[Marxism-Thaxis] March on Wallstreet !
[from Lauren in Detroit] Members of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions and supporters organized what ended up being a very successful protest in downtown Detroit today (September 25th). Approximately 30 demonstrators gathered in front of the Detroit City Council Building with signs and leaflets protesting Wall Street's bailout by the government, and demanding the passage of Senate Bill 1306, which proposes the passage of a 2 year moratorium on home foreclosures in Michigan. News crews gathered around as Council member JoAnn Watson discussed a resolution passed by the Council demanding that Congress assist victims of the housing/mortgage crisis by passing this moratorium. Following statements by Watson and a handful of Moratorium NOW! members regarding the importance of the halt of foreclosures, demonstrators marched through the financial district in Detroit. The route had three stops along the way, at branches of banks that will be receiving billions of taxpayer dollars. A representative of Moratorium NOW! spoke at each stop about the unfairness of the bailout, as well as why the organization is pushing for the passage of SB 1306. Demonstrators received positive feedback from local passerby, and the event went off without a hitch. Moratorium NOW! will be hosting a meeting on September 27 to follow up on the demonstration and plan future events. For more information, or to become a member of Moratorium NOW!, please visit http://www.moratorium-mi.org or call 313-887-434. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Government bail out and sovereign debt: theory
Liberating Sovereign Credit for Domestic Development Part I: The Curse of Dollar Hegemony By Henry C.K. Liu September 2004 When a sovereign state issues money as legal tender, it issues a monetary instrument backed by its sovereign rights, which includes taxation. A sovereign state never owes domestic debts except by design voluntarily. When a sovereign state borrows in order to avoid levying or raising taxes, it is a political expedience, not a financial necessity. When a sovereign state borrows, through the selling of sovereign bonds denominated in its own currency, it is withdrawing previously-issued sovereign credit from the financial system. When a sovereign state borrows foreign currency, it forfeits its sovereign credit privilege and reduces itself to an ordinary debtor because no sovereign state can issue foreign currency. Government bonds act as absorbers of sovereign credit from the private sector. US Government bonds, through dollar hegemony, enjoy the highest credit rating, topping a credit risk pyramid in international sovereign and institutional debt markets. Dollar hegemony is a geopolitical phenomenon in which the US dollar, a fiat currency, assumes the status of primary reserve currency in the international finance architecture. Architecture is an art the aesthetics of which is based on moral goodness, of which the current international finance architecture is visibly deficient. Thus dollar hegemony is objectionable not only because the dollar, as a fiat currency, usurps a role it does not deserve, but also because its effect on the world community is devoid of moral goodness, because it destroys the ability of sovereign governments beside the US to use sovereign credit to finance the development their domestic economies, and forces them to export to earn dollar reserves to maintain the exchange value of their own currencies. full: _http://www.henryckliu.com/page3.html_ (http://www.henryckliu.com/page3.html) Money issued by sovereign government fiat is a sovereign monopoly while debt is not. Anyone with acceptable credit rating can borrow or lend, but only sovereign government can issue fiat money as legal tender. When sovereign government issues fiat money, it issues certificates of its sovereign credit good for discharging tax liabilities imposed by sovereign government on its citizens. Privately-issued money can exist only with the grace and permission of the sovereign, and is different from sovereign government-issued money in that privately issued money is an IOU from the issuer, with the issuer owing the holder the content of the money's backing. But sovereign government-issued fiat money is not a debt from the government because the money is backed by a potential debt from the holder in the form of tax liabilities. Money issued by sovereign government by fiat as legal tender is good by law for settling all debts, private and public. Anyone refusing to accept dollars in the US for payment of debt is in violation of US law. Instruments used for settling debts are credit instruments. **Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators. (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall0001) ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Protest on Wall Street
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/wall-st-protest No Bailout for Wall Street -- Protest on Wall Street this Thursday at 4pm! NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: A September 26 AFP wire story date incorrectly attributed a quote to Naomi Klein that should have been attributed to Arun Gupta. The error has been corrected by AFP but please note that the statement below was NOT written by Naomi Klein and though she supported the original protest call, the statement is correctly attributed to Gupta, as stated in the corrected AFP article also posted below. We would greatly appreciate if this error was not repeated. Statement by Arun Gupta Call to Self-Organize This week the White House is going to try to push through the biggest robbery in world history with nary a stitch of debate to bail out the Wall Street bastards who created this economic apocalypse in the first place. This is the financial equivalent of September 11. They think, just like with the Patriot Act, they can use the shock to force through the “therapy,” and we’ll just roll over! Think about it: They said providing healthcare for 9 million children, perhaps costing $6 billion a year, was too expensive, but there’s evidently no sum of money large enough that will sate the Wall Street pigs. If this passes, forget about any money for environmental protection, to counter global warming, for education, for national healthcare, to rebuild our decaying infrastructure, for alternative energy. This is a historic moment. We need to act now while we can influence the debate. Let’s demonstrate this Thursday at 4pm in Wall Street (see below). We know the congressional Democrats will peep meekly before caving in like they have on everything else, from FISA to the Iraq War. With Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, AIG, the money markets and now this omnibus bailout, well in excess of $1 trillion will be distributed from the poor, workers and middle class to the scum floating on top. This whole mess gives lie to the free market. The Feds are propping up stock prices, directing buyouts, subsidizing crooks and swindlers who already made a killing off the mortgage bubble. Worst of all, even before any details have been hashed out, The New York Times admits that “Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it,” and its chief financial correspondent writes that the Bush administration wants “Congress to give them a blank check to do whatever they want, whatever the cost, with no one able to watch them closely.” It’s socialism for the rich and dog-eat-dog capitalism for the rest of us. Let’s take it to the heart of the financial district! Gather at 4pm, this Thursday, Sept. 25 in the plaza at the southern end of Bowling Green Park, which is the small triangular park that has the Wall Street bull at the northern tip. By having it later in the day we can show these thieves, as they leave work, we’re not their suckers. Plus, anyone who can’t get off work can still join us downtown as soon as they are able. There is no agenda, no leaders, no organizing group, nothing to endorse other than we’re not going to pay! Let the bondholders pay, let the banks pay, let those who brought the “toxic” mortgage-backed securities pay! On this list are many key organizers and activists. We have a huge amount of connections - we all know many other organizations, activists and community groups. We know P.R. folk who can quickly write up and distribute press releases, those who can contact legal observers, media activists who can spread the word, the videographers who can film the event, etc. Do whatever you can - make and distribute your own flyers, contact all your groups and friends. This crime is without precedence and we can’t be silent! What’s the point of waiting for someone else to organize a protest two months from now, long after the crime has been perpetrated? We have everything we need to create a large, peaceful, loud demonstration. Millions of others must feel the same way; they just don’t know what to do. Let’s take the lead and make this the start! AGAIN: When: 4pm - ? Thursday, September 25. Where: Southern end of Bowling Green Park, in the plaza area What to bring: Banners, noisemakers, signs, leaflets, etc. Why: To say we won’t pay for the Wall Street bailout Who: Everyone!Questions? Contact Arun Gupta at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Corrected: Popular Anger Puts Fat Cat CEOs on the Run Agence France Presse September 26, 2008 NEW YORK (AFP) - An angry US public and Congress are pushing to snip the rip cord on golden parachutes used by fat cat CEOs to escape Wall Street's mayhem. Democrats in Congress -- set to resume emergency talks Friday with their Republican counterparts on a 700-billion-dollar (478-billion-euro) bailout for the financial industry -- insisted that any agreed package include restrictions on executive pay. They
[Marxism-Thaxis] Labor unions protest in NY against bailout
Labor unions protest in NY against bailout . http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE48O8KJ20080926?pageNumber=2virtualBrandChannel=0 By Christian Wiessner NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hard hats, transit workers, machinists, teachers and other labor unionists railed against the U.S. government's proposed bailout of Wall Street on Thursday in a protest steps from the New York Stock Exchange. Several hundred protesters yelled their enthusiastic support as union leaders decried a proposed $700 billion plan aimed at reinvigorating the credit markets by relieving financial institutions of distressed debt. The Bush administration wants us to pay the freight for a Wall Street bailout that does not even begin to address the roots of our crisis, said AFL-CIO National President John Sweeney. We want our tax dollars used to provide a hand up for the millions of working people who live on Main Street and not a handout to a privileged band of overpaid executives. Signs read No Blank Checks For Wall Street and Our Hard-Earned Pensions Are Not Up For Grabs. Protesters cheered repeated calls for the government to spend money on education, health care and housing as freely and readily as it was proposing to do for Wall Street. We know that the economic situation has to be solved. But we want a responsible rescue, not an opportunistic bailout, said United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. And that means, just like every single boss says to me, that there should be accountability for the teachers, then there should be accountability for Wall Street, he said. The bailout is a sellout unless it includes the victims of the tyranny, civil rights activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson told reporters after the rally. The homeowners need long-term, low interest rate loans and the restructuring of loans, not the repossession of homes. Continued... This is a Roosevelt moment, Jackson said, referring to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt's program to lift the United States out of the Great Depression. It's time for reconstruction of manufacturing law, trade law and banking transparency. (Editing by Daniel Trotta) This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Financialization
a brief section on financialization, taken from book: The Confiscation of American Prosperity. By Michael Perelman http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/financialization-from-the-confiscation-of-american-prospection/ http://michaelperelman.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/financialization1.doc Financialization Nothing has contributed to imbalances in the economy so much as the outlandish expansion of financialization, which the right wing promoted through reckless deregulation. Talk of deregulation may evoke images of bulldozers free to tear up sensitive land or factories permitted to spew out toxic waste, but deregulation has other less obvious, but equally destructive, dimensions. Almost unnoticed in the background, business interests have convinced the government to mindlessly dismantle the supposedly arcane regulations meant to maintain order in the financial industry. Many of these controls began after the Great Depression, which clearly demonstrated how an unfettered financial system, left to its own devices, can easily spin out of control. Business, having soon forgotten this lesson, bristled against regulations, arguing that meddlesome regulations do nothing to protect the economy; they merely prevent the efficient functioning of the financial system. In reality, unregulated financialization works like a drug induced euphoria. A get rich quick mentality spreads throughout the economy. Solid wealth producing activities quickly lose their attraction. Recall the billion dollar incomes of hedge fund managers. In this environment, economic booms soon morph into bubbles that are certain to burst. Typical of the boom mentality, in 1986, a year before the stock market fell 508 points in a single day, 40 percent of the 1,300 members of Yale's graduating class applied to a single investment bank, First Boston (Lewis 1989, p. 24). The stock market recovered, but the frenzy began anew in the late 1990s. Enron was emblematic of mesmerizing lure of financialization and suggestive of its dangers. A once sleepy, capital intensive pipeline company, Enron became the darling of Wall Street after it converted itself into a major financial player during the frenetic 1990s boom. By December 31, 2000, Enron's stock reached $83.13. At this point, the stock market valued the company at more than $60 billion, 70 times what the company purportedly earned. Fortune magazine rated Enron as the most innovative large company in America in the magazine's survey of Most Admired Companies. Soon thereafter, the now disgraced corporation declared bankruptcy, leaving its stock worthless (Healy and Palepu 2003, p. 3). Not surprisingly, while the stock was soaring, Enron won friends in high places, including both Presidents Bush and Senator Phil Gramm, a former professor of economics who chaired the Senate Banking Committee at the time. Senator Gramm's wife, Wendy, another economist, won an appointment as chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In 1992, she exempted Enron's trading in electricity futures from oversight by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Doug Henwood, an outstanding observer of the financial world, writes of this incident: Enron happened to be a big funder of her husband, Texas Senator Phil Gramm (another friend of the free market who drew public paychecks almost all his working life). Six days after that ruling, Gramm left the CFTC, and five weeks later she joined Enron's board. In December 2000, Senator Gramm helped push a bill through Congress that deregulated trading in energy. Enron's electricity trading business swelled, and some of the firm's only real profits were made. Without owning a single California power plant, Enron came to control the state's market. Rolling blackouts became the norm, prices skyrocketed, and the same state racked up billions in debt. Phil Gramm blamed environmentalists for the crisis. Finally, price controls were imposed and the bubble burst. Deprived of its cash cow, Enron hit the rocks a few months later. [Henwood 2003, pp. 200 1] In short, much of the imaginary value represented by Enron literally disappeared. The inimitable John Kenneth Galbraith referred to such imaginary value as a bezzle: At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement. This inventoryit should perhaps be called the bezzleamounts at any moment to many millions of dollars In good times people are relaxed, trusting and money is plentiful. But even though money is plentiful, there are always people who need more. Under these circumstances the rate of embezzlement grows, the rate of discovery falls off, and bezzle increases rapidly. In depression all of this is reversed. [Galbraith 1961, p. 138] A few high level employees who cashed out their stock in time and escaped prosecution can still laugh all the way to the bank. Some of the big banks
[Marxism-Thaxis] Pablo Picasso
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso Pablo Picasso . Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso 1962 Birth name Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso BornOctober 25, 1881Málaga, Spain Died8 April 1973 (aged 91)Mougins, France Nationality Spanish Field Painting, Drawing, Sculpture, Printmaking, Ceramics TrainingJose Ruíz (father), Academy of Arts, Madrid MovementCubism Works Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)Guernica (1937) The Weeping Woman (1937) Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was an Andalusian-Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. As one of the most recognized figures in twentieth-century art, he is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles embodied in his work. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, Guernica (1937). Contents[hide]· 1 Biography o 1.1 Personal life o 1.2 Political views · 2 Art o 2.1 Before 1901 o 2.2 Blue Period o 2.3 Rose Period o 2.4 African-influenced Period o 2.5 Cubism o2.6 Classicism and surrealism o 2.7 Later works · 3 Commemoration and legacy ·4 Children ·5 Notes · 6 References · 7 External links o 7.1 Museums o 7.2 Essays Biography Picasso was baptized Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito, a series of names honouring various saints and relatives. Added to these were Ruíz and Picasso, for his father and mother, respectively, as per Spanish custom. Born in the city of Málaga in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was the first child of Don José Ruiz y Blasco (1838–1913) and María Picasso y López. Picasso’s family was middle-class; his father was also a painter who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. For most of his life Ruiz was a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. Ruiz’s ancestors were minor aristocrats. The house where Picasso was born, in Málaga The young Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age; according to his mother, his first words were “piz, piz”, a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for ‘pencil’.[1] From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. Ruiz was a traditional, academic artist and instructor who believed that proper training required disciplined copying of the masters, and drawing the human body from plaster casts and live models. His son became preoccupied with art to the detriment of his classwork. The family moved to La Coruña in 1891 so his father could become a professor at the School of Fine Arts. They stayed almost four years. On one occasion the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the precision of his son’s technique, Ruiz felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him, and vowed to give up painting.[2] In 1895, Picasso's seven-year old sister, Conchita, died of diphtheria - a traumatic event in his life.[3]After her death, the family moved to Barcelona, with Ruiz transferring to its School of Fine Arts. Picasso thrived in the city, regarding it in times of sadness or nostalgia as his true home.[4] Ruiz persuaded the officials at the academy to allow his son to take an entrance exam for the advanced class. This process often took students a month, but Picasso completed it in a week, and the impressed jury admitted Picasso, who was still 13. The student lacked discipline but made friendships that would affect him in later life. His father rented him a small room close to home so Picasso could work alone, yet Ruiz checked up on him numerous times a day, judging his son’s drawings. The two argued frequently. Picasso’s father and uncle decided to send the young artist to Madrid’s Royal Academy of San Fernando, the foremost art school in the country.[4] In 1897, Picasso, age 16, set off for the first time on his own. Yet his difficulties accepting formal instruction led him to stop attending class soon after enrollment. Madrid, however, held many other attractions: the Prado housed paintings by the venerable Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya, and Francisco Zurbarán. Picasso especially admired the works of El Greco; their elements, like elongated limbs, arresting colors, and mystical visages, are echoed in Picasso’s œuvre. Personal life After studying art in Madrid, Picasso made his first trip to Paris in 1900, then the art capital of Europe. There, he met his first Parisian friend, the journalist and poet
[Marxism-Thaxis] Positivist Dispute (Positivismusstreit) - 14
Frisby, David. The Popper-Adorno Controversy: the Methodological Dispute in German Sociology, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, June 1972, 105-119. I've not yet had a chance to compare this article to Frisby's later, 36-page introduction to The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology. This article, however, is a concise summary of the disparate perspectives of Popper and Adorno. Adorno did not take up Popper's 27 theses on the social sciences, but laid out his alternative position, contributing to Popper's frustration. Given Popper's quarrels with positivism, it is perplexing to see Popper labeled as a positivist. There are of course different periodizations and approaches to positivism, and it seems that the Frankfurters used the term rather loosely, perhaps in consonance with the broad perspective of scientism of Comte's original positivism. Yet Feyerabend too characterized Popper as positivistic (Against Method, p. 66). The prescriptions of philosophers as well as scientists may differ from their actual practice. Popper rejects scientism while centering his perspective on the alleged methodology of the natural sciences, and addresses historiography while neglecting actual historical research. Popper's attention to the social sciences is scanty, yet asserts that all sciences are methodologically essentially the same. The dispute under discussion has historical precendents--the German preoccupation with the Geisteswisshenschaften, the Methodenstreit of the late 19th century, and the neo-Kantian dualism between the natural and historical sciences. For Popper, the logic of all sciences, including the social sciences, begins with a problem, to which alternative solutions are proposed and criticized. Popper opposes scientism and the hard-and-fast distinction between disciplines. What exists for him are problems and the scientific tradition. The objectivity of scientific knowledge does not consist in the objectivity of scientists, but in the critical method and tradition. Popper's social categories are competition, tradition, social institutions, and the state. Propositions are distinguishable as relevant to internal problems of the subject matter and to extra-scientific problems. The critical method is driven by pure deductive logic. As to social science, Popper maintains that sociology serves to address the unintended consequences of social action, for example, of competition. Sociology concerns itself to construct theories of institutions and traditions, keeping in mind that only individuals act and institutions emerge out of a situational logic, and that a theory of institutional consequences of actions could lead to a theory of the emergence and development of institutions. Adorno agrees with Popper on scientism but disagrees with Popper's methodological stance on problems, solutions, refutation, criticism, and objectivity. Popper's conception of a problem is based on the distinction between knowledge and ignorance and a discovery of a lapse in knowledge, while for Adorno a problem is not essentially epistemological but practical, and not just specific problems but ultimately the problematic condition of the world. Simplification and atomism (a la Wittgenstein) are not principles adequate to the understanding of society. Contradictions are not merely logical problems, but embedded in society itself. Methodology is ultimately answerable to the object studied, not to methodological ideals. Re hypotheses and testability, Adorno suggests that social laws are incommensurable with the concept of hypotheses. [RD: I do not understand this.] Thus the logical method of reduction of an entity to its elements, out of which the hypotheses are constructed, virtually eliminates objective contradictions. (112) Popper's anchoring of discrete problems/solutions in empirical evidence as a basis for hypothesis testing obscures the fact that the object of study, society, is already structured, and that fact-fetishism leaves society's structure unquestioned. According to Adorno, facts are themselves mediated through society. Not all theorems are hypotheses; theory is the telos, not the vehicle of sociology. [RD: I don't find this formulation at all clear.] Frisby clarifies (113): There is a tendency to reduce theory to an instrument of research within sociology as if sociology is divorced from the society which it studies. Knowledge derived from an uncritical acceptance of empirical facts becomes a pure reproduction of the existing relations of society. [RD: this is a bit better, and should be an obvious basic understanding. Adorno could have expressed himself more clearly, however, about what he means by hypothesis, law, fact, theory, etc.] Adorno questions Popper's relationship posited here between tests and research procedures. For Adorno, individual facts should be seen in a dialectical relationship with social totalities, which
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Pablo Picasso
On Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:15:20 -0400 Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso Pablo Picasso http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8vaOI-lovoNR=1 Pablo PicassoWords and music: jonathan richman Well some people try to pick up girls And get called assholes This never happened to pablo picasso He could walk down your street And girls could not resist his stare and So pablo picasso was never called an asshole Well the girls would turn the color Of the avacado when he would drive Down their street in his el dorado He could walk down you street And girls could not resist his stare Pablo picasso never got called an asshole Not like you Alright Well he was only 5�3 But girls could not resist his stare Pablo picasso never got called an asshole Not in new york Oh well be not schmuck, be not abnoxious, Be not bellbottom bummer or asshole Remember the story of pablo picasso He could walk down your street And girls could not resist his stare Pablo picasso was never called an asshole Alright this is it Some people try to pick up girls And they get called an asshole This never happened to pablo picasso He could walk down your street And girls could not resist his stare and so Pablo picasso was never called... Click here to compare prices and features on point of sale systems. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3l5GmtCl0Xa5PcD1JA0uv4DLDVfWAwKiWGeOl9Ui12wrlsmV/___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Ballad for Americans: US organic radical intellectuals
In the 1930's-40's highwater period of US political accomplishments, many of the intellectuals involved in practical critical activity were artists and journalists not so much philosophers. Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, Billie Holiday, Lillian Hellman, painter Charles White, et al. even , maybe , Ernest Hemingway. I wonder if there is an American cultural style involved in that. In other words, America's noted anti-intellectualism may have displaced the progressive intellectuals from into the arts. Traditionally, journalism has been a favored US intellectual discipline more than academic disciplines. Should US progressive intellectuals in 2008 be looking to other secular fields of communication besides academic disciplines such as philosophy, social science , history etc. to get involved in mass ideas and opinions ? Charles This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Ramming through the bailout
Ramming through the bailout http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleprint/987/ Bush, Paulson make Dellinger look like a Boy Scout As the Bush administration attempts to ram a bailout package of nearly one trillion dollars through Congress, it begins to feel like Colonel Sanders asking the public to trust him to take care of the chickens. If it weren’t so damn serious, there would be something almost comical about it. Here we have the White House, which has squandered trillions of dollars over eight years, and its point man, Hank Paulson, fresh from 38 years of gaming the financial system while working at Goldman Sachs, insisting that Congressional leaders hand over a trillion dollars to them with no debate and no strings attached. In this real life drama, Bush and Paulson make John Dillinger, the legendary bank robber of the Depression years, look like a Boy Scout. Nothing to do with socialism This is not “socialism for the rich,” as some have suggested. Socialist measures would thoroughly clean up and stabilize the financial system to be sure, but a socialist-led government would also place the good as well as the bad assets of the responsible parties (commercial and investment banks, private equity firms, and hedge funds) into the hands of a public democratically run authority. It would turn the Federal Reserve Bank, which during the Greenspan era was one of the main architects and cheerleaders of bubble economics (hi-tech, stock market and, its latest version, housing) into a publicly controlled institution. And it would bring those responsible to trial and penalize them appropriately, if convicted. At the same time, a socialist-led government and its congressional allies would funnel money to homeowners and working people and enact special measures to assist communities of the racially oppressed, not to mention our rural towns. It would rebuild our nation’s deteriorating infrastructure, invest in renewable energy and green jobs, and bring the Iraq war to a quick end. It would also propose the people’s takeover of the energy complex, which has also turned into a cash cow of the wealthiest corporations. Use common sense Does it make any sense to give control of our financial and economic system for the indefinite future to the same individuals, who while gaming the system, got us into this mess in the first place? I can’t think of anything that is less democratic or goes against the grain of common sense. In the money and banking textbooks that I read years ago, our financial institutions and system supposedly channeled idle money to productive uses – to new technologies and business startups, to build homes and create jobs, to invest in new plant and equipment, and to construct and renew our nation’s infrastructure, while extracting handsome profits all the while. Looking back, it is fair to say that banks and investment houses did perform this function for a period in capitalism’s development, but that period has largely passed. Finance capital’s rise and ultra-right rule Indeed, with the rise to dominance of the extreme right and the reassertion of power by finance capital three decades ago, our financial system has operated more or less independently of other sectors of the economy, functioned largely free of any regulatory body, and grown exponentially. Finance capital – in its quest to maximize its rate of profit – has drained dollars from the private economy (especially the manufacturing sector) and the public treasury into incredibly risky and speculative financial schemes; it has spawned a series of complex financial instruments and paper transactions which few understand, but fabulously enrich the buyers and borrowers of these exotic instruments, most of which have nothing to do with the real economy. Finance capital has facilitated megamergers, takeovers and corporate flight to off shore locations; it has wreaked havoc on sovereign states and their economies, particularly in the developing world; it has without as much as a thought introduced enormous instability into the arteries of the U.S. and world economy, evidenced by the frequent financial contagions at home and globally. And, it has been one of the main class agents to successfully engineer the biggest transfer of wealth in our nation’s history from wealth creators -- the world’s working people -- to wealth appropriators, the upper crust of U.S. finance capital, while leaving at the same time our nation with an astronomical pile up of household, government and corporate debt that cannot be unwound overnight. In short, the reassertion of finance capital to a dominant position in the political economy of our country, which was only possible because of the right wing dominance of our nation’s political levers of power, has come at a heavy price for the American people and people worldwide. Clinging onto power And yet, despite this
[Marxism-Thaxis] Charles White
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/792/Charles_White_a_lover_of_the_arts http://negroartist.com/negro%20artist/charles%20white/index1.htm This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Ballad for Americans: US organic radical intellectuals
There's a whole book out on that era: THE CULTURAL FRONT, author is, I think, Michael Deming. There are progressive journalists, songwriters, and filmmakers. The whole institutional and media landscape has changed, though. At 01:02 PM 9/26/2008, you wrote: In the 1930's-40's highwater period of US political accomplishments, many of the intellectuals involved in practical critical activity were artists and journalists not so much philosophers. Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, Billie Holiday, Lillian Hellman, painter Charles White, et al. even , maybe , Ernest Hemingway. I wonder if there is an American cultural style involved in that. In other words, America's noted anti-intellectualism may have displaced the progressive intellectuals from into the arts. Traditionally, journalism has been a favored US intellectual discipline more than academic disciplines. Should US progressive intellectuals in 2008 be looking to other secular fields of communication besides academic disciplines such as philosophy, social science , history etc. to get involved in mass ideas and opinions ? Charles ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Ballad for Americans: US organic radical intellectuals
I can't think of any philosophers or other academic thinkers in leading roles. Can you think of any ? Charles Ralph Dumain [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/26/2008 1:18 PM There's a whole book out on that era: THE CULTURAL FRONT, author is, I think, Michael Deming. There are progressive journalists, songwriters, and filmmakers. The whole institutional and media landscape has changed, though. At 01:02 PM 9/26/2008, you wrote: In the 1930's-40's highwater period of US political accomplishments, many of the intellectuals involved in practical critical activity were artists and journalists not so much philosophers. Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, Billie Holiday, Lillian Hellman, painter Charles White, et al. even , maybe , Ernest Hemingway. I wonder if there is an American cultural style involved in that. In other words, America's noted anti-intellectualism may have displaced the progressive intellectuals from into the arts. Traditionally, journalism has been a favored US intellectual discipline more than academic disciplines. Should US progressive intellectuals in 2008 be looking to other secular fields of communication besides academic disciplines such as philosophy, social science , history etc. to get involved in mass ideas and opinions ? Charles ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Michael Denning's The Cultural Front
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/denning.htm Michael Denning's The Cultural Front By Louis Proyect After I joined the Trotskyist movement in 1967, I soon learned that Stalinism was a many-headed monster. Not only did it betray revolutions, it was responsible for the sort of awful kitschy popular art that Trotskyist intellectuals of the 1930s had blasted away at in journals like the Partisan Review. The Trotskyist aesthetic was very much bound up with the modernism of T.S. Eliot and at a certain point in the Cold War, the left politics was dropped altogether. Hostility to the proletarian novel soon transformed itself into hostility toward the proletariat itself. In recent years there has been an effort to rethink the political legacy of the 1930s. New Left historians like Mark Naison have attempted to understand how the Communist Party at the grass-roots level managed to provide leadership to working class struggles no matter the ineptness of the party tops. As the political legacy is being rethought, so is the cultural legacy. An important new book titled The Cultural Front by Yale professor Michael Denning is an attempt to reconsider the popular art of the 1930s and 40s as something much broader and deeper than merely the production of Communist Party hacks. He argues that the Cultural Front included the CP but that the majority consisted of independents like Orson Welles. While the tendency of cold war historians has been to write off such figures as fellow travelers, Denning believes that the inspiration for left-wing film, popular music and literature was the labor movement itself and not directives from Communist Party headquarters. Key to his analysis is the debunking of what some have derisively called Communist Party front groups. Was Popular front culture a front for the machinations of Moscow, or what ex-Trotskyist Irving Howe once called a brilliant masquerade? Were artists duped into lending their name for various Peace with the Soviet People groups without knowing what they were getting into? Denning makes the case that such formations were not facades at all. Groups such as the American Friends of Spanish Democracy or the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League were instead part of a social movement that should be understood in terms of Gramsci's concept of the cultural front: One can say that not only does the philosophy of praxis not exclude ethico-political history but that, indeed, in its most recent stage of development, it consists precisely in asserting the moment of hegemony as essential to its conception of the state and to the 'accrediting' of the cultural fact, of cultural activity, of a cultural front as necessary alongside the merely economic and political ones. In other words, the vast production of left-wing popular art of the 1930s and 40s was an attempt to create a counter-hegemonic culture. The Great Depression and the rise of fascism created a crisis of traditional American culture as well as politics. The optimism of the Lincoln era had to give way to something new. This new culture was imminently successful since it did manage to touch the lives of millions of ordinary working people and begin to create an alternative vision of society. With this perspective in mind, Denning amasses an encyclopedic wealth of information about the period that entertains as well as educates. There is a chapter on John Dos Passos, whose reputation has suffered in recent decades. This is a shame since Dos Passos writes brilliantly about big money, the great imperial steam-roller of American finance, a fact of existence that is still with us. The bread-lines of John Steinbeck may have disappeared, but there is something still very contemporary about the venality of the typical Dos Passos character who is seduced by the big money. If you want to understand the 1980s and the soul of characters like Jerry Rubin or Donald Trump, Dos Passos is the place to go. My favorite chapter is Cabaret Blues, which contains a perceptive analysis of the jazz world's connections to the left, including Billie Holiday's. She sang at Café Society, a Greenwich village nightspot started by the leftist Barney Josephson who wanted to bring white and black folks together for entertainment and political inspiration. It was a hangout for wealthy left-liberals from Park Avenue, Jewish trade unionists and black celebrities like boxer Joe Louis. She first sang Strange Fruit there, a song that helped her find herself as an artist in 1941, as she reported to pianist Teddy Wilson. Denning reports that Duke Ellington and Count Basie used to do benefits to raise money for medical aid for the Spanish Republic and that as late as 1951, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and J.J. Johnson were performing at a Labor Youth League dance. In the final section of the book, Denning raises a number of interesting questions about the relationship between popular
[Marxism-Thaxis] The Legacy of the Cultural Front: an Interview with Alan Wald
The Legacy of the Cultural Front: an Interview with Alan Wald By Political Affairs http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/3887/ Editor’s note: Alan Wald teaches at the University of Michigan ( I was in Latin American solidarity work with Wald in Ann Arbor in 1982-4) and is the author of seven books including, Writing from the Left and Exiles from a Future Time. He is a member of the editorial boards of Science Society and Against the Current. He also edited The Radical Novel Reconsidered series published by the University of Illinois Press, which includes Burning Valley by Philip Bonosky. PA: Can you talk about what proletarian and social realist literature is? AW: There are simple and complex definitions of both categories. There has long existed a broad proletarian literature about the lives and experience of working-class people, mostly written by those sympathetic to socialist ideals. However, in the early 1930’s, a more specific proletarian literature movement was fostered by the Communist Party. After the Popular Front began in 1935, the party officially turned in a new direction. Yet writers continued to be attracted to the Communist-led tradition; Philip Bonosky, who published proletarian novels from a Communist perspective during the cold war, is an example. Social realism is also a term with multiple meanings. It was originally applied to painting and generally referred to art with a social and political content, and a technique that one might call naturalist. In the 1930’s, however, social realism sometimes became linked to socialist realism, then the official Soviet doctrine. When a painting or text is called social realist, one can not always tell whether “social” is being used as a shorthand for the word socialist, as one finds in the phrase “social democracy,” or whether it means simply “social” in the looser sense of socially conscious. PA: So you make a distinction between the proletarian literature of the early 1930’s and that which came out of the Popular Front period? AW: Yes, although perhaps more in theory than practice; one of the contradictions to be found when a political party tries to lead a cultural movement is that writers and artists create out of needs beyond immediate policies. I would certainly say that there was more latitude after 1935 on the Communist-led literary left toward popular writing. The vocabulary changes to an advocacy of a people’s literature and a people’s culture. The John Reed Clubs, which focused on working-class writers, some of whom showed an affinity with modernism in their poetry, were abolished. Other kinds of writers become more prominent; for example, the Hollywood humorist Donald Ogden Stewart was the new head of the League of American Writers. Yet the broader trend of working-class literature persisted, and there also continued to be writers who wanted to work in the more specific proletarian school. PA: Is the “proletarian literature movement” over? Is it a real cultural force now? AW: I really don’t follow contemporary literature very closely; there are still too many fascinating and forgotten works to be unearthed from the 1930’s-50’s era. But I find that literature about working-class life continues to be produced, as well as some fine radical novels. The specific proletarian literature movement, the one primarily connected with the centrality of the Communist Party in the US left, is over. But I wouldn’t want to see that experience lost from memory or trivialized into a sound-byte. I think any new radical movement is going to have to come to terms with the achievements and weaknesses of Communism and the cultural work associated with it. At the same time, the next radical cultural upsurge must find its own way, and evolve only in a very loose association with organizations and social movements. PA: Given that you come from a different Marxist tradition than the people you study and given that there is a historical gulf between those traditions, how did you become interested in the Communist-led cultural front? AW: As a 1960’s radical, I didn’t come out of the Trotskyist tradition. In high school, I was an alienated existentialist; in college, briefly an aspiring beatnik and then a new leftist. I joined SDS in 1965, which was transformative in producing a lifelong opposition to capitalism. When SDS fell apart, I joined the Young Socialist Alliance at Antioch College in 1968, and then the Socialist Workers Party in Berkeley in late 1969. In these groups I received a fabulous political education in classical Marxism, and met extraordinary socialist veterans of the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s. But it wasn’t Trotskyism that particularly drew me in the first place. What attracted me was radical activism against racism and the Vietnam War, and the ideas of Marxism -
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Ballad for Americans: US organic radical intellectuals
Sidney Hook played a leading role, as a Marxist in the 1930s. Then he played a leading anti-communist role. John Dewey was no Marxist, but he played a leading role as a progressive. See this partial list of philosophers victimized by McCarthyism: http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/philo-mccarthy.htmlThe Honor Roll: American Philosophers Professionally Injured During the McCarthy Era by John McCumber I suppose it all depends on what you mean by leading role. C. Wright Mills played a leading intellectual role in the '50s, but he wasn't organizationally connected to a movement as far as I can recall. At 01:21 PM 9/26/2008, Charles Brown wrote: I can't think of any philosophers or other academic thinkers in leading roles. Can you think of any ? Charles Ralph Dumain [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/26/2008 1:18 PM There's a whole book out on that era: THE CULTURAL FRONT, author is, I think, Michael Deming. There are progressive journalists, songwriters, and filmmakers. The whole institutional and media landscape has changed, though. At 01:02 PM 9/26/2008, you wrote: In the 1930's-40's highwater period of US political accomplishments, many of the intellectuals involved in practical critical activity were artists and journalists not so much philosophers. Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, Billie Holiday, Lillian Hellman, painter Charles White, et al. even , maybe , Ernest Hemingway. I wonder if there is an American cultural style involved in that. In other words, America's noted anti-intellectualism may have displaced the progressive intellectuals from into the arts. Traditionally, journalism has been a favored US intellectual discipline more than academic disciplines. Should US progressive intellectuals in 2008 be looking to other secular fields of communication besides academic disciplines such as philosophy, social science , history etc. to get involved in mass ideas and opinions ? Charles ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Ballad for Americans: US organic radical intellectuals
Thanks for the reference. I'm thinking of connected to the mass struggles. Yea, come to think of it Plekanov was a leading Marxist philosopher in Russia, but by 1917 , he was against the insurrection. Kautsky was a leading intellectual , and we know about him when it counted. Dewey's a good example. Ralph Dumain Sidney Hook played a leading role, as a Marxist in the 1930s. Then he played a leading anti-communist role. John Dewey was no Marxist, but he played a leading role as a progressive. See this partial list of philosophers victimized by McCarthyism: http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/philo-mccarthy.htmlThe Honor Roll: American Philosophers Professionally Injured During the McCarthy Era by John McCumber I suppose it all depends on what you mean by leading role. C. Wright Mills played a leading intellectual role in the '50s, but he wasn't organizationally connected to a movement as far as I can recall. At 01:21 PM 9/26/2008, Charles Brown wrote: I can't think of any philosophers or other academic thinkers in leading roles. Can you think of any ? Charles Ralph Dumain [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/26/2008 1:18 PM There's a whole book out on that era: THE CULTURAL FRONT, author is, I think, Michael Deming. There are progressive journalists, songwriters, and filmmakers. The whole institutional and media landscape has changed, though. At 01:02 PM 9/26/2008, you wrote: In the 1930's-40's highwater period of US political accomplishments, many of the intellectuals involved in practical critical activity were artists and journalists not so much philosophers. Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, Billie Holiday, Lillian Hellman, painter Charles White, et al. even , maybe , Ernest Hemingway. I wonder if there is an American cultural style involved in that. In other words, America's noted anti-intellectualism may have displaced the progressive intellectuals from into the arts. Traditionally, journalism has been a favored US intellectual discipline more than academic disciplines. Should US progressive intellectuals in 2008 be looking to other secular fields of communication besides academic disciplines such as philosophy, social science , history etc. to get involved in mass ideas and opinions ? Charles ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] The Financial Crisis Goes Beyond Finance by Michael Perelman
http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/the-financial-crisis-goes-beyond-finance/ http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2008w38/msg00134.htm I just dashed off the first draft of a discussion of the financial crisis to be published in a South Asian publication. It is very preliminary. I could appreciate any pointers. Thanks. MP The Financial Crisis Goes Beyond Finance The crisis today crisis in mortgage lending does not come as a surprise to me. I discussed the buildup to the crisis in a book published last year: The Confiscation of American Prosperity: From Right Wing Extremism and Economic Ideology to the Next Great Depression. The book shows describes more than three decades of concerted efforts to restructure the economy to respond to the antiauthoritarian spirit of the 1960s, which included. Most important of all, the counterrevolution to the 60s was concerned about a decline in the rate of profits. The objective was to remake the United States as a capitalist's utopia with strict market discipline for ordinary people, while showing special favors on business. Tax cuts, deregulation, and a more business-friendly legal structure became the order of the day. Success showed up relatively quickly in the labor market, where capital halted the increase of wages by 1972, the year when real hourly wages peaked. Since then wages have oscillated but never again reached that level. Profits began to recover, but on closer examination the recovery was unusual. In competitive industries, profits were not particularly high. Profits in producing goods were concentrated in industries protected by intellectual property or government favoritism were better. But the big profits came in finance. Even major industrial firms, such as General Motors, Ford, or General Electric began relying on their financial divisions for much of their profits. What was happening? According to the textbook model of economic growth, new productivity translates into higher wages, which, in turn, create more demand, which spurs industry to produce newer or better products, increasing productivity. In recent decades, debt rather than income spurred demand. As profits recovered, more affluent people saw their portfolios increasing, creating what economists call the wealth effect: the increasing value of their stocks, and later of their houses, was treated as income, which generated demand. Frequently, people used their houses to borrow money to support this demand. Production of physical goods was largely neglected. I am reminded of a conversation between Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, a quarter millennium ago. Boswell observed [Boswell, James. 1934-64. Life of Johnson, 6 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press): ii, p. 464] Very little business appeared to be going forward in Lichfield. I found however two strange manufactures for so inland a place, sail-cloth and streamers for ships: and I observed them making some saddle-cloths, and dressing sheep skins: but upon the whole, the busy hand of industry seemed to be quite slackened. Surely, Sir, (said I,) you are an idle set of people. Sir (said Johnson) We are a City of Philosophers: we work with our Heads, and make the Boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands. Johnson, of course, was being ironic. The philosophers of the new economy were not. They breathlessly referred to a weightless economy [see Coyle 1998]. Tom Peters, the management guru, derided old-line businesses as Lumpy-object purveyors [Peters 1997, p. 16]. Even Alan Greenspan is fond of rhapsodizing about how modern production techniques are making the economy lighter and lighter: The world of 1948 was vastly different from the world of 1996. The American economy, more then than now, was viewed as the ultimate in technology and productivity in virtually all fields of economic endeavor. The quintessential model of industrial might in those days was the array of vast, smoke-encased integrated steel mills in the Pittsburgh district and on the shores of Lake Michigan. Output was things, big physical things. Virtually unimaginable a half century ago was the extent to which concepts and ideas would substitute for physical resources and human brawn in the production of goods and services. In 1948 radios were still being powered by vacuum tubes. Today, transistors deliver far higher quality with a mere fraction of the bulk. Fiber-optics has [sic] replaced huge tonnages of copper wire, and advances in architectural and engineering design have made possible the construction of buildings with much greater floor space but significantly less physical material than the buildings erected just after World War II. Accordingly, while the weight of current economic output is probably only modestly higher than it was a half century ago, value added,
[Marxism-Thaxis] Scientists warn US Congress of cancer risk for cell phone use
Scientists warn US Congress of cancer risk for cell phone use http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080925220553.si7sokjtshow_article=1 Sep 25 06:06 PM US/Eastern 5 Comments A man is sillhouetted against the sun as he uses a mobile te... Scientists on Thursday warned US legislators of the risks of brain cancer from cell phone use, highlighting the potential risk for children who use mobile phones. We urgently need more research, said David Carpenter, director of the Institute of Health and Environment at the University of Albany, in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Domestic Policy. We must not repeat the situation we had with the relationship between smoking and lung cancer, Carpenter said. Ronald Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, said that most studies claiming that there is no link between cell phones and brain tumors are outdated, had methodological concerns and did not include sufficient numbers of long-term cell phone users. Many studies denying a link defined regular cell phones as 'once a week,' added Herberman. I cannot tell this committee that cell phones are definitely dangerous. But, I certainly cannot tell you that they are safe, he said. Carpenter and Herberman both told the committee the brain cancer risk from cell phone use is far greater for children than for adults. Herberman held up a model for lawmakers showing how radiation from a cell phone penetrates far deeper into the brain of a 5-year-old than that of an adult. Every child is using cell phones all of the time, and there are three billion cell phone users in the world, said Herberman. He added that, like the messages that warn of health risks on cigarette packs, cell phones need a precautionary message. Noting that numerous US studies have not found a definitive cancer-phone link, Carpenter asked: Are we at the same place we were with smoking and lung cancer 30 years ago? The committee were shown several European studies, particularly surveys from Scandinavia -- where the cell phone was first developed -- which show that the radiation emitted by cell phones have definite biological consequences. For example, a 2008 study by Swedish cancer specialist Lennart Hardell found that frequent cell phone users are twice as likely to develop a benign tumor on the auditory nerves of the ear most used with the handset, compared to the other ear. In addition, a paper published this month by the Royal Society in London found that adolescents who start using cell phones before the age of 20 were five times more likely to develop brain cancer at the age of 29 than those who didn't use a cell phone. Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] America Pays the Piper, Big Time
America Pays the Piper, Big Time
--
by Robert Parry
consortiumnews.com (September 24 2008)
After a 28-year binge of drunken optimism and blind nationalism - often
punctuated by chants of USA, USA! and We're No. 1! - Americans are
waking up with a painful hangover, facing a grim morning in America,
not the happy vision that Ronald Reagan famously sold them on.
As the United States begins to assess how the nation got into its
trillion-dollar bailout mess, a true understanding must go back three
decades or so when Reagan deployed his well-honed communications skills
and the Republican Right mastered the dark arts of propaganda to get the
American people to shed the annoying strictures of rationality.
In the 1970s, there had been stumbling efforts by three presidents -
Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter - to begin confronting
stubborn structural problems, such as a growing dependence on foreign
oil, environmental damage, and excessive military spending which had
sapped resources away from a productive economy.
Nixon helped create the Environmental Protection Agency; he imposed
energy-conservation measures; he opened the diplomatic door to communist
China; and he initiated dÃtente with the Soviet Union. But his
presidency foundered on the rocks of his political paranoia that led to
the Watergate scandal.
President Ford tried to continue many of Nixon's policies, particularly
winding down the Cold War with Moscow and slimming down the bloated
Pentagon budget, which had fed what President Dwight Eisenhower dubbed
the military-industrial complex.
However, confronting a rebellion from Reagan's Republican Right in 1976,
Ford abandoned dÃtente; he let hard-line Cold Warriors (and a first
wave of young intellectuals called neoconservatives) pressure the CIA's
analytical division; and he brought in a new generation of tough-minded
operatives, such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
After winning in 1976, President Carter injected more respect for human
rights into US foreign policy, a move some scholars believe put an
important nail in the coffin of the Soviet Union, leaving it
hard-pressed to justify its repressive internal practices.
At home, Carter proposed a comprehensive energy policy and warned
Americans that their growing dependence on foreign oil represented a
national security threat of the first order, what he called the moral
equivalent of war.
However, powerful vested interests managed to exploit the shortcomings
of all three of these presidents to sabotage any sustained progress. For
instance, Carter's prescient energy address was widely mocked as the
MEOW speech.
Soon, the American people were persuaded to turn away from their
real-world challenges and enter a land of make-believe. Don't worry,
they were told. Be happy.
Reagan as Piper
The lead piper in this parade away from America's tough choices was
Ronald Reagan who insisted in his First Inaugural Address in 1981 that
government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.
As President, Reagan attacked the federal regulatory system and cut
taxes so recklessly that his budget director, David Stockman, foresaw
red ink as far as the eye can see. Reagan also justified fattening the
Pentagon's budget by citing dire warnings that the Soviet Union was on
the rise (despite CIA analysis at the time that it was in sharp decline).
To marginalize dissent, Reagan and his subordinates stoked anger toward
anyone who challenged the era's feel-good optimism. Skeptics were not
just honorable critics, they were un-American defeatists or - in Jeane
Kirkpatrick's memorable attack line - they would blame America first.
Under Reagan, a right-wing infrastructure also took shape, linking new
media outlets (magazines, newspapers, books, et cetera) with
well-financed think tanks that churned out endless op-eds. Plus, there
were attack groups that went after mainstream journalists who dared
disclose information that poked holes in Reagan's propaganda themes.
Significantly, too, Reagan credentialed a new generation of neocon
intellectuals, who pioneered a concept called perception management,
the shaping of how Americans saw, understood - and were frightened by -
threats from abroad.
Many honest reporters saw their careers damaged when they resisted the
lies and distortions of the Reagan administration. Likewise, US
intelligence analysts were purged when they refused to bend to the
propaganda demands from above. {1}
In effect, Reagan's team created a faux reality for the American public.
Civil wars in Central America between impoverished peasants and wealthy
oligarchs became an East-West showdown. US-backed insurgents in
Nicaragua, Angola and Afghanistan were transformed from corrupt, brutal
(often drug-tainted) thugs into noble freedom-fighters.
While Reagan played the role of the nation's kindly grandfather, his
operatives refined their skills at
[Marxism-Thaxis] Solvency vs. Liquidity
Solvency vs. Liquidity http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/09/solvency_vs_liquidity.html SOLVENCY vs. LIQUIDITYPaul Krugman says he's uneasy about the proposed Wall Street bailout because it seems to be based on the mistaken idea that all we have is a liquidity problem. Atrios amplifies: Again, the problem is that lots of bad loans were made, lots of people made highly leveraged investments in those bad loans, and still more people bet on those loans by insuring them. The loans are bad. The mortgages are not going to be repaid in full. Housing prices are not going to magically shoot up 50% over the next 6 months. People gambled and lost and now the Democrats are racing to bail them all out. I'll make the standard disclaimer that there's no way for an ordinary layman to have enough information to truly judge what's going on behind all those closed doors in Washington. And I'll add further that as laymen go, I'm as ordinary as you can get. Nonetheless. It's true that the Bernanke/Paulson bailout is aimed at illiquid debt instruments. And those instruments are illiquid largely because they contain lots of toxic mortgage securities and nobody knows how much this stuff is really worth. It's unlikely that the toxic sludge makes these instruments literally worth nothing, but who knows? The mere possibility that they're worthless means that any bank who owns them might be insolvent, and since everyone owns at least some of them, this in turn means that everyone might be insolvent. Result: no one is willing to loan money to anyone else, because who wants to loan money to a bank that might never pay it back? And since huge flows of overnight interbank loans are the oil that lubricates the credit markets, when this flow seizes up, the entire credit market seizes up. (What's more, if this WSJ tick-tock is correct, the seizure became critical on Wednesday, which is why BP changed their minds midweek about pursuing a systemwide bailout that they'd opposed earlier.) The purpose of the bailout, then, isn't to recapitalize the banks, it's to put a firm value on the toxic sludge once and for all. Maybe it's a dime on the dollar, maybe it's 50 cents on the dollar. Whatever. When that's done and the feds have purchased the sludge, some banks will turn out to be insolvent, and perhaps they'll be allowed to fail. Others will turn out to be in bad shape but still solvent, and they'll continue doing business. Once that's sorted out, the commercial paper market will loosen back up since everyone will know who it's safe to loan money to and who it's not. Now, there are obviously all sorts of problems here. How is the Treasury going to value all the sludge? If they value it too high, then we really are bailing out irresponsible bankers who made stupid loans, and the taxpayers will foot the bill when the sludge eventually gets sold off at a loss. Value it too low and the feds are acting as vultures, causing more bank failures than we really ought to have. Furthermore, once the sludge is off Wall Street's books and some big banks turn out to be involvent for certain, will they really be allowed to fail? Or will Bernanke and Paulson prop them up yet again? Beats me. Obviously skepticism is warranted on these scores, especially since we're all being asked to approve the bailout basically at gunpoint. Still, it's not clear to me that Bernanke and Paulson are unaware that the real problem is insolvency, not illiquidity. Their plan, as near as I can tell, is to liquidate the sludge precisely so we can tell who's really involvent and who isn't. What's more, if Democrats manage to grow a spine over the next few days (and no, I'm not taking bets), the bailout bill could contain provisions to restructure loans for distressed homeowners, which means, contra Atrios, that all those bad loans could genuinely become a little less bad. It would be nice if this were set up so that restructuring was mandatory for any bank that wanted government help, but given the way all these mortgages have been sliced and diced over the years, I don't even know for sure if that's possible. Again: I'm guessing here based on my current knowledge of what's going on. Anybody who thinks I'm missing the point should let me know. And obviously we should all be watching like hawks to make sure that BP aren't offering sweetheart deals to the masters of the universe who caused the meltdown in the first place. But that's why God invented Democratic committee chairmen, right? This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Venezuela's Chavez says taking back mines
Venezuela's Chavez says taking back mines Fri Sep 19, 2008 7:59pm EDT CARACAS, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday he is taking back mines, a sign the leftist may order takeovers in a sector that includes a large gold project run by Canada's Crystallex Chavez, who has nationalized swaths of the oil-based economy, appeared to single out Las Cristinas, the Crystallex-owned project that has the potential to be a world-class mine but was denied an exploration permit in April. We are taking back big mines, and one of them is one of the biggest in the world. And do you know what it is? It's gold, it's gold, Chavez told supporters at a rally during a speech about the benefits of state control in an economy. Las Cristinas has been on standby for years in need of permits. The government's permit denial this year sent Crystallex' stock plummeting. Since then, the company has failed to have the permit ruling overturned. But it has said it has held encouraging talks with the government about the project. Government officials have not publicly echoed such sentiment. (Reporting by Enrique Andres Pretel; Writing by Saul Hudson; Editing by Marguerita Choy) This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] THE GOAL THAT CAN’T BE RENOUNC ED
Reflections by Comrade Fidel THE GOAL THAT CAN’T BE RENOUNCED http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/reflexiones/2008/ing/f240908i.html Around 35,000 Cuban health specialists provide free or paid-for services in the world. Furthermore, some young doctors from countries such as Haiti and others among the poorest of the Third World are working in their homelands thanks to the assistance provided by Cuba. In Latin America, our main contribution has been the ophthalmologic surgeries that will help to preserve the eyesight of millions of people. Besides, we are assisting in the training of tens of thousands of young medical students from other nations, both in and outside Cuba. Nevertheless, this is not anything that is ruining our people, who were able to survive thanks to the internationalism that the USSR pursued with Cuba, which helps us to pay our own debt to humankind. After carefully meditating and analyzing in detail the history of the last few decades, I have come to the conclusion, without the least bit of chauvinism, that Cuba has the best medical care in the whole world, and it is important that we are aware of that, since it is the starting point for what I wish to state. The basis of the aforementioned success lies in the network of polyclinics and family doctors’ offices set up throughout the country, which replaced the disastrous and precarious capitalist system of medical care that was based on the private practice of medicine, although the tough reality of the times imposed the creation of a number of mutualist health care centers. To the youngest ones amongst us, I should clarify that these were cooperative institutions where those services were offered for a monthly fee. Under that modality, all the members of my family benefited from some of those services at a hospital located in the far-away capital of the former province of Oriente. However, I cannot remember one single sugarcane or sugar mill worker entitled to be a member of that institution, for they lacked the necessary resources and never used to travel to that city. Wherever the principles of capitalism prevail, society moves backward. That is why we must be extremely careful every time we see that socialism is forced to resort to capitalist mechanisms. There are those who get intoxicated and alienated while dreaming about the effects of the drug of individual egoism as if it were the only incentive capable of mobilizing people. The great need for medical specialists generated a bourgeois elitist spirit in that sector. Cuba put an end to it, once and for all, after the Revolution, all along these years, graduated growing numbers of doctors who refused the private practice of medicine and later on became specialists through study and systematic practice, which resulted in a huge mass of well trained professionals. Under capitalism, the limited number of specialists whose work had to do with health and life became gods. We have no other alternative but to cultivate in these people, as well as in the high-level educators and other professionals who require great doses of knowledge, a profound revolutionary spirit. Experience has shown that is possible, especially in a profession that has so much to do with life and death. Our network of polyclinics provides coverage to all cities and rural areas throughout Cuba; it was created as a result of a process aimed at developing health centers adapted to the most varied situations in our country and among its inhabitants. In a city such as Havana, the largest in the country that stands as an example of the complexities of urban life -which, on the other hand, are different from those in Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Camagüey, Villa Clara or Pinar del Río, just as much as they differ amongst themselves -each polyclinic looks after approximately 22 000 people. After the triumph of the Revolution on January 1st, 1959, the citizens of the capital used to inundate the emergency rooms of the hospitals which were generally many blocks away from their homes, seeking the assistance that the Revolution was providing there, free of charge, with the then-available equipment. They did not go to the recently created polyclinics where, quite often, the least efficient doctors were assigned to. Later on they learned to receive such assistance at the polyclinics which were gradually better equipped and staffed with doctors of an increasing quality and professionalism. Finally, they opted for the best variant: first they went to the family doctor’s office, where they would be looked after by a young doctor who was trained after a six-year programme of theoretical and practical courses skillfully designed by eminent professors. Afterwards they continued studying until they became specialists in General Comprehensive Medicine. The polyclinic, with its laboratories and equipment, used to be their support system. One day, when I visited one such centre to check on its professionalism, I asked
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Ballad for Americans: US organic radical
Should US progressive intellectuals in 2008 be looking to other secular fields of communication besides academic disciplines such as philosophy, social science , history etc. to get involved in mass ideas and opinions ? Journalism became an academic major, void of historical content, much like business and management. To be a successful journalist one needs, I suspect, some good luck and a large network. The people I know who manage to get an income from freelance all talk of the 'network' that keeps commissions coming their way. So whatever the area we are supposed to be looking to, I don't think it is journalists (or journalists who became great novelists, without academic training in either journalism or creative wrirting). As for people that other people look to, everytime someone on a list like this cites Chomsky, or that idiot with the 'Iraq blog' Juan Coleman, or someone like Perelman--and pardon my sinister outlook, but citing these usually just stops discussion or certainly doesn't inspire it. It's as if discussion lists existed for people to read texts written by people who do not write for that particular list. Take for instance the recent Perelman piece. It advances the term 'financialization' and then somewhat nostalgically talks about industrial production and the need for regulation. It doesn't discuss how the people who ran Enron (but also Carlyle Group and many other companies, firms, equity groups etc that grew from the late 80s onwards) were able to stay ahead of wave after wave of privatization, not just deregulation. There is nothing original or startling in the analysis Perelman gives, and yet it is long-winded while being incomplete. I could say the same thing about HCKL. Longwinded, unoriginal, incomplete, and even if it doesn't kill discussion and communication, it hardly inspires it. Are we supposed to be impressed because these guys write in longer chunks of prose and get paid to do it? CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
