[Marxism] Imperialism and the iPhone
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 is the third of the synopses of parts of the opening chapter of John Smith’s Imperialism in the 21st Century (New York, Monthly Review Press, 2016). The synopsis and commentary below is written by Phil Duncan. Unlike the humble cup of coffee and t-shirt that we looked at in the first two synopses, iPhones are technologically complex. While the simplicity of the first two commodities might help blind us to the complex social relations of exploitation which produce them, in the case of a commodity like the iPhone it can be their dazzling sophistication which does that job. The most important aspect of John’s book is that it lays bare precisely these relations. This, inherently, involves exposing how these relations of exploitation – in particular the super-exploitation of Third World workers by First World capital – is hidden by the way. . . . full at: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2019/11/05/imperialism-and-the-iphone/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Martin Scorsese: I Said Marvel Movies Aren’t Cinema. Let Me Explain.
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 Op-Ed, Nov. 4, 2019 Martin Scorsese: I Said Marvel Movies Aren’t Cinema. Let Me Explain. By Martin Scorsese When I was in England in early October, I gave an interview to Empire magazine. I was asked a question about Marvel movies. I answered it. I said that I’ve tried to watch a few of them and that they’re not for me, that they seem to me to be closer to theme parks than they are to movies as I’ve known and loved them throughout my life, and that in the end, I don’t think they’re cinema. Some people seem to have seized on the last part of my answer as insulting, or as evidence of hatred for Marvel on my part. If anyone is intent on characterizing my words in that light, there’s nothing I can do to stand in the way. Many franchise films are made by people of considerable talent and artistry. You can see it on the screen. The fact that the films themselves don’t interest me is a matter of personal taste and temperament. I know that if I were younger, if I’d come of age at a later time, I might have been excited by these pictures and maybe even wanted to make one myself. But I grew up when I did and I developed a sense of movies — of what they were and what they could be — that was as far from the Marvel universe as we on Earth are from Alpha Centauri. For me, for the filmmakers I came to love and respect, for my friends who started making movies around the same time that I did, cinema was about revelation — aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation. It was about characters — the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures, the way they can hurt one another and love one another and suddenly come face to face with themselves. It was about confronting the unexpected on the screen and in the life it dramatized and interpreted, and enlarging the sense of what was possible in the art form. And that was the key for us: it was an art form. There was some debate about that at the time, so we stood up for cinema as an equal to literature or music or dance. And we came to understand that the art could be found in many different places and in just as many forms — in “The Steel Helmet” by Sam Fuller and “Persona” by Ingmar Bergman, in “It’s Always Fair Weather” by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly and “Scorpio Rising” by Kenneth Anger, in “Vivre Sa Vie” by Jean-Luc Godard and “The Killers” by Don Siegel. Or in the films of Alfred Hitchcock — I suppose you could say that Hitchcock was his own franchise. Or that he was our franchise. Every new Hitchcock picture was an event. To be in a packed house in one of the old theaters watching “Rear Window” was an extraordinary experience: It was an event created by the chemistry between the audience and the picture itself, and it was electrifying. And in a way, certain Hitchcock films were also like theme parks. I’m thinking of “Strangers on a Train,” in which the climax takes place on a merry-go-round at a real amusement park, and “Psycho,” which I saw at a midnight show on its opening day, an experience I will never forget. People went to be surprised and thrilled, and they weren’t disappointed. Sixty or 70 years later, we’re still watching those pictures and marveling at them. But is it the thrills and the shocks that we keep going back to? I don’t think so. The set pieces in “North by Northwest” are stunning, but they would be nothing more than a succession of dynamic and elegant compositions and cuts without the painful emotions at the center of the story or the absolute lostness of Cary Grant’s character. The climax of “Strangers on a Train” is a feat, but it’s the interplay between the two principal characters and Robert Walker’s profoundly unsettling performance that resonate now. Some say that Hitchcock’s pictures had a sameness to them, and perhaps that’s true — Hitchcock himself wondered about it. But the sameness of today’s franchise pictures is something else again. Many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures. What’s not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes. They are sequels in name but they are remakes in spirit, and everything in them is officially sanctioned because it can’t really be any other way. That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they’re ready for consumption. Another way of putting it would be that they are everything that the f
[Marxism] bellingcat - The State of California Could Have Stopped 8Chan: It Didn’t - bellingcat
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[Marxism] With “American Dharma,” Documentary Filmmaker Errol Morris Again Tosses Softballs to a Monster | Washington Babylon
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[Marxism] ‘Chile Woke Up’: Dictatorship’s Legacy of Inequality Triggers Mass Protests
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, Nov. 4, 2019 ‘Chile Woke Up’: Dictatorship’s Legacy of Inequality Triggers Mass Protests By Amanda Taub SANTIAGO, Chile — The suddenness of the protests, the anger that spilled onto the streets every day, might have been surprising anywhere. But in the country often lauded as Latin America’s great economic success story, it has shocked the world. For three weeks, Chile has been in upheaval. One day alone, more than a million people took to the streets of Santiago, the capital. Perhaps the only people not shocked are Chileans. In the chaos, they see a reckoning. The promise that political leaders from the left as well as right have made for decades — that free markets would lead to prosperity, and prosperity would take care of other problems — has failed them. “Chile woke up,” thousands of protesters chanted one recent Sunday afternoon in Santiago’s O’Higgins Park. For a while, the promise seemed to be working. The country moved from dictatorship to democracy in 1990, and decades of economic growth and democracy followed, with one government peacefully replacing another. But that growth did not reach all Chileans. Inequality is still deeply entrenched. Chile’s middle class is struggling with high prices, low wages, and a privatized retirement system that leaves many older people in bitter poverty. And a series of corruption and tax-evasion scandals have eroded faith in the country’s political and corporate elite. “This is a sort of legitimacy crisis,” said Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, a political scientist at Diego Portales University in Santiago. “People start to say, ‘O.K., why is it we have to pay that, and the very rich are not paying their fair share?” “And at the same time, we have a political class that’s totally out of touch,” Mr. Kaltwasser added. In an attempt to restore order, President Sebastián Piñera scrapped the four-cent subway fare increase that set off the initial demonstrations. Then he deployed the military in Chile’s streets for the first time since the country’s transition to democracy. When that didn’t quell the protests, Mr. Piñera went on television to ask for forgiveness and promise higher pensions, better health coverage, higher taxes for the rich and pay cuts for politicians. Later, he asked his cabinet to resign. But demonstrators were not convinced. At the protest in O’Higgins park, that was certainly the view of Luis Ochoa Pérez, who was selling flags near the entrance. “The abuses haven’t stopped,” he said, “so we have to go into the streets.” His best-selling flag, of his own design, demanded Mr. Piñera’s resignation. Minutes later, it sold out. ‘It’s Not 30 Pesos, It’s 30 Years’ Javiera López Layana, 24, an activist and student at the University of Chile who helped organize the protest, was buzzing with excitement. Many of the speakers had used the term “el pueblo” when describing the Chilean people, she pointed out. To an outsider, it seemed like a tiny detail. But that term, which in Latin America is associated with the left, had been taboo in Chile for as long as Ms. López could remember. Its resurgence seemed as if it could be a harbinger of more significant change. The end of the Pinochet dictatorship, in 1990, came with an implicit caveat: Military rule would end, but the socialist policies of Salvador Allende, the leftist president Gen. Augusto Pinochet had deposed in a coup, would not return. Subsequent governments preserved the extreme laissez-faire economic system imposed in the 1970s and 1980s. But today, widespread public anger over the inequality and economic precarity that many Chileans see as a consequence of that system means that conservative economic policies may be more of a threat to political stability than a means of ensuring it. “It’s not 30 pesos, it’s 30 years” has become one of the slogans of the protests — a reference to the proposed metro fare increase that set off the crisis and to the three decades since military rule ended. The country’s median salary is now about $540 per month — below the poverty line for a family of four, said Marco Kremerman, an economist with the Fundación Sol, a left-leaning think tank in Santiago. Median payments in the national private pension program, the only safety net for retirees, are about $200 per month. There is broad agreement, among protesters and experts alike, that the country needs structural reforms. Replacing the current Constitution, which was adopted under the dictatorship, would also signify that Chile is emerging from the 30-year shadow of the Pinochet regime. “When we’re in debt, liv
[Marxism] Counting on Class: The Continuing Appeal of Meritocracy
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. * Neither faith in nor critiques of the idea of meritocracy is new. Michael Young’s famous 1958 book *The Rise of Meritocracy* argued that class privilege and advantage were likely to be amplified as financial and cultural capital passed across generations in families. Each new generation would benefit from existing structural advantage created by their parents and even grandparents. They might be talented individuals, hardworking and driven to succeed, but they would owe their achievements in part to a myriad of inherited class advantages. Young intended the title of his book as a satire, but for many, it seems to promote the ideal of egalitarian opportunity. A recent rash of books critically revisit the ideas in Young’s now six-decade-old book. In *The* *Class Ceiling: Why it ays to be Privileged,* Sam Friendman and Daniel Laurison provide a wonderfully accessible account of contemporary class analysis in the UK, examining the complex ways in which class influences life chances. The authors leaven the numbers with fascinating vignettes from the field showing how successful middle-class professionals are sometimes aware of their own class privilege. As one put it, “I was lucky to have a following wind”. The book does not offer a crude demonization of privilege. Instead, the study gets to the heart of how talent and hard work don’t sufficiently explain how good jobs get allocated. Often times, as *The* *Class Ceiling* shows, it’s the lucky breaks that already privileged people enjoy that allow them to achieve yet more success. https://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2019/11/04/counting-on-class-the-continuing-appeal-of-meritocracy/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Price of "Progress" - CounterPunch.org
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. * In Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress, author Christopher Ryan proposes the most controversial explanation offered today for what is wrong with our world. The problem began with advent of agriculture which gave rise to civilization: the movement of human activity from a life of cooperative community foraging together to one of individual competition for personal gain. Ryan notes that scholars wonder why for thousands of years, when humans lived in hunter-gatherer (forager) societies, “nothing was happening” to signify progress. His explanation is that humans were essentially happy and satisfied with their lives. Then they became civilized promoting the concept of progress that has led humanity into misery. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/04/the-price-of-progress/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Sit in, Burn Out, Move On: A Note on Political Activism in the ’60s - Los Angeles Review of Books
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[Marxism] Horses and Humans - CounterPunch.org
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. * About "breaking" horses. This article is a reminder of how CounterPunch is a source of totally unique contributions. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/04/horses-and-humans/ So donate to the fund-drive in the final stages: https://store.counterpunch.org/product/monthly-donation/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] LEAKED AUDIO: Richard Spencer Fumes At 'Kikes' And 'Octoroons' after Charlottesville Death
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. * An interesting tidbit about Spencer that I hadn’t seen before: "Spencer, who advocates for “peaceful ethnic cleansing” of the United States, is widely rumored among journalists to be a Central Intelligence Agency asset. He has received lavish profiles and glamorizing coverage in major mainstream publications including The Atlantic, Mother Jones, New York magazine, Slate, POLITICO, The Washington Post, GQ, Business Insider, the New Yorker, Pacific Standard, the Guardian and CNN." https://freespeech.tv/blog/exclusive-leaked-audio-richard-spencer-charlottesville _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] "Very fine people"
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. * "Spencer’s old friend, Milo Yiannopoulos, published an audio clip to YouTube late Sunday where Spencer can be heard using antisemitic slurs like “kike” and boasting that his ancestors “fucking enslaved those pieces of shit.” Spencer also says “I rule the fucking world” and suggests that anyone who isn’t white needs to be controlled through force. … "“That’s how the world fucking works,” Spencer says on the tape. “Little fucking kikes. They get ruled by people like me. Little fucking octaroons.” "The word “octaroon” is an offensive term for someone who is one-eighth black and is rarely heard outside of white supremacist circles. "The next portion of the tape makes it clear what Spencer would like to see happen to the world and anyone who he doesn’t identify as white. "“I rule the fucking world. Those pieces of shit get ruled by people like me. They look up and see a face like mine looking down at them. That’s how the fucking world works. We are going to destroy this fucking town.”" https://gizmodo.com/internet-savvy-nazi-says-a-bunch-of-old-fashioned-nazi-1839598635 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Global Warming Is Already Destroying New England’s Fisheries | The New Republic
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[Marxism] Maurice Thorez. A Biography. John Bulaitis. “The Best French Disciple of Stalin” – a Review.
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. * Thorez “displayed skill and acumen,” and an “ability to relate to ordinary French people.” His life “can be viewed as reflection of the intertwined hopes and tragedies of the communist movement in the twentieth century”. Maurice Thorez a Biography is a remarkable achievement, an indispensable reference point that helps us consider that legacy. https://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2019/11/04/maurice-thorez-a-biography-john-bulaitis-the-best-french-disciple-of-stalin-a-review/?fbclid=IwAR1IOyh3jz_tEL8UCgiLo43CgTsBwOZRdUQ5a3T8kUV94CNxNBOFPMH0HXw Andrew Coates _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
