Re: [Marxism] Trump in ?fragile? mood and may drop out of 2020 race if poll numbers don?t improve, GOP insiders tell Fox News | The Independent

2020-06-30 Thread John Reimann via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Louis Proyect writes about "the idealized proletarians of the CIO in
the 1930s..." He once again fails to recognize the transformation that has
come about in the US working class and seems to think that any comment on
that (our) class automatically means those blue collar industrial workers.
Newsflash: Teachers, secretaries, health care workers (including nurses),
uber drives and tech workers are all part of the 21st century proletariat!

John Reimann

-- 
*“Science and socialism go hand-in-hand.” *Felicity Dowling
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] 06-30-20 Ruling Class Counteroffensive in the Works by William Robinson - LA Progressive

2020-06-30 Thread Ralph Johansen via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*


 LA Progressive


 Ruling Class Counteroffensive in the Works


 *Ruling Class It’s Capitalism, Stupid*

*https://www.laprogressive.com/capitalism-2-2/?fbclid=IwAR3_J8qdVqdcaVDExAWM0gI8KngQxN1zMvi4GXCjVNzVNIYPJrvmQhEqevE
*

*A*s anti-racist protests continue unabated across the United States, 
the ruling groups have been forced momentarily onto the defense by the 
sheer scale of the uprising, the first full-scale pushback against 
global police state 
 in the 
richest and most powerful country in the world.  Yet absent a more 
frontal attack on the root causes of racism, the uprising may be hard 
pressed to resist a counteroffensive from above involving a combination 
of repression, mild reform, and cooptation.


The powers that be are already embracing the language of struggle 
against “systemic racism.”  Racial justice is now being espoused by 
political and economic elites.  CEOs of major global banks and 
corporations whose policies have perpetuated racial inequality have 
taken the knee, declared their “solidarity” 
 
with aggrieved communities, as have Democratic and Republican Party 
stalwarts, as they attempt to commodify and convert “black lives matter” 
into a corporate logo. Lest the anti-racist struggle end up emptied of 
its transformative potential it must identify and target capitalism as 
the system that gave rise to and continuously reproduces racism.  
Ethnic, racial, gender and sexual oppression are not tangential but 
constitutive of capitalism.  There can be no general emancipation 
without liberation from these forms of oppression.   Yet the opposite is 
equally true: there can be no liberation from these forms of oppression 
without liberating ourselves from capitalism.


“We never negated the fact that there was racism in America, but we said 
that the by-product, what comes off capitalism, that happens to be 
racism,” noted half a century ago Fred Hampton 
, 
the charismatic Chicago leader of the Black Panther Party shortly before 
his extra-judicial execution by the FBI and Chicago police in 1969.  
Hampton went on: “That capitalism comes first and next is racism.  That 
when they brought slaves over here, it was to make money.  So first the 
idea came that we want to make money, then the slaves came in order to 
make that money. That means, through historical fact, that racism had to 
come from capitalism.  It had to be capitalism first and racism was a 
byproduct of that.”



 *To the extent that the struggle against police brutality is
 limited to targeting disproportionate police violence against
 racially oppressed communities the less we will be able to
 confront the underlying structural causes of this violence.*

Yet Hampton’s anti-capitalist perspective appears, at least at this 
time, to be largely absent.  To the extent that the struggle against 
police brutality is limited to targeting disproportionate police 
violence against racially oppressed communities the less we will be able 
to confront the underlying structural causes of this violence.  Racist 
police are but an extension of the capitalist state.  They exist to 
defend property from the propertyless, to enforce the power of capital 
and the rich over the poor and dispossessed majority who in the United 
States come disproportionately from racially oppressed communities.  In 
the big picture, the solution is not to reform law enforcement since law 
enforcement means enforcing a legal system that under capitalism is 
intended to protect the rich and the powerful from the poor and the 
dispossessed through criminalization of the latter or simply through 
enforcement of property rights.


As is now well known, the top one percent of humanity owns over half of 
the world’s wealth 
 
and the top 20 percent own 94.5 percent of that wealth, while the 
remaining 80 percent have to make do with just 5.5 percent.  Such savage 
social inequalities are politically explosive and to the extent that the 
system is unable to reverse them it turns to ever more violent forms of 
containment to manage immiserated populations.  The police are a 
coercive instrument of the capitalist state to control surplus labor, 
the poor, and the working class.  In the United States, workers from 
racially oppressed groups disproportionately swell the ranks of surplus 
labor, as do 

[Marxism] Plunder and Pandemic

2020-06-30 Thread Dayne Goodwin via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

"Plunder and Pandemic, part I: Escalating Plunder"
by Robert Brenner, New Left Review #123, May-June 2020
https://newleftreview.org/issues/II123/articles/robert-brenner-escalating-plunder

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-Asia]: Gadkar-Wilcox on Tran, 'Familial Properties: Gender, State, and Society in Early Modern Vietnam, 1463-1778'

2020-06-30 Thread Andrew Stewart via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*



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 30, 2020 at 8:56:25 PM EDT
> To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> Cc: H-Net Staff 
> Subject: H-Net Review [H-Asia]:  Gadkar-Wilcox on Tran, 'Familial Properties: 
> Gender, State, and Society in Early Modern Vietnam, 1463-1778'
> Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org
> 
> Nhung Tuyet Tran.  Familial Properties: Gender, State, and Society in 
> Early Modern Vietnam, 1463-1778.  Honolulu  University of Hawaii 
> Press, 2018.  280 pp.  $68.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8248-7482-7.
> 
> Reviewed by Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox (Western Connecticut State University)
> Published on H-Asia (June, 2020)
> Commissioned by Bradley C. Davis
> 
> In _Familial Properties, _Nhung Tuyet Tran presents us with the story 
> of gender relations in early modern Vietnam during the Lê, Mạc, 
> and Trịnh/Nguyễn periods (1428-1789). Tran is particularly 
> interested in revising the notion that Vietnamese laws afforded women 
> greater status than other East Asian societies. In her book, Tran 
> tries to recover the agency of local women through an examination of 
> marriage customs, lineage, and inheritance. She argues, most 
> centrally, that the state attempted to impose neo-Confucian orthodoxy 
> through law in order to protect individual patrilines and maintain 
> political order. Therefore, law codes in early modern Vietnam were 
> not egalitarian, and women were able to claim rights in spite of, 
> rather than because of, the dictates of Vietnamese property law. This 
> view significantly revises the standard view of women's property 
> rights, found in the work of scholars such as Tạ Văn Tài and 
> Insun Yu, who have argued that the Lê code was a manifestation and 
> expression of primordial tendencies in Vietnamese culture toward 
> women's equality.  
> 
> Tran demonstrates these claims through an examination of dynastic 
> histories, legal sources such as the Lê Code and the Mạc era 
> compilation of judicial precedents, which she translates as the _Book 
> of Good Government_, and lexical sources such as the Chỉ Nam 
> dictionary. She uses these sources to establish and articulate a 
> "gender system" that she says the state was attempting to produce and 
> impose. She then examines popular folklore, stele inscriptions, and 
> reports from foreign and indigenous witnesses to demonstrate how 
> women--who were increasingly responsible for the economic functioning 
> of local communities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries due 
> to men's being conscripted for war or forced to do _corvée 
> _labor--used informal mechanisms in their communities to secure their 
> own property and ensure their spirits and those of their ancestors 
> would continue to be venerated after their deaths. It is this 
> fascinating investigation into local practices, through the use of 
> diverse sources in a number of different languages, that is the most 
> valuable part of this book. 
> 
> After a brief introduction that lays out her arguments and provides a 
> basic framework for the political events of the sixteenth through 
> eighteenth centuries, Tran proceeds to a description of the "gender 
> system" in chapter 1. This chapter recounts the morality manuals that 
> described how women could make themselves dutiful, industrious, 
> chaste, and subservient, as well as the historical circumstances 
> under which, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, women were 
> often forced to face "the triple burden of agricultural labor, 
> household maintenance, and marketing alone" (p. 36). In chapter 2, 
> Tran focuses on marriage, explaining the function of marriage in 
> sustaining the patriline. Two particularly interesting elements of 
> this chapter are its description of uxorilocal marriage customs, in 
> which a marriage is carried on for a trial period, and its analysis 
> of all-female Catholic religious houses as a means to avoid marriage. 
> Chapter 3 focuses on sexual activity and the maintenance of social 
> order. Tran points out that the overarching concern of laws about sex 
> was the maintenance of a clear patriline. Because of this, the 
> infidelity of married women was subject to strict punishment, while 
> in general unfaithful men were treated more leniently. 
> 
> Chapter 4 is perhaps the most significant of the book, as it presents 
> the cornerstone of Tran's arguments on property rights and 
> inheritance. Challenging the notion that "daughters enjoyed the same 
> rights as sons in the inheritance of property" 

Re: [Marxism] "Capitalism after Coronavirus"

2020-06-30 Thread Ralph Johansen via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Mr. Gore, a former vice president of the United States, is chairman and 
Mr. Blood is senior partner of Generation Investment Management."


That's a kick: Gore and Blood.

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


Re: [Marxism] Trump in ?fragile? mood and may drop out of 2020 race if poll numbers don?t improve, GOP insiders tell Fox News | The Independent

2020-06-30 Thread Ralph Johansen via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

John Reimann wrote

As for Howie Hawkins and the Green Party: I had had hopes that it might 
develop into something - might start to develop a wider working class 
base - after Sanders lost in 2016. I think it's pretty clear since then 
that they won't. A real working class party will develop out of the 
struggle in the streets, on the jobs, and inside the unions. I have yet 
to see the Green Party play any significant role in any of that. To my 
knowledge, for example, they aren't even in the discussion within the 
protests against the George Floyd murder and the related murders.


Those like me who live in a shoo-in state for the Democrats at least 
don''t have to wrestle internally about voting for the greater dis-evil. 
We can write in Howie Hawkins, who appears to have a very good track 
record as a socialist candidate in NY state, as a way of recording our 
protest.

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] 'All of us began with Marta Harnecker'

2020-06-30 Thread Ralph Johansen via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

''All of us began with Marta Harnecker'

'It is no exaggeration to affirm that Marta Harnecker was arguably the 
most important disseminator of Marx and Lenin’s ideas among successive 
waves of activists in Latin America...'


Not only among Spanish-speaking students of Marx. I first read Marta's 
work around 1980, and I'm sure many others everywhere benefited as well. 
And from the writings of her partner Michael Lebowitz, his many books 
including Beyond Capitalism, Build It Now, The Socialist Imperative.


By the way, I notice that this article was translated by Federico 
Fuentes, who had differences with Harnecker and Lebowitz over the 
Bolivarian Project, but who all emphasize the extent to which socialist 
change, as the author of this appreciation writes, 'involves a complex 
equation in whichnew organisational forms are not built - and will never 
be built - a priori, but rather are the result of the struggles of the 
times. They are products of and produce a platform of real and concrete 
demands, capable of transforming reality and shifting the balance of 
forces, while raising consciousness and drawing in other people and 
sectors to the project. But not to demand the possible. The neoliberal 
project affirms that almost nothing is possible. Marta, on the contrary, 
regularly recalled and emphasised that politics is the art of making 
possible the impossible.'


From what I know I am sure that, have to hope that, given the 
experience over all that workers in Venezuela have had in the Bolivarian 
Project and the attempted implementation of the forward-looking 
provisions of the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela, they can never 
go back to and accept willingly a capitalist regime.


The Bolivarian Constitution, as Lebowitz has written, 'calls for 
democratic planning and participatory budgeting at all levels of society 
and upon “self-management, co-management, cooperatives in all forms.”' 
This is reinforced by 'the communal path to socialism that Chavez 
refined in his last years.'  This seems so even in the midst of renewed 
impoverishment and the over-dependence on their primary export product, 
brought on by what could be seen in many of its aspects as the arguably 
Bonapartist nature of the regime from the time of its origins, 
attempting to straddle rather than outright eliminate its capitalist 
underpinnings.


This worker-peasant adherence appears to be in the main why the project 
persists despite many errors, including not adequately promoting 
agricultural self-sufficiency and failure to root out the corruption in 
the bourgeois bureaucracy from which it necessarily sprang.


Not even the top Venezuelan military brass seem able or willing to 
engineer a coup at this point, particularly since the bourgeois 
opposition is so weak and has so many divisions, the hand of the the US 
government is so patently visible in this oil-rich country, and a 
preponderant number of peasants and workers still appear to stand behind 
the Maduro government; and this despite evident stagnation of the 
project, reversion to privation and chronic shortages of essential goods.


And I feel that despite disillusion, the influence of people like 
Harnecker and Lebowitz and Istvan Meszaros, through Chavez, has left its 
permanent mark on people's perception of how the seemingly 'impossible 
can become the possible.' And the determination that change has to start 
somewhere, even if its proponents face mountainous obstacles in trying 
to go it alone in a powerful, hostile capitalist world.




http://links.org.au/all-of-us-began-with-marta-harnecker


   All of us began with Marta Harnecker

/In memory of Marta Harnecker, who passed away on June 14, 2019/

By *Miguel Enrique Stédile *

June 25, 2020 — /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ 
 — 
During an interview, then-Bolivia Vice President Álvaro García Linera 
and Spanish state parliamentarian Pablo Iglesias were exchanging ideas 
on classic texts and their own initiation into politics when the Spanish 
activist proclaimed: “All of us began with Marta Harnecker”. This 
statement is not only true for today’s young leftists but for thousands 
of people who have defended Marxism and socialism in the past four decades.


It is no exaggeration to affirm that Marta Harnecker was arguably the 
most important disseminator of Marx and Lenin’s ideas among successive 
waves of activists in Latin America, starting with the publication of 
her “Booklets for Popular Education” in the 1970s and 

Re: [Marxism] Trump in ?fragile? mood and may drop out of 2020 race if poll numbers don?t improve, GOP insiders tell Fox News | The Independent

2020-06-30 Thread Michael Meeropol via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

John, Mark's one line is the REASON I firmly believe that "this time" polls
mean nothing --"What could lose the election is turnout" --- how can any
poll correctly identify "likely voters" in this sui generis situation ---

Voter suppression probably stopped Kemp from having to face Abrams in a
run-off in Georgia -- and may have played a role in black voter turnout in
Milwaukee in 2016.

And I absolutely agree with John that we (the country) are in much worse
shape because Trump won than we would be if Cllinton had won --- I do
think, however, that one can AT LEAST make an argument that had Clinton
won, it would be the RIGHT that would be totally energized to fight her and
the left would be torn between supporting her and fighting her --- whereas
with Trump in power it is our side -- mostly liberals but plenty of
radicals as well --- who are united (and energized) to fight Trump --- in
other words the LEFT is in better shape to advance out agenda because Trump
won ...

Imagine giant demonstrations for Black Lives Matter (with all the
multiracial support generated today) if Clinton had won ??  Don't think
so.

(Mike Meeropol)
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


Re: [Marxism] Trump in ?fragile? mood and may drop out of 2020 race if poll numbers don?t improve, GOP insiders tell Fox News | The Independent

2020-06-30 Thread John Reimann via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Mark Lause writes: "I do think there's nothing that's going to jolt voters
into forgetting what Trump's record." I think both the 2018 results as well
as all present polls show that is not correct. Hundreds of thousands if not
millions of previous Trump voters voted for a Democrat in 2018 in an
election that was in effect a referendum on Trump. And the fact that his
polling numbers today are dropping like a stone also shows that that is
untrue. Not only are college educated white suburban moms ("soccer moms"?)
turning against Trump, so are those over 60 and even a layer of white,
males without a college education.

Even among those who "strongly approve" of Trump today, it would surprise
me if even among some of them, his support could erode, at the very least
to the extent that their enthusiasm will decrease to the extent that they
won't vote at all. I think some great shock will be required to move them,
but shocks are inherent in the situation. We know, for example, that the
Trump supporters tend to be very patriotic and for many of them, the
immediate reaction to Americans being killed (most especially US soldiers)
is almost being willing to drop a nuclear bomb. What will happen if it is
decisively proven that Trump knew about the Russian bounty on US soldiers
in Afghanistan and did nothing? (My own suspicion is that the information
was in his daily briefing but that they hoped he wouldn't read it because
if he did they feared he'd go directly to Putin and let Putin know that US
intelligence knew.)

There is a layer of Trump supporters about whom what Mark writes is true. I
suspect that they are about one quarter or a little more of the electorate.
That doesn't even come close to being enough to win an election, not even
with voter suppression.

I do think that Trump's reelection (which now seems increasingly doubtful
although far from ruled out) would be a serious defeat, an even greater
defeat than the election of Biden. If Trump got back in, it would
enormously boost the far right - the white supremacists, violent militias,
and outright fascists. It would give Trump a free hand to even further
steamroll all semblance of opposition. This is not the same as what could
have been said - and was said - about previous Republican presidents
(Reagan, Bush, etc.). Trump actually is qualitatively different from them.

As for Howie Hawkins and the Green Party: I had had hopes that it might
develop into something - might start to develop a wider working class base
- after Sanders lost in 2016. I think it's pretty clear since then that
they won't. A real working class party will develop out of the struggle in
the streets, on the jobs, and inside the unions. I have yet to see the
Green Party play any significant role in any of that. To my knowledge, for
example, they aren't even in the discussion within the protests against the
George Floyd murder and the related murders.

I voted for the Greens in 2016 and now I think it was a mistake for two
reasons: First is that I underestimated the importance of their vice
presidential candidate being an Assad supporter and their presidential
candidate palling around with Putin and, in effect, saying that a Trump
victory was better than a Clinton victory. Despite that, I might have voted
for them anyway had I been right that they might develop a genuine working
class base. (And, no, I don't see blue collar men as being the only members
of the US working class.)

John Reimann

On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 11:52 AM Mark Lause  wrote:

> I do think there's nothing that's going to jolt voters into forgetting
> what Trump's record.  His diehard supporters know and don't care.  But I
> think he's damaged severely and not bright enough to even attempt to do
> anything about it other than to repeat what's worked for him in the past.
> Nothing he does is going to get significantly more than he's already got.
>
> What could lose the election is turnout.  The Democrats are trying hard to
> convince people that Joe Biden is some kind of old liberal or more, which
> he wasn't.  Neither is he entirely up to the ordeal of a serious campaign
> without become too exhausted or frustrated to being making utterly
> gratuitous and idiotic comments revealing his arrogance and sense of
> entitlement.  Either the Democratic leadership will use him only in very
> controlled situations and win or they will let him do what Trump does and
> risk losing by persuading voters that it's not worth their while to
> participate in such a crappy and demeaning process.
>
> Our task should be to see if we can get Howie Hawkins a percentage of the
> popular vote as large as Nader got in 2000.  More is 

[Marxism] Standing Their Ground in Well-Manicured Yards | The New Republic

2020-06-30 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

On the gun-toting lawyers in St. Louis

https://newrepublic.com/article/158328/mark-patricia-mccloskey-st-louis-lawyers-guns-protesters

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


Re: [Marxism] Trump in ?fragile? mood and may drop out of 2020 race if poll numbers don?t improve, GOP insiders tell Fox News | The Independent

2020-06-30 Thread Mark Lause via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

I do think there's nothing that's going to jolt voters into forgetting what
Trump's record.  His diehard supporters know and don't care.  But I think
he's damaged severely and not bright enough to even attempt to do anything
about it other than to repeat what's worked for him in the past.  Nothing
he does is going to get significantly more than he's already got.

What could lose the election is turnout.  The Democrats are trying hard to
convince people that Joe Biden is some kind of old liberal or more, which
he wasn't.  Neither is he entirely up to the ordeal of a serious campaign
without become too exhausted or frustrated to being making utterly
gratuitous and idiotic comments revealing his arrogance and sense of
entitlement.  Either the Democratic leadership will use him only in very
controlled situations and win or they will let him do what Trump does and
risk losing by persuading voters that it's not worth their while to
participate in such a crappy and demeaning process.

Our task should be to see if we can get Howie Hawkins a percentage of the
popular vote as large as Nader got in 2000.  More is possible.  All else
aside, there was a certain very unmerited popularity for Clinton among some
quarters of the female electorate.  Biden does not have anything like that
. . . well, maybe septuagenarians who think that LBJ was treated badly
because of a misunderstanding or something.  But this leaves a sizeable
constituency of people who had hoped for better than Bidenand that, too, is
a question of whether an insurgent ticket can mobilize and turn out those
voters.
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] Eating Up Easter | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

2020-06-30 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Available today on Music Box Virtual Cinema, “Eating Up Easter” 
documents the difficult balancing act that the Rapanui people have to 
carry out on Easter Island. They live 2,500 miles from Chile and walk a 
tightrope with their culture on one side and global capitalism on the 
other. Capitalism makes the tourist industry possible, which allows them 
to enjoy a higher standard of living than other Chileans (Chile annexed 
the island in 1877) but that also imposes real threats to their culture, 
both through the trash that tourists leave on the island and the rampant 
consumerism new-found wealth brings. For those who have been following 
Cuba’s opening up to the tourist industry ever since the “special 
period”, the mixed blessings will be obvious.


full: https://louisproyect.org/2020/06/30/eating-up-easter2/

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


Re: [Marxism] Trump in ?fragile? mood and may drop out of 2020 race if poll numbers don?t improve, GOP insiders tell Fox News | The Independent

2020-06-30 Thread John Reimann via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

I don't agree with Michael Meeropol that poll numbers mean nothing. Nor
does either Trump or Biden. Even in 2016 the poll numbers weren't that far
off. They predicted a Clinton victory, and they were right. They just
didn't take into account the electoral college distortions. Also, there was
another factor: Just slightly over a week before the election, Comey
released a statement saying that there was more to investigate regarding
Hillary Clinton. That had a significant effect, but it came too late for
the polls to show it.

As far as voter suppression: I've been commenting on that for some time.
However, Trump can only suppress just so much of the votes, and it has to
be done on a demographic basis. In other words, he can't pick and choose
which individual voters he wants to suppress; he can only suppress votes
in, for example, a mainly black precinct. His problem is that now, it's not
only college educated younger white voters who are turning against him.
Even older voters are, including older whites. And even his lead among
non-college educated whites is declining.

We should never underestimate the potential of Biden to totally screw
things up, nor the possibility that some shock could happen that could
transform everything, but Trump made his real move when he tried to get the
army to intervene. Once he was stymied there, he was in deep trouble. Not
saying the outcome is definite, but he's in trouble.

And I think it's ridiculous to think that we'd be in better shape if
Clinton had won. No, I didn't vote for her, but the degree that the far
right - outright fascists included - has developed under Trump is
unprecedented in my lifetime.

John Reimann

-- 
*“Science and socialism go hand-in-hand.” *Felicity Dowling
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


Re: [Marxism] Gone With the Wind

2020-06-30 Thread Jeffrey Masko via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Just seeing this now, but this week I will be teaching Birth of a Nation
and like many other "hard films" it cannot and should not be ignored. It is
a moment in a classroom where not only the historical moment of production
can be discussed (the place of Woodrow Wilson, for instance and the rise of
Oscar Micheaux as a direct consequence of BOAN) and how the techniques of
editing and scene composition made the contents (overtly racist) digestible
to the audience and (in not a different way that Scorsese for instance can
make wise guys like Joe Pesci seem "like-able".

Many scenes work so that the viewer is aligned (through camera shots such
as a POVs) to feel the "unfairness" of reconstructions so that we feel
sympathy and thus allegiance with the South and southerners. This is why
the film is so important in terms of the development of formal elements and
so powerful as a piece of propaganda. Because it works and did work for the
audiences of that time and this one. Every semester I teach this, folks who
don't know the history of the film or reconstruction take the "side" of the
south in short clips precisely because of the filmic techniques.

This is the unearthing of ideology as a political unconscious in the words
of Fred Jamison. Every text has them and the work of film analysis as
opposed to "reviews" is to bring this to light, which is why Marxist film
crit is the strongest heuristic that we have, and why the methodology of
film analysis is the focus, not aesthetics. As my wife put it.."who ever
thought that was a *good* movie anyway?"
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] "Capitalism after Coronavirus"

2020-06-30 Thread John Reimann via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

https://www.wsj.com/articles/capitalism-after-the-coronavirus-11593470102?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Al Gore pimps for responsible capitalism regarding Covid 19. But notice
that he entirely fails to even hint at the issues of habitat destruction
and factory farming. So much for that idea.

"We wrote an op-ed for these pages in 2006 titled “For People and Planet,”
in which we argued for a long-term, sustainable, multistakeholder approach
to business. We said America’s corporate leaders should put environmental,
social and governance factors at the heart of their decision-making.

Fourteen years later, the idea has become a proven model for business. The
Business Roundtable and the British Academy have both strongly endorsed the
multistakeholder approach in the past nine months. Why? Because sustainable
capitalism is better suited than business as usual to the challenges we
face.

Voluminous research has shown conclusively that businesses properly
integrating ESG factors into their plans are typically more successful and
profitable. As the value of this paradigm becomes widely recognized,
investors who fail to take it into account may be at risk of violating
their fiduciary duty to their clients.

As economies reopen around the country, it is essential that policy makers
don’t default to pre-pandemic thinking. Covid-19 with all its unfolding
tragedy presents a once-in-a-century obligation to rethink the
relationships among business, markets, government and society. What is
desperately needed, and what we must deliver, is a sustainable form of
capitalism.

Investors have a critical role to play. All investments made today must
factor in long-term climate and societal implications. Indeed, the shift to
a zero-carbon, inclusive business model is already well under way. Entire
sectors are beginning to be transformed: energy, agriculture and food,
fishing and ocean protection, forestry, architecture and construction,
mobility and transport, and other carbon-intensive sectors such as
chemicals and heavy manufacturing. We believe this transition will be the
most significant change in economic history. The opportunities are ready
now. We need to invest in them with the same sense of urgency that people
have demanded in mitigating the pandemic.

Already, the pandemic has revealed what companies are truly made of.
Health-care firms have played vital and visible roles in sequencing the
virus, testing, and delivering personal protective equipment. Companies in
other sectors have also stepped up by helping restaurants pivot to digital
ordering channels or directing small businesses to the financial support
they need to get through the crisis.

Some companies have responded by adopting a responsible, long-term
perspective on this challenge—absorbing costs where necessary to protect
their employees. Major food retailers are sharing data, logistics
infrastructure and even staff in a huge effort to maintain food security.
This unprecedented cooperation is made possible by regulators waiving
normal rules on competition.

CEOs must put the welfare of their employees first. People shouldn’t have
to worry about getting hurt or getting sick when they come to work, and
those who are working from home need support too. It goes without saying
that those who do get sick will need time to recover and those who lose
family members or friends will need space to grieve.

African-Americans are suffering from Covid-19 more than any other race, in
part because their much higher exposure to air pollution increases the
mortality rate from the virus. The mental-health challenges and financial
pressures related to the pandemic are also affecting some populations more
than others.

Companies making cuts in pay or staff numbers should lead from the top. The
C-suites should be taking the largest cuts to total compensation, and we
are pleased that many companies have adopted this approach. We also ask
CEOs to focus on their companies’ long-term strengths. It is far wiser to
prioritize capital allocation in ways that will produce results in 2021 or
even several years hence, instead of chasing the next quarter’s numbers.
For some companies, there may be opportunities to bring forward a long-term
project or make a strategic acquisition.

Finally, we want CEOs to accelerate their efforts on climate action. For
perspective, it is worth recalling the shocking wildfires that have struck
Australia, California and the Amazon in recent years. There is an obvious,
if uncomfortable, parallel between our still inadequate responses to the
tragic suffering of Covid-19 and to the fast-growing consequences of the
climate crisis. We ignored the warnings 

[Marxism] Set the Night on Fire Los Angeles in the 60s Review

2020-06-30 Thread Richard Modiano via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Much of this history is part of my memories. I started high school the year
of the Watts Rebellion, and by 1968, although I was too young to vote, I
was campaigning for local Peace & Freedom Party candidates. I highly
recommend this book.

Mike Davis and Jon Wiener's chronicle of Los Angeles in the 1960s, Set the
Night on Fire, isn't just a stunning portrait of a city in upheaval half a
century ago. It's a history of uprisings for civil rights, against poverty,
and for a better world that speaks directly to our current moment of mass
protest.

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/set-night-on-fire-los-angeles-mike-davis-jon-wiener-lapd
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] 'A phantom plague': America's Bible Belt played down the pandemic and even cashed in. Now dozens of pastors are dead | The Independent

2020-06-30 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bible-belt-us-coronavirus-pandemic-pastors-church-a9481226.html

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] Workers’ Strikes Are an Important Part of Today’s Movement | David Bacon | The Stansbury Forum

2020-06-30 Thread Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*


https://stansburyforum.com/2020/06/29/workers-strikes-are-an-important-part-of-todays-movement/'


Sent from my iPhone

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


Re: [Marxism] A Surprising Role Model Emerges for Boris Johnson: F.D.R .

2020-06-30 Thread Jim Farmelant via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*



This would seem tp be a throwback to the pre-Thatcher Conservative Party which 
had embraced the post-WW II social democratic consensus and which was often 
openly racist oo.

Jim Farmelant
http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
http://www.foxymath.com 
Learn or Review Basic Math


-- Original Message --
From: Louis Proyect via Marxism 
Subject: [Marxism] A Surprising Role Model Emerges for Boris Johnson: F.D.R.
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2020 09:31:04 -0400


(Why so surprising? Both are racist.)

NY Times, June 30, 2020
A Surprising Role Model Emerges for Boris Johnson: F.D.R.
By Mark Landler and Stephen Castle



Sponsored by 
https://www.newser.com/?utm_source=part_medium=uol_campaign=rss_taglines_more

Now Scientists Are Warning About a Scary New Flu Virus
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5efb40c6478e040c62dccst02vuc1
Heat Grows on White House Over Alleged Russian Bounties
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5efb40c66277840c62dccst02vuc2
Family's Boat Collides With Humpback
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/5efb40c681ae240c62dccst02vuc3

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] A Surprising Role Model Emerges for Boris Johnson: F.D.R.

2020-06-30 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

(Why so surprising? Both are racist.)

NY Times, June 30, 2020
A Surprising Role Model Emerges for Boris Johnson: F.D.R.
By Mark Landler and Stephen Castle

LONDON — Boris Johnson and Joseph R. Biden Jr. are hardly political 
bedfellows. But the British prime minister and the American presidential 
candidate have one thing in common: both have latched on to Franklin D. 
Roosevelt as a model for how to lead in an era of economic collapse and 
social upheaval.


Mr. Johnson, regrouping after a rocky three months of dealing with the 
coronavirus pandemic, has invoked Roosevelt’s name and the legacy of the 
New Deal in promising that the British government will intensify its 
plans for ambitious public works projects and other spending to recover 
from the outbreak.


“This is the moment for a Rooseveltian approach to the U.K,” Mr. Johnson 
said in an interview with Times Radio on Monday. “The country has gone 
through a profound shock. But in those moments, you have the opportunity 
to change, and to do things better.”


Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has talked about the need 
for an F.D.R.-style federal intervention to lift the United States out 
of the economic wreckage left by the virus and to address the racial 
injustice dramatized by the killing of black Americans at the hands of 
the police.


Neither man is an obvious heir to the mantle of Roosevelt, though Mr. 
Biden at least comes from the same party. Mr. Johnson is a Conservative 
populist who ran on a platform of pulling Britain out of the European 
Union and had, until now, modeled himself on Roosevelt’s wartime ally, 
Winston Churchill.


Joseph R. Biden Jr. has talked about the need for an F.D.R.-style 
federal intervention to boost the economy and address racial injustice 
in the United States.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Still, there are signs that Mr. Johnson’s flirtation with Roosevelt goes 
beyond dropping his name. One of his closest advisers, Michael Gove, 
recently laid out a blueprint for the government that draws heavily on 
the 32nd president to justify a transformation of the bureaucracy and a 
new approach to governing.


“Roosevelt recognized that, faced with a crisis that had shaken faith in 
government, it was not simply a change of personnel and rhetoric that 
was required, but a change in structure, ambition, and organization,” 
Mr. Gove said in a lecture to the Ditchley Foundation, a nonprofit group 
that promotes Anglo-American relations.


Mr. Gove recalled the reform-minded outsiders that Roosevelt brought in 
to design the New Deal — Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes and others — and 
lamented the lack of such figures in the British government.


Mr. Johnson and his aides have argued that Britain’s Civil Service is 
hidebound, risk-averse and hostile to their pro-Brexit ideology. On 
Sunday, Mr. Johnson announced the departure of the country’s top civil 
servant, Mark Sedwill, who was cabinet secretary and national security 
adviser.


His resignation follows that of the top officials at the Home Office and 
the Foreign Office as well as the British ambassador to Washington, Kim 
Darroch. It is a victory for Dominic Cummings, Mr. Johnson’s most 
influential adviser, who views many civil servants as part of what he 
calls an establishment “blob” that also encompasses the BBC, parts of 
the judiciary and universities. In a line that has been widely repeated, 
he has told aides that a “hard rain is coming” for the bureaucracy.


The government wants “to have a more politically directed Civil Service, 
which is not necessarily a politicized Civil Service, but one that they 
feel is responsive to political direction,” said Simon Fraser, a former 
head of the Foreign Office. “Where you have to be wary is if that tips 
over into an attack on the impartiality of the Civil Service.”


On Tuesday, Mr. Johnson is expected to visit a town in an economically 
blighted region to outline plans to invest in infrastructure, education 
and technology, testing his New Deal strategy. He has promised to “level 
up” places left behind by the British economy, where prosperity has 
flowed disproportionately to London and the southeast of England.


Fulfilling that promise is critical to Mr. Johnson’s long-term fortunes, 
since his political base is very different from that of previous 
Conservative Party prime ministers. Mr. Johnson won with the support of 
working-class voters in the Midlands and the north, many of whom 
historically voted for the Labour Party but favored Brexit and are 
socially conservative on issues like immigration.


“Boris Johnson won the election by developing a new formula of 

[Marxism] Anti-Racist Engagement in the Kansas Free State Struggle, 1854-64: Horace Greeley, German 48-ers, and the Civil War Journalism of Karl Marx, 1861-62 - CounterPunch.org

2020-06-30 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Following the perspective of Frederick Douglass, discussed in more 
detail below, this essay acknowledges the abiding residual effects of 
racism among many (perhaps most) of the otherwise politically 
progressive whites of the day. Nicole Etcheson has recognized this 
explicit Kansas Free State capitulation to white privilege in her recent 
history of Bleeding Kansas.[2] My studies however disclose the manner in 
which a variety of vanguard white radicals stood in alliance with the 
leading voices of radically egalitarian African Americans, anti-slavery 
Native Americans, and Kansas German-Americans engaged in the Free State 
struggle. By focusing on the emancipatory anti-racist political praxis 
emergent during this epoch, we find that a significant white leadership 
existed that was radically committed to racial equality.


https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/30/anti-racist-engagement-in-the-kansas-free-state-struggle-1854-64-horace-greeley-german-48-ers-and-the-civil-war-journalism-of-karl-marx-1861-62/

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] How an Old-School Electricians Union Got Behind a Socialist Running on the Green New Deal

2020-06-30 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

When 98 endorsed Saval, there were whispers about the union’s history of 
reactionary politics, as well as Dougherty’s legal troubles (he has been 
federally charged with embezzlement, bribery and theft). But Saval says, 
“I bristle at blanket denunciations of sections of the labor movement. 
There is this notion that we can go around labor, rather than seeing it 
as a problem for us that we didn't have them as part of our coalition.” 
In other words, there is no powerful progressive left without the buy-in 
from unions, the organizations that represent the interests of the 
working class, which is most helped by a jobs program—and most hurt by 
climate change.


https://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/22625/how_an_old_school_electricians_union_got_behind_a_socialist_running_on_the

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] Hegemonic Turbulence and the End of the Global Project of the EU | Lefteast

2020-06-30 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Note from LeftEast editors: This talk was recorded at the workshop on 
After US Hegemony: Geopolitical Economy in the 21st Century, held at the 
Karl Polányi Center for Global Social Analysis at Corvinus University, 
Budapest, on February 11, 2020.


https://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/hegemonic-turbulence-and-the-end-of-the-global-project-of-the-eu/

_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] [UCE] Deficits, debt and deflation after the pandemic | Michael Roberts Blog

2020-06-30 Thread Louis Proyect via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*

Governments could just print money to pay for their debts (they have 
that unique power as MMT argues), but that would eventually mean 
devaluing the currency used to pay for things.  It is something that the 
US has found with its external deficits.  As a result, the buying value 
of the dollar has fallen over the last 30 years by over 25%.


https://secure-web.cisco.com/146CK_fBxO8d3Vpxyt2j9lkPkG1A-et8kKltbQcbgrnkZfv8DhqCzGMc78snujy_pmKabwp40Owmj0mhn9h_TUHnbUZOwXcgFqjZifwjLsmU8RV07AGbFwe3VlXAnCzbAdMaL0D9_zjHOHS-xI8NTN6LBvYG3L7JUm9iT9HbMbgsS_JPMJYjBJTLoheA4NDR_ym_J46gf2Yt4KOqzd_ZXMq6hM2K1czrybzODDRsvK3Kuz9bDSrXd2vkDS-vfdGkR8KB9fgHAnnjAQKYxIN9kl0SMUmwrbauWjUszTyGE_d-RD4ny5WeYgq07Y43zj1M_Fx-rpbEwYWBi05iikb51cMm-4dO6V4H_h4wDZRG-HjgXj4byDvFHxDNdgNkOvybKbepJLItMuE_7S1LYeDcUXw/https%3A%2F%2Fthenextrecession.wordpress.com%2F2020%2F06%2F29%2Fdeficits-debt-and-deflation-after-the-pandemic%2F
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com


[Marxism] CUNY Union Calls to Kick Cops out of the AFL-CIO | James Dennis Hoff | Left Voice

2020-06-30 Thread Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*


http://www.leftvoice.org/cuny-union-calls-to-kick-cops-out-of-the-afl-cio


Sent from my iPhone


_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at: 
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com