[Marxism] “Our institutions are property of the people"

2017-02-03 Thread Andrew Pollack via Marxism
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"Demonstrations in al-Atareb, Aleppo countryside, against attempts by
jihadist group of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham to take over the oven of the town .

"Very Interesting placards such as “the oven of al-Atareb is the property
of the people” or “our institutions are property of the people and not
spoils of someone”, “Al-Atareb is a free city under a civil administration
ruled by a local council elected by the people”…

"Politics of emancipations come from the struggle from below of the popular
classes."

Full at:
https://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/2017/02/03/demonstrations-in-al-atareb-aleppo-countryside-against-attempts-by-jihadist-group-of-jabhat-fateh-al-sham-to-take-over-the-oven-of-the-town-%d9%85%d8%b8%d8%a7%d9%87%d8%b1%d8%a9-%d9%81%d9%8a/

And don't miss link within it:
http://en.aleppo24.com/the-jabhat-fateh-al-sham-are-attempting-to-capture-the-bread-oven-of-atarib-city-as-a-means-to-control-the-possession-of-bread-in-the-region
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[Marxism] Fwd: Before His Feb. Tour - Joseph Daher on Syria 2017 - YouTube

2017-02-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnqsxmmgNDA=youtu.be
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Re: [Marxism] [UCE] Fwd: Socialists In Coal Country Meet Up To Organize Against Trump - Vocativ

2017-02-03 Thread Tristan Sloughter via Marxism
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What is the name of the network? I know we, DSA, has chapters in the
area that would likely want to take part -- if they aren't already, I'm
reaching out to them now to find out.

-- 
  Tristan Sloughter
  "I am not a crackpot" - Abe Simpson
  t...@crashfast.com
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[Marxism] do protests work?

2017-02-03 Thread Andrew Pollack via Marxism
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>From a hearing about visa revocations:
"'I have been on this bench a long time ... I have never seen such a public
outpouring before,' US District Court Judge Leonie] Brinkema said, adding
that this order 'touched something in people like I've never seen before.'"
Brinkema "strongly encouraged the government to consider how it might
resolve these cases more 'globally.'"

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/03/politics/over-10-visas-revoked-government-lawyer-says-in-virginia-court/index.html
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[Marxism] Fwd: Federal judge in Seattle puts nationwide halt to Trump’s immigration order | The Seattle Times

2017-02-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/federal-judge-in-seattle-halts-trumps-immigration-order/
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[Marxism] How Violence Undermined the Berkeley Protest On Campus

2017-02-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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Then I saw someone wearing all black walk up to a student wearing a suit 
and say, “You look like a Nazi.” The student was confused, but before he 
could reply, the black-clad person pepper-sprayed him and hit him on the 
back with a rod.


I ran after the student who was attacked to get his name and more 
information. He told me that he is a Syrian Muslim. Before I could find 
out more, he fled, fearing another attack. Amid the chaos came word the 
event had been canceled.




NY Times Op-Ed, Feb. 3 2017
How Violence Undermined the Berkeley Protest On Campus
Malini Ramaiyer

BERKELEY, Calif. — What do you do as a reporter when a protest begins? 
You cover it.


But what about when the man being protested is known for rhetoric that 
makes you nauseated? Or when you see a student get beaten up because he 
looked “like a Nazi”?


How do you remain objective?

Those were the questions that faced me when, as a reporter for the 
student newspaper at the University of California, Berkeley, I covered 
the protest on Wednesday night at the college that turned violent, 
drawing national attention. I didn’t know what to think about it all, 
and truthfully, I still don’t.


The protesters were demonstrating against a scheduled speech on campus 
by Milo Yiannopoulos, a Breitbart editor and right-wing provocateur, who 
had been invited by the Berkeley College Republicans.


This was always going to be a controversial event. Mr. Yiannopoulos has 
been giving inflammatory speeches on a college tour meant to push back 
against what he sees as the stifling politically correct left. But his 
language has veered decidedly toward hate speech. At the University of 
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, for example, he singled out a transgender student 
for ridicule by name.


Because of actions like that, many Berkeley students and more than 100 
faculty members petitioned the university to block the event, but the 
chancellor, Nicholas Dirks, declined to do so, citing free speech.


This, of course, raises questions about free speech: Is it free speech 
if it makes us feel unsafe in our own skin? On the other hand, what does 
this campus represent if it doesn’t respect the rights of people with 
whom many of us disagree?


Protests are a staple at Berkeley and I’ve always appreciated the 
activism here. Wednesday night, I saw many creative posters urging 
people to fight Islamophobia, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, 
sexism and racism. One group of protesters wore red ribbons emblazoned 
“Resist,” while another led a “resistance dance party” near the venue.


Until Wednesday, I never felt in danger during a protest. Around 7 p.m. 
I saw a huddle of people yelling at one another. As more people 
surrounded them, a burning red trucker’s hat was held up on a stick. 
There were reports that another student wearing what appeared to be a 
“Make America Great Again” hat was severely injured.


Then I saw someone wearing all black walk up to a student wearing a suit 
and say, “You look like a Nazi.” The student was confused, but before he 
could reply, the black-clad person pepper-sprayed him and hit him on the 
back with a rod.


I ran after the student who was attacked to get his name and more 
information. He told me that he is a Syrian Muslim. Before I could find 
out more, he fled, fearing another attack. Amid the chaos came word the 
event had been canceled.


It was clear early on that the majority of violent protesters most 
likely were not from the campus. Still, in the aftermath, I heard people 
say that peaceful demonstrations would not have succeeded in preventing 
Mr. Yiannopoulos from speaking. So was violence appropriate?


A Trump supporter was hurt. A Syrian Muslim student was hurt. Does 
either of those statements seem more outrageous than the other?


Violence often has unintended consequences. For one thing, those who 
initiated the violence implicated many others in it too. Black students, 
Latino students, gay students and others who are already vulnerable — 
and were protesting peacefully — became even more vulnerable to the 
backlash.


When the violent protesters thought they were defeating “fascists,” 
could they imagine who else they might be hurting? When my co-reporter 
was threatened as she recorded students marching down the street, and I 
was threatened when I took pictures of the vandalism, I myself became 
afraid and upset.


There are so many people in this country who have been fighting social 
injustices for years. Acts of violence undermine their efforts, and can 
reverse good, patient work. The beauty and the defining characteristic 
of peaceful protests is that they are a struggle, 

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Federal judge in Seattle puts nationwide halt to Trump’s immigration order | The Seattle Times

2017-02-03 Thread wytheholt--- via Marxism
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My information, Louis, says that the Trump White House is NOT obeying all of 
these court orders.  Wythe


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> http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/federal-judge-in-seattle-halts-trumps-immigration-order/
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Federal judge in Seattle puts nationwide halt to Trump’s immigration order | The Seattle Times

2017-02-03 Thread srobin21 via Marxism
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Wythe - What is the source for your information? Internal to the DHS? - if so, 
am not asking to name names.

The orders would go to DHS itself or constituent agencies not directly to the 
White House.Would be a big deal for career federal bureaucrats to defy federal 
court orders - regardless of what the White House says
 SR


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Express™, an AT LTE smartphone

 Original message 
From: wytheholt--- via Marxism  
Date: 02/03/2017  5:33 PM  (GMT-08:00) 
To: srobi...@comcast.net 
Subject: Re: [Marxism]
  Fwd: Federal judge in Seattle puts nationwide halt to Trump’s immigration 
order | The Seattle Times 
 


My information, Louis, says that the Trump White House is NOT obeying all of 
these court orders.  Wythe


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[Marxism] Fwd: Washington Monthly | Not Yet Falling Apart

2017-02-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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Mark Lilla’s most recent book, The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political 
Reaction, is a few things.


It’s a companion to his 2001 book The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in 
Politics, which is also a collection of elegant, accessible essays on 
major intellectuals of the 20th century (more left-wing in the earlier 
book; more right-wing in the newer one). It’s a study of major thinkers 
who have questioned, condemned, or deconstructed some of the basic 
premises of modernity. It’s an implicit, and occasionally explicit, 
brief for liberalism as both a political framework and a disposition. 
And though it was published before Trump’s election, and mostly written 
before he was even a candidate, it’s an incredibly timely book.


It’s also an indirect response, I suspect, to Corey Robin’s The 
Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, which 
Lilla reviewed, with uncharacteristic venom, in the January 12, 2012 
issue of The New York Review of Books.


full: http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/02/02/not-yet-falling-apart/
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[Marxism] Fwd: N.Y. plant workers hope Trump honors promise to create jobs - NY Daily News

2017-02-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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Start here, Mr. President.

Seven hundred workers forced off their jobs at a chemical plant 
partially-owned until recently by Trump’s billionaire “job czar” want 
the President to make their lives great again. And that’s why many of 
them voted for him.


The striking workers are picketing all nine entrances of the massive 
Momentive Chemical Plant — which stretches for nearly half a mile along 
a country road in Saratoga County. The pickets have been going around 
the clock since November.


On Friday, as President Trump meets in D.C. with his handpicked head of 
job creation — hedge fund billionaire Stephen Schwarzman — the workers 
will still be marching in front of the chemical plant that until 
recently Schwarzman's hedge fund partially owned.


full: 
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/n-y-plant-workers-hope-trump-honors-promise-create-jobs-article-1.2963002

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[Marxism] Fwd: Drive-Thru Capitalism: Ray Kroc, Joy Mangano and the American Entrepreneur as Schemer

2017-02-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/03/drive-thru-capitalism-ray-kroc-joy-mangano-and-the-american-entrepreneur-as-schemer/
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[Marxism] Fwd: Objectivity is dead, and I’m okay with it – Medium

2017-02-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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NPR transgender reporter fired for insisting that journalism should drop 
the neutrality pretense under a Trump administration.


https://medium.com/@lewispants/objectivity-is-dead-and-im-okay-with-it-7fd2b4b5c58f
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[Marxism] [UCE] Fwd: Socialists In Coal Country Meet Up To Organize Against Trump - Vocativ

2017-02-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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I have had long conversations with the grad student who founded this 
group. He is part of a network of such groups that will be holding a 
conference later this year.


http://www.vocativ.com/399094/socialists-kentucky-workers-league-trump/
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Re: [Marxism] Little heard in public, Bannon is quiet power in Oval Office

2017-02-03 Thread Gary MacLennan via Marxism
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It's hard to say, Mark.  I think we have a first class idiot in the White
House and I suspect that he is easily manipulated through flattery. Like if
we step back from it all and just replay some of the tapes - The breakfast
tape was amazing.  How could he begin by talking about his ratings?  He has
no dignitas nor gravitas. And all around him are fawning.

>From this distance it is mind boggling.  He ripped the Prime Minister of
Australia  "Trunbull" a new ass and he is still whimpering.  Meanwhile all
those who want to be Prime Minister of Australia are giggling  but
nervously.
comradely

Gary

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:46 PM, Mark Lause via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Bannon is hardly any kind of Washington insider powerhouse.  I suspect that
> he's regarded with a quiet scorn in many corners of the capital.
>
> However, this idea that he is a dark sinister power fits the usual
> Democratic apology for their lack of backbone--which involves building up
> the Republicans into a kind of invincible force.  Rather like Monty
> Phython's killer rabbit. :-)
>
> ML
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Re: [Marxism] Donald Trump's remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast

2017-02-03 Thread Marla Vijaya kumar via Marxism
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Trump rant:"We're gonna havefantastic universities, very special campuses. 
Right now they're terrible.They're a joke, folks. Filled with communists, 
women, diversity. We need betteruniversities. It's terrible, this diversity. 
We're gonna make them great again.No more classes that teach useless things 
like writing and public speaking..."A conservative complaining against 
communists in universities is understandable. We have this paranoia in India, 
with the constant attack on universities, calling them communist dens. But 
complaining against diversity and that the universities are filled with women 
is something that makes me wonder what kind of a peson he is. most of his 
ranting against journalists is familiar to us, here in India under Modi. But 
even if the Hindu Fundamentalists bark against women's freedom, Modi doesn't 
dare utter a word against women.Can someone make this clear?Vijaya Kumar Marla
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[Marxism] Anarchists Respond to Trump’s Inauguration, by Any Means Necessary

2017-02-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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NY Times, Feb. 3 2017
Anarchists Respond to Trump’s Inauguration, by Any Means Necessary
By FARAH STOCKMAN

The videotaped sucker punch that staggered the white nationalist Richard 
Spencer on Inauguration Day quickly inspired mockery on social media. 
But it echoed loudly in an escalating confrontation between extreme ends 
of the political spectrum.


With far-right groups edging into the mainstream with the rise of 
President Trump, self-described anti-fascists and anarchists are vowing 
to confront them at every turn, and by any means necessary — including 
violence.


In Berkeley, Calif., on Wednesday night, masked protesters set fires, 
smashed windows and stormed buildings on the campus of the University of 
California to shut down a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, an inflammatory 
Breitbart News editor and a right-wing provocateur already barred from 
Twitter. Five people were injured, administrators canceled the event, 
and the university police locked down the campus for hours.


That followed a bloody melee in Seattle on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 
when black-clad demonstrators — their faces concealed to minimize the 
risk of arrest — tried to prevent a speech by Mr. Yiannopoulos at the 
University of Washington, and a 34-year-old anti-fascist was shot and 
seriously wounded by a supporter of Mr. Yiannopoulos.


The outbreaks of destruction and violence since Mr. Trump’s inauguration 
have earned contempt from Republicans — including Trump supporters who 
say it is exactly why they voted for his promises of law and order — and 
condemnation from Democrats like Berkeley’s mayor, Jesse Arreguín. He 
called Wednesday’s display “contrary to progressive values” and said it 
“provided the ultranationalist far right exactly the images they want” 
to try to discredit peaceful protesters of Mr. Trump’s policies.


But anarchists and anti-fascists, who often make up a small but 
disproportionately attention-getting portion of protesters, defend the 
mayhem they create as a necessary response to an emergency.


“Yes, what the black bloc did last night was destructive to property,” 
Eric Laursen, a writer in Massachusetts who has helped publicize 
anarchist protests, said, using another name for the black-clad 
demonstrators. “But do you just let someone like Milo go wherever he 
wants and spread his hate? That kind of argument can devolve into ‘just 
sit on your hands and wait for it to pass.’ And it doesn’t.”


Anarchists also say their recent efforts have been wildly successful, 
both by focusing attention on their most urgent argument — that Mr. 
Trump poses a fascist threat — and by enticing others to join their 
movement.


“The number of people who have been showing up to meetings, the number 
of meetings, and the number of already-evolving plans for future actions 
is through the roof,” Legba Carrefour, who helped organize the so-called 
Disrupt J20 protests on Inauguration Day in Washington, said in an 
interview.


“Gained 1,000 followers in the last week,” trumpeted @NYCAntifa, an 
anti-fascist Twitter account in New York, on Jan. 24. “Pretty crazy for 
us as we’ve been active for many years with minimal attention. SMASH 
FASCISM!”


The movement even claims to be finding adherents far afield of major 
population centers. A participant in CrimethInc, a decades-old anarchist 
network, pointed to rising attendance at its meetings and activity 
cropping up in new places like Omaha.


“The Left ignores us. The Right demonizes us,” the anarchist website 
It’s Going Down boasted on Twitter. “Everyday we grow stronger.”


Little known to practitioners of mainstream American politics, militant 
anti-fascists make up a secretive culture closely associated with 
anarchists. Both reject social hierarchies as undemocratic and eschew 
the political parties as hopelessly corrupt, according to interviews 
with a dozen anarchists around the country. While some anarchists 
espouse nonviolence, others view property damage and even physical 
attacks on the far right as important tactics.


While extreme right-wing groups have been enthusiastic supporters of Mr. 
Trump, anti-fascists express deep disdain for the Democratic Party. And 
it is mutual, by and large: They amount to the left’s unwanted 
revolutionary stepchild, disowned for their tactics and ideology by all 
but the most radical politicians.


Anarchists came to the fore in 1999, when they mounted a huge 
demonstration in Seattle against the World Trade Organization, which 
they denounce — along with Nafta and other free-trade pacts — as a 
plutocratic back-room group that exploits the poor. Enthusiasm for the 
movement dipped after the 

[Marxism] How ISIS Benefits From Trump’s Ban on Syrians

2017-02-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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NY Times, Feb. 3 2017
How ISIS Benefits From Trump’s Ban on Syrians
By YASSIN AL-HAJ SALEH

ISTANBUL — Some American friends wanted me to visit in the summer to 
speak about a book of my essays on Syria and the Syrian revolution that 
is about to be published. The prospect of traveling to the United States 
made me uneasy. I had heard stories of Syrians being singled out for 
interrogation at American airports. And I wasn’t certain I would be able 
to get travel documents and an American visa anyway: Because of my 
political activities, I am a man without a passport. But then, after 
President Trump signed an executive order barring even Syrians with 
valid passports and visas from the United States, I knew I wouldn’t be 
able to visit my American friends any time soon.


Mr. Trump’s decision pronouncing Syrians dangerous and undesirable 
seemed quite similar to the way our own dictator, President Bashar 
al-Assad, has treated me and my countrymen. I have never had a passport. 
I was explicitly denied one by Mr. Assad’s regime because I am a writer 
who opposed his father and opposes him. In 1980, I was a 19-year-old 
student of medicine at the University of Aleppo when I joined the 
protests against the Hafez al-Assad regime. I was jailed along with 
hundreds of fellow left-wing students and activists. I spent 16 years in 
prison.


After my release in 1996, I returned to Aleppo and my medical studies. 
After graduating in 2000, I decided not to practice medicine, moved to 
Damascus and worked as a writer. In March 2011, Syrians rose up against 
the Bashar al-Assad regime. I decided to write without any 
self-censorship in support of the revolution. The cost of writing with 
freedom was that I had to leave my home in Damascus, hide in myriad 
places across the country, and eventually seek refuge in Turkey. To live 
in exile without a passport or travel documents is to live with the 
knowledge of limited mobility in a world of militarized bureaucracy.


The international disdain for Syrian refugees comes close to Mr. Assad’s 
approach to his ill-fated subjects. Most Syrians were never issued 
passports. For the Assad regime, passports are political and 
disciplinary tools.


For Syrians, Mr. Trump is merely pushing to extremes a process that has 
been going on for years. The situation of the refugees, and the 
underprivileged in general, has been worsening everywhere for a 
generation. Syria exemplifies a greater global failure.


The executive order barring Syrians and the citizens of six other 
countries was among Mr. Trump’s very first actions in the White House. 
Many of the objectives of the first week of his reign — setting the 
stage to build a wall on the Mexico border, and cutting federal funds to 
environmental research and programs involving abortion — are aimed at 
the vulnerable and the poor. It reveals a lot about the social and 
political outlook of his administration.


Mr. Trump’s reactionary decree banning Syrian refugees and visitors from 
other Muslim-majority countries has dangerous side effects: It 
normalizes war criminals like Mr. Assad, dictators like Abdel Fattah 
el-Sisi of Egypt, and helps the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. After the 
Sept. 11 attacks, the war on terrorism and the threat of Islamist 
militants became central to the way the United States saw and dealt with 
the world. Despotic regimes exploit this American fear of Islamist 
militancy and get away with brutal violence against dissenting 
populations of varying political and religious persuasions by projecting 
them as jihadists.


Terrorist networks like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State use 
discriminatory acts such as Mr. Trump’s ban to depict the West as 
fundamentally anti-Muslim and position themselves as defenders of the 
Islamic realm. They thrive in a world of hatred, fear and retreat.


Among many Muslims, Mr. Trump’s executive order is rightly perceived as 
Islamophobic and as encouraging sectarian divisions in both Syria and 
the region. But these are hardly new traits of American and Western 
policies in the Middle East.


As a Syrian, I can recall a shameful precedent for Mr. Trump’s 
indifference toward the suffering of refugees. On Aug. 21, 2013, in its 
biggest chemical weapons attack, the Assad regime used sarin gas against 
the besieged East Ghouta area outside Damascus and killed more than 
1,400 people, including 426 children. In mid-September 2013, the United 
States and Russia made a deal concerning Syria’s chemical weapons. Under 
the deal Mr. Assad acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention and 
submitted his chemical weapons (except chlorine, which doesn’t fall 
under it), and 

Re: [Marxism] Donald Trump's remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast

2017-02-03 Thread Greg McDonald via Marxism
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He really is mentally ill. Howard Stern says so.
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[Marxism] Uber C.E.O. to Leave Trump Advisory Council After Criticism

2017-02-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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NY Times, Feb. 3 2017
Uber C.E.O. to Leave Trump Advisory Council After Criticism
By MIKE ISAAC

SAN FRANCISCO — Travis Kalanick needed everyone to take a deep breath.

The chief executive of Uber was holding a regularly scheduled all-hands 
meeting on Tuesday at the ride-hailing company’s San Francisco 
headquarters when he faced an onslaught of questions from upset employees.


Uber was under attack — unfairly, many staff members believed — after 
people accused the company of seeking to profit from giving rides to 
airport customers in New York during weekend protests against President 
Trump’s immigration order.


But there was another matter disturbing the employees: Mr. Kalanick 
himself. He had joined Mr. Trump’s economic advisory council in 
December. After the immigration order against refugees and seven 
Muslim-majority countries, many staff members wondered why Mr. Kalanick 
was still willing to advise the president.


“What would it take for you to quit the economic council?” at least two 
employees asked at the Tuesday meeting.


On Thursday, Mr. Kalanick gave his answer, stepping down from Mr. 
Trump’s economic advisory council. “There are many ways we will continue 
to advocate for just change on immigration, but staying on the council 
was going to get in the way of that,” Mr. Kalanick wrote in an email to 
employees obtained by The New York Times.


Mr. Kalanick’s exit from the advisory council underscores the tricky 
calculus facing many Silicon Valley corporate chieftains who try to work 
with the new administration. On one hand, many tech executives have 
openly tried to engage with the president, a path that is typically good 
for business. Yet Mr. Trump’s immigration order has been so unpopular 
with so many tech workers — many of whom are immigrants themselves and 
who advocate globalization — that they are now exerting pressure on 
their chief executives to push back forcefully against the administration.


Thirty miles south of Uber’s headquarters, for example, Facebook 
employees have voiced frustration that Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech 
investor and adviser to Mr. Trump, still has a seat on the social 
network’s board. At Google, employees have staged protests against the 
immigration order. At Twitter’s headquarters, some employees have said 
they are uneasy about the president’s heavy reliance on their service to 
send divisive messages.


The tension over continuing to work with Mr. Trump reached a breaking 
point at Uber because Mr. Kalanick was, until Thursday, one of the most 
vocal proponents among tech chiefs of engaging with the president. As 
recently as Saturday, Mr. Kalanick had publicly said in a blog post that 
the best route forward was to have “a seat at the table.” He had added, 
“We partner around the world optimistically in the belief that by 
speaking up and engaging we can make a difference.”


Outside of the internal pressure, Uber faced other fallout from Mr. 
Kalanick’s stance. More than 200,000 customers had deleted their accounts.


In addition, Uber rivals had seized the moment to attack the company and 
bolster their own businesses. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance sent 
emails to the news media calling attention to Uber’s ties to Mr. Trump, 
and organized a protest at Uber’s New York office for Thursday. Lyft, 
another ride-hailing service, pledged to donate $1 million to the 
American Civil Liberties Union and has seen its app shoot toward the top 
of the download charts.


Uber drivers, many of them immigrants who work for the ride-hailing 
company on a freelance basis, were also upset.


“There would be no Uber without immigrants,” said Jim Conigliaro Jr., 
founder of the Independent Drivers Guild, an organization that 
represents and advocates protections for nearly 50,000 Uber drivers 
serving New York City. “As a company whose success is built on a 
foundation of hard work by immigrant workers, Uber can and should do 
better to stand up for immigrants and their workers.”


Uber has set aside $3 million for a legal-defense fund to support 
drivers, offering help with translation services and round-the-clock 
telephone access to legal aid.


For Mr. Kalanick, the moment was especially fraught. Other corporate 
chiefs, including Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, and Mary Barra of 
General Motors, are also on the president’s economic advisory team. Mr. 
Musk said on Twitter this week that the group of economic advisers 
planned to come to some sort of “consensus” on immigration, and to 
influence Mr. Trump by engaging directly with him rather than cutting 
off ties completely.


“Travis and the other C.E.O.s are on that