Anti-Government Mirror Editor Sacked
Yesterday the editor of the Mirror was summarily sacked in an amazing coup for the government. Now three media leaders have been forced to resign, the chair and CEO of the BBC and the Editor of the Mirror for mishandling the exposure of government activities around the Iraq war. Alistair Campbell slipped away more quietly but these latest events suggest that government management of public issues is now lower profile but can be perhaps even more effective. From there point of view they did not put a foot wrong over the dramatic picture, and they clearly made many effective moves behind the scenes. I attach my cautious post of May 3 in case people think I may have overstated the case more than a year ago for possible defeat of the hegemonic invasion of Iraq. Chris Burford - Original Message - From: Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 9:23 PM Subject: [PEN-L] water sports for British troops in Iraq Presumably most people are aware that just after the publication of the pictures of American troops torturing Iraqi prisoners, the Daily Mirror in the UK published pictures of UK soldiers urinating on Iraqi captives, Saturday morning. http://www.mirror.co.uk/frontpages/ The definition of the pictures was extremely good it struck me, with every drop of urine twinkling in the flashlight. By Saturday evening there were strong hints from UK military and establishment sources that their authenticity was in question. Certain details of the uniform were not, it was said, customary for that regiment, the clothing looked too clean etc. This morning the Mirror stands by the overall story but shades its world exclusive by saying that the soldiers who provided the pictures say they are authentic and emphasising a beating. My guess is that this leaves the Mirror, which was a passionate opponent of the war, convinced that there is a real story here, but keeping open the possibility that the picture was a re-enactment by disgusted members of the regiment of something that actually happened. Even though the imperialist philosophy of the British contingent to the Coalition, is that they are much better at peacekeeping than the Yanks, two bits of evidence make me believe the stories. 1. A couple of years ago I met a man in his thirties on a language course whose job involved preparing British armed forces to withstand torture. So they had to bark humiliating orders at them and keep them awake a long time and cold etc. One of the techniques was to to mock them sexually. I remember thinking at the time that presumably this was regarded as psychologically very stressful and intrusive but would not cause actual injury. 2. A few weeks ago a group of half a dozen British detainees were released from Guantanamo and told their stories. A very credible mature islamic prisoner described how female prostututes were used to masturbate younger male prisoners, who appeared to be very disturbed by this abuse of their religious principles and sense of personal identity. The older prisoners would joke about this, but to the younger prisoners it was actually rape. These bits of evidence suggest that within the British army and the US army, rape and sexual humiliation in its various forms is considered not really torture but a softening up process particularly suitable for muslims, who are considered to be rather backward sexually. It leaves out of the picture what the military intelligence actually do to prisoners, once they have encouraged the squaddies to have a little bit of fun with them. It seems entirely credible that within certain sections of the British army photographs of a similar nature have been circulated. This probably provides a cover for more serious torture. Either way it is a disastrous imperialist strategy in the 21st century. Chris Burford London
Re: tipping point?
News junkies by myself can waste a great deal of time wondering whether each next turn is a tipping point. There were reasons for believing it last week, but there are always powerful forces trying to rebalance. Indeed perhaps balance is what as individuals we all try to maintain and that contributes to the relative stability of the system. As Engels wrote in his profound letter to Bloch Setp 21 1890 there are innumerable intersecting forces, an infinite series of parallelograms of forces which give rise to one resultant - the historical event. This may itself be viewed as the product of a power which works as a whole, *unconsciously* and without volition. For what each individual wills, is obstructed by everyone else, and what emerges is something that no one willed. So relative to the post below, Rumsfeld did not resign. But this morning there is news suggesting major shifts precisely in an effort to restabilize. They imply overall the ascendancy of the multi-lateral imperialists over the uni-lateral imperialists. 1. The US military has gone ahead announcing that certain cooercive interrogation techniques will no longer be permitted under any conditions in Iraq. This puts distance between the military and Rumsfeld. It suggests that people were unimpressed by Wolfowitz's weak testimony last week. 2. Powell and Jack Shaw have announced in the context of the G8 meeting that the US, UK Italy and Japan will withdraw from Iraq if the interim administration requests it. This gamble makes it much easier for the UK government to keep troops in Iraq, and shifts the whole power issue into one coerced not by armed military might but by armed finance - is it in the interests of the Iraqi's to have a settlement guided over them by the benign hand of international finance capital. It suggests that militarily the hegemons will try to keep a low profile if they can in places like Basra and Najaf, even at the risk of ceding ground to local militias, and they will instead play off the different Iraqi interest groups against one another realy with bribes, (wrapped up as development and resonstruction initiatives). Whether the intelligent Iraqi people want to bargain over this they might wish to decide after they have inspected the results of such pax capitalis in the Balkans and in Afghanistan. 3. The UK governments media coup over the Mirror suggests that British troops have all along been more moderate than US troops in Iraq, and will increase consent in the UK for continued voluntary peace keeping activities if accepted by the provisional Iraqi government. This strengthens the case for the UK rather than the US being at the core of the good troops of multi-lateral imperialism. 4. No doubt partly with Blair's consent, the deputy PM, Prescott, has spoken openly about the rift between Blair and Brown, early in the history of the New Labour government and allegedly better now, and discussion about who would take over from Blair. This could lance the tension over the issue, and allow Blair to strengthen his position while supporters of rival contenders eye each other guardedly. It is a high risk stategy, but Blair is nimble about reframing questions, and dancing over a new rebalancing of countervailing forces. Conclusion: No really senior figures have yet fallen, but what is more important is that the multi-lateralist imperialist camp has pulled decisively ahead of the uni-lateralist neo-cons. That is what has tipped this week. Unconsciously and objectively the agenda is being shaped by the contradiction between the long term intestests of finance capital and the working people of the world. That is the slope of this stage of world history on which each puny actor plays their part to the best of their ability. Chris Burford - Original Message - From: Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 7:23 AM Subject: [PEN-L] tipping point? Most political efforts try to maintain the status quo, to re-balance, and continue. Even a change of personnel is not the same thing as a change of policy, still less a change of social system of exploitation. However the BBC reports this morning that the Army Times, widely available on the bases, is complaining that US soldiers are saying why should they take the blame if people at the top do not resign? The Guardian reports that senior US military are expressing lack of confidence in Rumsfeld. And the BBC reports that George Bush has said he will personally view the sadistic pornographic images. I doubt if he has the strength of personality and psychological insight to sit through all this without being profoundly disturbed. This may just be the moment when if Rumsfeld loyally places his resignation on the table Bush runs out of reasons to persuade him not to. So why should Rumsfeld lay his resignation loyally on the table? Particularly perhaps if this crisis has set up reverberations among the neo-cons, and someone
Uncovering Rationales for War on Iraq
from University of Illinois student newspaper... The study, Uncovering the Rationales for the War on Iraq: The Words of the Bush Administration, Congress and the Media from September 12, 2001, to October 11, 2002, is the senior honors thesis of Devon Largio. She and her professor, Scott Althaus, believe the study is the first of its kind. -- Andrea Lynn, Humanities Editor 5/10/04 CHAMPAIGN, Ill. If it seems that there have been quite a few rationales for going to war in Iraq, that's because there have been quite a few, 27, in fact, all floated between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002, according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All but four of the rationales originated with the administration of President George W. Bush. The study also finds that the Bush administration switched its focus from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein early on, only five months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. In addition to what it says about the shifting sands of rationales and the unsteady path to war in Iraq, what is remarkable about the 212-page study is that its author is a student. The study, Uncovering the Rationales for the War on Iraq: The Words of the Bush Administration, Congress and the Media from September 12, 2001, to October 11, 2002, is the senior honors thesis of Devon Largio. She and her professor, Scott Althaus, believe the study is the first of its kind. For her analysis of all available public statements the Bush administration and selected members of Congress made pertaining to war with Iraq, Largio not only identified the rationales offered for going to war, but also established when they emerged and who promoted them. She also charted the appearance of critical keywords such as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Iraq to trace the administration's shift in interest from the al Qaeda leader to the Iraqi despot, and the news media's response to that shift. The rationales that were used to justify the war with Iraq have been a major issue in the news since last year, and Devon's study provides an especially thorough and wide-ranging analysis of it, Althaus, a professor of political science, said. It is not the last word on the subject, but I believe it is the first to document systematically the case that the administration made for going to war during critical periods of the public debate. It is first-rate research, Althaus said, the best senior thesis I have ever seen, thoroughly documented and elaborately detailed. Her methodology is first-rate. Largio mapped the road to war over three phases: Sept. 12, 2001, to December 2001; January 2002, from Bush's State of the Union address, to April 2002; and Sept. 12, 2002, to Oct. 11, 2002, the period from Bush's address to the United Nations to Congress's approval of the resolution to use force in Iraq. She drew from statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Policy Board member and long-time adviser Richard Perle; by U.S. senators Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman, Trent Lott and John McCain; and from stories in the Congressional Record, the New York Times and The Associated Press. She logged 1,500 statements and stories. The rationales Largio identified include everything from the five front-runners: war on terror, prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, lack of weapons inspections, removal of Saddam Hussein's regime, Saddam Hussein is evil, to the also-rans; Sen. Joe Lieberman's because Saddam Hussein hates us, Colin Powell's because it's a violation of international law, and Richard Perle's because we can make Iraq an example and gain favor within the Middle East. With regard to the administration's shift from bin Laden to Saddam, Largio found that Iraq was part of the plan for the war on terror early in the game. For example, in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 29, 2002, President Bush declared that Iraq was part of the war against terrorism because it supported terrorists and continued to flaunt its hostility toward America. He also claimed that Iraq allowed weapons inspectors into the country and then threw them out, fueling the belief that the nation did in fact plan to develop weapons of mass destruction, Largio wrote. In the same speech, the president called Iraq, Iran and North Korea an axis of evil, a phrase that would ignite much criticism and add to the sense that the U.S. would embark on a war with the Hussein state, Largio wrote. So, from February of 2002 on, Largio said, Iraq gets more hits than Osama bin Laden. For President Bush the switch occurs there and the gap grows over time. Largio also discovered that it was the media that initiated discussions about Iraq, introducing ideas before the administration and congressional leaders did about the intentions
Re: Michigan Gov vetoes anti-living wage law
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/12/04 3:24 PM MICHIGAN REPORT REPORT NO. 89, VOLUME 43-- MONDAY, MAY 10 2004 ASSOCIATION DEMANDS VETO OVERRIDE ON 'LIVING WAGE' The Small Business Association of Michigan on Monday called for an override of Governor Jennifer Granholm's veto of a bill supporters say would help attract businesses to the state. The bill (HB 4160 http://www.gongwer.com/index.html?link=legislation_billdetail.cfmcode=HB%2 04160billid=2003HB416001locid=1 ) introduced by Rep. Fulton Sheen (R-Plainwell) would have somewhat banned local governments from authorizing so-called living wage regulations on companies. Under the legislation, municipalities would have been prohibited from setting minimum wage limits higher than that of the state. charles, thanks much for above... wisconsin gov. (doyle?) vetoed similar bill several months ago opening way for madison to follow santa fe, n.m. and san fransisco in adopting comprehensive living wage ordinances... in contrast, florida gov. (prez' brother) signed such legislation into law last year - surprise, surprise...such policies reveal hypocrisy of 'returning gov't to the people' claims of so-called conservatives... moreover, fla's bush made big deal of his 'rapid response' to post-9/11 security concerns, anti-living wage legislation he signed invalidates portion of miami-dade ordinance including employers at miami-dade airport on grounds that workers are governed by 'federal' rules/regulations... miami-dade's living wage policy requires employers doing business with local gov't to pay wages twice those of federal minimum wagethis indicates hypocrisy of 'decentralized federalism' claims... this stuff is all about keeping wages low (i realize pen-lers already know this)... michael hoover so-called conservatives
Excellent analysis of Shia rebellion
full articles at: http://www.leftturn.org/ Shia Backgrounder: A History of Oppression by Zein El-Amine When the media started reporting on the US military's first entry into the city of Karbala around the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, Shia around the world wondered if the US had any idea about what this invading army was trampling on. A few days later, the front pages of the papers were full of images of millions of Shia on their pilgrimage to Karbala - the site of the battle that forged their sect of Islam and set off a centuries-old quest for justice. In the spirit of that quest they chanted, No to the US, No to Saddam, No to Israel, Yes to Islam. The battle of Karbala in 680 AD is the birthplace of the Shia sect of Islam. The events leading to its birth and the main division within Islam began with the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD. A group of followers and elders chose Abu Bakr, a close companion of the prophet, as successor. But dissenters believed that Ali, the prophet's son in law and cousin, was the rightful heir. In 634 AD Abu Bakr died. Umar became caliph, or temporal leader, and expanded the Muslim empire. In 644 Uthman became caliph and ruled until year 656 when Ali is finally chosen as caliph. But 5 years later Ali is assassinated and Muawiyah declares himself caliph. In 680 AD, Ali's son Hussein and his followers take up arms against Yazid, son of Muawiyah in an attempt to regain the caliphate from Muawiyah's supporters, who were suspected of assassinating Ali. === The Shia Rise Up by Rami El-Amine What is striking is how much has changed in a week - a week. No one can talk about the Sunni Triangle anymore. No one can seriously talk about Sunni-Shia fragmentation or civil war. The occupation cannot talk about small bands of resistance. Now it is a popular rebellion and it has spread. -Wamid Nadhmi, a political science professor at Baghdad University It's still too early to assess the impact of the April Iraqi uprising against the US occupation but one thing is for sure, things will never be the same again in Babylon. The tenacious resistance that the mostly Sunni fighters put up in Fallujah - more than 600 Iraqis (mostly women and children) and around 60 US soldiers were killed in the first week alone - rightly became the rallying cry of the rebellion. But Fallujah has been bearing the brunt of the occupation from day one. What was different about this uprising was that large numbers of Shia rose up against the occupation forces. Suddenly the US and its allies were no longer just facing small pockets of armed resistance, concentrated mostly in the Sunni triangle northwest of Baghdad, but a major rebellion that killed more than 83 US soldiers in the first two weeks and took control of a number of major cities. US-trained Iraqi police units not only refused to put down the rebellion but in some places joined it. A battalion of Iraqi Civil Defense Forces refused to go to Fallujah to fight Iraqis. Sectarian tensions between the Shia and Sunnis quickly turned into solidarity and mutual aid. They exchanged messages of support and Shia joined Sunnis in donating blood and organizing a relief convoy to Fallujah. Joint prayers were organized. Sunnis and Shia are united against the American occupation was painted on walls in Sunni neighborhoods of Baghdad. And members of the Mahdi Army - the militia formed by the fiery young Shia cleric, Moqtada Al-Sadr - went to Fallujah to fight alongside Sunnis. The entire occupation apparatus-from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to the military-was caught off guard by the rebellion even though it was a crisis of their own making. Part of the reason for this is that they've consistently overestimated the level of support for the occupation among Iraqis, particularly among the Shia, who have forced the CPA to revise most of its major plans: creating a Governing Council, disbanding the military, holding elections, and drafting a constitution. The decision to go after Al-Sadr and his followers, while ill-timed, was a sign that the occupation authority was beginning to realize that a growing segment of the Shia posed a threat to the occupation and that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the other Shia leaders they've been dealing with couldn't and possibly wouldn't do anything to keep them in check. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
High tech is skin-deep in India
NY Times, May 15, 2004 What India's Upset Vote Reveals: The High Tech Is Skin Deep by AMY WALDMAN NEW DELHI, May 14 - As India prepared to vote this spring, strategists from its ruling party mapped the country's first modern electoral campaign. They boasted of sending four million e-mail messages to voters and transmitting an automated voice greeting from the popular prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to 10 million land and mobile phones But the hype over the high-tech campaign obscured these statistics: In a country of 180 million households, only about 45 million have telephone lines. Among India's 1.05 billion people, only 26.1 million have mobile phones. And while around 300 million Indians still live on less than $1 a day, only an estimated 659,000 households have computers. The message that the Hindu-nationalist-led government had delivered the country to a new era of prosperity was belied by the limited reach of the media to deliver it. That gap - the coexistence of a growing middle class with the growing frustration of those excluded from it - helps explain why Mr. Vajpayee's government has been turned out of office in the biggest upset since 1977, when Indira Gandhi lost after imposing a state of emergency. It was a huge popular rebellion, said Mahesh Rangarajan, a political analyst. In election results announced Thursday, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's coalition failed to win anywhere near enough seats to form a government. The B.J.P. itself, which a short while ago had been expected to coast to victory partly on the strength of an economic boom, emerged as only the second largest party. The Indian National Congress will form the government with smaller parties, including Communist ones. The Congress leader, Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, now appears likely to become prime minister herself. To attribute the election results only to economic factors would be an oversimplification. Caste, communalism, alliances with smaller parties, anti-incumbency, and local issues and personalities all played a role. But it also would be a mistake, analysts said Friday, to underestimate the role of economic discontent. It is a big warning for everybody, said Sudheendra Kulkarni, a senior aide to Mr. Vajpayee. Mr. Rangarajan called it a victory of the common man and woman. The notion of a class-based backlash may surprise Americans lately inundated with news of jobs migrating to India and a growth rate expected to reach 8 percent this year. This still developing nation is indeed being transformed in many ways, but the transformation has yet to reach most of the population. The entire information technology industry here still employs fewer than one million people, compared with 40 million registered unemployed. Growth in the preceding five years has averaged only about 5 percent, nowhere near enough to lift hundreds of millions from poverty. And the policy reforms, like privatizing state-owned industries or allowing more foreign investment, that have helped unleash the economy have yet to help an increasingly struggling agricultural sector, which supports some two-thirds of the population. The B.J.P. and its allies fared poorly in all of the major metropolises, winning a total of only three seats in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta. But heavily rural states were their undoing, particularly in the south, which has decided the national government for the past 14 years. N. Ram, editor in chief of The Hindu newspaper, said voters turned on those who were callous to it or perceived to be pro-rich or didn't do enough in a drought. Not only the B.J.P. suffered for this: in Karnataka, home to Bangalore, the center of India's tech industry, voters turned out the Congress-run state government. They did the same in the state of Andhra Pradesh, where the chief minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, a B.J.P. ally, had turned Hyderabad, the state capital, into Cyderabad by luring Bill Gates and others and trumpeting the ability of reforms and technology to transform the state. But because of drought and his own failure to invest more in irrigation or other infrastructure that could have eased it, Mr. Naidu's government lost this week as farmers turned on him en masse. That defeat was not hard to predict on a recent trip to the state, and in particular the rural district of Warangal, about two and a half hours from Hyderabad. Close to 300 indebted farmers have committed suicide since 1997, according to government officials. Statewide, nearly 3,000 farmers have killed themselves. Hundreds more have taken their lives in other drought-afflicted southern states like Karnataka and Kerala. The suicides have become a potent national symbol of economic angst, and in some states, including Andhra Pradesh, they became an election issue as well. With less than 40 percent of the state irrigated, and with an erratic power supply only 10 hours a day, farmers had no bulwark against the
The First Time as Farce, the Second Time as Tragedy
Paul Krugman is very worried about the economic implications of surging oil prices thanks to the rising demand for oil (especially due to the expansion of Chinese economy -- cf. China, in particular, still consumes only 8 percent of the world's oil -- but it accounted for 37 percent of the growth in world oil consumption over the last four years [Paul Krugman, The Oil Crunch Is Not Going to Go Away, New York Times, May 8, 2004]; and China overtook Japan last year to become the second biggest consumer after the United States, soaking up about 5.49 million barrels a day [bpd] of the world market of 78.66 million bpd [Felicia Loo/Reuters, China's Oil Thirst Changes Global Flows, Forbes, May 12, 2004]) and the increasing rarity of discovery of major new oil reserves since 1976 except two large fields in Kazakhstan (Krugman, May 14, 2004), compounded by war and terrorism . . . . What does it all mean for the working class of the world? . . . What about American workers in particular? . . . Will Kerrynomics be the second coming of Clintonomics? . . . Or, given Bush's trifecta legacy of war, deficit, and the crude shock, will we have to rewrite Marx's formula: the first time as farce, the second time as tragedy? The full text at http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/05/first-time-as-farce-second-time-as.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * 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: Michigan Gov vetoes anti-living wage law
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/12/04 3:24 PM MICHIGAN REPORT REPORT NO. 89, VOLUME 43-- MONDAY, MAY 10 2004 ASSOCIATION DEMANDS VETO OVERRIDE ON 'LIVING WAGE' The Small Business Association of Michigan on Monday called for an override of Governor Jennifer Granholm's veto of a bill supporters say would help attract businesses to the state. The bill (HB 4160 http://www.gongwer.com/index.html?link=legislation_billdetail.cfmcode=HB%2 04160billid=2003HB416001locid=1 ) introduced by Rep. Fulton Sheen (R-Plainwell) would have somewhat banned local governments from authorizing so-called living wage regulations on companies. Under the legislation, municipalities would have been prohibited from setting minimum wage limits higher than that of the state. charles, thanks much for above... wisconsin gov. (doyle?) vetoed similar bill several months ago opening way for madison to follow santa fe, n.m. and san fransisco in adopting comprehensive living wage ordinances... in contrast, florida gov. (prez' brother) signed such legislation into law last year - surprise, surprise...such policies reveal hypocrisy of 'returning gov't to the people' claims of so-called conservatives... moreover, fla's bush made big deal of his 'rapid response' to post-9/11 security concerns, anti-living wage legislation he signed invalidates portion of miami-dade ordinance including employers at miami-dade airport on grounds that workers are governed by 'federal' rules/regulations... miami-dade's living wage policy requires employers doing business with local gov't to pay wages twice those of federal minimum wagethis indicates hypocrisy of 'decentralized federalism' claims (miami-dade airport authority operates airport, security workers are federal employees who, if memory serves, were denied right to unionize by legislation that federalized them) ... this stuff is all about keeping wages low (i realize pen-lers already know this)... michael hoover
Re: Roy Medvedev interview (on Putin)
I invited Chris here because he does have a lot of information on Russia. I do not share his views about Putin, but I still learn from him. --- I don't know how much of it is due to the Putin administration, how much is due to high oil prices, and how much is due to fluctuations in the solar tide, but there is no question that life in Russia has vastly improved since Putin came to power (not that you would know this reading the New York Times). The difference is unbelievable. When I first came to Russia, people would tell me that Russia is dying all the time. That doesn't happen anymore. Of course the NYT is not interested in what is _actually happening_ in Russia or most anywhere else. I see the most amazing distortions of reality about the country in the English-language press, and not just the mass media. For instance, Edward Herman wrote a very well-intentioned article on Znet about the Russian healthcare system that was, unfortunately, wrong. He could have just called up a Russian clinic and asked. Lifespan in Russia has not dropped due to a collapsing healthcare system, which Herman, if I remember aright, asserted. Male life expectancy has dropped 10 years; female life expectancy by about 2 years. That should tell you off the bat that it has little to do with the state of the healthcare system, and a lot to do with a giant increase in alcoholism and stress among Russian men and a greatly increased availability of alcohol in post-Soviet Russia. The majority of the excess deaths are middle-aged men dying from cardio-vascular diseases (not from hunger-related diseases either, another frequent, and strange, canard. There is not much hunger in a country in which most people grow their own vegetables.) Alcohol was expensive in the Soviet Union and very cheap today. In fact, Russian healthcare is about the same as it was in the Soviet era: free and bad, although you are expected to give the doctor a gratuity. For instance, I had an operation on my lower gum in a state clinic in Kaluga. I gave the doctor $3. For treatment of frostbite in my fingers, I gave about $1.50 to the woman who lanced the blisters. A friend of mine just had work done on her ear, and she bought the doctor a bottle of cognac. In fact the majority of the income of Russian healthcare workers is probably in the form of such gratuities from patients.
Re: Roy Medvedev interview (on Putin)
Chris Doss wrote: I see the most amazing distortions of reality about the country in the English-language press, and not just the mass media. For instance, Edward Herman wrote a very well-intentioned article on Znet about the Russian healthcare system that was, unfortunately, wrong. He could have just called up a Russian clinic and asked. Lifespan in Russia has not dropped due to a collapsing healthcare system, which Herman, if I remember aright, asserted. Male life expectancy has dropped 10 years; female life expectancy by about 2 years. That should tell you off the bat that it has little to do with the state of the healthcare system, and a lot to do with a giant increase in alcoholism and stress among Russian men and a greatly increased availability of alcohol in post-Soviet Russia. Actually, Herman said the following: There is also the attempt to blame the medical crisis on alcoholism, which one Russian doctor is quoted as saying, is in first place, and there are ingrained habits so that mending this safety net will require surgery on millions of dark Russian souls. But the articles cannot escape the fact that the drastic decline began with the ending of the Soviet Union and the installation of Yeltsin and reform, and the opening article does note that, Asked when his life took its turn for the worse, he [Anatoly Iverianov] does not hesitate. Chris Doss: In fact, Russian healthcare is about the same as it was in the Soviet era: free and bad, although you are expected to give the doctor a gratuity. For instance, I had an operation on my lower gum in a state clinic in Kaluga. I gave the doctor $3. For treatment of frostbite in my fingers, I gave about $1.50 to the woman who lanced the blisters. A friend of mine just had work done on her ear, and she bought the doctor a bottle of cognac. In fact the majority of the income of Russian healthcare workers is probably in the form of such gratuities from patients. Two years ago one out of six people in Russia were infected with TB. That's sixteen million people. If Russian healthcare is about the same as it was before the counter-revolution, then something else is going on. I think we all know what that is. We are dealing with economic collapse. Poverty and the lack of proper health-care in prison and in follow-up care is the main cause of the spread of TB in Russia. A January 26 2003 Boston Globe article reports on what has changed: The Soviet medical system took special care of people with TB, making sure each patient was fully recovered before being released from the hospital. Recovering TB patients received better apartments and better working conditions. Families and friends of anyone who suffered from the illness also received treatment. The system, like much of the centrally planned Soviet economy, was unwieldy, costly, and inefficient, but with the support of the communist state, it worked. The system made it a goal to make sure every person was accounted for, said Tamara Tonkel, who grew up in a family in which everyone - her father, mother, and brother had the illness. Now you cannot organize people. So many people are unemployed. Before, people were not afraid to say they had TB. Now they are afraid of losing what work they have. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Roy Medvedev interview (on Putin)
I understand that Russian health care may be free, as Chris says, but my Russian friends tell me that to get decent treatment you have to bribe people. One possible difference between the Soviet and the present system is that today a typical doctor might have difficulty surviving on her official salary. Lou's description of the TB cases seems consistent with my informants. I find the juxtaposition of different views on this subject interesting. I also appreciate that the tone of the discussion has changed. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Cuba: Prewar preparations
Dear Friends and Comrades, The following note sent on Wednesday by a US student at the medical school in Havana gives a good idea of the situation in Cuba right now in the aftermath of the new Bush offensive. The fear of a direct US attack in the event of a Bush victory in November is something I was hearing last week when I was in Havana. It is clearly a time to mobilise not only in Cuba. in solidarity, michael I wanted to send this email to all so that you can be aware of what is going on. Some may already know some of this, but things here are getting a little hectic and we will wait and see how everything turns out. The government here thinks that Bush will try to attack this country in order to win the election. The news which we are getting here is that Bush is trying to appease the Cubans in Miami and also because of the upincoming elections and all of the problems which he is presently receiving regarding the war in Iraq, the economy, etc. He has taken measures in order to put even more economic pressure on this country. As a result, this government is also taking measures to counteract this, meaning that it is preparing itself for a possible attack. Also, measures were taken where prices on all products will be raised or no longer sold so that they can be stored in reserves and distributed during a possible attack or war. All of this began on Monday night and so there is alot of speculation and uncertainty about everything. Yesterday I was able to buy a few necesities at a store and I can tell you that it was completely chaotic. Also within 4 hours, the store sold out of all of its products, because people wanted to have emergency items. (This is a huge store which not only sells food, but also sells clothes and many other things.) This chaos also spread to the banks. Maybe the government here knows something about plans others don't, but one thing is certain is that life here will be somewhat unstable at least until the elections in November and depending on what happens (meaning if Bush wins) things will probably get worse. It is said here that Bush needs to scare people in order to get them to vote for him. This could mean an attack there (in the States) or in another country. Or the other possibility is that he will find bin Ladam right before the elections. Hate to bring you the bad news but unfortunately this is the way things are at least over here. Michael A. Lebowitz Professor Emeritus Economics Department Simon Fraser University Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6 Currently based in Venezuela. Can be reached at Residencias Anauco Suites Departamento 601 Parque Central, Zona Postal 1010, Oficina 1 Caracas, Venezuela (58-212) 573-4111 fax: (58-212) 573-7724
US control behind the scenes
Behind the Scenes, U.S. Tightens Grip On Iraq's Future Hand-Picked Proxies, Advisers Will Be Given Key Roles In Interim Government Facing Friction Over the Army By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and CHRISTOPHER COOPER Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL May 13, 2004; Page A1 BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Haider al-Abadi runs Iraq's Ministry of Communications, but he no longer calls the shots there. Instead, the authority to license Iraq's television stations, sanction newspapers and regulate cellphone companies was recently transferred to a commission whose members were selected by Washington. The commissioners' five-year terms stretch far beyond the planned 18-month tenure of the interim Iraqi government that will assume sovereignty on June 30. The transfer surprised Mr. Abadi, a British-trained engineer who spent nearly two decades in exile before returning to Iraq last year. He found out the commission had been formally signed into law only when a reporter asked him for comment about it. No one from the U.S. even found time to call and tell me themselves, he says. As Washington prepares to hand over power, U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and other officials are quietly building institutions that will give the U.S. powerful levers for influencing nearly every important decision the interim government will make. In a series of edicts issued earlier this spring, Mr. Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority created new commissions that effectively take away virtually all of the powers once held by several ministries. The CPA also established an important new security-adviser position, which will be in charge of training and organizing Iraq's new army and paramilitary forces, and put in place a pair of watchdog institutions that will serve as checks on individual ministries and allow for continued U.S. oversight. Meanwhile, the CPA reiterated that coalition advisers will remain in virtually all remaining ministries after the handover. In many cases, these U.S. and Iraqi proxies will serve multiyear terms and have significant authority to run criminal investigations, award contracts, direct troops and subpoena citizens. The new Iraqi government will have little control over its armed forces, lack the ability to make or change laws and be unable to make major decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S. approval, say U.S. officials and others familiar with the plan. The moves risk exacerbating the two biggest problems bedeviling the U.S. occupation: the reluctance of Iraqis to take responsibility for their own country and the tendency of many Iraqis to blame the country's woes on the U.S. Nechirvan Barzani, who controls the western half of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, warns that the U.S. presence in the country will continue to spark criticism and violence until Iraqis really believe they run their own country. For his part, Mr. Abadi, the communications minister, says that installing a government that can't make important decisions essentially freezes the country in place. He adds, If it's a sovereign Iraqi government that can't change laws or make decisions, we haven't gained anything. U.S. officials say their moves are necessary to prevent an unelected interim government from making long-term decisions that the later, elected government would find difficult to undo when it takes office next year. U.S. officials say they are also concerned that the interim government might complicate the transition process by maneuvering to remain in power even after its term comes to an end. The fear is not a hypothetical one: The U.S.-appointed Governing Council embarrassed and angered the U.S. by publicly lobbying to assume sovereignty this summer as Iraq's next rulers. Those concerns are shared by the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. With Shiites making up nearly 60% of Iraq, Mr. Sistani and his followers don't want important decisions made until an elected government -- which he expects Shiites to dominate -- takes power. U.S. officials say many Iraqi political leaders also tacitly approve severely restricting the powers of the new government, even if they don't say so publicly. The Iraqis know we don't want to be here, and they know they're not ready to take over, says a State Department official with intimate knowledge of the Bush administration's plans for Iraq. We'd love a welcoming sentiment from the Iraqis, but we'll accept grim resignation. Currently, the Coalition Provisional Authority, which answers to the Pentagon, has total control of the governance of Iraq. It can issue decrees on virtually any topic, which then immediately become law. It will formally cease to exist on June 30. The Governing Council exists largely as an advisory body. Its members can pass laws, but the legislation must be approved by Mr. Bremer. The council has no control over the U.S. military, and in practice has little influence on civil matters. It's unclear what powers the interim
Peter Lindert
A few weeks ago, Jim Devine posted Jeff Madrick's New York Times article about Peter Lindert's new book, Growing Public. I am only halfway through the book -- covering the history of welfare when public schooling. As Madrick says, Lindert is no leftist by any means, but his book is an amazing compendium of information about the history of the public sector. I would think that Max Sawicky would find this book right up his alley. Is anybody else familiar with this book? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: High tech is skin-deep in India
Michael Perelman wrote: Sometime ago, I believe on pen-l, I questioned Brad DeLong's insistence that increasing aggregate income meant that the people were doing better, whether in India or China. I had not seen an indication that the BJP was in trouble before the election. India was, by all media accounts, an economic miracle -- even more so than China, but then the United States has always presented India as the anti-China. I don't see a necessary contradiction between a rapidly growing average income and a political backlash. First, we know that average income is not the best conceivable measure of average well-being (although there's some correlation). Second, distribution matters a lot, in part because of what Sen calls positional goods -- namely that people's individual sense of well-being depends not only on the average but also on where they are in the distributions -- plural because they take into account not only how wealth or income is distributed vis-a-vis their relatives, friends, or immediate neighborhood, but also in the larger community. Third, the change in these variables matters a lot -- and so does the speed of change. Fourth, the political cycle matters because people may time their actions to enhance impact. (Note that I'm not saying that we can find a nice function relating political backlash to all of these variables. Obviously, political dynamics is complex.) Rapid growth under capitalism shakes off all of these variables in complicated ways and leads to surprising dynamics. In Mexico, for instance, the Zapatista rebellion took place in early 1994, not in 1986 or 1987, when the country was at the bottom of its long debt crisis. In 1994, the economy was growing at a brisky pace. Of course, the military readiness of the EZLN was crucial in the decision, but -- that aside -- the Zapatistas timed the uprising to coincide with the implementation of NAFTA because of its symbolism. Marcos has made remarks where he frames the Zapatista rebellion as a reaction against richer areas of the country trying to pull way ahead of the poorest areas. In an interview given to Cristián Calónico (a UNAM sociologist) in 2001, drawing an analogy between nation and guerrilla, Marcos quotes Ernesto Che Guevara's famous phrase that the guerrilla moves at the pace of its slowest member. This is very telling. IMO, this operates not only for those on the boats that sink, but also for those on the boats the tide rises. It gives a good hint about the way the poorest and the not-so-poor in a community (and a nation is supposed to be a community) feel when some pull ahead without concern for the rest. I can think of many other examples. For example, the 1968 student movement in Mexico happened after Mexico's per-capita GNP had grown rapidly and with little interruption for 35 years. Consciously or unconsciously, the movement was timed to coincide with the preparations for the Olympic Games in Mexico City, which were meant to showcase Mexico's economic miracle. The students protested against practices of police arbitrariness and government unaccountability that had been in place for decades -- and people had more or less accepted them as a matter of fact in previous decades because those generations had witnessed the Mexican Revolution (1910-1918). The huge demonstrations led to mass repression. Those who protested, high-school and college students from public high schools, colleges, and universities were being groomed at public expense to thicken Mexico's middle class. This was possible because, at the time, government finances were in good shape thanks to the economic miracle. Charles Chaplin wrote in his autobiography that we get easily used to a better life but, by some ratchet effect, the alternative we don't take nicely. Long periods of stagnation make people more accepting of misery, but when the economy grows -- even if only on average -- then suddenly more people are in a position to expand their needs further and demand more. In a completely different context, I think that the speed with which the anti-war movement grew in the U.S., even prior to the invasion of Iraq, was related, not only to the shock of 9/11 (when people face death, they question themselves more deeply), but also -- to a very significant extent -- to the 1990s boom. The poor in the U.S. benefited from the 1990s boom, particularly in the 1998-2001 period. Higher employment among African-Americans led to a thickening of the so-called black middle class, etc. IMO, the boom had the unintended effect of making people more demanding about the kind of foreign policy they can or cannot accept. The boom made people more assertive politically. That's one of the reasons why the worse-is-better school has it all wrong. Julio _ MSN Latino: el sitio MSN para los hispanos en EE.UU. http://latino.msn.com/
Military Times: Fire Rumsfeld and Myers
I doubt that there is any precedent for such a sharply worded editorial from the Military Times as the one quoted below, going so far as to recommend relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war if necessary: Around the halls of the Pentagon, a term of caustic derision has emerged for the enlisted soldiers at the heart of the furor over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal: the six morons who lost the war. Indeed, the damage done to the U.S. military and the nation as a whole by the horrifying photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees at the notorious prison is incalculable. But the folks in the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons. . . . The rest of the posting at http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/05/military-times-fire-rumsfeld-and-myers.html. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * 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/
Rumsfeld and Abu Ghraib by S.Hersch
THE GRAY ZONE by SEYMOUR M. HERSH How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib. Issue of 2004-05-24 Posted 2004-05-15 The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld's decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America's prospects in the war on terror. According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon's operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A. Rumsfeld, during appearances last week before Congress to testify about Abu Ghraib, was precluded by law from explicitly mentioning highly secret matters in an unclassified session. But he conveyed the message that he was telling the public all that he knew about the story. He said, Any suggestion that there is not a full, deep awareness of what has happened, and the damage it has done, I think, would be a misunderstanding. The senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld's testimony and that of Stephen Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, Some people think you can bullshit anyone. The Abu Ghraib story began, in a sense, just weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks, with the American bombing of Afghanistan. Almost from the start, the Administration's search for Al Qaeda members in the war zone, and its worldwide search for terrorists, came up against major command-and-control problems. For example, combat forces that had Al Qaeda targets in sight had to obtain legal clearance before firing on them. On October 7th, the night the bombing began, an unmanned Predator aircraft tracked an automobile convoy that, American intelligence believed, contained Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader. A lawyer on duty at the United States Central Command headquarters, in Tampa, Florida, refused to authorize a strike. By the time an attack was approved, the target was out of reach. Rumsfeld was apoplectic over what he saw as a self-defeating hesitation to attack that was due to political correctness. One officer described him to me that fall as kicking a lot of glass and breaking doors. In November, the Washington Post reported that, as many as ten times since early October, Air Force pilots believed they'd had senior Al Qaeda and Taliban members in their sights but had been unable to act in time because of legalistic hurdles. There were similar problems throughout the world, as American Special Forces units seeking to move quickly against suspected terrorist cells were compelled to get prior approval from local American ambassadors and brief their superiors in the chain of command. Rumsfeld reacted in his usual direct fashion: he authorized the establishment of a highly secret program that was given blanket advance approval to kill or capture and, if possible, interrogate high value targets in the Bush Administration's war on terror. A special-access program, or sap-subject to the Defense Department's most stringent level of security-was set up, with an office in a secure area of the Pentagon. The program would recruit operatives and acquire the necessary equipment, including aircraft, and would keep its activities under wraps. America's most successful intelligence operations during the Cold War had been saps, including the Navy's submarine penetration of underwater cables used by the Soviet high command and construction of the Air Force's stealth bomber. All the so-called black programs had one element in common: the Secretary of Defense, or his deputy, had to conclude that the normal military classification restraints did not provide enough security. Rumsfeld's goal was to get a capability in place to take on a high-value target-a standup group to hit quickly, a former high-level intelligence official told me. He got all the agencies together-the C.I.A. and the N.S.A.-to get pre-approval in place. Just say the code word and go. The operation had across-the-board approval from Rumsfeld and from Condoleezza Rice, the national-security adviser. President Bush was informed of the existence of the program, the former intelligence official said. The people assigned to the program worked by the book, the former intelligence official told me. They created code words, and recruited, after careful screening, highly trained
more economist scandals
I didn't get any responses from my note about Nobel prize-winning economist, Harry Markowitz, as the cofounder of one of the two infamous military contractors associated with the prisoner abuse scandal. Closer to home, a Davis agricultural economist is accused by some as being a traitor for aiding the Brazilians in their WTO cotton suit. It is interesting that his dean accuses him of using bad judgment because the department depends on the grants from agribusiness. You can see the story at the Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18996-2004May11.html -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: more economist scandals
On Sat, 15 May 2004 18:50:34 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote: I didn't get any responses from my note about Nobel prize-winning economist, Harry Markowitz, as the cofounder of one of the two infamous military contractors associated with the prisoner abuse scandal. I was gonna reply with a brief chuckle - it's actually a bit unfair because Markowitz set up CACI as a computer programming firm (the first two letters stand for California Analytics) and it only blossomed into the thugs 'n' dogs operation it is today after years of sucking on the military teat. cheers dd
Re: more economist scandals
You are right. I think that they began with war simulations. I guess that we should all prefer the simulations to the real thing, but the cotton response is truly wierd. The guy was an undersecretary under Bush I, University of Chicago trained, but his belief in free trade ran up against the politics of Cal. ag. Sort of like time when Iowa came down on an economist who had the temerity to suggest that margarine was no less nutritious than butter. Those concerned with transfats might agree today, but the Iowa people were more concerned about the dairy farmers. On Sat, May 15, 2004 at 07:14:04PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 15 May 2004 18:50:34 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote: I didn't get any responses from my note about Nobel prize-winning economist, Harry Markowitz, as the cofounder of one of the two infamous military contractors associated with the prisoner abuse scandal. I was gonna reply with a brief chuckle - it's actually a bit unfair because Markowitz set up CACI as a computer programming firm (the first two letters stand for California Analytics) and it only blossomed into the thugs 'n' dogs operation it is today after years of sucking on the military teat. cheers dd -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: more economist scandals
Michael Perelman wrote: I didn't get any responses from my note about Nobel prize-winning economist, Harry Markowitz, as the cofounder of one of the two infamous military contractors associated with the prisoner abuse scandal. Keynes connects the mistaken use of logic to predict the uncertain future with a psychopathological need to hide from ourselves how little we foresee This [hiding from ourselves how little we foresee] is how we act in practice. Though it was, I think, an ingredient in the complacency of the nineteenth century that, in their philosophical reflections on human behaviour, they accepted an extraordinary contraption of the Benthamite School, by which all possible consequences of alternative courses of action were supposed to have attached to them, first a number expressing their comparative advantage, and secondly another number expressing the probability of their following from the course of action in question; so that multiplying together the numbers attached to all the possible consequences of a given action and adding the results, we could discover what to do. In this way a mythical system of probable knowledge was employed to reduce the future to the same calculable status as the present. No one has ever acted on this theory. But even today I believe that our thought is sometimes influence by some such pseudo-rationalistic notions. (XIV, p. 124) the theory we devise in the study of how we behave in the market place should not itself submit to market-place idols. I accuse the classical economic theory of being itself one of these pretty, polite techniques which tries to deal with the present by abstracting from the fact that we know very little about the future. (XIV, p. 115) and to canalise sadism (such mistaken use of logic is remorseless). Both aspects defend against fear of death: the first by denying the fact that in the long run we are all dead, the second by transforming self-destructiveness into sadism and then locking this up in the iron cage of an obsessional symptom. The greed which this pretty, polite technique serves as an instrument also canalises sadism. dangerous human proclivities can be canalised into comparatively harmless channels by the existence of opportunities for money-making and private wealth, which, if they cannot be satisfied in this way, may find their outlet in cruelty, the reckless pursuit of personal power and authority, and other forms of self-aggrandisement. It is better that a man should tyrannise over his bank balance than over his fellow-citizens; and whilst the former is sometimes denounced as being but a means to the latter, sometimes at least it is an alternative. (General Theory, p. 374) Ted
research question
Does anybody have access to the article where Thatcher is quoted as saying Economics are (sic) the method, the object is to change the soul. London Sunday Times, 13 May 81. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: more economist scandals
Some hairy old German guy once said that capital has no nation. Chicago-style economics is an ideological expression of that. On the other hand, the agri-types who accuse this character of treason are part of why the truth of Marx's statement is still a bit premature: we still have sectors of capital that are immobile. very sick, in bed. Luckily I'll be better soon, as long as the anti-biotics work. Jim Devine From: Michael Perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 5/15/2004 7:37 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] more economist scandals You are right. I think that they began with war simulations. I guess that we should all prefer the simulations to the real thing, but the cotton response is truly wierd. The guy was an undersecretary under Bush I, University of Chicago trained, but his belief in free trade ran up against the politics of Cal. ag. Sort of like time when Iowa came down on an economist who had the temerity to suggest that margarine was no less nutritious than butter. Those concerned with transfats might agree today, but the Iowa people were more concerned about the dairy farmers.
