[Marxism] Syria: Is the Reactionary Sochi Deal Collapsing?

[RKOB via Marxism]

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https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/syria-is-the-reactionary-sochi-deal-collapsing/

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[Marxism] In Nicaragua, Torture Is Used to Feed ‘Fake News’

[MM via Marxism]

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I wasn’t aware that Max Blumenthal had made himself complicit in Ortega’s 
crimes as well as Assad’s — apparently he’s insatiable:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/in-nicaragua-torture-is-used-to-feed-fake-news


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[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-FedHist]: Broxmeyer on Skrabec, 'The Ohio Presidents: Eight Men and a Binding Political Philosophy in the White House, 1841-1923'

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-- Forwarded message -
From: H-Net Staff 
Date: Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 3:24 PM
Subject: H-Net Review [H-FedHist]: Broxmeyer on Skrabec, 'The Ohio
Presidents: Eight Men and a Binding Political Philosophy in the White
House, 1841-1923'
To: 


Quentin R. Skrabec.  The Ohio Presidents: Eight Men and a Binding
Political Philosophy in the White House, 1841-1923.  Jefferson
McFarland, 2018.  230 pp.  $39.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4766-6930-4.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Broxmeyer (University of Toledo)
Published on H-FedHist (January, 2019)
Commissioned by Caryn E. Neumann

The Republican Party dominated American politics between the Civil
War and the Great Depression, and Ohio played an outsized role in
producing many of its national leaders. In _The_ _Ohio Presidents_,
Quentin R. Skrabec Jr. argues that the state's Whig-Republican
tradition is best understood as "Ohio republicanism." Greater than
any single party or person, what defines the state's political
culture is "a frontier movement, a cocktail of nationalism, state
loyalty, populism, moralism, patriotism, technology, and capitalism"
(p. 4). The book aims for today's conservative reader to reclaim this
dormant legacy, especially on the issue of protecting home industry
(p. 9).

Each chapter is a biographical sketch of a president, from William
Harrison to Warren Harding. The heroic figure that emerges, however,
is not a person but a policy. An aggressive tariff--the economy's
"Rosetta stone" (p. 153)--was the single most important federal tool
that led to Ohio's booming industrial towns and shared prosperity.
The author's enthusiasm for each president is proportional to the
latter's fidelity to industrial protectionism. Thus, James Garfield,
whose Western Reserve congressional district included free
trade-leaning farmers, was a "flip-flopper" (p. 83). William
McKinley, the "Napoleon of Protection," is celebrated in-depth, more
so even than Ulysses Grant, savoir of the Union. If page length is
taken as a measure of significance, the narration of McKinley's
funeral is longer than the entire chapter on the birth of the
Republican Party. That chapter, by the way, presents temperance as a
major issue without mention of the ugly anti-Catholicism that swept
the region and influenced the party's development.[1]

Why was the tariff so important? Per the book, industrial expansion
thrived under the  protective umbrella through the guidance of
farsighted industrialists like George Westinghouse, Harvey Firestone,
H. J. Heinz, and close political allies McKinley and Mark Hanna.
These men, argues the author, pursued limited government while
promoting paternal care for the welfare of workers. Mutual efforts
cemented a powerful electoral alliance of labor and capital that
"completed the vision of the founders" (p. 3).

Yet, there is more than a little cognitive dissonance in the book.
High tariffs promoted by Ohio's domestic industry and implemented by
Republicans swelled the ranks of the spoils system at the nation's
ports. After all, someone had to enforce increasingly complex tariff
policy by weighing, gauging, carting, and assessing the value of
imported goods. An unintended party effect was to empower political
rivals like Roscoe Conkling in New York, and his lieutenant, Chester
Arthur, both of whom battled with Rutherford B. Hayes and Garfield
over the rules of civil service. That Arthur succeeded Garfield as
president when he was shot is testament to party interdependence
rather than any accident of history.

There is also the question of whether prosperity was in fact broadly
shared, or at least, by how much and under what terms. Let me frame
the same issue another way. Why was Ohio's moment in national
politics soaked with the blood of industrial violence?

The question lingers because Skrabec does not shy away from social
conflict. He addresses the Great Railway Strike of 1877, the Pullman
Strike, and Coxey's Army with consideration for the plight of the
downtrodden. The blame, though, never rests with the goodwill of
local employers but far-off eastern financiers, who play "casino"
capitalism, and radicals, who bring a "reign of terror" (pp. 16, 18,
182). The blind spot also means that credit is given where it is not
due. If union membership grows during the McKinley administration,
Skrabec attributes gains to the president himself. Was he signing up
new members?

Let us not forget that Union veterans led many of these labor
uprisings. One such lifelong Republican, a man calling himself
"Bradlaugh," supported Hayes in the disputed election of 1876. He
later had regrets during the Great Railway Strike. So irate over
"starvation wages," Bradla

[Marxism] In “The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda,” Ishmael Reed Revives an Old Debate | The New Yorker

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/in-the-haunting-of-lin-manuel-miranda-ishmael-reed-revives-an-old-debate
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[Marxism] The Revolt in the Trenches: WWI, Revolution, and Bulgaria

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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One year after the Bolsheviks ended Russia’s participation in World War I,
revolutionary soldiers in Bulgaria forced their government to do the same. “Our
enemy is not across the trenches,” they murmured, “the real enemy is in
Sofia. Go back!”

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/01/world-war-bulgaria-army-soldiers-revolt
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[Marxism] January 31, 1919 – The day they read the Riot Act against Glasgow workers

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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One hundred years ago, on 31 January, 1919, Glasgow’s George Square
witnessed one of the most astonishing outbreaks of civic violence in modern
history. Tens of thousands of striking workers, many accompanied by their
families, were baton-charged by police. A battle erupted, heads were broken
and for one of the last times, civic officials read the Riot Act
. A panic-stricken cabinet in
London sent in troops and tanks, and for a moment revolution looked set to
sweep western Scotland.

“The Russian revolution had been an unambiguous demonstration that the
forces of reaction could be defeated and the political establishment was
very afraid that could happen here,” says the Scottish historian Tom
Devine. “They thought a Bolshevik uprising was about to begin in Glasgow
.”

Slowly the city returned to normal, and after a couple of weeks the troops
departed. Amazingly, there had been no fatalities. The strike leaders were
put on trial for inciting riot but were acquitted – except for Gallacher
and Shinwell, who got three and five months in jail. Gallacher came to rue
the opportunity he believed was lost that day. “Had there been an
experienced revolutionary leadership, instead of a march to Glasgow Green
there would have been a march to the city’s Maryhill Barracks. There we
could easily have persuaded the soldiers to come out, and Glasgow would
have been in our hands.”

In the end, the workers lost the strike for a shorter working week although
better working hours were slowly introduced by employers. More importantly,
at the next general election, in 1922, Red Clydesiders – in the
personification of the Independent Labour Party – won 10 out of 15 Glasgow
constituencies. The revolution may not have materialised but Clydeside
became a powerful socialist base.

“The experience of being harshly treated helps explain the election success
of Red Clydesiders,” says Devine. “Shinwell, Kirkwood and others became MPs
.
Thousands came to see them off to Westminster when they left Glasgow by
train, and while I am not suggesting a direct link between the Battle of
George Square and this later surge in Labour support, the event certainly
had a politicising effect. The George Square factor was not irrelevant and
Scotland has been the anchor of the Labour party ever since.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/06/100-years-on-the-day-they-read-the-riot-act-in-glasgow
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[Marxism] Lois Weber, Hollywood's Forgotten Early Pioneer, Has 2 Films Restored

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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As Hollywood continues to struggle with the underrepresentation of women
behind the camera
,
most people have forgotten that 100 years ago, one woman ruled.

Her name was Lois Weber. Counting shorts and feature-length movies, she
directed at least 138 films — all before 1940. She became the first
American woman to direct a feature-length dramatic film with *The Merchant
of Venice* in 1914.

"In her day, she was considered one of the three great minds of the early
film industry, alongside D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille," says Shelley
Stamp, a film historian at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Today, most of her works are virtually impossible to see. But two of her
most important films have now been restored and released to theaters and on
disc.

From early on, she advocated for complex roles for women and for serious
engagement with social issues. According to Stamp, Weber made films about
the fight to abolish capital punishment, about drug addiction, about urban
poverty, about the campaign to legalize contraception.

"History failed her," Stamp says. "She has been forgotten in a way that
does not do service to really an extraordinary pioneer of American
filmmaking. Had we remembered her career early on, we would have had
decades and decades of female filmmakers' work to look at. We don't, and
that's the consequence of forgetting her."

In other words, the films of Lois Weber are not simply museum pieces. She
actually did what many young women filmmakers now say they want to do —
bring a woman's perspective to American studio filmmaking.

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/05/682372051/lois-weber-hollywoods-forgotten-early-pioneer-has-2-films-restored
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[Marxism] The Integrity Initiative controversy (yawn) | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://louisproyect.org/2019/01/09/the-integrity-initiative-controversy-yawn/
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Re: [Marxism] What do Trump?s ?withdrawal? from Syria and the Gulf?s rapprochement with Assad have in common?

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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I agree with much of Michael Karadjis's article, but not all.

As with almost all the rest of the left, and much as I respect his
writings, he leaves out a crucial factor: The closeness of Trump to the
Russian oligarchy/capitalist class due to his having served as a money
launderer for them for decades. Why is the socialist left ignoring this
established fact? Why is it ignoring it as a factor in the crisis with the
US capitalist class?

Clearly, it came into play in his announcement of withdrawing the US troops
"now". When I first heard the announcement, I said Trump had been in
contact either with Erdogan (who communicated Putin's wishes) or the
Saudis. This was a bit too crude of a way of putting it, but as far as the
Saudis, Michael kind of confirms the general process if not the specific
detail. As far as Erdogan - we now know that Trump had a phone conversation
with him a day or two before he made the announcement. I doubt that anybody
thinks that the issue of US troops in Syria did not arise. And does anybody
seriously think that the views of Putin weren't discussed? Why on earth
would they not have been?

Michael argues, correctly in my opinion, that "the idea that momentous
decisions are made entirely by one guy with quasi-dictatorial powers is
problematic." However, he then continues by saying: "Trump’s idiosyncrasies
aside, the decision to withdraw, and the consequences thereof, are entirely
within the bounds of US ruling class interests, so whether or not it was
entirely accidental is not so material."

How, then, does he explain the immediate resignation of Mattis and several
other key representatives of US capitalism within the Trump administration?
How does he explain the more recent position, as advanced by John Bolton:
“The president is slowing down and is re-evaluating his policies in light
of those three objectives: Don’t let Iran get the oil fields, don’t let the
Turks slaughter the Kurds, and don’t let ISIS come back.” As far as the
Kurds being slaughtered: There is a reason for that too, the reason being
that if they allowed that to happen there is no group nor regime in the
region that would ever trust the US government again.

But the main thing is this: for these conditions to be fulfilled, the US
troops are going to remain there for a very long time indeed. US troops
coming home "now"?

Not.

The US capitalist class has enforced its will on Trump, at least in this
instance. Although he's decisively proven that they cannot trust him. Not
ever.

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*“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black
Jacobins" by C. L. R. James
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[Marxism] [Letter from Pretty Prairie] | Drinking Problems, by Elizabeth Royte | Harper's Magazine

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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About the difficulty of weaning large farms from nitrate fertilizer.

https://harpers.org/archive/2018/05/drinking-problems/

(Might be behind a paywall. If so, email me for a copy.)
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Re: [Marxism] 'A Prairie Home Companion' is wretched and unlistenable - SBNation.com

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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Right on, Ken

On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 8:06 PM Ken Hiebert  wrote:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
>
>
> A serious comrade I remember from the 80's (I'm told she is still active),
> told me that she enjoyed The Love Boat.  And I have to confess that I enjoy
> The Road to Avonlea, a spin-off from Anne of Green Gables.
> http://avonlea.sullivanmovies.com/  This series lovingly recreates a past
> that never existed.   For example there is little indication of the harsh
> discrimination against the francophone Catholic population of Prince Edward
> Island.
>
> Measured against that, is A Prairie Home Companion all that bad?
>
> ken h
> 
> Send list submissions to: marx...@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
> Set your options at:
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>
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[Marxism] [UCE] Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan Slams LA Teachers for Strike

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/09/obamas-education-secretary-arne-duncan-slams-la-teachers-for-strike/
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[Marxism] Russell Vought - Wikipedia

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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The nut who is managing Trump's government shutdown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Vought
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[Marxism] Saudi, UAE assisted Assad in detecting, killing Syrian opposition leaders

[RKOB via Marxism]

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*‘Saudi, UAE assisted Assad in detecting, killing Syrian opposition 
leaders’*


*The locations of many opposition commanders who all fell martyr to the 
bombings of the Syrian regime were shared by Saudi Arabia and the UAE 
with Assad*


Yeni Şafak, January 04, 2019 
https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/saudi-uae-assisted-assad-in-detecting-killing-syrian-opposition-leaders-3470853


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[Marxism] Some Democrats want to do a deal with Trump for the border wall. That's a problem for Nancy Pelosi – VICE News

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/yw78w7/some-democrats-want-to-do-a-deal-with-trump-for-the-border-wall-thats-a-problem-for-nancy-pelosi
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[Marxism] What do Trump’s ‘withdrawal’ from Syria and the Gulf’s rapprochement with Assad have in common?

[mkaradjis via Marxism]

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https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2019/01/09/what-do-trumps-withdrawal-from-syria-and-the-gulfs-rapprochement-with-assad-have-in-common/

In the days since Donald Trump’s announcement that the US was to rapidly
withdraw its 2000 troops from Syria, an enormous amount of speculation
about what this means has taken place. In *my initial piece*
,
I expressed a number of views that are not widely shared.

First, I gave more credit to Trump having a valid position, from the point
of view of US imperialism, than what was generally conceded. Overwhelmingly
Trump’s move has been viewed as a pure personal whim, which is allegedly in
conflict with what all other US ruling class circles prefer to happen.

Secondly, while almost every analyst claimed this move was a sell-out of
the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to the Erdogan
regime in Turkey, I stressed that it was just as much, if not more, a green
light for the Bashar Assad tyranny to take control of the SDF-controlled
regions.

With masses of contradictory information, it has been difficult to make
coherent sense of the developments; none of us are seers. In this follow-up
piece, I hope to shed more light on what I think is occurring.

*Did Trump’s move contradict US ruling class interests?*

On the first question, it is of course true that Trump acts on whim, and
has *a tendency to speak jibberish*
, which might well
suggest that his orders came from a place of complete ignorance and be at
variance with US ruling class interests. However, the idea that momentous
decisions are made entirely by one guy with quasi-dictatorial powers is
problematic. I will argue here that, Trump’s idiosyncrasies aside, the
decision to withdraw, and the consequences thereof, are entirely within the
bounds of US ruling class interests, so whether or not it was entirely
accidental is not so material.

As Steven Simon, who served on the National Security Council in the Clinton
and Obama administrations, puts it succinctly, Trump’s “impulsive and
uncoordinated move” nevertheless “coincided with strategic imperative
,
even if the president himself was unaware of it.”

Of course, one could argue that a 24-hour withdrawal would indeed be
destabilising, but it was naïve to believe that an order to withdraw would
automatically mean that all US forces, weaponry, bases, aircraft and
intelligence are gone the next day, whatever a tweet may say. Between
Trump’s impulsive statements and the realities and complexities of actually
withdrawing, there was plenty of wiggle room for Trump’s “immediate”
withdrawal to turn into *a four-month timetable*
,
involving negotiation between Trump and other ruling class figures, such as
Senator Lindsay Graham.

Graham got Trump to agree that complete withdrawal should only take place
once ISIS is totally defeated in Syria, which has always been Trump’s own
condition (though Trump is basically correct that the US and SDF have
driven it from 99 percent of the country), and that “*our Kurdish allies
are protected*
.” Similar
statements were then made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and *National
Security Advisor John Bolton*
.

Meanwhile, the US military is reportedly establishing new military bases
just across the Syrian border in Iraq, from where it can continue to bomb
the last tiny piece of ISIS remaining. Despite alarmist forecasts that
Trump was even selling out to ISIS, “between December 16 and December
29, US-led
coalition military forces conducted 469 air and artillery strikes targeting
ISIS

in Syria.” The last major towns occupied by ISIS, Hajin and Kashmah, were
captured by the SDF on December 25 and January 2 respectively.

Of course, none of the statements extending the withdrawal said anything
whatsoever about pressure on the Assad regime. That has simply never had
anything to do with the US presence, one way or another.

*‘Withdrawal’ a green light to Assad, not Erdogan*

On the second question, I am now even more convinced of the correctness of
my initial view, that the ‘green light’ is mainly aimed at the

[Marxism] Tomgram: Engelhardt, Living on a Quagmire Planet | TomDispatch

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176512/
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[Marxism] a thought on fascism

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I read Richard Seymour's piece on Bolsonaro. As always very intelligent. I
like his formulation of pre-fascism. However, I did have one slight
disagreement.  I think that the precondition for fascism is not the
presence of communism. Rather it is failed social democracy.  The presence
of communism does play a role in getting the elites to be afraid and to
hold their noses and back the fascist thugs.  But the mass base of fascism
requires the formula of social-democratic betrayal and that was present in
Prussia in the 30s and as well in Brazil.

But really we have to shed notions based on the constant conjunction of
events such as If A then B will follow.  That should be rewritten as If A
then there is a tendency for B to follow ceteris paribus.

All eyes on the UK next week. When May puts her deal to parliament. I think
it is going to be very close and I am tipping a May win actually.  But we
will see.

comradely

Gary




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