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25291 petition -- rank: 1000

[to sign, visit <http://www.zmag.org/wspj/index.cfm> - 2,654 sigs as of 10:57 AM EST] "I stand for peace and justice. I stand for democracy and autonomy. I don't think the U.S. or any other country should ignore the popular will and violate and weaken international law, seeking to bully and bribe votes in the Security Council. I stand for internationalism. I oppose any nation spreading an ever expanding network of military bases around the world and producing an arsenal unparalleled ...

Document Size:	7003
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Mar 27 07:57:40 PST 2003

25292 IRAQWAR.RU 3/26 -- rank: 1000

Kelley wrote: >Obviously, Russian intelligence has a lot of reasons to monitor >what's going on. Monitor, for sure. But disseminate? That strikes me as very interesting. Far from discouraging the emergence of rivals to the U.S., the war on Iraq seems to be encouraging them - Russia (with the EU?) and China. Doug

Document Size:	4636
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Mar 27 06:13:53 PST 2003

25293 IRAQWAR.RU 3/26 -- rank: 1000

John Mage wrote: >www.iraqwar.ru Fascinating. So who are they and what are their sources? Russian intelligence? Russian companies helping Iraq can't be an accident. What's Russia's interest in this? Fucking with the US? Doug

Document Size:	4531
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 18:37:40 PST 2003

25294 Revolutionary Defeatism -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >US leftists, as far as I can see, are as sophisticated in >understanding capitalism as leftists in nations such as France and >Venezuela who are far better organized and more powerful than here. >I conclude that US leftists are lacking not in what Marx was good at >but in what Lenin excelled. I don't see it that way. On the U.S. left, broadly defined, there are a lot of delusions about the charms of petty capitalism - the problem is more one of scale rathe ...

Document Size:	5573
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 18:33:47 PST 2003

25295 Leftists in the USA, Israel, and Japan -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >Among leftists, which nations' leftists are the most responsible for >the current sorry state of political affairs? I'd say US, Israeli, >and Japanese leftists. The USA and Israel are the only countries >where the majority of the populations say that they are in favor of >the current war on Iraq. Opinion surveys reveal that about 80% of >the Japanese are said to be opposed to the war, but protests in >Japan have been far smaller than in the other ...

Document Size:	5483
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 18:24:13 PST 2003

25296 Leninism in 2003 (was: Re: Revolutionary Defeatism -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >You sound like a schoolmaster. What's "a good answer" in your >opinion? How do you know what "a good answer to what it means to be >a Leninist" since you aren't a Leninist, know nothing about it, and >have no interest in listening to what Leninists think Leninism is? Au contraire, I'm all ears. I welcome self-identified Leninists to the list, and am very curious to hear how they define themselves. And the attempts at definition so far h ...

Document Size:	5467
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 16:53:14 PST 2003

25297 Leninism in 2003 (was: Re: Revolutionary Defeatism -- rank: 1000

LouPaulsen wrote: >Jeez, Doug, think what you like :-( If you want 'precision' in defining >adherence to an ideology in practice, you ain't gonna get it. What's >Christianity, *precisely*? Adherence to the Nicene Creed? What's >liberalism? "Leftism"? This is the Left Business Observer list, so what >precisely does it mean to be "Left"? What's Darwinism? What is it to be an >economist? Precisely? > >If you think there has to be some magic secre ...

Document Size:	5891
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 16:37:32 PST 2003

25298 Revolutionary Defeatism -- rank: 1000

BrownBingb at aol.com wrote: >CB: What's it mean to be a Marxist in the USA in 2003 ? Why is being >a Marxist in 2003 in the USA less a fringe tendency than being a >Leninist ? Marxism is about an understanding of capitalism - the root of value production in exploitation, its transformation into a variety of phenomenal forms, the centrality of class, etc. etc. Leninism is mostly about political practice. You can be a Marxist and believe in vanguard parties or street parties as the centr ...

Document Size:	5019
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 16:32:19 PST 2003

25299 Leninism in 2003 (was: Re: Revolutionary Defeatism -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >Lenin was born after Marx, if you haven't noticed. By that >standard, Marx should be more obsolete than Lenin. Not necessarily. Marx did a theoretical analysis of the fundamental structures of capitalism, and devised a mode of analysis applicable to many historical circumstances. Lenin was a pragmatist, who wrote mainly of and for the moment. I'm still waiting for you, Lou, or Carrol, or anyone else to define Leninism with some precision. I see a lot of lowest com ...

Document Size:	6338
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 16:07:28 PST 2003

25300 get your piece of Iraq! -- rank: 1000

[this is as plausible as some stuff you see on Fox - via Sam Smith's Progressive Review] IRAQ LAND FOR EACH AMERICAN, TABLOID PROMISES WEEKLY WORLD NEWS - A Super-secret White House initiative promises to take some of the sting out of the coming depression by giving every man, woman and child in America "a piece of Iraq" after we crush Saddam Hussein in the coming war. Sources confirm that President George W. Bush hit on the plan after polls showed increasing numbers of Americans are ...

Document Size:	5609
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 15:37:12 PST 2003

25301 Leninism in 2003 (was: Re: Revolutionary Defeatism -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >At 4:01 PM -0500 3/26/03, Doug Henwood wrote: >>And one of the things that I and many other non-Leninists learned >>from it is that there's great danger in having secretive, >>hierarchical organizations lead revolutions in the name of a whole >>class (which in Russia's case, barely existed - and even less so in >>China's). > >Lenin's idea was not to have a revolutionary movement composed >solely of wage workers, and you would kno ...

Document Size:	6448
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 15:19:23 PST 2003

25302 Leninism in 2003 (was: Re: Revolutionary Defeatism -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >Just out of curiosity, how do you intend to survive physically and >politically if conditions in the USA begin to resemble what >revolutionaries in the past had to, and in many poor nations still >have to, work under? There is no need to be alarmist and paranoid, >but we can't say that's never gonna happen, as the USA is at least >clearly heading into that direction. Anti-war protests in the USA >have been sometimes big enough to be encouraging, bu ...

Document Size:	5644
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 15:13:35 PST 2003

25303 Kurdish Take -- rank: 1000

Max B. Sawicky wrote: >The best way to help the Kurds is to give them >some of those cool toys the US military has. yeah, that worked real well in Afghanistan.

Document Size:	4447
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 13:54:46 PST 2003

25304 Gary Hart: Code Red is coming -- rank: 1000

loupaulsen at attbi.com wrote: > > "Don't be surprised if in the coming hours or days we go to Code Red," >> Hart said this morning in Washington. "It is almost inevitable." > >Isn't Code Red where they fucking shoot you if you step outside your house? >I'm not joking. I read stuff from New Jersey and Connecticut where they said >if it goes to Code Red, everyone stay inside - the only one outside is the >terrorist. Yup that's what they said. The ...

Document Size:	5159
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 13:33:21 PST 2003

25305 Leninism in 2003 (was: Re: Revolutionary Defeatism -- rank: 1000

loupaulsen at attbi.com wrote: >Doug wrote (to Carroll): >> I've read quite a bit of Lenin, and I still don't really know what it >> means to be a Leninist in the USA of 2003. Perhaps you could join >> Yoshie in clarifying this for me. > >Well, I'll throw out a few points about what it means to me. This is not a >comprehensive picture and I am concentrating on the points which would >distinguish me as a Leninist from a self-described 'radical', 'democratic &g ...

Document Size:	9410
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Mar 26 13:01:55 PST 2003