[PEN-L:6617] Fwd: Watson the Racist

[Nativejmc]

In a message dated 5/10/99 11:26:02 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< Subj: Watson the Racist
 Date:  5/10/99 11:26:02 AM Pacific Daylight Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 CC:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 Ah-Ho Mr. Craven,
 I just read your article in 'Dark Nights' about this Watson
 claiming to have been made a 'brother' in WK-73. This past week I was
 with Crowdog and neither of us remember the events he outlined. Except
 the obvious- Rocky was shot, Crowdog operated and people in the medic
 area helped. The medic people were purposly kept from any involvement
 outside their medical duties. This was at their own request to remain
 a neutral group. They did not participate in any 'activities' or any
 decisions, they carried no weapons and stayed seperate, so if this guy
 was 'honored' or 'named' the warriors missed it!
Whatever he did ( if he was there) I am deeply offended by his
 assertions that he was guided in his misdeeds by a 'vision' he was given
 at WK73. We who were there would like to re-interpet his vision for him
 to show him the Makah not eco-terrorists are the ones saving our whale 
 relatives. His view is insulting to those of us who fought at Wounded
 Knee 73 and more importantly it is insulting to the spirits of those
 buried there because of people like Watson himself. Maybe we could
 politly invite him to return to the Knee to Smoke once again with Rocky,
 Blackelk, Crowdog and myself (I'm sure they will agree) so we can hear
 his 'vision' once again and give him the true meaning.
   Thank you for your words on what WK73 was all about, what you said was
 true, all in all a very good expose of environmental racism. Weebla-ho,
Carter Camp---Oklahoma AIM--- Wounded Knee 73 leader >>




Ah-Ho Mr. Craven,
I just read your article in 'Dark Nights' about this Watson
claiming to have been made a 'brother' in WK-73. This past week I was
with Crowdog and neither of us remember the events he outlined. Except
the obvious- Rocky was shot, Crowdog operated and people in the medic
area helped. The medic people were purposly kept from any involvement
outside their medical duties. This was at their own request to remain
a neutral group. They did not participate in any 'activities' or any
decisions, they carried no weapons and stayed seperate, so if this guy
was 'honored' or 'named' the warriors missed it!
   Whatever he did ( if he was there) I am deeply offended by his
assertions that he was guided in his misdeeds by a 'vision' he was given
at WK73. We who were there would like to re-interpet his vision for him
to show him the Makah not eco-terrorists are the ones saving our whale 
relatives. His view is insulting to those of us who fought at Wounded
Knee 73 and more importantly it is insulting to the spirits of those
buried there because of people like Watson himself. Maybe we could
politly invite him to return to the Knee to Smoke once again with Rocky,
Blackelk, Crowdog and myself (I'm sure they will agree) so we can hear
his 'vision' once again and give him the true meaning.
  Thank you for your words on what WK73 was all about, what you said was
true, all in all a very good expose of environmental racism. Weebla-ho,
   Carter Camp---Oklahoma AIM--- Wounded Knee 73 leader

[PEN-L:6333] Fwd: FW: [CIA-DRUGS] Mike Levine's radio interview with ToshPlumlee...

[Nativejmc]

 
 I was made aware of this information today, and thought I'd pass it on to 
 those of you whom may be interestedand have not yet heard about this.
 
 You will be able to hear an interview with Mike Levine and Tosh Plumlee in 
 Los Angeles on KPFK either this Wednesday night-Thursday morning (about 12 
 midnight to 5am), THE ROY TUCKMAN SHOW, or the following week.  It will then
 
 be loaded up onto the internet at Mike Levine's web site.
 
 For those of you who don't know who Plumlee is - Tosh Plumlee is a man who 
 actually flew for the CIA for forty years, admitted smuggling as much as 
 25,000 pounds of cocaine a month into the US, and who decided to come
 forward 
 with the truth - risking prosecution. 
 
 It is believed that the full five hour tapes will be offered as premiums by 
 both KPFK and WBAI in New York by the middle of next month as well, for
 those 
 of us who might miss the aforementioned radio shows.
 
 Listen to this man's direct testimony on THE ROY TUCKMAN SHOW. His final
 hour 
 of interview is also going to be played this Tuesday on WBAI, New York City,
 
 99.5 FM, 7-8PM.
 
 Mike levine's website: 
 http://www.radio4all.org/expert/">Mike Levine's Expert Witness 
 Website
 
 http://www.radio4all.org/expert/

 
 ---
 
 
 --- Headers -





Best regards,
Ann M. Florindo

Dealer Information Systems Corporation
114 W. Magnolia Street, Suite 500
Bellingham, WA 98225
E-mail:  <  mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Telephone: (360) 650-4754


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]  
Sent:   Sunday, May 02, 1999 4:51 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients
Subject:Fwd: [CIA-DRUGS] Mike Levine's radio
interview with Tosh Plumlee...

 <<[CIA-DRUGS] Mike Levine's radio interview with Tosh
Plumlee...>> 
In a message dated 5/2/99 3:31:13 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  writes:
<< From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  
I was made aware of this information today, and thought I'd
pass it on to those of you whom may be interestedand have not yet heard
about this.
You will be able to hear an interview with Mike Levine and
Tosh Plumlee in Los Angeles on KPFK either this Wednesday night-Thursday
morning (about 12 midnight to 5am), THE ROY TUCKMAN SHOW, or the following
week.  It will then be loaded up onto the internet at Mike Levine's web
site.
For those of you who don't know who Plumlee is - Tosh
Plumlee is a man who actually flew for the CIA for forty years, admitted
smuggling as much as 25,000 pounds of cocaine a month into the US, and who
decided to come forward with the truth - risking prosecution. 
It is believed that the full five hour tapes will be offered
as premiums by both KPFK and WBAI in New York by the middle of next month as
well, for those of us who might miss the aforementioned radio shows.
Listen to this man's direct testimony on THE ROY TUCKMAN
SHOW. His final hour of interview is also going to be played this Tuesday on
WBAI, New York City, 99.5 FM, 7-8PM.
Mike levine's website: 
http://www.radio4all.org/expert/
 ">Mike Levine's Expert Witness 
Website

http://www.radio4all.org/expert/
 


Meow,
*   GamblinCat



Do you know why...
"The Closer" picked ONElist to host their baseball humor
community?  http://www.onelist.com   Because of
ONElist's reliable service and live customer support!

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Mailing-Li

[PEN-L:6310] Re: Re: Re: Thanks To Michael Yates

[Nativejmc]

Thanks to Doug for this. Actually since Nixon, all of the presidents 
including Reagan have attempted to co-opt and redefine May 1st. It is an 
axiom among the psy-ops and propagandists that it is easier, more efficient 
and more effective to appropriate, co-opt, and redefine existing popular 
symbols, metaphors, ceremonies and sacreds rather than attempting to totally 
extinguish them or introduce new ones.

This example by Doug also reveals how totally disgusting, opportunistic and 
revisionistic Clinton and his gang and the Demo Party in general really are. 
Again I highly recommend "The Secret War Against the Jews" (mistitled) by 
Loftus and Aarons, "Trading With The Enemy by Charles Higham",  and other 
such works that document what soldiers and workers have really died and 
suffered for.

And while Clinton attempts to throw a bone to the Gay/Lesbian bloc in the 
Demo Party (and of course I do agree that protections against discrimination 
on the basis of sexual orientation along with protections against all forms 
and sources of discrimination are imperative), virtually all Indian Nations 
and Tribes in the U.S. face daily thefts of ancestral lands and 
Federally-sanctioned conditions and policies that leave Indians literally at 
a crossroads between extinction and survival leaning more toward the brink of 
extinction as Peoples and Nations. 

Jim Craven


Jim Craven


In a message dated 5/2/99 9:14:16 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:6305] Re: Re: Thanks To Michael Yates
 Date:  5/2/99 9:14:16 AM Pacific Daylight Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Doug Henwood)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 Carrol Cox wrote:
 
 >I believe it was Nixon. It seems to me that Law Day appeared during
 >the Viet Nam War -- but my memory is a bit hazy.
 
 It's both Law Day and Loyalty Day. Here are the presidential proclamations.
 The Law Day proclamation says it was declared such in public law 87-20 in
 1961; the Loyalty Day proclamation says it was declared such in PL 85-529,
 with no date given, but since the "85" refers to the 85th Congress, that'd
 be 4 years earlier than PL 87-20, which would put it in the Eisenhower
 years.
 
 Doug
 
 
 
THE WHITE HOUSE
 
 Office of the Press Secretary
   _
   For Immediate ReleaseApril 30, 1999
 
 
   LOYALTY DAY, 1999
 
 - - - - - - -
 
   BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
A PROCLAMATION
 
 
  Born in the twilight of the 18th century, our great Nation has grown and
 flourished, surviving a civil war, the Great Depression, two World Wars,
 and the Cold War to emerge at the dawn of the 21st century as the world's
 best hope for freedom. The success of that journey of challenge and change
 was no accident. In 1787, when our founders came together to sign the
 Constitution and "secure the Blessings of Liberty," honor individual
 rights, and guarantee equality, they laid the foundations of a country that
 would inspire the lasting loyalty and love of its citizens.
 
 The courage and sacrifice of generations of Americans who have served in
 our Armed Forces have sustained the vision of our Nation's founders. From
 the fields near Lexington and Concord to the skies over Belgrade, nearly 50
 million citizens have placed themselves in harm's way to defend our
 freedom, promote our values, and advance our interests around the world.
 Many of them have died in the process, willing to make the ultimate
 sacrifice out of loyalty and devotion to our beloved country.
 
 Millions of other generous men and women have proved their loyalty here at
 home. They have enriched the lives of their fellow Americans by
 volunteering in civic, religious, and school organizations. Throughout the
 decades, they have worked to expand America's promise of justice and
 equality to all our people, promoting civil rights, economic and
 educational opportunity, and political empowerment. In every era, they have
 worked to address this country's challenges and renew our legacy of citizen
 service. In doing so, they have strengthened our Nation from within and
 provided a symbol of hope around the world for those who seek refuge in a
 land where individual rights are revered and where their children can grow
 up in peace and freedom.
 
 Recognizing the importance of loyalty to the continued strength of our
 country and success of our democracy, the Congress, by Public Law 85-529,
 has designated May 1 of each year as "Loyalty Day." On this day, let us
 reflect with pride on our great country and remember with gratitude the
 contributions of the many loyal and courageous Americans who have given so
 much of themselves both at home and around the world to pres

[PEN-L:6295] Thanks To Michael Yates

[Nativejmc]

Happy May Day to All. Thanks to Michael for this moving and penetrating 
obituary for his father. In many ways, his father was like and shared the 
experiences and forms of oppression of many of our fathers and mothers who 
suffered with our fathers.

This was so appropriate for the Day that Reagan tried to co-opt and re-name. 
It will always be International Workers Day and a reminder that many wars go 
on that will never be on the nightly news nor fought--from the worker's 
side--with sterile laser-guided missles giving the impression of precision 
and bloodlessness in battle. Many workers, war heroes in their own right, 
will never be buried with honor guards or have their names inscribed on 
memorials in Washington DC, although they died fighting against and/or as a 
result of  fascism, predatory capitalism, imperialism as ugly and destructive 
as anything the German, Japanese, Italian or other regimes of World War II 
were able to inflict.

Thanks for connecting this special day to someone special in your life and in 
the lives of others.

Jim Craven


In a message dated 5/1/99 9:30:25 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:6293] may day greetings and story
 Date:  5/1/99 9:30:25 AM Pacific Daylight Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Michael Yates)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), 
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
 
 Friends,
 
 Happy May Day to one and all!  Here is an obituary I wrote for my father
 two years ago.  Seems fitting on this day.
 
"Obituary"
 
By
 
Michael D. Yates
 
 
I was scheduled to lead a session at the recent Labor Notes
 conference.  I was excited to have been invited, and I had prepared
 copious notes, anticipating a lively discussion.  But as sometimes
 happens, fate intervened, and I had to cancel my plans.  On April 8th my
 father died, and I was just in too much pain to go anywhere.  But since
 the conference concerned the state of the labor movement in the United
 States and since my father was an ordinary working man, I thought that
 the following attempt to connect the labor movement to his life might be
 of interest to those who attended.  I offer them by way of apology for
 not coming to Detroit and in memory and honor of my father's life.
 
My father went to work in a glass factory in 1940, the year he
 graduated from high school.  He spent the next 44 years working there,
 interrupted only by three years in the Navy during World War Two, spent
 mostly in the South Pacific.  The war was a transformative experience
 for him as it was for so many men.  On the one hand, he learned what
 large groups of committed people could do under the most trying
 circumstances, and he learned what it meant to be emotionally connected
 to his friends, to be willing to make sacrifices for others.  But on the
 other hand, he learned to take orders without question and to believe
 what his government told him.
 
When he returned from the war, he settled into the routines of work 
and
 family which would dominate his life for the next 40 years.  The
 immediate postwar years were marked by strikes and other forms of worker
 resistance as the union, which was formed in the late 1930s, sought to
 permanently alter the relationship of the workers to the company.  In
 this it was tremendously successful.  Of course, the extended economic
 boom, fueled by military spending and the seemingly insatiable worldwide
 demand for U.S. capital, provided a propitious environment for union
 activity.  But it was the collective actions of the workers which were
 decisive, clearly evidenced by the gains which they made in their
 standard of living, gains unprecedented in the history of U. S.
 capitalism.
 
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the union won impressive increases in
 wages and benefits: steady increments in wages (including incentives),
 generous cost-of-living adjustments, extended vacations, additional paid
 holidays (when my father retired, each day from Christmas through New
 Year's Day was a paid holiday), better pensions, and comprehensive
 health care.  The power which foremen had previously had over the
 workers' lives was ended once and for all; now grievances could be filed
 and won or workers could threaten to take direct actions to get what
 they wanted.
 
It is easy now to forget what the union meant to my father, his
 buddies, and their families, but a walk through the town now provides a
 stark reminder.  The plant closed a few years ago as did so many
 factories in the industrial heartland.  Today there are many abandoned
 buildings and empty lots where stores once thrived; and young people
 either move out or take a job at or slightly above the minimum wage. 
 There is a lot more crime and a flourishing drug trade.  When I was a
 boy, the high wages of the union workers support

[PEN-L:5902] Fwd: A Story of Genocide

[Nativejmc]

--part1_8036372a.24548bb6_boundary

In a message dated 4/21/99 6:48:15 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:5736] A Story of Genocide
 Date:  4/21/99 6:48:15 PM Pacific Daylight Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Max Sawicky)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lbo-Talk), [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pen-L)
 
 Here's one article from the Independent (UK) -- the same outlet that employs
 Robert Fiske, I believe -- that has not been cross-posted.  It describes in
 detail the Serbian regime's style of genocide, a reasonable term in light of
 the article.
 
 http://www.independent.co.uk/stories/B2004906.html
 
 mbs >>
 
A la stories of genocide, I also highly recommend "In a Barren Land: American 
Indian Disposession and Survival" by Patricia Marks, Quil, Morrow, N.Y. 1998. 
I also highly recommend the somewhat misnamed "The Secret War Against the 
Jews" by John Loftus and Mark Aarons.

I will be taping a three-hour show on the Expert Witness Show with Mike 
Levine on May 10th. It will be played in three installments on WBAI New York. 
There will be witnesses to  and victims of rape, sexual/physical torture, 
forced.deceptive sterilization, use of Indian children for medical 
experimentation, forced assimilation and relocation, murder, use of Indian 
children for pedophilic "pleasures" of visiting Government officials, use of 
Indian children in pedophile rings for rich businessmen, thefts of Indian 
lands, thesft and misappropriation of BIA/DIA trust accounts. The final 
segment will place all of this in the context of binding precedents of 
Nuremberg and other past and present War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and 
violations of the UN Convention on Genocide and will explore the refusal of 
the US government to sign the UN Convention on Genocide for 40 years, the 
present Helms/Lugar/Hatch Sovereignty Exemption which makes the US still a 
non-ratifier of the UN Convention on Genocide and the refusal of the US 
government to endorse the formation of a standing World Court to try War 
Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide.

Jim Craven



--part1_8036372a.24548bb6_boundary

Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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  Wed, 21 Apr 1999 21:48:06 -0400 (EDT)
Wed, 21 Apr 1999 18:52:25 -0700 (PDT)
  by mail.epinet.org (Post.Office MTA v3.5 release 215
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Max Sawicky)
To: "Lbo-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Pen-L"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:5736] A Story of Genocide
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 21:39:00 -0700
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Here's one article from the Independent (UK) -- the same outlet that employs
Robert Fiske, I believe -- that has not been cross-posted.  It describes in
detail the Serbian regime's style of genocide, a reasonable term in light of
the article.

http://www.independent.co.uk/stories/B2004906.html

mbs



--part1_8036372a.24548bb6_boundary--

[PEN-L:5897] Fwd: Trotskyists and WWII

[Nativejmc]

--part1_f4e96039.2453e25f_boundary

Louis,

With eloquence and substance, presented and argued.

By the way, anybody feel that the FBI Building, a building of the JUSTICE 
department, being named after J. Edgar (aka "Mary") Hoover is on the one hand 
quite appropriate, while on the other hand, in terms of the real meaning of 
Justice, analogous to naming a shelter for battered women after Ted Bundy? 

The rank, ugly, destructive, evil and hypocritical tentacles of imperialism, 
colonialism, fascism, bourgeois "democracy" and their clients and puppets are 
producing massive death and misery and far beyond Kosovo. Being "radical" 
from the Latin "radix" or root meands get to the "root of it" in 
understanding fundamental causes and getting rid {uprooting"] of them.

Jim Craven




In a message dated 4/21/99 12:06:52 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:5711] Trotskyists and WWII
 Date:  4/21/99 12:06:52 PM Pacific Daylight Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Louis Proyect)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 Max:
 >The real throwback here is not Tomasky/Shachtman, but Louis et al. to the
 >Trots who opposed U.S. entry into WWII, or to the CP-USA when it condemned
 >all trade unions but the ones it organized itself.
 
 I probably should have let this ignorant garbage go unanswered, but just to
 clarify the real position of Trotskyism on WWII for those interested in the
 truth.  For the Trotskyists, WWII was a complex phenomenon that
 incorporated 4 wars in one:
 
 1. An interimperialist war between plunderers in which the United States
 and England were just as reactionary as Germany and Japan.
 
 2. A just war of self-defense by the Soviet Union against Hitlerism.
 
 3. A just war of oppressed nationalities against their colonial overlords
 whether allied or axis, including Japan, England and France.
 
 4. A just war by working-people and peasants in Nazi-occupied Europe. The
 Resistance in France was the best example of such a just war.
 
 The Trotskyists were imprisoned under the Smith Act not for "opposing"
 WWII, but for exposing the imperialist motives of the ruling-class as
 indicated in point one above. Since the ruling class prefers to keep its
 vampire profit lust a secret, they will deny freedom of speech to leftists
 who want to point this truth out. They imprisoned the SWP leaders for the
 same reason they went after Daniel Ellsberg during Vietnam. It is
 considered deeply subversive to break through the propaganda lies of
 capitalist governments when they go to war. Ironically, during WWII CPUSA
 leaders took the same stance as Max does today. They identified the
 interests of the workers with the war aims of the superrich. US soldiers
 died by the tens of thousands in the Pacific theater to make the region
 safe for rubber, oil, banking, construction, railroad and shipping
 companies. We resented another vulture--Japan--picking at the flesh of
 China, the Philippines, and other of our post-1898 conquests.
 
 Furthermore, the SWP advocated a revolutionary armed struggle against
 Hitler modeled on the Spanish Civil War popular militias. They argued that
 armies under ruling-class leadership with their officer corps would not be
 as effective as those under working-class control. While they were doomed
 to be in a small minority due to the ideological lock the CP had on left
 opinion back then, their case was actually quite powerful. If you study the
 Spanish Civil War, you will learn that the POUM militias were far more
 effective than the CP-led regular army which was defending the interests of
 the Spanish landlords while fighting against Franco. When the Popular Front
 troops repressed strikers and peasants occupying the land on rural estates,
 they ensured Franco's victory. All this is depicted in Ken Loach's "Land
 and Freedom".
 
 Louis Proyect
 
 (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
 
 
 
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--part1_f4e96

[PEN-L:4551] Need NATO strikes Against US

[Nativejmc]

It is all really too much, Nightly specials with Norman Schwarkopf as a pundit
on an NBC Special. And all the sanitized photos showing destruction from a
high-tech distance and all "our boys" came home.

If imminent destruction of whole peoples is the criterion for launching NATO
strikes, then there is genocide going on all over America and Canada. It is
calculated, premeditated, there are big interests and profits at stake, the
only difference is the methods of extermination and the time periods involved.
Notice no reference to history except some cliche about these emnities go far
back in history. For example, during the nazi occupations, who was who in
terms of degree of alliance with or resistance to nazi rule.

And of course no reference to the role of Cold War machinations and intrigues
in nurthering and exacerbating historical enmnities and contradictions. 

And that there is a real possibility that forces allied in NATO with their own
histories and presents of responsibility for genocide supposedly allied to
stop genocide--not in Rwanda or Cambodia or Chile or Guatamala or Indonesia or
on Indian Reserves/Reservations or in many many other places, times and
instruments of genocide.

Henry Kissinger with a Nobel Peace Prize is like Ted Bundy with a NOW award or
Himmler with a B'nai Brith Award.

And as usual, the victims suffer the unimaginable having become imaginable
suffering and death with sanitized glimpses of the suffering and death
squeezed neatly in the media between the Budweiser frogs and Valtrex for those
nasty herpes reminders from the 60s.

Jim C

[PEN-L:4523] Re: Re: An Article by Doug Henwood

[Nativejmc]

Comment:

I thought that the article was dead on. Some people's search for "socially
responsible investment" in capitalism is like others who see eating Ben and
Jerry's ice cream as a revolutionary act. Information as in that article is
the real revolutionary act.

Jim Craven

[PEN-L:3147] Fwd: Re: Nigeriaboundary="part0_918626843_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--part0_918626843_boundary

Ken,

I think your comments are well taken on one level. It is true that in one
sense, in one context, the Profit<>Power imperatives and dynamics of
capitalism do indeed lead to risktaking andn investments that lead to cures
for various illnesses, jobs, incomes etc etc; but those same imperatives
produce dynamics of new diseases for which new cures are needed, general
commodification of people and sacreds, meagre and dehamizing jobs and
exploitative income levels.

New technologies however sophisticated and with the potential to do good, if
held by a few for the benefit of the few, or if used for evil, represent not
progress but an even more threatening potential for descent total destruction.
So when taken in a wider context, what appears to be "progressive" in the
abstract may well be dangerous and destructive when taken in historical
context or in the context of how ripe that capitalism is today relative to the
capitalism of the time of Marx; part of Marx's praise for capitalism was
relative to the forms of bondage and exploitation of previous systems. But
Marx also clearly noted that for each blessing capitalism brings, it brings at
least one, often more curse and that the "blessing" is often a mask and
instrument for the curse.

So when we get to net score, I have to see the negatives outweighing--and even
choking off new--positives or possibilities for positives. No doubt capitalism
does bring some wonders relative to previous systems, but if the power grids
go or during extreme natural disasters for example, the "primitives" survive
as it is life as usual, and the "civilized" ones freak out, implode and turn
into some version of Mad Max. That is why Ghandi Ji when asked "What do you
think about Western Civilization" he answered "It sounds like a good idea."

Jim Craven




In a message dated 2/9/99 9:24:38 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:3145] Re: Nigeria
 Date:  2/9/99 9:24:38 PM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ken Hanly)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 You don't  believe that capitalism has progressive aspects? I thought you
were a
 Marxist?
 How can you hold both that capitalism has no progressive aspects and that you
 are a Marxist at one and the same time? THere are numerous passages in  Marx
 filled with praises of capitalism's progressive features, of the manner in
which
 it releases the productive forces of nature and frees people from feudal
bonds.
 .
 
   CHeers , Ken Hanly
 
 Louis Proyect wrote:
 
 > Doug:
 > >Seeing the world in black and white makes writing polemic a lot easier,
but
 > >it's not very helpful. I was reacting to your preposterous claim that
 > >Nigeria has seen "plenty of investment," which is why the phrase was in
 > >quotes. Nigeria has not had "plenty of investment," it's had too little
and
 > >of a very distorted sort. Here's the full exchange. I especially like the
 > >way you forgot to quote the "It's been plundered" part.
 >
 > Doug, we have political differences that no amount of quoting in context or
 > out of context will change. You believe that capitalism has some
 > progressive aspects, while I believe that it has none. That is what the
 > debate is about.
 >
 > Louis Proyect
 >
 > (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
 
 
 
 
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Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 23:26:28 -0600
From: Ken Hanly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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You don't  believe that capitalism has progressive aspects? I thought you were
a
Marxist?
How can you hold both that capitalism has n

[PEN-L:3146] Fwd: Re: selling Manhattanboundary="part0_918625653_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

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As someone who lives in both the Indian and non-Indian worlds, and just
returned today from the Peigan Blackfoot Reservation in Browning and the
Kainai Blackfoot Reservation in Alberta, I felt compelled to comment.

There is enough good and bad in all colors. The white developers, the BIA, the
mineral prospectors, the missionaries, the colonialists had their aspirations
and macinations made easier by sell-out Indians. And those same white
interests were the interests not of all white but only a few who exploit even
more whites than Indians and often in equally vicious ways.

As Andre Gunder Frank and others have noted, it is not a matter of as an
isolated process and entity over there and "development" as this disembodied
and self-perpetuating process and entity over there. They are dialectically
interrrelated. 

The "Indians" are not saying give it all back and get out. What is being said
is that the rape even continues in addition to the lies and cover-ups of the
past. "Development", a euphemism for predatory malignant capitalism, needs,
feeds on and intensifies "underdevelopment" and all of its ugly features and
consequences. Last year, for example, on a list of 73 US Government-designated
toxic waste dumps, 72 were Indian Reservations. Right now, the US's largest
storage facility for aged and increasingly unstable nerve gas and other
chemical warfare weapons is at the Umatilla Reservation in Hermiston
Oregon--with no evacuation plan despite $25 million supposedly devoted to such
a plan.

So it is a matter that Indians are like the proverbial "Canary in the Mine"
Where genopcide is tolerated and facilitated for one group, so it can be for
others--in a malignant society that tolerates and facilitates genocide.

The reason for the present rush to Treaties in Canada and the sigfnificance of
100 lawsuits per day by Residential School victims in Canada is that when the
true story is told, they indict and expose the hypocrisry of the bourgeois
private property "sacreds"; they demand compensation or further exposure of
the bogus and selective use of supposed private property "universal" rights.
The surviving victims and their just causes and evidence expose the ugly
masks, machinations and consequences of imperialism, colonialism, racism,
capitalism and Tribal corruption.

Jim Craven





In a message dated 2/9/99 2:12:46 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:3134] Re: selling Manhattan
 Date:  2/9/99 2:12:46 PM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Charles Brown)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 File:  PENL3134.txt (30032 bytes)
 DL Time (48000 bps): < 1 minute
 
 [Only the first part of this message is displayed. The entire message has
been turned into a text attachment, which you can retrieve by selecting
Download. Once downloaded, open it with a word processor or text editor for
reading.]
 
 
 
 >>> "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 02/09 4:46 PM >>>
 Charles,
  Well, we're wearing this thin.  But, just to put it in 
 context:  I brought up the violent transfer of land control 
 between tribes to contrast it with the peaceful transfer 
 that occurred, at least initially, in some places such as 
 the "purchase" (however non-meeting of the minds) of land 
 by some Europeans from the Indians, e.g. the Dutch in 
 Manhatten, the English Quakers in Philadelphia, the 
 Russians in northern California.  I put those activities 
 forward as more admirable certainly than the usual outright 
 forcible theft by Europeans, and as certainly not worse 
 than the forcible seizure of land by one tribe from 
 another. 
 
 
 Charles: But I don't agree that you made this factual point. You asserted it,
but did not prove it.
 
  Many on this list, including you, denied any such 
 comparison, decrying all land transfers from Indians to 
 Europeans as equally invalid, illegimate, imperialistic, 
 and immoral.
 ___
 
 Charles: Want to show me where I said this ? The Indians probaby didn't think
of them as "transfers". Even if peaceful, they didn't anticipate it as prelude
to massive invasion. 
 
 Anyway, even if some Europeans were peaceful, ultimately the whole
relationship was by force. The determining occurrences as to how we got to
where we are today were the imperialistic takings. The few peaceful sharings
do not validate the warlike takings. Your effort to contrast European
"peaceful" actions with Indian fighting is really off and backward. All
Europeans should feel uncomfortable about this history, and any effort to
lessen the European crime is a disservice.
 
 
 Charles Brown
 
 
 
 
 Barkley Rosser
 On Tue, 09 Feb 1999 16:32:40 -0500 Charles Brown 
 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 
 > 
 > 
 > >>> "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 02/09 4:02 PM >>>
 > Charles,
 >  I think you are still evading the 

[PEN-L:2491] Bad Writing Contestboundary="part0_917056821_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

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In a message dated 1/22/99 5:55:16 PM Pacific Standard Time, MAILER-
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< 
 Response: The issue has not only been style, complexity or tortured syntax,
 but also content and relevance. I asked before for some examples from
devotees
 of Butler for some of her more relevant, innovative, penetrating work--what
 they consider penetrating etc--and I have yet to see a sample.
 
 The prize-winning entry of Butler's that Doug attempted to deconstruct
 resulted in some partial rephrasing of a portion of it but Doug was left
 unable to deconstruct or translate the whole passage or show it's
 revolutionary implications or really even the essential argument being made.
 
 The reason I noted Talcott Parsons and the parallels with this sample from
 Butler was not only on the plane of convoluted and tortured syntax and
 pretentious vocabulary, but also on the issue of power as a subjective and
 atomized phenomenon. Once in India, a devotee of all power is subjective in
 our heads and power exists for the oppressor only if we recognize and
 surrender to it, also told me that if he were an inmate at Auschwitz, he
could
 make Auschwitz and the power of the guards disappear through intense
 meditation.
 It is interesting that those who often make this type of argument are most
 often removed from real conditions of oppression and oppressive forces that
 manifest and project power with very real, very objective and very measurable
 consequences on real people.
 
 This is the point. Butler's alleged contributions have yet to be shown by her
 devotees. We still haven't had a proper deconstruction and translation of the
 infamous prize-winning prose and since I am not even close to being "one of
 the ten brightest people on the planet", I need patient explanations and
 translations--and again, convoluted language does not mean that her
 contributions are deep, meaningful, penetrating or innovative--the same
 applies to Marx, Hegel, Nietzsche etc.
 
 Let a hundred Derridas Bloom through deconstruction, translation and
 application; let all deconstructions and deconstructionists contend, you have
 nothing to lose but your facades, market niches and groupies.
 
 Jim Craven
 
 
 
 
 
 
 In a message dated 1/22/99 5:09:27 PM Pacific Standard Time,
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 
 << Subj:[PEN-L:2489] Re: Re: 1998 Bad Writing Contest
  Date: 1/22/99 5:09:27 PM Pacific Standard Time
  From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Doug Henwood)
  Sender:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  To:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  
  Colin Danby wrote:
  
  >Anyone who has taken the trouble to read _Capital_
  >finds that it takes time and work because Marx had to
  >develop a new set of concepts and a new language to
  >describe them with.  As Doug notes, we accept that
  >Kant and Hegel also wrote in difficult ways, and
  >needed to.  We accept that it takes time, work, study
  >to understand them.  Yet that right to be difficult,
  >the right to write complex and innovative *theory,* is
  >suddenly withdrawn for Judith Butler.
  
  ...whose first book, it should be noted, was on Hegel. So she's got an
 excuse!
  
  Doug
  
  
  
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[PEN-L:2455] Fwd: quote from Monthly Review articleboundary="part0_916980578_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

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So true, so elegantly put, so human. 

Dead On.

Jim



In a message dated 1/21/99 6:37:22 PM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:2451] quote from Monthly Review article
 Date:  1/21/99 6:37:22 PM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Michael Yates)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]),
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), [EMAIL PROTECTED]
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
 
 Friends, 
 
 In the Jan. issue of MR, Bryan Palmer, in an article about Harry
 Braverman's political development, quotes from "Labor and Monopoly
 Capital" as follows:
 
 "The apparent acclimitization of the worker to the new modes of
 production grows out of the destruction of all other ways of living, the
 striking of wage bargains that permit a certain enlargement of the
 customary bounds of subsistence for the working class, the weaving of
 the net of modern capitalist life that finally makes all other modes of
 living impossible.  But beneath this apparent habituation, the hostility
 of workers to the degenerated forms of work which are forced upon them
 continues as a subterranean stream that makes its way to the surface
 when employment conditions permit, or when the capitalist drive for a
 greater intensity of labor oversteps the bounds of physical and mental
 capacity.  It renews itself in new generations, expresses itself in the
 unbounded cynicism and revulsion which large numbers of workers feel
 about their work, and comes to the fore repeatedly as a social issue
 demanding attention."
 
 Palmer then says, "This is, to be sure, an old set of ideas, a
 constellation of Marxist thought that some have, in the unparalleled
 confluence of arrogance and complacency that often masquerades as
 'critical theory' in the late 20th century years postdating Braverman's
 text, constructed as an antiquarian attachment, risible in its
 sympathies and sensitivity.  Scholastic hyperbole notwithstanding, such
 apparently laughable thought is the premise of a politics of social
 transformation, and however many new positions we may be justifiably
 exhorted to embrace, none are achievable if the old positions of the
 young Harry Frankel (Braverman' party/SWP name) are not defended and
 deepened."
 
 It seems to me that one way to judge a scholarly work, whether it be
 Judith Butler's or anyone else's, is to ask, to what extent does it help
 the hostility workers feel toward their work "rise to the surface," to
 what extent does it aid a "politics of social transformation."  For
 example, workers are exploited everwhere there is capitalism. 
 Therefore, ths struggles of workers (and indigenous people I might add.
 If Indians struggle to regain control of land they once inhabited, we
 must support them.  If once they gain control, a minority of them
 capitalistically exploit the rest, we must support the exploited
 majority.  And if workers are trying to form unions here, we must not
 say, well unions are by definition reactionary, we must support the
 workers' efforts and at the same time try to broaden and deepen their
 political perspectives.) everywhere are legitimate and it is the duty of
 radicals to support them and push them forward. The sad thing is not so
 much that workers in poor countries are more heavily exploited but that
 the US labor movement actively supported this exploitation.  We must
 try, to whatever extent we can, to both end the exploitation of workers
 in poor countries and to confront the reactionary policies of the
 AFL-CIO.
 
 Having said this, I know that I am not a saint; I have not done all I
 could on many occasions, both in my writing and in my actions, and I
 have looked to my own comfort many times. Understanding this, I try to
 take people and writings as I find them, allying with the people when I
 can to push forward the struggle and taking from the writings what is
 useful in doing so. And, finally, trying to laugh and have fun whenever
 possible!
 
 Michael Yates >>


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(8.8.8/8.8.8/cispo-7.2.2.2)
  Thu, 21 Jan 1999 21:32:55 -0500 (EST)
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 21:35:38 -0500
From: Michael Yates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: Pitt-Johnstown
To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:2451] quote from Monthly Review article
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Friends, 

In the Jan. issue of MR, Bryan Palmer, in an article about Harry
Braverman's political development, quotes from "Labor and Monopoly
Capital" as follows:

"The apparent accli

[PEN-L:2449] Fwd: Re: Re: 1998 Bad Writing Contest winnersboundary="part0_916967727_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

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Comment:

This is absolutely right on in my opinion and so elegantly and humanly
expressed.

There is another epistemological question. To do concrete struggle, where does
the requisite knowledge come from and how is it tested? Many of the most
important insights and sources of knowledge come from those "masses" who are
often the objects/subjects of esoteric prose and jargon but would could/would
never read or understand what is being asserted about them and their
conditions in the convoluted prose etc. Yet when the deconstructionists are
deconstructed, it becomes clear that underneath the veneer of superficially
complex prose and equations in the case of us dismal scientists, often it is
the commonplace, pure metaphysics or commonplace stereotypes and myths being
asserted--forcefully.

The famous quote from Marx from his letter to Arnold Ruge ( "If the
construction of the future and its completion for all time is not our task,
all the more certain is what we must accomplish in the present. I mean, the
ruthless criticism of everything that exists; the criticism being ruthless in
the sense that it fears neither its own results nor conflicts with the powers
that be" ) demands a continual "rethinking of Marxism"--and everything else. 

But there is no making change or even obtaining critical information about
that which must be changed without "getting the hands dirty." That means being
close to that which is being studied and written about. That means that those
who are being "studied" and written about, or those whose struggles are being
aided in concrete ways,  must have access to and be able to understand and
correct or add to, what is being studied and written.

Jim Craven




In a message dated 1/21/99 12:35:18 PM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:2424] Re: Re:  1998 Bad Writing Contest winners
 Date:  1/21/99 12:35:18 PM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ellen Dannin)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 I once asked a sociologist friend who had long experience as an editor of a
 sociological journal whether, in his experience, it was necessary to use
 jargon and impenetrable prose. He told me that when he started editing he
 had thought this might be the case -- that certain thoughts required
 specialised language; however, with time and experience, he came to the
 conclusion that the prose hid the fact that nothing was being said in most
 cases. When he asked writers to explain what they were saying in clear
 English they were unable to say anything. This experience suggests that if
 these important ideas cannot be expressed in another way they just aren't
 that important.
 
 I write articles about law. If anyone can sling the lingo, it's certainly
 lawyers. I have, however, made it a point to write in a style which is
 accessible to people likely to care about the issues I address -- workers,
 collective bargaining, and power. Prose that cannot be understood unless one
 has been in graduate school and/or has read all the prior writers referenced
 is of no use to those who most need to read about these ideas. Real workers
 may not have the time to do the background reading, but they certainly want
 and need to know about these issues. It is not wishful thinking on my part,
 but I get contacts regularly from workers thanking me for having written
 clearly on a particular issue.
 
 In my opinion, anyone who writes this sort of prose cannot call themselves
 revolutionaries, and I have real trouble with their calling themselves
 Marxists. They write not for workers but for other privileged academics, and
 they don't have the courage to refuse to go along with the power elite in
 their disciplines and write things that matter. Now, it may be that once in
 awhile someone just has to do turgidwrite, but if they have anything worth
 saying they owe it to society to make amends by also writing it in plain
 English and putting it in places that will make a difference.
 
 Regards,
 
 Ellen
 Ellen J. Dannin
 Professor of Law
 California Western School of Law
 225 Cedar Street
 San Diego, CA 92101
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (619) 525-1449
 fax: (619) 696- >>


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  Thu, 21 Jan 1999 15:35:16 -0500 (EST)
Thu, 21 Jan 1999 12:37:54 -0800 (PST)
From: "Ellen Dannin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:2424] Re: Re:  1998 Bad Writing Contest winners
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 12:33:24 -0800
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

I once asked a sociologist friend who had long experience as an editor of =
a
sociological journal whether, in his experience, it was necessary to use
jargon and impenetrable prose. He told me that when he started editing he
had thought this might b

[PEN-L:2401] Judith Butler's "Cabaret",boundary="part0_916939879_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

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>From what I have been able to see so far, and I for one cannot deconstruct
Butler's award-winning feast of tortured syntax, I think Cabaret might be an
accurate metaphor for some of this pomo stuff (and for the stuff that
routinely goes on in grad schools).

These three people, carrying a lot of emotional baggage, create, and insulate
themselves within, a surreal subterranean world of depravity, pretentiousness,
narcissism and practical indifference while around them the signs of mounting
social decay, total systemic failure and nazis are mounting. They run across
an occasional incident of "Jew- bashing" by the nazis, even for a moment are
touched a bit, but show no real concern even when the presence of the nazis
reaches into the Cabaret.

They create for themselves an inner sanctum in which they experiment to
develop all sorts of new combinations and permutations of depravity, focus on
their own special pain and and angst ignoring pleas of others to see their
pain and join in the fight. They even tell each other and the targeted victims
(lkike the young man who was Jewish passing as a Christian who wanted to marry
the young rich Jewish woman)  that they will only be victims if they allow
meaningless words and cagtegories to take on and have the intended effects of
the victimizers; they even note that words and categories have no intrinsic
meaning, properties or intended effects beyond what the victim allows them to
take on.

The visual images, the pretentious narcissism, savoring their own rhetoric and
sense of self-importance (like William Buckley who narcissistically flashes
his eyes and eyebrows at key points he wants emphasized as if his threatrics
and pompous posturing somehow make the point more worth of consideration and
more "proved"), the players and surreal scene and self-indulgent apathy of the
Cabaret remind me of some of the pomo stuff I have seen so far. 

And Oh yes I do indeed say the same thing about a lot of the "mathurbation"
(as Heilbroner put it "adding "rigor" and alas also "mortis" to economics) and
tortured affected syntax of much of "mainstream" economics (as if
superficially "complex" language indicates having grasped and analyzed the
complexities of the phenomena being discusseed) as creaating cloistered elites
speaking in code not for elucidation or promoting change but rather to keep
the circle of elites narrow and in command of their respective market niches.

I am also reminded of a book called "Profscam" which had some useful examples
of how we academics, or some in academia, are aiding some of the backlashes
against academia and acadmics with the overblown/pretentious/useless rhetoric,
with esoteric classes geared more toward our own needs than the real needs of
students as expressed by the students, with the scholar despotism often
evident in grading and discipline, with endless hours spent on CV-building and
endless spin-offs of spin-offs in meaningless journals and conferences with
little if any spent on improving pedagogy in technique and scope or in valuing
teaching; etc. Many of the shots are cheap shots but no doubt some academics
have given the administrators (often even more cloistered, elitist, pampered
and irrelevant) some aid and comfort. In many ways "Cabaret" is a metaphor and
even extended allegory for much of academia as well. Perhaps the pomos are
offensive to some because they perhaps represent a very open and clear example
of reductio ad absurdum/nauseum--how to say nothing with a lot of big words,
quote ongering/appeal to authority, contrived and caricatured authorities and
convoluted syntax.

Hey, if you hate math and science, if you  have a degree in philosophy or
English Lit that allows you to talk and write any shit without any objective
basis for being refuted and that makes you potentially unemployable or a
candidate for Assistant Manager at Wendy's, you can always attack the notion
of "science" and "scientific method" or even play scientist with vocabulary,
syntax and sources of theory that make metaphysical assertions appear to be
established principles, axioms and even "Laws". The grants will flow, the
publications will flow, the trips as guest speaker to other cloistered elites
and groupies will flow, specialized journals will be created and hey, "Life is
a Cabaret".

Jim Craven


Just some thoughts.




In a message dated 1/21/99 8:29:15 AM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:2398] Re: Re: Judith Butler, etc.
 Date:  1/21/99 8:29:15 AM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mathew Forstater)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 Unfortunately, Louis, this is in no way exclusive to those "imbued with the
 postmodernist zeitgeist."  It's pretty common among grad students, and
 academics generally.  And not just academics, either, come to think of it.
 Also, it rea

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[Nativejmc]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--part0_916897859_boundary

In a message dated 1/20/99 9:19:04 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:2382] Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Re: Judith Butler, etc.
 Date:  1/20/99 9:19:04 PM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Doug Henwood)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
 >This Judith Butler seems to me to be a reincarnation of Ayn Rand--arrogance
 >and pretentiousness shallow groupies and all.
 
 No, not in the least.
 
 Doug >>

Doug,

Out of respect for you and all that you have done and are doing at great
sacrifice to advance progressive causes, please show me that as in so many
times before, I am wrong and precipitous again.

Please bring out some of her best stuff (I will be reading all of her
published work) and let aa hundred Derrida's deconstruct and contend.

By the way, as a parenthetical note to my last comments, I deal every day with
some Indians who think that only Indian issues and Indians matter, that say it
is "us" against the White Man, and I ask the same question: Without the
support of non-Indian progressives, what needs to be smashed and changed will
not be; why should non-Indian progressives care about Indians and their issues
if progressive Indians care nothing about the pain and suffering of so many
non-Indians who are not the enemy and are suffering horribly?

So  please bring on some of the most penetrating, billiant, advanced and
innovative prose for our edification and in order to learn and correct any
precipitous and unfair judgments. I can only reiterate that my "impressions"
(they are very important in concrete political work and activism) and
perceptions are limited, based not on any  comprehensive or even substantive
reading of her work, open to counter-evidence, counter-reasoning and change,
with the further notes that I have been wrong many times before and will be
wrong many times again.

Jim

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Wed, 20 Jan 1999 21:19:32 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 00:15:52 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:2382] Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Re: Judith Butler, etc.
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>This Judith Butler seems to me to be a reincarnation of Ayn Rand--arrogance
>and pretentiousness shallow groupies and all.

No, not in the least.

Doug


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[Nativejmc]

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In a message dated 1/20/99 7:34:26 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<<  Writers don't just write to be understood;
 they write for the future readers who may someday understand what they
 were trying to say. Adorno said somewhere that the only thoughts worth
 thinking are those which do not fully understand themselves, i.e. do
 something new and unexpected, which hasn't yet fully emerged into its
 content, and is therefore open to history and dialectics.  >>

Let me get this. Writers do not necessarily write to be understood today
thinking that they are so advanced and so brilliant that only at some
amorphous time in the future, when consciousness has evolved to the level of
this "obermensch" thinker, will he/she be really understood. In the meantime,
just write and indulge yourself and your groupies, calling yourself
"progressive" while caring nothing about whether or not the inferiors really
understand you or whether or not your words make a difference in helping to
effect concrete change and resistance and hoping that at least a few followers
will realize how brilliant you are and keep your books around to be understood
by the more highly evolved masses of the future.

Sounds like megalomania, narcissism, and pretentious shit to me. But then
again, I am nowhere near being "one of the ten smartest people on the planet.
This Judith Butler seems to me to be a reincarnation of Ayn Rand--arrogance
and pretentiousness shallow groupies and all.

There was a time in Germany when some counseled Jews, Gypsies, Trade Unionists
etc not to let the hate speech of the nazis get to them--not to let the "power
structures" turn them into "subjects" and submissive victims of speech. They
counseled to mock the hate speech of the nazis, to turn the hate speech of the
nazis into a counter-force against them as in Aikido. Most of these people
were far removed from the actual effects and the mounting movements of hate;
they said words really don't mean that much. Most of them wound up leaving
with their wealth and/or became nazis as their egos and abstractions from
comfort were used and indulged while the real effects and consequences did
indeed take real tolls on real people.

I have lived and worked (read, write, speak) in five languages other than
English so I think I have acquired some sensitivity to language in terms of
shifting content, contexts of meaning, how words can be used for different
purposes and can have very subtle but profound effects depending on how words
and phrases are expressed, understood and acted upon. But I just don't see it.
Even the passage you quoted above, you'll have to deconstruct for me (not the
case with Edward Said for example) because as of yet, I just see shit and a
slick hustle where people with philosophy degrees of English Lit degrees,
normally unemployable, get this new gig and market niche going by putting on
superficially elegant or convoluted syntax to say nothing or even worse,
pretend to be actually saying something worth reading, creating a new field
called "Cultural Studies" and creating a whole new movement of groupies
addicted to contrived syntax and metaphysics like so many neoclassicals are
addicted to convoluted math to give a phony appearance of "rigor" and
"scientific method" to contrived syllogisms, empty tautologies and bourgeois
apologia.

Sorry that's my opinion. As for being aware of the sources of my alienation, I
know of no one truly aware of all of the sources of his/her alienation. But
pretentious, narcissistic semantic/mathematical masturbators and their
sycophantic groupies pretending to be progressive ( on a narrow range of self-
interested issues; e.g. gays who only care about gay stuff but want non gays
to unite to fight against gay bashing--which I am happy to do as homophobia is
indeed an ugly form of oppression--but you never see them when their anger is
needed against other forms of oppression not directly tied to gay issues) is
indeed one of my sources of "alienation".

Sorry, just chalk it up to my stupidity and failure to see the brilliance of
this Judith Butler whose brilliance awaits discovery but future and much more
highly evolved species.

Bullshit is bullshit no matter how elegantly dressed up in math or
polysyllabic and tortured syntax. By the way, I say the same about ultra-
formalistic/ritualistic/mechanistic "Marxism" and the quote mongering of some
Marxists as well.

Jim Craven

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Wed, 20 Jan 1999 19:34:41 -0800 (PST)
Wed,
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 19:30:30 -0800 (PST)
From: Dennis R Redmond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:2375] Re: Re: Re: Judith Butler, etc.
In-reply-to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

O

[PEN-L:2334] The State of the Union

[Nativejmc]

I recorded HRS (His Royal Slickness) giving the speech--along with the talking
heads---for my daughter, a Blackfoot, to graphically illustrate various types
of infected blankets wrapped in slick bundles. Plus, it will be a great
pedagogical tool to illustrate visually naked hypocrisy, shameless oportunism
and sycophancy, elementary fallacies and a whole panoply of shere farce--far
far beyond Fellini-Kafkaesque surrealism.

After a few rums, as the words droned on and members of Congress who that
morning were hearing to remove him were jumping up and down like puppets at
key words and promises of the speech, I started to fantasize an alternative
speech:

My Fellow Americans:

The residue on the dress was "presidue". But, the good news is that DNA also
says I'm not the father of the child as alleged by a black hooker in Arkansaw.
It's a wash.

Look, I had this epiphany. I realized that if Chelsea had blown a prof at
Stanford for an A, the whole forces of the U.S. Government would be out for
him and it wouldn't be regarded as "consensual". Well Monica, despite her own
opportunism and problems is someone's daughter and in addition to the
indignity of the cigar tricks, stains, cover-up, and quicky sessions, I failed
you and the youth of America for whom I am a role model in that sprayed
presidue means no safe sex. What if I or Monica had an undisclosed pathogen?

But, as shameless as I am, look at all of you standing here clapping after
only a few hours before trying to have me removed. First, I want to introduce
the widows of the Capitol Police who lost their lives after a nut case went
beserk and started shooting and all of you were diving under desks, remember I
still control those police who guard "Freedom's House". Got the point?

Next, like any two-bit politician, but in this case really up against it, I'm
about to announce some strategic issues and initiatives. What I mean is I'm
going to announce a shopping list to pander to various constituencies I need
to save my ass, proframs and initiatives paid for with your hard.earned tax
dollars. Also, tonight I brought some props--I mean heroic citizens--as
metaphors for wider forces: Rosa Parks, Sammy Sosa, an Air Force Captain
bombing Iraqui children etc who will be introduced at propitious
moments--especially when my mask slips a bit.

But here it is. You heard my lawyer. Technically I drove up to the line but
didn't significantly cross it. But America's trucking right along with
fundamentals for a projected trajectory of 25 years of budget surpluses, "low
inflation", low "unemployment rate" (so many new jobs being generated that
many citizens are looking for three of them). Besides, you know how many more
Larry Flint has? All of em Republicans in vary nast situations.

So here it is, a list of "strategic priorities and initiatives" and just jump
in and find your particular pork in the ol barrel. You guys are jumping up and
down and shamelessly clapping on cue are doing your own cover-ups to keep your
power, ideology, interests, narcissistic needs just like me and some of you
are about to get exposed yourselves. So let's get on with the show, gloss over
the contradictions, make even more wild promises and take credit for any
favorable systemic vicissitude, and Rock On! Remember, I go down, it exposes
the whole system naked on the way down. What kind of system would allow a
wreckless opportunist and narcissist like me to become twice elected President
of the United States? And you over there Clarence in your black robe, don't
you be throwing stones "Long Dong".

So to keep the markets steady and so no more hedge funds go under big time and
in order to keep me from declassifying everything on my way out or writing a
tell-all on all "Memoirs", back to the show and farce and Fellini, we're ready
for act Three.

What an absolutely grotesque spectacle. But a priceless pedagogical tool.

Jim Craven

[PEN-L:2282] Elegant Simplicity

[Nativejmc]

In Kerala where I lived, in a small village called Kunnanthannum with 150
people in the village, people often would sarcastically yet penetratingly,
answer questions with simple questions. So for example if someone asks if you
went to church today, often the answer would be "Does the one who lives in a
church need to go to church?" Or, if someone thinks something is fake and is
asked "Is that real?" the answer given is "If the crow bathes, can it become a
swan?"

There are all sorts of "Shaylees" or village sayings like: "For the frog in
the well, the well is the world". The meaning that we all live in wells--some
externally imposed and some self-imposed--and that there is so much beyond
what we know or think we know. I know that there are herbal remedies that have
effectively worked to cure various ailments and only recently has the
"science" been developed as to the mechanisms through which they work. In many
cases the mechanisms remain illusive to "science".

On the other hand, the evidence of something called science and "scientific
method however imperfectly defined or described or understood, is all around
us and works as well as breaks down; can be used for good or evil; and has
class content and is developed and applied in definite contexts under definite
power structures. But I know as a pilot that Bernoulli's law and the laws of
thermodynamics operate in definite ways under definite conditions and I'm
counting on that along with my skills, judgment, luck and condition of the
aircraft to keep me alive. And I know that howeveer screwed up the health care
system may be regular check-ups are better than irregular.

I know that some of the most profound questions and comments I have heard were
simply spoken or written. And some of the most pretentious, ignorant and
limited crap I have ever seen came dressed-up in alot of  "big"words and
tortured syntax that said nothing of substance about anything of substance.

So I figure I live in my own well and the best I can do is try to crawl out as
much as possible by being aware of the limits and respect and awe for all the
things that other people know that I don't. 

But all over the world people have run out of time and margin in terms of
being able to participate in esoteric parlour debate. It is literally life and
death and horrible costs on so many.

Jim Craven

[PEN-L:2250] Fwd: Re: : Alan Sokalboundary="part0_916676004_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

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Just a few months ago, there was a TV interview with some famed geologist who
claimed that they had found whole new evidence of the Columbia River having
once been a subterranean passage (a river underground) as told in the lodge
tales of the Yakima, Umatilla and Nez Perce until massive tectonic shifts
opened the earth to create the present Columbia Gorge.

Then a few weeks ago, a renowned biologist noted that the lodge tales of
Yakima and other Nations that posited conditions for maintaining delicate
balances between the bears, salmon and forests were dead on. The bears
consuming an average 73 lbs of salmon per day would migrate and leave
extrement highly concentrated in phospohorus, nitrogen and sulphur necessary
for the exact types of natural fertilizers necessary for certain types of
forests and trees.

These tales were allegories meant to describe and pass on complex processes of
creation in easy-to-remember and entertaining forms. Vine Deloria in his Red
Earth, White Lies takes on some of the assertions about the Siberian land
bridge thesis not so much as to challenge the fundamental thesis but to
challenge some of the dating. Further, there is concrete evidence that the
migratory routes were as much south to north as north to south--and east to
west and vice versa--with extensive trading networks and highly evolved
settlements, architecture, herbal medicines, techniques of surgery,
sustainable harvesting practices, democratic institutions and ideals, social
safety nets for those unable to take care of themselves, systemks for
education and training of the youth etc. The most reliable and accurate
calendar ever invented still remains the 3-intermeshing-wheels Mayan Calendar
invented at an estimated 3700 BC which could not have been invented without
the rountines, methodologies and pratices that we generally called "scientific
method" albeit at a level of development higher than for non-Mayans and lower
than methods employed today--perhaps.

You can find hard-core "scientist" who are religious and who profess to
believe all sorts of stories, myths, allegories etc that defy the logic and
methodis they employ in their research and/or are metaphysical and beyond
"proof" through the means these scientists revere and employ in their
professional work. The same can be said of many of the Indian
creationists--they are not of one homogeneous camp. 

I would urge all who are interested in this subject to read Vine Deloria's Red
Earth, White Lies and other works on this subject. I do agree that one or two
or even five sel-professed "Indian creationists" do not speak for all Indians
or indeed for all who find some allegorical wisdom in the creation stories.
When either the Indian creationists or the crude mechanical epistemologists
get carried away, either way, what we get is dogma that rests ultimately on
blind acceptance of certain cornerstone principles accepted as faith for
whatever reason. Of course we still have the tests of praxis, prediction and
transformation for any purported scientific-based theory however it
originates.

Jim


In a message dated 1/18/99 6:30:30 AM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:2243] Re: : Alan Sokal
 Date:  1/18/99 6:30:30 AM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Louis Proyect)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 >  The stuff ridiculed by Sokal and Bricmont is not just 
 >silliness. It is the basis of a good deal of fashionable mysticism 
 >and nonsense.  It seems to me that the fact that  "Social 
 >Text" could publish the Sokal spoof is not an accident, but a 
 >practical result of thsi journal's "critique of science".
 >
 >--Joseph Green
 
 I mentioned that I got together with Alan to talk about my concerns with
 his defense of "science" against American Indian "creationists". Maybe it
 would help if I quoted Alan:
 
 "I'm sorry to say it, but under the influence of postmodernism some very
 smart people can fall into some incredibly sloppy thinking, and I want to
 give two examples. The first comes from a front-page article in last
 Tuesday's New York Times (10/22/96) about the conflict between
 archaeologists and some Native American creationists. I don't want to
 address here the ethical and legal aspects of this controversy -- who
 should control the use of 10,000-year-old human remains -- but only the
 epistemic issue. There are at least two competing views on where Native
 American populations come from. The scientific consensus, based on
 extensive archaeological evidence, is that humans first entered the
 Americas from Asia about 10-20,000 years ago, crossing the Bering Strait.
 Many Native American creation accounts hold, on the other hand, that native
 peoples have always lived in the Americas, ever since their ancestors
 emerged onto the surface of the earth from a subter

[PEN-L:2246] Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Junk Scienceboundary="part0_916674009_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

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In a message dated 1/17/99 11:03:04 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:2233] Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Junk Science
 Date:  1/17/99 11:03:04 PM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Doug Henwood)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
 >For myself, noting and agreeing with the assertion of the  general function
of
 >institutions like MIT in capitalist society and as instruments of expanded
 >reproduction of that system, a few like Noam Chomsky do slip through and
 >manage to survive.
 
 It was explained to me once that at MIT, Chomsky is thought of as the
 Einstein of linguistics, a scientific giant. His politics are marginal to
 that reputation - just a personality quirk I guess.
 
 Doug >>

Yeah Doug, it is amazing what is considered central and what is marginalized.
I for one, consider some of Chomsky's politics to be an applied extension of
some of his work in linguistics or at least not contradictory with some of his
theses in linguistics. Certainly some of his work in linguistics guided some
of his work on the political economy of the media under capitalism--on
symbology, on class-interests and paradigms embodied in the rhetoric, syntax
and loaded language of the media, etc. Also some of Chomsky's deconstructing
the deconstructionists and some of his stuff on pomo I have seen seemed to be
guided by some of his work in linguistics.

Although I disagree with Chomsky on the term "left libertarian" which I
believe is an oxymoron, no doubt that he has added richly and significantly to
the study and documentation of the ugly and varied dynamics, instruments and
consequences of imperialism and in his case, there is at least one example
where tenure might protect competence instead of incompetence.

Jim

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  Sun, 17 Jan 1999 23:53:42 -0500 (EST)
Sun, 17 Jan 1999 20:54:02 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 23:50:22 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:2233] Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Junk Science
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>For myself, noting and agreeing with the assertion of the  general function
of
>institutions like MIT in capitalist society and as instruments of expanded
>reproduction of that system, a few like Noam Chomsky do slip through and
>manage to survive.

It was explained to me once that at MIT, Chomsky is thought of as the
Einstein of linguistics, a scientific giant. His politics are marginal to
that reputation - just a personality quirk I guess.

Doug


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For myself, noting and agreeing with the assertion of the  general function of
institutions like MIT in capitalist society and as instruments of expanded
reproduction of that system, a few like Noam Chomsky do slip through and
manage to survive.

As for the fundamentally contradictory opinions looking through the same
warped neoclassical lenses, well for enough money anything is possible or any
form of shit is potentially elegantly quantifiable and marketable with
sincerity and force as if force "proves" sincereity and real "evidence".

By the way, has anyone suggested impeaching Clinton on the grounds that in
spaying "presidue" or the presidentiall wad--"DNA Matter", he failed in his
duty as a national role model and figure and example for the young in that he
did not practice "safe sex". What if Starr had asked the following questions:
"Whatever you had/did, if Monica Lewinski were HIV positive, would you or
possibly Hillary or possibly someone else be well advised to get an HIV test?
or Whatever you and Monica were doing, if Chelsea were doing the same thing
with her prof at Stanford for an A, would you have any problem with that?

But I just can't wait for the State of the Union. It will be Fellini-cubed or
Apocalypse Now tripled in surrealism. I'm just going to love and and record it
for posterity.


Jim Craven






In a message dated 1/17/99 5:12:02 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:2229] Re: Re: Junk Science
 Date:  1/17/99 5:12:02 PM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Henry C.K. Liu)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 MIT is the Hoover Institute of technology.
 It houses a group of social scientists who sole purpose in lfe is to preserve
 science and technology for the exclusive use of the right wing worldwide.
They
 think neo-liberals are communists.
 
 Henry C.K. Liu
 
 Jim Devine wrote:
 
 > At 03:30 PM 1/17/99 +0100, you wrote:
 > >The Wall Street Journal frequently denounces "junk science."  By that they
 > >seem to meen expert testimony that supports seeking damages from some
 > >business.
 > >
 > >Richard Schmalensee, an MIT economist is testifying for Microsoft
 > >in the antitrust trial.  The NY Times quoted him Thursday re whether or
not
 > >Microsoft has a monopoly in operating systems.  He says they don't.  ...
Only
 > >the worst students internalize this garbage and go on to be professors at
 > >MIT.
 >
 > The irony of this is that not only did Richard S testify at the Microsoft
 > trial but so did Franklin Fischer, who is also an econ. prof. at MIT. Guess
 > what? Fischer said _exactly the opposite of what S. said_: MS is a
monopoly.
 >
 > ain't science grand?
 >
 > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
 > http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html
 
 
 
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Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 20:05:11 -0800
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Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

MIT is the Hoover Institute of technology.
It houses a group of social scientists who sole purpose in lfe is to preserve
science and technology for the exclusive use of the right wing worldwide.
They
think neo-liberals are communists.

Henry C.K. Liu

Jim Devine wrote:

> At 03:30 PM 1/17/99 +0100, you wrote:
> >The Wall Street Journal frequently denounces "junk science."  By that they
> >seem to meen expert testimony that supports seeking damages from some
> >business.
> >
> >Richard Schmalensee, an MIT economist is testifying for Microsoft
> >in the antitrust trial.  The NY Times quoted him Thursday re whether or no

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  Thu, 14 Jan 1999 19:24:33 -0500 (EST)
(Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.1960.3)
14 Jan 99 16:24:31 +800
From: "James Michael Craven" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: Clark College, Vancouver WA, USA
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 16:24:16 PST8PDT
Subject: (Fwd) list PEN-L: List Message Rejected

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date:  Thu, 14 Jan 1999 13:31:49 PST
Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:   list PEN-L: List Message Rejected

Dear [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

Your recent message to the PEN-L list has been
rejected for the following reason:

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(Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.1960.3)
14 Jan 99 13:27:49 +800
From: "James Michael Craven" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: Clark College, Vancouver WA, USA
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 13:27:35 PST8PDT
Subject: Information


--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
From:  "Hasart, Tana" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:Campus Master List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:   Information
Date:  Tue, 5 Jan 1999 12:24:19 -0800 

One of the values I hold very high is that of open, honest
communication. For obvious reasons, however, personnel and legal issues
require maintenance of confidentiality. I commit to sharing information
of campus-wide significance when it becomes appropriate. Please
remember, any information shared prior to that time from other sources
may be incomplete or out of context.

TH

Another view:

This sounds to me a lot like the National Security State argument: If 
you only knew what I know, if you only had access to the secret 
information to which I had access, you would understand. but, since 
you don't, take my word for it that any view other than mine is not 
to be trusted.

This commitment to "confidentiality" did not prevent this President 
from publicly proclaiming--and summarily finding on a matter yet to 
be reviewed by this President--that I had indeed put the college "in 
a great deal of liability" and did indeed make "inappropriate use of 
State resources". Since the College "might" have some potential 
liability if I had indeed committed defamation, libel or slander, 
and since truth is an absolute and complete  defense against 
defamation, libel or slander, this summary pronouncement and finding 
basically says that I knowingly, willfully and maliciously told an 
untruth that I knew to be untrue and/or told an untruth with 
wreckless disregard for easily available counter-evidence that would 
expose an untruth as an untruth and that I caused damages in doing 
so (the tests for defamation, libel or slander.) Further, the 
determination that I made "inappropriate use of State resources" comes 
from someone who not only is the reviewer of my grievance (imagine 
the confidence I have in the fairness of any hearing) but also from 
someone who has consistently refused to produce Board-passed 
policies e-mail use, refused to produce proof of how and when those 
policies were communicated--along with penalties for breaches of 
policies--and has not produced examples of people who were similarly 
charged and treated for similar alleged breaches of the purported 
policies.

But since we are talking about "open and honest communications", the 
Independent carried a headline--unrefuted--that said that Dean Fulton 
had "asked" to be reassigned. Was that true? Further, as Dean 
Fulton's contract was up, his pay was extended over the summer to 
make a bridge between paychecks at Clark and at his new place of 
employment; he was supposedly "assigned" to "special tasks". Is that an 
example of open and honest communication?

Just as saying it's so don't make it so applies to me, so it applies to 
others. This is where we need evidence and reasoning and open due 
process and sunlight. Where there is no sunlight, where evidence is 
not collected or valued, where there is no due process, the only 
result will be a climate of demoralization, social darwinism, lies, 
toadying, bullying, high employee turnover rates, malaise and lack of 
productivity and innovation or risk-taking.

Imagine, at Clark, if you have to file a grievance, the grievance is 
heard at Stage I by the administrator who made the determination 
being grieved and then at Stage II it is heard by the President who 
likely was aprised of and approved the determination being grieved.
Then, beyond Stage II the person grieving has to use private funds 
and resour

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(Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.1960.3)
14 Jan 99 16:24:01 +800
From: "James Michael Craven" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: Clark College, Vancouver WA, USA
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 16:23:38 PST8PDT
Subject: (Fwd) list PEN-L: List Message Rejected

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date:  Thu, 14 Jan 1999 13:25:46 PST
Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:   list PEN-L: List Message Rejected

Dear [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

Your recent message to the PEN-L list has been
rejected for the following reason:

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14 Jan 99 13:21:23 +800
From: "James Michael Craven" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: Clark College, Vancouver WA, USA
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 13:21:10 PST8PDT
Subject: Partial Victory

Dear Friends,

I just got word from my union that the College wants another two 
weeks to decide about my ban from contacting some 22 e-mail addresses 
while at work but, the College says that in the interim, I can now 
contact the banned sites. My Colleague Gerry Smith was given full 
permission to contact these e-mail addresses (see petition below) 
while I wait the final disposition.

This would not have happened without the kind and generous support of 
all of you who wrote and protested this action by the College. the 
only limitation on me is that I cannot mention the name of a certain 
person from Canada except in roundabout ways. Of course this only 
adds fuel to the fire as now I can write to the 22 sites while at 
work but we still go through this farce of waiting for a 
determination--perhaps reversing this present exception?

I thank all of you for your support and encouragement. Mr Monahan of 
the Chronicle of Higher Education is presently doing a story on all 
of this and since our administrators are climbers and seeking whole 
new "Peter Principle" levels far beyond their present levels of 
incompetence, I can only hope that the article in the Chronicle of 
Higher Ed will give them the exposure on a national level that they 
so richly deserve.

Again, thanks for all the support and help. I'm back online, tan, 
rested, and ready to flame anyone for any reason--just kidding.
Of course the College views that my having access to the internet is 
like giving Jack-The-Ripper and Avon Route so I'll try my best not to 
disappoint them.

Sorry I couldn't make it to New York; I really wanted to sit down and 
talk with folks there.

Take care,

Jim


--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
From:  "Gerard Donnelley-Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization:  Clark College, Vancouver WA, USA
To:"Associated Students of ClarkCC" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date:  Fri, 8 Jan 1999 18:21:35 PST8PDT
Subject:   Email Addresses for NASC

Concerning my voice mail about blacklisted email addresses for 
James Craven, I have yet to hear your response.  So I am making this 
a very formal request.  As the Co-Advisor for the Native American 
Student Council at Clark College, as founder of the Native 
American Center for Holocaust Studies, and as a teacher of Native 
American Literature, I request permission to send email to ALL the 
addresses that you have told Professor Craven he can't send email to 
or receive email from using campus resources or campus email.  I, like 
Professor Craven, simply wish to be an effective citizen and a role 
model for Clark students.  As a Clark College faculty member I 
believe teachers should take an active role in the political and 
social life of the community, a duty that is specifically noted in 
our faculty contract: indeed prior community involvement is considered 
in our hiring process.  In order to fulfill my contractual 
obligations and to fulfill my duties as NASC advisor, I 
must be given permission to contact the blacklisted persons and 
discussion groups.  In order to protect my academic freedom, I must 
be given access to these groups, and such access should not be 
subject to prior approval.  Because these groups have been 
blacklisted, I have not written them.

Dr. Gerard Donnelley Smith


Gerard Donnelley-Smith
Clark College
Vancouver, Washington
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

classroom.blackboard.net/courses/English131
classroom.blackboard.net/courses/English131
classroom.blackboard.net/courses/CrWriting





 James Craven 
 Dept. of Economics,Clark College
 1800 E. 

[PEN-L:1937] Fwd: The Economist on '98boundary="part0_915266655_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

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Instead of ghosts of chirstmans past, present and future I see signs of the
substance and prophesies and extrapolations of Marx, Engels, Lenin and so many
who stood on their shoulders and/or whose shoulders Marx and others stood on.

This wreckless system, driven by fundamental and derative imperatives related
to profits for power and vice versa, is daily destroyng---far more than
creating--whole societies, Peoples, environments, species and futures on a
mass scale. And the more acquired, the more to lose and therefore the more
vicious to keep the status quo power relations, structures and ideologies.
Without the heading, I thought the stuff below rang a lot like an old "Pravda"
or "Izvestiya".

Next, "The Economist" might have Marx, Engels or Lenin on the cover and offer
a special "Economist" collectable edition of The Communist Manifesto" with
each subscription--or for each teacher that brings in student sibscriptions to
"the Economist." 

Jim Craven



In a message dated 1/1/99 11:19:52 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:1936] The Economist on '98
 Date:  1/1/99 11:19:52 PM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rob Schaap)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 CC:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 G'day all,
 
 A neat summary of the year that was for those not subscribed to *The
 Economist*  (unsolicited plug: it really is a
 good service if you can handle an occasional bout of indignation).  All in
 all, a helluva year, eh? And methinks there's more where this came from:
 
 
  TO THE BRINK
 
   + Global GDP growth fell by half to less than 2% and the world teetered
 on the edge of the WORST FINANCIAL CRISIS since the 1930s. Russia
 defaulted on its domestic debts in August; Long-Term Capital Management,
 a big hedge fund, nearly collapsed. Fears of a global credit crunch
 were eased only after America's Federal Reserve cut interest rates
 three times.
 
 
   + DEFLATION surfaced. In dollar terms, commodity and oil prices sank to
 levels not seen since 1986. In real terms, The Economist industrials
 commodity price index fell to its lowest since the 1930s and oil prices
 to their lowest in 25 years. Even the prices of finished goods fell in
 several countries, squeezing the average inflation rate in the G7
 economies to a 40-year low.
 
 
   + As international capital flows dried up, the EMERGING ECONOMIES
 submerged. Much of East Asia plunged into deep recession; Russia's
 economy imploded; and, by the end of the year, Brazil's economy was
 shrinking, after $30 billion had been spent defending its currency.
 Such was the demand for financial rescues that the IMF almost ran out
 of money; but at the last minute America's Congress approved new funds.
 
 
   + JAPAN'S ECONOMY went from bad to dreadful. By October, it had
 contracted for four quarters in a row, despite umpteen fiscal-stimulus
 packages. The Nikkei average tumbled to 12,880 in October, its lowest
 level for 13 years.
 
 
   + Most of the other RICH ECONOMIES flourished. America's economy expanded
 by an estimated 3.5%, driven by falling import prices and rampant
 consumer spending on the back of stockmarket gains. Wall Street plunged
 by 20% during the summer, but it then recovered, to leave the Dow up 17%
 over the year.
 
 
   + ASIAN BANKS wobbled. In Japan, the passage of a Yen60 trillion ($500
 billion) bank-aid package allowed the government to nationalise Long-
 Term Credit Bank and Nippon Credit Bank, two of the duffest lenders.
 The two insolvent banks had assets equal to 7% of Japan's GDP. In China
 GITIC, a big investment group, collapsed.
 
 
 
 THE URGE TO MERGE
 
   + It was the world's biggest ever year for MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS: they
 surpassed $2.4 trillion, 50% above 1997's total. American companies
 made two-thirds of the deals. Biggest of all in value terms was the
 union of two oil giants, Exxon and Mobil, announced in December: it
 will create the world's biggest company in revenue terms.
 
 
   + About a quarter of deals by volume were CROSS-BORDER. Daimler-Benz, a
 German car maker, joined Chrysler in the largest foreign takeover of an
 American firm. In drugs, parts of the biggest French and German firms,
 Rhone-Poulenc and Hoechst, merged; as did Britain's Zeneca with
 Sweden's Astra.
 
 
   + BIG BANKS got even bigger. Citicorp joined Travelers in the largest
 ever financial-services merger. A week later came news of another
 whopper: the merger of Bank-America and NationsBank to form America's
 second biggest bank. Germany's Deutsche Bank paid $10 billion for
 Bankers Trust, America's ninth biggest, which had been driven into loss
 by the emerging-markets 

[PEN-L:1932] Fwd: Re: Stampeding bison?boundary="part0_915245220_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

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According to John Chief Moon, Spiritual Leader and Elder of the Kainai Piikani
(Blackfoot) and Long Standing Bear Chief of the Peigan Blackfoot, both of whom
are extremely knowledgeable on these matters, these accounts are essentially
correct. When one goes to the "buffalo jumps" near Browning, it is clear that
there were corridors to ensure that there would not be mass or wasteful
killing of bison over the jumps. There was indeed a careful plan of
"sustainability" in terms of the numbers and times of  bison killing. There is
a common Piikani prayer to the Bison for sacrificing their lives for the
people and absolutely nothing is wasted.

On a parenthetical note, of the various Trbies and Nations with whom Lewis and
Clark had contact, only one did armed battle with them--Blackfoot. And it is
celebrated even today at Browning with a memorial suggesting Lewis and Clark
as front-men for eventual genocide.

Jim Craven


In a message dated 12/31/98 2:09:11 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< Subj: [PEN-L:1919] Re: Stampeding bison?
 Date:  12/31/98 2:09:11 PM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Michael Perelman)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 The source for the stampeding bison is Lewis and Clark's Journals.  I found
the
 exerpt in Lewis, Meriwether (1971) 'An Indian Method of Hunting Buffalo',
 extracted from Journals of Lewis and Clark; in Wes Jackson (ed.) Man and the
 Environment (Dubuque, Ia: William. C. Brown & Co).
 
 How trustworthy was there information?
 --
 
 Michael Perelman
 Economics Department
 California State University
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Chico, CA 95929
 530-898-5321
 fax 530-898-5901 >>


--part0_915245220_boundary

Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
  by relay31.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0)
  Thu, 31 Dec 1998 17:09:10 -0500 (EST)
Thu, 31 Dec 1998 14:11:40 -0800 (PST)
[207.115.59.137])
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 14:07:31 -0800
From: Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:1919] Re: Stampeding bison?
 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

The source for the stampeding bison is Lewis and Clark's Journals.  I found
the
exerpt in Lewis, Meriwether (1971) 'An Indian Method of Hunting Buffalo',
extracted from Journals of Lewis and Clark; in Wes Jackson (ed.) Man and the
Environment (Dubuque, Ia: William. C. Brown & Co).

How trustworthy was there information?
--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901


--part0_915245220_boundary--

[PEN-L:1911] American of the Year

[Nativejmc]

AOL continually has all these pop-up windows, scams, ads and votes. So I saw
this "Vote for the American of the Year". I went to the site and it said that
as a result of previous voting, "the field  of candidates" had been narrowed
to Bill, Hillary, Oprah, Christopher Reeve, Mark McGuire, Greenspan,, Mathew
Shepard, John Glenn,  Kenneth Starr and Jesse "The Body" Ventura.

This is really revealing. First of all, just like in the regular elections
with programmed forced choices or restricted menus no "none of the above"
option or in this case even a write-in. No notion of what previous process
resulted in this narrowed and forced menu of "choice".

The I'm trying to find a common denominator to get an idea of what it takes to
be "American of the Year". We got one guy who can talk to Senators conduct
extremely serious business while simultaneously getting a blow job and
straight-faced, bald-faced lie about it. We got his wife whose main
contribution seems to be not divorcing him or doing a Lorena Bobbit on
him--yet. We got an Ayn Randist in charge of money supply who so far hasn't
put in the usual restrictive high unemployment-generating monetary policy that
would put Bill out for sure. We got a guy who "amazes--and is in awe of
--himself" by hitting 70 home runs in baseball. We've got one person who was
the tragic murder victim of two homophobic killers he met in a bar and so his
main contribution seems to be as a victim. We've got another whose most recent
contirbution was a very expensive glory/nostalgia/PR flight in a space
shuttle. We,ve got a very very rich African-American woman with a talk show
that is not nealry as freaky as Jerry Springer (a very rare person and rare
contribution). We've got an actor who while persuing a hobby for the ultra-
rich (aquestrian sports) winds up paralyzed but still trucking around in a
wheelchair. Then we have a Special Prosecutor who as an agent of fascist
forces intent on a coup, has legimitized the use of all sorts of previously
banned words, concepts and practices on the public media--cigar anyone?

Well as usual, the menu was rigged, no chance for a none of the above vote
that would force a whole new election and still no notion of that common
denominator or "right stuff" that makes an "American of the Year." Not even a
write-in possibility or the possibility of selecting someone from the past. So
I finally settled on Jesse "The Body" Ventura the new Governor of Minnesota
and for providing a clear bridge between and metaphor for the worlds of pro-
wrestlling and politics--each a concentrated ard revealing metaphor for the
other (Suits for wrestlers and tights for politicians anyone?)

As usual, the menu off "choice" reveals no real choice as well as some very
serious and very pathological forces and individuals in a very pathological
system that would suggest such criteria of "greatness" and such candidates.

Jim Craven

[PEN-L:1908] Fwd: Daimler's new culture: How wide?boundary="part0_915001664_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

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--part0_915001664_boundary

I believe I saw an announcement like this from Daimler dated around 1933.
Something about high quality engines for German bombers and fighters that
could operate on both sides of the Atlantic. Also something about providin=
g
employment opportunities for slave labor to stirve for higher levels of
productivity to produce a new culture, weltordnung, and weltanschaaung.

Absent at Nuremburg: Krupp Werke, Badische Analin und Sodafabrik, I.G. Far=
ben,
Daimler-Benz Werke, ITT, Texaco, Ford, GM, Standard Oil, Messerschmidt Wer=
ke,
etc.

Jim Craven






In a message dated 12/29/98 9:02:28 PM Pacific Standard Time, valis@EXECPC=
..COM
writes:

<< 
 Does Herr Tropitzsch merely refer to the new company's own 
 corporate culture, or more grandly to a world-shaper's prerogatives?
 
 
  Daily News - 12/08/1998  
 
Treading Carefully Toward a New Culture
Stuttgart, 12/08/1998 - 'We are going to create a new culture,'
DaimlerChrysler Board member Heiner Tropitzsch explained to the German
business newspaper Handelsblatt. Emphasizing the need to tread
carefully on both sides of the Atlantic, he added that cultural
integration must follow the principles of a 'merger of equals.' During
a recent interview, Tropitzsch once again stated that
DaimlerChrysler's goal 'is to become the world's leading and most
successful automotive, transportation and services company.'
 
=A91998 DaimlerChrysler. All rights reserved.
 
 
 
 --- Headers 
 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 Received: from  rly-zc03.mx.aol.com (rly-zc03.mail.aol.com [172.31.33.3])=
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 =09  by rly-zc03.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0)
 =09  Wed, 30 Dec 1998 00:02:25 -0500 (EST)
 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1])
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 Received: from mailgw00.execpc.com (sendmail@[169.207.1.78])
 Received: from earth ([EMAIL PROTECTED] [169.207.16.1])
 Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 16:26:32 -0600 (CST)
 From: valis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 X-Sender: valis@earth
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: [PEN-L:1902] Daimler's new culture: How wide? 
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u id
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  >>



--part0_915001664_boundary

Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
  by rly-zc03.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0)
  Wed, 30 Dec 1998 00:02:25 -0500 (EST)
Tue, 29 Dec 1998 21:03:05 -0800 (PST)
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 16:26:32 -0600 (CST)
From: valis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:1902] Daimler's new culture: How wide? 
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Does Herr Tropitzsch merely refer to the new company's own 
corporate culture, or more grandly to a world-shaper's prerogatives?


 Daily News - 12/08/1998  

   Treading Carefully Toward a New Culture
   Stuttgart, 12/08/1998 - 'We are going to create a new culture,'
   DaimlerChrysler Board member Heiner Tropitzsch explained to the German
   business newspaper Handelsblatt. Emphasizing the need to tread
   carefully on both sides of the Atlantic, he added that cultural
   integration must follow the principles of a 'merger of equals.' During
   a recent interview, Tropitzsch once again stated that
   DaimlerChrysler's goal 'is to become the world's leading and most
   successful automotive, transportation and services company.'

   ©1998 DaimlerChrysler. All rights reserved.


--part0_915001664_boundary--

[PEN-L:1907] Fwd: (Fwd) Twas The Night Before Impeachmentboundary="part0_914996460_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

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--part0_914996460_boundary

In a message dated 12/29/98 9:31:14 AM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< j:(Fwd) Twas The Night Before Impeachment
 Date:  12/29/98 9:31:14 AM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (James Michael Craven)
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 --- Forwarded Message Follows ---
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 From:  "Robert Ward" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 Subject:   Twas The Night Before Impeachment
 Organization:  Angelfire  (http://email.angelfire.com:80)
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 >" TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE IMPEACHMENT "
 >byChris Duel
 >
 > 'Twas The Night Before Impeachment, when all through the House,
 > All the Congress was stirring, even Gingrich, the louse.
 >
 > The Articles were hung by the Capitol with care,
 > In hopes that Saint Bubba would be trapped in the lair.
 >
 > The Republicans were nestled, all smug with The Feds,
 > While visions of perjury danced in their heads.
 >
 > And Barr with his rhetoric and Hyde with his trap,
 > Had just settled in for a long evening's nap.
 >
 > When out in The Gulf, there arose such a clatter
 > They clicked on CNN to see what was the matter.
 >
 > When what to their wondering eyes should appear
 > But Tomahawk cruise missiles flying like reindeer.
 >
 > With a Presidential address, so lively and quick,
 > They knew in a moment, it must be Saint Slick!
 >
 > More rapid than eagles, his supporters they came,
 > And he whistled and shouted and called them by name:
 >
 > "Now Conyers, now Gephardt, let's forget about The Vixen!
 > On Barney!  On Maxine!  I'm no Richard Nixon!!!"
 >
 > "From Capitol Hill to the Washington Mall,
 > Now dash away, dash away, dash away all !!!"
 >
 > And then the Republicans heard on the roof
 > The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
 >
 > As they scratched their heads and were turning around
 > The resilient Saint Willie scored another rebound.
 >
 > No longer was he eating from his humble pie,
 > While assaulting Saddam with his bombs from the sky.
 >
 > A bundle of weapons he had flung at Iraq,
 > It looked once again like "The Prez" had bounced back.
 >
 > His eyes, how they twinkled!  His dimples, how merry!
 > His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry.
 >
 > His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
 > And the hair on his head was as white as the snow.
 >
 > The stump of a stogie, he held tight in his teeth,
 > And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.
 >
 > He had a broad face and a little round belly
 > That shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly.
 >
 > He was chubby and plump - a right jolly old elf,
 > And the Republicans wept, in spite of themselves.
 >
 > And a wink of his eye and a twist of his head
 > Soon gave them to know they had something to dread.
 >
 > He spoke the right words and went straight to his work
 > Hard to believe that an Intern once called him "The Jerk."
 >
 > And shaking his finger and thumbing his nose,
 > By "Wagging The Dog," up the polls he rose.
 >
 > He turned to his spinmeisters and gave them a whistle,
 > Then they cheered-on "The Prez" as he launched another missile.
 >
 > They all heard him exclaim, with Impeachment out of sight,
 > "Happy Ramadan to all, and to all a good night."
 >
 
 
 Angelfire for your free web-based e-mail. http://www.angelfire.com
 
  James Craven 
  Dept. of Economics,Clark College
  1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. Vancouver, WA. 98663
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Tel: (360) 992-2283 Fax: 992-2863
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-
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and 
 property shall never be taken from them without their consent." 
 (Northwest Ordinance, 1787, Ratified by Congress 1789)
 
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 *My Employer  has no association with My Private and Protected Opinion*
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[PEN-L:1895] Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Vicious Holiday Sillinessboundary="part0_914870452_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

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In a message dated 12/28/98 10:24:01 AM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< I was wondering: is the word "philistine"  a version of the word
 "Palestine"? (That's why I put this negative term in quotation marks.)
 
 Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
 http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html >>

Response: Indeed it--the term "Philistine"--is the origin of the modern
Palestinian just as the ancient Philistines are considered descendants of the
modern Palestinians who stood versus Caananites in various Biblical accounts.
The perjorative aspects of the term "philistine" and the slurs associated with
the term to the point that the term "philistine" itself became a slur
embodying--as a kind of shorthand--a set of other slurs (mercenary, pecuniary,
lacking in good taste and graces, crass materialistic etc) go way back. But
suffice to say that many Palestinians--and non-Palestinians--know the popular
or vulgar use and know that most who use it are unaware of the ethnic
orgins/implications, but nonetheless feel that it can be likened to terms like
"Jewing down", "Gypping or Gypped",
etc. After all, no one says "Caananite capitalists" or "The Pawnbroker 'Anglo-
Saxoned me down from the price I should have got.

Just as a point of history and clarification in response to your question and
in no way intended as a criticism off use of term quite obviously used with no
intent to slur any group

Jim Craven

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be forged))
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 10:16:43 -0800
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:1894] Re: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Vicious Holiday Silliness
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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I wrote: > Scrooge represented the narrowest of the grasping capitalists, the
> narrow-minded "philistine,"  at least to Dickens.

Jim Craven writes:
>Exactly. Just as the title might suggest an invitation to parody or a la
>critical thinking, maybe Scrooge in addition to being a metaphor for the
>greedy and philistine exploiter capitalist, as also not much of a hypocrite
>about it--screwed people for 365 days a year without taking a couple of days
>off for some commercialized-albeit "sacred"--event or holiday.

good point. 

I was wondering: is the word "philistine"  a version of the word
"Palestine"? (That's why I put this negative term in quotation marks.)

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html


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In a message dated 12/27/98 6:37:25 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< At 08:59 PM 12/27/98 -0500, you wrote:
 >Happy Holidays to All eventhough personally I think that Scrooge was an
 >advanced thinker.
 
 Scrooge represented the narrowest of the grasping capitalists, the
 narrow-minded "philistine,"  at least to Dickens.
 
 Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
 http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html >>

Exactly. Just as the title might suggest an invitation to parody or a la
critical thinking, maybe Scrooge in addition to being a metaphor for the
greedy and philistine exploiter capitalist, as also not much of a hypocrite
about it--screwed people for 365 days a year without taking a couple of days
off for some commercialized-albeit "sacred"--event or holiday.

Anyway, just musing.

Jim Craven


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be forged))
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 18:32:18 -0800
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:1886] Re: Fwd: Re: Vicious Holiday Silliness
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

At 08:59 PM 12/27/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Happy Holidays to All eventhough personally I think that Scrooge was an
>advanced thinker.

Scrooge represented the narrowest of the grasping capitalists, the
narrow-minded "philistine,"  at least to Dickens.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html


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Happy Holidays to All eventhough personally I think that Scrooge was an
advanced thinker.

My daughter is learning alternatives early.  For example, to the tune of God
Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen:

God rest ye merry merchants
let nothing you dismay
Christmas is the time of year
to make the workers stay
in debt throughout the coming year
Thank God for charge accounts
Our profits bring comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
Our profits bring comfort and joy

Mind you, the parents of other children think she is a victim of child abuse
but I call it early ideological propholaxis.

Jim Craven



n a message dated 12/27/98 4:37:26 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

<< ubj:  [PEN-L:1884] Re: Vicious Holiday Silliness
 Date:  12/27/98 4:37:26 PM Pacific Standard Time
 From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Bohmer)
 Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 Hi Gar, Happy Holidays to you and your mom, Peter
 
 Gar Lipow wrote:
 
 > For some reason this season made me think not about the real meaning
 > of Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, Ramadan, Solstice or any other
 > holiday, but about the real meaning of Santa Claus --  and all the
 > valuable lesson Santa teaches for living in corporate America.
 >
 > Think about what a kid learns on first discovering there are is no
 > Santa Claus. She learns (if she does not already know) that authority
 > figures lie, and that lies by authority figures are good lies, lies
 > you are rewarded for believing, lies you should go believing for as
 > long as possible.
 >
 > If (as is usual) it is another kid who tells her there is no Santa ,
 > she learns that those who expose the lies of authority figures are
 > wicked destroyers of innocence, that the proper response to learning
 > that an authority figure has lied is to protect others from the awful
 > truth.
 > --
 > Gar W. Lipow
 > 815 Dundee RD NW
 > Olympia, WA 98502
 > http://www.freetrain.org/
 
 
 
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Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 16:34:16 -0800
From: Peter Bohmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:1884] Re: Vicious Holiday Silliness
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Hi Gar, Happy Holidays to you and your mom, Peter

Gar Lipow wrote:

> For some reason this season made me think not about the real meaning
> of Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, Ramadan, Solstice or any other
> holiday, but about the real meaning of Santa Claus --  and all the
> valuable lesson Santa teaches for living in corporate America.
>
> Think about what a kid learns on first discovering there are is no
> Santa Claus. She learns (if she does not already know) that authority
> figures lie, and that lies by authority figures are good lies, lies
> you are rewarded for believing, lies you should go believing for as
> long as possible.
>
> If (as is usual) it is another kid who tells her there is no Santa ,
> she learns that those who expose the lies of authority figures are
> wicked destroyers of innocence, that the proper response to learning
> that an authority figure has lied is to protect others from the awful
> truth.
> --
> Gar W. Lipow
> 815 Dundee RD NW
> Olympia, WA 98502
> http://www.freetrain.org/


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[PEN-L:1847] Fwd: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Redutio ad Absurdumboundary="part0_914356735_boundary"

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No, unlike Bill's, my apology is sincere and as for close to Bill's, well you
know the rest..."close but no cigar".

But you know, reductio ad absurdum/nauseum as a instrument of rhetoric and
reasoning does not so much suggest analogy as to expore the inner and perhaps
hidden nature and consequences of a thing by extrapolating the inexorable or
likely consequences if given "principles", "axioms" and "concepts" are
consistently and universally applied. That is the spirit in which it is used
rather than to suggest that the nazis were holding seminars and praticums on
Walras, Pareto or even Hayek to construct marginalist calculations and general
"equilibria" schemes and orders.

But I really did like Wotjek's comments and about the  illusions of "choice".
As the new inmates came to Auschwitz they were greeted with the monstrous
grand illusion "Arbeit Macht Frei" implying the "choice" to either directly
die or survive through work. Of course the work itself was designed not only
to produce but to degrade and kill through other means. A lot of capitalism is
like that.

Enough of my analogies already--for now.

Jim Craven
 

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be forged))
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 11:35:12 -0800
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [PEN-L:1844] Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Redutio ad Absurdum
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa for any overreach on mym part or for
not making the extent of any analogy clear.<

you don't need to apologize as much as this! (Watch out: you'll start
sounding like Bill Clinton.)

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html

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To Jim Devine's reposne I have to agree. There is a real danger in
trivializing the most horrible with analogy overreach or fallcy of "proof" by
analogy. On the other hand, Auschwitz was an inexorable result--not a
beginning--of a system of twisted logic, imperatives, interests and power
structures that progressively unfolded from post WWI--and even before--on.

The captured SS document does indeed embody the cold and sterile and inhuman
kinds of "calculus of rationality, optimality, efficiency, general
equilibrium--order"-- and hypothetico deductivism quite common in marginalism
and neoclassical tracts. Further the trite disctinction between "normative"
and "positive" as well as the sterile models was also being alluded to.

But the point is very well taken; false analogies or overreach can indeed
trivialize the most montrous and put them on the plane of the comonplace. But
then let's take the principle one more step: not to see clear parallels or
analogies--e.g. the one and only one true Holocaust or the one and one only
true victims concept--also trivializes the commonly known/referred to
Holocaust along with the commonly known/referred to victims and not commonly
known/not commonly referred to victims.

On one more note, the foundations--legal, social, moral, economic, political,
cultural--of fascism in Germany as well as every other known past and present
case of fascism are progressively laid well before the full asumption of State
power by fascists. Typically those laying the foundations do so under banners
of "conservativism", let markets do what markets do (at the level of rhetoric
only) and the core principles of the Bruning, Von Pappen and Von Schleicher
regimes that were instrumental in laying the foundations of fascism in Germany
presented the rhetoric of capitalist-driven efficiency with which most
neoclassicals would have had no problem rationalizing at the theoretical
level.

But the comment and exception of Jim Devine remains important and very
necessary. Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa for any overreach on mym part or for
not making the extent of any analogy clear.

Jim Craven

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be forged))
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 09:25:22 -0800
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:1839] Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Redutio ad Absurdum
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Jim Craven writes: >The reason I see Auschwitz as an inexorable
metaphor/expression of
>libertarianism is on the plane of the sterile, cold, calculating, selfish
>calculus of maximization, "optimality", "efficiency" dog-eat-dog and rat-race
>individualism embodied in the libertarian perspective coupled with the de
jure
>illusions of  market-driving "choice" hiding the tyrrany and brutality of
>market-based de facto realities and consequences on the many in service of
the
>profits/power of the few.

I for one am really tired of Nazi analogies, like one that showed up awhile
back on pen-l comparing (now exiting) California Governor Pete Wilson to
the Nazis. Sure he's a horrible person and probably deserves to be forced
to live in Pelican Bay (one of the prisons he built) for a month or more to
see what he hath wrought. But he's no Nazi. (I bring up that analogy in
hopes that I don't have to repeat my arguments from a previous thread.)

The problem with the overused Nazi analogy is not only the fallacy of
argument by analogy (i.e., that saying that Wilson is like the Nazis
ignores the way in which Wilson is _not_ like the Nazis).  It's also that
the excessive use of the Nazi analogy slowly but surely undermines the
horror of the Nazis and their rule. I can imagine someone thinking: oh, the
Nazis must not have been so bad, if they're only as bad as Pete Wilson.
(Similarly, when a young man "cops a feel" of his date's breast, calling it
"date rape" threatens to undermine the meaning of rape.) We should try to
avoid excess rhetoric.

Getting back to the issue of false analogies as applied to the comparison
between markets and Auschwitz, there's a clear difference between the two,
summarized by Marx's phrase "commodity fetishism."  An explicit despotism
like Auschwitz lacks it. The market -- commodity production -- hides the
class despotism (the monopolization of the means of production and
subsistence by a small minority of the population, so that the majority has
little choice but to work for the minority, producing surplus value).
People living in a "market system" usually see it as a "natural" process
and suffer from what Marx termed "the illusions created by competition"
(which is basically the same as com. fet.), concluding that rent is
produced by land or the scarcity of a resou

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IMHO this is wonderfully argued and quite historically accurate--and an
excellent and concentrated metaphor. The libertarian "voluntarism" is the a
priori, hypothetico-deductivist or de jure coupled with no notion or
concern--summarily assuming away--for the de facto effects and realities. Some
small "concessions" to "asymmetric" information or "asymmetric" factor
mobility with "given" initial resource endowments and "given" institutions,
and no concession or even mention of class, race, gender, history, power, we
get the grand tautology "everything tends to the best in the best of all
worlds." Deviations or failures are simply ascribed to the anthropomorphized
market not being market-like; in order words, the answer to any "failures" of
market-based processes and illusory choices is simply more and "more free"
markets and illusory choices.

The reason I see Auschwitz as an inexorable metaphor/expression of
libertarianism is on the plane of the sterile, cold, calculating, selfish
calculus of maximization, "optimality", "efficiency" dog-eat-dog and rat-race
individualism embodied in the libertarian perspective coupled with the de jure
illusions of  market-driving "choice" hiding the tyrrany and brutality of
market-based de facto realities and consequences on the many in service of the
profits/power of the few.

Jim Craven



In a message dated 12/22/98 7:25:24 AM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:

<< he absurdity of the voluntarism requirement becomes evident that the case
 for "voluntary" participation can be made in virtually _any_ situation,
 even Auschwitz.  The fact of the matter is that people (Jews & others)
 often _volunteered_ for the camps, duped by the Nazi deceptive advertising
 them as "resettlement."  The victims were led to believe that they would be
 resettled to Eastern Europe and given a chance to work.  To be certain, the
 Nazis fulfilled that part of their promises - they merely added an
 unadvertised special, the gas chamber.
 
 Moreover, Judenrat - the Nazi administration of Jewish affairs staffed by
 Jews - often participated in spreading that deception.  They believed that
 if they cooperate with the nazis they will demonstrate the usefulness of at
 least some part of the Jewish population for the Nazi war machine and thus
 save them form the extermination.  
  >>


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  Tue, 22 Dec 1998 10:25:19 -0500 (EST)
Tue, 22 Dec 1998 07:25:01 -0800 (PST)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 10:23:25 -0500
Subject: [PEN-L:1830] Re: Re: Redutio ad Absurdum
In-reply-to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

At 04:36 PM 12/21/98 -0800, Ken Hanly wrote:
>This is quite a different situation than people voluntarily trading to an 
>equilibrium in a market. No libertarian would approve of Auschwitz. It is
a clear 
>violation of rights. Jews didn't voluntarily work in the labor camps or go
to the 
>gashouses as a result of some trade. 


The issue of voluntarism is a smokescreen to coverup the totalitarian
nature of the market institution.  It is totalitarian because, as you
correctly point out in the remainder of your post, it makes decisions based
on value, that is, accumulated wealth - hence the haves will always
prevail.  Voluntarism, on th eother hand stpulates the excuse "people
apparently accept that state of affairs" - hence th emarket seems to be a
morally good institution.

The absurdity of the voluntarism requirement becomes evident that the case
for "voluntary" participation can be made in virtually _any_ situation,
even Auschwitz.  The fact of the matter is that people (Jews & others)
often _volunteered_ for the camps, duped by the Nazi deceptive advertising
them as "resettlement."  The victims were led to believe that they would be
resettled to Eastern Europe and given a chance to work.  To be certain, the
Nazis fulfilled that part of their promises - they merely added an
unadvertised special, the gas chamber.

Moreover, Judenrat - the Nazi administration of Jewish affairs staffed by
Jews - often participated in spreading that deception.  They believed that
if they cooperate with the nazis they will demonstrate the usefulness of at
least some part of the Jewish population for the Nazi war machine and thus
save them form the extermination.  

So the case can be made that the camps were to some degree voluntary - if
only resulting from constraining of other alternatives and deceptive
advertising.  But that is standard business practice under capitalism, no?

Heil Market!

Wojtek


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On the comments blow, my own comments are:

a) I can think of a long list of "non-democratic"/anti-democratic regimes set
up and social systems engineered as non-democratic/anti-democratic regimes in
the service of US and other imperial interests; in fact those imperial
interests are secured and expanded through these alliances/regimes. And as for
the so-called "democratic" regimes, well there we get into de jure versus de
facto and what do thse labels really mean.

b) How about a variation on the celebrated marginal productivity theory where
instead of each "factor" being "rewarded" according to its marginal revenue
product or marginal contribution to the value of total output, perhaps each
"nation" is responsible to absorb/dispose of/recycle--on its own soil--a
portion of global pullutants proportionate to its "marginal contribution" to
global pollution? Something like "no marginal benefits" without proportionate
"marginal costs"?

c) Unfortunately, global jetstreams. ocean currents, atomspheric patterns,
topsoil erosion flows, rivers, migrating populations, epidemiological patterns
etc are poor at recognizing nations and national boundaries. In economics and
politics and other spheres, where do the limits of a given economy or society
really begin and end?

d) The isolated car in a rural setting without anti-pollution equipment very
rapidly becomes the clone of many in cogested and polluted urban settings
under the dynamics of capitalism and capitalist-driven globalization. As for
choices about optimal allocations of scarce resources consistent with "social"
needs and imperatives, well that calculation rarrely if ever occurs or is
intended in market-based calculations--except when system-threatening crises
emerge.

e) The rich who run the so-called "developed countries" are in some ways like
the affluent running to the surburbs to build insulated "communities", higfher
and more electrified fences, hiring private security and screening the hired
help with hidden videos while keeping them poorly paid and at arms length.
Eventually oppression, misery, disease, poverty bring resistance and mobility.
Then no walls can be built ilt high enough, no electrical field will be strong
enough, no security guards tough or trustworthy enough, no national borders
secure enough and no imperial forces enough in numbers and force to hold off
the "hoards" coming on many fronts. It is a question of imperatives and
necessity eventually exposing and checking hubris and power. That's why I like
the Titanic metaphor/allegory so much. Yes more rich got out and had a greater
chance of survival than second-class and steerage, but they went down
also--playing cards and listening to music certain the ship would never sink
while it sank all around them.

e) Out of 73 targerted EPA toxic waste sites, 72 were on Indian Reservations.
There is also the matter of International Law, Common Law of Nations, the
Vienna convention and other standards (UN Convention on Genocide) and even
bourgoeis rights held sacred that can be used and will be used to limit major
pollutors contributing more hubris than their proportionate contributions to
global pollution and far ess clean-up responsibilities/costs than their
marginal contributions to global pollution that are at each others throats as
well as alienating and marginalizing large segments of the global community;
their own sacreds call into question the very properties and behaviors they
purport to protect;

Just some thoughts.

Jim Craven

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Mon, 21 Dec 1998 21:01:16 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 20:58:03 -0800
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Brad De Long <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:1821] Re: Environmental Quality in Developing Countries
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

I'm not going to defend Lant Pritchett's inept and overwritten memo, or
Lawrence Summers' signing it (although I would note that
Summers-as-academic is known for giving credit to RAs and elevating them to
co-author and lead-author status much more than most of his ilk).

But there is a serious issue here. In Ghana--where 60% of the urban
population has no access to the sewer system, where 70% of energy still
comes from burning wood and charcoal (and where rain acidity as a result at
times reaches Black Forest levels), where 40% of people drink contaminated
water, and where 15% of people suffer from waterborne diseases--should
taxicabs have to have catalytic converters installed?

The "no" argument is that it adds $700 or so to the cost of the automobile.
That $700 could--if it were used wisely--be devoted to upgrading the sewer
system, or building a water purification plant, or expanding the electrical
grid so that smoke emi

[PEN-L:1820] One more comment

[Nativejmc]

The Columbian article failed to explicitly note that not only have I filed a
grievance, but per Clark College processes, my first level of appeal goes to
none other than Vice-president Ramsey ("please Mr. Himmler, at least fairly
consider the possibility thant anti-Semitism is evil and even
counterproductive") and then to Dr. Hasart who has already stated in the
article that: "...Craven's comments also put the College in a great deal of
liability." That means, through the representation of an attorney for Mr.
Annett (no name yet produced) and through the e-mails of Mr. Annett (without
even one example of alleged defamatory comments and none sent to the
reporter), the President knowing that truth is an absolute and complete
defense to slander or libel, has concluded--my future Stage II appeal
authority--that there is credible evidence that a) If I committed slander or
libel the College would have legal exposure; b) that there is credible
evidence that I did knowingly tell an untruth and/or told an untruth with
wreckless disregard for counter-evidence/argument that would easily expose
the untruth for what it is and, that I did so with malice and caused damages.
Because if what I said was true or asserted on the basis of good-faith
attempts for supporting and contradictory evidence--and that was attested to
by those who have direct and personal knowledge and evidence--then the College
has not potential threat of liability.

This is who I am supposed to appeal to and I have already been summarily
judged and convicted of "inappropriate use of state resources" and
"defamation." This is the level of "due process" at Clark--your appeal judges
are the ones that made the original determinations being appealed. Free speech
and academic freedom are of course "inconvenient" and bothersome--except for
themselves--for despots, megalomaniacs, narcissists and thugs.

Jim Craven

[PEN-L:1818] Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Reductio Ad/Absurdum/Nauseum/Inhumboundary="part0_914300637_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--part0_914300637_boundary

Response: And at the risk of being charged with "excessive teleology",
contexts and interests and contradictions shape contextual imperatives that
shape, constrain and trigger behaviors and postures. In my classes I bring in
Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" how a professor of Psychiatry and
holder of the Freud Chair in Psychiatry at University of Vienna could have his
whole life turned upside down, wind up as a laborer in three of the nazis
worst death camps, see his wife taken off to an SS brothel and enter a world
where the "unimaginable" became quite "imaginable". We then go into some
exercises such as I tell them that I have decided to grade on a curve and
therefore only 10% have any chances of an A, next 15% B, next 50% C, next 15%
D and bottom 10% are doomed to an F. After they are suitably freaked out, I
say that if I decide to maintain that system, would you be more or less likely
to cooperate with anyone but the very best and mosthelpful toward copping an
A? Am I not summarily creating--through power--a shortage of possible "A"'s?
(and F's) Would it be "rational" or "maximizing potential for A per unit of
half-effort" or "efficient" to cooperate with or help someone in need of help
with the subject? Would it be "rational" to be honest if others were cheating?
Would it be "optimizing" and maximizing to include human and non-commodified
factors in CBA parameters and calculations?

Then I ask them what would be different if I set absolute standards and would
be prepared--glad--to give all A's for all those who met those standards? Now
would it be efficient and maximizing to help somone in need of peer help? Yes,
because in teaching others often one is forced to really think about,
deconstruct, reconstruct and integrate aspects of the subject and one is
invariably hleped by helping others and further, with no curve, helping
someone up doesn't necessarily drag someone else down. Would it be efficient
and maximizing not to cheat when others are--depends on what is in your
utility function.

The point is that the system with its own internal constraints, power
structures, logic/illogic, dynamics and trajectories, institutions etc, shapes
certain contexts and contextual imperatives--and definition--of "survival" and
"success". Step outside --or smash--the system for any chance of new and more
humane forms and levels of behavior
to have any chance of taking hold except on the margins and with considerable
sacrifice.
The neoclassical paradigm is indeed the logic/illogic of profits for power and
power for profits as a concentrated--and metaphorical or
allegorical--expression/servant of those codeterminate imperatives.

Jim Craven

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Mon, 21 Dec 1998 19:42:30 -0800 (PST)
From: "Patrick Bond" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 22:47:40 +
Subject: [PEN-L:1817] Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Reductio Ad/Absurdum/Nauseum/Inhum
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In-reply-to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Yes, how now can Summers begin to pass the buck? My own (perhaps 
imperfect) information is that a) the memo was leaked to Greenpeace 
by an environmental economist in the Bank, who shall go nameless, who 
had lost enough debates with Summers to express her/his frustration 
in such a manner; and b) this was considered such serious stuff in 
Washington that on the grounds of the memo, Gore nuked Summers to be 
WB prez in early 1995. Summers covering up for his ghost-writer is 
not a convincing denouement. The memo was so great precisely 
because it was, and is, so very plausible (so much so that it got the 
Economist's blessing for impeccable argumentation).

> From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Response: That is exactly right. Summers later claimed it was his own kind
of
> "reductio ad absurdum/nauseum" exercise he was doing. The problem is that
that
> memo had been widely circulated and quoted internally--seriously--before it
> was released in The Economist and further, the sterile calculations (we
> economists shouldn't be raising "normative" issues) and the hubris embodied
in
> that Eichmann-like memo are quite consistent with other known memos--and
> work--of Summers. It does indeed represent "Welfare" economics--and
> libertarianism--taken reductio ad absurdum/nauseum/inhumanum.


--part0_914300637_boundary--

[PEN-L:1811] marginalism uber alles

[Nativejmc]

The following is an exact reproduction (with translation) of a captured 
SS document at Auschwitz.

 Rentabilitatsberechnung der SS uber Ausnutzung
   der Haftlinge in den Konzentratrationslagern
(Table of Profits (or yield) per prisoner in conentration camps (established
by SS)

 Rentabilitatsberechnung (Rental Accounting)

Taglicher Verleihlohn durchschnittlich  RM
6,--
(Average income from rental of prisoner per day) 

abzuglich Ernahrung RM--,60
Deduction for nourishment, per day)

durchschnittl Lebensdauer 9 Mt= 270 x  RM 5,30 = RM 1431
(Average life expectancy: 9 months:)   270 [days] x RM 5,30

abzuglich Bekl. Amort. RM--,10
(Minus amortization on clothing)_

Erlos aus rationeller Verwertung der Leiche:
(Profits from rational utilization of corpse)

1. Zahngold (Gold teeth)3. Wertsachen (Articles of
value)

 2. Kleidung (Clothing)   4. Geld (Money)

abzuglich Verbrennungskosten   RM 2-
(Minus costs of cremation)

durchschnittlicher Nettogewinn
RM-200   
(Average net profit)

Gesamtgewinn nach 9 MonatenRM 1631
(Total profit after 9 months)

zuzuglich Erlos aus Knochen und Aschenverwertung
(This estimate does not include profits from sale of bones and ashes)

Jim Craven

[PEN-L:1806] Fwd: Redutio ad Absurdumboundary="part0_914277192_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--part0_914277192_boundary

Interesting argument below. However, I would prefer not to repeat one
neoclassical fiction (market rewards individuals according to their relative
marginal contributions to social product) in the course of exploring others.
Also, embargoes such as those against Cuba and Iraq suggest that some
operating "in the market" do indeed will and desire--for others--starvation
ass an instrument of imperial policy and control.

But your example is indeed intriguing.

Jim Craven

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Mon, 21 Dec 1998 11:50:41 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: 
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 11:11:21 -0800
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Brad De Long <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:1792] Redutio ad Absurdum
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

>"I do a little number in my Micro classes called "Pareto Optimality at
>Auschwitz" ... "
>
>Way back, I changed degrees half a semester into an education/economics
>degree.  Those who purported to teach how to teach couldn't teach, and
>those who purported to explain human behaviour weren't talking about
>anybody I knew - well, not then, anyway.
>
>Maybe I wasn't as lucky with my teachers as your students so obviously are.
>
>Maybe too many of us weren't.
>
>All the best,
>Rob.

I think famines work better--they make the point that if your labor-time
endowment has no value, then your utility has no weight in the social
welfare function that the market maximizes, and so you starve to death: the
market's equilibrium weighs each person's preferences roughly by the market
value of his/her endowment.

I think famines work better because starvation is not a willed and desired
objective of anyone in the market--while mass death certainly was a willed
and desired objective of those who ran the show during the "final
solution." "Final solution" examples leave people thinking, "yes, this
market-as-a-social-allocation-mechanism does indeed efficiently produce the
goals that society has chosen." Famine examples--I think, at least--probe a
little bit deeper because the market also plays a powerful role in
"choosing" "society's" "goals."


Brad DeLong


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[PEN-L:1805] Fwd: RE summers makes senseboundary="part0_914276527_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--part0_914276527_boundary

Could someone put out the infamous Summers Memo on pen-l. My copy is buried
somewhere and I don't have a scanner yet (Karl M. Klaus might bring me one).
It is a sight to behold.

Basically Frank, it says that when you calculate the marginal private costs
plus social costs (lost incomes, tax revenues etc) versus the marginal
benefits of dumping radiation, toxic chemicals and garbage on poor people--who
don't have that much to lose and whose "marginal productivities and
contributions to society are not that much--and then compare marginal private
and social costs of dumping pollution on people in the "affluent countries",
well, a la "division of labor" and marginal efficiency and the sterile
calculus of marginalism buer alles, it just makes economic sense for the
people of the affluent countries to be the pollutors and dumpers while the
poor of the poor countries "specialize" in being the dumpees--for which they
can be "rewarded" according to their marginal contributions in pollution
abatement and providing dumping sites and eventually work their way up to
becoming dumpers and polluters and enen more and marginalized poor people and
nations becoming the new "specialists" or recipients/dumpees of pollution,
toxic waste, used batteries and tires etc etc. That was the gist of it. The
Economist published it and initially took the argument as serious and
"rational".

Jim Craven

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[204.210.64.11])
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: "Frank Durgin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "pen-1" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:1790] RE summers makes sense
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 14:40:03 -0500
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

OK.  I know its going to get me sent to the back of the room to sit in the=
 
dunce seat and wear the dunce hat, but I have to ask

What is  this infamous "Summers Memo" 

Frank



--part0_914276527_boundary--

[PEN-L:1783] Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: ReductioAd/Absurdum/Nauseum/Inhumanumboundary="part0_914261766_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--part0_914261766_boundary

Thanks Rob,

Some of my students--and the Administration--however, feel that I am number
one candidate for being the "Anti-Christ". They keep looking for 666 tatooed
on me somewhere. Some of the ultra-rightist students go ballistic. But then
again, right before a recent accreditation visit, the Admin went all over
campus putting up plaques in every classroom saying--lying--that we are
committed to and actually practicing the following "campus-wide abilities":
Effective Citizenship, Global/Multicultural Awareness, Information/Technology
Awareness, Life-long Learning, Critical thinking/Problem Solving and Effective
Communication. These typical bureaucrats think they can put up some plaque of
ill-defined "abilities" and that makes it so and also automatically certifies
the teachers competent to teach them. Under "Effective Citizenship" they put
the ability to "respect" diverse points of view (nothing about actually doing
something). So I suggested that since all points of view were being held to be
equal and worthy of respect (as opposed to even "respect" for the right to
hold a given--bullshit--point of view) I would be changing my texts to Mein
Kampf and the Selected Works of Stalin and that a portion of my class would
include some of the "positive" benefits of genocide. Well you can imagine how
that went over.

Fucking amateurs, pretenders, posturers, style-over-substance oligarchs with
no sense of humor or their own hubris and incompetence.

Jim Craven

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[137.92.41.41])
(EDT)
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 04:04:28 +1100
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Rob Schaap <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:1780] Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Reductio
 Ad/Absurdum/Nauseum/Inhumanum
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

G'day Jim,

You'd written:

"I do a little number in my Micro classes called "Pareto Optimality at
Auschwitz" ... "

Way back, I changed degrees half a semester into an education/economics
degree.  Those who purported to teach how to teach couldn't teach, and
those who purported to explain human behaviour weren't talking about
anybody I knew - well, not then, anyway.

Maybe I wasn't as lucky with my teachers as your students so obviously are.

Maybe too many of us weren't.

All the best,
Rob.



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[PEN-L:1779] Fwd: Re: Re: Reductio Ad/Absurdum/Nauseum/Inhumanumboundary="part0_914258616_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--part0_914258616_boundary

Response: That is exactly right. Summers later claimed it was his own kind of
"reductio ad absurdum/nauseum" exercise he was doing. The problem is that that
memo had been widely circulated and quoted internally--seriously--before it
was released in The Economist and further, the sterile calculations (we
economists shouldn't be raising "normative" issues) and the hubris embodied in
that Eichmann-like memo are quite consistent with other known memos--and
work--of Summers. It does indeed represent "Welfare" economics--and
libertarianism--taken reductio ad absurdum/nauseum/inhumanum.

I do a little number in my Micro classes called "Pareto Optimality at
Auschwitz" setting up some "givens" (Given that the ugly nature and
consequences of fascism represent a "Normative" issue we shouldn't discuss,
and given that inmates are not people when considering reaching the point of
not being able to make any "person" better off without necessarily making
another "person" worse off etc), and "given" that "efficiency" (technological
+ economic = production efficiency; production + consumer + exchange =
allocative efficiency) is only a technical matter (the nature and consequences
of the output , the nature and consequences of input and production functions
have no ethical or moral dimensions that can be considered from a "positive"
point of view)...

Since virtually all texts purport to show that "efficiency" is good and
enhanced "efficiency" is always better, in addition to "showing" how the inner
system-defining endogenous processes and institutions of capitalism produce
enhanced "efficiency" , maximization, optimization, "liberty", individual
utility preference expression/attainment etc...I use that as an expository
device to explore the "hypothetico-deductivism", contrived syllogisms,
tautologies and "positivist" axioms of the neoclassical paradigm. We also get
into mechanical histeresis and "endogenizing exogeneity" and the possiblity of
even specifying any "one" equilibrium position as well as the
ideological/interests-served implications of the model.

I use portions of the Eichmann Trial and Albert Speer etc and ask the class to
translate the concepts into marginal private and social opportunity cost
versus "benefits" calculations. At the end, the classes get what is not in the
book (for which they are all responsible on exams in addition to what is in
the text and readings).

I did the final technical/writing review of Dave Colander's Economics 3rd
Edition and urged Dave to include something like "Pareto Optimality at
Auschwitz" or another "Microeconomics of the Singles Bar" (maximizing output
per unit of input or minimizing input per unit of output) but Dave thought my
"marketing genius" would get the book killed--along with his career--in about
a week.

Jim Craven

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Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 10:00:58 -0800
From: Ken Hanly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:1776] Re: Re: Reductio Ad/Absurdum/Nauseum/Inhumanum
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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As I recall, Summers later claimed that the memo was not meant to 
be taken seriously  and that he wrote it "tongue-in-cheek"--foot-in-mouth 
would be a better description. Perhaps some politico noting the PR 
disaster created for the World Bank gave Summers a lecture on "damage 
control." It doesn't really make any difference as far as I can see 
because the conclusions follow from a typical welfare economics 
point-of-view anyway no matter how he may have meant it.
   Cheers, Ken Hanly
valis wrote:
> 
> > I loved the reference to the infamous "Summers Memo" as a concentrated
> > expression/self-parody of neoclassical economics "applied" and the
resultant
>   ...
> > applied when they deign to descend the lofty heights of theory to actual
> > implementation through actual policies with actual and measurable results.
> 
> Jim is in great form today despite, or possibly due to, his dispossession.
> I'm reminded that the first time I saw films of Auschwitz and other camps,
> despite, or possibly due to, my tender age a little voice in my head said
> (in effect) "This is just the natural end-point of the world's prevailing
> production/distribution paradigm, given enough time."  Marx & Co were
> still years away; it had sufficed to observe the business of my father,
> and he was a highly enlightened employer.
>   valis


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[PEN-L:1774] Reductio Ad/Absurdum/Nauseum/Inhumanum

[Nativejmc]

I loved the reference to the infamous "Summers Memo" as a concentrated
expression/self-parody of neoclassical economics "applied" and the resultant
reductio ad/absurdum/nauseum/inhumanum. Imagine, how refined and sterile the
suggestion/assertion that the calculus of marginal "private" and "social" cost
of dumping pollution and death on poor people when compared with the marginal
private and social benefits of pollution and death for poor people, and when
compared with the relative marginal costs and benefits of pollution and death
for rich people, all justify, in the names of "efficiency", "optimality" and
tautologically axiomatic equilibiria, use the so-called "third world" and
"third-world-like" areas in the so-called "Developed Countries" as a gigantic
dumping ground and land fill and toxic waste site. No social class, no gender,
no history, no culture, no politics, no corruption, no "asymmetric" power or
information, only "mechanical" institutions, no tribes and cliques, no
megalomania etc.

Perhaps to Jim Devine's list on fundamental characteristics of the
neoclassical paradigm/"system":

a) "Shit-happens" exogeneity coupled with tautologically-inexorably
equilibrating endogeneity;

b) linear uni-directional causality and effect and "ultimate" independent,
intervening and dependent variables and/or very mechanical (limited feedback
and contexts) non-linear causality and effect;

c) Institutions mechanically defined and applied; Institutions seen as
cybernetic systems rather than as dynamic complexes of interrelated myths,
traditions, power structures, mores, values, taboos, laws, rights,
constraints, privileges etc. Such a definition would beg many nasty questions
like: Who has the power and who doesn't in the power structure and on what
basis?; Who defines the taboo, the acceptable, the permissible? Why do some
have all laws and costs governing them and no benefits while others clearly
have all the benefits without the laws, constraints or costs? What roles do
gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion etc play in "power/information/factor
mobility asymmetries and their effects?

Maybe Michael P can put out the photocopy of the captured SS document from
Auschwitz showing the calculations of the "costs" versus "benefits/revenues"
from each concentration camp inmate assuming an average lifespan of 9 months
at hard labor, assuming starvation food intake and profits from the sale of
bones and ashes. I give that out in all of my classes prior to a discussion
about various forms/conditions of "efficiency (technological, economic,
production, exchange, consumer and allocative). I always thought of the
sterile and inhuman calculus of marginal "costs" versus marginal "benefits" of
genocide--Auschwitz being not by any means the only example--as the reductio
ad absurdum/nauseum/inhumanum of neoclassical principles as they would be/are
applied when they deign to descend the lofty heights of theory to actual
implementation through actual policies with actual and measurable results.

Jim Craven
 

[PEN-L:1582] Saddam Extremely Dangerous

[Nativejmc]

Saddam Husseing's regime is extremely dangerous. I remember when at the
beginning of the so-called "Gulf War", Bush proudly announced "The Vietnam
Syndrome is Over." As Bill is on his way out, and Saddam is still in power,
probably getting laid with more women than Bill could even imagine, Saddam's
regime is a reminder of the potential impotence of U.S. imperial power.

Further, during the seven-and-a-half year Iraq-Iran War, the U.S. sent
sophisticated weapons and intelligence to Iraq when Iran was winning and vice
versa when Iraq was winning (more sophisticated than even the Israeli's got)
in order to create a "geopolitical equilibrium) so Saddam's regime is in
possession of a lot of very ugly and nasty documents far more damaging to U.S.
Imperialism than anything having to do with biological or chemical or nuclear
weapons.

Further, there is the true history of the true signals sent by the U.S. to
Iraq just before the Invasion of that "bastion of democracy" Kuwait, much of
which is till in the possession of the Iraqui's. Such documentation could
prove very damaging to US-Arab alliances in the region. Notice on the last go-
around, the Saudi's refused the US rights to use Saudi territory to launch
operations. There is also the matter of the Kurds--their treatment by the US
and Turkey as well as treatment by Iraq.

US imperialism wears many masks and assumes many disguises. There is a history
and present reality that threatens to strip away the masks and disguises--that
is what is really at stake and why the Saddam regime is seen as so dangerous.
Plus, if push comes to shove, a "Wag-the-Dog" will work much much better with
Iraq than with Albania. The next "Sgt. ["Old"] Shoe" however, will probably be
checked out and likely won't be a nun raper in Leavenworth.

Plus, as I gave my class as an exercise, look up known Iraqui oil reserves and
past daily production as percentages of known global oil reserves global daily
production levels  and diagram the potential effects on global oil supply and
prices if the Iraqui
embargo is lifted and Iraq returns to pre-war production levels. Possible good
news at the pump but bad news in the boardrooms of the oil companies?

Jim Craven

[PEN-L:1581] Fwd: bad Clark Collegeboundary="part0_913761519_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--part0_913761519_boundary

Dear Barkley,

Thanks for the thoughts and to all of you. As you can see from the documents
posted, the case is as presented. As for the Admin reading my mail, well I'm
at home now, so for all of those who might be reading this at Clark College,
you are pathetic, disgusting, frightened organisms who should be charged with
felony impersonation of a human being. You parade around, put up plaques--the
day before an accreditation visit--announcing "commitment" to campus-wide
abilities of "Effective Citizenship" (talk but don't actually do anything),
Information/Technology Awareness (use the computers to gather child
pornography, for horoscopes, sports scores etc but never for Indian causes or
the causes of other oppressed groups), Communication (speak and write "well"
but don't speak or write about anything of real substance), Critical
Thinking/Problem Solving (extremely subversive and dangerous if done right),
Global/Multicultural Awareness ( only acceptable caricatures and activities
like pow wow dancing for the tourists and visitors or "Martin Luther King Day"
is acceptable), Life-long learning (and learning takes place only through the
designated books, God forbid that actual practice has anything to do with
learning and testing knowledge).

Part of the problem is that many (and not all please) administrators have
never been teachers and/or are failed teachers and therefore have no idea of
how real learning is turned on, takes place and is tested. They gather a few
cliches from the Chronicle or wherever, put together Committees and sub-
committees, reorganize continually--like two elephants screwing and giving
birth to a mouse; a lot of noice, little output of substance.
They posture, parade, schmooze, perform Lewinsky-like contortions and
services, and in the end, frightened, they try to bully and use differential
power and resources to stop/suppress any honest inquiry or resistance. Hot
shows cold, black shows white and competent shows incompetent--it is all very
dialectical.

So the address is President Tana Hasart, [EMAIL PROTECTED] or just to the
Clark College Board of Trustees, 1800 E. Mcloughlin Blvd, Vancouver, Wa.
98663. Thank you all for your kind support and most of all for believing that
there is more than my narrow or hidden interests or agenda here involved.

Jim Craven

--part0_913761519_boundary

Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
  by rly-za03.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0)
  Tue, 15 Dec 1998 14:29:39 -0500 (EST)
Tue, 15 Dec 1998 11:32:02 -0800 (PST)
From: "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:1572] bad Clark College
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 14:30:12 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

 I am concerned now that the administrators at Clark 
College, who are clearly engaging in severe violations of 
the civil rights of Jim Craven, are reading this list and 
using messages to it about his situation as further 
evidence in their clearly unconscionable campaign against 
Jim.  Thus, I understand that Jim may no longer feel that 
he can tell those on the list who to communicate with by 
either email or snail mail to protest these behaviors by 
his superiors, all of whom deserved to be removed from 
office.
 So, I am wondering if somebody out there might be able 
to provide us with such a list, if Jim can't, please.
 In particular, as someone who has already communicated 
with his president about this appalling situation, I am 
wondering if there is a body above the president, a Board 
of Visitors, or Regents, or Overseers, or Whatever (these 
bodies go by many different names), to which appeals can be 
addressed regarding this urgent matter.
Barkley Rosser

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


--part0_913761519_boundary--

[PEN-L:1534] Fwd: Re: Updateboundary="part0_913656237_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--part0_913656237_boundary

Louis,

Thanks for this. Since my mail is being read at the College, I guess even at
home I have to point out that the phrase "provocations that would make Mother
Teresa go postal" is simply a metaphor and a bit of hyperbole and is in no way
intended to suggest or threaten that I would ever "go postal."

This is another part of the censorship. Even as a write from home, to the
extent to which my e-mail at school is still receiving messages from pen-l,
they are being read and can be used and twisted for nefarious purposes by some
very twisted individuals intent of making something out of anything.

So for you pathetic souls in need of a life and sound value system at work
reading this, the reference to Mother Teresa was only, only, metaphor and not
in any way intended as some kind of threat.

Thanks for catching that Louis.

Jim Craven

--part0_913656237_boundary

Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
  by rly-yc04.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0)
  Mon, 14 Dec 1998 10:59:51 -0500 (EST)
Mon, 14 Dec 1998 08:02:04 -0800 (PST)
[128.59.35.133])
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 10:55:58 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:1530] Re: Update
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Jim Craven:
>Subject the targeted employee to systematic, calculated and
>repeated provocations that would make Mother Teresa go postal and then wh=
en
>the person reacts, use the reactions to try to show mental instability,
>insubordination or being a threat in the workplace without any reference =
of
>course, to the provocations to which the person was subject; 

This reference to going "postal" reminded me of an extremely chilling
incident which is taking place in Texas as we speak. From what I can
gather, a completely innocent person is facing a stiff prison term for
simply making this kind of reference in email. Something tells me that
there are signs of government repression gathering momentum around the use
of email. That is why it is important to fight for free speech on the
Internet. In a time of growing class polarization, one of the few
uncensored mediums will be the Internet and the powers-that-be are
frightened by that. China has been doing everything it can to suppress
email communications, but there are too many holes in the dike. Our goal
should be to remove the dike entirely.



The New York Times

Postal Worker Guilty in Threat Via E-Mail 

LAREDO, Tex., Dec. 12 

A United States Postal Service worker is facing up to five years in prison
for sending E-mail to a co-worker in which he threatened to "go postal" an=
d
set off a "shootout at the O.K. Corral." 

The postal worker, John Murillo, was convicted by a Federal jury on Friday
of transporting a threat across state lines. Prosecutors said the Internet
message, even though it was sent to a friend who lived across town,
actually passed through Tennessee, Georgia and New Jersey before reaching
its destination. 

"They are trying everything to make me go postal," the message read in
part. "This Mexican can only take so much. You kick a dog so much and
sooner or later that chain will snap. I have been very patient with them
but I am tired and making plans. 

"Judgment day will come. It will be a shootout at the O.K. Corral." 

In the five-day trial, the prosecutor, Mary Lou Castillo, portrayed Mr.
Murillo, 48, as an enraged, alcoholic loner dangerously close to a
psychological collapse, The Laredo Morning Times reported. 

The trial included testimony by Mr. Murillo's friends and former
co-workers, including William Espinoza, who received the message. Mr.
Espinoza turned the message over to postal inspectors. 

Mr. Espinoza testified that he was "shocked" when he received the message
on April 18. But under cross-examination, he admitted that he had laughed
when he read it. 

The public defender, Juan R. Flores, told jurors that the case was about
freedom of speech. Mr. Murillo said that he had never planned to take any
action. Still, he conceded that his message could have angered postal
service officials. 

"I don't even have a gun," Mr. Murillo said after jurors announced their
verdict. "But governments have been brought down just by words and I was
putting out a lot of words." 

Mr. Murillo is scheduled to be sentenced early next year. 

Copyright =A9 1998 LEXIS=AE-NEXIS=AE, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All=
 rights
reserved. 


Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)



--part0_913656237_boundary--

[PEN-L:1528] From Canadaboundary="part0_913619168_boundary"

[Nativejmc]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--part0_913619168_boundary

Dear Friends,

This was sent by a friend in Canada who is a tireless activist on Indigneous
Peoples Sovereignty questions. I wanted to share it not to point to my own
case, but because the lessons and concepts are wide-reaching and critical for
all of us inside and outside of academia. This is especially true as the
contradictions unfold, the gaps between rulers and ruled widen and the stakes,
costs and tragedies mount exponentially.

Jim Craven


--part0_913619168_boundary

Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
  by rly-zb02.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0)
  Fri, 11 Dec 1998 02:45:55 -0500 (EST)
Thu, 10 Dec 1998 23:44:14 -0800 (PST)
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 23:44:14 -0800 (PST)
From: John Shafer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Pathological Megalomania
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

How fitting: and on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary
interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to
attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the
protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression;
this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers.

Article 26 (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the
human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance, and
friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall
further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

Article 29 (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the
free and full development of his personality is possible.

(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject
only to such limitations as are determined by the law solely for the
purpose of securing due recognition and respect for rights and freedoms of
others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and
the general welfare in a democratic society.

Preamble: Universal Declaration of Human Rights December 10, 1948

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have outraged the
conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings
shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want
has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people.

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse,
as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human
rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Now, therefore, the General Assembly proclaims this Universal Declaration
of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and
all nations, to the end that every individual and every org...

(yeah right... obviously not at Clark College)

Unfuckingbelievable...hang in there Jim. 

cheers JS

On Thu, 10 Dec 1998 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Dear Friends,
> 
> I just received a memo from our illustrious Interim Vice-President of
> Instruction who has reviewed the e-mails I was ordered to turn over at risk
of
> dismissal from employment for refusal to turn them over, and he, a music
> teacher/administrator wannabe, has determined that my e-mails are personal
and
> not in accordance with the "business" of  Clark College. Apparently, the
> "business" of Clark College is not ideas and education or indeed even the
> touted campus-wide abilities (Critical Thinking/Problem Solving, Effective
> Citizenship, Information/Technology Awareness, Global/Multicultural
> Perspectives, Communication and Life-long Learning), it is most certainly
not
> freedom of speech (except for insider toadies and sycophants), rather the
> "business" of Clark College is landscape, architecture (with the names of
> illustrious adminstrators on them), lots of paperwork from meaningless
> committees producing meaningless stuff from meaningless insiders, and of
> course, big offices for megalomanical administrators with very big
> egos--without portfolio.
> 
> So because there is no professional reason for a professor of economics to
be
> writing to pen-l, I have been ordered not to use the campus system to wirte
or
> respond to pen-l. Because there is no professional reason for the Advisor of
> the Native American Student Club to be reading and writing on  Sovernet-l,
or
> Warriornet or to be communicating with the Blackfoot Reservation at
Browning,
> I am barred from using campus computers to write to them and other Indians
on
> the net. Because there is no relationship between any of the forementioned
> "campus-wide abilities"--especially Effective Citizenship amd
> Global/Multicultural Perspectives--and readi

[PEN-L:1521] Update

[Nativejmc]

Dear Friends,

Just go back from up north and I just can't describe the feeling I got/get
from the warm letters of support.

If you remember, I was order to produce e-mails (sent and received) that had
anything to do--directly or indirectly--with a one Kevin Annett with whom I
had had some disputes while acting in behalf of The Circle of Justice, and
organization of Residential School Survivors with whom Annett had once been
associated and who had expelled Annett as a result of a feeling of betrayal
and rank opportunism on Annett's part. Annett wrote to my College, giving not
even one sample e-mail or supposed example of "defammation" or "lies" but
alleging the same nonetheless. The powers-that-be saw a golden opportunity.

After protests by people on the net and my union WEA, the order was modified
for only for anything I had sent and the cover for the unprecedented request
was that the College had to ascertain if they College was in any kind of
liability position and if defammation and lying had occurred. The
Administration stated further that they had been contaqcted by legal counsel
for Annett.

Well the Memo by the Vice-President dated  December 9, 1998 which I received
on the tenth, mentions nothing about defammation or lying--have I been
vindicated? But it goes on to say: I have reveiwed these e-mails as well as
materials provided to the College by Mr. Annett. Frankly, I cannot see how
these e-mails/materials you have sent using College resources have any
relationship whatsoever to your responsibilities as a professor at Clark
College. The matters discussed in these e-mails are not College business or
part of your instructional duties." Then after a long list of e-mail addresses
to which I cannot send anything without written permission or receive anything
without written permission,  this Interim Vice-President (close friend of a
former Dean removed partly as a result of exposure through my struggles
against him and this Interim Vice-President is barred from applying for the
full-time Vice-President of Instruction position) he writes: "This is not a
disciplinary action. However, any violation of any of these directives will
constitute insubordination and will be cause for disciplinary action, up to
and including your dismissal from College employment. By giving you these
directives for the future, I am not waiving any College right to impose
disciplinary action for any past action, including any of the communications
you previously sent, and/or to refer any of these matters to the Executive
Ethics Board."

At this College there is a standard Modus Operandi which I will drag out
through wide discovery in any legal action: 1) Subject targeted employees to
unconscionable orders, orders that violate their basic civil rights and even
College policy, then if the employee disobeys as an act of conscience, fire
them for insubordination and use State money to bankrupt them to prevent the
matter coming to trial and/or force a settlement (my ex-wife was awarded
$165,000 by Clark College in a previous lawsuit for discrimination in her
application for employment but we were almost totally bankrupted in the
process); 2) Subject the targeted employee to systematic, calculated and
repeated provocations that would make Mother Teresa go postal and then when
the person reacts, use the reactions to try to show mental instability,
insubordination or being a threat in the workplace without any reference of
course, to the provocations to which the person was subject; 3) Subject a
person to contrived charges, summarily asserted to be true but labelled "non-
disciplinary" (thus preventing outside grievance procedures with rules of
evidence etc) and then using one summary judgment of guilt to leverage another
and to push the person through --or jumping--the stages of discipline leading
to an easy firing.

The day after I received these directives, my union, normally quite passive,
went ballistic and an immediate appeal has been filed--I still have an appeal
on another action pending. This is common MO here, piling-on to destabilize
and leverage etc. The only two cases even remotely close to this involved a
colleague using the computer and telephone trunk line to do stock buying and
selling and another who was collecting child pornography and one of the
charges was "misappropriation" of resources. In both cases the charges were
dropped with a finding that use of the resources involved marginal benefit
with no marginal costs (bulk rates for computer and telephone systems) and
further, even though the marginal benefits might have been personal, the
person transacting personal business in the workplace also gave benefits to
the institution in that had that person been required to go outside the
institution to transact marginal personal business or send personal messages,
his/her overall productivity--from which the College benefits--would be
interrupted or lessened. This is the so-called "Diminimus Rule" in Washington
State.