radio Cancun
http://www.radiocancun.org/ To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules for originality. There aren't any. [Les Paul]
sugar, US-Brazil
Brazilians Soured by U.S. Sugar Tariffs By Jon Jeter Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, September 10, 2003; Page A12 SERTAOZINHO, Brazil -- Wearing a straw hat, shin guards and goggles, Joaquim Batista dos Santos swings his machete in wide, looping arcs, hacking away at the eight-foot high stalks of sugar cane like a baseball player warming up in the on-deck circle. I go home tired but I am happy at the end of the day, said the 43-year old father of twins, who earns $260 a month, an enviable sum in this country, where millions subsist on less than the minimum monthly wage of about $75. My wife, my babies, they are happy and healthy. This is a good job. No one quits. Everyone wants to work here. My friends ask me all the time if there are openings down at the sugar mill. This is harvest season in Brazil's sweet spot, the red-earthed prairie in the southeastern corner of the country that produces more sugar than practically any place on earth. But little of the sugar grown here appears on American shelves or kitchen tables, a glaring example of the protectionist measures adopted by wealthy countries to shelter their industries from poor countries' abundant farm exports. With both plentiful, fertile land and available workers, the 244 percent tariff that the U.S. government levies on sugar imports above established quotas is a barrier that stands in Brazil's way of dramatically expanding its sugar industry and potentially dominating the American market. So scarce are jobs here that when a supermarket in Sao Paulo last week ran a newspaper advertisement for a new cashier, more than 3,000 people showed up the next day to apply. Brazil could easily double its sugar production almost overnight, said Maurilio Biagi Filho, president of the Companhia Energetica Santa Elisa, a sugar mill here that employs 5,000 workers. We certainly would have no problem finding workers if the U.S. lifted its tariff on our sugar today, he added, exaggerating to make his point. There is no reason we couldn't supply Americans with all the sugar they need by noon tomorrow. While business and government officials in the United States, Japan and the European Union proselytize about the benefits of unrestricted trade in coaxing developing countries to open their markets to foreign goods, they continue to use tariffs, export subsidies and health regulations to block imports in the one industry in which countries from the poorer southern hemisphere can compete: agriculture. The chasm between rhetoric and reality in wealthy countries is likely to be the most contentious point between rich and poor nations at the World Trade Organization's meeting that opens today in Cancun, Mexico. Critics of globalization say there is a glaring inequity in the world trading system. Even as international trade grows, they say, profits go disproportionately to the rich, often at the expense of countries in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, whose share of global exports -- typically raw materials, meats, fruits, vegetables, textiles and footwear -- continues to fall. Last week, Brazil led a coalition of 20 nations -- including India, China and South Africa -- that submitted a proposal to ease barriers to agricultural trade. That document is a counterproposal to a draft from the United States and the European Union on agricultural subsidies, which the Brazilian-led group contends did not go far enough in reducing agricultural trade barriers. Brazilian officials say the G-20 coalition countries are home to about 65 percent of the world's farm labor force. These trade talks will succeed or fail based on what progress we make on this issue, said Rubens Barbosa, Brazil's ambassador to the United States and a specialist in trade issues. We believe that free trade means free trade. Brazil, the fifth-most-populous country in the world with 182 million people, is struggling just to make ends meet in the era of expanding global trade. Foreign debt represents more than half of Brazil's gross domestic product of $1.34 trillion. The country's interest rates have hovered near 26 percent for most of the year, and unemployment in such cities as Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro is more than15 percent. What the country has in abundance is rich, fertile land that combines with an equatorial climate and typically ideal amounts of rainfall for one of the most agriculturally-blessed countries in the world. Everything that is planted here grows, wrote the chronicler for Pedro Alvarez Cabral, the Portuguese explorer who led the first European expedition to Brazil in 1500, in a famously ecstatic letter home. Agriculture represents 27 percent of Brazil's gross domestic product, a quarter of all employment and nearly 40 percent of all exports, according to Brazilian economists. Conversely, the heaviest tariffs in the United States fall squarely on imported agricultural products. The maximum tariff that Brazil imposes on imported goods is 35 percent.
Re: Micropayments and publishing on the internet
Very interesting, but is it true? I thought Apple was making some kind of money on selling tunes over the net??? As for creative types preferring fame over money. I think there is a lot of truth to that. Take poets for example, they wouldn't make that much money from traditional publishers anyway; so the prospect and attraction of having one of your poems on everyone's lips and in everyone's consciousness is great. One of the greatest English poems is by anonymous/ 14th century: Western wind, when wilt thou blow The small rain down can rain... Christ, that my love were in my arms, And I in my bed again. I remember thinking once that if I were capable of writing something this beautiful, I wouldn't care if I got credit or money for it...providing people just got a chance to read it. Now here is the internet and that possiblity is realized, but it seems that the sheer volume of stuff would minimize the chance that such a poem could be found. I mean, what would I google for: truly great love poems? There is also the truth that a lot of people want to read/be aware of stuff that is pre-selected, vetted by some market or other authority. This puts them in the know. In a sense, the growing internet space, polarizes even further the chaotic but free from the pre-selected but costly cultural product. So how would this affect our notions of what constitutes culture or value in art? I guess the time has come to write the seminal essay on Art in the Age of the Internet ...an updated version of Bejamin's Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Just thinking out loud here...but the other huge internet topic would be Political Organization and Information in the Age of the Internet. I'm off the read a book about the Zapatistas -- perhaps that will have some clues. Anyway, thanks for the article. Joanna Doyle Saylor wrote: Hello All, Clay Shirky caught my attention about a year ago. Shirky thinks about the economics of the web. In this case Shirky considers why micropayments wouldn't work. He takes into account exponents of micropayments like Scott McCloud. One facet of Shirky's claim is that content on the web is not tied to the form. For examples the current music industry, and the current movie industry tie their production to a form. CD's etc. We buy the form, and the content comes along. Shirky can be found at Shirky dot com. Doyle Fame vs Fortune: Micropayments and Free Content First published September 5, 2003 on the Networks, Economics, and Culture mailing list. Micropayments, small digital payments of between a quarter and a fraction of a penny, made (yet another) appearance this summer with Scott McCloud's online comic, The Right Number, accompanied by predictions of a rosy future for micropayments. To read The Right Number, you have to sign up for the BitPass micropayment system; once you have an account, the comic itself costs 25 cents. BitPass will fail, as FirstVirtual, Cybercoin, Millicent, Digicash, Internet Dollar, Pay2See, and many others have in the decade since Digital Silk Road, the paper that helped launch interest in micropayments. These systems didn't fail because of poor implementation; they failed because the trend towards freely offered content is an epochal change, to which micropayments are a pointless response. The failure of BitPass is not terribly interesting in itself. What is interesting is the way the failure of micropayments, both past and future, illustrates the depth and importance of putting publishing tools in the hands of individuals. In the face of a force this large, user-pays schemes can't simply be restored through minor tinkering with payment systems, because they don't address the cause of that change -- a huge increase the power and reach of the individual creator. Why Micropayment Systems Don't Work The people pushing micropayments believe that the dollar cost of goods is the thing most responsible for deflecting readers from buying content, and that a reduction in price to micropayment levels will allow creators to begin charging for their work without deflecting readers. This strategy doesn't work, because the act of buying anything, even if the price is very small, creates what Nick Szabo calls mental transaction costs, the energy required to decide whether something is worth buying or not, regardless of price. The only business model that delivers money from sender to receiver with no mental transaction costs is theft, and in many ways, theft is the unspoken inspiration for micropayment systems. Like the salami slicing exploit in computer crime, micropayment believers imagine that such tiny amounts of money can be extracted from the user that they will not notice, while the overall volume will cause these payments to add up to something significant for the recipient. But of course the users do notice, because they are being asked to buy something. Mental transaction costs create a minimum level of inconvenience that cannot be removed simply by
Re: Iraq Today: Pirate, pillagers, and smugglers plague Basra port
Sounds like chaos to me. The breakdown of the State due, not to class conscious activity, but to a free-market turned into a free-for-all--class divided social relations without benefit of the rule of bourgeois law and its police. Too bad the breakdown of the Iraqui State isn't an example of anarchy at work. Socialist greetings, Mike B) --- Michael Pollak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [An idyllic scene from the quiet, British, Southern part of the country] URL: http://www.iraq-today.com/news/business/9.html Economy Date posted: 09.09.2003. Law order Pirates, pillagers, and smugglers plague Basra port By Ahmad Mukhtar ABUL KHASIB - Port manager Hamid al-Jabriy says he can stand at the waterline and see pirate speedboats, armed with RPG rocket launchers and PK machineguns, some 500 meters off the wharves in the narrows of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, waiting for their prey. The guards at his gate, meanwhile, shrug and say they can't possibly do their job - they don't have the guns to fight looters, and even if they did manage to kill one it would only land them in a tribal blood feud. One of them recalls how he once got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. When he came back, his cot was missing. By land and by sea, the port of Abu Filoos in the town of Abul Khasib has a bit of a security problem. Iraq's second port after Umm Qasr, Abu Filoos - roughly translatable as Mr Moneybags - used to fuel the thriving commercial markets of Basra. Now, it's become the sugar daddy for pillagers who pray on whatever commerce dares to enter. The guards, says al-Jabiry says, fears looters -if you shoot them, you'll get pulled into a tribal dispute which will end either in revenge killing or the payment of blood money compensation. Some in the area have decided that if you can beat them, join them. Painted on the vow of a vessel docked at the nearby al-Ashar wharf is the following warning: This ship is under the protection of the al-Qaramsha - a tribe once known for trade in dairy products and scrap, now for racketeering. Al-Jabiry, for his part, says that he appealed to the Americans, the British, and the local governor for help. In desperation, he appealed to local tribal leaders and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who provided him with weapons and fast boats to chase the pirates. However, his quarry can always take refuge on the Iranian side of the waterway. Another problem is administrative disorder. After the port was looted during the war, officials turned to private subcontractors to provide equipment and longshoremen. The private businessmen, however, generally deal directly with the owners of vessels, rarely coordinating activities with the port administration. The result is chaos on the wharves. Coming into Iraq via Abu Filoos are cars, plastic goods, and canned foodstuffs. As for export, many commodities that are either required for industrial development or are likely to have been stolen are banned from leaving the country, so little more than cottonseed, wool, and jute go out. Legally, that is. Abu Filoos officials know very well that they are a haven for smugglers. Iraqi fishermen, they say, used to be considered vital to the country's food stability, so the old regime gave them a quota of diesel to motor down the Shatt al-Arab to fish in the Arabian Gulf. An intelligence outpost at the mouth of the sea would verify their catch to make sure they were doing what they were supposed to do. These days, however, the security outpost is gone, but the fishermen still receive their diesel. Instead of bothering about the Arabian Gulf chasing fish, port officials say, many fishermen simply sell their quota to passing boats. Officials recall one fishing boat that demanded a refill of diesel after its initial quota had run out. It blocked entrance to a wharf to a cargo vessel, claiming that it didn't even have the fuel to motor out. Rather than give into blackmail, the officials proudly recall, they simply got a lift and hoisted the offending vessel away. Despite the port's troubles, Al-Jabiry thinks most of his problems could be solved by centralized policing. A strike force armed with fast boats to chase smugglers and pirates, he says, would perfect the solution. = * Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity. Albert Einstein http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site
Re: Iraq Today: Pirate, pillagers, and smugglers plague Basra port
it's a case of the Failed Leviathan. When the Lawman on the white horse (Hobbes' Leviathan) rides into town, he's supposed to not just toss the bandits out (as in the classic flick, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN) -- he's supposed to create law and order so that the folks who sacrifice their independence to him can live normal lives. (or so the scenario goes...) But this Lawman wasn't really interested in that task, being more interested in exploiting the town for his own use and not thinking through what was necessary to maintain or create order. He ends up being more like the late Mobutu Sese Seko, exploiting the country while destroying order. Jim -Original Message- From: Mike Ballard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wed 9/10/2003 3:36 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Iraq Today: Pirate, pillagers, and smugglers plague Basra port Sounds like chaos to me. The breakdown of the State due, not to class conscious activity, but to a free-market turned into a free-for-all--class divided social relations without benefit of the rule of bourgeois law and its police. Too bad the breakdown of the Iraqui State isn't an example of anarchy at work. Socialist greetings, Mike B) --- Michael Pollak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [An idyllic scene from the quiet, British, Southern part of the country] URL: http://www.iraq-today.com/news/business/9.html Economy Date posted: 09.09.2003. Law order Pirates, pillagers, and smugglers plague Basra port By Ahmad Mukhtar ABUL KHASIB - Port manager Hamid al-Jabriy says he can stand at the waterline and see pirate speedboats, armed with RPG rocket launchers and PK machineguns, some 500 meters off the wharves in the narrows of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, waiting for their prey. The guards at his gate, meanwhile, shrug and say they can't possibly do their job - they don't have the guns to fight looters, and even if they did manage to kill one it would only land them in a tribal blood feud. One of them recalls how he once got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. When he came back, his cot was missing. By land and by sea, the port of Abu Filoos in the town of Abul Khasib has a bit of a security problem. Iraq's second port after Umm Qasr, Abu Filoos - roughly translatable as Mr Moneybags - used to fuel the thriving commercial markets of Basra. Now, it's become the sugar daddy for pillagers who pray on whatever commerce dares to enter. The guards, says al-Jabiry says, fears looters -if you shoot them, you'll get pulled into a tribal dispute which will end either in revenge killing or the payment of blood money compensation. Some in the area have decided that if you can beat them, join them. Painted on the vow of a vessel docked at the nearby al-Ashar wharf is the following warning: This ship is under the protection of the al-Qaramsha - a tribe once known for trade in dairy products and scrap, now for racketeering. Al-Jabiry, for his part, says that he appealed to the Americans, the British, and the local governor for help. In desperation, he appealed to local tribal leaders and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who provided him with weapons and fast boats to chase the pirates. However, his quarry can always take refuge on the Iranian side of the waterway. Another problem is administrative disorder. After the port was looted during the war, officials turned to private subcontractors to provide equipment and longshoremen. The private businessmen, however, generally deal directly with the owners of vessels, rarely coordinating activities with the port administration. The result is chaos on the wharves. Coming into Iraq via Abu Filoos are cars, plastic goods, and canned foodstuffs. As for export, many commodities that are either required for industrial development or are likely to have
Re: A question to Nomi
Sabri, The book is called Money for Nothing - The Corporate Mugging of America. It's being published by The New Press, the same publishers as for Doug's book, After the New Economy, and will be out Spring 2004. Here's part of the blurb that will be in the Spring catalog: In the first years of the Bush administration some of America's most prominent corporate executives cashed out billions of dollars of stock and stock options before driving their companies to ruin through fraud and bankruptcy. They left in their wake a tangle of lost jobs, depleted pensions and shattered lives. To write off the corruption as no more than unbridled greed on the part of a few is an oversimplification. Rather, as Nomi Prins shows in this devastating expose, corporate malfeasance resulted from a mixture of hollow legislation, a false sense of entitlement, and utter lack of accountability. Years of deregulation obliterated the rules of responsible corporate behavior, the stock market roared on the back of phony balance sheets; politicians and regulatory agencies were MIA. The result? Executives won and ordinary Americans lost. With the knowing eye of an insider, Nomi Prins uncovers the old boy networks and hot money flows between Wall Street, Corporate America and Capitol Hill and exposes the white wash of reforms brought in to control them. Nomi -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sabri Oncu Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 8:07 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] A question to Nomi Hi Nomi, I was reading Doug's archives and there I saw Ian mentioning a book you wrote or are writing. Can you give me some information about it? Best, Sabri PS: My apologies to the rest for posting this to the list. My other machine died and with it gone Nomi's e-mail address.
critique of intellectual property rights
Any suggestion of ARTICLES (and downloadable!!) on intellectual property rights? Thanks. E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics Simon's Rock College of Bard 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, MA 01230 Tel: 413 528 7488 Fax: 413 528 7365 www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
Re: critique of intellectual property rights
Hi, Here are a few: http://www.monthlyreview.org/0103perelman.htm http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/anarchism.html Please let me know what else you find Thanks Dave --- e. ahmet tonak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Any suggestion of ARTICLES (and downloadable!!) on intellectual property rights? Thanks. E. Ahmet __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: critique of intellectual property rights
Look around here -- www.cepr.net -- for Dean Baker's stuff. Also go here -- http://www.lessig.org/ max -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of e. ahmet tonak Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 11:20 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: critique of intellectual property rights Any suggestion of ARTICLES (and downloadable!!) on intellectual property rights? Thanks. E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics Simon's Rock College of Bard 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, MA 01230 Tel: 413 528 7488 Fax: 413 528 7365 www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
Re: critique of intellectual property rights
- Original Message - From: e. ahmet tonak [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 8:19 AM Subject: [PEN-L] critique of intellectual property rights Any suggestion of ARTICLES (and downloadable!!) on intellectual property rights? Thanks. E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics == http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_1/nayyer/ http://james-boyle.com/ http://www.law.duke.edu/centersprograms.html But, hey; why stop at intellectual property? Just type intellectual property + legal realism or marxism or property and whathave you into Google and you'll get lots of great stuff. Ian
Re: critique of intellectual property rights
Alan Freeman has a Marxist critique of intellectual property rights. His e-mail used to be and may still be [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Eubulides [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 9:04 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] critique of intellectual property rights - Original Message - From: e. ahmet tonak [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 8:19 AM Subject: [PEN-L] critique of intellectual property rights Any suggestion of ARTICLES (and downloadable!!) on intellectual property rights? Thanks. E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics == http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_1/nayyer/ http://james-boyle.com/ http://www.law.duke.edu/centersprograms.html But, hey; why stop at intellectual property? Just type intellectual property + legal realism or marxism or property and whathave you into Google and you'll get lots of great stuff. Ian
Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)
Counterpunch, September 10, 2003 Fraternally Yours, Chris: Hitchens as Model Apostate By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN Editors' note: Norman Finkelstein is writing a political memoir, which will serve as the introduction to a new edition of his book, The Rise and Fall of Palestine, to be published by New Press next year. Below is an excerpt on the phenomenon of political apostasy, focusing primarily on Hitchens' recent grab-bag of writings in support of the US attack on Iraq. The title refers to how ex-leftist Christopher Hitchens used to sign off his correspondence. CounterPunch's forthcoming The Politics of Anti-Semitism, has a fine essay by Finkelstein, on his bizarre experience of being attacked in Germany as an anti-Semite. AC/JSC I'm occasionally asked whether I still consider myself a Marxist. Even if my faith had lapsed, I wouldn't advertise it, not from shame at having been wrong (although admittedly this would be a factor) but rather from fear of arousing even a faint suspicion of opportunism. To borrow from the lingo of a former academic fad, if, in public life, the signifier is I'm no longer a Marxist, then the signified usually is, I'm selling out. No doubt one can, in light of further study and life experience, come to repudiate past convictions. One might also decide that youthful ideals, especially when the responsibilities of family kick in and the prospects for radical change dim while the certainty of one's finitude sharpens, are too heavy a burden to bear; although it might be hoped that this accommodation, however understandable (if disappointing), were accomplished with candor and an appropriate degree of humility rather than, what's usually the case, scorn for those who keep plugging away. It is when the phenomenon of political apostasy is accompanied by fanfare and fireworks that it becomes truly repellent. Depending on where along the political spectrum power is situated, apostates almost always make their corrective leap in that direction, discovering the virtues of the status quo. The last thing you can be accused of is having turned your coat, Thomas Mann wrote a convert to National Socialism right after Hitler's seizure of power. You always wore it the 'right' way around. If apostasy weren't conditioned by power considerations, one would anticipate roughly equal movements in both directions. But that's never been the case. The would-be apostate almost always pulls towards power's magnetic field, rarely away. However elaborate the testimonials on how one came to see the light, the impetus behind political apostasy is--pardon my cynicism--a fairly straightforward, uncomplicated affair: to cash in, or keep cashing in, on earthly pleasures. Indeed, an apostate can even capitalize on the past to increase his or her current exchange value. Professional ex-radical Todd Gitlin never fails to mention, when denouncing those to his left, that he was a former head of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Never mind that this was four decades ago; although president of my sixth-grade class 40 years ago, I don't keep bringing it up. Shouldn't there be a statute of limitations on the exploitation of one's political past? In any event, it's hard to figure why an acknowledgment of former errors should enhance one's current credibility. If, by a person's own admission, he or she had got it all wrong, why should anyone pay heed to his or her new opinions? Doesn't it make more sense attending to those who got there sooner rather than later? A member of the Flat-Earth Society who suddenly discovers the world is round doesn't get to keynote an astronomers' convention. Indeed, the prudent inference would seem to be, once an idiot, always an idiot. It's child's play to assemble a lengthy list--Roger Garaudy, Boris Yeltsin, David Horowitz, Bernard Henri-Levy--bearing out this commonsensical wisdom. Yet, an apostate is usually astute enough to understand that, in order to catch the public eye and reap the attendant benefits, merely registering this or that doubt about one's prior convictions, or nuanced disagreements with former comrades (which, after all, is how a reasoned change of heart would normally evolve), won't suffice. For, incremental change, or fundamental change by accretion, doesn't get the buzz going: there must be a dramatic rupture with one's past. Conversion and zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse. A rite of passage for apostates peculiar to U.S. political culture is bashing Noam Chomsky. It's the political equivalent of a bar mitzvah, a ritual signaling that one has grown up--i.e., grown out of one's childish past. It's hard to pick up an article or book by ex-radicals--Gitlin's Letters to a Young Activist, Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism--that doesn't include a hysterical attack on him. Behind this venom there's also a transparent psychological factor
Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)
Louis Proyect wrote: A rite of passage for apostates peculiar to U.S. political culture is bashing Noam Chomsky. It's the political equivalent of a bar mitzvah, a ritual signaling that one has grown up--i.e., grown out of one's childish past. It's hard to pick up an article or book by ex-radicals--Gitlin's Letters to a Young Activist, Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism--that doesn't include a hysterical attack on him. Behind this venom there's also a transparent psychological factor at play. Chomsky mirrors their idealistic past as well as sordid present, an obstinate reminder that they once had principles but no longer do, that they sold out but he didn't. Hating to be reminded, they keep trying to shatter the glass. He's the demon from the past that, after recantation, no amount of incantation can exorcise. one wonders what marc cooper's latest opinion about chomsky is ;-). --ravi
Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)
--- Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Counterpunch, September 10, 2003 Fraternally Yours, Chris: Hitchens as Model Apostate By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN A very nice job, better than the creep deserves. jks __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)
Norman Finkelstein wrote: A rite of passage for apostates peculiar to U.S. political culture is bashing Noam Chomsky. Unfortunately for Hitchens, he wrote a spirited defense of Chomsky for Grand Street in the mid-1980s. Hitch's webmaster/towelboy Peter Kilander used to have a copy on his website but took it down when it became inconvenient. Doug
Environment Conference (Interdisciplinary) / Boston 2004
10th International INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE ON THE ENVIRONMENT www.assumption.edu/iea BOSTON, USA , JULY 1-4, 2004 Boston Park Plaza Hotel Towers CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS (Deadline for Registration: April 30, 2004) The Interdisciplinary Environmental Association (IEA), in conjunction with Assumption College, invites you to participate in the 10th International INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE ON THE ENVIRONMENT open to environmental practitioners, academics, students and all interested persons regardless of background. You may participate as panel and/or workshop organizer, presenter of one or two abstracts or papers, chair, moderator, discussant, or observer. The deadline for abstract submission and participation is April 30, 2004. All papers will pass a blind peer review process for publication consideration in the INTERDISCIPLINARY ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW. For more information, please contact us as follows: IEA, Kevin L. Hickey Demetri Kantarelis Conference Co-Chairs, Economics Global Studies Department Assumption College, 500 Salisbury Street Worcester, MA 01609-1296, USA TELEPHONE: Hickey (+ 508-767-7296), Kantarelis (+ 508-767-7557) FAX: + 508-767-7382 E-MAIL: (L. Hickey [EMAIL PROTECTED]), (Kantarelis [EMAIL PROTECTED]) WEB: www.assumption.edu ***
US Republican Party outsources fund raising to India
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11219 US Republican Party outsources fund raising to India Whole world's gone batty - official By Adamson Rust: Wednesday 27 August 2003, 08:49 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY is using call centres in Gurgaon and Noida in India to raise funds for itself and for its chieftain, George W. Bush. Young people at the call centres are helping robots to phone American citizens to enlist their support and money for the political party, with plans to extend the scheme if they whip up enough donations. There's a high degree of automation involved in the process, according to Indian newspaper the Business Standard, which says that HCL Eserve is handling the business for the party. India is the biggest democracy in the world, and has stayed that way since it threw off the yoke of the British Raj in 1947, courtesy of the Labour Party. The magazine claims that human intervention is limited because of an integrated voice recording technology which picks up on clues from people that pick up the phone. We do hope and trust here at the INQUIRER that the irony of underpaid people in Harayana helping robots to call possibly out of work Americans because of a widespread policy of corporate outsourcing is not lost on our readers. --- http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11444 US Republican Party denies it's outsourcing to India Could be another leg of the pachyderm, RNC says By INQUIRER staff: Tuesday 09 September 2003, 07:20 THE US REPUBLICAN PARTY -- which has an elephant as its symbol is denying an Indian financial newspaper's claim that it's outsourcing fund raising to the subcontinent. The Republican National Committee, according to worldnetdaily.com has described a story in the Delhi Business Standard as a pernicious rumor and also claimed representatives of the other party with a quadruped icon were gobbling up and running with the story on its campaign trail. The prestigious Delhi newspaper had claimed people in call centres in Gurgaon and Noida were phoning folks in the USA to enlist their support for the Republicans. But, said worldnetdaily.com, quoting a Republican representative, that's not true. The US version of democracy requires that political parties there submit reports to an auditing committee and there are no records of funds going India's way. However, the Republican rep said that some other Republican entity or conservative organization might be using Indian call centres. The Republican National Committee put its lawyers on the case and asked the Business Standard to purge the story from its archives. But Indian hacks have behaved like refuseniks and will not down the story, said Worldnetdaily. --- --ravi
Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)
it's a great article! However, it's a bit too individualistic for my taste, putting too much emphasis on Hitchens' personality. It's true that it ignores aspects of that personality that may be relevant (such as Hitchens' problem drinking), but it should be mentioned that it isn't simply that the capitalist establishment has gravitational power that drags such apostates down. The left also lacks sufficient gravitational power to keep people in our orbit. One problem is that sometimes people on the left jump on any little deviation from some perceived correct line, lauching personal attacks that antagonize people who are beginning to shift to the right, which can encourage them to shift further to the right. That said, I don't know if such issues apply to Hitchens or not. I know that Katha Pollitt's open letter to Hitchens was very fair, leaving out personal attacks. I don't know if that was the rule or the exception. (As I've said, I once knew the apostate David Horowitz personally. It did seem that lefties treated him pretty well, at least outside the Black Panther circle. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 10:00 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!) Counterpunch, September 10, 2003 Fraternally Yours, Chris: Hitchens as Model Apostate By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN Editors' note: Norman Finkelstein is writing a political memoir, which will serve as the introduction to a new edition of his book, The Rise and Fall of Palestine, to be published by New Press next year. Below is an excerpt on the phenomenon of political apostasy, focusing primarily on Hitchens' recent grab-bag of writings in support of the US attack on Iraq. The title refers to how ex-leftist Christopher Hitchens used to sign off his correspondence. CounterPunch's forthcoming The Politics of Anti-Semitism, has a fine essay by Finkelstein, on his bizarre experience of being attacked in Germany as an anti-Semite. AC/JSC I'm occasionally asked whether I still consider myself a Marxist. Even if my faith had lapsed, I wouldn't advertise it, not from shame at having been wrong (although admittedly this would be a factor) but rather from fear of arousing even a faint suspicion of opportunism. To borrow from the lingo of a former academic fad, if, in public life, the signifier is I'm no longer a Marxist, then the signified usually is, I'm selling out. No doubt one can, in light of further study and life experience, come to repudiate past convictions. One might also decide that youthful ideals, especially when the responsibilities of family kick in and the prospects for radical change dim while the certainty of one's finitude sharpens, are too heavy a burden to bear; although it might be hoped that this accommodation, however understandable (if disappointing), were accomplished with candor and an appropriate degree of humility rather than, what's usually the case, scorn for those who keep plugging away. It is when the phenomenon of political apostasy is accompanied by fanfare and fireworks that it becomes truly repellent. Depending on where along the political spectrum power is situated, apostates almost always make their corrective leap in that direction, discovering the virtues of the status quo. The last thing you can be accused of is having turned your coat, Thomas Mann wrote a convert to National Socialism right after Hitler's seizure of power. You always wore it the 'right' way around. If apostasy weren't conditioned by power considerations, one would anticipate roughly equal movements in both directions. But that's never been the case. The would-be apostate almost always pulls towards power's magnetic field, rarely away. However elaborate the testimonials on how one came to see the light, the impetus behind political apostasy is--pardon my cynicism--a fairly straightforward, uncomplicated affair: to cash in, or keep cashing in, on earthly pleasures. Indeed, an apostate can even capitalize on the past to increase his or her current exchange value. Professional ex-radical Todd Gitlin never fails to mention, when denouncing those to his left, that he was a former head of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Never mind that this was four decades ago; although president of my sixth-grade class 40 years ago, I don't keep bringing it up. Shouldn't there be a statute of limitations on the exploitation of one's political past? In any event, it's hard to figure why an acknowledgment of former errors should enhance one's current credibility. If, by a person's own admission, he or she had got it all wrong, why should anyone pay heed to his or her new opinions? Doesn't it make more sense attending to those who got there sooner
Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)
One reason would be that the left: (?)--as perceived by people -- includes so many Hitchens-like characters. Devine, James wrote: ... The left also lacks sufficient gravitational power to keep people in our orbit. E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics Simon's Rock College of Bard 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, MA 01230 Tel: 413 528 7488 Fax: 413 528 7365 www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)
that's true. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: e. ahmet tonak [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 1:25 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!) One reason would be that the left: (?)--as perceived by people -- includes so many Hitchens-like characters. Devine, James wrote: ... The left also lacks sufficient gravitational power to keep people in our orbit. E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics Simon's Rock College of Bard 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, MA 01230 Tel: 413 528 7488 Fax: 413 528 7365 www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
intellectual property
I thank everyone who shared very useful bibliographic info. E. Ahmet Tonak Professor of Economics Simon's Rock College of Bard 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, MA 01230 Tel: 413 528 7488 Fax: 413 528 7365 www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak
Re: US Republican Party outsources fund raising to India
Priceless. Thanks ravi. Joanna ravi wrote: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11219 US Republican Party outsources fund raising to India Whole world's gone batty - official By Adamson Rust: Wednesday 27 August 2003, 08:49 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY is using call centres in Gurgaon and Noida in India to raise funds for itself and for its chieftain, George W. Bush. Young people at the call centres are helping robots to phone American citizens to enlist their support and money for the political party, with plans to extend the scheme if they whip up enough donations. There's a high degree of automation involved in the process, according to Indian newspaper the Business Standard, which says that HCL Eserve is handling the business for the party. India is the biggest democracy in the world, and has stayed that way since it threw off the yoke of the British Raj in 1947, courtesy of the Labour Party. The magazine claims that human intervention is limited because of an integrated voice recording technology which picks up on clues from people that pick up the phone. We do hope and trust here at the INQUIRER that the irony of underpaid people in Harayana helping robots to call possibly out of work Americans because of a widespread policy of corporate outsourcing is not lost on our readers. --- http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11444 US Republican Party denies it's outsourcing to India Could be another leg of the pachyderm, RNC says By INQUIRER staff: Tuesday 09 September 2003, 07:20 THE US REPUBLICAN PARTY -- which has an elephant as its symbol is denying an Indian financial newspaper's claim that it's outsourcing fund raising to the subcontinent. The Republican National Committee, according to worldnetdaily.com has described a story in the Delhi Business Standard as a pernicious rumor and also claimed representatives of the other party with a quadruped icon were gobbling up and running with the story on its campaign trail. The prestigious Delhi newspaper had claimed people in call centres in Gurgaon and Noida were phoning folks in the USA to enlist their support for the Republicans. But, said worldnetdaily.com, quoting a Republican representative, that's not true. The US version of democracy requires that political parties there submit reports to an auditing committee and there are no records of funds going India's way. However, the Republican rep said that some other Republican entity or conservative organization might be using Indian call centres. The Republican National Committee put its lawyers on the case and asked the Business Standard to purge the story from its archives. But Indian hacks have behaved like refuseniks and will not down the story, said Worldnetdaily. --- --ravi
Re: Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!)
What I don't understand is why anyone gives a rat's ass about Hitchens. Another opportunist...so what. Joanna Devine, James wrote: it's a great article! However, it's a bit too individualistic for my taste, putting too much emphasis on Hitchens' personality. It's true that it ignores aspects of that personality that may be relevant (such as Hitchens' problem drinking), but it should be mentioned that it isn't simply that the capitalist establishment has gravitational power that drags such apostates down. The left also lacks sufficient gravitational power to keep people in our orbit. One problem is that sometimes people on the left jump on any little deviation from some perceived correct line, lauching personal attacks that antagonize people who are beginning to shift to the right, which can encourage them to shift further to the right. That said, I don't know if such issues apply to Hitchens or not. I know that Katha Pollitt's open letter to Hitchens was very fair, leaving out personal attacks. I don't know if that was the rule or the exception. (As I've said, I once knew the apostate David Horowitz personally. It did seem that lefties treated him pretty well, at least outside the Black Panther circle. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 10:00 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens (brilliant!) Counterpunch, September 10, 2003 Fraternally Yours, Chris: Hitchens as Model Apostate By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN Editors' note: Norman Finkelstein is writing a political memoir, which will serve as the introduction to a new edition of his book, The Rise and Fall of Palestine, to be published by New Press next year. Below is an excerpt on the phenomenon of political apostasy, focusing primarily on Hitchens' recent grab-bag of writings in support of the US attack on Iraq. The title refers to how ex-leftist Christopher Hitchens used to sign off his correspondence. CounterPunch's forthcoming The Politics of Anti-Semitism, has a fine essay by Finkelstein, on his bizarre experience of being attacked in Germany as an anti-Semite. AC/JSC I'm occasionally asked whether I still consider myself a Marxist. Even if my faith had lapsed, I wouldn't advertise it, not from shame at having been wrong (although admittedly this would be a factor) but rather from fear of arousing even a faint suspicion of opportunism. To borrow from the lingo of a former academic fad, if, in public life, the signifier is I'm no longer a Marxist, then the signified usually is, I'm selling out. No doubt one can, in light of further study and life experience, come to repudiate past convictions. One might also decide that youthful ideals, especially when the responsibilities of family kick in and the prospects for radical change dim while the certainty of one's finitude sharpens, are too heavy a burden to bear; although it might be hoped that this accommodation, however understandable (if disappointing), were accomplished with candor and an appropriate degree of humility rather than, what's usually the case, scorn for those who keep plugging away. It is when the phenomenon of political apostasy is accompanied by fanfare and fireworks that it becomes truly repellent. Depending on where along the political spectrum power is situated, apostates almost always make their corrective leap in that direction, discovering the virtues of the status quo. The last thing you can be accused of is having turned your coat, Thomas Mann wrote a convert to National Socialism right after Hitler's seizure of power. You always wore it the 'right' way around. If apostasy weren't conditioned by power considerations, one would anticipate roughly equal movements in both directions. But that's never been the case. The would-be apostate almost always pulls towards power's magnetic field, rarely away. However elaborate the testimonials on how one came to see the light, the impetus behind political apostasy is--pardon my cynicism--a fairly straightforward, uncomplicated affair: to cash in, or keep cashing in, on earthly pleasures. Indeed, an apostate can even capitalize on the past to increase his or her current exchange value. Professional ex-radical Todd Gitlin never fails to mention, when denouncing those to his left, that he was a former head of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Never mind that this was four decades ago; although president of my sixth-grade class 40 years ago, I don't keep bringing it up. Shouldn't there be a statute of limitations on the exploitation of one's political past? In any event, it's hard to figure why an acknowledgment of former errors should enhance one's current credibility. If, by a person's own admission, he or she had got it all wrong, why should anyone pay heed to his or her new opinions? Doesn't it make more sense attending to
Shell's Nigerian white collar workers hold firm
Financial Review: Shell's Nigerian workers hold firm Shell's Nigerian workers hold firm 2003/09/10 Informal talks between the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell and striking Nigerian workers appeared deadlocked, two weeks into the latest labour dispute to disrupt Africa's largest oil industry. Shell's external relations manager Don Boham told AFP that talks on the firm's controversial global restructuring plan had begun. We expect all the concerns and fears of workers to be tabled and ironed out, he said. But he insisted that no formal discussion of labour's fears of impending job losses would take place while the strike continues. * * * * We can still talk and resolve these issues even when the strike is still on. We will not call off the strike until all or some of our demands are met, said Leonard Nwogu of the PENGASSAN oil union's Shell branch. Mr Nwogu said the union wants Shell to abandon the restructuring plan, to halt a rise in the number of expatriates brought in to work in Nigeria and to return to Nigeria a computer system recently moved to The Hague. White-collar Shell workers have been on strike since August 27. Management activities at the company's three main offices in the cities of Lagos, Warri and Port Harcourt have been disrupted by the action, but so far crude oil production and export have reportedly been unaffected. * * * * Shell is Nigeria's major oil producer, accounting for 870,000 barrels, almost half of the west African country's daily output. World oil prices were stable in early London trading, but trader Kevin Blemkin said: People still have their eyes on the Nigerian affair. The white-collar strike is one of a series of crises to rock Nigeria's oil industry and worry the markets this year, as ethnic warfare and a rash of pirate attacks and kidnappings rattled the oil-rich Niger Delta. Shell's Warri offices had only a skeleton staff on Tuesday due to the strike, witnesses said. http://www.afr.com/articles/2003/09/10/1062902080207.html
Shock and awe in Iraq
. From today's Moscow Times. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/09/09/001.html Tuesday, Sep. 9, 2003. Page 1 Gaidar Invited to Shock, Awe Iraq By Catherine Belton and Oksana Yablokova Staff Writers The architect of Russia's at times disastrous transition to a market economy, Yegor Gaidar, has been invited by the U.S.-led coalition authority in Iraq to help craft a recovery plan for that country's war-torn economy. The announcement, made by Union of Right Forces co-leader Boris Nemtsov at his party's congress Monday, nearly stole the show from the party as it announced its list of contenders for December's parliamentary elections. At a mid-congress briefing, reporters were more interested in Gaidar's plans for Iraq than in his party's plans for Russia. Many of the problems they are experiencing in Iraq are problems created by the collapse of a totalitarian regime that had a high level of state participation in the economy, Gaidar, a co-founder of the party, told the conference. These problems have parallels with the histories and practices of post-socialist countries. They want to work out how to minimize the risks and privatize the economic system in the shortest period possible. As President Boris Yeltsin's first -- and youngest -- prime minister, Gaidar spearheaded the country's move away from a planned economy. He was also the overall architect of the largest and swiftest privatization in world history. Seeing himself as a kamikaze who didn't have much time to bring about revolutionary change before opposition forces moved in, his program of shock therapy was aimed at combating potentially disastrous shortages of goods. It ended up sparking a wave of hyperinflation that saw prices increase by a factor of 26 within a year, wiping out the life savings of an entire generation overnight. His scheme to privatize as rapidly as possible saw the crown jewels of the economy handed over to a handful of well-connected insiders for next to nothing. This time, however, it's unlikely that Gaidar will have quite as much influence. An official at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow said Gaidar had been invited to take part in an international conference in Baghdad later this month with a view to explaining how European experience with economic reform might help Iraq manage its transition. The official said experts from nine Central and Eastern European countries had been invited to speak and about 50 Iraqi leaders, including members of government committees and some ministry advisers, would be in attendance. He could not say, however, what role the conference will play in deciding Iraqi economic policy, or what the future role of participants might be. The U.S. authority in Baghdad could not be reached for comment. In a telephone interview later Monday, Gaidar said he had only received the invitation Friday and had yet to discuss any plans with representatives of the U.S. administration. Time would tell if he would have to pack up his work in Russia and move full time to a brief advising Washington on reconstructing Iraq, he said. The decision to pick some of the world's most experienced brains on transition economies comes as U.S. President George W. Bush seeks to extend responsibility for postwar Iraq to non-coalition countries. (See story, page 13). Ironically, it also comes shortly after Iraq's new oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr Al-Uloum, told the Financial Times that his country is preparing to privatize its oil sector. It would be fantastic if [Gaidar] were handed the opportunity to deal with the same giveaway twice in one lifetime, said James Fenkner, head of research at Troika Dialog. It's the same sector too, he said, drawing a parallel with Russia's oil-dominated economy. A longtime critic of Russia's reforms, Marshall Goldman of Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, said by telephone that Washington could have made a worse choice -- it could have asked advice from fellow Union of Right Forces member Anatoly Chubais. If they had invited Chubais, that really would have set off a firestorm. That would have really been too much, he said. Chubais was appointed by Gaidar in the mid-1990s to run Russia's privatization program. Goldman, however, said that Gaidar could prove to be an important voice for Washington. Gaidar had the best of intentions. Maybe this is not such a bad idea. Having seen what happened to Russia, he will be aware of the pitfalls, he said. He can help Iraq avoid making the same mistakes. Bush has clearly said we need help. This is no longer going to be an American show. Bringing in someone like Gaidar will give the Russians a sense they have stake in Iraq too, Goldman said. Maybe [Russia] will send in troops. Moscow's diplomatic battle with Washington -- first over whether the war was necessary at all and then over whether the United Nations should play a more prominent role in governing Iraq -- has threatened to damage burgeoning ties with the Bush
Homohop
Hello All, Last year when the Bi-Sexual magazine I was working on was still functioning, I got to meet Juba Kalamka who was working on the magazine also. Juba has been doing pretty good with his hip hop group Deep Dickollective (DDC) so I thought I would pass on a show he is directing in San Francisco. For those in the Bay Area check out this homo show! Take note Deep Dickollective observes class issues in this American Society. Doyle Saylor They're here, they're queer and they homohop. Gay and lesbian artists, long rejected by mainstream rappers, are stretching the genre's boundaries. Neva Chonin, Chronicle Pop Music Critic Wednesday, September 10, 2003 ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/09/10/DD 182424.DTLtype=music The Urban Hermitt was standing outside a school three years ago when she received her first explicit lesson in hip-hop gender politics. Waiting for her turn at a freestyling battle in front of Seattle Central Community College, the aspiring MC watched another rapper clamber atop a bus shelter, strip to his boxer shorts and, clutching a microphone in one hand and his crotch in the other, spit out a rhyme about his anatomy. The assembled crowd cheered. When the Hermitt's turn came, she decided to go with the flow. Peeling down to her own boxers, she grabbed her crotch and proceeded to rap the praises of having a butch, female physique. The crowd froze. A film crew covered its camera. Put your pants back on! yelped one of the battle organizers. We don't want no obscenity! That day the Hermitt (a.k.a. Andre) learned exactly what the hip-hop adage of keeping it real meant for the gay hip-hop fan. Real meant the straight world. Real meant denying her evolving identity as a transgendered female-to-male MC. I've always had to fight for my time onstage, says the Hermitt, 25, who recently moved to San Francisco and now identifies as male. I've had things thrown at me. I've had people try to beat me up. It's a challenge gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender hip-hop fans face every day. Drawn to hip-hop's legacy of free expression, they too often discover that their stories are less than welcome in a genre filled with ethnically and socially diverse, but overwhelmingly heterosexual, voices. For decades, gay hip-hop-heads have toed the line, rapping about everything except their sexuality and stifling their anger at homophobic lyrics by mainstream rappers. Like good street soldiers, they kept it real while the music they once embraced as a creative outlet became another closet. Now that's changed. Thanks to the emergence of homohop, a growing genre that's equal parts music and community, gay MCs and DJs are staking their claim in uncompromisingly loud, rhyming terms. Homohop is an international phenomenon -- one of the most comprehensive online homohop sites, Gayhiphop.com, is out of London -- but thanks to a recent QueerYouthTV documentary on the genre that spotlighted local acts such as Deep Dickollective (DDC), Jen-Ro, Hanifah Walidah, Katastrophe, God-Des and Jaycub Perez, the Bay Area is ground zero. At this week's Third Annual World Homohop Festival -- part of East Bay Pride -- gay rappers, DJs and spoken-word artists from across the United States will celebrate their growing prominence as they converge on Oakland's Metro Theatre for four nights of rhythm and revelry. The festival, dubbed PeaceOUT, supplies a safe space and throws down a challenge. Hip-hop fights against oppression, but at the same time it takes on the role of the oppressor by mirroring society at large: male-centered, patriarchal and classist, says DDC MC and festival director Juba Kalamka (a.k. a. Pointfivefag). ...See the SF Gate site for the rest of the article PeaceOUT: The Third Annual World Homohop Festival: All shows start at 8 p.m. at the Oakland Metro Theatre, 201 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets: $8-$15, sliding scale. (415) 244-8658, www.eastbaypride.org. Thursday: Screening of QueerYouthTV's Homohop documentary, followed by party with host Larry Bob and DJ Toph One. Friday: Tori Fixx, Protegee, God-Des, Jen-Ro, Jaycub Perez, DJ Toph One and DJ Sick Diamond. Hosted by Marvin K. White. Saturday: Deadlee, Katastrophe, Johnny Dangerous, Houston Bernard, Scream Club, Cazwell and DJ Sick Diamond. Hosted by Judge Dutchboy Muscat. Sunday: Deep Dickollective, Shawree, Kayatrip, Lucky 7, Urban Hermitt, Sergio, DJ Ross Hogg, DJ Soulnubien, DJ Black and DJ Sick Diamond. Hosted by Micia Moseley. E-mail Neva Chonin at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback Page D - 1
The RIAA 261
These kinds of heavy-handed policies are the stuff of rebellious tension... or resigned despair. Depending on the surrounding social climate. And the noise created around it. Ken. -- An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations. -- Charles de Montesquieu --- cut here --- RIAA's Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets Single Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl in N.Y. Among Defendants By Frank Ahrens Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, September 10, 2003; Page E01 Heather McGough thought it would be nice to listen to music while she was working on her Gateway PC at home in Santa Clarita, Calif. So, a few months ago, when a friend of McGough's 14-year-old cousin told her she could get the Gateway to play songs, McGough told the girl to go ahead. The teen girl downloaded software by Kazaa, a file-sharing Internet service. Kazaa let McGough grab digital songs by Tracy Chapman, Avril Lavigne, Norah Jones and Marvin Gaye and others and put them on her computer's hard drive for listening. Also -- and this is the part that McGough said she didn't know -- it let everyone else on the Kazaa network get a look at the songs on her computer and pick which ones they wanted. In the eyes of the music industry, she was an egregious uploader of copyrighted material. Which is why she was one of the 261 song sharers across the nation sued Monday by the major record companies with the help of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the music industry's trade group. The RIAA is targeting what it calls major offenders of peer-to-peer digital song sharing, which it considers to be a violation of copyright law. Federal law allows penalties of up to $150,000 per copyrighted work, or, in other words, per song. Like Kazaa members, investigators at the RIAA looked into McGough's computer. Instead of seeing songs they wanted to listen to, they found someone they wanted to sue. Song sharing exploded into the mainstream in the late '90s thanks to Napster, which allowed computer users to download and swap songs for free. The music industry went to court to successfully shut down Napster, but other free services such as Morpheus, Grokster and Kazaa sprang up in its place. Kazaa, the most popular, had more than 7 million users in May. More than 60 million Americans engage in file sharing, according to companies that track Internet use. I watched the whole Napster thing on TV; I read about it in the papers, said McGough, 23, a single mother of two girls, ages 5 and 2. I just assumed that if Napster was down, why would something be up that was illegal? I wouldn't intentionally put something on my computer that was illegal. McGough received a copy of a subpoena in July from Comcast Communications Corp., her high-speed Internet service provider, telling her that the cable company had handed over her name and address to the RIAA, which reported it had looked into her computer on the afternoon of June 26. I wasn't even home, said the auto repair shop office manager. The next day, she took her Gateway to a local computer club where members erased the song files from her hard drive. It was only then that she found out that Kazaa's software allows others to see which songs she had. I don't even know how many songs I had, she said. Comcast included an 800 number in the subpoena to call for more information. But when McGough called it, she said no one knew what she was talking about. I asked for supervisors, everything, she said. It's not like they weren't giving me the information. They didn't have the information. The stories of the RIAA 261 are emerging across the country. Many defendants say they are surprised by the suits, that they were unaware that such song swapping could be illegal, or that they were ignorant of the activities of others using their computers, such as children. The defendants included a 71-year-old grandfather in Texas and a father-and-son combo, ages 50 and 29. They include Boston area teenagers and adults, men and women from Los Angeles, and a Yale University photography professor. More song swappers will find themselves facing lawsuits in the coming months, as the RIAA has promised to take legal action against thousands more, aiming at people who have made an average of more than 1,000 copyrighted songs free to other Internet users. Critics of the RIAA's lawsuits have repeatedly said such vigorous legal action could lead to consumer backlash, further crippling an industry already suffering a steep slump in sales. Since the rise of Internet song sharing, sales of compact discs have dropped about 10 percent per year. The industry attributes the losses to piracy, but others point out that many consumers likely were driven away from record stores by CDs priced at $18. The poster girl for such potential backlash appeared on the cover of yesterday's New York Daily News alongside a headline reading: Internet Music 'Thief' Sued
MBA
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