Re: Perelman on Brenner
Paul: However, white collar (non-productive) workers are a fixed cost. Squeezing their wages reduces fixed cost and hence can improve profits. Being an ex-whitecollar worker, I am not so sure about this Paul. As a saying goes in the business world, no body is indispensable. At least, this is what I experienced when I was there. Why was I a fixed cost to the establishment I worked at? As the COO of a company who wanted to keep me, when I resigned and conditioned my stay for a substantial raise, once said: You will do what you gotta do! I don't think there are many in India or in Turkey or in the US, for that matter, who know certain things as well as I do, but I left and they lived happily ever after! Best, Sabri
Excerpt from Kevin Phillips's new book
Rise of a ruling-class family How generations of high finance and Ivy League breeding led to a presidency handed from father to son. An excerpt from American Dynasty. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Kevin Phillips Jan. 27, 2004 | Concern about a U.S. dynastic presidency first emerged in 2000, prompted by skeptics of the Bush succession, as well as by amateur historians unnerved by analogies to the 17th century English Stuart and 19th century French Bourbon restorations. The topic gained force and more widespread credibility when the 2002 elections confirmed George W. Bush's popularity and when the war of early spring 2003 displayed his personal commitment to resuming his father's unfinished combat with Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Controversial wars and geopolitical ambitions, after all, have frequently originated as dynastic ambitions. Other institutional aspects of a family-based presidency warrant national attention. Dynasties tend to show continuities of policy and interest-group bias -- in the case of the Bushes, favoritism toward the energy sector, defense industries, the Pentagon and the CIA, as well as insistence on tax breaks for the investor class and upper-income groups. By inauguration day of 2001, Houston-based Enron had a relationship with the Bush clan going back a decade and a half. Families restored to power also have a history of seeking revenge against old foes as well as recalling longtime loyalists and retainers. George W. Bush's record has included retiring such taunters of his father as Texas governor Ann Richards (in 1994) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Bush helped to force him out after the 1998 elections) and appointing former officials dating back not just to his father's term but to the Ford administration of 1974-76, a virtual incubator of the Republican Party's Bush faction. This dynasticism was hardly a phenomenon unique to the United States. In the first few years of the 21st century, the restoration of old European royal houses was discussed in Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Italy. As in the United States, the principals were political conservatives. Another questionable aspect of dynastic control is the effect of biological inheritance. History is all too familiar with hereditary traits like the Hapsburg chin and the Tudor temper. Some pundits have queried whether heredity might likewise explain certain behaviors shared by the two Bush presidents -- frenetic activity, scrambled speech, the hint of dyslexic arrangements of thought. Although the press has been reticent to pursue such matters, they do have a genuine relevance. Three, perhaps four, generations of Bushes have displayed great capacities for remembering names, faces and statistics. Dallas News reporter Bill Minutaglio, a biographer of the younger Bush, discovered that George H.W. Bush went so far as to tell his spokesman Marlin Fitzwater to gather together the photographs of the Washington press corps so he could memorize all their names; the Bush men were always startlingly better than anyone else at memorizing names. At the same time, both father and son have shown little talent for conceptualization or abstraction. Is it a coincidence? Dynasty, with its subordination of individual achievement to gene pools and bloodlines, always involves a gamble on the nuances of heredity. In the United States, as we will see, the 20th century rise of the Bush family was built on the five pillars of American global sway: the international reach of U.S. investment banking, the emerging giantism of the military-industrial complex, the ballooning of the CIA and kindred intelligence operations, the drive for U.S. control of global oil supplies, and a close alliance with Britain and the English-speaking community. This century of upward momentum brought a sequence of controversies, albeit ones that never gained critical mass -- such as the exposure in 1942 of Prescott Bush's corporate directorship links to wartime Germany, which harked back to overambitious 1920s investment banking; the Bush family's longtime involvement with global armaments and the military-industrial complex; and a web of close connections to the CIA, which began decades before George Bush's brief CIA directorship in 1976. Threads like these may not weigh heavily on individual presidencies; they are many times more troubling when they run through several generations of a dynasty. We must be cautious here not to transmute commercial relationships into a latter-day conspiracy theory, a transformation that epitomizes what historian Richard Hofstadter years ago called the paranoid streak in American politics. (Try a Google Internet search for George Bush and Hitler, for example.) On the other hand, worries about conspiracy thinking should not inhibit inquiries in a way that blocks sober examination, which often more properly identifies some kind of elite behavior familiar to sociologists and political scientists alike. The particular evolution of elites within nations
[Fwd: Re: Howard Dean, Nader, Chomsky and Stalin]
Original Message Subject: Re: Howard Dean, Nader, Chomsky and Stalin Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 08:50:47 -0600 From: Saul Thomas [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Did you notice that Alterman brings up Stalin three times on that blog page? We get the Nader, Dean, Chomsky and Stalin axis on Jan 26th, the whines of certain anti-Semitic, Stalinist Nation columnists who have just published self-justifying books on the 21st, and on Jan 14th he actually brought up Stalinesque show trials in conjunction with something that happened on the right. And for breakfast I'd like spam, spam, Stalin, eggs, Stalin, bacon, spam and Stalin. And bring me a copy of the Workers Vanguard while you're at it. Eric Alterman: Im sure Dean has many idealistic supporters. And for all I know, he might make a terrific president. But my honest opinion is that hed be a much weaker candidate against Bush than Kerry, Clark or Edwards, and since thats the only issue that moves me, I think it would be a big mistake to give him the nomination. Ive enumerated reasons for this in the past and I think they become more apparent every day. (And be honest, while he was brave and outspoken on the war when others were quiet and cautious, do you really think he would handle the current quagmire better than any other of his major rivals? Just what in his career as a country doctor and governor of Vermont leads you to that?) I suspect that some of these people did Dean more harm than good in Iowa. Moreover, its kind of pathetic that so many people on the left become so tied into hero worshipNader, Dean, Chomsky, (and dare I say it, Stalin)that they feel a need to abuse anyone who does not share their wide-eyed admiration. I expect this kind of vituperation for any kind of deviationism is what turns many leftists and liberals into conservatives. (Its not working with me yet, but hey, Im only 44 and Scaife hasnt come up with an attractive enough offer.) full: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/ -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: [Fwd: Re: Howard Dean, Nader, Chomsky and Stalin]
The Alterboy is very strange. Sticking together a centrist Democratic governor and Prez candidate, a disaffected populist pro-market but anticorporate consumer advocate and protest politician, an anarchist linguistics scholar abnd radical foreign policy analyst with a multi-decade passionate commitment to democracy and human rights . . . and _Stalin_, well, is just bizzare. Is the idea that if you don't support Kerry, Clark, or Edwards you are (a) a self-indulgent spoiler apologist for the Khmer Rouge and Holocaust Revisionism who is also a enemy of human freedom and an advocate of a single party dictatotship and an unbridled secret police repression? Or what? Spam, spam, eggs and Stalin indeed. Good catch, Louis. jks (Who does, this time, supportm withashes in his mouth, Kerry, Clark, Edwards or Dean - ABB.) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Did you notice that Alterman brings up Stalin three times on that blog page? We get the Nader, Dean, Chomsky and Stalin axis on Jan 26th, the whines of certain anti-Semitic, Stalinist Nation columnists who have just published self-justifying books on the 21st, and on Jan 14th he actually brought up Stalinesque show trials in conjunction with something that happened on the right. And for breakfast I'd like spam, spam, Stalin, eggs, Stalin, bacon, spam and Stalin. And bring me a copy of the Workers Vanguard while you're at it. Eric Alterman: Im sure Dean has many idealistic supporters. And for all I know, he might make a terrific president. But my honest opinion is that hed be a much weaker candidate against Bush than Kerry, Clark or Edwards, and since thats the only issue that moves me, I think it would be a big mistake to give him the nomination. Ive enumerated reasons for this in the past and I think they become more apparent every day. (And be honest, while he was brave and outspoken on the war when others were quiet and cautious, do you really think he would handle the current quagmire better than any other of his major rivals? Just what in his career as a country doctor and governor of Vermont leads you to that?) I suspect that some of these people did Dean more harm than good in Iowa. Moreover, its kind of pathetic that so many people on the left become so tied into hero worshipNader, Dean, Chomsky, (and dare I say it, Stalin)that they feel a need to abuse anyone who does not share their wide-eyed admiration. I expect this kind of vituperation for any kind of deviationism is what turns many leftists and liberals into conservatives. (Its not working with me yet, but hey, Im only 44 and Scaife hasnt come up with an attractive enough offer.) full: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/ -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
agree
my impression is that Kerry voted against the Gulf War but not Dubya's splendid little war because on the latter he was scared to go against a Prez made popular by 911. This is just one sign of the Democratic Party's increasing cowardice. Jim D. I agree. Another sign of Democratic cowardice is the failure of every one of the Demo candidates, including Kucinich, who should know better, to criticise their flawed, corrupted party. Dan
Presidential ignorance/Islam, etc.
Here is my letter to the editor from our relatively widely circulated local (Western Mass.) newspaper Berkshire Eagle: http://www.berkshireeagle.com/Stories/0,1413,101~6268~1917246,00.html Ahmet
Re: agree
...and get a load of the health plans that they all broadcast today. It's a joke. Joanna Dan Scanlan wrote: my impression is that Kerry voted against the Gulf War but not Dubya's splendid little war because on the latter he was scared to go against a Prez made popular by 911. This is just one sign of the Democratic Party's increasing cowardice. Jim D. I agree. Another sign of Democratic cowardice is the failure of every one of the Demo candidates, including Kucinich, who should know better, to criticise their flawed, corrupted party. Dan
futtucine?
Alexi Bonifield is a local Nevada county CA activist who has been working on the Kucinich campign., This is her report on the Iowa caucus. DON'T ORDER THE FETTUCINE: Iowa Presidential Caucus 2004 I'm from California. Politics here ranges in spirit and style from Kabuki to Spielberg. We Golden State folks just recalled a poker-faced career politico, duly elected governor by a reasonable percentage of the population, and replaced him with an inexperienced B-Grade actor who smiles handsomely for the media cameras and cant pronounce the state's name. Not much takes me by surprise, politically-speaking. On January 7, I boarded AMTRAK in Colfax, CA, joining 30 or so enthusiastic, passionately committed souls of all ages from across the state, heading east on a Peace Train to support our Democrat of choice in the Iowa Presidential Caucus. We sang patriotic and political songs, swapped diverse life tales and campaign paraphernalia, and discovered how we all shared the same soul-felt vision for world peace and justice embodied by our candidate. When we arrived in Osceola, Iowa, and shuttled the short distance to Des Moines, we were all eager to stretch our wings and spread the gospel of fearless paradigm change, and to participate in a grassroots, unique aspect of American democracy in action the Iowa Caucus. We immersed ourselves in the exploding political scene: canvassing neighborhoods in shifts, endlessly phone calling undecideds and likely supportive 1's and 2's from computer generated precinct lists, penning volumes of personal postcard notes, working coffee receptions and speaking events -- and attending caucus training sessions to learn about this upcoming process. We grokked the 15% viability concept and played pretend caucus using musical genres in place of candidates (I lobbied successfully for the blues preference group), learned about last minute voter registration and the sanctity of the 7pm closed-door deadline for inclusion in the official headcount, absorbed what chaos to expect during re-alignment, and how to propose resolutions for the state platform. Most importantly, we learned that as Californians we could observe (but not vote in) the caucuses from the rear of the rooms, wearing our t-shirts and campaign buttons, but not handing out literature or stumping for our candidate (unless we were publicly elected officials ourselves). It was made very clear that only Democrats duly registered in their specific precincts would be included in the head count; all participants would have their names checked against a master list upon entering the room and asked to register immediately and provide verifiable residence if not on the list. It sounded complicated, staff support heavy; but if lots of Iowans regularly participate in the caucus process, I figured it must work. It wasn't until after the caucus that I learned what a tiny percentage of Iowa residents actually participate. Observing the hordes of media folk swarming the pre-caucus hubbub, I imagined all Iowa must take part. In one day, I was interviewed by the LA Times, NPR, SF Chronicle, the Christian Science Monitor (quoted on their front page story as an out-of-state volunteer), two radio stations, three alternative weeklies, and a German internet news reporter. This world-wide newsworthy event would demonstrate how a large number of American citizens select their presidential delegates in an honest-to-gosh functional grassroots system! With literally thousands of campaign volunteers like myself pouring in, from many other states, Canada, Europe and Japan, I hoped Iowa residents would feel honored, not overwhelmed, by our presence in support of this first important step of the 2004 Presidential Campaign. After two days in Des Moines, I was sent to a to a small town near the Minnesota border to assist the single paid campaign worker for my candidate in a rural county. Her greatest support appeared to come from a handful of articulate, intelligent college students who canvassed around class schedules and published their own newspaper which presented the candidates opinions on a wide range of issues with more clarity than most major news media. After telephoning what felt like every single possible supporter in the county at least 3 times, and canvassing quaint neighborhoods solo in single digit and below temperatures for hours on end, I was so ready for the Big Event. At 6pm on Caucus Night, the campaign coordinator dropped me off at the nearby college with flyers, stickers and placards, ready to observe, oversee and persuade last minute undecided's entering any of the 3 designated caucuses in the specific building. An out of state native as well, the coordinator headed off to the caucus located in the precinct where she resided, in hopes of getting counted based on her several months Iowa residence. (I learned later she participated unchallenged.) The aggressively enthusiastic
Re: Perelman on Brenner
Sabri, Of course, no individual is indispensable and employers can downsize and increase the intensity of work for support staff or can, in many cases replace white collar workers with capital (e.g. replacing telephone receptionists with voice mail or touchtone routing) but the point that I was making is that labour cost is not a function of output. In the case of say a retail clothing store you need at least one clerk whether that clerk sells 50 shirts in a day or 10. The store will also require a bookkeeper and stock reorder clerk, again whether it sells 50 shirts or 10. Thus, if sales are down and profits fall, the easiest possible way to restore profits is to cut the wages of the clerical staff (or perhaps cut hours which reduces wages though not necessarily wage rates.) One way to reduce labour wages for this kind of labour is to outsource offshore -- e.g. software writing to India, telemarketing to Jamaica, etc. Paul Sabri Oncu wrote: Paul: However, white collar (non-productive) workers are a fixed cost. Squeezing their wages reduces fixed cost and hence can improve profits. Being an ex-whitecollar worker, I am not so sure about this Paul. As a saying goes in the business world, "no body is indispensable". At least, this is what I experienced when I was there. Why was I a "fixed cost" to the establishment I worked at? As the COO of a company who wanted to keep me, when I resigned and conditioned my stay for a substantial raise, once said: "You will do what you gotta do!" I don't think there are many in India or in Turkey or in the US, for that matter, who know certain things as well as I do, but I left and they lived happily ever after! Best, Sabri
Re: Nigerian general strike on hold
[Interesting to note in this context that Nigeria is one of the few places in the developing world which has experienced widespread labour shortages recently.] that's because so many are employed sending us e-mails asking us to help them get money out of the country... ;-) Jim D
Re: Perelman on Brenner
I wrote: This means that profit booms are most likely to be based on increased indebtedness. Sabri writes: This is how I see it, too. The profit rate increases are not so much as a result of wage squeezes anymore. That is a thing of the past. As Michael keeps saying, and I agree, we are now in the age of high fixed costs and low marginal costs. if we're talking about wage squeezes on profits -- or, what we're seeing nowadays, wage stagnation encouraging profits -- it's not marginal costs but average costs that count. We're not talking about individual firm's decision-making but instead about the economic conditions facing aggregates (though both levels are important in the end). The fluctuation of average wages relative to average productivity (determining the profit share and the rate of surplus-value) is important. But it's not just production but also realization. That's what I was referring to when I wrote of profit booms being based on increased indebtedness. Wage stagnation implies high profit production -- but only if profit realization is high. The latter can only happen (given wage stagnation) given increased indebtedness. Jim D.
The Oil We Eat
(An extremely important article from the Feb. 2004 Harpers Magazine, which unfortunately is not online. I scanned in the first couple of pages but urge everybody to track it down and read the whole thing. It is the first time I have seen an attempt to integrate an analysis of the agricultural crisis with the energy crisis. All that is needed is to connect all this to the water crisis and you will have the basis for a total ecological critique of late capitalist society. Although Manning is something of a Deep Ecologist, his understanding of the *science* is unimpeachable. The article addresses the question of civilization's roots in agriculture and urban society and the conclusion one is left with is that it is *unsustainable*. Manning also has a brief article on the Counterpunch website on Mad Cow that I also recommend a look at: http://www.counterpunch.org/manning01172004.html) ESSAY THE OIL WE EAT Following the food chain back to Iraq By Richard Manning (Richard Manning is the author of Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization, to be published this month by North Point Press.) The secret of great wealth with no obvious source is some forgotten crime, forgotten because it was done neatly. --Balzac The journalist's rule says: follow the money. This rule, however, is not really axiomatic but derivative, in that money, as even our vice president will tell you, is really a way of tracking energy. We'll follow the energy. We learn as children that there is no free lunch, that you don't get something from nothing, that what goes up must come down, and so on. The scientific version of these verities is only slightly more complex. As James Prescott Joule discovered in the nineteenth century, there is only so much energy. You can change it from motion to heat, from heat to light, but there will never be more of it and there will never be less of it. The conservation of energy is not an option, it is a fact. This is the first law of thermodynamics. Special as we humans are, we get no exemptions from the rules. All animals eat plants or eat animals that eat plants. This is the food chain, and pulling it is the unique ability of plants to turn sunlight into stored energy in the form of carbohydrates, the basic fuel of all animals. Solar-powered photosynthesis is the only way to make this fuel. There is no alternative to plant energy, just as there is no alternative to oxygen. The results of taking away our plant energy may not be as sudden as cutting off oxygen, but they are as sure. Scientists have a name for the total amount of plant mass created by Earth in a given year, the total budget for life. They call it the planet's primary productivity. There have been two efforts to figure out how that productivity is spent, one by a group at Stanford University, the other an independent accounting by the biologist Stuart Pimm. Both conclude that we humans, a single species among millions, consume about 40 percent of Earth's primary productivity, 40 percent of all there is. This simple number may explain why the current extinction rate is 1,000 times that which existed before human domination of the planet. We 6 billion have simply stolen the food, the rich among us a lot more than others. Energy cannot be created or canceled, but it can be concentrated. This is the larger and profoundly explanatory context of a national-security memo George Kennan wrote in 1948 as the head of a State Department planning committee, ostensibly about Asian policy but really about how the United States was to deal with its newfound role as the dominant force on Earth. We have about 50 percent of the world's wealth but only 6.3 percent of its population, Kennan wrote. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction. The day is not far off, Kennan concluded, when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. If you follow the energy, eventually you will end up in a field somewhere. Humans engage in a dizzying array of artifice and industry. Nonetheless, more than two thirds of humanity's cut of primary productivity results from agriculture, two thirds of which in turn consists of three plants: rice, wheat, and corn. In the 10,000 years since humans domesticated these grains, their status has remained undiminished, most likely because they are able to store solar energy in uniquely dense, transportable bundles of carbohydrates. They are to the plant world what a barrel of refined oil is to the hydrocarbon world. Indeed, aside from
Mauritius seeks to become cyber island
allAfrica.com: Mauritius: Mauritius Seeks to Become a Global Cyber Island Paradise[Mauritius also used to have a GINI of zero, although I'm not sure if it's doing that well now. Note as well the role of the Indian government.] Mauritius Seeks to Become a Global Cyber Island Paradise allAfrica.com January 12, 2004 Ofeibea Quist-Arcton Port Louis and Curepipe, Mauritius First came California's Silicon Valley, then India took the honours. Next, if all goes according to plan, the tiny Indian Ocean nation of Mauritius hopes to lead the way in Africa, by transforming itself into a cyber island. The dream is to create a hi-tech paradise, dubbed cyber city, which is located in Ebene, 15km (9 miles) outside the capital, Port Louis. The 12-story tower, surrounded by a ring of mountains, rises out of the sugar cane plantations that were once the bedrock of Mauritian economic prosperity. But it is not to the West that Mauritius is looking for its example of cyber supremacy. That falls to India. The island may be a dot on the map in the Indian Ocean, but it is strategically located between Africa and the east and has close links with India. Through the cyber city project, we want to forge triangular cooperation involving India, Mauritius and Africa, to develop synergy and facilitate Africa's march towards an e-economy, then finance minister, Paul Berenger, told a conference last year, before he became the island's prime minister in September. [Berenger succeeded Sir Anerood Jugnauth under the terms of a power-sharing agreement signed during the 2000 elections by the political parties the two men head.] Mauritius, with 1. 2 million people, is home to a large population of Indian descent, which accounts for most of the island's political elite, though Berenger, a veteran politician, is himself a Franco-Mauritian and, therefore, a notable exception. Although the country is officially bilingual in English and French, the local language Kreol is even more widely spoken by islanders. Hindi and other Indian languages are also popular among the different communities. The majority Indian population on the island dates back to when Britain, one of the European powers that colonised Mauritius, brought in indentured labourers from India to work on the sugar plantations. African slaves had earlier been imported from Mozambique, with the landowners being of French origin, which accounts for the island's rich, mixed heritage. Devendra Chaudhry, the chief executive officer of Business Parks of Mauritius Ltd (BPML), the company responsible for the construction of the cyber city complex, is an Indian national. He has been seconded to Mauritius from the Indian civil service to lend his hi-tech know-how and share his experiences working in his country's own Silicon Valley. The government in Delhi has extended a financial credit of US$100 million, as well as technical support. Most of the workers on the construction site - and the infrastructure - have also been brought over from India. Delhi is hoping to reap the benefits of its largesse by exploring info-tech markets in Francophone Africa and even in France itself - through French-speaking Mauritius. But critics in Mauritius argue that the lion's share of the jobs created by the cyber city will go to foreigners, who are only interested in making a quick buck, at the expense of locals who will be relegated to low-skilled occupations. The knowledge park is being built on a 150-acre (60 hectare) plot and will include a business zone, a multi-media complex and a hotel, as well as residential and recreational facilities. Completion is scheduled for 2005. Technologically speaking, the cyber city is a state-of-the-art facility, said Chaudhry, adding that it would provide a world-class telecommunications network, through both satellite and an (underwater) fibre optic cable. In 2000, Mauritius joined the South Africa Far East (SAFE) Submarine Fibre-Optic Cable Project, which plans to link the island to Malaysia, via South Africa and onto West Africa and Europe. This should provide high-speed connectivity. In the words of the island's minister of information, technology and telecommunications, Deelchand Jeeha: It is no longer a matter of choosing between penicillin and Pentium. It is now more a matter of choosing the most effective way for IT to transform Africa into an engine for economic growth and a better provider for its people. The government in Mauritius wants to diversify the island's economy away from its traditional exports of sugar and textiles, which are dependent on capricious world markets and global trade regulations. Berenger said: On the horizon, the sugar protocol is threatened and textile exports to the European Union and the (United) States are also under question by the World Trade Organisation's new rules and, by developing free trade agreements, so we are threatened from all sides. This reality, said Berenger, was the reason for our idea to make Mauritius a cyber
US general's slip exposes tank deal
The Australian: US slip exposes tank 'deal' [ 27jan04 ] [This shows the extent to which Australian forces have become a US foreign legion --- the Leopard 2 appears to be both better and more suited to conditions in SE Asia and the SW Pacific than the M1.] US slip exposes tank 'deal' By John Kerin 27jan04 A SENIOR US military commander says Australia has agreed to buy more than 100 US tanks for $780 million ($US600 million) in comments that pre-empt a deal. Defence Minister Robert Hill insisted last night that no decision had been made on a replacement for Australia's 30-year-old Leopard tanks despite negotiations entering a sensitive final phase. But the commander of the Coalition Military Assistance Training team in Iraq, Major-General Paul Eaton, said Australia had bought up to two battalions of Abrams tanks - 108 - during a media briefing on the types of armour the coalition could use to rebuild Iraqi tanks. If you're talking about the (Abrams) M1, I think Australia just made a purchase of a couple of battalions, Major-General Eaton told a media briefing in Baghdad on January 21. You can check the price ... (but) I think they paid something in the order of $US600 million. The Howard Government is considering three tanks to replace the ageing Leopard 1s: assorted versions of the Leopard 2, either ex-German Army A4s and A5s or newer ex-Dutch Army A6s, the M1 Abrams from the US and the Challenger 2 from Britain. The US has slashed the price of the Abrams to try to be competitive with the cheaper Leopard 2 bids, which also have the advantage of being a later generation of the tank the army currently has in service. The Challenger is understood not to be a serious contender. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,8503434,00.html
Ontario Strains its' Doctors
Many Ontario doctors are so fed up with the lack of resources in the health system that they're considering either retiring or leaving the province, suggests a new poll released Tuesday. One in every six doctors in the province is seriously considering leaving Ontario, while another 22 per cent are thinking of quitting medicine altogether, suggested the survey conducted by the Strategic Counsel. . The provincial Health Ministry has said 133 communities are underserviced, and that 1,968 more doctors are needed. Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara has said that doctors and other medical professionals must live within the province's means as the government battles a $5.6-billion deficit. The Strategic Counsel contacted 2,000 doctors for the survey that was conducted for the OMA. http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040127.wphys0127/BNStory/National/
Both Articles on Alberta case.
NOT YOUR AVERAGE LICENSE PLATE... By Lisa Doerksen Lethbridge Herald Friday, January 23, 2004 A Piikani reserve woman who believes she is not bound by Canadian law is fighting for the right to drive in the province without registering her vehicle. Bella Yellowhorn has launched a constitutional challenge of the Indian Act and Treaty 7 in an effort to be recognized as part of a sovereign nation. I am a member of the sovereign Blackfoot Nation, said Yellowhorn. I do not have to abide by the Canadian status laws and all they charge us for. Yellowhorn claims she is one of a growing number of natives who have rejected their status Indian cards from the government and are using their own Blackfoot Nation cards. Yellowhorn and her representation--James Craven, a professor at Clark's[sic] College in Washington--will argue their position this morning in Lethbridge provincial court. Prosecutor Kurt Sandstrom, a specialist in constitutional and aboriginal law, is handling the case for the Crown. The issue stems back to May 1, 2001 when Yellowhorn was pulled over in Lethbridge for not having proper registration for her vehicle. Yellowhorn had outfitted her van with a homemade Blackfoot Nation license plate. This is traditional Blackfoot Nation territory, she said. This is my homeland and I feel I have the right to use my own license plate in my home country. If her case is successful, Yellowhorn wants to be able to use her own license plate on all ancestral Blackfoot lands, which encompasses most of southern Alberta, stretching into Montana, Saskatchewan and B.C. Craven, however, says the issue goes far beyond license plates. What this is about is genocide, pure and simple, he said. It's about the right to be a free nation, free people. We have a right to remain as a nation and not be exterminated. Craven,, who also goes by his Blackfoot name Omahkohkiaayo-i'poyi, said he plans to shed light on the Indian Act's purpose of forcing assimilation of Indians into Canadian life--what he calls genocide of the Blackfoot culture. If a (Blackfoot Indian) chooses also to be a Canadian that's fine but you can't force it on us, he said. We're forcing Canada to look at itself and what's being done to Indians across the country. Craven said he'll take the issue to the Supreme Court of Canada or even the International Court in Hague or the United Nations if necessary. LETHBRIDGE HERALD The Lethbridge Herald Saturday A, Saturday, January 24, 2004, p.a3 [By Lisa Doerksen Lethbridge Herald Forcing Blackfoot Nations[sic] Natives to have Canadian insurance on their vehicles is akin to asking foreign travellers to buy Canadian insurance to visit here, says a professor helping] By Lisa Doerksen Lethbridge Herald Forcing Blackfoot Nations[sic] natives to have Canadian insurance on their vehicles is akin to asking foreign travellers to buy Canadian insurance to visit here, says a professor helping a native woman fight a charge of driving a motor vehicle without insurance. It's no different than a motorist from Montana driving onto Canadian lands, said James Craven, a professor at Washington's Clark College, on behalf of Bella Yellowhorn Friday at the Lethbridge provincial courthouse. They're not required to have Canadian insurance as long as they have some kind of insurance. The issue stems back to May 1, 2001 when Yellowhorn, a Piikani reserve resident, was pulled over in Lethbridge for not having proper registration for her vehicle. Yellowhorn had outfitted her van with a homemade Blackfoot Nation licence plate. She was later convicted of a charge of not having proper registration and the insurance charge went to trial this week. Yellowhorn claimed in court she had insurance but could not prove it because she was unable to obtain documents from her van when it was seized and also could not locate the Fort Macleod office she purchased the insurance from. Prosecutor Eric Brooks, who is handling the criminal prosecution regarding the charge, noted the onus is on the accused to provide proof of insurance and Yellowhorn was allowed several adjournments to give her time to gather the information. Judge Ron Jacobson will hand down his decision on Feb. 9. Yellowhorn said if the case is successful, she wants to be able to use her own licence plate on all ancestral Blackfoot lands, which encompasses most of southern Alberta, stretching into Montana, Saskatchewan and B.C. In addition to fighting the charge, Craven has launched a constitutional challenge of the Indian Act and Treaty 7 in an effort to have the Blackfoot people recognized as a sovereign nation. Craven told the court Friday the Blackfoot people meet all the tests for a nation under international law, including a stable population, identifiable land and their own identifiable governance. The Indian Act, he said, is little more than a document designed to force the assimilation of natives into Canadian culture--something he calls genocide of
Re: The Oil We Eat
Yes, this article is a real _tour de force_. I highly, highly recommend it. Lou is absolutely correct, the not-so-implicit message is that it's all been downhill since the emergence of sedentary grain cultivation, but not only is the science dead-on, there are useful nuggets of ecological political economy in here as well. Such as ... were the world's 6 billion to adopt US dietary habits, the world's fossil fuel stocks (not just capitalistically recoverable fossil fuel stocks) would be depleted in less than a decade. Stunning stuff. John Gulick LP said: (An extremely important article from the Feb. 2004 Harpers Magazine, which unfortunately is not online. I scanned in the first couple of pages but urge everybody to track it down and read the whole thing. It is the first time I have seen an attempt to integrate an analysis of the agricultural crisis with the energy crisis. All that is needed is to connect all this to the water crisis and you will have the basis for a total ecological critique of late capitalist society. Although Manning is something of a Deep Ecologist, his understanding of the *science* is unimpeachable. The article addresses the question of civilization's roots in agriculture and urban society and the conclusion one is left with is that it is *unsustainable*. Manning also has a brief article on the Counterpunch website on Mad Cow that I also recommend a look at: http://www.counterpunch.org/manning01172004.html) _ Check out the new MSN 9 Dial-up fast reliable Internet access with prime features! http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-uspage=dialup/homeST=1
Re: The Oil We Eat
- Original Message - From: John Gulick [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes, this article is a real _tour de force_. LP said: (An extremely important article from the Feb. 2004 Harpers Magazine, which unfortunately is not online. I scanned in the first couple of pages but urge everybody to track it down and read the whole thing. It is the first time I have seen an attempt to integrate an analysis of the agricultural crisis with the energy crisis. All that is needed is to connect all this to the water crisis and you will have the basis for a total ecological critique of late capitalist society. Although Manning is something of a Deep Ecologist, his understanding of the *science* is unimpeachable. The article addresses the question of civilization's roots in agriculture and urban society and the conclusion one is left with is that it is *unsustainable*. Manning also has a brief article on the Counterpunch website on Mad Cow that I also recommend a look at: http://www.counterpunch.org/manning01172004.html) As luck would have it, there's a most interesting case-study of the political ecology of water privatization in Buenos Aires I happened on earlier today that's worth a look in putting together puzzle pieces: http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~mspadmin/pages/Project_Publications/Journals/Loftus.pdf Of liquid dreams: a political ecology of water privatization in Buenos Aires Alexander J Loftus and David A McDonald
