Date   

Medea Benjamin , Jimmy Dore & Scott Horton to headline paleo-con/libertarian anti-war rally

Michael Pugliese <michael.098762001@...>
 


Re: Let's all work less

John A Imani
 

<<Not only would we be much happier if we work less, but the planet would be better off for it. Work is mostly a misery to be avoided, resisted and reduced...While capitalism is exhausting the supply of natural resources and sending our ecosystem into a death spiral, it is long overdue to focus our organizing on work. We need to shift our focus to organizing against work, not for more work...We need to introduce “work share” so that those with too little work can pick up the work of those of us with too much.>>

 

The above statements would be true...under developed socialism.

 

Today, the problem is not that we work too much. The problem is that we work too little. The problem is what we are doing. The problem is what we are not doing...under capitalism.

 

The problem is that the above quoted statement founds its logic upon the situation facing ‘First World’ nations and, even then, only a portion of the workforces thereof. In the ‘FW’ how to account for the unemployed and, even lower on the socio-economic rungs, the lumpen-proletariat (here defined as those long out of work, out of social benefits, out of hope, even out of shelter, etc). Those exiled to modern-day versions of historic Molokai. Those whose very visages are sights to be averted by the eyes of the better-to-do.

 

Why is the southern so-called ‘border’ here crowded with those seeking work but herded and shuttled as if livestock and not living human beings? Why is this same phenomenon playing out world-wide?  Is there no work to be done in their homelands? Is there nothing to do? Nothing that needs to be done? When there is so much to do?

 

The workers of the non-‘FW’ find their homelands doubly-desecrated, initially by colonial imperialistic terraforming of their natural economies so as to be suited to the needs and desires of the ‘FW’ers; and today--where that initial rape and ransacking has not faltered and there are still commodities worth extracting--those left out, the non-’FW’ers and where they ‘live’, look so much akin to LA’s Skid Row and the many ‘American’ blighted, impoverished, ghettos and barrios, that save for language, mirror themselves as each other’s mirrors.

 

There is but one way to stop the migrations, work. Work done by the native populations so as to reengineer their homelands to fit their own needs. Environmentally sustainable work enabled and paid for, as it ought be, by the former colonial and the present still scavenging powers. Healthy foodstuffs and health care. Clean water and clean shelter. Disease control and disease elimination. Education facilities, etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. The West owes this because of their original sins of colonization and exploitation.

 

And it is much the same here. There is but one road leading to the resurrection of the Lazarus layers of the populations here...work. And work with initially paid trainings. There those residents of the Kalaupapa peninsulas that are the inner cities might find dignity, peace of mind, harmony within themselves and with their neighbors.

 

The alternative, the continuation of the state of affairs as is, will not only continue but, inevitably almost unimaginably, become even worse than the hell holes existent.

JAI


Re: America's New Sanctions Strategy

Vladimiro Giacche'
 

Access unfortunately restricted.
VG 

Inviato da iPhone

Il giorno 23 dic 2022, alle ore 16:30, Richard Fidler <rfidler@...> ha scritto:



Interesting piece by US Deputy Treasury Secretary explaining how Washington has used Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine to reinforce its global financial architecture: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/americas-new-sanctions-strategy?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=twofa&utm_campaign=Putin%E2%80%99s%20Last%20Stand&utm_content=20221223&utm_term=FA%20This%20Week%20-%20112017.

 


Falling rate of profit — not the end-all of political economy

michael a. lebowitz
 

On Dec 23, Mark Baugher cited me as follows:
In fact, no crises as such threaten the end-all of political economy but the crisis of the Earth system but that is a crisis of humanity rather than one of capital (and thus capital's feedback is not operative.) As I argue in the book, only a working class that develops its capacities through its struggles can put an end to the political economy of capital. And that requires the appropriate political instrument.
And he asked, 'What is the appropriate political instrument?'- The first question [and central one appropriate to this topic]: Is a political instrument necessary to end the political economy of capital? If argued and answered affirmatively, then one can talk about the appropriate political instrument. My own answer to that is set out in the concluding chapter of Between Capitalism and Community. You may get a sense of that from the description of that book on my webpage and, for that matter, from earlier books. solidarity, michael

--------------------
Michael A. Lebowitz
Webpage: http://michaelalebowitz.com/
Latest Book: Between Capitalism and Community
[https://monthlyreview.org/product/between_capitalism_and_community/]



Thomas Friedman and the Myth of Democratic Israel

Dennis Brasky
 

Israel is in the process of putting together an aggressively racist rightwing government under the leadership of the unprincipled Benjamin Netanyahu. This is not the first such repugnant government Israelis have elected. Indeed, at least three prior times in its short history, the Israeli Jewish electorate has chosen ideologically committed fanatics (in those cases, having the additional allure of terrorist pasts), as their leaders: Yitzhak Shamir, Ariel Sharon, and Menachem Begin. Nor were these judgments of the electorate exceptions that were somehow contrary to Israel’s national character. They were all, as is now also the case, logical outcomes of a national point of view—represented by Israel’s Zionist state ideology—which has always been fundamentally racist, and which, on frequent occasions, raises to frenzied heights often in reaction to the legal resistance of its Palestinian victims.

 

However, diaspora supporters of Israel often disregard these historical facts. That they do so is testimony to the power of the propaganda-generated myth of a liberal, democratic Israel—the idealized Israel that so many just know in their hearts, could be and should be the real Israel. One of those who seems to mistake the ideal for the real is Thomas Friedman, columnist for the New York Times, who often writes about Israel.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/23/thomas-friedman-and-the-myth-of-liberal-israel/



Netanyahu’s ‘hands are on the wheel’ again — and Joe Biden is just fine with that!

Dennis Brasky
 

The Biden administration is giving Israel's new radical right government the thumbs up. "Bibi Netanyahu is in charge of this government, okay? He’s made it very clear that his hands are on the wheel, and we’ll work with him. And most importantly, Joe Biden has a strong working relationship with Bibi Netanyahu,” says US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides.


UC graduate student workers end historic strike with big wage gains

Dayne Goodwin
 

UC graduate student workers ratify labor agreement, end historic strike with big wage gains
by Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 23, 2022
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-23/uc-grad-student-workers-ratify-labor-agreement-end-historic-strike-with-big-wage-gains

University of California graduate student workers on Friday ratified a new labor agreement with big wage gains, support for child care and new protections against bullying and harassment, ending a historic strike that upended fall term finals and has reverberated nationally.

In separate votes, two bargaining units of United Auto Workers approved the tentative agreement reached last week with the 10-campus university system — six weeks after 48,000 teaching assistants, tutors, researchers and postdoctoral scholars collectively walked off their jobs in the nation’s largest strike of academic workers.

SRU-UAW’s 17,000 graduate student researchers backed the agreement with 68.4% on a vote of 10,057 to 4,640, securing their first UC contract after forming a union last year. UAW 2865, which represents 19,000 teaching assistants, tutors and other student academic workers, approved the agreement with 61.6% of the votes, 11,386 to 7,097.

“The dramatic improvements to our salaries and working conditions are the result of tens of thousands of workers striking together in unity,” Rafael Jaime, UAW 2865 president, said in a statement. “These agreements redefine what is possible in terms of how universities support their workers, who are the backbone of their research and education enterprise. They include especially significant improvements for parents and marginalized workers, and will improve the quality of life for every single academic employee at the University of California.”
  .  .  .


co-authors from NLR editorial committee on current U.S. politics

Dayne Goodwin
 

Seven Theses on American Politics
by Dylan Riley and Robert Brenner
New Left Review, Nov.-Dec. 2022
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii138/articles/dylan-riley-robert-brenner-seven-theses-on-american-politics

In the weeks following the 2022 us midterms, the mood in the intellectual penumbra of the Democratic Party swung wildly from impassioned handwringing to euphoric self-congratulation. Dire warnings of a ‘red wave’ delivering large congressional majorities to the Republicans gave way to jubilation at the salvation of democracy. In reality the results were decidedly mixed. The Republicans took the House with a narrow majority, while Democrats retained their slim hold on the Senate. The Republicans swept Florida and flipped a handful of districts in New York. Reproductive rights had a fairly good night, but Democrats continued to fare very poorly with non-college-educated whites––according to one poll, Republicans won over 70 per cent of white men without a college degree.
  .  .  .
... We need a language to describe the new Bidenist project; ‘neo-progressivism’ is perhaps the best term. In content and intention it remains as far from socialism as its social-democratic and neoliberal forebears; but it is nevertheless a distinctive historical formation which must be theorized and studied on its own terms.

A final note. We offer these theses in an experimental and provisional spirit. Though rough and unfinished, they hopefully indicate at least some of the central issues that must be tackled head-on if the current, exceedingly odd, political period is to be grasped. Time-worn shibboleths and old patterns of thought will be inadequate to navigating whatever is coming next.
   #   #   #


Re: NY Times: Charlene Mitchell, 92, Dies; First Black Woman to Run for President

Alan Ginsberg
 

Herb Boyd in Amsterdam News, "Charlene Mitchell, a freedom fighter of unimpeachable integrity, passes at 92"
https://amsterdamnews.com/news/2022/12/22/charlene-mitchell-a-freedom-fighter-of-unimpeachable-integrity-passes-at-92/


NY Times: Charlene Mitchell, 92, Dies; First Black Woman to Run for President

Alan Ginsberg
 

 

She was the Communist Party candidate in 1968 and later led the campaign to free Angela Davis. But she eventually split with the party.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/23/us/politics/charlene-mitchell-dead.html

By Clay Risen
Dec. 23, 2022

Charlene Mitchell, who as the Communist Party’s presidential nominee in 1968 became the first Black woman to run for the White House, died on Dec. 14 in Manhattan. She was 92.

Her death, in a nursing home, was confirmed by her son, Steven Mitchell.

Ms. Mitchell joined the Communist Party in 1946, when she was just 16, and over her long career worked at the intersection of issues that have come to define the left’s agenda for the last 50 years, including feminism, civil rights, police violence, economic inequality and anticolonialism.

Her rise in the party leadership came at a moment of crisis. The Communists had been decimated by the repressive tactics of the McCarthy era, then by the exodus of members disaffected by the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. By the late 1950s it counted barely 10,000 members, down from its height of about 75,000 in 1947.

To find new recruits, the party drew on its roots in radical civil rights activism to appeal to a new generation of Black leaders. Ms. Mitchell joined the party’s national committee in 1958; she was its youngest member ever.

 

In the 1960s, she founded an all-Black chapter in Los Angeles called the Che-Lumumba Club, which quickly became one of the most active in the country. The club’s choice of namesakes, the Argentine Marxist Che Guevara and the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, pointed to Ms. Mitchell’s abiding insistence that the American left had to be rooted in an international matrix of freedom struggles.

She traveled widely, meeting fellow leftists in Europe, South America and Africa, and she was among the first Americans to highlight the plight of Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. By 1968 she was one of the best-known and most widely respected American Communist leaders.

“I don’t know of anything that Charlene was involved in where she was not the leader,” Mildred Williamson, who met Ms. Mitchell at a 1973 anti-apartheid conference in Chicago, said in a phone interview.

Ms. Mitchell became the Communist Party's presidential nominee when she was just 38. At its convention in Manhattan, she accepted the nomination below a banner that read “Black and White Unite to Fight Racism — Poverty — War!”

“We plan to put an open-occupancy sign on the White House lawn,” she declared and, taking a swipe at the pet project of the first lady, Lady Bird Johnson, added, “We propose to put a woman in that house to beautify not only our highways but to beautify ourselves.”

 

Her run for office came four years before the New York congresswoman Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman to seek the nomination for president from a major party.

Though she and her running mate, Michael Zagarell, appeared on just four state ballots and received just over 1,000 votes, her candidacy put a new face on the Communist Party at a time when the student-led New Left was gaining ground in left-wing politics and some party members had grown disillusioned with its uncritical support of the Soviet Union.

 
Two men in jackets and ties and a woman in a sleeveless top smile and hold up their arms, clasping hands.
The Communist Party ticket in 1968 included Michael Zagarell, left, for vice president, and Ms. Mitchell, right, for president. At center is the party’s general secretary, Gus Hall. Credit...Courtesy of the Communist Party USA

In contrast to the student movement, which was largely male, middle-class and white, she offered a vision of the left that was rooted in the experience of working-class women of color. Among her acolytes was an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, named Angela Davis.

After Dr. Davis was arrested in 1970 for providing weapons used in the killing of a Marin County judge, Ms. Mitchell led her defense committee.

Dr. Davis was acquitted in 1972, and Ms. Mitchell used the experience to create the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, a group that, in its focus on police brutality and the legal system, foreshadowed later racial justice movements.

“Black Lives Matter and modern Black feminism stand on the shoulders of Charlene Mitchell,” Erik S. McDuffie, a professor of African American studies at the University of Illinois, said in a phone interview.

Among Ms. Mitchell’s many successful campaigns was the acquittal of Joan Little, a North Carolina inmate accused of murdering a prison guard who had sexually assaulted her. She also lobbied on behalf of the Wilmington 10, a group of nine Black men and one woman, also in North Carolina, who were convicted of arson and conspiracy in 1971 and later exonerated.

 

“I don’t think I have ever known someone as consistent in her values, as collective in her outlook on life, as firm in her trajectory as a freedom fighter,” Dr. Davis said at a 2009 event honoring Ms. Mitchell.

Charlene Alexander was born on June 8, 1930, in Cincinnati. Her parents were part of the Great Migration of Black Southerners who moved north in the first part of the 20th century — her father, Charles, came from Georgia and her mother, Naomi (Taylor) Alexander, from Tennessee.

Her marriages to Bill Mitchell and Michael Welch both ended in divorce. Along with her son, she is survived by two brothers, Deacon Alexander and Mike Wolfson.

When she was 9, Charlene, her parents and her seven siblings moved to Chicago, where her father worked as a Pullman porter and a hod carrier. He was also active in the labor movement and served as a precinct captain for Representative William L. Dawson, one of the few Black members of Congress.

The family settled in Cabrini Homes, a mixed-race public-housing development on Chicago’s Near North Side, which was a center of left-wing politics. When she was 13, Charlene joined the local branch of American Youth for Democracy, the youth branch of the Communist Party.

By the early 1940s she was already an activist, helping to lead a protest against a nearby theater, the Windsor, that required Black patrons to sit in the balcony. Black and white students, attending a matinee, simply switched places one day, and the theater dropped its segregation policy soon after.

 

Ms. Mitchell studied briefly at Herzl Junior College in Chicago (now Malcolm X College). She moved to Los Angeles in the early 1950s and to New York City in 1968.

Although Ms. Mitchell remained a committed socialist, she drifted from the Communist Party in the 1980s, especially after the death of Henry Winston, its most prominent Black leader, in 1986. The party, she came to believe, was becoming too focused on class issues at the expense of fighting racial and other injustices.

“I am not suggesting that all of a sudden there was racism in the party, or that some people were mean, or anything like that,” she said in a 1993 interview. “You had a situation where attention to certain questions that African American comrades felt were important was downgraded.”

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ms. Mitchell joined more than 100 other party members in calling for the party to reject Leninism and take a more democratic socialist path. In retaliation, the party’s longtime general secretary, Gus Hall, froze them out of subsequent national committee meetings.

Ms. Mitchell later left the party to help found the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which sought to rebuild the left along more pluralistic lines.

But she remained committed to the values of the far left, and of communism as she understood it.

“The country’s rulers want to keep Black and white working people apart,” she said in a 1968 campaign speech. “The Communist Party is dedicated to the idea that — whatever the difficulties — they must be brought together, or neither can advance.”

 
Clay Risen is an obituaries reporter for The Times. Previously, he was a senior editor on the Politics desk and a deputy op-ed editor on the Opinion desk. He is the author, most recently, of “Bourbon: The Story of Kentucky Whiskey.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Re: Eric Draitser: What Happened in Donetsk & Luhansk? -- Catching Up with the Early Leaders of Donbass "Separatists"

Dayne Goodwin
 

Thank you Charles Keener, important and exceptionally valuable for
learning about the Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics" (so also
thank you to Eric Draitser).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sscoTZxAXW0 "What Happened in Donetsk
& Luhansk? -- Catching Up with the Early Leaders of Donbass
'Separatists'"
Dayne

On Fri, Dec 23, 2022 at 7:19 PM Charles Keener via groups.io
<ckeener20005@...> wrote:

This time Eric provides an analysis by way of update on the fate of the early leaders of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics." Eric explains the context of 2014, the role of the pro-Russian political parties and Alexander Dugin's Eurasianist movement, how Russia took control in the DPR and LPR, and much more.


(73) What Happened in Donetsk & Luhansk? -- Catching Up with the Early Leaders of Donbass "Separatists" - YouTube
_._,_._,_


Eric Draitser: What Happened in Donetsk & Luhansk? -- Catching Up with the Early Leaders of Donbass "Separatists"

Charles Keener
 

This time Eric provides an analysis by way of update on the fate of the early leaders of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics." Eric explains the context of 2014, the role of the pro-Russian political parties and Alexander Dugin's Eurasianist movement, how Russia took control in the DPR and LPR, and much more.


(73) What Happened in Donetsk & Luhansk? -- Catching Up with the Early Leaders of Donbass "Separatists" - YouTube


Re: Medea Benjamin, the pro-Putin "left" and the far right in America

Michael Pugliese <michael.098762001@...>
 

John Reimann <1999wildcat@...>
wrote: For further documentation, see this article of mine.

The article , https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JmAcFqOpw2UBqo2E2gFXCQ7G63Mq3l_3iFQtz2nCqd8/edit?fbclid=IwAR1t9PEMtjB3_MgJnvOLWmcw-N7xlLYUCRlYCq5tVH41kMmuiQEw5lsgTFg
, has this hyperlinked piece by you ,
https://oaklandsocialist.com/2022/08/01/ukraine-socialist-solidarity-campaign-holds-meeting-on-fascist-ideas-on-the-left/
where this leaped out at me ; "First, we have the influential
so-called left economist Michel Chossudovsky from Canada, who works
with the far right conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones. Jones is famous
for his website InfoWars and for his role in promoting Sandy Hook
denialism. He is also a racist." No hyperlink given to document any
cooperative working relationship between Chossudovsky , and Alex Jones
of Infowars, who , decades ago wrote some decent marxian scholarship
on the PRC ("Towards Capitalist Restoration?: Chinese Socialism After
Mao," d/l a copy via Libgen , @
http://library.lol/main/E3CE3C7FB3EF30204DACDBD553AC3CA6 ), which the
late Andre Gunder Frank , in an e-mail reply to me , in defense of
Chossudovsky , mentioned , when I brought up to him, how horrid
Chossudovsky's website , Global Research was) , and which the
Trotskyists at International Viewpoint , cited a number of times ,
https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?page=recherche&recherche=chossudovsky+
, mostly about some text of his on debt relief and Rwanda , from the
mid 90's.

When I go to Global Research and plug in ; Alex Jones, yes , there are
https://www.globalresearch.ca/author/alex-jones , seven pieces , on
their website from the Infowars Empire, but, do any of them , prove
that Jones WORKS WITH or worked with Chossudovsky? Just looking at the
current front page of Global Research,
I see articles by Gideon Levy. Does he work with Chossudovsky? He has
8 articles on Chossudovsky's website,
https://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gideon-levy .

Some more from your piece : "“Fascist Ideas on the left ," these two
paragraphs , which as well , lack hyperlinks to document your
assertions.
"Second, we have have Ramsay Clark, who helped develop COINTELPRO –
the US government program to infiltrate and disrupt the civil
rights/black power movement and the anti-war movement in the US in the
1960s. Later, Ramsay Clarkwas closely associated with the forces that
overthrew the radical government of Maurice Bishop in Grenada. As a
lawuer in private practice, Ramsay Clark also represented various
international fascists. Today, Ramsay Clark is influential in the US
“antiwar” movement through political work inside and with the Workers
World Party, known as the WWP.

Third is the example of former CIA agent Ray McGovern, who is a key
figure in the US Party for Socialism and Liberation, commonly branded
as the PSL...."

COINTELPRO, lasted from 1956-1971 , (see, two books on COINTELPRO ,
downloadable via LibGen ,
https://libgen.is/search.php?req=cointelpro+&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def
& https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO ) , Ramsey Clark was LBJ's
AG only from November 28, 1966 – January 20, 1969 (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsey_Clark ) , so was absent any role
in COINTELPRO , such as reauthorizing wiretaps on MLK, Jr. in
COINTELPRO's first decade of existence. Hardly helping to develop it.
One of the books , you can d/l on COINTELPRO , "
The COINTELPRO papers : documents from the FBI’s secret wars against
domestic dissent," mentions Ramsey Clark as AG and any role in
COINTELPRO , only twice. "President Johnson publicly announced, in the
wake of the 1967 uprisings in Detroit and Newark, that he had issued
"standing instructions" that the Bureau should bring "the instigators"
of such "riots" to heel, by any means at its disposal," while his
attorney general, Ramsey Clark, instructed Hoover by memo to: [U]se
the [FBI's] maximum resources, investigative and intelligence, to
collect and report all facts bearing upon the question as to whether
there has been or is a scheme or conspiracy by any group of whatever
size, effectiveness or affiliation to plan, promote or aggravate riot
activity." The attorney general's memo further suggested the FBI
expand or establish "sources or informants" within "black nationalist
organizations" such as SNCC, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
and "other less publicized groups" in order to "determine the size and
purpose of these groups and their relationship to other groups, and
also to determine the whereabouts of persons who might be involved" in
their activities." While not defensible from a leftist standpoint, if
that is all WardChurchill and his co-author could come up with ,
methinks one bends the stick way too much to say Clark developed it .
As for Clark and Grenada, does acting as defense counsel for Bernard
Coard , as noted here , in pieces you could have cited by hyperlinking
them, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/27/2021-obituary-ramsey-clark-520597
, https://www.salon.com/1999/06/21/clark/ , are you alleging Clark
advised Coard et. al. prior to the killing of Maurice Bishop , this
potentially giing Coard legal advice to be used , in Coard's defense ?
The fascists ( though I quibble over whether all those noted in those
two articles I just cited , which list his disreputable clients ,
which included Milosevic , were all fascists.

Ray McGovern , that credulous soul, who was to be technicl was not an
agent of the CIA but , an officer, chaired the committee within the
CIA that did the NIE's and prepared the President's Daily Brief,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_McGovern , what PROOF do you have
that he is a member of the PSL? He is not a
M-L of any kind. He is , if anything a dupe of the LaRoucheites,
https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2022/05/30/video-ray-mcgovern-why-is-win-win-a-no-no/
.


Re: America's New Sanctions Strategy

Marv Gandall
 

Thanks, Sam. I was unaware of the ISW’s close ties to the military industrial complex. The Institute was founded by military historian Kimberly Kagan of the Kagan clan, who taught at West Point and served as an advisor to the US military high command in Afghanistan. Her sister-in-law is Victoria Nuland. Board chair is the retired general Jack Keane, also chair of AM General, a defence contractor. Other board notables include retired Gen. David Petraeus, neocon William Kristol and - who else would you expect? - Joe Lieberman. More background here from two authors who strongly oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine but who question the objectivity and credibility of the Institute’s reporting on the war.




On Dec 23, 2022, at 1:33 PM, Sam Gindin <sam.gindin@...> wrote:

Hi Richard,

Aside from our debate over the war in Ukraine,, you should be cautious about describing the Institute for the Study of War as 'remarkably informed and accurate on the course of the Russian offensive and Ukrainian defense' (Art often does the same). They are generally understood to be integrated into the American state and especially its more conservative/hawkish wing. Even Newsweek has commented on their role - part of the Kagan cabal -  in leading the fight for the surge in Iraq, claiming Iraq was a victory, calling for a further surge in Afghanistan, etc. I used to read it to see where the US military was at and a) its information generally came from the military itself and b) since it then repackaged the info to lobby for more military spending, interventions, and cheerleading the American empire, it actually wasn't all that accurate and useful even as straight info. 

On Fri, Dec 23, 2022 at 12:45 PM Richard Fidler <rfidler@...> wrote:

The same issue of Foreign Affairs presents a more nuanced view of the war’s outcome than the Asia Times view cited by Marv. Ditto for the Institute for the Study of War, which has proved remarkably informed and accurate on the course of the Russian offensive and Ukrainian defense. Here’s Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/putin-last-stand-russia-defeat:

 

“Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine was meant to be his crowning achievement, a demonstration of how far Russia had come since the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991. Annexing Ukraine was supposed to be a first step in reconstructing a Russian empire. Putin intended to expose the United States as a paper tiger outside Western Europe and to demonstrate that Russia, along with China, was destined for a leadership role in a new, multipolar international order.

 

“It hasn’t turned out that way. Kyiv held strong, and the Ukrainian military has been transformed into a juggernaut, thanks in part to a close partnership with the United States and Western allies. The Russian military, in contrast, has demonstrated poor strategic thinking and organization. The political system behind it has proved unable to learn from its mistakes. With little prospect of dictating Putin’s actions, the West will have to prepare for the next stage of Russia’s disastrous war of choice.

 

“War is inherently unpredictable. Indeed, the course of the conflict has served to invalidate widespread early prognostications that Ukraine would quickly fall; a reversal of fortunes is impossible to discount. It nevertheless appears that Russia is headed for defeat. Less certain is what form this defeat will take. Three basic scenarios exist, and each one would have different ramifications for policymakers in the West and Ukraine.”

 

Richard

 

 

From: sp-canada-discussion@... <sp-canada-discussion@...> On Behalf Of Marv Gandall
Sent: December 23, 2022 12:16 PM
To: Richard Fidler <rfidler@...>
Cc: Marxmail <marxmail@groups.io>; Socialist Project <sp-canada-discussion@...>
Subject: Re: America's New Sanctions Strategy

 

 



On Dec 23, 2022, at 7:29 AM, Richard Fidler <rfidler@...> wrote:

 

Interesting piece by US Deputy Treasury Secretary explaining how Washington has used Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine to reinforce its global financial architecture: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/americas-new-sanctions-strategy?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=twofa&utm_campaign=Putin%E2%80%99s%20Last%20Stand&utm_content=20221223&utm_term=FA%20This%20Week%20-%20112017.

 

The US Treasury's confidence that its global financial power will bring Russia to its knees is reportedly shared by major policy research organizations like the Atlantic Council, the Institute for the Study of War, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Center for American Progress. According to a note in the Global Polarity Monitor, they claim that: 

 

• Russia is running out of war materiel, and will soon be unable be able to produce needed munitions;

 

• Russian armed forces are demoralized and unable to conduct effective combat operations;

 

• Western sanctions are on the verge of collapsing the Russian economy while Russian counter-sanctions, especially in terms of energy, are failing in Europe;

 

• With sufficient supplies and training, a revitalized Ukrainian military can take the offensive in Spring 2023 and deal a knockout blow to the Russians, liberate Donbass and Crimea and provoke a political crisis in Russia, which along with sanctions, will be sufficient to collapse the Putin regime."

 

"This node of American opinion opposes any form of ceasefire (as it would give Russia breathing room to reconstitute its forces while depriving the Ukrainians of momentum). It insists that the conflict must continue until Russia has withdrawn from Ukraine and no longer can object to Ukrainian membership in NATO and the European Union. 

 

"Thus, any talk about a future settlement based on some degree of neutrality for Ukraine—a core Russian demand--must be rejected. The State Department embraces this position, overruling some doubts at the Department of Defense.”

 

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Re: Falling rate of profit — not the end-all of political economy

Mark Baugher
 

On Dec 23, 2022, at 12:44 PM, michael a. lebowitz <mlebowit@...> wrote:

In fact, no crises as such threaten the end-all of political economy but the crisis of the Earth system but that is a crisis of humanity rather than one of capital (and thus capital's feedback is not operative.) As I argue in the book, only a working class that develops its capacities through its struggles can put an end to the political economy of capital. And that requires the appropriate political instrument.
What is the appropriate political instrument?

Mark


Re: America's New Sanctions Strategy

Richard Fidler
 

Yes, I remember your making the same criticism previously. What I find most interesting about the ISW reports, which I scan quickly each day, is their reports of what the Russian “milbloggers” – the prowar military bloggers – say, as they provide some critical insight into the thinking “behind the lines,” both supportive and critical of the Russian military operation, that would otherwise be unavailable to someone like me. I am of course aware of the ISW origin and bias, but I think I am quite capable of contextualizing what I read. It is important in any conflict of this nature to try to acquaint oneself with the viewpoints of the major protagonists on all sides. This should be elementary for all of us on these lists. It helps to avoid the wishful thinking of so many pacifist-oriented observers who tend to substitute their dream of a negotiated peace for the reality of class and national conflict.

 

From: sp-canada-discussion@... <sp-canada-discussion@...> On Behalf Of Sam Gindin
Sent: December 23, 2022 4:33 PM
To: Richard Fidler <rfidler@...>
Cc: Marv Gandall <marvgand2@...>; Marxmail <marxmail@groups.io>; Socialist Project <sp-canada-discussion@...>
Subject: Re: America's New Sanctions Strategy

 

Hi Richard,

 

Aside from our debate over the war in Ukraine,, you should be cautious about describing the Institute for the Study of War as 'remarkably informed and accurate on the course of the Russian offensive and Ukrainian defense' (Art often does the same). They are generally understood to be integrated into the American state and especially its more conservative/hawkish wing. Even Newsweek has commented on their role - part of the Kagan cabal -  in leading the fight for the surge in Iraq, claiming Iraq was a victory, calling for a further surge in Afghanistan, etc. I used to read it to see where the US military was at and a) its information generally came from the military itself and b) since it then repackaged the info to lobby for more military spending, interventions, and cheerleading the American empire, it actually wasn't all that accurate and useful even as straight info. 

 

On Fri, Dec 23, 2022 at 12:45 PM Richard Fidler <rfidler@...> wrote:

The same issue of Foreign Affairs presents a more nuanced view of the war’s outcome than the Asia Times view cited by Marv. Ditto for the Institute for the Study of War, which has proved remarkably informed and accurate on the course of the Russian offensive and Ukrainian defense. Here’s Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/putin-last-stand-russia-defeat:

 

“Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine was meant to be his crowning achievement, a demonstration of how far Russia had come since the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991. Annexing Ukraine was supposed to be a first step in reconstructing a Russian empire. Putin intended to expose the United States as a paper tiger outside Western Europe and to demonstrate that Russia, along with China, was destined for a leadership role in a new, multipolar international order.

 

“It hasn’t turned out that way. Kyiv held strong, and the Ukrainian military has been transformed into a juggernaut, thanks in part to a close partnership with the United States and Western allies. The Russian military, in contrast, has demonstrated poor strategic thinking and organization. The political system behind it has proved unable to learn from its mistakes. With little prospect of dictating Putin’s actions, the West will have to prepare for the next stage of Russia’s disastrous war of choice.

 

“War is inherently unpredictable. Indeed, the course of the conflict has served to invalidate widespread early prognostications that Ukraine would quickly fall; a reversal of fortunes is impossible to discount. It nevertheless appears that Russia is headed for defeat. Less certain is what form this defeat will take. Three basic scenarios exist, and each one would have different ramifications for policymakers in the West and Ukraine.”

 

Richard

 

 

From: sp-canada-discussion@... <sp-canada-discussion@...> On Behalf Of Marv Gandall
Sent: December 23, 2022 12:16 PM
To: Richard Fidler <rfidler@...>
Cc: Marxmail <marxmail@groups.io>; Socialist Project <sp-canada-discussion@...>
Subject: Re: America's New Sanctions Strategy

 

 

 

On Dec 23, 2022, at 7:29 AM, Richard Fidler <rfidler@...> wrote:

 

Interesting piece by US Deputy Treasury Secretary explaining how Washington has used Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine to reinforce its global financial architecture: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/americas-new-sanctions-strategy?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=twofa&utm_campaign=Putin%E2%80%99s%20Last%20Stand&utm_content=20221223&utm_term=FA%20This%20Week%20-%20112017.

 

The US Treasury's confidence that its global financial power will bring Russia to its knees is reportedly shared by major policy research organizations like the Atlantic Council, the Institute for the Study of War, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Center for American Progress. According to a note in the Global Polarity Monitor, they claim that: 

 

• Russia is running out of war materiel, and will soon be unable be able to produce needed munitions;

 

• Russian armed forces are demoralized and unable to conduct effective combat operations;

 

• Western sanctions are on the verge of collapsing the Russian economy while Russian counter-sanctions, especially in terms of energy, are failing in Europe;

 

• With sufficient supplies and training, a revitalized Ukrainian military can take the offensive in Spring 2023 and deal a knockout blow to the Russians, liberate Donbass and Crimea and provoke a political crisis in Russia, which along with sanctions, will be sufficient to collapse the Putin regime."

 

"This node of American opinion opposes any form of ceasefire (as it would give Russia breathing room to reconstitute its forces while depriving the Ukrainians of momentum). It insists that the conflict must continue until Russia has withdrawn from Ukraine and no longer can object to Ukrainian membership in NATO and the European Union. 

 

"Thus, any talk about a future settlement based on some degree of neutrality for Ukraine—a core Russian demand--must be rejected. The State Department embraces this position, overruling some doubts at the Department of Defense.”

 

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Falling rate of profit — not the end-all of political economy

michael a. lebowitz
 

In my chapter on 'Crises and Non-Reproduction' in Between Capitalism and Community, I argue that there are negative feedbacks to capitalist crisis tendencies and that many Marxists tend to forget that 'capital responds to barriers to its growth by finding ways to go beyond all barriers. Precisely because capital is an actor, it has a tendency to restore the disturbed balances.' (In the case of the falling rate of profit tendency, it finds ways to drive up the rate of surplus value.) In fact, no crises as such threaten the end-all of political economy but the crisis of the Earth system but that is a crisis of humanity rather than one of capital (and thus capital's feedback is not operative.) As I argue in the book, only a working class that develops its capacities through its struggles can put an end to the political economy of capital. And that requires the appropriate political instrument.
    michael
-- 
---------------------
Michael A. Lebowitz
Webpage: http://michaelalebowitz.com/
Latest Book: Between Capitalism and Community
[https://monthlyreview.org/product/between_capitalism_and_community/]



Re: “Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power,” on Amy Goodman "Democracy Now"

John A Imani
 

I left for LA in 1963 and heard nothing about it.  But its role as a model for the BPP is unmistakable.

Even when entering the Black Power Movement (as an LACC BSUer) I heard nothing.  Nothing from the BPPers who were at LACC nor from those I knew in the LA area.  Don't recall seeing anything about it in their newspaper.

I only listened to the Amy Goodman show and will try to chance upon the movement's film.

JAI


On Fri, Dec 23, 2022 at 5:16 AM <wytheholt@...> wrote:
I recall quite well the black organizing in Lowndes County and its being purged from much mainstream news, probably (in my opinion) because it was essentially an organized uprising of black people, and the white mainstream did not want to foreground black power, even when, as in Lowndes, it was rigorously organized and opposed violence as a weapon (though it had to retaliate violently against violence used against it).

On December 14, 2022 at 9:53 PM John A Imani <johnaimani3@...> wrote:

Quite a remarkable introduction to the film on 'Democracy Now':
“Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power”: New Film on Radical Voting Activism in 1960s Alabama


From Amy Goodman's intro:

<<We look at “Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power,” a remarkable new documentary that shows how a small rural community in Alabama organized during the civil rights movement to challenge white supremacy and systematic disenfranchisement of Black residents, and would become, in some ways, the first iteration of the Black Panther Party. Lowndes County went from having no registered Black voters in 1960 — despite being 80% Black — to being the birthplace in 1965 of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, a radical political party that brought together grassroots activists and members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Co-directors Sam Pollard and Geeta Gandbhir tell Democracy Now! the Lowndes County story has not gotten the attention it deserves compared to other chapters of the civil rights movement, in part because its lessons are “more threatening” to the political establishment. “It seems like it has been deliberately left out of the narrative of history,” says Gandbhir. We also speak with Reverend Wendell Paris, a former SNCC field secretary featured in the film, who says the organizing in Lowndes County reflected an understanding by residents that “they needed to band together to defend themselves.”>>

I grew up to the South of these activities.  You can read something about my growing up in Jim Crow at https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/19818.  It is preceded by a note from my good comrade and great friend and fellow Crimson Tider, Wythe Holt.

JAI

 


Re: Falling rate of profit — not the end-all of political economy

Charlie
 

On Fri, Dec 23, 2022 at 08:51 AM, John Reimann wrote:
... the tendency towards overproduction ...
Today everything can be sold at a profit, and there appears to be no overproduction. Tomorrow the capitalists cannot sell all the stuff at a profit.


FW: Hundreds of US rabbis vow to block far-right Israel lawmakers from their communities - The Times of Israel

abraham Weizfeld PhD
 

 

 

From: ilan <maya@...>
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2022 11:54 AM
To: saalaha@...
Subject: Hundreds of US rabbis vow to block far-right Israel lawmakers from their communities - The Times of Israel

 

Hundreds of US rabbis vow to block far-right Israel lawmakers from their communities

 

Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist leaders sign letter pledging to not allow some of Netanyahu's coalition partners from speaking in their synagogues

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hundreds-of-us-rabbis-vow-to-block-far-right-israel-lawmakers-from-their-communities/

 

נשלח מהאפליקציה 'דואר' עבור Windows 10

 

 

 

 

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political declaration   JPLO   ( a Bundist chapter )

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the books

Sabra and Shatila  (1984)  2009

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The End of Zionism :  and the liberation of the Jewish People  1989

http://www.academia.edu/11243333/THE_END_OF_ZIONISM_and_the_liberation_of_the_Jewish_People

Nation, Society and the State : the reconciliation of Palestinian and Jewish Nationhood

https://www.academia.edu/40349204/VOLUME_I_SECOND_EDITION_THESIS_NATION_SOCIETY_AND_THE_STATE

https://www.academia.edu/40349264/VOLUME_TWO_SECOND_EDITION_THESIS_METHODOLOGY_OF_NATIONAL_IDENTITY  

 

The Federation of Palestinian and Hebrew Nations

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