bring back the Ba'ath water!!
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 12:12 PM Subject: [A-List] Iraq: the quagmire deepens LUCY BANNERMAN The Herald, April 23 2004 Also yesterday, US authorities announced that some senior Iraqi officials purged after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would be restored toduties in an overhaul of what had been a keystone policy of the occupation. The review could allow some former members of Saddam's Ba'ath party to join an interim Iraqi government. I had heard on the BBC that they were going to allow Ba'ath members who are teachers and academics to return. That presumably was the spin in the press release. Also that the Brits in the Basra area have been retraining Ba'athist officers for the military. But this penetrating analysis in the Herald (once again) makes it clear that the occupiers have had to turn a political corner. This was the weakness of the whole strategy of the invasion of Iraq: that the Ba'ath party for all its repressive dictatorial measures including the use of terror (in tens of thousands at the time that the country was just going to fall apart at the end of the first Iraq war) neverthess was imbedded in a complex society. The neocons actually have no chance of building anything like a liberal bourgeois civil society in Iraq dominated by global finance capital, without relying on the whole generation of intelligentsia who cooperated with and saw their line of advance through Ba'ath membership. The unilateral imperialists have come close to throwing out their baby, instead stoking the flames of muslim reaction. They desperately need Ba'ath water. Chris Burford London
Re: capitalism = progressive?
Uh, the US _opposed_ the collapse of the Soviet Union. Remember when Bush I got booed off the stage by Ukrainian nationalists? If this was the plan, it sure boomeranged. Can you explain how: 1) US manipulated oil prices and 2) how this manipulation of oil prices lead (in part) to the collapse of the Soviet Union. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
US Elections 2004
US Elections 2004 Of course, it is best if Ralph Nader, receiving the Green Party endorsement and getting on the ballots in all states, wins the presidential election outright, but short of such a miracle, what would be beneficial for anti-occupation and other social movements? Here's a short list. . . . Full text: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_montages_archive.html#108277178445856639. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Triangulation or Self-Strangulation?
* CQ TODAY - WHITE HOUSE TRAIL MIX April 22, 2004 - 5:55 p.m. Kerry Hits Bumps in Moves to Middle of the Road By Craig Crawford, CQ Columnist TAMPA, Fla. - Remember triangulation? Well, it's back. . . . John Kerry's first major attempt at presidential campaign triangulation [in contrast to Bill Clinton's] . . . looked more like a crude sketch. The presumed Democratic nominee first signaled his pirouette on April 15 in New York City, to a group of wealthy campaign donors. Declaring that he is not a redistribution Democrat who would make the mistakes of the Democratic Party of 20, 25 years ago, the Massachusetts senator assured his supporters that he would run to the ideological center. That was Kerry's first mistake in trying to form the magical three-sided political shape. The basic rule is to never let them see you plotting your move. Don't say you're moving to the center. Just do it. Less than a week later, Kerry chose to take his first centrist steps on a horribly complex issue - and in a politically explosive state. He tried to have it both ways on the environment here in Florida. His invitation-only April 20 speech to Florida's top environmentalists does not bode well for Kerry's efforts at triangulation. In trying to portray himself as a pro-business environmentalist, he failed to avoid the pitfall of internal contradiction that this approach can so easily generate. While endorsing extremely technical - and limited - environmental policies, Kerry called himself an entrepreneurial Democrat who favors business development and some offshore oil drilling. And he failed to mention saving the Everglades, the top concern of Florida environmentalists. The result of Kerry's appearance on Tampa Bay was a flock of confused supporters, a mixed message to swing voters and a huge opening for Bush to run to his left on a powerful issue. The largest unexplored oil field in the world is actually the deep-water oil out in the gulf, Kerry told his stunned environmental backers. Now, there is a capacity to protect what we have today, the protections for the coast of Florida, and still be able to drill in those locations where they're already permitted, already had the environmental impact study, they already have the leases. Kerry also offered a ringing endorsement for business development. And many in the group later complained that, during his hourlong appearance by the waterside, Kerry never mentioned the holy grail of Florida environmentalism: the Everglades. There are some environmental issues in Florida where you cannot waffle or equivocate, said former Audubon Society President Clay Henderson, who was in the front row for Kerry's speech. There were some people who left the event wondering why the Everglades was never mentioned and confused on Kerry's statement on offshore oil drilling. Triangulation or Self-Strangulation? The next day the Bush re-election team pounced on Kerry's remarks. The president's brother Jeb, Florida's Republican governor, swiftly condemned Kerry for favoring offshore oil drilling. The Bush camp dispatched the president to Florida for an environmental speech April 23. Kerry managed to violate a central tenet of triangulation: Whatever you do, do not end up giving your opponent his own chance to move to the center. The environment is a potent issue in Florida, where the sensitive coastline and the threat of development aggravates those on the left and the right of the ideological spectrum. More than 700,000 Florida voters are members of environmental organizations. . . . http://www.cq.com/corp/show.do?page=crawford/crawford_current * -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: capitalism = progressive?
BTW, here's another addition to the list of why the old USSR fell: Chernoble. JD -Original Message- From: Chris Doss [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 4/24/2004 5:20 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] capitalism = progressive? Uh, the US _opposed_ the collapse of the Soviet Union. Remember when Bush I got booed off the stage by Ukrainian nationalists? If this was the plan, it sure boomeranged. Can you explain how: 1) US manipulated oil prices and 2) how this manipulation of oil prices lead (in part) to the collapse of the Soviet Union. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
class class consciousness
[was: RE: [PEN-L] capitalism = progressive?] Ted wrote: For reasons I'll give, my understanding of the relation between individual and class consciousness differs from this. this is getting pretty far afield (and the prose gets pretty hifalutin'), so I'll limit my response. My initial point was that there is an internal relation between self-consciousness, social relations and state power. This relation is such that where the requisite self-consciousness can't develop within existing social relatons, social relations and state power can't become socialist in Marx's sense. They couldn't have done so, for instance, in mid-nineteenth century France. Moreover, their own essence is such that they can't be created for individuals; they have to be created by them. though this is accurate, it is one-sided. It's true that people create their own essence (the requisite self-consciousness) as part of a process of political economic practice and self-education. But the existing system of social relations shapes and limits the development of consciousness. For example, the situation of small-holding peasants limits their consciousness, as Marx argued for the specific case of 19th century France (which may not apply to other peasants). The concentration of proletarians in cities factories, on the other hand, creates greater possibilities for the development of the requisite self-consciousness. In the case of Russia in 1917, there's some evidence that the dominant social relations produced a self-consciousness characterized by significant prejudice and superstition. ... If relations are internal, the social relations and state power that emerge in a given context (no matter what we choose to call them) will be internally related to the self-consciousness that dominates the context. In plain prose, the level of consciousness has a major effect on the nature of the state that develops. Agreed. I think Marx's ontology is individualist in the sense that it allows only individuals to be the locus of agency and the realization of value. The importance of class derives from another ontological idea - internal relations. The nature of the individual - its essence - is the outcome of its relations. This is the way I would interpret Marx's claim about the human essence in the the sixth thesis on Feuerbach. Levins Lewontin explain this in plain prose in their DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST. To paraphrase, individuals create society [though not exactly as they please] _and_ societies create individuals [similarly not following some given goal], as part of a dynamic process. The essence of the human individual is freedom defined, as Hegel defines it, as the potential for a will proper and a universal will. In Marx this is embodied in the idea of the universally developed individual, a kind of individual requiring for its full realization the relations that define the realm of freedom, an association in which the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all. I didn't know we were discussing freedom. The way I would interpret the above is that the solution to LL's dialectic that I limned above would have individuals creating society in a conscious, democratic way and society creating better individuals (better in those individuals' own terms) by providing collective goods and individual freedom. It's like Rousseau's CONTRAT SOCIAL, but democratic. The importance of class derives from role of relations of production in the development of individuality to freedom in this sense (equated, as in Kant and Hegel, with a universal will i.e. a will that places reason at the basis of its actions as in Kant's definition art as production through freedom - By right we ought only to describe as art, production through freedom, i.e. through a will that places reason at the basis of its actions.) This importance derives from the importance Hegel gives to the master/slave relation in his account, in the Phenomenology, of the development of mind to Reason i.e. to freedom. It's in this way that class - relations of production - conditions the degree of rational self-consciousness attainable by individuals. Because the degree is the outcome of the relations (they are internal relations) we can generalize to most members of the class. Class consciousness consequently means a self-consciousness characteristic of most members of a class in consequence of these shared relations. So when Marx makes the prejudice and superstition of the mass of French peasants a cause of Napoleon III, he has in mind the self-consciousness of the individuals forming this mass. As is indicated in the passage, he claims this shared self-consciousness is the outcome of their relations. I don't think I said anything different. btw, Ted, have you ever talked to non-academics or academics outside of your speciality? Jim D.
Re: capitalism = progressive?
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BTW, here's another addition to the list of why the old USSR fell: Chernoble. JD * I think it was the straw which broke the camel's back. I was in Berlin when the plant blew up on April 26, 1986. I went to East Berlin for the May Day parade. It was strange-- giant photos of Ernst Thaelmann and in the pages of Neues Deutschland a small article about taking iodine tablets. I think you can sense the generalized cynicism about censorship, lies and resistance to herding by the CP in this woman's motorcycle tour of the area around Chernobyl: http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/ Best, Mike B) = Love and freedom are vital to the creation and upbringing of a child. Sylvia Pankhurst http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢ http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash
Why did the USSR NOT Fall? was Re: capitalism = progressive?
Why did it NOT fall in 1918? Why did it NOT fall in 1921? Why did it NOT fall in 1925? Why did it NOT fall in 1931? Why did it NOT fall in 1937? Why did it NOT fall in 1942? Why did it NOT fall in 1949? Why did it NOT fall in 1953? But you get the idea. This thread has been asking the wrong question. Of course the USSR failed, fell, whatever. That calls for no particular explanation. What needs explanation is why it took so long? What was the element of toughness that let it endure so many decades of external and internal pressures? The reasons for its fall are anitquarian curiosities. The reasons for its tremendous success we may need to know. Carrol Devine, James wrote: BTW, here's another addition to the list of why the old USSR fell: Chernoble. JD I've only followed this thread casualty
Huffington quote
Twice, I've heard the following quote from Arrianna Huffington, and I'm sure that it's going to be used a lot by the anti-Nader crowd: when the house is burning down, it's not time to remodel (paraphrased). That is, Bush is creating such an emergency that we shouldn't try to change the political system (as Nader is trying to do, allegedly). Jim D.
re Paris Commune: (Was Re: capitalism = progressive?)
Mike Ballard: I agree with most of your observations and I'm not trying to play one-upsmanship here; but Marx and many others thought that the French--espeically the workers of Paris--had reached at least a level of class consciousness sufficient to begin to junk the old State machinery and to attempt to create a class dictatorship of their own: the Paris Commune of 1871. Of course, France was awash with a peasant class as was the Czarist Empire of 1917. While this is right, htat M did caution that it was inopportune - I think the overall message that M E did not support the Commune should not be left potentially haning in the air. If the masses moved, righlty or wronglY - M supported it. That is my interpretation anyway. Hari
Re: re Paris Commune: (Was Re: capitalism = progressive?)
Hi Hari, Marx and Engels supported the Paris Commune. The work I cited in my post gives ample evidence of this. For others, here is the relevant web site on what became known as Marx's Civil War in France: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ Marx wrote that if you want to see an example of the dictatorship of the proletariat in action, look to the Paris Commune. All the best, Mike B) --- Hari Kumar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mike Ballard: I agree with most of your observations and I'm not trying to play one-upsmanship here; but Marx and many others thought that the French--espeically the workers of Paris--had reached at least a level of class consciousness sufficient to begin to junk the old State machinery and to attempt to create a class dictatorship of their own: the Paris Commune of 1871. Of course, France was awash with a peasant class as was the Czarist Empire of 1917. While this is right, htat M did caution that it was inopportune - I think the overall message that M E did not support the Commune should not be left potentially haning in the air. If the masses moved, righlty or wronglY - M supported it. That is my interpretation anyway. Hari = Love and freedom are vital to the creation and upbringing of a child. Sylvia Pankhurst http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢ http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash
