[Marxism-Thaxis] Postal Service
EVERY CRISIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY Peter Rachleff St. Paul, Minnesota August 10, 2009 This year's Postal Press Association Editors Conference was abuzz with discussion of the Postal Service's threats to close hundreds of' stations. Virtually every editor present knew of one or more stations at risk in her or his own jurisdiction. The wolf which has loomed at the APWU's door for years - plant closings, job losses, disruptive excessing, economic insecurity, to be followed by the wage and benefit cuts and attacks on retirees' benefits which workers in other industries have experienced - is now huffing and puffing for real. In my workshop, Learning From the Past to Conquer the Challenges of Today, we discussed ways to turn this crisis into an opportunity to revitalize the union, to secure its role not only in the workplace and at the bargaining table but also in the community, and to lead the fight to preserve - if not expand - public service. Our workshop revolved around three historical moments: (1) the revitalization of unions in the Great Depression era of the 1930s, using the Minneapolis teamsters as an example; (2) the incorporation and weakening of unions in World War II, the late 1940s, and 1950s; and (3) the attack on unions and their members by business' and government's turn to economic neoliberalism in the 1980s. We then discussed what we can learn from these historical moments that we can use in this crisis that we face now, so that we can turn it into an opportunity to rebuild the labor movement and redirect society as a whole. The architects of the Minneapolis teamsters' struggles picked the right context in which to act. They could feel the energy and hope of working people who had organized the summer 1932 Bonus Army protest in Washington, had elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt president in November 1932, and had begun a militant unemployed movement in city upon city, demanding an end to mortgage foreclosures and evictions and an expansion of relief. In February of 1934, at the depths of a Minnesota winter, they realized that coal delivery workers could hold an upper hand over their employer. Their victory in a three day strike sent a message to all Minneapolis workers - that with the right strategy and tactics, workers could defeat anti-union employers. Having decided that the time was right to act, the activists who built Local 574 from one hundred members in February of 1934 to 15,000 by August, paid particular attention to the roles of rank-and-file members, to the union's relationship with other unions and the community, and to its relationship to the government. The union asked each rank-and-file member to function as an organizer. Unionized drivers and helpers refused to allow their trucks to be loaded or unloaded at non-union warehouses, while unionized warehouse workers refused to load or unload non-union trucks. The union also reached out to other unions, offering them solidarity and receiving support in return. The Minneapolis teamsters became known for their refusal to cross picket lines, and they helped unions like the International Ladies Garment Workers win their own strikes. The union also reached out to the community, helping the unemployed organize in order to receive relief, participating in protests against foreclosures and evictions, and supporting farmers in establishing farmers' markets in the city. The union also pressed the government, at the local, state, and federal levels, to create jobs, to raise minimum wages, and to protect workers' rights to organize. Teamsters Local 574 experienced phenomenal growth not only in numbers but also in power and respect, based on the involvement of their own members, their supportive relationships with other unions and in the wider community, and their demands upon the government. Their experience typified much of what happened to American unions in the 1930s, as they grew from about two million members to fourteen million. This kind of organization and culture were eaten away in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as unions became integrated into a social contract with employers and the government. The latter, rather than opposing unions outright (since they really couldn't), developed rules, regulations, and institutions which limited union power. The dues check-off removed considerable day-to-day contact between stewards and workers. The great strike wave of 1945-1946 ended by allowing corporations to raise prices despite unions' initial demands that wage increases not be passed along to consumers. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 outlawed the two most important expressions of solidarity, the sympathy strike and the secondary boycott. Unions began to practice productivity bargaining in which they granted management authority to control the shopfloor and the introduction of new technologies, as long as workers got raises. By the merger of the AFL and the CIO in 1955, the labor movement had ceased growing and individual
[Marxism-Thaxis] Encyclopédie
The original encyclopedists were considered important contributors to the development of materialism by Engels. Is Wikipedia in that tradition ? Knowledge for masses. The whole essay, or book Marx and Engels On Literature and Art of which the reference to discussions of Diderot is a small section, has quite and index. CB Diderot 1. Ludwig Feuerbach 2. Marx to Engels 15 April 1869 3. Engels To Marx. 16 April 1869 In: Marx and Engels On Literature and Art Source: Marx Engels On Literature and Art. Progress Publishers. 1976; Transcribed: by Andy Blunden. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/art/index.htm ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Marx and Engels On Literature and Art
Marx and Engels On Literature and Art http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/art/index.htm Source: Marx Engels On Literature and Art. Progress Publishers. 1976; Transcribed: by Andy Blunden. Preface Materialist Conception of the History of Culture Social Being and Social Consciousness 1. Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy 2. The German Ideology Natural Conditions and Development of Culture Landscapes Against Vulgarisation of Historical Materialism 1. Engels to Joseph Bloch. September 21-22 1890 2. Engels to W. Borgius. January 25 1894 3. Engels to Conrad Schmidt. October 27 1890 4. Engels to Joseph Bloch. September 21-22 1890 5. Engels to Conrad Schmidt. August 5 1890 Engels About Mehring’s The Lessing Legend 1. Engels to Franz Mehring. April 11 1893 2. Engels to Karl Kautsky. June 1 1893 3. Engels to Franz Mehring. July 14 1893 Class Relations and Class Ideology 1. The German Ideology 2. The Communist Manifesto Scientific and Vulgar Conceptions of Class Ideology Engels to Paul Ernst Historical Continuity and Its Contradictions 1. The German Ideology 2. Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Uneven Character of Historical Development and Questions of Art Introduction to the Economic Manuscripts of 1857-58 General Problems of Art Ideological Content and Realism 1. Engels to Minna Kautsky, 26 November 1885 2. Engels to Margaret Harkness, beginning April 1888 3. Review of A Chenu, Les Conspirateurs and L. de la Hodde, La Renaissance de la République, Feb 1848 The Tragic and the Comic in Real History 1. Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Introduction 2. Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte 3. Leading article in Kölnische Zeitung No. 179 4. Engels to Marx, 4 September 1870 5. Engels to August Bebel, 7 July 1892 Problems of Revolutionary Tragedy On Ferdinand Lassalle’s Drama Franz von Sickingen 1. Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle, 19 April 1859 2. Engels to Ferdinand Lassalle, 18 May 1859 Miscellaneous Items Language and Literature 1. Ideas do not exist separately from language, from Grundrisse 2. Materials on the History of France and Germany, Engels Improvisation and Poetry New-York Daily Tribune, 7 March 1853, Marx On Literary Style 1. On Proudhon, Letter to J B Schweizer, 24 January 1865 2. Marx To Engels, 31 July 1865 3. Engels to Eduard Bernstein, 12-13 July 1883 4. Engels to Sorge, 29 April 1886 On Literary Polemics 1. On Brentano’s Polemic Against Marx over Alleged Misquotation 2. Refugee Literature, IV 3. Engels to Marx, 25-26 October 1847 4. Engels to Eduard Bernstein, 12 March 1881 5. Engels to Eduard Bernstein, 29 June 1884 On Translation 1. Engels To Marx, 23 September 1852 2. Engels To Marx, 29 November 1873 3. Engels To Friedrich Sorge, 29 June 1883 4. Engels To Eduard Bernstein, 5 February 1884 5. How Not to Translate Marx, Engels, The Commonweal, 1885 6. Engels To Laura Lafargue, 16 November 1889 7. Engels To Laura Lafargue, 8 January 1890 Additional References On Translation of Marx’s works 8. Engels To Marx, 24 June 1867 9. Engels To Sorge, 20 June 1882 10. Engels To August Bebel, 18 August 1886 11. Engels To Laura Lafargue, 13 September 1886 12. Engels To Laura Lafargue, 28 April 1886 13. Engels To Sorge, 29 June 1888 Art in Class Society The Origin of Art Historical Development of the Artistic Sense 1. Private Property and Communism, 1844 2. The Division of Labour and Human Needs, 1844 3. Private Property and Communism, 1844 The Role of Labour in the Origin of Art, from Part Played by Labour Artistic Creation and Aesthetic Perception, from Critique Political Economy Social Division of Labour Division of Labour and Social Consciousness Estrangement of Labour and Condition of Workers in Capitalist Society Money and World Culture The Distorting Power of Money Capitalism and Spiritual Production Relation of Art to Capitalist Mode of Production, Theories of Surplus Value Bourgeois Taste and Its Evolution, Engels To Laura Lafargue, 14 January 1884 The Work of the Artist in Capitalist Society 1. Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 4 2. Productive Labour, Economic writings of 1864 3. Theories of Surplus Value, Addenda Freedom of the Press and of Artistic Creation 1. Debates on Freedom of the Press, Marx 1842 2. Debates on Freedom of the Press, Marx 1842 3. Debates on Freedom of the Press, Marx 1842 4. Debates on Freedom of the Press, Marx 1842 5. Stamp Duty on Newspapers, Neue Oder Zeitung, 30 March 1855 Asceticism and Enjoyment, from German Ideology Work and Play, from Capital, Volume I Bourgeois Civilisation and Crime, from Theories of Surplus Value, Addendum Historical Mission of the Working Class The Proletariat and Wealth, from The Holy Family The Working Class and the Progressive Development of Society 1. Speech at Anniversary of
[Marxism-Thaxis] The Materialism of the Encyclopedists
The Materialism of the Encyclopedists 1. Socialism: Utopian Scientific http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch02.htm 2. The Holy Family Frederick Engels Socialism: Utopian and Scientific II [Dialectics] In the meantime, along with and after the French philosophy of the 18th century, had arisen the new German philosophy, culminating in Hegel. Its greatest merit was the taking up again of dialectics as the highest form of reasoning. The old Greek philosophers were all born natural dialecticians, and Aristotle, the most encyclopaedic of them, had already analyzed the most essential forms of dialectic thought. The newer philosophy, on the other hand, although in it also dialectics had brilliant exponents (e.g. Descartes and Spinoza), had, especially through English influence, become more and more rigidly fixed in the so-called metaphysical mode of reasoning, by which also the French of the 18th century were almost wholly dominated, at all events in their special philosophical work. Outside philosophy in the restricted sense, the French nevertheless produced masterpieces of dialectic. We need only call to mind Diderot's Le Neveu de Rameau, and Rousseau's Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inegalite parmi less hommes. We give here, in brief, the essential character of these two modes of thought. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Encyclopédie
While we are on this subject for no reason at all. . . . On my web site: http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/diderot1.htmlDiderot, Interpreter of Nature: Selected Writings http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/diderot3.htmlDenis Diderot by Tamara Dlugach Elsewhere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DiderotDenis Diderot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/diderot/index.htmDenis Diderot Archive at Marxists Internet Archive At 10:51 AM 8/13/2009, c b wrote: The original encyclopedists were considered important contributors to the development of materialism by Engels. Is Wikipedia in that tradition ? Knowledge for masses. The whole essay, or book Marx and Engels On Literature and Art of which the reference to discussions of Diderot is a small section, has quite and index. CB Diderot 1. Ludwig Feuerbach 2. Marx to Engels 15 April 1869 3. Engels To Marx. 16 April 1869 In: Marx and Engels On Literature and Art Source: Marx Engels On Literature and Art. Progress Publishers. 1976; Transcribed: by Andy Blunden. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/art/index.htm ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Hemingway, the American left, and the Soviet Union: some forgotten episodes
Hemingway, the American Left, and the Soviet Union: Some Forgotten Episodes Journal article by Cary Nelson; The Hemingway Review, Vol. 14, 1994 http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=KG9WPQZJhw8PGW8d12NnZQvpqRhgycgTMLcDJQltpBDvWWpXptlt!-229138872!-1934322800?docId=5000276828 Journal Article Excerpt Hemingway, the American left, and the Soviet Union: some forgotten episodes by Cary Nelson RECENT BIOGRAPHICAL scholarship--notably Kenneth S. Lynn's Hemingway (1987) and James R. Mellow's Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences (1992) --suggests that a consensus may be forming about the political judgments that coalesced in For Whom the Bell Tolls and that presumably carried Hemingway through the next two decades of his life. Briefly, the argument as Mellow puts it is that Hemingway by the end of 1938 experienced growing disillusionment with the cause of the Spanish Republic. His 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls as a result became, according to Mellow, among other things, Hemingway's study of cowards and traitors and brave men in battle, as well as his apologia for supporting the Loyalists in the Spanish civil war (517). In both the marriage [to Martha Gellhorn] and the romance with left-wing politics, Lynn writes in a similar argument, Hemingway would discover himself to have been sadly deceived (442); he said farewell to the Comintern in For Whom the Bell Tolls (452). Putting in his own rhetoric the lesson he would have us believe Hemingway learned, Lynn writes that the anti-Fascist propaganda being generated by the Comintern's cleverest liars, Willi Muenzenberg and Otto Katz (both later liquidated on Stalin's orders) was a rhetorical cover for the imperialistic designs of a system no less ruthless than Hitler's and infinitely more so than the repressive regime that Franco would establish (444).(1) One exception to this pattern is Jeffrey Meyers' Hemingway: A Biography (1985), which sees For Whom the Bell Tolls as flowing from Hemingway's Loyalist sympathies rather than marking their end point. But Me... ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Encyclopédie
Ralph, you have a way with words. Guess I will send in something related to real life in America. WL. In a message dated 8/13/2009 11:34:28 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, rdum...@autodidactproject.org writes: While we are on this subject for no reason at all. . . . On my web site: http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/diderot1.htmlDiderot, Interpreter of Nature: Selected Writings http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/diderot3.htmlDenis Diderot by Tamara Dlugach Elsewhere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DiderotDenis Diderot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/diderot/index.htmDenis Diderot Archive at Marxists Internet Archive ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism, fighting the ultra right and Health care. 1
Unemployment continues to mount as does home fore closures. Society begins to move as the economic crisis develops. This social response then polarizes society. At this point the left and right side of the movement reach a point – a fork in the road – a polarization within their ranks. Which way do we go? Who are our friends and enemies? As the working class further fragments into hard economic strata, the left side of the movement begins to fragment and break between progressives, with deep political and economic ties to the better situated workers or the economic/political middle and communists/socialists striving to recruit and express the demand of the workers from the lens of the most destitute of the proletarians. The right-wing side of the movement polarizes between reactionary and fascist. Reactionaries seek to restore the stability of the system based on the past. Their calling card is a demand to return to the past and the Constitution in the pre Civil War years, or slavery and white supremacy. The new American fascists do not seek a return to the past but express the need for society to leap forward deploying state violence to stabilize and contain social and economic polarization. A new fascist movement is gathering force worldwide to maintain private property for the benefit of the few. This movement is emerging in response to an objective spontaneous movement arising with an impulse to organize society as a cooperative society based on the new productive forces. Much is at stake, and those revolutionaries who are fighting for a cooperative society need to be clear about what’s arising and what it represents so that the proper tactics can be used to carry humanity to victory. Fascist movement The new fascist movement is composed of many different individuals and organizations, which are not monolithic, but they all want to take the country in the same direction and have the same goals. The goals of this movement are not reactionary as defined above. Unlike the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party, the new American fascists do not seek to restore the social and political order of the past. The social and political order of the past means the social order of the period of legal segregation and the strengthening of the wage labor-capital bond as the social contract. This political aspects of the social order was shaped on the basis of the defeat of Reconstruction and an expanding economy. As the federal troops were pulled from the defeated South, reaction organized the so-called revolt of the poor whites against newly freed slaves. Cloaking themselves in the mantle of saving the South and the Southern way of life - (which meant white supremacy and cling to the moral imperatives of the Constitutionalist Confederates), the KKK entered history as agent of Yankee finance capital and hangman of democracy. The aim of the reactionary movement was to freeze time and restore as much of the old social order as possible. This old social order remained intact until a revolution in production occurred - mechanization of agriculture, that compelled Southern society to leap forward to a new technological basis. This revolution in the productive forces excited the Civil rights Movement to life and would go on to shatter Jim Crow segregation and reform social relations in America. Those that make up the new fascist movement do not want to take society back to the era of Jim Crow, but want to take the country into the twenty-first century organized around the new tools of production, electronics. These individuals have a vision of reconstructing America. As the productive relations between workers and capitalists are torn asunder, they see the writing on the wall. Their goal is to preserve private property; privately generated means and forms of wealth and privilege, even if it is at the expense of the capitalist economic relations of production or the value producing system. As the electronic revolution matures, the capitalist is becoming as outdated as the worker in the exact same manner - if not more, that rendered the sharecropper and planter class obsolete. This is the crux of the social turmoil going on worldwide. The globe is caught in the throes of the kind of social revolution Marx wrote about. Angry masses are raging against skyrocketing food and energy prices and stagnating wages and unemployment in India, Senegal, Yemen, Indonesia, Morocco, Cameroon, Brazil, Panama, the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and elsewhere. These protests have targeted governments’ handling of the crisis, are widespread, and gathering pace. As one British newspaper observed, they may spark a new revolution. Millions of workers have been dispossessed of their livelihood – whether it is a small plot of land or their job in the urban centers or through wars – and have been uprooted from
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism, fighting the ultra right and Health 2.
II. How is the new logic against the poor - destitute proletarians, being expressed? The health Care debates are instructive. Over and over older workers rallying against a single payer system - on Medicare, are asked why they oppose single payer. I do not want government control over my life. But ask the commentator, Are you receiving Medicate and do you support that. Yes, I am on Medicare and love it but do not want socialism. But pleas the commentator, Medicare is socialism. A section of society is expressing an impulse that says the poor should not have Medicare or a single payer system paid for by the American people, but it is alright for hard working older Americans to have socialism. The outer form of this propaganda is tinged with and expresses the color factor in our history but the attacked is against the most destitute sector of the proletariat without regard to color. The organized mass sent to town hall meeting to protest and oppose a single payer system - not the organized Nazi and KKK groups, are opposing plans to aid the majority, and the majority support a single payer health care system. Which way for America The fascist movement is arising in America as a political response to the changes underway in society. The ruling class cannot rule in the old way and the developing fascist movement offers the means by which the masses of Americans can be turned toward supporting the ruling class in its efforts to transform society to protect its property and power. But, they are moving against the tide of history. The new means of production confront society with the question: Either the continuation of private property with a fascist state to govern society or the creation of a cooperative society based on public property organized to distribute the abundance created by these new tools. At times of extreme shifts in wealth and class formation, as we are witnessing today, movements surge to rally the working masses around their vision and solutions to society's problems. The big question today is which ideology will express and guide the rising movement of the workers today: an ideology that will crown a fascist movement with power, or an ideology that will crown the movement for a cooperative society? Tactics and strategic thinking The American people cannot afford the rising cost of health care. Public option means single payer system or government foots the bill for many. Those forces attacking single payer and/or public option is a combination of reactionary and fascist forces. One line of thinking says we progressives and communists should confront and counter the reactionaries or ultra rights. This approach will lead to our immediate defeat, not to mention tear us off the path of fighting to form class conscious concepts and perception amongst every layer of the working class. The fight is along the path of the fight running through the political middle. This means fighting to win the workers over to what we know is in their class interest. The workers instinctively sense what is in their class interest. I am of the opinion that we should under no conditions engage the ultra-right or level our attack against them. Our approach has to be defense of the most poverty stricken of the proletarian masses and their needs. The Obama campaign and victory polarized the left and set the basis for a further spilt between the progressives and communists. However, the progressives seek to use us because they fear the working class, seek to maintain only their privileges and will not do the work. This class logic is expressed in the ideological arena and within Marxism. During and following the Obama victory a section of Marxism began launching a massive attack against the communists under the banner of fighting the ultra left. The ultra left were dubbed anyone on the left the did not support Obama hook, line and sinker. Although these Marxists will deny it, their attack under the banner of fighting the ultra left and fighting the ultra right was in retrospect part of the precondition for what is taking place today in the town hall meetings. To my knowledge none of the advocates of fighting the ultra right have stepped forth to do just that. Rather they campaign against their supposedly communist brothers and then demand that we fight the ultra right. This logic has played itself out in the real world in Detroit at a frightening pace, predating the Town Hall meetings. A little over six months ago the political middle - (expressed in the union bureaucracy and the political class) organized a rally in Lansing - 20 minutes outside of Detroit and state capital of Michigan. John Conyers and Jesse Jackson were on the roster and spoke. Some of us old heads attended with signs supporting H.R. 676 or the single payer health care bill introduced
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism, fighting the ultra right and Health 2.
On Aug 13, 2009, at 12:59 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: Attacking the ultra right is nothing more than a clever way of demanding unconditional support of the Obama administration Exactly. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Detroit: American cities in crisis
Empty water bottles littered the table in front of Ray Nagin, whose shaved head reflected the florescent lights above. On a damp night in early Dec. 2008, the New Orleans mayor had come before the city council to discuss the $1.1 billion municipal budget it had just passed after 12 hours of contentious debate. To Nagin’s dismay, the council had unanimously rejected the property tax increase he’d proposed to counter a looming $24 million deficit. As he struggled to control his infamous temper, the embattled leader warned that the city, still struggling after Katrina, was headed for fiscal calamity. “2009 will be a challenge,” he said. “2010 will be a train wreck.” Ray Nagin is not the only one quaking in city hall. Go to nearly any American city and you’ll see the red ink bleeding onto the pavement. On Smith Street, the epicenter of Brooklyn’s erstwhile brownstone boom, a note taped to the window of a hipster clothing store advertises a two-for-one sale on $98 “vintage-inspired” sweaters. In Fresno, Calif., skateboarders perfect ollies in the drained swimming pools of foreclosed homes. On the shore of Lake Michigan, an unmoving crane guards the inactive construction site of the Santiago Calatrava–designed Chicago Spire condominium tower. Once touted as a glamorous symbol of the Second City’s resurgence, the twisting, undulating skyscraper is now making humbler headlines. full: http://americancity.org/magazine/article/cities-in-crisis/ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism, fighting the ultra right and Health 2.
Shane Mage Waistline2 at aol.com wrote: Attacking the ultra right is nothing more than a clever way of demanding unconditional support of the Obama administration Exactly. ^ CB: A point upon which sectarians/ultra-lefts, whether Stalinist or Trotskyist, can agree. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism, fighting the ultra right and Health 2.
Well, at a very quick reading, I got a general idea of the correlation of forces delineated by Waistline, though I will have to study this again. But I don't understand how attacking the right = unconditional support for Obama. At 01:51 PM 8/13/2009, c b wrote: Shane Mage Waistline2 at aol.com wrote: Attacking the ultra right is nothing more than a clever way of demanding unconditional support of the Obama administration Exactly. ^ CB: A point upon which sectarians/ultra-lefts, whether Stalinist or Trotskyist, can agree. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reaction, fascism, fighting the ultra right and Health 2.
Attacking the ultra right is nothing more than a clever way of demanding unconditional support of the Obama administration Exactly. ^ CB: A point upon which sectarians/ultra-lefts, whether Stalinist or Trotskyist, can agree. Comment 1). It was in fact the Clinton Administration that brought attacking the ultra right to national political prominence, as the great right wing conspiracy. I am not going to fight the enemy of my enemy, when clearly both are my enemy. Fighting the enemy of my enemy means unconditional support to the enemy. 2). Please explain what political policy I have advanced on this list or any other that can be attributed to Stalin. It is true that my political evolution and orientation were within the Stalin polarity, but so was yours and 99% of those affiliated with and sympathetic to the CPUSA. I have made it clear for 40 years that Stalin's Marxism and the National Question is a brilliant historical document. As well as his presentation outlining Industrialization of the USSR. 3). Actually it is Lenin that pioneered the political doctrine of the political middle. This by definition means the focus cannot be the ultra rights. Lets assume I am wrong. Please delineate the class breakdown in America you are proceeding from. Attacking the ultra right is a waste of time and resources, especially in a city like Detroit. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Soviet philosophy preserved online
Though I think most of the productions of Soviet Marxism-Leninism should have been flushed down the toilet long before they were, and that the Soviet version of dialectical materialism has done a great deal of harm as has most else that came from that source, I am nonetheless dedicated to preserving unjustly forgotten and neglected work. It seems that some of the Ilyenkov school and a few philosophers such as Lektorsky have survived beyond the demise of the USSR, but historical amnesia has already closed in on everything else. Soviet philosophy and dialectical materialism were always best at demystifying various manifestations of bourgeois philosophy, whether of positivist, Popperian, or irrationalist varieties, rather than constructing positive ideas of their own. (There are exceptions, though, in the USSR and other East European countries.) The main entry points into my contributions to such preservation are: http://www.autodidactproject.org/bib/ussrphil.htmlSalvaging Soviet Philosophy (1) and http://www.autodidactproject.org/bib/ussrph03.htmlSoviet Philosophy from Progress Publishers: Selected Bibliography, 1968-1990 (1) I'm going to expand this latter page, including the creation of a new section on aesthetics. Also, this page links to works on http://leninist.biz/en/taz.htmlleninist.biz, described below. In addition to my own efforts, and in many cases in conjunction with them, Robert Cymbala has, without compensation or support, undertaken the digitization of many works from Progress Publishers and other Soviet imprints. He could use some financial support, as well as more books in his bibliography to digitize. His site can be found at: http://leninist.biz/en/taz.htmlleninist.biz Books of interest recently added to this site include: http://leninist.biz/en/1988/PI292/The Problem of the Ideal by David Dubrovsky http://leninist.biz/en/1977/PU268/Philosophy in the USSR: Problems of Dialectical Materialism [several authors] http://leninist.biz/en/1985/EMT239/index.htmlEmotions, Myths and Theories by Victor G. Panov http://leninist.biz/en/1984/PP246/The Psychology of Phantasy: An Experimental and Theoretical Investigation into the Intrinsic Laws of Productive Mentality by I. Roset http://leninist.biz/en/1985/AU236/The American Utopia by Eduard Batalov http://leninist.biz/en/1975/PR246/index.htmlThe Philosophy of Revolt: Criticism of Left Radical Ideology by E. Batalov http://leninist.biz/en/1986/PTAG210/Political Thought of Ancient Greece by V.S. Nersesyants http://leninist.biz/en/1972/H306/index.htmlHumanism: Its Philosophical, Ethical and Sociological Aspects by M. Petrosyan http://leninist.biz/en/1983/CHP397/index.htmlCivilisation and the Historical Process [various authors] (1st 99 pp. only) http://leninist.biz/en/1977/PO343/index.htmlPhilosophy of Optimism: Current Problems by B.G. Kuznetsov (1st 99 pp. only) In addition, the entire volume of an historic work, in three PDF files, has been digitized: http://leninist.biz/en/1931/SCR236/Science at the Cross Roads; Papers Presented to the http://leninist.biz/en/1931/SCR236/[2nd] International Congress of the History of Science and Technology Held in London from June 20th to July 3rd, 1931 by the delegates of the U.S.S.Rhttp://leninist.biz/en/1931/SCR236/. Robert Cohen's http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/hessen-cohen.htmlIntroduction to The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's 'Principia' by Boris Hessen can be found on my web site. Excerpts from some of the other books can also be found on my web site. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] The Autodidact Project 10th anniversary
12 August 2009 was the 10th anniversary of my first web site, The Autodidact Project, still going strong: http://www.autodidactproject.org In addition to my own rants, essays, translations, poems, book and film reviews, I've contributed (and have been consulted on)--along with bibliographies and web guides--writings by and about a wide range of obscure as well as better known authors and topics. Among the jumble of topics are workers' self-education, reading publics, radical publishing, popular intellectual life, atheism, Esperanto, philosophical and universal language projects, board games, ideology, Marxism, Black Studies (Richard Wright, CLR James, jazz musicians, the Afro-German connection, black freethought, and more), critical theory, labor radicals (such as Mark Starr and Buffalo's own Emanuel Fried), the American Hegelians, the Young Hegelians, William Blake, Heinrich Heine, philosophical style, historiography of philosophy, paraconsistent logic, irony, humor cynicism, occultism, mysticism, orientalism, New Age thought fascism. I did it, I did it. -- John Lee Hooker ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Forward from Rosa Lichtenstein on Analytic Marxism
In response to this: http://www.marxmail.org/msg66028.html It is worth adding that Donald Davidson was a socialist, too, as were Gilbert Ryle and John Austin. Wittgenstein himself declared he was a 'communist at heart', wanted to move to Russia (since he was in agreement with the gains made by workers after the 1917 revolution), and attributed the most important ideas of his later period to Sraffa. Moreover, Rush Rees at one point wanted to join the UK-Trotskyist RCP and many of Wittgenstein's other disciples were also lefties (for example, Gasking). http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Wittgenstein.htm If anything, it's dialecticians who are the conservatives, since they are quite happy to ape the dogmatic and a priori thought-forms of traditional philosophy. http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2002.htm http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm Rosa! Easy-to-use, advanced features, flexible phone systems. Click here for more info. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTQZarUXSCVKfnEhDAaVYTV0ep5QHjFAIRWyOlszWz8fsLH2v88JP6/ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
