[Debate] Yoshism

Mon Jun 18 18:54:51 BST 2012

this made me LOL. Ive been grouped in worse company i guess!

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 1:49 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi
<critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
> I kind of doubt that Peter, Kate, Doug, et al. are interested in
> objective assessments of either domestic politics of any country or
> the "world system" (if they are interested in international inequality
> at all, that is). The only human rights violations they care about are
> the ones MSM tell them to care about.  Hence, "Down with ZANU-PF, up
> with NATO's 'revolutionaries' in Libya"; "Sometimes with imperialists,
> never with their official enemies"; etc.
>
> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 1:16 PM, Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On this one I am with Yoshie.
>>
>> BRICS as a collective are able to assert a more "progressive" position,
>> in spite of their regressive policies at home, when acting as a
>> collective. They have, if I recall correctly, also said some good and
>> done some good things about intellectual property and access to
>> medicines; which some like South Africa were reluctant to do in
>> international fora.
>>
>> While domestic politics matters, it is also not entirely domestic.
>> Domination has typically been exercised with collaboration and this time
>> may or may not be different. However when taking into account power
>> considerations in the shape and shaping of the World System there are
>> countries that are more influential than others in setting the rules of
>> the game. It should come to none of us as a surprise that even Evo (like
>> Mandela and countless others before him) would have difficulty in
>> carrying out progressive projects under such a system. This is not to
>> excuse these serious lapses, merely to contextualise them.
>>
>> The alternative of we are all in this together and countries are the
>> same (which is a gross simplification, but at this level of abstraction
>> it will have to do) is an analytic view that eschews categorisation on a
>> number of available variables, GDP, wages, poverty, employment, health,
>> class mobility, etc. This categorisation is important if sites of action
>> are to be prioritised. it is not an escape from the ethical choice  that
>> needs to be made, merely an embrace of the complexity of the
>> circumstances countries lower down the pecking find themselves.
>>
>>
>> On 2012/06/18 02:23 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>> What is imperialism, in your view?  And what is sub-imperialism?
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 4:25 AM, peter waterman
>>> <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I am not quite sure which tea leaves, in whose tea cup, Yoshie has been
>>>> reading.
>>>>
>>>> Nor whether she has ever read or heard of the concept of 'sub-imperialism'.
>>>> Not one I would use myself, since it implies that Brazil, Russia, India and
>>>> China are exercising their politically expansionist or merely
>>>> economic-exploitative activities particularly on their 'near abroad'
>>>> (Russia), on behalf of the supra-imperialists.
>>>>
>>>> I woud have rather thought it was in the nature of the state to centralise
>>>> within its borders and expand (politically, economically, militarily,
>>>> culturally) beyond. At least unless and until such marginal or peripheral
>>>> entities were able to resist.
>>>>
>>>> So even Worker's Party Brazil continues to destroy its (and our) Amazon, to
>>>> dominate economically in (parts of?) Paraguay and (parts of?) Bolivia, to
>>>> invest in a Trans-Amazonian highway (not railway) through Peru so as to have
>>>> access to the Pacific.
>>>>
>>>> [The above is impressionistic, I claim here only a newspaper knowledge. But
>>>> reading news, particularly from 'alternative media', is surely better than
>>>> reading tea-leaves].
>>>>
>>>> Pw
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 4:26 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi
>>>> <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> "First, do no harm."  BRIC seems better at it than most
>>>>> self-identified "democrats," left, right, or center, when it comes to
>>>>> international relations.  Too many "democrats" love encouraging other
>>>>> people to fight to death for "democracy."
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 9:26 PM, Kate Doyle Griffiths-Dingani
>>>>> <kategrif at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> I'm intrigued---a social democracy for the era of global  authoritarian
>>>>>> capitalism. social minus the democracy...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sunday, June 17, 2012, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>>>>>> If anyone is actually interested in the topic, yes.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 6:34 PM, Dave Hollis
>>>>>>> <david.hollis at netzwerkit.de>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>>>>>>> Hash: SHA1
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Yoshie,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Why not reply to the content instead of just sniping? I, for one,
>>>>>>>> would be interested in a detailed reply to PW. Or is that too much to
>>>>>>>> ask?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Dave
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 18.06.2012 00:18, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Happy to know that you are unable to identify me with any hitherto
>>>>>>>>> existing school of Marxism but amazed to learn that you managed to
>>>>>>>>> make a 293-word comment on my 172-word note.  Must be a slow day
>>>>>>>>> for you.  ;-)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 12:21 PM, peter waterman
>>>>>>>>> <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> Peter sez:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I do not recall seeing this one on Debate, 2011, but I think it
>>>>>>>>>> suggests the nature of Yoshism as a particular
>>>>>>>>>> theoretical-ideological-ontological version of Marxism, by which
>>>>>>>>>> I mean a seriously un-, not to say anti-, dialectical
>>>>>>>>>> understanding of such.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> It comes from:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> http://montages.blogspot.nl/search?updated-max=2011-05-06T19:48:00-04:00
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I intersperse some comments in boldface (being myself somewhat
>>>>>>>> boldfaced):
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Pax Sinica for the Beijing Consensus
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Theoretically,
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I think this means 'hypothetically'
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> China can pursue global Keynesian policy in addition to domestic
>>>>>>>>>> Keynesian policy, which would go some way toward countering
>>>>>>>>>> austerity in the US and Europe and be good for China as well as
>>>>>>>>>> the rest of the world.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Is there any grounds for such a 'hypothesis'...or 'theory'?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> China says that "By the end of 2009, China had provided a total
>>>>>>>>>> of 256.29 billion yuan in aid to foreign countries, including
>>>>>>>>>> 106.2 billion yuan in grants, 76.54 billion yuan in interest-free
>>>>>>>>>> loans and 73.55 billion yuan in concessional loans" (the figures
>>>>>>>>>> are cumulative -- unfortunately no annual figure is given). For
>>>>>>>>>> such a global Keynesian purpose, China should give away 5% of its
>>>>>>>>>> GDP in grants.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I think here we would need to know the nature of Chinese 'aid'.
>>>>>>>>>> In the same way as we need this in the case of the US, The
>>>>>>>>>> Netherlands, Russia and Cuba.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Then, China would also have to learn to veto all Western wars, so
>>>>>>>>>> that what it helps build won't get bombed. Pax Sinica based on
>>>>>>>>>> the Beijing Consensus would be welcomed by the axis of resistance
>>>>>>>>>> in the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America; the rest of
>>>>>>>>>> BRIC, Turkey, and South Africa; and anyone else who prefers peace
>>>>>>>>>> for profit to war for power.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> OK, first we have advice to China (a fairly large country which
>>>>>>>>>> must have a considerable army of its own carefully selected
>>>>>>>>>> advisors), then we have an assumption about an 'axis of
>>>>>>>>>> resistance'. This includes, for example, Latin America, where
>>>>>>>>>> China is a major foreign investor (aid giver?) and ruthless
>>>>>>>>>> employer (an issue possible not addressed by any consensus),
>>>>>>>>>> which makes deals with States over the heads or behind the backs
>>>>>>>>>> of the people and peoples.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Finally we have Yoshian realpolitik, based on some notion of
>>>>>>>>>> profit that belongs, surely to bourgeois liberal political
>>>>>>>>>> economy, rather than any notion of, for example, Ubuntu or Buen
>>>>>>>>>> Vivir (Living Well).
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Oh. And is there an 'axis of resistance' effectively joining
>>>>>>>>>> these very varied world regions and their even more varied
>>>>>>>>>> nation-states? This might have briefly existed at the time of the
>>>>>>>>>> Bandung or various Cuban 'axes of resistance' in the 1970s. But
>>>>>>>>>> in so far as they were based on state-define--
>>>>>>> Yoshie Furuhashi
>>>>>>> <http://mrzine.org/>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Debate-list mailing list
>>>>>>> Debate-list at fahamu.org
>>>>>>> http://lists.fahamu.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debate-list
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Kate Doyle Griffiths Dingani
>>>>>> 512-363-6484
>>>>>> skype: katedgriffiths
>>>>>> 777 St Marks Ave
>>>>>> Brooklyn NY 11213
>>>>>> kategrif at gmail.com
>>>>>> KaGriffiths at bmcc.cuny.edu
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Yoshie Furuhashi
>>>>> <http://mrzine.org/>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Debate-list mailing list
>>>>> Debate-list at fahamu.org
>>>>> http://lists.fahamu.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debate-list
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> 1. Contribute to Journal Special on 'New Worker Movements'!
>>>> 2. Blog: http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman
>>>> 3. EBook 2011, 'Under, Against, Beyond - Essays 1980s-
>>>>     1990s shttp://www.into-ebooks.com/book/under-against-beyond/
>>>> 4. WorkingPaper 2012: 'Emancipatory Labour Studies':
>>>> 5. Draft EBook 2012: 'Recovering Internationalism - Essays 2000-10' (draft):
>>>>       http://www.scribd.com/doc/82125289/ReCovIntComp-A-2
>>>>       http://www.scribd.com/doc/82129474/ReCovtIntComp-B-2
>>>> 6. Essay 2012: 'The 2nd Coming of the World Federation of Trade   Unions':
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Yoshie Furuhashi
> <http://mrzine.org/>
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
Kate Doyle Griffiths Dingani
512-363-6484
skype: katedgriffiths
777 St Marks Ave
Brooklyn NY 11213
kategrif at gmail.com
KaGriffiths at bmcc.cuny.edu