[PEN-L:7729] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: social fascism
Reminds me of a 1950's phenomenon: when French Communists tourists began to come
after the War to America to tour the country by car, they used to curse American
drivers who cut them off in traffic by sticking their heads out the window and yell:
"Capitalist!" The Americans of course were puzzled why the French tourist would pay a
perfect stranger a compliment.
Henry
Charles Brown wrote:
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/04/99 12:12PM
Charles writes: I don't agree that "fascism" has lost value from overuse.
I would say it is underused and misapplied.
I guess we have to agree to disagree on that, but I'll summarize my
position: using the word "fascism" too much can be like referring to a
man's disrespectful and unwanted touching of a woman on a date as a form of
"rape." It devalues the word.
Charles: Or like the little boy who cried wolf. Yes, this is a pretty much a common
sense idea. It just doesn't apply to "fascism".
I wrote: What does calling the Governor of Michigan (Engler?) a "fascist"
say except that we don't like him?
Charles: That's "social fascist". You are using "fascist" loosely and not
the way I use it ( I specifically all Engler a "social fascist" because he
is not a full fascist) . Then you use your loose usage ("rhetoric" ?) as a
basis for saying all usage of these words is loose and so we shouldn't use
them.
I don't see how "social fascist" is somehow less full, somehow milder than
"fascist." To make it milder, why not call the bastard a "semi-fascist"?
(Going down this road, we could use Gore Vidal's insult of William F.
Buckley Jr., "pro crypto-Nazi." But that would be worse, since Nazism is
even worse than fascism and overuse of the term devalues it, as with the
US/NATO comparison of Milosevic to Hitler.)
Charles: I think I mentioned earlier in this thread the difference between Engler
and Hitler is that the former is not carrying out open , direct and holocaustic
terrorist rule. The cuts in social programs and racist policies are the form of his
assault on the working class, not direct death camps and actual war. It is a "war" on
the poor not with guns, but social policty. This is aptly captured by SOCIAL fascist.
And it has the value of continuing the tradition from the 20's and 30's , which I
prefer to connect to rather than differentiate from. In other words, I see the
communist historical movement as something that the next generation of
revolutionaries should draw more from than is the trend right now, in this extreme
revolutionary slump.
The fact that some people inflate the meaning of fascism by conflating political
critique with insult does not stop me from using the word precisely. As I said,
otherwise, Gore Vidal will determine what words I can use, Can't have that. We must
have semantic self-determination in the movement.
(((
Actually, my impression (which could be wrong) is that Engler is a
standard, garden variety, neo-liberal. Wouldn't it be great if
"neo-liberal" attained the negative connotations of "fascist" in peoples'
minds? I think that's where we should go. Even better, since "neo-liberal"
is jargon that few outside of the left use, we need to convince people that
whatever Engler calls himself ("Republican"? "Democrat"?) should have
really bad connotations.
Charles: I agree that we need to convince people that whatever Engler calls himself
should have bad connotations, but we should have our own names for him too. We don't
have to JUST call him a social fascist. The proposal isn't that people be restricted
to that term. To describe him would actually take a number of paragraphs, not just
two words, but you know, soundbitism. People need to be shocked out of their
complacency and comfort with the "Englers" of today, and "social fascist" has some
potential for that. "Neo-liberal" helps with analysis. Actually, I am not sure that
Engler is exactly a neo-liberal. His constituency is largely the
isolationist/anti-free trade/militia crowd.
I wrote: (b) Do you think that the "financial oligarchy" (which I think
could be described in less hackneyed terms)
Charles: If we start calling terms hackneyed, the impliedly fresh
vocabulary that gets substituted for terms like "financial oligarchy" will
win the hackneyed prize over "imperialism", "monopoly capital" , "financial
oligarchy". All of Doug Henwood's work that I have seen confirms that
there is a huge financial oligarchy running the global economy.
"Wallstreet" is a financial oligarchy. Debt is the leash system of the
whole thing. Financial Oligarchy is so fresh and unhackneyed it isn't even
funny. A hedge fund is a form of the financial oligarchy's organization.
What a perfect description of it.
Jim D.
The problem with "financial oligarchy" is not that it's hackneyed as much
as it suggests a conspiracy. It ignores a central problem of the rule of
finance capital these days, i.e., competition and "invisible hand"
[PEN-L:7703] Re: Sado-imperialism
Wojtek Sokolowski wrote,
Tom, shooting them execution style on bus can be boring in the long run.
We need more action.
The tubbies are a comatose breed. It's going to be hard to get much action
out of them. Maybe we could put them on little go-carts so they could zip
down the sidewalk. Then we could fire "smart-ass" cruise missiles at them
from stealth bombers at an altitude of 50,000 ft. The tubbies wouldn't know
who the missiles were aimed at ("whose ass was grass"), so they would scurry
around furiously on their go-carts colliding with each other, falling into
the street, getting run over by garbage trucks and generally causing all
kinds of mayhem and hilarity. Another weapon concept would be the
femme-fatale "robot intern" who would approach the male tubbies seductively,
then when their shorts were down open her gaping maw to display a bristling
array of oversized scalpel-teeth. Weiner schnitzel! Hah-ha! Take that, dude!
Remember, this game is based on state-of-the-art sado-imperialist strategy.
The object of the game is to inflict as much spectacular "collateral damage"
on the hapless tubbies as technologically possible without at any time
putting one's own player in harm's way. So what if it's boring? If people
don't like it, they don't need to play the game. They just have to buy it or
we'll put them on the bus with the tubbies.
[PEN-L:7701] Re: Re: China, WTO Excess Capacity
Bill Rosenberg wrote: "Henry C.K. Liu" wrote: False expectations. A. What are their expectations? China sees (unrealistically, I may add) WTO members as a way to get more global capital for foreign direct investment, more guaranteed access to froeign markets, healthy pressure on weak and inefficent domestic industries to reform out of a need to survive world competition, remove US imposition of non-trade demands (human rights) on trade policies, access to global new techonolgy currently denied by the US, and generally drag the Chinese economy kicking and screaming into the 21st century. B. I don't believe those governments aren't smart enough to be able to work out the real consequences. It is not a question of smarts. Every government, even communist ones, is subject to complex domestic politics and internal ideological struggles. The issue of the correct path of development has been central in the debate and a political footbal for internecine politics since the founding of the PRC 50 years ago and will go on forever, albeit in changing and increasing more complex forms. The WTO issue has become a lightning rod in the struggle beteen two fundamentally opposing alternatives: socialist road and capitalist road. The political debate has gone on for so long that the economic and political meaning of the coded rhetoric (which some on this list have ridiculed out of malice) are well understood by the combattants. To put it another way: I was recently asked by a Member of Parliament at a New Zealand parliamentary inquiry into APEC, why I thought Vietnam wanted to get into APEC if APEC's policies were as bad as I had made out. What would you answer - for Vietnam or for China? APEC is very different from WTO. With US dominated APEC, the U.S. has the ideas, but the Japanese have the money. The Japanese are a little upset that their money is being used by the US to form the basis of a policy that favors the US. Both China and Vietnam are as apprehensive about Japan as the are about the US. That is one reason they like APEC. The other reason is that ASEAN, a competitve organization dominated by Japan were orginially formed as an economic counter weight against China and Vietnam. On the trade front, the US will push other APEC nations to agree to a plan to speed APEC members to cut tariffs in nine sectors: environmental goods and services; fish; wood and paper; medical equipment; energy products and services; telecommunications; toys; jewelry; and chemicals. The US estimates that these sectors account for $1.5 trillion in world trade. The US would take an APEC agreement and try to enlist nations in Europe and elsewhere to agree to the tariff cuts as well. The agreement would not take effect unless the world's biggest trading nations agree to it. The US accuses Japan of trying to protect its local industries by lobbying against tariff cuts in the wood, paper and fishing industries. Without the full package of tariff reductions the deal effectively falls apart at APEC, although pledges of continuing efforts are made. Japan is quietly going around the region promising overseas development assistance to countries that do not participate. APEC came into being in late 1980 when Japan proposed the formation of a regionwide consultative group that would provide technical cooperation on trade and investment matters, along the line of OECD. Early in the 1990s, Australia, long a European outpost in Asia, joined APEC, prompted by fear of economic isolation and dissatisfaction with outmoded trade and economic treatment from her home country. The United States, following Australia's heel, change Japan's idea of a loose consultative body towards a formal free trade area, a vision enshrined in the 1994 APEC declaration in Bogor, Indonesia. In the subsequent 1995 summit in Osaka, Japan used the tradition of host country influence to redeclare that any trade liberalization would be voluntary, flexible and non-binding. The 1996 summit in Subic Bay, the Philippines, was a non-event that officially anointed thehost country as the latest "tiger". By then, Asia was a shrinking economic forest, where there are more tigers than food supply. The 1997 Vancouver summit produced an agreement on "early voluntary sector liberalization" (EVSL) in 15 "priority" sectors that no one really intended to follow through. The 15 have since been narrowed to 9: chemicals, energy, environment, fish, forestry, gem and jewelry, medical equipment, telecom MRA (mutual recognition agreement), toys, of which fish and forestry are political suicide issues in Japanese domestic politics. Vancouver was mainly an one act play where the US/IMF lectured Asian economies on the deterministic results of Asian values. APEC is an interesting window on the politics of international trade. ASEAN sees it as a rival to the Asean Free Trade Area. Japan wants APEC to provide respectability to voluntarism. The US wants a collective vehicle where
[PEN-L:7699] Re: M-L-MST
Max, your tortured conflation of the leading and lower organs of the party sits well with your pathetic boasting about your bucks salary. Menshevik insect! Terry McDonough Comrade McD, It is precisely the conflation of the leading and lower organs for which the revolutionary vanguard must strive. Sits well indeed. In dialectical terms: inflation, conflation, exhalation. Brush up on your Hegel. Bakuninite bimbo. mbs
[PEN-L:7697] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: China, WTO Excess Capacity
It is my understanding that the main reason the Chinese leadership wants to join the WTO is to end their yearly struggle with the US over MFN status. All members of the WTO automatically get MFN status. Plus there is a dispute resolution mechanism that they hope will reduce direct US leverage/pressure. Marty Hart-Landsberg On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, Doug Henwood wrote: Henry C.K. Liu wrote: False expectations. Bill Rosenberg wrote: Maybe a naive question but... Can someone explain to me why countries like China and Vietnam want to be in organisations like the WTO and APEC? My guess is that the ruling classes of these countries want to join the world bourgeoisie. Doug
[PEN-L:7695] Re: My New Chair Was Built by Child Labor
Pete, you should have given him hell and asked for an explanation, if you thought the kids weren't just hanging around or engaging in some version of junior high wood shop. I pretty familiar with the Amish and Mennonite ways in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Here in Ohio, starting not far from here there is the largest concentration of Amish and Mennonites in the country. The Mennonites have gone more or less mainstream protestant in my lifetime. I remember that when I was a kid you could tell the Mennonites from the Amish because the Mennonites drove cars(black naturally). The Mennonites dressed the same as the Amish---except that Mennonite women wore brighter whites, than Amish women. Today for the most part, unless wearing a costume for the tourists or their own amusement the Mennonites are indistinguishable from the Methodists or the Dutch Reform/Congregationalists in dress. There are many sects of Amish. Most are trying to cope with the modern or post-modern(?) world in their own way. For some reason whenever I am in "Dutch Country" the Amish and the Mennonites will talk about political/public/economic affairs around me. Which is unusual. The conversations are surprisingly enlightened! On this Amish furniture business in general. There are a lot of people in "Dutch" country who are not Amish or Mennonite and who use the name Amish furniture as a way to advertise. Of course there are by the same token non-Amish or Mennonite furniture makers who produce beautiful furniture in "Dutch" or as some advertisers refer to it, Amish country. My favorite event in Ohio Dutch country is the livestock auction held in Kidron, every Thursday. Your email pal, Tom L. Peter Dorman wrote: I swear I didn't know it at the time. I heard that an Amish guy in central NY State made fantastic rockers for a low price (a little over $100). So I ordered a chair to be picked up in several months, my head filled with thoughts about supporting cultural diversity as well as the happy moments I would have reading in my new chair. When I got there, the chair-maker was behind the cash register, and behind him were a gaggle of kids, mostly pre-teen, operating woodworking equipment. And, yes, the chair was beautiful to look at, comfortable to sit in, and very, very cheap Peter
[PEN-L:7693] Re: Leninism
[PEN-L:7691] Re: Re: Re: Re: racism on pen-l
To begin with, be conscious of the danger of system co-optation. Secondly, be on guard about sophisticated rationalization; make a point of regularly revisiting fundamentals. Thirdly, have unshakable respect for the common man and his poorly articulated views. Understand that one's own accomplishments and positions as part of the collective tool for the struggle for universal justice. Fourth, trust one's instincts. Usually injustice and suffering are highly visible if one has not been trained to deny them. Fifth, give victims the benefits of the doubt; if a wounded person says its painful, it is painful. Sixth, the weaker side is usually right in any dispute, for why else should any chose to be on the losing side beside a respect for truth? Seventh, historical conditions are as important as current facts,; historic make us, current facts disguises us. Eighth, be weary of professionalism and arguments such as: "This the not the proper place to deal with this issue". The time is always now and the place is always here and the issue is always real and important. It is the calculus of little "insignificant" issues that makes revolutions. Ninth, permanent revolution must be the only goal. Keep pushing. Make waves. Make people uncomfortable about their complacency ans self satisfaction. Tenth, politics is all and is the business of all. That is the new Ten Commandments of world revolution. Henry C.K. Liu Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: At 09:43 PM 6/3/99 -0400, Henry Liu wrote: Between friends, the problem with us intellectuals is that when we see a sausage, we think of Picasso, instead of starving people. We keep deluding ourselves, with help from the oppressive culture, that if we associate with the more educated, we can protect ourselves from discrimination, whereas in reality, we only move into circles in which discrimination is more subtle and its expression more sophisticated. Unwittingly, we permit ourselves to be co-opted into the oppressors camp and comfort ourselves by claiming that at least we are still on the left. Agreed. But what is to be done to change that? wojtek
[PEN-L:7690] Sado-imperialism
Hiro leaps to avoid the rocket-powered missiles, then pivots and fires. Green laser beams ricochet off the fortress walls, exploding like fireworks. Superfly's fragged! Body parts drop from the sky like bloody rain, gibs splattering the walls and if you don't know that's short for "giblets", slang for chunks of flesh, then you're a llama, a newbie loser, and shouldn't be hanging around Kyoto 2455 AD in the first place. I have an idea for a first-person shooter game called American Meat-Pie. In it the player takes the role of a "foreign terrorist" who seizes a busload of hideously obese American tourists (called "tubbies"), ties them up and blows them away one-by-one execution style. The gimmick is that when you shoot these disgusting creatures, semi-digested junk food splatters all over the place instead of blood and guts. To make the game more interesting, each of the tubbies wears a celebrity face that the player can select from a database of news anchors, government officials, billionaires, corporate CEOs and hedge-fund operators. The bus driver is always saved for last and can be left to grovel and plead for as long as the player wishes. While he is grovelling, the player orders the bus driver to eat the vomitous junk food bits left behind by the exploding tubbies. I think there would be a huge market for this game, both in the U.S.A. and especially outside the U.S.A. The Guardian, London Tuesday June 1, 1999 In the line of fire To computer game fans, John Romero is a god, the man who created some of the most gruesome and commercially successful shoot-'em-ups. But since the Colorado school killings, people have been asking him difficult questions. Does he have blood on his hands? Paul Keegan reports Hiro's on a rampage. He's a vaguely Asian crusader with giant muscles bursting through an armoured torso, but since you're watching the world through his eyes, all you see is his Ion Blaster gun and dungeon floors and walls hurtling by so fast your stomach somersaults into your throat. Whoa, look out! It's Superfly Johnson Hiro's gargantuan bald and black nemesis streaking by, blasting away with his Sidewinder gun. Hiro leaps to avoid the rocket-powered missiles, then pivots and fires. Green laser beams ricochet off the fortress walls, exploding like fireworks. Superfly's fragged! Body parts drop from the sky like bloody rain, gibs splattering the walls and if you don't know that's short for "giblets", slang for chunks of flesh, then you're a llama, a newbie loser, and shouldn't be hanging around Kyoto 2455 AD in the first place. "Ha! Take that, dude!" John Romero sits at his computer, chortling. A colleague curses from another room. It's early March, before anyone has ever heard of Littleton, Colorado, and the co-creator of the computer games Doom and Quake is showing off his new gorefest, Daikatana. As Hiro, he has just fragged a co-worker playing Superfly Johnson in a "death match", a battle via linked computers. "That's cool, huh?" Romero says. "You can see how much more visceral this game is." Romero is 31, with long, silky black hair. He wears tight designer jeans and a black T-shirt. It was Romero, along with a programming genius, John Carmack, who revolutionised the computer games industry in the mid-90s with the seminal shoot-'em-ups Doom and Quake, two of the biggest sellers of all time. The pair made millions, bought several Ferraris each and turned Dallas into the blood-and-guts capital of their industry. Though they have since broken up in a spat over precisely what makes a computer game cool, to hard-core fans they are still gods "the Paul McCartney and John Lennon of our business," says a Dallas game developer who insists on being identified only as Levelord. Then the United States was suddenly confronted with the image of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, both avid Doom fans, rampaging through the halls of Columbine High with an arsenal of deadly weapons and laughing at the "gibs". For the mass-market audience that developers like Romero have always coveted, the connection was hard to miss. Video and computer games had been criticised for violent content before, but what happened at Columbine High instantly gave the industry term for this relatively small game genre "first-person shooter" ominous new resonance. The same qualities that made Doom and Quake so adrenaline-pumping, so unlike any other form of violent media, now made them a primary target of outrage. These games plunge you into a three-dimensional world where you must kill to survive, whether your opponents are controlled by the computer or by real-life rivals. Romero refuses to talk now about the events in Littleton, but when he sat fragging Superfly Johnson into bloody chunks, it seemed that nothing could threaten this world he'd created. With a severed head rolling one way and a rib-sprouting torso bouncing another, he was perfectly candid when asked if he was
[PEN-L:7688] Russian Envoy Branded 'Traitor'
St Petersburg Times #471, Friday, June 4, 1999 TOP STORY Russian Envoy Branded 'Traitor' By Andrei Zolotov Jr. STAFF WRITER MOSCOW - The Kosovo peace plan accepted Thursday by Yugoslavia may have champagne corks popping in the West, but back in Russia Special Envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin faces a tough task defending the plan and his role in the negotiations. The Russian public and politicians have been frustrated by his failure to win substantial concessions from NATO, and the settlement plan announced Thursday is almost certain to be seen as a near total capitulation to the Western military alliance. The deal - which says NATO air strikes may continue until the beginning of a Serb withdrawal is verified and leaves unclear who will exercise the "unified control and command" of international security personnel "with an essential NATO participation" - looks like a surrender of Russian demands for an immediate halt to the bombings and for putting the United Nations firmly in charge of peacekeeping. At least on the ever-growing anti-Western flank of Russian politics, the peace plan is perceived as Chernomyrdin's failure to defend Yugoslavia's and Russia's interests against heavy pressure from Washington and other NATO powers. Upon his return to Moscow on Thursday evening, Chernomyrdin, apparently aware of the harsh criticism, appeared to try to shift responsibility toward President Boris Yeltsin, who approved the instructions for the Russian delegation. "Russia has not retreated from those principles that were worked out under the direction of [Yeltsin]," he said. Even before the details of the Bonn agreement were released, left-wing and nationalist State Duma deputies began their session Thursday morning by lashing out at Chernomyrdin. The Duma voted to invite high-level representatives of the Foreign and Defense ministries, as well as Yugoslav ambassador to Moscow, Borislav Milosevic, for immediate hearings. But after Yeltsin's representative in the Duma, Alexander Kotenkov, insisted that no one would report to the Duma before negotiators reported to Yeltsin, the hearings were postponed until 5 p.m. Friday. Fueling the harsh reaction of the deputies were media reports that Russian generals who were part of Chernomyrdin's negotiating team disagreed with the envoy. Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, who is in charge of the military's foreign contacts and is known for his hawkish position on Yugoslavia, was a member of Russian delegation. Chernomyrdin and Ivashov denied that there were disagreements. Ivashov, however, said the military part of Russia's delegation was "not quite satisfied with the imposed role of NATO and the diminishing of Russia's position in the conflict settlement." Agrarian faction leader Nikolai Kha ritonov accused Chernomyrdin of carrying out a "Munich conspiracy" by appeasing NATO. "Even the generals who were at the negotiations with Chernomyrdin are puzzled," Kha ri to nov said at the Duma session. While representatives of Chernomyrdin's Our Home Is Russia party attempted to defend their boss, nationalist Deputy Vladimir Zhirinovsky attacked both the former prime minister and the Agrarians, saying that "a gas specialist should not be working in foreign policy," nor should agricultural lobbyists meddle in Balkan affairs. The Duma opposition's negative reaction to Chernomyrdin's efforts is not entirely new. Earlier this week, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov labeled Chernomyrdin not a special envoy, but a "special traitor." "I have not heard from Chernomyrdin any coherent programs connected with a Yugoslavia settlement,"
[PEN-L:7685] Re: Russia test-fires ballistic missile
At 10:51 PM 6/3/99 -0400, Henry Liu wrote: Russia test-fires ballistic missile Thursday, 3 June 1999 19:10 (GMT) (UPI Focus) Russia test-fires ballistic missile MOSCOW, June 3 (UPI) - Russia has test-fired a Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plisetsk missile range in northwest Russia, the Itar-Tass news agency reports. The missile, a new-generation weapon that will eventually replace Russia's older, heavier missiles, flew across northern Russia, hitting its designated target in a remote area of the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia's Far East. Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces said the flight was a success. Today's launch of the Topol-M is believed to be only the seventh in three years. -- Copyright 1999 by United Press International. All rights reserved. That certainly sounds encouraging - but does it offer any realistic hope that Russia (perhaps allied with China) will return to its superpower status and a counterbalance to the scourge of western and us imperialism? i would like to think so, but i'm not very optimistic. anyone? wojtek
[PEN-L:7683] Re: M-L-MST
Date: Fri, 04 Jun 1999 13:21:27 + (GMT) From: Terrence Mc Donough [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:7682] Re: Leninism To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Organization: National University of Ireland, Galway Priority: normal On point (1) - we're a long way from the Hilferdingesque world that Lenin wrote and thought about. Competition has intensified, finance and industry haven't joined into a single unit (bank-supervised cartels), etc. So while 1917 was different from 1817, 1999 is pretty different from 1917, too. On point My only point here is that Lenin made a substantial contribution to the Marxian theory of capitalist stages, not that we are currently confronting the same stage which confronted Lenin. (2) - I think Soviet history confirmed that changing the folks at the helm is not without its problems, and that there was substantial continuity between Tsarist and Soviet Russia. If anything, that's an argument against Leninism's relevance today. Again my point was that Lenin made a substantial theoretical contribution to the Marxist theory of the state. And (3), well, any nominees for the vanugard party today? The Spartacist League? Again, I think you've got to confront the fact that organizations and strategies appropriate for a Tsarist police state don't have much relevance to an OECD country today. I might well call for nominees for a serious mass socialist party of the people. The SP? DSA? Obviously conditions are not right for either a vanguard or a mass socialist party today. I don't call myself a Leninist because Marxism-Leninism was essentially a dogmatic ossification of Marxism promoted by Stalin with if not evil then unscientific intent and Leninism doesn't supercede Marxism unmodified. Nevertheless, if one accepts a stage theory of capitalism, a structural theory of the bourgeois state, and the likelihood that at some stage in the revolutionary transition to socialism a vanguard party will be needed, then one would be justified in calling oneself a Leninist. Such a person would be no more worthy of dismissal as irrelevant than any of the rest of us. Anti sectarians should be extra careful not to dismiss others in a/n (anti)sectarian fashion [to use pomo parentheticals]. After all, things turn into their opposites :] (Mao reading Marx reading Hegel). Terry McDonough Max, your tortured conflation of the leading and lower organs of the party sits well with your pathetic boasting about your bucks salary. Menshevik insect! Terry McDonough
[PEN-L:7679] China restricts yuan exchange
Hong Kong Standard Friday June 4 1999 Restrictions on yuan exchange spark jitters STORY: BEIJING is restricting the conversion of foreign currencies into yuan, a move that briefly sparked jitters across the region yesterday that the yuan might be devalued. An advisory to foreign banks from the mainland's top commercial bank Bank of China (BOC) said their branches in the mainland and Hong Kong will be restricted from 10 June from converting foreign currencies into yuan. Shockwaves spread through Asian stock markets and currencies until Beijing offered assurances that it has no plans to devalue the currency. The BOC move is apparently meant to close a loophole that currently gives foreign banks access to renminbi offshore, effectively creating a small hole in the mainland's capital account. Foreign banks can exchange until now up to 100,000 yuan for foreign currencies although transactions are limited to buying yuan and they were restricted from selling yuan. ``My impression is the Chinese government wants a tighter grip on the yuan business. I heard people say this measure is in preparation for a devaluation, but I can't see what the BOC preventing the conversion of foreign currencies into yuan have to do with a possible devaluation,'' said an Asian banker. A currency dealer, who claimed to have spoken with some BOC executives, said the move was aimed at curtailing the outflow of yuan from the mainland. Worries have grown that an undetermined amount of yuan outside the mainland is now funding illicit businesses in Hong Kong and could be used in future to speculate against the yuan. The yuan at the moment can be bought at a cheaper rate of 1.15 to a Hong Kong dollar in the SAR than the official rate of 1.08. This gap could widen if yuan outflow remains unchecked, another dealer said. A tightening of foreign exchange regulations, just like Malaysia did last year, would make it more difficult to speculate against any currency. ``If you collect a considerable amount of yuan offshore and sell it to the BOC, you can make money. So the BOC doesn't want to buy from people who have arbitrage opportunities,'' said the dealer. But a major downside of a closed foreign exchange market is that it makes doing business in the mainland less convenient. ``Everybody in need of yuan will have to go through the BOC,'' he said. ``Lots of small businesses will suffer from red tape when dealing with the BOC.''
[PEN-L:7668] Re: Re: Re: China, WTO Excess Capacity
Maybe a naive question but... Can someone explain to me why countries like China and Vietnam want to be in organisations like the WTO and APEC? Bill Rosenberg
[PEN-L:7653] China, WTO Excess Capacity
G'day Henry and Michael, Henry has some things to say about China and the WTO. I put a case here some time back (I'd pinched it from an article) that a salient cause of the East Asian crisis was a ten-year process whereby capitalism had to swallow the introduction of millions of poor workers from the erstwhile Euro-commie bloc into global markets. The commie bloc brought little effective demand into those markets, but lots of poor labour. Excess capacity and underconsumption propensities were duly exacerbated, and the finance sector was obliged to find a patsy. That patsy was to be East Asia, where 200 million have now had their lives wrecked, and where political fall-out might yet wreck a lot more (Indonesia is positively frightening right now). Anyway, it seems to me those propensities have not been alleviated. Should China hit global capitalism in all its glory, would we not be doing a whole lot more of the same? A few tens of millions of buyers, sure, but a few more hundreds of millions of producers without realistic chances of becoming useful consumers. The US's goldilocks economy still produces below capacity, South-East Asia is building inventories as I tap away, so is Australia, Europe doesn't seem to offer short-term hope of increased consumption, and Latin America has no real buying power either. In other words, would world capitalism be mad to have China? And would China be mad to have world capitalism? Cheers, Rob. The issue: the implications of China's entrance to the WTO. Looking at it from China's perspective, I stand firmly with those who are against the idea. Domestic opposition to WTO has increased since the Embassy bombing, which I may add seriously, is no longer just a matter of over-reaction for the Chinese. Serious domestic politics have been affected and the issue of WTO, which had been settled, was reopened and China trade officials will not even renew negotiations until China receives a "satisfactory" report on the investigation on the bombing Clinton promised as being in progress. The State Department is frantically trying to put together a special envoy team to deliver the finished report to Beijing in time for WTO negotiation to conclude to roll the NTR Congressional vote into one single package. Slim chance that could be done, but Clinton wants to give it the best effort try. Opening Chinese markets under WTO rules at this moment in time will forever foreclose the building of socialism in China. Even under market economy terms, the benefits to China are dubious at best. I expect DeLong to be in support of the idea if China is willing to make all the concessions the US demands, particularly in the financial and communication sectors. He may even argue it's good for China. Of course, the prospect of this happening this year is practically nil, given the atmospherics. Clinton has practically thrown in the towel by giving up on trying to get permanent NTR (Normal Trading Relations- former Most Favored Nation) status and China-WTO membership as a package. He has announced that he will extend NTR status to China tomorrow (June 3) and Congress has 90 days to overturn the decision. The vote traditionally comes in late July just before Congress recesses in August. The immediate impact is, without NTR, tariff for Chinese imports will jump from less than 5% to 40%. The impact of this on US inflation and interest rates is obvious. So th failue of NTR even for one year has more serious impact of Wall Street than on trade per se. Gephardt normally a skeptic on trade liberalization, has signed on with the Administration on the China-WTO deal. Henry C.k. Liu Michael Perelman wrote: This whole debate is pointless. Who is worse, Jeffrey Daumer or Jack the Ripper? Nonsense. JIm D. made an important point that seems to have passed unnoticed. You cannot evaluate politics without the context. Mao murdered people because of mass starvation. Do we apply the same standard to homeless people who freeze on the street? No one here has come out to proclaim themself as a Stalinist. We went through the same nonsense a few weeks ago when people opposing the bombing felt obliged to declare that they were not disciples of Milosovic. Can't we drop this nonsense? Stalin did some hard things because Russia was under attack. Stalin did some cruel things because he was paranoid. Addressing such matters takes serious work. Not the journalism of R. Conquest. Not a simple e-mail post. What do we say of the sanatized cruelty of Clinton with regard to Ricky Ray Rector, the victims of welfare deform, or his serial bombing? He never had the courage to face his victims eye to eye. Instead, he makes a "hearfelt" speech about the deep morality of his position. Anyway, let's move on to something else? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7654] Yugo withdrawal and NATO opportunism
G'day Michael, On an unrelated point, I see where Clinton is expecting Europe to pay for his Balkan fiasco. Have the Europeans commneted on his expectations? I'm also concerned about Clinton's stance that bombing will continue until the Yugoslav forces in Kosovo have withdrawn. When the Iraqis finally did as requested by the UN resolution, the US mass-murdered the lot on the Basra Road (we were never allowed to see the aftermath). If Yugo forces do withdraw, the Apaches and A10s shall be able to exterminate them all, and there are 4 of them. And is Draskovic talking for Milo, here? Or is he feathering his bed ahead of time. As far as I know, Milo has had nothing to say yet. Hard to know what's going on ... Rob.
[PEN-L:7678] Re: Re: Re: Re: China, WTO Excess Capacity
False expectations. Bill Rosenberg wrote: Maybe a naive question but... Can someone explain to me why countries like China and Vietnam want to be in organisations like the WTO and APEC? Bill Rosenberg
[PEN-L:7680] Re: Re:...MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY
Yoshie wrote: Nobody is stopping Harald (or you for that matter) from organizing anti-war activists according to the principles that he thinks (or you think) are correct. It's not as though he and Chossudovsky belonged to the same political party and the party adopted Chossudovsky's view. I don't know about Australia, but the field of anti-war activism is _wide open_ here. Those who disagree with Chossudovsky should simply offer their own analyses that other activists can use in organizing, preferably rich in information. If Harald does so, I do not doubt that there will be many takers. a lyotardian position i didn't expect. does this mean that there should be no criticism and communication between positions? Angela --- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7682] Re: Leninism
On point (1) - we're a long way from the Hilferdingesque world that Lenin wrote and thought about. Competition has intensified, finance and industry haven't joined into a single unit (bank-supervised cartels), etc. So while 1917 was different from 1817, 1999 is pretty different from 1917, too. On point My only point here is that Lenin made a substantial contribution to the Marxian theory of capitalist stages, not that we are currently confronting the same stage which confronted Lenin. (2) - I think Soviet history confirmed that changing the folks at the helm is not without its problems, and that there was substantial continuity between Tsarist and Soviet Russia. If anything, that's an argument against Leninism's relevance today. Again my point was that Lenin made a substantial theoretical contribution to the Marxist theory of the state. And (3), well, any nominees for the vanugard party today? The Spartacist League? Again, I think you've got to confront the fact that organizations and strategies appropriate for a Tsarist police state don't have much relevance to an OECD country today. I might well call for nominees for a serious mass socialist party of the people. The SP? DSA? Obviously conditions are not right for either a vanguard or a mass socialist party today. I don't call myself a Leninist because Marxism-Leninism was essentially a dogmatic ossification of Marxism promoted by Stalin with if not evil then unscientific intent and Leninism doesn't supercede Marxism unmodified. Nevertheless, if one accepts a stage theory of capitalism, a structural theory of the bourgeois state, and the likelihood that at some stage in the revolutionary transition to socialism a vanguard party will be needed, then one would be justified in calling oneself a Leninist. Such a person would be no more worthy of dismissal as irrelevant than any of the rest of us. Anti sectarians should be extra careful not to dismiss others in a/n (anti)sectarian fashion [to use pomo parentheticals]. After all, things turn into their opposites :] (Mao reading Marx reading Hegel). Terry McDonough
[PEN-L:7689] Re: Re: Re: racism on pen-l
At 09:43 PM 6/3/99 -0400, Henry Liu wrote: Between friends, the problem with us intellectuals is that when we see a sausage, we think of Picasso, instead of starving people. We keep deluding ourselves, with help from the oppressive culture, that if we associate with the more educated, we can protect ourselves from discrimination, whereas in reality, we only move into circles in which discrimination is more subtle and its expression more sophisticated. Unwittingly, we permit ourselves to be co-opted into the oppressors camp and comfort ourselves by claiming that at least we are still on the left. Agreed. But what is to be done to change that? wojtek
[PEN-L:7696] Re: Re: Re: social fascism
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/03/99 06:36PM
Charles writes: I disagree with getting rid of the word "fascism" itself,
too, because there is still a danger that at some point the financial
oligarchy will become desparate and try to institute wholesale, open
terrorist rule again. This is one reason, the U.S. will not outlaw fascist
groups, because it might need them at some point. "Fascism" is an important
scienttific term we should continue to use to measure the U.S. political
economy.
(a) I wasn't advocating getting rid of the word "fascism" -- but I was
"trying to avoid" the word. Like a lot of rhetoric, it loses value in
overuse. (It's a classic case of diminishing returns.)
Charles: I don't agree that "fascism" has lost value from overuse. I would say it is
underused and misapplied.
This is especially
so since the it has been applied to describe not only the social system of
Italy in the 1920s and 1930s but also a kind of personality (the F-scale)
and also anything we don't like. Looking at the way it's been used, it's
hardly a scientific term. What does calling the Governor of Michigan
(Engler?) a "fascist" say except that we don't like him?
Charles: That's "social fascist". You are using "fascist" loosely and not the way I
use it ( I specifically call Engler a "social fascist" because he is not a full
fascist) . Then you use your loose usage ("rhetoric" ?) as a basis for saying all
usage of these words is loose and so we shouldn't use them.
If I were to use the word "fascism" in a scientific way (linking up with
the original fascism of Mussolini) I would use it to apply to Pat Buchanan,
who combines a lot of the classic elements (fierce nationalism, rabid
anti-communism, opportunism, use of "proletarian" rhetoric, racism, etc.)
His personal history also links up with the old fascist movements.
Charles: A more precise usage for Buchanan would be "proto-fascist". He seems to have
some potential to be a full fascist.
(((
(b) Do you think that the "financial oligarchy" (which I think could be
described in less hackneyed terms)
Charles: If we start calling terms hackneyed, the impliedly fresh vocabulary that gets
substituted for terms like "financial oligarchy" will win the hackneyed prize over
"imperialism", "monopoly capital" , "financial oligarchy". All of Doug Henwood's work
that I have seen confirms that there is a huge financial oligarchy running the global
economy. "Wallstreet" is a financial oligarchy. Debt is the leash system of the whole
thing. Financial Oligarchy is so fresh and unhackneyed it isn't even funny. A hedge
fund is a form of the financial oligarchy's organization. What a perfect description
of it.
(((
is likely to become desperate in the
near future?
Charles: The periodic crisis is a permanent feature of capitalism. Despite the hype,
the business cycle has not been "cured". Eventually, there will be economic crisis in
the U.S. too. That would be a potential time of desparation for the U.S. ruling class.
They prepare for it. The prison system is being expanded in case they have to go to
full concentration camps. The storm troopers are in PROTO form in the various and
sundry rightwing fascistic fringe groups and militias.
(
The anti-capitalist movement is very very weak. It's nothing
like in the 1960s and 1970s. Then they did bring in COINTELPRO. By the way,
CONINTELPRO was very bad (using agents provocateurs to break up the
Panthers, etc.) but I don't think the word "fascist" adds much. It
stretches the analogy with Mussolini to the breaking point.
Charles: The word "fascist" is like the word "imperialism" or the term
"military-industrial complex" . It comes from "them". The bourgeoisie's boy Mussolini
invented the term "fascism". Who is it , Hobson, from whom Lenin got "imperialism".
The "military-industrial complex" was a concept from the inside given us by an insider
Eisenhower. They know their own system better than we do.
"Fasces" are the bundle of rods in the SPQR Roman symbol that Brad D quoted (Senatus
Populisque Romanus; The Senate and the Roman People). The Roman culture is an
ancestor of all Western culture. So "fascism" is a good general statement of the
tendency of the modern West to go to a barbarically cruel state as the Romans had.
More later gotta go, comrade,
CB
(c) I'll grant you this point: there is a kind of "fascism" (gross and
violent social injustice) going on right now in the US, the war on drugs,
which has led to massive incarceration rates, disproportionately falling on
the backs of "minorities." However, to call it fascism again stretches the
analogy. (BTW, the war on drugs doesn't seem to be due to the desperation
of the financial oligarchy.) Also, to call it fascist distracts us from the
point that heroin, cocaine, etc., should be legalized and medicalized.
Calling it fascist simply
[PEN-L:7700] Re: Bozofilter time
...for some petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante who has obviously never seen or experienced the horrors of fascism, racism or the horrors the Chinese people faced/face to utter Mao's name to be compared with Hitler is disgusting, a/anti-historical and typical of the ultra-rightist filth that passes for/defines bourgeois "scholarship". That is my opinion with less invective. Jim Craven I take it that I am the "petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante" referred to here. I truly am an idiot for participating in this. But let me, once again, repeat what I wrote: Alas! The fact remains that Mao Zedong was (along with Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler) the head of one of the very, very few regimes that managed to kill more than thirty million people in this century. Mao's Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution count as among the greatest human disasters of this century... In this context, I take Mr. Craven's post to be a claim that the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were great triumphs, glorious victories for utopia--and that any denial of this is "disgusting" "anti-historical" "ultra-rightist filth." I no longer find it funny that there are people who find it psychologically impossible to admit to themselves that the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were great human disasters. I find it pathetic. Perhaps most pathetic--and least funny--is Mr. Craven's assertion that in Mao he sees "someone... who urged the opposite of the Cult of Personality." As I have said many times before, our only chance of getting the twenty-first century right is to look the disasters of the twentieth century squarely in the face. But Mr. Craven is right in at least one thing: I am an idiot for participating in this. It's bozofilter time. Brad DeLong -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- "Now 'in the long run' this [way of summarizing the quantity theory of money] is probably true But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. **In the long run** we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again." --J.M. Keynes -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- J. Bradford De Long; Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley; Co-Editor, Journal of Economic Perspectives. Dept. of Economics, U.C. Berkeley, #3880 Berkeley, CA 94720-3880 (510) 643-4027; (925) 283-2709 phones (510) 642-6615; (925) 283-3897 faxes http://econ161.berkeley.edu/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7710] a story on Chinese workers
of interest, from the L.A. TIMES, at http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/NATION/UPDATES/lat_labor990604.htm Friday, June 4, 1999 Chinese Rulers Fear Angry Workers May Finally Unite Labor: Ten years after Tiananmen Square crackdown, unemployment, not lack of democracy, fuels discontent. By HENRY CHU, Times Staff Writer SHENYANG, China--Liu Lao is on the longest vacation of his life: two years and counting. In 1997, the state-run iron foundry where he worked suddenly stopped production after losing too much money. But rather than lay everyone off, the factory bosses sent employees home "on holiday," a semantic ploy that allowed them to avoid having to pay severance and welfare benefits. Liu now spends his extended, unpaid "holiday" standing on a sidewalk in this ancient imperial city, peddling cheap steering-wheel covers to passing motorists and stewing in a kettle of discontent. "If workers had supported the students in '89," he grumbled, referring to the abortive anti-government protests that year in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, "the outcome would have been a lot different." A decade after Beijing sent tanks in to crush demonstrators on June 4, 1989, killing hundreds--perhaps thousands--of people, the prospect of labor unrest worries China's Communist leaders the most as they seek to hold on to power in the world's most populous country. The former students who pushed for democracy are a spent force these days, in prison, in exile or indifferent, more concerned about their pocketbooks than politics. Their successors at China's universities are more likely to back the government than attack it-- witness the student-led demonstrations that erupted after last month's NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital. But with unemployment spiraling and the economy slowing, disaffection among urban workers, a key segment of Chinese society, is on the rise. And while few Western commentators seem to remember, the Communist regime is acutely aware that economic and labor grievances played an important role in the 1989 protests, a realization that helps explain Beijing's continuing jitters over restiveness among China's 200-million-strong urban work force. Already, reports are rife of labor unrest across the country, from Hunan province in the south to here in the northeast, China's Rust Belt. So far, most of the unrest has taken the form of small, isolated protests by unpaid workers who block traffic or picket local authorities to get their demands heard. But the government fears that laborers--particularly the unemployed, who number between 15 million and 25 million in China--might organize en masse to become the wellspring of new opposition to Communist rule. Or, worse yet, that disgruntled workers might try to link up with other disenfranchised groups, such as political dissidents, to create some sort of united national front. "Until you get Wuhan hooked up with Beijing, which is hooked up with Shenyang, it's not going to be a threat to the government," said a Western diplomat who tracks labor issues. "There's potential for localized protests, but until there's a national organization, it's not a threat." Little evidence has emerged of serious coordination among workers countrywide or between workers and other groups. Many unemployed laborers, often in their 40s and 50s, say they have too much to lose to mount challenges that appear doomed to fail against the implacable machinery of an authoritarian state. "If we get thrown in jail, who will take care of our families?" asked Yu Wenting, 47, a factory worker who has been out of a job for two years. "Under the Communist Party, the Chinese people have become obedient. They don't dare fight the party." But Beijing is taking no chances. 3 Labor Activists Reportedly on Trial Last week, three men who tried to set up an independent labor watchdog group in the central city of Tianshui were put on trial for subversion, a Hong Kong-based human rights group reported. The charges carry stiff prison sentences and are similar to those filed in December against democracy activists who tried to establish an opposition political party. The activists are now in jail. Maintaining "domestic stability" remains the Communist leadership's mantra in this year of sensitive anniversaries, including the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown and the 50th anniversary of the founding of Communist China. "Without stability, nothing can be achieved, and successes already attained will be lost," Vice President Hu Jintao warned in a published message to workers to mark International Labor Day on May 1. "Workers must wholeheartedly cherish the nation's political stability and unity." It is apparent that not everyone feels the same way. Protests Commonplace in Hard-Hit Shenyang Here in Shenyang, an industrial hub once humming with activity, small-scale protests have become commonplace, with demonstrators lying
[PEN-L:7726] Capital Flows And Exchange Rates
Foreign Policy In Focus Vol. 4, No. 17, June 1999 Capital Flows and Exchange Rate Policy By Ellen Frank, Emmanuel College Edited by Tom Barry (IPS), and Martha Honey (IPS) Key Points o Countries are under increasing pressure to attract international financial capital to meet trade and balance of payments needs. o To enhance their attractiveness to investors, countries are urged to allow full and free convertibility of their currencies while attempting to stabilize their exchange rates. o A stable exchange rate is fundamentally incompatible with unrestricted speculative capital flows. Efforts to stabilize currencies in the wake of speculative assaults are costly and damaging to emerging market economies. As neoliberal policies foster greater privatization of the international financial system, countries must rely almost entirely on private financial flows to finance trade, to settle international accounts, even to meet domestic credit needs. In efforts to attract private funds, countries from Thailand and Mexico to Korea and Brazil have deregulated financial transactions, lifting controls on interest rates, on capital flows, and on the convertibility of domestic currencies. For most countries, this tilt toward financial liberalization has proven more a curse than a blessing. Liberalization schemes, particularly those promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the U.S., are fraught with dangers and dilemmas for emerging market economies. One of the most damaging consequences of liberalization is that it imposes upon emerging markets a set of unacceptable and ultimately unworkable exchange rate policies. An overriding goal of U.S.- and IMF-sponsored liberalization programs is to enhance the attractiveness of the target country's financial assets to financial investors. To be attractive, countries must attempt to insure investors against private financial loss. Governments are advised to permit full and free convertibility of their currencies into U.S. dollars so that investors can enjoy full dollar liquidity. To further minimize investors' risk of dollar losses, countries are encouraged to stabilize the value of their local currencies against the U.S. dollar. Full and free convertibility, however, has proven to be incompatible with exchange rate stability. Once countries lift controls on short-term capital movements and allow full convertibility of their currencies, the process of exchange rate determination is privatized as well. For all practical purposes, the external value of a country's currency in a liberalized financial market is determined by speculative trading in the international currency markets-something over which emerging market governments exercise little control. Financial players understand this reality well. But international policy officials routinely misrepresent the dynamics of the financial market. They blame the inevitable currency crises on internal failures of emerging market governments rather than on the speculative nature of international financial markets. Governments-like China-that prohibit trading in their currencies can maintain a stable currency peg by preventing private transactions at other than the stated exchange rate. In contrast, countries that allow full convertibility have only weak levers by which to stabilize their exchange rates. Like Argentina, they can institute a currency board, which issues domestic currency only in proportion to foreign exchange reserves. This is not a simple commitment to keep. In practice, a currency board commits the state to intensely restrictive economic policies that serve to curb private lending and slow wage growth-thereby demonstrating to financial markets the state's serious commitment to the dollar peg. Even then, attacks on the currency by speculators can overwhelm the government's ability to maintain the currency peg, as Argentina recently discovered. Brazil and other governments attempted to stabilize their currencies by catering to the whims and demands of financial markets, adopting restrictive fiscal policies and high interest rates. Implicit in the concept of pegs such as Brazil's is the promise that foreign exchange reserves will, if necessary, be deployed in defense of the peg (to buy domestic currency when speculators are selling it) and that the government will raise interest rates to whatever level is needed to protect investors from currency losses. Countries that wish, like Mexico, to adjust their dollar peg from time to time must generally compensate investors against losses by settling interest rates higher than countries that submit to an unchanging peg. Emerging market efforts to placate investors with pegged exchange rates, however, have proved pointless in the face of expanded currency speculation. Eventually, the real economic stresses of dollar pegging (repressed economic growth to prevent inflation, current account imbalances) become obvious to speculators,
[PEN-L:7741] (Fwd) THE MODERN EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES - Norman Solomon
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Fri, 04 Jun 1999 15:23:24 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:THE MODERN EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES - Norman Solomon THE MODERN EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES By Norman Solomon / Creators Syndicate Once upon a time, in early June of 1999, the man on the throne displayed his moral finery as he complained that "children are being fed a dependable daily dose of violence." The emperor added: "This desensitizes our children to violence and to the consequences of it." Courtiers and scribes exclaimed that the monarch was resplendent in the garb of wisdom. Reporting his statements with reverence, the journalists of the day were generally impressed. They nodded with appreciation for the popular verities. Sovereigns had long made a habit of going on parade while wearing pious garments, and this ruler was no exception. His loud costumes proclaimed how deeply he abhorred violence. Of course, some of the powerful scribes did not care for this particular emperor. They would have preferred the election of a different ruler, cloaked in another style. But they were content to criticize the current ruler for having bad taste in clothing. Meanwhile, there were many prominent defenders. For instance, a gentleman named Anthony Lewis was one of the bluebloods who found the emperor to be quite presentable. Sir Anthony saw virtues and responsibilities. "We are in the war now," he wrote in the New York Times as the spring neared its end, "and for the most urgent political as well as moral reasons we must win." On parade, the sovereign walked with dignity as he showed off the golden fabric of his nobility. Along with other influential scribes, Sir Anthony cheered and bowed while the stately procession advanced, imperial flags rippling in the wind. He wrote death sentences like: "NATO air attacks have killed Serbian civilians. That is regrettable. But it is a price that has to be paid when a nation falls in behind a criminal leader." Somewhere in the crowd stood a little girl and a little boy who were perplexed. They wanted to know why the scribes, so respected and so widely heeded, did not talk about the huge holes in the weave of the emperor's pronouncements. In fact, watching the parade, they wondered why no one mentioned that the royal highness was just about bare. The two kids scratched their heads when the emperor denounced some forms of media for stirring up violence among young people. "The boundary between fantasy and reality violence -- which is a clear line for most adults -- can become very blurred for vulnerable children," the emperor declared at a Rose Garden ceremony. "Why does he prance around with a few skimpy strands of cloth dangling from his shoulders?" the little girl asked. She became more agitated when the emperor's wife stepped forward to deplore a "culture of violence that is engulfing American children every day." The girl began to worry about lacking sophistication. She couldn't find any consistent thread running through the regal assertions. The royal couple kept saying that the culture of violence was bad. But their great enthusiasm for the present war seemed certain to further inflame it. "What kind of values are we promoting," the emperor's wife asked rhetorically, without a hint of irony, "when a child can walk into a store and find video games where you win based on how many people you can kill or how many places you can blow up?" The little boy tried to sort out the whole situation. "It must be a matter of the difference between pretend and for real," he observed. "The emperor and his wife don't want us to play at killing people because we might get confused and actually do it without proper authorization. The point is that we should wait till we're a few years older. Then, we could join the armed forces, and if an emperor wants us to kill some people we could do so, and everybody will praise us." "I suppose that's true," said the little girl. "For a while there, I figured the emperor for a stark naked hypocrite. But the scribes don't seem to see through his finery, so maybe we shouldn't either. Or at least we ought to keep it to ourselves." "The emperor's wearing some fine new clothes after all," said the little boy. "Surely, if he wasn't wearing a stitch, the wise people of the mass media would point that out." "That makes sense. After all, who are you going to believe, the news media or your own eyes?" Norman Solomon's most recent book, "The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media," was published this spring.
[PEN-L:7702] petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante
I don't think that there are any "petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante(s)" on pne-l (unless you mean me, since I am not sure about myself). Such language does nothing to further any discussion. All it did was to reignite a flame. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7698] Off-List Request
Hi Pen-l Friends, Could some kind soul please send me off-list the report by the Germans that found little to no evidence of Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Thanks in advance. Seth Sandronsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
[PEN-L:7692] Re: Sado-imperialism
At 06:00 AM 6/4/99 -0700, Tom Walker wrote: shouldn't be hanging around Kyoto 2455 AD in the first place. I have an idea for a first-person shooter game called American Meat-Pie. In it the player takes the role of a "foreign terrorist" who seizes a busload of hideously obese American tourists (called "tubbies"), ties them up and blows them away one-by-one execution style. The gimmick is that when you shoot these disgusting creatures, semi-digested junk food splatters all over the place instead of blood and guts. To make the game more interesting, each of the tubbies wears a celebrity face that the player can select from a database of news anchors, government officials, billionaires, corporate CEOs and hedge-fund operators. The bus driver is always saved for last and can be left to grovel and plead for as long as the player wishes. While he is grovelling, the player orders the bus driver to eat the vomitous junk food bits left behind by the exploding tubbies. I think there would be a huge market for this game, both in the U.S.A. and especially outside the U.S.A. Tom, shooting them execution style on bus can be boring in the long run. We need more action. I suggest some additions. For example, the tubbies can be brought to the Disneyland style amusement park where they are released and then hunted down for pleasure by their captors (the players), armed with the standard "Doom" gear - a knife, a chain saw, a shotgun, a machine gun, and a rocket launcher. Additional killing devices may include house-of-fear roller coaster with real horrors (the idea is to chase a tubbie in such a way that the monster devours him rather than the player), electric scooters (the additional fun comes from the tuubies being simultaneousely electrocuted while being truned into a pulp under the wheels), sharks (both live and electronic), and gigantic cartoon characters (Mickey Mouse -style) with built-in meat grinders. The idea of hunting is to track a hiding tubbie and then either blast him with a weapon, chase him to a shark-pond or to the house of fear or force him into the meat-grinding cartoon character that would then spit out a packaged 'McMeal' that would earn the player extra points. Additional points will be won by capturing them alive and bringing them to a mad-science laboratory where they will be used as exprimental or vivisection subjects. wojtek
[PEN-L:7687] China Delays WTO Talks
Zhu: Time Not Ripe For Resumption Of Sino-US Talks On WTO HONG KONG, Jun 4, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji said Friday that the time was not ripe for a resumption of Sino-US talks on Beijing's long-standing bid to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO), local television said. Zhu was quoted as saying the message had been delivered to US President Bill Clinton during a recent telephone conversation with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. The premier said at a meeting with Hong Kong Financial Secretary Donald Tsang that the present atmosphere "was not appropriate" to resume WTO-related talks with the United States. Zhu also said the dialogue could not continue if human rights were being linked to China's accession to the world trade watchdog. Sino-US relations have been strained since the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO forces last month. US and Chinese negotiators have not discussed China's WTO accession bid since the incident on May 7 which killed three Chinese journalists. The Cox report charging China with having stolen US nuclear weapons secrets has also set back Sino-US relations and is seen to have complicated the WTO talks. Even before the bombing, the United States and China were having trouble hammering out an accord under which Washington would back Beijing's entry into the Geneva-based trade body. The United States is pressing China for sweeping market-opening commitments before it extends its backing. Hong Kong's financial secretary told reporters the premier had told him how the Chinese economy was likely to fare this year. Tsang said Zhu had repeated assurances that the Chinese yuan would not be devalued. The Bank of China's move to stop overseas yuan remittances to domestic branches on Thursday sparked renewed worries of a yuan devaluation in regional financial markets. ((c) 1999 Agence France Presse)
[PEN-L:7686] Re: Re: My New Chair Was Built by Child Labor
At 11:14 PM 6/3/99 -0400, you wrote: Peter Dorman wrote: I swear I didn't know it at the time. I heard that an Amish guy in central NY State made fantastic rockers for a low price (a little over $100). So I ordered a chair to be picked up in several months, my head filled with thoughts about supporting cultural diversity as well as the happy moments I would have reading in my new chair. When I got there, the chair-maker was behind the cash register, and behind him were a gaggle of kids, mostly pre-teen, operating woodworking equipment. And, yes, the chair was beautiful to look at, comfortable to sit in, and very, very cheap So what is wrong with children learning how to make objects of real use value to other people -- instead of being addicted to tee-ve and virtual video-crap, or indoctrinated in school to be a robot in the corporate hierarchy or perhaps a spin doctor telling other people what to think? The liberal logic is truly mysterious. wojtek
[PEN-L:7677] Re: My New Chair Was Built by Child Labor
The Amish are protected by religious freedom doctrine. If you mess with their child labor practices via federal civil rights or labor laws, NATO may bomb New York for ethnic cleansing, and you and I would become refugees, that is if we are not caught on the Geaorge Washington Bridge, a perfect military target. Let just leave well enough alone. BTW, where I get one? ;o) Did he collect sales tax? Henry C.K. Liu Peter Dorman wrote: I swear I didn't know it at the time. I heard that an Amish guy in central NY State made fantastic rockers for a low price (a little over $100). So I ordered a chair to be picked up in several months, my head filled with thoughts about supporting cultural diversity as well as the happy moments I would have reading in my new chair. When I got there, the chair-maker was behind the cash register, and behind him were a gaggle of kids, mostly pre-teen, operating woodworking equipment. And, yes, the chair was beautiful to look at, comfortable to sit in, and very, very cheap Peter
[PEN-L:7728] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: social fascism
Jim Devine wrote: The problem with "financial oligarchy" is not that it's hackneyed as much as it suggests a conspiracy. It ignores a central problem of the rule of finance capital these days, i.e., competition and "invisible hand" automatic operations. There doesn't have to be a conspiracy: speculators suddenly begin to believe a country's finance minister might do something mild that goes against the ruling financial orthodoxy (like a mild Tobin Tax). So they all panic, like a herd of cattle, pulling their funds out of the country, imposing a financial crisis. Or they impose a crisis on Brazil because of things that happen in Russia. Now there are oligarchic elements to finance capital: the Federal Reserve, the IMF, the big banks, Hedge Funds, etc. all are pretty clubby, sharing a common culture and a common ideology (the financial orthodoxy referred to above). But to simply refer to the oligarchy without the competition/market dimension of it is to provide an incomplete picture. I asked if the "financial orthodoxy" is likely to become desperate in the near future? As capitalist culture develops, it is no longer necessary to have 20 people in a smoky room to have a conspiracy. Conspiracies are now coalition of interests organized on multilevel through recognized theories that if accepted, predetermine interpretations and responses. So international economics as a science is a conspiracy within a conspiracy. The business bankruptcy regime to escape from labor contracts and the incestuous credit markets are conspiracies. The notion of the unseen hand does not required the absence of the hand, only that it be "unseen". Even the US calls for a "level playing field" implying conspiratorial rigging of global markets. Then there is systemic conspiracy, unspoken but very real, such as market herd instinct, and technical analysis which is essentially the science of conspiratorial behavior in fiancial markets. Conspiracy is not necessarily evil by itself, it is merely an effectuating devise. It can be used, like all devices, for both positive and negative purposes. However, since conspiracy, to be effective, requires power, and since power in history has always been the prerogative of the corrupt and exploitative, conspiracies are generally reactionary. Their prime function is to circumvent the very rules that the system itself has declared but not will to follow. Charles: The periodic crisis is a permanent feature of capitalism. Despite the hype, the business cycle has not been "cured". Eventually, there will be economic crisis in the U.S. too. That would be a potential time of desparation for the U.S. ruling class. They prepare for it. The prison system is being expanded in case they have to go to full concentration camps. The storm troopers are in PROTO form in the various and sundry rightwing fascistic fringe groups and militias. I agree that economic crises are inevitable under capitalism. But an economic crisis isn't a social crisis for capitalism unless there's a big opposition. Without the social crisis, there's no need for concentration camps. Mussolini was responding to a social crisis in Italy, while Hitler responded to one in Germany. If people are instead sucking opiates and watching TV, there's no social crisis of the sort that threatens capital's rule. Capitalism's concentration camps are the Levitt Towns and similar suburbs and the "job" in the corporate system. The plants of GM are frightenly similar to the network of concentration camps, albeit more outwardly humane, but not less violent. Harlem is an occupied zone. The above (and Charles' previous message) seems a bit paranoid, too. It makes it sound as if the "financial orthodoxy" cultivated the militias etc. (though my impression might be wrong). I would say instead that the failure of US capitalist growth to give to many white male younger workers the same standard of living that their fathers had received encouraged a bitterness and resentment (along with their bitterness that women and "minorities" are getting any respect at all) that spawned the militias and the like. In other words, it's the "economic crisis" (another overused phrase) that spawned the militia, rather than their genesis being orchestrated from above. That is only partly true. There is another militia growing as fast in the white-collar crime sector. Dollar for dollar, financial crime dwarfs petty crimes. In the the decade of 1980s, financial crimes, SL crisis, Milkin, Boesky, Soloman, etc, etc, adds up to billions which the tax payer footed the bill. But note that most of the convicted perpetrators were of poor and disadavantage and ethnic backgounds. Can we draw some conclusion? Charles: The word "fascist" is like the word "imperialism" or the term "military-industrial complex" . It comes from "them". The bourgeoisie's boy Mussolini invented the term "fascism". Who is it , Hobson, from whom Lenin
[PEN-L:7722] Re: Re: a story on Chinese workers
I don't remember precisely, might have been Tobin, who led an economic theory that income is everything, albeit they meant aggregate income and not wage rates per se. But it seems to me, if we have to have a WTO, the least we can do is to insist on a global wage scale for same work same pay, plus minimum wage tied to cost of living based on universal standards. Also free movement of goods and capital must be accompanied by free movement of workers, not just executives, but workers. There is no free trade without free movement of labor. Henry C.K. Liu Tom Lehman wrote: Jim, this is interesting stuff. Henry sent me a couple of things about labor unrest and organizing in China some months ago. When Chinese workers say, they are not going to work for 46 cents an hour in northern China or 23 cents an hour in southern China. Yes, in China people are being thrown out of work because of this sectional wage differential; then you will see some change. Of course I also agree with Henry that when the Chinese workers have had enough you will probably see them out in the streets waving pictures of Chairman Mao in much the same way many American workers, including yours truly, wrap themselves in the flag, mom and apple pie. Jim, I understand that down your way or not all that far from you, General Motors is paying 95 cents an hour in their Mexican plants! Your email pal, Tom L. Jim Devine wrote: of interest, from the L.A. TIMES, at http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/NATION/UPDATES/lat_labor990604.htm Friday, June 4, 1999 Chinese Rulers Fear Angry Workers May Finally Unite Labor: Ten years after Tiananmen Square crackdown, unemployment, not lack of democracy, fuels discontent. By HENRY CHU, Times Staff Writer SHENYANG, China--Liu Lao is on the longest vacation of his life: two years and counting. In 1997, the state-run iron foundry where he worked suddenly stopped production after losing too much money. But rather than lay everyone off, the factory bosses sent employees home "on holiday," a semantic ploy that allowed them to avoid having to pay severance and welfare benefits. Liu now spends his extended, unpaid "holiday" standing on a sidewalk in this ancient imperial city, peddling cheap steering-wheel covers to passing motorists and stewing in a kettle of discontent. "If workers had supported the students in '89," he grumbled, referring to the abortive anti-government protests that year in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, "the outcome would have been a lot different." A decade after Beijing sent tanks in to crush demonstrators on June 4, 1989, killing hundreds--perhaps thousands--of people, the prospect of labor unrest worries China's Communist leaders the most as they seek to hold on to power in the world's most populous country. The former students who pushed for democracy are a spent force these days, in prison, in exile or indifferent, more concerned about their pocketbooks than politics. Their successors at China's universities are more likely to back the government than attack it-- witness the student-led demonstrations that erupted after last month's NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital. But with unemployment spiraling and the economy slowing, disaffection among urban workers, a key segment of Chinese society, is on the rise. And while few Western commentators seem to remember, the Communist regime is acutely aware that economic and labor grievances played an important role in the 1989 protests, a realization that helps explain Beijing's continuing jitters over restiveness among China's 200-million-strong urban work force. Already, reports are rife of labor unrest across the country, from Hunan province in the south to here in the northeast, China's Rust Belt. So far, most of the unrest has taken the form of small, isolated protests by unpaid workers who block traffic or picket local authorities to get their demands heard. But the government fears that laborers--particularly the unemployed, who number between 15 million and 25 million in China--might organize en masse to become the wellspring of new opposition to Communist rule. Or, worse yet, that disgruntled workers might try to link up with other disenfranchised groups, such as political dissidents, to create some sort of united national front. "Until you get Wuhan hooked up with Beijing, which is hooked up with Shenyang, it's not going to be a threat to the government," said a Western diplomat who tracks labor issues. "There's potential for localized protests, but until there's a national organization, it's not a threat." Little evidence has emerged of serious coordination among workers countrywide or between workers and other groups. Many unemployed laborers, often in their 40s and 50s, say they have too much to lose to mount challenges that appear
[PEN-L:7740] No free market economy in Kosovo?
If I'm not mistaken, the current agreement to end hostilities in Yugoslavia (still not ended) does not include a stipulation that Kosovo have a free market economy. Was this just boilerplate in Rambouillet or is an actual concession of some sort involved? Peter
[PEN-L:7738] Re: exaggeration
Capitalism's concentration camps are the Levitt Towns and similar suburbs and the "job" in the corporate system. The plants of GM are frightenly similar to the network of concentration camps, albeit more outwardly humane, but not less violent. Harlem is an occupied zone. Except for the part about Harlem, this seems an exaggeration. This is one of the richest countries in the world you're talking about. Working-class suburbs like Levitt Town may be drab and alienating, but I think you'll find that the vast majority of the people who live there would disagree with your analysis. It's true that they have a superficial analysis of what's going on (missing the totality of the capitalist mode of production), but that contrasts with _actual_ concentration camps, in which the people know that they're in such camps. (In other words, you don't have to accept what people see, but it's good to respect their point of view.) It's also unfortunate that the phrase "concentration camp" (as in most anti-insurgencies) has been merged in popular language with Hitlerian death camps. It leads to the wrong connotations. But that's hardly your fault. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html Bombing DESTROYS human rights. Ground Troops make things worse! US/NATO out of Serbia now!
[PEN-L:7739] Re: Sado-imperialism
On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, Tom Walker wrote: The Guardian, London Tuesday June 1, 1999 The penthouse office of Romero's Ion Storm is an astonishing place, like something out of a Jetsons cartoon with walkways suspended above a maze of stainless steel cubicles, wall lighting embedded in marble sconces, glass cases filled with models of one-eyed monsters, the whole enterprise wrapped in clouds and sky. For those who don't know the skinny here, it's important to note that John Romero, though one of the great designers of 3D games in the early Nineties, has been kinda going off the deep end as of late. Ion Storm has been just an unprecedented disaster, chewing up programmers, designers, careers and funding at an unbelievable pace. "Daikatana" was supposed to be done literally years ago (Quake 2 took 18 months, I think) and has staggered from crisis to crisis like some mortally wounded brontosaurus: too big to die, too dysfunctional to succeed, but too stupid to quit, as one observer put it. There are websites literally devoted to chronicling Ion Storm's latest management crisis, it's one of the longest-running and most colorful soap operas in one of the most colorful industries around. Great fun to watch, but just bear in mind that the software in question is bubbleware, Romero is living off his Doom-rents, and the real action is in Black Mesa Labs (Half-Life) and John Carmack's upcoming Quake 3, which from all accounts will be mind-blowing. -- Dennis
[PEN-L:7735] Re: Re: Leninism
So are you saying that Lenin meant that they became identical ? As I understand it, we are discussing Lenin's claim that one of the defining characteristics of the imperialist phase of capitalism , in contrast with the immediate previous phase, is the dominance of finance capital, including the merger of financial and industrial capital. By the latter, he did not mean that the distinction between the two functions is utterly obliterated. rather in contrast with the earlier phase , financial institutions become dominant and there are coalescences in the following sense: On this Nitkin says: "the coalescence fo bank and industrial capitals takes various forms. It is manifested , in particular, in personal unions, i.e. in the same people heading banking, industrial, comercial and other monopolies. The heads of banks are members of the boards of industrial enterprises, and representatives of industrial monopolies, in turn, are included on the management of banks. The structure of finance varies. Such financial institutions as insurance companies, investment trusts, pension funds,savings banks and the like, have come to play a major role in mobilising the population's funds for financing industrial monopolies. For this reason, modern finance capital constitutes a coalescence of industrial monopolies not only with banking ones, but also with the financial instiutions listed above... The growth of monopolies and of finance capital results in the biggest bankers and industrialists forming a small group of people who hold the dominant position in the economy and politics... One concrete form of financial oligarchy is the monopoly-finance group. In the USA, for example, the decisive role in the country's economy is played by 18 high finance gourps, which control assets to a sum of 678. 4 billion dollars, including 319.5 billlion in banking and 358.9 billion in industry, commerce, and the service sphere. The biggest of these financial groups are the Morgans, Rockefellers, California and Chicago groups..." This is from 1983, but I imagine Morgans and Rockefellers still play a role in whatever new configuration there is. The original statement on this thread by someone that there hasn't been a continuing merger of the financial and industrial capitalists in the history since Lenin and in the precise sense that Lenin meant this in his analysis of the basic trends of imperialism seems, what ?, tendentious, last ditch anti-Leninism, I don't know. That we are in an era of finance capital, i.e. a merger of finance and industrial capital with the financial function dominant ( thus FINANCE capital; sort of contrasted with the period before of the INDUSTRIAL revolution) is quite clear. and very much confirmed by your important empirical work. Financial institutions in Lenin's analysis is more than banks , as explained by Nitikin above. The current growth of the power and influence of Wallstreet is a profound confirmation of Lenin's predictions of the direction of capitalism. Charles Brown Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/04/99 03:14PM Charles Brown wrote: Charles: Seems to me there has been a merger of financial and industrial capital. Wallstreet seems exactly that. Doug Henwood points out that there is a recent trend of corporations raising money through borrowing not so much stocks. That is they borrow from financial institutions. That relationship is a merger of industry and finance. No the relation isn't one of identity. We're still dealing with separate institutions, finance industry, though they're connected in complex ways. If they were one, why would you even speak of firms borrowing from banks? Doug
[PEN-L:7734] Daring the list
I do not like throwing people off the list. As I said before, I have only done it a few times in the long life of pen-l. I especially would not relish throwing someone like Jim Craven off. I do not share Brad's beliefs. Nor do many people on the list. Again, it is not hard to taunt Brad. He will come back with a retort. In the end, the list as a whole will suffer. You have to understand that I watch the subs and unsubs. When stuff like this flares up, so do the unsubs. I think that people join a list like pen-l to learn. For example, Henry, while responding to Brad, had some very interesting material about the Chinese famine. I learnt from what he had to contribute, but only after wading through the other stuff. Many people do not want to wade through. They want to learn. Henry was also correct that we should be able to "yell" at our closest comrades. Unfortunately, not all of us see each other as comrades. Also, not all of us have the same tolerance for yelling. I can yell at Louis Proyect or Max Sawicky. They can laugh it off and give me one better. Brad also seems to have thick skin, but he will, justifiably, come back with something that will make you even more enraged. Why can't you carry on that particular debate off list? Some of us take insults more personally, for example, when Jim C. attacks my beloved alma mater. We need to be more thoughtful. Craven, Jim wrote: It is tragic that Berkely has sunk so low that this person can be regarded as a serious "analyst" or "scholar" of anything. Sorry, as a registered "savage" I am not polite in my language when dealing with academic scribbler/know-it-alls/legends-in-their-own-mind scholar experts who reveal, underneath the veneer of civility and polite language, that they can utter the most pedestrial and sophomoric "analysis" and remain "experts" in little ponds surrounded by even smaller frogs. Now go ahead and thrown me off the list too. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7736] Re: Your Analysis (Assistance) Needed by the Working Class
Doug Henwood and I received this note. I thought that some of you might be better able to answer him that I am. You might do best to answer him directly. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mr Henwood, Mr Perelman, I am an independant communist and a member of the Black Radical Congress as well as, I must say, a dissenting, dues paying member of the Labor Party. Two members of the BRC-Los Angeles Organizing Committee as well as a member of the Committees of Correspondence, are exploring the possibility, of a forum on "The American Police State: Race and Class". To that end we are seeking information (articles) that you may have done, or know of, which can be of use in an analysis that seeks to connect to the de-industrialization of this country any or all of the following: the increase in police abuse (terror); the rising rates of incarceration; the manufacturing of crisis as rationale for continued military forays and expenditures; the presentation of military service as career 'opportunity' to working class youth; the attacks upon welfare and the minimum wage subverting 'Jobfare' programs; the material benefits (to the owners) of prison labor; the statistics of the change of the percentages of (union and/or non-union) employees who are in the service as opposed to the industrial sector, the rise of homelessness and their maltreatment;etc. Our thinking is that with the massive transfer of value-adding jobs across the national border (de-industrialization of this country) there has arisen the need for a deepened oppression of working people. A need to be, at least, partially justified by the demonization of sectors of our class, esp minorities. A situation akin to (No we are not paranoid) the latter days of Weimar. With some 2 million imprisoned and more on the way, with hundreds of thousands (millions?) uncertain of food and shelter, with the allegations of government complicity in the creation, maintenance and expansion of a nefarious black (ahh! You white folks) economy (the crack cocaine epidemic), the rise of racist, homophobic and (I must create a word) anAnglophobic attitudes and violence attests to the urgency of analysis. As a former suscriber to the Left Business Journal (Sorry, I can't afford it anymore but I miss it!) I have witnessed Mr Henwoods abilty to graph social trends with economic ones. One chart is indeed worth a thousand words. I ask you to search your files, your memories and your thoughts and to equip us with such. Best, S John Daniels aka John A Imani -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7733] Re: sinking, or already there?
The entire UC system has been afflicted with a thirst for power for decades. Nobody teaches except TAs. All facullty member want to go the Washington, but only after securing tenure. I was chairman of a department aat UCLA from 1964 to 1970 and noticed that most dead woods would start their pointification in meetings with: "When I was in Washington" Some spirtited younger faculty members would sometimes finish the sentence with an interrruption ".. I sold out." Henry Doug Henwood wrote: Craven, Jim wrote: Berkely has sunk so low A few months ago I met with a German journalist who was visiting the U.S. to research a millennium story. The conversation turned, as it often does, to the embarrassment that is American political discourse. He said he gave a talk to the Berkeley poli sci department in 1989 and the assembled faculty had just one question they were obsessed with - was Gorbachev serious? In 1989! He was shocked speechless. Seems funny to me to ask how low Berkeley or any other U.S. university has sunk. When it comes to politics, they've long been pretty low, haven't they? Doug
[PEN-L:7732] Re: Re: Leninism
Charles Brown wrote: Charles: Seems to me there has been a merger of financial and industrial capital. Wallstreet seems exactly that. Doug Henwood points out that there is a recent trend of corporations raising money through borrowing not so much stocks. That is they borrow from financial institutions. That relationship is a merger of industry and finance. No the relation isn't one of identity. We're still dealing with separate institutions, finance industry, though they're connected in complex ways. If they were one, why would you even speak of firms borrowing from banks? Doug
[PEN-L:7731] job openning
Due to unexpected retirements and illnesses, we are going to be down three people for the up coming academic year. We will be hiring one or two full-time temporary faculty. The positions might become tenure-track later, but we don't know sure right now. The ad my chair submitted to the JOE is a bit misleading. He looked at which fields had the least number of jobs this year and listed those, hoping to expand the candidate pool. We definitely need Econ History. We have lost two people in that area. We probably don't need History of Thought, since there are two people here who have taught it in the past and would still like to teach it. The people who have retired were mostly micro and applied micro people, with an institutionalist leaning. We (at least some of us) would like to continue that institutionalist tradition, rather than getting hard-core neo-classical micro people. We also need help in macro and especially money and banking. So you can see, the "any field" is very true. For most of the people in the department, the heterdox approach is more important. Also, the one woman in the department is now half-time in the State legislature, so there is a need to replace her. If you have more questions before you send off your application to the Chair, please contact me directly. In case you are looking on a map to find us, Cheney is 12 miles outside of Spokane in the eastern part of WA. We are a four-year, "comprehensive," i.e. teaching oriented University. We are on quarters and the teaching load is 3,2,2. The class size cap on intro courses is 50, on upper divsion is 25. Doug Orr [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, CHENEY, WA D0 Microeconomics E0 Macroeconomics B1 History of Economic Thought N0 Economic History AF Any Field The Economics Department has an opening for a Visiting Assistant Professor beginning September 1999. This appointment is for nine months, but may be renewable based on departmental need and budget availability. Primary responsibility will involve teaching introductory economics courses with the opportunity to teach History of Economic Thought and Economic History. Other fields of specialization also will be considered. Applicants should send a curriculum vita, evidence of successful teaching, and names and phone numbers of three references. Ph.D. preferred. Review of applications will begin June 30 and continue until the position is filled. An equal opportunity affirmative action employer. The successful candidate will be required to show proof of eligibility to work in the U.S. pursuant to U.S. immigration laws. CONTACT: Tom Trulove, Chair, Department of Economics, MS-36, Eastern Washington University, Cheney, WA 99004-2431. ( (509) 359-2332; Fax (509) 359-6732; [EMAIL PROTECTED])
[PEN-L:7730] Re: Leninism
Terrence Mc Donough [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/04/99 09:21AM On point (1) - we're a long way from the Hilferdingesque world that Lenin wrote and thought about. Competition has intensified, finance and industry haven't joined into a single unit (bank-supervised cartels), etc. So while 1917 was different from 1817, 1999 is pretty different from 1917, too. On point My only point here is that Lenin made a substantial contribution to the Marxian theory of capitalist stages, not that we are currently confronting the same stage which confronted Lenin. ((( Charles: Seems to me there has been a merger of financial and industrial capital. Wallstreet seems exactly that. Doug Henwood points out that there is a recent trend of corporations raising money through borrowing not so much stocks. That is they borrow from financial institutions. That relationship is a merger of industry and finance. Charles Brown
[PEN-L:7725] war's end?
Yoshie writes: with the Yugo acceptance of the NATO terms of peace, the terrains of struggle, real and ideological, have already changed. Assuming that this peace deal does work out, I am a bit surprised that Milosevic caved. Maybe the air war was much more effective at weakening the Serbian government than I (and many other critics) have been saying. Or maybe Milosevic really didn't have that many differences with US/NATO in the first place. If the deal does go through, it looks as if both sides lost to some degree: Milosevic obviously lost, while the US/NATO wasted a lot of equipment and (more importantly prestige, in that more and more treat the US as a rogue elephant). The officially stated US/NATO goals of avoiding ethnic cleansing and preventing the wider spread of the conflict were not achieved. In fact, the war made both of those worse. (I forget what the other official rationalizations of the attack on Yugoslavia were.) Now the US/NATO have to handle the KLA. Perhaps Milosevic is glad to get the KLA off his hands and is glad to pass it onto the US/NATO. I guess that can be thought of as a victory for him. Barkley was right that the refugee situation breeds the KLA the way that it did the PLO and its related organizations. Now the KLA will be striving for independence (and merger with Albania) against the US/NATO. Are we to soon see the US/NATO "peace-keepers" suppressing the KLA "terrorists" the way that Milosevic's army did before? (Hmmm... does that mean that the US/NATO will start bombing itself, because of its mistreatement of the ethnic Albanian Kosovars?) The big winners are arms companies like Raytheon who will sell new cruise missiles (etc.) to replace the old ones and should expect the demand for such weapons to persist in the future. The Pentagon got its budget boosted without loss of any troops in actual action. Even though the US/NATO has lost a bunch of respect (especially from China and Russia) and suffered from internal stresses (dissent from Greece, Italy) that will be hard to deal with, it seems that the idea of the US/NATO being the "world cop," the emerging _de facto_ world state, has won. So the US will continue to "make the world safe for democracy and human rights," using its own definitions of democracy and human rights, of course. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html Bombing DESTROYS human rights. Ground troops make things worse. US/NATO out of Serbia!
[PEN-L:7723] sinking, or already there?
Craven, Jim wrote: Berkely has sunk so low A few months ago I met with a German journalist who was visiting the U.S. to research a millennium story. The conversation turned, as it often does, to the embarrassment that is American political discourse. He said he gave a talk to the Berkeley poli sci department in 1989 and the assembled faculty had just one question they were obsessed with - was Gorbachev serious? In 1989! He was shocked speechless. Seems funny to me to ask how low Berkeley or any other U.S. university has sunk. When it comes to politics, they've long been pretty low, haven't they? Doug
[PEN-L:7724] Re: Sado-imperialism -- Five Minutes Over America
Headlines found, in this order, with no deletions: 13:12 BROWN DONATION TO BUY 1,000 GUN LOCKS TO GIVEAWAY TO GUN OWNERS - AP. 13:11 SINGER JAMES BROWN DONATES $4,000 TO HOMETOWN AUGUSTA, GEORGIA-AP. 13:09 SURGERY ON JUNE 7 AT WWW.CELEBRITYDOCTOR.COM. 13:08 [DIS] BANC AMERICA: RUMORS ABOUT RESTRUCTURING AT DISNEY; COMPANY DECLINE COMMENT. 13:08 CORRECTION: CHRIS TEMPELTON TO BE 1ST FEMALE CELEBRITY TO RECEIVE PLASTIC SURGERY ON NET. 13:07 SOAP OPERA ACTOR TO BECOME 1ST PERSON TO RECEIVE PLASTIC SURGERY 'LIVE' OVER INTERNET.
[PEN-L:7720] Re:...MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY
Yoshie wrote: Nobody is stopping Harald (or you for that matter) from organizing anti-war activists according to the principles that he thinks (or you think) are correct. It's not as though he and Chossudovsky belonged to the same political party and the party adopted Chossudovsky's view. I don't know about Australia, but the field of anti-war activism is _wide open_ here. Those who disagree with Chossudovsky should simply offer their own analyses that other activists can use in organizing, preferably rich in information. If Harald does so, I do not doubt that there will be many takers. a lyotardian position i didn't expect. does this mean that there should be no criticism and communication between positions? Angela Why a Lyotardian position? Why not call it a Michael Perelman principle? My point must not have been clear at all. This kind of shouting is pointless. I happen to believe the Boshevik and the Chinese revolutions were wonderful events. Max and Brad disagree. So what? I could not convince them even if I could force them to read a whole library of email posts. Why even try? They begin with an entirely different set of premises, because they look at events in a different context. Don't we have more important uses for our time? Or as Carrol says, we always preach to the converted--an important job of mobilizing + organizing those who already accept our premise but have yet to come forward. BTW, with the Yugo acceptance of the NATO terms of peace, the terrains of struggle, real and ideological, have already changed. Yoshie
[PEN-L:7719] RE: Re: petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante
I just react to see someone pass off as a serious academic (never mined progressive or otherwise) come out with such pedestrian and sophomoric and rabid stuff like Mao a "murderer" of 30 million. A single cause from a single person? History? Context? Imperialist encirclement? Social systems engineering? Natural Disasters? Land Tenure? Class/Strata? ghosts and forces of reaction? goals? sources for numbers? Alternatives? Kuomintang viciousness? Legacies of Fedudalism and dependent capitalism? Intentions/powers of foreign interests? It is tragic that Berkely has sunk so low that this person can be regarded as a serious "analyst" or "scholar" of anything. Again, how many miles of the Long March would delong last? Has he ever lived for years in a cave with war going on all around him? Has he had to see stacks and stacks of bodies all around--some of which were personal friends who sacrificed their lives as a result of orders Mao had to give? Has he ever had to consciously deploy forces for tactical and strategic purposes knowing that many would inevitably die? Sorry, as a registered "savage" I am not polite in my language when dealing with academic scribbler/know-it-alls/legends-in-their-own-mind scholar experts who reveal, underneath the veneer of civility and polite language, that they can utter the most pedestrial and sophomoric "analysis" and remain "experts" in little ponds surrounded by even smaller frogs. No one talks about the desecration of the meories of all of those revolutionaries who sacrificed in ways that our pampered scribblers could never do or even dare undertake. As they say in Kerala: For the little frog in the well, the sky is as big as the mouth of the well. Now go ahead and thrown me off the list too. Jim Craven -Original Message- From: Henry C.K. Liu [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, June 04, 1999 9:04 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:7713] Re: petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante It applies to whoever voluntarily feels the heat. At least there seems to be general agreement that "petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante(s)" is not a flattering term. That is progress. I understand Michael's need and obligation, as moderator, to keep diversity alive on the list. So we will respect that. In Chinese revolutionary tactics, the Party is kinder to targets of united front candidates than it is to veteran comrades. In fact, when one is treated with kid gloves, that is a sign that one is ideologically retarded. We should afford Professor Delong and others who identify the proper decorum indeed. Henry C.K. Liu michael wrote: I don't think that there are any "petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante(s)" on pne-l (unless you mean me, since I am not sure about myself). Such language does nothing to further any discussion. All it did was to reignite a flame. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7727] Re: Re: Re: Re: social fascism
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/04/99 12:12PM
Charles writes: I don't agree that "fascism" has lost value from overuse.
I would say it is underused and misapplied.
I guess we have to agree to disagree on that, but I'll summarize my
position: using the word "fascism" too much can be like referring to a
man's disrespectful and unwanted touching of a woman on a date as a form of
"rape." It devalues the word.
Charles: Or like the little boy who cried wolf. Yes, this is a pretty much a common
sense idea. It just doesn't apply to "fascism".
I wrote: What does calling the Governor of Michigan (Engler?) a "fascist"
say except that we don't like him?
Charles: That's "social fascist". You are using "fascist" loosely and not
the way I use it ( I specifically all Engler a "social fascist" because he
is not a full fascist) . Then you use your loose usage ("rhetoric" ?) as a
basis for saying all usage of these words is loose and so we shouldn't use
them.
I don't see how "social fascist" is somehow less full, somehow milder than
"fascist." To make it milder, why not call the bastard a "semi-fascist"?
(Going down this road, we could use Gore Vidal's insult of William F.
Buckley Jr., "pro crypto-Nazi." But that would be worse, since Nazism is
even worse than fascism and overuse of the term devalues it, as with the
US/NATO comparison of Milosevic to Hitler.)
Charles: I think I mentioned earlier in this thread the difference between Engler and
Hitler is that the former is not carrying out open , direct and holocaustic terrorist
rule. The cuts in social programs and racist policies are the form of his assault on
the working class, not direct death camps and actual war. It is a "war" on the poor
not with guns, but social policty. This is aptly captured by SOCIAL fascist. And it
has the value of continuing the tradition from the 20's and 30's , which I prefer to
connect to rather than differentiate from. In other words, I see the communist
historical movement as something that the next generation of revolutionaries should
draw more from than is the trend right now, in this extreme revolutionary slump.
The fact that some people inflate the meaning of fascism by conflating political
critique with insult does not stop me from using the word precisely. As I said,
otherwise, Gore Vidal will determine what words I can use, Can't have that. We must
have semantic self-determination in the movement.
(((
Actually, my impression (which could be wrong) is that Engler is a
standard, garden variety, neo-liberal. Wouldn't it be great if
"neo-liberal" attained the negative connotations of "fascist" in peoples'
minds? I think that's where we should go. Even better, since "neo-liberal"
is jargon that few outside of the left use, we need to convince people that
whatever Engler calls himself ("Republican"? "Democrat"?) should have
really bad connotations.
Charles: I agree that we need to convince people that whatever Engler calls himself
should have bad connotations, but we should have our own names for him too. We don't
have to JUST call him a social fascist. The proposal isn't that people be restricted
to that term. To describe him would actually take a number of paragraphs, not just two
words, but you know, soundbitism. People need to be shocked out of their complacency
and comfort with the "Englers" of today, and "social fascist" has some potential for
that. "Neo-liberal" helps with analysis. Actually, I am not sure that Engler is
exactly a neo-liberal. His constituency is largely the isolationist/anti-free
trade/militia crowd.
I wrote: (b) Do you think that the "financial oligarchy" (which I think
could be described in less hackneyed terms)
Charles: If we start calling terms hackneyed, the impliedly fresh
vocabulary that gets substituted for terms like "financial oligarchy" will
win the hackneyed prize over "imperialism", "monopoly capital" , "financial
oligarchy". All of Doug Henwood's work that I have seen confirms that
there is a huge financial oligarchy running the global economy.
"Wallstreet" is a financial oligarchy. Debt is the leash system of the
whole thing. Financial Oligarchy is so fresh and unhackneyed it isn't even
funny. A hedge fund is a form of the financial oligarchy's organization.
What a perfect description of it.
Jim D.
The problem with "financial oligarchy" is not that it's hackneyed as much
as it suggests a conspiracy. It ignores a central problem of the rule of
finance capital these days, i.e., competition and "invisible hand"
automatic operations.
Charles: This is not different from the time that Lenin used the term. Lenin was an
originator of the critique of conspiracy analysis of capitalism. He analyzes
state-monopoly capitalism as a system, not a conspiracy. Thus, the term "financial
oligarchy" orignates in a systematic ,not a conspiracy analysis. An oligarchy is a
ruling CLASS. Or the leading elements of the class. The bougeoisie has leading
[PEN-L:7717] Re: Re: Re: Re: China, WTO Excess Capacity
You are absolutely right. China has insufficient capital and techinology to be beneficially competitive in the global market devoid of nationalistic protectionism. The only card China has is its enormous market potential. Joining WTO requires China to give that away free. But then I am not Chairman of the Party, not yet. ;o) Max is. Henry C.K. Liu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What I don't understand is why China seems so intent on getting in to the WTO which will limit its ability to use policy measures to develop its own economy. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 18:18:04 -0400 From: "Henry C.K. Liu" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:7660] Re: Re: China, WTO Excess Capacity Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I am devoting my energy to move China back to the socialist road. A mixed economy only means a capitalist economy through torturous paths. I firmly believe that profit is not the only effective movtiving economic force and a profit motivation society cannot be good. That is why I think Mao is important and WTO is a bad vehicle. Henry C.K. Liu
[PEN-L:7716] Re: Sado-imperialism
Tom Walker wrote: To make the game more interesting, each of the tubbies wears a celebrity face that the player can select from a database of news anchors, government officials, billionaires, corporate CEOs and hedge-fund operators. Here is a good place to round them up: Hedge Fund Conference Reminder Just a reminder to join Blue Water Partners, Team Tuna and other Family Office High Net Worth members of http://www.hedgefund.net/ at the Lido Consulting Family Office Wealth Conference which will be held on June 14-16th in Carlsbad California (just north of San Diego). http://www.lidoconsulting.com/ The conference promises to be an extraordinary event offering a dynamic agenda of information, education and entertainment geared exclusively to Family Offices and private investors. Lido Consulting which works with a number of Family Offices has put together an outstanding agenda of speakers and have provided ample opportunities during the conference to meet with other family office personnel. The conference will also feature a keynote address by Elizabeth Dole and a private performance of the world famous Cirque Ingenieux on Tuesday evening, June 15th. For additional information or to register online see the conference website at http://www.lidoconsulting.com/ More information on Blue Water can be found by clicking here - http://www.hedgefund.net/login_bw.php3 Hope to see you there!
[PEN-L:7715] WHAT REPORTERS KNEW ABOUT KOSOVO TALKS -- BUT DIDN'T TELL
Fairness Accuracy in Reporting Media analysis, critiques and news reports Media Advisory: WHAT REPORTERS KNEW ABOUT KOSOVO TALKS -- BUT DIDN'T TELL Was Rambouillet Another Tonkin Gulf? June 2, 1999 New evidence has emerged confirming that the U.S. deliberately set out to thwart the Rambouillet peace talks in France in order to provide a "trigger" for NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia. Furthermore, correspondents from major American news organizations reportedly knew about this plan to stymie the Kosovo peace talks, but did not inform their readers or viewers. FAIR's May 14 media advisory, "Forgotten Coverage of Rambouillet Negotiations," ( http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kosovo-solution.html asked whether the media had given the full story on Rambouillet. News reports almost universally blamed the failure of negotiations on Serbian intransigence. The headline over a New York Times dispatch from Belgrade on March 24 - the first day of the bombing - read "U.S. Negotiators Depart, Frustrated By Milosevic's Hard Line." But the evidence presented in "Forgotten Coverage" suggested that it was U.S. negotiators, not the Serbs, who blocked an agreement. Now, in the June 14 issue of the Nation, George Kenney, a former State Department Yugoslavia desk officer, reports: "An unimpeachable press source who regularly travels with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told this [writer] that, swearing reporters to deep-background confidentiality at the Rambouillet talks, a senior State Department official had bragged that the United States 'deliberately set the bar higher than the Serbs could accept.' The Serbs needed, according to the official, a little bombing to see reason." In other words, the plan for Kosovo autonomy drafted by State Department officials was intentionally crafted to provoke a rejection from Serb negotiators. In his Nation article, Kenney compares this plan to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Providing further confirmation of Kenney's account, Jim Jatras, a foreign policy aide to Senate Republicans, reported in a May 18 speech at the Cato Institute in Washington that he had it "on good authority" that a "senior Administration official told media at Rambouillet, under embargo" the following: "We intentionally set the bar too high for the Serbs to comply. They need some bombing, and that's what they are going to get." In interviews with FAIR, both Kenney and Jatras asserted that these are actual quotes transcribed by reporters who spoke with a U.S. official. They declined to give the names or affiliations of the reporters. The revelation that American reporters knew about a U.S. strategy to create a pretext for NATO's war on Yugoslavia - but did not report on it - raises serious questions about the independence of mainstream news organizations. More reporting is needed on the origins of this war, as well as the opportunities for peace that may have been overlooked. This release will be updated as new information becomes available. This media advisory was written by FAIR media analyst Seth Ackerman ( mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ). -- --- Robert Naiman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Preamble Center 1737 21st NW Washington, DC 20009 phone: 202-265-3263 fax: 202-265-3647 http://www.preamble.org/ ---
[PEN-L:7718] Re: a story on Chinese workers
Jim, this is interesting stuff. Henry sent me a couple of things about labor unrest and organizing in China some months ago. When Chinese workers say, they are not going to work for 46 cents an hour in northern China or 23 cents an hour in southern China. Yes, in China people are being thrown out of work because of this sectional wage differential; then you will see some change. Of course I also agree with Henry that when the Chinese workers have had enough you will probably see them out in the streets waving pictures of Chairman Mao in much the same way many American workers, including yours truly, wrap themselves in the flag, mom and apple pie. Jim, I understand that down your way or not all that far from you, General Motors is paying 95 cents an hour in their Mexican plants! Your email pal, Tom L. Jim Devine wrote: of interest, from the L.A. TIMES, at http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/NATION/UPDATES/lat_labor990604.htm Friday, June 4, 1999 Chinese Rulers Fear Angry Workers May Finally Unite Labor: Ten years after Tiananmen Square crackdown, unemployment, not lack of democracy, fuels discontent. By HENRY CHU, Times Staff Writer SHENYANG, China--Liu Lao is on the longest vacation of his life: two years and counting. In 1997, the state-run iron foundry where he worked suddenly stopped production after losing too much money. But rather than lay everyone off, the factory bosses sent employees home "on holiday," a semantic ploy that allowed them to avoid having to pay severance and welfare benefits. Liu now spends his extended, unpaid "holiday" standing on a sidewalk in this ancient imperial city, peddling cheap steering-wheel covers to passing motorists and stewing in a kettle of discontent. "If workers had supported the students in '89," he grumbled, referring to the abortive anti-government protests that year in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, "the outcome would have been a lot different." A decade after Beijing sent tanks in to crush demonstrators on June 4, 1989, killing hundreds--perhaps thousands--of people, the prospect of labor unrest worries China's Communist leaders the most as they seek to hold on to power in the world's most populous country. The former students who pushed for democracy are a spent force these days, in prison, in exile or indifferent, more concerned about their pocketbooks than politics. Their successors at China's universities are more likely to back the government than attack it-- witness the student-led demonstrations that erupted after last month's NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital. But with unemployment spiraling and the economy slowing, disaffection among urban workers, a key segment of Chinese society, is on the rise. And while few Western commentators seem to remember, the Communist regime is acutely aware that economic and labor grievances played an important role in the 1989 protests, a realization that helps explain Beijing's continuing jitters over restiveness among China's 200-million-strong urban work force. Already, reports are rife of labor unrest across the country, from Hunan province in the south to here in the northeast, China's Rust Belt. So far, most of the unrest has taken the form of small, isolated protests by unpaid workers who block traffic or picket local authorities to get their demands heard. But the government fears that laborers--particularly the unemployed, who number between 15 million and 25 million in China--might organize en masse to become the wellspring of new opposition to Communist rule. Or, worse yet, that disgruntled workers might try to link up with other disenfranchised groups, such as political dissidents, to create some sort of united national front. "Until you get Wuhan hooked up with Beijing, which is hooked up with Shenyang, it's not going to be a threat to the government," said a Western diplomat who tracks labor issues. "There's potential for localized protests, but until there's a national organization, it's not a threat." Little evidence has emerged of serious coordination among workers countrywide or between workers and other groups. Many unemployed laborers, often in their 40s and 50s, say they have too much to lose to mount challenges that appear doomed to fail against the implacable machinery of an authoritarian state. "If we get thrown in jail, who will take care of our families?" asked Yu Wenting, 47, a factory worker who has been out of a job for two years. "Under the Communist Party, the Chinese people have become obedient. They don't dare fight the party." But Beijing is taking no chances. 3 Labor Activists Reportedly on Trial Last week, three men who tried to set up an independent labor watchdog group in the central city of Tianshui were put on trial for subversion, a Hong Kong-based human rights group reported. The charges carry stiff prison sentences and are similar to
[PEN-L:7713] Re: petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante
It applies to whoever voluntarily feels the heat. At least there seems to be general agreement that "petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante(s)" is not a flattering term. That is progress. I understand Michael's need and obligation, as moderator, to keep diversity alive on the list. So we will respect that. In Chinese revolutionary tactics, the Party is kinder to targets of united front candidates than it is to veteran comrades. In fact, when one is treated with kid gloves, that is a sign that one is ideologically retarded. We should afford Professor Delong and others who identify the proper decorum indeed. Henry C.K. Liu michael wrote: I don't think that there are any "petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante(s)" on pne-l (unless you mean me, since I am not sure about myself). Such language does nothing to further any discussion. All it did was to reignite a flame. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7712] petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante again
I appoligize to the other petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettantes on the list. On a more serious note, if you think that you have relevant information, try to resist calling your intended recipient an idiot or something worse, and if you do, expect a less than enthusiastic response to your intervention. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:7709] petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante
Michael Perelman wrote I don't think that there are any "petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante(s)" on pne-l . . . What am I? Chopped liver? The problem with the subscribers on this list is they don't know a compliment when they see one.
[PEN-L:7708] Re: Sado-imperialism
I wrote, . . .Weiner schnitzel! Hah-ha! Take that, dude! I meant to say "wiener" schnitzel. I hope my typo didn't offend any weiners.
[PEN-L:7707] Re: Re: Bozofilter time
DeLong find the follwing offensive: I take it that I am the "petit-bourgeois scribbler/parlor dilettante" referred to here. Yet he characterizes the follwing as benign: The fact remains that Mao Zedong was (along with Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler) the head of one of the very, very few regimes that managed to kill more than thirty million people in this century. Mao's Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution count as among the greatest human disasters of this century... He never response to my serious points except through ridicule, Bozo style. Professor DeLong, as an economist, please answer my post on LBO reproduced below: There would have been no deaths in the 1961-62 famines if not for the US embargo. Reports of severe natural disasters in isolated places and of bad weather conditions in larger areas appeared in the Chinese press in the Spring of 1959, after the Wuhan Plenum in December 1958 already made policy adjustments based on the technical criticism of Peng Dehuai on the Peoples Communes initiative. In March, 1959, the entire Hunan region was under flood and soon after that the spring harvest in South-west China was lost through drought. The 1958 grain production yielded 250 million tons instead the projected 375 million tons, and 1.2 million tons of peanuts instead of the projected 4 million tons. In 1959, the harvest came to 175 million tons. In 1960, the situation deteriated further. Damaged by drought and other bad weather affected 55% of the cukltivated area. Some 60% of the agricultural land in the North received no rain at all. The yield for 1960 was 142 million tons. In 1961, the weather situation improved only slightly. In 1963, the Chinese press called the famine of 1961-62 the most severe since 1879. In 1961, a food storage program oblidged China to import 6.2 million tons of grain from Canada and Australia. In 1962, import decreased to 5.32 million tons. Between 1961 to 1965 China imported a total of 30 million tons of grain at a cost of US$2 billion. (Robert Price, 'International Trade of Communist China' Vol II, pp 600-1). More would have imported except US pressure of Canada and Austrailia to limit sales to China and US interference with shipping prevented China from importing more. Canada and Australia were both anxious to provide unlimited credit to China for grain purchase, but alas, US policy prevailed and millions starved in China. Henry C.K. Liu
[PEN-L:7705] Re: Re: Re: China, WTO Excess Capacity
What I don't understand is why China seems so intent on getting in to the WTO which will limit its ability to use policy measures to develop its own economy. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 18:18:04 -0400 From: "Henry C.K. Liu" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:7660] Re: Re: China, WTO Excess Capacity Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I am devoting my energy to move China back to the socialist road. A mixed economy only means a capitalist economy through torturous paths. I firmly believe that profit is not the only effective movtiving economic force and a profit motivation society cannot be good. That is why I think Mao is important and WTO is a bad vehicle. Henry C.K. Liu
[PEN-L:7704] (Fwd) Yugoslavia: War on the Environment
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date sent: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 14:48:44 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Yugoslavia: War on the Environment Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 From: "Janet M. Eaton" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: ECOLOGICAL Catastrophe [4] NATO Bombings [References] ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE HEALTH HAZARDS OF THE NATO BOMBINGS: AN ANNOTATED URL REFERENCED LIST OF INTERNET ARTICLES, NEWS, PRESS RELEASES. [ PART 4 ] [Compiled by Dr. Janet M. Eaton, May 31, 1999 ] Please add to the following earlier compilations: ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE [PART 3] http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11622 ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE [PART 2] http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11281 ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE [PART 1] http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11003 This compilation contains summaries and links to a comprehensive paper on "Gulf War Veterans and Depleted Uranium" prepared by Dr. Rosalie Bertell for the Hague Appeal for Peace [HAP] Conference, a 30 page "Overview of the Ecological Consequences of NATO Bombing on Yugoslavia" by Dr. Radoje Lausevic, University of Belgrade, startling photos of a massive and dense toxic black cloud from the burning of Pancevo Petrochemical Plant photographed 50 km away several hours afterwards as well a few resources and several related news releases.. A) INDEX OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHES ARTICLES B) ANNOTATED LIST OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE ARTICLES For your information and use. Please distribute as you see fit !! All the best, Janet Eaton Dr. Janet M. Eaton, PhD Biologist, Educator, Researcher, Public Policy Consultant, Research Fellow, International Systems Institute, Wolfville, N.S. CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] A) INDEX OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHES -INTERNET ARTICLES 1) Gulf War Veterans and Depleted Uranium Prepared for the Hague Peace Appeal Conference, May 1999 By Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D., G.N.S.H. http://www.pgs.ca/pages/nl/rb990504.htm 2) OVERVIEW OF ECOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA SINCE MAY 20, 1999 By Dr. Radoje Lausevic Posted by :Janet M. Eaton [Due to length of the report it was posted in four sections] Date : May 23rd URL's http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11655 http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11656 http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11657 http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11658. Website: Full report available as a zip file containing a wordperfect document: http://www.BalkanPeaceNetwork.freeserve.co.uk/Environment.htm 3) BLACK CLOUD OVER THE BALKANS -PHOTOS From: Janet M Eaton Date: May 23, 1999 URL: http://www.BalkanPeaceNetwork.freeserve.co.uk/Environment.htm [Network for Peace in the Balkans] 4) The Use of Depleted Uranium bullets and bombs by NATO forces in Yugoslavia. By: Coghill Research Laboratories Lower Race, Pontypool, Gwent NP4 5UH Date: April 8, 1999 URL:http://www.cogreslab.demon.co.uk 5) DU - Valid Information Sources re Health Impacts !! From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Janet M. Eaton) Date: 26 May 1999 16:34:58 -0400 URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11716 6) Greek Greenpeace Grivas resigns - condemns NATO's Ecological Disaster [ letter of resignation! ] From: Snezana Vitorovich [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cross-posted to mai-not list serve by [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 26 May 1999 13:14:33 -0400 URL http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11711 7) Vegetables A Casualty Of NATO Air War? From:Reuters Press Date: May 27, 1999. http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990527/09/odd-hailstorms 8) ROMANIA BLAMES ACID RAIN ON NATO BOMBING From: Reuters, (Planet Ark http://www.planetark.org/) Date: May 27, 1999 URL: http://202.139.253.156/news/27059903.html 9) Fishermen up in arms over NATO bombs By: Michel Bôle-Richard in Rome For: Le Monde URL: http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/11723 10) NATO BOMBING DAMAGE ASSESSMENT [ links to ca 75 photofiles] From: Ian Goddard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Receivd via: proposition1 news list May 25, 199 URL: http://www.erols.com/igoddard/yugo-war.htm 11) APPEAL FOR THE YUGOSLAV HERITAGE UNDER THE BOMBS From: The Institute for Protection of Nature of Serbia Date Received: May 23, 1999 URL: http://www.natureprotection.org.yu/apel.html 12 ) NATO bombing of Yugoslavia By: Department of Organic Chemical Technology and Polymers Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy Belgrade University Belgrade, Yugoslavia URL: http://www.net4s.com/under/ecologicalcatastrophe.html B) ANNOTATED LIST OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE ARTICLES 1) Gulf War Veterans and Depleted Uranium Prepared for the Hague Peace Appeal Conference, May 1999 By Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D., G.N.S.H. http://www.pgs.ca/pages/nl/rb990504.htm Headings and excerpt from Dr. Bertell's paper: *Source of Exposure: "There is no dispute of the
