pensions politics at Treasury Dept.

[Eubulides]

Treasury Disavows Pension 'Talking Points'
Snow to Investigate IBM Distribution of Doctored Memo to Members of
Congress
By Albert B. Crenshaw
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 11, 2003; Page A09


Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said yesterday that he would look into
reports that International Business Machines Corp. lobbyists doctored a
document to make it look as if the department opposed restrictions on
cash-balance pensions.

Treasury officials said later the matter has been referred to the
department's inspector general.

At issue is a document that IBM lobbyists sent to congressional offices
stating that the department opposed an amendment, sponsored by Rep.
Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.)., to its 2004 appropriations bill. The amendment,
which the House approved Tuesday, would bar the department from writing
regulations that are contrary to the finding of a federal judge that
cash-balance plans violate age-discrimination laws.

IBM was sued by some participants in its pension plan after it was
converted to a cash-balance plan in 1999. While such plans usually provide
more benefits to workers who change jobs frequently, they can reduce
pensions for long-term workers. A federal judge in Illinois this summer
found that IBM's plan, and by inference virtually all cash-balance plans,
discriminate against older workers because of the way their formulas work.

Treasury Department spokeswoman Tara Bradshaw disavowed the purported
document, reported by the Wall Street Journal yesterday. It was labeled
"Treasury talking points" and carried the headline "Treasury strongly
opposes the Sanders amendment to the Transportation/Treasury
appropriations bill."

She told the Journal that the department had prepared, but not released,
material on amendments Sanders had introduced last year but not on this
year's provision. Yesterday, Bradshaw said she couldn't comment. Snow said
at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee yesterday that he
know of no authorized "talking points" on the amendment.

"It is certainly something I intend to look into," he said.

IBM spokesman Bill Hughes said the company is investigating the incident.
Apparently, he said, "we believed that we were redistributing a public
document that we had understood was widely distributed by Treasury."

"We think, in an effort to make it clear that these were Treasury talking
points, we reformatted the document to indicate it as coming from
Treasury," but "in no way was the content or tone of document changed," he
said.

Sanders, in a letter to Snow yesterday, said "distribution of phony
documents purporting to be from the Treasury Department goes beyond even
the very loose ethical rules that lobbyists too often seem to follow in
Washington."

IBM has been lobbying for Treasury regulations that would say cash-balance
plans do not discriminate by age. The department has proposed such rules,
but it held off after some employers complained that they would curtail
other types of pensions. Sanders's amendment would prohibit the department
from spending any money on such rules.



To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules for
originality. There aren't any. [Les Paul]

Re: MBA

[Eubulides]

- Original Message -
From: "Sabri Oncu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> http://www.fedex.com/us/about/advertising/tvads/mbawm.html?link=4

==

Don't get me started

:-)


Ian

Subcomandante Marcos

[Eubulides]

The slaves of money - and our rebellion

Subcomandante Marcos
Thursday September 11, 2003
The Guardian

Brothers and sisters of Mexico and the world, who are gathered in Cancun
in a mobilisation against neo-liberalism, greetings from the men, women,
children and elderly of the Zapatista National Liberation Army. It is an
honour for us that, amid your meetings, agreements and mobilisations, you
have found time and place to hear our words.

The world movement against the globalisation of death and destruction is
experiencing one of its brightest moments in Cancun today. Not far from
where you are meeting, a handful of slaves to money are negotiating the
ways and means of continuing the crime of globalisation.

The difference between them and all of us is not in the pockets of one or
the other, although their pockets overflow with money while ours overflow
with hope.

No, the difference is not in the wallet, but in the heart. You and we have
in our hearts a future to build. They only have the past which they want
to repeat eternally. We have hope. They have death. We have liberty. They
want to enslave us.

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that the people who
think themselves the owners of the planet have had to hide behind high
walls and their pathetic security forces in order to put their plans in
place.

As if at war, the high command of the multinational army that wants to
conquer the world in the only way possible, that is to say, to destroy it,
meets behind a system of security that is as large as their fear.

Before, the powerful met behind the backs of the world to scheme their
future wars and displacements. Today they have to do it in front of
thousands in Cancun and millions around the world.

That is what this is all about. It is war. A war against humanity. The
globalisation of those who are above us is nothing more than a global
machine that feeds on blood and defecates in dollars.

In the complex equation that turns death into money, there is a group of
humans who command a very low price in the global slaughterhouse. We are
the indigenous, the young, the women, the children, the elderly, the
homosexuals, the migrants, all those who are different. That is to say,
the immense majority of humanity.

This is a world war of the powerful who want to turn the planet into a
private club that reserves the right to refuse admission. The exclusive
luxury zone where they meet is a microcosm of their project for the
planet, a complex of hotels, restaurants, and recreation zones protected
by armies and police forces.

All of us are given the option of being inside this zone, but only as
servants. Or we can remain outside of the world, outside life. But we have
no reason to obey and accept this choice between living as servants or
dying. We can build a new path, one where living means life with dignity
and freedom. To build this alternative is possible and necessary. It is
necessary because on it depends the future of humanity.

This future is up for grabs in every corner of each of the five
continents. This alternative is possible because around the world people
know that liberty is a word which is often used as an excuse for cynicism.

Brothers and sisters, there is dissent over the projects of globalisation
all over the world. Those above, who globalise conformism, cynicism,
stupidity, war, destruction and death. And those below who globalise
rebellion, hope, creativity, intelligence, imagination, life, memory and
the construction of a world that we can all fit in, a world with
democracy, liberty and justice.

We hope the death train of the World Trade Organisation will be derailed
in Cancun and everywhere else.

· Subcomandante Marcos is the leading voice of the Zapatista movement,
which fights for the rights of Mexico's 10 million indigenous people. This
is the transcript of a message - Marcos's first international communiqué
for four years - delivered on Wednesday to the anti-globalisation
conference taking place alongside the WTO global trade negotiations in
Cancun

www.ezln.org



To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules for
originality. There aren't any. [Les Paul]

MBA

[Sabri Oncu]

http://www.fedex.com/us/about/advertising/tvads/mbawm.html?link=4

"The RIAA 261"

[Kenneth Campbell]

These kinds of heavy-handed policies are the stuff of rebellious
tension... or resigned despair. Depending on the surrounding social
climate. And the "noise" created around it.

Ken.

--
An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he
lives with, insists on boring future generations.
  -- Charles de Montesquieu


--- cut here ---

RIAA's Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets
Single Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl in N.Y. Among Defendants

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 10, 2003; Page E01


Heather McGough thought it would be nice to listen to music while she
was working on her Gateway PC at home in Santa Clarita, Calif. So, a few
months ago, when a friend of McGough's 14-year-old cousin told her she
could get the Gateway to play songs, McGough told the girl to go ahead.

The teen girl downloaded software by Kazaa, a file-sharing Internet
service. Kazaa let McGough grab digital songs by Tracy Chapman, Avril
Lavigne, Norah Jones and Marvin Gaye and others and put them on her
computer's hard drive for listening. Also -- and this is the part that
McGough said she didn't know -- it let everyone else on the Kazaa
network get a look at the songs on her computer and pick which ones they
wanted. In the eyes of the music industry, she was an "egregious
uploader" of copyrighted material.

Which is why she was one of the 261 song sharers across the nation sued
Monday by the major record companies with the help of the Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA), the music industry's trade
group. The RIAA is targeting what it calls "major offenders" of
peer-to-peer digital song sharing, which it considers to be a violation
of copyright law. Federal law allows penalties of up to $150,000 per
copyrighted work, or, in other words, per song.

Like Kazaa members, investigators at the RIAA looked into McGough's
computer. Instead of seeing songs they wanted to listen to, they found
someone they wanted to sue.

Song sharing exploded into the mainstream in the late '90s thanks to
Napster, which allowed computer users to download and swap songs for
free. The music industry went to court to successfully shut down
Napster, but other free services such as Morpheus, Grokster and Kazaa
sprang up in its place.

Kazaa, the most popular, had more than 7 million users in May. More than
60 million Americans engage in file sharing, according to companies that
track Internet use.

"I watched the whole Napster thing on TV; I read about it in the
papers," said McGough, 23, a single mother of two girls, ages 5 and 2.
"I just assumed that if Napster was down, why would something be up that
was illegal? I wouldn't intentionally put something on my computer that
was illegal."

McGough received a copy of a subpoena in July from Comcast
Communications Corp., her high-speed Internet service provider, telling
her that the cable company had handed over her name and address to the
RIAA, which reported it had looked into her computer on the afternoon of
June 26. "I wasn't even home," said the auto repair shop office manager.

The next day, she took her Gateway to a local computer club where
members erased the song files from her hard drive. It was only then that
she found out that Kazaa's software allows others to see which songs she
had. "I don't even know how many songs I had," she said.

Comcast included an 800 number in the subpoena to call for more
information. But when McGough called it, she said no one knew what she
was talking about.

"I asked for supervisors, everything," she said. "It's not like they
weren't giving me the information. They didn't have the information."

The stories of the RIAA 261 are emerging across the country. Many
defendants say they are surprised by the suits, that they were unaware
that such song swapping could be illegal, or that they were ignorant of
the activities of others using their computers, such as children.

The defendants included a 71-year-old grandfather in Texas and a
father-and-son combo, ages 50 and 29. They include Boston area teenagers
and adults, men and women from Los Angeles, and a Yale University
photography professor.

More song swappers will find themselves facing lawsuits in the coming
months, as the RIAA has promised to take legal action against thousands
more, aiming at people who have made an average of more than 1,000
copyrighted songs free to other Internet users.

Critics of the RIAA's lawsuits have repeatedly said such vigorous legal
action could lead to consumer backlash, further crippling an industry
already suffering a steep slump in sales. Since the rise of Internet
song sharing, sales of compact discs have dropped about 10 percent per
year. The industry attributes the losses to piracy, but others point out
that many consumers likely were driven away from record stores by CDs
priced at $18.

The poster girl for such potential backlash appeared on the cover of
yesterday's New York Daily News alongside a headline reading: "Internet
Mu

Homohop

[Doyle Saylor]

Hello All,
Last year when the Bi-Sexual magazine I was working on was still
functioning, I got to meet Juba Kalamka who was working on the magazine
also.  Juba has been doing pretty good with his hip hop group Deep
Dickollective (DDC) so I thought I would pass on a show he is directing in
San Francisco.  For those in the Bay Area check out this homo show!  Take
note Deep Dickollective observes class issues in this American Society.
Doyle Saylor

They're here, they're queer and they homohop. Gay and lesbian artists, long
rejected by mainstream rappers, are stretching the genre's boundaries.
Neva Chonin, Chronicle Pop Music Critic
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/09/10/DD
182424.DTL&type=music



The Urban Hermitt was standing outside a school three years ago when she
received her first explicit lesson in hip-hop gender politics. Waiting for
her turn at a freestyling battle in front of Seattle Central Community
College,

the aspiring MC watched another rapper clamber atop a bus shelter, strip to
his boxer shorts and, clutching a microphone in one hand and his crotch in
the other, spit out a rhyme about his anatomy.

The assembled crowd cheered. When the Hermitt's turn came, she decided to go
with the flow. Peeling down to her own boxers, she grabbed her crotch and
proceeded to rap the praises of having a butch, female physique.

The crowd froze. A film crew covered its camera. "Put your pants back on!"
yelped one of the battle organizers. "We don't want no obscenity!"

That day the Hermitt (a.k.a. Andre) learned exactly what the hip-hop adage
of "keeping it real" meant for the gay hip-hop fan.

"Real" meant the straight world. "Real" meant denying her evolving identity
as a transgendered female-to-male MC.

"I've always had to fight for my time onstage," says the Hermitt, 25, who
recently moved to San Francisco and now identifies as male. "I've had things
thrown at me. I've had people try to beat me up."

It's a challenge gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender hip-hop fans face
every day. Drawn to hip-hop's legacy of free expression, they too often
discover that their stories are less than welcome in a genre filled with
ethnically and socially diverse, but overwhelmingly heterosexual, voices.

For decades, gay hip-hop-heads have toed the line, rapping about everything
except their sexuality and stifling their anger at homophobic lyrics by
mainstream rappers. Like good street soldiers, they kept it "real" while the
music they once embraced as a creative outlet became another closet.

Now that's changed. Thanks to the emergence of homohop, a growing genre
that's equal parts music and community, gay MCs and DJs are staking their
claim in uncompromisingly loud, rhyming terms.

Homohop is an international phenomenon -- one of the most comprehensive
online homohop sites, Gayhiphop.com, is out of London -- but thanks to a
recent QueerYouthTV documentary on the genre that spotlighted local acts
such as Deep Dickollective (DDC), Jen-Ro, Hanifah Walidah, Katastrophe,
God-Des and Jaycub Perez, the Bay Area is ground zero. At this week's Third
Annual World Homohop Festival -- part of East Bay Pride -- gay rappers, DJs
and spoken-word artists from across the United States will celebrate their
growing prominence as they converge on Oakland's Metro Theatre for four
nights of rhythm and revelry.

The festival, dubbed PeaceOUT, supplies a safe space and throws down a
challenge. "Hip-hop fights against oppression, but at the same time it takes
on the role of the oppressor by mirroring society at large: male-centered,
patriarchal and classist," says DDC MC and festival director Juba Kalamka
(a.k. a. Pointfivefag).

...See the SF Gate site for the rest of the article




PeaceOUT: The Third Annual World Homohop Festival: All shows start at 8 p.m.
at the Oakland Metro Theatre, 201 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets: $8-$15,
sliding scale. (415) 244-8658, www.eastbaypride.org.
Thursday: Screening of QueerYouthTV's "Homohop" documentary, followed by
party with host Larry Bob and DJ Toph One.

Friday: Tori Fixx, Protegee, God-Des, Jen-Ro, Jaycub Perez, DJ Toph One and
DJ Sick Diamond. Hosted by Marvin K. White.

Saturday: Deadlee, Katastrophe, Johnny Dangerous, Houston Bernard, Scream
Club, Cazwell and DJ Sick Diamond. Hosted by Judge "Dutchboy" Muscat.

Sunday: Deep Dickollective, Shawree, Kayatrip, Lucky 7, Urban Hermitt,
Sergio, DJ Ross Hogg, DJ Soulnubien, DJ Black and DJ Sick Diamond. Hosted by
Micia Moseley.

E-mail Neva Chonin at [EMAIL PROTECTED]

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

  Page D - 1

Shock and awe in Iraq

[k hanly]

. From today's Moscow Times.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/09/09/001.html

Tuesday, Sep. 9, 2003. Page 1

Gaidar Invited to Shock, Awe Iraq

By Catherine Belton and Oksana Yablokova
Staff Writers

The architect of Russia's at times disastrous transition to a market
economy, Yegor Gaidar, has been invited by the U.S.-led coalition
authority in Iraq to help craft a recovery plan for that country's
war-torn economy.

The announcement, made by Union of Right Forces co-leader Boris Nemtsov
at his party's congress Monday, nearly stole the show from the party as
it announced its list of contenders for December's parliamentary
elections. At a mid-congress briefing, reporters were more interested in
Gaidar's plans for Iraq than in his party's plans for Russia.

"Many of the problems they are experiencing in Iraq are problems created
by the collapse of a totalitarian regime that had a high level of state
participation in the economy," Gaidar, a co-founder of the party, told
the conference. "These problems have parallels with the histories and
practices of post-socialist countries. They want to work out how to
minimize the risks and privatize the economic system in the shortest
period possible."

As President Boris Yeltsin's first -- and youngest -- prime minister,
Gaidar spearheaded the country's move away from a planned economy. He
was also the overall architect of the largest and swiftest privatization
in world history.

Seeing himself as a "kamikaze" who didn't have much time to bring about
revolutionary change before opposition forces moved in, his program of
"shock therapy" was aimed at combating potentially disastrous shortages
of goods. It ended up sparking a wave of hyperinflation that saw prices
increase by a factor of 26 within a year, wiping out the life savings of
an entire generation overnight.

His scheme to privatize as rapidly as possible saw the crown jewels of
the economy handed over to a handful of well-connected insiders for next
to nothing.

This time, however, it's unlikely that Gaidar will have quite as much
influence. An official at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow said Gaidar had
been invited to take part in an international conference in Baghdad
later this month "with a view to explaining how European experience with
economic reform might help Iraq manage its transition."

The official said experts from nine Central and Eastern European
countries had been invited to speak and about 50 Iraqi leaders,
including members of government committees and some ministry advisers,
would be in attendance.

He could not say, however, what role the conference will play in
deciding Iraqi economic policy, or what the future role of participants
might be. The U.S. authority in Baghdad could not be reached for
comment.

In a telephone interview later Monday, Gaidar said he had only received
the invitation Friday and had yet to discuss any plans with
representatives of the U.S. administration.

"Time would tell" if he would have to pack up his work in Russia and
move full time to a brief advising Washington on reconstructing Iraq, he
said.

The decision to pick some of the world's most experienced brains on
transition economies comes as U.S. President George W. Bush seeks to
extend responsibility for postwar Iraq to non-coalition countries. (See
story, page 13).

Ironically, it also comes shortly after Iraq's new oil minister, Ibrahim
Bahr Al-Uloum, told the Financial Times that his country is preparing to
privatize its oil sector.

"It would be fantastic if [Gaidar] were handed the opportunity to deal
with the same giveaway twice in one lifetime," said James Fenkner, head
of research at Troika Dialog. "It's the same sector too," he said,
drawing a parallel with Russia's oil-dominated economy.

A longtime critic of Russia's reforms, Marshall Goldman of Harvard's
Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, said by telephone that
Washington could have made a worse choice -- it could have asked advice
from fellow Union of Right Forces member Anatoly Chubais.

"If they had invited Chubais, that really would have set off a
firestorm. That would have really been too much," he said. Chubais was
appointed by Gaidar in the mid-1990s to run Russia's privatization
program.

Goldman, however, said that Gaidar could prove to be an important voice
for Washington.

"Gaidar had the best of intentions. Maybe this is not such a bad idea.
Having seen what happened to Russia, he will be aware of the pitfalls,"
he said. "He can help Iraq avoid making the same mistakes."

"Bush has clearly said we need help. This is no longer going to be an
American show. Bringing in someone like Gaidar will give the Russians a
sense they have stake in Iraq too," Goldman said. "Maybe [Russia] will
send in troops."

Moscow's diplomatic battle with Washington -- first over whether the war
was necessary at all and then over whether the United Nations should
play a more prominent role in governing Iraq -- has threatened to damage
burgeoning 

Shell's Nigerian white collar workers hold firm

[Grant Lee]

Financial Review: Shell's Nigerian workers hold firm

Shell's Nigerian workers hold firm

2003/09/10
Informal talks between the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell and striking Nigerian
workers appeared deadlocked, two weeks into the latest labour dispute to
disrupt Africa's largest oil industry.
Shell's external relations manager Don Boham told AFP that talks on the
firm's controversial global restructuring plan had begun. "We expect all the
concerns and fears of workers to be tabled and ironed out," he said.
But he insisted that no formal discussion of labour's fears of impending job
losses would take place while the strike continues.

* * * *

"We can still talk and resolve these issues even when the strike is still
on. We will not call off the strike until all or some of our demands are
met," said Leonard Nwogu of the PENGASSAN oil union's Shell branch.
Mr Nwogu said the union wants Shell to abandon the restructuring plan, to
halt a rise in the number of expatriates brought in to work in Nigeria and
to return to Nigeria a computer system recently moved to The Hague.
White-collar Shell workers have been on strike since August 27.
Management activities at the company's three main offices in the cities of
Lagos, Warri and Port Harcourt have been disrupted by the action, but so far
crude oil production and export have reportedly been unaffected.

* * * *

Shell is Nigeria's major oil producer, accounting for 870,000 barrels,
almost half of the west African country's daily output.
World oil prices were stable in early London trading, but trader Kevin
Blemkin said: "People still have their eyes on the Nigerian affair."
The white-collar strike is one of a series of crises to rock Nigeria's oil
industry and worry the markets this year, as ethnic warfare and a rash of
pirate attacks and kidnappings rattled the oil-rich Niger Delta.
Shell's Warri offices had only a skeleton staff on Tuesday due to the
strike, witnesses said.


http://www.afr.com/articles/2003/09/10/1062902080207.html

Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)

[joanna bujes]

What I don't understand is why anyone gives a rat's ass about Hitchens.
Another opportunist...so what.
Joanna

Devine, James wrote:

it's a great article! However, it's a bit too individualistic for my taste, putting too much emphasis on Hitchens' personality. It's true that it ignores aspects of that personality that may be relevant (such as Hitchens' problem drinking), but it should be mentioned that it isn't simply that the capitalist establishment has gravitational power that drags such apostates down. The left also lacks sufficient gravitational power to keep people in our orbit. One problem is that sometimes people on the left jump on any little deviation from some perceived correct line, lauching personal attacks that antagonize people who are beginning to shift to the right, which can encourage them to shift further to the right.

That said, I don't know if such issues apply to Hitchens or not. I know that Katha Pollitt's open letter to Hitchens was very fair, leaving out personal attacks. I don't know if that was the rule or the exception.

(As I've said, I once knew the apostate David Horowitz personally. It did seem that lefties treated him pretty well, at least outside the Black Panther circle.


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine





-Original Message-
From: Louis Proyect [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 10:00 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L] Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens
(brilliant!)
Counterpunch, September 10, 2003

"Fraternally Yours, Chris":
Hitchens as Model Apostate
By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN
Editors' note: Norman Finkelstein is writing a political memoir, which
will serve as the introduction to a new edition of his book, The Rise
and Fall of Palestine, to be published by New Press next
year. Below is
an excerpt on the phenomenon of political apostasy, focusing primarily
on Hitchens' recent grab-bag of writings in support of the US
attack on
Iraq. The title refers to how ex-leftist Christopher Hitchens used to
sign off his correspondence. CounterPunch's forthcoming The
Politics of
Anti-Semitism, has a fine essay by Finkelstein, on his bizarre
experience of being attacked in Germany as an anti-Semite. AC/JSC
I'm occasionally asked whether I still consider myself a Marxist. Even
if my "faith" had lapsed, I wouldn't advertise it, not from shame at
having been wrong (although admittedly this would be a factor) but
rather from fear of arousing even a faint suspicion of opportunism. To
borrow from the lingo of a former academic fad, if, in public
life, the
"signifier" is "I'm no longer a Marxist," then the "signified" usually
is, "I'm selling out." No doubt one can, in light of further study and
life experience, come to repudiate past convictions. One might also
decide that youthful ideals, especially when the responsibilities of
family kick in and the prospects for radical change dim while the
certainty of one's finitude sharpens, are too heavy a burden to bear;
although it might be hoped that this accommodation, however
understandable (if disappointing), were accomplished with
candor and an
appropriate degree of humility rather than, what's usually the case,
scorn for those who keep plugging away. It is when the phenomenon of
political apostasy is accompanied by fanfare and fireworks that it
becomes truly repellent.
Depending on where along the political spectrum power is situated,
apostates almost always make their corrective leap in that direction,
discovering the virtues of the status quo. "The last thing you can be
accused of is having turned your coat," Thomas Mann wrote a convert to
National Socialism right after Hitler's seizure of power. "You always
wore it the 'right' way around." If apostasy weren't conditioned by
power considerations, one would anticipate roughly equal movements in
both directions. But that's never been the case. The would-be apostate
almost always pulls towards power's magnetic field, rarely
away. However
elaborate the testimonials on how one came to "see the light," the
impetus behind political apostasy is--pardon my cynicism--a fairly
straightforward, uncomplicated affair: to cash in, or keep cashing in,
on earthly pleasures. Indeed, an apostate can even capitalize on the
past to increase his or her current exchange value. Professional
ex-radical Todd Gitlin never fails to mention, when
denouncing those to
his left, that he was a former head of Students for a
Democratic Society
(SDS). Never mind that this was four decades ago; although
president of
my sixth-grade class 40 years ago, I don't keep bringing it up.
Shouldn't there be a statute of limitations on the
exploitation of one's
political past? In any event, it's hard to figure why an
acknowledgment
of former errors should enhance one's current credibility. If, by a
person's own admission, he or she had got it all wrong, why should
anyone pay heed to his or her new opinions? Doesn't it make more se

Re: US Republican Party outsources fund raising to India

[joanna bujes]

Priceless. Thanks ravi.

Joanna

ravi wrote:



US Republican Party outsources fund raising to India

Whole world's gone batty - official

By Adamson Rust: Wednesday 27 August 2003, 08:49
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY is using call centres in Gurgaon and Noida in India
to raise funds for itself and for its chieftain, George W. Bush.
Young people at the call centres are helping robots to phone American
citizens to enlist their support and money for the political party, with
plans to extend the scheme if they whip up enough donations.
There's a high degree of automation involved in the process, according
to Indian newspaper the Business Standard, which says that HCL Eserve is
handling the business for the party.
India is the biggest democracy in the world, and has stayed that way
since it threw off the yoke of the British Raj in 1947, courtesy of the
Labour Party.
The magazine claims that "human intervention" is limited because of an
integrated voice recording technology which picks up on clues from
people that pick up the phone.
We do hope and trust here at the INQUIRER that the irony of underpaid
people in Harayana helping robots to call possibly out of work Americans
because of a widespread policy of corporate outsourcing is not lost on
our readers.
---

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11444

US Republican Party denies it's outsourcing to India

Could be another leg of the pachyderm, RNC says

By INQUIRER staff: Tuesday 09 September 2003, 07:20
THE US REPUBLICAN PARTY -- which has an elephant as its symbol – is
denying an Indian financial newspaper's claim that it's outsourcing fund
raising to the subcontinent.
The Republican National Committee, according to worldnetdaily.com has
described a story in the Delhi Business Standard as a "pernicious rumor"
and also claimed representatives of the other party with a quadruped
icon were "gobbling up" and "running with" the story on its campaign trail.
The prestigious Delhi newspaper had claimed people in call centres in
Gurgaon and Noida were phoning folks in the USA to enlist their support
for the Republicans.
But, said worldnetdaily.com, quoting a Republican representative, that's
not true.
The US version of democracy requires that political parties there submit
reports to an auditing committee and there are no records of funds going
India's way.
However, the Republican rep said that "some other" Republican entity or
"conservative organization" might be using Indian call centres.
The Republican National Committee put its lawyers on the case and asked
the Business Standard to purge the story from its archives. But Indian
hacks have behaved like refuseniks and will not down the story, said
Worldnetdaily.
---

   --ravi

intellectual property

[e. ahmet tonak]

I thank everyone who shared very useful bibliographic info.

E. Ahmet Tonak
Professor of Economics
Simon's Rock College of Bard
84 Alford Road
Great Barrington, MA 01230
Tel:  413 528 7488
Fax: 413 528 7365
www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak

Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)

[Devine, James]

that's true. 


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




> -Original Message-
> From: e. ahmet tonak [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 1:25 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens
> (brilliant!)
> 
> 
> One reason would be that "the left:" (?)--as perceived by "people" --
> includes so many Hitchens-like characters.
> 
> Devine, James wrote:
> 
> >... The left also lacks sufficient gravitational power to 
> keep people in our orbit.
> >
> 
> 
> 
> E. Ahmet Tonak
> Professor of Economics
> 
> Simon's Rock College of Bard
> 84 Alford Road
> Great Barrington, MA 01230
> 
> Tel:  413 528 7488
> Fax: 413 528 7365
> www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
> 

Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)

[e. ahmet tonak]

One reason would be that "the left:" (?)--as perceived by "people" --
includes so many Hitchens-like characters.
Devine, James wrote:

... The left also lacks sufficient gravitational power to keep people in our orbit.



E. Ahmet Tonak
Professor of Economics
Simon's Rock College of Bard
84 Alford Road
Great Barrington, MA 01230
Tel:  413 528 7488
Fax: 413 528 7365
www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak

Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)

[Devine, James]

it's a great article! However, it's a bit too individualistic for my taste, putting 
too much emphasis on Hitchens' personality. It's true that it ignores aspects of that 
personality that may be relevant (such as Hitchens' problem drinking), but it should 
be mentioned that it isn't simply that the capitalist establishment has gravitational 
power that drags such apostates down. The left also lacks sufficient gravitational 
power to keep people in our orbit. One problem is that sometimes people on the left 
jump on any little deviation from some perceived correct line, lauching personal 
attacks that antagonize people who are beginning to shift to the right, which can 
encourage them to shift further to the right. 

That said, I don't know if such issues apply to Hitchens or not. I know that Katha 
Pollitt's open letter to Hitchens was very fair, leaving out personal attacks. I don't 
know if that was the rule or the exception. 

(As I've said, I once knew the apostate David Horowitz personally. It did seem that 
lefties treated him pretty well, at least outside the Black Panther circle. 


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




> -Original Message-
> From: Louis Proyect [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 10:00 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [PEN-L] Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens 
> (brilliant!)
> 
> 
> Counterpunch, September 10, 2003
> 
> "Fraternally Yours, Chris":
> Hitchens as Model Apostate
> By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN
> 
> Editors' note: Norman Finkelstein is writing a political memoir, which
> will serve as the introduction to a new edition of his book, The Rise
> and Fall of Palestine, to be published by New Press next 
> year. Below is
> an excerpt on the phenomenon of political apostasy, focusing primarily
> on Hitchens' recent grab-bag of writings in support of the US 
> attack on
> Iraq. The title refers to how ex-leftist Christopher Hitchens used to
> sign off his correspondence. CounterPunch's forthcoming The 
> Politics of
> Anti-Semitism, has a fine essay by Finkelstein, on his bizarre
> experience of being attacked in Germany as an anti-Semite. AC/JSC
> 
> I'm occasionally asked whether I still consider myself a Marxist. Even
> if my "faith" had lapsed, I wouldn't advertise it, not from shame at
> having been wrong (although admittedly this would be a factor) but
> rather from fear of arousing even a faint suspicion of opportunism. To
> borrow from the lingo of a former academic fad, if, in public 
> life, the
> "signifier" is "I'm no longer a Marxist," then the "signified" usually
> is, "I'm selling out." No doubt one can, in light of further study and
> life experience, come to repudiate past convictions. One might also
> decide that youthful ideals, especially when the responsibilities of
> family kick in and the prospects for radical change dim while the
> certainty of one's finitude sharpens, are too heavy a burden to bear;
> although it might be hoped that this accommodation, however
> understandable (if disappointing), were accomplished with 
> candor and an
> appropriate degree of humility rather than, what's usually the case,
> scorn for those who keep plugging away. It is when the phenomenon of
> political apostasy is accompanied by fanfare and fireworks that it
> becomes truly repellent.
> 
> Depending on where along the political spectrum power is situated,
> apostates almost always make their corrective leap in that direction,
> discovering the virtues of the status quo. "The last thing you can be
> accused of is having turned your coat," Thomas Mann wrote a convert to
> National Socialism right after Hitler's seizure of power. "You always
> wore it the 'right' way around." If apostasy weren't conditioned by
> power considerations, one would anticipate roughly equal movements in
> both directions. But that's never been the case. The would-be apostate
> almost always pulls towards power's magnetic field, rarely 
> away. However
> elaborate the testimonials on how one came to "see the light," the
> impetus behind political apostasy is--pardon my cynicism--a fairly
> straightforward, uncomplicated affair: to cash in, or keep cashing in,
> on earthly pleasures. Indeed, an apostate can even capitalize on the
> past to increase his or her current exchange value. Professional
> ex-radical Todd Gitlin never fails to mention, when 
> denouncing those to
> his left, that he was a former head of Students for a 
> Democratic Society
> (SDS). Never mind that this was four decades ago; although 
> president of
> my sixth-grade class 40 years ago, I don't keep bringing it up.
> Shouldn't there be a statute of limitations on the 
> exploitation of one's
> political past? In any event, it's hard to figure why an 
> acknowledgment
> of former errors should enhance one's current credibility. If, by a
> person's own admission, he or she had got it all wrong, why should
> anyone pay heed to

US Republican Party outsources fund raising to India

[ravi]

US Republican Party outsources fund raising to India

Whole world's gone batty - official

By Adamson Rust: Wednesday 27 August 2003, 08:49
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY is using call centres in Gurgaon and Noida in India
to raise funds for itself and for its chieftain, George W. Bush.

Young people at the call centres are helping robots to phone American
citizens to enlist their support and money for the political party, with
plans to extend the scheme if they whip up enough donations.

There's a high degree of automation involved in the process, according
to Indian newspaper the Business Standard, which says that HCL Eserve is
handling the business for the party.

India is the biggest democracy in the world, and has stayed that way
since it threw off the yoke of the British Raj in 1947, courtesy of the
Labour Party.

The magazine claims that "human intervention" is limited because of an
integrated voice recording technology which picks up on clues from
people that pick up the phone.

We do hope and trust here at the INQUIRER that the irony of underpaid
people in Harayana helping robots to call possibly out of work Americans
because of a widespread policy of corporate outsourcing is not lost on
our readers.

---

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11444

US Republican Party denies it's outsourcing to India

Could be another leg of the pachyderm, RNC says

By INQUIRER staff: Tuesday 09 September 2003, 07:20
THE US REPUBLICAN PARTY -- which has an elephant as its symbol – is
denying an Indian financial newspaper's claim that it's outsourcing fund
raising to the subcontinent.

The Republican National Committee, according to worldnetdaily.com has
described a story in the Delhi Business Standard as a "pernicious rumor"
and also claimed representatives of the other party with a quadruped
icon were "gobbling up" and "running with" the story on its campaign trail.

The prestigious Delhi newspaper had claimed people in call centres in
Gurgaon and Noida were phoning folks in the USA to enlist their support
for the Republicans.

But, said worldnetdaily.com, quoting a Republican representative, that's
not true.

The US version of democracy requires that political parties there submit
reports to an auditing committee and there are no records of funds going
India's way.

However, the Republican rep said that "some other" Republican entity or
"conservative organization" might be using Indian call centres.

The Republican National Committee put its lawyers on the case and asked
the Business Standard to purge the story from its archives. But Indian
hacks have behaved like refuseniks and will not down the story, said
Worldnetdaily.

---

--ravi

Environment Conference (Interdisciplinary) / Boston 2004

[Helen Kantarelis]

10th International
INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE ON THE ENVIRONMENT


BOSTON, USA , JULY 1-4, 2004
Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
(Deadline for Registration: April 30, 2004)

The Interdisciplinary Environmental Association (IEA), in conjunction with
Assumption College, invites you to participate in the 10th International
INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE ON THE ENVIRONMENT open to environmental
practitioners, academics, students and all interested persons regardless of
background. You may participate as panel and/or workshop organizer,
presenter
of one or two abstracts or papers, chair, moderator, discussant, or
observer. The deadline for abstract submission and participation is April
30, 2004. All papers will pass a blind peer review process for publication
consideration in the INTERDISCIPLINARY ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW. For more
information, please contact us as follows:

IEA, Kevin L. Hickey & Demetri Kantarelis
Conference Co-Chairs, Economics & Global Studies Department
Assumption College, 500 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609-1296, USA

TELEPHONE: Hickey   (+ 508-767-7296), Kantarelis (+ 508-767-7557)
FAX: + 508-767-7382
E-MAIL:
(L. Hickey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>), (Kantarelis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)
WEB: 

***

Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)

[Doug Henwood]

Norman Finkelstein wrote:

A rite of passage for apostates
peculiar to U.S. political culture is bashing Noam Chomsky.
Unfortunately for Hitchens, he wrote a spirited defense of Chomsky
for Grand Street in the mid-1980s. Hitch's webmaster/towelboy Peter
Kilander used to have a copy on his website but took it down when it
became inconvenient.
Doug

Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)

[andie nachgeborenen]

--- Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Counterpunch, September 10, 2003
>
> "Fraternally Yours, Chris":
> Hitchens as Model Apostate
> By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN

A very nice job, better than the creep deserves. jks

__
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)

[ravi]

Louis Proyect wrote:
> A rite of passage for apostates
> peculiar to U.S. political culture is bashing Noam Chomsky. It's the
> political equivalent of a bar mitzvah, a ritual signaling that one has
> "grown up"--i.e., grown out of one's "childish" past. It's hard to pick
> up an article or book by ex-radicals--Gitlin's Letters to a Young
> Activist, Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism--that doesn't include a
> hysterical attack on him. Behind this venom there's also a transparent
> psychological factor at play. Chomsky mirrors their idealistic past as
> well as sordid present, an obstinate reminder that they once had
> principles but no longer do, that they sold out but he didn't. Hating to
> be reminded, they keep trying to shatter the glass. He's the demon from
> the past that, after recantation, no amount of incantation can exorcise.
>

one wonders what marc cooper's latest opinion about chomsky is ;-).

--ravi

Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)

[Louis Proyect]

Counterpunch, September 10, 2003

"Fraternally Yours, Chris":
Hitchens as Model Apostate
By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN
Editors' note: Norman Finkelstein is writing a political memoir, which
will serve as the introduction to a new edition of his book, The Rise
and Fall of Palestine, to be published by New Press next year. Below is
an excerpt on the phenomenon of political apostasy, focusing primarily
on Hitchens' recent grab-bag of writings in support of the US attack on
Iraq. The title refers to how ex-leftist Christopher Hitchens used to
sign off his correspondence. CounterPunch's forthcoming The Politics of
Anti-Semitism, has a fine essay by Finkelstein, on his bizarre
experience of being attacked in Germany as an anti-Semite. AC/JSC
I'm occasionally asked whether I still consider myself a Marxist. Even
if my "faith" had lapsed, I wouldn't advertise it, not from shame at
having been wrong (although admittedly this would be a factor) but
rather from fear of arousing even a faint suspicion of opportunism. To
borrow from the lingo of a former academic fad, if, in public life, the
"signifier" is "I'm no longer a Marxist," then the "signified" usually
is, "I'm selling out." No doubt one can, in light of further study and
life experience, come to repudiate past convictions. One might also
decide that youthful ideals, especially when the responsibilities of
family kick in and the prospects for radical change dim while the
certainty of one's finitude sharpens, are too heavy a burden to bear;
although it might be hoped that this accommodation, however
understandable (if disappointing), were accomplished with candor and an
appropriate degree of humility rather than, what's usually the case,
scorn for those who keep plugging away. It is when the phenomenon of
political apostasy is accompanied by fanfare and fireworks that it
becomes truly repellent.
Depending on where along the political spectrum power is situated,
apostates almost always make their corrective leap in that direction,
discovering the virtues of the status quo. "The last thing you can be
accused of is having turned your coat," Thomas Mann wrote a convert to
National Socialism right after Hitler's seizure of power. "You always
wore it the 'right' way around." If apostasy weren't conditioned by
power considerations, one would anticipate roughly equal movements in
both directions. But that's never been the case. The would-be apostate
almost always pulls towards power's magnetic field, rarely away. However
elaborate the testimonials on how one came to "see the light," the
impetus behind political apostasy is--pardon my cynicism--a fairly
straightforward, uncomplicated affair: to cash in, or keep cashing in,
on earthly pleasures. Indeed, an apostate can even capitalize on the
past to increase his or her current exchange value. Professional
ex-radical Todd Gitlin never fails to mention, when denouncing those to
his left, that he was a former head of Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS). Never mind that this was four decades ago; although president of
my sixth-grade class 40 years ago, I don't keep bringing it up.
Shouldn't there be a statute of limitations on the exploitation of one's
political past? In any event, it's hard to figure why an acknowledgment
of former errors should enhance one's current credibility. If, by a
person's own admission, he or she had got it all wrong, why should
anyone pay heed to his or her new opinions? Doesn't it make more sense
attending to those who got there sooner rather than later? A member of
the Flat-Earth Society who suddenly discovers the world is round doesn't
get to keynote an astronomers' convention. Indeed, the prudent inference
would seem to be, once an idiot, always an idiot. It's child's play to
assemble a lengthy list--Roger Garaudy, Boris Yeltsin, David Horowitz,
Bernard Henri-Levy--bearing out this commonsensical wisdom.
Yet, an apostate is usually astute enough to understand that, in order
to catch the public eye and reap the attendant benefits, merely
registering this or that doubt about one's prior convictions, or nuanced
disagreements with former comrades (which, after all, is how a reasoned
change of heart would normally evolve), won't suffice. For, incremental
change, or fundamental change by accretion, doesn't get the buzz going:
there must be a dramatic rupture with one's past. Conversion and
zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same
coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with
religion than rational discourse. A rite of passage for apostates
peculiar to U.S. political culture is bashing Noam Chomsky. It's the
political equivalent of a bar mitzvah, a ritual signaling that one has
"grown up"--i.e., grown out of one's "childish" past. It's hard to pick
up an article or book by ex-radicals--Gitlin's Letters to a Young
Activist, Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism--that doesn't include a
hysterical attack on him. Behind this venom there's also a transparent

Re: critique of intellectual property rights

[Devine, James]

Alan Freeman has a Marxist critique of intellectual property rights. His e-mail used 
to be and may still be [EMAIL PROTECTED] 


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




> -Original Message-
> From: Eubulides [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 9:04 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [PEN-L] critique of intellectual property rights
> 
> 
> - Original Message -
> From: "e. ahmet tonak" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 8:19 AM
> Subject: [PEN-L] critique of intellectual property rights
> 
> 
> > Any suggestion of ARTICLES (and downloadable!!) on 
> intellectual property
> > rights?  Thanks.
> >
> > E. Ahmet Tonak
> > Professor of Economics
> 
> 
> ==
> 
> http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_1/nayyer/
> 
> 
> http://james-boyle.com/
> 
> 
> http://www.law.duke.edu/centersprograms.html
> 
> 
> But, hey; why stop at intellectual property?
> 
> 
> Just type intellectual property + legal realism or marxism or 
> property and
> whathave you into Google and you'll get lots of great stuff.
> 
> 
> Ian
> 

Re: critique of intellectual property rights

[Eubulides]

- Original Message -
From: "e. ahmet tonak" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 8:19 AM
Subject: [PEN-L] critique of intellectual property rights


> Any suggestion of ARTICLES (and downloadable!!) on intellectual property
> rights?  Thanks.
>
> E. Ahmet Tonak
> Professor of Economics


==

http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_1/nayyer/


http://james-boyle.com/


http://www.law.duke.edu/centersprograms.html


But, hey; why stop at intellectual property?


Just type intellectual property + legal realism or marxism or property and
whathave you into Google and you'll get lots of great stuff.


Ian

Re: critique of intellectual property rights

[Max B. Sawicky]

Look around here -- www.cepr.net -- for Dean Baker's
stuff.  Also go here -- http://www.lessig.org/

max


-Original Message-
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of e. ahmet
tonak
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 11:20 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: critique of intellectual property rights


Any suggestion of ARTICLES (and downloadable!!) on intellectual property
rights?  Thanks.

E. Ahmet Tonak
Professor of Economics

Simon's Rock College of Bard
84 Alford Road
Great Barrington, MA 01230

Tel:  413 528 7488
Fax: 413 528 7365
www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak

Re: critique of intellectual property rights

[dave dorkin]

Hi,

Here are a few:
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0103perelman.htm
http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/anarchism.html

Please let me know what else you find
Thanks
Dave

--- "e. ahmet tonak" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Any suggestion of ARTICLES (and downloadable!!) on
intellectual property  rights?  Thanks. E. Ahmet

__
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

critique of intellectual property rights

[e. ahmet tonak]

Any suggestion of ARTICLES (and downloadable!!) on intellectual property
rights?  Thanks.
E. Ahmet Tonak
Professor of Economics
Simon's Rock College of Bard
84 Alford Road
Great Barrington, MA 01230
Tel:  413 528 7488
Fax: 413 528 7365
www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak

Re: A question to Nomi

[nomi prins]

Sabri,

The book is called "Money for Nothing - The Corporate Mugging of
America". It's being published by The New Press, the same publishers as
for Doug's book, "After the New Economy", and will be out Spring 2004.

Here's part of the blurb that will be in the Spring catalog:

"In the first years of the Bush administration some of America's most
prominent corporate executives cashed out billions of dollars of stock
and stock options before driving their companies to ruin through fraud
and bankruptcy.  They left in their wake a tangle of lost jobs, depleted
pensions and shattered lives. To write off the corruption as no more
than unbridled greed on the part of a few is an oversimplification.
Rather, as Nomi Prins shows in this devastating expose, corporate
malfeasance resulted from a mixture of hollow legislation, a false sense
of entitlement, and utter lack of accountability. Years of deregulation
obliterated the rules of responsible corporate behavior, the stock
market roared on the back of phony balance sheets; politicians and
regulatory agencies were MIA. The result? Executives won and ordinary
Americans lost."

With the knowing eye of an insider, Nomi Prins uncovers the old boy
networks and hot money flows between Wall Street, Corporate America and
Capitol Hill and exposes the white wash of reforms brought in to control
them.

Nomi
-Original Message-
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sabri Oncu
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 8:07 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L] A question to Nomi

Hi Nomi,

I was reading Doug's archives and there I saw Ian mentioning a book you
wrote or are writing. Can you give me some information about it?

Best,

Sabri

PS: My apologies to the rest for posting this to the list. My other
machine died and with it gone Nomi's e-mail address.

Re: Iraq Today: Pirate, pillagers, and smugglers plague Basra port

[Devine, James]

it's a case of the Failed Leviathan. When the Lawman on the white horse (Hobbes' 
Leviathan) rides into town, he's supposed to not just toss the bandits out (as in the 
classic flick, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN) -- he's supposed to create law and order so that 
the folks who sacrifice their independence to him can live normal lives. (or so the 
scenario goes...) But this Lawman wasn't really interested in that task, being more 
interested in exploiting the town for his own use and not thinking through what was 
necessary to maintain or create order. He ends up being more like the late Mobutu Sese 
Seko, exploiting the country while destroying order.
Jim

-Original Message- 
From: Mike Ballard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wed 9/10/2003 3:36 AM 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Iraq Today: Pirate, pillagers, and smugglers plague Basra 
port



Sounds like chaos to me.  The breakdown of the State
due, not to class conscious activity, but to a
free-market turned into a free-for-all--class divided
social relations without benefit of the rule of
bourgeois law and its police.

Too bad the breakdown of the Iraqui State isn't an
example of anarchy at work.

Socialist greetings,

Mike B)
--- Michael Pollak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [An idyllic scene from the quiet, British, Southern
> part of the country]
>
>URL:
> http://www.iraq-today.com/news/business/9.html
>
>Economy
>Date posted: 09.09.2003.
>Law & order
>Pirates, pillagers, and smugglers plague Basra
> port
>By Ahmad Mukhtar
>
>ABUL KHASIB - Port manager Hamid al-Jabriy says
> he can stand at
>the waterline and see pirate speedboats, armed
> with RPG rocket
>launchers and PK machineguns, some 500 meters off
> the wharves in
>the narrows of the Shatt al-Arab waterway,
> waiting for their prey.
>
>The guards at his gate, meanwhile, shrug and say
> they can't
>possibly do their job - they don't have the guns
> to fight looters,
>and even if they did manage to kill one it would
> only land them in
>a tribal blood feud. One of them recalls how he
> once got up in the
>middle of the night to use the bathroom. When he
> came back, his
>cot was missing.
>
>By land and by sea, the port of Abu Filoos in the
> town of Abul
>Khasib has a bit of a security problem.
>
>Iraq's second port after Umm Qasr, Abu Filoos -
> roughly
>translatable as "Mr Moneybags" - used to fuel the
> thriving
>commercial markets of Basra. Now, it's become the
> sugar daddy for
>pillagers who pray on whatever commerce dares to
> enter.
>
>The guards, says al-Jabiry says, fears looters
> -if you shoot them,
>you'll get pulled into a tribal dispute which
> will end either in
>revenge killing or the payment of blood money
> compensation.
>
>Some in the area have decided that if you can
> beat them, join
>them. Painted on the vow of a vessel docked at
> the nearby al-Ashar
>wharf is the following warning: "This ship is
> under the protection
>of the "al-Qaramsha" - a tribe once known for
> trade in dairy
>products and scrap, now for racketeering.
>
>Al-Jabiry, for his part, says that he appealed to
> the Americans,
>the British, and the local governor for help. In
> desperation, he
>appealed to local tribal leaders and the Supreme
> Council for the
>Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who provided him with
> weapons and fast
>boats to chase the pirates.
>
>However, his quarry can always take refuge on the
> Iranian side of
>the waterway. Another problem is administrative
> disorder. After
>the port was looted during the war, officials
> turned to private
>subcontractors to provide equipment and
> longshoremen. The private
>businessmen, however, generally deal directly
> with the owners of
>vessels, rarely coordinating activities with the
> port
>administration. The result is chaos on the
> wharves.
>
>Coming into Iraq via Abu Filoos are cars, plastic
> goods, and
>canned foodstuffs. As for export, many
> commodi

Re: Iraq Today: Pirate, pillagers, and smugglers plague Basra port

[Mike Ballard]

Sounds like chaos to me.  The breakdown of the State
due, not to class conscious activity, but to a
free-market turned into a free-for-all--class divided
social relations without benefit of the rule of
bourgeois law and its police.

Too bad the breakdown of the Iraqui State isn't an
example of anarchy at work.

Socialist greetings,

Mike B)
--- Michael Pollak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [An idyllic scene from the quiet, British, Southern
> part of the country]
>
>URL:
> http://www.iraq-today.com/news/business/9.html
>
>Economy
>Date posted: 09.09.2003.
>Law & order
>Pirates, pillagers, and smugglers plague Basra
> port
>By Ahmad Mukhtar
>
>ABUL KHASIB - Port manager Hamid al-Jabriy says
> he can stand at
>the waterline and see pirate speedboats, armed
> with RPG rocket
>launchers and PK machineguns, some 500 meters off
> the wharves in
>the narrows of the Shatt al-Arab waterway,
> waiting for their prey.
>
>The guards at his gate, meanwhile, shrug and say
> they can't
>possibly do their job - they don't have the guns
> to fight looters,
>and even if they did manage to kill one it would
> only land them in
>a tribal blood feud. One of them recalls how he
> once got up in the
>middle of the night to use the bathroom. When he
> came back, his
>cot was missing.
>
>By land and by sea, the port of Abu Filoos in the
> town of Abul
>Khasib has a bit of a security problem.
>
>Iraq's second port after Umm Qasr, Abu Filoos -
> roughly
>translatable as "Mr Moneybags" - used to fuel the
> thriving
>commercial markets of Basra. Now, it's become the
> sugar daddy for
>pillagers who pray on whatever commerce dares to
> enter.
>
>The guards, says al-Jabiry says, fears looters
> -if you shoot them,
>you'll get pulled into a tribal dispute which
> will end either in
>revenge killing or the payment of blood money
> compensation.
>
>Some in the area have decided that if you can
> beat them, join
>them. Painted on the vow of a vessel docked at
> the nearby al-Ashar
>wharf is the following warning: "This ship is
> under the protection
>of the "al-Qaramsha" - a tribe once known for
> trade in dairy
>products and scrap, now for racketeering.
>
>Al-Jabiry, for his part, says that he appealed to
> the Americans,
>the British, and the local governor for help. In
> desperation, he
>appealed to local tribal leaders and the Supreme
> Council for the
>Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who provided him with
> weapons and fast
>boats to chase the pirates.
>
>However, his quarry can always take refuge on the
> Iranian side of
>the waterway. Another problem is administrative
> disorder. After
>the port was looted during the war, officials
> turned to private
>subcontractors to provide equipment and
> longshoremen. The private
>businessmen, however, generally deal directly
> with the owners of
>vessels, rarely coordinating activities with the
> port
>administration. The result is chaos on the
> wharves.
>
>Coming into Iraq via Abu Filoos are cars, plastic
> goods, and
>canned foodstuffs. As for export, many
> commodities that are either
>required for industrial development or are likely
> to have been
>stolen are banned from leaving the country, so
> little more than
>cottonseed, wool, and jute go out.
>
>Legally, that is. Abu Filoos officials know very
> well that they
>are a haven for smugglers.
>
>Iraqi fishermen, they say, used to be considered
> vital to the
>country's food stability, so the old regime gave
> them a quota of
>diesel to motor down the Shatt al-Arab to fish in
> the Arabian
>Gulf. An intelligence outpost at the mouth of the
> sea would verify
>their catch to make sure they were doing what
> they were supposed
>to do.
>
>These days, however, the security outpost is
> gone, but the
>fishermen still receive their diesel. Instead of
> bothering about
>the Arabian Gulf chasing fish, port officials
> say, many fishermen
>simply sell their quota to passing boats.
>
>Officials recall one fishing boat that demanded a
> refill of diesel
>after its initial quota had "run out." It blocked
> entrance to a
>wharf to a cargo vessel, claiming that it didn't
> even have the
>fuel to motor out. Rather than give into
> blackmail, the officials
>proudly recall, they simply got a lift and
> hoisted the offending
>vessel away.
>
>Despite the port's troubles, Al-Jabiry thinks
> most of his problems
>could be solved by centralized policing. A strike
> force armed with
>fast boats to chase smugglers and pirates, he
> says, would perfect
>the solution.


=
*
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute,
and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty
girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.
THAT'S relativity."