Re: Gore, Bush and another Gulf War? (fwd)
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Alan Spector" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: "PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, June 30, 2000 12:13 AM Subject: Re: Gore, Bush and another Gulf War? The following is from the Wall Street Journal. No doubt there are some who would say that "at least Gore might get us a few more day care centers." etc. etc. etc. But both candidates are committed to the continuing and intensified slaughter of Iraqi civilians. Should we regard supporting Gore as "at least getting a few reforms but having to reluctantly go along with his mass murder" or should we regard those few reforms as the bribe to some of the American people to go along with this mass murder and imperialism in general? Now that's a different way of looking at the old expression "Half a loaf is better than none." Alan Spector -- Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2000 Gore, Bush Seem Committed To Ousting Saddam Hussein UNDERSTANDABLY ENOUGH, most Americans are only starting to take a close look at the coming presidential election. Six thousand miles from here, though, stands a man who ought to be watching very closely -- and getting a little worried. He's Saddam Hussein, the maddeningly resilient dictator of Iraq. Slowly but surely, he's becoming an issue in the presidential race, and inspiring a bitter war of words between the presidential camps of Al Gore and George W. Bush. Through the rhetoric, though, one reality is becoming clear: Saddam next year will face a new American president who is publicly committed to get rid of him, not merely contain him. On the Gore side of the equation, the vice president himself met just this week with the leaders of the Iraqi National Congress, the umbrella organization of Saddam foes. The meeting was loaded with symbolism. The intended message was that Mr. Gore isn't interested in simply humoring the Iraqi opposition, which critics charge the Clinton administration has done, but rather in working with the opposition to drive him out. Lest anyone miss the point, Mr. Gore's office issued a statement declaring: "The vice president reaffirmed the administration's strong commitment to the objective of removing Saddam Hussein from power, and to bringing him and his inner circle to justice for their war crimes and crimes against humanity." There also was one tangible move to buttress those words, Gore aides say. The Iraqi opposition leaders delivered to Mr. Gore a list of 140 candidates for American training in ways to build the opposition into a meaningful force. PRIVATELY, GORE ADVISERS talk of a kind of three-step process for going after Saddam. Step one would be to turn the Iraqi National Congress, still a young and frequently querulous organization, into a unified voice that can win international respect. Step two would be to use that international respect to persuade Iraq's neighbors to let the opposition operate from their territory. Step three would be to figure out how to move -- and whether to try to precipitate a crisis that creates an opening. Such talk leaves some Bush backers sputtering in anger and charging that the words are hollow after the Clinton-Gore administration has let the opposition wilt over the last seven years. "I have never seen, in 30 years in Washington, a more sustained hypocrisy, never," says Richard Perle, a former senior Pentagon administration aide who now advises the Bush campaign. In his own remarks, Texas Gov. Bush hasn't been particularly specific, saying merely that he would hit Iraq hard if he saw any clear sign that it is building weapons of mass destruction or massing its military forces. But look for Mr. Bush to hold his own meeting with the Iraqi opposition soon. And Mr. Bush's lead foreign-policy adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is explicit: "Regime change is necessary," she declares. She is careful not to overpromise, asserting: "This is something that could take some time." Like team Gore, she talks of the need to rebuild the anti-Iraq coalition, including Persian Gulf states and Turkey, as a precondition for eliminating Saddam. Others in the Bush orbit, offering their personal ideas, sound more aggressive. Both Mr. Perle and Robert Zoellick, a former top aide to Gov. Bush's father, advocate specific steps to oust Saddam. Mr. Perle calls for giving the Iraqi National Congress tools such as radio transmitters to beam an anti-Saddam message into Iraq and for more extensive training for Saddam's foes in ways to mobilize opposition, particularly in the Iraqi military. THEN, MR. PERLE suggests, the U.S. should help the opposition "re-establish control over some piece of territory" inside Iraq and remove international
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
I live in Manitoba. THe bulk of my electricity comes from hydro. There are two supplementary coal-fired plants that usually do not operate. Quebec electricity comes almost entirely from hydro, although some of it is imported from Labrador at cheap prices and then exported to New England states at much higher prices.. Hydro power plants do not burn fossil fuels. Ontario as well as France has considerable nuclear power.. I do not know how much electrical power is produced worldwide through hydro but it must be substantial. In Denmark over 10 percent of power is from wind. There is no reason why this cannot be increased. Global warming is likely to become more of the "in" crisis long before fossil fuels run out. In fact it could be argued that the sooner fossil fuels run out the better. By the way there are huge deposits of hydragas crystals that could be developed as a source of natural gas. Geothermal power is also an underdeveloped resource in most areas. If oil prices go to 30 or 40 dollars a barrel geothermal power would be economic even in areas such as Saskatchewan. Scrub and quick-growing wood is also actually a good source of heat plus the junk grows back very quickly releasing oxygen and using carbon dioxide. In Sweden garbage is a source of heat for some urban centers. By the by, old growth forests are the worst trees from the point of view of global warming. We should cut them all down and replant with quick growing trash trees that we could cut for pulp :) The problem with global warming is that it is difficult if not impossible to know if it is a long term trend or what its effects will be. Even if there is global warming the effects are mixed and there are certainly no foolproof models that would assure one of any unimaginable economic results, just that there will be considerable changes with winners and losers. Of course you could argue from a precautionary principle that action should be taken now because changes may be abrupt, irreversible and disastrous. With global warming the hydragas crystals on the floor of the Arctic Ocean may warm and become instable producing one huge natural gas fart that destabilizes the whole north of the Great White North and who knows what will happen then. Cheers, Ken Hanly Brad De Long wrote: I don't understand. Is the YES meant to imply that electricity production depends ultimately upon fossil fuels? Unless you live in the Pacific Northwest or France, the bulk of your electricity comes from power plants that burn fossil fuels...
Re: Re: Zimbabwe post election
At 00:25 30/06/00 +, Patrick Bond wrote: It's been a strange few days duelling with the bourgeois media, trying to make difficult arguments in soundbites. Too hard for me. The NYT even requested the following piece from me, but then just decided not to run it. Post-Election Zimbabwe Showcases Power of World Bank/IMF HARARE--Now comes financial crunch time for Robert Mugabe. Yes, the piece looks too good for the NYT. Presumably what the bourgeois media want is to hear that Mugabe is still on the wrack. Which he is and in some ways deserves to be. However maybe the best hope is in some sort of coalition politics. Much may depend on the fine detail of attitudes and overtures within the two main parties. Some elements in the MDC seem to have been tactically skilled in avoiding meeting confrontation with confrontation. But if the MDC just remains opposed to Mugabe I find it hard to imagine it can work out a strategy for economic independence. I note that Mugabe has reaffirmed the land programme but made conciliatory noises about respecting the results of the election. It was nauseating to hear Peter Hain, who has some past anti-apartheid credentials to his name, promoting gross economic interference in Zimbabwe's internal affairs on behalf of the UK government. The best chance for Mugabe and those opposing global finance capital, would be to bow to international pressures to respect human rights, and control the violence, but to pursue national consensus about struggling for economic autonomy. That will mean drawing a fine line between upholding the rights of majority of Zimbabweans but not the bourgeois right of a number of colonial farmers to own the land. Perhaps some international coalition can be made with global campaigners against tobacco. I was struck by talking to one Zimbabwean at the Africa Centre at the launch of your new book, "Elite Transition". He said that white landownership only began to bite in the last couple of decades when the white farmers started using more intensive capitalist methods, and forced the population who had remained long after the colonial land grab, off their land finally. Perhaps there needs to be a more sophisticated analysis by ZANU-PF about whether it is really fighting the relics of Victorian colonianism for populist advantage, or whether it is in fact fighting a new twist in the economics of global finance capital. Hopefully some of them have been shocked enough by the election result to think again, and perhaps the younger ones will at least keep in dialogue with the counterparts in the MDC. Chris Burford London
RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of]
Jim, I live in England. Here, all sorts of people throw queenie fits, starting with the Queen. Portugese waiters do it (and waiters of all nationalities). Mostly actors do it. That is what they are famous for. Probably gay people do it less than the rest of us; they're probably more worked out. You don't like to be baited and neither do I. I have a history of supporting gay causes and issues going back to the 1960s, when to be gay was illegal and the subject was a taboo-covered perversion. So don't try to hang that on me, it is utterly absurd as anyone who knows me, knows. England is not America. Language usage is different. Keep talking economics, it's what you're good at. If I have offended you I am heartily sorry. It gave you an excuse to avoid debate. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Jim Devine Sent: 30 June 2000 03:36 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21003] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of] At 01:49 AM 06/30/2000 +0100, you wrote: Yelling at people that they are atavists, apocalyptics etc, doesn't answer any more than Jim Devine throwing queenie fits answers the questions. so Mr. Jones is gay-bashing me? I find that insults are always the last refuge of the fuzzy thinker. In any event, though Jones thinks of this as an insult, I do not. My sister is gay and she is an excellent person. However, I think that gay-bashing does not belong on pen-l. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
Ken, dams *do* consume vast quantities of carbon in their construction, as many as 12 gallons of oil per tonne of cement (the manufacture of which is uitself a leading source of GHG). The world's major hydropower resources have already been largely exploited. Some dams have a long service life, which helps payback the iunitial energy investment and possibly justifies the immense ecological damage and harm to communities which all major dams always involve. Many dams silt up after a few years and cease to provide power; they never pay back. But they leave disrupted ecosystems, ruined wetlands and water basins, salinated soil and wrecked communities. But the bottom line is that hydropower is marginal and absolutely irrelevant to the problem caused by the end of Big Oil. Some theoreticians propose building huge propellors in mid-Atlantic to be driven by the Gulf Stream; that's how desperate people are. They better be quick, in case the Gulf Stream stops flowing altogether because of global warming. By 'hydragas crystal' you mean methane hydrates locked under arctic ice sheets presumably. They are like cold fusion and other forms of perpetual motion machines. They will never be exploited. The reasons why have been laborious documented by myself (and I've been to the Soviet arctic icefields myself and know what it theoretically involved) and many others. As you say, if such hydrates ever were released it would be as a result of the melting away of the ice sheets. The amounts of methane spontaneously released into the atmosphere might, according to former Greenpeace man Jeremy Legget, trigger the feared runaway global warming which would turn this planet into Venus, hot enough to boil lead on. Geothermal is not a solution. Nor is biomass. Even if current proposals to grow prairie grass for biomass were widely implemented the energy economics would not solve the problem. Americans will have to learn to catch the bus and ride a bicycle. BTW, it doesn't surprise me but it does sadden me to hear people start saying things like "old growth forests are the worst trees from the point of view of global warming. We should cut them all down". Keep going, you'll get a job in the Dubya environmental team. Of course the same people who now proudly point to the reforestation of New England which happened in the past 50 years as evidence of capitalism's enviornmentally-benign impact (forgetting that the price the world has paid is the enormous quantity of fossil carbon trhe US threw into the atmopshere instead) will immediatelt start telling us what a bad thing from all sorts of *environmental* points of view, old growth forests are and how we need to cut them all down as quick as possible to get the ethanol to keep our SUV's going... Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Ken Hanly Sent: 30 June 2000 07:43 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21009] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness I live in Manitoba. THe bulk of my electricity comes from hydro. There are two supplementary coal-fired plants that usually do not operate. Quebec electricity comes almost entirely from hydro, although some of it is imported from Labrador at cheap prices and then exported to New England states at much higher prices.. Hydro power plants do not burn fossil fuels. Ontario as well as France has considerable nuclear power.. I do not know how much electrical power is produced worldwide through hydro but it must be substantial. In Denmark over 10 percent of power is from wind. There is no reason why this cannot be increased. Global warming is likely to become more of the "in" crisis long before fossil fuels run out. In fact it could be argued that the sooner fossil fuels run out the better. By the way there are huge deposits of hydragas crystals that could be developed as a source of natural gas. Geothermal power is also an underdeveloped resource in most areas. If oil prices go to 30 or 40 dollars a barrel geothermal power would be economic even in areas such as Saskatchewan. Scrub and quick-growing wood is also actually a good source of heat plus the junk grows back very quickly releasing oxygen and using carbon dioxide. In Sweden garbage is a source of heat for some urban centers. By the by, old growth forests are the worst trees from the point of view of global warming. We should cut them all down and replant with quick growing trash trees that we could cut for pulp :) The problem with global warming is that it is difficult if not impossible to know if it is a long term trend or what its effects will be. Even if there is global warming the effects are mixed and there are certainly no foolproof models that would assure one of any unimaginable economic results, just that there will be considerable changes with winners and losers. Of course you could argue from a precautionary
Re: Re: Re: Re: Dogmatism, and homosexuality
Title: Re: [PEN-L:20782] Re: Re: Re: Dogmatism, and homosexuality Greetings Economists, Doyle The discussion thread is about opening up the concept of dogmatism through a concept called theory of another persons mind. The way I think dogmatism can be understood better is through examining disabled content in the term, how proximity issues are involved, how a theory of another's mind is a labor process that can be put to use in an architecture of social groups. So this is a meditation on a party structure that goes beyond an able bodied concept of organizing people, goes beyond the limitations of proximate or shop floor concepts of social groups. And in that I want to show some elements of the importance of feelings as a means of realizing new forms of working class organization. Chris Burford, Jim's 5 year old essay on Aspergers Syndrome is a very personal examination. The biggest qualification that could be made to it, I think, is the need for a social context. What many members of the intelligentsia struggle over internally are the internalised experiences of the processes of selection that make them members of the intelligentsia. It is a vital layer of modern capitalist society, and riddled with social contradictions. Not all of them are the fault of the intellectuals. ... Doyle I think one way that I would distinguish myself from your view Chris is that I am seeing how Jim is both talking about disability and being disabled rather than see his membership in the intelligentsia. So the part about him being a member of the intelligentsia does not matter to me. About 70% of disabled people are not employed. That is an important structure to capitalist economic definition of a working class people. There are two important ways that Jim talks about this disability. First he points very carefully at the contingent definition of the syndrome. Jim makes clear that a sense of the whole is not adequately defined by the categories that describe the syndrome as it is now understood in manuals of symptoms which is typical of science. This contingency of the whole of the disability is an extremely important marxist element of understanding class structure. To understand contingency and therefore the importance of disability perspectives I think it relevant to keep in mind what Richard Lewontin writes about biology and genetic structure, the Triple Helix, Gene Organism and Environment, Harvard Press, 2000 page 47, Darwin's alienation of the outside from the inside was an absolutely essential step in the development of modern biology. Without it, we would still be wallowing in the mire of an obscurantist holism that merged the organic and the inorganic into an unanalyzable whole Doyle This applies to class structure and organizations of the working class which understand workers in an able bodied holism. Dogmatism as a conceptual critique of the failure of sects to functionally work, rests upon a sense that a holism of able-bodied functioning exists in group structures which makes sects work when they work. In fact variation in human cognition reflects a need for varying cognitive methods in varying work related activities. A holism that ignores that variation obscures what is true forces that make up any human social group. Lewontin, page 75 The difficulty of applying the simple machine model to the study of organisms arises from three sources. Organisms are intermediate in size, they are internally heterogeneous in ways that are relevant to their functions, and they enter into complex causal relations with other heterogeneous systems. There are several consequences of these features that make the simple machine model inappropriate as a mode of understanding or of analysis. First, there is not a single and obvious way to partition an organism into organs that are appropriate for the causal analysis of different functions. Second, the organism is nexus of a very large number of weakly determining forces, no one of which is dominant. Third, the separation of causes and effects becomes problematical. Finally, organic processes have an historical contingency that prevents universal explanations. Chris Burford A degree of obsessionality is both a handicap and also a strength in certain areas. A lot of what Jim describes is no more than that. IMHO. It is clearly part of a self-regulatory system that is alive and well from what he described here. In classical marxist theory the intelligentsia is not a separate class because it does not have a separate relationship to the means of production, but it is an extremely important layer of society, which mostly supports the ideas and practice of the ruling class, but may face towards the mass of the working people. On their own, members of the intelligentsia may appear almost handicapped. In the wider social context they are now indispensible. Perhaps this is part of what Doyle means when he says getting away from able bodied thinking is very important in the
re: Neo-classical gas
Since it was me who wrote this I will respond. Max is right that in a partial equilibrium model, the welfare of others can be included as a variable in a utility function. But if it is done in a general equilibrium model, the number of variables exceeds the number of equations and there is no unique equilibrium. So we were talking about different things. Rod Max wrote Then there's the poop about micro theory not being capable of modelling altruistic behavior, something any putz -- including me -- who had cracked a public finance text would know is wrong. -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: query
Brad DeLong, who *likes* his new dishwasher *a* *lot*... There's a good comment by Richard Powers in his novel, GAIN, where the protagonist wonders if the dishwasher is really worth it. After all, she has to clean the dishes _before_ she puts them in the washer. Then she has to scrape off the gunk that was hardened on the plates by the high temperatures. But that's why I like it. You don't have to pre-wash the plates, and it gets them *clean*. I also like my ceiling fan... Brad DeLong
Re: My looniness
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/29/00 06:45PM Yes, one can be a "brown Marxist" and still be against environmental racism. In point of fact, the missing dimension in Harvey's thought is ecology itself. To take a stand against toxic dumps without considering the overall political economy which is driving their location in poor neighborhoods serves Marxism poorly. CB: This sounds like Harvey is not a Marxist. How could a Marxist not consider the overall political economy in approaching anything ? ___
BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2000: RELEASED TODAY: "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation - March 2000" indicates that in March 2000, employer costs for employee compensation for civilian workers (private industry and State and local government) in the United States average $21.16 per hour worked.. Wages and salaries, which averaged $15.36, accounted for approximately 73 percent of these costs, while benefits, which averaged $5.80, accounted for the remaining 27 percent. Services industries -- from personal services to health and business services -- created more than half of all new jobs produced by U.S. private businesses, excluding agriculture, during the period from 1992 through 1997, according to figures scheduled for release today by the Census Bureau. Census said that services industries created a total of 6.4 million new jobs during that 5-year period, with total employment in the sector rising to 34 million. The increase in total services jobs represented a 24.4 percent gain over the period. Figures are available by industry and by state for the period, based on the agency's 1997 "Economic Census". Every 5 years, Census conducts a broad survey of U.S. industries to determine not only employment levels, but also receipts and other information. Census said that most of the growth in services jobs during that period was among establishment subject to federal income tax, while tax-exempt service establishments (including hospitals) grew at a slower rate. For the first time since completion of the North American Industrial Classification System, Census made the "Economic Census" data available both on the North American Industrial Classification System basis, and on the old Standard Industrial Classification basis. A Census analyst says NAICS provides some new industry categories (including casinos), as it updates the classification system to reflect changes in the economy (Daily Labor Report, page A-11; The Washington Post, page E17).. The long economic boom has pushed unemployment to its lowest level in decades, but more jobs don't necessarily mean higher living standards. A new report shows that an American holding a full-time job in the late 1990s was still as likely to fall below the official poverty line as a similar worker in the 1980s, and more likely to do so than a full-time worker in the 1970s. "Working full-time and year-round is for more and more Americans, not enough," the Conference Board asserts in a study entitled "Does a Rising Tide Lift All Boats?" "This is not the outcome one would expect from the longest economic expansion in economic history," adds the report to be released today by the New York-based nonprofit business research center. Some economists said the Conference Board report was flawed because, in using official government definition of poverty, it ignores the impact of the earned income tax credit for low-income workers, a program that was significantly expanded in the 1990s. But others said the study still highlights an important point often lost amid the celebratory hype about the current boom: Lower-skilled workers have profited much less than others, and have yet to recover from the sharp erosion of earnings from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s. Conference Board researchers, using unpublished Census data, found that the poverty rate for full-time workers stayed almost constant over the past 20 years, with rates hovering between 2.4 and 3.1 percent in the 1980s. That conclusion tempers other data suggesting that lower-income families fared better in the 1990s than in the 1980s (The Wall Street Journal, page A12). Data compiled by the Bureau of National Affairs in the first 26 weeks of 2000 for all settlements show a weighted average first-year increase of 3.9 percent in newly negotiated contracts, compared with 2.7 percent in the same period in 1999. Manufacturing contracts provided a weighted average increase of 3.4 percent, compared with 3.1 percent in 1999. Excluding construction contracts, the nonmanufacturing industry weighted average increase was 4.1 percent, compared with 2.5 percent a year earlier (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). Federal Reserve policymakers chose yesterday to leave their target for overnight interest rates unchanged while waiting for more evidence about how much U.S. economic growth is slowing, but they cautioned that more rate increases may lie ahead (John M. Berry in The Washington Post, page E1; The New York Times, page C1). __The Federal Reserve paused in its yearlong campaign to raise interest rates, but issued a blunt warning that it could resume efforts to slow the economy if growth rebounds this summer (The Wall Street Journal, page A2). E-mail is reducing the need for mail carriers, fax machines and even telephones in offices world-wide, according to a new survey that shows how e-mail is transforming the workplace. Among the more than 1,000 employees polled in May, 80 percent said e-mail
[Fwd: Position in the World-System andNationalEmissions of](fwd)
If you are implying that there are no non-trivial tautologies, isn't mathematics all about non-trivial tautologies ? All equations are tautologies, no ? CB [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/29/00 07:02PM Is this in contrast to non-trivial tautologies? Cheers, Ken Hanly Carrol Cox wrote: Doug Henwood wrote: M A Jones wrote: But capitalism will collapse anyway. Right. Where have I heard that one before? Actually the prediction was made by many old guys millenia ago before capitalism was ever heard of. You know, the old stuff about the rise and fall of this or that. ONe doesn't have to be even remotely a marxist to know this. Now *dating* it -- that's something else. And of course it is also another quesion whether the collapse will be followed by socialism or barbarianism. But who can seriously object to the abstract proposition that "Capitalism will collapse." It seems a rather trivial tautology. Carrol
Re: Zimbabwe post election
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/29/00 08:25PM With a nod and a wink, Thabo Mbeki stood by him, alone amongst respected world leaders. ) CB: Who are some of the other respected world leaders ?
Re: Neo-classical gas
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/30/00 04:29PM I'm starting to wonder about my sanity in re: the pile-up of gross distortions of n-c theory in the past week. ___ CB: From Martha Gimenez's homepage (http://csf.colorado.edu/gimenez/): "It seems that the "neoclassical paradigm"--the HIV virus of economics- --has spread and is spreading to other disciplines as well. " - Jim Craven
Re: Re: Neo-classical gas
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/30/00 04:29PM I'm starting to wonder about my sanity in re: the pile-up of gross distortions of n-c theory in the past week. ___ CB: From Martha Gimenez's homepage (http://csf.colorado.edu/gimenez/): "It seems that the "neoclassical paradigm"--the HIV virus of economics- --has spread and is spreading to other disciplines as well. " - Jim Craven Umm. Very substantive. mbs
Tautologies, trivial non-trivial, was Re:[Fwd: Position
Charles is of course correct. I guess what I thought was a
truism ("Everyone knows that there exist both trivial and
non-trivial tautologies") is in fact false. If you check, you will
find that careful writers very frequently specify whether a
tautology they refer to is trivial or non-trivial. Roughly, a
tautology is non-trivial if it brings out relationships which
would otherwise go unnoted. The following tautology is
anything but trivial:
a+b=b+a
Or
IF a+b=b+a, THEN 1+2=2+1
The tautology "Capitalism will collapse" is another way of
saying "All sublunary existence is mutable." I forget the exact
words of the cliche, but it is an old one. The problem with
trivial tautologies is the illusion they create of profundity.
And usually, unlike non-trivial tautologies, trivial tautologies
conceal rather than emphasize their tautological nature. This
can lead to real confusion (as it did in the present case)
when someone tries to doubt the tautology (as in Doug sneering
at the supposed originality of "Capitalism will collapse") Doug
must have assumed that the tautology, "Capitalism will collapse"
affirmed the non-tautology: "Socialism will triumph."
Note that all syllogisms are tautological -- the conclusion merely
restates what was already present in the premises.
Carrol
Carrol
Charles Brown wrote:
If you are implying that there are no non-trivial tautologies, isn't mathematics all
about non-trivial tautologies ? All equations are tautologies, no ?
CB
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/29/00 07:02PM
Is this in contrast to non-trivial tautologies?
Cheers, Ken Hanly
Carrol Cox wrote:
Doug Henwood wrote:
M A Jones wrote:
But capitalism will collapse anyway.
Right. Where have I heard that one before?
Actually the prediction was made by many old guys millenia ago
before capitalism was ever heard of. You know, the old stuff about
the rise and fall of this or that. ONe doesn't have to be even remotely
a marxist to know this. Now *dating* it -- that's something else.
And of course it is also another quesion whether the collapse will
be followed by socialism or barbarianism. But who can seriously
object to the abstract proposition that "Capitalism will collapse."
It seems a rather trivial tautology.
Carrol
Re: Re: Neo-classical gas
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/01/00 02:22AM [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/30/00 04:29PM I'm starting to wonder about my sanity in re: the pile-up of gross distortions of n-c theory in the past week. ___ CB: From Martha Gimenez's homepage (http://csf.colorado.edu/gimenez/): "It seems that the "neoclassical paradigm"--the HIV virus of economics- --has spread and is spreading to other disciplines as well. " - Jim Craven Umm. Very substantive. ___ CB: Mu . Very funny.
dumb question
Can someone tell me where on the web I can easily find historical data on the Dow Jones index. Back to 1950? Thanks. Ellen
Re: Neo-classical gas
At 01:29 PM 6/30/00 -0700, you wrote: The straw breaking the proverbial camel's back was the stuff about methodological individualism as the fallacious root of fallacious econ. Evidently some critics gloss over the fact that macro-theory is not based on "adding up" the decisions of individuals. What it is based on is another matter, worthy of criticism in its own right. however, following the methodological individualist lode-star, NC economists _tried_ to reduce macroeconomics to individual decisions. I don't think that the folks at the U of Chicago admit it, but they failed. Even if they admit they failed, my feeling is that they wish they hadn't. And for quite awhile, during the heyday of "new classical macro," they acted as if they had succeeded. As I've argued before, I don't think methodological individualism _per se_ (or game theory _per se_) was the problem. The rise of m.i., new classical macro (the "respectable" version of Lafferite "supply-side economics"), etc. had more to do with the political tilt of society at large (Reaganism, Thatcherism, etc.) than it did with some autonomous trend toward m.i. Methodological individualism still rules microeconomics, BTW. I have yet to see a microeconomics text that takes the macroeconomic environment of microeconomic decisions into account. The persistence of involuntary unemployment and sales-constrained product markets changes a lot of microeconomic results. But this is ignored... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http:/bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine "It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: query
At 09:01 PM 6/29/00 -0700, you wrote: Brad DeLong, who *likes* his new dishwasher *a* *lot*... There's a good comment by Richard Powers in his novel, GAIN, where the protagonist wonders if the dishwasher is really worth it. After all, she has to clean the dishes _before_ she puts them in the washer. Then she has to scrape off the gunk that was hardened on the plates by the high temperatures. Brad says: But that's why I like it. You don't have to pre-wash the plates, and it gets them *clean*. I heard an expert on this subject speaking on US National Public Radio (one of their consumer-oriented shows). She said unequivocally that the makers of dishwashers who claim that their products can clean dishes that haven't already been washed by hand are _lying_. That fits with my experience, though I don't have experience with many types of dishwashers. I also like my ceiling fan... I like ceiling fans too. But my preference for them has been intensified by global warming, which has encouraged El Niño and La Niña and led to unseasonably warm weather here in the City of the Angels... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: help! How do I unsubscribe?
to unsub send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] it should read unsub pen-l Turan Subasat wrote: Can anyone tell me how to unsubscribe? regards Turan Subasat -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of]
At 06:28 PM 6/29/00 -0500, you wrote: Does doing away with this distinction mean locating hog barns and cattle feed lots in the city? hog barns literally stink to high heaven, as the film "Waking Ned (no relation) Devine" reminds us. But I heard that they were changing the composition of hog slop in order to fix this problem. Is that true? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in theWorld-System and National Emissions of]
Jim is absolutely correct here. I on only barely on line. I am in Vancouver for the History of Economics meetings. Please. I don't want to have to unsub anybody, but we have to avoid this sort of talk. Jim Devine wrote: At 01:49 AM 06/30/2000 +0100, you wrote: Yelling at people that they are atavists, apocalyptics etc, doesn't answer any more than Jim Devine throwing queenie fits answers the questions. so Mr. Jones is gay-bashing me? I find that insults are always the last refuge of the fuzzy thinker. In any event, though Jones thinks of this as an insult, I do not. My sister is gay and she is an excellent person. However, I think that gay-bashing does not belong on pen-l. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Tautologies, trivial non-trivial, was Re:[Fwd: Position
Carrol: Go to the library get out an elementary algebra or logic text. Read the
definition of a tautology.
Rod
Carrol Cox wrote:
Charles is of course correct. I guess what I thought was a
truism ("Everyone knows that there exist both trivial and
non-trivial tautologies") is in fact false. If you check, you will
find that careful writers very frequently specify whether a
tautology they refer to is trivial or non-trivial. Roughly, a
tautology is non-trivial if it brings out relationships which
would otherwise go unnoted. The following tautology is
anything but trivial:
a+b=b+a
Or
IF a+b=b+a, THEN 1+2=2+1
The tautology "Capitalism will collapse" is another way of
saying "All sublunary existence is mutable." I forget the exact
words of the cliche, but it is an old one. The problem with
trivial tautologies is the illusion they create of profundity.
And usually, unlike non-trivial tautologies, trivial tautologies
conceal rather than emphasize their tautological nature. This
can lead to real confusion (as it did in the present case)
when someone tries to doubt the tautology (as in Doug sneering
at the supposed originality of "Capitalism will collapse") Doug
must have assumed that the tautology, "Capitalism will collapse"
affirmed the non-tautology: "Socialism will triumph."
Note that all syllogisms are tautological -- the conclusion merely
restates what was already present in the premises.
Carrol
Carrol
Charles Brown wrote:
If you are implying that there are no non-trivial tautologies, isn't mathematics
all about non-trivial tautologies ? All equations are tautologies, no ?
CB
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/29/00 07:02PM
Is this in contrast to non-trivial tautologies?
Cheers, Ken Hanly
Carrol Cox wrote:
Doug Henwood wrote:
M A Jones wrote:
But capitalism will collapse anyway.
Right. Where have I heard that one before?
Actually the prediction was made by many old guys millenia ago
before capitalism was ever heard of. You know, the old stuff about
the rise and fall of this or that. ONe doesn't have to be even remotely
a marxist to know this. Now *dating* it -- that's something else.
And of course it is also another quesion whether the collapse will
be followed by socialism or barbarianism. But who can seriously
object to the abstract proposition that "Capitalism will collapse."
It seems a rather trivial tautology.
Carrol
--
Rod Hay
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
The History of Economic Thought Archive
http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html
Batoche Books
http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/
52 Eby Street South
Kitchener, Ontario
N2G 3L1
Canada
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of]
Louis Proyect wrote: Doug: Does the revo also mean there won't be modern transportation, chemical fertilizers, mechnized plowing and reaping, etc.? Then there's truly no way to sustain a world population of more than, say, a billion people, maybe fewer - meaning that at least 80% of us have to go. You don't seem to be aware that smaller farms are more productive than large agribusiness type concerns. Where did I endorse large agribusiness? If small farms are more productive, then let's have more of them; I'm all for separating the imperatives of capital from those of real social efficiency and humaneness. But even small farms use modern transportation and machines. Doug
Fwd: Open invitation to join Rad-Green
From: "Macdonald Stainsby" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Some of you will have already received an invitation in recet hours, but an attempt to use the invitation function on Egroups seems to have failed. I will not "just sub" people, so I cut and paste the intro page here, with a bit added. ** The primary reason for this list is two fold: The need to fuse radical thoughe about class and environmental issues is at it's height. As well, the need to come up with practical solutions (in the way of proposed actions for organising) is greatly neccessay; very few people among the radical left bother debating the destruction of the environment any longer. So what, what do we do? Let's get down to that, and begin *that* discussion. It is no longer "What Is To Be Done" alone, but how do we do it quickly. Debates about the existence of environmental crises are not useful on this new list. This list is open to all who wish to fight capitalism and recognise the environmental crisis we are currently facing. All anti capitalist thinking is welcome, as is all thoughts within the bounds of the recognition of the coming environmental catastrophe. Any who may still have doubts to either the destruction of the livable planet or the viability of alternatives to capitalism are more than welcome to lurk and read all posts. Primarily based on discussion of the link between environmental and class issues, we also welcome posts of a news or informative variety that help us understand the current situation. To join, please send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Macdonald Stainsby - Check out the Tao ten point program: http://new.tao.ca
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in theWorld-System and National Emissions of]
M A Jones wrote: Try to answer the question: do you think oil is an exhaustible and irreplaceable energy supply, or not? Do you side with Morris Adelman, the guru invoked by your own resident oil expert Greg Nowell, and think that oil is 'Infinite, a renewable resource' ? If you accept that it is running out, what do YOU think we should do? What is YOUR plan, apart from asking me for mine? I think there's lots of oil left; the tighter constraint is that burning all we have may well choke us. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the odds suck in betting against human ingenuity, even under capitalism, at devising new energy sources. I think profit imperatives have severely slowed research into them. But they'll probably arrive. Citing Marx on a soil crisis 150 years ago doesn't do much to promote the catastrophist vision; the soil hasn't only survived, it's a lot more productive than it was then. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: query
Brad De Long wrote: Even after watching 1900 House? Didn't most of the improvement happen in the first half of the century rather than the second? Doug
RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in theWorld-System and National Emissions of]
Jim is not correct at all, he is merely baiting me in the hopes you'll unsub me. Pity. It would be better if he tried to argue the issues. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Michael Perelman Sent: 30 June 2000 17:05 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21029] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in theWorld-System and National Emissions of] Jim is absolutely correct here. I on only barely on line. I am in Vancouver for the History of Economics meetings. Please. I don't want to have to unsub anybody, but we have to avoid this sort of talk. Jim Devine wrote: At 01:49 AM 06/30/2000 +0100, you wrote: Yelling at people that they are atavists, apocalyptics etc, doesn't answer any more than Jim Devine throwing queenie fits answers the questions. so Mr. Jones is gay-bashing me? I find that insults are always the last refuge of the fuzzy thinker. In any event, though Jones thinks of this as an insult, I do not. My sister is gay and she is an excellent person. However, I think that gay-bashing does not belong on pen-l. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of]
Small farming is dead. It doesn't exist esp in the US. 'Farmers' are the social equivalent of laundromat-owners, the economically disenfranchised, overmortgaged persons who apply lots of energy and toxic chemicals to things and hope for the best. In the UK, the class of prepacked sandwich-makers is more numerous than the class of farmers. I'm sure it's the same in the US. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: 30 June 2000 17:37 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21031] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of] Louis Proyect wrote: Doug: Does the revo also mean there won't be modern transportation, chemical fertilizers, mechnized plowing and reaping, etc.? Then there's truly no way to sustain a world population of more than, say, a billion people, maybe fewer - meaning that at least 80% of us have to go. You don't seem to be aware that smaller farms are more productive than large agribusiness type concerns. Where did I endorse large agribusiness? If small farms are more productive, then let's have more of them; I'm all for separating the imperatives of capital from those of real social efficiency and humaneness. But even small farms use modern transportation and machines. Doug
RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in theWorld-System and National Emissions of]
Doug Henwood wrote: I think there's lots of oil left; the tighter constraint is that burning all we have may well choke us. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the odds suck in betting against human ingenuity, even under capitalism, at devising new energy sources. I think profit imperatives have severely slowed research into them. But they'll probably arrive. This is interesting; it's the first time Doug has shown his n-c colours so clearly. Mark
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: query
At 09:01 PM 6/29/00 -0700, you wrote: Brad DeLong, who *likes* his new dishwasher *a* *lot*... There's a good comment by Richard Powers in his novel, GAIN, where the protagonist wonders if the dishwasher is really worth it. After all, she has to clean the dishes _before_ she puts them in the washer. Then she has to scrape off the gunk that was hardened on the plates by the high temperatures. Brad says: But that's why I like it. You don't have to pre-wash the plates, and it gets them *clean*. I heard an expert on this subject speaking on US National Public Radio (one of their consumer-oriented shows). She said unequivocally that the makers of dishwashers who claim that their products can clean dishes that haven't already been washed by hand are _lying_. Brad DeLong looks down at dish newly taken from dishwasher: "It looks clean."
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Dogmatism, and homosexuality
Doyle writes: The discussion thread is about opening up the concept of dogmatism through a concept called "theory of another persons mind". Uta Frith (a German-born psychologist or psychiatrist based in London studying autism) applied the "theory of mind" theory to autism: those with autism cannot look at matters from another's perspective (or at least have a very hard time doing so). (Summarized by Stephen Edelson, Ph.D., "Theory of mind refers to the notion that many autistic individuals do not understand that other people have their own plans, thoughts, and points of view. Furthermore, it appears that they have difficulty understanding other people's beliefs, attitudes, and emotions." see http://www.autism.org/mind.html. It's also been used for studying chimps, who may or may not have a theory of mind.) If the common view that Asperger's syndrome is in the middle of a spectrum between classical (Kanner's) autism and "neurotypical" (so-called normal people) is true, then those with AS have a weaker theory of mind than neurotypicals and a stronger one than those with classical autism. (BTW, Tony Attwood, an English-born AS maven working in Australia, posits the autistic disorder spectrum as follows in his books: classic autism -- high-functioning autism -- Asperger's Syndrome -- loner -- neurotypical. In his lectures, he replaces "loner" by "professor." It's for laughs, but there's a lot of truth to it, especially at research-oriented universities. However, I think an AS-type culture develops at universities which encourages AS-type psychology to prevail even with neurotypicals.) ... There are two important ways that Jim talks about this disability. I have a visceral negative reaction to those who want to replace the word "disabled" with cutesy Pollyanna-type words like "differently-abled" or "handicapable," but in this case it may be appropriate. As Oliver Sachs writes (in AN ANTHROPOLOGIST ON MARS), people with disabilities often develop excessive capabilities in other ways that compensate for their disabilities. Or maybe they are just a little unbalanced, being weak on one spectrum but strong on another. People with AS have a social disability but are usually pretty strong on other spectra... ... Let me try to clarify what that is again through using Asperge's syndrome. It is hard for Jim to know another's mind in the sense of understanding feelings. ... it's important to understand that autism and AS are _developmental_ disabilities. That means that one's ability to "know another's mind" develops _slowly_ and incompletely compared to that of ordinary folks. It's not a yes/no thing, like flipping a switch but more of a delay. It also means that many with AS -- and some with hard-core autism -- can learn to live in "normal" society in an almost "normal" way. (This usually involves having a somewhat restricted life, to minimize the need to always have to adapt...) More precisely, the problem is that someone with autism or AS lacks the _intuitive_ feel for what others are thinking or feeling that ordinary folks have: they lack what Simon Baron-Cohen says is the inability to read the language of the eyes, the ability to read others' emotional states by the appearance of their eyes, and/or lack the ability to understand others' body language. However, someone with autism or AS can gain an _intellectual_ feel for what others are thinking or feeling. That's one reason why I study psychology (non-behaviorist, of course) and argue against those Marxists who pooh-pooh psychology. (Most NC economists are worse on this score, holding onto their non-psychology of utility maximization with dogmatic fervor.) One can also learn the language of the eyes and body language, but it takes time. It's easier for those with AS than for those with classical autism. in a separate message, Brad asks: Lest this list remain guilty of flatness of affect, how is your kid doing? I don't know if the list would be interested, but what I'll do is edit a message I just sent to a friend. He's in Florida with his grandparents and his cousin (who's also 10 years old). He's having a ball. He's very tall these days, only a few inches shorter than Fran [my wife]. His behavior is fine (when he's not tired, hungry, distracted, etc.), though we've had a lot of trouble with his teacher who is totally oriented toward behaviorism, ignoring how important his morale is. Luckily, she's moving on to another job. G goes to a special "nonpublic school" (i.e., independent from the public school, but all of the money comes from the public school system), one that is specifically aimed at dealing with kids who have poor "socialization." It's not like a voucher system or a school choice system at all, since the public school can't handle him and refuses to try in-house. (There's no choice.) His life is ruled by the IEP (the individualized education plan), agreed upon by both schools,
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: query
Brad says: But that's why I like it. You don't have to pre-wash the plates, and it gets them *clean*. I heard an expert on this subject speaking on US National Public Radio (one of their consumer-oriented shows). She said unequivocally that the makers of dishwashers who claim that their products can clean dishes that haven't already been washed by hand are _lying_. Brad DeLong looks down at dish newly taken from dishwasher: "It looks clean." talk to your colleague Tom Rothenberg and see if he can do econometrics with your sample size. (Oh, I forgot that he never actually does econometrics even though -- or because -- he understands it so well.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
re: Tautology
After thinking better of my sarcastic tone to Carrol's message. Let me explain. A tautology is a statement that is true by definition. That is, it is always true. A = A is a tautology. A = B is not a tautology. That is, it might be false. Similarly all true statements are not tautologies. I.e., A = B might be true. If all statements were tautologies, math and logic would be very easy. Anything you write down would be true. No need to prove anything. -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
U.S. Military against People Nature
Instead of wrangling over relative merits of dishwashers, we had better discuss how to stop human environmental damages caused by the U.S. military (here and overseas). While dishwashers may or may not clean dishes well, and thus may or may not add to human welfare, it is clear that the U.S. military poses a clear and present danger to nature and human beings while adding nothing to human welfare. Greens who do not think of this issue as the most important environmental problem got their priority wrong. Yoshie * Los Angeles Times June 29, 2000 U.S. IN ONGOING BATTLE OVER S. KOREAN BOMBING RANGE Military: Villagers, allies face off against riot police as sentiment rises against American troop presence. By Valerie Reitman Maehyang Ri, South Korea--The Korean War's battles ended almost five decades ago, but this village not far from Seoul has been under constant siege ever since--not by North Korea, but from U.S. bombs and machine-gun fire. Nearly every weekday morning, when the wind is calm, the sounds of war commence, often lasting well into the night. U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt antitank planes swoop down like vultures, unleashing their hail of bullets in a terrifying clamor at targets on the edge of rice paddies. Villagers swear that they can see the pilots' helmets--perhaps an exaggeration, but only a slight one if a recent day's visit is any indication. Then come the F-16 fighters, circling high in the sky before dumping 500-pound practice bombs in a thunderous roar on two tiny islands about a mile offshore. "Every day is like the [Persian] Gulf War," says villager Choi In Son, 39. Over the years, nine deaths and at least a dozen injuries have occurred, villagers maintain, although the Air Force says such claims are highly exaggerated. In addition, the noise has left a legacy of miscarriages, hearing and mental health problems, frightened animals and children who scream in the night, say many in the village about 40 miles from the capital. "We feel like we are the targets," says Chu Young Bae, 53. The practice field, known as the Koon Ni Range, has become a lightning rod for a rising sentiment against the 37,000 U.S. troops posted in South Korea, and the fervor has been heightened in the aftermath of the North-South Korean summit two weeks ago. Lately, hundreds of civic groups have come to aid the locals in their crusade, and now the field is ringed by hundreds of riot police. The dizzyingly successful North-South meeting renewed hopes for peace on the divided peninsula--where about 1.9 million troops from the two Koreas still face off along the world's most fortified border, the demilitarized zone, or DMZ--and eased fears of any imminent invasion by the Communist North. "The summit was peaceful and there's been rapprochement," says villager Chu, "so what's the point of practicing?" On Sunday, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung reiterated the need for the U.S. troops' presence. "The U.S. armed forces will stay until a complete peace system is put in place on the Korean peninsula . . . even after unification, in order to maintain the balance of power in northeast Asia." Nevertheless, the talks also gave rise to a spirit of nationalism: While dozens of South Koreans interviewed here and in Seoul say they are grateful for the U.S. troops that have been present since the Korean War, many say it is time for Washington to vastly reduce its forces here and clean up its act. "U.S. troops are getting morally careless and taking advantage of the SOFA agreement," says Kim Il Hyun, 58, a Seoul businessman, referring to the Status of Forces Agreement that governs U.S. military operations in South Korea, where 90 American bases constitute much of the U.S. military muscle in Asia. Environmental problems at some bases as well as soldiers' crimes and unpaid parking tickets are adding to the feelings of resentment. Tensions also were fueled by recent allegations that U.S. troops massacred hundreds of civilians at No Gun Ri during the war. Protests at Maehyang Ri came to a head last month after a fighter jet malfunctioned and the pilot preventively unloaded six live bombs off the village's coast. "These issues are coming at a time when most observers say the U.S.-South Korea relationship is at one of its high points," says Scott Snyder, the Asia Foundation's Korea representative and a security expert. "There is a risk that if it blows up into something bigger, the anti-military sentiment could be translated into broader anti-American feelings." Brig. Gen. Jeff Kohler, the vice commander of the 7th Air Force in South Korea, has seen Koon Ni from the air--he has dropped bombs from F-16s--but he hasn't seen it from the ground. Nonetheless, he insists that the field is safe for civilians as well as essential for pilot training and war readiness. Most of the planes originate from Osan Air Base, the United States' most
Re: Re: My looniness
Charles Brown wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/29/00 06:45PM Yes, one can be a "brown Marxist" and still be against environmental racism. In point of fact, the missing dimension in Harvey's thought is ecology itself. To take a stand against toxic dumps without considering the overall political economy which is driving their location in poor neighborhoods serves Marxism poorly. CB: This sounds like Harvey is not a Marxist. How could a Marxist not consider the overall political economy in approaching anything ? Harvey has a pretty good idea of what drives the location of toxic dumps. If you want to know what he thinks, read his book(s), not these reckless, tendentious mischaracterizations. Doug
Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position intheWorld-System and National Emissions of]
Mark, Oh Come on. I have done it plenty myself -- but it seems to me that if the question of the environment is as central as you (correctly I think) argue it to be, it is too important to be lost in a mass of name calling. As I said in a post yesterday, addressing Doug, "You piss me off," but in the same post I retracted a personal charge, and I think it would be worthwhile for all of us to back off a bit. I recently subscribed to the Ezra Pound e-list -- and there is one poster there who sends four or five long posts a day, all of which are quite correct, each carrying in some way or other the point that "The point is that..." and the sheer bulk of what he has to say has hidden what he has to say. Carrol Mark Jones wrote: Doug Henwood wrote: I think there's lots of oil left; the tighter constraint is that burning all we have may well choke us. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the odds suck in betting against human ingenuity, even under capitalism, at devising new energy sources. I think profit imperatives have severely slowed research into them. But they'll probably arrive. This is interesting; it's the first time Doug has shown his n-c colours so clearly. Mark
Re x 10: query
I agree that for the purpose of measuring real living standards, the Boskin revisions lead to gross exaggeration of their rise. Even after watching 1900 House? Without a doubt, material living standards have grown greatly since 1900. And, they have also grown greatly since 1945. But, the average working person's living standards might be lower now than it was in the mid-1970s. Or, at least this is what the data indicates. I estimate that as of the mid-1990s, the material standard of living of working folks in the US was about 14 percent below what it was in the mid-1970s. In any case, while capitalism has "provided the goods" -- more and better goods over the long-run -- it has arguably done little else. Unless one ASSUMES that people by their nature prefer improvements in their standard of living over everything else, then a narrow focus on material standards of living is not appropriate. What I see on a daily basis (in the college classroom and in my son's school) is the perversion of education as for the sake of preparing children (and adults) for the world of work. Education, once upon a time, was thought to be more than this. I also see a trend toward jobs becoming worse and worse more rapidly than used to be the case (say, comparing the 1990/2000s to the 1970s). As the "renegade Gintis" once put it: it is NOT that capitalism provides the goods because people (by their nature) want only goods, rather it is because capitalism provides little else but material goodies, that people come to want only goods. Eric
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System andNational Emissions of]
Louis Proyect wrote: Well, at least Ernest was a revolutionary socialist, even if he hadn't give ecology the full attention it deserved. We need more people like him nowadays Actually, the question I have been trying to somehow ask (I haven't got it right yet) in this debate (both earlier on Marxism and now on pen-l) might be phrased as "How do we get more people like him?" You affirm (but I don't think you actually defend) the proposition that we get more people like him by carrying on a theoretical debate inside marxism over how marxism relates to ecology. (I know that isn't quite right -- but everyone has read the posts and can make the necessary connections.) My hypothesis has been that the way to get a real environmental movement going is by indirection not direction. That before a socialist movement can be directed towards environmental ends a socialist movement must exist -- and that only to a limited extent can environmental concerns be the cutting edge of creating such a movement. This is what I was trying to get at in my post to Charles. You took off on my reference to Harvey. You may be correct or incorrect on that -- and if you are correct, you scored a debating point. If you are incorrect you lost a debating point. In either case you deflected both of us from the questions at issue. Carrol
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: query
Brad De Long wrote: Even after watching 1900 House? Didn't most of the improvement happen in the first half of the century rather than the second? Doug For the American upper class, maybe. For the American working class (and for almost everyone outside the U.S.), certainly not... Brad DeLong
Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
Of course I was not serious about cutting down old growth forests. My point is that if your main concern is global warming then the argument makes sense. In fact I meant it as a warning not to consider just one environmental factor, global warming. The same is true about being fixated on running out of fossil fuels. There are tons ( ;) ) of coal reserves but we surely do not want to use them and we could expand nuclear power dramatically but again this solves one crisis only to create another. I agree with you, on the whole about dams, but dams such as we have in Manitoba are not going to silt up anytime soon. Certainly monster projects like the Three Gorges dam in China create such disruption not only in the natural but the people environment that they are not justified. But you simply ignore the benefits of dams. The Diefenbaker dam in Saskatchewan, created a large recreational area, improved fishing, provides water for irrigation-making a potato industry possible in Saskatchewan, allows for superior flood control, as well as producing power. Also there is probably considerable potential for more micro hydro projects. Alone of course these are not a solution but along with numerous other alternatives they may be. It is highly unlikely that one alternative to fossil fuel will be found to solve the crisis but this is what you seem to demand. There are a large number of alternatives that collectively may help alleviate the crisis. Even so I don't see how capitalism could even begin to solve the crisis without a huge increase in regulation and decrease in consumption. The first seems inimical to the present free market ideology and the second to increase in profits by increase in sales. You would need strict regulation but also price rigging that would sustain profits with decreases in consumption. Regulation that ensures profits is hardly new but it certainly might cause strong social reaction as energy costs deprive masses of people of the life-style to which they are accustomed. I had no idea that someone actually predicted a catastrophe from global warming of the methane hydrates, I meant it as an example of the sort of unlikely scenario some environmentalists might pounce upon. What I find annoying about your posts is your absolute certainty about the fossil fuel crisis. Of course given a sufficient length of time we will run out of them but I don't see the problem is all that urgent compared to others, including as others have pointed out, global warming. You do not talk much about distributive issues. Surely an argument could be made that distribution of resources that results in many of the worlds population slowly starving to death in abject poverty is as significant a crisis as global warming or the energy crisis. Your argument reminds me a little of conservatives who argue that in order to deal with the social safety net we must first deal with the debt problem since if we do not reduce the debt there will be no safety net at all. The debt wall concept was used to unjustifiably justify all kinds of reactionary measures. Your response to fossil fuel alternatives is to say that they are not. Period. End of discussion. I am no expert in these matters but I have talked to some people, such as my son, who works on modelling, global warming etc. for the Saskatchewan government. He claims scientists are divided and many claim that one can just not make any strong knowledg claims on these matters. You certainly do. Cheers, Ken Hanly Mark Jones wrote: Ken, dams *do* consume vast quantities of carbon in their construction, as many as 12 gallons of oil per tonne of cement (the manufacture of which is uitself a leading source of GHG). The world's major hydropower resources have already been largely exploited. Some dams have a long service life, which helps payback the iunitial energy investment and possibly justifies the immense ecological damage and harm to communities which all major dams always involve. Many dams silt up after a few years and cease to provide power; they never pay back. But they leave disrupted ecosystems, ruined wetlands and water basins, salinated soil and wrecked communities. But the bottom line is that hydropower is marginal and absolutely irrelevant to the problem caused by the end of Big Oil. Some theoreticians propose building huge propellors in mid-Atlantic to be driven by the Gulf Stream; that's how desperate people are. They better be quick, in case the Gulf Stream stops flowing altogether because of global warming. By 'hydragas crystal' you mean methane hydrates locked under arctic ice sheets presumably. They are like cold fusion and other forms of perpetual motion machines. They will never be exploited. The reasons why have been laborious documented by myself (and I've been to the Soviet arctic icefields myself and know what it theoretically involved) and many others. As you say, if such hydrates ever were released it would be as
re: whatever
Carrol, it's not a question of insults. The self-evident fact is that none of these people are capable of arguing for the positions they take, or didn't you notice? The last refuge of the neoclassical is boundless blind faith in technology aka 'human ingenuity', or in the 'magic of the markets' and in the infinitude of resources (or the infinitude of substitutability). Doug's testimony is remarkable only for its honesty (I give him credit for that). But they all actually believe it (the only other honest one is Max). Of course, they all have their alibis ready and deny everything when cornered, but just as none of them will ever admit to believing in 'infinite resources' NONE of them have produced any kind of intelligible or halfway rational argument in favour of their incomprehensible, crazed optimism about the (capitalist) future. Cheap jibes, personalising debate and finally, silence, is what you get. I can't be bothered with any of them. Let Rod Hay, Brad deLong, Jim Devine, Doug Henwood or any other of the closet neoclassicals/bourgeois apologists come forward and offer ANY KIND of proof of the proposition that 'there is plenty of oil'; 'energy is limitless'; or any other of the crazy n-c ideas which they parrot verbatim from high school textbooks by Paul Samuelson. Or let them accept that the intellectual castles in the air they routinely construct are simply without foundation. Let them put their eyes to the telescope and admit, yes, the moons move; or let them shut up. Duke it, or shut it. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
re: Tautology
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/30/00 01:25PM After thinking better of my sarcastic tone to Carrol's message. Let me explain. A tautology is a statement that is true by definition. That is, it is always true. A = A is a tautology. A = B is not a tautology. That is, it might be false. Similarly all true statements are not tautologies. I.e., A = B might be true. __ CB: Sorry, couldn't help saying this since we are in a logical vein. You mean "not all true statements are tautologies" , I believe. I agree with your post, though. _ If all statements were tautologies, math and logic would be very easy. Anything you write down would be true. No need to prove anything. --
Re: re: Tautology
Rod Hay wrote: After thinking better of my sarcastic tone to Carrol's message. Let me explain. :-) A tautology is a statement that is true by definition. That is, it is always true. A = A is a tautology. Yes, I'm aware of that. The example often used in writing classes etc is "All black cats are cats." The trouble with A = A as an example is that it doesn't bring out how tautologies may be hidden in apparently postivie propositions. Perhaps you have to have taught freshman composition to appreciate how easy that is. Many decades ago I asked a freshman class to write a paper on "thoughtfulness." Almost without exception all the papers boiled down to A = A. And the trouble comes in part because such hidden tautologies (1) *seem* true because they *are* true and (2) seem profound because the source of the truth is hidden. A = B is not a tautology. That is, it might be false. Similarly all true statements are not tautologies. I.e., A = B might be true. Yes. If all statements were tautologies, math and logic would be very easy. How do you prove that a+b=b+a. I used to know but can't remember. Is it a postulate or a theorem. Anything you write down would be true. No need to prove anything. I'm many years away from this, but if I remember correctly some mathematical expressions (in trig I think) were called "Identities" but still had to be proved. Also, I know "truisms" and "tautologies" are different things, though the words are often used interchangeably in conversation. Truisms, for one thing, can be false! That is, they are "true" only within the limits of a given ideology (or world of common sense). But they are apt to function like the hidden tautologies I speak of. All social systems decay. Capitalism is a social system. Capitalism decays. Doug did not say, "Capitalism does not decay [won't collapse]" He said "Where have I heard that before?" I'll leave it to someone else to untangle the exact logic implicit there (it's rather complex), but I think that *some* at least of what I.A. Richards would have called its emotive force came from the clash of two concealed "tautologies": "All things decay" and "Communists endlessly repeat slogans" or something like that. Both (hidden) propositions *act* like tautologies, though I grant that a logic text would not exactly support me here. Carrol
Re: re: whatever
Mark Jones wrote: Carrol, it's not a question of insults. The self-evident fact is that none of these people are capable of arguing for the positions they take, or didn't you notice? The last refuge of the neoclassical is boundless blind faith in technology aka 'human ingenuity', or in the 'magic of the markets' and in the infinitude of resources (or the infinitude of substitutability). Doug's testimony is remarkable only for its honesty (I give him credit for that). But they all actually believe it (the only other honest one is Max). Speaking of neoclassicals, didn't Jevons worry about Britain running out of coal? Duke it, or shut it. And no queenie fits! Oooh you're so manly. Doug
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Brad says: But that's why I like it. You don't have to pre-wash the plates, and it gets them *clean*. I heard an expert on this subject speaking on US National Public Radio (one of their consumer-oriented shows). She said unequivocally that the makers of dishwashers who claim that their products can clean dishes that haven't already been washed by hand are _lying_. Brad DeLong looks down at dish newly taken from dishwasher: "It looks clean." talk to your colleague Tom Rothenberg and see if he can do econometrics with your sample size. (Oh, I forgot that he never actually does econometrics even though -- or because -- he understands it so well.) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine We can do econometrics: the point estimate is that it gets the dishes clean; the standard error of that point estimate is infinite... -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- "Now 'in the long run' this [way of summarizing the quantity theory of money] is probably true But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. **In the long run** we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again." --J.M. Keynes -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- J. Bradford De Long; Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley; Co-Editor, Journal of Economic Perspectives. Dept. of Economics, U.C. Berkeley, #3880 Berkeley, CA 94720-3880 (510) 643-4027; (925) 283-2709 phones (510) 642-6615; (925) 283-3897 faxes http://econ161.berkeley.edu/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: My looniness
Ken Hanly wrote: There are tons ( ;) ) of coal reserves No, there are not. You are wrong, and please don't bore me with some half-understood snippet of USGS deliberate misinformation. Coal will not be economically recoverable, at present rates of extraction + growth, after about 2040. I'm happy to discuss this in detail. we could expand nuclear power dramatically No, we could not. Nuclear power, even if it worked, is not a solution and can never be a substitute for fossil, if only because of *its own* greenhouse impact. Sustainability cannot be realised by substituting one form of unsustainable energy for another, especially when the altyernative is either an energy sink, or more likely a DNA-catastrophe waiting to happen if not now, in 100 years time when society is no longer capable of stroing/processing nuclear waste. You have to start from the recognition that energy-consumption will drop by orders of magnitude, and work out the consequences of that for a 'full' world, where energy-scarcity will have far more serious implications than say for the 'half-empty' world of the 1900 house. It is highly unlikely that one alternative to fossil fuel will be found to solve the crisis but this is what you seem to demand. You haven't found ANY substitutes, not ONE that stands scrutiny. There are a large number of alternatives that collectively may help alleviate the crisis. Such as? Name them. Even so I don't see how capitalism could even begin to solve the crisis without a huge increase in regulation and decrease in consumption. Capitalism cannot by definition do this. What I find annoying about your posts is your absolute certainty about the fossil fuel crisis. And what I find odd is your absolute inability to argue with this, and absolute inability to accept the given facts nonetheless. Of course given a sufficient length of time we will run out of them but I don't see the problem is all that urgent compared to others, including as others have pointed out, global warming. Without oil US capitalism will collapse. There are no substitutes. There are no plans, no backups. Nothing. So far the West has managed to avoid the problem principally by exporting energy-famines elsewhere. That cannot continue. There is no ceiling to oil prices. There is no limit to the potential economic damage of energy-crises. Of course it is true that energy-crises are as much symptom as cause of deep anbd longstanding systemic disequilibria. But this is only another way of sayiong that world capitalism is already deep into a historical impasse from which it has no exit. You do not talk much about distributive issues. Surely an argument could be made that distribution of resources that results in many of the worlds population slowly starving to death in abject poverty is as significant a crisis as global warming or the energy crisis. Redistribution is not a problem for the people who count, namely the citizens of EuroAmerica and the elites. One dollar = one vote, remember. I write a great deal about the agonising fate of the multibillioned masses living in abject poverty, altho not on pen-l. But in this debate, that is not the principal issue. It is a red-herring, as I've said before. Lachrymose handwringing about 'surplus population' is the liberals' mirror-inverse of racism about immigration; both stances are principally acts of denial, of inability to acknowledge and face up to the core problem. Your response to fossil fuel alternatives is to say that they are not. Period. End of discussion. I'm happy to discuss it. I have answered your ideas about alternatives, renewable etc. Prove me wrong, I'm waiting. NAME the alternatives, SHOW how they'll be viable. There are plenty who think it'll all be OK on the day: check out Amory Lovins for eg. There are hot discussions about geothermal, PV's etc. The jury is out on some of these technical issues. But history is not waiting for answers. Civilisations do tend to enter critical situations and to find no solutions radical enough to sustain living standars or life at all for many. Libraries do burn. Rome did fall. scientists are divided and many claim that one can just not make any strong knowledg claims Which scientists? What claims? Cut to the chase. Mark Jones
you simply ignore the benefits of dams -- Kenneth Hanly
[The meat for this posting comes from Journal of Political Ecology Vol.5 1998 No 1, article by J. Stephen Lansing, Philip S. Lansing and Juliet S. Erazo. Mark Jones] Building dams almost always takes place on land occupied by First Nations or people considered marginal and worthy of dispossession and 'resettlement'. Of course, if you steal people's land and livelihoods from them, as happened in the case of First Nations everywhere, most recently in the case of the Ogoni in West Nigeria, whose land was turned into a reeking swamp of oil pollution and gas flaring by Shell Oil (whose royalties financed the government which then executed Ogoni playwright Ken Saro Wiwa), and you decant them into some reservation and give them a few shovels to get by, then you can expect them to turn nasty. If, as in the case of for example Russia, capitalism's grandest and newest reservation, you systematically promote the activites of notorious thieves and robbers, making a new politico-financial elite of the most criminalised, anti-social groupings, which is what the West did, then you can get virulent anti-Americanism as one possible response, but you can also spread the idea that in Western eyes, theft, cynicism, uncontrolled greed, plunder and a devil-take-the-hindmost attitude to one's fellow citizens, are all commendable, jolly good things which are normative western values. You cannot be surprised if your quislings and placemen then turn into natives before your very eyes and start to behave in the same way, even biting the hand that feeds them, and do it without displaying any of the conventional hypocrisy which masks such behaviour and conceals the true selfishness behind the superficial good-neighbourliness of westerners. Shocked by the appalling lack of gratitude and general bad manners of your victims, the next logical thing to do is to call in the anthropologists, a special breed of men and women invented in Victorian England for the sake of salving bad consciences and explaining away in pseudo-scientific terms the anti-social behaviour of colonial peoples traumatised by our own plundering, genocidal behaviour. If you really want to see the kind of behaviour Dolan describes in its most florid expression, you have to read not anthropology but the works of Primo Levi, the Auschwitz victim who survived until 1987 before committing suicide as the consequence of his unassuagable guilt and endless waking nightmare. In works such as 'The Truce' (1963) and 'The Drowned and the Saved' (1986) he shows how physical torture and annihilation inevitably produce spiritual degradation and the complicity of the victim in the process. This in particular is what destroys the sense of worth and self-esteem of survivors; it is what drove Levi to kill himself and what drives people on reservations to drink, demoralisation and early death. SS anthropologists had a field day observing the odd behaviour of the Jews in the camps and rationalising it for a grateful posterity. It's their Jewishness, you see. The Jews are well known for being cunning, conniving, deceitful, anti-social, thieving, beggar-my-neighbour etc. I can give you an example closer to home of what happens when you steal people's birthright. The Skokomish Indians lived in the Olympic mountains in western Washington state. Unfortunately for them a utility company decided to build dams and hydropower plants on the Skokomish River: after all, who really needed the kind of value-subtracting actvities like year-round salmon-fishing and celebrating nature which the Skokomish were into? Just like at the kind of futile existence these people had before they got the benefits of modernity: the Skokomish regarded the valley of the North Fork as the home of their ancestors, an idea which recently received archaeological support with the discovery of prehistoric village sites that were inundated by the flooding of Lake Cushman caused by the construction of the first power dam. The age of these sites was estimated at between 5000 to 8000 years old based on the style of artifacts found and their similarity to other presumed "Olcott" sites in the Pacific. In the nineteenth century the valley was also a major village site. The valley was the center for many important resources for the Skokomish, including flocks of waterfowl, large herds of elk that wintered in the valley, and many kinds of useful plants including ironwood, yew, bear grass, berries and cedar. A detailed picture of the importance of these resources for the Skokomish is provided by the work of William Elmendorf. Elmendorf was an anthropologist who conducted fieldwork among the Skokomish for nearly twenty years, and published a comprehensive ethnographic monograph on The Structure of Twana Culture in 1960. Many of Elmendorf's informants spoke to him about their activities in the valley before the dams were built: hunting for deer, elk, bear, wolf and marmots in the mountains, spearing ducks and geese from
Faith Economics (was Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System...)
Doug wrote: I think there's lots of oil left; the tighter constraint is that burning all we have may well choke us. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the odds suck in betting against human ingenuity, even under capitalism, at devising new energy sources. I think profit imperatives have severely slowed research into them. But they'll probably arrive. While I'm not the one to dilate extensively on energy sources global warming, it seems to me that the scientific status of the statement that "new energy sources will probably arrive because of human ingenuity" is about as low as "capitalism is doomed and socialism will triumph!" Yoshie
Rocky Flats: a Toxic Mess
The Denver Post June 25, 2000 Sunday 2D EDITION SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A-01 HEADLINE: PRICE OF PEACE The Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant helped America win the Cold War, but its toughest fight began when production of plutonium triggers stopped and the cleanup of the highly contaminated facility started. BYLINE: By Mark Obmascik, Denver Post Staff Writer, No human had worked here for 40 years, but Ricky Mote felt ready. He layered on four sets of safety boots and three pairs of gloves and squeezed the rest of his body into two airtight moon suits. Just in case, an ambulance waited. Mote expected some danger while digging up 171 drums of uranium from a trench at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. What he didn't expect, though, was exploding green goo. In one of the first jobs of the $7.7 billion Rocky Flats cleanup - the most massive public-works project in the history of Colorado and the first of its kind on Earth - Mote motioned a co-worker in a backhoe, Jeff Herring, to scoop out an unmarked barrel. The black drum was rotted, and some lime-green sludge, loaded with uranium, oozed out. Mote edged closer for a look. Suddenly: Fire! Mote leapt backward from the blue flash and waved for help. Joe Fanning, another worker in a moon suit, jumped ahead with his brass shovel. One dump of sand and the uranium fire was out. But the crew was shaken. 'I just about pooped myself,' Mote said of the August 1998 flash fire. At Rocky Flats, it was one drum down, 1,099,956 to go. In the next six years, the U.S. government plans to turn Rocky Flats, one of the world's most fearsome and filthy nuclear bomb factories, into 6,000 acres of hiking and biking trails and light industry 16 miles northwest of downtown Denver. With little public attention, the top-secret complex has trucked out an estimated 600 plutonium pits, key weapon parts that each carry the killing power of a Hiroshima bomb, down Interstate 25 in Denver to another government facility in Texas. A former plutonium lab has been reduced to a concrete slab, and 4,060 gallons of volatile plutonium solutions have been drained from leaking pipes and tanks. Another 30 tons of depleted uranium has been unearthed from outdoor trenches by $20-an-hour workers such as Mote, Fanning and Herring. All that was the easy part. Now the U.S. government is pushing ahead to do something at Rocky Flats that has never been done anywhere: detoxify a nuclear bomb plant. Among the challenges: Finding 1,100 pounds of plutonium that somehow became lost in ductwork, drums and industrial gloveboxes. The amount of missing plutonium at Rocky Flats is enough to build 150 Nagasaki-strength bombs. Cleaning 13 'infinity rooms' - places so radioactive that instruments go off the scale when measurements are attempted. One infinity room is so bad that managers welded its door shut in 1972. Another room was stuffed with plutonium-fouled machinery and then entombed in concrete. Trucking out dangerous materials. In the next two years, an estimated 16,000 pounds of high-grade plutonium must be moved through metro Denver to South Carolina. On top of that, to meet the planned 2006 cleanup completion date, Rocky Flats must ship out more than three truckloads of radioactive waste each day; the plant now moves only two truckloads a week. Controlling costs. Cleanup delays at Rocky Flats would cost taxpayers $2 million a day. The project already is two years behind schedule, though cleanup managers express confidence they'll soon catch up. The government expects to spend nearly twice as much to raze Rocky Flats as it spent to build Denver International Airport. Protecting workers and neighbors. Cleanup workers are opening contaminated drums and pipes that haven't been handled for four decades. The result: Employee radiation doses have been climbing. The main cleanup contractor was fined $41,250 last month after a demolition worker suffered a heavy radiation dose from a finger cut while taking apart a plutonium furnace. The cleanup carries import far outside Colorado. With dozens of old Cold War weapons factories awaiting decontamination in the United States, the former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France, Rocky Flats is a key test case for the world's nuclear cleanup industry. 'Rocky Flats is the flagship site in demonstrating tangible and significant progress toward safe closure of former nuclear weapons production sites,' said U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, whose department is managing the cleanup. 'The safe closure of Rocky Flats by 2006 is a top priority.' Much information about Rocky Flats still is classified by the government as top secret. To tell how the 700-building complex became so contaminated - and how it will be decontaminated - The Denver Post interviewed dozens of workers, reviewed thousands of pages of records and toured bomb-making buildings that remain protected by anti-aircraft guns,
Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System andNationalEmissions of](fwd)
As someone else pointed out Cox's example was not a tautology. To say that something is a tautology is to say that it is true for formal reasons and not contingent upon empirical facts. Some equations are contradictions and so are false for formal reasons. Mathematics is trivial in that it makes no empirical claims or is consistent with any possible set of empirical facts. John Stuart Mill would agree with you. He thinks that 2 plus 2 is 4 is an empirical fact illustrated by adding 2 marbles to 2 more etc. But getting 1 drop from adding 2 drops to 2 others doesn't refute the proposition that 2 plus 2 is 4 or just show it is highly probable. At least I am as firm on that as Mark is on the oil crisis. Cheers, Ken Hanly P.S. Sorry I did not delete earlier messages in my reply to Mark Jones. PS. Re cattle raising and Louis. The standard mode of cattle raising hereabouts and I expect in most of North America is two stage: cow calf ranchers, feedlot finishers. On ranches cattle and calves are pastured and also fed hay mixed with grains such as oats and/barley-in winter of course pasture is not an option.. On reaching a certain range of weights the calves are sold, often at auction, to feedlot operators who then finish the cattle for market. At the feedlot there will be extensive feeding of hay, grains etc. to quickly add weight. Some farmers may also have feedlots and others also may practice backgrounding, adding further weight to the calves before marketing them--espeically if they have plentiful feed supplies. During the cow calf operation the feed is in the pasture, the farmer will often have his own hay and even grains. Grains for feeding will be transported long distances only if they are not available locally. Even hay may be trucked long distances in case of local shortages, but this would be the exception not the rule. Feed materials are bought by feedlots from the nearest sources. Charles Brown wrote: If you are implying that there are no non-trivial tautologies, isn't mathematics all about non-trivial tautologies ? All equations are tautologies, no ? CB
Re: re: Tautology
Yes, of course, Charles. Rod Charles Brown wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/30/00 01:25PM After thinking better of my sarcastic tone to Carrol's message. Let me explain. A tautology is a statement that is true by definition. That is, it is always true. A = A is a tautology. A = B is not a tautology. That is, it might be false. Similarly all true statements are not tautologies. I.e., A = B might be true. __ CB: Sorry, couldn't help saying this since we are in a logical vein. You mean "not all true statements are tautologies" , I believe. I agree with your post, though. _ If all statements were tautologies, math and logic would be very easy. Anything you write down would be true. No need to prove anything. -- -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: query
We can do econometrics: the point estimate is that it gets the dishes clean; the standard error of that point estimate is infinite... New data point in: I put in our dishes pretty dirty and they generally come out clean, as claimed by the manufacturer. You can't let the dishes sit very long however before you wash them. Eric
Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of]
Perhaps Louis could explain what he means by small farms being more productive. Even if it is true of some small farms producing some items I am not sure what its relevance is to anything. If you can grow 50,000 watermelon on 10 acres but only 90,000 on 20 acres and you have a profit of 20 cents per melon is the farmer supposed to choose to farm 10 acres on the ground that the smaller farm is more productive? I doubt that smaller farms are more productive around here as compared to larger ones but whether they are or are not they often end up being sold to larger farmers because farmers cannot make a living from them. There is a smidgin of truth in Mark's remarks but small farmers certainly are not dead. The term small farm is undefined by Lou. A small farm here would be around a section i.e. a square mile. In the foothills of the Rockies or the Aussie outback that size unit would be a joke. In Japan it would be beyond most farmer's dreams. I can recall Don Wheeler a former economics prof. lecturing in Hungary. When he told them that farmers with a quarter section of land would starve in most areas of Manitoba they were sure he was spouting Commie propaganda. THis was when Hungary was communist. It would be nice to have some statististics. I expect the trend is that larger farms are increeasingly responsible for a larger proportion of total production but that smaller farms may not be decreasing all that quickly in number. Many smaller farms survive by family members having off-farm jobs. In fact some larger farms may crash from cash-flow problems as they over-invest and then have a crop failure with resultant crushing debt loads. I expect that the number of hobby farms may be increasing as well. But where are the data? CHeers, Ken Hanly Mark Jones wrote: Small farming is dead. It doesn't exist esp in the US. 'Farmers' are the social equivalent of laundromat-owners, the economically disenfranchised, overmortgaged persons who apply lots of energy and toxic chemicals to things and hope for the best. In the UK, the class of prepacked sandwich-makers is more numerous than the class of farmers. I'm sure it's the same in the US. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: 30 June 2000 17:37 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21031] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of] Louis Proyect wrote: Doug: Does the revo also mean there won't be modern transportation, chemical fertilizers, mechnized plowing and reaping, etc.? Then there's truly no way to sustain a world population of more than, say, a billion people, maybe fewer - meaning that at least 80% of us have to go. You don't seem to be aware that smaller farms are more productive than large agribusiness type concerns. Where did I endorse large agribusiness? If small farms are more productive, then let's have more of them; I'm all for separating the imperatives of capital from those of real social efficiency and humaneness. But even small farms use modern transportation and machines. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: query
Brad writes: We can do econometrics: the point estimate is that it gets the dishes clean; the standard error of that point estimate is infinite... have you done a biological culture test to see if the dishes are _really_ clean? after all, germs are everywhere, threatening to poison our food I'm surprised we're not all dead already. ;-) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Successful Mindwashing of Doug Henwood!!
Doug Henwood wrote: I think there's lots of oil left; the tighter constraint is that burning all we have may well choke us. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the odds suck in betting against human ingenuity, even under capitalism, at devising new energy sources. I think profit imperatives have severely slowed research into them. But they'll probably arrive. This is interesting; it's the first time Doug has shown his n-c colours so clearly. Mark Yes. The long-term advanced pharmaceutical-aided mind-washing campaign has succeeded brilliantly. Consider ten typical remarks of his (from this spring alone): (1) "The average real hourly wage is up 7% since mid-1995 - not a great performance over the course of 4.5 years, but not bad by recent U.S. history..." (2) "I should add that if the point of borrowing from a central bank is to increase investment, and thereby growth over the long term, then there has to be a diversion of current resources out of consumption. Someone's consumption - and the political fight is over whose. Funny money schemes aim to finesse that fight, but you just can't do it: resources for real investment have to come from somewhere. Money can be created out of thin air, but not machine tools or schools..." (3) "Dragons In Distress really overstated the bearish case - it was as if East Asian/NIC growth was all an illusion. Yes it came at a high social and environmental cost, but it wasn't all an illusion.." (4) "And where does the B of C get the money from? If it's from the printing press, then you're playing inflationary games. Might work some stimulative magic in the short run, but not for long..." (5) "Becker of the Steelworkers was the low point of the Seattle rally, going on in a very ugly way about how imports were "inundating our shores" and threatening the American way of life. The Teamsters had some ugly banners about Mexican trucks there, too..." (6) "Say euroland is restructured along Anglo-American lines - why couldn't the E-11 have a boom too? A polarizing, manic, diseased boom perhaps, but still a boom?..." (7) "I think it's absolutely wrong - alienation and all - to say the worker of 2000 is worse off than the worker of 1850, by any objective or subjective measure..." (8) "Privatization is an instance of state-monopoly? I find that very confusing. Lenin and Hilferding talked about state-sponsored cartels and the suppression of competition. Everywhere on earth, deregulation and the intensification of competition are the rule of the day. Please clarify how this proves Lenin and Hilferding right..." (9) "I'm no Greenspan fan, but he's been more indulgent of a low unemployment rate than many of his predecessors or colleagues..." (10) "I'd love to do a Julian Simon-style bet with Brown on this. I suspect these disasters won't materialize..." (11) "But if we're talking the loss of 100,000 manufacturing jobs, how much downward pressure does that place when total private service sector employment is 85 million - and total service sector employment is 106 million (including government) - and some 2.8 million new jobs are being created annually?..." (12) "Trade volume has increased pretty markedly, far more than suggested by the 0.03% of GDP kick from tariff reductions you cite. Surely there are some gains from this trade - I don't see how you can just take the gap between X and M, divide by some cost per job figure, and come up with an estimate of employment loss. Surely imports provide positive economic advantages - lower prices, more variety - that you just can't bracket out of your model. Yes, some people may lose their jobs because of this competition, but if imports keep prices down then most people have more money left over to spend on other things. And certainly exports create jobs - that's not controversial is it? To do this sort of analysis right, you've got to take all these factors into account, or state explicitly that you're assuming there are no gains at all from trade. Just because neoclassicals say there is, doesn't mean it isn't true..." There can be no doubt. Now we neoclassicals can reveal the truth: Henwood is one of *us* now... Mwuhahahahahaha!! Brad DeLong
Re: Successful Mindwashing of Doug Henwood!!
Brad De Long wrote: There can be no doubt. Now we neoclassicals can reveal the truth: Henwood is one of *us* now... I'm not sure whether to feel exonerated or to call my shrink. Doug
water water everywhere
One of the problems with this debate is the certainty being bandied about. I admit that I have not been able to read all the posts. Let me suggest that I suspect that the crisis in water will hit before the energy crisis. For many, it already has. My daughter tells me that even soggy Portland is worried about enough water. The water crisis may be even more intractable than the energy crisis -- I don't know. The first step would be to develop forms of communication, which come before organizing. Yelling at each other is exactly what not to do. Tell me how I can talk to my father or my neighbor about such things in a way that they can understand. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Productivity
Citing Marx on a soil crisis 150 years ago doesn't do much to promote the catastrophist vision; the soil hasn't only survived, it's a lot more productive than it was then. Doug Of course it is more productive. But that is not the point that Marx was making. Do you understand this? Let me spell it out. Midwest farms are the most productive in the world, but they are creating terrible environmental problems, including the following: 1. fertilizer runoff is killing marine life in the Gulf of Mexico. 2. pesticides are causing a breast cancer epidemic in affected regions. 3. monoculture production requires increased pesticide and chemical fertilizer input, which in turn makes the crops ever more vulnerable since, for example, pests develop resistance to poisons. More information on this can be found in your local library. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of]
I doubt that he had such motives in mind. I think that everybody here agrees that you have a lot of information. Some doubt your predictions, but I suspect that few appreciate intemperate remarks. Mr. Minimus much diminished, but still here.
Re: query
Which part of the first half. 1900 to 1939? 1930 to 1945? 1945-1949? Brad De Long wrote: Brad De Long wrote: Even after watching 1900 House? Didn't most of the improvement happen in the first half of the century rather than the second? Doug For the American upper class, maybe. For the American working class (and for almost everyone outside the U.S.), certainly not... Brad DeLong -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Productivity
Louis Proyect wrote: Of course it is more productive. But that is not the point that Marx was making. Marx wrote: Large-scale industry and industrially pursued large-scale agriculture have the same effect. If they are originally distinguished by the fact that the former lays waste and ruins labour-power and thus the natural power of man, whereas the latter does the same to the natural power of the soil, they link up in the later course of development, since the industrial system applied to agriculture also enervates the workers there, while industry and trade for their part provide agriculture with the means of exhausting the soil.
Farming productivity
Ken wrote: Perhaps Louis could explain what he means by small farms being more productive. As I mentioned to Doug, the key question is the degree to which farming is organic rather than its level of productivity in the business school sense. Having stated that, there still is a mountain of evidence that large-scale farming leads to counterproductive results despite--or perhaps because of--advanced technology. In an October 26, 1980 article on soil erosion in the NY Times, Stephen Black of the Soil Conservation Office in Missouri was quoted as saying, "It's hard to contour plow or adjust to terraces well with today's enormous equipment, so the big farmers just plow straight up and down the slopes, and the soil just runs right off." He added that erosion's effects on agricultural productivity were already measurable in his own Monroe County. According to a survey he conducted, well-managed fertile soil in the county yields 78 bushels of corn or 30 bushels of soybeans an acre. The same soil, eroded, yields only 67 bushels or corn or 24 bushels of soybeans. This, of course, confirms the observation made by Marx in V. 3 of Capital: "the industrial system applied to agriculture also enervates the workers there, while industry and trade for their part provide agriculture with the means of exhausting the soil." Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Re: Successful Mindwashing of Doug Henwood!!
calling Dr. Kevorkian At 04:57 PM 6/30/00 -0400, you wrote: Brad De Long wrote: There can be no doubt. Now we neoclassicals can reveal the truth: Henwood is one of *us* now... I'm not sure whether to feel exonerated or to call my shrink. Doug Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Productivity
?? Doug wrote: Louis Proyect wrote: Of course it is more productive. But that is not the point that Marx was making. Marx wrote: Large-scale industry and industrially pursued large-scale agriculture have the same effect. If they are originally distinguished by the fact that the former lays waste and ruins labour-power and thus the natural power of man, whereas the latter does the same to the natural power of the soil, they link up in the later course of development, since the industrial system applied to agriculture also enervates the workers there, while industry and trade for their part provide agriculture with the means of exhausting the soil. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Tautology: To Doug
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/30/00 03:09PM Doug did not say, "Capitalism does not decay [won't collapse]" He said "Where have I heard that before?" I'll leave it to someone else to untangle the exact logic implicit there (it's rather complex), but I think that *some* at least of what I.A. Richards would have called its emotive force came from the clash of two concealed "tautologies": "All things decay" and "Communists endlessly repeat slogans" or something like that. Both (hidden) propositions *act* like tautologies, though I grant that a logic text would not exactly support me here. ___ CB: Doug, by now, I have heard you say the equivalent of "Communists endlessly repeat slogans" or "Communists endlessly repeat that capitalism is doomed" , as Carrol phrases it, quite often. What I wonder is do you think that capitalism will collapse or not ? or are you uncertain ? We know quite certainly that you have an objection to the frequency with which communist say it. But at this point what stands out is that you do not answer the substantive questions I pose here. So, the endlessly repeated objection to communists endlessly saying capitalism will collapse, starts to look like a dodge of the substantive questions. It seems like you could answer those questions without any danger of anyone thinking that you are committing the typical communist error of endlessly repeating that capitalism will fall , because you have endlessly and militantly objected to this typical communist error. So , why not take a position on it ? Perhaps he agrees with you, Carrol , that it is a trivial tautology. But perhaps the even more interesting questions that I can't find an answer from you on , Doug, are do you favor the end of capitalism ? and do you favor the building of socialism ? do you favor the building of socialism , but of a type that is nothing like what was in the Soviet Union or other named socialist countries ? I ask this in relation to both environmental problems and socio-political-economic problems. Sometimes when you object to communists endlessly repeating that capitalism will fall, it seems like your objection is that it is a trivial tautology and doesn't help (even hinders) bringing about that result, but that you are in favor of capitalism falling or being brought down. Sometimes it seems like you are not in favor of ending capitalism. For myself , I will try to shift over to endlessly asking these questions, rather endlessly saying that capitalism will fall.
Enough
I still have several hundred messages to skim. I am finding some interesting information mixed with unnecessary nastiness. I cannot monitor this closely. I don't want to start unsubbing people, but I think that I will have to if this does not stop. You can disagree without being disagreeable. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
RE: Rocky Flats: a Toxic Mess
The Denver Post June 25, 2000 Sunday 2D EDITION SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A-01 In one of the first jobs of the $7.7 billion Rocky Flats cleanup - More of this money will go to folks who'll never be exposed to the muck than to the workers on site, yet more grist for the environmental justice mill and a further venue for worker/enviro. linkages.. My old employer Oracle has made a s***load of $$ in the past decade "supplying" the cleanup efforts with more computer systems than they'll ever use. Of course, the article doesn't mention that the place was really run by GE and Martin Marietta. Ian
RE: Re: Successful Mindwashing of Doug Henwood!!
I'm not sure whether to feel exonerated or to call my shrink. Doug Why? Gov't force you to seal up that window? Ian
Re: Tautology: To Doug
Charles Brown wrote: Doug, by now, I have heard you say the equivalent of "Communists endlessly repeat slogans" or "Communists endlessly repeat that capitalism is doomed" , as Carrol phrases it, quite often. What I wonder is do you think that capitalism will collapse or not ? or are you uncertain ? I don't think capitalism will collapse, though anything is possible. The more likely end to capitalism, if there ever is one, is through political organization and expropriation of the expropriators. I think there are a lot of people who are now using ecological crisis as a substitute for underconsumption/overinvestment/realization crisis theories of collapse. It's not only communists who theorize collapse or something like it - so did/do some classical economists, goldbugs, survivalists, and evangelical Christians. Doug
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in theWorld-System and National Emissions of] (fwd)
I just read Grey Bracken's book, Imperial San Francisco. It is an astounding study of how cities pull in resources from the surrounding areas. Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: I just read that NY City is the largest consumer of pesticides in the state. Now that you have that part of the agricultural system, may the rest won't be too hard. Could you be a little less opaque? Do you mean that reducing pesticide use will require depopulating the cities? Where will everyone go? NYC also houses half the U.S. non-poverty households without cars. We use less energy here than practically any place in the USA. If you depopulate us, will we have to start driving? Or do I have to grow my own food and weave my own cloth? Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: water water everywhere
Now here I admit is a problem. Not so much in the quantity of water, but the difficulties of transporting it. The distribution of population in the world does not match the distribution of the fresh water. And or course moving the people to Northern Canada will just exacerbate the energy situation. It gets cold up there. Ask Ken, and he is not all the way up there. In Ontario while there is lots of water, there is a problem keeping it clean. A recent outbreak of E. coli bacteria, near me, is suspected to have begun when heavy runoff from farmers' fields infected the town's water system. If weather patterns are changing. It would require an immense adjustment to accommodate. Rod Michael Perelman wrote: One of the problems with this debate is the certainty being bandied about. I admit that I have not been able to read all the posts. Let me suggest that I suspect that the crisis in water will hit before the energy crisis. For many, it already has. My daughter tells me that even soggy Portland is worried about enough water. The water crisis may be even more intractable than the energy crisis -- I don't know. The first step would be to develop forms of communication, which come before organizing. Yelling at each other is exactly what not to do. Tell me how I can talk to my father or my neighbor about such things in a way that they can understand. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: water water everywhere
Canada, of course, is the OPEC of water. Rod Hay wrote: Now here I admit is a problem. Not so much in the quantity of water, but the difficulties of transporting it. The distribution of population in the world does not match the distribution of the fresh water. And or course moving the people to Northern Canada will just exacerbate the energy situation. It gets cold up there. Ask Ken, and he is not all the way up there. In Ontario while there is lots of water, there is a problem keeping it clean. A recent outbreak of E. coli bacteria, near me, is suspected to have begun when heavy runoff from farmers' fields infected the town's water system. If weather patterns are changing. It would require an immense adjustment to accommodate. Rod Michael Perelman wrote: One of the problems with this debate is the certainty being bandied about. I admit that I have not been able to read all the posts. Let me suggest that I suspect that the crisis in water will hit before the energy crisis. For many, it already has. My daughter tells me that even soggy Portland is worried about enough water. The water crisis may be even more intractable than the energy crisis -- I don't know. The first step would be to develop forms of communication, which come before organizing. Yelling at each other is exactly what not to do. Tell me how I can talk to my father or my neighbor about such things in a way that they can understand. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Tautology: To Doug
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/30/00 05:51PM Charles Brown wrote: Doug, by now, I have heard you say the equivalent of "Communists endlessly repeat slogans" or "Communists endlessly repeat that capitalism is doomed" , as Carrol phrases it, quite often. What I wonder is do you think that capitalism will collapse or not ? or are you uncertain ? I don't think capitalism will collapse, though anything is possible. The more likely end to capitalism, if there ever is one, is through political organization and expropriation of the expropriators. CB: Yes. Communists ( or as I understand Marx) agree with that a capitalism is not a mechanical system, will take conscious, organized human action to change. When you say if there ever is an end, you mean within a period of time that is short of a thousand years or some really long time such that we wouldn't care , I take it ? __ I think there are a lot of people who are now using ecological crisis as a substitute for underconsumption/overinvestment/realization crisis theories of collapse. CB: Do you mean here that underconsumption, etc crisis theories of collapse are flawed because they leave out the agency of political organization and expropriation of the expropriators ? And that ecological crisis theory of collapse is similarly flawed as positing only, what I call, objective factors as a cause ? Or do you mean that underconsumption , etc. crisis theory is a better theory than ecological crisis theory of collapse ? It's not only communists who theorize collapse or something like it - so did/do some classical economists, goldbugs, survivalists, and evangelical Christians. ___ CB: Are really saying, as you suggest , that the communist theories or all communist theories ( or the communist theories on these lists) of the end of capitalism are flawed in the same way and for the same reason that all the others are ? That all communist theories on this are not based on inference from material evidence, facts, historical evidence ?
The hidden costs of livestock
From Frances Moore Lappé's "Diet for a Small Planet": If we are feeding millions of tons of grain to livestock, it must be because it makes economic sense. Indeed, it does "make sense" under the rules of our economy. But that fact might better be seen as the problem, rather than the explanation that should put our concerns to rest. We got hooked on grain-fed meat just as we got hooked on gas-guzzling automobiles. Big cars "made sense" only when oil was cheap; grain-fed meat "makes sense" only because the true costs of producing it are not counted. But why is grain in America so cheap? If grain is cheap simply because there is so much of it and it will go to waste unless we feed it to livestock, doesnt grain-fed meat represent a sound use of our resources? Here we need to back up to another, more basic question: why is there so much grain in the first place? In our production system each farmer must compete against every other farmer; the only way a farmer can compete is to produce more. Therefore, every farmer is motivated to use any new technologyhigher yielding seeds, fertilizers, or machineswhich will grow more and require less labor. In the last 30 years crop production has virtually doubled as farmers have adopted hybrid seeds and applied ever more fertilizer and pesticides. Since the 1940s fertilizer use has increased fivefold, and corn yields have tripled. But this production imperative is ultimately self-defeating. As soon as one farmer adopts the more productive technology, all other farmers must do the same or go out of business. This is because those using the more productive technology can afford to sell their grain at a lower price, making up in volume what they lose in profit per bushel. That means constant downward pressure on the price of grain. Since World War II real grain prices have sometimes fluctuated wildly, but the indisputable trend has bc downward. The price of corn peaked at $6.43 per bushel 1947 and fell to about $2.00 in 1967. In the early 1970s prices swung wildly up, but then fell to a low of $1.12 1977, or about one-sixth the price 30 years earlier. (All prices are in 1967 dollars.) This production imperative doesnt fully explain why production of feed doubled after 1950. In the 1950s the problem of agricultural surplus was seen as too much certain crops, such as wheat, cotton, and tobacco; so government programs subsidized cutbacks of certain crops, but allowed farmers to expand their acreage in others, such as the feed crops barley, soybeans, and grain sorghum. In Texas, for example, sorghum production leaped sevenfold after cotton acreage was limited by law in the 1950s. But neglected in this explanation of the low price of grain are the hidden production costs which we and future generations are subsidizing: the fossil fuels and water consumed, the groundwater mined, the topsoil lost, the fertilizer resources depleted, and the water polluted. FOSSIL FUEL COSTS Agricultural production uses the equivalent of about 10 percent of all of the fossil fuel imported into the United States. Besides the cost of the grain used to produce meat, we can also measure the cost of the fossil fuel energy used compared with the food value we receive. Each calorie of protein we get from feedlot-produced beef costs us 78 calories of fossil fuel, as we learn from Figure 2, prepared from the work of Drs. Marcia and David Pimentel at Cornell. Grains and beans are from 22 to almost 40 times less fossil-fuel costly. ENOUGH WATER TO FLOAT A DESTROYER "We are in a crisis over our water that is every bit as important and deep as our energy crisis," says Fred Powledge, who has just written the first in-depth book on our national water crisis. According to food geographer Georg Borgstrom, to produce a 1-pound steak requires 2,500 gallons of water! The average U.S. diet requires 4,200 gallons of water a day for each person, and of this he estimates animal products account for over 80 percent. "The water that goes into a 1,000-pound steer would float a destroyer," Newsweek recently reported. When I sat down with my calculator, I realized that the water used to produce just 10 pounds of steak equals the household consumption of my family for the entire year. Figure 3, based on the estimates of David Pimentel at Cornell, shows that to produce 1 pound of beef protein can require as much as fifteen times the amount of water needed to produce the protein in plant food. MINING OUR WATER Irrigation to grow food for livestock, including hay, corn, sorghum, and pasture, uses 50 out of every 100 gallons of water "consumed" in the United States. Other farm usesmainly irrigation for food cropsadd another 35 gallons, so agricultures total use of water equals 85 out of every 100 gallons consumed. (Water is "consumed" when it doesnt return to our rivers and streams.) Over the past fifteen years grain-fed-beef production has been shifting from the rain-fed Corn Belt to newly irrigated acres
Re: Re: Tautology: To Doug
I don't think capitalism will collapse, though anything is possible. The more likely end to capitalism, if there ever is one, is through political organization and expropriation of the expropriators. I think there are a lot of people who are now using ecological crisis as a substitute for underconsumption/overinvestment/realization crisis theories of collapse. You must be referring to James O'Connor. Right? Did you ever tell him this on LBO-Talk? I'd be curious to see his reaction. It's not only communists who theorize collapse or something like it - so did/do some classical economists, goldbugs, survivalists, and evangelical Christians. Doug Collapse is not exactly the term I'd use myself. I tend to think of capitalism's trajectory in terms of the ecology/economy of Haiti today. It is an example of what capitalism will do globally if it is not stopped in its path. Deforestation, AIDS, unemployment, hunger, illiteracy surrounding the walled and air-conditioned compounds of the bourgeoisie. Capitalism is in no danger of collapse in Haiti--the US intervention saw to that. The political fight that keeps cropping up on these lists is whether Haiti is the future of the world or something like the Asian Tigers as depicted in those advertising supplements in the NY Times: "Invest in Taiwan. Invest in the future." With pictures of smiling people in business suits talking on cell phones. You get Brad DeLong on one pole and Mark and I on the other. And the same arguments and statistics keep getting deployed. Like how the average person has higher caloric input today than in 1900. When Brad DeLong points to these successes, he attributes them to the free market system, while others regard them as proof of humanity's unquenchable march toward a better future, citing Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto as though it was co-written by Ayn Rand. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Successful Mindwashing of Doug Henwood!! (fwd)
Instead, you should feel proud of yourself... Mine Brad De Long wrote: There can be no doubt. Now we neoclassicals can reveal the truth: Henwood is one of *us* now... I'm not sure whether to feel exonerated or to call my shrink. Doug -- Mine Aysen Doyran PhD Student Department of Political Science SUNY at Albany Nelson A. Rockefeller College 135 Western Ave.; Milne 102 Albany, NY 1 NetZero Free Internet Access and Email_ Download Now http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html Request a CDROM 1-800-333-3633 ___
Things we can do right now
The largest user of energy in the US is the military. I assume that Columbia will increase that amount. Stop the military. Stop sprawl. Doug is correct that there are certain efficiencies by putting people in close -- not that close -- proximity. The point is not to make claims about how bad things are. I don't think that you can make progress that way. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: Re: water water everywhere
Date sent: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 15:11:18 -0700 From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:21086] Re: Re: water water everywhere Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Canada, of course, is the OPEC of water. Rod Hay wrote: Now here I admit is a problem. Not so much in the quantity of water, but the difficulties of transporting it. The distribution of population in the world does not match the distribution of the fresh water. And or course moving the people to Northern Canada will just exacerbate the energy situation. It gets cold up there. Ask Ken, and he is not all the way up there. In Ontario while there is lots of water, there is a problem keeping it clean. A recent outbreak of E. coli bacteria, near me, is suspected to have begun when heavy runoff from farmers' fields infected the town's water system. If weather patterns are changing. It would require an immense adjustment to accommodate. Rod Michael Perelman wrote: One of the problems with this debate is the certainty being bandied about. I admit that I have not been able to read all the posts. Let me suggest that I suspect that the crisis in water will hit before the energy crisis. For many, it already has. My daughter tells me that even soggy Portland is worried about enough water. The water crisis may be even more intractable than the energy crisis -- I don't know. The first step would be to develop forms of communication, which come before organizing. Yelling at each other is exactly what not to do. Tell me how I can talk to my father or my neighbor about such things in a way that they can understand. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of]
Ken, When I was chair of the Manitoba Milk Control Board/ Milk Prices Review Commission we found that medium size producers where by far the most efficient producers -- i.e about 60 milking cows. Large producers were not efficient and small producers were not either although in this case, because they were usually part of mixed farming operations, any standard measure of 'efficiency' is highly suspect. As you know, the same debate is being blown up at the moment about large scale versus small scale pig farming. I would expect that when externalities were included, large scale operations would cease to be economically efficient. Whether the current investigation of this issue under way in Manitoba will look at externalities is problematic. The NDP has developed blinkers as opaque as its neanderthal Conservative predecessors. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba ps. on a totally different strain, my understanding is that airline pilots get a very high return out of owning/using dishwashers. Since they can't fly when they have colds, the decrease in colds due to dishwashers brings an enormous return in terms of decline of lost wages. In my own family, the decline in colds/flus has been incredible -- and we don't pre-wash our dishes. Date sent:Fri, 30 Jun 2000 15:42:29 -0500 From: Ken Hanly [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:21062] Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of] Perhaps Louis could explain what he means by small farms being more productive. Even if it is true of some small farms producing some items I am not sure what its relevance is to anything. If you can grow 50,000 watermelon on 10 acres but only 90,000 on 20 acres and you have a profit of 20 cents per melon is the farmer supposed to choose to farm 10 acres on the ground that the smaller farm is more productive? I doubt that smaller farms are more productive around here as compared to larger ones but whether they are or are not they often end up being sold to larger farmers because farmers cannot make a living from them. There is a smidgin of truth in Mark's remarks but small farmers certainly are not dead. The term small farm is undefined by Lou. A small farm here would be around a section i.e. a square mile. In the foothills of the Rockies or the Aussie outback that size unit would be a joke. In Japan it would be beyond most farmer's dreams. I can recall Don Wheeler a former economics prof. lecturing in Hungary. When he told them that farmers with a quarter section of land would starve in most areas of Manitoba they were sure he was spouting Commie propaganda. THis was when Hungary was communist. It would be nice to have some statististics. I expect the trend is that larger farms are increeasingly responsible for a larger proportion of total production but that smaller farms may not be decreasing all that quickly in number. Many smaller farms survive by family members having off-farm jobs. In fact some larger farms may crash from cash-flow problems as they over-invest and then have a crop failure with resultant crushing debt loads. I expect that the number of hobby farms may be increasing as well. But where are the data? CHeers, Ken Hanly Mark Jones wrote: Small farming is dead. It doesn't exist esp in the US. 'Farmers' are the social equivalent of laundromat-owners, the economically disenfranchised, overmortgaged persons who apply lots of energy and toxic chemicals to things and hope for the best. In the UK, the class of prepacked sandwich-makers is more numerous than the class of farmers. I'm sure it's the same in the US. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: 30 June 2000 17:37 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21031] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System and National Emissions of] Louis Proyect wrote: Doug: Does the revo also mean there won't be modern transportation, chemical fertilizers, mechnized plowing and reaping, etc.? Then there's truly no way to sustain a world population of more than, say, a billion people, maybe fewer - meaning that at least 80% of us have to go. You don't seem to be aware that smaller farms are more productive than large agribusiness type concerns. Where did I endorse large agribusiness? If small farms are more productive, then let's have more of them; I'm all for separating the imperatives of capital from those of real social efficiency and humaneness. But even small farms use modern transportation and machines. Doug
Re: Re: Re: water water everywhere
Careful Michael, Canada has a large STOCK of fresh water, but a limited FLOW of 'excess' fresh water. If I remember the figures correctly, only about 15 % of Canada's water could be exported without severely causing a water crisis in Canada. This would hardly solve California's water problem, never mind the rest of the worlds. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 15:11:18 -0700 From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:21086] Re: Re: water water everywhere Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Canada, of course, is the OPEC of water. Rod Hay wrote: Now here I admit is a problem. Not so much in the quantity of water, but the difficulties of transporting it. The distribution of population in the world does not match the distribution of the fresh water. And or course moving the people to Northern Canada will just exacerbate the energy situation. It gets cold up there. Ask Ken, and he is not all the way up there. In Ontario while there is lots of water, there is a problem keeping it clean. A recent outbreak of E. coli bacteria, near me, is suspected to have begun when heavy runoff from farmers' fields infected the town's water system. If weather patterns are changing. It would require an immense adjustment to accommodate. Rod Michael Perelman wrote: One of the problems with this debate is the certainty being bandied about. I admit that I have not been able to read all the posts. Let me suggest that I suspect that the crisis in water will hit before the energy crisis. For many, it already has. My daughter tells me that even soggy Portland is worried about enough water. The water crisis may be even more intractable than the energy crisis -- I don't know. The first step would be to develop forms of communication, which come before organizing. Yelling at each other is exactly what not to do. Tell me how I can talk to my father or my neighbor about such things in a way that they can understand. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Monthly Review Summer special issue
Friends, Monthly Review magazine's double summer issue will be out very soon. As the blurb below indicates, this issue deals with subjects much discussed on these lists. I think list members will find the articles interesting and useful. Please consider ordering some copies and better yet, subbing to MR. Also, please forward this email to anyone or any list you think might find it of interest. Thanks. solidarity, Michael Yates MONTHLY REVIEW 122 West 27th Street, 10th floor New York, NY 10001 Tel: 212.691.2555 Fax: 212.727.3676 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] A Special Double Issue After Seattle: A New Internationalism? The protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle in November and December 1999 surprised people across the globe. Massive, militant actions took place in the United States, the stronghold of global capitalism, for the first time in decades. New alliances were built between labor and environmentalists, young and old, radicals and reformers. This special double issue of Monthly Review examines several facets of the movement that has seized the spotlight since Seattle and asks what is required for it to become truly internationalist. Articles cover a range of topics, including globalization; labor's role in the Seattle protests; a historical understanding of internationalism; and voices from the global South calling for unified strategies against capitalism. Readers familiar with recent protests against international financial institutions and transnational corporations, including the ones against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in April 2000, will find fresh analysis here and those who are new to the issues will discover clear, accessible approaches to some of the burning questions of our time. Written for a wide audience, this special issue of Monthly Review promises to be an invaluable resource for scholars as well as activists. CONTENTS: Toward a New Internationalism by the Editors Marx and Internationalism by John Bellamy Foster The Language of Globalization by Peter Marcuse Turtles, Teamsters, and Capital's Designs by William K. Tabb "Workers of All Countries, Unite:" Will This Include the U.S. Labor Movement? by Michael Yates The Future of the Labor Left by Khalil Hassan World Labor Needs Independence and Solidarity by David Bacon After Seattle: Strategic Thinking About Movement Building by Martin Hart-Landsberg Defunding the Fund, Running on the Bank by Patrick Bond Where Was the Color in Seattle? Looking for Reasons Why the Great Battle was So White by Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez Address to the South Summit by Fidel Castro MONTHLY REVIEW 122 West 27th Street, 10th floor New York, NY 10001 Tel: 212.691.2555 Fax: 212.727.3676 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To order 1-4 copies: $10 each 5-24 copies: $9 each 25-50 copies: $8.50 each name address city/state/zip check enclosed visa mastercard amex TOLL-FREE ORDERS: 1.800.670.9499
[Fwd: [BRC-NEWS] 90s Were Decade of Police Brutality]
Original Message Subject: [BRC-NEWS] 90s Were Decade of Police Brutality Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 20:01:15 -0400 From: Brian Sheppard [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] June 2000 90s Were Decade of Police Brutality [1,108 Words] By Brian Oliver Sheppard [EMAIL PROTECTED] The 1990s will be remembered by many as the beginning of the New Economy, the start of the Internet Age, and as the decade that saw the Cold War crumble as the former Soviet Union split into separate countries and abolished its previous policies. But for many in the United States, it was also a decade of egregious police misconduct. Although US Attorney General Janet Reno admitted in a press conference in April, 1995, that "there is a problem" with excessive use of force by police, much remains to be done to combat this problem. The conduct of the police in the United States, and of the justice system in general, is attracting increasingly critical attention not only from the domestic population, but from the international community as well. Data on police brutality is hard to come by. Though the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 charged the US Justice Department with collecting national statistics on complaints of police misconduct, the organization has failed to comply, according to Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch recently published the report "Shielded From Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States," sampling the conduct of 14 major city police departments between 1995 and 1998. The results are not so encouraging, and in fact many spokespeople from the analyzed police departments "resorted to name-calling and defensiveness" in response to the report, according to Human Rights Watch. This follows a pattern of cover-up and rationalization by police departments, the report indicates. "Police or public officials greet each new report of brutality with denials or explain that the act was an aberration," the report claims, "while the administrative and criminal systems that should deter these abuses by holding officers accountable instead virtually guarantee them impunity." Some accounts of police brutality were so sensational that even the media could not help but notice. An overview of the major accounts of police, and justice system, abuse, wrongful death, and travesty follows. This timeline does not mean demean or ignore any cases not here mentioned. Rather, its purpose is to provide a sampling of the major events that were picked up by the media throughout the decade that caused public skepticism to progress to its current levels (In the interest of continuity, one event from the year 2000 is also noted): o March, 1991: Rodney King is beaten with 56 baton strokes, is kicked in the head, torso, and groin, and is stunned with a Taser gun by at least 4 white officers after a high speed chase. The incident is captured on video. The Christopher Commission report quotes an officer saying "[H]e pissed us off, so I guess he needs an ambulance now" over his squad car radio after the beating. The State of California acquits the four white officers. o November, 1992: Undercover African-American officer Derwin Pannel is shot by three white police officers in New York City. Pannel was making an arrest in plain clothes but was thought to be assaulting someone. o June, 1993: 30 year-old African-American Archie Elliott is handcuffed and placed in custody in a police cruiser in Prince George County, Maryland. He is shot at 22 times while cuffed. Officers say he was resisting arrest. 14 bullets hit him, killing him. o August, 1994: Undercover officer Desmond Robinson is shot five times by white off-duty officer Peter Del Debbio in New York City. Robinson is African-American and is in plain clothes at the time. Del Debbio said he thought Robinson was involved in a crime since he was carrying a gun. o October, 1995: Jonny Gammage, cousin of pro football player Ray Seals, is killed by New Jersey police officer John Vojtas during a "routine" traffic stop. Gammage is ordered out of his car, when a police officer subdues him after suspecting the Jaguar Gammage is driving is stolen (the Jaguar was Gammage's). The officer crushes Gammage's trachea, killing him. Officer Vojtas is promoted to Sergeant and is acquitted of murder. o June, 1996: African-American Aswan Watson is shot 18 times while sitting unarmed in a stolen car in Brooklyn. Watson is killed. Officers are acquitted of charges in 1997. o July, 1996: 26 year-old African-American Nathaniel Levi Gaines, Jr., a Navy Gulf War veteran, is shot in the back by a New York City police officer. He is unarmed. This same month, 29 year-old Anthony Baez, a man of Puerto Rican descent, is put in a chokehold and strangled to death by another New York City police officer after Baez allegedly threw a football that hit a patrol car. o April, 1997: An
Re: Re: Re: Re: water water everywhere
Thanks. I know that we in California have been eyeing your water for a long time. Water tables are very tricky, but then again, there's Antartica, or if we are really clever, we can turn gasoline into water. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Careful Michael, Canada has a large STOCK of fresh water, but a limited FLOW of 'excess' fresh water. If I remember the figures correctly, only about 15 % of Canada's water could be exported without severely causing a water crisis in Canada. This would hardly solve California's water problem, never mind the rest of the worlds. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba Date sent: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 15:11:18 -0700 From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:21086] Re: Re: water water everywhere Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Canada, of course, is the OPEC of water. Rod Hay wrote: Now here I admit is a problem. Not so much in the quantity of water, but the difficulties of transporting it. The distribution of population in the world does not match the distribution of the fresh water. And or course moving the people to Northern Canada will just exacerbate the energy situation. It gets cold up there. Ask Ken, and he is not all the way up there. In Ontario while there is lots of water, there is a problem keeping it clean. A recent outbreak of E. coli bacteria, near me, is suspected to have begun when heavy runoff from farmers' fields infected the town's water system. If weather patterns are changing. It would require an immense adjustment to accommodate. Rod Michael Perelman wrote: One of the problems with this debate is the certainty being bandied about. I admit that I have not been able to read all the posts. Let me suggest that I suspect that the crisis in water will hit before the energy crisis. For many, it already has. My daughter tells me that even soggy Portland is worried about enough water. The water crisis may be even more intractable than the energy crisis -- I don't know. The first step would be to develop forms of communication, which come before organizing. Yelling at each other is exactly what not to do. Tell me how I can talk to my father or my neighbor about such things in a way that they can understand. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
thanks
I am glad to see that things have calmed down. Thanks. Much as I appreciated the energy, passion and wit, the disagreeable part depreciated it. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Cold War Poison / The Paducah legacy
The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY.) June 26, 2000, Monday MET/METRO SECTION: NEWS Pg.01a HEADLINE: Cold War Poison; The Paducah legacy; Toxins altering life in fragile ecosystem Reassurances breed skepticism BYLINE: JAMES R. CARROLL and JAMES MALONE, The Courier-Journal SOURCE: STAFF DATELINE: PADUCAH, Ky. Nearly every creature that swims, walks or flies near the Paducah uranium plant carries unseen poisons that have escaped from the nuclear-fuel factory. From the furtive mink to the darting sunfish to the soaring redtailed hawk, nature's denizens now have new, lifelong companions - chemical and radiological contamination, reports obtained by The Courier-Journal show. Toxic chemicals have entered the Western Kentucky food chain, and abnormalities similar to birth defects have already shown up in at least one species. A half-century of emitting, burying and dumping waste from the vast plant built to safeguard America has caused ecological damage for miles around, a 10-month investigation by the newspaper has found. Streams, ponds, underground water, soil, plants and animals have been contaminated with some of the most dangerous chemicals known, including plutonium and dioxin. The U.S. Department of Energy, Kentucky officials and the company that leases and runs the plant say environmental conditions at the site are improving. They note that polluted areas on plant grounds and in a surrounding wildlife area, which is used for hunting, fishing and camping, are marked and roped or fenced off. And they have assured workers and the public that the contaminants pose no ''imminent'' danger. ''When I walk around that place, I am not worried for my health,'' said David Michaels, the assistant secretary of energy for the environment, safety and health. ''At present, it (the threat to public health and workers) is extremely low. And I'm comfortable and confident saying that.'' ''I would not be afraid to live there,'' said Robert Logan, commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection. But the official judgment on the contamination is being met with deep and mounting skepticism from many plant workers, environmentalists and residents - because much remains unknown about the extent of pollution and about past operations at the secretive plant, which was once part of the government's Cold War nuclear weapons complex. ''They are putting a soft spin on everything, the same as they've always done,'' said Merryman Kemp, a businesswoman who has lived in Paducah since 1965. A member of a citizens' advisory board on the plant, she is worried that contamination is more widespread than is being admitted. ''I've been buying bottled water. I've quit eating the fruit off the two trees in my back yard,'' said Kemp, who lives about 10 miles from the plant. ''I'd like to move.'' BEYOND THE FENCE Records show pollution didn't stay within plant For nearly a year, The Courier-Journal has examined thousands of pages of public and secret government records obtained - through state and federal freedom-of-information laws - internal plant documents and files from lawsuits, and has interviewed state, federal and plant officials, scientists and community leaders. The findings include these: = Fish studied by University of Kentucky scientists for at least 12 years show increasing contamination with various toxic metals. A 1998 UK report found that Big Bayou Creek and other streams near the plant contain 50 to 100 times as much lead as they did a decade earlier. = Dioxin - the potent chemical that caused cancer among the residents of New York state's Love Canal neighborhood and was so prevalent in Times Beach, Mo., the town had to be destroyed - was found in soil samples from five drainage areas outside the plant fence in the early 1990s. The levels at Paducah weren't on the scale of Love Canal or Times Beach, but they exceeded standards the state had set for the Energy Department. The contaminated soil is now stored at the plant in more than 11,000 55-gallon drums, most of which are buried. = Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which cause cancer and other diseases in animals and possibly in humans, have been found at levels ranging from traces to significant concentrations in fish, hawks, mice, rats, mink, raccoons and a bobcat. = Incomplete records suggest that almost 9 ounces of highly radioactive plutonium were released into the air and water and buried at the plant, greater than the amounts released at most other Department of Energy nuclear sites. Traces of plutonium and neptunium were found in soil samples 11 years ago as far as nine miles from the plant, and traces of neptunium were found in apples, but there apparently was no further investigation. = Streams that flow off site are now believed to be carrying small amounts of radioactive material into the Ohio River, the DOE recently conceded. Though diluted by the Ohio's huge flow,
Navy Seeks Limits on Its Cleanup at El Toro
* Los Angeles Times June 27, 2000, Tuesday, Orange County Edition SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 1; Metro Desk HEADLINE: NAVY SEEKS LIMITS ON ITS CLEANUP AT EL TORO; UNIT WANTS TO CURB ITS RESPONSIBILITY TO $8 MILLION OF THE $35 MILLION NEEDED TO SOLVE THE BASE'S GROUND-WATER WOES. BYLINE: SEEMA MEHTA, TIMES STAFF WRITER Despite repeated pledges to clean up all pollution at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the Navy now wants to be released from liability for any water contamination that might be discovered there in the future. Under a proposed settlement signed by the Department of Justice this month, the Navy would pay $8 million of $35 million required to clean up a 3-mile-wide tainted ground-water plume "in exchange for not being held responsible for any future liability that could result from 'unknown contaminants,'" according to a report from the state Regional Water Quality Control Board in Santa Ana. The rest of the water cleanup would be funded by three area water districts, which want to bring the water up to drinking standards. Several Navy officials declined to comment on the proposed settlement, directing inquiries to a Department of Justice attorney. Attempts to reach the lawyer after business hours were unsuccessful. The regional board, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control share oversight of cleanup of the site, which is on the federal Superfund list of toxic hot spots. The ground-water cleanup is in addition to more than $100 million being spent by the Navy on other contamination at the base. Plans to turn the base, which operated from 1943 to 1999, into a commercial airport have sharply divided the county. The plume flowing from under the base into ground water beneath Irvine is tainted with decades-old contaminants. There are high levels of dissolved solids, which likely originate from early agricultural uses before the military took over the land. Trichloroethylene (TCE), a possible carcinogen, is also present from heavy use of a toxic solvent to degrease aircraft. The contamination plume, stretching one mile by three miles, is moving one foot per day, and is expected to contaminate local drinking water in 10 to 20 years if it is not cleaned up, said Ron Wildermuth, spokesman for the Orange County Water District. The $35-million cleanup project includes a de-salter, which would reduce dissolved solids; and air stripping, which would force the TCE out into filters. Operation and maintenance of the de-salter and air stripping is projected to cost $2 million per year, with the Navy expected to pick up $450,000. The projects are expected to bring the water to drinking standards, Wildermuth said. But, according to regional water officials, the water districts are reluctant to sign the agreement because of recent concerns that the water is also contaminated by radionuclides and MTBE, a so-called oxygenate that helps gasoline burn more completely. Wildermuth said the water districts are negotiating with the Navy over the settlement and liability. "That is a matter being looked at right now," he said. He said both the MTBE and radionuclides, which come from natural sources or landfills on the base, are probably treatable. "But we just want to make sure if something comes up, we can go to the table and discuss it," he said. Wildermuth declined to comment on what the water district would do if the Navy is unwilling to change its stance on future liability. "We want to protect the public--it's our primary concern," he said. However, liability is also a concern for county officials and taxpayers, who unexpectedly were forced to pay $4 million to clean decades-old ground-water contamination that was found during construction of a terminal that opened in 1991 at John Wayne Airport. It remains unclear who would accept liability if the settlement is signed. County officials were either unreachable or declined to comment Monday night. Environmental contamination has been a longtime headache at the base. In December, the State Lands Commission delayed turning over the facility to Orange County because of concerns about environmental cleanup. * Times Staff Writer Jean O. Pasco contributed to this report. * * Los Angeles Times June 28, 2000, Wednesday, Orange County Edition SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 1; Metro Desk LENGTH: 593 words HEADLINE: CLEANUP AT EL TORO COULD HIT TAXPAYERS; SUPERVISOR SMITH SAYS HE'LL BRING IT UP IN WASHINGTON. WATER DISTRICTS ARE FIGHTING TO KEEP THE NAVY LIABLE. BYLINE: DAVID REYES, STAFF WRITER Concerned county supervisors say Orange County taxpayers rather than the U.S. Navy would be forced to foot the bill for unexpected cleanup or litigation costs from toxic El Toro Marine Corps Air Station ground water, according to a proposed settlement. Chairman Chuck Smith said he found such a proposal "totally unacceptable." Smith said,
Re: Re: re: Tautology
This is all mixed up, mostly incorrect. Some types of tautology are true because of definitions. The types of tautologies recognised by philosophers such as Kant. "All bachelors are unmarried" As Kant puts it the predicate "unmarried" is included in the definition of "bachelor". One could say that these sorts of statements are in a sense true by definition. However a tautology such as "It is raining or it is not raining" is not true by definition in any straightforward way. It is true because of the manner in which the truth functional operators "not" and "or " work to form compound propositions. The fact that something you write down is a tautology (or a contradiction) does not relieve one of any burden of proof. Writing down "It is raining or it is not raining" does not prove it is a tautology and the fact that something is true does not show that it is a tautology. One has to prove that it is a tautology. For example by constructing a truth table. A tautuology is not simply true. It is necessarily true or true for formal reasons not because of empirical facts. Cheers, Ken Hanly Rod Hay wrote: Yes, of course, Charles. Rod Charles Brown wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/30/00 01:25PM After thinking better of my sarcastic tone to Carrol's message. Let me explain. A tautology is a statement that is true by definition. That is, it is always true. A = A is a tautology. A = B is not a tautology. That is, it might be false. Similarly all true statements are not tautologies. I.e., A = B might be true. __ CB: Sorry, couldn't help saying this since we are in a logical vein. You mean "not all true statements are tautologies" , I believe. I agree with your post, though. _ If all statements were tautologies, math and logic would be very easy. Anything you write down would be true. No need to prove anything. -- -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Position in the World-System andNationalEmissions of](fwd)
I don't get it. What would it be like not to separate livestock from grain? Have the livestock wandering through your grain fields? What system of agriculture ever suggested that. Maybe I am being flippant, but what you say makes absolutely no sense to me. Livestock are not separated from pasture usually except where there is no pasture. Are you seriously suggesting that there is some compelling reason to put livestock back in grain fields rather than feeding them hay, and grains grown in other fields and letting them pasture? Perhaps you could give me some references that explain the great virtues of such a system. Do the MOnthly Review people suggest this! Anyway your original statements made a big deal about transporting grain long distances. I agree that this is neither here nor there except as an act of gross economic stupidity to use distant grain rather than local given the same price. You seemed to place some importance on this but I see that you meant something else that still makes no sense to me. Do you think that there is some special significance and organic holiness in cattle stomping through grain and shitting and thus returning goodies to the soil or what? It is recycled on fields from feedlots nows, and in pastures surely there is no metabolic rift as anyone who has walked on cowpaths can tell you. The cow patties are there in all their natural glory. I always wondered about the Lord suggesting people lie down in green pastures. Cheers, Ken Hanly Louis Proyect wrote: Ken Hanly: available locally. Even hay may be trucked long distances in case of local shortages, but this would be the exception not the rule. Feed materials are bought by feedlots from the nearest sources. You don't seem to get the point. It is not simply about closeness or distance. It is about ORGANIC processes. The separation of livestock from grain is what Marx called a "metabolic rift". A miss is as good as a mile on these questions. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Indians Stalk a Silent, Deadly Enemy in the Prairie
The New York Times June 19, 2000, Monday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 4; Column 3; Foreign Desk HEADLINE: Tsuu T'ina Journal; Indians Stalk a Silent, Deadly Enemy in the Prairie BYLINE: By JAMES BROOKE DATELINE: TSUU T'INA, Alberta, June 1 As a boy during the Korean War, Samuel Simon would ride his horse through buffalo grass here to a prairie bluff, where he watched Canadian war jets fly out of Calgary, scream overhead and then unleash ground-shaking rockets on a bombing range built on tribal land. "We would watch the planes flying over and shooting rockets," Mr. Simon, who is now 58 years old, said recently. "They used old cars as targets. But sometimes, we would see two rockets and then just one explosion." Standing on the same bluff almost half a century later, Mr. Simon surveyed a different view. To the east, the suburbs of Calgary have swallowed the old air base and now lap at the edges of the Indian reserve. To the west, with the snow-covered Rockies as a backdrop, teams of Tsuu T'ina Indians trained as ordnance-disposal workers methodically probed the prairie with metal detectors. A military ambulance was parked on a hill, its red cross prominent in the dun-colored landscape. It is a little known footnote to the military history of North America that when wars loomed in the 20th century, military planners in Canada and the United States repeatedly turned to the native peoples of the West and took control, through leases or outright expropriation, of large swaths of land for bombing ranges. In the United States, at least 16 tribes have land contaminated with the litter of bombs, or with a more dangerous kind of pollution: unexploded bombs lying buried in the ground. The list includes buried ammunition in two native areas in Alaska, an old gunnery range at the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona, a target range on Timbisha Shoshone land in Death Valley, Calif., a bomb-testing range on the Red Lake Reservation in Minnesota, a weapons testing range on Paiute land in Nevada, old ranges on the lands of three New Mexico pueblos, and four bombing ranges in South Dakota including the 54-square-mile Badlands Bombing Range on Lakota Sioux land in Pine Ridge. In Canada, the pattern was similar, with old bombing ranges on half a dozen Indian reserves from British Columbia to Ontario. Brian Lloyd, a former British Army bomb-disposal expert who directs cleanup operations here, said: "In Canada, the military acted like a giant, using Indian land like stepping stones across the country. You find an Indian nation, and you find range contamination." Agreement on that comes easily on this reservation of 1,200 people, linguistic cousins of the Navajos and Apaches of the American Southwest. "They figured, 'It's Indian land, and what the heck, if we use bombs and explosives and the Indians come and blow themselves up, what's the loss?' " Mr. Simon said bitterly. One early spring morning in 1953, when he was 11, Mr. Simon was out on the range, picking up casings to sell to a Calgary scrap metal dealer. He recalls retrieving from the brush a shell without a top. After moving it, he continued, "I saw heat waves. I thought, 'This thing is going to blow up.' " He tried to throw it, but the ice-covered casing slipped in his hands. The ensuing explosion threw him 150 feet. "My grandmother, my brother and my auntie were all blown flat," he said, all wounded in the blast. Today, he carries 11 pieces of shrapnel in his body. But now, things are changing. On March 31, the 90-year military lease on Tsuu T'ina land expired, ending military control over 12,000 acres -- one-sixth of the reservation -- that had started in 1910. As other Canadian and American tribes study cleaning up old bombing ranges on their lands, this one plans to hold in July what it describes as North America's first native conference on military cleanup. For this tribe, which operates a business park and golf courses, there is profit in explosives disposal. In 1986, after the Canadian military did a halfhearted cleanup job here, the tribe formed the Wolf's Flat Ordnance Disposal Corporation, the only such native-owned and operated company in North America. Working on government contracts, this company, with 136 full- and part-time employees, has also cleared mines in Kosovo, Panama and Nicaragua. The recent protests against the use of part of the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico as a live-fire training site for the American Navy have fostered hopes for eventual cleanup contracts there. Right now, however, Tsuu T'ina leaders complain that the American ordnance-disposal market is closed to Canadians because of Pentagon rules requiring technicians certified in the United States. Canada's government, which promotes land-mine clearance worldwide, has paid the tribal company to clean up the range here, believing that the natives had more incentive to clean up their
