Unsurprisingly, the war continued despite the embarrassment generated by the police riots and the kangaroo court that the two documentaries depicted.
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A Socialist Agenda for the 2020 Elections
Richard Modiano
...the Democratic Party, which has a good chance of winning this election, is preparing to take back the White House and possibly the Senate in order to shore up and intensify U.S. imperialism. A Biden government will be charged with continuing the imperialist offensive, imposing the anti-worker austerity that the capitalists require, and keeping the justice system and police departments intact.
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‘Warning flare’: New swing-state data shows massive Democratic early-vote lead - POLITICO
Louis Proyect
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The Politics of White Anxiety | Boston Review
Louis Proyect
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A right-wing group will rally in a Montgomery park near a voting site
Louis Proyect
Not far from my upstate NY village.
https://www.recordonline.com/story/news/2020/10/23/right-wing-group-rally-montgomery-park-near-voting-site/3740063001/
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MR Online | Six million displaced people have returned home
Louis Proyect
Anonymous editor of MR Online posts Assadist propaganda once again.
https://mronline.org/2020/10/24/six-million-displaced-people-have-returned-home/
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Arlo Guthrie: Gone Fishing
Alan Ginsberg
It’s been a great 50+ years of being a working entertainer, but I reached the difficult decision that touring and stage shows are no longer possible. I've cancelled the upcoming shows, and am not accepting offers for new ones. That’s the short version. For the longer version continue reading…
https://www.facebook.com/arloguthrie/posts/10164686288300195?__tn__=K-R
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The pursuit of herd immunity is a folly – so who's funding this bad science? | Coronavirus | The Guardian
Louis Proyect
(Three degrees of separation between Jacobin magazine and Charles Koch through Harvard professor and asshole Martin Kulldorff.) As we approach one of the most important elections in the history of western democracy (itself described as a referendum on lockdown), we should be asking who funded this piece of political theatre, and for what purpose. The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), where the declaration was signed, is a libertarian thinktank that is, in its own words, committed to “pure freedom” and wishes to see the “role of government … sharply confined”. The institute has a history of funding controversial research – such as a study extolling the benefits of sweatshops supplying multinationals for those employed in them – while its statements on climate change largely downplay the threats of the environmental crisis. It is a partner in the Atlas network of thinktanks, which acts as an umbrella for free-market and libertarian institutions, whose funders have included tobacco firms, ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers. Our questions to the AIER about its relationship to the three signatories went unanswered, but it has posted a number of articles about the declaration and herd immunity on its website.
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New York Times nailed for publishing Republican propaganda — yet again | Salon.com
Louis Proyect
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Armenian leftists: We consciously choose peace | Lefteast
Louis Proyect
Note
from the editors: Three weeks ago LeftEast published an anti-war statement of the Azerbaijani
left. Now we are proud to publish the response of the
anti-war Armenian leftists. In the meantime, the war has
continued despite two ceasefires. The numbers of killed are hard
to estimate, but are in the thousands by now, military as well
as civilian. https://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/armenian-leftists-choose-peace/
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Review of Sorkin's "Trial of the Chicago 7"
Louis Proyect
(Written by a member of the CUNY teacher's union.)
Paul Glusman October 21 at 3:14 PM · Here's my review of the Sorkin film, Trial of the Chicago 7. Needless to say, I think Sorkin is committing the crime of stealing our history. As a friend says, there's such a think as artistic license, but Sorkin's license should be revoked. TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 REVIEW – Spoilers. I was a journalist at the Chicago 8 (later 7) trial, reporting for Ramparts Magazine. I was there, day by day, in the courtroom and in the defense offices, for practically all of it. I was 22 years old, but the memories of that trial are indelible. This weekend I decided to watch the Aaron Sorkin movie, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” when it was available to stream from Netflix. There was some good acting in the movie. Sasha Baron Cohen did a reasonably good rendition of the late Abbie Hoffman. Mark Rylance, although he didn’t nail the late William Kunstler, did a decent job. There was some witty dialogue at times. But that’s about all I have to say positive about the movie. When someone “does” a historical event, it isn’t expected that it be accurate to every detail. It is historical drama, after all, not history itself. I didn’t expect a treatment that used verbatim dialogue from the trial transcript in every court exchange. But even though the trial was 51 years ago there are those of us who still remember it. Me, for instance. I haven’t reached out to Bobby Seale, Rennie Davis, John Froines, or Lee Weiner who are the defendants that are still alive. Most of the other principals in the trial have passed on. But when something happened within the memory of humans who lived through it, it seems to be a bad idea to mischaracterize what those people lived though so completely as Sorkin did. There’s so much wrong, I can only give examples. The courtroom itself was a brutal federal mid-century modern edifice designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It was almost a character in the original trial. Judge Hoffman constantly reminded the defense lawyers that they had to stand behind the lectern, which was where Mies van der Rohe, had placed it when addressing the court or witnesses. The judge said he had been a friend of Mies van der Rohe. He was proud of the spartan authoritarian image that the courtroom projected. It admitted no natural light. Abbie Hoffman called it a “neon oven.” The entirety of the building and the courtroom seemed to serve the purpose of illustrating the futility of human beings contesting the federal government, or the “United States of America” as the prosecution was and is termed in federal criminal trials. Not in the movie. In the movie the trial was held in an old fashioned courtroom, like maybe Miracle on 34th Street. There were floor-to-ceiling windows. Lots of natural light. Not a big deal, but it took something away from the power image that the feds were projecting against the defendants. There’s a bit of dialogue in the movie where Seale points out that Tom Hayden was rebelling against his own father, rather than the government. I wasn’t there for every exchange between Seale and Hayden, but I highly doubt that happened. Whatever you think of Hayden, he was a dedicated radical and a leftist. By the time of the trial he not only had co-written the SDS founding document the Port Huron Statement, but had been a community organizer for a decade in places like Newark. And Seale respected (and still respects) the white radical counterparts in the movement. But it makes a nice liberal moment for Sorkin to point out the difference in what’s at stake between Hayden and Seale. The movie shows Seale denouncing to the court the murder of Fred Hampton. Nice touch. But Hampton was murdered – or lynched – by the Chicago Police Department on December 4, 1969. Seale’s case was mistried on October 29. So, Seale was not in the trial at that point. Seale is also shown accusing white radicals of being racist by calling the trial the “Chicago 7” trial when he was still a defendant. But that never happened. Nobody called it the Chicago 7 until after Seale was mistried. The remaining defendants insisted on still calling themselves the Chicago 8. Sorkin once again is accusing the white radicals of something they never did. They never threw Seale under the bus. Sorkin does show Seale repeatedly protesting his denial of counsel because Judge Hoffman refused to grant a 6 week continuance so that Seale’s lawyer, Charles Garry, could recover from gall bladder surgery. That’s accurate so far. But Seale grounded this in the history of slavery and the oppression of Black people in the United States. He called out Judge Hoffman for having pictures of slave-owning presidents, like Washington and Jefferson hanging on the wall behind the bench. Those pictures were missing from the movie. Seale also quoted from the Dred Scott decision, which held that Black people have no rights that White people are bound to respect, and accused Hoffman, and the federal government, of acting on that. Seale was absolutely accurate in this. Sorkin omitted that. Possibly the most ridiculous part of the movie shows Jerry Rubin in tears because a Chicago Police Department plant had come on to him, he fell hard for her, and was devastated not only that she would do something like that, but that the government would train her to do that. This was absolutely false. A female undercover cop followed him around, but he never got involved with her. He wasn’t a 16 year old child jilted by his first crush. He was near 30 and his long-time girlfriend, Nancy, was with him practically every step of the way. But Sorkin, having infantilized Hayden by attributing his radicalism to his resentment of his father, infantilized Rubin also. Sorkin also omitted the part that women played in supporting the defense. (At one point a woman in the office is called “Bernadine” supposedly referring to Bernadine Dorhn, who in reality didn’t work in the office.) Sorkin also portrays Hayden on insisting on respect for the court. Not really. Every day Hayden would arrive in court before the session started and ask the bailiff if the judge was still alive. Let’s not forget Rennie Davis. Davis insisted on being respectful, according to Sorkin, because his fiance’s parents would be upset if he weren’t and would interfere with their relationship. This was a big deal because he was living with them. He wasn’t. I remember the couple having their own apartment. There are other missteps. Sorkin completely omits Abbie’s confrontation with Mayor Daley. Abbie came in one morning and found Daley sitting in the witness stand before trial began. He walked up to Daley, put up his fists in a mock-fighting pose, and told Daley that this whole thing could be settled right away, one on one, man-to-man. As I recall even Daley cracked up. Sorkin glosses over Lenny Weinglass’s work. He was the most effective lawyer in the trial, a more than adequate counterpart to Kunstler’s sometime grandstanding. Judge Hoffman never could get Weinglass’s name straight, calling him Weinstein, and Weinreb. Even in sentencing him for contempt, the judge misstated his name. Weinglass calmly said that regarding the subject of respect, he had hoped, after five months in trial, the judge would have learned his name. This was powerful. Sorkin left it out. The part about Hayden giving the speech for all the defendants at sentencing was made up and atrocious. Sorkin simply had Hayden read the names of the U.S. soldiers killed in the war, as if that was what this was all the protest was about. It wasn’t. The protests were more about what the United States was doing in Vietnam, to the people of that country. The U.S. soldiers counted, but they were NOT the main thrust of the demonstrations, or the trial. Rennie Davis testified in trial about what was happening in Vietnam, and why the war was illegal and unconscionable. It was powerful testimony. Sorkin left that out. Hayden at no point read off the names of U.S. soldiers killed in the war. The trial was not a Vietnam War Veterans memorial before its installation in DC. And for Sorkin to twist that is unconscionable. In short, Sorkin brings in personal motives for white radicals Hayden (his father) Rubin (his seduction by a cop) and Davis (his fiance’s parents) for why they acted the way they did in the demonstrations and subsequent trial. (He pretty much skimps on Seale’s own reasons for being at the demonstrations.) This is a huge miss. You might disagree with what they did, but don’t disrespect them by implying that the demonstrations, and subsequent conduct at the trial had nothing to do with what the United States was doing to the people of Vietnam. Watch the movie if you want, but understand that although it uses real names, it doesn’t depict real people or their motives in opposing the government at that time.
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Sudan's Revolutionaries insist Israel Deal must be ratified by Future Parliament, as Trump's Strong-Arm Tactics threaten its Democracy
Louis Proyect
Here’s the wrinkle. The whole Sudanese government has not in fact agreed to normalize relations with Israel. A couple of military officers in the hybrid civilian-military interim government seem to have made the agreement, which is highly contingent. https://www.juancole.com/2020/10/revolutionaries-parliament-democracy.html
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Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict: Israeli-made cluster bombs used in residential areas | Middle East Eye
Louis Proyect
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Sudan Enters The Outside-In Accords |
Louis Proyect
First and foremost, this deal is about Jared Kushner’s and Bibi Netanyahu’s plan for an “Outside-In” resolution to the Palestinian question. As opposed to the “Inside-Out” attempts of the past, this approach is based on flipping the traditional “Peace Process” on its head. Instead of making peace with the Palestinians (the “Inside”) and then using that predicate to make peace with the Arab world (the “Out”), the idea is to make “peace” with all of the Palestinians’ Arab supporters (the “Outside”) and use that predicate to force the Palestinians (the “In”) to accept a deal because they’ll be too isolated to resist. That’s the “Outside-In” approach Kushner, whose family has a longstanding relationship with Netanyahu, is using to build the Abraham Accords and, in so doing, he’s setting up the Palestinians to accept his proposed resolution to Israel’s military occupation and, through what amounts to a piece-by-piece process, its eventual annexation of significant portions of the West Bank. https://newsvandal.com/2020/10/sudan-enters-the-outside-in-accords/
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Re: A Portrait of the Fascist as a Young Man
Jeffrey Masko
This is largely why "antifa" formations are not up to the task of street fighting as they are largely not trained. Folks out here are aware of more loosely connected antifa linked MMA fighters in and around Stockton/Fresno, but any real thought of outright confrontations with neofash must admit the lack of actual fighting experience at this level in the U.S., which is not the case elsewhere. Various IWW GDC's are attempting to address this but understand the mountain before them. RAM and others on the West Coast certainly have driven the perceived need for community defense orgs on the left, armed and unarmed.
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H-Net Review [H-Environment]: Peterson on Church, 'Paradise Destroyed: Catastrophe and Citizenship in the French Caribbean'
Andrew Stewart
---------- Forwarded message --------- From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <h-review@...> Date: Fri, Oct 23, 2020 at 10:55 AM Subject: H-Net Review [H-Environment]: Peterson on Church, 'Paradise Destroyed: Catastrophe and Citizenship in the French Caribbean' To: <h-review@...> Cc: H-Net Staff <revhelp@...> Christopher M. Church. Paradise Destroyed: Catastrophe and Citizenship in the French Caribbean. France Overseas: Studies in Empire and Decolonization Series. Lincoln University of Nebraska Press, 2017. Illustrations, maps, tables. 324 pp. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8032-9099-0. Reviewed by Alyssa Peterson (University of Texas, Austin) Published on H-Environment (October, 2020) Commissioned by Daniella McCahey Halfway into my master's degree, I attended a lecture from a visiting PhD student who used GIS (geographic information system) software to pinpoint locations in France that donated to Guadeloupe after a natural disaster. His findings seemed promising, and it was interesting to see how GIS could be used to come up with unexpected observations. As I made my way through the first chapter of Christopher M. Church's _Paradise Destroyed: Catastrophe and Citizenship in the French Caribbean_, I realized I had serendipitously been asked to review the completed work of that same PhD student from years before. And his work did not disappoint. Fitting his work squarely within the realm of disaster studies and French history, Church uses natural disasters and civil unrest at the end of the nineteenth century to explore the French Antilles' place within contemporary French society and politics. He argues that these events elicited, first and foremost, discussions of the islands' economic utility, which were often couched in terms of class (and thinly veiled racism). They also forced conversations on assimilation and citizenship, with a strong rhetoric of nationality and compatriotism surrounding debates of disasters and the expected response from the metropole. Unlike traditional French historiography, which sees the islands on the receiving end of metropolitan decisions, Church demonstrates how the islands influenced the republic's understanding of identity, republicanism, and civic inclusivity. The Antilles were at once a strange location and a definition of "Frenchness." Throughout the book, Church contends with this continual conceptual battle between a foreign environment and a familiar society. The first chapter explores how metropolitan France understood the Antilles and how its mulatto middle class came to be seen as "civilized" as the French, despite their racial and environmental heritage. The islands' histories of slavery were replicated within the economy, with wealthy white landowners and poor black laborers effectively mapping class divisions directly on top of racial ones. Over time, however, a burgeoning mulatto middle class emerged. This class represented the "best" of France's civilizing mission: a population still French because of their mixed racial backgrounds but acclimated to the tropical environment. Chapter 2 is the first of four case studies that looks at the metropole's response to Antillean disasters. Church uses the 1890 fires that destroyed Fort-de-France, in Martinique, and Port-Louis, in Guadeloupe, to investigate how the metropole saw the Antilles fitting into the larger French Republic. He finds that contemporary reports stressed French camaraderie and the patriotic duty of those on the continent when helping their fellow French citizens in the West Indies. The chapter also touches on the political aspects of donation relief, secularization, and the public education system. He uses GIS to make an argument about Lorraine, the region that donated the most aid relief per capita, claiming they did so as a way to prove their allegiance to the French Republic. He compares the Antillean fires with a mainland coalmine collapse to demonstrate the similarities between responses to the "exotic" West Indies and lower-class French coal miners. The third chapter takes an in-depth look at the devastating hurricane of August 18, 1891, one of Martinique's deadliest until the twentieth century. Church uses this disaster to discuss the "calculus of human suffering and colonial belonging" the metropole undertook when estimating monetary relief for those affected (p. 119). With metropolitan bureaucrats untrusting of mulatto government officials, continental inspectors calculated themselves the minimum required aid needed to restart the local economy in a way that would let the islanders "help themselves." In opposition to the stingy inspectors' report, Martinique officials argued for relief similar to what official departments received, based on a shared French heritage and loyalty. Chapter 4 examines arson activity in Guadeloupe and related arson and general strike in Martinique in 1900. Church argues that the strike caused the island administrations and metropolitan government to address both the islands' more extensive financial situations and racial and class divisions. However, the strike took place within a broader labor movement in France, indicating a robust Antillean connection to the metropole. Political disagreements over the origination of the strike and the local administration's response carried up to Paris's ongoing debates. There they added to the central government's existing argument over labor politics, pushing some representatives to physical blows. This chapter aims to contribute to the broader French historiography and argues that omitting the Antilles in French history leaves out essential parts of the narrative. The fifth chapter focuses on the 1902 Mount Pelée eruption and its devastating effects on the island of Martinique. Not only did the eruption cement the idea of the tropics as a hostile place, but it also brought up again the question of the Antilles' relationship with continental France. The disaster was understood as a national disaster, one affecting all Frenchmen, but the central government's actions were the same colonial responses of previous catastrophes. The interest in law, order, and the economy overshadowed the humanitarian needs of the island's population, and the bulk of relief aid went to elite, usually white, islanders who needed it least. In the epilogue, Church continues the story of the Antilleans and disasters, but this time placing the West Indians in France during World War I. It was during their wartime service to the metropole that French Antilleans solidified their character as Frenchmen. French commanders treated Antillean soldiers as equals in ways that those from other colonies were not, and, despite racist experiences, they were able to demonstrate the loyalty and patriotism that all Antilleans had for their "mother country." Fallen soldiers from Guadeloupe and Martinique were even included in the Pantheon in Paris, showing their complete integration into the French Republic and foreshadowing the French Antilles' acceptance as full departments in 1946. For a work that relies heavily on the environment as an initiator of action, this study is distinctly not an environmental history. That does not mean that Church does not do an excellent job explaining the background and frequency of hurricanes or demonstrating the devastation each had on Guadeloupe and Martinique. Instead, the environment is not one of the main focuses of the story. It is used mainly as a "plot device" to uncover the political and social tensions that existed just below colonial French society's surface. In this way, his use of disasters is masterful, although I do wish he would have elaborated on how other aspects of the environment played a part in some situations. For instance, the fires' description in chapter 4 includes a brief sentence on a severe drought that took place leading up to the strike: Did the drought make fires easier to start than usual? Are there other instances of drought and frequent fires that did not become the center of politics? Did this drought make the catastrophic fires seem more sinister than would be assumed in other years? Church mentions the connection between arson and slave resistance briefly as well, so it would be interesting to know if environmental knowledge of the best time to start fires or proper conditions were passed down or forgotten as generations passed. _Paradise Destroyed_ focuses on politics and social connections, so it is understandable that he passed over some environmental nuances. However, these discussions of environmental knowledge could have supported the "acclimatization" of French Antilleans. There is also some frequent repetition within the book but not enough to turn the reader off from the rest of the prose. The extensive archival work, including work in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and mainland France, contributes to the scholarly discussions of debates taking place on both the islands and France. Also, every chapter describes a disaster and its immediate aftermath and broader discussions of social, economic, and political policies in which the French Antilles played a role. Discussions on metropolitan donations also touch on racist tropes, French colonial fiscal policy, and education reforms. Exploring a short labor strike in Martinique reveals connections to political party disputes, labor unrest in France, and international relations. Historians of French, Caribbean, or labor history will find something in every chapter. Those in disaster studies and history will find an excellent example of using natural and human-made disasters to explore the social, economic, and political tensions that tend to sit just below society's surface. Citation: Alyssa Peterson. Review of Church, Christopher M., _Paradise Destroyed: Catastrophe and Citizenship in the French Caribbean_. H-Environment, H-Net Reviews. October, 2020. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55339 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. -- Best regards, Andrew Stewart
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Re: The Return of the Chicago Seven | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
fkalosar101@...
Hoffman was a multi-dimensional figure, however wrong-headed, IMO both tragic and brilliant in his way. Rubin was neither of those things. Half the Republicans in America are Yippies today--Donald Trump is a kind of fatassed Yippy in an ill-fitting ten-thousand dollar suit that is his equivalent of a psychedelic stovepipe hat. The antiwar coalition represented IMO the last gasp of the Popular Front but one without a coherent socialist program, however degenerate, anywhere in the immediate background. As Pete Seeger yielded to Bob Dylan, sharp politics yielded to a purple haze in which your mind was the only important reality and nuggets of nonspecific allusion replaced actual content. WTF is "the sad-eyed prophet"? Who cares, dude? It's, like, archetypal. You have to remember that this was a time when perfectly sensible people thought the Carlos Castaneda books were real and people in Boston used to take the Fort Hill Community and Mel Lyman seriously. For too many people, the struggles for national liberation worldwide became a background for the the ideal of work on the self (Esalen Institute, Norman O. Brown, R.D. Laing, Timothy Leary, Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil) that unexpectedly joined after1980 with the Ronald Reagan cult of the entrepreneur--and eventually with the false immediacy of social media--to inoculate America finally against any incursion of informed Left critical intellect. The big coalition vanished like snow eventually. The legacy is problematic to say the least. The model of panic-stricken urgency in the face of an ever-growing "fascist threat" (to self-work) is focused on ephemeral victories like the possible triumph of Joe Biden over Donald Trump. This is at least partly because there weren't enough Marxist worker bees in 1968. The whole world was watching and in the end they didn't really get to see all that much--a revolutionary moment (IMO) that came and went on the breeze and the most lasting accomplishment of which was the institutionalization of Rolling Stone magazine. So, Comrade Proyect, I'm sorry if you didn't enjoy your antiwar years as much as the Yippies pretended to enjoy theirs before committing suicide, but it's a good thing you did what you did.
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H-Net Review [H-FedHist]: Marx on Heidler and Heidler, 'The Rise of Andrew Jackson: Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics'
Andrew Stewart
---------- Forwarded message --------- From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <h-review@...> Date: Fri, Oct 23, 2020 at 2:17 PM Subject: H-Net Review [H-FedHist]: Marx on Heidler and Heidler, 'The Rise of Andrew Jackson: Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics' To: <h-review@...> Cc: H-Net Staff <revhelp@...> David S. Heidler, Jeanne T. Heidler. The Rise of Andrew Jackson: Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics. New York Basic Books, 2018. ix + 433 pp. $32.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-465-09756-2. Reviewed by Claude R. Marx (Independent Scholar) Published on H-FedHist (October, 2020) Commissioned by Caryn E. Neumann An outsider enters a race for president against an established dynasty and prevails, resulting in a political tsunami that shakes up established norms. That's an apt description of the impact not only of President Donald Trump but also of his hero and role model President Andrew Jackson. Old Hickory was just as polarizing as the Donald and both men were very creative in their use of the media and other campaign techniques to get their messages out. It is wholly appropriate that Jackson's portrait hangs in the Oval Office and that Trump gave a speech at Jackson's home, The Hermitage, in Nashville. Historians David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler focus on those aspects of Jackson's career in their enjoyable, though one-sided, book, _The Rise of Andrew Jackson: Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics. _The authors concede that Jackson was a successful politician but do not admire how he achieved his success. Their critique is reminiscent of what people have written about Trump and another masterful user of the media, President Ronald Reagan. They also have disdain for Jackson's followers, especially those in the working class. "Yeomen, mechanics, tradesmen, and small merchants were unembarrassed by the charge that democracy was the cudgel of the mob. They seemed to be yearning for an unshakeable and self-aware man ready to do right against all comers, even if he was wrong," they write (p. 2). Jackson's military heroism in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812 captured the imagination of many citizens and was used as a starting off point for his allies to launch a quest for the White House. The authors describe in great detail how Jackson's allies set up supportive newspapers in key areas, saw to it that there was a hagiographic biography written, and staged rallies and other events to engage the public. Jackson also benefited from his supporters portraying him as a victim when he lost the 1824 election to John Quincy Adams, even though Jackson had won a plurality of the popular vote. The race was decided in the House of Representatives when Speaker Henry Clay voted for Adams. Shortly thereafter, Adams named Clay secretary of state and Jackson and his allies described this as a "corrupt bargain" (p. 236). Adams and Clay denied the existence of a quid pro quo but the relationship between the two men was complicated. The Heidlers describe Adams as "a man Clay mildly detested and had reason to believe returned the sentiment" (p. 215). But then-US senator from New York and future US secretary of state William Seward, in his sympathetic 1849 biography of Adams, wrote that Clay admired Adams and supported him for the right reasons. He saw in Adams "a man of the utmost purity and integrity of private character.... Between men so dissimilar in their qualifications, how could Mr. Clay with slightest regard to the welfare of the nation, the claims of patriotism, or the dictates of his conscience, hesitate to choose? He did not hesitate" (p. 164). The move hurt Clay's reputation and probably was a factor in why he never became president. Adams, arrogant and self-righteous on the best of days, would go on to have a troubled presidency. At times he boasted about ignoring the people's will in his attempts to expand the size and scope of the government. He at one point urged lawmakers not to be "palsied" by their constituents' desires. His words and deeds "suggested the delusion of a man with, at best, a partial and possibly an illegitimate mandate" (p. 255). With Jackson's foes self-destructing and his political allies improving their game, to say nothing of his continued ability to bond with average voters, he defeated Adams by a landslide in 1828. The Heidlers, however, are unwilling to cut him slack. They write that "the man the people were poised to make president never really existed. The actual Andrew Jackson had been groomed to fit an image as managers either changed or kept him quiet, while they revised accounts of his past to make him the ideal candidate of a new era" (p. 368). The Heidlers do not attempt an even-handed or cradle-to-grave portrait of Jackson. Those wanting to fill in the vast gaps should read the biographies by Jon Meacham, Robert Remini, or Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. But fans of political history, especially those who are skeptical of giving too much power to the people, will enjoy the storytelling skills very much in evidence in _The Rise of Andrew Jackson: Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics._ Citation: Claude R. Marx. Review of Heidler, David S.; Heidler, Jeanne T., _The Rise of Andrew Jackson: Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics_. H-FedHist, H-Net Reviews. October, 2020. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55563 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. -- Best regards, Andrew Stewart
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H-Net Review [H-LatAm]: Neufeld on Shesko, 'Conscript Nation: Coercion and Citizenship in the Bolivian Barracks'
Andrew Stewart
Best regards, Andrew Stewart - - - Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/ Begin forwarded message:
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Re: Down with the Islamophobia in France: “We Are Not Samuel!”
Andrew Coates
Tendance CoatesyLeft Socialist Blog Islamist Fascism, Samuel Paty and Jewish Voice for Labour.
“Agir contre le terrorisme islamiste, pas contre les musulmans” It is important to act against Islamist fascism, which threatens democratic freedoms, secularism, and community relations.” Ensemble. The statement by the radical left alliance, Ensemble (which has 3 Deputies in the National Assembly, including Clémentine Autain) is one of many serious and dignified reactions to the murder of Samuel Paty. And there is this, from Jewish Voice for Labour.
This Blog shares the concerns that have led to the protests of the French civil liberties campaigns against the suggestion that the Collective against Islamophobia in France, the CCIF should be dissolved. Like many French anti-racist campaigners we do not share the view that the body cannot be criticised:. Amongst many issues (beginning with the claims about ‘Islamophobia’ a religion, rather than discrimination against Muslim people there is its stand accusing Charlie Hebdo of racism. This is a transparent attempt to sap left wing support for Weekly’s freedom of speech. Yet it is clear that attempts to deal with political groups in this way are anti-democratic. (1) JVL publishes Declaration of the Union juive française pour la paix (French Jewish Peace Union), 19 October 2020 But the statement notably declares, “Now these same authorities want to ban any fight back against islamophobia, by attacking Muslim organisations like the Collective against Islamophobia in France, the CCIF.This organisation is being libelled, smeared and insulted because it aims at having the rights of Muslim citizens respected and at fighting discrimination.” REPORT THIS AD
They continue,
There are many problems with this. To begin there is nothing in defence of freedom of thought, of open education, of the right to teach critical thinking through debate, Then how ‘lost’ and alone was the killer? Libération reported yesterday, that he was closely tied to jihadist groups: Assassinat de Samuel Paty à Conflans : un assaillant bien connecté au jihad
What kind of ideas did he have?
Today Mediapart publishes the results of an investigation into the network accused of inciting Anzorov. The news site, founded by Edwy Plenel, author of Pour les Musulmans, (2014) cannot be accused of ‘Islamophobia’. Attentat de Conflans: révélations sur l’imam Sefrioui Abdelhakim Sefrioui, Mediapart notes, has a long association with the “anti-Semitic far right and jihadist circles” Sefrioui became involved in complaints against Samuel Paty to the point of presenting himself at the College to talk to the Head about it. Claiming to speak on behalf of French Imans, his own background was as a leading figure in a group, the collective Cheikh Yassin (CCY) named after the founder of Hamas. He had been removed, back in 2015, from the Muslim body that represents Imans (CIF). He, by contrast, became close to the Holocaust denier, Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, in the early years of the new millennium. During a demonstration against Israeli attacks on Gaza two extreme right activists Frédéric Chatillon and Axel Loustau joined the cortège led by the Yassin collective. The investigation is long and complex. It covers his turbulant agitation in front of Mosques, and particular interest in schooling, reminding one of Islamist agitation on gender equality education in the UK. Disagreements with the far-right, who supported Assad, broke out during the outbreak of civil war in Syria. While Mediapart found people who denied any active encouragement for people to join jihadist groups in the region, the Minister of the Interior, in the decree of October 21 dissolving the said collective. declared that group members“have distinguished themselves by facilitating the departure of several young radical Islamists to the Iraqi-Syrian zone, by going themselves to fight in the zone or by preparing attacks abroad” REPORT THIS AD
Through his lawyer Sefrioui claims that he “knew nothing” about the terrorist project of Abdullakh Anzorov, France Info says today,
The official inquiry continues. This much is clear: the slaughter of Samuel Paty by somebody who had nothing directly to do with his college cannot be understood as simply the “actions of an individual”. What is at Stake? JVL and the (Union juive française pour la paix refuse to discuss violent Islamism, and above all, to take into account the way that their anti-semitism can lead to them making common cause with the far-right. On their site the only reference to fascism comes from a comparison between dissolving the CCIF and Vickey’s suppression of Jewish organisations,
The translator of the statement published by the JVL, John Mullen, has been a member of the SWP linked group, Socialisme par en bas (he is at present said to be involved in Ensemble, supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France insoumise) with links to ‘Comrade Delta’ Martin Smith – see Smith’s site Dream Deferred. Ensemble itself denounces state attacks on Muslims and stands against Islamist fascism – something not mentioned by the JVL. Agir contre le terrorisme islamiste, pas contre les musulmans.
Andrew Coates
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The Return of the Chicago Seven | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
Louis Proyect
The Return of the Chicago SevenCOUNTERPUNCH, OCTOBER 23, 2020 Looking back at the choices I made, I often rue the 11 years I wasted in the SWP. While other people from my generation like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were having fun, I was something of a worker bee. I remember one cold and drizzly night in September 1967, when I was with a team of comrades wheat-pasting posters on Broadway between 59th and 96th streets for the October demonstration in Washington. Just after we finished, the cops told us to take them all down. Our only reward was seeing a massive turnout that included Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Hoffman and Rubin trying to levitate the Pentagon. During the trial of the Chicago 7, Hoffman used his puckish sense of humor to make prosecutor Richard Schultz look foolish as he tried to make an amalgam between this stunt and the charge of fomenting a riot in August 1968. When Schultz asked Hoffman to explain why he urinated on the Pentagon that day, you could not help but laugh at the exchange. After having seen Adam Sorkin’s Netflix docudrama and one that aired on HBO in 1987, I can’t remember which film recreated this exchange. What I can remember, however, is the significant political differences between the two, as well as my take on the Chicago protests and the ensuing trial at the time. The seven men on trial were committed to the politics of the spectacle, to put it in DeBordian terms. By the summer of 1968, Dellinger et al. had grown frustrated with the failure of the mass demonstrations to end the war. They believed that “resistance” was necessary as a tantrum by several thousand young people could force the warmakers into withdrawing from South Vietnam. On December 29, 1968, SWP leader Fred Halstead debated Jerry Rubin over “What Policy for the Antiwar Movement.” The Militant newspaper carried excerpts from Rubin’s speech:
Only seven months later, the Chicago Seven led actions based on these premises. Unsurprisingly, the war continued despite the embarrassment generated by the police riots and the kangaroo court that the two documentaries depicted. full: https://louisproyect.org/2020/10/23/the-return-of-the-chicago-seven/
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