[Marxism] Will the Chinese whispers become a roar?

[John Passant via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

I know the Australian Labor Party is not going to do a Corbyn or a 
Sanders and electrify a mass base with pro-people policies and get them 
to fund its activities with small donations. Certainly a ban on 
political party donations that allows only small donations by citizens 
on the electoral roll is not going to change a party whose 33 years of 
neoliberalism are ingrained into its soul and parliamentary 
representatives.  The ALP is not going to democratise and give power to 
its members because those members are, like the rest of Australian 
society, by and large well to the left of politicians. The task is to 
build a new politics, a politics that puts people first. That is what I 
am trying to do.


http://enpassant.com.au/2016/09/07/will-the-chinese-whispers-become-a-roar/

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Fwd: No More Lesser-Evilism | Jacobin

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*



https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/09/clinton-trump-president-lesser-evil/
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Trump & the anti-imperialists

[Tristan Sloughter via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

New Republic, not Vox:
https://newrepublic.com/article/135775/liberals-keep-calling-donald-trump-dove

-- 
  Tristan Sloughter
  t...@crashfast.com
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Fwd: The counter-offensive against Ashley Smith | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Like vampires drawing the shades, the Baathist amen corner is doing the 
best it can to discredit Ashley Smith’s article on Syria that appeared 
in the August 26th CounterPunch. The first salvo was from Off-Guardian, 
the website that has the chutzpah to “correct” the liberal British 
newspaper by serving up unhealthy dollops of RT.com. One imagines that 
they are okay with 21 journalists being killed since Putin took power in 
2000 because as everybody knows they were trying to subvert the public 
order and we can’t have that.


full: 
https://louisproyect.org/2016/09/06/the-counter-offensive-against-ashley-smith/

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] FYI - I suspect a lot of other Syrians feel the same way

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

On 9/6/16 10:21 AM, Clay Claiborne via Marxism wrote:

The question here is not do you struggle with a Syrian revolutionary like
Robin around him using the word "bitch" ? [Remembering English is not his
1st language], of course you do.

Or do you cut him off forever because he used that word TWICE! and bring it
up even after he has corrected himself and while using a very offensive
term, because he doesn't like her, has dropped the sexism term


First of all, Robin Yassin-Kassab was in the ISO at one point so he 
knows something about Marxism. Second of all, his novel "Road to 
Damascus" was written in English, a language he speaks with a British 
accent and not an Arabic one.


For someone who has written about the need for human liberation, I find 
it appalling that he refers to Jill Stein as a "bitch" and a "piece of 
shit". You had nothing to do with the first word but I fault you for 
forwarding his tweet that contained the second imprecation in the hope 
apparently that we might do a breast-beating Maoist self-criticism for 
provoking him to lash out.


This guy is not a construction worker. He was the co-editor of Critical 
Muslim, a very advanced journal that I contributed two articles to with 
great pride. He is a novelist, an advanced political analyst and capable 
of nuanced language.


I find it deeply problematic that he stoops to such language to describe 
Jill Stein while the both of you endorse Hillary Clinton who voted for 
wars that cost the lives of a million Muslims. Stein's ideas are 
retrograde but she has never been near the seats of power or ever will be.

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Trump & the anti-imperialists

[A.R. G via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Yes, it is very common.

Charles Davis' article in Vox (I think) is the best take down of this crap.

On Tuesday, September 6, 2016, Richard M via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
> #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
> #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
> *
>
> I've heard the argument a few times now on social media (Facebook) that a
> Trump victory would 'weaken NATO' and is therefore preferable to a Clinton
> victory.  Has anyone else come across such myopic arguments?
>
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/
> options/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com
>


-- 
- Amith
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Pavlov, Soviet psychology, and Harry K. Wells

[Jim Farmelant via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*



This came up as part of a thread in an FB group, in which I turned out to be a 
member. The discussion turned to the role of the great Russian physiologist, 
Ivan Pavlov, in the Soviet Union. As I pointed out: Pavlov attacked the 
Bolsheviks. He intended to leave Russia after the October Revolution but Lenin 
convinced him to stay by giving him his own research institute with virtually 
unlimited resources. The Soviet regime showered all kinds of honors on him but 
he remained outspokenly critical of it. In his final years, concerned over the 
rise of fascism, he softened his opposition towards the Soviet regime.

 Pavlov was the son of a Russian Orthodox priest. He originally intended to 
follow in his father's footsteps, and so, attended an Orthodox seminary to 
prepare for the priesthood. However, while there, he read the writings of 
progressive Russian thinkers like Dmitry Pisarev, who was one of the so-called 
Nihilists. As a consequence, Pavlov lost his religious faith, and so decided 
against entering the priesthood. Eventually, he decided to pursue a scientific 
career, and so went to medical school instead of the seminary.

 It should be noted that years later, when the Bolsheviks decided to crack down 
on priests and banished the children of priests from attending academic 
institutions, Pavlov issued a public protest denouncing this move and resigning 
from his own position. He even took, for a while, to wearing religious medals, 
even though he was not a religious believer, but wanted to piss off the 
Bolsheviks.

Throughout Soviet history, Pavlov was always upheld as the model researcher in 
physiology, and often, psychology. He did not regard himself to be a 
psychologist. He saw his own work on conditioned reflexes as a part of his 
physiology research. On occasion, he was openly contemptuous of psychology, 
although at other times, he did speak respectfully of the work of 
psychologists. His own standing within Soviet psychology fluctuated over time. 
In Lenin's day, his status within Soviet psychology was very high, enjoying the 
backing of Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin, etc. During the 1930's and 1940's, his 
standing declined a bit. Then around 1950, there was a very strong pro-Pavlov 
campaign in both physiology and psychology.

In discussing the fluctuating fortunes of Pavlovian reflexology under the 
Stalin regime it is interesting to note B.F. Skinner's comments on this 
(Skinner having been a great admirer of Pavlov). Thus, in *Beyond Freedom & 
Dignity*, Skinner wrote:

"Communist Russia provided and interesting case history in the relation between 
environmentalism and personal responsibility, as Raymond Bauer has pointed out. 
Immediately after the revolution the government could argue that if many 
Russians were uneducated, unproductive, badly behaved, and unhappy, it was 
because their environment had made them so. The new government would change the 
environment, making use of Pavlov's work on conditioned reflexes, and all would 
be well. But by the early thirties the government had its chance, and many 
Russians were still not conspicuously better informed, more productive, better 
behaved, or happier. The official line was then changed, and Pavlov went out of 
favor. A strongly purposive psychology was substituted: it was up to the 
Russian citizen to get an education, work productively, behave well, and be 
happy. The Russian educator was to make sure that he would accept this 
responsibility, but not by conditioning him. The successes of the Second Wor
 ld War restored confidence in the earlier principle, however; the government 
had been successful after all. It might not yet be completely effective,but it 
was moving in the right direction.Pavlov came back into favor."

n the US, the CPUSA has always had a strong pro-Pavlov orientation. Their 
publishing arm, International Publishers, has, for decades, been the publisher 
of some of the main English translations of his writings. Back in the 1950's 
and 1960's, the CP philosopher/psychologist, Harry K. Wells, wrote a couple of 
books, comparing and contrasting Pavlov's work with Freud's. Pavlov was held up 
as the exemplary of scientific psychology, whereas, Freud was denounced as 
being unscientific. Pavlov was progressive, Freud was reactionary. Wells also 
wrote a book denouncing the neo-Freudianism of people like Erich Fromm,  I have 
some other, later books, by people connected with the CPUSA, which took much 
the same view too. Pavlov was upheld, and almost everybody else in psychology, 
including even B.F. Skinner, was denounced as being unscientific.

As I said, Wells was very pro-Pavlov. At the time 

Re: [Marxism] Sexism and turning people off (was I suspect a lot of Syrians . . .)

[Manuel Barrera via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

" I know he wants to take me down because of my opposition to Stein, but this 
is not the right way to do it."
Yeah, nobody wants to take you down. Nobody needs to do so.
Posting the following On THIS Discussion to honor Louis' point about laying off 
the 2016 election, which I take to mean not engaging in whether Marxists should 
endorse a capitalist candidate. This is me NOT discussing that. 
>From Cindy Sheehan, a woman revolutionary with her own spotty record on many 
>issues including race but I have found that often knows what to say and whose 
>side. Wish Cindy would play a role here. However, much of the present 
>discussion on sexism--and racism--likely prevents honest women and men of 
>color from engaging this kind of list. 

I offer Cindy's words just so  you see what we're missing 
sometimes.http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2016/09/this-labor-day-we-must-fight-for.html
Excerpt: "What would a worker's movement look like? I believe that it would be 
free from the capitalist parties of War and Wall Street and be oriented around 
working-peoples' issues--not just workers in the US, but workers around this 
planet that is mostly under the boot heel of US imperialism. The Wobblies say, 
"an injury to one is an injury to all," but in the realm of "Big Labor" I see 
very little solidarity with the people in the Arab world that are being 
murdered and displaced at a very alarming rate. Instead, I see complete 
solidarity with the Imperialists.I think most of us in the 99% can rally around 
workers' issues that would not only improve our lives, but create a world free 
from imperialism and savage capitalism if they are explained in ways that are 
constructive and not destructive. "  
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] FYI - I suspect a lot of other Syrians feel the same way

[Clay Claiborne via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Einde,

The question here is not do you struggle with a Syrian revolutionary like
Robin around him using the word "bitch" ? [Remembering English is not his
1st language], of course you do.

Or do you cut him off forever because he used that word TWICE! and bring it
up even after he has corrected himself and while using a very offensive
term, because he doesn't like her, has dropped the sexism term?

That was what Louis did and apparently expects from others. [why would I
forward anything from Robin to this list after he had called Stein a bitch
on his timeline!]

I should also point out that charges of sexism are claims that are often
falsely used by racists to attack non-white men so white Marxists need to
be aware of that and not make such changes lightly. Many Syrian refuges in
Germany and elsewhere have been tarred with changes of sexism. Also there
has been a longer history of this sort of thing with black men.

Louis taps into that often unconscious prejudice by accusing me of sexism
because I defended sending to this list a tweet written by someone who
twice used the word bitch elsewhere. I know he wants to take me down
because of my opposition to Stein, but this is not the right way to do it.
Same should be said about his attack on Robin.

Clay



Clay Claiborne, Director
Vietnam: American Holocaust 
Linux Beach Productions
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 581-1536

Read my blogs at the Linux Beach 


On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 12:54 AM, Einde OCallaghan via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
> #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
> #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
> *
>
>
>
> Am 05.09.2016 um 16:49 schrieb Dennis Brasky via Marxism:
>
>>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
>> #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
>> #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
>> #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
>> *
>>
>> How about the N word, homophobic words, anti-Muslim words? Are those OK in
>> the attempt to "connect" to the (backward sections) of the working class
>> and minority communities?? Sadly, his defending the most common
>> misogynistic term has caused me to lose respect for Clay.
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 5, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Clay Claiborne via Marxism <
>> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>>
>> On this issue, I remember during the British Miners' Strike in 1984 on
> the firs tbig national demo there were 2 slogans raised by some miners on
> the first big national demo. One of the was "Ditch the bitch!", referring
> to Margaret Thatcher, and the other was "Get your tits out for the boys!"
> (the weather was very hot and many women were wearing summer tops). Women
> supporters of the miners didn't accept either slogan and there were many
> arguments on the demonstration that day where supporters of the strike
> (also many left-wing men) argued with these strikers about the use of
> demeaning language against women. These slogans were never used again on
> any of the later local and national demos.
>
> Admittedly there were some (nearly all men) who argued that the first
> slogan was an expression of class hatred and the second was just a bit of
> playful banter, but it was perfectly correct for the comrades to challenge
> the sexism they expressed.
>
> One other related issue - for years there'd been a campaign by socialists
> and feminists about the fact that every month in The Miner, the union
> paper, there was a topless picture of a miner's wife or girl friend. The
> editor argued that the women themsleves were queueing up to have they're
> pictures published. During the strike these pictures were dropped and never
> appeared in the paper again.
>
> Accepting sexism in the working class in any form is just as divisive as
> accepting racism in any form and it's prefectly correct for socialists to
> take issue with both these expressions of backward ideas.
>
> Einde O'Callaghan
>
> _
> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
> Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/opt
> ions/marxism/clayclai%40gmail.com
>
_
Full posting guidelines 

[Marxism] Dog bites man

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

NY Times, Sept. 6 2016
Obama Unlikely to Vow No First Use of Nuclear Weapons
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD

President Obama, who has weighed ruling out a first use of a nuclear 
weapon in a conflict, appears likely to abandon the proposal after top 
national security advisers argued that it could undermine allies and 
embolden Russia and China, according to several senior administration 
officials.


Mr. Obama considers a reduction in the role of nuclear weapons as 
critical to his legacy. But he has been chagrined to hear critics, 
including some former senior aides, argue that the administration’s 
second-term nuclear modernization plans, costing up to $1 trillion in 
coming decades, undermine commitments he made in 2009.


For months, arms control advocates have argued for a series of steps to 
advance the pledge he made to pursue “a world without nuclear weapons.” 
An unequivocal no-first-use pledge would have been the boldest of those 
measures. They contend that as a practical matter no American president 
would use a nuclear weapon when so many other options are available.


Former Defense Secretary William J. Perry said in a recent interview, 
“It’s the right time,” noting that the pledge would formalize what has 
been America’s unspoken policy for decades.


But in the end, Mr. Obama seems to have sided with his current advisers, 
who warned in meetings culminating this summer that a no-first-use 
declaration would rattle allies like Japan and South Korea. Those 
nations are concerned about discussion of an American pullback from Asia 
prompted by comments made by the Republican presidential nominee, Donald 
J. Trump.


Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Secretary of State John Kerry 
also expressed concern that new moves by Russia and China, from the 
Baltic to the South China Sea, made it the wrong time to issue the 
declaration, according to senior aides in the Defense and State 
Departments. Secretary of Energy Ernest J. Moniz, whose department 
oversees the nuclear arsenal, joined in the objections, administration 
officials confirmed.


The New York Times interviewed more than a half-dozen administration 
officials involved in or briefed on the nuclear debate. All insisted on 
anonymity to describe internal administration deliberations on nuclear 
strategy.


The United States dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 
Japan at the end of World War II in 1945 — the only example in history 
of a first use, or any use, of nuclear weapons in warfare. Almost every 
president since Harry S. Truman has made it clear that nuclear weapons 
would be used only as a last resort, so the pledge would have largely 
ratified unwritten policy.


Administration officials confirmed that the question of changing the 
policy on first use had come up repeatedly this summer as a way for Mr. 
Obama to show that his commitment to reducing the role of nuclear 
weapons in American strategy — and thus the risk of nuclear exchanges — 
was more than rhetorical.


But the arguments in front of the president himself were relatively 
brief, officials said, apparently because so many senior aides objected. 
Mr. Carter argued that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Kim 
Jong-un, the North Korean leader, could interpret a promise of no first 
use as a sign of American weakness, even though that was not the intent.


The defense secretary’s position was supported by Mr. Kerry and Mr. 
Moniz, two architects of the Iran nuclear deal, who cautioned that such 
a declaration could unnerve American allies already fearful that 
America’s nuclear umbrella cannot be relied upon. Mr. Trump talked 
explicitly in interviews about withdrawing military forces from Asia 
unless Tokyo and Seoul paid more for their presence, and said in March 
that he was willing to see them build their own nuclear arsenals rather 
than depend on Washington.


According to one senior administration official, Mr. Kerry told Mr. 
Obama that a no-first-use pledge would also weaken the nuclear deterrent 
while Russia is running practice bombing runs over Europe and China is 
expanding its reach in the South China Sea.


Mr. Obama and his national security team have rejected a second option: 
“de-alerting” nuclear missiles ready to fire on short notice. The fear 
is that in a crisis, “re-alerting” the weapons could escalate a conflict.


Earlier, Mr. Obama and his aides also decided against eliminating one 
element of the “triad” of land-, air- and submarine-launched weapons. 
The idea was to remove the missiles based in silos across the American 
West, which are considered outdated and vulnerable to a first strike. 

[Marxism] Agricultural expropriation: Making money from farmers

[Ratbag Media via Marxism]

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Alan Broughton's new essay looks at the impact of trade liberalisation and
other neo-liberal policies on farm income and food security.It is an
excellent over view of the current challenges bearing down on the working
farmer.
***

> "There is money to be made in farming, but not by the farmers. This paper
> examines the reasons why farmers around the world are poor and there are a
> billion hungry people. The terms of trade for farmers continually declines
> and farmers are forced off the land. Governments and international bodies
> advocate further deregulation and trade liberalisation and greater use of
> technology, yet these policies have undoubtedly failed in their stated aims
> of increasing food security and rural prosperity. The beneficiaries have
> only been the agribusiness corporations which have been instrumental in the
> design of the new order of agricultural production. "


***
Agricultural expropriation: Making money from farmers
http://soilalliance.blogspot.com.au/2016/09/agricultural-
expropriation-making-money.html

dave riley
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com