Re: Economics and law
David Shemano writes: The issue is not whether East Germany, or any other socialist economy, was less able [...] Yes it was -- the part you are responding to. It was about regions. I wanted to show that you probably didn't even know where Europe is... let alone why Germany is not a unit. There is a stereotype about Americans-in-control: They can't read maps. (Canada knows this.) I assume the moderator gave you a thumbs up for a reason. (Maybe you are not a Novak-Limbaugh sort.) Anyway, so you tried to switch topics... and now it is not about the devaluation of life I mentioned in the original thread, now it is about Volvos and good cars from that socialist country. Good legal strategy, btw... when losing, swing any shit at hand in forms of motions... Ken. -- The Bible is probably the most genocidal book in our entire canon. -- Noam Chomsky
Re: Economics and law
Michael writes: Ken, this comes close to baiting. Sorry. True... it could... but there is a difference, don't you think? I was baiting on a personal level (You freaking lawyers!) or just the unexpected kind on this list (As a group, US lawyers are not well trained in other cultures)? Ken. -- I divined then, Sonia, that power is only vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up. -- Raskolnikov
Re: Economics and law
David wrote: I was never good at geography. That's apparent. The argument was made that a socialist economy would put more emphasis on transportation safety than a capitalist economy. Seems plausible. Silly me, I though one way to test that thesis was to examine and compare the actual products produced by the respective systems. Yes, I like comparisons, too. You seem to be saying you are also one of those people. Comparing things also involves the backstory and not merely the object (and its immediate tools of creations -- themselves being things). How about West and East Germany? Can't complain about different historical development. I think most might agree that there is a very different historical development between the parts of Germany that were east and west. Check it out. Pretty main stream. And, after the war, the east had a different trajectory, as well, based on need of the conquering powers. You seem to know history... help me out here... Which one of the two countries that has US in its acronym... which one lost about 25 million people in the war... and had cities bombed, occupied, dismantled, bombed again... I stand by the position that if you refuse to consider historical evidence and insist on speculating about what could happen in utopia: cop out. I say the same thing! Brother, we've found each other at last! Ken. -- To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it. -- Cicero (doing his Zen thing)
Re: economics, law and the old soviet economy
Chris wrote: Russia engages in these grandiose catching up with the West adventures every couple of centuries or so. What I have always enjoyed about Chris's posts about Russia is his love of the populace... Likewise, I do with North Americans... Ken. -- Since the whole affair had become one of religion, the vanquished were, of course, exterminated. -- Voltaire
Re: Economics and law
David the Savior is back and writes: Let's try one last time. Please do. We appreciate your altruism. The suggestion was made that a socialist economy will more highly value transportation safety than a capitalist economy. If you are trying to cite thread precedent, I applaud you. Economics and law was my thread about space heaters. If you have a new one about Yugos, try starting it under that thread name (sorry, process is important to me, as a would-be lawyer, you understand that). Nonetheless, you write (and you write well): Every historical example I come up with to try and test the suggestion, you say is not an appropriate comparison. For example, you imply there is apparently something in the historical development of East Germany, as compared to West Germany, that would cause East Germany auto manufacturers not to value safety as much as their West German counterparts, even though the East Germans had a socialist economy and West Germany had a capitalist economy, but such fact has no relevance for the validity of the suggestion that socialist economies value safety more than capitalist economies. I am at a loss how to respond. You are narrowing the issue. That is why you are at as loss. But I will take the bait. Show me what you have learned about eastern Germany and why that section of that country would be a tad less able to produce cars. (You can do it!) How do you propose to test the hypothesis? Is there nothing relevant from 75 years of historical experience that will satisfy you? Sure. You are a kind of proof yourself. Grin. Ken. -- When I look back on all the worries I remember the story of he old man who said on his deathbed that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened. -- Winston Churchill
Re: Economics and law
Charles wrote: It's hard because the Soviet Union (and all socialist inspired economies) had to put so much economic emphasis on military defense because capitalism was constantly invading them or threatening to nuke 'em. This throws off all ability to measure from Soviet and socialist inspired history what might be the benefits of a peaceful socialist development of a regime of safety from our own machines. David: Cop out. In my experience, there was one example of a socialist inspired car in the capitalist market: the Yugo. Case closed. Respectfully, David, your response is itself a cop out. Yugo... you be nice now. Just this eve, I was spending some time talking about history with a friend. She brought out a book with a variety of graphs. The most salient one, in this regard (thread), was the shift of population from agricultural workers to industrial workers. The graph only measure 100 years, starting from 1860. The curves that the UK and US generated with meagre slopes in that time frame. Those units had made that relocation much earlier. Japan's curve started around the 1880s. The USSR was around 1930. (There were others, like Turkey, with similar steep relocation curves.) I mentioned to her, in talking about that, that the one thing that I found the most knee-jerk and unreflective about the right is that they make unsophisticated comparisons, usually assuming from some mythical ground zero that the US and Russia started on a level playing field and only socialism crippled Russia. I think you may have done something similar by offering the Yugo as a piece of evidence (case closed!) when it is really just a propaganda symbol of something about the historical reality of two very different cultures and economic developments. Ken. -- Hear how he clears the points o' Faith, Wi' rattlin' an' thumpin' Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath He's stampan an he's jumpan! -- Robert Burns The Holy Fair
Cars
I like cars. I do not think there is some particularly capitalist element about them... except their development. But the subject of state subsidization is fair. It is amazing, in a city the size of Toronto, how taking the subway turned from a 1960s futuristic method of transport (say, 1967, Expo and Centennial year) to the ship of the damned that it now seems to convey. Ken. -- A well-laid business plan is no guarantee against the disappearance of the industry on which it is based. -- Tim Cavanaugh
Re: Corporate Democrats
The lesson here is to remain militant in the streets, not to back a bourgeois politician. Ironically, this is, itself, a flawed analogy. Militant in the streets is lingo from an era of ascendant working class interests -- in particular, radical lingo from the 60s-70s. (Militancy, itself, is older than that, of course.) By trying to mechanically employ tactics of another era, one can do more damage than good. (Militant in the streets, today, in North America, usually reduces itself to theatre and marginalism.) At any rate -- We are all grown ups and can ally with whatever we wish at any strategic moment and not fear having to lose sight of the reason we gave a shit in the first place. Ken. -- For all these new and evolutionary facts, meanings, purposes, new poetic messages, new forms and expressions, are inevitable. -- Walt Whitman
Re: Economics and law
Charles wrote: You are probably aware that many juries ( composed largely on North American workers) have given such high awards often that the rightwing has been carrying out tort reform for a while, whereby caps are put on the amounts. It was my understanding that many of these awards are severely reduced on the appellate level... which does not involved juries (hence people outside the law). There is a buffer there, too, no? (But you are right about the political agenda behind removing in the initial awards.) Left wing lawyers (Maurice Sugar and others) played a big role in developing products liability law. I do not currently know the development of product liability law. I would imagine it came out of the early 1900s in the US. If you have any more research, I would appreciate it. It would be helpful to put it in context. Ken. -- The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. -- C.S. Lewis
Ed McMahon's $7.2m dog
Charles' response (Economics and Law thread) about the politics behind tort law -- especially law involving people against corporations -- reminded me of a WSJ editorial last fall. Read the opening item, below, and check out the commentary, below it, if you care about this kind of creation of urban legends... (the left does it, too, unfortunately). --- cut here --- Trial Lawyers, Inc. Wall Street Journal September 23, 2003 That's how the folks at the Manhattan Institute now refer to what may be America's only recession-proof industry: the plaintiffs' bar. We hope the moniker catches on. For decades trial attorneys have nurtured a public image as little Davids standing up with their slingshots to America's corporate Goliaths. But as a study to be released later this morning on Capitol Hill underscores -- Trial Lawyers, Inc.: A Report on the Lawsuit Industry in America 2003 (www.triallawyersinc.com) -- these litigators have become an industry unto themselves. By now, most every American has his own tale about some silly lawsuit run amok, from the post-tobacco obesity suits targeting McDonald's to the $7.2 million settlement former Tonight Show sidekick Ed McMahon won after suing over house mold he claimed had killed his dog. When the Manhattan Institute's researchers added it all up, the result was staggering: Not only have tort costs risen much faster than either inflation or GDP, the estimated $40 billion in revenues our tort warriors took in for 2001 was 50% more than Microsoft or Intel and double that of Coca-Cola. One good measure of their size is their political clout: In 2002 the trial lawyers' PAC ranked third in America -- and was the Democratic Party's most generous contributor. We're not saying that there's no role for trial attorneys in the American legal system, or that they don't occasionally secure justice for a wronged individual. But with the billions its firms rake in each year putting them squarely in the category of Big Business, shouldn't their self-serving claims be treated with the same skepticism routinely directed at, say, Halliburton or Philip Morris? -Original Message- [My commentary From: Sept 2003] That previous WSJ story about Ed McMahon's dog being worth $7.2m in tort damages sounded so outlandish, I wanted to find the case. After all, the WSJ (editorially at least) would easily fall in with that business-political group that wants to limit what lawyers can get their clients on tort. It's NOT beyond an editorial board (as distinct from a news reporter) to do creative urban legend-making. Sure enough, he didn't get $7.2m for the dog. The case was settled out of court for $7.2m. (Which is probably why I couldn't find the ruling in California Superior Court database.) Also: The dog was not the law suit. The dog was brought up in the case as a piece of evidence -- being like a canary in a coal mine, a first indicator. The dog dies, then wife gets sick, etc. (I include the second LA Times article in full below because it details the extent of the complaint -- which appears to claim the insurance company had taken possession of all the family's personal property.) Furthermore, the suit is really part of a larger, local controversy in California about toxic mold syndrome. McMahon wasn't the only one. Governor Grey Davis was in the fray (signs the 2001 Toxic Mold Disclosure Act). (For a thrilling read about mold and insurance coverage, see www.cavignac.com/pdfs/Cml0603.pdf.) By trying to reduce it to a dog lawsuit and tacking the words tort award $7.2m -- that is a partisan, editorial attempt to hurt Tort Warriors. WSJ was just reporting on (though gladly accepting) what they were told by The Manhattan Institute. The MI is a conservative think tank in NYC. It probably gets funding from the very business lobby group that wants to curb tort awards. MI prez Larry Mone sat on a May 29 panel with Edward H. Crane III (Cato Institute), Christopher DeMuth (American Enterprise Institute), and Edwin J. Feulner Jr. (Heritage Foundation). That is one heavy-duty line-up for far right big business-fueled institutions. Ken. -- Tolerance means to have the questions. Fanaticism means to have the answers. -- Elie Wiesel --- cut here --- Los Angeles Times: May 9, 2003. pg. B.1 Ed McMahon Settles Suit Over Mold for $7.2 Million Jean Guccione. Abstract (Article Summary) Ed McMahon and his wife, Pamela, sued American Equity Insurance Co. in April 2002 for breach of contract, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The couple and members of their household staff were sickened by toxic mold that spread through their six-bedroom, Mediterranean-style house after contractors failed to properly clean up water damage from a broken pipe, their lawsuit alleged. The pipe broke in ... --- cut here --- Ed McMahon Sues Over Mold in House Courts: Entertainer seeks $20 million from insurer, alleging he was sickened by substance after botched
Re: Corporate Democrats
Doug wrote: Louis: The lesson here is to remain militant in the streets, not to back a bourgeois politician. Me: Ironically, this is, itself, a flawed analogy. Militant in the streets is lingo from an era of ascendant working class interests -- in particular, radical lingo from the 60s-70s. (Militancy, itself, is older than that, of course.) Doug: Why is this an either/or thing? Why can't we, whoever we are, do more than one thing? Why isn't it better to have a bourgeois politician in office who owes a few favors to people like us rather than someone who hates us with a passion? Wel... I do not think it is an either/or thing... I think I said the same thing as you, quoted above, in the last paragraph of that post of mine that you quote... Me: At any rate -- We are all grown ups and can ally with whatever we wish at any strategic moment and not fear having to lose sight of the reason we gave a shit in the first place. That cuts both ways, btw. Ken. -- If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses. -- Lenny Bruce
Re: Corporate Democrats
Yoshie wrote: My posting was in response to the remark that militant demonstrations in the streets are tactics of another era and that protests that are more theatrical than militant are merely marginal. Shame on the person who wrote that horrible thing you respond to... Ken. -- Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power. -- Benito Mussolini
Re: Economics and law
Charles wrote: I think you are right that the problem wouldn't just go away with socialism. There might , in general, in socialism be more focus on some safety issues when the decision would not depend upon how the safer engineering impacted an individual corporation's bottomline. I can see a socialism more readily developing its transportation system with all the safety features you suggest, and not experiencing them economically as astronomical. If there was safety focus comprehensively and for a long time, it might be very practical to do it better safety wise. David Shemano wrote: Why do you assume such facts for a socialist society? Note that Charles uses his language with purpose. There do not seem to be a lot of wasted words. There is the statement and for a long time in that last sentence -- and it means something. Consider it. We have 75 years of experience with socialist inspired economies. socialist inspired economies ... Grin. What the hell is that? I think George Carlin once did a routine about truth in advertising. He gave several examples of what the statements really meant on the label... One I recall was chocolatey goodness... As Carlin noted, that means, 'No fucking chocolate.' Ken. -- Wounded but they keep on climbing Sleep by the side of the road. -- Tom Waits
Re: Economics and law
David writes: I don't have a strong opinion on whether regulation should be done by legislation or litigation -- it seems like a peripheral issue. I think that is a HUGE issue, not peripheral. But that's for another thread and another day. [...] safety is not an absolute value that takes precedence overy everything else. That is evidenced by how people actually live their lives, and that fact must be taken into consideration when determining appropriate rules. This is the heart of it. To use your own words: how people actually live their lives. The reason most of the people are on this list is that most of the people (who are not on this list) do not have control of the way they actually live their lives. Their lives are determined by economic forces that are really more akin to weather. (Not controllable by themselves. I can only buy a Pinto, not a Lexus. You call that free will I call it economic coercion.) Ken. -- Ive been trying to show you over and over Look at these, my child-bearing hips Look at these, my ruby red ruby lips Look at these, my work strong arms and Youve got to see my bottle full of charm -- P.J. Harvey
Re: Economics and law
David wrote: Conceptually, you are right back where you are today, where the poor can buy a used Pinto. David Shemano My parents were not poor... they were working class... they did work to make ends meet. Your mobile poverty metre is a tad chintzy. To assume that they might have to buy a car destined for litigation because it was a corporate decision seems contrary to the essential role of law. Ken. -- No customer in a thousand ever read the conditions [on the back of a parking lot ticket]. If he had stopped to do so, he would have missed the train or the boat. -- Lord Denning Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking Ltd [1971] 1 All ER 686
Re: Economics and law
David wrote: Any economy in a country whose name had or has the words People's, Socialist or Sweden in it. I like Sweden. You gotta problem with that, punk? Ken. -- I like Sweden. You gotta problem with that, punk? -- Me in this thread
Re: Economics and law
CB: Another infamous case of this was the exploding Pinto of Ford. Thanks, CB. That was the 70s. May not apply to the original post I made, in the time frame... but same principle. Regardless... The notion that lives have worth based upon economic evaluation is hated amongst normal working North Americans. I think there is, in that, a chink in the armor that is worth a bit more than mere postings about the conditions in South America. It is not to diminish the rest of the world... more to recognize what is happening here. Here. Talk about your dialectical contradictions in the whole... Ken. -- I always assume that what is in the power of one man to do, is in the power of another. -- Herbert Osbourne Yardley
Economics and law
I've mentioned to friends I've known before law studies the plethora of suits involving electric space heaters -- apparently a sort of a chew-toy for tort lawyers. There is an implied (depends how you read it) acceptable death rates formula in tort. That Learned Hand Formula? Anyone read about that, other than Andy Nachos (to whom this will be elementary)? An AP story crossed the wires of late (attached at bottom) that made me think again about this nexus of social utility and economic fairness. Hand's Formula is more formally known as the aggregate-risk-utility test and seeks to establish when a manufacturer is negligent in product (or service or whatever). Works like this: If P = Probability of injurious event L = Gravity of the resulting injury B = Burden, or cost, of adequate precautions Then Injurer is negligent only if B P x L Biz (ostensibly) should show that B PL - in other words, minimizing P or L, or both -- to avoid losing tort claims of product negligence. Another, more heartless, way of expressing this would be allowable losses through manufacturer negligence. (In pop culture, we saw this sarcastically referred to in the movie Fight Club, where the narrator is talking about his job with a black woman sitting beside him on a air flight and explaining why he, as a claims investigator, helps car companies decide if they should settle death suits or make a general recall.) Calculate the number of deaths resulting from, say, a space heater (P) and multiply that by the average out of court settlement (P). If those estimated losses from defective products are less than the cost of removing those deaths through product improvement (B), then do not make those improvements. Simple math and business measurement of costs of human death. With a product like a space heater, the consumers are usually not wealthy, lacking resources to fight a large suit and lacking the sort of serious earning power that would increase the L (and a death is usually measured in lost earning power). In the case of space heaters, the drastic reduction in the L (lower income demographic, etc.) means there can be an increase in P (number of deaths) without disturbing the balance of B. * * * Seems the most famous judicial exposition on this was by Yanqui Second Circuit Judge Learned Hand in a series of opinions that began in 1938. The concept first appeared in 1934 in the first Restatement of Tort Law. Hand helped draft the first Restatement. His follow-up decisions were perhaps an attempt to popularize the test. It appears to have not been used. Hand himself, in service as a federal judge until 1961, mentioned it in 11 opinions. After 1949 (last reference), it seems to have died. It was resurrected by a series of publications by Richard Posner. Posner contends the test is imbedded in decisions on economic efficiency interpretation of negligence. Critics have said Posner's arguments are composed of speculative and implausible assumptions, overbroad generalizations, and superficial descriptions of and quotations from cases that misstate or ignore facts, language, rationales, and holdings that are inconsistent with his argument. None of the cases discussed by Posner support his thesis. Instead, the reasoning and results in these cases employ varying standards of care, depending on the rights and relationships among the parties, that are inconsistent with the aggregate-risk-utility test but consistent with the principles of justice. See: Wright, Richard W., Hand, Posner, and the Myth of the 'Hand Formula'. Theoretical Inquiries in Law, Vol. 4, 2003 http://ssrn.com/abstract=362800 Once made a federal judge, Posner began applying the Hand formula. Frank Easterbrook, a like-minded former professor who joined Posner on the Seventh Circuit, has also endorsed the Hand formula. However, neither of them has been able to employ the Hand formula to resolve the negligence issue in any case, and none of their fellow circuit judges has attempted to do so. * * * Thought I'd pass along this news item below. Yet another space heater problem. The manufacturer would likely not have issued the recall, regardless of what the B PL calculation yielded. It needed a government agency to force it. Ken. --- cut here --- One Million Electric Heaters Recalled WASHINGTON (AP) - A Kansas company is recalling 1 million electric heaters after receiving two dozen reports of fires caused by overheating. Vornado Air Circulation Systems Inc. of Andover, Kan., is not aware of any injuries caused by the portable electric room heaters, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Tuesday. A faulty electrical connection can make the indoor heater overheat and stop working, posing a fire hazard, the commission said. Standing about a foot tall and weighing about 6 pounds, the recalled product bears model numbers 180VH, VH, Intellitemp, EVH or DVH, located on the bottom of
Re: China and socialism
Chris Doss wrote: For the NYT or WP, everything bad that happens in China or Russia is the result of a nefarious plot hatched in Beijing or Moscow. For the life of me I can't understand why people who would be hypersceptical over these papers' coverage of, say, Venezuela cite them as impeachable sources on other parts of the world. Louis Proyect replied: This comes as no surprise. C'mon, cut it out. If you aren't surprised, then perhaps you should not answer at all? End the dialogue? Work to end his verbal oppression through action? Refuse to consent to his comment? Overcome? Yet you continue: You have stated publicly on LBO-Talk that censorship was not a problem in the USSR and that people could read whatever they want. You also quote liberally from the , which fails to meet Rupert Murdoch's standards by all accounts. Putinite press -- You quote from all kinds of things, yourself, Louis. As suits your needs. The news media is not monolithic. The owners are. Because you've never been published in newsmedia, you may not understand the pressure. The staff are just like other workers. So spare me your blanket generalizations. the Monthly Review article I was reviewing Another book report from Louis. (No need, here, of course, for blanket generalizations here about the class of people contributing to the Monthly Review.) Finally, it does not surprise me that you would take the side of the Chinese government against an investigative piece that ran in the NY Times. Heh. It doesn't surprise me you like the NY Times. You liberal, you. :) Ken. -- He couldn't figure out how to pour piss from a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. -- Lyndon Johnson
China Study Group
Jonathan Lassen writes: Thanks LP for posting the review of Hart-Landsberg and Burkett's long MR piece. I just picked up a copy yesterday, and have been looking it over. I've got my own little quibbles with it (not enough emphasis on rural China, which I think is desperately important right now, they lump pre-1976 China together as 'Maoist' China, etc.), but personally I think it's a very welcome and timely piece. I hope it continues to spark debate and interest. I do not like to diminish the MR. Just... put it in perspective. Who funds it? Have you met the people who do? (I have met some of them.) Likewise, with groups using .orgs. So, here, to save reader's time, is from the Web site of China Group: China Study Group is a New York based non-profit organization formed in 1995 to facilitate networking of scholars/activists, and promote dissemination of info and research works, Another New York intelligentsia leftist group. Without roots, perhaps, based on the self-description: Members of the CSG support the broad goals of the Chinese revolution that triumphed in 1949, and seek to stimulate knowledge and debate regarding its achievements and limitations, as well as to offer a critical perspective of the radical changes that have occurred in China over the past 25 years and an ongoing analysis of its role in the world today. No mention of the money, though. Are these rich people in the CSG support? My guess is -- and this is prejudicial against me, not you -- that these people are academics or dilettantes without any roots in the cultures they write about. (Only a guess.) Nonetheless, China exists without the CSG, so, please, do not interpret my skeptical view of information from the CSG as a refutation of China. I think China might possibly be there for a long time -- even without me. Ken. -- I am the passenger And I ride and I ride I ride through the city's backside I see the stars come out of the sky Yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky You know it looks so good tonight -- The Passenger Iggy Pop, 1977
Re: China Study Group
Hi Kenneth Campbell, Hi Jonathan Lassen! Who funds Monthly Review? I have no idea. I have an idea... grin. But I love the publication, nonetheless. I do know a bit about China Study Group, since I work with them. The annual budget is about 100 dollars, which is what the website costs. All the labor is volunteer. Okay... that sounds noble. Volunteer labour is in most things -- like Christian summer camps. Some are academics, most are not. Most of the members are from China. None are dilettantes. As I hope you understood, I meant no offence. China needs no help from us. Ken. -- An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning. -- Max Planck
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
Diane wrote: That being said and I agree again with you, the Kurds are an oppressed nationality. Period. Ulhas wrote Does it mean that the Left should support the breakup of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey? Ulhas Of course not. But I think your point is more along the lines of the foreign intellectual bases (both wings of the US intelligentsia) being almost always wrong about the components of local nationalism? Maybe? Being a Canadian, I have seen a steady stream of incorrect American reporting about Quebec, for instance. I think that sort of thing is what sets Canada apart from the U.S. Here, federalism actually exists... in that limited application of federalism versus local nationalism. I do not think ill of federalism, of itself. Ken. -- You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. -- Tyler Durden
Re: quote du jour
Ann Coulter is channeling Dick Cheney again... ? Ken.
Re: Sowell
CB: Well, sufferin' suckatash, is he saying the government bureaucrats were Marxists ? Many of them are. (present tense) If you get to know them, of course. But, Charles... don't tell him that. Next thing you know, David Shemano might be against unions. (It is rumored that organized labor might have Marx-ish thinker therein.) Ken. -- Religion is a belief in a Supreme Being; Science is a belief in a Supreme Generalization. -- Charles H. Fort Wild Talents
Re: The Greens commit suicide
Respectfully, The Greens are proto-fascists. Environment over working class reality. Greens have nothing to do with class in terms of production. I think the class component was important once to certain people. Ken.
Re: Sowell
I really thank you for this piece, David. It was more articulate than that which had come in quotes before. But Mr Sowell does still seem quite... you know... stupid. You actually quote this: Liberals tend to describe what they want in terms of goals rather than processes, and not to be overly concerned with the observable consequences. The observable consequences in New York are just scary. The man seems a bit thick. scary ... jesus. Regarding when Sowell turned away from Marxism as an analytical tool, I don't know. I do have his Marxism book and the conclusion of the book contains a criticism, but there is no discussion of when or why he shifted. I doubt he shifted. Ken. -- Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all. -- John Maynard Keynes
Re: Simon and Garfunkel
David the troller writes: Humor me on this. I need some Marx 101. Let's imagine the crew does all their work. They set up the special sound and light systems, etc. However, Simon and Garfunkel get into a fight and refuse to perform, so the show is cancelled and all ticket are refunded. The next night, Simon and Garfunkel reunite. The crew, pissed off, refuses to do any work. So Simon and Garfunkel go on stage, Simon plugs his guitar into the existent sound system, and notwithstanding the lack of special lighting, a backup band, etc., the two of them perform for 18,000 people who pay $2.7 million. Don't be silly. You are supposedly a lawyer. The refusal to perform negated the contract. But not the contractual duties owed to those expected to aid in the performance. The pathetic spat between the actual performers (in your little hypothetical) does not negate what the crew was due. And it is hardly a narrowed surplus value concept. Unlike some on here, I like the law. And the law does not negate equitable results. That has nothing to do with politics. (Or doesn't have to.) I also prefer Doctor Whiskers (and I reject those revisionists who have spoken on that subject just recently). Ken. -- You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. -- Tyler Durden
Re: Simon and Garfunkel
Michael writes: Please, no personal attacks. If David were a troller, he could have been very disruptive here. He has not been. I honestly did not write David the troller in a negative way. Honestly! I thought he was just here to be the straw that stirs the drink that we all prefer. I think he's refreshing. Sorry for any excess on that subject to both of you. Stir away! :) Ken. -- Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present. -- Marcus Aurelius
Re: Simon and Garfunkel
David the non-trolled writes: You misunderstand my questions. I am not asking whether the crew should be paid. I am trying to understand the labor theory of value/surplus value/exploitation in context. I don't think I misunderstand your question. I was talking about the value of the crew. But please inform me of my errors, I am open to instruction, at any age. The labor/value thing is larger than micro economy, no? When you squish it into some smaller question, it is easier to make fun of the larger philosophical point? No? Like you are trying to do with Jim? At that point, that is where I was making comment about the law. Ken. -- What is the argument on the other side? Only this, that no case has been found in which it has been done before. That argument does not appeal to me in the least. If we never do anything which has not been done before, we shall never get anywhere. The law will stand whilst the rest of the world goes on; and that will be bad for both. -- Lord Denning Packer v. Packer [1953] 2 AER l27
Re: Simon and Garfunkel
David wrote: I am a reductionist, as some of you may remember from a previous exchange. Therefore, I insist on narrowing issues to their most basic. You write: I insist on narrowing issues to their most basic. I do, too, sir. Survival. Ability to raise kids. Dignity. My dad was working class for his whole life. And that is as reductionist as I can imagine. (And the most basic is what Karl and Fred talked about. Read them. Reductionists both.) The issues that made Dad keep his job, as told to me on my mother's knee, was We can't leave the union. She said it many times. Is that reductionist? Or were they stupid? Like Karl and Fred? grin Ken. -- If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses. -- Lenny Bruce
Re: Chechnya and capitalism
Louis wrote: You may be a great economist, but sometimes you suck as a moderator. Respectfully, I have to disagree. Michael is an excellent moderator. Michael does something akin to actual life: keep differing ideas in contact, because there is something that comes out of it that's better than the sectarianism Jim mentioned in a separate thread. I am sure you put me in the same sniper category as Doug. I have accepted that horrible fate. But those two chaps are both better moderators than you. (That is just my opinion, since you have opened up that line of comment.) This is an utter disgrace that so few people on pen-l would take a stand against this. Utter... these are the kinds of purple prose flourishes that I have privately noted to you that you should lose... Ken. -- All politeness is owing to Liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a Rust upon Men's Understanding. -- Anthony Ashley Cooper Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Saddam on TV
For what it's worth... I saw Hussein on TV this morn, and Peter Jennings did an excellent job of old Murrow-style radio reporting... describing scenes without the aid of a TV camera. Jennings described a beaten down man, thin, polite, alert, tangling with the judge once. I have since seen the usual American news stuff about that -- CNN subheaders included Look, the pimp is speaking and accredited the statement to an anonymous janitor. Great journalism. BBC was better -- including some factual reporting on what he said about Kuwait and the chemical weapons against Kurds. Jennings remains the objective reporter, as far as I have seen. He was in the court room. Rather than get outraged at the media's false editorializing, I would encourage people to actually ask people to look at the statements. Mention Jennings' objective reporting. Ken. -- I am the passenger And I ride and I ride I ride through the city's backside I see the stars come out of the sky Yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky You know it looks so good tonight -- The Passenger Iggy Pop, 1977 www.american-buddha.com/iggy.passenger.htm
Re: Sowell
I appreciate the distinction between rising wages and minimum wages, David. Thanks. Now that I got that off my chest, I am off to see Simon and Garfunkel at the Hollywood Bowl. When I get back, how about a discussion of explaining the price of concert tickets from a Marxist perspective? People elevate the demand for music from a moment in their past to a Frank Sinatra sorta retro act? I prefer the original recordings (Frank and SG and the rest). The Marxist perspective might be that this is a false consciousness and wishing for the days of old ideologies (Santa Claus etc)... and people pay money for it because it eases their feelings of being less than they had thought they were (socially speaking). ? Ya think? Ken. -- Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more or less than a Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion. -- Anonymous Hessian officer, 1778
Re: Roy Medvedev interview (on Putin)
Glad to see you remain the same alienating asshole as ever, Lou. Mr Doss has done nothing but offer his own opinion and plenty of interesting material. I see no problem or a need to cut him down. (All your hackneyed adjectives about his posts are a reminder why you don't have a book contract.) Your level of immature debate remains these kind of catty remarks which divide more than unite. Splitting hairs about leftist faith is for the monks of victory. Our job is to unite. Ken. Actually, Gorbachev says the same thing. So does 90% of the population. Gorby adores Putin. 90 percent? That cinches it. I will now have to defer to what they think, just as I defer customarily to what the 90th percentile of the American population thinks about undocumented workers, gay marriage, the Cuban revolution, etc. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Roy Medvedev interview (on Putin)
Grin... Michael... I don't mind the thread. Someone has to point out what Louis does... Which is divide. Mr.Doss has provided a fresh and direct perspective, so what? It was like your invitation to that Chicago right wing lawyer chap... We learn thorugh being in contact. As for the asshole comment... I retract, it was not emotional merely informational. Ken.
Re: In my life
J wrote: The first article I ever read about Fidel Castro was a story by Tad Szulc, in Playboy or Penthouse. Playboy deserves a rightful place in Yanqui social liberation history. The interviews were remarkable. As a lad, I was obviously attracted because of beautiful females. And we males can't help that, being hard wired as such. But there were these incredibly intelligent dialogues I would be exposed to. I wonder which was the most subversive: the gals or the guys with typewriters. There is a huge chronology of American social history in there... Ken. -- The only true exploration, the only real Fountain of Youth, will not be in visiting foreign lands, but in having other eyes, in looking at the universe through the eyes of others. -- Marcel Proust
Re: beltway backlash on farm states pork
A message to my fellow Americans who chose to live where the wheat waves, the buffalo roam and most rites of ?passage still involve a pickup truck: I'm sick and tired of having my pocket picked by your two-faced politicians who talk a good game about self- reliance and limited government, and then go behind closed doors and threaten to hold up every piece of legislation unless they get another truckload of subsidies to prop up your uncompetitive businesses and inefficient lifestyles. You folks have become nothing more than welfare queens in overalls. Now THAT is good writing! Wish I'd written it. Ken. -- I seem to be a verb. -- Buckminster Fuller
Re: Advertising
joanna bujes wrote: I dont' want ANY messages, healthy or not, being broadcast about. I was never exposed to any form of advertisement until I emigrated to Paris in 63...and then to the US in 64. My immediate reaction to it was that I felt manipulated and insulted. I still feel that way. Sorry I missed this exchange back when. I have a relaxed weekend now, so read through some posts from people whose opinions I appreciate -- like you and Andy Nachos there. You _should_ feel manipulated and insulted. Advertising is not like free speech. It is a monopolistic control of the media. I do support the right of Ernst Zundel to write his little pamphlets about the Holocaust. If anyone wants to pick them up, fine. I do not support the licence of the airwaves to private interests. And the use of that licence to peddle shit and then claim some constitutional right. But, if accepting the above, I do agree with what Justin notes: how you draw the line at what is and is not okay is the point. I prefer a wide margin. I'd let in everything rather than set up rules about what can't enter. I think the Russian formulation of censorship -- and that censorship was Russian, not socialist -- sunk socialism in North America more than any CIA fantasy of conspiracy. Ken. -- Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more or less than a Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion. -- Hessian officer, 1778
Berrigan bros.
Michael brought the Berrigans up in the Thread-That-Will-Not-Be-Named. I'd like to underline that point, even though it was only originally mentioned in the context of Catholics and that dogma (and all its facets, liberation theology, etc.). Raised a Catholic, I appreciate reading about what they did, specifically, in terms of their own group conflict (with other members of their community). The ability to understand where the Berrigans were coming from, or anyone else offering to ally, it's at the heart of everything. We are enormously complex beings, and we speak to different constituencies all the time. We change things more by interacting with others, finding common ground -- and creating numbers -- than pointing out, loudly, where we differ. Doesn't mean you conform to their opinions, it just means you shut the fuck up sometimes. :) These are social behavior rules. I know there are differences in local cultures, so maybe we differ... but I have never, in my wildest moments of defiance, gotten in someone's face -- offending them directly in their self-respect, dignity. (And I don't mean email lists, I mean life.) But the preachers who offend directly are invariably non-social beings. Sitting alone and writing ideological arguments. Not tempered by interaction. We are all grown-ups, self-controlled, and we can ally with anything we want without feeling we sell out ourselves in the process. The party line was a tool in an era of poor communications. When you have the pony express, you need to have strongly stated guidelines, because the news never comes. Today, the news never stops. I can see an army of influences in history who have made positive contributions to our world. I appreciate 'em all. None were pure. Nor are any of you. Ken. P.S. I am, though. -- I would have it written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world. -- Robert Frost
Fiction: Rich and poor
Joanna wrote: It's interesting,in this regard, to note that all fictional plots involving the rich and the poor changing places, always have a capitalist trade places with a beggar...not a worker. Today, yes, often so. Not always so... One of my fave old movies is the Devil and Miss Jones... With a very sexy Jean Arthur as a retail clerk with a unionizing boyfriend. Evil boss goes to work in the shoe department to weed out unionists and meets her. Very funny (What's a doomsday book?). But that was a rare moment in U.S. film history. Ken. -- Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all. -- John Maynard Keynes
Re: Fiction: Rich and poor
Maybe you mean domesday book No, no... I know that Norman accounting tax grab census you mention... I mean the Doomsday Book... you have to see his evil plot to get her comment. And I think, really, the idea of the Corporate Boss hiding in the shoe department, scribbling about unionists in his Doomsday Book is probably a good shot at property-holders (which is what the domesday book was about). Ken. -- The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. -- Samuel Johnson
Step into a classroom [was the Clinton years]
I am just reading through this discussion. This Julio Huato seems to have a grasp of strategy and tactics... But I don't want to damn him with my praise. Michael P. (the closet horsetrader) wrote: Julio is probably right, but think of how horrible this situation is. Well... I'd say DON'T think that. You have your own self-control. You start thinking horrible things, your paralysis helps more horrible things happen. The pop psychology stuff aside, I wanted to comment on something you wrote, sir: My dream would be for us here to work on articulating a different version of the economy. Imagine that one of us were to step into a classroom, factory, or call center and say that we wanted to speak in favor of socialism. How about don't step into a classroom over all? It's not a classroom. It's life. Teaching about socialism? That would be stupid. Socialism is not a reality, it's a category. And all categories are shifting in terms of social definition. The real thing under a name can take on all kinds of names. If you want to see what people, currently, really think about power and money, take a look at the jury awards given to humans against corporations. Jury awards are HUGE. Usually shot down at the non-public appellate level. (Yanqui-Bush Tort reform is a way to shut that voice out. But that's another argument.) More faith in people and less preaching to people would help. Ken. -- I like the silent church before the service begins better than any preaching. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Re: the Clinton years
I sense that this Cockburn guy is important in some way to some of you Americans for some reason... And I would like to be polite and give him a wide berth... since he matters a lot to your culture. But this is lousy style: * Clichs like rubbing shoulders... that's as bad made a cool million. And he used the word despicable -- who, other than Daffy Duck, has used that word in the last 50 years? * The over-use of adjectives, in the rest of piece, is usually sign of someone with a high word count struggling to meet it. Aside from that style stuff... This American seems to be saying something interesting: He lists a bunch of authors he doesn't like and calls them a localized nasty name (liberal -- an American thing, they all ramble on about that term). How does the popularity of a series of books that lead the public in a discussion that is counter to the primary trend... the media dominated trend... and in a direction that is commonly accepted outside the U.S. ... how does it lead to this weather report? So just get a Democrat, any Democrat, back in the White House and the skies will begin to clear again. (Another clichd phrase... skies clear etc.) What a slipshod, navel gazing column... Blue pencil and return to author with the above changes. Ken. -- And in a capitalist society Crime is the last vestige of liberty -- Killdozer, 1994
Clyde Prestowitz
Saw this chap on World View (on CBC Newsworld) this morn. Very extensive and open interview. (CBC style, most Americans feel free to speak openly in Canada because few people back home will ever hear about it. :) He's author of _Rogue Nation_. Spoke critically of Bush (a radical) and the theory of pre-emptive strikes, which is a departure in explicit policy in US history. Prestowitz is a conservative (you can tell by taking one look at him), but he appears to be of the George Sr style of old Republican. I think he was a trade bureaucrat of some sort under Reagan and Bush I. Any opinions on the book (or the man) from a Yanqui perspective? Ken. -- Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier. -- John Dewey
Western rationality
Hi Sabri -- I didn't respond to this because I wanted to give it a lot of thought. And try to separate out layers of influence in my own opinions. Maybe I've just been westernized as you sort of imply. (Plus, Jurriaan did a rather good job in dealing with the concept of western rationality as a phantom entity.) You wrote: As I told Jurriaan once in private, in my view, western rationality is about horse trading, since it reduces human interactions to deals and bargaining. When you adhere to western rationality, you design mechanisms to induce others to do what you want them to do, if you can, of course. This is why western rationality requires Justins. If I follow your example, it produces Justins. (Sorry, Justin, to make you an abstract entity.) But I cannot see what the alternative is. That's my conclusion, after this time. If you have an idea of what the non-western method of resolving disputes is, I'd like to hear it. (ADR is included in western dispute mechanisms.) The western idea is that individuals make up the aggregate group. Majority v Minority dynamics. The individuals have individual rights against the aggregate group rights. And a truly democratic society is one which respects the minority. The individual. What is wrong with that? Each informs the other: the individual learns from the group, and the group learns from the individual. But that will always be there, regardless of the property relations. I'm not sure it's western. I cannot imagine a world (and thus it may be my failing, as I cannot imagine it) in which horsetrading is not part of life. I horsetrade all the time. I do with Michael P., Ian M., Joanna B., Doug H., and you. We find common ground. And, if we are considerate of each other's dignity, we curb ourselves a bit. What Marx and socialists and whatever have gone on about is that the horsetrading that is purported to be fair... is an unbelievably crooked game. And they all marvel at that fact. (How can so many people not see that they are losing their own rights to privacy and economic security because they accept their fate?) My Irish philosopher friend James Daly has a book entitled Deals and Ideals and there he calls what I call western rationality the Anglo-French version of Enlightenment. Welll... I'm not overly impressed with James Daly. He strikes me as a bit of an over-emotional person. Ken. -- All politeness is owing to Liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a Rust upon Men's Understanding. -- Anthony Ashley Cooper Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Re: Western rationality
All Right! Sabri writes, progressively: You are demonstrating a westernly rational behaviour. It is slipping from an adjective to... well... a lesser adjective. Not western now westernly. Soon it will be a not eastern. Also, I never said that I want to take revenge from western rationality. No you didn't. I did. And I was kidding. Ken. -- The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storms may enter, the rain may enter, - but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement! -- William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (17081778) Speech on the Excise Bill
Re: Western rationality
I like this one: Westeronoid rational behaviour? After that, you can loot the fucking tradition. :) Ken. -- Fall out of the window with confetti in my hair. -- Tom Waits
Re: In defence of Krugman and against Alexander Cockburn: choice of targets
Sabri, yer gonna out live us all. Some Turkish hills thing. Worry not. I don't smoke... But I think yer a bit harsh on our dyslexic lawyer friend. You wrote: Western rationality requires, or leads to, Justins of the world. Adults have the right to kill themselves, in any way they wish. As long as it's an informed choice. (Tobacco is actually helping us, here, making product warnings part of everyday life. Spreading the gospel of merchant accountability across the whole spectrum of crap goods and stupid consumption.) If people then still choose slow suicide through tobacco, so be it. Here in Canada, we do have a legion of lawyers trying to tie U.S. tobacco to smuggling schemes via First Nation lands along the border. I sure hope those Canadian prosecutors (we call 'em Crown) win. But I stand with Justin on one thing: YOU put the smoke to yer mouth. YOU inhale. While we can peel off the layers of media influence, ads bought to sell death products, etc. -- eventually, there is still the remaining individual who puts the stinkin' shit to their lips and drags. And that's where the buck ultimately stops. You have the facts -- increasingly so, today, because of tobacco and the lawyers and activists who have fought them. Smoke 'em if you gottem. Ken. -- I yam what I yam coz that's what I yam. -- Popeye (He had a pipe)
Re: In defence of Krugman and against Alexander Cockburn: choice of targets
JKS writes:I'd be proud to defend the First Amendment ina NAzi case too. if the gov't cracks down on the Nazis, they crack down on the Left, too, most often in a bigger way. A first amendment defense of the Nazis is indirectly defending the Left. Elementary, my dear Mr. Devine. :) You know, FDR packed the Supreme Court down there and that was a huge influence felt in the social fabric of US lives for decades... an influence which is now waning. But all that free speech stuff, and the finding of a right to privacy in the penumbra of other rights... leading to Roe v Wade... that came through those hired-guns from the FDR and Brandeis-Holmes era. You should definitely support your local loon Nazi's right to smoke tobacco. Ken. -- The Olden Days, alas, are turned to clay. -- Ishtar, at the Deluge
Re: In defence of Krugman
Well... yes and no. Yes, it was Warren's court, and Eisenhower was disappointed with his two appointments. But, no, Warren couldn't have done anything without Black and Douglas. And Douglas was a major source of this extreme free speech-ism. (Mind you, I wasn't there.) Ken. -- I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place. -- Steven Wright -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of andie nachgeborenen Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 6:04 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] In defence of Krugman Actually, no. Roosevelt tried to pack the court, and failed. One of the former bad guy justices switched his view and started supporting the New Deal. The Roosevelt era court mainly supported expanded govt power to regulate business, not primarily enhanced free speech and civil rights. Its most notably free speech decision was probably US v. Dennis (1948), upholding the conviction of the CPUSA leaders for conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the govt. The real civil libertarian court was the Warren Court, whose key members were Warren and Brennan, appointed by Eisenhower, and Goldberg, Fortas, and Marshall, appointed by Kennedy and Johnson. The one right thing you say here is that the Warren Court era is over. jks
Re: Tobacco
I wasn't talking about second hand smoke... That's another topic. There are laws against smoking in public places. Nothing wrong with those. Ken. with second-hand smoke, SOMEONE ELSE puts the smoke in your mouth and nose, while YOU have little choice but to inhale. Jim -Original Message- From: andie nachgeborenen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 11/1/2003 3:07 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: [PEN-L] Tobacco But I stand with Justin on one thing: YOU put the smoke to yer mouth. YOU inhale. What I do for the tobacco compnaies is antitrust work, not product liability defense. Though the firm does do PL defense, and I would do it for tobacco compnaies if asked. I'm a former pipe smoker myself . . . __ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/
Re: In defence of Krugman
Hey Justin I will take a re-peek at the Dennis case. But I believe Black (and Douglas) were strongly against it. I believe Rutledge and Murphy were replaced by conservative Democrats. And Frankfurter and Jackson were a kind of reverse of what Eisenhower felt about Warren and Brennan. I guess its really all moot, but if you also enjoy this kind of thing (as I do), what the hell... Myself, Id be more inclined to say that Warren and Brennan signed onto the Black-Douglas train in particular, their efforts against loyalty initiatives. Black-Douglas had long aimed to give First Amendment protection to even those unworthies. The Court, as an entity, resisted their dynamic-duo efforts. In Yolanda Yates case, Black made his famous sarcastic shot against the prosecutions evidence proof here is sufficient if Marx and Lenin are on trial. But they began to get their way (on this issue) with the disappearance of a Vinson, Jackson (Nuremberg prosecutor), Minton, and the advent, as you note, of Warren and Brennan. Douglas wrote about that sea change in his book Court Years: The Court began to swerve its course and act to protect the rights of the people by limiting the thrust of the anti-subversive program. The arrival of Earl Warren made part of the difference. There were other cases before that, where the trend was being given inertia. Like Jones v. Opelika in 1943. Douglas, Black and Murphy joined with Stone, and when Rutledge replaced Byrnes, the mandatory flag saluting crap was overturned. That was a Jehovahs Witness case, btw. The Jehovahs unflagging obnoxiousness also helped clarify some fundamental issues in Canada with the case of Roncarelli v. Duplessis. In the 1940s, the JWs were also irritating the Catholic majority of Quebec going to their door and politely telling them they were all going to hell. Maurice Duplessis was premier of Quebec and he ruled through a triad of reactionary Francophone nationalism, Church authority and big business alliances. Duplessis reacted to public and Church pressure to target the JWs. Roncarelli was some Montreal restaurateur (if I recall) who had the money to keep bailing JWs out when arrested. Duplessis finally ordered a public servant to withdraw Roncarellis liquor licence forever. Justice Rand wrote the opinion, drawing on Marbury v. Madison and Edward Coke et al. Anyway... So, I wont disagree with you if you want to put a historical marker at Warren. I would put it with Douglas and Black, but it doesn't really matter. It wasnt a case of Heeres Earl! and poof it all changed. (I'm not saying you actually said that.) Ken. -- We have no reliance On virgin or pigeon; Our method is science, Our aim is religion. -- Aleister Crowley Actually, no. Roosevelt tried to pack the court, and failed. One of the former bad guy justices switched his view and started supporting the New Deal. The Roosevelt era court mainly supported expanded govt power to regulate business, not primarily enhanced free speech and civil rights. Its most notably free speech decision was probably US v. Dennis (1948), upholding the conviction of the CPUSA leaders for conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the govt. The real civil libertarian court was the Warren Court, whose key members were Warren and Brennan, appointed by Eisenhower, and Goldberg, Fortas, and Marshall, appointed by Kennedy and Johnson. The one right thing you say here is that the Warren Court era is over. jks --- Kenneth Campbell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: JKS writes:I'd be proud to defend the First Amendment ina NAzi case too. if the gov't cracks down on the Nazis, they crack down on the Left, too, most often in a bigger way. A first amendment defense of the Nazis is indirectly defending the Left. Elementary, my dear Mr. Devine. :) You know, FDR packed the Supreme Court down there and that was a huge influence felt in the social fabric of US lives for decades... an influence which is now waning. But all that free speech stuff, and the finding of a right to privacy in the penumbra of other rights... leading to Roe v Wade... that came through those hired-guns from the FDR and Brandeis-Holmes era. You should definitely support your local loon Nazi's right to smoke tobacco. Ken. -- The Olden Days, alas, are turned to clay. -- Ishtar, at the Deluge __ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/
Re: Interview with Karl Marx
soula avramidis writes: this Karl Marx is tame, domesticated and suitable for a western audience Karl _was_ tame, polite and reasonable in interview and personal interaction. He spoke to the other side in a conversation -- didn't sit there delivering monologues. Quite human. Sorry about that, pal. Ken. -- A little sincerity is a dangerous thing; And a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. -- Oscar Wilde
Re: Interview with Karl Marx
Carrol Cox writes: [Some general gossip] We all have our moments, good and bad. That's the very definition of quite human. Do you have a different one? Ken. -- Gossip is charming! But scandal is merely gossip made tedious by morality. -- Oscar Wilde
Re: Interview with Karl Marx
Hey! soula avramidis! a young man ran towards the old marx all joy and zeal wanting to join the cause; marx simply told him to bugger off. he was nice but not naive. That sounds heartbreaking. I'm sorry to hear it. If you, personally, have to believe that Karl Marx was about the iron rule of the working class as a fixed principle, power to ya. We all need to have core ideas to continue our own lives (on our internal level), and if taking that idea you have there, and giving it a bushy beard and giving it a first name Karl -- if that is what helps you get through the night, fine by me. Karl Marx (the human being, which is the main focus of the article that started this thread) was not an ideologue, he lived in a human body, he had a father and mother who expected him to be certain things, he lived in London after being chased outta the continent, he had rivals on the plain upon which he vigorously competed, he had kids and some died (I cannot comprehend living in such a time of high infant mortality, and what it does to one), he apparently fucked around, he worked very hard at what he did, and he had friends who loved him very dearly unto death. But you know... even if Karl Marx had not been born... we'd still have something like Marxism. Just a different name. As Michael P once put it to me, Karl just nudged history along. History was happening with or without that kid born on the Rhine (who now apparently attends all American Social Science History Association conferences as a ghost). Ken. -- You know how they make kosher meat? They make the animal feel so guilty, it dies. -- Elayne Boosler
Re: Interview with Karl Marx
Max B. Sawicky wrote: this was great. www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/ArticleView.asp?accessible=yesP_Article=12 295 It is great! Thoroughly entertaining and inspirational at the same time... My two reasons for thinking it so... 1) The Nod to the Past: The writer's assumption of Karl's style in interviews (the few that exist) and personal letters -- accurate in mimicry; so, thus, very witty and talented writing, whoever did it; 2) The Nod to the Present: The very modern underpinnings of it -- a subtle, confident *wink* at those in the here-and-now who know Karl was the premier thinker of his time (if not a bit more)... Ken. -- But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. -- Karl Marx
Re: optimism?
Here ya go... --- cut here --- Copyright 2003 The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times October 17, 2003 Friday Home Edition SECTION: Calendar; Part 5; Page 30; Calendar Desk LENGTH: 810 words HEADLINE: AL MARTINEZ; Feels like a people's war is brewing BYLINE: AL MARTINEZ BODY: I've always been a union man. I helped bring the Newspaper Guild to Oakland a lot of years ago, and I carry a card in the Writers Guild of America in L.A. I've never crossed a picket line, and I never will. As a result, I often have major disagreements with those who flat-out consider organized labor a drain on the economy. They're so anti-union that sometimes they'll go out of their way to cross picket lines just to show their disdain. But not this time. I'm talking about the strike/lockout that involves the United Food and Commercial Workers and 859 grocery stores in Southern and Central California. I've found that the parking lots of a lot of stores being picketed are oddly empty during the hours when people usually shop. And, peeking in the window, it looks like you could roll a watermelon down the aisles of some of the stores and not hit a soul. I hung around a Woodland Hills Vons one afternoon, and then a Ralphs later on, and heard from shoppers who had come by to support those walking the picket lines. I also heard from some who said they were sick of the little man being trod upon by corporate giants. One woman didn't give a rat's kazoo what the issues were. She announced in a tone not intended to encourage debate, We're at war with CEOs! The theme has been repeated in radio and television interviews with many of the shoppers who are respecting the picket lines. They aren't all union members or left-leaning sympathizers, but the kinds of people who get property taxes lowered and governors thrown out of office. The little old ladies are at it again. They're a metaphor for activists who have been making things happen lately, and they're beginning to lean in favor of those in the lower margins of society. I saw that same stirring in the early days of the petition drive that became Proposition 13, and at the tables of those gathering signatures to recall Gray Davis. They turn outrage into votes the way profiteers turn labor's sweat into gold. Issues aside, I sense a growing indignation against those who make millions of dollars on the backs of those who make hundreds. Contradictions abound. We see workers asking for a 50-cent hourly raise while the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange walks away with a pay package of $187 million. Census figures reveal that the gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Household incomes in the lower brackets are slipping while the income of the top 5% of the nation's wage earners is rising. Almost 35 million Americans lived in poverty last year, which was close to 2 million more than the previous year. In the same period that many were scratching around for food, chief executives at Southern California's 100 largest companies were receiving double-digit pay increases even as many were downsizing, which is a euphemism for canning workers at the lower levels. An L.A. Times survey revealed that one CEO received a 153% annual pay hike, to $2.9 million, even though the company suffered a $275-million loss. We live in an age of bloated concepts of money. Where once hundreds of dollars represented a kind of financial pinnacle, now its height is measured in hundreds of thousands. Millions pale beside billions, and billions beside trillions. People I know, whose salaries are modest, will stand in long lines to buy lottery tickets when the payoff hovers around $100 million, but won't even bother to buy a ticket if it's only $10 million. Who needs $10 million? Chicken feed. I became radicalized two years ago when Enron collapsed, but not before it paid an average of $5.3 million to each of its 140 senior officers in bonuses and stock grants. I got even crazier when Global Crossing went down. The company managed to pay $15 million in lump-sum pension payments to its executives, while its rank-and-file employees lost $250 million in their pension plan. And so ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Corporate greed and, in some cases, corporate dishonesty are bad enough, but I also wonder at the cosmic rewards to those who add little more than a slam dunk to the nation's cultural agenda. The idea that a high school basketball phenomenon can make $90 million in an endorsement deal before he even begins playing professionally is not only beyond comprehension, it's surreal. So when grocery clerks, mechanics or cops strike over issues of health insurance or a few extra bucks, don't come to me with theories of economic impact or the extra money we're going to have to pay for tomatoes. I have a feeling that there's a people's war brewing against greed and excess, against the disparity between the haves and the have-nots, and we'd better start taking it seriously. Little old ladies are on the
Gore eyes CBC-launched cable company Newsworld International
Gore eyes CBC-launched cable company Newsworld International Barbara Shecter and Isabel Vincent National Post Oct 3 2003 In his quest to set up a new liberal-leaning broadcaster in the United States, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore and a group of investors could end up buying Newsworld International, a cable company originally started by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1994. According to a source close to the negotiations, Mr. Gore and his financial partners hope to re-focus the channel -- which was sold to USA Networks in 2000, and then to Vivendi Universal -- as a left-leaning rival to Rupert Murdoch's Fox News. Mr. Gore would become the company's fifth owner if the deal goes through. Yes, there were talks, said the source, adding they were put on hold in May or June because most of Vivendi Universal's television and entertainment assets were put up for auction to reduce the company's debt. Talks maybe have warmed up again now that General Electric Co.'s New-York based NBC has a deal to buy Vivendi Universal's U.S. entertainment division for US$3.8-billion in cash and a 20% stake in a new entertainment company valued at more than US$40-billion, said the source. It's going to be considered but not until that deal is consummated. The Vivendi-NBC deal could be concluded within the next week, but it is expected to take a further four to six months to get the blessing of regulators, including the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the European Commission in Brussels. Newsworld International, a 24-hour news channel which airs the CBC's flagship newscast The National alongside programs such as ITV's Evening News -- billed as the most popular dinner hour newscast in Britain -- is programmed in Canada by a staff of 58 CBC employees, said Ruth-Ellen Soles, a spokeswoman for the public broadcaster. Newscasts come from Japan, Germany and the European Community, with some broadcast in their original language as well as in English. The channel's Web site also boasts business and sports news, weather and entertainment. The channel cannot be seen in Canada, Ms. Soles said. The CBC has a supply contract with Vivendi Universal's television group to program Newsworld International. Any changes to the schedule or countries of origin that would be requested by a new owner would have to be negotiated, she said. She declined to say how much the CBC is paid, or when the contract expires. We don't discuss the terms of our contracts publicly. Changes to CBC programs would be one area that would not be open to negotiation, she said. If they say 'I don't want that item in The National, that's not on, she said. We won't tailor The National to an American sensibility. Mr. Gore's investor group -- which, according to a report in the New York Daily News,, includes investment banker Steve Rattner and Joel Hyatt, a former Democratic fundraiser -- is contemplating paying US$70-million for Newsworld International. CBC and Montreal-based Power Corp., the original partners in Newsworld International, received US$155-million for Newsworld and eclectic specialty channel Trio when they were sold to Barry Diller's USA Networks in May, 2000. Mr. Diller sold out to Vivendi Universal in late 2001. Mr. Gore ran for U.S. president in 2000 and lost a very close and hotly contested race to George W. Bush. In recent months, broadcast industry sources say, he has had his eye on Newsworld International as a platform to present a rival agenda to the right-wing views aired on Mr. Murdoch's Fox News. He feels CNN is not doing it -- CNN is more in the middle [of the political road], one media source said. Others expressed skepticism about Mr. Gore's ability to compete in the U.S. market. My big question is how much of a market is there for a liberal broadcaster in the United States? asked Vince Carlin, chairman of the School of Journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto. One wonders how much of a dent this could make in a market dominated by CNN and Fox News. If Mr. Gore buys Newsworld International, he will face a tough competitive landscape. With 20 million subscribers, the channel is dwarfed by the more than 80 million U.S. households that receive CNN and Fox. Even CNBC and MSNBC, two specialty news services backed and heavily promoted by NBC, have more than 60 million viewers apiece. My guess is that they are probably planning to turn it mainstream, said Derek Baine, a senior analyst at Kagan World Media, a media research firm in California. If that's the case, it is going to be very difficult because Newsworld International is not very well known in the United States and is primarily carried on satellite. In Canada, some media critics were surprised by the talks. I guess [Al Gore] considers himself a journalist, said a Toronto-based media analyst, who did not want to be identified. This is the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. Before launching his political career, Mr. Gore worked as a reporter for
Re: Bush - dolt or ordinary criminal?
Bill Lear writes about Carter and Bush: That's because yes, there is a significant difference in attitude of this faction of the ruling party, though not really in results. The differences are little more than mere window dressing, which is not to say I don't want Bush and his gang of splendid beasts to go down in flames, nor that the differences don't mean even more misery for those on the wrong end of the stick. I know you have spoken in this thread about preaching to the choir. My guess is you are now doing a kind of anti-preaching to the choir? (But what the hell do I know?) Still, I don't think you can dismiss ephemeral improvement as window dressing. Carter and Bush are leagues apart. Both men will die. At the end of their lives, what have they done? Did a few more people live (etc.)? These sound like tiny improvements, but they are STILL improvements. You are talking about being realistic in non-choir reception of rhetoric... well, apply your own standards. Carter is FAR MORE acceptable than Bush to the non-choir. Don't shit on him when you want better propaganda to the non-choir. Ken. -- The criminal moreover produces the whole of the police and of criminal justice, constables, judges, hangmen, juries, etc; and all these different lines of business, which form equally many categories of the social division of labour, develop different capacities of the human spirit, create new needs and new ways of satisfying them. Torture alone has given rise to the most ingenious mechanical inventions, and employed many honourable craftsmen in the production of its instruments. -- Karl Marx Theories of Surplus Value
Re: Bush - dolt or ordinary criminal?
Michael wrote: In short, he was not universally bad. Bush is. Carter was domestically a conventional Republican. In business, they call it managing expectations. [In other words... ADAPT to your fucking environment... without losing your whole purpose to exist] :) Ken. -- If you are going through hell, keep going. -- Winston Churchill
Re: Bush - dolt or ordinary criminal?
Now we are shifting from a) ad hominem attacks on a local leader (Yanqui stuff) to b) war crimes. At least change the thread name, Sabri. Ken. -- For all these new and evolutionary facts, meanings, purposes, new poetic messages, new forms and expressions, are inevitable. -- Walt Whitman
Yanqui readers: The Manhattan Institute ?
Any input on what this group is? I know it's a conservative think tank in NYC -- but some more background on funding and policy purpose would be appreciated. Or personalities closely associated with it. Thanks, Ken. -- It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people. -- Logan Pearsall Smith
Goodbye to all that: Congress Kills Pentagon Unit That Wanted Terrorism Futures Market
Congress Shuts Pentagon Unit Over Privacy By CARL HULSE New York Times September 26, 2003 WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 A Pentagon office that became steeped in controversy over privacy issues and a market in terrorism futures was shut down by Congress today as the Senate passed and sent to President Bush a $368 billion military measure that eliminates money for it. The Pentagon spending plan for 2004 adopted by the Senate says that the office, the Information Awareness Office, which had been headed by Adm. John M. Poindexter, should be terminated immediately while a few projects under its control could be shifted elsewhere within the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The House passed the measure on Wednesday. They turned the lights out on the programs Poindexter conceived, said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who led opposition to the office. From a standpoint of civil liberties, this is a huge victory. Congress first turned its attention to the operation headed by Admiral Poindexter, who had been a central figure in the Iran-contra scandal of the 1980's, because of the proposed Total Information Awareness program, a sweeping computer surveillance initiative developed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Critics challenged the program as a potential invasion of privacy. Pentagon officials renamed the effort the Terrorism Information Awareness program and said it would be devoted to analyzing foreign intelligence data. But the Senate still imposed restrictions on its operations. Then, in July, Mr. Wyden and Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, disclosed that the Pentagon office was about to open an Internet trading market to test the theory that traders could help predict the probability of events like terror attacks, missile strikes and assassinations of foreign leaders. Outraged lawmakers called for the program to cease, and it was closed within a day. The furor surrounding the terror market gave momentum to the effort to cut off money for the office entirely, and the legislative report accompanying the spending measure said Congress wanted it shut. This was a hugely unpopular program with a mission far outside what most Americans would consider acceptable in our democracy, said Timothy Edgar, a legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union office in Washington. Admiral Poindexter resigned last month, though he defended the initiatives under his control and said the plan for a terror futures market had been sensationalized. Mr. Wyden said the programs that survived were mainly training initiatives like war-gaming software that helped agencies analyze evidence and communicate with one another. The legislation said Congress allowed the use of processing, analysis and collaboration tools developed by the disbanded office for foreign intelligence operations, but it did not specify agencies that would be using it.
Dem. candidate debate
Best line from debate, as formulated in NYT editorial: The newcomer, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, was more affable than forthcoming about his unformed policy views. He insisted that he was a Democrat at heart, despite previous votes for Republican presidents, and would prove it in position papers. The Rev. Al Sharpton told him to relax because the panel had a lot of old Democrats up here who have been acting like Republicans. Ken. -- If you are going through hell, keep going. -- Winston Churchill
Looking for a list post author
I regret I don't have the time to search through archives... or make uneducated guesses... So I thought I'd try the blunt approach. Would the lad who made the post with the theory that the Republicans cannot build countries (like Iraq, as opposed to Japan in 46) is because they _are_ Republicans and unable to speak to the strata/class that does actually occupy building positions please identify himself? (No, you get no cash reward, I just wanted to talk to you privately a bit.) Thanks. Ken. -- The effects of the criminal on the development of productive power can be shown in detail. Would locks have ever reached their present degree of excellence had there been no thieves? Would the making of bank notes have reached its present perfection had there been no forgers? Would the microscope have found its way into the sphere of ordinary commerce... but for trading frauds? Doesn't practical chemistry owe just as much to adulteration of commodities and the efforts to show it up as to the honest zeal of production? Crime through its constantly new methods of attack on property, constantly calls into being new methods of defence, and so is as productive as strikes for the invention of machines. And if one leaves the sphere of private crime: would the world market ever have come into being but for national crime? Indeed, would even the nations have arisen? And hasn't the Tree of Sin been at the same time the Tree of Knowledge ever since the time of Adam? -- Karl Marx Theories of Surplus Value
The RIAA 261
These kinds of heavy-handed policies are the stuff of rebellious tension... or resigned despair. Depending on the surrounding social climate. And the noise created around it. Ken. -- An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations. -- Charles de Montesquieu --- cut here --- RIAA's Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets Single Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl in N.Y. Among Defendants By Frank Ahrens Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, September 10, 2003; Page E01 Heather McGough thought it would be nice to listen to music while she was working on her Gateway PC at home in Santa Clarita, Calif. So, a few months ago, when a friend of McGough's 14-year-old cousin told her she could get the Gateway to play songs, McGough told the girl to go ahead. The teen girl downloaded software by Kazaa, a file-sharing Internet service. Kazaa let McGough grab digital songs by Tracy Chapman, Avril Lavigne, Norah Jones and Marvin Gaye and others and put them on her computer's hard drive for listening. Also -- and this is the part that McGough said she didn't know -- it let everyone else on the Kazaa network get a look at the songs on her computer and pick which ones they wanted. In the eyes of the music industry, she was an egregious uploader of copyrighted material. Which is why she was one of the 261 song sharers across the nation sued Monday by the major record companies with the help of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the music industry's trade group. The RIAA is targeting what it calls major offenders of peer-to-peer digital song sharing, which it considers to be a violation of copyright law. Federal law allows penalties of up to $150,000 per copyrighted work, or, in other words, per song. Like Kazaa members, investigators at the RIAA looked into McGough's computer. Instead of seeing songs they wanted to listen to, they found someone they wanted to sue. Song sharing exploded into the mainstream in the late '90s thanks to Napster, which allowed computer users to download and swap songs for free. The music industry went to court to successfully shut down Napster, but other free services such as Morpheus, Grokster and Kazaa sprang up in its place. Kazaa, the most popular, had more than 7 million users in May. More than 60 million Americans engage in file sharing, according to companies that track Internet use. I watched the whole Napster thing on TV; I read about it in the papers, said McGough, 23, a single mother of two girls, ages 5 and 2. I just assumed that if Napster was down, why would something be up that was illegal? I wouldn't intentionally put something on my computer that was illegal. McGough received a copy of a subpoena in July from Comcast Communications Corp., her high-speed Internet service provider, telling her that the cable company had handed over her name and address to the RIAA, which reported it had looked into her computer on the afternoon of June 26. I wasn't even home, said the auto repair shop office manager. The next day, she took her Gateway to a local computer club where members erased the song files from her hard drive. It was only then that she found out that Kazaa's software allows others to see which songs she had. I don't even know how many songs I had, she said. Comcast included an 800 number in the subpoena to call for more information. But when McGough called it, she said no one knew what she was talking about. I asked for supervisors, everything, she said. It's not like they weren't giving me the information. They didn't have the information. The stories of the RIAA 261 are emerging across the country. Many defendants say they are surprised by the suits, that they were unaware that such song swapping could be illegal, or that they were ignorant of the activities of others using their computers, such as children. The defendants included a 71-year-old grandfather in Texas and a father-and-son combo, ages 50 and 29. They include Boston area teenagers and adults, men and women from Los Angeles, and a Yale University photography professor. More song swappers will find themselves facing lawsuits in the coming months, as the RIAA has promised to take legal action against thousands more, aiming at people who have made an average of more than 1,000 copyrighted songs free to other Internet users. Critics of the RIAA's lawsuits have repeatedly said such vigorous legal action could lead to consumer backlash, further crippling an industry already suffering a steep slump in sales. Since the rise of Internet song sharing, sales of compact discs have dropped about 10 percent per year. The industry attributes the losses to piracy, but others point out that many consumers likely were driven away from record stores by CDs priced at $18. The poster girl for such potential backlash appeared on the cover of yesterday's New York Daily News alongside a headline reading: Internet Music 'Thief' Sued
RIAA and Heine -- A thought
Washington Post's Fast Forward (tech) section is naturally following the epic struggle of the music industry (RIAA) against evolving technology. Latest column (Rob Pegaro): RIAA Uses Law to Defend Interests After years of trying to criminalize hardware and software that can be used to steal music, the recording industry is going after the people who actually publish copyrighted work online. It immediately brings to mind Heine's famous quote: Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. Heinrich's quote has been used thousands of times in terms of politics and Nazi Germany. But, stripped from its previous use, it real appears to be describing technology's ability to change established order through that technology's enhanced distribution (communication of ideas, whatever). Books are a wonderfully endurable technology, having proven their marketability for centuries, so Heinrich certainly didn't lack observational data. When that technology becomes bothersome, it will be attacked. (Bothersome usually means it contributes to the decline of some process of economic-social domination in current existence.) And when that technology cannot be contained, the logical next step is to go after the users of the technology. I've followed this RIAA business from beginning, because of my random placement in time and location. Dispassionately considered, RIAA is behaving in a rational, expected manner. Ken. -- I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. -- Robert Frost
Music industry tech turmoil continues
Record labels getting desperate By MATHEW INGRAM Globe and Mail September 5 2003 Universal Music, one of the five major record companies, announced late on Wednesday that it is chopping the retail price of its top line CDs by anywhere from 23 to 30 per cent. The company said it is making this magnanimous gesture with the aim of bringing music fans back into retail stores. And where are all those fans whose absence is such a concern? Universal doesn't come right out and say it, but they are in living rooms, university dorms and even offices around the world, downloading MP3 files as fast as they possibly can. Universal's price cut isn't really a magnanimous gesture at all it's a desperate cry for help. Among other things, the price reduction a move that will likely be copied by the other major labels helps to confirm the widespread suspicion that the music industry's profit margins are truly astronomical. How could they not be, if Universal can contemplate a sudden 30-per-cent reduction in its CD prices without even blinking? It's also ironic that Universal is asking retailers to help by reducing the actual prices they charge for CDs (since few people ever pay the full retail price for a CD). In other words, they don't want the record stores to use the price cut to boost their own profit margins. The irony is that Universal and the other major labels were sanctioned not that long ago for pressuring retailers not to lower their CD prices. In February of 2000, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission found that the major record labels had acted in concert to keep CD prices artificially high, and that consumers had overpaid by as much as $500-million (U.S.) between 1995 and 2000. Following the ruling, attorneys-general in 43 states charged the record companies with price-fixing, a case that was finally settled this summer; the companies agreed to pay a total of $140-million, $64-million in cash and $76-million in CDs donated to schools and libraries. So is the price cut going to stop the downloading hordes? It might help stem the flow a little, but it's unlikely to persuade large numbers of people to give up downloading and head back to the store. Expecting the move to help boost CD sales by 30 per cent, a forecast made by one music industry executive, is dreaming in technicolour. That's not just because there are millions of scofflaws out there who love stealing music if that is even what downloading amounts to (it's not quite that simple, despite the industry's ad campaign to the contrary). More than anything, the downloading phenomenon is a symptom of a larger problem, which is that the whole pricing structure of the music industry is broken, and probably for good. To get a sense of how some of the downloading hordes feel, all you need to do is sample some of the comments made on various websites, such as those at the tech-focused site Slashdot.org. One member responded to the CD price cut by saying: How generous. Rather than making 90,000% profit on $0.02 worth of plastic, they're taking it in the shorts with a measly 65,000%. Give me a break. Of course, the music industry argues that its costs are higher than they appear, and that CD sales have to cover not just marketing and distribution but also have to make up for the money spent on bringing in new artists artists who may or may not recoup that investment. Still, the perception is that CD companies have been lining their pockets for some time, and Universal's move will do little to alter that view. Whatever the actual numbers are, the fact remains that a sizeable number of people the user base of Kazaa, a file-sharing network, is estimated at more than 50 million have voted with their mice, and the message they have been sending is that the music industry no longer meets their needs. For several years now the industry has been trying to fight that reality, and all it has done is to dig itself deeper into the hole it is trying to get out of. Ever since the Napster file-swapping network first appeared on the scene in 1999, the major record labels seem to have spent most of their time doing one of three things: a) suing the file-trading networks and those who make use of them; b) trying (and largely failing) to design their own downloading services; and c) keeping prices high to maximize their dwindling profits. The advent of Apple's iTunes music service, and the success it has had in just the few months since its launch 6.5 million downloads as of August shows that there are a substantial number of music fans out there who are willing to pay money for music. They just aren't willing to pay what they see as the drastically inflated prices charged for CDs, and they seem to like the ability to select particular songs rather than having to buy a whole album. The sooner the music industry gets religion on those two points, the better off it will be. As someone once said, if you find yourself in a hole the first thing you should
Re: affluenza?
Mike B) wrote: Commdification has made consciousness cheap along with everything else, most especially, our lives. Idle hands... idle hands... the devil's work results, every time, under any system. You cannot let people have time... Yet I can think of nothing I would treasure more. Ken. -- ... it cannot be right to train them all in a way which will most probably raise their ideas above the very lowest occupations of life, and disqualify them for those servile offices which must be filled by some of the members of the community, and in which they may be equally happy with the highest, if they will do their duty. -- Sarah Trimmer, 1792 Educator, Sunday School movement schools of industry pioneer
Re: affluenza?
I wrote: You cannot let people have time... Yet I can think of nothing I would treasure more. Just to make sure I was clear, there... I do not mean the time one gets from calling in sick, or from getting unemployment, or from welfare, or from being derelict... Nor do I mean the time one gets from owning one's own small biz (and the sleepless nights before certain destitution, real or imagined)... these are all worm-ridden with anxiety and a sense of worthlessness or non-entitlement. I mean time that is understood as yours. You own it. You earned it. And you don't have to apologize for it. Ken. -- The Sun, with all those Planets revolving around it and dependent on it, will still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the Universe to do. -- Galileo
Re: affluenza?
Earned it could mean many things. More immediately, it would mean you did your 4-hours. It was not bestowed. Ken. -- CLARKE'S LAW: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke
Globe and Mail poll on Middle East Road to Peace
Sometimes Canadian business classes and intelligentsia surprise me. There is an ability to see the world drastically differently than the USA media echo chamber of the White House communications pipeline (a pipeline/octopus that should be flow charted and studied as part of high school education). Every day I scan the Globe (Canada's national paper, pro-business) for certain stories, and usually put my little vote in on their question of the day. If only to guess what the likely outcome would be. Today, I was surprised. Question: If the U.S. administration's 'road map' for Middle East peace leads nowhere, which group do you believe is most to blame? [ ] Palestinians [ ] Palestinian militants [ ] Israelis I figured there would be a similar vague opinion found in Asper's chain of Canadian media outlets (pro-Israel) and usually found everywhere in the US major media (with lots of dissenting voice, of course) and then echoed by the public. I expected #2 to dominate. I voted for #3 and was very surprised at the bar graph that resulted: Palestinians 1068 votes ( 4 %) Palestinian militants 6902 votes (28 %) Israelis 16998 votes (68 %) It's really nice to be able to turn CNN off. Poor damn Yanquis... :) Ken. P.S. I am aware these things are not akin to normal market research -- which can be biased, but with better controls. -- It's a complex fate, being an American. -- Henry James
Market Solutions to Privacy Problems?
These kinds of ideas are fine in an abstract, make-believe world -- the Wired magazine/Negroponte realm. Robinson Crusoe versions of a wired world. Everyone on their own little island, everyone wired together. Deighton says, below: It's about offering its customers and prospects an identity that they find useful and are proud to wear. God, where's the barf bag. I can't read anymore. Sigh... I had hoped these kinds of wired business visionaries went the way of garden.com and John Perry Barlow. Or had been banished to the Island of the Direct Marketers to interview each other endlessly about getting discount options on coconuts if they would just show each other just a little bit more of their undies. Ken. -- And in a capitalist society Crime is the last vestige of liberty -- Killdozer, 1994 --- cut here --- Selling your personal data From HBS Working Knowledge Special to CNET News.com September 1, 2003 It's a startling idea: Instead of relying on regulators to protect our privacy against telemarketers, data miners and consumer companies, we should capitalize on the value of our personal information and get something in return. That is the idea put forward by John Deighton, a Harvard Business School professor, in a recent working paper titled Market Solutions to Privacy Problems? Just what would consumers get in return for their personal information? Money perhaps, or price discounts, better customer service, maybe products tailored specifically to their needs. His point: The information that is gathered about you by stores, researchers and credit agencies belongs to those companies, not to you. They in turn resell that information to others. So if our personal information is such an asset, shouldn't we benefit from our asset as well? Why shouldn't intelligent consumers sell their identities to stores they trust? And wouldn't those trusted stores in return be motivated to use that information wisely? The challenge is to give people a claim on their identities while protecting them from mistreatment, Deighton said. The solution is to create institutions that allow consumers to build and claim the value of their marketplace identities and that give producers the incentive to respect them. We asked Deighton to elaborate on his ideas. -- Q: You argue that market forces can do a better job than regulators in protecting privacy. In general, what is wrong with a regulatory approach? Isn't the telemarketing hotline working? A: Regulation solution routinely disappoints. Rules lag behind the cunning of those who want to exploit the limitations of the rules, particularly in the nimble digital world. The do-not-call list is the rich desserts of a thoroughly nasty industry. The saddest thing about it is that it will not put an end to uninvited outbound telemarketing. You'll still get calls from firms you deal with, including those you have no choice but to deal with such as local phone companies. Politicians will still be free to call. It took 20 years for politicians to act on their constituencies' widespread indignation. Don't count on regulation to solve anything in time or on budget. This is what makes a market-based way to deliver consumer privacy attractive. Markets have an advantage in that they set cunning against cunning and self-adjust to technological innovation. But the idea of offering the opportunity to buy privacy is hard to swallow--if privacy is something to which we are entitled, should our share of it depend on ability to pay? Inevitably it does. Whenever we claim privacy, we incur a cost in the form of a loss of valued identity. Our identity is an asset to the extent that others value access to us and use it in ways that benefit us. The idea of offering the opportunity to buy privacy is hard to swallow. The challenge is to give people a claim on their identities while protecting them from mistreatment. The solution is to create institutions that allow consumers to build and claim the value of their marketplace identities and that give producers the incentive to respect them. Privacy and identity then become opposing economic goods, and consumers can choose how much of each they would like to consume. There is some evidence to suggest that markets evolve toward this solution of their own accord, but regulation can accelerate the evolution. Q: Why is the distinction between privacy as a right and identity as an asset an important one to consider? A right, as I use it, is just a claim that takes precedence over merely contractual or customary claims. It draws its authority from established constitutional, religious or humanistic principles. In this sense, a right cannot be bought or sold. By contrast, an asset is a possession or quality with value in exchange as well as in use. It is property with a market price and opportunity cost. Rights are matters for regulation, assets are matters safely and usually better left to markets. Framed in these terms, here is
Re: Shades of Orwell: the BBC reports on a culture war
BBC News reports: They actually made people sing Beatles songs. That should be a scene from a Terry Gilliam movie... a creepy, Brazil-style setting at an airport... EXT. ESTABLISH SHOT Futuristic airport. Echoey footsteps can be heard as jets take off and land. INT. LONG WHITE-GLOWING HALL Main character, looking a little nervous, wanders down hall, making those footstep noises. He's looking for his room, checking a stub of paper against room numbers. In doing so, he passes numerous interrogation room doors, some wide open, some ajar... Inside them all are frightened foreigners, sitting across from British customs bureaucrats, and singing in various broken English accents... In the ton, where I was bon... the next door... Mother Mary comes to me! Speaking words of wisdom... walking down the hall to the next door... Let me take you down, coz I'm going to... Ken. -- George III was the symbol against which our Founders made a revolution now considered bright and glorious We must now realize that today's Establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution. -- William O. Douglas
Nine seconds to subsistence
ABC News ran the most stunningly disturbing graphic... A map of the NE continent, here... with a little second clock in the corner. With each second, a jurisdiction or two shut down. Off the grid. Michigan. Tick. Connecticut. Tick. Ohio. Tick. New Jersey. Tick. Wham -- Ontario, New York and Pennsylvania. Tock. Nine seconds... and tens of millions of people are on the edge of subsistence. Without any leadership any where. (Well, CBC Radio did a fine job, operating on backup generators.) So... how is this going to play out politically? Ken. -- Luxury employ'd a million of the poor, and odious pride a million more; Envy itself and Vanity were ministers of Industry; Their darling folly, and dress, That strange ridic'lous Vice, was made The very Wheel that turn'd the Trade. -- Bernard Mandeville The Grumbling Hive 1705
Re: Nine seconds to subsistence
Ravi wrote: funny. i live in NJ and had power throughout y'day and up till this moment, today. NYT has a pretty good graphic... http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20030815_blk_GRID/030815_na tGRID.pdf You can dispute their statement with their editor if you like. (Hell, everyone should dispute their statements to their editors.) Apparently the north and east of the state was affected. no power for a few hours is the edge of subsistence? No, but living in New Jersey is. Ken. -- Negative. We are not in the Eighth Dimension. We are over New Jersey. -- Buckaroo Bonzai
Re: Nine seconds to subsistence
Michael writes: guarantee -- we will hear that it was the environmentalists fault. We need more nukes, more coal Pass the damn energy bill. Okay. We're taking bets, here. Michael says it will be the enviros who take the rap -- probably via communications work by the White House (Bush has already said the power grid needs complete overhaul, which can only mean one thing with him). Ian is betting on Canada taking the blame -- as is CNN, you can't go wrong blaming Canada, that socialist bastion of Swedish-like bastards that it is. In Ontario, looks like Premier Ernie Eves is a good bet, according to pundits. (Myself, I think I caused it by sending too many emails to PEN-L the last 48 hours.) Any other bets? Ken. -- We cannot speak without incurring some risk, at least in theory; the only way of being absolutely safe is to say nothing. -- Isaiah Berlin
Re: Nine seconds to subsistence
I ain't talking about ultimate truths, here. As if Mr. Berlin had some lock on truth. :) I am talking about people (my community, say -- or better yet my family, which was stunned by the world around them last night and is still buzzing with questions) speaking their concerns. Mass media, as Walter Lippman pointed out, calms all questions. Or, rather, creates the questions. But I take your point seriously, Carrol. Asking the same questions (as per, say, CNN or Howard Stern) is safe, in the same way that conceptions of health have sometimes been defined as having the same diseases as your neighbor. Ken. -- We are all in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars. -- Oscar Wilde If you speak only to ask questions, speaking is safer than silence, which can always be construed as agreeing with the last speaker. Carrol
Re: Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve
Jim wrote: Hmm... how would Lenin score? Any guy allowing himself to be photographed scratching a cat, with his legs crossed, is flexible on your F-scale. Ken. -- The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements (as well as one's deepest failures) is a definite symptom of maturity. -- Paul Tillich
Unique tobacco co. sales channels -- part II
Ottawa back in court against tobacco firms By KIM LUNMAN Globe and Mail Update Aug. 14, 2003 OTTAWA The federal government resurrected its legal battle against Big Tobacco yesterday to recover $1.5-billion in taxes it claims it lost to a cigarette smuggling scam during the early 1990s. We allege [the tobacco companies] devised and implemented a scheme to make illicit profits out of the smuggling trade, said Gordon Bourgard, a Justice Department spokesman. The lawsuit, filed in Ontario Superior Court in Toronto, alleges that R.J. Reynolds and Japan Tobacco groups of companies were behind the scheme. The companies named as defendants include: R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco International Inc., JTI-Macdonald Corp., Northern Brands International Inc., Japan Tobacco Inc., JT International SA, JTI-Macdonald TM Corp., JT Canada LLC II Inc., JT Canada LLC Inc., JT International Holding B.V., JT International B.V. and JT International (BVI) Canada Inc. In a statement issued last night, JTI-Macdonald Corp. called the government's latest lawsuit ill conceived, noting that it had already spent $20-million on a similar claim in the United States that was dismissed. These worn-out allegations are being pumped up by an overzealous antitobacco lobby whose very existence depends on repeatedly attacking the Canadian tobacco industry. In December of 1999, Ottawa filed a lawsuit in the United States against RJR-Macdonald Inc., claiming $1-billion (U.S.) in lost tax revenue stemming from alleged cigarette smuggling by RJR affiliates. The U.S. Federal Court dismissed the suit, stating that U.S. courts can't be used to collect taxes for another country. A U.S. appeals court later declined to hear the case and a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected last November. The new lawsuit alleges that the defendants used the St. Regis Mohawk/Akwesasne reserve on the Canada-U.S. border as a funnel for the smuggling of RJR-Macdonald's tobacco products. The conspirators [RJR-Macdonald and RJR International] agreed and conspired together to implement an unlawful scheme, the purpose of which was to injure the plaintiff, deprive the plaintiff of excise and import tax revenues and force the rollback of Canadian excise taxes and duties. In the early 1990s, increased taxes in Canada doubled the price of cigarettes. Tobacco products cost half as much in the United States, creating a huge black market for the product. This is good news, said Garfield Mahood, executive director of the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, which has been lobbying the government to pursue the case. The health community is extremely pleased the Attorney-General has filed this lawsuit. In March, eight top tobacco executives with JTI-Macdonald Corp. (formerly known as RJR-Macdonald) were charged in Toronto with fraud and conspiracy after a four-year RCMP investigation into what has been described as an unholy alliance between the tobacco giant and smugglers. Ottawa launched the first lawsuit with fanfare in late 1999, alleging that the company ran a vast illegal smuggling operation designed to thwart federal efforts to deter Canadian teens from smoking. According to court documents, Ottawa alleges that the tobacco company and related firms began extensive smuggling operations in the early 1990s that involved shipping products to the United States and then smuggling them into Canada through the St. Regis Mohawk reservation. Mohawk territory -- the St. Regis reservation in New York state, the Akwesasne reserve on the Canadian side -- straddles the international border and the Quebec-Ontario boundary.
Re: Green
Jim writes: is there a color which represents democracy? I'd prefer democracy to anarchism (which precludes democracy). Democracy would be the color of the ruling cohort. Everyone is a democrat, even Hitler. Anarchism is okay... if you have the other two sides of the flag supporting it. Ken. -- Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow -- T.S. Elliot
Re: Reply to an Observer article by the Italian Refounded CP
Lou -- I hesitate to write... but I must state... I know you are smart... But these ambush letters in which you ask a question and copy it to a list... is not right. Private is private. Ken. -- Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be read once. -- Cyril Connolly
Re: Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve
Geez, Jim... This should be some kind of Lefty U. screening test. Ken. -- The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time. -- Friedrich Nietzsche Devine, James wrote: what kind of neurosis -- or psychosis -- do we leftists suffer from? self-importance? determinism? is that a neurosis? --ravi
Degrees of Separation Are Likely More Than 6, Especially in E-Mail Age
I always like to see the words urban myth used when talking about academics. So much of accepted stuff is legendary. The connectedness of the world via the Net was always lauded in academia and SEC prospective alike. While I think Stanley Milgram was brilliant, things ain't really that different after all. Even with email and ecommerce. Ken. -- The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. -- B.F. Skinner Degrees of Separation Are Likely More Than 6, Especially in E-Mail Age By KENNETH CHANG New York Times August 12, 2003 Socially, it may be a small world, but it's hard to get from here to there. In the current issue of the journal Science, researchers at Columbia University report the first large-scale experiment that supports the notion of six degrees of separation, that a short chain of acquaintances can be found between almost any two people in the world. But the same study finds that trying to contact a distant stranger via acquaintances is likely to fail. The six degrees of separation notion came from an experiment in 1967 by Dr. Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist, where a few hundred people tried to forward a letter to a particular person in Boston by sending it through people they knew personally. About a third of the letters reached their destination, after an average of six mailings. Dr. Milgram's experiment inspired a notion that the billions of people in the world, widely separated by geography and culture, actually form a close-knit network of social acquaintances, that you are a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of anyone anywhere. Until now, few scientists have tried to confirm Dr. Milgram's findings, which some scientists find unconvincing because of the small number of participants and other shortcomings of the experiment. The advent of the Internet enabled the researchers to more carefully explore the problem, which is part mathematical the structure of the network and part psychological what motivates people to participate or not, and how do people decide whom to send the message to? The answers are of interest both to computer scientists studying the ebb and flow of information on the Internet and sociologists studying the spread of gossip and cultural trends. In this global study, more than 60,000 people tried to get in touch with one of 18 people in 13 countries. The targets included a professor at Cornell University, a veterinarian in the Norwegian army and a police officer in Australia. Despite the ease of sending e-mail, the failure rate turned out much higher than what Dr. Milgram had found, possibly because many of the recipients ignored the messages as drips in a daily deluge of spam. Of the 24,613 e-mail chains that were started, a mere 384, or fewer than 2 percent, reached their targets. The successful chains arrived quickly, requiring only four steps to get there. The rest foundered when someone in the middle did not forward the e-mail. As in most social networks, it is not just a question of who knows whom, but who is willing to help. Just because President Bush is six degrees from me doesn't mean I'm going to be invited for dinner at the White House, said Dr. Duncan J. Watts, a professor of sociology at Columbia and senior author of the Science paper. You can ask a friend of a friend for a favor, but that's about it. Of the people who received an unsolicited e-mail message in the experiment, 37 percent sent it on, a relatively high participation rate. But with nearly two-thirds of the recipients not forwarding the message at all, the number of continuing e-mail chains dwindled quickly with each successive step. When the researchers asked people why they did not participate, less than 1 percent replied that they could not think of anyone to send the e-mail message to, suggesting that most simply did not want to be bothered. Thus, the researchers assumed that many more of the e-mail chains could have been completed. They calculated that half of them would have been finished in five steps or less if the first sender and the target lived in the same country, and seven steps otherwise. That sounds like we're pretty connected, Dr. Watts said. But the 98 percent attrition rate would suggest we're really not connected, Dr. Watts said. It all depends on what this attrition rate is. Dr. Mark Granovetter, a professor of sociology at Stanford who wrote an accompanying commentary in Science, said the similar findings of Dr. Watts and Dr. Milgram suggest the phenomenon of close links in social networks is pretty robust. Dr. Judith S. Kleinfeld, a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska who has described six degrees of separation as an academic equivalent of an urban myth, said the conclusion was not warranted. Instead of showing we live in a small world, it really shows the opposite, she said. Ninety-eight percent of people can't reach anybody. What do they conclude? `Hey, we're all
Re: US war against Iraq post-mortem
General Winter won three in Russia. But I wonder if all three were not really won by Russian feudalism. Feudalist culture (declining or not) had the singular ability to absorb massive blows to the communications infrastructure without collapsing. (That's why they had fiefdoms... and created knights...) Ken. -- Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis. -- R.W. Emerson
Re: Green
I wrote: But in this particular battle of definitions, I agree with all the Yoshies out there. They call anarchism what Mr. Marx would call democracy. I think it's useful to avoid mushing concepts together that way. I don't see that as mushing. I see it as evolving language. But we can call it Fred if it helps the discussion along. I would distinguish between democracy from below (which I see Yoshie and I as advocating) and democracy from above (parliamentarism). Then we are in agreement. Anarchism is a word that means little in a formal sense. :) god, I wish I were. Los Angeles and mediocre Catholic academia are not good places for activism. Nor do the responsibilities of fatherhood encourage activism (at least with my kid). Brother, I know. I meant no offense. In any event, I was talking about democracy as a basic political principle. We need such principles to guide our visions for what we want, along with our strategy and tactics. I don't see anarchists as providing those. As a theory of meaning, anarchists are weak. As a theory for action, they are exemplar. Long life to them, Ken.
Re: RIAA demonstrates scarcity maintenance business practice in an info economy
Judge Rejects Subpoenas in Music-Use Case Aug 8, 10:21 PM BOSTON (AP) - A federal judge rejected an attempt by the recording industry to uncover the names of Boston College and MIT students suspected of online music piracy. U.S. District Judge Joseph L. Tauro said Friday that under federal rules, the subpoenas, which were issued in Washington, cannot be served in Massachusetts. The two schools filed motions last month asking the judge to quash the subpoenas, which request names and other information for one Massachusetts Institute of Technology student and three BC students who allegedly obtained music using various screen names. The Washington-based Recording Industry Association of America issued a statement calling the ruling a minor procedural issue. The ruling does not change an undeniable fact - when individuals distribute music illegally online, they are not anonymous and service providers must reveal who they are, the RIAA said. Industry spokesman Jonathan Lamy declined to say whether the RIAA was planning to refile in Boston. Phone messages seeking comment from BC, MIT and the schools' attorney, Jeffrey Swope, were not immediately returned Friday evening. The subpoenas are part of the RIAA's nationwide effort to crack down on copyright violators using music sharing software online to distribute songs. This spring, a federal judge affirmed the constitutionality of a law allowing music companies to force Internet providers to release the names of suspected music pirates upon subpoena from any federal court clerk's office. The ruling has been appealed.
Re: Green
Jim writes about the classic Marx v Bakunin battle of anarchism and intelligent socialism. I can never disagree with Karl, because he was just too damn smart. Never took a position based on his own interests and fudged the rest. But in this particular battle of definitions, I agree with all the Yoshies out there. They call anarchism what Mr. Marx would call democracy. And, more than that, they are energized to do something. My experiences, locally, have always been positive in terms of political action. They do things. Democrats never do things... Ken. -- Nature, when she formed man for society, endowed him with an original desire to please, and an original aversion to offend his brethren. She taught him to feel pleasure in their favorable, and pain in their unfavorable regard. -- Adam Smith Theory of Moral Sentiment
Re: Reply to an Observer article by the Italian Refounded CP
Jesus... Lou... You okay? None the less, the letter to the editor Marxism is not sufficient for my family. Writing things doesn't work alone. Ken. -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Louis Proyect Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 1:56 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Reply to an Observer article by the Italian Refounded CP Kenneth Campbell wrote: Lou -- I hesitate to write... but I must state... I know you are smart... But these ambush letters in which you ask a question and copy it to a list... is not right. Private is private. I assume that this was meant as a private communication, but I will answer it publicly since Ken should no better than to start up with me again. When I threw him off Marxmail for making fun of Mine Doyran's sig file (but did not do this to Mike Friedman, whose sig file also alludes to his abd status), he demanded that all his posts be removed from Marxmail archives. It turns out that he had no legal legs to stand on, but when he threatened to complain to U. of Utah, we decided to accomodate him. But to this day, as far as I know, the same stupid messages with all their smart-alec baiting, are on mail-archive.com. Ken won't waste time demanding that his messages be removed from that site, because the owners know their intellectual property law and can't be bothered by such petty harrassment. So, go to hell, Ken. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Fast Company magazine
Fast Company's New Life in the Slow Lane By DAVID CARR New York Times August 11, 2003 Fast Company, a magazine that advocated a business revolution, was first published more than eight years ago on the verge of one. That revolution, fomented by digital technologies and soaring stock prices, came and went. But Fast Company remains, although in a much less exuberant and lucrative state. The task of making Fast Company relevant to slower times belongs to John A. Byrne, a writer for BusinessWeek for 18 years and the author or co-author of eight books on business, leadership and management, including the autobiography of Jack Welch, the former chief executive of General Electric. The lessons of those books, particularly Mr. Welch's, would have come in handy a couple of years ago at Fast Company. One of Mr. Welch's maxims suggests, Change before you have to. But Fast Company is clearly an enterprise that is staring down its own obsolescence. Since being bought in 2000 for an astounding $360 million by Gruner Jahr USA, the American publishing division owned by Bertelsmann, Fast Company has swerved into the ditch. The number of advertising pages it carried last year were a little more than a third of the 2000 total. Newsstand sales a good indicator of salience in the marketplace of ideas are half of what they were in 2000. The jargon that drove the magazine the brand of you and social capitalist seems as quaint and beside the point as the Pets.com sock puppet. Meeting with his staff last week in the Midtown Manhattan offices where Fast Company moved recently from Boston, Mr. Byrne betrays no panic as he methodically plans the October issue. The staff of 60, down from a high of 85 who once mixed Fast Company's brand of Kool-Aid, is hard at work making sure they write about a future that includes their magazine. There will be a package on ideas everything from the choreographer Twyla Tharp on creativity to Tom Peters on leadership an approach that is very new economy and old Fast Company. Competing for pride of place on the cover is an article rigorously examining the performance of five chief executives, which reflects old economy concerns and Fast Company's new pragmatism. Before a concept is chosen for the cover, there is consumer testing, something that never happened during the boom. But the time when Fast Company, founded in 1995 by Alan M. Webber and William C. Taylor, both former editors of The Harvard Business Review, simply dished up the gospel to a waiting cult of hungry readers is gone. There was a lot of cheerleading that went on at this magazine, but it was hardly alone in that it was endemic to the times, Mr. Byrne said. My role is to reinvent the magazine for a different time. The mission and the vision are the same, but the execution has to be remarkably different. Since arriving in April, Mr. Byrne has moved to remake Fast Company. Instead of a kind of business service magazine that hyperventilated new approaches to business sometimes innovative and sometimes kooky, like the article How Is Your Company Like a Giant Hairball? he is creating a magazine that shows rather than tells, using narratives about existing companies with built-in lessons for making a go of it in conflicted times. Fast Company is a magazine of ideas to help people work smarter and lead better, he said. The front of the magazine has been redesigned with an emphasis on clear-headed articles that reflect current business realities. We want to do this in a way that is more irreverent and fun, more edgy than Forbes, Fortune or BusinessWeek are, he said. The August issue of Fast Company is a sobering look at the current age. In one article, Hewlett-Packard is shown duking it out with I.B.M. and E.D.S. for a contract to service the informational needs of Procter Gamble. Another offers an update on the women who blew the whistles at Enron. And a third profiles two executives who glued their companies back together after they were obliterated in the Sept. 11 attacks. It is not sexy, it is not fun, and it is not fast. But at a time when Fortune magazine, Time Inc.'s once red-hot business publication, keynotes its feature about the 25 Most Powerful People in Business by showing, once again, Warren E. Buffett and Bill Gates on its cover, it is clear that Fast Company is not the only business magazine casting about for the next new thing. There was a time when the business magazine field was so profitable that any publishing company without one seemed lost. When Daniel B. Brewster Jr., chief executive of Gruner Jahr USA, bought Fast Company from Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of The Daily News and U.S. News World Report, he was ridiculed for paying so much for a magazine that many saw as a hothouse flower of the new economy. But he insisted at the time that the company's need to grow and diversify made for a great fit, and that the price was more than fair. Now, expectations are smaller. Fast Company made $20
Re: Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve
Jim writes: what kind of neurosis -- or psychosis -- do we leftists suffer from? I thought Mr. Coyle had the funniest response to that... What Should We Do? Organize to free Mumia. (He caveated his comment, as do I.) If there is a leftie syndrome, it's the decentralization of the whole body. Over-focus on your own particular concern. The right is luckier in that they have a small group of people calling the shots. The executive board is a good business tool. I think that is why Lenin wanted to model something after it (in times of real revolution) -- one executive command against the other. Works in war. Ken.
French ministry: 3,000 dead of heat-related causes
About 3,000 die of heat-related causes in France Associated Press August 14 2003 About 3,000 people have died in France of heat-related causes since abnormally high temperatures swept across the country about two weeks ago, the health ministry said Thursday. The number of deaths linked directly or indirectly to the heat ... can be estimated at around 3,000 for the whole of France, the ministry said in a statement. Earlier Thursday, Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei acknowledged the blistering heat wave has caused a veritable epidemic of death in France, but he did not give figures. Morgues and funeral directors have reported skyrocketing demand for their services since the heat wave took hold. General Funeral Services, France's largest undertaker, said it handled some 3,230 deaths from Aug. 4-10, compared to 2,300 on an average week in the year a 37 per cent jump. Many people died while locked inside apartments, raising concerns about hygiene and odour. One police officers union in Paris called on the government to deploy the army to help retrieve bodies. The ministry said its estimate was partly drawn from studying deaths in 23 Paris region hospitals from July 25-Aug. 12 and from information provided by General Funeral Services. Mr. Mattei, in an interview with France-Inter radio earlier Thursday, said: We can now state what's happening to us is a veritable epidemic. Mr. Mattei explained the high rate of death was a result of an exceptional heat wave combined with longer life expectancy. He said older people were at higher risk of dying from heat-related causes. On Wednesday, days after the first complaints accusing the government of a slow response to heat-related deaths, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin asked the Paris region to launch an emergency hospital plan to provide for a massive influx of patients. Mr. Mattei also acknowledged difficulties for the government in managing the surge in temperatures, but said that hospital staffers were performing in an exemplary manner in response. The government carried out the responses that were needed as soon as the first cases of heat-related death appeared about a week ago, Mr. Mattei said. We didn't just remain inactive, he said. Paris City Hall said Wednesday it had taken extra measures to ensure that city-run funeral homes would remain open to bury bodies on Friday, a holiday in France, and recall more than 30 municipal workers from vacation. To protect the elderly, the city's 13 retirement homes bought extra fans and atomizers to keep their residents cool in a country where air conditioning is not widespread. Record-high temperatures have been set in numerous cities across France, and the capital has baked under heat at or exceeding 37 C. The average August temperature in Paris, which has warm but not torrid summers, is 24 C.
Buffett joins team Terminator
Buffett joins team Terminator By BARRIE McKENNA From Thursday's Globe and Mail Aug. 14, 2003 Washington Decried by pundits as a political circus, the colourful race to recall California Governor Gray Davis is suddenly attracting some big-time talent. U.S. President George W. Bush is scheduled to visit the state today. Mr. Davis is getting advice from former president Bill Clinton. And gubernatorial hopeful Arnold Schwarzenegger has added billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett to his campaign as a financial adviser. I have known Arnold for years and know he'll be a great governor, Mr. Buffett said yesterday. It is critical to the rest of the nation that California's economic crisis be solved, and I think Arnold will get that job done. That Mr. Schwarzenegger could attract the likes of Mr. Buffett to his campaign is the latest sign of just how serious the recall race has become. He is the greatest investor ever my mentor and my hero, Mr. Schwarzenegger said of Mr. Buffett in a statement. According to Schwarzenegger spokesman Sean Walsh, Mr. Buffett's role will be to put together a team of economists and business leaders to address the issues facing California. Until now, Mr. Buffett has been a committed Democrat. Mr. Schwarzenegger, the hulking Austrian star of movies such as The Terminator and Twins, is running as a Republican. If Warren Buffett thinks Arnold Schwarzenegger has the chops to run the world's sixth-largest economy, I would take that as quite an endorsement, political analyst Bill Whalen of Stanford University's Hoover Institution told The Wall Street Journal. California, traditionally a Democratic stronghold, is the most important piece of political turf in the United States. And many Republicans apparently see a golden opportunity to grab it back. Mr. Bush, whose visit to California today is to raise funds for his re-election, said even he's watching the unusual political spectacle unfolding in the most populous U.S. state. Speaking to reporters at his Texas ranch yesterday, Mr. Bush called the wacky campaign a fascinating bit of political drama but gave no indication that he intends to wade into the matter on behalf of any candidate. However, he made a point of saying that Mr. Schwarzenegger would make a good governor. I'm going [to California] to campaign for George W., the President said. However, some Democrats have speculated that the White House might be working behind the scenes to unseat the increasingly unpopular Mr. Davis, whose reputation has been tarred by the state's record budget deficit. I have believed from Day 1 that the White House is involved, long-time Davis adviser Garry South said. No one can convince me that if Karl Rove did not want it to happen that he couldn't call off the dogs, he said, referring to Mr. Bush's political adviser. Adding to the intrigue, Republican Congressman David Dreier, who co-chaired Mr. Bush's 2000 California campaign, recently joined the Schwarzenegger camp. But he has denied there is any White House plot afoot. I'd been on the phone with Karl Rove to encourage the President to stay out of it, Mr. Dreier said. The advice I've been giving is that they should not endorse, and should not get involved. This is an issue for Californians. Not to be outdone, Mr. Davis reportedly has the help of Mr. Clinton, who narrowly avoided being forced out of office himself by an impeachment vote. Close associates of Mr. Clinton told The New York Times this week that he has been drawn to Mr. Davis's plight by their similar and disturbing political predicaments. Mr. Clinton met privately with Mr. Davis and his wife, Sharon, during a union convention in Chicago last week, and offered a political tutorial on how Mr. Davis should beat back the drive to oust him. (Points 1, 2 and 3: Act gubernatorial; make sure the fight is about the recall initiative and not about Mr. Davis; don't get baited by the media into a fight with Mr. Schwarzenegger, according to one participant.) The game plan Mr. Clinton laid out, one of his associates noted with some amusement, is strikingly similar to the one he employed to survive impeachment. You continue to do the job, and you continue to tell people that you are doing the job,' Mr. Clinton told Mr. Davis, according to a person who attended the meeting. You've got to keep your focus on being governor, no matter what the political pressure. With reports from AP, NYT
Soldiers
Jim wrote about Stan Goff... His son is serving. Reminds me: The other day, I got off the 401 Highway at a PetroCan station and I couldn't find the wallet right away. I did the Go ahead thing absently to the other person. It was someone in combat clothes. Little beret and all that. He was very polite. And I think he thought I gave him right of way because of his uniform. I was not going to convince otherwise. I have left Toronto for Kingston, Ontario, at Queen's University, to study law. My daughters see the soldiers at Canada's Royal Military College. And I take them often to the hill upon which sits Fort Henry, which was built to stop US invasion in 1812 and in prep for the US Civil War. I see the women and men who bicycle around there every day. I am proud of them, at the RMC, because they might be my girls. And I want my kids to be proud of them, too. To grow up to be healthy and prepared and willing to help with what their government tells them. _They_ are not the problem. Nor are your soldiers, down there. Ken. -- Reminds me: http://www.takebackthemedia.com/onearmy.html
Re: Green
Is this necessary? On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 06:05:38PM -0400, Kenneth Campbell wrote: If you can't sell it... well... languish in the warehouse with Lou's crew. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 I was referring to Lou Rukyser. God I hate that guy, and his whole damn warehouse. Sorry for the confusion. Ken. -- I was referring to Lou Rukyser. God I hate that guy, and his whole damn warehouse. Sorry for the confusion. -- Kenneth Campbell
Re: Green
Mike wrote: The State is the governmental expression of class rule. Fair enough. I've heard many descriptions of what the state is. That's a workable one. I've never met anyone--anarchists included--who argued that that State could be abolished by decree. I agree with that. (In terms of rational anarchists.) All socialists worth their salt (and most anarchists worth their salt are socialists e.g. Chomsky) realize that the State cannot be replaced with self-government until classes have ceased to exist. I agree with that. Classes cannot die out until the social revolution is made and that can't be done without its being an act of the class workers themselves. That is a real long range project. I think where the shadow falls between anarchists and socialists has been the length of time in making that happen. And how. Anarchists are usually too quick on the draw. Socialists are usually too slow. As long as they play nice and have nap time all will be well. Ken. P.S. Mike B) is about as cheerful a proponent of his position as I have ever met. (His future is so bright he has to wear B) shades.) Cheerful counts, too. Just like hope counts. You have to sell it. If you can't sell it... well... languish in the warehouse with Lou's crew.
Re: Reply to an Observer article by the Italian Refounded CP
Doug wrote: It's always the person responding to the irritable grouch that gets the reprimand, isn't it? Louie wrote: Doug, when did you take Jerry Levy's place on PEN-L? It amazes me that so little has changed. I knew Jerry Levy online 6-7 years ago, back when I disappeared from leftie lists to raise some kids and money. Yet, here it all is. Unchanged. Same debate points. After 6-7 years! I mean, even ants and forest critters would have eaten a dead body by now... Ken. -- The Olden Days, alas, are turned to clay. -- Ishtar, at the Deluge
Green
INTRO: I knew Bob Hunter fairly well in a previous incarnation. Bob co-founded Greenpeace. His column appeared weekly. He wrote often about global warming. It was humorous to see his winter columns about global warming run during some terrible winter storms -- humorous to read the mail responses that called him stupid. As if localized weather indicated a trend. But this kind of trend (below) is noteworthy. I don't see the reactionary types (either left or right) arguing about the enviro stuff at the moment. While I do think the planet is much more powerful than humanity, perhaps we do make some effect. Maybe Ian is right in his prognostication... the next unifying revolutionary force will be green, not red. Everyone is immediately interested. After all... Everyone talks about the weather... Even the 90+% of the North American populace that is already proletarian. Ken. -- Education is a system of imposed ignorance. -- Noam Chomsky --- cut here --- Heat blamed for dozens of deaths across Europe Associated Press Monday, Aug. 11, 2003 Paris About 50 people have died of heat-related illnesses in the Paris region in the past few days, the head of France's emergency physicians' association says. Patrick Pelloux, in an interview Sunday with TF1 television, criticized France's surgeon-general for characterizing the deaths over the previous four days as natural. They dare to talk about natural deaths I absolutely do not agree, he said. Health Ministry spokesman Mathieu Monnet said officials did not have figures on deaths related to the heat that has scorched France and other parts of Europe over the past week. Paris has baked under temperatures at or exceeding 37 degrees. Temperatures across Europe continues relentlessly hot, with Britain sweltering through its hottest day on record Sunday and Alpine glaciers melting. The heat and drought-driven fires across the continent prompted Pope John Paul II to urge people to pray for rain. The French ministry conceded there had been a noticeable increase in hospital visits by the aged. Hospitals in the Paris region have been worst affected most and have increased the number of beds for urgent cases. But the ministry also appeared to play down suggestions of a large number of heat-related deaths, saying emergency services have not witnessed a massive flood of cases. Difficulties encountered are comparable to previous years, it said in a statement. Other experts disagreed. Jean-Louis San Marco, president of the National Health Prevention and Education Institute, said in a newspaper interview that more must be done. We are facing a human drama, carnage the like of which doubtless has never been seen in France, Mr. Marco said in Monday's Le Parisien. Yet the impression given is of radio silence. It makes me want to scream. Elderly people are dying of heat, but indifference is the order of the day because theirs are clandestine, invisible deaths. Yet I assure you these are not natural deaths, as is said, and in many cases are avoidable. The leader of the opposition Socialist Party, Franois Hollande, joined the chorus of criticism, accusing the government of being passive and inert. The government was meeting Monday with the French power giant EDF to assess the consequences on electricity production. Rising river temperatures are affecting power plants that use water and forcing nuclear plants to scale back output. Nicole Fontaine, the government's industry minister, urged people to cut power use, because France most likely will not be able to depend on European neighbours in case of an energy shortage. All of Europe has been hit by the heat wave and the drought, and this limits available energy resources, she said. About 40 people across Europe are officially said to have died in the heat wave that has fanned forest fires, destroyed livestock and set record temperatures in many cities. A record high for overnight temperatures in Paris was set Sunday into Monday, when the fell to only 25.5 degrees, according to Mto France, the national weather service. The previous record was 24, set in 1976. Dominique Escale of Mto France said temperatures throughout France were expected to drop by midweek, but would remain well above average. Forecasters predict a high of 29 degrees Celsius for Thursday in the French capital. In Britain, the heat is also making life just miserable. You can't get any respite from it, Londoner Ranald Davidson said. The British national weather service recorded a reading of 37.9 degrees Celsius at Heathrow Airport, outside a parched and baking London, and 38.1 degrees at Gravesend in southern England. Northern parts of the country were cooler, and torrential rain created problems in North Yorkshire. Germans, too, have had record heat. In the Bavarian city of Roth, the temperature hit nearly 40.6 on Saturday, beating the previous record of 40 degrees, also in Bavaria and set in 1983. Pope John Paul II made his
Re: Green
Yoshie wrote: I'd prefer Red, Black, and Green together (the colors of revolutionary socialism, anarchism, and environmentalism), also the colors of the pan-African Black Liberation Flag. Sounds good to me. I adopt that as my flag. But don't tell anyone I agree with you. I would hate to be labeled. Ken. -- Religion is a belief in a Supreme Being; Science is a belief in a Supreme Generalization. -- Charles H. Fort Wild Talents
Fragile
Man o man... Wild scenes inside the gold mine. Thank god for car batteries. I never would have been able to find out anything. (Must keep supply of batteries in house... Must keep supply of batteries in house... Must keep supply of batteries in house...) Seriously, though, this system is as fragile as butterfly wings. Rich beyond belief... and helplessly weak. People were fine, milling around, commenting on never having seen so many stars... but the authorities were absolutely useless. If the mobile phone networks didn't survive, and we didn't have the ability to pool information... it would have been incredibly lonely out there. Ken. -- Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything. -- Henri Poincare
