Re: [Marxism] Isabel dos Santos and the African lumpen-bourgeoisie | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[John Edmundson via Marxism]

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Start bringing out the bodies https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51224655

On Sat, Jan 25, 2020 at 11:59 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Thirty years ago, I was part of a Tecnica delegation that visited the
> African National Congress headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia. We were there
> to discuss the feasibility of a technical aid project for the ANC and
> the frontline states with Thabo Mbeki, the future president of
> post-apartheid South Africa. Back then, the term frontline referred to a
> group of other sub-Saharan nations that were also fighting for liberation.
>
> Chief among them was Angola that had defeated the Portuguese colonial
> army and gained independence in 1975. However, peace did not ensue.
> Three rival guerrilla armies began to fight for control over the newly
> liberated country. The international left identified with the Popular
> Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). Unfortunately, the MPLA
> had to contend with both the National Front for the Liberation of Angola
> (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola
> (UNITA). Israel backed the FNLA, an alliance that most would view as
> unsavory. However, China also backed the FNLA, which only goes to show
> that Maoism had its own unsavory aspects. As for UNITA, it was wholly
> reliant on CIA support and guilty of the same kind of war crimes the
> Nicaraguan contras were carrying out.
>
> full:
>
> https://louisproyect.org/2020/01/24/isabel-dos-santos-and-the-african-lumpen-bourgeoisie/
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-- 
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose
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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Howie Hawkins has a working class political perspective unlike the signers
of the 'open letter.'  Hawkins is vying for the presidential nomination of
the Green Party of the U.S. which, as John Reimann says, is historically a
petit-bourgeois political formation.  IMO this was proven in 2003/4 when
the Green Party rejected the candidacy of Ralph Nader (individually a
middle-class reformer but allied with the fledgling Labor Party organizing
effort, who had opened up a significant challenge to the capitalists'
two-party political system in the 2000 election**) in order to support the
Democrat presidential candidate, using the same capitalist-centric
rationale manifest in today's 'open letter.'

Open letter signers, like other defenders of the capitalists' two-party
political monopoly, argue from a narrow-minded 'zero-sum game' framework.
I think that the participation of strong independent working class
candidates in capitalist state elections increases the progressive vote
generally, including for the mainstream capitalist parties (Democrats in
U.S.) which posture as fighting for the working class.  In the case of the
protest vote for the weak middle-class Green Party in the 2016 presidential
election, i don't think the voting result would have been significantly
different if the Green Party hadn't existed, electoral results would have
remained the same.

IMO there has not been a significant potential national working class
presence in the U.S. political system since the mid-2000s crumbling of the
Labor Party effort that had been led by Tony Mazzochi (d. 2002, btw
longtime Nader ally).  If Howie Hawkins is able to win the Green Party
presidential nomination it might be an indication that the Green Party is
beginning to develop into a working class party.

Obviously i think the political outlook for working people is pretty
dismal.  Touche' Mark: "We don't have a lot of alternatives.  Everybody in
a socialist group that hasn't done anything to create such an
alternative--and going through the motions hasn't sufficed--bears some
responsibility for this. You don't like the Greens, but haven't done diddly
to forge something better."

And as Mark says: "The path to Trump was paved by Democrats [as] much as
Republicans.  That's the nature of the system both serve."  The open letter
signers are mistaken to think that voting Democrat will make a qualitative
difference in implementing 'real solutions' for the growing crises of the
capitalist system.

**The myth that Nader cost Gore the 2000 presidential election, now 'common
knowledge' in the mainstream media and also apparently with the 'open
letter' signers, was created by defenders of the capitalist two-party
political system to attack Nader and pressure the Green Party's leadership
not to run Nader again in 2004. The reality is that half of Florida's
registered Democrats didn't bother to vote in 2000 and 12% of them - over
200,000 - voted for Bush.  In addition to Nader/Greens, each of the other
seven third party presidential candidates on the Florida ballot in 2000 got
more than the 543 votes that supposedly made the difference, see <
http://www.cagreens.org/alameda/city/0803myth/myth.html>.  In addition to
voter suppression and related Republican dirty tricks, Gore (longtime
fixture of the capitalist system) didn't even put up a fight for a full
Florida recount.



On Fri, Jan 24, 2020 at 3:12 PM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
> On 1/24/20 12:06 PM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote:
> > The Greens are not a working class party; they are a petit bourgeois
> party.
> > They did not develop out of a movement of the working class and have no
> > base in any part of the working class movement.
>
>
> Yeah, petit bourgeois. That about sums up this kind of politics that
> refuses to get behind a candidate like Howie Hawkins, who was a
> warehouse worker for decades and a Teamster union member. If this was
> 1934, we'd all be pushing for a labor party because there was a class
> dynamic that made it possible. We are not in 1934, comrades. Time to
> wake up and smell the coffee.
>
>
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[Marxism] Review of *The East is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination*, by Robeson Taj Frazier | Tony Pecinovsky | People's World

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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https://peoplesworld.org/article/the-east-is-black-cold-war-china-in-the-black-radical-imagination/


Sent from my iPhone

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[Marxism] Neo-Nazi Rinaldo Nazzaro running US militant group The Base from Russia - BBC News

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51236915
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[Marxism] Cross-platform disinformation campaigns: lessons learned and next steps | HKS Misinformation Review

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Actually, this is what Brian Whitaker was Tweeting about. Very important 
analysis.


https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/cross-platform-disinformation-campaigns/
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[Marxism] Brian Whitaker on Vanessa Beeley and the propaganda campaign against the White Helmets

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(You can only read this if you have a Twitter account. I advise comrades 
to create one if you want to read items like this.)



A thread by Brian Whitaker

THREAD (1/6): A peer-reviewed study from Harvard researchers looks at 
the disinformation campaign against the White Helmets organisation and 
the role of @VanessaBeeley. 
(misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/cross-…) (2/6) The study 
characterises the campaign as disinformation "due to its connection to 
Russia’s influence apparatus, its use of false and misleading narratives 
... and its function to create doubt about their evidence documenting 
atrocities ..."


(3/6) The study finds two clusters of Twitter accounts: one (blue) 
supporting the White Helmets and a much larger (red) one that criticises 
them. The red cluster had 38% more accounts and produced three times as 
much


https://tinysubversions.com/spooler/?url=https://twitter.com/Brian_Whit/status/1220618847411109889
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[Marxism] The Long History of Elite Rule: What Will It Take To End It? - CounterPunch.org

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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A Marxist history of the world in a few thousand words.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/the-long-history-of-elite-rule-what-will-it-take-to-end-it/
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[Marxism] Isabel dos Santos and the African lumpen-bourgeoisie | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Thirty years ago, I was part of a Tecnica delegation that visited the 
African National Congress headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia. We were there 
to discuss the feasibility of a technical aid project for the ANC and 
the frontline states with Thabo Mbeki, the future president of 
post-apartheid South Africa. Back then, the term frontline referred to a 
group of other sub-Saharan nations that were also fighting for liberation.


Chief among them was Angola that had defeated the Portuguese colonial 
army and gained independence in 1975. However, peace did not ensue. 
Three rival guerrilla armies began to fight for control over the newly 
liberated country. The international left identified with the Popular 
Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). Unfortunately, the MPLA 
had to contend with both the National Front for the Liberation of Angola 
(FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola 
(UNITA). Israel backed the FNLA, an alliance that most would view as 
unsavory. However, China also backed the FNLA, which only goes to show 
that Maoism had its own unsavory aspects. As for UNITA, it was wholly 
reliant on CIA support and guilty of the same kind of war crimes the 
Nicaraguan contras were carrying out.


full: 
https://louisproyect.org/2020/01/24/isabel-dos-santos-and-the-african-lumpen-bourgeoisie/

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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 1/24/20 12:06 PM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote:

The Greens are not a working class party; they are a petit bourgeois party.
They did not develop out of a movement of the working class and have no
base in any part of the working class movement.



Yeah, petit bourgeois. That about sums up this kind of politics that 
refuses to get behind a candidate like Howie Hawkins, who was a 
warehouse worker for decades and a Teamster union member. If this was 
1934, we'd all be pushing for a labor party because there was a class 
dynamic that made it possible. We are not in 1934, comrades. Time to 
wake up and smell the coffee.

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[Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Gilbert Schaeffer via Marxism]

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Louis, On the matter of Marx's Address of the Central Committee to the
Communist League in 1850, things aren't so absolute. Just a few years
after the Address, Marx and his Communist League colleague in New
York, Joseph Weydemeyer, abandoned their effort to form an independent
revolutionary workers' organization in the U.S. and threw their
support behind the Republican Party and the struggle against slavery.
Obviously, there are vast differences between that political situation
and ours today, but the Address is not the final word on how to
operate within the U.S. political system.
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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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Yeah, it's absurd to describe something as not a working class formation
because it doesn't label itself as such.  Equally to think that something's
not a working class formation because that it's run by sellouts and/or
idiots.  I've long severed ties with the coalition of flakes and Democrats
in the local party.  The last person they supported as  a "Green" was also
running as a Democrat and I just got an email endorsing him from one of our
big name local machine politicians.

This doesn't mean that the Greens elsewhere might be genuinely independent,
though I think it's politically suicidal for them to retain ties with state
and local parties that don't really exist except on paper and function
primarily as a stopgap measure to bloc any viable independent alternative
from taking form.  But, since it's gone on since the last century, I don't
have high hopes for any corrective.

I won't bore anyone with historical examples.  Electoral politics grows
from an overall principle of fostering independent class self-organization
and self-reliance with its fulcrum resting not on campaign promises and
rhetoric but issues of power.  It's not related to electoral promises or to
pragmatic considerations about the rivalries between Democratic
slaveholders and Whig slaveholders.  (Oops, historical examples are
slipping in, apparently.)  And, btw, the emphasis on Trump as some sort of
meteor strike that came out of nowhere is just silly.

Look at the impeachment with open eyes and you see a crisis inseparable
from Democratic decisions to rely on executive rule by Obama rather than to
fight in the court of public opinion . . . to give Dubya a free pass over
WMDs and Bushdaddy repeated free passes for high crimes and misdemeanors of
all sorts.  And Regan.  And even Nixon, into whose work the Democrats
essentially dropped the investigations after his resignation.  The path to
Trump was paved by Democrats and much as Republicans.  That's the nature of
the system both serve.

Bernie Sanders will be irrelevant in a matter of months.  Despite all sorts
of developments, the party and the media is beating the drum for nominating
Joe "Lock 'em up" Biden or the nearest stand-in they might have to install
to replace him.  And when that happens, the people who offered the Greens
such brilliant "advise" will beat the drum for whoever the Democratic
hierarchy wants, denouncing those of us who aren't buying the kool-aid as
closet fascists.  Heard it all before.

Just to make a practical observation.  We don't have a lot of
alternatives.  Everybody in a socialist group that hasn't done anything to
create such an alternative--and going through the motions hasn't
sufficed--bears some responsibility for this.  You don't like the Greens,
but haven't done diddly to forge something better.

Cheers,
Mark L.
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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[STEVEN ROBINSON via Marxism]

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The role of David Cobb in the Stein campaign was troubling to me, although I 
voted the Green ticket anyway.

The lack of [Democrat] Party loyalty of the Sanders base may be the motivating 
factor of the "Open Letter."  See this:

https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-poll-warren-biden-2020-nominee-emerson-college-1483831

SR 

> On January 24, 2020 at 9:06 AM John Reimann via Marxism 
>  wrote:
nt.
> 
> In 2016 I voted for the Green Party candidate for president. That was a
> mistake.  First of all because at that time I did not see the importance of
> their VP candidate's support for Assad.
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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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Louis Proyect quotes an address from Marx in which Marx advocates the
working class running its own candidates, even if that candidate stands no
chance of winning. In the first place, that was in a completely different
situation. Second, and more important: Marx was talking about candidates
coming from a working class movement, and that is exactly the difference.
The Greens are not a working class party; they are a petit bourgeois party.
They did not develop out of a movement of the working class and have no
base in any part of the working class movement.

In 2016 I voted for the Green Party candidate for president. That was a
mistake.  First of all because at that time I did not see the importance of
their VP candidate's support for Assad. And as for Stein - I didn't see the
significance of her flirtation (to say the least) with Putin.

More to the point, I had thought that a layer of the Sandersnista youth
might turn to the Green Party and transform it, give it some real life.
From there, given the huge political vacuum in the working class, I thought
the GP might actually become a working class party. This is as opposed to
in Germany, for example, where they seem to have become a capitalist party
on the "left" margins of the spectrum. I went to a few GP meetings here in
Oakland. There was no sign of those youth here. I don't think the Greens
will be transformed; I think they will remain a petit bourgeois party, and
I would not vote for their candidates again.

This is not meant to advocate voting for the Democrat; it's just meant to
say that I think the Greens don't deserve the support of socialists.

John Reimann

-- 
*“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black
Jacobins" by C. L. R. James
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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[Marxism] You Intellectually Identify as a Fool: The Strange, Sad Case of Isabel Fall’s Brilliant Sci-Fi Story | Washington Babylon

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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https://washingtonbabylon.com/intellectually-identify-fool-isabel-fall/


Best regards,
Andrew Stewart 
- - -
Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via 
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[Marxism] Keir Starmer, Trotskyism and Pabloism. John Rogan.

[andrew coates via Marxism]

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Keir Starmer, Trotskyism and Pabloism. John Rogan.

The left wing background to the Labour leadership contender.

Amongst other papers (The Times, Keir Starmer: Radical who attacked Kinnock in 
Marxist journal: 
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/radical-keir-starmer-attacked-labour-in-marxist-magazine-pfm5zxxrz
"The Mail on Sunday referred to the Labour leadership favourite as a “Posh 
Trot” in an attempt to expose his “radical past”."

"Was Keir Starmer a Trotskyist? Or a follower of Michel Pablo and therefore a 
“Pabloite”? Is there a difference? Indeed, who was this “Michel Pablo” and what 
on earth is “Pabloism”?"

https://medium.com/@JRogan3000/keir-starmer-trotskyism-and-pabloism-976c4c46d8f6



Andrew Coates
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[Marxism] Neo-nazi group The Base Leader in Russia

[Glenn Kissack via Marxism]

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The FBI is investigating the group The Base and members have been arrested in 
recent days. Their leader, Rinaldo Nazzaro, appears to be running the group 
from Russia:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51236915 


Glenn
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Re: [Marxism] » An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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Marx and Engels were writing in the world where the "historic mission" of
the Bourgeoisie was to develop the productive forces sufficiently to make
it possible for the curse of necessity to be banished from the earth --- a
development of the forces of production that made true civilization
(ultimately communism) possible.

Yet because socialism did not defeat capitalism in the 20th century,
capitalism having long outlived its ability to merely develop the
productive forces and having reached the stage of devouring the planet
itself we are faced with an entirely different set of issues

(I have argued -- and I know I get lots of flack for this -- that we got a
taste of the changing reality with the rise of fascism and its particular
German version, Naziism --- made possible IN PART by the inability of
communists and socialists to unite against it --- with the regional and
individual (for Jews, gypsies, gays, slavs, etc.) disasters ---)

That set of isssues involves planetary destruction --- Many argue that the
ONLY way to save the planet is to have a socialist revolution --- I argue
that that MIGHT be true but since such a change seems more unlikely than
getting the Democratic (and "democratic" with a small "d") to take the
necessary steps to save the planet, it's better to bet on the Dems vs.
Trump (and take your set of choices in the rest of the world as well) than
to remain pure ---

Don't think quoting Marx and Engels advances the argument given the current
set of challenges

BUT --- we are not talking about a "few reactionaries" -- we are talking
about fascism .

>
>
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] » An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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The essence of this is the usual liberal BS of blaming left.

If I believed what these people seem to believe--and I sure don't--I'd
focus my efforts on trying to persuade Democratic voters to go for Sanders
or some other "progressive" rather than  crapping on radicals.  I regularly
defend Sanders and Warren against media misrepresentations and the lies of
the DNC types who prevail there, but I don't put time, energy or money into
what I see as a hopeless bid to get the Democratic hierarchy to permit the
nomination of such candidates.  I see this as being as hopeless as trying
to get the Republicans to nominate a socialist in 2020.

I don't base this on abstract theories or "dogma" but on half a century of
watching Democratic politics and a study of how politics worked before I
was here and alert enough to follow it.

These people who are so free with their "advice" to--actually accusations
against--we pathetic mortals  with the audacity to try to learn from
experience and observation is equally of waste of time and effort.  If they
want to win this argument, they should focus their Jedi wisdom on proving us

Get the Democratic nomination for a socialist and then we'll talk.

Of course, I'm still waiting for them to levitate the Pentagon.

Cheers,
Mark L.
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Re: [Marxism] » An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 1/24/20 8:55 AM, Michael Meeropol wrote:
Sorry, Louis --- I agree 100% with the argument in this letter. Working 
for the Green Party Is taking the gamble that Trump is SO LITTLE "worse" 
than the Democratic opponent (and let's grant the worst case scenario 
that BIDEN --- or -- gasp (!!) BLOOMBERG --- is the Democratic nominee) 
would not make the difference in terms of long term destruction of the 
planet via global warming --- Let's assume that there is a 1% chance 
that Trump vs. generic Dem will make the difference between the survival 
of the planet and some (better than nothiing) amelioration --



Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Address of the Central Committee to the 
Communist League, London, March 1850


Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers 
must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to 
gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and 
party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the 
empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ 
candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of 
reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final 
analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the 
proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is 
infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the 
presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the 
forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the 
reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the 
election will already have been destroyed.


https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm



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Re: [Marxism] » An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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Sorry, Louis --- I agree 100% with the argument in this letter.   Working
for the Green Party Is taking the gamble that Trump is SO LITTLE "worse"
than the Democratic opponent (and let's grant the worst case scenario that
BIDEN --- or -- gasp (!!) BLOOMBERG --- is the Democratic nominee) would
not make the difference in terms of long term destruction of the planet via
global warming --- Let's assume that there is a 1% chance that Trump vs.
generic Dem will make the difference between the survival of the planet and
some (better than nothiing) amelioration --

A 1% chance of an INFINITE damage (do the simple math) is still INFINITE
damage ---

(you can turn that 1% probability into any low number, even .01% and
the result is still INFINITE damage --- that's what the concept of infinity
means)

Since it is IMPOSSIBLE to be 100% sure about the future, I think all of us
alive today (except young people who will live through disasters in the
next 50 years ALREADY BAKED IN no matter what is done in the next 10 - 20)
are being very selfishly arrogant about our predictability skills 
since we won;t live to see the damage we are inflicting on our
grandchildren (and young people all over the world) ---

I think at least having SOME humility about our ability to predict the
different futures created by a BIDEN (BLOOMBERG?) vs. TRUMP presidency --
(I won't even mention a Sanders or Warren presidency which I believe would
be a qualitatively positive difference ) requires us to err on the side
of caution and that means NO ONE should take any steps that will make a
second Trump term even a TINY BIT more probable --

The letter from these folks in this context makes cogent strong points and
they have certainly convinced me ---

(I am writing this assuming that Louis was referring to the letter signers
as "a bunch of idiots" rather than Green Party people contemplating running
in all states)



> (What a bunch of idiots.)
>
>
>
>
> We offer this open letter in hopes of prodding discussion of the issues
> raised
>
> Noam Chomsky, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, Kathy Kelly, Ron
> Daniels, Leslie Cagan, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert
>
> 
> 
> 
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[Marxism] Review of Peter Pomerantsev, 'This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality'

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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By Scott McLemee.

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/01/24/review-peter-pomerantsev-not-propaganda-adventures-war-against-reality
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[Marxism] » An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(What a bunch of idiots.)

Greens will pay a price for not running in contested states. Our advice 
to Greens would be to notice the infinitely bigger price that millions 
and even billions of people will pay for Trump winning.


The stance says “Greens don’t spoil elections. We improve them. We 
advance solutions that otherwise won’t get raised. We are running out of 
time on the climate crisis, inequality, and nuclear weapons. Greens will 
be damned if we wait for the Democrats. Real solutions can’t wait.”


But real solutions require Trump out of office. Real solutions will 
become far more probable with Sanders or Warren in office. Real 
solutions will become somewhat more probable even with the likes of 
Biden in office.


To conclude, is a Green candidate running for President after the summer 
really going to argue we shouldn’t vote for Sanders in contested states 
not just to end Trumpism but also to enact all kinds of important 
changes including urging and facilitating grass roots activism and 
thereby advancing Green program?


We offer this open letter in hopes of prodding discussion of the issues 
raised.


Noam Chomsky, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, Kathy Kelly, Ron 
Daniels, Leslie Cagan, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert


https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/an-open-letter-to-the-green-party-about-2020-election-strategy/
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[Marxism] Trump’s Rosy Economic Outlook Is a Big Lie

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trumps-rosy-economic-outlook-is-a-big-lie/
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[Marxism] U.S. vs. Iran: Which Side are You On? - CounterPunch.org

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Jeff Mackler in today's Counterpunch: "Today, Syria has recovered most 
of its historic territory, except for the isolated, routed ISIS and 
associated forces who remain in the Idlib province in northwestern 
Syria, which borders on Turkey. All Syrian efforts to remove these 
forces have been met with dire threats of massive retaliation from the 
U.S. and its NATO allies."


Let's be clear about this. Removing these forces means one thing and one 
thing only. Mass murder of civilians that has been going on for the past 
year and that will rise geometrically if the regime and Russia become 
even more emboldened than they are today. Mackler's pathetic sect split 
a few months ago because many members felt sick over this 80-year old 
cult leader's bloodthirsty worship of Bashar al-Assad. How this minor 
Trotskyist group evolved in this pathological direction is easy to 
understand. It became intoxicated in the same way that much of the left 
has, superimposing 2002 on the Syrian struggle. How such 
"revolutionaries" can worship at the altar of a mafia state is just 
beyond me. I say that as someone who was recruited by Mackler long ago 
into the SWP. Thank god, I came out of that experience with my brain intact.


https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/u-s-vs-iran-which-side-are-you-on/


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Re: [Marxism] link for Guyott response to Wilentz

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 1/23/20 10:22 PM, Alan Ginsberg wrote:

I clicked on the linked in your marxmail post, and got this:

← Tiny Subversions 


Spooler (BETA)

A tool that turns Twitter threads into blog posts, by Darius Kazemi 
.


It looks like someone wants to share this Twitter thread 
 with 
you. You'll have to log in to see it. (This tool only asks for 
permissions to read tweets.)


there was also a box "Log In With Twitter" on the page


You have to have a Twitter account for this to be read, I'm afraid.
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[Marxism] 'Mindless growth': Robust scientific case for degrowth is stronger every day

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/mindless-growth-robust-scientific-case-for-degrowth-is-stronger-every-day-1.4011495
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