tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.comments2024-01-19T04:00:42.885-05:00Permanent RevolutionAlex Steinerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09128453587484101609noreply@blogger.comBlogger873125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-89100392561210404272024-01-18T02:19:24.315-05:002024-01-18T02:19:24.315-05:00You write,
"The Israeli establishment sought...You write,<br /><br />"The Israeli establishment sought a casus belli and got one. That it severely underestimated its enemy is a discussion for another time."<br /><br />You could just as easily have written,<br /><br />"Hamas sought a casus belli and got one [by provoking an Israeli reaction to the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians]. The Israeli occupation of al Aqsa mosque was the pretext Hamas was looking for, having planned the October 7 action for more than year." [Which is not to imply that the occupation of al Aqsa mosque was not a terrible event but was it any worse than dozens of other actions by the Israeli government in recent years, such as the killing of peaceful protesters on the Gaza border?]<br /><br />Many commentators have rightly indicated that the purpose of Hamas' October 7 action was to upend the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which has succeeded, at least for the time being.<br /><br />It is also not so clear that Israel was looking for a pretext to wage a war against the population of Gaza. Hamas had in fact been a silent partner with Israel for many years, despite their mutual antagonism. As is well-known the Israeli government financed Hamas in its infancy from behind the scenes as a counterweight to the influence of the more secular and more left wing Palestinian nationalists. Even after the Israeli government switched sides about 20 years ago and decided to support the now tamed Palestinian Authority against Hamas, they still relied on Hamas to maintain some sort of order in Gaza, in effect acting as a proxy for the Israeli occupation of Gaza.<br /><br />Hamas action on October 7 took the Israeli government by surprise even though they had intelligence reports of Hamas' preparation for a major attack on Israeli soil. The powers that be in the defense - intelligence establishment did not take those reports seriously.<br /><br />See <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html" rel="nofollow">Did Israel allow Oct. 7th attack?</a><br /><br />[I am aware that conspiracy theorists will take great exception to that assessment as they cannot imagine that a defense-intelligence bureaucracy can ever be negligent and dismissive of warnings as happened on 9/11. For the conspiracy theorists everything has to be an "inside job".]<br /><br />The Israeli government was fine with Hamas counting on them to act as a proxy for the occupation of Gaza until October 7. I don't think there is any evidence that Israel was looking for a major war. From a strictly cost-benefit point of view it is much more efficient and less risky to dominate a people through an arrangement with a proxy than to wage a war.<br /><br />And while Israel clearly underestimated Hamas it is also obvious that Hamas underestimated Israel's genocidal response. And here we can also ask questions about the intelligence failure on the part of Hamas. Knowing Netanyahu's history of support for the atrocities of the settlers on the West Bank and knowing that his cabinet included out and out fascists and Jewish supremacists, should not Hamas have anticipated the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Gaza that we have seen for the past 3 months?<br /><br />The lesson here is that trying to figure out who started the Gaza-Israeli war or who responded to who is a fool's errand. It is akin to determining who fired the first shot in World War I. We want to know the essential processes that led to the Great War and not simply which historically contingent event is credited with being "first". In any case, what one considers "first" depends on an arbitrarily selected timeline. To make sense of the facts you have to approach it through a theoretical foundation. This is why it is critical to study the nature of imperialism today, the relations between classes on the national and international stage, the peculiar nature of the Israeli settler state, the history of Zionism and bourgeois nationalism and how it has evolved, and many other things.<br /><br />Alex SteinerAlex Steinerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09128453587484101609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-36352521785872351942023-11-20T14:27:01.580-05:002023-11-20T14:27:01.580-05:00You insist on comparing real workers with all thei...You insist on comparing real workers with all their contradictions, to an abstract "perfect communist" which never existed and never will exist. Marx betrayed his devoted Jenny by siring a child with their maid. Trotsky's affair with Frida Kahlo deeply hurt Natalia. Were they "half-communists"? If you take Trotsky's remark about a "half communist" in context, it is not to be taken literally. There is no standard of measure for revolutionary class consciousness. He was trying to emphasize the importance of the battle against cultural backwardness to a mass audience. This battle was primarily an educational practice and Trotsky's article was an important contribution to that ongoing effort. It was first published in Pravda, and read by millions.<br /><br />Good luck in your search for the perfect communist.Alex Steinerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09128453587484101609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-37908515735637167032023-11-19T19:31:47.134-05:002023-11-19T19:31:47.134-05:00Thanks for those comments, Alex.
Let me be clear...Thanks for those comments, Alex. <br />Let me be clear that by using the word “position,” I meant in no way to insinuate that the authors of this website endorse sexism or any other kind of oppression. Nor do I believe this; if I did, I would not waste my time posting comments here. <br /><br />I’m not looking for a pure, ideal communist; I’m wondering, rather, what being a communist or revolutionary means. This is a conceptual question, not an empirical one. As for making an observation, I’d suggest that the possibility to observe X depends on X making sense, and that’s precisely the point at issue: what it makes sense to say about the concept of being a revolutionary.<br /><br />I’m not disputing uneven development of consciousness in different spheres of life, either. While I have to admit that I have not read yet, Problems of Everyday Life, in its entirety, I am familiar with the chapter, “From the Old Family to the New.” <br /><br />In it, Trotsky points out, <br />“Domestic life is more conservative than economic, and one of the reasons is that it is still less conscious than the latter.” <br /><br />Different levels of consciousness concerning the economic sphere, on the one hand, and the domestic sphere, on the other, result logically from the former being public and socialized, the latter, private and atomized. <br /><br />In, “The Struggle for Cultured Speech, Trotsky writes, <br />“[W]e often witness psychological contrasts in the same mind. A man is a sound communist devoted to the cause, but women are for him just ‘females’, not to be taken seriously in any way.”<br /><br />Although such an attitude of men toward women certainly qualifies as sexist, I don’t think it equivalent to abuse. Nonetheless, I don’t agree with Trotsky here. Having said that, I’d suggest we also consider what he writes in, “The Tasks of Communist Education,” that if the revolutionist is paralyzed by religious or national prejudices, “then he is at best only half a revolutionist.”<br /><br />Perhaps we can apply this to our discussion and meet halfway by saying, the communist whose thinking is paralyzed by sexist or racist prejudices is at best only half a revolutionist. <br /><br />What do you think? Karinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-21926638034694693722023-11-18T10:36:36.351-05:002023-11-18T10:36:36.351-05:00Response to Karin:
You are confusing a position wi...Response to Karin:<br />You are confusing a position with an observation. I don't think it should be necessary to say that we do not have a position that endorses domestic abuse. Obviously we think that any genuine socialist should work to banish domestic abuse and other forms of cultural backwardness.<br /><br /><b>But we are making an observation here - not stating a "position".</b> And that observation is that human beings are contradictory and the development of revolutionary socialist consciousness does not take place all at once and touch all areas of social life in the same way and at the same time. It's an observation that Trotsky addressed in the series of essays,<b> Problems of Everyday Life </b> which I would urge you to read. In his essay <b>From the Old Family to the New</b> Trotsky notes that the development of revolutionary communist consciousness in the working class, even after a revolution, is uneven. Consciousness in different dimensions of life develops in different ways and at different tempos. He notes that political ideas change more rapidly than economic relations, i.e. the relations of workers toward other workers in their workplace. Equality between men and women may be enshrined in law by a newly installed revolutionary regime, but inequality may still exist in the workplace. The internal dynamics of family life are by far the most to difficult to change. It is very possible to assent politically to the ideals of equality, while at the same time being enslaved in the traditions of cultural backwardness when it comes to domestic relations in family life. The latter is by far the most difficult to change because those relations are founded on thousands of years of traditions, religious and state institution rooted in the inequality of women in the family. None of that means that we should accept backwardness in any area, but thought must be given to how it be overcome. Looking for an ideal worker to replace the contradictory worker we face in real life is not a solution. <br /><br />It is also true that all these areas of social life, the political, economic and family life, have a reciprocal relationship with each other and failure to advance in the most difficult area of family life and sexual relations will inevitably impact other spheres of social existence. But if you are looking for a pure, ideal communist whose political, economic and domestic relations mature at the same time, you will never find such a person. That's an observation, not a position. <br /><br />In the above-mentioned essay Trotsky writes,<br /><b> <i>To institute the political equality of men and women in the Soviet state was one problem and the simplest. A much more difficult one was the next - that of instituting the industrial equality of men and women workers in the factories, the mills, and the trade unions, and of doing it in such a way that the men should not put the women to disadvantage. But to achieve the actual equality of man and woman within the family is an infinitely more arduous problem. All our domestic habits must be revolutionized before that can happen. And yet it is quite obvious that unless there is actual equality of husband and wife in the family, in a normal sense as well as in the conditions of life, we cannot speak seriously of their equality in social work or even in politics. As long as woman is chained to her house work, the care of the family, the cooking and sewing, all her chances of participation in social and political life are cut down in the extreme. </i></b> Alex Steinerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09128453587484101609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-51580623685417846762023-11-17T12:42:40.140-05:002023-11-17T12:42:40.140-05:00I appreciate this website’s spot-on criticism of t...I appreciate this website’s spot-on criticism of the ICFI’s anti-MeToo crusade. That’s precisely why it is in a comradely spirit that I would suggest the authors reconsider their following statement, referenced in their latest article, <br /><br />“A male worker can be a revolutionary and yet abuse his wife.”<br /><br />What’s problematic here becomes perhaps more transparent if we turn the sentence around: <br />< A male worker can abuse his wife and yet be a revolutionary.><br /><br />However we put it, I don’t think this is a tenable position, morally or practically. As a moral mattter, we can hardly commit ourselves to the notion that a man can simultaneously be said to be, on the one hand, a revolutionary, which entails being opposed to sexism, and to engage in sexist violence, on the other. As a practical matter, it’s hardly a slogan suited to draw emancipated women to the revolutionary movement, is it?<br /><br />By way of experiment, consider the following analogous statement, <br /><br />< A white worker can be a revolutionary and yet address a Black co-worker by making ape-like noises and throwing a banana at him .><br /><br />What does that sound like? Of course the difference is that the sexist abuse, unlike the racist assault, takes place in a family relationship (marriage) by which it is mystified.Karinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-9491746252035978102023-11-11T23:41:59.530-05:002023-11-11T23:41:59.530-05:00What a long awaited eye-opening article!
I give ...What a long awaited eye-opening article! <br /><br />I give a full support to "theoretical and cultural activities" you have focused elsewhere, but I humbly ask you for more crumbs of the writings linked to the activities on this site.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-53388002106548682952023-07-14T17:18:36.588-04:002023-07-14T17:18:36.588-04:00I too met Seve Volkov at the Fordham conference in...I too met Seve Volkov at the Fordham conference in 2008! By sheer happenstance I found myself seated next to him in the cafe for breakfast. Gerry Foley was helping him as a guide and translator. He was in his usual black leather jacket, and desperate for his morning coffee, a bit cranky. The conversation turned perhaps inevitably to the assassination of his grandad. <br />I asked if he knew whether the GPU were holding the safety of Mercador’s mother over his head as insurance. Seve turned to Gerry Foley and asked, “Who is this idiot?” My knowledge of Spanish was good enough to understand this and to hear Gerry’s answer that “no he’s not an idiot, just ignorant of the facts as are many Trotskyists.” Seve grunted, nodded, looked back at me with softer blue toned eyes and said: “Pass the sugar please.” He was a formidable presence at 82 and like his grandfather he didn’t suffer fools lightly. Bob Montgomeryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09400294613512656689noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-62277980407306487142023-06-18T23:07:34.531-04:002023-06-18T23:07:34.531-04:00Thanks for your obituary Alex, I especially enjoye...Thanks for your obituary Alex, I especially enjoyed reading of your personal experiences, and those of Nina, meeting and talking to Seva. <br /><br />You’re right to note that Seva’s later courage and revolutionary optimism was doubly remarkable in light of his experiences in his youth as his family was hounded and terrorised by Stalin and his henchmen. A witness to these political crimes, he was even injured in the foot during one failed assassination attempt as the pistoleros machine gunned the rooms upon leaving Trotsky’s villa. <br /><br />Seva lived through one of Histories darkest hours - something Victor Serge described as the ‘Midnight in the Century’ in his 1939 novel of the same title - with the near extermination of a whole generation of revolutionaries following the hour of Hitlers Triumph in Germany, and Stalin’s apotheosis.<br /><br />After this experience, many with less power of conviction and resolve succumbed to cynicism, developing a postmodernist, sceptical view of the ‘grand narratives’ of marxism and modernism, eventually coming to question the entire idea of progress. <br /><br />He was not one of these lame ducks, by all accounts he was a sharp operator. His loss leaves a great hole in the workers movement, as we have lost his experience and acumen. He will be sadly missed. <br /><br />Vale Estaban Volkov. <br />Owennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-39710235397268588252023-03-08T15:20:54.607-05:002023-03-08T15:20:54.607-05:00It is linked you moron. Take a look at footnote #...It is linked you moron. Take a look at footnote #1.Alex Steinerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09128453587484101609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-36242535036222517472023-03-08T09:10:05.559-05:002023-03-08T09:10:05.559-05:00What a shame that you don't link the article y...What a shame that you don't link the article you're beefing with. That's how we know you're totally right!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-36462067590597757792022-12-07T00:49:11.742-05:002022-12-07T00:49:11.742-05:00Yes, the votes Lehman received demonstrate that an...Yes, the votes Lehman received demonstrate that anyone who is able to articulate the demands of the working class and link that to socialism can get a significant hearing in the working class. But this success happened not so much because of the SEP but in spite of the SEP. The SEP has become a schizophrenic organization. It adopted the reactionary position that the trade unions are not worth defending and that workers should abandon them. Just a little over a year ago it was advising the workers at the Amazon Bessemer plant to vote against the union!<br /><br />A screenshot taken off their website advising workers to vote NO can be found here:<br /><br /><a href="http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2021/04/socialist-equality-party-national.html" rel="nofollow">Socialist Equality Party National Secretary Joseph Kishore spreads lies about an Amazon worker and former party member</a><br /><br />The SEP also applauded the Supreme Court's infamous Janus decision in 2018. This action by the Supreme Court took away the ability of unions to organize workers in the public sector.<br />We commented about it here:<br /><br /><a href="http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2018/07/an-anti-working-class-organization_12.html" rel="nofollow">An anti-working class organization</a><br /><br />And now without a word of explanation, it is making a 180 degree turn and telling workers to vote for a candidate for the leadership of the UAW, a union widely acknowledged as one of the most corrupt in the country.<br /><br />As Peter Ross said about this turn of the SEP,<br /><br />"For years, the SEP has based its politics on the claim that unions can’t be reformed, yet now it runs a candidate for UAW president and say it wants to abolish the bureaucracy, not the union. To say the abolition of the bureaucracy wouldn’t be a reform of the union is pure sophistry. The party has in the past opposed the organization of unorganized plants. Obviously, this was a direct attack on the union, not its bureaucracy. I am still astounded that SEP members seem not to have noticed this glaring contradiction."<br /><br /><a href="http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2022/10/uaw-at-crossroads.html" rel="nofollow">The UAW at the Crossroads</a><br /><br />So I congratulate Will Lehman and hope that as he matures politically he will come to understand that the SEP is a dead-end sect that is organically incapable of taking forward the working class.Alex Steinerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09128453587484101609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-38786485388793599632022-12-06T03:32:09.214-05:002022-12-06T03:32:09.214-05:00Congratulations to the SEP are not in order. UAWD ...Congratulations to the SEP are not in order. UAWD has actually made some inroads in weakening the grip of the Administration Caucus over the union. Years of hard work by union militants accomplished that. The SEP's transient intervention has now come to an end. No organization will come out of this - all that is left are the internet self-congratulations written in advance.<br /><br />Meanwhile, here at the UC, the SEP has no influence in the strike, no presence, no connection to the hundreds of militant students carrying out a struggle against the Admin Caucus. Their articles are roundly ignored. Their "UC strike committee" is a fever dream, as always.Peter Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15849455508065622014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-25027045118493911502022-12-05T11:12:06.078-05:002022-12-05T11:12:06.078-05:00The 5000 votes for Will Lehman in the UAW election...The 5000 votes for Will Lehman in the UAW election is an incredible achievement. The outcome is all the more amazing given the fact that the union obviously suppressed membership participation to below 10 percent of all eligible voters. Congratulations are in order to the SEP. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-11706003022987683162022-11-26T08:46:17.036-05:002022-11-26T08:46:17.036-05:00Mark,
You have nothing to say that responds to m...Mark, <br /><br />You have nothing to say that responds to my note from Nov. 9.You provided a false account of our position on the Ukraine-Russian war. Your attempt to justify yourself by citing some writings of Lenin and other Marxists (without I might add actually providing any references) does not absolve you of your dishonest behavior. It is clear that it is a waste of time having any further debates with you. You are welcome to embrace the Grey Zone and Tucker Carlson and join the reactionary anti-vaxxers but you will not find a forum for that point of view here. Alex Steinerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09128453587484101609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-39084905366235935372022-11-18T21:52:34.993-05:002022-11-18T21:52:34.993-05:00Is an additional comment warranted? It's not q...Is an additional comment warranted? It's not quite clear, it's interesting that you accused me of not taking dialectics seriously, but who else is giving you a critique here which is one of the most basic forms of dialectics? Of course Hegel and Marx gave dialectics an ontological meaning, dialectics applied not merely to arguments but to concepts and societal institutions. If I did not take dialectics seriously, I probably would not have learned that.<br /><br />You assert that I've "travelled [far] away from Marxism and socialism". I don't think I have to remind you of the debates within the Second International. I've had to reread these debates on the subjects of 'self-determination' in formulating my response. I tend to side with Lenin and that means the right of oppressed peoples to secede and that this was important for Marxism. In your reference to 'self-determination' there doesn't appear to be any reference to the seminal Marxist definition of the concept.<br /><br />Of all the Marxists post Marx, I think Lenin was the most unimpeachable, does that mean he was perfect? Absolutely not, but if Lenin was right in some of these instances it also means Trotsky and Luxembourg who took opposing positions were wrong, that's why these debates are important even if we share a common goal or a common ideology. The state of Marxism is in poor shape today, because we forgot about the common goal, we want to "socially distance" ourselves, to borrow a term from Fauci, from those we deem different from ourselves as unworthy of pursuing the cause of socialism, and end up with tiny sects of those that don't deserve to be mentioned.<br /><br />I still think the Jan 6th critique would be interesting, but I'm not sure it's worth the investment given your lax attitude towards debate. Posting here it's unclear whether or not something will be published no matter how substantive the comment is.Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04624839910570059635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-65081364886780948592022-11-12T15:50:07.974-05:002022-11-12T15:50:07.974-05:00Just to follow up on the COVID discussion, I did r...Just to follow up on the COVID discussion, I did review the article that you praised. Unfortunately, that is more of an endorsement of Big Pharma than it is a critique. This article was written in December 2020, before the mass COVID vaccine rollout. Most of the article is devoted to "vaccine hesitancy", among socialists apparently! Of the few scientific claims made in the article is the one that "70 percent immunity [is] necessary to end the pandemic", and it is implied that this can be achieved through mass COVID vaccination. In practice we know that didn't work. As RFK Jr. points out in his book that several countries experienced an increase in COVID infections even in some cases with vaccination rates well above the magic 70 percent threshold. Specifically he mentions Gibraltar, Malta, Iceland, Belgium, Singapore, Britain, and Israel, all countries that had a rapid roll out of the COVID vaccines.<br /><br />One potential explanation here is that the COVID vaccines did not provide the robust immunity that they were thought to have prior to the mass rollout. Now we know that in the testing of the vaccines, in the trials overseen by both governments and Big Pharma never tested for the efficacy in terms of contraction and non-transmission of the virus. In other words the 'vaccines' were never tested as such as an actual innoculation against this particular disease. We also know from several studies that infection from SARS-Cov-2 provides a more robust immunity than that of mRNA vaccination which causes to the body to produce only a fragment of the virus, the so-called "spike protein", which also happens to be the most dangerous part causing blood clots among other issues.<br /><br />Moreover, this singular focus on "vaccination" promoted by Big Pharma, Bill Gates and the WHO, and governments around the world came at the expense at other approaches such as the "focused protection" advocated by the Great Barrington Declaration, and early treatment which could have been effective tools in reducing the spread of the virus. Instead of treating COVID, in wealthy countries we implemented draconian lockdowns that kept healthy people at home, implemented infective mask mandates, we sent sick people to work because they were considered "essential workers'', and did nothing to address the crisis in the health care system. Anyone not convinced that these policies have been a disaster should read RFK Jr.'s book.Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04624839910570059635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-40526748310165498312022-11-10T04:39:47.292-05:002022-11-10T04:39:47.292-05:00Response to Alex (Part 2):
The issue is why do yo...<br />Response to Alex (Part 2):<br /><br />The issue is why do you support COVID vaccine mandates when there is no scientific support for their efficacy in terms of the non-transmission of the virus. As for the claim that "MRNA vaccines are killing more people than Covid", I don't know, but that is a completely separate issue from whether COVID vaccines should be mandated or not, which is what the anti-mandate movement is all about.<br /><br />As for Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson, I don't know their positions on COVID vaccine mandates and I suspect you don't either.Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04624839910570059635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-65209947341463779992022-11-10T04:36:29.288-05:002022-11-10T04:36:29.288-05:00Response to Alex (Part 1):
Part of the problem is...Response to Alex (Part 1):<br /><br />Part of the problem is that you don't have a worked out or consistent position on Ukraine, you want to have it both ways. You want to cheerlead the so called Ukrainian "resistance" to Putin just like liberals at same time you want maintain some kind of commitment to Marxism and 'national self-determination'. That's where things get muddy. The Marxist concept of national self-determination, at least as I understand it, was developed from the perspective of oppresed minorities within a nation-state, exactly what we are seeing within the Donbas since the Maidan coup in 2014. The liberal from of 'self-determination' as it applies to Ukraine seems to give the right of a nation to trample on oppresed minorities, to form military and economic aliances with imperialists without any consequences.<br /><br />Is Russia imperlialist, yes, I don't think anyone needs necessarily an in depth exploration of the subject to know that. China is also imperialist, but seems to exercise a soft form of imperialism with its "belt and road initiative". At the same time, I don't think the aim of Russia was to conquer Ukraine, it seems that they were working toward a peace with Ukraine just prior to the invasion before the US and the UK sabotaged talks, then the shelling increased in the Donbas, clearly the US and NATO were provoking Russia via Ukraine. I don't know all the calculations that went into the Russian response, but it seems like the US had at least predicted such a response, which is why I would say this is as much Biden's war as it is Putin's war. From that point on, the US has been supplying arms, equipment, intelligence to the Ukrainian forces. Any Marxist claiming to support the "resistance" to Putin clearly doesn't understand what is happening on the ground.<br /><br />Is there a Marxist alternative? Didn't Lenin once advocate a policy of revolutionary defeativism? Shouldn't this apply to Ukraine, why should anyone defend a totalitarian government dominated by neo-Nazis?<br /><br />As for the reference to Tucker Calson that seems like a red herring. I haven't noticed any alliance between Tucker Carlson and the Grayzone. Even so, not sure the neo-fascist descriptor is accurate in reference to Tucker, maybe you would care to explain that. To Tucker's credit he provides a platform for some left wing commentators (like the Max Blumenthal, Jimmy Dore), he has opposed the Ukraine proxy war, exposed details of the Nord-stream sabotage. He is objectively to the left of any cable news commentator at least from my limited knowledge of this space.Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04624839910570059635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-11552656662988251092022-11-09T20:14:19.284-05:002022-11-09T20:14:19.284-05:00I will not waste time debating with people who bel...I will not waste time debating with people who believe that MRNA vaccines are killing more people than Covid. Just as I will not engage in "debates" with Creationists and flat-earthers. I learned long ago, when the 9/11 "Truthers" first came on the scene, that you cannot have a meaningful exchange with people who live in a self-contained bubble that is impervious to logic or the rules of evidence. The fact that a significant section of conspiracy theorists, including those in the anti-vaxx movement, have made common cause with right wing neo-fascists like Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson, says a great deal about the political implications of a turn from a distrust of authority into a rebellion against science and rational thought. A certain amount of scepticism about authority can be a healthy impulse but when this distrust of authority becomes an Absolute it throws out the baby with the bathwater. <br /><br />But I will answer one question you asked - can I cite any literature from a Marxist perspective that provides a critique of Big Pharma. As a matter of fact there have been tons of literature on Big Pharma from a Marxist perspective. I will just cite one of the better one that I found online,<br /><br /><a href="https://www.marxist.com/covid-19-vaccine-big-pharma.htm" rel="nofollow">COVID-19 vaccines: Big Pharma profits trump human lives</a>Alex Steinerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09128453587484101609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-88713542358341684552022-11-09T19:29:19.909-05:002022-11-09T19:29:19.909-05:00Reply to Mark Part I
Nice that you fail to quote ...Reply to Mark Part I<br /><br />Nice that you fail to quote the remainder of that paragraph after the part about defending Ukraine's right to self-determination,<br /><br />"..This is crucial in the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Ukrainian masses who are currently largely under the sway of right wing and fascist forces. At the same time the revolutionary left must warn the Ukrainian masses about the alternative trap of aligning themselves with U.S. imperialism and NATO. The slogan of the day must be ‘neither Moscow nor Washington but an independent socialist Ukraine as a step toward the United Socialist States of Europe.’ That Is the only way to concretize the struggle for internationalism and overcome the destructive force of nationalism."<br /><br />We have made it clear from the beginning that the right of Ukraine to self-determination is subordinate to the larger inter-imperialist conflict between the US/NATO and Russia. <br /><br />We wrote in Part II of our analysis of the Ukraikne-Russian War,<br /><b> "The larger context in addressing the national question – an inter-imperialist conflict </b><br />Finally what we consider the legitimacy of Ukraine’s right to self-determination must not be taken in isolation from the larger context of the inter-imperialist conflict between Russian and NATO/U.S. We cannot lose sight of the basic truth that Ukraine’s right to self-determination is intertwined with NATO’s hostile actions against Russia. We do not take either side in this conflict and stress that those who live in countries allied with NATO have a particular responsibility to oppose NATO and specifically to oppose NATO’s intervention in the war.<br /><b> Opposition to sanctions and the anti-Russian witch-hunt </b><br />Finally we must oppose all sanctions against Russia and the anti-Russian witch hunt currently being pushed by the EU and the Biden Administration. Sanctions are a form of economic warfare and therefore just another means of carrying on and extending the war. Support for sanctions by NATO countries is in fact support for the war drive by NATO. While we understand why many of those who wish to show their solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance support sanctions, it is the duty of international socialists to oppose them."<br /><br />Aside from your dishonest selective quotations aimed at distorting our position you have exactly zero, nothing, to say about the theoretical basis for our position - our analysis of the nature of the conflict as an inter-imperialist conflict based on our analysi of the nature and therefore the trajectory of Russia as well as NATO and US imperialism. This was the method empplyed by Lenin and Trotsky when they had to develop a policy around war. It's certainly possible we are mistaken somewhere in our analysis, but you counter not with an alternative analysis but with stupid innuendoes and name calling.<br /><br />As for the Grey Zone, I used to appreciate some of their journalism but they were never anything more than inverted liberals and now we see where inverted liberalism takes you - into a "united front" with neo-fascists like Tucker Carlson.Alex Steinerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09128453587484101609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-67548017181016639622022-11-07T13:28:44.792-05:002022-11-07T13:28:44.792-05:00Ann, you are right, Lehman released a video statem...Ann, you are right, Lehman released a video statement on September 8. The sentence you refer to incorrectly implies that the campaign has not publicized the strike at all. In fact, UAWD has also provided some support for the strike. They have visited the picket lines and raised funds. My last comment about WSWS not posting anything between May and October was also incorrect. This was based on the internal search function at their website rather than Google. Indeed, this was a serious error on my part, and I thank you for pointing it out. It is up to Steiner whether he wishes to issue a retraction.<br /><br />While I accept full responsibility for an inadvertent misrepresentation, I stand by the point we were trying to make, which is that the support provided by both groups for the strike has been totally inadequate. The campaigns could have been used to call for mass rallies, bucket drops, days of action, etc. The SEP refuses to seriously organize to defend the strike with actions like these because it doesn’t want to work with anyone it doesn’t control. Publishing a video on an obscure website few workers will see hardly counts as using the campaign to publicize the strike. UAWD, meanwhile, has mostly forgotten about the strike, or at least doesn’t consider it to be of much importance.Peter Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15849455508065622014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-73671488289091570622022-11-06T17:01:17.523-05:002022-11-06T17:01:17.523-05:00Peter why are you not being truthful about CNH? A ...Peter why are you not being truthful about CNH? A simple Google search clearly shows it. I read the WSWS newsletter and it’s been reported on alot. Will even released a video about it. His campaign is being blacked out by the mass media and the greasy pole climbers in the AFL-CIO, and this blog is also misrepresenting it.<br /><br />Since you tried to imply my earlier comment lacked substance, which also isn’t true, I can explain it to you simply.<br /><br />You have repeated a blatant lie to try to make Will’s campaign look bad. And this probably goes to the deepest problem with your piece, and that’s a lack of engagement with the politics of the campaign, including the issues that workers are raising all over the country for pay, conditions and legitimate representation in the plants, and the popularity of socialist and internationalist demands among American workers. It’s nothing short of historic and timely. What does that mean on the eve of elections in which the Democrats are prepared to let the fascist Republicans take control of the government? <br /><br />But you can’t deal honestly with the facts, so there’s faint hope for serious discussion with you on the more complex and important issues.Annnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-27931756692294893012022-11-04T11:57:48.091-04:002022-11-04T11:57:48.091-04:00This is an important contribution to a debate on t...This is an important contribution to a debate on the position of the SEP. However, I think this line is open to scrutiny: "Rather, the SEP insists that the committees must be in full political agreement with itself on all issues."<br /><br />Perhaps the "committee" itself, but the "participants" need not be in agreement with the SEP. <br /><br />SEP supporters will hone in on this line and respond by quoting things such as this, from the WSWS: <br /><br />"A few broader points should be made here on the workers who participated in the committee at various stages. As we’ve noted previously, many in this region in southwestern Virginia previously voted for Trump, including some of those workers who would come into leading positions on the committee itself. There were also other political viewpoints: those who supported the Democrats, either Biden or Sanders. Others expressed anarcho-syndicalist politics. And there were also some who considered themselves socialists."<br /><br />It is necessary to be more clear on this point. Yes, the committee is not an organic product of workers truly lead by the rank and file. However, "anyone can participate." The nature of this "participation" is certainly open to criticisms.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-13735647061283081272022-11-03T03:35:56.018-04:002022-11-03T03:35:56.018-04:00Ann, between May 20 and October 20, when our artic...Ann, between May 20 and October 20, when our article was published, WSWS did not publish a single article on the strike. Fine, there are many issues to discuss; perhaps the omission can be excused. But what has the SEP or the Lehman campaign done to defend the strike? Have they worked to organize rallies or fundraising efforts? No, because this would require working with people that don't belong to their "rank-and-file committees."<br /><br />Exactly which faction of the UAW apparatus are you implying we belong to? For someone so concerned with rigor and evidence, you throw around accusations rather lightly.<br /><br />Do you have anything of substance to say?Peter Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15849455508065622014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2062509833711600070.post-8563688160338171582022-10-31T16:32:41.273-04:002022-10-31T16:32:41.273-04:00>Perhaps most glaringly, neither UAWD nor the S...>Perhaps most glaringly, neither UAWD nor the SEP has publicized the ongoing strike of 700 Case tractor factory workers in Racine, Wisconsin, or attempted to use their campaigns to mobilize workers across the UAW to defend the strike.<br /><br />Might want to follow the Lehman campaign a little more closely before getting this kind of thing blatantly wrong in a rant about how he’s against your faction of the UAW apparatus. <br />This is just false, in at least two states, Wisconsin an Iowa.Ann in West Allisnoreply@blogger.com