Re: [Marxism] Christian Fascism in the USA?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 1:38 AM, Michael Smith m...@smithbowen.net wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, 20 Jun 2010 10:06:45 -0400 Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: The assertion that the bourgeois prefers democratic forms is, of course, received wisdom, but do we have any real evidentiary basis for believing it? Yes, you can read about how the German bourgeoisie only turned to Hitler when all other options failed. I recommend William Shirer's history, as well as Daniel Guerin's more Marxist-oriented work. Point taken. But I wonder whether we don't suffer sometimes from 1930/1930 vision: -- the events of the 30s are taken as normative and definitory. The abrupt turn to Fascism then does look very much like a response to crisis. The phenomenon I think in see in process now is perhaps a bit different -- it has gradualist, incremental, statistical dynamics rather than catastrophist ones. -- Michael Smith m...@smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com http://cars-suck.org Everyone has his favorite passage from the Theodosian Code. -- M I Finley Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/gary.maclennan1%40gmail.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] Christian Fascism in the USA?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Temperamentally I am opposed to purism and pedantry. So it is not surprise that way back in the 70s I was the subject of some polemics from the then Socialist Workers Party because I insisted on describing the then Premier of Queensland Bjelke-Petersen as a fascist. I was dismissed as an ultra-left lunatic in one internal document, I am proud to say. However I still shudder with horror at the memory of how the Sparts cricled around me when I called Ian Paisely a fascist at a meeting in Sydney. Still Lou has a point and so do Artesian and Mark and Carroll; we should be careful how we use the term 'fascist' and not just for historical reasons either. Fascists and repressive authoritarian ass holes are always with us. And it can seem like knit-picking to try and distinguish between them. But mass fascist movements and even worse fascist governments are something very different and if they existed then the contributors to this list would be very very dead -long ago. The German and Italian fascist movements were thrown up by the great crises of world wars, inter imperialist blood letting and the Great Depression. They came to government because the ruling class decided to gamble on them as a last resort to keep down the threat of Red Revolution. Will we see fascist governments again. Possible, but only if the ruling class fear imminent appropriation. Mandel pointed out somewhere that for their troubles in putting Hitler and Mussolini in power, the ruling class very nearly got destroyed and in his opinion they were unlikely to pull that trigger very quickly again. But who's to tell? No doubt if I were living in Hungary and could the uniformed and armed filth marching around, I would have a very different opinion about the possibilities of a fascist government. comradely Gary 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: BDS against Israel, World Cup S. Africa, Thailand appeal, Venezuela, Chavez interview, Marxism religion, Cuban contras, Philippines
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: BDS against Israel, World Cup S. Africa, Thailand appeal, Venezuela, Chavez interview, Marxism religion, Cuban contras, Philippines * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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. * * * Appeal against repression in Thailand http://links.org.au/node/1748 Introduction by *Danielle Sabai* and *Pierre Rousset* June 20, 2010 -- The crackdown on the opposition in Thailand and the abuses of the regime have not been met with the solidarity response and the international condemnation that the situation requires. The regime can thus freely operate and stifle the democratic movement. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1748 Building socialism from below: The role of the communes in Venezuela http://links.org.au/node/1745 / / *Antenea Jimenez* interviewed by *Susan Spronk* and *Jeffery R. Webber* June 13, 2010 -- We met with Antenea Jimenez, a former militant with the student movement who is now working with a national network of activists who are trying to build and strengthen the /comunas/ [communes]. The comunas are community organisations promoted since 2006 by the government of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez government as a way to consolidate a new form of state based upon production at the local level. She told us about the important advances in the process, as well as the significant challenges that remain in the struggle to build a new form of popular power from below. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1745 United States: Victory as protesters and union block Israeli ship unloading at Oakland Port http://links.org.au/node/1751 June 20, 2010 -- In a historic action and unprecedented action today, more 800 worker and community activists blocked the gates of the Oakland docks in the early morning hours, prompting longshore workers to refuse to cross the picketlines where they were scheduled to unload an Israeli ship. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1751 Marxism, socialism religion http://links.org.au/node/1750 By *Dave Holmes* Despite the apparently secular nature of so much of modern life, religion is a long way from being a spent force. For revolutionary socialists aiming to mobilise the masses for a fundamental transformation of society, religion is a question which cannot be ignored. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1750 Split amongst Cuban contras, cracks in the blockade http://links.org.au/node/1749 By *Tim Anderson* June 11, 2010 -- A major split over the US blockade of Cuba has emerged between domestic dissidents in Cuba and their former partners in Miami. The US corporate media is paying attention to what appears to be a new anti-Cuban strategy. The split represents a genuine difference in counter-revolutionary tactics, but is also linked to squabbles over money. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1749 South Africa: `World Cup for all! People before profit!' http://links.org.au/node/1747 By *Kamcilla Pillay * June 17, 2010, Durban -- /Daily News/ -- The sound of /vuvuzelas/ cut through the air in Durban on June 16 -- but for one large group there was little to celebrate. Amid cries of /phansi ngama-fat cats, phansi/ (down with fat cats, down) and a sea of banners proclaiming the government cared only for the rich, civil rights organisations took to the streets protesting against poor service delivery and the World Cup. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1747 Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez interviewed by BBC `Hardtalk'; Mark Weisbrot analyses interviewer's bias http://links.org.au/node/1746 On June 15, 2010, the BBC's /Hardtalk/ program broadcast an wide-ranging interview with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez from the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas. The interviewer, Stephen Sackur, clearly intended to provoke Chavez with a series of ill-informed and outright dishonest claims and questions. He did not succeed. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1746 South Africa: The myths and realities of the FIFA soccer World Cup http://links.org.au/node/1744 By *Dale T. McKinley*, Johannesburg June 15, 2010 -- Offering an unapologetic public critique of the FIFA Soccer World Cup at the
Re: [Marxism] Christian Fascism in the USA?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In a message dated 6/20/2010 11:24:52 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, gary.maclenn...@gmail.com writes: Fascists and repressive authoritarian ass holes are always with us. And it can seem like knit-picking to try and distinguish between them. But mass fascist movements and even worse fascist governments are something very different and if they existed then the contributors to this list would be very very dead -long ago. Comment There is no distinction between fascist and repressive authoritarians that I am aware of in real time, in today’s America at this moment of history. Actually, I am not aware of such a distinction since America birthed the world’s first victorious fascist movement. The distinction I am aware of is fascism in power. The period of transition to the victory and emergence of the fascist political state is characterized as a reactionary bourgeois democracy. The example of such a period was pinpointed as the point at which Rosa L. and Karl L. were murdered. Reactionary bourgeois democracy, means the fascist state form has not yet won the day. Fascism grows out of the politics of the state, as it attempts to adjust to and leap to a new political - not social or economic, basis. My particular take on this matter began with quoting George Seldes that fascism is imperialism turned inwards, and comment about the world's first victorious fascist movement birthed in America. Fascism today is a political response to globalization - capitalism in the age of electronics - and the U.S. battle to dominate the global economy. That is a new form of imperialism. It is the political expression of the objective concentration of wealth and the spread of poverty. Fascism is not about reaction, that is, returning to some past period. Groups like the KKK seeking a return to the past are reactionary and not simply counterrevolutionary. The real fascists, rather than the various scattered ideological grouping never seek a return to the past. These real fascists understand as do we the dialectic of the leap and why a return to the past is impossible. The development of the productive forces blocks such a return in the same way that one cannot return to feudalism, or rather manufacture as a new society mode of producing. Fascism is a revolutionary political movement that arises in response to crisis and threat to private property relations. It is the state as state that responds to such threats. On this basis I locate the source - locus, of political fascism in the state rather than the various ideological groups advocating all kinds of reactionary schemes. Fascism seeks not to adjust this or that policy, that is, to reform the system. It seeks to release the capitalists from the restrictions of bourgeois democracy and all that entails. It seeks the replacement of one state form with another - the unrestrained rule of capitalist interest and the consolidation and legalization of their openly terrorist dictatorship. Today, it is not just bourgeois democracy under assault but the built up Republican form of government. This latter proposition is a tad bit complicated because the Republican form of government has corresponded to and expressed an industrial formation of society. In real time we face an accelerated fascist movement, attaining a velocity I have never experienced. I profoundly disagree with the ideology that says, fascism is not a threat because of the lack of proletarian movement. We exist in a living political continuum. Fascism today - when it has not achieved victory as the emergence of the fascist political state, explains why America has become an increasingly reactionary bourgeois democracy. It is disturbing that very few folks - Marxists, articulate a picture of the fascist movement bound to citizens rights and the history altering impact of the democratic republic as an institution. Not just bourgeois democracy but the Republican form of government and state. WL. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The fascist danger in the USA [was: Re : Yes, indeed: what is Fascism?]
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Joaquín Bustelo (jbust...@bellsouth.net) wrote on 2010-06-18 at 23:03:32 in about [Marxism] The fascist danger in the USA [was: Re : Yes, indeed: what is Fascism?]: Thanks for your observations about an emerging fascist movement in the USA, like in I think there's a nascent fascist movement in the United States right now despite the lack of a workers movement to smash. It's in the tea party and the nativist right wing of the Republicans and in the anti-immigrant hysteria that was just on display in Texas at the state Republican convention. You were replying to a contribution of mine, quoting On 6/14/2010 4:21 PM, Lüko Willms wrote: You are leaving out the one single determining trait of fascism, namely the mass movement of the destitute and other petty bourgeois to destroy the workers movement root and branch. and object to my request to save the concept of fascism from dilution Oh, c'mon Lüko. Everybody knows, or should, that fascism is used in different ways by different folks, and ALL these uses are perfectly legitimate. Only a linguistic ... [dare I say it?] fascist [YES!!!] ... would insist that their specific, narrow meaning is the only true meaning. Well, I know that the term fascist is being emptied of content, degrading it to just another form of asshole or brute. The distinct train, however, is the mass mobilisation of petty bourgeois forces (esp. ideologically petty-bourgeois) in the streets, as violent storm troopers to strengthen the weakened grip of the propertied minority over the society. It is entirely legitimate to call highly repressive regimes fascist, to describe procapitalist statist policies as fascist, to brand the current yanqui anti-immigrant offensive fascist, The problem is that this hides the special trait of fascism, which is the role of the massively mobilized petty bourgeois gangs exercising violence in the streets. To gloss over this difference to a repression apparatus which relies only on the professional repressive forces of police and military, disguises the real facist regimes, and allows the likes of Daniel Goldhagen to completely discard German fascism and treat the taking of power of the Nazis in 1933 with the destruction of the workers movement as a simple change of government like the one from SPD to CDU. We would have to invent a new word for fascism if we allow it to be diluted to a simple invective, but it is easier to defend its original meaning. and to point out that the fuhrers of the illegitimate colonial-settler zionist entity occupying Palestine behave like a bunch of fascists. Yes they do. Well, I agree that the settler movement has a fascist character. BTW, many of those fascist still have their US-american passports... Well, your phrase is ambiguous and I could respond, the destitute are hardly petty bourgeois. But that's just quibbling and I'll let it pass. It's the destruction of the workers movement that I have a REAL problem with. And my problem is, what workers movement? Well, that we disagree on the existence and future of a workers movement in the USA can be left out of the discussion, and what you agree to call petty bourgois, too. But that it makes a difference if you are confronted just with a cop, or a horde of hundreds of hooligangs going after whatever weak people they consider a danger to the powers that be, that makes a difference. Let's keep that difference in our consciousness, and not lose it. It can make a difference between life and death. E.g. when confronting what Paul Flewers quoted Paul Flewers (rfls12...@blueyonder.co.uk) wrote on 2010-06-18 at 22:10:32 in about [Marxism] Christian Fascism in the USA?: The Christian Fascists Are Growing Stronger by Chris Hedges Tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, have begun to dismantle the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment. They are creating a theocratic state based on biblical law, and shutting out all those they define as the enemy. This movement, veering closer and closer to traditional fascism, seeks to force a recalcitrant world to submit before an imperial America. It champions the eradication of social deviants, beginning with homosexuals, and moving on to immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims and those they dismiss as nominal Christians -- meaning Christians who do not embrace their perverted and heretical interpretation of the Bible. Those who defy the mass movement are condemned as posing a threat to the health and hygiene of the country and the family. All will be purged. Comradely
[Marxism] YouTube - Cubamemucho 2010 Munich. Rue da espectáculo - Venezuela
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PixAkjnVnmQplaynext_from=TLvideos=UVkr_loUjZ This short clip shows the Venezuelan dancers in wonderful exuberance. The contest was in April this year. The clip was forwarded to me by a friend who went to the contest with an Australian group of dancers. She said that the Venezuelans did not make the finals but she thought they should have. 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 fascist danger in the USA [was: Re : Yes, indeed: what is F...
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Joaquín Bustelo (_jbust...@bellsouth.net_ (mailto:jbust...@bellsouth.net) ) wrote on 2010-06-18 at 23:03:32 in about [Marxism] The fascist danger in the USA [was: Re : Yes, indeed: what is Fascism?]: I think there's a nascent fascist movement in the United States right now despite the lack of a workers movement to smash. It's in the tea party and the nativist right wing of the Republicans and in the anti-immigrant hysteria that was just on display in Texas at the state Republican convention. Reply The anti- immigration movement is the cutting edge of the fascist movement. Its pretty scary to read about the lack of a workers movement to crush. How folks could miss five million people out in the streets opposing the fascists a couple years ago is beyond me. Where the so-called religious right sought to organize and propagandize in a period when globalization had still not widely affected American society, the anti-immigration movement propagandizes an American people devastated by the effects of advanced globalization, increasingly marginalized economically and politically, and bewildered by the world in which they now live. The medium of anti-immigration has become the means by which a section of the American people are being organized and mobilized as a social base to support the further transformation of the government and society necessary to facilitate the penetration of global capital in the world's societies, and to prepare for and contain its inevitable effects. Where I grew up this motion is called a fascist movement, before it achieves victory over the state. WL. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Who I am rooting for in the World Cup
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well, I'm not blowing a vuvuzela for anyone, but here's a fascinating article about FIFA's law-and-order franchise at the World Cup. Paul F +++ 'Fans, Robbers and a Marketing Stunt Face Justice, Fifa Style: Marina Hyde finds South Africa has handed over a chunk of its legal process to football's governing body. 'The Johannesburg magistrates' court is the sort of unloved municipal building whose corridors smell of damp and bureaucracy, and whose chilly courtrooms recall Bismarck's observation that those who love sausages and believe in justice should never see either being made. 'Enter this structure at present, however, and you are greeted by large signs proclaiming the Fifa World Cup Courts, directing you to the courtrooms which have been specially established to deal swiftly with anyone besmirching the good name of this football tournament. Unsure of when the next case is up? Then do take your seat in the Fifa World Cup Court Waiting Room.' Read the rest at http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/20/world-cup-2010-fans-marketing -justice-fifa . 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] French World Cup squad on Strike
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/5307299/ce/us/france-team-refuses-practice-nicolas-anelka-expulsion?cc=5901ver=us Will their newly-discovered unity lead to success on the pitch? --- The French Football Federation did not at any time try to protect the group. They took a decision uniquely based on facts reported by the press. As a consequence and to show our opposition to the decision taken by officials of the federation, all the players decided not to take part in today's training session. Evra and the players, en masse, boarded the team bus and drew the curtains. French sports minister Roselyne Bachelot said the indignation of the French is great and that she had spoken to French President Nicolas Sarkozy about it. In their first two matches at the World Cup, France drew 0-0 with Uruguay and then lost 2-0 to Mexico. France can still advance to the round of 16 with a win over host South Africa, as long as Uruguay and Mexico don't draw in the other Group A match. 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] Who I am Rooting for in the World Cup
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Sebastian: Well, for me it's simple enough; the underdogs. Whoever it is, whenever it is, I'm always fully behind the team who are in some way shape or form seen as inferior to their opponents. So I've been delighted thus far by New Zealand, the USA, South Africa in the opening game, Switzerland against Spain, Ghana against Serbia, Serbia against Germany, Aussie heroics in holding out against Ghana, Algeria holding England etc etc. I know it's all a bit meaningless, but I support the third world over the imperialist world, and the small and weak over the stronger. I also support anyone playing against the USA and anyone playing against England/Britain. But when it came to the USA vs England, I was in the bizarre position of hoping the USA would win, on the basis that they could NEVER make it to the final, whereas England just might. A draw was probably the best result. I do have to confess to feeling a wee bit of pleasure over the NZ team. I don't think it's the thin end of the nationalist wedge. We play (and should lose to) Paraguay next. If it was Uruguay, I'd cheer for them on the basis that Fonterra, a NZ firm and the world's largest dairy trader, has significant interests in Uruguay - one of NZ's bits of imperialist behaviour. Cheers, John 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] Christian Fascism in the USA?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, 20 Jun 2010 22:16:50 -0500 Carrol Cox _cb...@ilstu.edu_ (mailto:cb...@ilstu.edu) wrote: I don't think the u.s. elites (or the u.s. military) is at all ready to reject that framework. And why should they, as long as it can be bent to accommodate whatever they want to do? M Comment Well, the world cannot be bent to accommodate whatever they want to do. Bourgeois property has hit this tiny rock called revolution in the means of production. The world today is different from calling Nixon a fascist. I do not know what else to call a man - Nixon, who says on public television that the norms of bourgeois legality do not have to be adhered to by the President because he is the President, other than a freaking fascist. I apparently have a very different view of citizens nights. The President is still a citizen. Nixon should have been put in jail. I hated it when Ford pardoned him. Nixon dropped bombs on people and threatened to drive Vietnam back to the stone age because of their desire to implement the mandate of our revolution of 1776: National Liberation. II. The multinational state of the United States and America is huge covering a territory about the size of China. In real time and as real life experience several political jurisdictions called states in the American lexicon, can go fascists with the bulk of the American state oscillating between a reactionary bourgeois democracy and countrywide state fascism. This in fact has happened. Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina and Louisiana for example, remained fascist states for a very long time in our post Civil War-post Reconstruction Era history. This did not mean New York state was fascist. On the other hand it did mean that large area of the North and Midwest were governed on the basis of a reactionary bourgeois democracy but not necessarily an entire state and all areas of the state. In reverse the entire multinational state system could shift markedly to an open fascist form of rule with several political jurisdictions resisting the federal authority, manifest as a fascist political state. Today, everything is in place for a fascist seizure of power. Based on the work of the Clinton years, the Bush administration battled to accumulate the legal power to take over the government, and to declare unitary rule by the executive. We saw just the tip of the iceberg - the U.S. Attorney firings, the various signing statements, Bush thumbing his nose at the Congress by pushing the limits of executive privilege, the stacking of the Supreme Court with those who support the unitary executive, and statements that allows martial law to be declared and the government to be taken over in case of a some sort of crisis. The only question is which of the bourgeois forces will wield this weapon, and when, and the character, extent and strength of their support and, on the other hand, the organization and consciousness of the resistance to their actions. They cannot accommodate whatever they want. Revolution in the means of production makes such accommodation impossible. WL. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Greece: Letter from a Political Prisoner
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == most Serene Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire, Navel of the earth and centre of the universe, I kneel before thee and I ask from you to bow from the throne of your Sacred, Immaculate and Overgrown Ego to hearken your humble servant. O guardian and unique initiate of the revolution, restless enemy of the ox-eyed petit-bourgeois plebeians (since we, the ultra-revolutionaries, have the eye of the lynx, full of grace, scherzo and nechayevian sauciness). O indefatigable dark knight of the court of the negative, listen to your humble servant. I request that you will not mention again my name in the delirious texts that you call political proclamations. I wish you a long-life of revolutionary militarist illegalist amoralist anarcho-individualist nihilist terrorism and of other sonorous –isms (and cerebral seisms) Your humble servant for now and forever and ever and ever, POLYKARPOS GEORGIADIS, CORFU (KERKYRA) PRISON 15-06-2010 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] Are U.S. Warships Gearing Up for a Confrontation With an Iranian Aid Flotilla to Gaza?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.alternet.org/story/147265/are_u.s._warships_gearing_up_for_a_confrontation_with_an_iranian_aid_flotilla_to_gaza/ 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] Communisation and Value-Form Theory
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Angelus Novus wrote: I think you are assuming the existence of a common 'school' on the basis of the Aut-Op-Sy list, but these are all really quite distinct political and theoretical tendencies. I understand that. But what they have in common is hostility to Lenin and the Leninist tradition. Furthermore, as I already pointed out, it has the same kind of maximalist tendencies that you see in anarchism. Here's an example from End Notes: http://endnotes.org.uk/articles/8 Against such a programmatic approach, groups like Mouvement Communiste, Négation, and La Guerre Sociale advocated a conception of revolution as the immediate destruction of capitalist relations of production, or “communisation”. As we shall see, the understanding of communisation differed between different groups, but it essentially meant the application of communist measures within the revolution — as the condition of its survival and its principle weapon against capital. Any “period of transition” was seen as inherently counter-revolutionary, not just in so far as it entailed an alternative power structure which would resist “withering away” (c.f. anarchist critiques of “the dictatorship of the proletariat”), nor simply because it always seemed to leave unchallenged fundamental aspects of the relations of production, but because the very basis of workers’ power on which such a transition was to be erected was now seen to be fundamentally alien to the struggles themselves. Workers’ power was just the other side of the power of capital, the power of reproducing workers as workers; henceforth the only available revolutionary perspective would be the abolition of this reciprocal relation. --- For fuck's sake, what does the immediate destruction of capitalist relations of production mean? Throwing a monkey wrench into an assembly line? And the idea that any period of transition is counter-revolutionary flies in the face of a fundamental Marxist analysis, starting with Marx's observation that: Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like an Alp on the brains of the living. (18th Brumaire) As well as: What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. (Critique of the Gotha Programme) 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] Communisation and Value-Form Theory
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Actually, I think the passage LP quotes supports the opposite view-- that End Notes distinguishes itself from the maximalism of anarchists, that it discounts this notion of the immediate destruction of capitalist relations of production, and opposes the notion that any period of transition is counterrevolutionary. - 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] Communisation and Value-Form Theory
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Angelus Novus wrote: But the meat of the article is an account of the value-form school, which is agnostic on such questions, since it's an attempt at the reconstruction of Marx's critique of political economy. Perhaps you did not notice this paragraph in the article: The theory of communisation emerged as a critique of various conceptions of the revolution inherited from both the 2nd and 3rd International Marxism of the workers’ movement, as well as its dissident tendencies and oppositions. The experiences of revolutionary failure in the first half of the 20th century seemed to present as the essential question, whether workers can or should exercise their power through the party and state (Leninism, the Italian Communist Left), or through organisation at the point of production (anarcho-syndicalism, the Dutch-German Communist Left). On the one hand some would claim that it was the absence of the party — or of the right kind of party — that had led to revolutionary chances being missed in Germany, Italy or Spain, while on the other hand others could say that it was precisely the party, and the “statist,” “political” conception of the revolution, that had failed in Russia and played a negative role elsewhere. Those who developed the theory of communisation rejected this posing of revolution in terms of forms of organisation, and instead aimed to grasp the revolution in terms of its content. Communisation implied a rejection of the view of revolution as an event where workers take power followed by a period of transition: instead it was to be seen as a movement characterised by immediate communist measures (such as the free distribution of goods) both for their own merit, and as a way of destroying the material basis of the counter-revolution. If, after a revolution, the bourgeoisie is expropriated but workers remain workers, producing in separate enterprises, dependent on their relation to that workplace for their subsistence, and exchanging with other enterprises, then whether that exchange is self-organised by the workers or given central direction by a “workers’ state” means very little: the capitalist content remains, and sooner or later the distinct role or function of the capitalist will reassert itself. By contrast, the revolution as a communising movement would destroy — by ceasing to constitute and reproduce them — all capitalist categories: exchange, money, commodities, the existence of separate enterprises, the state and — most fundamentally — wage labour and the working class itself. --- *it was to be seen as a movement characterised by immediate communist measures (such as the free distribution of goods) both for their own merit, and as a way of destroying the material basis of the counter-revolution.* This is just asinine. There is no such thing as immediate communist measures. I could explain why, but it would be wasting the time of most of our nearly 1200 subscribers who have figured this out long ago. Well, let me take that back. Marx envisioned communism as a worldwide system based on the most advanced technology, just the kind that could be found in Britain and Germany in his day. If he ever heard a reference to the free distribution of goods as being communistic, he would have said what a bunch of jive. 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] From a review of Hitchens's memoir
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == There is one moment when he admits to suffering something like a crisis of the soul, though a brief one. Hitchens was, notoriously, one of the cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In early 2007, he heard about the death in Mosul of a young soldier from California called Mark Daily, who had left behind a statement explaining his reasons for having volunteered to fight. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, Daily had thought hard about a war whose justice he had initially doubted, and eventually felt the call to take part: ‘Somewhere along the way, he changed his mind. His family says there was no epiphany. Writings by author and columnist Christopher Hitchens on the moral case for war deeply influenced him.’ Hitchens encountered this story out of the blue in an email, and he recalls: I don’t exaggerate by much when I say that I froze. I certainly felt a very deep pang of cold dismay. I had just returned from a visit to Iraq with my own son (who was then 23, as was young Mr Daily) and had found myself in a deeply pessimistic frame of mind about the war. Was it possible that I had helped persuade someone I had never met to place himself in the path of an IED? In a state of profound unease, he contacted the author of the LA Times story, who put him in touch with the Daily family. The Dailys, it turned out, could not have been nicer – ‘one of the most generous and decent families in the United States’, as Hitchens puts it, with perhaps pardonable hyperbole. They invited him to their home, told him he had nothing to blame himself for, introduced him to Mark’s widow, allowed him to read some of Mark’s letters home, and eventually asked him to join them at the private ceremony in which Mark’s ashes were strewn on a beach in Oregon, the site of his boyhood holidays. Hitchens, unsurprisingly, found all this deeply moving, and he writes about it in an unabashedly mawkish way. He tells us he will not quote from Mark’s letters, except to record that in one of them he told his wife: ‘My desire to “save the world” is really just an extension of trying to make a world fit for you.’ Hitchens comments: ‘If that is all she has left, I hope you will agree that it isn’t nothing.’ All in all, the whole episode makes for deeply uncomfortable reading. It’s not just that it is something like a political romantic’s wet dream: the moral case for action put down in words, the handsome warrior reading them and dying for them, the bereaved family salving the writer’s grief. It’s also that it allows Hitchens to move on from his condition of deep pessimism about the war, never to return (at least not as reported in this book). Daily’s death, and the wave of emotions it unleashes, stands in the place of any serious reflection on how and why the Iraq war turned out so badly, to the extent that even Hitchens admits he was ‘coarsened and sickened by the degeneration of the struggle’. Instead, Daily’s heroism becomes the rationale for fighting. This is the war romanticised. It is also, frankly, nauseating. full: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n12/david-runciman/its-been-a-lot-of-fun 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] marx on India
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Michael Perelman (mich...@ecst.csuchico.edu) wrote on 2010-06-18 at 21:28:17 in about [Marxism] marx on India: Regarding the reason why Marx wrote his article on India, his article on India -- sounds as if you think that Marx wrote only one single article on the subcontinent. Cheers, Lüko Willms Frankfurt, Germany 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] Communisation and Value-Form Theory
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect (l...@panix.com) wrote on 2010-06-21 at 09:36:56 in about Re: [Marxism] Communisation and Value-Form Theory: What a bunch of jive. One of the many reasons why I refuse the designation of Marx- or any other name-that-person-ist for me. Cheers, Lüko Willms Frankfurt, Germany 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] French World Cup squad on Strike
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == After the Battle of Puebla Part II, I think not. Erik On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 6:56 AM, Greg McDonald gregm...@gmail.com wrote: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/5307299/ce/us/france-team-refuses-practice-nicolas-anelka-expulsion?cc=5901ver=us Will their newly-discovered unity lead to success on the pitch? 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] From a review of Hitchens's memoir
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == To me one of the worst aspects of this is that a super-elitist like Hitchens is content sit on his ass and write blogs while young men and women who do not belong to his special elite do the fighting. Sometimes they die; sometimes they are permanently injured and disabled; sometimes they suffer emotional and mental trauma leading in many cases to suicide. None of them come back without some kind of damage. These are OUR sons and daughters, but to him it's just some kind of intellectual exercise. I'd like to think that Manuel is right that there is a special place in Hell for Hitchens and people like him. Surely Dante must have imagined an appropriately agonizing punishment! Tom On Jun 21, 2010, at 11:46 AM, Manuel Barrera wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I was raised a Catholic and long since rejected the hypothesis of a deity and all the trappings. So, please understand what I mean when I say that there is a special place in Hell for an individual like Hitchens. It was indeed nauseating that he believes his contributions no matter how inadvertent resulted in a young and ignorant youth to get into harm's way. 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] From a review of Hitchens's memoir
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thomas Bias wrote: To me one of the worst aspects of this is that a super-elitist like Hitchens is content sit on his ass and write blogs while young men and women who do not belong to his special elite do the fighting. but this is true of almost anyone providing aid and comfort to the ruling class. why single out Hitchens at this point? i don't quite see why bytes are taken up with this guy. is there some feeling that he is single-handedly keeping liberals from becoming more radicalized? if you don't think that, then why is this guy worth air time? Les 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] Who I am rooting for in the World Cup
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The story of the Women's National Soccer team in the US is complex. One that for a long while languished in obscurity suffering a worse fate than the Men's Team. In great part due to sexism in US sports. A good documentary for those interested is Dare to Dream. http://www.amazon.com/Dare-Dream-Story-Womens-Soccer/product-reviews/B000RL6G82/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8showViewpoints=1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dare_to_Dream:_The_Story_of_the_U.S._Women's_Soccer_Team A good sports documentary that includes the impact of Title XI and the Women's movement on the National Team. Unfortunately, the success of the Women's team has *not* translated well into the professional leagues. After the success of 1999 World Cup, in 2000 the Women's United Soccer Association was created as the professional Division 1 league. It only lasted 3 years and closed doors in 2003. Seven years later, Women's Professional Soccer was born with a number of 1999 players appearing. The league is struggling, but there is hope. On the Men's side, the North American Soccer League was organized in 1968. It survived the first major interest in soccer in the US during the 70's and early 80's, but closed shop in '84. Twelve years later, with the 1994 World Cup in the US, it gave impetus to the formation of a professional league in 1996. Major League Soccer has had its up and downs, but has managed to survive and become successful. Successful enough that the unionized players threatened to go on strike before the 2010 season and *win* concessions from the owners. Erik On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 12:25 PM, Lüko Willms lueko.wil...@t-online.de wrote: The women lead the way in US football (what they call soccer there). They are world class! 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] From a review of Hitchens's memoir
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Remember that the whole structure of antiquated Christianity requires trusting those in authority. Conversely, the worst eternal punishments are reserved for those in authority who abuse their authority. 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] Global Bonapartism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Counterpunch June 21, 2010 G-Spots and the Planet Global Bonapartism By VIJAY PRASHAD We are left with the politicians who think poorly of us, and who stand back with chaos in their pale old eyes whimpering, “That is not what we wanted. No, it was not to have gone that way.” They are old, but we have been very ill, and cannot yet send them away. Bertram Warr (1917-1943). When the Finance Ministers of the Advanced States set up the G7 in 1974-75, their tongues quivered with the taste of centuries of power. The Soviet Union had begun its plummet into obsolescence. Its collapse was held off by a decade through the rise of oil prices and the cannibalization of the remarkable achievements of an earlier generation. The Third World had threatened the established order with its vdemand for a New International Economic Order (1973), but that would quickly be dispatched through financial trickery, one that led directly to the massive debt crisis of the 1980s and the inflation of the power of Wall Street, the City of London and the Frankfurt Finanzplatz. No rivals stood in the way of the G7. The European and Japanese Ministers happily bound their economies into dollar seigniorage, with the euro and the yen now secondary currencies in the world of international settlements. The United States was the leading edge. Its wingmen stood around: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. Everyone beamed. The future was theirs. Like Achilles, the G7 not only killed its Hector, the hopes of the rest of the planet, but it now tied the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America behind its chariot and dragged it across the battlefield. Structural adjustment conditionalities, aerial bombardment: this was the loot and pillage of the era that opened up in 1975. In late June, the G7 (with Russia, the G8) will meet in Toronto, Canada. This is its 33rd official gathering; it might be its final one. Alongside the G8, Canada will also host the G20. The G20 was formed in 1999 at the initiative of the “locomotives of the South,” the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), South Africa (who joins them in another iteration, the IBSA -- India, Brazil and South Africa) and Mexico. A smart fellow at Goldman Sachs coined the acronym BRIC, but it has stuck, and it means more than that quaint sounding term from the 1990s, “emerging economies.” The G20 began as a “mechanism for informal dialogue.” Circumstances favored a greater role: the global financial crisis from 2008 onward opened the door. The “advanced” economies turned for consideration to their creditors among the BRIC states. This moment of crisis pushed the G20 to ask for more than an informal status. At the 2009 G20 Summit in Pittsburg, the eminences pledged, “Today, we designated the G20 as the premier forum for our international economic cooperation.” Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom are the least pleased with the demise of the G8, since this has been their major platform to assert their otherwise declined global presence (this applies in particular to Japan, which has seen its influence decline relative to the rise of China’s authority). Because of these powers, the G8 might continue to meet, but it will not be able to act as the executive committee of the G20. The others might not allow that. They can see the benefit of having China in the room, and India and Brazil. Keep your friends close, is the theory, but your enemies closer. The Road to the High Table Since the 1950s, it has been the effort of the Atlantic states to squash the march of political progress in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Independent political action was frowned upon. The Dulles brothers felt that all this talk of “non-alignment” was simply a Trojan Horse for Bolshevism. John Foster Dulles shared bugbears with Winston Churchill. Both were obsessed with Communism, what Dulles called “godless terrorism.” One can imagine John Foster chuckling as Churchill says, “The failure to strangle Bolshevism at its birth and to bring Russia, then prostrate, by one means or another, into the general democratic system, lies heavy upon us today” (1949). If Russia finally entered the G7, and, despite its occasional bouts of independent thinking, went along with the Atlantic powers, the countries of the Third World project were less pliable. Even when they give themselves over to the broad outlines of the Atlantic project, they still do things that are unacceptable: as when Turkey and Brazil cut the deal with Iran on nuclear fuel. Unwilling to be fully servile, the “locomotives of the South” have tried to make the most of differences among the G7 to edge their way onto the table. The weak link was
[Marxism] World Cup anti-imperialism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Counterpunch June 21, 2010 World Cup 2010 Anti-Imperialism 101 By HARRY BROWNE That bastion of British liberalism and prince of online newspapers, the Guardian, adopted a familiar tone of sniggering bemusement as it reported last Friday: “When football players seek inspiration they normally opt for a round of golf. Not the Algerians, though. Ahead of their big match with England tonight, the north Africans have made a trip to the cinema to watch a screening of The Battle of Algiers.” Imagine, footballers going to see a serious film, especially one that is, the paper reports, “gritty, troubling” and “over two hours long”. The article proceeds to quote a player to the effect that the film was “moving” and, indeed, that “it was moving to spend the time together”. However, the Guardian sniffily concludes that “Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 classic” is hardly the sort of film to encourage a winning mentality, noting: “the movie’s history as an educational tool is a chequered one. It was also the subject of an infamous screening for Pentagon staff shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.” After a display of such post-imperial density, it appears that someone in the Guardian needs to sit in on a history class, perhaps ‘Anti-Imperialism 101’ -- the sort of course where The Battle of Algiers has been screened for the last 40 years. While it is true that the film does not flinch from atrocities committed in the name of the Algerian independence struggle, it is widely revered as a document and as a source of inspiration for capturing the passions and tactics of a guerrilla insurgency -- which is why, obviously, the Pentagon reckoned it was worth a look. Based on a revolutionary memoir by Saadi Yacef and banned in France on its release, it is a film whose sympathies and message anyone outside the Guardian understands. Go figure why you, as Algerian soccer underdogs, might go to see such a film before playing against, say, England (with whom they drew 0-0 Friday) and the United States (whom they will play this Wednesday). Just to underline the point, soccer was in fact specifically important in the Algerian independence struggle. When the FLN set up its government in exile in Tunis, it also established a national football team. Two players from the highly rated French national squad, Rachid Mekloufi and Mustapha Zitouni, slipped out of France not long before they were going to attend the 1958 World Cup to switch their allegiance to the new Algerian set-up -- a team that played exhibition games in Arab and communist countries and became famous for their dashing attacking play. In this last respect, anyway, the current Algerian team doesn’t measure up. Although they played some nice, composed passing football against dismal England on Friday, the Algerians completely ignored the bit of the game that involves attempting to score goals. This fact may be sufficient to allow some American leftists to neglect their anti-imperialist duties and proceed to chant “USA! USA! USA!” on Wednesday. That is a matter for each fan’s conscience. What is certain is that the Algerian team management -- dealing with a group of young men drawn overwhelmingly from urban France, whose very visages speak of poverty more clearly than any other set of faces in this World Cup -- believes that the players can be inspired by their anti-imperialist heritage. Whether it because of such inspiration or because of the awfulness of their qualifying group, Algeria now stand as one of the likeliest of all the African teams to advance from their group, though their chances aren’t very good. This World Cup has moved inexorably closer to the “disaster” for African football that I mentioned last Thursday. In a previous article I offered some generic reasons for African football’s failure to offer some inspiration against the game’s traditional power axis; in this tournament the African teams have failed even against teams from weaker regions, and to the generic reasons already discussed we can add some specific failings. For one, that Algerian indifference to scoring goals is endemic. African teams have managed only six goals in 12 games. This is something of a carry-over from the African pre-tournament qualifying, where even the top teams rarely scored more than twice a game; only Ivory Coast had an impressive goal-scoring record before getting to the World Cup. Far from African football being, as the stereotype suggests, beautiful but unrigorous, it is -- largely under foreign management -- perhaps the grimmest, most cautious in the world. Ghana, whose two goals at the World Cup have both come from penalties, are the only African team to have won a game in South
[Marxism] The latest from Khiaban
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://revolutionaryflowerpot.blogspot.com/2010/06/realities-problems.html Realities Problems by Amir K. Khiaban #73 / Monday, June 14, 2010 If we overlook some laughable headlines and comments after June 12, to the effect that we were victorious since there was so much military presence on the streets, a majority of the citizens, whose hearts beat to the rhythm of the social events, while going up and down the streets around Enghelaab/Revolution Square, waiting to see if something will or will not happen, have realized there is a need for taking a different path. The blood-thirsty Islamic Republic, with recourse to mass killing and repression, has not taken a single step back, and the people have so far not had the slightest gains. Not only has the Islamic Republic not been overthrown but no laws have changed for the better, no political prisoners have been released, the planners and executers of the killings have not been brought to justice, and the people [still] have no say or control in determining their own fates. A More Realistic Picture of Civil Struggles Unless our eyes are blind, or else the observer is up to some trickery so as not to see the developments: 1. Almost all social organizations and activists independent of the regime have been driven out of the society. If two years ago, a large number of Marxist university students fighting for freedom and equality were forced to flee the country while others sat in silent observation of this crackdown, today almost all political trends from liberals to democrats to even Islamic student associations have been forced to flee [...]. Almost all independent women activists and those working with the One Million Signature campaign [to legally make women equal to men] have been forced to leave: Hundreds of young journalists and scholars, hundreds of cultural and political activists from different independent cultural and social circles and centers. This is the fate of those who, in order to change their society, carried out strictly civil activities. 2. Despite all the efforts of activists in different social spheres to organize different social units, not only can no truly independent political party operate openly in the society, not even the smallest organizations of university students, the youth, women, workers and on and on ... have materialized. The smallest of over-ground cells or circles come under the severest security police attacks, and meetings or gatherings of even a few get attacked and broken up by police. 3. With the dwindling of the number of people in street protests, the regime has more room and space to prevent the formation of any seeds of street demonstrations, and the ratio of regime elements [plainclothes Basij, Revolutionary Guards, regular police and myriad other forces] to dissident citizens has been increasing. 4. Since the regime's reformists have sensed the threat to the life of the system, they are not willing to bring about conditions in which people can safely assemble. They are not willing to allow again an atmosphere in which people feel safe to come to the streets and shout their demands. Just as during the presidency of Khatami and after the events of 18 Tir [university student protests of July 8-13, 1999], the reformists had no taste for people's presence in the streets. And the people too are no longer willing to give their lives for the particular goals of the reformists. People, who have had it with this regime and want their own liberation, find it neither wise nor heroic to die in the streets so we can return to Khomeini's era, or so that some charlatan like Mostafa Taaj-Zadeh can pollute the glorious days of protests with that filthy and noxious word 'Yomollah' (in some new tract with a title that is stolen from a pamphlet by Ali Shari'ati, forgetting that almost all followers of Shari'ati, who were organized in the Mojahedin-e Khalq and Armaan-e Mostaz'afeen and others alongside many others were mass murdered by them and their friends, and then called June 15 'Yomollah', without any concerns about bringing to justice the killers who on that very day were raining bullets on people [...] See his: Father, Mother, we are again accused [...]). 5. And the obvious reality, finally, is that all know that Moussavi's suggested strategy is meaningless and absurd. He suggests spreading of awareness as the path toward victory, and perhaps considers some Green websites such as JRS [Jonbesh Raah Sabz /Green Path Movement] as the providers of the solutions. However, it is obvious to everybody that our current problem is not that the majority of people are unaware of the ongoing crimes, irrationalities and the oppression. The [main] problem
Re: [Marxism] Communisation and Value-Form Theory
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == ehrbar, Chapters 1-3 of Capital Vol. 1 is not a historical account of the emergence of money. It is a logical derivation of money. The myth that these chapters are intended to act as a historical account of a mythical pre-monetary commodity production has been refuted by most Marx scholar. In fact, the notion of a non-monetary commodity exchange is precisely what Marx rakes Proudhon over the coals about! On this, see http://communism.blogsport.eu/2010/06/03/ingo-elbe-between-marx-marxism-and-marxisms-%E2%80%93-ways-of-reading-marx%E2%80%99s-theory-i-2-the-historicist-interpretation-of-the-form-genetic-method/ Also, more specifically on the myth of 'simple commodity production', see Chris Arthur's short piece here: http://marxmyths.org/chris-arthur/article2.htm Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] High-falutin' analysis of Lady Gaga
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/lady-power Opinionator - A Gathering of Opinion From Around the Web June 20, 2010, 5:15 pm Lady Power By NANCY BAUER If you want to get a bead on the state of feminism these days, look no further than the ubiquitous pop star Lady Gaga. Last summer, after identifying herself as a representative for “sexual, strong women who speak their mind,” the 23-year-old Gaga seemed to embrace the old canard that a feminist is by definition a man-hater when she told a Norwegian journalist, “I’m not a feminist. I hail men! I love men!” But by December she was praising the journalist Ann Powers, in a profile in The Los Angeles Times, for being “a little bit of a feminist, like I am.” She continued, “When I say to you, there is nobody like me, and there never was, that is a statement I want every woman to feel and make about themselves.” Apparently, even though she loves men — she hails them! — she is a little bit of a feminist because she exemplifies what it looks like for a woman to say, and to believe, that there’s nobody like her. There is nobody like Lady Gaga in part because she keeps us guessing about who she, as a woman, really is. She has been praised for using her music and videos to raise this question and to confound the usual exploitative answers provided by “the media.” Powers compares Gaga to the artist Cindy Sherman: both draw our attention to the extent to which being a woman is a matter of artifice, of artful self-presentation. Gaga’s gonzo wigs, her outrageous costumes, and her fondness for dousing herself in what looks like blood, are supposed to complicate what are otherwise conventionally sexualized performances. In her “Telephone” video, which has in its various forms received upwards of 60 million YouTube hits since it was first posted in March, Gaga plays a model-skinny and often skimpily dressed inmate of a highly sexualized women’s prison who, a few minutes into the film, is bailed out by Beyoncé. The two take off in the same truck Uma Thurman drove in “Kill Bill” — à la Thelma and Louise by way of Quentin Tarantino — and stop at a diner, where they poison, first, a man who stares lewdly at women and, then, all the other patrons (plus — go figure — a dog). Throughout, Gaga sings to her lover about how she’s too busy dancing in a club and drinking champagne with her girlfriends to talk to or text him on her telephone. Lady Gaga is explicit in her insistence that, since feminine sexuality is a social construct, anyone, even a man who’s willing to buck gender norms, can wield it. Is this an expression of Lady Gaga’s strength as a woman or an exercise in self-objectification? It’s hard to decide. The man who drools at women’s body parts is punished, but then again so is everyone else in the place. And if this man can be said to drool, then we need a new word for what the camera is doing to Gaga’s and Beyoncé’s bodies for upwards of 10 minutes. Twenty years ago, Thelma and Louise set out on their road trip to have fun and found out, as they steadily turned in lipstick and earrings for bandannas and cowboy hats, that the men in their world were hopelessly unable to distinguish between what a woman finds fun and what she finds hateful, literally death-dealing. The rejection by Gaga and Beyoncé of the world in which they are — to use a favorite word of Gaga’s — “freaks” takes the form of their exploiting their hyperbolic feminization to mow down everyone in their way, or even not in their way. The tension in Gaga’s self-presentation, far from being idiosyncratic or self-contradictory, epitomizes the situation of a certain class of comfortably affluent young women today. There’s a reason they love Gaga. On the one hand, they have been raised to understand themselves according to the old American dream, one that used to be beyond women’s grasp: the world is basically your oyster, and if you just believe in yourself, stay faithful to who you are, and work hard and cannily enough, you’ll get the pearl. On the other hand, there is more pressure on them than ever to care about being sexually attractive according to the reigning norms. The genius of Gaga is to make it seem obvious — more so than even Madonna once did — that feminine sexuality is the perfect shucking knife. And Gaga is explicit in her insistence that, since feminine sexuality is a social construct, anyone, even a man who’s willing to buck gender norms, can wield it. Gaga wants us to understand her self-presentation as a kind of deconstruction of femininity, not to mention celebrity. As she told Ann Powers, “Me embodying the position that I’m analyzing is the very thing that makes it so powerful.”
Re: [Marxism] Turkey, The Kurds and The Gaza Flotilla - A Call For An End To Double Standards
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jun 21, 2010, at 11:28 AM, Dennis Brasky wrote: ...I don't recall Jack L ever denouncing the Cubans for accepting military and financial support from the Kremlin... But that support came at a price...Castro's endorsement of the counterrevolutionary Stalinist invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968--an act of betrayal for which the Cubans have *never* apologized. Shane Mage Thunderbolt steers all things. Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64 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] Bonapartism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Of course, the major differences between the Second Empire of Napoleon III and Hitlers' Third Reich are due to basic differences in the respective modes of production. Quite simply, in 1852, there was no such thing as the USSR and Capital had not been written. The workers' movement was still an inchoate mass of ideas, most prominetly those of Proudhon and Blanqui. Proudhon and his ilk were busy advocating free credit, mutual banking and federalism as the way of emancipating the working class. If interest were reduced to 0, and each workers' cooperative could engage in mutual banking, why, of course, wage labour would wither away. It was all because of banks and the government monopoly on producing money that workers had to become wage labourers. Bonaparte could easily appear in such a context as leaning towards the gradual extinction of the hatred between labour and capital, as capital becomes more evenly distributed. Things were altogether more fluid, capitalism had not yet reached its full maturity, nor had the workers' movement. Had Bonaparte come to power in the 20s, why yes, he would have been as sanguinary as Hitler. But reading Fascism into what Marx wrote about le coup d'état du 18 brumaire is anachronistic. Marx simply did not describe fascism in 1852. 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] Prospects
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jun 21, 2010, at 6:26 PM, dan wrote: ...There just seems to be no major technological change on the horizon that can affect production. Unless of course scientists find a way to create cheap, boundless energy... Scientists will never find a way to create energy, because energy is conserved, can neither be created or destroyed. But that cheap (actually free) boundless energy is already with us as it always has been--its called the sun. And the basic technology for its unlimited capture (at the very start of its learning curve) is already with us in the form of solar photovoltaics and wind turbines. What costs is the investment to make it universally available. And that cost is the guaranteed monetary return on investment demanded by capital before the investment is permitted. The capitalist mode of production thus today stands as the absolute barrier to its own reproduction. Shane Mage Thunderbolt steers all things. Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64 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] Prospects
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == According to the Kondratiev wave model, espoused by some Marxists (including Mandel, whom I greatly admire), major technological advances are developed during the second harmonic (second third) of the downturn cycle and then become the motors of the next upswing cycle. They are born out of necessity : capitalism is forced to find new ways of increasing productivity. Which would mean that solar energy would become the Saviour of capitalism around the years 2027, due to forced fixed investment by government agencies. But I still doubt that this will amount to a revolution in production. Many theorists of the K-cycle have pointed out that the duration of K-waves is growing shorter and shorter since 1815. All bets are on as to the next technological revolution. Biotechnologies would enable us to live much longer but would not impact production (although it would impact agriculture in a major way). Artificial Intelligence seems more likely to be the next major innovation. Intelligent (that is human-like) machines could take on any job. 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] Prospects
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I liked Shane's description of energy. It is very accurate IMHO. But it is flawed at the point where he thinks the 'sun' can provide the power we need and that capitalism inability to produce large amounts from it shows that capital is unable to reproduce...I think this is a wee bit of stretch. Energy is best when it's 'dense'. There is a reason farmers in the US gave up, with pleasure, the solar power collected by wind turbine to pump water...and substituted it with solar energy created by (Federally owned and provided) hydro electricity. It's called energy density. The density is what allowed you to actually pump water when you want or need it, not when the wind decided it was time. Denser forms of energy are what advanced human civilization and makes electricity powering your computer...all the time, 24/7. No matter how much conservation, efficiency, etc we need base load electricity to power civilization. Energy usage is not free. It takes energy to make energy. There is an investment which ends up as a 'cost'. That cost is there whether it is motivated for the pursuit of surplus value or for use value. There is a much higher cost in make diffuse energy dense enough, and stored easily enough, that it is actually useful. That it can, for example, build a grid in an undeveloped country to lift nations out of poverty. Wind turbines and solar collectors won't do that, at all. The goal, metaphorically and literally, is that everyone should have a right to a light switch. On/off, when you need it. Short of that, the Amory Lovins fantasies are just that: fantasies. The bigger question right now in light of the Gulf disaster, is that I heard talking-heads-yahoos use the gulf disaster as a reason to build wind mills in the Gulf. This is stupid anti-science at work. You are not going to put wind in automobiles, nor electricity from solar cells or nuclear plants. It's not gonna happen anytime soon and most people do understand that. So we need a *massive* infusion of RD monies to develop truly long range batteries for cars and trucks. A national plan to develop better and faster freight lines to take trucks off the road. More public transit (although that is also a more or less utopian dream as fewer than 6% of Americans take public transit now. Even if you doubled the network and made it free, it will still not stop people from using their vehicles *anytime soon*). We will be burning gasoline for *decades* whether one likes it or not. David 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] HISTORIC VICTORY AT OAKLAND PORT -- ISRAELI SHIP BLOCKEDFROM UNLOADING
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It was really impressive to have around 500 people at 5:30AM at the port. We blocked the three entrances and at around 6:00 - 6:30 workers started to show up but refused to cross the picket line. Israel delayed the ship from coming to port hoping the whole event would bloww off. The crowd was there, more energetic in the afternoon when the ship finally docked. But workers were determined not to unload a ship from a racist, apartheid regime. This was historic because this was the first time an Israeli ship has been blocked from unloading in the US by the workers and activists against the Israeli apartheid. Organization was very good, VERY loud, vibrant, and positive. I think the bottled up rage against Israel's crimes showed when very seniors as well as children participated in the march. I gave rides to several elders who could barely walk back to the station. They had managed to come at 5:30AM to be in the demonstration on this historic day. 3 zionists showed up in the afternoon and hid behind the police across from the street. They only stayed till after they gave interviews to the TV stations, and immediately disappeared. Signs in Turkish, Hindi, Greek, Arabic were all around. The operator of a locomotive kept blowing his horn in support every time he passed! 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] Bonapartism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jun 21, 2010, at 6:53 PM, Tom Cod wrote: Bonapartism has always been a pretty vague and ambiguous term that gets thrown around a lot... Bonapartism ain't no concept--its a suggestion of some analogy that will get some point across among folk whose response will not be subverted by detailed knowledge of the names and institutions being analogized. Like most analogies. Shane Mage Porphyry in his Abstinance from Animal Flesh suggests that there are appropriate offerings to all the Gods, and to the highest the only offering acceptable is silence. 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] Who I am rooting for in the World Cup
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yes, USAmerican women and Brazilian women are the great powers in women soccer. Regrettably enough, this is not the case with Arg women. Sexism is stronger here. 2010/6/21 Erik Toren ecto...@gmail.com: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The story of the Women's National Soccer team in the US is complex. One that for a long while languished in obscurity suffering a worse fate than the Men's Team. In great part due to sexism in US sports. A good documentary for those interested is Dare to Dream. http://www.amazon.com/Dare-Dream-Story-Womens-Soccer/product-reviews/B000RL6G82/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8showViewpoints=1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dare_to_Dream:_The_Story_of_the_U.S._Women's_Soccer_Team A good sports documentary that includes the impact of Title XI and the Women's movement on the National Team. Unfortunately, the success of the Women's team has *not* translated well into the professional leagues. After the success of 1999 World Cup, in 2000 the Women's United Soccer Association was created as the professional Division 1 league. It only lasted 3 years and closed doors in 2003. Seven years later, Women's Professional Soccer was born with a number of 1999 players appearing. The league is struggling, but there is hope. On the Men's side, the North American Soccer League was organized in 1968. It survived the first major interest in soccer in the US during the 70's and early 80's, but closed shop in '84. Twelve years later, with the 1994 World Cup in the US, it gave impetus to the formation of a professional league in 1996. Major League Soccer has had its up and downs, but has managed to survive and become successful. Successful enough that the unionized players threatened to go on strike before the 2010 season and *win* concessions from the owners. Erik On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 12:25 PM, Lüko Willms lueko.wil...@t-online.de wrote: The women lead the way in US football (what they call soccer there). They are world class! Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/nmgoro%40gmail.com -- 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] What Obama Should Have Said: Two Truths And Three Actions
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Greg McDonald wrote: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-greener/what-obama-should-have-sa_b_613686.html What Obama Should Have Said: Two Truths And Three Actions Instead of making another TV speech to us, President Obama should have told the American people two simple truths about the debacle in the Gulf followed by the announcement of three Presidential actions. This is some kind of first. The Richard Greener who wrote this is an old friend from Bard College that I have known for nearly 50 years. He'll get a kick out of being crossposted to the Marxism list by somebody that is not me. 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] Communisation and Value-Form Theory
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: What a bunch of jive. I guess Lou doesn't want to be bothered by any of the questions that Marx spent his life trying to explore. The Absolute Truth Is Known: It consists innothing but mean people exploiteing brave hard-working people and we've got toget rid of those bad people. Sad. Carrol 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] Disgusting attack on BDS in the Nation
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Interesting timing, just as the movement is meeting with its first real successes. Shows that decades of dealing with the lesser devil is finally catching up with The Nation in Obama-time, as it allows itself to be a platform for openly right wing and anti-progressive propaganda. Yes we may find out shortly who is on which side of the barricades. -Matt Message: 6 Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:16:40 -0400 From: Louis Proyect l...@panix.com Subject: [Marxism] Disgusting attack on BDS in the Nation To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Message-ID: 4c1a7498.7060...@panix.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed http://www.thenation.com/article/against-boycott-and-divestment 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] Communisation and Value-Form Theory
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Angelus Novus wrote: In other words, you're trying to take an approach to Marx exegesis and make a political tendency out of it. An anti-capitalist _movement_ cannot be built out of Marx's Critique, even though I would hope that that critique would be a central concern of _much_ but not all of the leadership as well as rank and file of such a movement if it finally comes into existence. That if is a reference to Rosa Luxemburg, whose phrase socialism or barbarism was not merely a goad to 'get busy' -- it expressed the very real hisotorical possibility of both, with perhaps barbarism being somewhat more probable. There is no Angel of History to guaranteee all that is good and beautiful, as the bourgoeis theory of Progress holds. Lou wants to equate political practice with fundamental theory, which requires the existence of something called Marxism which is not just a critique of political economy but a complete philosophy of life, a theory of political action, and an explanation of all history. Lou rejected the Vanguard Party but he has not in practice rejected the premise of such a party: that there exists a true theory of revolution, and that that theory can be derived from Marx's criticism of actually existing capitalism. For me the power of the critique that Lou regards as jive is that it undergirds a view of anti-capitalist revolution as _necessary_, whether or not it is either possible or will lead to a desirable world. Capitalisms broods over human possibility, and it must be destroyed to make room for humananity -- but that is as far as theory will carry us. It will not assure us that humanity will make good use of the freedom thereby achieved or of a method of achieving that destruction.. The former (a 'good socieity') will be the task of those who come after us. The latter (the destruction of capitalism) is what we work out in practice under the conditions in which we find urselves at any given time. The men and women who accomplish that task (if it is accomplished) will have many different world views, some related to Marx, some not. Their unity will come throguh their practice, not through their abstract theory. Carrol 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] Who I am rooting for in the World Cup
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It's unfortunately the same thing in Mexico, Make no mistake, women on the more urbanized areas have amateur leagues. In the border, women that work in maquilas will also take part in these leagues. Some of them save enough money to build their own teams. Things are slowly changing. But. For a while (and still to a certain extent), a number of the Women's National Team in Mexico were actually US born women who played in California colleges. Erik On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 7:20 PM, Néstor Gorojovsky nmg...@gmail.com wrote: Yes, USAmerican women and Brazilian women are the great powers in women soccer. Regrettably enough, this is not the case with Arg women. Sexism is stronger here. 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] From a review of Hitchens's memoir
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Les Schaffer wrote: i don't quite see why bytes are taken up with this guy. is there some feeling that he is single-handedly keeping liberals from becoming more radicalized? if you don't think that, then why is this guy worth air time? That is exactly what I feel in regard to almost all writing focused on bad individuals: Bush, Obama, Hitchens, Whoever. Most such stuff is gossip rather than politics. I stopped reading such posts several years ago, though I d ip into one now and then to refresh my knowledge of the genre. Carrol Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism-Thaxis] The Town That Loved Its Bank
The Town That Loved Its Bank By ANDREW MARTIN New York Times June 18, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/business/20maywood.html LIKE many working-class towns in the Midwest, this Chicago suburb has been on the cusp of better times for decades. Separated by a river and woods from its wealthier neighbors, Oak Park and River Forest, it shares some of their charms: imposing, century-old homes and stately elms and maples draping the streets. But Maywood is decidedly more blue-collar than its neighbors, and its residents are predominantly African-American. Most of its homes are modest bungalows and frame houses that were built for factory workers whose jobs disappeared long ago. Many storefronts are vacant, and there appear to be more churches than viable businesses. For more than a decade, a silver-haired banker from River Forest named Michael E. Kelly - owner of Park National Bank in the Chicago area and eight others around the country - took an unusual interest in Maywood. He did things most bankers don't do. In 2003, he opened a branch in Maywood, just west of the city, despite the modest incomes of most of its residents. His bank bought an entire redevelopment bond issue from the village and refinanced it at a lower rate to save Maywood money. And in an effort to prop up property values, he came up with the idea of buying homes out of foreclosure, renovating them and selling them at cost. He's from River Forest, O.K.? says Lennel Grace, a fourth-generation Maywood resident. If you talk to people in River Forest or Oak Park, they say, `Oh, poor Maywood.' They kind of look down their nose. He's not that kind of a person. He has a true connection and compassion for the community, adds Mr. Grace, who is 60. He understood that all these communities are linked in one way or another. Last fall, Mr. Kelly's private banking empire collapsed, and his profitable, time-tested playbook as a banker and philanthropist failed amid his own misjudgments and the brutal headwinds of the financial crisis. At the direction of federal regulators, his nine banks were acquired by U.S. Bank, the nation's fifth-largest bank, based in Minneapolis. His banks are among more than 200 that federal regulators have seized in the last three years, many of them small, community institutions. Other banks have acquired most of their assets and deposits, and quietly reopened branches with new signs and little fuss. Across the country, many have bemoaned the loss of locally owned banks, worrying that a faceless national bank will have little interest in a community - aside from making profits. Perhaps nowhere has that issue played out more publicly than in the Chicago area, where Mr. Kelly's Park National Bank was as well known for its philanthropy as for its financial products. Eight months after Park National's closing, anger continues to boil, in part because of the unusual circumstances surrounding its demise. And residents rankle because the federal government decided to bail out megabanks like Citigroup, deemed too big to fail, while letting a beloved community bank go under. In that context, outrage - and hyperbole - reign. Basically, it amounts to the largest bank robbery in the history of the United States, says David Pope, the Oak Park Village president. As the new owner of Mr. Kelly's banks, U.S. Bank has become the unwitting lightning rod for local politicians and activists. They demand that the bank, whose parent, U.S. Bancorp, had profits of $2.2 billion on revenue of $16.7 billion last year, curb foreclosures and replicate Mr. Kelly's philanthropy (which involved giving nearly 20 percent of annual profit to causes like education and affordable housing). Indignation erupted on a recent evening at a community meeting on Chicago's West Side, organized by the Coalition to Save Community Banking, a group of activists and ministers. It was clear from the start that the meeting, at Hope Community Advent Christian Church, wouldn't go well for the two attending U.S. Bank executives, Robert V. McGhee and William Fanter, who sat squirming in dark suits at a table set above the crowd on the dais. One speaker, the Rev. Randall Harris, led the audience in a rowdy chant. U.S. Bank! he shouted. Step up! Others vowed more vigorous protests unless U.S. Bank complied with community demands, which include establishing a $25 million fund to help stave off foreclosures. We are ready to sit down inside your bank until you take action, said the Rev. Michael Stinson. It's going to get real ugly before it gets pretty. When Mr. McGhee, a vice president of U.S. Bank, stood to address the crowd, he was interrupted with angry questions and chants. We are very much aware of the impact Park had on this community, he said. That is not lost on us. We've taken copious notes. U.S. Bank officials, clearly vexed by a groundswell, say they intend to honor all of Park National's outstanding commitments. But they also say the level of charitable
