Re: wikipedia?
Jim Devine said: actually, I rewrote the entire entry on the labor theory of value. I also rewrote the entries on unemployment, the state, recessions, depression, the rate of surplus-value, the organic composition of capital, and a couple of others. If people on pen-l contribute to the existing Wikipedia, it would probably receive a wider audience. jim devine I'm glad to hear this; I didn't think the existing entries were so bad. Grant Lee (whose name fought on both sides of the US civil war) As I never tire of saying, my name is a snapshot of a historical dialectic in action: the brilliant but inevitably doomed Robert E. Lee, superseded by the methodical, melancholic slugger Ulysses S. Grant ;-) writes: Yes, as I asked last time this came up, what's wrong with including leftist political economy in _the_ existing Wikipedia? Personally, I would like to see the full range of views on a subject, rather than something notionally leftist, but nevertheless one-sided. I would be doing this already, except that I don't have a qualification in economics, or an adequate knowledege of economic theory. I see that Jim has already provide his alternative http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine/notes/shortLaw-of-Value.html to Wkipedia's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_theory_of_value. Sure, contributing does mean some frustration, negotiation and couching contentious subjects in the right terms. But --- if you really think one of their articles is a lost cause --- you can always start a rival one under a different heading, e.g. the presently non-existent page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_labour_theory_of_value. If the reactionaries complain about duplication, they will then be forced to take the issues on board ;-)
Re: [POHG] the whole country has dementia hollywoodius fwd
- Original Message - From: alex scott-samuel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 6:24 PM Subject: [POHG] [spiritof1848] the whole country has dementia hollywoodius fwd --- Begin Forwarded Message --- Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 17:31:23 -0400 From: Thompson, Kenneth [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [spiritof1848] the whole country has dementia hollywoodius Sender: Thompson, Kenneth [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] hello all, it appears that the dementia that afflicted ronald reagan has infected the media and the people they are interviewing. as a country we seem to have no recollection of what actually occurred in the 1980s (i think of the collapse of industry here in pittsburgh and elsewhere, the absurd war against the dangerous people of el salvador and nicaragua, and the systematic training in torture techniques across Latin America which was part of the absurd war. Worse than what has been photographed and publicised by means of digital cameras today. And indispensible to the project of defeating the evil empire, in such an apprently good-humoured way. Chris Burford
Further confirmation of Mark Jones
NY Times, June 12, 2004 An Oil Enigma: Production Falls Even as Reserves Rise By ALEX BERENSON or six consecutive years, ChevronTexaco has had good news for anyone worried that the world is running out of oil: the company has found more oil and natural gas than it has produced. Over that time, ChevronTexaco's proven oil and gas reserves have risen 14 percent, more than one billion barrels. But near the bottom of ChevronTexaco's financial filings is a much less promising statistic. For each of those years, ChevronTexaco's wells have produced less oil and gas than the year before. Even as reserves have risen, the company's annual output has fallen by almost 15 percent, and the declines have continued recently despite a company promise to increase production in 2002. ChevronTexaco is not the only big oil company whose production is falling despite rising reserves, though it has the largest gap. As consumers, economists and governments around the world wonder if oil supplies can keep pace with rising demand, production trends at the industry's publicly traded companies are not promising. Collectively, they paint a picture of an industry that has depleted nearly all of the world's easily exploited reserves outside the Middle East and that is now struggling to sustain production, much less increase it. Fears about supply shortfalls and rising demand have already caused prices to climb about 20 percent this year, hovering around $40 a barrel. The four biggest companies own only about 4 percent of the world's reserves, which are mostly government-held, but they offer a unique glimpse of supply trends because they must disclose their reserves and production each year. Historically, proven reserves and output have moved in tandem. Industry experts disagree why the relationship has broken down. Although the reserves are only estimates, federal rules require companies to calculate them conservatively. Some analysts and the companies themselves take a relatively benign view of the production declines, promising that output will soon rise again as big new projects come online around the globe. ChevronTexaco said its production had declined in part because of asset sales and production agreements that allocate it less oil when prices are high, as they are now, than when prices are low, as they were in 1998. The company says it expects production to stay flat through 2005, then begin rising in 2006 as output increases from fields in Chad, Kazakhstan, Venezuela and Angola. But ChevronTexaco has promised to reverse its production declines before. In 2002 the company said that it expected its output to rise more than 20 percent by 2006, a forecast it has now dropped. Royal Dutch/Shell, the world's third-largest oil company, admitted this year that it overstated its oil and gas reserves by 22 percent, the equivalent of 4.5 billion barrels of oil. Regulators and prosecutors in Europe and the United States are investigating Shell, which in March forced out Sir Philip Watts, its chairman. Some analysts say that the debacle at Shell proves that companies sometimes bend the rules to satisfy Wall Street's intense hunger for new reserves. In the 1990's, many public companies used aggressive accounting gimmicks some legal, some not to satisfy investors' demands that they report higher earnings. Oil companies face similar pressures to build reserves. And intentionally or not, some companies may have booked reserves that are not technically or economically viable, said Matt Simmons, a Houston investment banker who has warned of a potential supply crisis. Outsiders have essentially no way to know whether estimates of reserves are accurate, he said. We're going to have another Shell, Mr. Simmons said. They're not the only company that got optimistic on proved reserves. Neither Mr. Simmons nor anyone else is asserting that ChevronTexaco did anything illegal. Once a year, companies announce their reserve replacement ratio, telling investors whether they have found enough new oil and gas during the year to make up for their production. Energy investors scrutinize the reserve replacement ratio more closely than any other measure of corporate performance, said Fadel Gheit, senior energy analyst with Oppenheimer Company. Every company aims to replace at least 100 percent of its production every year. And for the last decade, the industry's four giants, Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell and ChevronTexaco, have met that goal with remarkable consistency, at least until Shell's admission in January. But outsiders cannot tell whether companies are properly estimating their reserves, Mr. Gheit said. The calculations are extremely complicated, and companies do not disclose the raw production and seismic data that would enable an outside analyst to check their estimates. Nor are the reserves subject to third-party audit. Reserves are very important but are extremely difficult to
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
Here we go again: I read it in the (New York Times, Newsweek, National Geographic, the National Enquirer, All of the Above); I saw it on TV; I heard (Colin Campbell, Mike Davis, Homer Simpson, All of the Above) say it. Ergo Mark Jones was right. Amazing. In the very midst of the exposure of the natural gas crisis of the 2000, 2001 as market manipulations; in the very midst of the revelation that crude and refined petroleum stocks in the US and the advanced countries are at record levels, thus generating high spot prices, allowing companies to book inventory valuation based profits; despite the fact that natural gas prices soared as a response too price reductions after the bringing to market of new supplies; despite the fact that Shell's reserve reductions, like its reserve inflation, were accounting adjustments and accounting tricks; despite the fact that gasoline price increases have been shown to be the product of similar market manipulations, based in part of fixed asset reductions and production restrictions-- despite all that the sky is falling; chicken little is right; and so was Hobbes because the future is nasty brutish and short, so close out your positions and take the money and run. Even though reserves have risen, output has fallen... This should tell us something, as reserves have risen, and output has fallen as a result of the mega-mergers of the 90s which allowed the combined companies the luxury of booking combined reserves while struggling with the overweight combined fixed assets. You can look it up. Actually you can look it down, in the very same article in the NYT: What we have now is meaningless data, Mr. Simmons said. Big oil companies once prided themselves on conservative reserve estimates. But today, to justify multibillion-dollar investments in politically or technologically risky fields, companies have become much more aggressive, he said. Mr. Simmons is making a social, economic analysis. Not a geological one. Call me old-fashioned, but.. I would think Marxists would want to look at rates of return, fixed asset levels rather than geology before making determinations as to the real reasons for changes in output.
An afterword on the new imperialism by David Harvey
David Harvey THE NEW IMPERIALISM Afterword to Foreign Language Editions (clip) The question of the exact state of global oil supplies and reserves remains as murky as ever. In my initial text, I stated, for example, that oil reserves in Canada are running down. If, however, the difficult-to-extract oil in the tar sands is included then Canadas oil reserves are very substantial. Russia has stepped into the world oil market in a very big way in the last year or so (and is beginning to acquire the status of an oil-exporting economy with all the attendant dangers and difficulties that attach thereto). And the sudden interest of the Bush Administration for military bases in Africa (particularly West Africa and Angola) almost certainly has far more to do with the substantial oil reserves there than with the ritual excuse of the war against terrorism or the ostensible embrace of humanitarian concerns and the need to confront the AIDS epidemic. As a footnote we now know from recently released British intelligence records that the US was prepared to occupy the oilfields of Saudi Arabia. Kuwait and Abu Dhabi in the crisis of 1973. The inference that the reason the Saudis agreed to recycle petrodollars through US banks was to stave off such a threat looks entirely plausible. With respect to the oil situation more generally, the best that anyone can do is to recognize the volatility of the oil picture but also accept that no matter what happens the Middle East is a crucial region in relation to the global economy and that the US presence in the region, which has been steadily escalating since 1945, will not diminish in the near future. Whoever wins the next US presidential election is unlikely to reverse the US drive to control the region and its oil reserves. full: http://www.colorado.edu/geography/dart/resources/harvey_imperialism_afterward.htm -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
Hey, don't knock the NATIONAL ENQUIRER! they recently revealed one of the deepest and darkest secrets of official Washington, to wit that Dick Cheney is a robot. jd -Original Message- From: sartesian [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 6/12/2004 10:00 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Further confirmation of Mark Jones Here we go again: I read it in the (New York Times, Newsweek, National Geographic, the National Enquirer, All of the Above); I saw it on TV; I heard (Colin Campbell, Mike Davis, Homer Simpson, All of the Above) say it. Ergo Mark Jones was right. Amazing. In the very midst of the exposure of the natural gas crisis of the 2000, 2001 as market manipulations; in the very midst of the revelation that crude and refined petroleum stocks in the US and the advanced countries are at record levels, thus generating high spot prices, allowing companies to book inventory valuation based profits; despite the fact that natural gas prices soared as a response too price reductions after the bringing to market of new supplies; despite the fact that Shell's reserve reductions, like its reserve inflation, were accounting adjustments and accounting tricks; despite the fact that gasoline price increases have been shown to be the product of similar market manipulations, based in part of fixed asset reductions and production restrictions-- despite all that the sky is falling; chicken little is right; and so was Hobbes because the future is nasty brutish and short, so close out your positions and take the money and run. Even though reserves have risen, output has fallen... This should tell us something, as reserves have risen, and output has fallen as a result of the mega-mergers of the 90s which allowed the combined companies the luxury of booking combined reserves while struggling with the overweight combined fixed assets. You can look it up. Actually you can look it down, in the very same article in the NYT: What we have now is meaningless data, Mr. Simmons said. Big oil companies once prided themselves on conservative reserve estimates. But today, to justify multibillion-dollar investments in politically or technologically risky fields, companies have become much more aggressive, he said. Mr. Simmons is making a social, economic analysis. Not a geological one. Call me old-fashioned, but.. I would think Marxists would want to look at rates of return, fixed asset levels rather than geology before making determinations as to the real reasons for changes in output.
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
Proven reserves are very unreliable. That point seems to be key to the new Out of Gas book. He asserts that the production curve is a lagged reserves curve. Just as we cannot predict the future based on a couple of data points of GDP or unemployment, the NYT article is only a suggestion of a problem, not confirmation of anything. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
In a message dated 6/12/2004 9:00:35 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: "I read it in the (New York Times, Newsweek, National Geographic, theNational Enquirer, All of the Above); I saw it on TV; I heard (ColinCampbell, Mike Davis, Homer Simpson, All of the Above) say it. Ergo MarkJones was right."Amazing. In the very midst of the exposure of the natural gas "crisis" ofthe 2000, 2001 as market manipulations;. . . despite all that the sky isfalling; chicken little is right; and so was Hobbes because the future isnasty brutish and short, so close out your positions and take the money andrun. Comment Mark Jones thesis - in my opinion, had very little to do with price fluctuations and rivetinghis thesis to price fluctuations does not accurately explain his salient points.Comrade Jones put forward a proposition that humanity itself had reached or would shortly reach the "event horizon" or the nodal point or that point in the bell curve where the absolute decline fossil fuel and energyproduction runs into the thermodynamic barrier with all its socialconsequences. Comrade Jones also advanced the proposition that this thermodynamic principle was the underlying unseen "law" - impulse, that compelled industrial socialism in the Soviet Union to reach its historical limitation (and he throws in the issue of industrialstructures for good measure) in 1945. It seems that trying to prove the operation of the law of thermodynamics on the basis of monthly price fluctuation is a losing cause. Fifty years is a very short time in human history - one way or another. Henry C. K. Liu did an excellent reprint of an article he wrote two years ago (the A List) on the price of oil predicting the $40.00 range and the mechanics that would lower the price . . . only for it to further rise. If Mark J. predicted the rise in the price of oil he was most certainly correct along with everyone else on earth. Comrade Mark J was talking about something with a lot more depth than the price form. Melvin P.
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
By the way, in the article posted to pen-l, Mike Davis didn't say that we were running into the Malthus/Ricardo stationary state driven by the absolute scarcity of oil (it's running out! it's running out! we went over H's peak!). Rather, he made it clear that he _assumed_ this and then derived conclusions from it. He's by no means an oil expert and he knows it. the big problem is that because no-one can predict the future, it's very easy for superficial observers to confuse a short-term shortage of oil with a long-term running-out of oil (even though real oil prices are lower now than they were during previous oil crises). jd -Original Message- From: sartesian [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 6/12/2004 10:00 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Further confirmation of Mark Jones Here we go again: I read it in the (New York Times, Newsweek, National Geographic, the National Enquirer, All of the Above); I saw it on TV; I heard (Colin Campbell, Mike Davis, Homer Simpson, All of the Above) say it. Ergo Mark Jones was right. Amazing. In the very midst of the exposure of the natural gas crisis of the 2000, 2001 as market manipulations; in the very midst of the revelation that crude and refined petroleum stocks in the US and the advanced countries are at record levels, thus generating high spot prices, allowing companies to book inventory valuation based profits; despite the fact that natural gas prices soared as a response too price reductions after the bringing to market of new supplies; despite the fact that Shell's reserve reductions, like its reserve inflation, were accounting adjustments and accounting tricks; despite the fact that gasoline price increases have been shown to be the product of similar market manipulations, based in part of fixed asset reductions and production restrictions-- despite all that the sky is falling; chicken little is right; and so was Hobbes because the future is nasty brutish and short, so close out your positions and take the money and run. Even though reserves have risen, output has fallen... This should tell us something, as reserves have risen, and output has fallen as a result of the mega-mergers of the 90s which allowed the combined companies the luxury of booking combined reserves while struggling with the overweight combined fixed assets. You can look it up. Actually you can look it down, in the very same article in the NYT: What we have now is meaningless data, Mr. Simmons said. Big oil companies once prided themselves on conservative reserve estimates. But today, to justify multibillion-dollar investments in politically or technologically risky fields, companies have become much more aggressive, he said. Mr. Simmons is making a social, economic analysis. Not a geological one. Call me old-fashioned, but.. I would think Marxists would want to look at rates of return, fixed asset levels rather than geology before making determinations as to the real reasons for changes in output.
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
Michael Perelman wrote: Proven reserves are very unreliable. That point seems to be key to the new Out of Gas book. He asserts that the production curve is a lagged reserves curve. Just as we cannot predict the future based on a couple of data points of GDP or unemployment, the NYT article is only a suggestion of a problem, not confirmation of anything. The material facts regarding oil depletion, global warming, mercury poisoning of the seas, have _never_ been a central issue except in the thought of those who cannot or who refuse to think politically. And thinking politically involves NOT What should the government(s) do? But How can those who recognize the 'facts' achieve political power to do something about it? How can 'we' achieve political power? Then the question becomes: In what way does knowledge of the future of oil contribute to achieving political power? And my answer to that question is, it does _not_. At a certain point environmentalist politics (or what one might call 'futurist' or 'predictive' politics) hit a wall, in the sense of being unable to achieve additional mass support. And that support by itself is not sufficient, or even close to sufficient, either to have the needed impact on capitalist states or to overthrow those states. In this key political sense, environmentalist (or what I am here calling 'predictive') politics resemble conspiracism: they have no 'bite' outside some theoretical courtroom where all the facts can be presented to a fixed judge and jury. One could compare also the bizarre debate among 'soft' leftists about the desirability or undesirability of an immediate u.s. withdrawal from Iraq. Their various suggestions (U.N. replacement of U.S. troops, etc.) have as much political bite as predictions of global warming or of economic collapse from oil depletion. The discussion of whether Mark Jones was correct or not in his analysis of oil is, then, a purely academic discussion. Carrol
Kerry, Raytheon, and the Active Denial System
Kerry, Raytheon, and the Active Denial System: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/06/kerry-raytheon-and-active-denial.html. The posting is about John Kerry's commitment to investment in directed energy weapons, one of John Kerry's home-state interests Raytheon's Active Denial System (an example of directed energy weaponry, which may be useful for torture as well as crowd control), Raytheon's bipartisan campaign contributions, Raytheon's Enron-ing of its shareholders, Washington's use of Iraq as its weapons lab, etc. -- 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: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
I have to disagree. Such knowledge is not sufficient. It may not be necessary, but understanding how material conditions evolve will certainly give activists a valuable edge. On Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 10:32:35AM -0500, Carrol Cox wrote: In what way does knowledge of the future of oil contribute to achieving political power? And my answer to that question is, it does _not_. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
I am in general not known for agreeing with others, but hey in an infinite universe The point is, if predicative science is inherently unreliable, then clearly we need to look at the function of such predictions, and that function is ideological, to obscure the origins of economic, social, distress, by attributing those origins to nature, geology, limits, or the greedy, destructive nature of human beings as a biological entity. There is predicition and there is prediction; to confuse science, and/or nature, with class, with the expropriation of labor and the aggrandizement of profit is to wind up supporting a status-quo in its decay. We all should remember that among other things, Mark Jones, predicted that Bush was all bluff, and would never, absolutely never risk an invasion of Iraq. I think Mark's prediction here was part of an organic unity with his other predictions about reserves, supplies, and the future of capitalism.
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
On Sat, 12 Jun 2004, Carrol Cox wrote: The material facts regarding oil depletion, global warming, mercury poisoning of the seas, have _never_ been a central issue except in the thought of those who cannot or who refuse to think politically. And thinking politically involves NOT What should the government(s) do? But How can those who recognize the 'facts' achieve political power to do something about it? How can 'we' achieve political power? Then the question becomes: In what way does knowledge of the future of oil contribute to achieving political power? And my answer to that question is, it does _not_. I suppose knowing about storm clouds for wars doesn't matter either, although I don't recall any Marxist who didn't care about that issue. Paul * Vol.21-Neoliberalism in Crisis, Accumulation, and Rosa Luxemburg's Legacy RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Zarembka/Soederberg, eds, Elsevier Science ** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
Devine, James wrote: By the way, in the article posted to pen-l, Mike Davis didn't say that we were running into the Malthus/Ricardo stationary state driven by the absolute scarcity of oil (it's running out! it's running out! we went over H's peak!). Rather, he made it clear that he _assumed_ this and then derived conclusions from it. He's by no means an oil expert and he knows it. the big problem is that because no-one can predict the future, it's very easy for superficial observers to confuse a short-term shortage of oil with a long-term running-out of oil (even though real oil prices are lower now than they were during previous oil crises). Why is so hard to predict the future? At the current rate, there will be no more blue-fin tuna left in a decade or so due to industrial fishing techniques and worldwide demand. Most scientists view the Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies most of the fresh water in the USA, as a source that will dry up in 35 years or so. The real question for us is now whether these resources are exhaustible, but whether the capitalist system can husband them for future generations. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
Carrol Cox wrote: The material facts regarding oil depletion, global warming, mercury poisoning of the seas, have _never_ been a central issue except in the thought of those who cannot or who refuse to think politically. And thinking politically involves NOT What should the government(s) do? But How can those who recognize the 'facts' achieve political power to do something about it? This is not true. Karl Marx was consumed with the question of soil fertility, which was the oil depletion of his age. He never connected it to any immediate struggle, such as the need for an end to Junkers rule in Germany, but saw communism as the real answer--especially in its ability to overcome the metabolic rift. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
You know what I like about baseball? Almost everything, but most of all that anybody can play the game, once social impediments are removed. There is no biological, natural restriction on learning and playing the game. All the restrictions are social in nature and exist to be overthrown. The first step is to distinguish between the social and natural... So like if the game is suspended because of rain, that doesn't mean the players don't know how to play the game. War is not a storm cloud. War is not a natural, biological, geological event. The arguments for petroleum scarcity are all disguised as geological, natural, scientific arguments. Lots of people have been right and wrong. Geologists were absolutely right that large supplies of petroleum would never be found below ground in Titusville, Pa., Spindletop, and East Texas, until large reserves of petroleum were found exactly there. Batter up. - Original Message - From: Paul Zarembka [EMAIL PROTECTED] I suppose knowing about storm clouds for wars doesn't matter either, although I don't recall any Marxist who didn't care about that issue. Paul
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
Michael Perelman wrote: I have to disagree. Such knowledge is not sufficient. It may not be necessary, but understanding how material conditions evolve will certainly give activists a valuable edge. It already has given activists an edge -- my point was that nothing could be added to that edge. It is fairly self-evident that capitalist progress is destroying the human species. That needs to be incorporated into all left programs and struggles. But the amount of time, energy, and space being devoted to specific aspects of it (like the coming oil crisis) is out of all proportion to any further gain that can be made. Everyone who can be influenced by the news has already been influenced. And the sad fact is that _most_ of those so influenced have _not_ moved on to anti-capitalist struggle. In other words, our time and energy needs to be spent in turning greens red, not in the hopeless task of bringing more people into the general movement through green agitation. The knowledge we had by 1980 of the ongoing damage to our living space by capitalist progress was sufficient to produce a sizeable green movement, and the added knowledge of the last 25 years has been of no added political impact. Or perhaps it even has had a negative impact, by adding weight to the lesser evil strategies that keep so many leftists tied to the tail of the DP. Carrol
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
- Original Message - From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In other words, our time and energy needs to be spent in turning greens red, not in the hopeless task of bringing more people into the general movement through green agitation. The knowledge we had by 1980 of the ongoing damage to our living space by capitalist progress was sufficient to produce a sizeable green movement, and the added knowledge of the last 25 years has been of no added political impact. Or perhaps it even has had a negative impact, by adding weight to the lesser evil strategies that keep so many leftists tied to the tail of the DP. Carrol ___ At the risk of undermining Carrol's credibility on this issue--- I agree exactly.
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
Radicals trying to parse bourgeois discourse around oil now should remember that a lot of it is infected by market sentiment, and with oil up 250% over the last five years, market sentiment is very frothy. (Sentiment follows prices, it doesn't lead them.) A lot of the recent gains were driven by speculators, not actual producers or users, and they're attracted by price movements, not fundamentals. For a lot of them, the fundamentals are just after-the-fact rationalizations of market dynamics. Since many, maybe most, experts quoted in the papers are Wall Street analysts, they're going to reflect the bullish consensus. I suspect we're closer to a price peak than further sustained increases. Doug
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
Carrol Cox wrote: In other words, our time and energy needs to be spent in turning greens red, not in the hopeless task of bringing more people into the general movement through green agitation. The knowledge we had by 1980 of the ongoing damage to our living space by capitalist progress was sufficient to produce a sizeable green movement, and the added knowledge of the last 25 years has been of no added political impact. Or perhaps it even has had a negative impact, by adding weight to the lesser evil strategies that keep so many leftists tied to the tail of the DP. This is not really true. Awareness of the ecological crisis has not only led to the growth of the Green Party, it has been largely responsible for the protests in places like Seattle, etc. For Marxists, the problem is how to maintain our credibility among such folks when the USSR appeared to be violating ecological principles in the name of socialism. We also have to sort out our theoretical differences with Frankfurt School type Marxists who conceptualize the problem in terms of Heidegger's writings on industrialization, etc. Not to speak of those Marxists who championed nuclear power, etc. such as Furedi's sect-cult before it morphed into libertarianism. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
- Original Message - From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, June 12, 2004 10:00 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Further confirmation of Mark Jones I suspect we're closer to a price peak than further sustained increases. Doug __ Frightening. I agree again. Think the $40 range is the break price. Already some Asian economies are suffering, not to mention transportation concerns, airlines, RRs, etc. (Second largest consumer of petroleum in the US? Union Pacific RR) And when it blows, flaring off all that gas is going to be a hell of a task. In the meantime, advertising for myself and my spleen: http://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.com/
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
A week or so ago, Ian Masters interviewed Fadel Gheit, Vice President for Oil and Gas Research with Oppenheimer Inc. He was explaining how many $$ each international flash point added to the price of oil. Several dollars each for Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia Iraq. I think that it was on the order of $12 or so. http://ianmasters.org/archives.html On Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 01:00:37PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: Radicals trying to parse bourgeois discourse around oil now should remember that a lot of it is infected by market sentiment, and with oil up 250% over the last five years, market sentiment is very frothy. (Sentiment follows prices, it doesn't lead them.) A lot of the recent gains were driven by speculators, not actual producers or users, and they're attracted by price movements, not fundamentals. For a lot of them, the fundamentals are just after-the-fact rationalizations of market dynamics. Since many, maybe most, experts quoted in the papers are Wall Street analysts, they're going to reflect the bullish consensus. I suspect we're closer to a price peak than further sustained increases. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
Michael Perelman wrote: A week or so ago, Ian Masters interviewed Fadel Gheit, Vice President for Oil and Gas Research with Oppenheimer Inc. He was explaining how many $$ each international flash point added to the price of oil. Several dollars each for Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia Iraq. I think that it was on the order of $12 or so. True, up to a point, but remember, the analysis often follows the price. That's one of the things that civilians often don't get about speculative markets. Doug
Re: wikipedia?
Sabri Oncu wrote: Of all the answers to my question: What does _objective_ political economy mean? I liked Michael's the best: Something different from the objectionable political economy currently in vogue. Consequently, I will rephrase it as: Objective political economy is that political economy which is different from the objectionable political economy currently in vogue. And then, I will get it printed and framed so that I can hang it on my living room wall. Apparently you people think you are all very clever and sophisticated with your joking and scornful denunciations of objectivity, and that those of us who don't go along with you are just dupes and naive simpletons. So much for speaking truth to power.
Moon Over Washington
Title: Message Moon Over Washington Why are some of the capitals most influential power players hanging out with a bizarre Korean billionaire who claims to be the Messiah? by John Gorenfeld, Contributor 6.09.04 Should Americans be concerned that on March 23rd a bipartisan group of Congressmen attended a coronation at which a billionaire, pro-theocracy newspaper owner was declared to be the Messiah with royal robes, a crown, the works? Or that this imperial ceremony took place not in a makeshift basement church or a backwoods campsite, but in a Senate office building? The Washington Post didn't think so. For a moment on April 4, a quote from the keynote speech was in the Web version of its "Reliable Sources" column. The speaker: Sun Myung Moon, 84, an ex-convict whose political activities were at the center of the 1976-8 Koreagate influence-peddling probe. That's when an investigation by Congress warned that Moon, after having befriended Richard Nixon in his darkest hour, was surrounding himself with other politicians to overcome his reputation: as the leader of the cult-like Unification Church, which recruited unwary college students, filled Madison Square Garden with couples in white robes, wed them in bulk and demanded obedience. That was before he launched the Washington Times "in response to Heavens direction," as he would later say and a 20-year quest to make his enemies bow to him. He has also claimed, in newspaper ads taken out by the Unification Church, that Jesus, Confucius, and the Buddha have endorsed him. Muhammad, according to the 2002 ad, led the council in three cries of "mansei," or victory. And every dead U.S. president was there, too because Moon's gospel is inseparable from visions of true-blue American power. Now, this March, Moon was telling guests at the Dirksen Senate Office Building that Hitler and Stalin, having cleaned up their acts, had, in a rare public statement from beyond the grave, called him "none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent." But not long after it appeared on the Post's web site, the paper erased the quote. Columnist Richard Leiby told me via e-mail that it shouldn't have gone out in the first place. The paper replaced it with breaking news about "Celebrity Jeopardy!" with Tim Russert. The Return of the King So no one covered this American coronation, except Moon's own Times, which skipped the Messiah part. It wasn't in other newspapers, which only wink at the influence of Moon's far-right movement in Washington, when they cover it at all. In fact, the only place you could read about the new king, unless you bookmarked Moon's Korean-language website, was in the blog world. There, dozens of the most CSPAN2-hardened cynics reacted to the screenshots with a resounding "WTF," the sound of dismay and confusion at a scene that news coverage hadn't prepared them for. The images might as well have come from Star Trek's Mirror Universe. First, we're shown a rabbi blowing a ram's horn. Most Jews would hold off on this until the High Holy Days, but it probably counts if the Moshiach shows up in a federal office building at taxpayer expense. Then we see the man of the hour, Moon, chilling at a table at the Dirksen in a tuxedo, soaking all this up. He claps. He's having a ball. Cut to the ritual. Eyes downcast, a man identified as Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) is bringing a crown, atop a velvety purple cushion, to a figure who stands waiting austerely with his wife. Now Moon is wearing robes that Louis XIV would have appreciated. All of this has quickly been spliced into a promo reel by Moon's movement, which implies to its followers that the U.S. Congress itself has crowned the Washington Times owner. But Section 9 of the Constitution forbids giving out titles of nobility, setting a certain tone that might have made the Congressional hosts shy about celebrating the coronation on their websites. They included conservatives, the traditional fans of Moon's newspaper: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA.), Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Republican strategy god Charlie Black, whose PR firm represents Ahmed Chalabis Iraqi National Congress. But there were also liberal House Democrats like Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) and Davis. Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.) later told the Memphis Flyer that he'd been erroneously listed on the program, but had never heard of the event, which was sponsored by the Washington Times Foundation. Rep. Curt Weldon's office tenaciously denied that the Congressman was there, before being provided by The Gadflyer with a photo depicting Weldon at the event, found on Moon's website. "Apparently he was there, but we really had nothing to do with it," press secretary Angela Sowa finally conceded. "I don't think it's quite accurate that the Washington Times said that we hosted the event. We may have been a Congressional
Re: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
Michael Perelman wrote: A week or so ago, Ian Masters interviewed Fadel Gheit, Vice President for Oil and Gas Research with Oppenheimer Inc. He was explaining how many $$ each international flash point added to the price of oil. Several dollars each for Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia Iraq. I think that it was on the order of $12 or so. http://ianmasters.org/archives.html I just posted an entry including Gheit's estimate of the risk premium of each fear factor: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/06/fear-factor.html. -- 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: Further confirmation of Mark Jones
I beg your pardon, but I predict that the next time there's a supply bottleneck or cartel tightening, people will start talking about Hubbert's Peak again. mbs the big problem is that because no-one can predict the future, it's very easy for superficial observers to confuse a short-term shortage of oil with a long-term running-out of oil (even though real oil prices are lower now than they were during previous oil crises). jd
KR: Dozens of missing Iraqis believed to be lost in Abu Ghraib
[Like a right wing nightmare of a big government police state] [NB: even the coalition official admits this off the record] [BTW, it's worth reading all the way through for its documentary cum short story value] URL: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/8891610.htm Posted on Thu, Jun. 10, 2004 Dozens of missing Iraqis believed to be lost in Abu Ghraib prison By Hannah Allam Knight Ridder Newspapers BAGHDAD, Iraq - The boy said goodbye to his boss at a local upholstery shop, passed a violent anti-American demonstration on the way home and hasn't been seen since. Mohamed Khaled Saleem's parents thought their 15-year-old son's disappearance six months ago was unique until their search led them this month to Abu Ghraib, the vast American-run prison where disturbing conditions existed well before graphic photos of soldiers abusing Iraqi inmates emerged. American administrators have lost track of dozens of detainees inside Abu Ghraib in the past year, according to human-rights workers, former inmates, a former prison investigator, attorneys, detainees' families and prisoner-rights groups. With no clearinghouse for missing-person reports and technical errors in the intake process, families like Saleem's can do little but wait outside the tall prison gates in hopes that someone recognizes the missing men pictured on their flimsy, photocopied fliers. What else can they do? asked Saad Abdulhadi al Ubaidy of the Iraqi Political Prisoners League, which has compiled hundreds of names of the missing. They can hang around a human-rights office until they get kicked out. They can wait outside the prison or the coalition offices. But they'll still go home with no answers. More than a million people are believed to be missing in Iraq, with the bulk having vanished under Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, according to several humanitarian organizations. There's no way to tell how many have slipped into obscurity after being arrested by U.S. forces, said a coalition human-rights official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The whole system is desperately overloaded, so the names get gobbled up and disappear, the official said. Recordkeeping at Abu Ghraib was sloppy and the prison was overcrowded before the abuse scandal brought long-overdue changes, former prison workers said. Many of the 3,200 detainees there can't be traced by relatives because of misspelled names or other simple data-entry errors. Others were given detainee numbers that weren't on file or were in use under another name. Some have escaped; a few have died in anonymity. I helped fix more than 50 cases myself, said Sabah Abid Saloome, a former Abu Ghraib corrections officer who's now a police investigator in Baghdad. Even one digit or one letter off, and those prisoners are off the books. Without the fixes, their families would never find them. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for coalition detention operations, said there have been occasional errors in names due to poor translation of Arabic into English or other human errors. The larger problem, he said, is detainees who give false names or aliases to hide their identities. We can only track them by the name we are given, unless we subsequently determine their true identity, Johnson said Wednesday in an e-mail response to questions. There is certainly no effort being made to hide the identity of any detainees at Abu Ghraib or any other detention facility. Human-rights workers and prisoner advocates recounted story after painful story of families who were incorrectly told their missing relatives weren't in the prison. A Kurdish couple in northern Iraq gave up their search and held a funeral for a missing son. A few weeks later, he turned up on a busload of prisoners released from Abu Ghraib. The wife of a high-ranking Baath Party member sold her bridal gold to finance the search for her husband and said she found out through back channels that he's behind bars under the wrong name. Some relatives of the 22 prisoners who died in a massive mortar attack on their camp in April still don't know that the men are dead. Records of the men didn't include home addresses, said a human-rights manager with the coalition who was asked by prison officials to help track down the next-of-kin. While it was desirable to notify families personally, particularly given the tragic circumstances of the mortar attack where detainees were killed by fellow Iraqis, it was not possible to do so, Barry wrote, adding that the remains were turned over to Iraqi health officials. By far, the most common story comes from families such as Saleem's. His name isn't on prison rolls. Yet no one can say for sure that he isn't in Abu Ghraib. This boy was by my side since the day
