Re: The X Files (deus ex machina excuses)
So what's wrong with going the whole hog to have a proper direct democracy? If you leave capitalism intact, power stays with those who own the economy. How can you ensure an independent executive power? Why are obvious questions such as these ignored in favour of some really old-fashioned and tried and failed ideas? Eva (perplexed) (as always) Thomas: This does seem to be the crux of all systems of government. How to ensure that those in charge remain "virtuous to its stated goals". It would seem to me that an agency like a "supreme court" - though not legal, I'm fishing here, an agency that had the power to delve into every aspect of the governing individuals at every level, I guess sort of like our Ombudsman in Canada, would provide the necessary transparency or monitoring. This agency would have to be totally independant and also be allowed a far amount of personnel to be effective. Of course, what if they become corrupted, then perhaps and agency to monitor the agency. Well, it's pretty fuzzy thinking here but, Jay, I think you have identified the right criteria. What happens is that over time, those who govern lose their perspective and start to see the worlds problems from the view of the continuance in power. This leads to the two levels of government you alluded to, the backroom and the front room. If we could have complete transparency and an incorruptible watchdog function and perhaps a totally unbaised press, ie not owned by anyone who stands to profit individually or corporately we would go a long way to improving the art of governing. I would be interested in more thoughts in this area. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Decline in Civic Association
Eva, don't be a bore. There is plenty of research in the works of Geertz, Edward Hall ect. that proves that we are radically different once we get beyond the "we are all the same once we take off our clothes" stage. You should consider the French attitude towards world musics. Up until the French shamed us all, we were saying there is only music and we have it. Now we know there are many and that all expression is site/time specific. The chances are that it is the same for scientific expression as well. Are the arts and anthropology really that far ahead of the sciences? REH P.S. you never answered my post about the reverse cultures of the New World in our relationship to gender and ownership. Eva Durant wrote: Well, I was teaching a wonderful black dramatic soprano today and her answer to this particular question was that there was something in the Caucasian gene that didn't allow for serious long term cooperation.The statement sounds racist but somehow you all seem to be coming up with the same answer except you include her culture in your cynicism. REH Homo sapiens is one species. The gene variation between "white" and "black" individuals may be less than between "same colour" people. What a load of nonsense. I haven't heard of any cultures having a particularily peaceful past. We'll only get peace and cooperation when we discontinue the class-system and everyone has the same access to wealth. health, power, education, creativity, etc., not the least arm control. (Jay's "gamekeeping" would just continue the old tradition of violent power-struggle.) Eva
Re: Decline in Civic Association
Sorry, I am totally lost, I cannot connect your response to what was discussed. Eva Eva, don't be a bore. There is plenty of research in the works of Geertz, Edward Hall ect. that proves that we are radically different once we get beyond the "we are all the same once we take off our clothes" stage. You should consider the French attitude towards world musics. Up until the French shamed us all, we were saying there is only music and we have it. Now we know there are many and that all expression is site/time specific. The chances are that it is the same for scientific expression as well. Are the arts and anthropology really that far ahead of the sciences? REH P.S. you never answered my post about the reverse cultures of the New World in our relationship to gender and ownership. Eva Durant wrote: Well, I was teaching a wonderful black dramatic soprano today and her answer to this particular question was that there was something in the Caucasian gene that didn't allow for serious long term cooperation.The statement sounds racist but somehow you all seem to be coming up with the same answer except you include her culture in your cynicism. REH Homo sapiens is one species. The gene variation between "white" and "black" individuals may be less than between "same colour" people. What a load of nonsense. I haven't heard of any cultures having a particularily peaceful past. We'll only get peace and cooperation when we discontinue the class-system and everyone has the same access to wealth. health, power, education, creativity, etc., not the least arm control. (Jay's "gamekeeping" would just continue the old tradition of violent power-struggle.) Eva
Tactical seperation of free trade in goods and finance capital?
An interesting snippet pulled off a futurework mailing list a few months ago which didn't seem to attract any comment: a summary of The Capital Myth, article in Foreign Affairs May/June 1998, by Jagdish Bhagwai, apparently Economic Policy Adviser to the GATT. Apostasy in that raises the issue that free trade in goods may be one thing, but free CAPITAL FLOWS may not be such a good idea after all, and thus raising an interesting distinction that may yield some advantage to the "other side"? Also the poster of the comment indicates that this could signify a growing awareness of crisis in the world capitalist nomenklatura, and of a potentially significant split? This raised a question for me: Could this be a useful weak spot we could exploit more cleverly than so far? Rather than take on the whole issue of free trade and thus the entire global nomenklatura, by distinguishing between trade in commodities and manufactures and the frictionless flow of financial capital around the globe, tactically it could make it easier to deal with the problems particularly being caused to monetary systems by the removal of regulation, and begin to replace necessary regulatory controls, in effect dividing the capitalist camp between those more rooted in production and trade in goods, and the money-money financial casino capitalist... No, I'm not naive about the overall problem of unrestricted free trade before anyone gets into lecturing. Sometimes, though, it might be a good idea to not take on all the big boys at once, and explore ways to avoid doing so! Clearly people are tackling the issue of friction in financial flows - Tobin Taxes, Chilean wait-states etc. But it looks to me that these persons/organisation are usually operating within the context of a pretty near total critique of Free Trade in all its manifestations, and thus can be easily identified as the enemy of all capital (probably true and rightly so!) and thus subject to the full ideological battering and scaremongering/ridiculing for going against nature that follows from this, alienating them from any possible "natural allies" (emphasise the qoute marks!!) in the capitalist camp. Any one got any comments on those thoughts? And no, I don't understand the allusions the commentator is making in his obvious snipes at certain people! snip Regardless of the latest poison pen e-mails from the Choir Boys for Neoclassical Economics and other sophomores of SAIS,there is something much more interesting in the latest (May/June 1998) issue of FOREIGN AFFAIRS than Ed Lincoln's piece. Ed Lincoln's article is terrific. It shows that he is not part of the "mutual understanding" industry and is prepared to analyze a very serious foreign policy problem for many countries (including the US), namely Japan's failures as a superrich ally. It is to be expected that this break with American imperial ideology would set off the choir boys and mobilize them to attack Ed Lincoln for daring to be critical of "the linchpin of the Pacific." The triumphalism of Mortimer Zuckerman in the same issue is on a par with Khrushchev's "we will bury you" speech (Jim Mann in the Los Angeles Times has already exposed Zuckerman very nicely). And Paul Krugman, for once talking about something he is at least capable of doing research on, is highly credible and persuasive. But the bombshell is Bhagwati! When you get an article in the ultraestablishmentrian FOREIGN AFFAIRS from the reigning prince and defender of free trade ideology entitled "The Capital Myth," something is going on. The worm is actually turning. I was reminded as I read his piece of that line from the Manifesto where Marx notes that laissez faire capitalism collapses every historical tradition and aspect of freedom "into that single, unconscionable freedom--free trade" (Japan today compared with Japan in the 1950s is a perfect illustration of this). Jagdish Bhagwati, Arthur Lehman Professor of Economics at Keidanren East (formally known as Columbia University), economic policy adviser to the Director-General of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the man who never met a Japanese trade surplus he couldn't defend in impeccable neoclassical terms, has now invented a new concept: "the Wall Street-Treasury Complex," the modern equivalent of the military-industrial complex. He says that the "Wall Street-Treasury complex is unable to look much beyond the interest of Wall Street, which it equates with the good of the world." He goes on to argue: "And despite the evidence of the inherent risks of free capital flows, the Wall Street-Treasury complex is currently proceeding on the self-serving assumption that the ideal world is indeed one of free capital flows, with the IMF and its bailouts at the apex in a role that guarantees its survival and
Re: The X Files (deus ex machina excuses)
At 11:28 PM 8/26/98 GMT, you wrote: So what's wrong with going the whole hog to have a proper direct democracy? Absolutely nothing wrong with a proper Direct Democracy. You will always get my support on this one, Eva For those who have yet to grapple with Direct Democracy, see http://www.npsnet.com/cdd/ Colin Stark Canadians for Direct Democracy Vancouver, B.C. http://www.npsnet.com/cdd/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ( Listserv) If you leave capitalism intact, power stays with those who own the economy. How can you ensure an independent executive power? Why are obvious questions such as these ignored in favour of some really old-fashioned and tried and failed ideas? Eva (perplexed) (as always) Thomas: This does seem to be the crux of all systems of government. How to ensure that those in charge remain "virtuous to its stated goals". It would seem to me that an agency like a "supreme court" - though not legal, I'm fishing here, an agency that had the power to delve into every aspect of the governing individuals at every level, I guess sort of like our Ombudsman in Canada, would provide the necessary transparency or monitoring. This agency would have to be totally independant and also be allowed a far amount of personnel to be effective. Of course, what if they become corrupted, then perhaps and agency to monitor the agency. Well, it's pretty fuzzy thinking here but, Jay, I think you have identified the right criteria. What happens is that over time, those who govern lose their perspective and start to see the worlds problems from the view of the continuance in power. This leads to the two levels of government you alluded to, the backroom and the front room. If we could have complete transparency and an incorruptible watchdog function and perhaps a totally unbaised press, ie not owned by anyone who stands to profit individually or corporately we would go a long way to improving the art of governing. I would be interested in more thoughts in this area. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW Environmental Trends
Why we can't "grow" our way out of the unemployment dilemma, at least under existing economic systems and industrial regimes. Sally Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 10:41:07 +0100 ===Electronic Edition . . . RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT HEALTH WEEKLY #613 . . ---August 27, 1998--- . . HEADLINES: . . ENVIRONMENTAL TRENDS . . == . . Environmental Research Foundation . . P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403 . . Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] . . == . . Back issues available by E-mail; to get instructions, send . . E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the single word HELP . .in the message; back issues also available via ftp from. .ftp.std.com/periodicals/rachel and from gopher.std.com . .and from http://www.monitor.net/rachel/. .Subscriptions are free. To subscribe, E-mail the words. . SUBSCRIBE RACHEL-WEEKLY YOUR NAME to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] . = ENVIRONMENTAL TRENDS Starting in the 1950s, awareness of environmental destruction developed slowly in the U.S.[1,2] Various events slowly shook the public awake: Atomic fallout from weapons-testing in the years 1956-1963; a nation-wide pesticide scare in 1959; birth defects from the drug thalidomide in 1961; Rachel Carson's book SILENT SPRING in 1962; the discovery of cancer-causing food additives (such as the artificial sweeteners, cyclamates, in 1969); and other byproducts of corporate technology, contributed to a growing awareness of environmental degradation.[3] By 1965, the dangers of a deteriorating environment were acknowledged at the highest levels of government; the President's Science Advisory Committee in 1965 published RESTORING THE QUALITY OF OUR ENVIRONMENT, a catalog of pollution problems and their effects on human and environmental health.[4] In 1969, Congress passed the Environmental Policy Act and in 1970 President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by executive order. Starting in the late 1960s, the modern "environmental movement" took shape as activist lawyers and scientists came to the aid of citizens who were trying to ban the pesticide DDT, prevent air pollution by stopping new highways, discourage nuclear technologies and curb obvious water pollutants such as foaming detergents. During the 1970s, Congress passed a dozen major environmental laws. Environmental groups hired professional staffs who were knowledgeable about technologies, pollutants, regulatory strategies, and politics. In other industrialized countries, governments and citizens began similar efforts. The governments of Denmark, the Netherlands, Britain, Sweden, West Germany, Japan, France, and Canada passed a series of laws aimed at reversing the trends of environmental destruction. Here and abroad, universities organized seminars and conferences and eventually created whole departments devoted to "environmental studies." A new industry developed, called "environmental consulting," in which highly-paid specialists helped governments and private corporations respond to environmental concerns. The mass media began to devote significant space to environmental problems. In the U.S. environmental reporting became a journalistic specialty and a "Society of Environmental Journalists" was launched. Corporations with tarnished reputations devoted billions of dollars to environmentally-preferable technologies, and created a new public relations industry that specializes in "greenwashing." Now, after 20 years of intense efforts to reverse the trends of environmental destruction, the question is, are we succeeding? So far as we know, only one study has tried to answer this question in a rigorous way. The study, called INDEX OF ENVIRONMENTAL TRENDS, was published in April 1995 by the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives in Washington, D.C.[5] In it, the authors measured trends in a wide range of serious environmental problems facing industrial societies. The study relied on the best available data, most of it gathered and maintained by national governments. The study examined 21 indicators of environmental quality, summarizing the data into a single numerical "environmental index." The index shows that, despite 20 years of substantial effort, each of the nine countries has failed to reverse the trends of environmental destruction. See Table 1. = Table 1 RANKING FROM LEAST TO MOST ENVIRONMENTAL
Re: chimpanzeehood and human nature
Eva, my apologies for not catching this post which was before my past one asking for a reply. My server only gave this post to me today for some reason. The Great Civilizations in North America were nearly all matrilineal including the Long House Houdinosaunee who gave Ben Franklin the systems that are the foundations of the U.S. Constitution. (They didn't accept the matrilineal element but did include a great deal of the "Great Law of Peace" in the Constitution).The exception to this may be the Pueblo peoples. I have called a Hopi friend of mine on that and hope he can tell me more about their very complicated formulas, however, I am not enthusiastic about my ability to comprehend. My own people the Cherokee were until 1828 Matrilineal at which point they realized that they would not survive without at least trying assimilation. So they met, drafted a written constitution and formed a mirror government to the U.S. Government including changing women's equality and property rights. (Needless to say this made the women go into a 150 year depression, only remedied with a return to traditional values and spiritual practices.) It didn't make any difference the "crackers" still stole the plantations, the cotton and fruit plantations and the herds of thoroughbred horses, sold them for pennies and marched the Cherokee to Oklahoma on a death march. Orphaning my great-grandfather in the process. The greatest City of North America was at Kahokia and was matrilineal as were all of the Mound Builder cultures.The great cultures of the Southeast and the Navajo in the Southwest were as well.The Great Speaker at Tenochtitlan was originally matrilineal although the reform of Tlacelel calls that into doubt at the time of Cortez. Some of the more nomadic cultures were not. Unfortunately those cultures are the ones that the movies and anthropologists wrote about. They were the more romantic of the bunch as opposed to people like the first psycho-linguist Sequoia (Cherokee) or Ely Parker. "Donehogawa" (Seneca) who was the gatekeeper of the Iroquois Confederacy a Lieutenant of Grant in the Civil War and the head of the Department of Indian Affairs. He was also a very wealthy engineer. The ways of Washington and the games with the "Indian Wars" out west were so discouraging that he resigned and continued both his business and his traditional ways.So you can take it from me. We were and are matrilineal inspite of and long before Rousseau and John Locke. As for the Inca. There are many new books being written by the people themselves and I would refer to those before taking the invaders words for much.But they are not my people and I won't speak for them.I would do the same for the Magyars even though I have sung Hary Janos and studied with Otto Herz and Bela Rozsa. Now that all being said, I re-state the original question: how do you justify your opinion about all women everywhere as property with the fact that in most Native American communities the women owned the property and could put the husband out of the marriage by simply putting his shoes in the door? Ray Evans Harrell Eva Durant wrote: I think this must be the exception, in tribes where the idea of surplus/private property of the means of production such as land and the separation of of work did not occur. I don't remember any such matriarchal structures mentioned in the inca and other city-dwelling or nomadic ancient americans. Westerners yearn so much for an idyll of back to nature, that they tend to re-create some of the "ancient" customs that were disrupted by their very arrival... Eva Eva, how do you justify your opinion about all women everywhere as property with the fact that in most Native American communities the women owned the property and could put the husband out of the marriage by simply putting his shoes in the door? Power was vested in the clans and in the clan mothers who chose and still choose the members of the council. Only they can depose a leader and in my nation only the "beloved woman" can declare war. In my two divorces the wife got all of the property and left me only with what they didn't want. It is not easy being in a traditional marital arrangement. That is why we so rarely leave them. You seem a bit Eurocentric here. REH Durant wrote: (David Burman:) On the contrary. The evidence strongly suggests that our original foreparents were egalitarian in their practices, with agricultural surpluses and advanced cultural development, but with no signs of fortification that would suggests the need for defence from others. This contradicts the commonly held patriarchal assumptions that agricultural surplus was the necessary and sufficient condition for domination and war. These societies valued the feminine power to create life over the masculine power to take it. I wonder on what sort of evidence
Re: Tactical seperation of free trade in goods and finance capital?
M.Blackmore wrote: [snip] For those who would like to read further, let me also recommend the brilliant review by Marshall Berman of the Communist Manifesto on its 150 anniversary in THE NATION, May 11, 1998. [snip] It's on their website, at: http://www.thenation.com/issue/980511/0511berm.htm \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA --- ![%THINK;[SGML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
