Re: of interest, part 4/notes and thinking

["dmschanoes" <dmschanoes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: <Waistline2@xxxxxxx>

Brother Melvin's piece hits on a critical point-- force.  Private armies
were/are indeed at work in the destruction of the Soviet Union.

And despite the tremendous privation imposed on the former Soviet still
workers and general population,  force is/will be required to throttle
further resistance, and effect further change.

In my opinion, Putin doesn't "stand above the class struggle" a la vulgar
Bonapartism, but is buffeted between the forces of that struggle,
maneuvering for the weakness of the conflicting parties to match his own.

The trick isn't the armies, private or state, but how quickly and well the
workers can organize, politically and economically, with a program that
links "rehabilitaton" of living standards to international struggle against
capital while at the same time neutralizing 'national Bolshevism.'


Several other things to save some bandwith:

1. In Louis' reply to JH, he hits on a very important point-- the
fetishization of notions of "development" and "free trade" by some in the
discussion-- as if this were 1848 and development and free trade had
something to offer humanity other than the terms of immiseration.

There is no such thing as "development."  There is capitalist development
which is antithetical to truly social development.  There is capitalist free
trade, which is exactly the same today as it always has been, "free when I
get what I want, unfree if you don't agree."

Trade and development are not things, they are social relations of
production, serving the needs of specific classes.

2. Who was the only Yankee not to hit Pedro in Saturday's game?  Don Zimmer.

3. What two words are not understood in Boston?  "Age appropriate."  The
priests molest the children and the baseball players molest the elderly.


dms



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