Re: Afghanistan & class

[Nick]

>Why don't we bring this thread to an end at this point? I don't think there
>is anyone on this list who would benefit form its continuation.
>
>Best,
>Sabri

My congratulations to Jim for enduring the abuse.

Re: Modernism and Its Endless Returns to the Source, was Re: ...

[Nick]

At 02:26 PM 11/28/01 -0600, Carrol Cox wrote:

>I'm not yet convinced that there is enough difference between
>"modernism" (which in English Literature I date to the mid-17th century)
>and "post-modernism" to justify the use in any sense of the latter term.

Much of postmodernism was a critique of Logos,logocentrism, the word. 
Fundamentalism is characteristic of religions that are text-based and have 
a written word to "go back to".

Re: RE: Re: virus alert

[Nick]

>I checked with Norton anti-virus updates & they do not have anything new to
>countreact it, so do any of you have any clues about how to zap it.
>
>thanks

If you've recovered from the virus, then you should have done what they 
*Symantec* web site told you to do. Norton was bought out by Symantec:


You need to do a few things:

1. update  MS's IE browser
2. update MS's Outlook e-mail reader

read the following for updating.

Re: "Alienation"?

[Nick]

Carrol Cox wrote:

>I have a question. Granted that some hundreds of millions of people have
>a real gripe against the U.S., and granted that they are utterly
>powerless to express that gripe in legitimate ways, what should they do?
>Those leftists who have labelled 911 a "crime against humanity" have
>objectively taken the position that any or all resistance to U.S. power
>is illegitimate.

http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/viewbo.cfm?uc_fn=1&uc_full_date=20011122&uc_daction=X&uc_comic=bo

Re: Re: "Alienation"?

[Nick]

At 11:09 AM 11/25/01 -0600, Carrol Cox wrote:

>But mere personal anger, mere personal fanaticism, does not, ordinarily,
>generate mass terrorism: at most it gives us a Colombine incident. The
>terrorist has to have some grounds for believing that (s)he represents,
>speaks and acts for, something greater than his/her mere personal
>feelings.

(Filed: 16/11/2001)

Few Westerners have seen Osama bin Laden's recruitment video in full. So 
what did Julia Magnet, a young Jewish New Yorker, make of it?

THE Third Reich may have honed a formidable propaganda machine, but even 
Hitler might have drawn the line at flashy music videos. In that respect, 
at least, Osama bin Laden has topped the Fuhrer.

Until I sat down to watch a two-hour Al Qa'eda recruitment video, made just 
six months before the September 11 attacks, I had no idea that the champion 
of anti-Americanism had hijacked our Hollywood gimmicks and television 
tricks. Far more likely, I thought, that he'd produce a dreary display of 
militant fundamentalism: lots of ranting against America and Saudi Arabia, 
with some macho gun-play thrown in for show.

What I actually saw was far more worrying: Osama bin Laden beating us at 
our own media game. With devilish cunning, he has plugged into the MTV 
generation - and it's clear he knows how to reach us. I have spent all day 
humming militant Islamic songs. And I am a Jewish twenty-something from New 
York.

For the best part of a week, I have been watching his video over and over 
again, trying to match every syllable with a translation of the Arabic that 
Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Sarah Lawrence 
College in New York, has just completed. Long before I understood each 
phrase in its context, I realised that words are only a small part of bin 
Laden's propaganda arsenal. Like Hitler, his speeches are more concerned 
with creating an emotional effect than expounding a concrete message.

Let me give you a 30-second example of how he creates terrorist MTV. The 
screen darkens. We are in a room, playing a virtual reality game: 
assassinate the American leader of your choice. Light pulses from a movie 
screen, hanging eerily in space, as a song pounds over the speakers: "We 
defy with our Koran/ with blood, we wipe out our dishonour and shame."

Zoom in from a figure watching the screen to the still image of a Taliban 
fighter straddling a corpse. The music rises. Then, the image changes, as 
if the hands of a clock are erasing it. We are still in the dark room, but 
our anonymous alter-ego is now in Taliban dress. Bush Snr and Colin Powell 
appear on the screen. With cowboy timing, our watching figure reaches into 
his robe to grab a gun. He crouches and fires at the screen, in time to the 
martial rhythm. Smoke obliterates the face of Colin Powell.

Cut to Warren Christopher and President Clinton. Boom! Cut to a close-up of 
Clinton, wearing his habitual self-satisfied smirk. The gunman's shadow 
blocks out Clinton's face. Kerpow! Now, in a parody of the American flag, a 
puzzle of horizontal stripes emerges from each side of the screen, finally 
connecting to reveal two fighters facing down Warren Christopher. Bang, 
bang! Whoosh - the images disappear and the screen spins to reveal Osama 
bin Laden.

He knows his audience. His most impressionable recruits are of the same age 
and sex as MTV's loyal following: alienated teenage boys, full of the 
resentment, hyperactivity and maddening sense of impotence that typify that 
age group - in any country. In the video, the oppressor is not parental 
authority, but the West, which can be blamed for everything.

This is a great propaganda film - the kind that you can't get out of your 
head. Bin Laden's story of Muslim subjugation turning to resistance is so 
effective that I barely need my transcripts. He uses the most sophisticated 
western film-making techniques: it's as if Guy Ritchie, Sylvester Stallone 
and Spielberg have banded together to make jihad, the movie.

Despite all this flashiness, bin Laden seems hardly flamboyant as an orator 
- certainly not modern. Yet his grasp of spin, of product-packaging, is 
chilling. If you did not understand his hateful and ugly words, you could 
easily believe he is simply a preacher. His body language is gentle and 
controlled: only his right hand moves, and then never farther than six 
inches from his body. Rarely does he shake his fist, a gesture familiar in 
all propaganda. When he does, it is with weary anger: his cause is so 
self-evident that he does not need an indignant mime show.

But it is those eyes that grab you - otherworldly, luminous eyes that 
remind me of Charles Manson's. They never meet the camera. It is as if he 
doesn't see this world - only the spiritual dimension.

I had half-expected some of Hitler's propaganda tactics: highly 
choreographed mass events, flanks of elite soldiers, booming speeches. Bin 
Laden employs none of those. When he is on screen, the camera stays

Re: hich side is Doug on?

[Nick]

At 03:14 AM 11/25/01 +, Carl Remick wrote:
There's a bloodthirstiness and worship of raw military power abroad in the 
land that I have never seen before.  It's damn ugly.

You should watch less television. 

Re: Collateral Damage

[Nick]

At 09:05 PM 11/24/01 -0600, Carrol Cox wrote:
> > >_We_ were not attacked. And I include in the "we" here those who were
> > >killed in New York. They were collateral damage, not the focus of an
> > >attack.
>
>This suspicion is utterly uncalled for; I have encountered hundreds,
>perhaps thousands, of u.s. leftists from all over the country over a
>period of 35 years, and I really can't think of more than two or three
>of all those thousands could conceivably be described as "alienated,"
>and all of them (again perhaps two or three exceptions) certainly
>enjoyed "normal human companionship." This whole paragraph certainly,
>however, could be used to illustrate the atmosphere on pen-l which Doug
>Henwood complained of.

Of course, the "_We_" you call on must be, implicitly, alienated. It must 
be alienated from the false consciousness of nationalism. Your strategy, as 
I see it, is to exploit that alienation in order to direct the need for 
non-alienated relations toward a socialist "_We_".

You demonstrate no understanding of why others feel part of that "We". 
Indeed, you register contempt for those feelings--even though you'd like to 
harness them toward your own end..

Finally, you give far to much to the S11 attackers. It is clear that, in 
the documents they left behind, they believed that the collateral damage 
would sort itself out in the after life. In other words, there was no 
distinction made here. They knew what they were doing and they rationalized 
it with religion.

Re: Re: Re: Off topic - madmen

[Nick]

At 01:06 PM 11/16/01 -0600, Christian Gregory wrote:
> > Incidentally, when gays speak among themselves, do they speak of "anal
> > sex" or "asshole sex"? Or do they use other expressions altogether?
> >
>
>I believe the term is "getting fucked" or just "fucking." One expression I
>like is "getting plowed," though I rarely hear someone who's a top say
>"plowing." They are more likely to say fucking or "getting a piece of ass."
>There are many other permutations, depending on situation, audience, etc.
>
>Christian.

wow! That's what heterosexuals call it too!

Re: kick the oil habit!

[Nick]

At 02:19 PM 11/1/01 -0800, Jim Devine wrote:
>[so someone in the opinion elite is taking Mark Jones seriously...]

That would be scary.

The Day The World Came To Its Senses?
By Bill Moore
October 07,2001

http://evworld.com/databases/storybuilder.cfm?storyid=245

This week, Phil Watts, the chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, gave a
remarkable speech in New York, just three weeks after the tragedy of
September 11th.

Accustomed to making and approving business decisions and technology
plans that extend decades into the future, Watts told an audience
assembled under the auspices of the United Nations Development
Program, that Shell, one of the largest oil companies in the world,
was preparing for the "End of the Hydrocarbon Age."

He painted two possible scenarios he termed, "Dynamics as Usual" and
"The Spirit of the Coming Age."

Under the first scenario, Shell envisions an "evolutionary" carbon
shift from coal to natural gas to renewables. Petroleum's current 40
percent global energy share will drop to 25 percent by 2050. Natural
gas market share will climb to 20 percent while the remainder will
come from a combination of nuclear and various renewable sources.

Under "The Spirit of the Coming Age" scenario, the world would
experience a far more dramatic shift from carbon-intensive fuels to
hydrogen. Watt's stated this second scenario, "explores something
rather more revolutionary, the potential for a truly hydrogen economy,
growing out of new and exciting developments in fuel cells, advanced
hydrocarbon technologies and carbon dioxide sequestration."

Watts envisioned fuel cells beginning to reach serious market
penetration by 2025 and as a result dramatically altering the energy
landscape long before oil becomes scarce.

Watts isn't just talking the talk. He has pledged to walk the walk by
committing between $500 million and $1 billion over the next five
years to develop new energy businesses, concentrating primarily on
solar and wind energy.

Watts concluded his remarks by saying that oil companies can no longer
assume they will dominate the next 100 years as they have the previous
century. "That would be a very complacent view."

Phil Watt's comments in New York this week are truly remarkable in the
light of the events on and after September 11, 2001. Here is a major
oil company executive publicly stating that the world is changing and
his company plans to lead in this transition. He pointed out that not
only does he intend to make Shell "a prime mover in this transitional
period" but he also noted that "one in five of the world's population
does not have access to commercial energy. It is our goal to
contribute to the development of an affordable, sustainable energy
system which will help reduce this sort of inequality."



The challenge of using hydrogen, however, also creates new
opportunities because it is best made and used on site, as
needed. There are few places on earth that don't have sufficient
sunlight and wind to make feasible the electrolysis of water from
photovoltaics or wind power. Given the sharp drop in the cost of wind
generated electricity, now as low as 4-5 cents per kilowatt and the
equally sharp decline in the cost of photovoltaic energy technology --
which is forecast to continue to drop even more -- it is entirely
possible that these technologies someday can be "married" to create a
practical, affordable, self-contained generation system that provides
a home, a business or a community with electricity, purified water and
sufficient heat to warm and cool buildings.



Or instead of electrolyzing water, someday we could have waste water
treatment facilities that feed tanks of hydrogen-producing algae. This
approach promises to be even more cost-effective. Communities could
generate their own supply of hydrogen. The problem of transporting
hydrogen would be minimized if not eliminated.

  Imagine the community of the future where algae-produced hydrogen
powers fuel cells that produce electricity, clean water and district
or process heat. And because of advances in energy efficiency and
smart community planning, the homes and businesses in the community
will utilize far less than they do today.

  And in the spirit of Phil Watts' vision, this technology would be
available to all.  Rural villages in Malawi and Uzbekistan and
Honduras could have the energy they need to improve their quality of
life. The standard of living would go up, there would be greater
literacy, less environmental degradation and a lower birth rate.



Is such a scenario feasible? Is it technically, economically, and
politically possible? I believe it is.

The bigger question is, "Can human nature adapt to this brave new
world?" That is the real unknown. We are resilient. We are
adaptive. And to be perfectly honest, do we have any other choice? The
wider the gulf grows between the have and have-nots of the world, the
more inequities we will see and the more terrorism we will experience.

The hydrogen economy won't s

Re: Re: peter k and hitchens

[Nick]

At 11:23 PM 10/24/01 -0700, Rakesh Bhandari wrote:


Please seek counseling or heavy medication. You should, at least, be saved 
from yourself. You don't even realize how you are embarrassing yourself. Do 
you even care about your own reputation?

Re: multiple copies

[Nick Trown]

> 
> Rust Gilbert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> reports that he is getting 2 or 3 copies 
> of feeds from my list and asks me to fix.
> 
> But I am new to this and -- I don't know how.

It has been taken care of. Thank you for the note.

Nick

Re: GATT Alert! 8-10-94

[Nick Trown]

Hello Kai,

I believe that you message wasn't sent to the pen-l list because
you are not on the pen-l list. If you subscribe I believe you will be able
to sent messages to the list.

To subscribe send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and
in the body of the message (where you normally type messages) say:

subscribe pen-l Kai


That's it. Listproc will send you a welcoming message and then you
should be able to send messages to the list.


Nick

> 
> /* Written  8:46 AM  Aug 10, 1994 by kmander in igc:trade.news */
> /* -- "GATT Alert! 8-10-94" -- */
> GATT Alert!
> Wednesday, August 10, 1994
> 
> Headlines:
> Op-Ed Pushes for Labor Standards in GATT
> Another Plant Closing Thanks to NAFTA
> Vermont Citizens Protest GATT
> Representatives Oppose Patent Law Change
> Baseball Strike? So What, We've Got GATT Trading Cards
> European Power Struggle Continues Over GATT
> GATT Video Available
> 
> Op-Ed Pushes for Labor Standards in GATT
> 
> In an op-ed in Tuesday's New York Times, Amalgamated Clothing and Textile
> Workers Union (ACTWU) President Jack Sheinkman argues that passage of the
> Uruguay Round would put millions of U.S.  jobs at risk and encourage the
> exploitation of child workers around the globe.  Sheinkman says it is not
> only ethical but that it makes economic sense to include internationally
> recognized work standards in GATT.  "GATT should be revised to guarantee
> rights for children and their parents just as lawmakers seek to protect
> copyrights, patents and other rights in the expanded global economy," he
> said. 
>  
> Another Plant Closing Thanks to NAFTA
> 
> One does not have to look far to find evidence that ACTWU predictions of
> job losses in the U.S. are valid.  Matsushita Television Company announced
> Friday it will close its television production plant in Franklin Park,
> Illinois and relocate to Tijuana, Mexico.  The company announced layoffs
> of 330 employees by January 1.  Matsushita said it will offer 100
> positions to design and engineering staff willing to move to a facility in
> Southern California.  "This is exactly what we said would happen" under
> NAFTA, said the ACTWU's Joe Costigan, an anti-NAFTA activist.  The AFL-CIO
> says the government agency created to help workers laid off because of
> NAFTA-related plant relocations is now trying to assist 4,600 employees at
> 55 plants around the country.  For more information, call Joe Costigan at
> the ACTWU in Chicago at (312) 738-6135.
>  
> Vermont Citizens Protest GATT
> 
> Family farm, environmental, labor and consumer groups staged a rally
> outside the federal building in Montpelier, Vermont Monday to encourage
> Senators James Jeffords (R-Vermont) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) to
> reject the Uruguay Round.  "The GATT would create a new worldwide
> bureaucracy which would have enormous power over democratically elected
> governments," said Tim Atwater, director of Rural Vermont.  "Our goal is
> to get Jeffords and Leahy to slow down the process of approving GATT."
> Neither Senator has announced a position on GATT.  Representatives of
> Vermont Public Interest Research Group and United We Stand America also
> spoke out against the pact. For more information, contact Rural Vermont at
> (802) 223-7222. 
> 
> Representatives Oppose Patent Law Change
> 
> Thirty members of the House of Representatives sent President Clinton a
> letter urging him to withdraw from GATT implementing legislation a
> proposal that would modify U.S. patent laws.  The Representatives say
> Clinton's proposal to limit U.S. patents to 20 years from the filing date
> instead of the current 17 years from issuance would hurt inventors, small
> businesses and the government.  The letter contends that the changes go
> beyond the Uruguay Round and will only benefit foreign governments and
> multinational corporations.  Last month, Clinton received a similar letter
> signed by 50 U.S. inventors.  For more information, contact the office of
> Congressperson Helen Delich Bentley (R-Maryland).  (202) 225-3061. 
> 
> Baseball Strike? So What, We've Got GATT Trading Cards
> 
> In one of the stranger lobbying maneuvers, the Alliance for GATT Now has
> spent $40,000 to issue sets of 58 baseball-style trading cards featuring
> "GATT Now! All Stars" such as President Bill Clinton

Re: your mail

[Nick Trown]

Hello Richard,

I believe your message didn't get out to the pen-l list because
the address you're using to send the mail from doesn't match what you 
have subscribed to the list as. The address I have in the pen-l list is:

[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Please let me know if I should change this. This should fix the
problem.

Nick

> 
> Does American capitalism require that one-fourth of our children under 
> the age of six be raised in poverty, so that the number (and wealth 
> holdings) of millionaires can continue, maximally, their phenomenal 
> growth?  It would seem so.   If not, why did the real value of AFDC 
> payments fall by 45% in the same decade that taxes paid by the top 2% of 
> income receivers were slashed, thus helping _their_ average income to 
> more than double?
> 
> Government at every level continues to break its social contract with the 
> poor  so that military-industrial spending---with the nation in search 
> of a new enemy---might remain high.   Meanwhile, the continuing advance 
> of high technology renders useless ever larger numbers of skilled 
> American workers.  Robots and computers do ever more of what people 
> once did.  The WSJ reported (3/16/93) that almost a third of the existing 
> jobs in the private sector are scheduled for elimination.   This is called 
> "restructuring," or "downsizing."  It's supposed to make our country "more 
> productive and more competitive in the global economy."   Not counted is 
> the social turmoil and the massive human tragedy in store for many.   Only 
> anticipated dividends for the few are counted.
> 
> In America, it's been a very long time since there's been any shortage of 
> the basic things we all need.  What remains absent, however, is the 
> means by which these basics might be fairly _distributed_.   Millions of 
> unemployed Americans would jump at the chance to do some of the 
> work that's necessary to produce these basics, so that they might gain 
> 'entitlement' to their share.   But this can't be permitted.Why not? 
> Because it would then become apparent how few people are required to do 
> _all_ of the basic work that (now) needs to be done.  And, besides, what 
> downward pressure would remain on wages, to keep profits 
> high, were this kind of employment allowed?
> 
> As productivity and high technology continue to advance, an ever 
> smaller percent of the workforce produces all of the basics the nation 
> consumes.  The trick is to keep this productivity and technology _out_ of 
> the hands of the people who most need it.  
> 
> How quickly the Soviets could have brought this country to its knees if 
> only they had been able, somehow, to effectively and surreptitiously 
> invest their entire military budget in a covert program that technologically 
> enabled our reserve army of unemployed!   As millions of poor people 
> built their own homes, certain onlookers would have cried, "It must be a 
> Soviet plot!"   And they would have been right.
> 
> 
>