war is good for business question
To what extent is was good for business it so happens that the last few months were record job crating putting an end to jobless recovery and the outstanding bubles i.e. housing bubbles failed to burst.. consumption resumed and savings adjusted.. now the trade defcit is holding steadywith a low dollar but adjusting does this mean that the US has a capacity problem now. and it needs to go to war to stay ahead.. Do you Yahoo!?Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger
Russia eyes Mexican energy sector
Russia eyes Mexican energy sector Vladimir Putin, the first Russian leader to make an official visit to Mexico, said on Monday Russia was eager to invest in Mexico's cash-hungry but largely closed energy sector. Putin and Mexican President Vicente Fox firmed up proposals to build a Russian helicopter assembly plant in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz and a heavy machinery assembly plant near Mexico City. http://www.gazeta.ru/2004/06/08/oa_123255.shtml
Yet more on the Russian oil boom
RIA Novosti June 7, 2004 RUSSIA TO HELP COOL DOWN OIL MARKETS MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Yuri Filippov) - The G8 summit in Sea Island, USA, comes at a time of record-high oil prices. The situation is not critical for the global economy, but politicians, businessmen and economists in Europe, North America and Asia are starting to voice their concerns about a possible recession if oil prices continue to climb. Even a political statement from the group that unites the leaders of the world's largest economies that the situation is under control or at least being closely watched would help cool the temperature on the markets. G8 leaders have every reason to believe that the world will listen to their opinion. After all, the elite club not only includes major oil importers in the form of the US, Japan and Germany, but also Russia, the world's largest oil producer that has recently started out-producing its main rival, Saudi Arabia. Russia's daily oil output exceeds nine million barrels, and in five years Russian oil companies expect this figure to hit eleven million. The production increase is mainly designed to meet export needs, and the figure of five million barrels a day in exports is just a preliminary one set by the Russian government. It can be easily exceeded if the export price of Russian oil does not fall below $20 per barrel, a threshold for Russian producers that allows them to exploit Siberian oil fields at a profit, pay for the oil's transportation to Europe, explore new reserves and pay taxes to the Russian budget. Of course, $20 per barrel is not the summit of ambitions for Russia's oil producers and Finance Ministry officials, who seek to fill the state budget with petrodollars, pay off Russia's large foreign debt and collect hard currency for the stabilisation fund for future generations to use. But Russia has no intention of falling victim to greed either. According to President Vladimir Putin, the upper threshold of acceptable oil prices for Russia is no higher than $25. This kind of statement, of course, should not be taken as absolute dogma, as the figures can change depending on the inflation rate, for example, but it is important in terms of political thinking and the very approach to the issue. The point is that Russia is no Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, for whom oil is the only ticket to the global economy and where growing oil prices are always welcomed. Unlike these countries, Russia is not an OPEC member and considers itself to be a large, industrially developed nation. Oil is important, but not crucial for Russia's economic ambitions. When oil prices are too high, investment in sectors other than raw materials becomes relatively unprofitable, thereby creating disproportions in the Russian economy and contaminating it with the Dutch disease, which as everyone knows begins with a short boom and ends in a prolonged crisis. The only efficient vaccine against this disease for Russia can be moderate oil prices, and in this respect its interests coincide with those of oil importers. There is another sphere where common interests can be fulfilled - expanded sales. Russia's domestic demand for oil is fully met. Moreover, there is too much oil on the market, and sometimes it is not used rationally. The energy-saving revolution of the 1970s bypassed hydrocarbon-rich Russia, and if Japan uses one barrel of oil, the figure for Russia is two or even ten barrels. This profligacy will soon come to an end. Although the Russian government is trying to double the country's GDP by 2010 in line with President Putin's instructions, the volume of energy consumption will remain almost the same, the government estimates. Even domestic oil consumption will not rise significantly. This means that any serious increase in sales for Russian oil companies that increase their output by at least 10% a year can only be achieved through exports. They are already making inroads into the West, moving further into the European Union and the USA, where the Yukos and LUKoil brands are already recognised. However, these companies' export opportunities are limited by the capacity of Russian oil pipelines and deep-water ports. This is perhaps the main factor inhibiting increases in Russia's oil exports. Russian pipelines are working at full capacity and even taking into account the projected Baltic pipeline, importers are unlikely to receive more than 1.6-1.8 billion barrels annually in the next one to three years. G8 leaders, including President Putin, have naturally been thinking about Russia's new role in the world's energy policy. Moscow regularly receives such indications from European capitals, as well as Washington and Tokyo. The Sea Island summit will provide an opportunity to set out the principles of relations between major oil importers and the world's largest oil exporter at the highest political level. These principles may soon be decisive for the world's economic development in the near
Annals of the Ivy League
Chronicles of Higher Education, Tuesday, June 8, 2004 Author of Disputed Columbia U. Study on Pregnancy and Prayer Pleads Guilty to Fraud Charges By LILA GUTERMAN Doctors were shocked in 2001 to read a study from Columbia University that found that praying for women seeking to become pregnant could double their chances of success using in vitro fertilization. Some doctors were even more shocked that the study, which they considered highly flawed, had been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Now comes the final surprise: One of the paper's three authors pleaded guilty last month to two federal charges of fraud. Daniel P. Wirth, a lawyer and researcher into the supernatural, was accused of conspiring with another man to defraud several banks, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and Adelphia Communications, a cable-television company. According to the charges, the two men bilked Adelphia of $2.1-million. They pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit mail fraud and bank fraud. Both men will face as much as five years in federal prison and $250,000 in fines when they are sentenced, in September. They have agreed to forfeit more than $1-million seized during an investigation of the case. Mr. Wirth was one of three authors of an October 2001 paper in The Journal of Reproductive Medicine. The other two were Kwang Y. Cha, who is now scientific director of a fertility clinic in Los Angeles, and Rogerio A. Lobo, chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons and a member of the editorial board of the reproductive-medicine journal. Neither Dr. Cha nor Dr. Lobo responded to requests for comment on Monday. Dr. Lobo's secretary, Reba Nosoff, described Dr. Cha as a visiting professor and said he had completed the study without Dr. Lobo's help. In the study, Americans, Australians, and Canadians prayed for women in South Korea who were unaware that they were part of an experiment. Dr. Cha, said Ms. Nosoff, brought this study to Dr. Lobo to go over because he could hardly believe the results. Dr. Lobo said it's a good study, and it is proper. So he put his stamp of approval on it, that's all. Ms. Nosoff's account largely squares with one given in a December 2001 letter to Columbia's vice president for health sciences from an official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Human Research Protections. The office had apparently investigated the Columbia study because the human subjects had not been informed of their participation. The research-protections office said in the letter that it would not take action against Columbia in part because Dr. Lobo first learned of the study from Dr. Cha 6-12 months after the study was completed. Dr. Lobo primarily provided editorial review and assistance with publication. But there were other problems with the paper, said Bruce L. Flamm, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California at Irvine. The study bore bewildering methodological flaws, he said on Monday. Instead of merely having a group of people pray for the women attempting to get pregnant, the study had one group doing that, a second group praying to help the first group, and a third group praying that God's will or desire be fulfilled for the prayer participants in the first two groups. I couldn't believe it had been accepted [for publication] based on that fact alone, said Dr. Flamm. He said he had written several letters to the editor of the journal detailing his views but received no response. The paper retained its published status until Dr. Flamm wrote an article, which appeared in Skeptic magazine late last month, that revealed the paper's connection to the fraud case. Since then, the journal has removed the paper from its Web site. In a short interview on Monday, Lawrence D. Devoe, one of the journal's two editors in chief, declined to explain whether the paper had been officially retracted. We are well aware of the issues concerning that paper, he said, and all further comment will be handled in the text of the journal itself. The paper is being scrutinized, and there will be a statement that will appear in a forthcoming issue. Dr. Flamm said Dr. Lobo had been very well respected before the paper came out, so how he got hooked into this is a mystery. Dr. Flamm is also mystified about the journal editors' lack of response to his and other doctors' letters and inquiries. Within two weeks after that article was published, I said, 'You've got a big problem,' he told The Chronicle. They ignored all the red flags. They ignored all the warnings. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: screwing the hegemons
Aha I see the hegemons this evening have already decided to move fast to revise their text to accept that the troops will be go whenever the Iraqis even the interim government, request it, as I suggested might be the end result of the debates. --- Q: How can there be more than one hegemon?
Re: hegemons
Q: How can there be more than one hegemon? A: there can't be, except in the sense that one or more nations might _share_ hegemony. Having more than one hegemon would be competition, not hegemony, unless the hegemons are working hand in glove. jd
Re: hegemons
Could there not be overlapping hegemons? Imagine an Asian hegemon and a N. American hegemon, each with a great deal of autonomy in there own sphere, but with conflicting interests in others. Could we speak of both as a hegemon? On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 07:09:23AM -0700, Devine, James wrote: Q: How can there be more than one hegemon? A: there can't be, except in the sense that one or more nations might _share_ hegemony. Having more than one hegemon would be competition, not hegemony, unless the hegemons are working hand in glove. jd -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
John Kerry as heir to Bush the elder
Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2004 Kerry Faces the World What would a John Kerry foreign policy look like? In some ways a lot like one the current President's father could endorse by Joshua Micah Marshall . In early February I sat in a Starbucks in downtown Washington with Dan Feldman, who is helping to organize Senator John Kerry's foreign-policy team. We discussed Kerry's vision of America's role in the world, and the people who might play important roles in his Administration if he is elected President, touching on everything from the crucial issue of Iraq and the simmering crises in North Korea and Iran to NATO and the proper balance between international alliances and the brute force necessary to secure American interests abroadcollectively, the foreign-policy questions that are central to the next election, and to the next four years. Even before Kerry triumphed in the primaries, foreign policy generally, and Iraq specifically, dominated the campaigna state of affairs from which he unquestionably benefited, though the benefits may not hold indefinitely. His experience, both as a senator and as a combat veteran, proved instrumental in his victory, and as the situation deteriorates overseas, he and Bush, who was expected to be comfortably ahead, are essentially running neck and neck. At the same time, Kerry has come under constant attack for failing to articulate a clear plan to halt Iraq's slide into anarchy. As we discussed this, Feldman outlined a course that starkly departed from the one charted by President Bush, yet was equally unlike the approachcharacterized by soft multilateralism and fealty to the United Nationsportrayed by Republicans as typical of Democratic foreign policy. Feldman emphasized the need for skilled diplomatic management and a willingness to use force abroad, but also an essential caution. The more he spoke, the more he called to mind the policies of the first Bush Administration. George H.W. Bush has receded into history. But his Administration's traditional if unimaginative attitude toward foreign relations lives on through his National Security Adviser, Brent Scowcroft, who re-emerged two years ago as one of the most unabashed and difficult-to-dismiss critics of the buildup to war in Iraq. Democrats once viewed Scowcroft as the champion of an amoral and shortsighted foreign policy that sacrificed American values in order to achieve stable relations with great powers and avoid trouble in hot spots like the Balkans (a view, incidentally, shared by many of the neoconservatives who surround the current President). It was Scowcroft who secretly traveled to Beijing shortly after the Tiananmen Square massacre to reassure the Chinese that government-to-government relations needn't suffer despite the bipartisan indignation of the American public. But in 2002, lacking a consistent criticism of the drive toward war, many Democrats eagerly took shelter in Scowcroft's high-profile opposition. Wondering how he would take it, I said to Feldman, What you're describing to me sounds a lot like what I'd expect from Brent Scowcroft. Yes, he said. I think a lot of what you'd see from a Kerry Administration might be like that. I think there'd be a lot of similarities. When I later made the same suggestion to Kerry's chief foreign-policy adviser, Rand Beers, he agreed. full: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/07/marshall.htm -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: hegemons
we could talk about separate spheres of influence, each with its own hegemon. Sparta and Athens both were hegemons in their spheres. So were the USSR and the US during the Cold War. In both of these cases, there was meddling by one hegemon in the other's sphere (and vice-versa). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 7:29 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] hegemons Could there not be overlapping hegemons? Imagine an Asian hegemon and a N. American hegemon, each with a great deal of autonomy in there own sphere, but with conflicting interests in others. Could we speak of both as a hegemon? On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 07:09:23AM -0700, Devine, James wrote: Q: How can there be more than one hegemon? A: there can't be, except in the sense that one or more nations might _share_ hegemony. Having more than one hegemon would be competition, not hegemony, unless the hegemons are working hand in glove. jd -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: hegemons
I believe the Gramscian concept of hegemony generally favors the perception of hegemony as maintained through an alliance of various forces rather than the imposed will of a unitary actor. Where a unitary actor tries to impose its will without regard to the other forces, it will fail (apropos the current situation). In this sense, it would seem *more* appropriate to refer to hegemons rather than a single hegemon. Frederick Emrich, Editor commons-blog (http://info-commons.org/blog/) RSS Feed: http://www.info-commons.org/blog/index.rdf info-commons.org (http://info-commons.org/index.shtml) email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 11:43 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] hegemons we could talk about separate spheres of influence, each with its own hegemon. Sparta and Athens both were hegemons in their spheres. So were the USSR and the US during the Cold War. In both of these cases, there was meddling by one hegemon in the other's sphere (and vice-versa). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 7:29 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] hegemons Could there not be overlapping hegemons? Imagine an Asian hegemon and a N. American hegemon, each with a great deal of autonomy in there own sphere, but with conflicting interests in others. Could we speak of both as a hegemon? On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 07:09:23AM -0700, Devine, James wrote: Q: How can there be more than one hegemon? A: there can't be, except in the sense that one or more nations might _share_ hegemony. Having more than one hegemon would be competition, not hegemony, unless the hegemons are working hand in glove. jd -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: hegemons
Gramsci's concept is different from that of international affairs. But it's true that if an international hegemon emphasizes power over legitimacy (soft power) it stimulates resistance. (For example, the Roman Empire was able to win some legitimacy for its power by providing Pax Romana.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Frederick Emrich, Editor, info-commons.org [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 8:59 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] hegemons I believe the Gramscian concept of hegemony generally favors the perception of hegemony as maintained through an alliance of various forces rather than the imposed will of a unitary actor. Where a unitary actor tries to impose its will without regard to the other forces, it will fail (apropos the current situation). In this sense, it would seem *more* appropriate to refer to hegemons rather than a single hegemon. Frederick Emrich, Editor commons-blog (http://info-commons.org/blog/) RSS Feed: http://www.info-commons.org/blog/index.rdf info-commons.org (http://info-commons.org/index.shtml) email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 11:43 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] hegemons we could talk about separate spheres of influence, each with its own hegemon. Sparta and Athens both were hegemons in their spheres. So were the USSR and the US during the Cold War. In both of these cases, there was meddling by one hegemon in the other's sphere (and vice-versa). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 7:29 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] hegemons Could there not be overlapping hegemons? Imagine an Asian hegemon and a N. American hegemon, each with a great deal of autonomy in there own sphere, but with conflicting interests in others. Could we speak of both as a hegemon? On Tue, Jun 08, 2004 at 07:09:23AM -0700, Devine, James wrote: Q: How can there be more than one hegemon? A: there can't be, except in the sense that one or more nations might _share_ hegemony. Having more than one hegemon would be competition, not hegemony, unless the hegemons are working hand in glove. jd -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Super Size Me
Although Super Size Me has been widely recognized as borrowing liberally from the style of Michael Moore, in many ways it will also remind one of the classic mad scientist movie. As producer and director Morgan Spurlock embarks on a 30 day experiment in which nothing but McDonald's meals are eaten 3 times a day, you might think of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or comic variations on this theme, like The Nutty Professor. Instead of being turned into a monster, the lean and healthy star and narrator of this astute documentary is turned into a depressed, overweight man addicted to foods that might kill him--according to the team of doctors who are seen throughout the film monitoring his steady decay. Spurlock decided to conduct this experiment after becoming aware of the obesity epidemic in the USA. He draws attention to three overlapping phenomena that account for this: the widespread availability of fast food outlets, their tendency to push oversized portions and the sedentary habits of an American population ever more reliant on the automobile. Since McDonald's has the lion's share of the fast food business, Spurlock decides to only dine there. He has some simple ground rules. He will not eat anything except what is on their menu for a 30 day period. He will try to avoid exercise as much as possible--a walk to and fro the Golden Arches to pick up his meal becomes his daily workout. If offered a super sized meal, he will never say no. On the third day the accumulated impact of a high caloric intake catches up to him. Sitting at the wheel of his car trying to finish an oversized sandwich becomes too much for him and he throws up through his window. The camera lingers over the remains on the street. This scene and a scene later in the film of stomach-reduction surgery are not for the squeamish. Although Spurlock has a completely different film presence than Moore, he is very much an effective character in film terms. He supplies almost no autobiographical material and tries to come across as just a regular guy. With his Fu Manchu moustache and rugged good looks, the 30 something Spurlock comes across as a contestant on TV's Fear Factor. In his case, the contest is all the more daunting. If you have the choice of eating worms for two minutes or McDonalds 3 times a day for a month, you will most likely opt for the former after seeing this film. Despite his almost frat-boy sensibility (you can see him being interviewed on David Letterman's show), you can sense a kind of outrage simmering beneath the surface especially when it comes to the damage fast food does to children. He visits a school cafeteria that serves french fries, soft drinks and other junk food without the slightest compunction. We eventually discover that the vendor is none other than Sodexho, whose parent company is one of the largest players in the privatization of American prisons. Although McDonald's food threatens to kill him, he plods on until the 30th day. One of the things that keeps him going is that he soon becomes addicted to the stuff. Heavy doses of sugar and caffeine can hook you just as easily as nicotine or crack cocaine. On the final day, he is weighed by his doctors who inform him that he has gained 25 pounds and exhibits unhealthy symptoms across the board. His liver has begun to look like the one belonging to a serious alcoholic. Super Size Me is showing in movie theaters all across the USA right now. For schedule information, contact the film's website at: http://www.supersizeme.com/ I saw this film just a week after reading Richard Manning's Against the Grain: How Agriculture Hijacked Civilization. Although I was planning to say something about this book at some point, Spurlock's film seems just the proper occasion to do so. Manning's thesis is a controversial one. He argues that once we stopped becoming a hunting-and-gathering society and evolved into one based on agriculture, we effectively undermined not only our health but our chances for long time survival on the planet. Manning himself lives in rural Montana and tries to subsist on game that he shoots as much as possible. Manning is not concerned with agriculture per se. He is favorably inclined toward farmer's markets based on local and seasonal products. It is much more agribusiness that is the target of his critique and especially the production of the key grains that serve as a foundation for class society and civilization, namely rice, corn, potatoes and wheat. These four commodities have proved essential to the explosive growth of urban populations, culture, and class exploitation--all of the features of civilization. They have also resulted in the severe decline of health standards by the peasants who produce them as well as the soil that is used in their cultivation. One of his most profound insights is the connection between agriculture and catastrophes such as fire or flood. Without such
Hitch on Ron
[it's amazing that this guy is still lucid in any way] Not Even a Hedgehog The stupidity of Ronald Reagan By Christopher Hitchens Posted Monday, June 7, 2004, at 10:03 AM PT (MS SLATE on-line magazine.) Not long ago, I was invited to be the specter at the feast during Ronald Reagan Appreciation Week at Wabash College in Indiana. One of my opponents was Dinesh D'Souza: He wasn't the only one who maintained that Reagan had been historically vindicated by the wreckage of the Soviet Union. Some of us on the left had also been very glad indeed to see the end of the Russian empire and the Cold War. But nothing could make me forget what the Reagan years had actually been like. Ronald Reagan claimed that the Russian language had no word for freedom. (The word is svoboda; it's quite well attested in Russian literature.) Ronald Reagan said that intercontinental ballistic missiles (not that there are any non-ballistic missiles-a corruption of language that isn't his fault) could be recalled once launched. Ronald Reagan said that he sought a Star Wars defense only in order to share the technology with the tyrants of the U.S.S.R. Ronald Reagan professed to be annoyed when people called it Star Wars, even though he had ended his speech on the subject with the lame quip, May the force be with you. Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they'd both unite against an invasion from Mars. Ronald Reagan used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the End Times foreshadowed in the Bible. In the Oval Office, Ronald Reagan told Yitzhak Shamir and Simon Wiesenthal, on two separate occasions, that he himself had assisted personally at the liberation of the Nazi death camps. There was more to Ronald Reagan than that. Reagan announced that apartheid South Africa had stood beside us in every war we've ever fought, when the South African leadership had been on the other side in the most recent world war. Reagan allowed Alexander Haig to greenlight the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, fired him when that went too far and led to mayhem in Beirut, then ran away from Lebanon altogether when the Marine barracks were bombed, and then unbelievably accused Tip O'Neill and the Democrats of scuttling. Reagan sold heavy weapons to the Iranian mullahs and lied about it, saying that all the weapons he hadn't sold them (and hadn't traded for hostages in any case) would, all the same, have fit on a small truck. Reagan then diverted the profits of this criminal trade to an illegal war in Nicaragua and lied unceasingly about that, too. Reagan then modestly let his underlings maintain that he was too dense to understand the connection between the two impeachable crimes. He then switched without any apparent strain to a policy of backing Saddam Hussein against Iran. (If Margaret Thatcher's intelligence services had not bugged Oliver North in London and become infuriated because all European nations were boycotting Iran at Reagan's request, we might still not know about this.) One could go on. I only saw him once up close, which happened to be when he got a question he didn't like. Was it true that his staff in the 1980 debates had stolen President Carter's briefing book? (They had.) The famously genial grin turned into a rictus of senile fury: I was looking at a cruel and stupid lizard. His reply was that maybe his staff had, and maybe they hadn't, but what about the leak of the Pentagon Papers? Thus, a secret theft of presidential documents was equated with the public disclosure of needful information. This was a man never short of a cheap jibe or the sort of falsehood that would, however laughable, buy him some time. The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump. He could have had anyone in the world to dinner, any night of the week, but took most of his meals on a White House TV tray. He had no friends, only cronies. His children didn't like him all that much. He met his second wife-the one that you remember-because she needed to get off a Hollywood blacklist and he was the man to see. Year in and year out in Washington, I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with such an obvious phony and loon... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
A Clash of Civilizations, Sending Pink Sparks Flying?
Do you remember Pim Fortuyn, a gay Dutch politician who rose to notoriety with his call for a moratorium on immigration and whose political party Lijst Pim Fortuyn received 1.6 million votes and 26 seats in the 150-seat parliament nine days after Fortuyn's assassination on May 6, 2002? . . . The rise of Pim Fortuyn . . . signaled a new era of white gay male politics. By promoting anti-immigrant politics vigorously and marketing it with anti-Muslim prejudice demagogically, Fortuyn showed that right-wing populism can very well be gay and enormously popular to boot, as LPF votes in in 2002 attest, in the Netherlands, the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage (in March 2002) (Wim Lunsing, Islam versus Homosexuality? Some Reflections on the Assassination of Pim Fortuyn, Anthropology Today 19.2, April 2003, p. 19). . . . While Fortuyn's life came to an end at the hands of a mad animal rights activist Van der Graaf, immigrants and asylum-seekers in the Netherlands live with his legacy . . . . Will the phenomenon of a gay man successfully popularizing the rhetoric that pits Islam (misrepresented as inherently and monolithically homophobic and misogynistic) against the Western Civilization (made out to be inherently and monolithically feminist and pro-gay) remain unique to the Netherlands? Or will the Netherlands be a harbinger, as more white gay men, now integrated in the militaries and soon to gain the equal right to marriage in most rich industrialized nations, lose the ability to identify with other outcasts like the Palestinians and migrant workers that once defined the politics and aesthetics of Genet (e.g., Prisoner of Love) and Fassbinder (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul)? . . . Take Peter Tatchell, perhaps the most famous queer activist in Britain, for example. Unlike Fortuyn, Tatchell is still capable of gesturing toward the existence of tolerant Muslims, but a number of his writings suggest a paranoid fear of political powers of Muslims: * The New Dark Ages are already with us. For hundreds of millions of people in parts of the Middle-East, Africa and South-East Asia, the ascendancy of Islamic fundamentalism has ushered in an era of religious obscurantism and intolerance. The liberal, compassionate wing of Islam -- although it still has large numbers of adherents -- is being forced onto the defensive and increasingly eclipsed. (Peter Tatchell, The New Dark Ages, 1995) * The political consequences for the gay community could be serious. As the fundamentalists gain followers, homophobic Muslim voters may be able to influence the outcome of elections in 20 or more marginal constituencies. Their voting strength could potentially be used to block pro-gay candidates or to pressure electorally vulnerable MPs to vote against gay rights legislation. (Peter Tatchell/OutRage! Press Release, The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism in Britain, April 10, 1998) . . . The full posting is at http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/06/clash-of-civilizations-sending-pink.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/
A Clash of Civilizations, Sending Pink Sparks Flying?
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Do you remember Pim Fortuyn, a gay Dutch politician who rose to notoriety with his call for a moratorium on immigration and whose political party Lijst Pim Fortuyn received 1.6 million votes and 26 seats in the 150-seat parliament nine days after Fortuyn's assassination on May 6, 2002? . . . Very perceptive digging by Yoshie. It now reminds me of that film Yossi and Jagger that played in NYC a while back. It would seem to be a pr exercise for the Israeli army in line with the offensive noted by Yoshie. http://bangitout.com/tribeca2003/yossi.html The Tribeca Film Festival 2003 or Robert De Niro has a rabbinic goatee Festival Yossi and Jagger by isaac galena A Jerusalem cab at 4 AM: A friend and I, in our drunken state, suddenly burst into song as Elton John's Tiny Dancer came on the late night Israeli radio waves. In true Almost Famous fashion (minus Kate Hudson) we sung our inebriated hearts out, (that is until a homeless man threw a shekel at us). And as the cab pulled up to our stop, the Israeli driver turned to us and asked us seriously Slicha, Atem Homo? - translated, Excuse me, are you guys homosexuals? It comes as no surprise that homosexuality in Israeli society is becoming more and more prevalent and accepted. With the secular anti-religious political party, Shinui, becoming the country's majority, Israelis have extended a fluorescent welcome bouquet to the gay community - which finally may begin to explain all the rampant skin tight pants wearing in Tel Aviv. But what about gays in the Israeli military? You don't hear too much about that coming out of Israel. Actually, there isn't anything really much to talk about. Israel has become one of the most liberal countries in the world when it comes to allowing gays in the military. Ironically Being Gay used to be the old comic excuse to get out of doing military service, nowadays, being gay doesn't mean Jack (Will Grace pun intended). So why is there such a controversial buzz surrounding Yossi and Jagger, the critically acclaimed Israeli film about a secret gay relationship among two Israeli soldiers if the novelty of Gay Relationships in Israel is so passé? Why is this film in contention to win Best Picture at the Tribeca Film festival? Why is there Standing Room Only in this packed Tribeca film house, which I find myself in currently? Isn't Gay Film so last week? After seeing the movie, it is simple. This film touches on issues far beyond just being gay and in the army and in love. Sure the PR sells it as a full throttle gay flick, however, the real reason why this movie was introduced to Tribeca as The Gem of the Festival is because it finally introduces the liberal anti-Israel Free-Palestine world to the face of the Israeli Soldier, and guess what? It's kinda hard to tell the two apart. Think about it - these days, CNN makes the Israeli soldiers as likable as Star Wars' evil Storm Troopers. Anytime the media uses the term occupation it is always followed with a deck of standardized images of some pissed-off, unshaven, heavily armed Israeli soldier at a checkpoint. Rarely does the media remind us that these soldiers are all just 18-20 years old kids; who if living in America would probably be pledging a frat, protesting a war, or smoking a bong. Don't forget, it's not like here in the US, where one voluntarily signs up for The Corps - every Israeli has to do army time. The lopsided, violence loving media images and rhetoric leads one to forget that these Israeli soldiers are still just kids trying to figure themselves out - their sexuality, their aspirations, their politics, their religion, their morals, their dreams. Yossi and Jagger is a film that finally captures just that. The 67 minute film, which was shot in just 9 days, introduces the world to the Israeli soldier you don't know: The in the closet gay, the lovable free spirit, the spiritual Zen Buddhist, the comedic aspiring chef, the promiscuous slut, the party raver, the heartbroken reject, the lovesick gal, the comic goofball. I know what you're thinking: Heck, this sounds more like The Breakfast Club than Platoon meets The Birdcage. Well it is-except the girls are named Yaeli and Goldie and they dig guys named Oneg and Lior. Secret gay romance is just the tip of this iceberg, and the film tackles jealousy, angst, comedy, fear, sadness, and love - all with equal sensitivity. As the lead gay soldier, Jagger, who is nicknamed that for his strikingly good rock-star looks, puts it Life should be just like an American Movie. And that's what is so terribly troubling for the average murse-carrying Chelsea movie goer. How the hell can they go on attending Israelis are Nazis protests when they've seen hunky gay Israeli soldiers, who may have more passion for life, happiness, art and love than they do? It is shattering. But more than just stereotype shattering, this movie is entertaining as well.
old news, new take
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1231978,00.html The Guardian - June 5, 2004 I have been in torture photos, too The Abu Ghraib images are all too familiar to Irish republicans by Gerry Adams News of the ill-treatment of prisoners in Iraq created no great surprise in republican Ireland. We have seen and heard it all before. Some of us have even survived that type of treatment. Suggestions that the brutality in Iraq was meted out by a few miscreants aren't even seriously entertained here. We have seen and heard all that before as well. But our experience is that, while individuals may bring a particular impact to their work, they do so within interrogative practices authorised by their superiors. For example, the interrogation techniques which were used following the internment swoops in the north of Ireland in 1971 were taught to the RUC by British military officers. Someone authorised this. The first internment swoops, Operation Demetrius, saw hundreds of people systematically beaten and forced to run the gauntlet of war dogs, batons and boots. Some were stripped naked and had black hessian bags placed over their heads. These bags kept out all light and extended down over the head to the shoulders. As the men stood spread-eagled against the wall, their legs were kicked out from under them. They were beaten with batons and fists on the testicles and kidneys and kicked between the legs. Radiators and electric fires were placed under them as they were stretched over benches. Arms were twisted, fingers were twisted, ribs were pummelled, objects were shoved up the anus, they were burned with matches and treated to games of Russian roulette. Some of them were taken up in helicopters and flung out, thinking that they were high in the sky when they were only five or six feet off the ground. All the time they were hooded, handcuffed and subjected to a high-pitched unrelenting noise. This was later described as extra-sensory deprivation. It went on for days. During this process some of them were photographed in the nude. And although these cases ended up in Europe, and the British government paid thousands in compensation, it didn't stop the torture and ill-treatment of detainees. It just made the British government and its military and intelligence agencies more careful about how they carried it out and ensured that they changed the laws to protect the torturers and make it very difficult to expose the guilty. I have been arrested a few times and interrogated on each occasion by a mixture of RUC or British army personnel. The first time was in Palace Barracks in 1972. I was placed in a cubicle in a barracks-style wooden hut and made to face a wall of boards with holes in it, which had the effect of inducing images, shapes and shadows. There were other detainees in the rest of the cubicles. Though I didn't see them I could hear the screaming and shouting. I presumed they got the same treatment as me, punches to the back of the head, ears, small of the back, between the legs. From this room, over a period of days, I was taken back and forth to interrogation rooms. On these journeys my captors went to very elaborate lengths to make sure that I saw nobody and that no one saw me. I was literally bounced off walls and into doorways. Once I was told I had to be fingerprinted, and when my hands were forcibly outstretched over a table, a screaming, shouting and apparently deranged man in a blood-stained apron came at me armed with a hatchet. Another time my captors tried to administer what they called a truth drug. Once a berserk man came into the room yelling and shouting. He pulled a gun and made as if he was trying to shoot at me while others restrained him. In between these episodes I was put up against a wall, spread-eagled and beaten soundly around the kidneys and up between the legs, on my back and on the backs of my legs. The beating was systematic and quite clinical. There was no anger in it. During my days in Palace Barracks I tried to make a formal complaint about my ill-treatment. My interrogators ignored this and the uniformed RUC officers also ignored my demand when I was handed over to them. Eventually, however, I was permitted to make a formal complaint before leaving. But when I was taken to fill out a form I was confronted by a number of large baton-wielding redcaps who sought to dissuade me from complaining. I knew I was leaving so I ignored them and filled in the form. Some years later I was arrested again, this time with some friends. We were taken to a local RUC barracks on the Springfield Road. There I was taken into a cell and beaten for what seemed to be an endless time. All the people who beat me were in plain clothes. They had English accents. After the first initial flurry, which I resisted briefly, the beating became a dogged punching and kicking match with me as the punch bag. I was forced into the search position, palms against the walls, body at an acute angle, legs well
Re: odd bodkins on Reagan
Dan and the rest of the list, please do not send graphics to the list. It takes up enormous bandwidth. It fills up mailboxes and puts an inordinate cost on some people outside the United States. Just send a URL. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: odd bodkins on Reagan
Dan and the rest of the list, please do not send graphics to the list. It takes up enormous bandwidth. It fills up mailboxes and puts an inordinate cost on some people outside the United States. Just send a URL. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Sorry Michael. The artwork's not yet on the web. Dan -- --- IMPEACHMENT: BRING IT ON NOW! NOVEMBER COULD BE TOO LATE. -- END OF THE TRAIL SALOON Alternate Sundays 6-8am GMT (10pm-midnight PDT) http://www.kvmr.org I uke, therefore I am. -- Cool Hand Uke I log on, therefore I seem to be. -- Rodd Gnawkin I claim, therefore you believe. -- Dan Ratherthan Visit Cool Hand Uke's Lava Tube: http://www.coolhanduke.com
Re: odd bodkins on Reagan
Thanks. Tell your friend that I was a fan back then. -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Scanlan Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 1:45 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] odd bodkins on Reagan Importance: High Dan and the rest of the list, please do not send graphics to the list. It takes up enormous bandwidth. It fills up mailboxes and puts an inordinate cost on some people outside the United States. Just send a URL. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Sorry Michael. The artwork's not yet on the web. Dan -- --- IMPEACHMENT: BRING IT ON NOW! NOVEMBER COULD BE TOO LATE. -- END OF THE TRAIL SALOON Alternate Sundays 6-8am GMT (10pm-midnight PDT) http://www.kvmr.org I uke, therefore I am. -- Cool Hand Uke I log on, therefore I seem to be. -- Rodd Gnawkin I claim, therefore you believe. -- Dan Ratherthan Visit Cool Hand Uke's Lava Tube: http://www.coolhanduke.com
url for odd bodkins
Title: url for odd bodkins The Odd Bodkins cartoon on Reagan is at http://www.coolhanduke.com/bodkins.html Dan
Papers: Social Policy As If People Matter
To URPE Members and Friends From Trudy Goldberg For info, contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** INVITATION AND CALL FOR PAPERS Adelphi University School of Social Work is pleased to announce and invite your participation in an international conference: SOCIAL POLICY AS IF PEOPLE MATTER November 11-12, 2004 Adelphi University, Garden City, NY www.adelphi.edu/peoplematter The conference will examine social policies and their outcomes from multiple perspectives and assess current challenges to social progress. Planned topics include, "Can we Afford Social Welfare in a Global Economy?," "The Future of the Social Democratic Model," and "Social Policy and Populations with Special Needs." KEYNOTE SPEAKERS Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics, Joakim Palme, Professor of Sociology, Stockholm University OTHER HIGHLIGHTS Interdisciplinary panel of scholars discussing trends in social well-being in eight developed nations CALL FOR PAPERS on The above topics Abstracts must be submitted by July 16, 2004. A Special Citation will be given to the best paper by a graduate student. FOR MORE INFORMATION on paper submission, registration, and fees, and program, please visit www.adelphi.edu/peoplematter or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]. CONFERENCE CO-CHAIRS Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg, Adelphi University School of Social Work Maud Edgren-Schori, Stockholm University Department of Social Work
COSATU and the CUT at Stony Brook
To URPE Members and Friends From Michael Zweig YOU ARE INVITED TO HEAR AND ENGAGE - please forward widely NEIL COLEMAN, Head, Parliamentary Office, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and RAFAEL FREIRE, National Executive Council, Director of International Affairs Brazilian Workers' Central Union (the CUT) who will be speaking on "The Working Class with State Power in a Neo-liberal World" THURSDAY JUNE 10, 2004 at 7:30 p.m. at the Student Activities Center State University of New York at Stony Brook opening the How Class Works - 2004 conference FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC sponsored by the Center for Study of Working Class Life the Office of the Provost at Stony Brook and the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center DIRECTIONS by Long Island Rail Road on the Port Jefferson line to Stony Brook station, next to campus by car, L.I.E. to exit 62 (Nicolls Road), north 8.5 miles, then left into the main entrance to the Stony Brook campus - signs will be posted
...and take Bonzo with you!!
Classic Steve Bell: http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1233866,00.html Tom Walker 604 255 4812
