[PEN-L:10128] BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 1999 __Prices paid by producers of finished goods advanced a seasonally-adjusted 0.2 percent in July, led by the first rise in energy prices in 3 months. The advance followed a decline of 0.1 percent in June and a 0.2 percent rise in May. The index rose less than the 0.3 percent many economists had predicted for finished goods, but economists' reaction to July's index was generally subdued. The "core index" of finished goods, which excludes prices of foods and energy in July, showed no change from a month ago, when it declined 0.2 percent, BLS data showed. Finished food prices declined 0.9 percent in July, while energy prices rose 3.5 percent. ... Daily Labor Report, page D-1). __Prices paid to farmers, factories, and other producers rose modestly in July, cheering the stock and bond markets. ... The numbers were below the expectations of many economists. ... (Tim Smart in Washington Post, Aug. 14, page E1). __The stock and bond markets surged after the government released a reassuring report that showed a modest increase in prices at the wholesale level in July, easing investor concerns about inflation. The first decline in food prices since April blunted the impact of a surge in energy prices. "It's difficult to find any food commodities that rose in price that could be attributed to drought," said Joe Kowal, an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, noting that growing conditions in the Midwest have been excellent. It is possible, other analysts said, that the drought actually helped restrain the rise in producer prices as farmers and ranchers sped livestock sales up because of a lack of affordable feed. ... (Robert D. Hershey Jr. in New York Times, Aug. 14, page B1) __Inflation at the wholesale level was even lower than expected in July, suggesting that the economy isn't overheated, even with continued rapid growth. ... Despite the good inflation news, many cautioned that the report doesn't necessarily lower the odds of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike next week. Tomorrow, the Labor Department releases its July consumer price index report, considered a better inflation barometer than the wholesale index. A higher-than-expected consumer price index would carry greater weight than lower producer price inflation. ... (Keith Perine in Wall Street Journal, page A2). Recent studies show that about one in five married women earns more than her husband -- a rare phenomenon 40 years ago, says the Chicago Tribune (Jocelyn Parker of Knight News, page A1). "As wives' incomes increase and they have greater earning power, the general household decisions will reflect their preferences," says Anne Winkler, a University of Missouri-St. Louis associate professor who recently conducted a study of women wage earners. "This may mean that more money is spent on children. Women may have more weight when selecting big ticket items for the family, too," says Winkler, who used population surveys and BLS figures. The percentage of wives earning more than their husbands has risen to nearly 23 percent in 1997, from 15.9 percent in 1981, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. ... Labor participation rates among women have skyrocketed, according to Winkler's study. ... State and local governments employed 12.8 million full-time workers in 1998, 1.7 percent more than in 1997, according to data released by the Census Bureau. The tabulation from 1998 employment and payroll data in the 50 states and the District of Columbia showed that most full-time employees worked in education (6.3 million), hospital services (836,000), and police protection (784,000). Other employment categories included corrections, fire protection, air transportation, streets and highways, solid waste management, and financial and central government administration. ... (Daily Labor Report, page A-11). Employee use of the Internet for non-business reasons remains the biggest pothole facing employers on the information superhighway. The latest trend in employee online activity is stock trading on company time, which presents a number of serious concerns for employers, including increased stress on employees, decreased productivity, a drain on electronic systems, and potential corporate liability. According to Media Matrix, a New York City company that tracks Internet use, the number of at-work visitors to financial Web sites increased 37 percent from December 1998 to March 1999. (Daily Labor Report, page C-1). DUE OUT TOMORROW: Consumer Price Index -- July 1999 Real Earnings: July 1999 application/ms-tnef
[PEN-L:10130] Arts Letters Daily
This is a webpage with links to articles on the Internet put together by Denis Dutton, who launched the Bad Writing Contest. It is updated daily and is quite lively. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:10132] Re: Re: Re: Race,Sacrifice,and Dignigy(wasRe:Abortionand other wedge issues)
Wojtek Sokolowski [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/16/99 05:34PM At 04:21 PM 8/16/99 -0400, Chareles wrote: Charles: Why is it do you think that the way you tell it "consciousness" is not corresponding to "structure" ? Are you saying this "perfect soical control" is exercised through "structure" and not "consciousness" ? Let me get this straight. Are you saying that mass consciousness has progressed, but the structure has gone backward ? If so, since activists can't directly change "structure" (or can they), do we just sit on our hands and wait for the structure to change itself , like a big clock winding on, mechanically, automatically, inevitably ? Is the revolution an entirely objective process, with no role for the subjective factors ? --snip Charles: I'm joking about the past. But do you really think the "structure" never goes backwards and it is all an inevitable, straightline forward march and progress ? Or are there periods of reaction, zig zags ? It think it's a zig zag. I also think that the structural conditions for mobilization for a collective action deteriorated quite considerably as compared, say, to the civil rights era. Main reasons: residential pattern and comparmentalization of society through id politics. Charles: OK. However, the residential pattern was very unequal and segregated by class and race in 1949. I am not sure that that "structure" has worsened in the last 50 years, and it has not improved as much as "advertised" by the "home of the free" cheerleaders. Also, compartimentalization of society through id politics sounds like "consciousness" to me. I thought your were discussing "structure". How is id politics "structural" and not "consciousness" ? ((( Wojtek: I also think that general consciousness improved a little bit comparing to 50 years ago in the sense that open bigotry is not acceptable as it used to be. This is far from a "revolutionary" consciousness - more along the "kinder and gentler nation" lines. ( Charles: This is a real one of those "yes and no" type things. You are correct that overt , open bigotry was made inappropriate , impolite and somewhat illicit by the Civil Rights movment ,i.e. reform movement. But the Reaganite counter-reform movement did not confront this directly, but rather got around it by being racist in actions but saying explictly that it is not. And in fact, the Reaganite counter reform went so far as to say the main problem of raciism today is the problem of Blacks being racist against Whites in "reverse discrimination" . This is the line of both the KKK and the U.S. Supreme Courts ( white and black robe wearers agree on this). Anti-affirmative action is a main aspect of this. Thus, Reaganite counterreform has reversed the Civil Right reform effectively. The structure has been reversed to the equivalent of what it was 50 years ago. The racist consciousness that accompanies this new racist structrure is different in form , but not in content from the! racist conscisousness of 50 years ago. In this regard , structure and consciousness coincide. The signal characteristic of Reaganite racism is white supremacy that denies it is white supremacy, unlike Jim Crow which proudly and openly declared for white supremacy. Reaganite racism like all Reaganism is Big Brotherism and doublespeak: Racism is equality, Star Wars is peace, What's old is new again (old funky Americanism from 1920 personified in Ronnie Reagan is new again), etc. Charles: These things are more in the public discourse today than you are allowing. Read these lists. After being so definitely refuted in the past, their return and existence today is in a way more outrageous than in 1949. Nothing got "definitely refuted." Charles: Oh yes it did. (( These ideas were not kosher for some time, mainly because of their hitler connection - but the idea of differential moral worth of different groups of people have never been refuted - it is the backbone of academic hierarchies and meritorcacies, more american than baseball and apple pie. Charles: Biological racism got definitely and overwhelmingly refuted in public in the American academy. This was part of the Civil Rights movement reform. That is not the same as all hierarchies being refuted. Why would anti-racism refute meritocracy , in principle ? Phony meritocracy there is plenty of , I know. Meritocracy is not entirely reputiated by the left. (( WojteK I am suprised that the intellectual commodity manufacring - so eager to please the yuppies yearning for the "being unique and special" status has not used the racits bigotry more openly as they did in the past (cf. S.J. Gould _Mismeasure of man_) - i view it as a sign of modern progress and civility. Charles: Reaganism uses non-open , closed, secret racism while denying openly that it is racist and even saying Blacks and other people of
[PEN-L:10134] Why Russia Risks all in Dagestan
Final 2 paragraphs of NYT op-ed piece by Robert Kaplan: Despite the region's instability and the Caspian's oil riches, the Caucasus does not get sufficient attention from the West. In the early and mid-1990's, the West focused on the plight of Bosnian Muslims, and paid little attention to the simultaneous violent expulsion of at least a million Azeris from the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and ethnic Georgians from breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This does not mean the Caucasus needs the same level of Western intervention as in the Balkans. Special forces units to protect regional leaders from assassination, more cooperation with the Turkish military, normalized relations with Iran and constant engagement with Armenia to help wean it from Russian military support are some of the things that can project power without shedding blood. The West virtually ignored the Balkans until war erupted in 1991. Now is the time to think ahead regarding the Caucasus and Caspian Sea. http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/oped/17kapl.html Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:10143] (Fwd) NATO's own experts: Bombing was a failure
--- Forwarded Message Follows --- Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 08:57:21 -0700 Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: CyberBrook [EMAIL PROTECTED] To:PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: NATO's own experts: Bombing was a failure X-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] NATO's own experts: Bombing was a failure www.motherjones.com http://www.motherjones.com/scoop/scoop23.html by Bob Harris August 9, 1999 In a story which has gone virtually unmentioned in the U.S., the London Daily Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk has reported in their July 22nd edition that a private preliminary review by NATO's own experts found that the 78-day NATO bombing of Yugoslavia had "almost no military effect." Let that sink in for a moment. The rest of the article can be found at http://www.motherjones.com/scoop/scoop23.html
[PEN-L:10145] A New Iron Curtain
New at Foreign Policy in Focus Containment Lite: U.S. Policy Toward Russia and Its Neighbors by John Feffer If the U.S. government had wanted to destroy Russia from the inside out, it couldn't have devised a more effective policy than its so-called "strategic partnership." From aggressive foreign policy to misguided economic advice to undemocratic influence- peddling, the U.S. has ushered in a cold peace on the heels of the cold war. By pushing ahead recklessly with expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) both in membership and in its mission, the U.S. government is deepening the divide that separates Russia from Europe, effectively building a new Iron Curtain down the middle of Eurasia. www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/papers/russia
[PEN-L:10147] Re: Re: Re: Re: Abortion: another angle (2)
The main point is that both excessive 'socialization' and excessive 'privatization' of reproductive health can be detrimental to women. wojtek From the themes and arguments of my numerous posts on the subject, it must be obvious that I am not advocating the 'privatization' of the kind you are implying here. Otherwise, why should I be concerned with the decline of abortion providers? To quote myself from one of the recent posts: To sum up, Petchesky argues for the use of the concept of self-ownership in a qualified sense: "owning our bodies depends integrally on having access to the social resources for assuring our bodies' health and well-being..." (Petchesky 403). In this sense, the idea of body as self-property may belong to a great political vocabulary fit for the Leftist use. I encourage the socialization of health *services*, but only in the sense of creating an environment which allows individual women to make decisions with ease and comfort. Instead of the punishment of 'bad pregnant women' (which is mostly self-defeating anyway), legislations and programs can be of enabling character. Marx Engels wrote: * In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. * I'm glad that they aspired to have an association in which the *free development of each* is the *condition* for the free development of all. Yoshie
[PEN-L:10149] Research on Neo-conservative Mayors
I saw the following inquiry on MLG. I figure that listers here must have lots of expertise to help her. Yoshie * I am currently working on a project that examines how Giuliani has used Quality of Life Initiatives to discriminate on the basis of class and race. For example, I am now researching the Giuliani administrations efforts to eliminate vendors from certain sections of Manhattan (Where? Downtown and Business Improvement Districts, of course.) In addition to analyzing public discourse related to "problems" such as street-vendors, I am tracing the development of these policies (problem definition, debate, implementation, and enforcement). To illustrate that such initiatives are representative of the efforts by neo-conservative mayors to restructure cities (rather than Giuliani as an anomaly), I must demonstrate similar moves by other conservative mayors. Therefore, I am requesting insight on quality of life initiatives by mayors of other cities. As this research is very current, I'm thinking that writing to the list may help to identify policies that I may have missed or, more importantly, identity something in the wind. Thank you very much for any insight. *
[PEN-L:10158] Re: Michael Perleman please.Re: Re: Re: Re: Marx, andRhetoric
Ricardo seemed to be making a clumsy attempt at humor. In the past, he has shown himself to be insensitive, but not vicious. Let's see if he continues. Is that ok? Otherwise, I will warn him. Stephen E Philion wrote: Michael Perleman, I'm not sure what has induced this occasion for flaming, but it is growing tired already. I send off a post asking for clarification about how a certain post is 'rhetorical' as Mr. Duchesne claimed in an earlier post, in a sincere and non-hostile manner and the next post from Richard is some Teresa Ebert like post equating me the KKK... Will you please ask Mr. or Dr. Duchesne to refrain from baseless accusations of racism and stick to answering or not answering questions people ask him...? Thank you, Steve On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Well, Stefy, considering your location, I would guess that dancing in the beach is your real profession. Richard, I didn't think you were from Latin America, though I'm not sure that there is anything I wrote that would indicate this to you. I now do wish to make a geograpical guess. You are from Buffalo...Teresa Ebert is your mentor...? Steve On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Stephen E Philion wrote: Richard, Is it possible that you might demonstrate to us how the segment that you quote below is 'rhetorical'? You might not agree with what is asserted below, but how is it 'heavily rhetorical'? Steve Who is Richard, by the way? Cheers, ajit sinha That may have been Stephen's own rhetorical device to persuade others that I am not for real - the Latin American he, an American, thinks I should be. Had Stephen read more, instead of imitating the KKK, he would have known that every argument is bound with rhetoric; and, as Rod says, Marx was a master rhetorician. Someone (?) wrote: Marx's point in writing Capital was to do away with rhetoric. Rather than pointing to the horrors of capitalism and pointing to evil acts of specific people or even classes, he attempted to show how the system as a whole worked according to its own laws of motion. Richard Duchesne wrote in response: Like any polemic work, Capital is heavily rhetorical; just like what you say above. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:10160] Re: Re: Is a Fetus an Appendix?
Rod H: In my experience, every woman I have known who had an abortion went through a big moral struggle. That is not the point. The point is that it is her moral decision not any one else's. It is her choice. A fetus is not an appendix and no woman treats an abortion like she would an appendectomy. I don't doubt a bit that many women who consider terminating a pregnancy do not think of a fetus as an appendix. But at least one person here does, and most of the rest who have spoken evidently deny any humanity or personhood to the fetus, since 'it' has no inherent rights apart from the woman's choice. Sounds like an appendix to me. Like the cells in your arm, It's alive; unlike them, it has the potential to be something quite special. But it has no more autonomy than a cabbage in your garden. But women carrying this thing, both liberal and conservative -- in whose name we crusade --don't quite see it this way. Not the first case of the liberated having a conception at odds with that of the liberators. I will stop being a pest, at least on this issue. mbs
[PEN-L:10162] Expanding participation
Here is a list of the people who have been posting. Note how few of us are chirping in. last 50 PEN-L messaglast 100 PEN-L messa last 200 PEN-L messag 6 [EMAIL PROTECTED]14 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 21 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6 [EMAIL PROTECTED]8 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 7 sawicky@bellatlant 16 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5 [EMAIL PROTECTED]7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 16 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 4 [EMAIL PROTECTED]6 [EMAIL PROTECTED]11 sawicky@bellatlant 4 [EMAIL PROTECTED]5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3 [EMAIL PROTECTED]5 [EMAIL PROTECTED]9 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 9 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED]5 [EMAIL PROTECTED]7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED]4 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED]4 [EMAIL PROTECTED]7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 william_b_ryan@hot4 [EMAIL PROTECTED]6 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 4 [EMAIL PROTECTED]6 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 [EMAIL PROTECTED]3 [EMAIL PROTECTED]5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 nathan.newman@yale2 william_b_ryan@hot5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 [EMAIL PROTECTED]2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 [EMAIL PROTECTED]2 [EMAIL PROTECTED]5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 last 50 PEN-L messaglast 100 PEN-L messa last 200 PEN-L messag 6 [EMAIL PROTECTED]14 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 21 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6 [EMAIL PROTECTED]8 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 7 sawicky@bellatlant 16 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5 [EMAIL PROTECTED]7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 16 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 4 [EMAIL PROTECTED]6 [EMAIL PROTECTED]11 sawicky@bellatlant 4 [EMAIL PROTECTED]5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3 [EMAIL PROTECTED]5 [EMAIL PROTECTED]9 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 9 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED]5 [EMAIL PROTECTED]7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED]4 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED]4 [EMAIL PROTECTED]7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 william_b_ryan@hot4 [EMAIL PROTECTED]6 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 4 [EMAIL PROTECTED]6 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 [EMAIL PROTECTED]3 [EMAIL PROTECTED]5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 nathan.newman@yale2 william_b_ryan@hot5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 [EMAIL PROTECTED]2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 [EMAIL PROTECTED]2 [EMAIL PROTECTED]5 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10161] Aborting abortion on pen-l and the end of the asian crisis
I think that the debate on abortion was held at a very high level -- illustrating the best in our list. Like all list debates, this one seems to be degenerating. I think that Carrol Cox pointed to the key issue is deciding where to communicate and where to isolate. I would like to see a new thread begin concerning the end or the further evolution of the Asian crisis. As economists we should have something to contribute to this situation. Besides, some of the people who have been quiet might be inclined to chime in on this new thread. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:10159] Re: Re: Michael Perleman please.Re: Re: Re: Re: Marx, andRhetoric
My apologies. I carelessly thought that I was responding off list. Michael Perelman wrote: Ricardo seemed to be making a clumsy attempt at humor. In the past, he has shown himself to be insensitive, but not vicious. Let's see if he continues. Is that ok? Otherwise, I will warn him. Stephen E Philion wrote: Michael Perleman, I'm not sure what has induced this occasion for flaming, but it is growing tired already. I send off a post asking for clarification about how a certain post is 'rhetorical' as Mr. Duchesne claimed in an earlier post, in a sincere and non-hostile manner and the next post from Richard is some Teresa Ebert like post equating me the KKK... Will you please ask Mr. or Dr. Duchesne to refrain from baseless accusations of racism and stick to answering or not answering questions people ask him...? Thank you, Steve On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Well, Stefy, considering your location, I would guess that dancing in the beach is your real profession. Richard, I didn't think you were from Latin America, though I'm not sure that there is anything I wrote that would indicate this to you. I now do wish to make a geograpical guess. You are from Buffalo...Teresa Ebert is your mentor...? Steve On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Stephen E Philion wrote: Richard, Is it possible that you might demonstrate to us how the segment that you quote below is 'rhetorical'? You might not agree with what is asserted below, but how is it 'heavily rhetorical'? Steve Who is Richard, by the way? Cheers, ajit sinha That may have been Stephen's own rhetorical device to persuade others that I am not for real - the Latin American he, an American, thinks I should be. Had Stephen read more, instead of imitating the KKK, he would have known that every argument is bound with rhetoric; and, as Rod says, Marx was a master rhetorician. Someone (?) wrote: Marx's point in writing Capital was to do away with rhetoric. Rather than pointing to the horrors of capitalism and pointing to evil acts of specific people or even classes, he attempted to show how the system as a whole worked according to its own laws of motion. Richard Duchesne wrote in response: Like any polemic work, Capital is heavily rhetorical; just like what you say above. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:10157] Re: Is a Fetus an Appendix?
In my experience, every woman I have known who had an abortion went through a big moral struggle. That is not the point. The point is that it is her moral decision not any one else's. It is her choice. A fetus is not an appendix and no woman treats an abortion like she would an appendectomy. Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:10156] The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 17 Aug 1999 -- 3:65 (#318)
__ The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 17 August 1999 Vol. 3, Numbers 65 (#318) _ AN ISSUE OF CONFERENCE AND RALLY ANNOUNCEMENTS: SOME POSITIVE, SOME FASCIST -- PLANNED FASCIST EVENTS KNIGHTS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN 3-4 September Harrison, Arkansas "'Pastor Thomas Robb has been a powerful spokesman the past 30 years for the white rights movement. Newspapers and magazines such as London Sunday Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and countless others have called him charismatic, a strong leader, methodical in approach, the new face of the Christian Right, and the man to be watched in the racialist movement.' - An introduction to Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and National Director Thomas Robb (Distributed by Knights of the KKK) "NATIONAL KLAN CONGRESS "September 3-4, Friday and Saturday, near Harrison, Arkansas "PLACE: Soldiers of the Cross Bible Camp in the beautiful Ozarks near Harrison, Arkansas, just a few miles south of famous Branson, Missouri. Stay at the camp ground the whole weekend. Motels in town (about 15 miles away). "PURPOSE: Speeches, Fellowship, Information, Cross "Lighting" "WELCOME: Primarily for members. Guests of associates may attend. "CONTACT: Patriotic Suppliers, PO Box , Harrison, AR 72601 "COST: Members (associates): $25 adults, $15 for 17 and under, Free for 5 and under. Non-members: $35, $20. Late registration (after August 30) add $10 per person. "CHURCH SERVICE S"eptember 5, Sunday "WELCOME: Those who wish to stay over." - - - - - WHITE PRIDE RALLY NATIONAL KNIGHTS OF THE KKK 21 Aug Paragould, Arkansas "Sponsored by The National Knights of the KKK, Grand Wizard Ray Larsen Saturday, August 21 in Paragould, Arkansas (Greene County) 10 am to Midnight: Meet political speakers from around the country. Phone 870-586-0141 or Day of Rally you may call 870-658-2615 or e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] anytime "Directions: Coming any direction off Interstate 55, exit at 19 onto 412 east to Paragould. Turn right on 141 at flashing caution light. Go thru Beech Grove, Cross 34, when 141 turns back right...Go straight on Gravel Road. The road passes a natural gas pumping station. When the road T's turn right. The road will turn left, cross a bridge then turn left on 117. The house is first on the left. Signs posted from 141 on. - - - - - FIRST ANNUAL WHITE RIGHTS RALLY The CHURCH OF THE AMERICAN KNIGHTS 28 Aug 99 Orlando, Florida "Time: 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm "Contact: Tom Rzeczka, The Grand Dragon for the State of Florida, call: (407) 772-9052 "There will be a pig roast and cross lighting afterwards." - - - - - TEXAS CONSTITUTION RATIFICATION COMMITTEE 18 Sep 99 Fairmount, Texas "We are proposing to change the form of government here in Texas. Right now, very few people other than you and our other contributors take this effort seriously. Sabine County is the first step on a narrow path toward ratification. With that convention in hand, we won't be just talking any longer. As we ratify more and more counties, there will be more and more opposition to our efforts. Where it will go, what will happen, I can't predict." - Jim Davidson, Chairman "Main Event: "FIRST COUNTY CONVENTION September 18, 1999, Saturday, in Sabine County "TIME: 9 am to 8 pm "PLACE: Fairmount Volunteer Fire Department, a few miles East of Texas 87 on FM 3315 in Fairmount, Texas "WELCOME: Observers and media. Participants must be 18 +, must have lived in TX for 6 consecutive months, and must live in Sabine County as of 18 September. Bring ID. "Preceding Events: "TEXAS FREEDOM BARBECUE "August 14, 1999, Saturday "TIME: 11:30 am to 3 pm "PLACE: Fairmount Volunteer Fire Department (see above) "WELCOME: Whole family "PURPOSE: Fundraiser "CONTACT: John Ivy (409) 579-2117. TCRF (Texas Constitution "Ratificaiton Committee), 6112 N. Mesa, Suite 223, El Paso, Texas 79912" -- ANTI-FASCIST, PRO-TOLERANCE ETC. EVENTS HATE CRIME: A CONFERENCE -- POLITICS, PRACTICE, POWER 9 - 10 Dec The University of Sydney Announcement of Conference/Call for Papers. Deadline for Proposals etc: August 31, 1999.
[PEN-L:10155] Is a Fetus an Appendix?
Out of curiosity, I wonder how this blob of ectoplasm known as a fetus is regarded. What do people think it is exactly, or philosophically? Is it like an appendix, a second-class Siamese twin, or what? cheers, mbs a symbiotic-ecosystem on a slippery slope towards a possibility for personhood..darwinianly speaking [with much struggle] anti-essentially ian
[PEN-L:10152] Re: Abortion-rights Strategic principles was Re:Abortion: another angle (2)
Carrol wrote: So our task -- as in almost all the key issues for the left -- is simply (!) to find ways to shift the locus of struggle. That is a subject of two or three years (or decades) of discussion. And then Ellen wrote: I think this is absolutely correct. I would add one thing. It would also help to "de-isolate" the abortion process. In this regard, pressing medical schools to teach abortion, pressing doctors to provide abortion, increasing public awareness of/access to pharmacueticals that obviate the need for abortions (morning-after drugs and - soon - RU-486). Getting rid of the clinics would get rid of a visible symbol and make the right-to-lifers job strategically quite difficult. Ellen's post meets Carrol's proposal that we shift the locus of struggle, and we should pursue her suggestions. Michael Hoover also wrote (on M-Fem) of the important struggle Medical Students for Choice are waging, among other suggestions he made here and elsewhere. Further, I think that it is important that we remind ourselves of how easy it is to provide a safe abortion (as long as pregnancy is in its early stage and uncomplicated), in terms of skills and expertise. (Remember the experience of JANE.) We had better let doctors medical students know that we can do it ourselves we will, if they don't want to. Feminist midwives and nurse practioners may become our allies. I also take a page from gay lesbian rights struggles and propose the coming out of women who had an abortion and are happy to discuss it and its relation to feminism. As Carrol says, we've won in the realm of practice as to the acceptance of abortion in USA; coming out may help us to win an ideological victory as well. We are here, we've had an abortion, get used to it! We are everywhere! Yoshie
[PEN-L:10151] Is a Fetus an Appendix?
CC
So our task -- as in almost all the key issues for the left -- is simply
(!) to find ways to shift the locus of struggle. That is a subject of two or
three years (or decades) of discussion.
mbs: This last is the most self-refuting statement in the entire debate.
But who cares about politics; we've got eons to work that out. What's
really important is philosophy, so let's get to it.
I've said what I personally think about abortion is not important to my
argument in this debate, which was about politics. Under any circumstances
I could think of, if my daughter needed my help to get one, legally or
otherwise, I'm sure I would do so. I can't promise not to chafe under rules
I think are good for everybody, in the abstract. I don't pretend to any
moral superiority, only to moral puzzlement.
I can't help noticing that references to the unborn in these threads have
been extremely abbreviated. The only clear one I can remember is Carrol's
analogy to an appendix. An abortion is not ethically different than an
appendectomy, so a fetus is the moral equivalent of an appendix. William
Burroughs gave us talking assholes, and now we have appendices with the
potential to breathe, cry, pee, etc. We have fancy machines to watch them,
take pictures of them. If you want a child, you're a mother and the fetus
is a person. If it dies in childbirth, it is not uncommon to bury them and
put up gravestones. "Here lies 'Michael' . . . " If you don't want a
child, then you're not a mother, you're a woman with a wiggly appendix, or
something. The nature of the fetus, it's inherent rights, or lack thereof,
depends on what a couple of other people who happen to be its originators
think. ('Parents' won't do. Can't be parents without a child, and then
we're in trouble again.) Doesn't that strike anyone as odd?
Another reference hinged on a women's right to control of her own body,
which entailed a right of "disposal"! The connotation is obvious and
probably was unintentional, but it points up the impulse to look away from
the question. In practice, of course, actual 'disposal' of fetuses is a
very touchy matter, not least for the pro-choice among the populace. If a
fetus is an appendix, then it could easily go into the garbage with stuff
you found rotting in the refrigerator. Or we could recycle the material,
perhaps feed it to hogs.
There was Yoshie's point about objectification of women, or denial of their
personhood, which is entirely well-taken when we speak of any limits to
"choice" or "[un]reproductive rights." But nobody spoke to denial of the
humanity of the unborn.
There was a fascinating twist on this issue in a previous debate on LBO. A
disability activist took negative note of the use of abortion as a means of
de-selecting fetuses judged 'disabled' from childbirth. Abortion for
purposes of sex selection is also a well-known practice. But if a fetus is
an appendix, than an imperfect fetus or a female fetus is an imperfect or
female appendix, so no problem. No? Yes? If for the sake of argument,
parents made such decisions with no implications for the disabled persons
among us, then would this be acceptable or not? As CC says, abortion is
just another form of birth control. The right to 'choice' is the right to
act on motives we would find repugnant.
Out of curiosity, I wonder how this blob of ectoplasm known as a fetus is
regarded. What do people think it is exactly, or philosophically? Is it
like an appendix, a second-class Siamese twin, or what?
cheers,
mbs
[PEN-L:10150] (no subject)
Michael Perelman has asked me to introduce my web site and post new additions. About five years ago I while teaching the history of economic thought at McMaster, posted a number of readings for my students. With the encouragement of Michael and Tony Brewer, I made the text available to everyone. Subsequently that grew into a large collection of texts. (Now over 200 titles) The goal was to accumulate material of interest to those studying the history of economic thought. This is defined very broadly. About one year ago I was burnt out and stop posting new material. Now rested and ready to get back at it I have posted four new titles. I can continue to announce new postings to pen-l if there is sufficient interest. And of course if any one would like to contribute a text please let me know. I have added the following books to the History of Economics Archive at McMaster. I have not made the connections to the page yet, but these URLs do work. John Acton, Lectures on the French Revolution http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/acton/FrenchRevolution.pdf Harold Laski, Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/laski/Sovereignty.pdf Catharine Macauley, Observations on the Reflections of Edmund Burke on the Revolution in France http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/macauleycath/Observations.pdf John Figgis, Political Thought From Gerson to Grotius http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/figgis/PoliticalTheory.pdf Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:10148] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Race,Sacrifice,andDignigy(wasRe:Abortionand other wedge issues)
Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: I use the terms "consciousness" and "structure" in a somewhat technical sense - as they are used in social movement mobilization theory. . . . snip Later on, the theory got a bit more sophisticated and said that consciousness changes as a result of movement participation. That is, a person joined a movement without sharing its goals - simply because his girlfriend, a neighbor, or a friend was already involved in the movement and 'recruited' him (e.g. asked him to come to a meeting, etc.). As that person started to attend meetings, and then perhaps getting involved in various activities (tabling, demos, etc.) his consciousness started to change as a result of that, becoming more and more aligned with the movement's ideology. So after a while, the movement participants basically espoused that movement's ideology, but that congruence was a _result_ of their participation, and NOT the _cause_ of it. However, most idealistic philosophies put the "cart before the horse" and screw up the causal links, so ideas and consciousness become "causes" of material events. This by itself goes far to justify the entire history of sociology. I have been arguing on several lists for around two years now that the question "How can the left reach people?" is a false question insofar as it refers to the content of left propaganda or the form of left rhetoric. We reach people by making our activity interesting. This can be sloganized as "We talk only to the converted" -- i.e. to those who have been drawn to us through the kind of connections Wojtek describes. What Marx says of commodity owners applies generally: In their difficulties our commodity-owners think like Faust: "Im Anfang war die That." They therefore acted and transacted before they thought. Instinctively they conform to the laws imposed by the nature of commodities. *Cap. I* (Progress), p. 90 During periods of relative inactivity such as the last quarter of a century (since, roughly, the defeat of ERA) leftists begin to act like college professors (whether or not they are in fact college professors): that is, they assume that they have an audience or readership and they just need to find the right things to say or the right way to say it (Moore's idiocies about humor for example), and they begin to make slighting references to preaching to the choir -- failing to notice that there is never anyone else to preach to. In other words, no one who has not already joined us will even know that we are preaching. (Incidentally, there is one and only one element of college teaching which relates directly to political practice: conferences in the professor's office initiated by the student for other than academic purposes. The lecture won't influence anybody whose practice and (non-academic) social activity does not predispose to respond, and what it will influence them to do in that case is seek further.) This could be developed further by invoking the old distinction between agitation and propaganda. Written materials can only be propaganda: intended for those predisposed to agree but desiring deeper understanding. Reaching beyond that circle is strictly a matter of orality: talking to people with whom one is associated in daily activities of some sort. Agitation is always one or two relating to two or three or four -- never a matter of mass appeal. I have of course, but deliberately, left one huge gap here: the of transition from a period of inactivity, such as the present, to a period of activity, when what we write suddenly makes a difference. How does such a transition occur? Answer: No one knows, ever has known, or ever will know. The classic illustration of this is the Peasant Movement in Hunan -- Mao's report on that was a report on a burst of activity which had occurred without any input from marxists at all. His thrust was that it was a more or less spontaneous movement to which communists had to attend. Apropos here: Lenin's attack on spontaneism referred *only* to the development of *revolutionary* consciousness -- and in fact all of his writings assume that the contexts within which revolutionary consciousness is on the agenda occur in some more or less spontaneous fashion. We can't predict them, and theory cannot help us particularly to generate them. Doug, if your request for a scenario is a request for a description of how such periods of activity can be brought about, there is no such thing. But neither is there any such thing as a scenario for the initiation of the process you describe. (Antiquarians of the future looking back on us may be able to answer such a question.) Carrol
[PEN-L:10144] Re: Re: Re: Marx, and Rhetoric
Well, Stefy, considering your location, I would guess that dancing in the beach is your real profession. Richard, I didn't think you were from Latin America, though I'm not sure that there is anything I wrote that would indicate this to you. I now do wish to make a geograpical guess. You are from Buffalo...Teresa Ebert is your mentor...? Steve On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Stephen E Philion wrote: Richard, Is it possible that you might demonstrate to us how the segment that you quote below is 'rhetorical'? You might not agree with what is asserted below, but how is it 'heavily rhetorical'? Steve Who is Richard, by the way? Cheers, ajit sinha That may have been Stephen's own rhetorical device to persuade others that I am not for real - the Latin American he, an American, thinks I should be. Had Stephen read more, instead of imitating the KKK, he would have known that every argument is bound with rhetoric; and, as Rod says, Marx was a master rhetorician. Someone (?) wrote: Marx's point in writing Capital was to do away with rhetoric. Rather than pointing to the horrors of capitalism and pointing to evil acts of specific people or even classes, he attempted to show how the system as a whole worked according to its own laws of motion. Richard Duchesne wrote in response: Like any polemic work, Capital is heavily rhetorical; just like what you say above.
[PEN-L:10142] Warnings of Vietnamization of Colombian civil war
(Pen-l, Does anybody have current info about the rate of profit on US, German and Japanese investment in Colombia? Seth Sandronsky) US continues buildup Warnings of "Vietnamization" of Colombian civil war By Bill Vann 17 August 1999 Use this version to print Warnings that the United States was preparing a major military intervention in the conflict between the Colombian government and the country's 40-year-old guerrilla movement grew more insistent as Washington prepared yet another high-level diplomatic tour to discuss the crisis in the Latin American nation. The Clinton Administration's "drug czar" Gen. Barry McCaffrey will commence a swing through Latin America beginning next week in an attempt to drum up support from regional governments for a more concerted international effort to bring the Colombian guerrillas to heel. The trip will be McCaffrey's second to the region. In between, Gen. Charles Wilhelm, the commanding officer of the US Southern Command, flew to Bogota to consult with his military counterparts, and Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering completed a visit to the Colombian capital where he held talks with President Andres Pastrana. While in Bogota, Pickering found himself compelled to offer reassurances that Washington was not preparing a military invasion of Colombia. Speculation about a direct US intervention, he said, is "totally false, totally crazy." Even as Pickering spoke, however, 1,000 US Marines were preparing to land at the Colombian military base of Bahia Malaga to conduct joint war games dubbed "Unitas 99," further fueling fears that a US intervention is imminent. The country's leading news magazine, Cambio, devoted an entire issue to the threat. Hugo Chavez, the former military officer and new president of Venezuela, warned recently that increased outside military involvement in Colombia could unleash "a little Vietnam" on the Latin American continent. Having adopted a de facto military policy of engaging US forces only in one-sided conflicts where it is able to wage war at long distance with cruise missiles and high-altitude bombers, it would appear highly unlikely that Washington is preparing the large-scale deployment of US troops as its preferred option in Colombia. What is increasingly apparent, however, is that preparations are underway for a greatly expanded US participation in a low-intensity counterinsurgency campaign the likes of which Washington sponsored and directed in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1970s and 1980s at the cost of hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties. While Pickering disparaged the "canard" that "the United States is about to introduce a military intervention Colombia," a key element that emerged from his mission to Colombia was a US attempt to discourage the on-again, off-again peace talks between the Pastrana government and the largest of the guerrilla movements, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym FARC. "The question we ask ourselves is, 'Has there been sufficient action to make the process worthwhile,'" the US Undersecretary of State said in Colombia. Writing in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sounded a similar note, declaring that while Mr. Pastrana may have had reason to initiate talks with the guerrillas, "...the question is whether he can muster a combination of pressure and incentives that will cause the guerrillas to respond." The peace talks, revived last year after Pastrana was elected as the candidate of Colombia's Conservative Party, were placed on hold again following an offensive by the FARC in June. The guerrillas have rejected the government's demand that they accept an international commission to oversee a Switzerland-sized demilitarized zone in southern Colombia, where the guerrilla group has concentrated its 20,000-strong force. FARC leaders have charged that the condition was imposed at Washington's suggestion. US expressions of distrust about the so-called peace process came as the Colombian military command made its own demands for increased power to wage war on the guerrillas. Leading military commanders have branded the negotiations a farce and have called for the imposition of what amounts to martial law throughout the country to pave the way for a more aggressive counterinsurgency campaign. "We need juridical instruments of war for a nation that is at war," declared Gen. Jaime Cortes, the commander of the Army's Third Division. "We now have a Constitution and laws for a country at peace." The commander of the country's armed forces, Gen. Fernando Tapias, demanded that the government formally indict FARC for "international terrorism" in connection with the guerrillas' hijacking of a Venezuelan aircraft. Earlier this year the country's defense minister and much of the military's high command resigned in protest over Pastrana's concessions to FARC to get the negotiations
[PEN-L:10141] Re: Abortion-rights Strategic principles was Re: Abortion: another
Carrol writes: I suggest that as a general strategic principle our goal should be not to persuade more people that abortion is legitimate but to generate an atmosphere in which abortion is simply taken for granted. We need to isolate rather than convert right-to-lifers. I think this is absolutely correct. I would add one thing. It would also help to "de-isolate" the abortion process. In this regard, pressing medical schools to teach abortion, pressing doctors to provide abortion, increasing public awareness of/access to pharmacueticals that obviate the need for abortions (morning-after drugs and - soon - RU-486). Getting rid of the clinics would get rid of a visible symbol and make the right-to-lifers job strategically quite difficult. Ellen
[PEN-L:10140] Re: Re: Marx, and Rhetoric
Richard, I didn't think you were from Latin America, though I'm not sure that there is anything I wrote that would indicate this to you. I now do wish to make a geograpical guess. You are from Buffalo...Teresa Ebert is your mentor...? Steve On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Stephen E Philion wrote: Richard, Is it possible that you might demonstrate to us how the segment that you quote below is 'rhetorical'? You might not agree with what is asserted below, but how is it 'heavily rhetorical'? Steve Who is Richard, by the way? Cheers, ajit sinha That may have been Stephen's own rhetorical device to persuade others that I am not for real - the Latin American he, an American, thinks I should be. Had Stephen read more, instead of imitating the KKK, he would have known that every argument is bound with rhetoric; and, as Rod says, Marx was a master rhetorician. Someone (?) wrote: Marx's point in writing Capital was to do away with rhetoric. Rather than pointing to the horrors of capitalism and pointing to evil acts of specific people or even classes, he attempted to show how the system as a whole worked according to its own laws of motion. Richard Duchesne wrote in response: Like any polemic work, Capital is heavily rhetorical; just like what you say above.
[PEN-L:10139] Abortion-rights Strategic principles was Re: Abortion: another angle (2)
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Michael Keaney wrote: snip The USA has gone in a direction of punishing with imprisonement what you call "'irresponsible' behaviors of pregnant mothers,'" and this policy trend is likely to continue. As applied to the "left" broadly defined, it is clear that Butler's strictures on this issue (as quoted recently by Doug) are richly justified. For the record, however, be it noted that the enemies of women in this recent debate have *not* included those who are most openly marxist. This debate erupts on various lists about twice a year, there are never any new arguments (though at least until now in the present debate no one had babbled about irresponsible women), and no one ever changes his/her mind. I think that as is the case in the discussion of U.S. aggressions abroad (e.g., Serbia) the interesting question in fact is a question of how, not whether. How to oppose the aggression. How to fight the battle for abortion rights. The arguments against those rights simply are not serious. I suggest that as a general strategic principle our goal should be not to persuade more people that abortion is legitimate but to generate an atmosphere in which abortion is simply taken for granted. We need to isolate rather than convert right-to-lifers. And if one is not blinded by parliamentary cretinism -- i.e., if one does not see issues merely in terms of how they generate votes -- this task is not so difficult as it might seen. In electoral terms "single mothers" still seem to be a big issue -- but that is so only as a code word for racism. So we need to fight racism rather than wage an independent battle for single mothers. In daily life single motherhood is now a moot issue. The battle is over. And at this level, the battle for abortion is being won also. When the issue gets posed in national (i.e., electoral) debate the superior access of right-to-lifers to the media will always (seemingly) carry the day in that the issue will be pre-defined in their favor. (See Ellen's posts in this debate.) So our task -- as in almost all the key issues for the left -- is simply (!) to find ways to shift the locus of struggle. That is a subject of two or three years (or decades) of discussion. Carrol
[PEN-L:10138] Re: Re: Re: Abortion: another angle (2)
At 01:04 PM 8/17/99 -0400, Yoshie wrote: Michael Keaney wrote: Does the wider community have a legitimate interest in the fate of the unborn child? Is it an adequate defence of a woman's ability to choose freely to insist upon a conception of her body as private property with which she may do as she pleases? If so, how do we deal with prostitution, pornography, euthanasia, self-mutilation, "irresponsible" behaviour of pregnant mothers (e.g. smoking, substance abuse)? Where do rights come from? How are they divined, or are they constructed, and in either case, who by? The USA has gone in a direction of punishing with imprisonement what you call "'irresponsible' behaviors of pregnant mothers,'" and this policy trend is likely to continue. 'Socialist' Romania (the surreally 'pronatalist' state) banned abortions, made contraceptives unavailable, and imposed mandatory pregnancy tests upon the female population. 'Socialist' China took an opposite tack and has enforced its one-child policy. Japan imported Viagra but damned male conservatives have made the pill unavailable. Steralization abuses, overuse of C-section, etc. have been well publicized. In sexist societies, an 'interest in the fate of unborn child' comes in the form of punishment, surveillance, and psychological behavioral control of women. Reproductive capacity of women has been made a medium of dehumanization subordination of women by men and the State, often in the name of 'protection' of fetuses, of women themselves, of moralisty, of society, and indeed in some cases tragically of 'socialism.' And I am opposed to population control or political demography for this reason. To rewrite Foucault, both bodies and souls are prisons of womanhood. I add that such punishment, surveillance, and control of women has never led to the well-being of children who are already born. Yoshie, while I agree with your position that excessive concern with the well-being of children is often a pretext for control of women by men - a point can be made that no control at all can lead to the same effect. For example, Heidi Hartmann (following Max Weber's concpet of family) argues that defining family matters as "private" in 17th century England and thus exempting them from public scrutiny deprived women of protection offered by kin groups, and essentially subjected women to arbitrary power of the male head of household - which Hartmann argues lead to the strengthening of patriarchy under capitalism. The main point is that both excessive 'socialization' and excessive 'privatization' of reproductive health can be detrimental to women. wojtek
[PEN-L:10137] Re: Re: Re: Re: Race,Sacrifice,and Dignigy(wasRe:Abortionand other wedge issues)
At 11:38 AM 8/17/99 -0400, Charles Brown wrote: Charles: OK. However, the residential pattern was very unequal and segregated by class and race in 1949. I am not sure that that "structure" has worsened in the last 50 years, and it has not improved as much as "advertised" by the "home of the free" cheerleaders. Also, compartimentalization of society through id politics sounds like "consciousness" to me. I thought your were discussing "structure". How is id politics "structural" and not "consciousness" ? I use the terms "consciousness" and "structure" in a somewhat technical sense - as they are used in social movement mobilization theory. "Connsciousness" variables essentially refer to your belief system, wheteher you share the movement's ideology and if so, to what degree. "Structure" or "microstructure" as they call it - refers to social proximity to the movement itself, for example wheteher you know someone active in a movement, how close that person is to you, whether you have available free time for movement participation, etc. It has been consistently found that "consciousness" variables (i.e. a belief system that is consistent with a movement's ideology) is a poor predictior of movement participation, whereas "microstructural" variables are generally a good predictor. Later on, the theory got a bit more sophisticated and said that consciousness changes as a result of movement participation. That is, a person joined a movement without sharing its goals - simply because his girlfriend, a neighbor, or a friend was already involved in the movement and 'recruited' him (e.g. asked him to come to a meeting, etc.). As that person started to attend meetings, and then perhaps getting involved in various activities (tabling, demos, etc.) his consciousness started to change as a result of that, becoming more and more aligned with the movement's ideology. So after a while, the movement participants basically espoused that movement's ideology, but that congruence was a _result_ of their participation, and NOT the _cause_ of it. However, most idealistic philosophies put the "cart before the horse" and screw up the causal links, so ideas and consciousness become "causes" of material events. My argument is that since today's organization of daily life led to considerable fragmentation, alienation and compartmentalization of society - the micrstructural social ties conducive to social movement recruitment are much scarcer than they were a few decades ago. Furthermore, the disappearance of public spaces (thanks to suburbanization) makes it more difficult to stage demos - and even if they are staged, their impact is much more limioted because social life is spread over a larger area, and geographical distance exponentially reduces the impact of any public action. Charles: This is a real one of those "yes and no" type things. You are correct that overt , open bigotry was made inappropriate , impolite and somewhat illicit by the Civil Rights movment ,i.e. reform movement. But the Reaganite counter-reform movement did not confront this directly, but rather got around it by being racist in actions but saying explictly that it is not. And in fact, the Reaganite counter reform went so far as to say the main problem of raciism today is the problem of Blacks being racist against Whites in "reverse discrimination" . This is the line of both the KKK and the U.S. Supreme Courts ( white and black robe wearers agree on this). Anti-affirmative action is a main aspect of this. Thus, Reaganite counterreform has reversed the Civil Right reform effectively. The structure has been reversed to the equivalent of what it was 50 years ago. The racist consciousness that accompanies this new racist structrure is different in form , but not in content from the! Of course most social movement face counter-movements or reaction - and "reagan revolution" is an example of it. Of course, the ratfuckers wanted to turn back the clock and return to the 'good ol' days of open nigger bashing' as you argue - but they very fact thay they could not and had to soften and qualify their bigotry is precisely the point I was trying to make - that we live in an "kinder and gentler society" where raw bigotry is not longer acceptable. Of course that does not mean "progress" in a way that it will ultimately lead to the demise of bigotry - rather it means bigotry with a "human face" or rather "professional politeness." That is both a good and a bad thing - it is good because it is less rabid than raw bigotry, but it is bad because it does not provoke outrage that raw bigotry did. However, ideological reaction to raw bigotry means little in terms of movement participation, so I'd say that on balance things are a bit better than they used to be. Charles: These things are more in the public discourse today than you are allowing. Read these lists. After being so definitely refuted in the past, their return and existence today is in a way more
[PEN-L:10136] Re: Re: Re: Arts Letters Daily
It is lively, but there's a preponderance of links to The New Republic, the Weekly Standard, and even LM Online. Suggests that there's a real conservative tilt to the whole Bad Writing project. Doug Maybe you or Bad Subjects girls boys can launch a Bad Writing Contest of your own, documenting conservative fashion crimes and stylistic faux pas. There can't be any shortage of whipping boys in that quarter. Yoshie
[PEN-L:10135] Re: Re: Abortion: another angle (2)
Michael Keaney wrote: Does the wider community have a legitimate interest in the fate of the unborn child? Is it an adequate defence of a woman's ability to choose freely to insist upon a conception of her body as private property with which she may do as she pleases? If so, how do we deal with prostitution, pornography, euthanasia, self-mutilation, "irresponsible" behaviour of pregnant mothers (e.g. smoking, substance abuse)? Where do rights come from? How are they divined, or are they constructed, and in either case, who by? The USA has gone in a direction of punishing with imprisonement what you call "'irresponsible' behaviors of pregnant mothers,'" and this policy trend is likely to continue. 'Socialist' Romania (the surreally 'pronatalist' state) banned abortions, made contraceptives unavailable, and imposed mandatory pregnancy tests upon the female population. 'Socialist' China took an opposite tack and has enforced its one-child policy. Japan imported Viagra but damned male conservatives have made the pill unavailable. Steralization abuses, overuse of C-section, etc. have been well publicized. In sexist societies, an 'interest in the fate of unborn child' comes in the form of punishment, surveillance, and psychological behavioral control of women. Reproductive capacity of women has been made a medium of dehumanization subordination of women by men and the State, often in the name of 'protection' of fetuses, of women themselves, of moralisty, of society, and indeed in some cases tragically of 'socialism.' And I am opposed to population control or political demography for this reason. To rewrite Foucault, both bodies and souls are prisons of womanhood. I add that such punishment, surveillance, and control of women has never led to the well-being of children who are already born. Yoshie
[PEN-L:10133] Re: Re: Arts Letters Daily
It is lively, but there's a preponderance of links to The New Republic, the Weekly Standard, and even LM Online. Suggests that there's a real conservative tilt to the whole Bad Writing project. Doug Louis Proyect wrote: Whoops. Left out the URL: http://www.cybereditions.com/aldaily/ At 10:44 AM 8/17/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: This is a webpage with links to articles on the Internet put together by Denis Dutton, who launched the Bad Writing Contest. It is updated daily and is quite lively. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html) Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:10131] Re: Arts Letters Daily
Whoops. Left out the URL: http://www.cybereditions.com/aldaily/ At 10:44 AM 8/17/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: This is a webpage with links to articles on the Internet put together by Denis Dutton, who launched the Bad Writing Contest. It is updated daily and is quite lively. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html) Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:10129] Re: Marx, and Rhetoric
Stephen E Philion wrote: Richard, Is it possible that you might demonstrate to us how the segment that you quote below is 'rhetorical'? You might not agree with what is asserted below, but how is it 'heavily rhetorical'? Steve Who is Richard, by the way? Cheers, ajit sinha That may have been Stephen's own rhetorical device to persuade others that I am not for real - the Latin American he, an American, thinks I should be. Had Stephen read more, instead of imitating the KKK, he would have known that every argument is bound with rhetoric; and, as Rod says, Marx was a master rhetorician. Someone (?) wrote: Marx's point in writing Capital was to do away with rhetoric. Rather than pointing to the horrors of capitalism and pointing to evil acts of specific people or even classes, he attempted to show how the system as a whole worked according to its own laws of motion. Richard Duchesne wrote in response: Like any polemic work, Capital is heavily rhetorical; just like what you say above.
[PEN-L:10125] Re: Re: Re: Marx, and Rhetoric
Stephen E Philion wrote: Richard, Is it possible that you might demonstrate to us how the segment that you quote below is 'rhetorical'? You might not agree with what is asserted below, but how is it 'heavily rhetorical'? Steve Who is Richard, by the way? Cheers, ajit sinha Someone (?) wrote: Marx's point in writing Capital was to do away with rhetoric. Rather than pointing to the horrors of capitalism and pointing to evil acts of specific people or even classes, he attempted to show how the system as a whole worked according to its own laws of motion. Richard Duchesne wrote in response: Like any polemic work, Capital is heavily rhetorical; just like what you say above.
[PEN-L:10088] Re: RE: RE: Fwd: Re: RE: Value Theory andAbortion:[WasFree Speech and Opport
G'day Chas'n'Max, You write: So Lauren Bacall , the Sweetheart, was as tough as Boggie ? I don't think so. Way tougher, Chas! As with Kate and Spencer. Actually, women had some serious character and plot grunt there for a while in the forties - what with war somewhat mucking up political economic relations between the sexes. It took Hollywood a while to return their leading ladies to the decorous ankle-twisters and screamers of yore, too - women still had some agency, and not a little toughness/power, throughout the post-war film noir period, too. But where there's a willy, there's a way, I s'pose - and Marilyn's affected helpless voluptuity and Doris's uncannily durable innocent bloom had reasserted Hollywood's natural order by the fifties. Hope Michael Hoover'll move in with some words on this, as the suddenly bleeding obvious political economic angle on gender representation in US movies has only just struck me this very (and embarrassingly belated) minute. Cheers, Rob.
