Re: An emerging labor-led left in the DP?
-Original Message- From: Robert Naiman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jul 27, 2004 10:18 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] An emerging labor-led left in the DP? if a Kerry administration is forced to preside over deep cuts to Social Security and other social programs ? nothing will force a Kerry Administration to cut Social Security. There is nothing wrong with Social Security. __ Just because Social Security is financially sound does not mean it won't be cut, and cut by a Dem or a Rep. The force, and force there will be, comes from Wall Street because Wall Street wants the business. Will the words of disaffection from the SEIU leaders are remarkable, the remarkable resides in the growing restlessness of the rank and file. That rank and file can and will suppport a labor party if such a party is aggressive in articulating working class interests as interests of all, including those workers outside the US.
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
THEIR thugs are OUR thugs, just as they were in Afghanistan. It is the decimation of the social structure under US attack that creates the opportunity for and the thugs themselves. We can control our thugs? That must be comforting to all those in US run prisons. I can't wait until somebody in the US military tells them how much better off they are. The facts are that the economy is worse off now than before; living standards continue to decline; oil revenues are misappropriated. This was/is a capitalist assault against the social costs of reproducing an economy that might support something more than starvation and deprivation. The only rationale, humane, position is the radical and revolutionary position, OUT NOW, and that's just for starters. From: Chris Doss [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jul 21, 2004 6:14 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Frank op-ed piece indeed i read about this, and it only adds to my doubt. i am not very knowledgeable about iraq but is it not possible that the thugs who will rush in to fill the void left by a suddenly departed US army, would be worse? i remember reading pieces about east timor, rwanda, and elsewhere, of the horrors that ensued when any provisional authority pulled out (in those cases these authorities were a bit more legitimate, such as the UN). isnt it important not to forget that their thugs are as bad as ours? only, we can try to control our thugs but they cannot control theirs or ours. --ravi --- I personally have no real opinion on this subject, since I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on what's happening in Iraq, but over in this part of the world the powers-that-be are very worried that Iraq is going to wind up as a fundamentalist state sitting on huge amounts of oil reserves that would try to further destabilize Central Asia, which would be really bad. (Then again, a fundamentalist state dependent on Iran might even be a good thing for the Kremlin, since relations between Moscow and Tehran are pretty close and Russia views Iran as a moderating influence in the Muslim world. One of the first things Putin did after he became president was to invite Khattami to the opening of a new mosque in Tatarstan.) __ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece
With all deserved respect: No, I'm not the moderator, nor very moderate. I recognize being a left apologist for occupation is not always a bed of roses. I'm sure there are days when you feel like chucking everything and going away for a well-deserved rest, but there is no rest for the weary. You did argue against immediate withdrawal of the US from Iraq as that would destabilize the entire society; that the US was the force the could create the breathing space needed for a democratic government. The US GAO, now known as the Government Accountability Office (recent name change) has issued a report detailing the increased instability and economic decay wrought by the occupation. Care to make your arguments again? Guess not. Just one more thing: Is apologizing for the occupation part of being a great uniter rather than a divider of the working class? Just curious, you know, because my experience with union bureaucracies and leadership was that they were the dividers, like, ummh... Douglas Fraser, who secured his position in the UAW, and I would guess the board of Chrysler, after leading armed goons into the Jefferson Avenue plant to break the wildcat strike of the mostly African-American workers protesting the speed-ups and lack of safety. Now that's unity. _ Now for something completely different, re Deregulation Contortions: Some of you might remember Wendy Gramm, married to free market Phil, from her service for the Enron corporation prior to its collapse, a position she obtained after her service on the government's Commodity Futures Trading Commission, where she advocated and secured deregulation of the trading in energy futures that made Enron what it is today. Hugs to All -Original Message- From: Joel Wendland [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jul 20, 2004 1:29 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Thomas Frank op-ed piece Please, before you remark upon others's comments-- I didn't know you were the moderator. I'll let your request for further discussion on another subject go. Clearly you think you know what I think and don't want to waste my time trying to disabuse you of your sagacious superiority. I'll be sure to avoid reading your posts in the future. Take care, Joel Wendland _ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
Iraq
I also think Michael meant what he wasn't aware he wrote, and I endorse his unconscious wholeheartedly. I believe that the first step in the liberation of Iraq must be our opposition to the deployment of US military forces anywhere in the world, including upon the soil of the United States.
Re: oil query
i need to ask someone questions like when analysts or journalists refer to millions of barrels of oil produced per day, what products are they typically including? thanks in advance for any assistance. _ Usually used to mean petroleum, natural gas liquids, condensates.
Re: Hegel Marx
Long version: Last time I looked, we weren't heaping praise on Hegel, nor has anyone denied Hegel's racism. But denying the importance of both the substance and method of Hegel to Marx's of work because Hegel wasn't a humanist, was an idealist, and was ignorant, in every sense of the word, concerning Africa is substituting moral repugnance and outrage for historical analysis, something which is anti-Marxist to the core. Marx never denied the importance of Hegel for the development of his work. Marx, to my knowledge, also never described his work as humanism. And despite the acrobatics of some, Marxism has little enough to do with what passes as humanism. Short version: We were discussing Marx's use of Hegelian jargon, whether or not he even used it (I still can't find anything that comes close to Hegel's expositions). If somebody out there is vilifying Russell, Mead, Dewey, that's a horse on a different colored list. -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jul 14, 2004 12:14 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Hegel Marx When Marxists heap adulation on a reactionary, racist, anti-humanist metaphysician and Prussian propagandist, then perhaps we have a slight problem. Sure, some of Hegel's ideas are built into Marx's thinking and later Marxism. So are Aristotle's, Leibniz's, etc. Sure, Marx matured in an atmosphere of Hegelianism and could not have avoided being influenced byt it (even if the influence was filtered through radical Hegelians). But if we leap backward over Marx to Hegel and start to proclaim that Hegelian ontology has any value and validity today, we really come close to betraying the spirit of Marx. Some Marxists have claimed to find that just about every non-Marxist philosopher was advancing materialism. It isn't true of Hegel. Hegel and Kant represent the two important streams of idealist thinking that have come down to us. We can give those guys credit for their place in the history of ideas, but we have to recognize that historical and dialectical materialism denies the validity of most of their doctrines. *Except* in the context of the history of ideas, they have no relevance. What really pisses me off is reading Marxists proclaiming the importance of old idealist philosophers -- and new idealist philosophers -- and totally neglecting the naturalist, realist, philosophers. We have to overcome the tendency to heap invective on thinkers whose ideas are close enough to Marxism to pose a real threat of presenting an alternative to Marxism and of seducing people away from Marxism. That was the case with Lenin vis-a-vis Mach -- no radical, but yet a philosopher of science, unlike Hegel. Think of the way we vilify or ignore Dewey. Russell. Whitehead. Mead. The positivists. Etc. These folks represent the main line of thinking in philosophies that are friendly to science and are to one degree or another materialist (although the word of course scared them). Nor are these philosophers somehow anti-humanist and anti-subjective. There is, IMHO, more humanism in John Dewey than there is in the entire Hot Dog school. Dewey, after all, pioneered the most humanistic form of education that we have. And, for goodness sake, Mead practically invented social psychology. Enough said. I don't plan to respond to other postings on this thread unless it becomes unavoidable (personal). En lucha Jim Blaut -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Christian Parenti reporting from Falluja
Hey wait a minute, as someone who has been unsubbed by all three of you, I have to say Michael's response to the self-aggrandizing bleatings of Henwood and Proyect is an insult to those of us who value the value of real insults. In baseball the umpire warns both benches once and then tosses the next guy who throws at the other guy's head. The fact that both these guys are throwing whiffle balls at empty heads does not excuse them. Throw the bums out, Mike. Sit em down for awhile. Fine 'em. Suspend them from the next 5 games. Or at least until they get some originality in their name-calling. And I say this with respect and affection. Peace and Love. -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jul 8, 2004 3:37 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Christian Parenti reporting from Falluja He was running around with Dar Jamil, who has been regularly reporting for KPFA. Dar was in the middle of everything, so I assume that Christian was also. Again, the personal stuff adds nothing here. I don't agree with some of what Christian says, but you can just point out the disagreements without attacking the person. Successful politics rises above the personal. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Christian Parenti reporting from Falluja
Speaking of disturbed-- why is it that Mr. Wendland bemoans the deteriorating security in Iraq without looking at the source of that deterioration, which is the US destruction of the Iraqi society? Why is it that Mr. Wendland poses his questions before grappling with the one that he should answer before all others: Why do you contend that the US/UK presence in Iraq is a stabilizing force when the US GAO itself has documented the decline in stability, security, and economic well-being since the US/UK invasion? -Original Message- From: Joel Wendland [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jul 8, 2004 3:40 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Christian Parenti reporting from Falluja Louis Proyect ranted: With the security situation deteriorating rapidly in the country (thank goodness), young Parenti (son of Michael) seems content to report from the relative safety of a Baghdad hotel. First why anybody would say thank goodness to a deteriorating security situation (which means a lot of people -- mostly Iraqis -- are getting killed) seems to contradict Carrol Cox's repetitive and disingenuous claim that people on the sectarian left do not support the idea that the worse is better. What does Cox say? It's an urban legend. Needless to say, with every fiber of the Nation Magazine, his employer George Soros, and his daddy Michael straining to put pro-occupation, anti-cut and run John Kerry into the White House, the message of Christian's article would seem to serve ulterior motives. The last part of Proyect's post also seems to contradict an e-mail to another list (on which Michael Parenti participated if only briefly) in which he obsequeiously expressed great admiration for MP and what seemed like minor reservations about MP's stand on the elections. Here LP's attitude is more honestly expressed in this vitriolic rant. Seems a liitle disturbed to me -- especially wild claims about Cuban security etc. Best, Joel Wendland _ MSN Life Events gives you the tips and tools to handle the turning points in your life. http://lifeevents.msn.com
Re: Mr. Cranky reviews Fahrenheit 9/11
Or... we could point out that Saudi Arabia is not the only supplier to the US. It is one of the top four suppliers, the other three being Canada, Mexico, andVenezuela-- and look how friend the US govt is to the that government. The dependency of the US on oil imported from Saudi Arabai that is not the determining factor. It is the co-incidence of class interests that makes them as snug as two bugs in a rug. It is the lack of that co-incidence that makes the US hostile to Chavez. Class trumps resources everytime, property makes bedfellows less strange.
Re: Sowell
As long as we understand each other. Anybody who obscures the real source of poverty and immiseration and then argues that better is worse is a hack. Don't know if that describes you personally. -Original Message- From: David B. Shemano [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jul 2, 2004 1:19 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Sowell Mr. Sartesian writes: I am very careful before calling someone a hack. Somebody who makes purely ethereal distinctions in order to obscure the ugly reality in order to justify the continuation of that reality is a hack. Obviously nothing. This is not about simple common sense, as if there exists such a thing, price theories, or the democracy of free markets. It's about class. What makes a hack is someone denying, obscuring his or her class service, by proclaiming rationality, utility, objectivity. Would it shock you if I said J. S. Mill was a hack, and a big one? Friedman is a hack, and never hackier than when he criticized the IMF for its role in the Asian and post-Asian financial collapse of 97-98. Now I understand. Anybody who disagrees with your view of the world is a hack. Mill, Friedman, Sowell and Shemano -- all hacks. I can live with that. David Shemano
Re: Sowell
Be my guest, if you like it, if it fits, and it's how you want to be remembered. Don't much care for epitaphs myself, although I wouldn't mind being remembered as a skirt-chasing bastard. -Original Message- From: David B. Shemano [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jul 2, 2004 3:31 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Sowell Mr. Sartesian writes: As long as we understand each other. Anybody who obscures the real source of poverty and immiseration and then argues that better is worse is a hack. Don't know if that describes you personally. It probably does. Do you mind if I use it for my epitaph? Here lays Shemano the hack, who obscured the real source of poverty and immiseration and then argued that the better is worse. I would insist on being buried next to Herbert Spencer and make Marx stare at it all day. David Shemano
Re: Sowell
THIS WE MUST PARSE... -Original Message- From: David B. Shemano [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jul 2, 2004 6:19 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Sowell Traditional justice, at least in the American tradition, involves treating people the same, holding them to the same standards and having them play by the same rules. ___ Here Shemano proves that Sowell is indeed a hack. Taking an advertising slogan, i.e. American tradition, fair play, equal standards, which in the real history of the US has had exactly nothing to do with the development of its capitalist economy, and designating it as the real history, the real freedom, the real economy. That's what hacks do. I always find Hegel's definition of liberalism A philosopy of the abstract that capitulates before the world of the concrete so appropriate for dealing with hack theories, although I might change it to read ...that covers up for the world of the concrete. Can anyone looking at the real history of capitalist economic development find an American tradition that coincides with Sowell's hackery? Where is the fair play? In Slavery? In theeExtermination of the indigenous peoples? The NYC anti-draft riots? In the fraud and brutal exploitation accompanying the development of the railroads. How about Plessy v. Ferguson? How about in the assaults upon workers, organized privately and through the state against workers trying to organize for better wages? Where is the equal treatment? In the discrimination in employment. In strike-breaking? . Cosmic justice tries to make their prospects equal. One example: this brouhaha about people in the third world making clothing and running shoes -- Kathie Lee and all that. What's being said is: Isn't it awful that these people have to work for such little rewards, while those back here who are selling the shoes are making such fabulous amounts of money? And that's certainly true. But the question becomes, are you going to have everyone play by the same rules, or are you going to try to rectify the shortcomings, errors and failures of the entire cosmos? Because those things are wholly incompatible. If you're going to have people play by the same rules, that can be enforced with a minimum amount of interference with people's freedom. But if you're going to try to make the entire cosmos right and just, somebody has got to have an awful lot of power to impose what they think is right on an awful lot of other people. What we've seen, particularly in the 20th century, is that putting that much power in anyone's hands is enormously dangerous. It doesn't inevitably lead to terrible things. But there certainly is that danger. ___ Once again Shemano shows that Sowell is a hack, obscuring reality by pretending to apply simple rational analysis and then inflating the simplistic analysis as profound historical insight. Everybody play by the same rules vs. enormous power? Exactly what and how would you get any and everyone to play by the same rules when the rules themselves are a function of enormous power. Has Sowell ever seen a maquilladora? Or a clothing factory? Has he ever seen workers in food processing plants, slaughtering, preparing chickens? You cannot get the owners of these plants to abide by even a minimum set of rules regarding health or safety, or even fire codes, much less rules that might be fair. And putting that much power in anyone's hands is enormously dangerous? We are not talking about one person here, again Sowell distorts, and I would say deliberately, the social organization of classes, with individual corruption, arbitrariness, etc. as if those qualities were innate dangers of the human being and not historical expressions of the needs of property and class. __ Later in the interview, there is this exchange: I notice that in New York liberal circles, people generally prefer arguing over ideals to discussing what might work. Being on the side of the angels. Being for affordable housing, for instance. But I don't know of anybody who wants housing to be unaffordable. Liberals tend to describe what they want in terms of goals rather than processes, and not to be overly concerned with the observable consequences. The observable consequences in New York are just scary. _ More hackery. Creating the mythical New York liberal circle, (he left out Jewish) as the well-meaning but ultimately destructive engine of anti-freedom. What a load. What liberals? Doing what? How does this account for the social changes in housing stock, the real deterioration in living standards after 1973; the explosion in single parent working women families below the poverty line after 1979. This faux erudition pretending to be pithy insight is nothing but the William F. Buckley short course in pseudo analysis. And for those of you
Re: Marxist Fianancial Advice
I think Jim is absolutely incorrect here, and also in regard to Marx's works. First, I don't believe anything I said is abusive. I answered Mr. Henwood in exactly the tone he addressed me. I answered with gusto the notion that we can be Marxist debt-holders. And as I stated earlier, I can't believe we don't have the self-perception, and the sense of the absurd to realize just what an oxymoron this thread is. To not feel, read, see that the class struggle is the red thread through every bit of Vol 2 and Vol 3, and all volumes of the Theories of Surplus Value is astounding to me. After all, in every part of these analyses Marx is dealing with extraction and realization of profit, reproduction of capital as a social relation of production and, most importantly the dramatic impact of overproduction, i.e. intensification of the exploitation of labor. And of course, there's that thing called the falling rate of profit. All of these things are manifestations of the fundamental core of Marx's work-- the explication of the conflict between means and relations of production, which is called class struggle. Marx's work is of a whole. The temporary divisions into volumes and topics does not indicate a movement away from the essential contradiction-- social labor and private property. Likewise in TSV, Marx's critique is social, linking the considered political economic theories to definite, historical, class interests. Whatever contradictions we live with personally are not amenable to pacification through enlightened investment programs, etc. Sure it's a contradiction, but why burden Marxism with the task of removing personal moral uncertainty-- or improving portfolio performance? -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jun 25, 2004 11:50 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Marxist Fianancial Advice Jim is absolutely correct here. Like Doug says, part of surviving in the capitalist world is having resources to cover one's expenses after retirement, especially if you have responsibility for other family members. Reconciling marxist beliefs in a capitalist world is a tricky situation for all of us. Each of us lives with serious contradictions in our lives. Lay off the nasty stuff try to listen what others might have to say. On Thu, Jun 24, 2004 at 08:01:22PM -0700, Devine, James wrote: hey, someone honestly asked for financial advice that's based on Marxian ideas. So there were some answers. I'd say the main one was that Marx doesn't have anything to add on this subject. Honest answer for an honest question. Why make fun? jd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list on behalf of sartesian Sent: Thu 6/24/2004 10:33 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Marxist Fianancial Advice Keerist, can't we at least spell financial correctly? And then terminate this thread? Marxist financial advice. Come on. Cut it out. Where doe s this take us? Marxist arbitrage? Marxist hedge funds? Behind every free market there's a death squad, at least one. You need more money? S. Don't tell anyone. Figure it out yourself or go get a CFA. Next subject, Marxist methods of seducing housekeepers? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Marxist Fianancial Advice
Reading JD, I thought I'd go back and check the archives, because I could have sworn somebody was actually giving financial advice in response to the original query. The thread started on 21 June. Jim's was the first response-- his words were diversify, diversify, diversify.. he did warn against expecting the stock market to be moral. In fact he warned against overweighting stocks, but I think that was for performance reasons. The thread wanders a bit, as others, offer their personal wishes about retirement plans, a debate on presidents and military actions, ensues, and then Jim repeats his advice about diversifying, holding for the long term, so you won't eat dog food. Henwood's got his cats and his cat food, Jim's got dog food. Bird seed anybody? Then comes the advice about doing the right thing in the international debt markets and taking positions (long? short?) in Venezuelan debt. That's a real thing of beauty by the way. Now for Marx's writings. Marx's work, throughout all the notebooks, the volumes of Capital, the Grundrisse, is thoroughly focused on the core of capital-- the social relation of production-- the relation between labor and the conditions of labor, upon social labor and private property, upon wage-labor and capital, how each exists only in the organization of the other in a specific historical moment, and how the conflict in that organization manifest itself in every facet of capital's circuits. Is there more to Marx than the class struggle? Yes. But there is nothing to Marx without that class struggle. All that is more is the expansion of the that core. The competitition of capital's is a manifestation of the flaw in the private property form that encapsulates social production, as capitals have to achieve a social verification by throwing all privately appropriated values into circulation to obtain any portion of the total value. It is a manifestation of the conflict between use and exchange, or.. private property and social production., or labor and the conditions of labor. It is in fact, derivative. You can look at the whole in pieces, but only if the pieces are recognized as a facet, a momentary condition of the essential organizing social relation. Finally, I come to the remark about giving advice simply as common sense. Marx, like Hegel, had a lot to say about common sense. None of it good. And why? Because common sense was an ideological concept, not a critical analysis. Which is why Marxist financial advice is worse than an oxymoron. And I say all of the above in good humor with peace and love in my heart for all.
Re: Marxist Financial Advice
-Original Message- From: Sabri Oncu [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jun 25, 2004 6:56 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Marxist Financial Advice The only condition is that you have to be someone I like. Sartesian has no hope to get that 20 Million Liras Turkish banknote from me, for example Best, Sabri Hey, didn't you read what Michael said about nastiness? How counter-productive it is? If I weren't such a thick-skinned, jolly, all around sweet guy I might be tempted to answer in kind. Hmmmh... with something like And in the scheme of things, the banknote and your personal opinions are equally worthless. I'm just thankful that my Marxist retirement plan investment portfolio doesn't include any Lira denominated instruments. Hugs
Re: EMH
Well, I don't know if this is within the expected time range, but neither the methods, nor the substance, nor importance of the work done by Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Preobrazhensky, WEB DuBois, CLR James, etc. etc. is dead. Nor is any of their work an ideology. The value of the method and the work is its intimate, essential relation with the concrete; the actual economic, social determinants of capitalism development/destruction. Such work can be (mis)shaped into an ideology, but only by disassociating the actual method and content of the analysis from social reality, i.e duplicating the fetishism of capitalism, and turning Marx or Lenin into a commodity. When specific historical contexts are ignored and economic determinants are unexplored you get a sort of mirrored reproduction of capital, which is nothing but the alienation of labor, turning Marx on his head. -Original Message- From: Chris Doss [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jun 24, 2004 10:06 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] EMH Here, all you have to say is __ and __ pulls the flamethrower out of the closet. Doug --- Marxism-Leninism is a dead ideology! I count the seconds... :)
Re: Putin
I believe that, Mr. Proyect's statement, is a mischaracterization of Mr. Doss's. Clearly Chris Doss is pointing out that Shamil was not exactly a great emancipator struggling for the future of the downtrodden. I wish there were a bit more concrete analysis presented, rather than assertions that oil and geopolitical forces are at work. It might involve some original investigation, there may not be a lexis-nexis connection, but if you claim oil is at the source, then show us the critical economic condition, in terms of value, of oil. It would be nice to see some presentation of the class issues involved here. -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jun 23, 2004 9:53 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Putin Chris Doss wrote: Dude, I think I know who Imam Shamil is. I referred to his failed attempt to impose Shariah in an earlier, apparently unread, post. He was a Dagestani Avar. Shamil Basayev is named after him. He lived out his last years in a sumptuous palace outside St. Petersburg on the tsar's money, after having been bribed to quit fighting. He died in what is now Saudi Arabia, after having been given permission to go there by the tsar. I am not sure I gather your drift here. You seem to be okaying the Czarist conquest of the Caucauses because they were fighting backward religious practices or something like that? I had no idea that the Russian Orthodox Church was a beacon of civilization and enlightenment. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Putin
Oh, Mr. Proyect, you again shift the isssues around to justify a previous mis-characterization. You mis-construed Mr. Doss's earlier and accused him of having a soft-spot for Russian Orthodox Christianity after he, correctly as far as I have been able to verify, related the rather unsavory history of this supposed nationalist. Those Marxists who may or may not endorse a particular national liberation struggle are not: 1. made Marxists or non-Marxists by their endorsement 2. relieved from correctly characterizing the leaders of such a struggle 3.released from providing the linkage, economic, material, class, between that particular struggle and the prospects for revolution. From what I have been able to find, the Bolsheviks did not consider Chechnyans as a national minority with a right of succession. If you have other specific information, please provide it. And just as certainly, Stalin brutally displaced the bulk of the Chechnyan people. But arguments by analogy are inherently weak-- entertaining, but weak. Analogy refers to function, not cause or source. And source is everything to Marxists. -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jun 23, 2004 10:14 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Putin s.artesian wrote: Clearly Chris Doss is pointing out that Shamil was not exactly a great emancipator
Re: Marxist Fianancial Advice
Title: Marxist Fianancial Advice There is no Marxist political economy, since Marx is exploring the necessity for the overthrow of the system that generates political economy as an ideological cover. There is no Marxist financial advice other than, perhaps, seize the banks, cancel the debt. Would suggest that financial maneuvers are a personal issue and should be handled offlist.
Re: Deflation?
Nothing new here. It's just the old contrary contrarian thesis in list form. Besides since when are economic vulnerability and expansion incompatible? Unless somebody is predicting disaster, catastrophe, species-extinction, vulnerability and expansion go hand in hand. -Original Message- From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jun 18, 2004 10:43 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Deflation? H, I think it's worth testing the hypothesis that when PEN-L gets a thread going on economic vulnerability, the economy is about to accelerate. This is a good real-time test. Doug
Re: Spiked-online and the Hubbert curve
The connections to and from Big Oil are not confined to those who think the issues are social, economic, not natural in origin. I for example don't even have an ExxonMobil credit card, nor an automobile for that matter. Moreover, as the Hubbertists are proud to tell you their credentials include past and current connections to Big Oil, and at the fees these guys charge for consulting services and a peek at their exclusive databases only Big Oil can afford them. So tarring anybody with a Big Oil brush is somewhat ridiculous as I'm sure comrade Proyect would not hesitate in reproducing an article quoting any geologist or finance officer of a Big Oil company worrying about exploration costs and the inability to replace reserves. -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Jun 4, 2004 12:41 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] Spiked-online and the Hubbert curve Last November, Paul Flewers had the following to say about spiked-online. Re Spiked and their new pals Hill and Knowlton. As a former supporter of the Revolutionary Communist Party, I'm hardly surprised at this. They'll go with anybody, so it seems, these days. The question is: Who's listening to them? An interesting exercise to while away idle hours is to take some names from the Spiked web-site, do a Google search, and find for what corporations and think-tanks they've been working. We're talking about Big Oil here, that sort of thing. I should explain the reference to Hill and Knowlton. This is a PR firm that was responsible for creating the campaign that led to Gulf War 1. Remember the business about Iraqi soldiers plucking Kuwaiti babies from their incubators and dumping them on the cold floor to die? That lie was cooked up by Hill and Knowlton. If you go to www.spiked-online.com and clink events, you'll discover no less than 3 soirees co-sponsored by Hill and Knowlton. Although there are fewer and fewer radicals who have connections with this crew, they do seem to maintain some credibility--largely through the efforts of James Heartfield, an erstwhile ubiquitous figure on the Internet who still writes Marxish sounding tracts. For example, a young Barnard professor named Bashir Abu-Manneh has a polemic against Hardt and Negri in the latest MR that finds these words by Heartfield worth quoting: ?The real meaning of the ?new social movements? is a move away from the idea of an agent of social transformation altogether. The novel forms of organization are a break with the idea of collective agency.? Unfortunately, Abu-Manneh, with whom I had a discussion with on this citation, seems unaware that in the world of James Heartfield social transformation entails the liberal use of DDT, a right to smoke cigarettes in restaurants, etc. There was some progress, however. In the original version of the article, there were also favorable references to Frank Furedi, Hardt's guru, that are now nowhere to be found. I imagine that after I pointed these words written by Furedi in a U. of Kent faculty newsletter--I am feeling depressed. The violence in the Middle East dominates the news. The media have dropped the sex education debate--he must have had second thoughts. All this is background, especially Paul Flewer's discovery of spiked-online connections to big oil companies, to an article that appears on spiked-online today: Inflaming the oil crisis by Joe Kaplinsky Are we running out of oil? Terrorism in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, and ongoing instability in Iraq have put oil security back in the headlines. Prices have risen to over $40 a barrel and the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is under pressure to increase quotas. Many fear that a catastrophe in the Middle East could cut off oil supplies. Worries about supplies have been slowly building for some time; recent events have brought them to a head. But to the extent that real problems exist, they are less the result of oil scarcity or instability in the Middle East than of more general fears within the West. In the USA high petrol prices are a talking point of the election, where the subtext is that intervention is Iraq created the problem. But some argue that what makes the apparent oil shortage really scary is an underlying problem of oil depletion. Economist Paul Krugman argues that, 'the disastrous occupation [of Iraq] is only part of the reason oil is getting more expensive; the other, which will last even if America somehow finds a way out of the quagmire, is the intensifying competition for a limited world oil supply' (1). Fears about running out of oil have become widespread in America. A slew of books have recently put forward the imminent oil depletion argument: Hubbert's Peak by Kenneth Deffeyes (2001), The Party's Over by Richard Heinberg (2003), and Out of Gas by David Goodstein and The End of Oil by Paul Roberts, both published this year (2). Like earlier concerns about oil depletion, the current
