Re: [Marxism] [UCE] Marxism and Rioting

2020-06-03 Thread Dayne Goodwin via Marxism
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I don't think the "West End Riots" in London of 1886 (apparently
initiated by the early Social Democratic Federation/Hyndman, see
Comments on an "Anti-Capitalist" Riot by Friedrich Engels
http://www.whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext19/Engels.html ) are
comparable to the recent grass-roots protests around the U.S. against
police brutality, violence and murders.  I think Engels would
solidarize with the recent U.S. riots.

a pertinent comment on current riots:
"Riots are communities defining what counts as police brutality and to
set the limits of authority. It is here, not in the courts, that our
rights are established."

RIGHTS, RIOTS AND POLICE BRUTALITY
by Kristian Williams, ROAR, May 30
https://roarmag.org/essays/rights-riots-and-police-brutality/

On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 12:21 PM Louis Proyect via Marxism
 wrote:
> http://www.whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext19/Rioting.html
>

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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

2020-06-03 Thread Mark Lause via Marxism
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If they think that, are they proposing to overthrow that government with
baseball bats, because I have news for them . . . .
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[Marxism] The first proto city

2020-06-03 Thread Dennis Brasky via Marxism
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"Welcome to one of the mothers of all cities, Çatalhöyük, a community on
the Anatolian plane that is now part of Turkey. ... [Nine thousand] years
ago ... Çatalhöyük consisted of attached dwellings covering 33 acres. ...
The city was so new back then, they hadn't invented the street yet -- or
the window. So the only way you could get into your apartment was to walk
over your neighbors' rooftops. A ladder was propped against the skylight
opening of your apartment.

https://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=4139
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[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-Asia]: Bayona on Keppy, 'Tales of the Southeast Asia's Jazz Age: Filipinos, Indonesians and Popular Culture, 1920-1936'

2020-06-03 Thread Andrew Stewart via Marxism
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-- Forwarded message -
From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW 
Date: Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 9:01 PM
Subject: H-Net Review [H-Asia]: Bayona on Keppy, 'Tales of the Southeast
Asia's Jazz Age: Filipinos, Indonesians and Popular Culture, 1920-1936'
To: 
Cc: H-Net Staff 


Peter Keppy.  Tales of the Southeast Asia's Jazz Age: Filipinos,
Indonesians and Popular Culture, 1920-1936.  Singapore  National
University of Singapore Press, 2019.  xiii + 269 pp.  $36.00 (paper),
ISBN 978-981-3250-51-2.

Reviewed by Jorge Bayona (University of Washington, Seattle)
Published on H-Asia (June, 2020)
Commissioned by Bradley C. Davis

Peter Keppy is a senior researcher at the NIOD Institute for War,
Holocaust and Genocide Studies, where he studies revolutions and
nation building in the twentieth century. While some of his previous
work has focused on issues of compensation for war victims in
Indonesia and the Philippines, he has also written previously on
matters of popular music in Southeast Asia, having co-authored
_Popular music in Southeast Asia: Banal Beats, Muted Histories_
(2017) alongside Bart Barendregt and Henk Schulte Nordholt. In _Tales
of Southeast Asia's Jazz Age_, Keppy brings to bear an impressive
amount of primary source research in a remarkable array of languages
to craft a narrative of the trajectories of two major characters in
popular music and theater in maritime Southeast Asia: Luis Borromeo
in the Philippines and Miss Riboet in Indonesia. Meticulously sourced
and clearly presented, Keppy's book gives an insight into how his
protagonists articulated a popular culture that engaged with some of
the political and social issues of the day until their ultimate
eclipse as a result of the Great Depression, competition from
"talkies," and political developments surrounding nationalism.

Keppy frontloads the theory in his book, presenting the concepts of
pop cosmopolitanism (a socially broad taste for international pop
culture), popular modernity("modernity" as advanced by non-elite
sectors of society), and participatory pop (whereby audiences play an
important role in the shaping of popular culture). Making use of
these foundations, the author argues that "Luis Borromeo and Miss
Riboet were pivotal actors, who helped create a pop cosmopolitanism
and popular modernity in their respective colonial societies, but
whose social cultural positions and significance were misunderstood
and ignored by contemporaries in the metropolises of America and
Europe" (p. 8). In this sense, they both participate in the shaping
of an "in-between culture" (p. 7). Although the ensuing chapters do
not engage in further theoretical disquisitions, the theoretical
guideposts established by Keppy early in the book continue to inform
his writing throughout. Thus, while the inclusion of the word "tales"
in the title may suggest a collection of amusing--yet perhaps not
altogether momentous--stories, Keppy's book does have a point to make
about the trajectory of pop culture in a colonial context in
continuous flux.

Although Keppy seeks to compare and connect the trajectories of his
two main characters, rather than organize his book around thematic
chapters in which specific aspects of both are contrasted, he instead
dedicates separate chapters to each. Chapters 2 to 6 focus on Luis
Borromeo, a Filipino vaudeville musician and impresario who in the
1920s and 1930s successfully created an in-between kind of popular
theater that blended American musical styles with local tastes and
patriotic desires. Chapters 7-10 are dedicated to Miss Riboet, an
Indonesian opera singer who, together with her husband Tio Tek Djien
Jr., became a popular icon by innovating in the genre of vernacular
theater by introducing topical commentary, and eventually bringing it
colonial respectability at the cost of losing its nationalistic
appeal. The result of this organization of the book is a clearer
trajectory for each character, which could have become muddled in a
more comparative approach. Although the structure is mostly
narrative, his writing is inflected by the questions he asks of one
case on the basis of previous scholarship on the other; he uses
discussions of cultural hybridity originating from scholarship on
Indonesia to interrogate the case of Luis Borromeo, and conversations
of cultural appropriation and resistance arising from scholarship on
the Philippines to interrogate the case of Miss Riboet.

Keppy's research is built upon an impressive variety of primary
sources. Not only has he consulted periodicals from numerous cities
in the Philippines and Indonesia, he has also studied audio
recordings and musical scores from the time 

[Marxism] From United States to Australia: Black lives matter everywhere! (Green Left)

2020-06-03 Thread Chris Slee via Marxism
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https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/i-cant-breathe-vigil-demanding-justice-george-floyd-and-david-dungay-jr

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/united-states-australia-black-lives-matter-everywhere-join-protest-your-city-weekend
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[Marxism] The pandemic's India journey (Kavita Krishnan - Green Left)

2020-06-03 Thread Chris Slee via Marxism
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https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/pandemics-india-journey

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[Marxism] Regarding the ANTIFA

2020-06-03 Thread John A Imani via Marxism
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Comrades,

I make somewhat regular, if small, donations to the Antifa Defense Fund. I
do it much in line with the critical support that we gave to the SLA in
1974. Criticize them for acting as a small band of armed revolutionaries in
the name of our class, supporting them against the assaults of the state.
We passed out flyers called "Let the ruling classes tremble at a
communistic revoution"

(link leads to the same flyer passed out at a subsequent rally the
following month) stating such while the shooting was going on. I was
arrested the day after the shootout handing out a second flyer "We applaud
the people who applauded the SLA's defense". This in a solemn nod to the
people of the neighborhood who yelled mighty cheers when the SLA's lone
automatic (an M2A, basically an M1 with a selector switch) spat back at the
firepower of the murderous cops who quelled their fire from a crawl space
with a firebombing of the house above them.

Below are two recent letters regarding the ANTIFA and their info on their
defense fund (which I became aware of when they sent $700 to a comrade
facing a gun charge):

--- Forwarded message -

From: *John A Imani* 
Date: Sun, May 31, 2020 at 12:08 PM
Subject: ANTIFA-Invitaton to join Dope X listserve
To: Antifa Intl

Comrades,

Just forwarded widely your donation button

and, esp so to the 1400 person listserve that I am a moderator of (Dope X).

However, my oft times done, forwarding of your donation requests, gives the
impression that I am either a member of or a supporter of Antifa. I am a
critical supporter. I support your efforts because of *1.)* the assistance
you provide to jailed revolutionaries; and, *2.)* because I am a firm
believer in left self-defense.

As to the *first* of these, I only became aware of your support for jailed
comrades when you provided much needed aid to a close comrade of mine (cced
in this note) who was facing charges; and as to the *second*, left
self-defense, becomes more urgent daily now. Trouble looms ahead and not
only from the cops. There is a very real danger of terrorist attacks by
right wing racists.

So, though I disagree with some Antifa actions, tactics and your overall
strategy, I make what small contributions as I am able, as you know, these
small contributions have been made for some time now. And will continue to
be done so.

JAI

On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 1:57 PM John A Imani  wrote:

(JAI: Trump says that Antifa will be designated a 'terrorist' organization.

Donations are denominated in Canadian Dollars. One CAD is equal to 76 cents
and so a $10CAD donation = $7.60 US. You may *donate here *

)

On Mon, Jun 1, 2020 at 6:22 PM Antifa Intl  wrote:

The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund
 provides emergency support to
anti-fascists anywhere in the world, whenever they find themselves in a
difficult situation as a result of their stand against hate. Whether it’s
replacing damaged/stolen property, paying medical bills, helping them find
a safe place to stay, funding legal defence, helping their families, or
doing antifa prisoner support, this Fund
 seeks to alleviate the harm that
results from doing the right thing sometimes.

In its first four years The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund
 has donated more than $75,000USD
to over 400 anti-fascists and anti-racists in eighteen countries!

Anyone can make a proposal to support an anti-fascist by contacting us
.

We depend entirely on donations to do our work and can accept monthly
recurring donations or one-time donations. Any group or individual that
donates more than $20US/€20/£15 will be invited to help make decisions on
proposals and requests the Defence Fund receives.

The *International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund *is a great way to show real
solidarity with anti-fascists and anti-racists worldwide when they need our
support the most!

To find out more, check out our blog
.

FIGHTING HATE IS NOT A CRIME!
ANTI-FASCISM = SELF-DEFENCE!
SOLIDARITY IS OUR WEAPON!
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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

2020-06-03 Thread Jeffrey Masko via Marxism
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Those within the antifa subculture have a wide range of premises, perhaps
more important to them is the idea of no-platforming. They tend to feel
those in power are "nazis" or at least white nationalist sympathizers and
that's why they fight; they aren't fighting to keep America being taken
over by the far right, they are fighting because they feel the U.S. is been
controlled by the far right for a long time now. Whether or not, they are
correct is another story.
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[Marxism] New York Times Staffers in Open Revolt Over Tom Cotton’s ‘Send in the Troops’ Column

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york-times-staffers-in-open-revolt-over-running-tom-cottons-send-in-the-troops-column

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[Marxism] An Open Letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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This is a letter written by current and former staffers of the de Blasio 
administration. Outraged by the brutality perpetrated by the NYPD during 
the recent protests against police violence, and by the Mayor’s refusal 
to criticize the NYPD for that brutality, we are demanding the Mayor 
implement four policy reforms to live up to the progressive values he 
always speaks of. Demands and full letter below. Signatures are still 
rolling in and will be updated periodically.


https://lettertothemayor.nyc/

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[Marxism] 'Riots' then and now

2020-06-03 Thread John A Imani via Marxism
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  Forwarded message -
From: John A Imani 
Date: Sun, May 31, 2020 at 7:57 PM
Subject: Re: [DopeXResistance-L.A.] Fw: June 1st actions-Class
Consciousness in LA
To: Michael Novick

Comrade, what is interesting about this is the innate class consciousness
of the participants now as opposed to '65 and '92.  Them and then both
began in and wrought more damage in south LA.

This (not excepting the first night of closure of 101 fwy which, in my
opinion, was aimed most at the upper classes of downtown) has begun in the
wealthier areas of the city and county.  Let us hope that it stays there.

I think that this is a qualitative leap, that which is happening now.  Now
its not just the rage.  Now is the directed rage.   Thankfully, it is
directed, where it should be, at the relatively better off parts of town.
The attempt to get to Rodeo Dr, Beverly Hills, last night was the best
example of this.

But here we have started with BLM.   A class conscious org that we did not
have in 65 and 92.  Many (see CNN, FOX News, Pat Harvey of Channel 2 CBS,
etc) are using this very legitimacy ("It was murder", even Trump says so)
of the protests against the militancy of the protests.  "Peaceful
protesters" versus looters.  Which do exist.  There are opportunists, some
organized, so as to use the rage of the many so as to gain brief monetary
gain for themselves.

But...and here is the point.  All activity has been in the well-off
portions of LA,  Many comrades in the street, however, have not yet learned
that there is a class difference between the corporate giants such as
Nordstrom (though it was hit), CVS, Whole Foods etc, and the small
businesses that took the brunt in 1965 and 1992.  But that is our (as
revolutionaries) fault for not being able to communicate to our people the
difference.

This is a great opportunity, the first in 50 years, to place demands upon
the system which it cannot grant:

Jobs for all at  living wage

No borders for labor

Redevelopment of Africa and Latin America and SE Asia away from their
economies based upon exports to colonizers to an economy designed for local
needs and desires

Universal Income

Expropriating tax upon exiting wealth

Nationalization, and by that socialization, of the major means of production

Housing, education and health care for all

Elected national board of review of all police misconduc

And so many more.

But all of this is to say that what is happening now is light ears further
down the road than we, as revolutionaries, faced in the 60s.

May we use this opportunity wisely.

JAI
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[Marxism] The Atlantic: James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution

2020-06-03 Thread Alan Ginsberg via Marxism
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“When I joined the military, some 50 years ago,” he writes, “I swore an
oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops
taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate
the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a
bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military
leadership standing alongside.”

full at
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/
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[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Morbid Symptoms

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the 
new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid 
symptoms appear.


--Antonio Gramsci

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Re: [Marxism] George Floyd had 'violent criminal history': Minneapolis union chief

2020-06-03 Thread Michael Meeropol via Marxism
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And I think the effort to blame the victim will NOT WORK with the public
--- However, the JURY will have to be VERY CAREFULLY selected and there
will have to be a strong resistance to a change of venue to a white
suburban population ---

There will be a danger that enough potential jurors will lie their way onto
the jury and vote to acquit --- hopefully the evidence will be so
overwhelming that an objective jury will convict ---

(or maybe one of the cops will FLIP!)
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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

2020-06-03 Thread Mark Lause via Marxism
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Antifa"s key premise--that the Nazis came to power because their opponents,
for some reason, failed to fight them--is just historically dead wrong.

On Wed, Jun 3, 2020, 3:47 PM Jeffrey Masko via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Jeez, antifa is a subculture like punk-rock, actually it's a sub-sub
> culture of punk rock. Ask someone if they belong to punk rock and they will
> shake their head, even if they still go to Gilman street punk rock shows.
> Can subcultures be reactionary and violent? Sure, look at outlaw bikers.
> But to ask if they are revolutionary (whether they be bikers or antifa
> kids) is like asking if a left jab is revolutionary as rioting is a
> technique or move and not even a tactic.
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Re: [Marxism] George Floyd had 'violent criminal history': Minneapolis union chief

2020-06-03 Thread wytheholt--- via Marxism
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Precisely, Louis. Floyd's past history had zero to do with his murder.

> On June 3, 2020 at 4:46 PM Ralph Johansen via Marxism 
> mailto:marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu > wrote:
> 
> 
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> 
> Louis Proyect wrote
> 
> (A familiar refrain as if being an ex-con excuses someone's knee on his
> neck for over 8 minutes.)
> 
> “What is not being told is the violent criminal history of George Floyd.
> The media will not air this,” police union president Bob Kroll told his
> members in a letter posted Monday on Twitter.
> 
> Floyd had landed five years behind bars in 2009 for an assault and
> robbery two years earlier, and before that, had been convicted of
> charges ranging from theft with a firearm to drugs, the Daily Mail
> reported.
> 
> 
> https://nypost.com/2020/06/02/george-floyd-had-violent-criminal-history-minneapolis-union-chief/
> 
> -
> 
> ["The head of the Minneapolis police union says George Floyd’s “violent
> criminal history” needs to be remembered and that the protests over his
> death are the work of a “terrorist movement.”
> 
> Floyd had landed five years behind bars in 2009 for an assault and
> robbery two years earlier, and before that, had been convicted of
> charges ranging from theft with a firearm to drugs, the Daily Mail
> reported
> <."]" rel="noopener" 
> target="_blank">https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8366533/George-Floyd-moved-Minneapolis-start-new-life-released-prison-Texas.html>."]
>  
> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8366533/George-Floyd-moved-Minneapolis-start-new-life-released-prison-Texas.html
> 
> Sounds like there goes what middle class support there might have been
> for the protests. The largest middle class buffer between the working
> class and corporate power on the planet. More divide and rule.
> 
> And what charges will a middle class jury convict Chauvin for, let alone
> the others charged, with this information before them? Especially now
> that a Black Muslim State Attorney General, Keith Ellison, will now lead
> the prosecution?
> 
> And what does that mean for any meaningful "reform" of police conduct?
> We know the answer to that from the last 200+ years of racism -- squat.
> 
> So will the next murder of a Black person by the cops see increasingly
> militarized police clamping down from the get-go, with surveillance,
> drones, lethal automated weapons? And where do we go from there?
> 
> We're not rich enough to go into outer space and colonize with Jeff
> Bezos and Elon Musk.
> 
> I visualize a response similar to the million-person gathering at the
> Washington Monument against the US war on the Vietnamese people, only
> next time, 3 million or 5 million pushing down the barriers around the
> White House. Will the military follow their Comdr in Chief's orders to
> fire on that many of their fellow beings? And then what?
> 
> Well, that's my vision.
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[Marxism] 54 Percent of Americans Think Burning Down Minneapolis Police Precinct Was Justified After George Floyd's Death

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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https://www.newsweek.com/54-americans-think-burning-down-minneapolis-police-precinct-was-justified-after-george-floyds-1508452

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[Marxism] In north Minneapolis, neighbors patrol 'to make sure our people can eat'

2020-06-03 Thread Thomas Campbell via Marxism
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In north Minneapolis, neighbors patrol 'to make sure our people can eat'
Although riots have waned, vigilance remains.
Libor Jany
Minneapolis Star Tribune
JUNE 3, 2020

When Rev. Jerry McAfee saw the fires were getting closer, he knew So Low
Grocery Outlet had to be protected.

And so he organized nightly patrols to keep an eye on one of the few
discount food stores in north Minneapolis that hadn’t closed out of fear of
the COVID-19 pandemic or looting.

The idea came about when he got a worried call from So Low’s owner, after
several area businesses were torched under mysterious circumstances, says
McAfee, the pastor at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church. He started
working the phones, and eventually rounded up a group of pastors and gang
members — “Bloods, GDs, Vice Lords,” he says — to man the patrols.

“Those they wanted to call menaces to society are now holding the community
down,” he said.

Their charge: protecting a market that needy residents depend on daily for
food and other necessities, McAfee said.

“That’s not even a black owned business, but that’s the only one that black
folks can get to,” he said of the market. “This one, our sole purpose was
to make sure our people can eat.

“If it goes up, then our people will have to go a long ways to get
groceries,” he said.

The police killing of George Floyd last week galvanized street protests
nationwide and prompted officials in several states to mobilize National
Guard troops and impose curfews; in Minnesota alone, hundreds of buildings
were looted and or torched last week.

Derek Chauvin faces murder and manslaughter charges in the killing of
George Floyd, after bystander video showed the former police officer
pinning his knee on Floyd’s neck for minutes. Chauvin and the other three
officers present were all fired and have since been charged.

While residents and shopkeepers along Lake Street in the south Minneapolis
police precinct where Floyd was killed bore the brunt of the rioting, at
least 17 North Side businesses were also damaged, according to a Star
Tribune database. Most of the vandalized or burned businesses there were
along W. Broadway Avenue, the area’s main commercial artery, but McAfee
still worried. The area contains some of the city’s most impoverished
neighborhoods.

McAfee’s volunteers started posting up outside the market at 3111 N.
Emerson Av. most nights, looking out for suspicious vehicles and anyone who
didn’t have any business in the area after dark, he said. “You come up in
there, you have trouble,” he said.

With widespread reports of arsonists and people with guns roving around,
similar civilian patrols have popped all over the city, with residents
blocking off streets with makeshift barricades and erecting floodlights to
protect their neighborhoods from would-be rioters. In some areas, neighbors
have started private WhatsApp groups to share minute-by-minute information
and photos of suspected troublemakers in the area and, hopefully, correct
misinformation that often spreads in times of crisis.

Others have armed themselves, which has caught the eye of police and
sometimes causes confusion, as with the 911 caller who reported seeing
several men with “machine guns” getting out of a Jeep late Tuesday. They
turned out to be private security guards.

Last week, McAfee sent several of his volunteers down to help out another
security detail on W. Broadway, after he says some shady-looking people
kept circling the block, arousing suspicion, and his men heard gunfire ring
out, he said.

“We all working together,” he said.

For years, parts of north Minneapolis were seen as so-called “food deserts.”

Big chains like Kowalski’s and Supervalu have come and gone in recent
years. Today, residents’ options consist of a handful of convenience
stores, Aldi and Cub Foods and North Market, a community wellness center
and grocery store run by nonprofit Pillsbury United Communities that opened
two years ago. Some places closed their doors after peaceful protests
turned violent and looting ensued across the city.

McAfee said that he was as upset by Floyd’s death as anyone else, but at
the same time he was frustrated with how “flippant” some protesters were
about looting at the Cub Foods on E. Lake Street.

“I’m never against protest, but I absolutely cannot stand for you to be so
enraged that you don’t think about your actions,” he said. “And so with one
strike of one match, without one thought about it, you decimate the
oppressed that you claim be trying to defend.”
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Re: [Marxism] George Floyd had 'violent criminal history': Minneapolis union chief

2020-06-03 Thread Ralph Johansen via Marxism

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Louis Proyect wrote

(A familiar refrain as if being an ex-con excuses someone's knee on his 
neck for over 8 minutes.)


“What is not being told is the violent criminal history of George Floyd. 
The media will not air this,” police union president Bob Kroll told his 
members in a letter posted Monday on Twitter.


Floyd had landed five years behind bars in 2009 for an assault and 
robbery two years earlier, and before that, had been convicted of 
charges ranging from theft with a firearm to drugs, the Daily Mail 
reported.


https://nypost.com/2020/06/02/george-floyd-had-violent-criminal-history-minneapolis-union-chief/



["The head of the Minneapolis police union says George Floyd’s “violent 
criminal history” needs to be remembered and that the protests over his 
death are the work of a “terrorist movement.”


Floyd had landed five years behind bars in 2009 for an assault and 
robbery two years earlier, and before that, had been convicted of 
charges ranging from theft with a firearm to drugs, the Daily Mail 
reported 
."]


Sounds like there goes what middle class support there might have been 
for the protests. The largest middle class buffer between the working 
class and corporate power on the planet. More divide and rule.


And what charges will a middle class jury convict Chauvin for, let alone 
the others charged, with this information before them? Especially now 
that a Black Muslim State Attorney General, Keith Ellison, will now lead 
the prosecution?


And what does that mean for any meaningful "reform" of police conduct? 
We know the answer to that from the last 200+ years of racism -- squat.


So will the next murder of a Black person by the cops see increasingly 
militarized police clamping down from the get-go, with surveillance, 
drones, lethal automated weapons? And where do we go from there?


We're not rich enough to go into outer space and colonize with Jeff 
Bezos and Elon Musk.


I visualize a response similar to the million-person gathering at the 
Washington Monument against the US war on the Vietnamese people, only 
next time, 3 million or 5 million pushing down the barriers around the 
White House. Will the military follow their Comdr in Chief's orders to 
fire on that many of their fellow beings? And then what?


Well, that's my vision.
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[Marxism] Revisiting the cruel tribulations of God’s biggest fan - Sam Lipsyte - Bookforum Magazine

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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Really great piece on COVID-19 and the Book of Job.

https://www.bookforum.com/print/2702/revisiting-the-cruel-tribulations-of-god-s-biggest-fan-24026

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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

2020-06-03 Thread Jeffrey Masko via Marxism
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Jeez, antifa is a subculture like punk-rock, actually it's a sub-sub
culture of punk rock. Ask someone if they belong to punk rock and they will
shake their head, even if they still go to Gilman street punk rock shows.
Can subcultures be reactionary and violent? Sure, look at outlaw bikers.
But to ask if they are revolutionary (whether they be bikers or antifa
kids) is like asking if a left jab is revolutionary as rioting is a
technique or move and not even a tactic.
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[Marxism] The next Amy Cooper - NYC socialite falsely calls cops on Black woman in public park

2020-06-03 Thread Dennis Brasky via Marxism
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According to The *Daily Mail
,*
Flom
co-owns Madison Vivienne, a French restaurant with locations in Southampton
and the Upper East Side.  New Yorkers should publicize this story and
organize a boycott of her restaurants.

https://thegrio.com/2020/06/01/white-woman-calls-cops-nyc-park/
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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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On 6/3/20 2:03 PM, Ron Jacobs via Marxism wrote:

The responses to my defense of antifa were predictable. Louis, like he
usually does, confuses the amorphous and difficult to define antifa with
the black bloc which operates somewhere between the autonomist movement and
the early weatherman ( days of rage).


It is not difficult at all. Antifa means street-fighting as if this were 
the Weimar Republic in 1928. I have not heard about some other type of 
activism it is involved with. Which leads me to ask what role it plays, 
if any, in the protests today. If the goal is to confront and beat down 
fascists, I am not sure how they relate. It's been a while since there's 
been any fascist parades, right?


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[Marxism] Ellison to charge Chauvin with 2nd degree; others to be charged - StarTribune.com

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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https://www.startribune.com/ellison-to-charge-chauvin-with-second-degree-murder/570984872/

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[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-Slavery]: Pasierowska on Aidoo, 'Slavery Unseen: Sex, Power, and Violence in Brazilian History'

2020-06-03 Thread Andrew Stewart via Marxism
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Best regards,
Andrew Stewart 
- - -
Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via 
https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/

Begin forwarded message:

> From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW 
> Date: June 3, 2020 at 1:30:11 PM EDT
> To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> Cc: H-Net Staff 
> Subject: H-Net Review [H-Slavery]:  Pasierowska on Aidoo, 'Slavery Unseen: 
> Sex, Power, and Violence in Brazilian History'
> Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> 
> Lamonte Aidoo.  Slavery Unseen: Sex, Power, and Violence in Brazilian 
> History.  Latin America Otherwise Series. Durham  Duke University 
> Press, 2018.  272 pp.  $26.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8223-7129-8; $99.95 
> (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8223-7116-8.
> 
> Reviewed by Rachael Pasierowska (Rice University)
> Published on H-Slavery (June, 2020)
> Commissioned by Andrew J. Kettler
> 
> Power and control are the central themes that drive Lamonte Aidoo's 
> captivating study, which explores the many multifaceted components of 
> sex from within Brazilian slavery. By employing a wide variety of 
> sources from travelers' narratives to legal records, _ Slavery 
> Unseen: Sex, Power, and Violence in Brazilian History_ argues that 
> interracial sex played a crucial role in the formation and evolution 
> of racial exceptionalism. Moreover, Aidoo purports that the practice 
> of sex between blacks and whites enabled a crossing--and at times 
> even erasure--of racial barriers, ultimately demonstrating how race 
> in Brazil could be and was in a constant state of movement and 
> transcendence. 
> 
> Through sex and its respective activities, both black and white, 
> slave and free, male and female, Brazilians created a complex milieu 
> that portrayed both free blacks and enslaved blacks as licentious and 
> dangerous personages. Aidoo shows how this image prevailed regardless 
> of whether blacks were the victims in such acts. Thus, we see how 
> sexual power allowed white men to retain a masculine identity, in 
> juxtaposition to black males who often found themselves stripped of 
> the stereotypical male identity through white exploitation. 
> 
> Furthermore, he illustrates how white slave mistresses might exploit 
> the bodies of black women through prostitution or even sexual 
> activities between mistress and slave in the private sphere. In so 
> doing, white slave mistresses attained a level of agency that was 
> often denied them in nineteenth-century Brazilian society, in 
> addition to economic profits resulting from slave prostitution. 
> Concluding with later twentieth-century depictions of the slave Xica 
> da Silva, Aidoo demonstrates how the legacy of slavery and the sexual 
> victimization in conjunction with the exploitation of black bodies 
> persisted for over a century following the abolition of Brazilian 
> slavery in 1888. Both a film and a later telenovela show the enslaved 
> Xica da Silva as a willing actor and participant in interracial 
> sexual intercourse with her master, which as a consequence masked the 
> brutal violence of rape. 
> 
> The extent of Aidoo's research is laudable and demonstrates the great 
> amount of work this project entailed: the primary source material is 
> extensive, comprising imagery, Inquisition records and trial scripts, 
> popular literature, medical literature, and travel narratives, among 
> others. Through reading these sources in conjunction with one another 
> we get a detailed depiction of sexual relations in Brazil in the 
> nineteenth century, which gives the reader an objective and nuanced 
> understanding of such rapports. By studying sources together, the 
> author is able to tease out the voices of the victims who were often 
> invisible actors and unable to resist the brutalities thrust upon 
> them. Regarding secondary sources, Aidoo exemplifies a great level of 
> familiarity with Brazilian scholarship, such as the work of Gilberto 
> Freyre, among others, and creates a study that is rich in sources and 
> engages with both primary and secondary literature in a way that is 
> consistent and praiseworthy. 
> 
> _Slavery Unseen_ goes beyond typical studies of power and sexual 
> violence by moving away from the quintessential master and enslaved 
> female dialectic. Thus, we learn about the sexual abuse of male 
> slaves, the complex relationships between Brazilian white mistresses 
> and enslaved women, sexual violence among blacks both slave and free, 
> and finally, homosexual intercourse between black males. Although the 
> author sets out that this study is not wholly comparative in nature, 
> _Slavery Unseen_ draws many parallels between the study of sexuality 
> and sexual relations 

[Marxism] Re antifa

2020-06-03 Thread Ron Jacobs via Marxism
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The responses to my defense of antifa were predictable. Louis, like he
usually does, confuses the amorphous and difficult to define antifa with
the black bloc which operates somewhere between the autonomist movement and
the early weatherman ( days of rage).  Once that misrepresentation is
assumed, he proceeds with criticism that is both warranted and unwarranted.
He and I have debated this more than once. Ken's comments seem to reflect
the former ISO position, which is actually not counter to most antifa
manifestations.  In other words, the most effective way to shut down
fascists is through mass protests. Obviously, the militance of those
protests depends on the locale and other such things that always come into
play at protests.
Misconstruing antifa is part of what my piece was about. Even the FBI has
stated they have no evidence of Antifa involvement in rioting or looting
this past week-- whatever that's worth.
Ron j
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[Marxism] Karl Marx on rioting

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/11/04.htm

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[Marxism] [UCE] Marxism and Rioting

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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http://www.whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext19/Rioting.html

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[Marxism] Opinion | Cameras Didn't Save George Floyd. They Can't Stop Police Brutality. - The New York Times

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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Best read on NYT for embedded videos.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/george-floyd-video-police.html

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[Marxism] Bolsonaro Is Bizarre. But He Knows What He’s Doing.

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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NY Times Op-Ed, June 3, 2020
Bolsonaro Is Bizarre. But He Knows What He’s Doing.
Brazil’s president doesn’t need to centralize power to get his way.
By Miguel Lago and Alessandra Orofino

RIO DE JANEIRO — More than 30,000 deaths. Widespread social devastation. 
Overwhelmed hospitals. An economy on the precipice of disaster. In 
Brazil — the worst-hit country in South America, a new epicenter of the 
coronavirus — the situation is dire.


And yet its president, Jair Bolsonaro, lives in another reality.

The virus is “a little flu,” about whose spread he can do nothing other 
than to recommend chloroquine as a miracle cure. Now on his third health 
minister, Mr. Bolsonaro seems to actively oppose the measures of his own 
government. He has appeared at anti-lockdown protests and fulminated 
against state governors who adopted quarantine measures. Far from taking 
control, Mr. Bolsonaro has reveled in chaos.


His behavior, even viewed from President Trump’s United States, is 
bizarre. A military man with a long history of praising the dictatorship 
that held the country in its grip for over 20 years, Mr. Bolsonaro could 
have used the epidemic to seize more power — following in the footsteps 
of Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, for whom the crisis was the 
perfect opportunity to secure greatly expanded powers.


But he hasn’t. Instead, Mr. Bolsonaro has screamed from the sidelines of 
a country he nominally rules. It’s tempting to dismiss his behavior as 
so much weirdness. But the truth is more disturbing: Mr. Bolsonaro knows 
what he’s doing.


In Brazil, the president’s authority is limited in a number of ways. 
First, there’s the Supreme Court, ready to check any overweening moves. 
Then the composition of Congress, fractured into a host of small 
parties, forces heads of state into intricate arrangements and 
concessions. Mr. Bolsonaro, who is currently without an official party, 
has many allies in Congress — but not a solid majority.


What’s more, state governments are almost entirely free to set and carry 
out their own public policies, especially on health care and public 
security. In its regional and parliamentary complexity, Brazil’s 
political system makes it difficult to wield outright executive power.


But not impossible. The country’s sheer size — 27 states spread across a 
land mass bigger than Australia — and relatively young democracy, 
emerging from dictatorship in 1985, have led to a dispersed, uneven 
political system with many centers of authority. This allows for 
subversion: Rogue individuals within institutions can abuse their 
influence and official roles, often for ideological ends. These are the 
individuals Mr. Bolsonaro speaks to directly, fanning his agenda across 
the country while sidestepping the constraints on his power.


The results speak for themselves. A pro-Bolsonaro district attorney sued 
a doctor for conducting a disappointing trial study on the use of 
chloroquine. Military police officers in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, 
who officially answer to their respective states, protected 
pro-Bolsonaro protesters who actively broke the governors’ social 
distancing orders. And an employee of a government ministry assaulted 
and spat at nurses protesting for better working conditions.


Mr. Bolsonaro has allies in positions of power within civil society, 
too. Evangelical pastors, who routinely speak about the president in 
messianic terms, have refused to close their doors to the public. 
Illegal loggers have invaded Indigenous land in the Amazon, claiming 
that the president will legitimize the land grab sooner or later. And 
the country’s truck drivers, who are thought to have held meetings with 
Mr. Bolsonaro, have threatened to stop working if quarantine policies 
are not lifted by state governors, raising the terrifying prospect of 
empty supermarket shelves.


In all of these cases, individuals in institutions or networks took 
action autonomously, without answering to higher authority. Part of the 
digitally driven movement that elected Mr. Bolsonaro, they listen to his 
frequent dog-whistles — or, in many instances, direct exhortations — and 
then take matters in their own hands.


Some of what they consume is available to public scrutiny, on open 
platforms like Twitter or YouTube. But some of it is shared only 
privately through WhatsApp. And it appears to come from high places: 
Content can often be traced back to the president’s inner circle — or 
even to Mr. Bolsonaro himself. In February, he shared a particularly 
dramatic video urging his supporters to protest against Congress.


That episode underlined something important: Mr. 

[Marxism] US racial inequality in 6 stark charts - CNNPolitics

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/politics/black-white-us-financial-inequality/index.html

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Re: [Marxism] a defense of antifa

2020-06-03 Thread Ken Hiebert via Marxism
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In his article In Defence of Antifa Ron Jacobs makes the point,  "The 
unfortunate (for some) truth is that sometimes, you gotta’ fight fascists if 
you want to fight fascsim. Vigils don’t make them go away.”
I have to agree.  The question is, how best to do that.  So I don’t want to 
compare Antifa’s efforts with vigils.  I think it is more fruitful to compare 
their efforts with other anti-fascist mobilizations.
I think the best anti-fascist mobilizations leave behind a mobilized and 
self-confident mass of people. The organizing efforts are very public.  I have 
three cases I want to mention.

50,000 Anti-Nazis Answer SWP Call
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/swp-us/education/antifascism/silver.htm
 


* * * * * * * *

Minneapolis response to Silver Shirts, 1938
https://isreview.org/issue/85/it-cant-happen-here 

“This [the Silver Shirt threat] situation called for prompt countermeasures,” 
wrote Farrell Dobbs thirty-five years later. “So Local 544, acting with its 
customary decisiveness, answered the threat by organizing a union defense guard 
during August 1938.”60 The SWP wanted the union defense to be a broad formation.

Conceptually, the guard was not envisaged as the narrow formation of a single 
union. It was viewed rather as the nucleus around which to build the broadest 
possible united defense movement. It was expected that time and events could 
also make it possible to extend the united front to include the unemployed, 
minority peoples, youth—all potential victims of the fascists, vigilantes, or 
other reactionaries.61

* * * * * * *

Vancouver, BC 1993
I was among a large number of people who organized in response to a planned 
visit by Tom Metzger, an American fascist.  We organized a rally of thousands.  
The fascists were obliged to keep their meeting place secret, but we found them 
after all and they took off.  As a footnote, one of the central organizers of 
that fascist effort has since repented and become an an anti-racist.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/04/life-after-hate-groups-neo-fascism-racism
 

Alan Dutton, the director of the Canadian Anti-Racism Education and Research 
Society , also lives in Vancouver. Back in 1993, he 
had McAleer in his sights.

When he and other organisers heard about the plans to bring Metzger over, “We 
organized a demonstration and brought about 3,000 people into downtown 
Vancouver. Around the same time we also organized demonstrations against a band 
he managed called Odin’s Law.”
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Re: [Marxism] a defense of antifa

2020-06-03 Thread Jeffrey Masko via Marxism
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We cant rule out th post office and others were th result of boogoloo bois.

On Wed, Jun 3, 2020, 9:06 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> *
>
> On 6/3/20 10:42 AM, Ron Jacobs via Marxism wrote:
> >
> > http://stillhomeron.blogspot.com/2020/06/in-defense-of-antifa.html
> >
>
> "The unfortunate (for some) truth is that sometimes, you gotta’ fight
> fascists if you want to fight fascsim. [sic]"
>
> The truth is concrete.
>
> At the outset of the Minneapolis protests, this meant arson. The Migizi
> American Indian community center burned to the ground. When I brought
> this to the attention of a riot fetishist on FB, he told me that the
> center was not targeted. It accidentally caught fire from an adjacent
> building. It took me a few minutes to discover that the targeted
> building was a post office.
>
> Torching a post office means that people anxiously awaiting an
> unemployment check or a medical report are shit out of luck. This
> "diversity of tactics" business goes back to the anti-WTO protests in
> Seattle in 1999. For the next decade, the black bloc showed up at every
> one of these protests to fight the cops in order to breach a WTO meeting
> behind a guarded perimeter. None of this had the slightest impact on the
> WTO.
>
> Black bloc tactics have now focused on fighting the fascists and the
> cops. Fascists might not get invitations to colleges nowadays but they
> certainly are bigger than ever. My impression is that they figured out
> rallies and marches don't work. I also believe that they are focused on
> building up their ranks in the police and army.
>
> As for the cops, burning post offices or looting an Aldo shoe boutique
> will never have any effect on killer cops. Here in NYC, stop and frisk
> has almost completely disappeared. It was not breaking Starbucks windows
> that had an impact. It was a peaceful, legal protest that helped to turn
> things around.
>
> ---
>
> NY Times, June 17, 2012
> Thousands March Silently to Protest Stop-and-Frisk Policies
> By John Leland and Colin Moynihan
>
> In a slow, somber procession, several thousand demonstrators conducted a
> silent march on Sunday down Fifth Avenue to protest the New York Police
> Department’s stop-and-frisk policies, which the organizers say single
> out minority groups and create an atmosphere of martial law for the
> city’s black and Latino residents.
>
> Two and a half hours after it began, the peaceful, disciplined march
> ended in mild disarray. As many marchers dispersed, police officers at
> 77th Street and Fifth Avenue began pushing a crowd that defied orders to
> leave the intersection, shoving some to the ground and forcing the
> protesters to a sidewalk, where they were corralled behind metal
> barricades. After protesters pushed back, the officers used an orange
> net to clear the sidewalk, and appeared to arrest at least three people.
>
> The presence of several elected officials at the march, including the
> Democratic mayoral hopefuls Bill de Blasio, the public advocate;
> Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker; Scott M. Stringer, the
> Manhattan borough president; and William C. Thompson, the former city
> comptroller, seemed to signal a solidifying opposition to the policy,
> which has long been opposed by civil rights groups.
>
> Wade Cummings, 46, a teacher, attended with his 19-year-old son, Tarik.
> Both said they had been stopped by police officers — once for the
> father, three times for the son.
>
> “I’m concerned about him being stopped and it escalating,” the father
> said. “I like to believe I taught him not to escalate this situation,
> but you never know how it’s going to go down.”
>
> Police officers stopped nearly 700,000 people last year, 87 percent of
> them black or Latino. Of those stopped, more than half were also frisked.
>
> The protest, which began at 3 p.m., followed recent remarks by Mayor
> Michael R. Bloomberg that he planned to scale back and amend the
> practice, amid escalating protests.
>
> “It’s clear that the mayor and police commissioner are hearing the
> message,” said Leslie Cagan, one of the march’s organizers. “They’re
> taking steps that might be small improvements, but what’s really needed
> is a stopping of stop-and-frisk. Many cities have had significant
> reductions of crime without it.”
>
> Mr. 

Re: [Marxism] As Trump Threatens to Send Military Into Cities, Some GIs Refuse to Comply

2020-06-03 Thread Jeffrey Masko via Marxism
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Sometimes folks don't understand why there are armed left militias. A major
thrust of these organizations is to organize GI's and ex-military folks who
are against the present regime.

Militias of today do not think that they will ever be able to mount
guerrilla Warfare of any kind without the backing of at least some sections
of the military. The job of these groups are ideological and use expressive
tactics rather than simply military ones.

The bridge between regular troops who are sick of military lies and finding
ways to respond are folks that come from th same background, but have
chosen a different path.

This is why middle class folks are not important to us, they get no respect
in our communities and consistently tell us how to behave from positions of
safety without th experience we've had.

We will always look to our organic intellectuals who will resonate with our
daily lives rather than self appointed or institutional  experts.


On Wed, Jun 3, 2020, 9:06 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
>
> https://truthout.org/articles/as-trump-threatens-to-send-military-into-cities-some-gis-refuse-to-comply/
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Re: [Marxism] a defense of antifa

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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On 6/3/20 12:27 PM, Jeffrey Masko wrote:

We cant rule out th post office and others were th result of boogoloo bois.


That's true but it is the adventurism of the black bloc types that 
provides a cover for their intervention. If the anarchists who fetishize 
this crap were not such a self-satisfied cult, they might be open to 
persuasion. I understand how some on the left cannot see beyond their 
own nose. I had the same experience for 11 years.


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[Marxism] Trump’s photo with his loyalists was a vulgar mess. And Ivanka brought a handbag.

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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Washington Post, June 3, 2020
Trump’s photo with his loyalists was a vulgar mess. And Ivanka brought a 
handbag.

By Robin Givhan, Fashion critic

The president could have opened the Bible. He could have read Psalm 23. 
The Lord is my shepherd. Federal law enforcement had just fired tear gas 
at peaceful demonstrators, pelted them with rubber bullets and chased 
them away on horseback. Trump now had the secured space to stand in 
front of cameras in front of a historic church. And he couldn’t even be 
bothered to crack the spine on the holy book.


Instead, he corralled members of his staff for a photograph that, in its 
nightmarish awkwardness, revealed all the ineptitude, cowardliness and 
pettiness for which the whole charade was a grotesque cover.


After a law-and-order speech in the White House Rose Garden, President 
Trump strode across Lafayette Square to the unassuming facade of St. 
John’s Episcopal Church. He didn’t go inside. Instead, the structure 
loomed behind him — a lemon-yellow, three-dimensional set for his 
tortured stage play.


The president was accompanied by a throng of staff, but the person who 
stood out in the blur of dark suits crossing the square was his daughter 
and adviser Ivanka. Always Ivanka. She stood tall on her stilettos. She 
rose, golden-haired, above the group. She was dressed in black cropped 
pants and blazer. She was toting a very large white handbag and later 
was wearing a matching face mask with tiny metallic stars.


Ivanka long ago perfected the art of playing the part, of moving through 
life like an Instagram feed made real. Over the weekend, she’d tweeted a 
Bible verse. That was followed by an acknowledgment of Pride Month with 
a rainbow line of heart emoji. And now she was in the park just 
violently cleared of peaceful protesters. She was surrounded by police 
in riot gear. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark A. Milley, 
was in camouflage.


If other members of the administration were trudging across the plaza to 
a kind of doomed publicity stunt, Ivanka looked as though she were just 
gliding through — on her way home after a busy day in a comfortable 
corner office doing important things. As one of the few women in the 
group, she already stood apart. Her mask made her a laudable loner. The 
handbag clasped in her right hand announced that she was not sticking 
around. She was there, but not committed — not to empathy, not to the 
militaristic display of strength, not to this gamesmanship, not to the 
horrors of this national stress test, not to anything but the 
Ivanka-ness of her public image, which is always about being power-adjacent.


Ivanka doggedly inserts herself into the center of photographs and 
conversations where she does not seem to belong, but this time she 
remained on the sidelines when the posing started.


Attorney General William P. Barr, national security adviser Robert 
O’Brien and White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany were among those 
pulled center stage with Trump. Barr stared slack-jawed in an 
open-collar shirt, no tie. His jacket was open. O’Brien was buttoned up 
in a gray suit with a pale blue tie that was a shade lighter than the 
president’s, which trailed below his waistband as usual. McEnany was in 
a closefitting double-breasted blazer with gold metallic buttons and 
skinny trousers. She was perched atop a pair of stiletto pumps — a style 
of footwear that this White House, all on its own, may be keeping in 
circulation.


None of them was wearing a mask, because that would remind everyone that 
the world is still facing a pandemic, and besides, the masks would ruin 
the picture. Everyone stood apart, but not six feet apart. They didn’t 
lower their head in prayer or silent tribute to George Floyd — the man 
whose death after nearly nine minutes under the knee of a white 
Minneapolis police officer sparked this uprising. Their arms dangled at 
their side. No one seemed to know where to look or what to do or how 
long to stand there.


In some of the photographs, one can see Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, as 
well as Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper. They don’t elevate the images; 
they only make them more desperate — just two more faces looking blankly 
into the distance.


The photographs in front of St. John’s captured the president’s 
fundamental discomfort with what it means to exist out in the open where 
people do not soothe him with flattery, where brute force is an 
accelerant, not an answer, and where imperfect lives spill outside their 
borders. Trump worked so hard for his flaccid, sanitized photograph: a 
man standing with nothing but white bureaucrats — most of them men — 

[Marxism] As Trump Threatens to Send Military Into Cities, Some GIs Refuse to Comply

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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https://truthout.org/articles/as-trump-threatens-to-send-military-into-cities-some-gis-refuse-to-comply/

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Re: [Marxism] a defense of antifa

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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On 6/3/20 10:42 AM, Ron Jacobs via Marxism wrote:


http://stillhomeron.blogspot.com/2020/06/in-defense-of-antifa.html



"The unfortunate (for some) truth is that sometimes, you gotta’ fight 
fascists if you want to fight fascsim. [sic]"


The truth is concrete.

At the outset of the Minneapolis protests, this meant arson. The Migizi 
American Indian community center burned to the ground. When I brought 
this to the attention of a riot fetishist on FB, he told me that the 
center was not targeted. It accidentally caught fire from an adjacent 
building. It took me a few minutes to discover that the targeted 
building was a post office.


Torching a post office means that people anxiously awaiting an 
unemployment check or a medical report are shit out of luck. This 
"diversity of tactics" business goes back to the anti-WTO protests in 
Seattle in 1999. For the next decade, the black bloc showed up at every 
one of these protests to fight the cops in order to breach a WTO meeting 
behind a guarded perimeter. None of this had the slightest impact on the 
WTO.


Black bloc tactics have now focused on fighting the fascists and the 
cops. Fascists might not get invitations to colleges nowadays but they 
certainly are bigger than ever. My impression is that they figured out 
rallies and marches don't work. I also believe that they are focused on 
building up their ranks in the police and army.


As for the cops, burning post offices or looting an Aldo shoe boutique 
will never have any effect on killer cops. Here in NYC, stop and frisk 
has almost completely disappeared. It was not breaking Starbucks windows 
that had an impact. It was a peaceful, legal protest that helped to turn 
things around.


---

NY Times, June 17, 2012
Thousands March Silently to Protest Stop-and-Frisk Policies
By John Leland and Colin Moynihan

In a slow, somber procession, several thousand demonstrators conducted a 
silent march on Sunday down Fifth Avenue to protest the New York Police 
Department’s stop-and-frisk policies, which the organizers say single 
out minority groups and create an atmosphere of martial law for the 
city’s black and Latino residents.


Two and a half hours after it began, the peaceful, disciplined march 
ended in mild disarray. As many marchers dispersed, police officers at 
77th Street and Fifth Avenue began pushing a crowd that defied orders to 
leave the intersection, shoving some to the ground and forcing the 
protesters to a sidewalk, where they were corralled behind metal 
barricades. After protesters pushed back, the officers used an orange 
net to clear the sidewalk, and appeared to arrest at least three people.


The presence of several elected officials at the march, including the 
Democratic mayoral hopefuls Bill de Blasio, the public advocate; 
Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker; Scott M. Stringer, the 
Manhattan borough president; and William C. Thompson, the former city 
comptroller, seemed to signal a solidifying opposition to the policy, 
which has long been opposed by civil rights groups.


Wade Cummings, 46, a teacher, attended with his 19-year-old son, Tarik. 
Both said they had been stopped by police officers — once for the 
father, three times for the son.


“I’m concerned about him being stopped and it escalating,” the father 
said. “I like to believe I taught him not to escalate this situation, 
but you never know how it’s going to go down.”


Police officers stopped nearly 700,000 people last year, 87 percent of 
them black or Latino. Of those stopped, more than half were also frisked.


The protest, which began at 3 p.m., followed recent remarks by Mayor 
Michael R. Bloomberg that he planned to scale back and amend the 
practice, amid escalating protests.


“It’s clear that the mayor and police commissioner are hearing the 
message,” said Leslie Cagan, one of the march’s organizers. “They’re 
taking steps that might be small improvements, but what’s really needed 
is a stopping of stop-and-frisk. Many cities have had significant 
reductions of crime without it.”


Mr. Bloomberg has argued that stop-and-frisk gets guns off the street 
and reduces crime. The march, which stretched for about 20 blocks, ended 
at East 78th Street, a block from the mayor’s residence.


Demonstrators mostly adhered to the organizers’ call to march in 
silence, hushing talkers along the route. Members of labor unions and 
the N.A.A.C.P. appeared to predominate, but there were also student 
groups, Occupy Wall Street, Common Cause, the Universal Zulu Nation and 
the Answer Coalition. A group of Quakers carried a banner criticizing 
the stop-and-frisk practice; other signs read, “Skin 

[Marxism] a defense of antifa

2020-06-03 Thread Ron Jacobs via Marxism
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http://stillhomeron.blogspot.com/2020/06/in-defense-of-antifa.html

-- 
Check out my newest books* Trumpism: Winter in America

(PDF version only), **Still Tripping in the Dark

*,* Capitalism
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and Daydream Sunset:60s Counterculture in the 70s
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[Marxism] How Trump’s Idea for a Photo Op Led to Havoc in a Park

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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(Mind-blowing report on White House madness.)

NY Times, June 3, 2020
How Trump’s Idea for a Photo Op Led to Havoc in a Park
When the history of the Trump presidency is written, the clash with 
protesters that preceded President Trump’s walk across Lafayette Square 
may be remembered as one of its defining moments..


By Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman, Katie Rogers, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and 
Katie BennerVideos by Haley Willis, Christiaan Triebert and David Botti


WASHINGTON — After a weekend of protests that led all the way to his own 
front yard and forced him to briefly retreat to a bunker beneath the 
White House, President Trump arrived in the Oval Office on Monday 
agitated over the television images, annoyed that anyone would think he 
was hiding and eager for action.


He wanted to send the military into American cities, an idea that 
provoked a heated, voices-raised fight among his advisers. But by the 
end of the day, urged on by his daughter Ivanka Trump, he came up with a 
more personal way of demonstrating toughness — he would march across 
Lafayette Square to a church damaged by fire the night before.


The only problem: A plan developed earlier in the day to expand the 
security perimeter around the White House had not been carried out. When 
Attorney General William P. Barr strode out of the White House gates for 
a personal inspection early Monday evening, he discovered that 
protesters were still on the northern edge of the square. For the 
president to make it to St. John’s Church, they would have to be cleared 
out. Mr. Barr gave the order to disperse them.


What ensued was a burst of violence unlike any seen in the shadow of the 
White House in generations. As he prepared for his surprise march to the 
church, Mr. Trump first went before cameras in the Rose Garden to 
declare himself “your president of law and order” but also “an ally of 
all peaceful protesters,” even as peaceful protesters just a block away 
and clergy members on the church patio were routed by smoke and flash 
grenades and some form of chemical spray deployed by shield-bearing riot 
officers and mounted police.


After a day in which he berated “weak” governors and lectured them to 
“dominate” the demonstrators, the president emerged from the White 
House, followed by a phalanx of aides and Secret Service agents as he 
made his way to the church, where he posed stern-faced, holding up a 
Bible that his daughter pulled out of her $1,540 MaxMara bag.


The resulting photographs of Mr. Trump striding purposefully across the 
square satisfied his long-held desire to project strength, images that 
members of his re-election campaign team quickly began recirculating and 
pinning to their Twitter home pages once he was safely back in the 
fortified White House.


The scene of mayhem that preceded the walk — barely 1,000 feet from the 
symbol of American democracy —  evoked images more commonly associated 
with authoritarian countries, but that did not bother the president, who 
has long flirted with overseas strongmen and has expressed envy of their 
ability to dominate.


Throughout his time in office, Mr. Trump has generated concern over what 
critics see as his autocratic instincts, including his claims to 
untrammeled power to “do whatever I want,” his attacks on 
quasi-autonomous institutions of government like the F.B.I. or 
inspectors general and his efforts to discredit independent sources of 
information that anger him, like the news media he denounces as the 
“enemy of the people.”


And when the history of the Trump presidency is written, the clash at 
Lafayette Square may be remembered as one of its defining moments.


Mr. Trump and his inner circle considered it a triumph that would 
resonate with many middle Americans turned off by scenes of urban riots 
and looting that have accompanied nonviolent protests of the police 
killing of a subdued black man in Minneapolis.


But critics, including some fellow Republicans, were aghast at the use 
of force against Americans who posed no visible threat at the time, all 
to facilitate what they deemed a ham-handed photo opportunity featuring 
all white faces. Some Democratic senators used words like “fascist” and 
“dictator” to describe the president’s words and actions.


Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, who 
was not consulted beforehand, said she was “outraged” over the use of 
one of her churches as a political backdrop to boast of squelching 
protests against racism. Even some White House officials privately 
expressed dismay that the president’s entourage had not thought to 
include a single person of color.


Mayor 

[Marxism] The Ethics of Police Murder Video Exhibition: Democratizing The News Feed, Re-Traumatizing The Survivors, Or Both? - CounterPunch.org

2020-06-03 Thread Andrew Stewart via Marxism
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/03/the-ethics-of-police-murder-video-exhibition-democratizing-the-news-feed-re-traumatizing-the-survivors-or-both/#gsc.tab=0


Best regards,
Andrew Stewart 
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[Marxism] 2, 000 Instructors Tell Cuomo CUNY Must Be Protected From Budget Cuts

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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Chronicle of Higher Education, JUNE 02, 2020  PREMIUM
2,000 Instructors Tell Cuomo CUNY Must Be Protected From Budget Cuts
By Emma Pettit

More than 2,000 City University of New York faculty members are calling 
on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to swear off budget cuts and fund existing 
faculty jobs this year at the nation’s largest urban university system.


Such cuts would be “educationally damaging, economically misguided, and 
cruel,” reads a joint letter, sent on Monday. It’s the latest action 
taken by concerned instructors who see sharp reductions on the horizon.


In a plan released in April, the state’s budget office projected a 
$13.3-billion shortfall due to Covid-19. Without mitigating federal aid, 
a host of services, including higher education, would face steep cuts, 
the plan says. Some of CUNY’s 25 constituent institutions responded by 
making plans to cut faculty jobs and course sections. But the faculty 
and staff union, the Professional Staff Congress, has been fighting 
back, loudly.


From the union’s perspective, administrators are caving in too quickly 
and threatening a powerful public good. CUNY’s colleges are some of the 
most potent engines of social mobility for their hundreds of thousands 
of students. Armed with a degree, low-income black and brown students 
find footholds in the middle class. And it's those populations, the 
union notes, that have been disproportionately harmed by Covid-19 and 
that will continue to struggle in a post-pandemic economy.


If CUNY is substantially weakened, said Barbara Bowen, the union’s 
president, then it won’t be able to help the city and its residents recover.


'Harvard of the Proletariat'

First, a brief history lesson. In the mid-19th century, higher education 
in New York City was available only to the wealthy. That is, until 
Townsend Harris, president of the city’s Board of Education, declared a 
new path. The city should “open the doors to all,” he wrote in a letter 
published in two local newspapers, and “let the children of the rich and 
the poor take their seats together.”


The Free Academy was founded in 1847. It later became known as the 
“Harvard of the proletariat,” and eventually grew into a university 
system with 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, an honors 
college, and six graduate and professional schools that educate 275,000 
degree-seeking students.


Today, most of those students come from black, Latinx, or Asian 
families, many with low household incomes. CUNY students frequently work 
low-wage jobs, raise their own children, and support their parents. They 
often struggle with food and housing insecurity while managing their 
course loads, according to a 2019 Hope Center report.


Many of those students enter college poor but graduate, research has 
shown, on a route to the middle class, often the upper middle class. A 
2017 study that tracked students from nearly every college in the 
country found that the CUNY system “propelled almost six times as many 
low-income students into the middle class and beyond as all eight Ivy 
League campuses, plus Duke, MIT, Stanford, and Chicago, combined,” wrote 
a New York Times columnist.


But since long before the pandemic, CUNY has struggled from chronic 
underfunding, which in turn has hampered some student success, according 
to the union and New York City’s public advocate, who published a 
December 2019 report on the subject. Bowen told state lawmakers in 
February that the senior colleges faced a shortage of supplies and 
equipment, reduced course offerings, and cuts in library hours, and that 
faculty and staff positions were being left unfilled.


There’s also what’s known as the TAP Gap. State law requires public 
colleges to provide discounted tuition to students receiving what are 
called TAP grants. Students with the maximum award get a grant of up to 
$5,000 and a tuition waiver for charges above that. But the state 
provides CUNY with only $5,000 for that student, leaving a gap for the 
rest of the tuition that the CUNY college covers, according to the 
public advocate's report. As tuition increases, the gap that must be 
filled grows.


According to the union’s analysis, state funding per student at CUNY's 
senior colleges, when adjusted for inflation and enrollment, has 
declined by 20 percent since the 2008 recession and by nearly 5 percent 
during Cuomo’s tenure as governor.


The state budget office rejects that math. In an email a spokesman said 
the Cuomo administration places “a high value on CUNY and the education 
opportunities it provides New Yorkers, which is why it increased funding 
for CUNY 29% -- nearly $750 million -- prior 

[Marxism] Announcing the Global Prison Abolitionist Coalition and standing with Black Lives Matter protests

2020-06-03 Thread Ken Hiebert via Marxism
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Dear Friends:

Below are links to the statement of purpose of the newly formed Global Prison 
Abolitionist Coalition and an article by members of the Alliance of MENA 
Socialists  on standing with Black Lives Matter protests.  
In Solidarity, 
Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists

Statement of Purpose in English  

https://worldwithoutprisons.wordpress.com/31-2/ 
  

 Statement of Purpose in Persian

https://worldwithoutprisons.wordpress.com/statement-pr/ 
  

Statement of Purpose in Turkish
https://worldwithoutprisons.wordpress.com/kuresel-cezaevi-karsiti-koalisyonu-davet-mektubu/
 

 
 
Standing With Black Lives Matter Protests: Opposing Police Brutality, 
Militarism, and All Forms of State Violence
by Frieda Afary, Sara Abbas and Yasser Munif
https://worldwithoutprisons.wordpress.com/2020/06/02/standing-with-black-lives-matter-protests-opposing-police-brutality-militarism-and-all-forms-of-state-violence/
 

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[Marxism] Jairus Banaji on Perry Anderson (from FB)

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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Arguably the most interesting essay to appear in Britain in 1968 was 
Perry Anderson’s “Components of the National Culture”, published in New 
Left Review in July/August of that year and later described by Ian 
Birchall as Anderson’s “ponderous tour through the sterility of British 
intellectual life”. Against the background of growing student unrest in 
many universities up and down the country, Anderson saw himself 
instigating “a direct attack on the reactionary and mystifying culture 
inculcated in universities and colleges …which it is one of the 
fundamental purposes of British higher education to instil in students” 
(p.3). He argued that what set British students apart from their 
counterparts on the continent was an intellectual heritage marked by 
“the lack of any revolutionary tradition within English culture” (p.4). 
Marxist theory had never become naturalized in Britain, which remained 
the one European country “which—uniquely—never produced either a 
classical sociology or a national Marxism” (p.11). The picture could not 
have been less flattering—a bourgeoisie quiescent in its seeming 
subordination to a governing aristocracy, a working-class party (Labour) 
“untouched by Marxism” (pp.13-14), a society, England’s, defined by its 
“immutable character” (p.17). To top it all, the backbone of British 
academic life (and this was the core thesis of the essay) was formed by 
a “White”, counter-revolutionary emigration (p.18), intellectuals who 
fled fascism to settle in Britain thanks to an elective affinity for its 
mediocre, conservative culture—Wittgenstein (philosophy), Malinowski 
(anthropology), Lewis Namier (history), Karl Popper (social theory), 
Isaiah Berlin (political theory), Gombrich (aesthetics), Eysenck 
(psychology), and Melanie Klein (psychoanalysis). These expats expunged 
any sense of historical time from their respective disciplines, relying 
on modes of explanation dominated by psychologism. They “codified the 
slovenly empiricism of (Britain’s) past” (p.19). The one exception to 
the quiescent political tenor of this wave of intellectual refugees, 
viz. Isaac Deutscher, “was reviled and ignored by the academic world 
throughout his life” (p.20). (Anderson might have added Arthur 
Rosenberg’s failure to find a place in British academia in the 
mid-thirties; but another historian who fled fascism and did land a job 
at a British university was of course Momigliano). And starting his 
critique with Wittgenstein, Anderson argued, the linguistic philosophy 
of the forties and fifties represented a deliberate renunciation of the 
traditional vocation of philosophy in the West (p.22).


Anderson’s assessments were often devastating, cf. “Wittgenstein knew 
virtually nothing of the history of philosophy, was devoid of any 
sociological or economic culture, and had only a very limited repertoire 
of literary reference” (p.23); about Popper, “His entire diatribe 
against Hegel, in fact, was based on complete historical ignorance” 
(p.27); about economics after Keynes, “today routine and mediocrity have 
settled over the discipline” (p.35); about British intellectual 
production in general, “the record of mediocrity has been overwhelming” 
(p.47). Social anthropology was the only exception to “the atomized 
empiricism of British domestic thought”, but even this was wedded to a 
purely functionalist totality (p.49). In short, Anderson argues, “A 
White emigration rolled across the flat expanse of English intellectual 
life, capturing sector after sector, until this traditionally insular 
culture became dominated by expatriates, of heterogeneous calibre”, and 
concludes, “The chloroforming effect of such a cultural configuration, 
its silent and constant underpinning of the social status quo, are 
deadly” (p.56). The immunization against Marxist thinking and politics 
was thus complete.


Twenty-five years after Anderson wrote his survey, Neal Ascherson, with 
the manifest benefit of hindsight, pointed to a singular weakness of its 
major thesis:


“Where Perry Anderson went wrong, it seems to me now, was that he 
actually underestimated the impact of his ‘White Emigration’. It did not 
simply reinforce English mental conservatism. It transformed it into 
dynamic ideas with a right-wing sociology of their own. Some of the 
‘Whites’ may have been reactionaries, but they were still Continental 
thinkers who believed in the force of theory. When Mrs Thatcher 
proclaimed that there was ‘no such thing as society’, she was not 
repeating old Tory and Liberal sneers at brainy generalisations. She was 
launching a vigorous, authoritarian crusade designed to break down 

[Marxism] Victory!: the Criminal Case against Russian Socialist Movement Activist Dmitry Morozov Dropped | Lefteast

2020-06-03 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

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Update from LeftEast editors: The security forces in Izhevsk (the 
capital of the Udmurt Republic of the Russian Federation) yesterday had 
second thoughts about launching a criminal case against the co-ordinator 
of the Russian Socialist Movement Dmitry Morozov (real surname Tsarenko, 
aged 21). Until that point, the activist had been questioned twice by 
the Center for Countering Extremism E and the Investigative Committee 
(CK), which had been trying to accuse him of alternately attempting to 
set fire to a local United Russia (‘hooliganism”) and “justifying 
terrorism” when speaking out at a rally in support of political 
prisoners of the Network case. Here is what Dmitry writes: “I was 
supported by a vast number of people, social and political 
organizations, even international ones. This act of solidarity has 
worked! CK and the prosecution spent two weeks deciding whether to start 
a criminal case against me. I just received a paper that they won’t: 
apparently, they don’t have any evidence. It’s time to return to the 
struggle. I want to thank everybody who helped!” And here is the 
background story, very typical of how opposition is suppressed in 
provincial Russian cities, prepared by Anton Kass of News.ru and 
translated for LeftEast by Sean Guillory.


full: 
https://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/victory-the-criminal-case-against-russian-socialist-activist-dmitry-morozov-dropped/


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