/* Written 10:18 pm Sep 13, 1993 by cd619@cleveland.Freenet.Edu in igc:p.news */ /* ---------- "PNEWS ONLINE [Sept 12]" ---------- */ From: cd619@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Hank Roth) Subject: PNEWS ONLINE [Sept 12] Reply-To: cd619@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Hank Roth) PNEWS [September 12, 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] | |_______________________________________________| | | | | | | | | _| |__ _| |__ / |_| /| / |_| /| |~~~~~|/` |~~~~~|/` `~~~~~` `~~~~~` ".....opposing views will also be welcomed, provided.... simple guidelines are adhered to and an exchange of ideas is freely given and accepted, whereby all parties thereto--do so with mutual respect for their differing views...." These conferences provide an alternative for those who are interested in "progressive" issues. The object of the 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 ################################################### "People who talk about revolution and class struggle without refering explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth." [Raoul Vaneigem, THE REVOLUTION OF EVERYDAY LIFE] "Rush Limbaugh disguises his bile With a crocodile smile. When he peddles his hate, The mob all shouts "Great!" But the echo we hear is "Seig, Heil!" [FLUSH RUSH QUARTERLY, Summer, 93] "...the only reason government ever exists in a capitalist economy is to `enrich some persons at the expense of others,' and it is utterly pointless to call governmental actions "illegitimate" when they are the very actions the government was instituted to implement." [Philip Green, THE PURSUIT OF INEQUALITY] ################################################### {From LIVING MARXISM, February 1993} The Marxist review of books: THE BUNDESBANK: THE BANK THAT RULES EUROPE, David Marsh, Heinemann) BANKING ON HITLER [...] "As a FINANCIAL TIMES correspondent, David Marsh is a seasoned observer of Germany. His previous book, THE NEW GERMANY: AT THE CROSSROADS, was an entertaining and measured introduction to Germany for the outsider. His latest book, THE BUNDESBANK: THE BANK THAT RULES EUROPE, communicates a more open fear of German power by connecting the present and the past in a not very subtle way. Marsh himself neatly sums up the revised argument in his introduction: `The Bundesbank has replaced the Wehrmacht [German army] as Germany's best known and best feared institution.' (p10) The difference in tone between the two books can perhaps be accounted for by the fact that they were written, respectively, before and after German reunification." [...] "The book makes clear that there was a continuity between the Reichsbank and the Bundesbank which went further than its personnel. In fact Germany's central bank has been a source of continuity throughout the country's modern history. While governments, from Bismarck through the Weimar Republic to Hitler, came and went, the central bank carried on, sanctioning whatever political arrangment best suited capitalist interests at the time." [...] "Marsh's book shows how the German establishment was complicit in Nazism. But it also lets slip how little the British establishment was concerned about the character of the Nazi regime.....The British and American authorities were also instrumental in enabling so many top Nazis to resurrect their careers after the war. Both Washington and Whitehall were far more concerned to bring stability to Germany than they were about bringing Nazis to justice. Today it might suit the British and American authorities to pursue a few ageing Nazis, as a way of reminding the public about Germany's past. But ex-NAzis were the human material out of which America and Britain rebuilt the German ruling class and economy after the war." [...] "I think we should also recall that the Nazis were not an alien excrescence on Western society. They were backed and bankrolled by the German ruling class, and enjoyed cordial relations with some of the pillars of British society among others. Currently, the media is focusing on a few German skinheads and claiming that they are the main link with the Nazi past. In fact, the real continuity comes from the polite and civilised men who glide into the Bundesbank offices every morning, and their counterparts in the Bank of England....." ################################################### From: MIM (Maoists) [by MC5 & MC11] "The United States ranks number one in the world in highest per capita imprisonment, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. government.....A private research organization called the Sentencing Project reported in January that the United States imprisons a higher proportion of its population than does any other country. Using statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the organization reported that more than one million people are currently incarcerated in the United States. That means 426 incarcerations per 100,000 residents.....South Africa ranked second with 333 and the Soviet Union came in third with 268. In Europe the figures range from 35 to 120 per 100,000. Asian countries range from 21 to 140. For Black males the figure is 3,109 per 100,000 in the United States and 729 per 100,000 for South Africa." [...] "Prisons don't work Confronted with such glaring statistics, some liberals come to the correct conclusion: putting people in prison does not deter anyone from committing crimes. The problem with the liberal response is that it fails to recognize both crime and the criminal justice system as political problems. Amerika's ruling class defines "crime" as anything that may threaten its hold on power. Anyone attempting to rectify the vast income inequalities inherent in the capitalist system (through means not sanctioned by the bourgeoisie) is locked up. Anyone not respecting the god-given "right" to private property is locked up. And certainly, anyone attempting to undermine the very foundations of the capitalist state is thrown behind bars as soon as that person becomes a serious threat.....As the prison population soared over the last decade, the proportion of citizens who said they believed criminals were not punished harshly enough increased from more than 70% of the population to more than 80%. Putting people in prison makes many middle- class people feel good. But capitalist attempts to justify their criminal justice system don't solve the problem...." ################################################### {From LIVING MARXISM, December 1992} [Monthly review of the Revolutionary Communist Party, London] IT'S NOT NATURAL by Peter Ray "Old chestnuts don't come much older than the question `What causes homosexuality?' In recent months, while the Western right has launched a `cultural war' against lesbians and gay men, this issue has been receiving renewed attention as a result of the efforts of California-based neurobiologist and gay campaigner Simon LeVay.....The truth is that none of the work LeVay has drawn attention to tells us very much about homosexuality. However, the enthusiastic reception he has received provides striking confirmation of the conservative and defensive approach to the right's attacks on homosexuals which is now being adopted by liberal opinion.....In fact, LeVay's results are not so clear cut; are based on a dubious sample; and cannot demonstrate that homosexuals are `born different'." [...] "In the first place, since Alfred Kinsey researched the sexual experience of American men in the 1940s, it has been known that human sexual behavior is more varied and complex than suggested by the simple concepts of hetero and homosexuality. How would LeVay's cells account for bisexuality? Do the nuclei change in size according to mood? Can they change suddenly and once and for all when a middle-aged married man `comes out' as gay? Or do bisexuals fall in the middle of the size range?....And what about people who've got a thing for sheep, or men who like to have cream cakes thrown at them by prostitutes wearing Nazi uniforms?......You don't have to go to the wider shores of desire, either. Apparently there are heterosexuals who get off on pretending to be football players during copulation, and why not? But exactly which gene is it that accounts for that?" "DIFFERENCE WILL ALWAYS MEAN INEQUALITY IN A SOCIAL ORDER AS OPPRESSIVE AS CAPITALISM. Faced with the right-wing attacks on lesbians and gay men, many liberals are welcoming the new `scientific' proof that homosexuality is natural, since it appears to offer a way of getting around the right without having to fight its arguments. Liberal opinion hopes that by endowing the sexual patterns of today with the unchanging, eternal validity of a natural scientific discovery, the fears of the fundamentalists can be assuaged. They can be told that, since homosexuality is inborn, persecution is doomed to fail and is also unnecessary if nobody can `adopt' or be `converted' to the homosexual lifestyle." ################################################### Jim Devine BITNET: jndf@lmuacad INTERNET: jdevine@lmumail.lmu.edu "....I think most people on the "left" would agree that the whole left vs. right thing is a very imperfect metaphor that doesn't get you very far. After one says "I'm a leftist," the next question is "what kind?" Statements such as "I'm more leftist than you" don't say anything....." From: David Walters Subject: On factions and democracy "...The concept of Democratic Centralism is based on the right of the membership to decide democratiacly the line of the party and have it carried out. It is not simply for a leadership faction to use ANY difference that arises in the Party as an excuse to accuse EVERY dissident of 'violating' party norms...this is what happened in Russia as the Stalinist faction destroyed the communist party." From: "GROVER FURR" ".... Of course Marx can be wrong. Why not? Is he God, or something? Have you ever read the stuff he wrote -- admittedly, not for publication -- on Greek literature, the "childhood of the race," etc.? hardly 'marxist.' So what?......These great men made great contributions, but they weren't perfect...." From: Steve Leigh ".....Let's get back to basics. For Marx , socialism is "the self-emancipation of the working class". If the workers did not emancipate themselves it was not socialism. If it was not workers' democracy it was not socialism..... Bad decisions can be democratically arrived at. Racist,sexist etc., decisions are opposed to the interest of the working class for several reasons. One reason is that they tend to undermine the real or potential democratic power of the working class by dividing workers against each other. A role of Marxists is to CONVINCE workers of the need to oppose racist, sexist ideas and decisions. It is to argue hard and unrelentingly....." From: Hank Roth "Marx said "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world unite!" Dialectical materialism meant the struggle of material realities, a conflict or struggle of ideas and applied to political economy, it became "class conflict" or "class struggle." ....the present capitalist system, as we know it, is rotten. Capitalism, as practiced brings out the worse in human nature: greed, jealousy, and opportunism and the state of the economy is a result of this bankrupt system.....It's time to shed ideological aversions and embrace concepts of universal health care; and food, shelter and education for everyone as a matter of human rights...." ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "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 can find no money for out children, for the environment, for health care or for the needs of our senior citizens." [Bernie Sanders, the first independent-socialist Congressman in 60 years.] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "In 1973 the Trilaterial Commisiion was founded by David Rockefeller, Chase Manhattan Bank chairman, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's national security advisor, and other like-minded "eminent private citizens." Some 300 members (up from about 200 members in 1973) are drawn from international business and banking, government, academia, media, and conservative labor. The Commission's purpose is to engineer an enduring partnership among the RULING CLASSES [my emphasis] of North American, Western Europe, and Japan---hence the term "trilateral"---in order to safeguard the interests of Western capitalism in an explosive world. The private Trilateral Commission is attempting to mold public policy and construct a framwork for international stability in the coming decades. Throughout this book, "trilateralism" refers to the doctrine of world order advanced by the Commission." {From TRILATERIALISM: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management, Edited by Holly Sklar, South End Press, 1980} ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "THE UN IS COMING MORE AND MORE TO LOOK NOT LIKE AN AUTONOMOUS ACTOR IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, BUT LIKE A RUBBER STAMP FOR DECISIONS TAKEN BY THE WHITE HOUSE, IN CONSULTATION WITH CERTAIN OTHER WESGTERN CAPITALS." [African expert in international law, NEWSWEEK, 18 January 1993] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians." [President Harry S. Truman] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: robart@agora.rain.com (Robert Barton) So, are you a communist or not? ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "A 26-year-old Prince Willian County man whose wife cut off his penis with a kitchen knife while he slept yesterday morning was reported in satisfactory condition last night after 9.5 hours of surgery to reattach the organ, officials said." [..] "About the same time, the man's wife called authorities from a pay phone to say she had been raped, had fled the apartment "in a panic," unknowlingly taking the penis with her, and had thrown the penis out the window of her car at Old Centreville Road and Maplewood Drive, near the Manassas Park city line." [ Washington Post, June 24, 1993] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ odin@world.std.com pnews@igc.apc.org. (On Fidonets at 151/101) ###################################################