Taiwan's election
Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian's controversial reelection, being contested by the opposition, has left the islands business interests and the Chinese government disgruntled, according to Business Week. Chen narrowly defeated Kuomintang (KMT) leader Lien Chan on March 20, following an assassination attempt a day earlier which Liens followers are intimating was staged by Chen. The KMT has since been holding mass rallies and demanding a recount. Business Weeks Bruce Einhorn reports if Chen's victory is confirmed, that's not likely to please the thousands of Taiwan businesses that are becoming ever more dependent on trade with China, and whose leaders generally back Lien's party... The Chinese, meanwhile, are less concerned about Chen, then about his largely pro-American Democratic Progressive Party base which is looking forward to winning control of the legislature in December, writing a new constitution, and holding a referendum on independence in 2008. The Chinese have threatened war, but, as Einhorn notes, their economic leverage they can threaten to cut trade ties and lure Taiwanese capital to the mainland should be sufficient to deter any formal steps towards independence. BW article available on www.supportingfacts.com Sorry for any cross posting.
Giovanni Mazetti on the autonomist/anarchist left
Social Amnesia in the Movement? An Interview with Giovanni Mazzetti Gloves Off editors Claudio Puty and Sara Burke emailed Giovanni Mazzetti after learning of a history of polemics between Mazzetti and members of the anarchist movement in Italy. We wanted to learn more about his views on the political constellations on the Left in Italy today. Gloves Off You identify the appeal of the networked structure in the antiglobal movement, created by a certain rejection of the hierarchical Left, as a manifestation of the low-degree of development of the Left. Could you elaborate on that? Giovanni Mazzetti I believe that, in order to understand the problem, we should refer to an old article of Friedrich Engels, entitled On Authority. In that article Engels criticizes the anarchist movements of his time because they just pretend to get rid of a hierarchical structure. All forms of human institution are based on hierarchical structures. Have you ever seen a small child produce his own food? Have you ever seen a pupil teach to his teachers? Have you ever seen a boy or a girl explain to their grandparents what life is? Rules are met by everyone of us in the very moment we enter in life. This for the very simple reason that we enter into a culture. The problem is not the existence of a hierarchy, but the eventual rigidity of this structure. If one thinks that hierarchy is a problem in itself, one does not recognize the essential conditions of human life and feels free in a way that is not rational, because it denies differenceswhich include a different power. If one wants to go beyond the previous forms of socialization, one should not expect to be able to do it just by getting rid of them, but rather by elaborating new forms. These forms do not spring from good will, but from the capacity of a part of human kind to anticipate a new culture. In other words, development necessarily implies more subordination to the conditions which make the goals attainable. And these include a form of organization which is not spontaneous. The moment in which people subtract themselves from the previous form of hierarchy can be a necessary step in creating the need for a new organization. But it cannot be considered an end in itself. Of course unless you think as an anarchist. Gloves Off How do you see the idea that the movement is able to forge alliances in practice and does not need a single vertical structure? Could you comment on Toni Negris ideas about the autonomy of working class organization? Giovanni Mazzetti I don't like to refer to the movement as an abstract entity. Some movements could be able to forge alliances in practice without a vertical structure if the need for a change is already socially shared. But in this case the movement is expressing a form of passive drive. Nobody can deny that during the 1960s, the student movement in Europe met the workers movement without the need of hierarchical structure. But this happened only because the needs which were expressed were already ripe: that is, they had emerged in the previous decades. But it seems to me that this situation cannot be generalized. The movement today is anticipating needs, and it does not come to life with an existing social urge. I would say it is a resisting movement, not a proposing one. It fights for what it should not be done, but knows very little of what to do. Im aware that very few accept this limit, but Im convinced that it exists. The expression autonomy is something that I abhor. I can tolerate it when it refers to the need to subtract oneself from a form of dependence which makes one impotent. But all forms of nonpathological relationships are based on the negations of autonomy. In truth I believe that all expressions in support of autonomy todayas a positive horizonshould be called with the old name of anarchism. And in fact they refer to no other power than one's own, whereas all sound forms of independence refer necessarily to an acceptance of powers others than one's own. full: http://www.glovesoff.org/interviews/mazzetti_iv_2004.html Louis Proyect Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Polish farmers face ruin under EU
NY Times, March 27, 2004 After May 1, East Europe's 'Haves' May Have More By ALAN COWELL SYTNA GORA, Poland For 60 years in this place of lakes and forests, Gerard Pakura's life has unfolded in step with Europe's history, from the Nazi occupation of his land to the rise and fall of Soviet Communism. But when his country enters the European Union on May 1 as one of 10 new members, Mr. Pakura may well discover that this latest redrawing of the political landscape is one upheaval too many for peasant farmers like him with no evident niche in the big and brawny Europe that Poland is about to join. As Europe expands in a quest for prosperity and elusive unity, many among its new members in the East fear that hundreds of thousands of people may be left behind in a new underclass, throwbacks to the lost era of command economies and state control. The European Union has always known its relative disparities, and to create a unified whole it has over the decades self-consciously transferred wealth from richer countries like Germany and Luxembourg to poorer ones like Portugal, Greece and Ireland. But never before has the union invited into its well-padded ranks the kind of economic malaise to be found in rural Poland, the eastern reaches of Slovakia and Hungary and the countryside of the Baltics. So daunting is the challenge that the 15 current members have decided that leveling the playing field is not an option, at least not fully, not for the foreseeable future. Most of the agricultural subsidies that take up almost half of the European Commission's annual budget of $120 billion will not be available to farmers like Mr. Pakura and his neighbors in the other new eastern members, because extending the benefit was deemed too costly. Farm subsidies for the new entrants will start at just a quarter of the western levels, rising to parity only by 2013. In the meantime, small-scale farmers in the East worry that they will be wiped out by agribusiness in the West, where subsidies on average provide a quarter of the income of most current European Union farmers. Everybody is trying to find a job, said Sylvester Frankowski, 18, who earns around $200 a month as a foot soldier in the Polish Army and has just returned to this hamlet of eight houses from a six-month stint in Iraq. They don't want to stay on the farm, he said, they are afraid that in the E.U. the farms will be too small to exist. Among new entrants, Poland is a particularly extreme example of dependence on small-scale agriculture and the biggest challenge among the group to the system of farm subsidies that both underpins European agriculture and inspires such furious arguments in the broader debate over the global trade in farm products. In Poland about one-fifth of the work force is still on the land five times the current European Union average. More than half of those farms cover less than 12 acres, about a quarter of the European average, according to Andrzej Zedura, a government official. Poland employs 19 percent of its work force on the land compared with, say, about 6 percent in Hungary or, among the old Europeans, about 4 percent in France, according to European Union figures. It has 45.5 million acres under cultivation almost as much as the 48.4 million acres of the nine other new member countries combined. So for Poland the potential disruption to the economy and to generations of rural life is enormous. But even as Poles seek to leave the farm, jobs are hardly plentiful in the rest of the economy, and wages compared with current members are barely more than a pittance. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/27/international/europe/27EURO.html Louis Proyect Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Iraqi public opinion
NY Times, March 27, 2004 Up to 16 Die in Gun Battles in Sunni Areas of Iraq By DEXTER FILKINS FALLUJA, Iraq, March 26 As many as 16 people, including a United States marine, were killed in a series of gun battles on Friday, as guerrilla violence swept the Sunni-dominated areas north and west of Baghdad in the latest show of strength by the insurgency here. Among the Iraqis killed was a cameraman for ABC News, who a witness said was shot by American troops when he stepped into the middle of a skirmish... In the fighting on Friday, the attackers showed sophistication and ease of movement, despite the assertions of American officers that they are close to defeating the insurgency led by members of Saddam Hussein's fallen government and are dealing with a smaller number of foreign-led Islamic terrorists. (clip) Lt. Ross Schellhaas, of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, said that his men had encountered sporadic attacks through much of the day but that the guerrillas had been easily dispersed. He said his deeper concern was the attitude of the Iraqis civilians, in whom he sensed ambivalence about the American presence. Every one of us is waving to the Iraqis, even the guys who got shot at, the lieutenant said as his men moved through the neighborhood. We're trying to let them know that we are here to help them. I don't know if they believe it or not, he said. The renewed fighting seemed to generate anti-American antipathy here. At Falluja's main hospital, where the dead and wounded were taken, a group of angry Iraqis waved away an American reporter who tried to go inside. If you go inside, you'll be shot, said Abdul Nasir, a security guard. I can't protect you. The families are crazy, and they are armed. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/27/international/middleeast/27IRAQ.html Louis Proyect Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Intense worries about US troop morale
In Army Survey, Troops in Iraq Report Low Morale By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, March 26, 2004; Page A18 A slim majority of Army soldiers in Iraq -- 52 percent -- reported that their morale was low, and three-fourths of them said they felt poorly led by their officers, according to a survey taken at the end of the summer and released yesterday by the Army. In addition, seven in 10 of those surveyed characterized the morale of their fellow soldiers as low or very low. The problems were most pronounced among lower-ranking troops and those in reserve units. Nearly 75% of the groups reported that their battalion-level command leadership was poor and showed a lack of concern for their soldiers, said an Army report accompanying the data. Unit cohesion was also reported to be low. The survey was part of a study initiated by the Army last summer after a number of suicides provoked concern about the mental well-being of soldiers in Iraq. The report faulted the Army for how it handled mental health problems, saying some counselors felt inadequately trained and citing problems in distribution of antidepressant medication and sleeping pills. But perhaps the most surprising findings were the grim conclusions about troop morale, which indicate that Iraq is taking a toll that goes beyond casualty figures. The Pentagon has been intensely worried that more frequent and longer combat tours will prompt more soldiers to get out of the Army rather than reenlist, especially if it means a second stint in Iraq or Afghanistan. Army insiders say it is likely that brigades from three divisions that served in Iraq over the past year -- the 101st Airborne, the 3rd Infantry and the 4th Infantry -- are likely to be sent back in 2005. The Pentagon data on morale also appear to give official confirmation to a more informal survey conducted last summer by Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper. That survey found about half of troops who filled out questionnaires described their unit's morale as low and their training as insufficient, and said they did not plan to reenlist. Col. Virgil Patterson, who oversaw the Army survey, said he was somewhat surprised by the findings on troop morale. He noted that when the survey was taken, soldiers were still feeling the effects of a brutally hot Iraqi summer, and that since then troops have better living conditions and are better able to communicate with their families. It was a pretty miserable set of circumstances at the time, he said. We speculate that all of those contributed to the factor of low morale. Patterson said he could not place the numbers in historical context because similar surveys have not been conducted before. This is the first time we've ever gone into an active combat theater and asked soldiers how they are doing, so we have no comparative data, he said. The study, conducted from late August through early October 2003, surveyed 756 Army soldiers in Iraq and Kuwait, focusing on units that had engaged in combat. Reaction to the Army's survey was mixed among several experts. Retired Army Col. Robert Killebrew, a Vietnam War veteran, said, It's not particularly surprising, especially given the frustrating nature of the combat they're facing now, with patrols and bombs going off. But a senior Army commander who spoke on the condition of anonymity expressed alarm. I'd be extremely worried by these numbers, said the officer, who specializes in morale issues. Having more than half the soldiers surveyed say they are unhappy should set off alarm bells, the officer said. Jonathan Shay, a Veterans Affairs psychiatrist, called it a painful report to read. Shay, who wrote two books on cohesion and leadership problems in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, said the report shows morale and cohesion were seriously low among troops in Iraq. The report faulted the Army's handling of mental health issues for troops and called for appointment of a czar to coordinate such services in Iraq and Kuwait. Patterson said a medical specialist would fill that new position next month. In its findings on suicide, the report confirmed data previously released by the Army that the rate among soldiers in Iraq in 2003 was higher than for the Army generally, but lower than that of U.S. men of a similar age range. There were 23 confirmed suicides among Army troops in Iraq in 2003, for a rate of 15.6 per 100,000 soldiers, the report said. That compares with an Army average in recent years of 11.9, they said. Col. Bruce Crow, an Army psychologist and an expert in suicide prevention who served as a member of the study group, said there were few clear patterns to the suicides, such as a persistent correlation with how long the troops had been deployed or what type of work they were doing. But he said soldiers who killed themselves generally tended to be younger, unmarried men. Louis Proyect Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Release versions of the Iraq war
War Rationale: Version 10.0 http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10143 Here then, in Silicon Valley terms, is a review of the Bush administration's year in Iraq: Saddam Hussein poses an 'imminent threat' to the American people. * Version 1.0 - Saddam Hussein is an imminent threat * Version 1.01 - Saddam Hussein is a gathering threat * Version 1.02 - Saddam Hussein poses a real and dangerous threat * Version 1.1 - The smoking gun will be a mushroom cloud * Version 1.2 - We can't afford to wait * Version 1.3 - We never said imminent * Version 1.3.1 - OK, maybe we did say it once or twice * Version 1.4 - We should have been more precise Saddam Hussein is ready to use weapons of mass destruction. * Version 2.1 - Saddam has weapons of mass destruction * Version 2.2 - Saddam has nuclear weapons * Version 2.3 - Saddam has biological agents he's never accounted for * Version 2.3.1 - The trailers are mobile labs for producing chemical weapons * Version 2.3.2 - Unmanned aircraft are ready to spread Saddam's biological weapons * Version 2.4 - Saddam's going to make more of all these weapons * Version 2.5 - We all know where the weapons are * Version 2.5.1 - Well, Saddam has used weapons of mass destruction * Version 2.5.2 - Iraq is a big country. We'll find the weapons eventually. * Version 2.5.3 - Saddam had weapons of mass destruction programs * Version 2.5.4 - Saddam had weapons of mass destruction program-related activities * Version 2.5.5 - David Kay? Who's David Kay? * Version 2.6 - It's not about misleading the American people-Saddam Hussein is gone and that's the most important thing The intelligence is clear. * Version 3.0 - We based our statements on our available intelligence * Version 3.1 - Saddam tried to buy uranium ore in Niger * Version 3.1.2 - Well, that was what the British told us * Version 3.1.3 - Did we tell you about Joe Wilson's wife? * Version 3.1.4 - Do you know a good lawyer? * Version 3.2 - The intelligence is absolutely clear * Version 3.2.1 - Intelligence is never 100 percent certain * Version 3.2.2 - We didn't manipulate the intelligence * Version 3.3 - There was no consensus within the intelligence community * Version 3.3.1 - We saw the same intelligence the last administration did Saddam Hussein has deep ties to Al Qaeda. * Version 4.0 - Saddam has long-standing ties to Al Qaeda * Version 4.0.1 - You can't distinguish between Saddam and Al Qaeda * Version 4.0.2 - There is an Al Qaeda terrorist network in Iraq * Version 4.0.3 - Saddam has provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. * Version 4.0.4 - Saddam will give his weapons to Al Qaeda * Version 4.0.5 - Colin Powell: I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection [between Al Qaeda and Iraq] * Version 4.0.6 - Vice President Cheney: I still believe there's a connection. * Version 4.0.7 - CIA Director George Tenet: I told Dick not to say that. The United Nations just can't handle this. * Version 5.0 - The UN had 12 years to deal with this * Version 5.1 - We don't trust the UN to handle this * Version 5.1.1 - We don't need the UN's help * Version 5.1.2 - The UN should play a vital, but not central role * Version 5.1.3 - You there, UN, tell Ayatollah Sistani that elections aren't possible * Version 5.1.4 - UN, please oversee the election process * Version 5.1.5 - Pretty please? We'll pay our dues The war in Iraq won't hurt our efforts in Afghanistan or the hunt for bin Laden. * Version 6.0 - Iraq won't affect our hunt for bin Laden * Version 6.1 - Assets have been moved from Afghanistan to Iraq * Version 6.1.1 - Assets are being returned to Afghanistan * Version 6.2 - We're mounting a spring offensive against bin Laden * Version 6.2.1 - We'll catch bin Laden this year * Version 6.2.2 - We hope to catch bin Laden this year * Version 6.3 - Even if we catch bin Laden, the threat will still exist. Mission accomplished. * Version 7.0 - We won't need hundreds of thousands of troops-that's wildly off the mark * Version 7.1 - Mission accomplished * Version 7.1.1 - We'll stay as long as needed and not one day more * Version 7.1.2 - The troops will be home in six months * Version 7.1.3 - The Iraqi Army will provide security * Version 7.1.4 - Where's the Iraqi Army? * Version 7.1.5 - We've disbanded the Iraqi Army * Version 7.1.3 - The troops will stay a year and be replaced * Version 7.2 - We're training the Iraqi army-Iraqification will work * Version 7.2.1 - We don't need any more American troops * Version 7.2.2 - Well, maybe we do * Version 7.2.3 - We're keeping 30,000 more troops on active duty than were authorized * Version 7.2.4 - We don't know if this increase in troops is a spike or a plateau * Version 7.2.5 - We're establishing stop loss so troops can't leave * Version 7.2.6 - The Army
Nader the Condorcet Winner in 2000
The virtue of the Condorcet method is its ability to eliminate the pressure on voters to vote to defeat the least desirable candidate rather than reveal their true preferences, by allowing voters to rank the candidates (like Instant Runoff Voting) and by refusing to eliminate the candidate with the least first choices (unlike Instant Runoff Voting). That Ralph Nader turned out to be the Condorcet Winner in 2000 shows how unusual the 2000 election was, according to Bruce C. Burden: * Two common methods are majority and plurality rule. Majority rule would have failed in 2000 because no candidate won 50% of the popular vote. And plurality rule would have elected Gore as he clearly won the popular vote. And neither majority nor plurality rule is more natural than or superior to more complicated methods. . . . [T]he Founders chose to create the Electoral College to choose presidents. Bush won the 2000 election because he won a majority of electoral votes, after a serious of legal battles in Florida held him over the 270 required for victory. One might wonder whether this rather unique method of election selected the same winner that other aggregation schemes might or whether Bush's victory was idiosyncratic to the particular set of institutions and events that put him into office. One of the most stringent methods of selecting a candidate was proposed by the Marquis de Condorcet more than 200 years ago. The Condorcet criterion is a desirable method of choosing among multiple candidates because it sets the threshold of victory high. Condorcet argued that a winning alternative ought to be capable of defeating all other alternative in head-to-head comparisons. That is, A should be the victor only if she beats both B and C in paired situations. . . . National Election Study data from 2000 make it possible to conduct a crude analysis of strategic voting. I follow a long line of research that uses rankings of the candidates on the traditional feeling thermometers as estimates of the relative ordinal utilities each person has for each candidate. Thermometers are reasonable proxies for respondents' utilities for the candidates and predict the vote well (Abramson et al. 1992, 1995, 2000; Brams and Fishburn 1983; Brams and Merrill 1994; Kiewiet 1979; Ordeshook and Zeng 1997; Palfrey and Poole 1987; Weisberg and Grofman 1981). Abramson and colleagues (1995) show that the winners of the popular and electoral vote in three notable third party elections -- 1968, 1980, and 1992 -- were all Condorcet winners. That is, the Electoral College victor also would have won using Condorcet's standard of beating each of the other candidates in head-to-head comparisons. Using their approach, I have verified that Clinton was easily the Condorcet winner in 1996 as well. It is reassuring that different voting schemes -- simple plurality rule, the Electoral College, the Condorcet criterion, and perhaps even approval voting -- all select the same candidate in each of the last four elections with significant minor parties (Brams and Fishburn 1983; Brams and Merrill 1994; Kiewiet 1979). Indeed, it is remarkable that every presidential election for which adequate survey data exist seems to have chosen the Condorcet winner, regardless of minor party showings. This is satisfying in part because no voting method is ideal and the Condorcet method appears to be one of the most stringent as a Condorcet winner does not even exist in many settings. The 2000 election is not so tidy. Not only did George W. Bush not take the popular vote, but the data clearly show that he was not the Condorcet winner either. This is apparently the first time in the survey era that this has happened. Moreover, it is quite possible that the winner of the popular vote -- Al Gore -- was also not the Condorcet winner. Examining the pre-election rankings, Nader beats Buchanan (659-240), Gore (527-500), and Bush (562-491), thus making him the Condorcet winner.3 Nearly every other method makes Gore the winner. Running through the list of voting methods that are commonly discussed in textbooks on the subject (e.g., Shepsle and Bonchek 1997), Gore wins whether using a plurality runoff, sequential runoff, Borda count, or approval voting.4 The 2000 election thus represents a highly unusual event in modern U.S. politics as the Electoral College and ensuing legal battles surrounding Florida are perhaps the only method that would result in George W. Bush's election. (Minor Parties in the 2000 Presidential Election, 2-3, http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/hweisberg/conference/burdosu.pdf) * The main points of Burden's essay is (1) that George W. Bush could _not_ have won the election by _any_ voting method -- he won only because of the Supreme Court's intervention and Al Gore's acquiescence to it; (2) Bush not only lost the popular vote but was nearly the Condocet _loser _in head-to-head pairings with each of other candidates (Burden, 10); (3) _before
Re: Nader the Condorcet Winner in 2000
of course, the main parties won't change the current electoral system as long as they both think they gain from it (and there's no serious pressure on them to change). So don't expect Condorcet's criterion to apply in practice. Jim D. -Original Message- From: Yoshie Furuhashi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 3/27/2004 11:17 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: [PEN-L] Nader the Condorcet Winner in 2000 The virtue of the Condorcet method is its ability to eliminate the pressure on voters to vote to defeat the least desirable candidate rather than reveal their true preferences, by allowing voters to rank the candidates (like Instant Runoff Voting) and by refusing to eliminate the candidate with the least first choices (unlike Instant Runoff Voting). That Ralph Nader turned out to be the Condorcet Winner in 2000 shows how unusual the 2000 election was, according to Bruce C. Burden: * Two common methods are majority and plurality rule. Majority rule would have failed in 2000 because no candidate won 50% of the popular vote. And plurality rule would have elected Gore as he clearly won the popular vote. And neither majority nor plurality rule is more natural than or superior to more complicated methods. . . . [T]he Founders chose to create the Electoral College to choose presidents. Bush won the 2000 election because he won a majority of electoral votes, after a serious of legal battles in Florida held him over the 270 required for victory. One might wonder whether this rather unique method of election selected the same winner that other aggregation schemes might or whether Bush's victory was idiosyncratic to the particular set of institutions and events that put him into office. One of the most stringent methods of selecting a candidate was proposed by the Marquis de Condorcet more than 200 years ago. The Condorcet criterion is a desirable method of choosing among multiple candidates because it sets the threshold of victory high. Condorcet argued that a winning alternative ought to be capable of defeating all other alternative in head-to-head comparisons. That is, A should be the victor only if she beats both B and C in paired situations. . . . National Election Study data from 2000 make it possible to conduct a crude analysis of strategic voting. I follow a long line of research that uses rankings of the candidates on the traditional feeling thermometers as estimates of the relative ordinal utilities each person has for each candidate. Thermometers are reasonable proxies for respondents' utilities for the candidates and predict the vote well (Abramson et al. 1992, 1995, 2000; Brams and Fishburn 1983; Brams and Merrill 1994; Kiewiet 1979; Ordeshook and Zeng 1997; Palfrey and Poole 1987; Weisberg and Grofman 1981). Abramson and colleagues (1995) show that the winners of the popular and electoral vote in three notable third party elections -- 1968, 1980, and 1992 -- were all Condorcet winners. That is, the Electoral College victor also would have won using Condorcet's standard of beating each of the other candidates in head-to-head comparisons. Using their approach, I have verified that Clinton was easily the Condorcet winner in 1996 as well. It is reassuring that different voting schemes -- simple plurality rule, the Electoral College, the Condorcet criterion, and perhaps even approval voting -- all select the same candidate in each of the last four elections with significant minor parties (Brams and Fishburn 1983; Brams and Merrill 1994; Kiewiet 1979). Indeed, it is remarkable that every presidential election for which adequate survey data exist seems to have chosen the Condorcet winner, regardless of minor party showings. This is satisfying in part because no voting method is ideal and the Condorcet method appears to be one of the most stringent as a Condorcet winner does not even exist in many settings. The 2000 election is not so tidy. Not only did George W. Bush not take the popular vote, but the data clearly show that he was not the Condorcet winner either. This is apparently the first time in the survey era that this has happened. Moreover, it is quite possible that the winner of the popular vote -- Al Gore -- was also not the Condorcet winner. Examining the pre-election rankings, Nader beats Buchanan (659-240), Gore (527-500), and Bush
insourcing
The Repugs have been outstanding in using language to distort reality. The Death Tax is one of my favorites. Insourcing seems pretty lame, yet they are pushing it to the fullest. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
new radio product
Just added to my radio archive http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html: March 25, 2004 DH on outsourcing - as big a deal as they say? * Leo Panitch, co-editor of The Socialist Register 2004, on the American empire it joins: March 18, 2004 Luciana Castellina on Italian politics - government, parties, popular movements * Ruth O'Brien, editor of Voices from the Edge: Narratives About the Americans With Disabilities Act, on the ADA, the workplace, and the courts, and Leonard Kriegel, one of the contributors to the collection, on getting around NYC in a wheelchair March 11, 2004 Robert Fatton, author of Haiti's Predatory Republic, on the roots of Haiti's current predicament * Hilary Wainwright, editor of Red Pepper and author of Reclaim the State, on how popular movements can engage with state power without losing their innocence March 4, 2004 Corey Robin on the militarized worldview of the neocons * Laura Flanders on her new book on the women of the Bush administration, Bushwomen February 26, 2004 Susie Bright on sex, politics, and her new book, Mommy's Little Girl * Frida Berrigan on who's making money from the war in Iraq * Mark Levitan on the crisis of employment in New York City along with -- * Nina Revoyr on the history of Los Angeles, real and fictional * Bill Fletcher on war and peace * Barbara Ehrenreich on Global Woman * Slavoj Zizek on war, imperialism, and fantasy * Keith Bradsher on the SUV * Susie Bright on sex and politics * Anatol Lieven on Iraq * Lisa Jervis on feminism pop culture * Faye Wattleton on a poll of American women * Joseph Stiglitz on the IMF and the Wall St-Treasury axis * Joel Schalit, author of Jerusalem Calling, on the Counterpunch collection, The Politics of Anti-Semitism * Naomi Klein on Argentina and the arrested political development of the global justice movement * Ursula Huws on the new world of work and why capitalism has avoided crisis * Simon Head, author of The New Ruthless Economy, on working in the era of surveillance, restructuring, and speedup * Michael Albert on participatory economics (parecon) * Michael Hudson, author of a report on the sleazy world of subprime finance * Hamid Dabashi on Iran * Marta Russell on the UN conference on disability * William Pepper on the state-sponsored assassination of Martin Luther King * Sara Roy on the Palestinian economy * Christian Parenti on his visit to Baghdad, and on his book The Soft Cage (about surveillance in America from slavery to the Patriot Act) * Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, and Cynthia Enloe on the then-impending war with Iraq * Michael Hardt on Empire * Judith Levine on kids sex * Richard Burkholder of Gallup on polling Baghdad * Walden Bello on the World Social Forum and alternative development models * Christopher Hitchens on Orwell and his new political affiliations -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 38 Greene St - 4th fl. New York NY 10013-2505 USA voice +1-212-219-0010 fax+1-212-219-0098 cell +1-917-865-2813 email mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] webhttp://www.leftbusinessobserver.com
The lighter side of Hans Blix
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/magazine/28QUESTIONS.html
JFK's Secret Strategy revealed
The STRATWHOR INTELLIGENCE BRIEF has revealed Dumbocratic presidential candidate John F Kerry's four-step plan to take over the White House: 1.) Change his name to John F Kerredy and his campaign slogan from The Real Deal to JFK-The Real Second Coming, and nominate Senator John McCain as his Vice-President. 2.) Make an all-out effort to convince Republicon voters-but not too many of them--that A VOTE FOR NADER IS A VOTE FOR BUSH (if this strategy is too successful, switch to an effort to persuade Nader voters that A VOTE FOR BUSH IS A VOTE FOR NADER). 3.) Attack Bush for not making enough efforts to overthrow Venezuela's Marxist president Hugo Chavez. 4.) The October Surprise to end all Surprises, Operation CRapture. On Halloween 2004 a secret Dumbocratic agent, pissed at having His name repeatedly disclosed in vain by Republicons, is to translate the US Supreme Court, all Bushit electoral-college candidates, and all born-again Politicians to a specially prepared Darkside location in the Sea of Hypocrity known as Camp X-Rated (V, L, no S). but STRATWHOR has also learned that Republicon strategist Karl Rove has formulated the following counter-strategy: 1.) Dump Chaney and nominate Rudolf Giuliani for the Vice-Presidency. 2.) Make an all-out effort to convince Dumbocratic voters--but not too many of them--that A VOTE FOR NADER IS A VOTE FOR KERREDY (if this strategy is too successful, switch to an effort to persuade Nader voters that A VOTE FOR KERREDY IS A VOTE FOR NADER). 3.) Promise to extend Plan Colombia to Venezuela. 4.) Replace Kerredy's Secret-Service bodyguards with a new elite force drawn from the Dallas Police Department. STRATWHOR'S ANALYSIS: Since it is overwhelmingly likely that the Electoral College will be unable to elect a president, or even to convene, the election will be decided by the House of Representatives which, as usual, will vote with virtual unanimity to elect ARIEL SHARON as the 44th President of the USA.
Re: Milan Rai on UN occupation of Iraq
As I recall the polls showed more trusted Saddam than Chalabi, and Chalabi was the most distrusted Iraqi politician. Saddam was a distant second. Neither response would gladden the hearts of the occupiers.. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 26, 2004 7:24 PM Subject: Re: Milan Rai on UN occupation of Iraq Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: It's absurd to think that the occupied can freely say what they believe if they suspect that they have a good chance of talking to an informer. Then why did nearly 20% say that it was ok to attack U.S. troops? Why did something like 50% say they had unfavorable opinions of Blair Bush? I ask again, have you actually read any of the poll results? Doug
Re: More on LNG
--- Grant Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Mike, We must have that beer some time soon. Perhaps Tuesday. Is LNG the same as what's being promoted in Australia as LPG? So as when we run low on petrol (peak oil), we can sell zeez nice carbon based stuff for the burning. In Australia, most petrol stations already sell LPG or as it is known, auto gas. To use it, one needs to refit one's engine. The advantage is that it costs half what petrol costs. The short answer is that they are both petroleum products, and are both based on butane and/or propane, along with various other components. So, global warming continues apace even by using these. Perhaps peek oil becomes less of the problem though. Natural gas is natural because it more or less comes straight out of the ground; it's the stuff piped huge distances from gasfields and used in our homes. (Before large quantities of natural gas were found, coal gas [a.k.a town gas], produced by warming coal just below burning temperature and capturing the emissions, was the reticulated gas used for domestic purposes, 19th C. street lighting etc.) That's all news to me. I wondered about the old gas lighting. They still had some of those gas lamps at Vesuvio, a pub I drank at in SF, right next to City Lights Bookstore. LPG is a more recent and more volatile product of refining, designed as an internal combustion fuel, like diesel, petrol/gasoline, avgas, kerosene, paraffin, etc. Do people here get their car engines modified to burn it or do these engines have to be purchased from the get go? Both natural gas and refined petroleum gas liquefy when chilled, hence LNG and LPG. (As you probably know, most taxis in Australia run on LPG; when I was a cab driver there were some wild stories, probably urban legends, about the properties of super-chilled LPG, but I digress :-) Some Croatian guy put out a Taxis of Perth story book some time ago. Maybe you knew him. His mug shot is in the WA from this Saturday's lit section. And just to confuse you further, a handful of vehicles here have been adapted to run on LNG, although this does not seem to have been a huge success and I suspect that its lower volatility is a problem. regards, Grant Thanks!!! Mike B) = 1844 Paris Manuscripts, Marx makes a major point of the relationship between the sexes: The infinite degradation in which man exists for himself is expressed in this relation to the woman, http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
