Re: [Marxism] Iraq's Night is Long.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I thought Vijay's article was overall very good, and although I agree with Andy about the importance of us broadcasting any working-class non-sectarian actions/messages coming out of Iraq, I think Vijay is probably right at this moment on how weak such forces are likely to be. But I certainly agree with Andy about what Vijay says about a possible non-sectarian role for al-Sadr, Hezbollah and even perhaps Iran - this seems tacked on the end of the article as it it was written by someone else, a different article. It is certainly true that al-Sadr has condemned the Maliki regime for years and has advocated a more non-sectarian approach to the Sunni, but this shows his relative independence from Iran which is strongly aligned to Maliki, and any Iranian thrust into Iraq will solidify sectarian lines like nothing else will, especially given Iran's decisive role in the al-Nakba of Syrian Sunni. As for al-Sadr himself, we'll see, but his first reaction to the combined Sunni revolt was a call to arms to the Shia - not exactly the strategy to split the Sunni from the criminal ISIS. In particular, Vijay's intriguing line that al-Sadr is interested in the creation of an Iraqi version of Hezbollah, rooted in the Shia community of Lebanon but with pretensions of being an Arab nationalist force which might contribute toward a non-sectarian platform sounds like something written about half a decade ago, or perhaps in 2006; since Hezbollah's invasion of Syria on behalf of the regime, no-one in the region views it anymore as an Arab nationalist force but as a violent Shiite sectarian army. Its role in the subjugation of the Sunni town Qusayr last May, turned to rubble by the regime, was a point of no return; the Sunni of that town and that region had in the past been strong supporters of Hezbollah and had even opened their homes to Hezbollah fighters during its 2006 war with Israel. Betrayal is not something easily forgotten. Frankly, in current circumstances, we can only hope that all-Sadr doesn't become any more like Hezbollah and retains an modicum of decency. -Original Message- From: Andrew Pollack via Marxism Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2014 3:36 AM To: Michael Karadjis Subject: Re: [Marxism] Iraq's Night is Long. == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Lots of useful facts here. But the perspectives for possible action are politically off. On the one hand, Vijay puts faith in Iran and/or Hezbollah and/or Muqtada al-Sadr to form Shia-based but Sunni-inclusive fighting forces to stop ISIS (quotes below). On the other hand, he is dismissive of independent unionists' claim that Iraqis are mostly nonsectarian, and so rules them out as actors with any potential. One would think Iran and Hezbollah's participation in the genocide in Syria, and the simple fact that they're both bourgeois political forces, would have dispelled illusions in their capacity, not only for uniting Sunni and Shia, but more generally for playing any progressive role in the region. As for al-Sadr, on top of his sectarian base must be added his long history of selling wolf tickets. Even if it's true that the unions are exaggerating Iraqis' nonsectarianism -- and we have no evidence that that's so -- OUR job, besides demanding no US intervention, is to do everything we possibly can to help the unions -- and women's groups etc. -- to get out the word about their activities, to help them stay safe, even to help them get their own arms if need be. From Vijay's article: Calls from the trade unions of Iraq that the people are ready to resist ISIS on a nationalist platform, such as by Falah Alwan http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/18143/on-recent-events-in-mosul-and-other-cities-in-iraq of the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq, will go unheard. Few can appreciate it when Alwan says that 'demands to be rid of sectarianism are clear and direct' – noble statements no doubt – but inaudible before the harshly sectarian guns of ISIS US promises to bomb ISIS from the air are not a tonic. They would only stop its advance, but not break its power, which stretches from parts of Syria’s Aleppo to the outskirts of Iraq’s Baghdad. It is Iran that has the most to lose here. It has already sent sections of its Revolutionary Guard Corps to help form a line of defense in the province of Diyala, whose main city Baquba was the origin of the Islamic State of Iraq. This is a part of Iraq where Shias and Sunnis live, and it would be a test of their unity against ISIS and for something other than the
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Socialist Alliance, theories of the USSR, Venezuela solidarity, Portugal, Podemos, Ukraine, Zapatistas, New Zealand
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Socialist Alliance, theories of the USSR, Venezuela solidarity, Portugal, Podemos, Ukraine, Zapatistas, New Zealand * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to linkssocial...@gmail.com *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. *Comments welcome on all articles *Return daily for new articles * * * Australia: Socialist Alliance's 'International Political Perspectives' resolution http://links.org.au/node/3907 /Despite repeated warnings from the majority of the world's scientists of the urgent need to slash greenhouse gas emission, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere passed over 400 parts per million for the first time in human history -- signalling the globe's dangerous race to catastrophic and irreversible global warming./ *Adopted by the 10th National Conference of the Socialist Alliance, June 7-9, 2014. * 1. The 10th national conference of Socialist Alliance is taking place at a time extreme inequality, intensified conflict and ecological crisis on a global scale. The 85 richest individuals in the world now hold as much wealth between them as the 3.5 billion poorest people in the world. A world divided by such extreme inequality will never be at peace and this is fundamentally why wars and uprisings continue to break out in numerous countries. This unprecedented concentration of wealth and power also is an absolute block to the urgently needed transition to an ecologically sustainable future. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/3907 Barry Sheppard: Three theories of the USSR http://links.org.au/node/3901 By *Barry Sheppard* June 6, 2014 -- In this two-part article I examine the ramifications for today of the three theories of the USSR that emerged from the Left Opposition: state capitalism, bureaucratic collectivism and Leon Trotsky's theory of the degenerated workers' state. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/3901 Asia-Pacific socialists: 'No US sanctions against Venezuela' http://links.org.au/node/3909 End United States' interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela! No sanctions against Venezuelan citizens! June 17, 2014 -- We, the undersigned parties and organisations in the Asia region, condemn the moves by the United States government to impose sanctions on Venezuelan citizens it deems to have abused human rights. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/3909 Portugal and Europe after the European elections http://links.org.au/node/3906 Statement by *Left Bloc* (Bloco de Esquerda), Portugal; translated by *Federico Fuentes*. June 8, 2014 -- Following the [September 29, 2013] local elections, the Left Bloc developed its European program via a thorough programmatic debate involving many independent activists. That culminated at our February 2014 national conference. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/3906 Australia: Socialist Alliance's 'Australian Political Perspectives' resolution http://links.org.au/node/3905 *Adopted by the 10th National Conference of Socialist Alliance, June 7-9, 2014* 1. Australia has escaped recession for more than two decades, despite the impact of the Asian and global financial crises on the world's economies. While Australia experienced strong economic growth in the years following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), economic growth has now slowed to 2.8%, and is mainly driven by commodity exports, consumer spending and housing investment. With mining projects shifting from the capital investment stage into production for export, falling commodity prices, as well as increased global competition for commodity exports will likely impact on Australia's export income (and economic stability) in the years to come. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/3905 Spanish state: 'Podemos has won new people over to the left, to oppose neoliberal policies' -- United Left http://links.org.au/node/3904 By *Daniel del Pino*, Madrid; translated from /Público/for /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ by *Federico Fuentes* * Read more http://links.org.au/node/3904 A class analysis of the Ukrainian crisis http://links.org.au/node/3903 By *Viktor Shapinov*, translated from the Ukrainian website /Liva/ (The Left), translated by *Renfrey Clarke* for**/Links International Journal of
Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == *Wiki:Psychological projection* is the act or technique of defending oneself against unpleasant impulses by denying http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying their existence in oneself, while attributing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_%28psychology%29 them to others.[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#cite_note-1 For example, a person who is rude http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudeness may constantly accuse other people of being rude. Although rooted in early developmental stages,[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#cite_note-2 and classed by George Eman Vaillant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eman_Vaillant as an immature defence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanism#Level_2:_Immature,[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#cite_note-3 the projection of one's negative qualities onto others on a small scale is nevertheless a common process in everyday life.[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#cite_note-4 A prominent precursor in the formulation of the projection principle was Giambattista Vico http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambattista_Vico [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#cite_note-5[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#cite_note-6 (23 June 1668 – 23 January 1744), and an early formulation of it is found in ancient Greek writer Xenophanes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophanes (c.c. 570 – c. 475 BC), which observed that the gods of Ethiopians were inevitably black with flat noses while those of the Thracians were blond with blue eyes. In 1841, Ludwig Feuerbach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Feuerbach (July 28, 1804 – September 13, 1872), was the first to employ this concept as the basis for a systematic critique of religion.[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#cite_note-7[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#cite_note-8[9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#cite_note-9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#cite_note-4 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Iraq's Night is Long.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-crisis-militants-bombard-iraqs-biggest-oil-refinery-with-mortars-and-machine-guns-as-baghdad-braces-for-impending-attack-9545034.html Iraq crisis: Militants bombard Iraq’s biggest oil refinery with mortars and machine guns as Baghdad braces for impending attack On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 2:32 PM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: ps: by coincidence the Guardian reports today on the reactionaries' seizure of the country's biggest refinery; hopefully we'll hear soon the oil workers' perspective on that: Iraq's biggest oil refinery, Baiji, has been shut down and its foreign staff evacuated, Reuters reports citing refinery officials. Local staff remain in place and the military is still in control of the facility, officials said. Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have advanced into the town of Baiji and surrounded its refinery. The refinery shut down overnight, the sources said. Baiji is one of three oil refineries in Iraq and only processes oil from the north. The other two are located in Baghdad and the south and are firmly under government control and operational. Due to the recent attacks of militants by mortars, the refinery administration decided to evacuate foreign workers for their safety and also to completely shut down production units to avoid extensive damage that could result, a chief engineer at the refinery said on condition of anonymity. He said that there is sufficient gas oil, gasoline and kerosene to supply more than a month of domestic demand. Captured oil fields have been a key source of funding for Isis http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/16/terrifying-rise-of-isis-iraq-executions . Isis has secured massive cashflows from the oilfields of eastern Syria, which it had commandeered in late 2012, some of which it sold back to the Syrian regime. http://www.theguardian.com/world/middle-east-live/2014/jun/17/iraq-crisis-obama-deploys-troops-live-updates?view=desktop#block-53a018c8e4b0a5c0bb7d8a1f Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Selling terror: how Isis details its brutality
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (If the *Financial Times* link below is paywalled for anyone, just run a news search for ISIS annual reports. You'll find enough to keep you busy for a while.) Called *al-Naba* – the News – the reports for 2012 and 2013 (a year in which 8,000 civilians died in Iraq) have been analysed by the US-based Institute for the Study of War, which corroborates much of the information they contain. Isis's aim appears to be to demonstrate its record to potential donors. http://on.ft.com/1qcyc86 -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Iraq Update
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Got this from Ward Reilly, Vets for Peace: Some Iraq reality, from a friend (Ahmed) in Mosul; Update on Iraq situation After the taking of Mosul by several resistance factions along with ISIS each operating in considerable isolation to the other, the city now enjoys a peaceful environment, a new mayor has been appointed and each resistance faction is assisting local dignitaries to run each area in a manner that avoids stirring trouble between the factions on one end and ISIS on the other. The Revolutionaries at this point seem to have received orders that no tensions are permissible with any party fighting the central government until the political process in iraq installed by the Americans and Iranians is removed from power. After that is another story, as most Iraqis regardless of their sect do not accept that ISIS be the master of the house. The Military council and Tribes are avoiding even displaying their full colour allowing ISIS to take the highlight in the Media this way their bad reputation causes mont on the government side to flee thus reducing overall casualties and blood spill. This policy obviously has it's negative implications and allows Maliki to claim that everyone is ISIS to gather International Political and Media support. When asked by local journalists the Councils insist that when the time comes where ISIS is consumed by it's creators in Battle they will choose the hour where they will clear matters in a more public Manner. This will also force a lot of Media organisations promoting the ISIS line to accept a new reality where people would discover the the amount of disinformation they were fed, leaving these media outlets in an awkward position with their readers and viewers. this is a very tricky strategy. but they insist that ISIS is the problem of the government and the Americans and the Military council is fighting its own war and will not interest itself with any argument that they should fight ISIS first as this is the government line. Video from Mosul Markets are open and fighters NOT related to ISIS but rather to the Military councils great the people http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZvZ_6rVZuE Video of People in Mosul greeting tribal fighters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkLuSww2ZcA Video of the municipality removing concrete barriers and checkpoint remains people in mosul travel freely now as opposed to checkpoints that annoyed civilians more than it protected them during Maliki's presence. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQdTRxlU0bo http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DIQdTRxlU0boh=xAQExU1z5enc=AZPAOyPRHyjXwB7vTvpigZ6xU8jLFP_Rl_W0Rn6CJeg0olBwocqbz3DQW0nK13rcqtFr0XC1IuX7SGpas_nMefWSULx9ptiG4afCYqSUw21AjkPbairuFG6YrXT8hW7sdYKlR94ExODDdhP12KCsFDmgs=1 Interview with with a police officer in mosul after the takeover confirm their comfort of the presence of the tribal fighters and request the fighters to protect the city banks and infrastructure and the readiness of the police force to work with them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w0UL57iZp0 http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D_w0UL57iZp0h=YAQHVeO3Penc=AZOgpoT_Kg8tXG8Fn1cLfKPKdwfJQeVqOe0-pIPkMHTJWpYHd5QsboXYu8PkUSS-UXIEO0OI5XBu59hr4wZkkKppcy6O5WTJAYXOCzNiE6LMcDvLKv-UjZlo9p7xBiKJkET2FyLu2Q9Dk6y0NhL0CoB1s=1 Civilian confirming that the revolutionaries in his area are not ISIS and that the revolution is for all iraqis and that the banks are under the protection of the revolutionaries now http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePll4XiFIO4 http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DePll4XiFIO4h=sAQEBAIThenc=AZNMpfxVuSNQUcvx0cBs-VtvsmKh_rGIpv7dO1uE0DeIq7Ccsv4C7opV7DcpgE_608hKTSlLeQdMdfsAYy6bMdJ0eSPCXxKrJNTc6AuoEz9m1KO2PkZ3Gd0KoguUhWwtqGxan8itt0JetAlcS-oxLo9Ps=1 Civilian asking people who fled Mosul to come back after it is free roads are all open and services are being repaired http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-KnJHbgNd8 http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DI-KnJHbgNd8h=FAQE2XY6oenc=AZMlOMOE5_w--EluUYzbd_TAiFovFWkA6ZAuRHA9SQfYGnwDyDMoG26KGBJx1vbHdEzoMprzxoUHWHFMeuCz3ecd3M0PJNWPL4qRhYxu-l8Is3dbSZb6UKUR0lvpHb-KLE83bDFCf5mY4E_fuzS14Pu5s=1 Civilian saying that Mosul is peaceful and he has no obstruction now in movement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiX-WeAqy5A http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPiX-WeAqy5Ah=4AQExXjXQenc=AZOHk7OsckGaPp2djmFv6Z2s6rkkih6UGbgopQXtcbU3F0rkRsOd8n8bAhPDfASmaGlKuRzO-mSq0Q_TJjWDhjUokopcYZtjJlHi6xFWnSeO7H2xLJVVn8GALVNmlMN2-WBXb-o4htPSnHTLv4p7p4aos=1 Civilian refugee who returned to Mosul after being welcomed by revolutionaries http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wTUvB5Ueus
Re: [Marxism] Is there an anti-imperialist camp?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == From an antiwar list: http://newsfirst.lk/english/2014/06/president-receives-peace-democracy-award-bolivia/40374 President Mahinda Rajapaksa received an award from Bolivia in recognition of his contribution to peace and democracy. *The Presidential Spokesperson and International Media Unit notes that the award is the highest honour awarded by the Plurinational State of Bolivia.* Álvaro García Linera, vice president of Bolivia and president of the Legislative Assembly, presented President Mahinda Rajapaksa with the ‘Parliamentary Order Merit Democratic Representative Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruza” at the Legislative Assembly in La Paz, Bolivia, on Monday. *Bolivia notes that President Mahinda Rajapaksa was selected for the honour for having defeated terrorism and established peace and development in Sri Lanka.* *The Presidential Spokesperson and International Media Unit said the award also recognizes President Rajapaksa’s commitment to human rights and his initiative to improve and expand relations with South America, including Bolivia.* UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon was also scheduled to receive the award. President Rajapaksa also held bi-lateral talks with his Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales on Monday. During the discussion, President Morales expressed his willingness to work closely with Sri Lanka. *President Morales inquired about Sri Lanka’s political, economic, industrial, export and import sectors and showed particular interest in Sri Lanka’s apparel sector.* While stating that his visit to Bolivia is a new beginning in diplomatic, economic and trade relations with South American nations, President Rajapaksa said establishing relationships with new nations is a part of the Government’s policy. *President Morales also accepted President Rajapaksa’s invitation to visit Sri Lanka.* Following the conclusion of bilateral talks, President Morales hosted a colorful ceremony with military honors for President Rajapaksa at the Presidential Palace. On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 12:15 PM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com wrote: This exchange is fantastic! Felipe unwittingly commits all the errors inherent in a liberal perspective, and Michael skewers them all. I think this should be widely shared. It's a perfect lesson for newcomers about the two different perspectives, especially because the author is not an organized Stalinist (at least from the exchange we have no evidence he is), so rebutting his arguments means challenging the standpoint and illusions of hundreds of thousands of other liberal supporters of this supposed camp. On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 8:55 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A good reply by Michael Karadjis. https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/GreenLeft_discussion/ conversations/messages/85613 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/ options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Teaching Class by Rachel Riederer - Guernica / A Magazine of Art Politics
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (From a special issue on class in America) Most university-level instructors are, like Vojtko, contingent employees, working on a contract basis year to year or semester to semester. Some of these contingent employees are full-time lecturers, and many are adjunct instructors: part-time employees, paid per class, often without health insurance or retirement benefits. This is a relatively new phenomenon: in 1969, 78 percent of professors held tenure-track positions. By 2009 this percentage had shrunk to 33.5. The rest of the professors holding jobs—whether part time or full time—do so without any job security. These are the conditions that left Vojtko in such a vulnerable position after twenty-five years at Duquesne University. Vojtko was earning between $3,000 and $3,500 per three-credit course. During years when she taught three courses per semester, and an additional two over the summer, she made less than $25,000, and received no health benefits through her employer. Though many universities limit the number of hours that adjunct professors can work each semester, keeping them nominally “part-time” employees, teaching three three-credit courses is certainly a full-time job. These circumstances are now the norm for university instructors, as the number of tenured and tenure-track positions shrinks and the ranks of contingent laborers swell. full: http://www.guernicamag.com/features/the-teaching-class/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fukushima’s Children are Dying » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Plague of Nuclear Power Fukushima’s Children are Dying by HARVEY WASSERMAN Some 39 months after the multiple explosions at Fukushima, thyroid cancer rates among nearby children have skyrocketed to more than forty times (40x) normal. More than 48 percent of some 375,000 young people—nearly 200,000 kids—tested by the Fukushima Medical University near the smoldering reactors nowsuffer from pre-cancerous thyroid abnormalities, primarily nodules and cysts. The rate is accelerating. More than 120 childhood cancers have been indicated where just three would be expected, says Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project. The nuclear industry and its apologists continue to deny this public health tragedy. Some have actually asserted that “not one person” has been affected by Fukushima’s massive radiation releases, which for some isotopes exceed Hiroshima by a factor of nearly 30. full: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/17/fukushimas-children-are-dying Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The US war in the Mideast
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes in the Financial Times (6/15) that ...Isis, even more than the Assad regime in Syria, is the principal threat to western interests. What are those western interests that Isis threatens? If Iraq's principal product were asparagus, western interests in obtaining healthy green vegetables would presumably not be at risk. But Iraq has the the world's second largest oil reserves in the world: like asparagus, the US can get oil elsewhere - but its attempt to control world energy flows has led it to kill a million people in the Mideast in the last decade - and to continue to do so. Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the more astute of the senior planners and analysts, pointed out in the journal National Interest that America's control over the Middle East 'gives it indirect but politically critical leverage on the European and Asian economies that are also dependent on energy exports from the region.' If the United States can maintain its control over Iraq, with the world's second largest known oil reserves, and right at the heart of the world's major energy supplies, that will enhance significantly its strategic power and influence over its major rivals in the tripolar world that has been taking shape for the past 30 years: US-dominated North America, Europe, and Northeast Asia, linked to South and Southeast Asia economies. [Noam Chomsky] The day Haass' article appeared, British PM Cameron repeated the US/UK cover story for ongoing imperial occupations in the Mideast (now made all the more urgent by the China/Russia oil deal): '...Cameorn told MPs today that Britain cannot afford to see the creation of an extreme Islamist regime in the middle of Iraq. [The PM has apparently never heard of the chief US client - after Israel - in the Mideast: Saudi Arabia. --CGE] The prime minister said that the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) threatening the government in Baghdad were also plotting terror attacks on the UK. 'I disagree with those people who those people who think this is nothing to do with us and if they want to have have some sort of extreme Islamist regime in the middle of Iraq, that won't affect us. It will, he said. 'The people in that regime - as well as trying to take territory - are also planning to attack us here at home in the United Kingdom. So the right answer is to be long-term, hard-headed, patient and intelligent with the interventions that we make. 'The most important intervention of all is to make sure that these governments are fully representative of the people who live in their countries, they close down the ungoverned space, and that they remove the support for the extremists.' There's a move afoot in Parliament to impeach (an archaic remedy) Tony Blair for similar lies. The Bush-Blair-Obama evocation of terrorism (= the resistance of people in the Mideast to US-led invasion and occupation) as an excuse for more murder is wearing thin. --CGE http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/54d08a7e-f31c-11e3-a3f8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3500Lir7X http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/18/tony-blair-impeach-iraq-war_n_5506525.html ### Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I don't usually bother with ad hominem threads like this, but the biggest offense that's passed under my eyes was that he's unfriending people on Fb for what others deem to be trivial reasons, , , , And that HM is generally an elitist operation. From my perspective, cn onferences, publishing, etc. tend to mirror the familiar hierarchies of the academic world. For as long as I've been around, I've never seen a Left organization that didn't genuflect before the right degrees from the right places. And I suspect that it's gone on for a lot longer than I've been around. I see no reason to expect that to change or any necessity that it do so in the immediate future. Academe and higher education are not mechanisms for changing the world. At best, its institutions can reflect change. At worst, they coopt it. Solidarity! Mark L Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 6/18/14 5:28 AM, Greg McDonald via Marxism wrote: *Wiki:Psychological projection* is the act or technique of defending oneself against unpleasant impulses by denying http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying their existence in oneself, while attributing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_%28psychology%29 them to others.[1 On Jun 18, 2014, at 6:26 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: Moron, didn't you read what I wrote on the FB thread? I blocked Budgen about 3 years ago. He is the creepiest person I have ever run into on the Internet, much worse than me. I think that the point was that '... it takes one to know one.', degree of worse aside. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 6/18/14 10:53 AM, Mark Lause wrote: I don't usually bother with ad hominem threads like this, but the biggest offense that's passed under my eyes was that he's unfriending people on Fb for what others deem to be trivial reasons, , , , And that HM is generally an elitist operation. From my perspective, cn onferences, publishing, etc. tend to mirror the familiar hierarchies of the academic world. For as long as I've been around, I've never seen a Left organization that didn't genuflect before the right degrees from the right places. And I suspect that it's gone on for a lot longer than I've been around. I see no reason to expect that to change or any necessity that it do so in the immediate future. There's another dimension that has to be understood. The British SWP (even now after the rape cover-up scandal) and the ISO have a heavy investment in HM. There's an overlap of the conferences, the paywall journals, and publishing houses that allows them to present their views without putting up with the hoi polloi. The academic conference (and that for the most part is what the Left Forum and HM events really are) allows a group of tenured professors on the left to hold forth for a half-hour or so without being very much accountable for what they have said. I have run into two incidents already where I was basically heckled down when trying to respond to HM contributors Charles Post and Paul Le Blanc. Ironically, as they enjoy the privilege that attends a tenured professorship, the ground beneath them is melting away faster than the polar ice caps. As the Guernica article I forwarded earlier indicates, only about a third of American professors are on a tenure track while a movement is underfoot to challenge the paywall print journal model with Open Source publications. The strange thing is that some of the most vociferous defenders of classical Marxism like Vivek Chibber seem utterly oblivious to the sea change taking place and are preoccupied by the widespread influence of Derrida, Foucault et al--as if that matters to an adjunct who can't afford a dentist. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 06/18/2014 11:11 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: The strange thing is that some of the most vociferous defenders of classical Marxism like Vivek Chibber seem utterly oblivious to the sea change taking place and are preoccupied by the widespread influence of Derrida, Foucault et al--as if that matters to an adjunct who can't afford a dentist. The adjuncts I know are some of the most avid readers of Foucault, as well as of Marx, Lenin and the rest of the people worth reading. They care as much about radical ideas as the tenured leftist in the better offices. Can anyone deny the fact that education is the crucial arena for the class struggle these days? Where did the energy come from for Occupy, or what's happening with Sawant in Seattle? It came from the academy. All this to say that, in 2014, the academy is no less of a terrain for class struggle, than the (almost non-existent) factory floor. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 6/18/14 12:04 PM, h0ost via Marxism wrote: All this to say that, in 2014, the academy is no less of a terrain for class struggle, than the (almost non-existent) factory floor. Yeah, with the tenured professors playing the role of older auto workers voting for a contract based on a two-tiered wage system with new hires getting $17 per hour and them $37. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fukushima’s Children are Dying » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 6/18/14 12:26 PM, DW via Marxism wrote: Basically this is a refutation of their supposed endorsement of this nonsense that passes for 'science'. Additionally, they note the study is out of stock and*will not be republished*. There was a huge push back from actual oncologists and health physics specialists and the NYAS owned up to blowing it big time for lending their name to this...study. The actual peer reviews are listed...it did not pass muster. David A large part of the problem is proving that Chernobyl led to cancer since it is virtually impossible to establish a link between a carcinogen and a tumor. That is how the tobacco industry was able to stave off efforts to control it for so many years. My mother-in-law in Istanbul just had surgery to remove a tumor from her thyroid gland, a recurrence of an illness that she had shortly after Chernobyl. How could I or anybody possibly prove that there is a causal relationship? If you are long-time readers of Spiked Online, you will be familiar with their efforts to get the nuclear industry off the hook making exactly the same kinds of arguments. http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/1514 Bruce Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold Risk, cancer and manmade chemicals Blaming synthetic chemicals for a 'cancer epidemic' is flawed science that makes for dubious policy. 27 January 2005 Entering a new millennium seems a good time to challenge some old ideas about cancer cause and prevention, which in our view are implausible, have little supportive evidence, and might best be left behind. In this essay, we summarise data and conclusions from 15 years of work, raising five issues that involve toxicology, nutrition, public health, and US government regulatory policy: 1. There is no cancer epidemic other than that due to smoking. 2. The dose makes the poison. Half of all chemicals tested, whether natural or synthetic, cause cancer in high-dose rodent cancer tests. Evidence suggests that this high rate is due primarily to effects that are unique to high doses. The results of these high-dose tests have been used to regulate low-dose human exposures, but are not likely to be relevant. 3. Even Rachel Carson was made of chemicals: natural v synthetic chemicals. Human exposure to naturally occurring rodent carcinogens is ubiquitous and dwarfs the exposure of the general public to synthetic rodent carcinogens. 4. Errors of omission. The major causes of cancer (other than smoking) do not involve exposures to exogenous chemicals that cause cancer in high-dose tests; rather, the major causes are dietary imbalances, hormonal factors, infection and inflammation, and genetic factors. Insufficiency of many vitamins and minerals, which is preventable by supplementation, causes DNA damage by a mechanism similar to radiation. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Universities 'get poor value' from academic journal-publishing firms | Science | theguardian.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/16/universities-get-poor-value-academic-journal-publishing-firms Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Bush, Barack Bashar BFF to Islamic Extremists in Iraq Syria
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I was tempted to just go with Islamic State of Iraq and Syria because all the minutia is so tedious, but I hadn't really seen the details on Baghdadi, ISI, AQI, ISIS and JAN teased out it a way that is easy to digest so I included that an it took awhile. Did you see the piece in NRB today? Completely glossed over last 8 years of ISIS and Baghdadi. Got a lot wrong too, I was going to send it to you for critical review first but then I just wanted to get it done. Its no too late, if you anything that could be improved. Clay Claiborne, Director Vietnam: American Holocaust http://VietnamAmericanHolocaust.com Linux Beach Productions Venice, CA 90291 (310) 581-1536 Read my blogs at the Linux Beach http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/ http://wlcentral.org/user/2965/track On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 7:40 AM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com wrote: fucking brilliant as always skimmed it and am now working my way through it more slowly the punchline: The only force that is doing it right, the only force on the ground that is actually fighting ISIS and winning is the Free Syrian Army and its allies and the best course of action for those concerned about the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham is to see that they get the arms and supplies they need to defeat both ISIS and the Assad regime and set Syria on the road to a democratic future. On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 5:19 PM, Clay Claiborne via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Major new piece from Linux Beach: Bush, Barack Bashar BFF to Islamic Extremists in Iraq Syria http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2014/06/bush-barack-bashar-bff-to-islamic.html Exceprts: When Obama reneged on his pledge to respond to Assad's growing and continued use of chemical weapons, he showed again that Western promises were worth nothing and Western regard for Arab lives was worth even less. This failure to act on long promoted humanitarian concerns greatly demoralized the democratic forces and represented a propaganda coup for those that said only fools would look to the West to find a vision of Syrian or Iraqi future. After 21 August 2013, many more fighters cast their lot with the jihadists. The fall of Mosul and Tikrit in Iraq to forces under the leadership of ISIS is blow back from Obama's failure to take action after Assad's chemical attacks. Odd as it may sound, the leadership of ISI may have seen its initial expansion into Syria as a defensive move! After the Syrian Revolution began, the eyes of young Arabs turned to the struggle going on in Syria against the Assad regime. Colonel Hajji Bakr feared that everyone would start going to Syria to fight, leading to a collapse of their group. Initially Baghdadi forbade anyone going to Syria and considered all who disobeyed his order to be defectors. This non-interventionist policy wasn't holding so Bakr proposed the forming of a non-Iraqi battalion to be sent to Syria. This new command would be under Syrian leadership and was to attract non-Iraqi fighters from abroad. No Iraqi officers could join. This was the beginning of Jabhat al Nusra [JAN], also know as al Nusra Front. Baghdadi sent Abu Mohammed al-Golani to Syria to run it. The Front, as it became known, came to Syria with fresh but seasoned fighters and better arms than the Free Syrian Army. They enjoyed some notable battlefield successes and soon became famous worldwide, attracting jihadists from the Gulf, North Africa, Yemen, even Europe and the US. Meanwhile, back in Iraq, Baghdadi and Bakr were beginning to fear they'd created a monster that out shined them. They ordered al-Golani to announce that al Nusra was officially under the State of Iraq and Baghdadi. Golani said he'd think about it. Then he sent Baghdadi a letter saying it wouldn't be in the best interest of the revolution, sorry Charlie. Baghdadi and Bakr were furious. Then US President Obama put al Nusra Front on the terrorist list, making Golani the most wanted man in Syria. That was the last straw. They feared al Nusra was getting off the reservation so as a test of loyalty, Baghdadi told Golani at a meeting in Turkey to conduct military operations against the FSA. The Front's Shura council unanimously rejected the orders. In a strongly worded letter Baghdadi responded by telling Golani to obey the orders or disband al-Nusra. After waiting for a reply, which never came, Baghdadi sent an envoy who Golani refused to meet. Baghdadi was now more
Re: [Marxism] Fukushima’s Children are Dying » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 6/18/14 1:10 PM, DW via Marxism wrote: Louis, it's quite well established how a carcinogen and a tumor relate medically. Both modern science and medical statistics (the latter is how they proved conclusively that tobacco is carcinogenic but now they have the actual mechanisms involved). That is not true whatsoever. I suggest you have a look at Robert N. Proctor's Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know And Don't Know About Cancer that has a chapter on the problem of linking environmental factors to cancer. I have tried to keep up with the literature ever since I worked as a database administrator at Sloan-Kettering in the mid 1980s. When I was there, I read Samuel S. Epstein The Politics of Cancer, a book with a somewhat different angle than Proctor's. Both are very good. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-many-cancers-are-caused-by-the-environment/ The old two percent estimate for environmentally induced cancers is still commonly used – despite advances in modern cancer biology. New areas of cancer research are focusing on the potential for pollutants to interact with one another and with genetic factors. Carcinogens can act by damaging DNA, disrupting hormones, inflaming tissues, or switching genes on or off. Also, exposure to hormonally active agents during critical periods of human development – particularly in the womb or during childhood – may trigger cancer later in life. For example, the risk of breast cancer could be influenced by exposures during puberty. All these elements make it tricky to calculate the magnitude of environmentally induced cancers. Scientists now know that getting cancer is like being attacked by a multi-headed monster: How can you really be sure which part did the most damage? Schettler said “we now know from cancer biology that multiple interacting factors” are involved so it’s impossible to assign percentages to certain causes. “It’s really important that we understand the limits of this notion. We have to be humbled by this and know that our estimates may be way off,” he said. Margaret Kripke, a professor at University of Texas' M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and co-author of the President’s Cancer Panel report, said the idea that cancer biologists can put a number on the environmental component of cancer is fraught with limitations. She uses the example of a person who is genetically predisposed to lung cancer, but also smokes and lives in an area with high air pollution. If this person develops cancer, it is almost always attributed to smoking because almost 90 percent of lung cancer deaths are caused by tobacco. But researchers can't simply dismiss the remaining 10 percent. The way these fractions are teased apart is crucial, and important contributors are easily overlooked by limitations in study design. There is substantial evidence that synergism between two different exposures can cause some cancers. Asbestos, for example, enhances the carcinogenicity of tobacco smoke, so the rate of lung cancer was especially high among people who smoked and also were exposed to asbestos in their workplaces. The major reason that it’s so difficult to pin down how many cancers are due to environmental factors is that studies that allow epidemiologists to link human cancers to an environmental pollutant are rare opportunities. Scientists need a setting where they can be absolutely certain about what and when people were exposed to something, and then be able to follow up with the patients many years later, since cancer takes decades to develop. Yet this is hardly ever possible, said Dr. Richard Jackson, former director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Environmental Health. Humans aren't lab rats; they tend to move around, so they don't know what they were exposed to, said Jackson, who is now a UCLA professor. Also, tracking systems for environmental exposures and chemicals are inadequate. (clip) Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The hierarchy is immensely more arcane and complicated than this, perhaps because there has never been a UAW to make it more standardized. THE ideological foundation of an academic self-perception centers on the notion that it is somehow, when all is said and done, a meritocracy. And that there a key signifiers that provide a shorthand for merit. Tenure is only one of them . . . and it is not necessarily the most important. A graduate student in an elite university might well rank higher than the hard working employed academic in a lesser institution, whether tenured or adjunct. As far as the organized Left is concerned, that same grad student can be the voice of the oppressed proletarian against the armchair (ie., not a member of a sect) petty bourgeois academic. I have seen this, experienced it and laughed about it for many years. Whatever the yardstick, the plebes are just not going to measure up . . . particularly if they don't stay in their place. The problem comes when we buy into that meritocracy stuff or, worse, the notion that some institutional connection means merit. Solidarity, Mark L. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 6/18/14 1:35 PM, Mark Lause via Marxism wrote: The problem comes when we buy into that meritocracy stuff or, worse, the notion that some institutional connection means merit. I got a big laugh about 15 years ago when George Rupp, president of Columbia at the time, gave a presentation to IT on the university's new drive to re-establish itself as Number One in NYC. The talk used Powerpoint slides to show how it was faring against NYU. I am sure you could have heard the same kind of pep talk at Hertz when it was trying to fend off Avis. At a certain point, Rupp honed in on the prestigious hires that had been finalized, including John Roemer who was a leading Marxist. Could NYU top that? Back in the 1950s, I used to love Scrooge McDuck comic books. In one story, Scrooge is in a competition with an Indian rich guy (clearly anticipating the world of today) as to who could mount a more impressive display of his wealth. In the final panel, Scrooge pulls away a curtain that was concealing a diamond-studded top hat like the one he wore. The Indian laughed, Is that all you got, a measly hat? At that point, Scrooge pulled a lever and the entire work came into view. It was a 50 foot edifice of Scrooge covered in diamonds. This made him the clear-cut winner. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Budgen is probably the most outspoken proponent of intellectual property rights since Metallica. Whoever stuck up for him on the basis of his fb profile is a one-man idiot. Most of the stuff he posts is behind a pay wall. He was the biggest single voice on the HM board for not barring the swp from future HM conferences for their rape apology. He bullied a marxist academic out of his job at SOAS on the basis of a personal feud. He calls people 'scabs' for downloading pdfs. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he now uses it to beat people who 'rise above their station with'. If people think that's defensible then you're really not a marxist - you're a jerk. Jamie On 18 June 2014 18:35, Mark Lause via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The hierarchy is immensely more arcane and complicated than this, perhaps because there has never been a UAW to make it more standardized. THE ideological foundation of an academic self-perception centers on the notion that it is somehow, when all is said and done, a meritocracy. And that there a key signifiers that provide a shorthand for merit. Tenure is only one of them . . . and it is not necessarily the most important. A graduate student in an elite university might well rank higher than the hard working employed academic in a lesser institution, whether tenured or adjunct. As far as the organized Left is concerned, that same grad student can be the voice of the oppressed proletarian against the armchair (ie., not a member of a sect) petty bourgeois academic. I have seen this, experienced it and laughed about it for many years. Whatever the yardstick, the plebes are just not going to measure up . . . particularly if they don't stay in their place. The problem comes when we buy into that meritocracy stuff or, worse, the notion that some institutional connection means merit. Solidarity, Mark L. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/marinercarpentry%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fukushima’s Children are Dying » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Name
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == So Louis, you missed my point on this, sort of. I think what is written in this piece you provided is quite good and accurate as far as my own dime-store understanding of the deterministic nature of various carcinogens (I have the massive tome of The Politics of Cancer sitting on my table in the living room as it happens. It's very daunting to even look at it!)...yet they are, precisely carcinogens because we know they cause cancer. How? How do we know? It's true, one can't do (nor would one want too ethically) to conduct decades long double-blind studies trying to give humans cancer. They do use animal studies (and why I oppose the movement to ban animals from *this* sort of very needed research), especially for hard-tumor RD and can look at cells as they metastasize (which is what I meant by the 'mechanism'). No...the real way is the use of medical statistics using increases of particular forms of cancer associated with, at least in the beginning, with what we now know are carcinogens. Taking large and targeted sections of the population looking for correlations that are specific to whatever environmental (or internally ingested) substance that might give rise to a blip, or cancer 'cluster' in a given population. Then test again, do more studies, meta-studies and compare papers, etc etc. At a certain point it becomes clear that a substance causes cancer. This was done, by the way, with tobacco and why all doctors and oncologists understood it caused cancer. There was no doubt when it went to trial. Proving it *legally* was altogether more difficult (obviously) as the lawyers wanted and demanded specific medical causality between tobacco and lung cancer. It wasn't enough that people who smoked got cancer in double-digit numbers greater than non-smokers, they demanded something that can't be actually seen: how tar and other ingredients did it's dirty work *within the cell itself*. There are theories but no understanding of the specific mechanism in this case. Still, people died from smoking and everyone...as in anyone...understood this to be case even if at the molecular level it was hard to determine as distinguished from other environmental inputs. So...they found the one homogenous grouping that could prove this in a purely statistical way without all the other class, ethnic, environmentally differing inputs that could throw the stats off: the same group used in the very first study that started to reveal the suspicions that tobacco kills: the group if British doctors who all lived in London in the 1950s. Establishing a fairly good control group of those that did not smoke and those that did showed the sharp differences in rates lung cancer without a doubt to even...the legal profession. With radiation, as I noted, it is not about radiation but over the issue of how one determines if radiation at low levels, above various background levels, are detrimental to any ones health at all. This is not the same as the issue of tobacco where it was quite clear from the onset of the initial studies and at many different health levels (not just cancer but heart disease, pulmonary problems such as asthma and emphysema, renal failures, etc). With tobacco, the issue was a kind of binary divide: those that smoked; those that didn't. With radiation, it's far more fickle, especially at the low end of the background level we're talking about with both the Chernobyl situation, the Fukushima accident and nuclear plants generally combined with the fact we exist, indeed evolved, bathed in radiation. So to compare the two as you do does a disservice to those who are trying to parse out the import of low level radiation effects on humans (and plants and other animals) and is hardly helpful. The theory (and only regulatory guidelines) that purport to show or explain that 'any amount of radiation is harmful' is based on the linear non-threshold theory or LNT, which is the majority position held by those that study radiation, through few, it seems, do so with much heart in the discussions that have been taking place for a long time. The famous gold stand BRIER VII report on radiation, while raising some questions about LNT being useful for determining cancer rates, still argues that it is the only theory by which regulations could be adapted. The wiki article has some really good coverage on the LNT and has statements on both sides of the debate. For example, the NYAS (the group that 'published the paper about a million people dying from Chernobyl that it later distanced itself from) does continue to support the LNT hypothesis. Other organizations do not. The problem is that the Popular Science journalism of Harvey Wasserman is really a very poor source for the issues of whether the prediction by the WHO
Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Another in a string of undocumented, most likely bullshit, snotty and childish attacks on a very valuable comrade (Sebastian) and institution (HM). My interactions with him, and with those who work with him, have been nothing but positive. HM is a huge resource for revolutionaries, and you all come off like a bunch of wanna-be-theoretical-luminaries who are resentful at those who've put in the work to contribute something significant. If I'm wrong about all that you'll have to prove it with facts. On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 3:31 PM, james pitman via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Budgen is probably the most outspoken proponent of intellectual property rights since Metallica. Whoever stuck up for him on the basis of his fb profile is a one-man idiot. Most of the stuff he posts is behind a pay wall. He was the biggest single voice on the HM board for not barring the swp from future HM conferences for their rape apology. He bullied a marxist academic out of his job at SOAS on the basis of a personal feud. He calls people 'scabs' for downloading pdfs. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he now uses it to beat people who 'rise above their station with'. If people think that's defensible then you're really not a marxist - you're a jerk. Jamie On 18 June 2014 18:35, Mark Lause via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The hierarchy is immensely more arcane and complicated than this, perhaps because there has never been a UAW to make it more standardized. THE ideological foundation of an academic self-perception centers on the notion that it is somehow, when all is said and done, a meritocracy. And that there a key signifiers that provide a shorthand for merit. Tenure is only one of them . . . and it is not necessarily the most important. A graduate student in an elite university might well rank higher than the hard working employed academic in a lesser institution, whether tenured or adjunct. As far as the organized Left is concerned, that same grad student can be the voice of the oppressed proletarian against the armchair (ie., not a member of a sect) petty bourgeois academic. I have seen this, experienced it and laughed about it for many years. Whatever the yardstick, the plebes are just not going to measure up . . . particularly if they don't stay in their place. The problem comes when we buy into that meritocracy stuff or, worse, the notion that some institutional connection means merit. Solidarity, Mark L. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/marinercarpentry%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fukushima’s Children are Dying » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jun 18, 2014, at 1:10 PM, DW via Marxism wrote: At any rate, you are shifting goal posts. You posted the point from the study on Chernobyl as if proving that the article published by the New York Academy of Sciences seemingly 'answers' a statement David P A because of the reputation of the NYAS. I posted in response to this ONLY in the matter of what the NYAS **actually** thinks of what it published (by accident) was basically refuted by them and thus doesn't actually refute David's claim at all. The paper is useless and thus is only cited by the most rabid of anti-nukes like Harvey Wasserman. The study was originally published in 2009. Now, more than four years later, DW is unable (he would if he could, wouldn't he?) to cite a single criticism (let alone refutation) of any of its facts or conclusions. Yet he cites the absence of either endorsement or refutation by the NYAS as justification for slandering it as junk and slandering Harvey Wasserman as not merely rabid but most rabid! Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanx, Jamie. Kiss, kiss Sent from my Windows Phone -- From: james pitman Sent: 6/18/2014 3:31 PM To: Mark Lause; Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition Subject: Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen Budgen is probably the most outspoken proponent of intellectual property rights since Metallica. Whoever stuck up for him on the basis of his fb profile is a one-man idiot. Most of the stuff he posts is behind a pay wall. He was the biggest single voice on the HM board for not barring the swp from future HM conferences for their rape apology. He bullied a marxist academic out of his job at SOAS on the basis of a personal feud. He calls people 'scabs' for downloading pdfs. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he now uses it to beat people who 'rise above their station with'. If people think that's defensible then you're really not a marxist - you're a jerk. Jamie On 18 June 2014 18:35, Mark Lause via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The hierarchy is immensely more arcane and complicated than this, perhaps because there has never been a UAW to make it more standardized. THE ideological foundation of an academic self-perception centers on the notion that it is somehow, when all is said and done, a meritocracy. And that there a key signifiers that provide a shorthand for merit. Tenure is only one of them . . . and it is not necessarily the most important. A graduate student in an elite university might well rank higher than the hard working employed academic in a lesser institution, whether tenured or adjunct. As far as the organized Left is concerned, that same grad student can be the voice of the oppressed proletarian against the armchair (ie., not a member of a sect) petty bourgeois academic. I have seen this, experienced it and laughed about it for many years. Whatever the yardstick, the plebes are just not going to measure up . . . particularly if they don't stay in their place. The problem comes when we buy into that meritocracy stuff or, worse, the notion that some institutional connection means merit. Solidarity, Mark L. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/marinercarpentry%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fukushima’s Children are Dying » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 6/18/14 3:41 PM, DW wrote: Then test again, do more studies, meta-studies and compare papers, etc etc. At a certain point it becomes clear that a substance causes cancer. This was done, by the way, with tobacco and why all doctors and oncologists understood it caused cancer. You are missing the point entirely. Tobacco is certainly a proven carcinogen, just as was radium a cause of cancer for the people who used work on wristwatches and. But it is infinitely more difficult to establish a link between *environmental* conditions and cancer. You can see how NY Times reporter Gina Kolata plays the same role as Spiked Online on this: http://acsh.org/2005/12/cancer-clusters-look-less-manmade/ Cancer Clusters Look Less Manmade Posted on December 14, 2005 Efforts to link environmental factors to cancer have foundered recently, as highlighted in an article by New York Times science reporter, Gina Kolata. But those who subscribe to the cancer cluster theory still aren’t satisfied. So how do you explain an alleged increased rate of cancer in a small area? Our Cancer Clusters: Findings vs. Feelings addressed some of the key weaknesses in the theory that they can be chalked up to manmade causes such as industrial chemicals. --- This is from a website that Spiked Online naturally touts: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/1226 Elizabeth Whelan Chemophobia cleans up The president of the American Council on Science and Health on how New York's governor fell for junk science. 21 February 2005 To much of the world, New York probably seems like a place of high technology and unfettered capitalism, yet its governor George Pataki is keen to impose unscientific new regulations - on cleaning products. Pataki’s State of the State address last month deserves sceptical analysis. Many Americans falsely believe we are suffering an unexplained upsurge in cancer rates - and that chemicals may be the culprit. Unfortunately, Pataki chose to reinforce that myth in his speech. He announced that by means of an Executive Order, he would require ‘all state agencies and authorities to begin using non-toxic cleaning products that are free of harmful chemicals’. He added, ‘And later this session, I will submit legislation that requires all schools in the state to do the same’. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fukushima’s Children are Dying » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 18/06/2014 21:48, Shane Mage via Marxism wrote: The study was originally published in 2009. Now, more than four years later, DW is unable (he would if he could, wouldn't he?) to cite a single criticism (let alone refutation) of any of its facts or conclusions. Yet he cites the absence of either endorsement or refutation by the NYAS as justification for slandering it as junk and slandering Harvey Wasserman as not merely rabid but most rabid! I think I made a mistake with my mail client, and my reply on this issue when to LP's private email instead of to the list. I will reproduce it below, linking to two studies doing exactly that: On 18/06/2014 17:17, Louis Proyect wrote: The article making such a claim was from the New York Academy of Sciences's website. Here's info on them from about us page: I'm not sure if you're familiar with this particular case. In the event you're not, this is what the academy has to say about it: This collection of papers, originally published in Russian, was written by scientists who state that they have summarized the information about the health and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster from several hundreds of papers previously published in Slavic language publications. In no sense did Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences or the New York Academy of Sciences commission this work; nor by its publication does the Academy validate the claims made in the original Slavic language publications cited in the translated papers. Importantly, the translated volume has not been formally peer‐reviewed by the New York Academy of Sciences or by anyone else. Under the editorial practices of Annals at the time, some projects, such as the Chernobyl translation, were developed and accepted solely to fulfill the Academy’s broad mandate of providing an open forum for discussion of scientific questions, rather than to present original scientific studies or Academy positions. The content of these projects, conceived as one-off book projects, were not vetted by standard peer review. Additionally, the academy recommends papers like http://iopscience.iop.org/0952-4746/32/2/181/pdf/0952-4746_32_2_181.pdf or http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00411-010-0313-1 I understand if you don't follow nuclear issues closely this may be new to you, but it made a big splash when it was published, and, effectively, repudiated by the NYAS, which name had been instrumentalised to purvey very dubious science (or if you ask me complete utter rubbish). --David. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == i haven't said anything against HM. I know 99% of HM editorial board in uk. Prob the main person is a close personal friend, another was my lodger. Budgen is, at best, seriously disliked by the rest of the board. To claim HM for budgen's credit, esp. on the terms you've given, seems to elide over the fact he's never published anything etc etc I was going to copy edit for HM, but it works out at less than a fifth of minimum wage; this is sebastian's doing, and indicative of his poisonous influence on the left. Gossip aside, do u not think the academic colonisation of the radical/ marxist left is not in the tiniest bit problematic? Before going back to uni, aged about 36, I was a docker [longshoreman] and then a carpenter. I can promise you people in those sort of jobs don't give a fat fuck about anything that's ever published in HM. I, however, lap it up. But only because I know it's niche esoterica for people like us - if you seriously believe that articles about hegel's influence on fichteanism or whatever = a future blueprint for humanity, then you're in need of psychiatric help. Myself, I tend to think somebody's attitude towards rape apology remains fairly important. Jamie On 18 June 2014 20:58, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: Thanx, Jamie. Kiss, kiss Sent from my Windows Phone -- From: james pitman Sent: 6/18/2014 3:31 PM To: Mark Lause; Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition Subject: Re: [Marxism] Re And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen Budgen is probably the most outspoken proponent of intellectual property rights since Metallica. Whoever stuck up for him on the basis of his fb profile is a one-man idiot. Most of the stuff he posts is behind a pay wall. He was the biggest single voice on the HM board for not barring the swp from future HM conferences for their rape apology. He bullied a marxist academic out of his job at SOAS on the basis of a personal feud. He calls people 'scabs' for downloading pdfs. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he now uses it to beat people who 'rise above their station with'. If people think that's defensible then you're really not a marxist - you're a jerk. Jamie On 18 June 2014 18:35, Mark Lause via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The hierarchy is immensely more arcane and complicated than this, perhaps because there has never been a UAW to make it more standardized. THE ideological foundation of an academic self-perception centers on the notion that it is somehow, when all is said and done, a meritocracy. And that there a key signifiers that provide a shorthand for merit. Tenure is only one of them . . . and it is not necessarily the most important. A graduate student in an elite university might well rank higher than the hard working employed academic in a lesser institution, whether tenured or adjunct. As far as the organized Left is concerned, that same grad student can be the voice of the oppressed proletarian against the armchair (ie., not a member of a sect) petty bourgeois academic. I have seen this, experienced it and laughed about it for many years. Whatever the yardstick, the plebes are just not going to measure up . . . particularly if they don't stay in their place. The problem comes when we buy into that meritocracy stuff or, worse, the notion that some institutional connection means merit. Solidarity, Mark L. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/marinercarpentry%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fukushima’s Children are Dying » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Shane wrote: The study was originally published in 2009. Now, more than four years later, DW is unable (he would if he could, wouldn't he?) to cite a single criticism (let alone refutation) of any of its facts or conclusions. Yet he cites the absence of either endorsement or refutation by the NYAS as justification for slandering it as junk and slandering Harvey Wasserman as not merely rabid but most rabid! Shane, look AT the NYAS page...the critical reviews are listed there. By actual peers who do that kind of reviewing. I don't have to 'cite' anything...the NYAS provides them. Wasserman slanders himself...I don't really have to do very much to do more than that. David Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fukushima’s Children are Dying » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Shane wrote: The study was originally published in 2009. Now, more than four years later, DW is unable (he would if he could, wouldn't he?) to cite a single criticism (let alone refutation) of any of its facts or conclusions. Yet he cites the absence of either endorsement or refutation by the NYAS as justification for slandering it as junk and slandering Harvey Wasserman as not merely rabid but most rabid! Shane, look AT the NYAS page...the critical reviews are listed there. By actual peers who do that kind of reviewing. I don't have to 'cite' anything...the NYAS provides them. Wasserman slanders himself...I don't really have to do very much to do more than that. David Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fukushima’s Children are Dying » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 6/18/14 4:06 PM, David P Á via Marxism wrote: I think I made a mistake with my mail client, and my reply on this issue when to LP's private email instead of to the list. You didn't make a mistake. We have a minor technical detail to sort out with our new email address. Sometimes a reply goes to the list, but sometimes it goes to the person you are replying to. Just make sure that marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu is included or use reply all. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] An Obama-Al Qaeda axis against Syria and Iran? Really? | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On November 8th 2013, an article of mine titled “Why Obama Did Not Make War on Syria” appeared on CounterPunch. I imagine it was this kind of article that would incite email complaints recently to the good folks at CounterPunch along these lines as I learned from them: Another violent message regarding “crypto zionist” Louis Proyect who deserves to be stabbed in the neck. He seems to incite these sorts of messages. Likely the same individual wrote a comment on my blog as “killudeadkike”: “Louis Proyect = cypto-Zionist faggot White Nationalist.” I suppose if I had been writing the same idiotic article as everybody else in 2013 about how Obama was preparing to invade Syria as stage one in a war on Iran, I wouldn’t be getting hate mail. But I’d rather get hate mail than write stupid bullshit like this: Obama is hypocritically invoking international law to justify the escalation of a war that Washington has pursued in large measure through terrorist bombings carried out by its proxy forces in Syria. The operational alliance between the US and Al Qaeda underscores the criminal character of US foreign policy and the political fraud of the so-called “war on terror.” That’s from the World Socialist Website. (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/05/01/syri-m01.html) If you do a search on “Syria” and “al Qaeda” there, you will find 71 articles all making the same point, as if American imperialism was in cahoots with Islamic fundamentalists full: http://louisproyect.org/2014/06/18/an-obama-al-qaeda-axis-against-syria-and-iran-really/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] email issue
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What I think Louis is talking about also got me until I looked carefully: it's the change in the address with the addition of csbs in marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu and this needs to be inserted with the old lists.econ.utah.edu losing the econ in the name. just change it out. David Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Boris Kagarlitsky--a blithering idiot
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is from his latest at Links, an article that revolves around the analysis that the western Ukraine was a drain on the more developed east. But ever-greater sums went to support the parasitic elite in Kiev and its numerous hangers-on, from the owners of expensive restaurants to the innumerable public relations specialists and political scientists who provided the clientele for restaurants of a slightly lower class. Expensive restaurants? Those of a slightly lower class? This is a nation that has been a virtual colony of Russia since the days of the Romanovs and this nitwit prattles on about restaurants being a drain? Someone smack him in the face with a mackerel for me. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Whyis Iraq being torn apart?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It should be obvious that the Gulf and Saudi *states* have never been supplying support to the AQ knock-offs, but you neglect to highlight the very unmoot point made in the article cited concerning outside sources of jihadist support: The rise of Syrian al-Qaida This giddy activity of the Gulf oppositionist bourgeoisie, preachers and Islamic charities fed into various wings of Islamist fighters in Syria, including, not surprisingly, al-Qaida, which appeared in Syria in early 2012. . Furthermore, when getting back to trying to understand the issue here – why many Islamist forces are better armed than secular FSA forces – the biggest contrast is not in fact secular fighters versus Islamists, but the majority (secular and mainstream Islamists) versus the jihadist/al-Qaida forces. And the reason the latter are better armed than most has absolutely nothing to do with the fantasy of arms from their arch-enemies in the Gulf monarchies. Rather, their key strength is that the flow of arms and money to these jihadists from the anti-monarchial Gulf bourgeois opposition is facilitated by al-Qaida in Syria being an extension of al-Qaida in Iraq, which exists just across the open Syria-Iraq border in Iraq’s Sunni Anbar province. Thus with arms, organisation, infrastructure, cadres etc directly flowing between Iraq and Syria, we can say that the most clearly and violently sectarian part of the Islamist opposition is also the section which arose the least organically within Syria, but is also the section the least associated with the Gulf monarchies. It's very important that we counter the propaganda (from various sides) that seeks to depict this as a sectarian conflict with their focus on the AQ-type groups like ISIS, by exposing the genuine mass uprising characteristics of events in the so-called Sunni regions. For the truth is that the uprisings throughout the Sunni regions are an objective threat to the existence of the conservative U.S. client regimes in the Middle East. Hence: Already in 2013, Kuwait had issued new laws criminalising “terrorist financing,” whereby “banks will be required to note down the personal details of all their clients as well as anyone making an international transfer of more than 3,000 KD ($10,500). To help track and investigate misdeeds, the Central Bank will build a new Financial Intelligence Unit with the help of experts at the IMF” ( http://mideastafrica.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/04/shaping_the_syrian_conflict_from_kuwait). Despite these new laws, in April, “in a remarkably undiplomatic statement that officials said had been cleared at senior levels, (US) Treasury Undersecretary David S. Cohen called Kuwait “the epicenter of fundraising for terrorist groups in Syria”,” underscoring how relatively unregulated the situation is in Kuwait compared to the tighter control of financial flows in other Gulf monarchies – and the level of US hostility to any Gulf support to Syrian Islamists ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kuwait-top-ally-on-syria-is-also-the-leading-funder-of-extremist-rebels/2014/04/25/10142b9a-ca48-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html ). -Matt http://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/the-gulf-and-islamism-in-syria-myths-and-misconceptions/ Even without examining the voluminous documentation, it's hard to deny Michael's obvious point that these regimes wouldn't be trying to bring to power the Jihadist movements which are so committed to their own destruction. This error in the ISO article calls into question the veracity of its other factual material. And maybe the original source of funding to ISIS is a moot point now that they have seized half a billion dollars in cash and a billion dollars worth of military hardware. If the rise of the Jihadists in Syria was in fact a result of their superior resources (no other good explanation exists) then their latest acquisitions are yet another great boost to a force that is toxic both to the Syrian revolution and to Iraqis who were legitimately opposed to the Maliki regime. - Jeff Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Russia's New Fascists | Solidarity
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Russia's New Fascists — Kirill Buketov ON THE STREETS of Russian cities, it is not hard to find stalls trading in fascist literature and insignia. Here one can buy Hitler's Mein Kampf, tape cassettes of Nazi marches, swastika flags, and publications of the present-day fascist press. The best-known fascist newspaper, Russkiy Poryadok (“Russian Order”), is distributed free of charge in the very center of Moscow -- free, however, only to “people of non-Jewish appearance.” Members of the group Russian National Unity, well-built young men with bulging torsos, hand out the paper as reverently as if distributing keys to the kingdom of heaven. Lamp-posts are pasted over with leaflets calling for Russia to be cleansed of Jews, of members of Caucasus nationalities, and of non-Russians in general. Involuntarily, you find yourself asking how this could be in a country where almost every family lost relatives or friends in the war against German fascism. Unfortunately, the matter is not limited to nazis distributing printed tracts and other goods. Young fascists regularly set out to intimidate opponents, invading newspaper officers and sending threatening letters. Press reports speak again and again of acts of thuggery committed by young men with swastika armbands. full: http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/2833 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] And I thought I was the only person who couldn't stand Sebastian Budgen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Budgen sounds like the Metallica of left academia. Don't forget Routledge in the parasite rentier mix, sitting athwart the academic-intellectual nexus. Here's an example: Rosa Luxemburg and the Critique of Political Economy http://www.amazon.com/Luxemburg-Critique-Political-Routledge-Economics/dp/041540570X Even the used paperback is $47! Nothing on libcom, alas. Last resort is to scan the library copy. And yes, this research has connection to, among others, the Marxian rent concept. The bloated prices for academic books is an excellent example of the essentially arbitrary magnitude of rent/surplus profit tribute. Unlike in Marx's examples, set in capitalist agricultural production, these intellectual products are non-productively consumed. The sphere of non-productive consumption is ipso facto not directly regulated by the law of value, as is capitalist production. Therefor the differential regulation of rent magnitude analyzed by Marx does not necessarily hold here, and is one reason capital swarms into the consumer sector. -Matt Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Is there an anti-imperialist camp?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well, since it was recommended, here's my answer, here, since I'm not a member of the Yahoo group: There's an evident contradiction in the two passages quoted below. The Bolshevik organization of an anti-imperialist camp was predicated on the success of the first socialist revolution in history, one that in fact and not merely in concept - with all of its faults, mistakes and inconsistencies - forced march(ed) to the expropriation of the bourgeoisie as this revealing caricature would have it. In other words, this anti-imperialist bloc had a class predicate in the exercise of state power. ALBA does not. This is not a recommendation of forced marches versus some other historically appropriate path. It is a statement of fact concerning the class character of the states in question. ALBA may well be considered an anti-imperialist camp, but as we saw with respect to Cuba and Venezuela in connection with to Ghadaffi, that's no guarantee that camp will be on the right side of a revolutionary uprising elsewhere. After, that is the whole point of an anti-imperialist camp. Hence one suspects ALBA is only partially anti-imperialist, vis-a-vis the U.S., which we inside the Beast are in solidarity with. But there are other imperialisms in Lenin's World 2.0. -Matt --- ONE -- What were the Russian Bolshevik leaders trying to form at their famous 1920 Baku conference, at which they embraced anti-colonial Muslim activists and endorsed the call for a jihad against British imperialism and their Empire, on which the Sun was indeed beginning to set? My definite impression is that the bulk of such criticism and childlike political impatience is rooted in the concept that the socialist revolution consists of a non-stop, forced march to the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. Such a notion, if applied today in Venezuela or other ALBA countries undergoing revolutionary change and advances, would be a plunge into disastrous civil war in which the capitalist classes and their imperialist allies hold most of the cards. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] email issue
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This probably has to do with the way the headers are now arranged, but I suspect also involves how individual email apps handle the headers during reply. In thunderbird, Reply and reply all goes to both list and original sender, while reply list goes only to the ummm list. Sounds like David's email handles it differently?? If David could forward to me offlist what email app he is using (otherwise I'll snoop thru HIS headers) I can look at this after work tmw. Les On Jun 18, 2014, at 5:18 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: No, that's not the issue. For reasons I don't quite understand, sometimes the listserv address gets included when you reply, sometimes it does not. I think Les will probably sort this out. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
