date:20040513

I just received an article by Marxmail subscriber A. Mani that is a bit
too long to post to the list but it can be read in its entirety at:
http://www.marxmail.org/stat6.htm

Here is the opening paragraph:

On Some Recent Misuse of  Statistical Data.



A.Mani



The present article deals with some of the many instances of wrong usage
of available statistical information by different vested interests in
both 'academic garb' and less literate garbs. In particular we deal with
gross and deliberate misrepresentation of present-day Indian statistics
by the 'CSO', the Planning Commission and other Central Govt. bodies.
Interestingly most of the statistical information presented in the last
few years have much to say about negative agricultural growth,
industrial recession and reduction in employment. . . though for this
election year, they have taken recourse to at best idiotic statistical
tricks, omissions and commissions.
--
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

another nobelist economist makes good

2004-05-13 Thread Michael Perelman

I just heard that Harry Markowitz was one of the 2 co-founders of CACI, singled out
in the Toguba report.  Does that beat Long Term Credit Management?
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

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

Re: Roy Medvedev interview (on Putin)

2004-05-13 Thread Waistline2

In a message dated 5/13/2004 2:22:54 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Che Guevara had some of the most interesting insights into the problems of socialist construction since the days of Lenin. He is better known as a guerrilla fighter, but his essays on planning and other economic matters deserve to be better known.The main importance of Guevara is that he provides an alternative to the false dichotomy set up between Stalinist "planning" and the implicitly capitalist logic of "market socialism". During our fierce debate over "market socialism" on the Marxism list, any number of Guevara's statements could have been brought to bear on the discussion.
Comment
I apparently misunderstood what was stated. Your reply spoke of the need for a class analysis and the question of bureaucracy. I am of course familiar with Che's as well as Lenin's "Urgent Task." Lenin of course died before the period of 1930 and 1940 you indicate.
I would of course appreciate any information of Che's writing concerning the law of value and the reproduction cycles of the industrial system under different property relations, that creates distinct needs peculiar to the different forms of property relations.
The question of planning means very different things to different people. By planning - a term I never use, most seem to mean the counting of widgets. By property relations what is meant is the specific cycle of reproduction and not money accumulation or accounting. In this context the question of class analysis - in respect to Mr. Putin, as a guardian of bourgeois property was mentioned.
I have no opinion about how control and accountability is established in a small Island and a continent. If I were to compare Cuba with the former Soviet Union I would begin with a concrete comparison of its industrial infrastructure. Even this would produce a distortion because the period of history identified were 1930s and the 1940, which manifest a different quantitative stage in the industrial system than say 1960.
This was mentioned by pointing out that the death of Mr. Stalin happened to coincide (more or less) with the invention of the transistor and later the first semiconductors. This is stated because we are talking about economic laws, commodity production and how the law of value operates and is altered.
I of course acknowledge my superficial understanding of commodity production, the reproduction process as cycles at each distinct quantitative stage of the development of the industrial system. It seems to me - with my superficial understanding, that accountability and accuracy depends upon a combination of human being and the technological state of development of tools and instruments that govern the flow of information. Political organization is secondary in my opinion.
This is not what a "planned economy means" from the standpoint of class and property.
You state:
>The unplanned character of the Soviet economy forced continuouscompensations and administrative controls. If a construction crew wouldnot work twelve hours a day to complete a road, then additional foremen and cops were necessary to control them. As more and more bottlenecksappeared, more and more "interventions" were required to keep the wholeungainly machine going. Thus a command economy built on a centralizedpyramid model grew up in the 1930s. This had nothing to do with Lenin'soriginal intent.<
The amount of cops need to complete a task has nothing to do with the economic logic of reproduction as it creates its cycles of reproduction on the basis of a property relations. At best this pads the offices of the bureaucracy, that emerge to insure and safe guard reproduction. The bureaucracy does not arise in human history from poor planning but from the division of labor.
Let us assume that an addition 10 million police are need in society to ensure that a job is completed (road work which is what took place in America in the form of the "chain gangs) - your example. This does not explain the origin of bureaucracy. What it explains is bad accounting and beefing up a preexisting structure.
I am of course not sensitive to ideological proclamations about democracy when in fact 20% of the people incarcerated on earth are in America and I await my jail term. Further, such proclamations offer very little insight into class, property and reproduction . . . much less Marx standpoint concerning economics.
The word "Planned economy" in respect to the class and property factor means the circuit that govern reproduction. Soviet economy was not "unplanned" and no industrial economy is "unplanned" as an abstraction. Everyone draws up plans whether "good or bad."
More fundamental that that - according to Marx, is how a specific property relations creates its own unique set of needs that appear as commodities on the basis of a given state of development in the material power of production and serve as its basier, such proclamati

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

2004-05-13 Thread Craven, Jim

I am afraid I have to diagree on the emergency issue.  It was Mrs.
Gandhi who was solely responsible for the emergency.  But that was in
1975 and lasted until 1977, until she was thrown out, but then she came
back in 1979!  When she realized her populist "garibi hatao" (eliminate
poverty) slogan was exhausted and she recognized that he staunch
supporters within the Congress party were distancing themselves from
her, she essentially grabbed the party power all to herself.  This is
the beginning of the decline of the Cong party (i.e. weakening internal
party democracy).  The BJP is certainly the worse party of the two at
some levels.

Alas, in this country the public has been lulled into complacency by a
strange form of fascist democracy.

Cheers, anthony

xxx
Anthony P. D'Costa, Associate Professor
Comparative International Development
University of WashingtonCampus Box 358436
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA

Phone: (253) 692-4462
Fax :  (253) 692-5718

xxx

Response Jim C: When I lived in Kerala, I got a chance to see Congress-I
and the core elements of BJP up close. My village was half Congress-I
and half CP-M and half Hindu and Half Christian. Not only was the
corruption of Congress-I extremely pronounced, but they still had many
of the policies--and continued elements of Emergency Measures--well into
the eighties. The massive forced sterilization campaigns run by
Congress-I (I knew medical students who were coerced into giving forced
vascetomies in dirty tents set up by the Indian Army under the threat of
being removed from medical school) were nothing but out-and-out fascism
(In India, in the late 70s, there was a slogan "Indira hatao, Indiri
bachao" or "abolish Indira and save your genitals" that sort of summed
it up) and inspired by fascist and caste-biased "eugenics".

On the BJP side, you have the core and rather covert elements of Shiv
Sena, RSS and Arya Sammajayam that are out-and-out nazis and preach
"Aryan Supremacy" in language right out of Mein Kampf. They are the real
power brokers and engineers of mass action for the BJP.

As they say in Malayalam: "Yaa-tha-ruu vitthiassum illa" or No real
difference.

Jim C.

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

2004-05-13 Thread Bill Lear

On Thursday, May 13, 2004 at 14:41:13 (-0400) Doug Henwood writes:
>   ... the argument you
>sometimes see that Bush is actually a lesser evil than Kerry. (See,
>for example, Gabriel Kolko's piece in Counterpunch.) ...

Actually, his argument was a bit different, in fact the opposite,
wasn't it?  Kolko said something like Bush is so much greater an evil
that he could ultimately destroy US hegemony.  Kerry, being less
blatantly aggressive and deluded, would likely repair the damage and
keep the thing going longer.

Bill

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

2004-05-13 Thread Anthony D'Costa

I am afraid I have to diagree on the emergency issue.  It was Mrs. Gandhi
who was solely responsible for the emergency.  But that was in 1975 and
lasted until 1977, until she was thrown out, but then she came back in
1979!  When she realized her populist "garibi hatao" (eliminate poverty)
slogan was exhausted and she recognized that he staunch supporters within
the Congress party were distancing themselves from her, she essentially
grabbed the party power all to herself.  This is the beginning of the
decline of the Cong party (i.e. weakening internal party democracy).  The
BJP is certainly the worse party of the two at some levels.

But I would agree that there are fascist tendencies partly as a middle
class revulsion to the increasing uppityness of lower classes and castes
in the wider political system.  In fact this is India's strength, is to
able to throw out people that don't give the masses something in return.
It also shows how the language of democracy has been creolized
(vernacularized) in the Indian context and that peasants, dalits, the
poor, etc. are politically savvy.  It also demonstrates the mistaken
view that Hindus are homogenous and can be politically mobilized under
that banner.

Alas, in this country the public has been lulled into complacency by a
strange form of fascist democracy.

Cheers, anthony
xxx
Anthony P. D'Costa, Associate Professor
Comparative International Development
University of WashingtonCampus Box 358436
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA

Phone: (253) 692-4462
Fax :  (253) 692-5718
xxx

On Thu, 13 May 2004, Craven, Jim wrote:

> I could but I just finished teaching my India class and now heading into
> my development class.  I'll try.  cheers, anthony
>
> 
> xxx
> Anthony P. D'Costa, Associate Professor
> Comparative International Development
> University of WashingtonCampus Box 358436
> 1900 Commerce Street
> Tacoma, WA 98402, USA
>
> Phone: (253) 692-4462
> Fax :  (253) 692-5718
> 
> xxx
>
>
> On Thu, 13 May 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > Isn't there someone here who can tell us how the BJP is really the
> > lesser of two evils?
> >
> > Doug
>
>
> With Congress-I and BJP you don't have any "lesser of evils" you  have
> only the "evil of lessers." Both parties have some prounced fascist
> tendencies as evidenced by Emergency Measures under Congress-I and
> covert operations of the fascist cults RSS/Shiv Sena and Arya Sammajayem
> under the umbrella of BJP.
>
> Jim C
>

Comments on Hitchens versus Nader

> Unsafe On Any Ballot
> By Christopher Hitchens
the multiple hypocrisies and evasions of Mr. Hitchens, who once called
himself a socialist but eagerly enlisted in the "clash of civilizations"
on the side of the neo-cons with the likes of Tom Friedman,  are by now
so twisted it's a fool's errand to attempt to untangle them, but two
threads dangle tantalizingly among the participles in his latest
denunciation of anyone to the left of himself as  -- too far right!
1. It's somehow sinful or sinister for Nader to speak to a salon of
GOPers run by Grover Norquist but Hitchens himself feels comfortable
enough in that company to call Norquist by his first name.
2. It was good and generous of Nader to agree with Hitchens except on
the issue of impeachment of Clinton.
What most has Hitchens's rhetorical panties in a bunch is his fear the
Democrats, with Nader sniping at them on the war, will abandon their
pledge of allegience to the Empire, leaving Hitchens naked and
snivelling as its last true champion from his redoubt at Vanity Fair.
Douglas L. Vaughan, Jr.
Investigations
for Print, Film & Electronic Media
3140 W. 32nd Ave.
Denver CO 80211
303-455-9429
--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Don't buy gas on May 19th

2004-05-13 Thread Charles Brown





From Valeria 
J.

IT HAS BEEN CALCULATED THAT IF EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES DID 
NOT PURCHASE A DROP OF GASOLINE FOR ONE DAY AND ALL AT THE SAME TIME, THE OIL 
COMPANIES WOULD CHOKE ON THEIR STOCKPILES.

AT THE SAME TIME IT WOULD HIT THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY WITH A NET 
LOSS OF OVER
4.6 BILLION DOLLARS WHICH AFFECTS THE BOTTOM LINES OF THE OIL 
COMPANIES.

THEREFORE MAY 19TH HAS BEEN FORMALLY DECLARED "STICK IT UP THEIR 
behind "
DAY AND THE PEOPLE OF THIS NATION SHOULD NOT BUY A SINGLE DROP 
OF GASOLINE THAT DAY.

THE ONLY WAY THIS CAN BE DONE IS IF YOU FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO 
AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN AND AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN TO GET THE WORD 
OUT.

WAITING ON THIS ADMIINSTRATION TO STEP IN AND CONTROL THE PRICES 
IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REDUCTION AND CONTROL IN PRICES 
THAT THE ARAB NATIONS PROMISED TWO WEEKS AGO?

REMEMBER ONE THING, NOT ONLY IS THE PRICE OF GASOLINE GOING UP 
BUT AT THE SAME TIME AIRLINES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES, TRUCKING 
COMPANIES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES WHICH EFFECTS PRICES ON EVERYTHING 
THAT IS SHIPPED. THINGS LIKE FOOD, CLOTHING, BUILDING MATERIALS, MEDICAL 
SUPPLIES ETC. WHO PAYS IN THE END? WE DO!

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IF THEY DON'T GET THE MESSAGE AFTER 
ONE DAY, WE WILL DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN. 

SO DO YOUR PART AND SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO 
EVERYONE YOU KNOW. MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND MAKE MAY 19TH A DAY THAT THE CITIZENS 
OF THE UNITED STATES SAY "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

2004-05-13 Thread k hanly

Huh. Many parliamentary systems have first past the post systems and not
systems of proportional representation etc. Canada for example, and the UK.
I believe Australia and New Zealand use this system as well but I am not
positive. While this system is a disadvantage for smaller parties it hasnt
kept third parties from getting seats or even forming the government in
provinces in Canada.

The Communists (CPI-M) and CPI did very well in Kerala. The left won 18 of
20 seats.

Cheers, Ken Hanly


- Original Message -
From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 1:28 PM
Subject: Re: a victory of sorts in india...


> > No, but yesterday there would have been plenty around
> > to tell us how voting Communist Party (of your choice)
> > would throw the election to the BJP.
> >
> > Shane
>
> Not really. India, like most civilized countries, has a parliamentary
> system. This means that all parties can get some representation no
> matter how small. The USA has a "winner take all" system that was if not
> designed to marginalize smaller parties certainly has that effect. That
> being said, it is fascinating to see the similarities between John
> Kerry, the Congress Party and Putin. They all represent something not
> quite as bad as the party to the right. With the deepening crisis of
> world capitalism, you can be sure that lesser-evil scenarios for
> "stopping fascism" will be played out until either the world blows
> itself up or we finally expropriate the expropriators.
>
> --
>
> The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Roy Medvedev interview (on Putin)

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
It would seem that no one can escape the economic logic of the law of
value.
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/state_and_revolution/cuba.htm

Che Guevara had some of the most interesting insights into the problems
of socialist construction since the days of Lenin. He is better known as
a guerrilla fighter, but his essays on planning and other economic
matters deserve to be better known.
The main importance of Guevara is that he provides an alternative to the
false dichotomy set up between Stalinist "planning" and the implicitly
capitalist logic of "market socialism". During our fierce debate over
"market socialism" on the Marxism list, any number of Guevara's
statements could have been brought to bear on the discussion.
Guevara was a stickler for accounting and controls, as was Lenin. At a
speech given to a ceremony to winners of socialist emulation awards in
the Ministry of Industry in October of 1965, he described the importance
of controls:
"Rigorous controls are needed throughout the entire organizational
process. These controls begin at the base, in the production unit. They
require statistics that one can feel confident are exact, as well as
good habits in using statistical data. It's necessary to know how to use
statistics. These are not just cold figures--although that's what they
are for the majority of administrators today, with the exception of
output figures. On the contrary, these figures must contain within them
an entire series of secrets that must be unveiled. Learning to interpret
these secrets is the task of the day.
"Controls should also be applied to everything related to inventories in
a unit or enterprise: the quantity on hand of raw materials, or, let's
say, of spare parts or finished goods. All this should be accounted for
precisely and kept up to date. This kind of accounting must never be
allowed to slip. It is the sole guarantee that we can carry on work with
minimal chance of interruption, depending on the distance our supplies
have to travel.
"To conduct inventory on a scientific basis, we also have to keep track
of the stock of basic means of production. For example, we must take
inventory of all the machinery a factory possesses, so that this too can
be managed centrally. This would give a clear idea of a machine's
depreciation--that is, the period of time over which it will wear out,
the moment at which it should be replaced. We will also find out if a
piece of machinery is being underutilized and should be moved to some
other place.
"We have to make an increasingly detailed analysis of costs, so that we
will be able to take advantage of the last particle of human labor that
is being wasted. Socialism is the rational allocation of human labor.
"You can't manage the economy if you can't analyze it, and you can't
analyze it if there is no accurate data. And there is no accurate data,
without a statistical system with people accustomed to collecting data
and transforming it into numbers."
Guevara had confidence that socialism could be built if the proper
resources and management were allocated to the task. He believed in
technology and progress. Like Lenin, he admired many of the accounting
and management breakthroughs found in the advanced capitalist countries.
Lenin was preoccupied with these matters immediately after the birth of
the new Soviet state and minced no words about the value of strict
accounting controls. In the "Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government"
written in the spring of 1918, Lenin said:
"The state, which for centuries has been an organ for oppression and
robbery of the people, has left us with a legacy of the people's supreme
hatred and suspicion of everything that is connected with the state. It
is very difficult to overcome this, and only a Soviet government can do
it. Even a Soviet government, however, will require plenty of time and
enormous perseverance to accomplish it. This 'legacy' is especially
apparent in the problem of accounting and control--the fundamental
problem facing the socialist revolution on the morrow of the overthrow
of the bourgeoisie. A certain amount of time will inevitably pass before
the people, who feel free for the first time now that the landowners and
the bourgeoisie have been overthrown, will understand--not from books,
but from their own, Soviet experience--will understand and feel that
without comprehensive state accounting and control of the production and
distribution of goods, the power of the working people, the freedom of
the working people, cannot be maintained, and that a return to the yoke
of capitalism is inevitable."
Those with a superficial understanding of Soviet economic history might
assume that the link between Lenin and Guevara is Stalin. The popular
notion we have of Stalin surrounded by technocrats planning out every
last detail of each five year plan to the last turbine in the last
electrical generating plant is nothing but a myth. Stalin was opposed to
planning, accounting

Re: Roy Medvedev interview (on Putin)

2004-05-13 Thread Waistline2



Roy Medvedev:
"You can't be anything but tough in Russia. We live in acountry where a civil society has not yet been formed. The leadingpolitical and social force after the fall of the CPSU is thebureaucracy. The bureaucratic hierarchy from bottom to top is theframework of the state. ===Response: >This was the same kind of excuse given for Stalin by some intellectuals during the 30s and 40s. The one thing missing in Medvedev's interview is a class analysis. Once upon a time, Medvedev was associated with Eurocommunism and Bukharin. His PR for Putin seems to reflect diminished expectations.<
 
Comment 
 
Without question Putin is a representative and guardian of the bourgeois property relations in Russia or what is meant by the word "capitalism." A class analysis of any society presents itself as complex and one of the reasons is that everyone means something different by the word "class."  
 
Rather than spend time trying to "classify" people (because we can classify people anyway one choices by grouping them together on the basis of a criteria) let us approach class from the standpoint of property and how people are organized to use what every state of development of the material power of production exists in their society. This way we stay within the economic framework that is the basis of PEN-L. 
 
Keeping in mind that property relations always exist within a definable economic formation in society, class in this context means ownership rights that allows one to access the material wealth in society or as it is stated in the interview - privileges. One must keep in mind that Soviet socialism was a value producing system with property rights. Property rights means someone or class is favored over someone else or another class. 
 
The interview contrast the privileges of various officials in government and the bureaucracy, in contradistinction to the pension funds of retired workers, who one official suggested giving cash rather then upholding the social contract providing housing, education and medical care, etc. 
 
That such a proposal was put forth indicates the class character and content of "men" around Putin. Desiring to break the social contract with retired workers - no longer engaged in the production of material value or commodities and giving them cash instead, is a clear economic policy indicating the class content of its meaning. What is the economic purpose of such a policy? The issue is not preservation of privilege of the bureaucracy in its class content, but rather a question of altering reproduction. This is to take place by shifting from a policy of expanding that sector of the economy charged with maintenance of "historically met needs of retired workers" and giving them a chance to spend their cash stipends in other sectors of the economy. 
 
We are talking about a political policy whose expressed aim is to alter reproduction and accumulation - of money, for someone.  
 
Other sectors of the economy means "light industry" or what we call in the West "consumer industry" versus "heavy industry " or that part of the societal infrastructure charged with maintaining the social contract and expanding its services - food, clothing, housing, vacations, medical care, education, etc. That is to say the class content or class analysis of this policy is to shift reproduction further on the basis of the bourgeois property relations and what is profitable to individual owners of property or those regarded as capitalist. 
 
The economic logic of a commodity producing society (a value producing society) driven by the unrestricted law of value bears examination. What bourgeois property means in the real world is that cycles of reproduction are governed by the quest and realization of profits and this in turn configures and reconfigures how industrial society takes shape. For instance, in bourgeois America, heavy industry leaped forward under the impetus of the automobile, which accelerated the growth of numerous other industries . . . glass, machine building, rubber, cloth, leather, plastics, etc. 
 
This cycle of reproduction (individual transportation as opposed to mass transportation) is clearly stamped with the character of the bourgeois property relations or the bourgeoisie as a class of owners. 
 
In the old Soviet Union the growth of its industry was not determined by the unrestricted law of value and consequently the 20% of the steel, 12 percent of aluminum, 10% of copper, 51% of the lead, 95% of nickel, 35% of zinc, and 60% of rubber used in America for auto production could be poured into the extensive expansion of the industrial system in the Soviet Union. One can of course add to this the cloth, leather and fabric of all kinds that go into auto production and a complex of needs created by bourgeois property as it reproduces itself as a commodity producing society. 
 
The point is that within the description of an attempt to change the social contract from providing stable provisions for r

Angola Set to Disclose Payments From Big Oil

Angola Set to Disclose Payments From Big Oil
By HEATHER TIMMONS
May 13, 2004
New York Times
LONDON, May 12 - In a reversal of a longstanding policy, the Angolan 
government will disclose some payments it receives from oil companies that 
do business there, making the southwest African nation the latest to 
respond to pressure to make such compensation public.

An Angolan government official is expected to disclose on Thursday that the 
country is receiving $300 million from ChevronTexaco at a deal-signing 
ceremony in Washington with the company's chief executive, David J. 
O'Reilly, three executives with knowledge of the agreement said.
The deal extends Chevron's outstanding rights to the shallow-water oil and 
gas field known as Block Zero through 2030.

Angola and other developing nations have been under scrutiny from human 
rights groups, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the 
British government to reveal what they receive from oil companies for 
access to national crude reserves.

Angola has been trying to strengthen ties with the United States and 
foreign investors, and the payment announcement would come in the middle of 
Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos's three-day trip to the United 
States.

He met with President Bush on Wednesday morning. The United States is the 
market for more than half of Angola's estimated production of 950,000 
barrels a day.

Angola's finance minister, José Pedro de Morais, disclosed the amount of 
the ChevronTexaco payment to Angolan media last week, and a spokesman for 
the oil company confirmed that an announcement was expected Thursday, but 
did not provide details. Mr. de Morais was unavailable for comment on 
Wednesday, a spokesman in Angola's Washington embassy said.

What energy and mining companies pay governments for drilling rights has 
become a hot-button issue as resources in the developed world dry up.

"We are running out of places to find oil," said Karina Litvack, head of 
governance and socially responsible investment at ISIS Asset Management in 
London. Oil companies are starting to look for resources, she said, "where 
the money the companies pay the government sometimes fuels corruption, 
instability or human rights abuses."

By disclosing the amount it is being paid, Angola's government is setting 
"a new standard for transparency," Ms. Litvack said.
"We are cautiously optimistic," said Ben Mellor, an official with Britain's 
Department for International Development.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain started the Extractive Industry 
Transparency Initiative, known as E.I.T.I., in 2001, and many international 
oil companies and shareholders groups have said they support the 
initiative's call for increased disclosure.

Angola's decision to make public the money it is receiving from 
ChevronTexaco may represent a "real turning point" for the country, Mr. 
Mellor said. Nigeria and Azerbaijan had recently stepped up disclosure of 
payments they have received from foreign oil companies after receiving 
outside pressure.

Angola, which emerged from nearly 30 years of civil war in 2002, is 
struggling with food shortages, a large debt, and high poverty and H.I.V. 
rates among its 10.8 million citizens.

Human Rights Watch estimated that $4.2 billion in oil revenues were 
unaccounted for in Angola from 1997 to 2002. The government has said such 
numbers are misleading, but it is under intense pressure from outside 
agencies and foreign investors to provide figures.

"The goal is to make the government accountable for how it manages its 
resources," said Karin Lissakers, an adviser to George Soros, the financier 
and philanthropist. Mr. Soros supports Publish What You Pay, a campaign to 
encourage oil companies to disclose the payments they make to developing 
nations.

Angola's expected announcement on Thursday is an "important step," Ms. 
Lissakers said, but "one hopes they will take the next step and adopt the 
E.I.T.I. standards for the whole sector."
ChevronTexaco is the biggest foreign oil producer in Angola, and pumps 
about 400,000 barrels a day from the Block Zero field.

The company operates Block Zero, and shares ownership with France's Total, 
Italy's ENI and Angola's government-owned oil company.

ChevronTexaco is paying $210 million to sign the 20-year agreement, as well 
as $80 million to develop social programs in the region and another $10 
million in production-related payments.

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> Not really. India, like most civilized countries, has a parliamentary
> system. This means that all parties can get some representation no
> matter how small. The USA has a "winner take all" system that was if not
> designed to marginalize smaller parties certainly has that effect. That
> being said, it is fascinating to see the similarities between John
> Kerry, the Congress Party and Putin. They all represent something not
> quite as bad as the party to the right. With the deepening crisis of
> world capitalism, you can be sure that lesser-evil scenarios for
> "stopping fascism" will be played out until either the world blows
> itself up or we finally expropriate the expropriators.
>

hence my prefix: from the "anybody but bush again" department! ;-)

--ravi

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

Louis Proyect wrote:
> First,
> there were forces in the north connected to caste politics. Second, the
> emergence of the right-wing and reactionary elements like the RSS
> [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh].
>

a few points:

1) w.r.t the above, the RSS is not a recent emergence. the
hindu/upper-caste fundamentalism, afaik, has been around for a while,
including such illustrous members as nathuram ghotse (the man who killed
gandhi). the RSS itself has been active as a sort of recruiting and
indoctrination vehicle for quite some time. i remember being approached
in school by classmates who were RSS members.

2) one significant event that derailed the congress was probably indira
gandhi's imposition of "emergency" in the 70s[?], leading to various
prominent leaders from the independence movement leaving the party or
coming out in opposition (jayaprakash narayan, morarji desai, et al).
the more "leftist" janata party (people's party) toppled the congress in
the ensuing elections (the BJP grew out of the janata party, afaik, a
few years later).

3) as michael hinted in his message, the programme of neo-liberalization
was begun under rajiv gandhi (son of indira gandhi), when the congress
regained power in the 80s. there was a techno bent to the "reform" even
in those days: eg: star indian technologist sam pitroda was lured back
from the USA to india with promises of large funding and unlimited freedom.

--ravi

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

2004-05-13 Thread Doug Henwood

ravi wrote:

Doug Henwood wrote:
 Isn't there someone here who can tell us how the BJP is really the
 lesser of two evils?
i am a bit confused by the above. i think the BJP is the worse of the
many evils. are you asking for a contrary opinion to mine? or did you
misunderstand mine?
That was a cheap joke about U.S. politics, and the argument you
sometimes see that Bush is actually a lesser evil than Kerry. (See,
for example, Gabriel Kolko's piece in Counterpunch.) The BJP strikes
me as thoroughly awful.
Doug

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

No, but yesterday there would have been plenty around
to tell us how voting Communist Party (of your choice)
would throw the election to the BJP.
Shane
Not really. India, like most civilized countries, has a parliamentary
system. This means that all parties can get some representation no
matter how small. The USA has a "winner take all" system that was if not
designed to marginalize smaller parties certainly has that effect. That
being said, it is fascinating to see the similarities between John
Kerry, the Congress Party and Putin. They all represent something not
quite as bad as the party to the right. With the deepening crisis of
world capitalism, you can be sure that lesser-evil scenarios for
"stopping fascism" will be played out until either the world blows
itself up or we finally expropriate the expropriators.
--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

2004-05-13 Thread Shane Mage

Isn't there someone here who can tell us how the BJP is really the
lesser of two evils?
Doug
No, but yesterday there would have been plenty around
to tell us how voting Communist Party (of your choice)
would throw the election to the BJP.
Shane

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

Q: YOU MENTIONED the Congress Party and its decline as one of the 
factors that led to the rise of the BJP. The Congress had historically 
been identified with what is known as the "Nehruvian legacy" of centrist 
and social-democratic policies. Why did it begin to bury that legacy?

A: THE CONGRESS began to shift to the right in the 1980s, both 
economically and politically. Historically it had always come to power 
on a centrist program, reflecting its varied social base, including the 
lower sections of Indian society. For decades, the leaders of Muslims, 
tribals and dalits–often known as the "core minorities"–had been content 
to act as brokers for the Congress Party, delivering votes to the party 
while extending their own networks of patronage.

Contrary to what many commentators think, the rise of the New Right is 
not what causes the decline of the old social-democratic left or center, 
rather it is the other way around, both here and worldwide. This is 
similar to the rise of Reaganism and Thatcherism in the eighties.

The 1960s and 1970s saw alternatives to the Congress emerging at the 
state level, thanks to the growing volatility among the poorer sections 
of society. This instability forced the Congress to look to other 
sources for its support, but to this day it hasn’t figured out either 
its program or what are its most reliable bases. As it shifted to the 
right, it sought to consolidate its new mass base among the Indian 
middle class.

The rise of the BJP is preceded by the decline of the Congress. Since 
the 1970s, three non-Congress centrist-type parties have come to power, 
but they were unable to hold onto power for a full term. Interspersed 
within this period, the Congress did come to power again, but for the 
first time in its history as a minority government. It is only after 
this experience of various centrist failures that the BJP is able to 
come to power in 1996, although it is unable to hold onto power for more 
than 13 days. Then the BJP finally takes power in 1998 in a coalition 
government.

As a result of the Congress’s decline, two forces benefited. First, 
there were forces in the north connected to caste politics. Second, the 
emergence of the right-wing and reactionary elements like the RSS 
[Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]. The BJP actually moved forward by 
building the most significant mass movement since independence; a 
reactionary mass movement (which demolished the Babri Masjid) that is 
extremely successful. As a result, it has succeeded in shifting the 
center of gravity of politics to the right.

The Congress is a party today that is bereft of any clear ideas, and is 
pursuing a softer version of Hindutva. On key questions–foreign policy, 
the bomb, neoliberalism–it has no clear idea of a different program than 
that of the BJP. While the BJP’s fortunes might go up and down, politics 
as a whole are being pulled to the right. For the bourgeoisie, it 
doesn’t really matter who’s in power, except that the BJP might be 
somewhat unstable because of its aggressive Hindutva, but overall, it 
doesn’t really matter since their material interests will anyway be served.

full: http://www.isreview.org/issues/33/vanaik.shtml

--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: The Mysterious Death of Nick Berg

2004-05-13 Thread Shane Mage

Ubu to Bin Laden:  "Those prison photos have put me in deep doo-doo.
I need your help again.  My guys in Iraq have
an American Jewish nogoodnik who would make
   a pretty picture."
Bin Laden to Al Zarqawi:  "Our Friend needs image-assistance.  His
   people have a package ready."
Al Zarqawi to Bin Laden:   "Mission accomplished."

Bin Laden to Ubu:  "Well we did it, Bushbaby.  See you in October."

Shane Mage

"Thunderbolt steers all
things."
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64
I'm struck by the fact that we got to know about a few mysterious
circumstances (see, for instance, Robert H. Reid's AP story
"Questions Surround Young American Shown Decapitated in Video," May
12, 2004) of the last days of Nick Berg only after his death: Nick
Berg being held in US custody for 13 days (which the government now
oddly denies), the FBI's visit to Nick's father Michael Berg, the
Bergs suing the government in federal court on April 5th, Nick being
released on April 6th, the Berg family losing contact with Nick on
April 9th (which is more than a month ago), Nick being "last in
contact with U.S. officials in Baghdad on April 10" (Reid, May 12,
2004). Shouldn't we have heard about Nick Berg's disappearance about
a month ago, rather than just now, when it's too late? There are so
many newsworthy elements here, which the US media failed to
investigate and expose in time to save Berg's life.
The contrast between our lack of knowledge about Nick Berg and
intensive coverage of Japanese, Korean, Italian, Russian, and other
hostages (in their own national media, but also in the international
media) from the beginning to the end (be it death or release) of
their captivity is very striking. . . .
The rest of the posting at
.
--
Yoshie
* Critical Montages: 
* Bring Them Home Now! 
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
,
, & 
* Student International Forum: 
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: 
* Al-Awda-Ohio: 
* Solidarity:

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

2004-05-13 Thread Craven, Jim

I could but I just finished teaching my India class and now heading into
my development class.  I'll try.  cheers, anthony

xxx
Anthony P. D'Costa, Associate Professor
Comparative International Development
University of WashingtonCampus Box 358436
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA

Phone: (253) 692-4462
Fax :  (253) 692-5718

xxx

On Thu, 13 May 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:

> Isn't there someone here who can tell us how the BJP is really the 
> lesser of two evils?
>
> Doug

With Congress-I and BJP you don't have any "lesser of evils" you  have
only the "evil of lessers." Both parties have some prounced fascist
tendencies as evidenced by Emergency Measures under Congress-I and
covert operations of the fascist cults RSS/Shiv Sena and Arya Sammajayem
under the umbrella of BJP.

Jim C

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

Doug Henwood wrote:
> Isn't there someone here who can tell us how the BJP is really the
> lesser of two evils?
>

i am a bit confused by the above. i think the BJP is the worse of the
many evils. are you asking for a contrary opinion to mine? or did you
misunderstand mine?

i would have a tough time explaining why the BJP is the worst
alternative in india, without transporting you in both time (to a day
when india's secular pretensions were less distant from reality) and
space: a visit to india will illustrate how the hindu fundamentalists
energize the committed bigots and win over the "neutral" middle class by
providing them a legitimate medium to express their biases.

michael asks:
> At this point in our history, we should savor any victory, however
> hollow.  Maybe the Right has finally overreached.
>
> Is Congress still as neo-liberal as it was under the last Gandhi?
>

i am not well qualified to answer this one, but my guess would be that
their economic policies will not deviate much from the BJPs, apart from
minor allowances that acknowledge the rural anti-technological revolt
that (among other causes) led to this result.

--ravi

The Mysterious Death of Nick Berg

2004-05-13 Thread Yoshie Furuhashi

I'm struck by the fact that we got to know about a few mysterious
circumstances (see, for instance, Robert H. Reid's AP story
"Questions Surround Young American Shown Decapitated in Video," May
12, 2004) of the last days of Nick Berg only after his death: Nick
Berg being held in US custody for 13 days (which the government now
oddly denies), the FBI's visit to Nick's father Michael Berg, the
Bergs suing the government in federal court on April 5th, Nick being
released on April 6th, the Berg family losing contact with Nick on
April 9th (which is more than a month ago), Nick being "last in
contact with U.S. officials in Baghdad on April 10" (Reid, May 12,
2004). Shouldn't we have heard about Nick Berg's disappearance about
a month ago, rather than just now, when it's too late? There are so
many newsworthy elements here, which the US media failed to
investigate and expose in time to save Berg's life.
The contrast between our lack of knowledge about Nick Berg and
intensive coverage of Japanese, Korean, Italian, Russian, and other
hostages (in their own national media, but also in the international
media) from the beginning to the end (be it death or release) of
their captivity is very striking. . . .
The rest of the posting at
.
--
Yoshie
* Critical Montages: 
* Bring Them Home Now! 
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
,
, & 
* Student International Forum: 
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: 
* Al-Awda-Ohio: 
* Solidarity:

Not such a big surprise in India

(The defeat of the incumbent party might have been predicted based on
this NY Times article from yesterday.)
Indian Voters Turn a Cold Shoulder to High Technology
By SARITHA RAI
BANGALORE, India, May 11 - As India's stock markets slumped further on
electoral uncertainty Tuesday, the resounding defeat of a state leader
who avidly courted multinational technology companies seemed to
underscore a wider discontent among those whom India's economic boom
never touched.
With three-week elections nearly completed, it seemed increasingly
likely that the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee
would garner only the same number of seats in Parliament, or could fall
short of a majority, resulting in a more fragile coalition and slowing
economic reform in India.
But driving home the disillusionment with India's technology revolution,
the chief minister of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, N.
Chandrababu Naidu, and his Telugu Desam party were overwhelmingly
defeated, with the party losing three quarters of its seats in assembly
elections. Besides being a prominent ally in the federal coalition
headed by Mr. Vajpayee, Mr. Naidu was considered a progressive chief
minister and a cheerleader for political reform in his state and at the
federal level.
Mr. Naidu's defeat pummeled stock prices. The Sensex stock index in
Mumbai fell by over 4 percent, to 5,325.90 points, Tuesday. In the last
two weeks, stocks have fallen 10 percent after exit polls pointed to
uncertain support for Mr. Vajpayee's coalition. Mr. Naidu's upset only
underscored that notion Tuesday.
"There is concern about stability as the federal election results seem a
closer call than they did a week ago," said Andrew Holland, executive
vice president for DSP Merrill Lynch in Mumbai, of the rush to sell
stocks. The slump has wiped out some $27 billion of value in Indian
shares in two weeks.
The federal elections results, as well as results of elections in three
more state assemblies, are expected later this week.
According to exit polls after the final round of voting on Monday, Mr.
Vajpayee's government could even fall short of the halfway mark of 272
Parliament seats, forcing him to seek populist parties as partners. The
main opposition Congress Party, led by Sonia Gandhi, the widow of former
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, is gaining, according to the polls.
Mr. Naidu ruled Andhra Pradesh for over nine years, and turned its
capital, Hyderabad, into a bustling technology hub of highways and
gleaming glass buildings that house foreign services companies.
It was at Mr. Naidu's invitation that Bill Gates, the founder of
Microsoft, visited Hyderabad and the company set up a research and
development center there. Microsoft now has 325 employees in Hyderabad,
and other multinationals, like Oracle, Computer Associates and I.B.M.,
have opened there.
Even when Hyderabad became one of India's flourishing outsourcing
centers and its chief minister was hailed as the ''chief executive'' of
Hyderabad, it was obvious that the rural and poorer sections of the
state felt excluded from the technology boom. Analysts said that voting
patterns reflected anger in India's villages.
Despite the creation of better paying service jobs in Andhra Pradesh,
India's rice-growing state, and in the rest of India, more than
two-thirds of the country's one billion people depend on agriculture.
The fortunes of these people are swayed by the vagaries of the rainfall
rather than overseas jobs moving to Indian cities.
So far, foreign investors have been bullish about India's economy,
forecast to grow at over 8 percent this year, pumping $7 billion into
the equity markets in 2003. This year, foreign investment has exceeded
$4 billion.
Some experts said India's scorching growth rates were unlikely to be
affected by the political volatility.
"No matter which government comes in, the economy is growing,
outsourcing continues, people are spending and companies are doing well;
none of this will stop," Mr. Holland of DSP Merrill Lynch said.
"The fundamentals continue to be attractive," said Raja Kumar, chief
executive of UTI Venture Funds Management, the private equity arm of
India's largest mutual fund, Unit Trust of India. Mr. Kumar, who manages
the $60 million fund, said that business had grown independent of
India's politics in recent times.
"Sectors such as drugs, auto components, information technology and
textiles are competitive and well-integrated globally and unlikely to be
affected even by political uncertainty," he said.
India's reform process began in 1991, but the pace has been irregular.
Successive governments have had difficulty in divesting stakes in oil,
auto manufacturing, petrochemicals and other businesses, opening up
sectors to foreign investment and bringing in reforms in labor and
taxation, because of political wrangling and opposition from government
workers.
In the last couple of years the reform process has revved up and
coincided with double-digit growth rates,

The most compelling reason to vote for Nader

Vanity Fair, May 2004

Unsafe On Any Ballot
By Christopher Hitchens
Democrats are furious that Ralph Nader, whose last presidential bid 
helped put George W. Bush in office, is running again. Equally 
dismaying, the author finds, is Nader’s backing from a crackpot group 
with ties to Pat Buchanan, Lyndon LaRouche, and Louis Farrakhan

For me, it was all over as soon as it began. The day after he announced 
himself as a candidate for president on Meet the Press, Ralph Nader held 
a press conference at which he said, “I think this may be the only 
candidacy in our memory that is opposed overwhelmingly by people who 
agree with us on the issues.”

Hold it right there, Ralph. First, don’t you realize that politicians 
who start to refer to themselves in the plural, as in the royal “we,” 
are often manifesting an alarming symptom? (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher 
started to employ this distressing locution shortly before the members 
of her own Cabinet began to stir nervously and finally decided to call 
for the men in white coats.) Second, if by “we” and “us” you really 
meant to say yourself and your allies in this enterprise, then you 
should not complain if it’s pointed out who those allies actually turn 
out to be. Third, by stating that your campaign is “opposed 
overwhelmingly by people who agree with us on the issues,” do you mean 
to imply the corollary, which is that you will appeal to those who don’t 
agree with you on the issues?

(clip)

And a slight secret about Ralph Nader is the extent of his conservatism. 
The last time I saw him up close, he was the guest at Grover Norquist’s 
now famous “Wednesday Morning” gathering, where Washington’s disparate 
conservative groups meet—by invitation only, and off the record—under 
one ceiling. He gave them a sincere talking-to, pointing out that their 
favorite system—free market capitalism—was undermining their professedly 
favorite values. I remember particularly how he listed the businessmen 
who make money by piping cable porn into hotel rooms. (He rolled this 
out again on Meet the Press.)

Nader was the only serious candidate in the last presidential election 
who had favored the impeachment, on moral and ethical grounds, of Bill 
Clinton. When asked about his stand on gay and transgender rights and 
all that, he responds gruffly that he isn’t much interested in “gonadal 
politics.”

He has often made a united front with conservatives like Norquist, and 
even more right-wing individuals like Paul Weyrich, on matters such as 
term limits and congressional pay raises. When I asked Grover about 
Ralph’s prospects of attracting Republicans, incidentally, he told me 
that he thought a Nader campaign just might appeal to some of the former 
Buchanan wing—anti-trade and anti-interventionist (not to forget 
anti-immigrant). So Nader and Buchanan might as well run for each 
other’s votes, or skip all that and just take in each other’s washing.



full: http://www.ex-iwp.org/docs/2004/vanity_fair.htm

--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

2004-05-13 Thread Anthony D'Costa

I could but I just finished teaching my India class and now heading into
my development class.  I'll try.  cheers, anthony

xxx
Anthony P. D'Costa, Associate Professor
Comparative International Development
University of WashingtonCampus Box 358436
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA

Phone: (253) 692-4462
Fax :  (253) 692-5718
xxx

On Thu, 13 May 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:

> Isn't there someone here who can tell us how the BJP is really the
> lesser of two evils?
>
> Doug
>

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

2004-05-13 Thread Doug Henwood

Isn't there someone here who can tell us how the BJP is really the
lesser of two evils?
Doug

Re: a victory of sorts in india...

2004-05-13 Thread michael perelman

At this point in our history, we should savor any victory, however hollow.  Maybe the 
Right has finally
overreached.

Is Congress still as neo-liberal as it was under the last Gandhi?
--

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

Re: Background to Berg Beheading

2004-05-13 Thread Tom Walker

Ken Hanly wrote,

>Quite a bit of the stuff is speculation by conspiracy buffs

>The family firm of beheaded American Nick Berg, was named by a conservative
>website in a list of 'enemies' of the Iraq occupation.

There is indeed speculation in the article Ken posted a link to and it is
unfortunate because in this case the facts literally speak for themselves. I
wouldn't call Free Republic a conservative website. It is a viciously racist
forum whose participants routinely call for genocide against Muslims and/or
Arabs. I have prepared a 100% speculation-free account of the Free
Republic/Nick Berg matter.

Internet Hate Group Targeted Michael S. Berg, Company

by the Sandwichman

Two weeks before Nicolaus Berg was allegedly picked up by Iraqi police, a
right-wing hate group calling itself Free Republic published on the internet
a hit list of "enemies"
(http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1092851/posts) with the avowed
purpose of harassing and harming individuals on the list. The list was
copied from an online petition supporting a March 20, 2004 demonstration
sponsored by the anti-war group ANSWER. It included the name of Michael S.
Berg and listed his affiliation as Prometheus Methods Tower Services, Inc.

Tactics discussed by the right-wingers included circulating the names to
employers, the FBI and the military in anticipation of causing them "serious
grief." One participant stated, "I sure do hope to see a round of hangings
soon." The larger Free Republic site abounds with apocalyptic imagery,
frequent calls for genocide against Muslims and Arabs and expressions of
adoration for US President George W. Bush.

"Here you are, FReepers." wrote 'doug from upland,' the instigator of the
enemies list, , "Here is the enemy. Working in conjunction with
A.N.S.W.E.R., they have given us their names. How about this one --- Jameel
Rashid, U.S. Coast Guard, Portsmouth, VA. Well, sailor. I guess it is time
for me to call your commanding officer and see what he thinks about this."

The discussion topic is identified on the site by the "keywords":
APPEASENIKS; DAMNCOMMIES; ENEMYWITHIN; LEFTISTS; PEACENIKS; RATS; SCUMBAGS;
TRAITORS; TREASONOUSSCUM; USEFULIDIOTS; WARONTERROR

"Less [sic] we forget," replied 'bmwcycle,' "Everyone send this to Rush,
Sean, Fox, and everyone you can e-mail this list. Don't stop until everyone
has a copy."

The tone of discussion on the topic, which initially continued from March 7
to March 12 2004, may be summarized by the following comments:

"The poor moron is not going to know what hit him."

"2000 piles of puke on the floor, representing the who's who of the world of
stench."

"Ah, too bad we don't have some pictures so we could make up a rogues
gallery of some of the individuals."


"Turn on the full volume idiot alert with red strob [sic] light. This is
priceless ---"

"I only wish this putz worked for me. I can assure you, he would rue the day
his mother delivered him."

Discussion on the list had played itself out by March 12, totalling 269
messages. Then on May 11 it resumed with the message, "The guy who was
beheaded was on this list. He was also arrested by Iraqi police and held in
an Iraqi prison for a few weeks before he was kidnapped. I think they
treated him better in the prison than the kidnappers did." This was followed
by a correction, "Michael S. Berg, Teacher, Prometheus Methods Tower
Service, Inc.," I believe this is the father of Nick Berg - I wonder what he
thinks about his Muslim buddies now..."

One respondent to the message, "'He won't blame the Islamofascist bastards.
He will blame the president'... and he has," expressed a desire to "spit in
the face" of Michael Berg. It was deleted by the list moderator, (comment
#275).

Another relayed the information that the FReeper enemies list was being
mentioned in connection with Nick Berg's murder.

"Did you know FreeRepublic is being partially blamed for Nick Bergs
beheading?" Asked one participant.

A subsequent message sought to disown any possible culpability, "FR just
copied a list. Whoever put the list together in the first place is in the
mix too." Two messages, struck by conscience or public relations savvy
quickly offered pro-forma, if mixed expressions of magnanimity: "My heart
and prayers go out to the Berg family, and Mr. Berg's friends. My prayers
also go, daily, to our fightig [sic] men and women, and that God will strike
our enemies senseless." "My prayers are for the Berg family and friends
also. Regardless of their politics they are parents and I have sympathy for
what they must be going through. It has to be heart wrenching.

The last comment on the list, as of 4:10 am on May 13 complained, "Now we at
Freerepublic are responsible for Berg's death-because of this thread?" But
perhaps the answer to that had already appeared, two messages earlier with
presumably unintentional irony: "When is the last time you saw someone on
the political right do property damage or deliberately injure someone? When
do w

Re: Sam Smith "SIGNS ON THE ROAD TO ABU GHRAIB"

Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> full: http://prorev.com/abu.htm
>
> Giovanna Borradori has called post-modernism a "definitive farewell"
> to modern reason. Pauline Marie Rosenau wrote: "Post-modernists
> recognize an infinite number of interpretations (meanings) of any
> text are possible because, for the skeptical post-modernists, one can
> never say what one intends with language, [thus] ultimately all
> textual meaning, all interpretation is undecipherable. . . Many
> diverse meanings are possible for any symbol, gesture, word.".
>
> The semiotician Marshall Blonsky observed, "Character and consistency
> were once the most highly regarded virtue to ascribe to either friend
> or foe. We all strove to be perceived as consistent and in character,
> no matter how many shattering experiences had changed our lives or
> how many persons inhabited our bodies. Today, for the first time in
> modern times, a split or multiple personality has ceased to be an
> eccentric malady and becomes indispensable."
>
> Together, brutal capitalism and post-modernism firebombed principles
> of cooperation, decency, individual ethical responsibility,
> community, and social democracy. In their place came simple brute
> power manifesting itself in whatever guise seemed most useful at the
> time. With hubris rather than horror, America celebrated the collapse
> of its own consensus of conscience.
>

i find it strange that everyone, whether on the left or the right,
unerringly traces the world's problems to 'post-modernism'. does an
obscure field of philosophy/literary-theory really have this much
influence? and irrespective of the answer to that question, are all of
its notions entirely wrong?

what do terms like 'character' and 'consistency' mean? perhaps
post-modernism teaches us to get past such simplistic and naive notions
and learn to deal with the truth of multiple personalities?

"modern reason" is indeed a very appropriate term, since it betrays the
narrow, scientific, reductionist approach of the contemporary style of
reasoning. perhaps a case can be made that this sort of reductionism,
and the single-dimensional growth of technology, have been a lot more
brutal and detrimental to cooperation, etc, than the different theories
of post-modernism, some of which criticize these very notions (narrow
scientific reasoning).

--ravi

FW: Value Theory Website: apologies for cross-posting

2004-05-13 Thread Drewk

The website of the International Working Group on Value Theory
(IWGVT) has
moved to

www.iwgvt.org

The site gives free access to over 150 papers on value theory and
related
topics covering eleven years of debates at IWGVT mini-conferences,
held
annually under the auspices of the Eastern Economic Association.
Papers from
two sessions of the Greenwich conferences on Critical Political
Economy, and
many guest papers, are also available.

The IWGVT welcomes contributions and papers relevant to its aims
and in
conformity with its scholarship guidelines, both of which may be
found on
the site. We can be contacted at

[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Sam Smith "SIGNS ON THE ROAD TO ABU GHRAIB"

In the late 1920s, the French essayist Julien Benda wrote The Treason of
the Intellectuals. Benda already saw a new class of intelligentsia that
favored many of the same principles popular among today's leaders. Among
them:
--"The extolling of courage at the expense of other virtues. Placing the
warrior, the aggressor, the 'killer litigator,' and the reckless higher
in society than the wise, the just, and the sensible."
--"The extolling of harshness and the scorn for human love -- pity,
charity, benevolence"
--"A cult of success . . the teaching which says that when a will is
successful that fact alone gives it a moral value, whereas the will
which fails is for that reason alone deserving of contempt."
But behind such enormous shifts in our common philosophy, more modest
but important changes were taking place, things such as the misbegotten
war on drugs which in many ways was the domestication of warfare,
turning our guns from foreign enemies towards our own inner cities and
more fatal to young black males than assignment to Vietnam had been to
their parents. From the assault on constitutional rights, to the
mistreatment of prisoners and increasing brutality, the war on drugs set
the pattern with which the whole country would become familiar following
September 11. The difference was that now the country's elite could not
avoid what was happening. Liberals, shocked to learn of Abu Ghraib, had
said not a mumbling word as their beloved Bill Clinton oversaw a
doubling of the nation's prison population with all its attendant
cruelties, many of which were precise precedents for what happened in Iraq.
full: http://prorev.com/abu.htm

--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Flights of fancy

Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very 
cautiously: "But I don't understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?"

"You can draw water out of a water-well," said the Hatter; "so I should 
think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well--eh, stupid?"

"But they were IN the well," Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to 
notice this last remark.

"Of course they were", said the Dormouse; "--well in."

This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for 
some time without interrupting it.

===

NY Times op-ed, May 13, 2004
Dancing Alone
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Why, in the face of the Abu Ghraib travesty, wouldn't the administration 
make some uniquely American gesture? Because these folks have no clue 
how to export hope. They would never think of saying, "Let's close this 
prison immediately and reopen it in a month as the Abu Ghraib Technical 
College for Computer Training — with all the equipment donated by Dell, 
H.P. and Microsoft."

--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Oil Mergers Blamed for High Prices


Oil Mergers Blamed for High Prices
April 2, 2004 
http://consumeraffairs.com/news04/gas_prices.html

In the past decade, mergers in the oil industry have resulted in an
uncompetitive domestic oil market that keeps gas prices artificially high
for consumers while the top oil companies rake in record-setting profits,
Public Citizen charges in a new report.

"If the same company owns every step of the process, from crude oil
production to the gas station down the street from your house, it has
utter control over the price people pay at the pump," said Public
Citizen President Joan Claybrook. 

"Making it worse is our government's lackadaisical approach to
regulating these oil companies as they collect billions of dollars from
every American who drives a car."

The national public interest organization is calling on the U.S.
government to fix the price crisis through increased oversight and
regulation, as well as stronger fuel economy standards to reduce the
United States' dependence on oil.

The five largest oil companies operating in the United States are
ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, BP-Amoco-Arco and Royal Dutch
Shell. They control 14 percent of global oil production, 48 percent of
domestic oil production, 50 percent of domestic refinery capacity, and
nearly 62 percent of the retail gasoline market. 

These same companies also control 21 percent of domestic natural gas
production. Since 2001, these top companies enjoyed cumulative after-tax
profits exceeding $125 billion.

This control enables oil companies to manipulate prices by intentionally
withholding supplies. Indeed, a 2001 Federal Trade Commission
investigation into high gasoline prices concluded that oil firms
intentionally withheld or delayed shipping oil to keep prices up.
However, the government has done nothing to end these uncompetitive
practices.

A decade ago, the top five oil companies controlled only 8 percent of
global oil production, 34 percent of domestic oil production, 34 percent
of domestic refinery capacity, 27 percent of the retail market and just
13 percent of domestic natural gas production.

The lack of investigations into uncompetitive practices by these large
companies may be explained by the more than $67 million the oil industry
has contributed to federal politicians since 1999 - with 79 percent of
those contributions going to Republicans, according to an analysis of
Federal Election Commission data from the Center for Responsive Politics.


Further, the energy legislation first developed in Vice President Dick
Cheney's secret energy task force and then largely written behind the
closed doors of the congressional energy conference committee would do
nothing to lower oil and gas prices. Instead, it contains more subsidies
for oil and gas corporations.

"The stalled energy bill does nothing to address this worsening
crisis," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical
Mass Energy and Environment Program. "In fact, as the legislation is
currently written, these giant oil companies are the greatest
benefactors, and consumers are the victims."

The most effective way to protect consumers is to restore competitive
markets. The Bush administration should take the following actions or
seek congressional authority to do so if necessary, according to the
report, available at
www.citizen.org/documents/oilmergers.pdf.

Background to Berg Beheading

2004-05-13 Thread k hanly

Entire analysis is at

http://www.kathymcmahon.utvinternet.com/mrn/NickBergEnemiesList.htm

NOTE: Quite a bit of the stuff is speculation by conspiracy buffs but the
particular material below is a plausible explanation as to why Berg was
detained in Iraq. He was confused with his dad who is strongly anti-war.
Actually Nick supported it. Mainstream media seem to be silent about all
this. Since this came out the Mosul police have denied ever having custody
of Berg a direct contradiction of the official US story. Some conspiracy
buffs see the beheading as a clever black psyops operation to distract
attention away from US prison abuse and to create a counter outrage to
neutralise revelations of US torture.

Cheers, Ken Hanly

The family firm of beheaded American Nick Berg, was named by a conservative
website in a list of 'enemies' of the Iraq occupation. That could explain
his arrest by Iraqi police --a detention which fatally delayed his planned
return from Iraq and may have led directly to his death.

At the time the list was posted, Nick Berg had just come back from an Iraq
trip lasting from late December to Feb. 1. He had reported no problems
whatsoever with Iraqi police during that visit.

Yet, within two weeks of the list being posted, Nick Berg --back in Iraq on
his final fatal trip-- was reportedly detained in Mosul at an Iraqi police
checkpoint. The official explanation is that authorities thought his
identification might have been forged and were checking his authenticity.

But a more likely reason is that by then authorities in Iraq had discovered
that a 'Berg' of Prometheus Methods Tower Service was in the country, and
issued a detention instruction to Iraqi police because they misidentified
Nick Berg as an antiwar activist entering Iraq to work for the 'enemy'.

That could explain why he was held incommunicado for 13 days, without
recourse to a lawyer; why US officialdom was singularly unheeding of his
mother's pleas; why the FBI visited his family to question them; why it took
a US court order secured by the family to pressure his release.

Bush bans most exports to Syria; oil flow could be slowed


Bush bans most exports to Syria; oil flow could be slowed
By Associated Press
Wednesday, May 12, 2004 

WASHINGTON - President Bush is tightening the U.S. economic squeeze on
Syria with a ban on all American exports to the Arab country except food
and medicine. 

For years, Syria has been branded an exporter of terror by the State
Department, which automatically prohibits U.S. arms sales and American
economic aid. The executive order Bush signed Tuesday goes further in
exacting punishment. 

Bush accused Syria of pursuing weapons of mass destruction and said that,
coupled with its influence over Lebanon, represents an ``extraordinary
threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United
States.

State Department officials emphasized what they said was Syria's approval
for Palestinian extremist groups such as Hamas to plot attacks on Israel
from havens in Damascus

Meantime, Prime Minister Tony Blair shares U.S. concerns about Syria, but
will continue to pursue a policy of ``critical and constructive
engagement,'' his office said Wednesday. Blair's official spokesman said
the government shared concerns about ``WMD, terrorism, human rights and
cooperation over Iraq.'' 
Both the Syrian and Lebanese governments criticized the decision as wrong
and unfair, but Syria said it still seeks dialogue with the Bush
administration

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said the sanctions were ``wrong in
content and timing'' and Syria will be able to withstand the ``new
injustice.'' 

Syria has said it has closed the Damascus offices of Palestinian
militants, who it insists are not terrorists but fighters resisting
Israeli occupation of their homeland. The militants did lay low after
Secretary of State Colin Powell visited last May and warned President
Bashar Assad to expel them or face sanctions. After Israel assassinated
Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin in March and another top leader in
April, the group's new leader, Khaled Mashaal, started openly preaching
revenge.

In Friday's State Department briefing, the officials said under rules
that barred identifying them that U.S. fuel oil imports from Syria, which
amounted to about $200 million last year, could be decreased.

While Syrian exports are not banned, American oil firms will be unable to
import equipment from their factories in the United States, and this
could complicate their operations, the officials said. 

Overall, the United States exported $214 million in goods to Syria last
year and imported $259 million worth. 

In Damascus, Syrian officials minimized the significance of Bush's
action. Still, Ahmed Haj Ali, media adviser to Syria's information
ministry, said the political effects of the sanctions were much bigger
than the economic ones. 

Diplomatic relations were not severed. State Department officials said
one reason was to keep alive any lingering hope that Syria might join
Middle East peacemaking efforts. Haj Ali said Syria was still committed
to dialogue with the Untied States.

The new sanctions include a ban on flights to and from the United States,
although there is no current commercial air traffic between the two
countries.

Also, the Treasury Department was authorized to freeze assets of Syrian
nationals and entities involved in terrorism, production of weapons of
mass destruction, occupation of Lebanon or terror in Iraq.

Restrictions were imposed on banking relations between American banks and
the Syrian national bank.

The sanctions go beyond minimum requirements of the Syria Accountability
Act. That law, which Bush signed into law in December, provides the basis
for his actions Tuesday.

At the same time, the president chose not to take other, more drastic
action under the law, such as barring American companies from doing
business in Syria.

``President Bush did everything within his power to send a message
through diplomatic channels that Syria should not support groups such as
Hamas and Hezbollah, but it has continued to do so,'' said U.S. Rep.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chairwoman of the House International
Relations Middle East subcommittee.

The United States is sending ``a loud and clear message to the leaders of
Syria that we will no longer turn a blind eye to their transgressions,''
said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y, who co-authored the legislation with
Ros-Lehtinen. ``The ball is now in Damascus' court.'' 

John Kerry, Bush's probable Democratic opponent in November's election,
endorsed the sanctions but said Bush had waited too long to impose
them.

``The administration had previously acknowledged that Syria has failed to
adequately police its border with Iraq, may be developing weapons of mass
destruction and provides support to terrorist groups,'' the Massachusetts
senator said.

``Given all these troubling facts, it is unfortunate that President Bush
failed to impose sanctions until now.'' 

( © Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redi

a victory of sorts in india...

from the "anyone but bush again" dept, a victory of sorts: the
right-wing fundamentalist (and dare i say, murderous) BJP suffers an
election defeat:

India's ruling party concedes defeat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,12559,1215700,00.html
India's ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) today conceded defeat in
parliamentary elections, according to the party's president, Venkaiah
Naidu, in one of the biggest upsets in Indian politics since independence.

Tired of Tech, Hungry Farmers Vote for Change
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=655&e=1&u=/oneworld/20040513/wl_oneworld/4591859741084447887
Agriculture experts stress that the defeat of India's techno-czar at the
hustings is a warning to politicians to heed the interests of rural
India, where several thousand debt riddled farmers committed suicide in
the last few years.

LDF makes clean sweep of kerala:
http://in.rediff.com/election/2004/may/13ker1.htm
The CPI-M led opposition Left Democratic Front in Kerala made a clean
sweep of 18 of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

guardian india election special report:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/0,12559,821007,00.html

rediff.com election 04 links and data:
http://specials.rediff.com/election/poll04.htm

--ravi

Gap Inc. admits its poor work conditions


Gap Inc. admits its poor work conditions 
Associated Press
Posted Thursday, May 13, 2004 

SAN FRANCISCO - In an unusual display of corporate candor, Gap Inc. on
Wednesday acknowledged that many of the overseas workers making the
retailer's clothes are mistreated and vowed to improve often shoddy
factory conditions by cracking down on unrepentant manufacturers. 
The San Francisco-based owner of the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic
stores made the comments Wednesday in its first ever "social
responsibility" report - a 40-page document that mixed contrition
about the past with promises to do better. 

The worst and most persistent of the violations led Gap to end business
with 136 of the 3,009 factories it uses in 2003. 

"We feel strongly that commerce and social responsibility don't have
to be at odds," Gap CEO Paul Pressler told shareholders Wednesday at
the company's annual meeting. 
Gap uncovered thousands of violations at manufacturers scattered across
50 countries. 
"Few factories, if any, are in full compliance all of the
time," the report said. 
Workplace activists who have long chided Gap for making its clothes at
so-called "sweatshops" praised the merchant for shedding light
on rampant abuses that have haunted the clothing industry for years.


"We think this goes far beyond the public relations fluff that other
companies put out a lot of the time," said Bob Jeffcott, policy
analyst for the Maquila Solidarity Network, a workers' rights group in
Toronto. "By making some very candid admissions, they are taking an
important first step toward cleaning up the problems." 

Gap's commitment is particularly significant because the factories
supplying the merchant may employ 300,000 workers combined, estimated
Bruce Raynor, president of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and
Textile Employees. 

"We have had our differences with Gap in the past and probably will
again, but this is something that deserves to be applauded," he
said. 

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's biggest company and a frequent target
of sweatshop critics, plans to review Gap's report to get ideas on how it
might improve conditions at the factories supplying its merchandise, said
company spokesman Bill Wertz. 

"Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for Wal-Mart," Jeffcott
said. 
Gap's report provides a geographic breakdown on workplace violations
uncovered by more than 90 inspectors. 

The most frequent problems cropped up in China. Of 241 factories there
rated by Gap last year, 73 plants received the company's two lowest
grades. 
Sweatshop activists find that especially alarming because when quotas on
apparel and textiles among World Trade Organization member nations expire
next year, China is expected to become the global powerhouse of
production. 

Unacceptably low pay is an especially widespread problem throughout the
world. Between 25 percent and 50 percent of the inspected factories
supplying Gap from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean paid their
workers below the minimum wage at some point last year, the report said.

A group of shareholders that collaborated with Gap - including the
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, Domini Social Investments,
As You Sow Foundation, Calvert Group, and the Center for Reflection,
Education and Action - said it pressured the company to undertake the
project. 
"Gap did not just decide to do this out of altruism," said
Conrad MacKerron, director of As You Sow's corporate responsibility
program. 

Gap developed a Code of Vendor Conduct in 1996 prohibiting child labor,
forced labor and discrimination, and protecting freedom of association
and other rights. Its vendor compliance officers try to visit every
factory, every year. 

Gap's report said some types of violations, such as freedom of
association and discrimination, are especially difficult to uncover and
prove. It believes these violations are more widespread than its data
suggest. 

Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Re: Roy Medvedev interview (on Putin)