From pnews@igc.apc.org Sun Oct 31 10:41:53 EST 1993 Article: 1271 of alt.society.revolution Path: news.itd.umich.edu!destroyer!gumby!yale!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu!agate!ames!sgi!cdp!pnews From: Hank Roth Newsgroups: alt.society.revolution Date: 30 Oct 93 17:58 PDT Subject: PNEWS ONLINE [Oct 30] Message-ID: <1858200014@cdp> Sender: Notesfile to Usenet Gateway Lines: 518 /* Written 4:41 pm Oct 30, 1993 by cd619@cleveland.Freenet.Edu in igc:p.news */ /* ---------- "PNEWS ONLINE [Oct 30]" ---------- */ From: cd619@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Hank Roth) Subject: PNEWS ONLINE [Oct 30] Reply-To: cd619@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Hank Roth) PNEWS ONLINE [October 30, 1993] _ _ ________|_|_________________________|_|________ | | | PNEWS ONLINE/a compilation of excerpts | | from various pnews conferences. | | There are 5 pnews conferences, P_news | | on FidoNet [2 years on the zone 1 backbone. | | Ask your sysop to get it for you.], | | pnews-L and pnews.d-L on InterNet [To | | subscribe, send request to: | | , and there is | | p.news and p.news.discuss on PeaceNet. | | [To subscribe to PeaceNet, call: | | (415) 442-0220] | |_______________________________________________| | | | | | | | | _| |__ _| |__ / |_| /| / |_| /| |~~~~~|/` |~~~~~|/` `~~~~~` `~~~~~` These conferences provide an alternative for those interested in a *LEFT* perspective and "PROGRESSIVE" issues. The objectives of pnews conferences are to provide a cross-fertilization of "ALTERNATIVE" progressive and dissident views---to propose and discuss new world visions, to present ideas that CHALLENGE PREVAILING DOMINANT VIEWS; and to advance the cause of PEACEFUL RESOLUTION of matters that greatly concern us. The primary emphasis for the conferences shall continue to be the presentation of "PROGRESSIVE" NEWS, VIEWS, and occasionally some POETRY. "Progressive," meaning that which tends to improve society, the advancement of knowledge and visions for a better future. Hank Roth, Moderator/facilitator [pnews conferences] & PNEWS ONLINE ################################################### =-=-=-=-=-=-= From: Hank Roth "You know that the first thing patients receive in any hospital emergency room in America is an examination of their wallets. Until we have socialized medicine, there won't be a mechanism for providing medical care in public hospitals. We don't need VA hospitals, which do provide draconian care, if at all, we need medical care which will be available to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay." ************************************* [The following is from the draft statement of shared principles and purpose of the Committees of Correspondence, issued for public discussion on June 1, 1992.] "We are motivated by the profound conviction that our country needs a humane alternative to the anti-human system of capitalism. For the majority of working people, and especially racially and nationally oppressed people, this system does not work. After the 1980s Decade of Greed, the top 1 percent of wealth-holders have more property than the bottom 90 percent. Capitalism is fundamentally militarist, elitist, racist, sexist, homophobic and destructive of the environment on which all life depends." ************************************* Bernie Sanders, now [1990] the first independent-socialist Congressman in 60 years [Quoted in The Nation, June 11, 1990:] "Last year, in order to benefit the rich and the powerful, the U.S. Congress and the President passed legislation which is probably the biggest single rip-off in the history of this country -- the bailout of the crooks and swindlers who destroyed the American savings and loan industry. How ironic that the congress was able to find $500 billion in order to bail out the real estate speculators and junk bond dealers, but the same Congress to find $500 billion in order to bail out the real estate speculators and junk bond dealers, but the same Congress can find no money for out children, for the environment, for health care or for the needs of our senior citizens." # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke ------------------------------------------------------------------- "When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor were hungry, they called me a communist" --Dom Helder Camara Brazilian Bishop Nobel Peace Prize nominee - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up." --Pastor Martin Niemoller. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Covert action is nothing more than "a semantic disguise for murder, coercion, blackmail, bribery, the spreading of lies, whatever is deemed useful to bending other countries to our will." --Former Senator Frank Church, 1982 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." -- George Orwell, "Notes on Nationalism," 1945 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "...dissent, protest, presures of a wide variety that escape elite control can modify the calculus of costs of planners, and offer a slight hope that Washington can be compelled to permit at least some steps towards 'justice, freedom and democracy' within its domains." --Noam Chomsky, January 1988 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: zodiac@io.org (Zodiac) Subject: Marx's free trade speech of 1848 NAFTA is making headlines in Canada, Mexico and the US. Under its usual dwarfed perspective, the mainstream press presents it as "news", that is, completely new ideas. Little historical perspective is provided. Of course, the free trade question in western developed economies has been around a long time. The great free traders of the 19th century were the British -- _the_ bourgeois power of the world. For your reading pleasure, I present Karl Marx's 1848 speech on the then raging question of whether Britain should throw open its tariff system for free trade. The arguments remain surprisingly fresh. For instance: Marx writes a little dialogue in which the various classes discuss amongst themselves the costs/benefits of free trade. The free trade boosters argue thus: "We admit that competition among the workers, which will certainly not have diminished under free trade, will very soon bring wages into harm... But, on the other hand, the low price of commodities will increase consumption, the larger consumption will require increased production, which will be followed by a larger demand for hands, and this larger demand for hands will be followed by a rise in wages." Boy, does _that_ ever sound familiar... (Admittedly, Canadians seem a little more versed on this issue having held the entire 1988 election on whether we should enter a free trade agreement (FTA) with the Americans. The above quote was almost word for word the business pro-free trade argument.) In 1840s Britain, the power elite enlist all manner of bamboozle to sell the various class interests on the idea. My favorite slogan used by the pro-free-trade campaign was: "Jesus Christ is Free Trade, and Free Trade is Jesus Christ." :-) But the main point in Marx's speech was pretty straightforward. And it remains true today. It is this if free trade promises lower commodity prices (and it will deliver on that, if unmolested), that includes _all_ commodities. And in capitalism, LABOR is a commodity. Thus, it too will fall in marketable price. So while goods may become cheaper, people will be paid less money. In the final analysis, Marx contended that the free trade issue is a capitalist issue. It's their agenda. "Let us assume for a moment that there are no more... custom duties; in fact that all the accidental circumstances which today the worker may take to be the cause of his miserable condition have entirely vanished, and you will have removed so many curtains that hide from his eyes his true enemy. "He will see that capital become free will make him no less a slave than capital trammeled by customs duties." Marx warns against buying the bullshit peddled by suddenly so- brotherly business interests, who trumpet the benefits _everyone_ will share from free trade, the great "brotherhood of nations": "The brotherhood which free trade would establish between the nations of the Earth would hardly be more fraternal. To call cosmopolitan exploitation universal brotherhood is an idea that could only be engendered in the brain of the bourgeoisie. All the destructive phenomena which unlimited competition gives rise to within one country are reproduced in more gigantic proportions on the world market." Same shit... Different market... Ken. ******************************* From: Hank Roth GF> "GROVER FURR" Subject: "Stalinism" Any critical analysis of Stalin must also take into consideration "lies" by the capitalists to discredit communism. If Stalin was corrupted, how did it happen that Stalin as a young revolutionary was deeply concerned, as demonstrated in his writing, not only about workers but also the peasants and other oppressed minorities? GF> I prefer to be critical of Stalin and the Bolshevik movement in GF> his time for things that they actually DID, as opposed to the GF> lies about them that are spread abroad by the ruling class, GF> and which these and others have swallowed. GF> I also prefer to understand WHY Stalin and the Bolshevik GF> movement in his time made the errors that in fact they made. GF> Of course, first you must discover what really happened, GF> which is a very different matter from simply reading what GF> Trotsky, anti-communist propagandists like Conquest, fascist GF> nationalist films like "Harvest of Despair", etc. SAY GF> happened. I'm not a Stalinist; I'm not even sure if I can lay claim to being a Marxist anymore than Marx was when he said he was NOT a Marxist...My personal interests are not so much in reinterpreting history as it is to determine where I stand existentially and interpreting my own feelings about the gross injustices being perpetrated daily and not least of which, how to just survive personally, in a time of economic uncertainty and with a 30 year old handicapped son? Empiricalism is the greatest teacher. But I think some of you have the luxury of being very comfortable and writing about these things as some kind of academic exercise....I think that most of YOU do care, but feel as powerless about doing anything...as I do and while we are arguing and speculating about the many contradictions of recorded history "the beat goes on." If we examine the facts, it should be with a constant reexamination of our own assumptions and it seems to me that is what Grover is saying. There were traitors, spies, saboteurs and oppositionists who wanted to overthrow the socialist regime, split the party, and ultimately restore capitalism in the USSR....Where to now? By all means carry on with your debate. But, what are you doing in your personal lives to make a difference? ******************************* {From THE SWORD AND THE DOLLAR: Imperialism, Revolution, and the Arms Race, by Michael Parenti, St. Martins Press, 1989} THE COST OF EMPIRE (pg 74-81) Let us consider in more detail what it costs to maintain "our" military-industrial global empire. If you are an unemployed worker whose plant has just moved to South Korea or Brazil or Indonesia in pursuit of higher profits, the first thing that might come to mind is the number of jobs "our" empire has cost us. As early as 1916, Lenin pointed out that at an advanced stage capitalism would export not only its goods but its very capital, not only its products but its entire production process. Today, most giant American firms do just that, exporting their capital, their technology, factories, and sales networks. It is well known that General Motors has been closing down factories in the USA; less well known is that GM has been spending billons of dollars abroad on new auto plants in countries where wages are far less than what American autoworkers are paid. This means bigger profits for GM but more unemployment for Detroit. [...] Multinationals do not have to pay US income taxes on profits made in other countries until these profits are repatriated to the USA---if ever they are. Taxes paid to the host country are treated as tax credits rather than mere tax deductions, that is, write-offs from the taxes that would normally have to be paid to the US Treasury rather than from the income that is taxable. The miultinational can juggle the books among its various foreign subsidiaries, showing low profits in a high-tax country and high profits in a low-tax country so as to avoid paying substantial taxes anywhere. Management's threat to relocate a plant is often sufficient to blackmail US workers into taking wage cuts, surrendering benefits, working longer hours, and even putting up money of their own for new plants and retooling---all of which represent a net transfer of income from workers to owners. [...] Nor do the benefits of this empire trickle down to the American consumer in any appreciable way. Generally the big companies sell the goods made abroad at as high a price as possible on American marekts. Corporations move to Asia and Africa to increase their profits, not to produce lower-priced goods that will save money for American consumers. They pay as little as they can in wages abroad but still charge as much as they can when they sell the goods at home. >From one-half to two-thirds of the major winter and early spring vegetables consumed in the United States are imported from poor countries, pricipally Mexico, where the land and labor cost a fraction of what they do in the USA. Yet these vegetables are not sold at cheaper prices than homegrown produce. Likewise, the General Electric household appliances made by young women in South Korea and Singapore who work for subsistence wages, and the Admiral International color television sets assembled by low-paid workers in Taiwan do not cost less than when they were made in the USA. As the president of Admiral noted, the move to Taiwan "won't affect pricing state-side but it should improve the company's profit structure, otherwise we woudn't be making the move." We already noted how overseas investments have brought increasing misery to the Third World. Of interest here is how some of that misery comes home as a visitation upon the American people. We have heard much in our media about the "refugees from Communism"; we might think a moment about the refugees from capitalism. Driven off their lands, large numbers of impoverished Latinos and other Third Worlders have been compelled to flee into economic exile, coming to the United States, many of them illegally, to compete with American workers for entry-level jobs that are becoming increasingly scarce. Because of their illegal status and vulnerability to deportation, undocumented workers are least likely to unionize and least able to fight for improvements in work conditions. So they serve as a reserve army of labor, further depressing the wage market for American workers. ******************************* From: NLG Civil Liberties Committee What is Fascism? by Chip Berlet [Excerpts] |This article is adapted from the author's preface to Russ |Bellant's book "Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican |Party," co-published by South End Press and Political Research |Associates. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = "Fascism, which was not afraid to call itself reactionary... does not hesitate to call itself illiberal and anti-liberal." --Benito Mussolini = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = We have all heard of the Nazis--but our image is usually a caricature of a brutal goose-stepping soldier wearing a uniform emblazoned with a swastika. Most people in the U.S. are aware that the U.S. and its allies fought a war against the Nazis, but there is much more to know if one is to learn the important lessons of our recent history. Technically, the word NAZI was the acronym for the National Socialist German Worker's Party. It was a fascist movement that had its roots in the European nationalist and socialist movements, and that developed a grotesque biologically- determinant view of so-called "Aryan" supremacy. (Here we use "national socialism" to refer to the early Nazi movement before Hitler came to power, sometimes termed the "Brownshirt" phase, and the term "Nazi" to refer to the movement after it had consolidated around ideological fascism.) The seeds of fascism, however, were planted in Italy. "Fascism is reaction," said Mussolini, but reaction to what? The reactionary movement following World War I was based on a rejection of the social theories that formed the basis of the 1789 French Revolution, and whose early formulations in this country had a major influence on our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. It was Rousseau who is best known for crystallizing these modern social theories in . The progeny of these theories are sometimes called Modernism or Modernity because they challenged social theories generally accepted since the days of Machiavelli. The response to the French Revolution and Rousseau, by Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche> and others, poured into an intellectual stew which served up Marxism, socialism, national socialism, fascism, modern liberalism, modern conservatism, communism, and a variety of forms of capitalist participatory democracy. Fascists particularly loathed the social theories of the French Revolution and its slogan: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." *** Liberty from oppressive government intervention in the daily lives of its citizens, from illicit searches and seizures, from enforced religious values, from intimidation and arrest for dissenters; and liberty to cast a vote in a system in which the majority ruled but the minority retained certain inalienable rights. *** Equality in the sense of civic equality, egalitarianism, the notion that while people differ, they all should stand equal in the eyes of the law. *** Fraternity in the sense of the brotherhood of mankind. That all women and men, the old and the young, the infirm and the healthy, the rich and the poor, share a spark of humanity that must be cherished on a level above that of the law, and that binds us all together in a manner that continuously re-affirms and celebrates life. This is what fascism as an ideology was reacting against--and its support came primarily from desperate people anxious and angry over their perception that their social and economic position was sinking and frustrated with the constant risk of chaos, uncertainty and inefficiency implicit in a modern democracy based on these principles. Fascism is the antithesis of democracy. We fought a war against it not half a century ago; millions perished as victims of fascism and champions of liberty. ******************************* From: jturner@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu (Jeffrey Turner) Subject: Intellectuals Right now the dominant class in both the US and UK is primarily conservative. So are many "intellectuals". Conservative intellectuals do serve the interests of the ruling class by generating theoretical underpinnings for the wishes and preferences of the rulers. These intellectuals are recompensed by jobs with "conservative" think tanks, honoraria to speak at conservative meetings, etc. Thus they ARE servants of the dominant class and are seen to be such by that class. Liberal intellectuals serve the (smaller) liberal section of the dominant class and are similarly paid for their services. The small group of Marxist or socialist intellectuals are generally ignored and refused entry into many of the main channels of "the free interchange of ideas" (i.e. the mass media). To argue that most, if not all intelectuals are liberal and/or Marxist/socialist is disingenuous and/or a deliberate attempt to further the cause of the ruling class. ******************************* The Ugly and The Profane by Hank Roth Her stomach hard and disgourged. She is hungry. Her scalp is sore with sun Blisters and her face is caked with dirt from Days of unwashed grime. She is sitting in Her wheelchair, sitting because thats all she Can do without any legs or arms; with only Her cup on her lap for coins. She is On the boardwalk at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. You stare at her only When she looks away, not wanting to see Her eyes because it embarrasses you. You just want to shout silently at her: "Please go away." You don't want to see her because she doesn't exist in your world. ******************************* Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed. -William Penn ******************************* ******************************* If you have access to InterNet and wish to subscribe to a pnews conference there, send request to: ----------------------------------------------------------------- If you are reading this on FidoNet, ask your sysop to also carry P_news. On the national backbone for over two years. --------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe to PeaceNet's worldwide network by calling: (415) 442-0220. Tell them Hank from "pnews" sent you. [There are 2 pnews conferences on PeaceNet]. ------------------------------------------------------------- odin@world.std.com pnews@igc.apc.org. (On Fidonets at 151/101) ###################################################