In its news summary, SLATE, Microsoft's on-line magazine, says that USA TODAY >says the number of Russian diplomat-spies here has risen 40 percent in >the last five years, and is now at Cold War-era levels. The spies' focus >has shifted from military to industrial secrets. I'm sure that neoliberals are happy with the shift to capitalist forms of competition, but I wonder: what good industrial espionage does a country that has a totally dysfunctional economy (largely due to the neoliberal shock-treatment)? I would guess that the Russians, like the US, have a spy establishment that needs to keep on thinking up ways to stay employed, so they keep on thinking up new enemies and roles. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
