Greenspan and the use of time to commit fiscal crime

[Eubulides]

[god bless intertemporal optimization]



[New York Times]
February 29, 2004
The Social Security Promise Not Yet Kept
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

SOCIAL Security retirement benefits are going to have to be cut, Alan
Greenspan announced last week, because there just is not enough money to
pay the promised benefits. President Bush said those already retired or
"near retirement age'' should not worry. They will get their promised
benefits.

That, in short form, was the story carried on front pages and television
news programs across the country.

But there is an element that was forgotten in the rush of news. It dates
back 21 years to the events that catapulted Mr. Greenspan into national
prominence and led to his becoming chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Since 1983, American workers have been paying more into Social Security
than it has paid out in benefits, about $1.8 trillion more so far. This
year Americans will pay about 50 percent more in Social Security taxes
than the government will pay out in benefits.

Those taxes were imposed at the urging of Mr. Greenspan, who was chairman
of a bipartisan commission that in 1983 said that one way to make sure
Social Security remains solvent once the baby boomers reached retirement
age was to tax them in advance.

On Mr. Greenspan's recommendation Social Security was converted from a
pay-as-you-go system to one in which taxes are collected in advance. After
Congress adopted the plan, Mr. Greenspan rose to become chairman of the
Federal Reserve.

This year someone making $50,000 will pay $6,200 in Social Security taxes,
half deducted from their paycheck and half paid by their employer. That
total is about $2,000 more than the government needs in order to pay
benefits to retirees, widows, orphans and the disabled, government budget
documents show.

So what has happened to that $1.8 trillion?

The advance payments have all been spent.

Congress did not lock away the Social Security surplus, as many Americans
believe. Instead, it borrowed the surplus, replacing the cash with
Treasury notes, and spent the loan proceeds paying the ordinary expenses
of running the federal government.

Only twice, in 1999 and 2000, did Congress balance the federal budget
without borrowing from the surplus.

Both parties have treated the surplus Social Security taxes as "cash flow
to the government," which has been allowable since the Johnson
administration started counting Social Security as part of the federal
budget, not as a separate budget, said C. Eugene Steuerle, a tax policy
advisor to President Reagan.

He said that voters were promised in 1983 that the federal debt would be
paid off with the surplus Social Security taxes. The fact that this has
not happened and the debt has soared shows that "government usually can
only deal with one objective at a time,'' Mr. Steuerle said. Back then, he
added, the prime objective was to settle on a Social Security tax rate
that would back the system and not have to be tinkered with for decades -
not how the surplus would be handled.

He said using the surplus to pay routine bills makes sense to those who
believe the government will have tax revenues in the future to repay the
borrowed money.

President Bush asserts that making his existing income, gift and estate
tax cuts permanent will spur growth that will, in turn, generate more tax
revenue in the long run, making that repayment more likely.

Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said that making the cuts
permanent will "promote prosperity for American workers'' and that older
employees can expect full benefits.

But Mr. Greenspan's new remarks have brought that into question. Other
officials have raised doubts. In June 2001, Paul H. O'Neill, President
Bush's first Treasury secretary, said all that Americans expecting
benefits have is "someone else's promise'' that the paper held by the
Social Security Trust Fund will be redeemed with taxes paid later by
others.

Michael Graetz, a Yale Law School tax professor and tax policy adviser in
the administration of President Bush's father, said it was in the nature
of Washington to spend surplus tax revenues. "Unless they put the money in
a lockbox, which they haven't, the politicians are going to spend the
money," he said, and say they will repay the loans with future taxes.

Mr. Greenspan said nothing last week about returning to a pay-as-you-go
basis. Doing that would put about $40 a week in the pockets of workers
making $50,000 annually.

Some argue that the surplus taxes are being used to help finance income
tax cuts, which Mr. Bush wants made permanent.

Mr. Greenspan told Congress earlier that Mr. Bush's tax cuts should be
kept in place. The biggest beneficiaries would be the top 400 taxpayers,
whose average income in 2000 was $174 million each. They paid 22.2 cents
on the dollar in federal income taxes and, under the Bush tax cuts, would
have paid about 17.5 cents.

Over all that year, Americans paid 15.3 cents on the dollar of income

expertise and class composition

[Eubulides]

Class war pipe dreams

A biologist becomes a gas fitter, so the barriers are finally breaking
down? Tell that to the shelf packers

Mary Riddell
Sunday February 29, 2004
The Observer

As pipes freeze and domestic boilers implode, a shivering nation can be
grateful to Karl Gensberg. Formerly a researcher at Birmingham University,
he compared his wage slip with his plumber's and decided that his career
in molecular biology, on an annual salary of £23,000, was over. Now Mr
Gensberg, aged 41, is a qualified gas fitter hoping to earn a minimum of
£40,000.

His 10 years of research will, he believes, eventually lead to major
breakthroughs in treating arthritis and cancer. While university wages are
scandalously low, great pioneers in science and the arts have often been
more stoical. On the Gensberg logic, the impoverished Van Gogh, who sold
only one canvas in his lifetime, would have swapped sunflowers for Yellow
Pages and taken up painting and decorating instead.

So perhaps Mr Gensberg was fed up not only with low pay and professional
insecurity, but with the job itself. Newspaper reports hinted, snobbishly,
that only penury could force anyone to swap academia for a life of phoning
maddened clients to report being stuck in traffic on the North Circular
and thus unable to inspect their defunct heating systems until tomorrow.

But talented people, graduates included, want practical work. Hackney
Community College in East London reports 800 applicants competing for 35
places on a four-year NVQ plumbing course. Part of the lure is the £50,000
salary in prospect, but something else is happening. That shift is
illustrated in a portrait of Mr Gensberg, a stubble-chinned Gabriel Oak
moving glamorously on from the 'glory days' when a university post meant
status.

His decision may say less about pay levels than shifting status. Society
is being de-toffed. As the last hereditary peers of the upper chamber are
banished to chilly piles, a new breed of aristo-hustlers, forcibly
democratised, must earn their crust; literally so, in the case of the Earl
of Sandwich, who markets packed lunches. A House of Lords, however
constituted, looks increasingly preposterous when titles are so naff that
any man knighted in an Honours List must pretend he doesn't want to be
called 'Sir'.

The affluent have seen other privileges leeched away by the conduit that
first supplied them. The benefits of the consumer revolution of the
nineteenth century have trickled further downwards, and Orwell's checklist
of 'good roads, germ-free water, police protection', has expanded.
Restaurants, shops, roads and the check-in queues of Gatwick teem with
homogeneous tribes. As John Prescott said: 'We're all middle class now.'

Britain has been slow to recognise this truism, or embrace it. France, at
least at the level of the 'commune', is classless. In the town where I
spend my holidays, the bus driver has the same social standing as the
lawyer. Mr Gensberg and his academic friends, who, he claims, are becoming
scuba diving instructors or letting agents, may be trail-blazers for
equality. But oddly, at just the time fusty notions of prestige are dying,
a contradictory paranoia is setting in.

In his new book, Status Anxiety, and in a two-hour Channel 4 documentary
next Saturday, Alain de Botton argues that we are consumed by worry about
how we are perceived. The idea that social rank equals human worth may be
dead, but so are easy guidelines to being a top person. The Spartan recipe
of muscly, bisexual men with little interest in family life and an
enthusiasm for killing Athenians would attract few takers in a modern
dating agency. Nor would subsequent blueprints of perfection.

As de Botton wonders, if the capacity to hunt jaguars, dance a minuet,
ride a horse in battle or imitate the life of Christ no longer offers
sufficient grounds to be labelled a success, then what is the dominant
Western ideal according to which people are judged and status allotted?
His inability to offer a neatly-packaged successor to the warrior, the
saint and the knight is not surprising when the mandarin classes no longer
command automatic respect or trust. Maybe the new icon is the gas-fitter,
welcomed into icy households like a Messiah in overalls, as well as being
paid a fortune.

Money remains enmeshed with status. The Forbes listing of the planet's
richest people has just been released, complete with fawning coverage of
Britain's dollar billionaires. The latest register of members' interests
allowed newspaper readers to ogle MPs' bank accounts: £450,000 for Robin
Cook's book, £250,000 for Michael Portillo's wit and wisdom. Such figures
are meant to ignite envy.

But as Alexis de Tocqueville noticed, along with Adam Smith and various
modern academics who have so far resisted becoming gasmen, money is no
guarantor of happiness. America, the richest nation on earth, ranks
sixteenth in the national league tables of contentment. Nigeria and Puerto
Rico, where great poverty has

Towards liberation from the camp in The Netherlands

[Jurriaan Bendien]

A 35-strong group of rejected asylum seekers called "A Long Walk to Freedom"
(recalling the title of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela's book, and the Chinese
national liberation war)  is on a 234km "long march" from Groningen in the
far north of The Netherlands to the Parliament Building in The Hague, in
protest against the hard-line deportation policy introduced by Dutch
Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk. Whereas about 2,000
asylum seekers waiting for five years or more for their immigration
applications to be processed will get permits, as well as 200 people whose
cases are "distressing" (they would suffer dangers or severe hardships if
sent back), another 26,000 are due to be expelled.

Apart from the long distance, the marchers were also confronted with snow
and ice-cold winds. "We want to show the minister, that we are willing to
endure pain in order to be allowed to stay," Massoud Djabani said on Friday.
"More people will join us along the way. Everyone agrees that the minister
has handled this matter incorrectly as there are far more than the 200
"distressing" cases she has recognised."

The new tough deportation policy was criticised in the international press,
and Human Rights Watch says some people could be killed if deported - it is
ridiculous to deport families who have had settled lives and jobs for years
in The Netherlands. On 19 february artists from Friesland Province unveiled
a large artwork in front of Parliament Buildings protesting against
deportation. In Groningen there was a torch wake, on 15-18 march there's a
bus campaign and on 10 April a demonstration in central Amsterdam. The
Autonomist Centre in Amsterdam has sent a letter to private firms outsourced
to deport migrants, and have appealed to airline companies to take a
position against deportation.

Manwhile, Rotterdam will take possession of the first prison ship in the
Netherlands soon. The floating detention centre will become home to illegal
immigrants awaiting deportation, as well as repeat offenders. The mayor said
 the ship was needed because the city had a severe shortage of cells. The
Justice Ministry awarded 2.3 million euro extra to the court system in
Rotterdam, because of the increasing number of cases being dealt with.

Among 2,500 people protesting in front of the Dutch Parliament against
deportations earlier this month was an asylum seeker who actually had sewed
his eyes and mouth shut. Jan de Wit of the Socialist Party (SP) and Marijke
Vos of green-left GroenLinkswere also there. All MPs were given a red heart
by the protestors. On behalf of the group Heartfelt Pardon, MPs were also
given a book on how to integrate in Dutch society.

Meanwhile in Iraq, the Dutch army arrested ten Iraqi's on Saturday morning
suspected of armed attacks, and the murder of a Spanish major, said military
spokesman Bart Visser. Three weeks ago, the Dutch army had also arrested
another 20 Iraqi's. Bart Visser said the arrests showed that the military
were not being disoriented by the political controversy in The Hague about
how to deal with violence in Iraq. Unemployment in Holland is predicted to
increase by 95,000 people this year, primarily low-educated people aged 40+.

Some of us are illegal, and others not wanted
Our work contract's out and we have to move on
But it's six hundred miles to that Mexican border
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

A sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos canyon
Like a fireball of lightning, it shook all our hills
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says they are just deportees.

Good-bye to my Juan, good-bye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria
You won't have a name when you ride the big air-plane
And all they will call you, will be deportees.

- Arlo Guthrie, "Deportees"

Re: GAO report on outsourcing the State

[michael perelman]

Eubulides wrote:

> February 27, 2004
> COMPETITIVE SOURCING
> Greater Emphasis Needed on Increasing Efficiency and Improving Performance
> GAO-04-367
> http://www.gao.gov/ [click through to the report]

--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901

Re: US and Haiti rebellion

[Michael Perelman]

KPFA www.kpfa.org has had marvelous coverage of Haiti -- some of the same people as
Democracy Now, but more extensive coverage.  The article here ignores two other
factors -- the drug running business of some of the fund's thugs leading the coup in
the impending change in the Constitution to forbid a national army.

Even the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are talking about who some of
these people are -- although they do not go into the most gory details.

After this adventure, Colin Powell will have a part-time masquerading as a good cop.


--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

US and Haiti rebellion

[k hanly]

HAITI: How Washington set the stage for uprising

Lee Sustar

The media have a standard story line to explain the uprising in Haiti -
one-time populist leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide has become a corrupt
authoritarian who is relying on armed gangs to crush a popular uprising. In
reality, the anti-Aristide opposition that is behind the uprising shaking
Haiti today is a Washington-connected collection of Haitian businessmen and
a scattering of former leftists.

If they succeed in ousting Aristide, they'll try to turn back the clock to
the days when military officers and paramilitary gangs ruled Haiti through
sheer terror. Any doubts as to the nature of the rebellion in the city of
Gonaieves, which was siezed by rebel gangs on February 5, should be put to
rest by the role played by leaders of the military dictatorship of the
1980s.

While the media has described the rebellion as led by former Aristide
supporters, a key player is Jean "Tatoune" Pierre, who backed the 1991 coup
that overthrew Aristide. Others involved include members of the Front for
the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), a paramilitary organization
that terrorised and assassinated Aristide supporters during the military
regime that lasted until US troops restored Aristide into office in 1994.

Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a former FRAPH leader, is centrally involved in
Gonaieves, as is Guy Philippe, a former police chief in the city of
Cap-Haitien who was accused of plotting a coup in 2000. By seizing
Gonaieves, they've essentially cut Haiti in two.

Washington's stated attitude to the uprising has been contradictory. On
February 12, State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher declared that
"reaching a political settlement will require some fairly thorough changes
in the way Haiti is governed, and how the security situation is maintained".
The New York Times interpreted this to mean that "the Bush administration
has placed itself in the unusual position of saying it may accept the ouster
of a democratic government".

The following day, US Secretary of State Colin Powell rounded up ministers
from CARICOM, the organisation linking the government of Caribbean
countries, the US and Canada, to declare, "We will accept no outcome that in
any way illegally attempts to remove the elected president of Haiti". But
deeds matter more than words - and there's no doubt that Washington set the
stage for the uprising.

The top FRAPH leader, Emmanuel Constant, who claims he was a CIA employee,
remains at large in New York City. Major funding for Haiti's umbrella
opposition group, Democratic Convergence, comes from the National Endowment
for Democracy, a US foundation notorious for funnelling US aid to
counterrevolutionary forces in Central America during the Cold War.

While the Haitian opposition's high-sounding democratic rhetoric is repeated
by Western reporters, their right-wing supporters have carried out a
systematic campaign of violence against Haitian journalists and pro-Aristide
activists. If Aristide's supporters are armed, it's because they face armed
opponents.

If Powell backtracked on supporting the opposition, it isn't because the US
is reluctant to intervene in Haiti. The US invaded and occupied Haiti in
1915 and stayed for 19 years - an early example of regime change. Washington
then bankrolled a succession of Haitian dictators, including the 30-year
rule of the Duvalier family until an uprising, led in part by Aristide,
drove it from power in 1988.

On January 31, the US pressured Aristide into signing an accord with the
opposition, mediated by CARICOM, in which Aristide agreed to disarm his
supporters, "reform" the police force, appoint a new prime minister
acceptable to the opposition and call new elections to replace the
legislature, whose term expired January 13. This deal was in keeping with a
pattern established when 20,000 US troops invaded Haiti to return Aristide
to office nearly a decade ago.

Aristide, who as a Catholic priest became a mass leader of Haiti's poor in
the overthrow of the military dictatorship in the 1980s, became a
collaborator with free-market, "neoliberal" reforms dictated by Washington.
This included opening up a big free-trade zone on the border with the
Dominican Republic, funded by a World Bank loan that will benefit sweatshop
owners - and paying back debts to the International Monetary Fund that date
from the dictatorship.

All this has meant that Aristide has been unable to deliver promised reforms
to the poor - and his popular support has eroded as a result. Aristide
increasingly relies on a small network tied to his party.

The uprising was likely initiated by far-right paramilitaries who are
unwilling to settle for the negotiated solution. They gambled that Aristide'
s popular support had been so weakened that they could grab power quickly -
and that the more respectable right-wing front men would go along.

Instead, the poor rallied behind Aristide once more, with a mass turnout
forcing the cancellati

Re: Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)

[Mike Ballard]

Farewell fellow worker.

Mike B)


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Re: article on MR website

[Mike Ballard]

Michael Yates wrote:
> I have an article posted on the Monthly Review
> website (www.monthlyreview.org) titled "Can the
> Working Class Change the World?"  It is a write up
> of a talk I gave to the Marxist School in
> Sacramento.  Comments welcome.
>
In his article, Michael Yates wrote:

What went wrong? Looking at the broad sweep of
history, we can perhaps identify some of the forces at
work and bad decisions taken. First, as Marx pointed
out, capitalism creates workers in its own image. It
is
hard for workers to grasp the nature of their
circumstances, to see that they create capital rather
than the other way around. So even when organized,
they strive for a "fairer" wage and better conditions
rather than an end to the wage labor system that is
the ultimate source of their circumstances. The system
appears to them as inevitable and immutable, though
they might win a better deal. Of course, this notion
is reinforced by a vast propaganda machine, including
the media and the schools.

**
Mike B) comments:

Here, I would more deeply develop observations on
reification and the fethishism of commodities i.e. how
upside down perceptions of how the world works are
"nurtured" by social forces (family, schooling, peers,
State) into succeeding generations of
worker/producers.  Workers seeing themselves primarily
as consumers and not as producers puts them into a
submissive psychological state of mind, where the best
they can do is to ask  for a "fair day's wage for a
fair day's work".

If workers don't consciously understand that their
skills and time are commodities in the marketplace,
they remain lost, suseptible to manipulation by others
as opposed to candidates for making change for
themselves.  When they see themselves as the producers
of the world, they can begin to "accumulate" the
integrity necessary to organize to reclaim the the
social product of their labour.  They can begin to see
that solidarity with other workers gives them more
power in the marketplace.  They can begin to see why
they feel helpless and powerless as atomised
individuals who define their freedom in negative terms
i.e. "my freedom is directly related to your unfreedom
: women, blacks, other workers, other nationalities
and so on.





=

You can't depend on your eyes when
your imagination is out of focus.
--Mark Twain

http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal

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Re: Economic question

[Devine, James]

I don't know. My guess is that the Cheney/Rove administration -- in conjunction with 
their ally, Alan the G, the Fedmeister, who has more power on this question --  want 
to delay the next recession as long as possible, so that it will happen (along with 
the popping of the housing bubble) after the 2004 election or at least so close to 
that election that it won't have any effect on Dubya's chances at re-election. Of 
course, the longer they push back the recession, the worse the downturn will be. 
(E.g., the more consumers borrow now, keeping the economy going, the worse the debt 
deflation, if it happens.)


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




> -Original Message-
> From: michael [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 2:19 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [PEN-L] Economic question
> 
> 
> I'm still trying to get a handle on the direction of the 
> economy.  I see
> tremendous overcapacity in many sectors, leading in the direction of
> deflation together with a stock market bubble, based on God 
> knows what.
> At the same time, some sectors, such as steel, having gone through
> serious capacity contractions are now facing enormous shortages.
> Metals, in general, as well as lumber and natural gas are 
> showing signs
> of inflation.
> 
> I get the feeling that the international financial system is 
> perhaps the
> weakest link in the whole world economy.
> 
> When I have raised this question in the past, Doug has 
> suggested that we
> have a creaky mini-recovery.  I don't have the sense of an underlying
> stability that I would associate with the recovery -- even a very weak
> one.
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
> Chico, CA 95929
> 530-898-5321
> fax 530-898-5901
> 

Re: Economic question

[dmschanoes]

The "shortages" are not shortages at all, nor more than the price of oil is
due to a shortage or a lack of production capacity.

For example, world wide steel making capacity is approximately 25% greater
than even the inflated demand generated by the China bubble.

Natural gas has tripled in price since the lows of 1998, still it is down
40% from the "death star" days of Enron and the California power crisis.
Going into 2002, and again in 2003 natural gas stocks were at record levels.


The frenetic activity in metals,  in  commodity spot markets in general, is
symptomatic of the storm before the calm, dead calm.


I think that 2003 was the dead cat bounce for the economy

Here's  one scenario for you:
China goes in 2004, and it will make the currency crises of 1997, the panic
generated when Russia defaulted on its GKO debt, Argentina 2001, look like
the ghost of Christmas past.

dms


- Original Message -
From: "michael" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 5:19 PM
Subject: [PEN-L] Economic question


> I'm still trying to get a handle on the direction of the economy.  I see
> tremendous overcapacity in many sectors, leading in the direction of
> deflation together with a stock market bubble, based on God knows what.
> At the same time, some sectors, such as steel, having gone through
> serious capacity contractions are now facing enormous shortages.
> Metals, in general, as well as lumber and natural gas are showing signs
> of inflation.
>
> I get the feeling that the international financial system is perhaps the
> weakest link in the whole world economy.
>
> When I have raised this question in the past, Doug has suggested that we
> have a creaky mini-recovery.  I don't have the sense of an underlying
> stability that I would associate with the recovery -- even a very weak
> one.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
>
> --
>
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
> Chico, CA 95929
> 530-898-5321
> fax 530-898-5901
>

Re: Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)

[Peter Bohmer]

I mourn Paul Sweezy's death. He has been  the most important
intellectual influence in  my life. In summer, 1967, I was a grad
student in economics and active in the group, Vietnam summer, when
someone suggested I read Monopoly Capital. Thoughts  that i was
grappling with such as the causes of the Vietnam war  all of a suden
became clear to me as I enthusiastically read, Monopoly Capital. Many
of the concepts in Monopoly Capital along with the Political Economy of
Growth by Paul's collaborator, Paul Baran, have shaped my thinking ever
since. What has stuck with me, since my eyes were opened has been
understanding and challenging U.S. imperialism, the necessity of
advertising, planned obsolescence and military spending in absorbing
the growth of the potential surplus, the irrationality of an economic
system that could produce enough to meet human needs but systematically
does not, non-price competition, the starving of the part of the public
sector that was socially useful, and the centrality of racism in the
past and present of U.S. capitalism. Paul Sweezy further developed this
framework in Monthly Review. I also was very influenced by his analysis
of Chile and Cuba, of the Soviet Union as a non-capitalist,
non-socialist society, and a lot more. I have subscribed to Monthly
Review since the late 1960's and always looked forward to Paul
Sweezy's, Review of the Month. His influence in keeping alive  a
relevant and anti-imperialist Marxism and a revolutionary socialist
current cannot be overstated, 

Paul Sweezy presente!!
 Peter Bohmer 



 

MICHAEL YATES wrote:

  
  
  
  Friends,
  Â 
  I first came to know Paul Sweezy in the early 1970s.  He was
always a very kind critic, and when I got to know him personally, a
very kind and generous man.  I mourn his death.  Monthly Review
magazine is his legacy.  Although Paul had been ill for some time and
had not actively participated in the magazine in a couple of years, I
hope that everyone realizes that this legacy is still very much alive.Â
His great comrade, Harry Magdoff, is still going strong, and along with
the new editors, John Foster and Robert McChesney, continue to make MR
the left magazine "of record."  All of us at MR will, I am sure, honor
Paul's memory by dedicating ourselves to the magazine, the Press, and
most of all the revolutionary struggle to create a better world.
  Â 
  Michael Yates 
  
-
Original Message - 
From:
Devine, James 
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent:
Saturday, February 28, 2004 10:05 AM
Subject:
Re: [PEN-L] Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)


I know I'm in mourning.
Jim D.

-Original Message- 
From: Brian McKenna [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
Sent: Sat 2/28/2004 9:40 AM 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Cc: 
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)


I deeply admired Paul Sweezy and am so sad to hear that he's gone. .
.His (and Baran's) "Monopoly Capital" opened my eyes when I was young.
. .and Monthly Review has been tops for decades. . .with clear, clear
captivating writing. . .a model for us all. . . .

I used to see him at the Socialist Scholars Conferenec when I was back
east. . .a very approachable fellow. . .

Bless him.

Brian McKenna 

  
  

Economic question

[michael]

I'm still trying to get a handle on the direction of the economy.  I see
tremendous overcapacity in many sectors, leading in the direction of
deflation together with a stock market bubble, based on God knows what.
At the same time, some sectors, such as steel, having gone through
serious capacity contractions are now facing enormous shortages.
Metals, in general, as well as lumber and natural gas are showing signs
of inflation.

I get the feeling that the international financial system is perhaps the
weakest link in the whole world economy.

When I have raised this question in the past, Doug has suggested that we
have a creaky mini-recovery.  I don't have the sense of an underlying
stability that I would associate with the recovery -- even a very weak
one.

Any thoughts?


--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901

the political ecology of coal

[Eubulides]

America's new coal rush

Utilities' dramatic push to build new plants would boost energy security
but hurt the environment.

By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
February 26, 2004 edition

After 25 years on the blacklist of America's energy sources, coal is
poised to make a comeback, stoked by the demand for affordable electricity
and the rising price of other fuels.

At least 94 coal-fired electric power plants - with the capacity to power
62 million American homes - are now planned across 36 states.

The plants, slated to start coming on line as early as next year, would
add significantly to the United States' generating power, help keep
electricity prices low, and boost energy security by offering an
alternative to foreign oil and gas. But they would also pump more airborne
mercury and greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and
sulfur dioxide into the air.

Apparently, economic concerns are trumping environmental ones in
utilities' plans.

Surprisingly, few state officials or even environmentalists are aware of
the magnitude of the new coal rush.

One major reason is the sudden nature of the turnaround for the plentiful
fuel. "The situation has changed 180 degrees in the last year, so that
we're almost back to point where we were in the 1970s with a slew of
coal-fired plants on the drawing board," says Robert McIlvaine, president
of a Northfield, Ill., company that tracks energy industry development.
After a decades-long drought, when few large coal plants were added to the
power grid, "it's become a flood. We've been getting a new one announced
almost every week since December."

The jump in proposed coal-fired plants over the past three years - which
would add 62 gigawatts or another 20 percent to the US's current
coal-generating capacity - was documented in a report last month by the
National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), an arm of the US Department
of Energy. But experts caution that perhaps no more than half of all
proposed plants will ever be built. It can take seven to 10 years for a
coal power plant to go from planning to construction - and legal action
and public protests often halt them.

Aside from the report, buried on the agency's website, the push to coal
power and its estimated $72 billion investment has been largely untouted
by industry and overlooked by the public. Even state officials and
environmentalists who knew more coal power was coming are amazed.

"I certainly wasn't aware it was 62 gigawatts. That's an awful lot more
coal to burn," says Dan Becker, director of global warming and energy
program at the Sierra Club. "I think most Americans would be shocked that
utilities are dragging the 19th century into the 21st century."

Illinois leads the nation with 10 proposed coal-fired plants that would
create 8 gigawatts of new power capacity, the NETL report says. Yet state
officials were surprised to be the national leader. "It's definitely
something we're keeping track of, but I personally wasn't aware it was
nine or 10 plants," says Rishi Garg, an energy policy adviser to Lt. Gov.
Pat Quinn.

>From the point of view of energy security, such moves make sense,
proponents say. The US is considered the Saudi Arabia of coal. It sits on
250 years' worth of reserves. Coal already generates about half the
nation's electricity.

The economics have also swung in the fuel's favor. Low-cost, low-emission,
natural-gas turbines sprouted like mushrooms in the '90s and their
contribution to the nation's generating capacity reached 19 percent. But
in the past four years, the cost of natural gas has roughly tripled: from
$2 per 1 million British thermal units of heat generated to over $6 per
million BTUs. By contrast, coal costs less than $1 per million BTUs. That
has put utilities in the position of paying more for the gas they burn to
make power than they can get for the electricity it produces.

But the move back to coal raises environmental concerns. Mr. McIlvaine
estimates that if 50 of the 94 planned projects are built, they would add
roughly 30 gigawatts or 10 percent of base load generating capacity
nationwide. Using industry rules of thumb, he estimates coal consumption
would rise about 10 million tons, or 1 percent, from today's 1 billion
tons annually. That, in turn, would add 120 million cubic feet of exhaust
gases from the stacks every minute of every day for decades to what is
currently vented.

The burning of coal already produces more airborne mercury and greenhouse
gases than any other single source. Robert Dickinson, an atmospheric
scientist and climate modeler at the Georgia Institute of Technology,
calculates the new US coal plants would add roughly one-tenth of 1 percent
to the world's annual carbon-dioxide emissions.

"It doesn't sound as bad as SUVs, but we really should be going the other
direction," he says. "All these little things add up. How much is east
Asia going to add? The rest of the world?"

Utility-industry spokesme

Re: Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)

[Michael Perelman]

I got a different take on him than some of you.  Back in the 70s, I invited him to
speak in Chico.  Most of our faculty were quite conventional and not particularly
friendly to marxism.  They took Paul out for dinner, probably expecting to berate an
intellectual dinasauer.  Instead, he charmed them, while he probably succeeded in
educating them a bit.  It was an impressive performance.

I wish that we, myself included, had more of that gift.

On Sat, Feb 28, 2004 at 10:05:35AM -0800, Devine, James wrote:
> I know I'm in mourning.
> Jim D.
>
>   -Original Message-
>   From: Brian McKenna [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>   Sent: Sat 2/28/2004 9:40 AM
>   To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>   Cc:
>   Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)
>
>
>   I deeply admired Paul Sweezy and am so sad to hear that he's gone. . .His (and 
> Baran's) "Monopoly Capital" opened my eyes when I was young. . .and Monthly Review 
> has been tops for decades. . .with clear, clear captivating writing. . .a model for 
> us all. . . .
>
>   I used to see him at the Socialist Scholars Conferenec when I was back east. . 
> .a very approachable fellow. . .
>
>   Bless him.
>
>   Brian McKenna
>

--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Edward Said memorial service to be webcast

[Louis Proyect]

This message is to confirm that the Office of Presidential Events and
University Ceremonies at Columbia University has received your response
regarding the Edward Said Memorial Service on Wednesday, March 3 at 2:00
p.m.
The service will be held at St. Paul 's Chapel, Columbia University, New
York City, and a simultaneous broadcast of the service will be projected
in the Roone Arledge Auditorium, Alfred Lerner Hall on the Columbia
campus. (Enter the Auditorium at 115th and Broadway.) The service will
also be webcast live on www.columbia.edu/cu/news/edwardsaid/.
All are welcome to attend the University Memorial Service for Professor
Edward Said.
Please note that because of space limitations members of the Columbia
University community and the public are encouraged to attend the
service in Lerner Hall.  The majority of chapel seats have been
reserved for family and close friends.
Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)

[MICHAEL YATES]

ï



Friends,
 
I first came to know Paul Sweezy in the early 1970s.  He was always a 
very kind critic, and when I got to know him personally, a very kind and 
generous man.  I mourn his death.  Monthly Review magazine is his 
legacy.  Although Paul had been ill for some time and had not actively 
participated in the magazine in a couple of years, I hope that everyone realizes 
that this legacy is still very much alive.  His great comrade, Harry 
Magdoff, is still going strong, and along with the new editors, John Foster and 
Robert McChesney, continue to make MR the left magazine "of record."  All 
of us at MR will, I am sure, honor Paul's memory by dedicating ourselves to 
the magazine, the Press, and most of all the revolutionary struggle to create a 
better world.
 
Michael Yates 

  - Original Message - 
  From: Devine, James 
  To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
  Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 10:05 
  AM
  Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Paul Marlor Sweezy 
  (1910-2004)
  I know I'm in mourning.Jim D.-Original 
  Message- From: Brian McKenna [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sat 
  2/28/2004 9:40 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: 
  Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)I deeply 
  admired Paul Sweezy and am so sad to hear that he's gone. . .His (and Baran's) 
  "Monopoly Capital" opened my eyes when I was young. . .and Monthly Review has 
  been tops for decades. . .with clear, clear captivating writing. . .a model 
  for us all. . . .I used to see him at the Socialist Scholars 
  Conferenec when I was back east. . .a very approachable fellow. . 
  .Bless him.Brian McKenna 

Re: Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)

[Jurriaan Bendien]

I am very sad hearing that news and want to say something. I never met him
personally but I knew him through his writings which made a lasting
impression. He wasn't just a great publicist, an independent, pioneering
American socialist, a team worker, and a great, cultured scholar, but he was
also a good, humane person with a lifelong dedication to working for a
socialist, egalitarian society. His book The Theory of Capitalist
Development, which he published during the second world war no less, was
among the first textbooks I read on Marx's economics in 1979 in Political
Science 101 while trying to figure it out.

Scholarly speaking, I personally didn't end up agreeing with his analysis of
the USSR, nor with his interpretation of the transformation problem, but
that was okay, I felt we shared the same goal, and Paul Sweezy never lost
sight of it, irrespective of whether there was some particular agreement or
disagreement or difference or anything like that. Later Ernest Mandel sent
me an article in New Zealand for comment, which Ernest was publishing in a
volume of essays in honour of Paul Sweezy and Harry Magdoff, proof to me
that two scholars who sparred politically many a time were nevertheless
united by their aspiration and did not lose sight of what was most
important.

Paul Sweezy was interested in dialogue, in explaining and understanding
without obscurantism, and that was evident in his magazine Monthly Review
also. He could distinguish precisely between a scholarly debate and a
political controversy, and avoided silly sectarian nonsense. I hope there
will be a very large memorial meeting for him, fully expressive of
everything he contributed, and he gave so much ! He made history, and his
work will live on and inspire us again !

Jurriaan

- Original Message -
From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 6:18 PM
Subject: [PEN-L] Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)


> >[lbo-talk] Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910- 2004)
> >John Mage jmage at panix.com
> >Sat Feb 28 09:12:20 PST 2004
> >
> >Paul Sweezy, a man I loved, died last night.
> >He was a Marxist revolutionary.
> >
> >john mage
>
> --
> Yoshie
>
> * Bring Them Home Now! 
> * Calendars of Events in Columbus:
> ,
> , & 
> * Student International Forum: 
> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: 
> * Al-Awda-Ohio: 
> * Solidarity: 
>
>
>

Re: Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)

[Devine, James]

I know I'm in mourning.
Jim D.

-Original Message- 
From: Brian McKenna [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Sat 2/28/2004 9:40 AM 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)


I deeply admired Paul Sweezy and am so sad to hear that he's gone. . .His (and 
Baran's) "Monopoly Capital" opened my eyes when I was young. . .and Monthly Review has 
been tops for decades. . .with clear, clear captivating writing. . .a model for us 
all. . . .

I used to see him at the Socialist Scholars Conferenec when I was back east. . 
.a very approachable fellow. . .

Bless him.

Brian McKenna 

Re: Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)

[Brian McKenna]

I deeply admired Paul Sweezy and am so sad to hear that he's gone. . .His (and Baran's) "Monopoly Capital" opened my eyes when I was young. . .and Monthly Review has been tops for decades. . .with clear, clear captivating writing. . .a model for us all. . . .

I used to see him at the Socialist Scholars Conferenec when I was back east. . .a very approachable fellow. . .

Bless him.

Brian McKenna

Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910-2004)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

[lbo-talk] Paul Marlor Sweezy (1910- 2004)
John Mage jmage at panix.com
Sat Feb 28 09:12:20 PST 2004
Paul Sweezy, a man I loved, died last night.
He was a Marxist revolutionary.
john mage
--
Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! 
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
,
, & 
* Student International Forum: 
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: 
* Al-Awda-Ohio: 
* Solidarity: 

FW: New Palm Digital Media books by Michael Perelman

[Devine, James]

perhaps of interest to pen-pals...

-Original Message- 
From: Palm Digital Media [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Sat 2/28/2004 12:20 AM 
To: Devine, James 
Cc: 
Subject: New Palm Digital Media books by Michael Perelman



New books by Michael Perelman 
  have been released at Palm 
Digital Media  .

The Natural Instability of Markets 
 The Natural Instability 
of Markets  
Expectations, Increasing Returns, and the Collapse of Capitalism by Michael Perelman 
  
Price: $36.00 Newsletter Price  
: $32.40 
In the rush to open societies to the benefits of competition, economists have 
overlooked the fundamental instability of competitive markets. Michael Perelman here 
argues that capitalism's victory is temporary and calls into question the claim that 
the more competition there is, the better off society will be.
More...  
Transcending the Economy    
Transcending the Economy  
On the Potential of Passionate Labor and the Wastes of the Market by Michael Perelman 
  
Price: $36.00 Newsletter Price  
: $32.40 
Transcending the Economy explores the reasons why our economy fails to provide a more 
fulfilling way of life. Michael Perelman argues that the dominance of markets imposes 
burdens of waste and lost potential and that traditional economics is ill-equipped to 
approach such matters because of its focus on limits rather than potential.
More...  

For a complete list of books by Michael Perelman, check our web site 
 .

  _  

You received this email because you registered for a notification at the web 
site. You can view or modify your current notifications from this web page:

http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/user/account#notifications

Black male unemployment nearly 50 percent

[Louis Proyect]

NY Times, February 28, 2004
Nearly Half of Black Men Found Jobless
By JANNY SCOTT
It is well known that the unemployment rate in New York City rose sharply
during the recent recession. It is also understood that the increase was
worse for men than for women, and especially bad for black men. But a new
study examining trends in joblessness in the city since 2000 suggests that
by 2003, nearly one of every two black men between 16 and 64 was not working.
The study, by the Community Service Society, a nonprofit group that serves
the poor, is based on data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and
focuses on the so-called employment-population ratio - the fraction of the
working-age population with a paid job - in addition to the more familiar
unemployment rate, the percentage of the labor force actively looking for work.
Mark Levitan, the report's author, found that just 51.8 percent of black
men ages 16 to 64 held jobs in New York City in 2003. The rate for white
men was 75.7 percent; for Hispanic men, 65.7; and for black women, 57.1.
The employment-population ratio for black men was the lowest for the period
Mr. Levitan has studied, which goes back to 1979.
"We're left with a very big question,'' Mr. Levitan, a senior policy
analyst with the society, said in an interview. "As the economy recovers,
will we see a rise in employment among black men in tandem with the rise in
employment of city residents generally? In other words, is this
fundamentally a cyclical problem or is it more deeply structural? I fear
that it is more deeply structural."
Researchers who have studied joblessness said Mr. Levitan's findings were
consistent with trends among disadvantaged men, both black and white, in
other Northern and Midwestern cities where manufacturing jobs have
disappeared in recent decades. Some said factors that might have made the
problem worse since 2000 could include welfare reform, high rates of
incarceration producing gaps in job histories, and competition with
immigrants for low-skill jobs.
Lawrence M. Mead, a professor of political science at New York University
who specializes in social policy and welfare reform, said that labor force
participation - job-holding and job-seeking - among disadvantaged men had
been declining nationwide and that New York City had long had "a lower work
level" than elsewhere. Others said a similar racial gap in male employment
had been seen in Midwestern and Central states.
"You're really talking about a long-term problem among low-skilled,
disadvantaged men,'' Professor Mead said. "Blacks are disproportionately
disadvantaged. You're seeing this tendency to drop out. It's very serious
and nobody has an answer.''
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/nyregion/28employ.html

Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Black males and the jobless recovery in NYC

[Seth Sandronsky]

Nearly Half of Black Men Found Jobless

February 28, 2004
By JANNY SCOTT
It is well known that the unemployment rate in New York
City rose sharply during the recent recession. It is also
understood that the increase was worse for men than for
women, and especially bad for black men. But a new study
examining trends in joblessness in the city since 2000
suggests that by 2003, nearly one of every two black men
between 16 and 64 was not working.
The study, by the Community Service Society, a nonprofit
group that serves the poor, is based on data from the
federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and focuses on the
so-called employment-population ratio - the fraction of the
working-age population with a paid job - in addition to the
more familiar unemployment rate, the percentage of the
labor force actively looking for work.
Mark Levitan, the report's author, found that just 51.8
percent of black men ages 16 to 64 held jobs in New York
City in 2003. The rate for white men was 75.7 percent; for
Hispanic men, 65.7; and for black women, 57.1. The
employment-population ratio for black men was the lowest
for the period Mr. Levitan has studied, which goes back to
1979.
"We're left with a very big question,'' Mr. Levitan, a
senior policy analyst with the society, said in an
interview. "As the economy recovers, will we see a rise in
employment among black men in tandem with the rise in
employment of city residents generally? In other words, is
this fundamentally a cyclical problem or is it more deeply
structural? I fear that it is more deeply structural."
Researchers who have studied joblessness said Mr. Levitan's
findings were consistent with trends among disadvantaged
men, both black and white, in other Northern and Midwestern
cities where manufacturing jobs have disappeared in recent
decades. Some said factors that might have made the problem
worse since 2000 could include welfare reform, high rates
of incarceration producing gaps in job histories, and
competition with immigrants for low-skill jobs.
Lawrence M. Mead, a professor of political science at New
York University who specializes in social policy and
welfare reform, said that labor force participation -
job-holding and job-seeking - among disadvantaged men had
been declining nationwide and that New York City had long
had "a lower work level" than elsewhere. Others said a
similar racial gap in male employment had been seen in
Midwestern and Central states.
"You're really talking about a long-term problem among
low-skilled, disadvantaged men,'' Professor Mead said.
"Blacks are disproportionately disadvantaged. You're seeing
this tendency to drop out. It's very serious and nobody has
an answer.''
Mindy Tarlow, executive director of the Center for
Employment Opportunities, an employment program for men and
women with criminal records that is based in Lower
Manhattan, said her agency's success rate in placing
clients in unsubsidized jobs had dropped to 55 percent from
65 percent between 2000 and 2003. She attributed the change
not only to the recession but also to women coming off
welfare and looking for work.
"I do know there are more people in the low-skill job
market competing for the same low-skill jobs,'' she said.
"In some ways, the low-skill job market has become more
competitive. Welfare reform came into law in 1996, but I
think the impact was starting to be felt around 2000, maybe
earlier.''
David R. Howell, a labor economist and professor at New
School University, said service jobs were particularly hard
for black men to get. He said studies had shown that
employers "are particularly uninterested in hiring black
men for jobs that require customer or client contact, for
whatever reason.'' They tend to give preference to women,
he said.
Mr. Levitan used data from the Current Population Survey, a
monthly survey done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on a
nationwide basis. He averaged the 12 monthly figures for
New York City for each year. He said he used the
employment-population ratio because the unemployment rate,
which counts only people who are actively looking for a
job, did not capture those too discouraged to keep trying.
In a recession, the number of discouraged workers goes up,
Mr. Levitan said. If job losses land disproportionately on
one group of people, a disproportionate share of that group
may give up looking for work. In that case, changes in the
unemployment rate for that group will tend to understate
the relative impact of the recession on that group, he
said.
Mr. Levitan found that the unemployment rate for black men
in New York City rose by 5.3 percentage points, to 12.9
percent, in 2003. The employment-population ratio dropped
by 12.2 percentage points, to 51.8, from a cycle peak of 64
in 2000. The employment-population ratio for Hispanic men
dropped by 7.1 percentage points; the ratio for white men
dropped by 2.1. The margin of error was 4 percent.
The declines among black and Hispanic women were smaller
than among black and Hispanic men. Mr

Re: article on MR website

[Jurriaan Bendien]

I have an article posted on the Monthly Review website (www.monthlyreview.org) titled "Can the 
Working Class Change the World?"  It is a write up of a talk I gave to the 
Marxist School in Sacramento.  Comments welcome.
 
I think the working class not only can change the world, 
but does change the world, and thus, the only real political question for me is 
what that changing is changing the world into, and how to engender the 
confidence to change it in a specific future direction according to a vision of 
the future we have. But your title is good, insofar as it implies, as an open 
question, that changing the world is a practical thing, and not simply a 
question of typing a lot of words into a keyboard as I have been doing for 
months. Question is raised, what is the best way to use Monthly Review articles 
for political education ?
 
I think you writing style is excellent for political 
and educative purposes, because it is very clear and easy to follow, and you 
always provide relevant facts and illustrations to make you points very clear, 
and I can learn from that. But it is not my purpose to talk a lot about 
"changing the world" in the phase of life I am in, because I am having to change 
myself, if I may put it like that. As you know, the very word "change" is a 
loaded term these days, and I am a person who has to watch out with that. I have 
a lot of words, but I have to do a lot of things, nevermind my distractors, 
because if it is just words all the time, it's just noise or diaper 
talk. 
 
Your most important point is really that "in the rich countries, the 
weaker the workers, the greater the inequality, and the less likely it is that 
workers will reach out in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in the poor 
nations". Mutatis mutandis, the stronger the workers, the more the 
inequality is reduced, and the more likely it is that workers will reach 
out in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in the poor nations. That is 
where workingclass politics starts, because now you have to know exactly 
what specifically strength means, and how you become strong, in every field of 
human endeavour, at a personal level and in what you do, so you can really 
operate this with assurance. 
 
In one of his last appeals to the youth, the elderly 
Ernest Mandel said in all modesty: "begin to change the world" but although this 
sounds good in French, that is not what we say in English. What we say is that 
change is already happening unless you're blind, and in those currents of 
change, we have to find our own place, without losing our real identity or be 
smashed up by misleaders.
 
I don't think I am the strongest around and I have to watch what I eat, 
deodorant and so on, but with what I've got I can develop some strengths, and 
your writing is inspiring. If there is a problem with statistical abstractions, 
it is that you always have to try and bring that back to a human level so 
people can understand what it means personally in terms of active human 
subjects, and that in itself requires a good facility for abstraction and an 
organised, experienced life. You're good at it, as teacher.
 
Few songs that came to mind just now (I have this 
"jukebox" in my brain, although not a true radiohead): 
 
We grew up togetherFrom the cradle to the 
graveWe died and were rebornAnd then mysteriously saved.
 
Bob Dylan with Jacques Levy, "Oh Sister"
 
I remember Johnny - hey!Johnny come latelyI remember her shoes like 
a ballerinaA girl called Johnny whochanged her name when 
shediscovered her choice was tochange or to be changed
 
- Waterboys, "A Girl called Johnny"
 
I gave her laughter, she wanted diamondsI was romantic, she treated me 
cruellyWhere is the mercy, where is the love?
 
- Mick Jagger, "Hard Woman"
 
Love is youYou and meLove is knowingWe can be
 
- John Lennon, "Love" 
 
Jurriaan
 
 
 

Re: Answering Ted Glick

[Louis Proyect]

Michael Hoover:
re. witch hunt: if reference is to truman (who as senator in 40 had said
on senate floor that us should back which ever side was winning between
soviets and nazis and then turn on winner), loyalty oaths and other
ferreting out of 'reds' precedes 48, in any event, wallace made no
difference in any state while strom thurmond actually won 4 southern
states (repeat after me: electoral college, electoral college)...
But isn't that because Truman took a hard shift to the left to co-opt
Wallace supporters?
well, several possible lessons - don't rely on famous name, choose
candidate who is
not so boring, don't run prez candidates because money, time, effort
might be better spent elsewhere...
But presidential campaigns are where the most intense discussions about war
and peace, the economy, race, etc. are held. People's attention are riveted
on them in a way that does not occur in even Congressional campaigns. I
can't remember a thing about the last election involving my local rep
Carolyn Maloney. She ran against some Republican, but the race received
zero coverage or interest. I can understand why the Democrats would want
the Greens to focus on Municipal Judge campaigns, etc. But I for one am
looking forward to Nader participation in the debates, even if this is an
unlikely event given the tight control exercised by the media, LWV and all
other watchdogs of the 2-party system.
re. nader comparison to allende: borders on sacrilege (if one were
religious) for obvious reasons...   michael hoover
Allende had the support of a significant section of the Chilean
bourgeoisie. When Nader runs here, it is at the risk of cutting himself
from long-time allies who have connections to the ruling class--starting
with the Nation crowd.
Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Critique of the Brookings Institute - correction

[Jurriaan Bendien]

Chris comments: > BTW [the author, John Dolan] not Russian; he's a US
citizen who taught English in Auckland, NZ, for several years and then
relocated to Moscow. His wife is a New Zealander.

J.

Re: Answering Ted Glick

[Michael Hoover]

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 02/24/04 4:23 PM >>>
(I sort of doubt whether Ralph Nader will have the time or the
inclination to answer Ted Glick's questions, but I'd like to take a stab
at them myself.)
Should the Peace and Freedom Party have worked out a deal with
the Democrats in 1968 to make sure that Hubert Humphrey get elected?
the witch-hunt was launched during a Democratic Party administration,
largely out of fear of Progressive Party success.
I think it is up to the Greens to build the Green Party.
You might learn something from Nader about how to run an effective
campaign the next time.
I don't believe Glick gets what Nader is doing which is
to issue an explicit fuck-you to leftists like Glick and, by
extension, like us, who have, truth be told, failed miserably over
the past 30 years, let's face it.
the logic on which one supported Allende, possibly a good reason to
support Nader.
<>

i realize that part of above is rhetorical flourish but...

re. pfp in 68: cleaver & doug dowd (bless his heart) were on ballot in
12-13-14 states, received about 75,000 votes nationwide, made no
difference in any state (which is what folks must focus on re. prez
elections given electoral college), other left candidates that year
included your guy swp fred halsted, slp, and liberal gene mcarthy (who
had independent ballot line in 6-7 states and received about 13,000
votes)...

re. witch hunt: if reference is to truman (who as senator in 40 had said
on senate floor that us should back which ever side was winning between
soviets and nazis and then turn on winner), loyalty oaths and other
ferreting out of 'reds' precedes 48, in any event, wallace made no
difference in any state while strom thurmond actually won 4 southern
states (repeat after me: electoral college, electoral college)...

re. gp building gp: of course, which is why greens should have abandoned
nader after he failed to campaign in 96, poli sci people used to
contrast 'third' parties as 'idea'
parties and 'personality' parties, latter have no legs because they
serve as and are identified with individual campaigns...

re. learning from nader campaign: you surely don't mean 96 noncampaign,
as for 2000,
well, several possible lessons - don't rely on famous name, choose
candidate who is
not so boring, don't run prez candidates because money, time, effort
might be better spent elsewhere...

re. learning fuck-you to leftists who have failed: latter have certainly
failed (for lots of reasons, not all their doing), as for nader, dem
stupidity was failure to ignore his potential candidacy...

re. nader comparison to allende: borders on sacrilege (if one were
religious) for obvious reasons...   michael hoover

Re: Answering Ted Glick

[Jurriaan Bendien]

You are really smart.

J.


i realize that part of above is rhetorical flourish but...

re. pfp in 68: cleaver & doug dowd (bless his heart) were on ballot in
12-13-14 states, received about 75,000 votes nationwide, made no
difference in any state (which is what folks must focus on re. prez
elections given electoral college), other left candidates that year
included your guy swp fred halsted, slp, and liberal gene mcarthy (who
had independent ballot line in 6-7 states and received about 13,000
votes)...

re. witch hunt: if reference is to truman (who as senator in 40 had said
on senate floor that us should back which ever side was winning between
soviets and nazis and then turn on winner), loyalty oaths and other
ferreting out of 'reds' precedes 48, in any event, wallace made no
difference in any state while strom thurmond actually won 4 southern
states (repeat after me: electoral college, electoral college)...

re. gp building gp: of course, which is why greens should have abandoned
nader after he failed to campaign in 96, poli sci people used to
contrast 'third' parties as 'idea'
parties and 'personality' parties, latter have no legs because they
serve as and are identified with individual campaigns...

re. learning from nader campaign: you surely don't mean 96 noncampaign,
as for 2000,
well, several possible lessons - don't rely on famous name, choose
candidate who is
not so boring, don't run prez candidates because money, time, effort
might be better spent elsewhere...

re. learning fuck-you to leftists who have failed: latter have certainly
failed (for lots of reasons, not all their doing), as for nader, dem
stupidity was failure to ignore his potential candidacy...

re. nader comparison to allende: borders on sacrilege (if one were
religious) for obvious reasons...   michael hoover

Re: Stats & OED: [Was Re: demo fervor]

[dmschanoes]

OK will do.   Still, looking forward to your take on the conditions of
capital using your statistically superior method.  Actually, can't wait.

But enough idle banter.

dms

Re: "Goodbye, Lenin" opens in NYC

[joanna bujes]

Chris Burford wrote:

The intrusion of a massive advertisement for Coca Cola, is
counterbalanced later by an extraordinary image of an admonitory
statue of
Lenin, being carried through the air by a helicopter, reproving the
naive communist stalwart for having forgotten perhaps a deeper meaning
of socialism.
Perhaps meant to remind the viewer of the statue of Jesus, carried
through the air by a helicopter, above  Rome, at the beginning of "La
Dolce Vita."
Joanna