worst of the worker's testimony. It was the militaristic management and sleep deprivation that affected the worker most. 'I know I can choose not to work overtime, but if I don't work overtime then I am stuck with only 770 Chinese yuan (£72.77p) per month in basic wages,' the worker said. 'This is not nearly enough to support a family. My parents are farmers without jobs. They also do not have pensions. 'I also need to worry about getting married, which requires a lot of money. Therefore, I still push myself to continue working in spite of my exhaustion. 'When I finish my four hours of overtime, I'm extremely tired. At that time, even if someone offered me an extravagant dinner, I'd probably refuse. I just want to sleep.' Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the NLC, said: 'It sounded like torture - the frantic pace on the assembly line, same motion over and over for the 12 hours or more of work they did.' Microsoft said it was committed to the 'fair treatment and safety of workers'. A spokesman added: 'We are aware of the NLC report and we have commenced an investigation. 'We take these claims seriously and we will take appropriate remedial measures in regard to any findings of misconduct.' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266643/Microsofts-Chinese-workforce-tired-stay-awake.html#ixzz0lSgVB62Y 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] Christopher Hitchens -- An 'Expert' on George Orwell
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, 18 Apr 2010 09:35:48 -0400 Bhaskar Sunkara bhaskar.sunk...@gmail.com writes: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I remember asking a teacher whether Old Major was Lenin or Marx in the 8th grade in a not-that-extraordinary public school. Her reply was that he was a amagalmation of the two. I love how Hitchens thinks he's breaking some sort of new ground here As I recalll, that interpretation was even in the CliffNotes study guide to Animal Farm. Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant Sent from my iPhone On Apr 18, 2010, at 8:37 AM, Jeffrey Thomas Piercy mqd...@mqduck.net wrote: PMP Certification Prep 100% Online PMP Exam Prep course from Villanova University. Learn More. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4bcb18531c2d51949bm03vuc 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] Christopher Hitchens -- An 'Expert' on George Orwell
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == If you drink long and hard enough, you always think you're original 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] Christopher Hitchens -- An 'Expert' on George Orwell
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == And good looking - Original Message - From: Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com If you drink long and hard enough, you always think you're original 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] The Anatomy of Teabagging
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Mark wrote: Actually, in saying this, brad is himself climbing on board with the current fad among the Democrats...which is precisely what brad's arguing here. I heard Arianna Huffington whinging on about this just the other day on MSNBC. -- O.K. Mark time to back up some of this shit with some sources. Where exactly did Huffington say that by focusing on just the Racism we miss the real class issues of the TP? Also you said this is a current fad among Dems so can you give us some other sources where you heard this argument by Dems? Finally, can you show me where I switched positions and started 'climbing on board' this idea, instead of it being what I have been stating all along? Mark again: As to brad's call for a class analysis, Marxism sees class in terms of self-consciousness not objective sociological categories. In calling for a good class based analyses that cuts right through ideology, brad is suggesting something crudely sociological...and quite acceptably liberal. ML -- What 'Marxism' sees class as determined by self-consciousness not material terms? And how is calling for class analysis liberal? 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] The Anatomy of Teabagging
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Greg- I can not begin to unravel what that guy was posting on FB. The only thing I can say is that he makes a reference to his business, which probably means he is bourgeois or PB. So fuck him. Let's pretend though that he was a worker. Should we deny him his exploited position in society because he is clearly a xenophobic racist as Mark Lause would suggest. Or should we see him as a misguided worker who doesn't have a clear understanding of capitalism, which would mean we need to talk about class more, not race or immigration, so that workers like him can begin to see things in class terms and not blame other workers for capitals problems. I am not saying that it is easy, but it is necessary (and hardly liberal). 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] Argentines Try Probing Crimes of Franco's Spain
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/14/world/AP-LT-Argentina-Spain-Human-Rights.html?_r=2partner=rssemc=rss Argentines Try Probing Crimes of Franco's Spain By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 14, 2010 Filed at 2:44 p.m. ET BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentine human rights groups turned the tables on Spain Wednesday, asking for a local judicial probe of murders and disappearances as well as alleged genocide committed during Spain's Civil War and Gen. Francisco Franco's long dictatorship. Relatives of three Spaniards and an Argentine killed during the 1936-39 war presented their complaint in federal court, and their lawyers said they hoped to add many more cases in the months to come. Such cross-border human rights probes have long been the specialty of Spain's crusading investigative judge Baltasar Garzon, whose case against Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet in 1998 helped lead to the undoing of amnesties that had protected Latin America's dictators. But Garzon himself now faces a potentially career-ending trial on charges of abusing his authority by opening an investigation into deaths and disappearances in Franco's Spain. So Garzon's supporters hope to launch the same investigation -- citing the same principles of international law -- from Buenos Aires. While Garzon limited the scope to specific crimes against humanity from 1936-1952, the Argentine complaint adds an overall charge of genocide, alleging that Franco ordered the systematic elimination of his political opponents, an order they say remained in effect until Spain's democracy was restored in 1977. ''We have many hopes for this case,'' said Santiago Macias, vice president of Spain's Association for the Recuperation of Historic Memory, which helps Spaniards search common graves for anti-Franco victims of the civil war and dictatorship. Attorney Carlos Slepoy, a specialist in human rights law, told The Associated Press the plaintiffs are invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction, which provides that genocide and crimes against humanity ''can be prosecuted by the courts of any country.'' ''It's a shame that in democracy we have to seek Argentine justice, the justice system of another country, to investigate an issue that in our supposedly strong democracy we haven't been able to do,'' Macias told the AP before joining the group in Buenos Aires. ''The same thing happened in Argentina when Spanish justice was the first to throw down the glove'' in investigating human rights crimes committed during Argentina's 1976-83 dictatorship, Macias said. In that effort, Garzon charged various Argentine military figures with repression. Now Garzon is accused of abuse of power in Spain by ignoring a 1977 amnesty law in probing wartime atrocities. The law was passed to help Spaniards put decades of conflict behind them. Garzon, who said as many as 114,000 people were ''disappeared'' or buried in common graves, had to abandon his investigation after a few months, ending what had been the first official probe into civil war atrocities. He transferred the task of investigating mass graves and missing people to local courts. That might allow the Spanish government to decline to cooperate with Argentina and assert that Madrid, not Buenos Aires, has preferential jurisdiction, the Spanish Human Rights Association said. Under the principle of universal jurisdiction, one condition for a country to investigate crimes allegedly committed in another is that no probe be under way in the latter, said the association's chief lawyer, Piluca Hernandez. The lower level courts that inherited the Franco regime case from Garzon have done very little with it, but this might still be enough for Spain to argue that Argentina cannot investigate, Hernandez said. Still, Argentina's move will serve as a ''tool for pressure and a way to embarrass, let's say, the Spanish justice system, which after all these years has failed to carry out a thorough and serious investigation,'' Hernandez told AP in Madrid. Spain's Justice Ministry and several court officials declined to comment on the suit to be filed in Argentina. The three cases being presented in Argentina on Wednesday are the civil war shooting deaths of Spanish citizens Severino Rivas, Elias Garcia Holgado and Luis Garcia Holgado, and Argentine Vicente Garcia Holgado. The plaintiffs, both Argentines, are Dario Rivas, son of the first victim, and Ines Garcia Holgado, the niece and grand-niece of the others. The plaintiffs want the Argentine courts to expand the case to include any murders and disappearances committed by Franco's forces between July 17, 1936, the day before Franco's military turned against Spain's Republican government, and June 15, 1977, when Spain held its first democratic
Re: [Marxism] The Anatomy of Teabagging
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 4/18/10, brad bauerly bbaue...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S. Artesian wrote: I do not agree that many people sympathize with the TP because there is no left alternative. That's a myth. That's an ideological analysis, not a material analysis. It's like saying lots of people sympathize with the fascists because there isn't a communist alternative, when exactly the reverse is the case... lots of people sympathize with the fascists precisely because there is a communist alternative. -- Are you really saying that people sympathize with the TP because there is a strong left in the US? That's assbackwards. Jeffery is correct up to a point. We shouldn't attempt to win over TPers, but we should build a left that can offer an alternative to their nonsense to stop further workers moving in the TP direction. Brad Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/vickiwhite%40speakeasy.net -- Sent from my mobile device 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 Anatomy of Teabagging
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == No, I'm saying what I was saying-- that to argue that the TP movement exists or exerts an attraction because there is no strong left movement in the US is incorrect. I am not arguing that it exists because there is a strong movement. I am stating to make such an argument no strong left, ergo tea party is to provide an ideological excuse rather than a concrete analysis. The TP movement exists because it is bankrolled by the bourgeoisie, or a sector of the bourgeoisie, that want it to exist not because the left is weak I am using the analogy of the fascists would really be sympathetic to communism, if only we were a better organized, stronger movement to point out the absurdity of that view. There is, after all, a convergence of history and logic. We call that convergence dialectic. - Original Message - From: brad bauerly bbaue...@gmail.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 Anatomy of Teabagging
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 11:26 AM, brad bauerly bbaue...@gmail.com wrote: Greg- I can not begin to unravel what that guy was posting on FB. The only thing I can say is that he makes a reference to his business, which probably means he is bourgeois or PB. So fuck him. My point exactly. And why pretend? He's PB. Which raises the point re. class composition of the Teabaggers. If many or even most are white people in precarious middle class economic situations, you can bet any amount of money they will be dragged kicking and screaming in protest of becoming working class. And they will lash out at the most absurd scapegoats imaginable, rather than challenging the overall system. This is because their class position has made them individualistic and greedy, with predilections toward racist diatribes. There you have it--the three poisons of Buddhism all in one: greed, hatred, and delusion. I posted the Chomsky vid in deference to Mark and his talk it out strategy. I think it is useful for helping to rescue a few folks here and there from the clutches of nativism and fascism, but most people's irrational emotions tend to override clear thinking, especially when they are already prone to being in denial in the first place. Greg 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] Universal jurisdiction put to test (and something more, as a bonus) Re: Argentines Try Probing Crimes of Franco's Spain
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This will be THE test to the theses on universal jurisdiction. I would bet that while it is perfectly acceptable that European courts try Chilean or Argentinean Thugs, it will hardly be accepted that an Arg Court tries Spanish thugs. Let us wait and see... BTW: the Spanish Civil War left in Arg a deeper trace than elsewhere, due to a host of reasons. Four of these: a) recent migration from Spain and Italy of _both_ philo-Fascists and Left wingers b) absolute indifference of the masses towards local politics, hijacked by professional politicians in the service of the British Empire during the 1930s c) strong influence of the Left (with or without inverted commmas) on the consciousness of the middle classes, a form of cultural alienation d) worship of the local right wing Catholic Nationalists for the Francoite side All this, cast in the general Eurocentric consciousness of the middle classes in the large towns and areas of the Pampa region where foreign (mainly Italian) migrants had managed to establish a solid agrarian middle class. It is most revealing to show that one of the most progressive politicians of the time, Amadeo Sabattini, was a neutralist (a reasonably national-bourgeois position) in the conflict while at the same time he was socially progressive, thoroughly democratic and very popular. In fact, one of the reasons for this strange mixture was that a good deal of his own social base of voters were children of the recent Italian migration to Argentina, who kept some lovingly feelings towards Italy -which by those times was Fascist Italy! Thus, Sabattini had to both play games towards the global democratic camp (he was even married to a Communist Party member) and towards the global totalitarian camp (by way of neutralism). 2010/4/18 Greg McDonald gregm...@gmail.com: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/14/world/AP-LT-Argentina-Spain-Human-Rights.html?_r=2partner=rssemc=rss Argentines Try Probing Crimes of Franco's Spain By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 14, 2010 -- Néstor Gorojovsky El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autoría 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 Anatomy of Teabagging
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Apr 18, 2010, at 11:35 AM, S. Artesian wrote: No, I'm saying what I was saying-- that to argue that the TP movement exists or exerts an attraction because there is no strong left movement in the US is incorrect. I am not arguing that it exists because there is a strong movement. But why agree that such a movement exists? There seems to be no more reality in it than in any other reality show on FOX and its consoeurs, and it was FOX that invented the traveling clown show known as the TP. The TP serves three purposes (apart from the comic relief)--it gratifies Murdoch's ego as well as his finances, it makes the corporate hack serving as president look (relatively) less like a puppet, and it gives the Liberal Idiocracy something to get its knickers in a twist over while they go on supporting the Ubu-lite scam in Washington. Shane Mage The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed. Joe Stack (1956-2010) 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] NY Times Tea Party poll
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://s3.amazonaws.com/nytdocs/docs/312/312.pdf 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] Tea bag discussion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This has been going on for days and seems to be going around in circles. Has anybody discovered new insights? Otherwise, wouldn't it be better to move on? This is not exactly a flame war, but it does seem more repetitive than usual. 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] Stalin Archive now on the Revolutionary Democracy website
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Original Message Subject:Fwd: Fwd: [MLL] Fwd: Stalin Archive now on the Revolutionary Democracy website Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2010 22:01:13 +0530 From: Marxist Front marxistfr...@yahoo.co.in To: Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and the thinkers he inspired marxism-tha...@lists.econ.utah.edu - Forwarded Message - From: editor revdemeditor_rev...@indiatimes.com To: marxist-leninist-l...@lists.econ.utah.edu Sent: Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:07:08 +0530 (IST) Subject: Stalin Archive now on the Revolutionary Democracy website The Revolutionary Democracy website at: www.revolutionarydemocracy.org now includes a Stalin Archive. Just Scroll down the left side of the site. The archive includes so far Volumes 14 to 18 of the Works of Stalin which were published by Red Star Press, London, in the 1970s and 1980s; the Correspondence Between the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Presidents of the USA and the Prime Ministers of Great Britain During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 and the Minutes of The TehranYaltaPotsdam Conferences. Here is the introductory note to the archive: Stalin was a leading communist revolutionary of the twentieth century whose seminal contribution is increasingly felt in the twenty first century.His name is identified with the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union, the victory over fascism in the Second World War and the transitionto communist society. These colossal victories would not have been possible without the defeat of the oppositions led by Trotsky and Bukharin whoopposed socialist industrialisation and collectivisation. By the time ofthe death of Stalin a large people’s democratic camp had been built up in central and eastern Europe and Asia alongside the USSR. Yet the writings of Stalin are not easy to locate despite the fact that anumber of websites include some of his works. 13 Volumes of the Works were completed in English prior to the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU in 1956. The dummy of Volume 14 had been printed prior to this event and the publication of the volume was announced before the Closed Speech. It was not to be printed. The Soviet archives show that preparatory work had alsobegun for volumes 15-17 of the Works of Stalin. This archive represents anattempt to widen the availability of the writings of this classic of Marxism. We begin by reconstituting Volumes 14 to 18 of the Works of Stalin which were published by Red Star Press, London in the 1970s and 1980s. These volumes which are much in demand have been out of print for many years. The Red Star Press compilation drew upon the labours of communists whohad gathered materials for the publication of the Works of Stalin in French and German. Separate from these endeavours communists in Albania and Spain independently compiled volumes 14 in their languages. In the UnitedStates, Volumes 14 to 16 were published in Russian from Stanford basedupon the official Soviet publications. Under Khrushchev and Brezhnev some of the contributions of Stalin bearingupon diplomatic matters were published in the Soviet Union. We are placing a part of these on the web. After the fall of the USSR volumes 14 to 18 have been published in Russian and more are under preparation under theeditorship of Prof. Richard Kosalapov. With the opening up ofthe StalinArchive currently held in the former Central Party Archive of the CPSU aconsiderable part of the vast body of Stalin’s writingsare now available in the public domain. In the near future we plan to put on the web in a chronological form some of Stalin’s writings which are not included in existing collections. This is an international task and weappeal for assistance on this in terms of the location of materials and the translation of Stalin’s writings from the Russian. Those who wish to help in this cause may contact us at: editor_rev...@rediffmail.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] Tea bag discussion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == OK by me, but I'd like to know what Vicki White wanted to say. - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect l...@panix.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] Christopher Hitchens -- An 'Expert' on George Orwell
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == For a much more interesting take on Animal Farm, see the 2002 novel Snowball's Chance by John Reed (sic) - which I recall Hitchens' dismissing in a review as Bin Ladenist... Jim Farmelant wrote: Next, the gin-soaked-popinjay will be telling us that Orwell got the idea of Emmanuel Goldstein's The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism” from James Burnham's The Mangerial Revolution. 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] Tea bag discussion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yeah, I have something additional to say, that isn't a repeat. Everyone has stressed different aspects of the TP movement: whether the movement is about working people with legitimate fears, open racists, incipient fascists, country-club Republicans, etc., etc., and the simple fact is that all of these things are true. The Tea Party movement, to the extent that it even IS a movement, is intensely contradictory. The question for us is, what are the proper tactics to defeat this movement? Part of the answer, I believe, will involve EXPLOITING some of those contradictions and driving wedges to divide sections of the Tea Party movement against each other. One of those wedge issues is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another (related) is the PATRIOT Act. Also, socialists have an answer to the high taxes which are a real burden on many working-class families: it was the primary slogan in Rich Ariza's SWP campaign for governor of NJ in 1977: Tax the rich, not working people. I believed in that slogan then, and I believe in it now. Obviously, we cannot in any way, even in a united-front antiwar movement, make any compromise with racism. I found out the hard way-in practice-that the pure-and-simple single-issue united front can't really work in the real world. In our committee, as I have reported on a number of occasions, we had to deal with an old man who was a Holocaust denier and a Nazi sympathizer who participated in our peace vigils and other activities. He wasn't part of any organized group, and we determined that he wasn't a physical danger to anyone, but we took political steps to isolate him and make clear that our committee had no sympathy for his notions. See http://nwnjpeace.org/tolerance.html. If the antiwar movement holds fast to principle, it can reach out to the Ron Paul supporters who oppose the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the PATRIOT Act. By holding fast to principle, I mean not compromising with any form of racism, sexism, or hostility to the labor movement. It will involve a certain amount of agreement to disagree. By the way, do you all remember the incendiary phrase from Goldwater's speech accepting the Republican nomination for President in 1964: Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice? The speechwriter responsible for that was a young guy named Karl Hess. Well, the week after I joined the YSA in 1969, I attended the Hiroshima Day antiwar demonstration in Washington, DC, and Karl Hess was one of the speakers! He had broken with the Republicans over the war issue (he went on to participate in the founding of the Free Libertarian Party, the forerunner of the present-day Libertarian party). Now, this demonstration was organized by the New Mobilization Committee, in which the SWP played a prominent role. Was it a mistake to invite Hess to speak? I think not. To a great extent the Tea Party movement is (pardon the expression) a tempest in a teapot: it's not as big as the media would like to make it out to be. I just watched Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA) on Meet the Press talking about how they had only gotten 1500 people out to a Washington demonstration on tax day, and that if he organized a demonstration against euthanizing puppies he could get 100,000 in the streets with a snap of his fingers. Furthermore, the ruling class is hardly threatened to the point where it needs to turn to an extraparliamentary fascist movement to defend itself. Truth be told, Obama is actually doing a very good job defending the ruling class's interests, and if we stay on message explaining that, we can convince. Tom -Original Message- From: marxism-bounces+biastg=embarqmail@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-bounces+biastg=embarqmail@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of S. Artesian Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2010 12:33 PM To: Thomas Bias Subject: Re: [Marxism] Tea bag discussion == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == OK by me, but I'd like to know what Vicki White wanted to say. - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect l...@panix.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/biastg%40embarqmail.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] Tea bag discussion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Apr 18, 2010, at 12:19 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: This has been going on for days and seems to be going around in circles. Thanks Louis for reminding me of a fourth TP function: providing a perfect arena for MM posters to chase their tails in. Shane Mage L'après-vie, c'est une auberge espagnole. L'on n'y trouve que ce qu'on a apporté. Bardo Thodol 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] Tea bag discussion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == tom: you say: it [the Tea Party movement] is not as big as the media would like to make it out to be. hell, tom, the Tea Party movement is a creation of the corporate media, which took tiny protests at public hearings last year and magnified them as if it were a big-time movement, which it has become BECAUSE of all the coverage. There were (and are) much bigger protests by labour, immigrants, and sundry others which never see the light on day on the corporate media. It exemplifies the basic lesson, only in reverse, derived by the ruling class from the turmoil of protest of the 1960s -- don't amplify dissent. This time they are amplifying the kind of dissent they want to hear -- government can do no good for the public interest. 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] Stalin Archive now on the Revolutionary Democracy website
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Marxist Front marxistfr...@yahoo.co.inwrote: The Revolutionary Democracy website at: www.revolutionarydemocracy.org now includes a Stalin Archive. Hey, thanks so much , just what we needed - an archive for someone who betrayed revolutions and opposed democracy! What's next - a Tony Blair archive?? 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] Stalin Archive now on the Revolutionary Democracywebsite
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == There already is a Tony Blair archive... and a George W. Bush library, of coure the library only has illustrated versions of books, but still... - Original Message - From: Dennis Brasky dmozart1...@gmail.com == Hey, thanks so much , just what we needed - an archive for someone who betrayed revolutions and opposed democracy! What's next - a Tony Blair archive?? 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] Tea bag discussion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == My last word on this is to note that Steve's entirely correct in describing the Tea Party movement as the creation of the corporate media. This was why I was referring to it earlier as a movement in quotes. There were small circles there earlier around Ron Paul and his people, but the lobbyists swept in and moved it all to their purposes in a very direct way. Fox, in particular, followed, sharing much of the same agenda. Then came the politicians. This created a dynamic that didn't so much go anywhere but in circles. Still, it was enough to create a gigantic sucking sound as the abysmal level of American public discourse dropped still further Because of what I do and where I am, I regularly spend time with activists around these things, most recently when Joe the Plunger was here and calling for shooting immigrants. So, regrettably, I know something about it and thought the list might benefit from that. Silly me. But the main reason I participated in this row is because there is a godawful tendency of progressives across the spectrum to crank out these insights that basically blame other progressives for the pathetic state of affairs in the U.S. I remember hearing this as a drumbeat of this from Obama's apologists through coverage of the health care issue, for example. The poor pragmatic president being pressured to do unpopular things by the nasty idealogues who want him to be purist and confrontational. Why can't we all just get along? This has become more pronounced as the media more inclined to liberal stances sees the reactionary media getting to cover all this stuff. Action, drama, bile, citizens engaged in exactly the way corporations want to see them engaged. As Steve noted, the alternative might be the bigger demonstrations among the progressives, but these are embarassments. So you get the liberally inclined media tail-ending the coverage to get their piece of the action. The editorial reflection of this is conceding all sorts of street cred to what the lobbyists have put in front of their cameras. We see the radical reflection of this in a lot of the analysis presented here. The Marxists complaining that other Marxists just haven't given the teabaggers enough respect To have our best chance of winning anything, we need our own movement under our own banners. I'm beginning to think at this point, that we need a mass movement against the war(s) more than we need anything else But I've typed my last word on this for a while and thank the list for the opportunity of having been accorded the privilege 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
[Marxism] Swans Release: April 19, 2010
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Welcome to Swans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ April 19, 2010 Note from the Editors: Since our last publication, the Vatican has managed to bury its anti-Semitism kafuffle by digging itself into an ever-deepening hole with its assertion that celibacy is not to blame for pedophilia, but rather homosexuality. Now that it has unwittingly made suspect the sexual orientation of its priests, thereby acknowledging that you can't pray away the gay, how will the church justify its homophobic stance? We'll wait with bated breath for the next sacred spin. Meanwhile, on to more credible matters: Michael Barker's investigation into an ostensibly progressive magazine that works in the service of imperialism may take the breath out of unsuspecting progressives, yet it is essential that we understand these links if we wish to influence meaningful change. Charles Marowitz, for one, would like to see a return to honesty and fair play in politics, unlike what was revealed about the combatants in the battle over health care reform. Charles Pearson asks for a bit of outrage over price hikes, British politicians' greedy lobbying practices, and the scandal of privatization of the National Health Service, and from Harvey Whitney Jr.'s perspective a little knowledge would go a long way toward holding our leaders -- and the voters who elect them -- accountable for their decisions. Case in point: Ghana. Femi Akomolafe recently traveled to Paris to celebrate the fifty-third anniversary of her independence, concluding that Africans remain their own worst enemies... On Swans we strive to hold journalists and activists, along with voters and politicians, accountable, so Michael Doliner, who studied with Hannah Arendt, addresses Reuven Kaminer's distortion of Arendt's ideas on totalitarianism, while Louis Proyect takes Jared Diamond to task over his 2005 book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. For his part, Paul Buhle continues to support radical art and recommends the new World War 3 Illustrated #40 for the freshness of topics and treatment by old hands in the enterprise of radical politics and artist-activists. On the cultural front, Peter Byrne directs a short play in which the husband who just wanted silence gets his comeuppance. Le coin français features Jean-Claude Seine on Justice sociale and Jean Ferrat's ass (of the hooved sort), Simone Alié-Daram's analysis of the precautionary principle, Marie Rennard's look at the history of relics, and the poetry of Christian Cottard, who finds love a bit complicated. We close with the linguistic blending of Guido Monte and Novella Nicchitta, and your letters with an appeal to Jan Baughman to keep shouting, plagiarized praise for Gilles d'Aymery's The Scourge Of Plagiarism And Scrubbing, two Shays converged in this polyglot, under-financed, small piece of art that keeps fighting for justice; and more. # # # # # All the articles and the Letters to the Editor can be freely accessed from Swans front page. Please go to: http://www.swans.com/ You can also access our past issues at: http://www.swans.com/library/past_issues/past_issues.html And you have access to almost 14 years of archives by date, author, and subject at: http://www.swans.com/library/archives.html Remember, what's free to you is not to us! To help our work financially please visit http://www.swans.com/about/donate.html # # # # # Swans (aka Swans Commentary), ISSN: 1554-4915, is a bi-weekly non- commercial ad-free Web-only magazine which provides original content to its readers. We encourage pulp publications to republish Swans Work in print format. Please contact the publisher at aymery AT ix.netcom.com. Please, do not repost Swans Work on the Web and other mailing lists: Hypertext links to any pages of Swans.com are authorized; however, republication of any part of this site, inlining, mirroring, and framing are expressly prohibited. (You are receiving this E-mail notification for you have expressed your interest in Swans and the work of its team. If you wish not to receive these short notifications, simply reply to this E-mail (delete the content) and enter the word REMOVE in the subject line.) Cordially, Gilles d'Aymery -- Swans Hungry man, reach for the book: It is a weapon. B. Brecht 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] Tea bag discussion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yeah, I remember that one, I was in high school in the DC area then and an activist in the Young Socialist Alliance and Student Mobe; that was part of the beginning of the buildup for the monster protest season we had that fall with the Moratorium and Mobe demos, the biggest political protests in US history up to that time. Heddy time, with Woodstock and all the rest going on. I think Karl Hess had come out as a libertarian leftist some time before that, however. Tom Bias: By the way, do you all remember the incendiary phrase from Goldwater's speech accepting the Republican nomination for President in 1964: Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice? The speechwriter responsible for that was a young guy named Karl Hess. Well, the week after I joined the YSA in 1969, I attended the Hiroshima Day antiwar demonstration in Washington, DC, and Karl Hess was one of the speakers! He had broken with the Republicans over the war issue (he went on to participate in the founding of the Free Libertarian Party, the forerunner of the present-day Libertarian party). Now, this demonstration was organized by the New Mobilization Committee, in which the SWP played a prominent role. Was it a mistake to invite Hess to speak? I think not. 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] LA: Free Julio!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == - Original Message - From: Joaquin Cienfuegos To: dope_x_resistanc...@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2010 12:27 PM Subject: [DopeXResistance-L.A.] Fw: Free Julio! To: Date: Sunday, April 18, 2010, 11:39 AM 4/17/2010 Sisters and brothers, Our beloved friend and comrade Julio Rodriguez was arrested today 4/17/10 in Downtown Los Angeles, while protesting against white supremacy, by the LAPD. For those of you who do not know Julio he has been involved with Communities For A Better Environment Huntington Park, Anarchist Black Cross Guadalajara, Nahuatl education in Brown communities, and most recently helped organize the April 10th event to raise funds for Oso Blanco and the children of Chiapas. He is being held on the trumped up charge of “Assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer or fireman,” which is a felony. His court date is Tuesday 4/20/10; his bail is 50,000 dollars, and he is currently in the LAPD Parker Center, located at 150 N. Los Angeles Street, Los Angeles, CA. His booking number is #2301368. Tomorrow, Sunday, 4/18/10, visiting hours are from 10-12 and 1-3 pm. I will be able to make at least two trips to visit him tomorrow and one on Monday, if anyone has a government issued ID and wants to carpool, please contact me at MapachinABC@ gmail.com . I will post the court time, address, and room number as soon as the information becomes available to me. It is crucial that as Anarchists, anti-imperialists, anti-racists, and anti-fascists we support our friend behind enemy lines, as well as his family, offering our aid in any way possible. Please circulate this message. FREE JULIO! Mapache Los Angeles Anarchist Black Cross No Yocoyani nechmaca in Yolic quena nicuiz ina cequin toni amo nihueli nimopataz Yolcahuana quena nimopataz nenqueh toni nihueli uan Tamatiliz quena niquixmatiz in taman . __,_._,___ 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] Arizona Goes Over the Edge
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18sun3.html Arizona Goes Over the Edge Published: April 17, 2010 The Arizona Legislature has just stepped off the deep end of the immigration debate, passing a harsh and mean-spirited bill that would do little to stop illegal immigration. What it would do is lead to more racial profiling, hobble local law enforcement, and open government agencies to frivolous, politically driven lawsuits. The bill is a grab bag of measures to enlist law enforcement and government at every level to expose and expel the undocumented. Opponents say it verges on a police state, which sounds overblown until you read it. It would make not having immigration documents a new state misdemeanor, and allow officers to arrest anyone who could not immediately prove they were here legally. That means if you are brown-skinned and leave home without a wallet, you are in trouble. Police agencies that believe overly tough enforcement tactics are undercutting their ability to fight crime would have to crack down anyway. The bill would require police officers who have “reasonable suspicion” about someone’s immigration status to demand to see documents. And it would empower anyone to sue any state agency or official or any county, city or town that he or she believes is not fully enforcing immigration law. The bill, passed by Arizona’s Republican-controlled House on a party-line vote, has already passed the state Senate and will soon be before Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican. She has not said whether she will sign it. Immigrant advocates and civil-rights lawyers are appalled, and so are police chiefs and sheriffs who say the bill is an assault on public safety, since it would force newly criminalized immigrants to fear and shun the police. It would divert law enforcement resources away from chasing violent offenders, and toward an all-out assault on the mostly harmless undocumented, with the innocent as collateral damage. It is now up to Governor Brewer to do what is best for her state: she should refuse to sign. If this dangerous experiment becomes law, Washington can still end it by refusing to cooperate, cutting off access to immigration records. Either way, it should cancel programs that enlist state and local law enforcement in the indiscriminate hunt for the undocumented. The Arizona bill is another reminder why the administration needs to push for real immigration reform. The failure to address it nationally has left the field wide open for this outrage, and we fear more to come. 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] Stalin Archive now on the Revolutionary Democracy website
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 04/18/2010 09:31 AM, Marxist Front wrote: These colossal victories would not have been possible without the defeat of the oppositions led by Trotsky and Bukharin whoopposed socialist industrialisation and collectivisation. By the time ofthe death of Stalin a large people’s democratic camp had been built up in central and eastern Europe and Asia alongside the USSR. This stuff is delusional and not worth debating I have a question though: Does this new Stalin archive contain works that marxists.org doesn't? Because I'm sure they'd love to have it. 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] Arizona Goes Over the Edge
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Greg McDonald-3 wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18sun3.html Arizona Goes Over the Edge Published: April 17, 2010 The Arizona Legislature has just stepped off the deep end of the immigration debate, passing a harsh and mean-spirited bill that would do little to stop illegal immigration. What it would do is lead to more racial profiling, hobble local law enforcement, and open government agencies to frivolous, politically driven lawsuits. [...] The Arizona bill is another reminder why the administration needs to push for real immigration reform. The failure to address it nationally has left the field wide open for this outrage, and we fear more to come. One explanation is that the capitalists are afraid. Another is they seek to profit from it as well. Some aim to make a buck by filling their private. for-profit prisons with undocumented aliens who will have to somehow pay for their keep. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prisons http://www.abtassociates.com/reports/priv-report.pdf Arizona May Turn Death Row Over to Private Companies http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/us/24prison.html There is no capitalist solution to this problem, mate, progressive or otherwise. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/-Marxism--Arizona-Goes-Over-the-Edge-tp28286687p28286730.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] Socialist Voice: Clara Zetkin / Michel Chartrand / Cuba the Media
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == SOCIALIST VOICE Marxist Perspectives for the 21st Century http://www.socialistvoice.ca April 18, 2010 CLARA ZETKIN’S STRUGGLE FOR THE UNITED FRONT by John Riddell http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=1146 Genossinnen und Genossen! That is how Clara Zetkin began her speeches. It is German for “women comrades and men comrades.” Few socialists used that salutation in her time, and there were few women at their meetings. But that was beginning to change, and Zetkin was part of those changes. REMEMBERING MICHEL CHARTRAND by Richard Fidler http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=1153 Michel Chartrand, an outstanding leader of the Quebec labour, nationalist, socialist and social justice movements, died on April 12 at the age of 93. RECENT MEDIA COVERAGE OF CUBA: SELECTIVE COMMENDATION, SELECTIVE INDIGNATION by Emily J. Kirk, John M. Kirk, and Norman Girvan http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=1142 At the March 31 UN Nations Haiti Donor Conference, Cuba made arguably the most ambitious and impressive pledge of all countries — to rebuild the entire National Health Service. While the efforts of other government have been praised, those of Cuba, however, have largely been ignored in the media. Recent Articles CUBAN MEDICAL AID TO HAITI: ONE OF THE WORLD’S BEST KEPT SECRETS http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=1122 QUEBEC GOVERNMENT JOINS CAMPAIGN AGAINST MUSLIMS AND OTHER MINORITIES http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=1119 APPEAL TO MARGARET ATWOOD: REJECT PRIZE FROM APARTHEID ISRAEL http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=1116 +++ SOCIALIST VOICE Web: http://www.socialistvoice.ca Email: socialistvo...@sympatico.ca Editors: Ian Angus, Roger Annis, John Riddell Readers are encouraged to forward or distribute Socialist Voice as widely as possible. To subscribe, send a blank email to socialist-voice-subscr...@yahoogroups.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to socialist-voice-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com FEEDBACK: Socialist Voice welcomes questions, comments and debate on the articles we publish. Please use the `Feedback' box at the bottom of each article on our website. LINK DOESN'T WORK? Some email programs block links to websites. If clicking on a link in Socialist Voice doesn't work, try holding down the CTRL key as you click, or copy the link address into your browser. 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] What's new at Links: Thailand, US nukes, Bolivia climate summit, coal protest, Palestine, Sudan, S. Africa, Venezuela, Pakistan, capitalism food
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Thailand, US nukes, Bolivia climate summit, coal protest, Palestine, Sudan, S. Africa, Venezuela, Pakistan, capitalism food * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to li...@dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. * * * Can capitalism fix climate change? http://links.org.au/node/1630 By *Simon Butler* April 14, 2010 -- Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It has taken capitalism about 250 years to generate enough waste and pollution to press dangerously against nature's limits. With such a damning record, there should be no grounds to expect a different outcome in the future. Yet the mainstream discussion about how to tackle the climate crisis still assumes that, this time around, capitalism can be made sustainable. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1630 Obama's double talk at nuclear summit: US preserves and extends its nuclear domination http://links.org.au/node/1622 By the *International Socialist Organization*, United States April 14, 2010 -- The US has repackaged its strategy -- but the terrible threat of nuclear war remains. The administration of US President Barack Obama is out to upgrade the US nuclear arsenal and pressure world leaders into imposing sanctions against countries -- like Iran -- that allegedly harbour ambitions to develop nukes of their own. That's the agenda behind the April 12-13 Washington summit on nuclear security, which followed the announcement of a supposedly less belligerent US nuclear strategy and the signing in Prague of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1622 Bolivia: Ambassador Pablo Solon on why thousands will attend World People's Climate Summit http://links.org.au/node/1619 April 11, 2010 -- More than 10,000 individuals and 50 governments have already registered to participate in the historic World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, on April 19-22, 2010. *Pablo Solon*, Bolivia's ambassador to the UN, at a press conference during UNFCCC negotiations in Bonn on April 10 condemned continued attempts by some developed countries to impose a deeply flawed Copenhagen Accord as the basis for future negotiations. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1619 Photo essay: `Stop the coal rush!' -- people's blockade halts exports from world's biggest coal port http://links.org.au/node/1628 Photo essay and story by *Jagath Dheerasekara* March 28, 2010 -- Newcastle, Australia -- A mass community protest at the biggest coal port in the world, Newcastle, succeeded in preventing coal ship movements all day. Hundreds of peaceful protesters occupied the harbour from 10 am. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1628 What kind of Palestinian state in 2011? http://links.org.au/node/1627 By *Rafeef Ziadah* April 12, 2010 -- In December 2007, the Palestinian National Authority (PA), in close consultation with donor states and institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, proposed the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan (PRDP), a program based on rebuilding the Palestinian national institutions and developing the Palestinian public and private sectors. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1627 Sudan: US backs election farce http://links.org.au/node/1625 By *Kerryn Williams* April 15, 2010 -- Hailed as the first competitive, open, multi-party elections in Sudan in 24 years, there was little free, fair or open about the national poll that began on April 11, boycotted by the major opposition parties. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1625 Malaysia: Solidarity protest with Thai people's movement for democracy http://links.org.au/node/1623 April 14, 2010 -- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -- Today, a delegation of 30 people led by the *Socialist Party Malaysia* (PSM) staged a protest at the Royal Thai Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Those present included Dr. Nasir Hashim (chairperson of the PSM and Selangor state assemblyperson for Kota Damansara ), Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj (central committe member of PSM and federal member of parliament for Sungai Siput), and S. Arutchelvan (secretary-general of the PSM). There
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Marxism-Thaxis Digest, Vol 78, Issue 13
OK WL, don't let reality get in the way of your abstractions. The 'tractor' in many cases actually made the small farm -- the mule and 40 acres -- last longer, as the tractor and 40 acres farm. With ammonia-based fertlizer you have something that is just as destructive of older forms of farming as the tractor or self-propelled farm equipment to be more accurate because you free the farm up from having to make its own fertilizer, raise enough feed for the animals that make the fertilizer. Another big change is simply in the way farmers get their seeds to plant. They used to have to raise their own crops to feed themselves, to feed their animals, and to have enough seed to plant enough crops the next time around. And how you grow crops for seed is pretty much a lost art to today's farmers. As for the steam power, it moved so much work away from streams in terms of milling and the sacking of flour. Of course its locomotive power for trains transformed the country (as did telegraph, the lines for which often paralleled the tracks). You are right about 'tractors' in the sense self-propelled tractive equipment didn't really catch on with steam power--it took far too many mechanics dispersed all over farming areas to keep running, and it was too heavy and bogged down. But gasoline-powered tractors caught on with all sorts of farming, especially after WW II. 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] End game: Part 4 on the Communist Internationals
What broke up the share cropping system in America was the tractor as that, which was fundamental. Not by itself. Nor is this to say the sharecropping system was preordained. The property form could have attained another shape as a land of independent farmers in the South. I agree mechanization in the 1930s and 40s accompanies the end of the sharecropping 'system' in the South, but if you want to ignore the real agricultural production and bread baskets of all the rest of the US when you do this, you are not really looking at the transformation of agriculture in the US. The South was dominated by a small white elite (which was actually somewhat mixed race in some 'Old South' areas) controlling a vast system of subsistence farming that locked in huge numbers of both poor whites and poor blacks, who migrated to the cities and to the north and its cities for work. In the NE and MW, farming co-ops did as much to transform the sort of relations you want to abstractly gaze at. And these had long been much more productive than most of the South, which made its money on crops you couldn't grow elsewhere (cotton, tobacco, etc.). Southern sharecropping (which actually made its way into the border states too)--and even peonage-- was a sytem that 'enslaved' poor black and poor white alike (in a state like Tenesseee the majority of sharecroppers were white) lasted about 75 years and, because so much of it concentrated on the overproduction of monocrops (and cotton especially), it destroyed the Southern agricultural environment. With or without the tractor, that system was doomed. Its collapse had, I believe, as much to do with the change in 1930-40s as the mechanization (and there is the overlapping collapse of the 'dry belt' agriculture). For those who had to hire themselves out as 'cotton pickers' at harvest time in order to try and make end's meet, the mechanized cotton harvester didn't really eliminate this labor until from the 1950s on, long after the system we are talking about had collapsed. I found this highly interesting: http://www.inmotionaame.org/print.cfm;jsessionid=f8301774171271575679964?migration=9bhcp=1 Out of the Rural South As with most migrations, there were several factors that drew African Americans out of the South and into cities throughout the nation. Poverty, the lack of educational facilities for the children, rigid segregation and discrimination, and limited opportunities were all among the reasons that led some to look North. But the most important was the massive collapse of Southern agricultural employment. The principal factors contributing to this economic disaster were great declines in the prices of sugar, tobacco, and especially cotton, coupled with the negative effects of federal policies designed to rescue Southern planters (at the expense of the workers) and the restructuring of commodity production that followed. With the onset of the worldwide depression, cotton prices fell from 18 cents a pound in 1928 to less than 6 cents a pound in 1931. Despite crashing prices, demand was suppressed further by continued high production that bloated surpluses; in the face of the price collapse, farmers harvested a record crop in 1933. Cutting production seemed to be the only solution. The Roosevelt administration achieved this by paying farmers to reduce the land planted and by buying up surpluses already on the market. Although the U.S. Supreme Court declared the initial program, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, unconstitutional, a revised system was put into place during the late 1930s and achieved the same ends. Farm owners now received direct subsidies for taking land out of production, as well as so-called parity payments that reimbursed the difference between the actual cost of production and the market price of their product. The owner's tenants and sharecroppers were to share in the benefits of crop reduction. In practice, however, most tenants and croppers were excluded from most, if not all, of these subsidies. In addition, the New Deal's reduction in acres planted meant that fewer workers were needed to make a crop. This initial reduction was made even worse by mechanization. For the longest time, Southern planters - in control of a captive, cheap, and intimidated labor pool - had little reason to mechanize; but now, with subsidies providing the capital and parity payments guaranteeing a profit, they began to use tractors. Although labor needs ballooned at harvest time, they could be met by turning former tenants and croppers into temporary wageworkers. 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] End game: Part 4 on the Communist Internationals
Here we have an academic argument dated 1950 that cotton production in the US (which in terms of acreage had halved--because of the collapse of the 1920s and the reduced acreage plans under FDR in the 1930s) had to mechanize in order to compete with rayon, nylon and overseas cotton. 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] End game: Part 4 on the Communist Internationals
the link is http://www.jstor.org/pss/3740648 On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 4:43 PM, CeJ jann...@gmail.com wrote: Here we have an academic argument dated 1950 that cotton production in the US (which in terms of acreage had halved--because of the collapse of the 1920s and the reduced acreage plans under FDR in the 1930s) had to mechanize in order to compete with rayon, nylon and overseas cotton. CJ -- ELT in Japan http://eltinjapan.blogspot.com/ Japan Higher Education Outlook http://japanheo.blogspot.com/ We are Feral Cats http://wearechikineko.blogspot.com/ ___ 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] End game: Part 4 on the Communist Internationals
Wide spread chemical fertilizers came after the tractor. Actually, completely wrong. It came into widespread use after newly opened farmlands were quickly depleted by monocropping and lack of crop rotation. For cotton farming it became absolutely essential and even then didn't prevent the lands from being completely depleted for future cotton crops. After the self-propelled tractor did become popular on small family farms, we actually see a drop in commercial fertilizer use, most likely because of reduced acres in farming as a result of federal programs in the 1930s. Which is not to say that fertilizer use doesn't then skyrocket in the 1950s and after -- it does, because of even more farming. http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farm_tech.htm 1843 Sir John Lawes founded the commercial fertilizer industry by developing a process for making superphosphate 1849 Mixed chemical fertilizers sold commercially 1890-99 Average annual consumption of commercial fertilizer; 1,845,900 tons 1900-09 Average annual consumption of commercial fertilizer 3,738,300 tons 1910-19 Commercial fertilizer use: 6,116,700 tons/year 1920-29 Commercial fertilizer use: 6,845,800 tons/year 1920-40 Farm production gradually grows from expanded use of mechanized power 1926 Cotton-stripper developed for High Plains; successful light tractors developed 1930-39 Commercial fertilizer use: 6,599,913 tons/year ___ 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] GW Carver
I always nominate GW Carver as the greatest American because as a kid I survived on peanut butter sandwiches. With the collapse of Southern agriculture, the other side of any transformation is what happened to Southern agriculture. No person's work did more to help smallholder type Southern farmers, both black and white. We shouldn't be surprised that a son of slaves should prove to be such a genius. At the end of the Civil War, in many places it was blacks who held much of the cultural body of skills and practical knowledge in farming, growing food, cooking, producing 'homespun' clothes, and the skilled trades. His gardening and dietary advice (much of it based on what he had learned growing up) probably helped relieve the South of its widespread pellagra as much as any other measure (poor whites and blacks would often eat a diet that consisted of corn, fat back and molasses, which is a recipe for pellagra). He also did important work on issues that ultimately helped the South's textile industries as well as the sort of manufactured foods we take for granted, like ketchup and mayonnaise. Post-moderns might think that homecanning is something that has been around since the beginning of the country, but the Mason jar is a revolution of the mid 19th century. Home canning was actually a technique that Carver helped to promote and disseminate. His crop rotation methods saved the farming south. http://inventors.about.com/od/stepbystep/ss/Hard_Times.htm http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfarm.htm#rotation In the United States, George Washington Carver brought his science of crop rotation to the farmers and saved the farming resources of the south. http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventors/a/GWC.htm Early Life George Washington Carver was born in 1864 near Diamond Grove, Missouri on the farm of Moses Carver. He was born into difficult and changing times near the end of the Civil War. The infant George and his mother kidnapped by Confederate night-raiders and possibly sent away to Arkansas. Moses Carver found and reclaimed George after the war but his mother had disappeared forever. The identity of Carver's father remains unknown, although he believed his father was a slave from a neighboring farm. Moses and Susan Carver reared George and his brother as their own children. It was on the Moses' farm where George first fell in love with nature, where he earned the nickname 'The Plant Doctor' and collected in earnest all manner of rocks and plants. Education He began his formal education at the age of twelve, which required him to leave the home of his adopted parents. Schools segregated by race at that time with no school available for black students near Carver's home. He moved to Newton County in southwest Missouri, where he worked as a farm hand and studied in a one-room schoolhouse. He went on to attend Minneapolis High School in Kansas. College entrance was a struggle, again because of racial barriers. At the age of thirty, Carver gained acceptance to Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, where he was the first black student. Carver had to study piano and art and the college did not offer science classes. Intent on a science career, he later transferred to Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in 1891, where he gained a Bachelor of Science degree in 1894 and a Master of Science degree in bacterial botany and agriculture in 1897. Carver became a member of the faculty of the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanics (the first black faculty member for Iowa College), teaching classes about soil conservation and chemurgy. Tuskegee In 1897, Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes, convinced Carver to come south and serve as the school's Director of Agriculture. Carver remained on the faculty until his death in 1943. Read the pamphlet - Help For Hard Times - written by Carver and forwarded by Booker T. Washington as an example of the educational material provided to farmers by Carver. At Tuskegee Carver developed his crop rotation method, which revolutionized southern agriculture. He educated the farmers to alternate the soil-depleting cotton crops with soil-enriching crops such as; peanuts, peas, soybeans, sweet potato, and pecans. Helping the South America's economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture during this era making Carver's achievements very significant. Decades of growing only cotton and tobacco had depleted the soils of the southern area of the United States of America. The economy of the farming south had been devastated by years of civil war and the fact that the cotton and tobacco plantations could no longer (ab)use slave labor. Carver convinced the southern farmers to follow his suggestions and helped the region to recover. Carver also worked at developing industrial applications from agricultural crops. During World War I, he found a way to replace the textile dyes formerly imported from Europe.
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] End game: Part 4 on the Communist Internationals
In a message dated 4/18/2010 12:56:29 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, jann...@gmail.com writes: Actually, completely wrong. It came into widespread use after newly opened farmlands were quickly depleted by monocropping and lack of crop rotation. For cotton farming it became absolutely essential and even then didn't prevent the lands from being completely depleted for future cotton crops. After the self-propelled tractor did become popular on small family farms, we actually see a drop in commercial fertilizer use, most likely because of reduced acres in farming as a result of federal programs in the 1930s. Which is not to say that fertilizer use doesn't then skyrocket in the 1950s and after -- it does, because of even more farming. Repluy I stand corrected. Thanks. WL. ___ 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
