Y2K
I've been listening to the government on Y2K committee. Maybe Nostra what's his name had something. The don't have any idea and they are doing nothing. REH
Re: Canadian Indian Claims
If there is no such thing as obligations to past generations, then the idea of History is nullified. If an action such as a genocide has no force after a given number of years, then as long as one can get away with it for the requisite period, the action has no value except to let others know what can be gotten away with. Consequently, except for a nuclear winter in which the slate is wiped clean, there is no justice. Robert ___ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.
New Zealand's Ageing Non-Workforce
FYI Column - New Zealand's Ageing Non-Workforce Thursday, 29 July 1999, 9:25 am Article: New Zealand's Ageing Non-Workforce Keith Rankin's Thursday Column Massey University History Professor David Thomson, in his Winter Lecture (University of Auckland, 27 July), described a little-appreciated reality; that people over 45 in New Zealand and other developed countries are less likely to be doing paid work than ever before, despite becoming relatively more numerous. As the age of eligibility for a public pension rises, the average age of retirement continues to fall. People aged 45-64 can no longer be regarded as the financial bedrock of our society. Twentieth century policymaking has been predicated on the assumption of "full employment", which was taken to mean that around 95% of men aged 25-60 should be in regular paid employment of 20 hours or more per week. That high employment consensus also came to mean that perhaps 90% of women aged 25-60, excluding those caring for pre-school children, should be likewise employed. The underlying assumption behind this expectation is that, if these employment figures are not being achieved, then people are either unemployed or are responding to perverse incentives to not work. Hence, the western political consensus has been to focus on training workers who would otherwise be structurally unemployed. And on removing any alleged incentives to choose welfare over work. While the rhetoric of the welfare lifestyle has not explicitly focused on the middle-aged, if there is any truth to that rhetoric, then that truth must be taken to apply to them, for they are quite conspicuously doing less paid work than society expects them to be doing. Since the adoption of a neoliberal policy framework in the 1980s the assumption that a society made up of nuclear families would be able to make long-term financial commitments on the basis of stable fulltime employment income has actually intensified. Political leaders, from Jenny Shipley to Tony Blair, see our problems in the 1990s as largely due to a diminishing work ethic, and not to a fundamental change in the demand for labour. The reality is rather different from these mainstream perceptions. This new reality has been both accentuated and retarded by neoliberal micro-reforms (such as the 1991 Employment Contracts Act) and classical macroeconomic policies (such as monetarist anti-inflation policies and the renewed commitment to balancing the budget). "Retirement" for men in New Zealand and other comparable countries now begins at age 45. From around 1980, there has been a significant increase in the number of men and women over 45 who are not employed. The causes of this phenomenon appear to be two. First, there has been a casualisation of employment generally, which means more individual contracts, and more short-term task-oriented contracts. This is largely but not totally due to laws that treat the labour market just like any commodity market. And it is due in large part to the loss of influence of the trade unions that gave workers the bargaining power required to create long duration jobs. The social imperative of maintaining stable full employment has been replaced by a view that the market always knows best how to allocate scarce resources, and that the "scarcity" of labour will ensure full employment. People who believe that the market knows best believe that the lack of employment for older persons is, in large part, due to excessive minimum wages. We must infer that the free marketers expect 50-year-olds to work for $5 per hour. That's hardly going to remove the problem of financial insecurity that today's middle-aged citizens are facing. The second cause is technology. New technologies have created a number of new employment opportunities (eg call centres). Further, it has often been middle-aged persons who have created businesses that utilise information technology. Nevertheless, the more general truth is that the rising productivity of labour, made possible by technological change, has permanent and irreversible effects on employment. In particular, technological change has made labour - even skilled labour - into a much less important factor of production than it was in the heyday of mass-production manufacturing. Ironically, the introduction of neoliberal economic reforms has slowed down the growth of labour productivity (as a recent report by Wellington economist Brian Philpott reveals), so in this sense, the loss of jobs arising from raised productivity in New Zealand has been less than in many other countries. New Zealand has suffered the trauma of labour market decimation, but without getting the dividends that are apparent in countries like Australia and Ireland. The challenge that David Thomson set his audience was to not necessarily treat the end of the 35-40 year working lifespan as a negative. Neoliberal policies that create part-time impermanent McJobs (and casual, poorly rem
Re: Canadian Indian Claims
Ray, I'm not really sure of where this is taking us. Much as we would like to, we can't resuscitate history. The bacilli and viruses moved overwhelmingly in one direction and not the other. What was destroyed can never be recovered. While those viruses were doing their thing over here, my ancestors were enmeshed in the famines, pestilence, migrations, persecutions and wars of central Europe. They may have had a greater chance of survival than American Indians, but not that much greater. They and many other poor people of European did not arrive in the Americas until well after the damage had been done. They were peasants trying to eke out a living, and knew nothing about Beethoven, Plato or Goethe. They had never been to a museum, let alone put the artifacts of other cultures into one. All they knew was that they needed land to till. Initially, they had found it in Russia, but that didn't work very well, so they came here. They didn't know that the land they tilled on the Canadian prairies had belonged to others. All they knew was that that is where the government, the lands agents and the railroads put them. In citing Canadian Indian claims policy, I did not mean to imply that it is the best policy or even good policy. I just wanted to let you know how, under our Constitution and system of laws, we have proceeded to compensate aboriginal people for some of their grievances. And I do recognize that only a few of these can be dealt with by negotiation, legislation or the courts, and that there may be no satisfactory way of dealing with many others. Something that has bothered me is that, though our debate has been very interesting, it is difficult to see how it is related to the future of work which, after all, is supposed to be the subject of this list. However, there is a hook. Over the past twenty or thirty years, the Canadian aboriginal claims process has created a wealth of work for lawyers, negotiators and advisors. I personally benefitted from this at various times for several years, as did many of my associates. In the case of the Yukon claim, with which I am familiar, negotiations proved something of an economic godsend to the native communities. Not only were lawyers and negotiators paid, but a great many Indian people who traveled to Whitehorse to present the views of their community were also compensated. As well, the Council for Yukon Indians employed a range of administrative, secretarial and clerical staff. But this is only the beginning. The claims final agreement created a wide range of boards and tribunal dealing with subjects such as eligibility and enrolment, financial compensation, reserves and lands set aside, tenure and management of settlement lands, access to settlement lands, expropriation, surface rights, settlement land amount, definition of boundaries, financial compensation, special management areas, land use planning, development assessment, heritage, water management, fish and wildlife management, forest resources, taxation, and economic development measures. The implementation of all such measures requires either occasional or full time personnel. And coupled with these measures are initiatives which transfer administrative responsibilities and funding from the Government of Canada to the Indian communities to enable them to govern themselves. A claims settlement provides a whole new layer of administration and will inevitably complicate the management regime. Given that public institutions of government will continue to exist, it may take years to fully define the roles of the new claims related boards and tribunals, and it may take almost as long for persons who have been placed on these boards and tribunals to understand their roles. In the interim, considerable uncertainty about who does what will exist, not only impacting on potential economic activity, but creating plenty of work for lawyers. I am not knocking the aboriginal claims or self-government processes. They are absolutely necessary in a nation like Canada in which aboriginal title or rights were never clearly or wholly dealt with. What I am saying, however, is that these processes are extremely complex and cumbersome even though they cover only a relatively small part of the spectrum of aboriginal grievances. It will take decades to deal with the relatively few issues that are being considered. Loading anything more onto them could lead to complete stasis. Ed Weick >Did I get it right? I tried hard to make the echo >as accurate as possible. This is my experience, not >reading. We say that reading can serve only to >help one remember what they already know. What >did it feel like to be in the reverse? Were you happy, >sad, angry, threatened? I have been all of these. > >Is this policy really the end result of Bach's B minor mass, >Verdi's Turandot, the Britton/Owen War Requiem, the >plays of Shakespeare, the poetry of Robert Burns >and Dylan Thomas, of Goethe? Is this the end result >of Judeo/Christi
Re: Forwarded mail....
Isn't California where they have been trying to pass tort "reform". Sounds like a good thing to get in a suit before that is done. I can think of all kinds of possibilities for damages based upon good Samaritan principles. And I'm just a civilian. REH Michael Gurstein wrote: > -- Forwarded message -- > Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 10:26:01 -0400 > From: Henry Milner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > I received this on another listserve.What can one say? > > Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1998 > > In California, more than 600 lawyer hopefuls were taking the > state bar exams in the Pasadena Convention Center when a > 50-year-old man taking the test suffered a heart attack. > > Only two of the 600 test takers, John Leslie and Eunice Morgan, > stopped to help the man. They administered CPR until paramedics > arrived, then resumed taking the exam. > > Citing policy, the test supervisor refused to allow the two > additional time to make up for the 40 minutes they spent helping > the victim. Jerome Braun, the state bar's senior executive for > admissions, backed the decision stating, "If these two want to be > lawyers, they should learn a lesson about priorities." > > Information about Inroads-L > The Inroads WWW Site is located at: http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~inroads/ > To post to the INROADS-L list, send e-mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" > To unsubscribe, send e-mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" with the > following in the body of the message: unsubscribe inroads-l > Questions for the list owners to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" > *
Forwarded mail....
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 10:26:01 -0400 From: Henry Milner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I received this on another listserve.What can one say? Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1998 In California, more than 600 lawyer hopefuls were taking the state bar exams in the Pasadena Convention Center when a 50-year-old man taking the test suffered a heart attack. Only two of the 600 test takers, John Leslie and Eunice Morgan, stopped to help the man. They administered CPR until paramedics arrived, then resumed taking the exam. Citing policy, the test supervisor refused to allow the two additional time to make up for the 40 minutes they spent helping the victim. Jerome Braun, the state bar's senior executive for admissions, backed the decision stating, "If these two want to be lawyers, they should learn a lesson about priorities." Information about Inroads-L The Inroads WWW Site is located at: http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~inroads/ To post to the INROADS-L list, send e-mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" To unsubscribe, send e-mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" with the following in the body of the message: unsubscribe inroads-l Questions for the list owners to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" *
PROTESTERS
JOHN A. TAUBE WRITES Im writing the following because I feel that I have an important message to protesters in general and KPFA protesters in particular. Let me be up front: I think KPFA protesters are extremely dedicated to their cause, not one of them is so engaged for selfish reasons. After writing that, let me hasten to add that I feel that the protesters should rethink their position because in the long run it may turn out that they are harming society. Not withstanding, I think protesters should be admired for their sincerity. Let me be up front again and tell something about myself. Im 86 years old and have been a member of Technocracy Inc. for 56 years. All this time, I have never protested against anything. I have, however, spent huge amount of my time doing just one thing: Trying to make people aware of one basic fact. Society - - operating with our laws of the land, which are intertwined with our socioeconomic structure, our Price System, this in our scientific-technological age - - puts us on a suicidal course. There is so much material to substantiate this statement that to note them here would overwhelm a person. Therefore Im just submitting one piece. The San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, has an article U.S. Laws Diluted by Trade Pacts. I urge all to get and study this article. Left out of the article, but pertinent to the fact that we are on a suicidal course, is that we have become Policeman of the World. This is so because merchants have investments globally. Anyone who buys the stuff that our involvement in foreign matters is basically for humanitarian reasons is way off track. Back to KPFA protesters: Our suicidal course will not be impeded by any resolution that results from actions of KPFA protesters. I urge all protesters to rethink their priorities. Below is a letter to the editor, S.F. Chronicle, July 23, 1999, that you might find of interest. Dear Editor: The importance of your July 22, 1999 article Electric Users Could Be in For a Jolt cannot be overestimated. My comments on it, and a related matter (KPFA), reflect a background in Technocracy Inc., a scientific, educational-research organization. The local media has covered the troubles of a local radio station, KPFA, in every detail. Allowing for the same people at different protests, it would be safe to say that 10,000 people were protesting. My point: Their time could be better spent. How? Why? Read on. According to your article, it is very probable that we will have periods when electricity is cut off to a complete community San Francisco for instance. Thats serious. However the radio stations problem is resolved it will not change the lives of protesters to any measurable extent. On the other hand, because the lack of electricity is a grave threat to our way of live, seeing that this problem is resolved is where protesters time would be better spent. Think of this: Without electricity, ones home is dark. Since it takes electricity to pump gas into ones car, without electricity, ones car becomes useless. Furthermore, also useless is ones radio, television, phone, computer, etc. Technocracy calls attention to the fact that the inability of flushing ones toilet over a extended period of time presents a grave danger a serious health problem. It takes electricity to bring water into homes. I suggest this to the radio station protesters: Stop your protest against and direct your attention to protest for. For what? Read on. Technocracy finds that there is no piecemeal solution. Our situation calls for an entire revamping of society. In that we live in modern times, in a scientific-technological age and have not adapted to this new age, societys survival is in jeopardy. What protesters should be protesting for is a revamping of society. Technocracy has laid out a plan for society to move from its archaic socioeconomic structure, our Price System, to a social structure compatible with modern times. Those who take the time to study Technocracys concepts will be exhilarated to know that when (if?) we adopt this new type of social structure, we will have an age that will be the wonder of the world. Sincerely, WE ALL LEARN BY KEEPING THE LINES OF COMMUNICATION OPEN. LETS HAVE YOUR COMMENTS.
Online Conference on Organized Labour in the 21st Century (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 11:42:38 +0200 From: Niki Best <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Online Conference on Organized Labour in the 21st Century (Apologies for cross-posting) ANNOUNCEMENT Juan Somavia and Bill Jordan to open online Conference on Organized Labour in the 21st Century Juan Somavia, the Director General of the ILO, and Bill Jordan, General Secretary of the ICFTU, will launch a debate in an online Conference "Organized Labour in the 21st Century". The Conference will be run by the International Institute for Labour Studies, of the ILO, in cooperation with the ICFTU, and will begin in mid September 1999. Participation in the Conference, which is aimed at trade unionists and labour researchers, will be open, and those who have signed up in time for the opening (before mid-September) will have a chance to react and put questions to the keynote speakers by e-mail, or over the web. Anyone wanting to participate can learn more by going to the Institute's website, where it is possible to sign up from today to participate in the Conference: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/130inst/research/network/index.htm (Background documents are also available from this web address.) The Conference focuses on the future of trade unions around the world, and is expected to run for approximately twelve months. Guest speakers will be invited to act as "panelists" every month. Each month, a new topic (with new "speakers") will be launched. The topics will be announced about a week in advance and are likely to include: - Employment and development - The law and trade unions - Responses to globalization (trade, investment, labour standards) - Unions and structural adjustment - Transnational industrial relations - Collective bargaining and social dialogue - Informal sector and marginalised workers - Social protection - Recruitment and organizing - Political strategy (party politics, alliances with NGOs, etc.) - Women in unions - Youth in unions - Union structures and services (membership participation, mergers, finances, etc.) If you do not have access to the World Wide Web, but would like to participate, send an empty e-mail message to this address, and you will be subscribed automatically. [EMAIL PROTECTED] FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE CONFERENCE ON LABOUR IN THE 21st CENTURY Please contact: Mr A.V. Jose [EMAIL PROTECTED]
FW: The profit motif knows no conscience
Title: FW: The profit motif knows no conscience Thomas: This posting is from Graffis and re-posted from EnviroScan: -- RISING COAL USE INCREASES AIR POLLUTION Coal consumption in the U.S. has risen almost 16 percent since 1992, says a report by the Environmental Working Group and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG). Thomas: Coal used for generation of electricity has a lot of nasty byproducts. I find it interesting that despite Kyoto and (the name eludes me at the moment) the big global warming seminar in South America, I believe in 1992 on George Bush's watch in which the US refused to sign, we are now seeing the blatant effects of lobby groups for the coal industry's gain coming home to roost. Lest my American friends think I am picking on them, we in Ontario are about to embark on increased coal use also under the current neo-con government of Mike Harris. Many older coal burning power plants were exempted from Clean Air Act standards. When Congress deregulated wholesale electricity sales in 1992, these old plants became more profitable because they compete with more recently built plants required to install pollution control equipment. Thomas: Clearly stated - profitable - need more be said. The report, "Up In Smoke," looks at federal data on 446 power plants across the nation, tracks the use of coal plants since the 1992 Energy Policy Act was passed, and calculates the resulting smog and global warming pollution. Increased electrical generation at coal burning plants emitted 755,000 tons of nitrogen oxide pollution and 298 million tons of carbon dioxide in 1998. By increasing coal generation, eight large utility companies, American Electric Power Company, Cinergy Corporation, Dominion Resources Inc, Duke Power Company, Edison International, The Southern Company, Tennessee Valley Authority and Associated Electric Coop each emitted as much smog pollution as one million cars. Thomas: Lest the eye skim read too quickly, note the statement, "each emitted as much smog pollution as one million cars." Now, let's see 8 x 1,000,000 + 8 million! Not mentioned was whether this was per year or over the 7 year period of 92 to 99. Increased smog pollution from Illinois, West Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, Indiana and Georgia power plants each equaled that from two million cars. Thomas: Whoops, 6 x 2,000,000 + 12 million plus 8 million = 20 million car equlivalents - Now that's a lot of cars and that's on helleva lot of pollution. "This summer, tens of thousands of Americans will go to emergency rooms due to smog," said Rebecca Stanfield, clean air advocate for USPIRG. Thomas: Let's see, " tens of thousands" is pretty vague, are we talking 10 thousand or 90 thousand. Oh well, a thousand here or there is just another number, unless you happen to be one of them gasping and wheezing and being frightened out of your wits that you may have caught some terminal disease. However, it is so comforting to know that the power utilities have turned a nice profit and that the Health Care system professionals are overworked and doing better than ever - for those who have insurance, that is. "It's time for Congress to protect public health by closing the loopholes allowing old coal plants to pollute our air." * * * Respectfully, Thomas Lunde
