Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: there are other options besides secession: Ken mentions federalism, while simply increased democracy (including civil liberties and affirmative action) may do the trick in other situations. --- My personal favorite solution. It works for the rest of Russia, which is an enormously multiethnic country. Compare Chechnya and Dagestan, or Tatarstan. Ironically, Maskhadov, now that he's pretty much given up the independence idea and is struggling just to have some degree of power, is arguing that Chechnya's status in the Russian Federation should be basically like Tatarstan's -- broad autonomy. Considering that Tatarstan accomplished the same thing without firing a shot... well, you draw your own conclusions. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? - Lou P. and Mr. Green
In a message dated 7/28/2004 12:13:45 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I am simply interested in the proponents of self determination . . . Lou P . . . and Mr. Green and whether they have any material on their support of Regional autonomy for the Southwest in respects to Mexico and the Chicano. The sincerity of ones view is made manifest by their attitude toward the brethren in their own country. How does this self determination formula apply to the American Union in 2004. There are more African Americans in and around metropolitan Detroit than there are Chechens and the Nation of Islam was birthed in Detroit. Do you gentlemen support and advocate for the right of self determination of these real people . . . up to and including the formation of an independent state? Just curious. What is it going to be gentlemen. Dictatorship of the African American proletariat in an independent state system for African Americans? Dictatorship of the Mexican proletariat in an independent state system for Mexicans/Chicano and or the children of Atzlan? Dictatorship of theIndian proletariat in an independent state system for Indians? Pardon . . . the so-called national movements are by definition above classes. Now African Americans are not of course Jamaicans or simply black people. Without question the African American is oppressed and an authentic national question. The African American people have their own economic, social and political organizations and have always had them going back to the Negro Peoples Convention Movement. They are most certainly incarcerated on a scalewithout equalinAmerican history. Now Lenin, Stalin or Trotsky did not make slaves out of the African American or lynch them or segregate them for almost 90 years . . . but white people in America. Now Stalin or Putin ain't did nothing to me and mine and my parents, their parents and their parents parents . . . white people in America been real ugly and they are the ones that continue to enforce the second class citizenship. Minister Louis ain't did nothing to me or to white people in America. And he has a significant organization that does not require approval from white people or anyone else. Do you gentlemen advocate for self determination of African American up to and including formation of an independent state? Or is this something reserved for basically white people in America? Lenin, Stalin or Trotsky did not kill the Indians and Mexicans . . . but white people in America. What about Jews? There are Jews in America and they seem to qualify as oppressed . . . although the body of the African American intellectual elite does not subscribe to this view and not simply the Nation of Islam. It is a tricky game trying to speak for or advocate for others. What of Atzlan? What about the white people in the deep South who are not Yankees? Separate state and self determination? It is infinitely more of them than Chechens. There are more black teenagers than Chechens. Give me a break. These so called national movement . . . I also have Yugoslavia in mind . . . are utterly reactionary movements of and led by the bourgeoisie and none of them even talk about improving the life of the proletariat as proletariat. Minister Louis helps more black proletarians and advocates an economic program for them . . . than the reactionaries in Chechnya and the Ukraine. Melvin P
Re: The Blind Swordsman Zatoichi
First, the character in Wait Until Dark was anything but pitiful: the story was about how she gains self-confidence by defending herself against a murderer. Second, Kung Fu had a blind character who was one of the masters. When a Western man says, I may have trouble on the road. I am sixty-one, the chief of the temple replies, then take master so-and-so [the blind master]. He is eighty-three. They obviously had different ideas about age. [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/28/04 11:42 AM In Hollywood, the blind are represented in film either as pitiful victims, such as in Wait Until Dark, or as comic figures like Mr. Muckle, who tears apart W. C. Fields's shop in It's a Gift. Leave it to the Japanese to come up with somebody like Zatoichi, the blind master swordsman who was played by the beloved Shintaro Katsu in 26 films between 1962 and 1989, as well as 100 television episodes based on the character. . check out 'zatoichi meets the one armed swordsman' (71 or 72) directed by kimiyoshi yasuda who directed several zatoichi films... the one armed swordsman of film is jimmy wang yu from chang cheh's 67 film of same name, here's what lisa odham stokes and i write about chang's film in _city on fire_: Chang Cheh's One Armed Swordsman (1967) is generally acknowledged as the movie that launched the 1970s' martial arts phenomenon [in hong kong]. While the film's title announces that this is a swordplay movie - nothing new in itself - the hero's disability (his sifu's jealous daughter has chopped off his right arm) produces a different type of character. Forced to undergo a strict and tough rehabilitative training program, the protagonist (Jimmy Wang Yu) becomes a 'lean mean fighting machine' with a blade. Notably brutal for its time, Chang's picture ushered in an era of the self-reliant individualist that according to [noted hk film critic] Sek Kei, simultaneously destroyed the image of the weak Chinese male by featuring 'beefcake heroes in adventure and violence.' (p. 91) in 'zatoichi meets the one armed swordsman, wang yu's character travels to japan where he intervenes to prevent a young boy's execution and has a bounty placed upoin him, meanwhile, the young boy's dying father's last wish is for shintaro katsu's blind swordsman to care for his son, communication difficulties between the two swordsmen lead to them fighting one another... trivia: tsui hark's 'the blade (95) is a remake of chang's 'one armed swordsman' by way of a detour through wong kar-wai's 'ashes of time (94) in which tony leung ka-fai plays a blind swordsman... finally: blind swordsman films inspired 71 entitled 'deaf mute heroine' directed by wu ma, one of number of hk martial arts films featuring women... michael hoover -- Please Note: Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from College employees regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? - Lou P. and Mr. Green
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Give me a break. These so called national movement . . . I also have Yugoslavia in mind . . . are utterly reactionary movements of and led by the bourgeoisie and none of them even talk about improving the life of the proletariat as proletariat. Minister Louis helps more black proletarians and advocates an economic program for them . . . than the reactionaries in Chechnya and the Ukraine. Reactionary is an understatement. The Chechen militants make Mussolini look progressive. (Death to the cities! Apartment buildings are the bane of humanity!) If you'd like I've got some primary sources on this in Russian I can translate and send. To my knowledge they are unavailable in English. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: HDI\PPP Michael,Ulhas and Michael
I am sure I would not be the only one who would be horribly disappointed if this was the last of your posts in this series. dd -Original Message-From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of PaulSent: 29 July 2004 01:49To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: HDI\PPP Michael,Ulhas and Michael[See what happens with some encouragement - soon I'll be overposting! I'll try to make this the last.]1)Uhlas writes: Paul was trying to show how PPP numbers overstate theeconomic growth in the developing countries. I am notsure I understand how he has reached that conclusion.For India, from 1992 to 2001, the GNI increased by 64% when calculated by the World Bank "Atlas" method (non-PPP). But for the same period GNI increased by 91% using PPP! For all low and middle income countries taken together the difference is even more extreme (22% growth vs. 44%!). It is not just that India is made to look less poor via developed countries (which would be a one time distortion). It is also that India (and poor countries as a whole) are made to look like they are also closing the remaining gap (a statistical "bias" because High Income countries are not affected). [All stats from the WB's WDI.]Furthermore, the discrepancy between the two methods grows - by as much as 4 or 5 times - during the neo-liberal period (tell me off-line if you want the chart for India, the change is dramatic). So, there is a "bias in the bias" which shows neo-liberalism as a great success. As I explained previous posts, this is "built-in" since the PPP model recalculates the numbers drawing from a neo-classical General Equilibrium model where market prices are assumed powerful and beneficial. But in fact the GNI/PPP are just numbers from a model driven by assumptions...although they are presented as if they are statistics. Then the statistics are used to prove correct the assumptions from the free market model. [BTW there are various flavors of PPP-type models. The Bank has chosen the most extreme version that has the most free-market assumptions. The other versions of PPP, logically, produce lower numbers. See below for examples.] 2) Michael Perelman writes: If we were go[ing] to try to make some sort of quantitative measure of a humandevelopment index, I think I [would] try to get a handle on how people at the bottomfared rather than looking at averages.I couldn't agree more. One catch is that - in another little noticed development - the World Bank has withdrawn its support for calculating income distribution figures. A quick look at the World Development Indicators shows that in most cases the last calculation is a decade old (and not capturing the radical changes of our era). One imagines that they will soon not be published at all. Income distribution is being replaced with the Banks own "poverty" measure. Their poverty measure combines the (flawed) PPP with a (flawed) measure of poverty. The two flaws combine to show great reductions in the number of the poor - a great theme of the World Bank publications recently (see comments about the Wade article below).This is why I often suggest people use numbers like the infant mortality rate so that the plight of the poor isn't erased by progress at the top (also these numbers are more accurate than most and respond quickly to changes).3) Michael Lebowitz writes: In relation to questions raised by Paul on HDI, etc, a friend has directed me to a recent piece by Robert Wade in New Political Economy. I assume it's in the following issue: Volume 9, Number 2, June 2004 Looks interesting. (It will take me a long while to read it, people interested in an electronic copy should contact me off-line). Robert Wade (now at LSE) is often an insightful open minded liberal who is well informed (including several years working for the World Bank). The article is mostly about the World Bank's claims that world inequality and world poverty are diminishing. Although Wade does not spend much time on the statistics question he does make the point that the conclusions depend almost entirely on the particular choice of measurement.I am not truly familiar with the literature on the statistical issue (anyone out there who is?). Among the beleaguered non-mainstream economists who do write on these issues in a technical manner, I don't know anyone who has translated these issues into an applied context. But here are some links:a)For a non-neoclassical critique: Columbia University economist and philosopher team "How Not to Count the Poor": http://www.columbia.edu/~sr793/count.pdfb)Other authors agree with neo-classical models but point out that PPP version used by the Bank (and hence internationally) has extreme free market assumptions (e.g. assuming no substitution bias in General Equilibrium
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Chris Doss wrote: Reactionary is an understatement. This is equally true of terrorists in Kashmir. About 70% of terrorists killed in Kashmir in the recent years have been non-Kashmiris. They are usually Punjabis trained by the ISI and smuggled into Kashmir. But other nationalities are also involved. e.g. Uighurs. How they can be regarded as freedom fighters and anti-imperialists is hard to understand. Ulhas Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
UN food programme facing funding shortfall
HindustanTimes.com Thursday, July 29, 2004 UN food programme facing severe shortfall of funding Press Trust of India United Nations, July 29 Severe shortfall in funding has forced the United Nations to cut its deliveries of vital rations to millions of hungry people in North Korea. The North Korean humanitarian programme is one of the most under-funded with the world body having received only 23 per cent of 221 million dollars it requested. The world body said that its World Food Programme (WFP) has received only 28.5 million dollars out of 171 million it requires for its emergency feeding programme this year. It needs about 40,000 tons of food, valued at around 14.2 million dollars, per month till December. But over the past two months, more than two million people in the west benefiting from WFP aid, including young children and pregnant and nursing women, did not receive any cereal rations, while the average caloric intake among pregnant and nursing women was only 70 per cent of the recommended amount. A spokesman for WFP said the agency had hoped to feed 6.5 million people this year but because of the funding shortfall has had to cut back on its operations dramatically, reaching only 1.8 million of the most vulnerable women, children and the elderly. A huge segment of the most vulnerable has had to make do with the meagre distributions from the public distribution system, which accounts for only 50 per cent or less of their daily caloric intake, he said. © HT Media Ltd. 2004. Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
--- Ulhas Joglekar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is equally true of terrorists in Kashmir. About 70% of terrorists killed in Kashmir in the recent years have been non-Kashmiris. They are usually Punjabis trained by the ISI and smuggled into Kashmir. But other nationalities are also involved. e.g. Uighurs. How they can be regarded as freedom fighters and anti-imperialists is hard to understand. --- The Chechen fighters referred to in press releases are actually a motley group of Chechens, Afghans, Uzbeks, Ingush, Arabs, and others, including just plain mercenaries. When Basayev and Khattab attacked Dagestan, their group even had some Ukrainians, Balts and of all things an Ethiopian with German citizenship. They only took the bodies of the dead Chechens home and left the others to rot. Khattab was himself an Arab, as is/was his successor (I can't remember his name), who may have been killed. Why do these national-liberation fighters seem to rely so much on foreigners? Hmm. __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Ulhas Joglekar wrote: Chris Doss wrote: Reactionary is an understatement. This is equally true of terrorists in Kashmir. About 70% of terrorists killed in Kashmir in the recent years have been non-Kashmiris. They are usually Punjabis trained by the ISI and smuggled into Kashmir. what are the sources for these numbers? it would be worthwhile to study how and by whom a person is judged a terrorist, after which 70% of those classified are considered foreign. imho, the more important debate is regarding cause and effect: did local popular unrest and uprising lead to the influx of foreign terrorists? or did foreign terrorists bring about the image of local unrest? if the former is true, the discussion regarding the current composition and nature of activists/terrorists may prove to be a distraction. the widespread anti-muslim sentiments in india (dating back to the independence) and the record of abuse by the govt and armed forces in kashmir and other areas (punjab, for example) and by the hindu majority (in gujarat for example), should cast suspicion to any official positions or claims regarding the issue. --ravi
Useful background on Kashmir from the British SWP
http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=7849 Socialist Review, February 2002 Kashmir: The Valley of Sorrow by Sam Ashman A potential nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan looms over the subcontinent. The flashpoint is the state of Kashmir. The British ruling class quit India in 1947. But as it did so, it divided the subcontinent between two independent states, India (supposedly secular) and Pakistan (a homeland for Muslims). Pakistan was a bizarre entity which had 1,000 miles of India separating its western and its eastern wings--a state of affairs that would last until 1971 when, amidst tumult and war, the east broke away and became the state of Bangladesh. The partition of the subcontinent was utterly avoidable, and based on the acceptance of the so called 'two nation' theory of Jinnah's Muslim League which claimed, only from 1940 onwards, that Muslims and Hindus were separate nations. The subcontinent was divided amidst terror. One million died in the communal killings that accompanied partition, and millions more were forced to transfer to one side of the new borders or another. But what was to become of Kashmir? This beautiful valley dotted with lakes right in the far north borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and China, with the former USSR a stone's throw away. It has historically been a bulwark for whoever has controlled it. The majority of the population were Muslim peasants who suffered at the hands of the Hindu Dogra kings. But they were Muslims who, generally speaking, did not want to join Pakistan. The leader of the independence forces in Kashmir was Sheikh Abdullah, a secular socialist with a vision of land reform to improve the living conditions of the majority of Kashmiris. This hugely popular figure rejected Jinnah's Pakistan, rightly fearing that a Pakistan dominated by landlords and the military would stand in the way of land reform, and indeed other social and political reforms. Whilst Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs slaughtered each other in the Punjab during partition, the League did not gain a foothold in Kashmir. How was the question to be resolved? Kashmir presented an ideological problem for both states created by partition. If the Muslims of Kashmir did not want to be part of Pakistan, there was little left of Jinnah's two nation theory. And if a Muslim majority state could not survive in India, there was little left of Indian National Congress leader Nehru's vision of a secular independent India. But it was not just a question of ideology. Also at stake was the securing of the strategic boundaries of the new states and controlling the important mountain passes which run to Kashmir. To this day China controls a mountainous eastern zone of Kashmir, taken after a short war with India in 1962. The ruler of Kashmir had the power to decide which way the state would go. He avoided making such a decision for two months after independence until tribesmen invaded northern Kashmir at the behest of the Pakistani army. So the king hastily gave his consent to join India so that Indian troops could 'legally' enter Kashmiri territory to rebuff Pakistan's forces. Nehru promised that the decision to join India, made by an undemocratic Hindu king, would be put to the people at a later date, but that 'later date' has always been denied. Kashmir was granted a concession, however. Provision 370 of the Indian constitution, giving 'special status' to Kashmir, dates from this time and is much loathed by the Hindu chauvinist BJP today. Pakistani forces were forced back by Indian troops and a ceasefire was brokered by the United Nations in 1949. The 'line of control' which today divides Indian-occupied Kashmir from Pakistani-occupied Kashmir is the ceasefire line that was drawn at the end of this, the first of three wars India and Pakistan have fought over the control of Kashmir. For the first 40 years after partition there was little support for joining Pakistan. Shaikh Abdullah's National Conference swept the board in elections in 1951, winning everything--pro-Pakistan candidates were wiped out. But it soon became clear that the Indian state was not going to withdraw its troops, and nor was it going to allow the population of Kashmir to have any say over its future. Troops fire on demonstrators The Indian central government engineered the ousting and imprisonment of Sheikh Abdullah in 1953--but not before he enacted widespread land reform which broke the power of the Kashmiri landlords and allowed land in the state to be owned only by Kashmiris, something else much resented by the BJP today. Abdullah's imprisonment was met with a 20 day general strike, during which Indian troops repeatedly fired on demonstrators, killing as many as 1,000. When he was released six years later, one million people lined the streets to welcome his return. Abdullah was imprisoned again, after visiting China, and again there were strikes, demonstrations, arrests, repression--and growing bitterness against India.
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
--- ravi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: imho, the more important debate is regarding cause and effect: did local popular unrest and uprising lead to the influx of foreign terrorists? or did foreign terrorists bring about the image of local unrest? --- Maybe both are right? __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Speak of the devil. Unnamed Sources Expect Iraq To Attract Arab Fighters from Chechnya, Kashmir Beirut Al-Diyar (Internet Version-WWW) in Arabic 03 Jul 04 [Report from Paris by Al-Diyar correspondent Badra Bakhus al-Faghali: Western sources expect Iraq to turn into a center for fundamentalists from Chechnya and Kashmir.] Western diplomatic sources expect Iraq to turn into a center attracting fundamentalists, especially Arab fighters from Chechnya and Kashmir, who suffer military pressures imposed on them in these regions. The same sources estimate the total number of Arab and foreign fighters who are affiliated with international fundamentalist organizations in Iraq at 1,000. These fighters came to Iraq to fight against US forces and to receive training on carrying out military operations before they return to their home countries. Half the number of these foreign fighters are Saudi nationals. However, most of the Saudis are now looking for ways to return to Saudi Arabia to reinforce fundamentalist cells in the kingdom after they received training in Iraqi camps. US forces are currently holding in Iraqi prisons some 500 men, mostly Kuwaitis, Saudis, Syrians, Lebanese, Egyptians, Jordanians, Yemenis, Algerians, Moroccans, and Afghans. After assuming its sovereign responsibilities, the Iraqi Government prepares to introduce entry visas for foreigners, to be issued by Iraqi embassies abroad. Its aim is to impose a better security control over the movement of passengers and goods to ensure that terrorist elements, weapons, and explosives will not enter Iraqi territories. This measure is also aimed at limiting the entry of journalists and businessmen from Western countries because there are no guarantees for their safety, as well as the entry of citizens of neighboring countries, which adopt policies that do not contribute to imposing peace in the country. The only exemption will be granted to military personnel of the United States and coalition countries, which have forces deployed in Iraq. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
John Edwards speaks
When John is president, we will listen to the wisdom of the September 11th Commission. We will build and lead strong alliances and safeguard and secure weapons of mass destruction. We will strengthen our homeland security and protect our ports, safeguard our chemical plants, and support our firefighters, police officers and EMTs. We will always use our military might to keep the American people safe. And we will have one clear unmistakable message for al Qaida and the rest of these terrorists. You cannot run. You cannot hide. And we will destroy you. John understands personally about fighting in a war. And he knows what our brave men and women are going through in another warthe war in Iraq. The human cost and extraordinary heroism of this war, it surrounds us. It surrounds us in our cities and towns. And we will win this war because of the strength and courage of our own people. Some of our friends and neighbors saw their last images in Baghdad. Some took their last steps outside of Fallujah. And some buttoned their uniform for the final time before they went out to save their unit. Men and women who used to take care of themselves, they now count on others to see them through the day. They need their mother to tie their shoe. Their husband to brush their hair. And their wifes arm to help them across the room. The stars and stripes wave for them. The word hero was made for them. They are the best and the bravest. They will never be left behind. You understand that. And they deserve a president who understands on the most personal level what they have gone throughwhat they have given and what they have given up for their country. To us, the real test of patriotism is how we treat the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to defend our values. And let me tell you, the 26 million veterans in this country wont have to wonder if theyll have health care next week or next yearthey will have it always because they took care of us and we will take care of them. But today, our great United States military is stretched thin. More than 140,000 are in Iraq. Nearly 20,000 are serving in Afghanistan. And I visited the men and women there and were praying for them as they keep working to give that country hope. Like all of those brave men and women, John put his life on the line for our country. He knows that when authority is given to the president, much is expected in return. Thats why we will strengthen and modernize our military. We will double our Special Forces, and invest in the new equipment and technologies so that our military remains the best equipped and best trained in the world. This will make our military stronger so were able to defeat every enemy in this new world. But we cant do this alone. We have to restore our respect in the world to bring our allies to us and with us. Its how we won the World Wars and the Cold War and it is how we will build a stable Iraq. With a new president who strengthens and leads our alliances, we can get NATO to help secure Iraq. We can ensure that Iraqs neighbors like Syria and Iran, dont stand in the way of a democratic Iraq. We can help Iraqs economy by getting other countries to forgive their enormous debt and participate in the reconstruction. We can do this for the Iraqi people and our soldiers. And we will get this done right. A new president will bring the world to our side, and with ita stable Iraq and a real chance for peace and freedom in the Middle East, including a safe and secure Israel. And John and I will bring the world together to face our most dangerous threat: the possibility of terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
ravi wrote: This is equally true of terrorists in Kashmir. About 70% of terrorists killed in Kashmir in the recent years have been non-Kashmiris. They are usually Punjabis trained by the ISI and smuggled into Kashmir. what are the sources for these numbers? I suggest you visit cemetaries in Kashmir where freedom fighters have been buried. Their names may give you some clues. imho, the more important debate is regarding cause and effect: did local popular unrest and uprising lead to the influx of foreign terrorists? or did foreign terrorists bring about the image of local unrest? The terrorist upsurge in Kashmir must be seen in the context of US led Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan with Saudi funding and Pakistani support. if the former is true, the discussion regarding the current composition and nature of activists/terrorists may prove to be a distraction. The former, even if it is true, irrelevant today. The so-called self determination for Kashmiris will create a US protectorate in reality. Ulhas Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
Kashmir's Forgotten Plebiscite
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1766582.stm Thursday, 17 January, 2002, 18:16 GMT Kashmir's forgotten plebiscite By Victoria Schofield Author of Kashmir in Conflict When the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India in 1947, the then Governor-General Lord Mountbatten suggested that in view of India and Pakistan's competing claims for the state, the accession should be confirmed by a referendum, plebiscite, election. But determining the wishes of the people has been far harder to achieve than was ever expected. Fighting between Pakistani and Indian forces in 1949 left two-thirds of the state under the control of India, comprising Ladakh, Jammu and the Valley of Kashmir. One-third remained under the control of Pakistan, comprising Azad (free) Kashmir and the Northern Areas. In three resolutions, the UN Security Council and the United Nations Commission in India and Pakistan recommended that as already agreed by Indian and Pakistani leaders, a plebiscite should be held to determine the future allegiance of the entire state. As a prerequisite they required Pakistani nationals and tribesmen, who had come to fight in Kashmir, be withdrawn. Plebiscite abandoned But in the 1950s, the Indian Government distanced itself from its commitment to hold a plebiscite. This was firstly because Pakistani forces had not been withdrawn and secondly because elections affirming the state's status as part of India had been held. After the outbreak of insurgency in the Valley of Kashmir in the late 1980s, militants and political activists claimed that they had never been able to exercise their right of self-determination and the issue of the plebiscite was again raised. Independence option But there was a split between those demanding a plebiscite in order to determine allegiance to either India or Pakistan and those who stated that a third option should be added: Independence. Pakistan has consistently called for the issue to be resolved by means of a plebiscite and has blamed India for reneging on its pledge. But although it supports the Kashmiris right of self-determination, Pakistan has never accepted the third option as a possible outcome. It is also now evident that holding a plebiscite that assumes Kashmir becomes a united state might not produce an equitable result, given its cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity. Diverse views The Muslim majority of the inhabitants of the state of Jammu and Kashmir live in the valley, but their demands are not universally shared by the minorities living in different areas of the state. The Buddhist population of Ladakh has never supported the movement either for independence or accession to Pakistan, nor has the majority Hindu population of the Jammu region. The inhabitants of the Northern Areas would, however, be most likely to support officially becoming part of Pakistan, as would Azad Kashmir. The contentious issue remains the status of the Kashmir Valley, whose inhabitants are divided between demanding independence or allegiance to Pakistan, with a proportion opting to remain within India. Because of the lack of unanimity among the inhabitants, it has been suggested that if ever the issue were to be resolved by a plebiscite or referendum, a fairer solution might be to hold the plebiscite on a regional basis. Those supporting the independence of the entire state reject this suggestion because it would inevitably formalise the division of the state which they want to see re-united as one independent political entity. To date, the Government of India has refused to reconsider the possibility of holding a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir. Without, however, holding a plebiscite or referendum it is impossible to determine exactly what proportion of the people support which option. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * 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/
The end of suburbia
Wednesday, July 28, 2004 Its the End of the World as We Know It By Thomas Wheeler Review of The End of Suburbia - Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream (The Electric Wallpaper Co., c/o VisionTV, 80 Bond Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5B 1X2, 87 minute DVD, US$27.75/C$34.50). A simple fact of life is that any system based on the use of nonrenewable resources is unsustainable. Despite all the warnings that we are headed for an ecological and environmental perfect storm, many Americans are oblivious to the flashing red light on the earths fuel gauge. Many feel the American way of life is an entitlement that operates outside the laws of nature. At the Earth Summit in 1992, George H.W. Bush forcefully declared, The American way of life is not negotiable. That way of life requires a highly disproportionate use of the worlds nonrenewable resources. While only containing 4% of the world population, the United States consumes 25% of the worlds oil. The centerpiece of that way of life is suburbia. And massive amounts of nonrenewable fuels are required to maintain the project of suburbia. The suburban lifestyle is considered by many Americans to be an accepted and normal way of life. But this gluttonous, sprawling, and energy-intensive way of life is simply not sustainable. Few people are aware of how their lives are dependent on cheap and abundant energy. Are these Americans in for a rude awakening? In a fascinating new documentary, The End of Suburbia Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream, the central question is this: Does the suburban way of life have a future? The answer is a resounding no. The film opens with the quote, If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst. Youd think from that opening were in for a very depressing flick. Not so. Despite the serious subject matter the documentary is actually quite engaging and entertaining. Not only is it informative for those already familiar with the issues but its also quite accessible and enlightening for the uninitiated. It serves as great introduction and a real eye-opener for people who are largely unfamiliar with the topic of energy depletion and the impact it will have on their lives and communities. full: http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/wheeler07282004/ -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Ulhas Joglekar wrote: ravi wrote: This is equally true of terrorists in Kashmir. About 70% of terrorists killed in Kashmir in the recent years have been non-Kashmiris. They are usually Punjabis trained by the ISI and smuggled into Kashmir. what are the sources for these numbers? I suggest you visit cemetaries in Kashmir where freedom fighters have been buried. Their names may give you some clues. are you being serious? assuming you are, questions remain: who buried these people? kashmiri locals? do the names suggest they are of punjabi origin? are there such data available? if you are not being serious, but sarcastic: that is unfortunate. i am not suggesting you are making up numbers. i am only pointing out that we need to examine the sources. if the indian govt claims that 70% of all terrorists killed are of foreign origin, it is not much different from the bush govt auditing its own excesses. The terrorist upsurge in Kashmir must be seen in the context of US led Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan with Saudi funding and Pakistani support. i find that quite plausible. nonetheless, it continues to leave open the issue of the original desire of the kashmiri people (though it does provide some evidence in favour of the thesis that unrest was introduced), which we discuss below: if the former is true, the discussion regarding the current composition and nature of activists/terrorists may prove to be a distraction. The former, even if it is true, irrelevant today. The so-called self determination for Kashmiris will create a US protectorate in reality. how can you say that the original expression of the local population is irrelevant today? if it is true that the kashmiri people wish to be rid of indian oppression, and we are afraid that the result will be a US protectorate, then our duty is not to deny the former, but to fight the latter, isn't it? --ravi
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Ulhas Joglekar wrote: Chris Doss wrote: Reactionary is an understatement. This is equally true of terrorists in Kashmir. About 70% of terrorists killed in Kashmir in the recent years have been non-Kashmiris. Lately the resistance in Iraq has mainly been killing people at open-air markets. The anti-imperialist content of this strategy is hard to discern. Doug
Re: John Edwards speaks
Louis Proyect quoted John Edwards: ... Thats why we will strengthen and modernize our military. We will double our Special Forces, and invest in the new equipment and technologies so that our military remains the best equipped and best trained in the world. This will make our military stronger so were able to defeat every enemy in this new world It's going to be a long four years no matter who wins. Carl _ Overwhelmed by debt? Find out how to Dig Yourself Out of Debt from MSN Money. http://special.msn.com/money/0407debt.armx
Banned in Boston
NY Times, July 29, 2004 OP-ED COLUMNIST Banned in Boston By MAUREEN DOWD BOSTON The Democratic convention stage has the hushed mahogany dignity of a Republican men's club: all dark wood paneling with maroon and faux marble trim. The podium has an ersatz presidential seal with a flag. Even the hoi polloi in the press are ennobled by the Eastern Establishment staging; the writing tables in the FleetCenter have mock blue marble tops. The preppy stiff, as other Massachusetts pols called young John Kerry, according to Newsweek, is not doing an outr interpretation of the flag, like Michael Dukakis's salmon, eggshell and azure stage in 1988. Stable change, one top Democrat said, in an oxymoron describing the set for tonight's live shot of Live Shot, as his colleagues dubbed the camera-loving senator. We want to bring evolutionary change, not revolutionary change. The Democrats think the way to overthrow the Republicans is to mimic Republicans. Democratic rivalries are tamped down; liberal losers are kept offstage or out of prime time; the positive message - strength, heroism and patriotism - is relentlessly drummed in. The Swift boat crewmen are toted everywhere to vouch that John Kerry is a comrade, not just a set of political calculations. When the National Guard mistakenly thought someone was parachuting onto the FleetCenter roof on Sunday night, reporters joked that it must be the nominee, once more proving what a manly man he is in yet another extreme sport, perhaps even landing in a rocket pack. Democrats on the podium who want to rip the nation's leaders as vile, dangerous deceivers who cried wolf on W.M.D., trampled the Constitution and left Iraq in chaos have to stuff it, if not shove it. Their speeches are scrubbed; Bush and Cheney are barely mentioned. (Kerry vetters, addicted to focus group dial-o-meters, didn't want Jimmy Carter to criticize Mr. Bush obliquely for misleading us on the war or not showing up for National Guard duty. But they couldn't contain him or Al Sharpton.) The Democratic money honeys, whose hive is the posh Four Seasons Hotel, flounce around with wads of embossed V.I.P. invitations, every bit as regal as Republican Rangers. The status symbol for the rich is a bejeweled Kerry 2004 pin worn by Teresa. The soft-money checks cut in Boston (for supposedly independent groups run by Democratic loyalists) make a mockery of the McCain-Feingold law Senator Kerry supported. Democrats are even aping the Republicans' bunker-like secrecy about meetings with contributors. Reporters visiting the hospitality suite of one group, ACT, based at the Four Seasons and affiliated with Harold Ickes, who once ran Jesse Jackson's campaign, were chased away and told, We have wealthy donors to protect. You can feel the enormous effort in the air as Democrats try hard to put a smiley face on Mr. Kerry's long face. Republicans can rally around a candidate if they don't love him, as they did with Richard Nixon in 1968. Even when W. was at his most unformed, and uninformed, Republicans easily found words of praise. At parties around Boston, Democrats are having a hard time copying Republicans in that sense; their true feelings too easily tumble out. At one event I attended with some of Mr. Kerry's best friends, some toasts went: He can be a pain in the neck on a typical day, but great in a crisis. Paul Starobin of The National Journal reported that at 1:30 a.m. at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge the other night, Bill Clinton was forsaking both the South Beach diet and Mr. Kerry (whose success, after all, would impede a Hillary ascension in 2008). Over a cheeseburger and fries, Elvis expounded to Vernon Jordan and Glenn Close, as Hillary sipped Veuve Clicquot. The ex-prez believes that Kerry has got to make the case of having the requisite brass to be commander in chief, Mr. Starobin reports. Bill has himself been hearing doubts from moderate, swing voters. 'They think Kerry's smart - they're not sure he's tough,' Clinton told a handful of nodding Noir guests. Even John Edwards, in the spot usually given to the attack dog, barked oh so softly (matching the stage in his mahogany tie), preferring to hail a new man from hope with the mantra Hope is on the way. (Dick Cheney, meanwhile, was as offensive as ever, mocking the unfortunate picture of Mr. Kerry in his embryonic spacesuit.) Some Democrats fear that Mr. Kerry could be falling into a Republican trap, so worried about offending swing voters that he misses the knockout swing. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
more on South Africa
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/211/1/32/ Joel Wendland _ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
same as the anti-imperialist content of blowing up pubs in Guildford and Birmingham. Those who don't understand Ireland are doomed to repeat its history ... on the other hand, I suppose I should cheer up. Ireland is now a thriving and dynamic nation, and racial prejudice against the Irish would nowadays be regarded as a bad joke. Only took six hundred years, too. dd -Original Message- Lately the resistance in Iraq has mainly been killing people at open-air markets. The anti-imperialist content of this strategy is hard to discern. Doug
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
--- Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lately the resistance in Iraq has mainly been killing people at open-air markets. The anti-imperialist content of this strategy is hard to discern. Doug --- It doesn't have anti-imperialist content. The point is to make themselves look badass on TV and Jihadi websites and get money and converts. That's why they always stage high-profile PR campaigns of zero military content, like the raid on Ingushetia or the attack on the Indian parliament. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
by Chris Doss --- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: there are other options besides secession: Ken mentions federalism, while simply increased democracy (including civil liberties and affirmative action) may do the trick in other situations. --- My personal favorite solution. It works for the rest of Russia, which is an enormously multiethnic country. Compare Chechnya and Dagestan, or Tatarstan. Ironically, Maskhadov, now that he's pretty much given up the independence idea and is struggling just to have some degree of power, is arguing that Chechnya's status in the Russian Federation should be basically like Tatarstan's -- broad autonomy. Considering that Tatarstan accomplished the same thing without firing a shot... well, you draw your own conclusions. ^^ CB: The SU had autonomous regions. I think Tibet is an autonomous region in China
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Ulhas Joglekar wrote: Chris Doss wrote: Reactionary is an understatement. This is equally true of terrorists in Kashmir. About 70% of terrorists killed in Kashmir in the recent years have been non-Kashmiris. Lately the resistance in Iraq has mainly been killing people at open-air markets. The anti-imperialist content of this strategy is hard to discern. Doug Have you added up all the Iraqi civilians killed by various factions of Iraqi and non-Iraqi terrorists and compared the number to that of Iraqi civilians killed by US and other foreign troops who invaded and have occupied Iraq and by economic sanctions before the invasion and occupation? Americans who vote for John Kerry who will be the next POTUS, aka the biggest terrorist and war criminal, have no moral standing to pretend to be appalled by un-American terrorists. Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * 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: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
Charles Brown wrote: CB: The SU had autonomous regions. They were formally autonomous. In reality, there was Great Russian chauvinism from just around the time that Stalin was consolidating power. Lenin's concern over this matter prompted him to wage his final struggle against Stalin. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/autonomy.htm It is said that a united apparatus was needed. Where did that assurance come from? Did it not come from that same Russian apparatus which, as I pointed out in one of the preceding sections of my diary, we took over from tsarism and slightly anointed with Soviet oil? There is no doubt that that measure should have been delayed somewhat until we could say that we vouched for our apparatus as our own. Butr now, we must, in all consicence, admit the contrary; the apparatus we call ours is, in fact, still quite alien to us; it is a bourgeois and tasrist hotch-potch and there has been no posibility of getting rid of it in the course of the past five years without the help of other countries and because we have been busy most of the time with military engagements and the fight against famine. It is quite natural that in such circumstances the freedom to secede from the union by which we justify ourselves will be a mere scrap of paper, unable to defend the non-Russians from the onslaught of that really Russian man, the Great-Russian chauvinist, in substance a rascal and a tyrant, such as the typical Russian bureaucrat is. There is no doubt that the infinitesimal percentage of Soviet and sovietised workers will drown in that tide of chauvinistic Great-Russian riffraff like a fly in milk. It is said in defence of this measure that the People's Commissariats directly concerned with national psychology and national education were set up as separate bodies. But there the question arises: can these People's Commissariats be made quite independent? and secondly: were we careful enough to take measures to provide the non-Russians with a real safeguard against the truly Russian bully? I do not think we took such measures although we could and should have done so. I think that Stalin's haste and his infatuation with pure adminstration, together with his spite against the notorious nationalist-socialism, played a fatal role here. In politics spite generally plays the basest of roles. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Heavenly Kashmir Is Still Mired in Hell as a Dirty War Gets Dirtier
Heavenly Kashmir is still mired in hell as a dirty war gets dirtier Sandra Jordan in Srinagar http://www.guardian.co.uk/kashmir/Story/0,2763,1185386,00.html Sunday April 4, 2004 The Observer The following correction was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday April 11 2004 In the article below, we said Abdul Hamid Hafiz and his wife, Atiqa, were detained and had now joined 'the ranks of Kashmir's 8,000 disappeared'. In fact, the couple's daughters have secured the release of Atiqa. Her husband remains in detention. In the Himalayan foothills, dotted with misty lakes and romantic boathouse hotels, the Kashmir Valley looks heavenly. And as Indian and Pakistani politicians embrace at cricket matches and congratulate themselves on agreeing on talks about talks it would be tempting to suppose the 15-year war in Indian-held Kashmir is over. But here, where up to 10 people die each day, whether army, militants or civilians, the only peace is in the grave. The violence is sporadic and indiscriminate. On the shores of Dal Lake, The Observer ran into a protest organised by village women and children, led by four girls, aged five to 13, whose parents had been dragged from their home the night before by a Special Operations Group. Abdul Hamid Hafiz, a postal administrator, and his wife Atiqa, were detained, and their daughters locked in a room. The eldest, Rifat, described how masked men burst into their house: 'They beat up my father with a gun. They said they would kill him. My father said, What's my mistake, why would you kill me? They said, Shut up, shut up.' Any charges against the couple remain a mystery. They now join the ranks of Kashmir's estimated 8,000 'disappeared'. The daughters demonstrated in desperation but, as they blocked the road with stones, armed police charged with sticks and tear gas. Girls and old ladies were thrown to the ground and savagely kicked. This is what happens to little girls in Kashmir. Half a million Indian forces have been deployed to suppress the separatist revolt of an estimated 5,000 militants, backed by Pakistan, that exploded in 1989 after India was believed to have rigged election results. Of the nine million people in the Indian-controlled Kashmir Valley, 95 per cent are Muslim and most want independence, although a few want to belong to Pakistan, which controls a third of Kashmir. The people of Kashmir are caught in the middle, often treated with brutality by both sides. Movement is curtailed by checkpoints every few hundred metres. Those who travel after dark risk being shot by drunken soldiers - empty rum bottles dangling on razor wire outside their bunkers are testament to the drinking culture of the Indian army. The troops are mainly recruits from remote parts of India, and do not mix with Kashmiris. As they are frequently attacked by militants indistinguishable from ordinary Kashmiris, they treat everyone as the enemy. More than 60,000 people have died in the conflict. According to the army, two-thirds were militants killed in shoot-outs, but locals claim many are ordinary people shot by security forces seeking promotions and financial awards to kill 'insurgents'. According to Human Rights Watch, thousands have been executed in extra-judicial killings. On the ground, it doesn't take long to discover this is a dirty war. In Umar Amad, a suburb of Srinagar, a shoot-out had just ended and the bodies of two militants were carried out of a bullet-scarred house. The first was Ghulam Rasool Dar, operational chief of Hizbul Mujahideen, the biggest militant group. His colleague was Fayaz Ahmad Dar, financial controller of the pro-Pakistani group. It was a coup for the Indian forces: two of Kashmir's most important militants dead - and, crucially, 'no collateral damage', explained Brigadier A K Choudhary of the Rashtriaya Rifles. He said the army had received intelligence of the men's whereabouts and went to arrest them. 'They fired at the first two of our boys who entered, then we had no option but to fire back,' Choudhary said. In the kitchen the floor was covered with pools of sticky blood, the scene all the more horrible for its domestic backdrop. Outside, neighbours gathered. 'This was a staged encounter,' said one man, making sure no soldiers were listening. The crowd murmured assent. 'There's no way both of the militants would have been in one room. One would have taken a position upstairs,' said another man. A few days later, Mrs Kanni, the woman of the house, cried outside her desecrated kitchen. 'Our honour is lost,' said her son Arif, 24. The Kannis emphatically denied giving militants shelter and said they had never seen the men before. They said the army had come to their home on the morning of the shoot-out, searched it, then herded the family into their business premises, a hostel at the front of the house. Later, peering through the curtains, they saw the army carry two unconscious men into the house. The army stands by its version, but the
Radio broadcast to discuss referendum on Chavez recall
Radio broadcast to discuss referendum on Chavez recall; The Miami Herald July 29, 2004 The Aug. 15 referendum on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's rule will be discussed today during a live radio broadcast in Miami. ''The Venezuelan Referendum: Is Chavez On His Way Out?'' will be broadcast from 3 to 4 p.m. on WLRN-FM (91.3). [this station broadcasts on the web: http://www.wlrn.org/] Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer will moderate the discussion. Panelists will include Maria Corina Machado, director of Sumate, a Venezuelan civic organization that helped organize the recall; Beatrice Rangel, vice president and senior advisor to the chairman of the Cisneros Group of Companies, and Julio Borges, national coordinator of Primero Justicia, an opposition minority party and a congressman for the state of Miranda in the National Assembly. Other panelists will be Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, and Andres Izarra, spokesman with the Venezuelan embassy in Washington. The forum is sponsored by The Herald and WLRN radio.
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Have you added up all the Iraqi civilians killed by various factions of Iraqi and non-Iraqi terrorists and compared the number to that of Iraqi civilians killed by US and other foreign troops who invaded and have occupied Iraq and by economic sanctions before the invasion and occupation? Americans who vote for John Kerry who will be the next POTUS, aka the biggest terrorist and war criminal, have no moral standing to pretend to be appalled by un-American terrorists. Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. What a load of crap. Elections are about contesting for power, and often involve debased compromises; votes aren't symptoms of moral purity. And why is it impossible to hold two thoughts in mind at once? The sanctions were murderous and the war a horrible crime. There's no doubt that the U.S. and its very junior partners have killed far more Iraqi civilians than the resistance. But there are some people on the western left - some of them members of PEN-L, even - who can't acknowledge that a lot of the Iraqi resistance consists of jihadists and unreconstructed Saddamites, i.e., absolutely awful forces. As Christian Parenti said when he returned from his first trip to Iraq - there's no way anything good can come of this. Doug
India Turned Kashmir into the Bitter Place It Is Now
India turned Kashmir into the bitter place it is now BJP Hindu nationalism has made the conflict more dangerous Martin Woollacott http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,630975,00.html Friday January 11, 2002 The Guardian When sections of the Kashmiri crowd booed the Indian side and waved flags similar to the Pakistani flag at a match between India and the West Indies in Srinagar in 1983, the reaction in government circles in Delhi was fury. The Kashmiris, or, rather, the Kashmiri government, by not preventing the outrage, had failed the sub-continental version of the cricket test. Not many months afterwards, after underhand manoeuvres, the then Kashmiri chief minister, Farooq Abdullah, was toppled. Recounting the story in his book on Kashmir, the distinguished Indian journalist MJ Akbar notes that there was at that time no serious Pakistani-supported subversion in Kashmir. Instead, there was an established pattern of Indian subversion of Kashmiri institutions and leaders. From the beginning, the Indians could not bring themselves to leave well enough alone in a state that had acceded to the Indian union - even in the Indian version of events - on the basis of a document which gave its government full powers except in foreign, defence and fiscal policy. The story of Indian-held Kashmir had, from 1948, been of efforts to wear down and abolish the Kashmiri difference. There were periods when saner policies prevailed. But usually New Delhi wanted a crude mastery in Kashmir and it wanted Kashmiri leaders, notably Sheikh Abdullah and his son Farooq, to be utterly compliant allies. In this, it ignored the fact that any successful Kashmiri leader had to reflect to some extent the ambivalent feelings of part of the Muslim majority toward the Indian connection. It undermined and detained leaders when they failed to be as loyal as expected, and replaced them with worse men. Mrs Gandhi wanted Farooq out because he would not go along with what amounted to a merger of Kashmir's main party with Congress. The cricket incident was a useful tool in the campaign to unseat him. Rajiv Gandhi reinstated Farooq in 1987 but the rigged elections of that year reduced belief in the political dispensation in Kashmir, Islamic parties gained ground, the ranks of unemployed youth increased, and significant armed actions happened. New Delhi's reaction was to send in disastrously hard-line administrators. One of them famously said: The bullet is the only solution for Kashmir. In the resulting campaign, with its reprisals, rapes, and killing of innocents, the insurgents were damaged, but the population of the Vale was comprehensively alienated. The consequence was that, as Victoria Schofield writes: No political leader prepared to voice the demands of Kashmiri activists and militants would be acceptable to Delhi; any leader of whom Delhi approved would be rejected by the militants. In her careful and even-handed account she shows how the first phase of this deterioration preceded serious Pakistani intervention. Once it was under way, Pakistan certainly seized on the opportunity it saw, in both Afghanistan and Kashmir, to follow a forward strategy which would supposedly enable it to counterbalance India's much greater strength. But it was New Delhi which bore most responsibility for the dismal situation in Kashmir - first for the years in which normal politics in the state slipped into decline, and then for a counter-insurgency effort, which lacked the scrupulous care which alone brings a chance of true success in such campaigns. Indian governments later tried to repair the damage done in the early 1990s, even as Pakistani-supported subversion of a more Islamist character continued, with Afghan and foreign militants added to the mix. . . . Kashmir: Behind the Vale by MJ Akbar, published by Viking Penguin India. Kashmir in Conflict by Victoria Schofield, published by IB Tauris. Lineages of the Present by Aijaz Ahmad, published by Verso. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * 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: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
At 11:05 AM -0400 7/29/04, Doug Henwood wrote: Have you added up all the Iraqi civilians killed by various factions of Iraqi and non-Iraqi terrorists and compared the number to that of Iraqi civilians killed by US and other foreign troops who invaded and have occupied Iraq and by economic sanctions before the invasion and occupation? Americans who vote for John Kerry who will be the next POTUS, aka the biggest terrorist and war criminal, have no moral standing to pretend to be appalled by un-American terrorists. Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. What a load of crap. Elections are about contesting for power, and often involve debased compromises; votes aren't symptoms of moral purity. And why is it impossible to hold two thoughts in mind at once? The sanctions were murderous and the war a horrible crime. There's no doubt that the U.S. and its very junior partners have killed far more Iraqi civilians than the resistance. But there are some people on the western left - some of them members of PEN-L, even - who can't acknowledge that a lot of the Iraqi resistance consists of jihadists and unreconstructed Saddamites, i.e., absolutely awful forces. As Christian Parenti said when he returned from his first trip to Iraq - there's no way anything good can come of this. Doug You have no moral right to be acting superior to terrorists, since you intend to vote for one. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * 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/
More Marxist background on Kashmir
The Militant Vol.59/No.21 May 29, 1995 Kashmiris Demand: India Out Now! BY GREG ROSENBERG Azad Kashmir! (Free Kashmir) shouted women in the charred town of Charar Sharif - the scene of a devastating inferno provoked by the Indian army May 9. The burning of more than 1,000 houses and shops in the town galvanized new opposition to India's bloody rule over Kashmir - a territory of 7.8 million people, and the only Indian state with a Muslim majority. Tens of thousands joined in protests to angrily denounce the army's actions. India get out! demanded the former residents of the town, some 18 miles from the summer capital of Srinagar. Indian killers go home! The events in Charar Sharif delivered a fresh political crisis to the Congress Party government of Indian prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. Kashmir lies in the foothills of the towering Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountain ranges, bordering Pakistan, India, and China. Kashmir's Muslim majority has waged a decades- long battle for self-determination from New Delhi. This battle expanded into civil war in 1990, when rising worker and peasant protests convinced New Delhi to dissolve the state government and rule by fiat. The Kashmiri fight for self-determination has its roots in British colonial rule on the Indian subcontinent, the resulting partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, and the desire of India's ruling families to keep the possession in their grip. The rival capitalist regime in Pakistan - which occupies one third of Kashmir - lays claim to the rest of it. Islamabad and New Delhi have fought three wars since 1947, and in 1990 came to the brink of nuclear exchanges following rising protests in Kashmir. As justification for its hold on Kashmir, successive Congress Party governments have painted the self- determination struggle as a Pakistani aggression, complete with charges of Muslim militancy and terrorism. While some armed formations fighting Indian troops favor annexation to Pakistan, a majority of Kashmiris simply want independence. New Delhi has continuously ignored United Nations calls for a plebiscite on independence. Rao scheduled state elections in Kashmir for next month to take the heat off his government. But after the burning of Charar Sharif, senior Indian officials proclaimed the plan dead in the water. The Kashmiri conflict is the most explosive of several battles for national rights throughout India, and the Indian capitalist families need it kept in check to prevent a victory from inspiring fighters for self-determination from Punjab in the west to Assam in the east. 12,000 troops vs. 50 fighters Some 12,000 Indian troops surrounded Charar Sharif over the past 10 weeks in an attempt to corner about 50 armed opponents of New Delhi's occupation. As the Indian army moved in May 9 and gun battles broke out, a fire swept through the town, which at one time was home to 25,000 people. Most of the residents had fled earlier. Among the structures destroyed was a mosque housing the 15th century mausoleum of Nooruddin Wali, the patron saint of Kashmir. The Indian army was quick to blame Muslim militants for the fire. In a May 15 speech to Parliament, Rao declared the fire to be the work of militants from Pakistan. Army commanders offered profuse explanations of their version of the events, but prevented reporters from getting closer than one mile from Charar Sharif for several days after the blaze. New Delhi's heavy-handed censorship was too much even for reporters for the big-business press, who are prone to slavishly intone the mantra that India is the world's biggest democracy. On May 12, the army allowed nearly 100 foreign and Indian journalists to survey the valley, wrote Shiraz Sidhva in the May 15 Financial Times. A few shots were fired and a building in the valley went up in flames in perfect timing for the TV cameras. The army displayed the bodies of five militants, who they said were foreign nationals. But later, when some journalists, including this correspondent, returned to Alamdar Basti, near Chrar-e- Sharief, the bodies had been brought to an open field beside a road, Sidhva wrote. Villagers wept over the corpses and said they were local people, not foreigners. Nearly 30 corpses have been recovered so far. The Indian government maintains at least 300,000 troops in Kashmir - about one soldier for every 25 people living in the region. New Delhi rapidly swung its military machine into action in a vain attempt to quash protests that swept the region. Police opened fire on a large crowd that gathered to protest the inferno May 11 in central Srinagar, killing two people. At Chadoora, near Charar Sharif, police attempted to shut down a march of 20,000 protesters. New Delhi slapped a 24-hour curfew on the area. But throughout the valley, cops fired bullets and tear gas at protesters who defied it. In Srinagar, troops did not even allow residents to open their windows, ostensibly to protect two federal ministers visiting the region. Abdul
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: You have no moral right to be acting superior to terrorists, since you intend to vote for one. But to be fair to John Kerry, he is only involved with state-sponsored terrorism. As far as I know, he has never been involved in a suicide bombing. Now he did apply botox to his forehead reportedly, but that did not affect innocent bystanders. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Tariq Ali on Kashmir
LRB | Vol. 23 No. 8 dated 19 April 2001 | Tariq Ali Bitter Chill of Winter Tariq Ali (clip) In 1944 the National Conference had approved a constitution for an independent Kashmir, which began: We the people of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh and the Frontier regions, including Poonch and Chenani districts, commonly known as Jammu and Kashmir State, in order to perfect our union in the fullest equality and self-determination, to raise ourselves and our children for ever from the abyss of oppression and poverty, degradation and superstition, from medieval darkness and ignorance, into the sunlit valleys of plenty, ruled by freedom, science and honest toil, in worthy participation of the historic resurgence of the peoples of the East, and the working masses of the world, and in determination to make this our country a dazzling gem on the snowy bosom of Asia, do propose and propound the following constitution of our state . . . But the 1947-48 war had made independence impossible, and Article 370 of the Indian Constitution recognised only Kashmir's 'special status'. True, the Maharaja was replaced by his son, Karan Singh, who became the non-hereditary head of state, but it was a disappointed Abdullah who now sat down to play chess with the politicians from Delhi. He knew that most of them, apart from Gandhi and Nehru, would like to eat him alive. For the moment, though, they needed him. Since the split with the confessional element in the Jammu and Kashmir Conference, Abdullah had moved to the left. As the elected Chief Minister of Kashmir he pushed through a set of major reforms, the most important of which was the 'land to the tiller' legislation, which destroyed the power of the landlords, most of whom were Muslims. They were allowed to keep a maximum of 20 acres, provided they worked on the land themselves: 188,775 acres were transferred to 153,399 peasants, while the Government organised collective farming on 90,000 acres. A law was passed prohibiting the sale of land to non-Kashmiris, thus preserving the basic topography of the region. Dozens of new schools and four hospitals were built, and a university was founded in Srinagar with perhaps the most beautiful location of any campus in the world. These reforms were regarded as Communist-inspired in the United States, where they were used to build support for America's new ally, Pakistan. A classic example of US propaganda is Danger in Kashmir, written by Josef Korbel. Korbel had been a Czech UN representative in Kashmir before he defected to Washington. His book was published by Princeton in 1954, and in the second edition, in 1966, Korbel acknowledged the 'substantial help' of several scholars, including Mrs Madeleine Albright of the Russian Institute at Columbia University - his daughter. In 1948 the National Conference had backed 'provisional accession' to India, on condition Kashmir was accepted as an autonomous republic with only defence, foreign affairs and communications conceded to the centre. A small but influential minority, made up of the Dogra nobility and the Kashmiri Pandits, fearful of losing their privileges, began to campaign against Kashmir's special status. In India proper, they were backed by the ultra-right Jan Sangh (which in its current reincarnation as the Bharatiya Janata Party heads the coalition Government in New Delhi). The Jan Sangh provided funds and volunteers for agitation against the Kashmir Government. Abdullah, who had gone out of his way to integrate non-Muslims at every level of the Administration, was enraged. His position hardened. At a public meeting in the enemy stronghold of Jammu on 10 April 1952, he made it clear that he was not willing to surrender Kashmir's partial sovereignty: Many Kashmiris are apprehensive as to what will happen to them and their position if, for instance, something happens to Pandit Nehru. We do not know. As realists, we Kashmiris have to provide for all eventualities . . . If there is a resurgence of communalism in India how are we to convince the Muslims of Kashmir that India does not intend to swallow up Kashmir? Abdullah was mistaken only in his belief that Nehru would protect them. When the Indian Prime Minister visited Srinagar in May 1953 he spent a week trying to cajole his friend into accepting a permanent settlement on Delhi's terms: if a secular democracy was to be preserved in India, Kashmir had to be part of it. Nehru pleaded. Abdullah wasn't convinced: Muslims were a large minority in India even if Kashmiris weren't included. He felt that Nehru shouldn't be putting pressure on him but on politicians inside the Congress who were susceptible to the chauvinistic demands of the Jan Sangh. Three months later, Nehru gave in to the chauvinists and authorised what was effectively a coup in Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah was dismissed by Karan Singh and one of his lieutenants, Bakhshi Ghulam Mohammed, was sworn in as Chief Minister. Abdullah was accused of being in contact with Pakistani
Celluloid Diplomacy
'My film is part of the peace process' After 40 years of hostility and embargoes, India's movie industry is opening its doors to its Pakistani rivals. Is this the start of celluloid diplomacy? Tania Branigan reports http://www.guardian.co.uk/kashmir/Story/0,2763,1146645,00.html Friday February 13, 2004 The Guardian It's a habit he shares with many film producers: he keeps less important mortals waiting, and arrives an hour after our interview was scheduled. Unlike most movie moguls, however, Afzal Khan turns up with profuse apologies and a proper excuse: he has been dealing with a break-in at one of his chemist shops. The 40-year-old Huddersfield pharmacist diversified into film just two years ago, yet his company, Paragon Pictures, is thriving. His first movie, Ek Chhotisi Love Story, has so far turned a profit of £1.25m. Any movie taking over £1m at the box office is, by the standards of the subcontinental film industry, a hit. His second effort, Larki Punjaban, proved equally successful, despite controversy over the Sikh-Muslim love affair at its heart. But his third, Jarga, is his biggest challenge to date. It not only tackles a controversial subject - honour killings - but aims to help end five decades of conflict between India and Pakistan, by uniting workers from the countries' film industries. Pakistan and India banned each others' movies from cinema screens in the 1960s, and so this is no small task. Workers have crossed the border since then, but have always operated under pseudonyms. And Pakistanis have repeatedly complained about the host of Paki-bashing action movies that emerged in the 1980s, painting them as fanatics and terrorists. But Khan is not alone. Just as the country's leaders have vowed to restore normal relations, so Bollywood and its smaller Pakistani counterpart - dubbed Lollywood after its base in Lahore - are seeking détente. Indeed, argue film-makers, their cooperation will spur on the wider rapprochement. Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf have started the peace process and my film is going to extend it, pledged Mahesh Bhatt, an eminent Indian director, when he premiered his latest movie in Karachi last month. He also announced that his next film would be shot in Pakistan. It would be easy to dismiss such grandiose pronouncements as run-of-the-mill PR hype. But the Indian film industry has real influence, exceeding even the cultural clout of Hollywood in its 1930s heyday. Its geographical reach encompasses not just the subcontinent but the Middle East, US and Europe. I see the subcontinent region as a family; you have brothers and sisters and we bicker sometimes, says Rajinder Dudrah, lecturer in screen studies at Manchester University and an expert on the subcontinental film industry. It's a fractured family relationship, and Bollywood and Lollywood are part of that. We see tensions and rivalries which can be exacerbated by the films. But there are also artists and producers trying to reach out and balance that with dialogue. Curiously, much of the impetus for change is coming from the UK. Mahesh Bhatt's producer is another Pakistan-born Brit - Sevy Ali - whose Asian Pictures International hopes to beat Paragon to releasing the first Indo-Pakistan co-production to be screened in both countries. Bhatt and Ali have talked to the Pakistani minister of information, and are to meet President Musharraf next month to discuss overturning the ban. Bhatt was born to a Muslim mother and Hindu father, and has long promoted moves towards integration. Similarly, the director-producer PD Mehra launched the Pakistan India Performing Arts Forum to encourage artistic collaborations 15 years ago. Advertiser links Give Kids The World - Child Charity You can make a difference in the life of a child facing a... gktw.org Compassion - Sponsor a Child Online Sponsor a child online through Compassion's Christian child... compassion.com Children International - Sponsor a Child For only $18 a month, you can make a difference in the life... children.org One of the first attempts at celluloid diplomacy came last September with a publicity stunt for a new film, Pinjar. The Mumbai-based stars descended on the road crossing point between the two countries to deliver flowers to disconcerted Pakistani border guards. Meanwhile, the Indian actor Urmila Matondkar has filmed a documentary series in Lahore, and when her Pakistani counterpart, Reema, visited Mumbai last month, the Indian press dubbed her the Aishwarya Rai of Pakistan - no mean compliment, since the latter is the undisputed queen of Bollywood. Next month Mehra will lead a delegation of Bollywood stars to meet Pakistan's prime minister, Zafarullah Jamali, as well as leading figures from the Pakistani industry. The reconciliation is not as surprising as it first appears. Despite the deep-rooted tensions between the two nations, high-quality production values of Indian movies have proved irresistible in Pakistan and customers rush to video
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: You have no moral right to be acting superior to terrorists, since you intend to vote for one. But to be fair to John Kerry, he is only involved with state-sponsored terrorism. As far as I know, he has never been involved in a suicide bombing. Now he did apply botox to his forehead reportedly, but that did not affect innocent bystanders. It could. Introducing a foreign substance like botox might cause Kerry's crags to crumble like those of the Old Man of the Mountain under the onslaught of winter ice fissures. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/whites/old_man.html Kerry bears an eerie resemblance to the OMM so the risk of burying passersby under his rubble shouldn't be taken lightly. Carl _ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
Kashmir and Islam
http://www.himalmag.com/2004/may/review_2.htm REVIEW Kashmiriyat and Islam The conflict in Kashmir may be projected as the militant Islamic assault on the state. But the origins of Kashmiriyat were never built on inter-religious antagonism. Languages of Belonging: Islam, Regional Identity and the Making of Kashmir By Chitralekha Zutshi Publisher: Permanent Black, Delhi Year: 2003 Pages: 359 Price: Rs. 695 ISBN: 81-7824-060-2 reviewed by Yoginder Sikand Standard Indian journalistic and even purportedly scholarly accounts of the emergence of the mass uprising in Kashmir tend to portray it as an externally inspired Islamic fundamentalist movement against the supposedly secular Indian state. This is course a misreading of a very complex phenomenon. While the religious aspect obviously cannot be ignored, the Kashmiri Muslim resentment against Indian rule cannot be said to be simply a result of inherent antagonism between Islam and Hinduism or between Muslims and Hindus as such. For one thing, the very notion of the Indian state (against which the Kashmiri movement for self-determination defines itself) as secular is questionable. Furthermore, the argument that the Kashmiri movement is in essence an Islamic or a Muslim communal one ignores the fact that long before the Islamists entered the scene, the movement was led largely by secular elements, such as the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, who, while advocating independence for Kashmir, were opposed to the notion of an Islamic state, at least of the kind proposed by Islamists active in Kashmir today, such as the Lashkar-i Tayyeba and the Jamaat-i Islami. Understanding the roots of the Kashmiri movement requires one to take a historical perspective, examining the changing contours of Kashmiri identity over time. This is precisely what author Chitralekha Zutshi sets out to do in this well-researched book. She questions the notion of Kashmiriyat as a unified cohesive vision of Kashmirs past that ignores, perhaps deliberately, crucial internal differences and contradictions of religion, sect, caste, class, region, language and ethnicity. Zutshis particular focus is on how the notion of Kashmiriyat came to be developed over time in response to wider social, cultural, economic and political developments in Kashmir. In the process, she examines how key Kashmiri leaders sought to balance their commitment to Islam, on the one hand, and to the notion of a Kashmiri nation, on the other. The notion of a well-defined Kashmiri identity, Zutshi argues, was not the original product of Kashmiri nationalist minds, but, instead, owed much to colonial discourses on Kashmir pre-dating the rise of Kashmiri nationalism. From the 17th century, European travellers wrote about the happy vale of Kashmir where, as they saw it, Muslims and Hindus alike were rather lax in their religious commitments and where, unlike in other parts of the subcontinent, the two communities lived amicably together. Zutshi claims that this romanticised picture, while true to some extent, ignored crucial internal differences that seriously challenge the notion of Kashmiri religious syncretism and the argument that communitarian differences were relatively marginal in Kashmir. Closely examining pre-colonial, colonial and Dogra records, as well as the writings of Kashmiri Pundits and Muslim spokesmen, Zutshi traces the complex process of the construction of a distinct Kashmiri Muslim identity. She argues that Sikh rule in Kashmir, under which the Muslim peasantry suffered considerable hardship, naturally led to a growing stress on the Muslim aspect of the identity of the Kashmiri Muslim majority which, in turn, functioned as a means to articulate dissent and protest. This was carried further under the Dogra regime, which increasingly relied on orthodox Brahminical Hinduism to claim sanction for itself. As Zutshi writes, the growing salience of the specifically Muslim aspect of the identity of the Kashmiri Muslims was a direct result of the overtly Hindu nature of the Dogras apparatus of legitimacy. Under the Dogras, the Kashmiri Muslims, as a whole, suffered heavy privations. Top government posts and large estates were almost entirely monopolised by Dogras, Punjabis and Kashmiri Pundits. As a consequence, Islam and Islamic consciousness served as a crucial vehicle for the Kashmiri Muslims to express protest against their marginalisation and oppression. In this sense, as Zutshi says, the emerging Kashmiri Muslim identity cannot be said to have been communal in the narrow sense of the term. From the late 19th century onwards, in the context of Dogra rule, remarkable changes began to emerge in the ways that Kashmiris, Muslims and Pundits, defined themselves, their religious identities, their inter-relationships and their understanding of Kashmir. Kashmiri Pundits who, although a relatively tiny minority, were over-represented in the government
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
ravi wrote: Kashmir: a US protectorate in reality. then our duty is not to deny the former, but to fight the latter, isn't it? How do you fight the latter? Btw, do CPI and CPM share your positions? Ulhas Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
In a message dated 7/29/2004 8:49:16 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: how can you say that the original _expression_ of the local population is irrelevant today? if it is true that the kashmiri people wish to be rid of indian oppression, and we are afraid that the result will be a US protectorate, then our duty is not to deny the former, but to fight the latter, isn't it? --ravi Comment The national factor is a tricky question . . . most certainly attempting to assert what the oppressed want. The bottom line is that the oppressed do not want to be oppressed . . . and how this is articulated as politics and ideology depends on the organizations doing the articulation. In respects to the African American people . . . and not simply any black group of people in America . . . the Nation of Islam cannot be ignored. Although I personal understand the national factor in relations to African Americans different from the fluctuating and changing policy of the Nation of Islam . . . I find nothing offense in their official Theology and their prophecy of the Original Black Man . . . once one reduce this theology to its basic logic structure. After all the most modern evidence I am aware of tracing mankinds origin on earth back to Mother Africa and the women called "Eve." Affirmative action programs do not and cannot solve the fundamental problem of a historically forced and institutionalized social position of the African American people as a people. When one even mentions the shattering and break up of the US multinational state many so-called progressives, revolutionaries and even Marxists become eerily quiet. The self determination program up to and including the formation of an independent state is evidently reserved for "genuine movements of the oppressed" outside the boundary of our own bourgeoisie. I have never advocated a program of integration because the African American people have always been integrated into American society at the bottom. Desegregation and so-called integration are radically different political constructs. African Americans were owned by the whites - North and South, and no issue in our country is as emotionally charged as the so-called "Negro Question." The socialists and many communist do not even know how to approach the question and apparently wish it would just go away. Well, 40 million people cannot "just go away." Nor . . . can they be placed on "reservations." The physical mass of the African American people means their social position can only be maintained through state coercion and heavy does of violence and incarceration . . . that, since their formation as a people makes Stalin's policy on the national factor seem like a Saturday night basement party. The location of the African American at the heart of the American proletariat and their physical mass . . . as well as dispersal throughout the country makes for an interesting National Factor. The national factor everywhere on earth deals with economic centers of gravity. Now the Mexican nationals that flow back and forth across the Mexican/US border . . . and the Mexican national minority that resides in the American Union . . . and the Chicano and/or children of Atzlan are in their mass - density, located throughout the Southwest that gravitates economically and socially to Mexico because this area was part of Mexico. Regional autonomy is the obvious short term solution from the standpoint of the communists of the North of the American Union. Even the term American Union is avoided like the plague by virtually all the so called revolutionaries and progressives in the American Union. The African American people as a historically evolved people . . .THAT ARE NOTAnglo Americans . . . according to how every ANGLO AMERICAN writer and political figure in the history of American has defined Anglo-Americans as a collection of peoples . . . simmering in the "melting pot" . . . are not a nation . . . but rather a historically evolved people. What ever the economic, social, political, cultural and psychological reasons that the Anglo American people define themselves as different or NOT AFRICAN AMERICAN . . . is the meaning of the national character of the Anglo-American people as a people. The reason Mark Twain or Michael Moore or Bill Clinton or George Bush are not self defined as African American ... establishes the national character of the African American people. I do not believe it is wish or serious thinking to separate historically evolved people on the basis of that which makes them different and define themselves as different in relationship to one another . . . on the basis of that which defines them as different. Difference or that by which people define themselves as different . . . especially as understood by the ruling or oppressor people and the striving of the oppressed not to be oppressed is not the
Re: India Turned Kashmir into the Bitter Place It Is Now
--- Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: India turned Kashmir into the bitter place it is now Typical Guardian headline: Big country (fill in name of big country here) turned small country (fill in name of small country here) into the bitter place it is now. Small countries are by definition victims of other countries and share no responsibility whatsoever for the situation. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: India Turned Kashmir into the Bitter Place It Is Now
Chris Doss wrote: Typical Guardian headline: Big country (fill in name of big country here) turned small country (fill in name of small country here) into the bitter place it is now. Small countries are by definition victims of other countries and share no responsibility whatsoever for the situation. Good point. Kashmir should have granted India its independence in 1953 rather than sending in 500,000 troops to enforce its rule and arresting Nehru. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
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yoshie writes: Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. why so much emphasis on an essentially powerless and thus meaningless act, an individual vote? jim devine
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Louis: Now he did apply botox to his forehead reportedly, but that did not affect innocent bystanders. Carl: It could. Introducing a foreign substance like botox might cause Kerry's crags to crumble like those of the Old Man of the Mountain under the onslaught of winter ice fissures. it's also possible that they injected botox directly into his brain, as seems to have happened with some Hollywood people (given their behavior). jd
the MRI Challenge
Coke or Pepsi? It's all in the head Alok Jha, science correspondent Thursday July 29, 2004 The Guardian The long-standing conundrum of why Coke sells more than Pepsi despite being less popular in blind taste tests may have been solved. Scientists in Texas used a brain scanning technique to carry out a hi-tech version of the Pepsi challenge and found that, when it comes to fizzy black drinks, brand love is just as important as taste. Neuroscientist Read Montague carried out the research almost a year ago at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Volunteers were scanned by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which can identify activity in different parts of the brain, while they blindly drank either Coke or Pepsi and told scientists which they preferred. The results, which Professor Montague intends to publish soon in a scientific journal, show that different parts of the brain light up, depending on the type of cola being drunk. His team found that a brain region called the ventral putamen - associated with seeking reward - was highly active when people blindly drank their favourite cola. However, things changed when volunteers were told what they were drinking. This time, Coke was the undisputed king and a different part of the brain was seen to be more active by the fMRI scans. The medial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with higher thinking processes, was being used when volunteers knew what they were drinking. According to New Scientist magazine, where the results are reported today, this shows that people make decisions based on their memories or impressions of a particular drink, as well as taste. The research will come as welcome news to advertisers, for whom brand recognition among consumers is a highly valued commodity. The research is also the latest in the field of so-called neuromarketing, which digs deep into consumers' minds in an attempt to work out what they like and why they like it. Stephen Quartz, a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology, recently pioneered the use of neuromarketing to improve movie trailers to fit the subconscious desires of moviegoers. He put 40 volunteers into his fMRI scanner and tested their brain reactions as he projected films such as Casablanca and Good Will Hunting on to a mirror suspended above their eyes. Professor Quartz has sold the technique to film companies and said that it will help studios predict blockbusters. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
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I don't want to sound patronising, nor like a single-issue obsessive, but all of these conversational gambits were tried on the British left during the Troubles and it's not obvious that they did a lot of good. dd -Original Message- You have no moral right to be acting superior to terrorists, since you intend to vote for one. -- Yoshie * Crit//www.solidarity-us.org/
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--- Doug Henwood wrote: Lately the resistance in Iraq has mainly been killing people at open-air markets. The anti-imperialist content of this strategy is hard to discern. Chris Doss: It doesn't have anti-imperialist content. The point is to make themselves look badass on TV and Jihadi websites and get money and converts. That's why they always stage high-profile PR campaigns of zero military content, like the raid on Ingushetia or the attack on the Indian parliament. The terrorist theory is that by blowing things up, the powers that be will crack down and alienate the population, so that the population will join the insurgent movement. Specifically in Iraq, it's supposed to show that the US hasn't brought order to the country. The hope is that the people will blame the US for the killings. Lenin was against this kind of stuff. That fact makes me more sympathetic to old Vlad... jim
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Devine, James wrote: yoshie writes: Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. why so much emphasis on an essentially powerless and thus meaningless act, an individual vote? It's testimony to the powers of American assimiliation that several years of living in Columbus, Ohio, turned a Japanese Marxist (i.e., one who sees politics in terms of institutions and structures) into an American green (i.e., one who sees politics as a matter of individual moral gestures). Doug
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
--- Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: CB: The SU had autonomous regions. -- Russia still does. Tatarstan is the case in point. __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Ulhas Joglekar wrote: ravi wrote: Kashmir: a US protectorate in reality. then our duty is not to deny the former, but to fight the latter, isn't it? How do you fight the latter? isn't the answer to that question what the broader context of this list is? or at least the humanist left is? i am hardly qualified to answer the question in any sufficient sense, but i think there are answers available... in the writings, recommendations and actions of various people (thoreau, gandhi, mlk, chomsky, feyerabend, ...). Btw, do CPI and CPM share your positions? i do not have a position, at least on kashmir, other than this: the wishes of the population need to be ascertained and honored in some manner that is satisfactory to them. i am not sure what the positions of the CPI and CPM are, since i am not a communist. the following provides some information: http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/2809/ian09065.html Wary of a communal division of Jammu and Kashmir gaining acceptance among political circles and an increasing role for the US in the Valley, the Left parties stress on more autonomy for the state. AMRITH LAL analyses the position The position of the Indian mainstream Left on the Kashmir issue has been consistent right from the 1940s. The Left has always espoused the peculiar position of the state within the Indian union and the need to give it maximum autonomy. which seems like a good start to me. --ravi
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
The terrorist theory is that by blowing things up, the powers that be will crack down and alienate the population, so that the population will join the insurgent movement. Specifically in Iraq, it's supposed to show that the US hasn't brought order to the country. The hope is that the people will blame the US for the killings. Wouldn't the most logical reaction be to hate both parties involved? That seems to be the reaction in Chechnya and the Caucasus. Basayev and Maskhadov have near-zero street cred, as far as I can tell, as does the pro-Kremlin government. BTW I found this interview with Kadyrov, the head of the pro-Kremlin security force and son of the recently assassintade president of Chechnya, to be quite interesting. Man does he come across like a badass mo-fo. I wouldn't want to mess with him. Translated from Russian. Ramzan Kadyrov Quizzed on Ingushetia Raid, Backing for Alkhanov, Russian Troops Moscow Moskovskiy Komsomolets in Russian 15 Jul 04 p 4 [Interview with [Chechen First Vice Premier] Ramzan Kadyrov by Irina Kuksenkova, datelined Tsentoroy-Moscow; date not specified: The Heir. Ramzan Kadyrov in Exclusive Interview with Moskovskiy Komsomolets: 'I Always Wanted To Secure Freedom for Myself and All My Fellow Countrymen' -- taken from HTML version of source provided by ISP] Tsentoroy-Moscow -- [passage omitted comprising introductory paragraphs] Ramzan Kadyrov will give Moskovskiy Komsomolets an interview. At his home in Tsentoroy, I was told during a telephone call from an official in the Chechen president's security service. He met me in the evening at Mineralnyye Vody Airport. [passage omitted on journey to Tsentoroy, describing Ramzan Kadyrov's home, noting Kadyrov's preliminary remarks about his love for Groznyy, hopes for Chechnya] [Kuksenkova] Let us return to recent events in Ingushetia. Why did the gunmen attack Nazran, what statement did they want make in doing this? [Kadyrov] They did not want to make any statement. They needed weapons, they took them and off they went. That is logical... This blunder represents weakness on the part of the Ingushetian leadership. Devils [shaytany] are at work there in the police (Ramzan describes corrupt cops as devils -- author's note). A conference of Caucasus peoples was recently held in Sochi and attended by Putin. At the time I told [Ingushetian President] Murat Zyazikov: Get a move on, there are said to be many devils in your republic, we have begun seeing similar sentiments and movements from you. He said that he would work on it... None of the republics in the Caucasus wants anarchy at home. After all, where there are Wahhabites, there is always bloodshed, that is written in the Koran. This happened in Ingushetia due to breaches in state structures. And the same thing will happen in Dagestan. They have loads of devils there. In Chechnya the gunmen do not have many opportunities at present because we have really piled the pressure on them. And we have good leaders now. [Kuksenkova] Which gunmen attacked Nazran that night? [Kadyrov] Magas (that is his call sign) was in command, Zaid was there, there was an Arab Abu-Umar, and Basayev... But Basayev is not a Chechen. His father was an Ossetian or an Avar. And, pardon me for saying so, that is not a Chechen. There is no need to say Chechens, Ingush, Russians, or Americans: A bandit is a bandit even in Africa. What is more, it is you journalists who have castigated the Chechens. I do not actually like Moscow journalists. Many of them lie and are corrupt. Some of them are trying to foment war in our republic themselves. Tell me, can you see a war? You write the stories. I have tried to explain the situation, I have gotten tired of arguing the point. I do not pay attention to the press now. We are simply not left in peace, Chechens are set against one another. You yourselves do not do the killing, but you incite us to bloodshed. Now I will read Moskovskiy Komsomolets... Certainly. [Kuksenkova] Is it true that you are courting [NTV presenter] Aset Vatsuyeva? [Kadyrov] Asey? That is news to me! We will call Mrs. Vatsuyeva now and she will tell you about our relationship. Hello, Asiyat? Hi! How are things? I wanted to ask you something... It is being said that I am courting you. What do you think about that? [Kadyrov ends] Ramzan put the phone to my ear -- Aset gave a peal of laughter. [Vatsuyeva] He dumped me a long time ago. [Kadyrov] Asya is a smart woman, he said turning to me. An example of a real Chechen woman. We are all proud of her... There is no force more powerful than a woman. All her strength lies in her weakness. [Kuksenkova] Why are you backing Alu Alkhanov in the upcoming election? [Kadyrov] Because he is an astute, wise, competent politician, a very interesting individual, a man of his word, generally speaking, a real Chechen. Alu has inside knowledge of Chechnya's problems,
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
In a message dated 7/29/2004 9:58:32 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Charles Brown wrote: CB: The SU had autonomous regions.They were formally autonomous. In reality, there was Great Russianchauvinism from just around the time that Stalin was consolidatingpower. Lenin's concern over this matter prompted him to wage his finalstruggle against Stalin.http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/autonomy.htmIt is said that a united apparatus was needed. Where did that assurancecome from? Did it not come from that same Russian apparatus which, as Ipointed out in one of the preceding sections of my diary, we took overfrom tsarism and slightly anointed with Soviet oil?There is no doubt that that measure should have been delayed somewhatuntil we could say that we vouched for our apparatus as our own. Butrnow, we must, in all consicence, admit the contrary; the apparatus wecall ours is, in fact, still quite alien to us; it is a bourgeois andtasrist hotch-potch and there has been no posibility of getting rid ofit in the course of the past five years without the help of othercountries and because we have been "busy" most of the time with militaryengagements and the fight against famine.It is quite natural that in such circumstances the "freedom to secedefrom the union" by which we justify ourselves will be a mere scrap ofpaper, unable to defend the non-Russians from the onslaught of thatreally Russian man, the Great-Russian chauvinist, in substance a rascaland a tyrant, such as the typical Russian bureaucrat is. There is nodoubt that the infinitesimal percentage of Soviet and sovietised workerswill drown in that tide of chauvinistic Great-Russian riffraff like afly in milk.It is said in defence of this measure that the People's Commissariatsdirectly concerned with national psychology and national education wereset up as separate bodies. But there the question arises: can thesePeople's Commissariats be made quite independent? and secondly: were wecareful enough to take measures to provide the non-Russians with a realsafeguard against the truly Russian bully? I do not think we took suchmeasures although we could and should have done so.I think that Stalin's haste and his infatuation with pure adminstration,together with his spite against the notorious "nationalist-socialism",played a fatal role here. In politics spite generally plays the basestof roles.
A Stem Cell's Worth of Difference
A Stem Cell's Worth of Difference (the most eloquent speaker at the Democratic Party convention turns out to be Ron Reagan, because he alone didn't have to lie to distinguish Kerry from Bush): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/stem-cells-worth-of-difference.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * 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: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
me: The terrorist theory is that by blowing things up, the powers that be will crack down and alienate the population, so that the population will join the insurgent movement. Specifically in Iraq, it's supposed to show that the US hasn't brought order to the country. The hope is that the people will blame the US for the killings. Chris D: Wouldn't the most logical reaction be to hate both parties involved? The theory behind individual (or retail) terrorism isn't especially logical. It's a sign of political/military weakness and often, it seems, intellectual weakness. (I don't know about the Iraqis, but I'm thinking of such people as the Symbionese Liberation Front.) By the way, though I support the Iraqi right to resist the US occupation, I don't think that a strategy that involves killing civilians (= terrorism) is the way to go, even from an Iraqi point of view. State (or wholesale) terrorism is a bit more logical: you've got the bombers and lots of bombs and you can simply terrorize the population to obey. Might makes right, in practice (though not in ethical terms). Of course, it didn't work out that well for the US in Iraq. Jim Devine
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
In a message dated 7/29/2004 9:58:32 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Charles Brown wrote: CB: The SU had autonomous regions. They were formally autonomous. In reality, there was Great Russian chauvinism from just around the time that Stalin was consolidating power. Lenin's concern over this matter prompted him to wage his final struggle against Stalin. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/autonomy.htm It is said that a united apparatus was needed. Where did that assurance come from? Did it not come from that same Russian apparatus which, as I pointed out in one of the preceding sections of my diary, we took over from tsarism and slightly anointed with Soviet oil? It is quite natural that in such circumstances the "freedom to secede from the union" by which we justify ourselves will be a mere scrap of paper, unable to defend the non-Russians from the onslaught of that really Russian man, the Great-Russian chauvinist, in substance a rascal and a tyrant, such as the typical Russian bureaucrat is. There is no doubt that the infinitesimal percentage of Soviet and sovietised workers will drown in that tide of chauvinistic Great-Russian riffraff like a fly in milk. But there the question arises: can these People's Commissariats be made quite independent? and secondly: were we careful enough to take measures to provide the non-Russians with a real safeguard against the truly Russian bully? I do not think we took such measures although we could and should have done so. I think that Stalin's haste and his infatuation with pure adminstration, together with his spite against the notorious "nationalist-socialism", played a fatal role here. In politics spite generally plays the basest of roles. Comment Lenin of course is dead . . . as is the Leninist presentation of the national question. The national question died as a national question before Lenin's death and became a colonial question with all its ramifications to the actual alignment of class forces in the post First Imperial War era. The national colonial question under went further change in the Post Second Imperial World War era and the rise of the so-called Third World. We of course know today where the Third Path leads . . . into the waiting arms of the bourgeoisie. The national-colonial question under went further change after the victory of the revolutionary forces in Vietnam. Today the national factor presents itself different from in the 1970s and 1980s. Leninism is very dead and Lenin needs to be buried and taken off of display. Actually . . . Lenin was incorrect on his writings on the Negro Question. His economic analysis is incorrect as is his formulation of the African American people as a people and his description of the social relations of the old plantation South. He is simply wrong. He is wrong and this is no crime. However, he was more correct than the American communists and Socialists of the period of his writings. These revolutionaries during this era in history are scoundrels and more than less outright chauvinists. Stalin's writings on the national factor are more correct than Lenin's . . . although had Lenin not died . . . and he died . . . he would have altered the conception of the national factor between 1920 and the end of the Second World Imperial War. The national factor cannot be resolved on the basis of the industrial system and in America this is obvious to anyone except those with blinders on and hopelessly addicted to their own ideology. One cannot legislate away an intractable social position that is class and class configuration. All policy enacted is by default inadequate and administrative. The quote above proves the opposite of what is stated as Lenin's reasoning. Any one that takes time to actually read what Lenin states comes to the conclusion that Great Russian chauvinism did not begin consolidation around 1922 . . . but was already consolidated as the state . . . before . . . the Soviet's took over. Big countries and large states drive history and this is not going to change because one ideologically disagrees with this reality. History has proven Lenin incorrect on several actual curves of historical development. Lenin was also wrong in history in the sense that there was no direct revolutionary support of an insurrectionary Europe. Folks are still waiting on an insurrectionary "Europe" and a comeback of the Jackson 5. Regional autonomy is in fact an administrative solution because what determines the day is economic centers of gravity. The issue is deeper than its presentation by the oppressing people. The national factor or the national question is a question formulated by the oppressing people . . . not the oppressed. An autonomous region is not a state structure as such . . . that is independent of the multinational state or the economic centers of gravity upon which
Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
by Louis Proyect Charles Brown wrote: CB: The SU had autonomous regions. They were formally autonomous. In reality, there was Great Russian chauvinism from just around the time that Stalin was consolidating power. Lenin's concern over this matter prompted him to wage his final struggle against Stalin. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/autonomy.htm ^^ CB: In this, Lenin actually discusses sovereign republics , not autonomous regions: The Question of Nationalities or Autonomisation I suppose I have been very remiss with respect to the workers of Russia for not having intervened energetically and decisively enough in the notorious question of autonomisation, which, it appears, is officially called the question of the Soviet socialist republics. CB: Nonetheless, the problem of great power, Russian chauvinism would be pertinent to autonomous regions. Lenin doesn't say don't establish autonomous regions, but that the Party must struggle against Russian chauvinism in doing so. ( Russian chauvinism arose centuries before Stalin consolidated power) And Lenin outlines issues for struggling against chauvinism including affirmative action: That is why internationalism on the part of oppressors or great nations, as they are called (though they are great only in their violence, only great as bullies), must consist not only in the observance of the formal equality of nations but even in an inequality of the oppressor nation, the great nation, that must make up for the inequality which obtains in actual practice. Anybody who does not understand this has not grasped the real proletarian attitude to the national question, he is still essentially petty bourgeois in his point of view and is, therefore, sure to descend to the bourgeois point of view
Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
by Devine, James . The terrorist theory is that by blowing things up, the powers that be will crack down and alienate the population, so that the population will join the insurgent movement. Specifically in Iraq, it's supposed to show that the US hasn't brought order to the country. The hope is that the people will blame the US for the killings. ^^ CB: Are none of these killings done by agent provacateurs undercover for the U.S. ?
Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
Devine, James wrote: yoshie writes: Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. why so much emphasis on an essentially powerless and thus meaningless act, an individual vote? ^^ CB: However, isn't this in response to criticism of the essentially powerless act of supporting the Iraqi resistance on an email list ?
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
Hasn't this gone on long enough? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
me: The terrorist theory is that by blowing things up, the powers that be will crack down and alienate the population, so that the population will join the insurgent movement. Specifically in Iraq, it's supposed to show that the US hasn't brought order to the country. The hope is that the people will blame the US for the killings. CB: Are none of these killings done by agent provacateurs undercover for the U.S. ? I don't know. But the fact that the powers that be often see the use of agents provocateurs to encourage terrorist tactics among the opposition as a way to undermine the opposition fits with my critique of the terrorist theory. (However, I'd bet that some of the agents provocateurs encourage the people they've infiltrated to engage in ultra tactics simply because they're bored with meetings or have personality disorders.) jd
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
CB: However, isn't this in response to criticism of the essentially powerless act of supporting the Iraqi resistance on an email list ? at least participation on an e-mail list sometimes provides intrinsic pleasures. jim
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Cool it, Yoshie. On Thu, Jul 29, 2004 at 11:12:55AM -0400, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: You have no moral right to be acting superior to terrorists, since you intend to vote for one. -- -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Devine, James wrote: yoshie writes: Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. why so much emphasis on an essentially powerless and thus meaningless act, an individual vote? It's testimony to the powers of American assimiliation that several years of living in Columbus, Ohio, turned a Japanese Marxist (i.e., one who sees politics in terms of institutions and structures) into an American green (i.e., one who sees politics as a matter of individual moral gestures). Doug If voting is merely an individual moral gesture, why not make a better moral gesture than a worse one, such as refusing to vote for a terrorist? -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * 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: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
They were formally autonomous. In reality, there was Great Russian chauvinism from just around the time that Stalin was consolidating power. Lenin's concern over this matter prompted him to wage his final struggle against Stalin. --- If a Georgian with a goofy accent can be a Great Russian chauvinist. Let's see, Stalin - Georgian, Khrushchev = Ukrainian, Brezhnev = probably an ethnic Ukrainian from Moldova, Gorbachev = from Ukraine too... hey, were any of the Great Russian chauvinist leaders actually Russian? Nope. __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
yoshie writes: Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. why so much emphasis on an essentially powerless and thus meaningless act, an individual vote? jim devine Because, at bottom, it's a matter of avoiding a double standard of condemning terrorism committed by un-Americans and supporting American terrorists. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * 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: India Turned Kashmir into the Bitter Place It Is Now
Chris wrote: --- Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: India turned Kashmir into the bitter place it is now Typical Guardian headline: Big country (fill in name of big country here) turned small country (fill in name of small country here) into the bitter place it is now. Small countries are by definition victims of other countries and share no responsibility whatsoever for the situation. It doesn't matter if it is typical. It matters if it is true. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * 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: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
If voting is merely an individual moral gesture, why not make a better moral gesture than a worse one, such as refusing to vote for a terrorist? -- Yoshie How do you know Nader wouldn't be a terrorist? __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: India Turned Kashmir into the Bitter Place It Is Now
It doesn't matter if it is typical. It matters if it is true. -- Yoshie --- It will always be a priori true for the Guardian. I'm outta here, it's late. Bye! __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
Chris Doss wrote: If a Georgian with a goofy accent can be a Great Russian chauvinist. What does his accent have to do with anything? More to the point, Stalin's individual characteristics have little to do with the *social process* at work in the USSR, which Trotsky accurately described as Thermidor. The Great Russian chauvinism went hand in hand with hostility to gay rights, feminism, experimentalism in the arts, workers democracy and every other emancipatory impulse in the USSR. Stalin was transmitting the social pressure of Czarist officialdom, which was re-emerging in the 1920s in the vacuum created by the civil war, and a general rightward climate brought on by imperialism and the failure to make socialist revolution in the West--a failure in itself directly attributable to the Kremlin's own lack of Marxist insights. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
OK.Let's end this thread right away! -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Affirmative action programs do not and cannot solve the fundamental problem of a historically forced and institutionalized social position of the African American people as a people. When one even mentions the shattering and break up of the US multinational state many so-called progressives, revolutionaries and even Marxists become eerily quiet. The self determination program up to and including the formation of an independent state is evidently reserved for genuine movements of the oppressed outside the boundary of our own bourgeoisie. the point i raise is that the status of genuine movement of the oppressed may be denied to the kashmiris in exactly the same way, in india, as you suggest it is denied to african americans in the US! --ravi
Outflanking Bush to the right
The New Republic Website The Right Stuff by Daniel W. Drezner http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=scholars=drezner072904 After John Kerry sewed up the Democratic presidential nomination, there was much fretting about whether he would need to tack left in order to appease the Deaniacs and Naderites. The Fahrenheit 9/11 phenomenon fueled this concern. In the run-up to this week's convention, a spate of new analyses came out regarding the growing power of left-wing special interests, and whether they even wanted Kerry to win in November. But after three days of the convention, one Kerry campaign tactic comes through loud and clear: The Democrats will be attacking Bush from the right as well as the left. Indeed, some of the rhetoric deployed sounds awfully familiar to that used by a presidential candidate four years ago--George W. Bush. A key plank of Bush's 2000 campaign was restoring honor and dignity to the White House. The Democrats seem bound and determined to top that. On Tuesday, Barack Obama sounded like he was channeling Bill Cosby at various points in his speech: Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach kids to learn--they know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. In last night's speech, John Edwards praised the values of faith, family, responsibility, and equality of opportunity. As Andrew Sullivan has pointed out this week, these are conservative tropes. It's on foreign and defense related issues, however, where the echoes of the Bush 2000 campaign come through loud and clear. Four years ago, Bush articulated a realist foreign policy platform, based on a strong and well-funded military. Kerry has gone out of his way in interviews and profiles to articulate his realist bona fides--contrary to my expectations from this past spring. True, Democrat after Democrat at the convention has criticized the Bush administration for being unilateralist--a standard liberal line. But they have also gone after the administration for refusing to expand the size of the military to meet the current demands placed on the armed forces. In their speeches Wednesday night, both former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and John Edwards bashed the President for moving so slowly on intelligence reform. (Bob Graham probably said something along these lines as well, but I lost the will to stay awake 90 seconds into his speech.) The similarities between the campaigns extend to the tactical level. Four years ago, Bush received the endorsement of a fair number of high-ranking retired military officers--Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf most prominently. This rankled some of the retired military brass, who believed strongly in the tradition of senior officials remaining apolitical after they left the active military. At the time, General Merrill McPeak, the chief of staff for the Air Force from 1990 to 1994, defended his endorsement of Bush on The News Hour, saying, I support him in general. I think he's right on the issues. Four years later, McPeak was back on PBS--to endorse John Kerry. He also appeared in a stark black-and-white DNC film aired last night, in which he said, We're on the wrong course. Five other retired generals appeared in the film, and each of them seemed bound and determined to say the word Kerry in close proximity to the phrase commander-in-chief. For many of these officers, their surprise at supporting a Democrat is palpable. Shalikashvili said in his speech last night, I do not stand here as a political figure. I stand here as an old soldier and a new Democrat. He wasn't the only one: Earlier in the evening, Lt. Colonel Steve Brozak--a Marine who served in Iraq and is now running for Congress in New Jersey--stated that he had been a registered Republican 18 months earlier. There are, to be sure, limits to the effectiveness of veteran porn. The tactic didn't deliver election victories for John McCain or Bob Dole, both of whom had even more impressive military histories than Kerry. But in the end it may not be Kerry's biography that makes the most difference, but rather the way in which his biography has provided a natural opening for his party to move to the administration's right on military issues. America's armed forces need better equipment, better training, and better pay, Bush said in his 2000 convention speech. If that line sounds familiar, it's because just about every major Democratic speaker this week has said almost exactly the same thing. Who would have thought that the man many believe to be the most conservative president in modern history could be outflanked from the right? And by the so-called most liberal man in the Senate. Daniel W. Drezner is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Sanctions Paradox
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
At 11:19 AM -0700 7/29/04, Chris Doss wrote: If voting is merely an individual moral gesture, why not make a better moral gesture than a worse one, such as refusing to vote for a terrorist? -- Yoshie How do you know Nader wouldn't be a terrorist? If he becomes one, we will fight against him also, but at this point, the difference between Kerry/Edwards's plan for Iraq and Nader/Camejo's plan for Iraq is night and day, and it is the latter leftists ought to support. At 5:28 PM +0100 7/29/04, Daniel Davies wrote: I don't want to sound patronising, nor like a single-issue obsessive, but all of these conversational gambits were tried on the British left during the Troubles and it's not obvious that they did a lot of good. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there has not been a similar terrorist attack in the mainland United States. If we let Washington continue its occupation of Iraq, however, more terrorist attacks will be definitely committed against Americans (and nationals of countries whose governments foolishly have allied with Washington) overseas, and perhaps even here. Politics is indeed a matter of compromise, and in 2004, we ought to compromise on card checks, stem cell research, and so forth, rather than on the occupation of Iraq. Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * 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/
Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
by Chris Doss --- If a Georgian with a goofy accent can be a Great Russian chauvinist. Let's see, Stalin - Georgian, Khrushchev = Ukrainian, Brezhnev = probably an ethnic Ukrainian from Moldova, Gorbachev = from Ukraine too... hey, were any of the Great Russian chauvinist leaders actually Russian? Nope. ^^ CB: Ah, but Chernenko, he was Russian :) http://lego70.tripod.com/image/ussr/chernenko.jpg Konstantin Ustinovich CHERNENKO b. September 11 [24], 1911, Bolshaya Tes', Minusinsk region, Yeniseysk province, Russian Empire d. March 10, 1985, Moscow, USSR Title: Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR () Term:April 11, 1984 - March 10, 1985 Elected: April 11, 1984, 1st session of the 11th Supreme Soviet Term began: April 11, 1984, took the chair after election End of term: March 10, 1985, deceased Born to a Russian peasant family in Siberia, Konstantin Chernenko the Communist Party in 1931 during his army service. In 1933-1941 he headed department of propaganda and agitation in Novosyolovo and Uyar regions. In 1941-1943 Chernenko was a secretary of the Krasnoyarsk regional party committee, but quit the job to study in the Higher School of Party Organizers, Moscow (1943-45). He was sent to Penza as a secretary of party provincial committee in charge of propaganda and agitation (1945-48). Then he was moved to Moldavia becoming head of agitation and propaganda department (1948-56), where he met Leonid Brezhnev http://lego70.tripod.com/ussr/brezhnev.htm , who brought him to Moscow (1956) to head mass agitation section of agitation and propaganda department of the Central Committee. In May 1960 - July 1965 Chernenko served as chief of the chancellery of the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium. When Brezhnev took over the party leadership, he made Chernenko chief of the General Department (July 1965 - Nov. 1982). Elected a candidate member of the Central Committee (1966-1971) at the 23rd party congress, Chernenko was promoted to full membership (1971-1985) at the 24th congress. In 1976 he was elected secretary (March 5, 1976 - Feb. 13, 1984) of the Central Committee and joined the Politburo as candidate member (Oct. 3, 1977 - Nov. 27, 1978). Then he was quickly promoted to full membership (Nov. 27, 1978 - March 10, 1985). Chernenko was considered a close associate of Brezhnev, but after his death he was unable to rally a majority of the party factions behind his candidacy to be head of the party and lost out to Yury Andropov http://lego70.tripod.com/ussr/andropov.htm who became general secretary on Nov. 12, 1982. Andropov's reforms targeted at eliminating corruption and cutting privileges in the higher party ranks estranged the party bureaucracy. In attempt to return to Brezhnevism, the aging Politburo, of which seven members died in advanced age in 1982-1984, plumped for the conservative Chernenko, who was elected (Feb. 13, 1984) general secretary following the death of Andropov on Feb. 9. On April 11, 1984, Chernenko was elected chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. However, deteriorating health of Chernenko made him unfit to govern effectively. His frequent absences from official functions left little doubt that his election had been an interim measure. He died in office on March 10, 1985. Sources: Text: Bolshaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, 3rd edition; Annual Supplements to the Bolshaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, 1985, 1986; Izvestiya TsK KPSS, 1990, No. 7, p. 130; The Britannica Encyclopaedia, Multimedia Edition, 1994-1998.
Debate on South Africa
HAS THE SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION BEEN BETRAYED? THE CENTRE-LEFT DEFENDS ITS GAINS June-July 2004 DEBATES FROM TWO SOURCES: Mail and Guardian, and e-debate (http://www.kabissa.org/lists/debate) PARTICIPANTS: Ferial Haffajee (Editor, Mail and Guardian): FH Ebrahim Hassen (Senior Researcher, National Labour and Economic Development Institute): EH Ben Turok (African National Congress Member of Parliament): BT Mike Muller (Director-General, Department of Water Affairs and Forestry): MM Stephen Gelb (Director, the Edge Institute and Visiting Professor, University of the Witwatersrand): SG Patrick Bond: PB *** FERIAL HAFFAJEE Mail and Guardian 11 June 2004 Fact, fiction and the new left: In trying to make South Africa a node on the map of anti-globalisation resistance, the new social movements may be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole FH: As somebody who believes in the importance of social movements and the radical intellectuals who support them, PB: A classical start. Some of my best friends are . The problem, as noted below in Haffajee's articles, is that her earlier work did indeed demonstrate these beliefs and sympathies. FH: I must admit to be tiring quite quickly of their habit of magnifying their import, impact and size - on the basis of predictable arguments and sketchy research. PB: The most logical rejoinder is that practically any promotion of the new social movements represents magnification, given the miserable job South Africa's mainstream press - including the MG -- does in covering the movements and investigating the issues they rally around. Ironically, as documented below, Haffajee's own record of covering the movements and issues was, until earlier this year, commendable - but was basically an exception that proves the rule, because most of her best articles were for foreign periodicals and wire services such as InterPress Service, New Internationalist or the GreenLeft Weekly. Repetition and simplification are, in this context, vital to the movements' discourses, particularly given the vast broadcasting capacity the state and big business enjoy. Charged with exaggerating their impact, it is fair for these movements to claim that access to free water/electricity (where these might exist in partial form) and to anti-retroviral medicines, for example, have come only through social movement activism, advocacy and often militant protest and civil disobedience. (Haffajee's coauthored 2003 article, below, is at least one reflection of that impact.) As for the predictable character of the independent left's arguments against neoliberalism and class apartheid, so too was campaigning analysis against racial apartheid increasingly consistent over time. As to sketchy research, it is Haffajee who lacks rigour -- but the reader may judge this for her/himself based on what follows. FH: The accounts of social movements in general and of South African politics in particular, from Naomi Klein and Arundhati Roy, from Patrick Bond and Dale McKinley among others, exhibit a sameness that falls short of the rigour that the times demand. Their various writings have come to sound like a set piece. This is how it goes. Ten years on, the revolution's been sold down the river. The African National Congress is a neo-liberal shadow of its former self - it has implemented a Thatcherite economic policy and left its comrades out to dry as it has supplicated before a wealthy coterie of elites. Usually, the research then cuts to a quote from Finance Minister Trevor Manuel or Nelson Mandela declaring that Gear is non-negotiable. No reference is made to Manuel's subsequent statements that the Growth Employment and Redistribution (Gear) strategy was a necessary but not a sufficient condition for growth and poverty eradication or to the more expansive economic path the country is now on. PB: Was Gear necessary? Before making such a concession to neoliberalism, Haffajee should consider the UNDP SA Human Development Report's recent critique of Gear's underlying premises: The economic and social policy approach of the new government was formulated under strong pressure from the corporate sector and its global partners, and was based on several contentious premises: a) South Africa has a high economic growth potential; b) integration into the benign global economy will enhance economic growth; c) a high economic growth will unlock the labour-absorption capacity of the economy; d) the benefits of a high economic growth rate will 'trickle down' to the poor; e) the restructuring of the economy should be entrusted to market-led economic growth. With the benefit of hindsight, we have good reason to reject all five of these premises. All five are either false, or do not apply under South African circumstances. All five have their roots in the naive optimism of the managerial elite of the corporate sector and its global partners about the benefits of the free market. All five are propagated by the corporate
Re: How Mass is Mass Media?
All I know is that Jesus gets to vote first since he saith: He (sic) who is without sin gets to cast the first ballot.. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Dan Scanlan [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 5:52 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] How Mass is Mass Media? Kenneth Burke repeats a conversation in which one party says, I'm a Christian, and the other party replies, Yes, but who are you a Christian AGAINST? according to one observer, the following sign was seen at the DP convention. Which Way Would Jesus Vote? Only evidence available is who he threw out of the temple. He wouldn't attend either one of the corporate orgies. Dan Scanlan -- --- IMPEACHMENT: BRING IT ON NOW! NOVEMBER COULD BE TOO LATE. -- .com
ethnic divisions
Although I am highly disappointed by the low level of discourse on Kerala/Chechnya, I do have a serious question that might deflect the discussion. Are the ethnic hostilities something that would naturally die out without being enflamed intentionally for political gains or are they inevitable? The Irish were regarded almost identically to the Blacks in the US. I gave some sources on this a few days ago, I believe. Yet, there is not a high level of anti-Irish feeling in the US. If my suspicion is correct, are there any models for people confronting those who try to whip up divisions? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
by Louis Proyect -clip- ... and the failure to make socialist revolution in the West--a failure in itself directly attributable to the Kremlin's own lack of Marxist insights. CB: Failure to make socialist revolution in the West was not attributable to the Kremlin, was it ? Responsibility for that lies with the workers of the West.
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
In a message dated 7/29/2004 12:47:43 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: And Lenin outlines issues for struggling against chauvinism including affirmative action: "That is why internationalism on the part of oppressors or "great" nations, as they are called (though they are great only in their violence, only great as bullies), must consist not only in the observance of the formal equality of nations but even in an inequality of the oppressor nation, the great nation, that must make up for the inequality which obtains in actual practice. Anybody who does not understand this has not grasped the real proletarian attitude to the national question, he is still essentially petty bourgeois in his point of view and is, therefore, sure to descend to the bourgeois point of view" Comment Brilliant . . . and here is the real problem. The material basis of chauvinism and in America white chauvinism is not ideology but economic logic and how social and class relations are institutionalized. The idea that Great Russian Chauvinism was consolidated with Stalin is preposterous and almost laughable if this was not a serious issue. Does not the beginning of what would become the Russian State go back at least 400 years? Affirmative action becomes an issue of policy because the oppressing nations are more economically advanced than the non sovereign peoples. I absolutely support a form of autonomous regions and areas for the Indian peoples in the American Union but they still must eat . . . have housing . . . and absolute and unconditional access to all the modern amenities of our society and this can only take place on the basis of an administrative act by the policy makers and holders of power in a New America. This question of the Kurds or the Soviet experience are important in the sense of informing us of what is possible during a historical era and what is not possible and the direction of policy. If a Georgian with a goofy accent can be a Great Russian chauvinist. Let's see, Stalin - Georgian, Khrushchev = Ukrainian, Brezhnev = probably an ethnic Ukrainian from Moldova, Gorbachev = from Ukraine too... hey, were any of the "Great Russian chauvinist" leaders actually Russian? Nope. If nothing else one has to at least try to understand and see the evolution of centers of economic gravity and state development of the more advance economic structures of the dominating peoples. Stalin or Khrushchev were not Great Russian Chauvinists as the ideologist assert . . . but inherited a certain historically evolved state system of government. In this regard Lou P. tends to the melodramatic and ideological and his anti-Sovietism blinds him to elementary logic. His writings on the African American people and the history of the communist movement are an affront to anyone with common sense and history in the communist movement. I have taken him to task on this question . . . and makes it clear that he would do better defining himself. He therefore defines the world around him because the moment he deals with American history he gets into trouble because he has not studied the issue and what he understands is down right bizarre. What our dear "brother" has written is that Great Russian chauvinism consolidated itself with Stalin and basically that Lenin himself was not a manifestation of history development that confirms the status of the oppressing people . . . domination and chauvinism. Lenin was not a chauvinist . . . and neither was Stalin or Khrushchev and Brezhnev . . . for that matter. Stalin's Soviet Union makes American history look like a freaking Friday night house party and the ideologists do not understand the facts of history and perpetually cry over democracy. I did the body count years ago and watched the incarceration rates over the last 40 years. My disagreement with the ideologists is profound - who suggest I be kicked off of Pen-L for talking about spanking my children, and has everything to do with economic logic and the economic centers of gravity of an epoch and historical era. My point is that one cannot engage an ideologists because they proceed from the contours of the interior of their mind and have no inkling about the life of our working class. The ideologist can validate no real activity as leaders of anything except their hollow conceptions. Mr. Lou P. is a chauvinist . . . and I do not mean a racists. One must read what he has written about the communist movement and the African American people and the nationality question in the Soviet Union. I have read all of his material several times that he has posted. He represents a different class and I come from the upper stratum of the working class and a former member of the labor aristocracy. The difference is that I am not politically stupid and understand that I was not from the lowest stratum of the proletariat. In respects to the African
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
In a message dated 7/29/2004 1:22:52 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: OK.Let's end this thread right away!--Michael PerelmanEconomics DepartmentCalifornia State UniversityChico, CA 95929 Comment Sorry . . . sent last reply before rading this. No more from me. Melvin P.
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Even the fundamentalist suicide bombers dont usually just target open air markets. They target police or lineups of people waiting to sign up for security forces etc. The resistance is manifold. US forces are still prime targets and the toll of dead and injured is still rising day by day. Government officials are prime targets and have been dispatched in increasing numbers. Sabotage of oil and other facilities is also an aim as is to make supply lines unsafe driving up the cost of what is a continued occupation. You talk of unreconstructed Saddamites. I guess this contrasts with the reconstructed Saddamites such as Allawi who front for and co-operate with the imperial occupation. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 10:05 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Israel pushing for Kurdish state? - Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Have you added up all the Iraqi civilians killed by various factions of Iraqi and non-Iraqi terrorists and compared the number to that of Iraqi civilians killed by US and other foreign troops who invaded and have occupied Iraq and by economic sanctions before the invasion and occupation? Americans who vote for John Kerry who will be the next POTUS, aka the biggest terrorist and war criminal, have no moral standing to pretend to be appalled by un-American terrorists. Only those who do not vote for Kerry or Bush have the moral standing to criticize foreign terrorists. What a load of crap. Elections are about contesting for power, and often involve debased compromises; votes aren't symptoms of moral purity. And why is it impossible to hold two thoughts in mind at once? The sanctions were murderous and the war a horrible crime. There's no doubt that the U.S. and its very junior partners have killed far more Iraqi civilians than the resistance. But there are some people on the western left - some of them members of PEN-L, even - who can't acknowledge that a lot of the Iraqi resistance consists of jihadists and unreconstructed Saddamites, i.e., absolutely awful forces. As Christian Parenti said when he returned from his first trip to Iraq - there's no way anything good can come of this. Doug
absolute general law of capitalist accumulation
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/business/29tax.html http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/business/29tax.html ? hp=pagewanted=printposition= July 29, 2004 I.R.S. Says Americans' Income Shrank for 2 Consecutive Years By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON The overall income Americans reported to the government shrank for two consecutive years after the Internet stock market bubble burst in 2000, the first time that has effectively happened since the modern tax system was introduced during World War II, newly disclosed information from the Internal Revenue Service shows.
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
In a message dated 7/29/2004 2:05:52 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: by Louis Proyect-clip-... and the failure tomake socialist revolution in the West--a failure in itself directlyattributable to the Kremlin's own lack of Marxist insights.CB: Failure to make socialist revolution in the West was not attributable tothe Kremlin, was it ? Responsibility for that lies with the workers of theWest. Here is Mr. P chauvinism. He deliberately covers and distortsour own history and states that the Kremlin determined the organizational forms of the American proletariat and sabotaged the revolutionary process when we know different. The fundamental split institutionalized in the working class of our country occurred as the by product of the defeat of r\Reconstruction, which happened more than two decades before the Soviet Revolution. The origins and genisis of the insturional split resides in American history and slavery. Mr. P says it was the result of Stalin and Stalinism. This is not even a reasonable understanding of American history. Am I wrong to label him the chauvinists that he is and has always been? This is a man that suggested that I be kicked off of Pen-L because I said I spanked my kids on their hand for sticking a freaking folk in the electrical outlets. Melvin P.
kashmir and india (was Re: India's HDI Improves, Ranking Doesn't)
Chris Doss wrote: --- ravi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: nothing unites like hate. and for that there is pakistan and/or muslims. the common language i share with my indian spouse is english. but not to worry with respect to commonality... advice from some relatives/acquaintances on both sides struck a common chord: marry someone soon, but just don't marry a muslim! even one of the those american boys/girls is ok... /facetious -- There must be more of a unifying Indian identity than just shared hatred of Muslims and Pakistan. Wasn't there a kind of pan-Indian nationalism that manifested itself during the struggle for independence? i am not anywhere close to an authority, but i would answer in the affirmative. national identity is cultivated using similar means as in the US: reciting pledges at schools, sporting national teams and propogating the legend of patriotism, while leaving plenty of room for existing sectarian differences (religion, caste, region, language, etc) to express themselves. How do non-Kashmiri Indian Muslims view the Kashmir issue? Is it seen in religious terms? they probably do, now, given the sharp hindu-muslim divide (witnessed by the successful rise of the BJP, the user-friendly front of hindu extremism). purely based on anecdotal data, i would also add that it would be difficult to ascertain the true views of muslims in india, who are cowed into a pro-india position through false logic (such as comparisons between india and pakistan) and challenges (it was perfectly within bounds for my anglophile uncles to support the australian cricket team against india, but rumours of muslim support for the pakistani cricket team were/are maintained and brought out to question the 'loyalty' of indian muslims). --ravi
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
I thought we were dropping this! -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: How Mass is Mass Media?
Ken Hanly writes: All I know is that Jesus gets to vote first since he saith: He (sic) who is without sin gets to cast the first ballot.. I wonder: who gets to cast the second stone? jim devine
non-Russian Great Russian Chauvinism.
[was: : [PEN-L] Israel pushing for Kurdish state?] Chris Doss: If a Georgian with a goofy accent can be a Great Russian chauvinist. Let's see, Stalin - Georgian, Khrushchev = Ukrainian, Brezhnev = probably an ethnic Ukrainian from Moldova, Gorbachev = from Ukraine too... hey, were any of the Great Russian chauvinist leaders actually Russian? Nope. it's very common for newcomers to an in-group to be more adamant than the long-time insiders in their defense of the realm. (Look at Clarence Thomas, for example, unless you've eaten recently or plan to do so in the near future.) Of course, an outsider is more likely to be let into the club and allowed to stay there if he or she is more chauvinist than thou. (Andropov was Russian wasn't he? And isn't the Ukraine part of great Russia?) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
toward compassion
Subject: FW: politically correct TO SPEAK ABOUT WOMEN AND BE POLITICALLY CORRECT: 1. She is not a BABE or a CHICK - She is a BREASTED AMERICAN. 2. She is not a SCREAMER or a MOANER - She is VOCALLY APPRECIATIVE. 3. She is not EASY - She is HORIZONTALLY ACCESSIBLE. 4. She is not a DUMB BLONDE - She is a LIGHT-HAIRED DETOUR OFF THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY. 5. She has not BEEN AROUND - She is a PREVIOUSLY ENJOYED COMPANION. 6. She is not an AIRHEAD - She is REALITY IMPAIRED. 7. She does not get DRUNK or TIPSY - She gets CHEMICALLY INCONVENIENCED. 8. She does not have BREAST IMPLANTS - She is MEDICALLY ENHANCED. 9. She does not NAG YOU - She becomes VERBALLY REPETITIVE. 10. She is not a Tramp - She is SEXUALLY EXTROVERTED. 11. She does not have MAJOR LEAGUE HOOTERS - She is PECTORALLY SUPERIOR. 12. She is not a TWO-BIT Hooker - She is a LOW COST PROVIDER. HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT MEN AND BE POLITICALLY CORRECT: 1. He does not have a BEER GUT - He has developed a LIQUID GRAIN STORAGE FACILITY. 2. He is not a BAD DANCER - He is OVERLY CAUCASIAN. 3. He does not GET LOST ALL THE TIME - He INVESTIGATES ALTERNATIVE DESTINATIONS. 4. He is not BALDING - He is in FOLLICLE REGRESSION. 5. He is not a CRADLE ROBBER - He prefers GENERATIONAL DIFFERENTIAL RELATIONSHIPS 6. He does not get FALLING-DOWN DRUNK-He becomes ACCIDENTALLY HORIZONTAL. 7. He does not act like a TOTAL ASS - He develops a case of RECTAL-CRANIAL INVERSION. 8. He is not a MALE CHAUVINIST PIG - He has SWINE EMPATHY. 9. He is not afraid of COMMITMENT - He is MONOGAMOUSLY CHALLENGED 10. He is not HORNY - He is SEXUALLY FOCUSED. 11. It's not his crack you see hanging out of his pants. It's REAR CLEAVAGE -- --- IMPEACHMENT: BRING IT ON NOW! NOVEMBER COULD BE TOO LATE. -- END OF THE TRAIL SALOON Alternate Sundays 6-8am GMT (10pm-midnight PDT) http://www.kvmr.org I uke, therefore I am. -- Cool Hand Uke I log on, therefore I seem to be. -- Rodd Gnawkin I claim, therefore you believe. -- Dan Ratherthan Visit Cool Hand Uke's Lava Tube: http://www.coolhanduke.com
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
I posted before I had received the termination notice. Anyway my points are different. The whole idea that the resistance is mostly from fundamentalist bombers is misleading and the idea that even the suicide bombers let alone the resistance in general is mainly targeting open air markets is just plain wrong to put it politely. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 3:40 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Israel pushing for Kurdish state? I thought we were dropping this! -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Big brother's qualifications...
Administration picks disgraced judge for Homeland Security By Michael J. Sniffen and Leslie Miller, Associated Press | July 28, 2004 WASHINGTON (AP) A key overseer of the Bush administration's unsuccessful efforts to create a more comprehensive screening process for airline passengers resigned in disgrace four years ago from the New Hampshire Supreme Court to avoid prosecution over his conduct on the bench. W. Stephen Thayer III, who left New Hampshire's high court in 2000 under a deal with prosecutors, is now serving as deputy chief of the Transportation Security Administration's Office of National Risk Assessment. Thayer resurrected his public career with a stint at a conservative political group in Washington before landing the job last summer where he oversees the administration's Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System. The project encountered such technical difficulty and so much resistance from privacy advocates that it was sent back to the drawing board earlier this month. The project, which was known as CAPPS II, was to develop software to bar any passenger from getting on an airplane if a computer analysis of unidentified government terrorist watchlists and private commercial electronic records judged him or her to be a security threat. The project has been sharply criticized by congressional auditors. The administration's selection of Thayer made with no fanfare last summer has raised some eyebrows. ''To appoint someone who had to resign in public disgrace in lieu of being indicted is incredibly offensive,'' said Charles Lewis, executive director the Center for Public Integrity, a private ethics watchdog. CAPPS II has been ''one of the most sensitive projects in the U.S. government,'' because ''we are talking about data-mining the records of millions of Americans. The people in charge have got to be beyond reproach in every way.'' Thayer declined to be interviewed. But TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield said Thayer was qualified for the job because he helped the American Conservative Union organize a task force with other conservative and liberal groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, to lobby on the government's handling of citizens' personal information, including CAPPS II. ''That was as direct involvement in that field as you can get,'' Hatfield said. Hatfield said the New Hampshire controversy was reviewed by those who appointed Thayer and posed no bar to his getting the federal job because no charges were filed and no action was taken against him by the state judicial conduct committee or the bar association. ''He faced the allegations for a significant time and significant cost and at some point he chose to withdraw from the battle as it was in the best interests of himself and his family,'' Hatfield said. Months behind schedule, the two-year-old CAPPS II was sharply criticized in February by the Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, for failing to fully address seven of eight targets for accuracy, privacy and security. Concerned that the program would invade privacy and leave air travelers with no way of correcting its errors, Congress has prohibited the program's deployment until those benchmarks are met. Earlier this month, Transportation Security Administration chief David Stone told Congress the program is being ''reshaped and repackaged.'' Thayer's fast-moving legal career U.S. attorney at 35, state supreme court justice at 40 came to an abrupt halt March 31, 2000, when he resigned from the state's highest court in a deal with New Hampshire Attorney General Philip McLaughlin. In return for Thayer's resignation, McLaughlin agreed to drop plans to indict him. In a public report, McLaughlin criticized Thayer for participating in deliberations on a case he was recused from. He also said he would have sought felony or misdemeanor charges against Thayer for allegedly trying to influence the choice of a judge to hear his wife's appeal of their divorce and threatening fellow justices if they allowed his conduct to be reported to judicial oversight groups. McLaughlin's report said Supreme Court Justice John T. Broderick quoted Thayer as saying if his conduct were reported to oversight groups ''I'm done. It's over for me We all do it. We can either hang together on this or hang separately.'' Chief Justice David Brock said Thayer told him, ''I'm not going to hang alone.'' Thayer insisted at the time, ''I committed no criminal act.'' But McLaughlin had decided to seek the criminal indictment when Thayer volunteered to resign. Two years after the episode, McLaughlin wrote Thayer in December 2002 and cited Thayer's reputation for scholarship and fairness as a judge. He added that during the investigation, Thayer acted ''in a most professional, forthright and honest manner.'' But McLaughlin did not back off his findings, noting his report ''will be a matter of public record forever.'' In a rare public appearance last fall, Thayer did not supply a
Set sail Irish; Land White Re: ethnic divisions
Michael Perelman wrote: The Irish were regarded almost identically to the Blacks in the US. I gave some sources on this a few days ago, I believe. Yet, there is not a high level of anti-Irish feeling in the US. All _european_ ethnic groups that have migrated to the u.s. have come to begin with as micks, wops, hunkies, etc., which _at the time_ were very close synonyms for nr. But as their position (economic and/or political power) increased, they ceased (except for purely ceremonial occasions) to be Irish, Italian, etc. and became generic whites. There was a large Irish migration apparently to the Boston area in the 1980s, at the same time there was also a large Haitian migration. The Irish migrants _could_ have kept their position as migrants and joined with the Haitians in a joint struggle for migrant rights. Manning Marable in a speech in Chicago a few years ago summed it up in the phrase, They got on the boat Irish, they got off whites. If my suspicion is correct, are there any models for people confronting those who try to whip up divisions? See Foner's history of labor, particularly his report on a lumbermen's strike in Louisiana (or Mississippi) around the beginning of the 20th century. When _all_ the divisions broke down, the governor called out the National Guard and crushed the strike. I believe Foner also reports on both occasions of unity and of division between white miners and black convict labor in the mines. It's been quite a while since I read it. Carrol -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state?
Charles Brown wrote: by Devine, James . The terrorist theory is that by blowing things up, the powers that be will crack down and alienate the population, so that the population will join the insurgent movement. Specifically in Iraq, it's supposed to show that the US hasn't brought order to the country. The hope is that the people will blame the US for the killings. ^^ CB: Are none of these killings done by agent provacateurs undercover for the U.S. ? There would be no reason for this. The U.S. authorities know as well as the patriotic Resistance that in this case terror will be blamed on the U.S. As it should be. Given so outrageous a flouting of all human dececency and international law as the Occupation is (_The Occupation_, not just the invasion), everything that happens in Iraq at the present time is a U.S. crime, and only a u.s. crime. This is the same principle as most laws on murder in the u.s. recognize: any death during a felony (even if not commited by the felons) is first degree murder. There are and there should be no restraints on the Resistance, any more than there were on the French Resistance during the German Occupation. If I remember correctly, the French Resistance killed 5 or 6 French for every German they killed. Quite reasonable under such circumstances. No one has the _political_ right to condemn anything the Iraq resistance does. (I'm not interested in personal morality.) Carrol
China has 600 million telephone users
People's Daily Online Life UPDATED: 18:16, July 22, 2004 China has 600 million telephone users China had close to 600 million fixed and mobile phone users by the end of June this year. Statistics released from the Ministry of Information Industry show 30 million new telephone users signed up for services in the first six months of the year. Experts point out, however, that access to telephones remains very low in rural areas, which has encouraged the ministry to ensure most villages have telephones by 2005. It also aims to make every household in China have a phone by 2020. Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
Staying the course
The London Telegraph July 29, 2004 Kerry 'will not change foreign policy' By David Rennie in Boston America's allies expecting a shift in United States foreign policy from a President John Kerry should think again, his top advisers said yesterday. Instead, members of Mr Kerry's inner circle could promise only stark contrasts of personality and style between President George W Bush and their candidate, who they vowed would be a hands-on, engaged, diplomat-in-chief. Rand Beers, the national security adviser to the Kerry campaign, opened a high-level briefing with a warning: In many ways, the goals of the two administrations are in fact not all that different. Mr Kerry has come under growing criticism from foreign policy commentators for failing to offer more than the blandest proposals that he would restore frayed alliances and behave more respectfully of allies and international bodies. But yesterday another top adviser, Richard Holbrooke, offered no details on policy questions ranging from Iraq to the Middle East or America's withdrawal from the Kyoto Treaty and the International Criminal Court. His silence was unsurprising. Although 95 per cent of rank and file delegates to this week's convention opposed the Iraq war, Mr Kerry voted for it, and has hinted that he might keep US troops there for several years. He has promised that he would win extra help from allies by burnishing America's image so that it is respected, not simply feared. Instead, Mr Holbrooke, a former United Nations ambassador who is spoken of as a possible secretary of state in a Kerry administration, offered what he clearly hoped was a reassuring psychological sketch of Mr Kerry as a cosmopolitan internationalist. Mr Holbrooke told a packed gathering of foreign political leaders and ambassadors to look past the Democrats' manifesto and focus on Mr Kerry's life story. John Kerry is a fundamental internationalist, he said. It is relevant that his father served as a foreign service officer. It is relevant that his father served in Berlin at the height of the Cold War. Mr Kerry was partly educated in Europe, spoke foreign languages and was married to the multi-lingual Teresa Heinz Kerry, of Portuguese heritage, he added. He likes to travel, he understands the issues. He's so interested in foreign cultures; one of the biggest things that he has been interested in recently has been the Tour de France, Mr Holbrooke told an audience that included the British ambassador, Sir David Manning, several Labour MPs including the former foreign secretary, Robin Cook, and the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy. Mr Kennedy appeared underwhelmed by the assurances about building alliances. During his visit to the Democratic convention, he said he was encountering quite a lot of ambiguity about how foreign policy will be pursued, and how fundamentally different it would be, from our point of view. Mr Kennedy said there was a simplistic assumption in Britain that if Kerry is elected, all our problems will be over. With Kerry in the White House, allies in Europe might find themselves under heavy pressure to match multilateral rhetoric with money and troops, he said. Kerry people have indicated that if they become more multi-lateral, the quid pro quo would be that we can't sit on the sidelines and criticise. They're talking about military overstretch, they're going to be looking for contributions from us, and from France and Germany. His views were echoed by Labour MPs attending the convention. Mike Gapes, Labour MP for Ilford South, said: I don't believe there will be a massive change in foreign policy if there's a change in administration. But he predicted that a second Bush administration might prove a kindlier, gentler foreign partner than the current US government - although such predictions are not universally shared in Washington. On a visit to Washington earlier this month, Mr Gapes said he found the deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, bullish that the State Department's more cautious approach to foreign policy was in the ascendant, with neo-conservative hawks at the Pentagon wounded by Iraq. In a final proof of how far Labour has changed, Mr Gapes expressed concern that a Kerry win might even trigger trade spats with the Americans as US trade unions flexed their muscles. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Maoist abduct 50 school children in Nepal
HindustanTimes.com Monday, July 19, 2004 Maoist rebels abduct 50 school children in Nepal Reuters kathmandu, July 19 Maoist guerrillas have abducted at least 50 students and a dozen teachers from a school on the outskirts of the Nepali capital in a bid to force them into their fold, a police officer said on Monday. The rebels dragged the children, aged between 13 and 16, and teachers at gunpoint from the school in Chaimale village on Sunday afternoon, police officer Deepak Ranjit said. The Maoists, who are fighting to overthrow Nepal's constitutional monarchy, have in the past kidnapped school and university students to boost their numbers. Ranjit said soldiers have been deployed to secure the release of the hostages. Most of the kidnapped students were girls. © HT Media Ltd. 2004. Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
Advice on economics/political economics books requested
I would greatly appreciate comments/opinions on the following economics/political economics books that I am considering purchasing: a) Capitalism and its Economics: A Critical History by Douglas Dowd b) The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures by Richard Duncan c) The ABC's of Political Economy: A Modern Approach by Robin Hahnel d) Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance by Michael Hudson e) Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences by Steven Keen f) Economics As Religion: From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond by Robert H. Nelson g) Contours of Descent by Robert Pollin h) Economics: A New Introduction by Hugh Stretton Thanks, Ira
Re: Staying the course
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/29/04 7:18 PM The London Telegraph July 29, 2004 Kerry 'will not change foreign policy' By David Rennie in Boston America's allies expecting a shift in United States foreign policy from a President John Kerry should think again, his top advisers said yesterday. surely above surprises no one, after all, last time the guy was prez he initiated massive military spending increase, introduced counterinsurgency operations throughout third world, invaded post-revo cuba, accelerated weapons of mass destruction race, expanded u.s. role in vietnam, oh wait, that was john f. kennedy, not john f. kerry, guess i got jfks mixed up, and here i've been wondering for sometime about that 22nd amendment term limits thing... michael hoover -- Please Note: Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from College employees regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.
Re: Advice on economics/political economics books requested
I'll only comment on the two books I've read. e) Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences by Steven Keen very good, but technical. It's a perfect _samizdat_ for Econ. graduate students who want to ask the profs. hard questions. g) Contours of Descent by Robert Pollin excellent. It's a good US-centered macroeconomic history of recent years (since 1972), centering on the role of policy and how it's messed us up. There's an interesting chapter on what used to be called the third world. The whole book is a coherent critique of neo-liberalism. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Failure of socialist revolution in the West is fault of Kremlin
The Great Russian chauvinism went hand in hand with hostility to gay rights, feminism, experimentalism in the arts, workers democracy and every other emancipatory impulse in the USSR. Stalin was transmitting the social pressure of Czarist officialdom, which was re-emerging in the 1920s in the vacuum created by the civil war, and a general rightward climate brought on by imperialism and the failure to make socialist revolution in the West--a failure in itself directly attributable to the Kremlin's own lack of Marxist insights. Comment Social Revolution in the West . . . do this include England, the American Union and South America and say Mexico? I know "the West" generally does not include say Japan . . . or the so-called Middle East or Africa. "the failure to make socialist revolution in the West . . . directly attributable to the Kremlin's . . . " is the repudiation of history and common sense. This is what is being stated. The failure of socialist revolution in the American union in 1920 is attributable to the Kremlin. The failure of socialist revolution in the American union in 1930 is attributable to the Kremlin. The failure of socialist revolution in the American union in 1940 is attributable to the Kremlin. The failure of socialist revolution in the American union in 1950 is attributable to the Kremlin. The failure of socialist revolution in the American union in 1960 is attributable to the Kremlin. The failure of socialist revolution in the American union in 1970 is attributable to the Kremlin. The failure of socialist revolution in the American union in 1980 is attributable to the Kremlin. The failure of socialist revolution in the American union in 1990 is attributable to the Kremlin. The failure of socialist revolution in the American union in 2004 is attributable to the Kremlin. Pardon . . . directly attributable to the Kremlin. Not just the failure of socialist revolution in America but all of the West is DIRECTLY attributable to the Kremlin. Now this failure of socialist revolution in the West . . . which is DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE TO THE KREMLIN ... occurred because of a lack of MARXIST INSIGHT. The diverse peoples of America wanted a socialist revolution and their striving was defeated as the direct result of the Kremlin. Nay . . . the peoples of the West . . . this includes Mexico and South America and England and Ireland ... wanted a socialist revolution and their striving was defeated as the direct result of the Kremlin. If one allow Mr. P to rant long enough all of his rank Great American chauvinism and anti-Russianism . . . which is disguised as anti-Stalinism . . . comes spewing out. There is . . . let me guess . . . a "dialectical connection" between Gay Rights in the Soviet Union and the failure of Socialist Revolution not just in America, Mexico, Argentina, England, Ireland and the rest of the West . . . that is directly attributable to the Kremlin. The failure of socialist revolution in America is not directly attributable to any economic, social or political factors in America or the White House . . . but the Kremlin. Every generation of communist in American history has had to confront the institutionalized spilt in our working class that took the form of the segregation of the African American and the most brutal and violenct forms of white chauvanism in the Western world . . . but thishas not beenthe fundamental ideological impediment to socialist revolution . . . but rather the Kremlin's lack of Marxist insight and "hostility to gay rights, feminism, experimentalism in the arts, workers democracy and every other emancipatory impulse in the USSR." I call this kind of thinking what it is . . . rotten white chauvinism and an affront to the battered proletarian masses in American history. During the 1920's and the period that birth the Red Summers as a mass orgy of hangings, lynching's and bombings of African Americans . . . yes bombings . . . is swept under the rug to covered the criminal contempt of murderers and jackals of imperial capital . . . and the failure of socialist revolution is attributable to the Kremlin. Man . . . you need to be cool . . . and not let everyone know you are the anti Russian rotten chauvinist that you are . . . trying to dictate to the world's people about what they should do to be free as you pound away on keyboard in the most imperial of all imperial centers. What a lack of common sense. You are saying that the failure of socialist revolution in the West . . . America and 90 years of brutal segregation is directly attributable to the Kremlin and not the contempt that the Anglo American people have poured on the African American masses for the better part of a century . . . and this is connected to the lack of GayRights and experimental art in the freaking Soviet Union. You are a rank chauvinist of the worst kind. Let me guess . . . me being an
Re: HDI\PPP Michael,Ulhas and Michael
Paul wrote: [See what happens with some encouragement - soon I'll be overposting! Is there a limit on posting? For India, from 1992 to 2001, the GNI increased by 64% when calculated by the World Bank Atlas method (non-PPP). I presume this comment is about India's GDP as a whole and not the GDP for the bottom 20% of the population. Is this figure ok? But for the same period GNI increased by 91% using PPP! So what is your objection? It is not just that India is made to look less poor via developed countries Perhaps India should always look worse that what it really is? Furthermore, the discrepancy between the two methods grows - by as much as 4 or 5 times - during the neo-liberal period (tell me off-line if you want the chart for India, the change is dramatic). What do you mean by the term neo-liberal in the context of Indian economy? there is a bias in the bias which shows neo-liberalism as a great success. It could be your bias which is dismissive of the Third World and its achievements. Then the statistics are used to prove correct the assumptions from the free market model. [BTW there are various flavors of PPP-type models. The Bank has chosen the most extreme version that has the most free-market assumptions. The other versions of PPP, logically, produce lower numbers. See below for examples.] You can use other sources. Indian resources, e.g. Indian's Central Bank publishes data. Perhaps that source is also tainted one? Btw, infant mortality in India has declined from 250 to 70 per thousand in 50 years. How is it that India's population has gone up from about 400 million to 1 bn in 50 years? Ulhas Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
Horseshit. Oh, I'm sorry, is horsehit too harsh a word when faced with the bemused scepticism of the professional rationalist? In that case, horseshit. The latest, and perhaps most gruesome, car bombing was adjacent to a police recruitment center. Whether or not you approve of the targets in Ireland or Iraq is not the determining factor. The determining factor in both is the occupation. You don't like their choice of targets? Get your troops out. Do we need to remind you about certain gruesome practices of the Vietnames resistance to the French occupation? To the US occupation? Should we condemn the anti-apartheid fighters who blew cafes frequented by police and others? - Original Message - From: Chris Doss [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 7:30 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Israel pushing for Kurdish state? - --- Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lately the resistance in Iraq has mainly been killing people at open-air markets. The anti-imperialist content of this strategy is hard to discern. Doug --- It doesn't have anti-imperialist content. The point is to make themselves look badass on TV and Jihadi websites and get money and converts. That's why they always stage high-profile PR campaigns of zero military content, like the raid on Ingushetia or the attack on the Indian parliament. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
