[Marxism] Arizona Shock Doctrine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == And here we see the bosses jumping in to take advantage of the murders. Here's the medicalization that Richard Seymour mistakenly sees in some of the arguments about Loughner's mental illness, only it's a capitalist medicalization that will not cost anything, certainly not anything for treatment: lock'm'up, and lock up the people who fail to rat them out, and expand the penal state: What Galston is doing here is what the American political class reflexively does in the wake of every tragedy: it immediately seeks to exploit the resulting trauma and emotion to justify all-new restrictions on basic liberties (such as the right not to be locked away against one's will in the absence of a crime or a serious threat to others) and all- new government powers. Nothing about therapy (too expensive for the bosses), of course, and noting about gun control (would interrupt the buying and selling of congressional representation). Glenn Greenwald, The reflexive call for fewer liberties. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/ 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] Why Loughner shot Giffords
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Agree with Lou. The reasons why are not immediately ideological, but material: 1. Because the capitalist gun lobby in the U.S. is as well organized as the Israel Lobby and the anti-tax lobby (a.k.a., American capitalism in its Republican and Democratic wings). It's staggering to notice how infrequently the words gun control have been mentioned in the MSM and by congresspeople. For the same reason, we never hear Gaza Massacre or genuinely progressive income tax from the same mouths. To take a stand is to assure that your opponent in the next election will have a shitload of pro-massacre (Tucson or Gaza) or anti-tax money. 2. Because American capitalism continues to privatize health care, including mental health care, with great efficiency. It's been worrying to hear all the talk about the necessity for a culture of civility, etc. One of the results will be that Sarah Palin's star will fade, while some more polite and civil pal of the surplus extractors will take her place. Of course, if Loughner had been a crazy-ass Muslim or ex-Muslim, the rhetoric would be markedly different. 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] Andrew Cuomo bares his fangs
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Part of the cunning of the Tea Party movement is to provide cover for Blue Dogs. Andrew Cuomo won election as New York's governor simply by appearing as Not-Carl-Paladino; now that he's in office, he has become a de facto Republican like his dear daddy, targeting the new welfare queens: members of public sector unions. Regarding the attacks, see also http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/6/crackdown_on_organized_labor_states_call http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-shameful-attack-on-pu_b_805050.html As the Fiscal Policy Institute (http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/) has been arguing for decades, wealthy New Yorkers are shockingly under-taxed, since they have been engaging in skillful class struggle in Albany. But the nationwide media will not present this--they are too busy creating a new common sense that the public sector must be put on a serious, Gaza-style diet. Myself a leech on the public tit (SUNY), stuffed to bursting, I look on with horror. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The largest slave revolt in U.S. history is commemorated
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks for this note--it's great to find out that there's a scholarly book on this important slave revolt. I think Herbert Aptheker mentions it not at all or only in passing in his classic AMERICAN NEGRO SLAVE REVOLTS. This suggests some more Caribbean cross-pollination: slaves from San Domingo in Louisiana? A related query: I've heard rumors of an unbutchered DVD of Pontecorvo's classic BURN!/QUEIMADA!, which was reportedly messed up real bad in its American release. But I never see the thing itself. Does anyone have any news? A recommendation: if you haven't read Herman Melville's BENITO CERENO, well run, don't walk, and do so! It's simply perfect--a great picture of black self-organization and of white fear. 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] Gay Marriage = bourgeois politics?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == David Thorstad says that supporting gay marriage is bourgeois politics. What is bourgeois about resisting the state that tells you that you can't live in this country with your foreign-born same-sex husband or wife? http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/10/26/doma Even if an act of oppression doesn't touch you directly, it takes only a little imagination to understand how it touches others. 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] WikiLeaks Founder Accused of Rape in Sweden, Calls it Dirty Trick
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's the PR calculus that decides it's helpful for American imperialism for this story to be out there and circulating for twelve hours? Was it necessary simply to direct people away from the fact that Wikileaks did, in fact, invite the US to help redact names, and the US refused? See the eversharp Glenn Greenwald on this? When will the MSM begin using the word lie? Oh, Julian Assange borrowed my blender and never returned it. Pass it on. 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] Cockburn's refreshing take on the California judge's gay marriage ruling
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Of course, marriage is an economic institution, not just an oppressive sexual or idea system. Cockburn briefly acknowledges this point, then jumps right over it--a recurrent problem for him when it comes to questions bearing on gender in any way. An analogy to Cockburn's argument: A: Wage labor is exploitive, so why should there be laws allowing LGBT people to engage in it? We need to crush the capitalist system rather than engaging in piecemeal bourgeois reformism! B: Uh, yes, right. But I need to eat tonight. 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 Sharon
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This indelible bit of misattribution seemingly will not go away: it just isn't Ariel Sharon. See http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/01/defining-israeli-zionist-racism-part-10-2/. That comatose pustule doesn't need any false black marks; he has enough that are all his own: for all his reputation as the Lion of God warrior, he really seemed to like soft, civilian targets best: in al-Bureij refugee camp, Qibya, Sabra and Chatila, Jenin. Really, do lose this fake interview. It makes us look stupid. 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] Better sources on the Sharon misattribution
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.broeckers.com/jensen.htm http://www.usagold.com/gildedopinion/jensen/20020415.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Earliest use of word Stalinism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Vigorously oppose any presentist effort to ban discussion of any historical figure from more than ten years ago, which would proscribe not only Gerrard Winstanley, but José Carlos Mariátegui and Elvis Aaron Presley. Forward into the past! 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] NPR on Venezuelan unions
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == ALL THIS CONSIDERED ran a particularly partisan piece tonight, all but accusing Hugo Chavez of assassinating tens of labor union organizers--more than in Colombia. Could someone please provide some context? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128930031 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] NPR on Venezuelan unions
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks, Louis. Juan Forero is the reporter for both NPR stories. He seems to be a pretty serious thug, and was instrumental in spreading the Chavez-as-antisemite story, which did its work before it was debunked. NPR Check has quite a bit on him. http://nprcheck.blogspot.com/2009/02/going-nowhere-with-juan-forero.html http://nprcheck.blogspot.com/2009/02/get-chavez.html Sunday, February 08, 2009 FAIR has an illuminating study recently published showing the huge disparity in US Newspaper coverage of human rights in Venezuela and Colombia over the past 10 years. Their findings show that in spite of Colombia having an appalling human rights record - horrific compared to Venezuela's shortcomings - the US press coverage focuses almost exclusively on Venezuela and Hugo Chavez. Like the US Newspapers, NPR has a thing about focusing on Venezuela and Chavez and their main man for such assignments is Juan Forero. Forero - always happy to push the State Department or CIA narrative on Latin America - is on this morning to portray the Chavez government as dangerously antisemitic. Forero notes that despite Chavez' denunciation of the recent synagogue vandalism questions are being raised over whether the government's recent language against Israel is creating a climate of hate. In January Chavez broke relations with Israel over that country's military strikes against Gaza. He called Israel's actions genocidal and expelled Israeli diplomats. Of course Forero doesn't note that Israel's violent actions against Palestinians fit the legal definition of genocide: acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Forero purports that Chavez's remarks have had an aggressive tone that borders on antisemitic. Forero sneers that in the past Chavez claimed the 2002 coup against him was hatched by the CIA and Israel's secret service Mossad and claimed the gunmen that day were Jewish. Now what kind of nutbar would claim Israel's involvement in genocidal and rightwing Latin American governments. He also fails to mention that a prominent Venezuelan rabbi was present with the coup leaders in the immediate aftermath of the coup. Forero closes his piece with this chestnut: Andreas (a Holocaust survivor) knew exactly what the ramifications were. He's a Romanian Jew who survived the Holocaust and then came to Venezuela... Ah yes, the Chavez denunciations of Israel's slaughter of Palestinians caused the antisemitic attack on the synagogue and it's like Kristalnacht all over again! 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] Israel, South Africa and the single-state non-solution
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis, how can you have the popular revolution that you and I want in Palestine without guaranteeing the right of return for exiled Palestinians? Doesn't the current two-state project imply, at best, the installation of a Palestinian national bourgeoisie? How can one guarantee a practical right of return for millions of Palestinians to the tiny state (22% of historical Palestine) that is the best possible outcome of the two-state model? Doesn't the right of return require one-state, which would simply apply international law and allow Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to their country of origin? And if you reject the one-state solution, and see the two-state solution as another chimera, what model do you favor instead, and what historical tendencies do you see towards its realization? Yes, there are all kinds of grim capitalist prospects, even for a democratic and unified Palestine. But despite the capitalist horrors of contemporary Kenya and South African, I doubt you could find many of their black citizens yearning for British colonial rule or apartheid. 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] Israel, South Africa and the single-state non-solution
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis, I think you're closer to Ali Abunimah than you want to admit--also to As'ad AbuKhalil, Edward Said, Ilan Pappe, and the other advocates of a secular, democratic Palestine. Abunimah's discussion of Moshe Ahrens and the other right-wing Zionist one-staters is precisely the dialectical approach that Engels favors in SOCIALISM: UTOPIAN AND SCIENTIFIC--looking for impulses, contradictions, and movements that might be bent toward a radical social transformation, rather than simply insisting on an abstract ideal. It misrepresents his argument to suggest he's embracing the right-wingers, of whom he says, Their visions still fall far short of what any Palestinian advocate of a single state would consider to be just: the Israeli proposals insist on maintaining the state's character -- at least symbolically -- as a 'Jewish state,' exclude the Gaza Strip, and do not address the rights of Palestinian refugees. http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11411.shtml I wish Abunimah's ONE COUNTRY had dealt more with class struggles and the Palestinian communist tradition. But in arguing for one state and the right of return, he seizes the bull point. Anything short of this will inevitably produce, at best, a sordid and patriarchal Palestinian national bourgeoisie. Thanks for your wonderful blog and for all your work. 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] Senator Webb channels Walter Benn Michaels
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Jim Webb is tragically stupid here: he goes through an interesting argument that underlines the class oppression of white Southerners (the Scots Irish are his favorites--here appearing as Irish Protestants), and it's quite striking and convincing. He even talks about the ways in which the key class dynamic of the American South consisted of the white ruling class setting the black and white working classes against each other. Then, when it comes time to point the way toward a resolution, what does he give us? An attack on Taft-Hartley, that would allow black and white and immigrant to organize economic equality by organizing labor in those hidebound right-to-work states? A review of those rare but bracing moments like the Southern Tenant Farmers Union that brought together poor blacks and whites together fighting against white agrarian capitalists? Some other vision of poor blacks and whites and immigrants coming together? No, all he can find to complain about is government-directed diversity programs and the classic nonsensical capitalist ethic of enabling opportunity for all. Webb's essay, like those of Walter Benn Michaels, help to explain why poor whites remain poor whites; poor blacks, poor blacks; and poor immigrants, poor immigrants. For more hope, see Studs Terkel's interview with a former Klansman, C. P. Ellis: http://www.bestcyrano.org/terkelEllisIntervu.htm Where should we go from here? Beyond our continuing obligation to assist those African-Americans still in need, government-directed diversity programs should end. Nondiscrimination laws should be applied equally among all citizens, including those who happen to be white. The need for inclusiveness in our society is undeniable and irreversible, both in our markets and in our communities. Our government should be in the business of enabling opportunity for all, not in picking winners. It can do so by ensuring that artificial distinctions such as race do not determine outcomes. Memo to my fellow politicians: Drop the Procrustean policies and allow harmony to invade the public mindset. Fairness will happen, and bitterness will fade away. Mr. Webb, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Virginia. Message: 8 Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:10:44 -0400 From: Louis Proyect l...@panix.com Subject: [Marxism] Senator Webb channels Walter Benn Michaels To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Message-ID: 4c49f744.50...@panix.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703724104575379630952309408.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] Walter Benn Michaels
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis said: Odd--or not so odd--that this conservative shares the same concerns as Marxist contrarian Walter Benn Michaels: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n16/walter-benn-michaels/what-mattersWhat Matters Walter Benn Michaels Who Cares about the White Working Class? edited by Kjartan P?ll Sveinsson Runnymede Perspectives, 72 pp, January 2009, ISBN 978 1 906732 10 Louis, Walter Benn Michaels is a Marxist contrarian the same way Pat Buchanan is--i.e., not. In fact, in the very essay you link, he provides a classic example of the sort of structurally racist and patriarchal thinking that has been roiling (some of) us on this list: My point is not that anti-racism and anti-sexism are not good things. It is rather that they currently have nothing to do with left-wing politics, and that, insofar as they function as a substitute for it, can be a bad thing. What a fucking mendacious moron. The idea that resistance to racism and sexism have nothing to do with left-wing politics would come as news to Engels, Lenin, Fanon, Sartre, Ngugi, C. L. R. James, Selma James, you name it. Michaels makes no reference to the enormous body of marxist history and theory on class, race, and gender--he doesn't know it exists. As many marxists, including Heidi Hartman and Richard Seymour have shown, ALL ruling classes need a way to segment and divide the numerically superior working class--and racism and patriarchy remain two vital techniques for accomplishing this. Michaels briefly acknowledges this in the following sentence, then ignores it: In the US, one of the great uses of racism was (and is) to induce poor white people to feel a crucial and entirely specious fellowship with rich white people; one of the great uses of anti-racism is to make poor black people feel a crucial and equally specious fellowship with rich black people. But is it entirely specious? DuBois, David Roediger, and Ted Allen don't think so--the wages of whiteness are not just ideology, though they co-exist with exploitation. And the neat parallelism of his sentence suggests that the bloody heritage of US white supremacism is somehow equivalent to the occasional excesses of culturalist black pride ideology. Michaels is interested in a nominally marxist argument only insofar as he can use its ostensible indifference to race and gender to bash anti-racist and anti-sexist struggle over the head. He has no knowledge of marxism and no genuine interest in class struggle. His turn to marxism here is the perfect complement to his overt anti-communism twenty years ago, in THE GOLD STANDARD AND THE LOGIC OF NATURALISM. Really, it shocks me that NEW LEFT REVIEW could have published a similarly reactionary essay, Against Diversity (NLR 52, July-August 2008; http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2731). If indeed we think of Michaels as a certain kind of marxist, then either one of these essays of his offers a perfect demonstration of why a certain kind of marxism desperately needs an anti-racist and anti-patriarchal critique. Oh, and the conclusion of Michaels' LRB essay offers a perfect emetic: do savor, please, the way he ventriloquizes the opinions of his black custodian at the University of Illinois Chicago, without bothering to ask her what she actually thinks. Feh! 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] marxism and patriarchy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Ian Pace says, This is the most ridiculous thread I've ever read on Marxmail. As if somehow women of the world are going to benefit from one Marxmailer after another (of either sex) falling over each other to denounce the list, and somehow prove their more-anti-misogynistic-than-thou credentials in the process. Soldarity, Ian I don't think this is what the discussion has been about. It IS probably worthwhile looking at the likely sex of most of the people posting here, or editing or writing in NEW LEFT REVIEW or HISTORICAL MATERIALISM or other left journals and asking why it tends to go at least 5/1 male. That's not a freestanding verdict, but it is something worth talking about. I think it has something to do with patriarchal traditions in the New Left, and even in NEW LEFT REVIEW (see, for instance, Quintin Hoare's stupid response to Juliet Mitchell's Women: The Longest Revolution, in NLR 41 or so I think marxism should take patriarchy more seriously, see it as a crucial constituent of class domination and not an add-on to be considered down the line. And it should bone up a little on the largely forgotten patriarchy/marxism debates of the seventies and eighties. The marxism that does will not simply be juster; it will also have a greater explanatory power. Maria Mies's PATRIARCHY AND ACCUMULATION ON A GLOBAL SCALE is a good place to start or to continue: despite its shaky and biologistic account of the gendered division of labor, and its somewhat idealistic description of a consumerist way out, its analysis of the global gendering of labor, and the process of the post-Fordist housewifization of labor is enormously suggestive for all kinds of further work. It's also interesting to note the way in which patriarchy has become a sort of unmentionable--not unlike capitalism in that regard. That is, as the saying goes, no accident. 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] Head of Israeli Military Intelligence, Lt. General Beavis Ben Butthead
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == After skedaddling out of Lebanon with Hezbollah's antitank rockets sticking up their asses, and after the Keystone Kops Assassination Follies in Dubai, Israel has really outdone itself with its ham-handed response to the Gaza flotilla. Here are the latest fabrications from Israeli Military Intelligence Chief, Lt. General Beavis Ben Butthead: http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/06/idf-releases-apparently-doctored-audio-press-reports-as-fact/ http://aliabunimah.posterous.com/israeli-propaganda-photo-in-haaretz-of-man-wi We really need to acknowledge more forthrightly the vital role of ridicule in anti-Zionist struggle. 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] Alexander Cockburn: stop picking on Rand Paul
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Cockburn says, “Because Paul had deprecated the ADA, on Democracy Now! on Friday morning Amy Goodman even fished some spavined old nag from that dismal body to join her in execration of the Slouching Beast that is Rand.” http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05212010.html. Here, Squire Cockburn brings his knowledge of horse ailments to the aid of another sexist assault, following up on last weekend's heehaw about thick-jawed dykes. But he is lapsing more and more into incoherence: this ADA is not a “body,” but an act (the Americans with Disabilities Act), and the spokesman for the A.D.A. on Democracy Now! was a stallion, not a nag: Mike Ervin, “a freelance journalist and a longtime activist with the disability rights groups ADAPT.” Could Cockburn be confusing this A.D.A. with Americans for Democratic Action? Different things altogether, old chap. The rest of Cockburn’s piece lurches incoherently from one position to another, including the blissful counterfactual that, if Rand had wanted to, he could have moved away from Rachel Madow’s questions about the 1964 Civil Rights Act to a discussion of “what has happened to blacks since that glorious day, from an appalling school system, to blighted housing, constricted employment possibilities, shriveled share of the national income and most recently the great transfer in US history of money and assets from African Americans to rich white people by the mortgage speculators, given free rein by Democrats and Republicans.” Yes, he could have, if he’d been Bernie Sanders (excoriated in this piece) or Kevin Gray. But he isn’t. He’s Rand Paul, and he wants Lester Maddox to be able to refuse service to whomever he damned well pleases. The weed up Petrolia way seems to be excellent this year. 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
