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91 [lbo-talk] Dale Farm fight eviction -- rank: 1000

Who s afraid of the Dale Farm Travellers? | James Heartfield The only crime committed by this community is that it dared to resolve the housing shortage for itself. http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/11073/

Document Size:	4818
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Sep 13 18:57:54 PDT 2011

92 [lbo-talk] London riots anew -- rank: 1000

Richard Seymour says that there has been no revision in the SWP s position on the riots. This is what Gary Macfarlane wrote in Socialist Worker on 13 August Karl Marx was exactly right when he talked about expropriating the expropriators, taking back what they have taken from us. That s what looting by poor working class people represents and in that sense it is a deeply political act. This is what Brian Robertson wrote in Socialist Review in September Part of the reason for this explosion is th ...

Document Size:	5769
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Sep 9 00:42:30 PDT 2011

93 [lbo-talk] London riots anew -- rank: 1000

Last month the British Socialist Workers Party were lauding the riots as the British equivalent of the Arab Spring. This month, the same riots are systematic looting , not necessarily radical collective or progressive and a sign of the relative weakness of the left. "It would be churlish to deny that some of that looting was systematic and planned and some involved organised gangs. ... "The behaviour of individual looters may not have necessarily been consciously radical, collective ...

Document Size:	5285
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Sep 8 16:17:05 PDT 2011

94 [lbo-talk] Me in Dissent -- rank: 1000

Doug: What's wrong with firing squads, ha ha? Up against the wall, MotherF....

Document Size:	4571
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Sep 8 14:59:12 PDT 2011

95 [lbo-talk] Ripping off public education (was Occupy Oakland) -- rank: 1000

Joanna writes about public education in Oakland which is getting more horrific by the day as funds are used to pay interest on a scam the state ran a few years ago, pay for huge administration and consulting costs, and for a continual churn of closings and charter conversions Which struck my eye because it is pretty much what happened to public services in England, too. So-called consultants were always being brought in to advise on (pointless) reorganisations. Schools, hospitals and other so ...

Document Size:	5646
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Oct 23 06:42:34 PDT 2011

96 [lbo-talk] Jacobin debate up -- rank: 1000

Bhaskar on the appeal of the ows movement: People are sympathetic to it, because it's anti-austerity. Are you sure? I think a lot of protestors are against specific austerity measures, but does in not have its own austerity ideals?

Document Size:	4682
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Oct 20 00:01:21 PDT 2011

97 [lbo-talk] Dale Farm evictions -- rank: 1000

Right now hundreds of Gypsies are being dragged from their homes at the Dale Farm site, Essex Background, here:http://jacobinmag.com/blog/?p=1622

Document Size:	4739
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Oct 19 09:01:07 PDT 2011

98 [lbo-talk] query: from anarchist to marxist??? -- rank: 1000

I think Charles highlights the important things about Lenin. To add my tuppenceworth ... I would highlight Lenin s insistence that the spontaneous thoughts of the masses are not immediately class consciousness. In this he follows in the enlightenment tradition, borrowing from the distinction that (Hegel says) Rousseau makes between the Many Wills and the General Will. Borrowing some terminology from the German idealists, he distinguishes between the Class in itself and the Class for itself (thou ...

Document Size:	8255
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Oct 18 14:08:36 PDT 2011

99 [lbo-talk] Susan Abulhawa on WITBD for Palestine (rights vs. statehood -- rank: 1000

Joe, did you really say that Palestinians do not want a state, or did I misread that? Maybe I am out of date, but when I was there in 1998 it was what everyone I spoke to wanted. For them, there would have been no obvious difference between ending the military occupation and setting up a state. I guess that there might be some ideological confusion sown by the problems the Palestine National Authority has had since then, and also by the confusion between the demands 'two states' and 'democratic ...

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Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Oct 16 04:10:18 PDT 2011

100 [lbo-talk] Susan Abulhawa on WITBD for Palestine (rights vs. statehood -- rank: 1000

Joe C. posted: This, in my opinion, is what we should be working toward.? Calling for our natural rights as human beings and as an indigenous people is what unifies us all.? To be accorded human rights is our rightful inheritance.? I think statehood is a clearer demand. What natural right? What are indigenous people? Are some humans indigenous and some not? to be accorded by whom?

Document Size:	5225
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Oct 15 10:34:29 PDT 2011

101 [lbo-talk] OWS teach-in: where to start -- rank: 1000

Occupy Wall Street is the left s own Tea Party, so we should not be surprised at the occasional intellectual crossover: The lefties who pick up Ron Paul's line on the Fed don't really understand that he has a coherent political philosophy. When says "end the Fed" he means "switch to gold." Again, that makes sense from his POV. But why an unemployed kid should embrace the gold standard, well, that makes no sense. (Quoth Doug) Both movements, Tea Party and OWS, give voice to p ...

Document Size:	7061
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Oct 8 01:00:11 PDT 2011

102 [lbo-talk] In London -- rank: 1000

The marches were large, but not massive. Most schools were struck out, especially in London. There were pickets on a lot of public buildings. Prime Minister Cameron and his minster tried to strike a Thatcherite pose, but not with much conviction. Everyone I have talked to thinks that the government s raiding the public sector pension fund to meet the budget shortfall is like thieving, and there is not a strong hostility to the public sector built up in the way that there was in the 1980s. It was ...

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Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Nov 30 13:09:03 PST 2011

103 [lbo-talk] Breivik declared insane by Norway -- rank: 1000

I don t think that Anders Breivik is evidence that fascism is on the march in Norway. On the contrary, he is evidence that far right thinking has very little purchase, and leads only to lone nutcase actions like this. It is disappointing that he has been declared insane, because he ought to stand trial, but the psychiatrists make the case that he is more than right wing, but in fact wholly delusional. Norway is a solidly social democratic country, whose extensive social welfare programmes are bu ...

Document Size:	5382
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Nov 30 13:03:50 PST 2011

104 [lbo-talk] Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns -- rank: 1000

If Germany's goals is export led growth, then, Doug asks, 'why squeeze your export markets into a deflationary depression?' I don't think they had a lot of choice in the matter. Greece's indebtedness is the result of that German-led policy of extending cheap credit to their export markets in Europe. The credit crunch is the interruption of that process. Germany's insistence on repayment (which when you look close up at it is writing off quite a lot of debt, just hoping the Greeks will commit to ...

Document Size:	5560
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Nov 30 06:51:43 PST 2011

105 [lbo-talk] Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns -- rank: 1000

Doug: It's kind of hard to see what Germany wants. I've been asking lots of smart people that question for months and there's no consistent or convincing answer. Ideology? Material interest? Habit? Really hard to say. I am surprised. German policy has been pretty consistent for the last fifty years. Politically the goal is never to be in the vanguard, always to be with allies. Economically the goal is export led growth, with Western Europe as the first market for German goods, its security blan ...

Document Size:	5936
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Nov 29 18:19:40 PST 2011