[Marxism] Jailed Akron Mom, Kelley Williams-Bolar Released By Judge Patricia Cosgrove
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.rippdemup.com/2011/01/jailed-akron-mom-kelley-williams-bolar.html?m=1 Wednesday, January 26, 2011 Jailed Akron Mom, Kelley Williams-Bolar Released By Judge Patricia Cosgrove Great news, folks! Kelley Williams-Bolar was released from the Summit County Jail Wednesday morning after serving all but one day of a 10-day jail sentence for improperly enrolling her children in Copley-Fairlawn schools. A jail official confirmed Williams-Bolar was released at about 10 a.m. Common Pleas Judge Patricia Cosgrove gave Williams-Bolar credit for one day of time served when she was arrested and jailed on multiple felony charges in November 2009, court records show. On Jan. 18, Williams-Bolar was sentenced to 10 days in jail after a jury convicted her of two felony counts of tampering with records. The offenses involved several instances of signed or sworn school registration forms, applications for reduced or free school lunches and other official documents authorized by Williams-Bolar when she enrolled her two girls in Copley-Fairlawn schools in August 2006. In other developments in the case, Akron City Council President Marco Sommerville said he planned to meet with Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh at 2 p.m. Wednesday to discuss the issue of why the case could not have been resolved without the filing of felony charges. Williams-Bolar, a single mother who was going to college and working as a teaching assistant at Buchtel High School, had no previous record. Within hours of the sentencing hearing, Cosgrove spoke out after becoming the target of public outcry over the case, which threatens the mother's job and her hopes to become a school teacher. Cosgrove said the prosecutor's office refused to consider reducing the charges to misdemeanors during numerous closed-door talks to resolve the case outside of court. (source) Now we need to hear from the over-zealous prosecutors office as to why this matter wasn't dealt with appropriately and at least counted as a misdemeanor and not a felony. Big congrats to all the people who took to the internet by signing the petition at change.org. And a hearty thank you to Judge Patricia Cosgrove for doing what was right and just. See folks, with a little bit of work, we can make things happen. Hopefully she'll be able to fulfill her dream of being a school teacher; she shouldn't have had it come to this. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Translation (Cuba): Sustainable happiness?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == You do realize this is a Buddhist concept, right? On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 3:39 AM, Marce Cameron marcecame...@gmail.com wrote: From new Cuba blog Cuba's Socialist Renewal http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com To sign up as a follower or receive email updates click link above In my last post I commented on the illusion, widespread in Cuba today, that China is building socialism. In this noteworthy commentary, Ricardo Ronquillo Bello looks not to China for inspiration but to one of China's neighbours, the little-known kingdom of Bhutan, where they strive for Gross National Happiness rather than GDP growth. He warns against those inside Cuba who peddle the snake-oil of neoliberal capitalism in a bottle labelled socialism — hinting that, unsurprisingly, such neoliberal views are held by at least some in the PCC, most likely administrators with a pro-capitalist outlook who calculate that they might become millionaires if capitalism were ever restored in Cuba. Of course, such elements cannot openly advocate capitalist restoration. And they are up against a formidable obstacle: a mass revolutionary socialist party led by the historic leadership of the 1959 revolution with some 800,000 members, firm roots in the working class, a heroic tradition of internationalism and, counting the PCC's predecessors, five decades of hard-won struggle experience. As Carlos Alzugaray Treto pointed out in Cuba: Continuity and political change: Despite the fact that the PCC leadership has committed errors that have been recognised and/or rectified, and that methods and styles of work bearing the imprint of their origins in the Soviet political model still persist — such as the excess of centralism, for example — in reality the Cuban leadership has been concerned with two central aspects: the vanguard character of its militants that must be the first in every political social initiative, and the struggle against manifestations of corruption in its ranks. The honesty, sensitivity and the spirit of sacrifice championed by Che Guevara have been, in general, paradigms of Cuban communist conduct and not the privileges and perks of the nomenclatura, as happened under actually existing socialism [e.g. Soviet bureaucratic socialism]. Link to translation: http://cubasocialistrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/01/translation-sustainable-happiness.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Re. Bhutan
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Good reply Marce. Buddhists have lots of good ideas, if you can separate the wheat from the chaff. On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 6:36 PM, Marce Cameron marcecame...@gmail.com wrote: In fairness, the Cuban columnist's favourable reference to Bhutan was related to just one thing: the fact that the regime does not view GDP growth as an appropriate measure of development, so they have come up with a different concept that encompasses other important things, such as ecological sustainability and respect for local culture. (Since about 2005 Cuba has adopted a unique way of measuring GDP that takes into account universal subsides for social services that would slip under the radar of traditional measures of GDP growth; this seems to be why the UN excluded Cuba from the Human Development Report rankings this year, complaining of inadequate data). He did not endorse Bhutan's semi-feudal social relations, the monarchy, discrimination against ethnic Nepalese, the banning of progressive political parties, etc. He did not hold up Bhutan as some kind of model for Cuba's social development. He simply used Bhutan's attempt to come up with national goals other than maximising GDP growth as something that is relevant to Cuba and its socialist orientation. Am I aware that Gross National Happiness is a Buddhist concept? I assumed so. But so what? Do Marxists have monopoly on good ideas? Marce Cameron Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Visual History of Koch Conservatism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/446948/a_visual_history_of_koch_conservatism,_from_john_birch_to_cato/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Vijay Prashad: Crisis, Chains, Change: The American Exception to Marxism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 3:32 AM, dave x dave...@gmail.com wrote: The Tea http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/sd210410.html Partyhttp://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/ds290410.htmlis the political expression of the fears of the white working class and the managerial sector. Most of its supporters are older, white, and male. Many also happen to be Christian fundamentalists. ... The Tea Party movement seeks a restoration of an early bargain, one that the white working class has lost as a result of the social processes of globalization. For its support of U.S. imperial adventures, it is willing to put up with a livable wage even if the CEO class captures the bulk of the social wealth for itself. Such a dream is anachronistic. The Tea Party does not recognize that the United States of America no longer exists. Its elite class shares far more with the elites of the other G20 states, that it is committed to globalization as long as these Davos Men do well, and that it has no loyalty to its own population. The Tea Party represents the patriotism of fools, who believe that the problem is the gains made by people of color within the United States. The Tea Party has no political economy. Nor do its critics. The Tea Party will take refuge in the politics of toxicity. But one would imagine that their critics would not dismiss the social conditions that produce them, from where one can find ways to move their rage toward analysis, and create the long-term platform for unity against the real system that oppresses us all -- not the fake system that they believe has taken their jobs away. But the critics are also empty-handed. Liberal hero Jon Stewart holds a rally and finds his enemies in odd places: Marxists actively subverting the Constitution, racists, and homophobes. Remarkable. And George Bush, for him, is not a war criminal. We have work to do. I fail to see the relationship between the tea party and the white working class. Most of the demographic data on the tea party I have seen, some of it posted on this list, indicates it is primarily a middle and upper-middle class phenomenon. Most working class people are working two or three jobs and don't have time to go to rallies anyway. Greg McD Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A government of national unity?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 9:33 PM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: And, for what it's worth, I don't think it's useful to connect the events in Arizona to the evolution of Obama's policies in the essay. If you suggesting some connection between the shootings in Tucson--or how you think progressives have misunderstood the shootings--and these policies, they're certainly not spelled out It seems to me that the administration is predisposed to move this direction, particularly after the 2010 elections. It has no more to do with the Tucson events or how people understand them than it does with whether or not the light in the White House refrigerator actually goes off when Barrack closes the door. ML To be sure, but the events in Tucson certainly have been used to isolate the Tea Party faction and to reach some level of accommodation between the two mainstream parties. Greg McD Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Tunisian Revolution: Twilight of the Jumlukes?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://the19thbrumaire.blogspot.com/2011/01/tunisian-revolution-twilight-of.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Year in Climate Science
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/15/year-in-climate-science-climategate/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Loughner was a truther who hated George W. Bush
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Materialists should not have such a hard time understanding this very basic point. On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 5:17 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: You're missing the point, Mark. There is no coherency to Loughner's thinking, as the favorable reference to the Communist Manifesto would indicate, not to speak of lucid dreaming. While my next article will focus mainly on Obama's calculations, I will make the point that Loughner's schizophrenia was manifest FIVE years ago long before Palin was a factor in American politics. The left has the causality all wrong on Loughner. He was not sparked into action because of all the conspiratorial ideology that surrounded him. Instead his madness drove him in that direction, but once he began moving in that direction his understanding of what he read--from Mein Kampf to the CM--was mediated by a short-circuited brain. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/gregmc59%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Song for Bradley Manning, by David Rovics
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_eood7DUwINR=1 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The right to bear arms,
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 11:51 PM, DW dwalters...@gmail.com wrote: Comment on Az and gun control: When I wrote here in support of Hunter Gray's defense of owning guns, I was actually called by several list members in a sort of how dare you argue this position. I find it interesting that these folks who called DW to complain didn't have the cojones to express their opinions openly. Not the sort of folks you would want by your side in a difficult situation. Greg Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Hmong General's Obit leaves out a Few Key Details
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.fpif.org/blog/obits_for_fabled_hero_of_vietnam_war_vang_pao_omit_cia_drug_connection#share Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The right to bear arms, (on terms).
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 9:45 PM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: To that wider public, the Left is Joe Biden ML The wider public thinks Jesus is coming back this May 21st. The wider public wants drive-thru nickel beer night. The wider public wants to eat ice cream and lose weight. The wider public wants to make money while they watch TV. The wider public... The wider public... AAUGH!!! Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Why Loughner shot Giffords
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 4:52 PM, Tom Cod tomc...@gmail.com wrote: I mean Palin's going hey, this is about some pathetic criminal nut and had nothing to do with the likes of me. Bullshit. I think she's right, but that doesn't mean she's not also a narcissist and sociopath totally lacking in empathy. Greg Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] SPLC research query
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 2:27 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: Sometime last year there was an exchange on marxmail regarding the SPLC and Morris Dees. I was rereading some of it because an FB friend was posting SPLC material regarding the assassination in Tuscon. Specifically, someone here wrote that the SPLC was working for the ADL, Mossad, and the FBI. Does anyone have any substantive evidence to support these assertions? I think Greg is mashing things together. The ADL definitely works with the Mossad and the FBI. The Southern Poverty Law Center does not have these sorts of connections. The main complaint is that is ineffective: i wasn't mashing anything up, someone else was. Here is the comment: On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 9:38 PM, John Obrien causecollec...@msn.com wrote: Sadly, the Southern Poverty Law Center is funded and controlled by the ADL. So while they may be watching the right wing groups - please be aware that the ADL has been caught spying on the left and one must assume for two governments. The current real left U. S. groups, do not have at present, the resources to spy on the right wing, as the Southern Poverty Law Center does, so their reports can be useful - BUT these reports are to manily generate funding for the Southern Poverty Law Center staff, and they are not part of the left, but liberals - and these crucial points, should not be confused by those who are on this list. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Malcolm X on the Climate of Hate
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Malcolm X on the Climate of Hate https://docs.google.com/View?id=ddrcgb43_548ff4nj3hs Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] How Stieg Larsson trained Marxist Guerrillas in Eritrea
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2010/10/how-stieg-larsson-trained-marxist-guerrillas-in-eritrea/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Algerian and Tunisian Riots
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.marxist.com/tunisian-revolt-do-not-fear-any-more.htm Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] 85 per cent of all drugs produced in Afghanistan are shipped out by US aircraft
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://presscore.ca/2011/?p=753 85 per cent of all drugs produced in Afghanistan are shipped out by US aircraft. Posted by PCLatest news, World newsWednesday, December 22nd, 2010 85 per cent of all drugs produced in Afghanistan is being shipped aboard US aircraft. Foreign diplomats have stated that the United States military buy drugs from local Afghan drug lords who deal with field commanders overseeing eradication of drug production. The administration of President Hamid Karzai, including his two brothers, Kajum Karzai and Akhmed Vali Karzai, are involved in the CIA controlled narcotics trade – one of the main reasons why the U.S. installed Karzai as De facto president of Afghanistan. “The Americans are working hard to keep narco business flourishing in both countries,” says Mikhail Khazin, president of the consultancy firm Niakon. “They consistently destroy the local infrastructure, pushing the local population to look for illegal means of subsistence. And the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] provides protection to drug trafficking.” U.S. freelance writer Dave Gibson recalled in an article published in the American Chronicle what a U.S. foreign intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, revealed of the CIA’s record of involvement with the international drug trade. The official said: “The CIA did almost the identical thing during the Vietnam War, which had catastrophic consequences – the increase in the heroin trade in the USA beginning in the 1970s is directly attributable to the CIA. The CIA has been complicit in the global drug trade for years, so I guess they just want to carry on their favourite business.” The New York Times, May 20, 2001 Taliban’s Ban On Poppy A Success, U.S. Aides Say UNITED NATIONS, May 18 — The first American narcotics experts to go to Afghanistan under Taliban rule have concluded that the movement’s ban on opium-poppy cultivation appears to have wiped out the world’s largest crop in less than a year, officials said today. The American findings confirm earlier reports from the United Nations drug control program that Afghanistan, which supplied about three-quarters of the world’s opium and most of the heroin reaching Europe, had ended poppy planting in one season. Under a U.S. and NATO occupation that wiped out Opium trade has been revived. Reuters, Feb 19, 2009 Afghan 2008 opium crop was second biggest: U.N. report Afghanistan’s opium harvest … 2008 … was … the second biggest on record, a United Nations body declared. While the area under cultivation was reduced by a fifth, better yields meant production dropped only 6 percent to 7,700 tons, after a record 8,200 tons in 2007, the U.N.’s International Narcotics Control Board said in its annual report. More than seven years after the U.S.-led invasion, Afghanistan still grows more than 90 percent of the world’s illegal opium poppies, the source of heroin. NATO forces are not allowed to eradicate crops although NATO allies agreed … to allow their soldiers to carry out direct attacks on Afghan drug lords and laboratories. Afghan officials let drug traffickers operate with impunity and those who do target the opium trade risk their lives, the report said. Last year (2008), 78 officials trying to eradicate opium crops were killed, six times the toll in 2007. Air America Afghanistan Air America was an American passenger and cargo airline established in 1950 and covertly owned and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Special Activities Division from 1950 to 1976. It supplied and supported US covert operations in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Air America transported opium and heroin on behalf of Hmong leader Vang Pao. This has been supported by former Laos CIA paramilitary Anthony Poshepny, former Air America pilots, U.S. diplomats, former DEA agents, Congressional oversight committees and other people involved in the war. University of Georgia historian William M. Leary claims that this was done without the airline employees’ direct knowledge (except for those employees that said they did know about it), and that the airline itself did not trade in drugs (only transported them). Air America officially disbanded on June 30, 1976, and was later purchased by Evergreen International Airlines, which continues to provide support for U.S. covert operations. Today Air America has been revived by the CIA, this time using U.S. military aircraft to transport the illegal drugs out of Afghanistan and into the United States. Short URL: http://presscore.ca/2011/?p=753 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] 85 per cent of all drugs produced in Afghanistan are shipped out by US aircraft
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Perhaps Jeff will like this one better: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175225/alfred_mccoy_afghanistan_as_a_drug_war On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 2:50 PM, Jeff meis...@xs4all.nl wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == At 10:00 09/01/11 -0500, Greg McDonald wrote: http://presscore.ca/2011/?p=753 85 per cent of all drugs produced in Afghanistan are shipped out by US aircraft. Posted by PCLatest news, World newsWednesday, December 22nd, 2010 I'm sorry to disappoint anyone, but this article is almost certainly bullshit, from a bullshit website. It does not have an identified author, and cites no verifiable sources. Of course it contains certain elements of truth regarding the hypocrisy of the charges against the Taliban for profiting from the heroin trade, and the involvement of Ahmed Wali Karzai. But this article is from a conspiracy website, and every single article I saw on that site is extremely suspect or just plain wrong. Especially the health/medical articles! I would have expected the poster of this article to have checked to see if the website has any legitimacy at all and/or if the information in the article could be verified or had even been published by a reputable source. Just posting articles you run across based on their shock value not only wastes our time, but provides us with misinformation which we might repeat (since we thought it was from a source that had been recommended), thus making fools of ourselves (and lowering our public credibility) when the claims prove unfounded. - Jeff Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/gregmc59%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] 85 per cent of all drugs produced in Afghanistan are shipped out by US aircraft
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == With McCoy it is not really necessary to read between the lines, but his argument is a bit more nuanced. He says pretty much the same thing as the original article I posted, except he doesn't put a figure on it. But in terms of the website you are of course correct. The webpage is not very credible. I read the article because a FB friend had posted it. I did not even look at the website. My bad. BUT, I posted this particular article because I was familiar with McCoy's work, having read his books. I note you picked a paragraph from the second article, the one by McCoy, and quoted it out of context, to make it appear that McCoy is somehow agnostic on CIA involvement in Afghan heroin trafficking The paragraph below, taken from the same article, is much more damning: To defeat the Taliban in the aftermath of 9/11, the CIA successfully mobilized former warlords long active in the heroin trade to seize towns and cities across eastern Afghanistan. In other words, the Agency and its local allies created ideal conditions for reversing the Taliban's opium ban and reviving the drug traffic. Only weeks after the collapse of the Taliban, officials were reporting an outburst of poppy planting in the heroin-heartlands of Helmand and Nangarhar. At a Tokyo international donors' conference in January 2002, Hamid Karzai, the new Prime Minister put in place by the Bush administration, issued a pro forma ban on opium growing -- without any means of enforcing it against the power of these resurgent local warlords. And of course it is not far-fetched to assume the CIA is involved in transport, as McCoy states they were in Vietnam. So if you have read his book on Vietnam, the CIA, heroin, and Air America, you would of course find the article itself credible, which I did, and still do. Greg On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 5:50 PM, Jeff meis...@xs4all.nl wrote: At 15:54 09/01/11 -0500, Mark Lause wrote: Please elaborate, Jeff. I agree with you down the line on your rationale for making this point, Well my rationale with respect to the article itself is that it was unsourced, unsigned, and a bit far-fetched. But my judgement of the website was based on skimming the other articles posted on it. In that respect I would rather turn the question around: can you find a single article on that site with information that you know to be accurate? If not, then I don't think I'm hasty in judging this article as having no more credibility than the website's health/medical misinformation (using sunscreen gives you cancer, don't take aspirin to lower your fever, Detoxifying benzene cures AIDS) or technology claims (government suppressed invention which supplies free energy and the 200 mpg car invented in 1933) and other familiar conspiracy theory material. but I don't find this listed at snopes, urban legend and the other sites identifying such fake news... Well maybe those sites have a suggestion box you could write to. But although this IS a conspiracy theory site, one funny thing about it: it is not a right-wing site at all. It seems sort of geared to appeal to leftists only, which IMO makes it yet more dangerous since it will just get people on OUR side making fools of ourselves Also: At 16:04 09/01/11 -0500, Greg McDonald wrote: Perhaps Jeff will like this one better: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175225/alfred_mccoy_afghanistan_as_a_drug_war Well yes, much better inasmuch as it's basically believable (though I'm not well enough informed on the subject to really judge its accuracy). For instance, it makes the point that: In each of these conflicts, Washington has tolerated drug trafficking by its Afghan allies as the price of military success -- a policy of benign neglect that has helped make Afghanistan today the world's number one narco-state. That's seems a lot more believable than 85% of Afghan heroin shipped out by US aircraft, don't you think? Not as shocking, but I'd rather run with the truth than a much more shocking statistic that someone made up and wrote down for our misinformation. - Jeff Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] 85 per cent of all drugs produced in Afghanistan are shipped out by US aircraft
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I won't quibble with you over numbers. Let's leave that to the CIA bean counters. If you think the McCoy article was good, you should really check out his book, The Politics of Heroin. It's meticulously documented. And his new book on the Philippines is excellent. Greg On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Jeff meis...@xs4all.nl wrote: At 19:04 09/01/11 -0500, Greg McDonald wrote: I note you picked a paragraph from the second article, the one by McCoy, and quoted it out of context, to make it appear that McCoy is somehow agnostic on CIA involvement in Afghan heroin trafficking No not at all, that's a misinterpretation. I just grabbed that paragraph as a summary/conclusion of the article and contrasted it with the one from the conspiracy site. I'm sure McCoys article about this is accurate as it was in Vietnam. But the 85% claim was bullshit and you should have noted that when you first read it: how would someone come to such a numerical estimate anyway even if it were approximately true? But thanks for the McCoy article! - Jeff from the same article, is much more damning: To defeat the Taliban in the aftermath of 9/11, the CIA successfully mobilized former warlords long active in the heroin trade to seize towns and cities across eastern Afghanistan. In other words, the Agency and its local allies created ideal conditions for reversing the Taliban's opium ban and reviving the drug traffic. Only weeks after the collapse of the Taliban, officials were reporting an outburst of poppy planting in the heroin-heartlands of Helmand and Nangarhar. At a Tokyo international donors' conference in January 2002, Hamid Karzai, the new Prime Minister put in place by the Bush administration, issued a pro forma ban on opium growing -- without any means of enforcing it against the power of these resurgent local warlords. And of course it is not far-fetched to assume the CIA is involved in transport, as McCoy states they were in Vietnam. So if you have read his book on Vietnam, the CIA, heroin, and Air America, you would of course find the article itself credible, which I did, and still do. Greg Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] 85 per cent of all drugs produced in Afghanistan are shipped out by US aircraft
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 8:00 PM, Manuel Barrera mtom...@hotmail.com wrote: Greg replied: I won't quibble with you over numbers. Let's leave that to the CIA bean counters. If you think the McCoy article was good, you should really check out his book, The Politics of Heroin. It's meticulously documented. And his new book on the Philippines is excellent. And, while we're at it, I wonder if anyone can steer me to good source documenting the current Mexican war on its citizens; the role of the drug cartels; and any potential connections with the U.S. government or military? I have read quite a few accounts indicating the devastating effects of Mexican military repression of its citizens as it seems to pretend to counter the drug trade. I just wonder if there are any viable in-depth analyses. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/06/report-wachovia-bank-helped-launder-mexican-drug-money/1 http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/banksters-laundered-mexican-cartel-drug-money http://www.narconews.com/ Narco news has lots of info on US complicity in Mexican drug trade, militarization, etc. Greg Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] 40-000-crabs-join-slew-of-animal-death-mysteries - is the revolution too late?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 1:23 AM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: It's certainly too late for the crabs. Maybe they failed to build a revolutionary movement capable of moving forward rather than sideways I try to joke...but it's out of nervousness at all this ML News flash just in from NPR: A red-winged black bird is holed up in a back room of a laundromat just outside of Little Rock, Arkansas. According to reports, he briefly took a 54-year-old woman hostage before releasing her and barricading himself in the building. She described him as a male red-wing, about nine inches tall, with dried blood...(tharr be more) and grass stains on his feathers. She also said he seemed paranoid and disoriented, avoiding windows and repeating they're all dead man. They're all dead. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Aflockalypse
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40961721/ns/us_news-environment/ In the past eight months, the USGS has logged 95 mass wildlife die-offs in North America and that's probably a dramatic undercount, White said. The list includes 900 some turkey vultures that seemed to drown and starve in the Florida Keys, 4,300 ducks killed by parasites in Minnesota, 1,500 salamanders done in by a virus in Idaho, 2,000 bats that died of rabies in Texas, and the still mysterious death of 2,750 sea birds in California. --- On average, 163 such events are reported to the federal government each year, according to USGS records. And there have been much larger die-offs than the 3,000 blackbirds in Arkansas. Twice in the summer of 1996, more than 100,000 ducks died of botulism in Canada. Depending on the species, these things don't even get reported, White said. --- The irony is that mass die-offs — usually of animals with large populations — are getting the attention while a larger but slower mass extinction of thousands of species because of human activity is ignored, Wilson said. On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 9:59 AM, Dennis Brasky dmozart1...@gmail.com wrote: Is it possible that the process of environmental destruction and species extinction has progressed to the point where quantitative change has or is about to become qualitative? If so, we will be entering an era of wars not for oil, but for water and against millions of refugees who will be fleeing flooded coasts and newly hostile climates. A new meaning for the phrase, socialism or barbarism. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Government's Wildlife Hit Squad: Blackbird Killers Sent to Investigate Blackbird Deaths
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.counterpunch.org/rosenberg01052011.html The Government's Wildlife Hit Squad Blackbird Killers Sent to Investigate Blackbird Deaths By MARTHA ROSENBERG Do wildlife officials feel just a little hypocritical answering media questions about the New Year's Eve blackbird rain when they know they kill 200 times that amount a year as pests? In 2009 the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), part of USDA, says it poisoned 489,444 red-winged blackbirds in Texas and 461,669 in Louisiana. It also shot 4,217 blackbirds in California, 2,246 in North Dakota and 1,063 in Oregon according to its posted records. We won't even talk about the starlings, crows, ravens, doves, geese, owls (yes owls) hawks, pigeons, ducks, larks, woodpeckers and coots our tax dollars annihilated to benefit ranchers, farmers and other private interests. Or the squirrels, rabbits, badgers, bobcats, beavers, woodchucks, coyotes, opossums, raccoons and mountain lions. The he-men at the Wildlife Service also shot 29 great blue herons, 820 cattle egrets and 115 white-faced ibises in 2009, despite the known dangers of approaching shore birds. It's hard to know which is worse: government agencies like APHIS, Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry helping private rice farmers and landowners with our tax dollars. Or the scorched earth baiting of their rice fields with poison until blackbird populations are depleted, as LSU's Rice Research Station News puts it. APHIS even uses caged red-winged blackbirds as decoys to attract wild ones says Audubon magazine and pre-baits an area with unpoisoned food to ensure the most takers. Nor does the government's blackbird poison only kill blackbirds. APHIS makes sure that the poisoned banquet is especially tempting for wildlife by laying the food out in the spring. This attracts birds and other wildlife because food sources, especially insects, are limited in early spring, says the National Audubon Society. The poisoned rice also looks very tasty because the birds are migrating. The poisoned rice is a ready buffet for any bird to eat, but especially those who are tired and hungry from flying. The government used the chemical DRC-1339 to poison the over million blackbirds it killed in 2009, including in Louisiana. The avicide, called Starlicide causes irreversible kidney and heart damage says APHIS. A quiet and apparent painless death normally occurs 1-3 days following ingestion, writes an APHIS spokesman on the site, probably secure in the fact that his death won't take three days. Government wildlife officials may also feel hypocritical about the thousands of dead drum fish that appeared in the Arkansas River a few days before the red-winged blackbirds fell from the sky on New Year's Eve. That's because wildlife agencies also kill entire waterways of fish when it serves their purpose. Last year, Illinois wildlife officials poisoned 90 tons of goldfish, gizzard and shad in the Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal with the chemical Rotenone, which suffocates fish, to support the sport fishing industry. A year earlier they poisoned tens of thousands of goldfish, koi, bass, crappie, catfish and sunfish/bluegill hybrids in Chicago's Lincoln Park to rehab the pond. Whether killing fish to save a pond or blackbirds to help farmers, government wildlife officials honor neither the public or trust in the Public Trust Doctrine they are sworn to. And wildlife has a lot more to fear than New Year's Eve. Martha Rosenberg can be reached at: martharosenb...@sbcglobal.net Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Loose Lips Alert!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40916433/ns/us_news-wikileaks_in_security/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Careful with Mearsheimer and Co
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 4:38 AM, Les Schaffer schaf...@optonline.net wrote: On 1/5/11 12:23 AM, Ismail Lagardien wrote: but I'll be damned if i will shut up when people even INTIMATE that the likes of Mearsheimer, Walt and Zakaria are making a positive contribution to a just cause. show me the post where somebody INTIMATED this. Les Let's not forget that he stuck his neck out to take on the Israel lobby with Stephen Walt. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Chris Hedges: The Left has nowhere to go
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Three thousand people rallied to protest the invasion and massacre in Gaza two years ago, Nader said. It was held four blocks from The Washington Post. It did not get a single paragraph. People should march over to the Post and say ‘Fuck you! What are you doing here? You cover every little blip by the right-wing and you don't cover us?' http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/03-3 On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 11:21 AM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: Interesting observations. Of course Hedges and others who are relative latecomers to all this tend to become more paniced than they should. Moral witnessing is personally gratifying but politically meaningless, and moral suasion has no political impact on a system that has no means of processing moral questions. I think that they pay an even lower political price for arresting a few hundred people now than they have in the past. The article points out that they didn't cover the earlier demonstration and there's no reason to think that they'll cover later ones. To be honest, I suspect that if we had a mass arrest of a thousand or so people, they'd probably cover it by interviewing the various right-wing talking heads on the subject. We need to stop thinking about how the teamasters do things and start thinking about what we can do to them. What we need are the numbers. Mass demonstrations that can leave the illusion of mass civil disobedience aside until there are there's enough of a mass to make it meaningful. The idea of picketing the media, though, is probably worth a try. ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Body of ex-aide in Bush administrations found in Delaware landfill
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://blogs.star-telegram.com/crime_time/2011/01/body-of-ex-aide-in-bush-administrations-found-in-delaware-landfill.html JANUARY 03, 2011 Body of ex-aide in Bush administrations found in Delaware landfill Police in Delaware say that a former aide in both Bush administrations who had fought to get the Vietnam Veterans Memorial built, was found dead at a landfill in Wilmington, Del. The man was identified as John P. Wheeler III, 66, who was head of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund during the Reagan era. His death has been ruled a homicide, Fox News reported. His body was found after a disposal truck had made pickups in Newark, Del., and police believe it was placed in a trash bin in that city, Fox News reported. Read more: http://blogs.star-telegram.com/crime_time/2011/01/body-of-ex-aide-in-bush-administrations-found-in-delaware-landfill.html#ixzz1A0CmYzRj Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Hackers hit Tunisian websites
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/201113111059792596.html Africa Hackers hit Tunisian websites Amid anti-government protests, attack blocks access to stock exchange and ministry of foreign relations. Evan Hill Last Modified: 03 Jan 2011 17:06 GMT Tunisian protesters planned a rare national strike for Monday as protests entered their 18th day [AFP] Online activists have attacked and at least momentarily disabled several Tunisian government websites in the latest act of protest against the country's embattled leadership. As of Monday afternoon, local time, at least eight websites had been affected, including those for the president, prime minister, ministry of industry, ministry of foreign affairs, and the stock exchange. The attack, which began on Sunday night, coincided with a national strike, planned to take place on Monday, that organisers said would be the biggest popular event of its size since Zine El Abidine Ben Ali assumed the presidency. The strike comes on the day that school students return from their holiday. Ben Ali's administration has tightly restricted the flow of information out of Tunisia since widespread protests began on December 17, following 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi's suicide attempt. But reports of civil disobedience and police action filtered out on Twitter on Monday, with some users reporting the use of tear gas by security forces. The loosely organised hacker group Anonymous claimed responsibility for the cyber attack, which it called Operation Tunisia, an apparent arm of the group's broader effort - termed Operation Payback - aimed at taking retribution against governments and businesses viewed as hostile to the similarly amorphous document-leaking group WikiLeaks. Operation Tunisia came just days after a similar attack on Zimbabwean government websites;in that case, Anonymous said that it had targeted Robert Mugabe's administration for actions taken by officials to suppress information about the thousands of secret US diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks has released. But on Monday, Anonymous and its followers sought to tie their cyber attack to the ongoing protests and social unrest in Tunisia, not WikiLeaks. In a manifesto reportedly posted on the prime minister's website but later removed, the group said that it was enraged at the Tunisian government's behaviour, and that Ben Ali's administration had unilaterally declared war on free speech, democracy, and even [its] own people. Anonymous is willing to help the Tunisian people in this fight against oppression, the statement said. Cyber attacks will persist until the Tunisian government respects all Tunisian citizens' right to free speech and information and ceases the censoring of the internet. Denial-of-service attack Sami ben Gharbia, a Tunisian exile living in Europe who monitors online censorship in the country, told Al Jazeera that Monday's sabotage was the first time he had seen an international group like Anonymous target a Tunisian website. Gharbia said he had witnessed the hackers planning the denial-of-service attack in a chat room arranged by Anonymous and that it appeared Tunisian users were among those participating. The protests in Tunisia, which have led to three confirmed deaths, have garnered comparatively little attention in the Western media, which closely followed developments in 2009 in Iran when hundreds of thousands of citizens protested presidential election results. Western governments have been similarly reticent about voicing criticism of Ben Ali's government, or its response to the protests. The country is a popular European tourist destination and has been praised by the World Bank for its financial policies. But many within the country say the image of calm and success belies simmering resentments and unemployment rates that reach 25 per cent in certain areas. High-level corruption In private, the US has said that Tunisia's corruption - a contributor to the unemployment driving many to protest - is getting worse. A 2008 diplomatic cable signed by Robert Godec, the US ambassador, and released by WikiLeaks in December describes both low- and high-level corruption in the country that scares away foreign and domestic investors. Whether it's cash, services, land, property, or yes, even your yacht, President Ben Ali's family is rumoured to covet it and reportedly gets what it wants, the cable states. Gharbia said Monday's cyber attack probably will not affect protests on the ground but may serve as a good story to attract the mainstream media and embolden online activists in Tunisia. It might give a sense of solidarity to Tunisian bloggers who have been witnessing censorship for years now, to see such actions targeting the main body of the censorship,
[Marxism] Soccer vs. the State: Tackling Football and Radical Politics
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Interview with Kuhn http://www.thepeoplesgame.org/Kuhn.mp3 https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detailp=254 Soccer has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry. Professionalism and commercialization dominate its global image. Yet the game retains a rebellious side, maybe more so than any other sport co-opted by money makers and corrupt politicians. From its roots in working-class England to political protests by players and fans, and a current radical soccer underground, the notion of football as the people's game has been kept alive by numerous individuals, teams, and communities. This book not only traces this history, but also reflects on common criticisms: soccer ferments nationalism, serves right-wing powers, fosters competitiveness. Acknowledging these concerns, alternative perspectives on the game are explored, down to practical examples of egalitarian DIY soccer! Soccer vs. the State serves both as an orientation for the politically conscious football supporter and as an inspiration for those who try to pursue the love of the game away from television sets and big stadiums, bringing it to back alleys and muddy pastures. Praise: There is no sport that reflects the place where sports and politics collide quite like soccer. Athlete-activist Gabriel Kuhn has captured that by going to a place where other sports writers fear to tread. Here is the book that will tell you how soccer explains the world while offering means to improve it. —Dave Zirin, author Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love I was greatly encouraged by this work. It provided me with alternative ways to play, enjoy, and talk about football, leaving behind nationalism and the exclusiveness of elite athletes. When we applied the clues and tips included here to the anti-G8 football matches in Japan in 2008, we were able to communicate, interact, and connect with many people, regardless of nationality, race, and religion. I recommend this book to all who seriously hope for an alternative space in sports. Unite the world through football, and reclaim sports! --Minobu, Rage Football Collective (RFC), Japan Gabriel Kuhn illustrates compellingly how many radicals use soccer as a cathartic gas station, and how they integrate the game into their political beliefs and struggles. Has this to do with the game or with the people? The work ties both aspects together and is indispensable reading for those who want to know how important and how passionate activism in sports can be. --Gerd Dembowski, Bündnis aktiver Fussballfans (BAFF) Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) About the Author: Gabriel Kuhn was born in Innsbruck, Austria, in 1972. He was deeply immersed in soccer culture as a teenager, and became one of the country's youngest semi-professional players. Tired of both the demands and the politics, he abandoned his career for studies, travels, and activism, but still joins pick-up games whenever he gets the chance. Gabriel has published widely on underground culture and politics, and founded the DIY publishing outfit Alpine Anarchist Productions in 2000. Previous publications with PM Press include Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age Piracy (author, 2010), Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics (editor, 2010), and Gustav Landauer: Revolution and Other Writings (editor/translator, 2010). Product Details: Author: Gabriel Kuhn Publisher: PM Press ISBN: 978-1-60486-053-5 Published: February 2011 Format: Paperback Page Count: 240 Size: 8 by 5 Subjects: Politics-Activism, Sports-Soccer See and hear author interviews, book reviews, and other news on the Author's Page HERE Click here to download and print a product information sheet. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Wed. Dec. 15th's 'Wikileaks' meeting at the Perth Activist Centre: Free Speech indeed: that's the issue
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 12:51 PM, Graham Milner gkmil...@eftel.net.au wrote: Perhaps Alex, or one of his co-thinkers in Socialist Alliance, could provide an explanation to the members of this list as to why he behaved the way he did at the Activist Centre on the evening of December 15, and why he considered it necessary to strike out the quotation I cited from Leon Trotsky's Testament? I think you should take it to the principal. Perhaps he will put Alex in a timeout, or send him to after-school detention. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] A Nation of Hungry Ghosts
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.alternet.org/world/149325/trauma:_how_we%27ve_created_a_nation_addicted_to_shopping,_work,_drugs_and_sex/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] A Holiday Tune
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (meant to be sung to the melody of Little Drummer Boy) Campaign Worker Ploy Come, they told me (Barack Obama) A newborn King to see (Barack Obama) Our hopes and dreams we bring, Barack Obama To stake upon the King, Barack Obama Barack Obama, Barack Obama O, how we honored him, Barack Obama, In our dharma. “Little worker,” said Barack Obama “Like you, I’m hopeful, too.” (Barack Obama) “I am like you, you see.” (Barack Obama) “When you see you, see me.” (Barack Obama) Barack Obama, Barack Obama “Shall I slave for you, Barack Obama?-- O, my Brahma!” Then he nodded. (Barack Obama) We hit the phones and doors. (Barack Obama) We all elected him. (Barack Obama) We did our best for him. (Barack Obama) Barack Obama, Barack Obama Then he laughed at us, Barack Obama, At me and my chums. by Doug Tarnopol Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Against those who divide to rule we unify to govern
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 6:36 AM, Néstor Gorojovsky nmg...@gmail.com wrote: Kirchner's phraseology was not original. That particular coinage comes out of Cuba. Either Fidel or Che, I forget which. Greg Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Statement of Solidarity with Georgia Prison Strike Petition
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.petitiononline.com/wagesnow/petition.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] H.K. Edgerton is one happy House Negro
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 8:27 PM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: The entire Jackson chapter of the NAACP passed a resolution supporting the efforts of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (or whatever they call themselves nowadays) to recover the suppressed history of the black Confederates. Frankly, it's one of the top five reasons I can think of for emmigrating ML What's next? The Jackson chapter linking arms with the local KKK and singing Kumbaya beneath a burning cross? Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] H.K. Edgerton is one happy House Negro
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://jeffwinbush.com/2010/06/01/h-k-edgerton-is-one-happy-house-negro/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Day 3 of Prison Strike in GA
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://atlanta.indymedia.org/local/day-3-historic-prison-strike-georgia Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Venezuelan National Assembly Passes Pe ople’s Power “Law of Communes”
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5858 Venezuelan National Assembly Passes People’s Power “Law of Communes” By JUAN REARDON - VENEZUELANALYSIS.COM Communes Mérida, December 13th, 2010 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela’s National Assembly on Friday approved two of the five laws that make up the Laws of People’s Power designed and demanded by pro-Revolution activists nationwide. The Organic Law of Communes, one of the two laws approved as of Monday, consists of 65 articles relating to the establishment and organization of communes in the country, as well as the formation of Communal Parliament which opposition figures fear will one day displace the National Assembly. Venezuela’s opposition, which takes over 41% of the National Assembly on January 5th, has expressed strong opposition to the new laws and has called them “unconstitutional.” Organic laws are laws that serve as the normative framework for other laws and require the approval of two-thirds of the National Assembly. The five laws that make up the package under discussion are: The Organic Law of Popular Power, the Organic Law of Popular and Public Planning (both of which were first discussed on 16 December 2009), the Organic Law of Communes, the Organic Law of Social Auditing (both of which were first discussed on 22 June this year) and the Organic Law for the Development and Promotion of the Communal Economy. Together the laws promote decentralization of power, collective property, self government, and the Government Federal Council as the planning organization. After much discussion on both Thursday and Friday, the Organic Law of Communes and the Organic Law of Social Auditing were passed. All five laws are expected to be passed this week. PSUV assemblymen Mario Isea on Monday affirmed that the laws in question are designed to help overcome economic inequalities found in different parts of the country by promoting popular participation and development lead by local communities. “Who would fear such a thing?” asked Isea on the state TV channel Monday morning. “Those who hoard wealth, power, those who have always lived in opulence at the expense of the work done by the majority,” affirmed Isea. According to Assemblyman Ulises Daal, the Organic Law of the Communes passed on Friday is the result of the systematization of 2,474 public surveys as well as open debates in which over 61,850 communal council spokespersons participated. In a piece entitled, Another Victory for the People, Venezuela’s Bolivar and Zamora Revolutionary Current affirmed that the passing of the new laws, “represents a strategic advance in the consolidation of People’s Power, which has been the fundamental pillar in the deepening of the Bolivarian Revolution that today marches towards socialism.” According to opposition assemblywoman Pastora Medina, the Humanist Ecologist Block along with Podemos voted against the Law of the Communes because they considered the law to be, “divorced from the Constitution,” and that it, “creates a new communal state that promotes anarchy.” Article 10 of the Law of Communes outlines the process required for establishing a commune: 1) common citizens, communal council representatives and/or social movements in a given region express their formal interest in establishing a commune by putting it in writing to the Ministry of Communes; 2) a Promotional Commission made up of volunteers works with communal councils and other public spaces to inform the entire community of the proposed commune; 3) an election takes place to elect the spokespeople of the Commune, and these prepare a Founding Letter of the Commune; 4) a vote takes place in which all the citizens residing in the commune’s territory have the right to vote, and a simple majority approves or denies the establishment of the commune. As long as over 15% of voters participate in step 4, the election is legally binding. As reported in Venezuelan daily El Nacional, the Organic Law of Communes defines these social structures as, “local entities made up of several communities that share the same characteristics and interests, with a regimen in which the means of production are socialized property and with an endogenous and sustainable development model.” Each commune will have Founding Letter (norms defined by the community), a Bank of the Commune, a Development Plan of the Commune and a Council for Planning of the Commune. Local and regional government is to submit to ‘People’s Power”, governing in as much as is required to implement the will of the people as expressed in communes. Nationally, all communes will be represented in a national Communal Parliament. Ismael Garcia, spokesperson for Alianza Democrática (Democratic Alliance), a member of the opposition coalition
[Marxism] Julian Assange Captured by World's Dating Police
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/wolf-n1.1.1.html Julian Assange Captured by World's Dating Police by Naomi Wolf Dear Interpol: As a longtime feminist activist, I have been overjoyed to discover your new commitment to engaging in global manhunts to arrest and prosecute men who behave like narcissistic jerks to women they are dating. I see that Julian Assange is accused of having consensual sex with two women, in one case using a condom that broke. I understand, from the alleged victims' complaints to the media, that Assange is also accused of texting and tweeting in the taxi on the way to one of the women's apartments while on a date, and, disgustingly enough, 'reading stories about himself online' in the cab. Both alleged victims are also upset that he began dating a second woman while still being in a relationship with the first. (Of course, as a feminist, I am also pleased that the alleged victims are using feminist-inspired rhetoric and law to assuage what appears to be personal injured feelings. That's what our brave suffragette foremothers intended!). Thank you again, Interpol. I know you will now prioritize the global manhunt for 1.3 million guys I have heard similar complaints about personally in the US alone – there is an entire fraternity at the University of Texas you need to arrest immediately. I also have firsthand information that John Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, went to a stag party – with strippers! – that his girlfriend wanted him to skip, and that Mark Levinson in Corvallis, Oregon, did not notice that his girlfriend got a really cute new haircut – even though it was THREE INCHES SHORTER. Terrorists. Go get 'em, Interpol! Yours gratefully, Naomi Wolf Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Wikileaks Reveals U.S. Tax Dollars Fund Child Sex Slavery in Afghanistan
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/wikileaks_reveals_us_tax_dollars_fund_child_sex_slavery_in_afghanistan#share_source=blog-top_fb Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] [Aurelio Bujaldón, el enólogo de la lista] El mejor malbec y algo más.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks for the info. Como mendocino, lo declaro: El mejor malbec argentino HOY es, por lejos, un salteño. El Coquena 2009 de bodega Yacochuya. 2010/12/6 Néstor Gorojovsky nmg...@gmail.com: Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Wikileaks Donations
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == https://donations.datacell.com/ http://85.88.21.139/support.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Support /any/ struggle of the oppressed: a question whichI feel is scathing.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This has always been the official position of the IWW, in contradistinction to the AFL and other pro-business unions in the USA. I can't speak of unions in other countries. On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 12:57 PM, S. Artesian sartes...@earthlink.net wrote: No, we should support the workers by fighting against the extra-exploitation of the migrant workers, by demanding that ALL workers have access to the same benefits and social services; that no tiering of wages be allowed; that all immigrant workers be afforded immediate union membership, and that no decertification of unions be allowed,.. etc. etc. etc. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Diplomats feel Fallout after Wikileaks Release
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Hunt-for-Assange-Heats-Up-World-Leaders-Fury-Mounts-96969.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Ambassador Has No Clothes
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.counterpunch.org/dangl12022010.html The Ambassador Has No Clothes By BENJAMIN DANGL A classified cable from the US embassy in La Paz, Bolivia released by WikiLeaks lays bare an embassy that is biased against the Evo Morales government, underestimates the sophistication of the governing party’s grassroots base, and out of touch with the political reality of the country. The recently released January 23, 2009 cable, entitled “Bolivia’s Referendum: Margin of Victory Matters,” analyzes the political landscape of the country in the lead up to the January 2009 referendum on the country’s new constitution, and was sent to all US embassies in South America and various offices in Washington. In 2006, the leftist union leader and politician Evo Morales was inaugurated as Bolivia’s first indigenous president. Since his election he and members of his party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), have partially nationalized gas reserves, enacted land reform and convoked an assembly to rewrite the country’s constitution. Following years of debates among assembly members, this constitution was passed in a national referendum on January 25, 2009. The US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks that was written during the politically-charged days leading up to this vote shows a mischaracterization on the part of embassy officials of the MAS government and its supporters. The cable cites Bolivian newspaper reports that many community leaders and their supporters in the Altiplano, the high plains of western Bolivia, where much of the MAS support lies, had not even read the constitution, and instead would simply “take their marching orders from the MAS, and vote for the constitution.” Many had not read the document out of, according to the US embassy, “disinterest, blind faith in Evo Morales' political project, and illiteracy.” The cable describes one meeting between members of the US embassy and Bolivian political officials who “lamented the way the MAS had ‘cheated’ and ‘fooled’ campesinos into believing Morales was himself truly indigenous or cared about indigenous issues.” The officials said the MAS popularity was due to “‘vertical control’ in the countryside...” These are all inaccurate portrayals of the dynamics of the MAS party and its grassroots base. Support for the constitution and the MAS did not simply grow out of illiteracy, disinterestedness, blind faith or the vertical control of the MAS over its members, as embassy officials would have those reading of this cable believe. While many social sectors in Bolivia had serious critiques of the new constitution, the writing and passage of it was largely the result of years of discussions and consultations with constituents. The political consciousness among the MAS party base, both rural and urban, is highly sophisticated and has benefited from years of social mobilizations and a first hand understanding of the needs of the impoverished majority of the country. People support the MAS because the party speaks to those needs, has opened up political participation to marginalized sectors of society, and has developed a political project that seeks to empower disenfranchised and indigenous communities. Such democratic tendencies challenge the economic interests and political power of Washington and the Bolivian right. It is telling, therefore, that many of the sources the US embassy drew from in this cable are members of the Bolivian right and critics of Morales. For example, in the cable, the embassy officials cite Bolivia’s Santa Cruz Civic Committee as a source on the supposed electoral fraud of the MAS. Since Morales’ election, this Civic Committee has risen to notoriety as a fierce critic of the MAS government, and is tied to Bolivian business elites, racist youth groups, and acts of violent repression against indigenous activists and MAS supporters. According to the released cable, US embassy officials were told by members of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee that they did not trust international electoral observers – including those from the Organization of American States, the Carter Center, the United Nations and the European Union – because they had “blessed” a August 2008 recall vote which empowered Morales with over 60% of the vote. Therefore, members of the Civic Committee did “not expect an honest review of the constitutional referendum” in January of 2009. These views are illustrative for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the US embassy, in this diplomatic primer on one of the most important votes of the decade in Bolivia, emphasized electoral fraud on the part of the MAS where leading international observers saw none. Secondly, it looked to the Civic Committee, an organization that is totally unrepresentative of the views of the
[Marxism] Stieg Larsson homepage
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Re: [Marxism] Outside the Logic of the State: Dancing With Dangl
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 3:22 AM, Fred Fuentes fred.fuen...@gmail.com wrote: here is my take on Dangl's book http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46272 Yet, Dangl also argues that while “working for a better world without a state” a “viable strategy” could be “supporting state-based programs, if they indeed help people achieve their long and short term goals”. The chapter on Venezuela best highlights what Dangl means. Correctly pointing out that the old, existing state “replicates the inequalities and challenges found in many other nations”, Dangl also notes that this state is attempting to, in the words of Sara Motta “create a new set of state institutions that bypass the traditional state, and distribute power in a democratic and participatory manner”. The explanation for this seeming contradiction is simple. First, Dangl confuses the difference between a movement — in this case the Bolivarian movement — winning government and controlling the state. When Chavez was first elected in 1998, he was elected as the head of a capitalist state. However, he and the movement very quickly realised that this state had not been created to benefit the majority, and that instead it was necessary to “give power to the people” to tackle poverty. And from the other review on Dangl: Dangl agrees with most observers that social movements have prospered and increased under the Chavez government in Venezuela, saying “a number of government initiatives and policies have empowered the grassroots in unprecedented ways and created space in which social movements can flex their muscles.” He visits health clinics, community radio stations, video collectives and, impressed as he is by what he sees, Dangl still wonders if “the Bolivarian Revolution can outlast Chavez.” A centralized system such as Venezuela’s also tends to breed patronage. Many analysts have taken note of this and attribute it to the country’s dependency on a single resource administered by the state: oil. The problem antedates Chavez by some eighty years, and it’s one he’s alternately used to his advantage and also attempted to resolve by organizing communal councils and other decentralizing structures. Unfortunately, as Dangl notes, there is an ongoing resistance to these attempts from within the Chavez government itself, and the majority of Venezuelans are dependent upon the government for some form of employment or assistance, making the development of autonomist movements very difficult. --clip- Seems to me that Dangl successfully characterizes the contradictions between the old state institutions in Venezuela and the new, grassroots, democratic, people power structures. And it would seem that he is also on the mark in his criticism of Correa especially, as well as Morales and Lula, as none of these governments have taken even the first step toward instituting the types of communal councils which Chavez has supported, much to the chagrin of a sizable portion of Chavez' own bureaucracy. In fact, it has been noted repeatedly, in the case of Correa, how the very process of democratic control of the Constuent Assembly was torpedoed by Correa himself, and this process has continued on in the governing style and clientelist policies of the Correa regime. In point of fact, Gustavo Larrea is presently spearheading a move to form a more democratic political party to challenge Correa from the left. Greg Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Washington considers espionage charges against Assange
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 10:06 AM, Jay Moore piein...@igc.org wrote: Bastards. That's to be expected. Ecuador's (much-maligned) leftist government has apparently offered him asylum if needed. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Ecuador+offers+WikiLeak+founder+Assange+residency+questions+asked/3902251/story.html Correa's government is about as leftist my left ass cheek. G. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Washington considers espionage charges against Assange
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 12:02 AM ET Ecuador Retracts Assange Offer Al Jazeera reports: Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has dismissed an offer of residency that a lower level official made to the embattled founder of the online whistle-blower WikiLeaks. The offer by Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas on Monday has not been approved by Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino -- or the president, Correa told reporters. Bastards. That's to be expected. Ecuador's (much-maligned) leftist government has apparently offered him asylum if needed. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Ecuador+offers+WikiLeak+founder+Assange+residency+questions+asked/3902251/story.html Correa's government is about as leftist my left ass cheek. G. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Outside the Logic of the State: Dancing With Dangl
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5811 Outside the Logic of the State: Dancing With Dangl By Clifton Ross - Counterpunch, November 26th 2010 If you were delighted that Hollywood finally took the new political turns of South America seriously, but were disappointed that Oliver Stone, in “South of the Border,” offered only the standard fare of “superstars” in a tired and untrue narrative of “Big Men Make History,” then you should read Ben Dangl’s “Dancing with Dynamite.” Dangl, founding editor of www.upsidedownworld.org, journalist and teacher of Latin American history and globalization at Burlington College in Vermont, brings his attention to the real actors overlooked in the “Big Men Make History” narrative, the participants in the social movements. In doing so, he also offers us sharp analysis and vivid writing, as in this opening to the chapter on Venezuela: “The sounds of car horns, salsa music, children in playgrounds, barking dogs and occasional gun shots rise out of Catia, one of the largest slums of South America. Catia is a sea of multi-tiered, tin-roofed brick shacks that cling to the mountains around Caracas, Venezuela. Uncollected garbage rots in the streets and tangled wires pirating electricity weave from house to house. Sporadically rising out of this neighborhood are dilapidated concrete apartment buildings with laundry flapping from the balconies like flags. Much of the support for President Hugo Chavez… comes from neighborhoods like Catia.” Many chapters of the book open similarly, with poetic imagery that captures the street-level reality of the South American revolutions as he sets about interviewing social movement activists to find out what’s really going on with the so-called “Pink Tide” rising over the continent. Not surprisingly, Dangl has written a very different script from Oliver Stone, whose material is filtered through translators, refracted by a Hollywood lens and drawn exclusively from interviews with the presidents in their government palaces. “Dancing with Dynamite” enters a growing field of books on South American politics, so it will face competition for space on the bookshelf. Nevertheless, this is a daring, you could say “explosive,” little book, and it stands out in a big way from other volumes on the subject, especially since the latter tend to follow the same Great Man narrative that Stone develops in his film. For example, “Pirates of the Caribbean,” by Tariq Ali (who co-authored the “South of the Border” script, along with Mark Weisbrot, co-director of Center for Economic and Policy Research, CEPR) focuses almost exclusively on the so-called “leftist” presidents of the region: Chavez, Castro, Morales and Correa. A much better book is Nikolas Kozloff’s “Revolution!: South America and the rise of the New Left.” While Kozloff tends not to be too dazzled by the Great Men of History to investigate the social movements, the influence of the dominant narrative still shows through: “Though many social movements pressure governments from without, some have also merged with political parties themselves, creating a potent coalition to spearhead social change.” Dangl challenges and ultimately refutes this popular assumption, widely held on the left outside of South America, that there is a common interest between the governments and the social movements of the region. The assumption is based, it seems, on very little but hope: hope that things are different in South America than they are here in the U.S, where a president elected as a “progressive” has proven himself to be, at best, entirely indifferent to the people struggling for justice, and at worst, their enemy. What becomes increasingly clear to the reader of “Dancing with Dynamite” is that there are many striking parallels between the US and its southern neighbors: in South America, particularly Argentina, Ecuador, Paraguay and Brazil, sharp conflicts are commonplace between left social movements and “progressive” governments that often only differ nominally from their right-wing predecessors. A confluence of interests between governments and organized movements in the region is the exception rather than the rule and Dangl goes so far as to argue that the governments of the region are “dancing with dynamite” because “the logic of social movements competes with that of the state.” By contrast the assumptions made by Kozloff, Ali and others, Dangl’s conclusion is that “the state and governing party is, by its nature, a hegemonic force that generally aims to subsume, weaken or eliminate other movements and political forces that contest its power.” The book is offered as evidence to back up this statement, and it’s convincing. Nevertheless, despite his sympathies toward the “autonomist”
[Marxism] Zodiac Actor Placed on Terrorist List for supporting Gasland documentary
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Re: [Marxism] Poison Playtime
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Correct. Why then is it OK to support a regime which plans to do the same thing but calls itself socialist because it plans to redirect some of the accrued revenue to working people? Greg On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 7:21 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/poison_playtime_QwebQnOhMRcKmchxQufQGN Poison Playtime Peru lead-smelt suit could hit NY mogul By CHUCK BENNETT Last Updated: 7:25 AM, November 22, 2010 Billionaire industrialist Ira Rennert may have a legal problem big enough to match his East End house, say lawyers preparing a massive lawsuit against his mining interests. The likely plaintiffs in the case against the Brooklyn-born Rennert -- whose 66,000-square-foot mansion in Sagaponack is the nation's largest single residence -- would be as many as 3,000 Peruvian kids suffering from blood poisoning allegedly caused by a lead-smelting operation he invested heavily in, the lawyers said. Ira Rennert, one of the worst scumbags in the capitalist class: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/01/30/captalist-pig-of-the-month/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Swans Release: November 29, 2010
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The first two films based on Stieg Larsson's novels are available on Netflix and are well worth the trouble to watch, but make sure you watch them in chronological order. The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo should be viewed first. Lisbeth Salander is my hero. The trailers can be viewed here: http://marywhipplereviews.com/books/?p=10755 Greg On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: The culture corner is bursting with creativity, from film noir enthusiast Jonah Raskin's anticipation of the upcoming movie The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; Peter Byrne's examination of the unstable afterlife and metamorphosis of artist Paul Gauguin; Fabio De Propris's look at the world-wide embrace of American pop culture, which lives on even while the country's clout diminishes at home and abroad; and le coin français, with offerings from Marie Rennard, Christian Cottard, Simone Alié-Daram, and Alfred Jarry. We conclude with the poetry of Guido Monte and Maxwell Clark, and as always, your letters. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Poison Playtime
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/poison_playtime_QwebQnOhMRcKmchxQufQGN Poison Playtime Peru lead-smelt suit could hit NY mogul By CHUCK BENNETT Last Updated: 7:25 AM, November 22, 2010 Billionaire industrialist Ira Rennert may have a legal problem big enough to match his East End house, say lawyers preparing a massive lawsuit against his mining interests. The likely plaintiffs in the case against the Brooklyn-born Rennert -- whose 66,000-square-foot mansion in Sagaponack is the nation's largest single residence -- would be as many as 3,000 Peruvian kids suffering from blood poisoning allegedly caused by a lead-smelting operation he invested heavily in, the lawyers said. If you are going to participate in the global economy, you have to be globally responsible. You can't treat people in Third World countries like they are nothing, attorney Michael Hugo said by phone from Peru. Rennert, who also owns a duplex on Fifth Avenue and is a high-society staple of the Manhattan charity gala circuit with wife Ingeborg, will be named personally in the suit, Hugo said. The Brooklyn College grad-turned-self-made-billionaire also made real-estate news in 2008, when he spent more than $60 million to buy two Park Avenue apartments for daughters Tamara Winn and Yonina Davidson. Hugo, from the firm Parker, Waichman Alonso, and a team of New York and Peruvian trial attorneys have spent months in Peru providing blood tests to sickened children for the suit to be filed next year in federal court in Missouri, where the company has other mining interests. We are looking at children with a community average lead blood level of 32, which is off the charts by American standards, Hugo said. I've seen children test in the 70s . . . In New York if a kid gets a 10, he's rushed to the hospital. The numbers refer to the amount of lead per deciliter of blood, and researchers have found just 5 micrograms can lead to intellectual impairment. Doe Run Peru, part of Rennert's Manhattan-based firm Renco Group, bought La Oroya mine in 1997 for $125 million from the Peruvian government. Rennert is not involved with La Oroya's day-to-day operations, his spokesman said. When Renco first agreed to become investors in this company, the government of Peru vowed in a written contract that it would clean up all contamination but has utterly failed to make good, said Renco spokesman Jim McCarthy. Doe Run Peru, meanwhile, has done everything humanly possible to make the facility safe, which is why it makes no sense to fault the company, let alone one of its outside investors. He said $312 million was spent on improving standards at the mine, which employs about 3,000 people, and another $169 million has been budgeted. Still, La Oroya, a town of 35,000 people about 112 miles east of Lima, was rated one of the world's 10 most polluted places by the environmental nonprofit Blacksmith Institute in 2006. chuck.benn...@nypost.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] For Willie, who just got busted
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Re: [Marxism] Chavez calls for end of UN occupation of Haiti
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is a good start. Now, when Correa declares he will no longer allow his military to participate in joint maneuvers with the Colombian Army against the FARC we might be getting somewhere. He might want to reconsider all the DEA aid and training programs as well. Greg 2010/11/21 Fred Fuentes fred.fuen...@gmail.com: From Chavez's latest weekly column La tragedia haitiana continúa golpeándonos el corazón. Como bolivarianos y bolivarianas, nunca podremos permanecer impasibles ante la realidad lacerante y atroz que padece el pueblo de Petión: el pueblo hermano que merece un destino mejor. Ya la epidemia de cólera ha causa la muerte de más mil personas, en un país absolutamente devastado por el terremoto de enero pasado. Hasta cuándo continuará la ocupación militar de Haití con la mampara de la ONU. Con qué moral puede pedírsele al pueblo haitiano que cese sus protestas contra las tropas extranjeras. Haití no quiere ser Puerto Rico, esto es, una neocolonia yanqui, pero eso no tiene la menor importancia para la ONU o la OEA. Venezuela seguirá prestándole toda la ayuda y todo el apoyo que sean necesarios al pueblo haitiano. Igualmente, haremos sentir nuestra voz para multiplicar los esfuerzos solidarios desde UNASUR y desde la ALBA. http://www.aporrea.org/actualidad/a112610.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Bolivia's Army Declares itself Socialist
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 8:08 PM, S. Artesian sartes...@earthlink.net wrote: Yeah, right--socialist, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist-- so much so that I'm sure the generals are withdrawing all troops and support from MINUSTAH, and other UN missions. What a crock of.shit. What's next? NATO declares itself Leninist? http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=31Itemid=74jumival=5885 'Dancing with Dynamite' in South America Ben Dangl: Many social movements now opposing the same leaders they helped bring to power Transcript JESSE FREESTON, PRODUCER, TRNN: Over the past decade, a series of left-wing governments took power in South America, in many cases representing the first time in modern history that business and military elites lost direct control over their national governments. Journalist and author Ben Dangl spent much of the past decade reporting from the region. He spoke to The Real News about his new book, Dancing with Dynamite. BEN DANGL, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: Platforms were developed by presidents that were very much influenced by social movements in various countries, social movements fighting for access to water, fighting for state control of gas reserves, fighting against US militarization in the drug war. And presidents across the region pulled up these demands from movements and rode that momentum into the political office and won. And my book looks at the relationship between social movements and these governments. FREESTON: The book chronicles Dangl's experience in seven such South American countries, but takes its name from Bolivia. DANGL: Dynamite in Bolivia is a tool used by one of the most historically powerful movements in the country, which is the miners movement. Miners in Bolivia were pivotal in the revolution of 1952 in working to nationalize the mines, working to grant voting rights to a majority of the population, access to health care and education for indigenous people. And when miners arrive in La Paz to protest against governments, to protest against ome unpopular presidents, to demand for reforms in the mining sector, they use dynamite—not to destroy anything, but as a kind of firework to scare the heck out of politicians. And it's worked. In 2003, during the Gas War against a plan to export Bolivian gas to the US for a very low price, a pivotal sector in this movement were the miners. And when they arrived in La Paz in October 2003, throwing their dynamite around, that was when Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada left the country in a plane to the US, escaping the conflict and resigning. FREESTON: Current president Evo Morales was a congressman and leader of the opposition during the gas wars. At the time, he supported the moderate position of raising the taxes on foreign companies. But the social movement pushed him to advocate for full nationalization, and two years later he was elected president, due in part to a pledge to nationalize the gas industry. DANGL: He also helped convene a constitutional assembly to rewrite the country's constitution, which granted access to water, electricity, and basic services as a human right to people. That has also arisen out of movements against water privatization in the country and the fight for better services. Morales, as well as other presidents, have institutionalized a lot of these changes that were won in the streets. FREESTON: After a landslide reelection win in 2009, Morales has come under fire from some of the same forces that propelled him to power in 2005. Óscar Olivera, a renowned leader in both the Cochabamba Water War and the gas wars that helped bring Morales to prominence, said the government has, quote, excluded, ignored, and even smeared those who want to have an independent voice. DANGL: —been a tendency in the Morales government to—when confronting a critical movement or activist group, saying that they're allies of the right or funded by the US. This is largely untrue. There is a very powerful right-wing movement in Bolivia connected to civic committees in the eastern part of the country—right-wing governors, politicians, and political parties. They pose a very real threat to the Morales government. There are also incredibly powerful movements and activists around the country which have well-founded critiques of the government. FREESTON: During the gas wars, the city of El Alto was a central battleground. Neighborhood councils blocked the main access road to the capital of La Paz. On multiple occasions in 2003, security forces opened fire on protesters, killing dozens. The backlash led to the the fall of President de Lozada, and in 2005 El Alto voted heavily for Morales. FEJUVE, the federation of El Alto's 600 neighborhood councils, has since become a
Re: [Marxism] Bolivia's Army Declares itself Socialist
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis, the CONAIE is in Ecuador, not Bolivia, and it has been a part of a larger revolutionary process since its inception in the mid-1980's. They have always worked in coalition with trade unions and student groups to topple successive governments from power.The idea that the CONAIE is merely an identity-based pressure group is a canard. Greg On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 10:20 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: On 11/21/10 9:09 AM, Greg McDonald wrote: DANGL: Socialist, state-led projects, no matter how revolutionary and how much money they create in the extractive industry, cause a lot of pollution and displace communities. And that's been one of the sources of conflicts and tension in Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, where you have economies that are largely based on extractive industries, mining and oil particularly. And when these industries come into conflicts with communities, the government isn't interested in negotiating with them or working with them closely. I am by no means an expert on Dangl's journalism but I have the very strong suspicion that he is an anarchist. Ever since the Zapatistas, there have been a number of U.S. journalists and scholars who practically equate state power with evil. It leads to fetishizing direct action, civil society, the social movements, indigenous organizations against an oppressive Socialist, state-led machine that is implicitly a symbol of Marxist bureaucratic tendencies. Needless to say, this was not Mariategui's approach. I have been critical of Morales in the past but you have to put him into context. This is the first indigenous president of Bolivia, a country that has oppressed Indians for over 400 years. The challenge to groups like CONAIE is to become part of a larger radical movement that can confront Morales for state power, while at the same time defending his government against attempts to subvert it. This is a delicate balancing act that requires a grasp of Marxism and revolutionary history. If there was greater attention paid to Mariategui, this would be a good first step. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Bolivia's Army Declares itself Socialist
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 12:01 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: The final speaker, Anibal Quijano, a Peruvian academic and World Systems theorist, endorsed the idea of Andean capitalism as put forward by Morales’s vice president. He hailed the idea of energy profits being siphoned off to fund community-based projects. Quijano does not live in Zamora Chinchipe, where canadian and chinese gold mining companies are preparing to wreak havoc on the communities living in the area. Theses are not open pit mines located in the desert, but rather are located in densely populated areas with complex and fragile ecosystems. You can call that socialism if you want to, I call it capitalist neo-extractivism backed by the strong arm of the state. It's really a mild form of keynesian redistribution, but it leaves intact the colonialist pattern of wrecking the countryside to benefit urban populations. Greg Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Bolivia's Army Declares itself Socialist
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == There's a good PDF article by Ecuadorian economist Alberto Acosta at rebelion: http://www.rebelion.org/seccion.php?id=34 Poverty in the Citizens' Revolution or an Impoverished Revolution? On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 2:06 PM, Manuel Barrera mtom...@hotmail.com wrote: Mark observed: I would generalize this observation further, Louis. We regularly get explanations in all sorts of venues about where the Left has gone and is going terribly wrong. It is a mantra here, in the blogosphere, in Facebook, etc. Louis observed: when the left is weak there is a tendency for its adherents to look for enemies within its ranks since it is too impotent to register blows against the real class enemy. Well, I have to concur with both Louis and Mark, expressly about the last portion of the interchange with Sartesian regarding everyone's nuances of distrust for liberal bourgeois governments and their bodies of armed men in Latin America. However, this latter descent into communication frustration (my term for this sort of fracas), notwithstanding, Sartesian's counterpoints of distrust remain necessary. It is just too bad that any of us cannot get past our opposing fears; that Marxists will become too enamored of the Morales'/Chavez's/Correa's (a useful fear to have) and that self-determination (i.e., the mobilization of the masses from oppressed countries or nationalities around bourgeois democratic demands) somehow will prevent the mobilization of the working class as a class (an unfounded fear in my view). All of that sort of discussion, while, let's say, well-traveled, can still be educational. As much as I try to remain abreast of history and it connections with the current reality, I remain in need of continued edification as new events occur. Hence, a strong, honest, even biting interchange can serve a purpose; even if it gets hard hearing each other's manias sometimes. Precisely because we are in a period where, in effect, all we have is our wits and little chance to act on our convictions, we, all of us, have to maintain our sanity. I define sanity not in the psychological sense, but in the social sense that we are cadres of revolutionary currency that, regardless whether we will ever get off the bench of history, must remain ready should the movement of the masses come to our doors. It helps for us to remind ourselves of the counter currents of ideology--reformist, ultraleft, sectarian and the all too numerous amalgamations--and to analyze them from our combined Marxist--revolutionary--perspective. We need strong voices with all our differences, necessarily born of our own individualized experiences. We need that kind of interchange to keep our wits about us, especially in times of impending shadow as well as in times of emerging revolutionary light. What we cannot need is to accede to the urge to dismiss each other if we can't come to resolution. We all know that any prognostications, any positions we believe to be true will not be resolved except and only in the streets, through the movement of masses, led if not first initiated by the working classes of the world. There is such a thing as life long learning for revolutionists. Indeed, we have the best chance to maintain the repository of history. We can get frustrated with each other, we can attack each others' points of view--perceived or actual. What we cannot afford to do is walk off, even metaphorically, in a huff--because ultimately and eventually we Will Need to Unite. We should not expect, nor believe in civil discourse (the parlance of the oppressor who wishes to stifle the voice of the people with such civility). What we should expect is to continue dialogues, yes, Even When They Try Our Souls. In truth, we really don't know each other well enough truly to distrust each other; at least not on this list. Our enemy is out there and he tries often and very effectively to dissuade us from uniting; even more so to prevent our natural audience from hearing us. Let's not let him (yes, I choose the gender reference intentionally). Manuel PS: I found the earliest part of this interchange educational--I remain a defender of the democratic revolutionary demands of the Latin American masses, regardless of their uneven and contradictory trust in bourgeois-democratic leaders and remain distrustful of bourgeois democrats, not because of their individual natures, but because of the State(s) upon which they rest. A socialist army will not be defined by its claims nor of its willingness to adopt a working class pay structure; it will only Ever be defined by its adoption, growth from, and/or its defense of the class it
[Marxism] St. Petersburg, FL Police cutting up homeless tents
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[Marxism] 1 MILLION pounds of Food on 3 acres. 10, 000 fish, 500 yards of compost
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[Marxism] The Keynesian Revival: a Marxian Critique
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.rdwolff.com/content/keynesian-revival-marxian-critique Marxian theory emphasizes how employers’ decisions about distributing the surpluses are significantly influenced by the struggles between producers and appropriators of surpluses inside capitalist enterprises as well as by the competitive struggles among them. Hence Marxian theory suggests the internal transformation of enterprise structures. Instead of their typical capitalist structures that split employers from employees, a post-capitalist structure would position workers as, collectively, their enterprise's own board of directors -- Marx's associated workers. The era of capitalist employers (e.g., corporate boards selected by and responsible to major private shareholders) would then have come to an historic end. The capitalist class structure of production would have been superseded by such a collectivization of surplus appropriation inside enterprises (Wolff 2010). For example, consider enterprises newly structured such that the workers produce outputs in the usual way Mondays through Thursdays, but on Fridays, assembled in both plenaries and subgroups, they make decisions previously taken by boards of directors selected by (major) shareholders. That is, the workers democratically decide what, where, and how to produce and how to distribute their realized surpluses. They decide when and how to expand and contract. But they do not do that alone. They enter into co-respective power-sharing agreements with the local and regional communities where their physical production facilities are located. The workers participate in the residential communities’ decision-making processes and vice-versa.[8] Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Bolivia's Army Declares itself Socialist
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Re: [Marxism] Quantitative Easing Explained by Cute Animals
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I take it you meant deflation is bad and increases unemployment. Actually, falling prices alone do not hinder production unless demand falls off. On the second point, sure, folks such as Bernanke are only seen as incompetent if one assumes they are actually under orders to initiate policies benefitting the american people as a whole and not just its ruling class. On the other hand, it did point out the incestuous relationship between the Fed and goldman sachs, which is a start. Have to admit though, it was pretty funny. G. On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 1:07 AM, Gary MacLennan gary.maclenn...@gmail.com wrote: I loved this, but two points occurred to me - falling prices inhibits production do they not and that means increased unemployment. So inflation when it occurs is a bad thing. Secondly the line that Bernanke has not got anything right is simply wrong. He and his predecessor, Greenspan, got much right for the ruling class - namely a vast expansion in their wealth. That was very much mission accomplished. To talk of the Fed getting nothing right disguises the class basis of their very existence. comradely Gary Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Wiki Central
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[Marxism] Quantitative Easing Explained by Cute Animals
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Re: [Marxism] Fracking comes to Australia
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Australia=Arkansas with a beach http://i.imgur.com/EA4fk.png On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: A friend of mine and Marxmail subscriber who lives in Australia until something better comes along keeps sending me horror stories about xenophobia, environmental despoliation, mistreatment of aborigines, etc. Someone could write a dissertation comparing Australia and the USA, 2 cowboy countries sinking into oblivion fast. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Gini index ranking by country
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_inc_equ_un_gin_ind-income-equality-un-gini-index https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2172.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Massive uptick in Volcanic Activity
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php?smplang=eng Can anyone explain why we have 33 active volcanos erupting simultaneously? G. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Massive uptick in Volcanic Activity
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Sorry, that was a typographical mistake. I counted 23, not 33. On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 9:36 AM, Greg McDonald gregm...@gmail.com wrote: http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php?smplang=eng Can anyone explain why we have 33 active volcanos erupting simultaneously? G. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Hondurans Denounce Return of Death Squads
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com/2010/10/30/hondurans-denounce-return-of-death-squads/ Hondurans Denounce Return of Death Squads October 30, 2010 San Salvador, Oct 29 (Prensa Latina) Death squads have reappeared in Honduras since the June 28, 2009 military coup, and they are targeting teachers, human rights activist Berta Oliva charged in El Salvador. Paramilitary groups like CAM (Comando Álvarez Martínez) are behind the selective murders of Honduran opposition activists, and teachers are their main victims, Oliva said, quoted by Co Latino newspaper. Human rights violations, persecution and selective assassinations are everyday occurrences, showing that the military coup “continues,” she said. Ten teachers have been murdered this year for their clear opposition to the current government, a continuation of the coup regime, said Oliva, general coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of Missing Detainees in Honduras. Oliva made her comments at the 7th Herbert Anaya Sanabria International Human Rights Congress in the Salvadoran capital. Fifty-six human rights activisits have been threatened by different armed groups, she said, urging the Organization of American States to urge the United States not to support the Honduran military while human rights violations continue. Honduran rural leaders who attended the human rights congress, said a campaign of persecution was being carried out against them to deprive them of their rights to the land. Matías Valle Cárdenas, vice presidnet of the United Campesino Movement of Aguán, in the department of Colon, said 16 of his comrades had been murdered in the last 6 months. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Ecuador, Venezuela: Danger south of the border | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Good article. Glad to see someone taking the grievances of the social movements seriously, but the piece could have gone much further in terms of elaborating the concrete reasons behind CONAIE's break with Correa. It's not just CONAIE, btw, but also important sectors within the unions and student federations, as well as the MPD. The international left also needs to have an objective understanding of Ecuador's ongoing relationship to imperialism vis-a-vis the institutional connections with the Armed Forces of Ecuador, which are doing everything they can to keep the FARC contained, as part of the ongoing strategy of Plan Colombia. Greg McDonald On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 2:59 AM, glparramatta glparrama...@greenleft.org.au wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Paul Kellogg * October 26, 2010 -- It is not difficult to see that the events of September 30, in the Latin American country of Ecuador, amounted to an attempted right-wing coup d’état. Mass mobilisations in the streets and plazas of Quito (the capital) and other cities – in conjunction with action by sections of the armed forces which stayed loyal to the government – stopped the coup before the day was out. But those few hours highlighted, again, the deep dangers facing those fighting for progressive change in Latin America and the Caribbean. Remarkably, the first task is to re-assert that in fact a coup attempt took place. In the wake of the failure of the coup, commentator after commentator was trying to minimise what happened. Peruvian “libertarian” Álvaro Vargas Llosa – darling of the World Economic Forum and outspoken critic of Che Guevara and the current governments of Bolivia and Venezuela – insists that it was not a coup just an “ill-advised, violent protest by the police against a law that cut their benefits”. Let us examine the facts... http://links.org.au/node/1960 * Subscribe free to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/gregmc59%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Ecuador, Venezuela: Danger south of the border | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nodo50.org/opcion/192/especial.php This article offers a balanced appraisal of Correa's own rapprochement with imperialism. In terms of the CONAIE and the rest of the popular movement, I am of the opinion, and I am not alone, in saying the CONAIE has not made any back-room deals with the right-wing. The people at upsidedown world, who have been following the movement closely for years, have published a number of articles recently dealing with this issue. I would suggest you check them out. Most of them have been posted here by yours truly. CONAIE suffered grievously over their early support for Gutierrez, and they have since retreated from the electoral sphere and regrouped. The same cannot be said for Pachakutik. I think that party has indeed been infiltrated by the right wing, the primary suspect being Antonio Vargas, but a few others have been mentioned by Pachakutik members. Vargas, however, is no longer in a leadership position. Fred Fuentes posted here a fine article edited by Marta Harnecker which goes into some detail over that issue. Pachakutik is an electoral parry, and is not a big force in the social movement. CONAIE withdrew its support for Pachakutik following the debacle with Gutierrez. They've gone back to what they do best. Here's what I think. Correa has demagogically smeared the social movements, from the FEUE to the UNE and MPD to CONAIE and Pachakutik, as part of his move to the right. He has over-exaggerated the supposed ties between Gutierrez and the indigenous movement, even after the latter broke ties with Gutierrez years ago, to increase support for his attack on the social movements. Correa has to break the CONAIE to move ahead with his plans to open up the country to international mining interests. His government is a neo-extractivist, neo-desarollista regime, with organic linkages to a burgeoning urban, new bourgeoisie. He's playing both sides against the middle. And he is trashing the indigenous and the countryside to buy off the urban poor. Greg On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 9:50 AM, Manuel Barrera mtom...@hotmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Greg wrote: . . . but the piece could have gone much further in terms of elaborating the concrete reasons behind CONAIE's break with Correa. It's not just CONAIE, btw, but also important sectors within the unions and student federations, as well as the MPD. The international left also needs to have an objective understanding of Ecuador's ongoing relationship to imperialism vis-a-vis the institutional connections with the Armed Forces of Ecuador, which are doing everything they can to keep the FARC contained, as part of the ongoing strategy of Plan Colombia. And Paul Kellogg wrote: Our job is to know the importance of the push-back to imperialism represented by the ALBA countries and the grim seriousness of our states in their determination to reverse this process. Our job is to build solidarity with the ALBA countries against attacks from the United States and Canada. To the extent we can do that, we can modestly increase the space for the struggles against neoliberalism, unfolding in Latin America and the Caribbean. betwixt and 'tween . . .What seems important is to ask just how the concrete reasons behind CONAIE's break with Correa help to fill a vacuum of leadership in the country and in the region's struggles against imperialism and For a worker's, farmer's, and indigenous government? Certainly Correa deserves no concrete support if his government is trying brake the process of revolution, but I wonder just how the break by CONAIE and the other important sectors is based on a rapprochement with the capitalist class (the wing that wants to overturn Correa for imperialism) or in the direction of further organization and mobilization of the masses toward more significant control over their lives? These are questions, not rhetoric. I'd appreciate an analysis of the current state of the worker's, indigenous, and youth movements in relation to their break with Correa. Manuel Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/gregmc59%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Details regarding Correa's involvement with Plan Colombia (among other things)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nodo50.org/opcion/192/especial.php La Defensa en la Revolución Ciudadana Nuestro país no ha dejado de involucrarse en el Plan Colombia, a pesar de que “la revolución ciudadana” predique otra cosa. Los hechos demuestran que entre el gobierno de EEUU y el ecuatoriano existe tolerancia. Es innegable el acumulado de lucha de los trabajadores y pueblos del Ecuador, que permtió la conformación de una tendencia de cambio, patriótica, progresista, de izquierda que viene gestándose en mayor nivel en los últimos años. Rafael Correa logró recoger los anhelos del pueblo, liderar esa tendencia, que desembocó en su triunfo electoral en el 2006. Se inició un gobierno que se mostraba distinto, con propuestas progresistas, nacionalistas, democráticas. Luego de tres años, varias han sido las políticas gubernamentales en favor de los más pobres, como el bono de desarrollo, los kits agropecuarios, la mochila y desayuno esco lar, etc.; aunque en el trasfondo tengan un alto contenido asistencialista, populista y en algunos casos demagógico. Otro aspecto positivo de su gestión ha sido su posición en defensa de nuestra soberanía, que ha sido la vitrina a nivel internacional. Pero desde hace algún tiem po, el gobierno se ha ido distanciando de sus propuestas originales. La derecha dentro del régimen ha logrado desplazar a los sectores más progresistas y democráticos, logrando el desgrane de algunos colaboradores y aplicando políticas antipopulares, desarrollistas y neoliberales. Todo el trabajo de la derecha, sus propias contradicciones internas, la naturaleza del gobierno y sus propios errores han ido minando su credibilidad y popularidad. Recientes encuestas le dan entre el 35% a 40% de aceptación. Se ha abierto varios frentes con las organizaciones sociales, de maestros, estudiantes, indígenas, ecologistas, que han salido a las calles a reclamar sus derechos y a tratar de presionarlo para enrumbar el camino. Hechos de corrupción salpican a su gestión. Se ha sumado a su baja de popularidad la crisis energética, el desempleo, la pobreza, entre otros. El doble discurso de Correa es pan de cada día. Lo que dice fuera del país, como en la UNASUR, contrasta con el autoritarismo, prepotencia, mesianismo y vanidad casa adentro, agravado por la criminalización de la protesta social. Dentro de este contexto es necesario profundizar sobre el tema Defensa, en la “revolución ciudadana” de Rafael Correa. Sabido es que uno de los primeros pasos en esta materia fue la aprobación de la Ley de Seguridad Pública y la creación de la Secretaria Nacional de Inteligencia, instrumentos al servicio del gobierno, que busca unificar a las inteligencias policiales y militares bajo un solo mando, tal como lo hicieron en Colombia. Dentro de esta Ley no se establece con claridad cuáles son las amenazas internas y externas, en tanto que se buscaría consolidar el criterio de criminalizar la lucha social, y como resultado tenemos la arremetida y represión contra las organizaciones sociales y populares, la detención ilegal de dirigentes populares, a quienes se les da calificación de terroristas, y como ejemplo tenemos el asesinato del profesor Bosco Wisuma y el encarcelamiento de Marcelo Rivera, presidente de la FEUE. En diciembre, la Asamblea Nacional aprobó la Proforma Presupuestaria para el año 2010. El sector de Defensa representa cerca de 14% del gasto. Cabe señalar que este rubro está bajo la categoría de “necesidad de recurso nacional”, con lo que se quita fondos a otras áreas; la Defensa es, en tonces, uno de los sectores prioritarios del gobierno. El presupuesto de Defensa para este año es de 1.669 millones, con un aumento de 382 millones respecto del año anterior. Adicionalmente, el gobierno prevé destinar 400 millones para el fortalecimiento militar, es pecialmente en comunicaciones e inteligencia. Así lo ratifica el ministro de Telecomunicaciones, Jorge Glass, quien en declaraciones aseguró que garantizará el respaldo a las FFAA, en cuanto al acceso a las capacidades de comunicaciones, fibra óptica y celulares. Todo lo que requieran para su gestión. Un dato adicional: en el 2008 el gobier no comprometió más de 500 millones de dólares de inversión militar para mejorar la capacidad operativa. En este mismo año el rubro para Defensa era del 10.70% respecto al PGE y del 3.41% respecto al PIB, superando a Colombia y Chile, que son los países con mayor porcentaje destinado a Defensa. Indudablemente, la prioridad en esta área, las ingentes cantidades de dólares en inversión a este sector para modernizarlo, fortalecerlo, equiparlo, es parte de la carrera armamentista en América Latina. El escenario que se presenta en el continente se torna amenazante, con la instalación de las bases gringas en Colombia, Panamá, Honduras y ahora
[Marxism] The Political Ecology of the Biocentric Turn in Ecuador's New Constitution
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.kaosenlared.net/media/23/23364_1_gudynasgirobiocentricoecu.pdf The Political Ecology of the Biocentric Turn in Ecuador's New Constitution abstract Ecuador's new Constitution is the first in Latin America to have a biocentric perspective. It introduces the concept of Nature ́s rights together with the right to ecological restoration. It promotes a new articulation with traditional knowledge by referring to both Nature and Pachamama. And it provides a framework to base environmental policies and management on an Andean perspective of the good life (sumak kawsay) and new kinds of development strategies. This paper describes and analyzes these new features from the perspective of political ecology and environmental ethics. It examines the impact of the concept of intrinsic value and offers a series of future challenges in field of politics and management. The biocentric turn represents an alternative to modernity, making it possible to value Nature, and articulate it with indigenous knowledge, in new ways. Key woRds: Nature's Rights, Intrinsic Value, Biocentrism, Political Ecology, Environmental Ethics, Ecuador. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Canadian Mining companies consistently abuse Human Rights and the Environment
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The reports below are significant, not only because they establish a pattern of violations by Canadian mining corporations operating in Central and Latin America, but also because ALBA member Ecuador has given a green light for these same mining companies to operate inside Ecuador. Even before their arrival, President Correa has signaled his eagerness to repress peaceful protests against open pit mining on the part of ecological groups and indigenous organizations such as Accion Ecologica and CONAIE. One such company has already announced its plan to invest half a billion dollars inside the country in the next three years. It is clear that the recent smear campaign against CONAIE is part of a larger plan to destroy any opposition to the invasion of indigenous territory by Canadian mining companies. Correa needs to break CONAIE before these outfits can operate with impunity. Greg McDonald http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=3325 Suppressed report confirms international violations by Canadian mining companies October 20, 2010 Canadian mining companies are involved in more than four times as many violations as the next two highest offenders, Australia and India A report obtained by MiningWatch Canada reveals that Canadian mining companies are implicated in four times as many violations of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as mining companies from other countries. The report was commissioned by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) in 2009 but was never released to the public. The report discusses 171 high-profile CSR violations by mining companies between 1999 and 2009. Sixty-three percent of these violations are linked to companies from just five countries, including Canada. Canadian mining companies are involved in more than four times as many violations as the next two highest offenders, Australia and India. The report’s authors conclude that “…Canadian companies have been the most significant group involved in unfortunate incidents in the developing world. Canadian companies have played a much more major role than their peers from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Canadian companies are more likely to be engaged in community conflict, environmental and unethical behaviour…” Importantly, the report also found that the large majority of the Canadian mining companies involved in such violations have CSR policies in place. “This report – done for the biggest industry lobby group – confirms what we have been saying for years: that violations of good corporate behaviour by Canadian mining companies in developing countries are numerous and widespread. Cleary this is not just a case of a few bad apples, as the industry’s boosters would like us to believe,” said Catherine Coumans, Research Coordinator for MiningWatch Canada. “It also confirms that voluntary social responsibility measures by these same companies are not enough to stop abuses of human rights and the environment.” It is for this reason that MiningWatch Canada firmly supports the passage of Bill C-300, An Act Respecting Corporate Accountability for Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries, currently before the House of Commons. “Canadians want to know that our government is not supporting Canadian mining companies that are involved in abuses of human rights and the environment overseas,” says Coumans. “That’s what Bill C-300 is all about, making sure our tax dollars do not support bad corporate behaviour.” Download the report: Corporate Social Responsibility: Movements and Footprints of Canadian Mining and Exploration Firms in the Developing World (PDF) Rights Action Human rights complaint to the Canadian government, Concerning nickel mining in Guatemala October 19, 2010 Rights Action HudBay Minerals Watch October 19, 2010 BELOW: Updated Human Rights Complaint to the Canadian Government Concerning Nickel Mining in Guatemala WHAT TO DO: Please write your own letter of concern, to your own politician, about this on-going, Canadian / mining industry issue. Feel free to send copy of this Complaint with your own letter. See address list below of Canadian politicians and government officials. Please re-distribute and re-post this letter all around To get on/ off Rights Action's listserv: http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?m=1103480765269 FOR MORE INFORMATION, QUESTIONS: Grahame Russell, co-director, Rights Action (i...@rightsaction.org, 860-352-2448, www.rightsaction.org) Dr. Catherine Nolin, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Northern British Colombia (no...@unbc.ca, (250) 961-5875) * * * * * * * October 19, 2010 UPDATED HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION COMPLAINT
[Marxism] Notes on Ecuador
a minimum consensus with the social sectors.” Below is the analysis from the union federation CEDOCUT website: http://www.cedocut.org/cms/ According to CEDOCUT, the entire passel of new laws created by Correa's party--the laws on mines, water, public finance, education, public sector, and public businesses, were instituted autocratically without the participation of the popular movement, and undermine popular initiatives to the benefit of the private sector and multinational corporations. Furthermore, the government is pushing for labor flexibility, and we all know what that means. There is a growing consensus among all the various sources I have researched, from Accion Ecologica and the MPD, to Pachakutik and CONAIE, as well as various labor organizations and student organizations, representing the vast majority of organizations of the social movements of Ecuador, that the primary thrust of Correa's government is capitalist developmentalism. It remains to be seen whether or not Correa responds to popular calls for a Golpe de Timon, or a rapprochement with the left. Given the institutional and legal ramifications of all the recent laws his government has passed, one cannot help but be pessimistic at that prospect. There is also further analysis coming from the left in Latin America which disputes the argument that the events of september 30th constituted even a poorly orchestrated coup attempt. A spokesperson for the Argentine PT agrees with the Ecuadorian unions, student groups, and indigenous organizations, that the police rebellion was not a coup attempt. http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/que-paso-en-ecuador According to that line of reasoning, neither the high command of the military nor the police deviated from their loyalty to President Correa. The discontent emerged from below. Furthermore, none of the supposed coup plotters called for Correa to be deposed. Their demands were purely economic. Finally, the president even received support from the bourgeois right-wing in Guayaquil. All of these groups have backed the presidential decision to institute a state of siege inside the country, which has now been prolonged inside Quito. Outside the country, Correa received the support of the OAS, President Obama, who called him personally to express his support, the UN, the UNASUR, and even the right wing governments of the region such as Peru, Colombia, and Chile. There is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that the president was not really a victim of kidnapping either. Correa had access to his cell phone, guards were not posted outside his door, and he even had negotiated his peaceful exit from the hospital with his presumptive kidnappers. All of this has been verified by Dr's Gilberto Calle and Fernando Vargas, as well as by journalists who were present in the room with the president. To be sure, Lucio Gutierrez tried to take advantage of the situation to press publicly for Correa's replacement, but his was the lone voice among the right wing bourgeoisie and partidocracy crying in the wilderness. Not only does Correa represent the bonapartist head of a bourgeois government, seeking to disarticulate the social movements and push forward with a neo-extractivist economic program, he is even deviating from Chavez's foreign policy by working with the Colombian government to encircle the FARC rebels. With friends like these Greg McDonald Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] I have turned Danny K into a news star
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Good article, from a French anarchist to a Argentine communist. what's not to like? Greg On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Nestor Gorojovsky nmg...@gmail.com wrote: Not Danny K the actor, but D. Koechlin, the French subscriber to this list. Sorry if in Spanish. http://ar.news.yahoo.com/s/20102010/40/n-world-anuncia-francia-euro-nestor-gorojovsky.html http://ar.news.yahoo.com/s/20102010/40/n-world-anuncia-francia-euro-nestor-gorojovsky.html http://www.elpatagonico.net/index.php?item=viewlastref=ultimasid=156774sec=ext Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Ecuador: La CIA ya es de todos. A Eva Golinger con infinito amor
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/ecuador-cia-ya-todos-eva-golinger-infinito-amor América Latina una estrategia de gobiernos corruptos y autoritarios ha sido acusar a la oposición de ser agentes de la CIA, para luego perseguirlos e incluso eliminarlos” “Un solo disparo me pudo alejar de tu sonrisa, pero ahí te dejo veinte tiros en mi cuerpo para que sepas porque me mataron” La izquierda latinoamericana desde la década de los sesenta del siglo veinte, viene enfrentando una doble crueldad: el ataque visible, directo al corazón, con enemigos de frente; y también el otro, el más temible, el de la criminalización escondida y estigmatización cobarde, proveniente de las propias filas de una izquierda que piensa con el parietal derecho y lanza elegantes hienas a silenciar la voz de los distintos. Son almirantes de la palabra, eunucos del fusil, adoradores de insectos, coleccionistas de lápidas, convertidos en pesquisas intelectuales del socialismo del siglo 21. Ahora han vuelto a su faena de ponerle marco teórico al pillaje, a bautizar a un engendro de la historia: “Revolución Ciudadana”, condecorándolo como el emblema de la liberación del Ecuador. Cofradías de adoradores de las zurdas oficiales latinoamericanas, destilan saliva de adoración al “Señor Presidente[1]”, fugado de la obra de Miguel Angel Asturias. Acostumbrados a jugar a la rayuela en Marte, estos coleccionistas de tragedias, han desempolvado a Philip Agee[2], y con habilidad de pistolero ciego van marcando a sus nuevas víctimas, como agentes de la CIA: líderes indígenas, sindicales, pensadores libres, escritores, organizaciones históricas de izquierda, movimientos sociales, dignos seres de arcilla popular, aparecen enrolando los registros “clasificados” de la Central de Inteligencia Americana CIA, por el delito de seguir creyendo en una luz que no enceguezca. Luego del fallido “Golpe de Estado del Cabo Cotonete[3]” del 30 S, una corporación internacional, liderada por la ciudadana americana-venezolana, Eva Golinger, asumida en biógrafa del Presidente Hugo Chávez, ha hilvanado la defensa del Presidente Rafael Correa, disparando el infaltable “sedimento verbal”, con el conocido estilo de los pajes de Stalin, convocando murciélagos a la casa para espantar las ratas, sin más argumentos que un cementerio de simplezas y veneno recargado. Respecto al “golpe de estado” la realidad los está destrozando, aquí lo que se armó fue un “golpe de efecto”, liderado por “El Señor Presidente”, para cubrir la corrupción babilónica. De la oferta de muerte cruzada solo quedaron muertos cruzados, del ejército y la policía, sacrificados por el delirio extravagante del Comandante en Jefe, que de rehén del Regimiento Quito[4], pasó a convertirse en rehén de la Recoleta[5]. Dice usted compañera Eva, que la derecha, el imperialismo y la CIA estuvieron tras el golpe del 30 de septiembre, significa eso que se trató de un autogolpe, porque cualquier ciudadano medianamente informado y sin retorcidos intereses, reconocerá que la derecha de pedigrí, la crema de la partidocracia corrupta y los apóstoles de los imperios y subimperios, comen y duermen en Carondelet, mientras refrendan los más apetitosos contratos públicos y se distribuyen utilidades. Señorita Golinger, cuando venga a Ecuador le presentaré a Alexis Mera[6], la mano izquierda de Rafael Correa, el hombre aún huele a Cortijo[7] y a Febres Cordero. Juntos pasaremos lista al ochenta por ciento del gabinete correísta, usted notará en sus rostros más de treinta años de neoliberalismo y corrupción. Y también me permitiré presentarle al sub grupo revolucionario “Ruptura de los 25”, conocidos en Ecuador como “los chicos de USAID”, sigla que usted pronuncia con facilidad. Eva, venga a Ecuador, no de turismo bolivariano, venga a dormir el desempleo de miles de trabajadores públicos despedidos por su ídolo; venga a probar la “caridad socialista” de 30 dólares mensuales del bono solidario; venga compañera, a sumarse a los cedros, caobas y chontaduros que defienden el Parque Yasuní y a los humanos fantasmas no contactados, frente a las perforadoras del Coronel Quarich[8]; venga, le recibirán los niños de Dayuma[9], aún guardan casquillitos de fusil; venga a Molleturo, le espera Carlos Pérez[10] y más de veinte terroristas del agua; venga a bañarse en los ríos de Tenguel[11], el olor a mercurio le recordará el rostro metálico del Ministro Galo Borja, de la minera PazBorja. Le temblará el pulso cuando salude con el Gerente de Petroecuador, Vicealmirante Manuel Zapater, acusado por la Comisión de la Verdad, del asesinato de dos compatriotas. Le invito señorita Golinger a pasar una noche de manjares en la casa de Marco Bone, en el Guasmo[12] guayaquileño, para hablar de macro economía y contarle del despojo a
Re: [Marxism] Eva Golinger, narconews, upsidedownworld, EcuadorSolidarity Network
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 2:03 AM, stansfield smith stansfieldsm...@yahoo.com wrote: Artesian says the real issue is whether Golinger proves NED or USAID gave money to CONAIE. I don't know what world you live in, but the real issue was that there was a US backed coup in Ecuador and we should expose it. Artesian couldn't care less about that. Does Artesian oppose the coup? I don't read that he does. The real issue for him, like the Ecuador Solidarity Network is to attack one of the people who has exposed US roles in Latin American coups. What is Golinger's track record so far? On Venezuela and Honduras, has she written a lot of BS, or is it accurate? I leave it to the Ecuadorians to expose the real coup plotters. I think they are up to the task. According to various Ecuadorian and Mexican media sources, members of the Ecuadorian police force involved in the coup attempt are being investigated. For the record, this group is a small minority in comparison with the 1000 or so members of the police force who were protesting based upon what they thought were legitimate economic grievances against recent changes in the Law of Public Services. They may have been manipulated, or not, but that does not mean the vast majority who were protesting that day are guilty of supporting a coup attempt either. At least some members of the Correa cabinet are exercising proper judicial restraint. On the other hand, Correa is also taking advantage of the crackdown climate to launch scurrilous broadsides against some of the unions and MPD leadership who were protesting on the side of the police. This is typical Correa demagoguery. He has not targeted the CONAIE for supporting the coup attempt, just the MPD and a few of the unions. I did a little background research on my own. For the record, Ms. Golinger was born in the USA, she attended Sarah Lawrence University, where she studied music, and then she attended CUNY law school. She is licensed as an attorney in the USA. According to her own website, part of her business is to get H-1B visas for others. According to wiki: The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 101(a)(15)(H). It allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. If a foreign worker in H-1B status quits or is dismissed from the sponsoring employer, the worker can apply for a change of status to another non-immigrant status, find another employer (subject to application for adjustment of status and/or change of visa), or must leave the US. The regulations define a “specialty occupation” as requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor[1] including, but not limited to, architecture, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, biotechnology, medicine and health, education, law, accounting, business specialties, theology, and the arts, and requiring the attainment of a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent as a minimum[2] (with the exception of fashion models, who must be of distinguished merit and ability.)[3] Likewise, the foreign worker must possess at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent and state licensure, if required to practice in that field. H-1B work-authorization is strictly limited to employment by the sponsoring employer. There's nothing really remarkable one way or the other about all this, but I should remind you, Mr. Smith, that your contrarian attitude is leading you to make ridiculous and faulty statements, such as the one you made earlier that Golinger is not a US citizen, but a Venezuelan. If I said the sky was blue you would no doubt say it was overcast. Does Artesian reject the made-up stories about Golinger that narconews or ecuadorsolidaritynetwork present? No. Evidently you are on the same side of the fence as Greg McDonald and those coup-makers and the CIA in Ecuador. If not, then say so. So those of us who know a little history of Ecuador, who have spent some actual time in the country and who know that Correa is not really a principled leftist, and who, along with others inside Ecuador on the left, are critical of Correa and his policies, we are now on the same side as the coup-makers and the CIA because we come to the defense of one of the most powerful and principled social movements in Latin America? For the record, I do think this was a coup attempt, but it also has the tenor of a feeler action, like DW has said earlier, to test the waters, to see how everyone lines up, to check the correlation of forces. But that does not mean that I support Rafael Correa. I do not, but however flawed I think his presidency, his pseudo leftist co-optation
[Marxism] Thirteen Ecuadorian Police Suspended
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A punto de suspensión, 13 policías ecuatorianos Afp Periódico La Jornada Jueves 14 de octubre de 2010, p. 35 Quito. Unos 13 policías ecuatorianos, entre ellos siete coroneles, podrían ser separados de la institución al quedar suspendidos de sus funciones por el intento de golpe de Estado del 30 de septiembre. Siete coroneles, cuatro capitanes, un teniente y un subteniente fueron puestos en disponibilidad –un paso previo a su retiro de la institución–, informó ayer un portavoz de la policía. Explicó que la medida podría derivar en la separación de los uniformados de la institución si se comprueba una conducta inapropiada de los mismos durante la asonada, que dejó 10 muertos y 274 heridos. Mientras, el presidente Rafael Correa señaló como uno de los líderes de la revuelta a otro policía, que integró una unidad elite desarticulada en 2009 por ser considerada represora. Sabemos ya que uno de los cabecillas de este amotinamiento es uno de los policías del Grupo de Apoyo Operacional, unidad que desarticulamos por represora, dijo el gobernante. En junio pasado el gobierno ordenó la reapertura de investigaciones a agentes presuntamente implicados en la violación de derechos humanos luego de que una Comisión de la Verdad estableció que hubo 68 ejecuciones extrajudiciales y 17 desapariciones entre 1984 y 2008. Ayer también se anunciaron cambios en la cúpula de la policía, cuyo jefe máximo, general Patricio Franco, fue designado por el mandatario en medio de la crisis ocasionada por la intentona. Durante el fallido golpe de Estado, el gobernante fue agredido y retenido por manifestantes en un hospital de Quito, y fue rescatado en un operativo militar que implicó el cruce de disparos con los insurrectos. Thirteen Ecuadorian police, including seven colonels, 4 captains, a lieutenant, and second lieutenant, have been suspended from their duties due to their involvement in the coup attempt on september 30. President Correa has stated one of the principal leaders once belonged to an elite unit which had been sanctioned in 2009 because of its repressive past. It is called the Grupo Apyo Operacional, Operational Support Group. They were involved in human rights violations, including 68 extrajudicial executions, and 17 disappearances between 1984 and 2008. There have also been changes in the top leadership of the police. Greg McDonald Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] was the Ecuador coup an amateur job?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 11:05 AM, stansfield smith stansfieldsm...@yahoo.com wrote: In any case, I am rather surprised that on a Marxism email list, a number of people on it can't make up their minds about who to condemn when there is an attempted US coup in a Third World country. It sounds like a little miniature version of the German Social Democrat Party when World War One broke out: do we support the international working class or do we support imperialism? Well, it's a tough decision, maybe we should just abstain on the war credit vote and see what happens. Speaking of attacks on the working class: Jeffrey Weber interviews Luis Macas Can you elaborate on the ways in which your theoretical and practical political learning shaped your ideological vision and orientation? The whole process I’ve described of learning has been important for me – my experience in university, my experience in academia. But my formation was in the community. The central point for me is how to combine two central struggles: the indigenous struggle – the struggle for identity, the historical struggle of the indigenous peoples – and the class struggle. This is what needs to be understood, this is what we need to do so that neither struggle is isolated. Because here it’s not the case that we declare ourselves socialists and that’s it – there’s a diversity of social processes, of historical political processes. The production of these political processes has to be the basis of a new society, a plural society – what we call here plurinationality. This is a project that did not simply emerge from the indigenous movement, but from the peasants, from intellectuals, from ecologists, workers, and so on. For me, plurinationality as such is a proposal for struggle. It’s a proposal for radical change. There are two conditions of struggle in my way of thinking. One is to make visible and to transcend coloniality. Coloniality is still very much alive in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, and in all parts of Latin America – the coloniality of power; the coloniality of knowledge; the coloniality of being. This is one major component of what has to be overcome through political struggle. But, there’s another arm of struggle, which has to do with the condition of this economic model, the capitalist model. If we don’t destroy both, one is going to remain. Therefore, the elimination of both these conditions of oppression and exploitation is what has to be done when we’re thinking of the transformation of society, of social and political transformation. In the current conjuncture, after three years of Rafael Correa in office, what are the principal axes of struggle in the indigenous and popular movements? I think that the political scenarios are basically the same as they have been for the last 10 or 20 years. Things haven’t changed here. The people are living through a difficult time, where the different social and popular sectors of our country are dispersed and fragmented. Why? Because the government has facilitated this process. The people are still here of course, the indigenous and the workers. But the government started out their process of disarticulation with the workers, with the elimination of collective contracts. What is the message of this move at the most basic level? The objective is to dismantle the unions. It is not, as Correa’s discourse suggests, an effort to get rid of undue privileges of bureaucratic unions. From my point of view, it is necessary to change the bureaucratic structures and privileges of the labour movement, the perks that the unions have given themselves at the expense of the rest of the workers. That would be good. But the way in which Correa is trying to dismantle popular workers’ organizations is diabolical. Today, with the indigenous movement. I don’t know if you’ve heard the series of insults and epithets Correa has launched at the indigenous movement? Yes, of course. Correa has not overcome his colonial frame of mind as of yet. And it’s not surprising that this man talks this way, after having spent his time in the best high schools of the elites in the country, and then having travelled abroad, to Illinois, to study economics at the graduate university level. It’s not surprising that he’s forgotten the profound reality of Ecuador, the indigenous people that are here. But we are here. Why the focus on the indigenous movement? There’s a political motivation for the government’s assault on the indigenous movement in the current moment. It’s not that the government wants simply to get rid of the Indians, or that it’s racism for racism’s sake. No. The objective is to liquidate the indigenous movement in this country, to dismantle and destroy this movement.
[Marxism] Report on French Strike
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.marxist.com/france-3-5-million-against-pension-reform-what-next.htm A new national day of action against the pensions reform brought 3.5 million demonstrators to the streets of France on October 12, the largest number so far in this movement. The massive character of the demonstrations can only be compared with the strikes of 1995/96 when the government attempted to cut social security and pension rights of some sections of workers. Photo: Pedro_VeziniPhoto: Pedro_VeziniThe number of protesters are impressive: 330,000 in Paris, a record number of 230,000 in Marseille, 145,000 in Toulouse, 130,000 in Bordeaux, 95,000 in Nantes, 75,000 in Rouen, and a long list (3,5 millions de manifestants en France) of nearly 250 demonstrations in cities and towns all over the country. Just to give an indication of the spread and depth of the movement, in the small town of Le Puy-en-Velay, with a population of 20,000, the local authorities say 8,500 participated in the demo (the unions put the figure at 20,000, including many from nearby towns). The total number of demonstrators increased by 25% from the previous day of action. The day of action was marked by strikes which affected not only the public sector, postal services, railways, metro and buses, but also spread to the private sector, including metalworkers, harbours and notably the energy sector, with most refineries following the call for strike action. For the first time school students joined the movement (having just recently returned from their summer holidays). This was a scenario which the Sarkozy government wanted to avoid at all costs, the union of workers and the student youth. In 2006, a massive movement of workers and youth (with 3.1 million demonstrators at its peak) forced the withdrawal of the proposal for a Contract of First Employment (CPE) and ended up with the resignation of right-wing prime minister De Villepin. On October 12 more than 400 high schools throughout France went out on strike with many occupied or blockaded by the students. This was a response of school students to the warning by the Education Minister that the left and the trade unions were trying to “manipulate” them. University students have also vowed to join the movement massively in the next few days. The strength of the movement on October 12 will certainly give encouragement to mass workplace meetings taking place on October 13 to vote for continuation of strike action. Already the unions in the railways and Paris metropolitan transport, the oil refineries and the ports have joined the open-ended strike movement. In the Nord/Pas de Calais region, the CGT organised work stoppages of between 1 and 3 hours in the metal factories, including Alstom and Bombardier. The aim, according to regional CGT Metal workers secretary Jean-Pierre Delannoy was that “an increasing number of workers join open-ended strikes in order to put pressure to the CGT confederation to take the movement to a higher stage”. All 6 TOTAL refineries in the country have also joined the strike movement. At the important Le Havre port, trade union activists from Renault, Total, Chevron and Eliokem among others, organized a blockade in the early hours of October 13. The industrial area of Sud at Mans was also blockaded by trade union activists from the teachers union and from Renault CGT. There are certainly many factories and workplaces all over the country where strike action in one form or another has already started, which have not been reported in the national media. However, the national leaders of the CGT are still refusing to give a clear lead to the movement. CGT secretary Bernard Thibault, who ironically was elected to the leadership of the CGT after his role in the all out strikes by railway workers in 1995, declared vaguely that “we must find ways to increase the pressure on the government”. The problem is that after 7 national days of action, how can one “increase the pressure” short of calling for a proper general strike? The CGT official statement goes a bit further than its general secretary, saying that the CGT: “calls on workers to continue the mobilisations, to organise united general assemblies in all workplaces, to discuss everywhere, public and private sector, the principle of work stoppages, and to decide democratically ways of making the action more permanent”. But instead of making a clear appeal for open-ended strikes, which are in fact already taking place in a growing number of sectors, it then suggests a variety of options, like a pick and mix menu: “open-ended strikes, new work stoppages, regular public rallies in front of the MPs offices, debates, united meetings, all forms of actions which are innovative and diverse should make it possible
[Marxism] Wayward Allies: President Rafael Correa and the Ecuadorian Left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Daniel Denvir wrote this article a few years back, and I think it does a good job of describing the different currents within the Alianza Pais party, Correa's conflictive relationship with the Ecuadorian left, as well as the events leading up to the break between Correa and Acosta. It also establishes the context for the break between Correa and the CONAIE, which occurred some time after the events at Dayuma in 2007, which are described below. According to Davalos, a colleague of Correa's, the president consciously set out to cut ties with the left-wing represented by the social movements such as Accion Ecologica, CONAIE, and the MPD, in order to establish a respectable center-left coalition. Anyway, I had recommended this to Michael Liebowitz off-list and thought it would help contribute to a deeper understanding of the current situation inside Ecuador. Greg McDonald Wayward Allies: President Rafael Correa and the Ecuadorian Left Jul 27 2008 Daniel Denvir Outside of Ecuador, most progressives consider President Rafael Correa to be a Leftist champion of social and economic justice. Inside the country, however, conflicts between Correa and the social movement Left—the indigenous movement, environmentalists and unions, among others—have become increasingly heated. On June 23, Constituent Assembly President and long-time social movement ally Alberto Acosta resigned his post after high-profile disagreements with Correa over issues of procedural democracy and indigenous, economic and environmental justice. Acosta headed the legislative body charged with writing a new constitution. The new magna carta was approved by the Assembly on July 24, sending the text to a popular referendum this September. While social movements have been sharply critical of Correa, it is expected that they will join the “yes” campaign in support of the new constitution, fearing a right-wing resurgence if it fails. Critics within Correa’s Alianza País party and Leftist members of the indigenous party Pachakutik unanimously voted to approve the text. Leftist Martha Roldos, a member of the Ethical and Democratic Network (RED) abstained, citing a top down process. To the degree that it exists, popular perception in the U.S. and Europe has been colored by Correa’s stance against U.S. hegemony in the region, along with his forceful rejection of Colombia’s March 1 attack on a FARC camp on Ecuadorian soil. The mainstream media has simplistically lumped him in with the Spanish-speaking axis of evil stretching from Bolivia and Venezuela to Cuba. The Left media has, on the other hand, under the assumption that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, championed him as a man of the people. Greg Palast, a well-known progressive journalist, wrote an article in terms so emphatically glowing that it is clear he spoke to no one except the President and his spokespeople when he parachuted into the country. A five-minute conversation with any social movement leader would have significantly complicated his analysis. I myself arrived in Ecuador this past January excited about being excited about Correa, assuming (or hoping?) that he was part of this social movement propelled Left tide sweeping across the region. For Ecuadorian social movements, however, the doubts and uneasiness were present from the beginning. In 2006, Patchakutik, the electoral arm of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), decided to run CONAIE leader Luis Macas for president. The CONAIE and other social movement groups only decided to endorse Correa in the second round where he faced right-wing Institutional Renewal Party of National Action (PRIAN) candidate Álvaro Noboa. A conservative Christian banana magnate and Ecuador’s richest man, Noboa represented everything that is socially and economically retrograde in the country. Correa is a U.S. and Belgian trained economist who, before running for President was relatively unknown and had almost no history working directly with Ecuadorian social movements. As his dark horse candidacy gained steam, however, and he made it into the second round, he picked up some long-time social movement demands, including opposition to a Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. and a pledge to close the U.S. military base in the port city of Manta. He proclaimed a “citizen’s revolution,” promising to convene a Constituent Assembly to write a new constitution and to put an end to the “long night of neoliberalism.” When Ecuadorians approved a referendum convening the Constituent Assembly in September 2007, social movements were cautiously optimistic. It was perceived as a chance to make gains on pressing social, economic and foreign policy issues. Social movements saw the election of economist and long-time
[Marxism] Alberto Acosta: Un Golpe de Timon?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 05-10-2010 Entrevista a Alberto Acosta, ex presidente de la Asamblea Constituyente de Montecristi Tras el doloroso episodio, es preciso dar un golpe de timón María Elena Verdezoto Diario HOY Quién es: ex presidente de la Asamblea Constituyente de Montecristi, uno de los fundadores de Alianza País junto con el presidente Rafael Correa Alberto Acosta, ex titular de la Asamblea Constituyente de Montecristi, que aprobó la nueva Constitución, con la que junto al presidente Rafael Correa prometió escribir una nueva historia del Ecuador, analiza la crítica situación del país y, desde una postura frontal, advierte de que tras la sublevación policial y militar del jueves pasado, no bastará cambiar a los ministros responsables, sino dar un golpe de timón en la conducción del país. Entre las principales causas de la situación señala a la prepotencia y a la falta de apertura al diálogo en el Gobierno de Correa, de quien tomó distancia hace más de dos años. Eso, además de la resistencia de las oligarquías a perder sus privilegios, explican el nivel de intolerancia que vive el país, según Acosta. En un mensaje enviado el jueves, día de la sublevación policial y militar, usted llamó a reflexionar y a rechazar cualquier intentona golpista. ¿Cree que ese ha sido el objetivo de los uniformados? Es difícil saberlo a ciencia cierta. A primera vista parecería que simplemente fue un motín de un grupo de policías y algunos soldados, que se sienten afectados por algunos ajustes que trae la Ley de Servicio Público. Aparentemente, saldrían perjudicados porque se eliminan algunas bonificaciones. En realidad, según el Gobierno, saldrían beneficiados porque se les habrían incrementado sustantivamente sus ingresos mensuales. Un golpe de Estado es algo planificado, premeditado. ¿Qué le hace pensar que en este caso lo sea? Resulta raro que la oficialidad no haya tomado nota del malestar existente. ¿Dónde estuvieron los servicios de inteligencia o es que también estaban complotados? Recuerde también que hace pocos días un grupo de líderes estudiantiles irrumpió en el seno de la Asamblea Nacional. ¿Qué tiene que ver ese hecho con la rebelión del jueves? Aquí ya se debían preguntar cómo fue posible esa irrupción en un edificio muy bien custodiado y de relativamente fácil defensa; ¿quizá eso fue posible porque estaban comprometidos miembros de la policía?, pregunto. El jueves 30 de septiembre, ese jueves triste, la Asamblea fue cerrada por la Policía. Los oficialistas tuvieron problemas para ingresar, mientras que los asambleístas del Partido Sociedad Patriótica, del ex coronel Lucio Gutiérrez, entraban como Pedro en su casa... ¿Entonces, coincide con el presidente Rafael Correa en que lo del jueves fue un intento de golpe de Estado y en que Lucio Gutiérrez es su inspirador? No siempre se programa un golpe de Estado, en ocasiones el azar provoca las condiciones. No hay un libreto único, ni se da siempre en un solo acto. Es más, si el golpe falla, la difusión de noticias que nieguen el golpe puede conducir a mantener la neutralidad de amplios sectores de la población. Aceptemos que en Ecuador hubo un intento fallido de golpe de Estado y de magnicidio, así de simple. En qué medida estuvieron involucrados Lucio y su gente es otra cosa. Pero, el presidente Correa fue más allá y aseguró incluso que en su bloque de asambleístas también hay conspiradores. ¿Usted lo cree también? Pregúntele a él. Yo no estoy más en Alianza País. Usted dijo que el reclamo de la Policía y las Fuerzas Armadas puede tener razón. Entonces, ¿por qué hablar de golpe de Estado? Por una razón muy simple, si tenían razón debían procesar su reclamo por las vías correspondientes y no prestarse para que la derecha golpista se apropie de su movilización. Estas intentonas golpistas, busquen o no el cambio de Gobierno, que tanto afectan el marco constitucional no pueden ser toleradas, vengan de donde vengan. ¿Hubo excesos de ambos lados? Fue un día de excesos y violencias de todo tipo. La violencia de los sublevados contra de la ciudadanía en general, no solo contra el presidente. La violencia desatada por la ausencia de policías. La censura a los medios de comunicación. La batalla campal al inicio de la noche... transmitida como un reality show. La sublevación es un síntoma del clima de intolerancia que vive el país. ¿La democracia está en riesgo? La prepotencia del Gobierno, con su forma de actuar autoritaria e irrespetuosa de la misma Constitución de Montecristi, más la resistencia de las oligarquías a perder sus privilegios, explican este ambiente de intolerancia que vivimos. La democracia saldrá fortalecida si la practicamos. ¿Qué piensa de la orden de solo transmitir información oficial? Torpe, fue otra forma de violencia, por decir lo
[Marxism] El intento de golpe tuvo tres frentes
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Tomada de la edición impresa del 12 de octubre del 2010 Imprimir Enviar a un amigo El intento de golpe tuvo tres frentes Un grupo comandado por Pablo Guerrero atacó las instalaciones del canal del Estado. | FOTO: FERNANDO SANDOVAL / El Telégrafo FOTO: FERNANDO SANDOVAL / El Telégrafo Un grupo comandado por Pablo Guerrero atacó las instalaciones del canal del Estado. NOTICIAS RELACIONADAS * Asambleístas en la mira del Ejecutivo y la Función Judicial Investigación periodística identifica a 19 personas relacionadas con Carlos Vera y Lucio Gutiérrez. Tres frentes se habrían conformado para, en menos de 24 horas, lograr el golpe de Estado que acabaría con el Gobierno del presidente Rafael Correa, el pasado 30 de septiembre, según investigaciones periodísticas que se difundieron la noche del domingo último en la estación TC Televisión. Según este trabajo, los grupos que buscaban la desestabilización del régimen se situaron en tres escenarios. El primero en el Regimiento Quito, en el cual las cabezas visibles fueron Fidel Araujo y Max Marín. Un segundo conformado por Galo Monterverde, Víctor Hugo Erazo, María Alejandra Cevallos, Pablo Guerrero y Fausto Albán Gallo; quienes irrumpieron en los medios públicos. Y un tercer frente liderado en la Asamblea por los legisladores Lourdes Tibán, Gilmar Gutiérrez, Enrique Herrería y otros, a más de dirigentes políticos como Luis Villacís y el sindicalista petrolero Diego Cano. Ayer, durante una rueda de prensa conjunta con el presidente chileno Sebastián Piñera, el presidente Rafael Correa aseguró que mientras más se investiga más pistas de la intentona golpista se encuentran. “Se resisten a la investigación que se está efectuando sobre atentados a los Derechos Humanos, ahí está la verdadera resistencia”, indicó el presidente. La conformación de los equipos estarían bajo la coordinación del ex presidente de la República, Lucio Gutiérrez, y del ex presentador de televisión, Carlos Vera, según la investigación que realizó el programa “En búsca de la verdad” (EBV), que se produce a través de Ecuador TV. El director del programa, Juan Carlos Ortiz, recoge en un especial de 18 minutos los hechos y los personajes que estuvieron presentes en los diferentes escenarios durante la tentativa de golpe de Estado. Ortiz añade que el intento ya se habría anunciado días antes. El 23 de septiembre Lucio Gutiérrez ofreció en Miami (EE.UU.) una conferencia sobre el socialismo del siglo XXI, en la cual anuncia que el modelo económico no es sustentable y desaparecería junto a sus impulsores, el presidente de Venezuela Hugo Chávez y Rafael Correa. En tanto que Fausto Cobo (PSP) advierte, en una intervención en la Asamblea, el 29 de septiembre (un día antes de la insubordinación) que la aprobación de la Ley de Servicio Público traerá consecuencias al Gobierno. Para el 30 de septiembre Galo Lara (PSP), en una entrevista en Ecuavisa, anuncia que Correa deberá comenzar a preparar maletas para irse de Ecuador, por el temor de ser linchado. En el especial, cerca al Regimiento Quito están identificados simpatizantes de Gutiérrez y Vera, entre ellos: Araujo, Guerrero y Marín, ex militares y miembros del PSP. En la irrupción al edificio de los medios públicos se visualiza a: Monteverde, Erazo, Albán Gallo, Guerrero (hermanos), Cevallos (alterna de Nicolas Lappentti), seguidores de Gutiérrez y Vera. En la Asamblea, a través de vídeos y fotografías lograron identificar a dirigentes que impulsaban el golpe de Estado, como Luis Villacís, los asambleístas Enrique Herrería, Cinthya Viteri, el policía Tibán (hermano de Lourdes Tibán - PKT), quien formó parte del grupo que impidió el ingreso de los asambleístas oficialistas de PAIS. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Qué democracia es la que queremos los ecuatorianos? Margarita Aguinaga
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is a very good and comprehensive analysis of the correlation of forces before and after the events of september 30. It takes into consideration all sectors, from the Armed Forces (and the CIA), to the Police, the Executive, the political parties, the different factions within the Legislative Assembly, the trade unions, etc. Interestingly enough, it places CONAIE in alignment with Alberto Acosta, as distinct from the enormously flawed positions and actions of both the MPD and Pachakutik, placing the latter two left parties together as ultra-left dupes of the golpista right-wing. The basic thrust of the article is to view the post-coup attempt realignment between the Armed forces and Correa as consisting of a neo-developmentalist (neo-desarollismo) trajectory reminiscent of the dictablanda of the 1970's, thus consolidating Correa's center-right position, as a morphing from his previous neoliberal position. It's a very long piece which should probably be translated. Here, for instance, is the section on the MPD and Pachakutik: El movimiento Pachakutik, el MPD y sectores sindicales Es cierto también hubo ciertos grupos de la izquierda que pedían la salida del presidente Correa y también hubo reacción desde sectores de derecha de la población cruzando los dedos porque boten a Correa. Discursos que parecen coincidentes, sin embargo expresan contenidos distintos. Lo cierto es que mucha gente a nivel nacional e internacional ha cuestionado la posición de la izquierda ecuatoriana, con razón y sin razón, de hecho hubieron voces desde el mismo pueblo organizado que cuestionaba que hubieren sectores de izquierda que apoyaran un posible golpe. Pachakutik y le MPD se equivocaron en su posición, no solo en su análisis político, tuvieron una lectura errada desde estos procesos en términos de los sentimientos de democracia que hay en el pueblo ecuatoriano, es un absurdo exigir golpe de estado y asumir consignas de la derecha por estar en contra de otra derecha, confundida entre los oportunismos políticos, los juegos extraños llevados a cabo en la Asamblea, y la incapacidad de construir respuestas frente a los ataques que también ha hecho el gobierno contra estos sectores. Izquierda que por cierto necesita una renovación urgente y que tiene una carencia muy fuerte de propuesta y de legitimidad ante la población. Es muy difícil construir una tercera posición, sin embargo, hay ocasiones como está en que queda la duda si estas agrupaciones de izquierda realmente están construyendo una tercera posición. Greg http://rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=114703 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] James Petras on The Ecuadorian Coup
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I think Petras' criticism, both of the CONAIE and Correa, is pretty even-handed. He correctly delineates Correa's right turn in the wake of economic difficulties, pursuing policies which alienated his base of support. He also takes the CONAIE to task for failing to see the larger picture. But the analysis of Correa below mirrors the analysis of the CONAIE. Any president who backtracks on his promises to engage the Indigenous sector on an equal basis, as enshrined in the constitution, and refers to the leadership of the CONAIE as bandits and backward elements, clearly a racist commentary, can certainly expect to lose the support of the communities associated with CONAIE. Although the MPD is not mentioned, one can also understand, though not necessarily agree, with the fact that the UNE teacher's union was present at the police protest in support of the cops. Lets see: racist and demeaning rhetoric, inability to listen, austerity measures, attacks on unions, opening up the countryside to multinationals, yep, it's all there. Greg On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 8:04 PM, Fred Fuentes fred.fuen...@gmail.com wrote: The leadership of the Indian movement varied in its response to the coup. The most extreme position adopted by the near moribund electoral party Pachacutik (US aid recipient) actually endorsed the police coup and call on the masses to form a “united front”, a call which fell on deaf ears. The bulk of the Indian movement (CONAIE) adopted a complex position of denying that a coup was taking place, yet rejecting the police violence and setting forth a series of demands and criticisms of Correa’s policies and methods of governance. No effort was made to either oppose the coup or to support it. In other words, in contrast to its militant anti dictatorial past, CONAIE was virtually a marginal actor. The passivity of CONAIE and most of the trade unions has its roots in profound policy disagreements with the Correa regime. Correa’s Self-Induced Vulnerability: His Right Turn During the emerging citizens-movement five years ago, Rafael Correa played an important role in deposing the authoritarian, corrupt and pro-imperialist regime of Lucio Gutierrez. Once elected President, he put in practice some of his major electoral promises: evicting the US from its military base in Manta; rejecting foreign debt payments based on illicit accounts; raising salaries, the minimum wage, providing low interest loans and credit to small business. He also promised to consult with and take account of the urban social and Indian movements, in the lead up to the election of a constitutional assembly to write up a new constitution. In 2007 Correa’s list running with his new party Alianza Pais (the country alliance) won a two thirds majority in the legislature. However facing declining revenues due to the world recession, Correa made a sharp turn to right. He signed lucrative contracts with multi-national mining companies granting them exploitation rights on lands claimed by indigenous communities without consulting the latter, despite a past history of catastrophic contamination of Indian lands, water and habitat. When local communities acted to block the agreements, Correa sent in the army and harshly repressed the protestors. In subsequent efforts to negotiate, Correa only heard his own voice and dismissed the Indian leaders as a “bunch of bandits”, and “backward elements” who were blocking the “modernization of the country”. Subsequently, Correa went on the offensive against the public employees, pushing legislation reducing salaries, bonuses and promotions, repudiating settlements based on agreements between unions and legislators. In the same way Correa imposed new laws on university governance, which alienated the professoriate, administration and students. Equally damaging to Correa’s popularity among the organized sectors of the wage and middle classes, was his authoritarian style in pushing his agenda, the pejorative language he used to label his interlocutors and his insistence that negotiations were only a means to discredit his counterparts. Contrary to Correa’s claim to be a pathfinder for “21st century socialism”, he was, instead, the organizer of a highly personal strategy for 21st century capitalism, one based on a dollarized economy, large scale foreign Investments in mining, petroleum and financial services and social austerity. Correa’s ‘right turn’, however; also depended on political and financial support from Venezuela and its Cuban and Bolivian allies. As a result Correa fell between two chairs: he lost support from the social left because of “pro-extractive” foreign economic policies and austere domestic programs and did not
[Marxism] Alberto Acosta: 21st Century Socialism is 21st Century Neo-Extractivism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Alberto Acosta on The New Extractivism July 20, 2010 Originally Published at upsidedownworld.org I spoke with Alberto Acosta, ex-Minister of Energy and Mines, and ex-President of the Constituent Assembly, in his Quito office on July 8, 2010. Jeffery R. Webber: In a few words, can you describe your political formation and political trajectory? Alberto Acosta: I’m an economist. I’ve worked as an international consultant and as a university professor. I’ve been an advisor to social movements, to the indigenous movement. I’ve been involved in various struggles in the last few years which are trying to build a country based in equality, liberty, and justice. In the early part of the Rafael Correa government, I was the Minister of Energy and Mines and the President of the Constituent Assembly. JW: As a former Minister of Energy and Mines, can you talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the economic model being advanced by the Correa government in the current conjuncture? AA: We can’t talk about the economic development model of only this government. Stretching way back, Ecuador has had a model of accumulation based on the extraction of natural resources. Ecuador has been a country based in the production of bananas, flowers, shrimp, and oil, and there are people who now believe that it can be a country based in mining production. In reality, we’ve been living off the rent of nature. In the last few decades, since the 1970s, Ecuador has had as its principal source of revenue the exploitation of oil – the extraction of crude oil and the export of oil into the international market. This is a fundamental characteristic of the Ecuadorean economy. And this has not changed substantively under the government of Correa. It’s true that he’s sought greater participation of the state in generating the oil rent. There’s been a certain increase of state control over oil activities. There’s been an attempt to increase the efficiency and to strengthen the state oil company. And the state’s greater take of the oil rent has allowed for improvements in education, health, and social welfare. But at the root of things, the fact that Ecuador has an economy dependent on natural resources has not been altered, and we remain highly dependent on our insertion into the world market. JW: You were also President of the Constituent Assembly. Can you talk about this process, and the advances and setbacks related to the new Constitution. AA: The new constitution opened the door for a series of profound changes. Its statutes guarantee the construction of a plurinational state. This means the incorporation for the first time of marginalized groups, like indigenous peoples and nationalities, and Afro-Ecuadoreans. The constitution mandates respect for their unique ways of life and community organizing, and a new way of structuring the state in general. The Constitution also commits the country to “living well,” or sumak kawsay, in Quichua, which is an entirely distinct way of understanding development. It’s another form of development. It’s an alternative to development, an alternative not within development, but an entirely different concept to development. Along these lines, the Constitution guarantees the rights of nature. Nature is a subject with rights in the Constitution. Ecuador’s Constitution is the only one in the world with this characteristic. The Constitution also notes that water is a fundamental human right, not just access to water, but water itself. Water is a strategic patrimony. Water is part of biodiversity. It is central to nature. JW: How do you explain the contrast between, on the one hand, the rhetoric of the Correa government – “citizens’ revolution,” “twenty-first century socialism” – and, on the other, the tense relations, often open clashes, between this government and prominent social movements? AA: These phrases, citizens’ revolution and twenty-first century socialism, have to be understood in their full context. Socialism of the twenty-first century has absolutely no meaning. It has no meaning. We need to rescue socialism from the errors of the last century, but we can’t do this by promoting some kind of “new age” socialism. For me, twenty-first century socialism has no meaning, it is pure rhetoric. The phrase citizens’ revolution is what popular struggles in Ecuador proposed and struggled for beginning in 2006 and 2007. Lamentably, it would appear that the Correa government has its doubts about making a revolution in reality. The very things this government proposed initially it is failing to make a reality; it is failing to respect the integral components of the new Constitution. This is the crucial thing to take note of. At the moment, the “citizens’ revolution” suffers from a major
[Marxism] Ecuador: no hubo golpe pero que existe, existe
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dossier de notas publicadas en Prensa Obrera 1149 Ecuador: no hubo golpe pero que existe, existe Por: Jorge Altamira (*) Fecha de publicación: 08/10/10 Es simplemente una tontería caracterizar lo ocurrido en Ecuador como un acontecimiento político aislado, una rebelión policial circunscripta a los salarios, aunque más no sea porque cualquier sublevación de una institución de seguridad, con sus jefes incluidos, constituye un principio de quiebra del aparato estatal. Que lo ocurrido haya tomado una forma política definida, según algunas opiniones, como consecuencia de la aparición de Correa en el ámbito de la policía, es un asunto circunstancial: si se hubiera recluido en su despacho, podía haber arriesgado una escalada mayor. De acuerdo con Hernán Ramos, de Clarín (1/10), la policía ecuatoriana, a través de una larga y silenciosa expansión, se ha diseminado en muchas áreas que no son de su exclusiva competencia: tránsito, aduanas, migracioacut! e;n y narcotráfico. Si esto es así, ha pasado a igualar en importancia a las fuerzas armadas. La entidad policial, prosigue el periodista, tiene fuertes conexiones -financieras, tecnológicas y operativas- con Estados Unidos y se apoyó en sectores de la derecha tradicional... La sublevación policial no es ingenua...; la policía se volvió un actor político. ¿Qué intereses defiende? Las respuestas categóricas... están en algunas embajadas. En un informe oficial, difundido en octubre de 2008, el ministro de Defensa de Ecuador había denunciado operaciones de cooptación de la policía y fuerzas armadas por parte de Estados Unidos (Jean-Guy Allard, 1/10). El canciller de Cuba, a su vez, destacó, en un comunicado, que el vocero de Obama había declarado que sigue de cerca la situación en lugar de rechazar la acción policial. El en! viado especial de Clarín (4/10) señala algo más: El viernes, cuando aún no se habían disipados lo vahos de pólvora y gases lacrimógenos arrojados por policías y soldados durante las batallas registradas el jueves por la noche (los comandantes de las tres armas) se reunían con el ministro de Defensa para asegurarse que no se les iban a recortar los incentivos económicos como a la policía. Fue una reunión rápida... Salieron con la garantía de que tienen una partida de dinero para seguir pagando los bonos extras por ascensos y condecoraciones (...), las fuerzas armadas están teniendo una gran influencia en el aparato del Estado. Por ejemplo, el Cuerpo de Ingenieros del Ejército se adjudicó obras civiles por 800 millones de dólares (en un presupuesto de obras de 5.000 millones). O sea que para dominar la asonada policial, Correa tuvo que someterse a! una extorsión del ejército, que dejó sin base a los sublevados. En lugar de deshojar la margarita sobre si hubo golpe o no, la crisis dejó en claro una tendencia potencialmente golpista que se conjuró por medio de una negociación con los árbitros militares de la situación. Esta constatación es suficiente para justificar una movilización contra la sublevación, independiente del gobierno, y la denuncia de la capitulación de Correa frente al alto mando militar. Cualquier otra cosa constituye una pasividad sectaria y una complicidad con la capitulación oficial. Una ojeada a la situación de conjunto de Ecuador es suficiente para caracterizar que la sublevación de la Policía forma parte de un contexto de crisis más amplio. Más allá de su demagogia bolivariana y de las repetidas promesas de producir una moneda del Alba, la economía ecuatoriana está dolarizada. Esto significa que Ecuador no tiene otras fuentes de financiación que las que encuentre en el mercado internacional -que solamente halla en China. A pesar de carecer de moneda propia, Ecuador registra un déficit fiscal enorme -dos mil millones de dólares. El nivel internacional de costos y precios constituye un obstáculo absoluto para desarrollar un mercado interno sobre la base de fuerzas productivas nacionales. Esto explica las concesiones cada vez mayores de Correa a las multinacionales de la minería, el petróleo y la madera, y su auto-obligada política de ajuste. ! Por otro lado, el acercamiento de Correa a Colombia, para desarrollar ‘la seguridad democrática' en la frontera común, ha reforzado la posición política de las fuerzas armadas y de seguridad. Debido a la entrega del agua a las mineras y petroleras, y al ajuste del gasto social, Correa enfrenta desde hace tiempo una oposición popular y la fractura de su bloque parlamentario. De aquí su insistencia en disolver la Asamblea Nacional. Es decir que la sublevación policial es una manifestación del estallido de las contradicciones insalvables de la revolución ciudadana de Correa. Todo el mundo plantea en Ecuador un cambio de régimen (¡pero no de la
Re: [Marxism] Ecuador: Air Force and Navy Reluctantly Backed President
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This article makes it crystal-clear, Fred, that the situation at the airport was indeed a labor dispute, and a labor dispute only, and was not infiltrated by putschist elements, in contradistinction (maybe) with the Police revolt. This does not mean I don't think there was an attempted coup (possibly), but rather that the Armed Forces were not involved. I believe the US embassy has probably reached the conclusion that a coup is unnecessary, given the fact that Correa's position is much weaker, now that he is totally dependent on the Armed Forces for institutional support. Also, he has been moving to the right for a couple of years now, and due to that contradiction, the popular movement has been effectively disarticulated from its connection with Carondelet. Hell, on that latter point, the Embassy didn't have to lift a finger; Correa did all that work for them. He's now a PR rep for the multinational mining companies and the Water moguls. It remains to be seen whether or not Correa can recoup support from the popular movement. I seriously doubt it. I find it very interesting that not only Pachakutik, but also the powerful left-wing party MPD, has publicly declared that there was no coup attempt. You can see the MPD reports here: http://www.ecuadorenvivo.com/2010100859440/politica/villacis-_-estamos_viviendo_en_un_ambiente_antidemocratico_donde_esta_criminalizada_la_lucha_social.html?mosmsg=Comentario+guardado+en+el+art%EDculo%21+Si+no+se+relaciona+con+el+tema+del+art%EDculo%2C+ser%E1+borrado. http://www.mpd15.org.ec/manifiestompd.php to wit: 1.- El jueves 30 de septiembre de 2010 el país fue testigo de una rebelión protagonizada por la tropa de la Policía Nacional y de ninguna manera de un intento de golpe de Estado. Sus protagonistas actuaron de esa forma porque se sintieron afectados por el veto presidencial a la Ley de Servicio Público, de ahí que su plataforma reivindicativa se circunscribía a pedir “la derogatoria del veto que afecta al sistema de condecoraciones, ascensos, remuneraciones salariales por tiempo de servicio y que la cúpula policial sea designada a través del voto del elemento policial”. Nunca pidieron la renuncia del Presidente, ni hablaron de sucesión presidencial o de proclamación de un nuevo gobierno, peor de un mecanismo de desconocimiento al gobierno y al régimen constitucional. 2.- El rumbo de los hechos tomó un giro distinto por la irresponsable presencia del Presidente en el Regimiento Quito N° 1, en donde provocó y desafió a la tropa policial al punto de conminarla que lo maten, comportamiento tipificado por el Código Penal en el artículo 386 como instigación para delinquir. Hasta ese momento ni los funcionarios de gobierno y menos aún los sublevados hablaban de golpe de Estado; es más, el régimen calificó a la acción policial como la expresión de un grupo reducido y focalizado de policías levantados. La idea del golpe y del secuestro surge en las altas esferas del gobierno como un mecanismo para desprestigiar la protesta policial y de esa forma neutralizar cualquier tipo de respaldo popular y, por otro lado, para alcanzar la solidaridad internacional. 6.- El interés del gobierno por involucrar al MPD en la participación de un supuesto golpe de Estado es parte del permanente ataque gubernamental en contra de nuestra organización, tiene el propósito de silenciar a la izquierda revolucionaria y de criminalizar la lucha social. Esto no lo van a lograr porque vamos a seguir luchando por la Patria Nueva y el Socialismo, vamos a continuar junto a los pueblos del Ecuador por los cambios que el país necesita, continuaremos luchando en contra de las oligarquías explotadoras y del imperialismo responsables del atrasado y pobreza en la que viven los pueblos del Ecuador. So it's not just the right wing and Pachakutik claiming there was no coup attempt, but also the MPD, and former advisors who have been close to Correa such as Gustavo Larrea and Alberto Acosta. I wonder when the next report is going to come out smearing the MPD as being on the CIA payroll. LMAO!! Good job, Mr Citizen's Revolutionary de la puta madre ! Greg http://www.hoy.com.ec/noticias-ecuador/moncayo-ponce-logro-volver-al-orden-a-las-ffaa-434697.html !Basta de mentiras! ¡Destitución ministro de Defensa! ¡Destitución mandos militares! !En pleno siglo XXI, aún existe en las Fuerzas Armadas el servilismo y la discriminación al personal de tropa!. Esas fueron algunas de las consignas que gritaban y portaban en carteles al menos 200 miembros la Fuerza Aérea Ecuatoriana (FAE), el 30 de septiembre (30-S), mientras se tomaban la pista principal del aeropuerto Mariscal Sucre de Quito, en rechazo a la entrada en vigencia, por el imperio de la ley, del veto del presidente Rafael Correa, a la
Re: [Marxism] Ecuador: Air Force and Navy Reluctantly Backed President
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 9:07 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: On 10/10/10 8:59 AM, Greg McDonald wrote: This article makes it crystal-clear, Fred, that the situation at the airport was indeed a labor dispute, and a labor dispute only, and was not infiltrated by putschist elements, in contradistinction (maybe) with the Police revolt. This does not mean I don't think there was an attempted coup (possibly), but rather that the Armed Forces were not involved. Cops do not belong to the working class. Whatever. The folks at the airport are not cops to begin with, Louis, but members of the Air Force, thus the distinction between the military and the cops. Greg Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Ecuador: Air Force and Navy Reluctantly Backed President
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 11:05 AM, Fred Feldman ffeld...@bellatlantic.net wrote: On 10/10/10 8:59 AM, Greg McDonald wrote: This article makes it crystal-clear, Fred, that the situation at the airport was indeed a labor dispute, and a labor dispute only, and was not infiltrated by putschist elements, in contradistinction (maybe) with the Police revolt. This does not mean I don't think there was an attempted coup (possibly), but rather that the Armed Forces were not involved. Louis Proyect replied: Cops do not belong to the working class. Greg replied (as I was pretty sure he would): Whatever. The folks at the airport are not cops to begin with, Louis, but members of the Air Force, thus the distinction between the military and the cops. Louis is right to say that cops are not workers. Also the air force and the Navy in Ecuador are not working-class institutions. And their members are not workers while they are serving. Greg continues to join -- while wobbling back and forth on whether there was a coup -- the propaganda campaign to portray the air force and cops and navy as militant labor fighting for decent wages and working conditions denied them by the Correa government, el enemigo de la humanidad. This is propaganda -- and I assume, indeed am almost awed by, Greg's total sincerity in putting forward this ruinous view -- for the next coup attempt, which will almost certainly be presented as the armed forces rescuing the nation from Correa's misrule. It is propaganda for the next coup wherever it is presented, whether on the Marxism List or the Latin American media. Greg now assures us that there is no threat of a US-backed coup because Correa doesn't present any problem for imperialism. I have heard this song from left critics many times before -- about Allende, Goulart, Isabel Peron, Aristide, and others. Let's just say it is not a prediction to be relied on. Of course, even if a coup happens, even if it is successful, Greg does not have to acknowledge this. He can always just tell himself and us that a bunch of underpaid workers in uniform just seized the presidential palace and rid us of the tyrant. I assume Greg will continue to pick up whatever he finds lying around and throw it at Correa in five or ten posts a day. He has a constitutional right to pursue this obsession. I plan to pay no further attention. Whatever I have lying around? You mean statements from the Ecuadorean press, and spokespersons of left-wing parties, as well as independent leftists such as Acosta and Larrea? As opposed to what? Sources in Venezuela? BTW, you're putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about decent wages and working conditions. That's your bullshit Fred. The Air force personnel were concerned about losing bonuses that traditionally go along with promotions. Ponce promised them the bonuses would be reinstated, and the dispute was over. period. Furthermore, I'm not waffling back and forth Fred. I honestly don't know what to think given the multitude of contradictory statements coming from sources on the left and the right. I certainly don't take at face-value anything coming out of Carondelet. My point in posting the Hoy article is to demonstrate that the dispute at the airport was, if not a labor dispute, a contractual dispute. There, does that sound better? As the article states, there were no calls for the president to resign, no calls for a new president, etc. There were simple calls for a restitution of paid bonuses, etc. And as the article further demonstrates, the entire situation was resolved in a 30 minute conversation between Ponce and the staff at the airport. Geez, what a big conspiracy that was. So, we can rule out the idea that this was a conspiracy involving more than one institution. As it stands now, we have some supposed group among the police that was stirring up trouble prior to the police revolt. I would urge you to look more closely at the MPD report, but I have more than just a sneaking suspicion that you don't read spanish, given the lack of depth to your remarks above. I have no doubt whatsoever there was murderous intent on the part of a small group of the police against Correa. What kind of conspiracy it was remains to be seen. There are also reports from miami that Gutierrez was calling for Correa to be deposed 5 days before the police uprising, that a colleague of Gutierrez was at the police barracks stirring up trouble, and we know that the leader of the barracks in question had received training at the School of the Americas. All very suggestive, but the fact is, we simply don't know at this point how deep the conspiracy really goes. My intuition is that the police were fired up about the misinformation put
Re: [Marxism] La política del léxico
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 2010/10/10 Greg McDonald gregm...@gmail.com: Fred will be happy to know I will continue to post various sources and perspectives on the events of september 30 in Ecuador. This one should be more to his liking. Since I have no firm position on the question, but am attempting to glean as much information as possible from as many different sources as possible, different interpretations of course continue to come forth. In this opinion by Long, we have some unsubstantiated but interesting new information regarding events at the airport. It has always seemed to me that it would be crucial to discover whether or not elements of the military were lining up along with the police, which would seem to give credence to a more substantive coup event. Two articles on the question which I posted earlier indicate the Air force personnel were solely interested in an economic resolution to their problem, and this still seems to be the case. However, Long writes that shortly after Ponce resolved the economic dispute with the Air force personnel and the situation had returned to normal, some units of the Anti-Narcotics Police, Closely linked to the USA, writes the author, arrived at the airport and shut it down again. I'll be looking for more sources to substantiate this report. http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/10/06/index.php?section=mundoarticle=023n1mun El jefe de la diplomacia ecuatoriana llamó la atención sobre el caso del aeropuerto, que fue tomado inicialmente por miembros de la fuerza aérea ecuatoriana y luego por policías antidrogas. En la segunda ocasión se cerró por la unidad antinarcóticos de Ecuador, y por casualidad esa unidad antinarcóticos ha sido formada por oficiales estadunidenses por muchos años y ha tenido mucha relación con ellos, citó. Ok, just verified the account of the USA-backed anti-drug unit at the airport. Looks like a coordinated POLICE effort with possible USA support. Just noticed that Correa denounced the MPD and the UNE teachers union for bringing some students to protest in support of the police. The MPD views the police action as a legitimate labor dispute. (Don't take my head off on this Louis, I'm simply presenting the facts). I have a more nuanced view. Let us just say that the police have had legitimate grievances, that Correa was acting in good faith (apparently) to resolve those grievances through pay raises, and that there was plenty of impatience with the way in which the government was being perceived as having dragged its feet to change the salaries. There was also a disinformation campaign among the police misrepresenting the actual changes which were being made. The MPD is not backing down from their line in support of the police. I also read that about 50% of Ecuadorans don't accept the idea this was a coup attempt. A popular view is to contrast the demeanor and attitude of Defense minister Ponce with that of Correa. Ponce listened to the Air Force personnel, did not make a big show, did not bare his chest and provoke the police, etc. so Ponce was successful in quelling the takeover of the airport. Whereas, well, we all know what Correa did. Still no news of the CONAIE acting in support of the coup. CONAIE has not been mentioned in a single Ecuadoran newspaper report as having been in any way a protagonist or a supporter of the police coup. What a canard that turned out to be. Greg Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] La CONAIE de Ecuador frente a la difam ación del “periodismo” de Estado Símbolos de las luchas latinoamericanas refutan las desca lificaciones de una abogada estadunidense
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.narconews.com/Issue67/articulo4230.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
