Re: Re: re: US needs 1.2 million more nurses by 2010
There is probably a lot more poaching by Canada from the UK and particularly South Africa etc. then the US poaches from Canada. Our local hospital has two doctors from South Africa and one from Poland, and that is the total number of doctors there. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 4:20 PM Subject: [PEN-L:32027] Re: re: US needs 1.2 million more nurses by 2010 At 08/11/02 07:08 -0500, you wrote: Chris: This is definitely not a new problem. It has been the same with 'poaching' from Canada. It is one of the reasons that the English speaking metropolitan countries have used English countries for sourcing nurses ( drs let us add) as we have discussed on the list before. It may - I grant you - be getting worse. H Yes it is not new, and it may be getting worse.
Leaked pics of detainees in transport
This seems absolutely gross humiliation combined with arrogant display of sick patriotism..An accompanying poll puts approval of treatment of detainees at over 80 percent. Fascism next? http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/11/08/detainees.pictures/ Ken Hanly
Re: Re: Re: re: US needs 1.2 million more nurses by 2010
For those of you outside of the US, I might mention that nurses probably took the heaviest hit of any of the health care workers with the onslaught of managed care. Their workloads increased drastically; their responsibility did not decline even though they were expected to perform much of their work by administering non-professionals to do what used to be nurse's work. I don't have the figures, but retirements and quit rates are very high. Maybe someone with some expertise can shore up what I am writing. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Curious
VNS Unable to Deliver Exit Polls ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News Channel -- anticipating possible problems with exit polls -- each did last-minute telephone surveys to gauge voter attitudes. Fox conducted its survey in 10 states on Monday night and Tuesday and used some of those findings on the air. VNS hired Battelle Memorial Institute, an Ohio-based technology company that also works as a defense contractor to help build the new VNS system. A Battelle spokeswoman declined comment on Tuesday's performance. Ted Savaglio, VNS executive director, said he was disappointed with Battelle's work. He wouldn't comment on VNS' future. http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-eln-voter-news-service1106n ov06,0,2579073.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines FBI Investigates Possible Financial Motive in Anthrax Attacks DNA tests have confirmed that the spores used in the terrorist attacks are genetically identical to a strain obtained by researchers at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Md., in about 1980. The Army has acknowledged distributing the strain to five other agencies, and some of the strain was in turn shared with other researchers. The five labs that received the Ames strain from USAMRIID are the Army's Dugway Proving Ground in central Utah; Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio; the University of New Mexico's Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque; the Canadian DRES; and Porton Down. Battelle, a private contractor that has worked with the Pentagon in developing defenses against biological attacks, is one of several labs visited by FBI agents investigating the anthrax attacks. Katy Delaney, a Battelle spokeswoman, said the company has cooperated fully with the government's investigation. FBI agents have interviewed people on our staff, Delaney said, but she declined to provide information about the nature of the interviews or how many Battelle employees had been questioned. I can say that we have continued to provide all of the information and material that has been requested by the government, Delaney said. Battelle is a contractor at Dugway, which last week acknowledged making a powdered form of anthrax to use in testing sensors and other equipment used to defend against biological attacks. http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/FBIfinancialmotive.html
Oregon health care measure etc.
from NY Times...cheers Ken Hanly Advocates of drug policy reform were firmly rebuffed, after several years of winning initiatives around the country. Voters in Nevada rejected a proposal to legalize small amounts of marijuana, 61 percent to 39 percent, and Ohio residents turned down a requirement that nonviolent drug offenders receive treatment instead of jail. However, the District of Columbia approved a pro-treatment measure. Ethan Nadelman, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said advocates may have overreached in Nevada, which is among the states he called most receptive to marijuana use. It's a case of an initiative being put to the voters ahead of its time, he said. Oregon voters resoundingly defeated two health-related initiatives that captured national attention and even drew financing from supporters and opponents overseas. A proposal to provide universal health care reprised many of the debates over President Bill Clinton's national overhaul effort a decade ago. The plan would have replaced existing health insurance with a statewide program at a cost of as much as $1.7 billion in new taxes the first year. Health care and insurance interests rallied against the initiative, Measure 23. As soon as Oregonians got beneath the surface of Ballot Measure 23, they realized how flawed it was, said Dave Fiskum, a spokesman for Oregon Against Unhealthy Taxes, after the initiative was defeated 79 percent to 21 percent. It would have imposed a huge tax burden on individuals and businesses throughout the state. Many companies would have been forced to close their doors for good. A second Oregon proposal, to require the labeling of food products that contain genetically altered ingredients, was trounced by a similar margin. That initiative pitted organic farmers and consumer groups - with advertisements by Paul McCartney - against American and European agribusiness companies. Christie Quirk, a Democratic pollster who was not involved in either initiative, said their proponents were overwhelmed by industry's deep pockets. So much money was spent against them, Ms. Quirk said, though she also faulted advocates as hastily drafting the health care measure. Ms. Quirk voiced pessimism that similar proposals would emerge anytime soon, despite considerable support in polls for change. If they go down by large margins, she said, the issues become toxic.
Re: Re: Re: Re: re: US needs 1.2 million more nurses by 2010
There is a fact sheet here: http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Media/Backgrounders/shortagefacts.htm cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 8:40 AM Subject: [PEN-L:32035] Re: Re: Re: re: US needs 1.2 million more nurses by 2010 For those of you outside of the US, I might mention that nurses probably took the heaviest hit of any of the health care workers with the onslaught of managed care. Their workloads increased drastically; their responsibility did not decline even though they were expected to perform much of their work by administering non-professionals to do what used to be nurse's work. I don't have the figures, but retirements and quit rates are very high. Maybe someone with some expertise can shore up what I am writing. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Who Is the More Avid Poacher?
Ken: There is probably a lot more poaching by Canada from the UK and particularly South Africa etc. then the US poaches from Canada. Our local hospital has two doctors from South Africa and one from Poland, and that is the total number of doctors there. REPLY: Hi Ken: Yes there is indeed a lot of dr traffic into Canada - indeed some nurse traffic. Two things have stopped that: The infamous Stoddard Report that said there were too many drs in Canada; the monopolistic-restrictive practices of the College of Physicians Surgeons of the various Provinces. That was an exception for so-called 'under-serviced' areas. [The 'restrictive' practices were even more intense vis-a-vis nurses who were very handicapped in moving to Canada]. After Solidarity - I taught a class of hundreds of Polish docs who were trying to re-train. But then the refugees docs were plugged. It is only now that a shortage of docs is once gain publicly identified - that refugee docs are being enabled to enter the system. As far as nurses go: the funnel is fully open at the other end. In practice especially high tech services - ICU/NICU/ER/Operating room nurses - vanished into the maws of the USA system. I do ton know the figures as to who is more avid? Canada - or the USA.
Re: Re: little upward mobility in the US, says Fed economist
From: joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... Hey everybody, we can't all be white collar professionals and we shouldn't reduce education to 1) a ticket to the gated middle class or 2) job training for corporations. Whay can't we proceed from the following assumptions: 1) we all have to share in doing the shit jobs 2) we all do the best we can; for some best means theoretical physics; for others, best may be farming, or being a plumber, or cutting hair. 3) an hour of my working life is worth an hour of anyone else's working life: no fucking pay differentials. Best comment I've seen on a maillist in quite a while, Joanna. Those starkly stated principles still seem sensible and inspiring to me even at this time of capitalism's greatest triumph worldwide. I think they would seem sensible and inspiring to many other Americans if they ever found their way into the US political arena. Carl _ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Re: US needs 1.2 million more nurses by 2010
At 09/11/02 08:40 -0800, you wrote: For those of you outside of the US, I might mention that nurses probably took the heaviest hit of any of the health care workers with the onslaught of managed care. Their workloads increased drastically; their responsibility did not decline even though they were expected to perform much of their work by administering non-professionals to do what used to be nurse's work. I don't have the figures, but retirements and quit rates are very high. Maybe someone with some expertise can shore up what I am writing. I am not sure whether Ken's fact sheet bears this up, because Michael's suggestion no doubt is politically controversial. And so it should be. But from the outside it looks like the intensification of the working conditions of nurses in the USA, with relatively cheaper nurses coming in to fill the gap, migrating from a lower wage to a higher wage economy. This is an interesting and important area of the economies of developed capitalist countries. Ironically the more the emphasis on commodity production and service industries, the higher the relative use value placed by people on good health care. It is as if with an increasing material surplus, people know how vulnerable we are. Demand is rising in all developed countries, whatever the system of delivery of health care. Massive discrepancies on a world scale not only strip countries who need health care more, of important resources, like the Philippines. They have a lot to say about the inhuman way the global capitalist system is functioning overall. Chris Burford London
election question
Did any Democrat suffer any harm in the election from moving the teeniest smidgen to the left? Did any do any better than expected from moving to the right? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: election question
Michael Perelman wrote: Did any Democrat suffer any harm in the election from moving the teeniest smidgen to the left? Did any do any better than expected from moving to the right? Someone on the Progressive Sociologists list, not the most dazzling venue, said that of 102 Dem House members who voted against the war, 100 were re-elected - a higher rate than the pro-war crew. Doug
Building socialism with Chinese characteristics
that is to say--- creating a smooth transition to capitalism.. CHeers, Ken Hanly China rolls out red carpet for capitalists By Hamish McDonald, Herald Correspondent in Beijing November 9 2002 Chinese leaders and delegates listen to the national anthem at the start of the congress yesterday. Photos: AFP Speaking in front of a hammer-and-sickle emblem in the Great Hall of the People, China's supreme leader yesterday told his communist comrades they had to respect property rights and investment income. In a two-hour speech at the Chinese Communist Party's congress, held only every five years, the national president and party general secretary, Jiang Zemin, pointed to a future where private rights were guaranteed by law, and a vibrant business sector flourished alongside continuing communist rule and state-sector dominance. Mr Jiang, 76, who is expected to hand over his party job to a younger official during the congress, spelled out his vision in a report of which the less-than-handy title - Build a well-off society in an all-round way and create a new situation in building socialism with Chinese characteristics' - reflects the growing conflicts and ironies of communist rule in a booming economy led by market activity. The 2134 delegates, mostly wearing Western-style business suits with a sprinkling of military uniforms, listened intently as Mr Jiang urged them to blaze new trails in extending Marxism as the speech was broadcast live on all channels of Chinese state television. This party congress has been hyped to unprecedented levels by propaganda agencies. As well as countless red flags, the central Tiananmen Square outside the congress venue has been decorated with transplanted palm trees, electrically heated against temperatures now slipping below freezing at night. Security has been just as tight, but one note of dissent in Beijing has been an open letter circulated this week by intellectual Lin Mu - a former secretary to the late party general secretary Hu Yaobang, who was purged for his liberal tendencies. Mr Lin called on the party congress to reassess the Tiananmen incident, rehabilitate the ideas of Hu Yaobang and his purged successor Zhao Ziyang, allow Chinese exiles to freely enter and leave the country and begin studies on how to shift to electoral democracy. The congress is unlikely to take up the suggestion. Mr Jiang has ruled China for 13 years with an iron grip since the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators gathered on Tiananmen, and his apparent political swan song was more notable for policy departures in the economic sphere than in political freedoms. He said all investors at home or from overseas should be encouraged to carry out business activities to develop China, and all legitimate income, from work or not, should be protected. It is improper to judge whether people are politically progressive or backward simply by whether they own property or how much property they own, but rather, we should judge them mainly by their political awareness, state of mind and performance, Mr Jiang said. Even private businessmen were building socialism with Chinese characteristics, he said. The congress is expected to run for at least seven days. Vice-President Hu Jintao, 59, is expected to take over the party secretaryship and the national presidency from Mr Jiang in March. Wen Jiabao, 60, is likely to replace the Premier, Zhu Rongji, and Wu Bangguo will probably take over the National People's Congress chair from Li Peng.
Re: Re: election question
I wonder what 2 lost their bids. On Sat, Nov 09, 2002 at 04:10:24PM -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: Did any Democrat suffer any harm in the election from moving the teeniest smidgen to the left? Did any do any better than expected from moving to the right? Someone on the Progressive Sociologists list, not the most dazzling venue, said that of 102 Dem House members who voted against the war, 100 were re-elected - a higher rate than the pro-war crew. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bombing of Yugoslavian Industrial Plants
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For further information contact: Sriram Gopal: (301) 270-5500 Nicole Deller:(212) 818-1861 Arjun Makhijani: (301) 270-5500 P R E S SR E L E A S E NEW STUDY RAISES LEGAL, ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS OVER NATO'S 1999 PRECISION BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIAN INDUSTRIAL PLANTS United States should not consider bombing civilian facilities containing dangerous materials until it agrees to abide by relevant international legal standards Takoma Park, MD, November 5, 2002: The destruction of chemical plants in Pancevo and Kragujevac, Yugoslavia during the 1999 Operation Allied Force bombing campaign may have caused long-term damage to the environment and public health in areas surrounding those facilities, according to a new report released today. Precision Bombing, Widespread Harm by the Institute of Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), warns that bombing civilian industrial facilities can lead to contamination that is very difficult to clean up and may violate international humanitarian law. Among the findings of Precision Bombing, Widespread Harm: The NATO bombings released significant amounts of toxic substances into the environment; Civilians living near the targets may have been exposed to greater health risks from contamination in air, water and food products; Due to long delays in its inception, the post-war cleanup process in Yugoslavia has been more costly, and risks to the public may have been increased. There is no doubt that the bombings released large quantities of contaminants such as mercury but it is impossible to precisely determine their effects because of lack of data about pre-conflict pollution levels, explained Sriram Gopal, IEER Staff Scientist and principal author of the report. IEER's investigation was also hampered by rejection by the U.S. Department of Defense of an IEER Freedom of Information Act request and classification of an assessment by the General Accounting Office of the 1999 bombing campaign. This report does show that there is need for a sharp redefinition of how target sets and collateral damage are evaluated, Mr. Gopal added. Currently collateral damage is measured in terms such as the number of civilian casualties or the cost of replacing property. Long-term environmental harms can be much more difficult to quantify and evaluate, despite their very significant costs. Precision Bombing, Widespread Harm also calls into question the legal rationale used by NATO and the United States to justify the bombings. Nicole Deller, a lawyer and co-author of the study, said, Precision targeting may be intended to minimize civilian damage, but the choice of targets may still violate the international laws of war, including the Geneva Conventions. Under the laws of war, weapons that will cause excessive injury to civilians and damage to property are prohibited. The deliberate targeting of industrial facilities that hold little military value yet can cause severe health and environmental damage appear to violate these laws, Ms. Deller concluded. The report offers six major recommendations: The strategy of bombing civilian facilities to accomplish military objectives needs to be openly and thoroughly debated; Environmental clean-up after military conflicts needs to be expedited, perhaps by establishing an emergency fund in an international body such as the United National Environmental Program; Information regarding past bombings of civilian industrial facilities should be available to the public for legal review; The United States should not bomb civilian industrial facilities until it agrees to abide by the legal prohibitions on environmental damage during wartime; Extensive monitoring programs should be established in Pancevo and Kragujevac; and The clean-up process should be more transparent in order to allow for independent assessments. IEER's research raises significant questions relevant to future conflicts, including a possible war on Iraq. When civilians, the environment, or future generations are harmed by bombing, the countries carrying it out have the responsibility to abide by international law and to subject themselves to its strictures, said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of IEER. Sadly, the United States, which is the progenitor of the idea of the rule of law, refuses to do so. As a result, it is becoming the police, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner, in international affairs, all at the same time. This ought to be unacceptable to the international community, no matter how powerful the country espousing such policies may be. The matter is especially urgent in the context of the debate of a possible war led by the United States on Iraq. The report recommends that the United States, as well as other countries that have not yet done so, ratify the framework of international law that would enable international jurisdiction over their military actions. This framework includes the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of
Re: Re: election question
Some people think Wellstone did. Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: Did any Democrat suffer any harm in the election from moving the teeniest smidgen to the left? Did any do any better than expected from moving to the right? Someone on the Progressive Sociologists list, not the most dazzling venue, said that of 102 Dem House members who voted against the war, 100 were re-elected - a higher rate than the pro-war crew. Doug
Re: Re: US needs 1.2 million more nurses by 2010
At 06:42 PM 11/09/2002 +, you wrote: This is an interesting and important area of the economies of developed capitalist countries. Ironically the more the emphasis on commodity production and service industries, the higher the relative use value placed by people on good health care. It is as if with an increasing material surplus, people know how vulnerable we are. Demand is rising in all developed countries, whatever the system of delivery of health care. It's more than that. Health care needs are going up because of the unbelievable level of stress, which leads to a multiplicity of somatic manifestations. It's also an aging population and a population whose diet has been atrocious for the last couple of generations: all the chemicals all the processed shit. My own experience of western medicine (other than dentistry) is that it sucks. For me, western medicine is absolutely my last resort even though I like my GP quite a lot; it's just that whatever I go in for he will offer three solutions: antibiotics, chemicals, surgery. Joanna
Re: Re: Re: election question
Someone quickly report Gene to Nicholas Kristof. He has gone conspiracist! On Sat, Nov 09, 2002 at 01:40:15PM -0800, Eugene Coyle wrote: Some people think Wellstone did. Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: Did any Democrat suffer any harm in the election from moving the teeniest smidgen to the left? Did any do any better than expected from moving to the right? Someone on the Progressive Sociologists list, not the most dazzling venue, said that of 102 Dem House members who voted against the war, 100 were re-elected - a higher rate than the pro-war crew. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: US needs 1.2 million more nurses by 2010
joanna bujes wrote: it's just that whatever I go in for he will offer three solutions: antibiotics, chemicals, surgery. Sometimes it's the patient who makes the demand for radical treatment. When I broke my hip in the emergency room chose my surgeon (the daughter of a surgeon I had had for a minor affair many years earlier), Jan's response to my choice was that she vaguely remembered something negative about Dr. Wright. Then later Jan remembered what it was. A fellow employee at the P.O. had had back trouble and went to Wright: who prescribed a course of exercises and _cured_ the back trouble. But the patient was unhappy -- she was disappointed that surgery wasn't required! But sometimes surgery is required -- as for my broken hip. And while Wright tried to avoid surgery for my wrist, it was ultimately necessary. And anti-biotics have saved a lot of lives, as well as a lot of misery. Back in the '70s on three different occasions I was sick for over a month with what I thought was a cold, but was bronchitis, and each time anti-biotics finally cleared it up quickly. Also -- you apparently make an exception for dentistry. Anti-biotics are pretty important there as well. And Zanoflex stopped migraines that were so bad that had lived in a high rise or owned a gun I probably wouldn't be here today. So chemicals can be pretty important as well. I don't think it's correct to make blanket statements about medicine in the u.s. today. There are always going to be royal fuck-ups under capitalism. And even if and when we achieve communism, there will remain plenty of room for either sheer unavoidable error, the limits of technology and/or knowledge, and the basic fraility of the human body. Throwing money at in in the form of guaranteeing costs for patients would still make a lot of difference. And as both Marta I have pointed out, some people would get a lot more out of their treatment if they had enough money to live on in addition. Social struggle can potentially improve on that (at least for temporary periods) even under capitalism. Incidentally, patient deaths go up as the number of patients per nurse go up. You can't blame medicine for that. And whatever the weaknesses and even crimes of neuropsychiatry, it is also true that the suicide rate is _much_ higher for patients who don't receive medical care. Carrol Joanna
Nursing shortage (canada)
Jun. 21, 05:11 EDT Nursing crunch will soon tighten, report says OTTAWA (CP) - Canada's nursing shortage will deepen dramatically in the next three years, Ontario research suggests. Ontario is expected to lose 14,000 of its 81,000 nurses due to retirement alone by 2004, Linda O'Brien-Pallas of the University of Toronto nursing faculty said today. But nursing resources are already stretched so thin that patient care is in jeopardy, O'Brien-Pallas told a forum sponsored by the Canadian Nurses Association. Trends are similar across the country, with retirements far exceeding the inflow of new recruits. Only 10 per cent of Canadian nurses are under the age of 30, while almost a third are over 50, data show. ''We're going to have to improve the work environment if we're going to shift those statistics,'' said O'Brien-Pallas. She attributed the current health system crisis, including labour disruptions in two provinces, to the downsizing of the 1990s, when Ottawa slashed transfer payments to provinces to balance its books. ''When everything was falling apart consistently, nurses were there being the glue in the system to keep it going for patients. Right now we find ourselves in a situation where they can't do it any more.'' The Ontario estimate on retirements in coming years assumes nurses will work to retirement age but the shortage will be worse if many choose to retire early. A study released at the forum cites figures from numerous studies showing the impact that job stress is having on nurses's health, and offers dozens of recommendations on changing the situation. ''Canada's nursing shortage is at least in part due to a work environment that burns out the experienced and discourages new recruits,'' says the study, titled Commitment and Care. It says stressed-out workers risk injuring themselves and harming patients. Stress factors include excessive workload, proliferation of casual and part-time jobs rather than full-time positions, unpredictable schedules, mandatory overtime, lack of support staff, violence and lack of respect. ''We need to make sure that we have more money in the system to hire enough nurses so we can reduce workload and provide a meaningful work environment.'' O'Brien-Pallas said the federal government should provide money designated specifically for nursing, and require auditing to ensure it is spent as intended. Many things could be done to improve the situation at no cost, she added. ''Look at the dollars we spend on overtime at time-and-a-half payment. If we could reduce the number of dollars there and put that into full-time employment we may in fact see a reduction of overall cost. The lack of solid national figures on retirement and recruitment points to the difficulty governments are having in taking the nursing shortage seriously. O'Brien-Pallas said nurses believe their work is not valued, and sometimes feel as if they are no better than widgets. ''We need to keep getting the message out that nurses are not widgets.'' Legal Notice:- Copyright 1996-2002.
Sociobiology in the Nation Magazine
Title: Sociobiology in the Nation Magazine On Nov. 4, Louis Proyect writes that the NATION magazine dated 11/18/02 proceeds to a defense of sociobiology of a kind that I've never seen in a left publication. Let's look at this. He writes:... In Steven Johnson's review of Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate, we discover that E.O. Wilson, Stephen Pinker and Richard Dawkins were right all along. Biology is destiny. Women's brains differ from men's, hence accounting possibly for men's superiority in theoretical physics among other things. (Don't worry, gals, your brains might just as easily prepare you for social interactions and empathy.) This is an inaccurate representation of what Johnson's says. (However, I can't talk about Pinker. As with movies, I don't review something I haven't seen.) He specifically argues against the idea that "biology is destiny" and never argues that three of the folks listed above "were right all along." Rather, he argues that the "biology is destiny" interpretation of sociobiology or evolutionary psychology is inaccurate. I get the impression that Johnson sees the early sociobiology as a kind of biological determinism (e.g. Wilson's naïve garbage about women) but that it has grown beyond that, just as they changed then focus and name to "evolutionary psychology" (EP). Instead, he sees EP as saying that both "nature" and "nurture" as important, though of course they emphasize the Darwinian evolutionary side of the story of the determination of the mind's contents. The bit at the end of his review suggests that the other side of the story (the role of society) would be left to other scholars. Further, he goes on and on about how biology doesn't provide us with instincts as much as "prepared learning" - - which is not determining of behavior as much as lending a bias toward certain types of behavior. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but it sounds a bit like saying that biology provides our minds with hardware (or firmware), but society can change the software or at least affect the outcome profoundly. Alternatively, it could be said that the role of biology is a bit like the slope of a mountain: a steep slope doesn't mean one can't climb it but that we have to work hard to do so. (I use the word "we" advisedly: even the most skilled climbers are dependent on the rest of society for their equipment, rescue services, etc.) Johnson suggests that women's brains might be inferior on the theoretical physics front, but he also says that this only applies _on average _, with a lot of variation amongst individuals, so that there's no reason to discriminate against women as individuals concerning entry into MIT (or for parents to discourage their daughters). As a NATION-style liberal, Johnson is likely in favor of some version of affirmative action here, to counteract any biological and societal biases. (I would add that it's quite possible that adding more of a "woman's perspective" might allow the solving some of the big unsolved problems in physics, as fresh approaches often do.) He also argues that the "social interactions" and "empathy" that the average woman is supposed to excel at are extremely important, so there's no reason to assume that doing well at theoretical physics makes one biological sex superior to the other. (One problem with capitalism, BTW, is that it discourages social interactions except those through markets.) In other words, Johnson sees accusations that EP is involving genetic reductionism or biological reductionism as setting up a straw man. As usual, the defense says that the truth is more complicated and sophisticated than what the plaintiffs say. The problem (as Louis suggests below) is that Johnson sets up a straw man, the "blank slate" that Pinker uses in his title. Maybe Pinker quotes some people who believe in the blank slate - - B.F. Skinner? Robert Owen? - - but Johnson doesn't. Rousseau, who some see as the patron saint of "blank slatism," accepted the existence of two major human instincts (survival and empathy) which seemed to be based in biology. Further, his political philosophy suggests that humans are happiest and most fulfilled in small-town environments (not in "noble savagery"), which suggests that there's some kind of human essence independent of society's many conditionings, so that the harmony with our essence (disalienation) can be realized under specific societal conditions. I've heard all this nature vs. nurture stuff before, since my father was a biological determinist (in fact, an IQ school kind of racist). The battle of the straw men is pretty useless, as both sides claim to be more sophisticated than the other side's image of them and they talk past each other. But it seems that everyone believes that both nature and nurture play a role. The question of the exact nature of the interaction (e.g., my hardware/software analogy above) seems to be a very important one, at least to intellectuals. The EP folks seem to
Re: Re: Re: election question
according to the Democratic Leadership Council-types, if a Democrat, centrist or progressive, loses an election it's because they were too liberal. If a centrist Dems wins election it's because they were centrist. If a progressive Dem wins election it's in spite of being progressive. In short no matter what the outcome is, these people will come back with the exact same line, which is really a normative statement, and dress it up as analysis. If the progressive wing of the Dems, such as it is, is ever to reclaim the party they will have to establish a propaganda machinery to match what the DLC and related institutions do. That seems unlikely to me if only because a lot of the most talented people who could make something like that work have given up on Dems completely and are into the Greens, etc. The question for Dems it seems to me is whether you can come up with an actual STRATEGY for mobilizing and exciting the base without alienating the Suburban Independent Voter, beyond the once in a generation chamelon politician Clinton who can by personal charisma hold it together. A form of populism focused sharply on the extreme rich and the corporate elites and that emphasizes focusing tax increases on the extreme top only would seem like the best bet. And it's not enough just to do what Gore did and talk in abstract way about what the top 1% get from tax cuts, etc; he just rolled off statistics. He made no effort to connect it to the substance of real life--Now a few people will have more money to spend on $5,000 pens and Country Club memberships and most will have less for health care; nor did he ever say why exactly inequality is bad (which is a live question for a lot of people). FWIW, there is no parallel group to the DLC within the Republican Party arguing with significant influence that the way to win elections is to be moderate. Instead they are running, for the most part, on a hard right agenda, and winning. At 01:24 PM 11/9/2002 -0800, you wrote: I wonder what 2 lost their bids. On Sat, Nov 09, 2002 at 04:10:24PM -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: Did any Democrat suffer any harm in the election from moving the teeniest smidgen to the left? Did any do any better than expected from moving to the right? Someone on the Progressive Sociologists list, not the most dazzling venue, said that of 102 Dem House members who voted against the war, 100 were re-elected - a higher rate than the pro-war crew. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Your password -- probably a virus
I assume that this was a virus that got through. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Sociobiology in the Nation Magazine
Kim Devine: Louis, do you have evidence that Pinker is wrong here? on this or any of the other matters on this list? Yes. Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
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delete pen-l perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Michael Perelman Economics Department CSU Chico, CA 95929
re: Building socialism with Chinese characteristics
Dear Ken: Your sub-heading: that is to say--- creating a smooth transition to capitalism - must prompt the question in reply: Was China ever anything other than capitalist? Cheers, H
Re: Re: Re: Re: election question
The repugs don't need something like a DLC. The Right has captured the party or the party has captured the right. Maybe the Ripon Society can more the repugs to the left, ha ha ha. On Sat, Nov 09, 2002 at 09:36:19PM -0500, Thad Williamson wrote: according to the Democratic Leadership Council-types, if a Democrat, centrist or progressive, loses an election it's because they were too liberal. If a centrist Dems wins election it's because they were centrist. If a progressive Dem wins election it's in spite of being progressive. In short no matter what the outcome is, these people will come back with the exact same line, which is really a normative statement, and dress it up as analysis. If the progressive wing of the Dems, such as it is, is ever to reclaim the party they will have to establish a propaganda machinery to match what the DLC and related institutions do. That seems unlikely to me if only because a lot of the most talented people who could make something like that work have given up on Dems completely and are into the Greens, etc. The question for Dems it seems to me is whether you can come up with an actual STRATEGY for mobilizing and exciting the base without alienating the Suburban Independent Voter, beyond the once in a generation chamelon politician Clinton who can by personal charisma hold it together. A form of populism focused sharply on the extreme rich and the corporate elites and that emphasizes focusing tax increases on the extreme top only would seem like the best bet. And it's not enough just to do what Gore did and talk in abstract way about what the top 1% get from tax cuts, etc; he just rolled off statistics. He made no effort to connect it to the substance of real life--Now a few people will have more money to spend on $5,000 pens and Country Club memberships and most will have less for health care; nor did he ever say why exactly inequality is bad (which is a live question for a lot of people). FWIW, there is no parallel group to the DLC within the Republican Party arguing with significant influence that the way to win elections is to be moderate. Instead they are running, for the most part, on a hard right agenda, and winning. At 01:24 PM 11/9/2002 -0800, you wrote: I wonder what 2 lost their bids. On Sat, Nov 09, 2002 at 04:10:24PM -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: Did any Democrat suffer any harm in the election from moving the teeniest smidgen to the left? Did any do any better than expected from moving to the right? Someone on the Progressive Sociologists list, not the most dazzling venue, said that of 102 Dem House members who voted against the war, 100 were re-elected - a higher rate than the pro-war crew. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The risk of deflation/The Economist/Marx
The risk of deflation Comparing symptoms Nov 7th 2002 From The Economist print edition Can lower interest rates prevent the spread of debt-deflation to America and Europe? STOCKMARKETS rose in expectation of the Federal Reserve's half-point cut in interest rates on November 6th to 1.25%, the lowest rate for more than 40 years. The following day, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England decided not to cut their rates, but they are still expected to ease next month. However, investors' exuberance is odd, for interest rates are coming down because the world economy is in worse shape than had been hoped. America's recovery is stalling, as consumers tighten their belts. In the euro area, consumer and business confidence are both on the wane. Although euro-area inflation is above the 2% ceiling set by the ECB, weak demand will push inflation down next year. The case for interest-rate cuts in both America and the euro area was strong, even though the ECB has not yet moved. But will rate cuts work? Most policymakers in America and Europe blame Japan's slump on mistakes--which they can avoid. An alternative view is that much of Japan's economic sickness is the inevitable after-effect of its bubble in the 1980s. Asset-price bubbles tend to be followed by periods of weak growth, as financial excesses are unwound. The table attempts, in unscientific fashion, to assess the risks of America and Germany catching the Japanese disease. America's STOCKMARKET BUBBLE in the late 1990s mirrored Japan's of a decade earlier. Its housing market has also been looking suspiciously like a bubble--though with less froth than Japan's. More surprising, German share prices rose, and then fell, by more than America's. Indeed, at its low point in October, Germany's DAX index was almost 70% below its peak. On the other hand, fewer Germans own shares than do Americans. The other aspect of the bubbles in Japan and America was a surge in CORPORATE INVESTMENT, based on cheap capital and unrealistic expectations about future profits--often inflated by shady accounting practices. By and large, German business escaped such overinvestment. The most serious aspect of Japan's economic sickness is DEFLATION. Falling prices have increased real debt burdens, depressed consumer spending, and made it impossible for the Bank of Japan to deliver the negative real interest rates that the economy needs to revive demand. It is often argued that the central bank was too slow to cut rates after the stockmarket collapsed. Yet in fact Japan's economy initially held up much better than America's. In relation to GDP growth and the size of Japan's output gap--a big influence on inflation--the Bank of Japan cut interest rates as rapidly as the Fed did last year. America does not yet have deflation. Still, its GDP deflator fell to 0.8% in the year to the third quarter; so long as the level of GDP remains below potential, inflation will keep falling. Deflation currently seems unlikely in Britain or the euro area as a whole, but Germany is at risk. German consumer prices have fallen at an annual rate of 0.4% over the past six months. More worryingly, Germany, unlike Japan in the early 1990s or America today, is not free to cut interest rates or run a looser fiscal policy. Interest rates are set by the ECB on the basis of economic conditions in the whole euro area, and budget deficits are limited by the European Union's stability pact. The risk of deflation may therefore be greater in Germany than in America. Deflation is particularly deadly when an economy has lots of DEBT, because falling prices swell the real debt burden. In America and Germany, firms and households have borrowed heavily in recent years, lifting total debts of the non-financial private sector to 150% and 160% of GDP respectively. In the early 1990s Japan's debt burden was equivalent to almost 250% of GDP. Japanese firms are still much more in hock than those in America or Germany. On the other hand, American households look more vulnerable. Even at the peak of Japan's bubble, households remained big savers. Last year German households saved as much as 10% of their income; Americans saved only 1.5%. A cocktail of debt and deflation has left Japanese BANKS crippled by bad loans, forcing them to cut lending. American banks are in better shape; and the economy is less dependent on banks, relying more on capital markets for finance. Even so, concerns are growing about the threat of a credit crunch, as conditions tighten in America's corporate-bond market. German banks look shakier, with poor profitability and shrinking capital as share prices have fallen--as in Japan. Increased competition and the need to lift profits is putting pressure on banks to reduce their traditional relationship lending, resulting in a collapse in new bank lending to small and medium-sized firms. This form of credit crunch has a different cause to the one in Japan, but its effect of exacerbating the downturn
Re: election question
--- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I wonder what 2 lost their bids. On Sat, Nov 09, 2002 at 04:10:24PM -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: Did any Democrat suffer any harm in the election from moving the teeniest smidgen to the left? Did any do any better than expected from moving to the right? Someone on the Progressive Sociologists list, not the most dazzling venue, said that of 102 Dem House members who voted against the war, 100 were re-elected - a higher rate than the pro-war crew. Doug I guess the next question is about closely contested districts and the pro- vs. anti- war vote (and/or 'security', which seemed to have got conflated to Bush's advantage). How did the issue affect closely contested districts? In my home Congressional District, the ultra-conservative Republican candidate is always untouchable, so a Dem wouldn't touch him no matter how they stood on the issue. Still, probably going populist might raise the Dem's votes. Yet ultimately, the Allegheny hillbillies and various ethnic dispossessed don't vote in large enough numbers, and when they do vote, more than enough vote for Repugs anyway. Moreover, the defense workers and bedroom bureaucrats living in exurbia ALL vote Republican, as do the milk cow farmers (except the Amish and traditional Mennonites who don't vote). Interestingly enough, there are probably districts elsewhere in the US of analogous demographic makeup where the Dem is untouchable. A lot of it seems to go back to which major party became dominant in the post-WW II era and managed to stay that way. Also, the federal system helps cause a discontinuity in governance and representation that favors 'once in always in' traditions. And of course districts have been gerrymandered to take in potentially troublesome populations, keeping them nominally represented but always out. C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos http://launch.yahoo.com/u2
Re: Sociobiology in the Nation Magazine
Greetings Economists, Jim Devine writes, JD, For what it's worth, autism spectrum disorders and attention deficit disorder (both of which involve inadequate eye contact) hit males much more often than women. This suggests that there's some validity to Pinker's assertion. Louis, do you have evidence that Pinker is wrong here? on this or any of the other matters on this list? Doyle There are some suggestions that the reason males are more likely to be vulnerable to autism and ADD is because they are more vulnerable to certain hormones like testosterone. That is that a maternal amniotic fluid 'environment' causes autism and ADD. Which is the opposite of Pinker's assertion. That is the basis for the Scientific American Article I referenced concerning Autism in earlier discussions on Autism. That is a hypothetical at this time. JD, It's quite possible that Pinker is attacking the kind of communism that's popularly imagined - - the kind of gray homogeneity that Stalinism tried to impose - - rather than the kind of communism that serious Marxists favor. Doyle Pinker attacks everyone as if they are wrong and he is right. Since Jim Devine has not read Pinker's book his one sided re-interpretation of Johnson's review lacks insight from the key source of the matter. Where Pinker attacks the left his attack has little or nothing to do with his theory of a language instinct, and more to do with finding any fault he can to tarnish those he disagrees with. One could say that Einsteins theories are questionable because Einstein was a poor Father etc. Pinker's book is not a scientific effort and ought not to be seen as a serious discussion of theory merits. JD, More generally, Johnson's review spends a lot of time arguing that Pinker's stuff can be interpreted in a left-liberal way, i.e., that it doesn't have to be reactionary crapola. Doyle The book is not a scientific treatise it is a popular culture book attacking in name S.J.Gould and Richard Lewontin because they question the science behind Pinker's thinking, i.e. innatist theories of language rules genetically determined in brain structure. Pinker on page 74 of The Blank Slate, The Modern Denial of Human Nature Viking Press, 2002 lays out the three 'blank slate' areas he considers scientifically wrong, one the functioning genes are too small in number to determine the brain instinct for language, two, connectionism is an abstract theory not instantiated in the brain, three plasticity of the brain (blind people use the occipital cortex vision centers to read braille) is genetically determined as well. If that was all that Pinker's book was about debate is useful about reality. Pinker is not persuasive about the science, but his book is a political attack upon the left. And an assault on the person of S.J. Gould and Richard Lewontin. Which he throws together with creationist as if Gould was religious himself. That somehow Gould is an ally of Christian Fundamentalism. page 121 Are the dirty tricks of the preceding chapter just another example of people taking offense at claims about behavior that make the uncomfortable? Or as I have hinted, are they part of a systematic intellectual current: the attempt to safeguard the Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine as a source of meaning and morality? page 120 A second reason is that radical thinkers got trapped by their own moralizing. Once they staked themselves to the lazy argument that racism, sexism war, and political inequality were factually incorrect because there is no such thing as human nature (as opposed to being morally despicable regardless of the details of human nature),... page 161 Those who believe that communism or socialism is the most rational form of social organization are aghast at the suggestion that they run against our selfish natures quoting a cartoon Arlo and Janis page 163 The boy has biology on his side. George Williams, the revered evolutionary bilogist, describes the natural world as grossly immoral. page 164 Suppose rape is rooted in a feature of human nature, such as that men want sex across a wider range of circumstances than women do page 293 And onto this battlefield strode an innocent E.O. Wilson. The ideas from evolutionary biology and behavioral genetics that became public in the 1970s could not have been more of an insult to those with the Utopian Vision. That vision, was after all, based on the Blank Slate (no permanent human nature), the Noble Savage (no selfish or evil instincts),... page 122 Lewontin, Rose, and Kamin also deny that they are saying that humans are blank slates. But they grant only two concessions to human nature. The first comes not from an appeal to evidence or logic but from their politics: if [a blank slate] were the case, there could be no social evolution. Their support for this argument consists of an appeal to the authority of Marx, whom they quote as saying, The materialist doctrine that men are
