M-TH: Fwd: Mongolian CP wins in a Landslide
Communists reclaim power in Mongolia vote Landslide victory could limit freedoms, analysts say By Jeremy Page, Reuters, 7/4/2000 ULAN BATOR, Mongolia - Mongolia's former communist rulers have been swept back to power in a landslide election victory, state media said yesterday, crushing the forces that helped usher in democracy a decade ago. State radio said the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, or MPRP, had won 72 of 76 seats up for grabs in Sunday's election to Parliament, or Great Hural. Political analysts said the MPRP, which ruled for seven decades under Soviet patronage, was likely to slow the pace of capitalist-style reform in the impoverished Asian nation. It was riding a wave of popular anger against political gridlock under the divided Democratic Union coalition government and economic austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund. Many of Mongolia's 2.4 million people have been plunged into poverty. Immediately after its stunning win, the MPRP promised free education for orphans and children of poor herder families. Results were still trickling in from around a landlocked nation the size of western Europe. A total 75.8 percent of 1.2 million registered voters cast ballots. ''The full results have not come through yet but the MPRP has definitely won a large majority,'' said one election official. The MPRP's charismatic leader, Nambariin Enkhbayar, who studied English literature at Leeds University in Britain, was jubilant as the scope of the victory became apparent during the night. ''I'll open a bottle of champagne for every seat my party wins,'' he told reporters from his party headquarters, an austere Soviet-style building in Ulan Bator. The MPRP held just 26 seats in the outgoing Parliament. It was dumped from power in the last elections, in 1996. Enkhbayar signaled a roll-back of the industrial privatization program that was a centerpiece of the outgoing government. State industry is an MPRP power base, and influential party members have a stake in ensuring its survival. ''Mongolians are realizing these magic words like `privatization' don't bring a better quality of life automatically,'' he said. He indicated he would seek to renegotiate the terms of IMF aid to Mongolia. The IMF has insisted on fiscal and monetary tightening to bring down inflation and stabilize the currency, the togrog. Many Mongolians welcomed the prospect of strong government after years of messy democratic politics. ''People are dying of hunger and youngsters are turning to crime,'' said herder Chimeddorj, 67, as a crowd of MPRP supporters cheered outside party headquarters. ''The MPRP can lead our country out of this crisis of quarreling politicians and corrupt state officials,'' said the former policeman. There are fears that hard-line communist ideologues within the MPRP may seek to take advantage of the party's overwhelming majority in Parliament to restrict freedoms that have flourished since a peaceful democratic revolution led to elections in 1990, which the MPRP won. ''We'll have to watch very carefully for any retrograde movement on basic freedoms,'' said one Western diplomat. This story ran on page A02 of the Boston Globe on 7/4/2000. © Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company. Communists reclaim power in Mongolia vote Landslide victory could limit freedoms, analysts say By Jeremy Page, Reuters, 7/4/2000 ULAN BATOR, Mongolia - Mongolia's former communist rulers have been swept back to power in a landslide election victory, state media said yesterday, crushing the forces that helped usher in democracy a decade ago. State radio said the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, or MPRP, had won 72 of 76 seats up for grabs in Sunday's election to Parliament, or Great Hural. Political analysts said the MPRP, which ruled for seven decades under Soviet patronage, was likely to slow the pace of capitalist-style reform in the impoverished Asian nation. It was riding a wave of popular anger against political gridlock under the divided Democratic Union coalition government and economic austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund. Many of Mongolia's 2.4 million people have been plunged into poverty. Immediately after its stunning win, the MPRP promised free education for orphans and children of poor herder families. Results were still trickling in from around a landlocked nation the size of western Europe. A total 75.8 percent of 1.2 million registered voters cast ballots. ''The full results have not come through yet but the MPRP has definitely won a large majority,'' said one election official. The MPRP's charismatic leader, Nambariin Enkhbayar, who studied English literature at Leeds University in Britain, was jubilant as the scope of the victory became apparent during the night. ''I'll open a bottle of champagne for every seat my party wins,'' he told reporters from his party headquarters, an austere Soviet-style
Re: M-TH: Fwd: Mongolian CP wins in a Landslide
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/05/00 03:04PM At 10:34 05/07/00 -0400, you wrote: Communists reclaim power in Mongolia vote Landslide victory could limit freedoms, analysts say By Jeremy Page, Reuters, 7/4/2000 ULAN BATOR, Mongolia - Mongolia's former communist rulers have been swept back to power in a landslide election victory, state media said yesterday, crushing the forces that helped usher in democracy a decade ago. State radio said the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, or MPRP, had won 72 of 76 seats up for grabs in Sunday's election to Parliament, or Great Hural. That is a fine victory in a country that will be seen in the west as quite peripheral to the global capitalist economy. Presumably the population also feel secure that Russia and China, may provide some insulation against its worst effects. The report is written in such a fashion as to imply it may be the end of "democracy" once again. But that bias should be questioned. )) CB: I agree the article is written in the form of anti-communist propaganda. Presumably the MPRP should be able to win future elections even in a more diversified economy, without having to restrict basic democratic rights. Who owns the media, might be a crucial question. Chris Burford London --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: OAS protest in Detroit
OAS protest in Detroit Special to the World DETROIT, Mich. * A crowd gathered at Hart Plaza here last week to show support for those protesting against the Organization of American States (OAS) meetings being held across the border in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. About 500 demonstrators marched down Woodward Ave. and joined another 500 gathered at the plaza. More than 4,000 police with mace, dogs and helicopters surrounded the demonstrators. "There are several hundred people here today to show their solidarity with the people throughout the western hemisphere," said Dave Elsila, a member of Newspaper Guild Local 22, "to make sure that any agreement that is signed protects the environment as well as the workers out here," A speaker for the Green Party told the crowd he was committed to non-violence, but at every-day events he sees violence committed by the state powers: city hall and county, state and federal governments. He said the OAS is another effort at globalization. "Globalization is about taking our democratic rights away and giving all to the corporations. It is about a few getting rich while the many suffer poverty." Jason Wade, of Local 58 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, accused the city leaders of spending over $5 million on police for this event instead of repairing and reopening nine schools that have been closed. "Trade is going to have the effect of harmonizing relations and the problem is do we harmonize them upwards or downwards," said Dan McCarthy, president of UAW Local 417. "Those of the OAS have an agenda for harmonizing things downward. We can't have that. We need high wages and a pro-worker strategy if we are to experience any fairness." --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Communism gains acceptance in Japan
Communism gains acceptance in Japan Economic problems turn voters away from mainstream parties By Sharon Moshavi, Globe Correspondent, 6/18/2000 TOKYO - Motoki Sobue couldn't hide it anymore. The subterfuge was killing him. So the university student got drunk, telephoned his parents, and shouted out his secret: ''I am a communist!'' Terrified of what might happen next, he slammed down the receiver. But Sobue was shocked by his family's reaction. They weren't angry. ''Later, I went home and explained everything, and now they vote communist, too. Even my grandmother,'' said Sobue, now 25. In Japan these days, being a communist is nothing to be ashamed of. Communism may be out of favor with most of the world as it rushes feverishly to embrace free-market capitalism, but the 78-year-old Japanese Communist Party is gaining popularity in the world's second-largest economy. The party is attracting an increasing number of disaffected Japanese - young voters like Sobue, as well as older ones who are tired of politics as usual. The Communist Party's populist preaching about workers' rights and social welfare is finding an audience in a country suffering from an economic rut that has destroyed financial security for many. Kazuo Shii, a party leader and a second-generation communist, is credited with orchestrating the party's renaissance. Shii, 45, though unprepossessing of appearance with his fleshy face and big glasses, is something of an anomaly among Japanese politicians: He's articulate, even charismatic. He pops up regularly on television, on everything from political round tables to variety shows. He plays the piano, he likes the opera. Most importantly, he has dropped hard-line communist dogma. Some say he doesn't sound much like a communist. ''In our view, communism and socialism are inseparable from democracy,'' he said in a recent interview at the party's four-story headquarters, which will soon be replaced by an 11-story tower. Dressed in an ill-fitting gray pinstripe suit, his black hair slicked down, Shii said the violent overthrow of capitalism does not quite make the party's agenda. Instead he voiced concern about overtime pay for workers, with controlling the country's spiraling debt, and with balancing out Japan's ''subservient'' relationship with the United States. In fact, the Communists may be more in favor of a market economy than the ruling party, which is trying to increase state intervention and state power, said Shigenori Okazaki, a political analyst with Warburg Dillon Reed. ''It sounds rather ironic, but the Communists do see some of the things that the market mechanism can improve for workers,'' Okazaki said. The party's goal at the moment, Shii said, is to reform capitalism. ''We envision a socialist society in the future, but we are not calling for it just now,'' he said. His earliest time frame is about 100 years from now, and even then, it will be more like an evolution than a revolution. In the meantime, ''Just say no'' might well be the Communist Party's motto. As the second-largest opposition party in Japan, it has set itself up as perhaps the loudest opponent of the status quo. No matter the issue, it provides vocal opposition to almost anything the ruling party proposes. That seems to strike a chord with Japanese, even those who don't support the Communists. ''We need a strong opposition, someone who will challenge things,'' said Mieko Yamashita, 58, a retired civil servant. Like many Japanese, though, she doesn't want them to get too strong. ''They make Japanese politics vivid, but I don't think they should ever lead the country,'' she said. Currently, the Japanese Communist Party holds 14 percent of the seats in the Diet. Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who dissolved Parliament Friday, has called for elections on June 25, and many analysts expect the Communist Party to do better, but not well enough to significantly change its position. Many are still suspicious of the Communist Party, especially in the business community. They voice worry about the party's growing appeal with frustrated voters. In a recent article in the Mainichi Shimbun, one of Japan's leading newspapers, Toyota's chairman, Hiroshi Okuda, was quoted as saying, ''If they change their name, we had better watch out.'' There has been widespread speculation that the party intends to do exactly that, as analysts agree that it would indeed boost the party's standing. Party officials say they have received many letters from voters suggesting a name change, but Shii insists that the Japanese Communist Party will remain just that. ''We have the history and ideals of our party in this name,'' he said. The party was founded in 1922, and was illegal through World War II. It was one of the sole voices in Japan to speak up against the war, and that legacy earned the party a measure of respect. The Japanese Communists have long steered
M-TH: Down with Imperialism in the Western Hemisphere
I'm off to protest the OAS. CB --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Fwd: Re: M-TH: Re: Marx conceiving of nature dialectically
Andrew Wayne Austin [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/23 2:54 AM . . . need to correct some mistatements of fact . . . On Tue, 22 Dec 1998, Charles Brown wrote: I thought the examples that James F. gave in natural history and biology fit the Engels model. . . . I welcome this as affirmation of Engels's position . . . . I have long argued that aspects of evolutionary theory and evolutionary process may be described as dialectical and I was open-minded about this matter. What I dispute is Engels argument that the dialectic is the general laws of development in nature, society, and thought. I have never a priori rejected the possibility of any form of change being dialectic. What I have rejected is the view that all change is a priori dialectical. Charles: So your position is that we just have to wait and see as each type of change comes up as to whether it is dialectical ? Has any type of change been discovered yet that was not dialectical as you understand Marx to mean dialectical ? What is it ? ___ Below, Charles contradicts himself. First, he says that However, Darwinism is also classically Marxistly dialectical . . . as described by Lenin in _The Teachings of Karl Marx_ especially with respect to Stephen Jay Gould's punctuated equilibrium, in which, I believe the punctuations are major extinctions in the history of life. But then he writes that the point is that catastrophes, revolutions, leaps within slower change or evolution renders this fundamental theory of natural history more dialectical in the Hegelian sense than it was in the Darwinian form. In this argument we find that Darwin's theory is said to be dialectical in the classically Marxist sense. _ Charles: The answer to your riddle, Andy,my boy, is that I used Darwinism the first time to include Stephen Jay Gouldism as part of Darwinism. And the second time I used Darwinism, I should have said original Darwinism not modified by Gould's theory. This was an equivocation of my use of the word "Darwinism." But the point is consistent for anyone trying to understand. _ And the example given is Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium. But then in the next sentence we find that whereas Gould's theory is dialectic, it is more dialectical in the Hegelian sense than in the Darwinian form. The problem is that revolutions, qualitative leaps, and so forth, are Marxian dialectical (and the form is Hegelian). But this is different, Charles says, than the Darwinian form. So, the conclusion is this: Darwinian evolution is not dialectical. I agree. Charles: The conclusion one more time, is that Darwinism is more dialectical than the theories of biology which prevailed when he wrote his famous thesis, creationism etc. But Darwinism was not fully dialectical in the Hegelian sense. You mentioned that evolutionism had been around for a thousand years and Darwin's father was an evolutionist. But if you look in any biology basic textbook , which will have a sketch of Darwin's biography, you will find that Christian creationism was the prevailing theory of Darwin's day AND THAT CHARLES DARWIN HIMSELF WAS A CREATIONIST UPON STARTING THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE. The 101 text I just read says that Darwin was going out to find data to uphold creationism over a recent geological theory that held the earth's geology had evolved. The point here is that relative to his day, Darwin's theory was none other than a LEAP, a revolution, a qualitative change, from a metaphysical or anti-dialectical conception of natural species, to an elementarily , though not fully dialectical conception. Marx and Engels considered that he [Darwin] was using their method in biology. Where does Marx ever say that Darwinian evolution is an application of Marx's dialectical method? Charles: In his book _Ever Since Darwin_ in the essay "Darwin Delay" , Stephen Jay Gould says the following: "In 1869, Marx wrote to Engels about Darwin's _Origin_" (Get this Andy, this is Marx speaking) "ALTHOUGH IT IS DEVELOPED IN THE CRUDE ENGLISH STYLE, THIS IS THE BOOK WHICH CONTAINS THE BASIS IN NATURAL HISTORY FOR OUR VIEW" This seems to be evidence that Gould endorses Engels use of the dialectic in natural history. He seems to find use for the three principles that Andy mentioned a number of times. All these quotes by Gould don't prove or even support Engels' claim that dialectics are general law in nature, society, and thought. What is the point of quoting Gould? __ Charles: Andy, I am starting to think that you are incorrigible. These quotes from Stephen Jay Gould blow your argument out of the water. First of all you haven't denied that Marx and Engels said what Gould says they do. Second, Gould is the perfect one for this discussion because he is a recognized expert in paleontology or natural history. He is not a philosopher or social scientist. He has basic data knowledge about change o
Fwd: M-TH: Re: The exactitude of nature Hegel on Kant
Elegant (of refined taste or manner), but inexact James F posits human knowing that is outside of human history. There is nonesuch. Every act of human knowing is part of human history. Since, James F. accepts that human history is dialectical, all human knowing is dialectical, including human knowing of natural history or nature. Humans only know things-in-themselves as things-for-us. Things-for-us only come from human practice (Second Thesis on Feuerbach) which is part of human history. Human history is dialectical, thus human practice is dialectical. All things-for-us are dialectical. Jim F. commits the same error as Russ, who posits human interest in and knowledge of things with which humans NEVER have any interaction. But we know nothing of that which we have no interaction, no practice (2nd Thesis on F.). Actually, Jim has it sort of backward below. It is not that natural history is dialectical because human history is emergent from natural history. It is that all of human knowledge is part of human history, and human history is dialectical, thus human knowledge of nature is dialectical. For vulgar marxism, Charles Brown James Farmelant [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/13 9:57 AM I think that Russ just about sums up the fallacy that underlies the arguments of the believers in the dialectics of nature. Hugh's arguments are substantively the same as those of Charles or Chris though phrased a bit more elegantly. In any case both Charles and Chris have been committing the same type of fallacy when they argue that since history is dialectical and since human history is emergent out of natural history therefore natural history must be dialectical. Jim Farmelant On Wed, 13 Jan 99 13:19:50 + Russ [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Deary me Hugh, What is the substance of your argument but that: Consciousness is dialectical. Consciousness is ultimately natural. Diddly-dee: The natural is dialectical. ? Pardon me Hugh, isn't this to render the social, i.e the realm of the political, meaningless? Russ PS what did you toast Spinoza with - it wasn't the yellow snow from out the back of the shaman's tent by any chance? pip hic desparandum --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Elegant (of refined taste or manner), but inexact James F posits human knowing that is outside of human history. There is nonesuch. Every act of human knowing is part of human history. Since, James F. accepts that human history is dialectical, all human knowing is dialectical, including human knowing of natural history or nature. Humans only know things-in-themselves as things-for-us. Things-for-us only come from human practice (Second Thesis on Feuerbach) which is part of human history. Human history is dialectical, thus human practice is dialectical. All things-for-us are dialectical. Jim F. commits the same error as Russ, who posits human interest in and knowledge of things with which humans NEVER have any interaction. But we know nothing of that which we have no interaction, no practice (2nd Thesis on F.). Actually, Jim has it sort of backward below. It is not that natural history is dialectical because human history is emergent from natural history. It is that all of human knowledge is part of human history, and human history is dialectical, thus human knowledge of nature is dialectical. For vulgar marxism, Charles Brown James Farmelant [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/13 9:57 AM I think that Russ just about sums up the fallacy that underlies the arguments of the believers in the dialectics of nature. Hugh's arguments are substantively the same as those of Charles or Chris though phrased a bit more elegantly. In any case both Charles and Chris have been committing the same type of fallacy when they argue that since history is dialectical and since human history is emergent out of natural history therefore natural history must be dialectical. Jim Farmelant On Wed, 13 Jan 99 13:19:50 + Russ [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Deary me Hugh, What is the substance of your argument but that: Consciousness is dialectical. Consciousness is ultimately natural. Diddly-dee: The natural is dialectical. ? Pardon me Hugh, isn't this to render the social, i.e the realm of the political, meaningless? Russ PS what did you toast Spinoza with - it wasn't the yellow snow from out the back of the shaman's tent by any chance? pip hic desparandum --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- ___ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Fwd: e: M-TH: dialectical nature?
Hugh Rodwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/12 7:56 a completely false wedge driven between Engels the primitive simpleton (Marx's dupe, fall-guy and bankroller all in one) ___ Charles: On this thread, sometimes it seems to be the reverse: Marx as genius but dupe of Engels. Engels is usually portrayed as vulgar materialist along with Lenin, but here they are calling him an idealist and theologian. I think a root of this is anti-Leninism. It is hard to get Lenin out of it without throwing out Engels too, as they did most of the work on the philosophical issues in dispute on this thread. The bourgeois universities will tolerate "Marxism" as long as it is not Leninism. In fact, they like to have "Marxism" in a cage to study it to oppose it more effectively. Charles I _ What's more all our worthies forgot that Marx and Engels frequently point out that revolutionary materialism smuggles its own concept of matter into the Hegelian concept of God. Or in reality, don't smuggle it in but declare openly that this concept of matter stands Hegel's idealism on its feet, transforming it into a powerful combatant in the revolutionary struggle. I think also that a lot of all this confusion springs from the failure to come to terms with Stalinism as a consistently and comprehensively reactionary and treacherous leadership and mass political tendency and set of social institutions. Any attempt to define dialectical materialism that considers Stalinist products as prima facie Marxist contributions is hoping to grow pineapples outdoors at the south pole. It may well be the case that people working in Stalinist institutions have produced useful stuff -- Lukacs himself is a case in point if you use the right radiation tongs and protective clothing -- but this must be judged in the light of the genuine Marxist-Leninist tradition and not the Stalinist perversion of it. Cheers, Hugh Hugh Rodwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/12 7:56 a completely false wedge driven between Engels the primitive simpleton (Marx's dupe, fall-guy and bankroller all in one) ___ Charles: On this thread, sometimes it seems to be the reverse: Marx as genius but dupe of Engels. Engels is usually portrayed as vulgar materialist along with Lenin, but here they are calling him an idealist and theologian. I think a root of this is anti-Leninism. It is hard to get Lenin out of it without throwing out Engels too, as they did most of the work on the philosophical issues in dispute on this thread. The bourgeois universities will tolerate "Marxism" as long as it is not Leninism. In fact, they like to have "Marxism" in a cage to study it to oppose it more effectively. Charles I _ What's more all our worthies forgot that Marx and Engels frequently point out that revolutionary materialism smuggles its own concept of matter into the Hegelian concept of God. Or in reality, don't smuggle it in but declare openly that this concept of matter stands Hegel's idealism on its feet, transforming it into a powerful combatant in the revolutionary struggle. I think also that a lot of all this confusion springs from the failure to come to terms with Stalinism as a consistently and comprehensively reactionary and treacherous leadership and mass political tendency and set of social institutions. Any attempt to define dialectical materialism that considers Stalinist products as prima facie Marxist contributions is hoping to grow pineapples outdoors at the south pole. It may well be the case that people working in Stalinist institutions have produced useful stuff -- Lukacs himself is a case in point if you use the right radiation tongs and protective clothing -- but this must be judged in the light of the genuine Marxist-Leninist tradition and not the Stalinist perversion of it. Cheers, Hugh --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Committed to my science...
"Charles Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/20/98 11:20AM Rob, I probably talked too long on this thread. You probably are tired of it. Anyway, you seem to say we are saying the same thing. I certainly cheer your rigorous democracy. I just don't want you to think we Leninists are not with you 100% in that, despite Stalinism. Charles Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/18 11:54 PM G'day Chas, I'm a bit snowed under just now, but I think we'd ultimately have to agree we're not gonna agree on much of this (something Russia's socialists, for whatever reason, were not very good at after 1917). I do think you miss my point in this part of the exchange, though: Charles: But no bourgeois government has done better than this , right ? Rob: Most bourgeois governments have the TINA hegemony going for them. Churches, schools, workplaces, media and papers all combine beautifully to make profound disagreement at the social level pretty unlikely. Charles: The Soviet government had the equivalent going for it. If you are saying the Soviet government had democratic centralism then the above is part of democratic centralism and so the bourgeoisie have democratic centralism too. It is false that the Soviet system was run on force and not Gramscian hegemony as well. ___ Rob: Bourgeois governments do VERY well as a consequence. Charles: Some have, some haven't. They have a long history. They have carried out the biggest wars in the history of humanity. That is the complete opposite of democracy and is total centralism. In other words, they send millions of their own people off to be massacred for profits mainly. That ain't democracy. Rob: They function daily against the better interests of those who put 'em there and we respond by ever keeping 'em there. Charles: This is not democracy. It is a profound trickster masquerading as democracy. _ As I see it, I made the point that it's not easy distinguishing between DC as it was practiced from what bourgeois parties generally do. You then argued that this is demonstrably not democracy at all. Which is what I thought I was saying. Cheers, Rob. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Fwd: Re: M-TH: Re: Marx conceiving of nature dialectically
to speak,
in spirals, not in a straight line;
a development in leaps and
bounds, catastrophes, revolutions;
"intervals of gradualnes";
transformation of quantity into quality;
inner impulses for development,
imparted by contradiction, the conflict
of different forces and tendencies
reacting on a given body or inside
a given phenomena or within a given
society;interdependence, and the
closest, indissoluable connection
between ALL sides of every phenomenon
(history discloses ever new sides), a
connection that provides the one
world-process of motion proceeding
according to law _such are
some of the features of dialectics
as a doctrin of evolution more full
of meaning than the current one.
(See letter of Marx to Engels,
dated January 8, 1868, in which
he ridicules Stein's "wooden
trichotomies," which it is
absurd to confuse with materialist
dialectics)
End quote of Lenin.
This more completely answers
Andy's questions about the
relative dialecticality of
Darwin' evolution and
Marxist revolutionary/evolutionary
dialectics.
Charles Brown
Revolutionism is the apotheosis of change
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Andy Austin had asked:
What does it mean to say something is not fully dialectical? Does that
mean that it only meets one or two of the three laws of dialectics, such
as unity and contradiction of opposites, but does not meet one or both of
the other two criteria (quantity into quality and the negation of the
negation)?
__
Charles: I responded as follows. I want
to put on the thread here a section
from Lenin's _The Teachings of Karl
Marx_ which speaks to this issue
of the partial dialectiality of Darwin's
thesis as written by Darwin. Original
Darwinism (not modified by Gould's
theory of punctuated equilibrium).
First follows my comment from the
previous post.
Charles: Lenin in _The Teachings
of Karl Marx speaks directly to this
issue. He points out that Marx's
theory of evolution has more
to it than the "current" theory,
meaning Darwin's. Darwin's has
gradual change ,which is part of
Hegel's. Gradual change is more
dialectical than creationism with
no change. Revolution/evolution
is even more Hegelian. So in
a way Darwin's lacks the idea that
new quality arises from quantitative
leaps or discontinuities.
Here is a passage from Lenin
"Dialectics"
Marx and Engels regarded Hegelian
dialectics, the theory of evolution most
comprehensive, rich in content and profound,
as the greatest achievement of classical
German philosophy. All other formulations
of the principle of development, of
evolution, they considered to be one-
sided, poor in content, distorting and
mutilating the actual course of
development of nature and society
(a course often consummated in
leaps and bounds, catastrophes,
revolutions).
(quoting Engels) Marx and I were
almost the only persons who rescued
conscious dialectics...{from the
swamp of idealism, including Hegelianism}
by transforming it into the materialist
conception of nature... (Anti-Duhring)
Nature is the test of dialectics, and we
must say that science has supplied a
vast and daily increasing mass of material
for this test, thereby proving that, in
the last analysis, nature proceeds
dialectically and not metaphysically
(Anti-Duhring) (this was written before
the discovery of radium, electrons,
the tranmutation of elements, etc.
- Lenin's insert) (end quote of Engels)
Again Engels writes:
The great basic idea that the world
is not to be viewed as a complex of
fully fashioned objects, but as a complex
of processes, in which apparently
stable objects, no less than the images
of them inside our heads (our concepts),
are undergoing incessant changes, arising
here and disappearing there, and which
with all apparent accident and in spite of
all momentary retrogression, ultimately
constitutes a progressive development-
this great basic idea has, particularly since
the time of Hegel, so deeply penetrated
the general consciousness that hardly
any one will now venture to dispute it
in its general form. But it is one thing to
accept it in words, quite another thing
to put it in practice on every occasion
and in every field of investigation (Ludwig
Feuerbach)
In the eyes fo dialectic philosophy, nothing
is established for all time,
nothing is absolute or sacred ( See
Andy). On everything and in
everything it sees the stamp of
inevitable decline; nothing can resist
it save the unceasing process of
formation and destruction, the unending
ascent from the lower to
the higher - a process which that
philosophy itself is only a simple
reflection with the thinking brain. (
Ludwig Feuerbach) (end quote of
Engels)
Thus dialectics, according to Marxism,
is "the science of the general laws
of motion both of the external world
and of human thinking.
This revolutionary side of Hegel's
philosophy was adopted adn
developed by Marx. Dialectical
materialism "does not need
any philosophy towering a
M-TH: 22 May 2000
22 May 2000 LAND IS THE BASIS OF OUR STRUGGLE By Lesego Sechaba Mogotsi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Land has always been the basis of the Black people`s struggle in Africa. When Black people finally decided to take up arms against the settler colonial minority regime, it was precisely because of that reason, nothing less or more. During the dark apartheid days black people were forcefully removed from their land and driven deliberately to the barren homelands. They were subjected to ruthless apartheid system brutality and many children, men and women became victims. They were treated as foreigners in their own land of birth by the same European settlers who are making noise today. I generally grew-up as a non-violent person and the only "violent" methods that I openly supported was the arm struggle during our struggle against apartheid and I strongly feel that if the need should arise again in this country for the black people to engage in the arm struggle to re-conquer the land which is rightfully theirs, I will be the first one to volunteer. I obviously do not support the killing and murdering of innocent people and white farmers in the neighbouring Zimbabwe, but the brutality that our own Black brothers and sisters that are subjected to in some of the white farms in this country, makes me to think otherwise. The Zimbabwean settlement as it is correctly documented, states it clearly that the former colonial master, Britain; would be responsible for the re-settlement of the black Zimbabwean by providing the Zimbabwean government with money to buy back the illegally occupied land in Zimbabwe by the minority whites and give it back to the black majority. In South Africa, my homeland, there is also an agreement similar to the Zimbabwean one. White farmers would sell their land to Thabo Mbeki`s government then President Thabo Mbeki`s government through one of his creation; Land Commission, would then be responsible for resettlement. This is a typical black liberal arrangement and it only benefits the minority nation, whites. If they were not willing to sell or give up the land that they have illegally occupied since 1652, poor black South Africans would remain landless for centuries even worse off than the Zimbabweans. The Zimbabwean recent land crisis should be a good lesson to people like DP's Tony Leon, because people like him came to Africa uninvited with Dromedaris, Reiger and Goode-Hope; they surely did not bring any land with them. In fact, all white people in this country are our guests and the black majority is their hosts. There is no single white South African who can rightfully claim any piece of this land, including those who belong to the African National Congress. They all constitute part of the European settlers. The similarities between us and the Zimbabwean are very classical, we are both former British colonies, however, in our case Britain did not promise us any pounds to back the land back from the white farmers; now where is the poor President Thabo Mbeki`s government going to get millions of rands to buy land from white farmers and give it back to the rightful owners, blacks. In fact, I do not understand why the black people must buy the land, which rightful belong to them, from the people who occupied it many years ago through aggression, without any compensation. This does not make any logic at all, surely you need not to be an academic to understand this. When your car is stolen and later on recovered by the police, surely you do not expect them to sell it back to you; as if it was never your car before it was stolen. The logic demands that you go to the police station and produce your identity and ownership certificates, then you car is all yours again. Indeed, there are couples of white farmers who can produce the ownership certificates, which relates to their supposedly legal occupation; but the fact of the matter is that those certificates were issued by the illegitimate settler minority regime. Perhaps the logical thing for the white farmers in Zimbabwe and in this country to do is to ask Britain to compensate them. I am personally prepared to support them (whites) if they want to sue Britain for land compensation, because "NO MAKANJANI"; the national land question still needs to be addressed in this country as a matter of urgency if we do not want to witness the situation similar to that of Zimbabwe. Our Zimbabwean black brothers and sisters are more brilliant than the black South Africans, they occupy arable and fertile land, while the South African; generally referred to as squatters occupy a small piece of land and jam-pack themselves as sardines under severe, unbearable and inhuman conditions. Most of us from the black consciousness school of thought honestly believe that independence or soverignity of any nation, primarily depends on the ownership of the land by the black majority. Blacks in this country only have political power, but the most critical component of
M-TH: SACP statement on general strike
SACP salutes South African workers Workers in South Africa staged a general strike May 10 under the leadership of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Following is a statement issued by the South African Communist Party (SACP) on the strike. * * * * All reports indicate massive and enthusiastic support for the general strike against job losses and for job creation. The SACP salutes the South African working class, under the revolutionary leadership of COSATU, for today's actions. The success of the general strike is a clear and strong message to the bosses that they must meet the COSATU demands to stop job losses. It is also a strong and clear message to our African National Congress (ANC) government to take urgent steps to meet workers' demands for amendment of relevant legislation and reviewing our economic policies to create new, quality and sustainable jobs. Today's strike was also a conscious offensive against capitalism itself. Tens of thousands of striking workers gather in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa May 10. The continuing bad economic news is pushing President Thabo Mbeki's goal of bettering the lives of South Africans still recovering from the racist apartheid regime further out of reach. To those who think that the workers' struggle against job losses ended today, let them know not to underestimate the resilience, fighting spirit and anti-capitalist consciousness of the South African working class. Millions of South African workers sacrificed more than R1.5 billion in wages today. We challenge government and the bosses to donate this money to COSATU's Job Creation Fund. This will be clear indication of their seriousness about job losses and job creation. Further, we reiterate our calls for the following: * Convening of sectoral summits in the next three months to discuss how to stop retrenchments and create jobs in each sector of the economy * Reviewing our country's economic policies to boost job creation * The mobilization of domestic private and public capital (state assets and budgetary resources) for job creation through a state led industrial strategy * Defend, extend and strengthen the public sector - keep state assets in public hands In conclusion, we call on COSATU, the ANC and other progressive organizations to convene People's Forums Against Job Losses between now and July. These forums must be held in townships, rural areas, informal settlements, the cities and wherever our people are in order to report back, consult our people and plan the way forward in transforming our economy in favor of the working class and the poor. In this regard, the SACP will mobilize its structures across the country to convene these people's forums. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Fwd: from LBO Re: kennan the necessary lie
[from Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New Press, 2000), pp. 39-40] The foremost articulator of the shared convictions of America's elite was George Kerman, diplomat-scholar, architect of the Marshall Plan, and as director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, one of the fathers of the CIA. In 1947 he advocated direct military intervention in Italy in what he saw as its imminent collapse into a civil war supported by the Communists: 'This would admittedly result in much violence and probably a military division of Italy,' he told the State Department, but 'it might well be preferable to a bloodless election victory, unopposed by ourselves, which would give the Communists the entire peninsula at one coup and send waves of panic to all surrounding areas.' Truman, fortunately, didn't go along with this precipitate suggestion, but he did authorize covert intervention in the Italian elections instead. By July 1947, Kerman had modified his views not about the nature of the Soviet threat, but about how to deal with it. In his famous 'X' article in the journal Foreign Affairs, he set forth the thesis which dominated the early years of the Cold War. Claiming that the Kremlin was committed to dominating 'every nook and cranny available ... in the basin of world power' with its 'fanatical ideology', he proposed a policy of 'unalterable counter force', and 'firm and vigilant containment'. As part of this policy, he advocated 'the maximum development of the propaganda and political warfare techniques', which, as director of the Policy Planning Staff (designed to oversee the ideologicalpolitical containment of Europe), he was perfectly placed to implement. 'The world was our oyster,' he later wrote of this office. In a speech to the National War College in December 1947, it was Kennan who introduced the concept of 'the necessary lie' as a vital constituent of American post-war diplomacy. The Communists, he said, had won a 'strong position in Europe, so immensely superior to our own ... through unabashed and skilful use of lies. They have fought us with unreality, with irrationalism. Can we combat this unreality successfully with rationalism, with truth, with honest, well-meant economic assistance?' he asked. No, America needed to embrace a newera of covert warfare to advance her democratic objectives against Soviet deceit. On 19 December 1947, Kerman's political philosophy acquired legal authority in a directive issued by Truman's National Security Council, NSC-4. A top-secret appendix to this directive, NSC-4A, instructed the Director of Central Intelligence to undertake 'covert psychological activities' in support of American anti-Communist policies. Startlingly opaque about what procedures should be followed for coordinating or approving such activities, this appendix was the first formal post-war authorization for clandestine operations. Superseded in June 1948 by a new - and more explicit - directive drafted by George Kennan, NSC-10/2, these were the documents which piloted American intelligence into the choppy waters of secret political warfare for decades to come. Prepared in the tightest secrecy, these directives 'adopted an expansive conception of [America's] security requirements to include a world substantially made over in its own image.' Proceeding from the premise that the Soviet Union and its satellite countries were embarked on a programme of 'vicious' covert activities to 'discredit and defeat the aims and activities of the United States and other western powers', NSC-10/2 gave the highest sanction of the government to a plethora of covert operations: 'propaganda, economic warfare, preventative direct action including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups'. All such activities, in the words of NSC-10/2, must be 'so planned and executed that any U.S. government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons, and that if uncovered the U.S. government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them.' Michael Pollak wrote: In this month's Harper's, Lewis Lapham sez: quote George Kennan in 1949 advanced the "messianic concept" of the "necessary lie;" his doctrine of Cold War containment (cultural as well as military) embraced the virtues of plausible deniability, the vocabularies of misleading statemetns, the manufacture of ideologcial consent. endquote I can't find those two quoted phrases associated with Kennan. They don't seem to be in the "long telegram" of 1947. Does anyone know what he's quoting from here? It could be have some connection with Frances Stonor Saunders' book, which occasioned his column, if anyone has a copy of that handy. [from Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold
Re: M-TH: British intervention in Sierra Leone
Jim heartfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/13/00 02:26AM In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes "Imperialism is as much our 'mortal' enemy as is capitalism. That is so. No Marxist will forget, however, that capitalism is progressive compared with feudalism and that imperialism is progressive compared with pre-monopoly capitalism." And by the same token presumably, fascism is progressive compared with democracy?! If progression were merely the passage of time then everything that came later would be superior to what went before. But Lenin's whole point is that imperialism is a reactionary phase in which the advances of the previous period are put into reverse. He calls it the era of 'stagnation and decay', and while he allows that there will be some advances in technology, he maintains that on balance it will be an epoch marked by the reversal of democratic gains, principally consequent on the subordination of small nations to the mature powers - like Sierra Leone. __ CBrown: In the world situation in the period of 1916 and following, imperialism had reactionary and liberal sectors. Fascism was , generally, the dominant influence of the reactionary sectors of imperialism. We do have to update the analysis from 1916 based on many historical developments. But it may still be valid to consider that imperialism has different wings and sectors. Now there are special splits between more-national and more-transnational bourgeoisie. Charles Brown --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: www.computeruser.com
www.computeruser.com --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Execution of a deputy mayor
Monday, April 24, 2000 China executes deputy mayor for graft ASSOCIATED PRESS BEIJING, APRIL 23: Chinese authorities executed a deputy mayor on Sunday for massive bribery, the latest official punished in a year-long campaign against rampant corruption. After a case review by China's Supreme Court, Li Chenglong (48) was put to death in the impoverished southern region of Guangxi, where he worked as a deputy mayor of Guigang city, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said. On Thursday, the head of Guangxi's government from 1990-1998, Cheng Kejie, was expelled from the ruling Communist Party ahead of his prosecution for alleged bribery. Cheng, a deputy chairman of China's national legislature, was one of the most senior officials caught in the recently renewed campaign against the graft that is undermining public support for Communist rule. Li was convicted of bribery and having unexplained sources of income, Xinhua said. It said that in exchange for approving promotions, loans, land and construction contracts, Li took Dollars 478,500 worth of bribes in Chinese, Hong Kong and US currencies between 1991 and 1996, when he was Communist Party secretary of Yulin city in Guangxi, Xinhua said. Li also couldn't explain where he got currencies worth more than Dollars 685,000 that were found in his home, along with jewellery, Xinhua said. Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Argentina
Argentine officers suspended after clashes with unionists By Gilbert Le Gras, Reuters, 4/20/2000 BUENOS AIRES - Argentine police clashed outside Congress with unionized truckers and garbage collectors protesting a labor reform plan yesterday, prompting authorities to suspend 12 officers for excessive use of force. Police clubbed union members outside the Congress building in downtown Buenos Aires and one officer slashed a man with a knife, prompting calls for an official inquiry into the conduct of the officers. Fourteen people remained hospitalized after the clashes, reports said. Hundreds of members of trucker and garbage-collector unions staged a 12-hour protest outside Congress and managed to halt discussion of labor reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund that they contend will not cut six years of double-digit unemployment, as the center-left Alliance government hopes. Television images showed five police officers clubbing one protester who lay sprawled on the sidewalk with blood pouring from his head. Another TV station showed a police officer pulling a knife from one protester who had been wrestled to the ground and slashing him across the back. ''Without a doubt those violent episodes are absolutely prosecutable, and everyone who has committed a crime should be tried, like those who used inappropriate weapons, which is an abuse of force,'' Justice Minister Ricardo Gil Lavedra said. A police statement said 43 people were arrested while Interior Minister Federico Storani said 12 police officers were suspended for excessive use of force. Hundreds of truckers and garbage collectors gathered in front of the Congress building and by mid-morning had blocked the main roads leading to Congress. Police erected chain-link fences around Congress that protesters kicked and rammed, then hurled garbage at police. ''This government is so desperate to meet its IMF commitments it's willing to use force on its own people,'' said one woman as protesters waved ''United Left'' and ''Down with antiworker labor reform'' banners behind her. The legislation that prompted the protest would reduce severance packages and cut costly red tape involved in hiring workers, update labor contracts and simplify wage talks. The protesters said the measure would cut their wages, not speed economic recovery, as the government claims. After the clashes, senior members of the opposition Peronist Party said the vote on the measure would be delayed for now. The bill already was passed by the lower house of Congress and was before the Senate, where the Peronists hold a majority. This story ran on page A14 of the Boston Globe on 4/20/2000. © Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Re: this is progressive/ China
Rob, Here's what someone else said on China today. Charles Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/18/00 11:34AM Sigh, we're back to disagreeing again, Charles ... Only a very tiny, tiny group of people criticize China as being an aggressively capitalizing nation. This is an sectarian and not widely held idea about China. Only a few, I mean tiny number of Americans think this. The vast majority of people in the U.S. have been thoroughly convinced that China is a Communist nation. It was a pleasure to read Mao*s tribute to Dr. Bethune and some of the recent positive comments about the Chinese revolution on this list, particularly at a time when China-on-the-capitalist-road is coming under fire from the some of the same anti-communist forces which excoriated China-on-the-revolutionary-road. Despite its obvious shortcomings, I still happen to view China as a socialist country, though just hanging on, and retain the perspective that it remains possible for China to once again reverse direction to the left*only this time on the basis of a considerably more advanced economy and a much larger proportion of the population in the working class. The current AFL-CIO campaign against normal trade relations and WTO membership for China resembles the old Yellow Peril racism, modern nationalism and reactionary anti-communism wrapped into a new opportunist political package. Unfortunately, this campaign is gaining adherents in the developing new movement in the U.S. in opposition to the IMF, World Bank and WTO and can retard its progressive political development. While revolutionary Marxists must help to build this new movement, they must likewise strongly oppose the trend to deny China entry into the WTO and defend China against imperialist schemes in general because it remains a workers state. As Mao argued, it is reprehensible to "hear incorrect views without rebutting them..., but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened." In a related regard, the February 2000 Monthly Review contains an article worth reading, titled, *The Necessity of Gangster Capitalism: Primitive Accumulation in Russia and China,* by Nancy Holmstrom and Richard Smith. It*s on the web at http://www.monthlyreview.org/200holm.htm. The article goes into the differences between Russia and China in their movement toward capitalism and their respective methods of primitive accumulation. They write: *The emergence of gangster capitalism and wholesale corruption in the former Soviet bloc and China should have been entirely predictable to anyone familiar with the historical origins of capitalism...and to anyone with a passing familiarity with Marx*s account of primitive accumulation.* The authors suggest that Yeltsin*s U.S. advisers blundered in their guidance, resulting in the de-modernization of that once advanced society, but I suspect that was Washington*s intention all along. It no more wanted a capitalist rival with Russia*s potential than it did a communist rival of the USSR*s potential. In general, their analysis of why the Russian economy crumbled is quite good. The article declares that *China*s increasingly restless and combative labor force has yet to find its voice, but when it does, this could throw a large wrench into the World Bank-comprador bureaucrat plans for a transition to capitalism.* We may have seen a vision of the future in the recent three-day street battle to protest the closing of an *unprofitable* mine in Liaoning. Clearly, WTO membership (as much of the U.S. ruling class understands) will undoubtedly accelerate Beijing*s passage down the capitalist road, causing still further hardship for the masses. I oppose the theory that *the worse it gets, the better it gets,* since this conveys the impression that the increasing misery of the working class can ever be positive*but one must recognize the possibility that further movement toward capitalism may finally result in a serious radical turn from below that will strongly impact on the CCP*s left wing and lead to one more great reversal in the direction of the Chinese revolution. (end) --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Red Ken
Livingstone aims Hitler attack at capitalists By Robert Shrimsley, Chief Political Correspondent Telegraph Ken Livingstone's efforts to project a business-friendly image were undermined yesterday when he said that international capitalists had killed more people than Hitler. His latest attack on the forces of capitalism follows controversy surrounding earlier remarks [see below] where he expressed sympathy with the rioters who brought chaos to the World Trade Organisation negotiations in Seattle and the simultaneous anti-capitalist protests in the City. The front-runner to be mayor of London made his comments in a question and answer session with readers of New Musical Express. Asked whether he still believed the bosses of the International Monetary Fund should "die painfully in their beds", Mr Livingstone replied: "The IMF and the World Bank are still appalling and now the World Trade Organisation, too. All over the world people die unnecessarily because of the international financial system." Tuesday 18 January 2000 Livingstone backs City riots as his moderate mask slips By Robert Shrimsley, Chief Political Correspondent Ken Livingstone last night gave the lie to claims that he has shed his hard-Left image by siding with the anarchist rioters who brought chaos to the City of London last year. After months of trying to foster a moderate image in his fight to be Labour's candidate for Mayor of London, Mr Livingstone made an extraordinary gaffe which harked back to his old "Red Ken" image in an interview with a style magazine. He said that he backed "direct action" as seen in the anti-capitalist riots in London and the protests during the World Trade Organisation conference in Seattle. Mr Livingstone added that he would not invite the WTO to London "unless we can get vast stocks to put them in so that we can throw stuff at them in an organised way". The former GLC leader, who has increasingly looked to be the Labour front-runner for mayor, made his comments in an interview with The Face. Asked how he would respond to a "June 18 or Battle of Seattle type demo", he said: "I have always been in favour of direct action. One of my fondest memories was chasing the inspector of the Archway Road inquiry out on to the roof at the Central Hall." During six hours of rioting in the City, shops, offices and monuments were damaged by about 4,000 protesters who hijacked what was billed as a peaceful "carnival against capitalism". Four police officers were among the 46 people injured. Elsewhere in the interview, Mr Livingstone described Lady Thatcher as "the scariest person I've ever met, adding: "I've met serial killers and professional assassins and nobody scared me as much as Mrs T." Mr Livingstone's comments were immediately denounced by Frank Dobson, his rival for the Labour nomination, who said it showed that his moderate mask was slipping. He said: "These comments are quite disgraceful from anyone seeking to be Mayor of London with responsibility for the police. This interview shows why Ken Livingstone would be the wrong person to be mayor." Mr Livingstone's remarks will also be seized upon by Tony Blair, who has said that he can work with the former GLC leader only if he has changed. A source close to the Prime Minister said last night that the comments "look like the kind of gesture politics that Tony Blair has set his face against". Mr Livngstone was also criticised by Steve Norris, the former transport minister, who was selected yesterday as the Tory candidate for mayor, to replace Lord Archer, following a ballot of party members in London. Mr Norris said: "Faced with a choice between violence and disorder and the interests of Londoners he has once again made the wrong choice." --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: May Day on the Web
Launched in 1998 it was the first page dedicated to May Day on the web. The web site has an online art show, history of May Day, message board and links to events in Edmonton, across Canada, and around the world. The Edmonton May Week Festival of Labour Arts is being held April 28 to May 7, 2000 in celebration of the international working class holiday; May Day. May Day On The Web has a complete schedule of events. Over 1900 visitors to May Day On The Web have voted on our web poll asking if May Day should be recognized as a national holiday. The overwhelming majority (85%) have said Yes. This year May Day On The Web is joined by hundreds of new sites that have sprung up as part of world wide May Day protests and celebrations of global solidarity and resistance to Free Trade and global capitalism. Many of these web sites are part of a global network that coordinated protests at the WTO meeting in Seattle last November. MayDay on the Web http://www.mayweek.ab.ca --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Capitalism is return to monkey business
Yes, capitalist individualism is more monkey like. The leap to human was marked by greater communiality, sociality. Communism is human. Capitalism is monkey business. CB Bruce Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/07/00 07:42AM Just in case you ever need to convince someone that science has an ideological role, here's an article from yesterday's (not April 1st's) Independent. Interesting that 'Nature', one of the supposed guarantors of the integrity of scientific research sees fit to publish it. I suppose Marxists always have said capitalism was the law of the jungle :). Bruce Robinson Monkey business really does exist, according to scientists who have found that primates engage in a version of capitalism where goods are exchanged for labour. A study of capuchin monkeys - small but big-brained South American primates - has discovered that the animals have a barter system where food is paid in return for work. Capuchins, like chimpanzees, hunt in groups but only one monkey makes the capture, which is shared equally with those who took part in the effort. Scientists at the Yerkes Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, wanted to know whether this was simple sharing or a more sophisticated barter system, and devised an experiment in which two caged capuchins had to co-operate in pulling a tray to deliver food to one of them. "The second monkey helped to pull the tray even though there was no guaranteed reward of food for him," said Frans de Waal, who devised the experiment with Michelle Berger. Once the "worker" had been paid in food, he was much more eager to help out in future. The research, published in the journal 'Nature', also found the system only worked if the monkeys could see each other. "Society wouldn't exist without co-operative behaviour. Tit-for-tat is essential for our economies," Dr de Waal said. So it seems monkey business is the acceptable face of capitalism. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Billy B
Billy Bragg and Woody Gunthrie NEW YORK - Recently at the New York City's Symphony Space, British Punk-rocker, now Woody Guthrie biographer, delivered a truly great solo performance. Singing songs, that he provided the music for from the previously unreleased Guthrie lyrics, Bragg told the powerful story of Woody's commitment to social justice and humanity. Each song carried personal notes that Guthrie wrote at the bottom of his lyrics. Bragg said that these notes made it easier for him to write the accompanying music. To make sure the audience understood the social justice message, Bragg urged the more than 1,000 in attendance to participate in the next day protest "Youth March for Life" that was sponsored by the United N.Y. Black Radical Congress. He read the flyer, "A Militant and Peaceful Protest of the Albany verdict in Memory of Amadou Diallo." He emphasized the demands: "civilian control of the police; fight racism; defeat Giuliani; education not incarceration; abolish street crimes unit." And, then he added emphatically for everyone to "Vote, Vote, Vote." Bragg was making this appearance to urge everyone to see the Woody Guthrie exhibit on the life and times of Woody Guthrie taking place at the Museum of the City of New York, Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street. During the performance which included as much discussion as singing, Bragg talked about Woody Guthrie's brush with Hollywood, California. He talked about how, "Will Geer, a member of the Communist Party, helped Woody during his time in Hollywood." He then added that, "Yes, Grampa Walton was a Communist." In a particularly moving part of the evening, Nora Guthrie joined Bragg on stage and helped him sing a couple of her father's songs. It was Nora Guthrie who chose Bragg to write the music to the newly found lyrics of her father. It was clearly a perfect choice. The Guthrie exhibit has been organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and the Woody Guthrie Archives and in association with the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The exhibit, "This Land is Your Land, The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie," runs through April 23. It is perfect place to take your whole family, the students in your classrooms, including public schools, college and training programs. Everyone! - Eric Green --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/200004/02/eng200004020101.html
http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/24/02/eng24020101.html People's Daily (China) Sunday, April 02, 2000, updated at 12:01(GMT+8) Editorial Kosovo a Victim of 'Humanitarian Concerns' Yugoslavia was bound to lose the war from the very beginning. How could a tiny Balkan state have enough tools to challenge the US-led NATO? Not only overshadowed by military strength, Yugoslavia was "against humanity," as NATO officials observed. They were committing "ethnic-cleansing" while the NATO intrusion enjoyed the strong backup of "humanitarian concerns." After 78 days of intensive air attacks, Yugoslavia signed a treaty to hand over Kosovo at the mercy of NATO. NATO indeed won the war and that result would be denied by few. Kosovo still makes the headlines and events there continue to attract considerable media attention worldwide. But different from a year ago when the Western media helped demonize Slobodan Milosevic and trumpeted NATO's victory, the area's gloomy news is now splashed all over the world. What is happening there today? Even NATO's own high ranking officials admit that the mission in Kosovo remains difficult. Many refugees are afraid to return as security in Kosovo can hardly be guaranteed. Trouble in such ethnic flashpoints as the divided northern town of Mitrovica and Kosovo's boundary with the Presevo valley in eastern Serbia continuously threatens exodus. "We see quite an organized campaign to intimidate the non-Albanian population and drive them out of the province," said Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Sergei Lavrov during his visit there last year. The New York Times also reported that the burning of Serbs' homes takes place in an organized fashion almost daily, increasing the pressure on the Serbian minority to flee the province or ghettoize itself in enclaves. Under resolution 1244, which was adopted last June 10 by the UN Security Council, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the ethnic Albanians-dominated armed rebel group, should be fully disarmed after the UN presence in Kosovo. But in reality, the residual influence of the officially disbanded KLA equals, if not exceeds, that of the international community in Kosovo. Under the connivance of NATO, the KLA has not only perpetuated the persecution of Kosovo's rapidly dwindling Serb minorities, but it has even turned hostile towards NATO-led peacekeepers. It seems that the pledge of the West to create a multi-ethnic Kosovo is an impossible mission. Worse, Kosovo has been degraded into a haven for crimes such as drug trafficking. So it is clearly a war without a victor with Yugoslavia as the biggest loser. After its loss of effective control over Kosovo, Yugoslavia is forced to face political and economic sanctions imposed by western countries. And economic reconstruction remains a formidable task for the cash-strapped country. During the war, NATO member countries, the United States in particular, did not hesitate to squander money to turn Kosovo into a showplace of their advanced weapons. However, at a time when financial support is urgently needed to rebuild Kosovo, they duck their responsibilities. In the westerners' eyes, Milosevic is to blame for all because he was and remains against the will of the West, who are the representative of justice. And many believe the Serbs deserve all their troubles because they chose to support Milosevic. NATO's deliberate attacks on civilian targets and infrastructure amounted to a serious violation of international law. NATO's recent confession that it used depleted uranium weapons during the war is but another slap on an already bruised face. The question now is how an unjustified war could have dominated media worldwide and those who were truly guilty could be free from due punishment? Power without restriction is dangerous. It is an important conception in western politics. But in regard to international affairs, western politicians do not seem to be concerned. Without certain regulations, any regional conflict could balloon into a war so long as western politicians find intervention profitable. Nothing is easier than finding an excuse - anything against their will is against reason or humanity. (China Daily) --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: From China
SCMP Thursday, March 30, 2000 Army pushes Jiang's party unity dictum WILLY WO-LAP LAM President Jiang Zemin is pushing ideological education in the face of rising pro-independence sentiments in Taiwan. To encourage national cohesion, the PLA is spearheading a campaign called "the three representatives". Official media yesterday quoted the PLA's Chief Political Commissar, General Yu Yongbo, as highlighting Mr Jiang's teachings on the fact that the Communist Party was "a true representative" of three things: advanced production forces, advanced culture and "the fundamental interests of the people". General Yu, a Jiang protege, said the campaign would be implemented in tandem with an earlier movement started by Mr Jiang to emphasise "righteousness, studying the Marxist canon and being politically correct". The senior commissar said the two ideological campaigns would be waged in all PLA units. General Yu also pointed out it was important to "boost the construction of grassroots party organisations", a reference to preventing party cells from succumbing to capitalist and other undesirable tendencies. He cited a recent Jiang dictum on the fact that "if the foundation [of the party] is not strong, the ground will tremble and the mountain will shake". Meanwhile, the party's publicity department also held a seminar for regional leaders on the right attitude to take on the domestic and global situation. Department officials were quoted in official press yesterday as citing the need to convince the populace that "only socialism can develop China" and that "the renaissance of the Chinese race can only be accomplished under the Communist Party's leadership". A political source in Beijing said Mr Jiang was anxious to defuse the crisis of confidence in socialism and in the party's leadership, which might be exacerbated by the unexpected victory of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in presidential polls in Taiwan. The source said the party leadership also needed the people's support if it were to take "resolute action" against the administration of DPP stalwart Chen Shui-bian. Since Mr Chen's victory, the Jiang leadership has been criticised for its "weak" Taiwan policy. In the past month, the party leadership has also tightened surveillance over dissidents and underground political organisations. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: From China
Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/30/00 06:09PM But why did you choose this item? What conclusions do you draw from it? _ CB: Just my routine commie news service function. Also, one of "facts" in trying to decide what is going on in China is that the Party still claims to be Communist, that socialism is still their long term goal. That's still different than what is going on in Russia, where they don't even claim it in words. CB At 11:58 30/03/00 -0500, you wrote: SCMP Thursday, March 30, 2000 Army pushes Jiang's party unity dictum WILLY WO-LAP LAM President Jiang Zemin is pushing ideological education in the face of rising pro-independence sentiments in Taiwan. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: Capital is wrong
Well, I didn't mean that he was a fascist, just "to the right " of Marx. But also, it was a joke. CB Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/13/00 09:50PM G'day Chas, CB: I could go with you are right and Marx is left. I don't agree with George at all, but I do reckon a leftie is not obliged to agree with Marx, nor with others' interpretations of Marx. And I don't reckon there's anything particularly right-wing about refuting the predominance of the commodity form - it just ain't Marxist, that's all. Cheers, Rob. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: For Overloading Eschelon
Bugs Bunny may be a descendent of Br'er Rabbit, who was a subversive slave symbolized as a Bunny who outsmarted his master often. Br'er Rabbit was also Doc Rabbit. Bugs Bunny's famous line is "Ahh, What's up , Doc ?" Note "What's up ?" as a greeting is now popular again in the Rabbit community. CB Hinrich Kuhls [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/09/00 05:48PM FYI. btw, does anyone know why Bugs Bunny is on the following list of key words?/Jerry Don't know. But mega is also quite nice a key word on that list. HK --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Motown meets Marxism: Book Review from Detroit Metrotimes
What's goin' on?! Motown meets Marxism in a searching new study of Detroit roots. by Carleton S. Gholz 2/16/00 Motown let Marvin Gaye comment explicitly on black reality. Produced in the streets on Detroit. Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit by Suzanne E. Smith Harvard University Press $24.95, 320 pp. Unlike nostalgic histories of Motown such as Berry Gordy*s autobiography, To Be Loved, and Nelson George*s chronological study, Where Did Our Love Go: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound, Suzanne E. Smith*s new Dancing in the Street neither concentrates exclusively on the stories of Motown*s protagonists nor relegates its interest in Motown to a simple fascination with pop trivia. Instead, Smith*s book is a political work of anti-nostalgia and de-individualization, an important and necessary disruption of "public memory" regarding Motown that concentrates on the things spectacular consumer merchandise such as The Big Chill and the 1998 Super Bowl halftime show leave out: production and roots. Dancing in the Street*s analysis takes on the conditions that made Motown possible * many of them established years before Berry Gordy Jr. switched from boxing to songwriting. These conditions, Smith argues, were produced in the streets of Detroit in the years leading to Motown*s ascendance. A growing black community, locked out of both mainstream politics and mainstream culture, was able to assemble a rich mosaic of strategies to better the lives of black people. It*s within this very specific historical framework, fraught with the hopes, fears and day-to-day realities of black Detroit, that Smith locates the music and politics of Motown. Smith*s early chapters examine particular movements and moments in black Detroit*s struggle for freedom * such as Detroit*s 1963 "Great March to Freedom" which featured an early version of Martin Luther King Jr.*s "I Have a Dream" speech (recorded and distributed by Motown). She details Motown*s own parallel struggles to establish itself as a black-owned business that produced and distributed the synthesized fruits of black culture. These sections look at everything from the name and inspiration behind Gordy Sr.*s Booker T. Washington Grocery Store, to the recording career of the Rev. C.L. Franklin, Aretha*s father. The grocery allows Smith to make connections between the Gordy family and the key tenets of black nationalism, while the Reverend*s story brings out Detroit*s history of black struggle and sound recordings (Franklin*s sermons were distributed by Chess Records out of Chicago). Thus, Franklin was one of the greatest preachers of his time and one of Detroit*s first major recording stars. In later chapters, Smith investigates Detroit politics and culture via Motown*s Black Forum subsidiary, a label that produced such un-Hitsville recordings as Poets of the Revolution, Guess Who*s Coming Home?: Black Men Recorded Live in Vietnam and Free Huey! Poets Langston Hughes and Detroit*s Margaret Danner*s efforts to be recorded by Black Forum * despite the parent label*s on-again-off-again interest in the project * are set within the growing violence and frustration in Detroit that peaked in the 1967 rebellion. Similarly, Smith compares events such as the creation of DRUM (Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement) by black workers at Dodge Main with the songwriting work slowdowns and stoppages of Hitsville*s most efficient songwriting team, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland, creators of "Where Did Our Love Go?" "Reach Out I*ll Be There," "Nowhere to Run," and many other songs. In both situations, Smith argues, black workers fought against working on a production line, whether it was in a factory in Hamtramck or a house on West Grand Boulevard. These comparisons culminate in Smith*s discussions of why Motown artists Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, the Temptations and others felt the need to comment more explicitly on their realities as black people, despite the teenage lyrics and themes generally encouraged by the label*s front office. This late-*60s / early-*70s groundswell of message music is one of Motown*s most significant cultural legacies, with Marvin Gaye*s "Inner City Blues," Stevie Wonder*s "Living for the City" and the Temptations* "Ball of Confusion (That*s What the World Is Today)" leading Smith*s list. Dancing in the Street is a wonderful blend of thorough research, firsthand interviews and an impassioned discussion of the music which keeps the book far away from the suffocating reaches of the academy. Smith, a Detroit native, has found in Motown*s apparent order (its arrangements, performers and beats) the perfect juxtaposition to Detroit*s growing disorder (in the riots, police violence and cultural devastation of urban renewal). --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Class struggle
"Those who preach the doctrine of the class struggle are always persecuted by those who practice it". -George Bernard Shaw --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: hoaxes and the health of capitalism
Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] 02/10/00 06:02PM I have just looked up the first reference to Marx again that caught my eye: "The public debt becomes one of the most powerful levers of primitive accumulation. As with the stroke of an enchanter's wand, it endows unproductive money with the power of creation and thus turns it into capital." So reduction of the public debt from this point of view is progressive even if it is not revolutionary ... or should we think otherwise? CB: One of my slogans is " repudiate the U.S. national "debt" ". That would be a radical reform. It can be put in popular terms. Why should the government on behalf of the people owe a bunch of bankers a debt. They should owe us with all they have been ripping off, and all the money put into protecting their investments overseas. Hugh: Except to lull us into thinking that it's never been stronger, of course, and that our best political hope is a weaker capitalism with a kinder, gentler regime. Maybe Doug should run for president. Please no, third party attempts within the US two party system are a major recipe for wasted efforts. But what of a half-way goal of a "weaker capitalism with a kinder gentler regime"? Why not? And a weaker capitalism would be less able to resist further advances... So what about restriction of the power of rentier capital and landed capital, and increased legislation and monitoring to promote social production controlled by social foresight? Not red-blooded enough for Hugh, but a step on the way? No? CB: Marxists struggle for reforms and for revolution. How would the above be struggled for in a revolutionary manner ? Revolutionaries in the U.S. struggled for many reforms such as legalization of industrial unions, unemployment insurance, welfare for the poor, Social Security, anti-racist and anti-lynch laws, etc. CB --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: WARNING! Two dangerous viruses
Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] 02/09/00 02:04PM Congrats, Hugh! You've fallen for two hoaxes in one message (and I'm not even counting the death agony of capitalism. If you don't believe me (and why should you?) check out http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/wobbler-hoax.html and http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/perrin.exe.hoax.html. CB: One thing we know. These may be hoaxes, but they are not conspiracies. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: News from Austria
Dear Comrades - here in Vienna the demonstrations are going on. In the afternoon, the Ministries for Social Affairs (FP) and the Miniitry for Economy (Popular Party) were occupied by several 100 protesters, the bulk of them members of far-left organizations and anarchists. The new Minister for Internal Affairs (Popular Party) said in an interview, that an "explosive device was found in the Ministry of Social Affairs" - in fact, the speaker of the Viennese police corrected several minutes ago his own minister: They just found a bottle with iced water :-)) Now, at 18:30 CET, some fourthousand people are again rallying at the Ballhausplatz, in front of the Bundeskanzleramt and the office of President Klestil. Another bulk of some 800 people holds a meeting in front of the Parliament building. IMPORTANT: For today, the [old] government has forbidden all demonstrations at Ballhausplatz!!! Again, there are quite large numbers of declared Trade-Union members, shop stewards and TU representatives among the demonstrators. The president of the Austrian Federation od Trade Unions, Fritz Verzetnitsch (SP), attacked today the "antisocial and brutasl programme of this government" and announced "harsh resistance", not excluding (and that is strong for a good soialdemocrat!) strikes against the most brutal points of the black-blue government s plans. Tomorrow, there will be at least one central protest at 17.oo CET at the Heldenplatz (were Hitler spoke in 1938). It seems, that the Trade Union of the Iron and Steel workers will send delegations in special trains from the other provinces. More news as soon as possible! Kurt (already without voice because of all the slogans that have to be shouted) --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: The battle for Mannesmann:
First concentration camps were U.S. bourgeoisie imposed on indigenous Americans in the form of socalled "reservations". CB Peter Farruggio [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/31/00 11:24AM 2. According to Trotsky's personal order (who was the Commissar of War in the Civil War), first concentration camps, in their modern sense, were developed (not in Nazi Germany as many think). The concentration camps were supposed to make Red Terror more efficient. Trotsky developed a theory of concentration camps as place of mass killing and "re-education." No court, no guilt was necessary to get there. The idea of forced camp labor was introduced. Trotsky saw concentration camps as experiments in social engineering. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Reparations for unpaid labor: Judeo-Christian myths andlegends
Bible Supports Reparations for Slavery! Affiliation of Detroit Community Activists: Please Give Us Your Feedback and Ideas for Website: Bible Supports Reparations for Slavery! By Carl on Wednesday, January 26, 2000 - 08:12 am: Exodus 3:21-22 Original Afri(k)an Heritage Study Bible King James' Version, Gen. Ed. Rev. Cain Hope Felder Ph.d, James C. Winston Publishing Co., Nashville, TN 1993 "When you leave slavery - you will not leave poor. But every former Slave Woman shall take jewels of silver and gold and clothing from the former SlaveMasters and you shall put them on your children, you shall take property away from the former Slavemasters." By Anonymous on Wednesday, January 26, 2000 - 10:17 am: That happened to be the instruction to Israel to "plunder" Egypt. By Anonymous on Wednesday, January 26, 2000 - 11:54 am: Yes, the Bible is a book of Jewish myths and legends. It is valuble as many histories and stories of peoples around the world are valuble past experience that the current generation may learn from. Black people in the U.S. and "America" ( the land of the Indigenous Peoples stolen by the Europeans), had first enormous experience as slaves. So, it makes sense that many themes in the Judaic holy books should resonate with the experience of us here, because the mode of production in the historical period of the Old and New Testaments of Jewish history was a slave mode of production. However, we must move forward to other than a liberation from specifically a slave condition, because we have won that specific battle. Our oppression now is a different form than slavery. So, we must move beyond the Jewish Bible. We can take the sense of the Jewish Bible and our own good wisdom that those injured should be compensated. Thus, reparations for slavery are Judaeo-Christian and pan-Human! , all peoples recognize some form of compensation for harm, being made whole or being "repaired" or reparations. Also, the "slavery" of Egypt may have been more of an apprenticeship. The Jews travelled to Egypt. I don't think they were captured. Moses was made a leader by the first Pharoah. So, we cannot be sure exactly what was this relationship between the Jews from the wilderness and the long time existing Black civilization in Egypt. We cannot only look to the Jewish propaganda books as to what this relationship was. The Jewish Bible is not the only word of Truth and Wisdom. Black Americans should also look to the myths and legends of the Indigenous American Peoples for wisdom of fundamental humanity on Earth. What of reparations for the Indigenous peoples ? Then African Americans should properly take their request for compensation on this land to Native Peoples, the true owners of this particular place on Earth, despite the European usurpation. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: On actually existing proto-fascism
January 2000 Along the Color Line No Rights Whites Must Respect By Dr. Manning Marable [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the Dred Scott decision of 1857, the Supreme Court turned down a petition for freedom from an enslaved African American. The author of the court's ruling, Chief Justice Roger B. Tawney, declared that blacks could never be granted equal protection under the law or civil rights, because they were inherently inferior to whites, and forever would be. Tawney observed that "the unhappy black race" had always "been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. Negroes were beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The infamous Dred Scott decision reaffirmed the fundamental legal condition of African Americans, not as citizens or human beings, but as property. Black people were to be treated by law enforcement officers and the courts primarily based on the color of their skin. Yet despite the nearly 150 years since the Dred Scott decision, African Americans still encounter nearly identical racist attitudes from the police and the courts. Among thousands of cases in recent years that make this point, one of the best is provided by certain bizarre events in Oneonta, New York, in 1992. A 77-year-old white woman phoned the Oneonta police that she had been attacked by a burglar. She was unable to see the man's face, but she thought the assailant was a black man who may have cut his hand or arm with the knife used in the robbery. This was all the "evidence" the police needed. Every African American male in the town was to be stopped and checked. African American men and boys waiting for public transportation were all stopped and interrogated. Black men found riding in automobiles were pulled over and questioned. Local and state police then demanded that academic officials at the State University of New York at Oneonta campus turn over a list of all black male students. Students were interrogated, and checked for wounds. Finding no suspects, the cops began questioning every African American they could find both in and around the city of Oneonta. Everyone stopped was innocent, and the assailant was not apprehended. Civil rights and civil liberties groups were appalled by these police state tactics, and the state's Governor at that time, Mario Cuomo, apologized for this official misconduct. Several black people filed a legal suit, charging that cops had blatantly violated their civil rights. Late last year, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the case, and made a decision-in favor of the police. In its ruling, the judges declared that the racial dragnet used to identify, stop and interrogate only black men did not violate their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure, nor their Fourteenth Amendment Rights to equal protection regardless of race. The court recognized that the hundreds of innocent people who had been humiliated and violated by the police might feel a "sense of frustration." Nevertheless, the court declared that the police sweep was not racially discriminatory because the cops were acting on a physical description of the suspect that included more than racial identity. The Oneonta decision of 1999 was so outrageous that even the New York Times editorialized that the federal appeals court's decision could mean that "police are free to treat every black person they see on the streets as a potential suspect, so long as there is a pending complaint that a black person committed a crime." In effect, this ruling gives police the right to stop, question and harass any black person, anywhere and anytime, if they have an allegation that a black person somewhere committed a crime. However, the Oneonta case is also representative and indicative of the hundreds of indiscriminate and routine stops and searches that happen to blacks and Latinos in every U.S. city everyday. A recent report of the New York Attorney General's office on racial disparities in street searches by the New York City Police Department provides more evidence. The study was based on a thorough review of 175,000 documented cases in which individuals were stopped by the New York police over a 15-month period in 1998-1999. The study found that African Americans were stopped six times more often than whites, and Latinos were stopped four times more frequently than whites. Blacks comprise 25 percent of New York City's total population, but are one half of all the people police stopped. Dred Scott is unfortunately still alive and well in America's racist criminal justice system. Despite all the legal and legislative reforms, apparently African
M-TH: Tony Blair's unstately pleasure dome
Tony Blair's unstately pleasure dome By William Pomeroy LONDON, England - Only once in 1,000 years does a date present itself as an ideal vantage point for viewing such a long perspective of past and future. Jan. 1, 2000 was that kind of moment. Whether seen in a Christian context or from the standpoint of people shaping their history, it provided a unique opportunity to sum up the good and the bad of human experience and to call for a future based on the best of it. Few New Year celebrations around the world approached the millennium in that mood, preferring fireworks to reflection. In London, however, the New Labor government of Prime Minister Tony Blair went allout to erect a monument to Britain's greatness, spanning the past millennium and the one to come, to impress the world. Constructed over a period of more than two-and-a-half years, from the time Labor came to its present rule, was a huge peculiar edifice called the Millennium Dome. In actuality it was conceived by the previous Tory administration and was continued by the Blair government like many other Tory acts and policies. It was built on the south bank of the Thames River on industrial wasteland in the district of Greenwich. Resembling a gigantic circus tent, with its steel supporting columns thrusting up through the reef like exposed spines, the Millennium Dome and the 15 "zones" or exhibit areas within it, has cost the colossal sum of 758 million lbs. or $1.3 billion. Furthermore, sitting remote from transportation routes, it required the construction of a new branch line of the London Underground with new stations. Above all, the Millennium Dome has been Tony Blair's project, which he has hailed throughout with ever-ascending rhetoric, linking it with his vague Third Way and expecting it to win international acclaim and votes for Labor in the next election. Enthused Blair: "This is Britian's opportunity to greet the world with a celebration that is bold, so beautiful that it embodies at once the spirit of confidence and adventure in Britain and the spirit of the future in the world. I believe that anyone interested in Britain's future will share my view that this is going to be a huge asset for the country as a symbol of British confidence, a monument to our creativity." The Dome was opened on New Year's Eve with a special performance to which 10,000 peoplehad been invited. The fiasco began then. Tickets failed to reach 3,000 of those invited. An enormous ferris wheel the largest in the worldhad been erected on the adjacent river bank. It was to have its first ride for a select group to view celebrating London, but it had a defect and wouldn't operate. For the Thames at midnight a "river of Fire of fireworks" was advertised, to flow past the Dome; it was a dismal flop. Within the Dome, the performance was mainly of mediocre pop groups. Criticisms of the badly-managed Dome launching after its long preparation began to trickle into the media the next day but they became a flood when the Dome opened to the public the next day, and its zone contents were experienced. They had virtually nothing to do with British achievement or progress over a millennium, being chiefly gimmicky equipment for amusement. There was no theme, no message, no spirit of the future, let alone of the past or present. To break even on the huge cost of the Dome, a target of 12 million visitors has been set for the coming year, paying 20 pounds per adult (roughly 33 dollars) for admission. That averages out to 35,000 visitors a day. In the first week the average number, despite the enormous publicity build-up, was less than half of that, falling to 10,000 at the end of the week. By that time, in half the zones the gadgetry and machines had broken down. Teething problems, said managers. Above all the criticisms grown the enormous cost of the Millennium Dome when the National Health Service is in acute need of funds for hospitals, hospital beds, recruitment of nurses at adequate pay, and reduction of waiting lists for operations. As the Dome opened, a flu epidemic hit Britain, with the dead being stored in refrigertor trucks in car parks because of lack of morgue space. The majority of visitors to the Dome said it was not worth the expenditure on it and was not a fitting tribute to 21st-century Britain. One criticism is that the zones were built with the sponsorship of private companies, which carries with it the Inevitable commercialization advertising becoming as the spirit of the millennium. An extensive renovation of the Dome is preposed with the bringing in of more private participation, meaning more commercialization. In his New Year address prior to opening the Dome, Blair proclaimed that Britian in the coming century and millennium will be "a beacon for the world." Blair's tendency to be carried away by the tide of his own rhetoric has now put him in the awkward position of having a
M-TH: Mike Hamlin Retires
January 2000 Mike Hamlin Retires but Continues the Struggle for Justice By Charles E. Simmons [EMAIL PROTECTED] When veteran labor and human rights activist Mike Hamlin retired recently, hundreds of well-wishers turned out at Detroit's historic UAW Local 600 union hall to pay tribute to one of the Motor City's leading servants in a career dedicated to the struggle for social justice. As a founding member 30 years ago of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM), the Black Worker's Congress, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the son of Mississippi sharecroppers was a trailblazer in the battle against racism and sexism in the auto industry and also contributed to the building of bridges between workers and community organizations of various racial and ethnic groups. He forged unity between African Americans and organizations such as the Chicano-based La Raza in the U.S. southwestern states in their efforts to establish their legitimate and historical right to be in the U.S. And in Michigan he supported the call of Chicanos and Puerto Ricans to oppose police brutality and to abolish the negative labels such as 'wetbacks' and 'illegal aliens.' Hamlin gave support to and helped to promote the Puerto Rican call for their independence from the U.S., an issue that has been forcefully resurrected recently as a human rights violation as a result of the U.S. Navy conducting frequent and live bombardment on inhabited land that belongs to the Caribbean nation. The former Ecorse High School star athlete in basketball and football found common ground between African American and Arab factory workers in Dearborn and Detroit to dispel negative stereotypes surrounding religious practices and dress and to gain the support of the Arab laborers in the struggle for worker's rights. As Hamlin recalls, "I was involved personally with Ishmael Ahmed and others in Dearborn when they first formed the civil rights group, ACCESS." Who would have predicted that the former U.S. Army Sergeant stationed in Korea and specializing in heavy artillery in the late 1950s would a decade later meet with ambassadors from Vietnam and Cuba and become one of the early leaders in America's greatest grassroots peace movement that would stop the U.S. bombing of Vietnam? Who would have guessed that Sergeant Hamlin would pioneer in the call for the establishment of peaceful relations between Washington and Havana which--seven U.S. presidents later--still remains an ugly and festering sore in U.S. policy at the dawn of the new millennium? Although as a returning veteran he was hired as a jumper on delivery trucks for the defacto segregated Detroit News in the early 1960s, a few years later, Hamlin along with General Baker and others, was one of the founders of the revolutionary newspaper, The Inner City Voice (ICV) which championed the cause of rank-and-file workers against unfair labor practices. The bold and fearless paper staffed by students, workers and community activists, called for an end to all forms of discrimination throughout Detroit and the surrounding communities where the workers resided. In case it has been forgotten by elders or never known by younger readers, it must be pointed out that in the 1950s and 1960s African American Detroiters suffered daily injustices of discrimination in housing, education, health care, public facilities, and public and private employment. There was openly abusive police brutality by a nearly all-white police force. Detroit had a a segregated Fire Department and civil service, and Blacks had little or no political representation at the local, state and national level. The Inner City Voice also opposed U.S. policies of promoting international racism in the form of war and oppression abroad. After graduation from Wayne State University with a Masters degree in Social Work with an emphasis on Community Organizing, Hamlin constructed new paths in the area of crisis management and conflict resolution, and provided therapy for workers who suffer from the intense stress of the industrial environment. As he told authors of the 1998 update of 'Detroit, I Do Mind Dying', "I'm the one they call in when there is violence in a factory--a shooting, a knifing, or threats that neither management nor the union can deal with." Indeed, during the recent retirement tributes at the Local 600 auditorium, one after another speaker recounted the tragic drama of Hamlin regularly rushing to the scene of emergency to talk with honesty and sensitivity to an embattled worker armed with a rifle or automatic weapon who had decided to take out his revenge against a system and bosses and to end his or her own life in the process. In varying degrees of conflict, these were among the thousands of troubled autoworkers and their families who Hamlin counseled during his last decade as a therapist. Some of these tragedies such as the multiple shootings at auto plants in Ford Rouge and Wixom made banner headlines, but most
M-TH: What was the origin of AIDS ?
The other is bio engineering The leading scientific theory is that the Aids virus somehow crossed over from another species into the human population in the last half century or so. Just think what would have happened if the "jump" had taken place, say, after the last ice age, when settlement of the Americas had begun, and that it never crossed the Bering straights. People over here would be scratching their heads wondering why there were no people in Europe, Asia or Africa. Especially once their science advanced enough to see that the human race must somehow have started over there and gotten wiped out. CB: I thought the real leading scientific theory on the origin of HIV virus is that it was created through bio engineering in a CIA/MI 5 (or some other#) laboratory in experiments to make biological weapons. CB --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: latest mergers
Subject: Latest company mergers In the wake of the Exxon/Mobil deal and the AOL/Netscape deal, here are the latest mergers we can expect to see: Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W.R. Grace Company merge to become Hale Mary Fuller Grace. Polygram Records, Warner Brothers, and Keebler Crackers merge to become Polly-Warner-Cracker. 3M and Goodyear merge to become MMMGood. John Deere and Abitibi-Price merge to become Deere Abi. Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining merge to become Zip Audi Do Da. Honeywell, Imasco, and Home Oil merge to become Honey I'm = home. Denison Mines, and Alliance and Metal Mining merge to become MineAll Mine. Federal Express and UPS merge to become FED UP. Xerox and Wurlitzer will merge and begin manufacturing reproductive organs. Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will merge and become Fairwell Honeychild. 3M, J.C. Penney and the Canadian Opera Company will merge and become 3 Penney Opera. Grey Poupon Dockers Pants will merge and become Poupon Pants. Knott's Berry Farm National Organization of Women will merge and become Knott NOW --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: From another list on nation
Ghebremichael: Norm is talking about STALIN's theory of nations, not LENIN's. Lenin probably agreed with Stalin's definition of "nation" in 1913, when Stalin wrote "Marxism and the National Question," but that was before Lenin began seriously to study the dynamics of the colonial world. Lenin never used Stalin's definition thereafter. In fact, Lenin didn't ever define "nation" in any formal sense, and said absolutely nothing about a definition of "nation" after 1913 or 1914. He never even mentioned Stalin's defnition after 1914.I'm sure that Lenin was aware of the fact that you can't define "nation" in such a way as to to include all real nations of all periods, and to exclude non-nations. So don't burden Lenin with Stalin's defnition, or with Stalin's overall theory of nationalism, which was not useful in the period of imperialism. I wrote about this in an article in Monthly Review in 1977, "Are Puerto Ricans a 'National minority'?" and in a book called _The National Question: Decolonizing the Theory of Nationalism_, Zed 1987. Cheers Jim Blaut --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Re: From another list on nation
Happy New year , to all who like wine and beer. Hugh Rodwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/04/00 01:18PM Sorry Charlie, but this is typical say-nothing bollocks from the "other list". Note that Jim B neither reproduces nor summarizes Stalin's theory or definition, nor Lenin's. CB: I think Lenin has a good start on nationalism and improves on Marx and Lenin, because, Lenin modified the slogan from "Workers of the world unite" to " workers and oppressed peoples of the world ,unite". Yet, even Leninism has had a long concrete history outside of the Soviet Union. And the most important developments in the Marxist-Leninist theory of the nation have been through actual struggles in the enormous independence and anti-colonial movement of the the last 100 plus years. Some of the issues are obvious, but their isn't much dispute that "nation" is a legitimate historical materlialist category , which was sort of disputed in the original exchange of posts here on this thread. The neo-colonies remain the most likely sites of revolution. This is not good, because revolution in the main imperialist nations is the great sine qua non of the first working class efforts toward socialism. But isn't the capitalist expansion of the division of labor and socialisation of production abolishing nations nonetheless. and in this in another way the bourgeoisie are digging their own graves. CB Regardless of definitions, Lenin worked concretely with the national question many times after 1913-14, and is very clear in relation to the significance of Ireland, Finland and Georgia, for instance. And of course a violent opponent of Stalin's favourite practical line of Great Russian Chauvinism (the line that gave the world the obscene name of Great Patriotic War for the Russian element of World War 2). Also I would rather use the word "pernicious" or "counter-revolutionary" or "catastrophic" about Stalin's "overall theory of nationalism" (including of course the inimitable Socialism in One Country) than just saying it was "not useful". Anybody with access to the article or book got anything substantive to say about them? Cheers, Hugh Ghebremichael: Norm is talking about STALIN's theory of nations, not LENIN's. Lenin probably agreed with Stalin's definition of "nation" in 1913, when Stalin wrote "Marxism and the National Question," but that was before Lenin began seriously to study the dynamics of the colonial world. Lenin never used Stalin's definition thereafter. In fact, Lenin didn't ever define "nation" in any formal sense, and said absolutely nothing about a definition of "nation" after 1913 or 1914. He never even mentioned Stalin's defnition after 1914.I'm sure that Lenin was aware of the fact that you can't define "nation" in such a way as to to include all real nations of all periods, and to exclude non-nations. So don't burden Lenin with Stalin's defnition, or with Stalin's overall theory of nationalism, which was not useful in the period of imperialism. I wrote about this in an article in Monthly Review in 1977, "Are Puerto Ricans a 'National minority'?" and in a book called _The National Question: Decolonizing the Theory of Nationalism_, Zed 1987. Cheers Jim Blaut --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Nation
In feudalism, there were manors, which were self-sufficient economic units. With the rise of capitalism, nation-states came about, defined by greatly expanded economic linkages, that is a leap in the division of labor and socialization of labor. So, in this sense the "nation" is a bourgeois entity. But it is not just , ideological, but a material reality, a reality in the relations of production. This material reality does not contradict your claim that it is in the interests of the bourgeoisie, and not the workers of each nation. Marx and Engels reflected your sentiment below by their doctrine of proletarian internationalism. However, to overcome the nation and nation-state, it is necessary to recognize the material or economic as well as ideological nature of them. Also, there has been in the history of capitalism a partially progressive role for organizing anti-colonial liberation movements on the basis of the unity of oppressed nations vis-a-vis oppressor imperialist nations. Today, the big bourgeoisie are becoming significantly transnationalized, which introduces another complication. In other words, now it is in the interest of the big bourgeoisie to promote the notion of no national boundaries in their pursuit of neo-liberal free trade. So soon you may find the bourgeoisie promoting ideas similar to yours that the idea of a nation is an illusion. CB "George Pennefather" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/26/99 03:25PM As I see it "nation" is an ideological construct. It is designed to mobilise a cross class unity in the interests of the "national" bourgeoisie". The nation as a community is an expression of the reified nature of social relations among people. The nation is a reified community. It is a community formed in which there is absent any real direct communal relations between people. Since it is not directly class based it is, in a sense, an artificial community based on an idea or concept --the nation. Nation, then, is false community. It is community based on imagination rather than objective conditions. It is an idealist community with, in a sense, no real basis in fact. Consequently the national community is a very irrational community which is very obstructive in the development of a correct materialist conception of social relations and the nature of capitalism. In short there never have been nor can be nations. It is merely an ideological construct. It is an idea or image used to regulate and control the behaviour of the masses in the interests of capitalism.It is a regulative idea or image designed to obstruct the working class from organising along class line and thereby form a working class community and its corresponding solidarity. To instill the illusion that there exist nations the bourgeoisie by means of the state constrain the working class within specific form of culture and politics. They impose on the working class a common set of themes: language; sport; art; emblems; imagery and pageantry. By the time the bourgeoisie are finished with them the working class are brainwashed into believing that they form part of a particular nation. This national consciousness is superimposed on class consciousness thereby suppressing any sense of class consciousness and solidarity. Warm regards George Pennefather Be free to check out our Communist Think-Tank web site at http://homepage.eircom.net/~beprepared/ --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Festive Greetings
Yes, I thought Communism would be a permanent Party. CB Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/24/99 08:25AM Bugger all this asceticism! It doesn't say anywhere a leftie can't enjoy a bit of convivial excess with his or her fellow human beings, does it? As Monty Python almost said, I wasn't expecting a phalanx of sombre Franciscan friars! So Jesus wasn't actually born on this date, so it's a colonised pagan feast further transformed by crass commercial opportunism, so Jesus is not quite our chap (did enjoy that bit about the turning of the merchant's tables, though), so what? After all, as the saying almost goes, all serious theorising and no wanton Bacchanalia makes lefties dull boyz'n'galz. In my selfless way, I shall be downing a foamy jar for each of you! A very happy Thaxmas to all! Rob. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Re: Christmas
Hugh Rodwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/23/99 08:03AM One of the nicest Christmas Eve's I ever spent (that's the Nordic/German variant) was in bed with a friend reading The State and Revolution to while away the time until she had to go and catch her train to the north. Otherwise it's what you make of it. There are far too few excuses to get together and party (eh Charlie?!) so let's turn those that do crop up into our own -- until we take over and make New Year and various other pagan and revolutionary celebrations so much fun that everyone forgets Jesus and his various miseries. CB: Hugh reminds me of my "poem" for an X-mas party of a new type for the millenia of Women, as follows: I am an alienated atheist. Do you experience these blues ? Let's make a long, long holiday, a play, amuse us.. Merry X-mas, Xppropriate the Xppropriators and Powersthatbe Today: A Critique of X-mas for our Party by Tannika X It is interesting how Santa Claus is sort of the saint of commodity fetishism or buying madness. In an economic culture where buying mania must be instilled in people from the time they are small children, Santa is the perfect mind molestor , and his holiday the biggest on the calendar. The shopping ritual begins (in the U.S.) officially the day after Thanksgiving. This give-your-money-away festival is monthlong. "Shop until you drop as in a religious fervor" is a possible motto for it. Yet, Christmas is a season of great joy as well, real fun and happiness; there's no denying that. People really do get happy and escape alienation with family and friends in feasts. A fundamental unity of opposites in the structure of our spiritual life: materialistic addiction and the birth of love in merriment, plus renewal of life with the new year, all in one cyclical celebration, the Sunday of the Year. For this civilization there is something profound about Christmas, X -mas. Profound but not mysterious. It is a yearly, regular, routine profundity. Years creeping by at a 'petty pace, year after year until the last syllable of recorded time.' Perhaps mysterious in its myth of a virgin birth, virgin because white culture conceives of sex as dirty, sinning, soiled, a vice. The great mystery or trick is not conception without biology and orgasm, but that just as much exchange of commodities and money as exchange of gifts goes on. We are a market, not a stone age economy of gift exchange. See the exchange chains growing. Gift exchange is used to promote commodity exchange really, but from the standpoint of celebration and ceremony, commodity exchange is promoted spiritually. Buying is a high, a good and virtuous high. Well, if you do buy madly, buy in Detroit, but let us also think self-critically about how through buying madness things control us and we don't control things. We become objects and things become subjects, with wills and powers as if alive. The mystery around Santa Claus helps to promote this mystical reversal of the real relations between people and the commodities they buy. Our greatest addiction problem is not "drugs", but our addictiion to commodities, our commodity fetishism, our buying madness, seeking to fulfill ourselves through things not people. People made the things. Let me say it nicer. Celebration is vital. Merry, Happy to y'all. Christmas comes but once a year, and to me it means good cheer, and to everyone who likes wine and beer. Happy New Year is after that. Happy we'll be, and that's a fact. The taboos on the Secrets of Joy prevent this highest happy season in Europe/America from fulfillment. There is a mystery worth reading through, a riddle that will free the Sphinx in you. How do we really make Christmas better or is it perfect already ? The criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism, so let us begin crticism of ceremony, festival, long, long cabaret by asking some questions about Christmas, our highest of holidays, holy of holy rituals. Who was Jesus Christ ? Was he the Son of God ? Does he live still now 1999 years or so since his birth ? If the answer to either of the second two questions is "no" , are we overdoing this holiday a bit ? What is the Santa Claus myth ? What is the relation of Santa Claus to Jesus Christ ? Is the Patriarchal Great White Father of European civilization a net giver or taker, Provider or Xploiting Xppropriator ? Do you dare to eat a peach ? Tragedy is less than comedy, grandeloquent logic is inferior to comedic logic, rather than a folly of despair, let us make a folly as you like it. Lets have fun, fun , fun. Swirling bodies to sweet, sweet voices, decked in Black and joys. I don't only want to pursue happiness, I desire to have it and keep it. Tell the truth, don't you ? It's
M-TH: Re: Vote for Karl Marx!
I'm voting for Harriet Tubman and Lenin. When we say "millenium (a)" we are counting 2000 (1999 because Dennis the Small started the calendar without a zero) years from the approximate birth of Jesus, a man. So, lets dedicate the next two thousand years to women. The Millenia of Women. Women MMM and . Merry X-mas , X-propriate the X-propriators Charles X "Carl Remick" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/17/99 09:57AM 1a. HARRIET TUBMAN AND LENIN 1. Mahatma Gandhi 2. Leonardo da Vinci 3. Nelson Mandela 4. Sir Isaac Newton 5. Albert Einstein 6. Martin Luther King 7. Jesus Christ 8. Sir Winston Churchill 9. Charles Darwin 10. Karl Marx "Real" Marxists would not seek to promote the efforts of one man over other equally revolutionary people. "Real" Marxists would instead be trying to bump Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King up higher, along with Marx, and help keep Gandhi where he is. No offense to Mandela, King or Gandhi, but I did just vote for Karl Marx as person of the millennium on this site for the same reason I applaud the direct-demonstrators in Seattle: This man and those demonstrators are the ones who are most disturbing to mainstream sensibilities; there is no way their message can be coopted. Carl __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Historical vs Dialectical materialism.
Good one , John, You have found even more examples than we did last time,directly from Marx, directly of Marx expressing the opinion that dialectics has validity not only in human history but in natural history. Maybe Marx was wrong, but those who are arguing the other side should say that they disagree with Marx as well as us. CB "J.WALKER" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/13/99 07:07AM Hi, From what I've read it I think that Marx just presumes that the dialective pervades both the physical natural world and its subset the human social world. He had read the ancient writers as we know from his dissertation (a work I haven't read, yet) and they certainly thought that the dialectic was the vitalising force of the universe. Everything was indeed in a state of flux before, including and despite human society. If Marx steeped in this tradition was to object to this assumption he would have had to make quite a strong case that his personal theory was just a unique example of the action of the dialectic which did not exist otherwise. As he did not do this it hard to prove he objected to the evidence Engels and other were trying to analyse to see if Marx's theory was truely scientific or merely yet another example of an accidental discovery by some new genius to manufacture 'as perfect a system of society as possible'. That is, another form of Utopian Socialism. Here are a few more quotes from Marx OWN writings on dialectics existing in nature: 'All that exists, all that lives on land and under the water, exists and lives only by some kind of movement. Thus the movement of history produces social relations...' (The Poverty of Philosophy) In his postscript to Das Kapital he explains how he 'treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence' (Postface to the Second Edition of Das Kapital) 'In natural science is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel, in his Logic, that at a certain point merely quantitive differences pass over by a dialectical inversion into qualative disinctions. The molecular theory of modern chemistry ... rests on no other law.' (Das Kapital, chapter 11) 'The weakness of the abstract materialism of natural science, a materialism which excludes the historical process, are immediately evident from the abstract and ideological conceptions expressed by its spokesman whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own speciality.' (Das Kapital, chapter 15) 'The law Hegel discovered, of purely quantative changes turning into qualative changes, as holding good alike in history and natural science' (letter to Engels, 22.6.1867) 'Darwin's book is very important and serves me well as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history. One has to put up with the crude English method of development' (letter to Lassale 16.1.1861) Clearly it is the English metaphysics which is its failure and presumably he hoped it would be recast with German dialectics. A year earlier he said the same thing to Engels, ' this is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view.' No matter how much one pretends that Marx believed that human thought was somehow beyond nature and therefore human society could have a dialectical history whereas nature was purely static or metaphysically evolutionary, he actually says: 'It is impossible to seperate thought from matter that thinks. Matter is the subject of all changes.' (The Holy Family) This is far from an exhausive survey and there are many more refences which do not as easily transfer in to breif quotes. I think that the Postface is the clearest example of the rise of interest in the issue and Marx's implied position that his theory was equally applicable to natural science, though clearly much more work had to be done on the subject. Are all these works just frauds? Did the evil Engels, in his meglomaniacical grasp for fame and fortune on the back of poor old Marx, slip all these quotes in to stengthen his own perverted argument? Is there a secret, yet-to-be published manuscript by Marx which will reveal his true position? Perhaps, 'My Theories are Inapplicable to Natural Science.' ! Please do explain I would love to know. John Walker --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Historical vs Dialectical materialism.
The following is more demonstration of dialectics as process of natural history : Reason and Revolt: Marxism and Science by Alan Woods and Ted Grant online @ http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~zac/maindex.htm CB ( Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/13/99 09:00AM You've convinced me, John! I'm off to buy up big on E-Bay and Amazon - that should keep me in lager and tabs whilst I observe the natural transformation of capitalism into its one and only immanent other from my verandah. Bugger decades of penury in the reading room, eh? Cheers, Rob. Hi, From what I've read it I think that Marx just presumes that the dialective pervades both the physical natural world and its subset the human social world. He had read the ancient writers as we know from his dissertation (a work I haven't read, yet) and they certainly thought that the dialectic was the vitalising force of the universe. Everything was indeed in a state of flux before, including and despite human society. If Marx steeped in this tradition was to object to this assumption he would have had to make quite a strong case that his personal theory was just a unique example of the action of the dialectic which did not exist otherwise. As he did not do this it hard to prove he objected to the evidence Engels and other were trying to analyse to see if Marx's theory was truely scientific or merely yet another example of an accidental discovery by some new genius to manufacture 'as perfect a system of society as possible'. That is, another form of Utopian Socialism. Here are a few more quotes from Marx OWN writings on dialectics existing in nature: 'All that exists, all that lives on land and under the water, exists and lives only by some kind of movement. Thus the movement of history produces social relations...' (The Poverty of Philosophy) In his postscript to Das Kapital he explains how he 'treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence' (Postface to the Second Edition of Das Kapital) 'In natural science is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel, in his Logic, that at a certain point merely quantitive differences pass over by a dialectical inversion into qualative disinctions. The molecular theory of modern chemistry ... rests on no other law.' (Das Kapital, chapter 11) 'The weakness of the abstract materialism of natural science, a materialism which excludes the historical process, are immediately evident from the abstract and ideological conceptions expressed by its spokesman whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own speciality.' (Das Kapital, chapter 15) 'The law Hegel discovered, of purely quantative changes turning into qualative changes, as holding good alike in history and natural science' (letter to Engels, 22.6.1867) 'Darwin's book is very important and serves me well as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history. One has to put up with the crude English method of development' (letter to Lassale 16.1.1861) Clearly it is the English metaphysics which is its failure and presumably he hoped it would be recast with German dialectics. A year earlier he said the same thing to Engels, ' this is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view.' No matter how much one pretends that Marx believed that human thought was somehow beyond nature and therefore human society could have a dialectical history whereas nature was purely static or metaphysically evolutionary, he actually says: 'It is impossible to seperate thought from matter that thinks. Matter is the subject of all changes.' (The Holy Family) This is far from an exhausive survey and there are many more refences which do not as easily transfer in to breif quotes. I think that the Postface is the clearest example of the rise of interest in the issue and Marx's implied position that his theory was equally applicable to natural science, though clearly much more work had to be done on the subject. Are all these works just frauds? Did the evil Engels, in his meglomaniacical grasp for fame and fortune on the back of poor old Marx, slip all these quotes in to stengthen his own perverted argument? Is there a secret, yet-to-be published manuscript by Marx which will reveal his true position? Perhaps, 'My Theories are Inapplicable to Natural Science.' ! Please do explain I would love to know. John Walker --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Response to John on the dialectic
Rob, _Anti-Duhring_ is very good to read. Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/13/99 12:24PM G'day Thaxists, John has prodded me back to *Anti-Duhring* - and what a good read it is, too (I've always maintained that, whilst Marx could deliver himself of some world-historic passages, Engels was the better read over any distance). Anyway, I reckon a would-be historical materialist, such as my but recently apprenticed self, can even find sustenance in this book. Funny thing is, over on LBO, I'm pretty well locked in as hopeless defender of crass old-fashioned materialism (at least I think this is the case - they can be pretty hard to follow over there), whilst here my ascribed tag seems that of boojie idealist. Of course, I reckon I'm arguing from the same spot on each list - but what's avowal when it's up agin ascription, eh? Anyway, to business ... In chapter nine, Engels divides 'the realm of knowledge' into 'three great departments'. The first encompasses what may be known as something approximating eternal truth and is necessarily confined to the inanimate world, which is wont eternally to repeat its motions in a patterned way (not at all a dynamic which would fall under 'dialectical motion', I submit). (( Charles: But even the solar system has a history. And what about the big bang or whatever the latest theory of the history of the universe ? ( The second is the biological department. Here we may arrive at very few 'big T' truths (only females menstruate or give birth are some of the few examples that present themselves), for: "In this field there is such a multiplicity of interrelationships and causalities that not only does the solution of each question give rise to a host of other questions, but each separate problem can in most cases only be solved piecemeal, through a series of investigations which often require centuries; and besides, the need for a systematic presentation of interconnections makes it necessary again and again to surround the final and ultimate truths with a luxuriant growth of hypotheses." Engels moves on thusly: "But eternal truths are in an even worse plight in the third, the historical, group of sciences, which study in their historical sequence and in their present resultant state the conditions of human life, social relationships, forms of law and government, with their ideal superstructure in the shape of philosophy, religion, art, etc. ... *In social history, however, the repetition of conditions is the exception and not the rule, once we pass beyond the primitive state of man, the so-called Stone Age; and when such repetitions occur, they never arise under exactly similar circumstances*." ***And THEN Engels writes this: "We might have made mention above also of the sciences which investigate the laws of human thought, i.e., logic and dialectics."*** Seems to me he's saying the dialectic is a science which investigates the laws of human thought ... ((( Charles: Yes, the laws of motion of human thought. There is formal logic , for which there is not change; and dialectics for which there is change. The rule of formal logic is non-contradiction. The rule of dialectics is contradiction. These correspond somewhat to Hegel's understanding ( formal logic) and reason ( dialectics), except , of course, Hegel is an idealist. ((( And I find the quote reproduced below interesting, too. I agree with it, for a start - but find also in it an implicit definition of nature as the product of human reflection upon human sensuous activity. On this view, we can never get that 'overall picture' the dialectical materialist posits in his/her 'all moves through contradictory unity, and all is knowable thus'. We can but see within the bounds set by our epoch and the limits of our own being. Thus, I reckon, sprach the historical materialist. Here's Engels, then - see what you think. "The perception that all the processes of nature are systematically connected drives science on to prove this systematic connection throughout, both in general and in particular. But an adequate, exhaustive scientific exposition of this interconnection, the formation of an exact mental image of the world system in which we live, is impossible for us, and will always remain impossible. If at any time in the development of mankind such a final, conclusive system of the interconnections within the world -- physical as well as mental and historical -- were brought about, this would mean that human knowledge had reached its limit, and, from the moment when society had been brought into accord with that system, further historical development would be cut short -- which would be an absurd idea, sheer nonsense. Mankind therefore finds itself faced with a contradiction: on the one hand, it has to gain an exhaustive knowledge of the world system in all its interrelations; and on the other hand, because of the nature both of men and of the world system, this
Re: M-TH: Response to John on the dialectic
Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/13/99 12:24PM
Funny thing is, over on LBO, I'm pretty well locked in as hopeless defender
of crass old-fashioned materialism (at least I think this is the case -
they can be pretty hard to follow over there)
Charles: Proud to have another vulgar materialist with me.
"Bob Malecki" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/17 11:47 PM
Charles gleefully writes!
By vulgar marxism I mean a constructive critic of fancy marxism and its
left-liberal cousins. My general attitude is to extract the rational kernel
from the modern and post-modern left neo and paleo liberals from Hegel to
post-Foucaultists. So, I like the kernel of truth metaphor used in the list
discussion in the last day.
As to the true universal Doug asked Yoshie for, I would build it. not on
a new idea, but Marx and Feuerbach's species-being. All of the workers and
other people represented by other social movements are human species-beingsAlthough
biiology only limits us human beings because we have culture
(super-natures and natures ) this contradiction between biology and culture
is still where it is at in generating universals or big generals.
Being determines consciousness is still a focal rule of thumb (guide to
action) for building a universal, real common interests among huge numbers
of people, the masses.
My first post-Marx development of species-being is to derive women's
libertion organically from historical materialism's premises, as Marx and
Engels derive workers' liberation from those species-being historical
premises. It is a correction of classical Marxism, but based on Marxsim's
own premises. In ways its too vulgar for pomos and fancy marxists.
However, the pomos and their old cousins, Frankfurt school, Gramsci,
exitentialists, et al. all the fancy marxists have taught us something:
being determines consciousness discontinuously, intermittmently, rarely.
Through most of the actual time of history, consciousness and being are
reciprocally determining. Only rarely, in revolutions, primarily and
ultimately does being utterly determine consciousness.
Today, that means that the direct naked appeal to the working class' class
self-interest is inadequate in itself-necessary but not sufficient in the
formal logical sense -to inspire revolution. That appeal cannot be
dropped - the vast majority are working class, wage laborers - but must be
complemented with appeals to other consciousness, other consciousness
determined by being (gender, for example) and consciousness that is
determined more by consciousness.
Overall one wants to change the world based on interpreting it, changing
it through practical-critical activity, a unity of theory and practice
still.
All Power to the People as a whole.
Charles Brown, your new comrade
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: Meszaros article: Communism Is No Utopia
But Engels upheld the main thesis. Only some programmatic particulars were out of date, not the main thesis of historical materialism, dictatorship of the proletariat, struggle up to and including barricades and revolutionary war. CB "The World Socialist movement (via The Socialist Party of Great Britain)" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/02/99 07:26PM Dear Charles, A preface to the Communist Manifesto. I couldn't remember the exact year, but it was a few years after Capital 1 came out I think. Simon P.S. They said something like "although this would be written very differently now, we leave it as an historical document". S. -- "The World Socialist movement (via The Socialist Party of Great Marx disavowed this 1848 solution a couple of decades later: already he considered the barricade/ dictatorship of the proletariat route to be past its sell by date in europe. ((( Charles: What is your evidence of this ? CB --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Historical vs Dialectical materialism.
Lew [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/09/99 04:03PM In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], J.WALKER [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes Also when Engels wrote (and presumeably while he was writing) Anti-During - as a manifesto of their joint position within the German Socialist Workers Party - we would have to believe he neither read it or knew what it contained (we do know Marx had a copy.) It is hard to prove he read it (harder to prove he didn't!), The story, according to Engels, is that he read the entire manuscript to Marx. This was an odd thing to say - Marx could read, and his health was good at this time. Also Engels' comment about "our joint position" was also made after Marx's death. Engels never made such a presumptuous comment while Marx was alive and, in fact, he was careful to defer to Marx as the leading thinker. Charles: Yes, but after Marx was dead, it would have been superstitous to defer to him as the leading thinker. Marx wouldn't have wanted Engels to stand mute because Marx was dead. What would have happened to the last three volumes of Capital ? As to joint work, do you think that Marx didn't notice that Engels's name was on _The Communist Manifesto_. It takes an extreme contortion not to see that Marx's correspondence and much other work is literally dripping with evidence that he considered his work to be joint with Engels's. ( The plausible conclusion by Terrell Carver in a number of books is that, after Marx died, there was an enormous explosion of interest in Marx's work. Engels became busy and famous as a populariser of Marx's work, and in the process added his own gloss, and sometimes to Marx's detriment, e.g. with the dialectic. Charles: The reasoning here is premissed on the false idea that Engels wasn't working full blast and contributing his own "glosses" when Marx was alive. But of course, nobody here has refuted the direct quote I gave of Marx espousing dialectics of natural science. Whether Engels turned this materialist methodology into a metaphysics (as I believe) or not, the issue now is one of political practice. In what way does "dialectical materialism" contribute to the struggle for socialism? Until and unless an explanation is forthcoming the only sensible position is the atheist one of unbelief. (( Charles: As Engels formulates it, dialectics is the principle of atheism. If you don't think nature is dialectical , then you believe in the equivalent of God, because it would mean you think there is something in nature that is unchanging and eternal, and that would be the same as God. In short, the explanation has to be a better one than the testament of faith - "It's what Marx believed" - as if that clinched the argument. ((( Charles: As I said to Russ the last time, there are two levels of argument: what did Marx believe, and what is true about nature. None of you have adduced any evidence refuting the evidence I put on the list showing what Marx believed , so at this point a materialist would say Marx agreed with us. As to what the universe is really like, show us some evidence to support your claim. Of course, if you find something that never changes, you will have discovered God. CB --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Medical Ebonics
___Medical Ebonics Benign.What you be after you be eight. Artery..The study of paintings. Bacteria...Back door to cafeteria. Barium.What doctors do when patients die. Cesarean Section...A neighborhood in Rome. CAT Scan..Searching for Kitty. Cauterize..Made eye contact with her. Coma...A punctuation mark. DC.Where Washington is. Dilate...To live long. Enema..Not a friend. Fester..Quicker than someone else. Fibula...A small lie. G.I.Series.World Series of military baseball. Hangnail...What you hang your coat on. Impotent...Distinguished, well known. Labor PainGetting hurt at work. Medical Staff..A Doctor's cane. Morbid...A higher offer than I bid. Nitrates..Cheaper than day rates. Node Something ya knew all along. Outpatient..A person who has fainted. Pap Smear..A slur against yer Daddy's honor. Pelvis...Second cousin to Elvis. Post Operative.A letter carrier. Recovery Room..Place to do re-upholstery. Rectum... Damn near totalled the pick-up. SecretionHiding something. SeizureRoman emperor. Tablet...A small table. Terminal Illness.Getting sick at the airport. Tumor..More than one. UrineOpposite of "yer out." Varicose...Near by/close by. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Regional contradictions
Will interimperialist rivalry be restructured to the regional level ? Regional communist parties ? Some regions are colonial regions. CB ((( By The Internet's Most Intelligent Source of International News Analysis http://www.stratfor.com/ _ STRATFOR.COM Global Intelligence Update November 29, 1999 The WTO and the De-synchronization of the Global Economy Summary: The World Trade Organization (WTO) is meeting in Seattle this week. The participants are so divided that they could not even develop a formal agenda for the meetings. While everyone is focused on China's admission, the fact is that the WTO is moribund, only a few years after its creation. Its failure is rooted in the fundamental reality of today's global economy: de-synchronization of regions of roughly equal bulk. Ever since the Asian meltdown, the world's economic regions have been completely out of synch. Indeed, individual nations within regions are out of synch. That means that the creation of integrated economic policies is impossible. What helps one region hurts others. Thus, organizations like the WTO cannot function. Instead, regional institutions are emerging. The,y too, face conflict among constituent nations, but are more likely to create coherent and beneficial policies for their regions. This points to increased tension among and within regions. Such de- synchronization has been seen in the past. It is, over the course of a generation, a warning of the potential for serious international conflict. Analysis: The World Trade Organization (WTO) will hold ministerial level meetings in Seattle on Nov. 30. Representatives from 135 member countries and several observer countries, including China, will gather. Demonstrators protesting the effect of WTO policies on workers in the Third World will share space with demonstrators protesting the effects of WTO policies on workers in the advanced industrial countries. In fact, the demonstrations outside the meeting halls will be more interesting than the discussions inside. This is not to say that the demonstrations will be all that interesting. Rather, the meetings inside the hall will be an exercise in near irrelevance. The purpose of the meetings is to kick off a new round of trade talks designed to increase free trade and reduce barriers to international trade. Preliminary talks in Geneva revealed such a sharp division among the 135 participant nations that it proved impossible to create an agenda for the meetings. In other words, the members were so divided that they couldn't even agree on what ought to be discussed. President Clinton, the host, sought to break the logjam by turning the meetings into a summit, on the theory that a summit would raise the political stakes and decrease the chances of a total breakdown. By last Wednesday, however, the president had abandoned his plans for a summit, claiming that the logistics were simply too complex. The fact was that few were willing to come. Fidel Castro is said to be considering a trip. For the others, a WTO meeting has become a no-win proposition. They have come to expect little from the WTO but political trouble at home. Therefore, at best, nothing will happen at the meetings. At worst, a nasty confrontation will take place. The international economic scene is divided by the usual issues. The United States wants Europe to cut its subsidies of farm products so that it can sell more products to Europe. The Europeans are refusing, since free trade between U.S. and European agriculture would devastate Europe's farmers. Developing countries want to be excused from further liberalization of their trade policies, based on the fact that they still haven't recovered from the benefits of the last round of cuts. Labor unions in advanced industrial countries want to set minimum labor standards in the Third World, which would make the Third World a less attractive investment. The Third World wants to do without the labor unions' solicitude. None of these issues will be settled in Seattle. If the meetings go well, the countries will sign a meaningless document that will be hailed as the beginning a new round of trade liberalization. Nothing will come of it. The WTO has ceased to be interesting. And that is very, very interesting. Ten years ago, as communism was collapsing, it appeared that we were entering a new era in which borders would no longer mean very much, corporations would become global and trade would become free. The development of the WTO represented a major event in human history, because for the first time, a single, international organization would exist whose mission it was to manage an increasingly integrated, global economy. However, instead of a Leviathan, the world delivered itself of a beached whale. There are many small issues that have paralyzed the WTO. For example, the WTO is now dealing with a range of agricultural problems that are extremely difficult to
M-TH: What is value ?
Dear Friends; Here is the latest installment of Facts from the Fringe. Past editions can be viewed at http://www.caw.ca/fringe/index.html. Please note that I have relocated back to Toronto. For further information or comments please call Jim Stanford at (416) 497-4110 or (cell) 416-230-2046. Many thanks and best wishes. * What is Value? What is value? The question has puzzled and preoccupied philosophers and economists for centuries. For David Ricardo and Karl Marx, value reflected labour effort. For free-market economists, it depends on supply and demand. For an intellectual, value is knowledge; for an aesthete, it is beauty. For a believer, value comes from knowing God. The answers are as numerous as they are subjective. These days, however, there seems to be a dominant consensus?in the financial pages, anyway?around a more particular, and rather base, meaning of the term. Today "value" means nothing more than the stock market value of publicly traded companies. And "creating value" means driving up the price of a company's shares, thereby enriching both its shareholders and the executives whose compensation is now tied directly to their company's market worth. Earlier this month, for example, the Financial Post featured a dramatic cover photo of an imposing Jean Monty, chief executive of BCE, backlit by a spotlight. The photo's blunt sub-heading read simply that Monty "has a reputation for creating value." Boy, that sure sounds good?a lot better than saying that Monty "has a reputation for driving up share prices and thereby enriching shareholders and executives". Who could be opposed to the creation of value? And so today all kinds of nefarious deeds are described, and hence justified, as part of the ageless quest to create value. Gerry Schwartz wasn't planning to take over the airline industry; he was striving to create value. And Air Canada's executives weren't scrabbling to save their own hides; they were trying to create even more value. Curiously, the Air Canada value plan depends in large part on the payment to shareholders of $300 million of money they already own. Who'd have thought that "creating value" could be as simple as taking cash out of one pocket, and putting it back into another? I guess the Artful Dodger was also a creator of value, in his own simple way. If he'd had a broker's license, he might have ranked with the best of them. No-one creates more value than Alan Greenspan. By shifting the policy bias of the U.S. Fed to "neutral" from "tighter" in conjunction with the most recent increase in U.S. interest rates, Greenspan boosted U.S. markets by 2 percent on Nov. 16, or some $400 billion (U.S.). Not bad for a day's value-creation. Of course, what Greenspan giveth, Greenspan can also taketh away. Recall, for example, the roughly trillion dollars of value he wiped out (only temporarily, in retrospect) with his famous "irrational exuberance" speech of December 1996. In Canada, the folks at Nortel Networks (Monty's former employer) are the kings of value-creation. The company's shares are up 150 percent since last October, despite the issuance of billions of dollars in new shares to pay for the acquisition of internet and other companies during this period. Nortel has thus created something like $85 billion in value in less than 14 months, well over a million dollars for each of its employees. That's $200 million of value per day, $8.5 million per hour, or $140,000 per minute?a veritable value-making machine. Indeed, Nortel now accounts for about 14 percent of the value of the TSE 300?inspiring mixed emotions among paper-chasers anxious to cash in on this runaway train, but leery about having so many eggs in one basket. About half of the 40 percent gain in the TSE 300 since its 1998 low is due exclusively to Nortel's stellar rise. Nortel's stock market dominance seems to add credence to CEO John Roth's repetitive threats to pack up and leave Canada unless the government cuts taxes?especially income taxes on those earning over $100,000. When an eighth of your market and half of your capital gain depends on a single company, you'll sit up and listen whenever that company speaks to you. Mind you, Canada already accounts for only 8 percent of Nortel's revenues, 15 percent of its assets, and 30 percent of its workers. Doing more favours to help Nortel is kind of like closing the barn door after the arse has run away. And the fact that Nortel receives federal RD subsidies conservatively worth a quarter-billion dollars per year should also help to temper Roth's fear-mongering. For those of us who do not inhabit the paper realm of Bay Street, Nortel's reputation is not quite so luminous. With this month's mothballing of its factory in Belleville, Ont., Nortel will have shed well over half of the 12,000 manufacturing workers it employed here just six years ago. Its total Canadian workforce now accounts for less than 0.15 percent of total
M-TH: Detroit: I Do Mind Dying
H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by [EMAIL PROTECTED] (October, 1999) Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin. _Detroit: I Do Mind Dying, A Study in Urban Revolution_. Updated Edition. Cambridge: South End Press, 1998. x + 254 pp. Includes annotated bibliography, filmography and index. $18.00 (paper), ISBN: 0-89608-571-6. Reviewed for H-Labor by Karen Miller , University of Michigan In 1998, 23 years after its original publication, South End Press reissued Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin's _Detroit: I Do Mind Dying, A Study in Urban Revolution_. Georgakas and Surkin's book focuses on black labor radicalism in Detroit from 1967-1974, examining the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the cadre of black revolutionaries that worked at its core. _Detroit: I Do Mind Dying_ remains one of the few monographs to take black labor radicalism seriously. Having been out of print for a number of years, its republication adds immeasurably to the literature on Black Power, Detroit history, labor history and the history of the Left. At the same time, and perhaps more importantly, the insights offered by the League--and discussed by Georgakas and Surkin--about capitalism, labor organizing, racism, solidarity and working class power remain as urgent and relevant today as they were in the 1970s. This "updated" edition includes a new forward by Manning Marable, a new preface by the authors and two new chapters at the end of the book. Otherwise, the authors only revised typos and technical mistakes that were in the original. Thus, as Georgakas and Surkin observe, the power of the new edition lies in its preservation of the tone, perspective and tempo of the 1975 study, not in new analyses, or a new historical perspective. _Detroit: I Do Mind Dying_ examines the activities, perspectives and changing formations of the cadre of black revolutionaries that worked at the core of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. It describes their experiences in the League, leading up to the League's formation and proceeding its disillusion. Georgakas and Surkin move back and forth between projects and organizations that members of the League participated in or spearheaded, discussing the relevance of each project to the larger organization and examining the theoretical and political underpinnings of League activities and decisions. The first project that they examine is the _Inner City Voice_ (ICV), a black revolutionary paper inspired by Detroit's 1967 "rebellion." Where other underground papers offered readers the kind of yellow journalism that exposed injustice, the authors argue, the _ICV_ provided its audience with an agenda for revolutionary action that was connected to mass political education. At the same time, the _ICV_ used its resources to organize workers. They hosted activist meetings in their offices, maintained contacts and organizers inside plants, and educated workers about the relationship between their struggles and racism in the rest of the city. Soon after the _ICV_ was established, one member of the informal action/study group that produced the _ICV_, John Watson, became the editor of the _South End_, Wayne State University's daily student newspaper. Watson turned the _South End_ into "the voice of the de facto radical united front" on campus and used the paper itself as an organizing tool for struggles all over the city. Often, Watson sent the majority of the 10,000-copy print run to his comrades to distribute at schools, hospitals or factories. A number of _ICV_ activists were also key players in the formation of DRUM, the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement at the Hamtramck Assembly plant. Organized by black activists in and outside the plant, DRUM confronted Chrysler about unsafe working conditions, mandatory overtime, and racist practices, concerns that the United Auto Workers had channeled into its bureaucratic and ineffective grievance procedure. Thus, at the same time that DRUM activists organized against the company, they also fought against an unresponsive union that prioritized peaceful relations with management over its members' needs. DRUM was more than just "an angry caucus of rank-and-file workers;" it was an organization that offered black workers a critique of white corporate power at the same time that it confronted management. Further, and perhaps more importantly, DRUM connected black workers' experiences with racism in the city to their grievances inside of the plant, inspiring black workers to participate in militant action and develop a larger critique of American society. DRUM's demands, the authors suggest, were more challenging to the status quo than concerns about guaranteed pensions or annual cost-of-living adjustments--preoccupations of the mainstream union movement. In fact, DRUM was unsatisfied with the "labor peace" the UAW regularly brokered with the Big Three--an implicit agreement that the union would manage
Re: M-TH: Spitting fire
"russell p" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/07/99 07:37AM CB and CB roast the old chestnut: "Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his "Logic"), that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes." If that doesn't prove our case, I don't know what would. Well, claiming that Hegel's law of the quantitative passing into the qualitative holds for natural science, does not prove for one moment that matter itself obeys inelucatable dialectical laws. Charles: The point here in debate is not whether matter obeys dialectical laws, but whether Karl Marx believed that it does. The above is some very good evidence that he did. And there is a lot more that he did . So, instead of treating Marx as infallible, with whom you can't disagree, why not have the courage to say you disagree with Marx, and that you believe that matter does not follow dialectical laws, yourself. Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to people. ( At best it reveals a dialectical process in the science's, that is, the scientist's engagement with that matter. That Marx would have heartily disaproved of such a move is evinced in the following quote: What opinion should we have of a chemist, who instead of studying the actual laws of the molecular changes in the composition and decomposition of matter, and on that foundation solving definite problems, claimed to regulate the composition and decomposition of matter by means of the 'eternal ideas' of 'naturalite' and 'affinite'? " Why sir, we would call the chemist a dialectical materialist! Charles: Would you call her a "materialist" ? Is it just dialectics or is it materialism too that you believe Marx didn't think that chemistry adheres to ? Do you believe that Marx didn't believe that materialism is an ineluctible law of natural science ? I submit further that the style of scientific analysis in both is dialectical. Incredible! That scientific analysis is dialectical is not in dispute. Science is historical, it is part of our ongoing and necessarily dialectical engagement with the material world. Credible! Charles: But that this dialectic of engagement is not material but ideal is a dialectical idealist proposal. The dialectic of our engagement with the material world is not just in our heads. It is, as Marx said in the Afterward to the Second German edition to _Capital_, in our heads a reflection of the material world. Science is not just an idea, but an idea that reflects the material world. Dialectics is not just added to this reflection for decoration. If dialectics are not part of reflecting the material world for the scientist, what do they have to do with the scientist's ongoing and necessary engagement with the material world ? ((( Then there's a footnote on chemistry. "The molecular theory of modern chemistry first scientifically worked out by Laurent and Gerhardt rests on no other law. " Anyone know what law Laurent and Gerhardt discovered? Is it still on the statute books? ( Charles: Yes, and what about Newton's law of universal gravitation, the law of velocity of light in vacuum, First and Second laws of thermodynamics, Boyle's law, Charles' law, Maxwell's laws, Kepler's laws, Lenz law, E = mc squared, law of combining volumes, law of conservation of atoms, law of mass, law of definite composition. etc, etc. ? Are they on the statute books ? Do all of these physicists and chemists have law degrees and legislative power , or what ? CB Doctor of Jurisprudence --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Spitting feathers
More spit flying "russell p" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/07/99 12:02PM Charles: The point here in debate is not whether matter obeys dialectical laws, but whether Karl Marx believed that it does. The above is some very good evidence that he did. And there is a lot more that he did . So, instead of treating Marx as infallible, with whom you can't disagree, why not have the courage to say you disagree with Marx, and that you believe that matter does not follow dialectical laws, yourself. Except I don't believe he did. ((( Charles: What is the evidence for your belief ? ( Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to people. So he did. Charles: Would you call her a "materialist" ? Is it just dialectics or is it materialism too that you believe Marx didn't think that chemistry adheres to ? Do you believe that Marx didn't believe that materialism is an ineluctible law of natural science ? This don't make sense. ((( Charles: Yes it does. You have to ask a question if you don't understand it. Charles: But that this dialectic of engagement is not material but ideal is a dialectical idealist proposal. The dialectic of our engagement with the material world is not just in our heads. It is, as Marx said in the Afterward to the Second German edition to _Capital_, in our heads a reflection of the material world. Science is not just an idea, but an idea that reflects the material world. Dialectics is not just added to this reflection for decoration. If dialectics are not part of reflecting the material world for the scientist, what do they have to do with the scientist's ongoing and necessary engagement with the material world ? It's a question of engagement with the material world not its reflection. ((( Charles: Where is the dialectics in this "engagement with the material world" ? In your head or in the material world ? Charles: Yes, and what about Newton's law of universal gravitation, the law of velocity of light in vacuum, First and Second laws of thermodynamics, Boyle's law, Charles' law, Maxwell's laws, Kepler's laws, Lenz law, E = mc squared, law of combining volumes, law of conservation of atoms, law of mass, law of definite composition. etc, etc. ? Are they on the statute books ? Do all of these physicists and chemists have law degrees and legislative power , or what ? Do what? ( In response to this "The molecular theory of modern chemistry first scientifically worked out by Laurent and Gerhardt rests on no other law. " Russ had said, making a joke about chemistry laws on the statute books: Anyone know what law Laurent and Gerhardt discovered? Is it still on the statute books? So , the question is do all the other chemists and physicists put their "laws" on the statute books. CB --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Historical vs Dialectical materialism.
"The World Socialist movement (via The Socialist Party of Great Britain)" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/05/99 07:34PM Dear all, Towards this, I suggest a debate on the real issue behind all of this - historical materialism vs dialectical materialism. Only the former can be found in Marx's writings. Only the former can be found in Marx's writings by some. CB OK, Charles, start the ball rolling. Find it. Charles: The ball has already been rolling on this on this list, and the score is 200 for our side, your side 0. See below: Yes, Chris, the direct quotes from Marx supporting our (I assume I can say we agree on this) position are mounting up. It seems to be about 10 to 0 by my count. Here's another one. In the Chapter entitled "Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value" page 309 of International. "The possessor of money or commodities actually turns into a capitalist in such cases only where the maaximum sum advanced for production greatly exceeds the maximum of the middle ages. Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his "Logic"), that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes." If that doesn't prove our case, I don't know what would. This is Marx (not Engels) using the general term "natural science" (in general) and saying one of the three laws that Andy likes to mock applies to "natural science". Charles Brown --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Historical vs Dialectical materialism.
Not willing to go along with you and Russ. The dialectical materialist concept originates with Marx. Engels knew him better than you and Russ. CB "The World Socialist movement (via The Socialist Party of Great Britain)" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/05/99 05:57PM Dear Russ, This was something I thought I would have to demonstrate after hours of painstaking argument, given the state of play here re Leninism. Maybe if i rephrased the question, to be absolutely clear: if you go along with Russ and myself, and assert that Marx never used the "dialectical materialism" concept, are people prepared to stick with Marx or deny him in favour of Lenin and Engels? Simon -- Towards this, I suggest a debate on the real issue behind all of this - historical materialism vs dialectical materialism. Only the former can be found in Marx's writings. Russ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Show us yer spit...
Below, from the last time we argued this, is a direct quote from Marx explicitly evincing his conviction that dialectics apply in natual science, and spitting directly on those who deny that he had that conviction. CB Yes, Chris, the direct quotes from Marx supporting our (I assume I can say we agree on this) position are mounting up. It seems to be about 10 to 0 by my count. Here's another one. In the Chapter entitled "Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value" page 309 of International. "The possessor of money or commodities actually turns into a capitalist in such cases only where the maaximum sum advanced for production greatly exceeds the maximum of the middle ages. Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his "Logic"), that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes." If that doesn't prove our case, I don't know what would. This is Marx (not Engels) using the general term "natural science" (in general) and saying one of the three laws that Andy likes to mock applies to "natural science". Then there's a footnote on chemistry. "The molecular theory of modern chemistry first scientifically worked out by Laurent and Gerhardt rests on no other law. " Charles Brown Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/11 5:03 PM Another passage from the famous Volume 1, showing the continuity of Marx's reasoning between the natural sciences and the human sciences. This time the second footnote to Chapter II, imposing the criteria for judging a chemists analysis, on the unfortunate Proudhon who was discussing justice and commodites: (again I assume Marx in the 1860's saw chemists as at the leading edge of science) "Proudhon begins by taking his ideal of justice, of 'justice eternelle', from the juridical relations that correspond to the production of commodities: thereby, it may be noted he proves to the consolation of all good citizens, that the production of commodities is a form of production as everlasting as justice. Then he turns round and seeks to reform the actual production of commodities and the actual legal system corresponding thereto, in accordance with this ideal. What opinion should we have of a chemist, who instead of studying the actual laws of the molecular changes in the composition and decomposition of matter, and on that foundation solving definite problems, claimed to regulate the composition and decomposition of matter by means of the 'eternal ideas' of 'naturalite' and 'affinite'? " Here sound analysis in chemistry in used as a yardstick for exposing idealism in human science. I submit further that the style of scientific analysis in both is dialectical. Incredible! Chris Burford London --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: Meszaros article: Communism Is No Utopia
"The World Socialist movement (via The Socialist Party of Great Marx disavowed this 1848 solution a couple of decades later: already he considered the barricade/ dictatorship of the proletariat route to be past its sell by date in europe. ((( Charles: What is your evidence of this ? CB --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: China and AFL-CIO
A forward. CB (( Subject: WTO - Sweeney - China Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1999 23:52:50 +0100 Encoding: 38 TEXT With Europe in the bag after its involvement in the Yugoslavia attack, the front of advancing empire has switched to the West. Tomorrow, in the U.S. city of Seattle on the shores of the Pacific and with China as the next intended victim, world capital, organized in the World Trade Organization, under the guidance of its U.S. majority stockholders, will begin its Summit to determine how best to advance its control over the nations of the world and their governments, all of whom may be subject to popular pressure. Capital, which votes by dollars and not heads, wants to get rid of such possibility of restraint. Alarm at this development has arisen among the world's peoples and many are expected at the city to protest. Therefore a diversion has been prepared. Led by President John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO, massed U.S. labor and its representatives are to point to China as the source of the worlds troubles and demand that, whatever the WTO does, China must be excluded from the family of nations. - And that it should so remain, unless and until it is put under control and meets standards presumably to be set by unions of the U.S. which, with 5 percent of the world's population takes for itself a full fourth of the worlds energy supply. The difficulty for China to meet this demand, since it has ten times U.S. population, may be considerable.. It is expected that this demand will be sufficient to prevent any uniting of the 3/4 of world labor outside the OECD and to sidetrack any demands that the WTO be abolished. In this, the AFL-CIO is only carrying out its traditional role as defender of U.S. business. It remains to be seen what percentage and what sectors of U.S. labor willl follow President Sweeney's call. John Manning U.S. staff member, WFTU, Prague, Retired --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Demonstrator in Seattle
I will make this notice rather short, as I am exhausted from todays actions. Make no mistake, the cops in Seattle were "fascist" today surely. What happened, that is simply not coming across, is that the activists were involved in a coalition called the "direct action network" (DAN). The procession was meticulous right from 5:00 am about protecting the other demonstrators from fascist cops. You all know the "Chinese finger traps"? In your mind, picture such things that are used on the arm. That was the lockdown. I don't want to go on at lengths about this now, But nonetheless the actions of the cops were rather out of line. My best vantage report is to simply say that I was involved in the "lockdown" that stopped delegates from getting to the meetings, when I heard that tear gas had already been fired on demonstrators. I ran off towards the "main show" and joined in the lockdown. I can honestly say I've never seen so many peaceful hippies in one place. The chants were "the whole world is watching!!". It was typical of the new left of the sixties. The demonstrators locked down in arms, we got tear-gassed. Picture this: You just got tear gassed, you can't see, you having trouble breathing. Beyond that, you are so disoriented that you can not tell if you are standing or falling. You know that your arm is somehow involved with someone nearby. You don't know if you are leaning or being leaned on. A tank is marching forward at a set speed. People you know and trust have their voices screaming in pain, in fear. Then, while you are still bild and stumbling forward, you hear the unmistakable sound of gunshots. You still can not see, you can only be afraid- or determined. What would you do? Do you accept it- or do you find gas masks and let the chips fall where they may? I'm not an Anarchist, but each and every one of those "blacks" thart resisted were the first heroes of the new millenium. Our millenium. Long live the Seattle resistance! We shall make you pay! --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Re: Oh My Darwin! (Back to May/December)
Yoshie, This is an interesting article Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/30/99 04:00AM Like Fodor, Lewontin and Gould argue that the EPists have it wrong: Language, consciousness, and most of our distinctively human mental capacities are side effects of the fact that our brain grew big for other reasons. Furthermore, they caution, these reasons cannot be reconstructed. Our extraordinary human abilities are epiphenomena of "all those loose connections with nothing to do," explains Lewontin. As an example of a nonadaptive trait, he offers the uniquely human ability to use recursion in language, that is, to make sentences of the form: "I say that Noam Chomsky says, when people say..." Though chimps can be taught to compose simple sentences of the form "I want" or "I see" on a computer, they cannot be taught to use recursion. Does Lewontin have a theory about the origin of this unique linguistic ability of humans? "You could invent a story," he explains with distaste. "You could say it was an advantage to early human beings in being able to say, 'I saw Joe doing that,' but that's just yak!" ( Charles: Isn't it true that biologists don't know the actual Darwinian mechanism for the origin of almost any traits of ANY life forms ( except for that experiment with moths in England; but somebody said even that experiment was flawed) ? Seems to me the best hypothesis for the adaptive advantage of language , but more completely all culture and symbolic conduct, is that it allows the experiences of dead generations of the species to be shared to some extent by the living generation. Culture's advantage is that it is a LaMarckian (i.e. super-Darwinian) mechanism. I mean an extrasomatic, non-genetic mechanism. Culture is a superexpansion of the social realm to include dead generations in the sociality of the living generation. ( -clip- Even if God were to descend on Cambridge and part the waters of the Charles River at Lewontin's feet, it would still be unthinkable to imagine the skeptical biologist embracing religion. Gould, on the other hand, has recently been evincing a new sympathy for the realm of the unscientific. In his most recent book, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (1999), he not only sets out terms for a peaceful coexistence with the obdurate religious believers among us but seems to offer another defense against the sociobiological threat. His thesis is that it makes perfect sense to see science and religion as distinct and complementary forms of human endeavor: Science addresses the "factual character of the natural world"; religion is concerned with spiritual meaning and morality. ((( Charles: The rational kernel I see in religion is in ancestor worship. It is an overt form of what I say above: messages from dead generations to the living generation in the form of complex symbolic and pnemonic systems. Contra Engels, who only focuses on the superstition and fear and awe of uncontrollable forces in ancient religion, ancestor worship is a LaMarckian, super-Darwinian adaptive mechanism (extrasomatic, non-genetic). Of course, new discoveries are made superceding the ancient knowledge, and the tough thing is to know when "to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em". That is the eternal challenge of human culture. ( This dualism stands in stark contrast to the views of Wilson, Dawkins, and Pinker, who categorically deny the existence of a soul or spirit. Indeed, from the outset, it was Wilson's goal to deny the existence of an independent moral realm. In On Human Nature, he says, "Human behavior...is the circuitous technique by which human genetic material has and will be kept intact. Morality has no other demonstrable ultimate function." Consilience (1998), Wilson's latest and most ambitious statement to date, takes an even more radical position, arguing that "there is intrinsically only one class of explanation." He goes on to make the bold assertion that "all tangible phenomena, from the birth of stars to the workings of social institutions, are based on material processes that are ultimately reducible, however long and tortuous the sequences, to the laws of physics." (( Charles: A form of ultimate vulgar materialism. Arch reductionism. Anti-dialectics. No levels of organization of reality. ( three cheers for Richard Lewontin, Yoshie CB --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Seattle
A forward. CB ( Hi everybody, Solidarity! They have given up on giving any type of conference today. We have completely blocked the ability for the delegates to reach the Convention Center. The police are starting to gas make arrests, but it's just a manifestation of their frustration. There has been no violence. Talk to you all later. Hope you are having a good day. Ian (transcribed via cell phone...) --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Mother
Who needs Hollywood? (( Charles: Truth is more interesting than fiction. CB Hugh Rodwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/24/99 06:21AM How's this for a great piece of journalism? Mother Knows Best Once convinced that they should expend their precious parental energy, mothers go to great lengths to rear their young. Most impressive is the Australian social spider. As her spiderlings mature, she begins to turn to mush. As she liquefies, her children suck her up. Sated from this sacrificial meal of mother, they exercise better manners and forgo eating one another as well. It's from a review by Helen Fisher of "Mother Nature" by Sarah B. Hrdy (Scientific American, Dec 1999, p 98). The review is entitled "Mother Nature is an Old Lady with Bad Habits". Who needs Hollywood? It also makes you wonder what "educational" institutions are really about... Cheers, Hugh naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret. You can drive her away with a pitchfork -- Nature runs right back! Horace, ars poetica, x. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Re: China and law of value.
Hugh Rodwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/23/99 04:20AM What the history of the 20th century has shown us is the paramount importance of politics, social will, in this. -clip- Why, finally, should the political sphere dominate today when basic Marxism contends that the economic sphere is primary? -clip- So at the present stage in world economic development, what is necessary on the material economic basis of the forces of production is a new system of economic relations. This is the primacy of economics. But the economic system won't be changed unless it's done consciously (otherwise we get a spontaneous meltdown into barbarism), and the only conscious means available to us are politics. This is the primacy of politics. ( Charles: This primacy of politics for Marxists is not so hard to believe. Lenin had to argue against vulgar materalist, trade unionism plain and simple in _What is to Be Done ?_ The working class must not confine its attention to struggles at the point of production, but world politics, precinct politics, taking state power. CB --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: Swedish fascism
Thanks to Hugh and Stuart for critiquing the LA Times article. I did not intend to
endorse the political perspective of the Times writer in general or regarding Sweden
in particular, as reflected in the several aspects that Hugh points to. I was more
sending it for the sort of minimal factual content of the fascist murder(s), with a
sort of implicit question, what's up on this , comrades over there ? I got my answers.
CB
((
Stuart Sheild [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/21/99 07:44AM
As Hugh correctly pointed out, the article from the Internet
Anti-Fascist/LA Times that Charles posted was a typical piece of crappy
journalism -- even on its own bourgeois terms. Purporting to be an in-depth
political analysis of recent 'critical' developments, featuring 'strategic'
interviews with 'key' observers, it offers nothing more than a set of
sweeping, superficial, unhistorical generalisations designed to present
Sweden as a special case, somehow different from other imperialist states,
a line incidentally long propounded by Henwood.
Hugh covered most of the points I would have wanted to make (far better
than I could have done) and there is little useful coment I can add.
However, a breakdown of the results of the last Swedish general election
should put paid to the article's preposterous assertion that "the vast
majority of Swedes array themselves among parties firmly on the political
left."
Distribution of seats by party in the Swedish Riksdag (parliament).
Proportional representation.
Moderate Party ('Tory'/neo-liberal): 82
Christian Democrats (Conservative): 42
Centre Party (Farmers' party, Conservative, pro-environment): 18
Folk Party (Liberal, pro-business): 17
Total for the 'non-socialist' bloc: 159
Social Democrats: 131
Left Party (Former CP): 43
Green Party (presently aligned with the 'socialist' bloc but capable of
collaborating with any party prepared to push some of its policies): 16
Total for the 'socialist' bloc: 190
Total number of seats: 349
Source: The National Tax Administration (Riksskatteverket)
I don't have the figures to hand but the results of last years' elections
to the European Parliament were a disaster for the 'parties of the left' in
Sweden as elsewhere, with the Social Democrats giving their worst showing
at a national election ever.
Despite the restoration to 'health' of government finances (by dint of
continued systematic dismemberment of the social welfare system) and vague
promises of "new proactive welfare measures" (see Hugh on this below),
current polls show no sign of increasing support for the Social Democrats.
Cheers,
Stuart Sheild
At 11:22 1999-11-19 +0100, you wrote:
Charles B (in the article he forwarded) and James F (in his remarks on the
reactionary bourgeois cultural icon Ingmar Bergman) highlight the strong
streak of right-wing reaction in Sweden.
I'd like to comment on some of the statements in the article from the
Internet Anti-Fascist/LA Times that Charles posted.
A HATE CRIME THE SWEDES COULDN'T IGNORE: KILLING OF CLERK
WHO PROTESTED NEO-NAZIS SEEN AS WARNING CALL THAT ANYBODY COULD BE TARGET
It wasn't a hate crime so much as a political crime against a left-wing
anti-fascist.
STOCKHOLM--No one here took much notice of the hundreds of hate crimes
against immigrants over the last few years that besmirched the image of
Sweden as a bastion of tolerance and serenity.
Most people have tended to interpret them as emotional, psychological
aberrations -- hate crimes -- and not political crimes. As for Sweden's
*image* of tolerance and serenity, that's just what it has been, an image.
And one that's been polished and maintained by outsiders more than by
Swedes themselves -- the welfare paradise of the third way, a reformist
utopia has been needed as a copout from the revolutionary socialist
transformation of capitalist society. Hence the bleating by Havel in Prague
and others about the Swedish model -- a model that was already dead and
being buried when the Stalinist regime collapsed in Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union and the lack of a revolutionary working-class leadership
allowed the workers states to be hijacked by capitalist restoration.
Nor did many here rise up in anger over the execution-style slayings of two
police officers who foiled a bank robbery by neo-Nazis in May, or the car
bombing a month later that seriously wounded an investigative reporter who
had been documenting this country's white supremacist movement.
"Rise up" gives the wrong impression. There is too much sympathy for the
police in Sweden as it is. Not on the left, but in public opinion. But the
bombing of the reporter made a lot of people very angry -- especially at
the off-handed attitude of the police in easing off protective measures in
relation to the threats against the reporter.
But when a mild-mannered warehouse clerk was gunned down in his Stockholm
apartment last month after protesting the election of an avowed neo-Nazi to
the board of
M-TH: Bulgaria
The New York Times, November 11, 1999, Thursday, Late Edition - Final In Bulgaria, 10 Years of Misery By Blagovesta Doncheva; Blagovesta Doncheva is a translator. SOFIA, Bulgaria We here in Bulgaria have had democracy since 1989. What has happened during these last 10 years? The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are successfully devouring Bulgarian industry. They have insisted on the privatization of Bulgaria's plants and factories. In many cases, the Bulgarian government, which diligently follows the I.M.F.'s advice, sold these factories to powerful foreign corporations. And these corporations often liquidated the businesses (a new way to fight the competition!). What is the result? Hordes of unemployed workers, beggars in the streets, old people digging in rubbish containers for some rag or moldy piece of bread. Our social fabric is falling apart. Before 1989, Bulgaria was a socialist state: free medical care and education for everyone. Mothers and the elderly received other aid and privileges. Now, since the fall of Communism, I see more and more children who have dropped out of public school. Their parents cannot provide them with shoes and clothes, never mind textbooks and paper. Things are no better for the elderly. In 1989, my friend's mother's pension had been about 105 leva a month. Now it is 46 leva a month, a little more than $24. There are many people, especially those who are older than 30, who are not working. Nobody needs them; nobody offers work to them. The job offers in the newspapers repeatedly demand that applicants be no more than 30 years old. And even if you are under 30, what do you get? You have the chance to slave for 12 hours for next to nothing for a newly hatched business. In January, the last remnants of our socialized state will be taken away. The government will no longer subsidize train tickets for students, the elderly and mothers with children. This means that people will be forced to stay either in the towns or in the villages, which will hurt active pensioners and the unemployed. Now, they add to their meager family incomes through some occasional jobs in the towns, or they go to the village and grow vegetables and fruit for the winter in their fathers' gardens. It made economic sense when they were traveling by train at half price. After the new year, it will be senseless. We are undergoing untold hardships, yet George Soros, the financier, eggs us on, telling us to open our boundaries, make ourselves an open society. But we in Bulgaria have learned the hard way what those pretty slogans mean. It means killing the industry that is managing to stay alive in Bulgaria. Turkish imports are flooding the market. Socks made in Bulgaria are selling for 1 leva; I have seen Turkish socks, selling for half a leva. So soon we will have only Turkish socks, and no jobs. Lots of low-quality food products and other goods flow freely into Bulgaria, undermining the efforts of local producers. I have a cousin who has a small farm with four cows. He hasn't been able to sell his calves for two successive years. He is crushed. The companies that buy veal explain that they prefer to work with the frozen meat imported from Greece at low prices, ready to be stuffed and turned into salami or sausages. What is the West offering us in return for this misery? What is the great attraction for a foreign corporation in a devastated country? The cheap labor and national resources! So much for open boundaries. So much for an open society. I personally live in misery, but I can still manage. It is the sight of the old men and women digging into the rubbish containers that is breaking my heart. Before the fall of Communism, I and many others believed that the Communist government was lying about the United States of America. We thought all its warnings about America were simply propaganda. And from 1989 to 1993, I was a democratic activist. That was before I understood the true work of the I.M.F. or the World Bank or the transnational corporations and their policy of expansion. We fell for the seductive talk about democracy and openness. Now 10 years later, I wish we hadn't. Copyright© 1999, LEXIS-NEXIS, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Corporate dictators
Corporate dictators plot their next move The Morning Star of London LONDON, England - Leaders of the top 100 transnational corporations in the world gathered in Berlin Oct. 30 to meet with officials from the European Union (EU) and Washington to decide its policies. The group, known as Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), then discussed how best to impose them on nation states. According to U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce Stewart Hauser, "The idea was simple: to identify those barriers to trade or opportunities for liberalization on which both business communities could agree as targets for government action. We should put the business 'horse' before the government 'cart.'" There you are - democracy is getting in the way of big business. The Corporate Europe Observatory watchdog has warned that the primary aim of the TABD is to "steer EU-U.S. leadership in international trade negotiations such as within the World Trade Organization." The annual TABD conferences present transatlantic industry recommendations, in the words of the TABD, "to governments for implementation." They also expect "implementation of all deliverables and expect satisfactory and positive answers from administrations." The Berlin gathering was indeed designed to stitch up the WTO Ministerial Conference being held later this month in Seattle, where controversial issues surrounding a possible new round of trade and investment liberalization will be pushed. Those familiar with EU methods of bypassing and destroying democracy will recognize the routine. EU corporations will be represented, not surprisingly, by the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) who wield huge lobbying powers at the commission. The ERT is the representative of the largest European corporations and single-handedly drew up the agenda for Maastricht Treaty. ERT Secretary-General Keith Richardson boasted at the time that one of their members, Wisse Dekker representing Phillips, "pushed" through the austere economics of the euro and the single market "bearing in mind that when it was first launched governments were not very keen." TABD's Global Issues Manager Reinhard Quick explained that the ERT and the European bosses confederation, UNICE, "work together, we consult with each other." "The ERT is part of the TABD network. Many of the CEOs in the TABD chair ERT committees. UNICE represents EU industry and so we see what the EU industry wants through the work of UNICE." In the U.S. a similar coordination takes place, particularly by the European American Business Council (EABC) - an active player, which uses the U.S. TABD process as a channel for promoting its political goals. Anybody interested in who rules them in today's post-democratic capitalist New World Order should find out the names of company executive officers who sit on the ERT, EABC or, more importantly, the TABC and they may well find the answer. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Re: Whither the discussion
"THE WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT(via THE SOCIALIST PARTY Simon, When I asked you on the other list about the role of the World Socialist Movement as differentiated from the role of a party , you said WSM is an/the agent of the working class. But what is your factual support for such a claim ? Charles Brown --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Fwd: Manager Fired by Company Supports Teamsters on Strike
NYTImes October 27, 1999 Manager Fired by Company Supports Teamsters on Strike By STEVEN GREENHOUSE I n an effort to turn up the pressure during its three-day-old strike against Overnite Transportation, the teamsters union deployed an unusual weapon on Tuesday: a former Overnite manager who said the company systematically broke the law by dismissing workers who supported the union. Dale Watson, a former operations manager in Overnite's trucking terminal in Memphis, said the company dismissed "several hundred" workers at the terminal over the last four years because they favored unionizing Overnite, the nation's largest nonunion trucking company. In an affidavit and a telephone news conference, Watson backed the teamsters' accusations that Overnite had brazenly and repeatedly violated the law in seeking to rebuff the drive to unionize its 8,600 drivers and dock workers. Watson said company managers had a "hit list" designed to dismiss union supporters, and he added that he had followed his superiors' orders by helping eliminate more than 40 pro-union workers since 1995. Federal labor law makes it illegal for any company to fire or retaliate against an employee for supporting a union. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has been seeking to organize Overnite since 1994, and has filed dozens of charges with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the company of dismissing or retaliating against union supporters. Overnite officials said on Tuesday that Watson's comments were made out of vengeance for the company's dismissing him last week. Ira Rosenfeld, an Overnite spokesman, called Watson's statements "absolutely ridiculous" and said the company has not fired workers for supporting the teamsters. "There is no hit list, and there never has been a hit list," he said. "This is a gentleman who was fired last week for poor performance." Watson said he had no idea why he was fired. He said that to push out union supporters, company managers often gave them demerits when they arrived at work a few minutes late, but did not do the same to union opponents. "There's too much injustice being done to employees," said Watson, who said he came forward because he was so upset with how Overnite treated its employees. The strike began at the Memphis terminal on Sunday and spread nationwide on Monday. The teamsters said they called the strike to protest unfair labor practices by Overnite. Rosenfeld said the strike was having a negligible effect. He said only 600 workers were on strike, and he asserted that the teamsters picketed fewer terminals on Tuesday than the 40 they had picketed on Monday. Sharply disagreeing, Dave Cameron, a teamsters' spokesman, said more than 2,000 workers were on strike on Tuesday, with the picketing expanding to 109 of Overnite's 166 terminals. Cameron maintained that the strike was disrupting Overnite's operations and costing the company millions of dollars. _ NYTImes October 27, 1999 Manager Fired by Company Supports Teamsters on Strike By STEVEN GREENHOUSE I n an effort to turn up the pressure during its three-day-old strike against Overnite Transportation, the teamsters union deployed an unusual weapon on Tuesday: a former Overnite manager who said the company systematically broke the law by dismissing workers who supported the union. Dale Watson, a former operations manager in Overnite's trucking terminal in Memphis, said the company dismissed "several hundred" workers at the terminal over the last four years because they favored unionizing Overnite, the nation's largest nonunion trucking company. In an affidavit and a telephone news conference, Watson backed the teamsters' accusations that Overnite had brazenly and repeatedly violated the law in seeking to rebuff the drive to unionize its 8,600 drivers and dock workers. Watson said company managers had a "hit list" designed to dismiss union supporters, and he added that he had followed his superiors' orders by helping eliminate more than 40 pro-union workers since 1995. Federal labor law makes it illegal for any company to fire or retaliate against an employee for supporting a union. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has been seeking to organize Overnite since 1994, and has filed dozens of charges with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the company of dismissing or retaliating against union supporters. Overnite officials said on Tuesday that Watson's
M-TH: Mode of Destruction/Star Wars Evil Empire
Space domination: pyramids to the heavens By Bruce Gagnon It was the Persian Gulf war that convinced the U.S. military that "space dominance and space control" are necessary. And it was the war in Kosovo that they used to show the world that they have achieved their goal. In a June 17 news release, the U.S. Space Command proclaimed, "Any questions about the role or effectiveness of the use of space for military operations have been answered by NATO's operation ALLIED FORCE." The news release concludes with the determination that, "The Space Command's Global Positioning System constellation of 24 satellites is credited with providing navigation and timing support to coordinate the actions of allied air crews and naval forces operating in the region." The Pentagon is so sure that whomever controls space will control the Earth and beyond that they are feverishly working to deploy anti-satellite weapons (ASAT's) that will enable the U.S. to knock out competitors "eyes in the sky" during times of hostilities. As the Space Command says in their slick brochure, Vision for 2020, "Control of space is the ability to assure access to space, freedom of operations within the space medium, and an ability to deny others the use of space if required." The early deployment strategy of the military is to put into orbit the Kinetic energy ASAT, that would essentially smash into a rival's satellite. Space Command hopes to be able to deploy the KASAT within the next five years. While recently attending the 36th Space Congress at Cape Canaveral in Florida, I asked a panel of military officers the status of the ASAT program. Panelist Col. Tom Clark responded that the issue was "politically sensitive." He said that, ultimately, the U.S. would "need an event to drive the public to support ASAT deployment. But it will happen. We are now talking, planning, doing research and development. Someone will attack one of our systems." In the meantime Col. Clark assured the audience of 250-300 NASA workers, aerospace industry representatives and military officers that we have the "defensive" Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system that was recently approved by Congress. It is "obvious that dual use is clear," Clark said, referring to the fact that lasers in space could be fired either defensively or offensively. One of the problems for the military, though, is the need for massive power projection for their space-based weapons. In a study commissioned by Congress, Military Space Forces: The Next 50 Years, author John Collins notes that "nuclear reactors thus remain the only known long-lived, compact source able to supply military space forces with electric power." Collins concludes that nuclear reactors "could meet multi-megawatt needs of space-based lasers, neutral particle beams, mass drivers, and railguns." In fact, because of the growing demand for space nuclear power, the Department of Energy (DoE) is now studying the reopening of previously closed production facilities at their deadly string of labs across the United States. Between NASA's demand for future nuclear powered space probes and the Space Command's desire for nuclear powered space weapons, we could see a return of massive contamination problems at the labs. Over 244 cases of worker contamination were reported at Los Alamos labs in New Mexico between 1993-95 as DoE prepared the plutonium generators for NASA's Cassini space mission. Work is also on-going at Los Alamos on the nuclear rocket to Mars, with nuclear reactors for engines. The Space Command's Vision for 2020 not only speaks of controlling the Earth and the sky above our planet. They also envision controlling the space beyond as NASA and aerospace corporations move out to mine the moon, Mars and other planetary bodies for minerals in coming years. Like Queen Isabella of Spain who paid for Columbus' exploration in hopes of greater economic rewards, these forces are lining up to harvest the enormous benefits expected from the exploitation of the outer reaches. Vision for 2020 states that "Due to the importance of commerce and its affects on national security, the U.S. may evolve into the guardian of space commerce - similar to the historical example of navies protecting sea commerce." Just to make sure, the aerospace industry is taking no chances. A coalition of aerospace corporations are now engaged in a campaign called the "Declaration of Space Leadership" and have had their congressional allies introduce it as a House resolution. Among other things, the "declaration" suggests funding space "defensive" systems and NASA at levels that guarantee "American leadership in the exploration of space." Much of the tactic of the aerospace corporations is to brainwash the youth into a knee-jerk support of everything "space." NASA now has a program to reach every science teacher in the U.S. with their space puffery. Think of it this way: in 2020
M-TH: Whites have stake in fighting racism
Whites have stake in fighting racism By Tim Wheeler Henry Winston, the late national chair of the Communist Party USA, often exhorted Party members to be bolder in fighting racism. Whites, he said, have a special responsibility to take the lead in this struggle. Why? Winston explained that the fight against racism flows from the policy of working-class internationalism. In the struggle against imperialism, he said, the working class in each imperialist nation has the responsibility to take the lead in fighting its "own imperialism." Failure by social democrats to take a stand against "their own" imperialist governments in World War I led to the first great split in the Second International. Leaders of the German Social Democratic Party voted in the Reichstag for war credits despite the heroic opposition of Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxembourg and Clara Zetkin. They viewed this social democratic support of German imperialism as a betrayal of the German working class, the world working class, and the cause of socialism. They went on to form the German Communist Party, a principled fighter against German imperialism and especially its most virulent form, Nazism. In our own country, many social democrats supported U.S. entry into the war against Germany. But Charles E. Ruthenberg and Alfred Wagenknecht went to prison in 1917 for opposing the war. They were confined in the Canton, Ohio jail. The great socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs, visited them there and outside the prison delivered a fiery anti-war speech that landed him in the Atlanta Penitentiary for 10 years. Ruthenberg and Wagenknecht went on to found the Communist Party USA two years later on Sept. 1, 1919. The fight against all forms of national chauvinism and racism has run like a red thread through the 80-year history of the CPUSA. Henry Winston, himself, went to prison for that struggle and was blinded by the negligence of federal prison authorities. Winnie always told us, "I have lost my sight, but not my vision." Winston's point is that taking a stand against an imperialist war was an act of courage and also a declaration of independence from the dominant capitalist ideology: rabid bourgeois nationalism and war-mongering hatred of other nations. In an atmosphere of war hysteria, those who took an anti-war stand actually risked being tarred and feathered or lynched. Similarly, for a white worker to take a stand against racism means breaking decisively with capitalist ideology, which spawns white supremacy as the most effective poison for dividing the working class to insure its own rule. Racism is also the foundation of wage discrimination in which Black, Latino, and other oppressed workers are paid lower wages, a source of many billions of dollars in super-profits for monopoly banks and corporations. Communists fight racism because it is a moral abomination based upon a big lie of racial inferiority. But we also fight racism because we understand that the unity of Black, Brown and white workers is the bedrock of working class unity. There can be no progress for the working class on any front as long as racism divides us. Karl Marx put it bluntly when he said, "Labor in the white skin can never be free as long as labor in the Black skin is branded." When whites take the lead in the fight against racism, it punctures the lie that white workers benefit from racist discrimination, so-called "white skin privilege." In fact, white workers in right-to-work (for less) states, mostly in the South, earn less than unionized workers, white, Black and Latino, in the North. All workers will win higher wages and benefits when they unite in strong multiracial unions. It is crucial to understand this because many white liberals think of the struggle against racism as a "favor" or "charity" to victims of racist oppression. Communists, by contrast, fight racism because we understand it is in our own self-interest and the interest of the working class as a whole. Understanding that our interests are identical is the first step to seeing ourselves as one multiracial, multinational, male-female working class. Monopoly capitalism's hired ideologues realize that the movement for equality has won many hard-fought battles, not least, in the battle of ideas. The ideology of open white supremacy is discredited by a majority of the people, including white masses. Therefore, racism must be packaged so that it seems to be its opposite. That is why right-wing extremists have targeted affirmative action programs aimed at ending the deeply entrenched racist discrimination in industry and higher education. The racists came up with the catch phrases "reverse discrimination" and "racial preferences" as if affirmative action is a system of government discrimination against white males. Neo-nazi Klansman David Duke says he has dedicated his life to "protecting the civil rights of white Europeans," as
M-TH: How rich is rich ?
How rich is rich? By Victor Perlo Forbes magazine recently published a list of the 400 richest Americans, headed, of course, by Bill Gates of Microsoft, with a net worth of $85 billion. The list has several interesting features. The increase in the wealth of the richest Americans, which went up from $125 billion in 1984 to $1 trillion (1,000 billion) in 1999 - eight times more. Yes, a small part of that can be ascribed to the rise in prices that has taken place, but even adjusting for that, the gain was five times in the 15 years. Meanwhile, what happened to the real income of workers, whose labor provided that bonanza to the rich? Zilch! The official data of real hourly earnings show no significant change over the 15 years. The big drop in real hourly earning occurred during the decade after 1973, the peak year of real hourly earnings. The recent "rejiggering" of the consumer price index, under pressure from Greenspan and others, has made the decline in real wages appear less sharp - but that is illusion. The rate of increase in the wealth of the 400 has accelerated. During the last three years alone - 1996-1999 - their wealth rose from $548 billion to $1 trillion, a compound rate of 22.2 percent per year, compared with the 14.9 percent per year of the entire 15 year period. Two-thirds of the 400 are billionaires, and even among these moguls there is a wide variation in the rate of accumulation of wealth. The worth of the richest, Gates, escalated 360 percent, whereas that of the lowest-listed of the 400 went up "only" 20 percent, from $520 million to $625 million. But the growth rate of Gates' income was nearly matched by those just below him on the list. The "old money" families are all represented, including Wrigley, Rockefeller, DuPont and Mellon. Mellon heir Richard Mellon Scaife is prominent in ultra-right politics. Of course, most of them support and finance right-wing forces in politics. Needless to say, there are no workers on the list. Nor are the 400 representative of the ethnic diversity among the American people. There is a handful of women and at least one Black - Oprah Winfrey, the TV star. Judging by name - recognizably not a wholly reliable indicator - there are a few apparently of Jewish origin and no Latinos, although two Cuban émigrés are among those who narrowly missed inclusion on the list. Histories of the originators of the "great American fortunes" show them as unscrupulous pirates in relation to business rivals and the U.S. government, as well as to employees and workers. The present generation of billionaire heirs gets considerable publicity for donations to charities, their support of environmental and conservation societies and financial bequests to "culture." But there is little recognition of the fact that they are the decisive force behind the global aggressions of U.S. imperialism, the anti-labor practices and politics and the intensified racism polluting our lives --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Armed Class struggle in Russia
On the 14th of October at 2 a.m. a group of gunmen assaulted the administration building of Vyborg pulp and paper mill. The mill is well know as the first peoples enterprise in Russia. Three years ago it was sold to a British firm "Nimonor" but the workers not being paid their wages for months took over the mill and have been running it since then. Last night at first tear gas and truncheons were used. But the mill workers who were on the night shift offered resistence and the attackers opened gun fire against unarmed workers. Eleven workers were wounded. Eight people including some women and a wounded worker were taken as hostages and are still held on the second floor by the group of attackers who resulted to be members of a special police force command. No medical asstistance no journalists are allowed to enter the room where hostages are kept. Later this morning the region administration spokesman has said that the policemen who assaulted the builing, opened gun fire and took hostages were carring out the orders by the local court and acted in the interests of the new owners of the mill. Their task is "to cleanse the territory of the mill of those who illegally took over the mill and prevented the true owners from running it" that is to say to throw out the workers. But the special police command failed to seize the control over the mill and barricaded themselves on the second floor of the administration building. The spokesman has also said that Vyborg strike committee members will be charged with contempt of court. Vyborg workers are not going to give up and will keep fighting for their mill. Any massage of protest sent to the Leningrad region administration will be of a great help to them. The address is Governer of Leningrad region Russia 193311 S-Petersburg Suvorovsky pr. 67 fax (7 812) 271 56 27 or (7 812) 274 85 39 Copies can be also sent to the Workers Committee fax number (7 812) 115 28 45 or to the Deputy of the State Duma V. Grigoriev (7 095) 292 37 44 or to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 01:42:54 PDT
She has a book out. I am not an expert on the Black Panthers, but I don't get the impression that she is considered an agent by Panther experts. She lives well in France now, or something, but she married money, I think. Herb Boyd in New York, with whom Lou Proyect has contact, has published a "Black Panthers for Beginners" book. He'd be one of he expert opinions. Eldridge Cleaver is a rather suspicious character. Before he died , he had become a Reaganite Republican. Given his sexist book _Soul on Ice_ written while in prison, one wonders whether he was an agent all along, recruited in prison. Charles Brown "Macdonald Stainsby" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/13/99 04:44AM Recently I came across a "Workers World" article that spoke of Elaine Brown, formerly of the Black Panthers. Previously I have heard her called an agent by many former party members. What can anyone add to this sordid argument? Macdonald __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: moderatorial note
In the venacular, we call this a blast from the past. CB Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/01/99 03:21AM Sorry for the once and once-only moderatorial interruption, Thaxists. Do you care to expand on your insinuation? If Doug does, he'd kindly do it off-list. Louis isn't on Thaxis, Jerry. And we don't want to hear ANY more about it. Ever. Okay? You've got plenty of useful things to say, Jerry. Howzabout you say some of it on Thaxis for once? Nuff said, Rob. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Standup for your rights, lefts
Posted in Italian list for Cyber Rights http://www.wodip.opole.pl/~laslo/Echelon-links.html STAND UP FOR THE FREEDOM TO EXCHANGE INFORMATION! We the monitored have decided to stand up against the very real, very intrusive, and ultimately oppressive global surveillance system known as Echelon. Echelon is a vast mainframe set up by the New World Disorder in order to monitor the world's electronic communications for subversive keywords. Every time you send someone an email with keywords like "revolution" and "hacktivism" [for instance], Echelon's computers make a note of it. If you forward emails with regularity with words on Echelon's extensive keyword list, you may be marked for human "hands-on" monitoring. On October 21, 1999 , netizens around the globe are implored to send out at least one email with at least 50 keyword words. You need not be privy to knowing exactly what words Echelon uses. It is safe to assume that words such as "revolution" and "manifesto" and "revolt" [etc.] will work. Just be sure to sound as subversive as possible. There isn't even any need to write a cohesive paragraph or sentence. Echelon's computers does not understand the language anyway. It only knows to look for certain words. By doing this we can at least temporarily jam the global surveillance system. This day of action will be timed to preceed Stop Police Brutality Day by one day so that emails about actions can be sent out with little scrutiny due to what will already be an enormous workload for Echelon. Now is a chance for anyone, regardless of computer expertise, to become an instant hacktivist - best of all, no software is needed [other than your regular email program]. Of course, feel free to conduct such subversiveness any time. The larger Echelon's workload, the more free our speech. After October 1, we ask global netizens to merely stop censoring themselves for fear of spooky scrutiny. By merely deciding to speak in the spirit of unabashedly subverting the DOMINANCE paradigm, we will make it quite difficult for Echelon to do its job. == = http://pagina.de/marko Putting fights and dreams together == = --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Fwd: O Brave New World: Virtual Reality
From another list
CB
(
Is this for real? I was just innocently browsing through a MacMall
catalogue in search of printer cartridges (btw, anyone know where you can
still get cartridges for a dinosaur Deskwriter 310?), when this software
title jumped off the page:
Imperialism II
Set amidst the grandeur and discovery of the New World, Imperialism II
offers multi-level strategy gameplay. In this sequel to the original, your
goal is to dominate Europe using diplomacy and conquest.
**Exploit the riches of the New World
**Build a stable, growing economy
**Establish a labor force and a military
Take on the role of one of the European Great Powers and set out to conquer
the world using any means available!
...Anyone seen/heard of/played this? How does it work--do you get to feel
the frisson of plunder, is it a dressed-up chess game, or what?
How are the New World "natives" depicted?
And is there something about the world of software games I don't know
about, or can I be surprised to find mainstream depictions so openly
linking Western civilization/scientific discourses (stable, growing
economies and labor forces), with their sheer plundering will-to-power
underside? Is such a blatent coupling at all a welcome thing or, given
present climate, should it just scare the hell out of us? I'm inclined
towards the latter but can't quite decide what all gets reinforced for
game-players (and who buys these things anyway?): just more naturalizing of
the neoliberal present ("I know there's sheer power, but..."), or something
else? Anyway I'm floored. Heart of Darkness cum computer game. And dios
mio what was Imperialism I?
Is this for real? I was just innocently browsing through a MacMall
catalogue in search of printer cartridges (btw, anyone know where you can
still get cartridges for a dinosaur Deskwriter 310?), when this software
title jumped off the page:
Imperialism II
Set amidst the grandeur and discovery of the New World, Imperialism II
offers multi-level strategy gameplay. In this sequel to the original, your
goal is to dominate Europe using diplomacy and conquest.
**Exploit the riches of the New World
**Build a stable, growing economy
**Establish a labor force and a military
Take on the role of one of the European Great Powers and set out to conquer
the world using any means available!
..Anyone seen/heard of/played this? How does it work--do you get to feel
the frisson of plunder, is it a dressed-up chess game, or what?
How are the New World "natives" depicted?
And is there something about the world of software games I don't know
about, or can I be surprised to find mainstream depictions so openly
linking Western civilization/scientific discourses (stable, growing
economies and labor forces), with their sheer plundering will-to-power
underside? Is such a blatent coupling at all a welcome thing or, given
present climate, should it just scare the hell out of us? I'm inclined
towards the latter but can't quite decide what all gets reinforced for
game-players (and who buys these things anyway?): just more naturalizing of
the neoliberal present ("I know there's sheer power, but..."), or something
else? Anyway I'm floored. Heart of Darkness cum computer game. And dios
mio what was Imperialism I?
--M
M-TH: Big Brother moving into operation
Please be aware that the Company's electronic mail (email) system has a built-in content checking system designed to prevent inappropriate email traffic between Robert Fleming and the public mail network. An email issued with the subject RE: Marx on free trade sent by you has been blocked by the vetting system because it contains unacceptable words or phrases, e.g. jokes or profanities. It should be noted that the vetting system operates automatically and, despite careful testing, there remains a small possibility that an acceptable message may be blocked. If you believe that your blocked message is a valid business correspondence and should be released, please contact the Robert Fleming London Helpdesk on 0171-814 2000 x, quoting Sender Name, Recipient Name, Subject line of the message and date sent. Robert Fleming London Messaging Team --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: March for economic rights
Tomorrow, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union will begin the "March of the Americas"- a walk from the White House in Washington D.C. to the United Nations Headquarters in New York. They will arrive at the UN on Monday, November 1 and they will hold a rally- information on this is available from Heidi Dorow at 212-533-0540 ext. 318. This march is designed to raise awareness of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (launched at the Hague Appeal for Peace Conference). This campaign, led by poor and homeless men, women and children of all races draws attention to the poverty as a violation of human rights. It is not too late to register for the march- in fact, you can show up at Layfayette Park (across from the White House) tomorrow before 10 am to join in. More details (including a day by day itinerary of the march) on the web at www.libertynet.org/~kwru Remember, Actions Speak Louder than Words- Walk for ECONOMIC JUSTICE! --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: What are the Workers of the West doing ?
Lifetime Jobs a Key in Auto Union Talks By Frank Swoboda Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 11, 1999; Page E1 By all accounts, contract negotiations in the auto industry are going well. So well, in fact, that former United Auto Worker president Doug Fraser predicts the new contracts with his old union will be "the richest settlement you've ever seen." Current UAW President Stephen Yokich has done nothing to discourage such speculation. Earlier this week he called the first contract proposals from DaimlerChrysler AG and General Motors Corp. the most generous he'd ever seen in his career with the union. These are good times financially for the auto industry, and all signs indicate the Big Three automakers--DaimlerChrysler, GM and Ford Motor Co.--are more than willing to pay for labor peace to keep their plants operating. But, despite the union's potentially strong negotiating position, it may have to strike a devil's bargain. Any short-term gains in this year's contract negotiations may cost future employment for union members. In other words, will the gains of the current work force be paid for by the unborn as the auto industry seeks future cutbacks in its work force? GM has reportedly gone so far as to offer every UAW member with more than 10 years seniority a lifetime employment guarantee. But that guarantee may not cost GM as much as it seems on the surface--and there also may be a catch. Under the current contract, GM is required to hire one person for every two workers who leave, a ratio that allows it to continue reducing its work force. But GM may insist on eliminating or reducing that ratio even further in exchange for the job guarantees. DaimlerChrysler has taken steps to help the union sign up the workers at its Mercedes-Benz assembly plant in Alabama, which could give the UAW its first major toehold in the South where non-union automakers such as BMW AG, Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. have begun to cluster. The negotiations may be tougher at Ford. The company says it needs to spin off its Visteon parts manufacturing operations over the strong objections of the union. Few familiar with the negotiations believe the union can keep Ford from spinning off its parts unit. But the union may be able to convince Ford to separate Visteon under the same rules negotiated for union workers at Delphi Automotive Systems, the parts manufacturing operation sold by GM last year. Under that deal, the new GM contract terms will be essentially extended to the new company. If there is a consensus on the outcome of the negotiations when contracts expire at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, it would be something like this: a four year contract, with 4 percent-a-year base wage increases for at least the first three years, a large increase in pension benefits, and a $3,000 signing bonus. Beyond the basic economic pattern, each contract will have its own variation tailored to the needs of the individual companies. And none is more intriguing than reports GM has offered lifetime employment guarantees. Although both GM and the union have refused to confirm the reports, sources familiar with negotiations said the offer is on the bargaining table. "It's there if the union wants it," said a source. But he predicted any lifetime guarantee would have to apply to all current UAW members, or else it would be too divisive. Some labor experts yesterday said that anything short of lifetime guarantees to all workers would amount to a two-tier employment system similar to the highly contentious two-tier wage systems that developed in the 1980s and have largely been abandoned since. But even if the lifetime guarantee were to be extended to all current employees, the impact of such a move would be eased considerably by the fact that the UAW work force at GM has an average age of 48 with 23 years of service. UAW members can retire with full pension benefits after 30 years of service. GM said there currently are 32,000 UAW workers with 30 or more years of service and that the average retirement age is 57. The work force attrition rate at GM last year was 6.8 percent. All of this adds up to a fairly rapid dilution of the lifetime guarantees over the next few years. In the past, the UAW has been highly successful in providing income security for its members, even when it couldn't provide job guarantees. Under the current contract, for example, even laid off workers were guaranteed 95 percent of their pay for the life of the union contract. The lifetime job guarantees reportedly being offered by GM would not significantly alter that pattern. UAW members would be guaranteed employment, but there would be no guarantee of the number of jobs in the work force. At stake in these talks is how many of those with lifetime guarantees will be replaced when they decide to retire. That will be the key to the success of these negotiations.
Re: M-TH: Fwd: L-I: Ominous advert. I received!
A scam on spies ? good. It's like spy vs spy vs spy vs Michael Booth [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/08/99 10:28PM If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, smells like a duck, then it probably is a duck. The email you have sent looks like a scam, reads like a scam, sounds like a scam, smells like a scam - Michael Booth Associate Lecturer Faculty of Communication University of Canberra Ph: 61 02 6201 2161 (w) 61 02 6249 1716 (h) Canberra, ACT, 2601 Fax: 61 02 6201 5119 AUSTRALIA Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] == I Know It's Only Rock'n'Roll. But I like it, like it, like it, yes I do. == --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: Happy Labor Day !
Yes, Rob, There are a couple of other interviews with Marx and Engels on the Colorado Marxist archive. Somehow, it gives a very live feeling that you don't get even from the personal letters I have read. You really feel like you are part of a conversation with them.The terminology is so plain. Gives us another way to articulate Marxism Charles Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/04/99 03:28AM Thanks for the Chicago Tribune interview piece, Chas. I'd never even heard of it! A good read, eh? And a Happy Labour Day to you. Rob. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: In thru the back door
I always assume the police can access anything I write, including a tattoo underneath my armpit viewing it from a satellite. CB "r.i.p" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/06/99 12:18PM Just received a mail with this link: http://www.cryptonym.com/hottopics/msft-nsa.html As I understand it, this means that the US National Security Agency has the potential to access any machine using Windows 95/98/NT ! Worried users might wish to download Cryptonym's programme that replaces the NSA key with a useless one (nb I haven't tried this and for all I know the whole thing could be a scam). Watch out- they're watching you! Russ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Another interview
INTERVIEW WITH KARL MARX, HEAD OF L'INTERNATIONALE REVOLT OF LABOR AGAINST CAPITAL -- THE TWO FACES OF L'INTERNATIONALE -- TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY -- ITS PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES by R. Landor New York World, July 18, 1871 reprinted Woodhull Claflin's Weekly, August 12, 1871 London, July 3 -- You have asked me to find out something about the International Association, and I have tried to do so. The enterprise is a difficult one just now. London is indisputably the headquarters of the Association, but the English people have got a scare, and smell International in everything as King James smelled gunpowder after the famous plot. The consciousness of the Society has naturally increased with the suspiciousness of the public; and if those who guide it have a secret to keep, they are of the stamp of men who keep a secret well. I have called on two of their leading members, have talked with one freely, and I here give you the substance of my conversation. I have satisfied myself of one thing, that it is a society of genuine workingmen, but that these workmen are directed by social and political theories of another class. One man whom I saw, a leading member of the Council, was sitting at his workman's bench during our interview, and left off talking to me from time to time to receive a complaint, delivered in no courteous tone, from one of the many little masters in the neighborhood who employed him. I have heard this same man make eloquent speeches in public inspired in every passage with the energy of hate toward the classes that call themselves his rulers. I understood the speeches after this glimpse at the domestic life of the orator. He must have felt that he had brains enough to have organized a working government, and yet here he was obliged to devote his life to the most revolting taskwork of a mechanical profession. He was proud and sensitive, and yet at every turn he had to return a bow for a grunt and a smile for a command that stood on about the same level in the scale of civility with a huntsman's call to his dog. This man helped me to a glimpse of one side of the nature of the International, the result of Labor Against Capital of the workman who produces against the middleman who enjoys. Here was the hand that would smite hard when the time came, and as to the head that plans, I think I saw that too, in my interview with Dr. Karl Marx. Dr. Karl Marx is a German doctor of philosophy, with a German breadth of knowledge derived both from observation of the living world and from books. I should conclude that he has never been a worker in the ordinary sense of the term. His surroundings and appearance are those of a well-to-do man of the middle class. The drawing room into which I was ushered on the night of the interview would have formed very comfortable quarters for a thriving stockbroker who had made his competence and was now beginning to make his fortune. It was comfort personified, the apartment of a man of taste of easy means, but with nothing in it peculiarly characteristic of its owner. A fine album of Rhine views on the table, however, gave a clue to his nationality. I peered cautiously into the vase on the sidetable for a bomb. I sniffed for petroleum, but the smell was the smell of roses. I crept back stealthily to my seat, and moodily awaited the worst. He has entered and greeted me cordially, and we are sitting face to face. Yes, I am tete-a-tete with the revolution incarnate, with the real founder and guiding spirit of the International Society, with the author of the address in which capital was told that is it warred on labor, it must expect to have its house burned down about its ears -- in a word, with the Apologist for the Commune of Paris. Do you remember the bust of Socrates? The man who died rather than profess his belief in the Gods of the time -- the man with the fine sweep of profile for the forehead running meanly at the end into a little snub, curled-up feature, like a bisected pothook, that formed the nose. Take this bust in your mind's eye, color the beard black, dashing it here and there with puffs of gray; clap the head thus made on a portly body of the middle height, and the Doctor is before you. Throw a veil over the upper part of the face, and you might be in the company of a born vestryman. Reveal the essential feature, the immense brown, and you know at once that you have to deal with that most formidable of all composite individual forces -- a dreamer who thinks, a thinker who dreams. I went straight to my business. The world, I said, seemed to be in the dark about the International, hating it very much, but not able to say clearly what thing it hated. Some, who professed to have peered further into the gloom than their neighbors, declared that they had made out a sort of Janus figure with a fair, honest workman's smile on one of its faces, and on the other, a murderous conspirator's scowl. Would he light up the case of mystery in which theory
Re: M-TH: Why No Revolution?
"Erik Faleski" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/01/99 06:21PM [This post was delayed because it was sent from an address not subscr*bed to the list. Hans Ehrbar.] Charles: This may very well be true. But communists' work is not to directly "place our hands" on that corporate-government link and reverse its expansion. It is to communicate with those most prone to revolutionary consciousness and undistract them from their false interests, so that they shrink the link. Communists can't change the objective conditions. Well, I do agree with you. However, that almost definitely rules out socialism in most of the established Western democracies. If we were really going to put your statement into practice, we would have to go to the "newly industrializing nations" (I believe that is the P.C. term for Third World nowadays) and attempt to direct them towards revolutionary consciousness (since they are far more exploited than most Western workers and thus far more likely to revolt).. 9 Charles: I think we are on the same page in the first aspect that we do not directly make the revolution or not except as part of the great many. I agree with you that the working classes in the newly industrialized nations have more revolutionary potential at this point than those in the West. However, actually, I think it is the responsibility of communists in the Western countries to take on the hard task of changing the minds of the Western workers. I don't think communists are supposed to go all around the world making the rev. Not only is this true because there are national differences and we know our own fellow nationals best ( and would make blunders in other countries because of ignorance of their national histories). But also, at this point the lack of revolution in the West is sufficient to stop the whole world revolution because of the strategic positioning that the world bourgeoisie have put the West in. There has been plenty of Marxist revolution and national liberation revolution outside of the West already, but the old "advanced" countries' revolutions are a without-which-not for the world "show". This old rule of thumb of Marx and Engels' is still true in an evolved way. It is not just that there can't be revolution in just one country. There can! 't be world revolution unless there is revolution in the "top 10" countries. (( However, you still have to deal with increasing state power and military interventionism in the First World (e.g. the U.S. or NATO acting as a "firefighter" to put out such global revolutionary hot-spots, ostensively for reasons of preserving the peace (read: preserving global capitalism)). . (( Charles: Yes. this is part of the qualitiatively different role of the Western imperialist nations (the top ten) in the world capitalist system. The world bourgeoisie have circled their wagons/built the lager against world revolution in the imperialist nations. That's why I say the slogan of Western communists in 1999 should be: Workers of the West, it's our turn. Charles Brown --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Happy Labor Day !
INTERVIEW WITH KARL MARX by H. Chicago Tribune, January 5 1879. London, December 18 [1878] -- In a little villa at Haverstock Hill, the northwest portion of London, lives Karl Marx, the cornerstone of modern socialism. He was exiled from his native country -- Germany -- in 1844, for propagating revolutionary theories. In 1848, he returned, but in a few months was again exiled. He then took up his abode in Paris, but his political theories procured his expulsion from that city in 1849, and since that year his headquarters have been in London. His convictions have caused him trouble from the beginning. Judging from the appearance of his home, the certainly have not brought him affluence. Persistently during all these years he has advocated his views with an earnestness which undoubtedly springs from a firm belief in them, and, however much we may deprecate their propagation, we cannot but respect to a certain extent the self-denial of the now venerable exile. Your correspondent has called upon him twice or thrice, and each time the Doctor was found in his library, with a book in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He must be over seventy years of age. [Marx was sixty.] His physique is well knit, massive, erect. He has the head of a man of intellect, and the features of a cultivated Jew. His hair and beard are long, and iron-gray in color. His eyes are glittering black, shaded by a pair of bushy eyebrows. To a stranger he shows extreme caution. A foreigner can generally gain admission; but the ancient-looking German woman [Helene Demuth] who waits upon visitors has instructions to admit none who hail from the Fatherland, unless they bring letters of introduction. Once into his library, however, and having fixed his one eyeglass in the corner of his eye, in order to take your intellectual breadth and depth, so to speak, he loses that self-restraint, and unfolds to you a knowledge of men and things throughout the world apt to int! erest one. And his conversation does not run in one groove, but is as varied as are the volumes upon his library shelves. A man can generally be judged by the books he reads, and you can form your own conclusions when I tell you a casual glance revealed Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, Moliere, Racine, Montaigne, Bacon, Goethe, Voltaire, Paine; English, American, French blue books; works political and philosophical in Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, etc., etc. During my conversation I was struck with His Intimacy with American Questions which have been uppermost during the past twenty years. His knowledge of them, and the surprising accuracy with which he criticized our national and state legislation, impressed upon my mind the fact that he must have derived his information from inside sources. But, indeed, this knowledge is not confined to America, but is spread over the face of Europe. When speaking of his hobby -- socialism -- he does not indulge in those melodramatic flights generally attributed to him, but dwells upon his utopian plans for "the emancipation of the human race" with a gravity and an earnestness indicating a firm conviction in the realization of his theories, if not in this century, at least in the next. Perhaps Dr. Karl Marx is better known in America as the author of Capital, and the founder of the International Society, or at least its most prominent pillar. In the interview which follows, you will see what he says of this Society as it at present exists. However, in the meantime I will give you a few extracts from the printed general rules of The International Society published in 1871, by order of the General Council, from which you can form an impartial judgment of its aims and ends. The Preamble sets forth "that the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule; that the economical subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor -- that is, the sources of life -- lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence; that all efforts aiming at" the universal emancipation of the working classes "have hitherto failed from want of solidarity between the manifold divisions of labor in each country," and the Preamble calls for "the immediate combination of the still-disconnected movements." It goes on to say that the Internatio! nal Association acknowledges "no rights without duties, no duties without rights" -- thus making every member a worker. the Association was formed at London "to afford a central medium of communication and cooperation between the workingmen's societies in the different countries," aiming at the same end, namely: "the protection, advancement, and complete
M-TH: Analysis of next neo-liberal moves by Kim Scipes
Dear Folks-- I haven't written recently on the US economy, but have something to say, so thought I'd send a general message out. (1) I stumbled across a project of the Democratic Leadership Conference, which is the center-right coalition within the Democratic Party here in the US that was so instrumental in getting Bill Clinton nominated by the Dems in 1992, and then later elected as President. This project is called "The New Economy Index" and is located at www.neweconomyindex.org/index.html. This project is what the DLC sees as the way forward for the US economy. I think it is an extremely sophisticated program that we who tend to challenge mainstream efforts must look at and critique, and ultimately must counterpose with our own project. This is the continuing neo-liberal effort to get rid of/destroy any regulations that hinder the movement of capital and political power of the US state, and to continue restructuring the US economy to be able to maintain US dominance over the rest of the world's political economy. The accompanying part of the project is called "The State New Economy Index" and is at www.neweconomyindex.org/states/introduction.html. This part of the project examines the situation in each terrotorial state (e.g., New York, California, etc.), and basically tells policy makers what they have to do to get their state up to the standards necessary to compete in the hyper-competitive neo-liberal model. I suggest that folks need to look at these items. And this is important for those of you who live outside the US as well, because if the US implements all of these things, your country/economy/etc., will have to deal with them. (2) From Fortune magazine of September 6, 1999: 121-134: "Internet Defense Strategy: Cannibalize Yourself" by Jerry Useem. I think this fits with the above--what is happening is that established firms are being overrun by new companies organized around the Internet--the old ones are not near as nimble in responding to change, etc. The author says that old companies are starting new Internet companies to compete with the (i.e.,THEIR) old companies, and the new ones are tearing up the old ones. In other words, if the original company wants to survive in these days of hyper-capitalism, firms must "cannibalize" themselves to insiders or risk having this done to them by outsiders, and going out of business. Since the DLC's "New Economy" Project already points out that 1/3 of all jobs in the US are currently "in flux"--i.e., either the company is growing rapidly or is going out of business--this looks even nastier. (3) From Crain's Chicago Business, the local weekly business paper here in Chicago: "City awash in newly minted millionaires" by Julie Johnsson, August 23, 1999: 3, 38. In this article, Ms. Johnsson points out that "Between 1994 and 1998, the number of millionaire households--those with at least $1 million in investible assets [i.e., does not include house or car--KS]--in Illinois swelled 43% to 73,588, outpacing the growth in affluent households nationwide" Then she points out, "What's more, the ranks of millionaire households are projected to swell 47% to 108,288 by 2003. -- Hopefully, the point has gotten through: as our political "leaders" here in the US are destroying any limits on capital, a few are getting fabuously wealthy. I won't try to put this in a larger sociological context tonight, but I think it bodes ill for most of the people here and around the world. In solidarity-- Kim Scipes --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Is this for real ?
This mechanical postmodern essay generator seems like the Sokal and Bricomont hoax to the tenth power. Charles Brown "Workers World / Chicago" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/17/99 08:45PM The most hilarious link from this page is the "Postmodern Essay Generator" at http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/postmodern This link, when selected, automatically generates your own personal postmodern essay. It is likely to have a lot to do with socialist realism. If you get it published, be sure to credit the author of the program: The Postmodernism Generator was written by Andrew C. Bulhak, using the Dada Engine, a system for generating random text from recursive grammars. More detailed technical information may be found in Monash University Department of Computer Science Technical Report 96/264: "On the Simulation of Postmodernism and Mental Debility Using Recursive Transition Networks". An on-line copy is available here. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: From another list:
Noam Chomsky on Socialism: A Critique by Li'l Joe ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and Connie White ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) (in response to the 08/05/99 BRC-News "Quote of the Day") Noam Chomsky says: "One can debate the meaning of the term 'socialism,' but if it means anything, it means control of production by the workers themselves, not owners and managers who rule them and control all decisions, whether in capitalist enterprise or an absolutist state. * To refer to the Soviet Union as socialist is an interesting case of doctrinal double speak." Chomsky is considered an expert in the science of language - i.e., a professor of linguistics, and a partisan, linguistic theoretician. The notion of "doublespeak" is, of course, taken from George Orwell's anti-utopian science fiction, futuristic novel 1984. If there is a totalitarian or "absolutist" state-society within which operates a "Ministry of Truth," it is the United States -- with its educational institutions -- and Chomsky is its "Obrian." Noam Chomsky has made significant contributions to the study of language - to the study of words and their meaning. But, what is the meaning of the word "meaning" as it is used in the above quote of the day (from the BRC-News listserve)? Chomsky is concerned with the "meaning" of the word "socialism," yet he removes it from its social, political and historical context. Furthermore, Chomsky is interested in socialism as it exists as an idea -- a concept ascertained through a dialectical process like the idea of right or justice in the Dialogue of Plato's Republic. As in the Republic, it is the determinateness of the idea and its proper definition -- or its reality as idea -- against which material activities are judged. Since socialism in the Soviet Union did not reach the standard of Chomsky's idea of what it "meant" to be socialist, the Soviet Union - the real -- is discarded. However, the reality of the Soviet Union cannot be so easily discarded in history. Terms, such as "socialism" and "capitalism," have meaning not only in linguistic sophistry, but also as description of economic phenomena. For Chomsky, the idea -- the concept denoted by the term -- has prior reality. Chomsky is an idealist (not a materialist like Lenin, Trotsky, and Luxemberg - all contemporaries of the Russian Revolution) and, therefore, if the material phenomenon he examines does not correspond to the concept, he dislodges the reality from the concept. For example, Chomsky's idea of socialism and the economic reality of the Soviet Union do not comport so, in order to keep his concept in tack, Chomsky dislodges the reality from the idea and refers to the Soviet Union as "socialist. . . doublespeak." To Chomsky we say that we are not dealing with an Orwellian novel, but economic reality. We agree with Chomsky in that: the Soviet Union was never socialist. (Socialism is an economic category -- like capitalism - which is only possible at a certain level of the development of the productive forces. Since we do not believe in socialism in one country, we posit that the productive forces present in Russia in 1917 had to develop further - under state monopoly capitalism - before they would be at the level needed to accommodate socialism. But, that is another discussion.) Chomsky's explanation of what went wrong and why does not, however, coincide with or take into account the material (economic) reality. Economic reality in Russia in 1917 had nothing to do with Orwellian symbols and systems, and the reason why the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was not maintained in Russia cannot be explained by attributing ill will to what Chomsky considers a few power hungry "usurpers" -- viz. Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin. The Soviet Union, in its reality in 1917, was operating in the capitalist framework of a market economy. On the other hand, the Russian bourgeoisie in 1917 were unwilling -- but more correctly unable -- to carry its revolution to its logical, and historical conclusion. The model bourgeois-democratic revolution was the French Revolution of 1789-93, where the bourgeoisie made its revolution by forging an alliance with the rural peasantry. Positioned by industrial developments in Russia in 1917, the Russian working class was able to operate as a concentrated, independent political party, a class, and it was able to challenge the bourgeois Constituent Assembly. The Bolshevik party of proletarians and communists recognized that the laboring masses in Russia were, in overwhelming majority, mainly poor peasants (see Lenin's April Thesis), and exposed the real intent of the bourgeoisie in order to throw aside its political representatives. In contradistinction to the historical precedent of the bourgeois-dominated French Revolution, the Russian proletariat was able to exploit the nascent bourgeois democracy, and form an alliance with the vast masses of a revolutionary
M-TH: CP Economics Commission analysis
$$$ boom: bonanza for the rich, but misery for working class The following, an abridged version of a report by the Communist Party Economics Commission, is part of the discussion in preparation for the CPUSA's regional conferences on ideology scheduled for Oct. 23-24: The decade of the 1990s has seen far-reaching changes, affecting all countries, including the United States. The decade began with the disastrous development of the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union and its basic socialist structure, along with similar setbacks throughout Eastern Europe, devastating the economy, culture and living conditions of the people. This gave U.S. imperialism a great boost towards its goal: to be sole superpower. The United States has pursued this aim with cruelty and the ruthless killing, directly and indirectly, of many millions. Meanwhile, the gap between the super-rich and the rest of us grows wider. The United States has led in economic and technological growth, in the profits of its ruling class, in the rate of exploitation of labor and in the export of capital. It has been corrupted and has, to some extent, corrupted the rest of the world culturally - exemplified by the glut of advertising and the spread of drugs, gambling, etc. Monopolization of industry has proceeded very rapidly, as has the spread of inequalities within, as well as between, classes. Especially glaring is the intensification of racism. There has been rapidly expanding inequality between the U.S.-led bloc of imperialist countries - including NATO members in Europe, Japan and Canada - and the rest of the world, which is objectively neo-colonial. As the living standards of more than a billion people in these countries have been drastically reduced, the plunder of resources and labor by American and other monopoly corporations has been unrestrained. For two years the capitalist world has been in the grip of a severe financial crisis, which is still spreading. The neo-colonial countries bear the brunt of the crisis. Among the most advanced capitalist countries, Japan has been most seriously hit. Its government is intervening in a big way in the attempt to overcome the crisis, with uncertain results. In the U.S., the decade began with a rather mild crisis in 1990. But starting with the second half of 1992, there has been a continuous recovery, and at this stage, aspects of boom for eight years without interruption. However, the current increase in idle capacity is one indicator that a crisis may be looming. European countries have gone through crises at different times during the decade. Economic growth has been powered by computerization of society and by rapid advances in communications technology, including the Internet. Financial extremes have developed, notably the rise in prices on the stock market reaching far beyond the growth in economic activity and profits. This is an important factor ripening a major crisis of overproduction. Militarization The main driving force of the U.S. economy is soaring military outlays. Military spending is budgeted to increase $110 billion over a six-year period, ending $50 billion higher than in fiscal 1999. To that has been added $10 to $20 billion for the war against Yugoslavia. This initiated the U.S. campaign to control all of southeastern Europe - on the road to the Ukraine and the Caspian Sea area with its oil - and northeastward toward Moscow. The anti-Communist content of this drive signifies that the Cold War has never really ended but has taken on new forms and targets. The attitude of the most powerful sector of the U.S. ruling class is expressed by The New York Times and its foreign affairs columnist, Thomas L. Friedman. The cover of the March 28 New York Times Magazine shows a gigantic fist wrapped in an American flag. The article's subhead reads, "From supercharged financial markets to Osama Bin Laden, the emerging global order demands an enforcer." "That's America's new burden," Friedman wrote. "The hidden hand of the market will never flourish without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-14. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." Friedman sees his view as fitting in with globalization of the economy. But while liberals see globalization as the interaction of economic forces everywhere without government intervention, Friedman sees it as an environment in which the United States can take control of the world and its capitalists can reap maximum profits. The U.S. working class A modest rise in real wages and decline in unemployment has occurred over the past year. But the situation of the lowest paid and poorest section of the working class has worsened. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has stepped up propaganda about
M-TH: White man's burden '99
Imperialism's racist 'burden' is to be world enforcer By Arthur Perlo One hundred years ago, the famous English author Rudyard Kipling wrote his poem, "White Man's Burden." The British empire spanned the globe, and the United States had just joined the ranks of global imperialist powers with its conquest of the Philippines. Today, the U.S. is the world's dominant power. New York Times writer Thomas L. Friedman celebrates that power in an article in the March 28 New York Times Magazine. Published exactly 100 years after Kipling's poem, the headline reads, "... the emerging global order demands an enforcer. That's America's burden." What was Kipling's burden, and what is Friedman's? Kipling wrote, "Take up the White Man's burden ... To serve your captive's need ... To veil the threat of terror ... to seek another's profit." In other words, imperialism would selflessly bring peace and civilization to the ungrateful non-white peoples of the world, who Kipling called the "new-caught sullen peoples, half devil and half child." There was an immediate worldwide response against Kipling's racism. In an eloquent essay, Sixta Lopez, a leader of the Philippine independence movement that was being brutally suppressed by U.S. troops, wrote, "... the 'white man's burden' consists in making colossal fortunes out of the inadequately paid labor of the brown man. But ... the Filipino will not slave for the benefit of foreigners any more than will the American or the Englishman or Mr. Kipling." Today, America's new burden, as described by Friedman, sounds suspiciously like Kipling's "white man's burden." His essay is an appeal to the U.S. people, and especially the decision-makers who read the Times, to undertake the "burden" of ruling the world. "As the country that benefits most from global economic integration, we have the responsibility of making sure that this new system is sustainable ... Sustaining globalization is our overeaching national responsibility." Kipling complains of the burden of the world's ingratitude for the gifts of British rule: Take up the White Man's burden, And reap his old reward The blame of those ye better The hate of those ye guard. Friedman also complains that, from Tehran to Paris, from Indonesia to Russia, the U.S. is called the "capital of global arrogance," and that "resentment of America is on the rise globally." But that's the price "we" pay for global leadership. Friedman is slightly more honest than Kipling, because he admits that the U.S. (or at least the U.S. multinational corporations) benefit from this New World Order. But he's just as proud of the role of global enforcer: "The hidden hand of the market will never work with out a hidden fist McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas ... the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States [armed forces]." We have just seen this in the catastrophe visited by that fist on the "sullen peoples" of Yugoslavia. There is much that is hateful in Friedman's article. It deserves a flood of answers, comparable to those that responded to Kipling. One of those century-old answers speaks to us today on a vital question what does the imperial burden mean to the ordinary working people of the dominating power (Great Britain then, the U.S. today)? "The Poor Man's Burden" was written by Howard S. Taylor in 1899. Pile up the poor man's burden, Accept Great Britain's plan. She does all things for commerce Scarce anything for man. Far off among the pagans She seeks an open door While Pity cries in London "God help the British poor!" It could have been written today about the United States, with Friedman's "free trade and competition" the modern form of Britain's "open door." Taylor continues that poor men's sons will die in far-off places for others' gain; that glory will ride, "as ever, upon the toiler's back." At the end of the last century, British working class youth joined the army to escape their grinding poverty. Included were Irish youth, whose parents were held in poverty by the same British army. They served throughout the world, keeping the yoke of British colonialism fastened on people in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Some of them died there. Others returned home to the mines and factories of Britain, only to find that the same imperial interests they served overseas were now their oppressors in the class struggle at home. At the same time, young American boys from farm and town were serving in the Philippines under General Leonard Wood. The general got his early training exterminating the Native American Indians. In the Philippines, he directed a brutal war against an entire people to crush their movement for independence. A decade later, this hero was Army Chief of Staff when federal troops were used on behalf of the Rockefeller-owned coal companies against the
Re: M-TH: Re: dialectical materialism/activist materialism
From Reason and Revolt: Marxism and Science by Alan Woods and Ted Grant online @ http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~zac/maindex.htm Marxism and Darwinism Darwins Gradualism No Progress? Marxism and Darwinism Darwin and Malthus Social Darwinism "It is sometimes said that the standpoint of dialectics is identical with that of evolution. There can be no doubt that these two methods have points of contact. Nevertheless, between them there is a profound and important difference which, it must be admitted, is far from favouring the teaching of evolution. Modern evolutionists introduce a considerable admixture of conservatism into their teaching. They want to prove that there are no leaps either in nature or in history. Dialectics, on the other hand, knows full well that in nature and also in human thought and history leaps are inevitable. But it does not overlook the undeniable fact that the same uninterrupted process is at work in all phases of change. It only endeavours to make clear to itself the series of conditions under which gradual change must necessarily lead to a leap." (Plekhanov) (66) Darwin regarded the pace of evolution as a gradual process of orderly steps. It proceeded at a constant rate. He adhered to Linnaeus motto: "Nature does not make leaps." This conception was reflected elsewhere in the scientific world, most notably with Darwins disciple, Charles Lyell, the apostle of gradualism in the field of geology. Darwin was so committed to gradualism, that he built his whole theory on it. "The geological record is extremely imperfect," stated Darwin, "and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory." This Darwinism gradualism was rooted in the philosophical views of Victorian society. From this evolution all the leaps, abrupt changes and revolutionary transformations are eliminated. This anti-dialectical outlook has he! ! ! ! ld sway over the sciences to this present day. "A deeply rooted bias of Western thought predisposes us to look for continuity and gradual change," says Gould. However, these views have given rise to a heated controversy. The present fossil record is full of gaps. It reveals long term trends, but they are also very jerky. Darwin believed that these jerks were due to the gaps in the record. Once the missing pieces were discovered, it would reveal a gradual smooth evolution of the natural world. Or would it? Against the gradualist approach, palaeontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould have put forward a theory of evolution called punctuated equilibria, suggesting that the fossil record is not as incomplete as had been thought. The gaps could reflect what really occurred. That evolution proceeds with leaps and jumps, punctuated with long periods of steady, gradual development. "The history of life is not a continuum of development, but a record punctuated by brief, sometimes geologically instantaneous, episodes of mass extinction and subsequent diversification," says Gould. Rather than a gradual transition, "modern multicellular animals make their first uncontested appearance in the fossil record some 570 million years agoand with a bang, not a protracted crescendo. This Cambrian explosion marks the advent (at least into direct evidence) of virtually all major groups of modern animalsand all within the minuscule span, geologically speaking, of a few million years." (67) Gould also points to the feature that the boundaries of geological time coincide with turning points in the evolution of life. This conception of evolution comes very close to the Marxist view. Evolution is not some smooth, gradual movement from lower to higher. Evolution takes place through accumulated changes which burst through in a qualitative change, through revolutions and transformations. Almost a century ago, the Marxist George Plekhanov polemicised against the gradual conception of evolution: "German idealist philosophy," he noted, "decisively revolted against such a misshapen conception of evolution. Hegel bitingly ridiculed it, and demonstrated irrefutably that both in nature and in human society leaps constituted just as essential a stage of evolution as gradual quantitative changes. Changes in being, he says, consists not only in the fact that one quantity passes into another quantity, but also that quality passes into quality, and vice versa. Each transition of the latter kind represents an interruption in gradualness, and gives the phenomenon a new aspect, qualitatively distinct from the previous one." (68) "Evolution" and "revolution" are two sides of the same process. In rejecting gradualism, Gould and Eldredge have sought an alternative explanation of evolution, and have been influenced by
Re: M-TH: Re: dialectical materialism/activist materialism
Comrade Harry, I would say that part of the answer to your question is that an overall scientific worldview among the masses of workers is necessary for working class and socialist consciousness. A scientific worldview cannot be instilled based on consideration of the history of human society alone, but rather must include a conviction of the scientific nature of the natural world and some enthusiasm for the knowledge of modern natural science replacing a religious or idealist worldview. Only with this full scientific worldview will workers be convinced of a scientific understanding of society and human history, and consequently a historical materialist and communist standpoint toward social issues. One of the aspects of the Marxist conception of all of this that imputes to it a superior philosophical understanding of the whole matter is that dialectics is a profound insight into epistemology including that of the natural sciences. That Marxism has discovered a fundamental logic of reality t! ! hat even many highly successful natural scientists are not consciously aware of , but which is reflected in their work. So, the point is that Marxism relies on its superior understanding of science at a philosophical level to persuade people of its superior understanding of science as applied to human society in particular. It is part of legitimizing Marxism with the masses of workers whom Marxism seeks to get to move and change the world. Charles Brown Harry Feldman [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/08/99 11:19AM Comrades, I'm not too sure what this argument is about. In my view, it doesn't matter whether we call the kind of reasoning marxists apply in understanding what's going on around us and how to intervene most effectively is called 'dialectical materialism', 'materialist dialectics', 'historical materialism', 'the materialist view of history' or what have you. Nor does it matter whether we, or Engels or Lenin, depart from exactly what Marx meant by it. What matters is whether its application, in the form we apply it, leads to a correct understanding and effective action (the test of whether our understanding is correct). I find the disagreement over whether the dialectic is applicable to 'the natural world' or not puzzling. For those of us who don't actually work in the 'natural sciences', obviously its application to the natural world is going to be marginal, particularly in contrast to how we apply it daily in understanding social phenomena and informing our practice. I reckon if there's one thing we need to learn from the dialectic, its the unity of theory and practice. I don't know whether it's the case that Marx thought mid-19th Century science adequate or not. But back in those days, 'science' had not yet come against quantum phenomena, superstrings and whatnot. Without pretending to understand this stuff, from what I read, one of the main barriers to scientists' understanding it is a futile attempt to address them mechanistically. Some scientists I've read (can't supply citation, I'm afraid, but probably something in Scientific American or New Scientist) seem to be on the verge of breaking with this, although they may not know where to turn. Evolutionary (punctuated equilibrium), geological and astronomical phenomena seem to me to unfold in a dialectical way and if we can understand such things dialectically, why should we hold back, whether or not the giants from whose shoulders we gain a wider perspective recognised it themselves? YFTR, Harry --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: Re: dialectical materialism/activist materialism
Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/06/99 10:14AM G'day Thaxists, Look, I know we've been through all this before, but it is my conviction that politics is like a computer. You make an apparently small mistake with what you put in, and you get an absolute disaster coming out. To the diamat brigade I ask only that you dwell upon what Marx must have meant when he said of Feuerbach, "Insofar as Feuerbach is a materialist he does not deal with history, and insofar as he considers history he is not a materialist". So what does he mean by (a) 'material', by (b) 'history', and by (c) 'nature'. ((( Charles: Hey Rob, I'll take a shot at this one again. From the Theses on Feuerbach, Marx says that the chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism, Feuerbach included, is that it is contemplative and not active. Feuerbach critiqued Hegel's idealism and theism, placing objective reality as primary to subjective reality, but he treats the process of gaining knowledge about that objective reality as if it comes mainly through passive contemplation and not practical-critical activity. History is made by active classes, so this contemplative materialism fails to deal with history, the process by which things change, or objective reality is changed. Feuerbachian and the other materialisms are errors of mechanical or vulgar materialism, treating history like a giant clock that mechanically unwinds without human agency. This materialism just observes this unwinding without integrating theory and practice, or activism. I have a paper on Activist Materialism on this point. Marx's is an activist materialism. On "nature" , I won't say much right now, except that if you notice, in Capital, Marx capitalizes "Nature", personifying it. Also, in the Preface to the First German edition he says that he treats economics like natural history. Also, the last time we discussed this, Chris Burford found many examples of Marx using natural science dialectics as heuristics in Capital to explain human historical dialectics. ((( Allowing for a little simplification, does anyone here reckon other than: (a) 'material': an analytic foundation conceived of as an integration of two dynamics: the way a society reproduces its physical existence and the relations that constitute that society; (( Charles: Yes, for historical materialism, the means of production and the relations of production. These are more original phrases as Marx used them , I believe. But general materialism must be understood as mainly in a struggle with theism. The idealism that Marx and Engels struggled against was expressed in idealist philosophies , but also mainly as religion ( See Engels' _Socialism: Utopian and Scientific_) . Even Hegel put his system forward as a version of Chrisitanity. Feuerbach's great materialist critique of Hegel is in a main part an expression of atheism ( See Engels' _Ludwig Feuerbach_). The point I am trying to make is that Marxist materialism can be seen to address natural history as well as human history in this regard, because, of course , theism purported to explain the natural world as well as human society. Marxism includes the materialist/atheist critique of idealist/theist naturalism as well. Part of the dialectics of Marxism's attitude toward nature is that it conceives of it as a natural HISTORY. Idealism and metaphysics is anti-dialectical in its natural science in part because it does not conceive of nature as having a real history or real development. So Darwin's approach was more dialectical than Creationism, because Darwinism is a natural HISTORICISM. As discussed before, and as you allude to below, Darwin's approach is not entirely dialectical because of its gradualism. It is evolutionary. Revolutionary ( or fully dialectical) biology finds gradualism (evolution) and leaps (revolutions), both; or, quantitative and qualitiative change. (( (b) 'history': developments in precisely this complex - bearing in mind that, while their consciousness need not have a one-to-one relationship withthe way they reproduce their existence, the two are mutually constitutive (ie, each affords a scope of possibility for the other - allowing us to make history, but never in unconstrained conditions - making for a pattern very much like Gould's 'punctuated equilibrium' take on Darwinian evolution - I'll go that far without reservation, Chas); ( Charles: Ok. By the way, there is another , more recent Marxist paper on the net that comes to this same analysis of the significance of punctuated equilibrium rendering biology and natural history more fully dialectical as compared with Darwin. I'll look for the website. (c) 'nature': Well, Marx does tell us "Through this production, nature appears as *his* work and his reality". Nature not *in itself* then, but categorically *for humanity*. Nature as constructed by and for the complex
M-TH: Re: dialectical materialism/activist materialism
Just to follow up , the error of the claims that Engels and Lenin , etc. deviate from Marx's own method into "ideology" is the exact error that Marx criticizes in the Theses on Feuerbach. What is being termed "ideology" is actually the activist component , the "PRACTICAL-critical ACTIVITY" that Marx makes clear is HIS method as distinguished from other materialists. The historical materialism that the some others on this thread are describing is contemplative and passive like Feuerbach's materialism which Marx differentiates himself from on precisely this point. This is scholastic materialism as Marx mentions in the Second Thesis. Marx's historical materialism unites theory and practice. More specifically, Marxist epistemology demands that we come to know by practice (Second Thesis). A scholastic approach sees this in Engels and Lenin and labels it "ideology", however it overlooks that Marx himself states it more sharply than Engels or Lenin in the Second Thesis on Feuerbach! ! : "The question whether objective truth can be attrributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a _practical question_. Man must prove the truth, i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely _scholastic_ question." Had Engels or Lenin written this, anti-diamats ( and bourgeois academics) would be calling it "ideology" and "not-objective". Charles Brown . "Charles Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/06/99 From the Theses on Feuerbach, Marx says that the chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism, Feuerbach included, is that it is contemplative and not active. Feuerbach critiqued Hegel's idealism and theism, placing objective reality as primary to subjective reality, but he treats the process of gaining knowledge about that objective reality as if it comes mainly through passive contemplation and not practical-critical activity. History is made by active classes, so this contemplative materialism fails to deal with history, the process by which things change, or objective reality is changed. Feuerbachian and the other materialisms are errors of mechanical or vulgar materialism, treating history like a giant clock that mechanically unwinds without human agency. This materialism just observes this unwinding without integrating theory and practice, or activism. I have a paper on Activist Materialism on this point. Marx's is an activist materialism. Charles: This point connects directly to Engels and Lenin's discussion of the epistemology of practice ( _Anti-Duhring_ and _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism) and Marx's main theme of practical-critical activity and practice as the test of theory in the Theses on Feuerbach. Engels says exactly that knowing something in nature is to change it from a thing-in-itself to a thing-for-us. This is the Marxist ( and Hegelian) solution to the Kantian problem of the unknowable thing-in-itself. Engels says we know something when we can make it. The famous example is when coal tar is turned into alizar. We prove the "this sideedness" ( "for-us") of something, Marx says, in practice. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: dialectical materialism
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Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/04/99 05:45PM Dialectical Materialism
and Modern Science by Kenneth Cameron
(International Publishers New York 1995) is an interesting modern attempt
to uphold dialectical materialism in a non dogmatic way.
The more formal statement from Maurice Cornforth, 1951, based on lectures
given to the London District of the Communist Party states:
"Dialectical materialism, the world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist Party,
is a truly scientific world outlook, for it is based on considering things
as they are, without arbitrary, preconceived assumptions (idealist
fantasies); it insists that our conception of things must be based on
actual investigation and experience, and must be constantly tested and
re-tested in the light of practice and further experience.
Indeed 'dialectical materialism' means: understanding things just as they
are ('materialism'), in their actual interconnection and movement
('dialectics')."
((
Charles: There is Politizer's _Elementary Principles of Philosophy_ too.
Charles Brown
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M-TH: Immigration reso
The following resolution was adopted by the Alameda County Central Labor
Council on June 21, 1999. It could serve as a model for other unions and
councils in raising the issue of immigration at the AFL-CIO convention in
Los Angeles in October.
Resolution: Defending the Rights of Immigrant Workers and the Right to
Organize
WHEREAS: Our country and its labor movement were built in large part by
immigrants, including those from Africa kidnapped and forced into slavery.
Our laws have also historically reflected public attitudes about race,
with bans and discriminatory limits on legal immigration from Asia, Africa,
and Latin America which have only recently been rectified. People have
come here seeking economic survival, often driven from their countries of
origin by hunger, political repression and the lack of economic opportunity.
AND WHEREAS: There are over 100 million people in the world today who have
left their countries of origin. Only social and economic justice on a
global scale will create a world where immigration is not a means of
survival for the world's poor.
AND WHEREAS: Thousands of immigrant workers, both with and without
documents, have mounted large and effective campaigns to organize unions in
California in the last decade. These efforts have created new unions and
strengthened and revived many others, benefitting all labor, immigrant and
native-born alike.
AND WHEREAS: The ability of workers to organize has been increasingly
threatened by current immigration law and its enforcement, which has been
used to retaliate against workers who organize and protest against
sweatshop conditions.
AND WHEREAS: The California Labor Federation resolved in 1994 that
employer sanctions should be repealed, passing the same resolution in each
convention since then, because sanctions cause discrimination against
anyone who looks or sounds foreign, because they provide a weapon employers
have used repeatedly to fire and threaten immigrant workers who organize
unions, and because they make immigrant workers vulnerable and cheapen
their labor, violating their rights as workers and human beings.
AND WHEREAS: Labor stands for the equality of all workers. Immigration
legislation and its enforcement which divides workers undermines that
strength. All workers, regardless of immigration status, have the right to
form unions; file complaints against illegal and unfair treatment without
fear of reprisal; receive unemployment insurance, disability insurance,
workers' compensation benefits; and enjoy the same remedies under labor law
as all other workers.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the Alameda County Central Labor Council
supports the call made by the California Labor Federation and many
affiliated unions for the repeal of employer sanctions.
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the Alameda County Central Labor Council
opposes all cooperation between the Immigration and Naturalization Service
and other government and public institutions, such as SSA, the Department
of Labor, unemployment and welfare offices, and motor vehicle departments,
among others, in which information provided by immigrants is misused for
immigration enforcement purposes.
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the Alameda County Central Labor Council
calls for ending completely the practice of sending letters to employers
with lists of workers whose names don't match the SSA database ("no-match
letters), which are then then used as a pretext to terminate them, alleging
their immigration status is in question.
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the Alameda County Central Labor Council
calls for a new amnesty program, allowing undocumented immigrants to
regularize their status, and an inexpensive and expedited citizenship
process to allow immigrants to become citizens as quickly and easily as
possible.
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the Alameda County Central Labor Council
proposes that the budget for immigration enforcement be cut drastically,
and the money used instead to increase enforcement of workers' rights and
fair labor standards.
AND BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED: The Alameda County Central Labor Council
submits this resolution to the national convention of the AFL-CIO for
adoption, and requests the California Labor Federation to forward its
position to the national convention for adoption as well.
Adopted by the Central Labor Council of Alameda County, AFL-CIO at the
Delegates Meeting on Monday, June 21, 1999. Judy Goff, Executive
Secretary-Treasurer.
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david bacon - labornet emaildavid bacon
internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1631 channing way
phone: 510.549.0291berkeley, ca 94703
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