[Marxism] Labour party's plan to nationalise mail, rail and energy firms

[John A Imani via Marxism]

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(JAI: Democrat Bernie Sanders feigns 'democratic socialism' but what comes
from him is a lotta on Democratic (Large D) but nada on socialism.  Oh he
may make mentions of and allusions to universal health care and or free
college tuition but he fears to point out that the emperor (read:
capitalism) has no clothes (read: has run out of gas, can no longer sustain
growth, indeed is leading to a lessened life-span

and a lower standard of living
).
When has Sanders called for socialism?

Part of the Labour Party, associated with Jeremy Corbin, has issued a
manifesto calling for nationalizations of key sectors of the British
economy.  Now nationalization does not equal socialism.  Socialism includes
nationalizations but transcends and subsumes individual expropriations by
linking these and allocating resources amongst them such that a planned
goal can be achieved.  But socialism does and will begin with
nationalizations and with nationalizations of those industries most
obviously pertaining to the public's interest.  Hence mail, rail and energy
as health care is already nationalized under the NHS
.

Here.  Where is and who are there putting forward such demands, social or
electoral, along with a vision and plan to achieve them?  Where are and why
aren't we socialists demanding socialism?)
Labour party's plan to nationalise mail, rail and energy firms

Draft manifesto reveals vision of public ownership as part of Jeremy
Corbyn’s ‘transformational programme’

General election 2017 - live updates

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/10/labour-
party-manifesto-pledges-to-end-tuition-fees-and-nationalise-railways
20,553
Comments 8,777


Anushka Asthana 
and Heather
Stewart 

Thursday 11 May 2017 02.14 EDT First published on Wednesday 10 May 2017
16.12 EDT

Jeremy Corbyn will lay out plans to take parts of Britain’s energy industry
back into public ownership alongside the railways and the Royal Mail

in a radical manifesto that promises an annual injection of £6bn for the
NHS and £1.6bn for social care.

A draft version of the document, drawn up by the leadership team and seen
by the Guardian, pledges the phased abolition of tuition fees
,
a dramatic boost in finance for childcare, a review of sweeping cuts to
universal credit and a promise to scrap the bedroom tax.
General election: IFS says Labour plans amount to biggest state
intervention in economy for decades - as it happened
All the day’s politics action, as Labour faces scrutiny over draft pledges
to nationalise rail and mail, renew Trident and reject ‘no deal’ Brexit
Read more

Party sources said Corbyn wants to promise a “transformational programme”
with a package covering the NHS ,
education, housing and jobs as well as industrial intervention and sweeping
nationalisation. But critics said the policies represented a shift back to
the 1970s with the Conservatives describing it as a “total shambles” and a
plan to “unleash chaos on Britain”.

Corbyn’s leaked blueprint, which is likely to trigger a fierce debate of
Labour’s national executive committee and shadow cabinet at the so-called
clause V meeting at noon on Thursday, also includes:

   - Ordering councils to build 100,000 new council homes a year under a
   new Department for Housing.
   - An immediate “emergency price cap” on energy bills to ensure that the
   average duel fuel household energy bill remains below £1,000 a year.
   - Stopping planned increases to the pension age beyond 66.
   - “Fair rules and reasonable management” on immigration with 1,000 extra
   border guards, alongside a promise not to “fan the flames of fear” but to
   recognise the benefits that migrants bring.

On the question of foreign policy, an area on which Corbyn has campaigned
for decades, the draft document says it will be “guided by the values of
peace, universal righ

Re: [Marxism] The people of Shehba [northern Syria] angry at the Turkish state

[Chris Slee via Marxism]

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Michael Karadjis says:  "Tal Rifaat and the surrounding areas were not regions 
the YPG liberated from ISIS with help from US air strikes, they are 
Arab-majority areas the YPG conquered from the FSA/rebels with help from 
Russian air strikes, in February 2016".

But Tal Rifaat, before the Syrian Democratic Forces took over, was not 
controlled solely by groups using the name Free Syrian Army.  Jabhat al-Nusra 
and Ahrar al-Sham were also present.  Given that these groups had a history of 
attacking Kurdish areas, and given also the oppressive nature of their rule in 
the areas they control, it is not surprising that the Syrian Democratic Forces 
wanted to drive them out of Tal Rifaat.

Michael says:  "This is the town, by the way, from where the FSA rebels 
launched their massive attack on ISIS in January 2014 that permanently cleared 
ISIS out of the whole of western Syria".

While ISIS was driven out of western Syria in 2014, Jabhat al-Nusra remained 
and continued to oppress people (e.g. the forced conversion of the Druze).  
Later in 2014 Nusra attacked and wiped out the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, a 
coalition of FSA groups in Idlib province.  Some of the survivors fled to 
YPG-controlled areas, and later helped form the Syrian Democratic Forces.  
Others capitulated to Nusra, or allowed themselves to be used by Turkey in its 
war against Rojava and the northern Syria federation.

The crushing of the SRF by Nusra weakened secular rebel groups in north-western 
Syria.  They could survive only as junior partners of Islamist groups and/or 
the Turkish state.

Chris Slee



From: mkaradjis . 
Sent: Saturday, 13 May 2017 11:07:31 PM
To: Chris Slee; Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
Subject: Re: [Marxism] The people of Shehba [northern Syria] angry at the 
Turkish state

yes we should condemn any Turkish bombings of course, but I am just
wondering why Chris felt it important to send this piece of standard
Stalinist-style propaganda? The "FSA gangs" did this and that, as we
know because the media of a US-backed and Assad-backed one-party state
says so.

"The areas intensely targeted by the Turkish state after the Astana
Treaty are villages and hamlets like Sheikh İsa, Tal Rifat, Um-Hosh
and Ayn Daqne liberated by the revolutionary forces in intense clashes
last year."

Yeh, Tal Rifaat and the surrounding areas, were not regions the YPG
liberated from ISIS with help from US air strikes, they are
Arab-majority areas the YPG conquered from the FSA/rebels with help
from Russian air strikes, in February 2016. They expelled the
population of Tal Rifaat, who live in Azaz and other towns closer to
the Turkish border. In a famous scene, YPG thugs gloated over the
corpses of FSA defenders of Tal Rifaat. This si the town, by the way,
from where the FSA/rebels launched their massive attack on ISIS in
January 2014 that permanently cleared ISIS out of the whole of western
Syria.

As for Sheikh Isa, this is a town between the YPG-conquered Menagh air
base and the (still) rebel-held town Mare, which hadn't been conquered
by the Russian/YPG attack in February 2016. Around half way through
last year, ISIS was launching a furious offensive against Mare from
the east. At that point, the ultra-opportunist YPG (sorry, "SDF"),
decided this was a good time to *collaborate with ISIS* by launching
an offensive against the rebels in Sheikh Isa and Mare from the west.
Under attack from both sides, the Mare rebels were offered the great
deal by the YPG that they only have to cede Sheikh Isa, and the YPG
will stop aiding the ISIS attack on Mare.

"We do not accept the Turkish state’s invasion operation." No, but the
Russian state's invasion, that's OK, we collaborate with that. But not
as much as with the Americans - they are fantastic.

On Sat, May 13, 2017 at 12:50 PM, Chris Slee via Marxism
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>
> https://anfenglish.com/rojava/the-people-of-shehba-angry-at-the-turkish-state-19985
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[Marxism] Fwd: “It gets people killed”: Osip Mandelstam and the perils of writing poetry under Stalin

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/poetry/2017/05/it-gets-people-killed-osip-mandelstam-and-perils-writing-poetry-under-stalin
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[Marxism] Dolor

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Dolor
by Theodore Roethke

I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplication of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
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Re: [Marxism] YPG Homes In on Raqqa With Assent of U.S. and Assad Alike

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 5/14/17 7:40 PM, Nick Fredman via Marxism wrote:

that the
regime was arming the YPG (like this one
http://aa.com.tr/en/todays-headlines/syrias-assad-admits-sending-weapons-to-pyd/487871),
and Louis cited this as "proof" of collaboration.


I am not that interested in whether Assad armed the PYD or not. I think 
the fact that Assad made such a statement gives you a good idea about 
the nonaggression pact worked out between the murdering Damascus 
dictatorship and the PYD, which in its own way mirrored the de facto 
pact he had with ISIS until he was forced to go to war with them.

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Re: [Marxism] YPG Homes In on Raqqa With Assent of U.S. and Assad Alike

[Nick Fredman via Marxism]

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The funny thing is the one thing the Turkish state, its Syrian clients, the
Russian state and the Assad regime all have a common interest in is to to
exaggerate the limited agreements between the Assad and the Rojava
revolution, and also to claim a separatist if not chauvinist character to
the latter. Because these interests pump out plenty of propaganda some of
which is taken up by some western media it's not hard to find sources or
articles "proving" this point of view, if you're not too fussy about
journalistic standards. If I recall correctly some time ago Louis posted
one of a range of articles that had Assad and other regime representatives
claim — from a story that originated in the Assad regime media — that the
regime was arming the YPG (like this one
http://aa.com.tr/en/todays-headlines/syrias-assad-admits-sending-weapons-to-pyd/487871),
and Louis cited this as "proof" of collaboration. Somehow the "documents"
that regime representatives claimed they have about all this have never
turned up. Michael posted the ridiculous Gutman articles from The Nation,
with their falsification of those sources that presumably didn't tell him
what he wanted to hear without some doctoring, their ludicrous
interpretation of battle tactics and their lurid tales of Iranian SPECTRE
agents. This WSJ article, while not as egregious a frame-up, is still
pretty journalistically dodgy. Under a veneer of an objective news article
with a range of sources it's completely unbalanced. It cites the views of
the Turkish state, unnamed Syrian rebels, unnamed "western diplomats", US
and Russian officials, but not a single word of the views of the *actual
subject* of the article, representatives and statements from whom aren't
really hard to find.

Michael helpfully foregrounds the opinions of unnamed "western diplomats"
to presumably bolster claims the Rojava revolution is a franchise of
Assadism. But you have to read the whole of the article, which appears to
unquestionably accept the view of the world of the Turkish state and its
Syrian clients, to see what the reasons (or rather assumptions) are behind
the diplomats' opinion. One is the claim that the aim of the revolution is
apparently a chauvinist-nationalist Kurdish statelet, perhaps along the
lines of the Iraq KRG. Despite the "citizen journalist" of unknown
provenance from Manbiq whose article Louis recently posted, as I indicated
in response to that there's a lot of evidence that the aim of the Rojava
revolution is just what it says it is: a non-sectarian, democratic *Syria*.
I suppose it's possible that repeatedly denouncing a regime, announcing
one's intention to replace it and fooling numerous visitors and journalists
could just be the cunning chauvinist-Stalinist way to both support Assad
and set up a nationalist statelet, (though Assad doesn't support any kind
of independence or autonomy for Rojava any more than he does a democratic
Syria), but I think I'll keep taking the Ockham's razor approach to this
question, thanks.

The article also claims as a fact that "towns" around Manbiq have been
handed over the regime. While there's been claims from Turkish, regime or
rebel sources that the whole of Manbiq or chunks around it had been or were
to be being handed over, from what I can see the former is clearly false
and the latter at the least exaggerated. This February article details a
range of towns claimed to be handed over the the regime were still under
SDF control http://aranews.net/2017/02/kurds-deny-handover-
of-sdf-held-areas-to-syrian-regime/. In this March article
http://aranews.net/2017/03/manbij-military-council-
denies-handing-areas-assad/ (with some unclear translation) article the
Manbij Military Council denies handing anything substantial to the regime,
but concedes an agreement with Russian that in return for Manbij receiving
aid regime troops would be allowed to occupy a frontline between SDF/MMC
forces and Turkish and client rebel forces. ARA might have its own slant
but I see no reason to believe a unsourced, at best second-hand, throwaway
comment in an WSJ article over these on-the-ground reports.

Some obviously see any sort of agreement with the regime as a total
sell-out. In the context of what never much seems like a grinding civil war
with no military victory over Assad in sight, I don't agree, and don't see
any immediate battlefield or local agreement or in the longer-term
negotiated settlements in principle any different from what liberation
forces in occupied Ireland and southern Africa found themselves obliged to
do by the early 90s. If you think Assad is uniquely more early than the
regimes in these examples, well the Aparthei

[Marxism] Fwd: Torch-Wielding White Supremacists Rallied Against A Confederate Statue's Removal

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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They chanted "Russia is our Friend".

https://www.buzzfeed.com/juliareinstein/charlottesville
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Michael Karadjis whitewashes Syrian al-Qaeda as "decent revolutionaries" | Ben Norton

[mkaradjis . via Marxism]

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I was just basking in this glory of being attacked by this slug, when
I get to the part where it starts relativising my achievement by
comparing me to others, thus we read "Louis Proyect is a serial liar
with extremely deranged behavior who has written numerous falsehoods
and smears about me (and who photoshopped my head onto a cockroach)."
I feel somewhat outdone. What can I do to better Louis' photoshopping
Norton's head onto a cockroach? Suggestions?

On Sun, May 14, 2017 at 11:30 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism
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>
> Getting slimed by the slug. (Btw, Michael, you are a handsome devil.)
>
> http://bennorton.com/michael-karadjis-syrian-al-qaeda-jabhat-al-nusra/
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[Marxism] Fwd: [New post] Remembering Eddie Frow: Communist, Trade Union Activist, Historian…

[Richard Sprout via Marxism]

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Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "lipstick socialist" 
> Date: May 14, 2017 at 7:02:32 AM EDT
> To: "Richard Sprout" , "lipstick socialist"

> Subject: [New post] Remembering Eddie Frow: Communist, Trade Union
Activist, Historian…
> 
> 
> Respond to this post by replying above this line
> New post on lipstick socialist
> 
> 
> Remembering Eddie Frow: Communist, Trade Union Activist, Historian…
> by lipstick socialist
> 
> 
> Today it is twenty years since Eddie Frow died, and eight years since
his partner Ruth died. In his long life Eddie embodied the way in which
Communism shaped the life of a man who was an activist in his trade
union, a historian, a writer, a rambler, an opera lover... and so much
more.
> 
> I met Eddie and Ruth  for the first time in 1981. At first  they 
seemed to come from a completely different era. My political education
was  built on my parents’ mix of socialism, Catholicism  and Irish
Republicanism,   combined with my own experience of being at University
in the late 1970s and with   being a shop steward in local government in
 Thatcher’s  Britain. We should not have got on but we did, and I had
many conversations with Eddie about being a shop steward, discussing 
the problems I faced with my own union. His view was that as a trade
union activist you often  spend most of your time fighting the people
supposedly on your side.
> 
> Ruth and Eddie never seemed “old” to me. They were happy to come with
my partner and me to watch foreign films at the Cornerhouse art cinema
and were always interested in the dynamics of present day politics. They
were generous with their time, knowledge and always ready to listen.  In
her 70s Ruth took on getting a computer and grappling with new
technology which gave her a new window into life.
> 
> Eddie was from a rural background, born on 6  June  1906 on a farm in
Lincolnshire. His father had a chequered career,  finally settling the
family in a mining village in Wakefield whilst he worked in the local
mining office. Eddie went to the village school and was one of the top
students. But for the First World War, he probably would have gone to
the grammar school,  but instead he went to a technical school for boys
where he was prepared for  entering  an apprenticeship at 16.
> 
> At home Eddie and his sister  Millicent played the violin and piano
and sand  hymns with family and  neighbours. At the age of 13 his father
bought him H.G.Wells’ Short History of the World, which  began his
life-long  love of reading and laid the foundations for his own
exploration of ideas and philosophy about the world.
> 
> His worklife started  when at 16  he started his apprenticehip at an
engineering firm in Wakefield. He  joined the Communist Party in Leeds ,
recalling “There was a fantastic feeling that yes, there was going to be
a revolution in Britain and it was going to be tomorrow.”
> 
> Through the CP  his political education began as he was guided by a
comrade, Lou Davies, and introduced to Frederick Engels’ Socialism,
Utopian and Scientific, Daniel de Leon’s Two Pages from Roman History, 
and Bogdanov’s Short Course in Economic Science.
> 
> Eddie lived at a time of great hope for working class people with the
rise of socialism and the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was also a time
of great misery,  including mass unemployment and an economic worldwide
crisis started in  1929 by the Wall Street Crash.
> 
> Unemployment for Eddie was a constant theme throughout his life:  he
worked in 21 engineering factories and he was blacklisted, victimised
and sacked for his militant actions.
> 
> He was a lifelong member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union and
active in the Minority Movement in the trade unions. This had been
formed in 1922 by Harry Politt and other Communists in the engineering
trade as part of the Red International of Trade Unions. Thethe speedy overthrow 
of capitalism and establishment of workers’ states.
> 
> 
> 
> In 1930 he went to Moscow as a delegate of the British Commission of
the Communist International which was  investigating the role of the
British Communist Party. At this time the CP’s membership had declined 
as had  its influence in the wider labour movement, because it was
attacking the Labour Party as a capitalist party no different to the
Tories.
> 
> But the CP played a major role in setting up the National Union of
Unemployed Workers which fought for the rights of the unemployed. In
1931  the unemployed, including Eddie, numbered  well over two million.
Eddie  became one of the leaders of the Salford Unemployed Workers’
Movement.  Opposition to further cuts in benefits led to the notorious
Batt

[Marxism] Fwd: (4) ZEMBLA - The dubious friends of Donald Trump: the Russians - YouTube

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bEdMuKq30I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvd7PqI_Lx0
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[Marxism] Fwd: How Popular is Trump? Latest Approval Rating Plummets as White Supporters Flee

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.newsweek.com/how-popular-trump-latest-approval-rating-white-supporters-flee-president-607478
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[Marxism] Thanks to Mom, the Marxist Revolutionary | Peter Andreas | The New York Times

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/opinion/sunday/thanks-to-mom-the-marxist-revolutionary.html





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