Open Threads

I listened to this audio presentation by Tithi Bhattacharya and I'd like to respond to some points. 

The overall thesis is that Maoist politics are defunct and replace the emancipation of the working class by the working class itself with guerrilla units leading a guerrilla war.

Ms. Bhattacharya assumes that “in a conflict between a guerrilla army and a fully functioning state, it is not a mystery who will win”.

Lenin, in his well known article “Three Sources and Component Parts of Marxism,” introduces some basic ideas of Marxian theory.  Lenin says, “[The Marxist doctrine] is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism.”   Lenin identifies these component parts as: philosophy, political economy, and socialism.  I think Lenin is mistaken here.   Although the history of socialist thought is undoubtedly important the three main “component parts” of Marxism are: dialectics, historical materialism, and value theory (or the critique of political economy and the relationship between these parts. 

Lenin begins his article noting the hostility of “bourgeois science” towards Marxism.   Today, not only is bourgeois science hostile to the thought of Marx most radicals, revolutionaries, and communists are fairly dismissive of these component parts too— replacing dialectics with Mao’s ”contradictions” and celebrations of contingency and indeterminacy,  replacing historical materialism with voluntarism or ignoring its theses outright, and replacing value theory with convoluted ideas derived from Lenin’s theory of monopoly capitalism.  Ironically it was Lenin who often spoke of clearing Augean stables.

My plan is to write introductory pieces about each of these three components parts (dialectics, historical materialism, and value theory) in separate posts.  So, here I will just put forward a gloss on each and focus on how they interconnect.   Dialectics applied to human society produces the materialist conception of history. Dialectics and the materialist conception of history applied to the capitalist mode of production gives us value theory (or the critique of political economy, or the systematization of capitalism’s laws of motion).  In other words, it is really one theory and the distinctions between dialectics, historical materialism, and value theory are actually derived from the object of inquiry-- dialectics is the study of everything existing, historical materialism is the form dialectics takes in the study of human societies and their motion, value theory is dialectics applied to the study of the capitalist mode of production.   

Sanitation - the proper treatment and/or disposal of urine and excrement - could be considered "the most important medical milestone" in modern history according to the British Medical Journal. Yet for at least 2.5 billion people, more than a third of the world's people, this most basic human need is unmet.

Most cases of diarrhea are caused by water and food contaminated by faeces, and this disease kills 1,800 children every day. "If 90 school buses filled with kindergardeners were to crash every day, with no survivors, the world would take notice. But this is precisely what happens every single day because of poor water, sanitation and hygiene," explained Sanjay Wijesekera of UNICEF...

The following comes from A World to Win News Service.

“A higher culture can come into existence only when there are two different castes in society: that of the workers and that of the idle, of those capable of true leisure; or, expressed more vigorously: the caste compelled to work and the caste that works if it wants to…. “ Nietzsche – quoted by Corey Robin in his Reactionary Mind Blog.

May Day originated in the struggle over the length of the working day --a struggle over time.  The classic slogan “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will” highlights the goal of working class struggle – leisure time: “hours for what we will.”   The struggle over the length of the working day had been the central feature of the class struggle from the moment it took conscious forms.  Class struggle over the length of the working day, i.e., over time-- is at the heart of the capital relation itself—the relation of slavery—the relation we must abolish to be free.   The working class movement must regain sight of the goal so that we can develop a theory that can guide a practice that has the abolition of our enslavement as its goal.    

Who will work and who will have free time is the essential question of class society.   So, what the reactionary Nietzsche is saying in the above quote is that a class of slaves/workers is necessary so that free time is available for an upper class. A class with free time can pursue the liberal arts (liberal arts are the arts of “free men”) philosophy, literature, politics, athletics and other artistic and spiritual matters, but for such a class to exist there must be another class to work.  The goal, of course, is not to simply change which class has leisure and which must work -- necessary work itself must be abolished.  That is how the proletariat abolishes itself and all class relations. 

by Nat Winn

Maoist dialectics assert that all that exists is contradiction. Contradiction contains within it both unity and struggle. It is struggle that is the driving force of dialectics and that lays the basis for transformation. Dialectics is not a drive to some final unified process (the unity of subject and object for example).

On Life Activity as essence of being human

I've thought a lot about a recent comment by Eve Mitchell where she says:

"I was only a working-class boy from a Nationalist ghetto, but it is repression that creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom. I shall not settle until I achieve liberation of my country, until Ireland becomes a sovereign, independent socialist republic."
~Bobby Sands

On this day, 32 years ago, Bobby Sands died after 66 days of hunger striking. After the news of his death broke out rioting spread throughout Northern Ireland in outrage over the death of the people's MP. Over 100,000 mourners attended his funeral procession. The news of his death spread throughout the world, from France to Italy people took the streets in violent protest against the British occupation of Ireland, embassies were set on fire and the Queen of England was attacked in Oslo. Nelson Mandela refered to Bobby as one of his greatest influnces. Margret Thacher was not amused. When asked about Bobby's death she said "Mr. Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. It was a choice that his organisation did not allow to many of its victims". 

On the occasion of the publication of an anthology of her writing and the accession of a  Wages for Housework NY archive at Mayday Rooms in London, Marina Vishmidt interviewed Silvia Federici on her extensive contribution to feminist thought and recent work on debt activism (with contributions by Mute, Mayday Rooms and George Caffentzis)

Mute: In the text ‘Wages Against Housework’ (1975) you refer to the problem of women’s work (even waged) as the impossibility of seeing where ‘work begins and ends’. Just as French group Théorie Communiste argue that ‘we’ are nothing outside of the wage, you also speak of the problem of unwaged women as being outside of a ‘social contract’. How does this reflect the capital-labour relation today? How much has this situation, then specific to women and some other workers, generalised? How are we to act from the perspective of this being ‘nothing’? Is it still a question of self-identification or dis-identification?

Silvia Federici: We should not assume that those who are unwaged, who work outside the social contract stipulated by the wage, are ‘nothing’ or are acting and organising out of a position of no social power. I would not even say that they are outside the wage relation which I see as something broader than the wage itself. One of the achievements of the International Wages For Housework Campaign, that we launched in the 1970s, was precisely to unmask not only the amount of work that unwaged houseworkers do for capital but, with that, the social power that this work potentially confers on them, as domestic work reproduces the worker and consequently it is the pillar of every other form of work. We saw an example of this power – the power of refusal – in October 1975, when women in Iceland went on strike and everything in Reykjavik and other parts of the country where the strike took place came to a halt.

If you want to understand the schisms on the left... understand that the CPUSA went apeshit attacking Dylan as a traitor for this performance.

If you 

Today the Obama administration's FBI added black liberation fighter Assata Shakur to its list of "Most Wanted Terrorists." They doubled the million-dollar price on her head; and she becomes the first woman on the list. Fortunately Assata Shakur is living free in Cuba after being liberated from a federal penitentiary in 1979, but it's clear her life is in mortal danger. Labeling Shakur a "terrorist" is a declaration of war against all dissenters and revolutionaries, and sets her up for murder at the hands of the state with complete impunity. It's also evidence of the continued bullying relationship between the United States and its anti-imperialist Caribbean neighbor, Cuba.

If Assata Shakur can be labelled a terrorist, so can anyone who has raised their fist against the empire.

Assata Shakur is a survivor of the vicious COINTELPRO campaign that attempted to smash the Black Panther Party and its offshoots in the 1960s and 1970s. Dozens of heroic black liberation fighters were murdered outright or sent away to prison for long sentences: the U.S. government was determined at any cost to smash a movement that refused to play by liberal rules. She was repeatedly framed with apolitical crimes she had nothing to do with; she went underground but was arrested in 1973 when the car she was a passenger in was attacked by New Jersey State police; and was very seriously wounded while trying to surrender.

Music video for Grup Yorum's "Gazi Marşı". Grup Yorum is a famous socialist political folk band in Turkey.

This article first appeared on Kasama in English. The following is a translation into russian from Liva.

НАКАНУНЕ ПЕРВОГО МАЯ

Майк Елі

Посмотрите, что довелось испытать нашим братьям и сестрам – и только лишь за одну прошедшую неделю, перед Первым мая.

Бангладеш: Обвал восьмиэтажного здания фабрики убил здесь более 300 рабочих и работниц. Трещины в здании образовались еще за день до трагедии, но и владелец здания, и инспекция полицейского управления, и собственники фабрик-потогонок, находившихся в здании – все они заявили, что здание безопасно, приказав рабочим вернуться на свои рабочие места. Сотни человек вошли в эту смертельную ловушку. Причины этого преступления видны невооруженным глазом: беспощадная алчность эксплуататоров, коррупция субподрядчиков, соучастие правительства и полиции. Мы видим результат безумной жажды прибыли, овладевшей глобальным капиталом.  

Почему же страх рабочих перед угрозой потерять рабочие места оказался сильнее страха за свою жизнь? Говорит ли это об отчаянии, нищете и беспомощности этих рабочих и работниц? Вскоре после того, как совершилось это преступление, в Бангладеш началось восстание рабочих и работниц швейной промышленности. Они вышли на улицы городов своей страны с красными флагами восстания и черными траурными флагами. По меньшей мере, две швейные фабрики были сожжены рабочими в ходе этого восстания. В репортажах из Бангладеш сообщают, что два владельца фабрик обратились за помощью к полиции – и вовсе не для того, чтобы получить заслуженное воздаяние за свои действия. Наоборот: они надеются, что полиция защитит их от наказания.

Relief and rehabilitation campaign of Philippine revolutionary forces in the aftermath of Typhoon Pablo (international name Bophal) in December 2012. A political officer of the New People's Army in Mindanao explains how the campaign is being run as a movement of the community residents rebuilding their homes and agricultural fields, and in the process strengthening their unity for the revolutionary cause.

Liberation Multimedia productions, in commemoration of the 40th Founding Anniversary of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, 24 April 2013.

reports here: May Day! May Day!

¡1° de mayo—Día Internacional de los Trabajadores!

May 1st is a day celebrated and cherished around the World. It is part of the people’s legacy and the people have claimed May Day as their own. It’s a day for reflection, of solidarity and an important part of our future. In many countries, May Day is a national holiday—ironically not so in the U.S. where its opening salvo began. But many in the U.S. are and have tried to reclaim International Workers Day.

We've talked before about how elements in the LGBT community have responded to the winning of certain rights by the full-on embrace of corporatism and even militarism. A recent episode adds new context. Somewhat surprisingly, the San Francisco Pride Committee announced that imprisoned whistleblower Bradley Manning was to be made one of the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Trans Pride Parade's grand marshalls, albeit symbolically, probably to be represented in the actual parade by the heroic whistleblower of the Vietnam era Daniel Ellsberg. Immediately right-wing elements in the gay community objected. (Read some of the heated commentary over the issue at one gay blog here and here.) The announcement was then promptly withdrawn.

Boots Riley has summed it up like this: "SF Pride leaders fight for equal opportunity to be Imperialist bootlickers." But columnist Glenn Greenwald, writing about the affair in the Guardian UK, has really nailed it. His column appears below.

--ISH

By Mike Ely

Just look what our brothers and sisters suffered through in this last week.

• Bangladesh:  In a suburb of the capital Dhaka, an eight-story factory building crumbled killing over 300 workers.
  
  Cracks had appeared in the building the previous day. But the building’s owner, the police inspection teams and all the various sweatshop owners had all proclaimed the building safe. They ordering workers to show up on the job. Hundreds entered a death trap.
  
  Layers of crime lie exposed: The ruthless greed of the exploiters, the corruption of the building contractors, the complicity of the government and police, the  singleminded drive of global networks seeking product and profit.
  
  What does it say that the workers feared more for their jobs than they did for their lives? What does it say about their desperation, their poverty, their powerlessness?
  
  Within days, after this criminal event sank in, thousands of garment workers rose up in Bangladesh. They have marched through the streets with red banners of revolt and black banners of mourning. At least two hated factories were put to the torch.
  
  It is reported that two factory owners turned themselves into police. They did not present themselves for much deserved punishment. Quite the contrary: They expect the police to protect them from punishment.
  
  
• Bhopal, India: A whole wing of the Kasturba Gandhi Hospital collapsed at 5 pm Friday. At least four people were seriously injured, more than a dozen were trapped by giant slabs of concrete. The number of dead is currently unknown.
  
  
• West, Texas: April 17, 7:30 pm, West Chemical and Fertilizer Company plant  blew up . It registered on the Richter scale for earthquakes -- and  left a crater  93 feet wide and 10 feet deep. The heat was so intense that nearby railroad tracks melted and fused.
  
  But, of course, the main devastation was in human lives: At least 15 people are dead. More than 200 are injured. The heart of this rural town was gutted -- with buildings blown down on a five-block radius. The blast destroyed a nursing home, an apartment complex,  a nearby middle school and countless homes. 
  
  This plant had been storing large quantities of highly unstable fertilizer, but had not filed the legal reports required for such a depot. It had not been inspected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in almost 30 years. The neighbors did not know about the danger of fire or explosion -- they and their children lived, and worked and played in its shadow, while the owners kept them unaware.
  
  
• Ramensky, Russia: Psychiatric Hospital N. 14 erupted into flames at 2 am Friday. There were no means to put out the flames in this rural town. The nearest fire engines were thirty miles away, on the other side of a swollen creek. The connecting ferry now operates only during the summer. Crowds of frantic neighbors were forced to watch, helpless, as 38 people burned alive.

We know of four that reached the headlines – but we can say with certainty that there were many more, this very week, that remain unknown and unreported. Perhaps because they were farther from news reporters. Or because the owners successfully hushed things up. Or because the dead were merely in twos or threes.

(Thanks to Kathleen for sharing this)

From Noam Chomsky, April 26, 2013:

Obama's attacks on civil liberties

"...go well beyond anything I would have anticipated, and they don't seem easy to explain. In many ways the worst is Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project. That's an Obama initiative and it's a very serious attack on civil liberties. He doesn't gain anything from it – he doesn't get any political mileage out of it. In fact, most people don't even know about it, but what it does is extend the concept of "material assistance to terror" to speech....

"if you look at the way it's been used, it becomes even more abhorrent (Nelson Mandela was on its [terrorist list] until a couple of years ago.) And the wording of the colloquy is broad enough that it could very well mean that if, say, you meet with someone in a terrorist group and advise them to turn to nonviolent means, then that's material assistance to terrorism. I've met with people who are on the list and will continue to do so, and Obama wants to criminalize that, which is a plain attack on freedom of speech. ...

"The NDAA suit ... The only protest that's being raised is in response to detention of American citizens, but I don't see why we should have the right to detain anyone without trial. The provision of the NDAA that allows for this should not be tolerated. It was banned almost eight centuries ago in the Magna Carta."It's the same with the drone killings. There was some protest over the Anwar Al-Awlaki killing because he was an American citizen. But what about someone who isn't an American citizen? Do we have a right to murder them if the president feels like it?"

From Miles Ahead

“You been hurt and you're all cried out/you say You walk down the street pushin' people outta your way /You packed your bags and all alone you wanna ride, You don't want nothin', don't need no one by your side /You're walkin' tough baby, but you're walkin' blind to the ties that bind ….

..."You sit and wonder just who's gonna stop the rain/Who'll ease the sadness, who's gonna quiet the pain/It's a long dark highway and a thin white line/Connecting baby, your heart to mine./We're runnin' now but darlin' we will stand in time/To face the ties that bind. The ties that bind.

...

Statement of KOE

The treacherous stance of the Samaras-Venizelos-Kouvelis “local troika” (*) against the proud Cypriot ΝΟ shall remain as another indelible stain in the infamous history of the Greek ruling class. The Greek government ought to have widened the rift that the Cypriot NO has opened against the policy of the Memoranda, thus grabbing the opportunity to challenge the “Greek program” of the IMF-EU-ECB troika. This option, the only one in solidarity with Cyprus and the only one that would save Greece, could change the turn of events in the European South. But it was not adopted. It was not adopted because we have a “government” that in reality is nothing more than an obedient minion of Merkel. So this date, 25th March 2013, the anniversary of the 1821 Independence Revolution, will remain in history as a day of punishment for the Cypriot people and of shame for the Greek “government”.

The cynical and extortionate decision of the Eurocrats, together with their accomplices, the governments of Samaras and Anastassiadis, opens the door to a new “Attila”, albeit more embellished and more Europeanized than the 1974 foreign invasion and occupation of the martyred island. It’s a new “Attila” armed with the state-of-the-art “guns” of debt and of “liquidity interruption”, with the clear objective to destroy the Cypriot economy and transform the Republic of Cyprus into a euro-protectorate.

Apart from the colonization of the European South, special importance should be given to another dimension: Cyprus has become the guinea pig of a new Merkel tool. As the leader of Eurogroup J. Daiselbloom confessed, the Cypriot “model” is ready to be “exported”. A generalized haircut of deposits, following the example of Cyprus, will soon be a choice for other countries “bailout programs”. All European bank deposits are at stake. For Greece this is extremely important, as recapitalization of the banks is at the forefront. Shall the people be called to pay the expenses once again?

Unless our peoples do not impose a change, the economic catastrophe and the social “Kaiadas” will go in hand with an immediate mortgaging of national sovereignty and a threat against our territorial integrity. The French President Francois Hollande, during his recent visit in Greece, referred to our country’s Exclusive Economic Zone as “European EEZ”, only to be immediately applauded by the obedient Greek PM Samaras. This was just the preliminary announcement for the beginning of a generalized European and German onslaught of the sovereign rights of Greece and Cyprus.

In the last several years, there have been four other serious attempted or successful attacks on US soil by Muslims, and in every case, they emphatically all say the same thing: that they were motivated by the continuous, horrific violence brought by the US and its allies to the Muslim world - violence which routinely kills and oppresses innocent men, women and children:

[SOURCE]

Ignoring the role played by US actions is dangerously self-flattering and self-delusional
By Glenn Greenwald