[Marxism] Fwd: Critical Support for What? A Reply to William Kaufman on the Left and the Sanders Campaign

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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This guy Kaufman is a nutty ex-SWP'er who got really mad at me for 
telling people on the alt.politics.socialism.trotsky newsgroup that he 
was a free-lanced editor, something he considered harassment believe it 
or not. He went so far as to complain to Columbia University and I got 
called in to the Ombudsman whose only advice was to use a private email 
if I got into flame wars in the future. This would not be the last time 
my employer stood up for my free speech rights, btw. Bollinger sets a 
good example.


http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/28/critical-support-for-what-a-reply-to-william-kaufman-on-the-left-and-the-sanders-campaign/
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Re: [Marxism] Counterpunch, again

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 9/28/15 11:54 AM, Jeff via Marxism wrote:


On 2015-09-26 23:26, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:


For comrades' information, Gabriel Ash was one of the Jews Sans
Frontiere bloggers who was defaming me for writing for CounterPunch.




There's something you have to understand about CounterPunch. Unlike 
sites such as DissidentVoice, MRZine and ConsortiumNews, CP is not 
editorially pro-Assad. I have never had a single article rejected for 
attacking Assad, including reviews of Gilbert Achcar's "The People Want" 
and Jonathan Littell's "Return to Homs". Those reviews reach people who 
would never have gone near Joseph Daher's blog et al.


This week I am writing a review of "Taxi", a new film by persecuted 
Iranian director Jafar Panahi that will go to considerable lengths 
puncturing the mythology of "revolutionary" clerics, starting with 
Khomeini. Later today I will be picking up some books that describe how 
Ayatollah Kashani, Khomeini's predecessor, blocked with the CIA and the 
Shah to overthrow Mossadegh.


In my humble opinion, it would be a huge mistake for me to have ever 
resigned from CP and given Mike Whitney, Pepe Escobar et al free rein. 
The preponderance of pro-Assad articles on CP reflects the simple fact 
that those views predominate. Except for me and Clay, there are very few 
Americans taking on that shit. Pham Binh used to but he has finally 
thrown in the towel, not even using his Not George Sabra sock puppet.


Maybe Jeff could start a blog and covered this beat, but in the meantime 
I am sticking with CP through hell and high water.

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Re: [Marxism] Counterpunch, again

[Jeff via Marxism]

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On 2015-09-28 18:39, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:


There's something you have to understand about CounterPunch. Unlike
sites such as DissidentVoice, MRZine and ConsortiumNews, CP is not
editorially pro-Assad. I have never had a single article rejected for
attacking Assad..


According to the cynic in me, Louis clipped my ENTIRE post in his 
"reply," in order that he could harp on the very issue that I clearly 
said wasn't at issue. Namely his being an author at Counterpunch. The 
issue I identified (please read my post!) was his DENIAL of the 
right-wing content pervasive in Counterpunch.


No, Counterpunch doesn't have a pro-Assad editorial position; they don't 
seem to have any clear editorial position on anything. Which means they 
don't have the position you'd expect from a leftist publication against 
collaborating with the right-wing which is the name we use to describe 
the capitalist class ideologically. Nor a policy against right-wing 
authors, even ones like Paul Craig Robert who served the capitalist 
state under Ronald Reagan with no misgivings. Nor a policy of publishing 
these authors with a disclaimer pointing out who they truly are even 
when they might have something useful to say.


I have much more respect for publications who DO have a pro-Assad policy 
because they mistakenly believe that supporting "anti-imperialist" 
dictators will bring socialist revolution closer. They are doing the 
wrong thing for the right reason. So Counterpunch tolerates a wide range 
of views and backgrounds. Them allowing Louis to publish good views on 
Syria or Russia -- although hardly making a dent against the deluge of 
opposing articles from right and left alike -- is doing the right thing 
for the wrong reason.


If the issue is free-speech access to the public, then the entire 
internet is doing the right thing for no particular reason at all. There 
are lots of avenues for such access (such as Louis' own blog on 
Wordpress!) and choosing Counterpunch, which appears to promote a 
right-left alliance, is open to question. But then defending it, in 
return, against valid allegations is inexcusable.


- Jeff


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[Marxism] Terry Rosenbaum, Teacher Who Was Fired After Defying McCarthy, Dies at 97

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Sept. 28 2015
Terry Rosenbaum, Teacher Who Was Fired After Defying McCarthy, Dies at 97
By WILLIAM GRIMES

In 1951, Terry Rosenbaum, a history teacher at Samuel J. Tilden High 
School in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, finally stepped 
into one fight too many.


It all began on May 26, when a 26-year-old black man, Henry Fields Jr., 
sideswiped a parked car in nearby Brownsville and sped off, pursued by a 
police car, only to stop four blocks later when one of his tires went flat.


Samuel Applebaum, a patrolman, stepped out of the police car, and, as 
Fields emerged from his car, shouted “Stop!” Then, with at least a dozen 
witnesses looking on, he fired a single shot. The bullet ricocheted off 
the car door and struck Fields in the neck, killing him instantly.


Late that night, Mr. Rosenbaum, a well-known community organizer, 
received a phone call telling him that a crowd of black residents in an 
ugly mood had gathered outside the local police precinct.


Alarmed, he headed to the precinct to act as a mediator between local 
black leaders, with whom he had worked on many social-justice campaigns, 
and the police. In the months that followed, he helped lead a hastily 
organized group, the Brownsville Citizens Committee of 1,000 for Justice 
in the Case of Henry Fields, in a failed effort to have Applebaum 
indicted on criminal charges.


And that is when Mr. Rosenbaum, who died on Sept. 15 at 97, found out 
that there were many ways to attract the interest of Senator Joseph R. 
McCarthy.


Not long after the Fields episode, Mr. Rosenbaum was called into the 
office of the deputy superintendent of schools and asked if he was a 
member of the Communist Party. He was not, he said. That seemed to be 
the end of the matter.


But in 1953, McCarthy, as part of his campaign to expose Communist 
subversion in the government and the military, held hearings in 
Manhattan to delve into reports of espionage and sabotage at the radar 
laboratory at Fort Monmouth, N.J., and Mr. Rosenbaum was summoned to attend.


“I haven’t any idea to this day why I was called,” Mr. Rosenbaum told 
The New York Times in 1954, “and I certainly don’t know anything about 
Fort Monmouth or espionage.”


At the time, signing a petition for a radical cause, attending a meeting 
of the Communist Party in college or merely knowing someone who did 
either of those things was enough to pique the interest of McCarthy’s 
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.


The hearing was a lively event. McCarthy badgered. Mr. Rosenbaum, 
assuming the role of teacher, took every opportunity to give the senator 
a lesson on the Bill of Rights and the purpose of the Fifth Amendment.


Pressed by McCarthy, he denied engaging in espionage or sabotage, or 
having ever had access to classified material. But, citing Fifth 
Amendment protections against self-incrimination, he refused to answer 
when asked about others, or about his political beliefs. When McCarthy, 
annoyed, asked Mr. Rosenbaum to explain himself, he said, “I stand with 
those patriotic Americans who wrote the Bill of Rights as a protection 
for innocent people against inquisitions of this kind.”


Recalling the incident for Peter Golenbock, the author of “In the 
Country of Brooklyn: Inspiration to the World” (2008), Mr. Rosenbaum 
said, “Before I left the session I had 16 citations for contempt, and it 
killed me, because I would have liked to have told him off.”


By pleading the Fifth, Mr. Rosenbaum automatically forfeited his job 
under Section 903 of the City Charter. On April 30, 1954, he received 
formal notification from the superintendent of schools that he was no 
longer an employee of the school system.


That was the end of Mr. Rosenbaum’s career as a teacher, and the 
beginning of a life as a highly successful fund-raiser for the 
Educational Alliance, the Jewish settlement house on the Lower East Side 
that grew into a citywide organization, and for Long Island 
Jewish-Hillside Medical Center (now Long Island Jewish Medical Center).


Mr. Rosenbaum, who changed his name to Theodore in 1954, died at his 
home in Laguna Woods, Calif., his daughter Lisa Pearl Rosenbaum said.


Terry Rosenbaum was born on Feb. 7, 1918, in Brownsville, where his 
father, Abraham, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, worked as a baker. 
After graduating from Tilden High at 15, Terry enrolled in City College. 
He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1937 and a master’s in history from 
Columbia University two years later.


“My goal was to be a teacher of history in the New York City high 
schools,” he told Mr. Golenbock. “Which I did. I loved teaching.”


He was initially 

[Marxism] Counterpunch, again (was: Gabriel Ash on Assad)

[Jeff via Marxism]

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On 2015-09-26 23:26, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:


For comrades' information, Gabriel Ash was one of the Jews Sans
Frontiere bloggers who was defaming me for writing for CounterPunch.


Well I'm not sure where you draw the line between criticising and 
defaming, nor do I remember the exact words used by which commentator. 
But what was at issue was your DEFENSE of counterpunch against the 
(proven) charge that they publish a very substantial amount of material 
(usually under the now-familiar cover of "anti-imperialism") from 
authors with no left-wing credentials whatsoever (but frequently with 
clear ties to the far-right). And the research by Elise Hendrick 
indicating that the number of such articles even exceeds the number by 
authors clearly on the left (i.e. on issues less ambiguous than 
imperialism, globalisation, individual liberties etc.); her sampling of 
articles' positions on a few key issues (and the more difficult task of 
counting leftist versus rightist authors) supported that damning 
conclusion:
  
http://meldungen-aus-dem-exil.noblogs.org/post/2015/07/19/counterpunch-or-suckerpunch/


Indeed Hendrick had calmly suggested that therefore leftist authors 
should boycott Counterpunch for that reason ("By using the CP platform, 
these authors, whatever their intentions may be, are helping to 
mainstream a veritable cesspit of white-supremacist ideology. Surely, it 
would be better to publish elsewhere and expose CounterPunch for the 
suckerpunch it is."). But there certainly has been no campaign to call 
out individual authors (such as Louis) who have not observed such a 
boycott, even if that were the best response. Rather, Louis was 
criticized for actively defending Counterpunch against her 
well-demonstrated allegations:

   http://louisproyect.org/2015/07/24/in-defense-of-counterpunch/

In that piece, beyond pointing out that the statistics in Hendrick's 
piece were not rigorous and conclusive in showing a greater number of 
authors from the right, Louis took the opportunity to (correctly!) decry 
the positions of some in regard to Syria (etc.), rather than responding 
directly to their evaluation of Counterpunch. But that distraction 
clearly doesn't apply to Gabriel Ash whose words regarding Syria are 
exemplary. Nor is pointing to one bad position ever a substitute for 
directly answering a person's views on an unrelated issue. Looking past 
such questionable debating tactics, I find Louis' gratuitous attempt to 
rescue Counterpunch quite flimsy. And apparently (as I documented in a 
previous post) correlated with his ascendancy to a regular Counterpunch 
author, which I find quite sad.


All I'd hope for is that sober analysis not be hindered by personal 
self-interest or prejudice. Regardless of the contributions from genuine 
leftists such as Louis, the charge remains that Counterpunch provides a 
valuable platform for a section of the right-wing, and follows the very 
strategy of a right-left alliance which is properly castigated by the 
majority on this email list in relation to a number of specific issues. 
In other words, if you DO see as a problem leftists making common cause 
with the likes of Assad and Putin, then you cannot fail to identify 
instruments such as Counterpunch which are so valuable in that service.


- Jeff









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[Marxism] Papers with a Marxist Analysis of Diasporas and Globalization

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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I am trying to find papers with a Marxist analysis of the way diasporas spurred 
globalization and the way aspects of globalization are changing and impacting 
diasporas. I have looked in *Antipode* and *Dialectical Anthropology*. If 
anyone can recommend Marxist papers on this topic, please write to me offlist.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Kevin Lindemann

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[Marxism] Fwd: Orthodox Christian activists vandalized a Soviet art exhibition. Now the artwork is under scrutiny for extremism. — Meduza. News, reports, interviews, videos from Russia

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://meduza.io/en/news/2015/09/28/orthodox-christian-activists-vandalized-a-soviet-art-exhibition-now-the-artwork-is-under-scrutiny-for-extremism
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[Marxism] Two old pieces from Linux Beach

[Clay Claiborne via Marxism]

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This piece on communism was written in May 2014 and is as close as I 
have come to my theory of everything as anything I've written in a long 
time. I thought it worthy of wider distribution so I've dug it out of my 
emails, depersonalized it, and published it to my blog today:



 Why I remain a Marxist
 

In terms of these new Russian moves in Syria, which from reports I've 
heard including Russian war planes conducting air strikes on behalf of 
the Assad regime and Russian troops fighting on the ground, I find that 
what I said over a year ago stands up pretty well, so.  Old from Linux 
Beach but quite current given today's historic meeting between Obama & 
Putin:



 The appeasement of Putin began in Syria
 
,
May 1, 2014

My hands-down favorite gangster movie is *The Godfather* and when we 
speak of Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin we are definitely in 
gangster territory. There is a famous scene when Don Vito Corleone, 
the Godfather, realizes who his real nemesis is: /“Tattaglia is a 
pimp. He never could have outfought Santino. But I didn't know until 
this day that it was Barzini all along.”/


One day soon Obama will come to realize that Assad is a pimp and it 
has been Putin all along. 

*More...*
 


I think that day has come.

Clay
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Re: [Marxism] Fw: [foil] Gandhi and His Prejudices in the Context of His Times and Trajectory of Evolution

[Patrick Bond via Marxism]

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On 2015/09/09 06:14 PM, Marla Vijaya kumar via Marxism wrote:

Here is Mr. Rajmohan Gandhi's appraisal of the Mahatma. I hope it will answer 
many questions.Vijaya Kumar Marla
  
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/why-attacks-on-gandhi-are-good/


*Gandhi’s Empire**
**Despite Rajmohan Gandhi’s defence, evidence suggests that M.K. Gandhi 
sided with the British in subjugating Africans**

*
Written by Ashwin Desai | Published:September 25, 2015 12:25 am

The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire, the book I 
co-authored with Goolam Vahed, has elicited widespread comment, mostly 
by people who have not yet read it. Rajmohan Gandhi, the grandson and 
biographer of Mohandas Gandhi, writing in The Indian Express (‘Why 
attacks on Mahatma Gandhi are good’, September 9), says the book 
contends that “Gandhi disdained black people and supported British 
imperialism” during his South Africa years. Rajmohan does not deny the 
allegations, but his main contention is that these issues are not new — 
which reveals much of his own way of viewing the liberation struggle in 
South Africa.


Rajmohan is keen to argue that once Gandhi realised that empire was bad 
(in the 1920s), he became its foe. But what does it say about Gandhi 
that during his time in South Africa, he saw empire as a benign, if not 
progressive, force? In Gandhi’s time in South Africa, the British empire 
was at its acme. The Zulu kingdom had been decimated through plunder and 
pillage, while taxes forced African men off the land and into gold and 
diamond mines. Their wives and children were not allowed to accompany 
them. It was a brutal system.


What did Gandhi have to say about empire at work? One “where all races 
would be equal”, as Rajmohan says he believed? He could only envision 
this because he wrote Africans out of history. When he did write about 
them, it was of the ways in which empire could further exploit and 
subjugate them. So it is not just a question of Gandhi’s racism and 
belief in empire, but his view that Indians should be allowed to join 
whites in this system of racist super-exploitation. As for nursing the 
sick, his other passion besides empire, Gandhi did not care for those 
dying in British concentration camps. His ambulance missions were 
limited to showing loyalty to empire.


Did the empire’s batons have to land on Indian backs before Gandhi 
realised its falsity in the 1920s? If so, this aggravates the charge 
that it took assaults upon those occupying the “Aryan” plane of 
civilisation to jolt him out of this most obvious error. It is like 
saying that Gandhi did not care about slavery (except for wanting 
Indians to be allowed their own slaves) because it was limited to 
Africans, but when Indians were turned into slaves he saw the fault and 
fought against it. Gandhi took up empire’s cudgels to ensure that 
Africans were kept in their place. For us, this is what marked Gandhi — 
his begging to be the stretcher-bearer of empire in South Africa. And 
when tired of stretcher-bearing, he asked for guns to defend empire 
against the rebellious natives. Rajmohan goes on to argue that “the 
younger Gandhi [was] at times ignorant and prejudiced about South 
Africa’s blacks… especially when provoked by the conduct of black 
convicts who were among his fellow inmates in South Africa’s prisons”.


“Provoked”? Were their black bodies a provocation, the same provocation 
that in a brutal racist system landed them in prison? Rajmohan then 
argues, “the struggle for Indian rights in South Africa paved the way 
for the struggle for black rights”. In one sentence he writes out the 
history of African resistance to colonialism that unfolded much before 
Gandhi arrived on the scene and which he was quite keen to subvert by 
siding with white colonial power. Rajmohan holds that “on racial 
equality, … [Gandhi] was greatly in advance of most if not all of his 
compatriots”. This is a staggering claim. The South African Gandhi 
accepted white racist minority rule, and openly proposed that Indians 
and whites were more civilised than Africans, that they were lazy, and 
that they needed to have more taxes heaped upon them. Of his prison 
experience, he wrote: “We could understand not being classed with the 
whites, but to be placed on the same level with the natives seemed too 
much to put up with.”


Cherry-picking a quote here or there does not nullify this but does say 
much about Rajmohan’s own blinkers, which allow him to write so glibly 
about Gandhi’s siding with empire in the subjugation of Africans.


Rajmohan ends on this resounding note: “Some, however, seem to think 
that they are wiser