Re: [Marxism] Fracking comes to Australia
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Australia=Arkansas with a beach http://i.imgur.com/EA4fk.png On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: A friend of mine and Marxmail subscriber who lives in Australia until something better comes along keeps sending me horror stories about xenophobia, environmental despoliation, mistreatment of aborigines, etc. Someone could write a dissertation comparing Australia and the USA, 2 cowboy countries sinking into oblivion fast. 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] Insurgent Anthropologies: Conquest Abroad and Repression at Home, by Christopher Carrico
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://asitoughttobe.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/insurgent-anthropologies-2/ 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] Yiddish anarchist song Down with the Police
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ft9iuZu0AI 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] Insurgent Anthropologies: Conquest Abroad and Repression at Home, by C
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yep. A door step where death never comes Spread across time and my time never done, And I'm never done Walk tall why ever run, When they moveth I ever come. ... the mad fire burn. Mos Def 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] Interview with a Taliban leader
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/exclusive-afghanistan--behind-enemy-lines-2133667.html Exclusive: Afghanistan - behind enemy lines James Fergusson returns after three years to Chak, just 40 miles from Kabul, to find the Taliban's grip is far stronger than the West will admit Sunday, 14 November 2010 The sound of a propeller engine is audible the moment my fixer and I climb out of the car, causing us new arrivals from Kabul to glance sharply upwards. I have never heard a military drone in action before, and it is entirely invisible in the cold night sky, yet there is no doubt what it is. My first visit to the Taliban since 2007 has only just begun and I am already regretting it. What if the drone is the Hellfire-missile-carrying kind? Three years ago, the Taliban's control over this district, Chak, and the 112,000 Pashtun farmers who live here, was restricted to the hours of darkness – although the local commander, Abdullah, vowed to me that he would soon be in full control. As I am quickly to discover, this was no idle boast. In Chak, the Karzai government has in effect given up and handed over to the Taliban. Abdullah, still in charge, even collects taxes. His men issue receipts using stolen government stationery that is headed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan; with commendable parsimony they simply cross out the word Republic and insert Emirate, the emir in question being the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Omar. The most astonishing thing about this rebel district – and for Nato leaders meeting in Lisbon this week, a deeply troubling one – is that Chak is not in war-torn Helmand or Kandahar but in Wardak province, a scant 40 miles south-west of Kabul. Nato commanders have repeatedly claimed that the Taliban are on the back foot following this year's US troop surge. Mid-level insurgency commanders, they say, have been removed from the battlefield in industrial quantities since the 2010 campaign began. And yet Abdullah, operating within Katyusha rocket range of the capital – and with a $500,000 bounty on his head – has managed to evade coalition forces for almost four years. If Chak is in any way typical of developments in other rural districts – and Afghanistan has hundreds of isolated valley communities just like this one – then Nato's military strategy could be in serious difficulty. At the roadside, Abdullah himself materialises from the darkness. He seems hugely amused to see me again. The drone, thankfully, turns out to be a ringay – the local, onomatopoeic nickname for a small camera drone. Abdullah says it's the armed versions, the larger-engined Predators and Reapers, known as buzbuzak, that we need to worry about – and this definitely isn't one of those. I imagine some CIA analyst in Langley, Virginia, freeze-framing a close-up of my face and filing it under Insurgent. In this valley, no one but the Taliban moves about in vehicles after dark. In the middle of the night, after supper on the floor of a village farmhouse, I am taken by half a dozen Talibs to inspect the local district centre, a mud-brick compound garrisoned by 80 soldiers of the Afghan National Army who, Abdullah says, are too scared ever to come out. We attack them whenever we like, he says, producing Russian-made night vision glasses and examining the ANA's forward trench positions. In fact, we can attack them now if you want. Would you like that? I politely decline the offer. Kabul, Abdullah insists, controls just one square kilometre around the district centre; the rest of Chak belongs to the Taliban. Last year, 30 ANP [Afghan National Police] came over to our side with two trucks full of heavy weapons... They could see how popular we were here, and that they were following the wrong path. They were all from the north. We sent them home to their villages. During this September's parliamentary elections, he adds with pride, 86 of the province's 87 polling stations remained closed. A local candidate, Wahedullah Kalimzai, has since been accused of bribing election officials to stuff the ballot boxes in the one polling station that did open. And Kabul has the temerity to call these elections a success! A former engineering student at a Kabul polytechnic, Abdullah has also become a champion military truck burner since 2007. The eastern edge of Chak is delineated by the Kabul-to-Kandahar highway, a key supply route for the Nato war machine in the south. Repaved by the US just seven years ago at a cost of $190m, the road today is pockmarked with craters left by improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Over the years, he says, his men have destroyed hundreds of Isaf (International Security Assistance Force) vehicles on this stretch. His personal
[Marxism] Democrats and the rule of law
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == concerning Obama's decision to deny due process to accused terrorists and the double standards of the liberal commentariat - Democrats and the rule of law By Glenn Greenwald http://www.salon.com/author/glenn_greenwald/index.html http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/14/trials/index.html * clip - * Obviously, those who screamed bloody murder over Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies but now justify or at least acquiesce to the same policies when implemented by Obama have serious issues with partisan loyalties trumping honest advocacy. But it's when the Obama administration reverses itself -- such as with the torture photos -- that one's intellectual honesty is most conclusively tested: one's beliefs and principles can't shift with Obama's reversals if they're to be meaningful or credible. The same issue applies here: shouldn't anyone who defended Holder's original decision on the ground that it was compelled by the Constitution, the rule of law and our values now vocally denounce Obama for his profound violations of those same doctrines? If the Obama administration merited praise last November for upholding the Constitution, the rule of law and our values with civilian trials, then it must be true that they're now violating the Constitution, the rule of law and our values by denying them. Isn't that a rather serious offense? full article -- http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/14/trials/index.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Kirchner and prospects in Argentina
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I just translated this note by a friend (below). However, if you can read Spanish (or suffer Google translator, it's not that bad actually) I encourage you to go over the whole, or most, of the last paper 'el aromo' which was dedicated to the issues of the bureaucracy, the 'social' conditions which support it and the inanities of the intellectuals who support the government -case in point, Laclau, Zizek's compinche, thinks Nestor Kirchner was a Gramscian!- among many other things. http://www.razonyrevolucion.org/ryr/index.php?option=com_contentview=categorylayout=blogid=186Itemid=114 I know comrades would not fall for the senselessness and distortions of Gorojovsky, but it's always good to take double precautions. The intestate. The death of Néstor Kirchner and the prospects of Argentina politics By Fabián Harari I thought it was a joke. I had not heard anything in the morning news, so I demurely washed my hands of the matter. When I turned the TV on again, that joke had become a reality: he was actually gone. Just like that, abruptly, unappealably. Without the preambles and agonies which usually prepare the mood and give time for secret meetings. Nobody believed he was going to die and nobody had prepared for it. For three days, it was unclear what was to follow. The state administration, the parliamentary fracases and the negotiations around campaigns, posts and internal elections remained frozen. The scale of the stupor is evidence of the quantity and quality of the relations that this man tethered around his person. There is no doubt about it: the bourgeoisie have lost their best cadre (in itself, this also is evidence of its state…). It is not strange that it is mourning and that it will take some time to rearrange the pieces. The virtues of Bonaparte Néstor Kirchner imprints his seal on a decade which, paradoxically, represents the awakening of the Argentine working class, after prolonged lethargy. With enough strength to forge alliances, impel and intervene in a political crisis, provoke an insurrection and win a number of social victories, the working class succeeded in detaining its enemy’s advance. However, due to subjective weaknesses, it did not manage to impose its own solution. This scene sets a draw. After a series of vacillations (with those who tried out for presidents: Puerta, Rodríguez Saá, Duhalde [1]), the bourgeoisie attempts to break this tie through a repressive maneuver (the repression of Puente Pueyrredón), but it must rapidly retreat, yield to the demands and rearm itself for something different. Duhalde himself starts this abrupt turnabout by giving 2 million social plans for jobs (“Planes Trabajar”) and, as a good soldier of its class, he resigns in advance to prevent the deepening of the crisis. That “something different” is Kirchner. The democratic resolution of 2003 had not begun well. The candidate of bonapartism had not only lost the elections but had only achieved a meager 22%. Adding insult to injury, the opponent (recall: Menem) refrained from going to a second-round election, speculating on a further sharpening of the crisis. As Néstor himself used to reminisce, “I had more unemployed people than votes”. If he wanted to carry forward his presidency, he had to put the pieces together in a special way. And so he did it. He performed as a real referee (who is never neutral). He froze up the public services fares to prevent an outbreak of protest. He offered resources to “piquetero” organizations and won quite a few of them to his side (MTD, Barrios de Pie). He rolled back the rip-offs of the project of cooperativism to a lot of organizations. Through transfers and concessions, he allowed for the expansion of the CGT and the enthronement of Hugo Moyano (the current leader of the CGT) as its leader, thereby creating a political base of workers in the formal sector with higher wages. He seduced the disobedient petty-bourgeoisie, separating it from the left through the politics of Human Rights, and taking in the way Mothers, Grandmothers and Sons and Daughters [this refers to organizations who seek justice for the victims of the military dictatorship of the 70’s]. But he also delivered to the right: inefficient industries and public services companies received subsidies. This added to the precarious conditions of employment and, after 2005, the inflation which started to eat away at wages. As far as political issues, he swept away anything that was in front of him. Not only did he keep a part of the “piquetero” movement, but he also built up the hopes of more than one leftist party (e.g. the communist party), he dissolved duhaldism, and broke the radicalismo movement into pieces. Of course, none of this could have been done without the
[Marxism] Another Act in a Sad and Sick Comedy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == No copyright Excuse multiple copies From the desk of Reuven Kaminer November 14, 2010 Another Act in a Sad and Sick Comedy On the face of it, it appears that these guys (Hillary and Bibi and their staffs) do not have anything to do with their time. The “negotiations” between the Israelis and the Americans, designed to convince the Israelis to stop building in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, have reached a critical point. After weeks of jockeying and a seven hour marathon between Hilary and Bibi, the Israelis are supposed to respond to a package of goodies that they will receive if they are so kind and generous to agree to a three month freeze on settlements. If Bibi and his buddies condescend to stop building on Palestinian land, they will receive advanced fighter-bombers and sophisticated weaponry, diplomatic vetoes (when required) and backing in international forums, and even the right to never hear the word freeze again until hell freezes over. These people have lost all sense of decency and go about their protracted negotiations on the fate of the Palestinians as if their combinations and consultations do not concern the Palestinians. Moreover, the Israelis were quick to announce that this US-Israeli deal does not require Palestinian approval. You would have be a political illiterate to not understand that the US is trying to buy off Bibi by sacrificing Palestinian rights and paying him with Palestinian concessions. Now this was to be expected by all, including most Palestinians. For some indecipherable reason, this Palestinian “leadership” thought that by ingratiating itself with Washington, they could hope for a modicum of fairness. How naïve. The Americans think that renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will improve their image in the region. Indeed, everyone harbors their own set of illusions to get through the day. Logically, the U.S. should be pressuring both sides. But it does not want to put any real pressure on Israel because Israel is an important ally in the schemes for an attack on Iran. It may be that we have come to the point that it is really hard to pressure Israel because a weakened US administration has become completely scared out of its wits by the ugly AIPAC-Tea Party coalition. So what do you do? You make Palestinian concessions to Netanyahu’s annexationist government. The Israelis claim that the deal excludes Jerusalem. The Palestinians say that this means that the freeze is non-starter. The only possible conclusion is that Hillary and Bibi believe that they will drag Abbas to the table or that they intend to lay the blame for a new failure to resume talks on Palestinian stubbornness. This most recent expression of the US-Israeli love fest has reached a new level of perversity. This sliding scale of highly priced ‘freeze-time’ is particularly grotesque. The US, the world’s strongest and uncontested super power, buys ‘freeze time’, measured in days, from Israel in a transaction similar to many a shady bit of business. Give me 100 days of freeze-time and I will give you 20 F-35’s and a bunch of other murderous stuff and I promise never to ask for any more freeze-time and to organize full immunity from all charges and condemnation in all international forums. One can only wonder what would be the price of, say, six months of freeze time. Most curious is the object of Washington’s passion for this rare commodity called ‘freeze time.’ Both Obama and Clinton have recently stated very clearly that construction in the OPT is illegal, and this is still the official US position. Israel cannot “sell” willingness to desist from building in the OPT, because they have no such right. It seems that this is a clear case of the US buying stolen goods. Hillary and Bibi worked a bit on wrapping up this new bargain. As part of the deal, the US will do all sorts of things that it does anyhow like arming Israel, pressuring Iran, covering Israel’s “rear” in the UN and the International Atomic Energy Commision. Does anyone believe that US follow-through on this “package” of goodies for Israel depends on Israeli agreement to a three month construction freeze? There does appear to be a single element of importance in all this yada, yada, yada. This is the proposal to concentrate on the delineation of the borders between Israel and Palestine. Some “brilliant” people figured out that if the borders are clearly marked, then everybody will agree as to where Israel can or cannot build. So the US is talking about the border issue being the main one and the most urgent. But this is just another case of the US maintaining the status-quo while promoting the illusion that some real negotiations are feasible. In fact,
[Marxism] CO2 rising – the science of global w arming
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == You realize this makes the case for a social revolution in Argentina, Uruguay AND the US all the more urgent :) 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] Stephanie Coontz on Mad Men in Wash Post
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == ists and ites sectarian faction fights ites and ists backstabbin' sacks of shits On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 5:53 PM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: A group once renown for inaction Faced oppositional factions. But it caused no rent When rude emails were sent So they purged them for spelling infractions 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] CO2 rising - the science of global warming
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Leonardo Kosloff You realize this makes the case for a social revolution in Argentina, Uruguay AND the US all the more urgent :) Unfortunately, that which makes an action urgent does not make the action more probable. One cannot will a social revolution; one cannot even predict the conditions (except in general and vague terms) that might actually bring about a social revolution. And the urgency you speak of is _precisely_ what turns the attention many socialists to daydreams of controlling global warming _within_ capitalism. That is what leads so many socialists endlessly to wail about the immience and horrors of global warming rather than focus their thought on what can be done to further the likeligood of the social revolutions you say are urgent. The topic of global wrming, in fact, far from contributing to the building of a resistance movement seems to freeze thought in utopian longing. 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] CO2 rising - the science of global warming
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/14/10 2:06 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: The topic of global wrming, in fact, far from contributing to the building of a resistance movement seems to freeze thought in utopian longing. Good point. The last time I read Mike Davis on climate change, I couldn't get Samuel Butler's Erewhon out of my mind, especially the character Zulora who is Senoj Nosnibor's elder daughter. 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] CO2 rising - the science of global warming
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I actually kind of agree with you there Carrol. The left tends to make take the socialism or barbarism as a pretty catholic nostrum.But, I was just speaking figuratively, we eat a shitload of meat in Argentina...watch out for the smiley faces :-) 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] Glenn Beck, George Soros and the Judenrats
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/glenn-beck-george-soros-and-the-judenrats/ 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] Fwd: Another Act in a Sad and Sick Comedy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Another Act in Sad and Sick Comedy It's only comedy and then not sad not sick, if we bombard Congress to amend the budget item from 20 stealth bombers for Israel to 20 hour weeks at livable wage for x number lined up to enlist in the second Reconstruction Army -- reconstructing at home in the name of course of training to implement PetreUs' friending impirical de con strut Otherwise it's just trite tragedy The article I read said that the administration only promised Bibi to ask Congress for the bombers. On Nov 14, 2010, at 11:57 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: From the desk of Reuven Kaminer November 14, 2010 This sliding scale of highly priced ‘freeze-time’ is particularly grotesque. The US, the world’s strongest and uncontested super power, buys ‘freeze time’, measured in days, from Israel in a transaction similar to many a shady bit of business. Give me 100 days of freeze-time and I will give you 20 F-35’s and a bunch of other murderous stuff and I promise never to ask for any more freeze-time and to organize full immunity from all charges and condemnation in all international forums. One can only wonder 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] Yes, Virginia...
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == ...the embers weren't cold at Auschwitz before the United States started cozying up to Nazis. http://documents.nytimes.com/confidential-report-provides-new-evidence-of-notorious-nazi-cases#document/p1 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] Scotland: Respect votes to split left vote, Galloway opposes independence | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On November 13, 2010, the English left-wing organisation Respect’s annual conference voted, 59 to 15, to begin organising in Scotland. The decision was preceded by the most prominent Respect leader and former MP George Galloway floating the idea that he stand for the Scottish Parliament, either as part of a Respect campaign or an independent George 4 Glasgow campaign. Below are a number of articles from the Scottish and English left on Respect's move into Scotland. Full at http://links.org.au/node/1991 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Swans Release: November 15, 2010
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Welcome to Swans Commentary http://www.swans.com/ November 15, 2010 *** FUNDRAISING DRIVE: If rants appeal to you, dear readers, then turn your attention to MSNBC, Fox News, Antiwar.com, other news aggregators, and the myriad noisy outputs that emphasize either the status quo or some reactionary future. If not, and you wish to keep thinking about real matters like, say, working to change the socioeconomic system, and you consider that culture is an intrisic component of society, then Swans is directed to you. If a few original thoughts (and original work not found anywhere else) are your call, then Swans is for you. Understand the difference. Whether a donation of $5, $75, or $100, they all are welcome, but again -- if our approach is worthy of your interest -- you need to up the ante. $180 in the past cycle were much appreciated. Still it won't be enough to keep Swans going in its current form. Please, friends and comrades, help us. We need another $1,700+ to keep providing you with real content. Do Donate now! http://www.swans.com/about/donate.html Many thanks to Brandon Haleamau, Dimitri Oram, and Philip Fornaci for their generous contributions. *** # # # # # Note from the Editors: Much has been written about last week's G20 summit and its failure to take steps to address currency devaluation and ward off potential trade wars, with economic relations apparently falling apart in this global recession. Yet, little has been written about the Tenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, in which Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program, asserted that This meeting is part of the world's efforts to address a very simple fact -- we are destroying life on Earth. What do these two seemingly disparate conferences have in common? Gilles d'Aymery answers that question in Part III of his excellent series, The Economy Is Not Coming Back: The Reasons it Shouldn't -- a detailed yet easily digestible assessment of the link between the socioeconomic paradigm built on capital accumulation, perpetual material growth, and financial profits and the absolute destruction of the ecosystem. This powerful essay addresses the shocking statistics ignored by politicians and the mainstream media on fossil fuels, carbon dioxide emissions, climate change and global warming, plastic in the oceans, and the demise of fishes, concluding that the economy should not come back if the ecosystems are to survive. Fran Shor addresses one aspect of the problem in his piece on hydraulic fracturing drilling for natural gas, which will have an increasingly devastating impact on the environment as the power of the energy industry expands this practice, along with its reach into the federal government. Just as the environmental movement has been sidelined by politics, so too was the civil rights movement. Michael Barker divulges the US government's co-option of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, where Robert Kennedy assured activists that if they redirected their energies towards voter registration, financial support for such projects would be made available by private foundations. The demise of SNCC was inevitable...Turning to contemporary politics, Jan Baughman looks at the 2010 midterm elections and asks if progressives will learn from the outcome and the success of the Tea Party, and finally vote on their principles and not continue to support the two-party system that repeatedly fails them. Jim Travis notes that despairing of conventional politics, militant peace activists are turning to radical tactics; he presents a conversation with author William T. Hathaway, a Special Forces combat veteran turned peace activist. And Maxwell Clark attended a talk at Yale University by philosopher, writer, and feminist Avital Ronell, noting contradictions in her discourse and her fundamental class allegiance. In the spirit of the financial settlements that well-heeled executives are given to pay their way out of prosecution, Charles Marowitz proposes a new branch of the Justice Department to apply this opportunity to all criminals, and help reduce the national debt at the same time! Meanwhile, Michael Doliner wonders whether China expert David Shambaugh's saber rattling against China is because he's a con man or an idiot. Concluding our political discourse in Africa, Femi Akomolafe has some advice for Ghanaian chief justice Georgina Wood, who remains oblivious to judicial integrity and the unethicality of her purchase of low-priced government land. On the culture front, Peter Byrne parodies Ernest Hemmingway by imagining a trip he might have made to the
Re: [Marxism] Yes, Virginia...
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == ...the embers weren't cold at Auschwitz before the United States started cozying up to Nazis. It sort of breathes new life into the USSR's complaints that the US broke the wartime agreement to de-Nazify Germany, doesn't it? I don't think this is what Stalin had in mind by de-Nazifying. -- Fast fact: Five major corporations comprise 90% of the mass media in the United States. 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] Glenn Beck, George Soros and the Judenrats
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I was saying ‘Fr Coughlin’ myself as I was reading Richard’s comment on your blog to the effect that Beck and co are only harmless entertainers and then I see you beat me to it Lou. It is impossible or at least very difficult from here to say anything about the burgeoning threat from the Right in the States. But I am beginning to think that the ruling class are nervous about their future (not ours) and they are making contingency plans. There was for instance some stuff in the Guardian about developing links between Defence Firms and the UK police. There is talk of drones and more armored cars for the police. In the mean time the Left such as it is continues to be little more than a memory or an idea. Perhaps we will be called into being again. Perhaps. 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] Third World health abandoned, betrayed
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Poverty and Third World health Sunday, November 14, 2010 By Jay Fletcher http://www.greenleft.org.au/taxonomy/term/759 When the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit took place in September, leaders from rich countries, as well as aid and research organisatons, met with Third World nations and “recommitted” to eight anti-poverty goals. The goals were set in the Millennium Declaration in 2000, to be met by 2015. “Donor” countries pledged financial and technical aid to halve extreme poverty and reduce hunger, disease and illiteracy across the global South. Three goals were specifically about health — reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Yet community healthcare organisations such as the Treatment Action Campaign group in South Africa, criticised the summit as another example of “all words, little action”. http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46063 -- “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism “The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker 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] Burma: Suu Kyi freed, but anger high at rigged vote
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Burma: Suu Kyi freed, but anger high at rigged vote Sunday, November 14, 2010 By Lee Yu Kyung http://www.greenleft.org.au/taxonomy/term/2167 http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46105 NLD members gathered at their Headquarters in Rangoon to celebrate Suu Kyi's 63rd birthday in 2008. Thugs from the Union Solidarity Development Association (now USDP) disturbed the gathering. Photo: Lee Yu Kyung “The whole process was a fake!”, said Khin Maung Swe, a 68-year-old leader of the National Democratic Force (NDF), a breakaway from the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi. “We just won 16 seats [out of the 163 the NDF contested] because of the so-called advance votes.” Khin Maung Swe expressed outrage at the process of counting votes in Burma’s elections held on November 7 for the first time in 20 years. Opponents of the military junta said it rigged many “advance votes” — votes cast before the official date of the election — through threats and bribes. Unlike the NDF, the NLD boycotted the poll, arguing it would be rigged. Regardless of the poll’s outcome, the military would keep control of key ministries. Under the constitution, a quarter of the 440 parliamentary seats are reserved for unelected military officials. In May, the ruling junta passed a law that banned anyone serving a prison term for belonging to a political party from running for office. This excluded Burma’s more than 2000 political prisoners — many NLD members. Suu Kyi was under house arrest for most of the 20 years since the NLD won the last elections in 1990. The military regime prevented the NLD from taking office. The regime promised before the poll that it would release Suu Kyi after the elections. On November 13, Suu Kyi was freed, and thousands of supporters celebrated outside her hourse. However, the junta could re-arrest her at any time. “We will register our complaint with Election Commission”, Khin Maung Swe told me in a phone interview two days after the elections. When asked if he trusted the commission, he answered: “How can we trust the junta-appointed commission? But we should take whatever action we can.” In our first phone interview, on voting day, Khin Maung Swe optimistically said he thought 50-70% of the NDF’s 163 candidates could win. He told me then: “We do know the election is not fair and free. But democracy is not an abstract matter, it should be tangible. This election is a starting point.” Maung Swe’s hopes did not seem to be an illusion, assuming the counting process was transparent. However, that hope has proven to be an illusion. Rangoon resident Kyi Maung (name changed) told me: “Many people voted for NDF. People like it, because it will say right thing for our future. “But it’s failed, because [the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP)] bought a lot of advance votes.” For Kyi Maung, this was his first ever election in his “30-plus” years. He was interested to take the opportunity to learn who was who and what was what. But, Kyi Maung said, “The Lady’s party didn’t participate!”, in reference to Suu Kyi and the NLD. He said people would have voted NLD if it had taken part. Another resident in Rangoon, a lawyer, chose to boycott the elections. “I cannot endorse the 2008 constitution”, he said. “It is a military constitution.” One NGO worker in Rangoon said most people were not clear who is running or who they would vote for. However, he said: “I have not met a single person that wants to vote for USDP. Most strongly favor the NDF.” Nevertheless, the junta-backed USDP secured for itself a “landslide victory”. The USDP has grabbed a number of seats, which democratic parties could have expected to win, thanks to its control of advance votes. The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) issued a statement on November 9 calling on the junta to “urgently clarify why the counting process was not made transparent to the public and the media beginning with the first advance voting period”. ANFREL director Somsri Hananumtasuk called the election “the worst in Asia”. Asked if ANFREL ever requested permission from the junta to monitor the election, she said: “No. Why should we endorse the election by monitoring it?” The general election in Burma, sometimes called “the generals’ election”, is the fifth step in the junta’s “Seven Step Roadmap to Discipline-flourishing Democracy”. This process began in 1993, when the junta called all parties to take part in a national convention to draft a new constitution. In 1993, the Union Solidarity Development Association (USDA) was also formed. Ostensibly a “social organisation”, the USDA is the junta’s proxy force to intimidate people and harass opponents. In 2003, then-prime minister and spy chief Khin Nyint
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Indonesia, Cuba medicine, S.Korea, burqa debate, Galloway does Glasgow, Zim, Green Party, Story of Electronics
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Indonesia, Cuba medicine, S.Korea, burqa debate, Galloway does Glasgow, Zim, Green Party, Story of Electronics * * * *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. * * * Indonesia: Activists set up Merapi disaster relief centres http://links.org.au/node/1986 /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ readers can make donations to those affected by the Mt Merapi eruption to the following account: *Bank: (Bank Central Asia) BCA Branch: KCP BCA Tebet Barat Account holder: Tejo Priyono Account Number: 436 149 72 14* * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1986 Cuba: Reversing the medical `brain drain' -- the many faces of ELAM http://links.org.au/node/1984 By *Don Fitz*, Havana November 7, 2010 -- Cuba is doing more than any other country in the world to reverse the brain drain of doctors abandoning impoverished areas. A physician who leaves Sierra Leone for South Africa can earn 20 times as much. Higher pay in English-speaking countries lures medical graduates from India (10.6% of doctors), Pakistan (11.7%), Sri Lanka (27.5%), and Jamaica (41.7%). Only 50 of 600 doctors trained in Zambia remained there after independence. There are more Ethiopian doctors in Chicago than in Ethiopia. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1984 South Korea: First-hand report -- Day 1 of the anti-G20 Seoul International People's Conference -- Army of cops prevent march http://links.org.au/node/1981 *Roddy Quines* is a Socialist Alliance of Australia http://www.socialist-alliance.org member living in South Korea. This is his first-hand account of the first day of anti-G20 actions on November 7, 2010, in Seoul. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1981 Australia -- burqa ban debate: If I can't wear a burqa it's not my revolution? http://links.org.au/node/1992 On September 23, the /Daily Telegraph/ reported on a wall mural in the Sydney inner-west suburb of Newtown by artist Sergio Redegalli with the slogan Say no to burqas. Redegalli's mural has sparked protests by local residents who have condemned it as racist. Sydney Socialist Alliance activist *Kiraz Janicke* says Redegalli's piece has no other value than to promote racism. She has responded with an artwork of her own titled Burqa revolution. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1992 Scotland: Respect votes to split left vote, Galloway opposes independence http://links.org.au/node/1991 On November 13, 2010, the English left-wing organisation Respect's annual conference voted, 59 to 15, to begin organising in Scotland. The decision was preceded by the most prominent Respect leader and former MP *George Galloway* floating the idea that he stand for the Scottish Parliament, either as part of a Respect campaign or an independent George 4 Glasgow campaign. Below are a number of articles from the Scottish and English left on Respect's move into Scotland. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1991 South Korea: Epic Ssangyong workers' strike remembered http://links.org.au/node/1989 * Watch the report here http://links.org.au/node/1989 Will Zimbabwe again regress? http://links.org.au/node/1988 By *Patrick Bond*, Bulawayo November 12, 2010 -- If leaders of a small African country stand up with confidence to imperialist aggression, especially from the US and Britain, it would ordinarily strike any fair observer as extremely compelling. Especially when the nightmare of racist colonialism in that country is still be to exorcised, whites hold a disproportionate share of economic power and state's rulers appear serious about changing those factors. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1988 Britain: Understanding the Green Party http://links.org.au/node/1987 November 2, 2010 -- *Derek Wall* is an economics lecturer and writer. He has been a member of the Green Party since 1980 and was Green Party principal speaker from 2006 to 2007. He is a founder of the Ecosocialist International and Green Left [an organised ecosocialist group within the Green Party] and has written widely on green politics. His latest books are /The Rise of the Green Left/ and /The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Politics/. In this
