Re: [Marxism] Fwd: What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution | Brill

2016-05-15 Thread Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism
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DW wrote:

> I think at the end of the day,
> Marxists, be they part of the Academy or not, 
> should start moving away from
> the printed page. 

This might be generational--younger people might disagree with me--but I find 
it much easier to read things on the printed page than online (especially long 
works). Also, I think there have been studies that show that people read 
printed articles differently from the way they read articles online: They skim 
less and absorb more. I know I do. That said, I value MIA--but I wouldn't read 
a work like *Capital* online (I do go online to find particular passages, 
though). 

--Kevin
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[Marxism] Helen Clark's UN secretary-general bid and He Tangata

2016-05-15 Thread Philip Ferguson via Marxism
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In her presentation to the UN general assembly on why she should be
selected as secretary-general of the international imperialist body, Helen
Clark ended with the claim that she was all about 'he tangata, he tangata,
he tangata' (the people, the people, the people).

Here's a piece on Clark's actual relationship with and attitude to he
tangata:

https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/helen-clark-and-he-tangata/
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Re: [Marxism] Does the rise of a mass Feminist moivment indicate Pakitan in South Asia is the most ripe for revolutionary change?

2016-05-15 Thread Marla Vijaya kumar via Marxism
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This new development is very much evident in India, with the rise of student 
movement against fundamentalism. On the last day of election in Kerala state, 
where Left Front is expected to capture power after 5 years, the BJP Party 
Chief's meeting was a flop with empty chairs. Where as, the massive meeting 
addressed by Leftist student leader and the new political star, Kanhaiya Kumar 
was a great success with vibrant response from the people. He was in Kerala in 
support of his Jawaharlal Nehru University student and fellow communist, 
Mohammad Mohsin, who was contesting the elections as a Left candidate. This 
comparison of meeting attendance had gone viral on social media, with the 
slogan, "Get Lost Modi". As you know, BJP's Modi is the PM of India. His 
meteoric rise in popularity in 2014, that had put in power seems to be fading 
equally fast. What is to be seen how effectively anti-fascist elements manage 
to build a popular front to counter the BJP.
 Kanhaiya Kumar: ‘We are anti-RSS, not anti-national’
  
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Kanhaiya Kumar: ‘We are anti-RSS, not anti-national’
 ''Noorru Chuvappan Abhivadyangal''  |  |

  |

 

 

On Monday, May 16, 2016 7:53 AM, Anthony Brain via Marxism 
 wrote:
 

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 This video shows the beginning of a mass Feminist movement within Pakitsan! Is 
the reactionary period of Islamic Fundamentalism begiining to come to an end? 
Islamic Fundamentalism has been a major obstacle to a left developemnt since 
its height during the 1980s when it was used in the reactionary  war with the 
Soveit workers' state within Afghanistan. Does thsi Feminist rise combined with 
the movement against Imperialism intervening in th tribal regions on the Afgan 
border indicate a possible pre-revolutionary crisis? Is Pakistan the weak link 
for Capitalism in South Asia ripe for revolutionary change? Montrhs ago it 
would be unthinkable that women would challenge their oppression so openly 
because the Fundamentalists would thretaen to murder them! These middle class 
women speaking up for their rights has encourgaed millions of Pakistani workers 
and rural middle class peasants to challenge their oppression! This mass 
movement of middle and working class women indicates the possibility of 
revolutionry uphealval because when they cannot endure their oppression as 
woman and being super-exploited by capital for being working or middle class, 
August Bebel Capitalism is threatened by majior revolutonary threat of possible 
Socialist revolution!
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[Marxism] Joys of the 'teamwork' organisation of labour

2016-05-15 Thread Philip Ferguson via Marxism
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“Peter, useless.  Peter, useless!” chanted my workmates.  “Peter, useless!”
they roared.  My name echosed around the factory for everyone to hear.

From time to time other workers on the drier assembly line at F in
Auckland got called useless and I’d joined in the chanting myself.  Usually
it was in good humour and it broke the monotony.  But this time I wasn’t
finding it so funny.  In fact I was in trouble.  It was three months since
I’d started as a temp at F and this particular day I’d got a bit
careless, letting my stocks slip down.  On top of that I had a headache.

At four in the afternoon the big boss team leader took over the work
station two upstream from me and started cracking on the pace.  He and his
young mate were racing and sweat was pouring off them.  They were working
faster than the line speed and building up a stockpile of drier drums.

The opposite was happening to me.  The faster they worked the quicker they
ate up my product and soon I had none.  The more I tried to rush the more I
fumbled.  The more screws I dropped the more attention I drew to myself.
 “Peter, useless,” my workmates chanted and laughed. . .

full at:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/from-the-vaults-a-nightmare-in-whiteware-the-teamwork-system-exploitation-and-alienation/
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[Marxism] Does the rise of a mass Feminist moivment indicate Pakitan in South Asia is the most ripe for revolutionary change?

2016-05-15 Thread Anthony Brain via Marxism
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 This video shows the beginning of a mass Feminist movement within Pakitsan! Is 
the reactionary period of Islamic Fundamentalism begiining to come to an end? 
Islamic Fundamentalism has been a major obstacle to a left developemnt since 
its height during the 1980s when it was used in the reactionary  war with the 
Soveit workers' state within Afghanistan. Does thsi Feminist rise combined with 
the movement against Imperialism intervening in th tribal regions on the Afgan 
border indicate a possible pre-revolutionary crisis? Is Pakistan the weak link 
for Capitalism in South Asia ripe for revolutionary change? Montrhs ago it 
would be unthinkable that women would challenge their oppression so openly 
because the Fundamentalists would thretaen to murder them! These middle class 
women speaking up for their rights has encourgaed millions of Pakistani workers 
and rural middle class peasants to challenge their oppression! This mass 
movement of middle and working class women indicates the possibility of 
revolutionry uphealval because when they cannot endure their oppression as 
woman and being super-exploited by capital for being working or middle class, 
August Bebel Capitalism is threatened by majior revolutonary threat of possible 
Socialist revolution!
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[Marxism] Is this the beginning of a mass Feminist movement within Pakistan?

2016-05-15 Thread Anthony Brain via Marxism
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 Countering body shaming and bullying of women in Pakistan - BBC News
  
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Countering body shaming and bullying of women in Pakistan - BBC News
 To counter the body shaming and bullying of women in Pakistan, lawyer Zainab 
Chughtai founded the initiative Bul...  |   |

  |

  |

 
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: What Went Wrong?

2016-05-15 Thread Patrick Bond via Marxism

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On 2016/05/16 03:43 AM, DW via Marxism wrote:

...I'm saying, or asking: is there another way.


Actually in South Africa we are trying a different strategy in which for 
the first time this year, a decent share of state funding subsidises 
those who write academic books and even book chapters, not just academic 
articles.


(In most universities here, if you write a peer-reviewed article in an 
accredited journal, you get a research bonus for buying books and 
conference tickets and research-assistant time of around $1500 each. 
That was a system biased towards natural scientists - one of my UKZN 
colleagues wrote 41 last year - and relatitvely harder for social 
scientists who generate fewer of those commodities and instead, put 
their work into books and book chapters. So the subsidy is now available 
for properly peer-reviewed books and chapters, and a university that 
hosts a book author can get as much as $70 000 subsidy from the 
government for each 300 page book, which it shares usually around 10% 
with the author, and with the rest cross-subsidises other university 
research.)


Some of us are trying to advocate a system to shift publishing so as to 
decommodify the book form, as a result of this generous subsidy (e.g. 
getting the book online immediately - as one state publisher here does 
with some of its books: http://hsrcpress.co.za/  ... e.g. this section 
of their main annual SA review: 
http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/downloadpdf.php?pdffile=files%2FPDF%2F2322%2FState%20of%20Nation_Part5_SA%20and%20the%20World.pdf=State%20of%20the%20Nation%3A%20South%20Africa%201994-2014%20-%20Part5%20SA%20and%20the%20World 
)


But as a general strategy of decommodification, especially to promote 
work by black authors, we're finding that it's very slow going, with no 
immediate prospect of success. The main barrier is the academic research 
bureaucrat, it turns out...


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Re: [Marxism] Martin Hart-Landsberg, "The Pitfalls and Possibilities of Socialist Transformation: The Case of Greece"

2016-05-15 Thread Patrick Bond via Marxism

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A very fine paper, which Marty presented to the annual marxist economics 
conference in Korea to acclaim on Thursday.



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[Marxism] Fwd: The Life and Times of Karl Marx, in the words of Ronnie Kasrils | Daily Maverick

2016-05-15 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-05-16-the-life-and-times-of-karl-marx-in-the-words-of-ronnie-kasrils/
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution | Brill

2016-05-15 Thread DW via Marxism
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Louis wrote:

"I have a big problem with this. The issues being addressed in HM books are
of interest to a global audience. For many people, the cost of a Haymarket
paperback is about as prohibitive as a Brill hardcover especially if you
are living outside of the USA. I got a feel for that sending the book on
Syria to people in Europe. Speaking of that book, Ukant sold it for cost
($15) just like all the other books they publish. Is that the case with
Haymarket? I doubt it."

"This may sound radical but I feel that Marxist books should be published
on the Internet. That addresses the cost question as well as distribution.
Of course, many Marxists feel that they should be paid if they spend a year
working on a book but to tell you the truth they can make more money
working for McDonalds than what they'll get from Verso."

I feel the same, actually, Louis. But this is a different subject. In some
cases it's impossible for a mass quality paperback company (Pathfinder,
Haymarket, on the left, tons others in the commercial arena). I'm saying,
or asking: is there another way. Many Marxists publishing books are doing
so because of a one-off need to "get published" for their own academic
career. In a way, I agree with this. Or, no other company BUT Brill will
publish their monographs. The real question, not asked by your or Scott's
interesting essay is "why quality paper backs"? Quality paperbacks and a
notch or two up from the old "pocket book" editions that many of our
parents used to read for their romance novels, mysteries, etc. They are
still widely published today and much of my favorite genre of literature,
science-fiction, is still published in this manner.

I remember back in the early 70s when Pathfinder explained that were making
a serious attempt to break into this "quality paperback" arena. It's the
form most books sold in university bookstores sell their softcover books.
Glossy softcover, bleached white paper, usually slightly thicker and
sturdier than pocket books, which were only a notch or two above newsprint.

But...back in the day...Pioneer Publishers and International Publishers
published books in pocket book form: cheaper paper, cardstock covers,
etc...and books and pamphlets could be sold quite cheaply because of it. I
think it would be great if Haymarket were to release a "line" of these
kinds of books. I just don't see massive tomes like John Riddell's latest
works on the Comintern every coming out cheaper, at least not in book form,
than they are now or in any version that is of less quality than Haymarket
has published them in.

I suspect this is what Louis is griping about even with Haymarket, where he
states, factually, that even Haymarket's prices are out of reach for people
in developing countries or those in the West who can't put out $25 or $30
for a book.

I had, years ago talked to Daniel Gaido about this. Daniel is an Argentine
Trotskyist who published his "Witnesses to Permanent Revolution: The
Documentary Record" (along with Richard B Day) with Brill. Daniel, along
with being a scholar, is also a volunteer on the Marxists Internet Archive
which is how I "met" and got to know him. I asked him "Daniel! WTF?!?
$138". Now, this is from memory, but I remember him saying "it was
either Brill or no one would publish it". About 18 months later, Haymarket
published it for $38 or so...which I understand allowed for a few bucks
over the actual cost of the printing.

So...what is it that allows Haymarket to publish material like this? The
reason is very simple: Haymarket doesn't do the typesetting (or formatting
since everything is published today off of PDFs). It's already done by
Brill! Brill assembles and *edits* the works and puts them into PDF format.
All Haymarket has to do is run them to the printer and design and print
their own covers and QED. But it still costs. I don't know what or if
Haymarket pays Brill. Be interesting to find out.

I think Louis does have a point about the prices even Haymarket charges. We
all rely on Haymarket. In fact, if it wasn't for them, about any
theoretical and historical discussions on this list would be a lot
more...anemic. Haymarket publishes other books...like the Chomsky, Klein
and books that are not "socialist" to make money, which goes to subsidize,
actually, their HM series. But the differences between $15 and $25 is not
that different to make a *quantitative* difference in how many books are
being sold that are wanted outside the U.S. At least I don't think so. In
the last 2 years, postage rates into and out of the U.S. have gone up close
to 400%. I used to send a hard drive of the MIA (one our fundraising
things) to some 

[Marxism] Martin Hart-Landsberg, "The Pitfalls and Possibilities of Socialist Transformation: The Case of Greece"

2016-05-15 Thread Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism
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Abstract

With its 2015 electoral victory in Greece, Syriza became the first left 
political party to lead a European government since the founding of the 
European Union. As such, its eventual capitulation to the demands of the Troika 
was a bitter development, and not only for the people of Greece. Because the 
need for change remains as great as ever, and efforts at electoral-based 
transformations continue, especially in Europe, this paper seeks to assess the 
Greek experience, and in particular Syriza’s political options and choices, in 
order to help activists more effectively respond to the challenges faced when 
confronting capitalist power.

Section 1 examines how Greece’s membership in the euro area promoted an 
increasingly fragile and unsustainable economic expansion over the period 2001 
to 2007. Section 2 discusses the role of the Troika in Greece’s 2008 to 2014 
downward spiral into depression. Section 3 discusses the ways in which popular 
Greek resistance to their country’s crisis helped to shape and nourish Syriza 
as a new type of left political organization, “a mass connective party.” 
Section 4 critically analyzes the Syriza-led government’s political choices, 
highlighting alternative policies not chosen that might have helped the 
government break the Troika’s strangle hold over the Greek economy and further 
radicalize the Greek population. Section 5 concludes with a presentation of 
five lessons from the Greek experience of relevance for future struggles.

The article can be access for free at 
http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol4/iss1/1/.

--Kevin

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[Marxism] Fwd: Defying the Democrats: Marxists and the lost labor party of 1923 | John Riddell

2016-05-15 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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An article by the very sharp Eric Blanc that deals with the problems of 
the CPUSA's relations with a nascent labor party. Since much of his 
documentation rests on Theodore Draper, I am not surprised that he 
reaches some of the same conclusions I did in an article on third party 
efforts historically. I probably go much further than Eric in endorsing 
the La Follette Progressive Party campaign of 1924.


https://johnriddell.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/defying-the-democrats-marxists-and-the-lost-labor-party-of-1923/

My article: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/Nader2000.htm
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[Marxism] Fwd: Free Speech Leads to Dismissal of Tenured Faculty at Washington State College /  The Ave

2016-05-15 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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Jim Craven, a Marxmail and PEN-L alumnus, gets the shaft.

http://handbill.us/?p=22857
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution | Brill

2016-05-15 Thread Ralph Johansen via Marxism

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Well...my understanding is that Brill's target audience are institutions
and not individuals. I have zero problem waiting a year for a book to be
published as was noted, by Haymarket Books. So what? In fact, Haymarket
does publish *all* Brill's works, or has the right to do so, if it's from
the HM series.

Brill also doesn't have a page/word limit unlike almost all other
publishers, leftwing or not. I think "what' went wrong" is that people want
books "right now" and can't seem wait for the cheaper versions with more
human prices once they see Brill publishing it. We are not talking about
the price of bread or subway fare, here. If the HM series didn't exist as
it is, likely a lot fewer of the HM series books would ever seen ink on
paper. So...I simply don't gave a crap about what Brill charges, I care
about accessibility via Haymarket.


David Walters

Well, but David, that may be Brill's target audience, but should it be 
HMs? There's a revolution to be made, , which can't wait, the conference 
proceedings of this vaunted left venue, if they have any merit, might 
just contribute to that process. If they don't, are they esoterica, 
ephemera or of value only as studies of historic events, with little or 
no relevance to present events, crises and the radical left? Is that all 
that HM contributors offer? Not really. David Harvey gets out one book 
after another, in many cases invaluable theoretical contributions 
relating to current problems, but he also makes available, shortly after 
they are delivered, the videos and in come cases transcriptions and 
articles on which he is currently working. With volunteers. That process 
also provides him with a broader, worldwide forum for critique, by 
others than academicians, before reaching the book stage.


And what we get in Haymarket format has already been discussed in more 
rarified reaches, by those with access to the institutions that Brill 
targets, and in many cases I'm sure has been critiqued in ways that 
would be valuable for movement participants and labor to know about and 
to act accordingly - soonest in many cases I can think of. This is a 
question of substantive equality. I think it is important. There is a 
better way, and others do a good job of it. Conference proceedings, if 
they are at all relevant to the agency of change, the working class, 
whom I assume HM is concerned about, could be transcribed or at least 
video-taped quickly for those with that kind of need to know. They don't 
do that, or didn't the last time I checked. And then there's the 
business about Weekly Worker. Pecksniffish I say.


And what of the countless volunteer hours that must be put in on the 
invaluable material at MIA, which you are in part responsible for as I 
recall and which is freely available online?



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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution | Brill

2016-05-15 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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On 5/15/16 7:15 PM, DW via Marxism wrote:

Well...my understanding is that Brill's target audience are institutions
and not individuals. I have zero problem waiting a year for a book to be
published as was noted, by Haymarket Books. So what? In fact, Haymarket
does publish *all* Brill's works, or has the right to do so, if it's from
the HM series.


I have a big problem with this. The issues being addressed in HM books 
are of interest to a global audience. For many people, the cost of a 
Haymarket paperback is about as prohibitive as a Brill hardcover 
especially if you are living outside of the USA. I got a feel for that 
sending the book on Syria to people in Europe. Speaking of that book, 
Ukant sold it for cost ($15) just like all the other books they publish. 
Is that the case with Haymarket? I doubt it.


This may sound radical but I feel that Marxist books should be published 
on the Internet. That addresses the cost question as well as 
distribution. Of course, many Marxists feel that they should be paid if 
they spend a year working on a book but to tell you the truth they can 
make more money working for McDonalds than what they'll get from Verso.

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[Marxism] Fwd: Brill Publishers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2016-05-15 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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In 1896, Brill became a public limited company, when E. J. Brill's 
successors, A. P. M. van Oordt and Frans de Stoppelaar, both businessmen 
with some academic background and interest, died. A series of directors 
followed, until in 1934, Theunis Folkers took over the reins. His 
directorship marked a period of unprecedented growth in the history of 
the company, due to a large extent to Folkers' cooperation with the 
German occupying forces during World War II. For the Germans, Brill 
printed foreign-language textbooks so that they could manage the 
territories they occupied, but also military manuals, such as "a manual 
which trained German officers to distinguish the insignias of the 
Russian army." In 1934, the company had a turnover of 132,000 guilders; 
by 1943, this had increased to 579,000 guilders.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brill_Publishers
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[Marxism] Scott Mclemee on the costs of academic publishing

2016-05-15 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/03/02/costs-publishing-monographs-report-ithaka-essay

Accounting for Scholarship
A recent report on the cost of publishing monographs should be of some 
interest to many people who buy, read and/or write scholarly books, says 
Scott McLemee.

March 2, 2016
By Scott McLemee

Nearly a month has passed since the release of “The Costs of Publishing 
Monographs: Toward a Transparent Methodology,” a document prepared by 
the consulting and research division of Ithaka S+R. (Ithaka is also 
associated with JSTOR, the scholarly journals repository.) The report 
seems not to have drawn much attention outside the ranks of the 
Association of American University Presses, which seems odd. It ought to 
be of some interest to the larger constituency of those who buy, read 
and/or write scholarly books.


If you mention the price of academic-press books to people who’ve never 
purchased one, the effect is akin to a cartoon character with eyeballs 
popping out and exclamation marks hovering in the air, with a thought 
balloon reading, “What a racket!” (On one occasion I heard it said 
aloud.) The dismay will usually cool off some as you explain how the 
specialist nature of scholarly publications tends to preclude economies 
of scale. A small audience means low press runs, yielding high per-unit 
costs. That’s not the whole story, of course, but it often suffices to 
explain why, say, a slender new book interpreting Moby Dick might cost 
five times as much as a Melville biography thick enough to serve as a 
doorstop -- and why no one in the family has purchased Aunt Louise’s 
book, even if they’re proud she got tenure for it.


The authors of the new Ithaka report mention a ballpark estimate of the 
expense to a press of preparing a scholarly book for publication (not 
printing, just getting it to that point) that has been bandied about 
over the past couple: $20,000. It’s problematic, but let’s imagine, for 
the sake of argument, that it costs that much to prepare and to print a 
monograph, and that every single one of its 400 copies is sold. In that 
case the absolute lowest wholesale price of a single volume has to be 
$50, just to break even. Many trade publishers would consider a print 
run 10 times that size to be small -- with each copy selling at a much 
lower price while still making a profit. It’s not that trade presses are 
models of efficiency that scholarly presses ought somehow to emulate -- 
not at all. They resemble one another about as much as an ostrich egg 
and a cannonball do, and the differences cannot be tinkered away.


Ithaka’s researchers collected information on the expenses involved in 
bringing out 382 books from the arts, humanities and social sciences 
published by 20 American university presses during their 2014 fiscal 
year. The data assembled were granular -- drawn from the sort of 
in-house bookkeeping each department (editorial, production, marketing, 
etc.) had to do while handling each title. Some expenses are more 
discretely defined than others. The cost of sending a manuscript out for 
copyediting, for example, is not too hard to determine; just look at the 
invoice. Calculating the fraction of an acquisition editor’s salary that 
went into a given book seems more difficult -- besides which there are 
the overhead expenses of clerical labor, rent, tech support and so on, 
some of them provided by the hosting university.
The 20 presses surveyed range from small presses (averaging roughly 11 
employees publishing 46 titles per year, with an annual revenue from 
books of under $1.5 million) to powerhouses (circa 82 employees, 253 
titles and more than $6 million annual revenue). They are segmented into 
four size categories, with five presses each, and with some effort made 
for geographical diversity and varying publishing foci (monographs, 
journals, regional titles).


In short, it must be one hell of a spreadsheet -- and the researchers 
establish three ways of defining cost per book to reflect the varying 
impacts of staff time, overhead expense and institutional support. One 
effect of the analysis is that the figure of $20,000 per book in 
preparation expenses goes right out the window: the study “yielded a 
wide range of costs per title, from a low of $15,140 to a high of 
$129,909, and the range of costs is wide both within and across groups.” 
Taking in the varying ways of assessing the expenses of almost 400 
titles, the researchers find that the average cost per monograph is 
between $28,747 (using the minimal baseline) and not quite $40,000 
(factoring in indirect overhead expenses). It bears repeating that this 

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution | Brill

2016-05-15 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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On 5/15/16 7:15 PM, DW via Marxism wrote:

Well...my understanding is that Brill's target audience are institutions
and not individuals.


That's exactly right--the same marketing strategy of all academic 
publishers as this piquant Guardian article points out:


http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/sep/04/academics-are-being-hoodwinked-into-writing-books-nobody-can-buy

Academics are being hoodwinked into writing books nobody can buy
An editor called me up to ask me if I’d like to write a book. I smelled 
a rat, but I played along…

by Anonymous academic, September 2015

A few months ago, an editor from an academic publisher got in touch to 
ask if I was interested in writing a book for them.


I’ve ignored these requests in the past. I know of too many colleagues 
who have responded to such invitations, only to see their books 
disappear on to a university library shelf in a distant corner of the world.


If someone tried to buy said book – I mean, like a real human being – 
they would have to pay the equivalent of a return ticket to a sunny 
destination or a month’s child benefit. These books start at around £60, 
but they can cost double that, or even more.


This time, however, I decided to play along.

So I got the editor on the phone and he asked if I had an idea for them. 
“Sure,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “Perhaps I could write a 
book about…” – and here I started piling up ugly-sounding buzzwords.


I could hear how he momentarily drifted off, probably to reply to an 
email, and when I was done with my terrible pitch, he simply said: “Great!”


“The best thing now,” he continued, “is if you could jot down a few 
pages, as a proposal, which we could then send out to reviewers.” He 
paused a second, then added: “If you have any friends who could act as 
reviewers and who you think could sign off on the project, then that’d 
be great.”


I was intrigued by the frankness.

“How much would the book be sold for?” I inquired, aware this might not 
be his favourite question. “£80,” he replied in a low voice.


“So there won’t be a cheaper paperback edition?” I asked, pretending to 
sound disappointed.


higher education network

Join the Guardian Higher Education Network
Join to get access to the latest insight, comment, advice and best 
practice for professionals working in and with higher education.

Click here
“No, I’m afraid not,” he said, “we only really sell to libraries. But we 
do have great sales reps that get the books into universities all across 
the world.”


“So how many copies do you usually sell?” I inquired.

“About 300.”

“For all your books?”

“Yes, unless you would assign your book on your own modules.”

I was growing fascinated by the numbers so I asked how many of these 
books they published each year.


“I have to…” he started (inadvertently revealing that this was a target 
that had been set) “…I have to publish around 75 of these.”


Seventy-five books, £80 each, selling on average 300 copies. That’s 
£1.8m. And he’s just one of their commissioning editors. What’s more, 
these publishers are not known for hiring talented illustrators to come 
up with nice covers – and you rarely see their books advertised in 
magazines.


“If you don’t mind my asking,” I said as our conversation drew to a 
close, “how did you find me?”


A moment of awkward silence, and then: “Um, well, I found your name on 
your university website.”


At the time, there was no information about me on the university 
website. No publication list, no information about my research interest, 
not even a photograph.


So I’d been asked to write a book about whatever I wanted, and this 
editor didn’t even know whether I’d written anything before. It didn’t 
matter. It would sell its 300 copies regardless. Not to people with an 
interest in reading the book, but to librarians who would put it on a 
shelf and then, a few years later, probably bury it in a storeroom.


Most academics get these requests. A colleague was recently courted by 
an editor who, after confessing they only published expensive hardbacks 
(at around £200), explained that this was an opportunity for my 
colleague to enhance his academic record. He was told he could give them 
pretty much anything, like an old report, or some old articles.


“I can’t believe anyone would write a book that would be too expensive 
for anyone to buy,” the colleague told me over the phone. “Just to add a 
line to your cv.”


Another colleague, on discovering his published book was getting 
widespread attention but was too expensive to buy, tried to get the 
publishers to rush out a cheaper paperback version. They ignored 

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Art, Literature and Culture From a Marxist Perspective

2016-05-15 Thread Richard M via Marxism
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Shalva Eliava  wrote:
>>Sounds great...too bad it's $90 for the book. 

**Amazon.uk has it for £13.81 (USD $30.62 inc. Shipping)
<
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Literature-Culture-Marxist-Perspective/dp/11375
26602?ie=UTF8=1NNRF7QZ418V218YP1R2=2025=165953&
creativeASIN=1137526602=xm2=bf-dt-ee-21>


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[Marxism] As fact-free free as it is malicious - the revisionist assault on Constance Markievicz

2016-05-15 Thread Philip Ferguson via Marxism
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https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/the-assault-on-markievicz-as-fact-free-as-it-is-malicious/
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution | Brill

2016-05-15 Thread DW via Marxism
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Well...my understanding is that Brill's target audience are institutions
and not individuals. I have zero problem waiting a year for a book to be
published as was noted, by Haymarket Books. So what? In fact, Haymarket
does publish *all* Brill's works, or has the right to do so, if it's from
the HM series.

Brill also doesn't have a page/word limit unlike almost all other
publishers, leftwing or not. I think "what' went wrong" is that people want
books "right now" and can't seem wait for the cheaper versions with more
human prices once they see Brill publishing it. We are not talking about
the price of bread or subway fare, here. If the HM series didn't exist as
it is, likely a lot fewer of the HM series books would ever seen ink on
paper.  So...I simply don't gave a crap about what Brill charges, I care
about accessibility via Haymarket.


David Walters
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution | Brill

2016-05-15 Thread Ralph Johansen via Marxism

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Louis Proyect wrote

You can find out in an HM book due out in September for only $185.

http://www.brill.com/products/book/what-went-wrong-nicaraguan-revolution



I think that this is sad. Several years ago, Sebastian Budgen replied 
testily to my complaint about these prices, and the fact that 
proceedings of Historical Materialism conferences are not made available 
until they are sorted, sifted and delivered upon us much later in the 
form of these preciously-priced volumes, explaining in justification 
that they later came out as Haymarket books at a much cheaper price 
(I 
have that exchange in a file somewhere). 
He 
didn't offer that this applies only to a limited proportion of the 
conference proceedings and a limited number of the Brill books, and that 
those that made it that far came out so much later on Haymarket as to be 
several years old news. He also attributed the failure to get out 
conference proceedings to limited volunteer staff. He should maybe visit 
other, less exclusive venues who tape and transcribe and find volunteers 
among a dedicated left to do it, including Left Forum, Democracy Now! 
and The Real Network News. 



Budgen also complained that I had cc'd my message to CPGB's Weekly 
Worker ('of all places!'), to which I answer that theirs was the only 
substantive review of the HM conference that I could find. And he said 
something to the effect that I was dividing the left. So who is what?





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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Sanders crashes into Democratic Party wall - POLITICO

2016-05-15 Thread Ralph Johansen via Marxism

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This is Kshama Kawant and Socialist Alternatives'  message accompanying 
their petition urging Sanders to run as an independent if Hillary is the 
Democratic Party nominee: http://movement4bernie.org/. I understand that 
another, similar petition is circulating.


I support this action, and I for one have phone banked and contributed 
to the Bernie campaign, for reasons I've already stated on this list, 
but I emphasize that I have been doing so mainly because Bernie is the 
one who, uniquely, has incurred appropriate enmity from capital because 
he's 'aroused the sleeping dogs of class struggle' (as economist Paul 
Samuelson once fearfully put it), carefully steering among issues to 
garner maximum support for a broad left agenda; he has made it possible 
for millions, including many who have never before entered the political 
process, to realize that they have numbers, potential strength and 
political clout; that the demands made in the Sanders campaign are 
reasonable and necessary; that the failure, and extreme unlikelihood 
that the major parties and their candidates can or will act on them is 
directly related to what Bernie terms the billions from Wall Street 
being shoveled to our 'representatives' in government, including Hillary 
but not Bernie; that it's not us who created this mess and should 
therefore support the lesser evil (which of them is which?): it's those 
who voted for her in the primaries, instead of the major party candidate 
with the only message responsive to massive need and the most support 
among independents and youth in the polls, who bear that responsibility; 
and even though some polls show that right now 30% or so will either 
join a 3rd party movement or will sit the election out and the rest will 
vote for Hillary, nevertheless they can all if they choose be the 
nucleus of a third party in US politics. My experience has been that, 
once the process becomes evident to us, we rarely go back to the old 
crap. If any opt for Hillary or Trump, there's not much else besides 
what select Bernie supporters, Kshama and her party, the Greens and a 
few others are doing that can be done to turn it around.


Otherwise, it's very dead and dull around here on the left, and the 
agenda and likely missteps of the powerful are exceedingly dangerous. I 
have read what Diana Johnstone and Doug Henwood have written about 
Hillary; she is as treacherous as I had known her to be and then some. 
But our political options are limited: the Democratic Party of course 
was fashioned in its origins of, by and for capital and propertied 
interests, with the rest of us being shoehorned in much later, on 
capital's terms. Bernie, though certainly leaving much to be desired, 
appears to have tacked and jibed in politics as an independent of sorts 
for 45 years, mainly with the desired direction guiding him. It is 
exceedingly hostile ground. It is nevertheless the process through which 
fateful decisions affecting all of humanity are made and which therefore 
cannot be shunned.


I agree with most of what Politico, Michael Yates, Paul Street and 
others whose critical opinions have been posted here say about what the 
reality of a campaign within the Democratic Party entails - except to 
the extent that they might ignore or dispute any of the above (and to 
the extent that Paul Street suggests that Bernie's campaign was a 
contrivance inuring to the benefit of the party).


We can hope that Bernie supporters including Socialist Alternative (and 
the Green Party) are using the Bernie mailing list to get their most 
persuasive arguments to those who have supported him; also that the 
Green Party can get on the ballot in every state, although I understand 
now that, two months before the nominating convention and five and a 
half months before the election, they're on the ballot in only 21 
states. I will help and I expect those on this list stateside will.


This is an opportunity for which we may have to wait a long time for a 
recurrence, in the bowels of capital - which we can be sure will stop at 
nothing to prevent repetition of this sort of powerful opening, to which 
so many are responding.



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[Marxism] Fwd: What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution | Brill

2016-05-15 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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You can find out in an HM book due out in September for only $185. In 
fact, what went wrong is epitomized in the pricing of this book. In 
terms of exchange value, this book represents a month's wage in 
Nicaragua in the mid-80s of a skilled professional, most of whom had 
fled to Miami when I arrived in 1986. Instead of searching for a purer 
Marxism, it would be better to understand why the solidarity movement 
proved incapable of stopping Reagan.


http://www.brill.com/products/book/what-went-wrong-nicaraguan-revolution
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[Marxism] Michael Ratner’s Army: The Fight Against Guantánamo - The New York Review of Books

2016-05-15 Thread Dennis Brasky via Marxism
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>
>
>
> http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/05/15/michael-ratner-army-fight-against-guantanamo/?utm_medium=email_campaign=NYR%20Sex%20discrimination%20Dickinson%20Pantheon_content=NYR%20Sex%20discrimination%20Dickinson%20Pantheon+CID_9ecf05fab6df718e5b1668518ebaae41_source=Newsletter_term=Michael%20Ratners%20Army
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[Marxism] May 15 ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER

2016-05-15 Thread Jack A. Smith via Marxism
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May 15 ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER

Contact us or subscribe to Newsletter at jac...@earthlink.ne


Go to: http://activistnewsletter.blogspot.com/


1.   Quotes of the Month

2.   Photos of he Month — Homeless in America  

3.   Global Protests Against Use of Fossil Fuels

4.   The Arsonists of Fort McMurray Have a Name

5.   U.S. Middle Class Shrinks as Incomes Fall

6.   Jobs for Young Graduates Still Weak

7.   The Cost of Justice Punishes the Poor

8.   DNA Secrets of Ice Age Europe Unlocked

9.   Russians Celebrate Victory Over Germany

10. Is Criticism of Israel Anti-Semitic?

11. Animal Life in Factory Farms

12. Greek Workers Protest More Cutbacks

13. Has South Africa Lost Its Way?

14. A Humanist Answer to Modern Technology

15. The Plight of Refugees In Greece
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[Marxism] Fwd: Sanders crashes into Democratic Party wall - POLITICO

2016-05-15 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/bernie-sanders-dnc-rules-committee-222978
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[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Brazil’s Graft-Prone Congress: A Circus That Even Has a Clown

2016-05-15 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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(Reading this reminds you of why Lenin's ideas about smashing the state, 
to put it crudely, remain as fresh as ever.)


NY Times, May 15 2016
Brazil’s Graft-Prone Congress: A Circus That Even Has a Clown
By ANDREW JACOBS

BRASÍLIA — One of Brazil’s longest-running spectacles features a 
dizzying array of characters whose theatrics appear on millions of 
television sets most nights.


The ever-changing cast of 594 includes suspects accused of murder and 
drug trafficking, aging former soccer players, a judo champion, a 
country music star and a collection of bearded men who have adopted 
roles as leaders of a women’s movement.


The cast even includes a clown who goes by the name Grumpy.

But these are not actors. They are the men and women who serve in the 
national legislature.


Democracy can be a mystifying, rough-and-tumble affair anywhere, but 
Brazil’s Congress has few equals.


As the nation endures its worst political upheaval in a generation, the 
lawmakers orchestrating the ouster of President Dilma Rousseff — who was 
suspended on Thursday and faces an impeachment trial on charges of 
manipulating the budget — are coming under renewed scrutiny.


More than half of the members of Congress face legal challenges, from 
cases in auditing court involving public contracts to serious counts 
like kidnapping or murder, according to Transparency Brazil, a 
corruption monitoring group.


The figures under investigation include the president of the Senate and 
the new speaker of the lower house. Just this month, the previous 
speaker, an evangelical Christian radio commentator fond of posting 
biblical verse on Twitter, was ejected to face trial on charges that he 
secreted as much as $40 million in bribes into Swiss bank accounts.


Many of the legislature’s problems stem from the generous rewards to be 
found in Brazil’s hydra-headed party system, an unwieldy collection of 
dozens of political organizations whose names and agendas often leave 
Brazilians scratching their heads.


There is the Party of the Brazilian Woman, for instance — a group whose 
elected members in Congress are all men.


“The electoral process allows many distortions,” said Suêd Haidar, the 
party’s founder and president. She sighed, acknowledging that many of 
the men who join have little interest in promoting women’s rights.


One of those who joined the party, Senator Hélio José da Silva Lima, was 
accused of sexually abusing a young niece last year, though charges were 
later dropped. “What would become of us men if there were no women by 
our side, to bring us joy and pleasure?” he was quoted as saying in the 
Brazilian news media when asked about his decision to join the women’s 
party.


The same public fury over endemic corruption and governmental 
mismanagement that helped drive Ms. Rousseff from power has long been 
directed at the cabal of politicians, most of them white men, whose 
penchant for back-room deals and self-enrichment has become part of 
Brazilian lore.


“The reputation of the political class in Brazil really can’t go any 
lower,” said Timothy J. Power, a professor of Brazilian studies at 
Oxford University.


“People compare the legislature to the ‘House of Cards,’” he said, 
referring to the Netflix political drama, “but I disagree. ‘House of 
Cards’ is actually more believable.”


With 28 parties holding seats, the Brazilian Congress is the world’s 
most fractured, according to Mr. Power. The runner-up, Indonesia’s 
legislature, has a third fewer parties.


“Brazil is not an outlier, it’s a freak,” said Gregory Michener, the 
director of the public transparency program at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 
a university in Rio de Janeiro.


The parties tend to use words like “Democratic,” “Christian” and 
“Republican” in their names, though “Labor” has them all beat. Among 
them are the Labor Party of Brazil, the Christian Labor Party, the 
Brazilian Labor Renewal Party and the National Labor Party. For the sake 
of variety, there are also the Workers’ Cause Party and Ms. Rousseff’s 
once-dominant Workers’ Party.


“The entire system is a monster,” said Juremir Machado da Silva, a 
columnist at Correio do Povo, a newspaper in the southern city of Pôrto 
Alegre.


Polling has shown that more than 70 percent of Brazilians cannot recall 
what parties the candidates they elect belong to, and that two-thirds of 
the electorate has no preference for any party.


More important, experts say, is that most of the parties embrace no 
ideology or agenda and are simply vehicles for patronage and graft. In a 
typical four-year term, one in three federal legislators will switch 
parties, some more than once, 

[Marxism] Fascinating tale of two pro-anarchist speaking tours on Syria, and their big differences

2016-05-15 Thread mkaradjis . via Marxism
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The Most Important Thing: Two speaking tours and the Syrian
Revolution: 
https://thehamiltoninstitute.noblogs.org/post/2016/05/13/the-most-important-thing-two-speaking-tours-and-the-syrian-revolution/

...

My friend was an active participant in the first few years of the
Syrian revolution, and we had just spent the evening at Leila al-Shami
and Robin Yassin-Kassab’s speaking tour for their book Burning
Country: Stories of Syrians in Revolution and War. These two authors,
based in the UK, spoke passionately about the various revolutionary
projects that unfolded in Syria between 2011 and 2013 and that
continue struggling to survive today, under the bombs and indifference
of the world. A few days earlier, we’d also attended a talk by Paul Z
Simons describing his experiences travelling to Rojava, the
majority-Kurdish areas in what used to be northern Syria. Paul
compared his motivations for travelling to Rojava to those of
anarchists around the world who travelled to Spain in the 30s –
describing Rojava1 as the most significant anarchist revolution since
that time, he has been travelling North America trying to inspire
direct support among western radicals.

These two tours both offered anarchist perspectives on Syria and yet
their narratives were surprisingly different – on our walk to the bus
station, we dug into those differences and tried to understand them.
In spite of their scale and commitment, the anarchic practices carried
out by the Syrian revolution (not in Rojava) have been largely ignored
by anarchists in the west, while Rojava has been widely, and often
uncritically, celebrated. In light of rapidly changing events on the
ground, as grassroots groups risk being decisively overshadowed by the
maneuvers of states, it’s important to look more carefully at Rojava
and the Syrian revolution to see where our solidarity should lie. This
will help us support revolutionaries there in the years to come and
also make sure that, in the present, anarchist support isn’t fuelling
forces that divide and undermine revolutionary energy.

My friend’s comments about destroying the state remind me of the
well-known quote by Syrian anarchist Omar Aziz that we heard again at
the event: “We are no less than Paris Commune workers: they resisted
for 70 days and we are still going on for a year and a half.” While
the Paris Commune was able to destroy the state in a major city, it
quickly became isolated and the state was able to march back and
defeat the revolutionaries militarily. By the time of Omar’s death in
prison in 2013, the Syrian state had been destroyed in dozens of
cities and towns — it was continuing to contract and was obviously not
going to be able to retake major centres of the rebellion any time
soon.

At the Burning Country event, Leila briefly told the story of the last
years of Omar’s life, focusing on his work elaborating a revolutionary
practice of local councils and committees that began in Barzeh,
Damascus, and spread throughout the country. Hundreds of these
councils are still active today, following many of the anarchist
principles developed by Omar in spite of the ever more difficult
conditions. Alternatives to state structures, these autonomous forms
of self governance transitioned from organizing protests to organizing
collective self-defense to distributing food, providing electricity,
and dealing with conflict. A comrad of Omar’s who was present in the
audience reminded us that Omar had been living abroad and returned to
Syria to support the revolution and questioned why more people who
escaped Assadist tyranny haven’t also supported the revolution. She
also spoke about her friend Razan Zeitouneh, a human rights lawyer and
prisoner support activist who dedicated herself to forming and
federating local committees that could co-ordinate protests and mutual
aid, who was arrested and likely killed in the Damascus area by rebel
group Jaish al-Islam.

One reason for the lack of international support for the Syrian
revolution might be that it has largely been made invisible. The
stories of Razan and Omar underline an important reason for this
invisibility – many of the anarchists and most passionate activists
were killed (usually by the regime )early on or were forced to flee
the country. Rojava, on the other hand, had a different experience of
the regime’s violence, which contributed to increased visibility.

In his talk, Paul shared many personal stories of his travels through
the liberated territories of Rojava, mostly in the Kobane area. These
stories are compelling and inspiring, they demonstrate a clear
commitment to building international understanding between
anti-authoritarian 

Re: [Marxism] [pen-l] Fwd: Art, Literature and Culture From a Marxist Perspective | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

2016-05-15 Thread Charles Brown via Marxism
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Problem is when intellectuals substitute literary or aesthetic critical theory 
for Marxist theory and philosophy as with Nietszche , Post Mods , Left Business 
Observers, et al.  It replaces materialist theory with a crypto-idealist 
philosophy. Today they ignore fundamental naturalism and biology. 

I'm not saying McKenna does this. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On May 14, 2016, at 4:21 PM, Louis Proyect  wrote:
> 
> If you look at the table of contents of Tony McKenna’s brilliant collection 
> of articles titled “Art, Literature and Culture from a Marxist Perspective”, 
> you will be struck immediately by the seemingly eclectic combination of high 
> and popular culture with Vincent Van Gogh sitting cheek by jowl next to Tupac 
> Shakur. This, of course, leads to an interesting question as to the merits of 
> such a distinction. Keep in mind that Charles Dickens was basically the 
> Stephen King of his day.
> 
> full: 
> https://louisproyect.org/2016/05/14/art-literature-and-culture-from-a-marxist-perspective/
> 
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[Marxism] Eurovision 2016: Ukraine's Jamala wins

2016-05-15 Thread Ken Hiebert via Marxism
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Eurovision 2016: Ukraine's Jamala wins with politically charged 1944
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/may/14/ukraine-wins-eurovision-jamala-1944


Ukraine has won the 2016 Eurovision song contest with an entry whose 
politically charged lyrics have caused tensions with neighbouring Russia. 
Singer-songwriter Jamala was crowned the winner for her haunting rendition of 
the ballad 1944, which evoked the deportation of Crimean Tatars by Josef Stalin 
and has been interpreted as a criticism of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 
2014. As she collected her trophy, she pleaded for “peace and love”. 

Before the final, which was held in Stockholm on Saturday evening and seen by 
many as the most politicised edition of the competition to date, Jamala had 
said her victory would show that Europeans were “ready to hear about the pain 
of other people”.


Ukraine's Eurovision singer urges voters to show Crimea solidarity
 Read more
Jamala, whose real name is Susana Jamaladynova, is herself a Crimean Tatar who 
has not been home since shortly after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the 
peninsula. Her parents and extended family still live there.



http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/eurovision-contest-winner-1.3582962


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