Re: [Marxism] Hochschild on Lumumba
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'll be darned; and I thought he was just some kid from Brooklyn. On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 9:55 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: Not likely, Hochschild is from NYC and was an editor of Ramparts and then Mother Jones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Hochschild Actually, Adam is from that mining family. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Half-the-Way-Home/Adam-Hochschild/e/9780618439201 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] Hochschild on Lumumba
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Hochschild wrote an excellent book, King Leopold's Ghost, about the history of Belgian colonialism in the Congo and the system of slavery they set up there (even though called it various things) which Mark Twain had denounced at the time. The book concludes with the assassination of Lumumba: http://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1 http://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_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] Hochschild on Lumumba
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Not likely, Hochschild is from NYC and was an editor of Ramparts and then Mother Jones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Hochschild 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 Tucson witch-hunt
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yeah but, witch-hunt? against whom, the likes of Sarah Palin? maybe I'm missing something here, but this could be interpreted as a salvo against politically correct leftists we see launched against progressives in academia from time to time regarding their New McCarthyism that came up say when Lawrence Summers was forced out of Harvard. Leaving that aside, and even if progressives did get carried away in the heat of the moment, it's hard to view the Tea Party types and their advocates as victims of their political opponents in this context given the volume and weight of malicious crap they spew out on a daily basis: Obama as Hitler, remember that one? I wouldn't wring my hands about these guys too much. If anything liberals and the left have been too timid, a typical response that puts them in the role of a bunch of chumps and losers, further embolding the right wing. I think Trotsky outlined these dynamics in Fascism: What it is and How to Fight it and Their Morals and Ours: instead of moralistic hand wringing the left needs to get tough back with these reactionaries. 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] Doug Henwood: Against Civility
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == for a take on left-wing incivility 24/7 in the tabloid tradition, one invariably with entertainment value, even though its political bona fides are often suspected by some (e.g. Amy Goodman and Pacifica insurgents as Stalinists and Peter Camejo as ex-trot and Green parasite) notwithstanding its connection with Alexander Cockburn, is Bruce Anderson's Anderson Valley Advertiser available in our local supermarkets: http://www.theava.com http://www.liarunlimited.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] Why Loughner shot Giffords
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Why is that ridiculous and what basis is there for concluding he and others who knew him are not credible or have some hidden agenda? While not admissible in court, these observations can give some insight into this person unless one is a doctrinaire ideologue who already has all the answers in advance. Of what value is this ridiculous heresay from someone who 'claims' to be his friend, although I find it curious that his question is straight out of V for Vendetta. 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. == gee, I thought that's was what I was saying? although now that I think about it, Hitler could have had mental problems and been a serious political actor at the same time, like Nixon was. Moreover, while the Arizona guy surely is crazy, his particular psyche is conditioned by a certain political and social context that makes him an extreme example of a certain political type which is what I think is being said by others here. Thus all the right wing vitriol IS part of what's behind this event, not just some medical condition that sprang out of nowhere. I mean Palin's going hey, this is about some pathetic criminal nut and had nothing to do with the likes of me. Bullshit. On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 1:34 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: Cod, aren't you aware that schizophrenia is a mental illness? Don't you understand that Hitler was completely sane even though he was a mass murderer? If you want to understand the difference between sanity and insanity, you should check the Physicians Handbook, not Norman Mailer.a 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. == for what it's worth, I was disagreeing with Mailer, not echoing him, a point I made to him in person from the audience at a personal appearance he had in Sacramento in Feb 07 before he died: Hitler was not a lone nut but like fascism a product of the capitalist system. To the extent he had mental problems they were those that thousands of veterans of the trenches of the Great War had, not being the product of some mysterious forces. Mailer demurred, saying he thought part of it was a product of supernatural forces of evil at work, the theme of his book being that Hitler was the spawn of Satan. On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 1:34 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: Cod, aren't you aware that schizophrenia is a mental illness? Don't you understand that Hitler was completely sane even though he was a mass murderer? If you want to understand the difference between sanity and insanity, you should check the Physicians Handbook, not Norman Mailer.a 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. == I thought I saw him in a mirror years ago babbling incoherent garbage about pabloite revisionism. He's better now, seriously. On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: Cod, you apparently don't have any close relatives who suffered from schizophrenia. 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's last close friend said that he ignored TV and talk radio
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == uh-huh, and we were different from them in what ways at age 20 back in circa 68-73 or whenever? On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 2:38 PM, Jeff Goodwin jgoodwin@gmail.comwrote: Havingtaught American undergraduates for 20 years (mainly white and middle class), I can testify that the political views of normal 20-year-olds can be quite inchoate and malleable; these views can change dramatically in a matter of months, often in confused and contradictory ways. 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] Non-existent lawyer jobs
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == according to 2004 statistics from the US Department of Labor, the median income for all attorneys in the US was around $55k 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] Non-existent lawyer jobs
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yeah my debt from graduating twelve years ago was only 90k which has ballooned up to 130 plus since then. If I don't pay it off by the time I'm ready to retire,then my social security pension can actually be garnished which is what it looks like will happen. On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 2:02 PM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: As with academics, this is actually rather old news...though I am certain that things are much worse now than they have been 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
Re: [Marxism] Non-existent lawyer jobs
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A former Los Angeles deputy city attorney has been charged with assaulting police with a pole after creating a scene at San Francisco International Airport in which she vandalized a coffee kiosk, authorities say. Angela West, 50, a Harvard Law School graduate, was seen by airport police officers smashing merchandise, milk containers and other food items with a 3-foot-long metal pole at a Peet's Coffee kiosk at SFO on Christmas Eve, said San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. When officers tried to speak to her, West raged at them and began swinging the pole, which she had taken from a janitor's cart, Wagstaffe said. An officer had to use a chair to fend off at least 10 blows, authorities said. West then calmed down and sat in a booth, only to start throwing items at the officers, Wagstaffe said. When the officers tried to arrest her, she kicked one of them in the groin, Wagstaffe said. After being subdued, West shouted out that she was a lesbian and that the officers should stop trying to have sex with her, the prosecutor said. West was taken to a hospital and held in a psychiatric ward for a week, Wagstaffe said. At a court hearing Tuesday, Judge Barbara Mallach allowed West to represent herself after learning that she had attended Harvard Law and was admitted to the California State Bar in 1989. West, however, has been inactive since 1997. West pleaded not guilty at Tuesday's hearing, at which she also demanded a copy of the police report. Prosecutors asked for more time to prepare a redacted copy by removing witnesses' addresses, but West objected, saying she was a former prosecutor and was entitled to the information, Wagstaffe said. (In Los Angeles, deputy city attorneys handle misdemeanor criminal cases, among other matters). West received the redacted report at a hearing Wednesday. She is being held in custody in lieu of $10,000 bail, after she argued successfully to have it reduced from $25,000. -SF Chronicle, 1/9/11 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] Critical support to the Winklevosses?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I know and and they're sooo GQ. I mean did you see that photo of them rowing that accompanied that NYT article. Not a drop of sweat on their trendy spandex or a hair misplaced. 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] True Grit follow-up
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == An excellent example of this lingo is the HBO series Deadwood in which the characters speak florid Victorian prose liberally spiced with the f word and other vulgarities. On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 5:46 PM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yes, Louis. Fiction is literature, and neither of us had many conversations with those people...so we go on the basis of other things, such as how they wrote. And I'm sure that you've read much more of what they were writing than I have. See, I can write literature, too... :-) ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] Moderator's note
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == that's fine, although I can't recall detecting any controversy here on this particular issue, much less acrimony or polarization, as it appears to me there's pretty much of a consensus on this issue, as there is in much of society at large: that these charges, if not fabricated, are all too convenient in their timing for the powers at be and that therefore the only reasonable suspicion to entertain at this point is that this is a contrived, politically motivated frame-up designed to strike a blow against a major threat to the imperialist system. Thus stories that report one of the accusers is a right wing operative are pertinent. On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 7:20 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 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] Gays Face Increased Persecution in Africa
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/11/AR2010121101527.html?hpid=topnews 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] All Quiet on the Western Front - Once Not so Quiet
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Excellent contribution, Dennis. For a contemporaneous American look at the The Great War, I recommend Road to War: America 1914-1917 published in 1935 by Walter Millis, a former NY Herald Tribune correspondent, which exposes the war to make the world safe for democracy for the thoroughgoing fraud that it was. original copies available for cheap through www.abe.com http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=2882756089searchurl=an%3DWalter%2BMillis%26sts%3Dt%26tn%3DRoad%2Bto%2BWar%253A%2BAmerica%2B1914-1917%26x%3D48%26y%3D19 On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 7:42 PM, Dennis Brasky dmozart1...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == All Quiet on the Western Front - Once Not so Quiet Victor Grossman, Berlin Bulletin No. 15, from portside - 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] Watchmen?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I stumbled onto this on HBO last night, a movie adaptation of a graphic novel, which I guess means a comic book. Seemed like a little bit of a dystopian take on the super hero genre set in 1985 during Nixon's fifth term when one of the retired superheroes, The Comedian is mysteriously killed and the others come out to avenge it; yeah they indignantly protest, sure the guy was a little sinister they concede, a malicious clown with a cigar perpetually jutting out the side of his mouth who had been the shooter on the grassy knoll in Dallas in 1963 and sure, he had done some heavy lifting for the contras, but hey he was a patriotic American and a nice guy. What's this country coming to? I'm not sure how Nixon's Pinochet like fictional fourth and fifth terms varied from Reagan's real first and second ones, however. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen 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] Near North Korea
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Based on running this guy's email on Google, it turns out he is a foreign business person living in China who is principal of the entity linked below. Whether he has any good faith belief in marxism is another matter. http://teambridge.net Paul wrote: The report is here filed, for on this list there is a mixture of CIA moles, true Trots and juveniles. 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] Newsflash: NY inmates short on cash for bail
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Now, what else is new? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/nyregion/03bail.html?hp 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] Kentucky governor rebuilds Noah's Ark (no kidding!)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yeah but, hey, Fred Flintstone had a dinosaur doubling as a crane at work in his modern stone age world. On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 12:02 AM, Bill O'Connor bill...@gmail.com wrote: There will be dinosaurs. On a boat. 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] Kentucky governor rebuilds Noah's Ark (no kidding!)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Speaking of which, here's a link that brings to mind folks who saw a documentary but wanted the Flintstones; a riot almost ensued when comedian Steve Martin was interviewed on cerebral topics. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/nyregion/02refund.html?src=meref=general On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 4:14 AM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Lewis Black quipped once that these people saw the Flintstones and thought they were watching a documentary. 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 which I feel is scathing.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == certainly not, anymore than we would support racist attacks on undocumented Mexican immigrant workers by redneck American working class people who don't know any better; anymore than we would support Russian poor peasants who joined in pogroms; anymore than we would support lynching in the Old South. Fundamentally these are racist and chauvinist movements cooked up by sections of the ruling class to divert plebeian social anger towards scapegoats and divide the working class and popular masses. They must be opposed, as when so acting these oppressed people are acting as oppressors. The program and perspective of proletarian internationalism was one of the socialist movement's great strengths. Sadly too many socialists later degenerated into social patriots who pandered to chauvinism and even racism. To me the issue of standing up for the rights of undocumented workers, the most oppressed and militant section of the working class, is a central political issue of our time; one that too many, including ostensible orthodox marxists, want to duck and cover from. Should we support the struggle of the exploited Italian workers of the Valley of the Po, oppressed as they are by their own bourgeoisie, when they fight against the competition provided by cheap non-Italian labor in the marketplace by supporting political parties that promote expulsion of foreign labor? 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] Assange's lawyer demolishes 'rape' charges
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == No, isn't their accusation that they asked him to stop and he didn't, which if true, would not make it consensual? Now, three months on and three prosecutors later, the Swedes seem to be clear on their basis to proceed. Consensual sex that started out with a condom ended up without one, ergo, the sex was not consensual. 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 comment by Diana Johnstone on A Serbian film, Croats and Muslims, and the left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == sure, your point is well taken, I mean if they were Secessionists of the 1860s or Afrikaners that would be one thing. Based on my own personal experience both living in Sarajevo in the 1950s (the 100,000 civilians I alluded to were the ones killed there in the 90s) and in dealing with certain people from this area in this country in my work in the fishing industry and elsewhere, is that many of them are imbued with a blatant deep seated and vile racist attitude towards Turkish and Muslim people and that they are in fact an oppressed people. I think if folks here weren't wrapped in this knee jerk attitude based on perceived global politics, that fact would be patent as we see stories about the condition and racist mis-treatment of Muslim people in Europe all the time. We just can't be in denial about the war crimes committed by Karazdic and the Chetnik chauvinists because it doesn't fit in with our preconceived scheme about how the world is supposed to work, to do so can cause us to be view as morally bankrupt. On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 6:58 AM, S. Artesian sartes...@earthlink.net wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The basic issue is if there is real oppression. The fact that Muslims, a religion, and/or Bosnians, a ethnic group, are minorities does not automatically mean that they were oppressed nationalities, suffering discrimination and exploitation at the hands of the Serbs. - Original Message - From: Tom Cod tomc...@gmail.com To: sartes...@earthlink.net Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] A comment by Diana Johnstone on A Serbian film, Croats and Muslims, and the left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well, if this were some obscure issue of philosophy that would be well taken, but it isn't, its a basic issue, one of recent history and current events that Marxists should be able to explain to people without telling them like a high school teacher to look it up. Moreover, those platitudes as regards self determination were at the heart of the best of what I learned in the movement way back when and the authors thereof, like George Breitman, would certainly have had confidence in explaining and defending their views and not just brushed this important issue off. In that regard, I note that Solidarity has expressed views on this issue in support of Bosnian self determination which are a credit to that tradition. http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/ Maybe you need to brush up on your Marxist theory. The words above amount to a bunch of platitudes. Frankly, Tom, you strike me as somebody who spent a couple of years in the Trotskyist movement 30 years ago and dumped Marxism overboard around the same time you dropped out of the movement. Being an informed Marxist is not a precondition for subscribers but I think if you choose not to keep up with Marxist thought and scholarship, it behooves you to keep a lower profile. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] A comment by Diana Johnstone on A Serbian film, Croats and Muslims, and the left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == C'mon, evidence that Eritrean nationalists or the Bosnians are akin to the racist Secessionists of 150 years ago? Surely there was more to indict them than that they were friends of progressives, indeed what progressives were Jefferson Davis and his ilk friends with? Moreover, how many slaves did the Bosnians or the Eritreans own? and surely you're not comparing Milosevic with Lincoln? And for what its worth, the NYT didn't have too many kind words for the Confederacy at the time. With all due respect, leaving the Balkans aside, this is exactly the type of superficial knee jerk analysis I was talking about. Give us a break. On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 1:46 PM, Peggy Dobbins pegdobb...@gmail.com wrote: Someone once pointed out to me, I think in re Eritrian national liberation'from Ethiopia, that Lenin advocated alliances with the national liberationistshe did as a revolutionary tactic, not as a strategy for realizing socialism. Since then, whenever presented with a case to sympathize with politics that undermine support of friends who consider themselves liberal-progressive-left-democratic-and/or-pro-socialist for a government I know a) has a socialist constitution and b) the NYT has printed stories I suspect of a beginning campaign to demonize it for on the ground it oppresses a national or ethnic or religious group especially if it seems to make a moral case for secession, I have a stock answer: what would Lincoln do? Of course there may be fellow listers whose extensive research suggests supporting lincoln back then was supporting a running dog bourgie tool. But on the other hand there's the direct oral history recounted by so many Umited Daughters of the Confederacy(to this day I have to say) of black and white union trash raping our white ancestresses. At least my friend who thought I had some nerve suggesting feminist lawyers at Center for Constitutional Law were being used to foment left sympathies for recarving up Yugoslavia got rape as a war crime on the world agenda 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 comment by Diana Johnstone on A Serbian film, Croats and Muslims, and the left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Then again, we had the Chetnik Great Serbian chauvinist collaborators of the Axis in World War 2, Chetnik having been also aptly used as a political epithet by Milosevic's political opponents against him and his followers in the 80s and 90s. Emblematic of that, forces allied with Milocevic have been demanding that Tito's remains be disinterred from his tomb in Belgrade and sent back to Zagreb based on his ethnicity, at least according to Tito's grandson. So let's not be too knee jerk in our analysis. Like the Irish in 1916, the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo had the right to accept material aid from whomever. To me it is ironic, looking for example at the review pages of Johnstone's books on amazon, to see leftists lining up with anti-Islamic bigots worthy of O'Reilly and Beck. The Machiavellian dictum, often ascribed to Mao, that your enemies enemy is your friend, has a lot of applicability, but it is not a universal substitute for a concrete analysis that starts from the facts. On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 3:56 PM, Paddy Apling e.c.apl...@btinternet.comwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Serbs were the leading elements in the Yugoslav partisans (in spite of the fact that their charismatic leader was the Croat Josep Broz Tito) - and consequently were those who must be castigated as the hated dictators of the period. As one who was young, and in the British army in those crucial years of 1944-48, it seems so simple to understand the REAL forces and interests involved in so much that occurred afterwards - and I constantly find it so difficult to understand why so many of those, who believe they are on the left - and even revolutionary - find it so difficult to understand which side they should be on. (Do they not even know that Croatia was a puppet republic under the Nazis ?) Paddy http://apling.freeservers.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] A comment by Diana Johnstone on A Serbian film, Croats and Muslims, and the left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I've bookmarked some of these for further analysis, but I have to say that any reference to Trotsky's view of the Ukraine as moral authority in this context should be viewed with skepticism as his role there as a leader of the Soviet regime was notorious as he played a brutal role there in suppressing the Ukrainian insurgent workers and peasants during the period of the revolution. Peter Arshinov's book on the Makho movement in the Ukraine, which I picked up in a radical bookstore in the 70s, reproduces Trotsky's War Order No. 1 in which he ordered the dispersal of the All-Ukranian Congress of Soviets and the summary execution of its deputies. Yeah, I know, we're not supposed to bring up Trotsky-Stalin stuff here, but moderated broached the issue. Moreover, whether something is a Marxist analysis, what I don't purport to present, begs the question of what actually occurred (whether something passes muster in material and empirical terms). Nonetheless, Makhno's army remained steadfast opponents of the Whites, dealing them a critical defeat in 1919 that saved the Russian Soviet regime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Arshinov http://www.amazon.com/Makhnovist-movement-1918-1921-translated-Lorraine/dp/B004424SYY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1291260143sr=1-1-spell For people looking for a Marxist analysis of the Balkan wars, I believe my own articles pass muster: http://www.swans.com/library/art9/lproy04.html http://www.columbia.edu/%7Elnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war/ordfront.htm http://www.columbia.edu/%7Elnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war/Kosovo.htm http://www.columbia.edu/%7Elnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war/atc_reply.htm http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/12/21/a-serbophobe-outburst-in-the-nation-magazine/ http://www.columbia.edu/%7Elnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war/trotsky.htm http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/the-lessons-of-yugoslavia/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] A comment by Diana Johnstone on A Serbian film, Croats and Muslims, and the left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == here's a link to Voline, who wrote the intro to Arshinov's book, and who himself wrote The Unknown Revolution, about anarchist uprisings during the period of the Great War and the Bolshevik Revolution, a work I've never been able to track down until just now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volin http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Voline/dp/0919618251 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 comment by Diana Johnstone on A Serbian film, Croats and Muslims, and the left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == How so? On 12/1/10 10:31 PM, Tom Cod wrote: I've bookmarked some of these for further analysis, but I have to say that any reference to Trotsky's view of the Ukraine as moral authority in this context should be viewed with skepticism . . . This is totally non sequitur. 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] Religious ramblings
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == keep this in mind, horror stories about the Carthaginians, like those about the Aztecs, are mostly a product of the victor's history and thus should be taken with a grain of salt. It is said, however, that it was through the Carthaginians, that the Romans adopted crucifixion as a form of capital punishment. Punic is the Latin word for Phoenecian, thus the Punic or Phonecian Wars against Rome's rival superpower which was no mere Middle Eastern tribe, Canaanite or not. Weren't they allies of Sparta in the Pelloponesian War in Sicily? A book I read about the history of Carthage (which remains as a place name on the rapid transit system of the city of Tunis) discounted this heavily, saying there is virtually no archeological evidence to support child sacrifice as a practice among the Carthaginians any more than there is among the Hebrews, except some from the last desperate days of the Third Punic War. It also bears pointing out a version of this narrative of blood drinking child sacrifice focuses on these peoples similarities not as Canaanites but as semitic people has been a stock in trade of anti-semitism of the more virulent kind for centuries and was featured in the likes of the anti-Dreyfusard and fascist Accion Francais and Nazis' Der Sturmer (Attack!) and elsewhere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_St%C3%BCrmer Moreover, we needn't waste time with the bloodthirsty rituals of the Romans, which had fewer religious pretentions and were oriented around sadistical entertainment value of it for the masses. Maybe some ancient MesoAmericans should have sailed a fleet over and liberated them from their depraved heathen ways. On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 1:23 PM, Dan d.koech...@wanadoo.fr wrote: == You might remember that a few months ago, I wrote that Judaism contained strong reminiscences of a concept of the necessity for first-born children to be sacrificed. . . 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] Stephanie Coontz on Mad Men in Wash Post
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == ists and ites sectarian faction fights ites and ists backstabbin' sacks of shits On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 5:53 PM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: A group once renown for inaction Faced oppositional factions. But it caused no rent When rude emails were sent So they purged them for spelling infractions 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] Malcolm X and American Trotskyism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yes but American Trotskyists weren't the only folks to uphold Malcolm during that period; it is to their credit that they did what they did, however, as it is of the European Trotskyists leaders of the May-June 1968 events like Alain Krivine who made solidarity with the Black Panthers and their legacy, along with that of Che Guevara and other icons of the period, a center piece of their political and electoral campaigns, even if like Malcolm they weren't always perfect. 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] Stephanie Coontz on Mad Men in Wash Post.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Stephanie Coontz is a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia. During the 70s she was a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/08/AR2010100802662.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] FBI Wants Congress to Force Telecom Wiretaps
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/us/19wiretap.html?hp 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] American-style
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Hey, I'd be careful with that, remember Prop 13? raise real estate taxes on whom? you? Think about it. Potentially a good ultraleft transitional demand . . . to drive the middle class to the camp of the right. Raise them on commercial realty and residential realty over a certain valuation. And when I say commercial realty I expect a careful examination of ag land as it relates to small farmers which should be excluded from that. 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] Stieg Larsson's Trotskyist past
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == that's interesting. I was giving an inmate client, who has spent most of his life in prison, a ride to the Bay Area on a one day furlough for an interview with a residential rehab program yesterday and we were shooting the breeze on various topics focused mostly on prison culture and politics which is heavily oriented around gangs and inflamed and divisive racist politics. At one point he mentioned that Larsson was his favorite author. I'll have to make a point of emphasizing to this tough guy Larrson's political background next time I see him. 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] Bono Endorses Scrapping the Minimum Wage
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == so that's why I saw him on TV with Pat Robertson about a year ago on some ostensible charitable fund raiser? I chalked that up to naivete at that point, but I guess I was the one who was naive. On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 7:30 AM, Paul Flewers trusscott.foundat...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Bono must rate as one of history's most sanctimonious hypocrites, can any list member think of anyone worse in these stakes? I'm surprised that he hasn't declared himself a saint and threatened anyone criticising him with eternal damnation. Paul F Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] Forwarded from Renato
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I didn't know that the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini were so wholesome, wholesomeness that is as long as you were not Jewish, a socialist, a trade unionist, gay, Roma etc. I did however know about Mussolini's roots as a left wing socialist, a process I see repeated at times on a smaller scale with former orthodox marxist types like Lyndon LaRouche. What I mean by pettifoggery is making a big theoretical deal about things that represent a distinction without a difference and have the danger of coming across as sterile, complacent and lacking in solidarity: like talking to the family of a homicide victim about the differences between first and second degree murder and manslaughter etc. Clearly the business end of the Greek dictatorship and Hitler and Mussolini, whom these guys openly admired, was of little difference: a naked gangster rule of force by the privileged classes over the workers and popular masses who are deprived of all democratic and constitutional rights, with the latter being overthrown. Thus folks using the terms fascism interchangeably with right wing military dictatorship is understandable and healthy, and not that terribly inaccurate, with those who would upbraid them setting themselves up for being misinterpreted as neo-con or otherwise suspect intellectual apologists. Thus we had a whole cadre of bourgois apologists making those kinds of arguments about Latin American dictatorships: don't worry, not really fascist, actually a real economic miracle at work etc. etc (or as that windbag Eric Sevareid put it, Chile's regime is an obstacle to freedom while the regime of that demon Castro is the totalitarian complete absence of freedom). Hippies and ultralefts in the 60s and 70s who loudly screamed that the US or West Germany were fascist or that bourgois democracy is fascist or that the trots were fascist were obviously engaging in hyperbole that if taken seriously could have and did lead to serious errors. It was in that context of the late 60s that trotskyists properly talked about the irresponsible use of the term. Moreover, to go beyond that to say that a military dictatorship was not even a dictatorship-and that's what I recall you saying?-is incorrect on its own terms and politically wrong. I remember as an kid in 6th or 7th grade in boarding school circa 1965 reading an article in Readers Digest about how Brazil had defeated the Communists in which the junta and the military were praised as patriots who had reluctantly intervened to prevent those satanic Communists from winning national elections through their nefarious trickery and who had through their courageous intervention had kept that country in The Free World. The article was candid enough, however, to concede that it was a dictatorship in the common sense of that term, albeit a temporary one that was sadly needed as a lesser evil to Brazil going communist. On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 4:40 AM, rrpompeu rrpom...@uol.com.br wrote: Well, Tom, I see that you consider pettifoggery an opinion that you do not agree with. 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] Forwarded from Renato
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == my comment about Brazilian society notwithstanding, I am not saying that Brazil or the US today or that bourgois democracy in general is the equivalent of a fascist or a military dictatorship, the latter two being in an entirely different category than what we have now. Criticism of people who do that, like the RAF and the Weathermen in the late 60s, is appropriate and not a sterile sectarian hair-splitting exercise as the practical implications are serious. On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 2:44 PM, rrpompeu rrpom...@uol.com.br wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == === ___ Em 02/10/2010 15:59, Tom Cod tomc...@gmail.com escreveu: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I didn't know that the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini were so wholesome, wholesomeness that is as long as you were not Jewish, a socialist, a trade unionist, gay, Roma etc. I Renato: I wrote in my post that fascism excluded millions from society. I think that all these regimes, fascist regime, military dictatorship, military regime and bourgeois democracy, mey be equally heinous. In Brazil we have a bourgeois democracy and a government led by a proletarian party and convocations for a socialist revolution freely aired on all open channnels in TV for everyone in the country to see, but torture goes on routinely, as you saw on the movies Elite Squad and City of God. I just think that we must use clear distinctions, in order to correctly act in any of these regimes. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] Cal Executions Set to Resume
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/24/BAJO1FJB1P.DTLtsp=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] Thanks
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well, it's good to hear from you and I'm glad this rent issue you're exploring doesn't actually involve your own rent; the last thing we need is to see you out on the street for Chrissake. When Marx fell behind on his rent in London and the landlord came around to collect, his daughter would answer the door with Mr. Marx ain't here! With the economic crisis deepening, evictions and foreclosures will be increasing. I remember reading about how the CP went around in the 30s helping families who were on the street with their furniture and belongings. The old 3 Day Notice to Pay or Quit, a real motherfucker. On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 7:46 PM, S. Artesian sartes...@earthlink.netwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == And working on something for issue 3-- Wrestling with Rent. Am I the only one out there who doesn't buy completely Marx's analysis of rent-- not that he's wrong,-- he's certainly not wrong . . . 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] Thanks
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Bay Area tenant resources: http://www.evictiondefense.org/ http://www.evictiondefense.org/http://www.thclinic.org/ http://www.evictiondefense.org/ 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] Moderator's note
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yeah I know, people have been suspended or kicked outta here for way less than his crackpot bullshit. BTW, whatever happened to artesian? sharp guy. 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] Autumn of the Driveler
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'm not sure what you mean by that Shane. I remember bringing something like that up after a YSA meeting in 1969-that Stalin had been an Okhrana stoolie-and being rebuked by an older member who dismissed that as an anti-communist lie, upbraiding me with the admonition that real Trotskyists, as opposed to the like of Healy, don't use Stalinist like methods like the big lie in dealing with political opponents, including Stalinists. On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 5:25 PM, Shane Mage shm...@pipeline.com wrote: I have consistently referred to Castro as a real (however national) revolutionary, and to Stalin as an Okhranik villain who restored a red- tinted Tzarist regime. What more distinction is needed? Shane Mage 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] Line of March
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == My work with LOM was in Seattle where they did an excellent job around CISPES, being probably the largest organized contingent together with Workers World with the SWP having been reduced to second fiddle by that point. As for Jesse Jackson their attitude was similar to that of most people on the Left, including me, that this was a unique historic phenomenon that had mass in motion behind and should be supported and intervened into, critically or not so critically, notwithstanding whatever standing ideological objections we might have had. I know who the druggie guy was and wasn't surprised when I heard that about him later as I remember hearing him talk in 1986 and then going up to him in person for a brief conversation where he seemed to display the agitated and grandiose demeanor and sudden mood swings of a certain substance that was pretty widespread at the time, and I don't mean marijuana. David Crosby's autobiography Long Time Gone spends some time dealing with this issue in the author's life and how difficult it was trying to work public appearances around needs of this insidious addiction. On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 12:05 AM, Greg McDonald gregm...@gmail.com wrote: One reason why the transition was particularly hard was that the leader of the group, who had been an inspiration for everyone - no, it wasn't Irwin Silber - fell into drugs and began to burn out, first secretly and then to the entire membership's horror and disorientation. There was a split - and anyone who ever took part in a cadre group knows how devastating a split can be, especially if the group is large enough that few people knew all the members, but small enough so that everyone would be affected personally. Max is currently involved in the web zine War Times www.war-times.org. I had recently left the CISPES regional office in NYC to travel to Ecuador when all this occurred. Ethan's informed explanation is exactly what I had heard from some of the other members of the group. I must say the LOM did some very good work with CISPES . . . 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] Irwin Silber remembrances
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I agree with Ethan based on my observations of Silber and his colleagues over a number of years in the 70s and 80s who overall played a good role in the progressive movement. The thing about him abusing Barbara Dane is bullshit as the recent obit from the LA Times which quotes her will attest: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-irwin-silber-20100912,0,2462884.story 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] Stalinism and Maoism, Trotskyism and Conservatism (was Re: Irwin S
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == right, and how many revolutions have trotskyists led? zero. it's always easy for isolated armchair radicals to second guess anything from the sidelines. On Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 7:33 AM, Which might be given greater weight if it weren't true that the majority of communist movement world wide and in the colonies for the past 70 years has been an absolute train wreck? In particular, the currents that descended from or identified with Stalin's leadership of the USSR from the mid-1920s forward did tremendous damage to the socialist cause by catastrophically botching the job of building socialism. So much so that all the countries they led have openly (USSR, Eastern Europe) or in all but name (China) gone capitalist. 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] Irwin Silber died
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == oh fooey! The Guardian was a great paper for much of its life that reflected and reported on news of the mass movement; at one point it was the closest thing to a paper that SDS had. I used to subscribe to it when I was in high school along with The Militant, and it had as good or better coverage of many struggles. For example I remember their coverage of the Peoples Park struggle in Berkeley as especially good. Yes, only Trotskyists rightly have the mantle of political infallibility. In contrast the last time I heard Silber speak, in Seattle circa 1989, he was very candid in describing his political history going back to the 30s when he joined the Communist youth in New York, his political evolution and the mistakes he had made. I remember working very well with his supporters in from Line of March in anti-apartheid and Central America solidarity work. Actually they were less sectarian and easier to work with and did more than the SWPers, who did their part for sure, were in that period. The Filipino leaders of the cannery workers union I belonged were also supporters of LOM. On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 10:52 AM, Dayne Goodwin daynegood...@gmail.comwrote: A good thing about Silber is that the ease of his political trajectory from pro-Moscow to pro-Beijing and back again is helpful in discussions with folks who choose to believe that there is/was a fundamental difference between Stalinism and Maoism. 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] Red Sonoma
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == article about display in Santa Rosa about local history of socialist and radical movement http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100910/ENTERTAINMENT/9101030/1349?Title=Remembering-Red-Sonoma- 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] Su Casa Es Mi Casa
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == David J. Stern, one of the country's leading foreclosure lawyers who operates a firm employing 900 and who is worth hundreds of millions, was reported to have considered Su Casa Es Mi Casa (Your House is my House) as the name for his private yacht, but his wife dissuaded him from doing it. 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] Hi
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == My deepest condolences. 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 Founder Accused of Rape in Sweden, Calls it Dirty Trick
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Julian Assange facing rape charges in Sweden originally published in tabloid there: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/08/21/technology/AP-EU-Sweden-WikiLeaks.html?hp 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] self-indulgence
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's with that personal attack? what do you know about me? since when have I ever claimed to be a Marxist? Who are you to make such a statement? Obviously you weren't following this thread at all. And what have YOU done that makes you better than I? Them's fighting words, dude. If you want you can contact me offline and we can settle this man to man so to speak. Thus a straw man argument as well as I couldn't give a fuck about marxism or the sectarian left which has never done shit to advance the struggle for social justice which was the whole point I was making. On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 4:20 PM, Carrol Cox cb...@ilstu.edu wrote: Tom Cod wrote: the point I was alluding to had to do with an affinity for obscurantism and dogma. But apparently you are more interested in Declarations of Faith (I am a Marxist) than in building an anti-capitalist movement in the u.s. What have you done lately to bring that about? Carrol 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] self-indulgence
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Over 50 jury trials in the last eight years representing indigent criminal defendants plus doing my part as a private citizen to support the struggle for a better world, among other things. But apparently you are more interested in Declarations of Faith (I am a Marxist) than in building an anti-capitalist movement in the u.s. What have you done lately to bring that about? Carrol Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] self-indulgence
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == don't you get a kick out of it when marxist theoreticians debate obscure points of medieval theology like some of their political opponents accuse them of doing when discussing marxist theory? 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] self-indulgence
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In visiting the Middle East in 1980 we went to an early Christian church in Syria from the 4th Century AD where there was an altar with a marble cross and base, the latter having a couple inch edge with openings in the corners. The Orthodox priest told us this was a function of early Christians practicing animal sacrifice which was abolished around that time. It gave a whole new meaning to lamb of God to me, which I know is a traditional Easter dish. 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] Churchill's Empire
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Right, and he was the guy most responsible for the disaster at Gallipoli in 1916 and later sent troops to aid the White armies during the Russian Civil War, all while being in the ranks of the Liberals, hardly a departure from Reaction in that context as opposed to Cold War anti-communism, which Cold War Liberals enthusiastically promoted and covered for and for whom Fulton is part of their mythology. On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 7:38 AM, midhurs...@aol.com wrote: He was anti-working class from the off and organised against the General Strike in 1926 Only came onside against Hitler when he saw a threat to the empire, hence the war in the western desert as a threat to the Suez Canal He rejoined the ranks of reaction at Fulton at the behest of Truman George Anthony 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] self-indulgence
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Don Draper is the central character in Mad Men (played by Jon Hamm) when I was of the age of the children depicted therein, having started first grade in 1959. On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 12:05 PM, midhurs...@aol.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The actor who played a Doctor Who -Tom ? had a similar experience to you and now hates Catholicism Any way religion is based on a lie-that there is a god George Anthony 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] self-indulgence
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == How about this one from Bakunin's God and the State: If God actually existed, it would be necessary to abolish him which amplifies God as an idol: of class society, an idea as I recall that Marx touched on. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/godstate/index.htm My copy of this work has as its epigram, Herzen's evaluation of Bakunin: this man was not born under any ordinary star, but a comet and then Aquinas obviously was an apologist for feudalist society run by land Lords; I mean when was it ever said Jesus is Serf? On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Joseph Catron jncat...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Times ran an interesting online essay along these lines Wednesday, which has caused me to partially rethink my own approach to Dawkins and his ilk: Religious believers often accuse argumentative atheists such as Dawkins of being excessively rationalistic, demanding standards of logical and evidential rigor that aren’t appropriate in matters of faith. My criticism is just the opposite. Dawkins does not meet the standards of rationality that a topic as important as religion requires. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/on-dawkinss-atheism-a-response On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 5:52 PM, C. G. Estabrook galli...@illinois.edu wrote: The trendy disproofs of God (e.g. from Ditchkins, as Terry Eagleton would have it) are in fact warnings - of which Thomas Aquinas would have approved - against idolatry in his technical sense, viz. treating God as a thing in the universe rather than creator. They so often hinge on fallacies arising from the inadequacy of language. (It's about things, and God is not a thing; God and the universe do not add up to two [two what?]). So, (as a correspondent recently put it) an argument God cannot exist becomes this kind of God-as-creature is not worthy, has no worth-ship, i.e., you shall not worship other Gods. 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] self-indulgence
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == just curious, you claim to be a marxist? On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 2:52 PM, C. G. Estabrook galli...@illinois.eduwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The trendy disproofs of God (e.g. from Ditchkins, as Terry Eagleton would have it) are in fact warnings - of which Thomas Aquinas would have approved - against idolatry in his technical sense, viz. treating God as a thing in the universe rather than creator. They so often hinge on fallacies arising from the inadequacy of language. (It's about things, and God is not a thing; God and the universe do not add up to two [two what?]). So, (as a correspondent recently put it) an argument God cannot exist becomes this kind of God-as-creature is not worthy, has no worth-ship, i.e., you shall not worship other Gods. On 8/13/10 2:05 PM, midhurs...@aol.com wrote: The actor who played a Doctor Who -Tom ? had a similar experience to you and now hates Catholicism Any way religion is based on a lie-that there is a god George Anthony Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] self-indulgence
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == evidence that God exists or existed as creator or otherwise? On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 2:52 PM, C. G. Estabrook galli...@illinois.eduwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The trendy disproofs of God (e.g. from Ditchkins, as Terry Eagleton would have it) are in fact warnings - of which Thomas Aquinas would have approved - against idolatry in his technical sense, viz. treating God as a thing in the universe rather than creator. They so often hinge on fallacies arising from the inadequacy of language. (It's about things, and God is not a thing; God and the universe do not add up to two [two what?]). So, (as a correspondent recently put it) an argument God cannot exist becomes this kind of God-as-creature is not worthy, has no worth-ship, i.e., you shall not worship other Gods. On 8/13/10 2:05 PM, midhurs...@aol.com wrote: The actor who played a Doctor Who -Tom ? had a similar experience to you and now hates Catholicism Any way religion is based on a lie-that there is a god George Anthony Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] India Faces Intifada Like Revolt in Kashmir
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/world/asia/13kashmir.html?hp 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] self-indulgence
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Brings to mind a comment Barry Sheppard made at a SWP convention circa 1971 regarding too much Bible quoting of Marxist texts not being too taken too strictly as, according to him, it's stated in Scripture that Moses tied his ass to a tree and walked 20 miles. On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 8:39 PM, Gary MacLennan gary.maclenn...@gmail.comwrote: How did that detail survive in the text? 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] Canadian Navy Boards Tamil Refugee Ship
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/08/13/world/AP-CN-Canada-Migrant-Ship.html?hp 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] CA set to spend millions on new death row
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == not enough money to pay state workers but enough for a new death row: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/11/2953002/calif-borrows-from-budget-to-build.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] Smyrna and Salonica
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == As to the destruction of Smyrna, this was the denouement of an epilogue to the Great War known as the Graeco-Turk War of 1919-1922 that I had never heard of until I read David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace, an ironic take on A War to End All Wars about the Great War and its outcome as it related to the Near East and Asia. In 1919 Greek chauvinists who had previously decided to jump in on the Entente side as a way of getting back at the Ottomons (factoid: US was never at war with them) after the armistice decided to seize their perceived opportunity to launch a predatory war in Asia Minor advancing almost as far inland as Ankara. Under the able leadership of Mustafa Kemal (later given the honorific, Attaturk or Great Turk-previously the victor at Gallipoli), the Turks smashed this adventure and routed the Greeks and drove them out of Asia Minor in what was a catastrophic defeat for them that left them way worse off than when it had started. The article from Wikipedia below doesn't describe the reaction in Greece thereafter in which there was a coup almost immediately and basically all the government and military leaders responsible for this debacle were arrested and shot within weeks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_(1919–1922)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_(1919%E2%80%931922) On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == This is a review from the latest Swans on two books that are of great interest to me. I started reading the one on Smyrna after the reviewer recommended it to me. I will be getting around to the one on Salonica when I get the time. Cities Sunny And Tragic by Peter Byrne http://www.swans.com/library/art16/pbyrne132.html Book Reviews Milton, Giles: Paradise Lost, Smyrna 1922, The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance, 2009, Sceptre, London, ISBN 978 0 340 83787 0, photos and maps, 426 pages. 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] Smyrna and Salonica
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == problems with that link, here's a related one to the Turkish War of Independence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_War_of_Independence 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 Banality of Anti-Israel Lobby Doctrine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yeah, I just contacted him on Facebook and gave him a heads up about what you guys are saying about him. Maybe you'll let him respond for himself? 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] Stalinism and Bakuninism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == There wasn't a revolution going on in S. Africa in the 1980s? I beg to differ. Nonetheless these unfortunate acts were a part of spontaneous mob violence driven by their bitter hatred of their dismal conditions of oppression, not acts directed from above. Thus, why not talk about the violence of the apartheid regime, something decidedly a matter of conscious policy? So, politically speaking in that context they are counter-revolutionary horror stories, part of the political media offensive of the Boers and their supporters to give them moral cover and shift the onus away from apartheid. Louis talked about not dredging up stuff from 10 years before he was born (and I say in my defense I'm not the one who brought this stuff up, I didn't start it), so surely we're treading on thin ice in getting into the Jacobins, but if you must raise this issue, I suggest those who are interested check out Thomas Paine's defense of the French Revolution, The Rights of Man, in response to precisely this argument when first raised by Edmund Burke over 200 years ago. And if you remember there was also a revolution in Haiti at that time. Are you now going to complacently ignore the reality of colonial slavery and talk about the murder of plantation families or of perhaps incidents of people killed by masses who rightly or wrongly thought to be collaborators? What about Sherman's March to the Sea? What about the partisans in France who killed people believed to be collaborators, but due to mistake weren't? Are we going to condemn them as terrorists as many right wing people in France and Germany still do to this day without talking about the Nazis? Give us a break. On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 7:00 PM, Shane Mage shm...@pipeline.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Aug 1, 2010, at 8:20 PM, Tom Cod wrote: ...like I was saying that was a good thing. Obviously not...revolution and civil war are not perfect and...many unsavory things occur... Oh. You were talking about necklacing *suspected* informers in South Africa (where there was, in the proper sense of those words, neither a revolution nor a civil war going on) and described all references to such facts as right-wing horror stories. I took that as manifesting a certain, all-too-common, attitude toward the Robespierres and Jeffersons and their Revolutionary successors. Shane Mage 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] Stalinism and Bakuninism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yeah well, Michael Moore was on Larry King last night talking about how the lesson of the BP oil spill is that natural resources like oil, whether offshore or not, are a social resource and cannot be rightly viewed as the private property of anyone or any corporation? For what its worth, I lived through the Exxon Valdez oil spill as an Alaskan resident so this BP disaster is of definite concern to me. On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 6:57 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == I see that you still betray no interest in what is going on in 2010, a year of deepening environmental and economic crisis. I can tell you this much, that Tom Paine did not sit around discussing the writings of Thomas More. 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] No country for old men (was: anticommunist lie)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I just saw that movie on a plane. I thought it was an old 70s thing I hadn't seen, it was so authentic in depicting this era. http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1C1CHMZ_enUS328US328q=No+country+for+old+menum=1ie=UTF-8source=univei=DdRWTJfIFMaLnQfn38DCAwsa=Xoi=image_result_groupct=titleresnum=4ved=0CEoQsAQwAwbiw=1280bih=909 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] ENOUGH, PLEASE! [was Stalinism and Bakuninism]
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == indeed, let's talk about the struggle for rights of undocumented workers and the struggle against the Arizona law. Michael Moore gave an excellent presentation on this last night on Larry King. 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] Correction on Anarcho
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == my apologies. the first article had the notation Anarcho on it, perhaps it's some kind of term of art or inside baseball in that political milieu. On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 10:19 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: I have just heard from Mark Leier who told me that he is not Anarcho and did not write the second article. 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] Lord of the Flies
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Right, and my personal experiences with Alaskan Natives, some of whom lived in what Marx called a culture of primitive communism was completely different. One chief who died in 1993 at the age of 116 commented that his impression of Europeans or white people was their incredible obsession with material things. His obit in the Anchorage Daily News talked about how he first ran into them in 1890 at the age of 14 while hunting with his father when they were confronted by these prospectors who were starving; they gave them food and while they shoveled the food down they were frantically asking questions about gold. Say what? they couldn't believe it. Thus from the Western perspective, Golding's attitude is somewhat different from that of Rousseau who questioned the whole notion of civilisation in the first place and of course Marx and others realized that this was really a self-serving monicker for class society. In that vein, wasn't it Lenin who talked about the difference between the bourgoisie in its incipient progressive phase and the bourgoisie in its decadent reactionary nihilistic dying imperialist one? On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 8:29 PM, Philip Ferguson philipfergus...@gmail.comwrote: But isn't that one of the mostr misanthropic things about the novel? I studied it in high school in sixth form (when you're 16). I hated it and thought it was not merely pessimistic but anti-human. The assumption that you take humans away from an existing society and they revert to some barbaric, savage state is without any foundation at all. It's in line with the whole 'Naked Ape' idea of humanity. In fact, taken out of a civilised society, humans tend to attempt to recreate civilisation rather than fall back into some savage state. I'm not quite sure what Golding's purpose was. Maybe he was trying to show that the English upper class institutions don't really civilise people. But if that was his point, there were better ways of showing it. Phil 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] Lord of the Flies
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == then of course there's the whole sanctimonious imperialist propaganda going back to Cortez of the colonialists subjecting the benighted natives solely for the altruistic reason of bring Christian civilization to these barbaric heathen. On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 8:29 PM, Philip Ferguson philipfergus...@gmail.comwrote: But isn't that one of the mostr misanthropic things about the novel? I'm not quite sure what Golding's purpose was. Maybe he was trying to show that the English upper class institutions don't really civilise people. But if that was his point, there were better ways of showing it. Phil 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] Stalinism and Bakuninism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == OK fine, so what's with the bullshit slanders of Bakunin and the ANC? Weren't their ends worthy ones: the liberation of the working class and the end of apartheid tyranny? Did they counterpose individual terror to mass struggle? Actually they didn't. And please don't imply that your views are one with those of Pathfinder and the SWP. As a former member of the same, I have my differences with them, but they were always stalwart upholders of the ANC who would in no way agree with your commentary regarding that. There were those who differed with that, but from the Left; not by sanctimoniously recycling right wing horror stories about the mistreatment of suspected informers. What was tarring and feathering like? it was more than G rated Disney pageantry with the Tory victim often dying. By doing that your tendency is to do to Trotsky what Lenin accused Kautsky of doing to Marx: turning him into an ordinary liberal philistine. Maybe in fairness I should chalk it up to naivete. On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 12:20 PM, Lüko Willms lueko.wil...@t-online.dewrote: Tom Cod (tomc...@gmail.com) wrote on 2010-08-01 at 10:54:50 in about Re: [Marxism] Stalinism and Bakuninism (was: Earliest use of word Stalinism?): Trotsky deals with dead on in Their Morals and Ours in response to exactly these arguments regarding the Bolshevik Revolution and Civil War This is an excellent point of reference. Please allow me to quote the final section of this excellent article, which answers -- in general -- also your reference to an unidentified article by Trotsky on the struggle against fascism in Germany. Taken from http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/morals/morals.htm - cut Dialectic Interdependence of End and Means A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified, From the Marxist point of view, which expresses the historical interests of the proletariat, the end is justified if it leads to increasing the power of man over nature and to the abolition of the power of man over man. 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] Stalinism and Bakuninism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks, one other thing before I have to split: as to Bakuninism, Joe Hill, Sacco Vanzetti and Emma Goldman and numerous others considered themselves part of this tradition. We can disagree with that, but to suggest they were common gangsters into foisting their tyranny on the workers is not only wrong and unfair, it plays into exactly those ruling class stereotypes that were used to victimize and frame-up these worthy activists. James P. Cannon, who later became a principal founder of the SWP, was actually inspired to name their newspaper The Militant based on a quote from Vanzetti, who responded to Cannon's rhetorical query, while on death row, about a worker who fell from a high storey window while in police custody to his death, whether the cops' story that he jumped was true. Oh no, responded Vanzetti, he was a good militant, he would never have done that. On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 1:15 PM, Greg McDonald gregm...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Lüko Willms lueko.wil...@t-online.de wrote: This has to be one of the most asinine things I have read on marxmail. Could you please give a political meaning to your zoological reaction? Luko, I think Tom is doing a fine job of conveying the political meaning of my reaction. I was pretty speechless, to be quite honest. I've never seen so many hackneyed judgments run together in a single train of thought before. Quite remarkable, really. 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] Stalinism and Bakuninism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well they as anarchists were in fact proudly part of the tradition of the First International going back to Bakunin, as I recall the CNT was founded by his followers in Spain or those who identified with his faction of the International Workingmen's Association, an individual whom you so shamelessly identify as a terrorist and smear as being akin to Pol Pot without any evidence. When did Bakunin murder a co-worker or anybody? in that respect he differed from Trotsky, then again Trotsky was a military commander during a civil war. I don't know whether you are consciously spreading these right wing lies or whether you simply don't know what you're talking about. It is this program of a barracks communism (Kasernenhofkommunismus), as Marx called it in its critique of the Bakuninist split of the first International, the gangsterism of a petty bourgeois layer detached from a real unity with the working classes, the strong-arm tactics against political opponents and the mistrust against the working class as such which has to be commanded but not led, all this is first found in Bakunin and his followers, and could develop to a larger extent only after the foundations of a workers state brought about by the Russian Revolution provided such a layer a power base, on which same-minded groups in other countries could rely on. -Luko On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 3:20 PM, Lüko Willms lueko.wil...@t-online.dewrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Tom Cod (tomc...@gmail.com) wrote on 2010-08-01 at 13:50:20 in about Re: [Marxism] Stalinism and Bakuninism: Thanks, one other thing before I have to split: as to Bakuninism, Joe Hill, Sacco Vanzetti and Emma Goldman and numerous others considered themselves part of this tradition. We can disagree with that, but to suggest they were common gangsters into foisting their tyranny on the workers is not only wrong and unfair, The only one identifying those fighters with the gangsterism of Bakunin, Stalin and Pol Pot is YOU. Nobody else has accused Joe Hill, Sacco Vanzetti or Emma Goldman of murdering co-workers who would not want to follow their orders. YOU are the one to make that amalgam, nobody else. What is your purpose with this lies? What do you want to achieve? Cover up what? Cheers, Lüko Willms Frankfurt, Germany 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] Stalinism and Bakuninism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I get a kick out of you Shane, like I was saying that was a good thing. Obviously not, but rather like Trotsky pointing out that revolution and civil war are not perfect and that many unsavory things occur on all sides therein and that sometimes there are broader world-historical issues at play to be analyzed in determining how to assess these events and their outcome besides condemning them all as bad people who did bad things who obviously had little difference between their sides from the standpoint of people of good will. Take the US Civil War for example. Obviously revolution is not your cup of tea, a view you are entitled to as due process of law is not something that is going to occur during the heat of those passions. On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 2:34 PM, Shane Mage shm...@pipeline.com wrote: On Aug 1, 2010, at 4:09 PM, Tom Cod wrote: ...sanctimoniously recycling right wing horror stories about the mistreatment of suspected informers. What was tarring and feathering like? it was more than G rated Disney pageantry with the Tory victim often dying... Suspicion is not evidence, let alone proof. In that one word-- *suspected*--the devil's heel becomes visible. The Inquisition, citing vehement suspicion of heresy 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] Legacy of Bakunin and the IWW
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == below are links to two works by Mark Leier, a professor of labor history in British Columbia and author of Bakunin, the Creative Passion. In the first link he deals with the legacy of Bakunin in the IWW and the labor movement of the time, the second is part of a classic exchange he had with our moderator on these issues a number of years ago under the nom de guerre of Anarcho which I have posted here before, although in fairness to our esteemed moderator, he never made any statements approaching the outrageous calumnies presented here by Luko. http://anarchism.pageabode.com/anarcho/bakunin-for-21st-century-activists http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchism/writers/anarcho/Proyect_reply.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] Earliest use of word Stalinism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == that's ridiculous, the father of modern anarchism, who suffered for years in the Tsar's gulags is somehow responsible for, or a progenitor to, that ogre of a tyrant Joseph Stalin? Tell that to the Spanish anarchists of 1937. Actually Bakunin opposed the statist tendencies of Marx and Marxism, warning people of his and its authoritarian tendencies. So, if you're gonna hang this on someone from Bakunin's generation, might as well join the crowd of bourgois and Stalinist ideologues and hang it on Marx. Might not be the right conclusion, but it has a little more credibility than hanging it on Bakunin. Bakunin would have thrown a grenade at Stalin as much as even look at him. On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 12:04 AM, Lüko Willms lueko.wil...@t-online.dewrote: Anyway, Trotsky was wrong using that term. The proper term is Bakuninism. Bakunin has older rights for what others called wrongly Stalinism. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] Earliest use of word Stalinism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It was ultimately about that it terms of that being it outcome, but in the first instance it was a mass uprising of the broad masses whose ideology was radical democracy, one that was driven spontaneously from the bottom to a great extent in what was the biggest upheaval in European history up to that time, perhaps ever. We all know about the Women's March on Versailles, although I think there was another march out there of a couple hundred thousand later when the King tried to flee,but I couldn't find the link to that one off hand. In that sense surely Bakunin proudly saw himself as part of this tradition, although whether he accepted marxist theories about dictatorship is another matter as he certainly would have opposed any kind rule of a minority class or elite; that was exactly the danger he saw in marxism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Women's_March_on_Versailles Today of course the French are known as great gastronomes. Thus it was ironic for me to read of Johnson and Boswell's pre-revolutionary visit to Paris and their commentary on the poor quality of food and diet, the lack of food in shops etc and the conditions of destitution contrasted with their description of the French monarchy as this ossified, ritualized institution out at Versailles akin to the Chinese Emperor in the Forbidden City. All this smugly contrasted with good old prosperous Britain and its vibrant London, with its robust middle estate and its good ol boy bourgois (or bourgois connected) king who they could just drop in on for a drink and a friendly discussion of the classics. On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 6:15 AM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: == The revolution of 1789 was ultimately about replacing the rule of one minority class with that of another. Its means and methods ultimately required the construction of a state apparatus and institutions of repression that permitted that. It makes sense that revolutionaries like Bakunin in the mid-nineteenth century would be trying to make the kind of revolution that had been made. ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] Earliest use of word Stalinism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It seems to me though that this is a widely held caricature of the Jacobins, if not of Blanqui (who always reminds me of John Brown for some reason) who was a mass leader and the principal leader of the incipient Paris Commune before his arrest, although according to Wikepedia he did hold some of the ideas you attribute to him, although reading Lenin's Left Wing Communism you'd never know he was a leader of the Commune. As to the Jacobins, the widespread idea that they were a small group and the French Revolution was some sort of a conspiracy of these illuminati was later updated to precisely describe the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution in that way of a communist conspiracy that staged a coup. Trotsky in his history did indeed proudly compare the Bolsheviks to the Jacobins and the Soviet Government to the Committee of Public Safety, but not in that sense, but in the sense of a mass based leadership of a historic struggle, of a revolution which he described as the conscious intervention of the masses into history. And of course we all know of his analogy of Stalin with Thermidor. As far as I know, the Jacobins didn't even exist before 1789 but were one of a number of impromptu groupings that arose, or were thrown up, in the wake of the calling of the Estates General and the turmoil that ensued, Robespierre having been a more or less anonymous 30 year old nobody when he ducked his head into their camp. Incredibly this French Parliament had not met in a 150 years and was called by the king to bail him out financially. More so than England's Long Parliament of a century and half before whose hiatus was a mere couple decades, the agenda almost immediately became the termination of the monarchy. On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 10:50 AM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The question's not whether there were mass revolutionary upheavals, but how the revolutionary leadership sought to channel those upheavals and institutionalize the mandate to govern. For the Jacobins, this was a question of a small organization taking charge and directing a government. There is a clear and quite interesting line from this approach to revolution to that of Blanqui and that part of the movement that understood revolution in insurrectionary terms. The notion of having a small group come to power and direct the course of the revolution also developed in this tradition. Marxism came out of this, but sought to transform it. However, these same ideas do crop up within the Marxist tradition from time to time ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] Earliest use of word Stalinism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == well, as the old saying goes, I'll put that in my pipe and smoke it and see what effect is caused. On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == You just have to read it and not hash cause into effect and ignore the chronologies. ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] Luis Corvalán Dies at 93 (Franco's terminology)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == also from the same obit: After the Allende government fell and Mr. Corvalán fled, the military authorities, hunting him, seized his son, Alberto. Alberto was tortured but remained silent and died of his wounds. Recent obituaries in the Chilean press said Mr. Corvalán was survived by a wife and an unspecified number of daughters. Mr. Corvalán was soon found and imprisoned. In October 1973, reports that he was about to be executed set off a raucous debate at the United Nations. The Chilean delegate insisted that no sentence had yet been imposed. Mr. Corvalán was later convicted of high treason. In 1974, while being held at a Chilean prison on Dawson Island in the Strait of Magellan, the Soviet Union awarded him the Order of Lenin and made his release a cause célèbre by repeatedly bringing up the subject in international forums. With the United States acting as intermediary, a prisoner swap was arranged. Mr. Bukovsky, who had documented that nonconformists were being sent to Soviet psychiatric hospitals, was released by the Kremlin and settled in England. Mr. Corvalán, released by Chile, went to Moscow and there lived the life of a V.I.P. According to some reports, he had plastic surgery and returned to Chile incognito in the 1980s to organize resistance to the Chilean government. so a spirit of solidarity is called for as well. On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 10:44 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: --- What a revolting character. 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] Luis Corvalán Dies at 93 (Franco's terminology)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well, Michel Raptis aka Pablo in his excellent book, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Chile, refers to the Trotskyists there as not accomplices of anything, but isolated irrelevant sectarian know it alls who abstained from the struggle. I can't say for sure, I wasn't there, which is why I'm reluctant to bad mouth people who had family members killed and tortured by the regime or to bad mouth them without even acknowledging that, whether it's Corvalan or some trotskyist group. On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 11:03 AM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.comwrote: Stalinists admit nothing, as they can't learn from history, but Tom has already had three chances to bait we Trotskyists as accomplices of the fascists for daring to address the betrayals of the Chilean CP. If Louis wants to end this thread here, that's fine with me. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%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] Mothers of Ludlow
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == [SF Chronicle, Arts Section, 7/25/10] The massacre of striking Colorado coal miners in 1914 may seem an unlikely musical theater piece for middle class kids in Berkeley to take on, but Berkeley's Youth Musical Theater Company (featuring kids from seventh grade through college), based at the Julia Morgan Theater, is used to taking on serious challenges. And staging the world premiere of The Mothers of Ludlow, which opened last weekend, also dovetailed nicely with San Francisco's annual, monthlong Labor Fest. Another advantage to mounting this epic production with a cast of 30 and a 15-piece orchestra was having playwright Martha Boesing and composer Paul Boesing on site throughout rehearsal to collaborate with the students and YMTC Artistic Director Jennifer Boesing, who happens to be their daughter. Divorced 30 years ago, Paul and Martha Boesing are best friends, and he still writes the music for her plays. She lives in Oakland, he lives in Omaha, Neb., but both were available to be in Berkeley for Mothers, which they workshopped in 1999, but it had never been produced. Q: How did this collaboration come about? Jennifer Boesing: About a year and a half ago I said, Hey, you guys aren't getting that done, what do you think about YMTC doing it? Q: What's it like working with your parents? Jennifer Boesing: It feels very familiar in a way, because I grew up in the theater. I was a kid on the stage with them, my mother has written roles with me in mind and directed me a lot, and I worked with my dad as a voice teacher. I grew up as an actor and later studied singing and got my master's in music and voice at the San Francisco Conservatory. In YMTC, I'm at the helm, so it's definitely a flip. Q: What's it like seeing your work performed by youngsters? Martha Boesing: I wondered if they'd be able to handle this, and they've been wonderful. There's something interesting about young people doing this work. There's a kind of innocence and freshness that I think a lot of the strikers probably had, because they didn't know what they were getting into. They certainly didn't know that they were going to be on strike for nine months and that there would be this horrible massacre at the end of it. They thought they were moving to the tent colony in September for a month or two, and then they had to go through this terribly difficult winter, then the massacre in April. It's horrible how labor history in this country is suppressed and forgotten and censored. The massacre at Ludlow is a huge event and one of the great labor stories in the history of America. And because of the fury about this in the United States, they did get better hours and pay and living conditions. Q: It's interesting that the miners were all immigrants. Martha Boesing: You couldn't get past Ellis Island if you didn't have a job, so you were met at the boat by the Rockefeller gang and offered jobs in the mines. So the cast is made up of Italians, Greeks, Welsh, Serbs, Croatians. Paul, who is also a dialect coach, has been working with the actors on that. Paul Boesing: We're doing three: Greek, Croatian/Czechoslovakian and Italian. Tikas, the leader of the strike and the one real biographical character in the play, was Greek. Many of the scabs were African American. The love story subplot is an interracial romance. Q: How do you help kids understand the labor struggle? Jennifer Boesing: They couldn't possibly know the poverty and the feeling of being old before your time, so that's just acting. But the piece about justice and the labor movement, the kids can really get behind it - the passionate injustice and righteousness. Kids really get that. Martha Boesing: I'm really impressed, and I'm a curmudgeon. You work in the theater for 60 years and you don't like anything you see anymore. But I've seen shows here that are as good as anything at ACT or Berkeley Rep, and I'm not just saying that because I'm Jenny's mom. The Mothers of Ludlow: 7:30 p.m. Fri. through Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave., Berkeley. $12-$22. (800) 838-3006. links.sfgate.com/ZJZJ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/22/DD031EF74Q.DTL Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/22/DD031EF74Q.DTL#ixzz0upufzB61 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] Palestine Think Tank: Jeff Blankfort – Chomsky and Palestine: Asset or Liability ?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well, I dunno, Jeff Blankfort is a local personality on the Mendocino Coast where I live who gets space regularly in Bruce Anderson's, Anderson Valley Advertiser (AVA) along with Cockburn and who has an intermittent show on local public radio and who I saw once in person with Cockburn at a talk in town. He is definitely a well intentioned person but in no way would I characterize him as anti-semitic and I have never heard or read him say any bullshit about Jews; in fact he takes pains to do the opposite. He does, however, have a sectarian like predilection to preach to the choir which would be tedious enough when beamed to a marxist or sectarian audience, but which falls a little flat when broadcast to the general public, a general public that includes a significant number of leftists for sure, but which primarily is composed of the general public nonetheless. Thus for me this whole barrage on Chomsky, someone I view overall as a real hero, is completely inapposite. Then again I don't run into too many marxists in real life, but do run into a lot of regular folks for whom Chomsky and his ideas are useful in explaining basic realities of the world. Thus overall, as with Ward Churchill, I think we should uphold Chomsky while acknowledging he might not be perfect. On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 7:34 AM, DW dwalters...@gmail.com wrote: Unfortunatly people like Blankfort have been as detrimental the anti-Zionist movement as Chomsky has. In an interview with Indie Media a few years ago, Blackfort advocated that Jews be excluded from the pro-Palestinian movement. He blieves, like Petras, that Jews control America and he is notorious for Jew-counting people in the media to prove his point that Israel 'controls' US foreign policy. While not formally a Holocust denier, he's a step a way from out right denying it took place. D. 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] NYT on sources of Zionist Settler movement
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == thanks for alerting us to this, I checked it out. IHH started out as a humanitarian aid group for Bosnian Muslims, a conflict that many US leftists got wrong based on a misguided knee jerk analysis that I probably would have gone along with but for my own personal history in this region as a child. They have a facebook page, but it's in Turkish. Their website in English is as follows: http://www.ihh.org.tr/anasayfa/en/ 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] Engels and Mexican War
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Surely they were wrong on their own terms as evidenced by the fact that the main promoters of this war were the slave owning interests and their allies who did nothing to promote industrialization, bourgois democracy or anything else vaguely progressive, but came up with this land grab to expand slavery. Then again, they were young radicals living on another continent with no personal knowledge of American society, writing about American society the way American might lecture about the Austrian Empire and Kossuth. Although not a slave owner himself, Stephen Douglas (for the life of me I can't understand the begrudgingly charitable view towards this racist clown by mainstream historians as a Great American) was outspoken in promoting this war and opposing the N---gism (a term he would use in speeches in the Senate in conjunction with transcendentalism and abolitionism in rattling off the ostensibly weirdo theories of his oppponents like Sumner and Lincoln) on the basis that Mexicans were in no way white people, but were rather a mongrel race who had no rights whites needed to respect, being an apt and worthy object of civilizing conquest by Yankee big brother. Moreover, Douglas and other allies of the Slave Power saw Cuba, Central America and the Caribbean as similar objects, even more ripe for the taking, since King Cotton would grow there more easily. By the time of the Secession crisis of 1861, however, Marc and Engels had figured this out and gotten themselves set right however. 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] Engels and Mexican War
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == [1847 speech by Charles Sumner opposing the Mexican War courtesy of the Spartacist League] A war of conquest is bad; but the present war has darker shadows. It is a war for the extension of slavery over a territory which has already been purged by Mexican authority from this stain and curse. Fresh markets of human beings are to be established; further opportunities for this hateful traffic are to be opened; the lash of the overseer is to be quickened in new regions; and the wretched slave is to be hurried to unaccustomed fields of toil. It can hardly be believed that now, more than eighteen hundred years since the dawn of the Christian era, a government, professing the law of charity and justice, should be employed in war to extend an institution which exists in defiance of these sacred principles. It has already been shown that the annexation of Texas was consummated for this purpose. The Mexican War is a continuance, a prolongation, of the same efforts; and the success which crowned the first emboldens the partisans of the latter, who now, as before, profess to extend the area of freedom, while they are establishing a new sphere for slavery. The authorities already adduced in regard to the objects of annexation illustrate the real objects of the Mexican War. Declarations have also been made, upon the floor of Congress, which throw light upon it. Mr. Sims, of South Carolina, has said that he had no doubt that every foot of territory we shall permanently occupy, south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, will be slave territory; and, in reply to his colleague, Mr. Burt, who inquired whether this opinion was in consequence of the known determination of the Southern people that their institutions shall be carried into that country, if acquired, said, in words that furnish a key to the whole project, It is founded on the known determination of the Southern people that their institutions shall be carried there; it is founded in the laws of God, written on the climate and soil of the country: nothing but slave labor can cultivate, profitably, that region of country. But it is not merely proposed to open new markets for slavery: it is also designed to confirm and fortify the Slave Power. Here is a distinction which should not fail to be borne in mind. Slavery is odious as an institution, if viewed in the light of morals and Christianity. On this account alone we should refrain from rendering it any voluntary support. But it has been made the basis of a political combination, to which has not inaptly been applied the designation of the Slave Power. The slaveholders of the country - who are not supposed to exceed 200,000 or at most 300,000 in numbers - by the spirit of union which animates them, by the strong sense of a common interest, and by the audacity of their leaders, have erected themselves into a new estate, as it were, under the Constitution. Disregarding the sentiments of many of the great framers of that instrument, who notoriously considered slavery as temporary, they proclaim it a permanent institution; and, with a strange inconsistency, at once press its title to a paramount influence in the general government, while they deny the right of that government to interfere, in any way, with its existence. According to them, it may never be restrained or abolished by the general government, though it may be indefinitely extended. 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] Long Live Populist Pandering [was: RE: The fascist danger in the USA]
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == exactly so, and such pedantry was also about buying into ruling class pundits' complacent assertions that such regimes are merely military dictatorships and not really fascist and thus really not so bad-and surely not worse than the bogeyman of Stalinism-so why flip out like ultra-lefts with their political theater of exaggeration etc. Moreover, leaving that aside, closer inspection reveals that these brutal regimes and their supporters really did have a lot in common with the fascists of the 1930s with they and their followers being open admirers of the same. I remember back in high school circa 1970 getting into a discussion with an exchange student from Italy about the Greek Colonels and parroting our party line that they weren't fascist. The Italian comrade became completely flabbergasted asserting that I had a complacent and pedantic attitude that thought military dictatorship was merely just some other garden variety of class dictatorship like bourgois democracy that we don't need to get too bent out of shape about. On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 8:49 AM, Joaquín Bustelo jbust...@bellsouth.netwrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 6/19/2010 12:02 AM, DW wrote: I think Joaquin is simply pandering to populist lingo with his defense of the term Fascist. Well, like duh ... That was my point. That the meaning of words is socially determined, you can't just keep insisting that everyone else is wrong if they use a term more loosely than you, especially when everyone else includes 99% of the people that use the word. For example, I believe that strictly speaking, you won't find a fascist movement in Latin America because such movements are a product of imperialist democracies. But it would be foolish to take up the cudgels against calling Pinochet or the Argentine gorillas fascists (just as it would be foolish to keep on explaining that the Argentine dictators weren't REALLY gorillas but members of the species homo sapiens and so on). The point of such polemics is really to establish and re-enforce the boundaries of the sect, or in this particular case, of the family of Trot sects. That's what it's really about. 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] Super profits
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I recall it from Lenin's pamphlets. I remember having that phrase rattling around my mind in the early 80s when confronted by the sudden contrast of the opulence of Fort Lauderdale when driving in to there from the sugar cane fields and farm labor camps fields of the interior around Lake Okechobee. The phrase refers to the high level of profits extracted from colonial peoples under conditions of neo-slavery that was and is the material basis not only of the labor aristocracy and labor opportunism, but the lifestyle of the comfortable petty bourgoisie whose lifestyle is fattened by coupon clipping (as Lenin put it) and stock market payoffs that are subsidized indirectly, but inexorably, by that. A non-ideological take on how this operated during that era is provided by Adam Hochschild's book King Leopold's Ghost about the Congo. That things haven't changed that much was shown today by an article about oil leaks in the Niger Delta that exceeded the Deepwater Horizon fiasco long ago, an egregious example of environmental racism and its concomitant media neglect. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/world/africa/17nigeria.html?hpw On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 3:04 PM, Shane Hopkinson chen9692...@yahoo.comwrote: So this got me thinking about it. Where does this term come from in the Marxist vocabulary? Is it from Lenin's 'Imperialism' or is it just a term we use more loosely to mean 'excess' profits rather than being part of the technical vocabulary. ___ 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] Cockburn Joins Right Wing POW-MIA Hysteria
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == [comments mistakenly sent privately and not posted on list as intended] Right, he quoted it uncritically and with approval for its conclusions. Question for you: are you buying into the crap that MIAs were kept in Indochina by the victorious regimes there or that somehow they were victims or that the North Vietnamese were the aggressors and not US imperialism? Moreover, Shanberg has a history of being an imperialist hack and an apologist whose stories about Cambodia were completely divorced from the context of US carpet bombing. William Shawcross' book Sideshow and Chomsky in contrast place this tragedy in its proper context of imperialist aggression. No, Cockburn's piece is a blatant and shocking apologia for right wing mythology notwithstanding whatever fig leaf he places on it about other media cover-ups. I'm flabbergasted that any ostensible leftist would apologize for this pro-imperialist crap. How about the TWO MILLION VIETNAMESE killed by US aggression? __ Estabrook response: I doubt that Alex Cockburn, of all people, ever quoted anything uncritically. Are you sure you read this piece? He certainly doesn't quote Schanberg uncritically: he does say that the evidence he cites needs to be considered. And Cockburn does know that ideology doesn't determine facts a priori. Where do you find anyone suggesting that the 'North Vietnamese' were the aggressors and not US imperialism? You're also temerarious to appeal to Chomsky and Shawcross in the same sentence: the former has been a severe critic of the latter. Cockburn offers no apologia for right wing mythology. He does suggest that the US government is known to have lied about the history of the Vietnam War. Also, I think you underestimate the number of Vietnamese killed by US aggression. A Vietnamese general is said to have told the Russians was that his government was intent on getting war reparations, $3.25 billion in reconstruction money, pledged by the US in peace negotiations headed on the US side by Henry Kissinger. The general told the Russians that Hanoi would hold back a large number of POWs until the money arrived. It seems the Vietnamese had successfully used the same tactic with the French, to elicit promised funds, after which POWs were transferred. But Nixon and Kissinger had attached to the deal a codicil to the effect that the US Congress would have to approve the reparations – which the two knew was an impossibility in the political atmosphere of the time. Thus they effectively sealed the POWs fate. On signature of the 1973 treaty Hanoi released the names of 591 POWs scheduled to be returned. At the time there was widespread consternation in the US – in the New York Times for example - at the unexpectedly low number. In fact, as top official in the US government knew, about 600 POWs were being held back, against delivery of the promised $3.25 billion... Cockburn suggests reasons why we should not immediately place our full confidence - as you seem to - in the account delivered by war heroes John Kerry and John McCain _ my rejoinder: Of course I read it, but not online but in the local print version in The Anderson Valley Advertiser (AVA) available in the local grocery store on the North Coast of CA. He and his friend publisher Bruce Anderson have a long history here where their reputation as clever 5th Column demagogues is in advance of that elsewhere based on their covering for the FBI in the Judi Bari case and other matters. Surely you've seen his denunciations of the pro-life movement and ruminations on the Tea Party that Proyect has alluded to, so I don't have to go into a whole catalogue about their routine slanders of local activists whom they deride as lib labs in a style worthy of Glenn Beck. Again, the issue is not McCain or Kerry but rather pandering to right wing victimology about POWs who were for the most part not grunts slogging through the mud, but flight officers responsible for the deaths of thousands far from harm's way. Demonology about the Vietnamese liberation forces and the victim cult about these POWs and how supposedly some are still being held there, even though there's no evidence is a key part of the right wing's narrative of Vietnam as a noble cause waged against communist aggression and its demonic oppressors and borders on being a fascistic cult heavily promoted by Hells Angels thugs and other chauvinistic reactionaries. That some of you guys don't see that seems incredibly obtuse. With all due respect, don't be a chump. Tellingly, the AVA now has the right wing POW-MIA flag logo on the masthead of its website. I know this one inmate through my work who has the swastika tatooed on one side of his neck and the POW-MIA
[Marxism] Cockburn Joins Right Wing POW-MIA Hysteria
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Recently Alexander Cockburn solidified his drift into neo-con right wing demagogue by expounding at length how the crackpot hysteria about hundreds of MIAs being held in IndoChina is real, going so far as to state that hundreds were executed by the Vietnamese after the war when the US failed to pay reparations. This is utter bullshit. There have been missing in action in every war, just that since we lost this one, an issue is being raised about it to maintain animus against Vietnam. missing bodies from the Great War are still being found in the killing fields of Europe and so forth, with the rice paddies and mud of Vietnam being as much of a place for bodies to become obscured. Moreover, the location of many can actually be determined in a material sense if you correlate them with the hundreds of unknown dead who were recovered. 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] Bob Avakian Video
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://revolutiontalk.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
Re: [Marxism] Re : Bob Avakian
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == [Below is an excerpt from Wikipedia's bio of Avakian that gives the short version of his political history as figure in the history of the US New Left] It was at Berkeley through his involvement with the Free Speech Movement that Avakian took his first steps into political activism. Avakian, in different ways, and over a period of time, became deeply engaged in the movements of the times: the anti-war movement, the student movement, the black liberation movement, the developing women’s movement and the incipient new communist movement in the U.S. Avakian's ideological and political development can be traced through these rebellious times, as he developed political relationships and friendships with many of the key figures of that era, engaging in many debates with the various trends in the movement, including working closely with the Black Panther Party, particularly Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver.[18] Through his writing for the The Black Panther newspaper[19] and Ramparts magazine,[20] his work in Students for a Democratic Society and with the Peace and Freedom Party, and his participation in the many struggles of the time, Avakian began to develop as a revolutionary and seriously consider what kind of revolution and revolutionary leadership was needed.[21] In 1967 Avakian moved to Richmond, California, and started a collective to integrate with the proletariat and take radical politics to the proletariat.[22] It was in this period that Avakian and others began to more seriously study some of the classics of Marxism, as well as the writings of Mao Zedong, more seriously engaging and exploring a theoretical framework for their developing revolutionary inclinations. In 1968 Avakian played a central role in uniting a number of revolutionary collectives into the Bay Area Revolutionary Union, with the view that this would be one organization among many (such as the Black Panther Party as well as other organizations and collectives) which at some point would build ideological and political unity as the basis for a new multi-national communist party.[23] Into the 1970s these organizations continued to develop their positions on important questions related to revolution and communism, questions such as: If you are going to be for revolution, what kind of revolution? How can you make that revolution? What kind of leadership do you need? What kind of program do you need? What kind of forces do you need to mobilize and unite?[24] While fierce in his condemnation of all inequality and oppression and an ardent supporter of those who genuinely fight for their liberation,[25] he sought to understand the dynamic underpinnings of society which give rise to inequality and oppression. This investigation along with the debates and ferment of the times led him to view Marxism as the theoretical framework that most scientifically synthesized an understanding of the world.[26] Through his writings in the Red Papers, the theoretical journals of the Revolutionary Union,[27] Avakian began to develop a method and approach with which to examine many of the key historical questions of the communist movement and theory, as well as the sharp and controversial issues of the day. These issues included whether the Soviet Union was still a socialist country or whether Mao Zedong’s theses of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union was true;[28] whether China, under Mao, was a revolutionary socialist country; what was the character of the oppression of black people in the U.S. and the relation of this to revolutionary strategy,[29] and other contested issues. Through a very protracted process, which included theoretical debate around the critical issues of what kind of revolution is needed, issues of revolutionary strategy, and very closely linked to these issues, the question of what comprises revolutionary leadership, Avakian played a key role in the development of a new communist party in the U.S. In 1970 the Bay Area Revolutionary Union became a national organization (renamed the Revolutionary Union); this organization itself went through splits over positions in relation to the above questions.[30]This process involved debates and sharp ideological struggles among revolutionary and communist organizations (and individuals) throughout the country, and culminated, in 1975, in the formation of the RCP.[31] At its founding congress, Avakian was elected chairman of its central committee. In 1976, shortly after the death of Mao Zedong, the followers of Mao (known as the Gang of Four)[32] were arrested and new leadership took over the Communist Party of China. Among communists both within the U.S. and internationally there were major differences on how to understand what had happened in China. Within the RCP, after
