interesting article on taxes
Outside Audit: Corporate Tax Burden Shows Sharp Decline By JUSTIN LAHART Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL April 13, 2004; Page C1 (See Corrections Amplifications item below.) The corporate tax burden over the past few years has dropped sharply, figures gathered by the Commerce Department and amplified by public-company filings show. The new data also suggest that shrinking effective corporate tax rates have helped boost corporate profits to record levels. Investors who have come to expect -- and in some cases even demand -- that corporations perform acts of tax diminution may be in for disappointment from here because, short of an act of Congress, it is hard to see how the corporate tax tally could get much smaller. Corporate taxes have become a hot-button issue on the presidential campaign trial this year, fueled by a recent Government Accounting Office report that showed less than 40% of U.S. companies paid any federal taxes in each of the four years from 1996 to 2000 as well as a separate study showing that Internal Revenue Service audits have continued to drop under President Bush. If political controversy over the issue translates to action in Washington, either under a new administration or this one, corporate profits could suffer. If the corporate tax burden rises to the level of the 1990s, according to Commerce Department figures, after-tax earnings would be 13% less than they are now. Taxes may not rise by that much, but Robert Willens, tax and accounting analyst at Lehman Brothers, thinks they almost certainly will climb. This might be the low-water mark -- I don't think we'll ever see a tax burden this low again, Mr. Willens says. Through the 1990s until the third quarter of 2001, according to the Commerce Department, the effective tax burden for all U.S. companies, public and private, was around 30%. But from the fourth-quarter of 2001 onward, companies have paid out just 20% of their profits in taxes. The Commerce Department's tax data often don't attract as much attention as some other measures of corporate taxation. For publicly traded companies only, the tax burden appears even lower. Using data from Standard Poor's Compustat, John Graham, associate finance professor at Duke University Fuqua School of Business, found the average tax rate for public U.S. companies was 12% in 2002, down from 15% in 1999 and 18% in 1995. In other words, in boom and bust, corporations are paying less and less of their profits in federal taxes. Part of the drop in the corporate tax burden is the result of relief that Congress provided following Sept. 11, 2001, and again in May of last year. But not all of it. Take away the effects of these temporary tax-relief measures and, according to Commerce Department figures, the effective tax burden for the fourth quarter of last year rises from 20% to 24% -- still well below the 30% that prevailed during the 1990s. The operating losses that many companies reported in 2001 and 2002 accounts for some of the reduced tax burden. Tax law allows companies to carry back losses to recover prior taxes, and for 2001 and 2002 Congress extended this carry-back period from two to five years. Companies can also carry forward losses to offset taxes in later years. Still, the drop in company tax rates is so striking that Mr. Graham says other factors are likely at play. The GAO's analysis showed that larger companies are more likely to pay taxes than smaller ones, though fewer and fewer did through the period covered in the report. In 1996, 67% of companies with assets of more than $250 million or gross receipts over $50 million paid taxes; in 2000, 55% did. Mr. Graham's analysis suggests that the trend toward not paying taxes continued in 2001 and 2002, with less than half of U.S. public companies paying taxes. He believes that many more companies could bring their tax burden down to zero, but don't want to attract unwanted attention. In my view, tax planners at corporations have multiple knobs they can turn, he says. They don't want to turn any of them too hard, but if they want they can tweak them all to lower their taxes. One reason U.S. corporate tax rates have fallen, according to Lehman's Mr. Willens, is that more earnings are being generated in countries with lower tax rates. General Electric Co. paid 21.7% in income tax on earnings in 2003, down from 28.3% in 2001. This was due, the company said in its 2003 annual report, to the increasing share of earnings from lower taxed international operations. Employee stock-option issuance is another way companies have reduced taxes, Mr. Willens says. When an employee exercises a stock option, a company may treat the employee's profit on that option as an expense for tax purposes. The effect of such options exercises on taxes isn't so large as it was in 2000, when the stock market peaked, but with last year's recovery in share prices, it isn't negligible. For 2003, Yahoo Inc. reported $125 million in tax
Re: free press!
I actually made the joke about inhaling, though I think the context was different. And of course, I did inhale. I also exhaled. Jim D -Original Message- From: Max B. Sawicky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tue 4/13/2004 7:39 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] free press! I believe the inhaled part. - Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 7:43 PM Subject: free press! [The following story comes from the Santa Monica College student newspaper, the CORSAIR ONLINE. Almost none of it is a true representation of what I said!] Record Budget Deficit is Analyzed in SMC Lecture By Leopold Geans Corsair News Writer A Loyola Marymount economics professor talked about the alleged financial mistakes of America 's leaders that have resulted in cuts in education and a $7-trillion debt. Students crammed into a Santa Monica College classroom on March 16 to hear Dr. James Devine analyze the decisions that have created the biggest budget deficit in U.S. history. There have been a series of events that have led us to his point, Devine said. The tax cut along with a $79-billion war doesn't help. The $7 trillion is a public debt that amounts to roughly $24,000 per American. There is also a new federal debt of $500 billion which Americans have to pay off one day. We have a new morning in American myth with these tax cuts, he said. Future generations will pick up this tab. Under President Bill Clinton, America had its first surplus in decades, but two years into the Bush presidency, it had turned into debt. President George Bush gave $1.2 trillion of the Clinton era surplus away in tax cuts. He is now requesting an additional $87 billion to reconstruct Iraq . Students questioned Devine about Bush's decisions and their impact on America 's future. The president's new stimulus plan includes an SUV tax break. The tax break which is currently at $25,000 will rise to $75,000. I think his idea was that if I give tax breaks to the rich, i.e., corporate entities, they will then disperse the money accordingly, Devine said of Bush. Kind of like a trickle down that hasn't trickled down. Business owners are being encouraged to buy SUVs with the tax break monies. With the extra money, SUV owners can pay the current gas price of $2.47 a gallon. 2001 was the time our country's debt peaked, Devine said. Right around the time the first tax break was initiated, how ironic. According to the U.S. National Debt Clock, President Reagan, Bush and Bush II are the only presidents since WWII to contribute to the gross federal debt. The Republican trio has spent and borrowed more than any other group. Devine gave a detailed account of the economic strategy of this administration to pump up demand - the ideology of making products and steering Americans towards them, along with tax breaks for buying the product to include SUVs. His purpose was to give tax breaks to his friends. It's blatant, he said. Extremely unfair. Devine also discussed class and social structure in America - the spending behaviors of the middle and upper class. Devine suggested that a middle class family is more likely to spend a tax refund in America . Already rich folks would probably spend any excess money out of the country, on a trip or some exotic place, he said. The tax break was followed by a national tragedy that accounted for more spending. These incidents followed by borrowing for a war that has cost $79 billion. These current fiscal decisions are going to have a long term impact on us, he said. President Bush is also asking for $87 billion more. Devine alligns the job market with corporate debt and how irresponsible it is for America to keep losing jobs overseas. The administration now has its eyes on social security. What we are seeing is free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich, he said. Then again what do I know, I inhaled in the '70s. [for the outline of what I really said, see http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine/talks/SMC03-16-04.htm] Jim
Equality of Wages etc.
From: Devine, James thanks for this. It was illuminating. This material on alienation = doesn't just show up in the GRUNDRISSE. It's also in CAPITAL, vol. I. = Sometimes, it's almost word for word. CB: It would seem that The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof is in Chapter One of Vol. 1 because it is part of the fundamental concepts of the book.
Who removed Aristide?
LRB | Vol. 26 No. 8 dated 15 April 2004 Who removed Aristide? Paul Farmer reports from Haiti On the night of 28 February, the Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was forced from power. He claimed he'd been kidnapped and didn't know where he was being taken until, at the end of a 20-hour flight, he was told that he and his wife would be landing 'in a French military base in the middle of Africa'. He found himself in the Central African Republic. An understanding of the current crisis requires a sense of Haiti's history. In the 18th century it became France's most valuable colonial possession, and one of the most brutally efficient slave colonies there has ever been. Santo Domingo, as it was then called, was the leading port of call for slave ships: on the eve of the French Revolution, it was supplying two-thirds of all of Europe's tropical produce. A third of new arrivals died within a few years. Haitians are still living with the legacy of the slave trade and of the revolt that finally removed the French. The revolt began in 1791, and more than a decade of war followed; France's largest expeditionary force, led by General Leclerc, Napoleon's brother-in-law, was sent to put down the rebellion. As the French operation flagged, the slave general, Toussaint l'Ouverture, was invited to a parley. He was kidnapped and taken away to a prison in the Jura. In Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution,* Laurent Dubois tells Toussaint's story in a manner that reminds us of its similarities to the current situation: 'Toussaint must not be free,' Leclerc wrote to the colonial minister in Paris at the time, 'and should be imprisoned in the interior of the Republic. May he never see Saint-Domingue again.' 'You cannot hold Toussaint far enough from the ocean or put him in a prison that is too strong,' Leclerc reiterated a month later. He seemed to fear that the deported man might suddenly reappear. His very presence in the colony, he warned, would once again set it alight. Toussaint died of exposure and tuberculosis in 1803. Every Haitian schoolchild knows his last words by heart: 'In overthrowing me, you have cut down in San Domingo only the trunk of the tree of black liberty. It will spring up again by the roots for they are numerous and deep.' In November 1803 the former slaves won what proved to be the war's final battle, and on 1 January 1804 declared the independent republic of Haiti. It was Latin America's first independent country and the only nation ever born of a slave revolt. The Haitian Revolution, Dubois writes, was 'a dramatic challenge to the world as it then was. Slavery was at the heart of the thriving system of merchant capitalism that was profiting Europe, devastating Africa, and propelling the rapid expansion of the Americas.' Independent Haiti had few friends. Virtually all the world's powers sided with France against the self-proclaimed Black Republic, which declared itself a haven not only for runaway slaves but also for indigenous people from the rest of the Americas (the true natives of Haiti had succumbed to infectious disease and Spanish slavery well before the arrival of the French). Hemmed in by slave colonies, Haiti had only one non-colonised neighbour, the slaveholding United States, which refused to recognise its independence. Haiti's leaders were desperate for recognition, since the island's only source of revenue was the sugar, coffee, cotton and other tropical produce it had to sell. In 1825, under threat of another French invasion and the restoration of slavery, Haitian officials signed the document which was to prove the beginning of the end for any hope of autonomy. The French king agreed to recognise Haiti's independence only if the new republic paid France an indemnity of 150 million francs and reduced its import and export taxes by half. The 'debt' that Haiti recognised was incurred by the slaves when they deprived the French owners not only of land and equipment but of their human 'property'. The impact of the debt repayments - which continued until after World War Two - was devastating. In the words of the Haitian anthropologist Jean Price-Mars, 'the incompetence and frivolity of its leaders' had 'turned a country whose revenues and outflows had been balanced up to then into a nation burdened with debt and trapped in financial obligations that could never be satisfied.' 'Imposing an indemnity on the victorious slaves was equivalent to making them pay with money that which they had already paid with their blood,' the abolitionist Victor Schoelcher argued. full: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n08/farm01_.html -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
My Newsday Op-Ed: Give Retirees More Financial Security
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpheni43755841apr14,0,2045400.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines Give retirees more financial security BY NOMI PRINS Nomi Prins, a senior fellow at the public policy group Demos, is the author of Other People's Money. Ellis Henican is off. April 14, 2004 It's a scary world if you want to live a long life. All three forms of retirement benefits are under attack: Social Security, Medicare and private pension plans. Either they're bombarded by rumors of eventual depletion or undergoing enormous restructuring. But the real question isn't whether there's enough money to secure dependable retirement. It's who's taking responsibility for it at the federal and corporate level. We heard Social Security will face a $3.7-trillion shortfall within 75 years. But that didn't stop Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan from seizing on an opportunity to further assail the program. Missing from his alarm-inducing suggestions of slashing benefits was the fact that the Bush administration's tax cuts, which Greenspan supported, will create a shortfall three times greater over the same period. That math indicates money is available; it's a matter of appropriation. Today, 47 million Americans receive Social Security. About a third get 90 percent of their income from the program. It's criminal for anyone who doesn't have to rely on this average $900 per month stipend for survival to propose anything less than preserving it by all means possible. Then there are the health-care lies. Heralded as the pinnacle of Medicare overhaul, last year's Medicare Modernization Act introduced a prescription drug bill, supposedly to afford seniors cheaper drugs. But, par for an administration skilled in deceit, it passed under false pretenses. Said Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), It's outrageous that this administration went out of its way to keep true cost estimates from Congress because they knew the bill wouldn't have passed otherwise. Now, there's a brewing investigation into the hidden $140 billion in costs. So what does the bill actually do? It restricts negotiations with drug companies for better prices or group rates on behalf of recipients and subsidizes private insurers up to 20 percent to administer the program. It's blatant corporate welfare. Also released were reports that Medicare, our second largest social insurance program, is at risk of insolvency. But as Medicare Rights Center Director Diane Archer says, We can afford Medicare, if we have the political will to pay for it. Turning to private pension plans: Corporations have been reducing defined-benefit (pre- specified, guaranteed payout) plans for years. By doing so, they are shifting retirement risk to employees. Meanwhile, they are weeping for legislation to further decrease responsibility to their retiring workforce. It's as if they'll stop outsourcing to India if only they can minimize their pension expense equations. The fact remains that companies with under-funded pensions were once over-funded. Yet, instead of surpluses being socked into a reserve fund for retirees, they became obscene CEO payouts. Some CEOs still make more than 1,000 times the average worker's salary. In addition to rising health costs and shrinking benefits, middle-income seniors witnessed a 36-percent drop in retirement wealth between 1983 and 1998. These people, who generally had children later in life, are facing skyrocketing tuition costs, often taking financial and physical care of parents and facing their own retirement uncertainty. So they borrow to make ends meet, an increasingly expensive endeavor. Banks responded to this desperation by steadily increasing credit-card rates. Meanwhile, they pay almost no interest on things like Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.-insured money-market accounts. Greenspan neglected suggesting they change that practice. Banks are offering uninsured mutual funds at uncapped advisory fees as alternative savings vehicles. There are solutions to securing future retirement. As Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) proposed, redirecting tax cuts for the rich into a Social Security reserve fund would be one. Instilling a progressive tax that has Bill Gates paying proportionately into the system would be another. We need a Medicare bill that uses pharmaceutical profits to defray consumer costs. And let's be allowed to buy cheaper drugs in Canada. Corporations should shoulder more retirement risk. Meanwhile, individuals must increase risk awareness through education and independent financial advice. In the end, more financially secure seniors become consumers instead of debtors. That helps the whole economy. Copyright 2004, Newsday, Inc.| Article licensing and reprint options
FW: [Dipity] Belgian minister sparks US genocide row
Belgian minister sparks US genocide row 9 April 2004 Expatica News BRUSSELS - Belgian Defence Minister Andre Flahaut has come under heavy criticism for approving an official document that says the United States is responsible for the biggest genocide committed during the past 500 years. The claim appeared in an official defence ministry magazine as part of a 16-page report on genocide around the world. The report was published to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which left up to a million people dead. According to the report, the worst genocide committed in the past 500 years has been the extermination of native Americans in what is today the US. The study said this mass killing began in 1492, when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, and that the genocide has claimed 15 million lives. The report gave no clear end date for the US genocide, implying, said some analysts, that the extermination of native Americans is still continuing today. Number two on the list of the world's greatest genocides was the extermination of native peoples in south America, the report continued. Flemish newspaper De Standaard vehemently criticised Flahaut for allowing the study to be published. This publication puts our relations with all north and south American countries at risk, the paper said in an angry editorial, adding that it considered Flahaut to be unfit or incompetent. Flahaut has already angered Washington in the past. Earlier this year he said in a magazine interview that he would vote Democrat if he were American. He was also a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq and briefly threatened to close Belgian airspace and the port of Antwerp to the American military ahead of last year's invasion of the middle eastern state. The Belgian authorities have sought to play down the impact of the report. A government official quoted on the website of national broadcaster RT! BF calle d the furore surrounding the document a storm in a teacup. Despite this, sources say Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, who was in Rwanda to commemorate the victims of that country's genocide when the furore blew up, has already spoken to the US ambassador in Africa's great lakes region in a bid to head of an embarrassing diplomatic spat. Michel was on Friday also set to discuss the affair with his US opposite number Colin Powell, sources added. Before Flahaut's latest diplomatic gaffe, relations between Belgium and the US appeared to be improving after two decidedly frosty years. Earlier this week it emerged that US President George W Bush had written to Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt to thank him for the role his country has played inside the Nato alliance and also for Brussels'efforts to tackle terrorism. [Copyright Expatica News 2004] Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. -Pericles, statesman (430 BCE)
$135 a pound
* The New York Times, April 10, 2004 Afghan Route to Prosperity: Grow Poppies By AMY WALDMAN . . . Across Afghanistan, opium cultivation is surging, defying all efforts of the Afghan government and international officials to stop it. Officials are predicting that land under poppy cultivation will rise by 30 percent or more this year, possibly yielding a record crop. Last year the country produced almost 4,000 tons - three-fourths of the world's opium - in 28 of its 32 provinces. The trade generated $1 billion for farmers and $1.3 billion for traffickers, according to the United Nations, more than half of Afghanistan's national income. . . . For many Afghans, poppy has allowed for piety. A United Nations report on Afghanistan's opium economy noted that 85 percent of opium traders surveyed had performed the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that is incumbent on every Muslim but too costly for most Afghans. . . . Badakshan, here in the north, lays bare narcotics' distorting economic effects. Poppy cultivation has driven up dowry prices and raised the cost of labor so much that wheat was not harvested last year. . . . With the price of opium stubbornly stuck at more than $135 a pound, no legal crop can compete. . . . http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/10/international/asia/10OPIU.html ** -- 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/
Academic freedom at a Baghdad University
On Monday night, two Humvees arrived at Mustansariyah university. The soldiers distributed a propaganda sheet in Arabic called Baghdad Now , lauding the achievements of the occupation. Students collected the newspapers and ceremonially burnt them. They also put a poster of Muktada Sadr, the radical Shia cleric, up near the university clock. An hour later, more US soldiers were back, and angry. Abu Khalid, university guard, said: They told me to lie down and they took away my rifle and tied my hands behind my back. Guards say the soldiers went through the university asking: Where are the terrorists? We are going to arrest them. Offices were smashed and windows broken with rifle butts. After three hours, the US troops withdrew after failing to tear down the poster. A university administrator said: I feel very angry. Our college looks worse than after the invasion. She said they were not complaining to the US army or the CPA, because nobody knows who to complain to, but Arab satellite channels have been asked to film the damage. 14 April 2004 11:42 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=511265
Re: Equality of Wages etc.
As I recall the basis of distribution was supposed to be to each according to their social contribution during the socialist phase. This would not imply equality of wages. The slogan was: From each according to their abilities and to each according to their social contribution, as I recall. This contrasted with the communist stage where it was: From each according to ability and to each according to need. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 6:22 PM Subject: Re: Equality of Wages etc. MB wrote: BTW, the equality of wages was something being planned and implemented in the old USSR. For example, wages on collective farms were being raised by greater percentages than wages in the more urbanized, more intellectual sectors in the sixties and seventies. I'm not an expert on the old USSR, but I understand that this was an effort to stop rural/urban migration. Earlier, under Stalin, the wage structure was made much more unequal. Jim D.
More eyewitness accounts from Fallujah
It is clear why the US does not want Al Jazeerah or any other reporters in Fallujah. Media coverage would expose the lies about civilian casualties and bring home the carnage that the US is creating. This is long, but there was no direct URL. Cheers, Ken Hanly Subject:- Fw:- Fallujah From: Kevin Helen Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 08:24:18 + Bagdad 12 April 2004 On Friday night Lee and Ghareeb called to see us asking if any of us wanted to go to Fallujah to try to take aid in and get people out. They told us how they hgad been back and fro the past 3 days, how so nmany people were dying there and about human rights abuses being perpetrated by the soldiers. they said that there were long queues of families trying to leave, the soldiers were making their life hard, making them wait hours to cross checkpoints. They were not letting men of 'military age' cross. These men were taking their wives and children out and then returning to the city , in many cases, to fight. We heard how the hspitals were unable to cope with the huge numbers of casualties and how one had been bombed. Ghareeb would be able to sort out a safe passage through for us if we managed to get through the American checkpoints. Julia, Jo, Wejdy and myself agreed to go the next morning. We were due to leave early the next morning but we were waiting for $1000 of blood equipment to arrive. The delivery was late because it was coming from the other side of Bagdad and there was a battle going on in Adhimaya, not far from our friend Issam's house. We had to decide whether to wait for it to arrive or go straightaway. If we waited, it would mean staying in Gurma (nearby resistance village to Fallujah - attacked last night), but if we went without it we were risking our lives to go with less aid. In the end we opted to leave at 2 pm, with or without the blood equipment to give ourselves a chance of being able to return to bagdad that night. We went in a long bus, about the size of the coaches we use at home in order to be able to fill it with refugees/injured people in Fallujah. If we could not get into Fallujah, our intention was to go to the maerican checkpoints to help refugees get through them - the soldiers were making life hard on the checkpoints, keeping progress slow and not allowing everyone to pass, especially any men of 'military age'. Ghareeb, Lee and Aziz (the sheik's nephew from Gurma village) went in a car in front of the bus to sort out the checkpoints ahead of us. We made our way out of Bagdad and onto the highway to Fallujah. The highway was littered with burnt out vehicles - most were petrol tankers, but there were also many destroyed American military vehicles too. We passed a huge convoy of American military lorries carrying containers with DHFM (Detention Holding Facility Material) inside and long lorries carrying wood with the same initials stamped on it - there must have been enough to build several detention holding facilities. Then we passed a lorry which was being looted by people from a local village. We drove by quickly. Then we came to the American checkpoints - there were long queues of traffic waiting to go through. We were lucky at both - they did not really bother to search our bags of the bus that much and they only body searchewd the males. They said they were pleased to see friendly faces, speaking English! Indeed we had been friendly, teasing them about their suntans andtelling them to put plenty of lotion on - after all we wanted to get through! We left the highway at Abu Gharib, passing the huge tented prison there and then crossed country towards Fallujah. The countryside here is stunning, a lush 'cartoon' green - peaceful and beautiful. We passed through Mujahadeen checkpoints with ease - please note Mujahadeen means 'freedom fighter', nothing more, nothing less. People were shouting goodluck to us and blessing/thanking us for going to Fallujah. At one junction some boys threw bread and cake into the bus for us. As we approached Fallujah on these back roads they deteriorated becoming no more than a bumpy dirt track, barely 2 cars wide. Coming the other way were cars full of families and their possessions and vehicles with signs on them reading 'Aid to Fallujah - from the people of Hilla/Nagaf/Ramadi' for example. It seemed that all the people of Iraq, whether Shia, Sunni or Christian wanted to help Fallujah with whatever they could - water (there is no clean drinking water in Fallujah), blankets, food or medical aid - it was wonderful to see. As we approached Fallujah, we could see a mosque through the dust in the distance. More Mujahadeen lined the road. At one point they stopped us and greeted us, smiling, waving and posing for photos with their weapons - mainly RPGs, AK47's and RPK's (machine guns). Then they started shooting into the air above the bus - the sound was deafening. We drove through fallujah's deserted streets (apart from fighters and the odd group of children) -
A perfect choice
NY Times, April 14, 2004 Negroponte Is Expected to Be Picked for Iraq Post By STEVEN R. WEISMAN WASHINGTON, April 13 President Bush is expected to select John D. Negroponte, a veteran diplomat and current United States representative to the United Nations, as ambassador to Iraq once sovereignty is given over to a government in Baghdad on June 30, administration officials said Tuesday. Mr. Negroponte's career dates to the war in Vietnam in the 1960's and the turmoil of Central America in the 1980's. Confirmed more easily than expected as ambassador to the United Nations shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he had been questioned by some for his performance on human rights issues as ambassador in Honduras during the civil war in neighboring Nicaragua. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/14/politics/14ENVO.html -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Mediation by the Axis of Evil
What is the tradeoff? Seems the Evil are Evil except when they are useful to the US then you get the negation of the negation and they become good..;). Cheers, Ken Hanly The Bush administration has made a formal request to Iran to help ease growing violence in Iraq and Tehran is now making an attempt to mediate in the conflict, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said Wednesday. There has been a lot of correspondence. Regarding Iraq, there has also been a lot of exchanges of correspondence, Kharazi told reporters when asked about the current state of relations with the United States. Naturally, there was a request for our help in improving the situation in Iraq and solving the crisis, and we are making efforts in this regard, the minister said after a cabinet meeting. http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=274801lang=edir=news
Running dry
Thirsty California starts to drink the Pacific Environmental concerns grow as the most populous state in the US turns to large-scale desalination projects Dan Glaister in Los Angeles Tuesday April 13, 2004 The Guardian Peter MacLaggan turns the small tap and carefully fills the plastic cup with a clear liquid that is precious and scarce. Holding it up to the light, he looks proud of what he has done. This may not be the entire solution, but it is part of the solution, says the man from Poseidon Resources. The problem is drinking water, and how California is going to provide enough of it for the people who live here. The clear liquid in the plastic cup is water; but not ordinary water. Mr MacLaggan's water is filtered seawater, desalinated to make it safe for human consumption. Some 90% of California's water is piped more than 250 miles to its consumers, the majority of it from the Colorado River. But with that supply endangered by declining levels, rising costs and contamination - and with memories still fresh of the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s - attention is turning to alternative sources. Eighteen desalination plants are under consideration in California, offering a possible way out of the state's seemingly inexorable water crisis. God never intended southern California to be anything but desert. Man has made it what it is, the Californian essayist and activist Carey McWilliams quoted a visitor to the state saying in 1946. That sense of foreboding and impermanence infused much of the state's dealings with its scarcest resource during the last century. And as with any resource that is in short supply, water has offered the unscrupulous unrivalled opportunities to make money. California's great answer to the threat of drought in the early part of the last century was the Owens Valley project, a 233-mile aqueduct from the Owens river to Los Angeles and the San Fernando valley. But the scheme was actually designed to make money for a handful of powerful backers; their exploits formed the basis of Roman Polanski's 1974 film Chinatown. The latest plans for California's future have caused rows that will be familiar from Britain's recent past. In an echo of the controversies surrounding the privatisation of UK water utilities, opponents of desalination are concerned about handing over a natural resource to private companies which will be subject to the vagaries of market forces. Some allege that the private companies intend to get their hands on public subsidies to process and sell what is seen by many as a public resource. There are also fears about the presence of foreign-owned companies in the sector. The most troubling thing about this is the notion that private venture capitalists can own and control these plants that invest in the conversion of a public resource into a private resource, said Mark Massara, the director of coastal programmes for the environmental pressure group the Sierra Club. full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0%2C12271%2C1190598%2C00.html -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Equality of Wages etc.
I don't recall that the USSR actually followed either slogan, though the distribution of income was more equal than in (say) the US. Of course, the distribution of power influence may have been just as unequal in both places. Jim D. -Original Message- From: k hanly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wed 4/14/2004 10:07 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Equality of Wages etc. As I recall the basis of distribution was supposed to be to each according to their social contribution during the socialist phase. This would not imply equality of wages. The slogan was: From each according to their abilities and to each according to their social contribution, as I recall. This contrasted with the communist stage where it was: From each according to ability and to each according to need. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 6:22 PM Subject: Re: Equality of Wages etc. MB wrote: BTW, the equality of wages was something being planned and implemented in the old USSR. For example, wages on collective farms were being raised by greater percentages than wages in the more urbanized, more intellectual sectors in the sixties and seventies. I'm not an expert on the old USSR, but I understand that this was an effort to stop rural/urban migration. Earlier, under Stalin, the wage structure was made much more unequal. Jim D.
AFL-CIO and Iraq
Here is a commentary by Harry Gelber. Harry is a labor educator. I think he is nearly 90 years old. Recently his membership in his local was revoked. The unions says this happened because he was delinquent in dues payments. He thinks it is because he is a relentless critic of the AFL-CIO and member union leadership. Michael Yates LaborTalk April 14, 2004)AFL-CIO Issues Are Jobs and Economy;Will Keep Mum on Iraq and Natl. SecurityBy Harry KelberWith a war chest of $44 million, the AFL-CIO is mounting its "mostexpensive and earliest-ever grass-root mobilization effort for the 2004elections," aiming to surpass its record voter turnout of 2000, when unionhouseholds accounted for 26% of the total national vote.The federation launched a new television advertising campaign on April 1,dealing with the job crisis and calling for more aggressive policies to creategood jobs. The ads, which aired in 11 states for one week, point out thatthe nation has lost 2.8 million manufacturing jobs and 544,000 informationindustry jobs under the Bush administration's watch. They note that thenation has seen the slowest job growth under Bush since the GreatDepression.The ads follow a "Show Us the Jobs" tour in which 51 unemployedworkers--one from each state and the District of Columbia --traveled to eightstates to tell their personal stories of how the job crisis has affected them. Asmart public relations project.As important as the job issue is, it can get boring after countless repetitionsof the facts, which the AFL-CIO has been hammering away at for the pastyear in handouts and numerous press statements by President JohnSweeney. What else is the AFL-CIO going to talk about in the next sevenmonths of the election campaign?Some issues I feel sure the AFL-CIO leadership and the official labor presswon't talk about are Iraq, national security and the war on terrorism,because in the past year, those subjects have been absolutely taboo.I don't know who decided to put a freeze on news about Bush's foreignpolicy. I've searched all the records and have not found any AFL-CIOresolution that said Iraq and the war on terrorism are not to be mentioned.And yet top labor leaders, at least publicly, seem to act deaf and dumb aboutthe life-and-death issues that are being played out in Iraq and in acts ofterrorism around the world. Do they have nothing to say?Millions of union members have been following the news about Iraq and themounting death toll of American soldiers. They are watching or readingabout the bipartisan commission that is examining the Bushadministration's pre-9/11 security failures. Bush's foreign policy is acontinuing headline topic in the newspapers and on TV. In the broad-rangenational debate, where are our labor leaders?The AFL-CIO has endorsed Senator John Kerry for President. Does itconcur with all of the positions he has taken on events in Iraq and the waron terrorism? What does the sphinx-like silence of the 54 members of thefederation's Executive Council signify?There will be tens of thousands of union members making house calls andvisiting worksites to promote the Kerry candidacy. What do they say whenthey are asked about labor's position on Iraq or national security? Do theysay nothing? Do they give their personal views? Or do they repeat theforeign policy positions that Kerry has taken?The short-sighted rationale that some labor leaders have advanced forstaying on the sidelines on foreign policy is that it is "controversial" and willcause dissension at a time when unity is essential. It so happens that almostall of the major issues in public life are controversial, and it is throughdebate that people get educated and then can make up their minds.The responsibility of union leaders is to lead, not wait for unanimousapproval before acting. Organized labor doesn't always wait for consensus.The dues money of union members who are Republicans is being spent tosupport Democratic Party candidates.If AFL-CIO leaders are as determined to defeat President Bush, as theysay they are, they must also attack him on Iraq and his handling of the waron terrorism.Our weekly "LaborTalk" and "Labor and the War" columns can be viewedon our Web site www.laboreducator.org. Union members who wishinformation about the AFL-CIO rank-and-file reform movement should visitwww.rankandfileaflcio.org.==
Re: Equality of Wages etc.
With respect to the quality of wages in the Soviet Union, I would like to add points. First, to a certain extent nonwage benefits meant that the equality was slightly overstated. Second, the equality of wages was one reason why many of the upper class long to see the end of socialism. From what I understand, the wages of a bus driver and a doctor were not terribly different. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
China question
How is China able to export fruits and nuts? Where do the farmers find the land to grow such crops? Are they cutting back on the production of grains? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: $135 a pound
By Robert Scheer, AlterNet April 13, 2004 Why won't they just admit they blew it? It is long past time for the president and his national security team to concede that before the Sept. 11 attacks they failed to grasp the seriousness of the Al Qaeda threat, were negligent in how they handled the terrorist group's key benefactors and did not take the simple steps that might well have prevented the tragedy. While they are at it, they might also explain why, for more than two years, they have been trying so hard to convince us that none of the above is true. Most recently, we learned that President Bush decided to stay on vacation for three more weeks despite receiving a briefing that told him about patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks by Osama bin Laden's thugs, who were described as determined and capable enough to pull off devastating attacks on U.S. soil. We also now know that the Bush administration coddled fundamentalist Saudi Arabia and nuclear-weapons-dealing Pakistan, the only nations that recognized the Taliban, both before and after the Sept. 11 murders. But what is perhaps even more astonishing is that, because the Bush administration's attention was focused on the war on drugs, it praised Afghanistan's Taliban regime even though it was harboring Bin Laden and his terror camps. The Taliban refused to extradite the avowed terrorist even after he admitted responsibility for a series of deadly assaults against American diplomatic and military sites in Africa and the Middle East. On May 15, 2001, I blasted the Bush administration for rewarding the Taliban for controlling the opium crop with $43 million in U.S. aid to Afghanistan, to be distributed by an arm of the United Nations. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced the gift, specifically mentioning the opium suppression as the rationale and assuring that the U.S. would continue to look for ways to provide more assistance to the Afghans. Five months before 9/11, I publicly challenged the wisdom of supporting a regime that backed Al Qaeda: Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998. I'm not clairvoyant, but I didn't need my own CIA to know that it's self-destructive to reward a regime that harbors the world's most dangerous terrorists. After 9/11, the column was dug up by bloggers and widely distributed and debated on the Internet. Defenders of the administration attacked it as a distortion, arguing that because the money was targeted as humanitarian aid, the U.S. was not actually helping the Taliban. Yet, this specious distinction ignored the context of Powell's glowing remarks, and it failed to explain a similarly toned follow-up meeting Aug. 2, 2001, in Islamabad, Pakistan, which gave the Taliban similar kid-glove treatment. That meeting, held between Christina B. Rocca, assistant secretary of State for South Asia, and Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, took place four days before Bush received his now-infamous briefing on the imminent threat from Al Qaeda agents who were already in sleeper cells in this country, armed with explosives. Yet, Rocca said nothing to the Taliban's ambassador about Al Qaeda's continuing threat to kill Americans, ignoring the fact that the Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders were at that point inseparable, financially, militarily and ideologically. In her defense, Rocca did ask the Taliban representative to extradite Bin Laden, for which she received nothing but bland disclaimers. We gave Rocca our complete assurance, Zaeef told the local media, that our soil will not be used against America, and that Afghan soil will not be used for any terrorist activity. Zaeef was also pleased that Rocca again congratulated the Taliban for its success in eradicating the opium crop, calling the meeting very successful and very cordial. And why should he not have been? As in May, the U.S. again was bringing not just words of encouragement but also a big cash prize. In recognition of the Taliban's elimination of opium, the raw material used to make heroin, the Bush administration is giving $1.5 million to the United Nations Drug Control Program to finance crop substitution, reported the Associated Press. Today, opium production in a tattered Afghanistan is at an all-time high, benefiting various warlords and a resurgent Taliban, while our money, troops and attention are focused on a quagmire in Iraq, a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11 and is not known for its opium. Go figure that out. Robert Scheer is the co-author of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq. = Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny and
Re: $135 a pound
Bob Scheer writes: On May 15, 2001, I blasted the Bush administration for rewarding the Taliban for controlling the opium crop with $43 million in U.S. aid to Afghanistan, to be distributed by an arm of the United Nations. the scare quotes around controlling are inappropriate. Compared to today, the Taliban _was_ controlling opium production. Jim Devine
Re: A critique of Paul Sweezy...
I only read the first two of this series (at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/ps2-a07.shtml). The author, Nick Beams is fine, but he assumes that Marx had actually shown that his falling rate of profit scenario works out in practice. No-one has yet done so, at least not in the orthodox framework. (I have an explanation, but it's not in the orthodox framework since it involves so-called microfoundations.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Mike Ballard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 5:48 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] A critique of Paul Sweezy... I received this message from a fellow worker. I thought those interested in progressive economics might find the critique of interest. Regards, Mike B) *** http://www.wsws.org ran a four-part series on the legacy of Paul Sweezy this past week, basically a critique of his ideas from a Marxian perspective, esp his discarding of Marx's crisis theory. Aside from the Trot garbage, some interesting stuff. Jeff = Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny - and also in a willingness to revise or abandon your theories when the tests fail (as they usually do). - Stephen Jay Gould http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
Re: A critique of Paul Sweezy...
What do you mean by show[ing Marx's] ... 'falling rate of profit' scenario works out in practice. No-one has yet done so, at least not in the orthodox framework? You mean empirically? Ahmet Devine, James wrote: I only read the first two of this series (at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/ps2-a07.shtml). The author, Nick Beams is fine, but he assumes that Marx had actually shown that his falling rate of profit scenario works out in practice. No-one has yet done so, at least not in the orthodox framework. (I have an explanation, but it's not in the orthodox framework since it involves so-called microfoundations.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Mike Ballard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 5:48 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] A critique of Paul Sweezy... I received this message from a fellow worker. I thought those interested in progressive economics might find the critique of interest. Regards, Mike B) *** http://www.wsws.org ran a four-part series on the legacy of Paul Sweezy this past week, basically a critique of his ideas from a Marxian perspective, esp his discarding of Marx's crisis theory. Aside from the Trot garbage, some interesting stuff. Jeff = Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny - and also in a willingness to revise or abandon your theories when the tests fail (as they usually do). - Stephen Jay Gould http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html -- I was recently asked whether universities should teach values. My response was that universities, whether implicitly or otherwise, always, always teach values. They teach values in the way they hire and treat employees. Ruth Simmons President, Brown University -- E. Ahmet Tonak Simons Rock College of Bard Great Barrington, MA 01230 Phone: 413-528 7488 Fax:413-528 7365 Cell: 413-329 7856 Homepage: www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
Tocqueville on Empire
* L'Amérique, Mon Amour by DANIEL LAZARE Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville; Arthur Goldhammer, trans. Writings on Empire and Slavery by Alexis de Tocqueville; Jennifer Pitts, trans. [from the April 26, 2004 issue] . . . Following publication of the first volume of Democracy in America in 1835 (a second, less successful volume appeared in 1840), Tocqueville won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies and turned his attention to French colonial policy, writing a series of articles, speeches and parliamentary reports that Jennifer Pitts assembled a few years ago in a highly useful collection, Writings on Empire and Slavery, which recently appeared in paperback. Still searching for some means of controlling the democratic volcano, Tocqueville now argued that colonial expansion was the key. Any nation that abandons its imperial responsibilities, he warned in an essay published in 1841, visibly enters the period of its decline. An imperial power in decline is one that ceases to overawe the masses and opens itself up to revolution from below. Moreover, Tocqueville said, industrialization had added a dangerous element to the mix. In a remarkable foreshadowing of The Communist Manifesto, he wrote in 1843: Here is what we see today in all the great nations of Europe: the working class is increasing everywhere; it is growing not only in numbers but in power; its needs and its passions so directly influence the well-being of states and the very existence of governments, that all the industrial crises threaten more and more to become political crises. Hence the importance of colonial markets, which served to bolster exports, buttress industrial expansion and temper the business cycle. Imperial expansion was essential to both economic growth and what Tocqueville described as more tranquil class relations at home. This was Marxism avant la lettre. As a thoroughly modern imperialist, Tocqueville argued for colonial policies that were more rational and efficient, but no less brutal as a consequence. In Algeria, which France had begun conquering in 1830, he called for less micro-management on the part of government bureaucrats in Paris and greater leeway for colonial administrators on the scene. While initially optimistic concerning the prospects for peaceful coexistence, he was soon calling on troops to burn Arab and Berber harvests, seize unarmed civilians and ravage the country to quell resistance. In 1837 he predicted that Algerian Muslims and French settlers would eventually merge to form a single people, observing: God is not stopping it; only human deficiencies can stand in its way. But amid continued bloodshed, he declared four years later: The fusion of these two populations is a chimera that people dream of only when they have not been to these places. To better prosecute the war, he urged that a certain Gen. Louis de Lamoricière be placed in charge even though he showed an extreme disdain for human life and was without an atom of liberalism in his person. Liberals had to forgo their scruples abroad in order to achieve their goals at home. Tocqueville was not a racist, and there is no evidence that he regarded Arabs as inherently inferior. But the notion that they might have the same national aspirations as other people was simply beyond his ken. Whatever popular sovereignty's fate within France, the only sovereignty that mattered outside was French sovereignty over any and all conquered peoples and territories. While colonial administrators should respect Arab customs and try to work with traditional Arab leaders, Tocqueville emphasized that political power...should be in the hands of the French. That was one privilege they must not relinquish if they wished to hold on to their conquests. . . . Needless to say, it is attitudes like these that would later get the French into such trouble in Algeria and Vietnam and that are still getting the United States into trouble today. More than just a pioneer of liberal constitutionalism, Tocqueville was a pioneer of liberal self-delusion. . . . http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040426s=lazare * -- 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: China question
Hi Michael, Land tenure is changing. After the rural reforms in the early 80s when the communes/brigades were disbanded, rural land usufruct rights were given to households while ownership remained in the hands of the state at the local level. Rural land usufruct rights are now increasingly tradeable. The government encourages the development of integrated agricultural companies that either lease the land from villages, or establish contracts with individual farmers to produce. Many of these companies are foreign, I know of some big Hong Kong and Thai players, but I don't keep track of this stuff very much. There's a good recent article about this here: http://www.chinastudygroup.org/index.php?type=newsid=5360 Yes, grain production has been falling in China recently, although everyone claims that there is plenty of reserve grain. Usually urban sprawl and shady land deals are blamed for the reduction in grain production, not shifting production. China lost arable land equal to the area of Maryland to these processes last year according to this interesting article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6653-2004Apr12.html Cheers, Jonathan How is China able to export fruits and nuts? Where do the farmers find the land to grow such crops? Are they cutting back on the production of grains? This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: A critique of Paul Sweezy...
theoretically. The problem is that the tendency that allegedly causes the profit rate to fall (the rising productivity of labor, associated with a rising technical composition of capital) is organically linked to counter-tendencies such as the rising rate of surplus-value and the cheapening of constant capital. If go to the empirical level, if the profit rate falls, it encourages a fall in the rate of accumulation, which eventually restores the rate of profit. Of course, there's also a long list of counter-tendencies. Some of those seem just as essential as the main tendency that Marx posited. Basically, look at what Sweezy wrote in his THEORY OF CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT. My theory, in case anyone asks: think of capitalist competition as involving a bunch of weightlifters with differing abilities. They take anabolic steroids. It allows them to lift more weight, but the relative rankings of the lifters doesn't change much (the steroids help the heavy lifters the most, etc.) It doesn't abolish the competition and simply encourages the use of more performance enhancing drugs. In the end, they all get sick. For my story the taking of steroids = investment in equipment, unproductive expenditures, etc., that promote profits at the expense of competitors rather than raising profits by increasing the productivity of productive labor. There's a pecuniary externality amongst the competitors. This theory doesn't predict the downfall of capitalism (which is good, since no abstract theory can do so). But it does say that capitalists regularly foul their own nest, implying the need to raise profits via class struggle, imperialist expansion, etc. Or they could submit to the equivalent of the NCAA and ban the steroids. But they only do so under pressure from an organized mass labor movement, something that barely exists on the national level these days and has never existed internationally. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: ertugrul ahmet tonak [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 3:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] A critique of Paul Sweezy... What do you mean by show[ing Marx's] ... 'falling rate of profit' scenario works out in practice. No-one has yet done so, at least not in the orthodox framework? You mean empirically? Ahmet Devine, James wrote: I only read the first two of this series (at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/ps2-a07.shtml). The author, Nick Beams is fine, but he assumes that Marx had actually shown that his falling rate of profit scenario works out in practice. No-one has yet done so, at least not in the orthodox framework. (I have an explanation, but it's not in the orthodox framework since it involves so-called microfoundations.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Mike Ballard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 5:48 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] A critique of Paul Sweezy... I received this message from a fellow worker. I thought those interested in progressive economics might find the critique of interest. Regards, Mike B) *** http://www.wsws.org ran a four-part series on the legacy of Paul Sweezy this past week, basically a critique of his ideas from a Marxian perspective, esp his discarding of Marx's crisis theory. Aside from the Trot garbage, some interesting stuff. Jeff = Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny - and also in a willingness to revise or abandon your theories when the tests fail (as they usually do). - Stephen Jay Gould http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html -- I was recently asked whether universities should teach values. My response was that universities, whether implicitly or otherwise, always, always teach values. They teach values in the way they hire and treat employees. Ruth Simmons President, Brown University -- E. Ahmet Tonak Simons Rock College of Bard Great Barrington, MA 01230 Phone: 413-528 7488 Fax:413-528 7365 Cell: 413-329 7856 Homepage: www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
Kerry Heckled for Opposing Withdrawal of US Troops
* Posted on Wed, Apr. 14, 2004 Kerry Faults Bush on Iraq, Draws Heckler MIKE GLOVER Associated Press NEW YORK - Democrat John Kerry faulted President Bush for a unilateral approach toward Iraq that has created greater dangers for the U.S. military, but the presidential candidate was heckled Wednesday for failing to back the immediate withdrawal of American forces. We shouldn't only be tough, we have to be smart. And there's a smarter way to accomplish this mission than this president is pursuing, the four-term Massachusetts senator told reporters at City College of New York following an education event. Kerry backed the 2002 congressional resolution authorizing the president to use force in Iraq, but since then has been harshly critical of Bush's foreign policy. Maintaining his support for the military operation while challenging the Republican incumbent - and appealing to the Democratic base - has proven to be a tough dilemma for Kerry, evident by Wednesday's events. During a question-and-answer session with the audience, retired college professor Walter Daum angrily accused Kerry of backing an imperialist policy in Iraq and called on the candidate to demand the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops. You voted for this, Daum shouted. As he spoke, a group stood silently and unfurled a large sign that read, Kerry take a stand: Troops out now. You're not listening, an exasperated Kerry said at one point. Later, speaking with reporters, Kerry dismissed the notion of withdrawing American forces and indicated that if U.S. generals and other senior officials say they need more troops, he would back such a move. Bush at his news conference Tuesday night said he would support an increase in the military presence in Iraq. I think the vast majority of the American people understand that it's important to not just cut and run, Kerry said. I don't believe in a cut-and-run philosophy. . . . . . . [T]he increasing violence in Iraq and Bush's response remained front and center for the president's Democratic rival, who argued for a full partnership with the United Nations, stressed the importance of stability in Iraq and complained about Bush's strategy creating an undue burden for Americans. The president made clear what we all share, which is a sense that the United States of America is going to be resolute and tough and make certain that we accomplish our mission, Kerry said. Other nations share the U.S. goal of stability in Iraq and, if elected president, Kerry said he would use his powers of persuasion to convince them that their interests demand they share in the effort. Our soldiers are bearing the brunt of this operation, Kerry said. Our military is to some degree overextended. American soldiers are bearing the huge majority, the lion's share of this. . . . Associated Press Writer Sam Hananel in Washington contributed to this report. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/8432219.htm?1c * -- 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: Kerry Heckled for Opposing Withdrawal of US Troops
Walter's a good guy. The worse this show gets, the more it stands to split both parties. Buchananoids at one end and Nader at the other. Nader has a way to scoop up both types of voters. I still ain't voting for him. I may run myself on the ticket of the Pepperoni Pizza Party. Devine will be my Secretary of Consumption. mbs - Original Message - From: Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 8:53 PM Subject: Kerry Heckled for Opposing Withdrawal of US Troops * Posted on Wed, Apr. 14, 2004 Kerry Faults Bush on Iraq, Draws Heckler MIKE GLOVER Associated Press NEW YORK - Democrat John Kerry faulted President Bush for a unilateral approach toward Iraq that has created greater dangers for the U.S. military, but the presidential candidate was heckled Wednesday for failing to back the immediate withdrawal of American forces. We shouldn't only be tough, we have to be smart. And there's a smarter way to accomplish this mission than this president is pursuing, the four-term Massachusetts senator told reporters at City College of New York following an education event. Kerry backed the 2002 congressional resolution authorizing the president to use force in Iraq, but since then has been harshly critical of Bush's foreign policy. Maintaining his support for the military operation while challenging the Republican incumbent - and appealing to the Democratic base - has proven to be a tough dilemma for Kerry, evident by Wednesday's events. During a question-and-answer session with the audience, retired college professor Walter Daum angrily accused Kerry of backing an imperialist policy in Iraq and called on the candidate to demand the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops. You voted for this, Daum shouted. As he spoke, a group stood silently and unfurled a large sign that read, Kerry take a stand: Troops out now. You're not listening, an exasperated Kerry said at one point. Later, speaking with reporters, Kerry dismissed the notion of withdrawing American forces and indicated that if U.S. generals and other senior officials say they need more troops, he would back such a move. Bush at his news conference Tuesday night said he would support an increase in the military presence in Iraq. I think the vast majority of the American people understand that it's important to not just cut and run, Kerry said. I don't believe in a cut-and-run philosophy. . . . . . . [T]he increasing violence in Iraq and Bush's response remained front and center for the president's Democratic rival, who argued for a full partnership with the United Nations, stressed the importance of stability in Iraq and complained about Bush's strategy creating an undue burden for Americans. The president made clear what we all share, which is a sense that the United States of America is going to be resolute and tough and make certain that we accomplish our mission, Kerry said. Other nations share the U.S. goal of stability in Iraq and, if elected president, Kerry said he would use his powers of persuasion to convince them that their interests demand they share in the effort. Our soldiers are bearing the brunt of this operation, Kerry said. Our military is to some degree overextended. American soldiers are bearing the huge majority, the lion's share of this. . . . Associated Press Writer Sam Hananel in Washington contributed to this report. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/8432219.htm?1c * -- 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/
whoops!
That was not intended for the list. Sorry. But comments are welcome. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
When He's Losing a War . . .
Lyndon B. Johnson and Robert S. McNamara, February 25, 1964:
* Johnson: I always thought it was foolish for you to make any
statements about withdrawing. I thought it was bad psychologically.
But you and the President thought otherwise, and I just sat silent.
McN: The problem is...
J: Then come the questions: how in the hell does McNamara think, when
he's losing a war, he can pull men out of there?
('Fog of War' vs. 'Stop the Presses,' January 7, 2004,
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20040126s=exchange) *
* CACCF [Combat Area Casualties Current File in the Records of
the Office of the Secretary of Defense] Record Counts by Year of
Death or Declaration of Death (as of 12/98)
Year of Death or Number of Records
Declaration of Death
1956-19609
196116
196252
1963 118
1964 206
. . . . . . . . .
http://www.archives.gov/research_room/research_topics/vietnam_war_casualty_lists/statistics.html
*
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count:
* Military Fatalities: By Month:
Period US UK Other* Total Avg Days
4-2004 85 0 2 87 6.21 14
3-2004 52 0 0 52 1.68 31
2-2004 20 1 2 23 0.79 29
1-2004 47 5 0 52 1.68 31
12-2003 40 0 8 48 1.55 31
11-2003 82 1 27 110 3.67 30
10-2003 42 1 2 45 1.45 31
9-2003 31 1 1 33 1.1 30
8-2003 35 6 2 43 1.39 31
7-2003 47 1 0 48 1.55 31
6-2003 30 6 0 36 1.2 30
5-2003 37 4 0 41 1.32 31
4-2003 73 6 0 79 2.63 30
3-2003 65 27 0 92 7.67 12
Total 686 59 44 789 2.01 392
http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx *
--
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/
