re: An open letter to Dr. David Hartman
In Canada, aboriginal land claims are taken seriously. The BC Supreme court recently ordered 10 acres in the middle of Vancouver to be returned to the Squamish First Nation. The doctor's philosophizing is the sort one hears from those occupants of a tavern whose rear ends have become molded to the seats and whose voices have been polished to a smooth gravel by decades of tumbling in stale smoke and cheap alcohol. What if some Indian showed up on 57th street and asked for his land back, nobody would take him seriously. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
Varian quotes Marx
Title: Varian quotes Marx New York TIMES/August 29, 2002 When Economics Shifts From Science to Engineering By HAL R. VARIAN ECONOMISTS think of themselves as scientists; their primary goal is to understand how the economy works. But scientific knowledge is not their only goal; as a famous economist once remarked, The point is not to understand the world, but to change it. (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/29/business/29SCEN.html?tntemail0) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Varian quotes Marx
Devine, James wrote: New York TIMES/August 29, 2002 When Economics Shifts From Science to Engineering By HAL R. VARIAN ECONOMISTS think of themselves as scientists; their primary goal is to understand how the economy works. But scientific knowledge is not their only goal; as a famous economist once remarked, The point is not to understand the world, but to change it. (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/29/business/29SCEN.html?tntemail0http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/29/business/29SCEN.html?tntemail0) Yes, and later this distinguished economist writes: Other economic engineering projects have not fared so well, with the California electricity market being a notorious example. The famous economist quoted above was Karl Marx, who also had ideas about economic design that ended disastrously. Marx as economic designer? The things you learn reading the NYT! Doug
RE: Re: Varian quotes Marx
Title: RE: [PEN-L:29962] Re: Varian quotes Marx yes, it pays to read the whole article. But it didn't seem interesting after the initial bit. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Doug Henwood [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 9:22 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:29962] Re: Varian quotes Marx Devine, James wrote: New York TIMES/August 29, 2002 When Economics Shifts From Science to Engineering By HAL R. VARIAN ECONOMISTS think of themselves as scientists; their primary goal is to understand how the economy works. But scientific knowledge is not their only goal; as a famous economist once remarked, The point is not to understand the world, but to change it. (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/29/business/29SCEN.html?tnte mail0http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/29/business/29SCEN.html?t ntemail0) Yes, and later this distinguished economist writes: Other economic engineering projects have not fared so well, with the California electricity market being a notorious example. The famous economist quoted above was Karl Marx, who also had ideas about economic design that ended disastrously. Marx as economic designer? The things you learn reading the NYT! Doug
Re: Re: Varian quotes Marx
What is amazing is that most economists are certain that Marx laid out a blueprint for socialism. So Varian's comment would not appear as ignorant at a meeting of the American Economic Association. Yes, and later this distinguished economist writes: Other economic engineering projects have not fared so well, with the California electricity market being a notorious example. The famous economist quoted above was Karl Marx, who also had ideas about economic design that ended disastrously. Marx as economic designer? The things you learn reading the NYT! Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
An open letter to Dr. David Hartman
Dear Dr. Hartman, I saw you last night on David Shipler's fine PBS documentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where you were billed as a Jewish philosopher. I myself was raised as a Jew and attended both Hebrew School and an orthodox synagogue in the Catskill Mountains until I was bar mitzvahed. Nowadays, my identification with Judaism is fairly constrained. I enjoy very early Woody Allen movies and good cantorial singing, like Josef Rosenblatt's. As I am sure you are aware, Jews have largely abandoned orthodoxy in the USA as they became more assimilated. My own 82 year old mother hates orthodoxy with a passion and attends a Reform synagogue in a nearby town with her 87 year old friend who was one of the founders of the temple. When I asked him recently why local villagers launched a reform synagogue when they already had an orthodox shul, he spat out, The orthodox rabbi used to make us feel like a bunch of goyim. My understanding is that the orthodoxy in Israel is instilling the same feeling among many Jews who do not pass their litmus test. I am taking the trouble to write because of something particularly disturbing that came out of your mouth during Shipler's show. (Now granted nearly everything you said smacked of the kind of self-righteous Zionist apologetics that is turning Israel into a pariah state backed only by the most rightwing Christian sects in the USA.) But when you likened the Palestinians to American Indians, I nearly threw my shoe through the TV. You shrugged your shoulders and said, What if some Indian showed up on 57th street and asked for his land back, nobody would take him seriously. That doesn't seem like philosophy to me, David. It seems like justifying genocide. What are the statues of limitations for genocide? What if Hitler had been victorious against the allies and it took a long, protracted war of resistance to overthrow Nazism? Would we tell Jewish victims of genocide that they could not be compensated for crimes committed beyond some arbitrary cutoff date, like 50 years? I would think that we Jews would have much more compassion for the American Indians, who in fact are suffering as if their Nazis had won the war. I speak here of course of the Andrew Jacksons and Teddy Roosevelts of this country who considered the Indian an 'untermenschen'. Can you imagine what it would be like for a Jew living in Nazi Germany to see soccer teams called the Munich Kikes? That's what it is like for Indians who have to put up with racist baseball team mascots like the Cleveland Indians: http://www.aimovement.org/ncrsm/ In any case, you should be aware that many younger Jews would find your views deeply offensive. Rather than identifying with the victorious racist American conquerors of the indigenous peoples, we Jews should be identifying with the oppressed of the world. Unlike yourself, Jonathan Sacks, the chief orthodox rabbi in Great Britain, seems to be moving slowly but surely in this direction, as reported in the Guardian 2 days ago. He said that he was profoundly shocked at the recent reports of smiling Israeli servicemen posing for a photograph with the corpse of a slain Palestinian. As I am sure you are aware, there are many photographs of the American cavalry gloating over Indian corpses in the 19th century. While Dr. Sacks has earned the wrath of uncritical supporters of the Sharon government, there are many other Jews who back him, including Dr Michael Harris, the Orthodox rabbi at the Hampstead Synagogue in London, who wrote in yesterday's Guardian: Both in the British Jewish community and in the wider national arena, it is the voice of the chief rabbi, Professor Jonathan Sacks, that has in recent months provided probably the most sustained, powerful and articulate reminder of the essential justness of Israel's cause. As reported in yesterday's Guardian, the chief rabbi has now drawn attention to the moral dangers inherent in a situation of prolonged conflict such as that between Israel and the Palestinians. He is right to do so. As far as religiously aware Jewish exponents of moral values are concerned, justice, compassion and sensitivity are not merely liberal western ideals grafted on to the fabric of faith. Rather, moral concerns and empathy with the suffering of others are rooted in the deepest layers of Jewish tradition and belief. It is the Hebrew Bible that first taught us to see in other human beings the image of God. In the 12th century, Maimonides, the greatest Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, described the purpose of the Torah as the fostering of mercy, compassion and peace in the world. That is why, despite the healthy diversity of political opinion concerning Israel in the British rabbinate, I am happy to be one of several Orthodox rabbis who support Prof Sacks's wise words of caution concerning Israel's current situation. In the Book of Chronicles, God tells David that he may not
Re: Re: Re: Varian quotes Marx
Blaming Raygun's de-reg rag and Enron's criminal behavior on the commies. Does the Admin have a hard-working pr machine or what? - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 12:32 PM Subject: [PEN-L:29964] Re: Re: Varian quotes Marx What is amazing is that most economists are certain that Marx laid out a blueprint for socialism. So Varian's comment would not appear as ignorant at a meeting of the American Economic Association. Yes, and later this distinguished economist writes: Other economic engineering projects have not fared so well, with the California electricity market being a notorious example. The famous economist quoted above was Karl Marx, who also had ideas about economic design that ended disastrously. Marx as economic designer? The things you learn reading the NYT! Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Circle Game
From The Circle Game: Shadows and Substance in the Indian Residential School Experience in Canada by Roland Chrisjohn and Sherri Young with Michael Maraum. Theytus Books Ltd. Penticton, B.C. 1997 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY What if the Holocaust had never stopped? What if no liberating armies invaded the territory stormed over by the draconian State? No compassionate throng broke down the doors to dungeons to free those imprisoned within? No collective outcry of humanity arose as stories on the State's abuses were recounted? And no Court of World Opinion seized the State's leaders and held them in judgment as their misdeeds were chronicled? What if none of this happened? What if, instead, with the passage of time the World came to accept the State's actions as the rightful and lawful policies of a sovereign nation having to deal with creatures that were less than fully human? And, what if, curbing some of the more glaring malignancies of its genocidal excesses, the State increasingly became prominent as both a resource for industrial powers and as an industrial power in its own right? What if the State could depend upon the discretion of other nations, engaged in their own local outrages, to wink at its past, so that the lie told to and accepted by other nations was one the State could tell itself and its 'real' citizens without fear of contradiction? What if the men who conceived, fashioned, implemented, and operated the machinery of destruction grew old and venerable and acclaimed, hailed as 'Fathers' of their country and men of insight and renown? What if the Holocaust had never stopped, so that for the State's victims, there was no vindication, no validation, no justice, but instead the dawning realization that this was how things were going to be? What if those who resisted were crushed, so that others, tired of resisting, simply prayed that the 'next' adjustment to what remained of their ways of life would be the one that, somehow, they would be able to learn to live with? What if some learned to hate who they were, or to deny it out of fear, while others embraced the State's image of them, emulating as far as possible the State's principles and accepting its judgment about their own families, friends and neighbors? And what if others could find no option other than to accept the slow, lingering death the State had mapped out for them, or even to speed themselves along to their State-desired end? What if? Then you would have Canada's [and the U.S. and elsewhere where there are Indigenous Peoples] treatment of the North American Aboriginal population in general, and the Indian Residential School Experience in particular. And here and now we are going to prove it to you. transcribed by Jim Craven Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
Imagine
Jim Farmelant's letter (http://www.mail-archive.com/marxism%40lists.panix.com/msg36370.html) was moving; he is indeed a Nee-tse-tapi-kse (that's Blackfoot for a mensch). His letter strongly parallels, in eloquence and substance, the opening of Roland Chrisjohn's The Circle Game What if... (which I will attach here). According to the Musquiem Decision of the Canadian Supreme Court in 1983, the presumptive title of all the lands of present-day Canada is Aboriginal; meaning that the burden of proof for assertion of legal [bourgeois legal] title is on the non-aboriginals. The is the kind of vile racism Indians deal with every single day. By the way, in a limited respect, the Zionist scum has it right: Palestinians are commonly referring to themselves as Palestindians and our most respected Elders, who know very little about the history and complexities of the Middle East, commonly refer to us as The Palestinians of Noth America. From The Pikunii Sun Vol 1 No. 2 Newspaper of Pikunii (Blackfoot People) and other interested persons. Also printed in The Eastern Door a newspaper of the Mohawk Nation of Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada Imagine... by James M. Craven There is a great deal of sensitivity to one of the most notorious of the many Holocausts humankind has suffered: the Nazi Holocaust against Jews, Gypsies and others. Movies like Schindler's List are a constant reminder of massive suffering that must never be forgotten and historical lessons that must be learned. Most believe that something like the Holocaust of the Nazis against Jews or Gypsies or other victims tageted by the Nazis could never happen here in America or in Canada. Imagine that something like what happened to Jews in Germany happened in America or Canada. Imagine that Jewish children were forced to repeat Christian prayers and were beaten or even murdered if they spoke or prayed in Hebrew or Yiddish and spoke or prayed Jewish prayers. Imagine if Jewish children were forced to eat pork that was not only forbidden for religious reasons but was also rotten, insect-infested and of the lowest quality so that many children could be fed cheaply and very profitably. Imagine if vulnerable and trusting Jewish children were routinely sexually and physically abused by clergy and when the sexual and physical abuse was discovered, those who reported it were beaten or murdered while those who committed the ugly deeds, were protected by powerful and rich churches and sent elsewhere to do more crimes to other Jewish children. Imagine that Jewish children were used for medical experiments or used to test new drugs or surgical procedures. Imagine if Jewish children were used as sexual objects for powerful pedophiles--dignitaries--when visiting the isolated institutions in which the Jewish children were kept away from their families and communities. Imagine if Jewish children were sterilized through coercion or decption. Imagine if Jewish children were registered and controlled by a BJA (Bureau of Jewish Affairs) that had a long history of fraud, theft, abuse and dereliction of trust responsibilities with respect to traditional Jewish lands and resources. Imagine if throughout the Jewish Ghettos, corrupt and sell-out Jews were selected or elected through fraudulent elections to control other Jews in the interests of non-Jews bent on the eventual elimination--through murder, intermarriage, redefinition, assimilation or sterilization--of all Jews. Imagine if Jewish children were forced into special Boarding/Residential Schools designed to beat, torture, intimidate and brainwash the Jewishness out of them. Imagine if there were football teams with names like the Kansas City Kikes, the San Francisco Sheenies or the Jersey City Jew Boys and at half-time, some caricature, of what the bigoted and ignorant consider to be a typical Jew, came out to do the money-grubbing tango. Imagine if Jews were forbidden to celebrate Jewish holidays or to wear traditional Jewish yamulkas or prayer shawls. Imagine if all the precedents of Nuremberg and International Law (Treaties) were routinely broken by non-Jews while Jews were expected to keep all promises and responsibilities under those laws. You say it could not happen to Jews in America or Canada what was done in Nazi Germany? You say that especially after Nuremberg, and the horrors that were revealed there, Never Again, anywhere? With respect to Jews in America and Canada, perhaps all of the above and more could happen and perhaps not. But there is no perhaps that all of the above and much more was done--and is being done--in America and in Canada and elsewhere in the world to Indigenous Peoples. When do Indians and First Nations Peoples get movies like Schlinder's List that expose the past and present of the American and Canadian Holocausts? When do non-Indians care about the American and Canadian Holocausts against Indigenous Peoples as much as many
Re: Re: Re: Varian quotes Marx
Yeah, but who cares about accuracy when dealing, from the perspective of economic theory, with a minor post-Ricardian - and Ricardo himself, of course, the most overrated of economists (to quote a certain nameless someone delivering the presidential address of the AEA back in the '60s). Ben At 09:32 AM 8/29/2002 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote: What is amazing is that most economists are certain that Marx laid out a blueprint for socialism. So Varian's comment would not appear as ignorant at a meeting of the American Economic Association.
scientific survey on Iraq
I asked my class with about 35 students how many thought that Iraq was a threat to the US. One answered postively, saying that his cousin died in the Gulf War. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bechtel, Bolivia and Water
Home | Newswire | About Us | Donate | Sign-Up Thursday, August 29, 2002 Home Progressive Community NewsWire For Immediate Release Share This Article With Your Friends FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AUGUST 29, 2002 1:06 PM CONTACT: Earthjustice Martin Wagner, Earthjustice, Oakland, 510 550-6714, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Washington, DC: Soren Ambrose, 202-285-5836, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Stephen Porter, CIEL, 202-785-8700 Cochabamba, Boliva: Jim Shultz, The Democracy Center: tel: 011 591 4 429 0725, cell: 001-591-707-43631, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Three Hundred Citizen Groups Call on Secret World Bank Trade Court to Open Up Bechtel Case Against Bolivia: Case called a Preview of the Free Trade of the Americas WASHINGTON - August 29 - More than three hundred citizens groups from 41 countries presented a petition today to a World Bank-affiliated court, demanding that it allow public participation in a controversial case in which Bechtel Corporation is suing Bolivia for $25 million. (Petition and support letter available at: http://www.earthjustice.org/news/display.html?ID=435) Bechtel is suing South America's poorest country for a portion of the profits it wasn't able to earn after a public uprising in response to Bechtel's water rate hikes forced the company to depart from the country in April 2000. Bechtel's legal action is being heard by the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), an international tribunal housed at the World Bank that holds all of its meetings in secret. Bechtel is demanding $25 million dollars from some of the poorest families in the world, said Oscar Olivera, a leader of the coalition of Bolivian peasants, workers and others that formed in opposition to Bechtel. The fact that a World Bank court is preparing to hear this case behind closed doors, without any public scrutiny or participation, is a clear example of how global economic rules are being rigged to benefit large corporations at the expense of everyone else. A wide range of groups joined in the demand to open up the process. They include trade union organizations (e.g., the 2.5 million-member Canadian Labour Congress and Public Services International, which represents services sector workers around the world); environmental groups (e.g., Friends of the Earth); consumer organizations (e.g., consumers associations of Canada, Japan and Zambia and U.S.-based Public Citizen); research groups (e.g., Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, and the Integrated Social Development Centre in Accra); and numerous religious institutions (e.g., Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers in Peru and the American Friends Service Committee); as well as noted authors Naomi Klein, Maude Barlow and Vandana Shiva. The groups called on the panel to make all of the documents and meetings in the case public, to travel to Bolivia to receive public testimony, and to allow Bolivian civic leaders to be an equal party to the case. The citizen's letter will be accompanied by a formal petition to participate by Olivera and other Bolivian civic leaders to the ICSID tribunal hearing the case. The tribunal is comprised of one member appointed by Bechtel, one appointed by the Bolivian government and a third, its president, appointed directly by World Bank President James Wolfensohn. The ICSID panel is scheduled to hold its first hearing sometime in early September (though Bank officials say they are barred from disclosing exactly when or where the hearing will take place). The legal team representing the Bolivian petitioners includes Oakland, CA-based Earthjustice and the Washington, DC-based Center for International Environmental Law, both of which have been involved in attempts to intervene in similar investor-state lawsuits filed under the North American Free Trade Agreement. AFTERMATH OF A REVOLT AGAINST WATER PRICE HIKES In the late 1990s the World Bank forced Bolivia to privatize the public water system of its third-largest city, Cochabamba, by threatening to withhold debt relief and other development assistance. In 1999, in a process with just one bidder, Bechtel, the California-based engineering giant, was granted a 40-year lease to take over Cochabamba's water, through a subsidiary the corporation formed for just that purpose (Aguas del Tunari). Within weeks of taking over the water system, Bechtel imposed huge rate hikes on local water users. Families living on the local minimum wage of $60 per month were given bills equal to as much as 25 percent of their monthly income. The rate hikes sparked massive citywide protests that the Bolivian government sought to end by declaring a state of martial law and the deployment of thousands of soldiers and police. More than a hundred people were injured and one 17-year-old boy was killed. In April 2000, as anti-Bechtel protests continued to grow, the company's managers abandoned the project. Bechtel filed the legal action against
US: Housing Market
US housing executives offload stock By Peronet Despeignes in Washington Financial Times, August 28 2002 Executives across the US home-building industry have been selling shares in their companies at a record pace this year, suggesting they believe the country's housing market has peaked. Data compiled for the Financial Times show that corporate officers and board members in publicly traded US building companies sold a record $258m-worth of shares more than they bought in the second quarter. It is the largest net sale of stock in the industry in quarterly records going back to 1996, and was done either by exercising options or directly cashing in stock grants. In many cases, corporate officers have sold more than 50 per cent of their holdings over the past year. This is an anomaly, said Lon Gerber, a research director at Thomson Financial, the information services group, adding that in many industries such selling had fallen. The selling went on while home sales, home values and builders' stock prices were surging. In addition, most stock analysts were maintaining buy recommendations and economists were debating whether the industry was experiencing a bubble effect. Thomson Financial and The Washington Service, a consulting firm prepared the figures from corporate filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The data show that of the 16 homebuilders with the largest market capitalisation, seven had reduced their executive shareholdings by the largest amount seen in individual records going back two decades. Executives at another three companies engaged in share selling well above their average in the last 30 days, according to Bernard Fulk, a senior analyst with The Washington Service. Debate has intensified in recent months about whether the housing market, a mainstay of growth for the US economy in the past year, is a bubble that will gradually deflate or abruptly pop. Policymakers such as Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, have dismissed the speculation, saying home values are supported by low mortgage rates and land shortages. Some analysts, however, fear home values may be increasingly fuelled by excess credit, a subsequent deterioration in lending standards and unsustainable expectations among prospective home buyers for more double-digit percentage gains. In some metropolitan areas, home prices have risen by more than 20 per cent over the past year. David Seiders, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, said the group expected housing numbers to top out sort of right around now - housing isn't going to be the big engine of growth forever - but we don't expect them to recede much. Rise in the value of the average home by metropolitan area (per cent change from 2001-Q2 to 2002-Q2) Nassau-Suffolk,NY 29.6 Bergen-Passaic,NJ 24.7 New York-North NJ-Long Island,NY22.3 San Diego,CA21.3 Monmouth-Ocean,NJ 21.0 Washington,DC/MD/VA 20.8 Providence,RI 20.7 Los Angeles-Long Beach,CA 18.0 Miami-Hialeah,FL17.0 Anaheim-Santa Ana,CA16.6 Source: National Association of Realtors There are various explanations for individual sales of stock, including routine profit-taking. However, Mr Gerber called the industry-wide trend disconcerting, adding that the insider signal is generally one to two quarters ahead of turns in the stock price. He speculated that executives may be worried about the risk of a slowdown, if not a reversal, and were not waiting. Homebuilder share prices have surged over the past year, outperforming most of the stock market, as mortgage rates have slid towards 30-year lows. But they have been volatile over the past few weeks, declining sharply in June and July before recouping some of their losses in August. The great majority of the homebuilder stock analysts monitored by First Call analyst Chuck Hill have maintained strong buy, buy or hold recommendations. Only one, Barbara Allen of Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, has recommended sell. She told the FT that the bubble speculation was a little bit stretched, but it does seem to me there's a little too much optimism, and that Mr Greenspan is doing us a disservice with some of the statements he's been making about homebuying. Report sends US builder stocks lower By Peronet Despeignes in Washington Financial Times, August 29 2002 Stock prices for US homebuilders eased on Thursday following a report by the FT of record selling of company stock by homebuilding executives. Shares in Centex, KB Homes, DR Horton, Pulte Homes and MDC Holdings fell more than 2 per cent. However, trading was thin ahead of the Labor Day weekend. The net value and number of shares sold by homebuilder officers surged to a record pace this year. The FT reported on
