Re: non-Russian Great Russian Chauvinism.
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (Andropov was Russian wasn't he? And isn't the Ukraine part of great Russia?) --- Yes, Andropov was Russian. It is rumored that he was Jewish. (His great grand-niece is a friend of mine, by the way.) But he was in power, what, a year? Chernenko is a Ukrainian name. Never call Ukraine the Ukraine to a Ukrainian nationalist. You will get a black eye. Ukraine means the borderlands. __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: 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? --- In the case of Russia/Chechnya, I think ethnic divisions were dying out slowly over the Soviet period for a variety of reasons (though Stalin's deportation of Chechens and other groups and the violent application of the Short Course in Western Ukraine and the Baltics increased them in those areas). In any case, they have gotten much much worse since 1991. Caucasians were depicted as happy-go-lucky Bohemians on Soviet TV. They are portrayed as gangsters, pimps and terrorists on contemporary Russian TV. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Failure of socialist revolution in the West is fault of Kremlin
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 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 Gay Rights and experimental art in the freaking Soviet Union. --- Actually there was experimental art in the Soviet Union. It was just not exhibited in public places. I know some of the people involved. They exhibited in their apartments. Just because something was not officially sponsored does not mean that it did not exist. People in the West really, really exaggerate the repressiveness of the Soviet Union, in my opinion. I don't know who is worse on this, the conservatives, the Trotskyists or the anarchists. They all needed an Evil Empire to compare themselves too. __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Israel pushing for Kurdish state? -
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 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. --- Actually the Soviet Union had affirmative action programs for minorities. That's why the elite in Bashkortostan are mostly Bashkirs, even though Bashkirs are a minority there (third-largest population in the republic after Russians and Tatars). __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Kerry's a better choice for some conservatives
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/29/04 11:32 PM Dan Scanlan wrote: The Right Wing's Deep, Dark Secret Some hope for a Bush loss, and here's why By John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge We (people, leftists, left liberals) made significant gains under Nixon (despite his intentions) because we had behind us the threatening mass movements of the '60s. Leftists _must_ break, permanently and unambiguously, all ties to the DP -- and this includes the leftists of the DP (Wellstone, Obama, Hightower), who achieve nothing for us except symbolic gestures but provide cover for the party's left flank. Carrol come on, 'we' have chance in 04 to return 'liberal' jfk to prez, surely you recall last time he was in office - civil rights advocate, pro labor, tax wealthy - oh wait, he didn't actually initiate legal action in any antidiscrimination cases, he appointed segregationists to federal bench, he offered little help to civil rights activists attacked - and killed - by racists, he opposed increases in minimum wage, he sought to constrain wage demands by unions, he opposed reducing work week, he presided over tax cuts for rich and corporations... back to yesterday with jfk... 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: No longer about Israel or Kurds
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? --- Actually the idea of what it means to be Russian has changed several times and the idea even of what a nationality is in the Russian context has changed and is changing. I wrote an article on this recently, since I think it's a very interesting subject, Russian national identity in the post-Soviet era. Anyway it has usually been understood in a cultural and not an ethnic or racial context, which you would expect from such a multiethnic country in which people have been intermarrying since time immemorial. Even full-blooded ethnic Russians are part Slavic, part Scandinavian and part Asian (Tatar/Mongol), which is why they have those big wide eyes. Pushkin was African, and nobody says he wasn't a Russian. I am not sure that Great Russian is even a word in contemporary Russian. I have never heard it or seen it in print. __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Failure of socialist revolution in the West is fault of Kremlin
Chris Doss wrote: Actually there was experimental art in the Soviet Union. It was just not exhibited in public places. I know some of the people involved. They exhibited in their apartments. Just because something was not officially sponsored does not mean that it did not exist. I love your deadpan sense of humor. People in the West really, really exaggerate the repressiveness of the Soviet Union, in my opinion. I don't know who is worse on this, the conservatives, the Trotskyists or the anarchists. They all needed an Evil Empire to compare themselves too. It is true that repression eased up after Stalin's reign of terror. But that's because it had already done its job in reducing a mobilized and assertive working class into an atomized, authoritarian minded herd. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
BMW team concludes Kerala assessment visit
Business Standard Thursday, July 29, 2004 BMW team concludes Kerala assessment visit Our Correspondent / Kochi July 29,2004 A high level delegation from German car major BMW concluded a 3-day visit to the state to check out the possibility of starting a vehicles manufacturing unit. According to Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) and Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra) officials, the team visited many sites and also held discussions with higher officials of the state industries department. BMW is expected to take a decision on the facility in the next three months. The delegation evaluated facilities in and around Kochi, including major hospitals and schools and held discussions with the trade union leaders too. The team also visited a site at Kalamassery near Kochi and another at Nedumbassery near the Kochi international air port. Kinfra will provide 25 acres of land adjacent to Kochi Indira Gandhi Co-operative Medical College for the first phase and another 50 acre for further expansion in due course. The team had discussions with the industries secretary K Mohankumar, Kinfra managing director G C Gopalapillai, KSIDC managing director P H Kurian and Development Commissioner of Kochi Special Economic Zone Paul Antony on various issues relating to the proposed unit. The Kochi Port Trust chairman Jacob Thomas also held discussion with the BMW team and he said that the proposed Vallarpadam container port was an added attraction to the German car major. Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
KERALA: Orange Letter Day
OutLookIndia.com Magazine | Jun 14, 2004 KERALA Orange Letter Day A pro-NDA verdict opens the account at last in the south state. One-off, or is the parivar consolidating? JOHN MARY When Archbishop Cardinal Mar Varkey Vithayathil, on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections, said on TV that the BJP was not untouchable, he was only underscoring an attitudinal shift in the Syrian Christian mindset. From being totally anti-BJP, the community has begun to show tolerance towards the saffron party. The proof of this came the day the results were declared. For the first time, the BJP-led NDA alliance opened its account in Kerala. It returned a Syrian Christian (former Union minister P.C. Thomas) to the Lok Sabha from the Catholic heartland of Muvattupuzha in central Kerala. His Indian Federal Democratic Party is part of the NDA. The total voteshare of the BJP alliance in Kerala also crossed the single-digit threshold, posting a never-before 12.1 per cent. Of this, the BJP alone notched 10.4 per cent of the votes polled. To top it all, the BJP came first in five assembly segments and second in another five. This, in a state where it does not have a single representative in the assembly. Obviously, the state BJP is upbeat since it is seen to be making a slow but steady electoral breach in a state where minorities make up 45 per cent of the population and the remaining 55 per cent Hindus are strongly polarised, either with the Left or the Congress. Besides, Hindu social organisations like the forward caste Nair Service Society and the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam of the backward Ezhava community have kept a safe distance for fear of being overrun by the BJP. We are looking forward to the local government elections due a year from now and the assembly elections thereafter. Our strategy will be to position ourselves as a credible alternative to the Congress and the Left, which are too close to be seen separately, says NDA state convenor B.K. Shekhar. According to him, the BJP's Muvattupuzha experiment is a signpost. The party could ride piggy-back to the legislature provided it props up the likes of Thomas. The Left parties, especially the CPI(M), sense the danger too. Says state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan: It is of concern that the decline in the Congress-led alliance's vote has benefited the BJP. While the Congress-led UDF's voteshare dipped by 8.57 per cent, the LDF has gained only 2.48 percentage points. So the net gainer has been the NDA, which added 5.5 per cent to its voteshare at the expense of the UDF. There are still doubters like Professor Ninan Koshy, ex-director of the World Council of Churches, who believes the BJP will find it difficult to overcome conventional socio-political impediments. He cites two reasons for the BJP not being able to enlarge the space between the strong bipolar Left and not-so-left coalitions in Kerala. One, the overriding anti-government sentiment is likely to benefit the well-entrenched Left much more than the BJP in the next assembly elections. Secondly, the BJP's appeal has reduced for the electorate since it has no chance of dislodging the Congress-led government in Delhi in the short-term. Sangh parivar ideologue P. Parameswaran, though, has a different take. He feels the shrinking Hindu population in the state has spawned a greater awareness among the community that minorities would soon overtake them. The Hindu population has declined from 57 per cent to 55 per cent over the decade even as Muslims and Christians climbed to 23.34 per cent and 19.32 per cent respectively. This, according to Parameswaran, is sure to encourage a wary Hindu population to gravitate towards a nationalist pro-Hindu party. Countering Koshy, Parameswaran points out that the BJP is still very much the party-in-waiting at the Centre. So the BJP-minded sections would only be happy to rally behind the most credible alternative to the Congress-CPI(M) axis in Delhi The alarm bells have certainly begun to ring in the Left and the Congress. Over the years, the rss presence has become increasingly visible throughout the state.There are about 5,000 shakhas in operation now. The Sangh has identified nearly 10,000 locations for active work. In 1,330 places, active discussions and drills take place everyday. Slowly but surely, the Hindutva brigade is spreading its roots in a state where it has hitherto always drawn a blank. Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
Communalising Kerala
The Hindu Tuesday, May 13, 2003 Communalising Kerala By K.N. Panikkar A transition from the communitarian to the communal has been taking place, slowly but steadily. ANOTHER BASTION is falling. Kerala known for its relatively harmonious communal relations has lately witnessed quite a few clashes between members of different communities. In Nadapuram, Panur, Taikal and Pathanamthitta. The latest is in Marad, a coastal village near Kozhikode, in which nine persons were brutally killed and several injured on May 3. It was not a communal riot in the generally accepted sense, in which the members of two communities violently engage with each other, in most cases spontaneously, due to some immediate provocation. In Marad, it was a sudden attack by a group of people well armed and well organized who, if the police are to be believed, carried out the operation in one sweep in less than 15 minutes. Marad has fallen victim to communal fury for a second time. In January last year the members of two communities had clashed, the reason for which is not entirely known. It is believed that inter-communal tension grew out of a New Year day function. Five persons were killed, about 100 houses were destroyed and several boats on fire. Many in the predominantly fishing community in the village lost their means of livelihood. It aroused considerable indignation and concern, especially among social activists and the intelligentsia, who took several initiatives to bring about communal harmony. The Government also intervened, particularly in the field of rehabilitation. Yet, they did not have the desired effect, as evident from the repetition of the brutality, which many believe has its roots in the first incident. This is because the efforts to bring about communal harmony did not address the basic issue, namely, the communalisation of Kerala society, particularly after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, an important marker in the social consciousness of both the Muslim minority and the Hindu majority. During the last couple of decades, the activity and influence of communal formations have considerably increased in Kerala. According to the data published by the Organiser in its issue of March 25, 2001, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh runs 4300 `shakas' and `upasakhas' in Kerala. The increase in numbers thereafter is not known. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has now established its organisational set up in almost all parts of the state. Recently, it undertook the distribution of tridents, as a part of the effort to use religious symbols for mobilisation and to create self-confidence rooted in religious identity. There are a couple of newspapers and quite a few periodicals which generally serve the Hindu communal cause. Saraswati Shishu Mandirs and such other schools serve as recruiting grounds of unsuspecting young children. There are innumerable cultural organisations, promoting and disseminating communal ideas in the guise of patronising literature, theatre, traditional arts and science or the renovation of village temples. Their activities have led to the emergence of a cultural right in Kerala, which receives legitimacy from intellectuals who claim to be independent. The intervention of these institutions has made a qualitative change in the consciousness and outlook of a fairly large number of Hindus. A fundamentalist shift has taken place. A similar tendency has developed among the Muslims as well. After the demolition of the Babri Masjid, a section of the Muslim youth felt rather restive and dissatisfied with the pacifist stand taken by the existing political and social formations. They rallied around more militant outfits such as the Islamic Service Society and the National Development Front. There are also several other fundamentalist groups, active in different fields of social life. The following of the fundamentalist- militant organisations has been steadily on the increase for quite some time. The reformist forces among the Muslims have not been able check this. The incident in Marad indicates that communalism has arrived in Kerala. It is a proof that the stage of proto-communalism, which had a long period of incubation, is over. During this phase, a sense of religious division had slowly emerged, socially articulated through organised religiosity. The organisations of different religions vie with each other to bring the faith of the believer to the streets. The religious practices have now spilled over from the domestic and sacred spaces to the public space, eliminating in the process the distinction between religious beliefs and religiosity. Religious processions in which women and children participate carrying religious symbols is a familiar sight in almost all parts of Kerala. The street processions have become common for festivals of all religious denominations. This was unknown about 20 years back, but now conducted with the support of social organisations and the blessings of public figures. Like
one response to Kerry speech
[by Andy Borowitz] KERRY'S SPEECH INSPIRES DEMOCRATS' DRINKING GAME Players Chug Beer at References to Military Service Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic national convention last night inspired Democrats nationwide and a popular drinking game, with revelers taking pulls from their beers every time Mr. Kerry referred to his military service. Donny Timlin, a frequent patron at the T.G.I. Friday's in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma, was one of many drinkers across the country who participated in the chugging contest based on Mr. Kerry's nationally televised address. According to the rules of the game, participants were to take one pull from their beer every time Mr. Kerry said the word veteran, two when he said Vietnam, and three when he said band of brothers. Watching Mr. Kerry on the bar's widescreen TV, Mr. Timlin acknowledged that the drinking game was far more challenging than he originally thought it would be: Dude's just ten minutes into his speech and I'm already wasted. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Leon Golub's Disasters of War
Leon Golub's Disasters of War: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/leon-golubs-disasters-of-war.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/
A Question for the Moderator
Michael Perelman, Some posters on this list have expressed their support for the breakup of Russia, India, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. I would like know what is your personal opinion in this matter. Ulhas Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
Re: Communalising Kerala
I think it was Fred Engels who called anti-semitism the socialism of fools. This slogan fits with the general notion that when socialism fails -- due to corruption of left leaders or their becoming part of the political-economic establishment or whatever -- it encourages other versions of communitarian or collective action to arise. When socialism falls, that of fools rises. This is encouraged by the rise of neo-liberalism (and free-market capitalism) which undermines and destroys all left-wing communitarianism (socialism, social democracy, Stalinism, etc.) and tries to turn the world into one big market in which everything is for sale. In response to the collective/communitarian failure (the decline or fall of the welfare state, etc.), in come religious or ethnic organizations to provide collective services (madrasas rather than public schools, etc.) Is this an explanation of what's happening in Kerala according to the following article? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine The Hindu Tuesday, May 13, 2003 Communalising Kerala By K.N. Panikkar A transition from the communitarian to the communal has been taking place, slowly but steadily. ANOTHER BASTION is falling. Kerala known for its relatively harmonious communal relations has lately witnessed quite a few clashes between members of different communities. In Nadapuram, Panur, Taikal and Pathanamthitta. The latest is in Marad, a coastal village near Kozhikode, in which nine persons were brutally killed and several injured on May 3. It was not a communal riot in the generally accepted sense, in which the members of two communities violently engage with each other, in most cases spontaneously, due to some immediate provocation. In Marad, it was a sudden attack by a group of people well armed and well organized who, if the police are to be believed, carried out the operation in one sweep in less than 15 minutes. Marad has fallen victim to communal fury for a second time
Re: A Question for the Moderator
I don't have any simple answers. On the one hand, fragmentation makes for inefficiencies. On the other hand, the larger the extent of the central government, a greater number of minority groups might find themselves oppressed. Even if you fragment the state, you'll probably find even smaller ethnic minorities find themselves oppressed. Most societies are like fractals, break them up and you'll find even smaller divisions within each element. One overriding problem is that by fragmenting political units, an imperial power will have an easier time controlling them. So here is the closest I can come to a simple answer: let us hope that we can get to a socialist society in which people cannot profit from stirring up racial and ethnic hatred; so that things that are truly local can be handled locally; and that people can learn to cooperate. Of course, how you get there -- that is the central question. On Fri, Jul 30, 2004 at 04:36:05PM +0100, Ulhas Joglekar wrote: Michael Perelman, Some posters on this list have expressed their support for the breakup of Russia, India, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. I would like know what is your personal opinion in this matter. Ulhas Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Communalising Kerala
This is truly sad. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Communalising Kerala
This is truly sad. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Response Jim C: This does indeed break my heart. I lived in Kerala during part of the 1980s in a little village of about 150 people; the village was half Hindu, half Syrian Orthodox Christian, it was half Congress-I and half CPM in political orientation, and it was one of the few places in India where sectarian violence was unknown. Kerala was one of the few States of India where you could literally find Jews (many in Cochin), Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Communists, Jains and many other groups living side-by-side without the sectarian violence. Of course there were organizations like RSS, Shiv Sena, Arya Sammagayam (I met one of the leaders of RSS once by accident) but they confined themselves mostly to polemics and covert organizing with none of the violence common in the north. There were also survivors of the Naxalites who had been targeted for extermination by the central government but they mostly stayed underground and in some cases went on to other forms of political action on the inside. I still have friends in Kerala and I'll be asking about this from those on the ground there now. Jim C.
Re: A Question for the Moderator
Michael Perelman wrote: I don't have any simple answers. Please unsubscribe me from your list. Ulhas Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
Re: A Question for the Moderator
Ulhas Joglekar wrote: Some posters on this list have expressed their support for the breakup of Russia, India, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. this is a bit of an unfair characterization, especially if it refers to my contributions on these threads. i should probably check the archives first, but from memory, i do not recall anyone (and definitely not me) calling for breakup of these nations as the only satisfactory option. --ravi
I Had an Abortion
I Had an Abortion (Barbara Ehrenreich argues that women should own up to our abortions in her New York Times column. Fortunately, Planned Parenthood has made beautiful I Had an Abortion T-shirts available, outraging anti-abortion right-wing groups. The designer of the T-shirt, Jennifer Baumgardner, is also making a documentary called I Had an Abortion that features women who don't regret having abortions): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/i-had-abortion.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: A Question for the Moderator
Ulhas Joglekar wrote: Michael Perelman, Some posters on this list have expressed their support for the breakup of Russia, India, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. I would like know what is your personal opinion in this matter. It is a (sort of) interesting _academic_ pursuit for leftists in the comre imperial nations (Western Europe, UK, US, Japan) to discuss what sort of precise policy should be (were we able to dictate implementation as well as general principle) followed by our governments. It is even of similar interest for us to discuss what policies should be followed by other governments or by resistance movements in other nations. Such discussion and/or explorations can (perhaps) expand our understanding of the overall social reality of the world today. BUT we should understand that our opinions on such detailed questions are toothless, that the discussion can NOT be directly (or even indirectly) relevant to our theory and practice as leftists in a given nation (the U.S. say). Our aims, of course, are to affect U.S. actions and policy. But we have to understand what the scope and limits of the change which popular pressure can bring to bear on government. (I will eventually get back to the particular question posed by Ulhas, but I want to first establish what I think is a reasonable context in which to answer it and many similar questions.) Let's take a particular instance. Many leftists since the criminal u.s. assault on the people of Iraq have suggested that we (and the content of we is always ambiguous) should support a UN replacement of the U.S. in Iraq. Such a proposal is (to be kind) an alice-in-wonderland proposal. Even if it were possible to marshall significant public pressure behind such a policy, the best (and this is nearly hallucinatory) that could be accomplished would be for the u.s. government to declare such as its official position. But here _everything_ that counts lies in the day-to-day particularities of implementation. As an academic proposal, there is no doubt but what the best thing for Iraq would be for a true UN (independent of the U.S.) to administer Iraq for a brief period before giving power to a provisional government backed by public opinion in Iraq. But anyone who proposes this as a popular demand just simply isn't living in the real world. (I think journalists are rather more apt to make this academic mistake than are academics themselves. Academics after all have to deal with _real_ audiences -- their students -- continuously, and hence can at least develop a realistic understanding of what does and what does not influence the opinions of actual people. Journalists can live in a dreamworld forever -- though that dream world can be lethal, as in the case of Bernard Fall in Vietnam. He was a marvellous journalist, perhaps one of the 20th century's best, and his reports from Vietnam were quite splendid. But when he occasionally allowed himself to speculate on what should be done, he was no better than any Harvard professor.) What popular movements _can_ do is create tremendous pressure on government to relieve the pressure by doing _something_ that will remove or soften whatever it is in the world that generates the pressure. (Had the UAW supported the organizing efforts of foremen back in the late '40s -- to the point of a new round of sitdown strikes and illegal secondary boycotts -- that would have very possibly brought about the repeal of the Taft-Hartley law (without any lobbying or wanking or complex argufying at all on the need for its repeal). When there is enough pressure on the U.S. government (in the form of growing militancy behind the Demand of Out Now, no Conditions), it may well be that the U.S. government _will_ use a U.N. presence as a face-saving measure behind u.s. retreating (the U.N. being good camouflage for the tail between the legs). There are some interesting complexities here in respect to the various simultaneous routes to mobilizing the needed pressure, but those can only be worked out in day-to-day discussion and wrangle within the 1001 different local/regional/national coalitions against the war. The success of William and Hillary in crushing the nascent movement for national healthcare by diverting it into endless wankery and journalistic navel-gazing is characteristic of what happens to mass movements when they are diverted into debates over detailed policy. Now to come back to the question posed by Ulhas: Some posters on this list have expressed their support for the breakup of Russia, India, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Is that a good idea. Personally (merely personally) I hate to see breakups anyplace outside the U.S.; they expose the areas concerned to more manipulation and control from imperialist powers. So to that extent I agree with Michael's own answer, and of course I agree that it would be nice to have a socialist world. But in respect to opinions in the U.S. which might make a difference in all these areas, I
anybody?
Anybody but Bush - and then let's get back to work With Kerry at the helm, the left might focus on the real issues again Naomi Klein Friday July 30, 2004 The Guardian Last month, I reluctantly joined the Anybody But Bush camp. It was Bush in a Box that finally got me, a gag gift my brother gave my father on his 66th birthday. Bush in a Box is a cardboard cut-out of President 43 with a set of adhesive speech balloons featuring the usual tired Bushisms: Is our children learning? They misunderestimated me - standard-issue Bush-bashing schlock, on sale at Wal-Mart, made in Malaysia. Yet Bush in a Box filled me with despair. It's not that the president is dumb, which I already knew, it's that he makes us dumb. Don't get me wrong: my brother is an exceptionally bright guy; he heads a think-tank that publishes weighty policy papers on the failings of export-oriented resource extraction and the false savings of cuts to welfare. Whenever I have a question involving interest rates or currency boards, he's my first call. But Bush in a Box pretty much summarises the level of analysis coming from the left these days. You know the line: The White House has been hijacked by a shady gang of zealots who are either insane or stupid or both. Vote Kerry and return the country to sanity. But the zealots in Bush's White House are neither insane nor stupid nor particularly shady. Rather, they openly serve the interests of the corporations that put them in office with bloody-minded efficiency. Their boldness stems not from the fact that they are a new breed of zealot but that the old breed finds itself in a newly unconstrained political climate. We know this, yet there is something about George Bush's combination of ignorance, piety and swagger that triggers a condition in progressives I've come to think of as Bush Blindness. When it strikes, it causes us to lose sight of everything we know about politics, economics and history and to focus exclusively on the admittedly odd personalities of the people in the White House. Other side-effects include delighting in psychologists' diagnoses of Bush's warped relationship with his father and brisk sales of Bush dum gum - $1.25. This madness has to stop, and the fastest way of doing that is to elect John Kerry, not because he will be different but because in most key areas - Iraq, the war on drugs, Israel/Palestine, free trade, corporate taxes - he will be just as bad. The main difference will be that as Kerry pursues these brutal policies, he will come off as intelligent, sane and blissfully dull. That's why I've joined the Anybody But Bush camp: only with a bore such as Kerry at the helm will we finally be able to put an end to the presidential pathologising and focus on the issues again. Of course, most progressives are already solidly in the Anybody But Bush camp, convinced that now is not the time to point out the similarities between the two corporate-controlled parties. I disagree. We need to face up to those disappointing similarities, and then we need to ask ourselves whether we have a better chance of fighting a corporate agenda pushed by Kerry or by Bush. I have no illusions that the left will have access to a Kerry/Edwards White House. But it's worth remembering that it was under Bill Clinton that the progressive movements in the west began to turn our attention to systems again: corporate globalisation, even - gasp - capitalism and colonialism. We began to understand modern empire not as the purview of a single nation, no matter how powerful, but a global system of interlocking states, international institutions and corporations, an understanding that allowed us to build global networks in response, from the World Social Forum to Indymedia. Innocuous leaders who spout liberal platitudes while slashing welfare and privatising the planet push us to better identify those systems and to build movements agile and intelligent enough to confront them. With Mr Dum Gum out of the White House, progressives will have to get smart again, and that can only be good. Some argue that Bush's extremism actually has a progressive effect because it unites the world against the US empire. But a world united against the United States isn't necessarily united against imperialism. Despite their rhetoric, France and Russia opposed the invasion of Iraq because it threatened their own plans to control Iraq's oil. With Kerry in power, European leaders will no longer be able to hide their imperial designs behind easy Bush-bashing, a development already forecast in Kerry's odious Iraq policy. Kerry argues that we need to give our friends and allies ... a meaningful voice and role in Iraqi affairs, including fair access to the multibillion-dollar reconstruction contracts. It also means letting them be a part of putting Iraq's profitable oil industry back together. Yes, that's right: Iraq's problems will be solved with more foreign invaders, with France and Germany given a greater voice and a
Re: Failure of socialist revolution in the West fault of Kremlin/art and beauty
In a message dated 7/30/2004 3:04:47 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Actually there was experimental art in the Soviet Union. It was just not exhibited in public places. I know some of the people involved. They exhibited in their apartments. Just because something was not officially sponsored does not mean that it did not exist. People in the West really, really exaggerate the repressiveness of the Soviet Union, in my opinion. I don't know who is worse on this, the conservatives, the Trotskyists or the anarchists. They all needed an Evil Empire to compare themselves too. Comment I am reminded of an art exhibit I attended while residing in Atlanta Georgia back in 1982 featuring Tom Fielding. Black artists of all kinds have moved in very narrow circles from roughly Emancipation (1865) up until roughly the Crosby Show in the 1980s. The viewing was sponsored by what we called a member of the Mulatto aristocracy in Atlanta . . . very bourgeois . . . very wealthy . . . very accomplished . . . with roots going back to Freeman under slavery. At the time I was editor of the Southern Advocate and moved amongst various layers of society and had enough "juice" to get invited to the inner social circles of the "higher ups." In other words my "wife to be" knew everyone and got us invited to everything. With several cameras slung over shoulders and wife in toll . . . She was tolling me . . . I settled by the rather large indoor swimming pool and had a couple of drinks and causally observed the various painting. Everyone was ever so polite and several folks asked if I wanted a drink or something to eat and would say, "I just Love your little paper." I would smile and offer a thanks and ask for money and say "throw me like you owe me." Checks were written and a hardy thanks was repeated . . . "this will help to keep the news from behind the Cotton Curtain coming." When I had become Editor . . . the Banner and mast of the paper was changed to read in bold type . . . about 48 point "Southern Advocate" and below it in 18 point type "News From Behind The Cotton Curtain" . . . a slogan stolen from an article in the Communist Party USA journal Political Affairs from around 1946. (I can disagree with the historic politics of the CPUSA without being disagreeable in real life or having an urge to repudiate my collective history.) Passing from one room to the next I stumbled upon a photo on the wall of the host hugging President Richard Nixon and I broke out laughing and said "What kind of mutherfucker is hugging Richard Nixon" and laughed until tears came from my eyes. Everyone in the room looked and me and politely left me standing alone. The host pulled me to the side wrote a check for the paper and explained that he was from a family line that had been Republican since Lincoln. My wife to be said something like "does he have a marvelous sense of humor . . . very industrial . . . very proletarian." Everyone smiled and politely laughed and about eight years later I got the joke. It was me and class instincts, feelings and perception of shapes, forms and texture. There are always bodies of art outside the official market for display and class instinct and perspective is material. There is also a certain brooding and melancholy of various layers of the petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie called art and my own personal preference has made me a loyal followers of that great photographer Roland Freeman. It is characteristic of the bourgeois and petty bourgeois intellectual and their perpetual attempt to impose on the masses their conception of what should constitute official art . . . democracy and freedom of _expression_. Art in a free market acquires its reproduction dynamic and scale based on who can purchase works of art. Art is not a class phenomenon but is reproduced or subject to the law of reproduction based on buying and selling. Under conditions where the law of value is suppressed . . . the law of value cannot be abolished by politics or political will . . . what is reproduced as art in all fields is subject to political expedience on the basis of suppression of economic factors. Under our own bourgeois art is subject to political expediency based of buying and selling. The idea that the failure of socialists revolution in America is directly attributable to the Kremlin . . . 1920s is designed to obscure and hide the fact of what has paraded itself as the communist and Marxist Movement in American history. The idea and statement . . . that the failure of socialist revolution in America has something to do with various art forms not offered on the open market in the Soviet Union and Gay Rights in the Soviet Union ... democratic tendencies within the Soviet working class being suppressed ... is a monstrous accusation. It is monstrous because it means that the Soviet workers or Kremlin has been the master of the fate
Re: A Question for the Moderator
Michael Perelman, Some posters on this list have expressed their support for the breakup of Russia, India, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. I would like know what is your personal opinion in this matter. Ulhas The question, I thought, was whether Kurds, Kashmiris, and Chechens (as well as East Timorese, Albanians in Kosovo, etc. from recent history) have the right to self-determination. If Kurds, Kashmiris, Chechens, etc. exercised the right to self-determination, would that necessarily result in the breakup of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, India, and Russia? Presumably, they could very well choose to remain part of the countries in which they currently reside -- especially if most of the armed militants in Kashmir and Chechnya were indeed foreigners as you and Chris have suggested (on this point I am myself agnostic). -- 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/
should the Dems WANT to win?
Pity the man who wins this election Given the state of the economy, it would be better for Kerry if he lost Larry Elliott Friday July 30, 2004 The Guardian The candidate has been anointed and he has accepted the challenge. America is now supposed to have an idea of what makes John Kerry tick and, in November, we shall see whether he has what it takes to do what Bill Clinton did and defeat an incumbent Bush. If defining Kerry has dominated events in Boston this week, a more interesting question is whether this is an election worth winning. For those who believe any price is worth paying to get rid of Bush, the answer, of course, is a resounding yes. Yet one look at the state of the world's biggest economy suggests that this may be a good election for the Democrats to lose. The next four years could be tough for the US - very tough indeed - and it would be fitting if Bush were left to clear up the almighty mess he has created. There is a precedent. [here was a digression on an historical analogy concerning the political-economic history of Airstrip One, Oceania's informal 51st state. ;-)] Clearly, the US economy in 2004 is not [Airstrip One] in 1992. America is not in recession, and unemployment is falling rather than rising. The dollar is not pegged against other currencies, so there is no fixed target for the speculators to aim at. Moreover, if you believe Bush, the economy is just dandy after four blissful years of Republican stewardship. This, though, is a bit like saying that a sprinter has just smashed the world record in the Olympics while failing to mention the cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs that has been ingested. What has happened to the US economy under Bush is pretty simple. In Bill Clinton's second term America had its own version of the South Sea bubble; share prices for worthless IT companies soared, making consumers believe they were richer than they actually were. When the bubble burst, policy makers merrily responded by creating another bubble, this time in the property market. Interest rates were cut so that consumers could carry on borrowing, while the government did its bit to keep the party swinging by irresponsibly cutting taxes (primarily for the rich). The result has been predictable. A trade deficit of 5% of GDP is evidence that the US has been living beyond its means. A similar budget deficit shows that the government, too, has been failing to match what it spends with its tax revenues. In any country south the Rio Grande, such a combination would mean that the IMF would be on the scene before you could say structural adjustment. The dollar's role as a global reserve currency means that Washington can paper over the cracks for a while by selling government bonds to its creditors. But if the laws of economics can be bent, they cannot be broken. The only long-term solution to the twin deficits is a dose of the medicine swallowed by Britain after Black Wednesday. Cutting the trade gap means exports go up and imports come down. A cheaper dollar would help exports, but it would make imports dearer and threaten higher inflation. Higher taxes or lower spending are needed to curb consumer spending and close the budget deficit. This combination worked in the UK, but was mightily unpopular. Unless Bush or Kerry have a brilliant plan for a perpetual bubble economy, one of them is going to have to face reality. At the moment, the Democrats have only one thought: winning. But if they lose they will at least have the consolation of seeing Bush cleaning up his own vomit. * Larry Elliott is the Guardian's economics editor. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: John Stewart nails the Democrats
That was amusing. But what was *fantastic* was Stewart's skewering of the right-wing know-nothing broadcast journalists' treatment of Sharpton's speech. I wish I had it on tape. It was like, imagine that FAIR took over the Daily Show for 5 minutes and imagine that they were great at video editing and hilariously funny. He cut back and forth between the inane journalists's comments and the actual speech. For a lot of it, all you needed was the actual speech to see how blatantly pig-headed the journalists were. For example, Stewart showed various journalists saying that Sharpton had insulted black people with his jiving, etc. So Stewart shows the crowd reacting to Sharpton's speech, including, of course, black people. And of course the people are on their feet, cheering, waving their signs, etc. And Stewart voices over what the cheering people are really thinking: I'm so insulted by what you're saying. He made Newsweek's Howard Fineman look like a real putz, in addition to the more overtly right-wing people. It was truly transcendent. P.S. To be fair, one should note that the young woman that Stewart's reporter yawned in front of was the only one with a good comeback. She said, I'm sorry, should I drop some balloons for you? - Robert Naiman At 11:37 PM 7/29/2004 -0400, you wrote: Just watched a hilarious 30 minutes of comic coverage of the Democratic Party convention with Stewart's sidekicks doing a kind of Ali G routine with delegates. While listening to a woman identified as a Kerry spokesperson explain how Kerry had rallied the party, blah-blah, Stewart's reporter (a bald guy--don't know his name) began yawning ostentatiously. When asked him if she was boring him, he said without skipping a beat, It's not you, it's just what you are saying. After shaking James Carville's hand, another reporter, Richard Colbert (?) told him that he was great in Slingblade. The fact that this show is wildly popularly with young people gives me hope for the future. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org --
War or resistance? Demos go for war
Title: War or resistance? Demos go for war The great unmentionable at the Democratic convention: Kerry's antiwar past By David Walsh 30 July 2004 One of the most striking and dishonest features of the Democratic Party convention and nomination of Senator John Kerry this week in Boston has been the concerted effort to excise the moral high point of its presidential candidate's career: his outspoken repudiation of and opposition to the Vietnam war in the early 1970s. Other than a relatively fleeting reference in the video biography presented Thursday night, which concentrated on his military career, almost no mention was made during four days of the convention of Kerry's antiwar activity. There is a farcical element to this. Everyone in the Democratic Party hierarchy, every delegate and every member of the media is aware of Kerry's record, but no one can mention it-his career is being "sanitized," in the eyes of the political and media establishment. What does this falsification of history-that it must deny past opposition to one of the greatest criminal enterprises of the twentieth century-say about the Democratic Party as a whole? The various glowing tributes paid him at the convention simply skipped over the period during which Kerry actively opposed the Vietnam War in the national political arena. Headline speakers at the Democratic Party national convention have referred repeatedly to Kerry's record of service in Vietnam, including his various medals. Former Vice President Al Gore told his audience that Kerry "showed uncommon heroism on the battlefield of Vietnam." Former President Jimmy Carter observed, "When our national security requires military action, John Kerry has already proven in Vietnam that he will not hesitate to act." New York Sen. Hillary Clinton declared that "we need to take care of our men and women in uniform who, like John Kerry, risk their lives." Her husband and former President Bill Clinton waxed pseudo-eloquent on the subject of Kerry's record: "During the Vietnam War, many young men, including the current president, the vice president and me, could have gone to Vietnam and didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background. He could have avoided going too, but instead, he said: Send me." There was no let-up on the second day of the Democratic convention. Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts referred to Kerry as "a war hero"; Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt asserted that "John Kerry defended our freedom at the barrel of a gun"; Barack Obama, Democratic candidate for the US Senate from Illinois, gushed about Kerry's "heroic service in Vietnam." Teresa Heinz Kerry, the candidate's wife, pointedly told the crowd that her husband had "earned his medals the old-fashioned way, by putting his life on the line for his country." On July 28 Kerry made his entrance into downtown Boston by ferrying across its harbor in the company of a dozen members of the US navy swift boat he commanded during the Vietnam War. The stunt was intended one more time to remind the public of Kerry's war record and, more generally, to associate him with the military. That evening the celebration of the military reached new heights with the unprecedented appearance on the stage of the convention of twelve retired generals and admirals, including two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Gen. John M. Shalikashvili and Admiral William J. Crowe), a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander (Gen. Wesley Clark) and a former director of the CIA (Admiral Stansfield Turner). Shalikashvili was given a prominent time-slot for his remarks to the convention. The same night Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina began his acceptance speech by once again paying tribute to Kerry's military record: "For those who want to know what kind of leader he'll be, I want to take you back about 30 years. When John Kerry graduated college, he volunteered for military service, volunteered to go to Vietnam, volunteered to captain a swift boat, one of the most dangerous duties in Vietnam that you could have. As a result, he was wounded, honored for his valor." In preparation for his address to the convention July 29, according to the Bloomberg news service, Kerry was "surrounding himself" with his former crewmates and veterans of the Vietnam War "to make his case that he is qualified to lead the campaign against terrorism and manage the war in Iraq." There is an objective logic to politics and to the political atmosphere the Democratic Party has created at its national gathering. Many antiwar Democratic voters and "left" liberals may be telling themselves that the flag-waving glorification of militarism will be jettisoned when and if Kerry takes office, that it is necessary as a campaign tactic to defuse Republican attacks, etc., but they are deluding themselves. The political physiognomy of the next Democratic administration is being prepared at this convention: pro-war, militarist and
Nader says why
Title: Nader says why Ralph Nader, featured in special Democratic Convention edition of The Hill, sending a clear message to the corporate political duopoly. The Hill June 29, 2004 OP-ED I'm staying in the race. Here's why. Get used to it. By Ralph Nader Washington, DC is corporate-controlled territory. You can see it in Congress, the regulatory agencies, the Departments, the presidency - corporations rule the nation. The power of corporate influence affects every aspect of our domestic policy as well as our foreign policy, pushing the United States into wars in countries with resources the corporate engine needs and into trade agreements that weaken U.S. sovereignty and undermine environmental, labor, and consumer rights. The mass concentrations of power, privilege, wealth, technology, and immunity have placed their rampaging global quest for maximum profits in the way of progress, justice, and opportunity for the very millions of workers who made possible these corporate profits but who are falling behind, excluded, and expendable. Their labors have gone unrequited as these unpatriotic corporations abandon our country and shift industries abroad, along with what is left of their allegiance to our country and community. As a result, jobs are being shipped overseas to China, where a despotic regime forbids trade unions from negotiating fair wages. This loss of jobs leads to a downward spiral in wages in the United States, where today one out of four full-time workers is now paid less than $8.75 an hour - less than an individual, and certainly a family, can live on. Lobbyists from Wal-Mart and McDonalds ensure that living wage legislation goes nowhere in Congress. Corporatism has turned federal and state departments and agencies into indentured servants for taxpayer-funded subsidies and budget-busting lucrative contracts. Middle-level and top-level corporate executives become mid-level and top-level government regulators and then return to their corporations. The superficially regulated become the regulators and then become the regulated again. Through their revolving-door officials, thousands of Political Action Committees, donations from executives, day-to-day lobbying by trade associations, company lobbies, and corporate law firms, corporations dominate the actions of government. There has been a resistant corporate crime wave that has looted and drained trillions of dollars from millions of workers, their pensions, and from small investors. Has the President supplied the required law enforcement resources for action? Scarcely. Has Congress investigated this massive crime wave and demanded action? Barely. As CNN's Lou Dobbs reports regularly, very few of these bosses have been brought to justice and jail. Corporate tax contributions as a percent of the overall federal revenue stream have been declining for fifty years: once 30% of our income, they now stand at 7.4%, despite massive record profits. President Harry Truman first proposed universal health care in 1955. We still don't have it. Instead we have a wasteful health care system - where 25% of the costs are spent on redundant and unnecessary bureaucracy because it is built on inefficient profit-driven health insurance industry - and an increasingly bill-gouging network of HMO's and hospitals. The United States spends far more on health care than any other country in the world but ranks only 37th in the overall quality of health care it provides, according to the World Health Organization. The U.S. is the only industrialized country that does not provide universal health care. More than 44.3 million Americans have no health insurance, and tens of millions more are underinsured. Each year, 18,000 people die in the U.S. because of lack of health care, according to the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine. Why doesn't the government face up to this issue? Because the healthcare sellers and health insurance industries have donated to politicians to ensure the outcome. A recent highlight of corporate influence over government was the prescription drug bill. The bill was a big profit maker for the drug companies. They invested $150 million in lobbying the government and in return got a $400 billion drug bill. Once again, the corporations win - the people lose. In a few years investigative journalists will report how many people died because they could not afford life-saving medicine. The U.S. military-industrial complex continues to build for Soviet-era enemies that no longer exist. The defense budget, which now accounts for half of the operating spending of the federal government, is driven by weapons procurement for million dollar missiles, expensive airplanes costing tens of millions each, and atomic submarines costing much more. How are these decisions made? The weapons industry comes forward with plans and ideas and then coordinates a lobbying campaign on Congress. Presently, global corporations are bent on
more nader to moore
Title: more nader to moore Hey Michael, Where's Your Past? The saga of Michael the Second continues. From a stalwart collaborator before huge rallies in our 2000 Nader/LaDuke campaign to a puzzling sidelines posture, to an endorsement of Wesley Clark, you have perplexed more than a few of your admirers. Now you have declared in the June 24, 2004 issue of USA Today that you hope to have a significant impact on the 4 to 6% who now say they are going to vote for Ralph to vote for Kerry. Wow! That's a long way from Michael of Flint and Michael of Washington, DC. You are some traveler. On The Charlie Rose Show last Thursday you repeated the false statement that I promised to avoid the close states in 2000 and therefore you broke away from the campaign in the last month and urged a vote for Gore. Strange - you were berating Democrats before nearly 10,000 people at our MCI Rally on November 5 - two days before the election. If you would like to see a copy of the tape of your speech let me know. And, you campaigned with us in some of those close states. I have called you on this false assertion regarding the close states yet you keep repeating the falsehood. Our 2000 Campaign was a 50 state run, (and I campaigned in all 50 states) from the beginning, a point repeated again and again, even though I spent 28 days in California and only 2 in Florida. In my last message to Michael the Second I mistakenly believed that your views had not changed, with an exception or two, It's that your circles have changed. Too much Clinton, not enough Camejo, I observed. Now on The Rose Show you, the great freedom fighter, urged us to withdraw, urged rejection of the opportunity for millions of Americans to vote for a candidacy of their choice and a good agenda for their future. So the anti-war Michael supports the pro-war Kerry; the anti-Patriot Act Michael supports the pro-Patriot Act Kerry; the pro-tax on corporations Michael supports the low tax on dividends and capital gains Kerry. What ever happened to the great resister? Do you think any of the corporate lobbies are quaking in anticipation of a Kerry win, e.g. the military industrial complex (to use Eisenhower's warning phrase), the pharmaceutical, nuclear power, banking, securities, insurance, petrochemical, agribusiness, biotechnology, real estate and fossil fuel industries. The corporate government in Washington is the permanent government - as you well know. Oh well, we thought we knew ye, Michael. At least while you mingle with the people born to the purple and other nouveau riche, you'll still wear your working clothes and keep your cap on real tight as you bend to the wind. Best wishes for future films, Ralph Nader
Re: more nader to moore
You go, Ralph! Dan Scanlan wrote: more nader to moore Hey Michael, Where's Your Past? The saga of Michael the Second continues. From a stalwart collaborator before huge rallies in our 2000 Nader/LaDuke campaign to a puzzling sidelines posture, to an endorsement of Wesley Clark, you have perplexed more than a few of your admirers. Now you have declared in the June 24, 2004 issue of USA Today that you "hope to have a significant impact on the 4 to 6% who now say they are going to vote for Ralph" to vote for Kerry. Wow! That's a long way from Michael of Flint and Michael of Washington, DC. You are some traveler. On "The Charlie Rose Show" last Thursday you repeated the false statement that I promised to avoid the close states in 2000 and therefore you broke away from the campaign in the last month and urged a vote for Gore. Strange - you were berating Democrats before nearly 10,000 people at our MCI Rally on November 5 - two days before the election. If you would like to see a copy of the tape of your speech let me know. And, you campaigned with us in some of those close states. I have called you on this false assertion regarding the close states yet you keep repeating the falsehood. Our 2000 Campaign was a 50 state run, (and I campaigned in all 50 states) from the beginning, a point repeated again and again, even though I spent 28 days in California and only 2 in Florida. In my last message to Michael the Second I mistakenly believed that your views had not changed, with an exception or two, "It's that your circles have changed. Too much Clinton, not enough Camejo," I observed. Now on "The Rose Show" you, the great freedom fighter, urged us to withdraw, urged rejection of the opportunity for millions of Americans to vote for a candidacy of their choice and a good agenda for their future. So the anti-war Michael supports the pro-war Kerry; the anti-Patriot Act Michael supports the pro-Patriot Act Kerry; the pro-tax on corporations Michael supports the low tax on dividends and capital gains Kerry. What ever happened to the great resister? Do you think any of the corporate lobbies are quaking in anticipation of a Kerry win, e.g. the military industrial complex (to use Eisenhower's warning phrase), the pharmaceutical, nuclear power, banking, securities, insurance, petrochemical, agribusiness, biotechnology, real estate and fossil fuel industries. The corporate government in Washington is the permanent government - as you well know. Oh well, we thought we knew ye, Michael. At least while you mingle with the people born to the purple and other nouveau riche, you'll still wear your working clothes and keep your cap on real tight as you bend to the wind. Best wishes for future films, Ralph Nader
Daily show
though the Daily Show/Sharpton video isn't available (yet), there are some videos on-line at http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailyshowwithjonstewart/. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Deeper Problems for Shleifer
Does anybody niotice the rapid decline in the Journal of Economic Perspectives? A right winger will take over the Journal of Economc Literature. Anyway, Shleifer may have some problems. David Warsh. Economic Principles. http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/04.07.04.html Judge Finds Against Shleifer, Hay and Harvard The US government's long-running wrangle with economist Andrei Shleifer and Harvard University over Harvard's ill-fated Russia Project in the 1990s was resolved last week, in the government's favor. A Federal judge ruled that, by quietly investing on their own accounts while advising the Russian government, Harvard professor Shleifer and his Moscow-based assistant Jonathan Hay had conspired to defraud the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which had been paying their salary. Hay was faulted for violating three counts of the False Claims Act, Shleifer for one, with two other counts against him pending a possible jury trial on what it means to have been assigned to Russia under the contract's terms. (Shleifer asserts that the conflict-of-interest rules didn't apply to him since, though directing the project, he had continued to reside outside of Russia, in Newton, Mass.) The decision by US District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock, based on motions by all sides for that he decide the case as a matter of law on the facts presented, left both Shleifer and Hay liable for treble damages -- as much as $120 million apiece, in the worst case. At the same time, Judge Woodlock cleared Harvard University of the government's most serious accusation, namely that its administrators knew or should have known that their team leaders were investing personally in concert with their wives. He ruled out treble damages under the False Claims Act, thereby confirming Harvard's view of itself as the victim of a couple of rogue employees. Harvard couldn't be faulted for failing to investigate rumor-like allegations that trickled back to Cambridge, the judge wrote, for the red flags identified by the government never quite reached the level of a piercing whistle; they had more to do with gossip about the provision of various goods and services to Russian officials and their families. The fact that the Project flew the chairman of the Russian SEC and his wife to Idaho for a part-work, part-vacation trip, and that Shleifer paid for training the chairman's wife at his own personal expense may be ethically dubious, he observed, but they don't demonstrate a clear conflict of interest. Nor could the university be blamed for inadequate supervision. A more careful employer might have, for instance, distributed a short memorandum explaining the conflicts provision, and perhaps even required Project staff (whether 'employees' or 'consultants') to fill out a disclosure form, wrote the judge. If the applicable legal standard in this case were negligent supervision, he continued, the government would have a better case against Harvard. Instead, he noted, the fraud law required proof of actual knowledge or reckless disregard. Paul Ware, the university's outside counsel, said last week, Harvard is very encouraged that the court has unequivocally ruled that the university neither engaged in nor knew of any fraudulent conduct. Even the breach of contract claim, according to the court, is not established as a result of any institutional wrongdoing by the university. In finding that Harvard had breached its contract to deliver the impartial advice it promised, Judge Woodlock's decision left Harvard liable for damages. Previously Harvard has defended the outcome of its project as, on balance, a great success. The university can be expected to argue that there should be a considerable offset to whatever damages are assessed in recognition of the benefits gained by Russia. It was in 1992, after Congress passed the Freedom for Russia and the Emerging Eurasian Democracies and Open Market Support Act, that USAID hired Harvard to provide consultants to the Russian government to help design institutions favorable to democratic government and a market economy. Shleifer in due course became the project director, Hay his deputy. Allegations of conflict of interest boiled over among US aid workers in Moscow in 1997, and USAID began an internal investigation. The agency suspended the project in May. An angry Russian government, staffed by friends of Shleifer and Hay, shelved the relationship the same day. Harvard then fired Hay and relieved Shleifer, a tenured professor, of his project duties. USAID then cancelled the contract. And in September, 2000, the US Attorney in Boston filed an 11-count civil claim against Harvard University, Shleifer, Hay, Nancy Zimmerman (Shleifer's wife and a partner in a hedge fund with investments in Russia) and Elizabeth Hebert (Hay's then-girlfriend, now his wife). US Attorney Donald Stern said at the time that his office had contemplated criminal charges but filed none. Judge Woodlock quickly
Iran more democratic, liberal than Pakistan?
An Iranian friend though that the list might appreciate this article. The Daily Star Friday, July 30, 2004 Iran more democratic, liberal than Pakistan? Not by a long shotEven Tehran's reformists are unabashedly Islamist By Yasser Latif Hamdani This is reference to the article by Richard Bulliet Worry about Pakistan, not Iran. Having lived in and loved both Pakistan and Iran, I can safely say that some of the writers assertions were based on blatant untruths, concocted deliberately to defame Pakistan. It seems to me that the only political pawn for people like Bulliet here is Pakistan, not Iran. Bulliet claims that Iran is a modern country with a liberal population and is closer to a functioning democracy while Pakistan teeters on the edge of becoming a failed state. This claim is laughable and shows that Bulliet has never set foot in either country. Let us consider the issue of functioning democracy first. If a robust Parliament and a democratically elected executive are the requirements of a functioning democracy Pakistan is much more so than Iran, because Pakistan has both elected legislatures at local, provincial and national legislatures as well as an elected prime minister. It is true that the head of the state is a general, but then by the same analogy who elected the Supreme Guide and Rahbar of Iran? The people? If freedom of expression and press are the indicators of a functioning democracy then Pakistan beats Iran hands down. Pakistan has an outspoken press that is highly critical of its government. The very publication of Bulliet's article in a leading Pakistani daily should be evidence enough. Pakistan has a resilient civil society that is more progressive and liberal than any in the Islamic world. Today there are countless private channels that debate day in and day out the issues that are otherwise considered taboo and will never find any voice in most Muslim countries, including the modern and democratic Iran of Bulliet's dreams. I am not sure how Bulliet defines the word liberal, but an average Pakistani on a Pakistani street is more liberal than an average Iranian, both in dress and thought. Perhaps the reason for that is that no government in Pakistan has enforced a dress code as the democratic, modern and liberal Iran has. Pakistani women are free from any legal restriction to wear anything. As a result, you find all sorts of women - from those dressed in Western clothes to those wearing a burqah. It is quite normal to find a young Pakistani woman wearing a tube top and jeans in major cities of Pakistan, but impossible to find it in the democratic and liberal Iran where anything less than the roohsari and chador is considered nudity and is against the law. In Pakistan you don't find policemen telling women to wear their chador in the prescribed way. This only happens in modern and democratic Iran. Pakistan's fashion industry, which has been the focus of much international attention, would be considered blasphemy in Iran. If women's role in society and politics is considered to be a benchmark for liberalism, then Pakistan again comes out on top. Not only has Pakistan elected a woman as prime minister twice, but today, with the exception of Sweden, Pakistan has the largest number of women parliamentarians in the world. This is unthinkable in modern, democratic and liberal Iran. Unlike the unidentified surveys by Iranian sociologists which point to a pro-American population these facts are much more conclusive when determining which country is progressive. As for terrorist outrages in Pakistan, it is expected for a front-line state in the war on terror to be targeted. Besides, Pakistan has a much larger population than Iran, and with significantly less resources. There are many reasons why the US today engages General Pervez Musharraf. Unlike other dictators the US is known to have supported, General Musharraf is, in the words of Bill Clinton, intelligent, sophisticated and strong. General Musharraf understands that the Islamist wave on the upsurge in Pakistan is the fallout of the Cold War, and if it not stopped, can destroy Pakistan. Meanwhile, even the reformist leaders of Iran are unabashedly Islamist in their thinking. It must be remembered that unlike modern and democratic Iran, the Islamists in Pakistan have never won popular support. The most popular leaders of Pakistan have always been Western educated lawyers and liberal democrats like M. A. Jinnah, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto. Time and again the people of Pakistan have rejected the mullahs at the polls. It was the US that funded and founded those hundreds of Islamic madrassas that Bulliet talks about in his article. It was an Islamist curriculum prepared at the University of Nebraska that was introduced in Pakistan at the behest of the CIA. The idea was to create a generation of Islamist warriors as a bulwark against communism and socialism, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Today the chickens have come home to roost,
Microsof on Intellectual Property
Lohr, Steve. 2004. Pursuing Growth, Microsoft Steps Up Patent Chase. New York Times (30 July). Microsoft said on Thursday that it planned to increase its storehouse of intellectual property by filing 50 percent more patent applications over the next year than in the previous 12 months. Microsoft, the world's largest software company, increasingly regards the legal protection of its programming ideas as essential to safeguarding its growth opportunities. Speaking at the company's yearly meeting with financial analysts, Bill Gates, the company's chairman, called patents a very important part of what he termed the cycle of innovation that has been responsible for Microsoft's past prosperity and continued corporate health. Microsoft's stepped-up patent program, analysts say, will be watched closely in the industry to see if the company uses it mainly as a defensive tactic or as an offensive weapon to try to slow the spread of open source products. Microsoft, Mr. Gates said, intends to file more than 3,000 patents in its 2005 fiscal year, which began this month, up from about 2,000 patent filings in fiscal 2004. It typically takes three years or more before a filed patent is approved. Today, Microsoft trails well behind I.B.M. and several other hardware makers in the size of its patent portfolio. Mr. Gates cited research showing Microsoft patents are cited as prior art, or examples of existing knowledge, in other patent filings somewhat more often than the patents of other technology companies, including Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Apple and I.B.M. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: more nader to moore
Title: more nader to moore Unless there was more than one MCI rally, I was there, and I don't remember any equivocation aboutNader v. Gore fromBro. Moore. mbs On "The Charlie Rose Show" last Thursday you repeated the false statement that I promised to avoid the close states in 2000 and therefore you broke away from the campaign in the last month and urged a vote for Gore. Strange - you were berating Democrats before nearly 10,000 people at our MCI Rally on November 5 - two days before the election. If you would like to see a copy of the tape of your speech let me know. And, you campaigned with us in some of those close states. I have called you on this false assertion regarding the close states yet you keep repeating the falsehood. Our 2000 Campaign was a 50 state run, (and I campaigned in all 50 states) from the beginning, a point repeated again and again, even though I spent 28 days in California and only 2 in Florida.In my last message to Michael the Second I mistakenly believed that your views had not changed, with an exception or two, "It's that your circles have changed. Too much Clinton, not enough Camejo," I observed. Now on "The Rose Show" you, the great freedom fighter, urged us to withdraw, urged rejection of the opportunity for millions of Americans to vote for a candidacy of their choice and a good agenda for their future.So the anti-war Michael supports the pro-war Kerry; the anti-Patriot Act Michael supports the pro-Patriot Act Kerry; the pro-tax on corporations Michael supports the low tax on dividends and capital gains Kerry. What ever happened to the great resister?Do you think any of the corporate lobbies are quaking in anticipation of a Kerry win, e.g. the military industrial complex (to use Eisenhower's warning phrase), the pharmaceutical, nuclear power, banking, securities, insurance, petrochemical, agribusiness, biotechnology, real estate and fossil fuel industries. The corporate government in Washington is the permanent government - as you well know.Oh well, we thought we knew ye, Michael. At least while you mingle with the people born to the purple and other nouveau riche, you'll still wear your working clothes and keep your cap on real tight as you bend to the wind.Best wishes for future films,Ralph Nader
