Re: Rain

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Brian James:
>Would Fidel be singing a different song if it weren't for the embargo?
>Cuba also happens to be the world's greatest practitioner of organic
>agriculture (i.e.: the "greening of Cuba")--because of the embargo. Is
>he not just latching on to a convenient argument for denouncing the
>evils of the North, rightly or wrongly?

The initial impetus was obviously a result of the collapse of Soviet aid.
But in the interim genuine ecosocialist modes of thinking have developed in
Cuba. This is no surprise. The folks at the Cuban Academy of Sciences--who
have been subbed to this list--read the same material as us and are subject
to the same political developments worldwide. This is not the USSR of the
1930s when "official" versions of plant genetics were imposed at the pain
of imprisonment.

>betters? The question is: why is there less resistance to environmental
>issues in some countries than in others? Why are Green parties more
>successful in Europe than in America? Is it because Europeans are more
>enlightened or is there economic self-interest at the root of it?

For the same reason Western Europe is generally more enlightened across the
board. There are powerful left parties that have been challenging the
bourgeoisie since the 1920s. European workers get 5 weeks vacation a year.
There is public health. So on and so forth. Being opposed to poisoned
rivers is not tail-ending the bourgeoisie, my dear chap. Europeans have a
much more powerful environmental movement for that matter. The German
Greens arose out of a mass movement.

>Environmentalism is as big in Canada as anywhere else in the world, but
>is way behind Europe in terms of achieving political power. That's
>because the Canadian economy, unlike that of the EU, is heavily
>dependent on resource extraction and export. The barrier to
>environmentalist political power in Canada, which is less tangible in
>Europe, is purely economic.

This is not Marxism. It is economic determinism. You should read Charles
Beard. You'd find a kindred spirit.



Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/