Re: What is this thing called love?
There is a small but interesting literature on the economics of love, altruism, morality, and so on. My Beyond Profit and Self-Interest, chapter 6, has a short summary with bibliographic references. For example: Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments Kenneth Boulding, The Economy of Love and Fear David Collard, Altruism and Economics Amitai Etzioni, The Moral Dimension These writings contrast with the usual economists' cynicism about motives by assuming that non-selfish motives are possible and exploring their implications. At 20:49 14/03/04 -0800, you wrote: Porter is prety cold-eyed about love, which was my point to Joanna. He's the fella that wrote Love For Sale, among others. Electric eels, I might add, do it Though it shocks 'em I know Why ask if shad do it Waiter, bring me shadroe Tom Walker 604 255 4812 Robert Scott Gassler Professor of Economics Vesalius College of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel Pleinlaan 2 B-1050 Brussels Belgium 32.2.629.27.15
Re: Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a layman
1) On the global level, the U.S. wields control over the oil wells for some time to come and this would place it in a better competitive position vis-à-vis partners in the Western World. But is that really true ? My understanding is that the US controls SOME of the oil resource but not ALL of the oil resource. Jurriaan
Re: Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a layman
I didn't catch the earlier part of this thread, but what scale are we talking here? The world's largest oil producer is Russia. -Original Message- From: Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 12:41:45 +0100 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a layman 1) On the global level, the U.S. wields control over the oil wells for some time to come and this would place it in a better competitive position vis--vis partners in the Western World. But is that really true ? My understanding is that the US controls SOME of the oil resource but not ALL of the oil resource. Jurriaan
Re: Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a layman
I didn't catch the earlier part of this thread, but what scale are we talking here? The world's largest oil producer is Russia. World scale. I get back to you about this later. I got my times mixed up and came to early this morning for my appointment, tut tut. Got to go now, J. -Original Message- From: Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 12:41:45 +0100 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a layman 1) On the global level, the U.S. wields control over the oil wells for some time to come and this would place it in a better competitive position vis--vis partners in the Western World. But is that really true ? My understanding is that the US controls SOME of the oil resource but not ALL of the oil resource. Jurriaan
Re: Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a layman
I didn't catch the earlier part of this thread, but what scale are we talking here? The world's largest oil producer is Russia. The largest average daily producer, but not the largest proven reserves and not the largest exporter. Michael
Re: Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a layman
Yeah. No. 2 exporter though. All Russian oil profits are from exports. The largest average daily producer, but not the largest proven reserves and not the largest exporter. Michael
Re: Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a layman
Proven reserves is the catch phrase, The Gulf and Iraq have the highest so far. But let me make myself clear. In managing the decline it needs to control more oil.I do not think that the depletion story is scaremongering... especially when seen with the optic of the international division of labour. it is not an issue of rasing company profits once,surplus drain involves ultraexploitation hidden behind the price fettishJurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I didn't catch the earlier part of this thread, but what scale are wetalking here? The world's largest oil producer is Russia.World scale. I get back to you about this later. I got my times mixed up andcame to early this morning for my appointment, tut tut. Got to go now,J.-Original Message-From: Jurriaan Bendien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 12:41:45 +0100Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a layman 1) On the global level, the U.S. wields control over the oil wells forsome time to come and this would place it in a better competitive positionvis-à-vis partners in the Western World. But is that really true ? My understanding is that the US controls SOME ofthe oil resource but not ALL of the oil resource. JurriaanDo you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam
The future of Silicon Valley
LA Times, March 15, 2004 THE NATION Technically Speaking, Still a Tech Hub The Silicon Valley remains a land of headquarters, but much of the work has shifted to cheaper labor markets overseas. By Joseph Menn, Times Staff Writer SAN JOSE Outside the gray ranch house in a quiet and well-tended neighborhood, a ceramic frog guards a flower bed. The house is pretty much the same as the others on Woodford Drive, except for the plastic sign on the wall that says Easic Corp. Inside, in the dining room and family room, there's a daybed for the dog, brass plaques memorializing the chip-design firm's patents and five employees setting strategy, reviewing software and sending e-mail to programming colleagues in Romania. It looks a lot like the future of Silicon Valley. Zvi Or-Bach, Easic's founder, president and chief executive, hired the Romanians for the same reason he keeps Easic's headquarters in his three-bedroom house, where a secondhand mobile home in the backyard accommodates overflow employees. Obviously, it saves money, said Ze'ev Wurman, vice president of software development, noting that the Romanians' salaries are one-tenth of programmers' wages in San Jose. As Silicon Valley emerges from three years in the economic wilderness, it is taking on a new look. These days, many technology powerhouses no longer have thousands of locals employed to perform tasks ranging from designing software to cleaning the cafeteria. The new Silicon Valley is a land of headquarters, a place where deals are made but not necessarily carried out. The transformation echoes the evolution of Hollywood, which from its base in Southern California manages film shoots in Canada, animation in South Korea and special effects in New Zealand. In fact, the Silicon Valley tech sector is the latest addition to a long list: Generations ago, the textile industry sent factory and management jobs south from its New England base, for example, and later back-office jobs in financial services migrated from lower Manhattan to New Jersey. With the shift, the character of the valley is changing pretty dramatically, said AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of UC Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems. Although some companies are doing things the old-fashioned way, an increasing number of jobs that once were the guts of valley life technical support, programming, even some computer system design are now handled in places as remote as Bombay, India, and Bucharest, Romania. More than half the companies backed by top venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield Byers have operations offshore, firm partner John Doerr said. Big companies like Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp. of Redwood City, Calif., have drawn headlines and political fire for transferring jobs overseas, but the phenomenon has extended to even the smallest companies, which collectively employ the majority of technology workers in the valley. For some high-level engineering and marketing people, this is probably still the place to be, said Doug Carlisle, a managing director of Menlo Ventures in Menlo Park, Calif. But they aren't going to build a whole company here like Cisco [Systems Inc.] and Oracle, companies that were growing like crazy 15 years ago. Almost no company is putting 100% of their operations here for the long term. Lower-cost labor is just one factor. Another is the increasingly far-flung demand for sophisticated technology. In years past, young companies almost always tried to establish themselves in the U.S. before going after customers elsewhere. Not anymore. It's more expected today that companies start to engage in global markets earlier, said Ken Xie, CEO of computer security firm Fortinet Inc., who founded the Sunnyvale, Calif., company in 2000. Like many of his peers in the valley, Xie finds it easy to do business in some faraway places because they are familiar to him. Xie grew up in China and earned a master's degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing before moving to the U.S. Xie worked on security technology at several companies, including dot-com start-up Healtheon Corp., now WebMD Inc. Healtheon's successful initial public offering gave him the means to start again with Fortinet. Fortinet sold its first products for protecting computer networks from viruses and hackers to businesses in Asia, so it made sense to build a significant presence in Tokyo and Beijing, Xie said. Almost 250 of its 350 employees are now located outside the U.S. Fortinet is aiming for $100 million in revenue this year, two-thirds of which probably will come from abroad. Spreading employees across multiple time zones is also a big plus in a field like computer security, in which companies have to swing into action in minutes. At Fortinet, there is always an employee somewhere who is awake to respond to a new virus or electronic vulnerability. In part, the globalization of Silicon Valley's
Re: Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a layman
more important is oil profits. Large volume can easily be cancelled out by high costs. Jim D -Original Message- From: Chris Doss [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mon 3/15/2004 4:26 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a layman Yeah. No. 2 exporter though. All Russian oil profits are from exports. The largest average daily producer, but not the largest proven reserves and not the largest exporter. Michael
Re: Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a layman
I wanted to add that water matters for the poor but not to the rich. Water is drying for the poor, it has been and will continue to get further polluted and dry. but that will not hit profits it might deccrease the work force by somke brazen law of wages. but that alas happens for many other reasons. So this note is not tojim it is for michael because i agree with the note given that extraction costs in the gulfare the lowest."Devine, James" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: more important is oil profits. Large volume can easily be cancelled out by high costs.Jim D-Original Message- From: "Chris Doss" [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mon 3/15/2004 4:26 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Will the oil run out ? Reflections from a laymanYeah. No. 2 exporter though. All Russian oil profits are from exports. The largest average daily producer, but not the largest proven reserves and not the largest exporter. MichaelDo you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam
Re: corporations/More Side Issue
Sabri Oncu wrote: Of course, it is unsual for you westerners who forgot the closeness touching one another brings out but I don't blame you. It is just sad that you don't know how to touch and kiss each other except when you have sex. the westerners don't come close to us indians when it comes to being conservative about this stuff. we literally wrote the book on sex, but now we don't even touch or kiss each other during sex ;-) ;-). --ravi
Spanish spectre
The Socialist Party victory in Spain has sent political shock waves around the world, changed the European power balance, and is ominous news for George Bush, according to an analysis in todays Asia Times. The election has drawn Spain closer to France and Germany, further isolating Tony Blair in Europe and threatening his continued leadership of the Labour Party. The election outcome is being attributed to an unusually high turnout by Spanish youth opposed to the Iraq war, and the unprecedented mobilization of the Socialist Party ranks angered by the election-eve efforts of the Aznar government to use the Madrid bombing to partisan advantage. A large turnout of Democratic Party and independent American voters angry at having been lied to about Iraq haunts the Bush administration, and the Spanish result will do little to allay its foreboding. The underestimated electoral power of the antiwar movement may, as J. Sean Curtin notes, also make the Japanese government more vulnerable, and he could have added Italy, Poland, and Australia to the list. Article reproduced on www.supportingfacts.com Sorry for any cross posting.
Re: Spanish spectre
Marvin Gandall wrote: A large turnout of Democratic Party and independent American voters angry at having been lied to about Iraq haunts the Bush administration, and the Spanish result will do little to allay its foreboding. I am not sure what point is being made here. The SP in Spain was opposed to the war and pledged to remove troops if elected. The DP in the USA supports the war and John Kerry has pledged to increase the numbers of troops. It just might turn out that Bush is replaced by Kerry, but this will make little difference to the people of Iraq unless he decides to renounce his pro-war views once in the White House. Since US foreign policy is made by an invisible government with little connection to how people vote, I doubt if there is much basis for optimism. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Spanish spectre
I don't disagree with your main point about the effect on Iraq of a Kerry victory. I don't think it's any more likely to lead to a US troop withdrawal than Bush's reelection. In both cases, I think the withdrawal of US forces will depend either on much larger numbers of US casualties or, alternatively, the defeat of the insurgency. The intention is in any case to leave behind garrisons in new military bases. As we've discussed elsewhere -- and this is not an invitation to resume the debate by any means -- any US government, including a Green Party one, would be compelled to respond this way, if allowed to come to power through the electoral system. It's not assured in Spain, incidentally -- and I'm sure you know this -- that the 1200 Spanish troops will be withdrawn on June 30. The PSOE has left itself an escape hatch in that some or all of the troops will remain in Iraq if there is a (nominal) transfer of command of the occupying forces to the UN, ie. Abizaid takes off his US hat and puts on a UN one. This is likely what will happen. Nothwithstanding all of the above, I'm still encouraged by and applaud the mobilization of the Spanish people, who angrily refused to buy the lies and manipulation of the Aznar government. I'll feel the same way if the same thing happens in the US. I don't see this as grounds for pessimism. Politics is a process, after all. Marv Gandall - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 10:41 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Spanish spectre Marvin Gandall wrote: A large turnout of Democratic Party and independent American voters angry at having been lied to about Iraq haunts the Bush administration, and the Spanish result will do little to allay its foreboding. I am not sure what point is being made here. The SP in Spain was opposed to the war and pledged to remove troops if elected. The DP in the USA supports the war and John Kerry has pledged to increase the numbers of troops. It just might turn out that Bush is replaced by Kerry, but this will make little difference to the people of Iraq unless he decides to renounce his pro-war views once in the White House. Since US foreign policy is made by an invisible government with little connection to how people vote, I doubt if there is much basis for optimism. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Spanish spectre
Marvin Gandall wrote: means -- any US government, including a Green Party one, would be compelled to respond this way, if allowed to come to power through the electoral system. The notion of a Green President in the USA is so beyond the realm of possibility without concomitant mass mobilizations that it seems doubtful to speak in terms of it being compelled in one way or another. If this did come to pass, it would likely put enormous pressure on the bourgeoisie to get out of Iraq but most other places as well. We are not anywhere near that situation unfortunately. It's not assured in Spain, incidentally -- and I'm sure you know this -- that the 1200 Spanish troops will be withdrawn on June 30. The PSOE has left itself an escape hatch in that some or all of the troops will remain in Iraq if there is a (nominal) transfer of command of the occupying forces to the UN, ie. Abizaid takes off his US hat and puts on a UN one. This is likely what will happen. Right. They say that if the UN takes charge, they will stay in Iraq. Sort of the position of the DSA, the Nation Magazine and the rest of the missionary left that doesn't want to abandon the Iraqis. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: corporations/More Side Issue
OK. That's hillarious. Joanna ravi wrote: Sabri Oncu wrote: Of course, it is unsual for you westerners who forgot the closeness touching one another brings out but I don't blame you. It is just sad that you don't know how to touch and kiss each other except when you have sex. the westerners don't come close to us indians when it comes to being conservative about this stuff. we literally wrote the book on sex, but now we don't even touch or kiss each other during sex ;-) ;-). --ravi
Re: Spanish spectre
Hey, we agree. :) - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 11:13 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Spanish spectre Marvin Gandall wrote: means -- any US government, including a Green Party one, would be compelled to respond this way, if allowed to come to power through the electoral system. The notion of a Green President in the USA is so beyond the realm of possibility without concomitant mass mobilizations that it seems doubtful to speak in terms of it being compelled in one way or another. If this did come to pass, it would likely put enormous pressure on the bourgeoisie to get out of Iraq but most other places as well. We are not anywhere near that situation unfortunately. It's not assured in Spain, incidentally -- and I'm sure you know this -- that the 1200 Spanish troops will be withdrawn on June 30. The PSOE has left itself an escape hatch in that some or all of the troops will remain in Iraq if there is a (nominal) transfer of command of the occupying forces to the UN, ie. Abizaid takes off his US hat and puts on a UN one. This is likely what will happen. Right. They say that if the UN takes charge, they will stay in Iraq. Sort of the position of the DSA, the Nation Magazine and the rest of the missionary left that doesn't want to abandon the Iraqis. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
FW: Today's Papers: Putin
From Microsoft's SLATE magazine: We shall strengthen the multiparty system. We shall strengthen civil society and do everything to uphold media freedom, Putin said after a campaign in which he arrested a political opponent, solidified his personal control of Parliament, refused to debate his rivals, and severely curtailed other campaigns' access to media. Still, in a separate scene piece deep inside the [Washington] Post, one Muscovite suggested that the ubiquitous images of Putin aren't so bad. This is not Turkmenistan, he said. The pictures are irony, not Stalin. Jim D.
Re: Spanish spectre
Kerry's positions are certainly mixed to put the best spin on them but he does oppose a national missile defence system a truly dangerous boondoggle bound to convince other coutries that there is no alternative but some type of arms race to develop means to counteract such defences. Of course some countries such as Canada and Australia hope to become junior partners with the US. But with respect to Iraq Kerry is probably worse than Bush. Not only has he said that he thinks more troops may be needed but he has criticised Bush' plans to withdraw as being premature. Heavens' the US might withdraw too early and leave the Iraqis to sort out their problems in a manner that was not determined by the US! Cheers, Ken Hanly Supports increasing the size of the army and a better deal for veterans, and criticised the president for stonewalling on the commission investigating September 11. Opposed to national missile defence, and supports further work on multilateral arms reduction treaties http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1126265,00.html - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 9:41 AM Subject: Re: Spanish spectre Marvin Gandall wrote: A large turnout of Democratic Party and independent American voters angry at having been lied to about Iraq haunts the Bush administration, and the Spanish result will do little to allay its foreboding. I am not sure what point is being made here. The SP in Spain was opposed to the war and pledged to remove troops if elected. The DP in the USA supports the war and John Kerry has pledged to increase the numbers of troops. It just might turn out that Bush is replaced by Kerry, but this will make little difference to the people of Iraq unless he decides to renounce his pro-war views once in the White House. Since US foreign policy is made by an invisible government with little connection to how people vote, I doubt if there is much basis for optimism. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Armed forces in Iraq still under US control after power transfer
From the transitional constitution and UN resolutions...cheers Ken Hanly Consistent with Iraq¹s status as a sovereign state, and with its desire to join other nations in helping to maintain peace and security and fight terrorism during the transitional period, the Iraqi Armed Forces will be a principal partner in the multi-national force operating in Iraq under unified command pursuant to the provisions of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1511 (2003) and any subsequent relevant resolutions. This arrangement shall last until the ratification of a permanent constitution and the election of a new government pursuant to that new constitution. Whether this includes police and border guards is not clear. But there is no doubt that the Governing Council has agreed that the Iraqi Army be under US command until an Iraqi government is elected under a new constitution. The cover for this bizarre arrangement was provided in Security Council resolution 1511 passed last October, which transformed the occupation forces in Iraq into UN forces in all but name, but still under continued US command, and authorised them to use force to put down resistance to the occupation. This is contained in paragraph 13 of 1511, which reads: [The Security Council] Determines that the provision of security and stability is essential to the successful completion of the political process as outlined in paragraph 7 above and to the ability of the United Nations to contribute effectively to that process and the implementation of resolution 1483 (2003), and authorizes a multinational force under unified command to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq
Patriot Act enables FBI to obtain Canadian Health Info.,
US complains about outsourcing while Canadians seem oblivious to the fact that our socialist health care system is busy outsourcing some management functions to private US firms...The Liberal BC govt. is planning to outsource administration of the health plan to either Maximus or IBM both US firms. Cheers, Ken Hanly Full article athttp://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F89AA813-E86E-41F7-905A-FFC309F 5CAE7.htm Canadian trade unions are joining the long list of groups angry at the US Patriot Act, the package of stiff anti-terror measures introduced after the 11 September attacks. The law's long reach is on a collision course for the first time with Canadian privacy legislation, and the clash could cost US firms millions of dollars in lost business. The Act permits the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to demand companies secretly turn over information that may be relevant to their investigations. But the government employees union in British Columbia, Canada's western-most province, believes those powers could be used to access private details of Canadians held in databases managed by American companies or Canadian subsidiaries. That would contravene Canadian privacy laws that strictly regulate access and disclosure of private information
Worker Fired For Union Organizing
From: Bernard Pollack [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 9:58 PM Subject: Worker Fired for Trying to Form a Union This is a really important campaign. Please click the link and help this local worker. Forward to friends. -Bernie. Stephen White and his co-workers at Comcast in Silver Spring, MD need your help now. Please take a minute to send a message to the regional manager Craig Snedeker, asking him to reinstate fired worker Stephen White and to respect the rights of its employees to form a union and bargain a contract. Click on the link below, or keep reading. http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/Comcast After four years of working at Comcast, Stephen decided to form a union with his co-workers. He wanted to form a union to win improved working conditions, increased job security, and to restore fairness to company policies. Once he began publicly talking with his co- workers about forming a union, he says that the company subjected him to one-on-one interrogation meetings. He was terminated on March 1, 2004, shortly after talking with a co-worker about their efforts to form a union; he has filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board. Please click the link below to send a fax to Craig Snedeker, regional manager of Comcast, urging him to end this undemocratic stand against workers' rights and to allow employees to make a free and fair decision on whether or not to form a union. http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/Comcast Please reach out to your friends and co-workers who care about workers' rights, and ask them to send a fax supporting Stephen White and the workers at Comcast. Click on the link below to send them your message. http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/Comcast/forward Thank you for all you do to restore workers' freedom to form unions and bargain collectively! Together we will win!
Action A Day to Close the SOA
From: SOA Watch [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 10:31 PM Subject: Action a Day to Close the SOA! ACTION A DAY TO CLOSE THE SOA! ***Raise Your VoiceCommit to Action Organize for Power With the anticipation of a congressional vote on HR 1258 later this year, the 2004 Spring Mobilization and the March 30 Lobby Day is a key part of the strategy to win. To increase our collective impact on Congress, we put together this flash campaign to amplify the voices from all over the country for the closure of the SOA/WHISC. Please join us. Ask others to join us. Come to Washington DC AND take action in your community. Every call, every letter, every visit truly count. If they don't hear it from us, then they don't hear it. So raise your voice and show our grassroots power! TODAY! * Forward this email to everyone you know. Post it to any listserves you are on. * Start scheduling your appointments. Congressional calendars fill up quickly so act now. Call the office where you will meet (DC and/or the office near your home). Then mark your calendars and get ready! SATURDAY, MARCH 27 and SUNDAY, MARCH 28 * Join the Lead-up Events in Washington, DC or Table and Collect Signed Postcards in your Community * Set up a table outside your house of worship, school, grocery store or anywhere you can reach a lot of people and collect postcards to send to Members of Congress. Make sure folks include their return address. For the sample postcard: http://www.soaw.org/new/docs/PostcardTemplate.doc MONDAY, MARCH 29 - Send Your Post Cards * Drop your post cards in the mail and make sure you include one from yourself and the rest of your family. You can send them individually or in a large envelope. TUESDAY, MARCH 30 - National Call In Day and Lobby Day to Close the SOA/WHISC * Help create a buzz on Capitol Hill. The more calls the offices get, the more impact the in-person visits other activists are making will have. Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31 - Email and Fax the DC Offices * Check your local phone book or www.congress.org for the numbers. THURSDAY, APRIL1 - Email and Fax the District Offices *Check your local phone book or www.congress.org for the numbers. FRIDAY, APRIL 2 - District Office Call-In Day * Call to follow up on your email or fax. APRIL 5 - APRIL 16 - Lobby in the Congressional Office Near Your Home * This two-week District Work Period offers a great opportunity to meet face-to-face with your Member of Congress, because they will be at home instead of in Washington. However, if they are not available, schedule the meeting with the foreign policy staff - they are often key to influencing a member's position. *** Before you start your Action a Day check out the resources available online at the Legislative Action Center: http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=96, especially the Tips for Making Contact with Your Member of Congress: http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=456 *** You'll also find specific information about the Spring Mobilization and Lobby Day: http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=713 *** If at anytime you have any questions or need assistance, call 202-234-3440 or email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is this thing called love?
Personally, I often think that love is smoking your last cigarette, and knowing that you'll never smoke again, because your are faced with something fantastic (or have something fantastic in your face) which makes that you don't want to smoke anymore. My hunch is that human awareness is best categorised in terms of subconscious, subjective, intersubjective, objective, reality-transforming, and transcendent (these forms build on each other). Different facets of love apply to each of those forms of awareness. But as I suggested, love is contained in practices and relations involved in interchanges between people - acts of giving, getting, receiving and taking (which, in a market economy, become to an extent reified). Forms of awareness mediated those interchanges, but those interchanges go beyond that awareness, such being the limitations of human consciousness. On that foundation, I could devise a praxiological theory of love and so on, which explicates all the different permutations there are. But, you can analyse that and bore that to death, and such a theory would be only as satisfactory as the ability to implement the theory; and in my experience, it is possible to theorise far more than you can put into practice, i.e. a scholar can have far too much theory, making his practice one-sided, just as a practicist can have far too much practice and not enough theory, making his practice also one-sided. That aside, the transcendent part of human awareness cannot be theorised using logical operators, it can at most be named, but even the naming is not free from multiple interpretations or alternative namings, so, it is kind of poetic. A mystical statement is a statement the object of which is indefinite, hence prone to paradoxes which refer to the contradictions in human experience. Thus, the Koran suggests that whereas poets have their role, you shouldn't think that poetry can substitute for other forms of awareness, especially in regard to leadership (to get the full flavour of the idea you really have to follow the Arabic, but I do not understand Arabic). I just got back from a trip to the Bijlmer which was enjoyable, and you could see a lot of love there, in fact quite a few people were smiling, unusual for Amsterdam, except on holidays, when it's sunny. As I got back home, one of my neighbours said in passing, you're naive. Which probably I am in certain aspects (I don't know to which part of my behaviour he was referring, the interview, talking to particular people, or not picking up a girl, or something like that). It's a funny culture here really, because people are both very judgemental and very tolerant, i.e. both strong opinions and live-and-let-live. There's always supposed to be something wrong with me, especially since I rarely join in Dutch culture these days (because I often experience it as rather harsh, corrupt, criminal, heartless and exploitative if I get hypersensitive; I don't like the Dutch circuses either). Dutch people like to think about what other people deserve or do not deserve, whereas I am thinking about dessert. Probably as regards pop music, the love song I like the best is a very simple, calm and modest number John Lennon wrote, called straightforwardly Love (very literal, rather than metaphoric), which has terrific harmonics in it, from a musical point of view (I actually like a version of it done by a female singer better, she has a fuller, more modulated voice, larger tonal range, more conviction, pathos and dignity in it, but I have forgotten who it was, I saw it on TV once; it's difficult to sing, so it actually sounds good rather than pathetic). At that time he wrote it, JL had been doing his Primal Scream stuff with Dr Arthur Janov, trying to get his pain out through the vocal chords, so his singing wasn't the best anyhow, rather raw. Ah wel, you tend to like the music you grew up with, that is really anchored in your experience. Arguably pop music is about sex, not about love, but really pop music is mostly about whatever is popular, I would think, and the themes change. Jurriaan
Nader Courts Latino, Black Vote + Muslim Political Muscle
* Ralph Nader Courts Latino, Black Vote [Click on the link The Tavis Smiley Show audio to listen to Nader.] Feb. 24, 2004 Republicans cheered and Democrats winced when consumer advocate Ralph Nader announced that he'd throw his hat into the 2004 Presidential race -- this time, as an independent candidate with no party support. Many Democrats believe his Green Party candidacy cost Al Gore the White House in 2000. Nader talks to NPR's Tavis Smiley about why he's decided to run again, and why he would be the best candidate for voters of color. http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1694636 * Cf. Nader among Arab, Black, Latino Voters: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/msg86819.html * February 23, 2004 US Elections 2004 Welcome Back Ralph: Nader Enters the Presidential Race as Antidote to Kerrykakis . . . No, Kerry isn't Bush, but he'd better answer lots of questions and demonstrate how he is different. He can start by hiring some real progressives in top campaign foreign policy advisory positions. The Democrats always drift rightward (from their already centrist positions) during general election campaigns. This will be even more likely with a candidate like Kerry. Without a candidate out there who is consistently bringing up real progressive issues, the onset of Kerrykakis syndrome becomes a real possibility. Which brings us back to Nader. He's probably not the best person to represent progressive interests. Mostly, he lacks the personality, charisma, and coalition-building skills to communicate effectively with the 50% of eligible voters who never vote in presidential elections, or the millions of disaffected Democrats, Republicans, and independents (the fact that relative unknowns like Kerry and Edwards are beating Bush in national polls is a strong testament to the level of frustration out there). Nader also doesn't have another critical element for third-party/independent candidates to get national attention: money. (It will be interesting to see whether he will be able to tap into any of the Dean-style web-based grassroots fundraising.) In the end, Nader may not be perfect, but he's who we've got. A strong Nader campaign will mean that the Democratic Party will have to engage with progressives for the duration of the general election campaign and not just until the convention is adjourned. Welcome back Ralph! http://www.muslimwakeup.com/archives/000559.php ** Muslims will probably vote for Nader in 2004 even in a higher proportion than they did in 2000: * Susan Ives: Muslim groups flex political muscle Web Posted: 03/13/2004 12:00 AM CST San Antonio Express-News . . . Last spring a survey sponsored by several Muslim organizations and conducted as part of Hartford Seminary's larger Faith Communities Today study pegged the number at 6 million to 7 million. . . . The 2000 election was a watershed for Muslim voters. For the first time, four Muslim organizations joined to endorse a candidate - George W. Bush. And the voters responded. A survey after the election suggested 72 percent of Muslim voters voted for Bush, 19 percent supported Green Party candidate Ralph Nader and only 8 percent voted for Vice President Al Gore. Thirty-six percent were first-time voters. Nader is a first-generation Lebanese American who speaks fluent Arabic. He was - and still is - critical of Israel and supportive of Palestinians. Gore inherited President Clinton's uneasy relations with the Muslim community, which deteriorated after Camp David when Clinton threatened to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Hillary Clinton completed the rift when she returned a $50,000 donation to her senatorial campaign from the American Muslim Alliance after her opponent called it blood money from terrorists. Gore was one of Israel's staunchest supporters in the Democratic Party, and his running mate, Joe Lieberman, is an Orthodox Jew generally supportive of the Israeli government. . . . In the second presidential debate, Bush won Muslim accolades by pledging to end the use of secret evidence in deportation hearings. He also spoke out against racial profiling, which appealed to traditionally Democratic African American Muslims. Muslims are especially numerous in the powerhouse states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. In the 2000 presidential election, an estimated 60,000 Muslims voted in Florida, 90 percent of them for Bush. All that good will evaporated after Sept. 11, 2001. Muslims are critical of the Patriot Act, which has affected their community disproportionately. They were outraged by immigration authorities' special registration roundup of men from predominately Islamic countries last year, an admitted case of racial profiling. Although it's doubtful that national Muslim organizations will endorse any candidate this year, it's clear in the grass roots that the Republican honeymoon is over. Muslims have discovered their political muscle and they are
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/14/04 9:49 AM Unfortunately revolutionary socialism has no such equivalent venue. In the early 1990s, the Guardian newspaper and MR sponsored an event but it was never repeated. The Guardian newspaper would soon fold and MR appeared to lack interest in building up circles of supporters, even though in my opinion such a thing was possible. Fortunately revolutionary socialists do have a way of exchanging ideas without relying on the good graces of academia. Marxmail and other such mailing lists not only connect people all around the world, they do so on a level playing field. maxist educational press (mep) folks - erwin marquit and some others in and around cp - held several marxist scholars conferences in 80s and 90s, probably not considered revolutionary socialist by 'real' revolutionary socialists given party's thoroughly reformist character, but then i confess to not knowing what constitutes revolutionary socialism (even as i recognize that no one has ever seen reformist road), i do, however, doubt efficacy of repetitive claim to being revolutionary socialist... michael hoover
Re: Spanish spectre
Marvin Gandall wrote: Politics is a process, after all. Tautologically true -- except that the word too often points to a _smooth_ process. And that is quite false. The word is _also_ apt to suggest that the direction of the process is, _necessarily_, forward, and that also is false. Especially over the short run (three or four decades) contingency probably rules and nothing can be predicted on the basis of the present or present changes. What one gets is a quivering arrow (I believe the technical term is something like return to the mean?). It's a process that most of the time goes nowhere in particular (and when it does go someplace, it's apt to be sudden and great in magnitude). Great changes simply do not come by by inches, they come by miles, quickly -- and they can be for the worse as easily as for the better. Carrol
International politics update: three Dutch MNCs back Bush campaign financially
In the latest copy of Revu (p. 8), Henk Willem Smits mentions that KPMG, Fortis and Philips are supporting the Bush campaign, contributing $400,000, $119,000 and $34,000 respectively. KPMG said that the US branch had made an autonomous decision. Likewise, Fortis said an independent decision was made by the US subsidiary. Philips said 23,000 employees of the US arm had themselves collected the funds, emphasising Phillips corporation itself doesn't support political parties. So anyway now it's clear who is supporting whom here. It would be a remarkable feat in US political history if Bush couldn't purchase enough votes with his capital in the electoral market, and thus lose the presidential vote - just imagine all that lovely money spent for nothing. Meanwhile a sprightly blonde sexworker walking her three white poodles here in Amsterdam told me off yesterday for trying to give money to a beggar, on the ground that the beggar would just spend it on drugs. Ain't life amazing. I think I'll settle for poetry tonight. Jurriaan
Re: FW: Today's Papers: Putin
Devine, James wrote: The pictures are irony, not Stalin. I wonder what the russian word for irony is and if the russian contains the pun on iron/steel. Carrol Jim D.
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
Michael Hoover wrote: maxist educational press (mep) folks - erwin marquit and some others in and around cp - held several marxist scholars conferences in 80s and 90s, probably not considered revolutionary socialist by 'real' revolutionary socialists given party's thoroughly reformist character, but then i confess to not knowing what constitutes revolutionary socialism (even as i recognize that no one has ever seen reformist road), i do, however, doubt efficacy of repetitive claim to being revolutionary socialist... Marquit was my first exposure to the whims of the academic left. Although by no means as Olympian a figure as Wallerstein, he pulled the same kind of stunt on me as Manny. I wrote a brief commentary on Harvey Klehr's book on the CPUSA for a listserv (can't remember which one) that he asked me to expand and submit to his journal. The expanded version made the rather obvious point that FDR relied heavily on the CP for some of his dirty work against 3rd party initiatives. He didn't like that apparently. As far as what constitutes revolutionary socialism, I'd say that the answer to that is in the writings of Lenin, Trotsky, Che Guevara, Rosa Luxemburg, Mariategui, CLR James and others too numerous to mention. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
PBS Self-Censorship and Emma Goldman Documentary
Note: The American Experience documentary on Emma Goldman airs on Mon., April 12. Check out the website http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldman/index.html for more information.] Even Buttoned-Down PBS Gets Caught in the Wringer By Lisa de Moraes Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page C07 Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone confided to investors this week that a woman's breast is not such a big deal to him. We wish him a speedy recovery. Ironic, isn't it, that thanks to Mr. Redstone's MTV and CBS, which produced and aired, respectively, the little Super Bowl halftime number that's come to be known as the Breast Heard Round the World, TV execs all over the country have been engaged in vigorous debate about that part of the female anatomy which no longer holds any interest for the 80-year-old Mr. Redstone. Take PBS station WGBH, for example, where suits went back and forth about how much cleavage to show in its upcoming American Experience documentary Emma Goldman. You cannot expect to make a documentary about a colorful 20th-century anarchist and advocate of free speech and free love -- a woman J. Edgar Hoover once called one of the most dangerous people in America -- without including a little anarchy, a little free speech and a little free love in the piece. In calmer times, this would not be a problem. But since Justin Timberlake unleashed Janet Jackson's right breast during the Super Bowl halftime show and it began its scorched-earth march through the TV industry, it's a big problem. So the executive producer of American Experience agreed to cut a couple of seconds of a scene re-creation in the documentary, in which Goldman's lover is seen unbuttoning the front of her chemise, revealing about as much cleavage as Susan Sarandon showed off in that black number she wore to this year's Academy Awards. According to American Experience executive producer Mark Samels, during the normal finishing process this documentary, like all American Experience documentaries, went to an attorney at WGBH for what's called errors and omissions analysis. While screening the project, Samels reports, the attorney raised concerns about the love scene. Here is where Samels's version of what happened differs from that of the public TV source who was among those who brought this to the attention of The TV Column. According to our source, the showing of cleavage was what knotted the attorney's knickers; he thought it would be objectionable to the Federal Communications Commission, which has been on a sort of shock-and-awe campaign against TV smut -- at least the broadcast stuff -- since its chief wandered in on the halftime show while watching the Super Bowl with his family. According to Samels, it wasn't the cleavage that had the attorney grinding his teeth; it was the question of nipplage. Mel Buckland, who wrote, produced and directed the documentary, declined to comment for this article, nervously telling The TV Column that she had been expressly told by folks at American Experience not to discuss the situation and explaining that she was afraid of the career consequences if she did talk to the press. (Just to refresh your memory: This is still about a documentary on the life of a woman who lobbied in this country, back in the early 1900s, for freedom of -- among other things -- speech.) Samels says the American Experience team assured the WGBH attorney that there was no nipplage in the scene. According to Samels, the attorney passed along the documentary to an outside attorney who does work for WGBH on communications issues, for a second opinion. That person also agreed that it looked like a full breast was exposed, which was a pretty common-sense line of decency we haven't crossed, Samels explained. However, a spokeswoman for American Experience with whom we spoke yesterday afternoon said the outside attorney did not screen the documentary; rather, the in-house attorney had described the scene in question and the outside attorney advised that he didn't perceive any legal issues with it. Back to Samels, who tells The TV Column that the American Experience people went back and did a frame-by-frame analysis, because we had only looked at it 50 times while making it. I didn't see a fully exposed breast, and sure enough, there isn't, he said. What there is is a shadow of a blouse which gives the appearance of the revealing of a nipple, the full breast. That, he says, is why they agreed to remove what he calls 51 frames and our source says is about two seconds of the love scene. Samels insists, however, that even after the nip and tuck, there is enough cleavage to drive a truck through in this scene. We will pause here for a minute while you try to get that image out of your head. Our public TV source and Samels do agree that it's pretty ironic that a documentary about a woman who preached free love and free speech should be mired in a discussion about whether it's okay to show a breast on TV. What I love about it is that it
Re: PBS Self-Censorship and Emma Goldman Documentary
I guess an exposed female nipple to the US dept of Virtue and Vice is equivalent to an exposed female face to the former Taliban dept of Virtue and Vice..In both cases it seems the male equivalent is harmless to morals. Just goes to show that the exposed female body is a moral threat in both cultures. It is just a matter of degree.. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Michael Hoover [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 1:12 PM Subject: PBS Self-Censorship and Emma Goldman Documentary Note: The American Experience documentary on Emma Goldman airs on Mon., April 12. Check out the website http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldman/index.html for more information.] Even Buttoned-Down PBS Gets Caught in the Wringer By Lisa de Moraes Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page C07 all over the country have been engaged in vigorous debate about that part of the female anatomy which no longer holds any interest for the 80-year-old Mr. Redstone. Take PBS station WGBH, for example, where suits went back and forth about how much cleavage to show in its upcoming American Experience documentary Emma Goldman. You cannot expect to make a documentary about a colorful 20th-century anarchist and advocate of free speech and free love -- a woman J. Edgar Hoover once called one of the most dangerous people in America -- without including a little anarchy, a little free speech and a little free love in the piece. In calmer times, this would not be a problem. But since Justin Timberlake unleashed Janet Jackson's right breast during the Super Bowl halftime show and it began its scorched-earth march through the TV industry, it's a big problem. .infoshop.org/donate.html
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/15/04 2:06 PM Marquit was my first exposure to the whims of the academic left. Although by no means as Olympian a figure as Wallerstein, he pulled the same kind of stunt on me as Manny. I wrote a brief commentary on Harvey Klehr's book on the CPUSA for a listserv (can't remember which one) that he asked me to expand and submit to his journal. The expanded version made the rather obvious point that FDR relied heavily on the CP for some of his dirty work against 3rd party initiatives. He didn't like that apparently. As far as what constitutes revolutionary socialism, I'd say that the answer to that is in the writings of Lenin, Trotsky, Che Guevara, Rosa Luxemburg, Mariategui, CLR James and others too numerous to mention. my comment was not about individual/s per se but about meetings other than scc, in any event, whatever your experience with him, marquit hardly fits your academic left strawperson... re. fdr cp, not sure point is 'obvious', that cp fancied itself as legitimate left of new deal coalition - and acted as such re. smith act as tool to be used against trots, not to mention opposition to wartime strikes - is not same as fdr relying on cp, stating it doesn't make it so, perhaps you could fill in some info gaps i may have (off list is michael p thinks that more appropriate)... re. above persons, i've read them (most several times at least) and lots of others as well, surely revolutionary socialism involves more than reading list, how might these contribute to revolutionary socialism today (i ask question seriously and sincerely)... michael hoover
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
Michael Hoover wrote: my comment was not about individual/s per se but about meetings other than scc, in any event, whatever your experience with him, marquit hardly fits your academic left strawperson... That's true. He's a physicist and a Stalinist--some combination! same as fdr relying on cp, stating it doesn't make it so, perhaps you could fill in some info gaps i may have (off list is michael p thinks that more appropriate)... quoting myself: In Chapter six, an NKVD document reports on communications between Earl Browder, the head of the CPUSA, and Franklin Roosevelt. FDR congratulates Browder and the CPUSA for conducting its political line skillfully and helping US military efforts. Roosevelt is particularly pleased with the battle of New Jersey Communists against a left-wing Labor Party formation there. He was happy that the CPUSA had been able to unite various factions of the Democratic Party against the left-wing electoral opposition and render it ineffectual. full: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/klehr.htm of others as well, surely revolutionary socialism involves more than reading list, how might these contribute to revolutionary socialism today (i ask question seriously and sincerely)... michael hoover How might Lenin's writings contribute to revolutionary socialism today? Basically I believe that a large part of the left, for understandable reasons, is disenchanted with the state. It identifies state power with class oppression. This is a mistake in my opinion. Reading State and Revolution and lots of other things written later on would be of big help in understanding the issues. When you look at Chavez's Venezuela, you can see how important it is to win and retain state power. The Venezuelan state oil company is being used to improve the lives of poor Venezuelans in the most dramatic fashion. Unfortunately, the libertarian left (autonomism, anarchism, etc.) does not really grasp the importance of achieving state power. I don't have a link handy, and I doubt if it would be of much interest here, but there was an interesting exchange on an Australian listserv between a DSP'er and some kind of libertarian radical over Chavez. Maybe I'll track it down. It is not just anarchists or autonomists that have problems with this. Leo Panitch and the rest of the crew at SR are for socialism in the abstract but think that the Russian revolution and every other revolution that was inspired by it were disasters. I don't think so. I think that much can be learned from studying what they achieved and how they achieved it. I have already mentioned Lenin, but I would also include Che Guevara who is not usually considered a theorist. The book by Carlos Tablada titled Che Guevara: Economics and Politics in the Transition to Socialism is tremendously useful. Anyhow, that's my two cents. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Spotting the error: the Jackson breast, statistical fallacy and women's health
February 12 2004 Cleavage Among the Voters? USA Today's poll on Jackson's breast baring We usually think that spotting an error in a professionally administered poll takes some extra degree of training, or some knowledge of higher math. But sometimes spotting a major problem in a poll published by usually reputable news organizations is unbelievably easy. Take a poll published in USA Today on Wednesday, which reported that 55 percent of Americans who watched the Super Bowl half-time show were not personally offended by the baring of Janet Jackson's breast, and that 45 percent were. It seems like a distinct split - but the poll also had a margin of error of +/- 5 points. People often don't realize that the margin of error applies to all the percentages given in a poll, and that it can work in either direction. So, really, the USA Today poll shows a statistical dead heat: the percentage not offended could be as low as 50 percent, the percent offended could be as high as 50. The poll's results are still meaningful, but only to show how ambivalent America is about seeing Jackson's breasts on TV - not how divided. http://www.stats.org/logentrybrowse.jsp?type=logentrydate=trueorderby=date +desclimit=11start=0 In 1994, an epidemiological study on the relationship between induced abortion and breast cancer risk, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, [FN2] made national headlines. [FN3] Dr. Janet Daling and a team of researchers at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center reported that [a]mong women who had been pregnant at least once, the risk of breast cancer in those who had experienced an induced abortion was 50% higher than among other women. [FN4] When women underwent abortions before the age of eighteen or at age thirty or older, the study found more than a twofold (150%, or 110% higher, respectively) increase in risk. [FN5] Since an average American woman's lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is already about twelve percent, [FN6] a twofold increase would imply an absolute effect [FN7] from a single *1597 induced abortion that is comparable to the risk of lung cancer from long-term, heavy smoking. [FN8] The Daling study is just one of many published since 1957 showing a statistical link between induced abortion and the occurrence of breast cancer. http://www.johnkindley.com/wisconsinlawreview.htm
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
Michael Hoover wrote: i confess to not knowing what constitutes revolutionary socialism Me either, and I wish someone would explain it to me. Armed takeover of the White House and the New York Stock Exchange? Really, could some self-identified RS clarify? Doug
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
Michael Hoover wrote: re. above persons, i've read them (most several times at least) and lots of others as well, surely revolutionary socialism involves more than reading list, how might these contribute to revolutionary socialism today It's interesting that all the authors cited are long dead. They wrote in the time when there were mass socialist parties and capitalism had little legitimacy with the working class. Today things are very different. Do we just quote the classics at the masses and hope they have an aha! experience or what? Doug
RS
[was: RE: [PEN-L] Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference] to my mind, RS involves a commitment to not just winning reformist (and defensive) demands but also trying to promote the self-organization and collective consciousness of the working class and other dominated groups in society, in order to progress from reforms and defensive efforts to the replacement of capitalism by a socialism characterized by a more profound form of democracy than that of previous societies, so that the dominated groups can dominate. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Doug Henwood [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 1:28 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference Michael Hoover wrote: i confess to not knowing what constitutes revolutionary socialism Me either, and I wish someone would explain it to me. Armed takeover of the White House and the New York Stock Exchange? Really, could some self-identified RS clarify? Doug
Re: RS
Devine, James wrote: to my mind, RS involves a commitment to not just winning reformist (and defensive) demands but also trying to promote the self-organization and collective consciousness of the working class and other dominated groups in society, in order to progress from reforms and defensive efforts to the replacement of capitalism by a socialism characterized by a more profound form of democracy than that of previous societies, so that the dominated groups can dominate. Well, yes, sure, but how? Union organization? Party organizing? Parliamentary strategies? Armed cells? Doug
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
We've got Stanley Aronowitz. It's interesting that all the authors cited are long dead. They wrote in the time when there were mass socialist parties and capitalism had little legitimacy with the working class. Today things are very different. Do we just quote the classics at the masses and hope they have an aha! experience or what? Doug
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
Max B. Sawicky wrote: We've got Stanley Aronowitz. Who got a mere 40,000 votes when he ran for governor of New York, below the 50,000 threshold necessary to keep the Green Party on the ballot. Doug
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/15/04 3:34 PM Michael Hoover wrote: quoting myself: In Chapter six, an NKVD document reports on communications between Earl Browder, the head of the CPUSA, and Franklin Roosevelt. FDR congratulates Browder and the CPUSA for conducting its political line skillfully and helping US military efforts. Roosevelt is particularly pleased with the battle of New Jersey Communists against a left-wing Labor Party formation there. He was happy that the CPUSA had been able to unite various factions of the Democratic Party against the left-wing electoral opposition and render it ineffectual. How might Lenin's writings contribute to revolutionary socialism today? Basically I believe that a large part of the left, for understandable reasons, is disenchanted with the state. It identifies state power with class oppression. This is a mistake in my opinion. Reading State and Revolution and lots of other things written later on would be of big help in understanding the issues. number of questions/suspicions about accuracy of nkvd documents, made up stuff and the like... re. fdr and browder, assuming there was source (and can't be sure regarding nkvd materials, browder himself would have been extremely unreliable given delusional disorder following early release from federal prison in 42 (yes, with fdr's approval, fdr did not, however, pardon eb as some accounts have claimed) ... re. political state, folks should never have let it go out so there'd be no need to bring it back in, however, state is not monolith and shouldn't be reified as such... michael hoover
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
Isn't talk of revolutionary socialism today faintly ridiculous? I mean, it can help make you feel identified with certain traditions, heroes, heroines, historical events -- probably practically it remains what it was before the Fall, an statement taht one puts one self as opposed to all those wihsay washy Democrats and Social Democrats and in the tradition of what can be salvaged from the very early years of the October Revolution and the Left Opposition to Stalinism. Maybe once that made sense, when Stalinism was a pole of attraction, when ordinary workers cared about the October Revolution. But today? It's not that October is no longer important, but it is not an inspiration or a name of conjure with -- rtaher the contarry, insofar as western workers even think about it; half of the names a ssociated with L.P.'s Classical Marxism have no resonance whatsoever with most people (Gramsi? Luxemberg? Who dat?), and the others are regarded by workers in the West as more or less Bad (Lenin, Trostky). More deeply, we have no revolutionary working class movements or parties, least of all does the struggle take the classical Marxist forms. Oh, I grant that Casto is hanging on by his teeth and eyebrows, and inspiration to a handful and probably a blessing to most Cubans as long as they don't get too vocally skeptical. And there's Chavez, but he is hardly a classical Marxist. My point is not that there is no resistance or struggle, obvously there is, but its' anything like what people used to think of classical revolutionary socialism. I'd also note the transparant fact that if we had Northern-Tier European social democracy, we'd think the revolution was over, and we'd won. But in fact we haven't even got a reformist movement to attain those goals, much less a revolutionary movement to overthrow capital and out the wotkers in the driver's seat. So what sense does it make to proclaim revolutionary socialism today? Am I being too heavy on the pessimism of the mind here? Please show me I am, wrong. No trumpets please, or denunciations of my flagging faith. Trumpets hurt my ears, and I acknowledge the dispiritedness. jks --- Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Michael Hoover wrote: re. above persons, i've read them (most several times at least) and lots of others as well, surely revolutionary socialism involves more than reading list, how might these contribute to revolutionary socialism today It's interesting that all the authors cited are long dead. They wrote in the time when there were mass socialist parties and capitalism had little legitimacy with the working class. Today things are very different. Do we just quote the classics at the masses and hope they have an aha! experience or what? Doug __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
Michael Hoover: number of questions/suspicions about accuracy of nkvd documents, made up stuff and the like... Well, we're not exactly talking about espionage here. An allegation that the CPUSA was hostile to electoral efforts to the left of the Democratic Party is not exactly controversial. Louis Proyect Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/15/04 5:35 PM Michael Hoover: number of questions/suspicions about accuracy of nkvd documents, made up stuff and the like... Well, we're not exactly talking about espionage here. An allegation that the CPUSA was hostile to electoral efforts to the left of the Democratic Party is not exactly controversial. Louis Proyect but above could - and probably did, in my opinion - have existed independently of fdr-browder communications/relations/understanding/nod nod wink wink... michael hoover
A Brief History of Corporations
Title: Message Appropro our discussion oncorporations,I thought this might be of interest. Some related webpages can be accessed via the links at the bottom. []Peter Hollings Source: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/KnowEnemy_ITT.html Know Thine Enemy A Brief History of Corporations by Joel Bleifuss In These Times magazine, February 1998 Corporations can't cast a ballot, but they do vote with their wallets. In the 1995-96 election cycle, corporations and corporate PACs contributed $147 million to candidates running for federal office. The United States is one of the few democracies where such donations are legal. The Supreme Court affirmed the right of corporations to pay for electoral campaigns in the 1978 case First National Bank v. Bellotti. Writing for the majority, Justice Lewis Powell explained that giving cash to influence the outcome of an election "is the type of speech indispensable to decision making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation rather than an individual." Indeed, under the prevailing interpretation of the Constitution, corporations have the same rights as individuals. This was not always the case: American corporations gained these protections in the 19th century, when the Supreme Court, in a series of rulings, defined the relationship between business and the state. Those rulings shielded companies from government regulation and thus allowed the corporation to become the dominant form of economic organization. [In] the 21st century, the combined gross revenues of the 200 largest corporations exceed the GDP of all but the nine richest nations. In this context, it is important to know how corporations came to hold such sway over our everyday lives, and what can be done about it. The first corporations appeared in 17th-century Europe, during capitalism's infancy. At the time, the government chartered all corporations-that is, it gave them a specific public mission in exchange for the formal right to exist. The United States was settled by one such corporation, the Massachusetts Bay Company, which King Charles I chartered in 1628 in order to colonize the New World. The practice of chartering companies was a crucial part of the mercantile economic system practiced by the epoch's great powers-Holland, Spain and England. By allowing investors to pool their capital, the monarch made it possible for companies to launch ventures that would have been beyond the means of one person. And in exchange for the charter, companies expanded their government's wealth and power by creating colonies that served both as sources of raw materials and as markets for exported goods. But in the 18th century, the Enlightenment challenged this model of economic organization by putting forward the idea that people need not be subjects in feudal structures but could act as individuals. American revolutionaries, inspired by radical notions of "unalienable rights" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," fought for independence not only from the Crown, but from the corporate bodies it had chartered. The Boston Tea Party, for example, was a protest against the British East India Company's monopoly of Eastern trade. Another critic was Adam Smith, whose Wealth of Nations was published in the same year as the Declaration of Independence. Influenced by John Calvin, Smith believed that human resourcefulness and industry were earthly signs of God's favor, and thus that wealth obtained in a market economy was an _expression_ of "natural justice." Smith, however, did not think that corporations were a natural part of this order. Arguing that large business associations limit competition, he wrote, "The pretense that corporations are necessary to the better government of the trade is without foundation." In the infancy of the republic, Americans gave little thought to corporations. In 1787, fewer than 40 corporations operated in the United States. By 1800, that number had grown to 334. Like the British corporations before them, these companies were typically chartered by the state to perform specific public functions, such as digging canals, building bridges, constructing turnpikes or providing financial services. In return for this public service, the state granted corporations permanence, limited liability and the right to own property. American manufacturers began to form corporations only when trade with Europe was shut down by President Thomas Jefferson's embargo of France and Britain from 1807 to 1809 and by the War of 1812. In order to supply the domestic market with the manufactured goods that had previously come from England, Americans formed new companies to amass the capital needed to build factories. The rise of these associations-created not to fulfill a public mission, but to create private wealth-led to a legal dilemma: How would these new forms of business enterprise be
Re: RS
saith I: to my mind, RS involves a commitment to not just winning reformist (and defensive) demands but also trying to promote the self-organization and collective consciousness of the working class and other dominated groups in society, in order to progress from reforms and defensive efforts to the replacement of capitalism by a socialism characterized by a more profound form of democracy than that of previous societies, so that the dominated groups can dominate. respondeth Doug: Well, yes, sure, but how? Union organization? Party organizing? Parliamentary strategies? Armed cells? how? what a question! If I knew that, I'd be head of the Central Committee and be sending certain comrades off to do some work for a change. ;-) ha ha: neither an all-powerful CC nor work-camps are part of my vision of RS. What is to be done? Hey, that's a good title for a book! Seriously, I think that tactics should be guided by strategies which should be guided by long-term goals (in this case, by RS), Obviously, the tactics and strategies actually advocated and/or applied would depend on the specific (concrete) conditions faced -- such as the extremely anti-socialist (anti-RS) consciousness of the working class in the US (not to mention the anti-RS views of the rest of society). The key questions here have to be: (1) does tactic X or strategy Y have the potential to raise working-class understanding of what's going on in this society? (2) does it help them widen working class organization and to deepen democratic control over such organizations? Union organization? most unions allow workers some ability to defend themselves against the capitalists. As such, they deserve defending. If unions disappear -- as they seem to be doing in a lot of places in the US -- then this potential is lost (at least for awhile). The defensive struggle promises to allow people to get a greater understanding of capitalism and maybe more organization. If workers lose (as with the grocery workers here in southern California), then they may have a greater understanding, but it's linked with cynicism. Successful struggles can undermine cynicism at least for awhile. So I'd say that an advocate of RS would support union organization (most of the time). Party organization? if the Party is the standard type of the CP, the Trotskyists, or the Maoists -- forget it. Those are substitutionist organizations; that is, the Party as a means to an end (revolution of whatever sort) becomes an end in itself (promote and defend the Party). These Parties typically become barriers, not facilitators, especially when the working class is poorly organized and demoralized and can't keep the Party in line. (Substitutionism isn't simply some bad idea that infects some Party leaders. Rather, the success of substitutionism is a symptom of the bad situation these organizations face. When the CP-USA was part of a mass movement, it was much better.) Some political organization is needed, but not of the CP/Trotskyist/Maoist sort. Parliamentary Struggle? this too is typically substitutionist, with the leader or the party apparatus becoming an end in itself. Dump Bush and forget all other issues is a classic case. That doesn't say that I might not vote for people like Kerry (in despair). The question is whether or not his election would allow for growth of a movement and its consciousness. But voting is a pretty pitiful act, changing almost nothing. Armed cells? I can see why these might be required in some situations, but not in the US. Armed cells tend toward substitutionism pretty quickly, with those having arms dominating those without. It's a good way to get a new ruling class, which might be adequate to revolutionary nationalism. at this point, given the specific conditions of the US, I'd say that journalism, public speaking, and the like may be as good as someone like me (an isolated intellectual, if I may use that word) can do. It's not adequate, but it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Jim D.
Re: RS
In this context, I think it worth noting that almost _all_ substantial changes (for the better) under capitalism have originated as part of the activity of various revolutionary tendencies. Briefly, Revolutionaries make the best Reformers. This began to dawn on me about 30 years ago as I was plowing through the first 15 or so volumes of Lenin; not from any particular work or argument Lenin put forth but but rather as an impression emerging, at least for me, from the whole of that reading. (I have tentatively argued on a couple of occasions that we can best profit from Lenin by seeing him in terms of Lenin Thought, after the model of Mao-thought, in contrast to looking for Leninism or fundamental theory.) If what precedes is accurate at all, then the denial by some on this list of hope for the emergence of a revolutionary socialist movement is _also_ the denial of any hope for more than trivial reforms for the indefinite future. No revolutionary movement(s), no substantial change for the better under capitalism. Carrol
Re: RS
Carrol: In this context, I think it worth noting that almost _all_ substantial changes (for the better) under capitalism have originated as part of the activity of various revolutionary tendencies. Briefly, Revolutionaries make the best Reformers. This is an extremely important point. Every important movement since the trade union movement of the 1930s has relied on the leadership and/or heavy lifting of one sort of revolutionary socialist organization or another. From his class perspective, JFK was right to sic the FBI on the commies around MLK Jr. If it weren't for the North Korean-worshipping WWP or the more palatable UPJ people who also got trained in commie groups, there never would have been a single protest against the war in Iraq. The Mattachine Society was launched by CP'ers. Betty Friedan wrote for a CP led union. And so it goes. Louis Proyect Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Saudi Arabia - References?
Dear Pen-ers: Recently I was in Saudi Arabia, realized how little I knew of what was going on there regarding the dissident movements. I turn to you for help in locating: i) Good RECENT books on Saudi Arabia politics; ii) After having talked to many Saudi women physicians, references regarding the teachings of the Koran itself on Hijab. As an aside, Saudis that I talked to in some detail, who were quite open about matters - made a huge distinction (repetitively) between tradition custom - on the one hand - religion. Curiously this appeared to be whether they were pro-Hijab or otherwise. All very confusing. But the contradictions in Saudi seem close to exploding point - to a naive outsider on a quick jaunt. Thanks in advance to those who can assist. Hari Kumar
Of democracy and dead cattle
Jim wrote: so that the dominated groups can dominate. Dominate what, or what sense ? (if you like word puzzles and poetry, in Dutch, dominate = domineren, cryptologically containing the words dom (=dumb), dominee (=church minister), nee (=no), ren (=run). neren is also close to nieren (=kidneys). Dominate is obviously not the same as dominant, since one can dominate without being dominant. To me, the interesting question about democracy is always, how specifically the majority can rule effectively so that an optimal allocation of resources would actually result. One could of course always say, that one is in favour of democracy, but this in itself may not mean very much because the specifics are important - it may be that it's always me who is democratic, whereas the other guy is undemocratic. For quite some time, the bourgeois ideology has been that the market is always democratic, and that the market is the only basis for democracy; you cannot have democracy without markets. But the question then is, how specifically markets could be compatible with, or promote democracy. Market power is in the final instance dependent on buying power, but if buying power is very unequally distributed, how then can democracy really assert itself at all ? This question is becoming very urgent in the upcoming US elections, since there is a gigantic disparity between the campaign financing of the various candidates (in many European countries, such a gigantic disparity could never exist, because legislation prevents it). The wealthiest candidates might of course argue, that it doesn't matter how much money you have, because the one-man-one-vote principle means, that no matter how much money you have, you might still lose. In reality, however, it's the specifics of how democracy actually functions, which is important. Leaving aside rigging and Gerrymandering, the one-man-one-vote principle might actually be undone by the fact that one man with market power is worth a thousand other men. If it is true, that the majority is not always correct in its opinions or behaviour, then the question is, how the majority could impose checks and balances on the minority, in such a way that, if the minority in fact happens to be correct, and the majority is wrong, the minority could become the majority, within a specific time-span which would permit an optimal allocation of resources anyhow rather than creating a catastrophe. The epistemic requirement here seems to be, that of a genuinely open society in which alternative views are not just tolerated, but also that it is clearly and honestly understood precisely how/why they are alternative, so that it is possible (1) to acknowledge, who was in truth really correct, and who was really wrong and (2) act constructively on that insight. It seems that this epistemic requirement can be satisfied only if there is a genuine open dialogue possible through commonly held information channels accessible to all.' Here's a clip from Hahani Lazim, a member of Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation: Strife between ordinary Sunni and Shia Muslims has never been a major feature of Iraqi history. But, when Iraq in its modern form was established in 1920, the British rulers chose to favour a section of society. This is an old imperialist trick. They promoted a small minority, pushing them to power and helping them to keep their privileges. This minority then feels that its privilege depends on the imperialist power. (...) Iraq is one of the poorest countries in the world now. That is not just because of Saddam. Iraq was destroyed through sanctions - one of the greatest crimes in history. Now a government has been imposed upon Iraq by the same people who imposed the sanctions. The other disaster faced by Iraqis is the spread of depleted uranium left over from weapons used by the occupying forces. This is a crime against humanity. Electricity in Baghdad is on for around 12 hours each day. Fuel is rationed-in a country swimming in oil. Iraq used to refine oil and export fuel. But the US have destroyed the refineries, so that companies like Halliburton can refine the oil, and sell it back to us at their prices. The US want to create a government in Iraq under their protection, which will allow US corporations to come in and monopolise everything. The US government has another sword on the neck of the Iraqis - the debts. These were built up during wars supported by the US. Under sanctions there was the oil for food programme. But under this programme, it was prohibited to pay interest on Iraq's debts. So it kept accumulating. A third of Iraq's income had to go to other countries like Kuwait, because of the 1991 invasion. Where is the compensation for Palestine or Lebanon, when Israel went in and destroyed these countries? When they see US patrols, Iraqi people look through the troops as if they don't exist. If they were welcome, the Iraqis would at least make eye contact. The troops are just seen as unwanted
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
I always took revolutionary socialism to mean the complete overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by a mode of production that involves some sort of socialised ownership of the means of production distribution and exchange plus production on the basis of need not profit. Revolutionary socialism contrasts with reformist socialism that believes in changing capitalism so as to socialise certain aspects of the system to distribute wealth and power somewhat more equitably and tomake capitalism more responsive to the needs of everyone and specifically the worst off e.g. universal healthcare, minimum wages, environmental controls, etc etc. but not doing away with the private property in the means of production or with profit as an engine of production. At one time perhaps reformism itself shared the goals of revolutionary socialism but that is hardly the case with any actually existing reformist socialist parties. The aims of revolutionary socialism certainly are not part of the consciousness of most working people nor are there any powerful social movements that clearly have as their end revolutionary socialism but that hardly means that talk of revolutionary socialism is at all ridiculous, even faintly. Certainly some of the rhetoric of radical revolutionary grouplets may be more than faintly ridiculous or groupies of the likes of Kim Il Sung II but that hardly discredits the aims of revolutionary socialists. All it does is show that certain strategies and tactics are not likely to be successful in the present context. I am not sure what Justin means when he says that the struggle does not take classical Marxist forms. The classical Marxist form par excellence is the class struggle. The struggle of those who must sell their labor against those who purchase it at the lowest possible price, exploit it and appropriate the surplus value produced. You mean this form has been superceded? In order to increase accumulation and appopriation capital privatizes publicly owned enterprises often to non-union companies, outsources to low labor areas driving down wages in developed countries, lowers safety standards cut backs on inspectors, jettisons environmental controls to allow capital to profit from developing public resources and passing on the external costs to the whole of society. And on and on. Surely any revolutionary socialists would struggle against these developments as part of their tactical activity no matter what their strategies might be. I have no idea what Classical Marxism is supposed to mean. Marxism-Leninism seems to be included. Is Maoism classical Marxism? Is Kautsky a Classical Marxist? Marx once said he was not a Marxist, maybe that is because he was a classical Marxist!!! Louis speaks of authors who are guides as to what is revolutionary socialism not classical marxism. In fact Louis does not include Marx in his list.. As far as what constitutes revolutionary socialism, I'd say that the answer to that is in the writings of Lenin, Trotsky, Che Guevara, Rosa Luxemburg, Mariategui, CLR James and others too numerous to mention. Cheers, Ken Hanly From: andie nachgeborenen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 4:27 PM Subject: Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference Isn't talk of revolutionary socialism today faintly ridiculous? I mean, it can help make you feel identified with certain traditions, heroes, heroines, historical events -- probably practically it remains what it was before the Fall, an statement taht one puts one self as opposed to all those wihsay washy Democrats and Social Democrats and in the tradition of what can be salvaged from the very early years of the October Revolution and the Left Opposition to Stalinism. Maybe once that made sense, when Stalinism was a pole of attraction, when ordinary workers cared about the October Revolution. But today? It's not that October is no longer important, but it is not an inspiration or a name of conjure with -- rtaher the contarry, insofar as western workers even think about it; half of the names a ssociated with L.P.'s Classical Marxism have no resonance whatsoever with most people (Gramsi? Luxemberg? Who dat?), and the others are regarded by workers in the West as more or less Bad (Lenin, Trostky). More deeply, we have no revolutionary working class movements or parties, least of all does the struggle take the classical Marxist forms. Oh, I grant that Casto is hanging on by his teeth and eyebrows, and inspiration to a handful and probably a blessing to most Cubans as long as they don't get too vocally skeptical. And there's Chavez, but he is hardly a classical Marxist. My point is not that there is no resistance or struggle, obvously there is, but its' anything like what people used to think of classical revolutionary socialism. I'd also note the transparant fact that if we had Northern-Tier European social democracy, we'd think the revolution
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
Michael Hoover wrote: i confess to not knowing what constitutes revolutionary socialism Me either, and I wish someone would explain it to me. Armed takeover of the White House and the New York Stock Exchange? Really, could some self-identified RS clarify? Doug The first thing to do is to quit asking fake questions in which you aren't really interested. -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
what sense does it make to proclaim revolutionary socialism today? The estimable Ernest Mandel once drafted an article on revolutionary politics in a non-revolutionary situation (he never published it I think), and indeed there was a real question there which needed to be answered. How specifically could you be revolutionary, if there was no revolutionary prospect, or development ? What actually do you do ? Wouldn't revolutionary talk just be a sectarian, irrelevant rhetoric ? This focuses the meaning of revolutionary activity, the aegis which, if I recall correctly, Lenin said would encompass all forms of activity seeking to alleviate oppressive conditions suffered by human subjects, and all forms to overcome them. Thus, in a sense, the revolutionary movement must build itself through tackling all the real problems which people actually confront in their lives. They do not live for the revolution, they live for today, or for their children, and so on. What then could make a constructive difference in their lives, that could focus the need for a revolutionary transformation ? Well, I cannot remember what exactly Ernest actually wrote about it (I do not think I located the manuscript itself, only the title) but, presumably it would mean that you would try to shift the balance of political power to strengthen the political position of the revolutionary class, the revolutionary subject hypothesised to be able to carry through the revolutionary transformation, as much and as fast as possible, on the basis of a specific analysis and political assessment of which groups and tendencies currently represent the avant garde of the movement. In that case, the real problem is that you cannot make that assessment, unless you are really involved in the politics of it, i.e. a personal engagement. And, you also have to live your own life at the same time, as a specific person limited by a specific history. Isaac Deutscher remarks how, in an epoch of crisis of revolutionary proportions, we can see with hindsight that history fashions the human material adequate to the tasks posed by history. But for Marx and Engels, we should not transpose the past to the present. History does nothing, possesses no enormous wealth, fights no battles. It is rather man, the real, living man, who does everything, possesses, fights. It is not History, as if she were a person apart, who uses men as a means to work out her purposes, but history itself is nothing but the activity of people pursuing their aims. (The Holy Family). In that case, revolutionary activity would have to be vitally concerned with the human subject, refashioning the human subject in way which points towards revolution. And you may find yourself, living in a shotgun shack And you may find yourself, in another part of the world And you may find yourself, behind the wheel of a large automobile And you may find yourself, in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife And you may ask yourself - Well...How did I get here? Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down Letting the days go by, water flowing underground Into the blue again, after the money's gone Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground. And you may ask yourself How do I work this? And you may ask yourself Where is that large automobile? And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful house! And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful wife! Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down Letting the days go by, water flowing underground Into the blue again, after the money's gone Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground. Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was... Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was... Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was... Water dissolving...and water removing There is water at the bottom of the ocean Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean! And you may ask yourself What is that beautiful house? And you may ask yourself Where does that highway go? And you may ask yourself Am I right?...Am I wrong? And you may tell yourself MY GOD!...WHAT HAVE I DONE? - from Talking Heads, Once in a lifetime, from the album Remain in Light.
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
Revolutionary socialism contrasts with reformist socialism that believes in changing capitalism so as to socialise certain aspects of the system to distribute wealth and power somewhat more equitably and tomake capitalism more responsive to the needs of everyone and specifically the worst off e.g. universal healthcare, minimum wages, environmental controls, etc etc. but not doing away with the private property in the means of production or with profit as an engine of production. That might be true as a generality. But the real problem is, how you could make a qualitative difference to people's real lives at any given time. Marxist schematism just talks abstract verities about revolution versus reform and so on, but reality is, that if you study people's real lives, half the time when they are not seeking some pleasure they're just trying to cope with problems which are bigger than they are, and which grind them down. Unless one can make a revolutionary difference to that situation, these people cannot be revolutionary subjects, and they cannot revolutionise their circumstances. In what some regard as the birth certificate of historical materialism, Marx thus writes: The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by people, and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing, can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice. The changing of people and the changing of circumstances thus occurs in a single act, in a unitary process, through which people revolutionise themselves, while they try to revolutionise their circumstances. My tea's gone Cold, I'm wonderin' Why 'got out of bed at all. Mornin' rain Clouds out my window. and I can't see at all. Even if I could, it would all be Gray, but your Picture's on my wall: it reminds me that it's not so bad, it's not so bad drank too much last night, got bills to pay my head just feels in pain missed the bus again, and there'll be hell today late for work, again. Even if I'm there, they'll all imply, that I might not last today, but then you called me, then it's not so bad, not so bad and I-I want to thank you, for giving me, the best day of my life and Lord, just to be with you, is giving me, the best day of my life. Push the door, I'm home at last and soakin' through and through then you handed me a towel and all I'll see is you. Even if my house falls down, and I wouldn't have a clue because you're with me Chorus repeat x2 - Dido, Best day of my life Jurriaan
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
- Original Message - From: Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] i confess to not knowing what constitutes revolutionary socialism Me either, and I wish someone would explain it to me. Armed takeover of the White House and the New York Stock Exchange? Really, could some self-identified RS clarify? Doug The first thing to do is to quit asking fake questions in which you aren't really interested. -- Yoshie Who are you to unilaterally decide what a fake question is? My guess is RS would have no truck with the tired and quaint authoritarianisms and faux omniscience that some leftists have made into a veritable secular faith over the last 170 or so years. Ian
The Smell of Money: British Columbia's Gas Rush
The Smell of Money: British Columbia's Gas Rush By Shefa Siegel CorpWatch March 13, 2004 British Columbia -- Spring has yet to come to the Peace River region, but signs of growth are everywhere. On the steppes of northeastern British Columbia, places with frontier names like Tumbler Ridge, Dawson Creek, and Fort St. John are part of a mining boom that is giving towns an economic boost for the first time in twenty years. The rush is not for coal or gold, but natural gas -- and plenty of it. Since NAFTA went into effect in 1993, Canada has quietly become the largest exporter of oil and gas to the United States. Canadian exports now account for roughly 15% of natural gas and 9% of crude oil flowing into the U.S. These figures continue to climb as demand keeps rising south of the border. From ExxonMobil to Talisman, Shell, and EnCana, the region now hosts the giants of oil and gas. With more than 100 companies competing for profit and 10,000 gas wells already on-line, production is advancing north along the Alaska Highway to Fort Nelson and southwest toward Alberta, where wells share canola and barley fields with farmers who have little control over where and when new wells are drilled. Though still smaller than the untaxed black-market marijuana crop, oil and gas -- not timber -- is now British Columbia's sweetheart resource. The number of wells in the province grew 39% over the last decade, creating a five billion dollar industry that the conservative Liberal Party says it wants quadrupled by 2008. For most of a decade, Alberta was the place to be if you wanted to join the rush. But in Tumbler Ridge, as in many places in British Columbia, municipal officials have auctioned every available lot for the garages and equipment dealers needed to service industry. Property values have already more than doubled. There is talk of building a first class hotel to house executives when they pass through town. And once production begins no less than 1000 workers will be needed to operate the wells, drive the trucks, service the lines, haul water and flare the stacks. Sour Gas Gold miners say that gold produces a fever. Spend one hour walking through a gold rush town and you start having feverish fantasies of pulling together enough money for a missile dredge and a crew. And if gold has a fever, then natural gas has an odor. At least half of the gas reserves exhumed from the deep in this part of the world are sour. Sour gas is rich in sulphur and surfaces in a toxic compound with hydrogen. It emits the unmistakable scent of foul eggs, similar to the fumes around refineries. Driving from town to town, dense daytime air gives way to darkness punctuated by flares shimmering like beacons from one ridge to the next. Standard practice in the industry is to dispose of hydrogen sulphide by burning it on site rather than paying to pipe it to a refinery, have it separated, and find a market for it. (Flared hydrogen sulphide also becomes sulphur dioxide, or SO2.) When inhaled in doses of more than 100 parts-per-million hydrogen sulfide attacks the respiratory system, killing you in a matter of seconds. If you are lucky, the concentration is only half that, and causes what oil and gas workers call a knockdown, that makes unprotected well operators who stumble into leaks instantly collapse from the toxicity. Routine, lower-level exposure causes neurological damage including memory loss, headaches and dizziness and reproductive disorders like miscarriages and birth defects, and -- depending on whom you ask -- cancer. Potential Health Risks Despite more than a century of experience from which to draw answers about sour gas, most questions, especially its carcinogenicity, remain fuzzy to the scientific community -- not because the science is in conflict but because it simply is not there. According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Hydrogen Sulfide has not been classified for its ability to cause or not cause cancer. Similarly, the U.S. EPA concludes that data are inadequate for an assessment of the carcinogenic potential of hydrogen sulphide. For industry, the lack of scientific data is justification for exploitation rather than cause for caution. We take the threat of sour gas very seriously, says Jan Rowley, Shell Canada's Manager of Public Affairs. There is no doubt hydrogen sulphide is a deadly poison. But when it gets to low concentrations there are questions, she explained. So far there has not been anything that confirms the concerns of residents, and there are lots of studies which demonstrate that workers' exposure over 50 years failed to result in ill health effects, Rowley asserts. What is known, however, is that in the last two years at least two workers have died in the BC Peace River region from sour gas. Meanwhile, the Workers Compensation Board estimates there are four to five known knockdowns per year -- a number that is almost certainly low because of a heavy code of silence
Re: Observations on the Socialist Scholars Conference
--- k hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I always took revolutionary socialism to mean the complete overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by a mode of production that involves some sort of socialised ownership of the means of production distribution and exchange plus production on the basis of need not profit. So I guess as a longtime market socialist I was never a RS. But I like my historical account better than your abstract definition. Be that as it may, while I think that replacing capiatlism by some form of socialized ownership is an admirable goal (even if I would not go so far as getting rid of markets), there is a sort of scholastic flavor to variations on this formula at the present time, don't you think? Revolutionary socialism contrasts with reformist socialism that believes in changing capitalism so as to socialise certain aspects of the system to distribute wealth and power somewhat more equitably and tomake capitalism more responsive to the needs of everyone and specifically the worst off e.g. universal healthcare, minimum wages, environmental controls, etc etc. but not doing away with the private property in the means of production or with profit as an engine of production. Well, as I said, if we in the US had what they have in Sweden or the Netherlands, we'd think we had won. And certianly it would be a great victory. But even that seems hopeless utopian just now. Today my 14 yr old daughter was marveling that in Europe they have subsized healthcare, education, and pensions, and wondering why Americans didn't demand these things. I have her a short version of the standard answer -- no labor party, racism, ethnic diversity, the frontier, no anti-feudal struggles, but the fact of the matter is that we would be far luckier than we have any right to expect to gets a struggle for what ytou call reformist socialism in the US. At one time perhaps reformism itself shared the goals of revolutionary socialism but that is hardly the case with any actually existing reformist socialist parties. The aims of revolutionary socialism certainly are not part of the consciousness of most working people nor are there any powerful social movements that clearly have as their end revolutionary socialism but that hardly means that talk of revolutionary socialism is at all ridiculous, even faintly. Because? I really do want an answer. I used to think I was an RS. I gave up a career and a lot of years to that ideal. Now I seem to have lost touch with what ir could mean. Certainly some of the rhetoric of radical revolutionary grouplets may be more than faintly ridiculous or groupies of the likes of Kim Il Sung II but that hardly discredits the aims of revolutionary socialists. All it does is show that certain strategies and tactics are not likely to be successful in the present context. So what struggles are likely to be successful? My boringly sane group Solidarity has been stuck at about 30 people since I joined it some 16 years ago. I am not sure what Justin means when he says that the struggle does not take classical Marxist forms. I mean that if you proclaim yourself a Marxist, blazon hammers snd sickles and red flags and quotes from the Marxist classics all over the place, no one will listen to you. Once that was not so. Now it is, and it seems unlikely to change. The classical Marxist form par excellence is the class struggle. Oh class struggle is real. Marxist theory is prettuy much true. But this truth dare not speak its name. You know that. . You mean this form has been superceded? No, the langauge, symbols, and vocabulary of Marxism have been irredeemably poisoned. Or dated. I am not sure which is worse. And on and on. Surely any revolutionary socialists would struggle against these developments as part of their tactical activity no matter what their strategies might be. Reformists too. And left-liberals. I have no idea what Classical Marxism is supposed to mean. Marxism-Leninism seems to be included. Is Maoism classical Marxism? Is Kautsky a Classical Marxist? Marx once said he was not a Marxist, maybe that is because he was a classical Marxist!!! Louis speaks of authors who are guides as to what is revolutionary socialism not classical marxism. In fact Louis does not include Marx in his list.. Not my term, Louis's. But I think it means Marxist writers who can be appropriated for broadly anti-Stalinist ideals without breaking too much with orthodoxy. Benjamim is NOT a classical Marxist. As far as what constitutes revolutionary socialism, I'd say that the answer to that is in the writings of Lenin, Trotsky, Che Guevara, Rosa Luxemburg, Mariategui, CLR James and others too numerous to mention. Yeah, buncha folk who mostly died at least 50 years ago . . . Depressively, jks __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: RS
If what precedes is accurate at all, then the denial by some on this list of hope for the emergence of a revolutionary socialist movement is _also_ the denial of any hope for more than trivial reforms for the indefinite future. No revolutionary movement(s), no substantial change for the better under capitalism. The thought has occurred to me. History is full of surprises. But I don't see any revolutionary movement or forces that might generate one underway in the foreseeable future. I do not say this with any joy. jks __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: Music 30-35,000 years ago
At the risk of being boringly serious, I think you are almost certainly right that music and dance much predate -30,000 years. It is just that the earliest relics date from that time. Flutes and drums would of course not survive. It sounds right to me that music would be associated with speech which is at least 200,000 years ago. The argument is that language, music and dance evolved at first, perhaps from 2 million years ago first as a way of sharing social information within larger groups of hominids rather than as symbolic language conveying factual information. The alternative hypothesis is that music of any systematic sort was associated with the cultural revolution of -30,000 years ago. There is little evidence that Neanderthals shared in this cultural revolution and indeed were soon extinct. The role of modern music in binding a new global population together is another but related question. Regards Chris - Original Message - From: Jurriaan Bendien [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2004 11:04 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Music 30-35,000 years ago BBC World service this week featured a programme about drums quoting a Paul Barnes saying that the earliest evidence for human music making goes back 30-35 thousand years ago Well you shouldn't believe just any sort of sexed-up English story, you know. There's the serious side of the BBC and then there's the puberal side of it, as anyone knows, that's market forces. Neanderthals were already making music, i.e. probably twice as early as Barnes suggests. Anthropologically, the origin of language and music are very much related in human culture. Cognitively music and math are also closely related. A much better, thoughtprovoking site to consult (if you get bored with dumbdown culture) might be: http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/oct1983/v40-3-criticscorner1.htm Personally I am mostly just concerned with a few pop tunes at the moment, not profound musicological interests (although I have always taken my pop music very seriously; it's just that if music just becomes degraded to functional suck-and-fuck, or a mere sign, well then one just has to reframe music in a different way, for an interesting, enjoyable or creative effect). There is a lot of interesting literature on the use of music in workplaces, wars, and so on, i.e. the uses (and abuses) of music in politics, economics and regimes of accumulation (if I may use that awful term for want of a better word). But that sort of thing is far removed from the Neantherthal phase of musical enjoyment of course. What kind of tonalities are actually conducive to social amelioration in this crumbling postmodernist culture we live in ? It's an interesting question I think, although some idiot would probably trivialise and banalise that also. Jurriaan
Re: Music 30-35,000 years ago
sometime ago i bought a CD from the damascus museum that is a take on the earliest recorded musical notes found on clay tablets near tell marry between syria and iraq.. it was ninawa, and it seems to have been palyed by berkely students in california. sepaking of syria, possibly the next war theatre in the near east, there was a kurd revolt in northern syria in which many were killed two days ago and the situation is very tense. noethern syria is closely linked to the american bases in iraqi kurdistan... Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At the risk of being boringly serious, I think you are almostcertainly right that music and dance much predate -30,000 years.It is just that the earliest relics date from that time. Flutes anddrums would of course not survive.It sounds right to me that music would be associated with speech whichis at least 200,000 years ago. The argument is that language, musicand dance evolved at first, perhaps from 2 million years ago first asa way of sharing social information within larger groups of hominidsrather than as symbolic language conveying factual information.The alternative hypothesis is that music of any systematic sort wasassociated with the cultural revolution of -30,000 years ago. There islittle evidence that Neanderthals shared in this cultural revolutionand indeed were soon extinct.The role of modern music in binding a new global population togetheris another but related question.RegardsChris- Original Message -From: "Jurriaan Bendien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2004 11:04 PMSubject: Re: [PEN-L] Music 30-35,000 years ago BBC World service this week featured a programme about drumsquoting a Paul Barnes saying that the earliest evidence for human musicmaking goes back 30-35 thousand years ago Well you shouldn't believe just any sort of sexed-up English story,you know. There's the serious side of the BBC and then there's thepuberal side of it, as anyone knows, that's "market forces". Neanderthals werealready making music, i.e. probably twice as early as Barnes suggests. Anthropologically, the origin of language and music are very muchrelated in human culture. Cognitively music and math are also closely related.A much better, thoughtprovoking site to consult (if you get bored withdumbdown culture) might be: http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/oct1983/v40-3-criticscorner1.htm Personally I am mostly just concerned with a few pop tunes at themoment, not profound musicological interests (although I have always takenmy pop music very seriously; it's just that if music just becomes degradedto functional suck-and-fuck, or a mere sign, well then one just has toreframe music in a different way, for an interesting, enjoyable or creativeeffect). There is a lot of interesting literature on the use of music inworkplaces, wars, and so on, i.e. the uses (and abuses) of music in politics,economics and "regimes of accumulation" (if I may use that awful term for wantof a better word). But that sort of thing is far removed from theNeantherthal phase of musical enjoyment of course. What kind of tonalities areactually conducive to social amelioration in this crumbling postmodernistculture we live in ? It's an interesting question I think, although some idiotwould probably trivialise and banalise that also. JurriaanDo you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam
Re: FW: Today's Papers: Putin
Ho-hum. From Microsoft's SLATE magazine: We shall strengthen the multiparty system. We shall strengthen civil society and do everything to uphold media freedom, Putin said after a campaign in which he arrested a political opponent, How did Khodorkovsky become a political opponent? Are Western papers still peddling the line that Khodorkovsky's backing of completely unpopular and hated marginal liberal parties that everybody in Russia hates was a threat to Putin? Do people really believe this crap? solidified his personal control of Parliament, refused to debate his rivals, What Putin said was that his record over the past four years speaks for itself. The average Russian citizen is 5 times better off it every way than he or she was 4 years ago. His rivals, except for Glazyev and to a certain extent Kharitonov, were PR stunts. Khakamada has a 3% popularity rating. What Western writers can't stand is that Russia was pulled out of the slump by a non-liberal. They also can't stand that Russia does not want to be like them, and is asserting itself on its own terms, not those of George Soros, not those of Jeffrey Sachs, and not those of the editorial writers of the New York Times. What really burns them up is that the Russian public hates everything they stand for.
Re: FW: Today's Papers: Putin
The Russian word for irony is ironiya. The word for iron is zheleznoye. So no pun. -Original Message- From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 12:58:09 -0600 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] FW: Today's Papers: Putin Devine, James wrote: The pictures are irony, not Stalin. I wonder what the russian word for irony is and if the russian contains the pun on iron/steel. Carrol Jim D.
