Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Michael Moore: Capitalism has proven it's failed
On Sep 29, 2009, at 4:36 PM, c b wrote: What is democracy? CB: My short definition is popular sovereignty. And so CB, coming full circle, endorses the slogan of the slaveocracy, like Douglas in the debate with Lincoln. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism] In Search of Beethoven
On Sep 23, 2009, at 5:48 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: Shane Mage wrote: And that is the best of kings adulated by Beethoven, the supposed democrat. Which is to be expected from the composer of a Symphony celebrating Wellington's Victory at the Battle of Vittoria. But didn't Beethoven tear up the dedication page of his Third Symphony when he heard that Bonaparte had crowned himself Emperor? Where then, were his democratic sympathies when Bonaparte had made himself dictator as First Consul? Alas, in crowning himself Emperor, Bonaparte had ended the Holy Roman Empire. And that act of lèse majesté to Beethoven's Austrian Kaiser was unpardonable. Sounds like Beethoven was the 19th century counterpart of Castroite apologists like me today! Guilty as charged. Louis, I certainly said nothing like Beethoven was the 19th century counterpart of Castroite apologists. Quite the contrary. If he had been, he certainly never would have torn up his Bonaparte dedication! Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] In Search of Beethoven
On Sep 23, 2009, at 6:04 PM, Colin West wrote: On Sep 23, 2009, at 4:46 PM, Shane Mage wrote As for Don Giovanni, it is perfectly true that it is an anti- authoritarian masterpiece, but in exactly the opposite sense from that meant by the liberal critics. To grasp that fact for yourself consider only these two (of many) things: (1) the closeness, especially in Mozart's day, of the cognates liberty and libertine, and (2) having (seemingly) been killed early one morning, by evening of that same day the Commendatore is (seemingly) buried in a graveyard with a massive equestrian statue over his tomb. ...I have to disagree here. Of Mozart's great operas Don Giovanni is, to me, the lesser. It relies on the stale deus ex machina to move the plot... Your preference is not at issue (me, I prefer whichever I heard last). As to the deus ex machina, presumably the statue, you simply fail to grasp the point that the statue cannot possibly exist-- it is the Commendatore in flesh and blood. If you're talking about the flames under the trapdoor, that's a clever stage effect but no sort of deus ex machina. and Giovanni himself, although reputedly something of a roué, entirely fails to seduce anyone in the entire opera. He certainly succeeds with Zerlina and also with Elvira (at the start of Act II), though indeed neither of those ladies is reluctant in the slightest degree! Further, 'liberty' and 'libertine' may be cognates but only in English. In German it would have been 'Freiheit' and (I think) 'Wüstling' [Wüstling is only one of the three possible equivalents. The other two, per Cassel, are römische Freigelassener and Freidenker] so I don't see how that works. Have you only heard it in German translation? The language of Don Giovanni is Italian. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] In Search of Beethoven
On Sep 23, 2009, at 7:30 PM, Colin West wrote: As to the deus ex machina, presumably the statue, you simply fail to grasp the point that the statue cannot possibly exist-- it is the Commendatore in flesh and blood. If you're talking about the flames under the trapdoor, that's a clever stage effect but no sort of deus ex machina. No, the idea that the Commendatore returns from the dead is what I mean by deus ex machina. The point is that the Commendatore's death was a stage play. The fake blood represents real fake blood Do you imagine that Donna Anna, who is on a first-name basis with Giovanni (she and Ottavio address him as Don Giovanni, not the formal Don Giovanni Tenorio) wouldn't recognize him in her bed? Do you imagine that Don Giovanni and the Commendatore were not part of the Sevillan aristocratic circle as well as neighbors? and Giovanni himself, although reputedly something of a roué, entirely fails to seduce anyone in the entire opera. He certainly succeeds with Zerlina and also with Elvira (at the start of Act II), though indeed neither of those ladies is reluctant in the slightest degree! Oh? Elvira is led away by Leperetto and then Giovanni tries to seduce Elvira's maid and is interrupted. And it's Elvira's arrival in Act I that thwarts Giovanni's seduction of Zerlina. thwarts *consummation*, not seduction. The seduction in their heads is portrayed by the music as Elvira starts to go off with Leporello and Zerlina with Giovanni. And as to consummation: I've mentioned Anna, now consider also that clock time can often flow quite a bit faster than operatic time. In the Act I finale how short, really, was the time between Zerlina accompanying Giovanni offstage and her scream? Further, 'liberty' and 'libertine' may be cognates but only in English. In German it would have been 'Freiheit' and (I think) 'Wüstling' [Wüstling is only one of the three possible equivalents. The other two, per Cassel, are römische Freigelassener and Freidenker] so I don't see how that works. Freidenker, free-thinker, is the sense of libertine found in the title of the original Don Juan play--*El Burlador de Sevilla*. Mozart, of course, as a Mason and friend of Da Ponte and Casanova, was most certainly a *freidenker*. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] WW2: interimperialist war to redivide the world,
On Sep 20, 2009, at 5:10 PM, nada wrote: Would it have been correct for socialists or internationalists to demand US Out of the Philippines??? Of course it would. By the time that swine MacArthur returned the Japanese had long been strategically defeated and were in a lost endgame. They had no way to maintain their presence. The strategic purpose of the US reoccupation of the Philippines was restoration of it's colonial rule through the violent suppression of the Hukbalahap resistance. Not to oppose even a moment's US presence in the Philippines would have been total capitulation to social-imperialism. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] WW2: interimperialist war to redivide the world,
On Sep 20, 2009, at 7:54 PM, nada wrote: Shane (and Nestor), I wasn't talking about 1945. I was talking about 1942, 43 and 44. After Coral Sea and Midway Japan had strategically lost, just as the Germans had strategically lost after Stalingrad. The US occupation of the Philippines was part of its imperial strategy and had no *military* purpose. That imperial strategy--defined in Cairo in 1943 in the Unconditional Surrender doctrine of Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill--was intentionally and unambiguously counterrevolutionary. How can the Allied use and counterrevolutionary manipulation of resistance movements led by patriots offset in the slightest degree the holocaust inflicted on the workers of Hamburg, Essen, Berlin, Hanover, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc., etc? When Marxists say No to the Imperialist War I wonder, and have always wondered, what this means concretely? Or is it simply revolutionary hyperbole with absolutely no on the ground meaning vis- a-vis allied *imperialist* aid to resistance movements, troop landings, etc? I think it's very, very complex question. For revolutionary workers under occupation it meant fighting the occupation in every occupied country--the Germans in France as the British in Greece--using any aid offered from anywhere (like Casement in 1916) but never subordinating revolutionary objectives to conditions imposed by those helpers. For revolutionaries in imperialist countries it meant using any shred of democratic rights left to them to expose the imperial ends for which and the barbaric means by which the war was being fought--and, legally or illegally, to support every effort at proletarian class struggle despite the screams about hypothetical detriments to the war effort. It most emphatically does not mean refusing to serve in the armed forces or carrying out sabotage--suicidal in some countries and counterproductive everywhere else. I don't see what's complex about that, beyond the inevitable complexity of every concrete reality. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Query on British historiography
On Sep 19, 2009, at 1:53 PM, Paddy Apling wrote: ...From then [June 22, 1941] on there could be no doubt that WWII was a just war, a war of liberation against fascism - and anyone who now seeks to dispute that is effectively a holocaust denier. Anyone who claims that the firestorm bombings of Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc., etc., were part of a just war; any one who claims that the Bengal famine was part of a just war; is literally, not effectively, denying a holocaust. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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-Thaxis] Self-reference
On Sep 17, 2009, at 2:30 PM, c b wrote: Self-reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-reference The ultimate, absolutely incompressible, self-reference--a phrase referring only to itself--was written by Bob Dylan: The pay phone it was ringing And it just about blew my mind When I took the receiver off the hook *This foot* came through the line (In prosody, a foot is a metric unit) Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism] This Rewriting of History is Spreading Europe's Poison
On Sep 13, 2009, at 12:08 AM, Dennis Brasky wrote: By Seumas Milne The Guartdian (UK) September 9, 2009 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/09/second-world-war-soviet-pact Stalin's pact with Hitler did indeed set off the war. But without that pact the war would have broken out anyway within a year or two, and it would have been an even greater disaster. It was in June 1939 that Trotsky wrote that Chamberlain and Daladier were forcing Stalin to do a deal with Hitler. By August it was clear to everyone that the British and French empires had no interest in an alliance with the Russian empire against the German. Stalin therefore had every reason to expect that the British and French would do another Munich accepting Hitler's declaration that Danzig and the Corridor were his last territorial ambitions in Europe, a deal which would leave a German-dominated Polish regime, motivated by its hereditary hatred of everything Russian, at Hitler's service for an invasion of Russia. Having destroyed the military capability of the Red Army in 1937-38, Stalin had placed himself in the position where Russia could not plausibly threaten war, and so he could claim to have no choice but to realize his long-term ambition to form an alliance with the German nationalists. He did disrupt the Anglo/French strategy and forced them into war (they were forced to declare war because the Russian alliance and the resulting German domination of east-central Europe meant that Hitler would become ever stronger so the military balance, still equal in 1939, would inevitably tilt ever more toward the German side). Unfortunately for Stalin, Hitler was no Hindenburg or Ludendorff. He turned out to be quite the wrong sort (the insane plebian vonless sort) of German nationalist. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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-Thaxis] The State and Revolution
On Sep 12, 2009, at 11:31 AM, c b wrote: Lenin might chastise me for dogmatic reference to _The State and Revolution_ given that the South and Central American revolution has organized the working class majorities in many countries so as to use the bourgeois-democratic electoral/mass sufferage system to seize state power. But he should not be forgiven for that, because his allegedly deep understanding of Marxian theory was in fact much too shallow even to dream of the existence of such a wonderful creature as the South and Central American revolution which could--in the absence of modern working classes, significant proletarian parties, or meaningful trade unions, (not to mention soviets)--seize state power by electoral means. Who could have imagined how much more *die vernunft* has gotten *listige* nowadays! Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism] Lars Lih on Lenin, Kautsky, and 1914
On Sep 10, 2009, at 3:37 PM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/784/leninkautsky.php But Lih fails to recognize how Lenin's sense of betrayal spun him into the absurd ultra-leftist calls for civil war and defeatism that resulted in his sectarian Zimmerwald Left (a telephone booth inhabited only by Lenin and that blowhard Zinoviev) and his violent polemics against the two revolutionary Marxist books published against the war: the Junius Pamphlet by Rosa Luxemburg and War and the International by Leon Trotsky. Fortunately, Lenin recovered from his sectarian fit in 1917. Unfortunately, his polemics of 1915-1916 gave useful ammunition to the Okhranik Stalin and the careerist Zinoviev in their 1923-26 struggle against Trotskyism. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution
On Sep 6, 2009, at 6:01 PM, Mark Lause wrote: * our African ancestral mother, the mitochondrial Eve lived around 110-130,000 years ago, rather than 150,000-200,000 years ago. I have no idea how solid this idea of a mitochondrial Eve is. However, assuming that it is valid, what follows is that at some time in the evolution of *homo sapiens sapiens* there occurred such an enormous catastrophe that in the whole world only one *hss* couple survived, and so all the races have descended from that couple. This survivor event must have been so awesome that it's memory would have been conserved in story and legend by the survivors, and handed down as their most precious possession to their offspring. It is therefore of the greatest significance that so many primitive peoples have preserved the memory of their original ancestors, the single couple that survived a world-destroying catastrophe! Not to mention the advanced Christians, Jews, and Muslims who likewise trace their descent to a single couple--but have transfigured memory into apocalyptic texts that project the original catastrophe as a future Day of Judgment. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Tweaking of DNA dating on human evolution
On Sep 7, 2009, at 12:06 AM, S. Artesian wrote: Yes, Eve had sisters-- guess what? They all had the same mitochondrial DNA. And if they did, they all had the same female ancestor. You may send us from Eve to Lilith, but the Lilith and her sisters problem remains the same as the Eve problem you want to escape. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans
On Sep 5, 2009, at 9:53 AM, Néstor Gorojovsky wrote: ...I say that the national question is always a class question... At least there are...people who..agree with me... Marx...among others! As illustrated by Marx's view of the national question among that ethnic garbage, the southern slavs? As well as by your condemnation of the Tibetan and Uighur national struggles against domination by the capitalist Chinese empire? Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Voting with feet, not commendable in Argentina Re: China's high speed rail plans
On Sep 5, 2009, at 11:01 PM, Néstor Gorojovsky wrote: We Marxists, by the way, only support national movements that forward the march towards socialism. Not every such movement does it. So. All hail whatever Marxist Pope has decreed infallibly to his elect exactly which proletarian nations (like those that made a deal to divide up the area between them 70 years ago?) are marching (goose-stepping?) toward socialism and which oppressed peoples are too backward, too weak, too willing to accept help from suspect quarters, too impure to be anything but ...national movements that, in fact, seek to destroy larger national movements that tend to supersede imperialist domination... and so must be condemned with scarequotes when they assert their democratic rights against imperialist rule by a larger national movement constituting the second-strongest (but by far the oldest) empire in the world. That, presumably, is what is meant by saying that the national question is a class question. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Invasion of the (Israeli or Jewish) body snatechers
On Sep 2, 2009, at 6:31 PM, Fred Feldman wrote: The following is a short article from the liberal US magazine American Prospect by the liberal Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg... I am highlighting the role that articles, available in full to all list members, play in how I carry out a political discussion... Boström himself witnessed the funeral of one Palestinian, whom he identifiesas Bilal Achmed Ghanan, in the village of Imatin. Ghanan (or Ghanem, as he's identified in a reliable listing of Palestinian fatalities) was shot byIsraeli soldiers and evacuated. When his body was returned for burial, Boström photographed the sewn-up chest...The foundation of Boström's story is... a photo of a body on which an autopsy was [allegedly] performed... ...Knowing how to respond to slander is never easy... But this is a *lie*. If it is slander, the response is childishly easy: just exhume Ghanem's body and see if any organs are missing. The refusal of the occupation authorities to do this is presumptive evidence that the story is *not* a blood libel or other slanderous falsehood. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Fwd: Kotzer
On Aug 30, 2009, at 4:32 PM, Lüko Willms wrote: Well, after the Cuban viewpoint has been declared to be off-limits by the list-owner, everything is possible. *The* Cuban viewpoint? The single-thought of the (purged) CPC leadership? Is that the only viewpoint allowed to Cubans? No wonder the CPC, obliged by its own statutes to call a congress every five(!) years, has not permitted one for more than ten years already, with no sign of one forthcoming in the foreseeable future! Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Reasons to Read the Grundrisse (was to read)
On Aug 25, 2009, at 11:50 AM, turb...@aol.com wrote: Shane Mage wrote: The Grundrisse, as the last word in its title--Rohentwurf-- declares, is not meant to be read at all. It is just the rough draft of Das Kapital... ...Any text that expresses a significant part of a thinker's thought processes is important to understanding his/her work. Of course it is. Which is why we need a properly annotated edition of Das Kapital in which the Grundrisse material would find its place in the footnotes and appendices. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] G.Zyuganov: Stop distorting the prewar history of the USSR!
On Aug 25, 2009, at 2:52 PM, lara crete wrote: ...the subject of the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty... Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty?? Everyone knows that the Hitler-Stalin pact, which Ribbentrop and Molotov had no more to do with than did the pens with which their hands were teleguided to sign it, provided Hitler the complicit Russian neutrality without which the Wehrmacht High Command could never have been persuaded to invade Poland and automatically set off the Anglo-French guarantee. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] K2 study guide
On Aug 25, 2009, at 3:28 PM, guava tree wrote: and in this chapter of volume 2 you can find this paragraph: The productive capital invested in this industry imparts value to the transported products, partly by transferring value from the means of transportation, partly by adding value through the labour performed in transport. This last-named increment of value consists, as it does in all capitalist production, of a replacement of wages and of surplus- value. Exactly. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] to read?
On Aug 24, 2009, at 1:15 AM, Horse Badorties wrote: On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 8:51 PM, guava tree theguavat...@gmail.com wrote: do people think reading volumes 23 of Capital is more valuable than reading the Grundrisse? The Grundrisse is like the I Ching. It's not meant to be read from beginning to end; it's meant to be opened at random and one passage read, and meditated on throughout the day. The Grundrisse, as the last word in its title--Rohentwurf-- declares, is not meant to be read at all. It is just the rough draft of Das Kapital. Why read the rough draft when you have the final (or nearly so) version? Comparison with the perfected (Marx) draft of vol.1 and the substantially worked out drafts (Engels) of vols. 2 and 3 with the Grundrisse is a matter of academic literary history only. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Silone biography
On Aug 23, 2009, at 10:42 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: (Silone does not come across as a very admirable character here, especially serving as a fascist snitch... Why this slander? Wheatcroft wrote It does seem that Silone had at least some contact with the police, who had arrested his one surviving brother, Romolo (who would die in prison at the hands of his captors), but it’s hard to see evidence of any great betrayal. , but Bread and Wine is one of the finest leftwing novels I have ever read.) And School for Dictators is one of the finest early books on fascism, ranking with Guerin's Fascism and Big Business. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] the truth about James Hansen of the SWP
On Aug 23, 2009, at 2:38 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: During and after a successful insurrection a section of the political police and intelligence are recruited to the cause of the victor... But only to infiltrate, undermine, and destroy the proletarian cause. ...In the mean time agencies of the state monitors everyone and penetrates all social organizations... They are all the more able to achieve this if one of the mean time...penetrators has already established himself as an agent of influence in the highest leadership of a revolutionary party, like the Okhraniks Stalin and Malinovsky in the Bolshevik leadership. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Words (was 'Alexander Cockburn RIP'
On Aug 22, 2009, at 8:34 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: Jim Farmelant wrote: Perhaps, either you or Lou can do us the favor of explaining what you mean by scientism. Whenever, I hear people using that term (without explaining what they mean by it), I am tempted to reach for my revolver, which is quite inconvenient for me since I don't own one. And while your at it, perhaps you can explain what's so bad about being a futurist. This is the sort of thing I had in mind. Trotsky's remarks on the Dnieper Dam are cited in Trotsky's bio: In the south the Dnieper runs its course through the wealthiest industrial lands; and it is wasting the prodigious weight of its pressure, playing over age-old rapids and waiting until we harness its stream, curb it with dams, and compel it to give lights to cities, to drive factories, and to enrich ploughland. We shall compel it! The Dnieper Dam, like the 3 Gorges Dam, might have produced electricity but an enormous costs. As I said earlier, Bukharin had a much better understanding of the relationship between society and nature... Lenin spoke of the prerequisites for socialism in Russia as Soviet power plus electrification of the whole country. How would Proyect have electrified Russia in the 1920's without building dams? Dnieperstroy typifies the issues in the struggle between the Opposition and Stalin. It was Stalin who put it best: Russia has no more need for Dnieperstroy than a muzhik needs a gramophone. For Lenin and Trotsky, who realized that the socialist political revolution could not survive in backward Russia without a socialist cultural revolution, no task was more important to the soviet republic than to ensure that *the muzhik has a gramophone.* And for the muzhik to have a gramophone Dnieperstroy was essential. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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 RIP
On Aug 21, 2009, at 3:42 PM, gregoryabut...@aol.com wrote: A screed in which he portrays himself as an Antiabortion Prohibitionist dittohead. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
On Aug 20, 2009, at 11:43 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: As I understand things in my confusion, what is meant is the striving for good health through the selection of positive - (life affirming hereditary traits that strengthen the human organism and increases longevity) more compatible genetic material in a mate. * eugenics is universal among mammals and birds and most other terrestrial animals. It is the key factor making evolution a conscious, not a random process. Darwin called it sexual selection. communism is the *beginning* of history because only in a communist society because only then will eugenics become a social goal, the evolution of our species the object of a *fully* conscious process. Reply I do agree that only in a communist society - after the human has been detoxified of the muck of property, and roughly seven generation have had an opportunity to close the metabolic breach, the pursuit of [eugenic] health becomes a full societal goal. Until then finding the optimal mate is hit and miss, due to the misfiring and dysfunction of the senses We have developed beyond mere natural eugenics. Genetic science already allows screening of any fetus for serious hereditary defects (remember how Palin trumpeted her disgenic choice to carry a defective fetus to term?) and women can and (most) do act eugenically to abort those fetuses. *In vitro* fertilization allows even more direct choice of which (existing) hereditary characteristics to include in the makeup of one's offspring. And beyond that, it is only the stupid sexist/speciesist ideology of decaying capitalism that outlaws direct genetic intervention (of the sort already practiced on a commercial scale for exploitable species of plants and animals) permitting human mothers to create the best and even absolutely new genetic possibilities for their offspring. So seven generations will not be needed before the people of a communist society will eagerly practice eugenics on a grand scale-- they will start just as soon as genetic technology is as freely available to all as it is *now* to a privileged few. And beyond that is the incorporation (already on the scientific drawing boards) of cybernetic nanotechnologies into the human (and other animal) physical and mental organisms. The scientific *means* for conscious direction of evolution, on a planetary scale, are already, or imminently, at hand. And our species will adopt them--in the remote possibility that capitalism has not wiped it out before then. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
On Aug 20, 2009, at 1:11 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: What's wrong with eugenics? Is anyone in favor of disgenics? Eugenics is not a science of metabolic process but an ideology of fascism. Eugenics means good heredity. Disgenics means bad heredity. No ideology here. All parents desire healthy, bright, strong, beautiful, talented children, and want those characteristics to be inherited by their grandchildren. They seek eugenics. No parent desires sickly, stupid, weak, ugly, inept children. They fear disgenics. When parents seek eugenics and prevent disgenics are they to be told-- as they are by Antiabortion Prohibitionists (themselves choice examples of disgenics)--that they are Hitlerites? Evil people use good words lyingly, to hide their true purposes. Were Hitler and Stalin socialists? Were Bush and Clinton democrats? Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's wrong with eugenics?
On Aug 20, 2009, at 5:25 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: In a message dated 8/20/2009 2:18:33 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, shm...@pipeline.com writes: Eugenics means good heredity. Disgenics means bad heredity. No ideology here. All parents desire healthy, bright, strong, beautiful, talented children, and want those characteristics to be inherited by their grandchildren. They seek eugenics. No parent desires sickly, stupid, weak, ugly, inept children. They fear disgenics. Comment Would it not be proper to state that the above is what eugenics means to you, rather than what Eugenics has meant ... Are you confused by the capitalization-to-start-sentences style rule I (unfortunately) adhered to? eugenics (nonrestrictive noun) is not Eugenics (restrictive noun). The former's meaning is determined by the meaning of the words comprising it: *eu* (good) plus *genics* (pertaining to heredity): its cognates are such words as euphoria and generation. The latter, as indicated by the upper-case E, has a meaning restricted to the definition intended by the speaker, and there are indefinitely many such definitions. eugenics is universal among mammals and birds and most other terrestrial animals. It is the key factor making evolution a conscious, not a random process. Darwin called it sexual selection. communism is the *beginning* of history because only in a communist society because only then will eugenics become a social goal, the evolution of our species the object of a *fully* conscious process. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism] Forward from Rosa Lichtenstein on Analytic Marxism
On Aug 13, 2009, at 8:27 PM, Jim Farmelant wrote: In response to this: http://www.marxmail.org/msg66028.html It is worth adding that Donald Davidson was a socialist, too, as were Gilbert Ryle and John Austin. So were Pigou and Marshall. J.S. Mill and F. von Menger were communists. So they all said. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism, fighting the ultra right and Health 2.
On Aug 13, 2009, at 12:59 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: Attacking the ultra right is nothing more than a clever way of demanding unconditional support of the Obama administration Exactly. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism] Clinton: behind the scenes, we were doing a lot
On Aug 9, 2009, at 10:27 PM, Eli Stephens wrote: ...when it comes to MY OWN COUNTRY... *your* country perhaps. The workers have no fatherland. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Leftist comments on new media law in Venezuela?
On Aug 5, 2009, at 3:08 PM, Fred Fuentes wrote: On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Adam Bergarbetarpoli...@yahoo.com wrote: So, basically, international bourgeois media - plus institutions like Human Rights Watch - were LYING massively? The Attorney General Luisa Ortega, presented her proposal for such a law (the one you provide a link to). As in many other countries in the world, citizens of any stripe can present laws to parliament... When the Attorney General of a country proposes a law she is not some citizen of any stripe proposing a silly law, but a representative of the government. If she had been a acting irresponsibly, rather than floating a trial balloon, she would have been fired instantly. That she wasn't proves that Chavez's nauseating genuflection before Khamenei and his Ahmedi-nejad was not merely an ordinary act of political prostitution (like Castro's shamefaced endorsement of the Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968) but expressed some real ideological agreement. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] On who won WWII?
On Aug 5, 2009, at 7:44 PM, Nestor Gorojovsky wrote: nada escribió: Nestor made a comment in passing on the Totalitarian thread (which seemed to calm down and drain away the Rivers of Blood discussion on Trotsky vs Stalin) about how WWII was won in Stalingrad and Kursk and not at Normandy etc. Though the war was not won in Stalingrad and Kursk, it was won (or, for the Wehrmacht, lost) in the sense of *decided* at Stalingrad and Kursk. Everything afterward was endgame, sadistically protracted by the criminal, barbarous, counterrevolutionary policy of Unconditional Surrender so adamantly insisted on by all the Big Three. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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] Monthly Review's past articles on Iran
On Aug 2, 2009, at 12:55 PM, Richard Fidler wrote: Louis: So Trotsky says that there is a semifascist regime that revolutionaries should hate and that if it is victorious in a war with Britain, it will lead to the downfall of the Brazilian government... the analogy with the Vargas regime in Brazil seems quite apt to me... if Iran were victorious in a military conflict with the United States...That is by no means excluded...to defend a reactionary semicolonial regime against imperialism in the here and now. That takes real backbone. A war in 1938 between England and Brazil could have been envisaged only as a hypothetical fantasy. A US war against Iran in 2010 can be envisaged only as a nightmare, or as a fantasy conjured up by oil speculators. A US military defeat by Iran is a much less likely fantasy than either. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. 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-Thaxis] Partial list of famous musical artists who died as young or younger than Michael Jackson
On Jul 15, 2009, at 11:31 AM, c b wrote: It would seem that Michael Jackson aesthetic was a species of the bourgeois Romanticists Peter Pan philosophy...child as the father of the man,which more abstractly is probably part of the process of the origin of the human species. Pan is part of the species name of the chimpanzee. But pan as genus (not species) name for chimpanzees is taken from the resemblance of chimps and bonobos to the iconography of the Great God Pan. And there is absolutely nothing childlike about Pan. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ 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] Historical Markers (was Re: Obama’s inauguration address)
On Jan 20, 2009, at 6:00 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: A black guy as president is just . . . different. Obama is a historical marker in our history. This is a great moment in American history. Historical Markers: Four hundred years ago the English chose a Scotsman as their King Two Hundred years ago the French chose a Corsican as their Emperor Now the Americans have chosen a Black as their President Two Hundred years from now the Jews will choose an Arab as Prime Minister of Israel You should live so long! Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Historical Markers (was Re: =?win...
On Jan 20, 2009, at 6:59 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: ...If the truth be told I did not think that I would live long enough to see a black president in America... For a few years now I've expected that the Dumbocrats would install a black president this year. But until the ascension of Obama I thought his name would be Powell. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Krugman critiques Obama stimulus plan
On Jan 7, 2009, at 1:04 PM, Charles Brown wrote: Brezhnev was to the left of...Krugman. How many counterrevolutionary invasions did Krugman launch? How many political opponents did he send to labor camps? How many did he imprison in mental hospitals? Was Krugman a Stalinist? Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Krugman critiques Obama stimulus plan
On Jan 7, 2009, at 2:02 PM, Charles Brown wrote: Shane Mage On Jan 7, 2009, at 1:04 PM, Charles Brown wrote: Brezhnev was to the left of...Krugman. How many counterrevolutionary invasions did Krugman launch? How many political opponents did he send to labor camps? How many did he imprison in mental hospitals? Was Krugman a Stalinist? CB: Stalinist is rightwing terminology. Are you are rightwinger ? When I was young, all the Stalinists I knew were proud of the title. Weren't you? Weren't you all rightwingers? [rhetorical question] Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Krugman critiques Obama stimulus plan
On Jan 7, 2009, at 6:33 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: I am one of those persons who once wore the mantel of Stalinism with pride. However, this tells no one of who I am or my body of politics or belief system. I tend to avoid such sloganeering and throwing Stalinism or Trotskyism at an individual because it tells no one nothing. You seem not to notice that the individual at whom I threw the brand Stalinist wasBrezhnev. On Jan 7, 2009, at 1:04 PM, Charles Brown wrote: Brezhnev was to the left of...Krugman. How many counterrevolutionary invasions did Krugman launch? How many political opponents did he send to labor camps? How many did he imprison in mental hospitals? Was Krugman a Stalinist? Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why is Nationalization A Dirty Word in America?
On Dec 12, 2008, at 10:48 PM, CeJ wrote: If you do not take the companies away from the combined control of shareholders and top management, you can not nationalize them. It's sort of like asking for unconditional surrender first. When the shareholders and top management (banks, auto) can hold on only at public expense, nationalization is not like asking for unconditional surrender--it only takes the guts to just say no. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Trotsky biography recommendations
On Nov 19, 2008, at 7:17 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: An academic friend has asked me for recommendations concerning biographies of Trotsky. He is interested in something that would be in his words, not quite pop but easy enough to read He wants something that would be not too laden with historical or technical controversy but would still give the reader a good sense of what Trotsky went through and was trying to do The only possible choice is the magnificent autobiography, My Life. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Voting for Obama - yep.
On Oct 3, 2008, at 6:57 AM, Ralph Dumain wrote: It is a given that any high-level candidate, certainly a presidential candidate, is a bourgeois politician. That the left would even debate whether to argue against a candidate because he represents bourgeois interests is silly. That is a given. But within the framework allowed by bourgeois politics, one can be better or worse. and Waistline: I will probably vote for Senator Obama for President, knowing clearly that he is a bourgeois politician. There is in my opinion a real - material, difference between the Republican and Democratic Party at their base of support... Nobody intelligent is suggesting voting against a candidate because he's labeled bourgeois. The issue at stake is the One party with two right wings(Gore Vidal) capitalist duopoly. Both parties have the same base of support--the giant corporations. Their union sacrée for the bailout swindle, the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, nuclear power, the embargo against Cuba, the war threat against Iran, The Zionist colonizers, clean coal, etc., etc. Not even mentioning the biggest issue of all--the brobdinagian fascist trillion-dollar national security expenditures on military-police-surveillance-spying-covert action etc. The one purpose of political activity today must be to mobilize as big as possible a citizens' movement against the corporate power elite. Continuing through and after the election. That is what Nader/Gonzalez is about. Left sectarians may yap about their own perfect candidates. Left opportunists may yap about the lesser evil (embacing thus the evil of two lessers). The dogs bark, the caravan passes. The intelligent left, what there is of it, recognizes that in this election the only ticket with any potential for a meaningful vote is Nader/Gonzalez. Shane Mage It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want--and get it. (Gene Debs) ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Babylonia - Mesopotamia
On Aug 11, 2008, at 3:07 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ...What I am certain of, is that German scholars, under the eye of colleagues from the Louvre and the British Museum, would not assert that the claims of Herodotus about sexual practices in the middle east, are unsubstantiated, if they are substantiated. Academic scholars of the ancient Near East, almost all of whom are unthinking adherents of ridiculous chronologies littered with many- centuried Dark Ages, are authorities without authority. They are unthinking followers of Voltaire who tossed out Herodotus's testimony as unthinkable in l'état le mieux policé of the ancient world. But temple prostitution--and that is what is at issue here--was universal in the Near East. Voltaire--and, it seems, your European scholars-- was scandalized by the suggestion that respectable unmarried Babylonian ladies participated in it. ...They suggest bias, but it may also be a question of the historical method of Herodotus, who, Wikipedia informs me, spoke only Greek... Perhaps, but there were lots of Greek-speakers everywhere in the 5th century BCE. And to speak of historical method in connection with the inventor of history is to be a bit---anachronistic. ... Stories, true or untrue, of the sexual practices of other lands are often interesting to outsiders. Did Herodotus actually claim to have personally investigated sexual practices?... Herodotus was not writing about Herodotus. But if he made no personal investigations of that sort he would have been virtually unique among Western (or Eastern!) travellers. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 30 On Aug 9, 2008, at 3:54 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nothing confirms the allegations of Heroditus about the sexual practices of Babylonia. He had political motives to denigrate an empire from the middle east that had almost conquered Greece. Herodotus reported what he saw and was told on the spot. Vas you dere, Charlie? Herodotus admired the Persians. Babylonia was not Persia. Greece didn't exist and the Persians never tried to conquer it (they did want to punish the Athenians for burning Sardis to the ground). The Persian punitive expedition had notable Greek allies, especially the Thebans and Ephesians. The most successful Persian naval commander was a Greek, Queen Artemisia. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Babylonia - Mesopotamia
On Aug 9, 2008, at 3:54 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nothing confirms the allegations of Heroditus about the sexual practices of Babylonia. He had political motives to denigrate an empire from the middle east that had almost conquered Greece. Herodotus reported what he saw and was told on the spot. Vas you dere, Charlie? Herodotus admired the Persians. Babylonia was not Persia. Greece didn't exist and the Persians never tried to conquer it (they did want to punish the Athenians for burning Sardis to the ground). The Persian punitive expedition had notable Greek allies, especially the Thebans and Ephesians. The most successful Persian naval commander was a Greek, Queen Artemisia. Shane Mage Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to be called Zeus. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Hillary going down in flames
On May 9, 2008, at 8:19 AM, Fred Feldman wrote: ...But she also seems to be possibly tendering an offer to McCain of voters he will need in the general election. Perhaps she is suggesting herself as a vice-presidential candidate for an aged and possibly unwell Republican presidential candidate, who may serve only one term, not to mention what might develop with his health before his term ended. A kind of Republican-Fusion ticket might be the Republicans' best bet for separating themselves from the Bush legacy (by adopting the Clinton- Bush legacy instead)... Jon Stewart asked McCain that very question Wednesday night. He ridiculed the notion. No mention by either of the VP flirtation between him and Kerry in 2004. But about Frau Clinton he was right to ridicule the notion. Imagine the reaction of the Repugnicon Convention to HRC! McCain would be lucky to escape lynching. Shane Mage Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to be called Zeus. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] ] Aimé Césaire, voice of French Black pride, dies
On Apr 18, 2008, at 3:37 PM, Charles Brown wrote: Aimé Césaire, voice of French Black pride, dies By Astrid Wendlandt ...Césaire was also a friend of the French surrealist poet Andre Breton who had encouraged him to become a major voice of Surrealism... ...After becoming mayor of Fort-de-France in 1945 at the age of 32, he was elected deputy to parliament a year later, a post he held until the early 1990s... he remained a member of the French communist party until the Soviet Hungarian repression of 1956... This is not quite correct. Césaire's long and brilliant letter of resignation from the PCF (http://www.ppm-martinique.net/Lettre-a-Maurice-Thorez_a44.html ) was dated October 24, 1956, the day before the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution. It was a scathing political critique of the French Stalinist Party and its thoroughly colonialist mindset as well as its subservience to Stalin and its apologia for the crimes of his regime. It is also less than accurate to describe Césaire as a voice of French Black Pride because he always claimed that his African identity was primary. Sarkozy and the French Establishment now seek to appropriate Césaire, even offering burial in the Pantheon--but Césaire's family, his party, and the whole Martiniquaise people reject that. He will be buried in his country, Martinique. Shane Mage Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to be called Zeus. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Precis on theories of capitalist crisis
CeJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/24/2008 10:04 PM But let me say: Perhaps my question should have been stated as the question as to whether or now there was a profit crisis. The crisis in profitability is demonstrated by the fact that for the past decade a huge share of newly formed money capital has been leveraged into fictitious capital rather than invested as real capital. Shane Mage Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to be called Zeus. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ 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] Re: Imus isn't the real bad guy
CeJ wrote: ...I never much cared for the Godfather opus... But G 3 at least nailed the Mafia/Curia conspiracy that elevated Wojtyla to the papacy through the murder of Luciani. Give them credit for that. Shane Mage Mortals immortals, immortals mortals, living their deaths, dying their lives Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 62 ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Logical Empiricism (reformatted)
Justin wrote: ...The Marxist-Leninists claimed to have a new discipline, but...it was unable to solve the theoretical and practicaltasks it set for itself (e.g., a meaningful solution to the transformation problem... The so-called transformation problem is a pseudo problem. It is based on a misunderstanding of Marxian capital theory by a German critic named von Bortkiewicz. According to vB, the sum of labor-value prices of the product for a given period cannot be equivalent to the sum of prices of production of that period's product because the capital stocks depreciated in a given period, as well as the individual capitals that are the denominators for the average rate of profit determining prices of production, are measured by the prices of production in prior periods rather than the labor-value prices of the capital goods composing the capital stock. vB's misunderstanding is to treat the capital stock as a quantity of capital goods valued by their physical labor content, rather than as a fund of accumulated surplus value--even though Marx (for instance in distinguishing physical, value, and organic compositions of capital) is explicit that capital, a quantitatively determined social relationship, is measured as consisting of capitalized surplus value and absolutely not as a mass of things. Once this misunderstanding is disposed of it is easy to demonstrate that the sum of prices of production must equal the sum of labor-value prices in any period. In my view, the hallmark of all vulgar economics (including the huge amount of it masquerading as Marxist) is the treatment of capital as a mass of things rather than as an amount of capitalized (ie., accumulated) surplus value. Shane Mage When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly. When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true. (N. Weiner) ___ 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] Re: Marxism-Thaxis Digest, Vol 18, Issue 4
A. Mani wrote: ...Chernobyl was an accident...Even during the cold war, the soviets maintained high ecological standards... I may be dating myself, but I must confess to being old enough to remember a time when there was an Aral Sea. Shane Mage When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly. When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true. (N. Weiner) ___ 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
