Bush insults mentally ill people
BBC in London this morning has just played a clip of Bush defending himself with some red-neck stuff about Saddam Hussein that if it is a choice between a madman and defending the American people he will defend the American people. If you take this literally, any mindset that Saddam Hussein was mentally ill is an even worse failure of intelligence than so far exposed. Just in terms of real politik how can you sensibly analyse any country on the basis that its leader is a madman? Perhaps that really was the problem. But in terms of crude stigmatisation of people with disabilities, this sort of statement would be completely unacceptable in Britain. For all his crimes and misdemeanours, his cynicism and his opportunism, Tony Blair could never have produced this slur on mentally ill people in British civil society. It smacks to me of the unanalysed fascist tendencies that were never addressed in American society in the 20th century. The BBC is clipping and relaying this quote not only because it appears to be Bush's latest defence, but because the individual reporters know it will go down terribly with a large section of British opinion, and not just on the left. There is a wider question that Bush's ideology may play well at home, but it is incompatible with the wider global civil society that is emerging. That is why Kerry and Edwards, despite Edwards protectionist tones, would be a better ticket for global finance capitalism. Chris Burford London
Re: Russia Steps in to Aid Banking Crisis
I think calling this a banking crisis is overdoing it. Almost none of these banks are much more than laundrettes, and few Russians have bank accounts anyway -- they keep their saving in cash. When something happens to Sperbank, I'll start worrying. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Bush insults mentally ill people
From: Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] BBC in London this morning has just played a clip of Bush defending himself with some red-neck stuff about Saddam Hussein that if it is a choice between a madman and defending the American people he will defend the American people. If you take this literally, any mindset that Saddam Hussein was mentally ill is an even worse failure of intelligence than so far exposed. Just in terms of real politik how can you sensibly analyse any country on the basis that its leader is a madman? Perhaps that really was the problem. But in terms of crude stigmatisation of people with disabilities, this sort of statement would be completely unacceptable in Britain. For all his crimes and misdemeanours, his cynicism and his opportunism, Tony Blair could never have produced this slur on mentally ill people in British civil society. Huh? Bush is guilty of war crimes, and you're nailing him with a *PC* offense? Really, Chris, you're beginning to sound like St. Tony Blair yourself. Carl _ MSN Toolbar provides one-click access to Hotmail from any Web page FREE download! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200413ave/direct/01/
Kucinich delegates fold like a cheap suitcase
THE WASHINGTON TIMES July 11, 2004 Kerry heads off platform squabble From the Nation/Politics section Stephen Dinan HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign headed off a showdown in the party platform yesterday over Iraq, convincing rival Dennis J. Kucinich's supporters not to demand withdrawal of U.S. troops or the establishment of a Department of Peace. Saying party unity is more important than particulars, delegates agreed to forgo amendments on Iraq, a broader call for same-sex unions and a stronger endorsement of Palestinians' rights. Mr. Kerry has ensured that his party will adopt a platform that matches the centrist image the campaign is trying to portray for the Massachusetts senator. They didn't think we could do this. They didn't think we could be on message. We showed them, we did it, said Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Ohio Democrat and co-chairwoman of the platform committee. We have kept our eye on the prize. The platform was adopted unanimously and will go to the full convention in Boston on July 26 for final approval. It is far shorter than the 2000 Democratic platform, and instead of a list of specifics, it is a broader statement of principles. The document includes several pointed rebukes of President Bush's policies, calling them wrongheaded and a dangerously ineffective disregard of other nations. Almost half of this year's platform is devoted to national and domestic security -- something Kerry campaign officials said emphasizes that Democrats, led by Mr. Kerry, are ready to assume the challenge of defending the United States. The platform includes Mr. Kerry's call for boosting military troop strength, his initiatives to contain weapons of mass destruction and his pledge to channel more funding to homeland security. The Kerry campaign was very much in charge of the drafting process, with deputy campaign manager Steve Elmendorf, adviser Miles Lackey and campaign foreign-policy adviser Rand Beers on hand in the hotel ballroom here in Hollywood, Fla. full: http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20040710-113547-1423r -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Bush insults mentally ill people
If you take this literally, any mindset that Saddam Hussein was mentally ill is an even worse failure of intelligence than so far exposed. Just in terms of real politik how can you sensibly analyse any country on the basis that its leader is a madman? Perhaps that really was the problem. --- Bush sensibly analyses stuff? :) You do get this he was just a lunatic trope with Hitler and Stalin (sometimes Pol Pot, Mao, whoever) all the time. __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Russia Steps in to Aid Banking Crisis
lemme guess, Spebank is a sperm bank? ;-) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine From: PEN-L list on behalf of Chris Doss Sent: Tue 7/13/2004 2:50 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Russia Steps in to Aid Banking Crisis I think calling this a banking crisis is overdoing it. Almost none of these banks are much more than laundrettes, and few Russians have bank accounts anyway -- they keep their saving in cash. When something happens to Sperbank, I'll start worrying. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Bush insults mentally ill people
it's nothing new. In US official parlance, Castro and Noriega are also crazy. Someone is crazy if they don't obey Us. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine From: PEN-L list on behalf of Chris Burford Sent: Tue 7/13/2004 12:27 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] Bush insults mentally ill people BBC in London this morning has just played a clip of Bush defending himself with some red-neck stuff about Saddam Hussein that if it is a choice between a madman and defending the American people he will defend the American people. If you take this literally, any mindset that Saddam Hussein was mentally ill is an even worse failure of intelligence than so far exposed. Just in terms of real politik how can you sensibly analyse any country on the basis that its leader is a madman? Perhaps that really was the problem. But in terms of crude stigmatisation of people with disabilities, this sort of statement would be completely unacceptable in Britain. For all his crimes and misdemeanours, his cynicism and his opportunism, Tony Blair could never have produced this slur on mentally ill people in British civil society. It smacks to me of the unanalysed fascist tendencies that were never addressed in American society in the 20th century. The BBC is clipping and relaying this quote not only because it appears to be Bush's latest defence, but because the individual reporters know it will go down terribly with a large section of British opinion, and not just on the left. There is a wider question that Bush's ideology may play well at home, but it is incompatible with the wider global civil society that is emerging. That is why Kerry and Edwards, despite Edwards protectionist tones, would be a better ticket for global finance capitalism. Chris Burford London
Re: Russia Steps in to Aid Banking Crisis
Well, it is the only real macho bank stuffed full of real money waiting to be spewed out into the world. :) The rest are more of articifial receptacle banks. Russia has thousands of little pocket banks. Sperbank, Alfa Bank and CitiBank are the only real ones, as far as I know. (Not meaning to pretend to be an expert on the Russian banking sector.) Cutting down the number of banks and increasingly the availability of loans is a reform repeated called for by the government, but not yet implemented much. One problem in the Russian economy is that it is virtually impossible for people in the middle class to get loans, because then they would have to disclose their full incomes... which most people earn in the shadow economy off the books. So they can't get loans for starting small businesses and whatnot. --- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: lemme guess, Spebank is a sperm bank? ;-) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine From: PEN-L list on behalf of Chris Doss Sent: Tue 7/13/2004 2:50 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Russia Steps in to Aid Banking Crisis I think calling this a banking crisis is overdoing it. Almost none of these banks are much more than laundrettes, and few Russians have bank accounts anyway -- they keep their saving in cash. When something happens to Sperbank, I'll start worrying. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: US under fire at AIDS conference
Michael wrote: How can you defeat an alliance of Christian fundamentalists and the drug companies? Or an alliance of Medical Associations and the drug companies? In 2003, Pfizer had sales of $9.2 billion for Lipitor alone, while Merck had sales of $5 billion for Zocor. Imagine the possibilities with the new recommendations below: New rule on cholesterol Millions more urged to take medicine; Pfizer may benefit BY PATRICIA ANSTETT FREE PRESS MEDICAL WRITER July 13, 2004 Millions of Americans are expected to be prescribed aggressive doses of cholesterol-lowering medicines following the release of new health guidelines. The guidelines, released Monday, set the recommended target for so-called bad or low-density lipoprotein cholesterol at 70 -- down from 100. LDL cholesterol is one of two numbers given to measure cholesterol. As many as 36 million people in the United States might benefit from cholesterol-lowering drugs under the new guidelines. That could prove economically significant for Pfizer Inc., a major Michigan pharmaceutical company that produces Lipitor, the biggest-selling cholesterol-lowering drug in the world, with $5.8 billion in U.S. sales alone. The lower the better for high-risk people, that's the message . . . said Scott Grundy, chair of the panel of health experts that released the new guidelines. They were published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Though aimed at people with established heart disease, the guidelines will affect the general population, said Dr. Douglas Westveer, director of cardiology at Beaumont Hospital in Troy. Most people without a risk of heart disease should aim to lower their LDL cholesterol to 130 and their high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels to 45 to 60, particularly for men 60 and older. For years, doctors have told patients to aim to keep their combined cholesterol numbers to 200 or less. Westveer and other cardiologists also expect that doctors will prescribe a second medicine or increase doses of cholesterol-lowering medicines because of the new guidelines. This will have a major impact, said Dr. Souheil Saba, cardiologist at Providence Hospital and Medical Centers in Southfield. Now large sections of the public will qualify for more aggressive therapy. The guidelines follow an analysis by a government panel of five major clinical studies involving cholesterol-lowering medications. The government's lead agency on heart disease and two national groups of heart experts endorse them. Dr. Thomas Davis, a cardiologist at Detroit's Harper University Hospital, said the guidelines follow studies showing that very low LDL levels reduce a risk of a second heart attack by 30 percent to 50 percent within five years. Though cardiologists have recommended low LDL levels for several years, this will help standardize heart care for high-risk patients, he said. Many patients at risk of a heart attack are treated by primary care physicians, who may not follow cardiologists' recommendations as closely. The guidelines also should help convince people reluctant to take cholesterol-lowering drugs of the significance of taking them, Davis said. Many patients either don't want to take medicine or think their cholesterol isn't so bad and they'll just watch their diet, he said. The reality is that diet and exercise alone often are unsuccessful in reaching the new levels, said Dr. Michael Hudson, director of the coronary care unit at Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital. Smaller changes in diet, which most people are able to do, won't come close to the new recommended levels, he said. Some patients are reluctant to take cholesterol-lowering medicines because of the side effects, primarily irritation of the stomach and a small risk of liver damage. Fortunately, Hudson said, higher doses only raise the risk a few decimal points, he said. It's very small. To check for liver problems, patients are tested before being put on the drugs, shortly afterward, and then yearly, he said. Rick Chambers, spokesman for Pfizer, said he expects the guidelines will increase sales. It certainly appears that this will open the door to new patients, he said. Lipitor was discovered in Ann Arbor by scientists working at the time for Parke-Davis Co., later bought by Pfizer. In some patients, it achieves cholesterol reductions of as much as 65 percent. Pfizer employs 9,000 people in Michigan. Every year, 1.2 million Americans have a new or repeat heart attack. For details on the guidelines, visit the American Heart Association's Web site at www.americanheart.org. Contact PATRICIA ANSTETT at 313-222-5021 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]. Staff writer JEFF BENNETT and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Let them eat wedding cake
Let them eat wedding cake By Barbara Ehrenreich July 13, 2004 NEW YORK - Commitment isn't easy for guys - we all know that - but the Bush administration is taking the traditional male ambivalence about marriage to giddy new heights. On the one hand, it wants to ban gays from marrying, through a constitutional amendment that the Senate will vote on this week. On the other hand, it's been avidly promoting marriage among poor women - the straight ones, anyway. Opponents of gay marriage claim that there is some consistency here, in that gay marriages must be stopped before they undermine the straight ones. How the married gays will go about wrecking heterosexual marriages is not entirely clear: by moving in next-door, inviting themselves over and doing a devastating critique of the interior decorating? It is equally unclear how marriage will cure poor women's No. 1 problem, which is poverty - unless, of course, the plan is to draft CEOs to marry recipients of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Left to themselves, most women end up marrying men of the same social class as their own, meaning - in the case of poverty-stricken women - blue-collar men. But that demographic group has seen a tragic decline in earnings in the last couple of decades. So I have been endeavoring to calculate just how many blue-collar men a TANF recipient needs to marry to lift her family out of poverty. The answer turns out to be about 2.3, which is, strangely enough, illegal. Seeking clarity, I called the administration's top marriage maven, Wade F. Horn at the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS is not promoting marriage, he told me, just providing marriage education for interested couples of limited means. The poor aren't being singled out for any insidious reason, he insisted; this is just a service they might otherwise lack. It could have been Pilates training or courses in orchid cultivation, was the implication, but for now it's marriage education. As recently as 2001, however, Mr. Horn was proposing that the administration show it values marriage by rewarding those who choose it with cash marriage bonuses. When I suggested that - with food pantries maxing out and shelters overflowing across the nation - poor women might have other priorities, Mr. Horn snapped back: It's fine for you to make the decision on what low-income couples need. Silly old social-engineering-type liberal that I am, I had actually doubted that marriage education might be helpful to couples doomed to spend their married lives on separate cots in the shelter. Besides, Mr. Horn went on, low-income people are eager for government-sponsored marriage education. Lisalyn Jacobs, who tracks TANF marriage policy at the women's group Legal Momentum, told me she finds it obscene that, in the face of coming cuts in housing subsidies and other services, HHS is planning to spend any money at all on marriage, much less the $200 million now proposed. But she may be unaware, as I am, of the mobs of poor women who picket HHS daily, chanting: What do we want? Marriage education! When do we want it? Now! If marriage were a cure for poverty, I'd be the first to demand that HHS spring for the champagne and bridesmaids' dresses. But as Mr. Horn acknowledged to me, there is no evidence to that effect. Married couples are on average more prosperous than single mothers, but that doesn't mean marriage will lift the existing single mothers out of poverty. So what's the point of the administration's marriage meddling? Ms. Jacobs thinks that the administration's mixed signals on marriage - OK for paupers, a no-no for gays - are part of the conservative effort to change the subject to marriage. From, for example, Iraq. But this may be too cynical an explanation. Quite possibly, the administration wants to ban gay marriage so that gay men can be drafted to marry TANF recipients. Think of all the problems that would solve - and, if the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy stereotype holds true, how tastefully appointed those shelters will become. Barbara Ehrenreich is a columnist for The New York Times.
Moving Mountains by Anne-Christine dAdesky
Moving Mountains In her new book, journalist and activist Anne-Christine dAdesky argues that access to AIDS medicine is a fundamental human rights issue. Peter Meredith Mother Jones July 13 , 2004 Anne-Christine dAdesky has been reporting from the front lines of the global AIDS epidemic since before it became a major story. A foreign correspondent stationed in Haiti in 1984, she began writing about HIV when it was still something whispered about. Returning to the United States, she continued covering global AIDS and politics for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Advocate, and OUT, where she was editor for AIDS, health, and science. Moving Mountains, her second book, examines the challenges of providing treatment to the 40 million HIV-positive people worldwide. The book compiles dispatches from developing nations whose treatment programs have met with mixed success. DAdesky begins with Brazil, where domestically made generic HIV drugs and universal health care have made the country a model for treating AIDS. She discusses innovative programssuch as Haitis accompagnateurs, lay caregivers who counsel rural HIV patients and help them adhere to their treatmentsas well as barriers to treatment. DAdesky assails regulations that discourage production of generic drugs, arguing that access to AIDS medicine is a human rights issue. DAdesky regards herself as both a journalist and activist. She recently founded WE-ACT (Womens Equity in Access to Care and Treatment), an organization that treats HIV-positive Rwandan women. She just finished the documentary Pills, Profits, and Protest, a companion to her book that examines the need for global access to HIV medicines. At this weeks International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, she will lead a panel on HIV treatment that includes activists and the head of the World Health Organizations AIDS program. Mother Jones.com caught up with dAdesky in New York during her book tour to discuss victories and challenges in treating AIDS globally. MotherJones.com: You write that its important to view access to HIV medicines through the lens of human rights and social justice, rather than security or economics. Why? Anne-Christine d'Adesky: I look at it as a human rights issue because, in the U.S. or anywhere else, its a disease that effects people who are poor, and the service that people who are poor get in most countries is from the public health system. The problem we have is that, because medicine continues to be treated as a commodity, AIDS has been dealt with in the U.S. as something that would be resolved by a market-based system. And that really doesnt work in the rest of the world. I feel that by looking at it as a social justice issue, we can look at why the epidemic has spread the way it has, but also why we havent been able to access treatment. Theres an economic system in place that is affecting access to such a striking degree that we really have to deal with it as a political and economic crisis if were expecting to get a medical and scientific response that really reflects the access people need. Its clear that we could easily afford to treat everyone who has HIV now many times over, and it wouldnt put a dent in the global economic system. The inequity isnt a given; its something thats created and maintained. Looking at the past two years, its clear now that economic policies that reflect the agendas of the U.S. and some of the G-8 countries are actively blocking access. MJ.com: The Bush administration points to Uganda and its ABC [abstinence, be faithful, and condoms when appropriate] model as the blueprint for prevention worldwide. But you criticize Ugandas model, particularly regarding its impact on women. ACD: The bulk of the Bush money has been going to prevention messages that are essentially pushing abstinence. My concern is that the women I spoke with in Uganda who are HIV-positive and are trying to get access to treatment are married women, women who technically followed the ABCs. They were abstinent until they were married, and once they were married, of course, they didnt use condoms, because the goal for many couples is to start families and have children. They became HIV-positive because their husbands were HIV-positive. In some cases, their husbands knew they were HIV-positive and didnt tell their wives. In other cases, they were polygamous. In other cases there was a lack of education. Across the country, there has been a lack of testing, so these men didnt necessarily know they were HIV-positive. I think that the issue is that the ABCs dont work. Regardless of your moral position on abstinence or condoms, its not working for the great majority of people who are being exposed in many of these countries. Theyre young girls. Theyre young women. Theyre exposed at a young age, and theyre often exposed by older men. Another dangerous policy is removing condoms from the menu when you
Re: US under fire at AIDS conference
Now all you have to do is add the fast food industry into the mix, getting them to add an antiobesity drug into their hamburgers. The Bushies are making noises about screening people for mental health -- to be treated with drugs. Fox News may also be a drug, but I have not seen the final study on the subject. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
Please excuse a layperson's answer: Secular is a trend without end. Carl That's one of those terms of art that reverses the lay sense. In a religious sense a trend without end is sacred. Charles
absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
by Devine, James CB: Maybe the use of absolute here is not significant. JD:As I said, I think the word probably means abstract, but I'd have to consult a Hegel expert. Unfortunately, Marx decided to play with the use of Hegelian language in CAPITAL. This has put off and/or confused a lot of readers, while creating a sector of academics (not all working in colleges) who dwell on the Hegelian mysticism of it all. I'm afraid that old Karlos was in love with jargon as much as many academics are. (Of course, among the econfolk, some people are in love with math more than with jargon.) CB: On this, I take the position that Marx actually believed that dialectics is valid and therefore necessary as part of his conception ( not merely the word forms to be coquetted with, despite Marx's own description). In other words, we can't dispense with dialectics and still understand _Capital_. I think your idea of sort of abstract is on point. Vol. III laws are more concrete. Maybe the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is a Concrete General Law. Still, this is an interesting Absolute law in that it says capitalism must produce more and more poverty. Is it reasserting itself in the U.S. ? I think Marx's wording leaves open that he is referring to absolute numbers of poor people, not relative numbers of poor people. Anyway, it would be important to show , if true, that _even in the U.S._ one of the richest countries the law is reasserting itself. In other words, I think we all see the application of the generalization by looking at a global economy and taking into account world poverty rather than only looking at the U.S. national economy. But if we can say that the generalization even has some current validity in the rich, U.S. economy, this would give significant, fresh credibility to Marx' theory. ... I don't think the absolute number of paupers is useful, since the population has increased and is increasing. I'd say that Marx's tendency has reasserted itself in the US since about 1980. ^^ CB: It seems to me that it would still be significant if the absolute number of paupers increases with the increase in the population. That would be a very damning social fact for capitalism. There may be new qualitative social problems associated with various levels of increased absolute numbers of poor. The new quantitative dimensions and numbers of Lazurus layers and poverty layers, generations of poverty may give rise to new qualitative social problems. There need not be increasing rates of poverty to generate new types of social problems. I'm not sure that he is saying that the _rate_ of poverty increases. Has the rate staid the same, or within the same range ? ^^ JD: the Federal government's official measure of poverty actually fell from 9.2% in 1979 to 8.7% of families in 2000 (between two business-cycle peaks). However, the downward trend of official poverty from 1959 or so _ended_ in the 1970s and started upward for quite awhile. (Numbers come from http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/histpov/famindex.html.) Further, over the long haul, the poverty rate isn't worth much. Poverty is defined by an income level that assumes that 1/3 of a family's budget goes to food. That seems more and more obsolete (even though the poverty level is increased as money loses value due to inflation), since these day's it's housing which is swallowing the lion's share. The rise of poverty rates after 2000 (to 9.6% in 2002) might indicate that in 2000, even officially-defined poverty was too low for capitalism's health. That is, the business-cycle downturn after 2000 may have followed Marx's volume I scenario of low unemployment squeezing profits and encouraging slow-downs. ^^ CB: So, we can say that there is evidence to support the continuing operation of this general law. Thanks for the discussion below ^ Another way to measure poverty is in terms of relative poverty, i.e., the percentage of the families (or the population or the households) that are below some measure of how high an income is needed to attain a middle class life-style. For example, one could use a measure like 60% of the median income as the cut-off. I don't have the statistics here. But Doug Henwood writes A more honest count of the poor - one either based on an updated market basket (rather than the 1955 or 1960 one today's line is based on) or figured on a poverty line measured against average incomes rather than a fixed standard from long ago (like, say, setting the poverty line at half the average income, which would push the line up to $19,250 for two people or $26,852 for four, 90% and 67% higher than official levels) - would yield a poverty rate almost twice the present level, in the 20-25% range in 1995. (see http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Stats_incpov.html.) The share of total income received by the poorest 1/5 of the families in 1975 was 5.6%, while in 2001 it was 4.2%. This
Re: US under fire at AIDS conference
At 08:24 AM 7/13/2004 -0700, you wrote: Now all you have to do is add the fast food industry into the mix, getting them to add an antiobesity drug into their hamburgers. The Bushies are making noises about screening people for mental health -- to be treated with drugs. Fox News may also be a drug, but I have not seen the final study on the subject. LOL. Michael, I think you're on to something. Speaking of Fox News... Happy talk from hell Even if you think you're wise to Fox News' right-wing agenda, Robert Greenwald's Outfoxed will leave you very afraid. Andrew O'Hehir Salon July 13, 2004 | I'm a neutral observer, of course, here to give you a fair and balanced report. But some people would say that Fox News Channel is nothing more than the private right-wing propaganda machine of a sneaky right-wing billionaire who is -- now these are just the facts, people -- not an American at all but some kind of Down Under, funny-accented, shrimp-on-the-barbie-eating, crocodile-hunting, profoundly un-American Australian, for goodness' sake. And while I know Australia is not obviously very much like France -- treasonous, untrustworthy France -- let's look under the surface a little, OK? Do you know what one of Australia's top agricultural products is? That's right, it's wine. Draw your own conclusions, people, that's all I ask. And when you get right down to it, isn't there something French about Shep Smith, if you know what I mean? Isn't that mousse in his hair? Does that sound like an American word to you? Isn't there something about him that suggests the French government of, say, 1943? Something a little Vichy French? Nazi-collaborator French, possibly? I don't know, I'm only asking. You decide. Maybe you think my parody of the methods employed by Fox News itself (yes, French and Australian readers, that's what it is -- please delete those partly composed emails) is a few truckloads too broad. After you see Robert Greenwald's documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, you might change your mind. Buy the DVD at: http://www.outfoxed.org/ Outfoxed examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a race to the bottom in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know. The film explores Murdoch's burgeoning kingdom and the impact on society when a broad swath of media is controlled by one person. Media experts, including Walter Cronkite, Jeff Cohen (FAIR) Bob McChesney (Free Press), Chellie Pingree (Common Cause), Jeff Chester (Center for Digital Democracy) and David Brock (Media Matters) provide context and guidance for the story of Fox News and its effect on society. This documentary also reveals the secrets of Former Fox news producers, reporters, bookers and writers who expose what it's like to work for Fox News. These former Fox employees talk about how they were forced to push a right-wing point of view or risk their jobs. Some have even chosen to remain anonymous in order to protect their current livelihoods. As one employee said There's no sense of integrity as far as having a line that can't be crossed. Director/Producer Robert Greenwald has produced and/or directed 53 television movies, miniseries and features. He is the director of Uncovered and the Executive Producer of the UN series - Unprecedented, Uncovered and the soon to be released Unconstitutional.
Crude prices drop as dealers take profits
Oil retreats from $40 mark Crude prices drop as dealers take profits from rally; U.S. prices peaked at $42.45 in early June. July 13, 2004 LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. oil prices fell on Tuesday as dealers pocketed profits from a $5 rally since the end of June. U.S. light crude for August delivery dropped 45 cents to $39.05 a barrel after hitting a five-week peak at $40.75 a barrel during Monday trade when the volatile U.S. gasoline market beat a sharp retreat. August London Brent eased 37 cents to $36.26 a barrel. Short-term, the market looks well supplied, but it's hard to go short in the market and even if prices go down I think there'll be a floor at $35, said Tony Nunan, manager at Mitsubishi Corp.'s international petroleum business in Tokyo. U.S. prices peaked at $42.45 in early June. Even though crude oil inventories worldwide are comfortable compared to previous years, strong global oil demand and sparse spare capacity has left little room to cope with supply disruptions. We're not out of the woods yet on gasoline in the United States, and we're now in pre-season buying for heating oil, said Nunan. The International Energy Agency on Tuesday revised up its forecast for world oil demand growth in 2004 by 180,000 bpd to 2.49 million bpd, the fastest growth since 1980. It said growth would ease in 2005 to 1.8 million bpd but again outpace non-OPEC supply growth, pressuring OPEC to deliver the difference. Analysts expect weekly U.S. government data to be released Wednesday to show a small rise in stockpiles. A Reuters survey of seven analysts predicted U.S. crude inventories would rise 1.4 million barrels in the week to July 7. Projections for gasoline were for stocks to rise a modest 500,000 barrels, with distillates that include heating oil to go up 2.1 million barrels. Only Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest exporter, has any significant spare production capacity, with the other OPEC producers pumping flat out and Iraq's output recovering from war damage. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is expected to raise official production limits by 500,000 barrels a day (bpd) from August 1, but the increase will have little impact on actual supplies as OPEC is already supplying substantially more than formal quota allocations.
Re: Klebnikov
I notice BTW that the Western press is already using the murder of Klebnikov as a means of attacking the evil press-crushing Putin -- even though K. was pro-Putin and was almost certainly killed by somebody connected with big business, not the Kremlin. Gee, one might think they had an agenda or something. Have ANY Western journalists been killed by the Russian government they keep attacking for supposedly assaulting their profession? (Question is rhetorical.) No, the one guy that gets offed is the anti-oligarch pro-Kremlin guy. Kinda makes you think. From the Russian newspaper Izvestia: Izvestia July 13, 2004 PAVEL KHLEBNIKOV'S LAST INTERVIEW Author: Tatiana Vitebskaya [from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html] [Russian Forbes Chief Editor Pavel Khlebnikov gave this interview seven hours before his death.] Question: You are author of The Kremlin's Godfather [a book about Boris Berezovsky - Izvestia]. Do you think Berezovsky was to be blamed for everything indeed? Has anything changed in Russia? Pavel Khlebnikov: Russia is at a crossroads now. Sure, oligarchs' clout with the federal authorities is not what it used to be, but monopolies survived all the same. It is their very existence that prevents appearance of free market economy without which any economic development is impossible. Question: But something must have happened since the 1990's. Pavel Khlebnikov: Not that much, if you ask me. Like before, just a few men control a substantial part of economy. Like before, these men wield influence with the state policy. The state is supposed to establish a parity among interests of various social strata, but major businesses have much better lobbyist capacities nowadays than, say, the military or retirees. Question: But this is what Putin has been saying - that oligarchs should be put to an equal distance from decision-making centers... Pavel Khlebnikov: But it has never happened in real life! Compare Sibneft and YUKOS. Sibneft is much worse than YUKOS in all formal and informal charges pressed against YUKOS - tax debts, lack of patriotism, political interests... And yet, Sibneft is fine and dandy, its owners have patrons in the Kremlin, while YUKOS is being taken apart. Question: When was it that one of the oligarchs made a mistake (Khodorkovsky) while the other (Abramovich) behaved in a correct manner? Pavel Khlebnikov: I'd say that one of them is a presidential buddy, that's all. Question: And the other? Pavel Khlebnikov: And the other is just an independent man. I do not rule out the possibility that the prosecutor's office was quite within its rights to press charges against YUKOS and against Khodorkovsky personally. What I'm talking about is why is the law applied so stiffly against one oligarch and is not applied at all against another, the one who broke the law and went against public morale in an even worse manner? Question: And yet, representatives of major businesses are different now from what they were like in Berezovsky'e era. Pavel Khlebnikov: That's the truth. This is one of Putin's accomplishments. A lot of business tycoons improved their behavior indeed. They pay taxes, invest in domestic projects, participate in charity campaigns. They are aware of their responsibilities now. Question: These days, they fear the president they used to control once. Pavel Khlebnikov: That's great. That they fear, I mean. Restoration of respect the state commands in society and major businesses is to be welcomed. Unfortunately, the state is currently bullying its way into another extreme. It is meddling in absolutely everything it thinks should be meddled in. All too soon, we may begin talking of another danger. Instead of being posed by oligarchs, is will be posed by the bureaucratic machinery applying the law as it sees fit. Question: Perhaps, we just do not see the new oligarchs who run the country? After all, Berezovsky boasted of the clout he wielded with the Kremlin. Can it be that new oligarchs know better than that and do not advertise their influence? Pavel Khlebnikov: Yes, Berezovsky was boastful in this respect, and this was his major mistake. If they wanted to retain their influence, major capitals should have been more diplomatic. All the same, I disagree with the assumption that there are some oligarchs in the country nowadays that run the president the way they or their predecessors did in the middle of the 1990's. Sure, there are some wealthy men who are quite close to the corridors of power and who enjoy certain preferences and privileges. But they do not control the president. They are merely buddies. Question: Who do you think belongs to this circle? Pavel Khlebnikov: Heads of the companies like Gazprom, LUKoil, Surgutneftegaz, and Severstal. They belong to the inner circle of buddies. There is the second echelon of friendly business structures as well. They are smaller
The American Intifada
The American Intifada: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/american-intifada.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
just one point, since I'm busy: CB writes On this, I take the position that Marx actually believed that dialectics is valid and therefore necessary as part of his conception ( not merely the word forms to be coquetted with, despite Marx's own description). In other words, we can't dispense with dialectics and still understand _Capital_. I don't reject dialectical thinking. I just don't like Hegelian jargon. I think that all of CAPITAL could be translated in relatively simple language without dropping Marx's dialectical method, mode of presentation, or understanding of the world. jim
Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
Devine, James wrote: I don't reject dialectical thinking. I just don't like Hegelian jargon. I think that all of CAPITAL could be translated in relatively simple language without dropping Marx's dialectical method, mode of presentation, or understanding of the world. In _Alienation_ Ollman both makes that criticism and (partly) answers it. I tend to agree that paraphrase is always (or nearly always) possible without changing the meaning of a text, so I would also have to agree that the translation of _Capital_ you claim possible is (probably) possible. The catch, perhaps, is in your adverb, relatively. It is also at least possible that while whole texts can be paraphrased (translated), there do exist particular meanings (references) which are tied to particular expressions. Much of the complexity of _Capital_ comes from using the same word with different meanings at different times. It is at least possible that eliminating _that_ obscurity would only create other obscurities. Carrol jim
Slate/Noah: Park Service terminates its truth-telling police chief
[An interesting addendum to the segment in F-9/11 about the paucity of patrols in the National Parks in Washington State] [It was only yesterday I heard a radio commentator wrongly holding this up as an example of a Moore-ish distortion because he thought it was a matter of state budgets that Bush didn't directly control.] http://slate.msn.com/id/2103739/ chatterboxGossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics. Gagging the Fuzz, Part 6 The Park Service formally terminates its truth-telling police chief. By Timothy Noah Posted Monday, July 12, 2004, at 5:47 AM PT The National Park Service formally terminated Teresa Chambers on July 9. Chambers is the Park Police chief who was canned this past December for answering truthfully some questions posed to her by a Washington Post reporter about how budget constraints had forced a reduction in police patrols in parks and on parkways around Washington, D.C. For months prior to that interview, we now know from an affidavit Chambers filed June 28, Chambers had been harassed by her two superiors, National Park Service Director Fran Mainella and Deputy Director Don Murphy, over her refusal to disguise within the Park Service and its parent agency, the Interior Department, these patrol reductions. (The reductions were potentially embarrassing because the Bush White House doesn't want to admit, even to itself, that it's not putting its money where its mouth is on homeland defense.) The National Park Service put Chambers on administrative leave for her sins. The expectation was that it would fire her. Now it has. The timing is significant. Earlier that day, Chambers had filed a motion with the Merit Systems Protection Board, which adjudicates whistleblower complaints by federal workers, urging the MSPB to reinstate her in her job pending its final ruling and to prevent the Park Service from formally dismissing her. The Park Service responded within hours by firing Chambers before the MSPB could rule on her motion, thereby mooting it. The MSPB will still rule, however, on whether the Park Service's firing constitutes illegal retaliation against a whistleblower, which clearly it does. Chambers, alas, will have to proceed without the help of the Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that argues whistleblower complaints before the MSPB. The OSC agreed to take Chambers' case in February, but for inexplicable reasons it failed to act within the customary 120 days. We just continued to give them extensions, Chambers told Chatterbox. After about three weeks, however, Chambers decided to file her own complaint, as the law allows. The June 28 affidavit and the July 9 motion were both part of that effort. As is usual under such circumstances, the OSC will now withdraw from the case. Chambers says she has no idea why the OSC moved so slowly on so simple a case: I know the investigator was very thorough. But Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a private advocacy group that has been publicizing Chambers' case, notes pointedly that the special counsel, Scott Block, is a recent Bush appointee. Insinuation: Politics inspired foot-dragging. But Chatterbox has to believe that the net political effect of Chambers' case--particularly her abrupt firing last week, which leaves her without a salary--will be political embarrassment for the Bushies. Maybe it's time for candidate John Kerry to start talking up the Park Police chief's firing as an example of the Bush administration's willful blindness toward the consequences of its policies and its viciousness toward those who won't play along. Teresa Chambers Archive: April 14, 2004: Gagging the Fuzz, Part 5 March 25, 2004: Gagging the Fuzz, Part 4 Feb. 19, 2004: Gagging the Fuzz, Part 3 Jan. 12, 2004: Gagging the Fuzz, Part 2 Dec. 30, 2003: Gagging the Fuzz Timothy Noah writes Chatterbox for Slate.
absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
by Devine, James just one point, since I'm busy: CB writes On this, I take the position that Marx actually believed that dialectics is valid and therefore necessary as part of his conception ( not merely the word forms to be coquetted with, despite Marx's own description). In other words, we can't dispense with dialectics and still understand _Capital_. I don't reject dialectical thinking. I just don't like Hegelian jargon. I think that all of CAPITAL could be translated in relatively simple language without dropping Marx's dialectical method, mode of presentation, or understanding of the world. jim ^ CB: I'm quite open to Hegel in relatively simple language compared to the original. From my experience, the translation to simpler language would be a complicated project itself though. Are you saying someone has put Hegel ( or dialectics) into simpler language ?
Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
A spectre is haunting the developed world - the spectre of the Limits to Growth. All the makers of accepted opinion have combined to exorcise this spectre: market analysts, editorialists, news anchors, economists. But the spectre remains as the economy's problems grow. We are now about to enter the third year of faltering growth. Unemployment has risen one million. The information technology bubble has burst. Corporate profits have plunged. Stock prices and interest rates have declined, and prices at the producer level are stagnant or falling. Is this just another business cycle bottom or something more significant? Growth is essential for both labor and capital. In developed economies job growth no longer results from expanding markets. Quite the contrary: from 1992-2001, industrial production rose 40.1 percent while manufacturing employment fell from 18.1 million to 17.7 million. This is the other side of "increasing productivity". Increasingly today, corporations raise their profits through lower costs-reduced labor but also the "synergies" resulting from industry consolidation that permits the elimination of duplicate activities such as advertising, accounting, and finance. All of these developments eliminated jobs, but the economy was spared the problem of rising unemployment by an offsetting rise in employment in the services sector. The growth in this sector was essential for continued job growth overall. Growth is equally essential for capital. Fundamentally, capital is resources not needed for current consumption. The poorest classes have no capital, but the wealthy classes have a great deal. This capital has one goal: that goal is to multiply itself. In a healthy economy there are many opportunities to invest capital in ways that increase wealth and at the same time multiply capital itself. In a former age that meant building railroads, cities, factories, power sources, etc. More recently, it has meant a huge outpouring of consumer goods, culminating in the communications and computer technology termed "the new economy". As the 20th century closed, it became ever more difficult to find productive uses for capital. Mature industries financed over 75 percent of their investment from internal sources. Overseas investment proved in many countries to be a losing venture because those countries could not earn the money in a competitive world economy needed to repay the money they borrowed. The one sector that was growing - information technology - was inundated with "venture capital" only to end in a bubble that burst with the loss of $ billions of that capital. The ef- fects of this collapse are still unfolding. http://www.comw.org/poc/0210.htm
absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
Speaking of Hegel... CB News and Letters October 1998 Journal of Marxist-Humanism ... Class 5: The Notion of Capitalism: The Absolute General Law of Capitalist Accumulation. Class 5 focuses on the absolute general law ... www.newsandletters.org/ Issues/1999/Jan-Feb/1.99_classes.htm - 6k - Cached - Similar pages News http://www.newsandletters.org/images/banner_a.gif January-February 1999 Announcing a new series of discussions beginning in March... The Dialectic of CAPITAL and Today's Global Crisis The economic meltdown in such areas as East Asia, Russia, and parts of Latin America and the possibility that it might spread to the entire world economy has helped impel new interest in Marx's CAPITAL. At the same time, a new generation of thinkers and activists has come of age which is searching for an alternative to both free market capitalism and the state-capitalism that once called itself Communism. This series speaks to these questions and concerns by exploring what Marxist-Humanism has contributed to the understanding of Marx's greatest theoretical work. As Lenin once said, It is impossible to understand Marx's CAPITAL, and especially it's first chapter, unless one has understood the whole of Hegel's Logic. For this reason, the core readings will be selections from Marx's CAPITAL, writings on CAPITAL from the archives of Marxist-Humanism, and Raya Dunayevskaya's Rough Notes on Hegel's SCIENCE OF LOGIC. For a syllabus and a schedule of classes, contact the News and Letters Committee nearest to you. (See directory.) Class 1: The Origin and Scope of CAPITAL: Marx's Re-creation of Hegel's Dialectic Class 1 discusses the origin and development of Vol. I of CAPITAL, especially the impact of the Civil War in the U.S. and the struggle for a shorter working day upon Marx's thinking. Far from acting as a limiting factor on what he called the power of abstraction, by integrating the revolutionary subject into his dialectical analysis Marx unchained the power of revolutionary thought itself. Class 2: The Phenomenon of Capitalism: The Commodity-Form Class 2 focuses on the most difficult, controversial, and important chapter in CAPITAL-The Commodity. Of foremost importance here is its concluding section-The Fetishism of Commodities. Dunayevskaya's Notes on Hegel's SCIENCE OF LOGIC can greatly aid comprehension of the fundamental phenomenon of capitalism which contains in embryo the whole of its contradictions. Class 3: The Essence of Capitalism (I): The Labor Process Class 3 focuses on the essence of capitalism-the labor process and on the production of what Marx called absolute surplus value. This is also the area in which Marx discusses the conditions and struggles of working women. Class 4: The Essence of Capitalism (II): The Labor Process and the Transformation of the Value of Labor Power into Wages Class 4 continues the focus on the essence of capitalism, the labor process, by exploring what Marx called relative surplus value. It also discusses Marx's theory of wages, one of his three original contributions to the critique of political economy, along with the split in the concept of labor and the treatment of surplus value independently of profit. Class 5: The Notion of Capitalism: The Absolute General Law of Capitalist Accumulation Class 5 focuses on the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation-the concentration and centralization of capital at one pole and the socialization of labor at the other, from which spring new passions and new forces for the reconstruction of society. Class 6: The Logic of Capitalist Crisis: Overproduction, Underconsumption, or the Decline In the Rate of Profit? Class 6 focuses on the dialectic and humanism of Vols. II and III of CAPITAL, long serving as the arena of debate in the radical movement over the cause and consequences of capitalist crisis, the relation between capitalism and imperialism/racism, and the kind of human relations which can transcend class society. News Letters - The Journal of Marxist-Humanism - August ... ... inflation and unemployment are today at historic lows, in no other period has Marx's notion of the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation come more ... www.newsandletters.org/Issues/1999/Aug-Sept/8.99_bw.htm - 8k - Cached - Similar pages [ More results from www.newsandletters.org ]
LAW OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION
Graphic Witness home page http://www.graphicwitness.org/ineye/index2.htm Hugo Gellert: http://www.graphicwitness.org/contemp/gellert.htm Karl Marx' 'Capital' in Lithographs http://www.graphicwitness.org/contemp/marx51.htm http://www.graphicwitness.org/contemp/marx53.htm page 52. LAW OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION http://www.graphicwitness.org/contemp/marx52.htm#pg52 http://www.graphicwitness.org/contemp/marx53.htm LAW OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION The law in accordance with which a continually increasing quantity of the means of production can, thanks to the advance in the productivity of social labor, be set in motion by a progressively diminishing expenditure of human energy -- this law, in a capitalist society (where the worker does not make use of the means of production, but where the means of production make use of the worker), undergoes a complete inversion, and is expressed as follows: The higher the productivity of labor, the greater is the pressure of the workers on the means of employment; and the more precarious, therefore, becomes their condition of existence, namely, the sale of their own labor power for the increasing of another's wealth, or to promote the self-expansion of capital. Under capitalism, likewise, the fact that the means of production and the productivity of labor grow more rapidly than does the productive population, secures expression in an inverse way, namely that the working population always grows more quickly than capital's need for self-expansion. . . . . . . All the methods for the production of surplus value are at the same time methods of accumulation; and, conversely, every extension of accumulation becomes a means for the development of the methods of production. The result is that, in proportion as capital accumulates, the condition of the worker, be his wages high or low, necessarily grows worse. . . . Thanks to the working of this law, poverty grows as the accumulation of capital grows. The accumulation of wealth at one pole of society involves a simultaneous accumulation of poverty, labor torment, slavery, ignorance, brutalization, and moral degradation, at the opposite pole -- where dwells the class that produces its own product in the form of capital. Political economists have in various ways drawn attention to this inherent contradiction in capitalist accumulation, although in their disquisitions they confound it with phenomena which, though to some extent analogous, are essentially distinct -- belonging as they do to pre-capitalist methods of production. Ortes, the Venetian monk, who was one of the greatest economists of the eighteenth century, regards this contradictory character of capitalist production as a general natural law of social wealth. He writes: In the economy of a nation, good and evil always balance each other; abundance of wealth for some is invariably counterpoised by the lack of wealth for others. Great wealth for some is ever accompanied by an absolute privation of the necessaries of life for a much larger number of persons. The wealth of a nation corresponds with its population, and its poverty corresponds with its wealth. Diligence in some compels idleness in others. The poor and the idle are a necessary consequence of the rich and the active,, and so on. About ten years after Ortes, Townsend, the High Church parson, writing with characteristic brutality, glorified poverty as the necessary condition of wealth. Legal constraint [to labor] is attended with too much trouble, violence, and noise; . . . whereas hunger is not only a peaceable, silent, unremitted pressure, but, as the most natural motive to industry and labor, it calls forth the most powerful exertions. Everything, therefore, depends upon making hunger permanent in the ranks of the working class; and for this, according to Townsend, the principle of population, especially active among the poor, provides. It seems to be a law of nature that the poor should be to a certain degree improvident [so improvident as to be born without a silver spoon in the mouth], that there may always be some to fulfill the most servile, the most sordid, and the most ignoble offices in the community. The stock of human happiness is thereby much increased, whilst the more delicate are not only relieved from drudgery, . . . but are left at liberty without interruption to pursue those callings which are suited to their various dispositions. . . . Finally, hear Destutt de Tracy, the cold-blooded bourgeois doctrinaire, who bluntly tells us the truth: In poor nations the common people are comfortable; in rich nations they are generally poor. http://www.graphicwitness.org/contemp/marx53.htm
Mike Ditka
Is he really running for Senator? Charles Barkeley spoke about running for Alabama governor, but he dropped the matter. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
LAW OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION
Gellert: Karl Marx' 'Capital' in Lithographs LAW OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION: effect of crises on the better-paid part of the working-class . . .I wish to give an example showing how crises affect even the better-paid portion of the working class, the labor aristocracy. . . .To show the condition of the workers, I will now quote the circumstantial report of a correspondent of the Morning Star, who, at the end of 1866 and the beginning of 1867, visited the chief centers of distress: In the East End districts of Poplar, Millwall, Greenwich, Depford, Limehouse, and Canning Town, at least 15,000 workmen and their families were in a state of utter destitution, and 3,000 skilled mechanics were breaking stones in the workhouse yard (after distress of over half a year's duration). . . . Men were busy, however, in the open shed breaking paving stones into macadam. Each man had a big paving-stone for a seat, and he chipped away at the rime-covered granite with a big hammer until he had broken up, just think! five bushels of it, and then he had done his day's work, and got his day's pay -- threepence and an allowance of food. In another part of the yard was a rickety little wooden house, and when we opened the door of it, we found it filled with men who were huddled together, shoulder to shoulder, for the warmth of one another's bodies and breath. . . . Leaving the workhouse, I took a walk through the streets, mostly of little one-story houses, that abound in the neighborhood of Poplar. My guide was a member of the Committee of the Unemployed. . . .My first call was on an ironworker who had been seven-and-twenty weeks out of employment. I found the man with his family sitting in a little back room. The room was bare of furniture, and there was a fire in it. This was necessary to keep the naked feet of the young children from getting frost-bitten, for it was a bitterly cold day. On a tray in front of the fire lay a quantity of oakum which the wife and children were picking in return for their allowance from the parish. The man worked in the stone yard of the workhouse for a certain ration of food, and threepence per day. He had now come home to dinner quite hungry, as he told us with a melancholy smile, and his dinner consisted of a couple of slices of bread and dripping, and a cup of milkless tea. . . . The next door at which we knocked was opened by a middle aged woman, who, without saying a word, led us into a little back parlor, in which sat all her family, silent and fixedly staring at a rapidly dying fire. Such desolation, such hopelessness was about these people and their little room, as I should not care to witness again. 'Nothing have they done, sir,' said the woman, pointing to her boys, 'for six-and-twenty weeks; and all our money gone -- all the twenty pounds that me and father saved when times were better, thinking it would yield a little to keep us when we got past work. Look at it,' she said, almost fiercely, bringing out a bank-book with all its well-kept entries of money paid in, and money taken out, so that we could see how the little fortune had begun with the first five shilling deposit, and had grown by little and little to be twenty pounds, and how it had melted down again till the sum in hand got from pounds to shillings, and the last entry made the book as worthless as a blank sheet. This family received relief from the workhouse, and it furnished them with just one scanty meal per day. . . . Our next visit was to an iron laborer's wife, whose husband had worked in the yards. We found her ill from want of food, lying on a mattress in her clothes, and just covered with a strip of carpet, for all the bedding had been pawned. Two wretched children were tending her, themselves looking as much in need of nursing as their mother. Nineteen weeks of enforced idleness had brought them to this pass, and while the mother told the history of that bitter past, she moaned as if all her faith in a future that should atone for it were dead. . . . On getting outside, a young fellow came running after us, and asked us to step inside his house and see if anything could be done for him. A young wife, two pretty children, a cluster of pawntickets, and a bare room, were all he had to show. . . . They are dying of hunger. That is the simple and terrible fact. There are 40,000 of them. . . In our presence, in one quarter of this wonderful metropolis, are packed -- next door to the most enormous accumulation of wealth the world ever saw -- cheek by jowl with this are . . . .40,000 helpless, starving people. . . . http://www.graphicwitness.org/contemp/marx54.htm
Anybody But Bush movement fading?
Nation's Liberals Suffering From Outrage Fatigue WASHINGTON, DC-According to a study released Monday by the Hammond Political Research Group, many of the nation's liberals are suffering from a vastly diminished sense of outrage. With so many right-wing shams to choose from, it's simply too daunting for the average, left-leaning citizen to maintain a sense of anger, said Rachel Neas, the study's director. By our estimation, roughly 70 percent of liberals are experiencing some degree of lethargy resulting from a glut of civil-liberties abuses, education funding cuts, and exorbitant military expenditures. San Francisco's Arthur Flauman is one liberal who has chosen to take a hiatus from his seething rage over Bush Administration policies. Every day, my friends send me e-mails exposing Bush's corrupt environmental policies, said Flauman, a member of both the Green Party and the Sierra Club. I used to spend close to an hour following all the links, and I'd be shocked and outraged by the irreversible damage being done to our land. At some point, though, I got annoyed with the demanding tone of the e-mails. The Clear Skies Initiative is bogus, but I'm not going to forward a six-page e-mail to all my friends-especially one written by a man who signs his name 'Leaf.' Now, if a message's subject line contains the word 'Bush,' it goes straight into the trash. Neas found that many survey participants who attended protests against the war in Iraq in 2003 could barely summon the energy to read newspaper articles about the subject in 2004. Portland, OR resident Suzanne Marshal compared herself to an addict, needing increasingly large doses of perceived injustices to achieve a state of anger. Even though I know how seriously messed-up the situation is in Iraq, I've became inured to all but the most extreme levels of wrongdoing, Marshal said. For months, no amount of civilian bombing could get me mad. Then those amazing photos of the tortured Iraqi prisoners hit the streets, and I got that old rush of overwhelming disgust with my government. Then more photos came out, and more officials were implicated, and now-I don't know. It's like a switch in my head turned off again. (THE ONION, 7/7/04) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
American Leftists, Michael Moore, and Ralph Nader
American Leftists, Michael Moore, and Ralph Nader: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/american-leftists-michael-moore-and.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: American Leftists, Michael Moore, and Ralph Nader
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: American Leftists, Michael Moore, and Ralph Nader: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/american-leftists-michael-moore-and.html This Mark Ames is a real piece of work, isn't he? He barely looks old enough to shave, but has the gall to dress down the US left. What gives this cheap imitation of Hunter Thompson the license to grade people in this fashion? We have no need to justify ourself to a carpet-bagger like him. He calls us the Vichy Left, in comparison to Moore who wrote Valentines to the war criminal Wesley Clark. If anybody should be accused of collaborating with the enemy, it is the disgusting ABB crowd that grovels at the feet of John stay the course Kerry, not people who go out and organize mass demonstrations and who will only get mentioned in Time Magazine as fans of Kim Jong Il, if at all. Part of the problem with Ames is that he has a bizarre understanding of what constitutes the left in the USA. He writes, Incredibly enough, the most vicious attacks against Moore come from the LA Weekly, perhaps the most relevant Leftist outlet combining cultural/film criticism and leftist ideology. What fucking planet does this guy live on? I used to hang out with Jay Levin, who started LA Weekly in the 1980s. He sold it to a bunch of hustlers in the 1990s who first eviscerated the radical politics and then hired slugs like Marc Cooper and Harold Myerson to write social democratic pap. Levin was into the FSLN, the people who run it now are into making money through massage parlor ads and articles about where to buy the best burrito in LA. If this life-style weekly is supposed to be leftist, then I am Jesus Christ's nephew. Thrown into the leftist category along with the LA Weekly are Dissent, the Village Voice and salon.com. Right. Boiling cauldrons of Bolshevism, don't you know. Oddly enough, the only genuine leftist that gets a wad of Ames's venom is wsws.org who actually fell over backwards praising Moore's film. He is bothered, however, by their boilerplate sectarian quibble with Moore's fuzzy politics: The director here has taken the line of least resistance, succumbing to the lure of the easy exlanation, rather than providing a more profound analysis. The popular outpouring confirms that a radicalizatin [sic] is under way in the US, with far-reaching implications. The hardboiled Ames remonstrates with the sectarians: But not to worry. Marx is going to be right one of these days, and that day is finally at hand. I don't know. I take a look at imperial occupation of Iraq, immiseration of most of the 3rd world and declining living standards in the industrialized countries and Marx seems as right as ever. Of course, there will always be people who sneer at Marxists in this fashion. It is almost a guarantee that you will make steady advances in a journalism career. Such people are welcome to the bitch goddess success. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
CAPITAL IS ONLY THE FRUIT OF LABOR
CAPITAL IS ONLY THE FRUIT OF LABOR* (The Bees, the Drones, and the Wasp) Some Bees had built their comb in the hollow trunk of an oak. The Drones asserted that it was their work, and belonged to them. The case was brought into court before Judge Wasp. Knowing something of the parties, he thus addressed them: The ends of justice, and the object of the court, will best be furthered by the plan which I propose. Let each party take a hive to itself and build up a new comb, so that from the shape of the cells, and the taste of the honey, the lawful proprietors of the property in dispute may appear. The Bees readily assented to the Wasp's plan. The Drones declined it. Whereupon the Wasp gave judgement: It is clear now who made the comb, and who cannot make it; the court adjudges the honey to the Bees. * From Abraham Lincoln's message to Congress, December 3, 1861: Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. http://www.graphicwitness.org/contemp/aesop17.htm Graphic Witness home page http://www.graphicwitness.org/ineye/index2.htm Aesop Said So: Lithographs by Hugo Gellert http://www.graphicwitness.org/contemp/gellert.htm
Could Moore run afoul of campaign financing restrictions?
[I've got a reflex that makes me look for the fishy spot every time a CATO guy says anything, even if he says he's on our side, especially if he says that. Still, some of it's got a half-plausible ring. Not sure it how it would turn out if they tried to enforce it, though.] http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/samples200407070848.asp July 07, 2004, 8:48 a.m. Free Michael Moore! Campaign-finance reform boomerangs and hits the Democrats' favorite moviemaker. By John Samples Will Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 9/11 land him in jail? Maybe. Only time will tell. Of course, Moore won't end up behind bars because his movie criticizes George W. Bush. The First Amendment still exists, more or less. Moore may end up as a campaign-finance convict, guilty of illegally referring to a clearly identified candidate for federal office within 30 days of a primary (or 60 days of a general election). To see how Moore might become a felon, we need to understand the case of David T. Hardy, the president of the Bill of Rights Educational Foundation, a nonprofit corporation in Arizona. Hardy is producing a documentary film entitled The Rights of the People, which concerns issues related to the Bill of Rights. The film apparently refers to several members of Congress up for reelection in 2004 and to President Bush. Hardy had hoped the Bill of Rights Educational Foundation would help pay for the marketing and distribution of the The Rights of the People, including advertising on TV and radio. Hardy is a well-informed citizen. He knew enough to ask the Federal Election Commission whether his plans to market his film would fall under the strictures of campaign-finance law. As it turned out, his marketing plans were a potential felony. The FEC ruled that the ads were an electioneering communication because they mentioned candidates for national office. Federal law prohibits the Bill of Rights Education Foundation from paying for the ads. So, unless Hardy wants to pay for the marketing of the movie himself and thereafter to comply with the rules governing electioneering communication (disclosure and so on), the roll out of The Rights of the People will have to wait until after Election Day. Moore's situation is similar to Hardy's. No one doubts Fahrenheit 9/11 refers to President George W. Bush, who is running for reelection. Presumably, the advertising for the movie will include references to President Bush. After all, that's who the movie is about, and Moore's attacks on President Bush and his family are the major appeal of the film for its target audience. Broadcast, cable, or satellite ads are banned if they're funded by a corporation or union, refer to a clearly identified federal candidate, and appear within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. That means Moore's distributor, Lions Gate Films (a corporation) can't run ads between July 30 and August 30 (the date of the Republican convention, which is treated as a primary in which Bush is a candidate), or between September 2 and the November 2 general election. If Fahrenheit 9/11 shows up on broadcast, cable, or satellite TV after July 30, Moore may well be in big trouble unless he financed the movie himself. If a corporation financed the movie, Moore will have broken the law. If individuals financed the movie, the ban on electioneering communications would not apply. But Moore's movie still could not be made in concert or cooperation with or at the request or suggestion of Kerry, Kerry's campaign, an agent of his campaign, a Democratic-party committee or their agents. To help with the movie, Moore has employed Chris Lehane, a high-ranking operative in Al Gore's presidential bid. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee (along with six Democratic senators and a couple Democratic members of the House) showed up at the premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11 in Washington. After seeing the movie, the chairman of the DNC said, I think anyone who goes to see this movie will come out en masse and vote for John Kerry. Clearly the movie makes it clear that George Bush is not fit to be president of this country. The movie might well appear to be cooperating with the Democratic presidential effort. In campaign finance, appearances are often tantamount to guilt. My advice to Michael Moore: Get yourself a good campaign-finance lawyer. The election lawyer Robert Bauer recently wrote there should not be a question that a documentary filmmaker can produce for public distribution a work highly critical (and more) of the President of the United States, or of any other political figure, without confronting a challenge from the Federal government. Yet that question has been posed by Sen. John McCain and his allies, and none of us know the answer for certain.
Re: Could Moore run afoul of campaign financing restrictions?
What about that movie that portrayed W as a 9-11 hero, which did have active Repug support. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Russia Steps in to Aid Banking Crisis
I think Chris Doss's remarks on Russian banking worries (and I think they are in the worry, not crisis,category) are a little too non-chalant.. The Guta bank is/was/had been considered one of the sounder banks in the Russian financial network, with higher quality loans/assets to better performing Russian businesses. So its closing to prevent depositor runs, the interruption of electronic transfers, etc. is of significance to the international financial network which wants to conduct its business through legitimized, capitalized institutions. Also, Russian bank business loans measure out at about 21 percent of annual GDP, nowhere near Thailand's 75% but right in line with Indonesia's measure, which almost says it all. OAO Sherbank (at least that's how I read the name) has about 50% of all deposits and 25% of all assets in the Russian banking system.
Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
One more thing... I went back and paged through Capital, and then picked up Vol 1 of the Science of Logic, and damned if I can find anything anywhere in Capital that approaches, parallels, the language Hegel uses in the Science of Logic-- not that Hegel doesn't make sense-- but Capital, to a certain extent, is a demystification of Hegel - Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _. I don't reject dialectical thinking. I just don't like Hegelian jargon. I think that all of CAPITAL could be translated in relatively simple language without dropping Marx's dialectical method, mode of presentation, or understanding of the world. jim
Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
sartesian wrote: One more thing... I went back and paged through Capital, and then picked up Vol 1 of the Science of Logic, and damned if I can find anything anywhere in Capital that approaches, parallels, the language Hegel uses in the Science of Logic-- not that Hegel doesn't make sense-- but Capital, to a certain extent, is a demystification of Hegel. In the depths of WW One Lenin felt called upon to study the Science of Logic. He found it revelatory, and in his Philosophical Notebooks he wrote (I quote from memory, perhaps inexactly): It is impossible to understand Das Kapital without a thorough comprehension of Hegel's Science of Logic. That is why, after fifty years, none of the Marxists has understood Marx. Shane Mage When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly. When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true. (N. Weiner)
