Re: Query from a Venezuelan
Jim, I think Michael is right, discussions about Stalin have been done to deathso to speak. What is important is that most people in the USSR did support the regime most of the time. It may not have lived up to the stated intention to abolish the state, but it is that stated which is crucial for definitional purposes. regards, Grant.
Re: Monbiot on the WTO
- Original Message - From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... But I'm still not clear on what you're advocating as an alternative. 100% autarchy is impossible. But 50%? 25%? Give me a case and I'll think about it. Here in Johannesburg, I'd say 100% delinking from hot money by imposing tight exchange controls. Our currency has fluctuated from R6/$ in January 2000 to R13.8/$ two years later and it's now strengthened to R7.8/$ today. I could go on about all the fallout, but you can imagine. So to hell with portfolio capital flows. To hell with all international trade in luxury consumption goods, too, because it exacerbates the wealth skew in the economy. A 100% luxury goods tarriff would help. These kinds of policies have actually been applied at various times and are not utopian or based upon revolutionary power changes. Then I'd say, be more ambitious and price in eco damage done by minerals and beneficiation processes, that make SA *twenty times* worse in greenhouse gas emissions per person corrected for GDP, than even the US. That should limit the need for huge post-panamax port designs (vast state subsidies are being prepared for yet another, at a place called Coega) that accommodate the export of aluminium, steel and other base metals. Then a clever industrial policy would start a new round of ISI, but this time based on consumer goods for the masses and mid-range capital goods, not the kind of luxury goods ISI that were typical during the 1950s-60s. I could go on, but the deglobalisation capacity is enormous -- probably in excess of 50% -- and the scope for a set of bottom-up Local Economic Development options are just as promising, given the backlog in delivery of simple (non-import-intensive) infrastructure and basic needs. (A version of the argument, in its most mild-mannered policy-friendly style, is in Occasional Paper #6 at http://www.queensu.ca/msp) You could never have any delinking if there weren't substantial solidarity among poorer countries - some kind of trading, financial, and technological links. It all depends on appropriate scale economies and resources, right? It would be great if oil flowed from Angola on rail lines to Gabarone, Jo'burg and Harare -- not to New Jersey. The idea of the Southern African Development Community was precisely to make these kinds of linkages. Didn't work for all sorts of reasons, but it's not impossible. As soon as I say that though, I wonder - what common interests are there between Brazil and Zimbabwe? Unfortunately, capitalists from the two subimperialist powers of the south Atlantic -- Brazil and SA -- have begun the early stages of a fight over how best to loot Angola, and Lula has even made noises about his firms investing much more in Mozambique. Language ties make these penetrations -- best considered as 'accumulation by dispossession' -- attractive, but not necessarily inevitable. Keeping SA capital out of the region where it plays a particularly pernicious role -- banking, breweries, minerals and energy privatisation -- will be an increasingly tough job for anti-imperialists here. But the struggles have begun, with regional groups (mainly Jubilee) finding many opportunities for unity, e.g. in a demo against the World Economic Forum southern Africa meeting a fortnight ago, and regularly against the New Partnership for Africa's Development. Zed is coming out with my update on this theme -- *Against Global Apartheid* -- in September... Doug
Dog bites man
NY Times, June 26, 2003 Very Richest's Share of Income Grew Even Bigger, Data Show By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON The 400 wealthiest taxpayers accounted for more than 1 percent of all the income in the United States in the year 2000, more than double their share just eight years earlier, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. But their tax burden plummeted over the period. The data, in a report that the I.R.S. released last night, shows that the average income of the 400 wealthiest taxpayers was almost $174 million in 2000. That was nearly quadruple the $46.8 million average in 1992. The minimum income to qualify for the list was $86.8 million in 2000, more than triple the minimum income of $24.4 million of the 400 wealthiest taxpayers in 1992. While the sharp growth in incomes over that period coincided with the stock market bubble, other factors appear to account for much of the increase. A cut in capital gains tax rates in 1997 to 20 percent from 28 percent encouraged long-term holders of assets, like privately owned businesses, to sell them, and big increases in executive compensation thrust corporate chiefs into the ranks of the nation's aristocracy. This year's tax cut reduced the capital gains rate further, to 15 percent. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/26/business/26TAX.html -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
State Dept. calls the CIA a liar
NY Times, June 26, 2003 INTELLIGENCE Agency Disputes C.I.A. View of Trailers as Iraqi Weapons Labs By DOUGLAS JEHL WASHINGTON, June 25 The State Department's intelligence division is disputing the Central Intelligence Agency's conclusion that mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making biological weapons, United States government officials said today. In a classified June 2 memorandum, the officials said, the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research said it was premature to conclude that the trailers were evidence of an Iraqi biological weapons program, as President Bush has done. The disclosure of the memorandum is the clearest sign yet of disagreement between intelligence agencies over the assertion, which was produced jointly by the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency and made public on May 28 on the C.I.A. Web site. Officials said the C.I.A. and D.I.A. did not consult with other intelligence agencies before issuing the report. The report on the trailers was initially prepared for the White House, and Mr. Bush has cited it as proof that Iraq indeed had a biological weapons program, as the United States has repeatedly alleged, although it has yet to produce any other conclusive evidence. In an interview with Polish television on May 30, Mr. Bush cited the trailers as evidence that the United States had found the weapons of mass destruction it was looking for. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell echoed that assessment in a public statement the next day, saying that the accuracy of prewar assessments linking Iraqi trailers to a biological weapons program had been borne out by the discovery. Some intelligence analysts had previously disputed the C.I.A. report, but it had not been known that the C.I.A. report did not reflect an interagency consensus or that any intelligence agency had later objected to its finding. The State Department bureau raised its objections in a memorandum to Mr. Powell, according to Congressional officials. They said the memorandum was cast as a dissent to the C.I.A. report, and that it said that the evidence found to date did not justify the conclusion that the trailers could have had no other purpose than for use as mobile weapons laboratories. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Query from a Venezuelan
Title: RE: [PEN-L] Query from a Venezuelan okay. I wonder, though, about Soviet workers' support for their government (that Andie points to). What are we to conclude? what are we to say about the support by US workers for US imperialism in the current era? you can use any definition you want, but how useful is the definition? all sorts of governments (e.g., in Burma) say that they're doing it all for the greater good. Should we take these assertions at face value? Jim -Original Message- From: Grant Lee To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 6/26/2003 12:28 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Query from a Venezuelan Jim, I think Michael is right, discussions about Stalin have been done to deathso to speak. What is important is that most people in the USSR did support the regime most of the time. It may not have lived up to the stated intention to abolish the state, but it is that stated which is crucial for definitional purposes. regards, Grant.
Re: Query from a Venezuelan
Devine, James wrote: okay. I wonder, though, about Soviet workers' support for their government (that Andie points to). What are we to conclude? what are we to say about the support by US workers for US imperialism in the current era? you can use any definition you want, but how useful is the definition? all sorts of governments (e.g., in Burma) say that they're doing it all for the greater good. Should we take these assertions at face value? Jim No answer to these questions will be really satisfactory, and only occasionally, perhaps, is it worth really trying to answer them. But there is substance to a point often made by various writers from various political positions and in various words: when nothing is left but force, nothing is left. I would interpret this as assuming that most regimes most of the time _do_ have the substantial support of the governed. One possible measure is how much effort the populace will give to opposing a foreign invasion. By that criterion, I think that it is likely, not certain, that the Soviet regime of the 1930s (at least outside the Ukraine) did have substantial support of the workers and peasants. I think someone pointed out that the terror, for the most part, was directed against the state and party apparatus, not the masses of the population. That is (was) not true in Burma (Cambodia)? In South Africa? Elections that are substantive manifestations of the actual state of consciousness have been few and far between? They are evidence, but not all the evidence and not necessarily conclusive. Carrol Carrol
historical question
During the early 70s, we used to go to a wonderful vegetarian restaurant on Folsom or Howard in San Francisco. The people were spiritual. They required absolute silence and only charged a dollar or two for the meal. It was shut down after the owners were found to have subsidized their restaurant by bank robberies. I was trying to find something about the restaurant for my daughter. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bush Africa
[perhaps Dubya is afraid folks might draw comparisons between the Repugs. version of warlord capitalism and Charles Taylor's.] [New York Times] June 27, 2003 Bush Calls for Changes in Africa to End Wars and Promote Trade By RICHARD W. STEVENSON WASHINGTON, June 26 - President Bush outlined an ambitious agenda today for advancing peace and prosperity in Africa. He demanded that Liberia's leader step down to avert further bloodshed in his country, called for a change of government in Zimbabwe and for the dispatching of an envoy to broker an end to the long civil war in Sudan. Speaking to a group of African leaders, business executives and investors here, Mr. Bush also pledged $100 million to help Kenya and other countries fight terrorism and made a case for expanded trade as the most powerful engine for fighting poverty on the continent. Mr. Bush is to leave in 11 days on his first trip as president to sub-Saharan Africa, and his speech today was his most expansive statement of policy on the continent to date. It was particularly striking for his blunt calls for change in nations that have been wracked by violence. Among them was Liberia, where there has been heavy fighting between rebels and forces loyal to President Charles Taylor, who has been indicted on war crimes charges in a court run jointly by the neighboring nation of Sierra Leone and the United Nations. President Taylor needs to step down, Mr. Bush said, so that his country can be spared further bloodshed. But he gave no indication that he would respond to calls from people in Liberia to send American troops to stop the fighting there, which has intensified in recent days after Mr. Taylor reversed a promise earlier this month to yield power as part of a cease-fire agreement. Mr. Bush made clear his willingness to use the diplomatic influence of the United States in an effort to transform some of Africa's worst battlegrounds, including Liberia, Sudan and Congo, but he suggested that he would not seek to exert power unilaterally. He called on regional governments and pan-African organizations to end a cycle of attack and escalation among the warring parties and build effective peacekeeping forces. It is Africans who will overcome these problems, Mr. Bush said. Yet the United States of America and other nations will stand beside them. Most recent presidents have dipped from time to time into Africa's problems. But, in part because there is limited domestic political pressure to do so, they have rarely shown a lasting commitment to dealing with the continent's deeply rooted troubles. Congress has also proven reluctant to provide large-scale economic aid or to make trade concessions that would extract a price from domestic constituencies. But to the surprise of many advocacy groups who have long called on the United States to do more to fight disease and poverty in Africa, Mr. Bush has taken an increasing interest in the region, and has proposed substantial increases in spending to fight AIDS and promote economic development. In doing so, aides said, he has been pushed along by a diverse group of advisers, from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, an early and forceful advocate of increased engagement in Africa, to religious organizations, who have cited the humanitarian imperative, to his national security team, which has called for action to keep some African nations from harboring and breeding terrorists. In his half-hour speech, to the U.S.-Africa Business Summit, he laid out a vision of an Africa policy built on a moral duty to address suffering, a national interest in promoting stability in failed states and an ideological belief in spreading democracy and capitalism. This is a long term commitment, Mr. Bush said. And I know there are serious obstacles to overcome. Introducing democracy is hard in any society. It's much harder in a society torn by war, or held back by corruption. The promise of free markets means little when millions are illiterate or hungry, or dying from a preventable disease. The United States, he said, would stand with and aid those nations that showed a willingness to tackle their problems. Corrupt regimes that give nothing to their people deserve nothing from us, he said. Governments that serve their people deserve our help, and we will provide that help. Following up on Mr. Powell's call this week for South Africa and other African nations to do more to oust President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, whose increasingly authoritarian rule is driving the country into economic and political chaos, Mr. Bush said it was time to encourage a return to democracy in that country. Mr. Bush also pledged an active role in bringing peace to Sudan, where, he said, two million people have died over the last two decades in Africa's longest-running civil war. He said he had asked his special envoy to Sudan, John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, to travel to the country in two weeks to bring an end to
Conservatives ahead of Labour
Apart from a temporary leap during the fuel crisis in September 2000, Labour has led the Conservatives since 1992. As Downing Street struggles to fight off allegations that it misled the country over Iraq's banned weapons, a YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph places the Tories on 37%. Labour has slipped to 35%. The Liberal Democrats are on 21%. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,9061,986097,00.html
