[PEN-L:5695] Re: Re: RE: Re: Exchange with Michael Tomasky

[Rob Schaap]

Jim writes:

>The issue might be restated as "why did the US wait so long to intervene in
>WW2?" 

If memory serves, some Japanese planes had to pay a visit to one of your
imperial holdings before you got really cross with them.  Even then, the big
R. didn't open hostilities against the the Euro-fascists until Hitler (who
still fancied his chances in Russia at that stage - and who'd clearly
forgotten what had happened when last the Yanks came across the water some
24 years earlier) rather daringly declared war on the US.

>and why did it allow GM and other US-based corporations free play in
>Nazi Germany? etc. I think you'll find that a lot of leaders of what were
>to be the Allies -- especially in England -- were more or less pro-Nazi.

Hell, Oz was selling Japan all the pig-iron it wanted right up to when they
threw a load of it at Pearl Harbour - our pompously quasi-Pom Tory PM of the
time, Bob Menzies, is still referred to as 'Pig-Iron Bob'.  As has ever been
the case since, we got some of it back - value-added and at some cost (they
flattened Darwin with it).

>But rather than go further in
>speculating about motives, it's important to note that _motives help
>determine the means used_.

And the means used help us determine the motives, no?  And NATO has a PR
hole there we should be able to drive a truck through, if we keep at it. 
It's TV stations and office buildings now.  What 'military targets' await?

>The US/NATO motives pushed them in the direction of ultimatum-based
>diplomacy and then diplomacy with threats of bombing, and then the actual
>use of strategic bombing. The elites see the only way to fix things to
>their liking is to do it _from above_. Did they encourage the democratic
>and generally pacifistic ethnic Albanian movement for more rights (the
>restoration of Kosovar autonomy)? No. That's too messy. It can't be
>controlled, since it involves people who can't be controlled very easily.
>(Look what our "friends" in Afghanistan did!) Instead, bombing was used.
>The elite couldn't use troops, of course, because of the lingering Vietnam
>syndrome and the greater degree of democracy in W. Europe than in the US.
>So bombing -- a "solution" that never solved anything, especially when
>applied alone -- was applied.

Chris thinks - and I simply can not yet bring myself to agree with him -
that the US are gonna fatten up the KLA, give 'em tactical weaponry, and
send 'em in to do the killing and the dying for 'em - with NATO air and
logistic support, no doubt.  Now, I realise this has been standard US
practice for many decades now, but even the Yanks must learn eventually!  Or
are they blithely creating another medium-long-term rod for their own backs
- another erstwhile puppet-cum-demonic-enemy-of-the-people process in train?
 It's a way of avoiding American boys-in-bags, might leave Boris a way out
now that he's declared Russia will respond to a NATO invasion, and it helps
obviate the diplomatic problem of where to invade from, I s'pose ... hey,
mebbe I do agree with Chris ...

>Of course, now that we've demonized Milosevic and labeled the Serbs a
>nation of killers, the popular support for sending in ground troops is
>rising. So the elite is succeeding at achieving a goal they've cherished
>for years, the purging of the Vietnam syndrome and the increase in popular
>willingness to take direction.

Can anybody assure me that no tactical or strategic commie-bloc nuclear
weaponry persists on Yugoslav soil?  If not, can anyone assure me it
wouldn't be under Belgrade's control?  Not a rhetorical question - I just
haven't a clue.  

>But the problem is that the bombing has made th Serbs more resolute, united
>them behind _their_ elite. So chances are that even ground troops won't
>succeed in achieving US/NATO's stated goals. So we might see the Vietnam
>syndrome coming back.

I can't for the life of me begin to imagine a realistic ending to this
nonsense.  This is getting right out of control.  Just look at the July
papers from 1914.  At first, no-one thought we'd be so mad as to go through
with our posturing, then, slowly, the horrible realisation dawned that blood
would be spilled.  Of course, no-one had a clue how big it was all gonna get
for some tragic time to come.  But try, with the benefit of hindsight, to
pick the moment of no-return in 1914.  What would constitute the equivalent
of the Kaiser's sad note to the Tsar today? 

A NATO ground-assault, for mine.  Kaiser Bill effectively telling Tsar
Boris, 'Sorry, mate - gotta do it now - nothing personal.'

Sigh,
Rob.

[PEN-L:5707] Re: Re: Russia and Yugoslavia

[Rob Schaap]

G'day Barkley,

You're asking Yoshie, but the soccer hasn't started yet, so I'll fly a kite.

>  As a question to you, Yoshie, would you characterize
>what the Serbs are doing now to the Albanians in Kosmet
>as "self-defense"?  In what way does this "resist" the
>imperialist bombing by NATO/US?

I guess it doesn't matter a lot what you call the mass deportation of
hundreds of thousands of people at gun-point (with a few thousand deaths
thrown in), but I think this can be construed as self-defence.  Counter
insurgency in guerilla war - you dunno who the guerillas are, you know they
gotta get fed by somebody, you dunno who they are either, but you know
they'd all be Albanian Kosovars.  So you do what we did in Vietnam.  My Lais
make a strangely compelling sense in such scenarios, no?

Whilst there was a rag-tag KLA of a few hundred fighters, and an elected
moderate in the chair (Rugova), counter-insurgency was probably a
combination of salutary warnings, the odd settling of scores, and mebbe a
'surgical strike' or two on known guerilla-support hamlets.  With all-out
war (apre NATO bombing) came a more daring and better-armed KLA, doing
mischief right into Pristina - and the end of Rugova's relevance.  The 2000
dead of 1998 would no longer suffice ...

Howzatsound?

Still a bloody outrage, of course - but of the sort we were directly engaged
in only thirty years back.

Cheers,
Rob.

[PEN-L:5742] Was the Peace Treaty a Ruse?

[Ken Hanly]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

Contingency plans for using ground troops were developed last
fall according to this and other reports. At that time an air war
was decided as the "best" plan. One wonders if there were ever
any intention of negotiating with Milosevic (or the KLA for that
matter) as contrasted with
using the threat of force to bully him into signing and being
ready to use force since they knew that
the treaty was an abject surrender of sovereignty over Kosovo
that he might very well not accept?
According to the Voice of Russia the offices of the Socialist
Party of Yugoslavia (Milosevic's party) have not been occupied by
the party for some time. It was being used as
a TV studio. The real aim was to shut down the TV station. Is
there a huge outcry from Western Media about the destruction of
civilian media outlets? I don't hear it yet.
 Cheers, Ken Hanly

m"


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Yahoo! NewsAP Headlines 


Wednesday April 21  9:37 PM ET
Cohen Discusses Ground Troops
Cohen Discusses Ground Troops

By TOM RAUM Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON 
(AP) - The United States will temporarily admit as
many as 20,000 refugees from Kosovo, the Clinton administration
said Wednesday, even as Defense Secretary William Cohen suggested
plans to widen the NATO campaign with a ground offensive could be
put into place if necessary.``It could happen very quickly,'' Cohen said of the 
possibility
of sending ground troops. However, in testimony to the House
defense appropriations subcommittee, he reiterated the
administration position that neither President Clinton nor NATO
allies are yet considering such a move.The decision to temporarily resettle 
refugees in the United
States, announced by Vice President Gore in a speech at Ellis
Island, replaces an earlier plan to possibly send them to the U.S.
military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.Gore said the effort would focus on ``those 
with close family
ties in America and those who are vulnerable, and we will have them
here until they are able to return home safely.''White House deputy chief of staff 
Maria Echaveste said officials
would try to match refugees with relatives or sponsors after the
Kosovars arrived at two or three ports along the East Coast.``We're going to be 
focusing on family reunification,'' she
said.On the military front, while administration officials said anew
that the president opposed using ground troops at this point, their
statements seemed calculated to open the possibility.Both Cohen and Secretary of 
State Madeleine Albright noted in
congressional testimony that NATO had worked up plans for a
possible ground offensive last fall - plans that could be put in
operation if necessary.Cohen said the plans called for some 200,000 NATO ground 
forces
for a full invasion of Yugoslavia, or 75,000 for a scaled-back
offensive that would just involve Kosovo.Such plans could be quickly developed into 
a full-scale
operational effort if so decided by Clinton and NATO allies, Cohen
said.A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
the alliance may soon seek to update its assessment - made in
October - that the campaign should be limited to air power.And in London, in a 
speech to the House of Commons, British
Prime Minister Tony Blair said that sending ground troops ahead of
a peace deal remained an option. His comments came just before he
flew to Washington for talks with Clinton before a NATO summit that
will be dominated by the crisis.Blair still said the most effective plan was to 
press ahead with
airstrikes, now in their fifth week.Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic would not 
be able to
prevent ground troops from being deployed, Blair said, though he
added that an invasion against full-strength Yugoslav forces would
pose ``formidable'' difficulties.White House press secretary Joe Lockhart said the 
United States
has not asked for a reassessment of the airstrike strategy.But, he added, ``We 
believe that if the military command
believes that this is the right way to go and that it would be
prudent for them to update, then it's certainly something we'd
support.''``We would have no objection to updating the assessment that was
done in October, I believe, of p

[PEN-L:5743] (Fwd) GREEKS TORN OVER THEIR NATO ROLE

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent:  Wed, 21 Apr 1999 15:08:36 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:GREEKS TORN OVER THEIR NATO ROLE

The National Post   Wednesday, April 21, 1999

GREEKS TORN OVER THEIR NATO ROLE

Polls show overwhelming opposition to the bombing. 
NATO official lauds Greek government for its 
continued support in the face of domestic pressure. 

By Brian Murphy

Athens — For NATO member Greece, the main showdown isn't 
with Yugoslavia. It's within. 
Public opinion in the country is almost totally united against the 
air attacks. Greeks worry about being ensnared in a wider Balkan 
war and find kinship with Serbs as fellow Christian Orthodox, 
whose leaders often promote age-old paranoia about losing ground 
to Muslims and bowing to the West. 
The Greek government has so far managed to balance between 
domestic dissent and alliance obligations, but with the attacks 
showing no sign of easing, that may become harder. 
Escalating the air campaign could mean using Greek bases. 
Ground action in Kosovo would likely bring convoys of soldiers 
and troops through the northern port of Salonica en route to 
Macedonia, a corridor that has already been closed once by anti-
NATO protesters. 
Greek officials say they will not contribute any forces to attack 
Yugoslavia. But if public protests block even logistical support, the 
question would ring louder: Is there a place in NATO for an 
unreliable ally? 
"If Greece, because of public opposition, can't handle its NATO 
obligations in this case, there could be some wider fallout," said 
James Ker-Lindsay, an analyst at the Royal United Services 
Institute in London. "They could face some serious credibility 
issues with other NATO partners." 
Other Balkans nations desperate to join the alliance -- including 
Romania and Bulgaria -- could emerge as NATO's new regional 
operational points if Greece balks at full co-operation. Albania may 
find itself contentedly ensconced as an undeclared NATO 
protectorate. 
Protest rallies are held nearly every day now in Greece, allowing 
Greeks to revel in nationalism and U.S.-bashing reminiscent of the 
days before the big U.S. military bases closed in the early 1990s. 
Several times, riot police have been called out to protect the 
U.S. embassy. Last week, demonstrators temporarily blocked a 
French military supply convoy near the Macedonian border. 
Some polls show opposition to the bombing running at more 
than 95%. Sensing a huge potential audience, an Athens theatre 
troupe quickly put together a show lampooning NATO as a 
bumbling, Nazi-like power. 
Clerics have also helped stoke the anger. The leader of the 
Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Christodoulos, called the 
NATO attackers the "pawns of Satan." 
The protests -- many organized by Greece's Communist party --
are spilling over in the military. On Sunday, a navy lieutenant was 
taken into military custody for refusing to take part in a NATO 
deployment not directly linked to the attacks. 
Costas Simitis, the prime minister, was curt when asked about 
military dissent. "They go where I tell them to go," he said. 
Constantine Karistinos, a researcher at the Institute for 
International Relations in Athens, said: "Greece is part of the West. 
Its role has been established. But some voices still scream that . . . it 
doesn't belong alongside Western Europe and America. The 
Kosovo situation has enlarged this divide." 
But NATO appears ready to give Greece some leeway. A top 
NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, lauded Greece 
for "holding up very well . . . despite the domestic pressure." 
Forcing the Greek leadership to pick between its NATO 
obligations and pro-Serb public sentiment could create a 
government crisis and bring unwanted disruptions in the alliance. 

The Associated Press

[PEN-L:5745] (Fwd) NATO's unjust war

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent:  Wed, 21 Apr 1999 15:08:12 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:NATO's unjust war

The Globe and Mail  Wednesday, April 21, 1999
 
NATO's unjust war

By Marcus Gee

Can the killing of innocent people in war ever be justified? That was the
question that came to mind after NATO accidentally bombed a convoy of
unarmed refugees in Kosovo last week.
In a just war, the answer has to be yes. Countless civilians died when the
Allies invaded France to free Europe from the Nazis, when the cause and the
war were undeniably just. Can the same be said of the war in Kosovo? Is
this a just war? To that question, the answer has to be no.
St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas each wrestled with the idea of a just
war. Over the centuries, scholars have refined their thoughts and come up
with five basic criteria: Is the cause righteous? Are the intentions good?
Was the war declared by a proper authority? Is there a reasonable chance of
victory? Are the means proportionate to the ends?
Let's be generous and concede points one and two to NATO. The stated aim
of this war -- the protection of Kosovo Albanians from Serbian attacks --
is hard to question. The intentions, too, are essentially good. This is not
a war of conquest or a war of revenge or a war for resources. The North
Atlantic Treaty Organization's unselfish motive is to rescue civilians and
stop a thug: Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
But on the other three points, NATO loses hands down.
Declared by a proper authority? Not one of the 19 NATO countries had the
honesty to declare war when the alliance began raining destruction on
Serbian cities four weeks ago today. In Canada, the government has not even
allowed Parliament the chance to vote.
Worse, NATO has completely bypassed the United Nations. Article 53 of the
UN Charter says the UN Security Council is the proper authority to approve
a collective police action such as the NATO bombing. Yet Canada and its
allies never even asked the Council's opinion. Why? Because Russia might
have voted against us. So we simply ignored the UN, and 50 years of
Canadian support for the rule of international law has gone down the drain.
Even NATO's sanction of the bombing is suspect. The NATO charter describes
the organization as a defensive alliance that is committed to use force
only when one of its members is attacked. No NATO member has been attacked
by Yugoslavia.
A reasonable chance of victory? There was always a chance that Mr.
Milosevic would fold his tent as soon as the bombing started. But from the
early days, it was clear that this was not going to happen. Instead of
folding, he attacked Kosovo and forced hundreds of thousands of Albanians
to flee. NATO should have known this might happen. Intelligence reports
before the war showed that he might unleash his troops on Kosovo if he
thought the rebels there had forged an alliance with NATO, which is how
Belgrade, with its acute victim complex, was certain to see it. Yet, with
feckless optimism, NATO bombed away.
Is there a reasonable chance of turning back Serbia's assault on Kosovo
with the means currently being used? No. If the political end we are
seeking is the total withdrawal of Serb forces and the occupation of Kosovo
by foreign troops, it seems highly unlikely that NATO will achieve it with
aerial bombing alone. Yet the bombs keep falling. NATO's only response to
the failure of its bombing campaign is to drop more bombs on more places.
Which brings us to the fifth and final criterion.
Are the means proportionate to the ends? This is perhaps the most
important measure of a just war. If we are to use violence justly, we must
be sure that the violence inflicted is less severe than the violence it is
trying to counteract, and that the ultimate gains outweigh the losses. Is
this so in Kosovo?
The violence Mr. Milosevic has inflicted on Kosovo is awful, but what NATO
is doing is pretty awful, too. Belgrade claims that the bombing has killed
1,000 people in Serbia. If this is true -- and given the number of deadly
mistakes that NATO has admitted, it could be -- it is possible that NATO's
bombing of Yugoslavia has already killed more people than Yugoslavia's
ground attack on Kosovo.
As NATO steps up the bombing, pummelling Serbian cities day and night,
more and more innocent civilians will die. In the end -- whenever that will
be -- it seems inevitable that the number of dead will exceed the 2,000
killed in Kosovo before the war began.
To NATO, that doesn't seem to matter. Convinced that their cause is just
and their motives pure, its leaders are determined to prosecute this war to
the bitter end. But as St. Thomas acknowledged, good intentions and a just
caus

[PEN-L:5746] (Fwd) EUROPEAN UNIONS CALL FOR NEGOTIATED END TO WAR IN KOSOVO

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent:  Tue, 20 Apr 1999 14:08:53 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:EUROPEAN UNIONS CALL FOR NEGOTIATED END TO WAR IN KOSOVO

(ANSA) Paris, 16 APRIL - ITALIAN AND FRENCH TRADE UNIONS ARE
CONVINCED THAT "THE ONLY POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THE KOSOVO
WAR IS NEGOTIATIONS," CISL GENERAL SECRETARY SERGIO D'ANTONI 
SAID TODAY AT A PARIS PRESS CONFERENCE.

D'ANTONI STATED THAT THE ISSUE HAD BEEN ADDRESSED IN THE MEETING 
THAT THE GENERAL SECRETARIES OF ITALY'S CGIL, CISL AND UIL HAD 
WITH THEIR FRENCH COLLEAGUES FROM CFDT. THE MEETING, IN WHICH UNION 
OFFICERS SERGIO COFFERATI AND PIETRO LARIZZA ALSO TOOK PART, AIMED 
AT THE IMPROVEMENT OF TRADE UNION RELATIONS IN VIEW OF THE NEED TO 
CREATE A SOCIAL EUROPE WITHIN THE PROCESS OF ONGOING EUROPEAN INTEGRATION.  

GP 16-APR-99 19:14 

[PEN-L:5747] (Fwd) A German Insider's View of Kosovo Conflict

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent:  Wed, 21 Apr 1999 13:41:19 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:A German Insider's View of Kosovo Conflict

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999
From: Gunder Frank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

A German Insider's View of Kosovo Conflict

BONN, Apr. 17 - The following report, which TiM has now received from a
multitude of sources, has been attributed to a "German insider."  Since we
normally don't publish articles from sources which we cannot authenticate,
we have sat on this text for several days now. 

But not only have some credible sources from the international intelligence
community also forwarded the same report to us, but it has now also been
passed on by Jürgen Reents, Press-spokesman of PDS at the German
parliament.  The original text, posted at the German, can be found at the
PDS site: http://www2.pds-online.de/bt/themen/99041303.htm

[AGF editorial note: I can at least certify the verity of the above:

Diese Seite ist Teil des WWW-Angebotes der PDS im Bundestag 
Erklärung eines Insiders aus dem Bonner Regierungsapparat zum
Balkan-Krieg vom 7. April 1999 
Beiliegende "Erklärung eines Insiders aus dem Bonner
Regierungsapparat zum Balkan-Krieg vom 7. April 1999" ging dem
Pressebüro der PDS-Fraktion am 8.4. anonym zu. Der Absender hat
ausdrücklich um Veröffentlichung gebeten. 
Jürgen Reents, Pressesprecher der PDS im Bundestag ]
Diese Seite ist Teil des WWW-Angebotes der PDS im Bundestag
Die Startseite mit allen Menüs können Sie in diesem oder einem neuen
 Fenster laden!

Erklärung eines Insiders aus dem Bonner Regierungsapparat zum
Balkan-Krieg vom 7. April 1999 

Beiliegende "Erklärung eines Insiders aus dem Bonner
Regierungsapparat zum Balkan-Krieg vom 7. April 1999" ging dem
Pressebüro der PDS-Fraktion am 8.4. anonym zu. Der Absender hat
ausdrücklich um Veröffentlichung gebeten. 
Jürgen Reents, Pressesprecher der PDS im Bundestag


And so, without further ado, here's a "German insider's" story about what
the "Kosovo Crisis" is all about…

"PLOTTING THE WAR AGAINST SERBIA: AN INSIDER'S STORY

1. Personal Preliminary Remarks

2. About the current lies told by [Chancellor] Schroeder, [Defense
   Minister] Scharping, and [Foreign Minister] Fischer

3. CIA covert action aimed at dismembering Yugoslavia

Personal Preliminary Remarks:

This text I am giving to a Catholic priest, who is a member of the Order
for Peace [Ordensleute für den Frieden] here in Germany. I am doing so
while maintaining confessional confidentiality, and divulging no
information as to my identity. He will transmit this text on my behalf to
those who need to know the truth.

I hold a high-security post in the government apparatus in Bonn, and for
reasons of conscience can no longer remain silent. The facts that I am
about to divulge are, for the better informed, examinable and verifiable.

Both the entire NATO propaganda staff as well as the Infernal Trio,
Schroeder, Scharping and Fischer, here in Germany are unabashedly lying to
the public with nearly every "fact" they present about the Balkans War,
while a willing media pack is keenly spreading these lies, unverified, as
gospel truth.

About the current situation:

The Federal Government knows the true reasons why the people are fleeing
and is cynically playing with the calculated misery of the refugees in the
border regions of Kosovo, in order to maintain an image comparable to WW II
deportations and "ethnic cleansing".

Neither the military intelligence arm of the Bundeswehr nor that of the
NATO have at their disposal photographic evidence, intelligence knowledge,
indications and proof leading to the conclusion that there is systematic
expulsion or deportation of refugees by the Yugoslav special forces, army
or police. According to internal acknowledgement of the defense ministry
the reasons for flight are more or less equally distributed:

  (1) Excess on the part of Yugoslav soldiers and police force, often
triggered in part by KLA attacks carried out under cover of Kosovo-Albanian
civilians. Information is on hand that Yugoslav soldiers caught looting are
summarily court-martialed;

  (2) The results of the NATO bombing, such as the lack of potable water in
nearly all cities of Kosovo and general devastation;

  (3)Understandable fear of getting caught in the crossfire between the
KLA, the Yugoslav military, and NATO attacks;

  (4) Constant spreading of panic and horror stories in the broadcasts of
dozens of small KLA, NATO or Albanian shortwave radio stations located in
the mountains, alongside the propaganda broadcasts of the KLA over Radio
Tirana;

  (5) Pillaging bands of the Albanian mafia, who with their weapons stolen
during the Albanian civil war, extort money, search abandoned houses for
anything of value and then burn the houses down to create political effect

[PEN-L:5748] (Fwd) Is war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour becoming a pawn o

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent:  Wed, 21 Apr 1999 15:07:56 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:Is war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour becoming a pawn of NATO?

The Globe and Mail   Wednesday, April 21, 1999

DOUBTS RAISED OVER IMPARTIALITY OF PROSECUTOR

By Marcus Gee

Is war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour becoming a pawn 
of NATO?
The question arose after Madam Justice Arbour, a 
Canadian, appeared at a news conference yesterday with British 
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. He handed her a fat dossier of 
British intelligence reports on alleged atrocities in Kosovo, an 
unusual step for a Western government. Judge Arbour accepted 
the documents with gratitude.
That struck some as inappropriate. It is part of NATO's 
war strategy to portray the leaders of Yugoslavia as war criminals 
who must be stopped. By accepting the documents, critics say, 
Judge Arbour risked becoming part of that strategy and losing her 
impartiality.
University of Toronto law professor Craig Scott said he 
admires Judge Arbour (who is on leave from the Ontario Court of 
Appeal) and acknowledges the right of her war-crimes tribunal in 
The Hague to obtain information wherever it can.
"But at the same time it's very important that the tribunal 
not only appear to be but be at arm's length from the combatants."
Instead, he said, Judge Arbour has given the appearance of 
being in partnership with NATO.
"I am quite surprised she would do this," Prof. Scott said. 
"I see it as a lapse of judgment."
Others disagree. They say the critics are asking Judge 
Arbour to be impartial in the battle between the firefighter and the 
fire.
University of Ottawa expert Errol Mendes said Judge 
Arbour's tribunal has few resources of its own for gathering 
evidence. Besides, "she is a prosecutor, not a judge. Her role is to 
go out there and find sufficient evidence to indict war criminals."
When she accepts evidence from Britain or the United 
States, it is no different than a crown prosecutor in Canada 
accepting evidence from the police, Prof. Mendes said.
The problem is that, in this case, people can't always agree 
about who is the cop and who is the bad guy.
While refugee reports speak of terrible Serb atrocities 
against Kosovo Albanians, NATO bombing mistakes have killed 
civilians too. Last week, a NATO warplane accidentally hit a 
refugee convoy, apparently killing dozens of people.
"The rules of humanitarian law do not apply only to 
Milosevic," said Irwin Cotler of Montreal's McGill University, 
referring to the Yugoslav President. "They also apply to any 
violations that may be committed by NATO."
At some point, Prof. Cotler said, Judge Arbour may be 
asked to consider whether the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 
has committed war crimes. That effort might be compromised now 
that she has stood side by side with a British minister as he 
denounces crimes by the other side.
The tribunal was set up in 1993 to investigate war crimes, 
genocide, crimes against humanity and breaches of the Geneva 
Convention in the former Yugoslavia.
Prof. Cotler points out that Article 16 of the tribunal's 
charter says the prosecutor "shall not seek or receive instruction 
from any government." On the other hand, it also says she may 
seek information from any source.
Judge Arbour herself told the news conference in London 
that she wants the help of Western governments because they have 
intelligence that she could not gather on her own.
"We have no access to judicially authorized electronic 
surveillance methods," she said. "We have no tribunal-based 
wiretap capacity with or without prior judicial approval. We have 
no standard form of execution of search warrants, which are 
standardly used in domestic criminal law enforcement to develop 
the evidence against suspects."
That sort of intelligence is crucial if she is to trace Kosovo 
war crimes to senior Yugoslav political and military leaders.
Judge Arbour has made it clear that she is not content 
merely to indict low-level police and army officials for Kosovo 
atrocities. She wants to go right to the top.
That desire happens to dovetail with NATO's propaganda 
effort, which seeks to maintain public support for the campaign by 
pinning Serbian atrocities on President Slobodan Milosevic and 
other Yugoslav leaders.
"We want not just the thugs who carried out the crimes, 
but those who gave the orders," Mr. Cook said as he handed the 
British file to Judge Arbour.
In recent days, French President Jacques Chirac has called 
Mr. Milosevic a dictator and U.S. President Bill Clinton has called 
him a "belligerent tyrant." 

[PEN-L:5749] (Fwd) SPINNING MAKES ME DIZZY

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

pen-l
pen-l

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent:  Wed, 21 Apr 1999 15:07:17 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:SPINNING MAKES ME DIZZY

Landau Pacifica April 21 1999 

SPINNING MAKES ME DIZZY

What to think amidst this verbal barrage against Yugoslavia's leader? 
AM radio talk show hostess Stephanie Miller compared Yugoslav 
President Slobodon Milosovic to Hitler. "I saw them loading poor ethnic 
Albanians onto trains, like Hitler did to Jews." She meant she saw it on 
TV, of course. Other commentators have also likened cleansing of ethnic 
Albanians to the Holocaust.
President Clinton promised to protect ethnic Albanians, but instead 
his bombing campaign induced Milosovic to accelerate their removal. So, 
for clarity, I called, Donald Wag-the-Dog King, secret White House Spin 
Doctor for Operation Allied Force. Will we send US troops, I asked.
"Troops," he screamed, "will go in when the media, which we feed, 
convinces the public that Milosovic's actions are akin to the Japanese 
bombing Pearl Harbor. But don't underestimate spin. Look how the public 
supports our bombing campaign. That's due to spin. Suppose that instead 
of accusing Milosovic of loading Ethnic Albanians onto deportation 
trains, we had said he was ousting fanatic Muslim fundamentalists? That 
would conjure images of PLO chief Arafat and terrorists like Osama Ben 
Laden.  "Take the Kosovo Liberation Army. Suppose we had publicized 
the CIA's claim, just 3 years ago, that the KLA were Maoist terrorists and 
narco traffickers?"
Not much public sentiment for backing people with those labels, I 
said. 
"So," he continued, "spinning makes yesterday's drug-dealing, red 
terrorist into today's freedom fighter, except in Afghanistan where 
yesterday's freedom fighter becomes today's fanatic Muslim terrorist. But 
let's not confuse the public with facts."
But, I objected, is this spinning democratic?
"Spinning the story shows us as upholders of democracy, freedom-
lovers. Milosovic becomes the newest demon threatening our lives."
Wait a sec, I said. Do you mean this campaign to save ethnic 
Albanians requires that we demonize yet another man?
"How else to sell a war? Remember Sodom Hussein, formerly, 
Saddam. We turned our one time pal -- during his war with Iran in the 
1980s -- into Satan with a few well-placed photos and stories. The media 
love it. Remember the Maine and the Kuwaiti babies thrown out of their 
incubators. Heh heh!"
This is cynical beyond belief I said.
"Hey, a few democracies have to keep order over less civilized 
nations. Our democracy demands spinning in the advanced info age. Our 
new story has Milosovic appointing only his cronies to high public office. 
Makes you hate him more, doesn't it?"
You mean, I said, Milosovic appoints the Yugoslav equivalents of 
Webster Hubbell? 
"Hey, spinning is supposed to take your mind off Clinton's 
appointments and most other leaders' for that matter. Spinning makes you 
think the way we want you to."
Well, I concluded, spinning isn't democratic and it doesn't convince 
me, but it sure makes me dizzy. 


Saul Landau is the Hugh O. LaBounty Chair 
of Interdisciplinary Applied Knowledge 
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
3801 W. Temple Ave. Pomona, CA 91768
tel - 909-869-3115
fax - 909-869-4751

[PEN-L:5751] Peace Agreement or a Kosovo as dictated by NATO?

[Ken Hanly]

Has anyone on PEN actually read the Rambouilet Agreement? It is
astounding, not just the parts that Peter Schwartz mentions but
the whole document. It is not a peace agreement at all. It is an
agreement that allows NATO through an Implementation Misson to
redesign the country according to its own dictates. While many of
the features of the government are laudable enough the real
source of power to determine what happens lies neither with the
Serbs nor the Albanians but with NATO. If the parties do not
co-operate they are shit out of luck since by signing they agree
to a whole bundle of crap over which they have no
control.
 There is a section that deals with Max's issue of chasing
over borders. When there is a hot pursuit over borders the
culprit is to be delivered to the authorities who are pursuing.
If someone were pursued from Kosovo into Serbia and were caught
then they would go back to Kosovo for trial. If Serb police did
not co-operate NATO occupying authorities would force them to do
so. I put no quotation mark around
"occupying" authorities. Even if both parties agreed to this
peace deal it would only be through coercion.
No party in their right mind would agree to this except for
opportunistic reasons as the KLA did.
  The sections for Max to peruse are: Article V 2 a i-iv.
 The treaty is not a peace treaty. It demands among other
things that the economy operate in
a specified manner. The parties agree not to engage in the sin of
socialism unless perhaps some
sort of free market socialism.
Under the Economy Article 1  1) says and I quote:
The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with
free market principles.

This is a f***ing peace treaty? The CIM, the chief of the
implementation mission, has all sorts of powers and the parties
agree to co-operate with him or her.. If you don't your outa
there. There is no
appeal. The IM supervises everything and if things are not going
according to the IM's interpretation of the
treaty---and the parties agree that the IM is the final
interpreter- the IM can change them so they do go
as they "ought". There are even provisions that make it certain
that no local police could ever in their wildest dreams think of
challenging KFOR weapons. Talk about gun control! There are
strict stipulations about what sort of weapons local police can
have that are astounding to me.
Cheers, Ken Hanly

[PEN-L:5753] Iraq reports air attacks in northern zone

[Frank Durgin]

  Iraq reports air attacks in
  northern zone 

  Baghdad cites deaths from jet debris

  By Reuters, 04/22/99 

  AGHDAD - Iraq said Western
  warplanes attacked Iraqi civilian and
  military sites in the north of the country
  yesterday.

  A military spokesman said Iraqi air
  defenses engaged the attacking planes and
  forced them to flee. There was no mention
  of casualties or damage.

  ''Crows of evil and aggression returned to
  violate our national airspace targeting the
  service establishments and our weapon
  sites,'' the spokesman said in a statement
  carried by the official Iraqi News Agency.

  ''Our ground resistance units intercepted
  them and forced them to flee,'' the
  spokesman added.

  ''At 12:50 p.m on April 21, 10 hostile
  formations of the kind F-14s, F15s, F-16s,
  violated our airspace coming from Turkish
  skies,'' the spokesman said.

  He said the planes supported by an early
  warning, command and control plane flew
  over the northern regions of Amadiya,
  Zakho, Duhok, Arbil, Aqra, Mosul and
  Talafar.

  The spokesman said Western planes had
  also flown over southern Iraq and were
  also ''challenged'' by Iraqi ground
  batteries.

  ''At 13:45 p.m, 11 hostile formations
  violated our airspace coming from Kuwaiti
  and Saudi skies. They implemented 18
  sorties from Saudi and six sorties from
  Kuwaiti skies,'' the spokesman said.

  He said the planes left Iraqi airspace for
  their bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait at
  3:40 p.m. 

  Earlier, a spokesman at an airbase in
  southern Turkey said US warplanes
  bombed Iraqi air defenses in the northern
  no-fly zone yesterday after being tracked
  by radar.

  He said all the aircraft had left the no-fly
  zone safely.

  Iraq also said a fuel tank discarded by a
  Western warplane had killed civilians
  when it hit the ground.

  INA quoted a letter from Iraq's Foreign
  Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahaf to the
  Arab League as saying the tank had been
  dropped on an agricultural area in the
  Afak district of southern Iraq.

  This story ran on page A26 of the Boston Globe on
  04/22/99. 
  © Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company. 

   [ Send this story to a friend | Easy-print version |
   Add to Daily User ] 

[PEN-L:5755] Re: Re: Exchange with Michael Tomasky

[William S. Lear]

On Wednesday, April 21, 1999 at 12:44:48 (-0400) Max Sawicky writes:
>Okay Lear.  Today is your lucky day.

Golly.  Yesterday I had a party for me, now this.  I'm almost
speechless.

>I don't know enough about Afghanistan to speak on it, though that
>wouldn't stop me if it was as prominent an issue as Kosova.

You are saying you wouldn't hesitate to applaud the Soviet invasion?
Not sure what you mean here.  By "prominent", do you mean the number
of people killed or at risk, or just the amount of attention given to
it by the media?

>The apparent binary choice you offer between a) Soviet control of
>E. Europe, and b) democracy with ethnic carnage is one I will
>forego, since the latter is a counter-factual which merely
>reinforces your argument.  My bias before the fact, when ethnic
>carnage is more a possibility than an eventuality, would be to
>support democracy.  I'm another 'big election guy.'

A few questions:

How is what I said about Soviet control of E. Europe a
counter-factual?  I thought counter-factuals were of the form "If A
then B", where A is false ... I'm confused.

When does "ethnic carnage" rise to the level of requiring bombing
strikes?

So what if I Mr. Big Force guy decides to undermine democracy and
encourage the most vicious groups so that I can then step in and
effectively demolish civil society so I can partition it the way I
like?  What if I justify my actions by saying I'm saving lives, but
these lives are at risk very largely because of my own actions in
stoking the flames in the first place?  I don't see how you can
believe that stopping the bombing this instant and offering a respite
to negotiate could hurt (you do, don't you, or am I reading something
that is not there?)...

>> What you seem to be unable to grasp is the principle you are
>advocating.  The principle you are supporting is that should one
>group within a "parent" country attempt to pull away, and were
>the country to use violence to prevent it, any another country
>has a perfect right to offer an ultimatum to >>
>
>Serbian govt action in K. goes well beyond "violence" in my view.
>You're minimizing it by this choice of words.

This is unfair, Max, and pretty cheap, really.  What do you want me to
say, "horrendous, murderous actions", "vicious murder, rape, and
mayhem"?  I abhor all violence against people, so I thought that was
quite sufficient; besides this was posed as a hypothetical question
about principles.  You have derailed the question with this snipe, so
I'll reformulate it and pose it again:

 The principle you are supporting is  that should one group within
 a "parent" country attempt to pull away (at first democratically,
 then with violence [vicious and inhuman atrocities, rape, mayhem,
 what else goes here,  Max?]  encouraged and supported by  foreign
 countries), and were the country to use murderous violence, rape,
 ethnic  cleansing [add  more as  you like]  and  a  host of other
 vicious methods to prevent it, any  another country has a perfect
 right to offer  an ultimatum to that  country and to persue a war
 (half-scale?) against that country should that country refuse the
 terms of the ultimatum,  even if that  country offered  to pursue
 autonomy for the  group with international monitoring.   Fairness
 means you accept your argument for us, not just for other people.
 Max, are you prepared   to accept this  principle for  the United
 States and the countries  it supports  in their violence  against
 their  people?  Do you  really  want  to  be on  the side  of the
 British and French  who wanted to   bomb Washington and New  York
 City because  we used violence to suppress  the South in seceding
 from the Union?

What I see as happening is this:

o Kosovo Albanians did a pretty decent job of forming an autonomous
government and of resisting Serb control.

o The US purposely undermined this very effective democratic movement
so it could deal in the arena of violence, in which we reign supreme.

o Thus undermined, the democratic movement withered, and lost out to a
more violent movement which carried out attacks on Serb police and
civilians, with the support of the US (and George Soros?).

o The US, flatly rejecting any "interference" by the UN in any
negotiations, then offered what amounted to terms of surrender to the
Serbs as an ultimatum.

o When the Serbs rejected this and offered a counter-proposal that
included autonomy for Kosovo and international monitors, we decided to
bomb them, knowing that the atrocities would escalate sharply, causing
a huge exodus of refugees, more murderous acts, destruction of Serb
society, murder of innocents, etc.

>>> that country and to persue a full-scale war against that
>country should >>
>
>To me full scale war means the obliteration of the Yugo govt and
>nation-building in Serbia.  My objectives are much more
>limited -- self-determination for Kosova, so the military
>activities

[PEN-L:5757] High school

[Louis Proyect]

One of the most interesting points made in a NY Times article today about
the Littleton massacre is that the school was divided by class
distinctions. The "preps" and the "jocks" were on top, and "nerds" and
"geeks" were at the bottom. The people at the top wore Gap and Abercrombie
& Fitch clothing exclusively.

The point that must be made is that high school prepares you for class
society by imposing a brutal reign based on these distinctions, while not
permitting you to move up the social ladder. Somebody whose parents lack
money or who is not athletically gifted is condemned to remain in the lower
classes until graduation. Resentments can boil high--to the point of murder
nowadays.

I was a genuine geek in high school, preferring to read beat generation
literature and listen to Beethoven on my record player, while the "in
crowd" read nothing except classroom assignments and listened to Frankie
Avalon. There was real hatred directed at anybody who was different. One
day a jock came up to me in the high school corridor and asked me if I was
a "fag". No, answered, why did he ask? Because word had filtered out that I
was writing poetry and only fags wrote poetry.

The other symbol of class privilege was the automobile. I and my outsider
friends would have to hitch home from the movies on Friday night while the
rich kids tooled back and forth in their 1956 Ford Convertibles with
continental kits and four on the floor. This was the scene depicted
nostalgically by George Lucas in "American Graffiti". I hated this scene
with such passion that I skipped my senior year of high school just to get
away from it.

Apparently high school hasn't changed much over the years. It is still
riddled with class distinctions and cliques. Frankly I can't think of three
capitalist institutions more oppressive than the high school, the army and
the prison. What would research reveal about teenage life in precapitalist
societies? What reading I've done about the social life of the Blackfoot
Indians tells me that teen years for them were a time when young people
could learn the skills of adulthood without being pressured. If socialism
is to be worth anything, the first thing it would do is abolish the
oppressive institutions that make life hell for people like those in the
"trenchcoat mafia."


Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)

[PEN-L:5758] John Sweeny

[Tom Lehman]

Oberlin Ohio- John Sweeny president of the AFL-CIO will receive an
honorary doctor of laws and deliver the commencement address at this
years Oberlin College commencement.  Details are available on the
Oberlin College website.

   -33-
(from my old school)
Porter Hollow WV- Gus Buvona popular NYC labor leader and associate of
AFL-CIO president John Sweeny will receive an honorary doctor of
business management and give the commencement speech at this years
Rattlesnake U. graduation ceremonies. If he shows up.  The topic of
Dr.Buvona's speech will be, "This ain't like the old days or don't sell
your cousin Vinnie up the river."  Dr. Gus is also expected to announce
that he is endowing the new Rattlesnake U. Department of Practical Labor
Management Studies. Details will be available on the Rattlesnake U.
website.

33's

Tom L.

[PEN-L:5759] Re: High school

[valis]

The CO shoot-up will be milked for every possibility inhering in it.
Between such events and the war the evangelicals may have their 
apocalypse in the bank.


One of the Littleton students inadvertently demonstrated how deeply 
the black helicopter dogma has burrowed among mainline conservatives.
[Approximate quote of girl, speaking with mounting emotion:]

We were hiding -- about 25 of us in this small room.  A long time.
When the SWAT team came we didn't know if it was them or
the other government.  [Last 3 words spoken in near-hysteria.]

At a memorial service a cooler girl said, "It's too bad it took
something like this to bring this town together."  
Standard America, dear; OK City was a marvel of civic tribalism
for about 3 weeks.
 valis

[PEN-L:5762] Re: Re: aftermath of school schootings

[Jim Devine]

Sam P. wrote:
>...   There is no causal link between gun ownership and crime. In
Switzerland, I believe, every male is required to have a gun yet
Switzerland has a low crime rate.<

But each has a gun as part of the national armed forces and so gun use is
highly regulated. Further, these guns are held by people who strongly
believe in the Swiss community. In the US, guns are held in a
largely-unregulated way often by "fierce individualists" (or groups of
them) who often have little regard for community outside their numbers. 

So might we say, in US society (i.e., holding the nature of society
constant), the more guns there are floating about the more gun-using crime
there will be? Or might we say that as the degree of societal atomization
of society increases, the amount of gun-using crime rises? (In the second
question, I didn't say that the amount of guns floating about was held
constant, since increased atomization might lead to an increased demand for
guns. That suggests another question: does the prevalence of gun-holding in
the US encourage societal atomization? (The only kind of community
encouraged by gun-holding is the NRA.) So might there be a vicious circle
of atomization and gun-holding going on?) 

Whatever the answer, it seems to me that having a solid community where
individuals feel a part of a society with others they are less likely to
want to hold guns. Liberal efforts at gun control seem to miss this point. 

The problem is that capitalism abhors community, especially egalitarian and
democratic ones. The permanence of everyday forms of living which allows
people to develop ways of living with each other is continually disrupted
by the dynamism of an economy dominated by aggressive profit-seeking.
Further, a lot of communities have been destroyed by government efforts (in
alliance with corporate greed) to solve social problems using "urban
renewal" (what people in Chicago learned to call "Negro removal"),
freeway-building, and the like. 

The kind of communities favored by capitalism are (a) top-down bureaucratic
communities ("corporate culture"), very much under control, and (b)
atomized communities joined by such weak links as the passive voting in a
secret ballot, based on information received by corporate media. Even
community organizations of people upset about violence and the like seem to
be subordinated to the official police and encouraged to go in the
direction of walling themselves off from the world, which encourages
another kind of atomization. 

>  BTW, isn't Charlton Heston the head of the NRA now?<

yes he is. I hear he can still walk on water, too.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
Bombing DESTROYS human rights. US/NATO out of Serbia!

[PEN-L:5763] from SLATE

[Jim Devine]

>today's papers [From SLATE, copyright 1999 by Microsoft]

>By Scott Shuger

>The WP, NYT and LAT [major US daily papers] each lead with the official
emergence within NATO, however slight, of the topic of ground warfare
against Yugoslavia--the alliance's decision to conduct a basic review of
possible ground deployment plans. Each paper emphasizes a different factor
in this development. The WP stresses that the review came from the NATO
secretary general, Javier Solana. The NYT attributes it to pressure on the
U.S. from Britain and France. The LAT acknowledges the nudge from Britain's
PM Tony Blair, whom it calls NATO's "most outspoken hawk," but overall
tells the story of a U.S. decision. The papers agree that any actual
commitment of ground forces is still many steps away. USAT off-leads the
story--likewise speaking of a U.S. decision, noting that the review is
advocated by Gen. Wesley Clark ...

>The WP and LAT say that the initial NATO assessment of a ground invasion,
formulated last summer, concluded that it would take as many as 200,000
troops to take control of all of Serbia. Question: What were the casualty
estimates? The papers should be asking. The Post points out that by making
his review decision public, Solana has apparently ensured that the question
of ground troops will be much discussed at this week's 50th NATO summit in
Washington. (Although the NYT reports that the topic will not be on the
meeting's formal agenda.) And, observes the Post, the White House, in
arranging for Solana to give the Post a phone interview, was making certain
that it was clear the decision was Solana's and not Washington's. (But
actually it doesn't really prove that--maybe the Clinton administration
decided first and then asked Solana to serve as a fig leaf.) 

>The NYT captures the tepid language the U.S. government is serving up
around the issue of ground troops, quoting a White House official saying,
"The U.S. would certainly support as a prudent measure any updating of the
assessments of the use of ground troops in a permissive and nonpermissive
environment." A bit of a drop-off from "Lafayette, we are here!" 

>... The WSJ and LAT report that the European Union is set to ban the sale
or shipment of oil to Yugoslavia. The Journal reports that the U.S. is
pressing for a naval blockade to support the ban. 

>The LAT's man on the ground in Kosovo, Paul Watson, fresh off reporting
facts about last week's refugee convoy bombing that impugned the initial
NATO "it wasn't us" stance, today writes that four Serbian refugees were
killed when NATO warplanes hit the camp where they've lived since Serbs
were expelled from Croatia in 1995. 

>The WP reports that Slobodan Milosevic told a Houston TV station that the
three American soldiers captured a few weeks ago are being treated well and
that their treatment was in accord with the Geneva Convention. (USAT
includes a similar report.) The Post and USAT report however that no Red
Cross representatives have been allowed to check on the men yet. The papers
don't say but isn't Red Cross access guaranteed under the Geneva Convention? <

Does the Geneva Convention apply when no war has been declared?

BTW, a letter to the LA TIMES today suggests that it would have been
cheaper if the US had offered to _buy_ Kosovo.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
Bombing DESTROYS human rights. US/NATO out of Serbia!

[PEN-L:5764] RE: Re: RE: Re: Copy of Rambouillet "Accord"--important {fwd}

[Max Sawicky]

>
> Only one question, Max.  Does the draft say "NATO personnel
shall
enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and
equipment, the right to chase some sumbitches who had violated
the terms of
the agreement if they fled across the border.",  or does it say
"NATO personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles,
vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage
and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia] including associated airspace and territorial waters.
This shall include, but not be limited to, the right of bivouac,
maneuver, billet, and utilization of any areas or facilities as
required for support, training, and operations."?
>
> Just wondering.
>
> Shane Mage
>
> "Thunderbolt steers all things."   Herakleitos of
> Ephesos, fr. 64

It says the latter but means the former, as I think you could
have guessed.

Regards,

MBS

"Wherever you go, there you are."
Myroncohen

[PEN-L:5765] PANUPS: Resource Pointer #205

[Tim Stroshane]

This is a MIME message. If you are reading this text, you may want to 
consider changing to a mail reader or gateway that understands how to 
properly handle MIME multipart messages.

--=_DD8BF8D1.47264389

Forwarded mail received from:
CENTER1:City:City.smtp:"[EMAIL PROTECTED]"

Info resources on intellectual property and global poverty,
within.
--=_DD8BF8D1.47264389

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 16:30:05 -0700
From:  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: PANUPS: Resource Pointer #205
Mime-Version: 1.0



===
P A N U P S
Pesticide Action Network Updates Service
===

Resource Pointer # 205

April 21, 1999

For copies of the following resources, please contact the 
appropriate publishers or organizations directly.

*The Paradox of Plenty, 1999* Douglas H. Boucher (ed.) 
Examines new paradigms of food security, shifting focus from 
ability to produce enough food to issues of access to resources, 
equity and consumption. Looks at impact of global economy on 
global food systems. Examines cases from developing countries 
and examples of alternative food systems. 342 pp. US$18.95. 
Contact The Institute for Food and Development Policy, 398 60th 
St., Oakland, CA 94618; phone (510) 654-4400; fax (510) 654-
4551; email [EMAIL PROTECTED]; website www.foodfirst.org

*Beyond Intellectual Property: Toward Traditional Resource 
Rights for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, 1996* 
Darrell A. Posey and Graham Dutfield. Offers ideas on how 
indigenous peoples and local communities worldwide can 
approach and deal with the issues surrounding intellectual property 
and traditional resource rights. Examines legally binding 
international agreements; soft law and non-binding international 
agreements; and community- based intellectual property rights and 
which are most effective in protecting indigenous people. 
Discusses topics such as plant germplasm and patenting of life. 
303 pp. Canada $30. Contact Renouf Publishing Co. Ltd., 5369 
Canotek Rd., Unit 1, Ottawa, Ontario K1J9J3 Canada.

*Corporate Predators: The Hunt for Mega-Profits and the Attack 
on Democracy, 1999* Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman. 
Collection of articles critiquing corporate power. Includes sections 
on corporate crime and violence, corporate attack on democracy, 
the search for "mega-profits," mergers, commercialism, 
sweatshops, union-busting. 192 pp. US$12.95. Contact Common 
Courage Press, 1 Red Barn Road, Monroe, ME 14951; phone (207) 
525-0900; fax (207) 525-3068; email 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; website 
www.commoncouragepress.com

*Global Village or Global Pillage: Economic Reconstruction From 
the Bottom Up, Second Edition, 1998* Jeremy Brecher and Tim 
Costello. A basic introduction to the "globalization" of the 
economy. Looks at the "global race to the bottom" in which 
workers, communities and whole countries are forced to compete 
by lowering wages, working conditions, environmental protection 
standards and social spending. Highlights mounting worldwide 
resistance. US$16. Contact South End Press, 7 Brookline St. #1, 
Cambridge, MA 02139-4146; email [EMAIL PROTECTED]; website 
www.lbbs.org/sep/sep.htm

*Dark Victory: The United States and Global Poverty, Second 
Edition, 1999* Walden Bello. Looks at impacts of the North's 
strategy to dominate the international economy and reassert 
corporate control. Discusses consequences of removal of barriers 
to foreign investments, privatization of state-owned activities, 
reduction in social welfare spending, wage cuts and devaluation in 
local currencies. 162 pp. US$14.95. Contact The Institute for Food 
and Development Policy, 398 60th St., Oakland, CA 94618; phone 
(510) 654-4400; fax (510) 654-4551; email [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 
website www.foodfirst.org

We encourage those interested in having resources listed in the 
PANUPS Resourse Pointer to send review copies of publications, 
videos or other resources to our office.

===
Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA)
49 Powell St., Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94102 USA
Phone: (415) 981-1771
Fax: (415) 981-1991
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: www.panna.org

To subscribe to PANUPS, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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[PEN-L:5766] RE: Peace Agreement or a Kosovo as dictated by NATO?

[Max Sawicky]

I completely take your point that any "hot pursuit" clause in an
agreement is a license for abuse on the part of the pursuer.  But
if the whole object of the exercise is to restrain
state-sponsored, illegal acts by Serbs, then there has to be some
kind of superceding authority with police power.  If it was the
UN, that would be fine with me.

Don't forget, my object is not to pull Nato's wagon, but to
secure Kosovan sovereignty.  The Albanians had problems with the
treaty as well because, as they have said, Nato was (and is)
insufficiently focused on self-determination for Kosova.

>   The sections for Max to peruse are: Article V 2 a i-iv.
  The treaty is not a peace treaty. It demands among other things
that the economy operate in a specified manner. The parties agree
not to engage in
the sin of socialism unless perhaps some sort of free market
socialism.
Under the Economy Article 1  1) says and I quote:  The economy of
Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles.
>

I fully agree this is a totally inappropriate goal on the part of
NATO.

> This is a f***ing peace treaty? >>

Sure, just like NAFTA is a free trade agreement.  More seriously,
I don't remember expressing support for it, though if it had
precluded what has happened since, I would say it was a
preferable outcome.  As I recall, Kosovans did not support it,
which ought to be an important datum.

Presently the economic stuff is a pure distraction from the
important issues.  Insistence on it, in the unlikely event other
matters were settled, would be criminally irresponsible.

> The CIM, the chief of the implementation mission, has all sorts
of powers and the parties agree to co-operate with him or her..
If you don't your outa
there. There is no appeal. The IM supervises everything and if
things are
not going according to the IM's interpretation of the
treaty---and the parties agree that the IM is the final
interpreter- the IM can change them so they do go as they
"ought". There are even provisions that make it certain that no
local police could ever in their wildest dreams think of
challenging KFOR weapons. Talk about gun control! There are
strict stipulations about what sort of weapons local police can
have that are astounding to me.  >

If Serbian police are presently butchering innocent people, what
would you propose regarding limits on their freedom of action, if
any?  I'd be interested in your alternative construction, rather
than all the shortcomings of the NATO proposals.

mbs

[PEN-L:5769] Re: RE: Re: Young DemocraticSocialistsposition onKosovo

[Carrol Cox]

Jim Devine wrote:

> At 01:57 PM 4/21/99 -0400, Barkley wrote:
> >  With respect to Lumumba, I would like to
> >recommend to one and all the novel, _The
> >Poisonwood Bible_, by Barbara Kingsolver.  It
> >deals with the events in Congo/Zaire at the time
> >of independence and especially the role of the CIA
> >in the death of Lumumba.   It is one of those novels
> >that comes with a bibliography and the author lived
> >in the Congo during that period.
>
> Barkley, could you give a quick summary of Kingsolver's perspective?

>From memory, but not too many years ago the NYT sunday magazine
printed an article which quoted several of Eisenhower's queries to
various
subordinates of why Lumumba hadn't been taken out yet. The accusation
that the U.S. murdered Lumumba is not merely a leftist charge -- it has
been documented in the source of all the news that's fit to print.

>From leftist sources, it was richly documented during the Columbia
Univ. uprising of '68 detailing the role of David Truman (name?), then
a dean at Columbia) in the final participation in Lumumba's murder.

Carrol

[PEN-L:5771] BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D]

This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand
this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.

--_=_NextPart_000_01BE8CE8.FF376900

BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 1999

Although the economic expansion will continue at least through 2000, growth
will slow, the National Association of Home Builders predicts. ...  After 4
years of real gross domestic product annual average gains of 3.4 percent or
greater, GDP will gain an inflation-adjusted 2.2 percent in 1999, the group
says.  The association's chief economist indicates that strong consumer
confidence and low unemployment will allow the economic expansion to
continue.  Unemployment will remain low, but the jobless rate will creep up
from March's 29-year low of 4.2 percent to 4.6 percent in the second half of
2000, according to the forecast.  Payroll employment increased at a rapid
2.6 percent rate in 1998.  This growth has already slowed and will average
1.9 percent in 1999 and 1.3 percent in 2000. ...  (Daily Labor Report, page
A-2).

The rate of inflation, as measured by the CPI, is likely to jump this year,
from the exceedingly comfortable 1.6 percent to more than 2 percent.  That
would not constitute a surge.  But the rate of increase has shrunk for 3
straight years. And in annual terms, the inflation rate has risen only twice
in the last 8 years.  The possibility that such numbers might upset the
stock and bond markets on the days they are reported led Goldman, Sachs &
Company to warn clients recently that investors in the coming months should
be wary of the "noise" in the CPI and the related PPI.  Still, there is not
reason to worry too much about these numbers.  The main culprit is higher
oil prices, and the inflation projections are based on the assumption that
these prices will stick, not a sure thing.  Even if they do, neither the
Federal Reserve nor the bond market will get too upset if that's the only
problem, as it is not considered big enough to alter the long-term outlook
for inflation. ...  ("Market Place" by Jonathan Fuerbringer, New York Times,
page C12).

The United States will remain the well-tuned engine of an otherwise
sputtering world economy in 1999, although parts of Asia show encouraging
signs of recovery from the trauma of the past 20 months, the International
Monetary Fund said in its semiannual World Economic Outlook. ...  (Wall
Street Journal, page A2)_The IMF forecast that global growth would pick
up to 3.4 percent next year, from 2.3 percent in 1999.  But it warned that
risks remained, including the danger of a stock market crash in the U.S.
U.S. growth is projected to slow to 3.3 percent this year and 2.2 percent in
2000, from 3.9 percent in 1998.  The IMF said the slowdown was needed to
prevent the U.S. economy from overheating. ...  (USA Today, page 1B).  

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services leapt 15.6 percent to a record
in February, powered by stronger-than-expected consumer spending on imported
goods, the Commerce Department reports. ...  (Daily Labor Report, page
D-1)_The magnitude of the increase in the trade gap caught analysts by
surprise, as did the cause.  Until recently, the trade deficit has worsened
mainly because of a sharp drop in exports to Japan and other countries
stricken by the global financial crisis.  In February, the chief factor was
a surge in imports, mainly from Western Europe, Canada, and Mexico. ...
(Washington Post, page E1)_The nation's trade deficit jumped
unexpectedly to previously unheard of levels in February, as consumers
bought growing quantities of imports and declining demand from abroad hurt
exporters.  Because demand for American-made goods has been diminished by
weakness in other countries, the growing trade deficit is hurting many
manufacturers and farmers in the United States and slowing growth.
Economists said declining exports appear to have slowed the economy's
expansion to about a 3 percent annual rate in the first 3 months of the year
from twice that in last year's fourth quarter. ...  (New York Times, page
C1)_The U.S. trade deficit was swollen by imports of automobiles.  While
surprised at February's deficit, economists still maintained that the
expanding trade deficit has its root in strong growth in the United States
coupled with anemic growth around the rest of the world. ...  (Wall Street
Journal, page A2).

Amid a tightening labor market, employers are finding that "quality of life"
incentives, such as flexible work schedules, are more effective for keeping
valuable workers than cash payoffs, according to a survey of senior human
resource executives.  The survey was released at the American Management
Association annual conference. ...  (Daily Labor Report, page A-3).

DUE OUT TOMORROW:  Lost-Worktime Injuries and Illnesses:  Characteristics
and Resulting Time Away from Work, 1997


--_=_NextPart_000_01BE8CE8.FF376900

b3NvZnQgTWFpbC5Ob3RlADEIAQWAAwAOzwcEABYADQA1ACIABABYAQEggAMADgAAA

[PEN-L:5773] Re: Re: High school

[William S. Lear]

On Thursday, April 22, 1999 at 13:44:44 (-0400) Max Sawicky writes:
>...
>Evidently the two gunmen in Colorado are not from downscale
>families.  They each had two parents.  The kids' facility with
>computers suggests they had decent employment prospects.  The
>school itself is said to be pretty good.  So money seems to have
>little to do with their story, at least in any simple way.

If your evidence that they were not "downscale" is merely that they
had two parents, I'll say that the case is still open on that. But,
from what it sounds like to me, it was a big dose of good
old-fashioned All-American racist violence.  But race and class are
closely linked here, so it's never too easy to dismiss one or the
other.


Bill

[PEN-L:5774] Re: high school

[DOUG ORR]

Louis wrote:
>One of the most interesting points made in a NY Times article today about
>the Littleton massacre is that the school was divided by class
>distinctions. The "preps" and the "jocks" were on top, and "nerds" and
>"geeks" were at the bottom. The people at the top wore Gap and Abercrombie
>& Fitch clothing exclusively.
>
>The point that must be made is that high school prepares you for class
>society by imposing a brutal reign based on these distinctions, while not
>permitting you to move up the social ladder. Somebody whose parents lack
>money or who is not athletically gifted is condemned to remain in the lower
>classes until graduation. Resentments can boil high--to the point of murder
>nowadays.
>
_
This is an interesting idea, coming from the mouthpiece of the ruling elite
(NYT, not Louis!).   The NYT can't seem to get the concept of class down 
right.  Yes there were cliques at Columbine. But the distinctions were not 
based on any kind of Marxist concept of class. This is one of
the wealthiest suburbs of Denver.  (I used to live in Denver - not this part!)
The shooters drove to their prey in a  BMW!  One of the shooters lived 
in a 5000 sq ft mansionette, sitting on several acres, surrounded by its
own fence and a gate.  These people are one step ABOVE "gated communities."

By raising the "class issue" the NYT seems to be trying to preempt any real
marxist or left analysis of what is going on.  Jim Devine's post (excerpted 
below) is a much better analysis.  I should note, all but  one of the 
letters to the SF Chronicle made arguments similar to posts on PEN-L.  
1) the hypocrisy of Clinton calling for using words rather than violence, 
2) that this is another symptom of a society that glorifies violence as 
the solution to every problem,
3) that the correct response would be to re-institute after school programs
in the arts, and music, reduce class sizes (especially 
in the lower grades, as Alan Krueger has noted) and rehire all
the school counselors  who have been fired 
- but the actual response will be more restrictions on civil liberties,
(i.e., the Clinton doctrine - domestic version.)


Jim Devine is going down the right road here:
The problem is that capitalism abhors community, especially egalitarian and
democratic ones. The permanence of everyday forms of living which allows
people to develop ways of living with each other is continually disrupted
by the dynamism of an economy dominated by aggressive profit-seeking.
Further, a lot of communities have been destroyed by government efforts (in
alliance with corporate greed) to solve social problems using "urban
renewal" (what people in Chicago learned to call "Negro removal"),
freeway-building, and the like. 

The kind of communities favored by capitalism are (a) top-down bureaucratic
communities ("corporate culture"), very much under control, and (b)
atomized communities joined by such weak links as the passive voting in a
secret ballot, based on information received by corporate media. Even
community organizations of people upset about violence and the like seem to
be subordinated to the official police and encouraged to go in the
direction of walling themselves off from the world, which encourages
another kind of atomization. 
-


Doug Orr
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

ps.  can someone send me a copy of Clinton's quote (off list please).  I
accidentally 
deleted it.  thanks.




--Boundary_(ID_WlBFMGyDDq4xpRWaD9tJHQ)--

[PEN-L:5775] Re: Canadian Anschluss

[Thomas Kruse]

Tom W. wrties:

>In 1987-88 after having lived for twenty years in Canada, I spent eight
>months at Cornell. I lived in a residence with domestic and foreign graduate
>students. One of the amazing things was watching the T.V. news together at
>six. The foreigners, myself included, would gawk and howl at the laughably
>blatant propaganda. The domestics would stare seriously at the tube, not
>comprehending the reason for all the hilarity around them.

I had a simliar experience in August last year.  I was in Brattleboro, VT,
surrounded by academics from about 50 countries, the vast majority from the
third world.

We grabbed beers and snacks, and piled into a tv room to watch Clinton's
first 6-minute attempt to  "come clean" on the Monica thang.  We all
gawked, slapped our knees, howled with laughter.

On the way out I asked a Morrocan colleague what he thought of the
perfomrance.  He got a half-sardonic-half-worried look on his face and
said, "every time they start talking like that, they wind up bombing us."

48 hours later a phamaceutical factory in the Sudan lay in ruins, bombed
during the night shift.

Tom


Tom Kruse
Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia
Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242, 500849
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:5777] Re: high school

[Tom Walker]

Doug Orr wrote,

>ps.  can someone send me a copy of Clinton's quote (off list please).  I
>accidentally 
>deleted it.  thanks.

>>"We do know that we must do more to reach out to our children and teach
>>them to express their anger and to resolve their conflicts with words, not
>>weapons,"

Please, Doug, next time you accidentally delete something, try to make it
the Clinton and not just the quote.


regards,

Tom Walker
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm

[PEN-L:5778] Re: Re: Re: High school

[Thomas Kruse]

I'm really enjoying the story telling on (male) HS experiences.  My school
(midwest, grad class of 400) was highly class and race segregated, with few
"spaces" in which such polarized lifeworlds could meet.
There were two though, kidns: sports (black & white together) and drugs
(rich and poor together, in the commercial if not consumption aspects).

What is sorely missing from this debate is a (post-industrial) monograph
for our times and places of the caliber of Willis' (industrial) Learning to
Labour.  Therein he notes that for Midlands youth in the 1970s,
rebelliousness at school was sure as shit way to land in a factory, thus
reproducing class structures handily.

Any good citations out there?

Tom

Tom Kruse
Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia
Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242, 500849
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:5779] Re: Re: Re: aftermath of school schootings

[S Pawlett]

Jim Devine wrote:

> Sam P. wrote:
> >...   There is no causal link between gun ownership and crime. In
> Switzerland, I believe, every male is required to have a gun yet
> Switzerland has a low crime rate.<
>
> But each has a gun as part of the national armed forces and so gun use is
> highly regulated. Further, these guns are held by people who strongly
> believe in the Swiss community. In the US, guns are held in a
> largely-unregulated way often by "fierce individualists" (or groups of
> them) who often have little regard for community outside their numbers.

Yes, I was suggesting that if there is a correlation between gun
ownership and
violent crime it is a tenous one. If gun owners are properly trained and
educated and part of a meaningful social whole owning firearms need not
make
society more dangerous or violent. Of course these preconditions do not
exist
in the US and personally it is hard for me to imagine them existing in
the US
anytime soon.

>
>
> So might we say, in US society (i.e., holding the nature of society
> constant), the more guns there are floating about the more gun-using crime
> there will be? Or might we say that as the degree of societal atomization
> of society increases, the amount of gun-using crime rises?

I think you are right, but this may not be true everywhere and in all
socio-economic classes in the US. Countries where I've been ,like El
Salvador,
Guatemala and Colombia, where there are guns everywhere you look, have
extremely high violent crime rates. There was 71 murders in one day in
Bogota
when I was there. Of course the explanations for such high crime rates
are
multiple, rooted in the extreme poverty, inequality and violent class
conflict
that exists in these places. The value of a human life is very low.
However,
the degree of social atomization is also very low ,perhaps
paradoxically,
because of the extreme poverty that forces people live to together and
share
more. So, I think the relationship between violent crime and guns is
complex
and differs from place to place.

>

> (In the second
> question, I didn't say that the amount of guns floating about was held
> constant, since increased atomization might lead to an increased demand for
> guns. That suggests another question: does the prevalence of gun-holding in
> the US encourage societal atomization? (The only kind of community
> encouraged by gun-holding is the NRA.) So might there be a vicious circle
> of atomization and gun-holding going on?)
>
> Whatever the answer, it seems to me that having a solid community where
> individuals feel a part of a society with others they are less likely to
> want to hold guns. Liberal efforts at gun control seem to miss this point.
>
> The problem is that capitalism abhors community, especially egalitarian and
> democratic ones. The permanence of everyday forms of living which allows
> people to develop ways of living with each other is continually disrupted
> by the dynamism of an economy dominated by aggressive profit-seeking.
> Further, a lot of communities have been destroyed by government efforts (in
> alliance with corporate greed) to solve social problems using "urban
> renewal" (what people in Chicago learned to call "Negro removal"),
> freeway-building, and the like.
>
> The kind of communities favored by capitalism are (a) top-down bureaucratic
> communities ("corporate culture"), very much under control, and (b)
> atomized communities joined by such weak links as the passive voting in a
> secret ballot, based on information received by corporate media. Even
> community organizations of people upset about violence and the like seem to
> be subordinated to the official police and encouraged to go in the
> direction of walling themselves off from the world, which encourages
> another kind of atomization.

The "trenchcoat mafia" and Patrick James Purdy were social outcasts.
They were
persecuted for their conscious non-conformity and inability to conform
to was
deemed "cool" by their respective social environments. This persecution
of them
because of their inability or unwillingness to be "cool" caused in them
antisocial  hatred and rage which finally culminated in the explosion. I
think
it is telling that they turned the guns on themselves afterwards. There
is far
too much emphasis on being cool and fitting in with the cool people and
not
enough thinking for yourself and being your own person. The trench coat
mafia's
actions were caused ,at least in part, by their social environments
intolerance
and persecution of non-conformity and difference, not by some deficience
of
conscience or psychopathy. The explanadum of these kinds of explanations
is in
peoples heads and not in social relations. One of the goals of a Left,
it seems
to me, would be to educate such people and try to explain to these
people why
they feel the way they do and what they can do about it in a non-violent
way.
To give their confusion and anger an organizational ( and thus
community)
expressio

[PEN-L:5780] Re: High school

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 10:03 AM 4/22/99 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
>riddled with class distinctions and cliques. Frankly I can't think of three
>capitalist institutions more oppressive than the high school, the army and
>the prison. What would research reveal about teenage life in precapitalist


That was nicely shown in the indie film _Welcome to the Dollhouse_.  The
plot is taking place in suburban New Jersey.  It shows quite brutal
relationships among teanagers and put the blame for them squarely on the
adults.  This was one those few films that people either loved or
passionately hated for deconstructing one of the most cherished myths of
suburban America - the myth of childhood innocence.

Wojtek

[PEN-L:5781] High school

[Louis Proyect]

I was a little rushed this morning trying to fix a production problem, so I
neglected a couple of interesting details on my high school. It was about
80 percent Jewish, since it was located in the "borscht belt" in the
Catskills where most families had small businesses catering to the hotels,
including my dad's fruit store. There were class distinctions in this
group, however, based on income. My cousin Louis, whose dad inherited (or
stole) my grandfathers lumber business received a Mercedes-Benz roadster as
a present from his parents during one of their yearly trips to Europe. From
that point on, he began to hang out with the upper-income folks even though
he preferred my company (wouldn't everybody).

The remaining 20 percent, who were Christian,  were called "Scoopers",
another word for hillbilly or white trash, even though many of these kids
owned sizable farms. By and large, however, their fathers worked in
construction or other blue-collar jobs. They wore black leather jackets,
had greasy pompadours, and sat at their own tables in the cafeteria.
Academically, the tended to cluster in "C" group. Back in the 50s, classes
were divided into "A" group, which was college prepatory and consisted
mainly of Jews. "B" and "C" groups were dominated by Jews who did not want
to study or "Scoopers".

The term "scoopers" derives from the 19th century when the Catskills was
the site of an important tanning industry. Men would go out with scoops and
literally scoop the tanning bark from trees. Their cultural and economic
identity became identical.

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)

[PEN-L:5782] Re: RE: Peace Agreement or a Kosovo as dictated by NATO?

[Ken Hanly]

Max Sawicky wrote:

> I completely take your point that any "hot pursuit" clause in an
> agreement is a license for abuse on the part of the pursuer.  But
> if the whole object of the exercise is to restrain
> state-sponsored, illegal acts by Serbs, then there has to be some
> kind of superceding authority with police power.  If it was the
> UN, that would be fine with me.
>
> Don't forget, my object is not to pull Nato's wagon, but to
> secure Kosovan sovereignty.  The Albanians had problems with the
> treaty as well because, as they have said, Nato was (and is)
> insufficiently focused on self-determination for Kosova.:
>

COMMENT:Actually that was not my point. My point is that there is in
the agreement specific clauses that deal with pursuit. If as you say
there is need to chase and catch paramilitary people caught
terrorising Albanians in Kosovo then the Kosovo police should be able
to chase them into Serbia and be assured that they are handed over to
them. I am criticizing MAX not NATO at this point. You claimed that
the appendiceswhich give NATO all sorts of power to use ports,
facilities etc. in the FRY outside of Kosovo are really meant simply
to authorise chases. That is bs. That's my point.
   The pursuit regulations are reciprocal. Serbs could chase a KLA
terrorist into Kosovo and the authorities there must turn him or her
over to Serb authorities. Actually, I can see the plausibility of
these particular regulations. I would just wonder how even-handed
NATO would be in enforcing them but even so something like these
regulations would be necessary.

> >   The sections for Max to peruse are: Article V 2 a i-iv.
>   The treaty is not a peace treaty. It demands among other things
> that the economy operate in a specified manner. The parties agree
> not to engage in
> the sin of socialism unless perhaps some sort of free market
> socialism.
> Under the Economy Article 1  1) says and I quote:  The economy of
> Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles.
> >
>
> I fully agree this is a totally inappropriate goal on the part of
> NATO.
>

Wow. Max and I fully agree on something!

> > This is a f***ing peace treaty? >>
>
> Sure, just like NAFTA is a free trade agreement.  More seriously,
> I don't remember expressing support for it, though if it had
> precluded what has happened since, I would say it was a
> preferable outcome.  As I recall, Kosovans did not support it,
> which ought to be an important datum.
>
> Presently the economic stuff is a pure distraction from the
> important issues.  Insistence on it, in the unlikely event other
> matters were settled, would be criminally irresponsible.
>
> > The CIM, the chief of the implementation mission, has all sorts
> of powers and the parties agree to co-operate with him or her..
> If you don't your outa
> there. There is no appeal. The IM supervises everything and if
> things are
> not going according to the IM's interpretation of the
> treaty---and the parties agree that the IM is the final
> interpreter- the IM can change them so they do go as they
> "ought". There are even provisions that make it certain that no
> local police could ever in their wildest dreams think of
> challenging KFOR weapons. Talk about gun control! There are
> strict stipulations about what sort of weapons local police can
> have that are astounding to me.  >
>
> If Serbian police are presently butchering innocent people, what
> would you propose regarding limits on their freedom of action, if
> any?  I'd be interested in your alternative construction, rather
> than all the shortcomings of the NATO proposals.
>
> mbs

  COMMENT:
My main position is this: Bombing  makes the situation worse.
Stop the bombing.
That is my first constructive proposal.
I would support this proposal even if it put no limits
at all on Serb police butchering innocent people. The bombing makes
the situation worse even if
stopping the bombing doesn't stop butchering innocent people. Bombing
really has put no limit on the butchering it has created the
conditions that promote the butchering and also killed many other
people as well.
   Harping on and on about atrocities I see as simply fueling the
irrational reponses that cause people to support the bombing. Its
"proper" role is in the psychological warfare that is going on. This
warfare
should be evident to you. NATO repeats any atrocity tale it can get
its hands on verified or not. The media picks it up and people say:
We must do something. I am saying . Wait . That is just a plain
non-sequitur.
Does intervening through bombing  make the problem worse or better?
In this case I claim it has obviously made things worse. Then the
first constructive conclusion is. Stop bombing. Should there be
intervention?
 I am not sure but I will suggest some types of intervention.
I think there is a real hubris at work here.  People think that they
can intervene in a bad situation and improve it. Why should this
always be the ca

[PEN-L:5785] Re: Re: Re: aftermath of school schootings

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 08:21 AM 4/22/99 -0700, Jim Devine wrote:
>>...   There is no causal link between gun ownership and crime. In
>Whatever the answer, it seems to me that having a solid community where
>individuals feel a part of a society with others they are less likely to
>want to hold guns. Liberal efforts at gun control seem to miss this point. 
>
>The problem is that capitalism abhors community, especially egalitarian and
>democratic ones. The permanence of everyday forms of living which allows
>people to develop ways of living with each other is continually disrupted
>by the dynamism of an economy dominated by aggressive profit-seeking.
>Further, a lot of communities have been destroyed by government efforts (in
>alliance with corporate greed) to solve social problems using "urban
>renewal" (what people in Chicago learned to call "Negro removal"),
>freeway-building, and the like. 
>
>The kind of communities favored by capitalism are (a) top-down bureaucratic
>communities ("corporate culture"), very much under control, and (b)
>atomized communities joined by such weak links as the passive voting in a
>secret ballot, based on information received by corporate media. Even
>community organizations of people upset about violence and the like seem to
>be subordinated to the official police and encouraged to go in the
>direction of walling themselves off from the world, which encourages
>another kind of atomization. 


That is an excellent point indeed.  Empricial research of the Chicago
School carried back in 1930s demonstrated a relationship between community
stability and crime rates.  I think those findings hold to this day.

More importantly, the dissolution of community by capitalist development
removes social control mechanisms that under normal circumstances mediate
th eprocessing of information and reaction to it.  That is likely to result
in the following:

1. Alienated individuals seek to construct they own identity;

2. In that process, they rely on models and resources most readily
available, i.e. pop culture

3. The information supplied by pop culture is not mediated by social
relations (i.e the is nobody to say "look, this is crap") - it the
alienated individual vis a vis the Big Brother, the Tube, the Celebrity.

4. This process of artifical identity creation is likely to pull together
like-minded people and isolate people who differ from each other.  That in
turn create a group dynamics that encourages the assumed identities with
the absence of any reality check.  Thus in natural communities, if someone
starts acting 'weird,' there are usulally others who impose a variety of
informal sanctions for such 'weird' behavior, and that in most cases
mitigates that behavior.  In like-minded identity groups, by contrast,
weird behavior embedded in group's identity receives only positive
reinforcement.

In short, the lack of social control resulting from community dissolution
makes people more prone to media influence, more likely to act based on
that influence.  That is why countries like US and Japan have much
different crime rates, even though the violence contents of their media is
not that much different.

Wojtek
  

[PEN-L:5787] Re: Re: Re: Re: High school

[Doug Henwood]

Thomas Kruse wrote:

>What is sorely missing from this debate is a (post-industrial) monograph
>for our times and places of the caliber of Willis' (industrial) Learning to
>Labour.  Therein he notes that for Midlands youth in the 1970s,
>rebelliousness at school was sure as shit way to land in a factory, thus
>reproducing class structures handily.
>
>Any good citations out there?

If I may quote myself (from ):

"Michael Burawoy has argued that workers play all kinds of games on the
job, to evade work and outwit the boss. Workers around the world do this,
but because of the scarcity and weakness of our unions, U.S. workers have
only this way to resist. We even learn it in school. In Learning Capitalist
Culture, Doug Foley reports on his return to his old Texas high school; he
watched the students trying to thwart the factory model of schooling by
playing games with the teachers, and the teachers in turn acting like
low-level bosses, trying to outplay the rebellious students. Drawing on
Burawoy, Foley says that students learn 'that cleverly manipulating
authority gains much more than openly confronting authority,' a lesson they
carry through their lives. But in both cases, the gamesmanship, by making
tolerable the fundamentally odious, ends up preserving the structure of the
whole social factory.
   This seems an especially American mode of rebellion - atomized,
apolitical, and fundamentally conservative under its naughty exterior. But
in a time where organized resistance to crappy schools and crappy jobs has
largely disappeared, we shouldn't equate that disappearance with
contentment."

Doug

[PEN-L:5789] Re: Re: Canadian Anschluss

[Doug Henwood]

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:

>You are absolutely right, Tom.  I came to this country some 18 years ago,
>and to this day I am amazed by the stupefying seriousness with which the
>locals treat the media.  I guess I'll never become a true American (but
>won't loose any sleep over this either).
>
>But I am not alone.  We have a quite large foreign exchange program here,
>and many foreign fellows are also nonplussed by the locals' media naivete.

Yeah, but people tell pollsters they don't trust the media, and rate
reporters somewhere around used car salespersons. As Gore Vidal once said,
"With America, there's always the but"

Doug

[PEN-L:5790] RE: Re: Re: High school

[Max Sawicky]

> On Thursday, April 22, 1999 at 13:44:44 (-0400) Max
> Sawicky writes:
> >...
> >Evidently the two gunmen in Colorado are not from downscale
> >families.  They each had two parents.  The kids' facility with
> >computers suggests they had decent employment prospects.  The
> >school itself is said to be pretty good.  So money
> seems to have
> >little to do with their story, at least in any simple way.
>
> If your evidence that they were not "downscale" is
> merely that they had two parents . . .


No it was not.  It was from other info in the article, such as
one lived in a house that cost $180,000.

[PEN-L:5791] Blue collar sketches

[Louis Proyect]

Scenes from a workers break room...

.The very tall African-American foreman stood in the door of his office,
glowering out at us. I asked him what he thought of the massacre in the
Colorado high 
school. He exploded with anger, "White America is out of control!" 

  *
I asked a co-worker if he would like to read the article I just wrote about
the war against Yugoslavia. "No", he said. "Well, I will tell you what I
think then," I responded. "No you won't", he said, and put his fingers in
his ears and began to hum loudly, as I started to
speak.

  *

The day's paper lay on the table between us. One of the second-shifter's
picked it up during our discussion of the war and said, "I don't believe
anything they write in this, or put on the television, nothing!"

Jon Flanders

(Jon is a locomotive mechanic)

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)

[PEN-L:5793] Re: Re: RE: Peace Agreement or a Kosovo as dictated by NATO?

[J. Barkley Rosser, Jr.]

Ken,
 Your analysis of the Rambouillet Accords is reasonable.
But then you went all goopy and incoherent when you began
going on about partition.
  First of all you declared that "ethnic cleansing works."
Yuck!  Then you cite Slovakia as an example.  Sorry, there
has been no ethnic cleansing in Slovakia.  There was a
secession (not a partition) between the already defined
sections, Bohemia and Moravia going into the Czech Republic
and then Slovakia becoming a separate independent country.
Remaining Czechs and other minorities in Slovakia were not
removed and did not have their houses burned, neither did
anything similar happen in the CR.  In particular, there has
been an ongoing problem about mistreatment of the Hungarian
minority in Slovakia, but that situation seems to have improved
and stabilized, not least because the Hungarians got a government
that stopped threatening to annex territories in neighboring
countries, such as Yugoslavia and Romania, with substantial
Hungarian minorities.  In any case, the Slovakians have not
"cleansed" or otherwise forced out the Hungarians.
  Partition involves drawing a line across a previously
undivided territory.  This happened in Cyprus and also in
Bosnia-Herzegovina.  I do not know what you mean by the
idea of partition in the context of Kosovo-Metohija.  Do you mean
making it independent of Serbia?  Do you mean drawing a
line across its middle and putting the Albanians on one side
and the Serbs on the other?  Just where would you draw that
line?  Look closely at a map before you claim that you can do so.
Barkley Rosser
-Original Message-
From: Ken Hanly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thursday, April 22, 1999 2:56 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:5782] Re: RE: Peace Agreement or a Kosovo as dictated by
NATO?


>
>
>Max Sawicky wrote:
>
>> I completely take your point that any "hot pursuit" clause in an
>> agreement is a license for abuse on the part of the pursuer.  But
>> if the whole object of the exercise is to restrain
>> state-sponsored, illegal acts by Serbs, then there has to be some
>> kind of superceding authority with police power.  If it was the
>> UN, that would be fine with me.
>>
>> Don't forget, my object is not to pull Nato's wagon, but to
>> secure Kosovan sovereignty.  The Albanians had problems with the
>> treaty as well because, as they have said, Nato was (and is)
>> insufficiently focused on self-determination for Kosova.:
>>
>
>COMMENT:Actually that was not my point. My point is that there is in
>the agreement specific clauses that deal with pursuit. If as you say
>there is need to chase and catch paramilitary people caught
>terrorising Albanians in Kosovo then the Kosovo police should be able
>to chase them into Serbia and be assured that they are handed over to
>them. I am criticizing MAX not NATO at this point. You claimed that
>the appendiceswhich give NATO all sorts of power to use ports,
>facilities etc. in the FRY outside of Kosovo are really meant simply
>to authorise chases. That is bs. That's my point.
>   The pursuit regulations are reciprocal. Serbs could chase a KLA
>terrorist into Kosovo and the authorities there must turn him or her
>over to Serb authorities. Actually, I can see the plausibility of
>these particular regulations. I would just wonder how even-handed
>NATO would be in enforcing them but even so something like these
>regulations would be necessary.
>
>> >   The sections for Max to peruse are: Article V 2 a i-iv.
>>   The treaty is not a peace treaty. It demands among other things
>> that the economy operate in a specified manner. The parties agree
>> not to engage in
>> the sin of socialism unless perhaps some sort of free market
>> socialism.
>> Under the Economy Article 1  1) says and I quote:  The economy of
>> Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles.
>> >
>>
>> I fully agree this is a totally inappropriate goal on the part of
>> NATO.
>>
>
>Wow. Max and I fully agree on something!
>
>> > This is a f***ing peace treaty? >>
>>
>> Sure, just like NAFTA is a free trade agreement.  More seriously,
>> I don't remember expressing support for it, though if it had
>> precluded what has happened since, I would say it was a
>> preferable outcome.  As I recall, Kosovans did not support it,
>> which ought to be an important datum.
>>
>> Presently the economic stuff is a pure distraction from the
>> important issues.  Insistence on it, in the unlikely event other
>> matters were settled, would be criminally irresponsible.
>>
>> > The CIM, the chief of the implementation mission, has all sorts
>> of powers and the parties agree to co-operate with him or her..
>> If you don't your outa
>> there. There is no appeal. The IM supervises everything and if
>> things are
>> not going according to the IM's interpretation of the
>> treaty---and the parties agree that the IM is the final
>> interpreter- the IM can change them so they do go as they
>> "ought". There are 

[PEN-L:5794] Test Site Yugoslavia

[Michael Hoover]

 given that the majority of Yugoslavia's air defense - SA-2 surface-to-air 
 missles, more modern SA-3s, mobile and shorter range SA-6s, SA-7s, and 
 SA-9s, 57mm dual ZSU-57-2 anti-aircraft guns, early warning radar, network 
 of command, control and communications equipment located at various sites, 
 infrared sights and laser ranger finders - is Soviet-made, the US military 
 is able to test every advanced avionics weapon in its arsenal against a 
 Soviet system...F-14, F-15, F-16, F-117, FA-18, B-52, B-2, A-10, Apache, 
 and even the B-1...got to believe there is more than a passing interest in 
 this type of relatively low risk (for US personnel) opportunity...
 Michael Hoover
 

[PEN-L:5795] Fw: Jane's Defense Weekly on Balkans

[J. Barkley Rosser, Jr.]

-Original Message-
From: J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thursday, April 22, 1999 3:03 PM
Subject: Re: Jane's Defense Weekly on Balkans


>Greg,
>  Interesting post, but a few caveats:
> 1)   The claim that Albania sits astride the two
>major routes linking "Europe and the East" is
>nonsense.  Hey, the Danube does not run through
>Albania!  Maybe for the old Venetian Republic,
>and maybe for modern Italy, but Europe?  Nah.
> 2)  Bassett like others seems to think that partition
>is a viable solution.  There are people in Washington
>mumbling about establishing an enclave for the Albanian
>refugees inside Kosmet.  Maybe.  But there is no obvious
>line of partition.  Kosmet is not neatly divided into zones
>where one group is predominant and then another.  It is
>too muddled up.  And the zone that would be the obvious
>Albanian enclave would be in the south.  But that is where
>most of the Serbian religious and historical monuments
>are that form the basis of the chauvinistic "heart of Serbia"
>argument that drives the worst of the fanatics in Belgrade.
>  3)  With respect to the latter I would note that the
>historic "heart of Bulgaria" is in what is now Macedonia.
>The attitude of the Bulgarians is a sharp contrast with that
>of the Serbians, despite that vague plottings by the Bulgarians.
> 4)  BTW, Bulgaria is officially backing NATO and even
>begging to join, although it may be that popular opinion in
>Bulgaria is much more pro-Serb.
>Barkley Rosser
>-Original Message-
>From: Greg Nowell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: lbo talk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: Wednesday, April 21, 1999 7:20 PM
>Subject: Jane's Defense Weekly on Balkans
>
>
>> http://defence.janes.com/
>>BALKAN ENDGAME?
>>
>>
>>Following devastating
>>airstrikes in Yugoslavia,
>>what are the options for an
>>acceptable settlement on
>>the ground? Richard
>>Bassett examines the
>>prospects for the future
>>and the lessons of the past
>>
>>
>>In the wake of NATO's attack on Yugoslavia the Balkans
>>ends the century
>>much as it began; an expression of great power rivalry
>>and a source of
>>potentially destabilising conflict.
>>
>>As at least one military historian of note, John
>>Keegan, has written, the
>>problems of Bosnia, Macedonia and indeed Kosovo would
>>be wearily
>>familiar to any official of the Austro-Hungarian empire
>>posted to Sarajevo in
>>1908. The inevitable competing spheres of influence led
>>the great
>>19th-century German Chancellor, Bismarck, to observe:
>>"The Balkans are not
>>worth the bones of a Pomeranian Grenadier."
>>
>>If history is one of the inescapable millstones of the
>>Balkans, geography is
>>another. Albania today still lies across two of the
>>most important routes that
>>link Europe with the East.
>>
>>Its appearance on the global stage, in 1912 at the
>>Ambassador's conference,
>>when it was described as the "child of Austria, with
>>Italy acting as midwife"
>>was an attempt to balance the pretensions of Russia's
>>main protegé in the
>>region, Serbia, and limit its access to the
>>Mediterranean.
>>
>>Today, there is still anxiety on the part of the
>>western powers, notably the
>>USA, over Serbian and, by extension, Russian influence
>>over the eastern
>>Mediterranean. At the same time, those in Europe
>>(judging by recent
>>comments from the French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin,
>>they include France)
>>who, like Russia, are fretful of the "naked expansion
>>of US power" in the
>>aftermath of the Cold War, are equally keen to ensure
>>that the Balkans does
>>not become a US sphere of influence.
>>
>>Former West German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt,
>>underlined his belief that
>>this was just a new twist to the old game when he said
>>in a recent interview:
>>"Only the Americans would be naive enough to imagine
>>that there could be a
>>lasting peace in the Balkans".
>>
>>If, after the airstrikes, Milosevic backs down and a
>>multi-national force is
>>deployed then that force may not be an entirely NATO
>>entity.
>>
>>Seen in the context of any future envisaged troop
>>deployment in Kosovo, it is
>>clear that Serbia could only sign up to a deployment
>>which reflected an
>>agreement between the powers (in this case the USA, on
>>the one hand, and
>>Russia and Moscow's supporters on the other).
>>
>>Such an agreement has proved extremely difficult to
>>reach, not least because
>>of exaggerated demands on both sides which have had to
>>be reined in by
>>some very tough negotiation between US Secretary of
>>State, Madelaine
>>Albright and Russian prime minister and former KGB
>>spymaster, Yevgeny
>>Primakov.
>>
>>But all the powers know that only when faced with a
>>credible united front can
>>Milosevic be persuaded to back down. Eventually the
>>advantages of having
>>the West disarm the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) may
>>become apparent
>>to the Serbs and the stationing of Russian troops will
>>ensure the protection of

[PEN-L:5796] Re: Re: Re: Canadian Anschluss

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:34 PM 4/22/99 -0400, Doug wrote:

>Yeah, but people tell pollsters they don't trust the media, and rate
>reporters somewhere around used car salespersons. As Gore Vidal once said,
>"With America, there's always the but"
>


You're probably right, as the figures below show.  The US scores much
higher in having "a lot of confidence" in the press (I did not have
comparable figures for TV) than most other industrialized countries.  When
you collapse "a lot" with "quite" - the US will move to the first place,
before Spain and Japan.

But  I do not think confidence is evenely spread across the population,
so national averages can be misleading.

Wojtek




CONFIDENCE:PRESS
(percent of respondents)
a lot   quite   not verynotatall
japan   7.9 47.539.35.2
spain   7.5 40.841.710.1
usa 7.3 48.634.010.1
ireland 5.6 30.648.615.2
canada  5.5 40.846.67.1
belgium 4.6 38.643.713.1
portugal4.6 32.850.512.2
italy   4.5 34.945.015.7
norway  4.0 39.451.55.1
france  3.4 34.939.122.6
britain 3.2 11.756.928.3
denmark 2.9 27.853.815.4
wgermany2.9 31.253.012.9
finland 2.8 34.853.88.6
nethland2.8 33.047.616.6
austria 2.0 15.761.221.1
n.ireland   2.0 14.156.927.0
sweden  2.0 30.953.114.1
iceland 1.9 18.260.819.2

Source: World Values Survey, 1991

[PEN-L:5797] Re: Ooops: Canadian Anschluss

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 05:26 PM 4/22/99 -0400, I wrote:
>You're probably right, as the figures below show.  The US scores much


What I meant to say is: "You're probably right, as the figures below show.
Nearly 50% of Americans do not have much confidence in the press.  But on
the other hand, the US scores much

>higher in having "a lot of confidence" in the press (I did not have
>comparable figures for TV) than most other industrialized countries.  When
>you collapse "a lot" with "quite" - the US will move to the first place,
>before Spain and Japan.
>
>But  I do not think confidence is evenely spread across the population,
>so national averages can be misleading.
>
>Wojtek
>
>
>
>
>   CONFIDENCE:PRESS
>(percent of respondents)   
>   a lot   quite   not verynotatall
>japan  7.9 47.539.35.2
>spain  7.5 40.841.710.1
>usa7.3 48.634.010.1
>ireland5.6 30.648.615.2
>canada 5.5 40.846.67.1
>belgium4.6 38.643.713.1
>portugal   4.6 32.850.512.2
>italy  4.5 34.945.015.7
>norway 4.0 39.451.55.1
>france 3.4 34.939.122.6
>britain3.2 11.756.928.3
>denmark2.9 27.853.815.4
>wgermany   2.9 31.253.012.9
>finland2.8 34.853.88.6
>nethland   2.8 33.047.616.6
>austria2.0 15.761.221.1
>n.ireland  2.0 14.156.927.0
>sweden 2.0 30.953.114.1
>iceland1.9 18.260.819.2
>
>Source: World Values Survey, 1991
>
>
>
>
>
>

[PEN-L:5798] Re: Re: RE: Re: Exchange with Michael Tomasky

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 04/21/99 01:32AM >>>
>Slip into a nurse's uniform or
>something!
>((
>CB: When the nurse isn't using it , of course.

Try not to give him any idea, Charles. Max is gonna soon retire from the
grinding work of churning out unread policy papers, to spend his twilight
years at a nursing home with a miniature golf course. He already had a
vision of it.

Yoshie

Max wrote:
>Regarding the predictions of future apostasy by all non-believers, well I
>had a vision after a particularly strong dose of green mustard on my sushi,
>and *I* saw the future.   and
>I'm winning the U.S. Open (Seniors' Division).

[PEN-L:5801] David Truman, Columbia & Pluralism

[Michael Hoover]

> >From leftist sources, it was richly documented during the Columbia
> Univ. uprising of '68 detailing the role of David Truman (name?), then
> a dean at Columbia) in the final participation in Lumumba's murder.
> Carrol

yeah, David Truman, although I think he was vice-president...he was 
the admin person who promised the students that the cops would not 
be called in...

a political scientist, Truman's early '50s book _The Governmental 
Process_ (basically a restating of Arthur Bentley's turn of the 
century _The Process of Government_, note similar titles) was 
probably the first expression of pluralist theory...he may have 
referred to it as "interest-group democracy"...thesis was that a 
combination of competing elites (which he called the "active 
minority") and certain formal procedures (interest groups, regular 
elections, separation of powers, etc.) produced government 
accountability, voila, democracy!...nary a word about concentration 
of wealth, management of consent, & state repression and terror...

during the rebellion, Truman called for a public hearing and an 
investigation into the issues - CIA & military recruiters on 
campus, military research on campus, proposed gym in Morningside 
Park - that preciptated the action...striking students read back 
to him a section from above book in which he suggested that such 
proceedings are a poor way to obtain information, function 
principally as a propaganda devices, and serve as symbolic safety 
valves...Michael Hoover

[PEN-L:5803] FWD: [Fwd: Alive and well for now]

[William S. Lear]

The following is an e-mail my brother-in-law received earlier this
month from a former exchange student from Yugoslavia who stayed with
his family about 10 years ago.  I thought it might be of interest.


Bill
--- start of forwarded message ---

Subject: Alive and well for now
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 14:03:30 +0300

Dear Tim,

Just to let you know that I'm alive and well. You know that I was
never much into politics but this is gone too far. I just need to
explain to my friends the situation here. This is my way of letting
the anger go and if I could tell you the truth - well, this is the
only way I can contribute to the peace.

First of all, we are under constant bombing of your airplanes and
constantly in shelters. And without any sleep it's kind of hard to
laugh in this situation. We are not spared of bombings even if we are
hundreds of kilometers away from Kosovo. The sign for air raid lasted
yesterday for 26 hours. People are literally sleeping for 2 hours if
they can. Can you imagine sitting in a cold shelter for that long and
listening to the bombings?! Lots of people got sick and little
children too. I know that you think that we are killing those bloody
Albanians but believe me, it's not that simple as your television is
trying to present. Yesterday, American planes bombarded the bridge in
Novi Sad, town in the northern part of our country, some 600
kilometers from Kosovo, and it's a historical monument.  How that
bridge has anything to do with the Kosovo refugees? And do you
honestly believe that only one nation suffer in this as your
government is trying to portray? The planes are bombing all Kosovo,
and as they say, bombs do not make a difference who is Serb and who is
Albanian. The same number of Serbs fled from Kosovo because of bombing
of NATO and Albanians too. Speaking of Albanians (I did not want to
try to explain the situation but I see I have to and to explain why I
was so bitter in my last e-mail), They want an independence and part
of our territory that has been ours for 900 years. The soul and
everything connected to our culture and us as a nation is
there. Monasteries from 12-13th century are there. They are part of
world's heritage and protected by international law. And yet, one of
it (so far) has been severely damaged by bombing and there is no
military troops around that village. It's not by an accident that this
happened. They bombed that region couple of times. I cannot understand
(whatever the cause is) how someone can do that. And constant threats
of your President and government.  there must be something wrong with
the picture if one nation is satanised as we are from your media?
There is an American organisation for Human Rights that did a study on
this problem and said, too, that NATO did not use all the means,
political and peaceful, to bring to terms both sides. And Albanians,
who are actually terrorists trying to gain something that does not
belong to them, by force, are using NATO attacks to attack our army
from ground. So it looks like their action is simultaneous.

I know that you can't see on your television all the protests around
the world that are held in our support and against NATO, but believe
me there are many of them and lots of famous people are saying that
what NATO is doing is insane.

Another thing - even if they think that bombing could stop war in
Kosovo (though none is ever heard that it did, by additional bombing
and escalating the conflict), why do they bomb the capital, Belgrade?
Is it not hypocrisy to say that they don't have anything against the
Serbian people, just our President? Can just one man cause all these
sufferings?

The prime target is for NATO to settle here and there is no question
about it. It is well known that one who holds the path of Budapest
(Hungary) - Belgrade - Thesaloniki (Greece), controls the Balkan. And
we've seen what will happen to us if will allow it. It's in Bosnia and
the people in part of Bosnia that is under control of Serbs, they
elected they president by legal voting. Now, West doesn't like him and
they removed him from his position (since the troops and some monitors
who are overlooking the situation are still there). How can someone
overthrow a legally elected president? We do not want to happen in our
country. And it is the right question to ask - how West did not take
any action when 300,000 Serbs fled from Croatia couple of years ago?
We have around 850,000 refugees from the war in Croatia and Bosnia and
no one is talking about that.

You say that we kill innocent people. I'm sorry but I have to say -
it's a big, big lie. The only one we are killing that are "innocent"
are terrorists that attack us. They are entering from Albania, your
commanders train them and some "dogs of war" are on Kosovo too. They
just like killing, I guess. We are just defending our country and our
lives. I can go on and on but I think that this gives you the rough
idea of what's been going on here.  Just another thing - the s

[PEN-L:5805] Race, Gender, and Guns (was Re: Re: Re: High school)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Charles Brown wrote:
<>

I've thought of that, too. It is also notable (but seldom mentioned in the
media) that all the school shooters have been male, as are most serial or
mass killers. Maybe it is just taken for granted that men shoot up while
women seldom do so, so reporters feel it is not worth mentioning, thus
naturalizing the violent socialization of males.

I wonder, though, if in some cases the hatred of people of color and
resentment against the jocks (the perceived rulers of American high school
hierarchy) may not go together. Fascism has had a lot to do with the rage
of the middling sorts (against the imagined power of 'Jewish capital' as
well as 'subhuman' races). The same goes for the typical small-holder
mentality of many white Americans who position themselves as being squeezed
by the Government (or the UN, in the case of militia types) from above and
by the Blacks and Latinos from below.

Gun culture, I think, feeds off the myth of 'self-reliance' of white
American men.

Yoshie

[PEN-L:5806] Re: Re: High school

[Tom Lehman]

High School hmm.  My brother who majored in sociology in college used to spend a
lot of time talking about the sociology of the high school we attended.  It was
more like a reform school than a high school. He like me paid for most of his
college education by working in a steel mill. My dad helped us all he
could---and I had other jobs too.

My reform school er ah high school classmates were from very diverse economic
backgrounds.  I played at sports and got ok grades(I did graduate in the upper
half of my class).  Yes, and they did let you go home after school, sort of like
work release.  Although the frequent scenes of physical punishment of the
students by the guards er ah teachers and administrators would not be tolerated
today.  I'm talking serious physical stuff here for the slightest infraction of
the rules real or perceived.

I attended our 20th reunion in 1985.  The high point of the evening was when one
of my pals ex-wives a Pittsburgh Police person showed up in uniform looking for
one of our classmates whose beer distributorship on the South Side was having
some kind of a problem.  After the formal reunion we got together at an Irish
mob bar in an Italian neighborhood.  I guess it was considered neutral turf.
The only faculty member who showed up from our era was an ex-marine drill
instructor who was also our assistant football coach who was not a violent guy,
except he would challenge you to an arm wrestling contest once and awhile.  He
spent the rest of the evening talking about the faculty and administration
during our years in terms that would be guaranteed to offend most of the people
on this list.

Before, I got out of there, one of my favorite old time Irish mob characters who
just happened to be in the neighborhood gave me 15 minutes of his best Irish
American political analysis.

I really don't want to go into some of my Italian American high school pals
because like some of my classmates at Rattlesnake U. their families got a lot of
bad press in the not so distant past.

Am I a better person for my high school/reform school experience, I dunno. I
usually don't think about this type of stuff.

Your email pal,

Tom L.







Doug Henwood wrote:

> Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> >The point that must be made is that high school prepares you for class
> >society by imposing a brutal reign based on these distinctions, while not
> >permitting you to move up the social ladder. Somebody whose parents lack
> >money or who is not athletically gifted is condemned to remain in the lower
> >classes until graduation. Resentments can boil high--to the point of murder
> >nowadays.
>
> When I was in high school (1968-71), I remember a curious cross-class
> coalition between alienated intellectual geeks like me and the "hoods," who
> I realize in retrospect were usually of more socially downscale origin than
> the jocks. We were joined in our contempt for idiotic teachers and
> sunny-tempered B students. Of course, the geeks went on to good colleges
> and the hoods to pump gas, so this cross-class alliance didn't persist. I
> guess this is one way in which high school isn't like grownup society.
>
> Doug

[PEN-L:5807] Re: (Fwd): Academics against the War

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Have you guys seen this? (I don't know why I got on his list.) Yoshie

*
From: Jim Harris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Friend Furuhashi.1" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Two Congressional Resolutions on Serbia
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999  13:50:13


Please send this letter, or let me send it for you.

Subject:   Two Congressional Resolutions on Serbia

To: President Clinton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Vice President Gore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Rep. Campbell (CA) introduced two important resolutions.

H. Con. Res. 82, would direct the President "to remove United
States Armed Forces from their positions in connection with the
present operations against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
within 30 days after the passage of this resolution or within
such longer period as may be necessary to effectuate their safe
withdrawal."

H.J. Res. 44 would, conversely, declare that a state of war
exists between the U.S. and the Government of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia. as provide for by  the "War Powers
Resolution of 1973."

By introducing these resolutions, Rep. Campbell is attempting to
assert the important role that Congress should play in matters
of war.  In a democracy, the decision to wage war should not
reside solely with the President.  The House is expected to
debate and vote on Rep. Campbell's resolutions by the end of
May.

To prevent further death and destruction for the peoples of
Kosovo and Serbia and to prevent a broader escalation of the
war, Milosevic forces should return to their barracks, NATO
should end its bombing, and all parties should begin negotiating
under the auspices of the United Nations.

We urge President Clinton and the heads of other NATO states to
end the bombing of Yugoslavia immediately.

We call upon the United States government to work cooperatively
and constructively with the UN Security Council as it initiates
steps to build peace in Kosovo.

Please vote for House for  H. Con. Res. 82 and against H.J. Res.
44.

Sincerely,

Friend Furuhashi.1

===

When  you send this letter, it would be nice to let me know by
replying and adding the words "LETTERS SENT"

To let me to send the letter for you, please reply and add the
words "OK SEND." The letters I send will be individualized and
sent with your return email address as shown below. It's FREE,
no strings attached. Corporate executives use form letters and
secretaries, so I think it's fitting that you receive similar
help writing and sending e-mail letters that say what you might
not have time to write on your own.  E-mail letters are quick,
simple and effective.  All I require to produce them is a little
participation from you.

Letters can can be sent to as many congressional representatives
as you like. Let me know your state to include senators from
your state. Let me know your representative, district or zip
code + 4 to include your representative to congress.

I offer this service because I'm a Quaker and an old sixties
activist home on extended medical leave. To me, writing is like
cooking. I rarely cook for one, but don't mind cooking for many.
I'd like to put my computer skills to worthwhile use and this
seems a good way to do that.

There are a variety of options to make this process completely
effortless on your part. For more information, for the names of
some people who participate, or to be dropped from this project,
just click reply and add your comment.

Sincerely

Jim Harris
Progressive Secretary

I am only guessing at your name. If you will send me your
correct name, I will redo these letters.

Visit our web site at
http://home.earthlink.net/~progressivesecretary

Date:   04/22/1999
From:   "Friend Furuhashi.1" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: President Clinton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Subject: Two Congressional Resolutions on Serbia

Dear President Clinton:

Rep. Campbell (CA) introduced two important resolutions.

H. Con. Res. 82, would direct the President "to remove United
States Armed Forces from their positions in connection with the
present operations against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
within 30 days after the passage of this resolution or within
such longer period as may be necessary to effectuate their safe
withdrawal."

H.J. Res. 44 would, conversely, declare that a state of war
exists between the U.S. and the Government of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia. as provide for by  the "War Powers
Resolution of 1973."

By introducing these resolutions, Rep. Campbell is attempting to
assert the important role that Congress should play in matters
of war.  In a democracy, the decision to wage war should not
reside solely with the President.  The House is expected to
debate and vote on Rep. Campbell's resolutions by the end of
May.

To prevent further death and destruction for the peoples of
Kosovo and Serbia and to prevent a broader escalation of the
war, Milosevic forces should return to their barracks, NATO
should end its bombing, and all parties should begin negotiating
under the auspic

[PEN-L:5809] Deaths in Kosovo and Panama

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

According to the New York Times (4/22/1999, A14), "The estimated number of
Albanian Kosovars who have been killed and buried in mass graves has
reached at least 3,700. Last week, a NATO spokesman put the figure at
3,200." Even if you insist on taking the above number to be correct, it is
still lower than some of the estimated numbers of the dead in the US
bombings of Panama (which only lasted three days) in 1989.

Yoshie

[PEN-L:5810] Re: Peace Agreement or a Kosovo as dictated by NATO?

[Ken Hanly]

Ethnic nationalism is just a fact. Rejecting the idea doesn't in itself change
that. I reject the idea of capitalism but so far global capitalism doesn't seem
to have taken much notice. Almost all nations are ethnically diverse and yet
manage to function as nations reasonably well and keep ethnic
conflict to a tolerable level. There is no ethnic cleansing but there are
movements out of neighbourhoods by Y group when an N group member comes in
etc.etc.etc. There are kids of X ethnicity who go wild and
shoot at random members of Y, Z ethnic groups plus other categories.
But the situation in Kosovo has gone far beyond anything like that. When
the situation has gone this far I just don't think that anything except one
state that is by and large made up of ethnic Albanians and another state made
up primarily of Serbs seems likely to result in some degree of peace.
Alternatives would  involve a massive third party presence having extensive
powers of control and no guarantees that it will work. If the two parties were
to agree
to such a situation then fine, try it out. To be effective though, the KLA
would be required to disarm and
the Serbs to withdraw all their troops, police, and paramilitary. Perhaps the
two sides would trust some
type of international peace keeping force but I am sceptical. I don't reject
that as a solution I just
am wary of the international peace keepers becoming architects of a new Kosovo
planned according to the New World Order and not giving too hoots about the KLA
or the Serb nationalists. We have already seen
in Bosnia elected leaders turfed out of office since they were not acceptable
to SFOR (or whatever it is called). There is also talk of gerrymandering
constituencies, forcing an ethnic mix so that ethnic nationalists cannot get
elected. The same logic of imposing from above constraints upon the democratic
process was evident in Rambouillet. No one who is being indicted or has been
found guilty of a war crime will be allowed to run for office. Of course, if
there were rules of international fairness Clinton then would not be able to
run for office and many other leaders such as the late Winston Churchill. One
groups war criminal is another groups hero. All the peacekeepers have to do is
dig up a bit of dirt on any popular nationalist they don't like and pass it on
to Louise Arbour, preferably with the TV cameras rolling.
 I know that drawing the borders may be difficult. If it can't be
done then try something else.
However it seems to me that in solving disputes you must provide something for
both parties, recognize their interest, and the parties must recognise the
solution as preferable to continued conflict. I think that it is at least
possible that a solution along the lines suggested allow this. Certainly in
terms of the principle of the self-determination of peoples the solution is
preferable than to a top down protectorate that forces
structures upon both parties. Although you reject division on the basis of
ethnicity you don't elaborate
much on what your positive solution would be like and how it could be
implemented. Why should one ethnic group come out on the short end of the
stick? If the ethnic Albanians fight for democratic rights and get them surely
the first thing they would do is vote for an independent Kosova.I am certainly
not as certain about the proper solution as I am that the present tack is very
wrong. Anything that involves stopping the bombing and exploring diplomatic
means is a plus.
  Cheers, Ken Hanly

Jim Devine wrote:

> At 05:27 PM 4/22/99 -0500, Ken wrote:
> >My basic thought is this. It is going to be extremely difficult if not
> impossible for a solution in which Serbs and ethnic Albanians live side by
> side in the near future in Kosovo. The Albanians will want independence not
> just autonomy. This is not acceptable to the Serbs. With partition, Serbs
> would have control of at least part of their territory and would be free
> from a civil war and conflict with the ethnic Albanians within that area.
> The ethnic Albanians would get independence immediately and there would be
> a place for refugees to settle. Parties should be free to settle where they
> wish. I am not suggesting forced ethnic cleansing.<
>
> I think it's time to reject the whole idea of ethnic nationalism, i.e.,
> that each nation-state corresponds to a single ethnic group or a group of
> tightly-linked ethnic groups. Given the confusing mess of cross-patches of
> ethnicities that Barkley points to in the Balkans, along with the existence
> of many individuals of mixed-ethnic background, don't you think it would be
> better to simply junk ethnicity as a principle in politics, used to draw
> boundaries? (Here in the US, that's a good idea: fight the idea of English
> as the official language. And I can imagine what would have happened if
> Chicago had split itself along ethnic boundaries back when I lived near
> there.) Of course, that wouldn't end the op

[PEN-L:5811] Re: Race, Gender, and Guns (was Re: Re: Re: High school)

[W. Kiernan]

Hello PEN-L!

Naturally everyone is sorry about the innocent victims, and horrified,
disgusted, repelled by what those two poor miserable psycho bastards
Harris and Klebold did.  But they're not alive any more for us to hate;
fear and rage ate their minds, they went mad and now they're dead.  So
I, at least, feel sorry for them also.

Somewhere in the news I read that one of his acquaintances said Klebold
suffered frequent sudden surges of severe depression, but two words I
have not seen even once in three days of news and (mostly absurd)
commentary are: "paranoid schizophrenia."  For what it's worth, my
opinion is you're all off base about broad underlying motives (such as
racism, sexism, militarism, etc.) of Klebold and Harris.  As far as I
can see, those two typified or exemplified nothing outside the classic
textbook symptom list of paranoia.

Maybe the saying is true that "schizophrenia isn't a diagnosis but a
prognosis."  Still what might have saved them (their victims too) would
have been regular doses of phenothiazine tranquilizers, maybe
accompanied by some old-fashioned talk-therapy, distributed by free
public mental health clinics.

Yours WDK - [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:5812] US State Department Documents on KLA Kosovo Liberation Army (fwd)

[michael]

Forwarded message:
Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 16:01:51 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: US State Department Documents on KLA Kosovo Liberation Army
Mime-Version: 1.0
X-Keywords:
X-UID: 1743

US State Department Documents on KLA Kosovo Liberation Army

Author:  George  Orwell, alias Big Brother

ANDRE GUNDER FRANK

1. 11/10/98: Situation in Kosovo
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1998/ps981110.html
Key Passage
"Provocations from one side do not justify violence in return. It
is the responsibility of both the Serbian security forces remaining in
Kosovo and the Kosovo Liberation Army to exercise restraint and
prevent a resurgence of violence. [end of document] || Press
Statements Index | State Department Home Page || This is an"

2. 1/15/99: Security of the Kosovo Verification Mission Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1999/ps990115.html
Key Passage
"KVM and all its members. We call on the FRY to adhere fully to
this obligation. The Kosovo Liberation Army has also undertaken
similar commitments and must also ensure that these obligations are
met. Today's events do not change the importance of the Kosovo
Verification Mission nor diminish the vital"

3. 7/15/98: Kidnappings of Serb Civilians in Kosovo
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1998/ps980715b.html
Key Passage
"in Kosovo, both Albanian and Serb. We have condemned on numerous
occasions the use of excessive force by Serbian security
forces, particularly when directed indiscriminately against Kosovar
Albanian civilians. We are also, however, concerned about attacks
against Serbian civilians in Kosovo by Albanian extremist groups,
including the Kosovo Liberation Army"

4. 12/24/98: U.S. Concerned About Kosovo Violence
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1998/ps981224a.html
Key Passage
"Yugoslav Army and internal security police near Podujevo, Kosovo.
We condemn all breaches of the cease-fire and other violations of
applicable UN Security Council resolutions in Kosovo, including
provocative attacks committed by elements of the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA). Belgrade's disproportionate and indiscriminate
reaction, however, cannot be justified. The"

5. 3/15/99: Letter of KLA Representative Hashim Thaqi to Secretary of
State Madeleine K. Albright
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1999/ps990315.html
Key Passage
"Albright Hashim Thaqi, Chairman of the Kosovo Albanian delegation
to the Rambouillet Peace Process and a representative of the
Kosovo Liberation Army, has sent a letter to Secretary Albright
announcing his readiness--and the readiness of his delegation--to sign
the Rambouillet Agreement for peace and self-government in Kosovo"

6. Ambassador Holbrooke Travel to Belgrade, 3/8/99
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1999/ps990308a.html
Key Passage
"leadership to accept the Rambouillet Accords, including both their
political and civilian and military implementation elements, when he
visits Belgrade. Ambassador Holbrooke's trip comes following the
decision today by the General Staff of the Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA) to approve the Rambouillet Accords and authorize their
signature. Senator Bob Dole"

7. 12/23/98: Situation in Kosovo
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1998/ps981223a.html
Key Passage
"increased tensions and threaten to re-ignite hostilities. The
United States reiterates its call on the Serbian security forces in Kosovo
and on the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to exercise restraint, even
in the face of provocation. We have seen indications that some of
the security personnel withdrawn from Kosovo"

8. 2/25/98 Statement on Kosovo
Source
http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/stm_980225_kosovo.html
Key Passage
"human rights values, and their condemnation of both violent
repression of non-violent expressions of political views, including
peaceful demonstrations, as well as terrorist actions, including
those of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army. The Contact Group
agreed that both sides should be reasonable and flexible and focus
on immediate"

9. 3/2/98: Violence in Kosovo
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1998/ps980302b.html
Key Passage
"sides to enter into an unconditional dialogue, and for authorities
in Belgrade to implement immediately the Kosovo education
agreement on an effective basis as an important step to reduce
tensions. We have also called on Kosovar Albanian leaders to condemn
terrorist action by the so-called Kosovo liberation army (UCK"

10. 12/18/98: Situation in Kosovo
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1998/ps981218a.html
Key Passage
"December 18, 1998 Situation in Kosovo On December 17, Zvonko
Bojanic, the Serbian Deputy Mayor of Kosovo Polje, was kidnapped
and executed. Although the General

[PEN-L:5813] NATO Bombs Don't Stop Long Distance Calling;Confession of the Bombs; Prep for Ground Troops

[Michael Eisenscher]

IN THIS MESSAGE:  NATO Bombs Don't Stop Long Distance Calling; Confession of
the Bombs; Prep for Ground Troops


friend sent me below, Michael Hoover


> (04/21/99, 12:17 p.m. ET)
> 
> U.S.-based long distance carriers that serve Yugoslavia aren't
> experiencing big service delays, even though NATO has said it's
> targeting communications facilities in war-torn Kosovo for bombing.
> 
> Despite the almost month-long NATO pounding, "MCI's worldwide
> intelligent network is functioning normally for calls headed to the
> Balkans."  AT&T's spokesman said his company lines into the Balkans and
> Kosovo were "experiencing some higher than normal" call volumes, but
> almost no problem in connecting.
=

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 07:53:12 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Thomas Kruse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [PEN-L:5754] Galeano on the bombing
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

CONFESSION OF THE BOMBS 

By Eduardo Galeano

The United States and its NATO allies are discharging a torrent of missiles
on Yugoslavia, or on what is left of what was once Yugoslavia. According to
the official reports, those attacking are moved by the rights of the Kosovo
Albanians, victims of a "war of ethnic cleansing" unleashed by Milosevic*s
Serbian forces. According to PresidentClinton, the western democracies
cannot stand by and allow this "inadmissible human catastrophe." 

The worst "war of ethnic cleansing" and the most "inadmissible human
catastrophe" in the history of the Americas in the twentieth century took
place not that long ago in Guatemala, above all in the decade of the
eighties. Guatemalan indigenous peoples  were the principal victims of 
this massacre: which produced one hundred
times more dead than in Kosovo, and twice the number of displaced persons.
In his recent tour of Central America, President Clinton asked to be
forgiven for the support his country gave to those military men,
exterminators of Indians, who were trained, armed, and advised by the United
States. Why doesn*t Clinton demand that Milosevic apply this successful 
doctrine of washing of hands? The bombing raids might be stopped in return
for a formal promise, that in the year 2012 or 2013*for example*Yugoslavia*s
president could ask the cadavers of Kosovo to forgive him and all would be
well, end of story, sin absolved, what*s done is done. And the killing could
continue unabated. 

The U.S. president was bogged down in his sex scandal, and Robert de Niro
and Dustin Hoffman invented a war in order to distract the attention of the
respectable public. 

In the film, called "Wag the Dog," this invented war was launched on behalf
of the Albanians. Now, once again in an effort to save Albanians, the film
continues in another
>medium. Its Hollywoodesque nature remains intact however: the planes take
off, they seem to have been designed on some movie set, and night after
night explosions like 
>fireworks light up Yugoslavia*s sky. As was true during the bombing raids
against Iraq, this spectacle does not give us images of the enemy*s dead,
and there are no dead on our
>side. As long as the bombs fall from above, this real war will continue
pretending to be virtual reality. If ground troops are used, and the
attacking countries begin to receive their heroes back in coffins, it will
be another story. 
>
>Meanwhile, NATO continues celebrating, with fanfare, its half century of
life. And, as the old saying goes, they*re throwing the house out the
window. This is the most expensive birthday party in history: without
counting the value of lives and property destroyed in Yugoslavia, because
the long and short of it is that there is no enemy who doesn*t deserve
what*s coming to him, and every night of bombing raids costs $330 million
dollars. According to the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (March 30, 1999),
on the first night of this war alone the U.S. spent as much money as Clinton
promised to the countries of Central America after they were devastated by
Hurricane "Mitch." And that*s not all. There were those who  were asking
what NATO*s role might be, since the Communist threat to Eastern Europe no
longer exists. The company*s general manager, Javier Solana, wasted no time
in responding  to such insidious doubts. Twenty years ago, Solana shouted
"No!" to NATO. Ten years ago and speaking on behalf of the Spanish
government, he uttered a much-quoted phrase. The U.S. had just unleashed its
war against Iraq, and Solana said: "They asked our opinion, but after the
fact." Today he explains that NATO is "defending peace," at the tune of a
million dollars per missile. 
>
>The great powers are the ones who practice crime and recommend it.  No one
breaks the law so often. These bombing raids poke fun at international law,
and also at NATO*s charter. Against a bloody dictator like Milosevic, we are
told, anything goes, 
>including the unthinkable. Against Milosevic? On our television screens, at
least, the Hitler of

[PEN-L:5814] Are We Heading Towards Another Vietnam?; Serbs Reject AtrocityClaims; NATO Bombing Destroys Schools

[Michael Eisenscher]

IN THIS MESSAGE: Are We Heading Towards Another Vietnam?; Serbs Reject
Atrocity Claims; NATO Bombing Destroys Schools

>From Economic Reform, Volume 11, No. 5 May 1999

Are We Heading Towards Another Vietnam?

During its first few days of its bombardment of Yugoslavia NATO's smart
missiles were reported homing in on their Serbian targets with pinpoint
accuracy--a tribute to the excellence of their spatial reference system.
On the other hand NATO's press releases dealt largely with ancient
hatreds and a battle lost six hundred years ago. It was unfortunate,
however, that Washington and the media did not seek their guidance in
the more recent past.

  The great landmark on which the current Balkan tragedy hinged
was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. At the time a retired sage
from the US State Department even wrote a book proclaiming the end of
history. But subsequently we have been buried in a surfeit of history,
most of it of quite the wrong sort. And predictably so. Tito's
Yugoslavia had been a balancing act between the Soviet and American
camps. He was prominent in organising a "Third Camp" of neutral
countries between the superpowers. And in the economy, too, he sought a
middle ground between private and state ownership. To an extent,
decisions were made and profits distributed by the firms' employees.

  In its hour of triumph, however, Washington was in no mood for
dilly-dallying. The disastrous advice that it ladled out to
post-Communist Russia--instantaneous privatisation and untrammelled
freedom for foreign capital--was replicated in Yugoslavia with similar
results.

  Recently the 1984 National Security Decision Directive (NSDD
133) "United States Policy towards Yugoslavia," was released from
secrecy. Applied to the United States itself, that directive would have
ruled out Roosevelt's program for lifting the US out of the Great
Depression.

  Yet there were enough landmarks that warranted second
thoughts. The key false reference point that misled Washington
policy-planners might be called the Big Bang of 1981. In retrospect it
seems that at the time a giant chamber pot had crashed on our heads and
ushered in a new Age of Creation. That attempt of the US Federal Reserve
to wring inflation out of the economy led to the Fed adopting the
monetarist model. From then on its concern was supposed to be only with
braking the growth of the money supply, without regard for the effect on
interest rates. At the same time banks were deregulated so that they
could pay interest on chequing accounts as well as on saving deposits.
Naturally that prompted an influx of deposits into the new hybrid
accounts. And in an attempt to restrain that Fed Reserve Chairman
Volcker drove the bank rate up to 19%, bringing on mass unemployment and
bankruptcy throughout the non-Soviet world. Amongst much else this led
to mass lay-offs of Yugoslav "guest workers" in Western Germany on whose
remittances Yugoslavia had become dependent.

  Accordingly throughout much of the eighties the parks of
Yugoslavian cities in daytime were crammed with unemployed young men.
That left them with a dangerous amount of time to nurse the wrongs that
their ancestors had suffered six hundred years ago at the hands of their
fellow Yugoslavs of other religions. Official unemployment climbed to
17% throughout the Confederation; in Kosovo it topped 57%. Exports
plunged and government deficits soared under the combined effects of the
depressed economy and the high interest rates.

  Long since, Chairman Alan Greenspan of the Fed announced that
he no longer pays special attention to the money supply
statistic--nobody can even say how it is to be reckoned. In the United
States that has contributed to bringing down interest rates. However,
the mass unemployment, huge government deficits, and social break-down
brought on by the Big Bang of 1981 delivered the Third World and
"emerging lands" like Yugoslavia to the mercies of the International
Monetary Fund. And for the IMF the Big Bang is still certified gospel,
rather than a monumental mistake.

  At the end of the eighties the two powerful clamps that had
held Yugoslavia together since World War II disappeared. One of these
was the superpower rivalry already mentioned. The other was the
dictator, Marshall Tito. With his death free parliamentary elections in
1980 put considerable power in the hands of rightist nationalist
parties, while the Communists retained much strength in the south.

  Another important landmark was the reunification of Germany.
The reunited Germany, once again become a major power, seemed to be take
over in the Balkans just where Kaiser Wilhelm and the Nazis had left
off.

  With the best of intentions, of course. But by 1990
Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Minister of Foreign Affairs in Germany had
already encouraged Slovenia and Croatia to declare their independence
without negotiating their exit from the federati

[PEN-L:5816] New Left Review: Danger of a Wider War....

[Michael Eisenscher]

http://www.newleftreview.com/kosovo.html

The Danger of a Wider War and the Chance for a Wider Peace

Robin Blackburn

Kosovan Albanians and Serbian civilians have already paid a sad price for
the limited
war between NATO and Yugoslavia. Because NATO has not achieved its objectives
and has actually made the situation in Kosovo much worse, there is now a
lively danger
of a wider war. Any move to a land war will be pregnant with further
disaster. While a
multitude have been forced from their homes, hundreds of thousands remain,
to be used
as human shields by the Serbian forces. NATO commanders know the huge
difficulties
of landing a significant force in Kosovo and therefore will be strongly
tempted to move
against Belgrade directly from their bases in Bosnia and Hungary and with
the help of
allied local forces. However it is done, a military plunge into Serbia could
detonate the
political minefields in Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro. If Hungary, Rumania or
Croatia are given any role then territories such as Vojvodina and Moldavia
could be
dragged in. Perhaps these dangers are so manifest that NATO will contrive to
avoid
them. The most acute danger in a wider war stems from its implications for
Russia and
the Ukraine.

When former President Mikhail Gorbachev visited Kings College, Cambridge, in
March
1999, he expressed astonishment that the West was prepared to follow up the
expansion of NATO by making a bonfire of all the international accords and
organisations that had been put in place to safeguard peace and human
rights. Those
who went to war have simply torn up the Helsinki agreements and the
Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and have done so with the clear
intention
of denying Russia a say in the crisis, notwithstanding the obvious
contribution which the
Russian government could make to a settlement. Those who heard Gorbachev,
and had
the opportunity to speak with him, could not fail to be impressed by the
alarm of
someone whose words should be weighed both because of his extraordinary
historical
role and because, with Primakov now the premier, he is once again in touch with
government opinion. What follows is strongly coloured by my own reaction to
Gorbachev's warnings in Cambridge, given just prior to the bombing.

All branches of the Russian government have warned that a NATO invasion will
create,
at best, a new cold war, with unending instability and the final burial of
both nuclear and
conventional disarmament. At worst it will create the flashpoints of new hot
wars. If
NATO occupies most or all of former Yugoslavia with the help of its new Eastern
European members, the military encirclement of Russia will be complete. The
prospects
for conventional forces reduction or missile destruction will be wiped out.
All parties will
then focus on such new borderlands as the Ukraine, where there is already
support for a
defence agreement with Russia; indeed the ingredients for a civil war, or for
pre-emptive coups, between pro and anti-Western forces are already in place.

Have the NATO leaders forgotten about Russia's possession of 3,500
intercontinental
ballistic missiles, with their nuclear warheads? Does the fragility of the
political order in
Russia need to be pointed out to them? Have they failed to notice that
Russia and China
are exploring economic and military co-operation? For whatever reason, most
Western
political pundits do not care to talk about such mattersæbut it would be
absurd to
suppose that Pentagon or State Department strategists do not register their
over-riding
importance. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, with encouragement from
Senator Jessie Helms, has certainly managed to focus on such issues even if
the US
President and Congress have had other matters on their mind. When justifying
the size
of the US and Western military budget, complicated formulas are put forward
about the
need to confront two major regional crises at the same time; thinly-veiled
hints make it
clear that the Western establishment is designed to be able to confront and
contain
Russia and China, and that with Kosovo, the strategy of containment has
moved from
diplomacy to fait accompli and unilateral military initiatives.

It was at US insistence that Russia was cut out of the process that led to
the war. The
NATO political directorate, won to the view that the best way to deal with
the Russian
threat is by encircling that country with military bases, client states and NATO
protectorates, preferred this further expansion of NATO to Russian good
offices in its
tussle with Milosevic. This crassly provocative posture no doubt has its
opponents in
NATO counsels but they tamely follow where the US and Britain lead, sending out
pathetic little signals of concern as the military juggernaut heads for the
abyss.

The rigorous exclusion of Russia is especially notable since Javier Solana,
the NATO
Secretary General, declared in a speech on 23 June 1998 that it was
essential that
'Russia 

[PEN-L:5817] RE: Re: Re: RE: Re: Exchange with Michael Tomasky

[Max Sawicky]

> Try not to give him any idea, Charles. Max is gonna soon retire from the
> grinding work of churning out unread policy papers, to spend his twilight
> years at a nursing home with a miniature golf course. He already had a
> vision of it.
>
> Yoshie

If I had stayed in lit-crit I could be churning out unread books about
unread authors, while declaiming to students who write unreadable papers.  I
think I'm ahead of the game.

As for golf, miniature or otherwise, I'd like to point out that one rarely
sees a golf tournament marred by fisticuffs or profanity, unlike football,
baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis, soccer, and MLA conferences.

mbs

[PEN-L:5815] US State Department Documents on KLA Kosovo Liberation Army

[Michael Eisenscher]

US State Department Documents on KLA Kosovo Liberation Army

Author:  George  Orwell, alias Big Brother

ANDRE GUNDER FRANK

1. 11/10/98: Situation in Kosovo
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1998/ps981110.html
Key Passage
"Provocations from one side do not justify violence in return. It
is the responsibility of both the Serbian security forces remaining in
Kosovo and the Kosovo Liberation Army to exercise restraint and
prevent a resurgence of violence. [end of document] || Press
Statements Index | State Department Home Page || This is an"

2. 1/15/99: Security of the Kosovo Verification Mission Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1999/ps990115.html
Key Passage
"KVM and all its members. We call on the FRY to adhere fully to
this obligation. The Kosovo Liberation Army has also undertaken
similar commitments and must also ensure that these obligations are
met. Today's events do not change the importance of the Kosovo
Verification Mission nor diminish the vital"

3. 7/15/98: Kidnappings of Serb Civilians in Kosovo
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1998/ps980715b.html
Key Passage
"in Kosovo, both Albanian and Serb. We have condemned on numerous
occasions the use of excessive force by Serbian security
forces, particularly when directed indiscriminately against Kosovar
Albanian civilians. We are also, however, concerned about attacks
against Serbian civilians in Kosovo by Albanian extremist groups,
including the Kosovo Liberation Army"

4. 12/24/98: U.S. Concerned About Kosovo Violence
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1998/ps981224a.html
Key Passage
"Yugoslav Army and internal security police near Podujevo, Kosovo.
We condemn all breaches of the cease-fire and other violations of
applicable UN Security Council resolutions in Kosovo, including
provocative attacks committed by elements of the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA). Belgrade's disproportionate and indiscriminate
reaction, however, cannot be justified. The"

5. 3/15/99: Letter of KLA Representative Hashim Thaqi to Secretary of
State Madeleine K. Albright
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1999/ps990315.html
Key Passage
"Albright Hashim Thaqi, Chairman of the Kosovo Albanian delegation
to the Rambouillet Peace Process and a representative of the
Kosovo Liberation Army, has sent a letter to Secretary Albright
announcing his readiness--and the readiness of his delegation--to sign
the Rambouillet Agreement for peace and self-government in Kosovo"

6. Ambassador Holbrooke Travel to Belgrade, 3/8/99
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1999/ps990308a.html
Key Passage
"leadership to accept the Rambouillet Accords, including both their
political and civilian and military implementation elements, when he
visits Belgrade. Ambassador Holbrooke's trip comes following the
decision today by the General Staff of the Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA) to approve the Rambouillet Accords and authorize their
signature. Senator Bob Dole"

7. 12/23/98: Situation in Kosovo
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1998/ps981223a.html
Key Passage
"increased tensions and threaten to re-ignite hostilities. The
United States reiterates its call on the Serbian security forces in Kosovo
and on the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to exercise restraint, even
in the face of provocation. We have seen indications that some of
the security personnel withdrawn from Kosovo"

8. 2/25/98 Statement on Kosovo
Source
http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/stm_980225_kosovo.html
Key Passage
"human rights values, and their condemnation of both violent
repression of non-violent expressions of political views, including
peaceful demonstrations, as well as terrorist actions, including
those of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army. The Contact Group
agreed that both sides should be reasonable and flexible and focus
on immediate"

9. 3/2/98: Violence in Kosovo
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1998/ps980302b.html
Key Passage
"sides to enter into an unconditional dialogue, and for authorities
in Belgrade to implement immediately the Kosovo education
agreement on an effective basis as an important step to reduce
tensions. We have also called on Kosovar Albanian leaders to condemn
terrorist action by the so-called Kosovo liberation army (UCK"

10. 12/18/98: Situation in Kosovo
Source

http://secretary.state.gov/www/briefings/statements/1998/ps981218a.html
Key Passage
"December 18, 1998 Situation in Kosovo On December 17, Zvonko
Bojanic, the Serbian Deputy Mayor of Kosovo Polje, was kidnapped
and executed. Although the General Staff of the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA) has disclaimed responsibility, the masked and armed
men who carried out the attack reportedly wore KLA insignia on"


11. Kosovo Update 11/02/98
Source
http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/rpt_981102_kosovo.html
Key Passage
"of Forces There has been

[PEN-L:5808] URPE summer conference

[Doug Henwood]

[Heather Boushey asked me to forward this. - Doug]

Please post the following message to anyone who may be interested.

The Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) is hosting its annual
Summer Conference, Aug. 21-24. Below is a full description of the
conference topic and travel information, but I would like to make you
all aware of some special events we're planning to help graduate
students with dissertation topics, job search, etc., and to foster
relationships between more established economists and younger economists
(and economists-to-be).

First, this year, we are offering up to 20 scholarships for graduate
students which make the entire three day event, including food and a
bed, only $50. We would like to encourage students to also submit
papers. These papers can be works in progress or dissertation proposals.

Second, to encourage student attendance and participation, we will be
dedicating Sunday evening to a forum geared towards graduate students.
Part of the evening will be devoted to forums on the job market,
finishing the dissertation, publishing. Our goal is to foster some
mentoring by more established economists through introducing people with
similar interests. The evening will then become a "social hour" where
students and established economists can share ideas and interests in an
informal setting. Graduate students should bring with them to the
conference a brief (2 - 5 min.) statement of dissertation interests for
the graduate student mentorship evening.

Please contact Heather Boushey (see bottom of this message for contact
information) regarding the graduate student events.

Now, the Conference:

Political Economy, the Environment, and Economic Crisis
Union for Radical Political Economics’ 31st Summer Conference

Saturday-Tuesday
August 21-24, 1999
Camp Chinqueka, Connecticut

Radical political economy has long dealt with economic crisis, but the
environment has gotten short shrift in comprehensive strategies on the
left that combat poverty and oppression and support radical social
change.  Human impact on the environment – pollution, waste disposal,
ozone depletion, over-consumption of non-renewable resources such as oil
and gas, mismanagement of renewable resources such as forests and
waterways – affects and is affected by the inequalities generated by the
capitalist system.

In a world of ever-depleting over-used resources in which financial
capital flows have a grip on the world economy, growth is the buzzword
that attracts foreign capital.  However, growth brings environmental
degradation and increases inequality.
Environmental sustainability is the ability of the world population to
maintain a balance with the eco-system.  This sustainability hinges on
economic justice and equitable distribution of the world’s resources.
Radical environmentalists have long held this position.  Yet the
environmental debate from an economic point of view ignores the
importance of redistribution and focuses on two liberal questions
regarding sustainability.  The first question is: how can growth
continue without further sacrificing environmental quality?  The second
question is: how can growth continue in a rapidly changing and uncertain
global economy?

Radical political economic analysis must refocus these questions to
address environmental imperialism, poverty, and social change. Come join
this summer’s plenary speakers who will be addressing questions such as:
Is growth a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’?  How fast can the first world deplete the
third world of its resources?  Must underdeveloped countries grow to
pollute and pollute to grow?  Who pays for ozone depletion?  How do we
address over-consumption, poverty, and environmental and economic
inequality?

The evening sessions to which all are invited offer theoretical, policy,
and activist perspectives on the nexus between political economy,
environment, and crisis.

Plenary 1: Moving Forward: Integrating Environmentalism and Political
Economy
 Environmentalists and activists find it hard to speak the technical
language of distribution, cost, property rights, and rational choice
that environmental economists use to quantify and qualify how people and
lands are affected by environmental degradation and pollution.  While
much of the cost-benefit analysis and market-based property rights
solutions to pollution control were inspired by the Reagan/Bush
counter-revolution, a radical political economic critique using these
same ‘tools’ can turn conservative environmental arguments on their
heads to support environmental protection efforts and combat
environmental racism.  Discover the vocabulary and learn the language of
environmental protection, normative preferences, and marketing of
pollution rights that negatively affect poor and indigenous people
disproportionately.

Plenary 2: Confronting Capitalism: How Should the Global Economy
Be Governed?
 The global economy is a stage for competing interests of international
financial institutions, national gove

[PEN-L:5804] (Fwd): Academics against the War

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Have you guys seen the following open letter? Yoshie

*
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 14:53:19 +0
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sender: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: Rumy Husan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: (Fwd): Academics against the war

I'm emailing you to ask if you would be willing to sign an
open letter from academics/intellectuals against the war in
Yugoslavia. We have adopted the text of a letter sent by
Pierre Bourdieu and other French intellectuals to Le Monde in late
March and hope to use it as the basis for an open letter in Britain,
the US and elsewhere. We hope to publish the letter at some point in
the near future. The translation of the French letter is attached
below for you to read. I'd also be grateful if you would forward this
to anyone you think might be interested.

To add your name to the open letter, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]

With best wishes

Kirsty Reid

**
Dr Kirsty Reid
Department of Historical Studies
University of Bristol

Tel: 0117 928 8117
Fax: 0117 928 8276
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


ACADEMICS AGAINST NATO’S WAR IN THE BALKANS


We reject these false dilemmas:

- Support NATO intervention or support the
reactionary policy of the Serbian regime in Kosovo? The NATO
air-strikes, forcing the withdrawal of the OSCE forces from
Kosovo, have facilitated and not prevented a ground offensive
by Serb paramilitary forces; they encourage retaliation
against the Kosovar population by the worst Serb
ultra-nationalists; they consolidate the dictatorial power of
Slobodan Milosevic, who has crushed the independent media and
rallied around him a national consensus which it is necessary
on the contrary to break in order to open the way to peaceful
political negotiations over Kosovo.

- Accept as the only possible basis of negotiation
the ‘peace plan’ elaborated by the governments of the United
States or the European Union – or bomb Serbia? No durable
solution to a major political conflict internal to a state
can be imposed from the outside, by force. It is not true
that ‘everything has been tried’ to find a solution and an
acceptable framework for negotiations. The Kosovar
negotiators were forced to sign a plan which they had
initially rejected after being led to believe that NATO would
involve itself on the ground to defend their cause. This was
a lie which maintained a total illusion: none of the
governments which support the NATO strikes wants to make war
on the Serbian regime to impose the independence of Kosovo.
The air-strikes will perhaps weaken a part of the Serbian
military apparatus but they will not weaken the mortar fire
which, on the ground, is destroying Albanian homes, or the
paramilitary forces who are killing the fighters of the
Kosovo Liberation Army.

NATO is not the only or above all the best fulcrum for an
agreement. One could find the elements of a multi-national
police force (embracing notably Serbs and Albanians) in the
ranks of the OSCE to enforce a transitional agreement. One
could extend the negotiations to include the Balkan states
destabilized by the conflict: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia,
Albania … One could at the same time support the right of the
Kosovars to self-government and the protection of the Serb
minority in Kosovo; one could try to respond to the
aspirations and fears of the different peoples concerned by
links of co-operation and agreements among neighbouring
states, with Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania …
None of this has been tried.

We reject the arguments which seek to justify the NATO
intervention:

- It is not true that the NATO air-strikes are going to
prevent a regional flare-up, in Macedonia or in
Bosnia-Herzegovina: they are going on the contrary to feed
the flames. They are going to destabilize Bosnia-Herzegovina
and without doubt menace the multi-national forces
responsible for applying the fragile Dayton accords. They are
already setting Macedonia alight.

- It is not true that NATO is protecting the Kosovan
population and its rights.

- It is not true that their bombing of Serbia opens
the way to a democratic regime in Serbia.

The governments of the European Union, like that of United
States, perhaps hoped that this demonstration of force would
compel Slobodan Milosevic to sign their plan. Haven’t they
thereby displayed naïveté or hypocrisy? In any case this
policy is leading not only to a political impasse, but to the
legitimation of a role for NATO outside any international
framework of control.

This is why we demand:

- an immediate halt to the bombing;
- the organization of a Balkan conference in which the
representatives of the states and of all the national
communities within these states take part;
- defence of the right of peoples to self-determination,
on the sole condition that this right is not fulfilled on the
back of another people and by the ethnic cleansing of
territory.

EDWARD SAID, COLUMBIA
ALEX CALLINICOS, YORK
NOAM CHOMSKY, MICHIGAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

[PEN-L:5802] Schools in Balkans Destroyed by NATO Bombing

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Schools in Balkans destroyed by NATO bombing

(CAN-EX) Over 150 schools across the Balkans were destroyed or damaged in
late March and early April by North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombs.
Over 800,000 students' schools are closed because of the ruinous NATO
bombing according to Yugoslav sources. The Yugoslav Students Union asks
students whose countries are members of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization "to forget [all] official opinions of their governments and
start [a] human campaign against bombing!" Students in Serbia testify to
the International Union of Students e-mail list that NATO bombs kill
civilians and destroy non-military buildings. "If this continues. there
will be more blood on both sides and only innocent will suffer," stated the
student union. NATO admits many bombs use depleted uranium, such as those
in cruise missiles, which continues injuring and killing people for years
after their initial explosion. Depleted uranium is "most likely a major
contributor" to the Iraqi peoples' syndrome of sickness since the first
Gulf War bombing of 1991, according to radiobiologist and president of the
International Institute of Concern for Public Health, Dr. Rosalie Bertell.
An economist who wrote a "balance sheet of destruction" summarized: "NATO
has created a humanitarian catastrophe." Protests against NATO bombings
continue including hundreds of thousands of demonstrators across Europe,
North America, Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The Canadian
Federation of Students, for example, formally encouraged all its locals to
organize against the bombings.

sources: Michel Chossudovsky, economic professor, University of Ottawa via
Global Pillage [EMAIL PROTECTED], Yugoslav Students Union via
International Union of Students
http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/archiv/ius-l and Academic Information
Network http://www.aim.ac.yu

[PEN-L:5800] Peace Agreement or a Kosovo as dictated by NATO?

[Jim Devine]

At 05:27 PM 4/22/99 -0500, Ken wrote:
>My basic thought is this. It is going to be extremely difficult if not
impossible for a solution in which Serbs and ethnic Albanians live side by
side in the near future in Kosovo. The Albanians will want independence not
just autonomy. This is not acceptable to the Serbs. With partition, Serbs
would have control of at least part of their territory and would be free
from a civil war and conflict with the ethnic Albanians within that area.
The ethnic Albanians would get independence immediately and there would be
a place for refugees to settle. Parties should be free to settle where they
wish. I am not suggesting forced ethnic cleansing.<

I think it's time to reject the whole idea of ethnic nationalism, i.e.,
that each nation-state corresponds to a single ethnic group or a group of
tightly-linked ethnic groups. Given the confusing mess of cross-patches of
ethnicities that Barkley points to in the Balkans, along with the existence
of many individuals of mixed-ethnic background, don't you think it would be
better to simply junk ethnicity as a principle in politics, used to draw
boundaries? (Here in the US, that's a good idea: fight the idea of English
as the official language. And I can imagine what would have happened if
Chicago had split itself along ethnic boundaries back when I lived near
there.) Of course, that wouldn't end the oppression of ethnic Albanians by
Serbs (or vice-versa). But instead of fighting to have separate countries,
or even separate provinces, the ethnic groups that get the short end of the
stick should fight for democratic rights, the end of discrimination in jobs
and politics, and even for affirmative action and the like. The idea of
splitting a nation without both sides' consent simply encourages wars.

Maybe they could pull off "cantonization" a la Switzerland, where different
language and ethnic groups have different cantons within a federation. But
to have this kind of system, you have to have some kind of unity against
the rest of the world, something the Balkan area lacks.

I know that rejecting ethnicity is difficult. But it doesn't seem that much
more difficult than getting the Serbs and ethnic Albanian Kosovars to get
together to do the following:

>As for the difficulty of drawing borders. That is primarily up to the
parties involved, the most an outsider could do is offer advice and mediate
inevitable disagreements. Who the hell are outside parties to be drawing
maps showing how land is to be divided? ...<

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
Bombing DESTROYS human rights. US/NATO out of Serbia!

[PEN-L:5799] Re: Re: Re: RE: Peace Agreement or a Kosovo as dictated by NATO?

[Ken Hanly]

Sorry. Of course you are right. I meant Croatia. I was thinking of the
cleansing of Krajina (sp)
My basic thought is this. It is going to be extremely difficult if not
impossible for a solution in which Serbs and ethnic Albanians live side by
side in the near future in Kosovo. The Albanians will want independence
not just autonomy. This is not acceptable to the Serbs.With partition, Serbs
would have control of at least part of their territory and would be free
from a civil war and conflict with the ethnic Albanians within that area.
The ethnic Albanians would get independence immediately and there would be a
place for refugees to settle. Parties should be free to settle where they
wish. I am not suggesting forced ethnic cleansing.
As for the difficulty of drawing borders. That is primarily up to the
parties involved, the most an outsider could do is offer advice and mediate
inevitable disagreements. Who the hell are outside parties to be drawing
maps showing how land is to be divided? Anyway isn't Bosnia an example of
where partition has at least stopped the slaughter?  If partition is so
unrealistic
why was it considered by NATO strategists and then not presented to the
parties-- apparently on the grounds that the FRY might accept it. I take
back the parts about payoffs by a third party to gain agreement. If NATO
suggested support for full independence for part of Kosovo and aid for
resettlement of refugees etc. as a means of inducing the KLA to support
partition I would be for it. Similarly if NATO
offered monetary aid to rebuild the damage in FRY to induce the Serbs to
sign I would be for it. But no more threats of using force.
What do you suggest?  Making Kosovo-Metohija a UN protectorate?
  Cheers, Ken Hanly

J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. wrote:

> Ken,
>  Your analysis of the Rambouillet Accords is reasonable.
> But then you went all goopy and incoherent when you began
> going on about partition.
>   First of all you declared that "ethnic cleansing works."
> Yuck!  Then you cite Slovakia as an example.  Sorry, there
> has been no ethnic cleansing in Slovakia.  There was a
> secession (not a partition) between the already defined
> sections, Bohemia and Moravia going into the Czech Republic
> and then Slovakia becoming a separate independent country.
> Remaining Czechs and other minorities in Slovakia were not
> removed and did not have their houses burned, neither did
> anything similar happen in the CR.  In particular, there has
> been an ongoing problem about mistreatment of the Hungarian
> minority in Slovakia, but that situation seems to have improved
> and stabilized, not least because the Hungarians got a government
> that stopped threatening to annex territories in neighboring
> countries, such as Yugoslavia and Romania, with substantial
> Hungarian minorities.  In any case, the Slovakians have not
> "cleansed" or otherwise forced out the Hungarians.
>   Partition involves drawing a line across a previously
> undivided territory.  This happened in Cyprus and also in
> Bosnia-Herzegovina.  I do not know what you mean by the
> idea of partition in the context of Kosovo-Metohija.  Do you mean
> making it independent of Serbia?  Do you mean drawing a
> line across its middle and putting the Albanians on one side
> and the Serbs on the other?  Just where would you draw that
> line?  Look closely at a map before you claim that you can do so.
> Barkley Rosser
> -Original Message-
> From: Ken Hanly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Thursday, April 22, 1999 2:56 PM
> Subject: [PEN-L:5782] Re: RE: Peace Agreement or a Kosovo as dictated by
> NATO?
>
> >
> >
> >Max Sawicky wrote:
> >
> >> I completely take your point that any "hot pursuit" clause in an
> >> agreement is a license for abuse on the part of the pursuer.  But
> >> if the whole object of the exercise is to restrain
> >> state-sponsored, illegal acts by Serbs, then there has to be some
> >> kind of superceding authority with police power.  If it was the
> >> UN, that would be fine with me.
> >>
> >> Don't forget, my object is not to pull Nato's wagon, but to
> >> secure Kosovan sovereignty.  The Albanians had problems with the
> >> treaty as well because, as they have said, Nato was (and is)
> >> insufficiently focused on self-determination for Kosova.:
> >>
> >
> >COMMENT:Actually that was not my point. My point is that there is in
> >the agreement specific clauses that deal with pursuit. If as you say
> >there is need to chase and catch paramilitary people caught
> >terrorising Albanians in Kosovo then the Kosovo police should be able
> >to chase them into Serbia and be assured that they are handed over to
> >them. I am criticizing MAX not NATO at this point. You claimed that
> >the appendiceswhich give NATO all sorts of power to use ports,
> >facilities etc. in the FRY outside of Kosovo are really meant simply
> >to authorise chases. That is bs. That's my point.
> >   The pursu

[PEN-L:5792] Buck Rogers and the 25th Century

[Tom Lehman]

When I was a kid I remember coming across an old book entitled Buck
Rogers and the 25th Century.  The story if I remember correctly was that
Buck was a mining engineer and pilot who is trapped in a mine by a
greedy mine owner to keep Buck from exposing the mine owners evil
deeds.  Anyway, Buck wakes up to find he has slept for 500 years and
lives in a world dominated by the Han Air Lords who control the world by
flying around in airships blowing things up...

I saw a UPI news bulletin that says Arkansas is now telling kids that
you shouldn't commit violence on people who "dis" you...Arkansas is
going to have a hard time outside of Arkansas and other throughly stupid
states with his personal behavior problems now.

Your email pal,

Tom L.

[PEN-L:5788] Re: Canadian Anschluss

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 05:58 AM 4/22/99 -0700, Tom Walker wrote:
>In 1987-88 after having lived for twenty years in Canada, I spent eight
>months at Cornell. I lived in a residence with domestic and foreign graduate
>students. One of the amazing things was watching the T.V. news together at
>six. The foreigners, myself included, would gawk and howl at the laughably
>blatant propaganda. The domestics would stare seriously at the tube, not
>comprehending the reason for all the hilarity around them.


You are absolutely right, Tom.  I came to this country some 18 years ago,
and to this day I am amazed by the stupefying seriousness with which the
locals treat the media.  I guess I'll never become a true American (but
won't loose any sleep over this either).

But I am not alone.  We have a quite large foreign exchange program here,
and many foreign fellows are also nonplussed by the locals' media naivete.


Wojtek

[PEN-L:5786] U.S. Protest Targets African Access To AIDS Drugs

[Robert Naiman]

>>Politics Headlines
>>
>>Thursday April 22 1:00 AM ET
>>
>>U.S. Protest Targets African Access To AIDS Drugs
>>
>>   By Lisa Richwine
>>
>>   WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hundreds of demonstrators rallied in
>>Washington Wednesday to protest at
>>policies which they say protect drug companies but make AIDS drugs too
>>expensive for people in Africa.
>>
>>Chanting, waving signs and in some cases defying police, AIDS activists and
>>environmental and trade groups demonstrated in
>>favor of legislation sponsored by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., an Illinois
>>Democrat.
>>
>>Jackson's bill would forbid the Clinton administration to retaliate against
>>any African country that tried to use certain trade
>>provisions to obtain cheaper AIDS drugs. About 22.5 million people in Africa
>>are infected with HIV or have AIDS.
>>
>>The United States needs to ``give African governments and African
>>corporations an opportunity to produce medicines that will
>>be widely distributed among the people of sub-Saharan Africa so (they) can
>>live,'' Jackson told supporters gathered in a
>>downtown park during lunch hour.
>>
>>Health and consumer groups have criticized the Clinton administration for
>>pressuring developing countries on behalf of drug
>>companies to abandon trade approaches that could help them obtain cheaper
>>medications.
>>
>>Drug makers and U.S. officials say the trade powers these countries might
>>use violate patent rights and would hurt companies'
>>ability to invest in future AIDS drugs.
>>
>>The trade powers include compulsory licensing and parallel importing. The
>>first, legal under World Trade Organization rules,
>>allows countries to grant a local company authority to make cheaper, generic
>>versions of drugs even while the products are still
>>protected by patents. Parallel imports let countries buy drugs through third
>>parties at lower prices.
>>
>>A drug industry spokesman said pharmaceutical companies opposed compulsory
>>licenses to protect patents on AIDS drugs
>>that cost hundreds of millions of dollars apiece to develop.
>>
>>``It's our industry that developed life-saving protease inhibitors, and our
>>companies continue to invest billions of dollars into
>>AIDS research to develop even better new generation medicines,'' said Jeff
>>Trewhitt of the Pharmaceutical Research and
>>Manufacturers of America (PHRMA), a trade association representing drug
>>makers.
>>
>>The disputed trade powers have become a rallying point for AIDS groups that
>>say the gap is growing between those who can
>>afford medications and those who cannot.
>>
>>Carrying signs reading ``Human Rights, Not Corporate Rights'' and ``Just Say
>>No to Drug Lobbyists,'' demonstrators marched
>>through city streets to PHRMA's offices in downtown Washington.
>>
>>``We're not going to allow our president (Clinton) and vice president (Al
>>Gore) to bully and harass and kill people in Africa,''
>>Julie Davids of the gay activist group ACT-UP Philadelphia told the rally.
>>
>>About a dozen protesters refused police orders to disperse. A Washington
>>police spokesman could not immediately say
>>whether any had been arrested.


---
Robert Naiman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Preamble Center
1737 21st NW
Washington, DC 20009
phone: 202-265-3263
fax:   202-265-3647
http://www.preamble.org/
---

[PEN-L:5784] Re: Re: High school

[Charles Brown]

It is despicable how the media is downplaying the racism. One local headline is 
"Group hated athletes the most ". It starts out:

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris hurled insults at Jews, blacks and Hispanics... But they 
REALLY hated the athletes, who had power and popularity - everything they didn't. (end 
quote) .

The text itself has he word "really" in all caps.

We in the Black community, veteran scientists of the vast media phenomenon of covering 
up racism and constantly nurturing in the minds of the masses a sense that racism is 
not that big of a problem in U.S. society, read this as "white people, don't get to 
thinking that these kids' main problem and motive was racism. The main thing was they 
hated athletes". Yea, right, a big social problem in U.S. history and society, the 
hate of atheletes. Did you realize that America once enslaved athletes ? That Hitler 
hated athletes more than Jews ? All the typically prevaricating news coverage is 
saturated with "damage control" to prevent people from connecting their horror at the 
crime to a horror at racism in general.  I hope Chomsky and Parenti publish  books on 
this media coverup of racism phenomenon alone.

By the way, contrast this with the whole O.J. Simpson months long, virtual reality 
maxi-series, which had coverage priority at least equal to that on the current war. It 
was astonishing. A relatively private murder, of the type that thousands occur every 
year became a national religious ritual. There can be no other explanation for this 
coverage extraordinarily out of proportion to its social or poltical import: it was a 
Big Brother method of baptising a new generation in the myth of the Black rapist and 
murderer ( See Angela Davis' essay "The Myth of the Black Rapist" in _Women, Race and 
Class_ on history of the icon of Black man as rapist and savage as a bulwark of U.S. 
racist consciousness). Ironically, some of the truth broke through even in the O.J. 
Simpson maxi-series with the revelation of the Nazi cop Mark Furhman. Notice how the 
professor's tapes of Furhman's racist ravings have never been made public. 

Or maybe the media's motive was to get an O.J. Simpson as an athlete, that widely 
despised and victimized group.

In this and the current genocidal mass murder,we have the reverse aspect of racist 
mindcontrol: Playing down in the mass consciousness the scale of actually existing 
white fascistic racist consciousness , organizations and cliques in the U.S.  If the 
truth of how racist America is today were common knowledge it would be much more 
difficult to argue that affirmative action is not necessary by alleging that racism is 
a thing of the past. The signal characteristic of Reaganite racism ( the new racist 
line seeking to role back the gains of the Civil Rights Movement) is the DENIAL that 
racism is still a significant problem in the U.S. The post Reagan monopoly media has a 
term for those who accuse anybody of racism in politics, business or anything else: 
"playing the race card" or "race baiting".  The right wing cries out that Black 
leaders are falsely portraying Black people as victims. America is really a wonderful 
place of racial harmony and Black people are just a bunch of lazy !
, malcontents., etc., etc.

Mark my word. We are about witness a whole lot of creative and diversionary 
sociological/psychological/theological pronouncements and explanations all designed to 
keep the great mass of white people in denial about the representative racism of this 
horrific crime.


Charles Brown

>>> "William S. Lear" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 04/22/99 01:58PM >>>
On Thursday, April 22, 1999 at 13:44:44 (-0400) Max Sawicky writes:
>...
>Evidently the two gunmen in Colorado are not from downscale
>families.  They each had two parents.  The kids' facility with
>computers suggests they had decent employment prospects.  The
>school itself is said to be pretty good.  So money seems to have
>little to do with their story, at least in any simple way.

If your evidence that they were not "downscale" is merely that they
had two parents, I'll say that the case is still open on that. But,
from what it sounds like to me, it was a big dose of good
old-fashioned All-American racist violence.  But race and class are
closely linked here, so it's never too easy to dismiss one or the
other.


Bill

[PEN-L:5783] Re: Re: Re: Re: aftermath of school schootings

[Jim Devine]

Skipping over stuff where we agree, I wrote: >... Whatever the answer, it
seems to me that having a solid community where  individuals feel a part of
a society with others they are less likely to  want to hold guns. Liberal
efforts at gun control seem to miss this point<

Sam writes: >The "trenchcoat mafia" and Patrick James Purdy were social
outcasts. They were persecuted for their conscious non-conformity and
inability to conform to was deemed "cool" by their respective social
environments. This persecution of them because of their inability or
unwillingness to be "cool" caused in them antisocial  hatred and rage which
finally culminated in the explosion. I think it is telling that they turned
the guns on themselves afterwards.<

It used to be that the main way of expressing one's total social alienation
during the high school years was to commit suicide without directly
attacking anyone else (though usually suicide seems a way of sending an
angered message to others). Nowadays, we see more kill others first and
then commit suicide. The level of anger has ratcheted upward.

>There is far too much emphasis on being cool and fitting in with the cool
people and not enough thinking for yourself and being your own person. The
trench coat mafia's actions were caused ,at least in part, by their social
environments intolerance and persecution of non-conformity and difference,
not by some deficience of conscience or psychopathy. ... Also, I think
Leftists should be aware of the problem of the "tyranny of the majority".<

absolutely! the "communitarians" miss this altogether. Their proposals to
"re-create community bonds" usually ignore the fact that often communities
are united against "deviants" and "outsiders." 

That's one reason why stressed the need for more egalitarianism and democracy.

In the elipsis: >The explanadum of these kinds of explanations is in
peoples heads and not in social relations. One of the goals of a Left, it
seems to me, would be to  educate such people and try to explain to these
people why they feel the way they do and what they can do about it in a
non-violent way. To give their confusion and anger an organizational ( and
thus community) expression. I think what we have is a lot of confused,
angry and isolated people (isolated from each other too) which is a recipe
for disaster. Some of these people have found outlets in the militias and
survivalist organizations.<

right. Again, we need to fight for more than community, but also for
egalitarianism and democracy.

I won't bore people with my experience in High School, which was pretty bad
because of my very poor social skills at the time. Chess club anyone?

Besides, I want to hear the female perspective, or that of members of
racial minority groups.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
Bombing DESTROYS human rights. US/NATO out of Serbia!

[PEN-L:5776] Re: Re: Re: aftermath of school schootings

[Thomas Kruse]

Regarding:

>>  BTW, isn't Charlton Heston the head of the NRA now?<
>
>yes he is. I hear he can still walk on water, too.

Here's Moses on Littleton, from the NYT today:

[...]

Also Wednesday, officials of the N.R.A. said they had decided to scale back
their national membership meeting, scheduled for May 1 in Denver. 

In a letter, the association's president, the actor Charlton Heston, said
the group was canceling a gun show along with all other "festive ceremonies
normally associated with our annual gathering." The group was nevertheless
going to hold its annual members meeting at the city's convention center. 

The event was modified "to show our profound sympathy and respect for the
families and communities in the Denver area in their time of great loss,"
said a letter signed by Heston. 

"Our spirits must endure this terrible suffering together, and so must the
freedoms that bring us together," said the letter. "We must stand in somber
but unshakeable unity, even in this time of anguish." 

But Heston and some politicians said that the violence might have been
averted if someone else had been armed at the school. 

"Had there been someone who was armed, in this particular situation, in my
opinion, it may have stabilized," said Gov. Jesse Ventura of Minnesota, who
supports loosening restrictions on concealed handguns. "I believe it
supports conceal-and-carry because of the fact that what happens when a
group of unarmed individuals are confronted with people with weapons like
this, you have no defense." 

And Heston said the incident showed that there should be armed guards in
the nation's schools. 

"If there had been even one armed guard in the school, he could have saved
a lot of lives and perhaps ended the whole thing instantly," he said today
in in Los Angeles. 

There was, in fact, an armed guard at the school. 

A sheriff's deputy assigned to the school, Neil Gardner of the Jefferson
County Sheriff's Department, exchanged gunfire with one of the gunmen
shortly after the rampage began at 11:30 A.M. Two other patrol officers
fired some shots about a half-hour later, said Steve Davis, a sheriff's
spokesman. 

[...]



Tom Kruse
Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia
Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242, 500849
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[PEN-L:5772] Re: High school

[Mark Rickling]

Louis Proyect wrote:
>One of the most interesting points made in a NY Times article today about
>the Littleton massacre is that the school was divided by class
>distinctions. The "preps" and the "jocks" were on top, and "nerds" and
>"geeks" were at the bottom. The people at the top wore Gap and Abercrombie
>& Fitch clothing exclusively.

I heard on the radio this morning that one of the shooters lived in a
million dollar home and drove a BMW to school.

mark



NetZero - We believe in a FREE Internet.  Shouldn't you?
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[PEN-L:5770] RE: Re: High school

[Max Sawicky]

> Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> >The point that must be made is that high school prepares you
for class
society by imposing a brutal reign based on these distinctions,
while not
permitting you to move up the social ladder. Somebody whose
parents lack
money or who is not athletically gifted is condemned to remain in
the lower
classes until graduation. Resentments can boil high--to the point
of murder
nowadays.
>
> When I was in high school (1968-71), I remember a curious
cross-class
coalition between alienated intellectual geeks like me and the
"hoods," who
I realize in retrospect were usually of more socially downscale
origin than
the jocks. We were joined in our contempt for idiotic teachers
and
sunny-tempered B students. Of course, the geeks went on to good
colleges
and the hoods to pump gas, so this cross-class alliance didn't
persist. I
guess this is one way in which high school isn't like grownup
society. >
> Doug

The John Sayles movie, "Baby It's You" chronicles this last in a
masterful way by following a cross-class romance beyond high
school.

It's different everywhere, I guess.  In my school, very small
middle-incom suburban town (almost all single-family houses), the
most prestigious group was the tough kids, typically from
lower-income families.  They smoked cigarettes, got laid sooner,
and wore black grease jackets.  They bonded with the athletes,
who sought to emulate them and hung out with them.  Near the
bottom of the totem pole were males who did well in their studies
(unless they were also athletes), and at the very bottom were our
own few proto-hippies, who had longish hair and smoked dope.  The
latter were despised and had no social cachet at all.  I was a
hero for a day when I and a couple of fellow nerds got picked up
by the police in possession of a bottle of hard liquor, in the
bushes in front of the school.  (It was all a tragic
misunderstanding.)  At my 25th h.s. reunion, I learned the lead
hood in my class subsequently nearly got himself and his buddy --
our star all-around athlete -- killed in a car accident, then
joined the local police force.  The star athlete got himself
kicked out of several colleges for sexual indiscretions and ended
up as a high school coach.  The other tough kids who showed up at
the reunion said they were construction contractors.

As in the Sayles movie, the 'tough kids' had a brief moment at
the top of the social hierarchy.  They had no reason to murder
anybody.  They had everything they needed -- cars and sex.
Anyone who put on airs with them would get his butt well-kicked.

Evidently the two gunmen in Colorado are not from downscale
families.  They each had two parents.  The kids' facility with
computers suggests they had decent employment prospects.  The
school itself is said to be pretty good.  So money seems to have
little to do with their story, at least in any simple way.

mbs

[PEN-L:5768] Re: Kosovan View of Negotiations, Circa last fall

[J. Barkley Rosser, Jr.]

Max,
  Well, no agreement is perfect in that part of the
world.  The Dayton Accords that ended the fighting
in Bosnia-Herzogovina are horribly flawed in various
ways and things could easily blow up there again at
any time.  But it is better than war and ethnic cleansing.
  This statement you reproduce confuses the nature
of the agreement with alleged violations of the agreement.
I do not claim to know all of the facts.  However what has
been claimed by the US government is that at least
initially the Yugoslav government was obeying the agreement.
The KTF claims that Serbian troops were never withdrawn,
the US government disagrees.  Perhaps the KTF was
counting the Serbian police.  I don't know.  The US government
has claimed that later the Serbs violated the agreement by
reintroducing their military, my understanding being that that
began in December and that that reintroduction was a major
reason for European support of the US position in NATO.
 Certainly the agreement did not offer Kosovo-Metohija
autonomy on a scale that it had experienced prior to 1989.
  I don't know that I am going to try to comment on much
more of this, as it is rather lengthy, and obviously these
people are putting forward the wish list of the UCK/KLA.
But, I would note that those who have defended the
apparent reintroduction of the Serb military into Kosmet
have done so on the claim that the UCK/KLA was taking
over territory (30% of the land, if I remember the claim).
Such folks have also claimed that the lack of UCK/KLA
involvement in that agreement was a weakness because
it was a "one-sided ceasefire" that allowed the UCK/KLA
to continue attacking the Serb police, or whomever was
still hanging around.  I have not seen any credible charges
that Serb civilians were attacked.  In any case, it would appear
that from both perspectives the lack of UCK/KLA involvement
in that agreement was a problem.
Barkley Rosser
-Original Message-
From: Max Sawicky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wednesday, April 21, 1999 7:52 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:5733] Kosovan View of Negotiations, Circa last fall


>I haven't read the Rambouillet agreement, but in light of discussion of it
>some might like to get the view of Kosovans on negotiations last fall, a
>sample of which is below.  I can't speak for the veracity of all the
>statements in this piece, but a consideration of the KTF's point of view is
>appropriate.  I'd particularly like to hear what Barkley thinks of this.
>
>mbs
>
>--
>
>November 30, 1998
>Kosova Task Force, USA
>Action Alert
>
>Holes in the Holbrooke-Milosevic Agreement:
>
>The October 12 Agreement brokered by U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke was
>hailed as a diplomatic masterpiece. However, after one month of closer
>analysis, "the agreement fails to address fundamental obstacles to a
>sustainable peace and end to the humanitarian crisis."
>
>At least 25,000 Yugoslav and Serbian troops remain in Kosova, in spite of
>U.N. Security Council resolution #1199 demanding the withdrawal of troops
>"used for civilian repression." No wonder the people in Kosova see the
>agreement as a sellout.
>
>Albanian Muslims were excluded from the negotiations despite the fact
>they make up more than 90% of Kosova and voted overwhelmingly for
>independence.
>
>The agreement gives Kosova less political autonomy than they had ten
>years ago. A decade ago, the people of Kosova enjoyed full political
>autonomy and an equal vote, as the other republics did, in the former
>Yugoslavia.  They were successful in managing their own schools, police
>force, banks, hospitals,  etc. After Milosevic came to power with his
>repressive rule, all these rights were revoked. This agreement does not
>restore or re-establish these rights. In fact, the people of Kosova have no
>guarantee that their basic human rights will be protected.
>
>Serbs have already broken the present agreement several times according
>to diplomatic sources. Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
>(OSCE) chairman Bronislaw Geremek, said on Nov. 12, 1998 that Yugoslavia
>bore primary responsibility for violations of the cease fire in Kosova.
>"I am concerned by the security situation in Kosova," he told a news
>conference in Vienna. "The cease fire is being breached on a daily basis,
>intimidation continues, roadblocks are being erected and still people are
>killed. Still, I think that we should see the responsibility of the
>Yugoslav government first of all. The use of violence by a state is a
>concern for international organizations."
>
>The OSCE plans to send 2,000 unarmed observers to verify Serb compliance
>with U.N. resolutions, specifically the withdrawal of Serb troops and the
>return of refugees. However, the international monitors will not be able
>to intercede if fighting erupts and are weeks or months away from being
>fully deployed.  Presently the situation in Kosova is a shaky cease-fire
>that might soon dissolve into more violence, repression and re

[PEN-L:5767] Re: Canadian Anschluss

[Ken Hanly]

Tom, you are not truly Canadian yet. You are too excited about all this. After
all if Canada can live with a separatist government in Quebec and most of the
people just yawn about it, the prospect of becoming more like the US isn't going
to generate much excitement either.
 But I am not sure supporting NATO has much to do with assimilation into the US
viewpoint.There is the same NATO propoganda pitch in the UK, Germany, or the US.
The idiotic moral argument. Demonise the enemy and then anything done that seems
to punish the enemy is OK even though the harm is increased rather than
decreased. This is NATO mind management even though it may have been pioneered
and
tried and tested first in the US. That masses of people  still respond to moral
arguments by their leaders
at least shows people are not cynical but I find it distressing that most
Canadians lack the healthy scepticism you mention in Cornell.
  I agree that the mass media part of the CBC is just terrible. They do not
do any critical or independent reporting. CBC on line is equally adept at simply
passing on what NATO personages have to say.
On the other hand CBC radio has had programmes with Michael Bliss, some guy
named McArthur the editor of Harpers , and Noam Chomsky interviewed by Mary Lou
Findlay and stuff like that.
As with social democratic parties in Europe the NDP even has jumped on the
NATO bandwagon. This is not seen as a US thing but as a NATO exercise to stop
moral outrages. Do you think that Germany and the UK are also US quislings. If
anything Blair would like to be the chief Hawk and even Chretien suggested
ground troops several days back before it was a big thing as it is now. Seems
the quislings are trying to wag the dog, to mix metaphors.
 I think this has less to do with the US than the melting pot of global
capitalism. That is why you find in a peace treaty a specification of what the
peacetime economy must be like. That is why you find social democratic govts. in
Saskatchewan and BC. whittling away at medicare just as with their supposedly
right-wing opponents in Alberta, Ontario, or Manitoba. It is fortunate that
public concern shown by polls has slowed this process down considerably. Social
democratic and labor parties have become allies
in  the pursuit of global captialist aims-- as evident in New Zealand and the UK
among other places.
By the way, one of the TV stations bombed out last night lost all its
Simpsons, and Hope General episodes in the fire. No doubt NATO will apologise
for destroying symbols of US culture :)
Quite a bit of Serbia is now without TV and the NATO substitutes have very weak
signals. Some are broadcast from AWACS apparently.
   Cheers, Ken Hanly


Tom Walker wrote:

> I haven't seen much attention paid to something that has been quite obvious
> to me, a politically motivated immigrant to Canada from the United States.
> The bombing of Yugoslavia has fully realized a process of consolidation that
> was initiated with the Canada U.S. free trade agreement and furthered by
> NAFTA. The quisling-Chretien regime in Ottawa has surrendered the last
> vestige of Canadian sovereignty to the U.S.A.
>
> In 1987-88 after having lived for twenty years in Canada, I spent eight
> months at Cornell. I lived in a residence with domestic and foreign graduate
> students. One of the amazing things was watching the T.V. news together at
> six. The foreigners, myself included, would gawk and howl at the laughably
> blatant propaganda. The domestics would stare seriously at the tube, not
> comprehending the reason for all the hilarity around them.
>
> In the years since then, I have watched as the Canadian Broadcasting
> Corporation and the public rhetoric has marched slowly and steadily toward
> the level of the U.S. media and politics. Since the bombing of Yugoslavia
> started, I can no longer detect a principled difference.
>
> Thirty one years after leaving the U.S. to resist a war, here I am back in
> the U.S.A. and I didn't even have to leave Vancouver.
>
> regards,
>
> Tom Walker
> http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm

[PEN-L:5760] Re: High school

[Doug Henwood]

Louis Proyect wrote:

>The point that must be made is that high school prepares you for class
>society by imposing a brutal reign based on these distinctions, while not
>permitting you to move up the social ladder. Somebody whose parents lack
>money or who is not athletically gifted is condemned to remain in the lower
>classes until graduation. Resentments can boil high--to the point of murder
>nowadays.

When I was in high school (1968-71), I remember a curious cross-class
coalition between alienated intellectual geeks like me and the "hoods," who
I realize in retrospect were usually of more socially downscale origin than
the jocks. We were joined in our contempt for idiotic teachers and
sunny-tempered B students. Of course, the geeks went on to good colleges
and the hoods to pump gas, so this cross-class alliance didn't persist. I
guess this is one way in which high school isn't like grownup society.

Doug

[PEN-L:5756] Canadian Anschluss

[Tom Walker]

I haven't seen much attention paid to something that has been quite obvious
to me, a politically motivated immigrant to Canada from the United States.
The bombing of Yugoslavia has fully realized a process of consolidation that
was initiated with the Canada U.S. free trade agreement and furthered by
NAFTA. The quisling-Chretien regime in Ottawa has surrendered the last
vestige of Canadian sovereignty to the U.S.A.

In 1987-88 after having lived for twenty years in Canada, I spent eight
months at Cornell. I lived in a residence with domestic and foreign graduate
students. One of the amazing things was watching the T.V. news together at
six. The foreigners, myself included, would gawk and howl at the laughably
blatant propaganda. The domestics would stare seriously at the tube, not
comprehending the reason for all the hilarity around them.

In the years since then, I have watched as the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation and the public rhetoric has marched slowly and steadily toward
the level of the U.S. media and politics. Since the bombing of Yugoslavia
started, I can no longer detect a principled difference.

Thirty one years after leaving the U.S. to resist a war, here I am back in
the U.S.A. and I didn't even have to leave Vancouver.


regards,

Tom Walker
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm

[PEN-L:5754] Galeano on the bombing

[Thomas Kruse]

CONFESSION OF THE BOMBS 

By Eduardo Galeano

The United States and its NATO allies are discharging a torrent of missiles
on Yugoslavia, or on what is left of what was once Yugoslavia. According to
the official reports, those attacking are moved by the rights of the Kosovo
Albanians, victims of a "war of ethnic cleansing" unleashed by Milosevic*s
Serbian forces. According to PresidentClinton, the western democracies
cannot stand by and allow this "inadmissible human catastrophe." 

The worst "war of ethnic cleansing" and the most "inadmissible human
catastrophe" in the history of the Americas in the twentieth century took
place not that long ago in Guatemala, above all in the decade of the
eighties. Guatemalan indigenous peoples  were the principal victims of 
this massacre: which produced one hundred
times more dead than in Kosovo, and twice the number of displaced persons.
In his recent tour of Central America, President Clinton asked to be
forgiven for the support his country gave to those military men,
exterminators of Indians, who were trained, armed, and advised by the United
States. Why doesn*t Clinton demand that Milosevic apply this successful 
doctrine of washing of hands? The bombing raids might be stopped in return
for a formal promise, that in the year 2012 or 2013*for example*Yugoslavia*s
president could ask the cadavers of Kosovo to forgive him and all would be
well, end of story, sin absolved, what*s done is done. And the killing could
continue unabated. 

The U.S. president was bogged down in his sex scandal, and Robert de Niro
and Dustin Hoffman invented a war in order to distract the attention of the
respectable public. 

In the film, called "Wag the Dog," this invented war was launched on behalf
of the Albanians. Now, once again in an effort to save Albanians, the film
continues in another
>medium. Its Hollywoodesque nature remains intact however: the planes take
off, they seem to have been designed on some movie set, and night after
night explosions like 
>fireworks light up Yugoslavia*s sky. As was true during the bombing raids
against Iraq, this spectacle does not give us images of the enemy*s dead,
and there are no dead on our
>side. As long as the bombs fall from above, this real war will continue
pretending to be virtual reality. If ground troops are used, and the
attacking countries begin to receive their heroes back in coffins, it will
be another story. 
>
>Meanwhile, NATO continues celebrating, with fanfare, its half century of
life. And, as the old saying goes, they*re throwing the house out the
window. This is the most expensive birthday party in history: without
counting the value of lives and property destroyed in Yugoslavia, because
the long and short of it is that there is no enemy who doesn*t deserve
what*s coming to him, and every night of bombing raids costs $330 million
dollars. According to the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (March 30, 1999),
on the first night of this war alone the U.S. spent as much money as Clinton
promised to the countries of Central America after they were devastated by
Hurricane "Mitch." And that*s not all. There were those who  were asking
what NATO*s role might be, since the Communist threat to Eastern Europe no
longer exists. The company*s general manager, Javier Solana, wasted no time
in responding  to such insidious doubts. Twenty years ago, Solana shouted
"No!" to NATO. Ten years ago and speaking on behalf of the Spanish
government, he uttered a much-quoted phrase. The U.S. had just unleashed its
war against Iraq, and Solana said: "They asked our opinion, but after the
fact." Today he explains that NATO is "defending peace," at the tune of a
million dollars per missile. 
>
>The great powers are the ones who practice crime and recommend it.  No one
breaks the law so often. These bombing raids poke fun at international law,
and also at NATO*s charter. Against a bloody dictator like Milosevic, we are
told, anything goes, 
>including the unthinkable. Against Milosevic? On our television screens, at
least, the Hitler of the Balkans looks healthy and fit. The people are the
ones who suffer. The wars against Iraq, as well--violations of every law
ever passed--have been 
>justified in the context of the urgency of overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
Years pass, bombing raids succeed bombing raids, and  the so-called Hitler
of the Middle East continues alive and well. Yet how many Iraquis have died?
According to the U.S. 
>Bureau of Statistics* official report (January, 1992), 145,000 Iraquis and
124 U.S. citizens were killed in the war of 1991. 

And how many continue to suffer as a consequence of that blockade
theoretically destined to overthrow the dictator? 
>How many suffer the hunger imposed by international economic sanctions?
According to the latest Red Cross report, in this decade alone the number of
Iraqui babies born with below-normal weight, has multiplied by six. 

And if it really were true that NATO*s heart has been broken by "ethnic
cl

[PEN-L:5752] NATO Bombs Don't Stop Long Distance Calling (fwd)

[Michael Hoover]

friend sent me below, Michael Hoover


> (04/21/99, 12:17 p.m. ET)
> 
> U.S.-based long distance carriers that serve Yugoslavia aren't
> experiencing big service delays, even though NATO has said it's
> targeting communications facilities in war-torn Kosovo for bombing.
> 
> Despite the almost month-long NATO pounding, "MCI's worldwide
> intelligent network is functioning normally for calls headed to the
> Balkans."  AT&T's spokesman said his company lines into the Balkans and
> Kosovo were "experiencing some higher than normal" call volumes, but
> almost no problem in connecting.

[PEN-L:5750] (Fwd) USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM (DU) BULLETS AND BOMBS BY NATO F

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent:  Wed, 21 Apr 1999 14:41:04 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM (DU) BULLETS AND BOMBS BY NATO FORCES
IN YUGOSLAVIA

April 18, 1999

THE USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM (DU) BULLETS AND BOMBS BY NATO FORCES IN
YUGOSLAVIA

Roger, my husband, and I are protesting furiously. It is extremely 
critical today. BBC does not give public information about DU 
(depleted uranium) ammunition - it was only briefly mentioned on 
CNN. This media blockade is incredibly difficult to break.

NATO does not PLAN to use depleted uranium ammunition, they 
are already DOING IT every day. All already fired missiles 
contained/contain depleted uranium. During the explosion, 80% of 
DU is transformed into uranium oxide, gas particles half micron in 
size.  Once inhaled these particles output equivalent to a chest X-
ray per hour for life (for their long period of decay). We are trying 
to draw the public attention to this horrible military practice in 
Yugoslavia and elsewhere in the world. This is suspected of causing 
the Gulf War Syndrome and there are around 80 thousand veterans 
of that war with similar symptoms today. In other words, ALL 
SIDES involved in bombing of Yugoslavia ARE ENDANGERED! 
Why would NATO worry about Yugoslav population when they 
don't worry about their own soldiers? I personally have impression 
that people are not aware how DANGEROUS, how horrific, and 
how long-lasting the effects of this inhumane military action is. This 
is not about bridges, houses, about the war casualties. This is a 
horrifying precedent. Even though it was used massively in the Gulf 
War, some quantities in Bosnia, this type of ammunition was 
NEVER in the history of this planet, used so concentrated in time 
and space. It can very well happen that the survivors of this war 
will envy the dead.

Please, stir up the public, this is more than just a game!!!

With love, 

Tamara and Roger Coghill

SPREAD THE WORD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD!

Nenad Gambiroza 
Home: (+381 11) 424-922 
Office: (+381 11) 434-596 (+381 11) 3228-401 
COGHILL RESEARCH LABORATORIES 
LOWER RACE, PONTYPOOL, GWENT NP4 5UH 
Tel: 00 44 1495 763389 
Fax: 00 44 1495 769882 
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Website: 
http://www.cogreslab.demon.co.uk

08/04/1999

The public at large, both in UK and in Yugoslavia, are unaware that 
30 mm bullets being fired by A-10 anti-tank aircraft and probably 
all Tomahawk Cruise missiles in this action contain depleted 
uranium (DU).

The development of these radioactive weapons is based on the fact 
that uranium (atomic mass 238) is much denser than lead (atomic 
mass 207), and therefore its kinetic energy is sufficient to penetrate 
tank armour or concrete buildings more effectively than lead, prior 
to detonation. The design of the bullet is to incorporate a long thin 
cylinder of DU housed in a plastic sheath or "sabot". This means in 
turn that the very small leading edge of the bullet peirces with 
maximum impact. The same principle is used in Tomahawk Cruise 
missiles, with the aim of piercing concrete obstructions rather than 
metal.

The bullets were used in the Gulf War , and some 1 million of them 
still lie in the deserts of that region where subsequently the 
incidence of leukaemias, cancer, and birth defects have risen sharply 
as a consequence of the ensuing environmental radiation. The 
amount of DU scattered around the Gulf war zone is given as 350 
tonnes, but including the nose cones of Cruise missiles and 
helicopter rotors, the figure is nearer 750 tonnes. This is 27 
TBequerels of radioactivity, one fiftieth of the total alpha releases 
from Sellafield over its entire operating history. The same is 
happening in Bosnia where DU was also employed. Some 80,000 
US Gulf War veterans now suffer from the so-called Gulf War 
syndrome, whose symptoms are identical to radiation sickness. The 
US military are well aware of this and are on record as confirming 
2.5mGy/hr at the surface of a DU shell, a dose equivalent to a chest 
X-ray per hour. Each A-10 Thunderbolt 30mm cannon anti tank 
shell contains some 275g (10.1 Bq). A single 120mm Abrams tank 
DU shell contains 3kg of U-238 (111 MBq) of activity.

When DU bombs detonate, uranium oxide is formed in particulates 
of between 0.5 and 5 microns. These can be windborne several 
hundred miles or suspended electrostatically in the atmosphere. The 
half life of Uranium is 109 (ten to the ninth) years, so they do not 
decay. One "hot particle" of this DU material in the lungs is 
equivalent to a chest X-ray per hour for life. It is impossible to 
remove, so the donated lung gradually irradiates the victim until 
death ensues. In the use of DU both ground-based combatants and 
their targets are almost certain to suffer long term radiation sickness 
and premature death. The Pentagon view is that the s

[PEN-L:5744] (Fwd) Tony Blair's spin doctor is in Brussels telling NATO how

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

--- Forwarded Message Follows ---
Date sent:  Wed, 21 Apr 1999 15:07:37 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:Tony Blair's spin doctor is in Brussels telling NATO how to
tell "a story"

The Globe and Mail  Wednesday, April 21, 1999

Report on Business:
  
EUROPE'S WAR, EUROPE'S PEACE

Getting the word out to the world's media so important 
that British Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief spin doctor 
is in Brussels to tell the NATO team how to tell "a story".

By Peter Cook

Brussels -- At the Hotel Eurovillage, a group that calls itself the 
International Crisis Group briefs the press on why NATO's strategy 
in the Balkans is doomed to failure. A quick glance at the schedule 
shows the event is neatly timed to precede NATO's more reassuring 
briefing at its headquarters in suburban Evere, a daily event now 
entering its fifth week.
Brussels, host city of the European Union and also host city 
of NATO, is not a wartime capital in the same exposed way that 
Belgrade is. But it is home to what is arguably the most crucial 
apparatus of modern warfare as the place from which one side's view 
of what occurred in the skies over Yugoslavia on the previous night 
is disseminated to the world's media. Presently, this is judged to be 
so important that British Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief spin 
doctor and confidant, Alastair Campbell, is in town to instruct the 
NATO team on how they should use each day to tell "a story" rather 
than being so boringly factual and frank.
Whatever stories get told, it is clear that Europe, and 
Europe's capital, are in the front line. Brussels' dual function has 
already produced a European Council meeting at which 15 leaders 
proposed a peacekeeping force in Kosovo that would be led by 
NATO and mandated by the United Nations. Prior to its 
deployment, there would be a Serb military withdrawal and cessation 
of the bombing.
That initiative went nowhere, but it has not stopped others 
making the connection between the war with Yugoslav President 
Slobodan Milosevic and their own aspirations. Over the weekend, 
Albania suggested that the price for its acceptance of so many 
Kosovar refugees should be immediate admission to the European 
Union. Since there is now a 12-nation lineup of other countries 
seeking admission and Albania ranks as the poorest and possibly 
most disorganized nation in Europe, its efforts at queue-jumping 
were not taken too seriously.
The reality however is that this is Europe's war and the 
destruction being wrought by NATO bombs, the broken bridges 
across the Danube, the wrecked oil and power installations, the 
ruined road and rail communications, plus the towns and villages 
torched by Serbian forces, will in the fullness time -- and in the 
context of what NATO hopes is a liberated Kosovo and a 
Yugoslavia cleansed of Mr. Milosevic -- have to be rebuilt at 
someone's expense. Europe acknowledges that it will almost 
certainly be at its expense. Last week, when they made their peace 
bid, Europe's leaders talked of turning Kosovo into a UN 
protectorate that they would administer, and of creating a stability 
pact for the whole of southeastern Europe.
Too often in the past, European rhetoric has got ahead of 
reality. And one has to wonder whether this is another such case -- 
especially when that spellbinding rhetorician, French President 
Jacques Chirac, talks of the European Union having "a vocation and 
a capacity" to be a kindly rich uncle to the Balkan states.
To date, Europe has shown itself less than enthusiastic about 
the EU candidacy of two of the region's larger states, Romania and 
Bulgaria, putting them near the bottom of its list of applicants. 
Others such as Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania 
and Moldova are unstable or undemocratic or both, and have not 
been on anyone's radar screen when it comes to EU membership.
The current view is that a war, hastily entered into to stop 
Mr. Milosevic, appears to have no end in sight. But end it will, 
eventually. At which point, the commitments made to reconstruct 
large swathes of the former Yugoslavia will be substantial. Nor is it 
just a case of repairing what has been destroyed in the immediate 
war zone. All trade on the Danube from Budapest to the Black Sea 
has come to a halt. And a dozen national economies in a region 
stretching from Ukraine to Slovakia and southward to Greece have 
been badly hurt.
Europe's response to this is that it will do the job. In the 
words of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, "it is important 
that the EU feels responsible for the development of the region, its 
infrastructure, its standard of education and its economic and social 
structure."
That is a mighty commitment to make for a union that 

[PEN-L:5698] Re: Clinton on Violence/Is he listening to himself?

[Rob Schaap]

Is there no end to the steaming crap Yanks will take from this man?

>"We do know that we must do more to reach out to our children and teach
>them to express their anger and to resolve their conflicts with words, not
>weapons,"
>
>-Bill Clinton, April, 20, 1999

Cheer yourselves up an hour from now and watch what I strongly suspect will
be an absolute classic.  The European Cup Semi-Final between Juventus and
Manchester United.  Zidane and Davids take on Keane and Beckham (I'm
guessing that translates to Willy Mays and Babe Ruth versus Ty Cobb and
Micky Mantle).  No shooters, but all the blood'n'guts you can take.  Don't
miss it.

That's why I'm sitting up, anyway ...

'Night all,
Rob.