Re: [PEN-L:10200] Re: Letter from Chief Sealth 1855

[Dennis Grammenos]

On Sun, 18 May 1997, Michael Perelman wrote:

> I think that I recall hearing that this letter was created by a fairly
> modern writer rather than from Chief Seattle.

True!:-)
Funny how things like that take on a life of their own, though!


Regards,
Dennis Grammenos

 _
| Dennis Grammenos  [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
| Departments of Geography &  |
| Russian and East European Studies   |
| University of IllinoisPhone: (217) 333-1880 |
| Urbana, IL 61801  Fax:   (217) 244-1785 |
|_|

[PEN-L:10203] Re: Letter from Chief Sealth 1855

[HANLY]

The Chief Seattle speech is a hoax. Chief Seattle never wrote a letter to
Pierce at all. He did make a speech on the Port Elliot Treaty of 1855, entitled
"The Indian's Night Promises to be Dark". It was tranlated by Dr. Henry Smith
and is to be found in " INDIAN ORATORY: FAMOUS SPEECHES BY NOTED INDIAN
CHIEFTAINS( Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1971 Ppp. 118-122). The famous
environmental speech was written by Ted Perry, a screen writer, for a film
called HOME. The words were written in 1971-72. Perry used the name of
CHief Seattle in the body of the text, and he did use the original speech as a
model. Perry expected to be given credit for the text but he wasn't as the
producers thought it would sound more authentic if credit were not given.
The film was shown on national tv in the seventies and the speech became
a favorite for quotation among environmentalists.
A short discussion of the matter can be found in an article by the well-known
environmentalist J. Baird Callicot "American Indian Land Wisdom? Sorting Out
the Issues, JOURNAL OF FOREST HISTORY 33 no 1 (January 1989: pp. 35-42)
Some examples of differences between Perry and Chief Seattle:
Perry inserts into the speech mid twentieth century pop
ecology statements entirely lacking in Seattle's speech.Also,
Seattle said: "Your God loves your people and hates mine... The white
man's God cannot love his red children.."
Perry said: "Our God is the same God... He is the God of man, and His
compassion is equal for the red man and the white. " 
Perry by the way was not aboriginal.
  Cheers, Ken Hanly

[PEN-L:10202] Re: Tavis, you're *still* wrong

[HANLY]

Just a few local Canadian notes on Elaine's history of brewing.
Saskatchewan has had a tradition of government involvement in brewing.
(Compared to the US, Canada has also had a tradition of provincial government
 monopoly
marketing for hard liquor and for beer. This is perhaps partly based upon
the old Christian CCF philosophy that if you can't stamp out sin at least
you can socialise the profits of it. However in many provinces women were not
allowed in beer parlours until just a few decades ago, then later they were
segregated for a while in many provinces.
 Liquor marts did not display liquor but prices were marked on a
wall and you filled out slips for the clerk to fill the orders. Some local
muncipalities in Manitoba are still dry and do not allow liquor sales of
any type.) Saskatchewan
has had government owned and worker owned breweries. I believe that the
government still has an interest in one Saskatoon brewery. During one period
the government brews were not very popular. The government solved this problem
through socialist planning. Each brewer was given a quota and hotels had
to purchase so much a percentage of beer from each brewer. At the end of
the month if you went in many hotels all you could get was government brew
as hotels had to sell off their government brewery quota.
A strange phenomenon I have noticed in Canada is that large brewers
such as Labatt's, Carling-Okeefe's, and Molson often get licences to brew
brand name foreign beers and then turn them into something almost identical
to popular Canadian beers. This has been done with Carlsberg, Lowenbrau,
and Budweiser. Only Budweiser seems to have had any success. As soon as
the licensed product is available the imported Carlsberg, Lowenbrau, etc.
disappears from the liquor stores. I expect this is because they don't want
ayone to compare the original with the licenced product.
   Cheers, Ken Hanly

[PEN-L:10201] US profitability

[Doug Henwood]

Bill Burgess, Tom Walker, and others were talking about profitability. I
just looked at the profits/GDP series for a piece in LBO comparing the
present expansion with previous postwar US expansions. Not to give it all
away before it even reaches subscribers, I'll say that on most indicators,
the 1991- upswing is middling-to-poor - except profits, which have been in
an uptrend (as a % of GDP) since the early 1980s. Nonres fixed investment,
though, isn't terrific, and more of it seems to be done by financial firms,
whose contribution to human welfare is open to challenge.

There haven't been any capital stock figures since 1994's, so it's
impossible to do profits/K estimates. But that series follows a similar
pattern - a decline from the early 50s into the early 80s, and a ragged
uptrend since.

Doug

--

Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
250 W 85 St
New York NY 10024-3217 USA
+1-212-874-4020 voice  +1-212-874-3137 fax
email: 
web: 

[PEN-L:10200] Re: Letter from Chief Sealth 1855

[Michael Perelman]

I think that I recall hearing that this letter was created by a fairly
modern writer rather than from Chief Seattle.

James Michael Craven wrote:
> 
> Letter from Chief Sealth to President Franklin Pierce--1855
> 
> " The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our
> land. How can you buy or sell the sky--the warmth of the land. The
> idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or
> the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us. Every part of
> this earth is sacred to my people.
> 
> We know that the White Man does not understand our ways. One portion
> of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who
> comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The
> earth is not his brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it
> he moves on. He leaves his father's graves and his children's
> birthright is forgotten.
> 
> There is no quiet place in the White Man's cities. No place to hear
> the leaves of spring or the rustle of insect wings. But perhaps
> because I am savage and do not understand--the clatter only seems to
> insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man[sic] cannot hear
> the lonely cry of the whipoorwill or the arguments of a frog around
> the pond at night.
> 
> The Whites too, shall pass--perhaps sooner than other tribes.
> Continue to contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in
> your own waste. When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses
> tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many
> men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where
> is the thicket. Gone. Where is the eagle. Gone. And what is it to say
> goodbye to the swift and the hunt. The end of living and the
> beginning of survival. "
> 
>Chief Sealth 1855
> 
> *--*
> *  James Craven * " For those who have fought for it,  *
> *  Dept of Economics*  freedom has a taste the protected   *
> *  Clark College*  will never know."   *
> *  1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. *Otto von Bismark  *
> *  Vancouver, Wa. 98663 *  *
> *  (360) 992-2283   *  *
> *  [EMAIL PROTECTED]*  *
> * MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINION *

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
 
Tel. 916-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:10199] Letter from Chief Sealth 1855

[James Michael Craven]

Letter from Chief Sealth to President Franklin Pierce--1855

" The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our 
land. How can you buy or sell the sky--the warmth of the land. The 
idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or 
the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us. Every part of 
this earth is sacred to my people.

We know that the White Man does not understand our ways. One portion 
of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who 
comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The 
earth is not his brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it 
he moves on. He leaves his father's graves and his children's 
birthright is forgotten.

There is no quiet place in the White Man's cities. No place to hear 
the leaves of spring or the rustle of insect wings. But perhaps 
because I am savage and do not understand--the clatter only seems to 
insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man[sic] cannot hear 
the lonely cry of the whipoorwill or the arguments of a frog around 
the pond at night.

The Whites too, shall pass--perhaps sooner than other tribes. 
Continue to contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in 
your own waste. When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses 
tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many 
men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where 
is the thicket. Gone. Where is the eagle. Gone. And what is it to say 
goodbye to the swift and the hunt. The end of living and the 
beginning of survival. "

   Chief Sealth 1855   

*--*
*  James Craven * " For those who have fought for it,  * 
*  Dept of Economics*  freedom has a taste the protected   *  
*  Clark College*  will never know."   *  
*  1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. *Otto von Bismark  *  
*  Vancouver, Wa. 98663 *  *
*  (360) 992-2283   *  *
*  [EMAIL PROTECTED]*  *
* MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINION * 

[PEN-L:10198] Re: The EU: against wishful thinking

[Tom Walker]

In reply to my comments, Bill Burgess wrote,

>If we agree that nation states are still important, isn't it important
>to also identify exactly who has power in them, and specifically whether
>domestic or foreign capital predominates? 

Yes, it's important to identify who has power but, since the exercise of
power will have different consequences in different situations, I don't see
the need -- or even in many cases the feasibility -- for exact calculation
of the domesticity or otherwise of capital. At any rate, I'd be hard pressed
to see Conrad Black as somehow more benign that, say, the Body Shop just
because he's Canadian, eh?

>Not long waves, but the notion that there are longish periods of growth
>and then stagnation, and that the shift from one to the other is the
>backdrop for increased capitalist "aggression" (rather than growth in
>foreign penetration, globalized production, etc.)

I do accept the notion of longish periods of growth and stagnation -- even
long waves -- with the qualification that the factors contributing to any
particular period of growth or decline are unique to that period and only
identifiable after the fact. In other words, I think long waves or periods
have enormous descriptive and heuristic value and are virtually worthless
for prediction. 

What follows should not be construed as an argument against anything Bill
said, but as more general thoughts on the issue of productivity raised by
Bill's comments and earlier by Dean Baker's article.

More important than whether productivity growth and/or real profits have
stagnated or boomed is the fact that "productivity" has come to mean
something different. Instead of being seen as an index of performance,
productivity growth has come to be seen as a litmus test for policy
prescription -- perhaps the ultimate litmus test. It may seem like a subtle
difference, but it's the difference between keeping score and gatekeeping.
(A parallel is the controversy over the CPI, or for that matter the GDP).

What gets especially lost in this shift from index to litmus test is any
acknowledgement that "productivity growth" is a somewhat arbitrary
measurement of relationships that ultimately can't be measured (because the
changes are qualitative as well as quantitative). The fact that the
measurement may show stable trends over a long period of time is no
guarantee that "the same thing" is being measured over the course of that
period.

Still on the topic of productivity growth, I'm looking at two documents: one
a 1962 pamphlet from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; the other a newspaper
column written last month by Fraser Institute economist Michael Walker (the
Fraser is the local "free enterprise" think tank). The notion of
"productivity" plays a central role in both documents. And the view of
productivity hasn't changed one iota in 35 years. So much for the "neo" in
neo-liberalism. 

For both authors, increases in productivity result from actions by
capitalists (investment in new technology) and passivity by workers (not
resisting the new technology, refraining from demanding too great a share of
the proceeds). At most, raising productivity requires an "active passivity"
from workers: adapting to the new technology, retraining to acquire the
appropriate skills.
 
Such a view of productivity would be laughable, if it wasn't for the fact
that it goes largely uncontested by the left. The left generally shares a
reified view of productivity in which measures of output per worker hour can
be taken as an index of productivity and in which "class struggle" at the
point of production is reflected in worker resistance to automation and
speed-up.

I'm afraid that factoring in a "whole whack of unproductive labour" does
nothing to challenge the ideological equation of capital=active,
worker=passive. And I'm guessing that by unproductive, Mosely is referring
to the production of surplus value. Under such a distinction, a teacher
would be unproductive if employed in the public education system yet
productive if employed by a profit-oriented private academy.

I suspect that what is at the heart of the reification of productivity, is a
unexamined belief that "science and technology" is some kind of eternal,
self-perpetuating realm that acts on production processes without itself
being acted upon. 'Belief' is probably too strong a word for what might
better be described as avoidance of an issue that's exceedingly ambiguous.

The importance of passivity and of an unmoved mover in the reified notion of
productivity should be a more than sufficient clue that we're dealing with
theological positions and not empirical analysis. Not only is it theology,
it's _bad_ theology. Perhaps it would be more useful to counter bad theology
with better theology than to try to answer it with more refined empirical
analysis.


Regards, 

Tom Walker
^^
knoW Ware Communications  |
Vancouver, B.C., CANADA   |  "Only in

[PEN-L:10197] Re: The EU: against wishful thinking

[Bill Burgess]

On Sat, 17 May 1997, Tom Walker wrote (about my comments about Sid S's
comments):

> At any rate, I think it's too easy to confuse terms like
"internationalism"
> and "nationalism" as if they were opposites or alternatives. I don't see any
> inconsistency in strategically pursuing a "commitment to internationalism"
> by acting within the context of national policies and national
> organizations. Specifically, on the issue of the regulating trade and
> investment, I don't see any alternative at the present time. This is how it
> was under "good old capitalism" and it's really no different now.
> 
I accept that I may have posed the nationalism\internationalism issue a
little too starkly. I agree we have to work in national contexts and
organizations, and don't think I suggested otherwise.

> What I see Sid as arguing against is the kind of doomsday/pollyanna scenario
> that tells everyone to abandon hope of seeking more progressive (or less
> regressive) policies from national governments because, after all, "their
> hands are tied, all the power is now global". The complement is a kind of
> wishful thinking that the emerging supra-national institutions of capitalism
> can somehow be made more responsive to working class needs, if only we'd
> stop diddling around at the national level. And that's such an abstract
> position, I can't even imagine what it could mean practically -- meditation?
> levitation?
> 
I agree completely with this. My point is that too often 'globalization',
foreign capital, etc. are too often posed as the big problem, and so
distract from the struggle for reforms at home. If the big problem is at
home (as I tried to show earlier for Canada using data on foreign control)
then I think an emphasis on nationalist measures is misplaced. My
understanding was that Sid S. saw such measures as more generally
appropriate (at least in part) because one of main ways that capitalism
has changed is a qualitative rise in foreign penetration of national
economies. I apologise if this was a false characterization. 

> ...I'm not saying the supra-national institutions are impervious to
pressure,> just that the _main_ way to put pressure on them is to put pressure on the
> national governments that accede to them. 

And an excellent example is the French rail strikes a few months ago,
that put out a strong message that if workers in Europe are pushed too
hard they still have the capacity to fight back. 
 
By the way, remember the good old
> days when we could use the word "imperialism" and even "U.S. imperialism"
> with impunity?" I remember tortured debates on the left about what the
> nature of the Canadian state was -- whether Canada was a "sub-imperialist
> power" or a "colonized nation", whether or not to lend comfort to "petit
> bourgeois nationalism", etc. As an American draft dodger, the arguments
> seemed sort of academic to me, mainly because I couldn't see any point to
> answering such questions "decisively". Even the "nation-state" is to some
> degree an abstraction. 

If we agree that nation states are still important, isn't it important
to also identify exactly who has power in them, and specifically whether
domestic or foreign capital predominates? 
>
> Bill Burgess also asked,
> 
> >What do you see as the main difference? Is it not that in the golden age
> >Capital could afford some concessions whereas since about the mid 1970s
> >labour productivity growth and real profitability have been stagnant, and
> >so Capital has had to become more aggressive ("brutal", as Bill R. put
> >it)?
> 
> This is a provocative way of putting the question -- that capital can no
> longer "afford" keynesian welfare state concessions. I suspect that long
> waves are lurking somewhere in the background of this question and that the
> stagnant labour productivity growth and real profitability have as much to
> do with Ernest Mandel as they do with time series data (Doug Henwood are you
> there?).

Not long waves, but the notion that there are longish periods of growth
and then stagnation, and that the shift from one to the other is the
backdrop for increased capitalist "aggression" (rather than growth in foreign
penetration, globalized production, etc.)

 > 
> On Monday, May 12, Jim Devine posted an analysis from Dean Baker of the
> Economic Policy Institute talking about the profit boom and I quote the
> first two paragraphs:
> 
> >Corporate profit rates reached a new peak in 1996 and are now at their
> >highest level since these data were first collected in 1959. The Bureau of
> >Economic Analysis reports that the before-tax profit rate rose to 11.39%
> >last year, up from 10.78% in 1995, and the after-tax rate rose to 7.57%, up
> >from 7.01%. The previous peak rate for before-tax profits was 11.29% in
> >1966, and the previous peak for after-tax profits was 7.03% in 1994. 
> >
> >The rise in profit rates is even more dramatic when compared to the
> >profit peak of the last business cycle in 1988. In th

[PEN-L:10196] LABOUR: Separate Corporate Standards Not The Answer, Experts Say (fwd)

[D Shniad]

Forwarded message:
Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 17:40:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jagdish Parikh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], union-d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: LABOUR: Separate Corporate Standards Not The Answer, Experts Say

/* Written  4:18 PM  May 17, 1997 by newsdesk in igc:ips.english */
/* -- "LABOUR: Separate Corporate Standard" -- */
   Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
  Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

  *** 14-May-97 ***

Title: LABOUR: Separate Corporate Standards Not The Answer, Experts Say

by Yvette Collymore

WASHINGTON, May 14 (IPS) - The move by some manufacturer and
consumer groups to develop special labels and codes of conduct for
the production of internationally traded goods will not protect
the rights of all workers and will be difficult to enforce,
according to labour experts.

While these initiatives may be well-meaning, there remains no
system to ensure that corporations which are fuelling the
integration of the global economy respect international labour
rights, says the Director-General of the International Labour
Organisation (ILO).

Michel Hansenne, the chief of the Geneva-based U.N. agency, is
here promoting his proposal for a ''global social label'' to tag
goods that meet core labour standards, including the abolition of
forced and child labour, freedom of association, and collective
bargaining.

While consistent with the ILO's own objectives, existing
initiatives ''raise a number of questions,'' according to
Hansenne. ''One wonders, for example, whether a system of self-
enforcement can be said to offer all the guarantees that one would
expect.''

For one thing, Hansenne told a Congressional forum Wednesday,
the initiatives would likely protect only workers in export
industries.

In many developing countries, the percentage of workers dealing
with export goods is ''very small,'' compared to that of workers
in domestic production. ''That's why we have to federate our
efforts to make sure all workers are protected,'' he told U.S.
government, business, and labour representatives at a public
policy forum.

As grassroots campaigns focus attention on sweatshops, child
labour, forced labour, and environmental accidents, corporations
and citizens' groups are proposing their own labour and
environment standards.

The issue has achieved some urgency as trans-boundary trade
expands in an increasingly global economy. Without proper
enforcement of ground rules, corporations, some of whose yearly
sales figures greatly exceed the gross domestic products of many
countries, will trample all over workers' rights and environment
standards, analysts warn.

In one of the latest efforts to codify standards, a U.S. task
force set up by the White House last year following publicity
about sweatshop conditions in apparel and footwear plants owned or
contracted by major U.S. corporations, has produced a voluntary
code of conduct to protect worker rights in these facilities.

When the accord between leading U.S. apparel makers and labour,
human rights, and consumer groups was unveiled last month,
President Bill Clinton said it promised to improve the lives of
millions of garment workers around the world.

It requires companies which get on board to observe local
minimum wage and child labour laws and sets a work-week limit of
60 hours for employees. It also mandates the creation of a new
association to implement the code and approve independent agencies
to monitor compliance.

If companies are found to comply with the accord, they will be
permitted by the association to attach a ''No Sweat'' label to
their products. Some labour rights groups have denounced the
accord as too weak, and some companies have reservations about the
idea.

Clothing manufacturer Liz Claiborne says it supports the move,
but many issues need to be worked out. For instance, ''external
monitoring also presents a serious challenge,'' says Roberta
Schuhalter Karp, the company's vice president of corporate
affairs. She says monitoring must be both ''credible and
economically feasible'' for companies that adhere to its
standards. ''Otherwise businesses that comply will be at an
economic disadvantage vis-a-vis their competitors that do not.''

A study released by the U.S. Department of Labour late last
year issued a warning against corporate codes of conduct, saying
they will not by themselves end the exploitation of child workers.

Codes of conduct have created a ''potential downward trend in
the use of children'' in apparel manufacturing worldwide, but the
codes are only as effective as the enforcement mechanisms, says
the report, 'The Apparel Industry and Codes of Conduct: A Solution
to the International Labour Problem'. Its findings were based on a
survey of 45 U.S. importers, as well as on-site visits to 70
plants in six countries that make clothing for U.S. firms.

''Private industry now recognises that it can take steps to
m

[PEN-L:10195] Re: The EU: against wishful thinking

[D Shniad]

Tom did a very nice job of encapsulating my argument -- a better job than
I did in the original!

Sid

[PEN-L:10194] Re: The EU: against wishful thinking

[Max B. Sawicky]

> From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tom Walker)
> Subject:   [PEN-L:10191] Re: The EU: against wishful thinking

> at least, the aggression has been of a singularly flaccid variety. If a
> strong movement of working class resistance to neo-liberalism were to
> emerge, neo-liberalism would flee like Mobutu from Kinshasa.

I have not fled.  I am merely on extended hiatus.

M. Mobutu


PS nice to hear from you again.  wondered where
you were.  (out of pronouns; have to pick some 
up).

[PEN-L:10193] Re: The EU: against wishful thinking

[MIKEY]

Friends,

I want to second Tom's remarks on this entire globalization debate.  We live in 
specific countries and we have little choice to to act within them.  Millions of 
workers are unorganized and need to be organized.  Should we not even try to 
organize them because capital is now global and will inevitably defeat them by 
moving, etc.?  This seems a recipe for further disaster.  Naturally we shuld do 
whatever we can to attack capital globally, but the argument that acting 
nationally is somehow bad politics is not tenable in my view.

Michael Yates

[PEN-L:10192] Re: Time Out for Cyber Art

[Ellen Balka]

Many thanks-- I got a good chuckle. So, I am in Linkoping. If you decide to
stay in my apt. while I am gone. Gill Stainsby has the keys-- I think her #
is 255-2110, or you can e-mail her at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Have a great time in
BC. Meanwhile, just for  the record, I am absolutely doing my best tonot
take myself too seriously be well. E.
Ellen Balka
Associate Professor, School of Communication
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C. CANADA V5A 1S6
phone: (604)-291-3764  fax: (604)-391-4024
http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~ebalka