Re: human capital again

[Chris Burford]

Although these terms might be thought to be  a bit loose by Marxian
terminology, their merit is that they draw attention to sources of
productive wealth other than finance capital. They therefore pose in
lay terms the question of the social wider social framework in which
finance capital operates. Also the question of how if finance capital
is ultimately based on private ownership despite its highly socialised
form,  is it to be held socially accountable.

The term social capital seemed to me in the exchanges a year ago to be
quite compatible with the essence of Marxian formulations, and useful
in discussing the social effects of capitalism, despite the strictures
of Ben Fine, whom I respect.

This list for example is an extremely rich source of social,
intellectual and cultural capital.

Chris Burford





- Original Message -
From: "Michael Perelman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 3:45 AM
Subject: [PEN-L] human capital again


> 112-3: They refer to "a plethora of capitals" -- human capital,
>cultural capital, and even self-command capital..
> Baron, James N. and Michael T. Hannan. 1994. "The Impact of
>Economics on Contemporary Sociology." Journal of Economic
>Literature, 32: 3 (September): pp. 111-46.
>
> --
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
>
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
>

Re: human capital again

[paul phillips]

Michael,

The fact that human capital is tracked by class is not really rellevant.
 Does one tract physical capital by class?  Does a  backhoe owned by a  working
class person have less value than the backhoe owned by  GW Bush?  Only because
of the social status heaped upon BW Bush by his birth/pedigree/wealth.  But
that is a false valuation.  The backhoe in the hands of a qualified worker
is worth much more than a backhoe in the hands of an incompetent GWB.  So
much the same with human capital.
    I came from a working-class family who had the  goals of educating all
their children to escape from being  working class, not because they were
anti-working class (they were all radical socialists, union activists, political
activists) but because  they saw that the only way we were to escape being
wage-slaves was to become educated (i.e. accumulate human capital) that would
not only alow us an element of independence, but also to  get "a return to
our investment" in education.  George Bush did not get a return to education
(human capital) but to the power of priviledge -- i.e. to a monopoly of power.
 What you are in effect saying is that GWB got where he did because he worked
harder (i.e. his return was greater than those who had equal human capital.)
This, I would suggest is crap.

Paul  

Michael Perelman wrote:

  Paul, I don't think that "human capital" is a particularly useful
concept.  In the US, student are tracked according to class -- although
it is not official.  Even in the absence of tracking, poor students go
to poor schools.  So a GW Bush can go and get a Harvard MBA as evidence
of human capital.

Are humans capital or does the concept make capital human?

I understand how I can accept a reduced income to go to med. school &
get a higher income, much as a capitalist invests in capital, but there
are so many factors involved.

Also, much learning does not come from labor.  Students usually learn
more from their fellow students than from professors.

Rant finished.


On Mon, Mar 22, 2004 at 09:37:50PM -0800, paul phillips wrote:
  
  
Michael,

I have read of 'cultural capital' and 'political captital' which seems
to be equivalent of that obscene capitalist construction called, I
think, 'good will' which corporations can claim as wealth when they sell
out. But that is not investment in any sense in that it does not involve
investment  of (labour) resources in creating something of productive (
and productive is the operative word) value.
 Human capital is something quite different.  Humans invest in
buying  knowledge, produced by labour, which increases their
productivity at a later date.  In that sense, human capital is a form of
'dead labour' equivalent to  physical capital.  None of these others are
'real' investment in 'dead labour' and hence, are not capital in the
sense we use the term.

Paul Phillips


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

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

  

2008, or After Bush

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Who will be the Republican presidential candidate in 2008?
--
Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! 
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
,
, & 
* Student International Forum: 
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: 
* Al-Awda-Ohio: 
* Solidarity: 

Gregory Wilpert on John Kerry's Attack on Venezuela

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

*   A Rebuttal to Senator Kerry's Statement on Venezuela
Monday, Mar 22, 2004
By: Gregory Wilpert - Venezuelanalysis.com
Senator Kerry's press statement was issued on March 19, 2004.

Italic text is Senator Kerry's statement. Plain text is Gregory
Wilpert's rebuttal.
_With the future of the democratic process at a critical juncture in
Venezuela, we should work to bring all possible international
pressure to bear on President Chavez to allow the referendum to
proceed._
It is not up to President Chavez whether there is a referendum.
Venezuela's constitution clearly establishes rules that must be
followed for a referendum to be called. The president has nothing to
do with this procedure. If Kerry has any evidence that Chavez is
preventing the referendum process from proceeding, then he should
spell out what it is that he has done.
_The [Bush] Administration should demonstrate its true commitment to
democracy in Latin America by showing determined leadership now,
while a peaceful resolution can still be achieved._
U.S. interference in Venezuela's referendum process will distort and
damage Venezuela's democracy more than help it. If there is outside
interference, it is more likely that the results of the process will
not be recognized as legitimate  by one of the sides in the conflict
and this would probably lead to violence, not to "a peaceful
resolution."
_Throughout his time in office, President Chavez has repeatedly
undermined democratic institutions by using extra-legal means,
including politically motivated incarcerations, to consolidate power._
How does Kerry know that the incarcerations of some protestors were
politically motivated? As the cases stand right now, it has not been
clearly established that any of the arrests that have occurred during
the recent spate of violent protests involved people who were
innocent of all charges. As the cases proceed and come to trial,
there will be plenty of opportunities to find out if this was the
case. To prejudge the arrests as Sen. Kerry does, does not help.
_In fact, his close relationship with Fidel Castro has raised serious
questions about his commitment to leading a truly democratic
government._
If relationships with undemocratic rulers are enough to question a
leader's commitment to democracy, then the commitment to democracy of
just about every president in U.S. history must be questioned.
_Moreover, President Chavez's policies have been detrimental to our
interests and those of his neighbors._
Exactly what "our interests" is is of course a much disputed issue.
If it includes Venezuela's opposition to the WTO and the FTAA, then,
indeed, President Chavez' interests have been detrimental to U.S.
interests. However, many in the U.S. and in Latin America would argue
that these institutions are not in the U.S. interest, but only in the
interest of transnational corporations, such as the one that Senator
Kerry's wife is heiress to (Heinz Ketchup). Besides, governments are
not there to pursue U.S. interests anyway, no matter where they are;
only national and human interests.
_He has compromised efforts to eradicate drug cultivation by allowing
Venezuela to become a haven for narco-terrorists, and sowed
instability in the region by supporting anti-government insurgents in
Colombia._
Sen. Kerry stands in direct contradiction with U.S. government
testimony that says that the Venezuelan government has been very
cooperative with US drug enforcement agencies. More drugs have been
intercepted by the Chavez government than any previous government.
While this could reflect in increase in drug trafficking in
Venezuela, it proves that Venezuela's government has far from
"compromised efforts."[1]
Even the head of the U.S. Southern Command, Gen. James Hill, who is
directly involved in plan Colombia and the U.S. anti-drug trafficking
effort, has denied that there is any evidence of connections between
the Venezuelan government and "anti-government insurgents" in
Colombia.[2] If Senator Kerry has any evidence of such connections,
he should provide them to the U.S. military so that they might be
properly informed.
_The referendum has given the people of Venezuela the opportunity to
express their views on his presidency through constitutionally
legitimate means._
Perhaps it would have been good to mention at this point that the
recall referendum was proposed by President Chavez and his party when
the country's constitutional assembly wrote the new constitution.
This fact directly contradicts Sen. Kerry's questioning of President
Chavez' democratic credentials.
_The international community cannot allow President Chavez to subvert
this process, as he has attempted to do thus far._
Without mentioning concrete examples of President Chavez' supposed
efforts to "subvert" the referendum process, Sen. Kerry's statement
is pure innuendo that intends to slander a head of state.
_He must be pressured to comply with the agreements he made with the
OAS and the Carter Center to allow the r

Re: human capital again

[Michael Perelman]

Paul, I don't think that "human capital" is a particularly useful
concept.  In the US, student are tracked according to class -- although
it is not official.  Even in the absence of tracking, poor students go
to poor schools.  So a GW Bush can go and get a Harvard MBA as evidence
of human capital.

Are humans capital or does the concept make capital human?

I understand how I can accept a reduced income to go to med. school &
get a higher income, much as a capitalist invests in capital, but there
are so many factors involved.

Also, much learning does not come from labor.  Students usually learn
more from their fellow students than from professors.

Rant finished.


On Mon, Mar 22, 2004 at 09:37:50PM -0800, paul phillips wrote:
> Michael,
>
> I have read of 'cultural capital' and 'political captital' which seems
> to be equivalent of that obscene capitalist construction called, I
> think, 'good will' which corporations can claim as wealth when they sell
> out. But that is not investment in any sense in that it does not involve
> investment  of (labour) resources in creating something of productive (
> and productive is the operative word) value.
>  Human capital is something quite different.  Humans invest in
> buying  knowledge, produced by labour, which increases their
> productivity at a later date.  In that sense, human capital is a form of
> 'dead labour' equivalent to  physical capital.  None of these others are
> 'real' investment in 'dead labour' and hence, are not capital in the
> sense we use the term.
>
> Paul Phillips
>

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

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

Re: human capital again

[paul phillips]

Michael,

I have read of 'cultural capital' and 'political captital' which seems
to be equivalent of that obscene capitalist construction called, I
think, 'good will' which corporations can claim as wealth when they sell
out. But that is not investment in any sense in that it does not involve
investment  of (labour) resources in creating something of productive (
and productive is the operative word) value.
Human capital is something quite different.  Humans invest in
buying  knowledge, produced by labour, which increases their
productivity at a later date.  In that sense, human capital is a form of
'dead labour' equivalent to  physical capital.  None of these others are
'real' investment in 'dead labour' and hence, are not capital in the
sense we use the term.
Paul Phillips

Michael Perelman wrote:

112-3: They refer to "a plethora of capitals" -- human capital,
  cultural capital, and even self-command capital..
Baron, James N. and Michael T. Hannan. 1994. "The Impact of
  Economics on Contemporary Sociology." Journal of Economic
  Literature, 32: 3 (September): pp. 111-46.
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

human capital again

[Michael Perelman]

112-3: They refer to "a plethora of capitals" -- human capital,
   cultural capital, and even self-command capital..
Baron, James N. and Michael T. Hannan. 1994. "The Impact of
   Economics on Contemporary Sociology." Journal of Economic
   Literature, 32: 3 (September): pp. 111-46.

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

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

Samir Amin on Paul Sweezy

[Shane Mage]

PAUL SWEEZY



Paul Sweezy was a great teacher with an open and inventive mind,  the

very example of a lucid and courageous militant life. A friend.



Paul Sweezy was one of those marxists for whom marxism did not stop at

Marx but started from him.  In Vol. II of Das Kapital, by putting to

work the key concept that total output comprises two productive

sectors--investment goods ("Department I") and consumption

goods ("Department II")--Marx began the undertaking of a rigorous

analysis of the process of capital accumulation.  He shone a light on

the contradictions within the system forced by the class struggle,

whose effects are expressed through inconsistencies in the

dynamics of expanded reproduction.  Marx thus offered a

framework for analysis of the uneven development of

global capitalism.



In the years after Marx's death, these leads to continue the working out

of the theoretical understanding of really existing capitalism gave rise

to inventive critical conceptual work from Rosa Luxemburg, Franz

Bortkiewicz, and those analysts of imperialism on whom Lenin

based his own analysis.  But later, the simplistic dogmatism imposed

in the Third International  was to call a halt to the necessary task

of tirelessly continuing the work of Marx.  Paul Sweezy is to be found

among those exceptional thinkers who rejected that false discipline.

That fact made him one of the main precursors of future social

thought and renewal of marxism.  By his analysis of the problem

of absorption of surplus-product he began a necessary renewal

of the theory of contemporary monopoly capitalism.  Above and

beyond that, by linking this analysis closely to that of imperialism

he placed the whole theory of capitalism squarely within its

real global dimensions.



Paul Sweezy was a clear-sighted and brave militant.  None better than

he to make the whole world understand both the true nature of the

American ruling class's imperialist program and those specific features

of its political culture which, ever since its birth and the conquest

of its West, have shaped that ruling class's mental outlook. Such

a work of unsparing critique required untamable courage like

that which Paul Sweezy demonstrated in McCarthyite times.



The best tribute we can pay to his memory is to continue

his brave and clear-sighted work with the same courage

and lucidity.

M20 in S.F.

[Seth Sandronsky]

In SF, One Year of Occupying Iraq Is Too Much, Protesters Say
by Seth Sandronsky
www.dissidentvoice.org
March 22, 2004
Thousands of people rallied in San Francisco on a warm Saturday to oppose
the U.S. assault on Iraq that began one year ago. The protesters were part
of a global day of action against American military occupation of that
Middle East nation.
“My daughter, Sierra, was born when the U.S. attacked Iraq,” said Alyssa
Cardenas, age 27, a third grade teacher from Santa Cruz. “We have promised
to be activists for peace, to experience unity and to make hope possible,
peacefully.”
The mother and daughter joined many others who gathered during the late
morning in the city’s Dolores Park to hear speakers criticize U.S. policy in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba and Haiti.
Willie Ratcliff, publisher of the S.F. Bay View newspaper, linked U.S.
militarism in the Middle East to racism at home. African American soldiers
are dying disproportionately in Iraq as 50 percent of S.F.’s poor black
males are unable to find a job, he said.
Peter Camejo, the Green Party candidate for president on the California
ballot, assailed Sen. John F. Kerry, the Democratic Party’s pick to defeat
President Bush, for voting to back the U.S. war against Iraq. Rally
organizers also played a new commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal, the black author
and journalist on death row in Pennsylvania, urging people to pressure
politicians to “invest in caring, not killing.”
full:
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Sandronsky0322.htm
_
FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar – get it now!
http://clk.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/

Klinghoffer avenged?

[Chris Burford]

So the wheelchair hostage on the Achille Lauro has been avenged by the
death of the wheelchair cleric.

Who is blind in Gaza?

Chris Burford

"The Market as God"

[Chris Burford]

Struck by a 5minute BBC radio slot this morning quoting Harvey Cox,
Harvard professor of Theology, I searched on Google to find his
seminal article was in 1999.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99mar/marketgod.htm


How much are these ideas being shared, I wonder, and how consciously
do they overlap with marxist categories?

Adding '2004' to the search terms produced this, from Kansas, with
today's date.

http://thekansan.com/stories/113099/vie_1130990019.shtml

Could these ideas spread???

Chris Burford

London

Re: LNG security....FERCed (again)

[Les Schaffer]

Eugene Coyle wrote:

The general literature mentioned by Les Schaffer, while helpful, was
countered by the well-funded proponents.


if you have transcripts of their arguments, i would be interested in
taking a look at how they "countered".
les schaffer

Re: LNG security....FERCed (again)

[Eugene Coyle]

The point of the FERC action is to severly hamper local opposition to
the siting of any LNG facility.  There is information, as Les Schaeffer
points out, but battles will be fought at the local level and
site-specific information will be important.  If only the proponents
have "credible" information, the battles will be one-sided.
 I happened to be living in Vallejo when Shell and Bechtel tried to
site an LNG facility plus a large gas-fueld power plant there.  The
local political uprising stopped the venture, probably permanently.  The
general literature mentioned by Les Schaffer, while helpful, was
countered by the well-funded proponents.  Certain trade unions were
strong supporters of the project, and risk was minimized in  studies
that Shell and Bechtel paid for.
   The push for LNG at the national level is very strong, and
hamstringing local opposition will have an effect.
Gene Coyle

Les Schaffer wrote:

Eugene Coyle wrote:

Patriot Act Restricts Access to LNG Safety Studies
March 19, 2004, California Energy Circuit

i 'm not sure how they intend to "restrict access" ...  its fairly well
known in engineering circles that James Fay at MIT studied this back in
1970's. the papers are widely available -- and paint a quite scary
scenario for places like Boston Harbor.
a few googles on "Fay LNG":

http://www.greenfutures.org/projects/powerplant/Fay.html

http://www.energy.ca.gov/lng/documents/CRS_RPT_LNG_INFRA_SECURITY.PDF

a google on "LNG fire" brings almost identical results, meaning one
would not even need to know who did the initial studies.
the documents placed under restriction by FERC appear to be compliance
documents, and one can only wonder at the regulation breaking by
shipping companies that may be contained therein. Whatever they contain,
practioners of violence would merely need shipping routes and times, a
scheme for breaching double hulls, and use of existing documents on
fireball diameters to plan "best location for attack" scenarios. Anyone
covering these bases would probably be better prepared than 9/11 pilots.
this use of the Patriot Act reminds me of the news story from the other
day on resurgence of nuclear fallout studies with the view that
diagnosis of radioactivity post-detonation could lead to bomb material
identification and hence to (human) detonators of the bomb and hence to
a country to retaliate against and hence "by a commodius vicus of
recirculation"  to a form of deterrence:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/19/national/19NUKE.html

it's important to expose the Patriot Act for what it is not: it is not a
blueprint for making anyone you or I know safe from physical attack.
les schaffer

Bush's liberation

[Devine, James]

[This one reminds me of the story on US National Public Radio about some
neo-con classical historian who likened the "War against Terrorism" to
the war of Athens (yay!) against Sparta (boo!).  As one of the listeners
wrote, the analogy is revealing: not only did Athens lose the war, but
it lost largely because of a totally unnecessary attack on Syracuse
(akin to that on Iraq, he says). Of course, Athens was much more of an
imperialist power than was Sparta. The attack on Syracuse might make
sense in this light.]

--

Liberty takers

The entire Bush foreign policy is based on a dubious narrative of US
history that has freedom at its heart

Tristram Hunt
Monday March 22, 2004
The Guardian [U.K.]

Paul Kennedy, the great historian of empires, likes to remind his
audience that George Bush read history at Yale - but not that many
history books. However, since September 11 and the installation of a
Churchill bust in the Oval Office, President Bush seems to have put his
college days behind him. History is now in vogue at the White House.
Indeed, the entire Bush foreign policy has been premised on a narrative
of America's past at the heart of which is the principle of liberty.

Since the inception of the "war on terror", the Pentagon has been
careful to eschew the call of empire. What motivates neoconservatives,
we are told, is not the aggrandisement of American power but ensuring
the beacon of liberty shines brightly across the globe. In his 2003
state of the union address, President Bush reassured his global audience
that America sought to "exercise power without conquest".

Although the neoconservative polemicist Charles Krauthammer has declared
America to be "the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any
since Rome", and Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional
Authority in Iraq, sounds every day more like an Edwardian viceroy, the
White House is adamant that the war on terror is distinct from the
colonial ambitions of previous great powers. Instead, what the Bush
administration is concerned with is fulfilling the ideals of the
American revolution.

However, although bookshops in the US are awash with new biographies of
George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson,
what the White House has learned from all this scholarship seems little
different from the historical interpretation of the Mel Gibson film The
Patriot. For Gibson, the revolution was a clear-cut struggle for liberty
from the wicked British.

The neoconservatives have taken this dubious history as read and then
universalised the principle. The liberty won by the founding fathers in
the 18th century is for the Pentagon hawks a value of global validity.
As President Bush put it: "If the values are good enough for our people,
they ought to be good enough for others." And as the disillusioned
Republican thinker Paul Craig Roberts has pointed out, it is this claim
of universality that seems to endow American principles with their
monopoly on virtue. It behoves America, as a republic of virtue, to
export these ideals around the world.

The president certainly feels the hand of history and casts himself as a
latter-day Churchill. Recently, at a Churchill exhibition at the Library
of Congress, Bush aligned himself with his hero, announcing: "We are the
heirs of the tradition of liberty, defenders of the freedom, the
conscience and dignity of every person".

This sense of moral clarity is what is meant to distinguish
neoconservatism from plain old conservatism. While the likes of
Kissinger and Nixon were happy to collude with terrorism and bolster
tyrannies, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence, and
Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, will brook no such
betrayal of America's heritage. It is this call of historic virtue that
accounts for President Bush's recently launched "forward strategy for
freedom in the Middle East". Instead of supporting friendly if corrupt
Arab regimes, democracy and liberty would provide the litmus test for US
diplomacy in the region. "For too long, American policy looked away
while men and women were oppressed," announced the leader of the free
world. "That era is over."

Leaving aside US support for some pretty distasteful regimes in the
oil-rich Caspian basin, or Rice's intervention in the Venezuelan
elections, or the decision to postpone the polls in Iraq, there
remainfundamental historical problems with the neoconservative vision.

For at the political core the American revolution was a highly
restricted notion of freedom: the right of property holders to dispose
of their wealth as they saw fit. Many revolutionaries simply wanted to
be treated as Englishmen - which might account for Benjamin Franklin
lobbying for a job in the Westminster government as late as 1771. No
taxation without representation is a very different cry from the
universal right to liberty.

Moreover, the property that many founding fathers wanted to protect

Re: LNG security....FERCed (again)

[Les Schaffer]

Eugene Coyle wrote:

Patriot Act Restricts Access to LNG Safety Studies
March 19, 2004, California Energy Circuit

i 'm not sure how they intend to "restrict access" ...  its fairly well
known in engineering circles that James Fay at MIT studied this back in
1970's. the papers are widely available -- and paint a quite scary
scenario for places like Boston Harbor.
a few googles on "Fay LNG":

http://www.greenfutures.org/projects/powerplant/Fay.html

http://www.energy.ca.gov/lng/documents/CRS_RPT_LNG_INFRA_SECURITY.PDF

a google on "LNG fire" brings almost identical results, meaning one
would not even need to know who did the initial studies.
the documents placed under restriction by FERC appear to be compliance
documents, and one can only wonder at the regulation breaking by
shipping companies that may be contained therein. Whatever they contain,
practioners of violence would merely need shipping routes and times, a
scheme for breaching double hulls, and use of existing documents on
fireball diameters to plan "best location for attack" scenarios. Anyone
covering these bases would probably be better prepared than 9/11 pilots.
this use of the Patriot Act reminds me of the news story from the other
day on resurgence of nuclear fallout studies with the view that
diagnosis of radioactivity post-detonation could lead to bomb material
identification and hence to (human) detonators of the bomb and hence to
a country to retaliate against and hence "by a commodius vicus of
recirculation"  to a form of deterrence:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/19/national/19NUKE.html

it's important to expose the Patriot Act for what it is not: it is not a
blueprint for making anyone you or I know safe from physical attack.
les schaffer

twin cities bus strike blogger

[Stephen E Philion]

http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/strikeblog/

Moguls and Shareholder Activism

[Funke Jayson J]

Title: Moguls and Shareholder Activism




I read two interesting articles in the March 11, 2004 issue of InvestmentNews. Unfortunately they are not available on line so I will attempt to summarize:

Happy Day$ Here Again for Mogul$: Compensation uptick seen for financial services honchoes

Despite all the hoopla surrounding executive compensation, the paychecks to many top executives in asset management business increased an average of 10% to 15% in 2003. The article states that the rise in compensation is a result of the improved market and also a “clear indication of the industry’s apathy toward embracing new standards of good corporate government.” And while compensation packages are impressive, “they are nothing compared with increases seen among big Wall Street companies, particularly those that wheel and deal in investment banking.” 

Lawsuit May Dampen Shareholder Activism: ‘Sweatshop comments imperil social investor’

A defamation lawsuit has been filed by Cintas Corp. against the parent company of Walden Asset Management (Boston Trust and Investment Management Co) and Timothy Smith, a Walden VP. Walden manages several social funds. In the suit, Cintas accuses Walden and Smith of falsely accusing the uniform supplier at its October annual shareholders meeting of supporting sweatshops. At the meeting, Smith introduced “a resolution asking Cintas to asses the effectiveness of its vendor code of conduct, and the compliance of offshore factories and suppliers. Accoding to the suit, Smith identified a Haitian apparel company he called ‘a poster child for sweatshops as a major supplier to Cintas.” Until now companies have refrained from using the courts to go after shareholders who bring up issues with which management may disagree. Some fear that the suit may lead to other shareholders less willing to challenge company management, others think it a frivolous suit that won’t change anything.


Jayson Funke



 
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NYT: Delivery Delays Hurt U.S. Effort to Equip Iraqis

[Michael Pollak]

[This is great.  Read this mundane article in the normal fashion.   And
then laugh out loud when you come to the buried -- and disavowed -- lede.
These people at the Times have no shame.]

The New York Times In America
March 22, 2004

Delivery Delays Hurt U.S. Effort to Equip Iraqis

   By THOM SHANKER
   and ERIC SCHMITT

   B AGHDAD, Iraq, March 21 Senior American commanders in Iraq are
   publicly complaining that delays in delivering radios, body armor and
   other equipment have hobbled their ability to build an effective Iraqi
   security force that can ultimately replace United States troops here.

   The lag in supplying the equipment, because of a contract dispute, may
   even have contributed to a loss of lives among Iraqi recruits,
   commanders say. A spokesman for the company that was awarded the
   original contract said much of the equipment had already been produced
   and was waiting to be shipped to Iraq.

   The frustration had been voiced privately up the chain of command by a
   number of officers, and broke into public debate in recent days.
   Training and equipping more than 200,000 Iraqi security forces has
   been one of the top stated priorities of the Bush administration.

   Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne
   Division, praised the work of Iraqi security forces helping to secure
   his area of control in western Iraq, which includes the dangerous
   region around Falluja and the Syrian border. But he said the effort
   had faltered because of a lack of combat gear for the police, border
   units and the new Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.

   "Not only are the security forces bravely leading the fight against
   terrorists, they are in some cases insisting on doing it alone,"
   General Swannack said 11 days ago. "They want to defeat these enemies
   of a new and free Iraq. If we had the equipment for these brave young
   men, we would be much farther along."

   He said that in his region of western Iraq, which includes a long
   stretch of the Syrian border, foreign fighters, their money and
   weapons were suspected of entering Iraq along smugglers' routes. In
   this area, he said, "we are still short a significant amount of
   vehicles, radios and body armor to properly equip" the new Iraqi
   force.

   Commanders in other parts of Iraq have also warned of serious
   problems. "There are training, organizational and equipment shortfalls
   in the Iraqi security forces," said Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the new
   American commander in northern Iraq. "There's no question about that."

   The American military also suffered from shortages of crucial
   equipment during the war and even into the current phase of stability
   operations. In particular, soldiers complained of an insufficient
   supply of the newest bulletproof vests and, when improvised explosives
   began taking lives, of armored Humvees. Their complaints have been
   echoed loudly by members of Congress.

   But the equipment for America's combat troops and that for Iraqi
   security services is obtained through separate contracting and
   procurement processes.

   The first batch of equipment for the Iraqis has been paid for and was
   to have been delivered under a $327 million contract to a small
   company, Nour USA Ltd., of Vienna, Va. But the Pentagon canceled that
   deal this month after protests by several competing companies led to a
   determination that Army procurement officers in Iraq botched the
   contract. Army officials found no fault with Nour.

   Sloppy contract language, staff turnover, incomplete paperwork and
   stressful combat conditions on the ground led to a badly flawed
   process, senior Army officials in Washington said. "I've seen things
   go wrong before, but I've never seen anything like this," said a
   senior Army official with 28 years' experience in government
   contracting. "We messed up."

   The Army is rushing to seek new bids for the contract, but officials
   said that could take two to three months. In the meantime, officials
   are looking to see if they can use other funds and piggyback on
   existing contracts for weapons and other equipment that federal
   agencies like the F.B.I. already have to speed the delivery of vital
   matériel to Iraq.

   "Part of it is just the magnitude of how much was needed thousands of
   police cars, hundreds of thousands of uniforms," Maj. Gen. Buford C.
   Blount III, the deputy director of operations for the Army staff in
   Washington, said in an interview. "It was just a lot harder to get
   stuff in than we anticipated."

   The $327 million contract was to supply several battalions of the new
   Iraqi security forces with rifles, uniforms, body armor and other
   equipment. The original contract, awarded in January, did not specify
   the number of troops to be supplied. Instead it identified specific
   amounts of equipment for instance, 200 trucks and 20,000 compasses.
   That contract was to 

Oh Calcutta or Oliver Twist Today....

[Mike Ballard]

(Jagger-Richards, 1973)
The police in New York City,
they chased a boy right through the park.
And in a case of mistaken identity
they put a bullet through his heart.
Heartbreakers with your forty-four,
I wanna tear your world apart,
you heartbreaker with your forty-four,
I wanna tear your world apart,
A ten year old girl on a street corner,
Sticking needles in her arm.
She died in the dirt of an alleyway,
her mother said she had no chance, no chance!
Heartbreaker, heartbreaker
she stuck the pins right in her heart
Heartbreaker, painmaker
stole the love right out of your heart
Heartbreaker, heartbreaker
You stole the love right out of my heart
Heartbreaker, heartbreaker
I wanna tear your world apart.
Doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo doo,
doo doo doo doo doo doo doo,
doo doo doo doo doo doo.
--


Saturday November 16, 2002
The Guardian

The train meanders towards Calcutta's Howrah station.
We had boarded the Kalka Mail in the Indian capital at
dawn the day before, and now, 24 hours later, everyone
in the carriage is feeling fractious. Ajay Kumar, a
bank manager from New Delhi, has a tale to tell. "I
brought my nephew here once to visit his grandparents
and lost him in the chaos. He jumped off before the
train was even at a full stop. Engulfed in the
hurly-burly, he was. We didn't see him again for four
years. We thought he was dead. He was only 12... But
then he suddenly came back home, sent by the Calcutta
police, and all the boy would say was that Howrah
station was a terrible place and that he would never
go back there again."

"Too right," pipes up Mr Vijay. These are the first
words that he has spoken for the entire journey. "My
neighbour's son ran away to Howrah station never to be
seen again. He told me he came here to search for the
kid and found nothing but wild children. All of them
had become thieves. Their fingers were like vipers, he
told me, slithering into all your nooks and crannies."
He gathers his bags to his chest.

It seems an incredible story, to lose a child in the
crush of a railway station for years, or for ever, but
everything about Indian railways is larger than life:
37,000 miles of track, 7,000 trains running daily,
serving more than 3.7 billion passengers yearly, the
world's largest employer, retaining more than 1.6
million staff. Every one of its major termini is a
disorientating world for a newcomer. And Howrah
station is in a different league. Imagine King's
Cross, St Pancras and Euston all lumped together. Like
every station the world over, Howrah attracts a steady
stream of the rootless and homeless. But, unlike other
stations, Howrah's twilight society is a vast
metropolis in itself that spills out of the concourse
and down to the banks of the Hooghly river, a world
that is overrun by tribes of lost children.

"Howrah is populated by little devils." Mrs Dutta, a
widow cocooned in her white sari, weighs in with the
authority of a local. The entire carriage is now
animated as we pull into the largest station in Asia.
"The children who live here are like the locusts sent
by the God of Abraham to destroy the pharaoh. Don't
feel sorry for them. My advice is that once you get
off this train, fly from Howrah like a garuda [a
fabulous, winged human of Indian myth]!"

Ajay Kumar grabs a copy of the Telegraph from a
newspaper-seller jogging beside the carriage window.
"Look at this, look at this." He reads aloud a
headline: "Whiff of Death, Life of Crime: kids dragged
into theft trap by the train tracks."

The Metro section of the Telegraph of Calcutta is
focusing on one of its favourite topics. It reports
how the previous day four boys aged between 10 and 12
appeared before Calcutta's juvenile court charged with
"pilfering luggage". A police investigation estimates
that Howrah station is now home to up to 3,000
children, some of whom came of their own volition.
Others were abducted or mislaid. The vast majority
were apparently addicted to glue or heroin and
ensnared by gang bosses who forced them into
committing crimes. "We are being overwhelmed," DP
Tarenia, superintendent of Howrah's railway police,
told the Telegraph. "The adult ringleaders are very
clever. They base themselves outside the station,
using the kids as couriers and thieves. They know that
the kids' new-found habits ensure that they don't roam
too far."

A charity working with street dwellers had written to
us a month before describing the scale of Howrah's
problem. The Society for Educational and Environmental
Development (Seed) said that thousands of lost
children aged between four and 12 were drawn to Howrah
from somnolent villages all over India by the thrill
of the track, by dreams of life in Asia's largest and
most riotous station. "Many of those who end up in
police custody can no longer remember from where they
have come," a Seed worker wrote. "Some have forgotten
their parents' names and even their own." Because the
state government of West Bengal has scant resources,
all of the lost chi

Nader on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

"Former Green Party Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader Gives his
First Major Address on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," Tuesday,
June 17th, 2003:
 and
.
--
Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! 
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
,
, & 
* Student International Forum: 
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: 
* Al-Awda-Ohio: 
* Solidarity: