Re: [Marxism] NZ: Militant Unite union leader to contest by-election
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Also, an excellent radio interview with Matt McCarten at http://links.org.au/node/1962 Also deals with Matt's contacts with Peter Camejo and Jim Percy. 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] Ecuador, Venezuela: Danger south of the border | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Paul Kellogg * October 26, 2010 -- It is not difficult to see that the events of September 30, in the Latin American country of Ecuador, amounted to an attempted right-wing coup d’état. Mass mobilisations in the streets and plazas of Quito (the capital) and other cities – in conjunction with action by sections of the armed forces which stayed loyal to the government – stopped the coup before the day was out. But those few hours highlighted, again, the deep dangers facing those fighting for progressive change in Latin America and the Caribbean. Remarkably, the first task is to re-assert that in fact a coup attempt took place. In the wake of the failure of the coup, commentator after commentator was trying to minimise what happened. Peruvian “libertarian” Álvaro Vargas Llosa – darling of the World Economic Forum and outspoken critic of Che Guevara and the current governments of Bolivia and Venezuela – insists that it was not a coup just an “ill-advised, violent protest by the police against a law that cut their benefits”. Let us examine the facts... http://links.org.au/node/1960 * 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 join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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 Candidate in CT in the Media
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Socialist Action's US congressional candidate Chris Hutchinson has recently debated 4th ranking House Democrat John Larson 4 times in the last week. Today, the following article appears in the Hartford Advocate and quotes Doug Henwood as saying, Why, indeed. The president hasn’t explained. Neither have Democrats.Instead, Obama has been “so friendly to big finance,” observes Doug Henwood, editor of the Left Business Observer. “I thought when he took office, he’d be like Teddy Roosevelt and push for regulation and stability over the long term in order to restrain some of the worst impulses of thebusiness class. Now it’s left to a socialist in Connecticut to explain why.” We will soon have footage from the debates up on the website. The article is too long to post in this emailso follow the link below to read the entire piece. in solidarity, CJ LaPointe Meet Chris Hutchinson. He’s a socialist. Yes, it’s true. He thinks plenty is missing from today’s political discourse. There’s lots of talk about the size of government, the national deficit and repealing health care reform; there’s none about the dark side of capitalism, especially the neoliberal sort that equates free enterprise with democracy, even though, given the fact of the current recession, they are seemingly at odds. So Hutchinson and the Socialist Action Party collected 5,744 signatures (twice what’s required) to run against U.S. Rep. John Larson. He hopes to take the Democratic incumbent’s seat in the First Congressional district. “People say I’m a fringe candidate, but Democrats and Republicans are fringe, because they are the parties of the wealthy,” Hutchinson says. “We stand by workers. We appeal to people who are feeling the effects of the economy, which is the majority of people. So we are the majority. We want to show the minority of wealthy people where the real power is. The real power is in the hands of people who work.” Full Story: http://votesocialistaction.org/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Ecuador, Venezuela: Danger south of the border | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Good article. Glad to see someone taking the grievances of the social movements seriously, but the piece could have gone much further in terms of elaborating the concrete reasons behind CONAIE's break with Correa. It's not just CONAIE, btw, but also important sectors within the unions and student federations, as well as the MPD. The international left also needs to have an objective understanding of Ecuador's ongoing relationship to imperialism vis-a-vis the institutional connections with the Armed Forces of Ecuador, which are doing everything they can to keep the FARC contained, as part of the ongoing strategy of Plan Colombia. Greg McDonald On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 2:59 AM, glparramatta glparrama...@greenleft.org.au wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Paul Kellogg * October 26, 2010 -- It is not difficult to see that the events of September 30, in the Latin American country of Ecuador, amounted to an attempted right-wing coup d’état. Mass mobilisations in the streets and plazas of Quito (the capital) and other cities – in conjunction with action by sections of the armed forces which stayed loyal to the government – stopped the coup before the day was out. But those few hours highlighted, again, the deep dangers facing those fighting for progressive change in Latin America and the Caribbean. Remarkably, the first task is to re-assert that in fact a coup attempt took place. In the wake of the failure of the coup, commentator after commentator was trying to minimise what happened. Peruvian “libertarian” Álvaro Vargas Llosa – darling of the World Economic Forum and outspoken critic of Che Guevara and the current governments of Bolivia and Venezuela – insists that it was not a coup just an “ill-advised, violent protest by the police against a law that cut their benefits”. Let us examine the facts... http://links.org.au/node/1960 * 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 join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/gregmc59%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
[Marxism] Not God, but simply sensible
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == [Sorry for long parentheticals. Can´t draft a well written answer today.] El 26/10/2010 11:40 p.m., DW escribió: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Nestor: Dear David, I am in the bet position to handle all data available. WTF? You are god of all that is important from Argentina? Really? I trust you as much as I trust C. Petroni. No reason I should believe you or not more or less than him. If I find something interesting on his site, like the history of *Peronist* death-squads from the 1970s or something similar, I forward it here. OK, David. You are right in being outraged. You have demonstrated that most commendable virtue of human beings, that is to be true friend of your friends. Carlos Petroni is a friend of yours and you defend him. That puts you on the good guys page of my book. However, this is not a matter of good or bad friends, David. What is at stake here is the destabilization of the current Arg government. And this destabilization is not a conspirational issue, it is an /objective process/, a bloody and tragic vaudeville (should I say Grand Guignol) that has been rehearsed too many times in the history of my country. Which is not a surprise, since it is the active revelation of the structure of class relationships in Argentna. In that drama, which has been performed too many times and with disastrous results, the Leftist middle classes your friend so well represents have played a particularly sorry role. The last rehearsal, happily enough with a relatively happy ending, was that of the debate (and siege on the cities) over the 125 resolution which simply attempted to tap a fraction of the (it is Ricardo we are talking about, not even Marx) differential rent the large agrarian oligarchy in the Pampa region enjoy in a global conjuncture of soring prices for soybean. During that debate, that the government stupidly produced with a fully mistaken policy which sent a good deal of the agrarian middle classes to the oligarchic camp, the petty bourgeois Left so well represented by Petroni fulfilled a most important role, that of rallying a fraction of the urban middle classes to that same front. No surprise at all: not even the Peronists fathom the imortance that the so tiny Leftist fraction of the middle classes plays in these historical conjunctures. I am sorry to tell you that Carlos Petroni may well be your friend and you are right in defending him, but in this case his actions (particularly teh Subj.: line I so heavily criticized) operate -again- in the interest of the pro-imperialist bloc, period. That is why I insisted (and insist) in my suggestion that you (or anyone else interested) might obtain good info and understanding by reading the relevant postings in the Reconquista Popular mailing list. I am no God at all, nor wish to be (Emperor, maybe :-)). But the fact is, among other issues, that I have been gauging the whole spectrum of political definitions regarding the issue, particularly those of the oligarchic newspaper La Nación. This true Pravda of the single class in Argentina with full cnsciousness of its necessities has launched an all-encompassing attack on the best fraction of the Peronist union leadership, more or less in the same way Petroni and his similars attack it: by dumping it in the same bin with its worst expressions such as the current Unión Ferroviaria leadership. Not olny this is a gross deformation of actual facts, but it also generates two consequences (La Nación is fully conscious of this, perhaps Petroni isn´t which however makes him at the very most a good target of Talleyrand´s comment on the death of the Duc of Enghien): (a) it breaks the ties between the lower strata of the liberal-democratic petty bourgeoisie and the actually existing working class, and (b) within the working class, reinforces the sense of common belonging of any Peronist to the same camp, thus closing any possible way for the class to overcome its current national-bourgeois set of mind by discrediting Leftism and Marxism at the eyes of the workers. Allow me to expand on this last role. HOw can any Marxist hope to gain any influence on the working class if its intellectual leaders show themselves so obviously blind to the tectonic rift that divides Moyano from Pedraza? Keep in mind, David, that Hugo Moyano, as a leader of the truck workers union, fights the terciarizadas, which are the true origin of this tragedy, and does not shy from declaring publicly and personally to the head of the bourgeois fraction of the national movement,
Re: [Marxism] Ecuador, Venezuela: Danger south of the border | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nodo50.org/opcion/192/especial.php This article offers a balanced appraisal of Correa's own rapprochement with imperialism. In terms of the CONAIE and the rest of the popular movement, I am of the opinion, and I am not alone, in saying the CONAIE has not made any back-room deals with the right-wing. The people at upsidedown world, who have been following the movement closely for years, have published a number of articles recently dealing with this issue. I would suggest you check them out. Most of them have been posted here by yours truly. CONAIE suffered grievously over their early support for Gutierrez, and they have since retreated from the electoral sphere and regrouped. The same cannot be said for Pachakutik. I think that party has indeed been infiltrated by the right wing, the primary suspect being Antonio Vargas, but a few others have been mentioned by Pachakutik members. Vargas, however, is no longer in a leadership position. Fred Fuentes posted here a fine article edited by Marta Harnecker which goes into some detail over that issue. Pachakutik is an electoral parry, and is not a big force in the social movement. CONAIE withdrew its support for Pachakutik following the debacle with Gutierrez. They've gone back to what they do best. Here's what I think. Correa has demagogically smeared the social movements, from the FEUE to the UNE and MPD to CONAIE and Pachakutik, as part of his move to the right. He has over-exaggerated the supposed ties between Gutierrez and the indigenous movement, even after the latter broke ties with Gutierrez years ago, to increase support for his attack on the social movements. Correa has to break the CONAIE to move ahead with his plans to open up the country to international mining interests. His government is a neo-extractivist, neo-desarollista regime, with organic linkages to a burgeoning urban, new bourgeoisie. He's playing both sides against the middle. And he is trashing the indigenous and the countryside to buy off the urban poor. Greg On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 9:50 AM, Manuel Barrera mtom...@hotmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Greg wrote: . . . but the piece could have gone much further in terms of elaborating the concrete reasons behind CONAIE's break with Correa. It's not just CONAIE, btw, but also important sectors within the unions and student federations, as well as the MPD. The international left also needs to have an objective understanding of Ecuador's ongoing relationship to imperialism vis-a-vis the institutional connections with the Armed Forces of Ecuador, which are doing everything they can to keep the FARC contained, as part of the ongoing strategy of Plan Colombia. And Paul Kellogg wrote: Our job is to know the importance of the push-back to imperialism represented by the ALBA countries and the grim seriousness of our states in their determination to reverse this process. Our job is to build solidarity with the ALBA countries against attacks from the United States and Canada. To the extent we can do that, we can modestly increase the space for the struggles against neoliberalism, unfolding in Latin America and the Caribbean. betwixt and 'tween . . .What seems important is to ask just how the concrete reasons behind CONAIE's break with Correa help to fill a vacuum of leadership in the country and in the region's struggles against imperialism and For a worker's, farmer's, and indigenous government? Certainly Correa deserves no concrete support if his government is trying brake the process of revolution, but I wonder just how the break by CONAIE and the other important sectors is based on a rapprochement with the capitalist class (the wing that wants to overturn Correa for imperialism) or in the direction of further organization and mobilization of the masses toward more significant control over their lives? These are questions, not rhetoric. I'd appreciate an analysis of the current state of the worker's, indigenous, and youth movements in relation to their break with Correa. Manuel Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/gregmc59%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
[Marxism-Thaxis] Class struggles in France
The Revolt Shaking France By Ahmed Shawki URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=vaaid=21614 Global Research, October 25, 2010 SocialistWorker.org and The Socialist Project Strikes and protests have spread to every corner of France as President Nicolas Sarkozy pushes for a final vote in parliament on his proposal to ?reform? the country's national pension system. Every day last week has seen strikes, blockades and demonstrations. Police attempted to break up blockades at oil refineries and supply facilities after weeks of oil workers and their supporters stopping fuel deliveries, but the actions frequently resumed after police left. Almost all of the country's ports are still struck ? according to reports, 52 oil tankers are at anchor off the coast of Marseilles, still waiting to unload. The biggest actions have come when the unions have called nationwide strikes, but rolling walkouts and protests continue every day. This week, police have lashed back at youth demonstrators, fighting running battles in cities around the country ? with the media parroting Sarkozy's denunciations of ?lawbreakers.? Sarkozy's proposal would raise the minimum age for retirement from 60 to 62 and the age when retirees can get full benefits from 65 to 67. The measure was passed by the country's Assembly and is being considered in the Senate ? a vote was scheduled for October 20, but was delayed, though the Sarkozy government insists one will take place soon. Even if the measure passes, however, more protests are already planned, including at least two nationwide strikes and days of action at the end of October and early November. This revolt is the latest in a wave of struggles that have rocked France over more than a decade, dating back to a wave of public-sector strikes in 1995 that stopped a conservative government from imposing changes to the pension system. Charles-Andr? Udry is editor of the magazine La Br?che and the web site ? L'encontre, a veteran of the socialist movement in Europe and a member of the Movement for Socialism in Switzerland. He talked earlier this week to Ahmed Shawki, editor of the International Socialist Review, about the issues at stake and the prospects for the struggle that is shaking France. What do the strikes and protests against Sarkozy's pension reform mean? Have they gained majority support in the country? The most important aspect of the current situation is the widespread popular support for the strikes, and the fact that this support is getting larger and more determined. I'll give you an example: On Monday, Le Parisien, a mass circulation newspaper which is distributed throughout France under the name Aujourd'hui en France (Today in France), featured another public opinion poll about support for the strikes, the struggles and the demonstrations in all their forms. The poll found that 71 per cent of the French population was favourably disposed to the struggle against the attempts to change the pension system ? in effect, to raise the age of retirement and lower the benefits available to those who retire. This is fascinating. This study was conducted by the CSA, a polling organization controlled by Vincent Bollor?, one of the biggest capitalists in France and a close friend of President Sarkozy. If you look at the figures from a poll on September 7, the numbers showed only 62 per cent support. On September 23, this had risen to 68 per cent, and we are now at 71 per cent. In other words, despite the daily inconveniences to public transportation and other things caused by the strikes and demonstrations, and in spite of a campaign by the government and the mass media against them, there has been a rise in support for the struggle. In these opinion polls, when they ask people if they want a more determined strike, 61 per cent say yes. This is terribly important because what people are saying is that there should be no retreat. So this is not only the 3 million or 3.5 million people who participated in demonstrations who are in favour of the struggle, but the overwhelming majority of people who are in favour of defeating this reform ? or rather counter-reform. I think this is extremely important ? that we are witnessing the birth of a new social opposition to the politics of the Sarkozy government. The polling figures have surprised everyone. So much so that Le Parisien, which is by no means a newspaper of the left, said that all France still supports the mobilizations ? they used the word ?still? because they were surprised this is the case. I think this is the first point to make ? to understand the breadth and depth of the support for this struggle. The second important point ? and this isn't well understood, even in some European countries ? is that the idea of being able to retire and leave the workforce at 60 years of age is deeply engrained in minds of workers. That's both public- and private-sector workers. The poll I was referring to found that
[Marxism-Thaxis] Money Wars: Beating Up On Beijing?
Dispatches From The Edge Money Wars: Beating Up On Beijing? By Conn Hallinan Submitted to portside by the author October 25, 2010 Are the U.S. and China on a collision course? Consider the following: During the 2010 mid-term elections, some 30 candidates for the House and Senate are blasting China for everything from undermining America's financial structure to fueling the U.S. unemployment crisis. The Obama Administration is accusing China of manipulating its currency to sabotage the U.S. exports trade, and the U.S. House of Representatives just passed a bill to slap huge tariffs on Chinese goods unless Beijing allows the renminbi, China's currency, to appreciate. A recent Financial Times article on the failure of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to resolve the currency issue says, The hostility between Washington and Beijing has escalated into something resembling trench warfare. Last year a CNN poll found that 71 percent of Americans thought China was an economic threat, and 51 percent of those polled thought Beijing represented a military threat as well. If one adds to the above the growing tensions with China in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits, some kind of dust up seems almost inevitable, though any collision would be a diplomatic one. But a major diplomatic fallout between the world's two largest economies has global implications. What is going on here? Is China indeed manipulating its currency to beggar the U.S.? Does it bear some responsibility for the high jobless rate and the inability of the American economy to recover from the deep recession? The answer is both yes and no, and thereby hangs a tale. The U.S. charges that China is deliberately undervaluing its currency, the renminbi, which makes Chinese export goods cheaper than its competitors and thus undermines other countries exports. China is indeed manipulating its currency, although it is hardly alone. In one way or another, Brazil, Japan, Switzerland, Thailand, South Korea and others have recently acted to keep their currencies competitive. Nor is currency manipulation something new. During the 1980s the Reagan Administration and Japan jimmied their currencies to deal with a huge trade gap. Indeed, the current free market orthodoxy regarding currency is a recent phenomenon in world finances, a reflection of the Washington Consensus model that has dominated institutions like the IMF and the World Bank for the last two decades. How one sees the current dispute depends on where one sits. With U.S. unemployment above 10 percent, Americans are focused on policies that will bring that rate down. But from China's point of view, any major upward evaluation of the renminbi would simply transfer U.S. jobless rates to China. Since it would also reduce the value of the dollar, it would lower the value of the massive debt the U.S. owes China. And that, to the Chinese, would feel suspiciously like a default, says Stephen King, chief economist for HSBC. In short, a lose-lose deal for Beijing. From the Chinese side of the equation, the U.S. is essentially trying to unload the consequences of the economic meltdown that Wall Street caused onto them. And they dispute the fact that the huge trade surplus is all that relevant to the current crisis. According to Avinash D. Persuad, chair of Intelligence Capital Limited, even if China's $175 billion trade were to somehow vanish, it would only have a 0.25 percent impact on global GDP. The Chinese economy is one quarter of the U.S. economy, and at the peak of the U.S. trade deficit, China's surplus was less than a third of it. David may have toppled Goliath, but he couldn't carry him, says Persuad. Exports have certainly been important to China, but they have only accounted for 10 to 15 percent of growth over the past decade. The main engine for Chinese growth has been investment. According to the World Bank Growth Commission, of the 13 countries that have enjoyed 7 percent growth rates over the past 10 years, all had high investment rates. These countries suppressed consumption by keeping wages low, allowing them to amass enormous pools of capital to pour into upgrading infrastructure or subsidizing industry. The Chinese economy is booming-it never fell below 8 percent growth during the recession-but it has some vulnerabilities. The Chinese recognize that they need to shift their economy, away from an over reliance on exports to one based more on internal consumption,. To this end, private wages and consumption have been growing at a respectable 8 to 10 percent yearly. The thinking is that as consumption goes up, China will absorb more of its own products, and thus the trade deficit will go down. China's new five-year plan is trying to do exactly this. Shifting some of the economy away from the wealthy coastal areas toward the more depressed inland part of the country will help alleviate some of the wealth gap between city and country, and encourage urbanization in the
[Marxism-Thaxis] 3 grown men beating down on a woman
what cowardly punks 3 grown men beating down on a woman in solidarity jim From: i...@boldprogressives.org To: pitai...@aol.com Sent: 10/26/2010 2:36:31 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time Subj: sickening VIDEO: Rand Paul's Tea Party thugs attack progressive woman. _Sign our statement calling for Republican leaders to denounce Tea Party violence._ (http://act.boldprogressives.org/go/2219?akid=2459.294465.1Q-XIbt=1) (http://act.boldprogressives.org/go/2219?akid=2459.294465.1Q-XIbt=2) Fight back more: _Donate $4 to Rand Paul's opponent Jack Conway today_ (http://act.boldprogressives.org/go/2220?akid=2459.294465.1Q-XIbt=3) or _make calls for him tomorrow._ (http://act.boldprogressives.org/go/2221?akid=2459.294465.1Q-XIbt=4) jim, Did you see the headlines today? MoveOn Supporter Brutally Attacked by Rand Paul Supporter -- The Atlantic Ugly Scene In Kentucky -- Politico Paul Stops Short Of Condemning Attack On MoveOn Protester -- TPM Outside a Senate debate last night, a progressive activist named Lauren was thrown to the ground by Tea Party thugs holding Rand Paul signs. As one held her down, another stomped her head -- producing an audible crunching sound. Rand Paul's Senate campaign put out a statement condemning violence on both sides. What?? That's NOT ok -- we need accountability, not false equivalency. _WATCH THE VIDEO and sign our statement calling on Republican politicians like Rand Paul to unequivocally denounce Tea Party violence. Click here._ (http://act.boldprogressives.org/go/2219?akid=2459.294465.1Q-XIbt=5) (Want to fight back more? _Donate $4 to Rand Paul's opponent Jack Conway here_ (http://act.boldprogressives.org/go/2220?akid=2459.294465.1Q-XIbt=6) or _sign up to make calls for Conway here._ (http://act.boldprogressives.org/go/2221?akid=2459.294465.1Q-XIbt=7) ) Within minutes, over 5,000 people signed the _statement_ (http://act.boldprogressives.org/go/2219?akid=2459.294465.1Q-XIbt=8) . National and local media are writing about this today, and we'll keep them informed about the growing sense of outrage. (On the _statement page_ (http://act.boldprogressives.org/go/2219?akid=2459.294465.1Q-XIbt=9) , you can also write a note to Lauren, which we'll give to our friends at MoveOn to deliver to her.) After signing, please send this email to others -- especially any swing voters who may be considering voting for the Tea Party this year. Thanks for sticking up for progressives, -- Stephanie Taylor, Adam Green, Keauna Gregory, Forrest Brown, Matt Wall, and the PCCC team Paid for by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee PAC (_www.BoldProgressives.org_ (http://www.boldprogressives.org/) ) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Contributions to the PCCC are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. ___ 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] 2010 elections continue 1960s battles
2010 elections continue 1960s battles http://peoplesworld.org/2010-elections-continue-1960s-battles#PageComment_7742 by: Sam Webb October 26 2010 tags: elections, ultra-right, history I just returned from two weeks of travel around the U.S. At one stop on my journey someone asked me where this election fits into the scheme of things. Here is what I said. With a narrow-angled lens it is the latest round of a political clash triggered by the election of the first African American president and the economic meltdown in 2008. One of these momentous events might have been enough to set into motion a clash of contending forces. But when both occurred nearly simultaneously the ferocity of this clash became tsunami-like. It hasn't ebbed, and, in fact, with the midterm election around the corner, the rage of the right is surging to a new level. And if you are hoping that the politics of rage, obfuscation and obstruction will ease in the election's aftermath, think again. These politics are deep in the political DNA of right-wing extremism - it won't give up something that works, at least so far! In any event, one side will gain momentum on Nov. 2, while the other side will have to regroup to one degree or another. But with a wider-angled lens, this election and the rage connected to it (racist and anti-immigrant especially) are traceable to two periods. One is the so-called culture wars of the 1960s - which were in reality a period of unprecedented social upheaval and struggles, not since matched - over poverty, racial equality, student, women's and farmworker rights, the Vietnam war, and other issues. These powerful and overlapping movements arose to challenge the status quo of that time. The other is the sharp turn to the right a decade later. If the culture wars of the '60s were the opening round of a new era of struggle, the 1980 ascendance of Ronald Reagan to the White House (and the decision of then Federal Reserve Bank chairman Paul Volker to spike interest rates to nearly 20 percent and thus induce a deep recession) signified a reconfiguration, intensification and extension of this struggle to a broader swathe of the population, especially the working class and labor movement. With the transfer of the main levers of political power to Reagan and his hit-men, the barbarians of the right initiated an all-out class war from above. It was ideological and cultural as well as political and economic. The gloves came off. There was no place for compromise. Right-wing extremists and the most reactionary sections of monopoly and financial capital ganged up against the working class, racially oppressed, women, youth, seniors, and other social groups. And guess what? This turn to supercharged class warfare, steeped in racist appeals to white people, largely succeeded. The wealth of the top income tiers ballooned, while income for the lower tiers either stagnated or plummeted. Neoliberalism, deregulation and financialization became the new economic orthodoxy. The use of force became the option of first choice in matters domestic and foreign, and the organizations of the working class and people beat a retreat. But a retreat isn't a rout. Though weakened, the working class and people lived to fight another day, and another day, and another day ... Much time has passed since the culture wars of the '60s and the turn to the right a decade later, but the distant voices of George Wallace, Bull Connor, Richard Nixon, Phyllis Schlafly, Ronald Reagan and Reverend Jerry Falwell can still be heard. The past, as someone said, is never past. The intensification of class and democratic struggle that occurred then continues today, combining the old issues, protagonists and rhetoric with the new issues, protagonists and rhetoric. Most strikingly new is the election of President Obama, and the massive and spontaneous surge of democratic-minded people and movements that backed him. This loose coalition of diverse forces, broader than anything before it, is the main vehicle that will drive the nation to a more just and decent future. It won't be easy. The 2008 election tipped the balance of forces in the direction of democracy and progress, and pushed the right onto its heels. But the blow wasn't a knockout. The right regrouped, faster than most anticipated, and turned obstruction, division and demagogy into a vicious and powerful weapon. Next Tuesday, Election Day, the right hopes to continue its journey back to political dominance. But if it does make gains, let's remember that gaining a momentary advantage is miles from reclaiming the main levers of political power and even more miles from bringing a final resolution to this longstanding conflict - a conflict that in my view can only be settled when one side vanquishes the other. The differences are irreconcilable. Each side has a diametrically different vision of what America should look like. One vision - the vision of labor, minorities, women, youth and
[Marxism-Thaxis] Stunning films from China to Wall Street
Stunning films from China to Wall Street http://peoplesworld.org/stunning-films-from-china-to-wall-street/ assets/Uploads/_resampled/CroppedImage6060-Billpiano2.jpg by: Bill Meyer October 26 2010 tags: culture, movies, China, Japan, Philippines, economy aftershock With over 300 titles from over 80 countries of the world being screened at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival last month, it would have been impossible to see all the more important films. But squeezing 40 of them in 10 days was not a bad accomplishment. Here are some of the remaining titles in my final report from the festival that I would highly recommend for those seeking relevant films for the progressive community. (See my earlier reports here, here, here, here and here.) The highest grossing film in Chinese history, Aftershock is a thrilling disaster movie about the real earthquakes that shook the city of Tangshan in 1976 and Sichuan in 2006. The Chinese ability to gather the masses to create amazing works of art is mindboggling in this unbelievably moving recreation of the tragedy. The personal story that follows one family through the tragedy is heartbreaking and gripping. Special effects, acting, music and cinematography are stunning in this first big IMAX movie created outside of the U.S. It's amazing how far Chinese cinema has come in a short time. It surpassed the success of The Founding of a Republic, which earned $62 million the previous year. Aftershock is dedicated to the people of Tangshan and the memory of the 240,000 Chinese who lost their lives in the earthquake. ANPO is Japanese shorthand for the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty that has kept the U.S. military in Japan since World War II. ANPO: Art X War is a movie that defines the popular resistance to U.S. presence in Japan throughout the last 60 years, shown entirely through paintings, photography and film. The film gathers emotional power about a subject little known in the West. Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer is another penetrating study from prolific progressive director Alex Gibney, known for Enron, The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side, and Casino Jack and the United States of Money. And he is currently working on a doc about Lance Armstrong. Gibney's list of producing credits is even more awe-inspiring, with No End In Sight, Who Killed the Electric Car, and The Trials of Henry Kissinger, to name just a few. Client 9 is a brilliant exposé of the reasons for the fall of former New York governor Eliot Spitzer. The film is loaded with rare in-depth interviews with those in power driven to bring this Sheriff of Wall Street to the ground. Catching him on his weakness for call girls allowed Wall Street to continue its plundering of the economy that resulted in the criminal bailout and disastrous economic downturn. However, now it looks like the title should actually read The Fall and Rise... instead, watching Spitzer's amazing comeback. Another political character that grabbed the headlines for years was the world's most famous lobbyist, according to Jack Abramoff. Not to be confused with the Gibney documentary of the same subject that will also be coming out shortly, this is a Hollywood-style tribute to the insanity of people in power. Stealing large sums of money from Indian casinos and paying off congressmen is just in a day's work for this unscrupulous lobbyist, broadly portrayed by the skilled Kevin Spacey. Casino Jack is an entertaining thriller for any film lover, but especially those who like politics. Although I was unable to view Inside Job, it was described as the ultimate analysis of the recent global financial crisis and a powerful call to action. It's definitely on my list of films to see. Cuba has been underrepresented at the Toronto Film Festival for the last few years, explained by the economic pressures on the small struggling island. But it still manages to turn out a few feature films, and helped co-produce Half of Oscar which appeared at the festival this year. And Spanish director and jazz aficionado Fernando Trueba (Calle 54, Belle Epoque) created a most amazing tribute to the early days of Cuban Latin music and its marriage to American bebop jazz. Chico and Rita is based on the true story of legendary pianist Bebo Valdes and his travels through the world of music. For Latin jazz fans, it is a colorful recreation of the early days of bebop in Cuba and New York, when the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Miles and Monk were on the scene. Pre-Castro days are colorfully represented and signs of American dominance are apparent everywhere. The music score, centered on the classic Sabor a Mi, is wonderful in its richness. But what makes the film most unique is that it's digitally animated, and after a few minutes, you feel you are actually watching the real characters! The Last Circus (also known as Ballad of the Sad Trumpet) by Alex de la Iglesia could be described as the Spanish Civil War on acid. An extremely
[Marxism-Thaxis] The Backlash”: eye-opening field trip to the far right
The Backlash”: eye-opening field trip to the far right http://peoplesworld.org/the-backlash-eye-opening-field-trip-to-the-far-right/ by: Labarre Blackman October 26 2010 tags: culture, books, ultra-right, history Backlash Book Review The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama by Will Bunch 2010, Harper, hardcover, 368 pages, $25.99 The Obama administration plans to confiscate all firearms and gold bullion, and herd us into FEMA-run concentration camps! Obama is secretly a communist and his health-care reform package is the first step in a plot to euthanize the elderly! Foreign troops with black UN helicopters are already occupying parts of the country! Just when you thought you had heard the silliest paranoid urban myth circulating on the Internet, there comes along a book giving you a snapshot of those for whom such rants are the gospel truth. Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch, in The Backlash, takes the reader on an eye-opening field trip to the strip-malls, mountain hollows and exurban living rooms where these legends take root and grow. Written with the vivid sociological detail that helped him win a Pulitzer Prize, this chronicle lays bare a resurgent reactionary populism which has, since Obama's election in 2008, reared itself into the mainstream media. Borne aloft by late night hate radio and given credence by that right-wing infomercial, Fox News Channel, this apocalyptic vision has galvanized an increasingly vocal brand of paranoia. There has always been a right-wing fringe. The content of their fears is little changed since the days of the Know-Nothing party of the 1840s and '50s or the Palmer raids of 1919-20. Hostility toward the latest wave of immigrants to land stateside has blighted every generation that bought into the myth of class mobility only to have their dreams shattered by the endemic, cyclic paroxysms of capitalism. The frustrated attempt by the petty bourgeoisie (not the obfuscated term middle class which tries to lump working class wage earners with landlords, middle managers and small capitalist entrepreneurs) to ape the airs of the social class to which they aspire, and the vehemence with which they castigate the working class and the poor, becomes incandescent when a pink slip arrives on the heels of a foreclosure notice. The classic capitalist myth suddenly evaporates in the face of the fact that that the banks have always owned most housing and that a mortgage is little more than rent in perpetuity: the illusion of ownership - the American Dream on layaway. This uncertainty about the future has generated a bull market for loneliness and fear - and it is this fear, manipulated as a saleable commodity, that draws Bunch's irate analysis. He cites the academic work of Richard Hofstadter (a onetime communist who later went to seed as a neo-con) on why the fear of financial and social failure (falling into the under classes) provides the animus for the paranoid style in American history. This is called in academic circles theories of status deprivation. Hofstadter cataloged earlier epidemics of rampant fear in American history. The major difference, according to Bunch, is that, this time, the Internet and elements of the 24-hour news cycle have made fear-mongering a lucrative enterprise for the unscrupulous: case in point, the phenomenon of Glenn Beck. Bunch covers Beck the same way he covers the 9/12'ers, the Oath Keepers, the John Birch Society, the Tea Party Express and the Obama birthers. Like the best of true investigative journalists, Bunch examines the social context and history and the economic tie-ins of those who give credence and voice to these viewpoints. Sometimes he questions them face-to-face, trying to tease out a logic to their often preposterous conclusions. Most of all he just listens and asks them about themselves. And he watches them as they find others like themselves on the Internet or at machine-gun shootouts, gun shows, book signings and grassroots meetings. Besides fear, their major common characteristic is their loneliness. Heaven help them, but the closest thing they have to a friend is a talk-show host given to crying on mike, dubious history lessons, commissions on gold sales and the ridiculous pronouncements of a former radio shock jock who knows his ratings depend on titillating his audience. Also in keeping with the best traditions of investigative reporting is Bunch's refusal to spin the present movement in terms of a conspiracy like those so dear to the hearts of his subjects. Anyone seeking a preview to The Backlash can check out his very popular Philadelphia Daily News blog on the net, Attytood. For those on the right who would like to characterize themselves as lead actors in a reality re-run of the soupy 1940s film, Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington, let me suggest that they are much more likely crowd-scene extras in a work like Citizen Kane with Rupert Murdoch's
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[Marxism-Thaxis] Changing Faiths
Changing Faiths Religious Americans are far more diverse, tolerant, and compassionate than the image of an evangelist upsurge would suggest. Peter Steinfels October 21, 2010 The American Prospect http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=changing_faiths American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, Simon Schuster, 673 pages, $30 American Grace is a scrupulously researched, extensively documented, and utterly clear book filled with findings that should rattle the assumptions of anyone, religious or secular, who cares about religion in American public life. Findings like these: The evangelical boom that began in the 1970s was over by the early 1990s, nearly two decades ago. In twenty-first century America expansive evangelicalism is a feature of the past, not the present. Cohorts of whom barely 5 percent say they have no religious affiliation are being replaced by cohorts of whom roughly 25 percent say they have no religion, massively increasing the nationwide incidence of nones. The more often you say grace, the more likely you are to find a home in the Republican Party, and the less likely you are to identify with the Democrats. Most Americans today are religious feminists. There is little overt politicking over America's pulpits and, to the extent it happens, it is more common on the political left than the right. Religious Americans are, in fact, more generous neighbors and more conscientious citizens than their secular counterparts. On the other hand, they are also less tolerant of dissent. Regular churchgoers are more likely to give to secular causes than nonchurchgoers, and highly religious people give a larger fraction of their income to secular causes than do most secular people. A whopping 89 percent of Americans believe that heaven is not reserved for those who share their religious faith. Americans are reluctant to claim that they have a monopoly on truth. American Grace is not, however, a collection of believe-it-or-not findings about American religion. It tells a story and makes coherent arguments. The social science of many chapters takes on flesh and blood in congregational profiles that range from Episcopal churches in Massachusetts to a venerable African American church in Baltimore and booming megachurches in Minnesota and California, from Chicago Catholic parishes turning Hispanic to a liberal suburban synagogue and a Utah Mormon ward incorporating an unusual number (for Mormons) of Democrats. And the book comes with more than a hundred striking graphs. The book's story is one of a religious earthquake and two aftershocks. The earthquake was the disaffection from religion occurring in the long Sixties. Church attendance plummeted. So did the percentage of Americans saying that religion was very important in their life. At every stage of their life, boomers would always lag behind their parents by 25 percent to 30 percent in regular churchgoing. The authors know well that these were the years of the civil-rights, anti- war, and women's liberation movements, of pot, acid, the pill, Roe v. Wade, and Watergate. But with a refreshing directness and only a bit of embarrassment, they emphasize sex. Between 1969 and 1973, the fraction of Americans stating that premarital sex was only sometimes wrong or not wrong at all doubled, from 24 percent to 47 percent, a startling change in four years -- and then drifted up, never to decline. Attitudes toward premarital sex turn out to be one of the strongest predictors of a host of other political and religious changes, including that of the first great aftershock, the evangelical upsurge of the 1970s and 1980s. That reaction to the long Sixties has been extensively analyzed. Less so the second great aftershock, the rise of the nones after 1990 when young people, in particular, began rejecting identification with any religion, though not necessarily with a variety of religious beliefs and practices. More and more young Americans, according to polls, came to view religion as judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical, and too political, overly focused on rules rather than spirituality. The Richter rating of this second aftershock is greater than that of the first aftershock and rivals that of the powerful original quake of the Sixties, Putnam and Campbell write. The second aftershock, however, only exacerbated the so-called God gap. The slightly shrinking evangelical camp became all the more identified with Republican conservatism. The new nones, mostly of a liberal stamp to begin with, increased the identification of Democrats with secularism. Not that the identification of religious groups with one party or another was new in American history. A century ago a Methodist (outside the South), whether churchgoing or not, was more than likely a Republican; a Catholic, whether churchgoing or not,
