Re: The Incarceration Industry: Teeming Prison Rolls Bode Well for Private
Sometimes it's hard to keep a firm grasp on the suicidal madness of the gummint, but a posting like hoov's helps a lot. That far-off entity seems to imagine itself as some permanent metaphysical structure which can go on severing link after link with the underlying population - until nothing remains but fascistic security intrusions and the biennial voting farce - and still be revered, needed, missed, or even recognized. Many convicts, once acknowledging some legitimacy in their arrest and conviction, have been known to perceive their prison time as a long visit to the wood shed, presided over by a harsh but ultimately beneficent father figure. Now, with the emergence of penal Oscos and WalMarts all over the butt-fucked American landscape, even this tenuous validation of a surviving social contract is jetting out of sight, out of mind. Soon we'll be a great big paleface Colombia, where politicos gladhanding on the campaign trail are routinely captured and held for ransom. If not pleasant, such conditions can still be fondly anticipated for their honesty. Hmmm, I wonder what the governor is worth? valis "Many politicians are not even able to see the sand that they stick their heads into." -- Jawaharlal Nehru
Re: Asteroids
Dennis R Redmond wrote: On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote concerning the demise of the dinos: ...the current scientific consensus that they got zapped by an asteroid hit is really coming on strong. Among other major pieces of evidence has been the discovery of the remnants of the hit in the neighborhood of the Yucatan peninsula. All the pieces seem to fit. Weren't there still a few problems with this thesis, among which (1) the Yucatan geological evidence is still very, very sketchy, and different scientists have wildly different interpretations of the data; there are a couple basins in the region, which may or may not correspond to the Big Slamdunk, and (2) the fossil record shows a die-off stretching over a much longer period than a simple one or two year span? A new answer to that little problem has to do with a very unusual characteristic of the specific surface in the Yucatan that would have released lots of CO-2 when it was vaporized by the asteroid -- creating climate change that would have persisted over a stretch of time long enough to have killed off so many species globally rather than only locally. If correct, this theory implies the dinosaurs were doubly unlucky: 1) that a big asteroid hit earth during their rein at all -- they usually miss. And 2) that it happened to hit in one of the few places that would have released sufficiently large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere to cause climate change sufficient to kill them off globally. I thought this was a list for economists. Well, OK, not exactly economists but political economists. Is that what makes a political economist different from a mainstream economist. We talk about asteroids and dinosaurs?
Re: Dinosaur extinction
Disney's new *Animal Kindom* theme park includes an attraction called *DinoLand* (wasn't the Flintstones' pet named Dino?)...DinoLand resembles the roadside attractions that sprouted alongside US highways in the 1950s - the ones with big, fake dinosaurs that you spotted from the backseat of the family station wagon and begged your parents to stop at during vacations... This reminds me very little of our local Disneyland (the original one), where Franklin Roosevelt's "four freedoms" (freedom from want, from fear, etc.) was amended to add "free enterprise." Actually, I'm not sure this story is true. Does anyone know for sure? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html Naming the Washington National Airport after Ronald Reagan is "like naming an organ-donor bank after Jeffrey Dahmer." -- Will Durst.
Re: Dinosaur extinction
Most prominent scientists agree that some sort of "deus-ex-machina" event created the catastrophic climactic changes that killed off the dinosaurs of the Mesozoic age 65 million years ago and ushered in the modern Cenozoic Age of Mammals. The differences are over exactly what the nature of the event was that triggered the vast climactic change. Israeli scientists have recently argued in favor of some sort of collision with the Sun, while other scientists believe that a comet or asteroid hitting the earth was the cause. Dewey M. McLean has a novel approach to the question and points to powerful volcano eruptions as the cause. Louis Proyect the world (and pre-history) according to Disney: Disney's new *Animal Kindom* theme park includes an attraction called *DinoLand* (wasn't the Flintstones' pet named Dino?)...DinoLand resembles the roadside attractions that sprouted alongside US highways in the 1950s - the ones with big, fake dinosaurs that you spotted from the backseat of the family station wagon and begged your parents to stop at during vacations...according to Disney-speak, DinoLand was cobbled together by business opportunists at the site of a dinosaur dig worked by stuffy paleontologists and erudite but wacky grad students...as Joe Rohde, the park's chief designer says, "It represents the American entrepreneurial spirit"...DinoLand celebrates the allure of th extinct reptiles, from a thrill ride, which takes passengers into the waning seconds of the Cretaceous Period, to the Boneyard, where children uncover buried fossils...the thrill ride, called *Countdown to Extinction*, takes folks on a trip back in time to try to save the dinosaurs (or is that one dinosaur?)...along the way they're threatened by fires sparked by meteor showers (Disney's answer to what happened, I guess)... afterwards, Disney's paying customers (euphemistically called visitors) can stop in at *Conservation Station* and be told of people's (not capital's) destruction of nature and the potential to save it...touch screen computers call up different regions and animals of the world and deliver canned pep talks by scientific notables (including Jane Goodall) as well as what Disney calls ordinary people active in wildlife issues... in sum, relax, the future is safe...Michael Hoover
Re: privatize the Fed!
Doug, In case you didn't know, privatizing money and eliminating central banks is an old Austrian idea long pushed by Hayek. Barkley Rosser On Mon, 27 Apr 1998 12:02:03 -0400 Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Today's TheStreet.com, the market webzine, has an article urging that the Fed be privatized, and that private banks issue their own money! End the government monopoly over what is just another commodity! Let's have CitiMarks and JPMorgan dollars, and the rest. Most of the readers who've posted comments approve. I just noticed that the Fed has started putting up full transcripts of FOMC meetings on its web site. I haven't read any yet, but interested parties should visit http://www.bog.frb.fed.us/FOMC/transcripts/. Doug -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Asteroids
On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote concerning the
demise of the dinos:
...the current scientific
consensus that they got zapped by an asteroid hit is really
coming on strong. Among other major pieces of evidence has
been the discovery of the remnants of the hit in the
neighborhood of the Yucatan peninsula. All the pieces seem
to fit.
Weren't there still a few problems with this thesis, among which (1)
the Yucatan geological evidence is still very, very sketchy, and different
scientists have wildly different interpretations of the data; there are
a couple basins in the region, which may or may not correspond to the Big
Slamdunk, and (2) the fossil record shows a die-off stretching over a much
longer period than a simple one or two year span? The pieces may fit, but
they may be from different jigsaw puzzles, is the problem. Anyone up on
their, um, what's the term for the study of asteroid impacts?
Surely not meteor-ology.
Given Wall Street's late stage of bubble dementia, I'm surprised the
Magellan Fund hasn't started selling Asteroid Hedge Mutuals ("The new,
no-load MegaCrunch Fund, perfect for those inevitable bearish periods of
evolutionary history when Mother Nature is downsizing the global gene
pool with a sledgehammer! overweighted in canned goods, construction
equipment and Novartis' gene-tech division..." etc.).
-- Dennis
Re: BLS Daily Report
Doug, I'd like to second Michael Perelman's point about tenure and downsizing. This would be especially true in large companies which are more likely to be unionized. A lot of the increase in total tenure comes from changes in the pattern of women's labor force participation - women are less likely to withdraw from the labor force when they get married or have kids. Peter Cappelli (Rethinking Employment, British Journal of Industrial Relations (vol 33, #4 1995) reviewed several studies on tenure and concluded that tenure was declining for men, particularly older white men and poorly educated men. The workforce is aging, so more people have the potential for long tenure, but they are also pushing retirement, so the tenure picture will probably change rapidly in the next several years. Maybe the current tightness in the labor market will forestall some cuts, but outside of academia, early retirement is growing as an alternative to layoffs and the Baby Boom is getting up there. GE-Appliance Park in Louisville, my old hangout, is undergoing another round of threatened job cuts, announced a few months ago. The union came back with a counterproposal, and as far as I know that's where things stand. GE wants to shut down production of kitchen ranges and clothes dryers in Louisville and move it to a plant in Mexico and the former Roper plant (in Georgia, I think) that they bought several years ago. The number of jobs GE wants to eliminate is pretty close to the number of people eligible for early retirement in the next few years. What you have at GE in Louisville is a cohort hired in the late 1960s nearing early retirement eligibility; my cohort which hired in in the early-mid 1970s who were in and out of there like yo-yos during the 1970s and 1980s. When I left Louisville in 1991, my adjusted seniority was 10 years (according to the formula GE has for adjusting benefits for time laid off), but I had started there in 1974 and would have had 17 if I hadn't been laid off. The workers in my cohort, a fairly large group - got called back quickly in 1991 (before losing seniority under the GE formula), and have worked steadily since. So they have 17 years in adjusted seniority, 24 years since first hiring in, but 9.5 years of (relatively) continuous employment, because we were called back in late 1988 after being laid off in 1984. I'm sure that when studies are done, care is taken to specify the appropriate definition of tenure, but which is it? NO ONE was hired in production in the 1980s at Appliance Park. There has been hiring in the 1990s to replace retirees, but they have been in and out like we were. The total number of jobs has dropped because of sourcing and technology changes, and is likely to drop further when these latest cuts go through. So you a group of people with 30 or so years of steady employment and nearing retirement; a group with some mid-range of involvement with GE but variable lengths of actual employment; and a group with just few years of employment (also broken by layoffs.) --Laurie Laurie Dougherty Global Development and Environment Institute Tufts University Medford, MA 02155 http://www.tufts.edu/gdae [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: internet provocateurs
My files say you are registered. Just to be sure try to resub. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Internet provocateurs
There is almost certainly listening for key words being done, but not by the FBI or the CIA. It is the NSA that has the budget, mission, technology, and employees for that function. I don't know whether there are provocateurs or not. I am skeptical. But historically Louis P. is correct that past provocateurs have often (but not always) been disturbed individuals. Whatever else he is, this "Murray" character is bad news, and much as Louis P. has sometimes been overly provocative with others on the list himself, he has not deserved what this character has pulled on him. I don't think one can generalize about private versus public universities. Both are subject to the whims of their administrators and oversight boards and those who might have influence with those individuals and boards. Politicians can get at public universities, but rich alumni or board members can get at private universities. As for concerns about research reputations, that goes on at both types of universities, with the top public unis such as Berkeley operating in essentially the same job market as the top privates, such as Harvard. I agree with Michael Perelman about the effect of downsizing on the proportion of tenured faculty in higher ed. Increasingly we see a bunch of old leftover tenured folks along with a bunch of slaves in rotating appointments. Barkley Rosser James Madison University (public and not top) On Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:31:05 -0400 Wojtek Sokolowski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lou, Based on your description I have a feeling that this Murray character is simply a crackpot who thinks he is on a CIA mission saving the country from an alien invasion. He might have watched too many James Bonds movies, but I do not think he is an employee of a government agency -- or if he is, I do not think he does is a part of his official mission. I do not think that government agencies target lists that are primarily designed to vent the frustrations of pissed off intellectuals (I include myself in this category). I do not think the powers that be feel threatened by identity politics, pomo or otherwise. I think the opposite is true, the existence of internet discussion groups is a safety valve that renders such people harmless -- they spend most of their time ranting instead of organizing. The government might be doing some 'voice interecpetion' which is largely an automated process of scanning the communications transmitted via a particular medium (airwaves, cell phones, or the net) for certain words or phrases. But even if some countercultural messages pop up on their screens, I do not think that human operators who monitor the process do much about it once they link those messages to known countercultural discussion groups. And I am almost positive that poeple who do this kind of job for the government do NOT go out and harass subscribers to 'left' discussion groups. So if I were you, I would simply advise the guy to seek some professional help because he most likely needs it. An if he popped up in person, I would simply call the cops and have him arrested for stalking. Unfortunately, as the psychologists Philip Zimbardo once commented, if one person is having delusions we label him paranoid schizophrenic and treat accordingly. If three persons have the same delusions, however, we call it free speech and protect it with constitutional amendments. So there are many right wing nuts out there 'saving the country' who really belong in a mental institution. PS. I do not think that Columbia U officals got scared by that individual. I think they acted as most private corporations do -- they used the letter as a pretext to go on a power trip to keep an employee in line. After all, the elite schools are the main breeding pods of corporate elites, arent' they?. The OSU bureaucrats, however, saw the case for what it was, the rantings of a nutcase, rather than an opportunity to exercise their elitist mission. regards, Wojtek Sokolowski -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: IMF vote
I can't resist throwing in a real irony here. The main representative for the US Treasury Dept. at Bretton Woods was Harry Dexter White. He has since been revealed by Oleg Gordievsky to have been one of the top Soviet agents in the US government of the time. Of course, the Soviets themselves were present and voting at Bretton Woods, even if they pulled out not too long after. But, hey, maybe the IMF was a commie plot! Barkley Rosser On Mon, 27 Apr 1998 01:11:09 -0400 Paul Altesman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nathan, 1)I hope you don't feel this is "piling on" but it is important to note that Keynes was entirely defeated at Bretton Woods (by the American Treasury Dept., playing with a heavy hand) and the current IMF was created instead. He went home dejected and quite a bit has been written by his Cambridge followers on his rejected proposals. Keynes essentially argued for a global central bank that would ensure liquidity among trading partners and enforce *two way* adjustment (deficit *and* surplus countries), thus ensure adjustment without deflationary austerity programs. Keynes' defeat involved more fundamental issues than size - it involves how the international economic system should work. [For a suscinct statement of the Keynsian proposals of this time I find useful Kaldor's 1950 article republished in his Essays on Economic Policy, Vol I 1980. I also recall that Sidney Dell has written well on the negotiations surrounding Bretton Woods, but I haven't got references handy.] 2)As for the Doug's point on deaths - well, speaking of responsibility can always make some uncomfortable. It is certainly true - and well documented - that in the developing world, millions of deaths (mostly children in Latin America and Africa) could have been avoided but for the adjustment crises since 1980. I imagine that most on this list would also agree that these crises were not inevitable. I believe Roy Medvedev once wrote a book entitled "Let History Judge". Paul Altesman -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Nathan Newman Sent: Friday, April 24, 1998 6:29 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: IMF vote -Original Message- From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Interesting tally on the IMF funding vote in the House, from Robert Weissman of Multinational Monitor: -cut - The Dems are the party of the IMF, which isn't surprising, since it was founded under a Dem regime! With the strong support, of course, of Keynes and every other left-liberal movement in the post-World War II period. The IMF was deformed by its failure to have enough capital to be anything more than a debtors emergency source of funds, rather than the broad Keynesian stabilizer in its original conception. Marx did not like Bismarck but he supported centralization of the German state, since that was preferable to the competition of small little states. Just as Marx could attack Bismarck's actions while supporting a more centralized state, it is perfectly consistent for left activists to condemn the IMF's anti-labor policies while defending the existence of it as an institution of centralized global credit. --Nathan Newman -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: IMF votecharset=iso-8859-1
Nathan, 1) I hope you don't feel this is "piling on" but it is important to note that Keynes was entirely defeated at Bretton Woods (by the American Treasury Dept., playing with a heavy hand) and the current IMF was created instead. He went home dejected and quite a bit has been written by his Cambridge followers on his rejected proposals. Keynes essentially argued for a global central bank that would ensure liquidity among trading partners and enforce *two way* adjustment (deficit *and* surplus countries), thus ensure adjustment without deflationary austerity programs. Keynes' defeat involved more fundamental issues than size - it involves how the international economic system should work. [For a suscinct statement of the Keynsian proposals of this time I find useful Kaldor's 1950 article republished in his Essays on Economic Policy, Vol I 1980. I also recall that Sidney Dell has written well on the negotiations surrounding Bretton Woods, but I haven't got references handy.] 2) As for the Doug's point on deaths - well, speaking of responsibility can always make some uncomfortable. It is certainly true - and well documented - that in the developing world, millions of deaths (mostly children in Latin America and Africa) could have been avoided but for the adjustment crises since 1980. I imagine that most on this list would also agree that these crises were not inevitable. I believe Roy Medvedev once wrote a book entitled "Let History Judge". Paul Altesman -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Nathan Newman Sent: Friday, April 24, 1998 6:29 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: IMF vote -Original Message- From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Interesting tally on the IMF funding vote in the House, from Robert Weissman of Multinational Monitor: -cut - The Dems are the party of the IMF, which isn't surprising, since it was founded under a Dem regime! With the strong support, of course, of Keynes and every other left-liberal movement in the post-World War II period. The IMF was deformed by its failure to have enough capital to be anything more than a debtors emergency source of funds, rather than the broad Keynesian stabilizer in its original conception. Marx did not like Bismarck but he supported centralization of the German state, since that was preferable to the competition of small little states. Just as Marx could attack Bismarck's actions while supporting a more centralized state, it is perfectly consistent for left activists to condemn the IMF's anti-labor policies while defending the existence of it as an institution of centralized global credit. --Nathan Newman
F.J. Turner
Lou P. send us a citation from Turner, so I thought that I would add another one to the collection: Turner, Frederick Jackson. 1911. "The Significance of History." (November); reprinted in Frontier and Section: Selected Essays, Frederick Jackson Turner, ed., Ray A. Billington (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1961): pp. 11-27. 17: "The age of machinery, of the factory system, is also the age of socialistic inquiry we are approaching a pivotal point in our country's history." -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Liebig's Law and the limits to growth
C. RKM, I'm very familiar with the concept of carrying capacity. I am also familiar with simplistic understandings of ecology that assume things like total predator effectiveness, etc.. Prey behavior has as much to do with predator densities as predator behavior. Of course it's a simpler world when we just assume away the role of prey behavior, but it's not realistic. Again I say that African savannah predators don't eat up all their prey because they can't catch it. Competitions intra- and inter-species among predators is a factor, to be sure, but it is not the answer. Gazelles don't exactly sit still. If this upsets your idea about ecology, it's nothing but good. peace
Monthly Review meetings
In reply to Thomas Kruse's question, Monthly Review has been sponsoring meetings ... [snip] Perhaps Thomas could tell us what is happening where he is. 80% of industry here is concentrated around 3 cities: Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, La Paz. In each place there are independent leftists, academics and others concerned to (a) re-forge links to organized labor and make the plight of working people more visible generally (media stuff) on the practical side, and (b) "bring class back in" (to borrow from Skocpol) on the theoretical side. Class analysis as taken a real beating in the last 15 years; there is lots of talk of "poverty" and wonky fora on how to "combat" it. There is precious little consideration of processes that produce ill distributed wealth. This is especially dire as Bolivia ia about to launch itself more fully into Mercosur (presently only an "associate" member), and is tooling up in anticipation (new labor legislation, etc.). And an open invitation: if any of you are conceiving future research work, or have good grad students looking for direction, we could use the extra energy in getting this ball rolling. Contact me directly at the address below. Tom Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Back to basics
IN THE AMERICAS Published Monday, April 27, 1998, in the Miami Herald From Herald Wire Services BRAZIL Hunger brings looting in impoverished region RIO DE JANEIRO -- Police have been called to guard government food depots throughout Brazil's impoverished northeast region after hundreds of hungry peasants carried off tons of food last week. The town of Afogados de Ingazeira -- where 600 peasants took 17 tons of food -- is just one of eight cities in four northeastern states where looting broke out last week and where police now guard food supplies. Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: face-to-face, telephone, email
Oooh, C. Proyect, May I only say, paraphrasing the Leader of an ancient group of wayward Jews: "Label not, that you be not labeled. For with the label you assign you will be labeled and the measure you give will be the measure you get." peace
BLS Daily Reportboundary=---- =_NextPart_000_01BD71E9.4485C730
This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. -- =_NextPart_000_01BD71E9.4485C730 charset="iso-8859-1" BLS DAILY REPORT, FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 1998 RELEASED TODAY: In January 1998, there were 2,360 mass layoff actions by employers as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month. Each action involved at least 50 persons from a single establishment, and a total of 255,203 workers were involved. Both the number of layoff events and the associated number of initial claimants for unemployment insurance in January 1998 were higher than in January a year ago Cases of carpal tunnel syndrome that required time away from work declined for the third year in a row in 1996, according to BLS. Workers who suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome required more time away from work to recuperate - 25 days in 1996 - than for any other injury, including amputation (20 days) and fractures (17 days) (Daily Labor Report, page D-3). Homicides have become the leading cause of occupational fatalities in California, New York, Michigan, and Washington, D.C., according to a new NIOSH report (Daily Labor Report, page A-4)_Homicides have surpassed machine-related injuries in the United States to become the second leading cause of job-related deaths, after motor vehicle accidents, health officials said yesterday. Murders accounted for 13.5 percent of the occupational-related deaths between 1980 and 1994. Motor vehicle crashes accounted for 23.1 percent of job-related fatalities in the same period An institute report in 1996 found that workers were at greater risk of homicide or assault if they were involved in the exchange of money, had routine contact with the public, worked alone or in small numbers, worked late or very early hours, or worked in high crime areas (Washington Post, page A15) For the first time since 1992, many employers are facing double-digit increases in the cost of their health insurance next year, the highest inflation rate since the majority of employees moved into managed care. In early negotiations with employers about next year's rates, many insurers are seeking increases for 1999 far above this year's, when most premiums rose in single digits after 4 years of stability (New York Times, page A1). Initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits filed with state agencies rose 29,000 to a seasonally adjusted 317,000 for the week ended April 18, the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration reports. The previous week's claims hit a 9-month low at 288,000 initial claims. The large fluctuation may confirm analysts' belief that the previous week's numbers were distorted because of the Easter holiday .(Daily Labor Report, page D-1; New York Times, page C3; Wall Street Journal, page A2). Rep. Sabo (D-Minn) and representatives from several labor, religious, and grassroots organizations attack the growing disparity between workers' pay and that of the chief executive officers of some of the nation's largest corporations The CEOs made an average 326 times the salary of the average factory worker in 1997, according to a study compiled by the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal research organization, and United for a Fair Economy, a nonpartisan foundation that attempts to focus public attention on wage inequality issues .(Daily Labor Report, page A-7). Average job tenure of American workers at medium and large companies has reached 13.1 years, nearly a year longer than earlier in the decade, according to a study by a management consulting firm. Examining the employment records of 1.1 million workers at 59 companies, Watson Wyatt Worldwide found that American workers are remaining in their jobs longer than ever, with the percentage of workers employed by the same company for 10 and 20 years climbing throughout the 1990s. The largest companies studied - those with more than 80,000 employees - had the highest average worker tenure of 14.6 years (Daily Labor Report, page A-7). -- =_NextPart_000_01BD71E9.4485C730 b3NvZnQgTWFpbC5Ob3RlADEIAQWAAwAOzgcEABsACgAmACQAAQBJAQEggAMADgAAAM4HBAAb AAoAIAAMAAEAKwEBCYABACEwOUIzRTJDNEI3REREMTExODg4RTAwMjBBRjlDMDMwOAAhBwEE gAEAEQAAAEJMUyBEYWlseSBSZXBvcnQAkAUBDYAEAAICAAIAAQOQBgBsDAAAHEAAOQDA 618p6nG9AR4AcAABEQAAAEJMUyBEYWlseSBSZXBvcnQAAgFxAAEWAb1x6Rpo xOKzD923EdGIjgAgr5wDCAAAHgAxQAENUklDSEFSRFNPTl9EAAMAGkAAHgAw QAENUklDSEFSRFNPTl9EAAMAGUAAAgEJEAEAAACpCQAApQkAAKIQAABMWkZ1 D8StRf8ACgEPAhUCpAPkBesCgwBQEwNUAgBjaArAc2V0bjIGAAbDAoMyA8UCAHDccnESIAcTAoB9 CoAIzx8J2QKACoENsQtgbmcxODAzMwr7EvIB0CBCgkwF8ERBSUxZB/AARVBPUlQsIEaUUkkYwFkZ gEFQGbAQTCAyNBmAMTk5DjgKhQqFGSBMRUFTIEVEIFRPGdE6IKpJA6BKAHB1CsB5GrOJGYB0aASQ ZSB3HhLwMiwzNhhgAMAEEQtglHlvDdAgANB0aQIgJQQgYh1wZW0LUG957wSQBCAfEB7wZR8QCHAJ
Australian Philosophycharset=iso-8859-1
Heard this the other night and need to share it. MBS === Philosophers song Immanual Kant was a real pissant Who was very rarely stable Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar Who could think you under the table David Hume could out consume Schopenhauer and Hegel And Wittgenstein was a beery swine Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya 'Bout the raising of the wrist Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed John Stuart Mill, of his own free will On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill Plato they say, could stick it away Half a crate of whiskey every day Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle Hobbes was fond of his dram And Rene' Descartes was a drunken fart "I drink, therefore I am" Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed A lovely little thinker But a bugger when he's pissed -- Monty Python
Re: Pfiesteria outbreaks
To whom, Nota bene - Nutrient pollution and attendant algae blooms will become the ecological distraction of the next couple years. Why? The effects are easy to see and the industries doing it are low value-added. It's much easier to get after chicken farmers than deal with toxic sediments and even current industrial waste generation farther upstream from the Chesapeake drainage. Much easier to beat up on chicken farmers than make industry clean up its act. The result? Early predictions indicate that agricultural nutrient-loaders will be forced to make waste pools. That does nothing for the problem but it will cause nutrient loads to drop so dim-wits can claim progress. Meanwhile easy-to-deal-with animal waste will be mixed with toxics as farmers forced to make big waste pools on their property start throwing every damn thing in them. The problem of suburban development along rivers, (reduces wetlands, floodplain, increases flooding and speed of toxic silt deposition) is just one of the tricky problems that we'll be distracted from. The real answer is to develop a sensible atrategy to deal with *clean* nutrient wastes and to keep them clean. peace
Re: Internet provocateurs
Lou, Based on your description I have a feeling that this Murray character is simply a crackpot who thinks he is on a CIA mission saving the country from an alien invasion. He might have watched too many James Bonds movies, but I do not think he is an employee of a government agency -- or if he is, I do not think he does is a part of his official mission. I do not think that government agencies target lists that are primarily designed to vent the frustrations of pissed off intellectuals (I include myself in this category). I do not think the powers that be feel threatened by identity politics, pomo or otherwise. I think the opposite is true, the existence of internet discussion groups is a safety valve that renders such people harmless -- they spend most of their time ranting instead of organizing. The government might be doing some 'voice interecpetion' which is largely an automated process of scanning the communications transmitted via a particular medium (airwaves, cell phones, or the net) for certain words or phrases. But even if some countercultural messages pop up on their screens, I do not think that human operators who monitor the process do much about it once they link those messages to known countercultural discussion groups. And I am almost positive that poeple who do this kind of job for the government do NOT go out and harass subscribers to 'left' discussion groups. So if I were you, I would simply advise the guy to seek some professional help because he most likely needs it. An if he popped up in person, I would simply call the cops and have him arrested for stalking. Unfortunately, as the psychologists Philip Zimbardo once commented, if one person is having delusions we label him paranoid schizophrenic and treat accordingly. If three persons have the same delusions, however, we call it free speech and protect it with constitutional amendments. So there are many right wing nuts out there 'saving the country' who really belong in a mental institution. PS. I do not think that Columbia U officals got scared by that individual. I think they acted as most private corporations do -- they used the letter as a pretext to go on a power trip to keep an employee in line. After all, the elite schools are the main breeding pods of corporate elites, arent' they?. The OSU bureaucrats, however, saw the case for what it was, the rantings of a nutcase, rather than an opportunity to exercise their elitist mission. regards, Wojtek Sokolowski
Re: Pfiesteria outbreaks
Boddhisatva: Nota bene - Nutrient pollution and attendant algae blooms will become the ecological distraction of the next couple years. Why? The effects are easy to see and the industries doing it are low value-added. It's much easier to get after chicken farmers than deal with toxic sediments and even current industrial waste generation farther upstream from the Chesapeake drainage. Much easier to beat up on chicken farmers than make industry clean up its act. Chicken farming is an industry. The poultry producers who are fouling the waters of the southeast, including Clinton's Arkansas are not "farmers". They are agribusiness. I grew up in Sullivan County, upstate NY where poultry farming was prevalent. Interestingly, many of the farmers were Jews who colonized the region as part of a utopian movement of the early 19th century to get my ancestors close to the soil. This was back-busting work. This has nothing to do with Frank Perdue or the Tysons. They are industrialists who hire wage workers, mostly blacks and Latinos without unions to protect them. These industrialists are primarily responsible for water pollution for the obvious reason that the poultry industry is owned and controlled by a few monopolies. The result? Early predictions indicate that agricultural nutrient-loaders will be forced to make waste pools. That does nothing for the problem but it will cause nutrient loads to drop so dim-wits can claim progress. Meanwhile easy-to-deal-with animal waste will be mixed with toxics as farmers forced to make big waste pools on their property start throwing every damn thing in them. The problem of suburban development along rivers, (reduces wetlands, floodplain, increases flooding and speed of toxic silt deposition) is just one of the tricky problems that we'll be distracted from. The real answer is to develop a sensible atrategy to deal with *clean* nutrient wastes and to keep them clean. Er, the problem is that "sensible strategies" might cost money. Capitalist firms would much rather displace these costs on the rest of society. It is up to the state to rein them in, but they own and control the capitalist state as evinced by Tyson's record of turning the rivers and lakes of Arkansas into toilet bowls with the complicity of Bill Clinton. Louis Proyect
privatize the Fed!
Today's TheStreet.com, the market webzine, has an article urging that the Fed be privatized, and that private banks issue their own money! End the government monopoly over what is just another commodity! Let's have CitiMarks and JPMorgan dollars, and the rest. Most of the readers who've posted comments approve. I just noticed that the Fed has started putting up full transcripts of FOMC meetings on its web site. I haven't read any yet, but interested parties should visit http://www.bog.frb.fed.us/FOMC/transcripts/. Doug
Re: IMF vote
-Original Message- From: Max B. Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] A no vote and even a call to dismantle the IMF need not be taken all that literally. Assuming sufficient flexibility on the part of the naysayers, it could be the only way to force the other side to talk about radical restructuring. Absolutely, which goes to my point that both those progressives voting for the IMF and those voting against have complicated strategic goals, both of them sharing a vision of strengthening labor and environmental standards in the operations of the IMF. This is a tactical debate which means, despite the condemnations and accusations of sell-out, I wish folks who look at the vote with a bit more nuance. If folks vote no because they think it would be better to have no government-backed institutions of international lending, but rather leave it up to BankofAmerica and Citicorp to make their own judgements, then a "no" vote is purely principled. But if part of a "no" is to force restructuring of the IMF, then those who disagree with the tactics and think a "yes" at this juncture makes more sense should not be mindlessly condemned for a tactical disagreement. A lot of folks who have fought tooth-and-nail against NAFTA, GATT and Fast Track voted yes, so it might be reasonable to take some of them at their word about their intentions, even if you disagree with their tactical decision. Voting no to force a better deal does work; it also backfires. I noted Dellums leading a no vote in the 1990 Budget deal which led to a better bill. The no votes in 1994 on the Crime Bill ended up creating a worse and more regressive crime bill. By definition tactics are not guaranteed but based on different evaluations of likely results and consequences, which folks should be able to disagree about without the venom that usually permeates the Left's discussions. --Nathan Newman
Re: Internet provocateurs
Louis Proyect wrote: Interesting how blue-collar OSU has more guts on this question than Columbia with all its Marxish professors. Of course, it may be just the accident of different individuals on the line, but I wonder if there's also some difference between private and public institutions on such issues, too. Staffers at public institutions may have some sense of civil liberties, while those at private institutions may be more concerned with reputations in the academic market. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Doug
Re: BLS Daily Report
Doug, the increase in tenure is consistent with downsizing. For instance, nobody in our department here has less than 10 years on the job. The young people have been shed. Those with long tenure remain. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Internet provocateurs II
It's easy enough to go off the deep end when theorizing about the sort of character Louis described. I suspect that harassment _per se_ is the intent, and that left-wingers are chosen because they are conceived of as ideal victims. That is, they won't go to the police about it, whether out of distrust or ideological purism. (Small-time drug dealers are often stiffed according to a similar but much sounder notion.) Ironically, such a perspective is far more reality-grounded than one prevailing in certain right-wing purlieus that has us running the country. valis
provocateurs
My first experience with a provocateur occured when I was first teaching. I young army reservist, an officer, made an effort to seek me out, visit my house and attempt to befriend me. One day before class, he approached me,visibly shaken. He told me that in his work as an ordinance officer he had access to a great deal of explosives. What should we do? I suspect that he had been caught in a comprising situation at one point and that someone made a deal with him to let matters slide if He was not nutty. He was probably a pretty liberal person who got caught up in something too big for him. In short, he was not a very good provocateur. I reported the incident to the president of the university -- without giving any information that could lead to the identity of the student. I just wanted to cover myself in case I was accused of some malfeasance. He was apalled that I was talking about bombing in class -- which I wasn't. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get him to understand the idea of a provocateur. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
surveille et punir (was: Internet provocateurs)
At 12:10 PM 4/27/98 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: Louis Proyect wrote: Interesting how blue-collar OSU has more guts on this question than Columbia with all its Marxish professors. Of course, it may be just the accident of different individuals on the line, but I wonder if there's also some difference between private and public institutions on such issues, too. Staffers at public institutions may have some sense of civil liberties, while those at private institutions may be more concerned with reputations in the academic market. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I do not think it is just coincidence -- I've seen similar fuss being made about email here at jhu. My own explanation of it is the prevalence of corporate culture at elite universities (to the point that I'm wondering when my email adress will be changed to jhu.com) - and a big part of that culture is power, keeping employees in line. Concerns over 'image,' dress codes, rules of conduct etc. are just code words to make that total control more palapable. Since the responsibility for the reproduction of corporate elites lies primarily with private elite universities, where knowledge and power become one -- it hardly surprising that Columbia is more eager to use any pretext to discipline an employee than a State U. Regards Wojtek Sokolowski
Re: Internet provocateurs II
Louis writes: Now another approach to these sorts of problems is the sort of fatalistic attitude [which] boils down to "of course, they are snooping. What else would you expect?" which suggests another approach: if we talk so much on the internet (or elsewhere), any spying goons from the FBI, CIA, NSA,[*] etc. will be totally overloaded with information and won't know how to deal with it. That, of course, is why I contribute so much to pen-l. ;-) But seriously, the bigger our movement, the less we rely on small groups of permanent leaders, etc., the less the ability of the goons to take advantage of us. Of course, we should _also_ protest the way in which the goons violate their own laws. After all, if _they_ violate the laws, why should _we_ be expected to obey those laws? But of course we are willing to obey the laws (unless pushed by their outrageous crimes), which makes us better than them. [*] BTW, someone in the National Security Administration (played by Alec Baldwin) is the "bad guy" in the recent Bruce Willis vehicle "Mercury Rising." Not an excellent movie (more of a B movie), but it does present an autistic kid very well. I saw it with two other fathers of kids with some autistic problems. We were nodding at the similarities between the kid in the movie and our kids. The movie-makers seem to have consulted the experts, just as they did for Jack Nicholson's portrayal of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in "As Good As it Gets." in pen-l solidarity, reporting live from Tinseltown, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html "A society is rich when material goods, including capital, are cheap, and human beings dear." -- R.H. Tawney.
Re: surveille et punir (was: Internet provocateurs)
Since the responsibility for the reproduction of corporate elites lies primarily with private elite universities, where knowledge and power become one -- it hardly surprising that Columbia is more eager to use any pretext to discipline an employee than a State U. Regards Wojtek Sokolowski Oh yeah, I forgot to mention what the ridiculous "ombudsman" at Columbia told me. (I think I needed an ombudsman to protect me against her. When she first emailed me that she had a "concern" to discuss with me, I knew it was going to be about some provocation. When I phoned her the next day to set up an appointment, I told her that I was going to be in touch with the Committee For Constitutional Rights and hiring a lawyer to protect me. She freaked out.) When I finally met with her, she was trying to explain the letterhead angle, but the only thing she could come up with in black-and-white to back her was a page from the faculty handbook--like this really applies to a computer jockey like me. It said that professors are not allowed to do business on their own taking advantage of the Columbia name. This meant not sending out promotional letters on Columbia stationery. She had to admit that this didn't exactly apply to me, but--what the fuck--she was more interested in getting me to separate my quarrelsome revolutionary advocacy from Columbia University more than anything else. I was happy to accomodate her. Louis Proyect
Re: A matter of importance
I'm puzzled by Bill's post. There are lists which are private and whose members agree not to share anything posted with people who are not on the list. In that case I would understand and share his complaint. But Pen-L, which is publicly archived, clearly is not such a list. Anyone can find your postings with a few keystrokes, indeed Bill provides a link to PKT on his own webpage. The Pen-L page provides a search engine for the last year or so of posts, plus older archives have been made conveniently ftp-able as zipped files. So someone has made a deliberate decision to make our exchanges as accessible to the public as possible. (And indeed to bequeath them to a grateful posterity -- imagine the dissertations to be written on Doug's views on the labor theory of value.) Sure, people can misuse public stuff -- things get quoted selectively and out of context all the time. But I don't see that quoting someone's Pen-L utterances by itself is a violation of trust justifying expulsion from the list. Perhaps Michael or other senior Pen-Lers can shed light on the relevant norms. Best, Colin
Pathfinder Boards - American Cultural Arrogance
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Cointelpro in the 1980s
Government harassment of U.S. political activists clearly exists today, violating our fundamental democratic rights and creating a climate of fear and distrust which undermines our efforts to challenge official policy. Similar attacks on social justice movements came to light during the 1960s. Only years later did we learn that these had been merely the visible tip of an iceberg. Largely hidden at the time was a vast government program to neutralize domestic political opposition through "covert action" (political repression carried out secretly or under the guise of legitimate law enforcement). The 1960s program, coordinated by the FBI under the code name "COINTELPRO," was exposed in the 1970s and supposedly stopped. But covert operations against domestic dissidents did not end. They have persisted and become an integral part of government activity. ... Domestic Covert Action Has Persisted Throughout the 1980s The 1980s ... [were] marked by the rise of right-wing political power and new forms of popular opposition to reactionary government policy. Under these conditions, the danger of domestic covert action is greater than ever. Since the vast majority of COINTELPRO-type operations stay hidden until long after the damage has been done, those we are already aware of represent only the tip of the iceberg. Far more is sure to lurk beneath the surface. - Most of today's domestic covert action can be kept concealed because full government secrecy has been restored. The Freedom of Information Act, a source of major disclosures about COINTELPRO, was drastically narrowed in the 1980s through administrative and judicial reinterpretation as well as legislative amendment. Thousands of government files were shielded from public scrutiny under presidential directives that vastly expand the range of information classified "top-secret." Government employees now face censorship even after they retire, and new laws make it a federal crime to disclose "any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent." While restoring full secrecy, the Reagan administration invested covert action with a new legitimacy. In the past, such operations were acknowledged to be improper and illegal. The Senate Intelligence Committee condemned COINTELPRO as "a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association." From its inception, the CLA was barred by law from performing "internal security functions." Top government officials took care to insulate themselves so they could deny involvement if an unseemly operation came to light. These conditions established a kind of speed limit, a set of restrictions which the agencies felt free to exceed, but only by a certain margin. In the 1980s even this ceiling was lifted. Reagan and his cohorts openly embraced the use of covert operations at home and abroad. They endorsed such action, legalized it, sponsored it, and raised it to the level of patriotic virtue. Within months of taking office, Reagan pardoned W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller, the only FBI officials convicted of COINTELPRO crimes. His congressional allies publicly honored these criminals and praised their work. The President continually revived the tired old Red Scare, adding a new "terrorist" bogeyman, while Attorney General Meese campaigned to narrow the scope of the Bill of Rights and limit judicial review of the constitutionality of government action. From the National Security Council's offices in the White House basement, Lt. Col. Oliver North proudly funded and orchestrated break ins and other "dirty tricks" to defeat congressional critics of U.S. policy in Central America and neutralize grassroots protest. He ran elaborate networks of paper organizations set up by former government covert operatives who regrouped to do the same work for more money in the "private sector. " Special Prosecutor Walsh found evidence that North and Retired Air Force Gen. Richard Secord (architect of 1960s U.S. covert action in Cambodia) used Iran-Contra funds to harass the Christic Institute, a church-funded public interest law group which specializes in exposing government misconduct. North also helped Reagan's cronies at the Federal Emergency Management Administration develop contingency plans for suspending the Constitution, establishing martial law, and holding political dissidents in concentration camps in the event of "national opposition against a U.S. military invasion abroad." Much of what was done outside the law under COINTELPRO has since been legalized by Executive Order No. 12333 (December 4, 1981) and new Attorney General's "Guidelines on General Crimes, Racketeering Enterprise and Domestic Security/Terrorism Investigations" (March 7, 1983). For the first time in U.S. history, government infiltration "for the purpose of influencing the activity of' domestic political organizations has received official sanction (E.0.12333, §2.9). This
Re: Internet provocateurs II
At 01:17 PM 4/27/98 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
Now another approach to these sorts of problems is the sort of fatalistic
attitude that Witold, valis and Barkley Rosser (on Spoons) expressed. This
boils down to "of course, they are snooping. What else would you expect?" I
challenge the notion that they have the right to do this. One of the
burning questions before us as the Internet becomes a vehicle for
grass-roots democracy is the right to have privacy. The cops don't have the
right to eavesdrop. They are public servants and have no business keeping
track of the identities and conversations of people fighting the status quo.
I do not have much faith in bourgeois democracy to begin with. It is but a
sham, a participatory ritual devised to legimitize the rule of capitalist
elites. Their use of 'formal rules' and 'laws' suggest impartiality and
objectivity, but we all know better than that. The ruling class is first
to bend or suspend those ruels as soon as their class interests are
threatened. To expect that the 'rule of law' or 'constitution' will
protect us from the arbitrary use of power is tantamount to believing that
prayers and spells will protect us from earthquakes or pestillence.
The fact that you cannot even wipe your arse with the US laws (the paper is
too stiff) if you do not have material means to retaliate for noncompliance
can be demonstrated by the treaties the US government signed with the
Native Americans. To my knowldge, every single one of them was broken, as
soon as the government-corporate interests found it profitable.
There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever, that the only reason the Left is
not subject to heavy surveillance, persecution and provocation is NOT the
rule of law, but the fact that we are not anymore perceived as a threat.
As soon as any group, no matter how fringe or lunatic, is perceived as
threat -- it immediately faces all the fire power the government can
mobilize -- including helicopters and Abrams tanks. The bombing of the
MOVE house in Philadelphia, Ruby Ridge, or Waco are cases in point. It was
clear from the start that in each of these cases the only acceptable to the
government solution was the execution of the 'enemies of the system.' So
much for the 'rule of law.'
As far as I can tell, the first rule of organizing is not to politely ask
government agents to stop arbitrary persecution, but to make that
persecution as costly as possible. For example, Hell Angels were often
harassed by the cops when travelling in small packs, so they started moving
in big groups ('runs') hundred or so string -- so they cops knew that there
would be much trouble if they start fucking around with such a large group.
There is no such thing as government, only people who call themselves so.
And just as in case of wife beating -- it will continue only because- and
as long as the abuser knows he can get away with it -- the same holds for
government abuses. As long as people who call themselves government know
they can do it with impunity they will do it, whether it is 'legal' or not.
Only if they personally risk retaliation, the abuse will stop.
Regards,
Wojtek Sokolowski
Re: Internet provocateurs II
At 04:48 PM 4/27/98 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: But there have been legal attacks on repression as well that are very important, such as the SWP suit that nearly the entire left backed. These two types of actions are dialectically interrelated and it is silly to pose one against the other. When the government is discovered to be up to illegal acts--like burglaries--in the name of collecting intelligence, the left is absolutely obligated to seek legal action to remedy this. I was in Houston with the Trotskyist SWP in the early 1970s when the Ku Klux Klan was on the rampage. They had dynamited the local Pacifica Radio transmitting tower and our bookstore. One night they drove past the home of a party member and prominent antiwar activist and machine-gunned his house. I was at the headquarters one saturday afternoon when we got picketed by the Klansmen, who were toting M-16s. Time Magazine called Houston a city under a reign of terror. In that issue was a famous photo of a Houston cop sitting in his squad car with a robe over his head. The approach of the SWP was to build a coalition of peace, civil liberties, civil rights and labor organizations to pressure the city government to defend our civil liberties. Press conferences were held on a regular basis. We ran for Mayor and put out this message every chance we got. We also worked with lawyers to bring an injunction against the police department. Eventually all the adverse publicity had the effect of bringing Klan violence to a halt. This was progress. If the SWP had not launched such a campaign, Houston would look more like Miami today which is under a similar grip of Cuban exile terror. The only alternative was to confront the Klan on its own terms, which would have been a stupid adventure. The Maoist Communist Workers Party attempted this in the streets of Greensboro, North Carolina in the 1980s and the result was a massacre and the defeat of the left. A point of clarification. I did not say that legal efforts are useless, I said that legal efforts alone are useless. The Harvard and Chicago boys in Washington DC will negotiate in good faith only if they know that the other alternative is that either they themselves or their cronies can get whacked. We would still have racial seggregation if (i) there was no real threat that Blacks can refuse participation in the US adventures first in Korea and later in Vietnam (ii) there was no sufficient number of people willing to take it to the streets and create suffcient discruption or even armed struggle. I do not think anything has ever been won in Washington DC if it was not accompanied by a threat of retaliation. Liberals accuse Clinton of 'betrayal' whereas the poor guy simply responds to the reality of the US politics. Even an angel would be no different in that position, if his (her?) ability to mobilize troops was equal to that of the pope. regards ws
Re: Liebig's Law and the limits to growth
Boddhi, Sorry, but you're just off here. Of course we shall never really know for sure what killed off the dinosaurs (heck, we'll never know for sure that you even exist or are not actually "Murray"). But the current scientific consensus that they got zapped by an asteroid hit is really coming on strong. Among other major pieces of evidence has been the discovery of the remnants of the hit in the neighborhood of the Yucatan peninsula. All the pieces seem to fit. Now, as was noted by Louis P., this is actually an exogenous shock type of event that really has nothing to do with endogenous kinds of complex dynamics. However, the theory of punctuated equilibrium in evolution can be driven by either exogenously generated sudden changes in the environment from asteroids to tectonic plate shifts, to more endogenous shifts such as multiple equilbria in an evolving dynamics ecological system hitting a critical point and passing to a new regime. Barkley Rosser On Mon, 27 Apr 98 7:53:46 EDT boddhisatva [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: C. Proyect, Oh I forgot. Punctuated equilibrium has become the saving grace of those who want to anti-scientifically idealize nature. In their minds nature chugs along in perfect balance and order until "deus ex machina" some mighty event comes along. Nonsense. We have no idea what killed the dinosaurs. The fossil evidence suggests that they may have died off suddenly. *That* is what real scientists cop to if pressed. The rest of the arguments pro-catastrophe and anti are circumstantial. Paleontologists are probably the least disciplined scientists that there are. The dinosaurs could have died from disease or have been out-competed by creatures small and large after plate movement brought species into contact that had not been previously. There is a similar mystery with the enormous mammals such as saber-toothed tigers. These have been found to have ranged far south enough to avoid drastic climate change, yet they all died. The novel combination of animals created during the geological changes to central America may have been the cause of that extinction. In either case it's paramount not to assume that concepts like balance, cycles and self-correcting systems are anything but human. As long as we understand that our concepts are effectively metaphors for trends in infinitely more complex natural behavior, we don't lose sight of science for speculation. peace -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
internet provocateurs
Louis Proyect has accused me of complacency, or whatever, regarding internet provocateurs. I sent a message sometime ago about this to pen-l that has not shown up yet, but let me say a bit more for now. 1) I reiterate that "they" (and I was more specific in my other message about who "they" are, and "they" are not the FBI or the CIA) are listening and that there is not a damn thing anybody can do about it. But, of course, listening is not the same thing as "provoking." 2) Even FOIAs reveal provocateurs only with great difficulty and long after the fact. I have told Louis P. offlist of the revelations of FBI provocateurs in Madison, Wisconsin in the late 60s/early 70s. These revelations were only successful as a result of numerous FOIAs that were able to fill in the blanks of blanked-out stuff on a bunch of such requests by many people over several years. In short, it is damned hard to prove that anybody is a government provocateur, however obnoxious and annoying they might be. This applies to "Murray" and the various aliases that have been accused of being him/it as well. 3) In any case, it is up to a list manager to remove anyone who is creating difficulties for the list by either their on-list or off-list behavior. Generally, it doesn't hurt if there are a clear set of rules and guidelines for a list. However, I would congratulate Michael Perelman for having kept this list reasonably sane and productive, even though he does not have a clear set of rules. Sometimes benevolent dictators really are benevolent, :-). Barkley Rosser --- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Denmark On Strike (fwd)
Following our debate on provocation and political represion, below is an example of an action that really matters -- as opposed to internet schmoozing. Now is the 5-point multiple choice question. Facing the possibility of a massive strike involving 10% of the labout force, the US government and its corporate owners would: a) organize a massive disinformation and smear campaign on the media to discredit the strike; b) form goon squads and hire assassins to harass, intimidate and eliminate strike organizers; c) send armed troops, Abrams tanks and helicopters to disperse, arrest or eliminate the striking workers; d) all of the above. regards, ws Return-path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:34:59 + From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Denmark On Strike (fwd) To: Recipients of conference [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-to: "Conference labr.party" [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Gateway: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lines: 82 /** labr.global: 283.0 **/ ** Topic: Denmark On Strike ** ** Written 4:06 PM Apr 26, 1998 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in cdp:labr.global ** Date:04/25 7:05 PM On Monday the 27th at 6:00 AM Denmark is going on strike. This will be the biggest *official* strike ever involving 400,000+ workers in building, industry and transport. This means that around 10 percent of the total population will be on strike with more to follow, if the strike evolves. Negotiations between employers and trade unions earlier this spring resulted in a very meagre deal which was _rejected_ by the workers in a (mostly) secret ballot. Around 47 percent of the involved workers participated in the ballot which is far higher than normally (usually less than 30 percent bothers to vote). Around 55 percent voted NO to the deal -- which is the more remarkable as the organised left is quite weak. So we are talkning about a *genuine* working class response, partly fostered by a feeling that this is "pay-back time" given increasing profits in the industry. And a Gallup a month ago showed that a majority of workers were willing to go on strike if it was necessary (this was well before any organising of the strike had taken place). The Social Democrat government must be on its heels right now. They would like to end the strike but are dependent on right-wing parties to do this. And in the end of May we are going to have the referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty. Next Friday we will have very big Mayday demonstrations, which undoubtedly will smell of the strike. So the strike could very well spill over into a No in the referendum. Last time Denmark had a strike like this was in 1985. At that time an official strike was met by the then right-wing government trying to intervene in the strike after just three days. This move was met with a very angry response from workers who made a very effective picket line around the Danish Parliament (which is located on an island in Copenhagen, which made the picket line that much easier and more spectacular). This put a focus on the strike and took many, many more workers on unofficial strike. Around 1 million workers took part in the strike at that time, which virtually paralysized Denmark for ten days. And the strike meant that employers -- and governments -- until now has been very reluctant to provoke new strikes on that scale. Political commentators and "social scientists" in workplace relations has for years declared class struggle for dead and out of place with the "modern post-industrial society" -- these people are in these hours vey busy rethinking their positions. One of the things they have overlooked is the fact that Denmark has retained a very high rate of tradeunion organization -- around 85 percent of all workers are organized and the rate has been increasing during the eightiers and nineties. It is this high rate of tradeunioniazation which explains the kind of unified response that we see in the the general strike. It's very exciting times -- the working class is suddenly coming back on stage. More informations later. If any of you wants specific informations for articles, papers etc. you are welcome to e-mail me privately Martin Johansen International Socialists tlf: +45 35 37 65 91 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - End Forwarded Message - ** End of text from cdp:labr.global ** *** This material came from PeaceNet, a non-profit progressive networking service. For more information, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
Job Opening
Hello All! We've got a job opening here at Portland State (Oregon). It's better than it looks, as the plan is for it to be made tenure-track if this initial position works out well. The position is a new attempt to join the work of the local Council of Economic Education with our Econ department. The down-side is that it's really soft money, and the person coming in will be needing to raise their salary for the econ education half, as I understand it. Also, you could get tenure, doing econ ed type stuff--we're giving much more than lip service these days to the "scholarship of community outreach" and styling ourselves "an urban grant" university, of service to the city as the land grant schools have been to the ag interests. It is a city school, with the students disproportionately older (average age=29), working, parents, first generation college students, and of a wide range of academic backgrounds and abilities. Portland is a very white town; within that context, black students and Native Americans have a pretty well-established presence on campus. It's also a poor school, and every week I learn more concretely what this means, in terms of resources and salaries and a growing obsession with external funding. If anyone wants to ask me anything more, just e-mail me, or if you'd like to contact the Chair (who's on the hiring committee), She is Helen Youngelson-Neal ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). Mary King *** PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY POSITION AVAILABLE A 2-Year fixed term, twelve month position, half-time in the Department of Economics and half-time appointment as Executive Director of the Oregon Council of Economic Education. The position in the Department of Economics requires the ability and willingness to teach three economics courses and participate in research and service in economic education. The position as Executive Director of the Oregon Council of Economic Education requires the ability to conduct the operations of the Council, to provide executive leadership, to engage in fundraising activities and collaboration in K-12 educational reform. Send vitae, three letters of recommendation, graduate school transcripts, copies of research papers, and teaching evaluations to: Chair, Recruiting Committee, Department of Economics, Portland State University, P.O. Box 751, Portland Oregon 97207-0751, FAX 503/ 725-3945 Position open until filled. Approval Pending. Portland State University is an AA/ADA/EEO employer. *** [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mary King Assistant Professor Economics Department Portland State University P.O. Box 751 Portland OR 97207 Office: (503) 725-3940 FAX: (503) 725-3945
Pathfinder Boards - American Cultural Arrogance
Hey Fikret: Could you be convinced to send URL's but NOT whole web pages in your posts to pen-l? much appreciated if you dont. thanks -- Les Schaffer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Center for Radiophysics and Space Research Cornell University [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: provocateurs
At 10:15 AM 4/27/98 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote: My first experience with a provocateur occured when I was first teaching. I young army reservist, an officer, made an effort to seek me out, visit my house and attempt to befriend me. One day before class, he approached me,visibly shaken. He told me that in his work as an ordinance officer he had access to a great deal of explosives. What should we do? I suspect that he had been caught in a comprising situation at one point and that someone made a deal with him to let matters slide if He was not nutty. He was probably a pretty liberal person who got caught up in something too big for him. In short, he was not a very good provocateur. I reported the incident to the president of the university -- without giving any information that could lead to the identity of the student. I just wanted to cover myself in case I was accused of some malfeasance. He was apalled that I was talking about bombing in class -- which I wasn't. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get him to understand the idea of a provocateur. But I would still question whether that guy was on an official mission. In my view, a more likely explanation is that he might have been on a self-styled mission to catch an enemy of the country. I used to work as an instructor at an army intelligence unit, and since some security concerns were involved, we had to go through a counterintelligence training every year. I would say that the major difference between those training sessions and James Bond movies was that the former purported to be 'factual' information. The general message was 'beware of anything extraordinary - gays, foreigners, women, people who are too friendly, people who are too secretive, people who drink too much, people who do not drink at all, people who want to help you, people who too withdrawn, etc." Pure paranoia. Although for a critically thinking person such messages were an obvious instance of bullshit produced by 'intelligence specialists' to justify their sinecures, critical thinking is not the strongest point of your average GI Joe. As a result of that brainwashing, your average GI Joe starts looking for spies, or even dreaming of catching one singlehandedly, thus earning a medal and a promotion. Interestingly, a situation similar to that you described might be subject to vastly different interpretations. I was once approached by a female Army sergeant who asked me to tell her about everyday life on the other side of the 'iron curtain.' Since I was not in the mood for a conversation, I gave her the standard professorial bullshit 'why don't you read about that in your training manual.' To which she replied 'I know what government propaganda is saying, but now I want to hear from someone who's actually been there.' I always interpreted that story in terms of social class differences: the straighforwardness and focus on material facts of a working class female (who happened to be an Army sergeant) vs. I-know-it-better attitude and focus on the scripture of the scribbling classes. It never occured to me that it it might have been a provocation, especially that I did not hide my political views anyway. However, I am aware of the fact that similar situations were interpreted by other civilian instructors as provocations. Regards, Wojtek Sokolowski
Re: BLS Daily Report
At 12:13 PM 4/27/98 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: Richardson_D wrote: Average job tenure of American workers at medium and large companies has reached 13.1 years, nearly a year longer than earlier in the decade, according to a study by a management consulting firm. Examining the employment records of 1.1 million workers at 59 companies, Watson Wyatt Worldwide found that American workers are remaining in their jobs longer than ever, with the percentage of workers employed by the same company for 10 and 20 years climbing throughout the 1990s. The largest companies studied - those with more than 80,000 employees - had the highest average worker tenure of 14.6 years (Daily Labor Report, page A-7). How does this comport with the popular perception of greater job turbulence in an age of supposedly rampant downsizing? Is it possible that those with jobs are less likely to leave, thereby boosting the average tenure numbers? Other studies show no long-term increase in job turnover in the U.S. either. What's going on here? I wonder if he controlled for the corporate share of the labour market? That is, since people tend to work longer for big corporations than small firms, an increased corporate share of the labour market is bound to have the efffect as described above. Hence the need to control for the firm's size, i.e. look into changes in the average length of employment in firms of the same size. Another possibility is to control for occupation or perhaps the type of job; it might be that office jobs have longer tenure (for obvious reasons), hence the higher share of office jobs produces a higher average -- even if the average tenure decreased over time within each category. Consider the following example: Time 1: office jobs: aver. tenure 20 years, share of labour market 25% non-office jobs: avr. tenure 12 years, lm share 75% average lm tenure 14 years (.25*20 + .75*12) Time 2: office jobs: aver tenure 18 years, lm share 75% non office jobs: aver tenure 10 yeasr, lm share 25% ever. l, tenure 16 years (.75*18 + .25*10) Clearly the average tenure at Time 2 is 2 years longer than at Time 1, even though job tenure actuallu shrunk by 2 years at Time 2. regards, Wojtek Sokolowski
Pathfinder Boards - FORTUNE'S The Economy and Politics
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Two Trade Union stories
1. GARMENT WORKERS April 27, 1998 Bitter Dispute Pits Garment Union Against Its Workers By DIANA B. HENRIQUES NEW YORK -- As recently as five years ago, the sprawling Brooklyn plant operated by Mademoiselle Knitwear Inc. was a showcase -- clean, air-conditioned, with a cafeteria for workers and a day-care center for their children. Nearly 780 people tended the computer-guided knitting machines and the sewing and pressing stations, turning out sweaters for the prestigious Liz Claiborne label. Union leaders cited the plant as proof of what management and labor could achieve together. And the workers, mostly Chinese and Hispanic immigrants, rejoiced to be out of sweatshops where weeks elapsed without a promised paycheck. Now, the rainbow piles of Liz Claiborne sweaters are gone -- most are being made in cheaper nonunion factories abroad. A few orders from other labels barely keep 175 workers busy, and Mademoiselle is in bankruptcy. Mademoiselle is hardly unique in the struggling domestic garment industry, where the number of union jobs fell by 54 percent between 1989 and 1996. But its workers are fighting back. They have sued not only Claiborne, one of the nation's largest clothing manufacturers, but their union, saying that it stopped fighting on their behalf in return for a multimillion-dollar payment. The suit amounts to the first serious legal challenge to a decades-old system approved by Congress that allows unions to penalize garment makers for shipping jobs abroad. But instead of protecting jobs, critics contend, the system is accelerating their loss, providing a way for garment makers to cut labor costs without risking strikes while putting money into union pockets even as membership dues dwindle. If successful, the workers' case could change the dynamics of labor relations throughout the garment business, forcing the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (Unite), the successor to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, to take a harder line. But the highly complicated, years-long fight could also have broad implications for other industries, where unions are struggling to get a foothold. "It just reinforces the negative public image that is one of the biggest obstacles to labor's efforts to unionize white-collar fields like technology and health care," said Charles Craver, the author of "Can Unions Survive?" and a law professor at George Washington University. The workers at Mademoiselle contend that Unite, the key union in the industry, betrayed them last year by accepting a $750,000 settlement of a promising $30 million arbitration claim that it had filed against Claiborne, which now orders most of its sweaters from Britain, Australia and the Far East. The settlement came to just less than $2,900 for each eligible worker. In return, the workers contend, Claiborne signed an agreement that gave the union $13 million up front, with $7.5 million more likely to be paid over the next three years. Both Unite and Claiborne insist that the payment to the union was both legal and routine, representing money that Claiborne owed for violating a contractual promise to order only from unionized factories. That promise, and the damages paid, covered all orders that Claiborne placed in nonunion shops, not just those withdrawn from Mademoiselle. In the industry, such payments are called "liquidated damages," and they are negotiated during contract talks with manufacturers every three years. As for the arbitration settlement, the union said that it had done the best it could for the Mademoiselle workers. And both the union and Claiborne insist that there was no quid pro quo -- the settlement for the workers and the payment to the union, they say, were unrelated matters that were negotiated separately. The use of liquidated damages dates back to the 1950s. At that time, a new federal law forbade unions to require employers to do business only with other unionized companies. But Congress exempted the garment industry from that rule, concluding that organizing efforts would be impossible otherwise because designers typically farm out their work to small, scattered subcontractors. Thus, Unite legally can, and does, demand in its collective bargaining agreements that designers use only unionized subcontractors like Mademoiselle. Claiborne and other manufacturers that violate the agreement are liable to the union for liquidated damages based on the volume of nonunion work. Several labor economists described the payments as "a union-imposed tariff" aimed at discouraging garment industry imports. But Unite's practice of accepting such payments -- rather than fighting imports through arbitration or on the picket line -- has helped fatten industry profits and lower management risks, critics say. Using cheap factories abroad can save manufacturers far more than they pay in damages, and the payments spare them the possibility of costly labor battles at home. Unite says
Pathfinder Boards - World Bank IMF Policy Devastates Africa
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Re: Internet provocateurs II
Valis wrote: It's easy enough to go off the deep end when theorizing about the sort of character Louis described. I suspect that harassment _per se_ is the intent, and that left-wingers are chosen because they are conceived of as ideal victims. That is, they won't go to the police about it, whether out of distrust or ideological purism. The actual history of the left reaction to provocation is more complex. The group I used to belong to, the SWP, took advantage of the furor over Watergate to sue the FBI in 1975 for $40 million in damages and an injunction to keep them out of the group. Judge Thomas Griesa decided in favor of the SWP, represented by America's top constitutional lawyer Leonard Boudin. He decided that the cash settlement should only be $100,000 but the FBI was made to understand that it was henceforth *illegal* to infiltrate the SWP. I was in the courtroom the day that Stephen Cohen testified on behalf of the SWP, which was trying to establish that it was not a terrorist group. He persuaded Griesa that the Bolshevik revolution was not a coup. The SWP victory and the abolition of Cointelpro helped create a climate in which FBI harassment was more easily combatted. For example, when the FBI showed up in CISPES, there was a huge protest from all quarters even though they claimed that the group was an arm of the guerrilla movement. In 1988, the FBI visited the personnel offices of around a dozen Tecnica volunteers who had spent time in Nicaragua. They charged them with being part of a conspiracy to smuggle high-technology out of Nicaragua into Cuba and the USSR. I consulted with the Center for Constitional Rights in NY, who had discovered that the government was preparing a grand jury investigation in San Diego against us. We contacted the press and there was a huge backlash against the FBI, which had to back down. There were strong editorial protests from the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and the NY Times. Ted Koppel devoted a half-hour to the episode and queried why the FBI was harassing idealistic volunteers. Now another approach to these sorts of problems is the sort of fatalistic attitude that Witold, valis and Barkley Rosser (on Spoons) expressed. This boils down to "of course, they are snooping. What else would you expect?" I challenge the notion that they have the right to do this. One of the burning questions before us as the Internet becomes a vehicle for grass-roots democracy is the right to have privacy. The cops don't have the right to eavesdrop. They are public servants and have no business keeping track of the identities and conversations of people fighting the status quo. Worse than the fatalism of the aforementioned is the ultraleft attitude of many Maoists, etc. who think that it is a badge of honor that they are being spied upon and harassed. It shows presumably that they are real revolutionaries. This is utter nonsense. Real revolutionaries fight for the right to do political work where the law protects him. Lenin, a lawyer, used to spend long hours every night pouring through the Czarist legal codes in order to find loopholes that would allow workers to strike. Louis Proyect
Re: Internet provocateurs
Doug says that public institutions may show more courage. Absolutely not. Public universities are suseptible to wild political witch hunts. The Jesuits probably offer much more refuge to academics. Sorry to disagree with Doug so much today. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: BLS Daily Report
Richardson_D wrote: Average job tenure of American workers at medium and large companies has reached 13.1 years, nearly a year longer than earlier in the decade, according to a study by a management consulting firm. Examining the employment records of 1.1 million workers at 59 companies, Watson Wyatt Worldwide found that American workers are remaining in their jobs longer than ever, with the percentage of workers employed by the same company for 10 and 20 years climbing throughout the 1990s. The largest companies studied - those with more than 80,000 employees - had the highest average worker tenure of 14.6 years (Daily Labor Report, page A-7). How does this comport with the popular perception of greater job turbulence in an age of supposedly rampant downsizing? Is it possible that those with jobs are less likely to leave, thereby boosting the average tenure numbers? Other studies show no long-term increase in job turnover in the U.S. either. What's going on here? Doug
Re: Internet provocateurs
At 11:31 AM 4/27/98 -0400, you wrote: Lou, Based on your description I have a feeling that this Murray character is simply a crackpot who thinks he is on a CIA mission saving the country from an alien invasion. He might have watched too many James Bonds movies, but I do not think he is an employee of a government agency -- or if he is, I do not think he does is a part of his official mission. I already answered this question on Spoons, but it is worth repeating. The FBI does not send graduates of its academy into left groups. It hires free-lancers by and large. The record on such individuals is that they are usually unbalanced. For example, if you read Daniel Berrigan's account of the trial of a group of Catholic activists charged with a plot to set off dynamite in the heating ducts of the Pentagon, you will discover that the FBI agent who set the plot in motion was nuttier than a fruitcake. He was a borderline psychotic who had such a confusion over his identity that there is evidence that he actually had some sympathies for the peace activists. Malinovsky was probably the most famous agent-provocateur in history. He became a Duma delegate for the Bolsheviks, even though everybody but Lenin thought he was on the Czar's payroll. He was a pathological liar and suffered periodic emotional breakdowns. After the Bolsheviks took power, he confessed his crimes and even swore that he was a genuine revolutionary the whole time. He was executed. Louis Proyect
Dinosaur extinction
Most prominent scientists agree that some sort of "deus-ex-machina" event created the catastrophic climactic changes that killed off the dinosaurs of the Mesozoic age 65 million years ago and ushered in the modern Cenozoic Age of Mammals. The differences are over exactly what the nature of the event was that triggered the vast climactic change. Israeli scientists have recently argued in favor of some sort of collision with the Sun, while other scientists believe that a comet or asteroid hitting the earth was the cause. Dewey M. McLean has a novel approach to the question and points to powerful volcano eruptions as the cause. The main point is that something radically altered the environment which caused the dinosaur to become extinct. The reason these questions are important is that they relate to our fate today. We, like the dinosaurs, are facing possible extinction because of "deus-ex-machina" type events that can destroy the conditions of life. Unlike the dinosaur, however, we will be the authors of our own destruction. Nuclear weapons continue to remain a threat even if the cold war has ended. In the event of a new worldwide economic depression, some demagogic fascist leader somewhere will be tempted to destroy the world rather than be defeated. Another potential threat is global warming itself, which would mirror the ice age that destroyed the dinosaurs. It is the capitalist system itself that is the prime cause of such a possible catastrophic event. "Boddhisatva" thinks this is not much of a problem, since he once told people on Spoons that he lives in a high-rise way above sea level. I tend to identify with the concerns of people like Richard Leakey, who fears that mankind may be responsible for its own extinction. Here is a brief interview from E Magazine: E MAGAZINE: You've had two careers, working as both a conservationist and as a paleontologist. Could you share your insights about the critical relationship between humankind's past and humankind's future. RICHARD LEAKEY: I've been deeply struck by the dynamics and effects of the past. I think we tend to look at life with a very short-term perspective. When I was in charge of wildlife for the Kenyan government and was trying to preserve nature and national parks, I realized that we were probably trying to stop the clock, and we can't do that. From what I've seen as a paleontologist, change--and extinctions--are inevitable. There are many things totally out of our control. I think we have to come up with a formula that will enable us to preserve biodiversity without necessarily managing it in the sense of trying to freeze it in time. It can't be kept as we first knew it. E MAGAZINE: Your book discusses the Earth's five previous periods of mass extinction, and says we are currently in the sixth. What is the magnitude of the current problem, and how certain is the scientific community that the activities of humans are the cause of this extinction? RICHARD LEAKEY: Human activity--certainly over the last several hundred years or even as far back as the last 5,000 years--is causing a massive loss of species. It's very difficult to know the rate--we don't even really know how many species there are. But whether there are 50 million species or 100 million or 150 million species of life on the planet today, we're probably killing off between 10,000 and 50,000 species a year. Perhaps not the elephant or the rhino, but species of plants, species of insects and species of micro-organisms. One must look at the geological record--there have been extinctions forever, since there was life. But scientists today project that if we continue to modify habitat and be as negligent as we are in terms of disposable waste, clearing of forest, and the destruction of water and habitat, we could well be seeing the loss of 60 percent of species diversity by early in the next century. If that were to happen, we'd be facing a sort of cataclysm, a crash with many consequences. It's worth considering that if we do destroy much of life and life's support systems, we might be one of the species to become extinct. E MAGAZINE: There are a group of conservative scientists and commentators in the U.S.--people like Rush Limbaugh--who really see no limits on the capacity of the Earth to sustain life indefinitely into the future. You call them the "Anti-Alarmists." How would you answer their claim that everything's going to be fine? RICHARD LEAKEY: I certainly know a lot of those people and I hear what they're saying. If you look at it strictly in terms of one's own personal lifetime, there is reasonable security. If we lost the elephant, would the world necessarily be worse off? Probably not. But if we have an attitude that allows us to lose the elephant, then I believe we may very well be heading down a road that has serious consequences for humankind. One of the very interesting things that we can look at today is the appearance of HIV, which is now infecting some 30
RE: Citizens as clients/consumers
. . . One thing this is doing (and this was very much part of Thatcher's agenda when she floated BT) is creating a class of share-holders - the idea being that their vote against any pro-public sector party (such as Kinnock's mob) can be assured in return for but a couple of thousand shares, in a monopoly (at the local loop level anyway), and at a bargain price (apparently always the case when public utilities get privatised). How significant is this new class of shareholders? And is there a juicy reference on this phenomenon and its political significance du juour? I don't doubt that the right has high hopes for these schemes, but Thatcher's privatizing of public housing didn't prevent her from being dumped and her successor from getting his arse handed to him in elections against Blair. So I don't think it should be much cause for concern, as far as the political effects. The economic harm is another matter, of course. MBS
RE: IMF vote
At 03:13 p.m. 4/26/98 -0400, Max wrote: Liberals don't get excited about investment. According to the current [May 4] issue of BUSINESS WEEK, there's a new wing of the [US] Democratic Party that's very excited by investment, led by Barry Bluestone, Bennet Harrison, James K. Galbraith, and Rep. Richard Gephardt. It's the old "investment in infrastructure and education" argument. These guys seem to be the 'liberals," while Clinton is more right-wing (except on specific issues such as choice on abortion, where he has a strong political base). ["Morning in America, 1998-Style," pp. 151, 154] That's public investment. Totally different. Doug was referring, I thought, to private investment. I noted in my reply that public sector shrinkage is a recurrent IMF theme that is salient with genuine liberals. The IMF is a pro-austerity leg-breaker for bankers, anti-public sector, anti-democratic, etc. No? I think it's a mistake to focus on the IMF so much. Rather, the whole set of Bretton Woods organizations should be emphasized. The IMF is supposed to be mostly in the business of giving short-term foreign exchange relief (a sort of international TANF) while the World Bank is the one supposed to be helping with long-term development. It's the latter that has been pushing structural adjustment the most of late. According to George Fazeli's book, the WB is the main proselytizer for free trade. Politically right now the IMF is the handle, since its funding is up for grabs. More broadly speaking, I don't disagree at all, but that gets into a more elaborate discussion. An IMF 'slogan' properly leads to the bigger discussion. Re your last point, I don't follow these institutions all that closely, but there has been the recent flap caused by Stiglitz, now at the world bank. I would also refer listers to a critique of the IMF published in this Sunday's Washington Post Outlook section. The cite is: The IMF Has Gotten Too Big for Its Riches By Susan Ambrose Sunday, April 26, 1998; Page C02 For some reason you can't pull this story off their web site, so I can't provide a URL or the text. It's worth a look. Susan is with "50 Years Is Enough," an anti-IMF coalition. This article also typifies, incidentally, the best of 'what we really do,' in regard to a recent thread on this list. Cheers, Max
RE: IMF vote
Liberals don't get excited about investment. That's for the Clintonoids. I suspect my folks will find an traditional Keynesianism perfectly appropriate. The IMF is a pro-austerity leg-breaker for bankers, anti-public sector, anti-democratic, etc. No? Everyone knows the anti-consumption, leg-breaking for the bankers stuff; for the ADA to foreground that would be "predictable," which journalists hate when it comes from folks even vaguely left of center. If the Clintonoids are so in awe of investment, then why do they find soulmates in the bond market or at the IMF? I'm not at all certain 'everyone' knows about the IMF and austerity. As for the Clintonoids, I think they tend to roll together financial markets, bonds, stocks, and 'investment' into one organic whole which, in their view, has to be kept well-fed. I do agree that some kind of point about the dismal consequences for investment and growth are on point. It was Summers himself who co-authored that classic paper on the relation between producers' durable equipment investment and growth, right? And here he is in an administration that's forced declines in PDE invesetment. Of course he also co-wrote some classic papers on noise traders and excess volatility, but that hasn't stopped him from promoting Emerging Markets. Most eminent economists recently serving with any Administration end up making hash of their professional work, from the standpoint of consistency. Nobody seems to care. MBS
Internet provocateurs
Bill Mitchell's post reminded me to fill in some background on the dissolution of the Spoons Marxism-lists, which is indirectly related to his problem. In either case, we are dealing with people attempting to curtail free speech in cyberspace. My switching to a panix account from Columbia is actually related to this. This is an email that my department received last week: - Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:02:43 -0500 From: "Stephen H. Luebbert" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Fwd: actions] The commies in your department are getting out of hand again. Looks like you need to break out the fire hoses. Why this idiot Proyect finds it necessary to create dossiers on fine Americans is beyond me. My advice to him would be to leave the country. Sure, he has the right to voice an opinion. But, he's digging, in a malicious attempt to do harm to a fine American, around, probably on university time, trying to find dirt. Do all commies call people who don't agree with them facist? Or is it that they are just too stupid to open their eyes and see the real world? Finally, I can't beleive Columbia University allows some commie activist, who's trying to dig up dirt on good americans, to be on it's staff. To Louis Proyect: You are invited to visit our neiborhood. Bring all your commie friends. - This character "Luebbert" first appeared on the Spoons about 2 years ago and nobody knows his real name. He has used various aliases, including "Thomas Murray" and "Liam Flynn." One of his first destructive acts was to show up unannounced at the high school graduation ceremony of a girl who was a member of the CP and subscriber to Spoons. He--a man in his 40s--asked her to come back with him to a motel. She was frightened out of her wits. When word circulated that there was some kind of nut like this hanging out on Spoons, he threatened to sue the University of Virginia for hosting Spoons. Then for the next two years, until recently, he kept appearing in one guise or another and making a nuisance out of himself. His favorite dirty trick is to hack people's email and disrupt their service. Most recently, he appeared on one of the Spoons-lists as "Li Trahn", a woman who worked with the "Vietnam-USA Friendship Committee". After a couple of days, he complained that people were sending him private racist hate-mail. This, of course, upset people including me. When I sent this character a private message of support, I got back a long, rambling antisemitic letter. I knew it once it was our provocateur. Other people figured this out as well, including a young English professor at Ohio State. When she and I warned other people to shun "Li Trahn" since "she" was actually Thomas Murray the stalker. At this point Murray sent email to Ohio State and Columbia University threatening legal action against me and the English instructor unless we apologized publicly. The response of Columbia versus OSU was interesting. I was hauled before the Columbia ombudsman who told me that of course I had the right to write anything I wanted, but that columbia.edu was like a letterhead and I should comport myself "professionally." I tried to explain that we were dealing with a provocation, very likely connected to the FBI, but she didn't seem to get it. When she suggested that I might avoid problems in the future by using a non-Columbia account for my "private" musings, I said sure. The columbia.edu was never meant to impress anybody anyhow. I let my ideas speak for themselves, not this "letterhead." Meanwhile, OSU told the provocateur to piss off. There is as much reason for them to get involved with this sort of business as the post office getting involved in some snail mail controversy. An OSU email account is no different than a Columbus zip code as far as they were concerned. Interesting how blue-collar OSU has more guts on this question than Columbia with all its Marxish professors. At this point I decided to put an end to this shit once and for all. I announced that I was going to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FBI and CIA to discover whether their employees--paid by our tax dollars--are snooping on the Spoons Marxism-lists. More to the point, I wanted to know if they were in contact with any subscribers, especially "Thomas Murray." The Spoons Collective prevailed upon me to not file the request, because the last thing they were interested in was confrontations with the government. These people were never that interested in Marxism as revolutionary politics to begin with. Their specialty was cultural studies and they had been maintaining Foucault-list, Deleuze-Guattari-list, etc. They wanted to start a Marxism-list because Marx had been such a big influence on these other thinkers. When the Marxism-list got started, they discovered that there were lots of people--including me--who were more interested in
Re: evolution and Marxism
Esteemed Comrade Father Devine, I wrote that socialists will use the resources of *human society* more effficiently than capitalists The resources of *human society* are not only modes of natural resource utilization, but all the strategies for keeping the tribe compasionate and enlightened that a social creature such as we employs to its advantage. peace
Re: Liebig's Law and the limits to growth
C. Proyect, Oh I forgot. Punctuated equilibrium has become the saving grace of those who want to anti-scientifically idealize nature. In their minds nature chugs along in perfect balance and order until "deus ex machina" some mighty event comes along. Nonsense. We have no idea what killed the dinosaurs. The fossil evidence suggests that they may have died off suddenly. *That* is what real scientists cop to if pressed. The rest of the arguments pro-catastrophe and anti are circumstantial. Paleontologists are probably the least disciplined scientists that there are. The dinosaurs could have died from disease or have been out-competed by creatures small and large after plate movement brought species into contact that had not been previously. There is a similar mystery with the enormous mammals such as saber-toothed tigers. These have been found to have ranged far south enough to avoid drastic climate change, yet they all died. The novel combination of animals created during the geological changes to central America may have been the cause of that extinction. In either case it's paramount not to assume that concepts like balance, cycles and self-correcting systems are anything but human. As long as we understand that our concepts are effectively metaphors for trends in infinitely more complex natural behavior, we don't lose sight of science for speculation. peace
The Incarceration Industry: Teeming Prison Rolls Bode Well for Private (fwd)
forwarded by Michael Hoover THE INCARCERATION INDUSTRY: TEEMING PRISON ROLLS BODE WELL FOR PRIVATE JAILS 3.12 p.m. ET (1912 GMT) April 22, 1998 By Jeremy Quittner, Fox News NEW YORK - As federal and state governments struggle to cope with a soaring prison population, a handful of private prison construction companies are profiting mightily from the swelling ranks of U.S. inmates. The companies are taking advantage of nationwide budgetary constraints, and they are promising to build prisons at lower costs than the public sector can. But they are also sparking debate about the ethics of profiting from incarceration. Since the mid-1980s, the United States prison population has been growing by nearly 50 percent every five years. According to Bureau of Justice statistics, there were 1.2 million prisoners in federal and state prisons by midyear 1997. Other statistics report an additional 600,000 inmates in local jails across the nation. On average, state and federal prisons have been operating at 125 percent capacity, and in some states, like California, they are operating at 200 percent capacity. Currently, five percent of the 5,000 prisons and jails are run by private corporations. Buoyed by the need to cut costs and build more jails, the prison privatization industry is growing at a rate of 30 percent a year. Consequently, some companies are taking a novel approach to the incarceration business, gathering investors much the same way mutual fund companies do. Corrections Corporation of America is the largest of the independent prison construction firms. The Nashville, Tenn.-based company controls 50 percent of the private prison market. It operates 69 prisons with 57,000 beds in 19 states, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom and Australia. Last year, CCA had full-year revenues of $473.4 million, and it estimates revenues of $695.6 million in 1998. "The fundamental side of the story is [that] the demand side for new beds is very high," said Jerry Robinson, vice president of equity research for Stephens, Inc. of Little Rock, Ark. "There is very scarce capital on behalf of the governments and municipalities, so CCA can go out and build a facility and strike a deal with local people." Last July, CCA spun off CCA Prison Realty Trust, to form a real estate investment trust. Real estate investment trusts, or REITs, function much the same way mutual funds do. Investors place their money in a real estate fund, and the money is invested in structures such as shopping malls, movie theaters, office buildings, medical centers and nursing homes. In CCA's case, the money is invested in the prisons it builds and acquires. Typically, REITs are tax-exempt, but they must distribute 95 percent of net earnings to shareholders annually. Shareholders pay taxes on the dividend. On Monday CCA said it would merge, for $4 billion, with the company it spun off last year. As a result of the merger, CCA will benefit from CCA Prison Realty's tax-exempt status. Various estimates place CCA's savings for the year at $50 million. "They are unifying the two companies under a REIT status so shareholders benefit from receiving a dividend of the cash," Robinson said. CCA's chief competitor is Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based Wackenhut Corrections Corp., which has 25 percent market share in private prisons. This week, Wackenhut will imitate CCA's earlier strategy by spinning off a portion of its business to create a REIT called the Correctional Properties Trust. The overflow of prisoners, while bad news for municipalities, is good news for companies like CCA and their shareholders, because it provides them with a stable cash flow. On average, private prison companies charge $45 a day per prisoner for maintenance. "Your occupancy rate is generally 95 percent or above, your per diem rates are contractual and set far in advance, so you know what your revenue is going to be, and you know what your operating expenses are going to be," Robinson said. "It is a very demonstrable cash flow from that facility, so you have stabilized the earnings." The privatization of prisons has stirred debate about cost savings. Advocates of privatization say it shaves 10 to 15 percent a year off state and federal government prison budgets. Critics, like the General Accounting Office in Washington, D.C., say there is no demonstrable cost savings. Other critics question the morality of privatizing prisons. "The whole question of for-profit prison enterprises, whether they are REITS or more conventional companies that issue more conventional stock, is problematic," said Steven Lydenberg, research director for Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini which created the Domini 400 Social Index, a mutual fund index of socially responsible funds. The fundamental issue, he said, is that prisoners are "at a particular disadvantage with respect to the provider
RE: Citizens as clients/consumers
G'day Penners,
Australia is following NZ into a black hole of across-the-board
privatisation. We've just flogged 1/3 of our erstwhile public monopoly
telco ('Telstra') and we're about to chuck the other 2/3 after it.
One thing this is doing (and this was very much part of Thatcher's agenda
when she floated BT) is creating a class of share-holders - the idea being
that their vote against any pro-public sector party (such as Kinnock's mob)
can be assured in return for but a couple of thousand shares, in a monopoly
(at the local loop level anyway), and at a bargain price (apparently always
the case when public utilities get privatised).
How significant is this new class of shareholders? And is there a juicy
reference on this phenomenon and its political significance du juour?
Cheers,
Rob.
A matter of importance
Dear pen-l Today I emailed Micheal and asked for a particular person to be removed from pen-l. It is not an action that I took without thought. The person has seen fit to send email that I have sent to pen-l in the past (Feb 1997) and also another list (pkt) to senior staff in my university as a part of a campaign to cause me maximum personal damage. The email was sent out of context and without explanation other than some annotations placed by the person. There was no attempt to provide the whole debate or to explain the philosophy of our list etc. I am not concerned at all that the bosses have the data. Not in the least. I am concerned that this person has breached the trust of our list and used our discussions in a completely partial way to further his aims in the workplace. The personal nature of the attack is also disturbing and indicative of a lack of substance. But I have asked Michael to act because I do not believe this person has acted in the spirit of the list. While we can have fierce disputes and use whatever language we like within pen-l, it is reprehensible to use selected email input in another struggle and pass it on to senior university staff. This is not an act of censorship but one of trust and the breach of it. I have told michael that if he cannot accede to my request then I will leave the list. I don't see a place on the list for someone who misuses our dialogue in this way. kind regards bill ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/bill/billeco.html
