"Mr. Putin emphasized that the legislation allowing him to run again would have to be approved by Russia’s Constitutional Court. The legislation would also be part of the package of constitutional amendments to be voted on in a previously scheduled nationwide plebiscite on April 22." The collapse of the Soviet Union was an absolute disaster for the ordinary citizens of that country as the economic upheavals and anarchy of the 90s and incompetent Yeltsin government attests. Putin's government did in fact bring about stability and economic betterment to the vast majority of Russians and is still the basis of his widespread popularity despite a vibrant if small opposition movement including a
Communist Party in the Duma. The attempt by the new Russian ruling class to create a parliamentary capitalist democracy based on western European models has proven to be extremely problematic given the history of the Soviet Union and Putin is correct to stress that evolutionary developments in this direction are a continued necessity and probably require a stable temporary continuity of the present mixture of a strong presidential regime restrained by a semblance of popular control through parliament and by means of the Constitutional Court. The fact that the Russian people must approve of Putin's reforms by means of a national election is proof that the ideals of bourgeois democratic government are alive and well in Russia despite whatever historical constraints they still face. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation will, hopefully, continue to play a positive role in representing the working class and laying the foundations for a revival of socialism in Russia in the coming years.Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Monday, March 09, 2020
Krugman & Piketty versus Marx
A good review for activists which will save us from having to go through a slough of 1000 pages of undigested speculation. As far as Marx versus Piketty is concerned Piketty admitted re his first book that he never read Marx! Krugman's review also indicates problems with understanding Marx: “In Marxian dogma, a society’s class structure is determined by underlying, impersonal forces, technology and the modes of production that technology dictates. Piketty, however, sees inequality as a social phenomenon, driven by human institutions.”— Sorry Dr Krugman, but Marx says that class structure is conditioned by human social institutions and is a product of historical development not determined by impersonal forces but by a dialectical interaction between material forces and human responses the most important of which is, with regard to the modes (means) of production the historically constituted social relations of production i.e., class relations involving who owns and controls the means of production. Piketty’s view “Inequality is neither economic nor technological; it is ideological and political.”- is only half right and represents the idealistic non materialistic flaws of bourgeois economics. The truth is Marx’s view that the inequality intrinsic to capitalism is a product of the interaction between economic and technological forces and the ideological and political forces engendered by this interaction.
Wednesday, March 04, 2020
We are all one (and hungry)
What makes a person a person is a sense of self (self-consciousness) i.e., a feeling of identity and having memories and an internal narrative and all this is conditioned by, or a function of, the hippocampus, when we find that the proteins and chemicals associated with self-consciousness show up in other forms of life we cannot rule out the possibility these life forms are similar to us —i.e., they are self-consciousness personalities in their own right. These chemicals show up in the brains of crabs, shrimp, lobsters, insects and “other arthropods, including centipedes, millipedes and some arachnids. Even vertebrates, including humans, have them in a brain structure called the hippocampus, a known center for memory and learning.” According to the lead scientist in this study: "Corresponding brain centers -- the mushroom body in arthropods, marine worms, flatworms and, possibly, the hippocampus of vertebrates -- appear to have a very ancient origin in the evolution of animal life.” We are all living unique personal selves, and we eat each other.
"All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all."
Bon appétit !
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all."
Bon appétit !
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
The Last Debate (2-25-20) Sanders vs the Hacks
The attacks on Sanders were all ridiculous and show how completely the other Democratic contenders are simply hacks for the monopoly capitalist ruling class that currently controls the Democratic Party (but hopefully will begin to be dislodged this November). The main attacks were:1) Sanders was pro-Castro, etc. All he said was the literacy campaign was a good idea, the other candidates obviously think eliminating illiteracy is some sort of Communist plot. 2.) He can’t beat Trump: but all the recent polls say he can. 3.) His ideas are so extreme they are practically crazy: in reality they are just mainstream ideas found in all the other advanced industrial countries and had we already had them here we wouldn’t have a president that is practically crazy. 4. He has a bad foreign policy because he criticizes the over throwing of democratically elected governments (Iran, Chile) in favor of fascist replacements. The American people, basically the multiracial working class, youth, retired people and others on limited incomes (the majority) and genuine progressives want a candidate who offers a real changing revamping of our current system that favors a wealthy minority over the majority. None of the other candidates, including the saccharine watered down progressivism of Elizabeth (capitalism in my bones) Warren), offer the radically democratic people before profits change that Sanders is offering —his program is the one now on the agenda of history and can win in November.
Monday, February 17, 2020
Nevada Culinary Union vs. Sanders on Medical Care
Some points about this article: 1. Medicare for all provides not only the working class but all citizens with complete medical coverage. The leaders of the Culinary union seem to be sacrificing medical care for all just to preserve the medical care for their members without regard for the rest of the working class -- this is not a good example of "Solidarity Forever." 2. Nothing in this article indicates why the present union plan is better than medicare for all or what benefits would be missing from the union plan under Sanders' bill. 3. "The vile language prompted Mr. Sanders to issue a statement, in which he said “harassment of all forms is unacceptable to me” and urged “supporters of all campaigns not to engage in bullying or ugly personal attacks.”'-- this is in reference to Sanders "supporters" emailing politically incorrect attacks on the union leaders and others who don't support Sanders. It is more than likely that these so-called Sanders "supporters" are actually Trump trolls as no real supporters of Sanders would engage in activity he has expressly condemned and they know hurts his campaign. 4. The position of the union supports Lenin's view that unions on their own can achieve working class union consciousness but socialist consciousness comes from the outside and is the reason a strong Communist Party is necessary which would have educated the union to the need for medicare for all and greater inter-union solidarity with the Sanders campaign -- a task the CPUSA is uniquely equipped to carry out, and perhaps could have been doing a better job at during this primary season.
Saturday, February 15, 2020
US Imperialist/Russian Confrontation in Syria
"American officials say these actions by Russian personnel and their Syrian allies are devised to present a constant set of challenges, probes and encroachments to slowly create new facts on the ground and make the U.S. military presence there more tenuous. About 500 American troops remain deployed in Syria with a mission to protect oil fields and help fight remnants of the Islamic State."
The facts however are these: the US has no rights at all to be occupying any ground whatever in Syria let lone "guarding" oil fields that belong to the Syrian government, nor does Turkey. Russia, on the other hand, has every right to be in Syria as an ally of the officially United Nations recognised government of Syria. Meanwhile, Trump has remarked re the oil fields the US is "guarding"--
The facts however are these: the US has no rights at all to be occupying any ground whatever in Syria let lone "guarding" oil fields that belong to the Syrian government, nor does Turkey. Russia, on the other hand, has every right to be in Syria as an ally of the officially United Nations recognised government of Syria. Meanwhile, Trump has remarked re the oil fields the US is "guarding"--
“We’ll work something out with the Kurds so that they have some money, so that they have some cash flow. Maybe we’ll get one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly.”[The Washington Post 10-22-19] The idea that a Syrian oil field, legally belonging to the Syrian government, could be turned over to an American "big oil company" is just the sort of US imperialist overreach that results in these confrontations in the areas described in the NYT article below. Once again US imperialism is risking an escalation that might lead to a serious military confrontation on even war in order to hold on to other people's oil and by invading and occupying the territory of another state. Trump and his mid-east policies are an existential menace to all concerned.
Friday, February 07, 2020
More US Lies to Justify War?
"These facts all point to the Islamic State, Iraqi officials say." The preponderance of the evidence presented in this article, while not 100% conclusive, indicates that it was the Sunni group ISIS not an Iraqi Shia militia that attacked the military base used by the US and set off the series of events that led to the assassination of the Iranian general that 'almost led to war.'" The impression left from this article is that the US went out of its way to blame Iran in order to justify its attacks on what it calls "Iranian targets" (mostly Iraqi Shia forces sympathetic to Iran and who are aided by Iran in its own war against ISIS). The least we can say about the murder of the Iranian general (Qasem Soleimani, whose actions were no different than those of American generals except he knew what he was doing so was more effective) is that the excuses given were not based on any solid evidence that Iran was behind this attack. If we had ended up in a war this would have been a repeat of the Tonkin Bay farce when the US contrived a fake North Vietnamese attack on the US Navy to justify attacking military and civilian targets in that country. It is further confirmation that we should never trust anything we are told by the US military or intelligence services regarding those who are fighting against and opposed to US imperialism unless they provide proof of their claims that are open to independent verification. In this case, as in most others, the US claims to have "proof" but can't make it public, and since it has a record of deceit and lying, this claim is practically an admission that they have no "proof" at all.
Monday, January 20, 2020
Marx, Lenin, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Marx, Lenin, and Martin Luther King Jr.
Some reflections on the fate of great human beings who spent their lives in the service of humanity and the working class inspired by Lenin's masterpiece "State and Revolution."
In that work Lenin remarks that the great leaders of oppressed humanity are reviled and hated by the rulers of the day but after their deaths attempts are made "to convert them into harmless icons." Martin Luther King was reviled in his day as a trouble maker because of his civil rights work and as a traitor because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. Now he has schools named after him and his birthday is a national holiday. His fiery rhetoric against racism and imperialism forgotten. Malcolm X has suffered a similar fate. Once hated by the establishment and mass media he now has streets and housing projects named in his honor and his image graces postage stamps. His ideas virtually forgotten.
We have also seen the arch "terrorist" and communist agent Nelson Mandela rechristened as the grandfatherly "Madiba" an advocate of nonviolence-- his call for the oppressed to arm themselves and fight for their liberation lost among the platitudes of the world figures who rushed to his funeral to heap praises on the man they tried for so many years to undermine and destroy.
Just so was the fate of Karl Marx according to Lenin. Many left wing politicians and labor leaders of Lenin's day praised Marxism and even called themselves Marxist-- along with university professors and public intellectuals (then as now their name is Legion)-- but their real purpose was "to omit, obscure or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul." Lenin has suffered the same fate.
On this holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. let us do more than honor his memory but also recall the real revolutionary nature of his thought which aimed at the overthrow of the system that has produced racism, war, and oppression and now threatens the very existence of civilized life, if not life itself, on our planet.
Some reflections on the fate of great human beings who spent their lives in the service of humanity and the working class inspired by Lenin's masterpiece "State and Revolution."
In that work Lenin remarks that the great leaders of oppressed humanity are reviled and hated by the rulers of the day but after their deaths attempts are made "to convert them into harmless icons." Martin Luther King was reviled in his day as a trouble maker because of his civil rights work and as a traitor because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. Now he has schools named after him and his birthday is a national holiday. His fiery rhetoric against racism and imperialism forgotten. Malcolm X has suffered a similar fate. Once hated by the establishment and mass media he now has streets and housing projects named in his honor and his image graces postage stamps. His ideas virtually forgotten.
We have also seen the arch "terrorist" and communist agent Nelson Mandela rechristened as the grandfatherly "Madiba" an advocate of nonviolence-- his call for the oppressed to arm themselves and fight for their liberation lost among the platitudes of the world figures who rushed to his funeral to heap praises on the man they tried for so many years to undermine and destroy.
Just so was the fate of Karl Marx according to Lenin. Many left wing politicians and labor leaders of Lenin's day praised Marxism and even called themselves Marxist-- along with university professors and public intellectuals (then as now their name is Legion)-- but their real purpose was "to omit, obscure or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul." Lenin has suffered the same fate.
On this holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. let us do more than honor his memory but also recall the real revolutionary nature of his thought which aimed at the overthrow of the system that has produced racism, war, and oppression and now threatens the very existence of civilized life, if not life itself, on our planet.
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Did Warren Slander Sanders?
Well, it was Ms. Warren who, falling behind Sanders in the Iowa polls, started this internecine fight with the Sanders forces. Many commentators have, since the campaign began, pointed out that Sanders’s base is broader and more varied than Warren’s which is in fact rooted amongst the better educated and affluent Democrats and Sanders’s people pointed this out and opined that Sanders would attract a larger vote in the general election. Warren then claimed she had been “trashed!”
It is strange to think that saying someone is popular with highly educated and affluent people is “trashing” them. Warren then, knowing how incendiary sexism is, accused Sanders as having said to her in a private conversation that he didn’t think a women could win the presidency. A claim completely impossible to verify, completely out of character with Sanders’s public positions, completely inconsistent with his history as an independent socialist, and denied by Sanders himself. Warren may be deliberately slandering Sanders in an attempt to improve her poll numbers at his expense, or is misremembering or misunderstanding, this past conversation. She is adamant and refuses to accept the possibility of her being in error. In any case, this brouhaha is something she has deliberately brought about and risks weakening the progressive forces and inadvertently increasing the possibility of a Trump victory in November. It puts her bona fides as a genuine, rather than an opportunistic, progressive at risk and indicates that it is she who has trashed Bernie Sanders, not vice versa.
It is strange to think that saying someone is popular with highly educated and affluent people is “trashing” them. Warren then, knowing how incendiary sexism is, accused Sanders as having said to her in a private conversation that he didn’t think a women could win the presidency. A claim completely impossible to verify, completely out of character with Sanders’s public positions, completely inconsistent with his history as an independent socialist, and denied by Sanders himself. Warren may be deliberately slandering Sanders in an attempt to improve her poll numbers at his expense, or is misremembering or misunderstanding, this past conversation. She is adamant and refuses to accept the possibility of her being in error. In any case, this brouhaha is something she has deliberately brought about and risks weakening the progressive forces and inadvertently increasing the possibility of a Trump victory in November. It puts her bona fides as a genuine, rather than an opportunistic, progressive at risk and indicates that it is she who has trashed Bernie Sanders, not vice versa.
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